Charles Sage – North Idaho author

Seth Horst and Dave Faller sit down with Charles Sage, local author, who spent 6 years in law enforcement and then 16 years as a pilot for overseas government contract work.

Potter’s Run is the first in a three-book series that strikes a raw nerve in the current political and social climate of the US. The story centers around a GWOT veteran who decides his kids are not going to fight a rich man’s war after a mandatory draft is started back up. In the ensuing conflict, Sage paints an all-too-realistic version of events that many of our listeners feel may be just around the corner…

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/your.northidahoagent/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/northidahoagent
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHz9XczupyJ93VRtqfQEW-g

0:00

In today’s episode, we’re gonna share a fictional story by a local author that’s all about excessive government control and the resulting revolution, at least, I think it’s fiction. Stick around North Idaho is a throwback to a better time in American history, a time when values and characters still mattered, from home school moms, hunters and homesteaders to business owners, veterans and first responders. We are a unique community held together by a common thread, a love of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are the stories of those who choose to call North Idaho home. Welcome to the north Idaho experience. Thank you guys for joining us on the north Idaho experience. We have a special guest today. I say that every time, that’s why I look at me like everybody’s special to me. Dave Charles sage, local author, cool backstory. I just finished his first book, Potter’s run. So we’re going to talk about some of the topics on that. Try not to spoiler. Spoiler alert, anything? I apologize. I have a cold today, so I sound like garbage, but too bad. We gotta move forward a couple of housekeeping items. One of our last podcasts got heavily censored by a certain platform that I won’t mention. So I am trying to get people to find us on other platforms that don’t censor things. You can find all of our podcasts on the audio platform, Spotify, Apple, iTunes and all other podcast platforms. We will be on rumble, and soon to be on x as well. So look for us there if you want the fully unedited versions of these podcasts. That’s all I’ll say about that, moving on. All right, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah. There’s a lot of topics in this book that I want to touch on, and we’re going to get into them, because a lot of them are very pertinent for the current climate of the world right now, and the climate of the, I guess, the political climate of North Idaho itself. So stick around for that. But I do want to talk about your background a little bit. You brought us a very cool patch. I already hung it on the patch board. I would should have had it in my hand so I could show it off. But Alaska State Trooper, but that’s not where you fully started. Where’d you get your start? I spent six years total on law enforcement. The first three years were Baltimore County police officer, that’s Maryland, right? Maryland, and then stuff. Spent three years as an Alaska State Trooper. So you went from Maryland, yep, to Alaska, right on the Baltimore City line to rural Alaska. I think there’s a part of every man out there that wishes he had been an Alaska State Trooper. Am I alone in that? No, I would want, right? Yeah, I tried. I when I was a CHP, I tried. I was like, hey to my wife, hey, check it out. They’re doing a lateral signing bonus. And she’s like, Yeah, that’s a hard No. But come on, it would be, that would be an experience, right? I think so, yeah, yeah. My wife was all on board with going to Alaska, and I actually went up, left the police department to take a flying job, a medevac flying job. And, you know, there’s a lot of BS in police work that you know probably better than I do, but I do, like, take some bad guys. So troopers really appealed to me, the idea of being outside. And they had airplanes. Yeah, I had a Super Cub on floats as one of my patrols. I, you know, I used to complain about having backup. That was, you know, over 30 minutes away, right? That’s a whole nother element, yeah. So a plane flight, yeah, somebody was just talking about that the other day. And I had a, I was tasked with going out and checking a commercial fishing vessel that had, at one time, been involved in some shady stuff, and I was just go out check the hole, make sure they weren’t those because they should have been empty. And so I flew my little cub out all by myself to this river about 45 minutes away from my post in Cordova. Landed there. Their tender came out and got me, and they were perfectly accommodating, friendly folks, and they let me on board, and I went down to inspect their hold. And as I went down there, I was thinking, you know, it wouldn’t take much for them to lock that door and run over the cub on the way out and just drop me off at sea. So, you know what? I think that’s a big fear for all law enforcement as people are friendly until they’re not right, right? And going solo is just a whole nother. You know, that’s why traffic stops. I mean, people are like, you don’t know who’s in the car, and they’re by yourself for X amount of time, even if it’s only a few minutes, and people are nice until they’re not and, and that’s something you got to cultivate as as a cop too, is being able to to go from nice to not nice immediately or and I always tried not to start off with not nice, but sometimes the situation dictates that too. Yeah, it’s hard because you’re always a step behind, right? And it’s my nature to try to just be nice and get along with everybody. I. So I’m not a confrontational kind of person, but man, you gotta be ready to flip that switch. Yeah, that’s a hard thing to do. You kind of need to learn that behavior. I think. Okay, so three years Alaska State Troopers, then what? Well, the last 17 years or so, I’ve flown government contract work overseas, flying ISR aircraft, which is intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance. Is that one of those things that sounds cooler than it is, or is it actually really cool? It can be both. Sometimes it can be four hours flying circles around the mud hut that there’s nobody there and there’s nothing happening. Or sometimes it can be really cool, and I can’t talk about any stuff. Why did, why does the government even do, why don’t they do with the Air Force? Well, because the, you know, during the GWAC and everything, I believe it just got to where there weren’t enough government assets, there weren’t enough government personnel, or enough pilots to fill the seats or to get the airplanes up. And ISR kind of came into its own. I mean, it’s always been a been there in one one form or another. I was just watching a world war one thing, and World War One series, and these guys were using observation planes, you know, over France, over the German trenches and stuff. And it’s like, that’s kind of the beginning. Well, it even goes back before that balloons in the Civil War. So there’s always been a need for that observation of the tactical situation. And so when the gwad happened, that need increased faster than military could could field it themselves. And so contractors were brought in, and what we did, and I think I mentioned the other day we talked. I think there’s also an element in the gwad, at least, where it you could not it was there may have been a political factor where, say, in this certain region, we’ve only got 2000 American