S7E5: Strategy of Extortion

This is Larry Lessig. This is episode five of season seven of the podcast, Another Way, Another Conversation with my friend Ben Hepburn, who I went to high school with way back in the day in the Kentucky part of Pennsylvania, a place called Williamsport. We actually lived in the suburb of Loyal Sock and attended Loyalsock Townsh Senior High school, graduated in 1979. But as I've explained, I've started a conversation with Ben to see if Ben and I, who have very different political views, or at least we manifest them differently in the people we vote for, could find common ground to understand what's actually separating us in the middle of this Trump presidency. So today we recorded this episode, and I was extremely happy as we began because I had succeeded in getting it set up with Ben in a way that makes sure that he was recorded at high quality, which I had not succeeded in doing before. But then I discovered I was a total idiot because I forgot to turn on the recording of myself. So we only have both of us recorded from the event starting at about, well, about 15 minutes before the end of the podcast. And I only have his side of the recording for the first chunk of the podcast. And rather than forcing everybody back into the conversation, I'm going to recreate the questions that I believe led into his answers, and I'm going to create them in a way that make his answers sound as good as they possibly can, because it's my screw up that led to us being here. So I apologize. I've promised throughout this whole season to get the tech correct, and still, even when I thought I had seen it, I failed. But, okay, the topic of this podcast for this episode is going to start talking about what I think of as the due process issues. And so I prepared this part of the podcast and have notes from that, and that's what I'll be teeing up in order to raise the question. So here we go. So welcome, Ben. It's great to talk to you again. I want to talk about what feels to me like the most obvious example of the sort of thing that I can't believe we actually could possibly, in any sense, disagree about. And so if we do have a disagreement, I want to find out what that could be, but I want to map this out so you can see exactly why I don't think there could be any disagreement. But to set this up, I just want to set up a hypothetical here. I mean, you sell meat from your farm. So imagine you were talking to some distributor that you had and you said to the distributor, look, I Think the prices that you're buying my meat for are too low. So unless you raise the prices by 10%, I'm going to go somewhere else. So that's one example of a threat in the context of economic transaction that we all understands completely legitimate. There's no reason why the seller of something can't say, look, if you don't actually meet my price, I'm going to go sell my product somewhere else. But imagine a second scenario where the seller doesn't say, I'm going to take my meat somewhere else if you don't raise your price. Instead, he says, you know, if you don't raise your price, you're going to find the tires on your distributor trucks all of a sudden have holes in them because they will have been slashed. I'm not saying I know who will slash them. I'm just saying I'm pretty sure they're going to be slashed. Now, obviously, the point about the second example is that the threat there is illegitimate. Nobody has the right to slash another person's tires. So using an illegitimate threat, an illegal threat, in order to get what you want in your deal with your distributor is called extortion. So the difference between a legitimate deal and extortion is the framework I want to use in order to talk about the issues that are particularly troubling to me now about what's going on in this current administration. So let's think about two contexts. One, the law firm. So the President has threatened a number of law firms and threatened to withstand hold their access to government buildings, threaten to punish companies that continue to deal with those law firms, threaten to withdraw security clearances from those law firms. And so when you ask, what is it that unites all the law firms he is threatening? The only thing that unites them is that there are lawyers in those law firms who had litigated against Donald Trump. So Covington and Burling had a threat from the President that the security clearances for the lawyers in the firm were going to be withdrawn because they helped Jack Smith, the prosecutor in the J6 prosecutions. And also because Peter Koski had worked for the firm. He had litigated the election obstruction and classified documents cases against the President or Paul Weiss had a threat made against them because they had employed Robert Mueller. Robert Mueller obviously had produced the Mueller report, which was investigating the allegations that there was some connection between the President and Russia during the first election. And he had also. The law firm was also involved with cases involving the J6 lawsuits and employed a lawyer named Mark Pomeranz. Who had litigated cases in New York against the President for the felonies that he was convicted of for fraud in the context of his business transactions, or the law firm of Perkins Coie, who had represented Hillary Clinton in ways that the President didn't like, also worked with George Soros, often a target for the President's ire, or General Block, who had employed Andrew Weissman, who's frequently on MSNBC now, but before had worked with Robert Mueller in the Mueller investigations or Wilmer Hale, who had also worked in the Mueller investigation. So what unites these is that they have lawyers who had litigated against the President. And so the President, in revenge for these lawyers litigating against him, had threatened to withdraw access to government buildings, security clearances, completely illegitimately. You can't, under the law, in retaliation for legal representation against you, threaten to withhold these access to government facilities. That's just plainly illegal under the First Amendment. So in this sense, it's exactly like threatening to slash the tires of the distributor when you're trying to negotiate better prices for your meat. And instead of fighting, some of the law firms have actually settled, figuring it was cheaper or it was less threatening to their law firm's existence if they just settled. And President Trump is now going around bragging about the fact that he has amassed more than $100 million in free legal services from these law firms, some of the very best law firms in America, in order to settle the threats that he made against them. And with this legal fund, he's going to be able to prosecute cases that he in particular finds compelling for him. Okay, that's the story with law firms. And then a story very close to home is the universities. So, as is well reported, the President has made threats against universities, threatened to stop funding for universities, withhold funding for universities. The first of these was Colombia, where he threatened to withhold $400 million, canceled those payments. They've not gotten that money back yet. And that money was