#147: Benjamin Franklin (PA) - The Prolific Scientist, Statesman, and Reconciler

Arguably the most famous American scientist, diplomat, postmaster, and so much more, Benjamin Franklin embodied America as an experiment. What distinguished him as a signer of the Declaration of Independence which he helped edit?

ICYMI, take a listen to Ep. 122 feat. Valerie Durham: https://ffc.buzzsprout.com/1255184/12791628-122-a-gathering-of-free-minds-for-festive-fun-at-freedomfest

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Patriotism, faith, national unity, education, physical responsibility, civility, the values that define America. Fascinating stories and talks from America-loving patriots dedicated to preserving freedom, opportunity, and justice. Welcome to the Friends and Fellow Citizens Podcast. Greetings, everyone. Welcome to episode 147 of Friends and Fellow Citizens. I'm your host, Sherman Tailowski. Thank you all so much for joining me for this Sacred Honor series episode. We will be discussing a rather famous American. And particularly if you are holding a $100 bill in your hand, you will know exactly whom I am going to be speaking about. Before we get to our main content, as a kind reminder, make sure to subscribe to friends and fellow citizens if you are enjoying this show. As always, a big, big thank you to our Patreon supporters. They are just the best uh support group for this show. So once again, I always want to express my gratitude to them. Welcome to those who are maybe listening for the first time or have just recently joined our show. Got a lot more content to cover as we hit about the halfway mark for this year. If you like to support our show, make sure to check out our Patreon membership levels. Also in the link in the description below. But also, if you like to take a bit of a souvenir and from the podcast and to support our program, we have amazing friends and fellow citizens mugs still on sale on our website, georgewashingtoninstitute.org. Check out the link down in the show notes below. But this is a really fantastic way not only to support the show, but to support an incredible business, Denine Pottery, which has been our supplier for these beautiful mugs. So be sure to check out that in the show notes below once you're finished with this episode. Today's episode will be focused on the next Pennsylvania signer of the Declaration of Independence. He is our 26th signer, so we are getting close to the halfway mark for the number of signers that are covered, uh, 56 signers in total. It is none other than Benjamin Franklin. Now, I just want to preface by saying that Ben Franklin is one of those figures in American history who did so much in his lifetime that he has made podcasting about him very, very difficult. So I will try my best to cover the important elements for the sake of covering the time right around the years leading up to his signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. So there again, there's a lot that would would have to be covered right about his scientific discoveries and uh his time as a diplomat and just many, many other stories. But for the sake of brevity, for the sake of the length of this episode, and for really the series, I like to focus on a handful of highlights and then end with some big takeaways, as I always do with these kinds of episodes. Before we kick off my discussion of Ben Franklin, there is actually a bit of a connection here between uh Ben Franklin and this podcast. Now, as much as I like to say Ben Franklin listened to Friends and Fellow Citizens, that is unfortunately not true, but uh we do have a guest who has a Ben Franklin connection. She was on the podcast for episode 122. This is Valerie Durham, and she uh was instrumental in putting together and is still instrumental in putting together the Freedom Fest events every year. Here is a sample from my interaction with her about Benjamin Franklin. I was able, I think it was sometime last year. Uh I heard one of your podcast interviews with with someone, I can't remember. But I think if I recall correctly, that you are related to someone who people know is on the $100 bill. Is that true?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Yes, I am a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin through my dad's maternal line. So my dad is also related to him. And my dad actually dresses up like Ben Franklin all the time and wrote he's written several books, The Wit and Wisdom of Ben Franklin, and then he and my mom um did a really cool project. It's called The Completed Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin. So the original autobiography that so many of us read in high school, um, that only goes up through 1757, really through his uh poor Richard's almanac publishing career. It does not cover any of the revolution, any of the declaration, any of his time in France. And so what my mom and dad did is they went to Yale, went to his the collection of all of his papers, every letter, every article, everything that he wrote, and they meticulously went through that and pulled out his actual words and compiled those to tell the rest of his story. So in the completed autobiography, it's all Franklin's words edited together to tell the story of how he you know interacted with John Adams and um Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration and George Washington and the Revolutionary War, and then moving on to ambassadoring in France and all of that all through the rest of the end of his life. So it's a really cool project. And um when my when it was the 2006 and it was the 300th birthday of Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster, the US Post Office put on a stamp, and my dad was there as a representative of his direct lineage, dressed up as Ben Franklin to like have that commemorative experience with the stamp, the re the revealing of the stamp. So that was a really cool thing we did in Philadelphia back in 2006 as a result of our lineage.