Agricultural Journalist on Feral Pigs, Cultural Sacred Cows, and the Jerusalem Artichoke Scam

Chris Bennett [00:00:00] A lot of people today talk about becoming civil war. Maybe that'll happen with a whimper. Maybe it'll hap, I don't think it'll happen with a bang myself. I think if anything happens, it'll happen with a whimper. And how would it break down Vance? How would the country split? And I, I, I tend to think that if there was some degree of civil war, it would happen over basic freedoms. Hi, this is Jack Liebeck baseball player and second grader from St. Louis, Missouri, and you are listening to the Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:35] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we have an interview with Chris Bennett, who longtime podcast listeners will know. He is a prolific journalist in the ag world, telling everything from wild stories of farm accidents to things that are going on with liberty and the way the government encroaches on people. So anytime I get a chance, I love to have Chris on this interview is a little bit different than the other two that Chris and I have done. We end up getting into talking about culture and some of the changes that are going on in society and what frightens Chris and what he sees coming around on the horizon and what kind of frightens him about what all is going on. It is a really interesting conversation and I feel like Chris was open on a very deep level. So I hope that you enjoy it. One of the things that is really amazing about Chris is he's always blown up my phone. He's texting me with articles and ideas and videos, all kinds of things, and I just love it. And that idea of staying connected with people, even when you're not seeing them on a regular basis, is really important, which is one of the reasons why I started a new project. For anybody that's a part of the Articulate Ventures network, you know that this month we've been doing a daily connections prompt, where every day I write up a prompt on a person that you should make contact with a teacher, a former mentor, a young person that you really respect, and then I give you a reason to write them.

Vance Crowe [00:02:06] So people responded so well inside of the network that I decided to turn this into a project for listeners of the podcast. So you don't have to join a VN, but if you'd be interested in getting a weekly prompt where I'll give you a person you should write and a reason you should write them, and then I give you an example email of a person that I wrote to, that exact prompt to, and then some tips about how to make your emails more interesting, how to make your connections with other people deeper, then go to Vance Crowe dot com slash connections and sign up for our 52 week email prompt about connections that you can make with other people. I really hope that this will help you stay connected with people that you like being in contact with. It'll help you reach out to parts of your network that you've maybe forgotten or lost touch with, and it allows you once a week to add a little dose of good into the world by making a positive connection, saying to somebody that you're thinking about them and sharing things that matter to you with other people. It's just one of those things that people have really found, brought a little bit of happiness to their life, and it's something that I can do that will help put some goodness into the world. So if you're interested, go to Vance Crowe dot com slash connections. Also, if you are planning a speech, you have a conference coming up and you need somebody to be there, I have just revamped my speaking page. We are talking about a bunch of the different speeches that I worked on throughout the year inside of a BN.

Vance Crowe [00:03:37] It is an exciting time. I'm getting booked up, so if you're interested, you're running a conference, go check out Vance Crowe dot com to to check it out and see if my schedule meets yours. So without further ado, let's go to my man, Chris Bennett. Chris Bennett, welcome back to the podcast.

Chris Bennett [00:03:57] Hey, Vance man, it's a privilege to be on here with you. Great to hear from you. And man, iron sharpens iron, but I'm fixing to get the better end of the stick.

Vance Crowe [00:04:07] I, man, I get filled with the sense of joy whenever I get to talk with you. I was looking through some of your articles and one of them I knew was an issue, but I actually did not have any idea how large of an issue it is. There are 5 million wild pigs that are eating hundreds of thousands of frogs and deer and all kinds of things. What in the hell, how did we get a wild pig population in the United States that's causing so much destruction?

Chris Bennett [00:04:37] I tell you what, Vance, if you really want to go back in time, you know, we, we look back to the Spanish conquistadors and DeSoto, we know for a fact that they brought hogs with them for obvious reasons to eat, and they did so and so the, the, the, the original population of wild pigs today that we have actually dates back to DeSoto. And maybe, you know, who knows Ponce de Leon before that I, I personally don't know, but I do know it goes back to DeSoto. And so the numbers of hogs were pretty much limited to the Southeast for several hundred years and in low numbers. But most definitely without any question over the last 50 years, more like over the last 20, they've exploded across the country. And most states, I don't know what the actual USDA number is. I think it's something like 35 to 40 states now have some sort of wild pig presence. And, and one of the fascinating things about this beast is that it's not just the level of fertility, right? It's not just the gestation period, the amount of offspring, but it's also what they can eat. They can eat anything.

Vance Crowe [00:05:56] Yeah. I mean, you, your article was saying the guy was doing research on him. He cuts open and they have something like 50 frogs in their stomach, and it's like, how in the world does that happen?

Chris Bennett [00:06:07] Right? The, the anecdotes that you get from landowners and farmers are absolutely fascinating. I that's not hyperbole. Fascinating indeed. Because you've got a lot of guys that claim that they have killed hogs, for example, on their land, shot 'em, and then they come up on them maybe the next night or two and they find other hogs engaged in cannibalism. So that right there tells you what the hog is basically capable of. But as you said, there was a, an extension researcher down at Auburn, and he was out with some of his graduate students one night and they heard the, I think, I can't remember, maybe they were going to, to cu a hog or two. And they heard the bleedings of a phone and a deer phone, according to him, was in the process of being eaten alive. And when they got up on this phone, the, the nras had all been removed and, and this hog was, was feasting on this phone while it was alive. So they went ahead and killed the hog. And when they performed the necropsy, indeed, I, I think he told me I have it in the article, 40 50 toads, I think they were spadefoot toads, which only come out a few times a year, spilled out of this hog. So Vance, when you consider that a wild pig can root and eat whatever it wants below the ground, it can eat insects, birds, hatchlings toads, it can, it can eat other mammals and then of course it can just rampage across farmland and, and root out freshly planted seeds or otherwise at wheel.

Chris Bennett [00:07:43] Then you, you, you ask a reasonable question, which is how do you stop the advance of wild pigs across the, the country And they simply have not been able to do so at this point. They've got all kind of toxin tests with these various toxins that they wanna try and use in the field. But that's gotta go through USDA. It's a continuing fascinating narrative. And Vance, now you've got politics involved because tremendous amount of government money, tremendous amount, millions goes toward the halt of the wild pig spread. And so now you've got politicians involved and as you know, so well, once you get politicians involved, it's going to get messy.

Vance Crowe [00:08:28] Yeah. Because everybody's got a stake in it. It, when I look at the maps, 'cause this became totally fascinating to me, this looks like the, you remember when people were terrified of killer bees coming up from the south, right? Only like it actually is happening with the wild pigs. Like Missouri, not that long ago, didn't have that big of an issue. And in the span of about 10 years it exploded and has moved as far north as I I think there was even some in St. Louis County that were having problems. Right?

