The Listening Tube Welcomes Peter Calfee & Kevin Dolan

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Hey, the listening to welcome to guest.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

My guests today are co-authors of a book called Hijack, Our Republic, unless we can save it. They are speaking of the United States of America. Peter Kalfey and Kevin Dolan met by chance, then spent years working together on a chronicle of the American government and where it stands today. They're a dynamic pair who are passionate about their work and the wisdom they hope to pass along. Peter and Kevin spoke with me from the relatively cool air of Vero Beach, Florida, about their book and some of the recent Supreme Court rulings.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

An interview from the listening tube.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Both of you men seem to come from the business world. Peter, a little bit more than Kevin. So, Peter, what inspired you to delve into the subject of our Constitution and our Republic and its survival?

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Well, I've always been a student of history, and uh indeed that was a major in college and uh a love of uh most of all of my life. Uh I'm one of those unusual people that can't believe I'm sitting in the chair that Washington sat in and gave the speech for this and that. And um, history comes alive from my perspective. And so uh I've always had an interest in how things developed. Uh the I even took a course at one point, which was the philosophy of history, and uh that has stuck with me, even as I've used history in much of the business world to understand the movements of time, to understand the the uh linearity of of uh people's beliefs and structure and uh pursuit of of what they are trying to do in their civilization and community. And as a result of my antennae are were always and are always up. And so four years ago almost, Kevin and I met uh uh on an armistice day luncheon, just sat down next to each other, never having met each other, and started discussion about hey, um we're in a confused state in this country, and tried to understand the historical imperative of that confused state. Where did it come from? What started it? All of those questions were raised, all of the matter of uh an hour or two sitting there until the wait staff really wanted us gone because everybody else had left. But uh it sparked in us an interest in understanding well, how did how did things develop to the point where, in our terms, they got hijacked? And what was the start of that? And that led to a long story short, the hijacking of education, of religion, faith, values, the misunderstanding and miswriting and and uh uh modification of history, if you will. And then the the issue of politics being consumed in people's lives and and consuming people's lives, and how economics uh is the is the uh uh stepchild of politics and can be manipulated to whatever end. Uh and that evolved over a period of two, two and a half years into our book.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Now, Kevin, you took an oath to defend the Constitution as an Air Force pilot, so your desire to continue to defend it doesn't surprise me. Was there a particular incident, though, that lit that flame for you?

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Well, uh interesting question, but let me back up one second. I was in the Air Force, but Peter was in the army. So we were at a Veterans Day luncheon, he's talking about Army's Day, but it was the same thing. Veterans Day luncheon. And the thing that lit me up, I've always been not as as good a student as uh Peter. I think uh one of the things you learn is to always find people who are more intelligent than you to work with and that kind of stuff. So I did that in in finding Peter. And so in terms of what inspired me, I think it goes back to a two-semester course at my undergraduate school, Denison, and the evolution of Western man process. And it it was just amazing. It described how man went through all this process of these historical characters and how they generated change in society, and then what forces you know came into play in those changes. And since I was an economics major at school, but I loved history, uh, especially this course. Um, it's to me, it was a combination of what drove? Well, in my opinion, economics drove history because people are always looking to improve, oh, always have more comfort, always have more this, that, or the other. And so you went from say feudalism in in western in western Europe to um to where they they started to reach out with shipping, and you had the Dutch East Indies and and you had um uh the uh control of the seas also by the by the uh British. And so in their their conflict, it was about the West Indies, the you know, the Pacific, and and uh having trade from there. Well, there's conflicts involved in that process. And so, what causes man to do that? Well, first off, you have to educate numerous people to be able to run a ship, right? So it develops these captain's skills, and so education really starts to play a role, even though it's unrecognized, it's it's a shift of power, and people don't realize it because it's subtly occurring. Well, what are we experiencing? We exist in our lifetimes in a mere nanosecond of the history of the world, let alone of mankind. And in in humankind's nature, uh, what are the powers that drove us? And we try to take universals, put it in this book in six chapters, only 109 pages, but there's another hundred pages or more in um appendices, and those appendices apply to individual chapters. So if you read a chapter, you read through 109 pages pretty easily, hopefully it brings a lot of stuff together, and then you can go into individual chapter and read the applicable appendices, and they are numbered by the chapter. Critical thinking is the most important thing that we develop as humankind so we can make good decisions. Well, how do you get there? Well, first you have to be educated, you have to read and write, you have to be able to do some calculations in terms of math. And so when you develop those basic skills, you now can communicate and you can do research and you can prove different things mathematically, etc. Then you have the religion, faith, and values is that is comes after education. First is critical thinking, then well, then the basics for it, which are education, uh, religion, faith, values, where what are we based upon? If we look at the uh declaration of independence, and I'll I can go back and quote that, but to give you a quick overview, I won't do it right now. The um the declaration today talks about inalienable rights, but it's founded on a value system. There were Christians that came over to the to the US. So people aren't aren't talking about where we're at today in a democracy with regard to how and what how important the value system is, but it is hugely important. And so after you do the education, religion, faith, values, then you get into history. Well, why? Well, do you want to repeat the same thing over and over again because you ignore history? No, you want to learn from history so you don't repeat mistakes. If we've evolved and done better, which I would say we have in many regards, but we're making big mistakes, and some of them are repeated, then hit then history plays a major role. And then with those in place, understand critical thinking, those three pillars additionally, you now can talk about political systems and economic systems. And when you begin to understand that, you then understand that the economic system serves at the convenience of the political system. So the political system is capable of ruining an economic system. And so we've got many issues, many quotes that go back millennia. We've got quotes throughout the book, and we've got a quote appendix, which I think is very valuable because it tends to take this is the nature of humankind, it hasn't changed in over 2,000 years, 3,000 years. So we take those quotations and you apply them respectfully through the book.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Now, Peter, forgive me for not uh acknowledging or recognizing uh your military service. I was unaware. Thank you for keving Kevin for pointing that out. Well now you you've given us a very uh thorough dis uh description of the book and and and what's in it. Just looking at the logistics of it, what contributions to the book did each of you make? What was the game plan going in as far as which of you would fill which blank pages?