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Quite a neat little connection there. I thought I'd throw in a little sample from one of our past interview episodes. If you'd like to listen to that interview episode in full, you can uh look up episode 122, or you can simply check the show notes below for that Ben Franklin-related conversation. Franklin was born uh either in the year 1705 or 1706, we're not entirely sure, but we know he was born in Boston. Uh, he was one to develop a journalistic talent, and which I think is also quite uh interesting. Uh, he is a scientist, but seeing him as both a scientist and a creator, I mean, I I don't know about you, but that has to be some kind of combination of genius because it really takes a lot of different artistic literary components within someone's imagination to be able to become a great writer. To add have to have other scientific, more technical skills alongside with that. I I just uh I've I would have been one of those ones back in the day to be like, you know, Dr. Franklin, can we just say you're a genius now? Because uh it really again is admirable all with all that leading up to what he did to set up our country. Even though Ben Franklin had all these talents with writing, he was initially not able to put together his own platform very quickly. In 1719, his brother James established his own newspaper called the New England Current. Now, Franklin really wanted to uh contribute to this newspaper, but for whatever reason, I don't know if if there is really is a reason, but James uh refused to let him do so. So Franklin decided to write with a clever pseudonym called Silence Doogood. Uh Silence Doogood is a fictitious woman, uh, and which is it's I it's gotta be a very either the most clever idea or the most strangest idea, but it I guess it really worked out for uh Franklin in terms of his persuasion abilities. He decided to submit these essays in secret, slip these under the door of where the newspaper was, uh, so that his brother would be able to um to collect them and publish them in the uh journal. Uh Silence Duga did get some recipients, and I'm I'm sure some people were quite intrigued by how uh a widow, a woman like this uh could write so well. And uh it was this is one of those things where I guess people would find it pretty funny. And once you eventually tell people that uh you were writing in secret under a quite a clever name, most people probably would find it pretty humorous. Uh, I'd I certainly would find it to be quite clever. Uh unfortunately, James uh did not find it very funny, and so he um unfortunately did not uh have the ability to really reconcile with Ben Franklin on not only regarding writing for the New England current, but that their relationship really deteriorated. And at the age of 16, Benjamin Franklin actually ran away in 19 in excuse me, 1722. This I think is also is part of uh another part of the story with guarding Ben Franklin's family that uh also highly get highlights again the the tensions that occurred within his family, but the fact that it might not even be just him as a unique example, in that the tensions occurring in the 1760s and 1770s may have contributed to the kinds of fractures that many people saw within their families at the time. Franklin was very much involved, of course, in uh becoming uh the statesman he was, so he eventually became a very prominent statesman. One of the most incredible elements of Franklin was the his ability to be well ahead of his time. In 1754, he proposed something called the Albany Plan, and the Albany Plan was proposed at what was called the Albany Congress, and this was a meeting among different colonial officials and representatives to discuss uh relations with the Native American tribes. As you might know, you know, this is the lead up to, of course, the conflict with the French and Indian War, and I guess people were really confused as to you know what should be done to try and bolster the British effort. And Franklin was not coming in here just saying, well, here's my plan for you know how how I think uh the college should be run, uh, and it's all just coming from my my mind or my brain, my imagination. Uh he probably really wanted to say that. Maybe some people thought, oh, this probably probably did come from his imagination. But a lot of these ideas from the Albany plan, which really was based on structure and formation of deliberations and institutions, uh, originated from his observations of the Iroquois tribes. And uh he was able to witness how these Native American tribes deliberated and he got a lot of those ideas from them, which I think is a very big contribution, probably something about Native American history that I don't think it has been highlighted enough, which is