Hour 2: The Martial Instinct | 04-08-26

The Other Side of Midnight with Lionel. Entertaining and informative. On the Red Apple Podcast Network. I'm with you Lionel with you. This is The Other Side of Midnight. I have a difficult time explaining this to most people, but I will tell you because you're my friends and I think I owe it to you. For anybody who cares, if it makes any sense, I am a political atheist. I don't even understand how people can assume a position when it comes to something that is variable. I've never understood. I've never fit in. I don't. And people will always say, well, because I don't necessarily take the position of whoever I'm talking to, they think, oh, I must be from the other side. I'm like a walking Rorschach test. They see in me what they think about the others or whatever. I'm not really sure. And I've always been like that. I'm like that with music. I don't have a name for my music. I don't have a name. I don't have a side. I'm more interested in the bigger picture because I'm always looking at myself and all of us as an organism. That's who I think we are. What are we? Constantly. I love to step back, and I have these thought experiments. And one of them I always want to have is I want to have this, I want to be a liaison, a liaison, with somebody from another planet who comes here. And I try to explain to them things like sports, Religion, fashion, language, argument, cursing, anger, emotions. I would imagine that somebody from another planet would not have emotions. I don't know if getting angry is something that I think, I would imagine much of us, much of what we do normally would have been lost evolutionarily by a superior species who is much, much better than we are. but I'm going to ask you the question and I want you to answer this and I want you to imagine that I am from another planet I'm not a human, I'm not of this realm I'm from elsewhere because I know you're fascinated in me and my people and my critters but I'm going to ask you a question we're fascinated with you earthlings as well anybody care to answer this one Why do humans, I've noticed this, memorialize war with monuments and ceremonies and movies, yet you struggle to remember this thing called peace with the same intensity? In fact, that doesn't even, that's almost perhaps maybe it's presumed. Or you don't seem to think of people who've done something good. You're like, oh, okay, that's nice. Where's Einstein's what? Statue? Huh? Where is that? Why do we love war? Not just us. Since Caesar, go down the list. There is something about Genghis Khan. There is something about bellicosity. Why is that? The warrior. Dances with wolves. You don't, we love the idea of the brave, warriors, tribal spears. We love this. It is in our DNA. What is our sports? What is our sports? War. It's exactly what it is. Football? Hello. Well, why is that? What does it say about you? That the same act, and help me with this one, that is called heroism by one side is an atrocity by the other. Explain that one to me. Is that called moral relativism? What would you, what do you call that one? Just work with me on this. Anytime you want to weigh in. I'm just curious because I love your analysis. because this is difficult because sometimes I want to take you to the abstract, to the abstruse, a little bit different. This is the other side of midnight. Remember this. Do we report war to inform people or to shape emotion and allegiance? Think about that one. What is the goal of this? Is it to fill you in? And what happens when both of your sides, so to speak, both, let's assume you have two political sides, what if both of them actually report everything identically? Is war, this is my question, as, remember, I'm somebody from outer space, is war an aberration of humanity or a recurring expression of something that's kind of like embedded in us or maybe organic? Is it kind of who we are? Do we just do things? Would we be at war no matter what? If you started us, put us on another planet, not another planet, another island, and you took humans and you put them, and they somehow, I guess, were to develop independent how they'd be fed or whatever, what would they do? I respectfully submit that humans would communicate. They would have language. language. We have language. Dolphins don't have language. They have communication. We have language. We have tense and we have all types of interesting, but we would do that. We would also have some kind of competition. We would have some kind of sport. We would have some physical endeavor. We would dance. Humans have this inherent love of dance. Not I, mind you, as the great Marcus Tullio Cicero said. No sane man will dance. If ever you see me dancing at a party, somebody slip me something. I'm not well. But that's it. Let me start with that. All of you brave philosophers in the light. Can you follow this? Remember, I don't want to go into this, but this is not about Trump versus Biden. No, no, no, no, no. That's boring. I want you to talk about the bigger picture. 