apply to the rest of us. And I think if a leader has some problem in the family and he's got a brother that's maybe in his ear that making that problem go away is worth something. Hey, hey, I'm your brother, give me some testing. I'm trying to run the state here but I'm your brother, give me some testing. Seriously, I'm trying to run the state but I'm your brother, give me some testing. All right just give him some testing. Just give him some testing. We'll be done with this. Now I'm going to go run the state.

Honestly I don't care about this at all. I realize it's part of the bigger story but I wouldn't care if Trump did it. I wouldn't care if a Democrat did it. Let him take care of their family. I'm okay with that. But I get the argument against it. It's not mysterious.

Let's talk about voter ID laws. You ready? All right, here's the meaty part of my show today. All right so something like half of the country is against voter ID laws. I don't know what the exact percentage is but it's usually half when we're talking about politics. But what's the argument? And I keep waiting to hear the argument in favor of not requiring ID to vote and I assumed that there was an argument but I just wasn't aware of it. So I did a little bit of research a little bit today and I'll tell you what I found.

So half of the country thinks that the republic would be better off if the people without IDs do get to vote. What's the argument for that? Have you ever heard it? Is the argument now it seems to me that the argument for having no voter IDs either has to be something that's good for the republic, you know good for the country, or it's good for the individuals who are doing the voting. Ideally it's good for both, right? That would be the win-win. But it's got to be good for at least one of those two groups or else why are we talking about it, right?

So is it good for the republic? Let's say would better decisions be made if we threw into the mix the population that does not have identification? Is there anybody arguing that it would be that we would pick a more qualified leader or that we would have better decisions or policies if the people who can't get identification or don't have it for whatever reason vote? If you throw them in the mix do you get better decisions? Because I've never heard anybody argue that and it seems counterintuitive, right?

So if it's not that what's the point? If you're not getting better decisions what's the point? Well here's another possibility. The other possibility is you don't want to disenfranchise American citizens. You don't want people to feel that they're not part of the system because then they won't be cooperative and beneficial and buying into the whole process. And I think we would all agree that if citizens buy into the system whether it's jury duty or voting or anything with the Constitution, the more you can get people to participate and buy in that's better. Do we all agree the more participation the better?

But here's the thing. Do these people who don't have identification, is voting in their top priorities? If you went to them and you didn't tell them that the topic was voting you just say look I'm a researcher and I want to ask this question. Write me a list of all the things you care about, your top priorities from top to bottom. I want to see a list and make a hundred of them. You know it might take you all day but I want a hundred priorities for you. And they probably start out with health and money and freedom from crime and get my kid an education and not have racism in my life and no gun violence maybe whatever. And after you got through the top hundred how low would you have to be? Now remember these are unprompted. These are people you just say tell me your problems. Don't answer a question about voting. Just tell me your problems. Where would this be? It would not be in the top hundred would it? Because it seems to me that the people who don't have ID, certainly the poverty is maybe almost certainly the top reason for that. But I don't think they care do they? Or let me put it this way rather than reading their minds let me say this. Is there any evidence that they care? Because I've never seen any.

So if it's not, if voting without ID is not beneficial to the republic, there's no argument that gives you better decisions, and it's not necessarily good for the people who don't have IDs because they don't probably care and I haven't seen the evidence that they do. You know if somebody did a survey of it that would be different I suppose.

Now so what's the point of it? So somebody pointed me to an ACLU argument. So now we don't have to wonder, right? So I was just guessing what's the point of it but now we're going to read the ACLU's argument why we should not have voter ID laws. You ready?

Now the ACLU argues in public so you got lawyers involved, right? Expert arguers, people who are good at making their points. So if the ACLU can't give me a good argument for this does it exist? Well let's find out if they have one. First so here's what one of their articles says. Number one, voter ID laws deprive many voters of their right to vote. It deprives them of the right to vote. That's the first statement they make. Is that true? What do you think of that? Does it deprive people of their right to vote? Well I'm no constitutional scholar but does the Constitution specify that your right to vote includes any way you want to do it? Does it? Is that in there somewhere? Because I'm no expert but does the Constitution say you have a right to vote and by the way any way you want to, no restrictions?