being withheld, it was said initially, because these law firms weren't doing enough to fight antisemitism. Okay, now, the basis, the foundation, the thin, thin foundation for this argument against the universities is a provision of federal law called Title 6. Title 6 requires that the recipients of federal money in the context of education must take steps to make sure that the students are not being discriminated against. So discriminated against on the basis of race or sex or religion. And the claim of the Trump administration is that these universities, Columbia, Harvard, other universities, didn't do enough to protect Jewish students on campus. And therefore that manifested a violation of Title six. And that was the basis for the President threatening to withdraw, withhold, in Harvard's case, multiple billions of dollars, up to $6 billion, because of this alleged wrong of, of not protecting Jewish students adequately. Now, we should admit, and Harvard did admit, in response to this threat from the President, that there's plenty of work to be done to make sure that antisemitism doesn't live on the campus of Harvard. You know, it's important to have a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment at Harvard. And if you feel like you can't participate at Harvard because you're Jewish, then Harvard has failed in achieving that DEI appropriate environment. So there's no doubt that that's an important objective. And Harvard expressly said that there was plenty of work to be done done to improve those conditions. But here's the key. In order to withhold or withdraw money from Harvard under the law of Title 6, the government would need to begin a process that would have many steps to evaluate whether the charges made against Harvard were in fact true. And the government would have a chance to present its arguments, and Harvard would have a chance to rebut those arguments. And in that exchange, there would be a determination whether in fact, Harvard had violated any rules under Title 6. And the procedures are quite elaborate, but at the end, there would be a fact finder who would make a determination. And if it went against Harvard, Harvard had a chance to appeal that determination. And if in the end it was found that Harvard had in fact violated their obligations under Title 6, then the law gives the government the ability to withdraw funds the government gave Harvard, but limited to the program where that violation had been found to exist. So that means limited to the contexts. So in the context of Harvard, if there was a claim of antisemitism, it would have been in the context of undergraduate education, perhaps where there had been protest, and maybe there wasn't sufficient protection for Jewish students. Students in the middle of those protests. Whatever. I don't know the details of the charges here, but the point is the withdrawal of funding would be limited to that particular program. But the billions of dollars that Trump is threatening to withdraw here don't come from the undergraduate program. The billions of dollars are money that would be spent at hospitals or money that had been spent or contracted to be spent for research for work that the government had asked Harvard to do for it. And this stopping of payment for the work that was being done would be just breaching the contracts in order to pressure Harvard to take the steps which the President wanted Harvard to take. And so Friday, a week ago, the president or the administration sent Harvard a list of demands. And some of those demands, you could say, were aiming at creating a more inclusive environment for Jews, a more diverse, equitable and inclusive environment for Jews. But many of them had nothing to do with protecting Jews on campus. They instead had to do with the President's politically correct view about, or his own political correctness about exactly how universities were life should occur. So he wanted to make sure that there was no special steps taken in light of anybody's ethnic or racial or gender in the context of Harvard. So clubs that would be clubs for African Americans to get together and study African American history, those would be inappropriate. He wanted to review the admissions process. He wanted to include an opportunity to review hiring decisions of Harvard. Basically, he wanted to insert himself or his administration into the full range of Harvard's adjudication, Harvard's governance, all because he said, we were not sufficiently protective of Jews. Okay, so this too is an illegal extortion because the threats made and the threats to stop funding which happened at Columbia has not yet happened directly at Harvard, even though there has been a threat against it, are illegitimate threats. There's no legal basis for stopping funding until a finding of guilt under the Title 6 process. And even then, the amount you could withdraw has nothing to do with the billions that's being threatened here. You can't stop money going to a hospital because undergraduates were not sufficiently sensitive to the concerns of Jewish students at Harvard. And then when Harvard had the backbone, and as a Harvard professor, I was so grateful that the president of Harvard was as principled and strong as he was when Harvard had the backbone to stand up and say, hell no, we're not going to cave to these illegal, unconstitutional demands of the President. Then the President piled on and the president started saying he was going to ban foreign students from coming to Harvard and he was going to cancel the nonprofit status, what's called the C3 status of Harvard. Now, that would only happen if the IRS canceled the C3 status of Harvard. And the IRS would typically only cancel C3 status again after it had made a complaint. There had been an adjudication of that complaint claiming that Harvard had not lived up to the rules that give one the right to claim charitable status under C3 of the tax code. And if the ruling went against Harvard, a chance to appeal that, to adjudicate that. So the threat to withdraw C3 funding was again an illegitimate threat because he had no Power, indeed, as I described later in this podcast, that power to withdraw under C3 under the IRS Regulations cannot be invoked by the President. The statute expressly says the president cannot direct the IRS to an investigation of a particular tax holder. So this, again, is an illegal act by the President for the purpose of leveraging his power, raw power, to force Harvard and Columbia and every other university he is threatening to do things that they otherwise would not be able to be forced to do. If the President used only legal power in both cases with the law firms and with the universities, it's a game of extortion that trades on the denial of due process which he's giving both lawyers and these universities and instead using his extraordinary control over the people who work for him to just stop payments as the threat that forces them to give in. Now, you can't possibly believe, Ben, you can't possibly believe this is okay. You can't look at that and say that type of behavior by the most powerful man in the free world is okay. That's not what the American tradition stands for. Can you.

