We Hold These Truths: Randy DeSoto on Faith, Founders & the Constitution

Jack Moore: Welcome to another edition of more to consider. I'm excited today. I have on Randy DeSoto. So I've mentioned often in the shows, I'm a law school graduate of Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in 1997. And the gentleman I have with me today, Randy, is a graduate from 1996. So we were in the hallway at the same time. You know, we do the one L two L thing. So he's a, when he's a two L, I'm a one L and then he graduates when you're ahead of me. Randy, how are you, sir?

Randy DeSoto: Mm-hmm. Doing great. Thanks, Jack. It's great to be on your show.

Jack Moore: All right, so you end up at, thank you very much for being here. So you also have military background. You're a graduate of West Point.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, I went there in eighty-nine. ⁓ I should say I graduated in eighty-nine from West Point. I had grown up in central Pennsylvania and ⁓ I really wanted to go in the military. My grandpa had been in World War Two and and my dad had been in ⁓ the reserves during the Vietnam era. But ⁓ so so it you know, small town parades, you know, Memorial Day parades and Fourth of July and veterans and I just looked up to all those people. So I really wanted to ⁓

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: be involved with that. And so I applied for ROTC and West Point. And then w I got accepted at West Point. And so I went up there and I it was really a great time ⁓ learning. You know, it was Reagan was the president and so the American spirit was running high. And he came to West Point while I was there and spoke to us. And so I to see my hero in person, who's actually in the book too and pictured on the cover, ⁓ was a really touchstone moment for me. And then ⁓

Jack Moore: Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: I was in the army during the Persian Gulf War, although I didn't get deployed over there, but I was in tanks and the armor. And so we got ready and shots and wills and all that stuff. But then we didn't get deployed. But then afterwards they were shrieking the army down quite a bit. And so I thought, let's get out. And I worked for a few summers with the officers' Christian Fellowship and their, you know, with a Christian ⁓ camp ⁓ for military youth, and that was fine. And then I enrolled at Regent about a year out.

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: And ⁓ I'd seen Pat Robertson he was on television on the seven hundred club saying, Hey, we're building this brand new law building and he had the dean there who was Herb Titus at the time. And he he said, Yeah, we're gonna Christian lawyers. And I thought I was a fairly new Christian at the time. I'd become a Christian in eighty eight at West Point. And so that really appealed I had been a poly sci major at West Point. And so I thought, that's a good you know, I'm gonna check this out. And so I I liked it and I went there and it was a really rewarding time and ⁓ Really the book came out of that, you know, my time at Region University. I'd written a paper in legal history. We had to do a you know, a paper to graduate, like a long form paper. And so mine was about how the Declaration of Independence, it's the theological underpinnings of the Declaration of Independence came right out of the Western legal tradition. And so I kind of built that argument. And that's really what Jefferson said in his letter. He's like, I wasn't trying to argue anything new. I was just trying to encapsulate.

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: all the ideas that were going on at that time. So John Locke and Hugh Sidney, there were these other people. And he's like, I'm just encap and even the arguments being made in these different political pamphlets like Common Sense with Thomas Paine, all that stuff. So yeah, that's what my book is about.

Jack Moore: Right. Right. Well, as a native of Virginia, literally going back to Jamestown and the Commonwealth of Virginia, you being from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you know, and everybody that listens to me ad nauseum hears me say that I got a big baseball background and I've just met so many neat people from Pennsylvania. And there's, there's kind of a saying between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. It's basically Alabama. You know, when you get into Pennsylvania, it's very real people.

Randy DeSoto: Mm-hmm. Ha ha. Yeah.

Jack Moore: It's a beautiful state. think the world of Pennsylvania. And when you go back to the founding, Bill Bennett came to Old Dominion when I was in graduate school and he opened with, said, if you're from Virginia, remember this. You had the guy that pretty much wrote the declaration. You got the guy that pretty much wrote the constitution and you got the father of the country. And he said, this may have been the greatest collection of political genius in the world. And I was arguing with that with somebody. said, stop and think about it.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, yeah.

Jack Moore: This whole American experiment, if you want to call it that, and I think that's kind of new agey or whatever, but to have Jefferson and Madison come out of the same neck of the woods, that's pretty strong. You know, it's pretty strong to write those documents. And of course, Franklin played his part, you know, certainly. then there was, was greats throughout that time, but clearly politically, Virginia was the most dominant state. 32 of the first 36 years presidents from Virginia and

Randy DeSoto: ⁓ yeah.

Jack Moore: course, nobody's from Virginia in public office now. All the people that are in public office in the Commonwealth didn't grow up in Virginia. It's a whole different thing. Virginia, it's its own, you know, communist regime now, I guess it's kind of changed from what I grew up with, but Pennsylvania is a special state for sure. Special in the founding.

Randy DeSoto: I lived in Virginia for ten years. So I went to Regent and then I s came back soon thereafter when I started writing the book because I kind of needed the resources at Regent Library to pull this thing off. And it this was before the internet was anything big or it was probably just in kind of its infancy. And so I was like going and looking in these books and the Norfolk Public Library also had a great old book section. You know, you couldn't check them out, but you you could r look at them and the woman there who was the librarian overseeing that was so helpful to me. But

Jack Moore: Yeah. Yes.

Randy DeSoto: No, I love Virginia. Didn't I?

Jack Moore: Did you ever run to Rich, did you ever run to Richmond to go to the state library up there?

Randy DeSoto: No, I ended up at ⁓ the state library in Pennsylvania was helpful to me. And then ⁓ Regents Library, and then ⁓ I I eventually moved to California. So this book was actually written coast to coast and ⁓ and I lived right next to UCLA campus, and so I would go to their law school and their main libraries, which were also good. But ⁓ no, yeah, I was thinking the first while you were talking Virginia history, and of course I go used to go to Yorktown. I went to so many of the places.

Jack Moore: Okay. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.

Randy DeSoto: In the book that I describe. And so I'd go to Yorktown and be inspired there. But yeah, I like that quote. ⁓ John Kennedy, who I have the on the cover. He has such a great statement about the rights of man and his ⁓ inaugurators come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. And so that's right, like two sentences into his ⁓ inauguration. But he also has a great observation about Thomas Jefferson, ⁓ where

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Yes. No, that's a great quote. Go ahead.

Randy DeSoto: He's he was having a Nobel Prize winner's dinner and ⁓ so he gets up and he says, Yes, I think this is the greatest assembly of of minds ⁓ here in the White House since Thomas Jefferson dined alone. So

Jack Moore: That's a great lie. God bless JFK for that one. You're right. That is a great one. ⁓ So you've written a book. What is that title of that book? Go ahead and show that.

Randy DeSoto: I titled it We Hold These Truths. I have a little poster of it behind me too, but it's We Hold These Truths. And I the little tagline was Two Beliefs Change the World. And so the original version came out in 07, but I thought, gee, with the 250th anniversary, I've got to get a new edition out. And and there's been so much that's happened between, you know, in the last 20-ish years that I, you know, I wanted to include some things about Trump in it and Charlie Kirk, who I give ⁓ real plaudits to in the book.

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: I live in Phoenix, Arizona now. And so, you know, Turning Point USA is here. And so I I interviewed him a few times over the year. I'm a journalist now at the Western Journal and I've been with them for eleven years. But so I interviewed Charlie Kirk a few times over the years. And then I would go to the Am America Fests and the they would have these Turning Point Faith events where they'd bring in people like Eric Mataxis and others and they'd just talk about the issues of the day. And so I thought, you know

Jack Moore: Yeah, yeah.

Randy DeSoto: Charlie Kirk is like a Thomas Paine of our time, but is what I argue. And so in the book, I actually it's three sections and I and then I look at today. So I look at three major undefined you know, you undeniably defining moments in the US history and epic, truthfully, in history. And I thought, you know, I I tried to build an argument, I guess using my regent law skills and whatever, to say, you know, that's that can't be gainsayed in a sense, honestly. You know, you so I say the Declaration of Independence has been a mm fortifying and a defining document through US history. And so I I look at the revolution, obviously that's how we declared our independence. You know, Charlie Kirk called it the nation's birth certificate. And then and he and I quote him right in the foreword of the book, and then in the last chapter when he gave us ⁓ an address, a speech at a church here last July fourth weekend. And he talked about the declaration pretty much the whole time. But then I then I go to the Civil War and then World War II. So, and out of each of those things, you saw major changes in the law. And so each of those three sections ends with a chapter called Justice Established, you know, kind of from the preamble of the Constitution, in order to establish justice for ourselves and our prosterity, we're going to establish this constitution. And so know, of course, the Revolutionary War, we get the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And so it takes the ideas of the Declaration of Independence. We're endowed by our Creator with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and it brings those into actual law. Like the the former Dean of Regent University used to say, the Declaration of Independence was the founding charter of our country. And then the Constitution is the bylaws. This is how we're gonna. So we have this idea. We wanna say it's a company, we're we're gonna build.

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: Best mattress or the best car or whatever it is. So this is our objective. So you set out the big goals in the Declaration of Independence. And then this is how we're going to organize our company so that we can build these things. And so that's what the Constitution is. And then the Civil War, you know, of course we had three major amendments after the Civil War. The freedom of the slaves, 13th Amendment, due process, 14th Amendment. You know, everyone's treated equal under the law is the 14th Amendment.

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: And then the fifteenth amendment was the right to vote, you know. And then finally, after World War Two, I get into how we take our ideas and we implement help them get implemented in Germany and Japan and set the example really for the world. So and then I look at today, arguing that we'd kind of lost our way. But although we're in ⁓ seven when this came out, I felt like we were really losing our way. I feel like there's some signs we're getting back on track. And I certainly make that argument. So

Jack Moore: Yeah. Well, you know, there's also the argument, I'm sure. I know it was written into a book, but I've heard, I've heard this just basically this outline that in every 20 year cycle, hard men create soft children and then softer children, which leads to hard times. And when you think about what you just said, it's funny about your timeline. The American revolution to the civil war is right around 80 years. The world war two is right around 80 years and 80 years from that is now.

Randy DeSoto: No, I ⁓ yeah.

Jack Moore: And so when you think about it, like, yeah, I talk about my dad a lot on here's born in 1928. He was drafted during Korea, never was actually activated over. He was drafted and got an opportunity to go to OCS. He was a high school graduate, but his IQ was through the roof. So they put him in OCS. He finishes high in his class. He resigns his commission, gets out, goes in state police school and has talked back into the reserves and makes full colonel. 19 years from, being recommissioned from 28 to 47, he got full Colonel. So he was really, I he was good in the military, but all of his uncles were in World War II, including one that landed at Normandy. And he was a bad-ass. mean, when I used to talk to him, I used to realize he was a tough dude. So I knew those men growing up as a kid. I was born in 62. I'm guessing you were born about 67-ish. Yeah. So you're about five years younger, but if you were around that, and then I used to work on an army base in the eighties and I worked with Vietnam veterans.

Randy DeSoto: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jack Moore: And I love those guys, but they were some hard scrabble guys. They were tough guys and they had been in combat and you know that. mean, if you're around certain kinds of people, but you know, they carried, they carried the load when in a country called upon them and then they don't want their kids to suffer that, you know, and it's generation after generation trying to make it a little bit easier for their kids. Next thing you know, we have today and that's why I think you're correct for the audience trying to hear where I'm going with this. I think things have gotten so bad. I'm listening to young people now. I still coach college baseball, so I'm around young kids. They're skewing very libertarian to conservative. They like, they've kind of had enough. Now they're also baseball players, you so I'm not around kids, you know, maybe in other environments, but I'm hearing more and more from the kids what we might've thought we heard more growing up ourselves in a different generation. And I think it's because they're kind of at wits end. Now on the flip side, we just see what happened in New York with the voting. know, they're, they're throwing, you know, socialism skewing towards communism. And I think people are just so frustrated. They're falling for it. But if I could wave a magic wand, when any, anybody ever asked me what's the big problem, I'm like public education. The capture for generations or decades of kids being taught the things they're being taught in the capture of the government. They're creating good little statists. I mean, you're going to have a purpose of education or you're going to have an overarching theme. And it certainly isn't what is in your book, you know? And when I taught in public school or public schools, state supported community colleges a few years ago, when I was teaching criminal justice, I'd open with by what authority? And they'd look at me kind of sideways. I would read, brother, true story. I would read the declaration. like, what's Jefferson driving at when he says, If you don't meet these ends, alter or abolish. What's he saying? He sees bringing about revolution or he's declaring an independence and it's written to the world. This is our justification for, and they're hearing it like, wow, he said that you guys have heard this before. Never. You were not taught the declaration in public schools. Never heard of it. Now they knew about saving the whale or something. They knew things like that, but they literally had never, I'm being, and you probably agree with this. They had literally never heard of the declaration. I mean, they kind of knew it existed, but they didn't know what was in it.

Randy DeSoto: No I No, yeah, and and I have an article coming out on July fourth from Charlie Kirk's last, you know, speech on this subject, or you know, the last major one anyway. ⁓ and so he was saying that was that's the very point, and I quote some of that in the book, but that's he was saying that's is the issue that kids aren't being taught. They he said like he he cited a school like Turning Point had started and and then another local school here in Phoenix that, you know, they are going through the declaration line by line and and paragraph by paragraph. But He said, that's certainly the exception, not the rule. They they aren't taught these things. He said a lot of there's a lot of talk about the declaration, but there's not a lot of actually reading the declaration. So if anything, people know the phrase, we hold these truths that you know all men are created equal doubt by their creator. But, you know, Jefferson, you know, the very first sentence of the declaration of independence is, you know, in the court when in the course of human events, you know, the governments become ⁓ c in conflict with the laws of nature and nature's God, you know. We we have to lay out the reasons why we're gonna be separating from England. And so and so he says, you know, we've been petitioning. It it was almost like right out of the Bible. It's like the Bible says when you've got somebody who's offended you, you know, go with a a brother up to them and say, Hey, you know, I feel like you've done me wrong in this area, this area. I mean, you can approach them and individually too, but they've you know, they they went through kind of the Matthew eighteen process, you know, they kept trying to redress their grievances and England kept coming back with more and more force.

Jack Moore: Exactly. Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

Randy DeSoto: Until eventually they occupied Boston military, you know, martial law. They forced the local residents to house their troops. You know, they they shut down trade, you know, which is the lifeblood of you know people, you know, their their life and then they started even shelling and burning some communities to the ground, like Norfolk got shelled by the British in the lead up before we declared our independence. And we're like, so they said, you know, governments that behave this way are are not are have turned into tyranny.

Jack Moore: Yeah, yeah.

