By Anne Trominski:
In case you were unaware, things are a bit crazy in the United States right now. In an era of shocking news stories, unheard of court cases, and generally unprecedented political events, discourse has gotten a tad tense . . . some might even say divisive. Can we still discuss the events of the day over the dinner table? Can we realistically look to the past to deal with the problems of today? Is there an appropriate cocktail to serve for the end of times?
Three friends tackle these topics and distract themselves with other tangents in their podcast Civics on the Rocks. Steve’s an engineer, Mack’s a history teacher, and Anne’s just trying to get the mics to work correctly (with varying amounts of success). The long-form episodes are released at the beginning of each month. Living in Texas, they have plenty of political fodder to chew on, but topics cover all types of history and government. The hosts are unrepentant geeks, so they are just as likely to drop movie references as knowledge bombs but, ultimately, their goal is to try and figure out how to be engaged citizens in modern America. They’re also drinking and making cheesy jokes while doing it.
Full episodes with citations (geeks, I say) are available on their website, CivicsOnTheRocks.podbean.com, as well as all the major podcast carriers and socials.
In the first episode, the trio discusses whether the topic of civics is still taught in classrooms and what that word actually means in today’s United States. Read the transcript or listen to the entire episode linked below.
The following is an edited transcript of the podcast’s main topic.
Episode 1 - What Is Civics?
Welcome to Civics on the Rocks, the once-a-month podcast out of Texas. In this podcast, we talk about politics, history, and science . . . and science fiction. We’re also drinking—lots of drinking—and telling bad jokes. Not distasteful, just poor quality. Let’s get started.
Today's question is: What is civics?
Mack: Well, civics is a [class you would take] in middle school or high school. I remember my mom saying that her dad, way back when, only went through the 8th grade, but in 8th grade their social studies class was civics. So it's about government, it's about your rights and responsibilities as a citizen. Some states like Texas actually require a whole class in government. So, some of it is about your rights and responsibilities and some of it is how government works, but not all states require it.
Steve: I’ll take a philosophical approach. People, whenever they live in groups of more than one, have to have some kind of rules and organization to live together. And if there's enough of them, they decide to call it a civilization. Well, what are those rules? And how do we learn what they are? That's the civics part.
Mack: Or the social contract.
Steve: Okay, yes, if you want to be fancy. I personally never had a civics course in school, but I had government classes and economics classes and things like that, which to my mind seemed to have fit the bill. So, when I hear older people refer to, “Oh, kids don’t get civics nowadays,” I’m always like, well, I didn't have civics per se, but I had a government class and others stuff.
Mack: Some states have always had civics. And if they had anything related to economics or business, it might have been personal financial literacy or something [like that]. Texas, for as long as I've been around, has required a class in government and a class in economics. But I think that something like 40 states out of 50 have some kind of classes in government or history or that sort of thing. . . .
Steve: So, wait, like 10 states don't?
Mack: Yeah, and I'm kind of curious about what goes on in those states.
Steve: Anarchy?
Mack: Well, maybe . . . but I think they need to teach kids about rights and responsibilities these days. It happens more often than it doesn’t. There are something like 30 of the 50 states, roughly, that have government or civics classes. I think I read that 20 something actually require that you take some sort of test in civics before you graduate. I think a lot of this is “oh, people don't know their history,” there's a lot of people who just weren't paying attention in school. It’s just straight up what it is.
Steve: Added to that, the people who maybe paid attention in school, but then decided to ignore it or forget it for their own particular preferences later on in life.
Mack: Possibly distracted by, I don't know, like, game shows on NBC.
Steve: Well, that could be a thing. I would argue that there's also some people who not only were in school and graduated school, but then perhaps obtained positions of public authority in the military or the police, and then decided to, you know . . . stage an insurrection. So, I'm going to argue the civics didn't take, but they were there for it more than once.
Mack: Not all cops.
Steve: [Sigh] I said “some.”
Mack: Let me say something, Steve. I’ve had . . . former students share a video with me from PragerU of Christopher Columbus, it's animated, and he's talking about how slavery isn't that bad. So, there's what's taught in schools, and I would bet if you look at the state standards for different courses or whatever, it's about what you would expect. But then there are other competing narratives. And by narratives, I mean . . .
Steve: Alternative facts . . .
Mack: Alternative facts. There you go.
Steve: Well, I think that's the thing, is that people may have gotten taught civics at some point, and even if they were paying attention, they later on found more comfortable ideas, things that more appealed to them, because they agreed with their preconceptions and their biases, and they latched on to that.
Mack: I actually think that's something that is worth exploring. . . . Why do people have that comfort zone where they need to go to a narrative that may be mostly false, partly false, totally false, but it's comfortable, so we’re just going to stick with it. Because a lot of people who promote, some of these ideas, they know that it's not right, but they get to say it. It’s like there's a rule that you have to respect what they’re saying even if it’s not true.