800-848-9222. Can you do that? Are you able to do that? We're looking for our brighter callers. Our brighter. Not our brighter listeners, but our callers. Callers and listeners, as you know, are two different things. Because I want you to look above this. I don't want you to look at the story. That's easy. Anybody can do that. I want you to go above that. Because I am fascinated by it. I am fascinated by your fascination with war. The art of war, the sun's, and that is one of my favorites. It's always this notion of war. Marcus, Magnus Carlsen, excuse me, the goat of chess, talks about chess as war. Chess is war. War. It's war. Yeah. It's war. And I love to watch a lot of YouTube stuff on war. I was an ex-Delta operator, and I was a Navy SEAL, and I was special ops. Yeah, war, yeah, great. And the first thing that people would do, anybody who's been there says, I don't want to talk about it, and I don't ever want to do that again, and I don't want my kids to be doing it. But it's this fascination. The same way, by the way, we're also fascinated. We'll talk a little bit later about the bad guy. Have you noticed all of the mob? I never, I never thought we would ever be able to tune in on YouTube and see so many ex-mobsters with, you know, doing YouTube stuff. I just thought Omerta was something that was real. I just thought they just never said anything. Oh, was I wrong? It's fascinating. So that's it. 800-848-9222. One part of me says You're wasting your time with this This is not No, no, no I think, yeah, no, they can do it No, they can't Yes, they can This is the greatest subject of the world You know, this past week This past week There was a tweet That our President tweeted out And some people did not care for it And I'm not going to go into it you liked it or not, whether it was appropriate, but it was on Easter Sunday. And some people were taking great umbrage. This kind of language would dare be said on Easter Sunday. I'm saying, really? And this, now follow me on this. I said, okay, that's interesting. So what do you say? Well, you know, Jesus, the Lord, whatever. That's another subject which fascinates me. Like, you cannot believe. They always say, don't ever talk about politics or religion. why would you talk about anything else? So I said, this is interesting. Yes, because you don't understand. It's blasphemy. It's heretical. Okay. I said, let me ask you this question. What do you think? What do you think would be? What do you think if old Jesus came here and I said, what do you think about this? What would Jesus think if he walked around and said, what are you people doing? That's what I want to know. because I have a feeling, I have a thing, that we are always fighting our instincts, what we are born with, what we are, I don't want to say tendentious, but what we have a tendency and a penchant to do, what we are doing, the way we are in real life. We are liars, because that's called prevarication and the like. we are sometimes unrealistic and we love the idea of this Manichaean subject of good versus bad. And we love there to be an absolute. We want to know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. And we want to know that the good guys win. And more importantly, we want to know that we're the good guys. And it's a part of us. It's who we are. And I want to also go back to something. When you were a little boy, girls, I can't help you with this. Nobody told us what to do. We played cops and robbers. Used to play cowboys and Indians. Before it was politically. I don't think anybody even realizes what that is. But war and it was fun. And we had G.I. Joes. And there I was. Little girls were walking around with mommies and public buggies. And here I am celebrating and lauding. War. Soldiers. Rifles. guns. It's fascinating. What sayeth you? I want the best and the brightest callers. I'm sorry. I want to hear from you. Let's start off with Robert. Let's cross our fingers and hope he understands the assignment. Robert, you're on the other side of midnight with Lionel. Lionel, it's very simple. The reason we have wars is because it's a business. It's like any business. It brings work. It vitalizes the stock market, brings it back up, and that's why we have oars is because it's a simple business. Now, I appreciate that, and I love people who say that they tried to reduce it to something very, very simple. Business, money, stocks. Maybe you can people say sometimes it might be some sexual thing Here is the bottom line You have a lot of people who have nothing to do with it who will make absolutely no money from this whatsoever, who don't care anything about it. Yes, other people will