Ben Boychuk | Author & Managing Editor of American Greatness

Ken talks with Ben about California politics, how Sandpoint Idaho dealt with BLM protesters, Covid stats, and why searching "Ken LaCorte" online sometimes includes "sex offender" in the results.

To see the video version of this podcast or to find Ken in the social world, click: https://linktr.ee/KenLaCorte

Transcript

Ken LaCorte: 0:00

So did you grew up in California?

Ben Boychuk: 0:01

I did. Yeah. Born in LA. Yeah, I've lived here my entire life.

Ken LaCorte: 0:07

What do you think about the state? Right? I mean, I have such mixed mixed views. I love this state. And and you know, I would tell people, hey, you know, there are more people who voted for Trump in California than any state in the union, I believe, except for Texas, and maybe Florida, maybe Florida. But that said, it's still crazy, though, when it comes to state government and the things they do. I mean, it's such a beautiful place to live. And there's just so much crap going on that it makes me it makes me want to punch my face.

Ben Boychuk: 0:39

It's too it's the the state is I think too big now. I think it's, it's, it's, I used to think that the movement to split California into four or five different states was a bit crazy. But now I'm not so sure.

Ken LaCorte: 0:56

Yeah, no, I'd live up in what do they call the northern area freedom, freedom Ville. Jackson, Jackson, state of Jefferson state of Jefferson house. Yes, I'd actually move up to Jefferson if I got to be like, tied into Idaho, Southern southeast part of southeast part of Oregon at a couple of the others. But

Ben Boychuk: 1:15

well, I wonder I, like I said, I've, I've lived here all my life, and I'm 50 years old. I I wonder how much longer I'll be able to stay. It just it's worth every year, there's just something one more damn thing. Right. Right. And but the I think the big thing would be if and, you know, this isn't there's a people all over the country who are going to be listening to this. But California, in 1978, passed a ballot initiative called Proposition 13. That put a cap on the growth of property taxes. So California has probably the one of the highest income tax rates in the country, I think, Connecticut and Hawaii might be higher. But we have probably one of the highest income tax rates, and other taxes are very high gas taxes are very, very high. But property taxes are near the bottom in the country. And what would happen if that were to ever go away is that people with, you know, people on fixed incomes, for example, like my mother who's lived in the same house for since 1966, who has a pretty cool tax rate would see her taxes, the roof,

Ken LaCorte: 2:42

but But wait a second, but prop 13 Only only grandfather's in people who were there at the time that proposition 13 passed? Right? I mean, Proposition, right. It's got a few other little provisions, a two thirds and some other things. But I mean, I keep paying more property tax every time I every time I either buy and sell a house, or they could just redo it. So it's only people who were owned a house in 1976. So what percentage of the state does that have? Does that affect?

Ben Boychuk: 3:09

Oh, I'm not sure. I really don't know. But what but what it would mean, in practice, though, Ken, is that the state and local governments would no longer be restrained with the rate of growth, right. So there would be there would be tax competition, jurisdictions wouldn't want to jack up property taxes too quickly or too much too soon. But they wouldn't be limited to the I think 1% a year that, that they're limited to now. And that and but yes, as you as you say, if you sell a house, and then you buy a new house, you're taxed based on, you know, the, the new value of that house. So but my mom, you know, my mom's lived in this place since 1966. My parents bought it for$48,000. And it could sell for quite a bit more than that,

Ken LaCorte: 4:04

you know, it's it's a tough one, because it's kind of like rent control. Right? And, you know, you talk to somebody living in New York or San Francisco, and they're like, Yeah, I pay $400 a month for my for my apartment. And I'm like, Yeah, that's why I'm paying 4000 a month for, you know, 1400 square feet. Yeah. And, and, in one hand, it's, it's an unfairness to people who've been around that that long. On the other hand, the concept of okay, your mom moved into a house, and then the house value, appreciate it. So she's probably got some dough into that unless she's gotten some some taking some money out of that. No, but the concept of of somebody having to sell their house because the taxes were too high. Well, that was, that's a little achy, right here in 78. I was a child and 76. Right. So Well, look, I was 11 and 12 years old when this thing passed. And it was a terrific lesson. Because I realized at a young young age, all these people Politicians are full of shit. So so like I was there and and everybody was like, well, proposition 13 passes, you know, we have to do we have to first fire all the police and we're stopping, you know we're not going to we're not going to have have firefighters put out fires anymore. That's right. My, my, my I remember my my marching band I was in junior high at the time my band teacher, you know, that was the seminal event, you know, it was a bad gig. And he was like, Well, no more marching band no more this no, you know, it's all going and I went to my dad and I was like, Dad, we're not gonna have marching bass like, please, I could send you for to private school for as much money it's not going to save. So he was kind of like, yeah, they're full of prunes in the way that, you know, a 60 year old guy could do back then. But then he was right. It was like it passed. And you know what changed? It was like, Yeah, cut kind of nothing. I mean, I mean, things change, but there was no like, you know, the police still came when he dialed nine one, right? The the fires, they still squirted water on buildings on fire. So they figured out ways to finance they figured out exactly. So that's when I first realized oh, people who are screaming about doomsday are often just full of crap.

Ben Boychuk: 6:09

Right. But the remember the the impetus for the thing in the first place was that people were losing their homes. Yeah, surely couldn't pay they were going into this state was seizing their properties. And that was that had to do with a lot of you know, and then that was that was a lot of elderly people in practice. And so I think about that, and I, you know, I would I would hate to see that calamity befall my mom who's in her 80s and doesn't have to shouldn't have to worry about this nonsense, you know, but there's a lot of she refinances

Ken LaCorte: 6:42

and pulls a half a million dollars out of her 1200 our foot, frankly, you know,

Ben Boychuk: 6:46

frankly, I would at that point, I would say, You know what, this, this state is no longer hospitable.

Ken LaCorte: 6:53

But the problem is, have you looked around for someplace else? Because they also have so I mean, California has a lot of shit going for when push? Oh, sure. Sure. It's like my son just moved to Tennessee, mainly because of politics, taxes, gun rights, all that stuff. He wants to start a business he's like, every time it turns around, they put an extra extra problem on the business. And then if you finally succeed, they steal more than everybody else. But I don't think I can deal with 98% humidity. In July, August, September. It's just like, okay, mosquito, I don't want I can't handle mosquitoes. I got typo blood. i They suck the life out of me. Every time I look at that, California still comes on top to me.

Ben Boychuk: 7:33

California has Yes, the weather is a big, big factor. And, you know, I live in the mountains now. And so I live just a smidge over 6000 feet. And so I get snow. We're expecting snow and Christmas. On Christmas Eve I had four inches of snow in my driveway last week. So I like the mountains. And so I look at a state like Idaho, where lots and lots of Californians are moving but may not be prepared for the weather. And I think to myself Well, maybe after maybe after the bloom, you know falls off of that rose for a lot of transplants and they realize oh my god, you know, I've got to shovel snow I've got it's negative 10 outside. We're going to Arizona.

Ken LaCorte: 8:22

So Idaho is my Zillow part.

Ben Boychuk: 8:25

Yeah, that's yes.

Ken LaCorte: 8:26

I'll go under the although, you know, even in the last couple years, I'd say okay, for X amount of dollars, what can I buy there? And that's gone down a lot as Californians flee there. And it's like okay, so I'm looking at it's like, southeast part of Idaho. And doesn't look too much fun. Even the southwest part Idaho doesn't look all that fun. For me it's either go the expensive snobby liberal place, which is Sun Valley, right and just probably one of the most beautiful places in the world. Or I go with men, and I move up to Sandpoint and, and and the pan I've

Ben Boychuk: 9:01

been, I've been concentrating my search on between Sandpoint and Bonners ferry, which is right on the Canadian border.

Ken LaCorte: 9:08

Yeah, but man, you gotta you gotta have balls, man a steel to live there. I mean, I mean, if

Ben Boychuk: 9:14

I'm up for it.

Ken LaCorte: 9:16

I'll come and visit you to try it out. I have I have a cousin. One of my very favorite cousins who in the 70s 80s lived in LA had a had a good drywall business, and was just like, You know what, nope, I'm moving. I'm moving to Idaho. And I'm going to build myself a log cabin. I found a woman who thought the same way as him, went up there literally, like, cut the tree, you know, spent all his money, sold his business and bought just some land up there. Strip the trees, cut the trees built himself up a log cabin. No water. I mean, had to had a good drive and truck in his truck and have a 55 gallon drum to bring the water up for the first three or four years. And it was like, you know, he had to shoot what he ate. I mean, you know, when he ran out of money it was like it was it was wilderness time like the crap you and I read about in the Daniel Boone times and

Ben Boychuk: 10:12

that man's name Randy Weaver.