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Well, actually, uh we we both filled each page. It's the most uh interesting uh to us, one of the most interesting aspects of this uh almost four-year process in which we never had an argument. We went back and forth and thought and concept that made sense, that didn't make sense why uh we go and uh uh recalibrate, if you will, for what we thought was correct and come up with something even better: one plus one equals three. And over the course of years, as I as we suggest, it it is quite remarkable that we really we came across every page as uh a blank canvas for us to both kind of as a tapestry weave our our threads through to have each page jump off the page and each chapter jump off the chapter, uh, and and yet have a have a basis in in fact, as we both described the chapter headings, uh what was causality, uh and this has really kept us together on the same point, we lost the ability to critically think and analyze what was going on in the world. And again, a long story short, if you really cannot understand what's happening to you today, if you cannot interpret and understand and diagnose and define what it is that's happening in uh political, economic, social strata, social culture, if you cannot do that, you're you're kind of at a loss because you in many instances, most we would argue, you've lost that continuum of purpose of why there is uh truth. What is good, what is not good.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Uh let me explain you're missing a historic history. The historical patterns inform you. And if you don't reflect upon history, um you're going to, you're just gonna have you have an opinion. Well, what is the basis of your opinion? Is it well informed? How well have you educated yourself on the topic? People in my observation right now are saying, this is what I want. It's not going to change that rapidly. We're evolving. And and and so therefore, it it's important when you say, How do we do things the uh together to create this uh uh book the way we did? The term I would use is collaboration. And we had an incredible collaborative experience, become extremely good friends. And like Peter said, there were no arguments in in three years of writing and then working on the book on the book and podcast and everything afterwards. Um there we literally have not had any arguments. It's been an exchange of ideas, respecting the other one, liking the fact that they improved on our initial statement. We each were building on each other's statements and we're each improving it.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

And and Bob, I would merely add a post script. If you don't have that uh uh, and that's why we used all three terms religion, faith, and values, I don't care. If you don't have an understanding of where you're from and why you do what you do and how you fit into the, as I say, the continuum of life in its historical aspects among others, if you don't understand any of that, you're left with actually nothing. You might as well be Nietzsche, you might as well have a nihilistic view towards life. And if that's the case and you can't understand what's even happening around you, you create your own reality. And that's what uh to to use the author's name that's been used before, Victor Davis Hansen talks about uh you create your own identity, identity politics. That becomes your mantra, that becomes your reason for getting up every morning, and that becomes so important to you that you force that on other people. And if they won't accept it, you get some understandably, you get somewhat upset. Uh so the identity politics that you see all around us for the last 20 years is is a result of not understanding how we fit into the historical imperative.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

