From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. Our colleague Can nol Is on an adventure today. They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul. Mission Controlled decands. Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. We've got a special two part episode today, folks, if everything works out, and as always, knock on wood if we do not finally get black bagged for all of the things we have explored over the past few years. Matt spears like Britay spears or you know, really I was now he is listening back to the putent episode that we just did recently, and folks, you may have noticed my voice sounded a little bit like it was accompanied by a snare drum effect. That was a tech That was a tech misstep on my end, which the one and only Mission Control was able to save. So if you like that episode, thank him specifically for making it uh less unlistenable. Well, Paul does that for every episode for all of us. The amount of popped pas that occur in this microphone. I'm so sorry, Paul. Yeah, there's also what you're hearing or not our real voices. It's you're hearing something run through a filter to remove our um incredibly thick British and Scottish accents. Yes, and the demonic, the weird demonic tones that come out every once in a while. That's not fault. It's just how we are made, guys and props. Our videographer and uh YouTube mastermind, James, he goes through in every clip you see, and he he photo shops in these human looking eyes, the pupil in the SCLAA rotoscoping at the highest levels. See how he's tracking them right now. Pretty crazy. And so with that, with those thanks and uh a few behind the scenes secrets, we want to thank you again for joining us in an episode that we we've always wanted to do. We've done some things about this around this in the past, um, but what what we're gonna do today is explore some of the original celebrities of the United States, the original heroes and the villains of the country in which we record today's show. Who are we talking about? We're talking about the founding Fathers. Yes to Capital F's double fs for those guys. Matt, what do you think of when you hear the phrase founding fathers? I think about the ten dollar founding father without a father, got a lot farther by working a lot harder, being a self starter, being a lot smarter. By fourteen, they placed him in charge of a trading charter. I don't know, for some reason, that's what happens in my head when I think about that every day. Right, Yes, uh, we're we're alluding, of course the Hamilton's, you know. Um. As a kid, I I naturally always thought of Benjamin Franklin because there aren't a bunch of there. There aren't a ton of Benjamin's in a lot of office right, or in a lot of history books. So so I always I thought about that guy, had a fascination with him entirely based on the name. And you and I found in an earlier exploration that he was once suspected of being a serial killer. So well, yeah, or at least after the fact. It was an odd thing, right, it was kind of people discover heard that there were bones in this in the basement area of this one house where he lived at one point. Weird stuff. And if you want to know why we're being careful with how they how we phrase that, that's because we have an episode you should check out if you haven't yet. Was Benjamin Franklin a serial killer? Not gonna spoil it for you here, but he was. This was only one weird story about the Founding Fathers of the United States. So let's let's kick off part one of this episode by answering the basic questions. We can't assume that everybody automatically thinks of Ben Franklin or Alexander Hamilton when they hear that phrase. We have a lot of listeners who are not in the US, so, uh so, here are the facts, Matt, The Founding Fathers what who? Yeah, they're not just all older white men with white fake wigs, uh standing around, though some of them did look that way when they around. It's really the Founding Fathers is just a term for the group of people that were instrumental informing what became the United States of America, the country, the the documents that would really just guide what this country would become, the United States, the one in which Ben and Nolan, Paul and I live, and you know, it's it is it really there are the people who formed the current United States government. Really, it's just an evolution from the thing that the seed that they planted. And you know, a lot of historians are going to differ if you look to the writing and the research that's occurred since the seventeen hundreds, Um, on the they're gonna they're going to differ on the specifics about some of these people. And you really have to think about it this way. You've got all these documents, right, the Declaration of Independence, the document that declared that the United States was going to be a new thing and separate it from from England. Right, Are all of those people who signed that document a founding father or a founding person? In this case, it is the founding fathers because they were all male. Um, and that's something we can address. But that's the fact of the matter. And um, you know that that's that's one set of people. And then it's a fairly small number of human beings that actually signed that document, fairly, but then there are a lot of people who are actually there at the sev seven Constitutional Convention because those people were also extremely instrumental in shaping like how you actually put into action the words that are on these documents. Are they all founding fathers? Is it yeah, Is it like fifty something people or is it more like seven or eight