
The Most Sacred Right (2020)
Throughline
The American Dream - A Liberal and Brotherly Welcome
In the middle of this speech, he makes a vigorous case for Chinese immigration. And here I hold that a liberal and brotherly welcome to all who are likely to come to the United States is the only wise policy which this nation can adopt. Do you ask if I favor such immigration, I answer, I would. They're the biggest civilization in the world. Would you have them naturalized and have them invested with all the rights of American citizenship? I would. It's so hopeful. You read it. God, it sounds like a multiculturalism manifesto from some school district in 1998 or it sounds like the mission and diversity statement of a university or a company today.
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Speaker 2
It should be bike laughs because at least you can like I think I was first. I know it was swim
Speaker 1
first. Then I think it was a bike and then run. I think. Yeah. So I went I saw him the day after he did it and he's like I have a story for you. I'm like what's up? So the whole night before he couldn't sleep, he's just freaking out thinking about it. You know, he wants to get this and it's starting to rain. So he's got to get to cancel it. No, by the way, they do it in like a full rain, windstorm in New York. So he's like, we get there and he's like right before it starts. He goes, I got to take a shit. And he's like, I and there's porta potties and there's long ass lines and I was like, Oh, this is fucking devastating. So he's like, I wait like however, how long on the line he's like, I get in and he's like, now I realize he has a wet suit on for the swim and then under it, a dry suit for the other stuff. So he's like, I'm trying to take both of these suits off without it touching anything in the porta potty. He was just describing this to me. There was sweat dripping from my armpits where I was like, this is my worst. And he's like, by the way, there's a line of however many people waiting outside of it. The wind is like thrashing this thing around and the rain is just hitting it. He's like, it was the worst experience. So now he's like, I finally figured it out. I shit. He's like, I start wiping and he goes, it was one of those shits where the more I wiped, the more was there. The exact nerves. I don't know what it was, but he said it was like the war and then people start like banging on the thing. They're like, come on, like we all got to use that. And he's like, it was the worst experience. And then my dad goes, uh, so he goes, it's like the more you wipe, the more was there, my dad goes, yeah, it's like wiping a brown crayon, right? Like that was like my dad, my dad was like, it's trying to like clean off a brown crayon. And we're all sitting around. I went to go visit my family, obviously in New York. And this was our first thing. I'm like, this sounds
Speaker 9
torture.
Speaker 1
I can't imagine of things to happen to me. If you put me stuck in Myanmar or having to shit at a fucking a porta potty
Speaker 4
in the rain with 40 people outside in a double.
Speaker 2
Before you're about to do an
Speaker 1
Ironman. In the cult, I can't even. How do you do in the race? Imagine. He did good. He finished you, whatever. I don't know. Like he didn't, he wasn't like, oh, I got seven years. Like whatever. Wow, he got to throw a dig out there. He didn't place. That's fucked up. I'm
Speaker 4
proud of you. I'm proud of my brother. Damn.
Speaker 2
I
Speaker 3
wasn't saying it to like, yeah, what a waste of your
Speaker 1
time. That's fucked up. I cannot believe like when I, I didn't need to hear any like, I was like, no, I was like, did
Speaker 2
this make the iron? I actually want you to stop saying it because it's making me so upset. Dude, could
Speaker 1
you stop talking about it? Imagine it. Not. Had me shout out to Qatar. I was rattled. rattled. I was fully rattled. And he's like, yeah, I knew you'd love that. I'm like, dude, you're a legend way to go. That was more impressive to me than the full Iron Man. Of course. Taking that shit. Double suited. Getting through that. What a legend. All right.
Speaker 4
We got the.
Speaker 1
He's a hero. He's a hero.
Speaker 2
If you could spy on someone for the next month without them ever knowing, would you?
Speaker 9
Who and have you ever?
Speaker 2
I would love to watch like my kids at school. Okay. I just want to know, I just like want to watch them like out in the world. Does that make sense? Yeah, of course. Yeah, I would, I would be, I would love it.
Speaker 1
I've pulled up to pick up your kids from school with you and you love to like peek through the fence, make local cookies over there. You know, one time we saw Jack like slam his hand into the wall and you were like, oh, no, he's having
Speaker 2
a heart. Oh, yeah. Quick, quick break. I just don't rob earlier. Jack in a fit of rage the other day punched his iPad and shattered the screen.