the impact that they have had on some of our founders like Ben Franklin. This plan was not accepted, obviously, but it did serve as a foundation for the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. Perhaps we'll do an episode on the Albany plan, a bit more into detail, maybe make some comparisons with the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. But just wanted to highlight something, oh, an early contribution uh that Franklin made uh when he was already relatively old, at least at that point for uh in the 1750s. You know, when you're in the age of 48, you're considered pretty old at that time, but he still has that sharp mind and still has that ability to present new ideas, even when they are just not quite popular enough to be accepted. Later on, he would uh do a lot of business in London. I remember when I went to school in London, there is a place called the Benjamin Franklin House, which is near Trafalgar Square, is kind of the the central part of Westminster, of central London. Uh the the house uh is not unfortunately is unfortunately not very decorative, uh, so you can't really go in and say, well, this is how he lived and all that, because there's very birth virtually no finered furniture in that building. However, you could still get a glimpse of the kinds of things he did and the duties he had, and just being so close to Whitehall, which is effectively like uh the uh Constitution Avenue, so to speak, of the of London, of the United Kingdom, where you have all those government buildings there, including the Houses of Parliament. So for him to have that kind of access was very uh uh critical for him as that particular statesman representing colonial interests. Uh and he he continues to do this, uh not really, not just for his profession and for part of his uh political activism, his political career, but that he, as you will see a little bit later on, that that uh his ability to speak with people, you know, he had kind of a what I would consider an open door sort of policy where he was willing to talk, willing to speak with officials about whatever concerns there were in the colonies. One particular episode that very much elevated Franklin as an ability to speak was uh around the time of the Stamp Act. Now, the Stamp Act uh was incredibly unpopular, 1765 uh was when it was implemented, and this is the first major uh imposition of taxation by the British government on the colonies to try and pay for the expenses from the French and Indian War, which let's just to say that they were expensive is kind of an understatement. Uh basically, a bunch I can't even imagine how many people's minds were were blown away by the kind of figures that came out of the French and Indian War. I I can't even I I it's gotta be some sort of underestimation on biblical proportions for the British government. But nonetheless, that is what they try to do with the Stamp Act. And Franklin is not just someone who doesn't like the Stamp Act, which, as you might imagine, you know, the the the general public's and knowledge of something like the Stamp Act will probably be pretty limited, probably just limited to the fact that it's this form of taxation. But Franklin is different, he really understands the implications of the tax, he understands the inner workings of the tax codes, and he is grilled by Parliament on uh the Stamp Act, and he seems seemingly just doesn't have a problem with answering something along the lines of about 174 questions. I can't remember last time I answered 174 questions straight, probably never, uh, but you can imagine just how and yeah, how how much energy and how much knowledge it took for him to be able to do that. And a lot of members of parliament, even maybe even some who uh or many who disagree with them on what he said, but probably were very impressed by how uh this gentleman was able to conduct himself. And so the Stamp Act is again that effort for the British government to collect revenue, but it unfortunately wasn't the only one. And as other tax proposals came about, you know, one uh error I would say about Franklin, and it's not to say that he was the only one who made this mistake, was that he really did not uh foresee the kind of anger and frustration from the colonies, and he really throughout m most much of his life tried to reconcile differences. We started off the series talking about John Hancock, and he was also part of that camp too. Franklin probably is the most prominent signer thus far who made in his lifelong mission to talk with others, even when there were huge disagreements. He was able to speak with the prime minister, uh at that time it would have been Frederick North. He was able to speak with uh Robert Walpole, I believe was actually the kind of the first, if you like to call that, first prime minister uh ever of the United Kingdom. And uh even spoke, of course, with uh those who were sympathetic with the American cause. Uh, he even tried to work with people back in the colonies to try and and I guess just try to give people a chill pill and it's just try to say, calm down, it's all right, we're gonna be able to sort this out. With some benefit of hindsight, this is obviously a very honorable trait to try and calm people down, but this is also a big test as to why it it's not easy to just say that the American Revolution and the ideas that came out simply