Randy DeSoto: And we we can no longer tolerate it. And so they laid out multiple reasons then, in the Declaration of Independence why we're out of here. So

Jack Moore: But if, if you were to measure on a one to 10 scale, let's call it a seven. Let's say that the colonists thought that the rule of England at the time was in the seven range. Where the hell is it today? I mean, if we looked at what are, I mean, where would it be today in comparison? Like, I feel like what we look back at, you know, I've heard it argued like they were arguing over 2 % taxation, you know, like, well, where does that

Randy DeSoto: You mean Now it wasn't just that.

Jack Moore: Well, no, mean, I know, but I'm saying, I don't know that the government that we now have accepted for almost 250 years isn't far more out of line. We could make the argument that today's government, as it relates to our association there with, isn't worse. And yet we just kind of keep going right along and accepting it.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, I mean the difference.

Jack Moore: Did that sound like I just called for a revolution, but I'm just saying, it does seem like that what we look back at what they were offended by. Yeah. The grievances there, there may be argument that some of the grievances today are as bad, clearly.

Randy DeSoto: The grievances, yeah. Yeah, I mean some of the scholars have been good, you know, and of course Mark Levin wrote a whole book about it, but you know, that the the Supreme Court has gotten, you know, out of line, you know, like they they have become the the majority on the Supreme Court, you know, with just five justices, you can impose you impose these nationwide rules. And so in a s and and Jefferson even wrote about that, you know, the the tyranny of the judiciary. And so

Jack Moore: true. Right.

Randy DeSoto: I guess if I were to label any area of our government that has those tendencies or or could be problematic, it's certainly and I go into this in the last chapter of my book. You know, it's the the Supreme Court. Right now we have a conservative-ish majority, you know, with Amy Coney and John Roberts ⁓ willing to jump ship, you know, somewhat regularly. ⁓ and and that's that's been the history of things. I mean, it didn't go as badly, say as Sandra Day O'Connor did for Reagan or

Jack Moore: Yes.

Randy DeSoto: Reagan only got Scalia was his only solid conservative pick, you know. I mean, and he was super and he was a superstar. But ⁓ but yeah, it's it's hard to they get up there and they get into this mindset that they're I I think what's going on, like with John Roberts, say birthright citizenship, ⁓ and I know there are arguments on both sides, but I I truly think he thinks politically, I I believe. I think he thinks

Jack Moore: Correct. Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: He he hears the arguments about packing the court and you know legitimacy ⁓ legitimacy of the Supreme Court and everything. And he he tries to balance things out, is my assessment. Like the argument on the the birthright citizenship was so strong, you know, in ⁓ Thomas's and Alito's descent. So it's like, yeah, that's following the law. The Constitution says this and da-da-da-da-da. And then You know, Roberts was saying, ⁓ no, anybody here in the country is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. And it's like, No, that's not what they that's not what it meant, but ⁓ so those sort of decisions and it you know, like Obamacare, you know, other things like that, where he just jumps and he writes these opinions and and sets policy for the whole country that is extra constitutional, I feel, but

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: ⁓ that's would be my I think the founders would have that as their greatest area of concern. Certainly Jefferson would and probably Washington. ⁓ you know, Washington's greatest concern was getting a government strong enough to keep the colonies together, like you know, that could tax, you know, had a power of taxation and things like that. But and ⁓ yeah.

Jack Moore: Well, you may have, you may have seen, there was a series with Briar and, ⁓ Scalia, they would go out and they loved, mean, they were best friends. And, but one of the most fascinating, and I used to show it to my classes when I was teaching, they were arguing about, they found in the sub in a Supreme court decision, I think it came out of New Jersey, the controversy came out of the jury out of New Jersey. You couldn't execute a minor. And so.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, yeah.

Jack Moore: It became an eighth amendment argument for justice Breyer. And he's like, well, no other country does it. I feel like, I feel like society, there's an essence that was written into the eighth amendment about cruel and unusual punishment. Scalia makes a good point. goes, Hey, I look back to the founding and at that time they were executing minors. They were, they were executing minors and they ratify the eighth amendment. how.

Randy DeSoto: Right.

Jack Moore: And then same argument, I had a friend of mine, lawyer buddy, if I'd ever been in trouble, he'd have been my defense attorney. But he looked at me one day, we're at lunch having an argument and he said, that's when I was practicing Chesapeake, and he said, clearly the death penalty is unconstitutional under the eighth amendment. And I said, well, in the fifth amendment, it says that what can be twice placed in jeopardy is life or limb. So how can they in the fifth amendment be discussing your potential loss of life?

Randy DeSoto: ⁓ no, no no.

Jack Moore: in the fifth amendment and be internally consistent with the eighth amendment, if that is unconstitutional to take life. And he didn't really have a response. I'm like, if they're saying in the fifth amendment, without these certain protections, they cannot take your life. And that assumes that what can the government do at the extreme punishment? They can take your life. I don't think that these same people who were executing. my point is that was Scalia's point is He goes, I don't write the law. I'm a good lawyer. I'm not a legislator. So I have to look at the times and what do we think these people, but look, if New Jersey wants to pass a law, not to execute ⁓ minors, knock yourself out. You know, take care of it. And I always thought that was a bigger problem with Roe versus Wade. know, with, with, ⁓ I remember Dershowitz said it, ⁓ Ginsburg said it. Like it's bad law. It's a bunch of justices when they're trimester into their writing legislation. And I'd have friends like, you mean to tell me, you know, that, a woman doesn't have, I'm like, well, no, it's a state issue because there is no general police power in the federal constitution. So states can define, said, New York can say as agree, you know, as, as terrible as this is the state, New York can say, Hey, we'll get you pregnant and give you the abortion. If you like that, live in New York. If you don't go somewhere else, but. It's not, it's not for, like you say, in a five, four decision, five guys or gals in robes writing the law for all 50 states based upon what they think is a fundamental right. That go ahead.

Randy DeSoto: No, and you know, I thought, you know, some of the professors at Regent, maybe it was in in con law and and I Herb Titus and some others talked about this, but ⁓ I I took him as at a as a he did a an off campus course on the constitutional law. And so I I took him in addition to what I was learning at Regent. So he had been the dean, but he was no longer the dean. ⁓ but it he really was strong. He loved constitution. But he went right back to Roe v. Wade and he's like, the unwanted child, or no, the unwanted fetus. And so then he said, so that's that's very what's the word? You know, it's it's not definitive. It you know, based it's based on situ you know, it's situational ethics, basically. And ⁓ so the woman's

Jack Moore: It's not an objective concrete. It's kind of squishy. It's whatever you kind of want it to be.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, so it basically and I argue in in my book that the it's based on the woman's state of mind, so so it's unwanted to her, but it is it life or not? And so it the declaration says we're supposed to and the constitution says we're supposed to protect life, you know, in the fort

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Right. Exactly. But again, think as far as that decision went, it wasn't about any of that. Because when you really read the history, I think the first law in Texas, the one that was at question in 1854, really the prohibitions against abortion had been all medical. There had really been concerns about the medical safety of the procedure. It wasn't about what we think of today with people that are pro-life. It's a life. They weren't even arguing that, but they put... this law against the procedure. And that's part of what they wrote in Roe, like, ⁓ we're so much more advanced now and we can do this. But they did then go the route of the protection of the child against the state, against the mother and the mother's interest to terminate the pregnancy. So that's where they come up with trimester. You know, like, hey, well, in the first trimester, you know, it's kind of mom over child. Then it kind of gets in a squishy middle, you know, and then the child gains a little bit.

Randy DeSoto: Then by the last, yeah.

Jack Moore: Yeah. then, with, with, but that is all legislative. My whole point is if Alabama, Alabama would be the last two, but if New York wants to write that law, a boredom 15 days after conception, if you don't like it, move out of New York, but I'm thinking it's New York's jurisdiction to say so. So Rehnquist, when he wrote the dissent said, we don't even get to this. That was, we don't need to get into this argument. It's a fundamental right or the, or the right of the child against the mother of the state. That's not for us to say it's for each individual state to define life and when it ends. And, and yeah.

Randy DeSoto: No, and Alito, you know, in his Dobbs decision was so good on this, you know, he he he laid it out so clearly and ⁓ and and powerfully, you know, he was just saying this is a state issue. We they they made they made it up whole cloth and then Planned Parenthood versus Pennsylvania, they just kept it going. ⁓ they started to allow some restrictions that states could enact, you know, saying, ⁓ like you said, during the first

Jack Moore: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Randy DeSoto: trimesters no, but later and then parental consent and these sort of things could all could all be brought in, but yeah.

Jack Moore: Well, they got the nose under the tent with the Griswold decision. People forget that. The Griswold was a contraceptives in Connecticut case. And that's where they started to leak the language in like, ⁓ well some married couples certainly has the right to practice whatever type of birth control they want to in the privacy of their own bedroom, blah, blah, blah. Cause they have a privacy interest. That's 65. You know, then seven.

Randy DeSoto: A penumbrum, a penumbra.

Jack Moore: Right. Penumbra and emanations and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they get that framework and it was all set up because it was Planned Parenthood people that basically, hey, arrest us for a violation of the anti-dissemination of birth control types of devices, indoor literature. Oh, you arrested us. Let's make a test case. And that's what they did. So when they get Griswold in and they go contraception, again, Joe's Q citizen on the streets like, hey, If Marge and Bill are practicing, you know, whatever birth control in their home in Connecticut, it's Connecticut, who's a heavily Catholic state, really have the authority under their laws to say that that's against the law. And people are like, nah, come on, you know, but that's a Connecticut issue. But they still, they got that in and that was the forerunner for that really set up Roe versus Wade. absolutely. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: No, that's how these step things work. But I I I pointed out there's a contradiction in the law even now. So, and I set up the scenario. Of course, law school is great for hypotheticals. But but say but say a woman who's pregnant has the intention of aborting her baby the next day. She has an appointment at Planned Parenthood or whatever. But in the meantime, the disgruntled boyfriend or somebody shows up, you know, and he doesn't know this or

Jack Moore: Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: How whatever scenario you want it to be. But he's she's attacked and the baby's killed. ⁓ that's murder under the law, you know, y or manslaughter at the very least, depending on the law and the s the situations and whatever. So we recognize the right of the unborn child in those sort of scenarios. You you put you attack this woman with intent to harm her or her child, and you've killed this un unborn child, you're going to jail. You're you're I mean, assuming the jury can be convinced, et cetera. But ⁓ But you know, on the other hand, you know, so it it's she's free to do it otherwise. And so it's like her intention was to do it one way or the other. But it doesn't matter under the law, you know, the way the law currently stands. It's that, you know, it's I think in every state and federal law, but you know, that that child has is protected. ⁓ well, it's primarily a state issue, but you know.

Jack Moore: Well, you know, there's, there's a, one of my favorite, weren't case books, but one of the books that I had when I was teaching criminal justice had almost that exact scenario in it. And it was interesting. The young people's reaction. This was 15 years ago. So it would give this like, it would give almost like case law. Like we studied in law school, it would give a case and it was always extreme examples, extreme facts. So they have a case in California. where a guy is strange from his wife finds out she's pregnant. He confronts her and says, I know you got knocked up by another guy and I'm going to kick that baby out of you. So he drop kicks her, stillborn, baby's dies ⁓ in womb. And he gets charged with the death of the unborn child. And he gets a good lawyer. He appeals that conviction and he shows that the California law at the time said. that homicides related to potential criminal punishment has to be a live person, a person after birth. And he walks on it. And I got kids in the class. Well, that's not right. He even said, I'm going to kick the, he's knowledgeable of the life. And I said, yeah, but hey, they're right. And the courts were like, we don't really like this guy. And we don't like the fact pattern.

Randy DeSoto: Mm, mm, mm.

Jack Moore: But if the law at the time and the legislature for California within a year amended the statute to say that that would have been a crime. at the time, you know, he, but I just thought that's fascinating in a world of, you say, in a world of acceptance, like what's absolutely a woman's right, you know, to choose. Now the status, and you say that one day before the status in this case where the guy identified you are pregnant and I'm going to terminate this pregnancy. That is my intention by kicking.

Randy DeSoto: ⁓ good.

Jack Moore: He does it. And it would be no different if she shows up at the next day. What he's doing, we're calling a criminal act, what she's doing by her own consent or will is a right. So that is interesting. You know, and on the flip side too, I remember getting into philosophical discussion with a group of lawyers one time in an office and I said, well, let me ask you this. Why can't a guy go to a female who has had an quote unquote, you know, the pregnancy out of wedlock?

Randy DeSoto: Is a is a right. Supp a right? Hm.

Jack Moore: And he goes, look, I'm going to be on the hook for 18 years. Here's X amount of money. I'm going to throw in an extra 20%. I'm going to pay for the abortion and give you some money. Go terminate the pregnancy and let's contract. If you're going to have the child, I made the offer. I'm off the hook. And this female friend of mine said, absolutely. He can't do that. He's on the hook for 18 years. It's his child. And I said, well, then why is it he can't buy her out and offer to terminate the pregnancy? Cause if she goes to terminate the pregnancy, He's got no voice in the child living. And she goes, no, that's not his choice either. And I'm like, well, you're a lawyer, you know? And I'm like, do you not see some imbalance in that thought? She can terminate the pregnancy. He knows it's his child and he can't tell her, carry it to term, I'll take care of it. Mom and I will help take care of it. My mother, got a whole line of people that will take that child to maturity. Nope, not your choice. Well, then let me buy you out of the pregnancy. I'll pay for the abortion. I'll even throw a check in to take care of whatever other mental things you may be going, whatever. I'm going to pay, determinate. Nope. He doesn't have that choice either. And I'm like, you know, kind of from a standpoint of just sort of what it seems like justice or logic that doesn't seem to line up. ahead.

Randy DeSoto: No, yeah, I was thinking when you when you mentioned the idea of ⁓ counseling or whatever, that's a really good point. You know, because I think again, going back to natural law, people's consciences can be seared and whatever. And I know that I I'm sympathetic to sp certainly young women or any woman who finds themselves in a pregnancy, they weren't wanting or expecting and ⁓ all the emotions that involve with that. But y you hear obviously I'm a man, but ⁓ you hear these

Jack Moore: ⁓ sure.

Randy DeSoto: testimonies of women later who deal with major guilt and ⁓ and shame that and and regret that they don't have this child that they could have had. And then you hear the stories on the other side. And I'm sure you can get it going both ways. I'm sh I know you see some of these celebrities, boy, having that abortion really helped my career and da da da. But but you know, you have so many women, you know, testifying that I'm so glad I had this child and ⁓

Jack Moore: ⁓ absolutely. Yeah, sure, sure.