benefit. There's no doubt about that. But there are too many people who say, no, no, no, you don't understand. It's something else. I have no connection with it. There are people who are lauding this, who are applauding this, who are happy, who say this is terrific. We are happy. Whatever it is. And this is throughout history. It has nothing to do with war. There was a time in this country when people, there was no military industrial complex. There's another reason why we go to war. Stop for one second. I appreciate the fact of what you're trying to accomplish, but you do realize that's too simplistic. That doesn't even come close to it. But here's another reason why we go to War II is the technology has gotten so far ahead that all this equipment that we build, guns, artillery, cannons, bombs, jets, they have to use them. They have to display them. See, this is what you're doing. Again, I appreciate that. And I think it was interesting. But I would say to you, you are forgetting something. since time immemorial when we had sticks and a rock. And maybe somebody said, you know, if we take the stick and we make the stick sharp, it's kind of like a, we'll call it a spear. I don't think the spear industry did this. Don't get me wrong. I love when people try to say, well, it's about this and that. Yes, qui bono to an extent, yes, yes. But it's more complicated than that. Go deeper, my friend. Go deeper. Go Freudian. Go inner core. Go atavistic. Go to the source of our behavior. 800-848-9222. The Other Side of Midnight with Lionel on the Red Apple Podcast Network. Up next, it's Brett Flair and his new band. Oh my God, I'm back again. On Bed Bear Casino everybody's planned Gonna bring new games, gonna show you now New game party Find new games Dropping hits every week. Find the new slots On Bed Bear Casino tonight 18plusbgamblerware.org That's right! It's The Other Side of Midnight with Lionel. Sergeant Barry Sadler. Whatever happened to Sergeant Barry Sadler? I remember I saw him on Ed Sullivan. Oh, you missed that. You weren't around for Ed Sullivan. Ed Sullivan was Sunday night. It was one of the most fan, 1966. This is so incredible. This song, the story of Barry Sadler is one of those strange American arcs that starts in patriotism and ends in mystery exile and a quiet death far from home. Sadler was a U.S. Special Forces medic, not a Green Beret, a real, well, you call him a Green Beret, He saw combat, he was wounded, and while recovering, he wrote and recorded the ballad of the Green Beret. And that song exploded in 1966. It hit number one on the Billboard charts and became one of the defining pro-military anthems of the Vietnam era at a time when the country was already starting to fracture over the war. I remember that. John Wayne came in with the movie The Vietnam. Remember this from Capra on. His music career faded pretty quickly, as you can imagine. He left the army, tried to stay in entertainment, even wrote a series of pulp novels about a mercenary character called Casca. They sold decently, but nothing really matched the impact of that song. Then came the turn in 1978. Sadler was involved in a shooting in Nashville. He shot a man named Lee Emerson Bellamy during a dispute. Sadler claimed self-defense, but he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served time. And after getting out, he more or less disappeared from mainstream American life. He moved then to Guatemala, of all places, where he reportedly worked with the locals, sometimes described as doing humanitarian or community-type work, though details are rather murky. then in 1988 another bizarre chapter Sadler was shot in the head in Guatemala not in combat not in any official capacity just shot and the circumstances were never fully clarified some accounts suggest robbery others hint at something darker he was brought back to the US in critical condition and died about a year later he was just 49 years old Isn't that something? Not in war. Not on the battlefield. But that song was unbelievable. Rambo. Tom Clancy. Tom Clancy. Many suspect, and I wouldn't be surprised, he didn't write anything. That was pure 100%. Well, maybe he wrote it. but that was 100% psyop propaganda, 100%. And there's not, listen, this has been, this has been since, remember, nothing is new. Why? Why does mankind go to war? Go deeper, deeper. Why? Don't say because of bad, because of geography. No, no, no, no, no. Now, Michael in the Bronx. Michael, you're on the other side of midnight with Lionel. Good morning. Again, you're my second favorite person other than my wife, Alicia. Excellent. I'm honored. When it comes to war, we are being manipulated by a higher power. Wait a minute, stop. Alicia always said that this is a zoo. The higher power manipulates us? Is that what you're saying? Yes. How is that? Well, Alicia always said this was a