Ken LaCorte: 10:15

No, he probably has more guns than Randy Weaver ever heard. His name's Dave Gallo. He runs a he was one of the best. Don't blackpowder cartridge rifle shooting is oh yeah, he has buffalo arms. And so so for those who don't know black powder cartridge is, is it was the era before the Davy Crockett thing where you would pour the powder in there and bite off the wad and then put put the bullet in it was a cartridge, but it was still that same old black powder that caused huge puffs of smoke. So you'd see that kind of civil war time you know, you see them fire it and the smoke comes out of here. And he was like it wasn't Guinness Book of World Records. He was on the one of those other shows like that hitting a target at like a mile distance. I mean, he was amazing shooter on that. And now he's got a company up there that produces and sells parts for black powder cartridge. Perfect perfect thing for living in Idaho. And the last guy you want to fuck with?

Ben Boychuk: 11:14

Yeah, right. i That's the thing. I you got a lot of independent minded people up there. You have people who want to govern themselves and who want to be more or less liberal left alone, but they also have strong communities up there. There's a lot of religious folk up there. My mother, you mentioned the southeast part of the state my that's where my mom grew up, okay. in a little town called grace, which I think the population is still 900 and change it was 900 and change in the 1930s. They have one bar they have one restaurant, they have one grocery store, if you want to get in not a very good grocery store, if you want to actually get supplies you have to drive about an hour to Pocatello. Right. And yeah,

Ken LaCorte: 11:58

she is she or what she Mormon because I want to say the state or not. Okay.

Ben Boychuk: 12:04

Yeah, she is I'm not. She and we still have

Ken LaCorte: 12:08

that must have been some tough conversations.

Ben Boychuk: 12:09

Well, it was Yeah. Yeah, it actually was and occasionally is she's very serious. After my dad passed away, she got very serious about church again, which was great for her. I mean, you know, when you suddenly find yourself widowed after almost 60 years of marriage, you got to put your attention and energy into into other things, preferably not staying at home doing nothing. Right. So, so she's very serious with that. But what I love about the Mormons and what I love about that little community of grace, is that yeah, I mean, the problem with small towns is everybody knows what's going on. But the virtue of small towns is everybody knows what's going on. And I kind of last time I was there I was, we were walking up Main Street with my one of my cousins and it was like he was the mayor of the place. Right? You know, every he knew every single person. And I there's something really kind of lovely about that. And I and attractive.

Ken LaCorte: 13:14

I don't know how it feel about that. I I can I can see the advantages. But on the other hand, there's something nice that people not knowing who I am just generically in life. I don't know if I like the average person that much. I like the people I like I like you. I like that guy. But you guys go fuck off. I don't know.

Ben Boychuk: 13:32

Think of it this way it can. I mean, if you're an i, if you and I were to do something like this. We would like the communities that we lived in, but we would also have 40 acres in a gate.

Ken LaCorte: 13:43

Right? Right. That's very true. That's very true. Yeah. Look, I was so proud of what what Sandpoint in that area did during the whole BLM riots. Well, yeah. When when you know they had they had a big group coming in one one day from from Spokane. Right and which isn't all that far away. And there were a lot of people meeting them down there with AR 15 Yeah, that did two things and did them both equally well. From from what I can gather one was we are protecting your right to to protest and to put your fist in the air and to scream and shout and call for the change in our government that you want to call for. And number two, you're not fucking breaking any Windows apparently thing down in this town or you're all gonna die. And it was a it was kind of I wish Kenosha had done that. I wish Kenosha hadn't had so many people stay at home that a 17 year old kid had to had to go out there and and and do the job of the police force and do the job the fire department it was like what do you do when you're in a situation like that when you're when your government abdicates its responsibilities for whatever reasons. And and these ones I think were largely political and somewhat we got overwhelmed.

Ben Boychuk: 15:00

And, you know, the police really, I mean, unfortunately, the police really made that situation worse because if you recall, really what happened was that the the main BLM protest was sort of in downtown Kenosha, and that's not where Rittenhouse and his friends were. That's not where the business was. And essentially what the cops did was they drove the protesters in that direction.

Ken LaCorte: 15:24

So, you know, again, it was the third night of things just burning to the ground and losing. I mean, you know, it's it's a simplistic attitude for people to be like, well, insurance picks that up. It's like, Yeah, have you ever put an insurance claim in usually you get boned? 16 ways till Sunday, right? They're like, Oh, well, you know, you know, fire, that that's a subclause three, you know, there's a $40,000 deductible on that. And we pay out over 30 years. I mean, you know, these are the guys that write thick contracts to not pay you back. That's all yours company does.

Ben Boychuk: 15:59

And you know how a lot of these businesses got burned. I mean, figuratively burned. Some insurance companies considered what happened terrorism. And that's a separate policy.

Ken LaCorte: 16:13

Why? Wow. Wow. Have you guys done a story on that?

Ben Boychuk: 16:17

Ah, do we have I think we had a story about that last year. And I've seen stories about it elsewhere that, that terrorism insurance is a thing. But it's a very expensive thing. And that's why most people don't get it. Because you're, you know, the chances of you being coming a victim of a terrorism attack are very, very, very low.

Ken LaCorte: 16:38

Unless we define everything as terrorism. Well, right. It's

Ben Boychuk: 16:42

expanding that definition quite a bit.

Ken LaCorte: 16:44

Drives me crazy when conservatives do that, you know, look, I'm actually tougher on my own group than I am on the other. It's like, yeah, those guys are assholes and idiots. But we should be smarter than this. When they're like, Well, you need to you need to call these smash and grabs terrorism. It's like, oh, okay, I understand that you want to call it something bad. And it's really not just bad, but really, really bad. But linguistically, and legally, there's probably a good reason to divide the guy who runs into a, a Nordstrom and steal some crap and runs out versus somebody who tries to blow up a plane. Right? Call me call me soft on crime? I

Ben Boychuk: 17:23

don't know. I think that's right. I think that's right. I think that the voters in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles bear a certain responsibility for electing officials who said very clearly what they plan to do, that they would not prosecute certain, quote, unquote, low level crimes.

Ken LaCorte: 17:49

It's crazy. And look, We're the Dumb asses that voted for a proposition that, that in California that made it a misdemeanor, if you stole under $950 worth a shit. Well,

Ben Boychuk: 18:01

I didn't vote for the thing. But yes, yes, a majority of our brethren did a sizable majority, you know, because, you

Ken LaCorte: 18:07

know, you get those, you get those things. And there's, even though the state constitution and law says that it has to be narrowly focused, it's often not. So you get something that says it's reforming the political justice system, and you got to dig into it. And it's difficult as a voter, because, you know, you're trying to say, Okay, well, who's on what side? Well, everybody like, has has nonprofits that, that pretend like they're on one side, even though they're the other. So we're a Citizens Committee to keep up keep California in safe by allowing every criminal to get out of out of you know, and to get out of dodge, I mean, so it's tricky when it's long and complicated. And, you know, those ballots are too difficult for the average person to spend the proper amount of time to deal with.

Ben Boychuk: 18:58

So state officials and Jerry Brown were in a bit of a pickle with with the state prisons, because about 10 years ago now, the US Supreme Court handed down a decision that said, California's prisons, in particular, their health care system, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, because the prisons were overcrowded, they were you had people with legitimate medical needs that were not being met. And you know, you had people prisoner sleeping in hospital wards, and things like that. And so there was a big lawsuit, and the Supreme Court said, Yeah, California can't do this anymore. And so the state then passed a bill that put a lot of state prisoners into county jails. So all of a sudden the burden is on counties. Two, that was pretty recent, right? Yeah, that was, yeah, that was four, four years ago, six years ago, something like that. And so what happened was that DBAs started to selectively prosecute use their prosecutorial discretion to not prosecute certain crimes, right? So in January of 2013, I was sitting in a Starbucks in Inland Southern California, writing an email to a state senator I was working on, I was working on a story and I needed to talk to her, when all of a sudden somebody bangs into my table. And the next thing, you know, I looked down, my computer's not there, and the guy's booking it for the front door. And I gave chase, and I, I even got my hands on the getaway driver, but I couldn't do anything because his window was partly up. And so I couldn't do anything to him. And so all he could do was smile at me and hit the gas. And Off, off he went with my laptop, which was one of several that they had stolen. They were just picking off places that were freeway close. Anyway, to make a long and very sad story short. They were four guys involved. They only prosecuted one. That guy didn't get any jail time. He went to something like we got caught. Yeah, they did ultimately get caught like a few weeks later, right. Okay, I never got my laptop back. They told me I could I could file for restitution. I asked the guy. Am I going to get it? He said probably not. And so that was the very beginning of that. And that was in 2013 2014 is when you started seeing a rise in like vehicle thefts. And you know, other petty property crimes? Well, that was because the the District Attorney in San Bernardino, who at the time was a decent guy, but their hands were really kind of tied because of all these state prisoners that were filling up the county jails. And so that's the reason why that state ballot initiative came about. And so I got into a big fight with Tom Campbell. It was a foul. It was a cordial, but it was a big, cordial fight. He's a nice time. Tom Campbell was a former congressman. He ran for US Senate, I think he ran for governor

Ken LaCorte: 22:08

have a very pleasant and soft man.

