300 | Russ Latino

[SPEAKER_00]: Joseph Shumpeter a long time ago wrote a book, in nineteen forty two, one in Nobel Peace Prize, but his part of his argument was that America would eventually fail not because of external threat, but because of internal comfort, that we would effectively forget what made us prosperous in the first place. [SPEAKER_02]: Let's go! [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to says that we got a very special guest today, Mr. Russell atino. [SPEAKER_01]: Is that your real last name?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or is that said it was real last name? [SPEAKER_01]: You're not in witness protection or anything? [SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not a chosen alias. [SPEAKER_00]: Although I was on the radio this morning and had somebody refer to my family as the latino's and got a message from somebody that says, y'all really shouldn't be talking like that about ethnic groups. [SPEAKER_00]: Just my name, man. [SPEAKER_01]: That's funny.

[SPEAKER_01]: What's the, I mean, obviously I assume that's a Spanish or Latin last name, but how do you, do you know what the family history? [SPEAKER_00]: I do, so Latina is actually an Italian surname, and it's a commoner's last name. [SPEAKER_00]: It literally just met somebody that spoke Latin, and of course, you know, Latin originally came from Rome. [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a very common last name in Italy.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just so happened that when I was about six, they started using it as a description for an entire people group. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a confusion. [SPEAKER_01]: We do that from time to time, just change language, and then get mad at everybody for using it the way that we used it two weeks ago. [SPEAKER_00]: I had somebody on Twitter recently telling me to change my last name, funny supposed to do. [SPEAKER_00]: Eight hundred years of family history.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just let me get on that. [SPEAKER_01]: Jesus Christ. [SPEAKER_01]: All right. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's stupid. [SPEAKER_01]: So you're the [SPEAKER_01]: founder CEO of Magnolia Tribune Institute. [SPEAKER_01]: Tell me what that is. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I spent ten years in the law practice world and the ten years in think tank and government affairs world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then in the in twenty three launch, Magnolia Tribune, which is a nonprofit news site based on on Mississippi news. [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of it really was just oriented around me looking at the landscape here and seeing that, you know, everything that was being reported was often being reported with a agenda. [SPEAKER_00]: It was all pretty pervasively negative. [SPEAKER_00]: And I felt like at a minimum we could kind of balance out the media landscape a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we launched Magnolia Tribune January, twenty three. [SPEAKER_00]: We're growing. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's been a fun ride very different from practicing law or doing government affairs work. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I like so. [SPEAKER_01]: I say this a lot to people because we're in this time period speaking of language changing. [SPEAKER_01]: We're in a time period where the words we use to describe our political affiliations or in limbo to some degree, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, conservatives that call themselves such are very rarely conservative anymore. [SPEAKER_01]: People that call themselves liberal are actually progressives and not classically liberal in any meaningful way. [SPEAKER_01]: So we're kind of making a way through all this stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think [SPEAKER_01]: the best way to handle that as an individual because there's a lot of noise out there is to try to reduce everything down to the principal level right so for me if you're preaching about decentralization and local efforts that's conservative and if you're not then you're not conservative frankly right I mean that's that's just kind of how it goes so it's always been my gripe with [SPEAKER_01]: libertarians because they want to win at the federal level.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's to me that is meaningless, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like one, it's never going to happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: And two, what would be the impact that taking over city councils and state legislatures would have a far greater impact for which I and I like the libertarian domestic side in a lot of ways because I think it is [SPEAKER_01]: It does harken back to it like a more decentralized version of conservatism, but you know the idea that you're going to take this small government idea and apply it to the federal government doesn't make it all out of sense to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I'm with you on that. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think the way that I've always thought of myself is sort of as a classical liberal. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I've said that on other radio programs before and had people in Mississippi say, see he admitted he was a liberal. [SPEAKER_00]: To me, classical liberalism and conservatism really aren't that far apart from each other. [SPEAKER_00]: If you think of it in terms of

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what the founders were trying to create, very much so as a society of individuals where they were self-responsibility, where government was limited in power, where you had voluntary exchange of ideas and commerce, and all of those ideas are at, I think both the heart of classical liberalism and conservatism, I also a hundred percent agree with you though, man, like language has been bastardized at the point that it's almost impossible to have a conversation because everybody has their own feelings about what those words mean now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's, and you know, to be honest. [SPEAKER_01]: allowing your feelings to interfere with your reason is something that children do, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And it's not, that's not how, and maybe women, I guess, not to be too sexist, but that's not something that a man is permitted to do, frankly, right? [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, your job is to be still looking lead. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't give a shit what your proclivities are.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've just got, I'm growing more and more tired of [SPEAKER_01]: whining from men, like life's not fair, so I'm not going to participate in this or that. [SPEAKER_01]: But what are you talking about? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you're your job to lead. [SPEAKER_01]: Like why are we, and why are we negotiating with people to behave a certain way instead of just leading? [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean? [SPEAKER_01]: Like this, this, this, you wouldn't do this with your children.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you do this with your children, you're going to fail miserably. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it's interesting you say that, I mean, Ben Shapiro obviously was kind of famous for the facts don't care about your feelings. [SPEAKER_00]: I think the retort to that is oftentimes feelings don't care about facts. [SPEAKER_00]: In an ideal world, we would be much more logic-based, much more fact-based in the way that we approach problems.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because, candidly, that's how you develop solutions. [SPEAKER_00]: But I think we've gotten away from that. [SPEAKER_00]: I said it this the other day on Twitter. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, if I could teach one thing in public education, I would teach logic. [SPEAKER_00]: because I feel like every, I just did it myself. [SPEAKER_00]: I said the word feel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every conversation that we have, it's at this point reduced down to base emotions and you can't have a logical conversation where people agree on terms of debate and then ultimately work it out so that we arrive at a mutual solution. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is something that I've been harping on a lot lately and trying to give good examples of. [SPEAKER_01]: So, [SPEAKER_01]: going back to what I said about first principles.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the classic debates that has persisted for forty or so years in this country is over healthcare, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And, excuse me. [SPEAKER_01]: People on the progressive left or even just center left or even center right in some cases, but mostly in the left would say, did I think we should have free health care and that health care is a human right? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, nothing that requires a labor of somebody else is a human right. [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.

[SPEAKER_01]: And again, that doesn't care about your feelings. [SPEAKER_01]: That's just how reality works. [SPEAKER_01]: However, I want to peel that back. [SPEAKER_01]: And try to understand that this person is coming at me from a point of empathy and a desire to take care of other people, which is not a bad instinct, right? [SPEAKER_01]: That's something that we all should have.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what they're actually saying is that [SPEAKER_01]: in the richest country in the history of the world. [SPEAKER_01]: It's probably unethical to tell people that they can be as healthy as they can afford to be. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that is a just statement. [SPEAKER_01]: I agree with that actually in principle. [SPEAKER_01]: So the question is then how do you solve for that problem?

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we've the right likes to think they're trying to solve for that problem with [SPEAKER_01]: Community efforts, five of one seed threes like churches for example, and it's just not working because those people aren't doing the actual work. [SPEAKER_01]: Now it's not to say that some or many of the smaller churches are not doing that work, but these large mega churches are definitely not. [SPEAKER_01]: They're profitizing or they're profiting off their faith and not.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like let's take OST in for example. [SPEAKER_01]: One of the worst human beings that's ever existed probably, because he's weaponized people's faith against them and tried to extract wealth from them. [SPEAKER_01]: That's about as bad as a person you can get, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And he does it through, you know, LLCs, not through the five one, C three.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the church itself is a five one, C three doesn't pay taxes on any of the funds to go through that, but then he sells DVDs, right? [SPEAKER_01]: or books, or whatever, and makes an incredible profit on that, and writes off losses from the company. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, this is very unethical. [SPEAKER_01]: These people should lose that status in my opinion. [SPEAKER_01]: And they're not going to you because it's a very unpopular thing to discuss.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's how the right has ineffectually tried to solve that problem, and then the left obviously just wants to tax a shit out of people. [SPEAKER_01]: Neither of those things are reasonable. [SPEAKER_01]: There are things like crowd health, for example, though, who is crowd health is a pretty libertarian dude. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a co-op, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like you pay into a system that when you need, when you have some kind of catastrophic situation, other people can come to your aid. [SPEAKER_01]: And that is community, right? [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't about forcing people to pay taxes at the, [SPEAKER_01]: point of barrel, you know what I mean? [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, hey, we want to give you the opportunity and the logistical capability to help your fellow man. [SPEAKER_01]: And nobody's more generous than the American public.