Randy DeSoto: And and you know, now they're in high school graduate or off to whatever. And so it's it's really life affirming and heartwarming when you see, and it was hard. I was a teenager or I was in a bad place in life, but I made the hard choice and we went through. And I think God helps people in that situation. I know He does, He's the father to the fatherless, it says. ⁓ So yeah, I know it's it's challenging, but in a moral world and and in a world where the Declaration of Independence

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: says that there are certain God given rights and God forms us in our womb, the Bible says, in our mother's womb. ⁓ those are truce. And so whenever we try to contravene truths as a society, there's a a price to pay and it's a devaluation of life. And you know, that that plays out not just certainly with pregnancy, but in general, like, we're just this product of evolution, the strongest survive. And if I got a kill somebody or whatever, I'm gonna do it. so it leads to lawlessness. But yeah, I was thinking another area that Scalia was so good on is when the the sodomy case in in tech bow was it Bowers and then yeah. And so he said, you know, it's only going to be a short time. So they said, you know, states can't enact laws about that kind of stuff. It goes back to the idea of privacy. And and yeah, I go go

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah, Texas, right, right.

Randy DeSoto: It was an old law. Most states didn't have any laws about sodomy or anything, but Texas still did. And so originally they said in the first iteration of this at the Supreme Court, they said, you know, it's a state law. And if there's no it's not a constitutional issue, if they want to address it, they can address it. And and he they went and said, and that you know basically according to the laws of nature, nature's God, that's it is it is prohibited. And so the states have the police power, as you said, so they can pass the law or not. So then we get 17 years later, and they the Supreme Court says, no, there is a there is a God given right to to do this. And ⁓ and so Scalia wrote the dissent and he you it's only gonna be a a short period of time before they say, and there's a God given right for same sub couples to marry. And and ⁓ even though the Bible says he creates us male and female and he creates marriage, and for this reason a man shall leave his father, his mother, and the two shall become one. So and he was right, four months later the

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: Massachusetts did that, citing the US Supreme Court in part. And then of course then we got ⁓ at this at the Supreme Court level during the Obama presidency, where it's now this constitutional right. But it's not consistent with the laws of nature and nature's God.

Jack Moore: No. Well, and, I do think though, if you go all over the map on this type of stuff, I am madly libertarian. I'm probably the anarchist libertarian. I do not trust government. don't like government. Once again, I'm not calling for revolution, but I'm just not a fan of government. But I would agree that if you're looking at that Bowers case in that timeframe, if you're going to be internally consistent or intellectually consistent, you have to say, Hey, it's Texas. Knock yourself out. There's no God given right. or recognizable fundamental right to sodomy. And I remember the police like what they're in there searching for something else and boom, walk in on two guys or something. And then it's like, oopsie, we caught him in this act. And they clearly, it was kind of a plain view exception type of thing. They were legally standing where they stood. I don't remember what it was, was going on at the house where they entered this room, but they found this. So they charge him with what was then the law. It clearly was the law. So again, I don't think That's something the Supreme Court should have dealt with. And then when the thing started happening, was it, 94? it under Article 4, that Section 1 or 2 where you get into the recognition of other states in their papers and decisions or whatever, the status, would they get into the whole thing about what's going to happen when some states begin to legalize same-sex marriage so the other state's going to have to recognize those? And the Protection of Marriage Act was basically saying there is a clause within Article 4 that says it can be regulated by Congress what those lines are. So the states are coming up and saying, I would have thought again, in that same mindset, it would have been up state to state. It does get unwieldy though, if you're a gay couple married in California, you move to Tennessee, and we don't recognize that. Then what are you going to do about it? I'm from Virginia. My father literally defeated, I talked about him going to state police school. He was the man that defeated the sheriff that arrested the Lovings, Mildred and Richard Loving. I went to school with their kids. So what happened is the Lovings of course went to Washington DC and got legally married. But under the Racial Purification Act of 1924, it was one, illegal for a white to marry a non-white and two,

Randy DeSoto: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jack Moore: to leave the state to avoid the law. So they had two felony charges. And those were legitimately federal felony charges at the time. So where they really got hit was they came back to Virginia, legally married in DC and got arrested for it. Now the Supreme Court eventually in 67 overturns that. They overturn that decision and they basically say you can't have law saying that couples cannot marry regardless of race. And most people would agree with that.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah.

Jack Moore: Now that's one of those, is that a fundamental right to marriage? Is that something that all the states, but my point is I was wondered why I've listened to the attorneys talk about this. They didn't challenge the marriage based upon like an article for recognition of a status that they'd achieved in another part of the United States legally. You know, they went after the whole thing about it being racially discriminatory, et cetera. But I think that was an argument too. They're legal. Why are they legally married in DC and can't travel to Virginia? I mean, it's certainly another door to open and try to explore, but yeah, I don't care how you go on this stuff. When the States are in conflict with law, there's going to be a mess. know, there's going to be somehow a ⁓ mess with that. Back to your book. What are the other things you wanted to talk about? You're talking about these 80 year cycles and where the country is.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah.

Jack Moore: What are these other fundamental truths that you believe were established in the founding documents and maybe have been lost over time?

Randy DeSoto: Well, the two main you know, my where I have the tagline, two beliefs change the world. The two beliefs I believe that changed the world were that we have these fundamental God given rights and and providence, this idea that God foresees what's gonna happen in the world and that he oversees in the in the grand scheme scheme of things what happens in the world. And that was the faith that kind of in the declaration they talked about. as in the document it closes saying, you know, appealing to the supreme judge of the world, who's Jesus, by the way. ⁓ that's what the Bible tells. And then ⁓ and in a firm relation faith in divine providence. You know, we mutually pledge our lives, fortune, sacred honor. So that I argue that's how we became the land of the free and the home of the brave. You know, if you have a faith that God is on the side of justice, then you're willing to lay it all on the line and trust him for the outcome. ⁓ If you if you feel like you're aligning with what his principles are, that we're supposed to be free, that governments aren't supposed to imprison us and you know, for no reason like the British government was, you know, taking people and and ⁓ and po making them serve ⁓ on their ships and burning their towns and all that stuff. Yeah, impressment and all that. So and then so they they truly believed and the the Great Awakening had just happened, you know, in the years prior to all this. That was just in a movie. And

Jack Moore: Right, Pressman, I think it was. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: that's some of that stuff's in my book about Ben Franklin and whatever. But ⁓ but yeah, they this was the faith and and Charlie Kirk said this in his message last fourth of July. The reason that the United States he said if you'd if you'd put it in polymarket odds, if you were betting if they had poly market back then, ⁓ it would be a 99.9 to zero one that the American colonies could beat the British, you know, who had the most powerful army and navy in the world. And ⁓ so

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: It was faith, he he argued, that makes the difference. And that's the point of my book too, is that this so I in each of the three sections, I kind of go through periods where that faith was strengthened. You know, they went through trying times as Thomas Paine talks about. But like i in the Battle of Long Island, I don't know if you've ever heard of that. their thing the jig was kind of up. They the the revolutionaries had forced the British out of Boston. They'd they brought in some cannon, some cannons from a captured fort in New York. And it forced the British to evacuate Boston. But then they showed up in New York. And Washington had some of his men on Long Island and some of them on Manhattan. And then, you know, because they weren't sure where the British were gonna land and attack. And they came on Long Island and they came in large numbers. And Washington had about so you know, several thousand people that were he had about 10,000 total, as I recall at that time. So maybe about 5,000 were in Long Island, with other 5,000 Manhattan. The British show up with like 30,000 troops and And they put like 15,000 of them on Long Island. ⁓ just giving a sense, they were they were greatly outnumbered. And so the weather changed in a way that saved the American cause because they they could have used their ships to come up the East River and kind of trap those troops on Long Island. But as they were moving in towards the the American defenses that they'd set up, ⁓ it started to rain hard. And so they called off the invasion for one day. And then

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: And then Washington, they had just gotten some ⁓ soldiers in the last month in from Massachusetts who were really good with watercraft. And so they had arrived in really in the in a good time in a timely manner, which some would call Providence. And so they they came up with a scheme to get all the troops evacuated during the course of the night over to Manhattan. And so they started doing that, but then they it wasn't going fast enough as the daylight approached. And ⁓ they they were gonna be sitting ducks with the the remain the remnant that was there, say two thousand. And ⁓ but a fog came in. He said it was a peculiar fog, firsthand accounts said, like one of the colonels who was there. And ⁓ and it and it blocked the British from being able to see what was happening. And so, but it it was open where they needed it to be able to get over to Manhattan. And so so they they kept ferrying people across. And then Washington was in the very last boat that pushed off and they they went over to Manhattan and ⁓ the fog lifted. And so they the British went in there. to see just smoldering campfires and all the Americans gone and it was just it was one of many instances where people would say, God has been helping us in this thing 'cause if Losh Washington had lost half of his troops at that point, you know, forget about it. They were already outnumbered three to one or more. And ⁓

Jack Moore: Yeah, I see, and you and I as being believers, here's where my tension always is. You and I could see that someone that's not a believer or whatever their particular worldview is, pooh-poos it, you know, that, I mean, that's just how human nature is. People can see it however they want to. But I also think often ⁓ about how history is talked about, is written by the winners. And I'm not saying, I'm not...

Randy DeSoto: Right. Coincidence, ⁓

Jack Moore: questioning anything you just said, but what I found fascinating is I remember reading this story, and was talking about the revolution and how, you know, in the timeframe in our existence, we came along. Cause with this 250th anniversary, now I'm guessing you were about nine during the 200th anniversary of the country. And I was thinking, well, when I was 14,

Randy DeSoto: Yeah. No, it was and it was so fun. Yeah, it was so fun.

Jack Moore: And I was telling a young person the other day, I remember they came out, know, they had all the quarters that were coming out with Washington and, know, some kind of themes relative to the 200th anniversary. Ford was president, the election was that fall, but they're lighting things up, you know, and it's a lot. I never remembered any degree. We're coming out of Vietnam, we're coming out of Watergate, but even in that time, I remember it being a festival and I remember it really being, you know, the great ships that were bringing in all the ships into the Eastern harbors. I can't see any of that happening right now without total polarization. You know, it's like, hate Trump, like Trump, you know, if Trump's involved with it, it's going to be ugly. So I don't see a unification under that. But where I wanted to go with like the war, I read this historian, it made perfect sense. He said, really, when you look at the numbers. When the whole Revolutionary War starts or when there's the buildup for that break, about a third of the colonists are really behind it. About a third of the colonists are against it and about a third are waiting to see who's going to win. And I'm thinking, okay, so I'm teaching American history a few years ago and I'm kind of painting by the numbers. I'm doing the regular thing. And this young lady comes, I'm at Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach, Virginia. And this young lady starts coming up from the back kind of laughing.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah.

Jack Moore: And, ⁓ she was a freshman and I said, so young lady, what's so funny there? And she goes, you Americans, clearly a British accent, you Americans in your American revolution. And I said, well, how did they teach it in England? And she said, it got too expensive. It got boring. It was too costly. came home. And I thought, kind of makes a lot of sense because even at the Battle of Yorktown, Cornwallis's surrender.

Randy DeSoto: Ha ha.

Jack Moore: It's not like they could have turned right around the next day and just brought more forces. They still were the strongest Navy and maybe the strongest military in the world. And it has been argued that the war of 1812 was the last battle of the American revolution. They're still pestering around on the Americans and they come over and they burn the white house and then they kind of finally decide, okay, it's over already, but it's continued to be a squabble. But what I'm saying is we can see a lot of divine things going on might be true. It's clear to say. If we've turned our back on God as a nation in the way you and I both know we have, look where we are. I mean, that's kind of makes sense. But I also recognize that we had a vested interest as Americans. It's seeing the American revolution as a very inspirational story when in reality, especially in the deep South where more Tories were, you they're trading the cotton to England. This comes up in the American civil war. There's still a little, and I remember the British. You know, I remember some of the, ⁓ the editorials I read, I'm sorry, Union Army, Lincoln. What's, what's, what's that about? They don't have the right to break away. But, you know, cause you know, and the Southern is often referred to it as the second war of independence. Aren't they saying we're doing the same thing that our forefathers did. And then, and then England was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, Union or.

Randy DeSoto: Ha ha ha.

Jack Moore: You know, Mr. Lincoln there, why can't they do? You guys told us that 80 years ago, you could do that. And I mean, there's kind of an argument to that. So the very same South who has a whole different financial structure does have a vested interest in keeping good terms with England. That's where they're kind of selling the cotton to in large part. So there's a lot more dynamics to it. History is much messier than everything was beautiful. There was a divine cause and it all just kind of happened that way. Cause people fight for their interests too. And that one third, like I said, it was sitting back and waiting to see how it was going to turn out. Can't you see being a merchant? Like, I don't care if England wins or the new colonists win. Just settle things down so I can trade. I can do whatever.

Randy DeSoto: It doesn't affect my life. So that was John Adams' assessment. He said it's about a third, a third, a third. You a third were strongly for it. A third were indifferent. And then a third were against it. ⁓ so yeah, I I guess I would argue the difference between no, I know Lincoln was doing his best to keep foreign powers away from the United States during all that too, because they were very engaged in

Jack Moore: Yeah. Well, the Emancipation Proclamation was in large part because of that. He was making it a moral issue. And that's another thing about Lincoln. If you read Lincoln going into the election of 1860, he's very indifferent about freeing slaves and all the rest. He just wants to keep the union. I mean, once he realizes that the South is going to secede, it starts with keep the union. And I think it's fair, he's a politician, that it became, If I can make slavery a moral issue, I can keep England out because they've already bought a slavery. And I think that was a lot of it. He needed a victory and he got enough of a victory at Antietam to say, okay, I'll draft this and make it effective January 1. So people are much more complex in their historical significance or the way that they're operating within certain parameters are much driven by the circumstances of their time.

Randy DeSoto: But

Jack Moore: They're not clearly that angelic or demonic. They're just people. Fair?

Randy DeSoto: No, and I and I the the opening chapter of my Civil War section is about Lincoln's call to action. So I I kind of go through his evolution. And of course, at Cooper Union, his Cooper Union address, he made the case. This was before he was president, but it became a platform in 1860. He made the argument that the founders, through their actions that they took, ⁓ validated the idea that the federal government had authority to decide whether slavery would be in the territories. And so

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: So that was the Republican position. It's like we, you know, because that was becoming the issue, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, whether people could choose from their self whether they're state or whether the federal government would dictate if it was going to be slave or free. And the compromise that been the Missouri compromise had been a above a certain parallel, those states would all be free and the ones below would be slave. And so Kansas and Nebraska were above, so they were supposed to be free. And so

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: Stephen Douglas, Lincoln's rival, had passed legislation saying we're gonna let local people decide whether you can have slave, yeah. We're gonna have you whether you're gonna have slavery. One of the powerful things I tried to take on the book is to I looked, I have a little section called Slavery at the Founding, because that's one of the big digs against, you know, like you said, during the Civil War and and others, is they're saying, ⁓ we we were a slave country from the start. So and they and they validated it in the Constitution. But I I kind of

Jack Moore: Popular sovereignty, yeah.