I have not heard all the things that you described to me. Of course, I'm not, you know, I know you're. You're well versed in the law part of it and, you know, the lawyers and all that stuff. I. I'm not, I will say this, Larry, right off the top that, you know, I wrote an article here just recently about mental health and I encourage people to turn off the TV and the news channels and to try to keep your sanity. And I have followed my instructions. I really, for the last month, have not, you know, studied it as much as I was doing it so I could be prepared for you. So I will tell you that I met it if this was in the news. I have turned the news off rather abruptly lately, so I don't have that information. As far as what you're telling me about the lawyers and stuff, I have followed the Harvard because of, you know, our relationship, trying to figure that out. I have heard, you know, those things that he's done now, I'm not aware of the laws that you've just said about that. Of course, I hope it's fair to say that the common guy like myself is probably not going to be versed in that. I don't know if that's a cop out or not, but I'm not aware of those laws. Like you certainly would be. Right?

Yeah, no, no, I completely understand that ordinary people are not going to know every detail of Title 6, regulating how the federal Government spends its money and how universities have to comply with principles of non discrimination. I get that. But it's the more basic point, which is why I set it up the way I set it up. The idea that the president would use illegitimate threats to force private institutions to open themselves up to federal control, that's the, that's the real challenge. Or he would use his power to punish people who had the temerity to litigate against him. And of course, remember in the New York case, litigate successfully against him. A jury found him guilty of those crimes. So that's the basic idea of due process, which it's hard to believe. We could have anyone, or at least anyone we knew who would disagree with that.

Oh, I certainly agree with it. You know, I agree with you. I, I sat there and I scratch my head sometimes, like you said, when I'm listening to some of the things that they're telling us and what I do here, just like that nonprofit, I did hear about, you know, taking that away. And I, and I, I think the guys like me, the common, everyday guy is going, you know, we really don't know what's going on. We elected these officials, not just, you know, Trump, but everybody else that we've elected. And we're putting our hopes and dreams and our, you know, our responsibilities or whatever in them and hopefully that they, you know, can take care of this. And if, you know, if Mr. Trump or Donald Trump president's doing something wrong, then we're hoping that, you know, the people that are around him are able to correct that. But the other thing, Larry, I am offended that it even should go this way. But I also see the protests. I hear testimonials about people not feeling safe on campus. And that really bothers me as well. I watch a lot of different things on social media and there have been confrontations, there's been violence, antifa, whatever antifa really is. But I don't like the mask. If you're going to protest, you shouldn't have a face covering over, you know, your face. That just is a red flag to begin with. So I understand what you're saying. I can certainly agree with you on many of the issues. And you're right. I think Trump is, you know, threatening and doing a lot of things. And I think for the common guy, and I talk to people all the time, Larry, I just went down to my neighbor's house and he brought out the computer and he was talking to me, you know, on the farm aid and, you know, all the things that concern him and he's not even a farmer. But I think the common guy, girl, I think we're just fed up with the corruption through everything. Whether you're on Trump's side, whether you're conservative or whether you're liberal or whatever, I think these guys are just fed up. And for lack of anything else to say, you know, we see, we think there's corruption there, and maybe there is, or maybe there isn't. But then, like, what. What was the figure that they threw out there that Harvard has insecure? Was it 52 billion?

Yeah, yeah, that's right. $52 billion in endowment. Yeah, the endowment is what Harvard has.

And, you know, you look at that and you go, you have 52 billion. This is a common guy. You know, you have $52 billion and you need more. More aid, and you're charging kids to go to school. And this is just like the off the top. This is the toppings, where you're going, what in the hell's the problem there? I mean, I wish I had a bank account.

Yeah, of course, $52 billion. But the money that we're talking about is not money just given to Harvard to subsidize Harvard the way Elon Musk's company gets money given to the government to subsidize the production of electric cars. This is money that was to purchase services from Harvard. So it's money that was going to support hospitals, which is, you know, obviously providing services to people who need those services. It's money to buy research, which Harvard has been providing in with contracts with the government forever. So these are services contracts which Harvard had entered into with the government, and that the government now is withholding without any legal basis. Because, again, there has been no finding of wrongdoing under Title six. It's just a threat. Again, the threat, like the threat to slash the tires.

Yeah, I do get that. I'm right with you. But here's the side that I think a lot of people are coming from, and I don't think it's. I don't think it's about Donald Trump picking who you have on your faculty. I think it's more about what people see is that we have to accept everything, and then on top of that, we have this quota. And, you know, like the example I would use would be the Senator Crockett who publicly said, I went in for my first law job. And the guy asked her why you should hire me, and she said, because I'm black, and that rubs people the wrong way. Not because you were qualified not because you have the number one in the university or whatever. It's because of race and color, and that should not be the factor. And I, I look at it, Larry, and I agree with you. Donald Trump should not be telling you who you hire. But I believe that they're trying to say, you gotta stop hiring because we're trying to make everything so equal. Right. And I could say the same thing to you as far as if you're gonna go in the hospital and have somebody operate on your heart. Right. You want the best guy there, not the person that is, you know, is, is there because, well, we had to have this person on board. And I, and I think that this is just me saying, Larry, Common guys, we're looking at it and we're saying, and, and I don't know what kind of doctor Richard Levine was or Rachel Levine was, but I'm saying we could have picked someone that would have caused a lot less controversy, that was probably just as good or better, but we had to have someone in there that was trans, for example. And, you know, that's what I think everyone is fighting against. And in my opinion, I don't know, I mean, I certainly understand the implications of, of the law and don't tell me what to do and all that stuff, but we're trying to make everybody happy and we're trying to put people in there that I think have no business being in there whether. And it doesn't matter if you're a, if you're a farmer, and we're going to make you the head of, you know, the Agriculture Committee. Well, what kind of farmer are you? I mean, are you a good farmer or you go, oh, no, I just have 10 chickens? Well, that's not much of a farmer. Right. And that's what I'm, I think that's what people are so upset about. And that's why I don't think there's the lash back, because, you know, it just seems like we're trying to get so many things done in such a short period of time. You know, four years isn't very long, and now it's down to whatever, three and a half, you know. So I appreciate the fact that he's. That Donald Trump is trying to do this, and I think you're exactly right. I think he oversteps sometimes. I think he's trying to get too much accomplished in a short period of time. Because, you know, Larry, as a lawyer, those wheels grind awfully slow. Right? And they do. I mean, it's just, it's Unfortunate, you know, okay.