Steve: That's what boggles my mind. I understand there's reasonable differences of opinion and differences in priorities and preferences. There’s room for that, and there always has been, basically. But this whole, “I get to pick my facts” is frankly a little difficult for me to fathom. It's a little tough.
Mack: So I've started, in the last about ten years, every class with the question:
“How do you decide what you believe to be true?”
And we talk about Plato's Allegory of the Cave. I try to get them to at least think about it and say, “We're going to revisit this because things are going to happen.” We talk about current events all the time because things happen.
It's pretty easy to relate it to the study of civics and government because everything. . . .
Steve: [He] gestures wildly.
Mack: . . . Yeah. You know, I started teaching in1996, which was literally the most boring presidential election ever: Bob Dole versus Bill Clinton. People have no memory of it. Voter turnout was like 49%. It's the only time it got below 50%. And I remember thinking, if government's going to be like this, I'm going to have a pretty big task in front of me to get kids motivated and interested in government, and then the twenty-first century happens.
Steve: So, this year’s your fault, you’re saying?
Mack: Well, maybe karmically. Sure, I'll accept that.
Steve: Yeah, this was all contrived just to make it easier for you to teach government.
Mack: It’s like the moroseness Swedish guilt in the genes, so, sure.
Steve: What always amazed me [with] the whole civics thing is that everywhere I’ve heard people complain about civics are always, frankly, Boomers, who, I guess, had a class called civics or government, they think other people didn’t. And so they think we didn’t have a class called civics, you have no idea what the Constitution is or the roles of the citizen or anything else, I’m like, “No, I got that.”
Mack: And listen to what they say the Constitution is, because a lot of times, they're wrong. I mean it’s like, “The Constitution says this.” [I’ll say,] “Actually, it doesn’t. Find it for me. I will bet you $100 that what you just said is not in there.”
Steve: You mean like how the First Amendment prevents you from restricting my speech?
Mack: Right. The First Amendment is great. “You can't yell fire in a crowded theater.” Well, okay, there's more to it than that. And if there was a fire, you could. Okay, kids, look up Brandenburg v Ohio. Just do that. 1969. You can't falsely yell fire in a crowded theater. That was in Schenck v United States, which was 1919, I think. That was where Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and the court said that not all speech is protected. Speech that represents a clear and present danger is not protected. But Schenck is no longer good law.
Steve: And the speech that was clear and present danger was handing out leaflets encouraging people to avoid the draft.
Mack: To avoid the draft, or not show up.
Steve: Categorically not even close to something like yelling fire in a crowded theater. And it was pretty clearly political speech.
Mack: Yep, absolutely. So Brandenburg v Ohio, you have a white [supremacist] who was advocating overthrow of the government. And that was the kind of thing. Ohio had a state law. You cannot advocate overthrowing the government. Other states had the same law.
Steve: When was this case? 2021? 2022?
Mack: No, 1969. It's been around for a bit. And they said that it's political speech. It was not specific. I mean, he wasn't giving orders to somebody to start shooting. That would be the kind of thing. Threats are not protected. Conspiracy is not protected. But just saying, “Somebody ought to overthrow the government,” that's protected speech. And in one of the cases, it may have been Brandenburg, I feel ashamed for not knowing, but the court said it's exactly the kind of speech that's unpopular that needs protecting. Because if it was popular, nobody would care. So, that's pretty much the standard, unless the current court changes things, I don’t know.
Steve: We’ll maybe come back to the court later, but going back to the First Amendment, what I find fascinating is, I believe the first word of the First Amendment is “Congress”? Everybody starts saying, well, Twitter can’t do this because of the First Amendment, or whatever random platform. . . .
Mack: Because of Section 230.
Steve: Well, there's that misunderstanding too, but they keep referencing the First Amendment. No, the First Amendment says “Congress shall,” and the Fourteenth Amendment also states “shall.” But they keep trying to apply it to everybody. No, that's a government restriction. If I don't want you yelling on my yard, you don't get to yell on my yard. If I don't want you yelling on my social platform, you don't get to yell on my social platform. It doesn't matter what you're saying.
Mack: You can get into some interesting questions of what's actually permissible and not. Twitter, or the platform formerly known as Twitter, and the others, they have rules of use that you agree to. Like every so often on Facebook, people will cut and paste this post that says “I do not agree to let anything I post here” whatever, or reference a “contract” that we have. You don't really have it. You're on there, you agree to terms of use, and it's not the way copyright works.
Steve: Well, and even the terms of use thing. At the end of the day, these are all, frankly, bulletin boards in somebody's front yard, and you get to walk by and put post-its on them. And if the person who owns the yard and the bulletin board doesn't want your post-it up there, they take it down. And it's their bulletin board. Sucks for you. It just happens to be these guys' bulletin boards are very large. That's it. Not special. That's it.