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't need to force these people to help each other. [SPEAKER_01]: They will do it. [SPEAKER_01]: You just have to get the fuck out of the way. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I saw your clip talking about charity and conversation. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it was about this topic, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you start from a vantage point, and I've often described it as grace, if you start from a vantage point of grace where you assume that the person that you're talking to, even though you disagree, is not evil, that they have good motives in mind. [SPEAKER_00]: then you can have a much, much more constructive conversation.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, look, the truth of the matter is this government, since LBJ's great society, that spent thirty trillion dollars trying to alleviate the symptoms of poverty. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you were to look at statistics, we're really no better often when we start it. [SPEAKER_00]: And so clearly those programs haven't been efficacious.

[SPEAKER_00]: At some level, [SPEAKER_00]: When you're assessing the quality of government that's being produced, it should be based not on intentions, not on the amount of money spent, but it should be based on results. [SPEAKER_00]: And so you look at that and say, well, those are pissed poor results.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think on the flip side that you're right, that if the government's not going to do those things, [SPEAKER_00]: then the people have a duty to each other that transcends government to step up and figure out ways to help people who can't help themselves and you know I agree with your criticism of the church [SPEAKER_00]: And so far as I think that it's a natural consequence of government filling a role that churches should have always been filling.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this happens with individuals too, right? [SPEAKER_00]: You've become dependent on something and that dependency takes away your initiative. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: It takes away your drive to go out and do something big. [SPEAKER_01]: A hundred percent. [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's happening.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not only at the individual level, I think it happens at the organizational level where governments got in so big that it's assumed the responsibilities that we all should have. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more and it's you know and I guess the the last part of it is that [SPEAKER_01]: That is how governments and institutions gain power, right? [SPEAKER_01]: That's how they do it. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's not unintentional.

[SPEAKER_01]: When the government shows up somewhere and nobody has their hand out, they have no power there, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So they'll do one of two things. [SPEAKER_01]: They'll snake oil and move on to the next town, or they'll try to create a need in that area, right? [SPEAKER_01]: That's typically how it goes. [SPEAKER_01]: Even if it's a need that you didn't know you had, they create solutions that didn't have problems, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's really mostly about [SPEAKER_01]: extracting labor and wealth from the population and gaining power. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, this is the thing that I like most about having these conversations is that [SPEAKER_01]: Just knowing this, you now have the capability of affecting your day-to-day life and a way that voting will never allow you to do in my opinion, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You can solve, you can help solve problems in your local sphere and encourage other people to do the same and just through those actions create decentralization and limit the government, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And a way that even running for office and winning would not allow you to do, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So that's, and we all know that this kind of psychology's contagious too, like when you see [SPEAKER_01]: There's a social experiment I like to do sometimes.

[SPEAKER_01]: I fly a lot. [SPEAKER_01]: So when I get on the plane, I just keep an eye out for somebody that needs help with their bag, like a small woman or an old person or something like that. [SPEAKER_01]: And I just get up and help them, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And I sit back down and watch and then other people will start doing it as well. [SPEAKER_01]: That shit is contagious, right? [SPEAKER_01]: We are built by nature to be to serve each other. [SPEAKER_01]: That's just how it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we build these cities with walls around them to keep the existential threats out. [SPEAKER_01]: It's in our DNA. [SPEAKER_01]: It's instinct, right? [SPEAKER_01]: We just have to activate on that stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: And the more you do it, the easier it gets. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, that makes a ton of sense to me. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think you had on my buddy Kevin Level recently, Kevin and I worked together for a spell.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we used to always have these conversations about like the way that society's problems are going to be solved are individuals.

[SPEAKER_00]: essentially short circling or going around government like government's going to do what it's going to do it's going to be big and wonky and unwielding but the real solutions are going to come through private innovation and a lot of those conversations can't really happen in the context of health care where it's like you know government has has created such a monster and our health care system with the third party payers that we've got that it's almost impossible to make real systemic changes to those things

[SPEAKER_00]: what we're going to need to do is innovate our way around it, to solve the problem. [SPEAKER_00]: And Kennedy, there are an awful lot of bright minds out there that are trying to do. [SPEAKER_00]: I think the other thing that resonates with me that you said earlier is that at some level, these things have to happen at the local level.

[SPEAKER_00]: We fix it so much on what President Trump is doing, or what President Joe Biden did before, or what Congress is doing, [SPEAKER_00]: And those things occupy all of our time, we're like on Twitter or watching cable news or whatever. [SPEAKER_00]: The stuff that happens at the city council level, the stuff that happens in your state legislature is going to impact your life way, way more than the stuff happening in the city.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, and this is the positive part of it is you have way more of a chance of actually influencing outcomes working at that level of government, the more at the community level than you ever would petitioning your congressman in DC. [SPEAKER_01]: That's the entire point of federalism. [SPEAKER_01]: We set it up this way on purpose. [SPEAKER_01]: We set up a republic and a federalist system on purpose so that power would be concentrated at the lowest possible level.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it requires you to hold that power. [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it means running for local offices, some stuff like that, but most of the time it just means paying attention and collectively saying no when stuff is stupid, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like we saw a couple of examples of things that went well and things that did not go well.

[SPEAKER_01]: big swaths of the country during the lockdown period just accepted their fate and by the time and I think they a lot of people a lot of people learned a very valuable lesson during that time period and

[SPEAKER_01]: about a year and a half later in twenty-two twenty-three when uh... the bite administration try to stand up this governance disinformation board under home insecurity everybody from left to right we're like no no no no no we're not doing thought police in this fucking country my friend and though those are the two outcomes the one outcome where you capitulate and the outcome where you you don't have to go to fucking whether it's not going to be any civil war this country all you have to do a say no

[SPEAKER_01]: with one voice to say put like everybody come to the same place and say you know what we're not doing that and I think you know a lot of people ask me about how we fix all the things that are broken we're certainly not going to vote our way out of something like this and when when people hear that they think that the implication is that there has to be some kind of physical resistance but I don't think that's true I think that recapturing city councils and state legislatures and

[SPEAKER_01]: beginning the process of nullification is very effective, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So nullification is where the local or state jurisdiction tells the higher level, no, we're not doing that, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And when it's from state to federal, it's actually quite easy to do this. [SPEAKER_01]: Now there are bumps along the way, but the ease is in the tenth amendment.

[SPEAKER_01]: If it doesn't happen in that, if it doesn't show up in that constitution, you don't have to write to tell me what to do. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't give a fuck what you're saying, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So all of this other stuff that's been added [SPEAKER_01]: over the years, like for example, the two major examples of effective nullification over the past couple decades was weed and gay marriage.

