Jesse Lin 0:00
This week, we are talking about whether or not the family is ever getting back together. And by the family, I mean, the United States of us. Obviously, through this quarantine and the 2020 election and the previous election, there’s been a lot of divisive messaging and just general bad feelings between everyone that lives in this country, about the direction that people want to want the country to move in, basically, and specifically, we wanted to talk about these people who are considered either independent, moderate, or centrist, and kind of get an idea of who these people are, and whether or not they are the wide majority of voters, or they are the minority of voters, or they’re a little bit of a voter in all of us.
Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)
Angela Lin 1:12
And just a backtrack a little bit. So the reason we want to focus on this kind of like middle of the road or not middle of the road, but this more undefined group is in speaking about this like divisiveness of the country, what you’re hearing what most people are hearing about is like, very loud voices from either extreme of the political party ends. So either like very liberal Democrats, or very conservative Republicans, those are generally like the loudest voices across the board. And so it makes it seem like the country is totally split and like inconsolable on a lot of the major issues. And we want to discuss this like unspoken, for a group that is labeled in many different ways, like you said, moderate independents centrist, like all these other categories, who don’t really fit into either side completely, and maybe find some common ground where, like, we’re not as divided as the big media at least makes it sound like because they’re mostly highlighting the two extremes of like, super democrat or super Republican.
Jesse Lin 2:31
Yep, I have to agree with you there. I mean, even in doing the cursory research for this episode, there really wasn’t a lot of information reported about any political leanings other than Democrats or Republicans, like even when I was looking through the Pew Research, like, a lot of the stuff about centrist or moderate or independence was like a few years old, like the most recent stuff was in 2019. So I kind of get it because like, it does feel like things are polarizing. And without looking into the center focused or central leaning people and having research on that, it’s pretty hard to say like, what the viewpoints really are.
Angela Lin 3:11
Well, first of all, let’s also backtrack to say Jesse and I are not proclaiming that we know jack shit about this, we’ve like googled a bunch of stuff beforehand, and are bringing our personal POV into stuff. But we’re not, you know, well versed in politics to be like considered experts by any means. We’re just kind of discussing the topic because it’s interesting to us. But backing up on what you said about like how usually, especially in the media, it’s really pandering to more like the majority that fit into Republican versus Democrat. What’s interesting is that in looking at the research, so there was a there’s an ongoing Gallup poll of like asking people every month or so what they identify as political party wise, and even up through this past this month, May, it floats between anywhere between tbh, like 35 to 50% of people self identify as independent, and then the rest are split between Democratic or Republican, which then makes it clear that actually democrat plus republican is not the majority. It’s just the like, two most well known political parties because the numbers don’t add up. They’re not it’s not like 80% of the country falls within democrat or republican and 20% are independent or even smaller. It’s literally like up to half at any given point, prefer to identify as independent rather than Democrat or Republican. And that’s not necessarily something I think most people know because you just hear only about like, dems versus republicans and all that.
Jesse Lin 4:54
I also agree I think there’s a large swath of voters are looking for candidates and platforms are different from what the Democrats and Republicans offer. But there just isn’t a nationwide framework for that yet, right. So like, I think part of the reason why it’s so skewed is that even if you did have this independent group, they kind of have to fall into one of those party lines in order to get something done, because only those people are represented in the government right now. So I think it is definitely skewed. And it’s skewed, because it’s kind of this whole representation issue, right? If those are the only people there, you have to kind of tell the story by how they play it because you don’t have any other way to do it.
Angela Lin 5:36
So breaking down what you you mentioned, which is that the independent group, which like, could make up up to 50% of the country at any given point, they’re very split. And that’s something I think we saw in our research is just like, in the rhetoric of media, especially around election time, they’re always talking about this, like the indepedents or the moderates, or whatever being this like swing vote, but they’re not all the same people. And they’re like, they’re talking as if it’s like 50% of the country’s like all of one mind that’s just like, unaccounted for. But it’s actually like a huge sprinkling of like a really diverse group of thinkers that don’t fit nicely within either party and don’t think nicely with each other, necessarily, either. And it’s weird that I guess that never gets that kind of attention, which is like, they’re not all the same thing. Like you can label it as moderate. But that’s probably not even necessarily how they all feel about, like their stances on things is not necessarily that they want to compromise on everything. They just aren’t spoken for, on either of the big parties lines.