Randy DeSoto: Look into that. You know, I look more closely. Of course, 16-19, we know that slaves were brought into Virginia. So for 150 years there'd been slavery and it was part of the economy in the South, especially. But Franklin had had slaves. He ⁓ freed them, but and then he became a president of the abolition society. But but we need to Jefferson actually has some pretty good, you know, he was a slaveholder, but he also took some pretty powerful ⁓ steps to abolish slavery. He had put it in the

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Randy DeSoto: He had put it in the Declaration of Independence and then they got taken out. He he slave trade is horrible. You know, what's this Christian king?

Jack Moore: Exactly. Well, attacked the crown. He said he attacked the crown for basically saying, you set up the circumstances of the stain of slavery we carry. And then I think some other guys around the room were like, okay, TJ, okay, we can hit him for some things, yeah, you're right. And it's interesting coming from him because we live in this world of dynamics, but he actually owned slaves. But yeah, what, and he also died $106,000 in debt and basically his creditors owned his slaves. In effect.

Randy DeSoto: Right. And so then Dial it back. Yeah. Yeah.

Jack Moore: He was totally impractical as a person when it came to finances, but I've read a lot that he influenced some people who had the authority and or the means to free slaves to do so. So when you read Jefferson, he's complex. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: Well I I just want to w while he was president, so go back to the Constitutional Convention. He wasn't there, but they he was in he was a ambassador in France. Yeah. But in the Constitution, they made some provisions to start, as Lincoln put it, putting it on the glide path to extinction. It certainly and and you need to know that by then a lot of the states in the north had already abolished slavery, including Pennsylvania. So

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Right. In France. Yep. I think Pennsylvania was first, right? I'm pretty sure, yeah, I'm pretty sure they were first, yeah.

Randy DeSoto: I'm pretty sure seventeen eighty I have to recall. Yeah. So the and that's where the declaration was signed. But ⁓ so by by 1800, all the states had passed legislation north of the Mason-Dixon line, north of the Maryland border, had passed this legislation. So these are the first governments in the history of the modern world that are doing this. It wasn't England. You know, England was still decades away. ⁓ we as a whole nation didn't abolish the slavery until you know 1865, really. But 1863 was the emancipation. So that began the process. But ⁓

Jack Moore: Amen. Right. Right. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: So the in the constitution they they put a provision in that twenty years after the r ratification that slavery the slave trade could be ended. So we'd we'd be getting no more slaves in from Africa or the West Indies or whatever. And so

Jack Moore: 20 years of importation until 1808. think yeah, that was going to be right, right.

Randy DeSoto: So that was the compromise. And so in eight in March of eighteen ⁓ seven, Jefferson is president. The the legislature passes a law saying this is what we want. So they had the power to do it. They didn't have to do it, but they did. And they passed this legislation saying slave trade will end January first, eighteen ⁓ eight, the very first possible date. And and Jefferson signed it into law and that was the law of America. That was within the same time window that England did it too, Wilbum William Wilbur Force and

Jack Moore: Yes.

Randy DeSoto: all of his efforts. So they ended the slave trade on their side then too. So it was all happening pretty much simultaneously. And ⁓ but we we yeah, we act we acted is what I'm trying to I I just one other thing. The Northwest Ordinance was passed in eight seventeen eighty seven while the Constitutional Convention was going on across the street. And that abol that outlawed slavery in all the Northwest territories, you know, Michigan, Ohio, what would become these states Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois.

Jack Moore: Well another... Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Exactly. ⁓

Randy DeSoto: So so yeah, we they actually have a pretty good record on slavery at the founding, given the history of the world, et cetera.

Jack Moore: Well, with stress. Well, and I've done this several times on shows because I thought it was fascinatingly bad, or ignorant or whatever you want to call it. And I'm kind of given the schoolhouse rock definition of what I think the facts are. But I remember in one of these Matt Gates taken on a general Milley, he said, Hey, are you kind of happy with what's going on in the army right now where they're teaching whites to feel their white guilt and their understand their white rage or whatever. And he's like, Yeah, I've read all the great philosophers, Marx included, you he goes through all these different, doesn't make me a communist, but he goes, well, when I look at a country that once said that African-American was three quarters of a human, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, first of all, you got the fraction wrong. And I remember a black female friend of mine one time, I was talking about the genius of the constitution, which I think basically is here's where the lines are drawn kids. It's not really a document. that I think carries with it a great level of moral play. It's really just basically the function of the government, all the checks and balances, the bylaws, just the mechanics of it. So I said, why do you have a problem with it? She goes, well, it wasn't written for people that look like me. said, based upon. She goes, well, the document itself says I wasn't fully human. And I said, do you know what the Three-Fifths Compromise was about?

Randy DeSoto: Biologies, yeah, the bylaws. Mm-hmm. Yes, yes.

Jack Moore: And she said, well, I just know that they define blacks as three-fifths of a person. said, actually what happened was the abolitionists wanted you to not have representation at all in counting for the census because you had no vote and you had no citizens' rights. She's like, what? I go, ⁓ yeah, the South was all for slaves being counted as whole persons. Yeah, absolutely. And then she's like, tell me more. And I said, well, when it says three-fifths compromise, the Northern abolitionists were saying South.

Randy DeSoto: A hundred percent a person. Yeah.

Jack Moore: You can enslave 4 million people and then get greater representation in the House of Representatives, which is what the census was being counted for, was to decide how many people are within the several states. I've never heard this. I'm like, okay. you know, so when Milley goes three quarters of a human, again, he gets the fraction wrong, but I'm like, he's a Princeton graduate, a four star general. ⁓ I think at the time chair, yeah, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. I'm like, how do you not.

Randy DeSoto: And he and he thinks so.

Jack Moore: How are you throwing around the three, and everybody makes mistakes, but three quarters of a human. If you're Princeton graduated and you're in that position and you're testifying before Congress and you're arguing that the, that the constitution, they find a person. said, what is it? The number of whole people excluding Indians, not taxed and three fists of all other people basically is kind of what the language was. didn't get the language exactly right.

Randy DeSoto: Madison Madison was careful not to put slavery in there or and the and the other drafters 'cause they didn't they knew it was morally wrong. They were they were dealing with the times that they had, so yeah.

Jack Moore: Yeah, that's right. That's that's Well, you know, then I get the, why didn't they just take us? I'm like, because it was simply that, compromise. You have states, like you said, God bless your state of Pennsylvania, which I did a show recently. I just think this is so fascinating. I think, I know he's got to bring this in at some point. I think the second amendment was as simply about they didn't want standing armies. And what's funny is in the, the, ⁓ the new, ⁓ Constitution of Pennsylvania ratified just as they go into 1776 and they go into what we're now celebrating. They write, hunt Bambi, home protection. They first use language relative to the really the First Amendment rights. And then they come back and say, and keep your weapons and home protection, all the things that weren't explicitly said. Then they said, we do this be... Because you get a desperate and a standing army, everybody loses liberty, basically. So Pennsylvania said it all. And then I'm like, if you're writing the Second Amendment, 27 words and, you know, a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. OK. People are like, well, it just means you could have a... No. Now, I do think it meant the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania could regulate firearms. Knock yourself out. You know, there is no incorporation doctrine in the 20th century following the 14th Amendment yet. So these aren't applied to the states. But Pennsylvania is also protecting the people's right to bear arms within their own constitution. So, and then a good friend of mine that, who's PhD from UVA in foreign affairs, he made a good point. He said, you ever think about the sequence, second amendment, don't take the weapons, third amendment, don't stay in our house, quartering act, fourth amendment, probable cause. How does one...

Randy DeSoto: Yeah.

Jack Moore: get a search warrant? How does one arrest on a warrant? how does one? It's because of what the British did. And you think there are people like, hey, you're basically of the same race and religion we are. How do we know the new leaders aren't going to do what the old leaders did? We're no longer subject to the king. How do we know you guys aren't going to come take our weapons or come sleep in our beds and the rest? So it makes perfect sense that these become the Bill of Rights because it's the very concerns they have. They didn't defeat a foreign nation. They broke away from a nation of their own people. So, all of those are concerns.

Randy DeSoto: No, I think No, I think that was the whole point. Like Jefferson, in his summary of the rights of British America, ⁓ in seventeen seventy-four, which became a really popular essay at the time and and kind of a found that led to him being chosen to go to the Continental Congress, I think, in part, ⁓ and write the declaration. You know, he was you know, he was saying, Hey, we're not trying to do anything new here. We just want the rights that we're supposed to have as British citizens, and you're taking them away from us. So that's like the French Revolution was kind of

Jack Moore: Exactly. Exactly.

Randy DeSoto: We wanna do we wanna destroy everything. You know, the we wanna have it we wanna destroy the church, ⁓ you know, the Catholic Church, we wanna destroy the monarchy and and ⁓ and we're gonna have a ten day week instead of a seven day week 'cause that's about the Bible and all that stuff. So they went crazy and of course a lot of death came out of that that revolution. ⁓ they were just killing everybody off who was in the establishment. But yeah, no, that was

Jack Moore: Yes. That's why I think as far as political commentary goes, it's 1848, but I Bastiat's The Law is like the best thing to ever read when it comes to the function of government, like laying it out pretty succinctly and getting it nailed in it. know, Bastiat's writing against collectivism in France at a time he's dying of tuberculosis and you know, he pretty much nails it.

Randy DeSoto: And i one other thought came to me as you were s talking about the Second Amendment and and its true purpose. It's not hunting or why k why didn't it's it's self protection and protection against tyranny. And what we're seeing in Iran right now is is a perfect case in point. Probably, at least that sense when there were all these ri demonstrations going on at the beginning of the year and and other times, there's maybe majority, probably a majority of the Iranians that don't want to be under the re their regime anymore. But it doesn't matter because

Jack Moore: Right. Right. They have no firearms. Right.

Randy DeSoto: The military, yeah, they have no firearms, and the military has the monopoly on that. And so you can have five or ten percent of the population controlling the rest because they've got the power and you know ⁓ by reports killed tens of thousands of people for protesting. And ⁓ so yeah, the second amendment is vital to maintaining liberty. But I really like the way you expressed that, that the the Bill of Rights was just It it it was a reaction to the what the British had just done. Like, we're gonna we're not gonna be having them doing this anymore or that or that or that. You know.

Jack Moore: Well, and then that whole argument between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists and reading the Federalist papers and, you know, there were a lot of clergy like, wait, wait, wait, if you put this first, and of course there were hundreds proposed, it went down to 12 votes. One of the two that was not ratified was ratified 202 years later, the 27th amendment. You know, it doesn't make it through ratification then, but in 1992 or something it does. And that's the one where you can't vote a new pay raise in Congress unless you've gone through another cycle of elections.

Randy DeSoto: Good.

Jack Moore: ⁓ I've actually been in the national archives with a buddy of mine that used to work there and this guy was, he was bringing out in these covered, you know, clear cellophane papers, the actual writings of Madison in pencil where he struck things and wrote things and it's crazy to look at. But anyway, ⁓ that, that back to that thing about the second amendment and kind of the purpose. think another thing where it's clearly shown is.

Randy DeSoto: ⁓ wow.

Jack Moore: When it comes to the Navy in Article One, Section Eight, it's six words, and it basically said, provide for, provide for a Navy, which one is standing Navy. Then when it comes to army, raise armies only in times of military need, never for more than two years. So you could vote the bastards out of an unpopular Congress vote for a war, but it's all these gyrations and things that have to be done to raise the state militias. So it would basically be a skeleton army, and then they would raise the state militias in times of military need. which would also make it cumbersome for Congress to make war. But what did you always have standing? The Navy. And I've made this point. There was a Marine Corps before there was the Army. So the Marine Corps is 1775. And it's interesting, Jefferson, who was always such a stickler for the Constitution when he comes into the Barbary Pirate situation, ⁓ my, what will I do? He sent the Marines. Because they're basically, when you think about it, they're federal troops.

Randy DeSoto: Mm-hmm.

Jack Moore: And I was telling a friend the other day, said, do you know who was at the, um, taking down of John Brown at, Harper's Ferry, Virginia, now West Virginia at the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Well, who I said, Robert E. Lee Lee was there. I said, yeah, as a full Colonel, you know, he carried, he carried Marines. He was in charge of a bunch of Marines. Now you think about it. Why Marines? Well, you weren't going to get the, you weren't going to necessarily get the Virginia militia to come in there and take care of it. So if you were to needing, and it was kind of a federal issue, it's a guy going state to state.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Jack Moore: abolitionists, nut, whatever anybody wants to call him, but he's out there messing around and who did they bring in? Robert E. Lee and the Marine Corps. So I think the Marine Corps was designed to always figure if you needed land forces that were sort of, the Marine Corps aren't part of a state militia. They're not called upon as a state militia, but they are ground forces and they're are part of the Navy, which is a standing aspect of the United States military. They're not contemplating the air force yet. So, I mean, when you think about it was army.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah.

Jack Moore: Navy Marine Corps and the Marine Corps, think, fills that function of federal troops when necessary. That's my take and it's back to states could regulate the firearms any way they wanted to. But most likely they would have said, keep your firearms, hunt Bambi, do whatever you want and come to the church every once in a while and drill with the rest of the militia when the pastor tells you or the person tells you to come and show up. That would have been the duties. And they also played police.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah.

Jack Moore: The local communities played the police function, which has all been lost.

Randy DeSoto: No, yeah, that's good. No, it does make me think of ⁓ Eisenhower in during the ⁓ Little Rock crisis where he called in the hundred and first airborne. I mean, I know ⁓ you're making a separate argument, but ⁓ he was concerned that the the local government there, that the you know, the police, certainly the police and potentially the National Guard, he nationalized the National Guard to enforce this court order, which I believe was certainly constitutional and and and ⁓

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: And it's under the God, you know, nature laws of nature nature's God right too, you know, that you know, all races should be treated equally. In Christ there's neither fail male or female, Greek or Jew, or but ⁓ and you know, anyway, it talks about all the the people of the earth are God's children and you know his creation, that sort thing. But yeah, he called in the hundred and first airborne to make the point, you know, this is being enforced and the National Guard will bet better get online, you know, and And this is the way it's going to be. And then he gave a really powerful speech, you know, explaining his actions. People say, ⁓ he should have been more forthright in civil rights. And and but he did, he did make the moral argument, and not just that it was a constitutional order, but that it was right and that it it set a bad example to the world when we treated people differently, when we're in the middle of this Cold War. And then Kennedy even, you know, he went into it even in more depth. May he made a sh more in depth moral argument than Ike did. But both of them made the moral argument. So

Jack Moore: Yeah, I wrote my master's thesis on the Kennedy assassination, which everyone listening is going to go. He's going to go there somewhere at some time. yeah, but you know, of course I've done a lot of study and

Randy DeSoto: Kennedy he's on the cover of my book.