Chris Bennett [00:08:57] And that's, you don't have to look through the paper too long in Missouri to see that y'all state is quite split in opinion over what to do with wild pigs. And you know, I've spoken with the conservation department there in Missouri and, and they claim this is what they say on record, that they're going to not just halt the wild pig spread, but they're going to eradicate down to the last hog. You know, the, the, the simple science is that in order to control a hog population, most of the analysts out there, so you've gotta kill every year 70% of the population. So if you've gotta kill 70% of the population, and mama can have, Lord, what is it? A couple of litters, six 10 piglets and the males are sexually active maybe 4, 5, 6 months. I, I can't remember what it, it's astounding. If, if anybody is interested in wild pig doesn't take a second to get on Google and you will encounter a creature like simply like no other, I I don't think there's another mammal like it that's on four legs in North America. Just,

Vance Crowe [00:10:07] Just imagine if you tried to take 'em all out just using bullets, right? That's 5 million bullets. And that's if nobody ever misses and every single shot goes home, right? Like, and the the poisoning them, you know, as soon as you put something out that's strong enough to be able to kill a wild pig, it's gonna be strong enough to kill deer and children and all kinds of other stuff. So this is like, this is a mess. This is a total mess.

Chris Bennett [00:10:33] It is, it is. It's a, it's a pretty dang good example of, of invasive species explosion and what can happen. And I suppose that's why we take a look at all these invasive species like the python down in Florida right now. I don't know Vance if you've seen any of the stories about the Python spread there, but that is, is is astounding by itself. It makes me wonder if python spread will continue across the southeast, which sounds ludicrous. It sounds like something from pure fantasy, but it's not. I mean, you know, man, I'll tell you one of the, the, the, the invasive species that drives people, the wildest, and I'm sure you've encountered this on vacation or something in the south, and that's fire ants. You know, there's simply were no fire ants here at one point. And now you've got a creature that's spread from Florida to California and all points in between. And that fire, you know, he has those jaws where he can lock in and then use that basically a, it's a needle, an injector and he can pop you three to four times wicked beast. He'd like the insect version of the wild pig.

Vance Crowe [00:11:46] Do you have these where you're at like, this is not a problem. I've never heard anybody complain about fire ants. This is surprising to me. Yeah,

Chris Bennett [00:11:52] Right. Little devils, you could go out in, in, in my yard property right now, Vance, and you're gonna find, oh, I'm gonna, I'm just going to 30 fire nests or something like that. And they're, they're major nuisance for cattle. They, they get on quail eggs, you name it. They'll, they'll do some serious, serious damage. Very, very venomous, very painful, lots of accounts out there of, of people having ana, what's the word? Anaphylactic shot to the venom, if I'm even pronouncing that right. But yeah, fire answer something else.

Vance Crowe [00:12:30] Well, you know, you think about killing these pigs or the pythons or however that's gonna work, but you and I have been texting back and forth about people's sacred cows, right? About the, the, the idea that our culture now has held up so many of these things that are, you're not allowed to attack or poke holes in or anything like that. What do you think about what all's going on with society right now?

Chris Bennett [00:12:54] Well, I tell you what Vance, I think I'm like a lot of people and that is, I'm very dismayed by what I see. The woke, the cancel culture. It is alarming in the, in the extreme because, you know, history never moves in straight lines. And no matter what is going on in this country, we are headed somewhere. Nothing, nothing stays the same. And so therefore, you're, you, you, you have two options. You're either moving towards something better or something, something worse. And at present, I feel like we are moving away from the moorings of our constitution. And we have a large segment of the country that wants to push us away from the stake that was driven into the ground by our forefathers. And the drift seems to be continuous. And we have set up somehow in this country, a a chain of sacred cows. When the list of sacred cows now has gotten so long, you literally can't ride it out. You can't even cover it 'cause it's so dang expansive these, these days, right? I mean, a man, a woman, a person is judged by the words that they use. So Vance, you know, we've, we've actually, we reached the stage where if you call someone a child molester or you call someone an effer, it is not an issue.

Chris Bennett [00:14:28] But you dare to call someone a racial epithet. You are blacklisted forever. And, and someone simply uses a term and they're branded with the word racist. Racism. You know, last time I checked as a dictionary, racism, a racist was someone who genuinely believed in the superiority of one race over another. But we're actually running around saying, Hey, I heard you say X, Y, or Z, therefore you are a racist. And it, it snowballed, it has metastasized. And that of course is is an extreme understatement. We see it at all levels of society. Andrew, Breitbart was right when he said that politics flowed downstream from culture. I, I feel like his statement should have been expanded all to me flows downstream from culture. I wish that it did not, but it does.

Vance Crowe [00:15:30] You know, I had a striking experience just the other night when I found out from a good friend that a local Catholic church school was requiring all of the parents to read an anti-racism book. Which as far as I could tell from going and looking up the book was a, a book that was pretty racist, trying to stop, you know, what they viewed as racism. And you think about that being instantiated into like Christian teaching or into the churches themselves, or churches and education. And you think like there's not actually a deeper way to drive this into society. There is no institution that will do a, a, a job deeper than pushing it not only into children, but into children's conception of what God thinks they should do. We are messing around with the source code here and to get this wrong, like people don't, I think most people don't realize that children were what was used to propagate the Nazi regime. It was what was used to propagate Maoist regime. Like many situations are this, why would you allow this to happen? I, I, like, I don't, I, it's shocking to me what's going on.

Chris Bennett [00:16:44] It's, it's the inculcation of our youth and it's based on a moral inverse such as you and I have not seen in our lifetimes. This, these, these are stunts pulled by the left, pulled from, you could argue the cultural revolution of China. These are, they're genuine parallels. And the, the, the truth of the left is that what you see is only part of the deal. In other words, they always wanna swing much, much further than what they will tell you. I look, I I don't hide anything. I come from somewhat of a political independent, libertarian conservative bent, but I'll show you what I believe and that is the basics of what is in the constitution. Because I believe, as I said earlier, that our forefathers got it right. So I want to keep the country manacled, if you like, to the Constitution. But what has happened is the absolute inverse. We drift further and further away and you hear the words Vance, you hear the words of socialism and communism. And in a way that becomes a bad thing because people become immune. They become calloused to the words and don't realize the truths behind those things. This country that we're in right now, the level of freedom is unprecedented in history for anybody.

Chris Bennett [00:18:18] I don't care if you're the color of baboon's, heney, you have freedom opportunities here like no place on earth. And yet, somehow, somehow that is trampled underfoot. And and we have politicians that pretend that we are somehow akin to Stalinist society in 1955. Absolutely outrageous. Again, the freedoms we have here are precious, and yet they can disappear overnight. That message doesn't resonate in society today. But it's very simple truth.

