Welcome to the Knuckleheads of Liberty. Thank you, Jason. Glad to be here. Leon, glad to join you as well. Your intro was interesting because I'd like to think actually what we discuss has to do with the mainstream. We are the mainstream. People who are in the country believe in liberty and freedom. And that's me. I'm an attorney and for decades I practiced law, made a living, did what I'm supposed to do, represent my clients. And then more and more I paid attention to how intrusive judges were when it came to families. I did a lot of family law and they're micromanaging. And I paid more and more attention to how law enforcement approaches people with the idea that you can't do what you think is appropriate. You can only do what the law enforcement officer thinks is appropriate, even when there's no law that delineates with any specificity what you can and cannot do. It's one of the problems in our country. It occurred to me that somebody should do something about it. So I did a lot of research first. I just went online and looked, who is out there looking after the rights of individuals in the country? Well, the ACLU kind of used to. They still engage in activity, but one can question whether they are truly fulfilling their own mission. The Institute for Justice does fantastic work and is true to their word and their mission, which is to protect the constitutional rights of Americans. So I reached out to them, said, hey, how about parents? Let's do more and more for parents in America. And understandably, they believe that that would constitute what I've now learned is a phrase in the nonprofit world, mission creep, where your mission isn't well-defined and you're not holding to it. So they declined my offer to come join them and go into these arenas that I felt needed some attention. So nothing left to do but start our own organization. So it's the National Association of Parents, Inc. But we do business as ParentsUSA and our URL is ParentsUSA.org. We are a 501C3 organization. We've been in existence since 2013. And instead of talking about the rights of parents and freedoms and liberty and how awful it is when those rights are infringed, we decided we needed to go out and do the work, walk the walk. So as things progressed and people came to us for help or one of our earlier cases, I saw the mugshot of a mother who had been arrested in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware while on vacation with her two kids. And the headline read that mom arrested charged with child endangerment because she left her children at home alone. Well, the headline caught my attention and I wanted to know more. So I obtained a copy of the police report. Most of us probably know that whether it's freedom of information act or simply public access, we are entitled, the public is entitled to most of these documents. So I obtained from the Rehoboth Beach Police Department a copy of the police report. And it turns out it wasn't, she left them home alone. She and her kids were there on vacation. They had a rental unit at the beach. She went to get food to go from a restaurant and her nine year old took the dog out for a walk and a stranger became concerned and called the police and the police showed up and the police do what the police do. They arrested her and charged her with child endangerment under Delaware law. Now I compared the police report. So let's just assume everything the police officer wrote down is true. Were the other kids involved David besides the nine year old? She has a daughter, but the daughter was in the rental unit. And incidentally, part of the investigation I undertook before I contacted the mom and offered our pro bono. Most of your listeners probably know that means free. So to her, we weren't gonna charge her anything. But I looked at the Delaware statute and I also contacted a bicycle rental store on the boardwalk. It's again, it's a vacation resort with beach Delaware. It now has, this has been years ago. It's now in the news because our president resides there. But I contacted a bicycle rental shop and I said, Hey, I'm coming on vacation to row with beach. I have a nine year old. I'd like to go sit on the beach and read a book and let my nine year old ride a bike by himself. Is that allowed? And the gentleman running the bicycle rental store replied, of course, I'm looking out the window now. I see kids riding their bikes up and down the boardwalk and their parents are elsewhere. So I'm thinking, all right. So just the fact that the child's alone shouldn't have been caused either for concern or for the police to take action. I call the local