The 5,000 Year Leap Discussion Group #7

0:00 OK, we might as well go ahead and get started here. We waited till till about 5 minutes after and I think that counts as Mormon Standard Time. So, Justin, can you go ahead and just give us a quick opening prayer, please? Yeah, sure thing. Our Father in heaven, we are grateful that we can gather here together and and discuss the principles of this founding of America and a government which can provide us with the liberty and the freedom to express and develop our religion. We're so thankful for the men who have sacrificed everything that came before us.

0:45 That. We are the inheritors of this land of freedom and prosperity. We pray that we may learn to be better stewards of this opportunity for liberty and freedom, that these things may be preserved for our posterity and generations to come. We pray that Thy Spirit may be here with us today as we discuss these principles of liberty and freedom, and that we may have Thy Spirit to guide and direct our thoughts to things that we can apply directly to our lives. That these things may be preserved and restored.

1:26 We ask this Father the name of the name of Thy Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Thanks, Justin. All right, so let me go ahead and share my screen here. It's not doing what it's supposed to. What the heck?

2:15 Forgive me. I don't know what's going on here. OK, having a bit of technical difficulties. I apologize. Let me reboot that. Program All right, so we're going to start off in principle 6, which is equal rights. And I had a college professor once who taught constitutional studies where I went to college. And when he started this section, he had a great a great quote, which is your unique just like everyone else. And I found that kind of funny because it seems like an oxymoron, but it does kind of fit with with this certain principle here.

3:10 If we looked at what equal rights are, there's there's kind of a a we look at the founding documents. It says all men are created equal. On the left hand side of your screen, you're going to see Aaron Donald. He. Is A6. Foot four 280 LB Defensive lineman for the Rams and he runs a 40 yard dash time which is about 120 feet in about 4 1/2 seconds. Now your average. Screen showing. Oh, my screen's not showing Son of a gun. It reset I. Don't know what is going on here. This thing is having some severe issues. How about that?

4:03 Can you see that? There we go. It's not full screen, but it's shown. OK, is it full screen now? There it is. Yeah, there it is. That was weird. I apologize. All right. Is it still showing up on your guys's end? Something is really funky on my. Yeah, I'm seeing the. Looks. Good on our side. Yep. OK, we'll just leave it like that then. I'll have to update or something when I'm done. So on this side is Aaron Donald.

4:43 I'm just a massive human being that, you know, runs a 4 1/2 yard four and a half second forty time. It's about 120 feet. Then you have your average American male who stands about 5 foot 999 lbs and runs the same 40 yard dash just about a full second slower. Now there's nothing equal about these two guys. The guy on the left, he's born with an extremely set of good set of genetics. I mean he pulls like the wink winning Wonka ticket for for genetics. And so we can see here that obviously not all men are created exactly equal. If, if this same guy worked really hard his whole life, he might be this guy's fourth string backup. But by and large, we can see here that we're really not born equal in terms of our talents, our genetics, any of those other things.

5:51 And this debate was kind of had back during the French Revolution between this man here, Jean Jacques Rousseau, who argued that economic equality was essential for the preservation of liberty and the functioning of a legitimate society. He believed that excessive disparity in wealth led to corruption, dependence and loss of freedom. Now, that last line, I, I want to say there's some credence there I do want to give. But to say that that's always the case, I'm I'm not sure is correct. And So what Rousseau's really arguing for here is kind of like an, an equality of outcomes.

6:33 And that's not what the founders had in mind. John Adams puts it this way. That all men are to equal rights is true. Every being has a right to his own, as clear, as moral, as sacred as any other being has. But to teach that all men are born with equal powers and faculties, to equal influence in society, to property and advantages through life is as gross of fraud, as glaring an imposition on the credulity of the people. And So what he's saying here is that, OK, so we're not all born with the same social standing, right?

7:17 Sometimes we just get dealt a bad hand. Maybe we're born into poverty. Maybe we're born into less than ideal circumstances. And those things are are going to have to be overcome. If we, if we so desire. And what what is being brought out here is that we all have equal rights. We all have equal standing before, before God and before should be before the government as well. Then how are we equal? Well, in the sight of God. And I want to talk a little bit about these because I think these are important recognitions to make as we go forward here in this discussion.

8:03 Why is it important that we understand that we are all equal? In the sight of God. I, I think it kind of depends on what you understand equal to mean right? Because I don't think we actually are equal. We, I don't think we do necessarily stand equal under God in a complete, you know, in a, in a multi dimensional aspect. The way that we stand equal under God is we are all equally beloved and cherished of God. We all. Have equal potential and opportunity for the things that matter. But certainly, you know, we're not equal in the sense of some of us are born into families with struggle and trauma and that carries over into that.

8:56 Some of us are born into economic situations or even global situations that are aren't. Equal at all and so I think that. The sight of God from God, you got to take that from God's perspective. And from God's perspective, what really matters how wealthy you are, how strong you are, how much wealthy you accumulate in life. Or is it have to do with? How? Good of a husband and. Father, are you or a wife and mother? How good are you? How are you as far as loving your neighbor?

9:36 How are you as far as standing up for for truth? And right in that respect, we're all equal under the side of God unless we choose not to be. So then Justin, just curious, is that how you would explain the that scripture that God's no respecter of persons? Yeah. And also in respect to how we're treated. And the the fact of the matter is, this prosperity the the prosperity gospel is not true. The rain falls on the wicked and the righteous, right and no matter. How we live our lives. Our fellow brothers and sisters have their own agency that God will.