because the lists can vary, you know, And we also have to point out that this this cause inceptor this group term was generated after after the actions that led to the revolution in the formation of the country. So if we wanted to go like m c U style or Superhero movie style or even Ocean's eleven style, let's call it a heist. In many ways, it was a heist if you ask the people who lived here before the Europeans came. Uh. But here's here's what we think of, and we think of that as like an ensemble cast, then we're really looking at less than ten people, maybe seven or eight people who are sort of the core avengers of this uh, this weird universe were building their folks like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton's of course, Matt I will not let him not get the shout out, John J. Thomas, Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington. These are the people that were in the room when it happened for a half yes, and and they each play as individuals UH tremendous role in various aspects of this country's history. But there are other people that sometimes get added to the group, like Paul Revere, one of several people who warned that the British were coming in a midnight ride, or people like George Mason, responsible for the Bill of Rights. UH played a heavy role in the creation of the Constitution, and then I believe refused to sign it. Well, and think of the countless number of humans that fought in the Revolutionary War who are all fighting for the same thing, ostensibly or essentially um the independence of this thing that would become the United States of America. I mean, are are they founding fathers like any general or anyone above what would be just considered a soldier or even a soldier. But what about what about the what about the non dudes who were instrumental and founding the country? You know, and you know it is it's nice to be able to think about it with seven or eight people, like you said, like the ensemble Marvel version of the Founding Fathers, because you especially if you're in class. You only have to memorize facts about you know, a few individuals, but you know, as an ensemble cast, this really is it's way, It's way more people who would be considered founding fathers, unless you're I guess we're just looking at the intellectual fathers, which I really don't like this terminology. The intellectual I don't know, creators the George Lucas is I guess so they're Yeah, they're they're the ideators are the people who had revolutionary thought and put it into action and came from came often from place. Is a privilege such that they could enact those ideals and pursue those ambitions. But what did they do well? In short, A lot, a lot of stuff like tons of Uh, that would be the short answer. They did not always get along to say the least. Uh. There is a notable duel that most Americans are are aware about now because it plays a big role in a musical that that Paul and Matt and I love. Uh. I don't know, Paul, do you do you like Hamilton's? Oh so? Paul, Paul Michigan trol Deck had just just told us he has, in fact, never seen nor heard Hamilton's. Paul, I would love to travel up to your neck of the woods when this pandemic is over and go see the show with you and Matt. I don't think a bit it in your schedule. Would you be down to do that, to actually see it like in person? Yeah, you guys, you can get a trial of Disney Plus I think, and watch it right now if you want to. And it's great and it's the original cast, yeah, and they and they do great work with the cameras and the cinematography as well, so it's not just a stationary camera in a mid mid tier seat or something. By the way, in Paul in New York, you can be a new man. Just so you know, you can be a new man. You can understand why none of these references are making any sense to Paul, you know what I mean. So Paul just told us even if he doesn't get it, he can tell it's something from Hamilton's, which gives Hamilton's the mark of a classic according to some literally literary critics. Uh, but you know, Paul is currently kind of in the eye of a hurricane culturally with Hamilton's. You know, there's quiet for a moment, but this this is true. These folks did a lot of stuff. They did not get along. As a very diplomatic way to put it, they did not always grow up a d percent. They had some beef points, and despite their at times profound differences in opinions or motivations, they created the basis for the US. They also created the institutions that were meant to propel this nation forward. But if we're being realistic, what they were really trying to do was their level best to stop it from collapsing. Because you know, like you said, matt Uh, there's a benefit of retrospect that we have looking back on these folks, and they had a benefit of retrospect looking back on other folks, specifically empires that fell, and they were like, okay, this is what we we need to avoid. And they also had some real hutsba about this because we have to remember the grand experiments they embarked upon, which continues today, had never been tried and quite this way before. You know, it's like the first person who put potato chips in a sandwich. Do we dare disturb the universe? But a little? They're like, you know, we got a good sandwich going on here, but really we need a crunch. Wait a second, and then America was formed in America was formed? But how like That's the thing though, history is a conversation, it's not a series of discrete events occurring in a vacuum. So these folks, regardless of how you feel, I mean, I would say, regardless of whether you live in the US, their actions affect you