Vance Crowe [00:18:58] I think there's like a stages of development when people are recognizing just how serious what the change is that's going on, right? The first thing they say is, where can we move that this won't happen. And so they start looking outside of the United States, and then really quickly you start to be like, no, the, you know, the United States culture is upstream of other people's culture. So if it's, if you think that you're gonna be able to go to other places and not have this flow there, particularly when you're now a stranger, an unwelcome person, a refugee, and you're gonna somehow escape this, just get rid of that idea. But that takes a little while 'cause people think like, oh, I'm going to imagine what it would be like to move to New Zealand, or, you know, somewhere in South Africa or Australia. And then you go look at their problems and they got the same ones coming for them just in a slightly different spin. And then I think there's the, you know, the kind of the resignation, well, you know, maybe we're making too big of a deal out of this. I'm gonna just focus on my, you know, what's in front of me and I'm not gonna pay attention to the news. And then people start saying like, now I see it showing up in my church, or now I hear my kids saying it at school, or now I'm starting to have to say things at work or participate in meetings I don't want to say. And that's when they start getting real nervous. And I, I, I'm not sure what the next stages are, but my sense is right now, a lot of the people that I talk with, they only feel it, right? They only like, it's kind of a tension in the air. It's like a quality of like something isn't right. But imagine you're a guy that's just had his job taken away or you know, you don't have a way to provide income or you're watching the, the, your ability to be able to provide for your family.

Vance Crowe [00:20:40] And on top of that, as soon as you complain, you're told you're a racist. You don't belong in our society, man. This is when real tension gets created. And I think it's already here. I think this is why we're seeing people feel hopeless and they go do insane things like shooting up a, a FedEx building or something like that.

Chris Bennett [00:21:02] Vance, you directly mentioned it, you know, you can't run to another country. And if you think you can just look what's already happened in Europe, they're already ahead of us in time. The things that we experience here, they have often already been through 20, 30 years prior. You know, all of what we're seeing in the United States today, whether you're up north and Midwest, south, even on the coast of course where it's all taking place, doesn't matter where you're at. We are witnessing Americans breakdown into tribes, the balkanization of society. And we have a, a severe immigration crisis right now on the border. Everyone knows what's happening on the south border or, or we know at least some of it. And what we do know is highly alarming. But if you go over to Europe, right, it's often said demography is destiny. And there's a reason for that. And the Europe is changing the, the, the, the, the core of Europe is changing as we speak. The Europe of 2050, it was not the same Europe of today. And you can't just ignore it and say, doesn't matter, the makeup is irrelevant. You know, parles got it right when he said something to the effect of the man who takes no interest in politics, has no place here.

Chris Bennett [00:22:34] It's incumbent on us because we have children and we have grandchildren to pay attention and react and not allow apathy to overcome us, which is, excuse me, got in my little girl calling apathy is always creeping, it's always on the shoulder, it's always on your nose because that is the, that's the easy way out. But what we have here in this culture is special. We're touched by God and this must be preserved again, Vance. If you look what's happening in Europe with the Islamic crisis there, the changes in demography, it's absolutely astounding. They have been asleep and they are partially waking up now. But there are consequences to every facet of politics, including immigration. We, we know what's going on with the Democrats allowing this many people in at the southern border. It's not complicated. They know which way those votes will go. And, and, and at the booth, fine, fine, fine. You can't run a country like this, you know, on the Statue of Liberty something I'm just, this is my own paraphrase, you know, gimme your tire, gimme your hungry, gimme those that are yearning to be free. You know, if you, if you could come here and yearn to be free 200 years ago, you had to come and be on your own.

Chris Bennett [00:24:12] There was no government tit. But today, right, whether it legal or illegal, what have you, you show up and you lock onto the government tit. And I don't blame anybody, lemme tell you something. First thing I would say is if I lived in the Congo or I lived in Guatemala, I would be here in a second with my family. I don't blame these people at all. But the truth is, you simply can't allow the entire world to shift. It's a utopian that doesn't exist. And we know the Democrat loves utopia, they believe in it. I, I I don't. So you take all this Vance, it's a huge amount of spaghetti that's been thrown on the wall. It's ramped up over the last two years, and it gets to the point where it's dizzy and people want to tune out. But again, we can't,

Vance Crowe [00:25:06] You know, it strikes me that it's, it's really, really difficult for educated people to stay in the United States. So we have this like really weird backwards system where we're trying to open up the borders right now, or, or there are some people that are, and you have unskilled labor that, that is yearning to breathe free. And I am a hundred percent with you. Like I've traveled to some of these places that are pre-developed pre-industrial, and as soon as I possibly could, I would try and get to the United States. But then at the same time, we have this thing where if you are from another country, you're from Eastern Europe and you come get a PhD here, we make it so hard for you to stay here that it's so dumb. Like that's the most valuable thing we can, we can hand to somebody. Far more valuable than any sort of subsidies or handouts, is a ticket into our education system. Particularly if you're learning engineering or you're learning hard sciences, we wanna make it as easy as possible, not just for them to be here, but bring your family too. So that way you got anchors here that make you drive to work hard and, and keep developing and, and instantiate that part of the culture. Like, I don't care what the, the demographics end up being as long as the mentality is education and build things like add to society,

Chris Bennett [00:26:25] Man, you, you, you just nailed it. You know, it's, and it washes over onto culture. The people that you bring into this country have an effect on the culture. So you have to ask yourself an honest question. And that is, are all cultures equal? And if, if so, hey, no problem. Right? But I don't believe that. I don't believe that for a second. I believe Judeo-Christian, Western civilization, what we inherited from the Greeks and the Romans, what we inherited from the laws of Moses down through the teachings of Jesus Christ, passed on to our forefathers, the natural law, English, common law, and what has blossomed in the United States. That's a chain of dominoes that we are blessed to have the benefit of. I I, I can only speak for myself, I don't want the Moors of Vietnam to be placed onto America. I don't want the belief system of Saudi Arabia placed onto America. 'cause what we have here is the best that it gets. Very imperfect, but it's the best on earth. So if, if you go down the road of saying, Hey man, all culture is equal, it's a very dangerous road again.

Chris Bennett [00:28:01] And if you think otherwise, take a look at Islam. Where in the Islamic world, all of those countries, I, I don't know how many, 50, 60, 70 countries, where does freedom reign? Where is freedom loose? Where's free thought given an avenue to run Wild? It's, it's simply not. And so if you look at United States right now and say, Hey, anybody, everybody, all ideas are welcome, big, giant, diverse place, no problem at all. I think we are on the road to fail, somebody has to pull the hand brake and say our full fathers got it right.