Now I would like to vote the following way. I would like to write my vote on a napkin then I'd like to wrap it around a brick and throw it through a window of Congress. Why can't I do that? Are you going to restrict my right to vote? That's the way I want to do it. Now some people want to do it without ID or maybe they don't have a choice because they don't have ID. But does the Constitution guarantee me a way to vote that I want to vote? Because I don't remember that language in the Constitution.

All right let's go on. Let's see what else ACLU says. It would reduce participation. True or false? True or false it would reduce participation? Yes. So that's a good point right? No it's not. It's not a point. It's a fact. A fact is not an argument, right? It's just a fact. You need an argument, a reason. A fact doesn't tell you anything. So if it reduces the number of people who vote or even if it doesn't it's still just a fact. It's not a reason. So far I haven't seen a reason that makes any sense. Have you?

Let's keep reading. I'm sure they're getting to the good stuff. Oh here we go. Here's the kill shot. I thought there were no good reasons but then the ACLU gets to the meat event. All right so the other ones were sort of weak but this one I think this takes it home. All right so here's the strong argument for why we don't want voter ID laws. Because it stands in direct opposition to our country's trend of including more Americans in the democratic process.

What? That's not a reason. Is there a reason that we can't stand in direct opposition to a trend? Was that in the Constitution? Oh hold on people, hold on. Oh stop what you're doing. Stop what you're doing right now. I feel that some of you are doing things. I don't know exactly what you're doing but I feel as if some of you are doing things that are in opposition to a trend. Well that's no good. Stop it. Don't be opposing a trend. What the hell kind of reason is that?

And if you think that I'm getting to the good reason next, that was it. That was the argument. It opposes a trend. That's not a reason. There's some implication that people have a constitutional right to vote in any way they want with no restrictions. I don't believe that's in the Constitution. And it reduces the number of participants. That's just a fact.

Do you know what else reduces the number of participants? Not letting let's say Russian citizens vote in our election. I don't think that's fair because if you don't let Russian citizens vote in your election are you reducing the participation? So these aren't even reasons.

And here's the persuasion lesson I'll put on top of this. Do you see how easily you can be fooled into thinking that there are reasons because there are words but there aren't any. There are literally no reasons. I'm not saying and I want to be careful here I'm not telling you that I've looked at the reasons and I disagree with them. There are literally no reasons offered. You get that right? They're not saying we disagree with you here's my reason. They're not offering any reasons. Why is that? Well obviously the reason is that the Democrats want to win elections but they can't say that out loud.

So here's my question. What do you think is a bigger problem for people who don't have identification? That they didn't get to vote in an election in which they don't understand any of the issues? Let me make a statement that I feel is fair to make. That the people who can't get it together to get identification in the United States, now it does cost something. It could cost you a couple hundred dollars. Gotta get your birth certificate etc. So poverty is a real reason not to have identification. That's real. But I don't feel like these people are adding a lot to the process. That's what I'm saying. And it has nothing to do with race. You know as soon as you think it's about race you're in a different conversation because I'm not in that conversation.

Now here's another reason I don't think it's specifically on the ACLU thing but that if you, there's a gigantic difference in what people have identification than that. So there did you know that 11% of US citizens don't have identification? Did you have any idea it was that high? 11% of US citizens don't have any identification. Did you know that? I didn't know that. I actually thought that the number who didn't have identification was trivial. I thought it'd be more like one percent, two percent tops. Ten percent or I'm sorry eleven percent but it's even worse than that if you go down to the racial component here because I think Black Americans are way less likely to have identification than white Americans. So what you would end up doing, oh here it is. Minority voters are disproportionately lacking ID. This is also from the ACLU site. Nationally up to 25% of African-Americans of voting age lack government-issued photo ID.

Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? 25% of Black Americans who are of voting age don't have photo ID? Did you have any idea that it was that high? I had no idea. Again I would have guessed two percent but 25. I'm off by you know 10 times. Somebody says they're called children. No specifically they're saying it's the number of people, the people who are of voting age. So specifically 25% of voting age. If you throw the children in there it's like 50 right?

So the first thing we have to realize is we've got a real big problem with identification. So which party is it who is saying let's fix this problem with no identification? Because how are these people with no identification going to function in society and move to the next level? What the hell can you do without identification? How do you get a reasonable job without identification?