Ben Boychuk: 22:10

Yes, he is very nice man who, an a Republican who just sincerely believed in his heart of hearts, that we're putting too many people away for petty drug crimes. And surely we can reform the statutes so that certain felonies become misdemeanors. So we keep our prison populations down. And we don't have these nonviolent drug offenders filling up, you know, necessary beds. And I said, What's going to happen? is, well, exactly what has happened, which is that if you don't prosecute for petty offenses, you're going to in time see larger offenses. Sure. And the other thing about petty offenses is petty offenses aren't that petty, right, you know, my, my laptop was that was considered that was considered grand theft.

Ken LaCorte: 23:04

And 949 Go fuck yourself, pal. Right.

Ben Boychuk: 23:07

And so and so. But that cost me a bit of money. You know, I had to write, I had to write a few extra pieces to pay off your computer for that one. Right. Sure. So there, I don't believe in petty crimes I believe in in being judicious about punishing people. I don't think we should have mandatory minimum sentences. And

Ken LaCorte: 23:29

you've lived through an era where the judges Well, let him know.

Ben Boychuk: 23:32

I think that see what yeah, when we have judges who are too lenient, right, I think you need we just need to have we need to have better judges. I see the problem with mandatory minimums is, you know, you have somebody who had an accident

Ken LaCorte: 23:47

100% Yeah, and

Ben Boychuk: 23:49

goes and has to be sentenced to 110 years in prison, which happened, I think, in Colorado, right? Recently, Colorado or Minnesota, one of those

Ken LaCorte: 23:57

codes. It's all a cycle, because mandatory minimums came about because judges were just such pussies. Right? And let guys go, oh, you know, what, but he wrote a poem in prison. So I'm letting him out. And you know, and I've seen this happen. I mean, in the late 70s, early 80s, late 70s, crime in California was out of control. Sure, it was, it was substantially higher than it is right now. And that you know, what, this was a national problem. I went beyond just California at that point. That's right. And, and, you know, but then what happens when people when people get their laptops ripped off, or I sat in a courtroom one time, and it was a guy, this guy loves stealing Volkswagens? Do remember the old Volkswagen, for sure, the bugs, he just he was just like, he was like a frickin pervert. He just couldn't stop stealing. And the judge was like, You were here last three weeks ago for this. You were here two months ago, you know, and the judge literally is like, I don't know what to do with you. And I'm kinda like Like, even as a teenager, I'm like, I got one idea. Oh, maybe maybe put them in a cage for a little bit and see what happens. And and then people get fed up. And they and they start electing people who start talking about tough on crime and this and that. And then all of a sudden, you get the three strikes, you get mandatory minimums, you get you get something that can easily be abused. But the what do you call it when somebody is using drugs, and you get to take his house and his yacht and his costs and seizure assets, seizures? You get all that stuff? Because people like, I just like to go to the park and not have to worry about my, you know, getting getting my shit stolen? Oh, well. And that's

Ben Boychuk: 25:42

a very good point. That's a very good point. And you know, that we did have briefly a remedy that other states still have, but proposition 47 really was kneecapped the drug courts. And what the drug court these were special courts set up for drug offenders. And the idea was, you would they would offer you a carrot and a stick. You know, they would say we will give you probation a certain period of time, let's say two years, three years, whatever. But if you vie and you will go to rehab, and you will stick with rehab, and you will show us that you're making progress and that you're you're fighting or you're attempting to find gainful employment, or you got you have a job. If you violate any of these terms, we are going to send you away. And so a lot of people who ended up in drug court, were people who got arrested for petty theft, shoplifting things, those low level, quote unquote, low level property crimes, but they were also where there was a drug offense attached to it. And so they were able to successfully intervene. I mean, the drug courts actually worked. And when proposition 47 passed, which made all of these crimes, either, in some cases, felonies to misdemeanors, and misdemeanors to infractions, then the drug courts lost their teeth, which was a great shame. Because that really did help.

Ken LaCorte: 27:16

You know, I'm a believer that there is a, you mentioned the phrase, carrot and stick. And it's kind of it's kind of how life works, right? I mean, think you think of a kid being raised. And for the most part, the best way to raise a kid is a mom and a dad or someone with feminine characteristics and somebody with masculine characteristics. So when the kid falls on her knee, as she's as she's, as she's running to say hi to somebody, and she's crying, the mom picks her up and wipes off the blood and kisses her. And if she's still crying at a certain point, the dad's like, hey, walk it off. Right? And, you know, enough, stop that and, and I've noticed it a correlation between the cities that have a lot more nice, feminine characteristics versus versus the sometimes tougher, masculine characteristics, and like homelessness and crime. I mean, it's the nice cities. It's, it's go down the coast at Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, it's not Salt Lake City doubt. It's, it's not Dallas, but it is Austin. I mean, when you start to look at the, at the homeless and kind of the breakdown of civilization in some in some societies, you see very, very nice people who are loving and kind. I mean, look, Santa Monica in California was amongst the first of you know, and they had a lot of homeless kitchens, of course, right up on the bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. And so I do think that that that's an analogy that kind of carries through through public policy sometimes.

Ben Boychuk: 29:03

Well, you can also extrapolate that to entire states, because it's not just that LA and San Francisco and Santa Ana and San Diego have homeless problems. There are homeless people in this little town where I live right now there, there's only two of them.

Ken LaCorte: 29:20

And what happens to those two, they're obviously not sleeping in tents on the main street. I mean, so

Ben Boychuk: 29:26

that's, yeah, that's a good question. Because just a few weeks ago, there was a woman who was living in the post office, and she was only there for about two weeks before. So the county sheriff here has a homelessness Response Team. And several people call in about this woman who was in the post office and I think they eventually what they do is they find you some place down the hill, that's a shelter and they get you into some kind of project Graeme, but but a lot of times what you have are, you know, these camps in these in canyons and washes and in particular, we there have been, I think this year there were six or seven brush fires that were started by these homeless camps who are out there cooking cooking dinner. Yeah, they're in a breeze came up and are wind. Yeah, and

Ken LaCorte: 30:30

homeless people could sometimes be dumb shits. Well, hey, it's windy out here. Yeah, I want some coffee.

Ben Boychuk: 30:39

Well, that, that. That has happened more times than you

Ken LaCorte: 30:43

know. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm laughing which I shouldn't be. But there there was one big Malibu fire that it was also, you know, just dumb shit. Camper slash homeless slash whatever. You shouldn't have been cooking that night.

Ben Boychuk: 30:55

Right? Right. And so we're a nice state. We're very, very nice state. And we're very, very nice to people, who probably in many cases need a lot more tough love than than what they're getting.

Ken LaCorte: 31:09

And tough loves a good word for it. Because it's like you think of. So I live in Sausalito. It's a very, very nice place right north of the bridge of San Francisco. And not too long ago, maybe four months ago, one of the county preacher types who is big on on homeless rights and whatnot basically pushed and helped a camp start up in one of our parks all of a sudden, well, no, it was actually on private property. By the time everybody turned around. There was a dozen tents there. A judge saying well, COVID Baba but you know, there's extra rules on this. So the city felt like they had their hands hands tied. The city officials are nice, nice, nice people. And, and, and it's like when you ask yourself, when you look at like some of these homeless encampments. If your child was in one of them, your 25 year old child, let's say not not not a little kid, what would you do different? And how would you run those things? How would you You certainly wouldn't want your kid somebody you loved living there? Forever, right? I mean, that's a bad thing. So So you would want the safety net of not freezing to death, not starving to death, not being bludgeoned by whomever is going to bludgeon them. But you'd also want them to make sure that there was no drugs in those camps. And them to to make sure that that that the raping and beaten and all you know, all that stuff was actually that that there was some semblance of government order in those. It's a tricky thing, but tough love is what a parent does.

Ben Boychuk: 32:51

Yeah. And that's and and policymakers for whatever reason there I don't know, I don't really understand the mentality other than that. The problem is awash in money. And so that that's how you get these these follies like the city of Venice in Southern California spent building a homeless I guess it's not a shelter, it's it's homeless apartments. It's big basically. Transitional supposed to be transitional housing for homeless people on this prime piece of Venice real estate right next to the boardwalk at a cost of $500,000 per unit. And, and the punch line really is that they're building these units at an exorbitant price. And they're doing none of the things the common sense things that you just suggested a minute ago. They're not saying you can't bring drugs and or alcohol in they're not clean and sober places.

Ken LaCorte: 33:55

You know, part of it is I think we've lost the linguistic battle. And we've called it homeless. And clearly they don't have homes don't have a lot of shit. They don't have showers, they don't have you know, they don't have they don't have a job they don't have. They don't have the proper amount of dealing with mental health professionals. They don't have that, you know, so I, I wonder if if we should have come up with a better name because when you see somebody who's half crazy on the best of days, you throw in some drugs in there and they're there now 95% sleeping on the streets, screws up your head and and dealing with society and then we call it homeless like a home would is the solution. I mean, right? But literally, it's like, if San Francisco rents dropped in half tomorrow, the homeless population would not be affected. Right. If you gave all of those people a free apartment within two years at percent of Americans would have sold the pipes they would have they would have crapped in the corners they would have they would have done all of they would they would have fed back into the problems in their life, which is well beyond not having a house. And I don't know what the answer to that is. But that's one of our problems is the linguistic way that we approach this problem.