I think it's fascinating that you gentlemen worked on this book together and never had any disagreements.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

I would uh say not disagreement. Okay, we'd say, like, I don't like this, and the person was not offended by it. It's the big thing. We would criticize each other freely. We and we still do today. Do you have this beauty of it is and that's what we think is so important in in society. We should all be able to criticize each other, but do it respectfully. When he and I criticize each other, we both realize that you know we have gone through certain filled certain squares, done certain things that are not typical, and in the process, we know we're not dealing with an extreme lightweight. And and so, well, there's only one way to deal with that. This guy's intelligent. I've got to, I'm respectful. And I I think and hope that Peter feels the same way. Absolutely. Um, and and so that's that was the magic in it. I mean, and I consider it magic. It um it doesn't make a lot of difference to us at this point. Our focus is on getting the information out, and if people understand the basics together, because children are not taught to kill critically think, they're not educated, they're indoctrinated today, in our in our belief. Now, we think there are many good educational institutions, but they don't tend to be the public school system. Randy Weingarten, in my opinion, may have been one of the worst impacts on on our society. It it's everything that we've achieved, if you look at why the United States is so successful, is due to a specific term, competition. And so anything that does well, why do cars get better? Why does any product get better? Because there's competition. And if and if you don't remain competitive, you're gonna your company's gonna go out of business. Well, it's no different in some of the things that the government provides. Unfortunately, some things can't be competitive in nature. You could define that well. But then they start taking control. And in taking control, they're not even telling the parents when it when a child it wants to transition in their sexual identity. You need to be able to say that my the my parents, until I'm no longer a minor, need to be informed so that they can have an input into my development. When you take the parents out of that development, you're taking the most important resource that that child has in terms of care and concern for them. And if you say that the education is going to take over, well, look what happened in communists, any country of communism. They take over, whether it's China under Mao or Russia under Stalin, they didn't create competitive products. And China today is stealing a lot of intellectual property. But they got smart people, so they can go and develop something once they've stolen a certain number of things. But we the the point of it is we've got a vibrant economy because people are free to pursue their self-interest. The economic system serves at the convenience of the political system. The political system can therefore ruin it. And therefore, we have to be very careful that we empower any institution like the educational system to a public process that doesn't encourage competition. We even have in a book, in an appendix, a method of creating competition in public schools. Because we're not trying to get rid of public schools, we just want competition introduced so that they're always motivated and they should be motivated with charter schools and other ones too. But instead of that, they're trying to eliminate the competition. That's not the right way to handle anything.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

And it was at that point 47, 48, 49 pages. Four little pamphlets put together that essentially said the same thing. The political system is impacting us in the colonies and ruining us. We need to we need to have we need to first of all understand why this is the case and how to best improve upon that situation, i.e., separate at the end of the day. Well, that's all that he did. He rose, he rose and ran up and down the 13 colonies, figuratively speaking, identifying this is a problem. Nobody's thinking critically. We have no rule of law, we can't speak our minds, we're taxed without representation, we are being suffocated, and we need to somehow in a in a thoughtful, critical process, understand why, which was the 47 pages of common sense, common sense, and then throw off a missing, a missing product today. Throw off, yes, yes throw off the burden of a monarchy, a political system that was killing the economic system of the colony of the colonies.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

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SPEAKER_00 18:07

So Peter, then what are some examples of ways our republic is being hijacked?