Jesse Lin 6:49
Yeah, I actually. So there’s some information in this Pew article that I looked at which corroborates your Gallup poll, which is that four in 10, US adults identify as politically independent. But they also say that most most of those in the independent group have some kind of lean towards one of the major political parties. And so what they found was a lot of the independent voters are actually they have some kind of skew in terms of those major ideological things that are usually split on party lines. But there are significant differences between the independents and partisans on some of the issues. So one of the things that they mentioned here was that nearly 6 in 10 republican leaning independents of 59% currently favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally compared with 37% among republican identifiers. And I think generally, is that like, the belief is not so clearly split on ideological lines, it’s kind of like issue by issue, they may have something that’s like leaning towards one side versus the other. And yeah!
Angela Lin 7:48
That’s exactly right. And I will just offer myself into this conversation, which is a big reason I think we were interested in having this discussion is that I don’t necessarily feel like I fit nicely into either political party. But to your point, I think I have leanings towards certain, well, I have leanings towards the Democratic Party for for many things. Also, because I’ve been registered as Democrat my entire time I’ve been able to vote. But as like, especially, like you mentioned, the last four years of like, super divisive politics, it’s just made me kind of like step back and take it more issue by issue and like, think about where I stand on each thing. And I don’t necessarily agree with everything that the Democratic Party is putting out there. And what’s funny is, I don’t know if we talked about this, but then last election, I spent like five hours reading about all the props for my local election stuff of like, what they were going to do with tax dollars and shit, because that’s the stuff that actually impacts your day to day life. So each proposition the arguments that you see afterwards for or against or paid for by organizations or private citizens or whatever, that want a voice and have some sort of like, sway on how voters are thinking about voting for that prop. And the Libertarian Party cares a lot about how tax dollars are spent because it kind of goes like core to their their main philosophy, which is like small government more power towards like yourself, and how you decide that you want to live your life and your personal, you know, money is a big factor and like, you know, how you carry your life. So they spent a lot of money kind of like writing up their thoughts on each of these propositions and whether it was worth while or not given the tax dollars that were going to be spent on it. And each each argument they wrote, I was just like nodding furiously along with it, and I was like, I’ve literally never even like I probably had only heard the word libertarian once in my life before that, you know, reading all those arguments where it was signed, like the libertarian, the San Francisco libertarian party or whatever. And I was like, I couldn’t agree more. You know, it’s so that is probably the most recent experience where I felt more like I feel seen. But, you know, to what we were saying earlier, they don’t hold that much power and like they’re not going to be the next big thing or anything, but it’s just that I think there are these like smaller parties that can speak more towards the like, a more holistic look how some of these like independent or moderate or centrist or whatever, are thinking that aren’t accounted for in the other big parties.
Jesse Lin 12:05
Yeah, I think I want to agree with you there like which political way or party or method that identified as was not a, you know, like, it wasn’t very pressing for me when I first was able to vote. And as I’ve lived, longer, 30s baby. And I’ve lived in the city for a decade, I’ve kind of been like, oh, like, it really does matter. Because like, I’ve lived here for 10 years, and like, how many things are still shitty, that like candidates have said coming on said they would do something about and haven’t done anything about. And so I also agree with you in the sense that, like, I’m also picking and choosing things in terms of my own perspective on each of the individual issues. And like those might line up with what people call party lines. But that doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily evaluating them on party lines. And I think that’s the main difference is that like, you might say that the views look Democratic, but they’re my personal views on it. And even though they that they parallel or that they’re similar, it doesn’t mean that I necessarily also agree with like everything that’s happening in terms of policy choices with the Democratic Party. I mean, like, there’s still this crisis on the border in the south. And I don’t think that the current administration is doing a great job in dealing with that. Of course, it’s a complicated problem. And I’m not saying that everything should be solved right away, but it doesn’t seem like much has changed. So for sure, I also agree with you in the sense that I’m not like a party purist, where I’m like, I’m all in for this party, regardless of like, what they’re doing, or not saying that, you know, it’s a necessary evil for them to do this particular thing, if they can resolve these other things. Like I don’t really believe in that. Like, I think that there’s smart enough people working in the government that can resolve the problems. It’s just kind of like the political willpower and the willingness to sacrifice political capital to get it done.