today in profound ways. The Constitution and the institutions they created survived in heavily amended forms. Uh. You see their faces on money. That's how you know you made it, man, when you when your faces on the money. Yeah, m you don't have to be a queen, you could be a founding father. Sorry, I'm just thinking about. Is the queen still on the pound? Is that still a thing? I haven't seen an actual physical pound in quite a while. Yes, yes, that is correct, Matt. The queen is on the definitely on the British coin, on the one pound British coin. Well. Also they have there's an interesting law across the pond about this because upon the death of the current queen, her picture will be removed from the currency. Really, and then the king, the king goes on there just or if that's what actually happens. If there's a successful, you know, peaceful transfer power which is never given, then whomever becomes the monarch gets their face on the money at least maybe. I mean, things can change pretty quickly. The current queen has been the current queen for quite a long time. Uh, but that's monarchies are going to play a big part in today's episode. Uh. For many years, the founding fathers were somewhat deified, right, And you, if you are of a certain age, you remember the history books with these fantastic paintings of these uh bewigged, bestockinged men who were you know, like bolitely and studiously agree to something that everybody thought was a great idea and everybody was happy about. That remains true to a degree today, and it's unfair to the actual people not to mention the students learning this. Modern historians are a little bit more accurate about the problematic nature of some of these founders and also those um somewhat airbrushed stories. We hear many parts of them are true, but they were off to not the story entire So today that is what we were tackling. You see, fellow conspiracy realist, these uh, founding fathers had a ton of acknowledged successes, but they also had a ton of secrets. Some yeah, yeah, some are more well known than others, and some of the truest ones are the strangest ones and the ones that you should bother you the most. So we're gonna pause for a moment for word from our sponsor, and then we'll dive in. Here's where it gets crazy. So we're talking about the secrets of the founding fathers, the acknowledged and unacknowledged things that kind of sully the pristine reputations that many of us, including Ben and myself, grew up with when we we read about or talked about the founding fathers of the United States. And the first one it should be pretty obvious to everyone here, and that is slavery. Yeah, And really all you have to think about are the words that were in the Declaration of Independence, the words that were in the Constitution, and then how do you square all of that? Knowing that chattel slavery was very much a thing when the United States was founded, and it continued on for a long time afterwards. There's not a good analog for this, because this is the enslavement of human beings by the people who said that human beings should be free. So just a one piece a snapshot of the hypocrisy there is. Imagine that you have passed it's like any it's it's like any vice law. Imagine you have passed a law where you say, okay, no one in the Kingdom of Polandia or in the decond republic, uh hand drink, drink booze or I don't know, do queludes or something. And and while they're while while the rulers of Poland are making this law, they're off their gills on booze and pills, and they're still making these laws. There's the hypocrisy. Is hypocrisy doesn't even describe how profoundly messed up this is. To be fair, not all founding fathers owned slaves. One founding father, notably George Washington, owned slaves and later went on to manument or free some of these, again human beings. But other people like James Madison owned slaves. Didn't really seem soups conflicted about it. They because they when they said all men are created equal is misleading to not point out that, ever, load those folks in that room where it happened. Did not think of all human beings as human beings, So to them, this is more of a livestock situation. You know, we're we're talking about a lot of the other stuff, but the yeah, not all human beings are created equal based on their skin as well as based on their gender, and that is another major thing that you know, just has to be addressed. It does say all men in there, oh yeah, and and it doesn't. It doesn't. I can't go back and talk to James Madison or any of these other people and say, well, did you met all human beings or because it really does feel like the way the laws are being set up where you have to be a male and own property and some of these things that it feels like you're being specific as hell here writing. Take take a page from Putin right at like any former Russian president whoever might be, and you know we're talking about these founding fathers. There's one that you've probably heard a lot about with with reference to how he treated his slaves in very specific ways. Mr Thomas Jefferson, Yes, Thomas Jefferson, I've got ah, I've got a quotation you might enjoy here. Uh, people loved his peers. A lot of them love Thomas Jefferson. He definitely had some fans, he definitely had some enemies, obviously. But there's a quote from John Quincy Adams in his diary in Seive, he writes, spent the evening with Mr. Jefferson, whom I love to be with. You can never be an hour in this man's company without something of the marvelous Abigail Adams also described Jefferson as one of the choice ones of the earth. He was wealthy, it