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Mark Wulfe:
From The Aasgaard Company studios in beautiful Wichita Falls, Texas... From the finest mind in the modern fitness industry... The one true voice of the strength and conditioning profession... The most important podcast on the internet... Ladies and gentlemen! Starting Strength Radio.

Mark Rippetoe:
Welcome back to Starting Strength Radio. We are here on a Friday and Friday is here with us. Isn't that amazing? How I come up with that every week. Say something stupid about Friday. Just a talent I've got.

Mark Rippetoe:
We're here today with our friend Chad Lampe. Chad is...has driven up here from Fort Worth to be with us. And let me explain a little bit of the situation. We are if nothing else, we are topical here at Starting Strength Radio. Chad's firm - Chad's an attorney. What's the name of the firm?

Chad Lampe:
Norred Law.

Mark Rippetoe:
Norred Law. And he works for Norred Law. Norred Law is the firm that represented Shelly Luther in the recent situation that has traveled around the world. I think it's probably safe to say everybody knows about the Dallas salon owner at this point who reopened her shop, because all of her stylists were not making any money and she wasn't making any money and she decided to open up in spite of a dubious order and we're going to talk at length about this today.

Mark Rippetoe:
The judge threw her in jail and fined her a bunch of money and she stayed in jail a couple of days. I think it is. She stayed stay in jail two days before somebody got their head out of their ass and let her out. I said at the time on the thread that we've got going about this, that this girl is a hero. She's got far bigger balls than any of the city officials in the city of Dallas and I'm glad she had the balls to go first. Somebody has to go first. We're going to talk about this at length today.

Mark Rippetoe:
Chad, thanks for driving up. What I want to talk about today is the fact that this is going to happen again. It is unavoidable that this is that this is going to happen again. It may happen this October. It may be that they wait a couple of years until another new disease comes around. But we have shown them what we will do for them if they tell us that it's for our own safety and make us afraid enough. We will lay down on our backs and roll over and show them our belly, because we did it very, very thoroughly this time. It is. It's a damn shame that the land of the free and the home of the brave has become what it has become because people are scared and are more concerned about security and safety than liberty.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, this is high minded libertarian shit. I understand that. But there are a few of us to whom these things are still important and Chad shares are our belief in this. And he's done good work at the firm for these types of cases. And since this is gonna happen again, what I thought we would do today is spend some time talking about the laws that are in place or the absence of laws that are in place that gave local politicians - and by local, I mean state, county and local officials the authority to have the power to shut our businesses now.

Mark Rippetoe:
Chad, what the Hill has happened here?

Chad Lampe:
Well, I think they've taken a post-Katrina law and on the fly just...

Mark Rippetoe:
Hurricane Katrina.

Chad Lampe:
Hurricane Katrina. The local... When it comes down to local level, at least in Texas. I can't opine about other jurisdictions because I'm only licensed to practice law in Texas. And we have Texas local government code 418 that talks about the governor's emergency powers and as well it discusses our county judges which... No one probably knew who their county judge was until - at least in Texas - until all this stuff.

Chad Lampe:
People say county judge, what is he listening to criminal cases? No, the county judge presides over the commissioners court. It's not your typical judge like you to have.

Mark Rippetoe:
It's not a judge. That's the title. Yeah, but that's not the function of the of the elected official in that capacity.

Chad Lampe:
Right. And even mayors, you know, you have like in the city of Cleveland, you have these mayorial proclamations where, hey, we only can have one person go in at Wal-Mart the same time. And so there was a individual - a married couple walk in to Wal-Mart. The deputy marshal down there knows them because he's known for years and says, hey, what are you doing here? They get, you know, the the the guy out and pushed back and said, hey. But he ends up citing them gives them a thousand dollar citation.

Mark Rippetoe:
For going in together?

Chad Lampe:
Yes. Now, meanwhile, there's families there, everything else. But he specifically knew these this couple because he had known them for years. And...

Mark Rippetoe:
He didn't like them, did he?

Chad Lampe:
I don't know if he didn't like him, but he he put on his Facebook. You can go on his Facebook, track and go on his Facebook. And he talks about I'll cite whoever I need to cite, because if that saves one life! Citing some small family a thousand dollars definitely going to save lives.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah, absolutely.

Chad Lampe:
But that's where that's where they're saying that they have this authority is 418. It talks about, you know, the ability to shut down... And what was meant to to do is that if we have a hurricane come and just trash a neighborhood, there's malaria down there there's broken beams, all that kind of stuff. We can evacuate those areas.

Chad Lampe:
This doesn't mean that, OK, the liquor store gets to stay open, but next door the barbershop has to close down. That is nonsensical to where you get to pick and choose that. OK, now the restaurant needs to close only for takeout. This it's it... what it was designed for it's been grossly misapplied. And I think what we're gonna be seeing is a challenge to their ability to do that going forward.

Mark Rippetoe:
I think we'll see several challenges to their ability to do that going forward don't you?

Chad Lampe:
Yes, and sooner than later.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yes. In Texas, and I don't know if other states are this way, but the county judge in the state of Texas is the is the is the top official at the county level of government. The commissioners court in Texas operates the county in terms of budget and law enforcement. They usually run the jail, the county jail. They run... They're in charge of the courthouse.

Mark Rippetoe:
So that the county judge is the is the head essentially administrative official in addition to having some executive capacity too. Is that a fair assessment of the county judge? Does the county judge have any legislative ability?

Chad Lampe:
No, not actually, no.

Mark Rippetoe:
Isn't that interesting?

Chad Lampe:
Lately, they they seem to have a lot of it. To where the can... They seem that they can extend orders longer than the governor says and that they can make them more restrictive. It seems to be that it's "Katie, bar the door. I'm in charge here." Is the attitude that .