zoo. Well, what do you think? I'm sure she's a wonderful woman, but what do you think? I believe the same thing. This is a zoo. If you look at it, all the species in the galaxy are placed on one planet, and we can't get out of here. We try to get out of here, but there's a barrier that either makes us, you know, stop it. I hate to be a problem. I want to stop for one second. First of all, all of the species of the galaxy are not on this planet. There are some species elsewhere, perhaps that we don't know of, that are not on our planet. That's number one. Number two, a zoo is organized. A zoo is a prison. A zoo, you separate them. And for the most part, even if you let them go, animals don't do anything. It's not wild. They're not woolly. They're not out of control. They're actually very, very tame, and they're very, very good. We always use the word animal as something out of control. So explain to me how the higher power wants us to be in war. well if you look at it there was a sound about a couple years ago and everybody thought it was either Laurel or Yanni and at that time that's when everybody decided to take sides there was no grey area it was either good or evil if you heard Yanni or if you heard Laurel that made you put you on different sides Laurel or Yanni do you know about this Laurel or Yanni Laurel and Hardy I know This was some kind of an internecine battle over a song? Is that what you're saying? It wasn't a song. It was a sound. A sound? Everybody heard it. Yeah, it was a few years ago. Where was the sound heard? Wait a minute. Hang on. I should have known. Hang on a minute. Our resident cryptologist, Yuri, knows all about this. Yuri? Yeah, I have come across this, but I don't know the details of this controversy. Make it up. But it reminds me of a previous one where there was a black and blue dress. And there's all that controversy between whether people are seeing blue or gold. I always saw blue. I saw green. Now, Michael, let's start this again. So why does the higher power want us to fight each other? You have your yin and your yang. Okay, now listen. You got to do me a favor. You got to do me a favor. You got it. You can't. And I love you. But you can't give me trite at 30 past the hour. That's right. That's terrible. Kind of axiomatic expressions. You got your soul and your charybdis. You're rocking the hard place. No, no. Tell me. Be specific. Be behavioral. Why? Because it's a chess game to them. They enjoy it. To God? To God? Let's just call it God or to the higher powers. It's not a God. Well, it's not a God. It's just God is in the afterlife. Right now we have beings controlling us. Ah! There are beings now. And where do these beings inhabit? Or what do they inhabit? Where? It could be the earth. It could be, like I said, the keepers. That doesn't sound very certain. are they among us? Are they ghosts? Are they spirits? What are they? Well, during the Greek time, you had the gods. During the Greeks and the Romans, you had the god of war. You had Ares. And of course... Was Ares dead? No, Ares is a live entity. So God, that God is not like the deist. That God is in quote, the afterlife. I would venture to say, and many people would say that God, as we envision God today, is much with us now, not in the afterlife. Well, the thing is that when we die... Okay, now we're getting way... You see what's happening? This is when you say something and I say, wait a minute, what does that mean? And I thank you for that call, by the way. I really appreciate it. We have to focus on as little extraneous kind of subsidiary information as possible. Okay? Let's go to Damien in Massapequa. You're on the other side of Midnight with Lionel. Lionel, good evening. First time caller, how are you? Thank you, sir. Welcome. Thank you. Number one, I'd like to disagree with the previous caller. Go ahead, sir. Who said that it's about money and business. And I think what people fail to realize is that humans don't inherently love war in the sense of love and destruction or suffering, but we're drawn to other things that war concentrates. It concentrates a clarity of purpose. It concentrates an intensity of belonging. It concentrates, which is, sad to say, a powerful moral storytelling. Yes, sir. It's almost like war is a magnifying glass for human nature. There must be winners. I like what you are doing. I like this. I like this. I like where we're going with this. Proceed, sir. And it just amplifies instincts that are always there And unfortunately in present day society you know, war used to be distant. It used to be filtered. Yes. Now, now it's live streamed into, into your phone, into your pocket. You know, it's funny you say that you bring, you bring up so many things for, first of all, this is, I cannot applaud you enough, sir. Do you remember? Of course you remember. that one of the most