public school, the elementary school. And I said, just question, do you have a bicycle rack out front? The answer was yes. I said, do kids ride their bike or walk to school? They go, yes. I said, did their parents ride bikes with them or follow them in their car or walk with them? And the school person was like laughing at me, going, no, the kids walk here all the time. In fact, we're not allowed under Delaware law to provide bus transportation if a student lives within one mile of our school. So I'm thinking it's not against the law to let have your child out and about on their own. Why in the world was this mom arrested? So I contacted her, offered our services, obtained local counsel, filed a piece of paper that is called an entry of appearance, merely the style or caption of the criminal case, state versus Susan Terillion. Anybody wants to Google her name, you'll find her mugshot. It was in USA Today's digital edition. And within two days of filing that paper that says she has legal representation, the state dismissed the charges.  That sounds that way. Low sarcasm, gee whiz, imagine police and government and prosecutors being bullies. One of the things that's come up over time, and this is applicable to parents and non-parents, it's applicable to the case I just mentioned, other cases involving parents, but it also applies to just about every other case in the criminal justice system. Clark Neely, outstanding attorneys with the Cato Institute, he has used the phrase plea coercion. Now, we all always hear about plea deals, right? Yes, yes. He calls it plea coercion. And it is more outrageous when applied to young defendants, criminal defendants of color who are poor, who are using public defenders and are charged, they're usually overcharged. The example I often use is it's shoplifting, but instead of charging shoplifting, which might be a fine and some small penalty, they're charged with armed robbery, because maybe they had a pocket knife in their pocket, never displayed it, but so they're charged with, anyway, so they're charged by the prosecution with armed robbery, they face 25 years to life. And then they're offered a plea deal of two years in jail, but you serve one and you're out in six months with good behavior and you pay a $500 fine. And if you're in a jurisdiction where you're concerned, you're the criminal defendant, you're concerned that even though you're innocent, you're not guilty of this outrageous overcharge, but you could get convicted. Are you really willing to take the risk of 25 years when you could get, pay a small fine, serve six or eight months in the county jail instead of the big house? So yeah, that's part of our criminal justice reform that we should be paying attention to, but it's just as applicable here and let me tell you why. And I know I'm running on, but parents are, some parents of course, and we hear about them in the news, are anything between contentious or terrorists, we don't know which they are, but most parents that we encounter and think about those you know, and if you're watching this at home or in your office, are you a parent who cowers and gets concerned if somebody accuses you of being a bad parent? Oh, you didn't give your child the right juice box, the right food, you didn't give them the right clothing for the weather today. Any criticism of a parent is often taken to heart.  They don't like being called a bad parent. They don't like thinking maybe they are and they second guess themselves. So one of the messages I hope our organization can get across to parents is they're your kids, do the best you can, don't hurt them, but you know them better than anybody, you know what they're capable of, you know how responsible or irresponsible they are, you know whether you can trust them or not trust them, you decide the level of freedom and responsibility that you give your children and ignore the voices from the in-laws, from the neighbors, from the friends, the coworkers who are trying to tell you how to raise your kids and when law enforcement and the government gets involved, feel free to politely, civilly say, look, they're my kids, I'm gonna do this because I think they're safe and that this is the right way to raise them and if they don't agree with you, email us at help at parentsUSA.org and we'll give you our thoughts on it and possibly participate in defending you. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness always and forever. Thank you for listening to the Knuckleheads of Liberty podcast. Find us on Facebook, Rumble, YouTube, your favorite podcast network and at knuckleheadsofliberty.com.