[SPEAKER_01]: Massachusetts and California both said to the federal government, well, the Constitution doesn't say shit about this, so we're not going to follow your rules. [SPEAKER_01]: That's how it is. [SPEAKER_01]: And the government did what? [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing. [SPEAKER_01]: They had nothing to do, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So you don't have to [SPEAKER_01]: Certainly, you should buy as many guns as you want to buy. [SPEAKER_01]: I've got two on me right now, one of the desks.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love guns, they're awesome. [SPEAKER_01]: But you don't have to arm yourself and get into a bunker to solve these problems. [SPEAKER_01]: We're not going to war with our government. [SPEAKER_01]: All you have to do is say, no, their power is like tinkerbell. [SPEAKER_01]: You have to believe in it for it to exist. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you just tell them, no, they'll fuck off. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like our currency, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, look, I'm with you in the sense that I think [SPEAKER_00]: I think it engaged citizenry has an awful lot of power, right? [SPEAKER_00]: I'm also with you in the sense that like when people start to talk about this being the worst era ever or you know, we're past the point of no return, I bristle it that a little bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: I got a text message a few weeks ago from somebody in DC that I've known for a long time and she was saying this is the most divided the country's ever been. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, really? [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we fought a civil war. [SPEAKER_00]: That seems like we were fairly divided, right? [SPEAKER_00]: We went through a great depression. [SPEAKER_00]: We've gone through recessions.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've had the civil rights error and the ugliness of Jim Crow and all those things combined. [SPEAKER_00]: And the great beauty of our country at some level, and this while I'm still optimistic, even though I see challenges, the great beauty of our country is we're awfully resilient, right? [SPEAKER_00]: But that resilience requires a certain buy-in.

[SPEAKER_00]: It requires people one recognizing those challenges and two recognizing that they have the ability to do something about it. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I agree with you wholeheartedly that engagement is kind of where it starts. [SPEAKER_00]: And, and can't really, that was part of the reason that we launched Magnolia Tribune. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, hey, we see partial information getting to people.

[SPEAKER_00]: in Mississippi, and look, Mississippi's a super conservative state where we're deep red, you know, we've got a super majority Republican legislature. [SPEAKER_00]: All our state-wide elected officials have the R's next to their name. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, punitively, we're a super conservative state. [SPEAKER_00]: I would actually argue that we're pretty populist and in a lot of ways, feel like TVA Democrats economically still. [SPEAKER_00]: But to the outsider, deep red.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think for a lot of people, [SPEAKER_00]: That means they can check out, or from a media standpoint, the entire role of the media has been to try and throw shade at Republican ideas, conservative ideas. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think from my vantage point, it wasn't like, hey, I want to bolster Republicans, because I think Republicans do some screwy stuff sometimes.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think my vantage point was like, I want to tell the other side of the story so that people are informed enough [SPEAKER_00]: that they can read side by side, what I say about something and what my competitor to say about something, and then hopefully making an informed decision about what they believe and what they're going to do with it. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: That R&D doesn't necessarily mean anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: Certainly it's one piece of data, but deep red [SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't mean you can check out and Texas is a great example of it, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So people in Texas buy and large, sixty five percent or so, just check the R during state elections. [SPEAKER_01]: They just check the R, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So center left people started running as Republicans. [SPEAKER_01]: And outspending their primary challenges with DNC money.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now we have a legislature that's like, oh, why are all these Republicans [SPEAKER_01]: banning this or voting against this or raising taxes are not lowering property taxes well there's why motherfucker because you didn't pay attention that's why and that is the uh... you know [SPEAKER_01]: That is, when we talk about resistance, that's what it really is. [SPEAKER_01]: Standing in the street with a fucking sign, a cardboard sign is nothing.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is the most meaningless act in my opinion you could ever do. [SPEAKER_01]: Saying no and paying attention to stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: That's what really matters. [SPEAKER_01]: And to your other point, not only a resilient, but I think we almost always head in the right direction, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Certainly there are curves in the road from time to time with, you know, illegal immigration and child mutilation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those two specifically have been a big problem for us that is completely immoral and every meaningful way. [SPEAKER_01]: But for the most part, people are motivated by trying to get better in this country, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, to your point about [SPEAKER_01]: the attention paid to that. [SPEAKER_01]: GK Chesterton said that, men didn't love Rome because she was great, Rome was great because men had loved her, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And part of, like if you love your family, you love your wife, you love your car, doesn't matter what it is. [SPEAKER_01]: You pay attention to it and you do the things necessary to maintain that. [SPEAKER_01]: So this is what we ask of you. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to call yourself an American Patriot, this is what is required of you. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to call yourself an American citizen, this is what is required of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, you don't get to say that stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, look, I will say that one of the big challenges in one that shouldn't be underplayed or undersold is that the ideas that made this country great are under attack. [SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So those sort of foundational principles that we talked about, whether you're talking about property rights or free speech or individual rights or voluntary commerce, all those things are under attack in a way that feels more pervasive than when I was a younger guy. [SPEAKER_00]: And I saw a poll recently was a Gallup poll, so it's not like it was some just reputable right-wing thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: that reported on the level of pride in being an American by political affiliation Republican Democrat and independent. [SPEAKER_00]: And the number of people who said that they were proud to be an American on the Republican line stayed pretty consistent. [SPEAKER_00]: There was a little bit of a dip during Barack Obama's presidency. [SPEAKER_00]: There was a little bit of a dip. [SPEAKER_00]: during Joe Biden's presidency.

[SPEAKER_00]: The number of self-described Democrats who said they're proud to be America, American, is thirty-six percent. [SPEAKER_00]: So you see Republicans somewhere in north of ninety percent. [SPEAKER_00]: You see Democrats at thirty-six percent. [SPEAKER_00]: I posted about this the other day in a friend of mine who's a Democrats said, well this is unfair. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not like we hate America, but the question was literally, are you proud to be in America?

[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't our you proud of Donald Trump. [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't our you proud of Congress. [SPEAKER_00]: It was our you proud of the set of ideals that make us unique and exceptional. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think at the point that we lose that we're in trouble. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, look, I didn't agree with a lot of the stuff that President Barack Obama did. [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't agree with a lot of the stuff that President Bill Clinton or Joe Biden did.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I was still very proud to be an American when they were in those roles, not because of them, but because of what this country stands for. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think those things are kind of slowly being eroded, and there needs to be a pushback. [SPEAKER_00]: There needs to be people saying, actually, we're pretty great as a country. [SPEAKER_00]: We're the largest economy in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: We've kept the world largely at peace for seventy years, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We are the place that invents things, the place that innovates. [SPEAKER_00]: And across the board, we're the place that gives people an opportunity, irrespective of their backgrounds. [SPEAKER_00]: I was born in a charity hospital in Louisiana, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody in my family had gone to college. [SPEAKER_00]: And this country gave me opportunities because I was hungry enough [SPEAKER_00]: to go out and achieve something, even if it's not huge, to achieve something.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the point that we lose that sense of all about the opportunity this country represents is a point that is going to be difficult moving forward. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I do think there's got to be some level of resistance, the set of ideas that says the West's evil, nothing that the West has ever done is right. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what a nonsense idea, by the way, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the only successful countries are either Western or have adopted Western principles. [SPEAKER_01]: When you talk about the combination of economic success and social liberty, it doesn't exist outside of that. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, this is not a very difficult thing to say, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You can certainly, uh, uh, uh, Adler Adler and psychology would call this positive reframing, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, yeah, there's some bad things that have happened, but in totality, obviously things have been great. [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean? [SPEAKER_01]: Human slavery was the standard, not an exception until the middle part of the nineteenth century where England and the United States banned it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right over a course of what thirty five years I think over that during that time period so over the course of one generation the two biggest empires in the history of the world said you know what we're gonna get rid of this evil bullshit now certainly some things persisted but [SPEAKER_01]: The point is that Westernism is designed by or designed intentionally to be self-correcting over time, which presents its own problems.

[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, you can infiltrate that process and corrupt it, which is something that we need to pay attention to, which is what you're talking about. [SPEAKER_01]: These ideas that have been pumped into people's heads that Westernism is bad. [SPEAKER_01]: I'll tell you, [SPEAKER_01]: We never got great because we were flawless.