troops. Well, what they didn’t say was, there’s another 2000 contractors there in whatever support roles. So the reality is, there were twice as many Americans in that area as they were talking about. I mean, it takes a lot of liability off the government too. Yeah, you know, when you’re a contractor, and then, you know, obviously budget’s always an issue. So it’s easy for the government to say, hey, well, we need it. We need to cut $2 billion right? So see ya right, they’re not going to do that with the, you know, the guys wearing, wearing, and that just happened to me, that the last contract I was on, it was kind of low hanging, low hanging, budgetary fruit. Yeah, cut. So is there a concern of getting shot down when you’re doing something like that? Yeah, I got shot at on occasion. We had lost a couple air Well, we lost one aircraft to fire, but that was kind of a complicated situation, but there were other companies that also had losses. But yeah, that that was a reality. And the nice thing, but one time I know I was getting shot at, was, was at nighttime, and ran lights out, and I could see the machine gun tracers coming up. They were shooting at the sound of the airplane, which was behind us. Yeah, us, yeah, so good luck. Yeah. I didn’t even, I didn’t even, actually, really, certainly didn’t feel threatened at the time. And it was just kind of curiosity and kind of put it all together later on that, oh, he was shooting at me. That’s wild. Okay, so are these prop planes or jets? We used prop planes I was flying. I started off flying a caravan Cessna. Caravan was high wing, single engine turbo prop down in Columbia, in support of a State Department program down there. Then I went to Iraq flying a twin engine sky master, which is a push pull. Cessna, kind of a uniquely configured airplane. And then most of my time ultimately, was in the King Air 350 or MC 12, which is an military version. So that’s pretty cool. It was fun. It was a good job. I believed in the mission. I was happy to be doing what I was doing. And, yeah, okay, how does writing fall into all this? It’s a compulsion that I caught somehow along the way, like, I think, when I was, like, five years old, I still have little stories that I made up when I was five years old. And I don’t know what it is, but I can’t stop it. I’m always scribbling notes about something comes into my head. So that’s the best thing. When you have that thing that, like you cannot off, that’s when you know you’ve got a passion. You have one of those. Dave, what a passion. Yeah, sleeping. So drinking water and peeing and I need something to do. I go to bed. That’s it. I have that so i Is that a fireman thing? No, yeah, oh yeah, astronaut position. My wife won’t even let me get a recliner. I’ve been asking for one for like, 15 years. We don’t have a refund, because you’ll always leave immediately. Absolutely, that’s my safe space. That’s That’s all I want. No, yeah, no. Electronics, just a nice pole handle, yeah, Lazy Boy, but I can relate. I. I’ve always written poetry. Oh, wow, I’m too lazy to write in a long format. So poetry works for me because it’s like a boiled down version of things, and it’s always been there. It like gnaws at me, even I’ll go years sometimes without writing anything, but then, like, it’ll hit me and I’ll, like, furiously write for a month, right? And then stop. But it’s a good way, like, for me, it’s a cathartic thing, because I can, I can take a lot of it’s like trauma from being a cop, and I put it into a poetry format. It gets it out of my head. Yeah, and that’s some with the veterans group. I like to try to encourage that with the veterans, because it it is cathartic, and it does help you process and and eliminate things that you need to or put them behind you, at least. And so I’ve talked to a lot of guys, it doesn’t need to be perfect, you know, it doesn’t even need to get published, or you can self publish it. And, you know, right? Do what you want. I think that’s where a lot of people get hung up. They’re like, well, they don’t think they can do, like, create a product that is worth selling. And I tell guys, like, it doesn’t matter, right? It’s not that’s not the point. Maybe it is for you, but that, but that’s not the point. Like, just put it on paper, get it out of your head, whatever it is, right? It’s helpful. And the other thing is, you know, get it down for your families. It’s history, and maybe you don’t want to talk about it, and maybe you don’t want to discuss it with them, because they won’t relate, whatever, but, but it might be good for them to know when you’re gone, so at least have it there as part of your family history. That was, I’ve mentioned this before. I apologize for bringing it up again. We had a wildfire burner house down in 2018 that was the greatest loss that I had. Lost a lot of stuff. I lost everything. That was the greatest I had 20 years of no pics that burned. Oh, can you imagine that? Right? Yeah. I was like, Damn, that hurt more than anything. Yeah, you’ll never get that back. And, no, well, and, and that is tough for writing like I had my I am finishing up another novel right now, and my computer, my Mac battery died, and you can’t just swap one battery for another on a Mac. Apparently, it’s glued and there. So I had to take it in to get it serviced. And I was just hoping it would all come back, you know, because, and I always, kind of learned, I always, well, not just save it, but send it to people. Okay, so there’s somebody’s always got a copy besides me, but, but, like, Hemingway lost a whole manuscript, like, back when you were, yeah, typing to get he lost it in a train station in Spain or something. I don’t know which book it was, but it wasn’t published yet. He was just, you know, just in the final stages. And he turned around and the briefcases gone. So he had to start all over on that manuscript. And I’ve had experiences where I’ve had to start like a poem over again, and it turned out better than, I think, the original. But not always. Sometimes you miss that, like that initial spark, and that’s, yeah, that sucks. Okay, so what was your motivation on Potter’s run? Because now I’ve read the first book you just gave me the other two. So there’s three in the series. Yes, it clearly takes place in a in a environment very similar to North Idaho. You never mentioned North Idaho, but reading it, I was like, Oh, this is North Idaho, right? And I kind of left it ambiguous initially, on purpose, because I wanted everybody to feel like they could live in that county. Yeah, that county could be a rural county in Pennsylvania or Arizona or anywhere. I mean, obviously geographically and trees and stuff are going to be different, but I wanted everybody to feel at home in this county, so I didn’t name it. And also, for plotting purposes and stuff, there were some places that just didn’t exist here. So I had to, had to adjust for that. I I started the book because, as I was saying earlier, I was out of work because I was one of those weird people who wasn’t going to take that injection that everybody was excited about. And so I had that job for nearly 13 years, and Defense Department mandate came down and we got kicked out. So there I am unemployed, and I’m like, backup plan after backup plan. All just fell apart on me, and nothing was working. So it was actually a really rough two years. But in that time period, I wrote these three books and and that, I think that theme kind of seeps into the book, or maybe it’s not even that subtle, but I there’s a part about, there’s a part of the book that’s just about saying no to the government, yeah, and, and I distinctly