Mark Rippetoe:
It's not what you would call then rule by law. It's rule by county judge.

Chad Lampe:
No, it's fiat, right. It's stroke of a pen to where, you know, and there was there has been some pushback already. But, you know, when the first Dallas or Tarrant County has been following Dallas as far as Dallas will do something and then the county judge over there in Tarrant County is -- you'll see that Glenna Whitley is his name -- you'll see the orders change.

Chad Lampe:
So one of the first ones that came out that was quite shocking was the that we may, that the county may sequester property and commandeer private property.

Mark Rippetoe:
Commandeer was the word in the document.

Chad Lampe:
Which, you know...

Mark Rippetoe:
Commandeer. Now, let that sink in just a minute. OK. We have a disease comparable to the flu. There is argument that we could that you could probably make that it's more severe than the flu. There's also an argument that you can make that it's not as severe as the flu since more than 50 percent of the cases are asymptomatic. There seems to be a very narrow group of people that this COVID19 virus does extreme harm to. These are old people who are also sick.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, we got that got the numbers on that, but we're not concerned about the disease itself. What we're concerned about is an order from the Tarrant County judge that said that in order to implement his decisions about how to manage this crisis, paragraph three of that order said that they could commandeer private property. Now, what does that mean?

Chad Lampe:
I don't know. Does that mean that if you have an empty commercial space and I need a hospital, that I can take your commercial space and fill it with patients?

Mark Rippetoe:
What about if I have a gym that's not empty? Can they take it and fill it with patients?

Chad Lampe:
Or can can they use it so that the police force can work out? I don't know. Can they, if you have excess vehicles taking around, does that mean we can commandeer property?

Chad Lampe:
Well, it was used at least in one instance down in Harris County. There was an auctioneer he had N95 masks. So he had an open auction. Other fire departments and everything were bidding on those. This made the paper down there. And I think they were going for a hundred dollars a lot. I don't know what the size. I don't if it was 10 masks or whatever the lot was. But it was capitalism, right? He put them out there. That's how his business was auctioneering. It has been from day one.

Mark Rippetoe:
In other words, people were making bids on this. In other words, people are assigning their version of what the thing is worth to the product because that's what an auction does.It's a direct measurement of what the market will pay for a commodity.

Chad Lampe:
So he's working with the attorney general on this. He's working with the county. And then all of a sudden when he had struck a deal, I think there was a deal struck to sell it to FEMA. The county judge signed an order, commandeers it. So the county officials show up, take a tractor trailer full of N95s.

Mark Rippetoe:
Just seized the property. Stole the man's money.

Chad Lampe:
Now, I don't know, on the tail end if there was some kind of compensation that was paid.

Mark Rippetoe:
But it doesn't make any difference, now, does it?

Chad Lampe:
Well, it's not going to I would imagine it's not going be there's a good chance it's not going be a fair market value, right?

Mark Rippetoe:
I'll bet not. I'll bet not. Because had it been a fair market value transaction, they would have just paid them and everybody would have been happy. Right. But no, in this situation, "commandeered" meant that men with guns - and let's be very clear about what this means - men with guns came and got the man's property from him. Right?

Chad Lampe:
Correct.

Mark Rippetoe:
And, you know, in the final analysis, the government is men with guns.

Chad Lampe:
Always.

Mark Rippetoe:
It just. I'm sorry. That's what the government is. The government is the is the monopoly on on the application of the use of force. They are the monopoly because their court system upholds this. We're going to talk more about that later.

Chad Lampe:
But so there was pushback. So we do have a a county attorney, Matt Mills, down in Hood County doing good work. And he pushed back and wrote for an attorney general's opinion.

Chad Lampe:
Attorney General opinions are not it's not case law, but it is persuasive. So they did come back recently, Ken Paxton came back and said that the section 418.08 does not authorize a county judge, mayor or municipality or any other local government official to commandeer private property to respond to a disaster. So we've already seen that.

Mark Rippetoe:
So in his opinion the Tarrant County document was...

Chad Lampe:
And you've seen in later versions that that's been removed. You know, that was an official. It's been...they backpedaled on that, just like on all of this stuff there's been things that have been given and been taken away and then, oh, hey, you can go to jail. Wait, wait, wait. No, we're not gonna keep throwing people in jail, so.

Mark Rippetoe:
Right. I put that as first version up, the first version of that order I put up on our big, long thread we've got going on the Q&A at StartingStrength.com right now. If you go to Mark Rippetoe Q&A, there's a we're up over four hundred thousand views on this thing so far. And it's been real busy and I've been covering it real, real intently every day and putting links up. And there's a whole bunch of information. And through it, if any of you're interested in looking at how this thing has evolved since March. The thread's been going since then.

Chad Lampe:
And that was one of the first things that I saw was Tarrant County was going to commandeer property. And I thought, well, now how is this going to actually work? What... And back to my original question... What law passed by a legislature and signed into law by the governor gives Tarrant County the authority to walk into my gym and say, you the fuck out. This is our gym now. We're commandeering this right? What what are they operating under?

Chad Lampe:
Well, on the front end, they go back to 418. I think all these underlining executive declarations, my opinion is they're unconstitutional. They're unconstitutional according to the Texas Constitution.

Chad Lampe:
The Texas Constitution actually talks about disease. What do we do in the event of a pandemic? Article four...

Mark Rippetoe:
I bet there aren't many state constitutions with that kind of foresight.

Chad Lampe:
I would be highly surprised. But what the process is, is that the governor should call a special session of the legislature is go down to if if Austin is so full of disease, you can't meet there. They can meet somewhere else. They can have, you know, the next lot. What are government on the Brazos...

