Government Can Place Cameras on Your Private Land Without a Warrant: Journalist Explains

Chris Bennett [00:00:00] Long white and he recoils back, it's on fire. And he realizes that's not the flesh of a pig, that's a human being.

Vance Crowe [00:00:11] Oh,

Chris Bennett [00:00:12] And what he was, what he was looking at was a woman's body. She was a hundred percent naked. She's in the ditch in the grass, she's on fire. It's very much dead. I'm Bruce figure, a veterinarian living in Sylvia, Kansas, and you're listening to the Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:32] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we talk with Chris Bennett, longtime listeners know Chris is one of my favorite guests, and that's because he can talk about just about anything. He is probably the scariest journalist, maybe in the United States, but definitely in the world of agriculture because he brings up topics that people are not normally talking about lately, the reason I called up Chris and said, Hey, let's get on the podcast as he did, another issue on Curtilage and the government G, coming onto your land and putting cameras and being able to look around on your property if it's away from where your yard and house is, and Chris is trying to sound the alarm to say, this is such an infringement on our property rights, people should really be paying attention to this. So Chris and I have a wild two hour discussion and I hope you enjoy it. You are seeing me run around quite busy lately. It is because we are moving into the new podcast studios where we are doing Legacy Interviews. If you would like me to interview your loved one, to tell their stories about their childhood, their career marriage, how they parented, and the legacy that they wanna leave behind, then you can go to Legacy Interviews dot com to find out more. Thanks so much and enjoy this fantastic conversation with my man, Chris Bennett. Chris Bennett, welcome back to the podcast

Chris Bennett [00:01:55] Vance. Thank you, sir. It's a privilege to be here, man. Hope you're doing great.

Vance Crowe [00:02:00] Well, you are in the ag journalism world, so I'm gonna ask you probably what seems like the obvious question, which is why is it that people are so enthralled with the Johnny Depp Amber Heard case? Why was this something that captured the attention of our country?

Chris Bennett [00:02:15] Man, you tell me Vance. I really don't know. I have seen the headlines. I hadn't followed any of the footage. I mean, we kind of all grew up in a sense with Johnny Depp and prior to him, frankly, I'm suspecting people my age and even below, never heard of Amber Heard prior to that. But your guess is far better than mine. Pretty wild though.

Vance Crowe [00:02:40] You know, the weirdest thing for me is that you get to see not only into the lives of celebrities and you find out, hey, these are just actually people with all the problems that regular people have. But the scariest thing to me is when they've brought on these psychologists and out of the whole trial, that's probably the thing I've watched the most. And I think there's just something really odd about a culture that says, Hey, there's a special group of people. We send them to special school. And if they talk with you for a little while, or they listen to you doing something for a little while, they now can make assessments as to your ability process information to decide what's good or bad or right or wrong. And I think that this concept of mental health and psychiatry and psychology is like way off the hook now. And they are a really important part of our judicial system.

Chris Bennett [00:03:33] I'm right with Vance. I'll tell you what man. You know, the person beside you, the person, your neighbor and so on, the amount of medications that they're on, you know, everybody knows it's become outrageous. You just assume the other person is taking X, Y, and z. I remember years ago, I'm not making this up. Years ago when I was teaching high school history, I had a cla one particular class probably was 22, 23 kids in it. And for some reason, the office let slip to me that 13 or 14 out of them, remember I just said 22, 23 kids were all on the a DD medicine. I was young at the time, just outta college, but I knew right then, okay, I don't know about a DDI don't know about the me all that kind of thing. I do know that there's no way that 14 of those kids outta 2223 are on the medication. And it was seen as a, I don't know what you call it, a badge of honor. They wanted, they wanted their kids to be diagnosed and shoot, everybody knows, I mean, you can literally get college scholarships for having a DD, you know? So there you go. I'm not picking on a DD, I'm just stating the, obviously.

Vance Crowe [00:04:51] Well, it seems to me like we were really blithe about this when I was in middle school. That's when I think a DD medication started becoming more and more well known. And you think about what you're doing with the child and some kids, they really do have brain chemistry problems. But if you solve brain chemistry problems with things that impact the chemistry of the brain, you know, you're, you're playing with something with way long-term consequences. So you're starting to give a child something that's gonna change the way their brain processes information, how it processes energy. And these are gonna have ramifications far beyond just their inability to sit in sixth grade math. It's gonna have an impact on them. And then to the larger point of people are all around us taking medications. I mean, the, the SSRIs, the, the drugs that are out there that are trying to de to treat depression, these things are like infinitely scary to me. They, they genuinely change the makeup of how the human mind works. And I think we're, I think there's way, way too many people on them.

Chris Bennett [00:05:52] I, I, I absolutely agree. I I also think Vance said, I I genuinely believe that it plays into the victim culture that we've seen here the last 10 years. People want that checklist of things they can tick off that they have a problem with or, or associated with. And this just adds, in my opinion, and, you know, fuel to the fire. It's definitely fodder.

Vance Crowe [00:06:17] Where do you think that came from? It's, it's like, why is it that we want a victim culture? Is this just normal human nature?

Chris Bennett [00:06:25] Oh man, you know, that, that's a can of worms. I, I think the opportunities there, I think the grievance ladder is real. And I think you can ascend up it according to your frailties, perceived or real. And so since the grievance ladder is there, you, you can literally extend your career, prolong your career, boost your career by climbing those rungs. And when you present that to someone, human nature is going to take over. And so you just end up with tribalization of sorts where, man, let me show you what's wrong with me. And then shoot, you combine that with social media where everybody wants to air their grievances or air just, Hey, here's my, here's my laundry. I mean, I'm at the point now Vance, where if I see people on social media that look happy, my assumption is you ain't happy. You know, but that, that, that's just, that's just me. But it's a, it, I don't know, social media disease that traces back to everything you just said.

Vance Crowe [00:07:34] Do you use social media?

Chris Bennett [00:07:37] Let's see, brother, I am, I used to be on Twitter. Not now. I have to be for work. I have to be on LinkedIn. I have a LinkedIn account that I was required to when I signed on. So I, I, I knew that going in, I have a dummy, I have a fake fo Facebook account so that I can follow particular farmers, just so farming groups so I can get a, a reading on what's going on. But as far as me,

Vance Crowe [00:08:05] What makes it fake? The fact that it's not actually you. I mean, it's, if, if you're able

Chris Bennett [00:08:09] To, yeah, I've got a, I just got a fake name that I stole from Monty Python, and so I just put that out there with no, no face. And then I'm in these groups a lot of the time I get kicked out of the group 'cause they have this stupid name and no face on there. But hey, what are you going to do? But no, I, I don't have anything against anybody being on social media. That's not my point. But I I I, I do believe there is something to the person that does post continuous selfies or pictures, you know, a million pictures of their kids and so on. I, I, I definitely think there's some psychology that going on that ain't too pretty.

Vance Crowe [00:08:43] Yeah, I'm hypersensitive to the photos of Violet going up on social media, right? Like, and there's something about it, which is like, just trying to protect her from an unknown future where she might not want those things up there. And it's funny because as a parent, if you encounter other parents that are like really comfortable with their kids being online or really, like, they take photos and put 'em up there and like, do you really want to go start a fight about like, Hey, take my photo of my kid off there. Put on the other hand, you know, you see these people utilize their kids to be able to get magic internet points, which is really just e exposing, limiting, giving away your privacy in in exchange for, you know, fleeting moments of, of popularity.

Chris Bennett [00:09:29] Yeah. Come on. We all know that there are a large percentage of adults that now live vicariously through their kids own on social media. So maybe all of the shortcomings that you once had as a child, as a teenager and their minds, Hey, I'm gonna replay it with Junior or Missy and we gonna get it right this time. Alright, Tim.

Vance Crowe [00:09:53] Yeah. So, you know, the, we and I, you and I started chatting because you came out with another chilling article on the concept of Curtilage, right? Where, where, well, I'll just let you tell it, but I can tell you that every time I get one of your articles, I'm like, whoa, man. Okay. Stick a deep breath. We're about to hit the cold water.

Chris Bennett [00:10:12] You know, Vance, I, I, this is a topic that the entire United States, every citizen should be concerned with because it chills to the core. And this is open fields, this is weather. Well, the government claims the right to have complete access to your private land to walk on it and ve it at length, right? There's just, if you, if you own a hundred acres, if you own five acres, they have access to it. They can't get to your house, they can't get to the yard, as you said, the arcane term curtilage around it. But everything else they have open access to in states, whether you're in Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, according to state law, they may or may not be able to come on your land. State officials, when you get to the federal level, when you get to fish and wildlife, all the other agencies, the alphabet agencies, those people have government, right, according to Supreme Court to come onto your land. And we have a marriage now of that, right? That they claim with modern technology. So they can surveil you all they want. In other words, if they wanna put a camera up on your land, they can do so not for two minutes forever, as long as they want to with no warrant, no reasonable suspicion, no judge's eye, no judge's nod. It's just there. I tell you what, when I wrote the article, the, the latest one, trying to tell people about open fields and, and, and warn them, Hey, at least take a look at this, which is backed of course by the Supreme Court.

Chris Bennett [00:11:53] I called one of the major, major major ag organizations, ag wildlife organizations. I said, Hey, would y'all like to comment on this? Just throw out your perspective. No sabotage here. And they declined, did not want to. So that tells you a little bit of the PC nature, the sensitive nature that's, you know, back there with open fields. 'cause you know, once you cut through all the bull vans, once you cut through all the bull and you get down to something like USDA, and you see United States Department of Agriculture, you see the word agriculture at the end and you, it almost comes from your core. You just assume, hey, agriculture, it's all good. And then you, you, you, you, you gotta check yourself and realize that USDA is simply another bureaucracy, just like all the other departments. In other words, you would not de you would not trust any government or department any further than you could throw them. At least most people wouldn't. But USDA, we think, again, agriculture, you can't, right? That is a bureaucracy tied in with all the rest and woo ramifications, brother, not too good. So

Vance Crowe [00:13:04] Let's talk about the open fields thing because I, I mean, we could definitely go into the USDA and, and why I'm so glad that Trump tried to get them out into the Midwest and all the, the chaos that caused. But let's, tell me a story, man. Like what does it actually look like? What story does the government tell themselves for why they need to go on somebody's land? And how does this all work out in, in reality?

Chris Bennett [00:13:27] It hit a, it hit it, it it, it came to a surface back in the 1920s. And of course when you hear twenties, of course your mind probably heads toward prohibition and you'd be right. First case was alcohol related. And it went to Supreme Court. And it basic, again, it, it, it went to Supreme Court and the, the court decided that the government had the right to go on to someone's land in pursuit of X, Y, and Z for whatever reason, not into their house, right? The house is protected by the Fourth Amendment, search and seizure. Your person is protected by Fourth Amendment. As you know, the police have to get warrants to infringe on anything related to that. But the land itself, they can access. And that would mean if you've got a thousand acres back there, they can access your sheds, your buildings, the land, they

Vance Crowe [00:14:24] Can go into your buildings. They can go into your sheds and say, Hey, let's, let's look at, you know, what tools they've got here, whate what files they have around here,

Chris Bennett [00:14:32] Essentially. So yes, not if they're beside your house, but if they're not beside your house, which of course many landowners would have this situation, if they're out by themselves, they can access those. That first case happened in the 1920s. The second case that boosted the 1920s decision and gave them complete access to your land, I believe was in the eighties. And it involved marijuana. So it's pretty, pretty interesting that you already have two products that at least have some degree of legalization. Now that opened the door for the government to get onto your land. It's twenties, the eighties, alcohol, marijuana. And I think if I remember right, in the marijuana case, they were on a guy's land. And don't quote me on this, but the buildings got involved. In other words, they could see into the building, they were given access. Every case breaks down different, but I assure you, Vance, at the moment, if you have land, they can access your land. They can come on, do it, and you put a fence up, you can put your no trespassing signs up, you can put your post-it signs, you can spray purple paint where you want to. They can still come on. They don't have to tell you. And if they wanted to, they could set up a trail camera or game camera, watch you. If your wife right went out there and was engaged in any private activity, maybe using the restroom, what have you, that's on camera that belongs to them. Not a dang thing they, you can do.