remembered, you know, that injection came up, and I was like, Well, you know, right, got like, 13 injections. One day before I had to go overseas. And it’s like, I’ve had lots of these before, and more I read about, the more I didn’t know anything to do, because this one was different so and as things progressed, and as I saw things going, and the more they pushed, the more I started to feel like I needed to push back. And then when they somebody finally said, you have to take it. You have no choice. That was when they said, Oh no, there’s always a choice, always a choice. So it may not be a good choice, it may not be the best choice. In fact, things may be really bad for a while, and they were, but I think, I think people are too, too nervous to make choices now with negative consequences. You know, the thing is, is that we’re, we’re all, we’re all at a point where we have some sort of selfish, some sort of selfishness, and it’s that we don’t see the big picture. We see something where we go, okay, well, this affects me negatively right now, but by not saying, No, it’s something that affects people down the road exponentially. Right? Like as a culture, we have a tendency, and I think, I think, I think that’s this has been learned about us, is that we are selfish. We are willing to sacrifice the next of kin to be able to make sure that we survive and that we have, you know what we need and what makes us comfortable more than anything. Now, people don’t want to give up their comforts, and I think when you’re not willing to do that, that’s going to echo for generations, when people are unwilling to say, No, these are the hard choices, and it’s really hard for guys like us that came up in the system, even the way we were schooled when we were younger, teaches us to obey and follow the rules and then the career paths that we chose, right? That’s a huge part of it. It’s, you know? Well, I mean, I even, I even remember, you know, and I will say this, we had an incident when I was in law enforcement where we were told a magistrate, I gave the order that we were going to go and seize somebody’s firearms. And lucky enough, not only did the guys say no, but you know, our officers said no, wow. And that was a huge thing. I never heard anything else of it, but I remember that being one of those cases like, wait a minute, you want us to go. And regardless of it you want us to go, you can look at the second amendment however you want, but it’s a constitutional right to own these things. And I get it that it’s a court order, I understand. But there’s also a part of me that even when I would see somebody Fourth Amendment right, or anything else, there was part of me that wonders like, where is when I look back at it. Where is the overstep? Because I never intentionally tried to do any of that. I never tried to put my ego out there. You know, when I stopped somebody say, Hey, you did something that’s unsafe. I gotta make sure you’re aware of this. That was my primary goal. Yeah, and I got to where, honestly, I was kind of uncomfortable with the notion of law enforcement. I didn’t want to be somebody’s enforcer and and I didn’t, I didn’t fully grasp that and understand it in myself until I was up here at the it was actually north of Sandpoint, the McDonald’s ponder, a ponder a there was a guy there and a local, I think it was a ponder. A officer came in. This guy, I don’t, I don’t know that he was homeless, but he brought his dog in. He was clearly disheveled, maybe a little bit, not all there, and somebody was apparently uncomfortable with him. So call came in. This guy came in, and he came in and he, first of all, I don’t know what the specific initial interaction was, but he defined the difference between law enforcement officer and peace officer. That’s awesome. And I was, like, blown away. And I wish I could articulate it and remember it as well as he said it to that guy and that McDonald’s on that day, but I can’t. And and I remember thinking, man, if, if I knew I could have been a peace officer, I might have stuck with it, because peace offer officer, that was what I wanted to do. Yeah, there’s a fundamental difference there. Yeah, yeah. I remember one deployment with our SRT team to a civil disturbance call at the State Capitol in California, and we were tasked with enforcing rules upon a very conservative group. And the problem was we had been ordered to ignore those same rules on a very non conservative group. Previously, there was a lot of talk in the back halls there of like, Hey, are we like, are we doing the right thing? Is this okay? What’s the line where guys are like, now we’re done, we’re not going to do that. Yeah, maybe it should have been crossed that day. I don’t know, but we didn’t, but at least people were talking about it, and that’s the important thing, because it’s hard. It’s hard to stand up when you’re being ordered to do something, and you’re used to following those orders for a long time. Well, the thing is, too is. But, you know, a lot of people think, you know, especially with with people that have been in law enforcement, they say, Oh, dude, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t back the government if anything happened, you know, if any stuff, but, but it’s in our nature, right? How many times have you been to a riot where you totally disagree with what’s going on on the other side? Right? Somebody’s burning down a, you know, the city block, or whatever else. I mean, it’s easy for us to disagree with it, so it’s easy for us to step into that role and represent the authority of the government, right? And that’s hard, because I look back at that and I go, Well, part of me is like, you know what? You want to burn down the city block? You go right ahead, because me standing there and letting somebody throw a molotov cocktail at me, or or, you know, throw m1 80s at me, or anything else, or m1 1000s at me, or anything like that, and me just have to stand there and be, you know, and just resist. Well, that’s not the way I would handle it in real life. Anyways. It’s more of a show of force for the government. I feel, like a lot of people, you know, you see these crazy movies like The Civil War 2024, one, and how could, how could somebody that’s a jet fighter drop a bomb on American citizens? Well, they’re just given the order, and you make them think that that is the true enemy, right? And we’ve just seen that tested with the injections, too, haven’t? Yeah. I mean, like, how many people, if you asked them 20 years ago, and given some background and knowledge on government’s medical testing of its own people. How many people 20 years ago would say, 80% of the population is going to take this, right? How many would say, Yo, right? Yeah, sure. I believe that nobody would believe that 20 years ago, see, our man takes notes right now of the time? No, I’m writing down the word that we’re going to have. You should write down the time to avoid it. Fine. I just a three minute section and say, if you want to see it, I don’t know what words are allowed. That’s you know what I mean. Give me some defined rules. No that can, but it won’t happen. And that’s a big part of and I’m fundamentally opposed, because I’m sitting here deliberately, I know consciously trying to self sense. I know now I’m trying to figure out what doesn’t matter, but, but, but that’s a problem. We shouldn’t be self censoring. We should be a problem. So it’s on that note, it’s important to find places where you can get your information that is not and well, here’s the thing, people are going to say things that you everybody finds their narrative right? And people are