Angela Lin 14:01
I love that you talked about it more like you know, you thought about an issue by issue and you happen to agree with, you know, what the Democratic Party is saying on each of these things, but it’s not like you’re just like, okay, this is how Democrats are voting like, that’s the way I’m gonna vote. I think there is still a lot of that though. And part of why I think that happens is like the media and politicians, which is all you’re seeing during especially like election cycles, they love a good narrative man, and they love pitting the two parties against each other in this like good versus evil way. And I think that’s just a really like, not great way to frame up the American people by saying like, if you’re part of this party, then you’re like, a horrible human being versus if you’re the other party, you’re like, a good person. I feel like I don’t know where in our history as a country, it started becoming like – your political party started becoming conflated with your morality, or like how good of a person you are. But I feel like that’s a lot of the narrative these days is just like, oh, you voted that way. Like, you’re fucking, like, shit human.
Jesse Lin 15:16
Yeah, I was actually thinking about that too, because. And of course, you know, this is all behind my rose colored glasses, lenses of, you know, growing up in Irvine and all that stuff. But it felt like politics back then was there was less morality involved in it, right? Like, if you voted a certain way, people weren’t going to castigate you, in the sense that they weren’t going to tie your decision with whether or not you’re a good or bad person, like you’re saying. Because I feel like fundamentally, maybe, and maybe I’m wrong. Again. In the past, it was that people agreed on the problems, they just didn’t agree on this solution. And now I feel like people don’t agree on the problems. And many of the problems are tied to things that are social issues. And those social issues really engender a lot of emotion around people, for example, this the debate around gay marriage, like, arguably, yes, I would say that person who voted against this is not a great person, because it’s my right to be able to marry whoever I want. And I don’t see why someone’s religious bent should have any bearing on my own choice as to what to do whatever whatsoever. And I think stuff like that is it is bad is bad, but it’s like really hard to separate that from like, a rational decision that the person make, make may make. So like, they might make like unfavorable judgment on a social thing, but they might make good decisions on other things. And I think that there’s no space for that anymore. For better or worse.
Angela Lin 16:54
I think it’s a complicated issue, because I understand your feeling towards that, which is like I, you know, you are feeling like I have a right to exist, I have a right to be happy and to like, have a partner that I can call, you know, my the same level partner as like a heterosexual couple and all that stuff. I totally, I understand that. And that’s why I voted for that to pass, however, to categorically say that someone who voted against it is a bad person I also don’t necessarily think is, right. And it’s part of what is being fed by the media and shit is like exactly that narrative. Because if you think back to our first season, I think it was our first season when we had Lindsay on. And we were talking about religion, right? Like, I mean, she was she’s evangelical Christian. And we brought that up, and it was kind of like this weird topic for us, right? Because people who are super religious are not able to necessarily bend that way to like, even if they agree with you from like a human standpoint, that you deserve to be happy and loved and like all that stuff. Because of their like fervor towards their religious beliefs. They just can’t bend on that one issue. But I don’t think that makes them bad people, because like most of the Christian people I know, have been some of the, like, kindest humans I’ve ever met. And like, if you talk to them about any other issue, besides that you know what I mean, like most issues, besides that, they would agree with you on almost everything, and like, they’re the most willing to help you, you know, help generally people and stuff like that, because that’s what God tells them do and XYZ, but like, that’s where I’m talking about, like, these are really hot button issues, because they can be very personal and affect your personal life, for sure. But I don’t necessarily agree that you can label a whole, you know, a whole person based on one issue and where they fall on that.
Jesse Lin 19:05
So I mean, personally, like, you know, it’s not like, we had that conversation with Lindsey. And I was like, boo, Lindsey, I’m never got to talk to you again. But the honest truth is like, I’m never gonna let a person like that close to me. It’s like, I kind of get it like you have this like, end goal salvation with God. And so you can’t, like approve this thing. But that’s a big maybe versus my lived experience. Right now I’m alive. And I’m deprived of this right – or I was, not currently. So that’s kind of my perspective on it. So like, again, like, I have friends from different orientations and like backgrounds and stuff like that. And like, it’s not the situation that I would ever just cut somebody out based off of something like that. But I also would find it really hard to ever be like, fully close to someone like that, because fundamentally, we don’t agree on something that’s of import to me.