WOMEN FRIENDSHIFTS by Anna Cora-Mawet Richie. All the world gives ready credence to the possibility of friendship between man and man. Some people are even inclined to believe that the immutable attachment of restes and palades of Aeneas and Akhetes may be repeated among men in these inconstant modern times. But the devotion of woman to one of her own sex, the sincerity with which she clasped the hand or presses the lip of woman, the genuineness of her self-sacrifices daily made for a beloved sister, are the subjects of vast amount of skepticism. Philosophic writers, poets, wits, have openly declared their disbelief in existence of the strange phenomenon of woman friendships. Even Diana Mullick, who has written so many lines of woman which bear the imprints of truth and wisdom, who has solved so many of the enigmas inseparable from woman's nature, gravely shakes her head when she touches upon female friendships, and calls up such doubting host of ifs and buts to usher in the possibility of perfect love between women that we inevitably draw the inference that she sides with the unbelievers. On the other hand, Shakespeare, that intellectual miracle, as he has been called, whose seer-like vision pierced deeper than the eyes of grosser mortals, Shakespeare, whose magic plummet sounded the unreached, uncomprehended depths of the human soul, reveals the hearts of women united by adamantine links, instanced the clean fondness of Helena and Hermia in Midsummer Night's Dream. We Hermia, like two artificial gods, have with our needles created both one flower, both on one sampler sitting on one cushion, both warbling of one song, both in one key, as if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds had been incorporate, so we grew together, like to a double-cherry seeming-parted, but yet a unison in partition, two lovely berries molded on one stem, so with two seeming bodies but one heart, two of the first, like coats in heraldry, due but to one and crowned in one crest. We have another illustration of woman friendship in its consummate beauty portrayed in the passionate, protecting love of Beatrice for Hero, in much ado about nothing, and in As You Like It, a still stronger picture in the self- renouncing, absolute devotion for Roslyn of the gentle Celia, who startles her wrathful father with the declaration. If she be a traitor, why so am I? We have slept together, rose at an instant, learned, played, eat together, and where so ere we went, like Juno's swans, still we went coupled and unseparable. When the implacable duke banishes Roslyn, Celia replies, Pronounce that sentence, then, on me, my liege, I cannot live out of her company, Shakespeare against the world, for who knew the world won half so well? Not only are we impressed by the conviction that his glowing portraitures of woman friendship are life-drawn, not only have we perfect faith in the possibility of a thoroughly unselfish all-absorbing attachment between two women, but we entertain the belief that there are certain female minds, so constituted that a tender friendship with one of the same sex is positively indispensable to happiness. Such nature's experience and irresistible impulse to confide in one who, enlightened by her own yearnings and failings, can understand feminine wants and frailties, who can look upon feminine insufficiencies not from a strong manly, but a weak womanly point of view. A woman may be the most irreproachable wives to the best of husbands, and yet feel void in her affections, a chamber in her large heart unfulfilled, something needful lacking, if there be no Cecilia into whose ear she can pour the history of her joys and sorrows, to whom she can turn for advice, and lenient judgment, and comprehending sympathy. There are trivial domestic difficulties, petty annoyances, perplexing positions which no woman of tact will trouble and bewilder her husband by relating to him. If he is a man of decided intellect, he will not attach any importance to these small crosses, will not even understand these minor miseries, and the wife is thrown back upon her own resources, vexed and disheartened by her failing attempt to enlist his aid or sympathy. If he is a man of limited mental powers, he will be more annoyed than she, and will only increase her vexation without disentangling a single thread of the fine web of dilemmas into which she is snared. But to a sympathetic female companion, a woman may enter into all the details of these insignificant trials, and, clasping a friend's hand, she may search for and discover the clue that can guide her out of her domestic labyrinth. The higher love, the love for man, neither absorbs nor forbids the lower, the friendship for woman. They are distinct emotional capacities, which may be co-existent in one heart. They are evidences of a rich spiritual organization. If they dwell together in pristine purity, one affection strengthens rather than weakens the other, who can deny that two women, through a mysterious affinity, may become and recognize each other as sisters in heart? Who can doubt that there is a bond of sisterhood between their spirits, as real and as strong as the tie of blood between sisters? And if this is true, must not that internal kinship outlive even the deceivering stroke of death, and proclaim them true sisters in the great hereafter? But in this lower sphere, what name can we give to their attachment, but that of woman friendship? End of Woman Friendships by Anna Coral-Mawet Ritchie Read by Kelly S. Taylor