important implements of war, one of the great instruments of war, was the longbow. And up till now, if you and I wanted to go out, I'd say, all right, go get them. And I got to go out in the middle of you and I've got a battle ax or something and I'm going to try to hit you and I'm looking at you and I can see your eyes and we're fighting and I can smell you. And I really got to, I really got, I really got to want to do this. You know what I mean? I really, really want to do this, right? Then, then comes something else. the longbow allowed you to pretty much sit back, maybe even on your, of all things, maybe on your back, and you can fire one of these babies, and you don't even have to see what you're doing. You don't have to get to look in his eyes, and you tended to be a little bit more willing to engage because the commitment was less, and because it was far away, and because it was noncommittal, we tended to be a little bit more. Now, what you bring up is interesting because we bring up photographs and video and the like. We're bringing it back again. It's undoing. Television coverage is undoing the whole notion of separation. Not only is whatever happening on some air base in the middle of Tehran or Angola or Cuba or Vietnam. You're right. In fact, in Vietnam, remember how they would take a roll of film? They would rush into this plane. They would fly the film to the Philippines. And then they would fly it back. I mean, it was barbaric. And each of the pictures, by the way, were so good because you had to be very careful. So it's interesting how we've kind of got full circle. But technology makes us aware about it. Now, my question for you, Damien, is are we becoming more sentient and appreciative of the horrors of war, or are we becoming more habituated to it and conditioned because it's ubiquitous? Well, I think this changes everything psychologically. I mean, now the suffering is the visuals are immediate. They're unfiltered. They're constant. it just becomes much harder to sustain some, I don't know, romantic or simplified view of war as it was, you know, as recent as, say, Vietnam. You know, the modern audiences don't just hear about the war. Now everybody experiences it. Now you bring up something else that is important. Do you think that we are—let me give you a terrible analogy years ago. Years ago, I represented these Cuban folks who were cockfighters. I love saying that. I'm 67 years old. I still laugh when I hear that. Anyway, I said I want to hear the name of the great Honoré Balzac. That cracks me up. Anyway, they were trying to explain to me one time in this terrible English, not broken English. They said, you don't understand something. I am not taking a species of bird and I'm making it do something it does not want to do. let me show you and these chicks there was a there was a strain of them from spain and these kind of um these these men couldn't write in english or they weren't educated in anything but they knew mendelian genetics like you can't imagine they had books of who was who and now they crossbred anyway make a long story short when these birds were born they would start attacking each other. They would start picking each other before they could even see. It's their nature. So he said to me, and I was kind of an interesting legal argument, how can you possibly if it wasn't for me, they wouldn't be here. They'd kill each other. I'm not training them to do it. They do it anyway. It's like having a dance contest for this bird that dances. So is that is there something deep within the chromosomal, atavistic, primordial hardware, the genetic blueprints of us, that there's this bellicose, pugnacious warrior in us? Well, it also ties back to your analogy about sports, right? There must be in every facet of life, as minuscule as, you know, T-ball to the presidency, there must be a winner and there must be a loser. And I am not going to. There are very few things that I enjoy doing. Just for my own personal satisfaction. I do think sometimes my sport, most sports are, they say, it's team sports no, it's to beat you I have to beat you it's not that we're doing this hey, why don't we go out and just run together no, no, no, no, no let's just play golf, no, no, no, no let's just hit it, no, no, no, let's keep track no, no, no, here are the rules hey, that was a ball of game there's something, I think, in us and it's who we are put it this way, go to divorce courts go to court just where is where we are this vile combative but so that's that's kind of where i'm going i find it and then what happens is the the real jokers are the ones who rise above the tea oh no no no no i'm not this is not somatophistic this patellar reflex of mine i'm doing it because i'm warranted this is noble don't you understand we're here we go the good guys and you're the bad guys. I'm the patriot. You're