But, yeah, he stirred things up. But, you know, has he stirred them up in a way that we should be happy about? I mean, you know, you just mentioned the one thing that we have a really important common ground on, which is our hatred of the corruption of the system. So here's one story, and you tell me what you think about this story. You know, we've talked before about the tariffs in last episode, and of course, that was just as he was launching the tariffs, and then he pulled them back for 90 days. And that whole dance was after he had launched them before and pulled them back. And it's back and forth, forth and back and forth. But one of the things he's been celebrating is the idea that when he's launched these tariffs, he was going to inspire people to come and negotiate with him about those tariffs. Okay, so Vietnam has been trying to negotiate with the President to get the tariffs set up so that they're not burdened by these tariffs the way China is. And so they released a press release bragging about their negotiations with the President and the hopefulness that they have that they're going to reach some. Some kind of deal. And so, you know, the first item in the press release was something about the numbers that they were dealing with in second as targeted areas where they were going to be able to exempt themselves from these tariffs. But the third item on their list was the fact that they were close to closing a deal for a $1.5 billion Trump resort that was going to open in Vietnam. And I'm like, what the hell? You're negotiating a trade deal for the United States of America, and somehow in the middle of that deal, you're including a private deal for your own resort empire. That's just Banana Republic governance. It's not governance under a rule of law.

No, I understand that, Larry, and I think in life myself, I'm sure you have, too. You've said something like, we're not going to do this anymore. And then all of a sudden, what about this? Or what about that? And I'm like, well, yeah, I guess I said, we're not doing that. But that is not really what I think or conclude. And I'm like, I didn't. For me personally, Larry, and I know you're raising kids now. My kids are raised. But I had this thing called the 24 hour rule, and that was allowed to allow me to think for 24 hours to give them an answer. So if they said, dad, can we go to so and so's place tonight? You know, tonight. We need to go there tonight. And I go, well, did you give me 24 hours? And they say no. And then, you know, once we established that 24 hour rule, you know, I said, did you give me 24 hours? And they say no. I said, well, then the answer is no. And then when they did give me 24 hours and I was able to think about it, you know, can I go to so and so's house Friday night? I go, okay, you can, but understand that I have to pick you up at 7:30 at that house because you have a soccer game at 8:30. And they're like, oh, well, I don't know if I want to go now. I said, oh, you know, so I understand what you're saying. Yes, Larry, I get it. I, I think, I think that the, the whole, that we've dug ourselves in over, across this, you know, whether it's immigration, whether whatever it is, whatever the issues are, it just seems like it's overwhelming. And I'll tell you, I certainly understand that from a standpoint right now here at the farm, I've got, you know, I've got my layers, I've got meat chickens that I'm starting to raise, you know, because we'll process that. I've got, you know, spreading fertilizer, I'm going to be spreading manure. I got sheep to shear. I mean, you know, and it just becomes overwhelming to me sometimes. And this is just this little farm, you know, 30 sheep, you know, 10, 15 cows. And you know, we have 70, you know, meat birds and all that stuff. So it gets overwhelming. So I understand that. I hope that people can at least look at some of this stuff and say, well, it's Donald Trump is at least trying, may not be doing it right and may not like you said, you know, the holding the hostage or, you know, doing all that, I get it. And the only thing I can say is it is, is I agree with you. But I also appreciate the fact that things are kind of being stirred up and I hope in the right way. I don't agree with everything, Larry. Just, you know, we've talked and I think you understand me a little bit. But to sit here and go, you know, you've included this and you've included that and you know, that's wrong and I get it.

Yeah. But we agree this is wrong, right? This is just wrong 100%.

