Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio who discussed conformity among Democrats and corporations citing its detrimental effects on innovation in America.
Leahy: We are joined as we almost always are every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at this time. We welcome back our good friend Crom Carmichael, the original All-Star panelist. Welcome back, Crom Carmichael.
Carmichael: Hello, Michael. How are you, sir?
Leahy: I am great. I am looking forward to you and I having a bit of an adventure together. Today we are Mike and Crom’s great adventure. Mike and Crom’s great adventure. We are going to the Clock Store. Our friend Lenny McGill, who’s moved his headquarters from San Diego to Nashville. We’re going to go to his facilities and get a little training on how to use them.
Carmichael: Oh, we are going to get some training?
Leahy: We are going to get some training.
Carmichael: Oh my.
Leahy: Crom, I’ve never told you this but I told our audience earlier. Never in my life have I fired a gun.
Carmichael: Oh. Well…
Leahy: Never.
Carmichael: You won’t be able to say that tomorrow.
Leahy: Tomorrow I will not be able to say that. And this is the perfect time. I’ve always thought about it. But now is the time. I grew up in upstate New York.
Carmichael: That’s the next best thing.
Leahy: What’s that?
Carmichael: Shooting a gun.
Leahy: What?
Carmichael: Thinking about it.
Leahy: (Laughter) You got me again Crom. Crom comes in sharp.
Carmichael: That’s because I’m better rested than you.
Leahy: And I fall for your jokes every time Crom.
Carmichael: Well thank you. I appreciate that. My mother appreciates that.
Leahy: I heard your mom listens to the program too.
Carmichael: She’s 93. She used to get up in time to listen to the show. But now she sleeps in. (Leahy laughs)
Leahy: We’ll make sure that she gets the recording. Because she needs to track her young son.
Carmichael: Yes.
Leahy: You are going to give us a lesson on the dictionary today.
Carmichael: A word. A word that I don’t remember exactly which article I was reading or who I was reading but there is a word that describes the Democrat Party and the goal of the Democrat Party. And it’s extremely important to understand this in its entirety. And that word is conformity.
Leahy: Conformity.
Carmichael: Conformity. It wants everyone, everyone to conform to its world view. Everyone and in every way. So think about this for a second. If you are a teacher in a government-run school in a state where you are required to be in a union, you can’t do anything that the union does not allow you to do. So everyone who teaches in a union-dominated state teaches the same way. They conform or they have to quit.
Leahy: Conform or quit.
Carmichael: Conform or quit.
Leahy: Conform and submit.
Carmichael: And if you don’t then you can’t conform. I mean, you cannot conform if you’re not submissive.
Leahy: It’s interesting you bring that up, Crom because I was thinking along those lines a little bit, as I’ve reported on all of these stories about how the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that would be Joe Biden, the mainstream media and the Democratic Party and Big Tech has characterized the common sense of election reform laws being passed in Georgia under consideration in Texas and Arizona. The CEOs who are condemning this loss aren’t even reading the laws. They don’t know what’s in the law, but they’re calling it a racist Jim Crow two-point zero.
Carmichael: Because they must conform
Leahy: They must conform.
Carmichael: If they don’t conform, they will lose their jobs and the amount of money that they make. So the question is, and this is true. And let’s look at the history of conformity. The history of conformity and this is true in the private sector unions, private sector unions serve a purpose up to a point, and then their purpose becomes destructive because here’s what historically has happened in private-sector unions.
When times are good, they ask for more. When times are bad, they don’t ask for more, but they won’t take less. So when times are good again, they ask for more. And then when times are bad, they don’t ask for more. And eventually, that cycle ends up with bankruptcy. General Motors has gone bankrupt. I don’t know if Ford went bankrupt. Chrysler went bankrupt.
Leahy: Ford did not go bankrupt.
Carmichael: Ever?
Leahy: Ever.
Carmichael: Okay. Chrysler has gone bankrupt. General Motors has gone bankrupt. Virtually every steel company went bankrupt. Many of our airlines have gone bankrupt. They’ve reorganized. But when they reorganized, the unions are set back. But it’s not until the bankruptcy. So the shareholders are wiped out by unionization.
The Democrat Party in the House is the definition of conformity. If you don’t conform to what the Democrat Party wants in the House, then you are thrown out. Now you may lose the next election to a Republican. So the Democrats are doing everything they can to rig the election so that can happen so that they can maintain their conformity.
Leahy: It is a soul-crushing destruction of the American character.
Carmichael: And not only that, but it also will be the end of prosperity as we know it because non-conformity is part of the innovation process. The process of innovation requires that people who don’t conform intellectually are allowed to search for new ways of doing things.
Leahy: Most great advances in the industry, in every aspect of life, has come from the non-conformity.
Carmichael: Correct. Correct.
Leahy: Because they see the world, not as it is but as it could be. And they create possibilities. And some of them don’t work. But some of them do. And those that do transform our world dramatically.
Carmichael: And sometimes they see a problem that others don’t even see as a problem at the time because the way they do things falls into a routine (i.e. conformity). And people are used to doing things a certain way, and somebody comes up with a new and better way. 3M turned down the original idea of the Xerox machine because they believed at that time that carbon paper was sufficient. IBM turned down the original personal computer. Bill Gates shopped his company for a few million dollars and found no takers before the personal computer took off and Microsoft took off alongside it.
Leahy: Had he found a buyer, all of the innovations that came from Microsoft probably wouldn’t have happened.
Carmichael: Well, that’s conjecture, I don’t know. But Bill Gates would not be the multi-billionaire that he is. You’d think that IBM would have recognized the advance of the personal computer. But they didn’t because a personal computer also was contrary to its business model of selling system 34s and system 32s.
Leahy: By the way, when you and I were growing up in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, there was one dominant computing company, IBM.
Carmichael: Now there were others, but IBM was the dominant player. So this word conformity is very, very important for us to understand. Now, let’s look at what’s going on now with this Georgia law. Now, many of the executives who have denounced the Georgia law are members of Augusta National. They should resign.
Leahy: That’s what Marco Rubio suggested which was that Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of MLB baseball should do.
Carmichael: Is he a member?
Leahy: Yes.
Carmichael: He should resign. In fact, they should demand that he resigned every day. They should shame him. And they should shame the board of Augusta for not kicking them out publicly.
Leahy: Exactly. Kick him out.
Carmichael: Same thing I would imagine with the CEO of Coca-Cola. I would imagine that the CEO of Delta. Captains of industry are members of Augusta National. Now, Augusta National is ignoring the politics. But these people who won’t ignore the politics who cave to conformity, they should be kicked out. And freedom-loving people like you and me should be invited to join.
Leahy: By the way, a little interesting twist on all of this Crom.
Carmichael: You went right over that part where I’m trying to get in Augusta.
Leahy: Because you love golf.
Carmichael: Because I’m a freedom-loving person. Don’t just gloss over that. It’s my day in the sun. (Chuckles)
Leahy: Because you want to be in Augusta, I got it. To me, I don’t care about Augusta.
Carmichael: But I don’t want to exclude you. Forget what I said about Michael becoming a member. (Laughter)
Leahy: What’s that old Groucho Marx line? I would not want to be a member of any club that would let me join it.
Carmichael: That’s a good one.
Leahy:Â That’s my story on Augusta.
Listen to the second hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