Jack Moore: Yeah. And, uh, Oswald did it by the way, um, he is a complex character because, a complex figure in American history, because I've read the editorials and I've really looked into it. He has been so romanticized as a figure, particularly by the left and journalists and college professors. People forget just how unpopular he was. And when it came to the legislation for civil rights,

Randy DeSoto: Mm-hmm.

Jack Moore: He was weighing, I got to get reelected. He won Texas by 43,000 votes. And that whole trip to Texas in large part was, he got a fight between Yarborough and Connolly and Johnson. Johnson and Connolly were more considered more conservative Democrats. Connolly clearly, and Ralph Yarborough was the lefty. And they're fighting and they're fighting over who's going to be in whose car and who's going to go to the breakfast table together. So he's trying to go down there and shore up Texas, which is a large electoral college vote. But I think people look back and go, ⁓ Kenny was loved. Kenny would have won by a landslide in 64. There's no guarantee of that. And if he keeps pressing matters as it related to civil rights, he might have lost the entire South. And I don't know that he necessarily, yeah, it was tough.

Randy DeSoto: No yeah. No, yeah, I they were definitely trying to, you know, walk that tightrope of recognize and Martin Luther King and that movement was bringing pressure on the administration. The I Have a Dream speech was in August of 63. And so, and they were concerned that that was gonna potentially turn violent and you know, that would help hurt, that would not look good for the administration. And so he he like Eisenhower had sent troops in to enforce at the college level, you know.

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah, August, that's right, late August. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: Little Rock was high school, but at the college level, Kennedy had sent troops in and FBI people to deal with that. So yeah, no, I think yeah, you're right about that. ⁓

Jack Moore: It's hard for people to imagine what things were like at a particular time in history, if they didn't live in that time. So what you have to do is, you know, you can turn on YouTube and you can look at the news reports, but if you can read and try to get his objective, but this idea, I think if you go to rank and file people on the street, even, you know, I was a year and a half when he was killed, you were not yet born. And the people that were around, like my parents who lived to be 92 and 91 are gone now. They had a real grasp of what was happening at the time. But the number of people really old enough to really have a grasp of what that timeframe was like are long, they're going. So if you don't look to the contemporary takes on things, the news footage, how things were covered, and that's where I've gotten a lot of it. You really see the criticism of Kennedy in that time. He was not the popular figure. A lot of people would like him to make him out to be.

Randy DeSoto: No, I listen I just recently listened to Doris Kern's Goodwin book about her Richard Goodwin was her husband who had served in the Kennedy. Yeah. And he he had served in Jack's administration and then he got into some trouble because he, you know, somebody some thought he was he had met with Shizor Chavez or you he'd he'd met with a one or two people now. ⁓ no, he's yeah, he ⁓ no, he's a communist and whatever. And so of course Doris paints him as a really good guy, but ⁓

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. And hung out with Bobby Kennedy a lot. Yeah. Mm-hmm. He ran strong left, I think, yeah. He ran on the left pretty hard,

Randy DeSoto: 'Cause you know, she loved him. But

Jack Moore: She's a Red Sox fan, so I'll give her that. She's okay with

Randy DeSoto: Yeah. No, she's seen and I loved her account. I've listened to her book on leadership too, where she looked at four or five of the present. And ⁓ so she she talked about LBJ too and and certainly John Kennedy, but LBJ she she really liked LBJ and she worked for him after he left the White House. And she worked for him in the White House a little bit as a very young woman and then helped him ⁓ get his memoirs together and stuff. And so it really it's like

Jack Moore: Yeah, she's sharp lady. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: r ⁓ Nixon going to China, you know, as this pro, very cold warrior willing to go to China. ⁓ LBJ, you know, after John Kennedy was killed, he got behind the Civil Rights Act and ⁓ and he maybe was for it a little bit before, but he said, as a tribute to Kennedy, we gotta pass this thing. And he used all of his arm twisting abilities, which were considerable. And ⁓ he he had quite a personality by her account and others too. But you know, he was able to get the Civil Rights Act passed then that next summer before the election actually. And ⁓ and then he was elected in a landslide. Goldwater

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. That's right. Landslide over Goldwater and Goldwater. Yeah. If you go back and watch, I think this might be some of the grounds for Ronald Reagan. 16 years later, Ronald Reagan did a lot of spots for Goldwater. Now Goldwater is a war hero. Just, and that's the thing you're military. I you went to West Point and I used to think, how did McGovern end up being the liberal that he was? He was a, he was a huge war hero.

Randy DeSoto: Well yeah, wasn't he a bomber pilot in World War Two? Mm-hmm.

Jack Moore: And you just, was saying this to a friend the other day, I'm like, okay, Touche, you got me. Cause I was like, think military type would skew more like conservative, but man, some of the craziest people on the left sometime ⁓ are the ones with the war hero backgrounds. Now Goldwater was a libertarian. I mean, that's what he was literally. He was a libertarian, but he too was a world war two veteran. I think also a pilot and highly decorated. He's that guy. think he was a general. in the Army Reserve when he was in the Senate, I think. I think he was a, he was a Brigadier General. But anyway, I could check that out. Yeah, but.

Randy DeSoto: That sounds right. Yeah. He came he he came to West Point when I was there. We they gave him the Thayer Award, which is to honor people who have had a major impact. Like Douglas MacArthur was the first recipient, but who's in the book too?

Jack Moore: Yeah. So you saw Goldwater in the 80s.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, so he was still a I think he is still a senator or maybe he had just retired or ⁓

Jack Moore: Yeah. So he had to be up in age though. He had to be up there a little bit. I would imagine.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, this probably was around eighty seven, eighty eight. ⁓

Jack Moore: Yeah, he might've been late sixties by that time. Yeah. Cause I mean, he's a World War II veteran. He's probably born in the, you know, somewhere in the late teens to early twenties. You know, he might've been in that time range, but anyway, I saw a video where, you know, there's the, there's the famous Daisy commercial where the little girl's picking the Daisy and then everything blows up. They only run it one time. And of course that's famous where Johnson's implying you let the war nut.

Randy DeSoto: Hmm. ⁓ Mm-hmm.

Jack Moore: the warmonger guy take over, there's going to be nuclear weapons fired everywhere in the world. And Reagan came out and said, I'm sick and tired of the way they're treating my friend Barry, you know, and he, and I tell you what, Reagan had a presence. I know he was a 69 year old man by the time he's elected, but Ronald Reagan in the sixties coming off of death Valley days. And he was a maybe a B act or whatever, but Ronald Reagan had a presence. did. So he's in the dark suit. He's got all the hair then he's looking good. And he's, you know, stump in there for Barry. So Goldwater goes down, then you get Vietnam escalated. You get Nixon, you get Nixon run out. You get Ford, interesting enough, he was on the Warren commission, right? And then he pardons Nixon and you get Carter. So when you get Carter and it goes that direction, it's prime time to bring Reagan back. I mean, it's, it's time for Reagan, I think at that time. And like you say, I was arguing with a friend the other day. They didn't want to buy it. I'm like, the eighties were really good. It's my wheelhouse. It's my twenties. But I remember as the decade started, ⁓ an officer and a gentleman that every kid wanted to go to OCS. So they want, you know, they wanted to do, you know, and then you have the Rambo films and, ⁓ you top gun and, and, you know, at that time, the Rocky movies are beaten up on a Soviet guy, you know, right. And it was that kind of country.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah.

Jack Moore: It was starting to become that. know, and people can argue, I saw a chart the other day on race relations, Cosby shows number one in the country pretty much, right? And people seem to be kind of finding, you know, they want to paint Reagan as this guy putting everybody on the street and everybody's homeless because of Reagan. But the economic times seem to be better and we beat the big bad, you know, Soviet Union in the end. We outspend them or whatever you want to call it. So I literally thought at the end of the eighties when Bush was elected, who I was not at all a fan of, but when he was elected, I'm like, man, the Democrats might really be done. Like, cause all the Republicans have done is they've gone Carter to Reagan to ending the coal war. Basically now there's all these possibilities. And then it gets run right back in the ground. It's just like everything gets recycled all over again, but I thought they were good times. And my vision remembering Reagan were warm and fuzzy. Was there more going on bad than I know about? Probably sure. But it seemed like the country had stabilized in a lot of ways and you we had our figures and we had a negativity, but you're right. The movies were definitely pro-America. Everything was very pro-America.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, no, he he came to West Point when I was there ⁓ right after Reykjavik, as I recall, he had met Gorbachev and it was also at the anniversary of ⁓ MacArthur's around the anniversary of MacArthur's duty honor country speech twenty five years later. This was eighty seven it was the last major speech he made and and it's we have to memorize part of it as cadets duty honor country, those three hallowed words.

Jack Moore: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Old soldier, was it old soldiers never die, they just fade away? That speech? Okay. ⁓ that was in Congress though, wasn't it? Yeah, he gave that in Congress. Yes.

Randy DeSoto: That's his other famous speech that he gave when he was leaving the military to Congress. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Old soldiers never die. Yeah, he was a mellow he was, I don't want to say melodramatic, but he was dramatic. And ⁓ his

Jack Moore: Well, you know, what's an interesting thing about Kennedy and he gets into the assassination and some of the people that go to theory, they wanted to escalate the Vietnam war and he wouldn't. And then there's a whole national security memorandum 263 in October 63 to start rotating troops home. And they were basically green beret types. They were just basically armed advisors. weren't, you know, ground troops, combat troops, but he meets with Douglas MacArthur. JFK meets with Douglas MacArthur at the White House.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, there's a picture of it at West Point in the library that I saw.

Jack Moore: And the story I heard from the inside is he wasn't impressed by Douglas MacArthur. He's like, Hey old guy. Yeah. Number one is class at West Point five stars, but who's he? And they said, when he gets in the room with Kennedy, he shakes Kennedy down and scares the hell out of him. And this is what they said. He said, he said, Mr. President, do not get involved in a land-based war in Southeast Asia. You'll never get out. And then it shook him and it shook him up.

Randy DeSoto: in a land war in Asia. Yeah, well he had he had well, MacArthur had been, you know, in charge of the US forces in Korea and so he'd seen it firsthand. And he had lived a lot of his life in the Asia world. He lived he'd overseen Japan. My my grandfather was part of the occupation force and was served under him before the war ended in the Philippines, but ⁓ at the end of you know, in forty five, not at the beginning, but

Jack Moore: Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

Randy DeSoto: So no, he yeah, he was ⁓ n what I've read is that he actually admired MacArthur, but yeah, that he and there is a picture of ⁓ him having that meeting.

Jack Moore: And maybe he did and maybe the historical take I got, I heard that he was kind of like, okay, the old guy's coming in. Let me give him a shot. Listen to it. said, maybe it wasn't quite like that, but it will say this. My mom was born in 1931. She was in Charleston during the war, World War II. She had to wear dog tags to school. They used to tape the top of the headlights for fear that, you know, they were illuminating from the air. They didn't, I guess they were German, you know, U-boats right off the, yeah. So, so she grew up in that time all through World War II.

Randy DeSoto: U boats, yeah, off yeah.

Jack Moore: She has, she told me this as a child. She would knit blankets to send off to the troops. All of my grandmother's brothers, six of them were in the war. I talked about my dad's side. Well, on my mother's side, her six uncles on my, on my grandmother's side, four were Navy. One was at the Battle of the Bulge shot up in the army and the other was a Marine. So she's sending letters to these guys. And during the war, she had Douglas MacArthur's picture on the wall. She said she literally, and when he got fired by Truman, she hated him. And I remember as a kid, my dad was who, you know, we'd been military. He's like, Liz, you know, if he's the president and the guys out there saying things, you got to, no, he was a great man. How dare. So she, she never could stand Truman because he basically called MacArthur home. And she didn't like him for that. And I think a lot of America didn't like Truman for that.

Randy DeSoto: ⁓ yeah, yeah. Yeah. I I had a moment ⁓ with MacArthur's legacy, you might say. We you know, so I mentioned the 25th anniversary of the speech. So literally on that date or thereabout, probably exactly the day in May is when he actually spoke. Reagan came in October, but in May they they brought us all into Eisenhower Hall, which is the big theater on West Point that can seat all of us, and 4,000 some of us. And so so we're sitting there and they're about to show us this video of of you know putting together scenes from MacArthur's

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Yep. Yep.

Randy DeSoto: military career with the speech. So it was a nice documentary type thing as he spoke. And and so, but before the the the camera began to roll, ⁓ showing us this film, the the announcement came, all rise as Mrs. General Douglas MacArthur enters the room. And I'm like, what? And I thought, his wife is still alive. You know, he'd been a general. Yeah, yeah. So she was eighty-eight at this point. So I just didn't realize she was considerably younger than him.

Jack Moore: She lived to be 100, didn't she? Or something? Yeah. Right.

Randy DeSoto: They had married when he was in his fifties and she was in her thirties. And they had a kid, kiddo together, Arthur, and named for Douglas' father. But ⁓ so I I just thought, wow. And so then when she passed, I was living in Virginia Beach and I'd been doing research for the book at the Norfolk MacArthur Archives and a movie that I was writing at the time, which hopefully

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Then you probably met Jimmy, do you ever meet Jimmy Goble? You probably did. He's a buddy of mine. He, Goble, or is it Zobel? Yeah, I guess it is. Yeah, yeah. I said, I said buddy. Yeah, it's right. Uh, but he was, he was a graduate school with me, um, at Old Dominion and, uh, yeah, Zobel. can't believe I said, anyway, he was, he was getting his master's degree in history when I was getting mine and his dream was to get over at the MacArthur. And I think he's been at MacArthur ever since.