Chris Bennett [00:16:05] But they don't have to tell you right now. The question then becomes, does the government have a database of where these cameras are? Does anyone know? Does one agency have to communicate with the other about these game cameras or film cameras or just people out there taking notes on you And

Vance Crowe [00:16:27] Well, the obvious question, if you bring that up, if you have a database, can you also FOIA that? So can I write a request and say, Hey, I wanna know if you guys have collected any information on that property right there, and do they have access to it? And if not, why not? Because I think all that's, you know, information that those bureaucracies capture is supposed to be available for sunshine. And then if they can, then that's a real problem, right? You, you shouldn't, I like, there just seems like this is fraught with, with challenges

Chris Bennett [00:16:57] Big ten four Vance, it's me, put it this way, it's under FOIA right now. It's under FOIA as we speak. I don't know when the information will pour out or dribble out, but I tell your audience something about foia, and this is very distressing, as with most things in involving government power. Did a case, I did a story on a case two or three years ago with a guy who was being pressed on by E-P-A-F-W-S and several organizations regarding his land. He, he'd done nothing wrong, they were coming on to his land. He fod those organizations emails related to his case, took him six months or a year. And when he got the information back, it simply wasn't there. In other words, they, it looked like they gave him a quarter or half of the material. Now he's embroiled in litigation, right? So when he doesn't get the FOIA material advance, he has a choice. I can either, you know, reapply or I can kick off litigation to get them to give me the FOIA stuff. So imagine, right? What in the heck do you do as a US citizen when you FOIA and you know, you sons of guns just didn't even give me half the material I asked for. So you have that game out there as a will, just outrageous behavior once again from people that are, I emphasize unelected, right?

Chris Bennett [00:18:33] Bureaucrats, unelected, and they are in for life. And you tell me when the last time one of them got fired and any of these cases, it's usually just, Hey, a a transfer transfer or nothing happens.

Vance Crowe [00:18:48] So what's been bringing this up with you, the open fields? I mean, you said yourself, it's been going on since the 1920s and marijuana in the eighties and nineties. Why now? Are you, are you taking the time and energy to write about this?

Chris Bennett [00:19:00] Well, to put it bluntly, I think this is a Mount Ru Rushmore issue. This is a fundamental issue for Americans. I can't explain to you how and why it has gone under the radar, but everyone has to know about this because of the creep in every area of our lives related to government. If you Don't make a stand and draw a line, the creep always gets closer and closer. And, and for those of the audience listening that say, Hey, look, I have some game wardens in my family, or I have friends with game wardens. I know the game wardens in my county, the government officials in my county, and they're all good people. I, I wouldn't, I'm not gonna argue about that. I can entirely believe that. I have no problem with that. The point is that a rogue is going to take advantage. And whether you are a, in a teacher, a lawyer, a reporter, what have you, you're going to have some rogues, right? You're gonna have plenty of bad apples in any profession. So in the government agency, you're gonna have plenty of bad apples, just like in all other professions. And do you, do I as an American wanna present them with a revolving door onto our land? Absolutely not. I I'll give you a chilling example. Just absolutely chilling. I I think that's a third or fourth time I've used that word so far. And I mean it, if they have a camera set up on your land, that camera can point, it can point onto your curtilage, they can point to your house, to your lawn.

Chris Bennett [00:20:42] They can pick up what they want. Now we all know as human beings, what goes on outdoors, sometimes in the privacy, privacy of someone's land, you might have a, a daughter, a wife, a girlfriend out there sunbathing. You know, somebody might be engaged in sexual activity if they thought they were genuinely owned their private property, minding their own business. All all these things are sitting there exposed, right? We as Americans are exposed. And in this day and age, I'm, you know, I'm, I don't think I'm just spouting my opinion here. I think you can see from history what's happening. The government's grip on us, the government's command over us is it's getting stronger and it's getting stronger by the decade.

Vance Crowe [00:21:29] Yeah, and to your point, like even if you don't have a wife or daughter or girlfriend sunbathing or any of those things, you may just not want somebody looking at you. You know, I ended up, when I bought my house, the, the highest priority I had, the number one priority that I had was that I could have privacy in the backyard because I've lived in places, apartments, small houses where I didn't have privacy, where my neighbors would ask me about conversations they heard me having in my backyard before. So for me, having privacy is a very big deal. And what I want to use that privacy for is, is completely irrelevant. It is no bearing on whether or not I should have that privacy. And so the idea that there is like an area that you get to kind of be private, but then if you get outside of that curtilage area, now you own that property, but you don't really own it because somebody can just walk on it and, and trespass and you can't stop them.

Chris Bennett [00:22:22] Bingo, Vance. I mean, you tell me, if, if, if we could haul Tommy Jefferson and John Adams out of the grave, and we could ask them, Hey, did y'all intend, did y'all intend to allow the feds onto our private land carte blanche? I can tell you, I can tell you straight up, I know how those genuinely would answer. And that they, they would give you an answer that was filled with expletives and they would roll in their graves to find out that the government now has that power or claims that power.

Vance Crowe [00:22:59] Yeah, like let's talk about government power. 'cause it's such an interesting thing. And I've been going around and asking people questions about inflation because to me, something that I have thought about, I've done podcasts about this since way before COVID, about runaway inflation and how this will impact people. And you know, for a long time people said, no, no, no, there's not going to be inflation. Now people are saying, yeah, well, so here's what I do. I ask people, do you think inflation's getting worse? And almost everyone that I talk with says, well, I I think it's actually probably gone as high as it's gonna go. And it may level out for a while, but it's gonna come down. And then I ask him another question, and I'll ask you this question. What is gas right now where you're located, how much does it cost?

Chris Bennett [00:23:44] Four plus, I don't know about today, Vance, but I'm gonna say four 10.

Vance Crowe [00:23:48] Four 10. And what is it normally?

Chris Bennett [00:23:51] Oh shoot man. A lot of bean A twos.

Vance Crowe [00:23:53] Yeah. And do you think six months from now gas will be higher or lower than it is right now?

Chris Bennett [00:24:00] Man, if you, if you force me to bet I'm six months, I'm gonna say higher.

Vance Crowe [00:24:05] Yeah. And how about a year?

Chris Bennett [00:24:10] I, I I do not know. I, I, again, if you force me to guess I'm gonna say higher.

Vance Crowe [00:24:16] Yeah. I like, that's the funny thing about this conversation about inflation, because most people say, I think gas is gonna keep going up. Well, gas is like the foundational thing. This is how we get supplies everywhere. So if you're worried about your food costs going up, well if the cost to transport that food goes up, even if you kept everything else the same, all the inputs and all that, now you're gonna be paying more. I, I think there's a lot of farmers that thought, man, we're really in the clear here because we've cleared all of our input costs. We bought our seeds already, we already pre-bought our herbicides and our fungicides, but they were not imagining what happens if you have to pay $6 a gallon for fuel? And how do you, how in the world do you get out of a, of an environment where it costs you twice as much to get across your fields as it used to?

Chris Bennett [00:25:03] Right? Vance and I, I, you know, the great unknown here is the great fear factor. No one has a clue. If, if I was to open the crystal ball and say, Vance Gas at this time next year is going to be seven bucks, man, it's going to be seven bucks. I don't think you would laugh. I don't think most people would laugh. I think they would raise their eyebrows and say, okay, I don't think that's going to happen. But yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I can believe that. So same thing with food prices. When you extrapolate out, we are, we are in uncharted waters. And there's obviously, right, even if you are as left wing as you could get on the planet, nobody has confidence in what's coming out of Washington DC You may be coasting, you may stick your head in the sand as an ostrich, but nobody actually speaks with confidence. So where she goes, nobody knows. And that's one of the crazy things right now about commodity prices in the ag market is when you, when you get right down to it, it's very difficult to make any kind of reasonable forecast because now you're playing with Russia, Ukraine, you can see Taiwan on the horizon. It it's absolute head scratcher. And we both know this, that this next year you're going to throw a couple of more wild cards in there that we simply don't know are coming. And then you extrapolate out and you realize, I'm standing on sand.

Chris Bennett [00:26:38] We are all standing on sand feel not even mention, do you feel

Vance Crowe [00:26:41] Bitcoin stuff? Do you people think we're standing on sand? Because I talk with people and they say things like, you know what, the government's just not gonna let the economy get outta control. And my perception is they don't have any control over it here, right? Like the, the, the Fed, you know, doing this thing they call a soft landing seems like insane talk to me. Like, like, like your cat being able to drive your car or something like that. It's just, it's not possible.

Chris Bennett [00:27:06] I agree fella and I, I, I'll give you a bottom line answer if you want to know what, to me, what the government really thinks. Go back to the new green deal. That first one, the very first one that was floated. And when you look in the details of the first one that was floated prior to the edit, the edits, that gives you a pretty dang good blueprint of what they would do if they could. And when you see that, it's an absolute head scratcher look, if you want to go down the road of electricity and so on as the great salvific force or wind energy and so on, more power to you. But you can't go down that road until that road is established. Can't just start hacking through the woods saying, Hey, this is going to work. The idea that we're sitting here with gas at this price, and we have the pipelines cut, for example. You can't, you can't make this up. If you'd have told me all this Vance just 10 years ago, four years ago, just a couple of years ago, I would not have believed you advance you. You're off, man. You're off.

Vance Crowe [00:28:23] Yeah. And the, the, when you think about inflation, this is one of those things that people think about it as like, oh, what is the amount of inflation? I had a guy on the podcast point this out where he said, there's no such thing as a single number for inflation. It's not 8% inflation, it's your gas prices has gone up. I mean, for us here in Missouri, it's up $2. So it's up maybe 45% from what it normally is. You know, that do we count that as inflation or is that just supply problems? And then you look at food prices and you look at how much is it costing to have the electricity on in your house? Like these, all of these prices creeping up at varying degrees. I think when people think about it being 8%, it's just some sort of like lunacy, just like a, an inability to do math or something.

Chris Bennett [00:29:11] That's the, you said it brother lunacy, right? There's an air of lunacy. It's like a, a lunacy blanket that covers everything right now. I, you, you, you feel surreal or at least a surreal environment. You see the headlines in the news every day and you just wonder what's next. I I, I can only speak as a, a, I don't know, average Joe American on the street, but the degree of lunacy, maybe it all relates back to the grievance ladder. I, I don't know, the degree of lunacy in this country has just gone exponential and I don't know, I don't know how we get it back on track. EE everybody seems like they want to be the exception. Everybody wants to be the exception. Everybody wants to be special when I guess everybody needs a, you know, a kick in the honey.

Vance Crowe [00:30:13] So let's change the subject and get outside of your normal wheelhouse and ask you, do you think Vladimir Putin is as insane as the media portrays him to be?