Vance Crowe [00:28:47] You know, I think that the podcast and different guests I've had on, and some of my experiences even before I started this podcast, so I used to live with a guy from Afghanistan, he's a Fulbright scholar, brilliant guy. I knew several people from Saudi Arabia that worked at the UN that I spent all kinds of time with. And the thing that they had in their cultures that we didn't have by the time I came of age, by the time I was in my twenties or early thirties, was community, right? There's very few, if you get outside of a small town or you are placed with the church or your school system where you know all the other kids that are at, once you hit a certain size, that community starts breaking down. And I had a, a really interesting guest on the podcast named Larry Sharp, and he talked about for every unit of community you give up, you take on a unit of government, and then everything becomes a transactional relationship. You know, once, once you've gotten rid of your neighbor's watch neighbor's property to say, Hey, is everything gonna be okay? Then you gotta have the police patrol in it. If you make it so the government is gonna come in and say, this childcare is okay, well then you're gonna take away the ability for people to start up a little cottage industry, to be able to integrate, to be able to have trust, be the thing that builds. And I'm, I'm completely with you in the, in the theoretical idea that what we have is great. I'm just beginning to wonder if the American experience requires units of community that we just don't have anymore.

Chris Bennett [00:30:21] That's a fascinating, it's a fascinating question and, and it it, it needs to be asked because, you know, it hearkens back to what I said I guess 20 minutes ago. We're, we're moving somewhere advance, we're headed somewhere right now. And, and the question is where, look, we're at a place right now where you can actually go onto mainstream media and suggest or even demand that we abolish the police, you know, whatever that means. They don't actually explain in detail what it means. Just as systemic racism is never actually defined wonderful to bandaid about, but we're actually at a point where people with a straight face go on and call for the abolition of police and they get away with it. I, I don't know where we go from here. It it, it's gonna be a fascinating election in 2024, regardless of who the candidates are. What, look, none of us, none of us have ever seen a situation in the White House as we see today. Everyone knows something is off. I I'm not here to spout and tell you exactly what's wrong with Biden. I don't know, but I I I can see something's wrong with the gentleman. He's having some trouble of some kind, and yet we have to masquerade along.

Chris Bennett [00:31:57] It's a, a little bit of the emperor's new clothes syndrome. And to say that America has never been through something like this is, is is the truth, the statements Vance that you and I heard when we were kids and you think, oh, no, no, but now we, we somewhere where we haven't been,

Vance Crowe [00:32:17] You know, we, you talk about the Emperor's new clothes, I think, and you think about CNN or Fox or any of these major news outlets, I think that we look at those anchors and we think, oh, that's a journalist. And really what we should see is that's an actor. They've been handed a script. They are saying the things that they're paid to say. If they say anything other than the lines that are on that piece of paper, then they're gonna take that actor out and put a new one in there. And, and I think that like we're under some spell or some delusion, I think when people go to write the history of what this time was, they're gonna be like, why did all the people sitting in their individual houses believe that the people on these big screen televisions were telling them the right things or things that would help them, or things that were correct. Like, there's this weird relationship that we have with the big faces on the television that I think are children or our children's children are gonna think what's totally insane.

Chris Bennett [00:33:20] Right, right, right. I i I, I can't imagine, right? You know, I can't imagine Vance if we could bring back the curmudgeon HL Ming, if we could bring back Ming today and say, Hey, give us your opinion on what's going on. Or we could resurrect Chris,

Vance Crowe [00:33:37] I don't knowl Minkin, who is that?

Chris Bennett [00:33:39] He was a journalist. That was, he, he, he, his tongue was a rapier and he would hammer everyone. He, he, he would meet you Vance and slice you up, dice me up, and then turn and, you know, who's next? That kind of karma. He was the a-holes a-hole, but he was the, a-hole to the level of where you would actually admire him because he was consistently contrary, right? You, you, you, you know who I'm talking about. Maybe you've worked with someone like this. At first you think they're a jerk and they are, but then you realize they're a jerk every single day, every minute. So, oh, okay, I can depend on

Vance Crowe [00:34:18] That, but

Chris Bennett [00:34:19] Very dependable. I can get along with that person, you know, you know, I I I can get along with the devil if I know how they're going to act. But HL Minkin, same thing. And, and I lost my train of thought, but I mentioned so, oh yeah, Christopher Hitchens. If we could bring Hitchings back today and say, you know, what's your opinion on the status of the media? We've always depended on the media in this country and free society for good things. And that is the media supposed to make our politicians toe the line? That role has been abdicated. And because that role has been abdicated, we live in somewhat of a political fantasy. Whereas no one wants to say again at the emperor has new clothes, you know, just go, you don't, you don't have to get on YouTube and you don't have to see the news much. We've seen it, you know, they, the, the, the mention of George Soros, Hey, stop, you know, you're not gonna mention George Soros live on air, or at least you're not gonna denigrate him live on air. That's actually the situation that we live in today. It is, again, I, how many times have I said this word unprecedented? I must have used that word four or five times so far in the conversation, and I stand by that use.

Vance Crowe [00:35:38] I think that right now there is a proliferation of content where people can find different ideas. But the biggest thing that I think people should be focusing on, you brought up the point of being active in your local politics or understanding what's going on in politics, but it is the distribution of good ideas, right? Like, if you know somebody that you think, man, that guy has really good ideas, you better find a way to make it so that guy's good ideas can get directly to you. That it does not have to be routed through another network like YouTube or Facebook or Twitter or any of those things. Because the, the biggest challenge of having new content, things that are not playing by the standard rule, is the distribution game. And, and the reason that CNN and Fox have so much power is not because their commentators are brilliant, it's because they have the, the chains of distribution. And so I'm, I'm becoming very focused on how can you distribute content? How can you get people to sign up to your email lists? How can you use RSS feeds? How can you be as connected to the people that are delivering you information as possible? Because in a second it could be blinked out and it can be blinked out in a way that you can't tell. It's being blinked out, that you can't tell that it's being blocked from you,

Chris Bennett [00:36:59] Vance. It's, you know, what you say ties into something else. We, and I, I agree with every word you just stated. The, the debt we've got, what is it now? I don't even know the latest number. Something outrageous, 30 trillion ballpark. You know, what's gonna happen with the, not just the privatization of media for someone like yourself being able to get their message out. I, I, I personally believe we are headed for the privatization of money, the state we were at three, 400 years ago. And I think Bitcoin is a sign of that. And I think everything you said, you flip it over and you can see the privatization of money there and, and, and you look at these government debt of 30 trillion, what happens if we end up with far more than Bitcoin that is successful? And, you know, you start scratching your head on this stuff, but it really does, it really does look like this is what is coming down the pipe. I I, I know this, that the media that we have today will change rapidly over the next, not not 60, 75 over the next 10 years. Look at, let's go back to the year 2000 fact just to the year 2000, right? What are the big media companies, A OL, Yahoo? They're still around, but come on, right?