Randy DeSoto: No. ⁓ yeah, Zobo. Yeah, Zobo. Zobo. Yeah. Yeah. Z Z O B E yeah, I have I've He's yeah, he's still there as far as I know. I I've I've reached out for comment when I've written articles about MacArthur in recent years and so

Jack Moore: Yeah, I haven't, I haven't seen Jimmy in a long, long time, but yeah, he was one of my classmates and he got his dream job. And I remember him having contact with the family quite a bit. Cause we graduated, we graduated, ⁓ got our masters in 93 ish. I was 93. I think he was the same. So it's been just 30 plus years. I think he had the job by the next year.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, he was a young guy when I was there. This I was there in the late 90s doing research. And ⁓ they I got to know the center director too. And so when Mrs. MacArthur passed, she was she is buried next to her husband there in Norfolk at the museum. So they had a private ceremony, and I was I'd been doing a fair amount of research there for a book and a movie I'd written that hasn't been made yet, but hopefully will someday, called The Return. But ⁓ anyway, ⁓

Jack Moore: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. In Norfolk. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: They said, okay, yeah, you can come to the private ceremony. And then I got to meet their son. and and some of the particularly one of the age who had served with them in World War II was there. This was the year 2000 or so. And I had been I'd and I had been interviewing people who had been on the Batan Biff March and stuff like that in there in the late 90s. And so I and some of that's in the book too. But ⁓ yeah, so I was so, so thrilled to, you know, that I I got to meet his wife and then.

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: Like Omar Bradley, he died around 1981, as I recall. So I mean, so all the five he was the last of the five stars from World War II to be still be living. And ⁓ I'm my little hometown in Pennsylvania is where Eisenhower's family's from originally. His father and grandfather and everybody lived there. And then they moved to Kansas when his father was in his teens. But Ike came back to that little town, Elizabethville, Pennsylvania, and he viewed You know, he went to the house that his parents had built, which is still there and ⁓ in the eighteen hundreds and so it

Jack Moore: Yeah, I remember he ended up at Gettysburg where he spent his last days.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah yeah, he he had a farm there and so they bought that when he was in the White House. But and I've been to that farm. You can it's part of the national park there, the Gettysburg National Park, and then the farm is a separate tour you can take.

Jack Moore: You know, I don't know if I'm right or not, but I kind of like him when it comes to the measurement of people who've served in the office. And the friend of mine that was the Vietnam veteran that I used to do radio with, I came in one day and something had happened. was in the nineties. during the time we were in law school, something had happened where I would say a president was a little bit less than concerned about, I think, the life and death of certain troops or something like that. And I said, you know what? I was watching a thing the other night. The first time I saw it was in 1984, 20 years after the 64 Eisenhower and Cronkite on the beaches of Normandy. They played it in 84 and now it's on YouTube. can watch it whenever you want, but I had just seen it. This is pre YouTube. It's really kind of early internet, but somehow I'd seen this replay of the 64 black and white, Cronkite and Eisenhower go to the beaches. And then they go into one of the offices and they got the big map on the board. And you can tell when Cronkite begins to talk about, he's like, we were supposed to go June 4th and then things are bad. Then our weather guy says June 5th is going to be a monsoon. So we're going to skip. five. And when I get up that morning, it's clear and I'm like, son of a gun, he missed it. Boom. Then it comes in. He goes, boy, got it right. So then we get, and he said it was the moon and it was the tide and it was all these things. And it was like a four or five day windows. only way they could get this invasion or they'd have to skip and go to July and they didn't want to. So he goes, I agree on the six. And as he's talking about it, ⁓ crime kite has that moment where he's like, and what were your thoughts? And he gets choked up. You can tell. I knew thousands of men were going to die. It had to be done. And I came back and I told Tony, said, that's the guy I want to be president.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, no, he he beared that responsibility. You could tell, like even they gave him ⁓ a big award in London right after the war ended. And so he was there on this balcony with ⁓ Churchill and ⁓ the king, as I recall. or yeah, I don't think the queen had not been taken over yet. Elizabeth, she was a princess still, but anyway, so he says there's a humility that has to come with the idea of of gaining accolades. I'm I'm paraphrasing. gaining accolades from the blood and sacrifice of others. And so I with that recognition, he we basically thanked them for the honor and everything, but he he wanted to put it in the the context of I'm here because of the sacrifices that people made. And and I thought the responsibility, and I ⁓ MacArthur writes about that in his memoirs too. Where he said, you know, he walked around the ship before they invaded the Philippines, the famous I I have returned moment, where he wades ashore. And he he said there was a universal sameness, you know, as he walked the ship the night before. And, you know, that sense of what the next day would hold. Would they be alive by that point in the next day for the soldiers? I mean, in all likelihood he would be, but but ⁓ he did go ashore that he did go ashore that day. But

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ I'm.

Randy DeSoto: He said, I went back to my cabin and I read those passages from the Bible that give me encouragement, you know, in those sort of situations. So he that's where you ultimately, I think, have to go. It's like, I am in this position and and God is the arbiter of life and death. I'm making the best decisions I can based on the knowledge that I have and the wisdom. And so yeah, it's it's quite a responsibility, life and death, certainly at that scale. Yeah.

Jack Moore: Yeah, yeah. You know, you know the famous picture where he's talking to the guys with the charcoal on their face and they're all marked up and they're one of the airborne units. think it was 101st might've been. Yeah. So he's got the guys. And you know, he's punching them in the arm and shaking hands with them and they're all standing but looking and they've got, you know, they're all decked out and their stuff, they're a camouflage stuff. And a woman who's an historian found one of the guys and it was like number.

Randy DeSoto: Hundred and first, yeah. Hundred and first. There's a picture of it in my book. ⁓ yeah, good.

Jack Moore: Like number 29 is what he had on. He's like 98 years old and she finds him. And she said, was he pumping you guys up? Was he giving you some strategies? No, we were talking about fishing. think it was, he was taught, where are from? And he goes, you know, whatever part. Yeah. And it was like, wherever you were. Have you ever fished the lake yet? You know, yes, sir. I, you know, and then they got into fishing talk.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, that sort of s that sort of talk, yeah.

Jack Moore: And you know, cause I kind of know it from baseball too, which is not like war, but it's like any sport. could imagine the coach before a game talking to the guys about, you know, what they had for dinner last night. Cause you know, what has to be done. And again, that's no comparison sports, but in sports people, you know, people say, what do you guys talk about the dugout? Like where are we going to go tonight or who had the best barbecue in whatever town? Aren't y'all talking about lay down the bun or move that? We're talking about something else in the dugout because we know what's going on in the game kind of thing. So I think that was his way of doing that man thing of we all know that what's getting ready to happen is going to be really bad. So let's talk, let's talk about fishing. Let's, go fishing. Yeah. And besides they've been, and this is what she said. The guy said, goes, look, we had been drilled to the point of exhaustion, knowing what we're getting ready to do.

Randy DeSoto: Pretty serious, yeah. Get our minds off of it, yeah.

Jack Moore: Having that guy come out and care enough about us to ask us about fishing stories really meant a lot to us. He wasn't going to come out there and go, now when you get to here, turn left and look for this. And they look at the guns are going to be on. That's not the talk at that point. The, the, the general's out there to say, let's take your minds off of this. The obvious you're going to get shot at soon. They don't need to hear that. They already know that we've already, because we had trained to the point we knew, we knew the gig, we know what was going to happen. And we knew all contingencies. If this goes, we go to this and that's. That was already taken care of. I did want to say this too, because I thought it and I just looked it up. Eisenhower's mother's from...

Randy DeSoto: Pennsylvania? Forget which one. Okay. No, his

Jack Moore: Virginia, Virginia. thought she was, she was born during the civil war, May 1st, 1862, Mount Sydney, which is in Augusta County. And she was a pacifist. Like she was one, she was from one of the religions or one of the groups that, and I was talking to a friend the other day, like, yeah. And that's been brought up about the whole abolitionist Pennsylvania and the rest of them. Like, well, look at the people there. And many of them moved down, you know,

Randy DeSoto: Like the Quakers. Like the Quakers him?

Jack Moore: Eastern Mennonite universities in Harrisonburg, Virginia, there's a lot of the same groups of people or certain particular religious groups that migrated down the mountains into Virginia. So it's a lot of the same connection of people. So it doesn't make, you I did think I was like, I think Eisenhower's mom's from Virginia. She is. She's from the west. The northwestern part in the mountains very close to where is now West Virginia. So she would have been from that region. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, some of the one one of his grandmother's name is Moter, ⁓ which is a very common name in my little valley. You know, I mean where the Eisenhower was from. So when I looked at the people that his grandfather married and whatever, I was like, ⁓ these are the same names of the type of people that I went to school with. And ⁓ so he really makes you there's there's a little plaque out there recognize saying that this was the Eisenhower ancestral home and so but yeah, I have Ike he's the only West Pointer on my cover. Ike is on there.

Jack Moore: ⁓ really? She was. She was Ida Elizabeth Stover. Yeah, and I do find it fascinating too. You probably would back me on this. I think he was a full Colonel and as they say, was it rifted out? He was going to kind of like not make next grade. Then the war starts to kick up and he goes from 06 to 11, right? He goes all the way to five star general before the war's out. So in a pretty short period of time, he makes all those ranks.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah. Shannon.

Jack Moore: And it's been argued he wasn't the greatest strategist. He was good at handling personalities. You know, the different generals. He had a certain amount of political reigning in of Patton, I guess. But when you kind of look at it, I don't know, Victor Davis Hansen is pretty good a story and has said over and over, anybody that's not really in the know on this, believe me, Patton was the best general there in Europe. He was by far.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah.

Jack Moore: the greatest at doing what needed to be done to win the war. And people can probably differ on that, but I think he was pretty strong.

Randy DeSoto: No, I I have a chapter to about Patton and I love Patton. The the first day we showed up at West Point, they were playing his speech. I had seen the the movie before, George C. Scott, best pitcher, 1970, as I recall. And ⁓ so they played that speech, men, I want you to remember when you go into battle. You know, it's just this big battle speech. And so ⁓ yeah, no, I have a chapter. And he had been Ike ⁓ benched him to use some sports.

Jack Moore: Right. Right.

Randy DeSoto: Terminology, he benched him for 11 months. So ⁓ Patton had fought in North Africa and then Sicily, and then they were getting ready to invade Italy. And ⁓ that's when you know he had had the slapping incident, you know, where he'd slapped a ⁓ slapped a soldier ⁓ who was at the hospital, you know, for combat fatigue. You know, basically he had had ⁓ I want to say a nervous breakdown, but he was PTSD, I guess you can call it now, but

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Randy DeSoto: you know, Patton said he was trying to just kind of buck him up and ⁓ that was his excuse. But and it happened twice as I recall, but it's portrayed in the movie. And ⁓ you know, Eisenhower basically they relieved him shortly thereafter for a time. But then by the time, you know, so there was Normandy then D Day. And then at the end of July they brought Patton to Europe ⁓ for the third army was being built at the or ⁓ designated among the troops and they okay, you're in charge of the third army, it was called And he was like a spring at that point. You know, he was just so ready to launch that, you know, with this opportunity that he just went like a banshee and their army charged across Europe and ⁓ of course into the Battle of the Bulge and and he that was where his heroic rescue of the hundred and first airborne at Baston, the third army did that. And so he he went that's where his hero status was really established during those last nine, ten months of the war. And ⁓ that I have a

Jack Moore: Yeah. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: My my grandfather served for a few months under him and then he was one of those s few numbers that served in both the Pacific and the Europe the European and the Pacific Theaters Award. Because he'd gotten into the European theater so late, they did it based on each soldier was a a given a points system, like, ⁓ you've been out of the country for this long. And so that made you a higher priority to be sent back to the US or shipped overseas. So my grandfather obviously had a very low points total, so he was shipped. you know, halfway across the world to the Philippines, but so but he had the distinct ⁓ from my mind, he got to serve under two of my heroes, both MacArthur and Patton. So that was fun.

Jack Moore: You know, the thing about patent to, when I think about the way the movie depicted the slapping, there's like no other footage of that actual footage to my lighters. So it's just, you know, here to say stories. We almost think in that generation, especially the friend of mine that was a Vietnam veteran, when he told me what happened to him or what he witnessed going through basic training. I, actually wrong. You don't say that in the Marine Corps, right? They call it, what did they call it? Infantry, ⁓ recruit training, whatever they, whatever the term, think basic training is a no-no. anyway, when he went through, yeah, they hit, right. Yeah. Cause I remember hearing a Marine said, it's not basic training or somebody said basic training is like, well, he clearly wasn't a Marine, anyway, when it bootcamp, when they're going through bootcamp, whatever it was called. ⁓ my gosh. The stories he told me about drill instructors in 1968.

Randy DeSoto: They always have their term. They have their specific terms.

Jack Moore: It was so bad a lot that this one drill instructor did. said, after going to Vietnam and coming back, he sees him in a bar and now he's a corporal. And of course this guy's still a gunnery sergeant and he goes up and he goes, I'll never forget this guy, six foot five from Alabama. He told me this story because he goes up and he goes, Hey, he goes, ⁓ corporal gave his name and he goes, what's up? What can I do for you? And he goes, I just can't believe some of the inhumane things you did and blah, blah. And he goes, Hey, do you survive the nom? And he goes, I did. He goes, and I did my job.

Randy DeSoto: No, I I one of the best mm

Jack Moore: But then he said, but some of the stuff you did, and he said, son, the reason I did that is I wanted to dehumanize Marines because when somebody's brains get blown on you, you either shoot or shit. And I wanted you to live. So if I could dehumanize Marines and now you're under fire, it's horrible. But he said, the reason we trained you this way, and I say that to say that it's kind of interesting in the 1940s when people were pretty hard scrabble, especially the ones The fact that he slapped, because the way they depict it, you know, he's emotional and he's pinning the purple heart beside the kid who's lost his eyes or, you know, he's got the head bandages and then he, what's, what's wrong with this guy? I don't know. I just can't do it anymore, sir. Like, where's the wound? Where, you know, I don't have one. You little son of a, you know, that guy is over here in this condition, pop. And I would kind of think 1940s America wouldn't have been as much of.

Randy DeSoto: Mm-hmm.

Jack Moore: I don't know. mean, you know what I'm saying? I would have thought that would have been kind of like, Hey, that's Patton. You know, he's a tough dude. And when he sees the guy that's crying in the corner and other guys wounded may not ever have eyesight again. I kind of get where Patton's coming from. I thought it was, it was kind of interesting for the times to have been, he, he to have been seen that way for slapping a soldier, but I'm sorry you were going to say.