the terrorist. I'm the warrior. You're the insurgent. You're the militia. You know what I mean? You are. This goes back before Capra. I mean, just uniforms, belonging, military, drums, music, the bagpipe. Oh, my God. We love this stuff. It It's all tied back to craving purpose, belonging, and needing in a DNA-trapped behavior. I think it is as normal as the sneeze. Damien, thank you, my friend. An excellent, excellent point. Mark in Illinois. You're on the other side of midnight with Lionel. Hey, Lionel. How are you doing tonight? I love the show. I just started listening to it. It was pretty cool. I want to say something real quick before we get there. Yes, sir. My aunt died. My wife's aunt died like years ago. But anyway, I've been going through all their stuff. And I found that 45 of that Marine guy you're talking about. Oh, Barry Sadler. He was in Special Forces. Yeah, I got the little 45 with the sleeve, his picture on there. That was weird. But anyway, what I was trying to say was, yeah, you know, you're trying to get to the meaning on all this. I think it's like the ancient people had the same thing. You've got this story with, you know, Adam and Eve and the serpent, and then you've got the other guy, you know, Ecclesiastes, not new under the sun, you know what I mean? So I think people have been struggling with this for many, many millennia or whatever you want to say. Right. I think you're absolutely... I mean, your point is, yeah, it could be ingrained in the people like, I was listening to another call, yeah, about sports. that seem like, yeah, everything's competitive. But it's also competitive and it's also, it's a sense of, it's tribalism. It allows me to say, this is my team. My team, we have a song maybe. Go back and look at, and when you really want to go, go back and look at Genghis Khan, or you, as I say, Genghis Khan. Look at Genghis Khan and it is unbelievable. believable. Also, ask Americans about our own wars. Here's a good one for you. I guarantee you. The next time you're someplace, ask somebody, I'll give you 20 bucks if you could even remotely tell me what the Federal Reserve is. Just remotely. And they'll look at you like, keep your money. and here's the best part okay here's a easier one and you've got to know this one 50 bucks explain world war one what happened why were we in it what did it have to do with us watch that one the war to end all wars absolutely horrible do yourself a favor go to youtube check out battle they call the battle fatigue shell shock excuse me, from trench warfare. Have you seen those people walk? Have you seen this? Go back and look at World War I. This isn't some guy with a dog. Believe me, I'm not, please, don't think for a minute I'm trying to minimize this. We're talking about people who are shaking. They are paralyzed. They can't stop. They can't blink. They're just in a tremor. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened, but my God. And it's one after another. It was the most barbaric. It was horrible. The sun and oh my God. Anyway, the war to end all wars. Never again, they would say, uh-huh. So much for that. So maybe 30 years later, because of that war, we did it all over again. Vietnam. Vietnam was in my way. And I'm not arguing pro or con. I know it sounds like I am. I'm not. But I remember the time people said, wow, this is really something. We learned a lesson. Yep, we sure did. Learned a lesson. No. And now we're talking about something. Keep an eye on what's happening with Taiwan and others as well. Because here's the bottom line. If I were to go to somebody and say, now listen, and I'm going to defend war now. I'm going to explain to my fellow from the outer space. It's like, okay, here's what I want. Number one, and we'll talk about this, I want water. I want a particular, do you understand when you talk about the Strait of Hormuz, Do you know why that's important? Look at the configuration of it. Look at the way you have to turn. It's a very narrow piece, but you need help. You have to, it's harder to negotiate than you would think. That's also the other one for the Red Sea is the Houthis, and it's one of these incredible, I got to show you this. Anyway, so here I am talking to somebody from another planet. I'm saying, listen, do me a favor. I want you out of here. I want you to do this. I want you to do whatever it is. Okay, you got that, Taiwan? No. What do you mean no? No. Now, listen, I'm going to ask you one more time. I really want you to back off, or I want you to open this sea lane, or I want you to stop. Whatever it is that one side says. And it starts off like that. No. No. Okay. Mr. Outer Space, what do I do then? Tell me. Negotiate I tried negotiating What do I do And then the person with outer outer space you mean they won get along Nope We do not work this out Sometimes the wars may