College Republican Debates Students at Utah State University *Full Debates*

[0:00] I was here yesterday, James was going for all the culture war stuff, so he didn't really [0:04] want to debate domestic, foreign, economic, so he was like, you know, I was like, what [0:08] do you think about TERFs? [0:09] He was like, well, trans people. [0:10] I was like, okay, whatever. [0:11] So, Hazel and... [0:12] I'm Kai. [0:13] Good to meet you, man. [0:14] I'm Jackson. [0:15] Jackson, good to meet you. [0:16] Nice to meet you. [0:17] Let's go rapid fire, so then we can pick something to go off of. [0:20] You guys ready? [0:21] Sure. [0:22] Okay. [0:23] Is Church of Jesus Christ, the most, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the [0:26] most based religion? [0:31] I disagree with the framing, because I don't think that based should be the value by which [0:36] we determine, like, some positive trait. [0:38] I'm memeing a little bit, but most true. [0:40] Most true? [0:40] I mean, yes, but I think that'd be a difficult... [0:43] I mean, that is like a culture war question. [0:44] Yeah, okay. [0:47] I'm a non-denominational Christian, and I don't even classify... [0:50] Sorry, Kai. [0:51] I don't even classify Mormon as Christian, so I disagree. [0:54] Okay. [0:55] So, I'll say yes. [0:57] Do you guys think we should reestablish State of Deseret? [1:00] Yes. [1:02] I'll go yes. [1:03] She's not getting in. [1:04] She's not getting in to Deseret. [1:05] All right. [1:05] Cox or Lyman? [1:07] Lyman. [1:08] Cox sucks. [1:12] Cox. [1:12] Republicans or Democrats? [1:13] Republicans. [1:15] Republicans. [1:16] Democrats. [1:17] Kamala or Trump? [1:18] Trump. [1:19] Trump. [1:19] Kamala. [1:20] Sadly. [1:21] All right. [1:22] Let's go. [1:23] What do you guys think about the tariffs? [1:24] That's an easy one. [1:25] I like tariffs. [1:26] I think they're good for national security, and I think that the United States has to re-industrialize. [1:31] I think that we are going to be totally wiped out by China. [1:33] We are going to create terrible conditions in this country or perpetuate them if we don't re-industrialize. [1:39] I think tariffs are the best way to re-industrialize the country. [1:42] 100%. [1:43] I think at the beginning, the tariffs were scary to look at, but if you look at it now, the tariffs have actually helped our economy more. [1:50] And it's going to take some time, but in the end, if it overall helps our economy, it's 100% worth it. [1:54] So why do you think that we aren't all self-sufficient in our own households? [1:58] Why don't we all farm, make everything ourselves, like on an individual level? [2:03] Well, I think there's more efficient ways of organizing the economy. [2:06] Right. [2:07] And same in the global order? [2:08] Yeah, certainly. [2:09] So you don't think we should have tariffs on everything? [2:11] No. [2:12] You've skipped a couple steps. [2:14] I'm disagreeing with your idea here. [2:15] Right. [2:16] Why do you believe that admitting that you can organize an economy more efficiently means you have to have total global free trade? [2:24] So I think it depends on what you mean by efficiency. [2:26] If you mean maximizing our self-sufficiency, maybe. [2:30] If you're talking about specialization, maximizing the allocation of resources, no, it's less efficient. [2:34] Normally in economics, efficiency just means the most amount of resources allocated in the best way. [2:39] Tariffs isn't that. [2:40] You can say, okay, I don't want that because I want national security, but has Trump targeted the right things on tariffs? [2:46] No. [2:46] I think actually his tariff policy, while I agree with the idea of tariffs, I think he's applied it very poorly. [2:52] I think the issue with his proposal of the tariffs is that he's backed off from them. [2:56] He hasn't negotiated them well. [2:57] He's subjected the stock market to way more discontrol than was necessary. [3:03] Right. [3:03] But I think that if we were to apply tariffs at a logical rate, right, this is part of the issue is that he really applied kind of these arbitrary numbers all over the place. [3:12] But if we were to have targeted tariffs on certain industries, it would certainly cause some economic decline in the short term, maybe even in like the five to ten year term. [3:23] But it would re-industrialize the country in ways that I think would improve the well-being of American citizens. [3:30] And I think a huge part of the problems we have today is because we've lost all these industries to places that do these same jobs but more efficiently. [3:37] We're talking China, Taiwan. [3:38] Right. [3:39] Thank you, Bill Clinton and World Economic Forum. [3:42] So what would you say is the number one thing that hurts our national security in the tech age as far as tariffs? [3:47] Like what do we need to tariff specifically? [3:49] Because I could give you one. [3:51] I'd like to hear yours. [3:52] So semiconductor chips. [3:53] Yes. [3:54] So who was the last president that specifically did tariffs on only semiconductor chips? [3:58] Oh, I'm not sure. [3:59] Joe Biden. [3:59] Chips Act. [4:00] Well, okay. [4:01] Okay. [4:01] Yeah. [4:02] The Chips Act I'm familiar with. [4:03] Yes. [4:03] Yeah. [4:03] I wasn't sure if you're in favor of that because you're like targeted for national security. [4:08] I actually like the Chips Act. [4:09] Okay. [4:09] Awesome. [4:09] Sweet. [4:10] What do you think about that one? [4:12] Oh, 100%. [4:12] I like the Chips Act as well. [4:14] I agree with mostly what Kai is saying. [4:16] Awesome. [4:17] So we're supporting Joe Biden on that one. [4:18] And then Trump just went recently and started saying that we're going to allow China to buy Nvidia chips. [4:22] So he's kind of going back on the one useful tariff. [4:26] Any opinions on that one? [4:27] Yeah. [4:27] Again, I think that tariffs as a policy are good. [4:29] I think that the fact that Trump is talking about them is good because it has not been the status quo in national politics for a long time. [4:36] And I think that would you do you believe that Joe Biden would have supported the Chips Act had it not been for a shift in rhetoric and an economic approach that was then pioneered by Trump during his first campaign? [4:49] That's hard to say. [4:50] It's like, is Trump the cause of the populist movement as a whole? [4:54] No, I'd say Bernie Sanders. [4:56] Well, Bernie Sanders and Trump are running in the exact same election, right? [4:59] In 2016. [4:59] Yeah. [5:00] And you and me are probably going to agree that the Democratic Party totally slighted Bernie Sanders. [5:06] For sure. [5:06] He absolutely should have been the nominee. [5:08] The superdelegates were a total joke. [5:10] Can I make one kind of note on that? [5:11] Sure. [5:11] Yeah, yeah. [5:11] So, like, right, you know with, like, Utah is like a closed caucus system. [5:15] And so, like, the insiders kind of have this view of politics, which isn't only what people say, but, like, the coalition they can actually build. [5:21] And I think the establishment didn't see Bernie as someone who can actually build a coalition, which is a fair argument, right? [5:26] So it's like they slighted him. [5:28] But was that for the best? [5:28] I don't know. [5:29] You know, hindsight's 20-20. [5:31] Obviously, all of us can feel the burn. [5:33] And we all love Bernie. [5:34] Yeah. [5:34] I mean, I think, look, that's really the conversation, right? [5:39] Is would these things have happened if it were not for Trump? [5:41] And I really don't think so. [5:42] Do you think if it were not for Trump and his emphasis on immigration that, and by saying this, you and me will probably get to another point of agreement. [5:50] But do you think that the Democrats would have been so pressured to come up with a proposal for the border? [5:54] I think you have a bit of recency bias here. [5:56] So, like, the populist movement as a whole, I think, started with 9-11 when Americans started saying, wait, is our government actually working in our best interest? [6:02] Why are these other countries so upset with us right now? [6:05] And then you saw the 2008 financial crisis. [6:07] We can talk about crimes, but white-collar crimes are severely under prosecuted. [6:11] Things like leveraging debt and things like that are criminalized but not really prosecuted in this country, leading to the 2008 financial crisis. [6:18] So, first, we lost faith in the government. [6:20] We lost faith in the financial institutions. [6:22] You know about Occupy Wall Street. [6:23] Some guys like you are probably doing YouTube on Occupy Wall Street. [6:27] Like, you know, there's, like, the Tea Party movement. [6:28] So, I credit Republicans for, like, really having distrust. [6:31] Like, nowadays, you hear it's like Jacksonian era all over again. [6:34] Like, down with the Fed, all these, you know, and now you've got it. [6:37] On Paul and the Fed, yeah. [6:38] Yeah, all these people running the world. [6:40] That's a little right-wing problem, right? [6:41] But, yeah, so, I mean, it's like the populist movement as a whole. [6:45] I would say conservatives have done a great job. [6:46] But the OG populist, that's, like, hippies of the 60s, civil rights movement. [6:50] Now they kind of lost the plot maybe a little bit, right? [6:52] I did a lot a bit, yeah. [6:54] Yeah, but it's like Democrats pioneered this, like, populist labor movement, right? [6:57] Are you pro-labor? [6:59] Yeah, I mean, the tariff policy is a pro-labor. [7:02] It's a pro-Middle America policy. [7:03] Gotcha. [7:04] So, you're against HB 267, the Utah public sector labor amendments. [7:07] Do you remember this from last year? [7:09] I don't. [7:09] I was on my mission. [7:10] Oh, gotcha. [7:11] Where'd you go? [7:11] I went to Argentina. [7:12] That's awesome. [7:13] Yes, sure. [7:13] So, they banned public employees from organizing and doing collective bargaining. [7:18] Are you on board with that? [7:20] Oh, okay. [7:20] Like, the labor union issue is an interesting one. [7:22] I want to look into it a little bit more. [7:23] Because labor unions, it gets really difficult, right? [7:26] Because I think they can actually oftentimes do the opposite of what we want with tariffs, [7:29] where the industry that gets created ends up, you know, reducing its efficiency in ways that [7:34] we had never hoped. [7:35] But I think that, you know, trying to achieve more employment in these sectors is important. [7:39] And I think that, yeah, the tariff policy is good in that regard. [7:42] I don't know. [7:43] We've kind of gone all over the place. [7:45] Is there a specific part you'd like to hone in on? [7:47] I'm down for whatever. [7:48] I mean, I can go on any topic. [7:50] What do you guys feel passionate about? [7:52] I mean, culture stuff is easy, right? [7:53] We can always rip a new one. [7:54] But it's like, this is kind of like the more policy stuff that I like. [7:57] What's a policy that you guys hate that Democrats do? [8:01] I can try and defend one. [8:02] Do you remember what we debated yesterday? [8:04] I have no idea. [8:05] I forgot. [8:06] We did an abortion one. [8:08] But you guys mostly go back to religious talking points, which is kind of hard. [8:11] Just because it's like, I can agree with you on the religious standpoint. [8:13] But like, as a, like, for helping the greater cause, it's not really helpful to convince people [8:17] on a religious basis. [8:19] I can debate abortion, secular and religiously. [8:22] Okay. [8:22] So if we can do that. [8:23] But policy specifically, ooh, I don't know. [8:27] Do you mind if we do that? [8:28] If we do the abortion debate? [8:29] That was one of the topics that we have up. [8:31] I don't know. [8:32] Do we have the topics up? [8:33] Oh, right there. [8:34] Yeah, sure. [8:35] Culture stuff kind of sucks, but I can do it. [8:36] I mean, I get it. [8:37] It's an important issue, right? [8:38] We can do, like, immigration, whatever you want. [8:40] I don't, like, any water day. [8:41] Immigration. [8:42] Do you guys think we should take any immigrants? [8:45] Like, take any immigrants? [8:47] Legal, yes. [8:48] Okay. [8:49] I disagree. [8:50] I think we should have a moratorium on immigration. [8:53] Legal and illegal, obviously. [8:55] For probably something like 10 years. [8:57] I mean, that date is something I just kind of throw out. [8:59] But certainly there has to be a pause. [9:01] And I could maybe amend that to be net negative migration. [9:04] It doesn't have to necessarily be a moratorium. [9:06] Right. [9:06] But I think that the way immigration has occurred in this country has largely been abusive and [9:10] has decreased social cohesion. [9:12] I think a lot of the culture war issues we have are because of culture clashes. [9:16] You think most immigrants that come into this country aren't socially conservative? [9:20] When did I say that? [9:21] Oh, sorry. [9:22] I followed the argument. [9:23] So you said most of the culture war issues we have now. [9:25] But most of those go along social conservatism versus progressivism. [9:28] And most immigrants are socially conservative. [9:30] Well, one of the culture war issues I would include is a clash of cultures. [9:35] Right. [9:35] So and by the way, the way that the way that immigrants vote or the children of immigrants [9:41] vote is very different often than their values. [9:43] And this is a case a lot of the time because of block voting. [9:46] Right. [9:46] Right. [9:46] African-Americans actually really dislike gay marriage. [9:50] They poll really, really low in support of gay marriage. [9:53] Nonetheless, I mean, that's a generalization, but I think the stats show that a little bit [9:57] more than white people say. [9:58] Well, significantly more. [9:59] African-Americans are much less in support of gay marriage than white Americans because [10:04] white Americans are much more liberal just on the social issues. [10:08] However, black Americans, when Obama is running for election both times, voted for Barack [10:13] Obama in margins that were literally higher than the electoral margins of Muammar Gaddafi, [10:17] who didn't even have a democratic election. [10:19] Right. [10:20] Like they literally pulled higher for Obama than for a dictator. [10:23] Right. [10:23] So obviously it's not just a question of, well, what ideas do they have? [10:27] Are they social conservatives if they don't actually vote that way? [10:30] Well, so I think you're getting something mixed up, which is in politics, you have two [10:32] pieces on how people vote. [10:34] Number one, it's like the actual material conditions. [10:36] And number two is the way they feel. [10:37] Right. [10:38] So a lot of Trump's voters, people say vote against their own self-interest. [10:41] But is it really? [10:42] Right. [10:42] So maybe their wages will be lower because he's against labor unions. [10:46] Maybe they'll pay more prices because he's against tariffs. [10:48] Maybe we'll start invading other countries for no reason. [10:50] But the thing is, is that they feel like a connection to him. [10:55] They're like, oh, he's for us. [10:56] Right. [10:56] He drove around that, the garbage truck. [10:58] He worked at the McDonald's, even though Kamala Harris literally worked at a McDonald's. [11:02] Right. [11:02] So it's more about the image that they present and whether they feel like, oh, this person [11:05] likes me. [11:06] And I think that was the element with Obama. [11:07] Right. [11:07] So if someone says, oh, I would prefer to have someone in office that I feel like is [11:11] like me and looks like me over their, you know, material self-interest, say, from your [11:15] perspective, I think Obama was definitely than Romney. [11:18] Okay. [11:18] I don't know. [11:19] Right. [11:19] But as far as like these two things weighing, like voters actually weigh these things. [11:25] This isn't people being confused. [11:26] Right. [11:27] Like in Utah, LDS voters disproportionately vote for LDS state legislatures. [11:31] Right. [11:33] Like state legislators. [11:34] Sorry. [11:35] And that's not like a crazy fault. [11:37] It's like people want to be represented in government. [11:39] And I think that's fair. [11:40] So like for you to make the argument like, oh, they're voting against their own self-interest. [11:43] Okay. [11:44] Right. [11:45] It's not unique to Barack Obama and black people and social conservatism. [11:48] You're, you're, you're actually right. [11:49] It's, it's not unique to Barack Obama because in almost every single election, black Americans [11:53] vote almost in a super majority for the democratic candidate. [11:56] That's not true. [11:57] Across the country or by state? [11:58] Well, we're, we're, across the country, like, like as a whole. [12:01] So is, is Georgia right now? [12:02] Is that a definitely blue state? [12:03] No. [12:04] Well, hold on. [12:04] I, I mean, as, as an average, I'm not saying across the country as in, if you look at every [12:08] single state, it's going to be the same. [12:10] Since, since Obama, before that, I think it was a, well, the Dixie, the Dixiecrats, you're [12:14] saying after the Dixiecrats? [12:15] Yeah. [12:15] Okay. [12:16] Yeah. [12:16] If we're going after the 1960s. [12:17] Well, I'm always just historical view. [12:19] I know there's some recency bias, but, um, yeah. [12:22] We're not here to debate the party switch and everything, but, um, no, I mean, this is [12:26] the case. [12:27] It's in fact, it's the case as well with Hispanic voters. [12:29] Right. [12:30] I mean, only in the last election are we really starting to see, okay, maybe the Hispanic vote [12:34] is much more plastic. [12:35] It's much more malleable than we thought. [12:37] Yeah. [12:37] But have you looked at the polls recently? [12:38] It kind of swung back. [12:39] Well, I'm not surprised it swung back. [12:41] I think it's, it's swinging back among a lot of populations. [12:43] So you don't think, hold on, hold on, but you're, you're kind of avoiding the larger [12:46] point, right? [12:46] Okay. [12:47] Which is that historically over the last several decades, the Hispanic and the black vote have [12:52] been almost in a super majority for the democratic party above 60% in every single election. [12:57] And the vote seems to be a lot less persuadable than, uh, the white vote, for instance, which [13:02] seems to flip back and forth quite consistently. [13:05] And I would say matching more closely the values of each candidate. [13:08] Right. [13:08] So you know what I would say to Republicans who are upset about this? [13:11] Support more mass migration because it's something that pulls well with Hispanic voters? [13:14] I would say lock in and just like represent the constituency better. [13:17] Like this is like politics, right? [13:18] Like if, oh, this group doesn't represent us, we should stop letting them in the country. [13:21] Like now just try better. [13:22] Okay. [13:23] So here's a question. [13:24] Yeah. [13:26] If, and, and I don't disagree that this is the way that politics works, but don't you [13:29] think that that might increase the risk of doing something that is not in the nation's [13:32] best interest in order to pander to votes? [13:34] Like, oh, don't you believe, um, that this is maybe part of the reason that the democratic [13:38] party is in favor of younger people voting in favor of felons voting is in favor of more [13:43] migration is because they know that every single one of those groups is going to vote disproportionately [13:47] in their favor, right? [13:48] This is like, so I don't, I don't mean this in like a demeaning way, but this is like politics [13:52] one-on-one, right? [13:52] It's like this party is catering to their party base. [13:55] Why do you think this is the case? [13:56] And it's like, maybe because they want votes, right? [13:58] It's like, why is this business marketing to me, the target audience? [14:01] It's like, they want your money, right? [14:02] So like conservatives do the same thing with their base, right? [14:04] Like why is, why is Trump putting like little Christian dog whistles in all his speeches? [14:08] Like, this is so weird. [14:09] If only Christians knew that like, you know, free trade policy was actually better for them. [14:13] Like this is ruining everything. [14:14] It's like, no, like this is the point, right? [14:16] They're like signaling to these voters, like I stand with you and the democratic party. [14:19] Like