Chris Bennett [00:30:26] I don't vance, I, I I don't at all. I mean, he's a Russian dictator and always has been. You know, I I I look at his intrusion into the Ukraine and I makes sense to me. If you'd have told me, you know, 10 years ago, hey, like Putin's going to invade the Ukraine at some point. I, I can believe that he's simply following the lines of his predecessors. For the most part, it's Russia. You know, back in the nineties, in the early nineties when our, our ivory towers all proclaimed the end of history, everything is peace from here on out was a new rush. You know, there's a new dynamic all across the world. I mean, what a joke it was then. And now we see what a joke get remains to be. Russia has always swung out at its neighbors. I I believe that's the going to be permanent. If he not pounding on Ukraine, he's gonna pound on somewhere. And what do, how do we respond as, as the United States? My opinion, right? My opinion is to mine matters, try and take a diplomatic lead, but never send us troops over there. Never make threats, military threats against Putin or Russia, and force the Europeans to step up for the first time in their history. When you talk to people, just the average people on the street about NATO and so on, nobody, no one respects nato.

Chris Bennett [00:32:02] No one respects the eu. If you told me, Hey, there's a NATO general fixing to walk in the room, my mind would instantly go to, you know, paper Tiger Wilster and so on. I think that's the most way most people view it. I have sympathies, deep sympathies for what has happened in the Ukraine. I think the world has let them down. I think someone should have stepped in and tried to make a, create a diplomatic solution immediately because you, you knew what the Russians were capable of. And I, I, I think the media has portrayed the Ukrainians as, Hey, y'all can do this. Y'all can beat off the Russians. Man, I, I don't see it like that at all.

Vance Crowe [00:32:48] I think I take like a, a slightly different tack. You know, when the Ukraine was first invaded, I tried to get as a pretty hard to get somebody to come on and represent the Russian perspective, and they wouldn't. And then not very long after that, all of a sudden YouTube started saying, we're gonna kick Russia today off of YouTube so you can no longer hear what their propaganda is. Although we've got PBS and NPR here, which is, you know, state run media and, and then if you tried to get like a speech by Putin, you could never watch the whole thing translated. They would only give you clips of it. And the more that I watched this, the more that I felt like, I don't necessarily think he's a good guy, but I also think that the, the ability for me to discern what is going on there and why he's doing what he's doing and why the Russian people agree or disagree with what he's doing, that's all being shut off from the West. That's supposed to have the most open democracy, the most, you know, fluid conversations and you start. So, but I've spent quite a bit of time looking into different parts of the internet where I can get access to what the Russians are thinking. And the, this whole thing about Russia offering citizenship to the Ukrainians is because according to them, in that region of the world, there were political gangs. And if you didn't get along with the, the politics of the day, if you viewed yourself more as Russian, you were in danger.

Vance Crowe [00:34:20] Now, that may or may not be true, but the thing that strikes me is we're not allowed to have that conversation the same way. We weren't allowed to have the conversation about masks the same way about vaccines the same way that there's so many conversations. We're not allowed to have

Chris Bennett [00:34:35] That.

Vance Crowe [00:34:35] I am so deeply suspicious of what's going on with the US' involvement with Russia that I think anybody trying to push us into the fray, anybody trying to funnel money there, any should have to come and say, why don't you explain to me in detail what's going on in these border regions? Where are these cities located? How does this actually work? Because right now we we're making decisions with a map that you might draw on a cake for a kid or something like that. It's, it's like way, way too abstract and not real.

Chris Bennett [00:35:07] You hit advance. I mean, shoot, we're talking Ukraine, what one of the most corrupt countries on the planet, and it always has been, you're gonna send 40 billion of our, essentially 40 billion of our tax dollars. I mean, we'll lower, borrow the money from China, send it to Ukraine. The, you and I both know the money is going to end up in a spaghetti on the wall going all kind of places.

Vance Crowe [00:35:38] Yeah. All this, I mean, like the US extremely

Chris Bennett [00:35:40] Distressing,

Vance Crowe [00:35:41] You know, the, this relates with agriculture. You know, people talk about like, oh, they're not gonna be able to produce the wheat that's gonna have all these impacts on, on, you know, whether or not the people in the Middle East or Africa can eat. That's all true. But there's another big part of the Ukraine that we aren't talking about, and that is that Ukraine and Turkey are the biggest organic launderers in the world. Meaning you can send non-organic food to these places, and then what comes out of their ports magically is now organic and can be sold all over the world. These are people that are playing in these international games. They're doing things with their ports. I'm not saying anyone deserves to be shot at or had civilians killed, or refugees or anything. Just that there's so much confidence. As I drive up and down the roads and I see Ukrainian flags and I see these, it, it makes me so uncomfortable that people are willing to say they support something that they genuinely don't understand.

Chris Bennett [00:36:38] Right? Man, I mean, I, you know, you say those flags Vance, every time I get on the internet, I see the yellow and the blue, the Ukraine flag attached to people's faces. And I'm thinking, y'all don't even, y'all can't even find Ukraine on the map. Neither can I, but are, you've got a flag there. And you don't know anything more than Russia bad Ukraine good. And these same people, they never speak up against the CCPI, I don't hear 'em speaking about the abuses in Saudi Arabia. I I don't see 'em mentioning what's happening been happening in the last 40 years in the Congo. No, they just hop on the old Ukraine deal and let's shovel 'em money. Well, I, I'll I'd ask them, I'd reasonably ask them, 40 billion. Why not a hundred billion? If you genuinely believe they need 40 billion, let's send them more. Why stop at 40? And on we go from there. And as absurd as that question is, I have no doubt, oh, cocaine, Mitch, Mitch McConnell probably will float another 40 billion in a few months. You never know. Anyway, it just shows the absurdity of what's going on in this globe. It sounds nice to give money to people in need, but my lord, there are people flooding across the southern border right now. You got Russia going across the Ukraine border. Everybody flips out. You got millions going, coming across our southern border.

Chris Bennett [00:38:12] That doesn't exist at the moment. The, the, the people in government don't seem to mind. So talk about absurd. The whole thing becomes just laughable cry. Well, how's that?

Vance Crowe [00:38:25] Yeah, I mean, the closest that I can come up with of a, like a reasonable explanation for what's going on is right now in the US you almost cannot force any more money into the system outside of actually just dropping it into people's bank accounts the way that they did during COVID. I mean, you can't push any more liquidity into the banks. You know, you, there's, there's no way to push more money in. So to me, I, I think the government, in order to keep the economy roaring at this hot rate, they have to do two things. They have to one, make everybody afraid that it's gonna be more expensive to borrow tomorrow. So you better borrow today. Which is why that threat and that drumbeat about interest rates going up, that's, people are talking about that all the time. Oh, interest rates, maybe they'll go more, maybe they'll go a half a point, maybe they'll even go one full point. So I gotta make my purchases today because tomorrow it's gonna be more expensive. And then at the same time, you've gotta keep injecting money into that system so that people keep buying. And to me that 40 billion into the Ukraine was just a very easy way to just keep money flowing into the system. But to me, this is like the, the mistakes you make towards the end of the game. Not the one, not the ones you make at the beginning,

Chris Bennett [00:39:38] Lance. It's all become monopoly money. And you know, I, I can tell you straight up, for example, here in Mississippi, and I know in several surrounding states as well, you end up sending the same senators up to DC over and over and over, you know, people that are in the system, people that are in their sixties and seventies should have retired. They should have been on term limits. And we continue to send them up and their behavior remains the same. They bring the poor home to individual states. In other words, they bring the poor home to Mississippi or Arkansas. And meanwhile the country floats the opposite way, right? We fund our states through DC while the country goes to hell in a hand basket, and our deficit reaches, you know, levels, hbar barrel levels that you, you can make up from cartoons. So it's a, it's a, it's abysmal. It's something that the responsibility should be on you, it should be on me, it should be on our fellow citizens to start with our local politicians, our reps, our senators, put the pressure on them, call 'em right? Lay into 'em when you see a vote, Hey, Vince, I tell,

Vance Crowe [00:40:58] Do you call people and lay into 'em?

Chris Bennett [00:41:00] I call senators reps that are not even in my state and lambast them when they do things that are wrong. And I, I say this, I also make an effort to call when they do things that are right. But yes, I have no doubt that I'm probably on fire with several senators and reps as a coke. That's, that's fine, that's fine. Because if we would all do that, I, I, I think we could take care of a little bit of this and that. It's not hyperbole. All of this is going somewhere, right? The wheels grind, the sparks fly. We are heading somewhere as a country. There's nothing theoretical about it. If, if you feel untouched by what's going on and you're in your little corner of United States, your little corner of the world and you think, Hey, I don't wanna be involved, I'm just gonna continue as is, that's a terrible apathetic attitude to take because your kids and grandkids are going to be in the crosshairs. I've said it before, man, para got it right. You know, 2000 years ago when he said, you know, we don't respect the man who minds his own business and, and doesn't want to be involved in politics. You have a duty to be involved to some degree in politics, to keep the country from going where it will.

Vance Crowe [00:42:30] So what are you excited about in the future? What do you look out and see that's worthy of optimism?

Chris Bennett [00:42:38] I have tremendous hope. I don't believe for a second that this country is lost. I have tremendous hope in our forefathers, the Constitution and how it leads directly up to my own children. I know, I know that if my children will do the very basics, the fundamentals, they'll work their tails off and they'll simply act right. That there is tremendous opportunity in the job market, in living conditions in all these wonderful states. Where we're at. I I I, I continue to believe that Vance, I, I think John Adams got it right, I don't know what year it was. 17 78, 17 80, you know, he said, our constitution is created for a holy, moral and religious people. When you take those elements out and you hand someone the freedoms that were created by our forefathers or they weren't created by our forefathers, but they were enumerated and we believe they're created by God. But when you take those freedoms and you hand it to an amoral society, you are headed for just absolute shambolic state. You know, whether it's a school shooter that just happened, right?

Chris Bennett [00:44:09] Come on there. There weren't these school shootings years ago. Not like this. So what has changed?

Vance Crowe [00:44:17] What do you think has changed?

Chris Bennett [00:44:18] I think the culture has changed. Everything flows downstream from culture. I think the permissive state that we live in, I think the shedding of personal responsibility. I think it's y'all coming to a head, there is no such thing as a, a moral vacuum. In other words, if you remove something or remove the fundamental pillar pillars that we stand on, or you simply go into disbelief, there's no vacuum. Something is coming in. So we have these, this generation of young people that they're, they're, it's, it's a, it's a lost generation. You know, I, I, I don't know Vance, I look at the generation that comes out of the World War, post World War I era when society was flipped on its head and you had that massive loss of life, massive loss of faith. Maybe there's a parallel now with what we see with the young people today. But,

Vance Crowe [00:45:21] You know, it's interesting. So I got that question about what are you excited about? 'cause my executive producer, Ben Anderson, he was in college and then he dropped out. He was like, he looked at the equation. He said, the amount of money this is gonna cost me to get all the way through, I could do this some other way. He was making money in another way. And so he's dropped out. But he does the reading of somebody that is in college. He's reading scientific papers. He's like constantly making contact with people that are doing research. And so he is kind of living in two worlds where he is the education of a college kid, but he didn't go to school with them. But when he hangs out with kids that are his age, one of the questions he asks them and then he brings it back and he tells me all about it. And we have a good discussion is what are you excited about? What are you optimistic about? And he says, all of them, everyone that he's asked this question to, and I wouldn't put it past him to have done 50 of these questions, is they're not excited about anything. Right? They don't see a potential for themselves. You know, he said one person got really excited, he was like, oh, I think there might be more unionization in the future. Right? Like that, that was like the big hope for the future. And you think about that and you think, like, I think that the way that that different generations in the past have been able to be successful was that, and this is a dark way to look at it, but World War I, when they came back, there were so many people dead. There were so many new technologies that had been created. So many people had died from disease that you could start to rebuild and have a new way of, of doing it.