Speaker 1
And for everyone out there, he is how old? Five. Yeah. Boys, if you could spy on somebody for like a month or a week or whatever, if they would never know, would you do it? No one wants to jump at this one. Man, a lot of silence.
Speaker 3
I don't know who I would want to spy on.
Speaker 2
I feel like they have some kind of secret operation and they're all feeling awkward because they don't want to tell us about it. Do you guys hear a camera on the bathroom? Are you guys spies? Are you watching me go pee pee before the
Speaker 3
episodes? Yeah. What'd you say? I said I'd spy on
Speaker 8
you. I want to see
Speaker 1
you. Yeah. You were so strange. After about 20 minutes, you'd be like, okay,
Speaker 3
I'm done. It's the most boring. You're like,
Speaker 9
he's still
Speaker 1
meditating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the most
Speaker 6
boring. He's
Speaker 2
still mixing his dressing in that bowl. You guys, Rob made a homemade dressing in my house and Carter and I swear to God kept looking at each other like, he's still whisking that thing. You walked around my kitchen island for like 10 minutes. Just doing this.
Speaker 1
Chad knows that word. What? Hell yeah, I'm also fine,
Speaker 4
dude.
Speaker 1
What so any are we are we spying on anybody if we could and they wouldn't know? I feel like the answer is yes, but you're trying to figure out what you should say. No,
Speaker 3
I don't, I mean, no, I don't know. I think if I wanted to spy on you, I'm probably watching you already. But you wouldn't want to know what your girl's up to and you're not around. I know what she's up to. You're thinking. I know what she's up to. He's
Speaker 9
a tech guy. Mm
Speaker 4
hmm. Yeah, you have her on like, find my friends on your phone. You know where she's at all the time? Are you that dude? I got what I got. I just don't know when my people are. You know what I'm saying? That's the case. Is that why everything is encrypted? Damn. Okay. Wow. Respect.
Speaker 1
Respect. Location is on. Huh? Chad, we spy on anybody?
Speaker 8
Um, I'm not much of a voyeur, but I think I would be strategic about it. It'd probably be like, I need to get some info that's going to help me with my future. You know, something financial.
Speaker 2
So I have to. That's called insider trading. Exactly.
Speaker 1
Actually, I never thought about that. Yeah, right? Like we should fucking spy up on like Apple or like, you know, the meetings when we know that they're about to like release some shit.
Speaker 6
Let's make some money.
Speaker 4
I like that. Let's do
Speaker 6
it. Damn.
Speaker 2
That's because he is a smart guy. We're the new oceans 11 this crew right here. I told you he
Speaker 6
was a smart one. I
Speaker 2
like it.
Speaker 4
Wouldn't that be a good little film? Why are you asking Chad? Now you
Speaker 2
know, Chad's got the answer. Oh, I've never doubted Chad. You
Speaker 6
just checked out a Chad earlier. When
Speaker 2
have I ever doubted Chad?
Speaker 6
Chad, did she not doubt you
Speaker 2
earlier? I was just saying, well, I didn't doubt he had the answer. I was like, why are you singling him out? Chad. Nah,
Speaker 8
she was like, why would this nerd know about me and more? Me and Mar? What does he know? It's pretty much exactly what she said.
Speaker 9
Chad, you couldn't be more wrong about
Speaker 1
my feelings about you. I don't know. I think Chad's always right here. Let's
Speaker 4
get another one out of
Speaker 9
there.
Speaker 2
What is the last thing you lost? Do you misplace these a lot? Sunglasses. All the fucking time I lose all of my sunglasses. Really? I don't know how. I really feel like I'm responsible. I have no idea, but they're
Speaker 1
always, always gone. See, and any had asked previously what's good about me having OCD in a relationship, a girl never has to worry about me losing shit. I never lose fucking any. Every single one of my pants have zipper pockets. The Amy Lee knows because I refuse to lose. You like that attitude, any? Refuse to lose, baby.
Speaker 6
Hashtag. Hashtag refuse to lose. But I love
Speaker 3
it. It's played. Until we play it, but I love
Speaker 1
it. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm like, we're on the same team and he wants to go against me. I'm
Speaker 3
saying we don't lose. I know I hate people on my team. That's what I'm trying to
Speaker 4
say. I'm saying in
Speaker 6
life, we don't lose. We refuse to lose. Even independently, you refuse to lose. I refuse to lose. That's true. It's
Speaker 3
just when two people like that meet though. Yeah.