Angela Lin 19:58
Yeah. And I can tell just by your answer that it’s getting a very person v personal. And that’s why that’s why a lot of these issues are really hard to discuss and to look past.
Jesse Lin 20:12
Yeah, well, let’s talk about some issues that I think that everyone can generally agree on. But people seem to think disagree on. So I think in general, one of the things that we talked about with Anna in the past, and you were kind of like, well, this is stupid, like why can more people vote is access to voting. And I think generally, there’s this kind of like, weird situation where the decision, or the choice that the party takes on a particular issue somehow becomes partisan. Even though as you mentioned, like the I think the majority of us would prefer to be able to very easily vote, it’s not a fun thing to do. Make it as easy as possible. Even that whole thing, there’s specific things that generally people don’t agree about. So maybe we can do like one by one. So what’s your perspective on no excuse early and absentee voting? Because generally to be an absentee voter, you have to be like, I can’t vote for whatever reason. But like, do you agree that you have to have like, whatever reason, because usually the reasons pretty lame, like you’re just like, oh, I’m not here.
Angela Lin 21:15
I agree that most people don’t have a good reason. I also don’t necessarily agree that you shouldn’t have any reason, like, then you can’t necessarily track if they are registered in both states, or like multiple states or whatever, because you’re just like, la-la-la, like, let me just assign you up. That’s how people can game the system. And that that did happen this past election is that people were actually registered in two different states. And then they were able to vote in both states, and especially on ones where like, maybe you’re living in like a liberal state like California, but you are home, your home state is in like, Georgia or somewhere where like, your vote actually matters more. Because it’s a little bit more divisive on stuff like they were able to vote in both. So I’m not talking about the red tape of it. I’m talking about like people who know that they can kind of like, find this loophole to game the system.
Jesse Lin 22:11
Okay, I understand. I understand. I don’t know, I’m like thinking about the issue in abstract without considering like, the reality of it. You’re saying like, I don’t agree, because like people are gaming the system all the time. But like, if we were to get to a situation where that’s not possible, would you agree?
Angela Lin 22:27
Yeah, yeah. If it was literally just like, let’s make it as easy as possible for people to vote whatever way they want to vote. Yeah, one time – mail-in. We talked about even like, why can’t it be electronic? Like if there was some, like very secure way, right, like, yes, I’m all for that. But currently, government doesn’t work that way. They have like the jankiest setups for everything and it’s very easy to have like, many loopholes all over the place.
Jesse Lin 22:56
Yeah, no, but I agree with you. Like, I think it should be as easy to vote as possible without voting fraudulently, because it is fraudulent to vote in multiple places. It’s not legal.
Angela Lin 23:06
Correct.
Jesse Lin 23:08
Okay, so the next thing, requiring all voters to show government issued photo identification to vote.
Angela Lin 23:13
What’s the what’s the argument against that?
Jesse Lin 23:15
Generally, the, the, the reason why you wouldn’t want to is that some people don’t have IDs. Like, for example, you might be someone that’s homeless, you might be someone that was like, recently incarcerated, and you exited the system, and you don’t have an ID. So you can’t actually vote even though you’re allowed to vote. And also, just like people who don’t have IDs in general, so I can think of like you, you might have grown up here, but you don’t have like a license or something like that.
Angela Lin 23:41
The incarcerated and homeless part that is, that’s a fair point. I think, in those cases, there still should be another form to verify who they are, though. I think that is honestly the key thing that if people are like against it, it’s because they’re, it’s opening up the loopholes for like, fraudulent behavior. So if there’s some other way that they can vouch for their identity with like, I mean, if you just came out of jail, they fucking know who you are, you know, I mean, like, there, there should be some way you can, like, prove who you are. So I think for those instances, there should be like a backup way to verify their identity that doesn’t necessarily need a government issued ID. But if it’s literally just like, you haven’t gotten around to getting an ID, I’m sorry, but that’s not like you shouldn’t be allowed to vote if you can’t be bothered to get a $10 ID.
Jesse Lin 24:33
I don’t think it applies to that kind of like, casual situation. It’s the getting the ID part that’s difficult because you need a place of residence. And not all people can provide that. That’s the thing, or they can’t fulfill any of the other requirements it takes to get an ID. Because I remember when I got my Real ID you had to bring like, passport, Social Security. It was you have to have like a lot of documents on you to get it so it’s just not easy.