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Well, it's even if we had had if we've had arguments, the classic case is how many times has it happened to how many people where you have a discussion and say, I really don't think that's what's happening here. I I can't even talk to you. And then people get up from the table and leave. Now, without if that process continues, which you see every day in our political and and uh social environment, uh no one's talking to anybody. They're talking past each other. As a result, to answer your question, if we go to the lowest common denominator as opposed to accentuating the excellence that we could have with good critical thought, you're you're gonna get the lowest common denominator product, which is uh ignorance, which is nihilistic understanding, which is my way of the highway, which is not at all what our country was about.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Well, the the ultimate hijacking is the political system because it controls everything. Now, the first thing we should understand is that do we want a government that we serve or does the government serve us? Whether you think of the uh Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, it is supposed to be that the government is serving us. When 75% or 80% of the population wants integrity in elections such that they want the SAVE Act where you um have identification rules uh for voting, that's how can it not be passed when it's both the 75 or 80 percent goes beyond the tribal side of the left uh or the right? And as a function of that, how can the if we're in representative government, one of the easiest things to do would be to pass a process where 75 to 80 percent of the population want it. The citizens want it. Okay, and what country does not do non-citizens have a right to go in on vacation and vote? You know, I'm saying vacation to to make the point. We don't go over to France, take a vacation. Oh, by the way, they're voting this weekend. I think I'll go in and cast my vote, or I'll schedule my vacation to go in and cast a vote in the French elections. No, the people come over here legally and illegally, but no one that is not a citizen of this country who the government answers to should be voting. So if we create a system where we enable people due to sloppiness and terrible behavior by representatives, then we're saying it's just power grabbing. Well, that's where you get into the tribal process, that's where you get into indoctrination, that's where you get the so the education system has been so hijacked that that the public system uh under the NEA and and uh Randy Weingarten's uh process for a long time while she headed up and she still remains active in certain aspects. They are against any other forms of competition. But what is it? I want to have a child develop an ability to analyze something. I don't want to have a teacher tell this, I'm gonna tell you what to think. This is the right answer. Spit back my answer, you'll get a good grade. That's not critically thinking, that's indoctrination. But intercritical thinking is say, here's all the information that happened historically, here's all or or whatever all the information is on the on the topic we're talking about. Um, now tell me how you assemble that information to answer this question, which is the test question. And then the teacher should be saying, This is well developed. I may not agree with it, but it's the best. Development of putting together the information that that child has access to, and what we've covered in the classroom to date. And so that is a superior uh effort on this child relative to other people's answers. Well, that you know, some things are qualitative, some things are quantitative, but in that qualitative approach I just described it it's it's about the process of logically coming to conclusions, and the teachers should be teaching how to critically think, not indoctrinating.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

I'll give you uh I'll give you an apocryphal, oh it's actually a real circumstance. There was a a college baseball coach at Cal Poly. Uh his name was uh Scolinis, and it was in the late 18 uh 1990s, 1980s, and he gave a speech and he used it throughout his life, and it related to his marriage, to his work, to his interface with society, to everything he did. He said the the the plate at home plate for baseball is 17 and some inches. We don't adjust that, that's been since 1950. We don't adjust the size of the plate to match the caliber and quality uh of the pitcher. If the pitcher's good, we should make it smaller. If the pitcher's bad, we should make it larger. That is the result of what happens in virtually any topic you can raise today, that we we're adjusting the size of the plate instead of responding to what can be contributed by the pitcher, the catcher, the umpire, and the hitter. The plate doesn't change. We've lost those eternal facts, those eternal guideposts, if you will, of what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

The United States is a meritocracy. The reason we're successful is because we're competitive. We've taken a meritocracy with people with great ideas. Look what Elon Musk has done. He he's taken rocket science and recaptured rocket ships to be reused. He has reduced the cost of transporting poundage up into space by 90%. And there's talking about the Newt Starship taking another 9%. He's almost going to reduce it by a factor of two digits. So what did that come from? It came from a guy with some knowledge, some ideas, some other things. He's well educated, and and he has used his education better than any other entrepreneur out there, it appears. And does he do everything right? No. And people make mistakes. He's made some mistakes. But that's look at history. When we when we take a look at the statues that have been taken out because they were bad guys, didn't represent what we want as an optimal society. You say, what are you doing? You're eliminating information. These guys developed a name, they did a statue for the person. Was it good or was it bad? Well, look in the history. He did something's good, something's bad. Um, if you can identify the bad stuff, that's fine. That's that can be historical fact. That's knowledge. But for some reason he got recognized the statues of a person recognized, typically, not always, for doing something that made a major contribution of a positive nature. But it may be in the wrong forces. Confederate force, you could say he was a great general, but he was working for the wrong side for the purpose of uh maintaining slavery. Well, if you're maintaining slavery, that goes against the Declaration of Independence, inalienable rights. All men are created equal. So you weave all these things together and you find yourself going off in tangents, which I easily do, because it's all tied together. And when you and when you begin to connect the dots, and you go through three years of having you know criticism back and forth, we we hope that we put together a document that will live well beyond us. We're not youngsters anymore. But from our wisdom, uh, if we have any, um, there's something to be learned here.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

I'd like to ask you a little bit about some of the recent uh Supreme Court decisions. Specifically, clearly, the Supreme Court's reluctance to challenge uh birthright citizenship falls in line with the Constitution. But the 14th Amendment clearly also requires the person to be subject to the jurisdiction thereof and of the state wherein they reside. Was that part not considered? Because if the child is born here and then taken to another country, it's not under the jurisdiction thereof, nor does it reside in one of the states. Did the Supreme Court get this wrong?