Mack: You remember in college how in the hallways and outside of classrooms, they would have bulletin boards that people would put up stuff. Do they even do that anymore? Is it just all online?
Steve: When I was in college about 10 years ago it seemed like they did. They still, but I can't speak to now.
Mack: You know, like free tutorials in physics and you pull the number off the bottom.
Steve: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mack: Do they even do that now?
Steve: I think everybody just posts QR codes now.
Mack: Oh my God. Don't ever use a QR code. I don't know why, but the people I follow who know security are like, don't ever use a QR code.
Steve: Well, they're just, like, handy shorthand URL shortcuts that certainly couldn't possibly direct you to malware. The problem is when somebody posts a URL code or QR code on like a lamp post, and then you open it? You wouldn't click on a link in your email, I hope, so don't open a random QR code you find on the street. If you're at a restaurant and they put a QR code on the table for you to find the menu, sure, fine, do that. Risk is low.
Mack: You know what all of this is? This is just how visionary the Reverend Dodgson was, Lewis Carroll, with Alice discovering the little thing that says drink me, and she's like, “okay.” Imagine Alice with a QR code.
(Glasses clink)
Steve: Another thing I should have brought up was the fact that not all citizens actually have access to the same rights as citizens as others. Civics doesn't apply equally.
Mack: No, and even if it does, and even if the letter of the law says, or the Constitution says . . . it doesn’t always turn out that way. In spite of what the letter of the law, or what the Constitution said with the Civil War amendments, there were states that did all kinds of things to figure out ways around it. That’s why grandfather clauses are a thing. So, the beginning of last school year, I was kinda channeling Titanic stuff—eye-witness accounts of the Titanic. And by the way, yes, there's the film Titanic, but what you should watch is Night to Remember from 1958, which is an amazing film.
Steve: Does it have a floating door?
Mack: Several end up in the water. . . . It's a really good film, and the guy that plays Captain Smith is really, really good. But, yes, let’s just say that there are plenty of us in steerage. And by us, I don't actually mean us, since we're two middle-aged white men, but plenty of people who are not treated the same and for whom there are still attempts here and there to target them. “Oh, we need to purge our voter rolls of felons.” “Oh, sorry that your name happens to be the same as a felon,” among other things.
Steve: There is that, and that is a serious problem. Not to mention the fact that actual felons get prevented from joining the voter rolls when there's no reason for that. . . .
Mack: Well, now there's a question, though . . . which we can come back to.
Steve: Okay, my concern is more about the people who are honest-to-gosh citizens and simply have never and can never have the right to vote because of where they live. People that are, for example, in not states of the United States, but territories, protectorates. Whatever euphemism they have . . . you're not really a citizen of the states, but we're still going to have you be here under our authority, but you don't get to speak and have a voice in that authority.
Mack: I love the word “protectorate” because it's like you're an independent country, but not, because we're going to make your foreign policy for you. And while we're at it . . .
Steve: Since we're doing foreign policy, we might as well take over some of your domestic policy as well.
Mack: No, and that's something that we have talked about before. Is that entirely fair?
Steve: No. That's not a hard question.
Mack: But if you're going to . . . it's going to have to be a constitutional amendment to do something about it. Whether or not you can get two-thirds of Congress and then three-fourths of the states to ratify it is another thing, but what language would you use? Would you say, okay, maybe you're not states of the United States, but you're going to have all full rights of the United States, but does that mean that Congress can still decide on some aspects of your status and whether or not to just sell you to the nearest country or something, or what?
Steve: And just for clarity for those who aren't up to date on these kind of things, we're talking about places like Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, places that are U.S. controlled territories—under the control of the U.S. government—but because they're not technically states, they don't have representation in the Senate or in Congress. Sometimes they have a voice but no vote. And I believe in the case of D.C., they technically have representation in presidential elections _Twenty-Third Amendment], but they don't have the ability to actually have a voice of their own in Congress, which is interesting because Congress basically overrides any local laws that are passed there too.
Mack: The Constitution says that Congress will determine the laws and rules for the district not exceeding 10 miles square blah blah blah that becomes the District of Columbia.
Steve: Did you just blah blah the Constitution?
Mack: No, I blah blahed Congress. Most people should be in favor of that, so I think we're fine. They created a City Council for the District of Columbia and city government, and they can make rules. Ultimately, Congress can do what they want.
Steve: Yeah, they can make rules as long as Congress doesn’t dislike them.