going to say things that I fundamentally agree with. You know, you can go, you can go to the moon landing. Let’s talk about that. Is that censor Can we talk about the moon landing? I don’t know. Did it happen? Did it not? You can if you believe it didn’t happen. You can find all the evidence out there. You can find your narrative. You can write your book. And on the other side, a martial arts teacher I had who is really important to me many years ago to this day, still is, but he once told me, I’m paraphrasing here, but people believe the lies they like best. Holy cow, the past four years that has been just so reiterated in my brain. It’s just reverberated, just, you know, him saying that, and just seeing people believe all these lies, yeah, and also, it’s hard to find the truth. Isn’t right. I mean, you know, you want to believe the truth. You want to find the truth, man, you’re gonna get me just off on a side, like so truth. Sorry, this is something my son will come home from school. Okay? My son’s a great, great kid, dude, my daughter, too, she’s amazing. They’ll come home and they’ll tell me something. They’re like, Oh, Dad, did you hear that? You know area out on Grande? Had it, you know what? And I’m like, What’s your source? And they get mad one, what’s your source? Oh, well, this. Who’s that? Well, that’s my friend’s eight year old sister. And I’m like, you guys don’t know jack shit, because the truth is, is that it’s all source right? That, I mean, there’s actually so little that we truly know, because we’re just choosing to rely on certain sources of information and we can’t validate. I can’t rely on my own eyes and ears anymore because of AI, right, right? It’s changed the game. I watch a video that sure looks like some certain celebrity or whatever, saying something, and it’s not even them. Yeah, oh boy, yeah. I don’t even know what to believe anymore. And the truth is, is that, and this is something I’ll say to, I don’t think I need to say to the people that mostly listen to us, but maybe for one of the people that your first time on here, we got to stop trusting outside resources over the people that love and care for us. I mean, honest to God, I’m gonna change my information is gonna change the lives of the people around me way more than the government’s ever going to right? But yet, so often, we will actually go to battle with one another, because, well, I saw this on CNN, do you even know that person like I actually have a vested interest in Seth, I have a vested interest in you. I just met you. There’s, there’s something that we’ve lost with that where we’re willing to just believe somebody else, just because, yeah, and I think all this kind of ties in to the potter’s run series. Potter Potter’s run is a story of a war weary veteran who comes back home to kind of acknowledge his failings. With his family and with God, and he’s ultimately trying to repair a lot of things and save his family when it matters the most. He’s trying to prevent his daughter from being drafted in the next World War. Now, a lot of people, when I when I talk about that book, are in instant denial, and they’re like, oh, there’s never going to be another draft. Country won’t stand for that. Well, we’ve kind of established the country will stand for just about anything told to stand for. So, so the country would stand for another draft, probably, and there could very well be another draft, because last I saw the recruiting numbers across the services, we’re down like 40,000 and if we get into a major conflict as it is, we’re hurting. We don’t have people to staff ships and airplanes that we have, and we’re not even engaged in a war right now. I mean, still got some residual gwad stuff going on. Man, if things pop off in Ukraine that require us, or in Israel, Iran or China and Taiwan, we’re going to be a bad way. But I think, you know, is that really that much different than the 1930s No, no. I mean, and that’s the scary part, you know, in fact, that’s my new book. Is set in the 1930s I needed to take a break from this near future. It’s too close to home, so I was like, Okay, I’ll go back to 1935 airships and biplanes just have a flying adventure story. Well, you know, as I did my research, because I do try to make everything as realistic as and I I started looking at geopolitics at the time, and it’s like, Oh, wow. They had a president. They were afraid was going to be a tyrant and would never leave office. And they packed the Supreme Court, and that ruined the economy 15 years. And he ruined the economy, and then he’d drag us into another world war. And it’s like, holy crap. Here it’s, we’re reliving it again. Well, you know, it’s, you know, that time people weren’t willing to, I mean, you didn’t have people signing up for the Army 1930s It wasn’t until we got hit by Pearl Harbor, where there was an emotional tag, that people turned around and said, There’s something worth fighting for. Now, I mean, you can, I mean, we can go in spirit theories about in 1940 1941 but, I mean, I can tell you, studying the Pacific war during World War Two in college, that was my emphasis. There’s a lot of emphasis that I have that I believe that that could have very easily been an allowable expense. Someone’s gonna get on here and comment about that and an allowable expense, because what happened, right? I mean, the war in the Pacific was much different than the war in the western or in the in the Eastern Front, and over in in Europe, it was a racial war. I mean, there was like, you could identify somebody that was Japanese, you couldn’t identify somebody that was, you know, German or Italian, because that’s what most of us came from. So it became very racial. But ultimately it led us into like, hey, there’s something going on that’s a threat to our life, and all caffeine here safe to say that there was a, you know, that clearly the Japanese were committing all kinds of cross atrocities across Asia, and they needed to be stopped. But, but could they have been stopped another way? And maybe there were other things that could, could have happened back in the 30s that would have prevented what happened in the 40s for us, at least. And at the same time, we were pretty insulated, except for the fact that our guys were going over. And at that time, there was a big draft. No, I mean, there was a draft in effect there. There’s basically, except for the last 50 years or so, been some form of conscription. Yes, I think most countries know that about us too, especially being an armed country, the armed country in the world, right? We’re free to own guns. That’s not anywhere else in the world. And I think that other countries, like Russia and places like that, know that. And this is a small response, right? Potter’s run. I mean, having somebody come for your kids, there’s a point that when somebody steps foot on the US, there’s a unification that happens. All of a sudden, people go like, Oh, dude, you were a cop. I wasn’t a gang. Let’s, let’s team up, yeah, because we don’t want to lose this right, right? And that that as this, as the other books progress, you’ll, you’ll see that where Potter’s run is the initial um, standing up against the government, where members of the community and the family kind of work together to stand up against what they’re starting to see as government oppression, and that, of course, that the government doesn’t back off when you stand up. Course they can’t, right? So the the subsequent books are about the response and how that how that goes down, and it ties into other other countries who are interested in seeing this country collapse? Oh, for sure. And I love