Well, you know, when there's temptation out there, temptation is a powerful thing, whether it's, you know, right or wrong, you know, I wouldn't leave. I wouldn't leave a $20 bill on my desk at school and say, hey, don't. There's $20 here. Don't take it. And I wouldn't leave it there because the temptation sometimes gets so great. And that's just 20 bucks. And you're talking, you know, millions. And I get it. The corruption is just terrible. And, yeah, I'm at a loss for words. You're right. That, to me, is corruption. And I will add this, Larry, though, and I do. I am out in this community for some reason. I don't know why, but I sat on several boards and I just threw my name in the hat for school board to run on the school board. But people are talking to me and, you know, you go up to one person and they say, well, it looks like, you know, these tariffs are working. They're getting things done. And some, now, not all of them, they'll say, but some of them seem to be working. They're talking. And then the next person you talk to and, oh, you know, my 401k, and this Trump is such an idiot. And, you know, and you just. I'm just trying to take information in, you know, as I, as I walk around. And like I said, last night, guy came out, I was down his house and come out with his computer and was showing me articles, you know, on the, on, you know, agriculture and the farms and why these farmers are getting so much money. And, you know, the stuff that I know, I try to explain to him, but it is baffling to the common man we've gotten. And one of the things that you and I probably agree on is the corruption. But I think government should be smaller. But listening to what people say about the Democratic Party and liberals, they want it bigger and conservatives want it smaller. And that dumbfounds me to the point where I don't want any more government.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know whether government should be bigger or government should be smaller, but I do believe government should work. It should, like, deliver the services it's supposed to deliver. So, you know, we talked about Social Security, like the shutting down of Social Security offices, shutting down the telephone services so that people have to go online. And of course, you know, if you're 82 years old, it's not as easy for you to go online to check up. Why did you. Why you didn't get your benefits. And, and even those websites are going down because they're cutting the services. So this is not about making government smaller or bigger. It's Just about making government work. And Social Security, of all the programs, should be the program that works the most. These are people who are entitled to get the payments they were promised for the money they put in. Or, you know, think about this just drives me crazy. You know, the IRS collects our taxes. The IRS adopted in the Biden administration something people have been fighting for for literally 20 years, which was a system to enable people to pay their taxes easily online. You just go and you. The government knows everything it needs to know about you. And sort of the vast majority of taxpayers, they could just pay their taxes for free online. Well, the Trump administration's declared that this is going to be closed down. Why? Well, because certain companies like Intuit, who are in the business of providing tax services for money, forcing people to pay them for tax services, and they offer what they say is a free tax service, but it turns out that has so many hooks in it to force people to pay for things that for many people, it's not actually a free tax service anyway. They say succeeded in lobbying the government, lobbying the Trump administration to get them to shut down the government service, to turn on the private service so that the private service makes money and the taxpayer loses and the government loses because it turns out it's easier for the government to collect this information directly than to have to get it in directly through the stupidity of filing these forms. Now there too, who could support this idea that the government is gonna make it more difficult for people to pay their taxes just so it could make it easier for companies to be making money getting us to pay our taxes?

Well, I was just gonna say, and what we've talked about before with this news media, you know, you hear how they're cutting, we're taking Social Security from you. That's not what they're doing. They're cutting these and it's gonna affect hopefully Social Security and keep more money in there. But the news and other people see, he's taking Social Security from us. That's not what's really happening, right? I mean, I guess there could be mix ups, but at this point they're trying to say get rid of the inefficiency, right? And save money for the Social Security. Never once did they say, we're going to make your payment less. But that's what people harp on. And, you know, I get it, but you and I have talked about this before. The news and the news media try to cause this stink or stir or whatever it is, and it just divides us even further. And that's what they're trying to do is divide us further.

Look, yes, you're right. We've talked about how the business model of media is to turn us into ignorant people who hate each other. And so they're going to spread information that's going to make it seem as if each side is just crazy and wrong. And that's true, certainly about the stuff that's being reported about Trump right now, just as much as it's true about anything. But some things we can just see we can stand above it, and that's why we have these conversations, to cut through what these news media is telling us. And I would think that we should be able to agree that if we've got a government program that's actually making it easier for people to do what they have to do, namely file their taxes, easier for the government, easier for the taxpayer, then the government shouldn't be screwing that program up or shutting it down just so that we increase the profit to a private corporation who wants to force us to pay them for the thing the government was going to allow us to do for free.

Yes. And again, Larry, you're exactly right. And you sit back and you say, okay, but if we eliminate the irs, then we eliminate all those jobs. Now what are we going to do with those people? Right? And you start, it becomes that situation where, you know, say 60 years ago or even whatever, you know, a hundred years ago, how everybody was working on a farm and we didn't have enough labor and we invented, you know, machines and all that, but we had plenty to do. Everybody had plenty to do. Well, when you create one machine that eliminates 10 men, now what do you do with the other nine? And it's been an ongoing thing, I think, that has happened, like what you're just describing there with the irs. If we get rid of the irs, we get rid of all these jobs, which I'm for, right? At the same time, I'm for some, like you said, they know what we owe. Just take the money and be done with it. Why do we have to file this and go through this stuff? I mean, you know, and so I truly try to make. I don't want a tax return. I want it to be zero. I want to work with my money. I don't want them giving me my money back. But, you know, normally I get a small refund every year because of the farm or whatever, and I just as soon keep the money and be done with it as opposed to when I got it. Like you said, I got to do my paperwork, I got to Take it to my accountant and then they give me a bill at the end of the day. And it's like, it's just, to me, it's just absolutely ridiculous, just like you. But then again, I step back and I go, what are we going to do with these people that don't have a job?

Yeah, I'm not sure what you mean by this. So it's just a website. So what do you mean that's going to be lost jobs? If the program to make it so you could pay taxes for free online with the government was kept.

Well, if you do, okay, all the tax return, all my accountants, you know, IRS people, you know, there's going to be a lot of lost jobs, I think.

Yeah, but we're talking, you know, mainly about ordinary taxpayers who aren't going to be using accountants.

Right, right. No, I understand.

You know, all the businesses, I mean, your farm is a business. You take deductions you must actually have to file with an accountant because those deductions are not the sort of thing that this online system would have covered.