Ben Boychuk: 35:19

I don't know what the word would be. But I do think that much of the problem is a mental illness problem. Yeah. You know, I have a very, an old friend from college, who was at one time, he was a, he was a professional photographer, he worked. He worked for news. He was a graphic designer to work for us. We worked for the New York Post. But he's also paranoid schizophrenic. And he he is living somewhere in San Diego now. And just before COVID happened, he reached out to a friend of mine, we all went to UC San Diego together. This friend of mine is a Assistant US Attorney in San Diego, and reached out to him by email somehow, probably from from a library or something, and asked to me, and my friend told me that, you know, he, he doesn't look well, but that he was clearly not on his meds and was talking crazy. And we found out that he lives in a shelter. But we couldn't actually reach him. And what what I learned pretty quickly from from that whole thing, because my you know, my friend has the law and law enforcement resources. Is that Is there anything you can do to and and his hands were tied? Everybody's hands seem to be tied? Because we have said that. Individuals, even mentally ill individuals, who are not necessarily a clear danger to themselves or others, but they're still obviously in a really, really bad place. We can't do anything for them.

Ken LaCorte: 37:22

That's a tough call, too, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, I mean, freedoms a pretty big thing in this country.

Ben Boychuk: 37:31

And and as you said before, just like with, you know, the pendulum on law and order, there was a lot of abuse in, you

Ken LaCorte: 37:40

know, in the mental health things

Ben Boychuk: 37:42

and all that involuntary commitment. Right. Right. And there was good reason to reform that. Mm hmm. But to this,

Ken LaCorte: 37:53

it's tough. No, it's tough. How much freedom do you give? How much freedom does an American deserve? That's a tricky question, right? I mean, well, it's one of the fundamental and the answer to America has been a lot of freedom. But what do you do when they're not living the life I mean, a certain percentage of, of the homeless that I've seen, and one of one of the reporters at Fox News, had a father who was homeless in San Diego, a guy who was a lawyer, he had a big had had, if not a big firm had ran a firm was was well known in town in a southern town. And obviously, there was a there was some things that weren't firing properly in his brain, but a lot of it is he just didn't want to listen to anybody. It's like, oh, you're offering free soup over there. But I have to say a prayer or do not, I decided not to, I don't want to pay taxes. I don't want to listen to this. I don't want to look at red lights. I mean, it was a very much screwed up, but sense of individualism. And, you know, at what point is it proper to say, No, we as a society have decided, we know how to live your life better for you and your and you have to do XY and Z?

Ben Boychuk: 39:15

Well, every single law that's ever been passed and ever going to be passed is essentially an answer to that question,

Ken LaCorte: 39:22

kind of, I mean, most laws that are passed are not to protect you from you. They're there to protect you from me and vice versa. I mean, that's 98% of the laws besides motorcycles on helmet and and all those things. How much should the state protect? Ben from Ben.

Ben Boychuk: 39:44

I think when you have instances where you have people who I think first of all, it is a scandal that a prosperous nation like ours, allows anybody to sleep on the street. People who Who can't take care of themselves, people who are clearly mentally ill people who are you know, I, there, there has to be, there has to be a way. Because these are these are sick people, you know, sick in a way that as time has gone on, I'm very glad that much of the stigma surrounding mental illness has fallen away or still falling away,

Ken LaCorte: 40:33

we still have a lot of ways to

Ben Boychuk: 40:34

go have a lot of ways to go. Because it's just not like, if you say to a depressed person, hey, buck up camper, right that that doesn't work. I mean, there's a real that's there's a problem there.

Ken LaCorte: 40:47

And, and too often, despite my libertarian rant a second ago, it's like, if you were if you were in downtown LA and you tripped and you hit your head on the sidewalk, and you were bleeding out of your head, people would surround you they would call 911. They were they would they would help you out you would the the apparatus of the state and of your neighbors and right and of strangers would help you. Right? You have something fucked up inside your head where you're seeing life at two thirds of an angle. And And I'll never forget when I when I was planning to move to San Francisco and saying, Okay, well, where do I live back and live here here, you know, it was the world was my oyster, right? It was post divorce. I was starting brand new. And I and I sat and I saw a guy in a wheelchair. And obese black guy probably in his late 60s, had a couple shopping bags that look new, was in a wheelchair, and kind of slumped down the whole time and obviously in mental distress or some type of distress. And no one did anything good to me, including me, sitting eat my sandwich. I was just watching this scene and for like, 20 minutes, he was just sitting there. And people were walking by, um, you know, I'm going to I'm going to save the world.com. Right, right. It's like, so it's like I'm living in, I'm gonna move to this city. Where are some of the brightest people in the world are some of the most forward thinking some of the nicest people in the world, even when they're befuddled and silly. Some streets that could be paved with gold, given the amount of money that has been made in San Francisco, and I'm watching this guy drooling on himself. And I'm like, I can't do that. I can't live in that, that that environment. If I was a better person, maybe I'd say I'm going to live, they're going to I'm going to fix it. But it's interesting. I went when I say, you know, you look 100 years ago and say, How could you people think that that? That little girl because she's black? Deserve to make your clothes and you could beat her and she was a piece of chattel, literally a piece of property to you. How do I get into that, that that, that headspace? And and part of me thinks that in 100 years, people are going to look at us and say How could you let somebody who had a mental illness, sit out on that street and sleep out overnight? That something was wrong with your society at that point?

Ben Boychuk: 43:26

I think you're probably right. And, and I, I hope we get to a point where we could figure out the right balance between those individual freedoms that we so cherish as Americans, and in some cases, potentially violating those freedoms. for

Ken LaCorte: 43:55

a greater good, which

Ben Boychuk: 43:56

for greater good.

Ken LaCorte: 43:57

I hate to say,

Ben Boychuk: 43:58

I know usually that's the

Ken LaCorte: 44:00

fucking commies. That's right. It's for the greater good. Give me your car.

Ben Boychuk: 44:04

But the but the greater good is having a society and a civilization where you don't have people suffering in the streets.

Ken LaCorte: 44:12

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's hidden. And so it's just difficult to see you're not bleeding out of your head. Right? And people who are often mentally ill, or people who are mentally ill are often if you've if you evaluate them on like not being mentally ill, they're often assholes. I mean, if you hate to say that, but it's like, you know, somebody's screaming at you for something banal. Right? You know, I mean, they they often act in ways that if you don't say wait, what Whoa, okay, this this person isn't their brains not working right. You quickly come to the look, guys. Why is he screaming? Why is he throwing Why is he throwing rocks at cars or whatever, whatever, that clearly antisocial behavior. Have you might be, and if you're not the type of person who and I don't think most of us are, who can say, yeah, he's thrown rocks at cars, but that's not because he's a jerk. It's because he's, he's got something wrong with them. Right. in a different way. I don't know. That's tough.

Ben Boychuk: 45:17

Right. Right, which is, yeah. And untangling the mental illness from the criminality. Right. You know, it said that I think it's I think Rikers Island in New York is the largest mental health facility in the United States.

Ken LaCorte: 45:37

It's very possible.

Ben Boychuk: 45:38

Yeah. Yeah. So it's a lot of these things are tangled up. And it's, it's tough to untangle them,

Ken LaCorte: 45:48

especially when you mentioned criminality. I mean, a lot of people say, hey, certain crimes, certain criminal concepts are mental illness. You know, it, you know, somebody who is sexually attracted to children. Sure, right. That's a, that is a mental screwed up thing until you act on it. And then it's a pretty bad crime. Right, right. And it's like, you know, when we've, it's like, how do you classify those those things? How do you fix those things? How do you be tough on bad behavior when you need to be tough, but not understanding the, the essence of it? So

Ben Boychuk: 46:30

I, when I was an editorial writer at The Press enterprise in Riverside, California, oh, 15 years ago, this was about the time when I don't remember if it was a ballot initiative, or a state law limited where convicted sex offenders could live. So we have every state has a registry of sex offenders. But this particular law went a little bit farther and said, if you're convicted of certain sex crimes, you cannot live within I think it was like 1000 feet of a school or a park. Right, which kind of really limited where a lot of folks could live. And so we had a, we had a Republican state legislator in for an editorial meeting. And this came up. And he said, Remember, I don't I wasn't

Ken LaCorte: 47:25

Jim Battin was it? He was big. No, it wasn't

Ben Boychuk: 47:26

bad. It was.