Mark Rippetoe:
Washington on the Brazos.

Chad Lampe:
Washington, on the Brazos. Thank you. Texas history was seventh grade. But yes, they can convene a legislature. They can make laws. And we can go through this process. So I think there's gonna be less push back and it's gonna be a lot harder to to fight that if they were to go through that process.

Mark Rippetoe:
So let's talk about that process that the provision states that in the event of a pandemic, you specifically refers to disease...

Chad Lampe:
Provision, prevalence of disease threat.

Mark Rippetoe:
A prevalence of disease threat.

Chad Lampe:
Correct.

Mark Rippetoe:
Then a procedure is detailed that should be followed.

Chad Lampe:
Yeah, it's a may. It's not a shall. In the law we have "may" and "shall." So it says the government of the governor may on extraordinary occasions convene the legislature.

Mark Rippetoe:
Since the Texas state constitution has a clause in it that specifically refers to disease and details a procedure that is that may be followed in the event of a disease - The absence of the exercise of that clause could be construed to mean that any action taken in the absence of that procedure is, in fact, unconstitutional.

Chad Lampe:
Yeah. Correct.

Chad Lampe:
The there's... We have a Texas bill of rights, right? We have we have one in our U.S. Constitution. We also have one in the Texas Constitution. One of the things that if you if you recall recently, Governor Abbott said that he's suspending certain sections of 418 because he wanted to take back power from the local government officials. Which is interesting because section 28... Section 28 says suspension of laws, no power of suspending laws in this state, shall be shall be exercised except by the legislature.

Mark Rippetoe:
Not the governor.

Chad Lampe:
Not the governor.

Mark Rippetoe:
When this whole thing started. I was proud of Abbott. I thought that he was going to be strong in the face of a whole bunch of of peer pressure from other governors, you know, waving everything around in the face of this of this opportunity to grab power. And I thought he would probably do the right thing and do as little as possible to manage this thing. And that lasted about four days. And then he rolled over on his back just like all of them, and said, yeah, we're locked down. That was disappointing. That was that was very disappointing.

Chad Lampe:
You know, I think initially when you if you have something that's coming in, I think there's a grace period. Right. If there is some unknowns on the beginning, if it's a week, if it's seven days, you know, with these with 418, the these declarations by the local officials, there's a seven day period. And then it has to be backed up.

Chad Lampe:
So I you know, I'm not going to fault somebody for jumping the gun, saying, hey, we need do this right now. But as information comes in, as time passes and you see that this isn't... We're not filling up any of these field hospitals that they're building.

Mark Rippetoe:
We're not filling up any of the permanent hospitals that we cleared out.

Chad Lampe:
We are not being overrun by this thing, then it's time, to... And you then you start seeing businesses that are just going out, bankruptcy filings starting. The.. you got to look at it and say, OK, you know.

Chad Lampe:
I think people are so scared to be the politician that says, you know, oh, well, you didn't do anything so Nana died. People die every day and people are going to die. They're gonna die from this and they're going to die from suicide because someone put in 30 years for their business and now it's all gone in, you know, in six weeks.

Mark Rippetoe:
Right. Fatalities of despair, as they call them.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah, there's always a there's an... There's always a calculation that that grown ups have to do and it's not it's not fun, but politicians are not really grown ups. And we're going to talk more about politicians after a while because they're they're showing us their ass. All of them are right now. If you're if you're smart enough to look at it, they're showing you their ass. Every one of them is.

Mark Rippetoe:
So in the event that the Constitution had been followed and that in the event of a of a disease threat, a session had been called, what should have taken place?

Chad Lampe:
Well, just like we have we've had special sessions quite often in Texas. You know, I think there's been time all the time, had three of them for various issues tied up on property tax, abortion, whatever issue is, is stalling it.

Chad Lampe:
So you simply call them have all all the folks go down to Austin. If if they're saying that Austin is a hub, then you could pick somewhere else. We have a huge state. All the legislators go there. They go through the normal process. They have their committees.

Mark Rippetoe:
They come into session.

Chad Lampe:
Right. There's testimony heard on for and against the proposed laws. And it goes through the process that we have. That is the way to do these things.

Mark Rippetoe:
And then laws are passed and then the governor either signs them or vetoes the thing.

Mark Rippetoe:
But in the absence of that, right now, this is a terribly important question in the absence of that having taken place, by what authority does the Wichita County judge have the power to send a man to my gym, to make me lock the doors in the absence of that legislative process that's detailed in the Texas state constitution?

Chad Lampe:
Currently they would argue government code 418 for a state. Right. And every state may have their own other kind of provision for emergency management. But that's the current one that's on the books that has yet that has not been challenged yet. Yet.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yet.

Chad Lampe:
Yet.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, now that's an interesting word.

Mark Rippetoe:
Are you guys aware of anybody that's going to be challenging the thing on that constitutional basis?

Chad Lampe:
Yes.

Mark Rippetoe:
Good.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, the power part of this thing is interesting. All right. Every restaurant in the state of Texas just closed down. Every sit down restaurant closed the front door. Now, how Papppadeaux survives this I don't know. How Pappas brothers - that's a big company with excellent food and excellent service and excellent restaurants survives being closed for three months - I don't I don't know. But. They closed. They agreed to close.

Mark Rippetoe:
Had they not closed what do you think would have happened?

Chad Lampe:
From a legal standpoint or from a health standpoint? From a legal standpoint, I think if they're on the front end of this, if there would have been mass pushback, I think code enforcement would have got out there.