was well educated. Uh, he was a tremendous hypocrite because you see, he had a long standing intimate relationship with one Sally Hemmings, who was at the time enslaved on his estate. And if you have listened to any work on ethics or the nature of informed consent, you know that consent is impossible in that situation. Uh. For a long time, the Jefferson a state and some other interested parties fought against this story. Instead, it was just a rumor or besmirching the character of a man who was so tremendously influential in this country's early history until the advent of DNA testing, at which point there was a very much. There was very much a you are the father moment with the descendants of Hemmings and Jefferson. So he wrote prolifically about a lot of noble ideas, a lot of vaunt like, lofty, beautiful things. Snoy didn't write about Matt He didn't write about, uh, the mother of several of his children. Ah. Yeah, when Sally, Sally Hammings didn't make it into a lot of that and to a lot of the ink there. You know, it's really unfortunate. We just to continuous slavery for a moment. We have spoken in the past about large civilizations and any time there are um significant movements and and increases in like let's say, a city and an expansion of you know, an empire or something, slavery very often over the course of history has played a crucial role in doing those things because there there are very few individuals who are the intellectuals pushing forward on what should happen. But then you need lots and lots and lots of manpower to do extremely difficult grueling a lot of times fatal work. And you know, this is the case of the forming of the United States and the expansion you know westward, as well as just the expansion in general of cities and places to hold enough people as as the United States grew. And it is really like, it's it's messed up to think about that, to think that if you you know, it's very difficult to pay everybody a great wage and to you know, keep everybody happy while you're you're doing the kind of things that they were doing. And it's a really troubling thing to think about. And my five year old son is is here. I bought my son these Mini A and W root beers because he tried I had one a while ago. I hate to put a brand out there, but I tried one a little while ago and he wanted to take a step and he thought it was the best thing. Yeah, So now he's brought he's bringing in a Mini A and W root Beer. So hey, if you guys want to give us a sponsorship and W root beer many many cans. Uh, They're delicious. It's made with aged vanilla and no caffeine. I gotta be honest with you, you know, whenever I get a whatever, I run into root beer in the wild. From now on, I am going to give it to your kid. Because I can't abide root beer. Man, it's too many, too many things going on. Oh yeah, yeah, man, that's it's crazy. That's a that's a very I don't really understand root beer. I don't understand a lot of things. But but yeah, if you're a fan of that. What is okay? What is root beer? U? Root beer is? Oh? What? I just lost the word for it? What it actually is? Um? What's the what's the actual route that's in there? Paul Sasaparilla. Sasaparilla was Sassafras. I think it's Sasaparilla. And that's a type like an early version of root beer, and then it became something else and it's been made since the colonial era. Yes, yes, again, I know we've got a lot of root beer fans in the audience. It fits with the Today's show because it is very much a North American drink. Um. But maybe I'm just yeah, it just doesn't click with me. I mean, but there are a lot of things I just don't get. It can't be everything, can't be for everyone. Right now, that makes sense, I understand, which is what Jefferson must have thought segue when he lay awake at night wondering about his rank hypocrisy. Right, yeah, I'm sure it just gave him nightmares. Well, here's the thing is interesting, apartment. So Sally Hemmings worked as made in the Jefferson household for two and a half years in Paris, and when she was in Paris, France, that meant she was free. So while she was free, the story goes, she negotiated with Jefferson and said, not only will I return with you to Monticello, but I will return to enslavement in exchange for extraordinary privileges as they were called for herself and freedom for her children unborn children. And so decades later Jefferson did free all of Hemming's children. Is it because he didn't do that for any other family unit of people he enslaved? Yeah? No, I agree. I'm saying that that is one act that could be considered good. And so there we go. I mean, I know it's a little depressing, but yes, yes, slavery. A lot of Founding fathers were totally into it because to your point, Matt, it was seen as an economic necessity, right, no matter how else they dressed it up. And now we're gonna pause for a word from our sponsor, who I don't think is Illumination Global Unlimited, but you never know. And then we'll be back to explore something that we've we touched on a little bit in the past. It's something that was probably on all of our minds as soon as we saw the title of this episode. And we're back. Okay, everyone. If you live in the United States or many other parts of the world, you may have been driving around in your local town, maybe early on when you started driving, or when you really started noticing things out the window as a kid, and you probably saw a couple of buildings, maybe one building in your small town wherever you live, that had kind of a strange symbol on it. You're not really sure what it is. It's definitely a symbol though, and there's not a