Speaker 6
It's going to be
Speaker 1
a loser. But I will, I fucking never lose. Anything? And now, you know, that whole thing, I'm like, no, you're going to lose something which sucks. I don't want to lose something. But, yeah, I just don't, I mean, like, you know, the corny shit like socks. I actually, when I was in New York, I left my laptop charger at my dad's and I was like blown away that I was like, wow, I can't believe I did. Did you bring it? Luckily, New York has 24 hour Apple store. I went right there. By the way, you want to go
Speaker 3
to a fucking tough place? Oh, yeah. Go to an Apple store at midnight. It was
Speaker 1
like 1130 on a Sunday. What's happening there? It is just, it's like a train station. Like, you're just like, Jesus Christ, there's so many people and half the people are there because they're like tourists and they want to take pictures inside of them. Like, look, I was at an Apple store which is a
Speaker 6
fucking loser move.
Speaker 2
At midnight?
Speaker 4
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm
Speaker 1
like, what are these people doing? It's like the new Times Square. It's like an exhibit in New York City where all these people are
Speaker 4
like Instagram taking photos and stuff. And I'm like, it's a store.
Speaker 6
Like they sell shit.
Speaker 1
So weird. Dude, people piss me off. And then of course the person's like, oh, it's going to be like this kind of weight in this. I'm like, I need, I need that thing. Like, and they're like, okay. Like kind of like,
Speaker 4
dude, don't even fucking even get me started. I, okay.
Speaker 1
So here's the thing that I came across and I want to know what everybody in here would do. I was watching a thing about somebody who was kidnapped. Somebody who's kidnapped.
Speaker 6
They thought that they saw the person
Speaker 1
who kidnapped her and her in the Denny's
Speaker 4
somewhere.
Speaker 1
So right away, like the people in the Denny's like, fuck, what do we do? So what my, my question is like, what
Speaker 4
the fuck do you do? Like if they're talking about somebody who's kidnapped, you're sitting at a Denny's and you're
Speaker 1
like, hey, that looks like the girl. But she's like with a guy who just appears to
Speaker 4
be like her dad. Like how do you approach the situation? Like you can't go up to them
Speaker 2
and be like, Hey, I think you were kidding. I would try to get her to make eye contact with me. I'd be like, are
Speaker 10
you okay?
Speaker 4
But then she's like daddy. That person is
Speaker 3
like being really weird.
Speaker 2
I mean, then I'll back off, but I'll try. Guys, what do you do?
Speaker 1
You call the fucking police. What I'm saying, let's say, okay, the police take time. Like you've heard these situations where it's like, please take fucking a long time to get somewhere. Let's say four minutes in, they're getting up and they're leaving or whatever. Like what's, what's your mind? I'm seeing.
Speaker 9
Yeah,
Speaker 8
follow it. Follow it.
Speaker 2
Follow it. Make, make an excuse. Can you help me with something?
Speaker 1
Oh, that's, that's good. I like the excuse. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm making a dating profile. You can take some pictures of me. Can
Speaker 2
you just. Can you just give me your opinion on my dating profile? I just need to strangers. It
Speaker 4
says have a friend, right? Something, but I don't have any friends. Can you just write something like really? How would
Speaker 1
you describe me?
Speaker 3
Don't I seem nice?
Speaker 1
For my five best qualities. Because I think it's like a tough, it's just a tough situation where obviously because like, you know, the first thought is like, okay, you, you start alerting authorities, but then you tell like a waitress, you know what I mean? Like you tell a waitress like, hey, doesn't this look like a blah, blah, blah, blah. But man, that's
Speaker 2
a hard. It's a round like real danger or like real. I've told you about the guy. I told you guys about. No, I told you about the girl that was getting in the hotel room next to me, right? I told that story on here. Yeah, but like, we being in a situation around where you feel like there's real danger or real like. Kind of justice. What's the word I'm looking for? Where something like serious is going on. Serious.
Speaker 6
Is that where you're going? I'm sorry.
Speaker 3
No, none of us in here remember that story. I don't know if you've said that
Speaker 1
on the show. Maybe you told it on on pajama pants. Okay.
Speaker 2
Well, really briefly, I was in a hotel room in Miami and.