sprouted out because of a famous signer or of a famous group of signers. There was seriously a huge, huge series of efforts that led to ultimately the signers accepting the reality that this was just never going to happen, that there was never going to be any kind of reconciliation whatsoever. Franklin was also uh one to uh be able to collect a lot of information about what uh British dignitaries and political leaders thought about the uh ensuing conflict as tensions grew. In one instance, though, in 1773, he received some secret letters from uh then uh Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts. I do not have a very favorable view of Thomas Hutchinson, and it's probably because he he probably couldn't do much, honestly. He was kind of at the forefront of bearing all the blame and and the protests and whatnot, and there's really not that much he could do. Uh, I've I certainly would be one to hope that he he, maybe like Franklin, could have been a better person to talk with, but it didn't sound like he was very interested in that. Um, so that's just my little opinion of of Thomas Hutchinson. Maybe you have different views, but anyway, the governor uh wrote uh or secretly wrote that uh he uh was alright with getting rid of American liberties to stop protests. And uh what Franklin is like, well, you know, this is this is really insightful. Now it's it's terrible, but I I need to pass this along. So he starts to uh pass along several copies of these letters to friends, and as you might imagine, if you think of just any sort of almost any secret you can think of, I know some people will say I they can keep a secret and they'll never tell anyone, but eventually you will tell enough people some secret and it will eventually leak out, and that's exactly what happened. Uh, the the secret was leaked, and Frankl was actually caught. Now, he wasn't caught as in like arrested and thrown in jail or anything like that, but he was ordered to testify in front or to basically answer questions in front of a solicitor general. And I I don't know what that inter exchange was like, but from what I read here on the source from the descendants of the signers, the solicitor general actually pretty much just uh insulted Franklin for an hour. I'm thinking to myself, well, that's not really questioning. Um, so therefore he's not doing his job either. Um, and that's not not only is not getting the job done, but you're probably gonna make someone really, really mad at you for the rest of your life. And that's probably what happened because uh after the solicitor general started calling Franklin names, including being a liar, uh Franklin was uh even though he was one to remain calm and not let his emotions get to him, uh he left that meeting and he was very, very determined to leave uh the country he he was part of and to go back to America and to fight for a new cause. Even though he had this determination for uh for independence eventually, uh Franklin again was uh one to um try again try to work with others. He worked with a gentleman named Lord Howe, uh Richard Howe, that's to say. Uh William Howe was actually his brother, Richard Howe's brother, uh, who was a uh major general during the American Revolution. So this is again how close Franklin was to um pro-loyalist um parties in the sense that he he knew a lot of these people very well. Even though he tried very much to uh sort out differences, uh it was to no avail. Franklin would have to return to Philadelphia in 1775, and this was two weeks after the hostilities at Lexington and Concord, according to that site I mentioned. Descendants of the the Declaration of Signing Signers of the Declaration of Independence. And turns out the very next day after he came back, uh the Second Continental Congress just like, all right, you are our delegate, or you are a part of the delegation for the uh Congress and really for the eventually for the signing of the Declaration of Independence. One element before I get to the signing, though, I mentioned about the family element with him and his brother James. One particularly difficult episode, I think, of his time was his relationship with his son William. William was with Franklin when uh his father was uh was working there, and uh William actually be William Franklin became a royal the royal governor of New Jersey. So again, royal governor made basically your representative, an executive uh on behalf of the crown. And as much as I like to say that you know families can resolve differences or at least respect differences, when the conflict started, unfortunately Franklin and his son could not uh reach a respectable uh uh level of relationship. And because of that, uh Franklin cut off his relationship with his son William, and uh sadly they never uh got back together. And I I just want to pause for a second because you know we we often like to either think that politics is is everything that can destroy everything or that politics is just you know a game or just something where you know people are maybe taking it too seriously or are are just not you know not really th putting politics into perspective. But when something like this happens, where people are very much divided and there there is no reconciliation, we we need to at the very minimum recognize the implications of political divides. We we can't just write them off as something that