lot of words on it except for this one, and it's mason or freemason or freemasonry. And maybe that led you down a curious path for the rest of your life trying to figure out what that was and what it is and what kind of control it has over you and the surrounding world. And then you realized one day, I'm speaking about myself and all of this. By the way, you realize, oh wait, does this have anything to do with the founding of this country of the United States of America. Well, I love this set up. Well I'm really going on a long walk here, but yes, yes it does because many of the founding fathers that we've been speaking about this this whole episode were in fact Freemasons or or members of the Free and accepted Mason's or what some version of the Scottish Right or some other sect within Mason. Yeah, Benjamin Franklin, uh, shout shout out to you, Bennie f James Monroe, George Washington, uh, many more. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is just these are facts. Long time listeners or anybody who enjoys our YouTube page, you may recall the time that Matt and I traveled to d C to check out some of the theories or the claims for ourselves, and we found that there were there were a lot of things that at least had the germ of truth, right, Like, if a conspiracy theory is a pearl, then there is a grain of sand that this pearl grew around. So one of the weirdest examples would probably be the Washington Monument. I think that. I hope you didn't get tired of me saying it when we're up there, Matt. But one of the things that kept blowing my mind, it's like, who goes immediately to an obelisk? They're like, what do you what do you think of? You know, their pitching ideas and they're like, what do you think of when you think of George Washington? And then there's like silence in the room. Yeah, it's just it just keeps going. Somebody raises their heads like that, like you have a question, and they're like, no, no, I'm doing this, build this. Yeah, yeah, we'll be learned when we made that video is that the obelisk was not the first thing they thought about when they were going to create that monument. They were going for a bit of a pantheon situation early uh, with all of the founding fathers essentially enshrined in stone together in this one thing that they were going to call the Washington Monument. It was a bit of an odd idea. It could have been cool. It's kind of reminiscent if you've ever seen the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, d c. If it's reminiscent of that. When you imagine a single founding father like Lincoln in stone just there as you know, an embodiment of that character really not so much of the man, but the character from history of of one of these founding fathers, and you just imagine that in a big circle like giant stone versions of the Founding Fathers in a big circle out in the middle of the of the National Mall. There. That's what it could have been. But it was not. It was an obelisk instead. Yeah, due to budgetary constraints, mainly, which is, you know, something that's common in the government. But it looks, it looks neat, it's clearly Greco Roman inspired. It's it said. We should emphasize that the original design still did have an obelisk, So whomever was in that room pitching these designs was definitely like they were obelisk oriented to begin with. But the other stuff we saw did prove that the ideals and values of Masonry would have been common knowledge to the founders of this country. This stuff has proven. It only really verges into conspiracy when explore the degree to which people claim Masonic membership may have, may or may not have influenced the formation of the United States, and the truth is probably best put this way. Did individual freemason's play a role in the revolution and the creation of the States, Absolutely clearly, But Masonry as an institution was not some vast secret society. To go with the superhero comparison, It's not as if uh Ben Franklin and George Washington were shaking hands and leaning in and going, hey, you know what I mean. But they could have been doing secret handshakes. Oh, they were definitely. Yeah. No, the handshakes are like one of the funnest parts. You can't skip the handshakes. But what doesn't that just knowing that, doesn't that feel a little weird? Yeah? Maybe I'm maybe I'm blind, Maybe I've got a blind spot here. No, No, I don't don't you know what I'm I I completely understand what you're saying then, and you're correct. It's just at the same time, I, I don't know. It gives me this weird feeling knowing knowing that a lot of the people who decided to go in this very divergent route from the way history was going from, you know, breaking out from their place. I'm doing quotations here in the world and having this revolution this revolutionary set of ideas and ideals like this group of people were also a part of this club that has you know, it puts forward a lot of values that feel similar. I would just say, yeah, that's the thing though, That's what makes this so tantalizing, right, it's it's got that, it's got that, mommy. And also, look at the French Revolution. It's it's a little it's a little over simplistic to say that the French Revolution was entirely the result of Freemasonry. But there were Freemasons who, again as individuals, were active and and profoundly influencing society. You know. So this is the thing. The founding fathers were not Masonic cabal by any means. Thomas Jefferson not a freemason. Alexander Hamilton's not a freemason. Would have made it into the musical, I'm sure not A Yes, there it is, that's the one. It's probably on the Hamilton's