Speaker 9
Well, hold
Speaker 1
on really briefly. It's like one of the greatest stories. It's an incredible story. You like save somebody's life. Maybe don't just gloss over it. But the
Speaker 2
point of me telling it is that you have this quick moment. Where you know you have a choice. And neither is necessarily right or wrong. Like you don't have to be the hero, but you're you're it's like this quick second where like your brain computes like you can do this or this like and those are your choices. And so in this moment, there was a girl. It was late at night. I was in a hotel with my mom in Miami. It was around midnight and I was awoken to hearing like a struggle in the room next to me and a girl scream. I heard a bottle break. And then I heard her running like screaming to try to get him away. And my instinct was to open my door and go to that room next door. I was literally in like my underwear. And when I opened the door, her hand was trying to get out of the door and he was trying to close it on her. And there were grown men standing in this hallway just staring like not like frozen, like not again, not there or wrong, but like scary. And I just like put all my little weight on the door and shoved it in. And I think it might have scared him back. And I grabbed her and I brought her into my room and closed the door. She was like covered in blood. She had broken a champagne bottle over his head and I guess he was bleeding on her. And in that moment, we called downstairs because I said to her, what is he wearing? What does he look like? And I remember she saying, you know, striped shirt, his name is James and I just broke a bottle over his head. And I called down to the lobby and I said, there's a man in a striped shirt with a cut in his head. He probably has blood. He just tried to. I was like, what happened? She's like, he tried to read me. And like then I was there at the hotel for two days being questioned and they got him. The guy had like 12 passports on him. He was a yeah, he was wanted for identity theft and all this kind of shit. But if there's this in the point of this is that like again, they're in that moment, like you really feel like you have a choice. I feel like I would always choose the. I got to do something.
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. You're a yeah, you're a hero. I can't believe you didn't. I thought I told that story. You didn't tell it on here. But you told on Pajon pants for sure. Maybe. Yeah. Jamie Lee is a hero guy. You didn't know.
Speaker 2
They call me the Miami hero. Yeah, they call her the night. She put that on my profile, my dating profile. Yeah, she
Speaker 3
saved a girl's life
Speaker 1
one. Don't even think about it, James. That's what you should say. She takes her cape off to come in here. Guys, yeah, she just.
Speaker 2
Yeah, no, but we
Speaker 1
haven't done a who knows less about Sopranos in a very long time. Do we have. Stuff from time immorials still. Yes.
Speaker 3
All right. What do Meadow and Hunter ask Christopher for? What do Meadow and Hunter ask Christopher for to help with studying?
Speaker 2
Oh, crystal meth.
Speaker 1
Oh, damn, I was going to say Adderall.
Speaker 2
I don't think Adderall existed then.
Speaker 1
Jesus, you were asking for crystal meth. Right.
Speaker 3
Jamie, you got it right? Yep. Crystal meth. Crystal meth.
Speaker 6
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Wow, you went from a fucking hero to a zero real quick on this pod.
Speaker 2
You fucking asking people for a meth. Crystal meth was to keep us to help us stay up late to study. Jesus Christ, did
Speaker 6
he get it for you? Yes. We took it. There's a whole scene where. You don't take crystal meth. Do you smoke it, right? They never showed
Speaker 2
us doing it.
Speaker 6
But you were doing meth on Sopranos.
Speaker 2
There's a whole scene where we're singing in a choir. She's always sweating. And I tell Tony that I did it a couple of times.
Speaker 6
Holy shit. Yeah.
Speaker 9
Meadow wasn't like,
Speaker 2
you know,
Speaker 1
a press. So when you find out, OK, I have to be on crystal meth in this scene. What kind of do you do research to be like? What does it like to be on crystal
Speaker 2
meth? No, I remember whoever was directing the episode might have been John Patterson. I remember whoever was the director explaining to me, like, what, like telling me what to do, like, like to be fidgeting my fingers a lot. They put like a ton of sweat on me, like making me feel like uncomfortable in my skin. But I had to sing like I just sang like a solo in my choir as I was like on meth, essentially.
Speaker 7
Wow.
Speaker 6
I didn't know. You should watch a show.
Speaker 1
No, that's right.
Born into slavery in the early 1800s, Frederick Douglass would live to see the Civil War, Emancipation, Black men getting the right to vote, and the beginning of the terrors and humiliations of Jim Crow. And through all of that, he kept coming back to one thing, a sacred right he believed was at the heart of American democracy: Voting. Next week is the midterm election. So this week, we're bringing you an episode we originally published right before the 2020 election. And we're tackling a question that still feels very timely — a question that both haunted and drove Frederick Douglass his entire life. Is our democracy set up to include everyone? And if not... can it ever be?
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