Angela Lin 25:01
If there’s a backup backup form of verification, I would agree with, you know, not being so stringent on the government issued thing. It’s just like the majority of the population would still fall within the government issued ID part. And then the other people who have like special circumstances, there should be a second way that they figure it out. But it can’t just be like, just show up and like vote like I don’t think that’s a good solution.
Jesse Lin 25:27
I think that’s rational, like making sure you know, who’s voting but making it easy for people to access that? Yes, not having it so difficult. Well, we covered only one issue. So maybe we’ll do the other issue, which is raising the federal minimum wage to $15.
Angela Lin 26:25
So this is where my libertarian part of me comes in. I agree that people deserve to be paid like humans. So theoretically agree with $15 minimum wage. My question is, where’s that money coming from? Which is a lot of the question that libertarians have in general is like, who’s paying for that? Where’s that money coming from?
Jesse Lin 26:48
I think maybe this is this, this goes to kind of what you’re saying, which is like, the ideal scenario versus the realistic scenario. And for me, I’m kind of like, well, this is the goal. Like, let’s try to figure out how it would work. I think part of the problem is that like, we don’t fix it, because people are like, well, how do we do it? How do we blah, blah, blah, and then like, nothing happens. And then everyone thinks the government sucks, because there’s all this gridlock about, like, how we should do something. And for me, I’m like, let’s just do something. Let’s do something. And then like, obviously, like, you know, have some backup plans, if something doesn’t work out well, but like, doing nothing is kind of worse.
Angela Lin 27:29
Yeah. That’s why things are sticky, though, is that the how matters a lot, because you can’t just say like, now everyone gets paid $15 an hour, because you have to figure out where that money comes from, like, literally, you know, you literally couldn’t just say like, let’s just give everyone $15 an hour, because you need to find the money to be able to pay people that money. The trouble with a lot of these, especially the social issues and economic issues is you can only do so many things. So like, that sounds great. But what doesn’t get done because you’re putting money towards this one. So I think that’s honestly, that’s a lot of where the like middle people, the non democrats or non republicans get caught is like, I agree, theoretically, with everything you’re saying from like, in an ideal world where money is free, and like we can do anything we want, I want all these things. But that’s not the world we live in. So if we have a limited supply of money that we can, or like, I don’t know, whatever constraint there is, besides money, but like if there’s limited resources, staffing, whatever to like, get X, Y, and Z done, we have to prioritize, you can’t have all of it. So then it might sound like we’re saying like, fuck, fuck people’s, you know, livelihoods. I’m not willing to pay them. $15. But it’s because we’d rather put that money towards, like, I don’t know, not building a fucking wall. And I don’t know, like, there’s, you have to pick and choose. It’s that’s just like the reality. So we can’t live in just an ideal world.
Jesse Lin 29:01
Yeah, well, I think that, you know, not all not all problems can be solved all at once. Like you’re saying, but I do think that there’s a place where the foundation or the groundwork for the current problems can be laid. And I think with this federal, like the minimum wage thing, I think most people like I think you said in theory, you agree with it. And maybe like where also where we diverge is that, I kind of feel like, hey, I voted these people into the government, they run the government, like this is what I pay them to do is tell them what I want, they have to go figure it out. I didn’t pay them to ask me how to figure it out. That’s what they’re there to do. So like, I want $15 minimum wage, go figure it out how to do it like that. And, of course, it comes to the trust of the government and like how well they can execute a problem like that. But for me, I’m like, that’s not my problem. Like I voted you and you should know how to do it. There’s like what all these frickin bureaus have people hired to execute these programs. And make sure that we can get the things that we wanted out of our elected officials. So I don’t see why it can’t be done. Well, I think that brings us to our close our Fortune Cookie, which is, you know, after we’ve had this conversation, do you think that, you know, the people across the aisle across the US can once again, embrace each other? I think we also have very differing perspectives, because I think I generally am more optimistic about things and you’re more realistic about the situation. And with all that said, do you think that we can bring those things, align those things, marry those things, friend, those things back together?
Angela Lin 30:46
Well, let’s start with you. Because I feel like I’ve been saying a lot of stuff.