horse with a speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty high old silver, the Lone Ranger. Faithful Indian companion, Tonto, the masked rider of the planes fought crime and criminal throughout the early western United States. No one could match his courage, his strength, or the quickness of his draw. But it was his resourcefulness and daring that made him the greatest champion of justice the frontier ever knew. Return with us now to those thrilling days when the West was young, from out of the past on the thundering hoof beats to the great horse Silver, the Lone Ranger rides again. Two young men, concealed from the main buildings of the Circle K Ranch by a deserted bunkhouse, fought toe to toe. Desperation and bitter hatred could be seen in their faces. Each was badly marked. Each was close to the borderline of exhaustion, but neither would quit. Finally, the younger the two, thrown off his balance by a blow that missed its target, clutched at his opponents and both went tumbling to the ground. A quick move when the holster of the younger was empty. The elder on one knee aimed at the boy with his own weapon. My gun! My gun! I'm going to finish you now, Mort.  I've hated you for as long as I can remember. You've all stood in my way. Now it's your finish. Your finish, Blaster. Murder and skunk. Take it off my hand. Who did that? You've got that gun before I grab it again. Close the door. Oh, don't go too fast. Now let's give him... More isn't hurt. Watch out for him. He's dirty. Come on, your feet, Mort. Let me go. You should be a horse wet. You're right, you fellas. Come from... Now don't I watch the whole thing from behind those trees? As long as it remained a fair fight, we didn't intend to win the fair. When Mort tried to turn it into murder, it was time to take a hand. He'd have killed me all right. He's always wanted to. And someday I will. Someday I'll fix her for good. There it'll be by sneaking up behind my back. There you go. Stay low. Let go, I tell you. Let go. Let me get my hands on it. You'll do nothing. Watch out. It can spawn more. What's going on back here? Bill, Mort, you better fight me again.  Get him on the ground. Come on, Silver. Come on. Hey, wait. What are they doing here? They took Bill aside when he tried to shoot me. What? Look there on the ground. I reckon you know Bill's gun when you see it. He was going to drill me. That's a dog-gone lie.  Quiet!  Let me get some warm water. Sarah, that can wait. But these four boys... There's something more important to settle first. Bill, I reckon it's just about finishing things. Oh, but don't interrupt when I'm talking. I had hoped she'd straighten up. Try to be big enough to forget being jealous of Mort. There you've proved you won't. Of course, you are my real son, and Mort's just adopted.  We tried never to favor one over the other. You wouldn't have it that way. You acted like you wanted to drive Mort clean off the place. That ain't so. So from now on, you ain't no son. You ain't no son of mine at all. You could back up and get. Jed, no. You don't know what you're doing. Don't meddle, Sarah. I never picked a fight. It was Mort. I was never jealous of him a day in my life. It was always him that's been jealous of me. He's been scared that because he's adopted, he won't get his full share in the rain. Silence! I won't keep still. Mort's scheming to done this. I've never liked him, but I've never been afraid to say so, neither.  No, you know that ain't true, Bill. Sharks, I never had nothing against you. There's nothing I'd rather have done than been friends with you. Friends? Well, before they got here, you was telling me how you'd always hated me. Friends, when you jumped me back here without warning, would have drilled me if the masked man hadn't. Drill? Well, is that your gun? Yeah, Pa. You was wearing it. Now, wait a minute. Just answer me. I don't want no alibis. You're always wearing it. Then that settles it. Get your duds and go. Very well. Yeah, it's Bill you're saying this to. It's our boy. Judge, you can't do... Come on, Sarah. There's nothing more needs to be said. So you got your way at last. You made the scheming work. You heard what your pa said. Pack and get. I'm going. I'm going so far I'll never hear the circle K again. But the country ain't so big that maybe someday our trails won't cross. And when they do, Mort, watch out. Bill Graves packed a few necessities he chose to take with him. Saddle his favorite horse and set out on the trail. He had traveled only a few miles, however, when... Hello, Bill. What? Oh, it's a masked man again. Oh, boy, whoa, whoa. Contando. Oh, what do you feel? When we rode away, Bill, we didn't ride out of view. And it was pretty obvious what was happening. Your father blamed you for that fight, didn't he? It ain't the half of it. He told me to get out besides. Yes. So, well, I'm getting. I see. Where do you plan to go? I don't know. Don't matter much up north, maybe my own. Somewhere's up that way.  