Ken LaCorte: 47:30

I only cared it was

Ben Boychuk: 47:31

anyway, he was down. I think he was down out of Corona. Right. And we asked him this question, what do you do, then? You know, because obviously, they've got to live somewhere. And he said, and and this idea is sounds absurd. But it kind of tickled my fancy because it is sort of practical. He said, Well, what if we were to build them a like a colony? Keep going, like he said, we could do it in the desert, maybe or we could do it. Maybe out on Catalina or one of those islands out not

Ken LaCorte: 48:10

Catalina, like the chance Santa Santa Cruz of those ones that we're not allowed to go to.

Ben Boychuk: 48:14

Right. Yeah, give something like that. He split it because I don't know how we're going to manage this. Because you have a lot of because recidivism oh man that the the repeat offenses, among that particular class of crimes is very high. But you can't keep them locked up forever, though. There are some things called civil commitments where they do that with in the case of certain offenders where it's like, yeah, the guy actually says, oh, yeah, I'm gonna do it again. Right. And so they keep them locked up. But for the rest who are sort of borderline What do you do? And, you know, as it as it turns out, that whole law is, is being rolled back jurisdiction by jurisdiction by lawsuits, by by guys who are running afoul of this thing and saying, look, I've got a right to live somewhere.

Ken LaCorte: 49:04

Have you ever Googled my name and sex offenders? Oh, God,

Ben Boychuk: 49:07

no. Should I? Yeah, it

Ken LaCorte: 49:10

was actually a pretty good story. So

Ben Boychuk: 49:11

yeah,

Ken LaCorte: 49:12

in 1996. The feds passed Megan's Law. Right. So Megan's Law was named after a young girl named Megan, I forget what her last name khanqah take, I think CSX I think that might have been in New Jersey, who was molested and murdered by a repeat sex offender who lives who lived in her neighborhood, right. And so the Feds passed a law and said every state needs to have a version of Megan's Law where we let people know who these who these molesters are. Right. And, you know, I mean, you know, the way the feds do things that were like, or will take away your highway funds or sorry, right, I mean, that they were pressuring the states. So California did passed a very, very watered down version of Megan's Law. They created the list. That was both high risk and low risk sex, regular sex offenders and high risk sex offenders. And what that meant was the high risk ones. So if you were in college and you pulled your pants out and winged your gang at somebody, you could actually be on the low though normal sex offenders list. To get under the high risk sex offenders, you had to be guilty of at least five crimes against children over at least two trials. So you had to be pretty fucking bad at that. Yeah. But what California did because even in 1996, California legislature was a bunch of whiskies then too. They said, Okay, we're gonna pass this thing. But for you to get that list, as a citizen, you had to go into your sheriff's department or your large city, you had to sign something that says, I promised that I won't, you know, throw rocks at the sex offenders house, I won't use this blah, blah, blah, you had to sign something pledging not to tell anybody about this information, which I'll come back to, because that's bullshit, right? And then you got 15 minutes to look at a computer. And and it was a crime to transmit that information. So I saw this and I was like, go fuck yourself. It's like the outside of national outside, like the codes to the, the the, you know, the missiles. There's very few times that the government of in the United States can say, it's a crime to give this true information to someone else. What do you do? Are you are you googling me on that? I

Ben Boychuk: 51:46

don't know. I googled Megan Kanka, though, just yeah, that was New Jersey 96.

Ken LaCorte: 51:53

So I got a little beat up in my bonnet. And I started going to my local sheriff's department and and writing down the list the list of, of high risk ex offenders in LA County. their name, their address, and their and their and their crimes. And there were 1000s of them. Sure. And this was in the early days of the internet. And I said, You know what, I'm going to make a website called Sex offenders.net. And I'm going to put all of these names on on this list with their towns in that and if you want to come and arrest me bring it on, because I actually believe that the First Amendment applies in California, even if the law says that it doesn't. So it costs a little bit of a shitstorm but back back then it it the first thing so I kept going and going some some some sheriff's departments were better than others, and most of them kind of didn't care. I learned a couple things about sex offenders. One was they're almost all guys Yeah, I look through 1000s and 1000s and is probably 99.5% males and you know a half a percent females. So it's like if your kids lost in the mall, don't tell them to go find a cop just tell them to go find a female and they're probably not going to be molested another thing and this isn't good for you and me there was a an over representation of molesters and these were both of adults and children but but more focused on Sheldon had facial hair I don't fucking know why. But there were a lot of dudes with beards and mustaches and and it was like, you just couldn't not notice it. Yeah, you notice some racial things. Blacks were more lawful to be just plain old rapists Hispanics were more likely to be to be to be molesting their niece or a family members. So you would see some things like that because because most of it wasn't what you what you the horror story that you think of of you know, guy like look just like you with some Sanchez, you know, cruising the the junior High's most molesters would put themselves in ways where they be near kids. They babysit their their cousins, or their their nephews, or they'd be a swim instructor or they they'd work at the at the at the YMCA. I mean, they tried to, you know, like, who was the guy who said I you know, I rob banks because that's where the money is. Get themselves near there. So it was fastening so I did that and I announced that I was going to release this out on Oh, you froze up for a second?

Ben Boychuk: 54:41

No, it's BS froze up. I did. I was staring stunned at the fact that having now Googled Ken LaCorte and sex offenders. Holy crap. You even made the New York Times.

Ken LaCorte: 54:55

It's funny I made Fox News before I'd even heard of Fox News. Okay, And so that night before I released it, I got a call from an assistant attorney general in in California, Dan Lundgren was the was the attorney general back. Yeah. And they gave me some some reasons why you shouldn't do this. And I was like, Okay, well, why not? And they gave me a bunch of bullshit reasons. It was like, they were like, Well, we think that this will help make the law unconstitutional that a judge will see this and rule Megan's Law unconstitutional. And I'm like, okay, look, I'm not a lawyer. But I don't think anything can the court does can make a law, constitutional or unconstitutional. judges aren't gonna, you know, the judges are allowed to use hypotheticals or anything like that. They said, Well, this will allow somebody in Florida to come and look at our sex offenders in California. And that might not be right. And I was like, Well, who cares? It's like, you know, I could read the Miami white pages, and what's the advantage of doing that they're gonna do that. And then the last thing that they said, which was was, well, we think that this is going to be a, a way that sex offenders can meet one another. And like, like, maybe link up and do this, and so I said, okay, so despite the fact that Nambla, the National man, boy love association exists and has forums out there, you think that like a sex offender is gonna go look, and he's gonna like, call up another sex offender be like, hey, hey, Ben. Yeah, I see you're a sex offender and I'm a sex offender to do you want to do you want to go cruise the junior High's together and I was just like, go fuck yourself. Anyhow. So I, I did that. And with the full into some of the best arguments for why I shouldn't have done it were actually good arguments. And the argument was, why should you be the guy doing this, you could make up things. You could have mistakes. This is not the way it's done. And I'm like, You're 100%, right? It's not the way that sex offenders should be done. It should be done by the state of California. You shouldn't be locking this stuff up in a sheriff's office cuz he felt like a pervert, you'd walk in and be like, can I see the sex offenders list? I mean, you know that that was not something that most moms and dads did. Right. And, and, and my wife at the time was like, like, right before I launched this. She was supportive. She said, just you know, if any one of those guys molest our children, I'll never forgive you. Fuck, Thanks, honey. Every single person in my life was like, they're gonna take your house, somebody is gonna blow up, whatever, you know. But weirdly, it was one of the best things I did in my life. I released that I got 1000s of 1000s of emails. And this is in the days when email was just people who were like, wow, I discovered that my kids swim instructor was on this list. And thank you, I got a lot of stuff like that. And no overall problems that I know of. And eventually, and Jim batten helped me out on this. Okay, that's why I had mentioned him he, he helped me out. And then year, a couple years later, I ran for office kind of on this, this this issue. And eventually California did that. So So right now, it's not in some dork like mes database, you know, that could be hacked or mistakes, or all of those things that California said, you know, what, people are smart enough that they, you know, this is information that's good for them to have, and they're not, they're not going to abuse it. They're going to they're gonna use it to safeguard their kids.

Ben Boychuk: 58:39

And as far as I know, that's been true.

Ken LaCorte: 58:42

Yeah, I'm aware of, I'm not aware of any kind of like we burned down your house right? And ran out of town. I'm very aware of the person on this list move didn't do this is now a youth pastor, or more a volunteer at something like that, because that's the way the things like that happen. Again, it was very rare that somebody just drove a car grabbed you know, do you want candy little girl grabbed the kid and moved on.

Ben Boychuk: 59:10

So yeah, yeah, it's a very useful tool.

Ken LaCorte: 59:14

But literally, at one point, if you just type my name, and like Google, like it would come up with related terms, it was like Ken LaCorte sex offender and I was like, fuck that that's not that but you know, after like, I did that. I had to get out of that world. I was just like, you know, I don't want to be. Who's the who's the Who's the guy who had the show, Chris? Oh, the Yeah, that guy. Walsh question. No, no, that that was another guy. Walsh had a son who was killed. Killed. Yeah, there was another Chris one who would get the little the sex offenders. It was just like, after a little bit. I'm like, I just don't want to swim in this ocean. I just, I just want to be away from this that So I so I don't even know what what what you go to when you type sex offenders.net but it's it's probably a porn site.

