Live from Music Row Friday 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.
Leahy: We are joined in studio now by the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael. Crom, good morning.
Carmichael: Michael, good morning, sir.
Leahy: Crom, I’ve been thinking about this question I want to ask you, what really is Joe Biden up to?
Carmichael: Well we need to go back to first principles. And our Declaration of Independence describes it as well as it can be described. And that is and that is that under God, God’s goal is for us to be treated equally. Now that doesn’t mean the result is equal. I thought of Robert Woodson when Tucker Carlson asked him what does Biden mean by the word equity. What does Susan Rice mean now by the word equity?
Where all of the government will now put equity first. And Robert Woodson says that equity, the way they are thinking about it is everybody sitting at the poker table and they all end up with the same number of chips regardless of the cards. That’s equity. And of course, then there’s no poker game. It’s just the result.
It’s where all sporting events end in a tie. That’s equity. Now it eliminates competition. It eliminates the effort to do better. And if you look at the world for the 1000 years prior to 1750ish the amount that economic prosperity increased for the average person for each of the 100 of that 1000 years was imperceptible.
Leahy: From say 750 AD to 1750 was imperceptible.
Carmichael: No, for every 100 years.
Leahy: Okay. So from 750 to 850 that period? You couldn’t tell the difference.
Carmichael: Couldn’t tell the difference. Now over a 500 year period could you tell the difference?
Leahy: Not very much.
Carmichael: They were still riding horses. Everything was still four-legged. All of the power above a human was still four-legged. And so advances in life expectancy in much of anything we’re imperceptible. Now think about that. If you back to just the beginning of this century the changes in 20 years are incredible. But it didn’t happen back then and it wasn’t possible.
Now is that because human nature was any different? Was that because human intelligence all of a sudden around 1750 became greater than it was before then? The answer is no. The first time the United States had a government that in our Constitution said that the people who had an idea, now that was novel had a period of time where they had the exclusive right to commercialize and exploit…
Leahy: Patents and copyrights.
Carmichael: Patents and copyrights. Now and is that equity while allowing somebody to come up with an idea and then exploit it exclusively?
Leahy: That is not equity.
Carmichael: That is not equity.
Leahy: That’s the exact opposite of equity.
Carmichael: That is the opposite of the way Democrats think of equity. And so let’s look at other countries. In fact, let’s look at our own. The Democrats when they ran the South they promoted and enforced slavery by law. They promoted it by law. The northern states did not. The Republican states did not. The southern states which were controlled by Democrats, and I say that because it hasn’t changed. Look at what Biden is doing right now. He wants to force all Black and Hispanic children who can’t afford a private school to go to a lousy school. He doesn’t want charter schools.
Leahy: A lousy public school. And by the way, if they live in Chicago right now…
Carmichael: And many other cities. But Chicago is one of the many.
Leahy: The worst. The teachers are refusing to go teach the kids. They’re doing interpretive dance videos instead. (Chuckles)
Carmichael: Right. And then you also have teachers in other areas who refused to go back to teach for their safety who are now being found to have either traveled or they went to protests. And so you’re finding hypocrites. Why is it that the government-run school union teachers feel so strongly? What’s the main reason they feel so strongly about not going back to school? What enables them to do that? They still get paid.
Leahy: Yes. Regardless of performance.
Carmichael: If they don’t do what they are told to do by their employer, they still get paid full pay and full benefits. And that is an example of unequal treatment compared to the private sector that got shut down by COVID. And 10s of 1000s of business owners lost their businesses through no fault of their own.
Leahy: The government shut them down and did not give them an opportunity to make a living.
Carmichael: Right. Well, no they did not give an opportunity, they took it away.
Leahy: They took it away. Stole it from them.
Carmichael: Yeah, stole it from them.
Leahy: Stole an election and stole their business.
Carmichael: And the government employees didn’t take any hit.
Leahy: Not at all.
Carmichael: And many businesses actually benefited by the shutdown.
Leahy: Big grocery chains. Walmart.
Carmichael: So if Biden truly believes in equity then he would take the $100 billion that Jeff Bezos, which his net worth went to in the last year, he would take it from Jeff Bezos and he would give it to the people who were harmed the most. But he won’t do that because most of the people who were harmed the most were White.
And this is how Democrats think. Democrats not only want to hurt their political enemies but they also want to suppress their political allies if suppressing their political allies benefits them. And that’s where I get into Black and Hispanic children. Democrats have a plan that they have been executing flawlessly to keep Black and Hispanic children uneducated.
And they do it on purpose. And so for all of those people out there who claim that that it is Republicans who are the White supremacists, I argue that’s not the case because you can look at the facts. Now you get into the minimum wage. Which group of people is hurt most by a $15 an hour minimum wage?
Leahy: Teenage kids looking for their first job.
Carmichael: Yeah, and especially Black and Hispanic teenagers looking for their first job because they’re the ones who have not received an education. And so they’re the ones who need to need to learn something from an employer who will train them. Who will help them become a better and more valuable person in society from an economic standpoint.
Leahy: When you get that first job, whatever your first wage is you are not worth it really because you don’t have the skill set. You develop those skill sets and then as you are able in the free market to be worth more you get paid more.
Carmichael: Well to the extent there’s training necessary and you’re exactly right. Because the business hires somebody and while they’re in their training period they’re obviously not producing. They’re not producing any value to the company, but they are learning what the company’s systems are and how they operate. Then they immediately become valuable.
Leahy: Exactly.
Carmichael: Everybody talks about the fast-food industry. In the fast-food industry, you get your first job that’s going to be at or slightly above minimum wage and if it’s in some markets, it’s actually gonna be $12 to $15 already because labor markets are tight and the cost of living is high. But then once you’ve been in that job for six to nine months you generally advance to another position.
And soon within the next couple or three years, you have a chance to become an assistant manager. Well assistant managers in the fast-food business, they’re making $35,000 to $55,000 a year. And if you become a manager you’re making $75,000 to $100,000 a year.
Leahy: You can support a family as you move up the chain.
Carmichael: And a two-income family of two assistant managers certainly can afford to support a family, but you can’t become the assistant manager unless you got that first job. I remember my very first job out of college.
Leahy: I got to hear this. What was your first job out of college?
Carmichael: I went to work for what was then First American Bank. And my starting job was as a bank teller.
Leahy: You were a teller?
Carmichael: I was a teller at the First American Bank in Green Hills. And it was kind of funny because the teller in training sitting immediately to my right was a drop-dead attractive young lady.
Leahy: Were you distracted, Crom?
Carmichael: No, it wasn’t so much that because once you get to know somebody you’re not intimidated anymore. (Leahy laughs) But the number of men who would line up to get their checks cashed and I would look at them because they’d be 5 to 10 deep.
Leahy: And you would have nobody in your line.
Carmicheal: I would say can I help you? And they would look away from me.
Leahy: And they would say, I’m not coming to you, Crom.
Carmicheal: And they would say I’m going to stay right there in line. (Laughter)
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.
Photo “Joe Biden” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
