America: Land of the Weak, Home of the Afraid? | FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
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Summary
America is a land of the weak and home to the afraid. Is this still America? Or has it become America, the Land of the Weak and the Home of the Afraid? In this episode, Ryan Michler takes a deep dive into this topic.
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who
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you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
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you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler,
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and I am the host and the founder of this podcast and the Order of Man movement.
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I want to welcome you to the premier portal for all things masculinity. I don't care whether you're
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trying to improve your relationship, trying to improve your physical fitness, advancing your
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career, be a better father, husband, business owner, community leader, whatever. Whatever your thing is
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and whatever you're all about, I'm glad you're here. We're giving you the conversations and tools
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and resources that you need to become more capable as a man. I got to admit and give you a little bit
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of a fair warning here on this one that it's going to be a bit of a rant today. Now, normally I'm very
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collected in my thoughts. I've got some notes. I've got a framework, some steps that I would
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encourage you to consider on your improvement and your road to becoming, like I said, more capable.
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But today I want to rant. I want to go off on a little bit of a tangent because I think it's very,
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very important that we address some things in our society, in our culture, the things that we're
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dealing with right now as a direct fallout of coronavirus. And I titled this one, America,
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land of the weak and home of the afraid. Now you'll notice I also put a question mark in there and I put a
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question mark on the end because I actually want to hear from you. I want to hear if you think this
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is the case as well. Now, I don't think it has to be. I think that the weak and the afraid represent
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the slim minority of individuals in this country who have allowed this COVID-19 catastrophe. And it's
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a catastrophe for a different reason than I think a lot of people believe, but they've allowed this
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catastrophe to completely dictate every facet of their life and in the process have relinquished
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significantly too much control to those who would like to keep us in the dark, keep us in confusion,
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keep us bickering with each other and against each other. Because when, when people are confused
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and frustrated and scared, we make irrational decisions. And when irrational decisions are
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made, the results are typically, we'll call them less than favorable. And when you have less than
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favorable results, it's very easy to open yourself up to the opportunity or the idea that maybe somebody
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out there, or in this case, some organization like these governing bodies that would govern us
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for them to step in and rescue us as if they have all the answers, if they have all the solutions.
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And if we put all of our trust and faith in these individuals, that all of our problems will be solved.
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Now, this is very interesting because I think to a large degree, the problems the government is
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attempting to solve have been created by, you guessed it, the government. So talk about the, the,
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the fox guarding the hen house. I mean, this is exactly what is happening. Now, let me be very,
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be very clear on this. I believe that coronavirus is, is a real thing. I believe that we ought to be
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aware of it. I think we're beginning to see that it is not as deadly as we were once led to believe.
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And, and I'm even willing to admit that maybe it wasn't some sort of devious plan necessarily,
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but that it was an opportunity that once these governing agencies and the would-be emperors and
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rulers that are, are elected officials began, began to see the opportunities that they had
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started to seize upon those opportunities. So not that it was some grand design plan, but that it was
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just an opportunistic moment. What is the saying? Never let a good opportunity or excuse me, a good
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crisis go to waste. And I think that's what we're beginning to see right now. So I would ask you,
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is this still America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, or has it become America,
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the land of the weak and the home of the afraid guys? We've got to be very, very careful in the
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precedent that's being set in this country right now. The precedent that some governing agency or
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body knows more than us. I mean, look at what's happening. I've got a police officer who's coming
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on the show who was fired from the police force because he was exercising his first amendment rights.
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He shared a video that he was not going to enforce these unconstitutional orders. He talked a lot about
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how, uh, within the chain of command that there's no right or precedent for anybody within the chain
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of command to do something other than what the constitution dictates can be done. He was, I don't
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know if it was politely asked, but he was asked to remove the video to take it down from social media,
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which had been viewed millions and millions of times. And he said, no, and he was fired. He was
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fired from the police force. And I got to admit, I don't know the entire story. That's why I want to
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have him on the podcast, but I got to, I got to admit if you are in law enforcement and you're
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upholding and executing some of these orders that you know are unconstitutional and will shame on you,
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shame on you for doing that. And I realized that you've got a job to do. Uh, I realized that you've
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got a family to feed and take care of, but you better start questioning whether what you're doing
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is the right thing to be doing because this, this precedent is very, very dangerous. Another great
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example is this woman who decided that she was going to, uh, open her salon and a judge suggested to
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her that she couldn't open her salon. And if she didn't apologize and bow down to this judge by
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acknowledging her indiscretion, that she would be fined thousands of dollars and thrown in jail.