[SPEAKER_01]: We were great because we were loved by farmers who fought against the greatest empire that world had ever seen by immigrants who crossed oceans to come here because they knew it was opportunity, opportunity by black men who fucking fought for their own freedom for a country that didn't necessarily give it to them, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And by Japanese men who did the same in World War II, thirty-five thousand Japanese dudes [SPEAKER_01]: a volunteer for World War II from internment camps, right, after we had imprisoned them. [SPEAKER_01]: Generations of Americans who believed that this land was worth the fight. [SPEAKER_01]: Right? [SPEAKER_01]: And they believed it because America isn't geography or its government.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a simple idea that individual liberty and personal entrepreneurship are the ultimate inoculation to radical bullshit. [SPEAKER_01]: We all know that intrinsically. [SPEAKER_01]: Right? [SPEAKER_01]: And anybody that tries to tell you what he definitely is full of shit, frankly. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, look, I think you're right that what those people are fighting for, lots of differences, they're right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Backgrounds different, ethically, you know, ethically different, but what they were all fighting for, subscribing to was a set of ideals. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, that set of ideals [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we've not been perfect living up to it, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like when we talk about rights coming from our creator, liberty, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, or property, you know, for an entire people group, they were deprived of that, for a large proportion of US history. [SPEAKER_00]: But that was a deviation from principle, right? [SPEAKER_00]: The principle itself was good. [SPEAKER_00]: We deviated it from the principle, and then we correct it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it kind of goes to what you were saying earlier is like, we're not perfect. [SPEAKER_00]: Clearly, there have been times when we have not lived up to those high ideals. [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't make the ideals themselves bad. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the thing that sets us apart as a nation is not common blood or common enemy or even common values when you think about things like religion necessarily.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's common subscription to a set of ideals about the liberty of man and the right of man. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I heard a university of Minnesota Professor, or watched a video of her recently, basically saying for the human species to survive, we have to dismantle the United States. [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, one, it's non-sensical, but two, it just completely ignores the fact that we've not been neutral even.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have been a beacon of hope and freedom the world over for very, very long time. [SPEAKER_00]: It's why all of the immigrants that came to this country to contribute came in the first place because they saw amazing opportunity. [SPEAKER_00]: That's true today. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and they're still coming. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I agree with you. [SPEAKER_01]: I think the failures illustrate the righteousness of the principle, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that we didn't live up to our own standard shows that the standard was something to aspire to. [SPEAKER_01]: And now to your point from before, these ideas are, excuse me, these ideas are under siege. [SPEAKER_01]: They have redefined justice and to vengeance, where the solution to past oppression has to be current and future oppression. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a nonsense idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: they replaced merit with equity, identity with ideology and patriotism with guilt over how this country started with this sixty-nineteen nonsense and worth of all they taught Americans to hate America and that's the best way like if you want if you want to ruin a country right that there's no better way than doing that if you're in a war [SPEAKER_01]: There's a sold saying that soldiers went battles, but logistics went wars, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And that is very true.

[SPEAKER_01]: And information operations, it is morale that is your primary logistical resource is morale, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You can win a lot of battles that you probably shouldn't win if you've got dudes that believe they can win. [SPEAKER_01]: That's how it works. [SPEAKER_01]: And nobody will believe, you see this in sports teams as well. [SPEAKER_01]: People have these amazing comebacks that just don't make any sense. [SPEAKER_01]: And it happens all the time. [SPEAKER_01]: Marxism.

[SPEAKER_01]: which was for part of the nineties kind of confined to the ash heap of the Soviet history for a time right as reemerge not as a revolution in the battlefield but as subversion in classrooms both at that the primary level and the secondary level uh... propaganda in newsrooms all these news agencies are full of shit and division in our discourse and in out tell you

[SPEAKER_01]: We know the truth, we know it in our bones, any like the purpose of this statement that of dividing conquerors, if somebody's trying to divide you, they're trying to conquer, you cannot trust that person. [SPEAKER_01]: Go talk to your neighbor. [SPEAKER_01]: analogy about the principal charity and healthcare specifically. [SPEAKER_01]: That's an issue that's very divisive, but at its core it's not divisive.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been made divisive by people who are trying to tell you how somebody else thinks. [SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you go ask that motherfucker what he thinks? [SPEAKER_01]: And listen to him and actually try to root out the core principle that he's talking about and set a listen to some dickhead on TV tell you, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Because if that if you allow for that then that person is going to control you. [SPEAKER_01]: You're a subject.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah and you know I think [SPEAKER_00]: Joseph Shumpeter, a long time ago wrote a book, in nineteen forty two, one in Nobel Peace Prize, but his part of his argument was that America would eventually fail not because of external threat, but because of internal comfort, that we would effectively forget what made us prosperous in the first place. [SPEAKER_00]: what made a successful as a country in a first place.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you see it come at some level from people who say things like, as rich as America is, we should be able to do X. Because at some level what that saying is, we forgot that the things that made America rich are the things that we're now fighting against. [SPEAKER_00]: So free enterprise made America wealthy. [SPEAKER_00]: Right, trade made America healthy.

[SPEAKER_00]: And at some level, we're now almost assuming that that wealth can be taken for granted, no matter what the ideology is that we apply. [SPEAKER_00]: That if we apply Marxism, we will still be wealthy. [SPEAKER_00]: We know from history, right, that that's not true. [SPEAKER_00]: We know about Bret lines. [SPEAKER_00]: We know about a hundred million deaths apart because government had to subdue people who didn't like living in squalor and part because people were starving.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right? [SPEAKER_00]: And so at some level, the conversation is not just about what do you want. [SPEAKER_00]: We all want to live in a society where people have enough food where they have access to health care. [SPEAKER_00]: The conversation needs to be what yields the greatest likelihood of those things being achieved. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: And I would argue for all of its flaws, the free enterprise system is that thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: that it is lifted people out of abject poverty that it took us from a point of life expectancies in the forties to life expectancies in the late seventies that it made us literate as of as a people and learned as a people and all of that stems from what I think is economic liberty and when I hear people talking about things like well I have a right to a house or I have a right to a cell phone or health care

[SPEAKER_00]: It bothers me not because I don't want people to have those things, but because the underlying presupposition of all that is, I have the right to take from you in order to supply that. [SPEAKER_00]: And you said this earlier that no man has the right to the labor of another person. [SPEAKER_00]: That's a fundamental basic tenant that I think people miss out on when they say it's stuff like [SPEAKER_00]: I should get health care free. [SPEAKER_00]: Well health care has a cost.

[SPEAKER_00]: It costs money for a doctor's medical school. [SPEAKER_00]: It costs money for a nursing school. [SPEAKER_00]: It costs money for drugs to be developed for machinery to be developed. [SPEAKER_00]: It costs money for a hospital. [SPEAKER_00]: And so what you're really saying is I have the right to make [SPEAKER_00]: You know, or Dan, pay it for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, at some level, I think you just kind of fundamentally reject that, but the rejection of that thought doesn't mean that you don't care about that person. [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean that you're not trying to figure out ways to make sure people develop sort of self-sufficiency skills, and then people who can't take care of themselves that they're not taking care of by the community. [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, uh, it does another thing I say all the time, just because, you know, like somebody's solution to a problem doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you pretend like it doesn't exist or you criticize them for, uh, outing the problem, then you are inviting someone else probably a bad actor with motivations, not your own to come in and solve that problem. [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to do it in a way that you don't like.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just not acceptable and [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it is the decentralization and the free enterprise that made us wealthy and it's trade that's made us wealthy and we can't have government interference and over taxation from the left and we can't have isolationism from the right if we want to continue to be wealthy. [SPEAKER_01]: It's that simple.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now you can [SPEAKER_01]: If it is your position that you want America to degrade as a global power and not be as wealthy as we currently are, that's a position. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's a reasonable one, but you're entitled to that position. [SPEAKER_01]: And as such, you would be entitled to things like isolationism or over taxation or whatever, right? [SPEAKER_01]: But I don't want to know you if you think that.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a very weird thing to think in my opinion. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, that's all turkey, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And if you look at historically what happens in those societies, whether you're talking about the Soviet Union, whether you're talking about Nazi Germany, is that people end up really suffering under that system. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the fact of the matter is, [SPEAKER_00]: that there are things that you can do in Austin, Texas that we can't do in Mississippi.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's to my advantage that I'm allowed to take advantage of those things that you can do, right? [SPEAKER_00]: That I'm allowed to buy something from you, whether it's a service or a good, because you're uniquely qualified or there's something about your environment that allows you to produce it. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's sort of idea. [SPEAKER_00]: allowed America to become what it was.