Chad Lampe:
I'm very reticent to say that a lot of - especially on the front end and even now that a lot of police officers were super jived about going out enforcing this. I know some personally that said they're not they're not doing this thing. I know some that have gone to calls and laughed at people, you know, wanting to, you know, fine someone for not having a mask on. So I'm not going to paint with a wide brush saying that, hey, we have all these tiny tyrants out there doing that. But I think that code officials, people working directly for the city, were immediately willing to go out and force codes.

Chad Lampe:
You know, they'll come and they'll find you for grass or having your recycling bin out on a Wednesday or Thursday when it's supposed to be out on Tuesday. So there is always people willing to: "I'm just doing my job."

Mark Rippetoe:
We were only following orders.

Chad Lampe:
Correct.

Mark Rippetoe:
The Nuremberg defense. Right.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, so had Pappadeaux not closed, somebody from the health department would probably have visited.

Chad Lampe:
Code enforcement, probably first. Code enforcement.

Mark Rippetoe:
So when code enforcement goes out, though, code enforcement is enforcing building codes and health and safety codes. This is not included in that body of statutory law.

Chad Lampe:
Correct. Yeah, they're going to or they're going to. They'll have sometimes the city will pass an ordinance. Right. And you have adopted...

Mark Rippetoe:
But when the city passes an ordinance people voted on the ordinance.

Chad Lampe:
Correct. And it goes through the process.

Mark Rippetoe:
And it went through the process so that my elected officials vote - the people that I sent over there to pass laws and an ordinance is a law, right?

Chad Lampe:
Correct.

Mark Rippetoe:
I mean, there's no difference in an ordinance and a law. The city passes an ordinance, it's voted on by elected officials. Did that happen in Dallas?

Chad Lampe:
On the tail end I think they tried to do it. But on the front end, no. On these immediate - when all this stuff came out.

Mark Rippetoe:
The immediate shit they were enforcing was not... They were not enforcing an ordinance.

Chad Lampe:
No. When they're going through it, when they're going down to Deep Ellum and they're going to vape shops, that that time in ordinance had not been a place. When they're going into a when...

Mark Rippetoe:
They were closing them down anyway.

Chad Lampe:
Yeah. When one vape shop is narcing on the other one and and going in there saying, hey, you've got to close down, there was there's no ordinance in place. That was going purely off the emergency declarations by the county judge and the governor.

Mark Rippetoe:
And the emergency declarations by the county judge and the governor were, in the final analysis, absolutely unconstitutional, weren't they?

Chad Lampe:
I think there's a strong argument for that.

Mark Rippetoe:
So. Next time is coming along, boys and girls. Next time we'll be here. It may be here this fall. It may be a couple of years, but it's coming because the government has given itself a very, very powerful tool. The government gave itself the power to declare businesses either essential or nonessential.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, my question, Chad, is there any authority for that power?

Chad Lampe:
To declare which one is essential and which one is not?

Mark Rippetoe:
Which one is essential and which one is not essential.

Chad Lampe:
I think it seems like fiat. You know, we're just going to, you know...

Mark Rippetoe:
It kinds smells like that.

Chad Lampe:
We got to have we got to have grocery stores though, right? Well, we've got to have people to get stuff, we have to have truck drivers. OK. We have to police officers, you know. But if you have an office that is, you know, we had it we have to close you down for some reason.

Chad Lampe:
Churches. That's the fact that so many churches just...

Mark Rippetoe:
Rolled over on their backs.

Chad Lampe:
Rolled over on their backs, saying, oh, no, we don't have to congregate, you know, yet. That's fine. We'll do what's best for...

Mark Rippetoe:
On Easter!

Chad Lampe:
Yeah

Mark Rippetoe:
But liquor stores are open.

Chad Lampe:
Wide open.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, I am not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but I think most people have a problem with the government deciding who - especially if you put it in the context of churches versus liquor stores. I think most people understand the fundamental problem with this.

Mark Rippetoe:
But yet... To look at it more broadly, we can go to Wal-Mart and buy bread and lunch meat and cheese and mayonnaise to go home and make ourselves a sandwich. But I can't go to downtown Wichita Falls and walk in and sit down and order a sandwich and eat it.

Mark Rippetoe:
There are people I hear them right now. Hear them through the internet saying, "Why you're being irresponsible. Why you're you're spreading disease, you're spreading disease by going downtown. And you're forcing employees to get sick because you're sick and you're going to make employees sick." Forcing employees who apparently are slaves and have to come to work where they want or not.

Mark Rippetoe:
And my opinion about this is - and I don't think this is wild eyed libertarian shit - if you don't want to get sick in my gym, don't come in my gym. OK. Nobody's making you come into the gym, nobody is making you go in the sandwich shop. Nobody is making you go to work. If you want to quit, go ahead and quit.

Mark Rippetoe:
I don't think that's a particularly illogical position that challenges a lot of common sense. But this is.. the assumption under this whole underlying this entire idiotic episode in American history, in the history of the world, is that everybody else is responsible for you.

Chad Lampe:
Correct.

Mark Rippetoe:
That's the whole thing. Everyone else is responsible for me. I bear no responsibility for me. If somebody gets me sick, it was his fault that I'm sick.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, if this is the assumption we're going to make right now, we don't really have much of a civilization to go back to. Certainly not in the Western sense of of civilization.

Chad Lampe:
It seems that immediately half of the people - my friends, family members - immediately rolled over. That there is no there's no optic of people looking through this and saying, OK, is this the right way to handle this? Is is locking myself up in my house, preventing myself from going to work, ruining my business all in the sake of we might save some lives. You know, let's not go to church because, you know, there some people might get sick.

Chad Lampe:
And I'm totally fine with people want if they want to stay home and go through that process. Obvious. But, yeah, it's just common sense.