was manufactured or something that that is a result because people are just not serious. I don't think this case really fits into that, and I don't think many cases are into that. Politics is a very complicated and complex emotional battle. Sometimes that battle reaches closer to our families than we like to think. So this part of Franklin's life, I think, is just important to add on. Uh not to say that you know William Franklin was uh some evil person or anything like that. I don't think that's the right takeaway. You know, every there were e even though there were certainly huge, huge hostilities on the British side, there's no question about it. I'm in that I'm in that camp where I think the the Brit the way the British went about the American Revolution was terrible. That being said, you know, the the William Franklin, I think, adds on to this complexity of how divisive that conflict was and and the challenges and the implications that come about when people can't sort these things out, as Franklin probably really wanted to do. He really wanted to probably talk with as many people as he could, but then he realized that he himself would have to walk away. In 1776, the second continental Congress, of course, convenes, and with all this campaigning for independence, Benjamin Franklin is now a part of the drafting committee, uh, which again consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Livingston. Franklin was uh a part of this committee, which met a few times. Jefferson, of course, was the main one to draft it. Um the committee, of course, did get input, uh, but Franklin was more of an editor, and to my knowledge, he did not make substantial edits to the actual language of the Declaration of Independence. He probably wasn't the one to make sure that you know Jefferson was uh dotting his I's, crossing his T's, things like that. And he then, of course, joins the uh Pennsylvania delegation to uh adopt and eventually sign the Declaration of Independence, as we mentioned earlier, as the 26th signer. Franklin was uh you know a very prolific person, and I I will stop here just to uh at first acknowledge that you know there's there's so many more parts to this story, right? So for the sake of this episode, uh these are the kind of the main things I like to highlight, and I'd like to now provide some takeaways uh for for him, but just as to quickly conclude, you know, Franklin, of course, eventually is you know one of the oldest um uh gentlemen at that time. Um and he uh passes away in 1790 in Philadelphia. Again, I just want to emphasize that there's so much more to cover, and I I probably is probably very appropriate to say that I I am looking to get someone to talk about Benjamin Franklin and to discuss him in more detail because people like himself really deserve uh that kind of time. And I'm not saying one podcast episode is gonna do it, but it's just I think the effort to better understand these famous people, as famous as they are, there's still a lot that I don't know, and there's still a lot that we don't know in general. And so for myself to at least try and make an effort to bring uh someone in the future to talk about Benjamin Franklin, I think that would be a huge asset to our program. Now, let's get to some main takeaways here. The first is make yourself available to talk with others you disagree with, but also know when to walk away. This is stemming from Franklin's attempts to uh build relationships and to uh find maybe areas of common ground. This is particularly difficult, and I like to preface by saying that this should be the norm in the sense of behavior, routine behavior. I don't think we should be building relationships for particularly just for an end goal. You never know when that person could be useful for something else or could be beneficial, and you know, I mean it could be someone as a friend, um, even beyond just a business partner or someone you're negotiating with. I recently went to a networking event uh where I was talking to a woman and she was sharing about this particular event she was passionate about, and uh and it was after after some conversation, um, I gave her my business card and she kind of said something, and I don't think she was necessarily trying to be be mean or anything, but she said that uh, well, you know, since you won't be able to make it to whatever specific event at a specific time you know within the next week, um, it's just that I just I'm not sure you know what what use would be to get your contact info. And I just thought it was very strange because you know when you go to meet someone, you know, and again, I don't know this person very well, so I'm just basing it on what what I know about this this person, but it's it's not particularly useful or kind to say that, well, I'm the only reason why I want to get in touch with you is because you need to benefit this particular element about myself. And and that's just I think that's just not networking, that's not opening up to conversations. And I would imagine that for Franklin or for anyone, you know, to to work with others, you got to build a relationship. Relationship takes time, it takes effort. One meeting certainly is not gonna do it, uh, but also having just like this one single-minded agenda, I think is also not helpful at all. It doesn't make you a good networking person, it's not gonna build