[SPEAKER_00]: And candidly, it allowed America to export that set of ideas to other countries and create global wealth. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think we need to be very cautious about [SPEAKER_00]: isolationism, protectionism, whatever you want to call it on the right. [SPEAKER_00]: And then I think on the left, there's there's almost a kissing cousin ideology where everything is collective, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And both of those things are going to yield a really miserable result long term if they're not held in check by some other force. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, that's just horseshoe theory, right? [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you go far enough around you end up at the same fucking place, and it's unacceptable, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: dot com slash during your rows as one STPH or m dot com slash during your rows and you know you mentioned earlier that if you could teach one thing I mean why we don't even teach civics in high school anymore [SPEAKER_01]: for most states, they don't teach civics in high school anymore. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's hard to imagine that that's not intentional, to be honest.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I know some stuff is this, like Handland's Razor, you don't want to apply malice when in competence, we'll suffice, but that one seems kind of intentional, right? [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, throughout all of human history, [SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned that the word Latino itself, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And what it actually means at its core, the vast majority of people didn't speak or couldn't read, right? [SPEAKER_01]: They spoke a language and they couldn't read.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the church, as it were from, let's say, the second or third century through the King James era, decided to keep that book in Latin because most people couldn't read it. [SPEAKER_01]: So if you wanted to access God, you had to come to the church. [SPEAKER_01]: And the King James Bible finally puts it in English where a lot of people can read it.

[SPEAKER_01]: and the printing press comes out so it gets mass produced and the church's power goes not in the right direction, right, at least from their perspective. [SPEAKER_01]: Anybody that's trying to hide information from you is just can't be trusted in my opinion. [SPEAKER_00]: The people there, I've got, yeah, I've got a top three list, and I tweeted about this the other day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Civics was one of them, logic was one of them, and economics was in third, that if I were to force courses to be taught in our school system, those are the three courses that I would force to be taught at this point. [SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm with you. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, fundamentally, people don't understand the way government is supposed to work. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is true on the right.

[SPEAKER_00]: You hear a lot of times, people on the right will say things like, why isn't Congress just doing whatever president Trump wants? [SPEAKER_00]: And I would argue that even though they're the same party controlling those two branches of government, then it's actually not the job of Congress just to do whatever the president wants. [SPEAKER_00]: They were elected to represent a certain set of people within their states.

[SPEAKER_00]: And at some level, [SPEAKER_00]: constitutionally, they are given the power over policy, right? [SPEAKER_00]: The executive has given power over the administration of the policy that is passed by Congress. [SPEAKER_00]: It seems like we're kind of gravitating towards a system where we ignore the role of Congress. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the left does it. [SPEAKER_00]: I think the right's doing it now. [SPEAKER_00]: And I could make the same argument with the courts.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's a real imbalance when I look at sort of the constitutional ideal [SPEAKER_00]: We're far from that constitutional ideal and I think part of it is that people don't really understand the role that each branch of government is supposed to play and they certainly don't understand this concept of limited government.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have got to appoint in our mindsets as Americans where our first solution is government should be doing X. [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of what is it that I can do? [SPEAKER_00]: What is it that's happening in my community where I can make a difference? [SPEAKER_00]: It's government should be doing X. And I think that's really, really dangerous. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, just to, you know, a logic goal or a logic philosophy class once a year.

[SPEAKER_01]: One person, one person, one per two semesters basically throughout primary education maybe starting in [SPEAKER_01]: junior high where you learned about Aristotle and reason or the Socratic Method or you know like Hans Rackenbach or somebody like that or Arthur prior they're all these like great logical philosophers throughout time that kind of and it's I think it's really effective it has been for me to

[SPEAKER_01]: research their logic over the course of time right because they're applying the same set of rules to new circumstances and you can see the fundamentals at that point right you can see how like I think it's like raising a child almost where you give them space and information to and Bertrand Russell's another favorite of my by the way give them space and time [SPEAKER_01]: to manage their emotions, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Get used to feeling them, but then having a logical response afterwards. [SPEAKER_01]: That is something that we just have completely lost. [SPEAKER_01]: And we're not any better for it, certainly. [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it does breed that kind of helplessness, where it's like, you're a child and you're just, you want mom and dad to solve all the problems for you. [SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, you can't do anything on your own.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, we are an infantilized society at this point. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, you see a very real world example of this is you had the LA riots in response to ice enforcement of the nation's immigration laws in Los Angeles. [SPEAKER_00]: And an awful lot of people in response to conservative voices that would say, hey, these riots are unacceptable. [SPEAKER_00]: Would say things like, well, you didn't pipe up when January six was happening.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, without getting into the merits of whether or not those two things are comparable, I would just look at it and say, all right, at worst, what you've done is expose hypocrisy, but hypocrisy is not an argument against something, right? [SPEAKER_00]: It may be an argument against a person, but it's not an argument against the thing. [SPEAKER_00]: You either think the riots in L.A. [SPEAKER_00]: were justified or you don't.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a respect of whether or not I'd been consistent. [SPEAKER_00]: And so those sorts of things in my mind, when I see them pop up and debate, I'm like, man, we would really benefit from what, you know, some people call propositional calculus. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just logic. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, basic rules of logic in the way that people think about these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is, you know, our understanding of economics is as bad as I've ever seen right now, right? [SPEAKER_00]: People quite literally think money grows on trees and some of that is probably results the way the government prints money, but they don't understand very basic concepts like cost benefit analysis, opportunity cost, all of those things or the time value of money, man, like the way that people try to save money.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the most easy [SPEAKER_01]: financial lesson you will ever learn at a minimum your dollar right now will be worth ninety-seven cents next year that is at a minimum now over the Biden administration is quite a bit worse so if you're making if you're making capital investments in a non-appreciable assets like currency for example you are at your making mistake unless you're

[SPEAKER_01]: in a high interest yield account of four and a half percent or higher good luck finding that right four and a half percent sometimes you can find but unless you're at a four and a half or higher percent if you're in a savings account or something like that you're losing money every single every single year you lose money on that and peep the average person you say that to them and it's like the you're trying to split the atoms like no that's basic math [SPEAKER_00]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I'm totally, I mean, at some level, even really simple stuff like supply and demand is lost on people, right? [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, there is this almost childish view that you could have an endless supply of something or endless demand for it, and it doesn't affect prices. [SPEAKER_00]: And you see that in some conversations around like what the fell up in New York is proposing with more rent control in New York.