a lot of people have these conspiracies around like, oh, they're trying to let in [14:22] more of the base, right? [14:23] Like this is Tucker Carlson 101, right? [14:25] How is that a conspiracy? [14:27] What do you mean? [14:28] Well, what part of that do you believe is a conspiracy that they're letting in more of [14:31] the base? [14:33] Legal immigration or illegal? [14:34] Both. [14:35] Illegal immigrants can't vote. [14:36] The children of illegal immigrants do and they vote incredibly liberal. [14:39] Then they're not immigrants. [14:41] Well, hold on. [14:42] That's a whole different discussion about the birthright citizenship issue, but fine. [14:46] Yeah. [14:47] Still, that is kind of maybe a rhetorical way of getting away from the point, which is [14:51] they are importing an electorate or they are rather than the electorate themselves, importing [14:55] a group of people that is going to have birth or have births and then have a new electorate [15:01] in the country. [15:02] I mean, you're just escaping the point by saying, well, but they're going to have to have kids [15:05] and then those kids can vote. [15:06] Right. [15:07] But I mean, Democrats know that. [15:08] Do you not see the Republican opportunity here? [15:09] These people are like vastly socially conservative. [15:11] Then why aren't they voting for Republicans? [15:12] Because you guys need to lock in. [15:13] I'm telling you right now, like you could get this base and Trump got a little bit of [15:17] it. [15:18] The way he's dealt with ice has kind of made poll numbers go back down. [15:20] I think I'm saying like this is a possibility for you guys. [15:23] And it's like you could take a super majority in this country if you could take that voting [15:26] block because you already have like it's like I mean, college educated, you kind of lost [15:30] with Kamala and Biden. [15:31] But as far as like, you know, all minority groups, for the most part, are more socially [15:35] conservative than white people. [15:36] Again, this is this is kind of the point that I'm making. [15:39] I say, OK, look, these groups are more socially conservative than than white people. [15:45] Awesome. [15:46] Republicans have been the socially conservative party. [15:48] And what has it gotten us? [15:49] Nothing. [15:50] What you're telling me is that now as a Republican, what I have to do is basically look the other [15:54] way about illegal immigration, stop enforcing our laws with regards to illegal immigrants [15:58] and deportations in order to win over a base that is going to no matter what, still [16:03] vote majority Democrat. [16:04] So we're talking about illegal immigrants before. [16:06] But if you want to pay it to illegal, then I'm, you know, we can't. [16:08] Well, we can talk about either because either way, what you've proposed to me is that I [16:12] as a Republican, I'm going to have to support things that I believe are worse for the country [16:16] in order to then win the vote of people who are usually going to vote Democrat anyways, [16:20] even if they are more socially conservative. [16:22] What would you have to support that would go against America's interests in order to win [16:25] over this? [16:27] Mass migration. [16:28] You don't have to support mass migration to win over a lot of immigrants. [16:29] You just have to do immigration in a safe and humane way. [16:31] OK. [16:32] Do you think that if the Republican Party, because you mentioned the ICE issue, [16:37] right? [16:39] Do you think that the Republican Party should drop the issue of deportations? [16:44] No. [16:45] OK. [16:46] Do you think that deportations should continue? [16:48] Yeah. [16:49] Do you think that Democrats are benefiting among Latino voters because they are not as [16:52] harsh on immigration as Republicans are? [16:54] Illegal immigrants can vote. [16:55] If you're talking about deporting legal immigrants, we can get started on this. [16:57] I didn't say illegal immigrants. [16:58] I said Latinos. [16:59] Latinos in general. [17:00] Do you think Latinos vote more for Democrats because Democrats are more open border? [17:03] But you see the jump you made. [17:04] Right. [17:05] So you said, you know, like, should we keep deporting people? [17:08] Should we stop, you know, the influx at the border of illegal immigrants? [17:11] And then you made the jump to the voter block of Latinos, right? [17:13] OK. [17:14] That's, hold on, hold on. [17:15] So let's switch to legal immigration. [17:16] Can I explain why I jumped? [17:17] Yeah. [17:18] I jumped because I think all of these things are under the umbrella of the issue of immigration. [17:21] Illegal immigration, how many legal immigrants we have, how many visa workers we have, if [17:25] we're doing deportations, all of that falls under the umbrella of immigration issues. [17:29] Right. [17:30] But do you think the Democratic Party, because they are softer on immigration than the Republicans, [17:34] are gaining more of the Latino vote? [17:37] It's possible. [17:38] But like you said, they're more socially conservative. [17:40] No. [17:41] Sorry. [17:43] Am I misunderstanding you? [17:44] I think maybe. [17:45] OK. [17:46] So you began saying, well, I think the Republicans should just pander more to Latinos [17:49] because they're already socially conservative. [17:51] Right. [17:52] And so I said, well, if they're already socially conservative, wouldn't it make sense that they vote conservatively? [17:55] It would. [17:56] And you said, it would make sense, but they're not doing it. [17:58] Right. [17:59] Why is that? [18:00] Because the Republican Party, and this is the point I'm making now, has not been as soft [18:03] on immigration, which we know is a key issue for Latino voters because that's how they got [18:07] here. [18:08] And you're then saying, well, I don't think maybe, maybe there's a correlation. [18:12] Maybe if Republicans were softer on immigration, they'd gain more Latino support. [18:15] And I'm telling you, I don't want to do that because I don't think immigration is good [18:18] for the country. [18:19] You're telling me to sacrifice what is good for my country because it would win more votes. [18:22] I see the misstep. [18:23] So you think that immigration is like net bad for the sorry. [18:26] It's just like, you know, lib brain here. [18:27] So so you're saying immigration is bad for the country, like economically. [18:31] Is that the argument you're making? [18:32] Or like you guys do like a social cohesion argument or something like that? [18:35] That as well. [18:36] I think there are many ways of looking at it. [18:37] But but no matter what the case is, it is historically been the ideal of the Republican Party to limit immigration. [18:44] Do we agree or disagree? [18:45] Yes. [18:46] And now you are saying that the Republican Party should change its platform on this key issue [18:50] that reflects its goals and its values in order to win a Latino base that got here through immigration. [18:56] So why do you think Trump's numbers went up this last election, even though he ran on deportations and then they just went down? [19:01] Why would that be the case? [19:02] There are a ton of confounding variables. [19:05] I think Kamala was a terrible candidate. [19:07] We can agree. [19:08] Yeah, I think, you know, even Joe Biden was probably more able to galvanize Latino voters than Kamala Harris was. [19:13] Yeah, I think they saw as disingenuous. [19:15] I think the left she is way too hard. [19:17] Yeah, I agree. [19:18] I think the left pushed way too hard on a ton of social issues. [19:20] I don't know if there's any one value. [19:22] But what I will say is that somehow it happened despite the issue of deportations. [19:27] But now that the deportations are occurring, the Latino support has decreased. [19:31] Right. [19:32] Which kind of goes to prove my point. [19:33] And what do you think it is about those deportations that's caused it to decrease? [19:36] Because they knew it was coming. [19:37] And then something happened right now that changed that. [19:40] And this is the argument I'm making to you, which is that you guys were on an upward trend. [19:43] Then you went on a downward trend. [19:44] And I'm, like, trying to help you, right? [19:45] Like, this is a voter base that is... [19:47] I think it's bad for voter bases to be loyal to one party, right? [19:50] Agree. [19:51] It's just bad, right? [19:52] Like, Utah, if there was one party that ruled everything, that would be really bad. [19:55] Well, in this case, I disagree. [19:57] Really? How so? [19:58] Well, because Utah is the state it is because of the party that controls it. [20:01] That's not true. [20:02] You don't think so? [20:03] Who controlled... [20:04] Who created Utah? [20:05] Who created Utah? [20:06] Are you going to say Republicans? [20:07] No. [20:08] Conservative Christians. [20:09] Conservative members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [20:11] You're using modern terms for, like, right? [20:13] Like, we were the first state to allow to have a woman vote, right? [20:16] And, like, that was a very progressive issue. [20:18] And that was in, like, 1896, I think. [20:19] So I think you're... [20:20] Look where it's gotten us. [20:21] Now you're Spencer Cox. [20:22] No, yeah. [20:23] Spencer Cox is based. [20:24] Who should run Flagstaff? [20:25] Not Katie Hobbs. [20:26] Spencer Cox. [20:27] Who should run North Cache Valley? [20:28] Spencer Cox. [20:29] Not... [20:30] What's his name? [20:31] Little. [20:34] Who's the governor of Idaho? [20:35] Brad Little. [20:36] Base producer. [20:37] ...Cache Valley? [20:38] As long as we can still get those nuclear reactors from northern Idaho, whatever. [20:40] From the Palantir Shell Corporation. [20:42] Yeah. [20:43] So, are you guys pro-nuclear... [20:44] Okay, let's go energy. [20:45] Do you guys believe in climate change? [20:46] No, hold on, oh, we gotta stick to the immigration issue. [20:47] Oh, sorry. [20:48] Okay. [20:49] We gotta stick to the issue of immigration. [20:50] Okay, so you're against social cohesion because it makes you uncomfortable or something [20:51] like that? [20:52] Well, I'm pro social cohesion. [20:53] Gotcha. [20:54] And you think immigrants are bad for social cohesion? [20:56] Certainly. [20:57] Do you know? [20:58] I think foreign cultures, when introduced to cultures distinct from their own, without the proper standards [21:03] standards for assimilation, yes. I think it has been very widely seen to reduce, you know, civic [21:09] mindedness, social cohesion, and social capital. Gotcha. Are you from Utah? Yes, sir. And your [21:14] family immigrated here with, are you at your LDS? Do they immigrate here as Latter-day Saints? [21:18] Yes. Do you know where from? Germany. Okay, gotcha. And did they hurt the social cohesion in this [21:23] country? Actually, Germans among the immigrant groups were probably the best when it comes to [21:28] assimilation. But nonetheless, yes. However, my grandparents, very luckily, they were speaking [21:33] German and assimilated very quickly to the English language because they felt adequate pressure to [21:38] assimilate. Do you think that there is the same amount of pressure now for an immigrant to assimilate to [21:42] the national language? So this is funny because this is a very, like, American-centric view, right? But [21:45] like, in Europe, they have a really hard time assimilating. Like, I'm sure you know, like, severely [21:49] hard. Like, they basically create, like, little diaspora pockets and don't interact with the [21:53] general population as much, whereas in America, they assimilate very well. You don't think there [21:57] are diaspora pockets in the United States where people do not speak the national language? There [22:01] are. But like, you can look around and like, our community is mixed with everybody. Whereas in [22:04] Europe, they kind of like block off because the cultures just don't mesh that well. But I hear [22:08] they do because we're a country of immigrants. We believe in shared value. And we're not a country [22:11] of creed. Have you been to Dearborn, Michigan? I haven't. Have you? No. Oh, okay. I guess we're on [22:17] the same page then. So social cohesion is one of these slippery terms where it's like, I think there [22:23] isn't enough social cohesion. And it's like, how do you measure these things? Do you have a metric [22:26] maybe that I could look at? And maybe you could prove me wrong? Yeah, actually. So social cohesion [22:30] within sociology, within anthropology, I can't break down exactly the way they measure it. But it [22:36] is actually a variable that you can assess. You can look at the trends over time. They measure it [22:41] through civic participation, voting, community events. They do polling regarding how somebody [22:49] feels about their neighbors, how many of their neighbors they know, how many close friends they [22:52] have. All of this falls into this social cohesion and social capital is, I think, the term within the [22:57] body of research. That's a great point. Social capital is a great measure. Which red state [23:01] is the most pro-immigration? Or one of the most? I'll give you a hint. Well, pro-immigration, [23:08] I know which ones are receiving the most immigration, but I don't know about each state policy. [23:12] So policy-wise, Utah is the only state that does driver identification cards. [23:16] Yeah, it's like a secret sanctuary city, Salt Lake. And which state ranks at the top every time [23:22] of social capital, social cohesion? Probably one of the least diverse states in the country. [23:26] Utah. And we're the most pro-immigration states. And not for the red states. So why would this be [23:32] the case? Because this goes against your argument. Actually, that's a perfect question. Why would it [23:36] be the case that we are so pro-migrant and yet we are still so socially cohesive when it seems to not [23:42] be the case in many other places that have larger degrees of diversity? Religion. Perfect. I actually [23:48] agree with you. I think religion is one of the only things that can overcome cultural issues. However, [23:53] these other issues that are associated with cultures that then come into our communities [23:58] don't disappear. I think religious assimilation has sped up integration in a very serious way, [24:04] not just because, you know, people have a shared, you know, religious unity, but also because there's [24:08] a ton of missionaries that luckily speak the languages of some of the people that are coming in. [24:12] Yeah, which is great. Like you, right? Do you speak Spanish? [24:14] Yes. Nice. Yeah. Spanish and German, which helps me out a ton. [24:17] Yeah. Nonetheless, you know, when I was in Argentina, I absolutely felt that it would [24:21] like I felt ugly. I felt kind of weird when I spoke English in public. It felt wrong for me to do. [24:27] I think the issue is in this country, there are plenty of cities where if you don't speak English, [24:31] it's not a problem at all. You don't even need it. And that's one of the best parts about America. [24:35] I disagree. I did a little test when I was in L.A. about how far I could get without even knowing [24:39] the English language. And, you know, I literally got everywhere. In fact, if I hadn't known Spanish, [24:44] I wouldn't have been able to communicate with one of the drivers that I had when I was [24:47] in an Uber. See, Trump wants Canada to be the 51st state. And I think he's looking the wrong way. [24:51] I think Mexico, we should make the 51st state. Yeah, I disagree with that. But maybe, you know, [24:56] if they'll stay on that side of the state border, maybe if we could stop the interstate migration, [25:01] you know, maybe we could agree there. But right, you see the slipperiness of this. It's like, [25:03] okay, so we need social cohesion. There's some things I don't know what the metrics are, [25:06] but we can measure this. Utah's at the top, but we need religion. But without religion, [25:10] this is a problem. And it's kind of just like a slippery argument to me. [25:13] It's not at all a slippery argument. You're pointing out one factor that exists in the state [25:17] of Utah and only in the state of Utah because it is the most church-going province or state [25:21] in the entire Western world. And you're then saying, well, then it's fine if we support a bunch [25:25] of migration. Well, here's the issue. That's not going to work in every single other state [25:29] because they don't have the same uniting factor that Utah does. You know what I would say to a [25:33] Latter-day Saints? Lock in, right? There's an abundance argument here, right? I feel like [25:38] you guys are turning to the 2020 liberals where it's just like, complain, complain, complain. [25:41] We need to stop. This is too much. There's all too much going on. We need to deconstruct [25:45] every piece of society and change it. And it's like, what if your religion and your party just [25:49] got better at what they do in securing these things? And we wouldn't have to change the entire [25:54] structural piece of this country that's been here since the founding. [25:57] So when you say get better at what we do, what would you advocate for? What would you [26:01] advocate the Republican Party change? [26:02] So I think number one is rhetoric. People like Tucker Carlson, who are incredible political [26:08] commentators and basically politicians at this point, who are really, really good at convincing [26:13] people of things. And they make this argument sort of like, it's a little bit slippery, but [26:18] against immigration. When I think that there could be this cohesive vision for social conservatism [26:24] that kind of has a balanced view on immigration and allows in other cultures and is like, right, [26:29] like the Vivek Ramaswamy's and Marco Rubio's and this kind of thing. Obviously, H1B visas, [26:35] they kind of suck on that issue, but and we can agree maybe. But it's like, I think there's a [26:39] broader vision for like an abundant argument here that they are making. Same with Democrats, [26:44] right? Like I can make a, there's a much better vision for Democrats than like whatever social [26:47] issues that they've tried to dig their heels into for the last 10 years, right? [26:50] And I think we can agree a little bit, but maybe more on the Democrat part than on the Republican [26:55] part, because once again, so first of all, if the issue is the rhetoric, I think you arrived at a [27:02] roundabout way of saying that we should be less harsh about immigration. No. You don't think the [27:05] Republican Party should be less harsh on immigration? I mean, it depends, right? Because that's a broad [27:09] issue. But it's like, should Trump be deporting people that were in the Dreamers program? No. [27:13] Should he end that program? Right? Like you come here as a two-year-old and like that's the kind of [27:17] thing that you're really going to lose Latino voters on, Latina, Latino, right? Precisely. [27:21] And so it's like those type of things. And I think that's the point. [27:23] Right? But those programs are some of the best programs in this country. And I know they've [27:26] got kind of like wrapped into like Kamala Harris and Biden expanding the definition of asylum, [27:31] right? Which sucks, right? Like they should just write it into law. If they're going to let in more [27:34] immigrants, they shouldn't like expand these definitions to let more people in, right? So like [27:38] obviously there's an issue on that side. But all I'm saying is like there's an opportunity here [27:41] for a stronger, more cohesive social conservative movement and not like a Nick Fuentes, Groyper type [27:46] thing, right? Not that I'm grouping you in with them. I just want to be clear. [27:50] I think you really are kind of living in a fairytale land. And I live in it too. It's called Utah. [27:56] And I wish that we could do in every single state what we've done with Utah where there is a religion [28:01] that unites us and that can even overcome some of the separations. Right. The problem is the issues [28:07] that you do see in Dearborn, Michigan. The problems that you do see in cities in New Mexico or Mexico [28:11] or not Mexico, in New Mexico or Texas is what I meant to say. It's basically Mexico. [28:16] And it was. Yeah. But the problems we see in these cities are that the Mexican Independence Day in some [28:21] of these