SPEAKER_01 26:42

You raise a very good point that many people are really upset about that decision for, and I I had this, I had it highlighted and pointed to the quote where you just quoted the um subject to the jurisdiction thereof. And the interesting thing is you could do an amendment, which is a huge problem, to supermajority in both Congress and the Senate, and then three quarters of the state have to pass it. But there was an interesting creative solution, give definition to the phrase, and so that could be passed as a law, and as a as a function of uh theoretically, it'll be tested in court like everything is, but that's why you have a tri-cameral uh body politic, and and so things are to be tested in court, and justice is supposed to be blind, it's not perfectly, but it's supposed to be. So if you if you take that and you redefine with accuracy and detail what subject to the jurisdiction means, you could theoretically then have a new court case come in and say it's been defined. We think that therefore um uh the uh the Supreme Court needs to change the decision that it just made. And and I think that's the most interesting quicker solution that I think could hold up, but you you can't tell until the courts have dealt with it.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Bob, I'm not so sure it wasn't correct in terms of putting it back to states, putting it back to Congress, because really defining what was written in 1775-76, uh, identifying the actual words, the true construction of the document, uh, it needs to, in our collective judgment, it needs to stand the test of time. As a result, if there are nuances of how long can we go on about this, how many, how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of people are are signing up for trips to the U.S. just to have a baby to overwhelm us with those children when they're brought back already as citizens to proceed to vote and modify and change and alter our entire construction of what is the result of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution and so forth. I I I I tend to like the fact that the states and Congress can grapple with that issue because I agree with the with the uh what may be inferred by your question. Uh, you could this is like the Titanic sinking, and you've got the lifeboats filled, and oh, we have 20 more people we can bring into the lifeboat, and you all die. You all sink. And so are you destroying, uh are you throwing out the baby with the bathwater and destroying the entire concept of a bath? Uh, or are you beginning to grapple with how many people can we honestly put in a lifeboat using the Titanic metaphor? Or how many people can we let in who absolutely have no understanding or faith, no critical thought about what we were, what we are, how we're founded, and what we are attempting to do in the history of person of humankind.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

And what Peter's referring to is is culture. And when we've got someone that comes in on birth rate uh in you know, vacations, where they where they birth rate uh and they come in on a vacation and come and they come back, and neither parent is a citizen, then should they be should the child be given citizenship? Well, the Supreme Court said it's been done for a long time, so we are not changing it. Okay. They said that the the the wording and the phrase you you and I both used, quotes, was not adequate to distinguish and change what is currently being done. Now, the the purpose of the courts is not to change law, it is to interpret the law. And so, unfortunately, there's many active judges that um go into uh creating law. And that to me is the loose constructionist versus strict constructionist. If it's going to be a law, Congress and Senate have to pass it. Supreme Court just recently processed, gave the president power over independent agencies as an executive authority, so they're so they do answer to somebody where they hadn't in the past, but they limited the one how much they could do with regard to the Federal Reserve. Yes. So while the lady on the Federal Reserve is looked at for illegal paperwork on a mortgage application, they they said you couldn't remove her until she's proven guilty. Well, that's we if you're innocent until proven guilty, does that not make sense? You know, you're saying I don't like it because she's been she's been indicted for this. Well, that would say you don't like it because she's you think she's guilty now. She's not been proven guilty. So the good one of the good things about our country is is it you're is presuming innocence until proven guilty. The court's application is not to reinforce one tribe or the other. The court, the court's purpose is to interpret law as it exists and say, is it the proper interpretation or not? And if it hasn't been interpreted, then someone's got to interpret it and say what it means. Okay, this is what it means.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

If you want to learn more about Peter Calfey and Kevin Dolan and their book, Hijacked Our Republic, unless we can save it, you can at hijacked ourrepublic.com. Thanks to Peter and Kevin for spending some time with you and me in the listening tube. Be sure to follow the listening tube at thelisteningtube.com. There you'll find other features like this week in history and not the headlines. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley, for Thou Ad Infinitum.