[SPEAKER_00]: You do realize that keeping certain prices low artificially means that other prices are going to get very to have to. [SPEAKER_00]: And it also makes it in a situation where you're effectively distorting demand for living. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, yeah, I think very basic concepts have been lost on folks. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that stuff needs to be taught.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're, I would say, maybe we differ a little bit as [SPEAKER_00]: I don't necessarily think that politicians who have been implementing handouts and try to control the economy are necessarily doing it with long-term and serious thoughts. [SPEAKER_00]: I think for them, it's just like, how do I get elected again? [SPEAKER_00]: Right? [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like ice cream on Fridays. [SPEAKER_00]: When you were a kid, and somebody was running for student council, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: They get up and promise ice cream on Fridays. [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't matter that somebody was going to have to pay for it. [SPEAKER_00]: It was impractical. [SPEAKER_00]: The rest of the kids thought that was pretty cool. [SPEAKER_00]: And at some level, we filed, fall victim to that now. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, hey, I know housing's really expensive. [SPEAKER_00]: This guy says he's going to freeze the price of it. [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe I should vote for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And never mind the fact that nobody will be able to find a place to live for the next thirty years. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Anybody, well, Alexander Taylor is a Scottish judge and philosopher from the eighteen century used to say that democracy

[SPEAKER_01]: cannot persist indefinitely because once people realize they can devote themselves money from the treasury it's all over right which is why we don't have a director democracy and the only one that's ever existed was an Athens for two years in the very beginning of Greek society and they're like nope this is stupid we got to get the if it got tried twenty five hundred years ago and they were like this is fucking stupid probably not a good idea now if somebody ever mentions

[SPEAKER_01]: anything resembling price controls, ask them who die occlusion as if they don't know you never need to listen to that person again. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a pretty hard and fast rule. [SPEAKER_01]: Anyways, we're not just here to talk about

[SPEAKER_01]: uh... a civics we're here to talk about some of the work you do and man there's we we get focused on this large level corruption but corruption at the local level makes it look like child's play most of the time we saw it a little bit with that south carolina dude uh... who like killed all these though i can't remember the dude's name uh... but you know i'm talking about was the Netflix documentary a big trial uh... it did these things pop up all the time and you've been on

[SPEAKER_01]: This one in your local area, which I don't know if this came, what period during the buildup of Magnolia Tribune it came, but there are certain low cows. [SPEAKER_01]: The southeast is one of them, Chicago is one of them, where there's so much corruption that it's almost hard to get your arms around it sometimes. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and now so Jackson is Mississippi's capital city.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is a city that has been losing population since the nineteen sixties, still the largest city in Mississippi, but not by much right now. [SPEAKER_00]: And for some time it's had a series of struggles. [SPEAKER_00]: Some of that is tax base that left. [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of it is just incompetent government and some of it is corrupt government.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, we recently had a scandal and it came about really in our first year or started in our first year of operation in Magnolia, YouTube, where the District Attorney in Hines County, which is where Jackson is located, and then the mayor and several city council members, [SPEAKER_00]: have been implicated in a bribery scandal that came to light through FBI sting.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so essentially what happened was at the end of twenty twenty three, Hans County District Attorney Jodie Owens was approached by two men who represented themselves as real estate developers. [SPEAKER_00]: They were really confidential human sources for the FBI. [SPEAKER_00]: And look, I'll tell you this. [SPEAKER_00]: The FBI is good at what it does. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, these guys had websites set up with portfolios of real estate investments.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you looked at it and we did after the fact, you very well could walk away with the impression that these guys were legitimately here to do real estate development deals. [SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, they approached the Heinz County District Attorney saying that, hey, we'd like to be in business with you and do some real estate deals in Jackson.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, started flying him around, flew him to Nashville, flew him to Miami along with a couple of other folks, uh, and essentially, you know, figured out that he was willing to play ball in a way that probably violated some laws, uh, in January of, uh, in January of, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in,

[SPEAKER_00]: And so hey, I've got an opportunity for you guys. [SPEAKER_00]: And essentially, that opportunity was that for a little while, the city of Jackson had been trying to develop a hotel next to the Jackson Convention Center. [SPEAKER_00]: They had put out what's called an RFQ, just a proposal request. [SPEAKER_00]: So he went to him and said, hey, you guys should really apply for this. [SPEAKER_00]: And he formed the DA formed his own company as part of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they went in together, put together a proposal, submitted it to the city.

[SPEAKER_00]: And while that is happening, [SPEAKER_00]: the district attorney is simultaneously lining up votes and the way that he lined up votes was to buy them and to get these FBI confidential human sources to put up the money to buy them in a set of circumstances that is like [SPEAKER_00]: You know, Donnie Brasco style stuff, you know, private jets to Miami, trips out on the FBI yacht, literally bags of cash, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure campaign donations too, right? [SPEAKER_01]: That's always part of it with these guys. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, campaign donations, you know, trip through the strip club in Miami, Tutsis, you know, where they gave these guys, gave these guys cash to spin. [SPEAKER_00]: And then last year after all this stuff had unfolded, the FBI raided the District Attorney's Office, also went and took the cell phones of the mayor and the president of the city council.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all this stuff started to unfold so that, you know, these guys are essentially accused of accepting bribes in the form of cash and campaign contributions in exchange for setting up or greasing the skids for this fictitious hotel development. [SPEAKER_01]: That's quite the scam to be honest, but not at all surprising. [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, not unique to United States.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you go in Europe anywhere, literally any European country, I don't know about England so much, but outside of England, literally every European country. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're trying to get something done, especially when it involves construction, right, from the permitting office to getting the materials and everything around that, you're probably gonna pay some bribes, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, that's why a lot of people actually [SPEAKER_01]: I've read about this recently.

[SPEAKER_01]: People prefer places like Croatia to places like Italy because in Italy it's the government you have to deal with and in Croatia it's just the mob and the mob if you just pay them they don't fuck with you you know what I mean it's it's like it's kind of a parallel government system there but this is nothing new this stuff happens all the time I mean I don't know if you're tracking on any of this stuff but

[SPEAKER_01]: There are these, I know some people are investigating it now, I think the FBI is investigating it too, and it's only a matter of time before they find it out. [SPEAKER_01]: But their cartel money leaving, particularly Arizona, New Mexico, and going out into the country and real estate deals to hide money and stuff like that with all sorts of local politicians involved, is a big thing going on right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the next couple of years, I'm just gonna crack the seal on that case, and it's gonna become public, I've seen some of the evidence, it's wild as hell, and this shit happens all the time. [SPEAKER_00]: It does, and I mean, you know, I think the thing that's not been answered yet is why did the FBI approach Jodoans in the first place?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we've got some sources that have told us that both Owens and now are Alston Mayor, Shukwell, Almamba, both were under FBI surveillance dating back to, thousand and twenty. [SPEAKER_00]: So they're very likely with some suspicion of a legal activity that predated them approaching [SPEAKER_00]: the district attorney in in twenty three and all the stuff unfolded very quickly.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, basically, it's a period between August of twenty twenty three and late April of twenty four. [SPEAKER_00]: But what we've seen so far is one city council member that's pled guilty. [SPEAKER_00]: She accepted ten thousand dollars in campaign contributions. [SPEAKER_00]: Another three thousand dollars in cash and then a six thousand dollar.

[SPEAKER_00]: uh... spending spree at a local luxury good store where she bought you know uh... persons and shoes uh... from designers that i can't remember the name of but they're fancy my wife helped me uh... and uh... and then the president of the city council agreed to give his vote for fifty thousand dollars uh... but the the two biggest fish [SPEAKER_00]: And the President of the City Council has also played not guilty, I should say.

[SPEAKER_00]: The FBI has alleged, or the U.S. [SPEAKER_00]: Attorney's Office has alleged that he was paid fifty thousand dollars. [SPEAKER_00]: The two biggest fish are the district attorney and former Mayor of LaMamba. [SPEAKER_00]: They both have played not guilty, and that trial will be in July of next year. [SPEAKER_00]: The situation with LaMamba, as mayor was basically that, he went out on the Miami trip with Owens.