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And she said, I'm not shutting the doors, keeping these things open. And sure enough, she was fined
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and thrown into jail. I think, uh, one of their, uh, politicians in Texas did end up, uh, paying her
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fines and volunteered to serve and carry out her sentence. But she was released earlier, uh, than,
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than the sentence demanded. But you have people who are, are being fined and arrested for walking
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on the beach by themselves, or at least social distancing from other individuals. They're out
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camping. We're talking about tracking individuals and contract, excuse me, contact tracing. This is
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absolutely ridiculous. And I think it's very important that we stop what's happening right
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now, because if we don't, this crisis that we're dealing with is only going to get worse. And it's
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only going to expand the powers and the perceived authority of those who would govern us. So here's
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what I would suggest. I think we need to be aware. I think we can be respectful. I think the
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overwhelming majority of us can be responsible. But what I would say is that you have an obligation
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to live your life the way that you best see fit, which means that if you feel like you want to open
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your business doors, then you should, you should open your business doors. Oh, but Ryan, we don't
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have permission and the orders haven't been lifted. And I see all these comments going around on social
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media saying, Hey, when will the government let us do X, Y, and Z? They don't have that authority.
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They don't have that right. And if you're waiting for the government to take down those orders,
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the stay at home and the sheltering and the social distancing orders, well, you might be waiting a
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very long time. I just saw that LA wants to extend their stay at home orders for the next, if I remember
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correctly, the next three months. Well, that's, that's a fine notion, but I'm not sure the data
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supports any of that. In fact, we're seeing other States like Florida and Georgia open up and we
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haven't seen the numbers of COVID-19 cases spike. Like so many prognosticators had suggested they would
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now, maybe it'll happen down the road, but look, we've got to consider why were these stay at home
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orders issued in the first place? Ask yourself that. Why were these stay at home orders issued
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in the first place? And if you're truthful, and if you understand what really happened when it
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happened, it was to, and I quote, flatten the curve. It was never to eradicate COVID-19 because
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you're not going to eradicate it just by being away from each other. At some point, people are going to
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come in contact with each other. But the reason these stay at home orders were issued was to keep
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from overwhelming the system. Well, the system is not overwhelmed in, in, in most, in the majority
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of cases. And I think probably all the cases that maybe even New York with the hardest hit, uh,
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epicenter of, of this in the United States. Anyways, even their hospitals and medical system were not
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overrun. The amount of ventilators that were used were, or, or, or requested were not even remotely
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used. Um, hospitals are laying off people because they don't have the demand. This is a pretty
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fascinating thing. So if the, if the orders were issued to keep from overwhelming the medical system,
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well, I would say mission accomplished. Now, what a lot of people will say is they'll say, well,
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Ryan, if we open back up, then we might run the risk of, of, uh, of overwhelming the, the medical
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community, the medical system again. Yeah. I would think that would be true. If we didn't see this
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start to play out in other areas that are beginning to opening up and they aren't seeing everything
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been overrun. We're, we're just not seeing it. So what I would suggest is that we consider opening
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the economy that we consider opening our businesses, that we consider going against maybe even some of
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these unconstitutional orders that we no longer wait for permission to do these things. And people
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will say, well, Ryan, you're, you're being a very irresponsible with your audience. You have,
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you have a, you have a big audience and you're being irresponsible with what you're communicating
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to these individuals. No, I actually think I'm being very responsible with it. I would hate to think
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and look back in 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now and see where this trend is going and think that I
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maybe could have said or done something about it and not done it. Then actually share some of my
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thoughts and ideas because I didn't want to be irresponsible. I think irresponsible is to not look
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at the entire picture to assume that just because somebody's suggesting that we open the economy up,
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that they want other people to die. That's not the case at all. In fact, if anything accusing somebody
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that is irresponsible because who wants people to die? Nobody wants everybody to die, right? This is a
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false dichotomy. You either want to keep the economy shut down forever and definitely, or you want
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everybody to die. Well, you know, there's some other choices somewhere along that spectrum of
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potential outcomes that may arise from this. One might be that we see death rates that are worse,
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marginally worse than the flu, which I think is what we're seeing. We're seeing that the death rates are
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in fact worse than the flu, but they're not the three, the four, the 5% that we once were led to
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believe they are. In fact, in many cases and many studies I've seen, they're under that 1%, 0.2, 0.6,
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but they're certainly not that three to four to 5%. Okay. So we've flattened the curve. And I think
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now at this point, we're, we're seeing that what was once thought to be hugely catastrophic is not