relationships. So this is the first element, which is you know, make yourself available, you know, go to networking events, get to know people uh even better, hopefully outside of just whatever confines there may be, like school or work. The other thing, too, is also know the audience. You know, Franklin knew that when you're talking with the prime minister, obviously this is a big deal. And even if he wasn't able to get that get the prime minister to agree with what the economies were saying, at least recognize the significance of the audience. That is another thing about this uh takeaway here, which is know who you're talking to. Uh, I always uh I've learned that you know you don't engage in a debate unless there's some sort of what and I'm putting in quotes neutral audience, meaning that there are people who may be curious who might be swayed, and the way that you demonstrate yourself and your arguments could be consequential to how people are persuaded. Know when to walk away. Sometimes, and I say sometimes, probably feels like a lot of times, people will not uh not it could be that it's not that just it's not just that they won't agree with you, but there could be people who just will not talk to you, and that is uh unfortunate. And I'm not gonna say that it's a good thing, but you at some point you will have to walk away, and that's probably a realization that Franklin probably didn't want, but he eventually had to. He even had to do that to his own son. And this is probably a bigger point than than maybe some people see it, because we want to be persistent, but we also want to have uh knowledge and wisdom about where we are. We sometimes it's a timing issue. Sometimes people just for whatever reason grew up in very terrible circumstances, and that's the way they are, and it has nothing to do with what you said or how you said it, as long as you've done it in a way where you're inviting to people, you're making yourself available, then that's the best you can do. If someone doesn't want to accept it, then that's their loss. So, this takeaway again is just to re-emphasize make yourself available to find similarities and differences with others, particularly those who you disagree with, but also know when the uh time is right to walk away and to do other things that are more valuable for your time. The second takeaway is we need to bring back join or die national unity. Join or die was that phrase that Franklin uh helped coin, I guess, uh, with his that cartoon with the snake. You might have seen it before, uh, but that was for a very different time when he was part of that effort to try to try to rally the British uh colonies to rally against the French. None who would have thought that just a couple decades later, that that same element of unity, join or die, would be for the American cause. So I'd like to just kind of bring back this idea of join or die, of showing people the consequences of being disunited. We can all have disagreements. That's it's not to say that disagreements within a team don't exist. It is how can that team better recognize the threats that are bigger than the disagreements themselves and to be able to coalesce around each other for those critical times. I'm reminded of a story I read when I was uh in in uh when I was little, and my my father used to read Aesop's Fables. It's uh it's a great collection, and he bought this uh fantastic book. I think it was from uh it's from some famous book coming. I can't remember but what it's called. But this book had all these collections of different stories. I remember there's one story here, so I like to read it. It's um it's called The Bundle of Sticks. Here's the story. There was a father who had uh um a group of sons, and these sons just could not stop fighting. Sound familiar in Washington, DC? But anyway, uh the sons were just quarreling, and it seemed like there was just nothing that the father could do to stop them from fighting. So one day, uh when it got really, really bad, uh the father asked one of the sons to go get him a bundle of sticks. The son comes back to handle uh to hand the father the bundle, and uh the father brings all the sons around and asks one of the sons to say, Okay, I want you to try and break this bundle of sticks. The first son tries it and he can't do it. So the father says, Okay, let's have someone else try. And another son tries to break, he can't break it. And it just goes on and on, and no one can break this bundle of sticks. So then the father untie the bundle and he gives the sticks individually to all those sons and asks them to break each of them. Lo and behold, every single son was able to easily break those sticks. And so the father tells them, says, Don't you see that if you are together like that bundle of sticks, you cannot be broken. But if you were to be the like those individual sticks and just be so divided you can't even come together, you would break that easily, just as you did with those individual sticks. Such a simple lesson. Uh, and it's actually been a part of of historical uh historical imagery and uh analogies. But uh this is I think of just a fascinating little story again about how important it is to have unity. You know, when we break so easily uh in as individuals, when tasks are so uh are so large, and when enemies are so much bigger than individuals, we have to unite together as one