Chad Lampe:
The immediate lash back of Oh" - there's there's two there's the two biggest ones are "You're gonna kill somebody" and "why don't you care about people." Go ahead and tell them. You can tell them their parents are dead or whatever. And "why aren't you following the rules?" Well that's that's the biggest one is "You should have followed the rules."

Mark Rippetoe:
The rules are, right? Your business will be allowed to open when we say it's allowed to open.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, why are you allowing my business to open now and not last week? Why am I not allowed to open my business until the end of November? You know. You realize that there are jurisdictions around the country where the gyms have been closed until further notice.

Chad Lampe:
Sounds like a taking to me.

Mark Rippetoe:
Five of our Starting Strength affiliate gyms are out of fucking business as a result of that. Five good people out of work.

Chad Lampe:
Well, they can. They can do...

Mark Rippetoe:
With a bunch of members they were helping to make strong.

Chad Lampe:
They can go get an "essential job." It's OK.

Mark Rippetoe:
Let them go get an essential job, I guess.

Chad Lampe:
I know those people are getting laid off and furloughed, too. We're not gonna talk about that. Fuck. We're not can talk about all the. I'm sorry. Big thing because we're running out of money because we don't have any taxes anymore.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah. So. So the cities, cities and counties are now worried about, well god how are we going to pay for all this stuff? We don't have any sales tax revenue coming in. [laughter]

Mark Rippetoe:
You don't have any sales tax revenue coming in? Well, is it too unreasonable to suggest that perhaps you should have thought about that before?

Chad Lampe:
Look at this branch up here, I should probably cut it for my safety.

Mark Rippetoe:
Oh, yes. Oh, God. Sawing off the branch you're fucking standing on, right? I mean, you talk about... But these people have the balls to get on television and complain about sales tax revenue being gone.

Mark Rippetoe:
I'm not.... I don't know. A lot of shit I don't understand, but what one thing I really do not understand is the motivation of politicians most of the time.

Mark Rippetoe:
I am not capable - my brain doesn't work this way - of sitting here and telling you that for tomorrow, the sun is coming up in the south. But there is not a politician in this entire process that has not stood there and lied about every aspect of the whole situation they thought they needed to lie about. And it doesn't bother them at all.

Mark Rippetoe:
How do you take a third rate piece of shit like Harry Reid and elect him to the Senate in Nevada and pay him a salary of less than two hundred thousand dollars a year and let him sit in that chair for however the fuck long he was in there, 80, 90 years in the Senate and have him get out of the Senate, a multi hundred multi millionaire. How do you do that?

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, you do that by understanding that when a politician goes into a situation like that, they will say anything they need to say to anybody to get done what they want to do. So you turn a run of the mill sociopath into a powerful, rich individual by electing them to public office.

Mark Rippetoe:
Sociopaths are all over the place. We all know them. You may not know what they are, but, you know, people that you don't like that behave in a way that you don't appreciate. And what those people are sociopaths, governments full of elected officials almost to a man are or some degree of sociopathy is involved in their in their personality.

Chad Lampe:
Have you ever gone down to the Capitol in Austin and walked around?

Mark Rippetoe:
While they were in session?

Chad Lampe:
And walk around the halls?

Mark Rippetoe:
No.

Chad Lampe:
Do it once, if you have the opportinity to go down there, walk around. Breathe it in. Wear a suit. It's that sense of... You get a sense of power being down there. And I think that's the biggest thing for somebody in that position. Why do they get in.

Mark Rippetoe:
It must be intoxicating.

Chad Lampe:
It's not the money in Texas. You know, Texas, you know, I'd say six bucks or something and you get a few.

Mark Rippetoe:
It's a token.

Chad Lampe:
It's nothing. You don't get rich off of it unless you decide to leverage that. So it's not about the money. It's I think for a lot of people it's about power.

Chad Lampe:
Now. And I know there and I know there are there are some good...

Mark Rippetoe:
They are inextricably linked. There's no doubt.

Chad Lampe:
And there's people there for good reasons. You know, we're casting a broad brush and say everyone's nefarious. But that is a huge draw. Is the ability to say, OK, cool, now I'm doing this.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, you know, it's been my observation that the good people that go down there for the right reasons last one term. Maybe two. And then they don't run again. Do you notice that same thing?

Chad Lampe:
I could point a few, say a few exceptions, but then I can ask. I think that's the small. That's the only. That's the exception, not the rule. I mean, I know personally some some folks down there that have been there for a long time and they're they're there for the right reasons.

Chad Lampe:
They ma....they may not make the decisions that I would make and they may make some that I think were wrong in that it turned out hindsight are wrong. But I think that there are some people still trying to do the right thing.

Mark Rippetoe:
Really?

Chad Lampe:
Yeah. You know, I, I, I'm not completely cynical.

Mark Rippetoe:
I'm completely cynical. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Chad Lampe:
There's a ray of hope that is still within me that there are some people willing to fight. And we're seeing that we're seeing that with people like Shelley Luther that, you know, are willing to stand up and say... You know, this start off with folks with vape shops that were, you know, hey, you know, because you're not essential, because, you know, even though you say you sell consumer electronics, which is an essential service.

Chad Lampe:
But this started off with something of someone that has the willingness to say, OK, I'm willing to go to jail for this. And that takes some that takes some balls. Bottom line.

Chad Lampe:
I've been practicing for 12 years and people feint out of cases for various reasons. Most the time it's money. Sometimes, you know, it's threat of jail. But the fact that you're willing to do that and make that's what I think.

Chad Lampe:
That's what people rallying behind. When someone is finally saying, OK, this is enough. You know, it's it's a figurehead thing because there are people - there's the stay at home crowd.