cities is being recognized. And that is a problem. I think there is a problem of cohesion [28:26] when national independence days of foreign nations are being recognized by their state governments or [28:32] by their city, you know, governments or precincts, right? I also think that a lot of the issues that [28:38] you're describing, they don't disappear just the moment that everybody maybe shifts to become [28:41] more Christian. First of all, you can't do that by force. And second of all, a Mexican Catholic [28:45] is very different than an English Catholic. [28:48] Right. But they're all in the same church and there's like some social cohesion. [28:51] I completely. OK. If that's the case, why do people segregate so much when they go to churches? [28:55] What do you mean? [28:56] There is absolutely large degrees of segregation when people go and attend their worship services. [29:01] They worship more. In fact, if you go to the Cathedral of the Madeline here in Salt Lake City, [29:04] people will go to a Spanish mass, even if they know English, because they are from Latin American [29:08] countries. Why do people segregate when they go to mass? It's because people still identify [29:12] with their in-group. And those kind of preferences are going to exist no matter what. And they will [29:16] begin to divide a country up. But yeah, we should go more into this later. Yeah, for sure. [29:23] Is there a line behind me or are these people just watching? Yeah. OK, I'll let other people go. [29:27] Sorry, I've been going for a while. Appreciate you. Thank you so much, man. [29:33] Can we get everyone that's on the sidewalk to shift to the left so we're not blocking the sidewalk [29:37] for the school? Thank you, guys. Hi, I'm Sage. First of all, thank you guys for being here. [29:44] This is awesome. So a question for Kai about immigration. Sounds good. [29:49] Specifically, I think that we'd probably agree on most of it. I think that immigration is a problem, [29:53] that mass deportation should be a focus and that we should have strong borders. But I've heard a couple [29:56] times on your show that you've mentioned that you would be against also legal immigration [30:00] occasionally and birthright citizenship should potentially be repealed. So I just kind of want to [30:06] understand your arguments for both of those a little better. For sure. Sage, thanks for coming up. [30:09] And I'm glad I can flush this out a little bit. I didn't have a total chance to do so with the [30:13] last gentleman. But I would basically break it down into three points. I think mass legal [30:18] immigration has disastrous consequences electorally. And we got into a little bit of [30:23] that with Jackson. It has disastrous effects culturally because there's a lack of assimilatory [30:27] pressure in the country right now. And I also think that it has economic detriments because it [30:32] begins to replace native born workers in their jobs. So we'll break this down one by one. [30:37] And electorally, we talk about, you know, the voting issue that we were just discussing. [30:40] I think Democrats realize that they can import a voter base. If you look at the children of [30:45] immigrants, and if you look at the immigrants themselves, if they naturalize, which many [30:48] of them don't, they vote overwhelmingly Democrat. The second and third generations are incredibly [30:53] liberal. And despite maybe the social conservative values that we may believe they have, they tend [30:58] even to vote against those values because the Democratic Party is pandering particularly to the issue [31:04] of immigration. This is why they want more immigration. This is why they don't want deportations. [31:07] And this is why they want an easier pathway to citizenship. And if you want more proof that they [31:11] pander to these kinds of voters, you can also look at the fact that they want 16-year-olds to [31:14] vote and they want felons to vote. I don't think either of those things are good. And that's where [31:18] me and Jackson disagree is, I don't think felons should vote. And I don't think, you know, there [31:21] should be an easier path to voting for people who have come to the country legally. [31:24] I agree with that. And I think that that's the thing is like, with how hard like the process is [31:30] to actually come here legally, is it actually a problem with like a bunch of people? Because [31:34] like there's obviously problems with like mass illegal immigration, but is there enough of a [31:37] problem with legal immigration that they're like that those problems would happen? [31:41] Yeah, I mean, well, right now we have for the first time in a very long time, and I'm very happy [31:45] about it, net negative migration, which is really surprising. But yes, typically we are receiving in [31:50] this country, hundreds of thousands and millions of people annually, not just illegally, but legally, [31:55] right? And it is an issue. And this gets to the second point, which is that these people are coming [32:01] into the country, whichever way they are coming, whether it's through a visa or whether it's, [32:04] you know, they have family members here, whether they're workers or whatnot, they're coming to a [32:09] country that no longer requires them to assimilate the way that the country used to. I think you cannot [32:13] at all in any nation in the world have immigration unless you have adequate pressure for them to learn [32:18] the language, to integrate into their society, to participate in their communities, and not just [32:22] all go to one city. And this is actually something, maybe to Jackson's point, that did happen with [32:27] European migrants as well. Why do you think when you go to New York that you have these Italian [32:31] communities that even after centuries, some of them don't speak English? It is because there's a lack [32:36] of assimilatory pressure. Germans did a little bit better, but every single immigrant group faces this [32:40] issue. And so the only question is, is it becoming more necessary to assimilate or is it less [32:45] necessary? And I think that when you pick up a phone and you hear, you know, when you go to any [32:52] public space, when you literally in Nevada driving around, we'll see billboards that don't even have [32:56] English on them. They are just in Spanish. You'll very reasonably figure out that there is less [33:02] assimilatory pressure now than there used to be. And so immigration should be controlled or [33:07] completely reduced until there is more assimilatory pressure. Okay. Yeah. And I can agree with that. I was [33:11] wondering if you were saying like that legal immigration should just be stopped or if those [33:15] problems should be fixed, because I think that there are potentially good things that can happen [33:20] with legal immigration. Um, but I agree with you that the like social pressure to like assimilate [33:26] is not strong. So, and that, that would be the second point. The third economic is, I think it [33:32] displaces native born, um, workers. I mean, if you look at the, the jobs that are being done by legal or [33:36] illegal immigrants, um, unless they're like part of an H-1B or a O-1 visa program, it's usually [33:42] replacing prior immigrants. It's usually replacing Hispanics or African-Americans who are doing [33:46] either low skill or low wage labor. And I also think this is maybe a fourth point, but it's super [33:51] important and nobody mentions it. Automation is going to displace more workers than we can even [33:56] conceive of or imagine of millions of workers all across the country. And those people are going to [34:01] be displaced and end up either homeless or living off of subsidies from the state. Knowing this, [34:07] it is completely irresponsible for the United States of America to allow more people into the [34:11] country, knowing that they will likely be replaced in those occupations in just the next five or 10 [34:16] years. So this is another big part of, of why I think immigration legally and illegally, illegally it [34:21] should be shut off completely, but legally needs to be severely reduced and even paused for five to [34:25] 10 years. Interesting. Okay. Uh, do you have anything to say about the birthright citizenship? Um, [34:29] I am hopefully, very similar. I'm hopefully making a video about it. I just think that it was poor [34:33] constitutional precedent, but if you'd like, I debated Dean Withers a little bit about it and you [34:37] can check it out on my YouTube channel. Let's go. All right. There's another video coming out soon, [34:40] so I'll have more about that. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you. Hi. Hi, um, I'm Liv. It's nice to [34:52] meet you. I'm Hazel. Hi, Hazel. Um, I want to talk about abortion policy. Is that okay? So your sign [34:59] says abortion is murder, right? Um, I, does that mean you want the U S government to restrict [35:05] abortion and put laws in place for that? Absolutely. Okay. Okay. Do you guys mind moving over as well [35:12] to the grass? That way you guys are all kind of piled onto the sidewalk. We just want to make sure that [35:17] they don't get on us for impeding traffic or anything like that. And the grass is nice. You get more sun [35:20] on this side. Okay. Can I set you up with a hypothetical then? Say I decide the U S government [35:27] decides to pass a law that says if you are a bone marrow match, if you're a kidney match for someone [35:32] who needs a life saving procedure to save the needs that bone marrow needs that kidney from you, [35:38] that you are required to submit your DNA and to match to that. And then you're required to donate [35:43] that kidney. That leaves you with lifelong consequences and you're saving someone else. Is it your [35:51] duty to save someone else? So what the difference between that hypothetical and abortion is abortion [35:56] is the intentional murder and killing of the child. Whenever you're give this hypothetical with [36:01] the don't with the donations, I mean, it's not, you're not like, you're just, that's, you're not [36:05] choosing to absolutely like just kill somebody with abortion. Their choice is to rip the, or depending [36:11] on the trimester, it's like either ripping the baby apart limb by limb. You're injecting them with, [36:16] um, some kind of medication that will make them squirm and eventually they will wither and die, [36:21] but that's, it's not, it's not an equal hypothetical with that. So I don't think it's a, [36:26] and also just like one more thing. Do you think that we should base our laws based off crazy [36:29] hypotheticals such as that? I think they're similar and I don't think the government is allowed to [36:34] legislate on anyone's body autonomy, but we can clearly we disagree on that. We're not going to [36:41] reach an equal ground. I think that's okay. Can we look at some other consequences of like [36:45] abortion restrictions and abortion laws? So what are the medications used in miscarriage treatment? [36:52] Tell me. The medications used in miscarriage treatment are the exact same medications and [36:56] exact same doses as abortion treatments and abortion medications. That is incorrect. [37:02] It is not incorrect. They are, I'll find, I'll pull them up right now. Whenever you go to a hospital [37:07] and you have a, and you have a miscarriage, if you say that you had an, like if, let's say that [37:13] you had an abortion, right? And there's complications after, after an abortion. If you go there and you [37:17] say that you, you had a miscarriage, it is completely different treatment for both of [37:21] those. The medications used for medical abortions are mit, I can't pronounce things guys. My free zone [37:28] and misprotozole are the same drugs used to manage a miscarriage. So if you need treatment, [37:34] lifesaving treatment for a miscarriage, but we've banned abortions, you can't get those two drugs [37:39] and you can't have lifesaving treatment. So I, I guess kind of the question is we're against [37:46] abortion, right? We're not against every single medicine. Like there are, we could oppose heroin, [37:51] but that doesn't mean that we disagree that there are medical uses for, for every single [37:55] plant or substance, right? Like there are uses for tobacco, but I'm not in favor of smoking it. [38:00] So I suppose it is, is your issue that you're, you're afraid that we're going to ban some of [38:03] these substances or that you're worried that we're going to like reduce an ability to, you know, [38:09] deal with miscarriages in hospitals. I suppose, what is the question? I think, uh, banning abortions [38:15] has the potential to either reduce access to these medications or in a world where abortion is banned, [38:25] there are people that go through, you know, the court systems, injury law attorneys, medical [38:30] malpractice attorneys, just looking for money, correct? And in a world where abortion is banned, [38:37] a person could get treatment for a miscarriage, but if the doctor doesn't chart everything correctly [38:42] and doctors are humans, just like we are, if the doctor doesn't chart everything correctly, [38:47] if they administer the medication before they like diagnose it, before they do any of that work, [38:53] then there's potential for a lawyer, for someone to go in and be like, ah, that wasn't miscarriage [38:57] treatment, that was abortion treatment. And then miscarriage treatment becomes harder to get to. [39:01] Right. So there are complications like that, that can't happen. It's very, very, [39:05] very rare that it will happen. But eventually whenever we place our laws with abortion, [39:09] if abortion is ever federally banned, that will limit because of how often and like how used we [39:14] are to these abortion laws. But the difference is I would rather save a million babies every year in [39:19] the U S that are being killed because of abortion than these like one or two cases, maybe three at [39:24] most that ever happened. How common are miscarriages? Miscarriages are definitely common. It's, [39:28] it's, it's extremely sad, but I think it's also very hurtful to women that have had miscarriages [39:33] for you to say something like this and like, Oh, like what about the people that get abortions? [39:38] I think it's harmful for you to like compare those two because there's, those are two different [39:42] definitions. They are two different definitions, but, and I, I understand that you're saying it [39:48] could be harmful, but like, can you speak a little bit closer than I? Yeah, sorry. You're good. [39:51] I understand that you're saying that like, we don't want to equate miscarriage and abortion [39:56] because miscarriage is tragic, traumatizing, all of those things. Well, we think abortion is too. [40:04] Yeah, we have it right here. But I also think we can't do anything that can limit miscarriage [40:11] treatment because they're common and fatal. Like undreated miscarriage can be fatal. There's a case [40:18] in Texas of a woman after the abortion ban who died because she could not get treatment because of [40:23] the abortion ban for a miscarriage. Okay. So with these, I think what, I think that what you're [40:28] saying is important. However, whenever, like I said, whenever we get used to these, like whenever [40:33] we ban abortion, there's going to be a long laundry list of things that we need to do with this. And [40:36] I think that what you're saying is important. We also need to make sure that these women that are [40:39] getting miscarriages still can get the treatment and it's going to take some work. But overall, [40:43] what we're against is the 1 million, like I said, 1 million babies that are dying a year [40:47] because of abortion. Okay. I, as long as that's in like the laundry list of things to do, [40:53] if you're banning it, I think we're good at that. 100%. Yeah. Um, where, let's see if I can find [40:59] where I was going. How does the government decide? So going back to the abortion is murder. How does [41:10] the government decide when and where we cut the line of murder and where are we getting those [41:16] morals from? What is your definition of murder? I think murder is the intentional killing of a [41:21] human life. Are babies in the womb human humans? I think babies in the womb at the point of [41:32] viability are humans. And I think before then, blah, blah, blah, you guys. Hey, be nice, [41:39] be nice, be nice. I think yes, at viability outside of the mother. Okay. Right. So scientifically [41:48] and biologically, it's been proven across the CDC, NIH, and multiple different, um, science databases [41:55] that life begins at the moment of conception, human life begins at the moment of conception. So [41:59] therefore, I think that from the moment of conception, that human life should be protected [42:02] and the intentional killing. We can agree that murder is the intentional killing of a human [42:06] being. And that baby in the womb is a human being. Therefore, by definition, it is murder. [42:11] Okay. I haven't read that research. So thank you. Yeah, of course. Um, no, we can give it to [42:17] you afterwards though, or somebody can come up and show it to you or we're trying to keep [42:23] the trees alive. My apologies. We're in a digital age. Do you have any other questions by chance? [42:28] I, I want to know how does the government have, okay, where did I go? Do you want to [42:37] talk about bodily autonomy? Is that where you're going? Yes, I am. Okay. Perfect. So [42:41] with that, um, I think that human life always will trump bodily autonomy. I mean, there's [42:46] a reason why I can't just like take a gun and then shoot somebody, but it's my hands. Like [42:50] why can't I just do that? It's because their life should be protected over what I get to [42:53] choose to do with my body. Okay. So people disagree over what morals are. Like, why does the government [42:59] have this right to say, this is my moral standing? And so therefore, because 51% of the United [43:04] States says that this is my moral standing, this is where we should be. Do you think rape is bad? [43:10] Yes. How? How do you know that? Because it's violation and it's proven to be traumatizing. [43:15] Violation of what? Violation of body autonomy. Perfect. That is exactly the reason. We can, [43:21] we can even use your own, we can even use your own moral framework in order to substantiate, [43:26] substantiate our case, which is that the violation of another individual's bodily autonomy [43:30] by killing them, by violating them sexually or otherwise is wrong. So even using your standard, [43:35] we agree. Okay. But we're still taking away a right to control what's going on if, with an [43:41] abortion ban. Why doesn't the baby get a choice in what happens to them? We can talk to you in a [43:48] second. Because the baby is still dependent on the mother. The baby's dependent on the mother even [43:53] after birth. I mean, they can't, if there's no mother, they can't, they can't feed, they can't, [43:58] they can't eat, they can't drink. But okay. And I'm not fully developed yet either. [44:06] That's real. My, my brain still needs to grow a little bit. Okay. I just realized I have to be [44:10] a physics. Thank you so much. No worries. Thank you so much. You guys have great points. Thank you. [44:13] Liv, thanks for coming up. Yeah. Thank you so much. It was great meeting you. [44:16] I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if we want to let her come up next or I know you've been waiting [44:26] for a while, but either way, because we can, we can address this real quick just because we don't [44:31] want anybody shouting. Thank you. We appreciate you, man. Legend. Well, howdy, what's your name? [44:35] Lauren. Can we get a little bit closer to the mic? Sorry. Perfect. I have lived on this earth for over [44:42] 18 years, soon to be 19. And in it, I have started to have a way of talk. I have found a way to pretty [44:51] much make it so that I can be able to know whether or not I should mind my business. This is something [44:55] I should apply my morals to. Number one, is, is this person hurting me or people I care about? Number [45:03] two, does this conversation pertain to me? All my thoughts on abortion. I do not think as long as you [45:12] are, or the only person I think who gets to decide whatever, what to do with their body is the one [45:17] who is having the baby. You are not, unless