how you put in here. You know, I’m not going to send my kids to fight a rich man’s war. I think that strikes a nerve, because I think a lot of people are starting to realize that, or at least consider that, and and the other thing is that. We’ve been lied to by the government so many times. You know the social contract is going to start to break down here if it wasn’t already and so, so what, you know, what? What obligation do we have to serve a country that doesn’t represent us or respect our values right anymore. So, so there’s a lot of people who think, Oh, well, there should be conscription. Everybody 18 years old should, should go and do something for the government for two years, and that straighten a bunch of people out and, and I get that, I understand that sentiment, but at the same time, that’s not the country we are, is it? I mean, that’s what they do in communist countries. Yes, everybody is a servant of the state. I I think that’s a necessary evil of a government to lie. Yeah, I think, I think you have to. I mean, I can think of times that I’ve told my kids not the truth, right? And that’s the number one rule in our house, don’t freaking lie to me. But I don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell them a white lie or something to be able to get the compliance that I’m looking for to be able to gain, you know, whatever it is that we need gain control of the House, right? Like, yeah, and it sucks. I’m torn on that I did that when my kids were really little. Yeah, now and now, it’s not, but, but could I have done the same thing? I don’t know. But at a younger age, there were times, you know, I mean, how many times you promised your kid something didn’t happen, right? Like there were times, especially in desperation to maintain control as a parent, and I think as a you know what I mean, and as a government, interesting analogy, you have to be able to maintain control. If you can’t maintain control, you don’t exist, right? But at one point, do you become a bad parent, because you exceed that, and it is that because the second Gulf of Tonkin attack never happened, so you’re sending 1000s of Americans to die in Vietnam? Is that because, you know you’re telling you’re having a little a young girl stand up before a committee saying that the Iraqis stormed into the hospital and kicked all the babies out of the incubators? You know, those were all lies, and we went to war for those lies. I agree so and man stopping communism, I’m all about that. So I get that. But do we need to lie about it? World War One, you know, freedom of the seas and all that stuff, I get that. But, you know, the Lusitania they were, you know, they targeted a civilian ship. And the Germans, of course, being German, said that that ship was full of munitions and arms. Well, they discovered what? 70 years later that, oh, yeah, yeah, it was full of munitions. So they lied to us about that too. Yeah, remember the main I mean, how far back does this go that we’ve we’ve fallen for it and and propaganda and all that stuff is something that requires a lot of discernment. Now they’re trying to tell us what misinformation we have to believe and what mister information they tell us is a lie. So well they, I don’t think people have answers to the question, and that’s why they don’t like questions. You know, I mean, do with anybody? Somebody will come up and tell you something. I have a friend right now that’s all about the chemtrails. Okay? All about the chemtrails. And I laugh about it, because I’m like, Well, what do you want me to do? And then, you know, a lot of people like, you know, tell your representatives. I’m like, bro, you can tell right now that laws are not going to change shady shit. Like, if bad things are happening, they’ll just say, okay, yeah, no more chemtrails. Oh, what? That’s just steam. That’s not a chemtrail. Like, it’s not going to change that stuff. But, you know, I think that people don’t like being questioned, because there’s really not an answer a lot of times for it is now, there’s a true story that this is based on, right, that in the early 1900s and it goes back to 1918, World War One in Arizona. The power family, the Jeff power took his two sons to the remote mining claim because he didn’t want his kids to die in a rich man’s war, which was World War One at the time. So they’re out working this claim and trying to just be left alone when a couple of overeager law enforcement officials decide to come and enforce the draft requirements, and they do it in the pre Dawn one morning, Jeff powers hears his horses getting unsettled, and he assumes it’s a mountain. Doesn’t even think about anybody coming for him. So he grabs his rifle, goes the door. Soon as he opens the door, all they hear is, throw up your hands, and by all accounts, he did drop the gun, put his hands up. And then somebody started shooting, and there were a bunch of bodies. And that led to the largest manhunt in Arizona history, maybe even to this day, and it led to the military being brought in to try to find the family members that survived. And so every once in a while, you have people who still say no, and you’ll have people with enough conviction and commitment that. They’ll say no with with violence, a lot of people, and I think about this a lot, you know, you’ve got your Don’t tread on me, flag, Gadsden flag, you know, or the whole come and take them. It’s easy to say that, yeah, yeah. It’s not easy to say that when someone’s shooting your kids, or just when they threaten your paycheck, or that for your pension, right? Your health insurance, soy. So, well, this is, this is the dependent society thing that I talked about the other day. So it’s just like, just like us being on different platforms, right? Like our business becomes dependent on, right? Well, then one, oh, I just saw this the other day. So Alexa, they’re charging for Alexa now $10 a month. People that use Alexa for, like, ordering stuff and everything else, it’s now going to be $10 a month. I just explained this to my wife, and I’m like, This is how it all happens, right? They give you something that’s awesome. You get this, Alexa, and you’re like, This is great. You can do all these things for so long that it becomes part of your lifestyle, right? And then they start charging you, and there’s no way you’re going to give up that lifestyle that you’ve become accustomed to. And so now, now you can, you don’t have to do two day free shipping from Amazon, because that’s where you get all your stuff from, and you don’t have to do the, you know? Yeah, we can charge as much as we want for air, airfare. You know? Why? Because you got family lives in Florida, and you become accustomed to flying and seeing your grandkids. So you’re gonna pay $1,000 to go there instead of five or 400 bucks, 300 bucks, and we’re gonna pack you in like sardines, because it’s a lifestyle, and that stuff happens. You get become accustomed to it, and then, yep, you’re forced and, and, you know, Alaska, we had a saying a fed bear is a dead bear, right? So you either become the domesticated bear that’s sitting in the zoo, you know, getting fed every day, or you become that, that one who’s kind of a wild card, and you’re going to take whatever basket is left out for you, whatever picnic basket or whatever garbage can that’s an easy target for you, and you’re gonna you’re gonna deal with that until one day, that picnic basket isn’t there, or that garbage can isn’t there, and and you’re gonna start breaking somebody’s window to get into it, and that’s where you wind up being a dead bear. But the reality is, more or bears, or people at least, would