be harder to understand. So one could argue that it's a very, it's a natural, it's a very, very natural result when certain options cannot be agreed upon. However, there were other people who might be a tad rapacious, a tad bellicose. Look at, when you look at Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, oh my God, millions. I mean, this was not for merely territory. This was for something a little bit different. Derek in Queens, you're on the other side of Midnight with Lionel. Hey, well, it's great to talk to you, first time caller. Thank you, Darren. Excellent, sir. I appreciate you. I think we just have almost like a borderline mental illness because we're not looking at ourselves as interconnected. And we keep, you know, one of your callers were talking about belonging. And it's true. But the problem is that we're creating these artificial connections and not realizing we have a larger connection with all of us. and because we do that we say oh i'm an american or i'm um a canadian and they were willing to kill each other based on these things on the geographical uh thing well or i'm black or i'm white well that may be you know but you know what i i think you're there listen there are some folks who we can go through this repeatedly there are people i i don't want to bring up hitler but This was something that was so, this transcends, no matter how many people try to explain it, well, it was the Treaty of Versailles, and Dr. Stead, and there was Lebensraum, and, you know, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that might have been a part of it, but this is a little bit different, you know. Now, but here's the point. But the problem, Derek, is that somebody might say, listen, I tried my best. We really did. Our goal, honest to God, despite what you think, is not to go in and start, you know. So right now you've got China telling Taiwan, I do not want you to do this. Taiwan says, excuse me, we don't answer to you. Oh, yes, you do. Oh, no, I don't. Whatever this is. And then the other people in the world say, we, we, we. You know, we benefit from that. You know, that old Taiwan there. And I'm using this just as an example. So it really kind of makes sense. I mean, somebody says, okay, look, we want this and you're not paying attention. What do I do, Derek, when I go and I can't? I'm telling you to leave me alone. You are accosting me. I'm in a parking lot. I have a gun. I don't want. I'm saying, back off, buddy. Give me your wallet. You can have my wallet. Or you're not. You're in my face. Or you're just threatening me. And I don't know exactly what you have in mind. What am I supposed to do? You see what I mean? that's when war kind of sometimes makes sense but there are other people i think derek who enjoy it a little too much also how about when little boys love to play soldier did you ever do that when you were a kid did you ever have those green little soldiers in a bag definitely definitely yeah no i do we definitely i think we do enjoy those things but i think also even as a little kid, right? When we enjoyed playing soldiers, we knew that was make-believe. But if I had, if I, I remember if I even, you know, hurt a dog or something, I never did. But if I, let's say, I hurt a dog or an animal or maybe a bug, I would get upset and sad. So instinctively, we understood that hurting things that are real is bad. Seems like as adults, we kind of forget at those things when we're much closer to humans than we are to animals. Well, it's funny you say that. You're right about that. And then I think when we were kids, we certainly absented ourselves from the reality of any kind of hurt and harm. I understand that. That's a different thing where we didn't really know. But I remember at the time thinking to myself, I had a G.I. Joe. I had a G.I. Joe with our rifles. And they go, this is great. I also had a cap gun. I loved guns, loved them. Now, I had no idea what guns did. I don't know. I think it was part about being a boy or, excuse me, being a human boy. And look at our counterparts, Derek. Did you have a sister? Your sister was like, oh, there she is playing house again, playing mother, playing teacher, instructional. You know, there was a study when they gave blocks to little boys and the boys piled the blocks up to make almost like a building or something to see how high can you do it. And little girls would take the blocks and spread them out like making a house, inclusive. Wow. Now, maybe, maybe the part of us that makes us who we are are testosterone, because after all, you know, when people are roided up, they become violent. Maybe we're just screwed up. And it comes down to this. Maybe we're just mutants. Maybe we're a vile, like that strain of chicken or chick that we start killing each other. I don't know. But, Derek, I enjoyed speaking with you immensely, sir. Please call again. I appreciate you. Thank you. All right, sir. Our number is 800-848-9222. 