you are paying genuine money to take care of that child [45:23] and are going to take help, help that mother get through her journey. You have no say on what she [45:29] does with her body. You do not have to like her, but you do not get to say what she does with her [45:34] body. Okay. Right. So do you think that slavery is bad? How does that pertain to abortion? I'll tell you [45:42] in a second. Just do you think the slavery is bad? No, just tell me what it has to pertain. Do not [45:44] have to go on a side tangent. You tell me what it means. Okay. I hope that we can both agree that [45:48] slavery is bad, but if there's, there's multiple countries right now that still legalize slavery [45:53] and still use slaves, but I don't know those people. So why should I care? Well, I care because [45:58] that's morally wrong. Even though I don't know them, I still care because there's, because I have a [46:02] moral compass. There's women that I don't know that are getting abortions, but they're killing their [46:06] baby. And that's why I'm against it. Even though I don't know them, I, it's still, it's still the [46:10] murder of babies. Why do you think they murder their babies? Uh, because the babies are an [46:16] inconvenience to their life. Why do you think the babies are an inconvenience to their life? [46:23] Because they want to party. Most people, most people want to party. There's a lot of, there's a lot [46:28] of college students that do get abortions, unfortunately, and they don't want to take that [46:31] responsibility. Um, there is economically, it can hurt, uh, having a child does economically hurt, [46:37] but however, there are pregnancy centers that help out. There's churches that help out. So I think [46:41] that there's no reason to kill another human being purely based on economic reasons or barely based [46:46] on they're labeled as an inconvenience. To go back on slavery. Did you ever hear the story of Margaret [46:53] at core crawler? I believe. I haven't. I don't think, I don't think so. It's a pretty famous. I don't know [47:01] if you've heard of Toni Morrison's beloved, but in it, it was based off this case where this enslaved [47:06] mother killed one of her children because she felt that she was giving the child a mercy because she [47:12] would much rather have her child be dead and in heaven and happy than have to go through the horrors [47:18] of slavery. The reason that these mothers, they take these abortions is because they'd much rather [47:24] her have their children stay fictional than have their children live in suffering because they know [47:30] that they would make bad parents. Do you think we should just go kill all the slaves? No. Why? I [47:37] don't see how that pertains. Because you just, you just said that like, oh, like I'm making sure [47:41] that I'm making sure that she doesn't go through that, the terrible of slavery. Slavery is absolutely [47:46] horrific. However, I'm not going to go and kill the slaves so I can bring them out of their misery. [47:51] That's still human life. I don't get to decide what happens in some, with another human's life. [47:55] Margaret Qualley wasn't killing all the slaves. She was killing her children, specifically because [48:03] she, as a mother, knew what would have happened to her children if they were enslaved. They would [48:10] have been raped and tortured and continually treated like shit. And so they prefer that their child would [48:16] be happy and better off dead than suffering eternally for life. They are not saying that all the children [48:25] should die. They are saying that she makes the choice that her child should not have to go [48:29] through that pain. And a lot of mothers nowadays are making that same decision. Like, I am autistic [48:34] and I have ADHD. I would not want to have a child and I do not think I would make a good parent. I'm not [48:40] saying that I hate children or that I do not like being around children, but I am saying that I do not [48:45] think I would be a good mother. And there are hundreds of other women who do not think that they would be [48:50] good mothers. And you have every right to... I'm not done talking. You do not get to talk until I am done [48:56] talking. Okay, my apologies. Do you understand this? My apologies. With both of you. I would much, if I was [49:02] forced to have a child, what, would, do you believe that parents should be abusive towards their children? Do you [49:08] want children to grow up in horrible households? No. No. Precisely. Then why is it that you believe that these [49:16] children should be born to parents who have not gotten the mental health procedures done to get [49:21] their health in order? If you truly want more children to be able to be alive and less women [49:26] to have abortions, you have to make it so that the world gets better so that we make a world that our [49:33] children want to live in, that we want our kids to live in and be able to be happy and supported [49:37] and loved. Again, the mother doesn't get to make the decision to kill her baby. I mean, I would really [49:43] hope that you don't want to kill every single child that's in an abusive household right now. [49:47] Just because they're in a miserable situation doesn't mean that we have the right to kill them. [49:51] I don't want to kill the child. I'm not killing the child. I'm just preventing them from being [49:56] in a horrible situation in the first place. They can't be in the miserable situation if they're not [50:01] existing at all. But kill, well, the baby in the womb is existing, first of all, and second of all, [50:06] those, I mean, if you kill, like, according to your logic, if we just kill the people in the abusive [50:10] households, we're putting them out of the misery. They don't have to go through that anymore. [50:12] Like, it's a horrible stance and, like, mindset to have that we should just, that death is going [50:17] to be, and killing and murder is better than living in an abusive household. I think that we [50:23] need to fix the abusive households, absolutely. I think that's, those are horrible and it should [50:26] not be normalized. We do. I mean, pro-life organizations, pro-life organizations and Christians [50:32] are number one, most likely to foster, most likely to adopt, and most likely to give to those in needy [50:38] and poor situations. How do you know that those foster families aren't abusive? [50:43] Okay, so I think we're going to reach a standstill because you can always say, well, how do you know [50:47] it's not going to be bad? At the end of the day, the conversation isn't about, you know, what the [50:51] quality of an individual's life is going to be. It's about the fact that they have a right to life [50:54] and that right to life cannot be violated by anybody else against them. Whether they are in the womb, [50:59] whether they have been born, whether they are grown up, nobody has a right to kill them. [51:03] That is what we disagree about. So even if the foster homes are abusive, we still don't believe [51:08] the child would be better off dead. And that's maybe our point of disagreement is it seems to, [51:12] it seems to us that you're saying it would just be better if all of these people who are living sad [51:17] lives would be dead. And we just disagree. We think that they have a right to life. We don't think [51:21] they should take their own lives because we want them here on this earth. And we think they have [51:25] every right to live and experience every beautiful thing. And every single life is also going to come [51:30] with its share of trials and horrors and difficulties. I don't think anybody is safe [51:35] from that. All right, then. Thanks for coming up. Thank you so much. Thank you for waiting. [51:42] Yeah, I appreciate you, man. Not a problem. Hazel, great to see you. And what was your name? [51:47] I'm Kai. Good to meet you, man. Kai, nice to meet you. My name's Isaac. Sorry, I know I need to speak [51:51] loud. It's like really loud coming at me, but I'll try and speak up. Yesterday, had a great dialogue. Did a [51:57] lot of research afterwards. Really appreciative of that with you and Carson. Had a great dialogue with Riley [52:01] afterwards. What did we talk about again? I forgot. We talked about abortion legislation and the ability [52:06] to compromise and bundles with sexual education, contraceptive methods, and overall Democratic [52:11] versus Republican policies and the results in different countries, different states. Today, [52:16] I guess when I got here, we're in a little bit of an immigration wave. We talked a lot about [52:21] cultural assimilation and what that is for immigrants, how that affects the nation's cultural [52:26] contract, how it affects the U.S. economy. I myself, I'm a political moderate. I think identifying [52:32] your political identity with a political party is relatively unproductive. I think it goes against [52:36] a lot of the tenets of the founding fathers and what they believed. But I am here to ask first and [52:42] foremost, so I don't make any assumptions, what does that assimilation mean? What does immigration do [52:48] to affect the U.S. in a way that has deemed you to take your particular stance? What is that stance? [52:53] And then we can engage from there. I appreciate you asking that question. I love it when people [52:58] come up and they ask, what is your opinion rather than assuming what mine is. I love that. [53:02] I think there's a variety of ways to look into it. One of the major ones we're seeing right now is [53:06] there are religious clashes. It seems that the United States or the majority of its citizens [53:11] are simply not ready, despite the fact that, yes, we are a pluralistic society, we are not ready for [53:16] several of the cities across the country to have a rapid change demographically with an introduction [53:22] of foreign personal practices or religious practices. And one of the big things that has [53:27] been in the news, right, is, you know, the call to prayer being broadcast across these PA systems [53:32] and in cities in Minnesota, for instance. I think another case that we can take from Minnesota, [53:38] because this has been the state that has received a lot of immigration, is that foreign cultures bring [53:43] with them foreign practices. One of the practices that unfortunately had to be banned in 2017 [53:48] by the Minnesota state legislature was female genital mutilation. I imagine everybody here [53:53] is against female genital mutilation. Unfortunately, this is something that was on the rise significantly [53:59] in Minnesota, and 98% of it traced its origin to immigrants from three countries, which were, [54:06] if I'm not mistaken, Somalia, Egypt, and I think Sudan was the last one. This is the natural [54:11] consequence of immigration without assimilation. There are certain cultural practices that we simply [54:16] cannot tolerate in the United States of America, even if in a home country, it would be totally [54:20] acceptable. And I think until we are at a point in this country where we can tell people they have [54:25] to learn the language in order to live here and to become citizens, obviously, which, by the way, [54:29] is not even necessary. There are people who gain citizenship without ever learning the English [54:32] language. Well, previous to recently, there wasn't an American language. The American language was [54:37] officially made English very recently. So do you believe that? So I'm from an immigrant household. [54:45] So I actually think that the melting pot in diversity and inclusion and all of those things [54:49] are beneficial to the U.S. economy. I think when we look at research of the economy, immigrants' [54:54] effects on the economy, it's actually positive. And a lot of the nation was built on immigration [54:58] and different philosophies, different ideas. Even the tenets of the republic that the Constitution [55:03] was written to build was built on a difference of ideas. But I respect the take that there are a lot [55:07] of human rights that can be violated by foreign practices from a utilitarian ethical school of [55:12] thought. If that's happening in another country or in here, you know, ultimately, that bad is still [55:17] happening. Right. And so if they're here and we have laws to be able to protect people who live [55:23] within the bounds of the United States within our jurisdiction, ultimately, to me, that's an ethical [55:28] win. Right. That we're able to step in and assist with that assimilation and protecting of human rights [55:32] and other foreign practices that may be detrimental to life, liberty and property. [55:36] That being said, I didn't mean to interrupt you. That was just my personal take on the U.S. language. [55:42] But you're welcome to continue. Yeah, absolutely. And well, and I appreciate the caveat. [55:46] It is interesting because I think some of those ideas may have gotten us into, you know, [55:49] Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think if we start policing other cultures too much, you know, [55:53] we get ourselves. Yeah. So I said within the bounds of the U.S. jurisdiction. Perfect. [55:56] Perfect. Agree. Agree. Yeah. So the question is, you know, obviously, there's there's issues of kind [56:01] of cultural relativism. Right. And I think that's where we that's what we exist in right now to establish a base. [56:06] Would you agree that illegal immigration is economically detrimental? That's a very nuanced question. [56:12] Right. Because I think our immigration our immigration policy right now is inefficient at best. [56:17] Right. At best, that's the word I would use to describe it. Ultimately, I think there are a lot of [56:22] undocumented immigrants that provide economic resources for the country. I don't think necessarily [56:27] economic economic reasoning is the best way to assist the value that someone can bring into the U.S. [56:34] because it is very nuanced. I think that there is a need for reform in how we look at immigration in [56:41] the country for sure. And I think there's a lot of grounds for that. Sweet. And you and me will [56:44] probably agree. And I like that you said that because a lot of the times and it's interesting [56:47] because we'll get liberals or leftists up here and they'll say, well, you know, they produce so much [56:51] more for the GDP and there's all this economic growth. And I'm like, look, I think a human being is [56:55] more than, you know, the dollars that they add to the national. Well, true. That is a metric that we can use [57:01] to look at assimilation. However, I do agree that the worth of human being isn't just the dollar amount [57:06] they bring into the U.S. Exactly. And I think that if you look at the effects of immigration, [57:10] especially without assimilation, you find that these issues of social cohesion are really significant. [57:15] At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves, you know, what is an American? Like, what would you say [57:20] is an American? I would say an American is someone who comes in and ultimately promotes society for good. [57:29] I don't know. It's kind of difficult because we look at things like citizen citizenship. If I go [57:33] outward and I say I'm an American, that typically like connotes in a foreign country that I'm a [57:38] citizen of the United States of America. When I look in here and I'm an American, I think that the [57:42] values and values of the Constitution, values of the founding fathers, values that ultimately we've [57:46] built to uphold in this country and evolved over time is in essence to be able to embrace the sense of [57:52] opportunity, compassion and community building that those founding fathers believed in when they wrote [57:57] the Constitution. OK, so if I if I came up to you and I said, I shook your hand and I said, [58:02] you're like, hey, what's your name, man? Where are you from? And I said, [58:05] what do you believe me? That's for the Spanish speakers or non-Spanish speakers. That's I'm Kai. [58:14] I'm an American. Nice to meet you. Yeah, I I would. I see. I don't necessarily believe in the [58:20] isolationist that just because someone comes up to me and speaks Spanish, that means they're not an [58:23] American. Right. In fact, a lot of the studies around immigrants show that immigrants typically [58:28] have a higher rate of people believing in the American dream than people who are natural born [58:31] citizens. And so I believe in the American dream. I think that the American dream is something that [58:35] is alive and well. I think it's something that we oftentimes take down when we look at other people [58:41] who speak different languages and have different cultural practices as people who don't fulfill this [58:46] niche that we've reformed the American dream to be. What do you think the American dream is? I think it's more [58:52] important. So for me, the American dream is that regardless of barriers to entry, that everyone [58:57] has the opportunity to win. Right. Everyone has the opportunity to build a better life. [59:02] Ultimately, I think the American dream is that through clashes of ideas and through differences [59:07] that people can still rise up and become better and that the ceiling is higher than us as individuals. [59:12] Okay. Awesome. I think I like it. It was very, very poetic. I think, unfortunately, in practice, [59:17] the American dream has turned into exactly what you and I tried to avoid, which is you reduce [59:21] everybody to economics. You reduce people to the amount of money that they are able to make here. [59:25] And then at the end of the day, especially if you look at immigrants, legal or illegal. Sure. [59:28] A third of their income is being sent home to their home countries through remittances, [59:32] which means that the American dream is not even just about being an American. Where can I find that [59:36] statistic? I'll try to pull it up for you on the side. Great. I know and it's a biased source, [59:41] but I know they've reported on it. They all are. And so I'll give that to you. Exactly. The Center for Immigration [59:45] Studies has a couple studies that they've published on remittances. I'm trying to remember if, [59:49] and Borjas has written up about it. He's one of the prominent scholars in this literature, [59:55] but I'll try to pull it up for you and then I can show it to you. And one third is the top end, [59:59] right? Like this is, you know, the maximalist position. Yeah, of course. [1:00:02] But so you have this system, right, where the American dream no longer requires first [1:00:07] assimilating to the language, which whether or not it was legally recognized has been the de facto [1:00:13] language of the country for its entire history, practically. In fact, if you look at the 20th century, [1:00:18] even the turn of the 20th century, we had Teddy Roosevelt, right, as president, he restricted [1:00:22] naturalization to people who were white and spoke English. So you couldn't even just be a white guy [1:00:27] from like Italy or a white guy from Spain. You had to even speak English. It was de facto recognized [1:00:32] that that English was the American language. And if you walked up to somebody and you couldn't speak [1:00:37] it, I don't think that they would actually believe that you were an American. But now, unfortunately, [1:00:40] we've we've basically reduced the American dream to making more money than in your home country. [1:00:44] But I think it's a lot more than that to be an American, because if that was the case, [1:00:48] we could replace literally every single person in this country with somebody from Ukraine or Japan [1:00:53] or Mexico. And it would still, by your logic, be the same country. But I just don't think that's true. [1:00:58] So and one, I think we've straw manned my take on the American dream to being economics, [1:01:03] when what I included was community building and being able to build a like build a better place here. [1:01:08] Can I just clarify? Go ahead. Do you believe that that supposes like social integration? [1:01:14] So with social integration, I think that there is a level of value integration that can be recognized. [1:01:19] Right. So when we look at cultural assimilation, ultimately for me, when I look at myself being a [1:01:26] Christian, the tenets of Christianity for me, Jesus Christ being compassionate and being kind, [1:01:31] also being