mixtape. But but but when we think about this, so one thing that we've been really grateful for is a show, is that we have had a lot of our fellow listeners right into us who are active members of a lodge or were Masons for some time, and the feedback we got to that one question, which is like, what do you what do you have to do to get kicked out? It was actually it was very reasonable. And and this the reason I'm saying this is that we have to understand back in this time and era, uh Masonry was maybe the ideals, the goals of Masonry were things that the Founding Fathers would have already been down with, you know. And some of the people who are described as Founding fathers are influential actors in the Revolution. Some of those who are described as being Mason's also that's a little misleading because several of them did not go on to join Freemasonry until well after the revolution, so they weren't part of some conspiracy. But that's that's the thing. Okay. So Masonry holds values that Founding fathers themselves already were super down with self determination, should the right for groups of people to peaceably assemble, freedom of the press, and of course the controversial would freedom of religion, believe what you want. These are all incredibly radical ideas. They are anathema to the governing structures of continental Europe. You could say that monarchies were anti Masonic because the values of Masonry threatened their own very real, pre existing conspiracy, which is how to control people, keep yourself at the top, right, yeah, top down control versus control by the of the individual uh or control control of the group by the individuals within the group. Fascinating stuff when you really start to break down, I like exactly what that means to have a republic or a democratic republic versus a monarchy. But doesn't all that stuff sound like the Bill of Rights spent right right? Uh? Liberty, equality and so on. Yeah, yeah, they they have a lot in common, you know what I mean? And I is it do? At what point does inspiration become plagiarism? That's another question. But but I want to go into the concept here of monarchy seen as a conspiracy and why why monarchies were often in several countries in continental Europe against the propagation of the existence of Masonry. So monarchies did something incredibly clever, just objectively clever. They said, look, we have to convince a group of people that vastly outnumbers us that we are deserving of our privileged position. If we are the be all, end all authority, then of course someone else will eventually want to topple us and the last why so let's not be quite the top. Let's be kind of the middle management. Let's like, let's think of earth or our country as like a call center, right, Puss, And we're in charge of the call center. We're the boss of the earthly things. But we're only the boss because the real boss is God, and the real boss will get mad at you if you don't do what we say. So they did like this really clever middle management thing before that was really middle management, and uh, that's interesting to think about it that way. And then they you know, you have to It doesn't matter if you physically outnumber this privileged class, because what really matters is that when you die, no matter how you die, you will have to talk to the boss's boss, And if the boss's boss finds out you weren't good to your supervisor, then be in trouble forever. That's crazy. I thought it was very clever. No, it's extremely clever. No. I didn't mean to discount by using the C word there. I just, uh, it's a thought I haven't had before. Um using God as you know, whether you believe it or not, as the as the your boss as the boss that is God. That's fascinating. Well okay, okay, I'll go with you there. And I think that's really clever if that's really what it was for. And again, that's the way it feels, right looking back from forty feet the way we can now, Um, it feels as though a monarchy if even if it wasn't purposefully done in a conspiratorial way to convince the masses that there that you know, the monarchy's power was real and worth it and not worth fighting against because of God. Even if even if that wasn't a conspiracy to get you to believe that, they still really did use it effectively in that way? Didn't they any any and all monarchy's or you know, supreme leaders of any sort? Yeah, I mean, because like the closest modern evolutionary analog we would have to something like that would be an oligarchy or a technocracy. Right. But the thing with the monarch system, the system of monarchy, is that spiritual belief as a control mechanism doesn't really require the people profiting from that belief to believe in it themselves, you know. Um, that's not to say these folks exactly. I love your point because we're not saying that these folks were intentionally and cynically doing this. You know, um, if you are, if you were born into a system that teaches you that you're better than other people, and you're supposed to be better than other people, psychology proves you have a very high likelihood of just accepting that. It makes sense, you know what I mean. I always think about that Monopoly study, right, Remember that I do. I do remember that when you're winning, it feels like you you did all this stuff to win. You deserve it all because you're working really hard and you're doing great. And the more the more wealthy you are and better off you are, the more you feel like you deserve it. M yep. To our our earlier work on was we just phrased it as a very simple question, to be wealthy make you a horrible person or something that