Ben Boychuk: 1:00:07

i Yeah, I'm afraid to do it now.

Ken LaCorte: 1:00:09

Yeah, well Oh god, I probably should have can go and $10 a year.

Ben Boychuk: 1:00:21

Now it looks like all it is is a it's a portal to

Ken LaCorte: 1:00:27

it was sex offenders.net Yeah. And

Ben Boychuk: 1:00:29

all that comes up is links to search for public criminal records. Okay. And that's it. There's nothing

Ken LaCorte: 1:00:37

good. I thought it'd be like, Alright, so what you do is you pretend to be a girl and you say that you like sprats?

Ben Boychuk: 1:00:44

Like I like how to say Good. Good lord.

Ken LaCorte: 1:00:49

Did I remember living in New York when I was at one of the gay rights parades and I saw the Nambla guys coming? I'm like, wait a second. I know you're trying to build your coalition. But could you leave the the child molesters out of

Ben Boychuk: 1:01:02

it? Right. Right. It's weird. It's weird, and it's troubling. Wow,

Ken LaCorte: 1:01:09

do what do we do about the tribalism nation? Of, of American politics? It's never been so extreme in my I don't know, post 15 years old lifetime.

Ben Boychuk: 1:01:25

Right. Right. So, I mean, we've always had it. And, you know, in the in the early 1970s, when you were but a toddler. I mean, there were bomb, you know, bombs going off?

Ken LaCorte: 1:01:42

Yes. When we were kids, kids, it was pretty fucking bad. But from the 70, late 70s on this is as bad as it gets. Or has been?

Ben Boychuk: 1:01:53

Yeah, I think it's pretty bad. You know, there's often talk of, of cold Civil War. Right. And I think probably the only way this this get resolved, this will get resolved in one of two ways. Either there is a existential threat to the country, you know, like a, you know, China tax the mainland, right, or, or something. Or there's a negotiated what? An acquaintance of mine, David Raboy, calls a national divorce, where people sort themselves out, you know, there's a, I've got several friends. Those are expensive, though. Yeah, no, they aren't any divorce is expensive, right. And so, but I've got friends on social media who will say it is, it is practically a duty for you to move to a red state. And we're gonna move to these red states, and we're gonna build our communities there. And, you know, to hell with the blue states. And that, to me, strikes me as a bit far fetched. Because, as Michael Anton, who wrote the flight 93, election ahead of the 2016 election, it was a very famous and controversial essay, as he likes to point out, they're just not gonna, they're not gonna just let us leave. You know, the blues aren't going to let the Reds leave in peace. They're there. They're not they're going to say you're gonna, you're going to, you're going to submit and you're going to like it. And I think he might be right about that. And so I, I don't see any sort of kumbaya come to Jesus moment, really, in the future. I see there being a lot of strife over the next five or 10 years until people either get tired of it, or some external factor comes in and requires people to come together and focus on that crisis. Because I don't see this ending in any way other than with with a lot of tears. I just want

Ken LaCorte: 1:04:13

to talk about the existential threat. I mean, everybody who was of age remembers September 12. Right, right, where the country was like, Yeah, I mean, I mean, ironically, back then it was Bush, who was the the guy who was elected, but he's not my president, because Florida um, blah, blah, blah. Yes. Which I still find shocking that everybody's forgotten. I'll never forget when, when when Trump was on stage at one of the debates and they were like, so the night of the election, are you fully prepared to say that you won the that you lost the election if you lost the election? And he didn't say like, have you people fucking lost your minds? Did you not remember 12 years ago when when people were holding up hanging chads and lawyers and David Boies and and, and when Al Gore took it to the Supreme Court Did you not remember that but but it was like, there was like there was mass amnesia in the country. But September 12, all that was September 11. The evening all that was forgotten, and it was we became Americans. And we were we were there. One would have hoped that an existential threat like a flu, might have done the same thing. But it did. It got sucked into you, me, you know, the finger. You know, we we faced an existential threat. Two years ago, we had we had a, a disease that came and was going to kill hundreds of 1000s Millions, whatever people, and that devolved into, into the chaos as well.

Ben Boychuk: 1:05:43

I think there's a couple of reasons for that. And I think one of them actually is September 11. Because a couple things happened after September 11. That as time wore on, I think more and more people realize that they were rooked. And so one of the things that happened after after 911 was, yeah, you had a lot of people coming together waving flags, but then you also had Congress passed the Patriot Act,

Ken LaCorte: 1:06:15

which I was all for back in the time, like a fan. I

Ben Boychuk: 1:06:17

think a lot of people were Yeah, I think a lot of people were because they thought we've got to do something, anything. But you know, what the Patriot Act was essentially was a lot of a lot of legislation that had been sitting around in people's desk drawers for a good long while, in places like the Justice Department and elsewhere, the Treasury Department and elsewhere, saying, Wow, we can repurpose this, you know, Bill that we've wanted for years and say, call it a Patriot Act, call it anti terrorism measure. And we can we can pass all this stuff that we've always wanted. That's one thing that happened. The other thing that happened was, if you recall, as we were getting ready to go to war in Afghanistan, George W. Bush encouraged people to, you know, keep shopping. So it was a very different kind of war effort. It wasn't the kind of war effort that people had in their mind either either lived through if they were old enough, or had in mind that that that war requires sacrifice. And Bush's idea of, you know, your sacrifices to keep shopping keep consuming. And so people came to realize very quickly that, you know, airport security was just theater. And so, you know, the government will say something on the one hand that this is necessary to to guard against future terrorist attacks, but then you see what that is. And you think to yourself, that don't make a lick of sense.

Ken LaCorte: 1:07:41

On the other hand, on the other hand, it worked. I mean, if I would have put if I would have pulled you on September 11, and said, What are the odds that America won't have another mass casualty event that costs us 500 lives let's just pick a number out. I would have back then said the odds are 1% that that's going to happen because I could go kill him because I could go bomb. Look, you and I are smart enough that with with with with $100,000 to play around with and enough gasoline and three or four crazy people to be on our side, we could take out a whole basketball center in in Indiana, right? Even

Ben Boychuk: 1:08:19

less than that. I mean, Angelo Codevilla. There, the late great Angelo Codevilla made this argument two months after 911 in the Claremont Review of Books in which he said this is this is impossible. What the government is claiming that it wants to do is impossible because and the example he used was any any halfway organized sell of terrorists could coordinate a a simultaneous Molotov cocktail attack on school buses, right in a in a major city and there's not a goddamn thing we can do about it. So that was that was Angelo's argument. And I think I think he was right about that. I also think that yet he was wrong. Yes. And then he was also in some ways wrong by the fact that it didn't happen. Did it didn't happen. But the over his overarching point that a total almost Well, I'm doing and totalitarian but a, a national security regime like that, ultimately comes to the detriment of American freedom. If you want to win a war, you know, to win a war you. We don't sacrifice the way we live, we make them change, or we'll change the way we live our lives. We make our enemies change the way they live their lives. And that's not how we really prosecuted those wars. Well,

Ken LaCorte: 1:09:39

it was kind of tricky, because we didn't know who the enemies were. Right. Well, that was the first asymmetrical warfare since the Mouse that Roared that I recall.

Ben Boychuk: 1:09:49

Hmm. Yeah, that sounds about right. But then the other thing is, Ken is that when it came to the rhetoric of, of COVID-19 Coming from state authorities, and I heard it too, and I heard it before March. I was hearing rumors in February. And we were seeing all those weird videos coming out of China people collapsing in the streets. Right? That but it turned out that in a lot of ways, it wasn't as I mean, yeah. I mean, yes, many people died and many people got very sick, and many people are experiencing long term effects of it. But it wasn't the Spanish flu. It I mean, millions of people weren't dying. And yet, we continue to hear really kind of panic mongering rhetoric from authorities at every single level. And I think a lot of people as time has worn on even now. I mean, people are over this thing. You know, people are I mean, we get to the point where you're seeing New York City cops arresting a guy, a Marine veteran, at a like a Panera Bread Company because he didn't have his Vax card. Do you think that

Ken LaCorte: 1:11:02

burning Vax cards could be something that takes off? Who so so I so I'm a for me. I've had my vaccinations I was or I was one of the first ones when I could get it. I got I got what he call it duped up double double dip that the at the earliest stage that I that I could. But I feel but but I've never used it with the exception of going to Hawaii for a small vacation. I'm going to go to I'm going to go to Mexico and back. I might use it for Burning Man if they do it. But I refuse to use it to go have go to a bar go to a con because I think that I'm a participant in the in the demonization of people who are not choosing to be vaccinated and I'm pretty pro choice on faxes. Sure. Do you think that a burning burning your Vax card could be the the the broad burning of of this generation?