accountable. Right. And having those things where we are accountable to certain levels of [1:01:36] human value and how we treat other people, whether they're within the borders of our country or not, [1:01:40] even the conflict between the Jews and Samaritans in the time, you know, he the woman at the well was [1:01:46] a Samaritan. And so when we're looking at kindness and how we treat others, I do think that it's not [1:01:50] limited to just people who are born within the country or people who are having easier time assimilating [1:01:55] because they speak English. And I think that there is a value to contract theory where we look at people [1:02:00] who integrate with different ideas and different cultures over time become ultimately less [1:02:03] prejudiced and open to other ideas. We look at engineering and other innovations that happen [1:02:08] around the world. Ultimately, in Japan, right, we have a lot of innovation that is in different [1:02:12] sectors than we can look at in engineering here. Different things like mechanics, obviously we've [1:02:17] adopted from them and taken from them. When we look at efficient energy and creation of those things, [1:02:23] but because we're open to those ideas, when we look at innovation, when it's not necessarily attached [1:02:28] to a person or what they look like or what language that they speak. [1:02:30] I actually largely agree, right? And especially about the point that we shouldn't, you know, [1:02:34] treat anybody any different because they speak a different language. But I also agree, you know, [1:02:38] with this, maybe the contract theory in the state, in the sense that a state has a responsibility first [1:02:43] and foremost for its citizens. And I think every single state, if it operates under that principle, [1:02:48] is going to take care of every single person. The issue is some states don't. And the issue is also [1:02:51] that we have a status quo where people basically no longer accept the responsibility of paying back into the [1:02:59] system and are much more willing to be either a fiscal drain or just simply not assimilate to, [1:03:05] you know, the cultural standards that they can, that the nation already has, whether it be language, [1:03:10] whether it be civic participation. And I think the social integration is super important, right? [1:03:14] If you've got a house, like if you're at your buddy's house, right? And your buddy's like, [1:03:17] okay, well in my house, you know, we take off our shoes by the door. You walk in, you don't take off your [1:03:21] shoes. You go and sit down, you know, you put your feet up on the sofa. All of us, I think, would look at that and we'd say, [1:03:26] that's kind of ridiculous. It's like, you got to at least, you know, take off the shoes, do the things [1:03:30] that we do if we're letting you in here. And I think that right now, we just don't have anybody [1:03:35] who's willing to call out that people aren't taking off their shoes. It's not to say that those are [1:03:38] terrible people, but it is to say that they have not yet said, I mean, a lot of people are not even [1:03:43] saying that the laws that we have regarding how you can enter into the country are legit. Some people [1:03:47] will even break those laws to get here, which I think goes to prove that we don't have enough [1:03:51] pressure for social integration. So, and I don't think you can, just to wrap up, I don't think you [1:03:55] can be a part of the American experiment or live the American dream if you're living the American [1:04:00] dream in a community that just looks like your home country. So, I agree that there is a certain [1:04:05] level of integration that needs to happen between minority communities and majority communities of [1:04:09] people who are natural-born citizens, predominantly white and English-speaking citizens. When we look at the [1:04:14] different things, first, let's separate this into an economic argument and we separate this into a [1:04:17] cultural assimilation argument. When we look at the economic argument and a fiscal drain of immigration [1:04:22] on the country, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the second generation of [1:04:27] immigrants who were born within the bottom 25 percent of the economic bracket have a higher [1:04:31] chance of achieving the top end of the economic bracket more than people who were born from natural-born [1:04:35] citizens in the country. So, we look at in the increase in effect of economics, immigration- I don't [1:04:39] disagree with that, by the way. Okay, great. So, then let's isolate that because we know that [1:04:42] immigration and value of human life isn't isolated purely to economic value. Perfect. And we look at cultural [1:04:47] assimilation. When we look at the effects of the law and the belief in the law based off of the [1:04:50] republic, based off of the constitution, based off of the tenets of the founding fathers and those [1:04:55] things, predominantly are protections of life, liberty, and property. Now, if someone comes into my house [1:05:00] and they don't take off their shoes and they put it up on the couch, well, not a parallel argument that [1:05:04] really isn't necessarily affecting life, liberty, and there's a small argument for property. But if people [1:05:08] are coming in and there are foreign practices that are affecting life, liberty, and property, well, then we have [1:05:12] law enforcement agencies in place that would happen for anyone, citizen or not, to be able to [1:05:17] break those boundaries of the law. Now, if we feel uncomfortable or prejudiced because people have [1:05:22] not assimilated to those things that make us comfortable in our own communities, well, there is [1:05:26] no pressure for the government to be able to intercede in a way because people are uncomfortable. [1:05:31] I mean, let's be honest, like when we look at the dialogue, you and I can both have this dialogue, [1:05:35] and Hansel, I wish you'd pick up the mic, but we can have this dialogue because we're willing to become [1:05:41] uncomfortable. It leads to less prejudice, and even though you and I disagree, we're able to come to a [1:05:45] greater unity of ideas, and to be able to come, compromise, and do some more research afterwards. [1:05:50] Looking at that, the discomfort is not something that bothers me, right? The discomfort is not [1:05:53] something that I feel is detrimental to the country because the foundation of this country was built [1:05:57] off of compromise of difference of ideas. Difference of ideas from different places in different [1:06:00] cultures, so long as they're not interceding on our life, liberty, and property are not something [1:06:05] that I view as detrimental to the nation. I like a lot of what you're saying, but I think that [1:06:11] there's maybe a key difference in the way that we see the origin of the country, kind of its founding [1:06:15] moments. You're right that it is compromised from a lot of different people from a lot of different [1:06:19] backgrounds. Yeah, of course. But, you know, if we read something like Federalist Number Two, [1:06:22] it is presupposed that the base of the United States of America, its people, the American people, [1:06:30] who existed then for the first time ever, right, they were of a similar stock. They had a shared [1:06:36] identity, you know, the term, right, is white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and they were willing [1:06:41] to put aside their differences in order to become Americans, in order to invest in this settler [1:06:46] colonialist project which allowed this nation to form. The melting pot is an idea that actually [1:06:53] comes around the 20th century, and it's by a Jewish playwright whose first name I think is Israel, [1:06:57] and I forget his last name. Sure. Which is actually like a super redundant name, which is funny. [1:07:01] But this is an idea that actually goes in contrast to the history of the United States, which has [1:07:08] over time been very exclusionary. I mean, you have the Chinese Exclusion Act, which is voted into law, [1:07:14] or it's passed, right, almost at the turn of the 20th century prior. You have the Chinese Exclusion Act, [1:07:20] which goes for 10 years, is then added to another 10 years, and then is codified into law. Until 1965, [1:07:25] you have the National Origins and Quotas Act, which restrict immigration to a certain percent of all the [1:07:30] people in the United States and represented in their home countries, right? And then in 1965, [1:07:35] you have the passing of the Hart-Celler Act, which changes immigration forever because it basically [1:07:39] gets rid of the quotas and says, well, kind of, there's not really a cap to the amount of people [1:07:43] that can come in from whichever country. Sure. And that is new precedent. This had not existed. [1:07:49] And even when it was passed, the president that passed it said it would not be a major piece of [1:07:53] legislation and that it would not change a lot. And I think we've seen the absolute opposite to have [1:07:57] been the case. So when you describe the beginning of America, I think you're not describing or you [1:08:02] can't really compare it to what's happening right now because it was much more controlled. It was [1:08:06] much more selective and it was much more assimilatory. We were not a melting pot when the country founded. [1:08:12] We were like, we were in an iron shop. We were being welded. We were being hammered into shape, [1:08:19] into the thing that we wanted to be. And people were literally hammered into that shape. There was [1:08:24] absolutely pressures of assimilation from nativist communities. There were, you know, [1:08:29] Irish need not apply. The Italians were discriminated against. They were called a swarthy [1:08:33] race by Benjamin Franklin. That was all in an effort to get everybody to realize that everything they [1:08:37] were, the hyphenated Americanism, it would not work. Everybody was an American and they assimilated to [1:08:42] that idea. Did you have something to say? I was going to talk about the melting pot also, but he talked [1:08:48] about that. Great minds think alike. I pretty much agree with everything that Kai said. [1:08:54] Okay, great. Just a closing thought and then I'm happy to step away and give someone else another [1:08:58] chance. But when we look at the arguments as far as like the morality and the development of this [1:09:02] country and the foundations and pressures of assimilation, I think ultimately when we look at [1:09:05] the history of the company, we look at the morality interpretation of the constitution to evolve. [1:09:10] Simply like Abraham Lincoln and Gettiberg's address, the foundations of the nation being that all men [1:09:13] are created equal, right? And different things like that that were interpreted differently then [1:09:17] than they were at the beginning of the nation. The tenets and principles ring true, right? As someone [1:09:22] that believes in one nation under God, right? That believes that there is hope for Christian [1:09:26] principles and the way that we treat each other and build communities, that as the morality evolves [1:09:30] over time, that the way that we interpret those things becomes different even though the principles [1:09:35] still remain true. And so when we look at different exclusionary acts for things that happen, [1:09:39] like Teddy Roosevelt believing naturalization is white and English-speaking, that doesn't [1:09:43] necessarily for me carry a lot of founding in the morality argument that assimilation is better for [1:09:46] the country because those things evolve over time as we view morality and people differently. [1:09:51] Similarly, when we look at and using Jesus Christ as a reference I'm using because we share similarities [1:09:57] there, but obviously not everyone will and so this is not an argument that I believe that everyone has to [1:10:03] believe in. But sharing that similarity when we look at Jesus Christ and his ministry on the earth, we look at [1:10:08] different things like differences between Samaritans and Jews, right? And looking at [1:10:13] the story of the Good Samaritan, how he teaches that different people shouldn't be treated unkindly [1:10:17] because they're from different places. When we look at like a unity of faith and like the building [1:10:21] of those things, ultimately it was taught to the Jews and it was taught to the Gentiles and all of [1:10:26] these different things. So the morality and how we view different people are different. Now Jesus wasn't [1:10:29] building a form of government because render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, but when we're looking at the [1:10:34] different things of how we treat people and just because Benjamin Franklin called people a swarthy race, [1:10:38] there's not necessarily that we should embrace that same morality now. And so those principles [1:10:43] I believe remain true as the history evolves different things like civil rights acts and [1:10:47] obvious things in our history that like Japanese internment that I believe was very wrong, right? [1:10:51] It was very wrong and not an adoption of these Christian values that the nation was built upon. [1:10:57] That ultimately the argument of having like at the very beginning the melting pot being adopted later, [1:11:02] but the constitution then continues to be interpreted in a way that adopts that moral value that all men are [1:11:07] created equal and that people should have a chance to be able to build their communities where they [1:11:10] stand regardless of race or creed that they're able to be able to assimilate in that nature. [1:11:15] And so I think overall all three of us can agree that we should treat everybody with kindness and [1:11:21] love because that's what Jesus calls us to. We talked about this yesterday with immigration [1:11:26] and I'm just going to close this out real quick, but I just like I wanted to like touch on it. I hope [1:11:31] that you would know that we do think that like we still treat immigrants. [1:11:34] Yeah. And I'm not accusing you of otherwise. I'm more of attaching that morality to the principles [1:11:37] of the country and being able to be adopted as such, even though they weren't identical then as to what [1:11:42] they would be now. Right. So like we, we overall agree on that. We just want to enforce our laws with [1:11:47] that and assimilate. So yeah. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for coming up, man. We appreciate you. [1:11:57] Hello. What's your name? I'm Jared. Nice to meet you. I just wanted to kind of come up and like say, [1:12:04] I agree with most of the stuff you guys stand for and I'm more here to like get information [1:12:10] on other things. Let's go. I mean, in my opinion, abortion is murder. I mean, if a, if a, if a pregnant [1:12:16] woman is killed, it's considered a double homicide. So, um, I consider that a human life. Um, so I agree [1:12:23] with most of everything you guys say, I haven't heard everything you say, so maybe I disagree with [1:12:28] some, but, um, I'm here more to get more information on what doctor assisted suicide is and where you [1:12:34] guys stand on that. Um, cause that's something I know very little about. And so it's more of [1:12:41] my curiosity is here. So, well, medically assisted suicide, it's, this is, this is a conversation where [1:12:49] I don't think it's easy to have it from a secular perspective because you ultimately do have to go to, [1:12:54] okay, well, what is the value of a human life? Right? And I understand there's this argument, [1:12:59] right? If, of, you know, people want to die with dignity, but I am one of these, you know, [1:13:03] I believe that, that life is God's to take and give. I think that every single human being, [1:13:10] there is experience to be gained from suffering and from pain. I think that our, our sojourn here [1:13:15] in mortality, I think it's supposed to teach us something. And I think there is, um, soul forging [1:13:22] that occurs as people suffer. It's honestly not something that I have, you know, committed [1:13:26] a ton of time researching either. But I, I think that the issue is that now as a society, [1:13:32] we have gone into, it's kind of a, it's become a death cult. We are obsessed with taking life. [1:13:38] We don't value it. We degrade our own bodies. And I think we should move as far away from that as [1:13:43] possible. And so just kind of as a matter of intuition and consistency within my kind of religious [1:13:49] principles or doctrine. Um, and this is not a statement for the doctrine of the church that [1:13:53] I'm a part of, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Um, because I'm actually not [1:13:56] familiar with the position. It probably aligns, but I, I'm against it by, by that very nature, [1:14:01] because I, I am pro-life till the very end. Yeah, I agree with Kai mostly on this. I haven't [1:14:06] done a ton of research, I will admit, on doctor-assisted suicide, but in the context that I have seen it [1:14:11] in, I'm 100% against it. I haven't done a ton of research, so, but as of just like everything that I've [1:14:17] seen so far, I am against it as well. Okay. Um, and then I just have like one other question [1:14:23] unrelated, but, um, my question is what is your guys' take on, um, fathers who, or mothers who [1:14:33] choose to abandon, like, and abandon their parental duties and essentially leave the family? I think [1:14:40] it's horrible. I think it's very bad. Do you believe that they should provide child support and things [1:14:45] like that to those? Yes. Yes, I do. Perfect. Yeah, I think there's parental responsibility. That's, [1:14:50] that's a huge part of the pro-life argument, right? Is that a parent has duties for a child [1:14:54] that a stranger does not have. Um, and then I agree completely, so I, I just would like to, [1:15:00] like, share statistics. So I did a presentation in the philosophy class that I took last semester, [1:15:05] where I actually went and deep dived into this. The hard part for me was I had to come up with [1:15:10] counter examples. Um, so I actually got to debate myself a little bit, which was really cool. But, [1:15:15] um, one thing that I did notice is when you take two parents and they are biological parents in the [1:15:23] home, it has, those kids have a 1.6% chance more of being contacted by the school for, um, like, [1:15:35] missed, like misbehaviors, things like that. Um, but when you have a single parent, when you have [1:15:41] two parents in the home who aren't the biological parents, it actually goes up to 2%. And when you [1:15:46] have a single parent, whether it's biological or not, it's up to 2.9% more chance. So it's actually, [1:15:54] like, child's children in general actually grow up better when they have the two parent system. [1:16:02] That makes sense to me. It makes sense to me because I think that two parents, um, [1:16:07] offer more discipline on for children. So it makes sense. And it's really sad. [1:16:12] And then I just, the other thing I was going to share was that a lot of people try to like [1:16:18] use the argument of more prominently, it's the father that leaves, um, that's statistically proven. [1:16:25] And then, so people try to prove it with the father needs to pay child support because the mother [1:16:31] can't work or can't get jobs or doesn't get paid as much because of the pay gap and things like that. [1:16:36] Um, and which actually isn't entirely true. When you take the statistics of single women who [1:16:46] are parents working and the statistics, statistics of married women who are working, [1:16:52] it's actually 75% of single women are working with children and 70% of married women are working with [1:16:58] children. So the income ratios are actually pretty similar. Like we've actually seen an increase of [1:17:05] women in the workforce in general. And so that doesn't really affect much of the child's upbringing [1:17:13] is one thing I've noticed. Yeah. Real. And if, if we can add a caveat, it's like, you know, [1:17:17] we're pro-life. I think something that might mitigate even this, this idea, right. If the, [1:17:20] the father's leaving, um, because there is a disproportionality, but one thing that I at least [1:17:24] him in favor of is both maternal and paternal leave. I think it should be split between the [1:17:29] parents. And I think that that would probably, um, incentivize more, you know, um, father participation [1:17:35] and, uh, you know, it's not a perfect world, but we can hope that each parent is going to have some [1:17:40] of their duties alleviated. Cause I, I know also that, you know, shouldering the responsibility [1:17:43] of having a child is not just the mother, you know, the father is, is absolutely necessary. And [1:17:48] having an absent father is one of the number one, um, correlates or, uh, determining factors for, uh, [1:17:53] childhood delinquency. And then later, you know, um, felonies and violence in, in later life. [1:17:57] So I agree completely because when you look at like what a father and a mother bring, they bring, [1:18:03] they bring entirely different things. A mother would show a son what a woman should be, what she, [1:18:10] what he should grow up to involve himself with, to marry, to raise a family and how he would treat [1:18:16] women in general. She teaches him respect towards women. Yes, sir. And a father teaches him respect [1:18:21] towards himself and respect towards women. He teaches, he's, he shows him how to treat a woman [1:18:27] because he's showing him how to treat his wife. Um, but when the father leaves or when the mother [1:18:32] leaves, it shows that respect is gone. And so the, the child has a much harder time. Real. All right. [1:18:40] Thank you for coming up. Thanks for bringing your stats. Yeah. I just, I just wanted to share that [1:18:44] with you guys. And I, I, I really appreciate what you guys are doing and I like what you stand for. And, [1:18:49] um, um, I just, thank you. Yeah, of course. Thank you. Thanks so much. Long time no see. What the? [1:19:00] Hello. Hi Kai. Howdy. How are you? It's good to see you. You all know each other? Yeah. We went to high [1:19:04] school together. Oh, wow. We were on the same defeat team. There was a lot of different adventures, [1:19:09] weren't there? Absolutely. There were too many. Can you talk a little bit closer to the mic? I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. [1:19:15] Yeah. So I was just, I just thought I'd stop by and say, Hey, honestly, thanks for coming off. [1:19:22] Seriously. It's awesome. And the thing I'm thinking about is that, you know, Ms. Hunter, [1:19:27] of course, she's a big part of our lives. I mean, I don't think I'd be where I am today without her. [1:19:31] Um, she taught us a lot about logical fallacies. And so sort of what I'm hearing from you guys is that, [1:19:38] you know, when that other person came up, was talking about beloved. I don't know if you've read [1:19:43] beloved, but she was saying about the narrative that, you know, black woman who kills her child. [1:19:50] And what happens in the book is that she, um, literally has this sort of psychic break and it's, [1:19:57] it comes from trauma. And that's the thing is that it's, how do I say this? It's much more complicated [1:20:06] than anything can, than words can express. It's an experience to read the book. I highly recommend [1:20:12] you read it. But then listening to that and listening to how you guys responded, I'm concerned [1:20:19] about, about the way you present yourselves and that you manage perceptions in a way that can hurt [1:20:26] people. So it feels like this, you look people in the eyes and their realities and you cannot face it. [1:20:32] And as Audre Lorde once said, your silence will not save you. So I'm embarrassed for you too. I'm [1:20:38] embarrassed. And, um, that's all I wanted to say. Can, can I ask if, if you don't mind, which portion, [1:20:49] because you mentioned the logical fallacies and we'll, we'll take the, we'll take the advice or the, [1:20:53] the critique genuinely. Like that's not what we're here to do. We're not here to clip farm. We're not [1:20:57] here to bait people. Um, we did see obviously a, a big logical issue in what she was saying. And I [1:21:03] think the issue is that a lot of the times people make the argument, you know, well, because this person's [1:21:08] suffering, it's better to put them out of their misery. I, we, we disagree with that argument, [1:21:12] but is there anything that you believe in that conversation with her that we said that was out [1:21:16] of line or inconsiderate? Um, we would be interested to hear it. I'm just thinking you guys are buying [1:21:22] into narratives that serve you as two fully white people, probably that will, that will not be able [1:21:29] to serve you in the future, especially since, you know, I, Mexican clear woman, obviously, [1:21:36] you know, we're just, we have different lives. Like, you know, God knows that half the friends [1:21:44] growing up, they've been raped. They've had to have abortions. They have, before their lives, [1:21:49] they were children. And, and so I'm just thinking, what would Ms. Hunter think if she saw you today? [1:21:57] So thank you. Of course. Thanks for coming up. Thank you. Hello. Howdy. Hello there. Oh, geez. I never did [1:22:13] this before, so I don't know how close I should be. No worries. You can step a little bit closer. [1:22:16] No worries. Don't be afraid. Perfect. This is good. Yeah. Perfect. Okay. So I just want to say [1:22:21] thank you for coming up here. I didn't even know you guys were coming up here, literally just walking [1:22:25] by and I saw him, the security guy standing there and I was like, the hell's happening over here. [1:22:31] Um, but I want to say thank you for spouting against the evils of abortion and transgenderism and the [1:22:38] heresy of those who believe that, um, you can be a faithful follower of God and love, um, your neighbor [1:22:47] and still believe that human life can be simply taken away. For as it says in the Psalms that you [1:22:55] formed me in my mother's womb and that you know, uh, that you knew me basically before creation. [1:23:02] And also just for a personal story of myself and the beauty of life, um, uh, my beloved sister, [1:23:10] uh, whose name I will not say, um, was considering abortion when it came to her latest child. [1:23:17] Um, but thankfully by the will of God, she did not take the abortion and I have a beautiful niece [1:23:24] that I'm able to love and treasure and be bullied by her. [1:23:28] Yeah, I think that's, that's a beautiful story. Um, I think that that's, that's a story that should [1:23:36] be shared more. I think it's really, really great for you to come up here because shows that like, [1:23:40] I know people that were conceived in rape. I know that people that were conceived and, um, [1:23:45] with a mother that wanted to get an abortion and I'm so glad that I know them. And I think it's an [1:23:49] important like conversation to have that. Like if imagine if they imagine if like the mother did [1:23:54] abort and you wouldn't have that relationship, this relationship that is so important. And I think, [1:23:58] I think that your story is great. Yeah. And, and just the sadness of all the abortions have [1:24:03] happening for all the people whom are lost, like who could have brought forth families themselves, [1:24:09] um, fellow brothers and sisters in under the one true God. Absolutely. What is it? A third of the [1:24:17] generation that's been aborted. Yep. A third. We'd have, uh, at least, uh, 33% more people here [1:24:23] at this campus and around. And, uh, and it's, it, yeah, it's really unfortunate. [1:24:28] So, and, and, and a lot of people are still wondering why we're having a population crisis [1:24:32] right now when it comes to that. Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, it's always the thing. There's [1:24:36] not a coherent worldview. It's, they cause the problems and then they come up with other solutions [1:24:41] that cause different problems. So yeah, the fertility crisis is a big problem and abortion certainly [1:24:45] not helping. So, so I guess one main question and, um, it may be a hot topic, but it concerns [1:24:53] with stability and order within the U S should we, or should we not, uh, ban say certain faiths [1:25:02] that contradict the American value? Like, for example, like say like certain shamanistic faiths [1:25:07] that believe that say, uh, like killing certain people is moral to give them sacrifice to the gods [1:25:14] or, um, to Islam because of how much Islam contradicts with Western and Christian moral values? [1:25:23] Yeah, I think, um, I, I personally, and then, and then you can take this Hazel. I, I'm not in favor of, [1:25:27] of banning faiths, but I think that you have to analyze the, the context of the American experiment, [1:25:32] right? And you, if you look at the document where the separation of church and state is kind of pulled [1:25:36] from, which is the Thomas Jefferson's response to the letter by the, uh, by the Dunbury Baptists, [1:25:41] what he says is that, you know, every man has the right to, you know, preach worship, you know, as, [1:25:45] as his conscience deems, you know, right, but it cannot conflict with his civic duties and responsibilities [1:25:52] to his nation. I think this is a Christian nation. I think that is what it has been. Maybe it's trending [1:25:57] away from that now, but I think that there are things to be said that, you know, we, we cannot allow [1:26:02] the nature and the character of this nation to completely change. I think the Christian nature [1:26:07] and character of this country ought to be preserved. I think there are things you can do legally [1:26:10] to preserve it. Um, which means that, you know, maybe there are limitations, for instance, [1:26:14] like the calls to prayer in these public spaces. I think that this is something that, um, should to [1:26:19] some degree be limited, but I, I am not an individual who believes in banning people because they, [1:26:23] you know, are Hindu or Buddhist or Muslim, um, for instance. [1:26:27] Yeah, I agree with the majority of what Kai said. Actually, I think I agree with all of it. [1:26:31] Um, but I think, so what you mentioned is important. Well, um, the quorum, how it, the quorum, how it [1:26:37] says that we can kill people with other religions that have the practice, other faiths. And, but [1:26:42] whenever you contradicts with the Bible, the Bible says, do not murder. And so like, at that point, [1:26:46] you have to decide which one, like, are we going to uphold and that, at that whole, at that place, [1:26:50] you just have to find your moral compass. You can still respect their religions, but we still have to [1:26:54] have a moral compass and a moral overall of like, is murder wrong or not? It is wrong. So we should [1:26:59] make it illegal, even though it contradicts with some faiths. We can still respect those faiths, [1:27:03] but it, we have to place our law at some point. [1:27:06] Yeah, no, I'm not saying I believe in that, but, um, uh, but, but I just noticed at least, um, more on [1:27:13] some members of the right believe that like, there should be a hegemon of, of a singular culture and a [1:27:19] singular faith due to like the threats that they describe. But yeah, I don't agree with that [1:27:25] at all. Yeah. Yeah. I think, and maybe it's not the most base thing ever, but yeah, you know, [1:27:31] the United States is a country where people can genuinely come and practice their religions. But [1:27:35] as Thomas Jefferson said, you know, this cannot conflict with your moral and civic responsibilities [1:27:39] and whatnot. So appreciate you coming up, man. Thanks for being here. Thank you. And thank you [1:27:43] guys for being here as well. Absolutely. God be with you. Yes. God bless. God bless. Let's go. [1:27:50] You're up. I'm Mitchell. I'm probably more right wing than you guys. Can you get to the close of the [1:28:00] mic? So I'm probably a little bit more right wing, but, um, I kind of wanted to know, like, [1:28:05] how can we better communicate a message to immigrants or people looking to this, like coming [1:28:09] to this country that just because we're a rich country doesn't mean that you have the right to [1:28:14] become a citizen or to migrate or even like, uh, like demands of foreign aid. I don't think that [1:28:21] these other countries have the, have the like right to just demand foreign aid or help from a richer [1:28:30] country before its citizens. I think that that responsibility for caring for the poor really [1:28:35] should come from churches, from communities. Um, and so how can we better communicate that without, [1:28:41] you know, it's coming off as hateful or unchristian? Um, so what I have to say is have these uncomfortable [1:28:49] conversations. You can't not like yelling fights, but have the uncomfortable conversations because I [1:28:55] agree with you. I think that it shouldn't be the government's responsibility, 100% and taking care [1:28:59] of citizens. I think, uh, well, the Lord tells us that the churches should be in charge of that. [1:29:04] I agree with you on that. Um, however, I think, um, like having these uncomfortable conversations [1:29:10] is 100% necessary. I mean, living in America is not a human right. It's not a human right. I, [1:29:15] people that say it's human right, they're just, they're brainwashed. And, um, I think that we need [1:29:20] to, you can have these conversations and like, you can, people will say, oh, you're hateful, but that [1:29:24] doesn't mean that you are just because someone says that you're hateful doesn't mean that you are. [1:29:28] It's just speech that they hate. It's not hateful. And, um, I just like overall have those uncomfortable [1:29:33] conversations with, you have to be, you have to be brave enough, but don't get into yelling fights about it. [1:29:39] And I, I basically agree. I mean, I think one of the good things that Trump has done is he's required, [1:29:44] you know, the, the other members of the NATO Alliance or of the UN to step up to start pairing, [1:29:50] paying more of their fair share. The United States has been paying a disproportionate amount for a long [1:29:54] time. I think that's great. I think we have to reduce foreign aid, um, to, to many foreign countries. [1:29:59] I think the aid to Ukraine, the, the amounts that we've given the billions are ridiculous. I think the, [1:30:04] uh, foreign aid agreements that we've had with Israel have not been in our favor, um, in, you know, [1:30:09] over the past, what, six decades. So yeah, there's a lot of reforms that have to be done. [1:30:14] And as far as talking about these issues, I think it should be very clear what your heart is, uh, when [1:30:19] you go into a conversation. And a lot of that is optics. A lot of that is just the way you carry [1:30:23] yourself. Maybe people here disagree. Maybe they think we've come across hateful, but I don't think [1:30:27] so. I think appreciate you, man. It's getting too windy now. Um, I, I think that it genuinely should be easy [1:30:35] to tell what your heart is when you talk to somebody by your cadence, by your tone, by the [1:30:40] issues that you discuss. And, uh, that's a big part of it. And, and there are some people who will [1:30:44] always think like Hazel said, you know, you're not practicing hate speech. They just hate your speech. [1:30:49] And if they hate your speech and if they're going to disagree with it, no matter what, [1:30:52] you should just stop trying to convince those people. There are people who can never be convinced. [1:30:57] And if you stake your personal happiness on winning them over, you're always going to be unhappy. [1:31:01] You're always going to feel like you're an evil person. And so just as the right wing, we have to [1:31:06] get away from pandering to people who are never going to be convincible. Agreed. And then, so the [1:31:11] other thing that like I've personally noticed is like people that come here are usually people that [1:31:16] can afford it and or are willing to take more risks, but it economically damages the countries that [1:31:21] they come from, like in their long-term economic development. So how can we help people understand [1:31:27] that when we accept immigrants, we're taking away potential future value of those countries becoming [1:31:33] rich and those countries end up staying perpetually poor? Yeah, that's super real. Nobody talks about [1:31:37] that, but the brain drain is super real. I understand that, you know, people who come here, especially [1:31:42] like on H-1B visas and whatnot, they're going to contribute and maybe provide even a, a fiscal, [1:31:48] you know, net gain to our country. But first I would say the nation is a lot more than just an economic [1:31:55] zone. And second of all, if these people are willing to practice the national pride in their [1:31:59] home countries or here, when they get here, they're waving the Mexican flag or, you know, [1:32:04] whatever flag they, they come from, right? If they're willing to do that in our country, [1:32:08] we should be able to tell them, Hey, you know, instead of just paying remittances from the United [1:32:12] States, go and establish a base in your own countries. This is difficult. It's a lot easier said [1:32:17] than done because a lot of these countries that they come from or that they flee from in some cases [1:32:21] are very corrupt. It is difficult to establish, um, true economic improvement, uh, infrastructure [1:32:27] in order to truly lift people up, but it will never ever get better if all the smart and talented [1:32:33] people leave. So I think that's the way we have to address it on the world stage. We have to say, [1:32:37] look, we would love to benefit from all of the H-1B visa immigrants. We would love to benefit from [1:32:44] all of the O-1 visa immigrants, but unfortunately we are just going to have to allow these countries [1:32:49] to support themselves. And by helping them get up on their feet, we're also going to be reducing the [1:32:55] pressure for more immigration to the United States. Awesome. Thanks guys. Yeah. Thanks so much. [1:33:00] Thank you so much. I think, uh, James, do you want to, do you want to tap in? You want to tap in [1:33:07] at one? Okay. Is it one already? Oh, thank goodness. All right. We'll keep it. We'll keep going. Yeah. [1:33:14] Yeah. Jump on up. Hello. Hi, what's your name? I'm, I'm Jasper. Nice to meet you. [1:33:28] So, um, I just had something to say a little bit earlier. Um, we were having the argument [1:33:32] about, uh, cultural assimilation and national languages. Um, I, uh, I'm not going to say a [1:33:39] whole lot to the, the actual cultural elements, uh, in particular, but I will say from a practical [1:33:44] standpoint, like it is very useful to have a national language, um, so that you can actually [1:33:49] have community. I think it actually, it, uh, is a detriment to like diversity and relations between [1:33:55] people if they can't actually communicate. Um, and I'm also a pilot. Uh, I, and my hobby is aviation. [1:34:03] So, um, the national or the, the global language of air traffic control and aviation is English. Um, [1:34:10] I wouldn't argue too much, uh, if it was a different language, um, that wouldn't bother me, [1:34:16] but I think like it is necessary to have at least one unified, uh, way of communicating, [1:34:20] especially in like a tactical situation. And I think, uh, so it's obviously more critical there, [1:34:25] but I think that applies to society, uh, the broader society in general too. Yeah. Are, are you [1:34:31] a Christian? I am. Yes. Okay. So do you know the story of the tower of Babel? Yes. Really? Yeah. [1:34:37] So I think that's an interesting story to bring up here. Cause I a hundred percent agree with you. [1:34:40] I mean, the, is it the tower of Babel or Babel? I think you'd say either. Babel. I've heard Babel. [1:34:46] Yeah. But, um, I think it's an interesting, um, parallel here because, um, whenever they were [1:34:52] building the tower, um, the Lord made them all have different languages and then they stopped [1:34:57] working together and they couldn't finish the tower. I think that's important, uh, with what [1:35:01] you're talking about also, because we can't work together. We can't have conversations. We can't [1:35:05] build community if we can't even understand each other. So I think, I think I agree with you on this. [1:35:10] Yeah, that's totally fair. So I just wanted to bring that up. So thanks for, nice to meet you guys. [1:35:14] Yeah. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Let's go. What's up, man? What's going on? I like that [1:35:21] sweater. That's sweet. Thank you. I got this from a thrift store actually. Nice. Um, so do you mind [1:35:28] speaking a little closer to the mic? You're a tall guy. Maybe could somebody adjust the mic for him? [1:35:31] Maybe raise it a little taller. Carson. Oh, hold on. Hold on. Somebody's going to come and help you out. [1:35:40] We don't want you getting hurt. You might be the tallest person we've had come up yet. I get that. [1:35:55] I get that a lot. Sweet. Um, so I personally feel like I view myself as what I call a modest [1:36:05] conservative. Basically my, I identify myself, excuse me. I don't, I'm not great at talking, [1:36:12] but I identify myself as conservative because I believe in low taxes and people should just [1:36:16] fix their own problems to some extent. Well, most extent. Um, but I feel like there is [1:36:24] a fine line between like conservative and totalitarianism. And I could see where some [1:36:31] people see that because, well, because of what's going on in Congress and the president and whatnot. [1:36:37] But how can one view, say like I'm a conservative and not be seen as like a brainwashed cultist or [1:36:45] something? Do you understand me? Yes. And I think it's doing exactly what you're doing, [1:36:50] which is going to school. I don't like that the right wing has become so anti-intellectual. [1:36:55] Um, and, and it's difficult, right? Because he takes somebody like Charlie Kirk, right? [1:36:58] Who wrote an entire book about not going to college because college was a scam. [1:37:03] But I think a lot of people take that and then they just think that that gives them a license to [1:37:07] not learn anything, which is not at all the truth. I mean, Charlie Kirk is a guy, he had, [1:37:12] you know, degrees from online universities. He read tons of books. He was a very smart guy. [1:37:16] And the right wing needs to, I, in my opinion, and this is going to sound ironic given what we're [1:37:21] doing, but drop a little bit like the whole influencer idea, like the Pentagon press corps [1:37:26] has been replaced with some influencers. I don't think that's a good thing. I think we have to [1:37:30] go to college, take over institutions, be smart, learn the constitution, learn the founding documents [1:37:36] that made this country what it is, read them, truly, you know, incorporate them into our ideology, [1:37:42] and then go out. So I would say you're already doing what we need to be doing, which is going [1:37:46] to school, familiarizing ourselves with the documents that made this country great, [1:37:50] and then going out and having debates. All right, that's very good. But what would you say, [1:37:55] and this is what I thought I had, would it be possible to maybe set up, because if the Republican [1:38:01] Party, what it, as we understand, won't really change, they'll still support very, [1:38:05] like extremely white, white, white, right-wing doctrine, forgive me for my speech, like would [1:38:14] it be possible to start a possible third party, or any other party? I don't think the third parties [1:38:21] honestly work all the time. Well, they've never worked. There's no, there's never been a third [1:38:25] party that's ever won an election. And so I, but I do want to come back to your point about the whole [1:38:32] cult thing, because no matter what, they will always call us a cult. I have been called, [1:38:37] I've been told that I've been part of a cult multiple, multiple times. I don't even consider [1:38:42] myself MAGA, and I've been called that I'm a part of a cult just because I'm conservative. [1:38:46] But I think it's, I think it's important with the whole cult idea that, sorry, I lost my train [1:38:56] of thought just there for a second. But I think it's important to just, to still stick to your beliefs. [1:39:01] They're always going to call us a cult, and I think it's important within, within, when they're [1:39:05] calling us a cult for us to, I mean, think about what side criticizes their party more. [1:39:11] Is it conservative? Is it the Democrat party or the Republican party that criticizes their side [1:39:15] more? I honestly can't tell at this point. I say Republicans criticize more. At this point, [1:39:19] yeah. Yeah. And I think, do cults really criticize their leaders? Do they criticize people and their [1:39:25] policy as much? They don't. Cults don't really do that. So I think that's something you can always [1:39:29] throw back at them. But yeah. So would you, do you think there is a, like, where do you think the [1:39:43] line lands for, like, tolerance and intolerance? And then there's being a pushover? Like, [1:39:49] there's trying, like, it's trying to find that sweet spot. Like, you don't want to be a pushover, [1:39:54] but you don't want to be, despise everything that you don't agree with. Because I, yeah, I think, [1:40:01] sorry, were you done? Oh, yeah, pretty much. Yeah, this is, this is a question that I had, [1:40:05] right, which brought me from being a libertarian to being a conservative. You have to realize that [1:40:11] in this country, as long as the party system exists, the Democratic Party, the left, is going [1:40:17] to absolutely impose their political will on everybody else. Which means it is not enough [1:40:22] for Republicans to sit back and say, well, I just want to live and let live. Because when the other [1:40:26] party is in power, they are going to impose their will. They're going to either open up the borders, [1:40:30] they are going to allow for reclassification, recodification of what marriage means, [1:40:35] they're going to expand the access and right to abortion. Right now, I think, I forget who it [1:40:41] was that mentioned it. Maybe it was Gavin Newsom or Pete Buttigieg or somebody mentioned the idea [1:40:46] of stacking the Supreme Court, which is something that they have considered on several occasions. [1:40:50] I think Republicans need to realize that it is a zero-sum game. We have to be able to compete, [1:40:54] which means that when we have power, we have to use it. When we have power, we absolutely have to do the [1:40:59] things we campaigned on. Apply tariffs, restrict border crossings, do deportations, lower the tax [1:41:05] rate, allow for religious expression. All of these things have to happen. We can't take our foot off [1:41:12] the wheel as soon as we're in power, which is what I think we've done for many years. [1:41:15] Right, but wouldn't there be too much? [1:41:18] Like, okay, but I, because I agree, like, we gotta, like, affirm our stances when we, when we're, [1:41:24] when it's our turn with the wheel. But is it, do you think that it's possible that we might, [1:41:28] that, I'm not saying every, every conservative believes this, I mostly refer to the president, [1:41:32] but is there, is it possible that he might be pushed steering the wheel too much? I mean, [1:41:36] because it seems that he is basically steering the wheel, but, and will only listen to himself and [1:41:43] no one else, even when his, and I think it's wise to listen to the ideas of other, others and take them [1:41:48] into consideration, even if they may be hard to hear. I think this is interesting. I maybe take [1:41:54] the opposite approach, which is that I think Trump listens to a lot of people, and I think that he [1:41:57] actually hasn't got done a lot of what he's campaigned on. If you look, you know, we have [1:42:01] the House, we have the Senate, which means we have the entire legislative branch, we have the judicial [1:42:06] branch because we've got a conservative Supreme Court, and we have the executive branch, and yet we [1:42:10] are struggling. We are fighting tooth and nail against government shutdowns to even pass one piece of [1:42:14] legislation, right, the big beautiful bill. And so this, this is kind of the issue that we have, [1:42:20] is I think that Trump goes and campaigns on immigration restriction, but then hears from [1:42:24] some of the people that donated to his campaign that, well, it would be really inconvenient if we [1:42:28] deported the workers in agriculture and hospitality. And so the problem is, if anything, that we're not [1:42:34] doing enough of what we campaigned on. We have a mandate, we have a popular mandate from the people, [1:42:38] and yet somehow Republicans are not willing actually to enforce that mandate. And that, I think, [1:42:44] is honestly a bigger issue than Trump just listening to himself. Trump talks a lot of talk, [1:42:49] but at the end of the day, we step back from taking Greenland. We haven't done much in Venezuela, [1:42:53] besides, you know, taking Maduro, and I think that was cool. But yeah, I think that's the situation [1:42:58] we're in, actually. Right, right, right. So I think, what did we say today? Like, I can, I can still [1:43:04] classify myself as a conservative while I also believe in emergency abortions, basically like if [1:43:10] something terrible is going to happen to the mother's, to the mother's health, or the baby is [1:43:14] going to be stillborn, abortion can be used. But most of the time, it's just a problem is like this [1:43:19] power is very easy to abuse, like, like to just kill baby that might have a few problems or just [1:43:25] to cover up your mistakes. I also, I mean, I also believe in vaccinations, that they're good for you. [1:43:31] So, well, thanks for coming up. Yeah. And I think if you look into that, you'll find that it's [1:43:36] really not necessary. People talk about it as abortion, right? Most of the time, the child in [1:43:40] the womb is dead, it hasn't inserted correctly, it's not going to grow or develop. There are a lot [1:43:45] of things that people, they kind of address maybe this idea of a pregnancy that threatens the mother's [1:43:51] life. But in almost every single case, what we're referring to would have to just be the evacuation of [1:43:55] an already dead fetus from the mother's womb. Right. And before I wrap up and let others have a turn, [1:44:01] I do feel like we might need to redefine what an abortion is, because it's okay if I give an [1:44:05] example. I won't mention her name, but she is someone who inspires me. But one time, [1:44:13] she had like to go, she had like something going on with her uterus because it was causing immense [1:44:20] amounts of pain. She was going on a period like on an hourly basis, which I don't think is something [1:44:25] women are supposed to do. That's not normal, no. No, it's not. So basically, so she went there, [1:44:30] she got a screening. And basically, there was a tumor, a cancer in her uterus. And the problem is, [1:44:37] she had to go out of like somewhere like one of the very few abortion clinics that existed because [1:44:43] abortion restrictions were so tight. Because, because in my opinion, that doesn't count as [1:44:48] abortion. That's removing cancer. If we were, because by that logic, if we were like taking tumors [1:44:55] out of someone's brain, we, you would call that a lobotomy. Yeah. So I think that that's often [1:45:02] something that I'm not, I, you're pro-life, correct? You're pro-life? What'd you say? [1:45:05] Um, so some, on some things, mostly with vaccinations. Pro-life? Oh no, pro, like pro-life. I believe in [1:45:13] that. Sorry. Say that. I misunderstood your question. Please repeat it. No, you're good. [1:45:17] Uh, are you pro-life? Yes, I am pro-life. Okay. Okay. Wonderful. Wonderful. So I'm talking about, [1:45:22] no, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about pro-choicers in this. Pro-choicers like to use [1:45:26] that argument against us and say, oh, well, then women aren't going to get the help that they need [1:45:29] because, because the cancer, then tumors in there. That is not why we're pro-life. We're pro-life [1:45:34] because we are against the killing of the baby inside of the womb, the human life inside of the womb. [1:45:39] And so whenever there's complications such as that, we 100% want women to get medical help for that. [1:45:44] And if like, that's some, sometimes, um, with medical help and attention, like there can be [1:45:50] complications such as that, but eventually we will get to a point where whenever there's cancer and [1:45:54] tumors inside of a woman's uterus, she will be able to get that out. But with the complications [1:45:59] right now, because of how much bickering there is between pro-choicers and pro-lifers right now, [1:46:03] it could be complicated. It's very, very, very rare circumstances, but overall we're pro-life because [1:46:08] we want to protect the human life inside of the womb, not just life inside of like the cancer and [1:46:14] tumor in them. Right. Okay. Well, thank you very much for this very intellectual discussion and I [1:46:18] hope you have a wonderful day. May God bless you. May God bless you. God bless you. Thanks for coming [1:46:22] up. Hi. Can I, or is this good? Hello. Is this fine? Yeah, this is, this is great. All right. Is Kai [1:46:34] switching out with, um, is it James? Yes. Can I talk to you? Is that okay? Okay. Okay. Um, there were [1:46:40] like two things you said. I'm so sorry. I should have come up slightly earlier. Um, there were two [1:46:43] things you said that I, well, one of them wasn't like today. Uh, I think you've said at one point that you [1:46:48] said like universal basic income could be tenable if we had a culturally homogenous society. Um, [1:46:53] I'd like to say that's just a bad idea in general, no matter what kind of society. I do think it would [1:46:57] work better in a modern society, but it would still be a bad idea other way. So I'd like to hear what [1:47:02] you have to say about that. Why do you think it's bad? I think it's bad because you have to tax the [1:47:05] productive class of society in order to pay for everyone else. You're basically subsidizing being lazy [1:47:10] and eventually you're basically putting all these, hold on. Okay. Sure. I disagree with that [1:47:15] framing because it's universal. It's not a subsidy just for the lazy. It's a subsidy for everybody. [1:47:20] Where are you taking the money from? Okay. Two different things. I don't disagree that there [1:47:24] would be, um, and, and if we look at the Yang proposal, for instance, it's a value added tax. [1:47:28] That's not even a specific tax on the rich. It's a tax that is at the point of sale, right? [1:47:33] You're talking about the VAT? Yes. The value added tax VAT. Yeah. That the VAT tax is how it's [1:47:37] typically referred to. We could do this at, you know, half the European rate and we would [1:47:41] already produce a ton of revenue, but more importantly, we'd be reaping most of the economic [1:47:45] fruit from, um, the, the new industrial revolution, which is the AI revolution, which the United States [1:47:50] stands to become very rich off of. And I think if you look at some of, and maybe now it's not so true [1:47:55] because the Nvidia stock and the AI stock is dropping pretty significantly. But if you look at the amount of [1:47:59] wealth that we are going to create from that industry, from AI, um, I think would largely offset the cost. [1:48:05] Okay. Well, I don't believe government is the best vehicle through which to distribute wealth, [1:48:10] essentially. Like I think wealth is best distributed by the market through forces that [1:48:14] reward productivity. And so essentially in adding the value added tax, which I think is just a bad [1:48:20] idea in general, because you can't calculate the specific value of a good before it's made and sold, [1:48:25] but trying to raise as much money as you can so that you can subsidize the people who aren't working [1:48:31] necessarily. You're, you're taking the money out of the economy to inject it back into the economy [1:48:34] to somewhere that it's less productive. When you do that, you're putting these people who [1:48:38] have to rely on that money on government strings and making it very easy for the government to put [1:48:42] restrictions on who's allowed to get that money. At that point, you're increasing government [1:48:46] bureaucracy because they have to decide, they have to go through and say, okay, these people are [1:48:50] eligible and these people aren't. I know you said it's universal, but it's easy for the government [1:48:54] to go, okay, well, you're already relying on us so we can make you do whatever we want. [1:48:57] Essentially. Uh, I think it's just a very bad setup and it leads to very possibly bad consequences. [1:49:03] I don't think giving the government that power is a good idea. [1:49:05] I don't disagree with everything you've said, but I think that most of your [1:49:08] disagreements and you've kind of admitted this a little bit, most of the disagreement is with [1:49:12] welfare in general, the way that the welfare system exists. And I share those disagreements. [1:49:17] And this is actually why I support universal basic income because universal basic income [1:49:21] uses the efficiency of a free market in order to promote entrepreneurship, which is why, by the way, [1:49:27] the current welfare system does not promote entrepreneurship. You're right. It subsidizes laziness. [1:49:31] It allows people to get away as they do nothing. Whereas the universal basic income would create [1:49:36] an unrevocable or an irrevocable, um, safety net, you could say, but platform with which [1:49:42] individuals could practice more entrepreneurship, which is why when universal basic income is [1:49:47] implemented, entrepreneurship increases because people don't have to worry about that, you know, [1:49:52] subsidy or welfare being pulled away from them the moment they actually start to succeed. [1:49:57] And that is the way that our welfare system, which is means tested is working right now. [1:50:01] Universal basic income, if we were to use it, it would replace the form of welfare that we have [1:50:06] right now. And maybe it's an opt in opt out program. Maybe, you know, this, this takes a lot [1:50:10] of tailoring on the policy end, but I think I could maybe reach out to you by saying, look, [1:50:15] we live in an imperfect world. We've never had a true capitalist economy. There's never been a truly [1:50:19] free laws. I fair market. And in that absence, we should at least form our welfare system. If there is to be [1:50:24] one in a way that most encourages, um, economic efficiency. And the way to do that is by giving [1:50:31] a thousand dollars to everybody, whether they are poor or rich and allowing them to invest it, [1:50:37] however they choose, which is the way that the market incentivizes production, productivity, [1:50:41] and entrepreneurship. [1:50:43] I believe the implication here is that this thousand dollars or whatever it is, is enough for people [1:50:48] to pay for their basic needs. If that's the case, then the cost of those basic needs are going to go up [1:50:52] in accordance with that. Before we have the massive welfare system that we had now that sprang up [1:50:56] around the sixties or so, we actually had a system that composed, was composed much more of [1:51:01] mutual aid societies. I think it was called, you had a, I think it was something like two thirds of [1:51:06] people in the United States were a part of these mutual aid societies where this welfare was dealt with [1:51:12] on a private level and people could care for each other much better because they knew the people that [1:51:17] they were essentially entering into these deals with. I agree with you on that. I think it's way [1:51:21] more efficient. And she said the same thing about churches. So why don't we just go with that instead [1:51:23] of universally? Do you think we could implement that? Do you think there is a way of how would you [1:51:27] in a vacuum strip the welfare system that currently exists and rely entirely on private or charitable [1:51:34] groups to support every single person who is unable to work? Like let's even just say the people [1:51:41] who physically cannot work. I think there are already organizations that are set up to pay for at least some of [1:51:47] these people. And for many of the other people, they aren't working because they're lazy. And I [1:51:51] don't want to pay for lazy people with my own money. You have, for example, the social security system [1:51:57] that takes from productive young people and gives it to old people who largely already have a lot of [1:52:01] money. I think there's kind of a corollary there between