Right, right, I do understand that. I was just saying, even across the board now, I know it's a business and you know, so on. But I mean, I still file my personal taxes with my, with my accountant and so on. But again, I get that. But I guess I was just using that as an example of if we wipe these things out, then we, you know, then there's less jobs, so to speak. And I know you have to really be careful in balancing all that. You know, even like, for example, you know, you at Harvard, I'm sure you could maybe perhaps combine some classes and get rid of some teachers. But then is it more effective or is it less effective and so on, or do we hire more? You know, I get it. And you know, that's one of the things why I got on the school I'm running for, on the school board, they just hired a assistant superintendent for two and a half years before our superintendent retires. I'm like, we don't need an assistant right now. And this job's gonna cost the taxpayers $750,000 for this.

And you know, wow, I want that job.

How about it? And I was at the meetings and I asked him to table that and fact find. And they just totally ignored me and another guy. And now, I mean, they got their butts handed to them because now they realize that what they didn't do, and this was not an administration, this was a school board, you know, thing they did. But anyhow, you know, I look at some of that stuff too and go, okay, you know, just like I'm sure when you walk in to do your self checkout, right. You're wondering, man, there should be somebody here doing this. But we have a, you know, a checkout counter.

And look, you know, it's certainly true. I mean, this technology is going to change a lot. AI is going to change a lot. It's going to have a profound effect on employment, you know, indeed, among lawyers. Look, I make lawyers for a living, But I think AI is going to eliminate 70% of lawyers. And I think that would be a good thing because I think that would lower the cost of law, spread the rule of law more broadly and we should celebrate that. That's a good that technology is going to do even though it's costing lots of jobs.

Yeah, it's also going to get rid of a lot of jokes, Larry, because you know, the lawyers are, they take the brunt of a lot of jokes on some of this stuff.

That's the thing. Lawyers are good for jokes.

Well, you know, there is a lot of lawyer jokes. Not in heaven, but in. According to the jokes. But no, I certainly agree with you. I mean, you know, I'm not against some of this stuff. But you know, Larry, I keep thinking about our conversations and I keep thinking you and I are very close in the way we think and different things like that. And I think it's because maybe we're just. I'm just educated enough. You're more than educated in what you do. I'm just educated enough to understand and be able to agree and be able to think logically and so on. But I think in general there's a lot of. I'm not gonna listen to it, I'm not gonna talk about it. So Robin just went down to her son's house and they are not allowed to talk about politics down there, you know, cause. And Robin is not a staunch conservative. I mean she voted for Barack Obama when he ran for president. So I mean she's willing to look at and say, well, I like this or I like that and, and there's just, she's not allowed to talk any politics down there at all. And this is her son and daughter in law, you know, and I just, I just shake my head because that's not the way to do it, is to talk and you know, figure out why you like this or why you don't like that. But I think that's the thing between two, let's say relatively intelligent guys that we're willing to talk. And I disagree with you, and you might disagree with me, but I also, I listen to Jordan Peterson sometimes. And, you know, his, his comment was that you have to be willing to offend someone to talk about something that you disagree about. And you can offend them, but that doesn't mean you can't continue to talk to them or continue to like them. It's just like you put each guy on the spot and you go from there. So that's where I'm coming from. And I've had a lot of people that are just one way or the other. And I actually, one of our county commissioners who's a Democrat, I said, I really don't understand some of the Democrat Republican stuff. I said, could you tell me what the difference between a Democrat and Republican corner is? I mean, is there something there that you could explain to me why we have to be a Republican or Democrat to be a corner? And you know what he said? And he's a good guy. He's just really good guy. He said, I asked that same question, and the answer was one of them spends more money on the funeral. But I'm not sure which one. You know, it's kind of comical, but it really says a lot to me that, you know, we do these things for some reason. I don't know why. And, you know, because obviously I threw my hat in the ring for school board and I said, I just don't understand the differences that why if you sit on a school board, other than being maybe more conservative, you know, not want to spend money, and maybe, maybe the Democratic wants to spend more money. I don't know what the real difference. It's about education for your children. And that's the bottom line. I don't know why it would be any different between a Republican or an Independent or a Democrat. Am I wrong?

Yeah, there should be no difference. You should be talking about the issues. You shouldn't be able to hide behind your party.

Exactly.

Like you should say what's important, what's important about education. So let's fight about that. Let's not fight about whether we should have Democrats or Republicans here.

And one of the things that I've noticed, people have actually come up to me and said, well, I noticed you're not being sponsored by the Republican Party. I said, look, I'm just in it for education. I'm not in it. I have no, absolutely no gender. I'm not getting in because I want to get this person off or I want to get this person in. I'm just here for the, you know, the agenda and that's it. So, you know, people take notice of some of those things. I don't know if it'll make a difference or not in the long run, but we'll see.

And I hope that's right. I hope that's right. Okay, I'm gonna ask you about, we're talking about one more thing. Okay, so the, the, you've seen, I'm sure, all these stories about the fights about immigration.

Yes.

First time we had a 90 decision of the Supreme Court where the 9. The court said that for this guy Garcia, who was in the United States protected by a court order saying he was allowed to be in the United States, picked up and sent to Venezuelan prison without any hearing, without any opportunity for him to say, here's why I shouldn't be kicked out of your country. And the same thing with these Venezuelans who are now being held because the court has issued an injunction saying they can't take them to Venezuela until they give them a hearing. In both cases, this is about their right to have ordinary process, a chance to say, here's why you don't have the power to take me and send me away. The most fundamental of rights in our system, due process. But the president's fighting it, like saying that no, he should be allowed to pick people up off the street, take them to another country, and once they're there, there's nothing he can do about it. So I just wonder whether we at least can agree that there ought to be a commitment to the protection of the most basic of these ideas, which is the idea that you get due process if the government's going to do something dramatic with you, like lock you up or send you away or put you or take your property or anything like that.