Chris Bennett [00:38:32] So just, just the idea that Amazon will be in control in 10 years or 20 years. Woo. I, I don't think so. Vance. The pieces are moving on the board, man.

Vance Crowe [00:38:42] Yeah, I do think there's something to be said for, we do start to get the sense that the media players or the large companies that are around right now will always be around. I imagine if you went back 30 or 40 years, you'd say GM will be there forever. Nothing will ever knock them out or forward. And when I see the products that Facebook, for example, is putting out, they're dead. They're done. Like every, the only reason they've been able to have growth is because they've continued to buy things. They have a giant war chest. But eventually that breaks up. So I have hope in that regard, except for if we start making rules that say like, oh, you've gotta fulfill these regulatory requirements in order to be a social media channel, or we have to be able to see what your people are sharing in here. And so therefore we need some, you know, government bureaucrat here. Because to me it's just like the farm subsidy situation. You can really instantiate the exact situation that's going on right now. If you just add more regulations in and people think regulations are going to help them stop the boogeyman, when really it just makes the boogeyman not not have any competitors.

Chris Bennett [00:39:54] Vance gets back to the, gets back to the old sacred cow, man. Everything, everyone is a sacred cow. Everyone wants to be a sacred cow category. So where do you fit? You know, Vance, I mean, look at Vance. Lemme at, look at Vance's specs. Where does he fit on the grievance ladder? I can promise you this, that wherever you fit on it, you're going to get stepped on. Someone else is going to rise above you. So if I declare myself today as a, a transgender woman, what have you, right? And I, I buddy, I I, I'm the drink right of the day, I'm, but what's gonna happen in five years? Someone else is gonna rise up the ladder and, and knock you down. What we need in this country, what I firmly believe we need in western society is the consistent, right? Consistent insults, consistent offense. That's what builds a person up. You need to be offended every day.

Vance Crowe [00:40:59] I, I totally agree with that. Like, like guys, like that is how you teach a guy not to get too arrogant, not to get too big in his britches, right? It's that constant ribbing mentality. It's that constant joking. When I'm married into my wife's family, it's three girls, right? And, and so I came in, I'm the middle child of seven, I got three brothers, I got three sisters that dish it out. And so I'm used to like a really fast paced dinner conversation where you're zinging and hitting everybody and nobody is, is free from getting shot at. And I only had to go to like one or two family dinners with my wife's family to realize like, whoa, that is not everybody. But had I not been built on that, like I would've been a weak little, a weak little boy. Like I, I don't know about women, but I know men to be, to become a full man, to really be everything that you can be and manifest in the world. You need people poking you all the time and, and not being mean, but you know, making sure they're landing punches on the areas where you've shown to be a little bit vulnerable,

Chris Bennett [00:42:03] Right? Man, so we, we, we all need to be taken down a notch and with the man, the, the, the gospel of race in this country that the truth about race, right? And, and, and you see this, we saw this when we were kids on the playground. If you've got a Chinese kid and a black kid and a white kid, Lord, whatever other races are out there, it's funny, right? It's funny, funny things happen in races and we laugh our cans off at each other, right? EE everyone knows this. And every once in a while someone goes off on the media and makes a joke. Of course they get canceled. But the reason that we laugh is because it is indeed funny. I can't help that. It just is. I, I'm a white guy. There's a lot of things about white society that are simply funny. And if somebody wants to come in and mock that more power to you, but don't get mad at me. If I didn't turn around and make jokes about the Mexicans, then what's the big deal? I'll tell you what the big deal is, Vance. It gets back to what I, I said at the beginning of this, and that is that a joke or an effort that is then equated with racism, right? You made a joke, therefore you are racist, outrageous, zero connection there.

Chris Bennett [00:43:34] You wanna judge a man, judge him by his behavior, not the words that he says. In other words, Vance, if you have one man and he uses a racial epi, racial epithet, but let's say he's very kind and helps those that are not in his race, and you have another man, he toes the line, he never says anything or makes any joke that's wrong, doesn't help anyone, sits on his Henny and doesn't reach out to anybody. Which one, according to the media, right, is the stellar fella. It's the guy who wouldn't dare to say a word wrong, but it just gets back to the maximum judge, a man by his actions and not these ridiculous words, pulling out your measuring tape to find out just how far on the woke tab you rank or where you fit on the grievance la ladder. I'll say it one more time. We all need to be offended every day by, by something. It's good for us medicine.

Vance Crowe [00:44:44] I think comedians, right? That's, that's what they bring that's so deeply valuable, right? It's the ability to be able to, you know, the court jester has a place in, in the king society because he's able to say things to the king to ground him without getting his head chopped off. And there's a guy right now that I think is hilarious, he might really offend some of my listeners, but his name is Ryan Long and he's in New York City, and he puts out some of the most offensive things I've seen before. But the reason that they're so funny is 'cause you're like, well, that is a little true. There is a little bit of truth there, right? But he's able to, he talks about, I've seen him do some interviews and he talks about how the algorithms can't pick up sarcasm. So whenever he's writing things, the the way that he hasn't gotten blocked yet is that he just does everything that's so sarcastic that it's just like way, way over the line. But the algos can't detect it. So he, he gets around censorship, who knows how long that'll last for. But if you're looking for a guy that's edgy, but then when you watch it, you're like, ah, I could see that his name is Ryan Long. He's very, oh,

Chris Bennett [00:45:53] I'm gonna go look up Ryan Long, you know, Vance, lemme throw this at you. How do you think this serious question now, how do you think Monty Python, that gang of comedy would be received in today's society?

Vance Crowe [00:46:07] No chance. There's no, they would be dead dead before they ever got on any stages or put any movies out. Like the life of Brian. There's no, there's no chance that would make it out.

Chris Bennett [00:46:18] Right? Right, right. You know, life of Brian is perfect example. Life of, I, I'm a Christian. I I don't wanna partake of life of Brian, but the truth is, they made a cracking movie that is hilarious, right? I, I personally think it's blasphemous, but hey, I I, I gotta go to work in the morning. Ain't worried about it. Let these fellas say what they wanna say. I completely admit that it's very funny. No sacred cows. Let it roll Vance. Just let it roll, man.

Vance Crowe [00:46:53] So you've got me a little bit worried, Chris, because you are one of the most positive people I know. You're like always bouncing back and you seem to be really worried. Do you think that the there is doomed just over the horizon or what, what's got this being such a center of your focus?