Chad Lampe:
And when I say that, there's the people that think you just need to follow orders and you just don't even question. That somehow questioning the authority is wrong. That we can't look at this through the lens of is this constitutional? That we just have to blindly accept it and not push back.

Chad Lampe:
That's not the American way. No, that's not how we got here. We push back. We look at these things. We think critically, we problem solve. We don't just roll over and say, OK.

Mark Rippetoe:
But Chad, I think what you're what you mean when you say this is that it used to be the American way. Because what is the new American way. Here in New America. Is to do what you're told. Do what you're told.

Mark Rippetoe:
When I see a 25 year old kid wearing a mask, a demographic that does not contract this disease and as a result does not transmit this disease - that will be contested, but that's that's the case - I see somebody who's just doing what you're told.

Mark Rippetoe:
They're wearing a mask. They're virtue signalling is what they're doing. I followed the rules!

Chad Lampe:
You know and even with the use of the gloves. You get a Chili's and it's this isn't it's not the donning and doffing like you wouldn't a medical. I went I had to go to my doctor and they did the right thing. You know, they were doing... You take it off when you go...

Mark Rippetoe:
But they should do that anyway because they get sick people in the office.

Chad Lampe:
Right. But when you when you take somebody that's the hostess at Chili's and she's constantly messing with herself and they have these nasty gloves on and they're serving multiple people. They have no training. Half of them have it down on their noses. It's just it's not an N95, it's just whatever. It's a bandana.

Mark Rippetoe:
It' just procedures they're following. You go through the airport...

Chad Lampe:
Security theater.

Mark Rippetoe:
...the TSA's got these stupid ass blue gloves on that they had on for the past two hours. And they want to look through your bag. You say, please change your gloves. And they'd look at you like. Well, what's wrong with you? Please change my gloves? Why would I do that? Why would I change my gloves? Because I asked you real nice. Now, just please do it.

Mark Rippetoe:
And, you know, they don't understand it. They don't understand. They're just following a procedure that they have been told to follow. And the kid wearing the mask is doing exactly the same thing. He's following a procedure that indicates he's following it.

Mark Rippetoe:
It's a very visible way to indicate that I care more than you do because you don't have a mask on. Now, you know, you say whatever you want to about that. But I'm telling you, that's what's going on here. That's exactly what's going on here. A

Mark Rippetoe:
And before this is all over with, there's going to be a whole bunch of people that don't like a whole bunch of other people. As a result of the way this thing has fallen out, you know. A whole bunch of people, don't like Shelly.

Chad Lampe:
Oh, yeah. A bunch of salon owners don't like them. She should have stayed home. She should have followed the rules like the rest of us.

Mark Rippetoe:
She should have gone broke like everybody else. Because it's the right thing to do. Going broke is the right thing to do.

Chad Lampe:
Stay home. Get your twelve hundred dollars and shut up.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah. That's what she should have done.

Chad Lampe:
Because we're gonna live off 12 hundred dollars for the next, you know, forseeable.

Mark Rippetoe:
Right. And I'm glad she. I'm glad she had the had the balls to get this done because this is... She's probably received death threats. I'm sure there are.

Chad Lampe:
We've had calls our office, you know, got someone saying, we'll meet with you in person. It be a bad day for that person, but whatever. If you want come the office. I mean our address is on the website.

Mark Rippetoe:
We're sitting here right now.

Chad Lampe:
Yeah. Yeah. We don't want people to die, but we'll threaten you. All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, now let's let's let's talk about something really unpleasant since we've already introduced a bunch of unpleasantness in here. It doesn't appear to me that there is a shortage of law enforcement people who will do the wrong thing.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, I'll have to say that right now here in Wichita Falls, we've got a pretty good bunch of guys that work for the police department. We've got a pretty good bunch of guys that work for the sheriff's department. These guys have gone out of their way to not do the wrong thing.

Mark Rippetoe:
I've talked to lots of them and they say to me, this is all bullshit. We're not going to write people tickets for any of these things. It's just I don't I don't care what these people tell us to do, wrong or not, because it's wrong.

Mark Rippetoe:
And, you know, and there's a there's there's a reason for that. There's two reasons for it. One reason is that these are actually good guys. You know, they're there guys we know, guys we train with, guys we train, your kids, you know, there's there's we interact with them, we know them. They're friends of ours are good guys.

Mark Rippetoe:
And B, they have to live with us here. They live down the street from us. They can't. They don't get to go back to Minnesota when this is over with. They live here and they have to live with the consequences of their actions, even if the elected officials do not. The officials do, too, but they don't....they seem so drunk with the power right now that...

Chad Lampe:
It's just another, just another crisis to to take advantage of.

Mark Rippetoe:
It seems to be.

Mark Rippetoe:
Why do you think that tyrannical governments throughout the history of the world have never had a shortage of jack booted thugs.

Chad Lampe:
That's a hard question to answer. I don't know if there is an answer on it, because I don't think that way.

Mark Rippetoe:
It's the most horrible question you can answer, right. It's a horrible question to have to ask. Why would you?

Mark Rippetoe:
I got text here from a buddy of mine, lives in Maui, said one of the malls opened back up and 10 of the stores in the mall are open. And there's more police in the mall than there are customers, measuring the distance between people.

Chad Lampe:
I was super surprised to see it here. I'm surprised to see, you know, chasing down a wakeboarder. how they did it. Out in the middle of the ocean.

Mark Rippetoe:
A guy on the beach in water. And I think everybody knows about that incident by now. We've all seen the video of these guys seizing this poor fucker. He's out playing in the waves and shit. He's not bothering anybody. There's not another human being...except the cops. And they cited him.