I certainly think there should be, Larry. I also, in the back of my mind think about all the guys that were locked up here in the United States that were innocent, you know, now now being proven because of DNA, you know, for example, especially in certain rape cases, you know, this man raped me and now they have DNA that, you know, positively, you know, does identifies this guy as not. And he's been in there for 20 years, you know, those kinds of things. To that I say there's always mistakes that they're going to happen. But what you're asking me about is so someone that is in this Ms. 13 or whatever these gang members are and proof do they really have rights, is he like, for example, the one guy you're talking about, Maryland Was he an illegal alien? Was he allowed to be here? And, you know, again, the news on one station, it tells you, he calls it him a Maryland man. The next is an immigrant, and next is illegal alien. And then I've seen information come out that he abused his wife. He was wearing the gang colors that these guys wear. And, you know, I got kicked out of a. I didn't get kicked out of. I got asked to leave because I had a white T shirt on. One evening, I was at Benji's uptown, and they said, you can't be in here with that white T shirt on. I'm like, what are you talking about? That's a gang thing right now.

Wow.

I'm like, oh, I didn't know.

I always thought you're. I always thought you were a gang member. Right.

I didn't know I was a hoodlum, but I had a different T shirt in the truck, so I just went out and put it on, you know, so it wasn't no big deal, but I had no idea. But you go, yeah, that's. That's a. That's a gang thing. That. So, I mean, the colors really do mean something. I mean, and I know these guys. This guy was, you know, wearing this. Whatever. I think they said chicago Bulls hat and, you know, shirt and whatever. But again, it continues to divide, and you're right. If I always think, if I was in that position, wouldn't I want to be able to, you know, plead my case? But then again, I'm not in a gang, and I'm not here illegally. I'm fortunate that I was born in the United States, and I have all that. So, yeah, I've never been put in those positions that it hasn't been somewhat corrected, so to speak. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, right. And so there are a lot of questions one could ask about whether, in fact, he should be sent out of the country or sent out of the country to the worst prison in the world, you know, wearing a bull's hat. Most people wearing bull's hats. Are not. Are not. But the point, the legal point. This is really simple, obvious. Like, it is the most basic point. The due process clause does not say citizens get due process. It says all persons get due process. So as long as we're willing to concede that a gang member is a person, which I think we should, then the law is perfectly clear. Which is why nine justices of the Supreme Court, very different justices, were willing to say, you can't just pick somebody up and send them to the worst prison in the world without giving them a chance to say it's just a fricking bullshit. It's not. Or like you, it's just a white T shirt, it's not a gang insignia. And if you don't give them a chance to say that, then you haven't given them due process. And so the point is, this is like the most basic commitment in a free society to rule of law due process. And I would think we should be able to say, hell no, the President of the United States should not be denying this most basic right of a free society.

I certainly understand that, Larry. I mean, yeah, I think again, I'll go back to this common guy. I think we just have been so fed up with things the way they're going and that's still no excuse to not give someone, like you said, due process. But I just saw, and please forgive me, I watched it real quick. Some guy just robbed somebody. He's been arrested seven times this year alone. And some of this crimes were significant enough to, you know, keep him behind bars, say, and you know, give him a trial. But he's been released and he just stole somebody's phone, pocketbook, whatever, and they were actually able to trace him, you know, but you know, it's, it's again, one side of the media saying, oh, you know, this, this isn't a bad, this has nothing to do with gang related. But I'm just saying that, you know, this guy has had his due process and he's been left out and left out and left out. And, and now he commits another crime. And then of course, one side is saying, it was in Chicago, is Chicago safe? And the mayor goes, it's completely safe. Instead of saying, well, listen, we have some problems, we have some things we still need to correct. But he doubles down on it being safe. Well, obviously it's not safe. And again, I don't understand why these like, I can agree, I like Donald Trump, but I also, some of the things he's doing I don't agree with, but people can't seem to do that. I mean, you gotta at least admit that some of these guys are bad dudes that you're getting rid of.

Yeah, no, they are, yeah, very bad dudes. But the point you're making, I think is really the most important point, which is we ought to be able to not think in black and white. We should be able to say it's more complicated. I like this guy, but I don't like these things. And I think people ought to have due Process rights. But I also think we ought to make sure that criminals are in jail and totally agree with that. And no doubt these many cities and states are overwhelmed and they're not prosecuting effectively. But when you started by saying all these people have been convicted of crimes that are then proven innocent by DNA, those are people who got due process, right? So even if you get due process, the system is going to screw up. But that's a double reason why you should at least get due process before you throw somebody into the worst prison in the world.