Vance Crowe [00:46:51] Same thing after World War ii, right? You get to rebuild after these things. And maybe one of the very high costs of peace and prosperity is that the growth becomes so thick underneath that the new branches, the new trees, the new things can't come in. And certainly those people that are the the old growth doesn't want to give up what they have. And so I wonder if nothing changes until a fire happens.

Chris Bennett [00:47:20] Yeah. You're, you, you are own advance. We are a, we are now a a fat people, right? I don't mean that in a literal sense, but we are a fat people. We, we need to get lean, you know, with our kids. There's a a a a reason that you raise your child with a, a a, a sweetness and yet a fear nature as well. Respect that's gone. In what way did

Vance Crowe [00:47:57] You do that with your kids? How, how were you both sweet but also prepared them for nature's reality?

Chris Bennett [00:48:04] Old school, I, I I I, I whipped her rear ends and I think they needed it. I, I believe I needed it when I was a kid. And you go from there. My kids, for example, Vance, they could say a lot of things. I'm gonna roll with it. The one thing we're gonna draw lines, you're, you're not going to disrespect your mother, for example. You, you talk to me in a certain way and we'll go at it. You're not gonna disrespect mama. You're not gonna disrespect other adults. And you start from there, then you take the grades, right? I, I don't care what you make, but you're gonna give me, I'm gonna demand a hundred percent. If, if my son or my daughter gives me a hundred percent and comes out with a 70 a 60, I'll be the proudest daddy on the planet. That's fine. 'cause you give me your best. But if, if you make a nine advance and you should have made a 97, I'm gonna be on you like a bulldog. 'cause you're crafting, shaping the child. I, I think it's the basics. I think anybody listening to this knows what I'm talking about. Just raise them with, with, with the simple basics. And when you find your child has lied at school and you find your child has done wrong, right? Come down on 'em. Make sure they don't make sure that the fear they have is not what takes place at school.

Chris Bennett [00:49:36] Maybe they get paddled, it's when they come home, they're going to get it much worse because you've only got him in the house for a tiny amount of time and then they're gone. The discipline's over with. So, man, I don't know anything Vance except I was put on this planet to raise a little girl, a little boy. Those are the things I could tell you for sure. Everything else is big question marks for me. Those two things. I know for a fact,

Vance Crowe [00:50:05] I, I feel that I, I mean, and, and just like once you've gotten that responsibility handed to you, the fact that that flower only blooms for a little while as a child, it'll grow into something else, hopefully if you make it all the way through. But man, it's the, they are, you know, they can only, they only have so much time where they can't walk and then all of a sudden they can walk, but they can't talk. And then all of a sudden they get one word and then two words and things start accelerating from there. And it's just a flower that only blooms the one time. And so you've gotta do it right? 'cause you're sending them out into a wild world.

Chris Bennett [00:50:37] Wild world. When, when they come home with problems with, from a teacher or they come home with problems with somebody in society, say, Hey kid, you're on your own. Unless it's a gross violation, but you're on your own. And the reason you're on your own is because you are going to be dealing with that for the rest of your life. Welcome to life. So you can't coddle, right? You can't just allow them excuses. Just say, Hey, no tears. 'cause you gotta deal with it. And believe me, Vance, if there's anybody on this world, in this world that has made mistakes, as a parent, it's me. But however, I hope we're all like this. As you, you, you take the mistake and you move on. You don't repeat it. But yeah. Yeah. I'm whew,

Vance Crowe [00:51:25] What you been reading lately?

Chris Bennett [00:51:28] I'm reading right this second fantastic book on the post assassination of Lincoln and the, what is it, 10, 11 days that booth was on the road. In other words, when Booth leaves the theater from the time he leaves up to his death, it's, it's a book covering that flight and the cast of characters that was around him. Shame on me. I can't remember the name of the book. Can't even remember the author's name. But it reads like, fiction gets your blood going, and it's a story that's, it's often overlooked. All the machinations, all the cast of people that were on stage figuratively with Booth. Absolute incredible story, man. Incredible.

Vance Crowe [00:52:14] I mean, I didn't even know that he went on the run for 11 days. This is news to me,

Chris Bennett [00:52:19] Vance. Yeah. It's, it's one of the wildest tales. He managed to get across the bridge and out of DC before the word broke. So, in other words, right when he shot Lincoln with that, I can't remember the exact caliber of that pistol, but when that, when he put that ball into Lincoln's head in the back of his head and jumped down to stage, of course he had a horse waiting there for him. He took the horse, right? It was all pre-planned. He bolted outta DC and he got out, 'cause we're talking right at the, you know, the war was over, but you had soldiers all around DC So he manages to get through the picket, so to speak, and he's on the road. So it's 1865 and there's no way to track a person. So he's traveling in front of the news. Of course his leg was shattered, right? And so it held him back, but he's trying to stay in front. I don't know if he was planning on heading down to Mexico, if he was heading planning on taking refuge in the deep South, but they could not catch the guy. And you talk about ing, they should just do a movie just, just on, you got a real booth, was a, a very, very, very, very well known actor in the United States, right? He was

Vance Crowe [00:53:32] Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, right. I always thought he was just some kinda ramshackle guy.

Chris Bennett [00:53:36] Yeah, it w it w it would be like in a way, you know, just imagine if, if Brad Pitt goes and assassinates Trump or, or Biden something like that and then takes off. So yeah, booth was extremely intelligent individual, you know, there were more people in DC than him and his cadre tried to assassinate that night. So they went after Secretary of State Seward, and I can't remember if they went after Andrew Johnson. There was two or three of 'em they tried to kill that night. They were only able to kill Lincoln. Seward, they put a knife to, and he should have died. But he didn't. It, it was, it was major league, major league.

Vance Crowe [00:54:14] You're always finding really powerful books. And I, you know, you sent me a couple books on shipping, which I thought was just amazing. And really there was 16 hundreds, and I don't know if we've talked about this on the podcast before or not, but what I've been struck by was the Dutch West Indie, like East India company, the trading company was largely a religious cabal. And that they were using their, they're, they're Presbyterian, they're, they're, I don't, not enough Presbyterian, but their, their religious Protestant religion. To be able to control sailors, to be able to control shipping rates, to be able to control how things went around the country. And I think, man, once you control the shipping lines, you become extremely powerful. And you mix that with the power to, you know, control salvation for people is almost unlimited power.

Chris Bennett [00:55:06] They were god's on the ship. Vance, once you realize the power, not just that entire system that you described, but the actual statutes by which they control what goes on on those ships, life and death power, it gets really chilling to imagine yourself on one of those, you know, cross the world trips back, back in the day. I, I do like, I do love. Yeah. I love more like wild stories. And I, I've got one I stumbled over Vance that I've finished writing. Lord willing, it'll come out next month or the month after. It's on a guy who back in the 1950s, he's still alive. Back in the 1950s when he was a teenager, came up with a scheme by which he was going to harvest. And when I say harvest, that's what I mean. He was going to harvest snake venom, right? Venom was going for a high dollar amount. And he determined that he would get enough venom to make himself rich, at least in the temporary. And so he went out 15, 14 years old, can't remember the exact age he was. And he began to harvest milk, right? He would catch and milk cotton mouths in slews and then sneak home. He did it all unbeknownst to his parents. And by the end of his summer of collection, he had an entire jar. He had a mason jar filled with dried venom, think in the terms of rock candy because he would bring the venom home and pour it out on a flat piece of glass.

Chris Bennett [00:56:47] And once he had it poured out, he would take on a somewhat yellow sheen. When it hardened, I think it took like seven days to harden. Then he'd take a razor blade and he would scrape that residue into his mason jar. So he thought it was pure, right? He believed it was pure, it was not. But he didn't know that as a kid. By the end of the summer, he had this whole jar field. We're talking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cotton mouse that he caught alone by hand. And, and you know, these cotton mouths were not, let's say juveniles a foot long. These were

Vance Crowe [00:57:22] All cottons are aggressive.

Chris Bennett [00:57:23] Yeah, they,

Vance Crowe [00:57:23] They're, they're, this is not like ordinary snakes. These are the ones that are like, oh, are you in my area now I'm gonna chase you.

Chris Bennett [00:57:30] Right. A, a cotton mouth vs. Will hold its ground. It, it doesn't have the fear that a lot of other snakes do. It'll co up hold its ground, pop that mouth open. There's actually a really scary noise that they make when, when they coal and they snap that head back and flick that mouth open. You can see that white a lot of the time. They'll pop, they'll pop that mouth at you and you can hear it, it's very audible. So he managed with a noose and a little a hook. He took off a clothes line to catch these three and four and five footers, milk 'em, get back home. Anyway, absolutely fascinating. True story. I, I think that ought to make a movie about him someday. Anyway, just to, well, what

Vance Crowe [00:58:15] Happened with, with the purity, I mean, you're killing me, dude. We just gotta wait until the story comes out.

Chris Bennett [00:58:21] No, I don't, I don't mind telling you because it's so ludicrous. He called the, I forget the name of the place in Florida. He said, Hey, I've got minimum I wanna sell y'all. It's pure. You're gonna want this. I caught the snakes myself, all, they gave him a spiel. And the guy, the guy, the scientist on the other end of the line, he was actually speaking to someone in the lab, said, you know, son, are you sure you've got pure venom? He said, yes, sir, yes sir, I've got it right here. Well, the guy explained to him that if you want to have pure venom, it has to run through all sorts of machinery, all sorts of purification devices, and be overseen by people as it happens. So, in other words, he put his life on the line for an entire summer and he came up with an er, not a, in fact, I, I think I've messed up the story Vance. 'cause I don't believe I ever asked him what happened to the mason jar filled with venom. Maybe I should go

Vance Crowe [00:59:19] Back and

Chris Bennett [00:59:20] Do that. And I'll tell you something, it was really scary because he had a buddy that introduced him to doing that and showed him how. And his buddy actually got snake bit in a sense, because when they dried the venom out and they took the razor blade to run across that flat piece of glass, which again, just could kind of envision as rock candy, one of the slivers from that residue poked into the end of his thumb, right? And as soon as it got in his thumb, it melted. And of course, he was essentially snake bit and had to go to the hospital to get treated for cotton mouth bite and all that. And I couldn't help but laugh because it was too, it was too ludicrous not to at least have a few chuckles.

Vance Crowe [01:00:05] So, man, I was so enthralled with that. I didn't even have a question loaded up for you. I know I've been pushing you to read this book called The Mandibles, and I like, it's, it's all about a, a really wealthy family that it's fiction. And it was written by the woman that wrote the book, we Need to Talk About Kevin, which is a story about a deranged kid and what role his mother had when, when, in making him deranged, she didn't really want him, she kinda wanted to have this Yolo life, and he could kind of pick up on that. That's what that story's about. Well, Lionel Shriver is the name of the author, and she wrote this book called The Mandibles. And, and in it, this wealthy family is going through the experience of inflation and going through the stages of like, oh, it's temporary. Oh, this'll go away. Oh, this is getting bad, but let's make these decisions. And you see how people delude themselves. And she wrote this in 2016, and it is shocking just how right she's gotten it so far that I, I we read it for the book club, for the, for the Articulate Ventures network. And I, I would say everybody in the that read it at least had the experience of being like, yeah, okay, that's a little bit more real for me now. That's, it is probably why I'm so hyped up right now about inflation. Well, that, and I'm reading a book called The, the Death of Money, which we could talk about

Chris Bennett [01:01:27] Vance, that book, the Mandibles still sits on my bedside table. And I started it. My problem is you're dealing with a low intellect person that cannot ingest fiction too well. I, I, I have IQ issues and every time nonfiction comes along, I just leap onto that nonfiction. But let me ask you something about the mandibles. Do you think they're gonna turn that, particularly in this age we're living in right now? Is that gonna be a movie?