rather sit in the zoo and be provided for, yeah, and that that is, well, that takes us back to communism, doesn’t it? Yeah, personal freedom goes out the window when it’s easier to be provided for. Thankfully, there’s pockets of places out there, like North Idaho. I know there’s others that I would say shun that. More, more, maybe not entirely, of course, but more, we’re all guilty of it, right? Yeah. I mean, I’m I order stuff on Amazon. My books are for sale on Amazon. So, yeah, I’m guilty. You also have a flip phone, so I do yeah, through email. Okay, let’s just so tell us more about Potter’s run here. So this is about, obviously, a guy and his kids. He’s trying to keep them out of the draft. Where does it go from there? So he can give away? There’s a summary on there. I’m trying to get the summary from the man. So he get, he gets the drafts, no draft notices, initial notices for appearance for the kids, and he burns them, doesn’t want them. And there’s conflict with the kids, you know, the kids, the daughter, at least, is more of a worldly, modern person, and she thinks maybe going off door is what she should be doing. So, and she’s also being a modern girl, doesn’t want somebody else making her mind up for her. So there’s conflict there with the Father, and the father, again, is trying to do the right thing and make up for some for some missing time and not being there when he maybe thinks it would have made a difference. So as it progresses, federal agents get involved. They start looking at how they’re going to take down the family compound cabin, not really, quite a compound, a little bit. And so I don’t want to, and I’m hesitant. I don’t want to, yeah, portion, if we want to do the spoiler alert thing, I don’t want to give away too much, because I want people to read it. It’s an easy read. I told them before I read it that like, I can only read like I can’t even read 10 pages a night, normally, because I fall asleep. I read this in two days. It’s a page turner, and it’s really applicable to a lot of the discussions we’ve been having here on this podcast, a lot of discussions I have in the coffee shop, and because their current times highlighted a couple of passages, I don’t think any of these are spoiler alerts, so I’ll read one, because I it kind of stuck with me. And I was like, Man, these are, these are important topics like you brought in topics that matter to at least people like us that live here in North Idaho. So. One quote here, just listen to what they tell you, just pay your taxes, just take your shots, just fight our wars. Just believe what we tell you, ignore what you think. In return, you get to watch your football games and drink your beer, smoke your weed in a home of your choosing, because we let you that touches on exactly what we were just talking about, that comfortable life, the great distraction you know, you watch your sports games, get all into your teams and your players. None of that shit matters Well, and that’s what you hear, right? And that’s why I always joke about you hear people and we’re guilty of it, right? Like we’re 100% guilty of it. I’m not even saying that we’re any different than most of the people that talk about this, but the truth is, is that there are some people out there that will go out and they’re like, you have to take a stand. You’re doing these things. But at six o’clock at night, they’re at home in their recliner, they got their favorite TV show on, they’re drinking a beer, like you said, and they’re going to bed in three hours. Like that is the lifestyle, right? That that’s and that’s where we are in a zoo, because we have the ability, there’s so much ability, to to protest and say, Oh, this is going on. And the truth is, we’re so dumb that you can literally tell the truth and give the and and give the evidence, and we still don’t care enough to do anything about it, actually, yeah. And if you, I’ve been to 100 maybe 200 protests, riots, whatever, peaceful, all the whole spectrum. It doesn’t matter. You can go out there and you wave your flags and, like, get on the news for five minutes. Nobody gives a shit. Yeah, it’s sad. But, like, you’re not doing anything. I don’t have a great answer. I don’t like to present a problem without an answer. Well, have a great answer. Well, I don’t have a great answer. I’ll kind of, I’ll kind of disagree a little bit with you. On there is because I feel like the leftist side is winning quite a bit, because it’s, you know, that the squeaky wheel gets the grease right. Sure. Like that is one of those things, the protests, the things like that. I mean, it is having an effect politically. And the thing is, is that we vote emotionally. We’re not, we’re not thinkers. I mean, you look at most of our votes, 99.9% of us literally read a little quipit about somebody and we’re like, oh yeah, they’re for abortion. Okay, I like that or or they’re not. I mean, we vote emotionally, so that emotional side of you’re hurting this person’s feelings because it’s a man and he thinks he’s a woman. People, people feel bad for that. But you know what the second part of that quote is? Eventually the squeaky wheel gets replaced. That’s the second part. Let me read another quote. So okay, let me make sure I’m not giving anything away here. Oh, okay, cool. And these all tie in like I read these, and they stood out to me enough that I bookmarked the pages. This will drive some people crazy. My friend Sam, for sure that I bookmark pages, and I even wrote on it. I think that’s a sign of a well loved book I see. Thank you. Yeah, my buddy Sam Bible looks like, Dude, my buddy Sam reads a lot and like, he’s, he’s like, he’s loaned me a book one time, and I think I may have dog he says, I dog ear to page. Yeah, and I know. And he’s like, I’ll never loan you a book again, bro. I’m like, okay, like, fair enough. Like, I won’t dog ear your book. Do it to my own All right, here we go. Understand what is happening to Tom Potter. Clearly, isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s a symptom of a sickness that has taken over our country. This is part of the continued erosion of individual rights. I think Some men may prefer to have decisions made for them. Some men prefer to have someone else tell them what to think. When I moved here 20 years ago, it was because I wasn’t one of them. When I moved here, it was because I thought this was the last best place. This was a place a man could still be free. That makes me think of North Idaho right there. Honestly think we tell people that we’re like, Man, this is if I’m gonna, if I’m gonna go down with people. It’s the people that are up here. And I do believe this is the last best place, yes, and I know there, there are other pockets, but I think it’s not the same. You know, I people are like, Oh, Tennessee. I’m like, that’s cool. Tennessee’s like, slipping, honestly, I think Florida slipping. And it really is, it really is somewhat systemic up here. You know, we had, I’ll tell this little story real quick. This is just total sidebar, but there’s, there are some people that are still teaching people some good things up here. My wife got her car hit the other day, okay, and there was a note left on it with a name and a phone number. And I’m like, God dang it. So we call, and then this guy answers, and he told her, Oh yeah, that was my son. And I’m thinking, your son left like you’ve taught him good enough, like he had enough respect down in California, man, your car gets hit. You’d be lucky to find who that is. Yep. And we got that. My wife was like, do we actually charge him? I go, look, it’s a 30. It’s a $3,500 fix. Yes, but when we’re done