[SPEAKER_00]: and was handed five checks for ten thousand dollars a piece to his campaign came back to Mississippi deposit at those checks and then out of his campaign account wrote personal checks to himself. [SPEAKER_01]: Does that remind you of Jerry Springer to remember Jerry Springer got caught and since he was a mayor since an atty and he was using personal checks to pay for prostitutes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know how you spent the money, but I'm not saying he did anything with prostitution, I'm just saying that's really fucking stupid, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like if you're going to be a criminal, these would be a good one for Christ's sake. [SPEAKER_01]: We don't have time for this shit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think the amazing part of that is, and no one's even says it on one of the surveillance tapes according to the indictment, it's like this is how candidates use their campaign accounts. [SPEAKER_00]: He basically tells the FBI informants at one point, yeah, they all live out of their campaign accounts. [SPEAKER_00]: So at some level, it seems stupid that you would take money from a questionable source that you know is an exchange for a favor to these guys and then use it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the bigger thing is they just use their campaign accounts that way. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, it will come as no surprise to anybody that Owens, Jodi Owens, was one of the Soros DAs, of which between DAs, attorneys, general, and prosecutors, and all this other stuff, judges.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think Soros has now funded somewhere around three hundred across the United States directly, not to include [SPEAKER_01]: What he's given to the DNC, what he's given to progressive candidates around the country, and then of course a million and a half for Gavin Newson to recall. [SPEAKER_01]: This is not great. [SPEAKER_01]: The way that we've allowed this infiltration into our political system.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we've got our political system has its own problems without all this stuff, just in general, just like any other system would have, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's just something that requires minutes. [SPEAKER_01]: But allowing these large actors, including Elon Musk anybody, right, to have that much influence on somebody because of the wealth that they have. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that's just how it is. [SPEAKER_01]: And there's nothing you can do to stop it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: But we shouldn't be trying to help them. [SPEAKER_01]: Right? [SPEAKER_01]: And Citizens United does this just that. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a big, big problem for us. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, look, I might come down on the other side of that one a little bit just because I do actually believe that, you know, one of the ways that you exercise free expression is through support of candidates.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I struggle with the idea of saying an Elon Musk or George Sorrows even, you know, shouldn't be able to give to whatever they want to give to. [SPEAKER_00]: I think what I would say is that people need to be aware of what strings come with that or what ideology comes with that, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So that [SPEAKER_00]: If you hear that this is a sorrows funded district attorney and you don't necessarily subscribe to that set of ideology, that should be an automatic no vote for you for that guy, right, or that gal. [SPEAKER_01]: Sure. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's fine, but the vast majority of people are too ignorant or stupid to make that distinction. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's be real about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: like the people need to be led and I think you know it's always a balancing act like what we're going to resist against what we're going to make illegal right because obviously you don't want to go too far and I think you know it's there's this debate between you know complete free expression versus does that actually work to the outcome we want and then to what degree can you affect that before it becomes unethical I don't know that anybody really has the answer to these questions

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I certainly lean in what air dramatically on the side of free expression, just because I think we get dangerous when we start telling people, we think this kind of speech is profitable and this kind of speech is not profitable. [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't mean that in terms of dollars, I mean for purposes of society. [SPEAKER_00]: Because then somebody's got to be in the position to make those decisions.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and the government shouldn't be involved in that shit at all. [SPEAKER_01]: Because they can't be trusted. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I say the same thing about gun rights. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm sure that everybody is listening to this. [SPEAKER_01]: And I've said this many times before. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure you can think of one person whether you know them personally or not that you do not have guns. [SPEAKER_01]: They're crazy or stupid or whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what we also know is that if we leave the government in charge of that and give them that rule, then they will make that a rule apply to people that they don't like. [SPEAKER_01]: And that can't happen, right? [SPEAKER_01]: We just cannot allow that. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and you brought this up earlier, and I think you're dead on. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like at some level, recognizing that we are not infected democracy.

[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't designed for mob or even majority rule. [SPEAKER_00]: We were designed with limited powers being divided amongst three branches of government. [SPEAKER_00]: And you see this in conversations about things like free healthcare. [SPEAKER_00]: I had somebody said to me the other day, because I basically made the point I made earlier, which is, if it has a cost, which you're really saying is that you have the right to force me to do it, and I reject that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And their response was, well, if a majority of people say that you're forced to do it, you should be forced to do it. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's completely antithetical to the American experiment. [SPEAKER_00]: The whole point was that there are things that government literally cannot do to you as an individual.

[SPEAKER_00]: that you remain sovereign in your own way as an individual, and that no matter of ninety-nine percent of the public wants to rob you of your land or wants to rob you of your property, they don't have the right to do that. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, democracy is fifty-one percent of the population controlling forty-nine percent and obviously that's not something that anybody wants.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there is this predilections, certain people have especially on the lower and upper high queue. [SPEAKER_01]: The middle people usually don't care about this with dumb people and very smart people like authoritarianism a lot for some reason. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why that is. [SPEAKER_01]: We can just explore that on another day. [SPEAKER_01]: But there's another reason to take a civic lesson. [SPEAKER_01]: How many Americans are chirping about this or that on Twitter?

[SPEAKER_01]: No who monascue is, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like who is the father of separation of powers, idea, and the first place? [SPEAKER_01]: Do you know anything about why he came up with that from the French court, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like what problem was he, this is, and the same thing with John Locke, right? [SPEAKER_01]: What problem was he solving with this concept of individual property rights?

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, for Locke, you got to take it back, even before, but you know, [SPEAKER_01]: big piece is the magna carda and then the level is within agreement of the people trying to extend this personal liberty out as far as possible to everybody and then lock says you know what what is the ultimate expression of liberty and it's the ability to apply your labor [SPEAKER_01]: to the earth and extract wealth from it that belongs to you and nobody else.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the purpose is, and that the ultimate property is oneself, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And everything, every other right flows from that and then modus you double down on this and with the realization that [SPEAKER_01]: Though government is intrinsically flawed, it will happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: So let's make it as not weak, but effective in what it's supposed to do and ineffective in what it's not as possible by creating these three branches that are completely separate, power wise. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't understand that stuff, to be honest, you really don't belong in the conversation. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not saying don't participate. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying go fucking learn it. [SPEAKER_01]: Go learn it and then have an educated opinion on it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And everybody's gonna be a lot better off. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, well, certainly Lockheon principle is around property rights at its essence, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And you can't have a conversation about wanting Marxism, and that it's somehow be consistent with the sort of Lockheon foundation of the United States. [SPEAKER_00]: So I would agree with you on all of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's one of the reasons that civics is so important [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't know what the long term solution is. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, certainly part of the solution is to get government schools back in a place where they're actually teaching those things. [SPEAKER_00]: I think at some level, though, people are going to have to want our country to be better, right? [SPEAKER_00]: People are going to have to want information.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can design all the programs in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: You can make K- twelve education, do all of these things. [SPEAKER_00]: At the end of the day, if people don't understand the value of these ideas and why they're so important to their future success, there's not a lot you can do to force it. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a hundred percent and you know, there's these recognitions that I think people need to come to terms with one government is going to exist, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, let's keep it small and at the lowest possible level and that requires your constant attention and action. [SPEAKER_01]: and then understanding the mechanisms of it so that you can affect it in the way the best benefits you are because that's how we all do well you know what we all do better we all do better the truth is that this is the way that you should think about this from a bottom up right so [SPEAKER_01]: We have this issue that we all want to deal with.

[SPEAKER_01]: We all have an opinion on. [SPEAKER_01]: We see if we can agree on it at this level, the federal level. [SPEAKER_01]: No, can't agree on that. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's go down to the state. [SPEAKER_01]: Can't agree on that. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's go to the community. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, we still can't agree on that. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: That right returns the individual.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not our business anymore because we couldn't agree. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a good way to start, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Because it does.