Vance Crowe [01:01:57] Well, it's funny you would ask that because I listened to the book originally and I was like, this is so precise and so, so incisive. So just like poking of certain, like academic classes and, and some people that are kind of untouchable right now that I bought the hardcover book and had it mailed to my house because I was like, I think there's a reasonable chance this book will get banned if not banned, pushed out, because this, this is talking about a reality that most people don't want to face. And I think there's entirely possible that it could become a, a book that is not welcome in this country.

Chris Bennett [01:02:35] Wow. Wow. Do you have not? That's before I forget, you know, off on, on, on crazy stories, and stop me if I've already told you this. I may have mentioned it just in conversation. Sometimes I go after these tails and you latch on, you get lucky, you just happened to knock on someone's door at the right time. Last year was a year before I came across a story. I, I found it in a, I was looking over some court documents and I found a bizarre tale. And there was a farmer, I think up in the northern state, I'll put it that way. And he was roll, I think he was spraying, he was spraying corn, something like that. Blue sky tracks and tracks of flat ground. He could see well into the distance. And he saw against the blue skyline, he could see what appeared to be some kind of white disturbance. And he took it for a broken irrigation line that might be spitting up spray. And I called the gentleman, I got hol to him, and I asked him, could you please tell me the story on record for, for print? And he didn't want to, but here's what happened. And, and, and your listeners may be absolutely fascinated by this. He moved the half a mile, a quarter mile across that field on his spraying vehicle toward what he thought was the spray of irrigation line.

Chris Bennett [01:04:14] And when he got up on it, when he got closer, he could see that it was smoke, it was smoke billowing, and it wasn't coming from the field. It was green corn in the field. It was billowing from a ditch. It was a ditch of high grass. And he gets down off the vehicle, makes his way to that ditch. And you can just imagine him sticking his hands in parting the grass. And he parts the grass, he gets right down to the smoke source. And when he makes his final push into those strands of grass, he sees when a brief instant, what he assumes is the flesh of a pig long white. And he recoils back, it's on fire. And he realizes that's not the flesh of a pig, that's a human being. Oh. And what he was, what he was looking at was a woman's body. She was a hundred percent naked. She's in the ditch in the grass. She's on fire, she's very much dead. He goes back to his sprayer, immediately goes back to his sprayer dials for the sheriff, says, Hey, here's what I'm looking at. Here's what I found. The only need to get over here as quick as you can. While he's talking to the sheriff, a pickup truck comes off of the gravel road onto the turn road and pulls up beside him. It's one of his workers. The worker gets out and says, Hey man, what are you doing? And where's that smoke coming from?

Chris Bennett [01:05:45] And he starts to move toward that smoke. And the farmer says, look, don't go over there. Don't get near it. Not even gonna tell you what it is. What you're gonna mess things up. You need to get in your vehicle, Sheriff's on his way, you need to get on, get, get, get to stepping. And he says, oh, you know what, what, what, what's wrong? He attempts to talk to the farmer. The farmer's actually standing on the spray vehicle. He gets in his truck, the worker does, and he drives away. And as he drives away, the sheriff and them pull up two or three vehicles. The guy in the pickup truck actually forces the sheriff. He's going slow, not going fast over to the side of the gravel road. And he leaves. Anyhow, they investigate, they figure out what's going on. The woman was beaten to death a mile away in her trailer, beaten to death, blood all over the place. And the guy who killed her was the guy who pulled up in the pickup truck, right? So I said to the farmer, I said, could I please tell this tale? People are going to want to know. And he told me he was nice, but he said, no, sir, no way. And the reason you can't tell this tale is 'cause nobody's gonna wanna know it. And and if you disagree with me, tell me why they would wanna know. I said, I said, man, I assure you, I said, farmers get everything under the sun dumped on their farmland. Maybe it's a vehicle, maybe it's a deer guts.

Chris Bennett [01:07:19] Maybe it's just a truckload of trash. Maybe it's a naked crack head. Maybe it could be any of those kind of things he said, but if you tell them there was a woman's burning body in a ditch on your, just off your corn, everybody and their mother is going to want to read this. I said, and here's the big, and I said, it's my opinion, after listening to you and reading the court documents, that guy who pulled up in that truck was fixing to kill you. And he said, I, you know, I don't, I said that, that's, that's, that's what I believe. So I'm waiting, Vance, I'm hoping that the gentleman might, might change his mind, but you get fortune on some stories and some slip, man, they slip right through your hands. And you can tell from me telling that, Lord, that story tells itself.

Vance Crowe [01:08:10] It's interesting that you, that you have a sense of asking him whether or not he wants the story told. I I don't get the sense that most journalists care whether or not the, the teller of the story wants it told.

Chris Bennett [01:08:25] Yeah. You, you know, Vance, you can't, you can't, you can't mess in your own nest, right? You, you are nothing except your reputation. You, for example, before I knew you, I knew of your reputation. And one of the reasons I looked forward, so to speaking with you was your reputation. I, I believe that's the same for me. I believe it's the same for everybody. You are nothing at the end of the day except your reputation. If you take the effort, make the effort to do the small things, simply keep your word, you'll go a long way. And for any young person out there who says, you know, just, just keep my word will different, differentiate me from my colleagues regardless of what industry or field I work in. I, I tell them. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because the sad thing is that so few people do that. If you just keep your word, that'll go a long way by self.

Vance Crowe [01:09:31] Yeah. You know, I was, I actually got to sit in on a retreat. I was running a retreat for one of my clients that wanted to help their sales team just bond and get better at it. And they brought in a, a guy that was a client that did deals with this business, and he said something that I think is really forgotten. He's like, if I have a client and they're paying me and we're working on a project, I contact them at least once a week. And I contact everybody that is working on that deal or around this, every single one of them. And he is like, now that contact maybe as small as a one sentence email, but he's like those one sentence emails saying, Hey, how's everything working? You know, just checking in. He's like, it makes everybody feel so much better. And, and I gotta tell you, like, it's funny, I'm 40 years old. I feel like I've done fairly well professionally, but that's something that I needed to have spoken into my ear because sometimes I'm like, ah, they probably, I don't have any news to report. They're probably gonna be annoyed that I'm checking in. And I don't really have anything to say. Well, I I just started doing it since I heard this guy give this speech. And you, it's just like, things start blossoming. And I, so I think that some of the smallest seemingly insignificant tasks that people know they need to do, hold onto your word check in with people, makes such a big difference. And you just gotta, you just gotta communicate that to young people because it's not natural. Even for somebody like, like me,

Chris Bennett [01:10:56] You know, Vance, it's such a big amen for me to what you said, think of the effort that it takes. Think of the effort that it takes simply to text someone, Hey, hope you're doing well. Hope your family's all right. Just wanted to say, hey. Something like that. I, I, I can tell you right now, I enjoy getting those texts from somebody. And I can assure you the people that you work with, again, whatever industry you're in, they're gonna feel the same way. That is some really, really low hanging fruit. And it, it costs almost nothing.

Vance Crowe [01:11:32] Well, yeah, and you're a writer. You probably experienced this too. Like, I had a, a lovely woman named Molly write me, and she said, Hey, you, you've talking about educating your daughter and some of the school options around here, I have a daughter, same age. I'd love to get together and talk, man. I normally clients pay me to go sit down and have meetings with him. But if somebody calls and says, I noticed your work. I heard what you were doing. I'm interested in it and I want to talk like I'm the first one to wanna sit down and do that. And we had a fantastic conversation and now we'll be friends. Like, I'm sure we will stay in contact. Our families will get together. I want her to meet my family. And but you think like all it took was somebody having the gusto to write somebody that they didn't know that they hear on the podcast or that they see doing writing and how much of your life can change. And it really is just like, just having the gusto to do it

Chris Bennett [01:12:24] Right. Lance, you know, I, I don't have much in this world, but, but when I go see a farmer or I interview a farmer, man, I don't wanna just be a taker. Hey, can you tell me this? Can you allow me on your land? Can I take a picture of you? That's so the easiest thing in life is to be a taker. So now, you know, I'm making an effort. I, the one thing I have tons of around me is petrified wood. And so I keep a ton of petrified wood with me. And if a guy wants some, right? 'cause it's very difficult to get for some people. And I take 'em pieces, big, small, what have you, as much as they want. It's just, it's a simple token of appreciation. If someone listen to, they may say, well, that's nothing. But again, it's so easy to be a taker. Take somebody some donuts, take 'em, take 'em some petrified wood, treat 'em like you wanna be treated. I I've said it a thousand times, Vance, I, I know I've said it to you before, but if you wanna judge someone's character, find out right? Not how they treat their, their, their, their family. Don't take how they treat their coworkers. Don't, don't, don't judge 'em by how they treat people that influence them or anything of that sort. Find out how they treat people who mean nothing to them. In other words, if I could secretly watch someone how they interact with the guy cleaning the commode at Taco Bell, that tells me what sort of person they probably are.

Chris Bennett [01:14:05] I can watch 'em how they interact with the greeter at Walmart. That tells me something about their character. Because if you tell me, Hey, I I treat my wife really good. I treat my, my, my daughter or my son really good. That, that means nothing to me. You should, that's a given. I, I don't give you credit because you treat your friends or your coworkers or your boss. Well, I understand the motivation, but if I see you treat people who mean nothing to you, well that tells me something like

Vance Crowe [01:14:37] That. You know, I have a perfect example of that. There's a guy in the ag world, a lot of people know who he is, A guy named Kevin Fulta. So he does a bunch of work where he teaches about GMOs and how to have conflict conversations. And he has gotten himself in all sorts of hot water problems with his university, not liking what he's doing, conflict with other activists, like, and so I think people oftentimes have this kind of impression of him, of the chaos around him. But I have on a couple of occasions, encountered somebody that needed help. You know, a a a guy with a disability that really wants to do podcasting. I helped him as much as I could, and you hand him over to somebody like I, I actually contacted quite a few people and most of them just ignored it. They just didn't get back to me about this. But Kevin jumped in, helps him, tries to figure this out, makes phone calls on his behalf. And you think like, man, no matter what is going on in Kevin's world, every time I've ever asked him to help people that can, these people have no ability to help him whatsoever. He's the kind of guy that does it. And so for me, it just makes me say, you know, for all the quirkiness of Kevin, I absolutely love that guy because he treats people as well as he can in every situation.

Chris Bennett [01:15:52] Big ten four, I, that's funny you bring that name up. I think it may have been last year or the year before. Kevin Fota does not have a clue who I am. I got his email blind, I emailed him regarding a specialist of some sort that I was trying to contact. He answered back, I I'd say within an hour or two via email, he helped me with cheer and I was able to get the person that I was trying to get ahold of. So that matches up precisely with the way you just described him.

Vance Crowe [01:16:22] Yeah. And I mean, the number of people that I reached out to that to try and get his help, like I don't hold anything against him. People got busy lives, whatever. But you just see like, there, there's something to that, right? I really do think that concept of who do you help that can't help you is, is a very good mark of, of really who somebody really is.