Chris Bennett [00:47:13] You know, Vance, I can't put a date on it, but I'm gonna say maybe 20 years ago I heard the murmurings, right? You hear these tiny footprints of people that began to discuss civil war in this country. I laughed. I I I mocked the idea at the time, and you look at the makeup of the large urban centers today versus where the states actually lie. And then you look at the old line of the Civil War, not necessarily the Mason Dixon, but you look at where civil war once took place in the 1860s. And just as pure theory, just as pure theory, hypothetical say, okay, what if there was a civil war today? Where would the line be? Well, there there is no line. 'cause again, you've got big cities all over the place and you can't see anything like that happening. So if, if, if you look at the split today between the Democrats and the Republicans, I hear right? Whether it's on someone's podcast or whether it's on YouTube or whether it's an article, a lot of people today talk about becoming civil war. Maybe that'll happen with a whimper. Maybe it'll happen. I don't think it'll happen with a bang myself. I think if anything happens, it'll happen with a whimper. And how would it break down Vance?

Chris Bennett [00:48:46] How would the country split? And I, I, I tend to think that if there was some degree of civil war, it would happen over basic freedoms. Some sort of severing of those who believed in the Constitution and those who believe in some sort of neo constitution. You and I could drink coffee for hours and hours and we could debate on again, what the geography would be of that breakdown. But I no longer, I can honestly say when someone talks about that I no longer mock them or laugh. Because if I project down the road far enough and I look what's going on in society today, again, moving away from the stake that our forefathers drove, which is the Constitution, I don't have any problem believing something could happen similar to some kind of civil war in the future. Just look around at all the other countries where this kind of thing has taken place and, and, and, and you really, you really have to wonder, Vance, look what's going on in, in Europe that they've got major, major demographic issues that are going to come to the fore by 2050 and beyond. It's going to happen. And they don't know what to do. They don't even wanna talk about it, but it's, it's right before eyes.

Vance Crowe [00:50:11] Yeah. I get the sense that these trials that are happening, you know, the, the Chauvin just, just finished up. There'll be Kyle Rittenhouse. Oh man, oh man. I think that people believing that the, that the politicians should get involved ahead of time and say that they know whether or not somebody should be guilty or not, and then creating this pressure within the society before the trial happens, and then having cities have to respond saying, you know, we wanna make sure that the population doesn't go and start rioting and have violence as a result of these. Like, if you start to decay, the ability for people to feel like they're getting justice and to feel like the the system is, is run by the angriest group of people. That is when you really have a problem. Because my, you know, I've said this before on the podcast, my buddy that lived in Afghanistan, he said, what you Americans don't understand about Afghanistan is the people welcomed the Taliban in. And the reason that they welcomed the Taliban in is because our court systems had become so corrupt that no one could get justice. And so what they did was they found out there was a group of people that would come in and they would settle all of our disputes. And if somebody stole from you or if somebody, you know, lied or didn't deliver on what they were supposed to, they met it out justice. And when you live in a society that you can't get justice, you're willing to turn to some really dark people in order to get it.

Vance Crowe [00:51:46] And that frightens me because I, i, I think you're right, it probably will start out like a whimper, but when people feel like lady justice isn't blind or that scale is, is somehow uneven, they will do wild, wild things,

Chris Bennett [00:51:59] Right? Right. Abhor abhorrent things. And you know, I, you know, my opinion of human nature already vance, which is pretty dank. And, and when, when you unleash the beast and you allow people to participate in mob rule, you are headed to hell. No other destination. Someone has to hold the line. And we as freethinking people that love liberty, genuine liberty, where we say to people, you deserve equality of opportunity and that's it, right? No equality of outcome, nothing like that. We have to consistently state these things. And sometimes I think we're at the point now where as individuals we feel like, Lord, I I I'm just going to put on a sandwich board that says the word freedom on it and march around something like that because our politicians have certainly failed us. Y you ought to see the pack of politicians in Mississippi. I mean, you're talking about tits on a bull. It it, and, and I know that other states are in the same boat or you just have a network or you cycle the same ones through and they tell you what you want to hear. And once they get into office, they jump ship. This is the pattern that's, that's the template that they follow. It's, it's just to call it scary Vance to call it frightening is not enough.

Chris Bennett [00:53:35] Again, I I I would love to throw my hands up man and say, I'm just going to do my thing. I'm just gonna go to work. I'm gonna keep my head below the parapet. I'm not gonna peek over, but I have a son and I have a daughter. And if, if, if the Lord blesses me, I will have grandchildren someday. And it's not good enough for me simply to go along. I, I hope it's not good enough for the rest of free loving thinking. Americans, regardless of whether you in Iowa or Mississippi or California, wherever you are, the common thread of liberty runs through us all as Americans, and it doesn't run through other countries in the same manner. Now, I know Vance, that if me and you began to write our definition of freedom down on a piece of paper, your definition and mine would be, would be very similar by the time we got to the end. But if you take someone that's in Saudi Arabia for example, or Iraq or Vietnam, you ask them for their definitive definition of freedom, you're going to get something entirely different. And I don't wanna live by their definition of freedom.

Vance Crowe [00:54:52] You know, it's, it's interesting you say that because the other day I saw that the providence of, of Ontario shut down their border from the other provinces. So if you're living in Manitoba, even if you're vaccinated, you can't come into Ontario. You can only if you're a healthcare worker or certain sorts of supply transport. And so I am completely outraged by this, you know, to me this is like, you know, we've crossed the Rubicon, you've shut down your, your, your what equivalent Canadian state borders. You shut that down. So something big has happened. So I write my Canadian friends and I'll let them be anonymous for now, but people that I know that, that the listeners would know, and I was like, oh man, I feel terrible for you guys. This is awful. Like, you must be outraged. And they're like, nah, you know, that's okay then we gotta solve the problem. We gotta get this thing. And that's when I started realizing like, Canada is not America, junior Canada is a different country. They have a different way of looking at things and their view of freedom is kind of like ours. But like, I think of shutting states down as like go time, right? Like, like we have had a really serious change of scenarios in which you're not allowed to have free movement throughout the country. This is not, this is not good. And so that brings me back to the, like it is special in, in what we have here, or at least what we had here. I'm, I'm, I'm not entirely convinced that the, that we're not just play acting what it's like to be in a free country because we, we've gone so long without being in it.

Vance Crowe [00:56:29] You know, like anybody that lives in corporate America knows what it's like to have a set of unwritten rules that you have to follow in order to be able to survive and, and do well in that company. And I think that's what's probably going on in the country as a whole.

