141. What is the Leviathan Crisis?

Today Connor and Brittany introduce the latest Tuttle Twins book, “The Tuttle Twins and The Leviathan Crisis.”

Books:

Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Connor: Hey, Brittany.

Brittany: Hi, Connor.

Connor: So, I’m super excited today because our 12th Tuttle twins book for Kids is now out Yey, Tuttle Twins, and, the Leviathan Crisis. This is a book we’ve been working on for oh man, over a year during all of this COVID lockdown and mandates and government stimulus and trillions of dollars and government growing and all these things. Elijah and I have been really trying to put together a story that would be impactful, not just for what’s happening with COVID and all the aftermath, but also what’s gonna happen in the future, because Brittany, as you well know, in fact, let me ask you know, we’ve talked about on this, podcast before, how that when we’re scared, the government grows, when we trade our security for our liberty, when we say, oh, we wanna be safe, so here’s our freedoms, right? That the government grows. Talk a little bit about why that trend exists. What’s, going on with this trend?

Brittany: Yeah. Well, people get scared. I mean, a lot of this has gotten us into war before. I mean, it’s gotten us into, we could have a whole other discussion on World War II and on all that, but I mean, it’s gotten us into World War II. It’s gotten into all these wars where people say, or the government says, rather, if we don’t do this, your, you know, liberty or your safety, excuse me, is in, you know, in danger. And you and I think the most common example that we lived through was nine 11. Well, maybe before the pandemic, but when nine 11 happened, it was, you have to give us all your liberties or the terrorists are gonna strike again. You have to go through all this extra security at the airport. You have to, you know, the Patriot Act is gonna basically allow us to watch everything you do and read your emails and all this stuff. So it becomes really scary. But the scariest part of this isn’t necessarily what the government it’s doing, it’s that the people are just like, okay, take my rights. Do it. We need to stay safe. So what happens, and I believe you wrote the book, Feardom, about this it happens because people get so scared of what they don’t know or don’t understand, that they would rather sacrifice their rights and their liberty for this false sense of security. But the truth of the matter is, we can’t really control security. Things happen all the time that just happen, and a lot of times it’s the government’s fault. So I would trust them to make it better, is silly to me, because that’s just not the way the world works.

Connor: it’s such an unfortunate trend, but it’s not going away anytime soon, and so you.

Brittany: it’s fact worse.

Connor: Yeah, absolutely. And, so while I wrote Feardom Him several years ago for parents, and we’ll link to that on the show notes page, for the parents who are interested in that book, there was another book that, that I’ve always been familiar with and decided to go read. And it’s called Crisis and Leviathan by Bob Higgs. And this was written a few decades ago, but it covers very similar things, and it’s a more scholarly, type book, really reviewing how during World War II and all these things that happened in the past, the government created all these new departments and programs and bureaucracies and taxes that when the wars were over or when the, you know, recessions and economic problems were over, the government never shrunk back down and the programs never went away. And so Bob Higgs, who wrote this book, he coined the term The Ratchet Effect. Now for the kids out there, if you know you know, don’t know what a ratchet is, it’s that tool where it’s like, kind of like a wrench where you can tighten a bolt or screw, and so you tighten it in one direction, but then rather than having to take the tool off and then put it back on and tighten it again, the ratchet stays on the whole time. So you tighten it one way, and then you easily go back in the other direction and then you tighten it again, and then you easily go back all while keeping the ratchet on your little bolt or screw that you’re tightening. And so the ratchet effect that Bob Higgs was talking about is this tendency where the government grows, and then it never shrinks back down. So it stays at that new level as things settle into what you might call the new normal. Right? And then, the ratchet effect kicks in again with the new crisis. So the government grows again and then settles at that new normal, and then it grows. So it only goes in that one way. And so the Tuttle Twins and the Leviathan Crisis, our story is all about trying to teach families out there about this concept, about this trend in a way that not only makes sense for, what’s happening right now, as we said, but also makes sense in the future. And it’s really interesting because a lot of people have written into us in the months past, wanting us to write a book about, you know, COVID and about lockdowns and about mandates. And, one thing I think we need to think through Britney, and, that we try and doom as we write these books, is that I want these books to be relevant in like 20 years Right? I want, kids, you know, 50 years from now to be able to pick up a Tuttle Twins book and have it make sense to their lives. and so we really try and focus on these important principles and these trends. and so yes, in the book, there’s a very slight mention to this whole coronavirus stuff, but it is definitely not about that. It’s about this broader trend of how people get nervous. And, so let me ask you, Brittany, I wanna get your take on this. Like, let’s unpack why that is. Why, is it that when people get scared there’s something bad happening that they turn to the government for help? What is it that leads people to want the government to save the day?

Brittany: I think it’s, and you know, they call it the nanny state for a reason. I think it’s in, our, you know, genetic makeup even, you know, used to render your mom when you got scared, right? Because you thought somebody else was more capable of solving a problem. Now, when you’re three or five, or even, you know, 10, your parents might be more capable of solving a problem, but we don’t have any personal responsibility anymore. And so I think we’ve also convinced ourself that government knows best, just like when we were a kid, you know, our parents may have known best for us, but now we’re adults. Now we can think for ourselves. Now we have the ability to make these choices for ourself, but we’re choosing not to because the government has done so much anyway. We’re just like, oh, let’s just give this to them. I’m not gonna take any responsibility for this. This is their job, forgetting that it’s actually not their job. The government is supposed to be if we followed the constitution, have a very limited role in our lives, but we’ve let it, like you said, grow too big. And every time it grows too big, we never get any of that power back. In fact, Connor, I was just thinking while you were talking, can you ever remember a time when we gave up some of our, liberties, ever got them back? Can you think of any example.