Randy DeSoto: No, yeah. You know, he did have to apologize and that the that's portrayed in the movie, but it's also in biographies of of him and everything. So he had to they had to call all the people who were on duty at that time and the soldiers in that unit and everybody and he went and he tried to explain he apologized and tried to explain what he

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Into that soldier into that soldier himself Well, well, how did that guy receive that you have any idea how he received that? Okay

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, yeah to do that too, yeah. But ⁓ No, I don't know. But he Patton was just explaining that I you know, I was just trying to kind of instill in him a a buck up and a courage. He said, you know, he he wrote about his own experiences in World War One, Patton, and he was, you know, in under enemy fire and he was he had taken cover. And ⁓ he said, Yeah I felt you know, he was afraid he didn't want to go forward. And ⁓

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: And so he, you know, and he said the idea of being shot in the face was the most terrifying thought to him. But but he said he felt like his ancestors were saying, you've got to get up and go, you know, and ⁓ and you you've got to be who you've destined to be, which is a courageous soldier in battle. And so he he was able to kind of overcome his fear, according to his account, and I'm sure it was true because he had a good record in World War One. And ⁓ his his son came, George Patton, the

Jack Moore: Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: third maybe and spoke to us at West Point. He had been a general during the Vietnam War, a high ranking soldier. So I I got a little sense of the Patton personality. And boy, you know, just like in the movie, well, in the movie they kind of dialed it back, but Patton would drop explatives pretty easily. And and his son did too. And it was kind of funny. We're at this formal dinner and he's dropping F bombs and whatever. This is son. And ⁓ I have a a date I've brought up from central Pennsylvania and I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, this is ⁓ a little bit ⁓

Jack Moore: Right. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: You know, when he spoke to us as true you know, as cadets, you know, he d he had spoken to us at another time. It's totally appropriate. You're used to the the rough language. But ⁓ in that setting with all of us nicely dressed, I thought, I wish he would be a little more tame. But I think his his father was I think he learned it from his father. But ⁓

Jack Moore: That's a lot. Yeah. You know, I've been around some people who had like really famous parents and that has to be tough. It just has to be, you know, because I mean, actually I remember at one time with a friend of mine I work with in sports and I won't get into the sport or anything else, but famous dad, this kid's in college and I'm talking to my friend and I said, ⁓ seem like a really nice kid. goes, yeah, but the emotional

Randy DeSoto: Yeah.

Jack Moore: damage, not his father's fault that he lives with. mean, imagine your dad's one of the most famous athletes in a particular field and you take up that sport. You you might want to try another sport because all he hears is, you're pretty good. You'll never be as good as your dad. You know, it's like, you're never going to be as good as D-Day. And I'm not talking about his dad was a figure. I'm talking about his dad was a on Mount Rushmore guy. So he's never going to be able to live up to that. He can't just go out and play the game. Because it's always going to be, Hey, did you hear his last name? He must be son. Oh my God. He's son of. then it's, so I can imagine you're a general and your general patent. And I don't care how many wars you're in or how many medals you win. You're still his kid. And of course, of course, some are going to be like, of course you made general or you got general grade. Look who your daddy was. mean, I'm sure there's some of that too.

Randy DeSoto: No, yeah. Yeah, Patton died within months, you know, the same nineteen forty five. He died not long of course some think he was killed, but ⁓

Jack Moore: Well, that was another whole, I was going to say that's another whole show because what happened there with him, him, yeah, the way he died. There's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of conspiracies as to he had to be eliminated. And it was depicted in the movie when he didn't want to drink with the Soviet soldiers. I mean, they've come from the East and the West to crush Berlin and then that's the bastards we should be fighting. Like those commie, know, and

Randy DeSoto: Yeah. So ⁓ Yeah, I know.

Jack Moore: And that he was getting tamped down on that too, like George, George, diplomatically don't say these things. And he's like, well, we're fighting the wrong enemy. It should have been those guys, you know?

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, no, he was he he in a sense he loved war. And so ⁓ and ⁓ and so yeah, he was sad to see it all end. And he writes that in his autobiography. He says, Yeah, I I regret that I won't be able to earn my pay anymore, you know. That so he had s fashioned his whole life about to be a war hero. I d I didn't get the sense, of course, who can know, but I didn't get the sense that the son was totally overwhelmed by that legacy. He had the same name and everything.

Jack Moore: Yeah, I think that's true too. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: but Vietnam, of course, was not World War II. And most people in the military, certainly when I was in, had a respect for Vietnam veterans because they had seen combat and ⁓ so I think he within that community he so and he lived to a nice old age. The Douglas MacArthur's son was never a military person. And and I William Manchester wrote in his autobiography or in his biography of MacArthur that American Caesar that.

Jack Moore: Now.

Randy DeSoto: Son took a different name for a while. He just didn't even want to live with that burden. And ⁓ no, it is hard. ⁓ you see that in actors and stuff too. But sometimes the children come on go on to be as big or bigger, but but it is a burden. It seemed like Reagan's children try to kind of shied away from, except for Michael. yeah, they kind of shied away from it.

Jack Moore: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Well, okay. The one was kind of the daughter went all over the map as yeah, as I remember. Remember the one son was very anti-dad's legacy. And then the other one got big in the conservative talk radio realm for, yeah. Yeah. And he kind of, did he just kind of go silent? I mean, I don't remember. He did. I haven't heard from him in years. Is he still speaking out or?

Randy DeSoto: Patty. Michael. And I interviewed him a couple of times over the years, but Michael, you mean? No, well, he passed last year. Just last year. ⁓ 'cause I wrote an article about that. But 'cause I I had seen him well I actually had dinner with him one time. I w we went to the same church and ⁓ it was a Christmas dinner. And so he and his wife and daughter showed up late later. The the the ceremony had just had begun. And so ⁓ so he sat down and

Jack Moore: He did pass away last year. Okay. Okay. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: night's dinner together. I may I made some crack at him about ⁓ so what do you do? I know him darn well you had a radio show and everything. ⁓ I'm I'm Michael. Yeah, no, I know who you are. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so he my friends with ⁓ my dad or my my friend, my ⁓ former boss was a good friend of his too. But so yeah, no, I was I saw him at CPAC maybe before COVID sometime, maybe the late teens there. ⁓

Jack Moore: He died this year, January 4. Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: Again, I just I happened to be eating lunch someplace and there he was. So I our cr our paths crossed a few times, but but I did interview him formally for our with the Western Journal who I write for.

Jack Moore: Yeah, Ronald Reagan, the son, is now 68. Born in 1958.

Randy DeSoto: He he goes by Ron, used to anyway. ⁓

Jack Moore: Yeah, correct. He goes by Ron Reagan and he is doing radio show host, television host, independent politically, it says, et cetera, et cetera. His progressive views contrast that with his conservative father. So I've certainly seen him. I mean, he's one of those people famously in 2016 that's on one of those rolling. Trump will never be president. remember that. It's one of the last times I really remember seeing him. It's been 10 years, but you know, he's on that commentary. Go ahead and mark my words. He will never be president in the United States. So, know, so when those people put those things, yeah, yeah. And then it was a whole joke that he was even going to run. What does my daddy's party become? You know, this can't happen, et cetera, et cetera. So.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, he was on MSNBC a lot. Yeah. I think he may have even been a regular contributor or

Jack Moore: That's where he was. Okay, brother. It's been great. We went a lot farther, a lot longer than I, yeah, we've kind of gone on and on here. So I've gone on, I know how I am. So I've gone on and on, but I really enjoyed having you. ⁓ You're welcome. Anytime. Definitely want to stay in touch. How can people get your book? Please tell everybody about your book and how to reach you.

Randy DeSoto: No, I know. So yeah. So yeah, it's it's just been out for about a week and a half. ⁓ I re I d I definitely wanted to get it out before the the 250th. And and so there were all these challenges, but it finally came out. It's on Amazon. ⁓ it will be at other places fairly soon, you know, at Barnes and some of those. But right now it's just on Amazon and it it'll also be on Audible soon. I'm having ⁓ John Pruden, who did ⁓ he's the voice actor who did the about Reagan, actually the Crusader, ⁓ which is what the movie Reagan was based on too, that book.

Jack Moore: for the July. Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: ⁓ Paul Kengore, the same narrator is doing my book. He's a US Army vet. So that's I thought he would be a perfect fit for this. And I liked his narration of that Crusader book. But ⁓ so if you go to well I don't I don't I I have ⁓ you can find the links on X, ⁓ True Social, Instagram, or even on my Western journal. No, no, I guess it's not there, but those three places you can find the link.

Jack Moore: Right. Right. Any other? Go ahead.

Randy DeSoto: And if you if you search for We Hold These Truths on Amazon, it might pull up the 07 version, which you don't want that anymore because I've got some really good stuff in this one. That one has just three pictures on it, but this one has nine. So that's a good way to and and if you look at the data publishing, it'll say ⁓ seven, but get the newer improved, bigger version. That's what you want right there. Yeah, it was June 23rd, 2026. So I felt great.

Jack Moore: Okay. And that will say 2026. Gotcha. June 23rd, okay. Yeah, it's just.

Randy DeSoto: I felt great. I was doing it same time that Jefferson and Franklin and Adams were kind of finalizing the declaration, writing and finalizing this is perfect, two hundred and fifty years later.

Jack Moore: Well, man, it has been a great pleasure to have you on any other thing, parting words you would like to give the audience.

Randy DeSoto: Nope, we live in a great country. the declaration is sets the vision. It's like our holy grail and it's wonderful to be here and be an American.

Jack Moore: You know, when you say we live in a great country, I don't feel that anymore, but I run into great people, you know, but I don't, I don't feel like it's the country you and I grew up in. I don't think it's that. And I don't know how we return it to it. So that's kind of that. It's not chicken or egg, but it's kind of like, which direction do we go? Do we try to do it at local level and then hope it expands? ⁓ how much of like the country can. we see go the directions it goes. Cause again, you know this from traveling, you go to some places, you wouldn't know it's a crazy world, but then you go to some places and you see it's not what it once was. Now with Washington DC, and I know you saw this recently, now there's vandalism as to the work that's been done on the reflecting pool, Alpecide, or between the Washington monument and the Lincoln Memorial. I'm like, I used to love DC. I used to park at the Arlington Cemetery a lot. I would go park at the cemetery, walk the Memorial Bridge over to the Lincoln Memorial and hot-footed all the way to the Capitol. That was just my thing. And I would hit all the monuments and stuff. I grew up 70 miles from DC. So I made trips to DC all the time and having grown up, I'm no street guy, DC guy, but I mean, I know the city. I used to go there a lot. All my Washington risk and stuff. I was in stadium and RFK when I was a kid. DC stadium. So I loved Washington DC and there's an energy about it and there was the monuments and the history. And then here about 10 years ago, I got to the point, I wouldn't go anywhere near it. It's like, know, why ⁓ I did go up in 2017 and I went with a friend from Minnesota that wanted to see it. And we were at the White House. There's just crazy people protesting, doing all kinds of crazy stuff. This is pre COVID, but Trump's in office. And I just kind of knew that's what it But a lot of it that I used to remember about it had really changed for the worse. Like just aesthetically, the city looked dirty, bad. that's my thing. They're doing that and people are protesting that.

Randy DeSoto: Mm. Yeah, I think they've been improving it recently though. We don't want a clean pretty city. We want a trash flood.

Jack Moore: I mean, so apparently with this, this reflecting pool, put in a blue liner at some expense or whatever, and they're out there. Somebody was telling me they're, they're taking some kind of things and cutting it. And then they're throwing stuff into the water to contaminate the water. So people are actively trying to destroy the beautification of the city, our nation's capital. So we've lost the plot somewhere, you know, I'm just, so I don't, I don't know exactly what the answer is, but.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, there are leftists out there for sure. And yeah. The leftists have gotten more crazy, that's right. Although you had the weather other drawing underground and stuff in the seventies and I mean we've always had some little offshoots, but yeah, it's it's larger. It there seems to be a larger contingent now.

Jack Moore: Yeah, yeah. No, that's true. Well, and right around the time you're born, I remember telling college students once, said, you know, but I'm six. But I remember, I said this to my, one of my graduate school professors, like, yeah, I remember 68. I was in the house and Cronkite came on and said, Dr. Martin Luther King's been, let me back up, March 31. I remember Johnson saying he wasn't going to run for president. I was a weird kid. was watching all this, but I remember Johnson.

Randy DeSoto: I was interested as a kid too. Not not in that, but but I was too young then, but yeah.

Jack Moore: Well, 31 March, but 31 March, he's saying I'm not going to run. And I'm really figuring out who Bobby Kennedy is. And I was already fascinated with the Kennedy assassination because my mom read all the books and then King's killed. And then I'm walking across the living room floor on the morning after Kennedy's shot. And my dad, who's like feeding me the politics because I'm interested, he goes, Jack, they just shot Bobby Kennedy in LA last night. I'm like, wow. So I'm watching riots in the streets after King's death. I'm seeing Bobby Kennedy shot and I'm seeing Vietnam on the news every night. And I told this ⁓ graduate school professor, I just wondered what war I'd get sent to. And she's like, that's fascinating. I said, well, all my great uncles and grandparents know it was World War I or ⁓ it was World War II. My dad got drafted in Korea. My uncle got drafted in Vietnam. If you were a male at the time, you looked around, you're like, you're going to fight in a war. You just wonder which one's going to call your name kind of thing. But I look back and I think the country was literally coming apart at the seams in 68. Really. The Democrat convention was, know, Chicago was a free for all. There's fights in the streets. was just, it was a messy time. We got through it, but I was a six-year-old. So I thought that's kind of the way the world was. I mean, it really did.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah.

Jack Moore: So as we went through, yeah, go ahead.

Randy DeSoto: No. No, I I've thought that before too, when people were like, ⁓ we're just in these crazy times and da da da you know, and politics and divided. And I thought they gotta go go back to the nineteen sixties and like you said, all these political assassinations and I I actually quote Robert Kennedy Sr. and Junior in the book, but Kennedy had a senior had a great quote about how tyranny is brought down by all the individual actions coming together and creating a wave, ripples turning into a w a wave. They they have the quote at the where his he's buried in Arlington. And ⁓ so I I have that in the book. But no, I I'm still a big Bobby Kennedy fan and I was fascinated in college with the nineteen sixties 'cause you know, that was I guess like probably like kids are fascinated with the eighties today, probably.

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it, cause having lived in them and you hear their take on it, you're kind of like, it just feels like yesterday to me. But one last thing on, ⁓ what you're saying about nothing new under the sun. I got a chance to do a show with Gerald Posner case closed on the Kennedy assassination. like he's a big on the odds. mean, he's, he's a huge figure on that and it reached out to him. did a show and I said, he told me about how. the Boston symphonies playing when they find out and there's a recording of the conductor saying, sorry folks, have news that president Kennedy has just been shot and you hear a gasp and then they start playing the funeral song. And I said, you know, what's crazy is, and I sent it to him right after that. And you can look it up on YouTube. There's a talk show, the night of the assassination, the night of Boston, and they have a very left leaning entertainer, singer, songwriter kind of guy. And he comes on and brother when you hear it, it's crystal clear. It's like you're sitting in the room with them and it's 60 plus years ago. But the thing is, is the language because that night they don't really know enough about Oswald, but they don't know. But the host was like, what do you think? goes, it's those crazy right wingers in the South. The blood is on their hands. We got it.