Chris Bennett [01:16:42] Absolutely. Absolutely. I tell you what, Vance, we are all, in my opinion, we all belong at the bottom of the totem pole. And you know, when you get right down to it. So I, I always remember that I'm satisfied with the bottom of the totem pole. 'cause I don't, I don't need to be any higher. Got enough problems in life, you know, I always think I'm somebody. If you let your ego go, you'll go. So I belong in the ditch, I belong at the bottom. And the older you get, at least to me, I'm 50 years old. The older I get, the less judgmental I get toward others. However, it's a flip there. The closer I stick to the fundamental truths, right? And yet I judge others less. So it's not as if I'm saying, Hey, I judge less, you know, live and let live. No, I cling tighter to the, to, to the moral truths of the Bible of our constitution. And yet I have far more mercy towards someone than my arrogant self would've ever had at age, age 30. Maybe that's a poor reflection on me, but it's honest reflection.

Vance Crowe [01:18:05] Do you go to church?

Chris Bennett [01:18:07] Yes, sir.

Vance Crowe [01:18:08] Tell me about the experience of making time to go to church week in and week out.

Chris Bennett [01:18:16] You know, Vance, my, my daddy raised me to have no golden calves. He put the name of Jesus up there and that was the only one you never demanded. I, or asked, Hey, you need to go to this church, you need to do this, you need to do that. So in my thirties, I had two little kids. And if the doors opened at church, we were there Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night doors open. And the other time we were there, I put church attendance as an idol. I patted myself on the back because we went to church so much. And the older I got, the more I realized, hey, you are an arrogant son of a gun. You actually think you're something for all the wrong reasons. You know, you look at a Pharisee Sadducees and that was me. And so now I think I've taken a far more reasonable approach, which is you can only do so much, you know? And your priority is your kids and your wife. I, I I, I would've stomped my foot and said, Hey, you know, we're we got to go to church at this time, this day. Not, not anymore. I'm not giving advice to anybody out there. I'm just saying that's, that's what happened in my life.

Vance Crowe [01:19:50] Was there a, was there a moment that you encountered that made you, you have this kind of realization?

Chris Bennett [01:19:57] Yes, yes. Absolutely. Vance, oh, well, I, I might say there was multiple moments, but dealing with different strife in my life made me realize that I was far weaker and I needed mercy from those around me. And I wish I'd have come to those kind of thoughts when I was in my twenties. But I did, I always matured late. And I suppose I just never reached that stage until I was 40 years old. I, I, I, I guess, you know, you, you, you, we all have our ego issues and you, you, you, the older you get to recognize my shortcomings. And so the older I got, I could see the shortcomings stacking up. You can either deny them or you can deal with 'em. And so I, I dealt with 'em in my forties and I, I i, I stumble every day now, but at least I'm able to put those things out there and, and deal with 'em.

Vance Crowe [01:21:09] I really resonate with what you're saying. Like I definitely had the experience in my twenties of being like, I know the right way. I know the path, I know what's good. And it wasn't until exactly, you get into your thirties and you hit some moment when you're like, and it's actually for me, I can think of multiple moments where you're like, I actually am gonna have to go and ask for forgiveness from, from this person and from that person. And like you do start to wake up one to, to judging other people way less harshly. 'cause it's so easy to be like, well I am, I'm good at this and I don't have problems. And so therefore they shouldn't either, and I'm gonna judge them really harshly. And then you have a couple of those circumstances where you're like, wow. And I liken it to, you know, when you, if you're caring for somebody, they get sick and you're a little bit like rolling your eyes like, yeah, I guess I'll go get you that food, or I guess I'll go get you that medicine. But then you get sick and you feel either what it's like to have somebody care for you and you think, Hey, I wanna deliver that to somebody else. Or you have the even more painful experience of not having anybody to care for you and being like, wait a second, what's going on in my world that when I got sick, nobody was here for me. That's probably not them. It probably says something about me. And I think that that happens in, in all of our lives. It's just really, I, I wish I, I am exactly like you. If if I would've learned that earlier in my life, my life probably would've been a lot easier.

Chris Bennett [01:22:35] I, yeah, I mean, I'm just blessed with my wife. She just, she knows I'm insane and has put up with me all these years. So for all of you who ain't married out there for y'all, who looking for a wife, find one that can tolerate insanity and everything can be fine.

Vance Crowe [01:22:54] What's your particular brand of, of insanity as a husband and a father?

Chris Bennett [01:22:59] Man, I'm a square peg and a round hole. Or is it a round peg and a square hole? What have you, you and never been a fit anywhere. Vance never quite been a fit. Any, any place. My interests are too diverse for reason. And, you know, I wanna listen to Bach as soon as Duck Dynasty ends, you know, I, I I wanna, I want to eat, you know, I want to eat. I I wanna go outside and pee off the porch and then come inside and, you know, eat a fine dinner. That's, that's, that's not a good thing. And it's a good thing at the same time. So I'm, I'm probably a little bit more honest than most people, but that's probably just age. I, you know, there's not a question vance anymore that I won't answer again with tolerance for others. But I, I don't throw my opinion on, I mean, I don't just go around telling people the way it is, but if you come to me and ask, what's your opinion on this particular topic? I'll be glad to give you a fastball. But there's a difference in throwing the ball at someone and throwing it after they ask you to. That's the difference, right?

Chris Bennett [01:24:30] So whether it's about you name the topic, if it's homosexuality or race or whatever it is, I'm not gonna go around and beat people over the head. I mind my business, right? Just don't blame me if you ask. Lemme put it that way.

Vance Crowe [01:24:51] Yeah, I, I learned from a good mentor of mine like that there is advice that people want that they couldn't ask for, but you really have to have a deep relationship with a person before you can give them advice that they didn't ask for. And the example I give is that he called me up one day after we'd been hanging out drinking martinis the night before. And this guy's, like, at the time he was 90 years old, now he's a hundred. He, he calls me up and he says, Vance, I've been looking over my notes from last night. And I'm like, man, it was like 12 hours ago we were together. And he goes, yeah, yeah, okay, well first thing, you can't show up to my apartment dressed the way that you were, do you, do you even own a suit? And I was like, no. He is like, all right, well bring your checkbook and we're gonna go buy a suit. So I was like, all right, now I'm getting to, he wasn't gonna buy one for me, he's gonna tell me to buy it. And then, and then he asked me some question about like, I had mentioned something about the UN and he wanted me to send him my sources. So he was actually paying attention to what I talked to about, and then the third thing, and it was like, oh man, this one hurt. He goes, Vance, have you this, the third thing is Vance have, have you been putting on weight? And I was like, maybe, maybe a little bit. And he goes, yeah, we gotta get that under control. It doesn't really matter what diet you choose, you just need to choose one. So I'm gonna send you a book and I want you to read it and either choose that diet or choose a different one, but you gotta lose some weight. And I was like, holy geez, I, I like, you know, but you know, I look back on that point in my life and I say, no one else had told me those things, you know?

Vance Crowe [01:26:26] And if it didn't have somebody looking after me that cared about me that was saying like, it, you're not going to feel good about me while I'm telling you this advice. He had to have known that. But afterwards I felt so much gratitude towards him because I had been looking in the mirror being like, you putting on weight? Nah, you can get away with it. Nah. So the, so I mean that's just kind of a turn on what you're saying, but like the really, the world, if you don't have somebody that'll step in and tell you things that you don't want to hear, you can be lost and blind out there. I certainly was,

Chris Bennett [01:27:03] Yeah, Vance, I, you know, I I I always say, you me, we, we need to be offended every day. You need to get offended every day. 'cause it keeps you in check. I don't, I don't necessarily enjoy being offended, but you need it, especially in this country. Absolutely.

Vance Crowe [01:27:22] I like that idea that you should be offended. I, I, you know, I told you I was talking with that woman, Molly and I, it's, she was a, a rare person because she was telling me about the podcast she listens to that she literally doesn't agree with, but she's like, you know, then I get a much better perspective. And when I've got my ideas about other things, and you know, sometimes people say that, oh, I listen, you know, oh, I listen to

Chris Bennett [01:27:46] Fox,

Vance Crowe [01:27:46] Or oh, I listen to C Nnn, she was not messing around. She really did listen to things she didn't agree with. And I think that that's one of the biggest problems. I know I find myself falling into the vacuum of just wanting to hear people that are gonna say things I already think just in a different way. And it's hard to go listen to stuff you don't agree with,

Chris Bennett [01:28:05] Right? I mean, you know, I'm a Monty Python fan and life of Brian is extremely sacrilegious. However, right? It goes against all of my sensibilities. I'm not blind, I'm not deaf. It's very, very funny. It's extremely funny. So, you know, you have to take things with a grain of salt. I'm not gonna hand you the DVD fans and say, Hey, you need to go watch Life of Brian. I'm not gonna do that. Right. But the the point is, you gotta be realistic. Okay. I admit it's extremely funny, right? You got to live, man. You got to live. So

Vance Crowe [01:28:39] What was the last thing you were offended by?

Chris Bennett [01:28:44] Oh, that's a great question. I'm certainly offended by the encroachment of our government, right? Everything that's happening in this country, government wise offends me as, as, as an American. But that relates to the Constitution. And so I, I want, I, I want America to get back on track as far as personal offense, man, I don't know Vance, unless, you know, someone would insult my wife on the street or insult mama, it'd probably be water off duck's back.

Vance Crowe [01:29:30] So I, so I have been offended lately. It was earlier today. My, there was an email when that went out in my little neighborhood. Now my neighborhood is like a, a suburban neighborhood, which we're private, but like, really all that means is that we pay for our own garbage collection and we have to repair our own roads, right? Like, but the libertarian in me loves this 'cause I like the

Chris Bennett [01:29:51] Freedom of it.

Vance Crowe [01:29:52] Well, so there was this email that went around that somebody had their house broken into. I didn't really look into it very closely, and they said, oh, it's just a few blocks away. I imagine it's probably a few miles away, but people get really worked up. And so then they start sending this email around about, it's now finally time for us to put cameras and a gate up in our neighborhood. And I was like, so instantly angry about this, like, like really offended because I'm like, I don't want to have to punch in a code. I don't really wanna live in a place where I, you know, it's private to the degree that, you know, we have a gate around here. I really don't want to have a video camera of somebody taking my license plate every time I come and go. Like, this is not for me. And then I came upstairs and I was, you know, ranting and raving to my wife and, and she said something that was really powerful like that I hadn't really thought of. She said, well, they're scared and you're not. And like, I really hadn't dawned on me that they weren't doing this just because they wanted to have a gate or just because they wanted more security, but that they were actually scared. And as soon as she says that, I realized like a lot of these people are a lot older. They're in their sixties or all the way up to their eighties. It, you know, they don't, you know, they view an intruder as like an actual real threat and maybe it is a real threat, but it doesn't feel like one dangerous to me. So it was very good for me to both be offended, but then also have some level of empathy for them. Because if somebody's afraid they, they really will do things to try and mitigate that fear.

Chris Bennett [01:31:21] Heck yeah, man. We get on to guns or something like that for a topic I'm telling you.

Vance Crowe [01:31:28] What do you think about the gun debate? You know, like that is just raged up now, right? Anytime you have a school shooting, people say, we could stop this if we were limiting guns. What are, what are your thoughts on, on the gun situation in the United States?