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nearly what it was before. And now it's our opportunity to open things back up in a systematic
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process, doing it as safely as we possibly can. And what we need to consider as well is that not all
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demographics are affected the same way. Young people are largely unaffected by COVID-19. Now,
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if you're 65 or older, okay, well you have a greater risk of contracting this illness and it being
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deadly. Those people in rest homes, nursing homes, long, long-term care treatment facilities. Yes,
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we ought to worry about protecting those individuals, but there's no reason that we can't begin to put our
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young people back to work, allow them to, uh, be productive, allow them to feed their families,
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allow them to contribute to society. And actually I've heard a couple of stories where some of these
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individuals aren't even interested now in going back to work because the government handouts that
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they're receiving are significantly larger than what they're receiving in contribution or, or, uh,
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income when they are at work. Well, that's hugely dangerous. We're talking about trillions and
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trillions of dollars being spent to fund other people's income that doesn't need to be funded.
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These are able-bodied people who clearly can go out into the workforce and not be affected to the
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degree that we've been led to believe by COVID-19. And instead of allowing them to go do that,
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to be productive members of the society, we'd rather them be dependent on government handouts.
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So those individuals who are paying taxes, who are contributing to that tax base are now
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funding, not only their lifestyle, now they're funding other individuals' lifestyles. And this
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is only going to get worse. This is not going to get better. So we need to stop it in its tracks right
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now. Guys, we need to become more vocal about what we're seeing. We need to share our platforms and
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talk about these things. We need to take to task the politicians who are going against the will of
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the people. And this is still the will of the people. And we need to forget about asking for
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permission from people who do not have the authority to grant us permission. In fact, they didn't have the
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authority to take these rights away from us in the first place. This is a pivotal moment, I believe,
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for this country and the direction that we're going. It's a pivotal moment for our children and our
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grandchildren. And I want to be able to look my kids in the eye and my grandchildren in the eye and
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say, I did something about that. I was willing to stand up against the tyrannical government that would
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begin to control every element and aspect of our lives in the name of safety. And I get it. It's a fearful
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time. A lot of people are scared. And that's why I titled this America land of the week and home of
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the afraid. Everybody's afraid, but the fearful are more easily controlled and manipulated. So ask
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yourself, is this, does this feel right to you? Does what's happening just anecdotally, does what's
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happening around you feel right to you? Or does it feel like something's a little bit off? I want to
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know where, and granted, maybe I'm not giving as much credit to those politicians who are doing
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right by us, who are trying to lift these unconstitutional restrictions because they're
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there and they're available. And there's people who are stepping up, opening their businesses,
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despite what their governors tell them. There's police officers who are pushing back sheriff
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departments who say, and have gone on record to say that they are not going to be enforcing these
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unconstitutional orders. They're out there, but I just fear that it's not enough. We need to ramp
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this up. Okay. And to those of you who say that, well, Ryan, you're just, you're being irresponsible.
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I would say that questioning this authority, that really trying to get to the root of what's
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happening, that trying to open this economy up in a, in a, in a, a good, intelligent way is not
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irresponsible. In fact, if anything, it's completely responsible. It's the responsible thing to do as
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American citizens who are free and independent and have the opportunity and obligation to pursue
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life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But we're seeing anything but that in this time. And I
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don't want it to get worse. And it will, unless we as strong, free men are willing to do something
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about it, willing to stand up, to make a stand, to put ourselves into these elected positions so that
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these other politicians are ousted from control because they're obviously not doing what is in
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our best interest. I think there's a way to do this smart. I think there's a way to have some
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intelligent discourse about this. Um, I don't think anybody who wants to open the economy up is
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interested in other people dying. Uh, I think we need to protect our elderly. I think we also need
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to protect those who have compromised immune systems and health issues that they're dealing
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with. But I also think that we will see some very catastrophic results come from keeping the economy
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and keeping the country shut down. So I'm calling upon you men to do what is in your heart,
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to do what is right, to live a life of conviction, to start sharing this message I'm sharing with you
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and start delivering your own message of freedom and independence and liberty. And although there are
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risks to opening the country back up, there's risk to everything. There's no strategy. There's no
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tactic. There's no plan that can completely eliminate risk at all. It's always there. And it's always
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present. We've got to be willing to ask ourselves, what risk are we willing to live with?