with this, we’re gonna send that kid a gift. I think that’s because I think he’s a badass high school student to be able to put his name on there and take I mean, it’s a small little thing, but you know how expensive crap is? Yeah? And I’m like, yes, it’s their responsibility to fix it, but it’s so cool because I’m like, I’m gonna send his dad a note and be like, you know what you’re raising? Kid, right? That is something that I didn’t see down in California very often, yeah, right, the personal responsibility, and then the wits to turn around and say, that was me, my bad. Oh, super cool. Way cool. Own it. I wish the world had more of that right now, I got one more quote see if this one is here. Okay, one last time, our rules of engagement come from our history books. Gentlemen, they should be pretty easy to remember, Stand your ground, don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here. That was stuck with me. What’s that from? Do you remember? It’s a Revolutionary War, yeah, and I can’t remember which general or which engagement. I think it was Concord or Lexington. Ah, because it, well, I can’t remember it touches on that, like, where is the where’s the where’s my personal line, and what am I willing to risk prison time my life? There are certainly things at play in the world today that I am willing to risk, that I’ve had that conversation with my wife because I honestly I needed to get her blessing. These are obviously hypothetical situations, so don’t anyone get carried out, carried away here. But you know, I had that conversation with my wife like, hey, where do we draw the line? And like, are you willing to be okay with me personally committing, crossing or holding that line where I know that my freedom could be at risk or my life could be at risk, right? And I had some interesting conversations with my wife when the mandates took place, and there was talk of worst injections. And I can’t believe in America, I had that conversation with my wife, right? And I don’t go into details, but that was my belief that forced injections would go both ways. Yeah, and my wife backed that decision. That’s awesome. They’re hard decisions and mandates. We mean, like, you know, Seth and I go out for coffee, like, man, a mandate. Yes, a mandate that’s a better man. That’s what we’re talking about. But everybody’s asking, but those like, What world do? I never thought I’d live in a world where I’d have to even have that conversation and actually mean it, dance country, no. But if people don’t have those conversations, and if you don’t have that line figured out, I don’t know. You’re not likely to make the hard choice when it’s time. Well, that’s and that’s what it all comes back to, you know, you hear the old, the old saying, I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees. The truth is, is like, what are you living for? You know, you said prison or losing my life? I’ll lose my life before I go to prison. You know, boring. I did something that’s illegal and horrible to somebody. There’s a certain part where it’s like, but when it comes to me versus an authority, that is something I disagree with, my life would go before I end up in prison. And that’s something because I’m like, what else am I here for? Are you kidding me? Like I’m just gonna go along with the flow? Who wants that? Who wants that type of judgment in their life, where you can’t make your own decisions, you can’t take care of your family the way that you want communism, by what, by theory, is an amazing thing. If you could be communist, if that actually existed, it’d be a beautiful place, but it would take everybody being wholeheartedly good and wanting the best for everybody, and showing up to work, to do their thing and never wanting anything more. And that’s just not the way we’re built. And that kills that kills everything. The Way We Live is because people are innovative and and strive for more. And if you take that away, you’ve taken away everything. What did you say to me at that Nate Smith concert? Oh, so we were at the Nate Smith concert. We were both having a great time. And I looked around and I’m like, Man, this is such a badass group of people, like all the dudes at the cowboy hats on, and just people outside, and you see American flags, you see people dressed up, cool, like, healthy, clean, healthy, fit. And I looked around and I’m like, man, if this is it, like we were talking about drones and stuff here we have a funny video we’re putting together. But I told I was like, Hey, man, if this is, like, the group of people that I need, people that I need to go down with, I’m good with that. I would never say that where I came from, like, I’m like, if this is the group, I don’t even know half these people here, but if I’m gonna go down with a group of people, this is the group of people that I want to go down with, that’s that I’m okay with that. I’m okay standing on that, you know, I’m okay stand on the bow of the ship and saying, This is it? Like, I’m good with it so and, and it’s important, like, we need to think ahead generationally, right? Like, yeah, it’s easy to be comfortable in our little lives right now, but the more we let things slide, if they continue that route, hopefully they won’t. We’re setting our kids up and our grandkids up for a life that I don’t think will be worth living, and that’s the important thing. Well, this is what’s cool about your book. We’re going with Charles, yep. Okay, this is what’s cool about your book, Potter’s run. It allows people to think through a situation there. There are absolutely situations where you. Should fight for the government. You should fight for the for the right, right? And there’s other times where you shouldn’t. And the problem is, is that what happens is when you don’t think, when you don’t put yourself through the situations, and you ask, Why is this happening? What is it for? Where are we going with it? Who’s calling the shot? If you don’t ask those questions, then you don’t have a purpose. I You can teach a monkey to do anything, but if you don’t understand the purpose of why you’re doing something, why you’re protecting your kids, or why you’re allowing them to go fight, there’s situations where I would allow my son to go fight and say, I hope I see her again. Yeah, right. And we have to think through those, right? And there may be situations where a draft is required and, and I really did want people to discuss this now before it’s needed, before we start really needing the numbers, let’s talk about a draft now, and what, what the criteria are for it being needed. Did we need a draft to fight Japanese atrocities in the Pacific and and Nazi atrocities in Europe? Well, maybe we did that. That you know those, there were 1000s upon 1000s of soldiers who went over there, not because it was where they wanted to go, but because they were conscripted, and they went and stormed the beaches in Normandy, and they were brave, even when they were scared, and they did amazing things and and they stood for something that I think America does represent, and and what we’re seeing now in the world is the results of a weak America. And so if we can be strong again, if we can be proper world leaders again, maybe we can help stabilize things and prevent future wars, rather than just being there along for the ride and having to drag our people in to bail people out again. Well, we live in a unique time right now that there’s nowhere else to go right when, when it was Europe. I mean, you go all the way back to, you know, the the Roman Empire and everything else. I mean, there was places for people to leave and go to. And then