Chris Bennett [01:31:41] You know, I think the people in Congress, fans, all of them, almost all of them, first of all, I don't think they realize the gun situation on the ground. If you take most people out there, at least the people that live in rural areas. But I know in the city also a lot of the time, it's not just that you own a gun, do you own a gun? Yes. No, most people, most average Americans running around, we gonna own 50, 50 guns, 30 guns. I, I, I don't know a lot of guns. I'm gonna guess a lot of your listeners. I wanna guess most people in my family have 30, 40, 70, a hundred, something like that. So you start off with the folks in Congress that have an almost, it seems like a zero level of knowledge about firearms. So you, my basic opinion is if you, if you outlaw firearms, and I don't mean to complete outlaw, but if the more strictures you put on firearms, the more simply your outlaws will be carrying, carrying guns. I have no solution because I don't believe there's a solution. If you wanna raise the age of gun access from 18 to 21 or to 25, I don't think it'll make any difference.

Chris Bennett [01:33:15] If you wanna arm teachers in the school, do I really think that'll make a difference? Probably not. I think these things are, are going to happen. They're going to continue to happen. They come in spas as far as you know, thers and what type of rifles you have. If they were to literally do a Beto O'Rourke and come in and take Thers or outlaw them, what have you, it would simply morph into a different kind of gun. So I I, I'm a big Second Amendment guy, I have no problem with Second Amendment. I, I think gun owners are actually decent people. Seems like all these shooters to me are already bad people or, or crazy or simply outlaws. And meanwhile you see the statistics, the same ones I do, no one seems to care about all the other people shot one at a time or two at a time in Chicago or Detroit or wherever the school shootings get all of the attention. And my Lord, I mean, if it was one of my kids killed in such a thing, certainly I would want attention there too. But the bottom line is it's America. It's a little bit would come from a wild west heritage and there's no getting it back. And you know, another thing about the Second Amendment is historically speaking, you know, tomorrow is not today. The government knows, they know if they were to make a move on, its on their citizenry.

Chris Bennett [01:34:52] The citizenry is armed. And I, I think that's a wonderful thing. And if you want to go back and say, well, back in 1776, they were armed with smooth boars, for example. And therefore, you know, that's the sort of firearm used to be allowed today. Hey, smooth boar in 70, 76 was pretty top of the line. That was a fine gun. In other words, they had the best they could get hold of. And that's what we as Americans still want today. So I I I, I'm very, very pessimistic on the, on the whole gun control deal. I, I, I don't see any ways to improve it. Yes, you can tweak all kind of things, you know, I I I go to gun shows, bend to gun shows, and I, I think that's part of liberty. Again, you've reached a point where it's, you've got a moral vacuum out there with these kooks running around doing the shooting. I, I don't think there's any solution, Vance. I don't,

Vance Crowe [01:36:02] One of the things that I've noticed recently is the news will be interviewing a Congress person, right? The, the latest one I saw was Elizabeth Warren, but I'm neither here nor there. Just, just like, they'll find a congress person that is storming around and then they'll say, wait, what's wrong congresswoman? What, you know, Senator, what do you think of this? And they'll be like, oh, I'm mad. I'm so mad I can barely talk.

Chris Bennett [01:36:28] And

Vance Crowe [01:36:28] They talk about how mad they are, right? As though that is permission to like make a change or to do something. And I know people need a motivation. So emotion is a strong way to, to motivate people, but it's actually like, in order for us to make informed, solid, really clear decisions, you don't wanna do that during when people are emotional. So, you know, whether that's the people coming out and saying, don't tell me about X, Y, Z because of either the constitution or the dead children or the whatever they are at the height of their emotionality. And in fact, not only are you at the height of emotionality, you're at the height of receiving social benefit from having an opinion that synchronizes with others, right? Very, very few people go out and put opinions out there that they think no one will agree with. You're putting it on social media so that that not, and sometimes people are putting it out there to be argumentative, but because you believe this is gonna confer some sort of benefit from you in, in, in your social circles. And on top of that, you're demonstrating the most emotion possible. It seems like this is a recipe for horrible decision making.

Chris Bennett [01:37:41] I, I agree Vance, we talk, talk about bump stocks, talk about universal background checks and tweaking this and, and instituting this extra regulation and so on. I think they know, I think they know that all of those things are meaningless, but they put that out there as a form of posturing, political posturing, look what we've done. Even though they know in the end it's not going to have a, a big time effect. You know, look, if someone wants, if they want to go into an elementary school with a deer rifle or a pistol or an AR or what have you, and they want to kill kids, if they're that evil, I, I don't believe there's any way to prevent them from doing so. They don't even have to go in Vance. They could simply get in the perimeter and shoot kids on a playground. I remember that happened basically in Jonesboro years ago, you know, there were the kids up there, I believe they had deer rifles and they managed to get the alarm to go off in the school. And I think when the kids came bustling out those doors, they opened up and killed a a a number of children. Again, my point is, if, if you have that level of insanity out there with people, I i, I don't think you can prevent it. Lord, help us when you do catch these people prior to those events, you know, you know, there's no excuse not to lock them up.

Chris Bennett [01:39:14] But again, I I I don't see you stopping. I don't,

Vance Crowe [01:39:19] So one of the things that I saw in the news recently, and there's a big argument about this, is that the school shootings are associated with people taking antidepressants. And if you go and look at the amount of people taking antidepressants and you correlate that with the number of school shootings, then it seems like that there's a tight connection between them. And then there's other people that come out and say, no, no, no, these, these, these facts are not correlated. But to me, like going all the way back to the beginning of our discussion when we were starting to talk about things like SSRIs or, or a DD medication, I think that we really should look at how much are we changing the brain chemistry of our fellow humans, and what consequence does that have? And I really mean, like if we, if if, if everything's on the table, if we're saying, Hey, we really wanna solve this problem, we should put everything on the table. We should say, Hey, you know, has something changed in our water? Has something changed in the, in the drugs that we're taking? Like we should really open it up and look at it because it's not going to be acceptable for us to say, well look at the decline in church populations and then look at the rise in school shootings. Because one, it's just, what are you gonna do? You're gonna make people go to church. I don't, I don't think that's going to happen. And, and, and two, you know, there's gonna be some correlations that don't have any meaning at all, and maybe these drugs don't have meaning, but to me, I I'm deeply, I I don't know how to say it anymore than I am.

Vance Crowe [01:40:52] Like I am deeply suspicious of these drugs and their role in how much our society is changing.

Chris Bennett [01:40:57] That's right. Vance. I mean, you know, what was mama own? Why the child was in the womb? What's the child been on since they were, you know, lord knows what age all on the table, not even talking about, you know, under the table drugs were illegal drugs, just what, what were they on prescription wise? We prescription USA, your neighbor, right? Your neighbor is on Xanax. Just make the assumption. And there's a whole host of drugs that, that everyone is owned. So there's,

Vance Crowe [01:41:33] And in addition to the drugs, the other one that really strikes me is that the United States is leads the world in number of people incarcerated. And so those are all fathers out of the home. The these are, and this is a complicated question because it's saying, you know, do you hit some certain tipping point where you lock up so many people that you create a culture where they're just gonna be locked up in and something has gone horribly wrong in, in a society where the richest, most powerful nation in the world is also the same one locking the most people up.

Chris Bennett [01:42:07] Yeah, I, I think, you know, we're headed to hell regarding that and the illegitimate birth rate. I think you start right there and, and you look at segments of society. When you look at black society, Hispanic society, white society, and you look at those fatherless birth rates and you know, some parts of Mississippi Delta, right? That'll be 80% plus for blacks. And you look at Mexicans nationwide, what, what is it 30, 35, why? It's not too far behind that. So all racial groups seem to have a, an increasing rate. And, and you just ask yourself, how do you, what's the result of that? Once you extrapolate and you raise generation after generation without the nuclear family, what happens? It's, it's, it's, it's, I I promise you this, it's a bad thing in the end, and it just fosters more government care. It fosters a, a sense of, again, grievance and who, who are you gonna blame? So the politicians very rarely address that. You know, Obama was in there for eight years. I think one of the things that the man should have tackled was the illegitimate birth rate in black culture. I wish Trump would've addressed it.

Chris Bennett [01:43:38] I wish he would've addressed whites, Hispanics, whoever. Because think about Vance. If, if, like when I was teaching school, you show me, I'm being serious. You showed me 25 kids that have genuinely bad behavior, detrimental behavior to their future. And I would guess about 20 of those are in one parent homes or something dysfunctional. It's not just a relationship there. It's a almost a, a direct line and, and you're breaking down. It's a breaking down of society. It's not hyperbole. I believe that.

Vance Crowe [01:44:19] Yeah. And there's a, you know, I don't exactly know how you tackle this. Maybe one of the things you do, this is the kind of freedom mentality that I have, is maybe the state shouldn't have any part in marriage at all and like be, because when I look at how in my limited experience, the few people I know that have gotten divorced and then gone through child custody, it appears to me that many of those child custody cases are really about is, is are you going to be able to make it so the father pays for the children? And the way the father pays more money for the children is that he's not allowed to have time with them. Because if you do more equal time, then you don't give as much money. And I think there are, the, the court system has been tilted in such a way that we are creating financial incentives to have fathers out of there as much as possible. Not, not on behalf of the fathers, but a financial incentive for these single moms who clearly need support, right? You can't raise a kid on your own, it's just too much work. Something's really off with the way our divorce is set up and the way we do child custody. And I think that leads to years later, having major cultural things like incarceration rates that are through the roof

Chris Bennett [01:45:33] Advance. There's no stigma, right? There's no stigma to being on welfare Now. In other words, your Snap card or your food stamp card looks like a credit card. If I'm behind you at Walmart or at Piggly Wiggly, I can't even tell if you're paying with food stamps or you're paying with a normal credit or debit card, that's where we're at now. You go back 60 years, people were given tens of, you know, government cheese, government peanut butter. I believe that's where we should be at. You provide staples, you provide what's necessary to individuals staple wise. But now you go into the gas station, you go into Walmart, EBT is everywhere. You can buy a Hershey bar, you can buy ice cream, you can buy Coke, you can buy, use EBT in certain fast food joints. And I think it's an outrage. I think it's once again, hurtful to those that you somewhat enslaved by putting them into this avuncular governmental system, uncle government. And you know, what you said about marriage, here's an example to me, Vance, you know, you look at the issue of gay marriage, what, which has supposedly been resolved here over the last five years, Supreme Court and so on. I, I look at it quite simply, and I say, this has nothing to do marriage with our constitution in scotus, they should have kicked that to the states. That kicks to me, right?

Chris Bennett [01:47:04] To the states, Hey, you ain't California, y'all do what you want. But we're not gonna pretend that this is somehow in the constitution. IIII, it's almost like the 10th amendment is ignored. Now, again, my opinion,

Vance Crowe [01:47:22] I, you know, I couldn't tell you what the 10th Amendment is. 10th

Chris Bennett [01:47:25] Amendment basically says Vance, that if it's not here, right, if it's not enumerated right here, it kicks back to the states. And you know, that's partially a alitos argument in, well I was gonna say the recent abortion ruling, but that's not true. It's the recent rumored abortion, abortion ruling and, and 10th amendment. Man, it's, it's, it's crucial. It, it's so crucial that it was put in the Bill of Rights, that bill of rights one through 10. It it, if there's something in here, it's not listed and you can't take it and just do as you want with it, it kicks back to Maine or Mississippi and so on. Again, that's my opinion, but I think it's been

Vance Crowe [01:48:16] That, well, and this leads it all the way back to where we were at in the beginning when we were talking about your article and people coming on your property is really the, the way that the federal government's power has been so increased is the bureaucracies and how much those bureaucracies are given budgets. And then those budgets are empowered to be put into things like the Farm bill. And now all of a sudden you have some organizations that say, Hey, if I play ball with the USDA, then we're gonna get these things for our members. Those members get that. I'm gonna keep getting elected. And the, the more that they've done that, the more it's grown. I mean, you could say in large part that the farmers are, the farm organizations are responsible for the EBT being accepted on everything because the more that they could get government money to buy food staples, the more money they made, right? Like the, the, there's definitely an unusual, an unholy alliance that happens between those two things. Right?