Ben Boychuk: 1:12:01

I don't know, for one thing, because I think people would a lot of people have their information on their phones.

Ken LaCorte: 1:12:09

Yeah, but look, a lot of a lot of gals had a second brought home too, right? I'm not I'm looking not looking for purity here. I just thought if 30% of the people did that,

Ben Boychuk: 1:12:21

that could that would make an impact. What do you think? What about 10%? Would that make an impact? Even?

Ken LaCorte: 1:12:27

I don't know. That's it's a good question. I mean, you know, I look, you know, I live in San Francisco adjacent. And they love the, you know, they're wearing masks in their cars that would mask in the showers. They you know, they've convinced themselves that that's the equivalent of being a good citizen. And on some levels. It is. I don't know. I mean, something to think about that.

Ben Boychuk: 1:12:54

I think about the way I think about the way the policies are enforced or not enforced. So I live in San Bernardino County. They're not enforcing really anything. And a lot of businesses have chosen to ignore the latest statewide Vax maske mandate.

Ken LaCorte: 1:13:16

I mean, San Bernardino is like, you know, we can't stop crack.

Ben Boychuk: 1:13:19

That's the city of I

Ken LaCorte: 1:13:20

mean, I'm not gonna be able to stop a vaccine.

Ben Boychuk: 1:13:23

The kitty, the county is geographically the largest in the United States. I mean, there's lots and lots of cities,

Ken LaCorte: 1:13:28

it's bigger than a lot of states.

Ben Boychuk: 1:13:30

It's bigger than many slides, like,

Ken LaCorte: 1:13:32

probably at least half a dozen states, right? Yeah, that's right. You should write an article on that you live in the biggest state in the US.

Ben Boychuk: 1:13:38

It's been done. But it but the the enforcement is, is really loosey goosey. And a lot of it is some businesses are more hardcore than others. But a lot of places are just like, we've been doing this now for two fucking years. That's See, that's it.

Ken LaCorte: 1:14:02

See, it's interesting. From my point of view, while I won't use the cards, I'm not the guy who would ever walk into a store if they say, Please wear a mask, right? It's your store, man. I'm not gonna be that guy. But fuck yeah. Yeah, it's like that, that to me, it's like, you know, you have some rights as a store owner. And if you say wear a mask, or you have to wear blue hat or hop on one leg, okay, I can choose to shop in your store or not. But I would never I would never do that kind of a protest.

Ben Boychuk: 1:14:34

Yeah, yeah, there. Yeah. I don't particularly care for those folks.

Ken LaCorte: 1:14:39

Yeah, they seem like assholes.

Ben Boychuk: 1:14:42

But the thing about I don't mind wearing the masks, but really, but I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't make much difference either way. Because a nice you've got a good end 95 That fits your face and you've got a beard and I've got a beard. No mask is going to fit our face correctly. Unless we shave, they the efficacy certs go in like this. And so it's like a condom with a hole in it. Yeah. Yeah. It's so to me, it's largely symbolism. I mean,

Ken LaCorte: 1:15:11

yeah, and I'm okay with that and Summit, like on a plane, I was like, You know what, I'm gonna tube with a bunch of people. And I know they got HEPA filters and whatnot. But there's a lot of meat near me. I'm actually okay with wearing a mask. But I also find myself hating the being part of the theater, when I think it's about theater. And it's like, so it's like, if I was in a closet, and I want to do the right thing, but I know that if I'm walking down the street, and I see people wearing masks you like, that's all theater. And I don't want to participate in that unless there is actually a decent efficacy rate. And it's doing something right. I actually didn't mind showing my Vax car going to Hawaii, because you know, what Hawaii has the advantage of having, you know, four airports in the whole the whole state. And so they actually have kept this thing under control, because they had points of entry and points of exit. And they take that seriously. Okay, that's a theory. Right? I mean, that and it's working for working for New Zealand. It's working for Alaska, it's undecided whether it's working for Australia.

Ben Boychuk: 1:16:22

So at this point, did you did you have to quarantine when you went?

Ken LaCorte: 1:16:25

No, no, I wouldn't have done I couldn't have I mean, psychos. No. So they said, I think they did they find it at a temperature thing. They did not do a you need to have a test before x hours. But if you showed a VAX card on it, you were you definitely that was that was okay for them.

Ben Boychuk: 1:16:41

I see. Because now that they have these pretty effective rapid tests seems to be that you can figure it out pretty quickly. I just had I just had a test yesterday, because I have this surgery I'm having Oh, right. Right. Right. And they, you know, part

Ken LaCorte: 1:16:57

of me says we should all just I mean, my son had an idea. He was just like, let's just have a COVID party, get the old people who you know, have a high death rate on this. Clamp the crap out of them for three weeks in here, we can do that. Right? We can, you know, you'd have to wear the full body body suit on that. And the rest of us do what, you know, we go out, we kiss, we dance, we breathe on each other. And let's just get this sucker over with. That's not necessarily the craziest idea.

Ben Boychuk: 1:17:28

It isn't. It's just that Yeah, it's like the lottery. You don't want to win. Right? Right now it because you don't want to be the guy who? Oh, yeah, you did have the complications. I don't know about you. But I mean, I did gain a little bit of weight during during 2020. But I've I've gotten really attuned to just on a daily basis, I take a million supplements, I take huge doses of vitamin D, every day, I take a lot of vitamin C's zinc, as much zinc as my body can tolerate, just sort of as a kind of a prophylactic that that because these are all things that at this point in the game, everybody knows that they actually work. And so just doing things to raise my, you know, my immunity? Seems like that's a sensible thing that probably everybody should be doing. Because they're just it's sort of like common sense. Right? And

Ken LaCorte: 1:18:32

that makes sense. I'm at the point, though, once I'm vaccinated, I'm just like, if I get it, I get it. I'm not gonna worry about it. I don't think it'll be that big of a deal. I can sit around and worry about everything in life, and it's just not on my list. Right? I

Ben Boychuk: 1:18:46

don't worry about it. I don't worry about it. Precisely. Yes. For that reason. For the I feel like I'm taking good care of myself reasonably, I'm meeting reasonably well. You know, I probably should get a little bit more exercise than I do. But I but the point is it. This isn't something I'm not obsessing over it. But you know, I've got a history of high blood pressure. And that's a problem. That's a potential complication. And so I try to, I'm just trying to keep the keep the thing at bay. Now. I'm gonna see how it goes. I think we're all going to get it at some point.

Ken LaCorte: 1:19:19

I think so. And I'm somewhat encouraged by the Omnicom variant that it's like, okay, it's very, very contagious, and not all that dangerous, right? Maybe that's exactly what we need.

Ben Boychuk: 1:19:34

Right. And that's the course of every virus ever in history, the things because from an evolutionary standpoint, the thing wants to survive. The best way for it to survive, is to become more transmissible but less lethal, or at least

Ken LaCorte: 1:19:47

lethally slower, right, giving you enough time to spread it on before it before it tells you. So what's going on at am greatness. So this was a site that kind of came from nowhere and it's and it was good. And and how did that happen? And and what's, what's your mission there and what are you working on?

Ben Boychuk: 1:20:08

Well, so it happened in 2016 in no small part because of the Trump phenomenon, and it emerged out of a need among there. So three of us found the thing. Chris Buskirk is our publisher, Julie pons is my co editor, senior editor. And I'm managing editor and it all kind of came about because we were casting about for something interesting to do. I was writing a book for somebody at the time, but I was my life. My personal life was changing in radical ways, let's say. And I found myself sitting in my backyard, smoking a cigar working on this book, listening to music and sort of not really feeling sorry for myself, but wondering what the hell I was going to do next. And I would get on the phone with Julie and say, we got a we got to do something, we got to figure something out. So at the time, there was a website called The Journal of American Greatness, and it was synonymous. But I've

Ken LaCorte: 1:21:16

we very quickly synonymous or su

Ben Boychuk: 1:21:19

nonnamous. I don't know what that is this pseudonyms. Okay. It was a bunch of guys writing with Latin pen names. Got it. And we very quickly figured out that one of the chief contributors to that thing was an old friend, Michael Anton, I mentioned him before.

Ken LaCorte: 1:21:36

So pseudonymity kind of sucked. Well,

Ben Boychuk: 1:21:39

yeah, well, it was, yeah, they were they all had good jobs. And they were all afraid of getting fired. But what they were trying to do was create a site for that would have some sort of intellectual justification for Trumpism. Right. And as their profile was rising, when they were getting written up in the Wall Street Journal, and the Weekly Standard did a story on them. They kind of got cold feet, and they very abruptly shut the thing down. But right but Michael Anton gave us the heads up and said, This Journal of American Greatness is going away. And and so all of a sudden, the light bulb appears, we got to pick this mantle up. And so that happened in I think, late May of 2016. We launched American greatness on my birthday, July 14 2016. The first month, we had like, maybe 10,000 views. Now I get 10,000 views while I'm asleep overnight. Like, I mean, traffic is grown like gangbusters. It really came about because we felt that the existing media landscape on the right was not attuned to the shifting political ground. I was not

Ken LaCorte: 1:23:01

so well, you you are you are a you are a counterpoint to the national reviews very much. So guys, very much. So because the blue bloods we went to Yale?