when America, you know, there was, it was people were able to get away. You didn’t You didn’t like Britain. You didn’t like, you know, Europe. You were able to leave. You had somewhere else to go. We don’t have any. We’re living in the one time in in history where there’s nowhere else to go. Everything has been claimed. You will be under a banner, and you have to conform somewhere in the world. And as bad as America may have been in our history and have had some, you know, some, some black marks on our history and stuff, it’s still way better than what else is out there 90% if we, if we give up our position as as a world leader, as a superpower, then who fills the vacuum right now, it’s looking like China, as bad as America has been, as all the bad things America may have been part of, just wait until the Chinese are in charge, because it’s nothing compared to what the Chinese Communists are capable of. Dave, what you said kind of touched on something, and I think that’s where we’re seeing. You know, you’re right. People have nowhere to go. That’s why we’re seeing this great migration within the US, where people are kind of finding their their comfort area, you know, their like minded tribe. And it’s, it’s crazy. I mean, you watch the numbers of people fleeing certain states and going to other states and kind of congregating. Look, America will fall. I don’t care what anybody says. I know we all hate to say it, but America will fall. There’s never been a country, a dynasty, an empire, that has lasted forever, right? We’re well past the expiration date. And the truth is, is that it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just the way that things happen. People will migrate one day. The US, however you want to divide, it is going to be divided, and it’s going to be divided by like minded people that congregate in certain areas. It may not be Idaho, it might be the greater Pacific Northwest. It might be part of Canada. It might be but that’s eventually going to happen, and it’s going to happen at a cost of lives. It’s just going to the government. As much technology as they have, are not going to be able to hold this together forever, and that’s the sad part. Is it 10 years? Is it 50 years? Is 100 I don’t know, but it will expire, and it will expire because of that reason. We’re all going to places that we’re like, all right, I this is it. This is where I want to be. These are the like minded people, and that like mindedness will prevail for that region at some point. Damn, Dave. But it’s the one clip that’s gonna get cut. I’m just saying it’s gonna fall at some point. I mean, eventually we all turn back into Stardust anyway, so I’m not gonna go there. Okay, all right. I mean, physically, physically, yeah, absolutely. Charles. Where do you get Do you sell any of these books locally? I’m looking actually life copy. That’s a great spot. Okay, do you need any connection there? Because Dave’s a good friend of ours. I’ve just talked to Dave this. Okay, cool. So he’s phenomenal. He is a great human being. That’s a great idea there. There are a. Other best life, CDA, veteran owned company. They have a coffee shop too. I would check them out. I’m sure they would carry this. Just because you’re local and you’re former law enforcement, you’re like, almost a Veteran. I’m going to make a promise to you, Dave, more than I am, Dave, you’re Dave, I’m Dave, Charles, I’m gonna make a promise to you. This is great. I’m gonna do it on air, just so I can be held like, I can be held accountable. We have too much technology in our life that books have kind of gone by the wayside for a lot of people. And this is embarrassing to say. I’m just gonna bring up the story I never read. Okay, like I just took my broker’s license the other day, or my broker law class, and I do fine. I’m very good at researching and pulling stuff together, but I have not read a book, a full book, in probably 15 years. Wow. But I know some people look at me and they’re like, you’re dumb, yeah? Well, books are the key to smart, and I don’t have those, yeah? And I mentioned somewhere in the books, you know, read, I believe that reading a book makes you smarter, reading the internet makes you dumber, yeah, and so that’s where I’m going. I am so bad about reading myself as an as an author. I should read way more than I do, but I’m really slow at reading, so it takes me a long time. And the other thing to consider is, right now, like at this very instant, there are cats doing funny things on YouTube. I mean, yeah, so, so I beat with that, but here’s my promise to you, I will read all three of these books before the end of the year. Oh, awesome, cover to cover, and that’s going to be rough. I’m nervous how you’re going to get fired up. And I’m like, nervous because when we get fired up together, then it like, I don’t know where that we need to have, like, a really good conspiracy, explicit podcast, I don’t know what platform, because we could go real, find it. We can. We can do it’s gonna happen. No, this is really cool, and I will. I want to read these because I do think it’s really important, and it’s something that, if anything, it would be nice to just be quiet for an hour and not have all the distractions of social media and all the bullshit that’s out there, and just be able to say, you know, and I’m gonna read something and take that so I very it’s very entertaining, like I said, it is a quick read. So, and I would say suitable for teenagers as well. I’m definitely gonna have my son read this person, right? So if you’re looking to pick it up, it is on Amazon, but if you want to support local currently, it will be at life public house, and hopefully some other spots. We’ll we’ll cue you in and make the connections if we need to, to get it into local businesses so that you can sell it here. Yep, and that’s my pitch again. I’m gonna say it local. Buy Local if you can. If it’s gonna be $4 more to buy it locally, please do it, because when you send your money to Amazon, it leaves our community for good. Yeah, when you buy something in our community, it’s touched six more times. Every dollar that you spend here is touched six more times by statistic, and that helps keep money here, right? So, yes, if you can buy it locally, please do that. I’m a Life public contact us. We’ll get you a copy, whatever else but buy local if you can. And if you show up to a coffee meeting or invite Dave and I to a coffee meeting at Starbucks, you’re dead to us. I’m not going, Yeah, happening on that note, Charles, thank you. So Potter’s run by Charles sage, local guy. You’ve heard the history here. There’s a lot of cool, cool, relatable topics in this book, and it’s a great read. So thank you for coming out. Catch you next time. Awesome. This podcast is brought to you by your North Idaho agent. We are a full service Real Estate Team serving all of North Idaho. Our team is comprised of former first responders and veterans, and we have years of experience in all aspects of real estate, purchase and sales, from bare land to new builds, condos, commercial and resale we have your back to ensure a safe, smooth and profitable transaction. Be sure to subscribe to our real estate YouTube channel called the North Idaho experience, and check out our website at your North Idaho agent.com it’s an excellent resource to learn more about North Idaho. So if you’re looking to move right now or 12 months from now, give us a call, text or email. We don’t just sell homes, we sell the North Idaho experience. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, the greatest compliment you can pay us is to like, subscribe and share. You.