Chris Bennett [01:49:15] Right, right, right. I i, and again, i, I I wanna use that word stigma. I think stigma in this instance is a good thing. I think a child that's raised up on welfare needs to know there's a stigma. They should not, you know, have any sort of comfort level with it. And yet everyone flocks toward wic, everyone flocks towards snap and it has actually become a normal segment of society. There's no shame element involved. I mean, I think I'm being a normal American, when I say the last thing I want for my kids, the last thing on planet earth is for them to end up on welfare of any form why my, my Lord, I, I've, I've got enough pride to say I don't want them to end up like that. How, what do you do, Vince, when you take that away and say no, you know, that's, that's no problem. That's just another way to live. It's all good. No, sir. No sir.

Vance Crowe [01:50:15] Well, I gotta say you are one of the very few people that would say openly that you want that, that stigma in people. I, as I think through this, I see your argument, right? I see the idea that social pressure is one of the most important things you have in a culture, because you can't have laws that prescribe the way that people should behave. You have to have social control through, Hey, how does, how does our society view this? How do the people, how do your neighbors view this? But then that being said, do we want, would we be a better culture if we were making the people feel shame about it? I, I don't know. I mean, I think you're probably right to the extent that it would lower its demand, but you'd be, you'd be putting a lot of pain into the world in a different way.

Chris Bennett [01:51:08] True. I, I think that's reasonable and a fair description by you. I I just think it would be a better outcome in the end. Just like when Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s and they're, you know, basically rehashing, reforming of great society on paper looks really good. Hey, let's help take care of everybody. Now we're 70 years, 50 years. Forgive my math past that. And look what is fostered to me. It's fostered nothing but government dependence. It's fostered a revolving door of absolute de de dependency. So I I, when you look at Kennedy's immigration plan from the 1960s talking about Teddy Kennedy, we about Teddy Kennedy's immigration plan, LBGs l BJ's, great society. And you look at the outcome of these things, they start out looking really fine and nice, make everybody feel warm, and then they end up snapping back on America.

Vance Crowe [01:52:13] Yeah. And somebody is always paying for those things that, that are handouts. Some someone is, the bill finally gets paid somewhere. And maybe it's our children's children or maybe it's our lifetimes right now with inflation who, who knows. What do you think about the amount of homeless people that appear to be in places like, well, all the major cities, right? People living under bridges, tent cities coming up. W why has that become such a big thing lately?

Chris Bennett [01:52:43] You know, Vance, I think there's a, a lot, a lot of factors at play there. And, but by the way, I, before I give my answer there, just to think we've sent 40 billion to the Ukraine and we have thousands, thousands of us military veterans on the street. Many of those were psychological problems. Anyway, I, I think in these major cities where the homeless flock to, they're not flocking there without reason. In other words, they know they're going to be cared for to a degree. So in other words, if, if you were to set up a charity and you said, I want to go in and set up a charity and I believe I can take care or feed a thousand homeless people a month, provide beds for them, what have you, at one level, that's a great thing. And one level, I would pat you on the back. And another level I would say, oh Lord, he's fixing to make the problem worse. 'cause you're providing more and more and more handouts. So it's again, possibly a cruel answer, but I don't believe that the government can just hand people all of these charitable functions and not have repercussions. You go up to somewhere like, let's say Springfield, Missouri, where freeways cross and you look at the homeless problems there, and you go to more famous cities like San Francisco, again, the people flocking to those places know they're going to be fed or have congregants that they can associate with to some degree.

Chris Bennett [01:54:23] So in other words, you, you create a monster a little bit.

Vance Crowe [01:54:30] Yeah, it's been a shocking thing, right? Like, you, you hear people talk about it on podcasts about how bad California's gotten, and then you go to Sacramento and you're like, whoa, there are people out here like legit living in, you know, thousands of people in a, in a tent city, and you're just shocked by it. But I, you know, when I look at human beings, I think there's very few human beings that want this, right? Like, I think many of them are in that life because they somehow got pulled into the insane drug world that we have. And, you know, the fentanyl that's coming out seems to be totally crazy. But meth was a really bad problem for a while, and I, I don't, to me, there's like my deep desire to have empathy and to try and exude care and compassion for people. But then at the same time, being worried that your, your empathy can be hijacked and you can end up creating, you know, states where, where, where you're actually create, you're enabling really bad behaviors that don't help people over the long term. Yeah,

Chris Bennett [01:55:35] Vance, I, I think, you know, that homeless situation is an indictment of our modern society in, in many, many levels, many angles. And again, I don't have an answer except a harsh answer that will have a level of ac cruelty with it. And that is to move folks out, pull funds away. And I think it would have a sledgehammer effect initially. It would make things worse initially, I think it would improve things long term, but at least places like California, you mentioned Sacramento and San Francisco, it looks like the, it looks like the government's doubling down to me long term. So we may head be headed to brave New World. You know, Hooverville may be a packer's dream compared to what we're going to see over the next 20, 50 years there in those places.

Vance Crowe [01:56:34] What do you think about the increase in, in cannabis legalization? Bad thing or good thing for us culture?

Chris Bennett [01:56:40] Oh, I wrote an article one time that said, I can't remember the exact headline. Something like, now is the time for marijuana, for us agriculture. I, I still believe that if it's going to be legalized in most states, then I, as, as my libertarian part of me says, Hey, do as you will, I can honestly say myself. I don't smoke it. I don't want to, I don't want any of my loved ones to, I do be believe it has detrimental effects psychologically on many people. You know, you and I could sit and drink Vance, and it's very possible that alcohol would have no ill effects long term on us. But I know that person three and four might be addicted or might have really bad impact on them. I think marijuana has a heightened effect like that. I would guess that with the increasing legalization of marijuana, that the studies showing its detrimental effects will, ooh, I think they're gonna be coming out for a long time. Having said all of that, you can't get the horse back in the barn. And there's, I don't believe there's any going back from here, but let me add a caveat there. I don't think you should then logically go and tick off other drugs as well and make those, make, make those legal.

Vance Crowe [01:58:08] Yeah. I have a, a sense, I personally think marijuana like put into the world is going to change culture. And I think all those people that were like, no, no, just legalize it, it's not gonna change that. That's, that's not right. Like it clearly is gonna change culture. I personally believe that it's probably better than alcohol. I, I, I mean, I don't know, maybe their lung impacts are not as good, but, but as a guy that's definitely done dumb stuff on alcohol, I would say the ratio of between that and cannabis isn't even close. And, but, but you know, I, I agree that for some people they can handle having a couple of drinks, you know, and no, no big deal. And other people go totally bananas on it. And as far as the wider legalization, oh man, I, you know, I struggle with that because I really do want freedom. And when I say freedom, I mean a lot of freedom. But I also think like if you go look at those tent cities, you can see that those, the, those people taking those freedoms are in a city like Seattle where you can, you know, you can have some pretty potent drugs and you're not gonna get in trouble for it. I don't think that's made those places better. So it's hard for me to be like hanging a banner up and saying, we should legalize everything. It's a lot, a lot of ambivalence on this one.

Chris Bennett [01:59:25] I don't think there's any good answer, Vance. And I think any position you take can be attacked and knocked down because there's no real answer here. You really mixing, you really mixing so many terrible things at one time, you know, heroin forces,

Vance Crowe [01:59:42] To me the answer is the same one that you had on, on the Roe v. Wade. Like, we should be doubling down on federalism or like, as we call it, in, in my network, fractal localism, right? The, the closer you are to the individual, the, the more that that individual. So, you know, I always say like, I'm a, I'm a communist with my, you know, immediate family. I'm a socialist with my wider family. And as I get further out in my town, you know, I'm kind of a, a, a, you know, just a into democracy. And then when I get further out, like at the state or federal level, I really just want to know, are you protecting me? Right? Are you keeping foreign invaders from coming? But outside of that, I don't want you to have any involvement at all. And I, I would love to see a movement towards that. I, right now, all I see is a movement towards centralization, but Oh,

Chris Bennett [02:00:31] I agree, man. Like we should, we should look at the state, what we, what we have at state levels versus the federal level. Just picking one department of education. We, we have a nationwide department of education, then we have department that's within the state. You know, to me, screw that. You dump the nationwide Department of Education, simply eliminate it. Let the states do as they will do. And then you go down through all of your departments and you do the same thing. Hey, I, I realize critics take some serious pot shots at me over that, but I mean, come on. Almost every department we've got has a mirror at the state level. Imagine the waste, right? I, I can't even give you a number. I'd like for someone to come up with that, but imagine the financial waste of having double departments at all levels. You talk about bureaucracy tangle that it's almost laughable if you explain that to a foreigner, right? If you explain someone coming from another country and you explain to 'em, you have the exact titles, exact Department of Education rules here, state rule, woo mess.

Vance Crowe [02:01:40] Well, and, and when you have these federal bureaucracies that we were talking about before, the biggest thing that they have is no controls on their spending. Because when you're at the federal level, federal government can just keep issuing debt, can keep printing money, can keep those things going. But if you're in, say, like the state of Illinois, if you can't pay your bureaucrats because you don't have enough money, ah, then you gotta start, well, you should have to start getting rid of them. I don't think they have. But, but that, like, the other reason for having state control is that those budgets become real. And if, if you have your government not being the same group that can do your coinage, that that really has, that forces them to have to live within the boundaries of some sort of reality. Whereas the federal government has no boundaries on reality. They can fund things forever. And, and like you had said, you really wanna go get in a court case with the USDA. They have so many attorneys and infinite amounts of money, and no one ever has to pay for the, for the fact that they were wrong. If you, even if you prove that they were wrong,

Chris Bennett [02:02:42] Right? There's no one getting fired. There's no one losing their pension. They might, they might even get a raise out the bill.

Vance Crowe [02:02:52] Well, this has been ups and downs and doom loops and exciting books. It has been great to chat with you. If people wanted to look forward to your next story, what are they looking for? What's coming out next?

Chris Bennett [02:03:03] Oh man, that's a heck of a question. That one I mentioned on the cotton mouths and the harvest of Venom. Hopefully it comes out in June. I've got a insane Hemingway tale I told you about a year ago. It's finally making its way. It should be out soon. Then I got a couple standard farm stories coming out and if anybody's got a tip or a story I think I need to cover, please, I just holler at me, email me my email's, real simple, c Bennett, C-B-E-N-N-E-T t@farmjournal.com and I'll sure holler back at you.

Vance Crowe [02:03:40] Well man, thank you so much as always for coming on and we'll, we'll have you back on right after you read the mandible.

Chris Bennett [02:03:47] Hey, listen, it's been a absolute privilege to sit here and talk to the smartest guy in the room. And I don't know what your listeners, how much they know about your intellect. I suspect they only know a a half of what you've really got, maybe even only a quarter. So thank you for your time. Thank you for having me on.

Vance Crowe [02:04:08] You're too kind, but always welcome on.