Chris Bennett [00:56:48] I completely agree. You know, and, and you, you bring up the Wuhan virus and a million thoughts rush into my head, Vance, and, you know, the mask police, the control of government on, we go from there. The, the mixed messages that we have gotten and continue to get from the CDC that make absolutely, I I'm convinced, it's my opinion,

Vance Crowe [00:57:15] You would not, you would not believe. You literally would not believe the amount of pressure. And, and like from people I respect from people I've known for years,

Chris Bennett [00:57:24] When

Vance Crowe [00:57:24] The mask mandates were coming on and when the lockdowns were coming on and I said, look, before we do this, let's just say that you're right, we have to do this. Okay, then give me the criteria before we put the masks on that the masks come off. And they were like, but there's no time to think about these things. We don't have time to come up with a way in which you can get out of this. Or you can point that somebody's hijacked power. And I look at that now and I'm like, I was right. You know, like there's no end to this mask thing. Now if you get stabbed twice with a vaccine, you know that you're, that still, you're not allowed to go without a mask. This is insane.

Chris Bennett [00:58:04] It's insane. Vance, I'm absolutely convinced, I'm absolutely believer that there is a heavy segment of our society that looks at the mask and looks at the government control related to the mask as the, as as avuncular warmth. They lack the control of government over them. It fits into their mindset and it allows them some degree of almost virtue signaling, almost a new form of woke is where we can split and point to who is and who ain't. But again, I think they like the old arm of the government, uncle government around their shoulders and makes 'em feel warm. You and I, we kinda recoil from that, right? We recoil, oh Lord, what does it, so what does that say about us? You know, what does that say about where we have gotten where you actually, if, if they announced, if CDC announced tomorrow v that we are going continue the masks mask mandates for the next decade, we have to both admit, I mean, at least I have to admit that there is a of our fellow Americans that would be in support,

Vance Crowe [00:59:25] But you know, who's not in support of it. I, this, this week I had a plumbing catastrophe that I personally made worse by trying to fix it myself. And I had to have two different people come by the house. And when plumbers stop by my house or the guy that has to get up and, and, and into the in, he had to get up on my roof. It was a whole mess. They don't show up wearing masks. And I was so glad. I wanted to like be like, come on in, can I, you know, can I get you a glass of something? Like

Chris Bennett [00:59:55] I,

Vance Crowe [00:59:55] I want the, but I'm really glad 'cause they don't show up like with the mask in their hand or with the mask on. And then being like, is it okay with you? There's no mask. And I, I think you'd be a fool to be like, you better put that mask on. 'cause I hope what they would say is, all right, well, I'm just not, I'm just not gonna come in then if it's not safe. For me to be in there without a mask on, then maybe it's just not safe for me to do your plumbing.

Chris Bennett [01:00:18] That's it. It's, you know, this past year it's been bizarrely fascinating. Just, you know, when we watch some of the nightly news, for example, just your local news, and they rattle off, they were rattling off the amount of deaths on the amount of cases, right? They would tell you, okay, today in Mississippi, for example, we had a thousand people die. Or today in Arkansas we had 1500 die. They don't tell you the ages of the people, they don't tell you anything about 'em, just people as if, right? It's a bunch of two year olds that have some suddenly killed over. And you and I both know the age category of those that died. Look, I'm not trying to throw shade on somebody. My parents are in their seventies, well into their seventies. I want my parents protected and cared for, but I think it's pretty dang relevant if that's the age that's getting planted, six foot under. Somebody needs to tell us that instead of pretending like six year olds at elementary are the ones at risk, or somebody that's 50 like me or your age, Vince, which I don't know, so I won't throw your age out there. But anyhow, it just, it's indicative of the whole force that we've seen. And you gotta throw your hands up and say, okay, what's the next disease coming around the bend? And, and, and, you know, you know, like, what's his name

Vance Crowe [01:01:49] Thing? I, I think like the biggest thing with the masks that, that drive me a little bit nuts is the, the inverted logic that happens around them. It's

Chris Bennett [01:01:58] Inverted logic.

Vance Crowe [01:01:59] The, the, it's the, yes, you may not wanna wear the mask, but you're not wearing it for you, you're wearing it for me. And like, well, maybe I don't wanna wear it for you. Like, you know, okay. You know, like the, the starting philosophy, the starting block is not, I do things for you. We want to cooperate because we've agreed it's in our interest to have that cooperation. But if you're mandating that I cooperate with you, then I'm, then, then the bet's off. I, I'm not interested in that cooperation. Right?

Chris Bennett [01:02:31] Yeah, I don't,

Vance Crowe [01:02:32] You're getting me all worked up, man. I try and be like,

Chris Bennett [01:02:34] I don't wanna wear age ribbon. I don't wanna wear age ribbon. I don't wanna wear a mask. DD does that make me a bad person? Hey, maybe it does, but please just, you know, stay outta my yard government and we'll be on fine.

Vance Crowe [01:02:52] So we've been talking all about the craziness of politics and masks and all of these things, but you know, for, for people that haven't listened to our first two interviews, they don't know that you are a prolific ag writer. One of the, one of the best, if not the best in the United States right now. And you wrote an article about the Jerusalem artichoke scandal that I think is worth just giving a little bit of a taste of, of your in-depth research and reporting.

Chris Bennett [01:03:21] What happened, you know, with the j Jerusalem artichoke scandal is absolutely fascinating. Advance, maybe some of your listeners via podcast or via YouTube, don't know what an art Jerusalem artichoke is. Essentially, it's a tuber, like a mini tater mini potato. And in, in the late 1970s, the US farming community was coming out of complete economic bedlam and they were going into economic bedlam. So in the early eighties, you got farmers, you got landowners that were desperate for some degree of success. And a couple of shysters up in Minnesota, this what was in many states, but they were centered in min Minnesota, came out and basically said, Hey, you know, it was one of those Ponzi schemes. You give us 10,000, you give us 20,000, you can buy the the seed, you plant 'em, we'll buy it from you. We will get this. Anyhow, they used right to get this Ponzi scheme going. They used a heavy amount of old school revival tent religion. One of the shysters involved, carried a bible leather bible under his arm at all times. Not, was never opened. He just carried the thing. What was interesting was a guy wrote a book on it named Joe Amato. You can look this up on Amazon, I can't remember the exact title of the book. It escapes me. Wonderful book on the scandal. And he told me that in the headquarters of where these fellows were selling these Jerusalem artichokes, which I think Vance was like a 25 or $30 million scandal, that in the headquarter building, they had not one but two church organs that would play.