Chad Lampe:
We got to make an example.

Mark Rippetoe:
We've got to make an example. But what was he doing to make an example of? But they did it anyway.

Mark Rippetoe:
It's just... Chad, I don't understand.

Chad Lampe:
That first domino to fall is is the one that they want that they're going to fight the hardest to keep from falling, because if everybody wakes up and realizes that, hey, you know, I can live my life, I can be responsible and I can do my own thing. Then they lose control.

Mark Rippetoe:
And that's what Shelly is important for, isn't it?

Chad Lampe:
Yeah. Its first domino.

Mark Rippetoe:
A crack in the wall.

Chad Lampe:
We had people calling us from North Carolina. We can't practice in North Carolina. You know, we have we have three lawyers in our firm and our firm. One does bankruptcy, you know.

Mark Rippetoe:
But why aren't -- This is and this is what's frustrating to me -There's over a hundred thousand lawyers in the state of Texas. They're licensed to practice whether, you know, depend various type things. How is it that there's a small firm doing this? Why aren't why aren't there -why aren't these other things happening in other states? Where are all these lawyers that took an oath to defend the Constitution? I'm looking at these through this lens.

Chad Lampe:
Are they you know - and it's not like - your business is slow for a lot of a lot of I'm on the Texas lawyers Facebook page. There's 14000 lawyers in there. And people are getting loans and stuff because business is slow. Some people are doing fine, but other people, it's slowed down.

Chad Lampe:
So where's this? Where's the resistance? Where are the people that should be able to think critically? Yes, well, that's when you go to law school you learn how to think like a lawyer. You don't learn how to practice, you got to figure that out on the fly. But you learn how to think like a lawyer.

Chad Lampe:
You learn how to look at the statutes and say, hey, does this jive? You have access to the case law to look back and say, hey, is this thing?

Chad Lampe:
But that fighting spirit is lacking. It's lacking around the nation. And it seems right now, just with within and with within everybody. And it's regardless of the profession.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, yeah, I've got this whole sorry ass episode has in a lot of ways made me ashamed to be a human being. I mean, this isn't the way shit's supposed to be.

Chad Lampe:
I think we're cycling back. You know, who knows how long that we've been on this earth, right? We've had comic impacts. We've had tsunamis, disease, everything. But this other it's... Growing up. And I think, you know, I grew up in the 80s and you had this picture of, hey, this is how America's supposed to be. And that's been completely eroded.

Chad Lampe:
You know, I did my time in the Marine Corps. Did the whole, hey, you know, your duty, defend the Constitution. And this individualism, the individualistic ideal has been eroded. There's still an undercurrent of it, but the vocal, whether it's a minority and I think it's getting closer to maybe evening out because there's people that I thought in normal day life would be like, hey, and everything's great when when all the stores are open. But as soon as there's a little little bit of problem, a little bit of difficulty in our lives, they shrink, they've shrunken back.

Mark Rippetoe:
It is taken two and a half months.

Chad Lampe:
Yeah. No shot was fired.

Mark Rippetoe:
And not a shot was fired. And this is not only the most egregious blow an economy has ever suffered that was not in wartime, but it is the most egregious transfer of power from American citizens to their government that has ever occurred in the history of this nation.

Mark Rippetoe:
And you know, I was born back in the 50s and we were all taught, you know, land of the free, home of the brave, all that shit which turned out to be bullshit.

Mark Rippetoe:
We have rolled over on our backs and allowed these little petty fucks. To run our lives for us. And they're gonna do it again. They're going to do it again. You know, they're going to do it again if you don't think that they're going to do it again. You're a fool. You're an absolute fool because you showed them they could.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, what do you know about power? It makes you want more. And And this is. This is a this is a horrible development. It's, you know, the economic disaster. I mean, as it turns out, economies are complicated. You know, how something like this can interrupt the pork supply.

Chad Lampe:
Let's kill all the animals they're...

Mark Rippetoe:
And this is all all of this, you know, go on and on with example after example in every single industry in the United States has been adversely affected by this because we were we allowed them to make us afraid that we were going to get sick.

Mark Rippetoe:
We're going to get sick. Some of us, when we get sick, might die. Has it ever been any different? Yet this time it is. This time it is. And I'd like to know why. Why is it different this time? And I don't know that I can answer that question.

Chad Lampe:
It's the, I think, party's mentality. People aren't trained to be mentally strong anymore. That's looked at... The whole masculine...

Mark Rippetoe:
How did you and I get trained to be mentally strong and they didn't?

Chad Lampe:
I have no idea. Providence? You know, I my I wasn't raised in any kind of military household or...

Mark Rippetoe:
I wasn't either. My dad was in World War Two.

Chad Lampe:
Yeah. My my dad served, you know, he served two years in the Navy, but, you know, broken family. They were divorced when I was one. Grew up. My mom, single mom raised the family. And so the things that develop, you know, I don't know. I don't know how. I don't know where that split occurs. And like I said, I don't know if it's Providence or what it is. I don't know if it's genetics.

Chad Lampe:
But here's the thing. The mentality of the thing. Clay Jenkins had a another... He had a, hey, I'm going to get on the Internet and tell you how to...

Mark Rippetoe:
Clay Jenkins, by the way, is the Dallas County judge.

Chad Lampe:
Correct. So he's trying to change the...

Mark Rippetoe:
Powerful, powerful man.

Chad Lampe:
Talking about changing the mentality of, well, you know, you following these things and I'm paraphrasing what he said, but that that's an act of bravery. That you you staying home is an act of bravery, standing in solidarity with the non-overwhelmed health care workers in Dallas, that's that's an that's bravery. That's why that's what's brave now.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, you not getting your chemotherapy for your cancer to make room in an empty hospital for a fictional COVID19 patient is an act of bravery.