Mack: But the citizens of the District of Columbia under the Twenty-Third Amendment do get to vote, and they get three electors, three electoral votes. It works based on how they want to vote. If we're talking about ,like, Puerto Rico and Guam and the Virgin Islands and other territories in the United States . . . Puerto Rico gets a delegate. I got into it with somebody online about this. It's like, no, they do. And I was like, no, it's a delegate and they're non-voting. And I don't even remember what this person was trying to say, but it's like, no, they're non-voting. They can vote in little procedural things for Congress, but they don't actually have a vote on laws. So they have a voice, but not a vote where it matters—so let me just qualify that. But [that’s] the thing, these people are American citizens, but like American citizens light.
Steve: Yeah.
Anne: [At this point, I asked, "so what is the perspective of civic duty for that person?"]
Mack: That’s a great question, because if you're from Puerto Rico, you have your own sort of history. I keep wanting to say “nationality,” and that's not technically what it is.
Steve: Although, interestingly, they compete under their own flag in the Olympics.
Mack: Well, yes, that's true. But if you're a citizen of Puerto Rico, and okay, full disclosure, we're not able to answer this. We're just able to pose questions about this and sort of wonder. But it's like, “What civic duty would I feel toward the United States of America as the possessor of my land, which is to them a territory of theirs. But at the same time, I'm born a U.S. citizen. But at the same time, there are Americans that talk about immigrants from Puerto Rico.” Well, okay, if you also talk about immigrants from California coming into your state or immigrants from Michigan coming into your state, okay, well, that's fine. But that's not how people talk about it.
Steve: No. Although, in all full disclosure, I have issues about immigrants from California coming to my state.
Mack: As do I. None of them know how to drive.
Steve: They also voted in overwhelming numbers for Ted Cruz, actually, but that's a whole side story. My interest is that apparently Guam has among the highest military enlistment rates of all states and other territories.
Mack: So here's a thing we can talk about that I don't have the stats in front of me.
Steve: That doesn't need to stop us.
Mack: No, it never has before, even though this is episode one. . . . Look at a lot of the people who enlist. And yeah, they want to enlist to have more opportunity, better their lives, serve their country, but a lot of them are in not-such-great economic circumstances. Having said that, there [are] plenty of people that are in pretty good economic circumstances that are very patriotic and they want to serve their country, but you do have a lot of people for whom the military is, they enlist, they view it as a gateway to a better life and more opportunity.
Steve: Which it fairly is, but I would argue is broader than that. I am taken aback, speechless, if you will, when you see groups that have been historically maligned by the U.S. express patriotism and support of the country. When I see Native Americans or African Americans who actually give a damn when they've been given very little reason to. I don't know what to do with that. I'm overwhelmed, frankly. Why would they?
Mack: It’s like today we can talk about the Tuskegee Airmen and the Navajo Code Talkers, but let’s talk about them in the context of the 1930s and 40s when things were so much worse. Not that they're really great now, but so much, just openly worse. They believed that we're fighting against Nazis, we're fighting against tyranny. And then of course having to come home to that. And by the way, good movie for you kids out there, Bad Day at Black Rock. Spencer Tracy, Ernest Borgnine. It's a film that you watch . . . and if you're Gen Z or even Millennials, you're probably going to sit through the first five minutes, ten minutes and wonder what the hell is going on? Is this a joke? Okay, it's a train. It says Southern Pacific. I don't know what that is. I've barely seen an Amtrak. And they're in the desert. And they're still in the desert. And we're still in the opening credits. You're going to have to have patience because it relates to the fact that World War II in particular, you had African Americans, Native Americans, Japanese Americans who were willing to fight and die for this country, who endured a certain amount of tyranny at home but were willing to nevertheless sign up and fight a greater tyranny in the hopes of things would get better here. It's a movie that relates to that. I don't want to do like spoilers or whatever. There's a lot of great acting in the film.
Steve: As the Pollyanna optimist of the group, I like to think that those groups who have seen the worst of America and are still willing to really serve and fight for the country and everything else, clearly they see something that is worth it. They see something beyond the short-term tyranny. So I think that's impressive.
Mack: That is the level of patriotism to me against which maybe we should judge all other levels of patriotism. Nothing against people who have definitely benefited from freedom and capitalism and whatever in this country. Yes, I said the “c-word.” And choose to serve to defend it, I mean, absolutely. But when you have people who have not just historically been maligned and oppressed but even today are dealing with the residuals of that, well, and not just residuals. I mean, some direct efforts towards oppression, but they still believe in what this country can be. I will be running for president in 2032. So, vote for Mack.
Anne Trominski was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, but now resides in San Antonio. She graduated from Trinity University after majoring in English and Communication. She spends her dull working hours as an editor for a major publishing company and her personal time as an oft-frustrated writer and amateur podcast producer. She has written two yet-to-be published novels, countless reams of heartfelt poetry, and has tried her hand at blogging a few times. Anne is also a gastronomist, amateur chef, and student of health science. She is a constant learner and explorer and likes to drop knowledge on others like it’s hot. Most recently, she helps disseminate social science info through the podcast Civics on the Rocks.
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