Ben Boychuk: 1:23:12

Well, yeah. Because National Review had published that against Trump issue. Right. And a lot of people were, you know, thought that that was foolish. And it just seemed to us that there was a really a crying need for a different way of looking at, you know, a lot of you a hardcore Trump guy. Well, no, that's the thing. What that's among the founding group. I was the one who was I would even from time to time have described myself as number Trump, but I ended up voting for him. And I changed my mind at the last minute to vote for him. And I wrote about it in a piece of American Greatness, saying, I wasn't I think the title was something like, I wasn't going to vote for the son of a bitch. But now I am and here's why. Right, right. And what really kind of pushed me over because, you know, again, you live in California, your vote doesn't count. But I was not I was just going to abstain from voting, but I ended up voting for him because just the, by by the weekend before the election, the the rhetoric coming from the left was so outrageous, I just felt like I had to stick it to those fucking people. That people needed to be that we needed the disruption. You know, Trump, conservatives made the case that Trump was not a conservative. They were right. He wasn't a conservative. He was a disrupter.

Ken LaCorte: 1:24:40

The problem I viewed him as a hand grenade, I'm like, you know, I

Ben Boychuk: 1:24:43

had a wrecking ball.

Ken LaCorte: 1:24:44

I was actually like, I actually feel like throwing an honest to god hand grenade into Congress. This is the best way that that doesn't kill people. Maybe we felt

Ben Boychuk: 1:24:55

and we when we, when we launched we had an editorial statement sort of explaining What we were trying to do and it was that was titled, our Declaration of Independence from the conservative movement. Because you know, what has happened over time with with the conservative movement, it's really come to mistake policy preferences for matters of high principle. And it's also come to mistake talking for doing. And so in our editorial manifesto, we basically said, Look, we're actually editorially agnostic about you know, Trump, really, we saw him as a means to an end. And that end was a really a revival of politics rightly understood. Politics is not, as Aristotle might say, us, the city and speech. It politics is requires action. And so we thought that Trump would be able to, if not get everything he wanted done, he would least be able to disrupt the beltway conventions enough to open the door for certain good things to be done. And immigration was was a big one. renegotiating those trade deals was was a very important thing. And reasserting a kind of America first foreign policy, which he did. And he didn't have to like the tweets, he didn't have to like some of the rhetoric, but the route results and in many cases, not all, but in many cases were pretty, pretty good.

Ken LaCorte: 1:26:38

It's so that that's the that's the mindfuck. Right? It's, it's like, I can't think of a whole lot of policies that they had that I was like, oh, that's crazy. I mean, most of them were like, it's about time for that. And they did pretty well on a lot of them. Not all of them. Yeah. But then as I think it's like, would you want a kid to grow up to be Donald Trump? And it's interesting, because I spent some time with my my extended family. And I'm, you know, where I live? I'm a radical of a radical, radical conservative. Sure, among other parts of my family and extended family. I'm like, the, the the liberal, weird guy over there. Yeah, he does some drugs. And he goes to Burning Man, and we're not sure about Jesus. And I asked him, I'm like, what? And it was, it was a question they all had to pause for. It's like, would you want your boy to grow up to be like Donald Trump? And that's a fucking hard question to ask a father, or mother,

Ben Boychuk: 1:27:41

you would want. I you know,

Ken LaCorte: 1:27:43

the concept was somebody who saves American democracy and who's stopped some really bad things from happening in America like that. Sure. But the guy who's like, blowing his nose at people and, and do it all. Yeah, that I'm not sure.

Ben Boychuk: 1:28:00

I'm not sure I'm not I'm not sure I. I came to appreciate his strengths more as time went on. But it was also clear from the beginning of the administration, that he was going to be in trouble. And it wasn't just that, you know, the feds, that whole thing with Michael Flynn and

Ken LaCorte: 1:28:23

talk, that was something that was pretty bad. That was bad.

Ben Boychuk: 1:28:25

But But But beneath it, it was pretty clear in by, you know, April or May of 2017, that he was not getting his people in jobs in the administration. He got all Morosa. Yeah, yeah. Or as about to say, or he was picking the wrong people. And he was getting really bad advice on personnel. And then we we reported, and we had, and we heard a lot that just, you know, people who had worked on the campaign who had volunteered and states who then you know, tried to apply for a job and other applications went nowhere. Right. And once we started hearing that, I thought, Oh, this is not going to go well, because he's going to be sabotaged from within. And that's pretty much what ended up happening.

Ken LaCorte: 1:29:16

A lot of cases, execution was not their strongest point.

Ben Boychuk: 1:29:19

Right? No, it wasn't and look, I mean, I mean, the greatest example of that is how they handled the the results of the election. I mean, that that they did not have a rock solid legal team in place. weeks in advance is scandalous.

Ken LaCorte: 1:29:38

I lose most of my conservative friends when they ask about the election because I'm like, because and I haven't followed it all that closely over the last over the last year, but but in the weeks that followed, I dug into it I put on my investigative reporter hat and and jumped into that stuff. And I never saw it. I read the cracking from that, Who's the idiot woman who I'm thinking of? She was. She was she was, uh, you know, she helped flip. She got flipped off. I mean, Glenn was in an innocent man who was set up by the Federal prosecutorial apparatus of the United States government. And she got him off as Sidney. Sidney Powell. But did you ever read into this shit? She she filed? No, dude, it was retarded. Yes. It was literally like, I remember she was like, these, these these computers. I'm going to prove that from three o'clock to four o'clock AM they turn this and they stole this and they did all of that. And, and, and and these two companies ruin the end and I and the Kraken is coming. Okay, you know, her Linwood. I was a huge fan of, I mean, Lynn woods, done some impressive things in life, you know, his, his epitaph will have some good accomplishments. But then I read the stuff that they were put in, and I'm like, you gotta be joking me this was, I mean, literally, her Kraken was some military attache, who 15 years ago 1210 to 15 years ago, I worked in Venezuela and saw that the Venezuelan government then used similar type of software, not the same companies, but that but but this company bought part and, and did something kind of similar to this. And and, and they stole the election and and you're reading this and you're like, This is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever read. And, you know, Rudy Giuliani had some similar things. It's like, you know, I lived in New York, pre Giuliani and I did the direct mail for his first campaign. I mean, it's like, I've debated really Giuliani and Roger Ailes, his studio. I mean, you know, it's like, I loved him. But I, I read, like his Arizona was, was the Nevada one. And it was like, Well, this guy says that 20% of the votes are people who've moved or this or that, and therefore we'd like all of these votes to be attributed to Donald Trump and the election to be overturned. And it was like,

Ben Boychuk: 1:32:17

now, I'm

Ken LaCorte: 1:32:18

not a lawyer, but this shit doesn't work. It was. It was embarrassingly, thin, bad, stupid. And I'm not saying that they haven't found better stuff since then, which I haven't followed all that closely. And I'm not saying that it didn't happen. And I'm not saying that the press should have looked into it, but they were like, whatever. Hey, Donald Trump lost and we're all happy and and look a Kardashian. But it just wasn't there. And and it was

Ben Boychuk: 1:32:47

time, I believe. I mean, I do believe that. Probably 80 million people voted for Biden, I can believe that very easily. Because I think the campaign was such and the the messages were such that it was it was all dump Trump all the time. He's the you know, he's, he's a he's a threat to the fabric of our republic. He's a he's a menace, he's a would be dictator. He he botched COVID.

Ken LaCorte: 1:33:17

Well, and look, he did lose some old people at that point. And that's why it's not good when you're Republican and you lose 20% of your old people because of COVID. That's a problem. Well,

Ben Boychuk: 1:33:26

I mean, that's that. I mean, I'm sure that actually factored in. That was,

Ken LaCorte: 1:33:29

that was the constituency that killed him. I mean, he had more blacks. He had more, a lot of a lot of a lot of ethnic subgroups. But he lost old people. I'm sorry, your MC No,

Ben Boychuk: 1:33:39

I just did, right. I mean, but it I found it perfectly believable, that even though Trump got what it was it 7 million more votes than he did in 2016. I found it perfectly believable, given the hysteria of the 2020 election, that more people would have voted for Biden, and now that they're having buyer's remorse, I believe that they saw Biden as a means to an end. And the end was what they thought would be something like normal life. Alright. And we haven't gotten it. You know, those promises, the product, I think a lot of people thought that Biden would, would get a handle on this virus, and people would be able to return to something like their lives before and without the craziness of the Trump administration.

Ken LaCorte: 1:34:28

And some of them just thought. We'll go through four years of not hating each other and screaming at each other and throwing rocks at

Ben Boychuk: 1:34:34

each other. Yeah. Now who's being naive? Yes, Kate.