So I would say that we should have a national movement to get everybody identified. And if it costs $200 to get identification it should be free. Why doesn't the government just, you know in fact here's something the Republicans should do. If Republicans are going to be on the side of you have to have ID to vote they need to put some money in it. Put some money in it and say look we're going to make it free to get your birth certificate so you can go through the process or we're going to take all the birth certificates and we're going to digitize them so that you can just ask the federal government for your ID and we'll just give it to you for free. Because I assume that the reason you pay for your birth certificate is a hospital does it or the state or somebody must incur some costs to do that. Take them away.

So I would say that the Republican argument without a plan to get people IDs is bankrupt. It's a bankrupt plan. So the Republicans if they're not trying to fix the problem of ID you can't give them any credit. No credit at all. And the Democrats if they don't have an argument for their side you can't give them any credit at all. So you have two sides of this argument neither of which are doing the minimum to serve the public in my opinion. Neither the Republican or the Democrat side is doing the minimum to serve the public on this question because both of them should be saying at the very least let's get everybody ID. Separately we can talk about needing ID to vote but why aren't we solving this problem? Why do we talk about this year after year? You know they should be free to get identification in this country because the government requires it. Let me put it another way. If the government is going to charge you to vote the government is broken. Right? You gotta fix that. Why are people being charged to vote indirectly because you would have to pay money to get ID and you need ID to vote?

So the argument is that the current situation if you don't have voter ID it would cause fewer Black people to vote. It would disenfranchise more of Black voters than other kinds of voters and therefore is racist. But here's the problem with that. It's a racist outcome. It's not necessarily racist by intention although clearly there are racists in the world who do have those intentions. But everything is racist by outcome isn't it? Can you think of any government anything that doesn't have a racial outcome that some group gets more or less than the percentage of them in the country? There's nothing like that. So to say that this is a problem because it gives you an uneven racial outcome that's not a reason because everything has that quality. Literally everything. There's nothing that's big that affects everybody that doesn't affect them disproportionately if only because of difference in economic situation. So it's not an argument. It's just a fact that root people would be disproportionately affected. And I don't agree with that. I don't think we, you know I would like to have more representative government but we're not really, we're not going at it in any kind of responsible way. The responsible way would be to get everybody some ID for free. That'd be the way to do it.

I saw an article in a publication called The Insider and I don't know what to trust here but I'm going to give you something they said and give me a fact check on this. It says the number of mass shootings in the U.S. this year has already reached 103 as of March 22nd. Do you believe that? Do you believe that there have been 103 mass shootings this year already? Now I suppose it depends what you call a mass shooting. I think it means if somebody opens up at a party and two people get killed or there's let's say a drive-by shooting in which two people get killed by the drive-by shooting. I don't know how many people have to die before it's mass. Is there a definition of that? What makes it mass? If it's two is that mass? Is it three, four or more? Somebody says it's greater than one but if anybody knows what that number is anyway I don't believe this at all and in order to believe it I'd have to see a lot more information on it.

Here's some shocking news. This is a set of Sky News. So there's a 2017 study that found that sperm levels among men in Western countries has dropped by more than 50% over the past four decades. And they examined 185 studies involving close to 45,000 healthy men. So remember they're all healthy. And somebody named Dr. Swan believes that at this rate men will be unable to produce viable sperm by 2045.

What do you think of that? So basically it's the end of civilization. Now of course there will always be some people who can. In China for example we could have Chinese babies so we could get sperm from China in 2045 because they'll have plenty of it but we won't have any. And then we could just, since the women will still be fully functional apparently, we can just get them impregnated with some of that sperm from China and there you go. So there's your future. China wins.

Now the first thing is is this study true? Do you believe that it's true that men's sperm levels have dropped? I think so. I would think so because I would also think the drop in testosterone is probably related or at least have the same cause. Am I going too far into the medical unknown where I should not even be talking and nobody here should believe anything I say about medicine or health? But no I don't know how if I should worry about this or not. Well I won't be here probably. By then I will have evolved into pure software so it's not going to be a problem for me.

Yeah I would say observationally this is one of the filters that you should use. If you see a scientific study that doesn't match your observation you should be skeptical. Now that doesn't mean your observations are reliable. That's why we do science. But if they don't match in a very obvious way you should ask some questions. But if you hear that people's, let's say men's testosterone level