I agree with you, but it gets so frustrating because, I mean, you and I have probably never been touched with the, you know, like a death of a loved one that's been tortured. You know, like the stuff that you see and you go, holy. I have no time now you know what it's like. I have no time for this. I have no time for that because this has happened to me. This is something that's happened to me directly, whatever it might be. My dad, for example, I give this quick example. He's a very healthy man his whole life. But of course, when you turn a certain age, they want you to start getting the flu shot and so on and so forth. Well, I don't think my dad got a flu shot his whole life and then they talked him into getting this flu shot. Well, one of the side effects is Gillian Barone syndrome, where your body attacks your body, your immune system attacks. And, you know, this happened 15 years ago. And it's a known side effect. Everybody knows it. It's listed as one of the side effects. But my dad should have probably never taken it. Thank God the doctor said he has no other illnesses, otherwise he's going to die. I can tell you that. He looked me right in the eye and said, he's going to die. If he has, you know, if he had any kind of diseases, heart disease, anything like that, he's going to die. But your dad doesn't have that. He's been perfectly healthy and he has, you know, he beat it. And this was, you know, 16 years ago. He's still, you know, working on the farm at 91. But my point is that, you know, you, you do these things and they, and, and there's still no guarantees, right? And, you know, they were convinced that you need, you need a flu shot. You know, and I mean, he spent 100 days in the hospital and is pulled out of it. You know, they, they told him you wouldn't walk again. He's walking, doing all that. But at any rate, you Know, you look at. Yeah, absolutely. And you look at that and there is no guarantees, you know, and I get it. I really do. I just think that people are so fed up with the things that are going on, Larry, that maybe they're overlooking some of the, like you said, due process. You know what? I think some of them are just saying, screw that, I've had enough of this crap. And I do. And I can certainly understand where they're coming from. I can certainly understand why people, oh, you know, Donald Trump this and so on. I can, you know, I see it and I'm even. What do you think about this? I know, I think we probably have getting close to time, but, you know, these, what, six or seven ladies just went up and flew this rocket, Bezos. And they came down and they were just wonderful. They're astronauts now. And, you know, to me, they spent a tremendous amount of money to go on an 11 minute ride. Right. Enough money for some people to say, if I had that, I would live comfortably my whole life.

Oh my gosh, 10 lives. Yeah, yeah, of course.

Right. And then they sat there and then people criticize him and they get offended.

Yeah.

And I'm like, are you kidding me? Right? It's, you know, and like I say to my kids sometimes, just keep your mouth shut. You know, there's just, don't even worry about it. You can't, you can't, you know, you can't fight stupid or whatever. But like, for example, I was watching Gayle King, who's one of our news reporters, and how many millions is she making to be to report news? And then she comes down and says that, and I mean, she's offending everybody to a degree. Right. You should be offended that you have that kind of money to go on 11 minute ride, you know, but that's, that's me.

Yeah, I agree with you on that. Absolutely. Right. These rocket men, it's just really extraordinary.

Oh, yeah. And then, and then for her, for example, the thing that bothered me, they're trying to figure out how to put trash in space. I mean, like, are you kidding me? You know, why would you say something like that? Just to. Oh my God. I mean, I. Larry, I, I think the thing that I heard was they wanted to build cities in space because it'd be, you know, less pressure, you know, blah, blah, blah. Right. I, I get that. That's a awesome idea to, to do a factory so that we don't have to worry about, you know, whatever gravity and the things that you would have to fight with here on Earth and then ship the products back in. All right, maybe that's off the wall. But you're thinking, but to sit there and go, yeah, we're trying to figure out how to make our planet cleaner by taking trash to space and all that. I'm like, wow, that's. I'm not sure I understand.

You know, I don't understand that. I never understand these. These space cars. I'll tell you. Let me end with this. My favorite. One of my favorite stories about my wife. So way back in, like the beginning of the, you know, I guess it's 2003 or 2004, I was in Stanford teaching, and my wife and I had just gotten married, and I'd gotten to know Peter Thiel a little bit. And Peter Thiel invited me to a dinner. And at the dinner was going to be Larry Page. And this was just before Google went public. So Larry Page was about to be become a billionaire. And so, you know, in Silicon Valley, that's a very significant thing. So we had this dinner at Peter Thiel's fancy condo. And Peter Thiel says, so I want everybody to go around and. And describe, like, what you think the most important problem that we should be addressing is. And he says, let's start with you, Larry. And so Larry Page. So Larry Page starts, and Page says, I think the most important problem is getting to Mars. We have to, as a civilization, get to Mars. This is what we need to do. And of course, everybody around the table, kind of Silicon Valley wannabes, like, sucking up. Oh, Larry, that's so smart. That's so. And my wife says, that has gotta be the dumbest idea I have ever heard. And the whole room, the st. Stopped and stared at her and said, do you know who that is? And she says, there are so many problems on this earth that we could be addressing that we could really do something about. The idea we should be going to Mars is just crazy. And Peter said, okay, let's talk about something else now.

Right? Oh, I like your wife already. Oh, my goodness. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, great talking to you, friend. Until the next time.

All right, Larry.

That was our fifth episode reconstructed, I think faithfully. I don't know, Ben might be. Might have second thoughts after hearing it if he listens to it. But I think I certainly faithfully recounted exactly what we talked about in the position I was making, the points I was making. And I apologize to you, the listener. This is just embarrassing. I've been doing this for 150 years and still can't get it right, but here we are. Next time, I promise, not only will Ben sound as good as Ben sounded this time, but I will remember to push the record button. Thanks for listening. This is the podcast of Another way. These podcasts are produced by E. Equal Citizens. They're actually produced by the magical Josh Elstrow of Elstro Productions, which, if this actually comes out and it sounds okay, it's because he's done an extraordinary job editing this mess. But you can find us on the web at Equal Citizens Us. And if you do Equal Citizens Us another way you'll find these podcasts. You'll find a place to give us feedback and ideas and and other conversations you think we should have in trying to facilitate this dialogue between people who otherwise are trained by their media to hate the other side. Haven't found much hate so far here in this conversation with Ben, but if you knew Ben, you'd see why that would be impossible. Stay tuned. Thanks for listening. This is Larry Lessig.

Sam.