nation to counter those threats. Just think it's a very simple story, and but a very powerful message for those who may be seeking to try and divide us, but we cannot let those uh particular factions and those dividers prevail. Lastly, we should remember we you should have a lifelong learning of life skills. See, in 1732, Franklin wrote something called the Poor Richards Almanac, uh, which was uh quite a nice publication. It lasted for more than a quarter of a century, and it was it's just including all these really nice little quotes here. So I'd like to read a few of you just to end our episode with some kind words of advice from our dear friend Benjamin Franklin. Verses none but the well-bred man knows how to confess a fault or acknowledge himself in an error. That is such a great first quote because I'm thinking to myself, when was the last time I even spoke with someone who admitted that they made a mistake? And not like, well, a mistake was made. No, no, no. I'm saying someone who said, I screwed up, I should have done this, I I will do better next time. I will tell you that is probably the best one of the best ways. I shouldn't say the best, because there are other good ways too, but it's one of the best ways to develop a relationship with someone is to acknowledge that you are not a Superman or Wonder Woman, that you uh can make mistakes and that you are not afraid to acknowledge them. That is uh I just can't tell you how persuasive that is. And what is also amazing is how a lot of people might say, oh no, it's not that bad. You know, like look if you if you admit your mistakes, you might be able to alleviate the those uh consequences. Don't expect them, but but don't be surprised if they were to come. The next quote is don't throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass. Which for my interpretation would be don't try to hurt someone, destroy something when you know your you know when your possessions or your ideas or values could also be destroyed in a similar way. You know, almost just be careful of what you decide to do before you attack someone, before you attack institution, before you launch attacks, are make sure are you well guarded enough? Would you want to be treated that same way? A third quote Mankind are very odd creatures. One half censure what they practice, the other half practice what they censure. The rest always say and do as they ought. So I I I love that little quote there. But it it's true though. There's people who will say, uh, I, you know, I should have, or or they they don't really have an almost way to have commitments to whatever it is that they that they do. They they may condemn or express disapproval to what they do, and then there are others who will say, Well, that person shouldn't do that, that person should shouldn't do this, and then that person doesn't anyway. So it's like it it doesn't it doesn't make sense, right, when you understand that people are very hypocritical, generally speaking, and and the kind of that end joke there, right? It's like, well, but it's just show most people don't say or do what they should be doing. A kind reminder to make sure that your words and actions do match. Next is they who have nothing to trouble them will be troubled at nothing. Which initially sounds a good thing, but what it this actually says is when people don't really have anything to do, any challenge when they don't have any challenges to overcome, uh they they will be troubled by the smallest things. If you ever watched Seinfeld, if you've ever watched Curb Your Enthusiasm, highly recommend you you watch either of those two episodes, uh either of those two shows, but those are just classic examples of what happens when people don't have anything to do. Even the smallest things, they will complain, and you see it in real life. I've met people who have the biggest blessings, the kind of blessings that almost anyone can could imagine. Look at the the kinds of rioters, protesters on camp on college campuses nowadays. These people who can afford North Face tents, who can afford to pay 80, 90 grand for an education, assuming that they're paying for it or their parents are paying for it, I should say. And yet they still can't be happy. They still will be angry at the smallest things and not even try to learn or try to be better. This is what happens when people are don't encounter true obstacles. So again, this quote again reminds us that we need to face obstacles in order to grow, and that if we don't have obstacles, we're we're going to be probably the most troubled beings we'll ever be. And the final quote I'll leave you all with is strive to be the greatest man in your country. And you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best, and you may succeed. He may well win the race that runs by himself. That quote is a reminder of how we need to compete against ourselves. It's natural for tribes to compete against one another. This is part of an evolution element, it's a part of survival. But it's those who understand that the person we can really beat, we should be beating, is an old version of ourselves. And when we continue to strive to be our best and not to be some famous person like I'm the best wherever. Have a great rest of your day and rest of your week. And remember, a day in America is always better. But we are with our friends and fellow citizens.