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And I'm not willing to live with the risk of allowing our government to get out of control
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and turn into this behemoth monster that we can no longer stop or control or dictate.
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Our politicians work for us, not the other way around. They are to do our bidding as the citizens
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of this country. It's not their bidding. It's not what's in their best interest. And I think we ought
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to take note of who, which politicians are thriving in times like this, who's politician,
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what politicians accounts are growing, who's consolidating more power and ask ourselves,
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why is that the case? And I'm not willing to vote for any individual who is benefiting in some way from
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tragic and horrific situations for other people. And that's exactly what we're beginning to see.
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So guys, here's what I'm asking. I want you to share this podcast and I want you to share this
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message. This has been a message of reclaiming and restoring masculinity. This has been a message
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of sovereignty over the past five years. This has been a message of living by your convictions and
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making bold stands for what you believe in. And if you've got a business and you feel so inclined to
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open it and you feel like that's what's in your, your, your heart, then you ought to consider opening it.
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That we can do this in a respectful way that you run for office as you feel necessary and
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appropriate. That you talk with your politicians and you take the right channels that you peacefully
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assemble where appropriate to fight against the corruption and the overreach that we've begun to
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see from the government. This is what free men would do. This is what brave individuals would do.
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But I fear that we have become, and we will be continue to become weaker and more afraid,
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which is exactly where some people and some organizations would love to have us.
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So let me know what you think guys share again, this episode, share your comments and your thoughts
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and your ideas on what I'm talking with you about today. Uh, let me know how you plan on approaching,
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uh, the government overreach. Cause it is certainly there. We see it. And I'm going to have
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some guests on the podcast in the next coming weeks that are going to help open our eyes to what's
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going on. Um, I ask that you have an open mind and an open heart to what's being shared and then
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really ask yourself against what you're going to hear my guests share with you as to whether or not
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you believe it, what you believe, and then be willing to stand by what you believe. Question it
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first, whatever you believe, question it. You believe like I do question it. If you don't believe
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like I do question that so that you can come to your own conclusions and your own answers based
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on all the information that you have available. But I want you to search right now and really ask
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yourself if this feels right. Cause frankly, it doesn't, it feels off. And, uh, we're going to
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have some, some people on the podcast to talk about why that is to back up with and support, uh, with
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data and information and facts, uh, so that we can get to the real root of what's happening here so
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that we can address it effectively. But I want to return to a time where the overwhelming majority
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of, of, of citizens in this country. And I still think we're there. I do think we're there. I just
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don't want to trend the wrong way that we are, that we are brave, that we are free, that we're willing
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to fight for those freedoms and the rights and response, uh, responsibilities that, that we have
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as citizens. Okay. So that's my message for you today. Again, I know, uh, kind of a bit of a rant,
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a little bit of a, uh, offshoot from what I've done in the past, but I think we've got an
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opportunity here to really share an important message with millions of people who will tune
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into the podcast. Uh, and I feel like it's my responsibility to have us question what is
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happening and then us to come up with our best course of action based on the fact that we are
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free men. All right, guys, that's all I've got for you today. Let's continue the discussion on
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Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and everywhere. We're doing the social media thing, because these
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are the important conversations that need to be had. And, uh, let me know what you think.
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And we'll be back, uh, with our guests. Uh, I've got some good ones lined up for you. You're not
00:23:02.900
going to want to miss them. So make sure you subscribe, you leave a rating and review so we
00:23:06.240
can really share this message of reclaiming and restoring masculinity. And also I would suggest
00:23:10.640
reclaiming and restoring the freedoms and liberties that we have enjoyed up to this point.
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Uh, and that we want to continue to secure for ourselves and for our families. All right, guys,
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go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the
00:23:27.640
Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant
00:23:32.660
to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.