Chris Bennett [01:05:05] So when visitors would come in, they would hit the organ, right? You know, get the mood going, get the mood music. And so when I wrote it in the article, I said that they had one or two organs. He said, you better go with one. I'm not sure if, I think they had two, but they, they, they had one for sure. There was many facets to the case when they put those guys on trial, Vance, eventually they put them on trial. And the prosecutor of these shysters told me that one of them met him in the hallway in between sessions and said to him, you know, why can't you leave me alone because the Lord has forgiven me and y'all should forgive me too. And I, I said to the prosecutor, Peter, Peter Casal was his name, very sharp, social sharp gentleman. I said, he actually said that to you, confronted you in such a manner. He said, yes, that's, that's exactly what it said. So it, it sounded to me bance like there was no remorse. These guys ended up going to the pen, I think for months or not, much more than that. The money was never recovered. And it's one of the most bizarre ag scandals Ponzi schemes out there. Very sad, very sad.

Vance Crowe [01:06:20] Well, it's interesting because I was at a Farm bureau event, I can't remember exactly when, but somebody was talking about cannabis, growing cannabis, not, not necessarily I think for the CBD as opposed to the THC. And some guy yelled out from the back, I remember the artichoke scandal. And I was like, what's all that about? And, and now it all makes sense, man. 'cause there's always people out there trying to, trying to prop themselves up as, as having the truth in some quick way to make money. And, and it's funny that they made that comparison.

Chris Bennett [01:06:56] Vance, you know, agriculture is filled with a a billion wild stories. And, and, and I'm, I'm working on a story right now slowly because it must be simmer as such. But we have in this country, and don't, don't quote me on the number, but I'm ballpark close. We've got about 360, 300 50,000 Chinese students in our American universities. Now, let me hit you with that number again. It's about 360,000 students from China that come over here to go to college. They are vetted before they leave by the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP. And they are debriefed when they get home by the CCP. And we know for a fact everybody knows that the CCP keeps a tight hand on everyone. So let me throw something out at, at, at, at you in the audience. You got 360,000 Chinese students here, let me pull a percent outta my head. 1%. Let's just pretend that the CCP has only tapped 1% of them. That's a 3,600 right off the bat. But if you extend that number out, and there are many, many analysts that believe the number is far, far higher, such as in 50 to 60%. If that amount of students is tapped by the CCP, they are running around in our ag universities and our university is at large.

Chris Bennett [01:08:35] And then you look at the reports of the stolen technology by the CCP across the country, which factors into the billions and billions and billions, it's not difficult to figure out at least a portion of what is going on. So when you see the case 10 years ago where the Chinese fellow was kneeling down in the cornfield and got caught stealing seed and you see them stealing rice, rice seed in Arkansas, those are just tip of the iceberg. What lies beneath is the real factor. And there is just no telling the amount of ag technology that's stolen by the CCP partly through the six 360,000 Chinese students that are here. And if you dare, right, if you dare say anything, come on. No, you, you're, you, you, you're not responding with the proper open arms. Lemme put it that way.

Vance Crowe [01:09:36] Well, I mean, if you've ever worked around a university, you find out that one of the reasons why the United States University system opens their arms so wide to Chinese students is 'cause they pay full price cash and they're not taking out loans. You, you don't have to give them in-state tuition that you, they're willing to write a check or, or bring cash over and they pay you today, not tomorrow. And to many universities that is just like, now that they've tasted that sweet, sweet, you know, money, they're never gonna give it up. And, and so I, you know, I don't know about it in particular with ag programs, but I know our, our biological sciences programs, right, are, are filled with foreign students and then we make it, you know, you, you bring up the point of maybe they're going back and, and, and giving away our information, but a lot of them were pushing out of the system, whether they're Chinese or Eastern European, and we're making it impossible for them to stay here. So why not go trade on on your secrets if you're not allowed to stay here and build a life and integrate

Chris Bennett [01:10:43] Vance Fang Fang, Eric Sw, Well's bed buddy, that lady, right? She comes in as part of the student association. She was president out there in California of the club and she winds up, right? Honey Pot Eric swalwell into bed. And there's a classic case of you just shake your head, you can't believe what's going on. The FBI, what do they tailor for a couple of years? She ends up sleeping with two Midwestern mayors and swalwell. And then suddenly one day the lady gets on a plane, flies back to Beijing and everybody says, oh, oh, well Swalwell still got his position up there on Capitol Hill. The whole thing, man, it is too outlandish for words, but again, nothing our politicians do should surprise us.

Vance Crowe [01:11:40] You know, espionage is one of those things that like, if you start talking about it, people think you're absolutely insane, right? It's like, it's like you're talking about boogeyman, but it's a real thing. And like the competition for scarce resources, the ability to cause chaos in mayhem in other people's country, that's a real thing. And you know, I often like, so when the Wuhan thing came out and there was a speculation that it was bats and people eating bats, I put some tweet out about that. I think Matt Ridley had put something up and so, you know, he's world respected author member of the House of Lords. So I retweet him, well, I start getting hit by these bots that are telling me that people in Hong Kong eat bats and that it's not just the Chinese and I, so I start digging into this and it's an entire like botnet that's set up to propagate these ideas where it's just like the exact same logo and writing, but they're writing to all of the people that have put anything negative about China. And you think about like, they went to those links in the, in the trying to make sure that, that the Wuhan virus COVID doesn't get blamed on them. Then what else are they doing? What other, what other accounts or bots and and ideas are they propagating inside of the United States that aren't just, we don't wanna be blamed for COVID? What else are they propagating?

Chris Bennett [01:13:11] Lance Swedes, it's 2021 is, is this not the hundredth year anniversary of the CCP? Are they not 1921? So that's a hundred years. You've got a party responsible for, was it cc 90 million deaths, maybe 90 million deaths in China in just a hundred years. And then we think, ah, well they, they, they, you know, they're not, they're not gonna steal a couple of computer codes. I think 90 million deaths and over a hundred year stretch and not even a scintilla of freedom. I, I think that speaks for itself.

Vance Crowe [01:13:46] Well Chris, man, you are exciting to talk to you. I'm, I'm, I'm hoping that the summer weather will give us a new hope for things that we can build towards. If people wanted to read your articles, find out more about what you're doing, how would they find you?

Chris Bennett [01:14:01] You bet. I'm, I'm on Ag web ag GWEB ag web.com and you can put my name in there and some of the articles that I've written will come up and I'm on Twitter as well. I don't actually use it, but I'm on there. I've never seen you use Twitter. Something. I can't even remember my, my hand. I think it's at c Bennett, 71, something like that. So I just gotta a plead ignorance. But lemme tell you something, Vance, it's a privilege to be on here with you. There is only one Vance Crowe and I'm talking to him. So it's a real blessing.

Vance Crowe [01:14:38] I love having you on, man. And we'll have you on again real soon.

Chris Bennett [01:14:41] Hey, thank you.