Jesse Lin 30:52
It’s okay, you have lots of views on it. Like I said, I’m an optimist. So I feel like it is possible, because at the core of things, I feel like most people want the things that we discussed. They just don’t want to have to deal with all the stupidness around it, right? And I think if we can collectively focus on that, those things that we collectively as the you know, public of the United States want, we have more power to say to the government, like you guys are doing a shit job. We pay, we pay all of you to be doing a job that you guys don’t deliver on. So like, you know, if we can recognize the common things we want, I think we can drive it to really do something effective, and maybe enact some change. I think in the current situation, why we don’t see changes, because instead of holding our elected officials accountable for the things we want, we’re like arguing amongst each other on these like non issues that are like not important, necessarily. But I am optimistic because I believe that we have more in common than we have different.
Angela Lin 32:05
I agree with your last sentence. I do think we have more in common than we think or told to us that is different. I think I’m cautiously optimistic, but not within the same timeframe as you’re talking about, because I think we just got like in the next four years, right? I don’t think in four years, we will be in like the rose colored glasses, worlds just yet. I think because of the post Donald Trump world, politics has become this, a bigger dumpster fire than it has ever become. Because him being in office has polarized people so much that it like I think there’s always been this sort of like, you know, identity that you associate identity politics, right. That’s the whole term. But I think during Trump’s who’s gonna say reign as if he’s like a king, but his, you know, his tenure
Jesse Lin 33:02
His dominion of terror.
Angela Lin 33:06
While he was an office, just the fact that he was like, the face of the Republican Party made it so easy to demonize a whole, you know, a whole huge part of the country. And to easily label like, you’re a good person versus you’re a bad person. And I think we have a lot of hangover time to recover from that kind of thinking towards other people. Because I think pre Trump, like people weren’t so like you were saying when we were growing up in Irvine, right? Like, even if people had different political views, like it didn’t define them, it wasn’t like you were like, fuck you the now I’m like, never gonna talk to you again. Because I found out that you voted for George Bush, like, Um, but yeah, I think it’s gonna take some time. It’s gonna take like another cycle, I think before people just like kind of not forget about politics, but that once it stops becoming like, the main thing we talk about, because I feel like the last fucking four years like politics, and government has been like the biggest conversation that’s been like dominating over people’s lives, disproportionate to before what Trump was ever running for office. And it’s gonna continue being that way because now it’s like now we’re in the post Trump era where we’re trying to like fucking course correct and it’s like the exact opposite it’s like going like the extreme other end of like trying to undo stuff. So it’s not going to be the next four years that this whole like she said, he said like that person is a good person way of looking at each other is going to like resolve itself, but I’m hopeful that after this whole thing, like maybe once Biden and Kamala are out of office, by that cycle, we’ll be able to like, look back and be like, hey, that was kind of silly of us being all like mean towards each other. Maybe we can like, actually look at the issues and like find some common ground here. I do think at the core, as people we are, we have a lot more in common than the media and the like broad narrative is portraying right now. But that those are the loudest voices. And that’s what’s going to like continue being the way that people are thinking because we’re still in this hangover phase.
Jesse Lin 35:24
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. But I think that conversations like this are what are going to make people realize that their, their viewpoints on things are fundamentally more similar than different, right. And so hopefully, this reaches the ears of some of our listeners, and they feel more close to us.
Angela Lin 35:42
Yes, yes. Okay, well, we’ve covered a lot of shit and apologies in advance for you listening to me ramble furiously, for so long. I’m sure a lot of you have opinions that we talked about today. So if you want to weigh in on any of the issues that we discussed, or if you identify as more of this like, centrist, independent, moderate, whatever and accounted for group, write us in about your experience, or write us a story that you want to be featured on an upcoming Reflections episode, because we are still always looking for your stories. So write us in at telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com the you’re is Y-O-U-R-E.
Jesse Lin 36:30
And as always, come back next week for a fresh new episode. And Happy Fourth of July everyone
Angela Lin 36:37
Happy Fourth. Oh, wait, I got my I have my like skull t-shirt that has American flag faintly shown.
Jesse Lin 36:46
And I have the most American thing which is money, money, money, money, Mr. Lincoln, the five.
Angela Lin 36:54
Oh, I love it. All right, well hope all of you have a safe and fun fourth.