RTE Roundtable Talk #6: Effective Citizenship During the Pandemic (Transcript)

Featuring Sonya Anderson and First Lieutenant Mark Bashaw

[00:00:00] Liam Sturgess: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Rounding the Earth podcast. Rounding the Earth is a popular newsletter series published on Substack written by applied statistician and educator, Mathew Crawford, topics of discussion range from critical analysis of conventional wisdom to Bitcoin and everything in between.

[00:00:42] And of course, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Our goal is a careful examination of important topics and perspectives shaping the world that too few people talk about subscribe to Rounding the Earth on Substack, Rumble, and YouTube to join a burgeoning research [00:01:00] community and to help us un-flatten the earth.

[00:01:04] My name is Liam Sturgess. I'm a musician, music producer and writer/editor coming at you live from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and I will be your host for today, but also please allow me to introduce the author of Rounding the Earth and my co-host for the podcast. Mathew Crawford. How are you, Mathew?

[00:01:22] Mathew Crawford: I'm well, thanks, Liam.

[00:01:24] Liam Sturgess: Excellent. How's your back healing up? I know you mentioned last time there was a bit of pain there.

[00:01:28] Mathew Crawford: It's actually fine. I started jogging a week ago, so yeah, I'm trying to just stretch out a lot and make sure it doesn't happen again.

[00:01:35] Liam Sturgess: Rock on. Well, yeah, let's, let's pray for a happy, healthy back situation.

[00:01:39] I know I've gotta get back into some exercises as well that I've been putting off, but speaking of soldiering on, a terrible pun, I'd like to introduce our two guests. Now we have 1st Lieutenant Mark Bashaw and Sonya Anderson. Hello.

[00:01:54] Sonya Anderson: Hello.

[00:01:54] 1st Lt. Mark Bashaw: Hello, Liam, hello, Mathew. Thanks for having us.

[00:01:56] Mathew Crawford: Yeah. Thank you both for joining us today.

[00:01:58] This is you know, [00:02:00] we kind of named this topic, but you know, what we really wanted was to to get people in the room who have done extraordinary things during what has been a difficult time for a lot of people. And I think that a lot of people have, have sort of come to grips with the difficult ies many difficulties of situations without necessarily knowing what they can do.

[00:02:20] And you know, of course, what you can do depends on who you are, where you are, you know, what your circumstances are, but I think it's good for people to hear the stories of other people who have done. So. Within their sphere of influence. And I don't know Sonya's story well, but Liam does.

[00:02:36] But I'm gonna start by asking both of you a question actually, you know, yeah, this actually the first question I'm gonna aim this one at mark, actually. What is the United States of America?

[00:02:46] 1st Lt. Mark Bashaw: United States of America is, is our country founded by we, the people built upon the Constitution and the values we hold dear and those founding documents and the founding people and the people that have come before us [00:03:00] to serve, to ensure those rights of the people for the people by the people.

[00:03:05] Mathew Crawford: Okay. You said people a lot and you said constitution, which is like a protocol. For how to deal with the conflicts to create a formation of a society that can work together balanced and where people can be themselves and be part of a, a cohesive group. It feels like we're in a moment where there's a tension between people whose answer to that question might be it's the people with the constitutional protocol and and the government, which has this constraining document.

[00:03:37] And these seem to be sort of, it's different perspectives and perhaps they're all part of reality, but but you know, the, the people and the, the protocols were always the way that I saw it also, but it feels like that that's, that's part of the situation, but I'm gonna and and, maybe we'll, we'll come back to this.

[00:03:54] But what does citizenship mean to you then?

[00:03:57] 1st Lt. Mark Bashaw: Citizenship is a, a [00:04:00] individual that has taken an oath as a citizen to the country in which they're responsible for carrying out and ensuring the government in which represents them is properly representing them. And if not, has the responsibility to ensure that they make their voice known and speak up and stand up and rise up for when that time comes to where that government no longer represents them.

[00:04:28] And in my opinion...

[00:04:31] Mathew Crawford: So they have both respect for, and a responsibility to the protocol.

[00:04:37] 1st Lt. Mark Bashaw: I would, I would say, so if we want to put it that way.

[00:04:40] Mathew Crawford: Under that definition, how many citizens are there of the United States of America?

[00:04:44] 1st Lt. Mark Bashaw: Roughly around 380 million. And obviously you have to factor in the adults and the children in that scenario.

[00:04:52] Mathew Crawford: I think it's maybe closer to 350 million, but I actually, I actually wonder how big it really is because if you know, maybe this is the question at [00:05:00] hand is how many of those people have a commitment toward the protocol? It's a difficult question to answer cuz he can't answer it for anyone else, but it certainly doesn't always seem like all of the people are people who are committed to the protocol.

[00:05:13] There are people who want it changed and and it feels like this moment may have something to do with that, even though it hasn't been spoken out loud. But I I'd like for you to tell us our story. Tell us your story. So how long ago did you joined the air force? I know you as somebody from the army, but you started your military career in the air force.

[00:05:32] 1st Lt. Mark Bashaw: Yeah, that's correct. So I started my military career service to our nation in January of 2006, active duty went directly into the air force enlisted and I served in various civil engineering squadrons around the world. My specialties insect-born disease pest management type protocols things like that.

[00:05:53] So at that time I was working base infrastructure of these various different air force bases, ensuring the planes got off [00:06:00] the ground. The bird aircraft strike program was a big program we were entwined into to ensure we could mitigate some of those hazards and some of those risks to our pilots. And then later, later on about September, 2019, I did a direct commission into the army medical services corps as a preventive medicine officer, which 67 Charlie is the code for that.

[00:06:24] And then my specialties medical entomology, or entomologist, and that's 72 Bravo. So that's kind of my background.

[00:06:33] Mathew Crawford: So when you decided that you wanted to study bugs, had you had you read Highline Starship Troopers?