like universal basic income taken from [1:52:06] productive people to give to lazy people. And that is that is largely what the welfare system is. I'll be [1:52:11] honest, I don't know what the solution is to get rid of the current welfare system. I think that's a huge [1:52:15] issue because no politician can run for office and say, I'm going to get rid of welfare without [1:52:19] losing 40 percent of their votes or more. Yeah, I agree with you. I would say, again, if you know, [1:52:24] if you look at the value added tax, I mean, maybe I see what you're saying there. There's a proposal [1:52:30] of a marginal tax increase for, you know, the top percent of earners. And I understand what you're [1:52:35] saying about that money being used more efficiently by them maybe than by the people that you would be [1:52:39] redistributing it to. And I'm glad that you admit that there's not really an easily thought of [1:52:45] solution for the welfare state. You and I agree on that. I don't like the welfare state. What's up to get [1:52:50] rid of it? Exactly. Yeah. It seems that this is one of those things where, you know, the cat's out of the [1:52:54] bag and barring some crazy societal explosion. It's going to be very difficult to change something in an [1:53:00] abrasive or abruptive way. But I think you and I might be able to agree that some of the recent actions [1:53:04] taken by Trump with the TCGA, the the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which, yes, reduce the the top [1:53:11] marginal, you know, income tax rate, but also allow for more tax cuts for, you know, middle and lower [1:53:18] income individuals. I think that that is a good step. And the further, you know, qualifications or [1:53:22] the requirements to have access to Medicare and Medicaid, I think they're positive to have more [1:53:28] work requirements for accessing Medicare and Medicaid is good. And a lot of Democrats, unfortunately, [1:53:33] disagree with it. And they say that, you know, he's stripping people of their Medicare and Medicaid. [1:53:37] And this goes to your point, right? There's total outrage. There's total outrage when you add work [1:53:41] requirements. But it should go without saying that if you're going to get money from the state, [1:53:45] you have to at least be doing your part if you're physically able to work. [1:53:48] Yeah. One more thing on that. And then I'd like to talk about something else. [1:53:51] And I'm probably going to tap out. So, OK, yeah. Yeah, I don't know a ton about the [1:53:57] Jobs Act or whatever, but I think part of it is Trump's also increasing spending and the money has [1:54:02] to come from somewhere. So that either comes from borrowing money, it comes from inflating the currency, [1:54:06] or it comes from taxing people more. So as long as you're not lowering spending, I do still think [1:54:10] you're taxing people, although it might be different groups of people. But yeah. [1:54:14] No, that's true. He's spending a ton. [1:54:16] Yeah. And then I guess I can talk to James. That's your name, right? Yeah. About Venezuela, [1:54:21] we were talking about it yesterday, and then we got cut off. I did check. I know, Kai, [1:54:27] you said you thought Venezuela was cool. [1:54:30] I thought it was epic and based. [1:54:31] I think in an action movie way, it was. It was pretty cool. I think a problem with it is, [1:54:38] as Ben Shapiro said, it kicks Iraq war syndrome. And I don't think that's a good thing. [1:54:42] I wouldn't quote Ben Shapiro. [1:54:44] I know. I know. That's why it's a bad thing, because you have all these war hawks cheering [1:54:48] for it as well, because it kicks that syndrome of people being tired of war. [1:54:51] Can I pull something real fast with the audience? And we've got a mixed audience here. We've got a [1:54:56] mixed crowd. But everybody, please consult the American in you. You don't even have to agree [1:55:02] with it, but how many of you thought the Venezuela strike and capture of Maduro was super cool? [1:55:08] Raise your hand. [1:55:09] Oh, it's most of the audience. That's insane. [1:55:12] Whether, like, I am not a foreign interventionist necessarily, but it was super cool. It was [1:55:18] awesome. So anyway, yeah. I agree with you. I just don't think, like, would you even call [1:55:25] it regime change, what's happening in Venezuela? [1:55:26] So, so. It's kind of like, it's supposed to be regime change, but then the regime didn't [1:55:32] actually really change. So we killed, like, 80 people to take this guy out, and then the [1:55:35] regime's practically the same. [1:55:37] See, I don't even think it was meant to be regime change. [1:55:40] I'm not even sure at this point. [1:55:41] Yeah. And I would say, like, tangibly, it's not. We have the vice president, who is the [1:55:46] head of state now, and we have most of the cabinet has remained, you know, unobstructed or [1:55:51] the same. I know that Machado, she's trying to kind of cozy up to Trump. She's giving him the [1:55:55] Nobel Peace Prize and whatnot to try and get some support for regime change. But I really [1:56:00] think this is just about, you know, hemispheric control. I think that's the name of the game. [1:56:03] And I think the hemispheric control, taking Meludo out and changing their, their geopolitical [1:56:08] posture from China to the United States, I think it's good. [1:56:11] That may be the case, but I feel like we're not going to make friends in Latin America by [1:56:15] taking, taking these countries' leaders, even if they aren't good leaders. That didn't [1:56:19] work very well in the Middle East. And I think we're getting the same thing here. If we, [1:56:23] plus, there's the, there's the effect of just lying about the drugs aspect of it. [1:56:28] Like, well, have you read the indictment? [1:56:30] I have read some of it. [1:56:32] Okay. It's totally legit. [1:56:34] The drugs? [1:56:35] Yeah. Like, like the conspiracy for drug trafficking, all of that is totally legit. The way they [1:56:39] actually draw it up in the indictment is really cool. But I agree with you that that is not [1:56:44] the reason that we went into Venezuela. We didn't go in because they are a major source of fentanyl [1:56:49] or of cocaine because they're not there. They literally are just not. However, I don't think [1:56:54] Trump was lying about it at all. When you saw him give his press conference, he said, [1:56:58] they've got a ton of oil. This Maduro guy was bad. We want to control the space. And if you look at [1:57:04] the national security statement or the posture that was released in November, we can pretty much [1:57:10] see why we did this. And it is to control the hemisphere and to keep China out. We've got just [1:57:16] gone on the record and admitted that. I mean, the narrative certainly changed from drugs. It [1:57:20] was all about, oh, the drug votes. And then it became about, oh, we're getting Maduro because [1:57:24] he's a bad guy. And the oil, they had to drop the charge about the cartel deal of Solis that they [1:57:28] made up. But I'm not sure that it is control of the hemisphere because Venezuela, essentially, [1:57:34] they still have practically the same government there. And if some, you know, James was talking [1:57:38] about yesterday, if China wanted to come over and make some deals with them, it's like they could [1:57:41] still do that. We don't actually control Venezuela. And if we did want to, we'd have to do much [1:57:45] more military action there. We could get into a big Middle East-like swamp situation. And I think [1:57:50] that's just a large risk that we're not looking at. You have Trump saying, oh, maybe we should go [1:57:54] for Cuba next. Then we're going to threaten Iran. And, you know, he's kind of backed off on Greenland [1:57:58] now, which, thank goodness, I don't want war anywhere. But I think there's just a big risk of [1:58:03] we get this one thing that looks like a huge success. We don't even know what the full ramifications [1:58:07] of it are. And it's used to go, OK, well, now we can do this everywhere else. And that's my big [1:58:11] problem with it. I do agree. But I would say that the Middle East and Latin America are totally [1:58:16] different animals. I think we have every single, you know, right to be concerned about what's [1:58:20] happening in our hemisphere, our side of the world. And I think that our involvement in the [1:58:24] Middle East was largely unjustified and maybe even at the behest of foreign nations. I think we are way [1:58:29] too involved over there. And I think we could much better control the hemisphere here in a way that [1:58:34] was just, first of all, it was poorly executed in the Middle East. And second of all, we had, [1:58:39] and this maybe is a concern you'll share, we really had no true moment where we could say [1:58:44] we're going to withdraw. There was no true point where we could say we have succeeded. [1:58:48] With Venezuela, I do think we have that. We've been able to seize the oil tankers. [1:58:51] We've taken the oil. It's been great. Russia has done nothing. These are illegal tankers in the [1:58:56] first place. I think we've been incredibly successful in seizing the tankers. I think we are [1:59:00] going to potentially be successful in improving at least the production or extraction of the crude that [1:59:06] they have down in Venezuela. And I think if we are able to improve that trade relationship or [1:59:10] partnership with Venezuela, it would also take away the reliance that we have on Canadian oil, [1:59:16] which is the exact same kind of oil that Venezuela has. So while I agree that maybe the strategy [1:59:22] doesn't seem totally apparent, I like the posture that we're taking because I think concern for our [1:59:27] hemisphere is absolutely good. So do you think that the concern for our hemisphere justifies making [1:59:32] enemies possibly out of these nations and especially these foreign nations, do you think [1:59:36] further provoking Russia and China over that their trade partners is a good idea? [1:59:42] I think it is a strategic necessity. I think that China is obviously adversarial towards us either [1:59:48] in an implicit or explicit way. They are trying to extend their reach into our hemisphere. [1:59:55] They don't like the fact that we basically have them cushioned into their sphere through Taiwan and [2:00:02] whatnot. The only thing I would say is maybe they're going to get more, they're going to get a little [2:00:05] ballsier when it comes to Taiwan. I don't want to see that be the case. I do actually like the fact [2:00:10] that we support Taiwan. I'm in favor of it. They're a strategic ally as well. But you know, again, I [2:00:17] really think that Latin America is a different beast. I don't think that we have made an enemy of [2:00:21] Venezuela. They seem to be completely cooperative. And there is a great deal to be said about the fact [2:00:25] that we showed military might that itself is an argument. Itself. You know, the capture of Maduro [2:00:31] being so successful is a pressure that we have now exerted on our entire hemisphere. And I'll even [2:00:38] come to your side. Trump went way too hard on Greenland. There was no way it was ever becoming [2:00:42] a state. I don't think he ever wanted that. But he did piss off a lot of the European countries by the [2:00:47] way that he was trying to negotiate. I don't think that was good. But I do think that we have a vested [2:00:51] interest in Venezuela, in Latin America. And we've even struck up alliances now with with many more [2:00:56] South American nations. I think Brazil hopefully is going to come to our side soon. But they're [2:01:01] totally like they're far gone. Yeah. So if China were to invade Taiwan, would you say on the same [2:01:06] sort of doctrine that it would be justified on their behalf to go after Taiwan and that we've kind of [2:01:10] just have to sit back and deal with it? I wouldn't talk about justification. I would talk about [2:01:15] just necessity. Like if I'm China, I would see it as absolutely within my, you know, [2:01:22] geopolitical interest and within my, you know, geostrategic interest to go after Taiwan. [2:01:27] Absolutely. It's right there. It is a, you know, adversarial state as far as, you know, [2:01:33] the values that it represents. It has, you know, a large partnership with these Western nations that [2:01:38] are competing with us on the world stage. It is an absolutely valuable producer of, you know, [2:01:44] the chips that we were talking about before, of technology. And so if I'm China, it makes a lot of [2:01:50] sense to go after Taiwan, but I would just disagree with the framing about justifiability. [2:01:54] I think you can justify a lot of things out of geostrategic necessity. [2:01:57] I'm talking about like using this, yeah, using this framework of justification on the same basis [2:02:02] that it was justified for us to go to Venezuela, you might say, would it be justified for China [2:02:06] to go to Taiwan? Yeah, for sure. Okay. Like if I was, if I was Chinese, yeah, I'd probably be in [2:02:10] favor of that. Well, I don't think it would necessarily be in China's favor because it does so much to [2:02:15] anger the United States. And I think what is in their best interest right now is to drain us dry [2:02:19] by getting us into even more wars abroad. We're already $38 trillion in debt. And eventually, [2:02:24] once our currency devalues to the point that all these other countries want to return their dollars [2:02:28] in return for actual value, then our economy is going to crash and we're going to be in a very [2:02:32] bad situation. So I think it's much more in their interest to try to get us into these [2:02:36] sinkholes than it is to try to attack us directly. Do you think that China sees the US partnership with [2:02:43] Taiwan as a sinkhole or as a threat? No, that wasn't exactly what I was referring to. I'm saying [2:02:49] the reason why China doesn't want to attack Taiwan is because it is likely to get them into a direct [2:02:54] war with us right now, whereas their long-term strategy is much better for them to kind of kill [2:02:59] us slowly by getting us involved in foreign conflicts. Okay, so if their strategy, I want to make sure I [2:03:08] understood you right, if their strategy is to kill us slowly by getting us involved in foreign [2:03:11] conflicts, then it would be advantageous for them to attack Taiwan because it would draw the US into [2:03:19] the conflict. No, because they would be directly involved and we still have currently have the [2:03:23] military power that we could possibly, you know, defeat them over Taiwan. Okay, so I mean, I kind [2:03:30] of agree with you. I don't think honestly that China will do something, at least in the immediate [2:03:34] future with regards to Taiwan. And I actually agree. It's because their strategy has not been hot [2:03:37] pressure. It has been basically just, you know, market control globally. It has been to improve [2:03:42] production. It has been to, you know, the whole kind of alternate hegemon that's being created [2:03:48] right with BRICS instead of with the typical Western alliance. I think you're right. That is [2:03:52] their strategy. And that's why I think the United States is absolutely right to go and say, hey, [2:03:57] if the strategy that they are using is working, if the US dollar is losing, you know, its legitimacy on [2:04:03] the global stage, we need to reassert that legitimacy and take regional or hemispheric control [2:04:08] by pushing out China and Russia from the Southern Hemisphere, which is absolutely within our sphere [2:04:14] of influence. Like, doesn't that make sense? Well, we don't re-legitimize our currency by [2:04:18] forcing other countries to keep on using it. We would legitimize it if we stopped printing more and [2:04:23] borrowing more and spending as much as we are. If we were to concretize our currency in something [2:04:30] stable, then it would become much more wanted currency. As it is, we continue spending, you know, [2:04:35] $2 trillion in deficits or whatever. We've raised our military budget even further. And so we're [2:04:40] probably, you know, it's $38 trillion now. It's going to be $39 trillion in a few months or whatever. [2:04:44] It's going to keep getting worse unless we do something to turn that around. And the way we do [2:04:48] that isn't by spending more money on foreign conflicts. It's by, you know, stabilizing our own [2:04:53] currency. It's by trading with other countries instead of making enemies out of them. And I think [2:04:58] if we made allies out of these countries, I don't even like a lot of these countries, but if we just [2:05:02] tried to be friends with them, you know, we could make deals with Russia. We could make deals with [2:05:06] China without. I actually think with Russia, it's possible. I think so. Especially if we, [2:05:11] if we start peeping off Europe, I think that Russia, honestly, like, especially with what's going on in [2:05:15] Ukraine, they're going to start coming to the table a little bit more. That's, that's just a [2:05:19] personal theory I have. But I think we've gotten a little bit into another point. You know, you're [2:05:23] talking about, okay, well, what's the currency based on? We can go back to, you know, the gold standard [2:05:27] with Nixon, right? I think that's a very separate discussion. But overall, I think that's just our [2:05:31] disagreement is, is you believe maybe more in a, I, what would you say is your, is your, [2:05:36] you know, international relations like lens? What do you use? I'm, I'm, I'm much more of a [2:05:40] realist. I think that the United States, like from this realist perspective, has a concern for its [2:05:45] hemisphere. I'd say I'm against American imperialism. I mean, you could go back to like the [2:05:49] founders and I think we should be friends with all these countries, but we shouldn't be allies or [2:05:53] enemies. And we should just try to get along as much as we can, you know, unless they actually do [2:05:58] directly try to attack us. But what we've done is we've just made enemies out of a lot of [2:06:01] these countries. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to close. Um, have you ever heard of Teddy [2:06:04] Roosevelt? Sure. What did he do? What was his big thing? His big thing was national parks. I think, [2:06:09] you know, nature. No, no. So what type, how big, what size of the stick? Walk softly and carry a very [2:06:15] big stick. Big stick. That's what Trump's doing. He's carrying a very, very, very big stick. We had a [2:06:19] president over the past four years that didn't do that. Um, and Trump's doing that now. Um, the reason [2:06:26] why America is not challenged by our allies or by Russia and by China is because we're carrying big [2:06:32] sticks. Yeah. The reason why our military budget is so high, um, is because we are, I don't agree [2:06:37] with this. I think it should be equal. I think it should be equal, but like we make up the majority [2:06:40] of NATO's budget. Um, we are the reason why one of the biggest reasons why there is no active, [2:06:46] like large scale wars is because of the U S when we step into a conversation, neutrality normally [2:06:51] follows. No large scale wars like Ukraine and Russia. No, like large scale wars. Like the reason, [2:06:58] the, one of the biggest reasons why peace has been maintained amongst our allies and amongst our [2:07:03] adversaries is because of the U S they don't want to mess with us at the end of the day. [2:07:07] So like a lot of the things and what he said that Trump was doing was posturing. Um, because when [2:07:12] you're, when you're looking from the outside in, you're seeing what can be done to other countries, [2:07:16] those leaders and those administrations are looking back to be done for done to me. So going forward, [2:07:21] it's going to make negotiations a lot easier. Um, it's going to make maintaining peace a lot easier [2:07:27] because when the U S steps into the conversation, everyone goes quiet and they listen. That's what [2:07:31] Trump's trying to do. And I think he's doing a great job of doing it. I guess we'll see if we [2:07:35] get into more wars. I just don't think wars are American America first. So I hope, I hope you're [2:07:39] right. I hope we don't get into any more wars. I'd love to see that. Same here. Yeah. Thank you. [2:07:43] Appreciate you, man.