Connor: Ahh.

Brittany: Exactly right. I mean, I was sitting here, I’m like, there’s gotta be like one time, right? There’s, gotta be one time, maybe like when you, like during the Liberty Garden phase of World War I, you like, maybe that’s the one thing where you’re allowed to buy more things, but not really. Like, you don’t, we don’t get any of these privileges or rights, I shouldn’t call the privileges. They’re rights back. And so it, you should all be weary of giving up these rights because you are not gonna get ’em back. It’s just gonna grow. It’s just gonna keep growing.

Connor: Absolutely. And, I think it’s for that reason that we need to pay attention now. Because if we want to stop that trend from happening, if we want to kind of unplug ourselves from that process, we need to be aware it’s even happening. Yeah. And that I think is one of the biggest challenges is that people like we’ve grown up in a society where people just expect the nanny state to help. Well, clearly the government will help solve it. And you know, it’s, there’s this quote from this gentleman named Robert LeFevre, and, probably pronounced his last name wrong. But, he says something to the effect of government is often, the disease masquerading as a cure.

Brittany: That’s perfect.

Connor: And, masquerading means you think of like a masquerade ball. You’ve got like your mask on. So it just means masked, right? Government is often, the disease that masks itself as a cure. What do I mean by that? Well, there’s a crisis. And so the government comes along and says, Hey, we have the cure. We have the medicine. Right? But really, the medicine is a disease, it’s gonna make you sick, but it is perceived by many people to be the cure, to be helpful medicine. And so they take it because they think, oh, this will help. And you know, the government’s always looking out for our best interests, right? They would never do anything.

Brittany: Have a funny joke, Connor.

Connor: Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m trying to be funny to do and so then you have, you know, back in the day, Ronald Reagan, who was a Republican president decades ago, he has a quote where he said, the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I’m from the government and I’m here to help. And it’s because the government is often the disease masquerading is a cure. It’s like, I’m here to help. Oh, really? it’s a Trojan horse. So we talk about this concept in, our book, what is a Trojan Horse? A Trojan horse is the, we share some of the history behind the term, which I’ll say for the book, you can go read it. But what we mean by Trojan horse is it’s these cases where it’s something that’s deceiving you. so it’s like the medicine. You think it’s medicine, but in reality, inside is the disease. And you’ve just, you know, caught the disease because you took that supposed medicine. So the Trojan horse is kind of this thing on the outside that’s fake and hiding something on the inside that’s harmful. And I think we see that with, look at what Congress is doing. Hey, we’re gonna help people. We’re gonna give them, you know, paychecks when in reality those bills are just full of all kinds of programs and pork political projects and spending that have nothing to do with helping people. And it’s gonna put the country further in debt and cause even more problems. They’re printing all kinds of money, which is ruining the economy and creating inflation. But, the way they’re selling it to the public, right? The medicine, the cure is, oh, we’re gonna help you and we’re gonna give you these little paychecks. And so of course, then everyone, not everyone, of course, but you know, a lot of people, most people are like, yeah, we want paychecks. We want our money. And, so they’re willing to support the bill, and they’re calling Congress and saying, vote for this, right? Because they want their little bit of money when Congress is using this as a way, this Trojan horse, they’re packing all kinds of bad stuff inside because they know that the public is gonna be like, Ooh, yay, tasty medicine. This will help And they don’t realize that you know, that what they’re taking in is the problem. so that is kind of one of the main premises behind the book. It’s how do we snap out of this? And how do we overcome fear, right? When everyone is so scared they turn to the government. How do we overcome ignorance, when you don’t know what’s happening? And so, in the book, we talk about the importance of truth. how truth can overpower ignorance. When we learn the truth, it can overcome fear because we know what’s happening. We can understand these things. So the fun thing about this book in particular is that we take a totally different approach from any other book we’ve done in the past. This book has kinda this whole fantasy element to it using kind of like a Dungeons and Dragons style game. Ooh. And so the twins are playing this game, and through the game of play, they’re learning all these influences and these circumstances, and they’re seeing, you know, fear happen and what happens when they lose and they’re ignorant of how to play the game. And so they’re able to be controlled by other people playing the game. And so then when they learn from the game, they’re able to apply it to real life. And there’s these things happening in the story that allow the twins to be like, well, wait a minute. We just learned about that in this game we played, you know, here we see it happening in real life, and they start to make some of these connections. And so it’s just a fun little fantasy book, that we put together. So for everyone listening right now, if you don’t have it yet, you’re gonna go to Tuttletwins.com/crisis. You can grab the book there. And, this, by the way, is our 12th book. So a lot of listeners, you know, that we hear from, it’s like, oh, I haven’t, you know, bought the book since the ninth one was out, or the 10th one was out. This is number 12. So make sure you had a Tuttletwins.com/products where you can see all of the books listed there. You can see which ones you don’t have. Maybe you don’t have our teen books or our toddler books. We got a whole bunch of stuff out. But this book is number 12. Guys, it is so, so timely. I mean, this is a book I feel like every family needs to be reading right now with everything going nuts in the world, and with parents feeling like they don’t know how to talk to their kids about all the crazy things happening. This gives you a way to talk together as a family. This gives you a kind of reference material and vocabulary and a way to communicate these things so your kids can understand this. So don’t do yourselves the disservice. Make sure you get this book. Make sure you’re having conversations about what’s going on, and this book will help. So Tuttletwins.com/crisis. Go grab the book, make sure you get it for your family. Thanks, Brittany, for chatting, and until next time, we’ll talk to you later.

Brittany: Talk to you later.

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