800-848-9222. More coming up on The Other Side of Midnight with Lionel. The Other Side of Midnight with Lionel on the Red Apple Podcast Network. Welcome to Paris Pizzeria. Your blind date is already at the table, and there she is. Cousin Brenda, what are you doing here? You're married anyway. Substitution brought to you by Patty Power. cousin Brenda makes way for Beth, the office crush. Oh, get in! You might not always pick the right starter, but your sub can still deliver. 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We're talking about, if you just tuned in, not one side or another, But what about the inherent human atavistic evolutionary aspects of why we are so, dare I say, I say that a lot, don't I? Dare I say bellicose. Ed in Evansville. You're on the other side of midnight with Lionel. Hey, Lionel. How are you, sir? I'm good. Thank you. I was just recanting with a friend today about Woodstock and how a friend of mine, he went to Woodstock and he woke up on a Sunday morning to Jimi Hendrix screeching. But I was telling Yuri about this one song. He didn't do it at Woodstock. It's called Third Stone from the Sun. And it was about how a chicken, excuse me, an extraterrestrial came down to Earth and explained that he had to destroy the planet because the humans, the humans did not. He thought that the chicken was the most intellectual thing on the planet. And he wanted to get, I can't, you know, they don't understand us. So we're just going to destroy your planet. So it was kind of comical, but it's like the 60s and war, you know. and, you know, it doesn't make sense. And it didn't make sense then. And I don't know. It doesn't make sense now, you know? Well, I mean, sometimes things at first don't make sense because you don't understand. Yeah. I mean, have you ever, like one time it was so funny, when I was a kid and I saw Old Yeller. I can't remember this. And my parents took me to these damn Disney movies, which were horrible. And they had that, remember Old Yeller? and they said, come on, poor. And the dog was like, you know, the foaming, the hydrophobia. And the dog, no, poor, no. And I told my father, I said, they're not going to shoot the dog, are they? He said, well, I said, why don't they call the vet? And I said, there is no vet. What do you mean it's rabies, huh? And I said, no. And bang, I said, what the hell is going on here? This is like one of the, and my father said, you don't understand. I said, what do you mean I don't understand? Now, what if I told you the idea of, let me explain to you, amputation. Amputation, wait a minute, no, no, no. You lose an arm? Yeah. I lose your, I cut your arm off to save you. Or it's so injured. Now, that is a concept which is very difficult for people to understand. To save me? Yes. And then when somebody explains it to you, you say, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I dig it. Okay, maybe. So that's the realism part. And then there are other people who are just, you know, the people who are not able, like Luxembourg, the tiny countries, you know, they don't have war. They do just fine. They don't want anything anybody else has because they can't shoot anybody or have anywhere. Somehow they get along just fine. if you want them to become bellicose and pugnacious, give them a strong military and they'll be invading everything. Think about that. The countries that can't do, what was the last time you heard Peru ever going after anybody? Never. And it's not because they're good people. It's not because they're the same as we are, but they just don't. Switching gears. Arthur C. Clark, the movie, he wrote the book, but the movie, what was the movie? Damn. But the ape... 2001? 2001 Space Odyssey, thank you. When the historic human, humanoid, whatever he was, discovers that the bone could be used as a weapon. And it just starts, their little clan there started destroying the other ones. Did you ever see, please see, The Gods Must Be Crazy. Have you seen that one? one of the greatest I remember the time and thank you for this I remember the time I got this I said this is the worst movie until I said wait a minute wait a minute he throws the coke bottle out and it hits him on the head wow isn't that funny I got more out of that than well than a lot of stuff coming up I want to continue with this whether you like it or not thanks for listening to the other side of midnight If you like the podcast, share it with your friends and listen anytime at wabcradio.com and download the WABC Radio app. Hit that subscribe button on all major podcast platforms. Plus, follow WABC on social, on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and X. See you next time for a new episode so you never have to wonder. What the heck is going on here?