yes, the answer is it makes it easy to be a horrible person for sure. Just for background on that real quick. The experiment, which was conducted at you see, Berkeley, was a series of experiments uh involved having people play rigged games of monopoly. Monopoly is already a broken version of something called the landlord game, right, the Landlord's game, mind you. Uh so that's rent from everybody and you make all the money. Right, it's uh it's the original version of monopoly that had a third round that was all about teaching people the dangers of un of unrestrained capitalism, right, and so so when it was stolen from the lady who invented it, the business that propagated it just removed that last round. It's just right, exactly. Uh So Monopoly. Here's how the experiment went. It would have groups of people, random people who didn't really know each other, playing games of Monopoly together, and one randomly chosen player in a game would be given some advantages twice as much money to start out with more than two dice to roll with, more access to resources, so you get more bonus points for passing go and said two hundred dollars to get like four or five hundred or something. And the goal was to study how people behaved in these games. Here's what they found. They found that naturally, most people who got these uh these these cheat codes early on, they won, they won the game. It would be difficult for them to lose the game. And the weird part is when they asked these people after the game, they asked them, Hey, why do you think you won? Do you think it had anything to do with the way the game was rigged in your favor? They said, well, you know, maybe that had a little bit to do it. Maybe it had a little bit to do with it. But uh, turns out I'm an expert at Monopoly. I am just super super good at it, and I've played it before and this is just my experience, you know what I mean. The game is the game. I don't I don't make the rules part. It's just landed in my lap. It's not my fault. I mean, I just got there pretty easily, and I have the funds. Why don't Why don't these other people just not be poor at the beginning of the game. That's what I would have done. That's like, that's that's literally the reasoning. There's a very interesting study. I know we're getting off topic, but we're saying the same kind of psychology applies, and so if you are in a situation this is of course, Look, members of monarchies are not necessarily bad people. They're humans just like anybody else for the most part, and of course, they're going to be threatened by something any kind of organization that proposes to change the status quo. If the status quo is profitable for them, that just makes sense. So that's why, that's why Masonry was being intact. We have to remember that the idea of attacking groups that were a little more secular or addressed religion in spirituality in a different way. They were being intact, sure, because it was seen as sort of a heretical stance, but it was a heretical stance because it was threatening the economic benefit of the people who profited from that current concept of God. So yeah, it makes sense, Yeah it does. I'm trying to think of it on the individual level though, and it totally doesn't make sense what you're saying. Then, where there is there's a reason for the status quota fight back against something like freemasonry, But you know, on the religious side, I think the individual person is going to also fight back against it for that heretical stance or from that heretical stance, because it's different, right, And anytime you've got something that is different outside of the normal or what is considered to be normal, you're going to have some kind of initial reaction at least of aversion to it, because it's you know, that's not what we're supposed to do. I'm not supposed to do that. Well, why do you get to do that? And why why are you doing that? UM? I just think that's also very human and natural. UM. In in this case, when we're talking about freemasonry, in any secret society or any club private club for that matter, there is this thing that comes along with it, which is connection, which is socializing, which is having that secret handshake together that we're talking about, which is you know, even if we're just talking about congress or you know, people who are trying to form a congress or a new country or something, if you are able to go up to that person and have that secret handshake to let them know, oh, we have shared common values. We you know, know a lot of the same people. I can probably make another connection for you, or we can make these other connections, UM and get things done. Really, that's what it means. I can go directly to someone who was also probably wealthy and influential, just like you can, and we can together gather enough forces, enough people, enough intellectual and wealth power two to take action UM and That's why it feels like Freemasonry played a perhaps bigger part in the formation of the United States than it did even though it did play a part it did. Yeah, and I think that's very well put. Um. Also, I'm a little biased because I have I have some fairly strong opinions about the dangers of nepotism, um, which you know we talked about in previous episodes. But one thing you say that really caught my attention, Matt, is the idea of of society of communication. You know a lot of people love that, right. Uh, we have to remember that these folks existed in a time before social media. Your dank memes page is, in a way a lodge. You meet with people, You communicate in the language that you and your fellows have evolved and