Huh? Don't go where your parents can't get in touch with you again. I figured a right more occasional, but you know, Paul's done with me. I reckon he won't care much where I go. Bill, I think I understand the situation better than you do. You see, Tonneau and I have been in this section for some time. We've heard the talk. Well, there's been talking of. Yes, but the people hereabouts are on your side. Not many of them have much use for Mort. They've had him sized up for quite a while. Funny, Paul couldn't see what was playing to everybody else then. It's natural that he wouldn't. Mort always took care to be on his good behavior in the presence of your folks. Don't make the mistake of condemning your father for his mistake. But he never did care for me. It was always Mort he listened to whenever we had an argument. It was always Mort's side of the story he believed. Anything I said, he just passed over. Which had proved to you before anything else that your father thought more of you. How do you figure that? Your father's an honest man. Is the reputation of being as impartially fair in all his dealings as it's possible to be. Well, then why did he go?  Never has. I know. Because in his effort to be fair to Mort, he went too far the other way and didn't realize it. He treated you just as a judge might. If his own son appeared before him as a party in a lawsuit. If he were honorable, the judge would be especially severe with his son. Just to prove he wasn't playing favorites. I mean that you should stay in the district. Sooner or later, your father will learn the truth about Mort. And when he does, he'll need you. Gosh, I never thought of it quite like that before. Then it's time you did. Seems funny. You will mask man lecturing me like this. Forget my mask. Will you take my advice? Stranger? I will because this is the straightest talk I've heard and quite some spell. Good. But I'd have done it anyhow.  Now where do you plan to go? To the cross jay down the trail of peace and get me a job. When Mort finds I'm still around, he ain't gonna like it. And that'll suit me just fine. Adios. Ah, adios. Get up, get up there.  Hmm, good color. And he'll get justice fellow before we leave this district. Ah. Come on, Silver. Get him upstairs. Silver, how are you? On the evening of the following day, just outside the Circle K ranch house, it looks like they're just about finished.  You want them to see you through the window? They can't see out. He's just the same. I don't want Judd to guess I was primed. Uh-huh. I think Judd's calling to share. He's making motions like it. I don't know what he likely means. They've got to have witnesses. Rizos, get over by the porch.  That you, Mort? Yeah. You find out what I sent. I've seen the whole thing. If Judd dies, a hosher bang is hers to use. But she's got to keep it in trust for you. Then after her, they outfit yours. Bill won't mention it? Cut off clean. Yeah. If Judd dies, come on, Rizos. We're going where we can't be heard. Next morning. Ah. That was a mighty fine breakfast, sir. There's a man good to start off the day with some solid grub under his belt. Where's Mort? He up yet? Mort up yet, sir? Sarah? Well? Did you hear me? I heard you. I heard you. What's up with that kid? I'm watching. Well, if you heard me, why didn't you answer? I reckon you know how I feel. Oh, now look, honey, Mort. You figured you could get that lawyer fell out here last night and me not know why? Judd, you changed your will. And don't try to tell me different. I did. You left Bill out of it. I did. You fixed it so as everything and go to Mort. I did. I did, I did, I did. You're talking just like a parrot. Judd, how can you stand there and admit you done such a thing to your own son and never have the grace to blush for it? We won't discuss it. No, you won't discuss it because you know full well you're in the wrong. Ah. Oh, Judd. Judd, you're as blind as a newborn calf. You're just like me.  You're going to carry on like this or I'll have to tell you never to mention Bill's name in this house. When Mort gets up, tell him I warned him just as soon as he's had his breakfast. Judd, wait. Judd, you don't know what you're doing. That judge just went out. He was. Sit down, eat.  When you're finished, Judd wants you. Yeah? What for? To help him fix the windmill, I suppose. And you heard him say last night there was some work to be done on it. Oh, yeah. I forgot. Wants coffee? Mm-hmm. Hold out your cup. Sure. That'll be enough, thanks. What's up? Well, I don't know. Men are all running for the windmill. All right. I can't see. It's a judge. Something's happened to Judd. What happened, ladies? Judd! Judd! He's just laying there. He's mighty bad. I'll let him prove. Stand back. Don't come too close. Somebody do something. What happened? What happened? Ma'am, I don't really know. Dusty there, seen it. Judd was near the top of the windmill and all of a sudden he fell. One of the wrongs must have been lose. No, I am. Oh, oh, Judd. Judd! First act of our Lone Ranger drama. Before the next exciting scenes, please permit us to pause for just a few moments.