Chad Lampe:
That's brave now.

Mark Rippetoe:
That is stupidity is what that is. That's stupidity.

Mark Rippetoe:
But that's what... We have allowed people like this Clay Jenkins boy to tell us what is virtuous and what is not. But we already knew that, didn't we?

Mark Rippetoe:
Chad, Clay Jenkins is probably there for the duration. All right. I don't know if there's gonna be a I would like to think. I would like to think. And, you know, generally when you hear the words, I would like to think that everything that follows after that is bullshit. As a general rule.

Mark Rippetoe:
I'd like to think that this November that every single incumbent politician that is up for reelection is going to be voted out of office, every single one. I'd like to I'd like to think that.

Chad Lampe:
I'm sure you'd like to think that.

Mark Rippetoe:
I would like to think that, but that's not going to happen.

Chad Lampe:
It's the secret. If you if you think about it, it'll happen. If you think about having a billion dollars, its going to happen.We figured it out. So in the podcast. Right.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah. That's...Problem solved.

Mark Rippetoe:
So given that what should happen is not going to happen, what are we going to do next time this occurs? And by next time it occurs, I mean, every one of these local jurisdictions, state, county, local jurisdictions, says that for your own good, you're going to have to become unemployed and stay at home and and cower in fear under the table in the kitchen.

Mark Rippetoe:
All right. What do we do? I know what I'm going to do. All right. But what should happen in the event.. Taking what we know about what the actual authority in operation is here? What the actual authority at the state, county and local level, what does and does not enjoy the force of law.

Mark Rippetoe:
And by law, I mean something passed by your elected representatives and and passed under a normal legislative process that that you've got some input in in that because your elected officials went through the legislative procedure. All right. Something with the with the with the the imprimatur of the legislative process in the absence of that, because that's what we got right now. When they come to us next time and says, well, you're going to close your gym. What do I do?

Chad Lampe:
Well, that's assuming you're still alive and haven't starved to death.

Mark Rippetoe:
Good point.

Chad Lampe:
All right. So those that remain and survive this economic disaster that's impending. I would I had hope that there'd be pushback. I would. I don't think the law is going to stay the same way, at least in Texas. Who knows about the hinter in other other states, place that are just wretched. Like California.

Mark Rippetoe:
New Jersey. Maryland and New York.

Chad Lampe:
Where those those those ships have long been given up. But for places like here where I'm at least I have some some knowledge of what is going to be on the next battle line. I'm hoping that this pen is not going to be as mighty as it was last time.

Chad Lampe:
So, you know, I encourage people to to think and to think, to be individuals, to think about, hey, do I need to impoverish my family is what they're asking. Is it reasonable? You know, if this is a walking dead scenario and, you know, people were dropping like flies, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Mark Rippetoe:
No, we wouldn't, because it would be obvious what we ought to do. But this situation is completely absent that black white distinction isn't it?

Chad Lampe:
Correct. Right.

Chad Lampe:
So what people should do is think critically. They should think for themselves and not act in fear. That's hard because fear is easy. Courage is hard. To stand up and say wait. And to question authority, which has been apparently pounded into people's head, that we're not to question authority. And I'm not talking about anarchists and stupid stuff like that.

Chad Lampe:
But look at this stuff. Think. Read. The Constitution, the laws are available online for free. You can go through there and read them. You can call your local representitive, you can call your state reps. You can call your city council people.

Chad Lampe:
You know, the the time to act is going to be at these elections. You know, as you said, it's what what will happen. But that is what people should do now, what their immediate thing is. November is coming and that should be a big push for at least this. I don't think anything, that's going to be a switch.

Mark Rippetoe:
It should be should be a bloodbathin November. There should be an absolute political bloodbath.

Chad Lampe:
If people will get off their Netflix.

Mark Rippetoe:
If they're not if there's not a political bloodbath, then we deserve it. Don't we?

Chad Lampe:
Yeah.As a community. Yes. You know, because then then we're done as a society. We were just say we're a year that we would become a minority that thinks in archaic ways. So that's what that's what.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, you know, in a more practical sense of people like Shelley Luther and myself have decided not to follow the rules. All right. Now in Shelly's case. It's turned out pretty well. It turned out pretty well for now.

Chad Lampe:
For now.

Mark Rippetoe:
She's doing fine. She was in jail a couple of days. She got out and she's she's created a whole bunch of attention around the idea that maybe we shouldn't just do what we're told. Maybe we shouldn't just lay down, roll over on our backs.

Mark Rippetoe:
I - I don't know about you - but when they do this again, if you're in a position like I am to decide what to do, you need to decide the right way. Now, I can't make up your mind for you what's right. But I think you, I think you should know that. I think you should know that if people are being harmed by obedience to an illegal order, don't follow it.

Mark Rippetoe:
Because if you do follow it, you're back to the Nuremberg defense. I was only following orders. That got a lot of people hung, didn't it?

Chad Lampe:
And also resulted in a lot of people dying on the front end. Right.

Mark Rippetoe:
In fact, right. In fact.

Mark Rippetoe:
We were only following orders.

Mark Rippetoe:
If they order you to close? Well, I know what I'm going to do.

Mark Rippetoe:
Chad, thanks for being here.

Chad Lampe:
Thanks for having me.

Mark Rippetoe:
Chad Lampe, he's been with us.

Mark Rippetoe:
And you know these are... Things are pretty fucked up right now, and they're not through being fucked up and they haven't got as fucked up as they're going to get. So. As always, you have the ability to think. Please exercise that ability. Use good judgment and we'll see you next Friday here on Starting Strength Radio.

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