understand, and you have a common currency of what you consider to be good ideas, right or funny means. I guess Look, nobody go too deep into this comparison. I'm not saying. I'm not saying that the Founding fathers would have just sat around on meme pages if Facebook or read It was around at the time. But this gave them a place to hang out and chat. So it's they're not They're not completely that different. And then you know, are the values of masonry is their espoused? Are they bad? Is there anyone who's going to read something like that and say, well, I don't want I don't want people to assemble in groups peacefully. It should only be violent. Yeah, you're getting together. There's got involved to me. It's it's very into LinkedIn or something um where it really is about having that close connection to somebody in a completely different field, in an industry who was also maybe a captain of that industry that you you you essentially have at your disposal a bunch of levers of influence that you can pull just because of your association in that group. Um, which isn't necessarily how it's always used, but it's a it's the potential is there? Again? We want to point out modern masonry does tremendous charitable work. Yeah, they They are literally saving people's lives. So all of these clubs do quantas club all of these that where you have to become a member and you join for one reason or another won't let you in without a membership also doing doing tremendous work. Sam's clubs No, but but really there's there's no denying the good it in a lot of these groups do. But but there's also no denying the you know, and I'm sorry to anyone who is a member of the Mason's right now or any of these other clubs. There is a creepy factor for anyone outside of the club just because of the secrecy involved. And we've talked about that numerous suns on this show, and it will always be that way as long as their secrecy involved in enjoining and what happens behind the doors. Yeah, yeah, the rum where it happens without transparency, speculation thrives, and and there are a lot of commonalities. It would be it would be naive to actually wouldn't even be naive. It would be dishonest to look at the values proposed by the Founding Fathers and the values espoused by Masonry and say that there was zero overlap. I would just be that's a that's a shell game. But off the bats, we were reaching the end of part one of our Secrets of the Founding Fathers, and off the bat, so far we just talked about two absolutely true, incredibly crazy, somewhat disturbing aspects of this group. Tune in for our follow up episode later this week, where we dive into even stranger sees. Uh we spilled the tea. Don't don't spill the tea. It took a long time for that to steep. I can hear my dog in the background as well. Wow, just lots of things happening in my background today. Um, and we very much look forward to hearing what you out there have to say about this, what you think about everything we've discussed in today's episode. And we also, uh, you know, hope you'll hang in there for next week when we go deeper and deeper into this sea has been put it of conspira see crazy. Okay, Uh, this is really weird stuff though, so so do tune in and as Matt said, let us know what you think. You can find us all over the place, you know, crossroads at midnight, say the right words into a mirror in the dark, or find us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, you know, whichever of those is easiest for you. I've got a great page called Here's where it Gets Crazy, where you can hang out with the best part of this show, our fellow listeners. If you hate sipping the social meads, if it's if it's too if social media itself is too much of a conspiracy for you, then we have another way you can contact us. That's correct. I've never been a big fan of the social meds. I always feel like it's too sweet. It's just not it doesn't really, it's not the same. You're not a You're not a sweet meads a guy. Unsweet meads, unsweet social meds. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm done with the unsweet social meds. But also all the honey involved in. You know, anytime you're gonna make an alcoholic beverage out of honey, I don't. I just let's not do it. You're a root beer guy. This has been established. There we go sasaparilla all day or whatever the stuff is that you make root beer out of. Yeah, you you can call us. We have a number. It is one eight three three st d w y t K. You will here Ben and then he will say here's where it gets crazy, and then you can leave your message. And when you leave that message, please tell us whether or not you're okay with us using that message in one of our listener mail episodes. And uh, make sure you tell us what we can use your name or not. Just your first name generally is probably the right way to go. And if you've got a nickname that we think is cool and we'll we'll we'll give you a shout out for it, don't don't be afraid to get weird with it. My favorite one still is our our trucker friend, who was just howling with laughter as he was asking us these questions. Dude, if you are out there, thank you. Still. I regularly listen to that one. He's got a couple now that we've got and they're they're wonderful, So yeah, thank you. Please continue to do that. If you want to become a character that leaves messages on a frequent basis, that's fun too. We're into it. And if none of that quite founds your father's then we have one other way. You can always contact us, regardless of time, space or place. That is our email address where we are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.