Randy DeSoto: ⁓ yeah.

Jack Moore: tamp down hate speech. We're too divided in this country. And if you're listening to it, you're like, it's right now. So this kind of romanticized that we were watching Andy Griffith and the Bellville Hill builders, it's 1960s and all is black and white TV. You listen to these two guys talk nine hours after the assassination and it sounds no different than anything you hear today. Nothing. And the guy literally said hate speech. He used that term.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah. You know You know, and you know, that this movie Jesus Revolution came out a couple of years ago. ⁓ you know, they there was a Jesus people movement there in the late sixties when the whole country seemed to be coming apart. And so millions of you know, reportedly millions, they don't know the numbers exactly, but there were certainly huge events happening. Even Billy Graham spoke at some of them. And ⁓ but a lot of people, you know, a lot of different settings. California was kind of the the the heart of it.

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: But you know, they were doing all kinds of water ocean baptisms and stuff at Pirates Cove and in Orange County and whatever. And so a lot of people looking back think that what saved the country then is that that movement. You know, millions of people became, or certainly was one of the reasons that millions of people were coming out of leftist hippetom and becoming born-again Christians. And a lot of them are still with us now, you know, as preachers, now in their seventies, like Mario Murillo and guy named Hal Saxon here in

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Mm hmm. Right.

Randy DeSoto: Phoenix is a leader in the Christian community who endorsed my books. I but he I've interviewed him before about the Jesus people movement. And ⁓ and so and Mario's, as I said in the book, and he he just had a crusade in Stockton where he said, This is the greatest four nights we had in the last week of the thing. It was supposed to just be four days, but it went four weeks. And he said, The last nights were the greatest in my 50 plus years of ministering, that thousands of people are coming to these events. And

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: There is polling showing, certainly among young men, especially, but people in general, the number of Christians has actually gone up for the first time in in decades, really. It's been going down. And so if there is a salvation, I think it comes through revival. And that's what I argued in the last chapter of the book. Revival and then reformation. And so you change policies, like even that court case the other day that Trump helped instigate, truthfully, ⁓ you know, or he certainly changed the policies.

Jack Moore: ⁓ I believe that. I believe that. No doubt.

Randy DeSoto: There are two genders that people in sports are gonna have males compete with males. We're not gonna have male, biological males competing in female sports because it's not fair and that's not the purpose of Title Nine. And ⁓ so anyway, so that's a reformation. You know, we were going one way and now we're coming back to the truth. Two genders, keep them separate in sports. Yeah, yeah.

Jack Moore: But what strikes me about the very thing you're saying right there is you could say a president who just turned 80 who's saying, come on, we all know the biological truth, therefore I'm going to enact a law and it gets upheld. That's one thing. But we also, I believe, 40 years ago would have thought if we had introduced that, no, we're going to have guys six foot three that were a girl yesterday competing. We'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, that's, and that would be 99.3 % of the population. You know what I mean? It wouldn't have even, so when the population swings back to, that's just not an unpopular decision by Trump or something upheld. would be, no, we kind of all are on board with that or a vast majority. It's one of those 90-10 issues. The fact that it's not a 90-10 issue, I agree with you. It's trying to take back some of the ground. But the fact that we have the percentage of people who do think it was okay that young males are out there destroying females in sports, breaking their faces with volleyballs and the rest, that that's okay. If anybody can see it as okay, you're kind of like, there's something wrong with the society. When the society comes back to what would appear to be sanity, we'll be that much better. There are steps that have to be taken, but we, in other words, we can't legislate ourselves back to sanity. I just want to go back to the world where people don't see. Yes.

Randy DeSoto: No, politics is down politics is downstream from culture for sure. And ⁓ but yeah, I there are positive certainly the church is a positive cultural influence, you know, writ large. Obviously there are good and bad churches, but ⁓ and Christians and Christians writ large

Jack Moore: Yes, yes. Well, that's another thing. The church has got to be, well, I mean, the church has got to be reformed too, because I I watched on these YouTube the other day about some of the stuff that's being said in churches and it's, it's crazy doctrine as it relates to, if you're going to align with this certain particular faith, this isn't it. You can make your own thing or you can say it's a variation of the thing, but it ain't the thing. So, you know, we're kind of there too.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah. Charlie Kirk was one of the good Christian voices out there as far as on these issues. ⁓ but yeah, and of course others are having to step in and take his place. But and their TPU essay is going around the country and bring bringing great speakers ⁓ and great events on these cultural issues. But I interviewed Riley Gaines here in Phoenix a while back when they delivered a petition to the NCAA president. The convention was happening here and ⁓ Said, hey, we don't want women in our men in our sports. And it was it was a powerful moment. And I know that she and others were, I'm sure, rejoicing yesterday.

Jack Moore: I think you've probably seen this, as they say, the video that's gone viral of the guy that celebrated Charlie Kirk's death. And now he says that he, he does appreciate his death because it brought him into light of just how evil his life had gone. Have you seen this video?

Randy DeSoto: ⁓ no, so he he r he be he repented more or less of his earlier remarks? Mm-hmm.

Jack Moore: ⁓ gosh, yeah. So he comes out and he said, a friend, a coworker said, you hear Charlie Kirk get killed? And he said, yes, the Nazi blankety blank blank should have died, whatever. And then he goes on, he goes, and now I have to say that I am glad that Charlie Kirk died because it made me come to grips with what I had become. The very fact that I celebrated it, I resurrected my faith. I resurrected my life with my family.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, that's good.

Jack Moore: And he goes, all these are result of his death. And he said his life and the way he died woke me up to what I had become this angry person. So it was basically, hate the fact that he died the way he did, but he didn't die in vain because it changed my life. And it's powerful.

Randy DeSoto: No, I think that's good. I hadn't seen that yet. But yeah, there's what a Bible passes to something like precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints or something like that effect. And ⁓ I think that would try, you know, Trump was spared. God had more work for him to do on this earth. and Charlie mentioned that in his July 4th message last year by millimeters. And he he attributed it to God's providence. And then Eric Metaxis was speaking here earlier this month.

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm.

Randy DeSoto: Or just last month actually now, but he was saying, you know, he's a Christian writer or or writer in general, conservative thinker, but he's a Christian also. But he was saying, we don't understand why God allowed Trump to live and Charlie to be taken. And but I think examples like you're pointing out, you know, God had another purpose. So he he used, he fit a lot of life into those thirty-one years. And ⁓ of course it's left his wife widowed and two ch young children. So it's a tragic situation, but God has used it in powerful ways like you're describing. I I think that's there are many stories probably that in his yeah.

Jack Moore: Well, you know, he said part of what shook him up was the guy, guess, that told him he just, he just was killed when he reacted the way he did. He said, have you ever listened to him actually, and all the vast hours of video capture that you can find anywhere? And he said, you know, he's basically saying that's what struck me. No, I've never actually listened to what he said. I've only listened to snippets that were, you know, pulled out. Yeah. Right. Exactly.

Randy DeSoto: To TikTok. To TikTok BS.

Jack Moore: But the reason I even brought him up is I was thinking about the fact. I wonder how many of the people, because when you talk about some of these tours and speakers, let's face it, often the entire audience is going to be people who have like mind and it'll kind of fire up the base and all that. But Charlie clearly was in Steven Crowder's done this. You go out on campuses, change my mind or whatever these different things were that were being done.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah.

Jack Moore: They're going into the belly of the beast. mean, they're, they're going in. Right. And I've wondered how many others, because, know, famously there was a girl that exposed her breast to Charlie Kirk. You may remember that. Right. And that was with, ⁓ Vivek Ramaswamy was right beside him. And, ⁓ she was basically captured on video. think again, I believe the person was like, pretty sure it's her and it was.

Randy DeSoto: Hostile territory. ⁓ yeah.

Jack Moore: Yeah, I still hate him. hope he's burning in hell, you know, kind of. So clearly where she was two years before his death, saying something along the line of why you're out here picking on kids. And he makes the point, are you a voter? Yes. Well, then I'm talking to you. And he goes, you listen to your professors. They're older than me. So why is it I'm the bad guy? So he hands it to her. She doesn't really have an argument. She doesn't look really good in the video. I am wondering though. Are there many out there today who had been on these, these several volumes of videos where they seem to be in opposition to him that have reflected later and changed their lives? wonder if there's, because what I'm afraid is whichever side of people are on again, you can have an event, bring in a bunch of right-wingers and conservative kids and all, they're like, yay, our team, you know, and that's great. Right. But that's why I did think that what Kirk did was clearly courageous. And if it was ever going to be any kind of dent in the machine or the direction that things might've been going is to go to the people who don't agree with you.

Randy DeSoto: No, that was his argument. And during

Jack Moore: That was his argument, but I was kind of wondering what the numbers might be. Now, again, that viral video of this guy is one guy. He's clearly one guy. Now I did see a barrage of videos following his death where a lot of people came out and said, I want to apologize for how I felt about Charlie Kirk because after his death, I literally went back and actually listened to what he said. And I never had and had a different view of what he was saying once I actually took the time to listen.

Randy DeSoto: Mm-hmm.

Jack Moore: So there was some of that. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: No, yeah. No, I saw some of those too. But yeah. No, he, you know, of course the youth votes swung pretty strongly in Trump's direction in twenty twenty-four. I th thanks in part to Charlie, and especially young men and podcasts, you know, like this and others helped influence young men. But so and but women came his way too. And I think a large part because of the sports issue was one of the issues pulling him women in his direction. I he I think he gained ten points with women and overall he went from like

Jack Moore: Yes it did. Yes. Yeah.

Randy DeSoto: Was it low twenty ⁓ upper twenties or thirties among young people to like forty some percent of the youth vote? So he he didn't get the majority, but he got along he made up a lot of ground.

Jack Moore: Yeah. I do a lot of shows with a buddy of mine and we've actually done the theme of a couple of shows. I am of the mind that with Trump goes the party that it has now become because I don't see an heir apparent. I don't think he's of the personality that has a handoff to guy. just, I just don't think so. What I think is going to, yeah, go ahead.

Randy DeSoto: Mm well. No, I and I've y I've argued this before, you know, Bush came after Reagan. Whenever you have one of these big reformers and big personalities ⁓ that really shapes the American presidency, you're not gonna get another one usually. And I mean, maybe you get one it's i but I mean

Jack Moore: Yeah, but okay. Let me, Reagan did not like Bush. I've even heard the story that Bushes were never even invited into the personal residential area of the Reagans. He did not want there is actual documentation to show very much like Jack Kennedy didn't want Lyndon Johnson. It was forced upon Reagan by the party. That's why a lot of people... Right. No, that's what I'm saying. 1980, Reagan didn't want anything to do with Bush.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, they're in eighty eight in nineteen eighty, I think, yeah, sure. They were rivals. They were both going at in.

Jack Moore: And yeah, and you know, there were even people that say, kind of funny how Jack Kennedy got killed in 63 and you know, what was Bush's role in that? And then they're like, you know, and then Reagan gets shot in 81. I've even heard the stories that to her death, Nancy Reagan questioned whether the Bush's had something to do with it. But let me just say, they weren't exactly best friends. So, and I'm not saying necessarily, I do think, I do believe that Nancy Reagan to her death always kind of questioned. didn't, she wasn't a big fan. But, but I don't think, I'm not saying that Reagan and Bush, I think Reagan at that point in life, you know, pushing 80 probably would have been like, I rather it be Bush than the next guy, you know, Dukakis. But I don't know that he really had an emotional stake in it. What I'm saying about Trump is Trump has clearly changed the party in a decade. It's a completely different party. It has different constituents and all that, or it has a different base. I don't think he's the kind of guy that wants the party to be anything other than the party of Trump, is all I'm saying. don't see a natural heir apparent. So what I'm afraid of is, or what I think is going to happen, this has been my argument, is that if the Democrats win the midterms, they're going to impeach him weekly. It's just going to make stuff up weekly. And I'm not sure eventually there won't be enough dissenting Republicans to get rid of them just to try to restructure the party. knowing that, well, knowing that he's not going to run in 2028. So it's going to be some kind of food fight, I guess, to try to take over the party. But I don't see the party remaining what the party is now because Trump did restructure the party, but in doing so, he ran out the establishment Republicans and they've aged out. mean, McCain, of course, passed away, but

Randy DeSoto: ⁓ I don't know.

Jack Moore: The McCains, the Jeb Bushes, the Rubio's still around. He picked on him. Ted Cruz is still around, but I don't see him being a figure ever again trying to get the nomination. So there's going to be a new slate of people and what the Republican party is going to be going down the road. I don't know, but this, think, is always my fear of putting that much weight in figures like that.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, no, I think Rubio would be my pick at this point. I of course I supported him in sixteen too. I I mean I gave a little contribution, whatever, but yeah, no I

Jack Moore: Mm-hmm. No, I think a lot of people feel that way. Yeah. think a lot of people feel that way, but I bet I don't know if, but again, all I'm saying like 2016 it's little Marco in the, the slights and he, know, and he, and he insults Cruz's wife and he insults Jeb Bush's wife and he insults Jeb Bush every day. And it was good theater and he rested the party away from the establishment clearly. And a lot of people felt good about that. But I don't know what that creates going down the road. I don't know what the Republican party is going to be minus Trump. And there's going to be a minus Trump time.

Randy DeSoto: Yeah, we'll Yeah, we'll have to see. But yeah, I we'll see what happens. I'm not sure, but

Jack Moore: Yeah, don't know. I'm not sure either. I'm just worried about the alternative. So all right, brother. Anything else? Anything else you want to say on the way out?

Randy DeSoto: Nope, I've got some Trump in the book too. I d I didn't put any contemporary fig figures because he's so strong on the declaration and he had posted one in the office, but he had some really good stuff to say in his Mount Rushmore twenty twenty speech and and then, you know, since then and the de rededication of the nation to God. I have some of that in the book and you know, that the May seventeenth thing. So but I didn't put any contemporary figures on the book because I don't want to get any legal issues for one thing, but but but ⁓ Trump probably would have been fine.

Jack Moore: Okay. Sure.

Randy DeSoto: anyway, but no, thank you. Yeah, thank you. I've enjoyed it. Jack it's been a great

Jack Moore: Yes, sir. I've enjoyed having you on. Randy DeSoto, Jack Moore here with more to consider. Please like and subscribe, comment. Please buy his book. Give that title one more time.

Randy DeSoto: We hold these truths. Two beliefs change the world. You can find it on my social media or on Amazon. But again, just get the 2026 version.

Jack Moore: There we go. All right. Thanks everybody. God bless and hope to see you again soon.