[SPEAKER_01]: You should try to [SPEAKER_01]: seek out agreement among people right that's what we do like hey we all don't want to get eaten by bears so we're gonna live in this inside these walls and farm together right i mean that's that's a pretty reasonable way to go about life and just being tribal like the the end of tribalism is war always that's the end of it and if you want to go to war all the times and good for you but i've been to war and i'm not looking to go back

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I mean, that look, I think a lot of the criticism of tribalism right now is warranted. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I mean, look, humans will always gravitate towards people who think like them, who have similar experiences to them, because they're shared values, things that you can talk about, there's connection there.

[SPEAKER_00]: But tribalism is understood today as a pretty dangerous thing, and I think it sort of [SPEAKER_00]: it manifested itself in this idea that like whatever my team does is good and I've got to defend it hardcore and whatever the other team does is bad and I got to I got to go at hardcore right and the reality is like if you're a Republican today there's a lot of stuff that's happening in the Republican party that's not good

[SPEAKER_00]: And when it happens and it's not good, you shouldn't bend your morals, right? [SPEAKER_00]: You shouldn't bend your principles to fit it. [SPEAKER_00]: You should be willing to say, actually I disagree with this. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, your actual job is to [SPEAKER_01]: conduct maintenance on your own side based on your principle, not to just agree with them, and certainly not to blame the other side.

[SPEAKER_01]: You, I mean, the Bible says this, get the plank out of your own eye first, right? [SPEAKER_01]: This is the fundamental principle of life. [SPEAKER_01]: If your house is on fire, don't go complain about the neighbor's hedges. [SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't make any sense. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, look, I had somebody other day say like, you spend more time criticizing people who call themselves conservatives or Republicans than you do.

[SPEAKER_00]: People who call themselves Democrats or liberals. [SPEAKER_00]: And that was part of my response was like, yeah, and I spent a lot more time correcting my own kids than I do the neighbors. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's my family, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And so it is my job at some level to make sure that my family is behaving correctly. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not my job to make sure that my neighbor's family is behaving correctly.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think it's healthy for people within a tribe or within a movement to think critically and to be willing to speak critically. [SPEAKER_00]: And unfortunately, I think we're seeing a lot less of that lately. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the good news is I feel like some of the things that have happened recently, the lockdown stuff and a bunch of other stuff has [SPEAKER_01]: for a lot of people, woken them up.

[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of people, it is created some nihilism or black pill. [SPEAKER_01]: I think, if you're one of those people that was woken up by all of this, do two things. [SPEAKER_01]: One, educate yourself on these civic principles that we've spoken about and hold to those things, because that's what really matters. [SPEAKER_01]: That is the pathway to success that we have found. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's, you know, certainly, we'll have to adjust as new circumstances arise.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, [SPEAKER_01]: Those are the principles we found to be most effective. [SPEAKER_01]: And the second thing is what I would say I mentioned the Bible is what I call the Great American Commission, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So we know the Great Commission from the Bible, which is to go forth and spread the gospel to all men. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that you might be [SPEAKER_01]: the only America that somebody ever sees.

[SPEAKER_01]: This person that's been black-pilled or is now nihilistic or disenfranchised about their experience because of all the propaganda that they've heard and the mismanagement of government. [SPEAKER_01]: They are still reachable if you can communicate to them these civic principles like if these things happen in your community it will become successful here is the blueprint right here is the historical reference to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: America is the best country in the history of the world and when you run into someone who thinks otherwise you let them know [SPEAKER_01]: not an anger but with love for this country, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Because that's what builds that kind of camaraderie and the willingness and morale to go forward. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's the challenge I think for people right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I would just say in the context of Christianity, then I think it's really important that we not conflate Christianity with Americanism in a way that creates an idol out of Americanism, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that, you know, you talked about Joel Olstein early in the program. [SPEAKER_00]: There are a whole lot of people who have figured out ways to profit off of Scripture or can tort Scripture to fit a narrative that benefits them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, you know, if there was one thing as a Christian that I would say is like, our political ideology matters, our engagement in our community matters, but we should never put those things in front of the cross. [SPEAKER_00]: And so at some level, I look at the modern church and I think there are pieces of it that have been bought and that are promoting idolatry in a way that ultimately separates people from Christ. [SPEAKER_00]: And obviously that's not good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, now I agree. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not particularly or super, I guess, religious myself, but I completely agree with that. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think if you go down this journey of really understanding what problems were being solved by the liberty movement, if you want to call it that from the thirteenth century through the nineteenth century, really, then you'll see that

[SPEAKER_01]: There is a distinct parallel between Protestantism and reformation, more so reformation and Protestant specifically, but reformation and the liberty movement, reformation and the Christian church and the liberty movement, almost parallel through human history. [SPEAKER_01]: And to some degree, of course, it did because they were Christians, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And one thing informs the other, but even [SPEAKER_01]: If you take it from political theory and theology, you can see them follow each other as they're trying to become as our constitution says more perfect. [SPEAKER_01]: So I think there's less in there, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, now I make sense to me. [SPEAKER_00]: I think the danger is if you try and make Christianity subservient to what you want.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of Christian theology, very much teaches sac personal sacrifice. [SPEAKER_00]: It teaches obedience to the Scripture and God's Word. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think sometimes we almost try to turn the table [SPEAKER_00]: and make the Bible a tool to serve our interest instead of the other way around. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the part that I think is dangerous. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's all dangerous that Christian ideology helped to shape some of our founders.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think those values have made us a better country. [SPEAKER_00]: I grimace a little bit when I see people using Christ almost as a political puppet to say, this is good and this is bad. [SPEAKER_00]: It feels carnival barquish to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: yeah well keep those things in mind and more obviously and do you know um the history is out there and luckily for us the um luckily for us philosophers are very frequently in love with the sound of their own voice or the pin strokes on the page so there's plenty of work shown to understand why they came to the conclusions they did and let's try not to do what we typically do which is unsolved problems we have already solved [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a smart man learns from his own mistakes, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others and let's try not to repeat the same mistakes over and over. [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for coming today. [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate it. [SPEAKER_01]: Tell everybody where they can find you and how to engage with Magnolia Tribune and all the other stuff you're doing. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just go to Magolutribune.com. [SPEAKER_00]: We post new articles every single day.

[SPEAKER_00]: You certainly can find there the stuff about the bribery scandal. [SPEAKER_00]: And actually, I would encourage people to go read some of it because it's wild. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, the statements that were made on surveillance, which we didn't have time to get into today were just truly like Tony's soprano type stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: right you know you've got a district attorney talking about buying women and drugs and all this stuff and just you know talking about co-mingling funds with dope dealers and there there's just some crazy crazy stuff

[SPEAKER_00]: uh... that the FBI says that it captured on tape uh... that will happen on trial we've got a lot of that in the articles that we've written so it's it's worth a gander uh... and and appreciate the time with you today man there's you know uh... i was told we were going to talk about the uh... the bribery scandal i didn't know we were going to get this deep into uh... government philosophy of what not but hell of a fun conversation

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, uh, you know, I just let the conversation go where it's going to go most of the time. [SPEAKER_01]: I enjoy and yeah, this is going to be I kind of feel like this once this trial is over. [SPEAKER_01]: Netflix is going to be calling somebody to like, hey, let's make this into a CR HBO like with the this is the wire. [SPEAKER_01]: It's literally the wire in real life in a lot of ways like holy shit and it's crazy. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely go read these articles.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're all on [SPEAKER_01]: MagnoliaTribune.com and check out Russell Latino who is actually Italian. [SPEAKER_01]: I guess, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for coming to date, man. [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate your time. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thanks for having me on. [SPEAKER_00]: Appreciate it. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you all for listening to this Vincent.