10:23 Respect. And that could have a negative impact on us potentially or a +1 now when a society. As a whole lives God's laws, there is prosperity. Because that is the natural outcome of. Of cooperation when we don't waste resources fighting each other or trying to push each other. You know, pull each other down. But but yeah, absolutely, I think that the way that God sees us is. We we are all given equal opportunity and potential. But what we do with it? That's what really matters, and in that regards, we're not equal, and neither are we. Equal in the gifts and the talents and the powers and the circumstances and opportunities that God presents to us.

11:08 We all face struggles and we all face blessings in those regards. Absolutely, Taylor, I see your hand up. Yeah, so there's a scripture that is in first Nephi, I think it's like right around 15 or 17 or something. I got my arms full of a baby, so I can't pull it up exactly. But it talks about how it's kind of like a thus we see moment. I, I'm going to be paraphrasing it, but it's like that God is no respecter of persons. Yeah, he, he loves all of his children. Nevertheless, those who obey his commandments he favors and, you know, and it's like back-to-back. And so it kind of looks like he does favor people and, and so like, wouldn't that make him a respecter of persons? And the answer to that is no.

12:05 It's because the the, the favors that come from obeying natural laws and godly laws are just the consequences of those choices. And it goes back to the theology of Section 130 where it talks about there's a law irrevocably decreed before the foundation of the earth upon which all blessings are predicated. And when we obtain any blessing, it's by obedience to the law upon which it's predicated. So if you obey the true laws, you reap the benefits. If you break the laws, you get the consequences. And anyway, I think that's my son just fell on his roller skate.

12:48 So it kind of I, I lost my train of thought. But anyway, there you go. You're good, you're good. That was good stuff. All right, So real quick, why is this important when it comes to government? Why do you think that it's that's important that government should recognize that that everybody is, has, we'll say it this way, has equal opportunity and equal access to God. So I had a couple ideas on this, one of them and probably the the the best one I could think of is that if, if, if you can recognize the divinity in another person, right?

13:32 That spark of of you know, they are us, we are them and and we all have a connection back to the creator. I think that will massively inform how it. Is we would choose to govern. Ourselves and and the laws that we would make that would govern other other people. OK, so we're equal in the site of the law. What do you think that means? You know, I, I think that's a necessary qualifier. Without that, you end up with that that. French.

14:13 That French? Guy's idea, which is, is actually absolutely terrifying, because there's no way to practically implement such a thing without pulling everybody down to the absolute lowest common denominator. And even then, even then, now that now that we aren't allowed to develop and express the gifts Scott has given us is going to lead to a societal collapse. Absolutely. And, and I think we're seeing that right now. I mean, if, if we look at the amount of distrust in government, I think we can link a lot of that back to understanding that, that we have an unwritten 2 tiered justice system right now. There's justice for guys like us, people like us who, you know, gosh, we, we don't pay our taxes. We're, we're going to jail.

15:11 And then there's, there's the, the kind of the political class now that seemed to have a certain amount of leeway that is border borderline obscene. And when, when that begins to happen, we start to lose faith in, in our, in our, our institutions, right. If we don't think we can get proper redress in a in the court, it's a matter of time before somebody feels like their back is up against the wall and they do something extreme which I never want to see. But nonetheless, history tells us that that is the outcome of that. And then as far as just, you know, being equal in the protection of our rights, it this kind of goes hand in hand with being being equal in in the side of the law, right? Just supposed to be blind.

15:59 It doesn't matter who you are. If you are a citizen, you you are deserving of the protection of your rights, or at least. You should be. Does anyone have anything else they want to add before we move on? OK, so one of the things that this chapter really brings out is minorities, right? And, and that can be a problem from time to time. And he describes it as a culture gap within, within the society itself. So any minority in any country are considered outsiders until they cross this cultural gap. And across this gap.

16:45 There's a couple of things that there, there's a few things here that that need to be overcome. And we, I want to talk about why they're important. One of them is, is the language. The other is kind of attained to the general norm of education, become economically independent or at least self-sufficient. I think it's probably what they were more going for in the book and then become an asset to the community. So real quick, why is the language important to learn if we want someone to cross that cultural gap right? Think of someone coming out of pick a foreign country. It doesn't matter they they immigrate legally.

17:26 Why is it important that they have a good command of language? Certainly we have bilingual people in the States now, right? I mean, why? Why should language be that important? Learning to speak the language here in America. Because if you can't communicate with the language of the majority, then you're not really an asset to the community. Yeah, I'll stop. 100 percent, 100% if if, if you can't not not just speak the language, but even kind of become fluent in it, right? Understanding that the word cool, depending on its constant context, can either mean something that's cold to the touch or something that is pleasant, something that is good. And so that language is going to be a huge thing. I want to get someone's opinion on what it means to attain to the general norm of.

18:26 Education, as the book calls it. Anybody. Well, I think you got to be somewhat careful with that one in today's world because you know, when this was being written and discussed, that general norm of education was the idea was factual stuff, right? Reading, writing, arithmetic, hard sciences. You know, it's very interesting today because the general norm of education is actually kind of the opposite of education and is more indoctrination in in a religious cultural kind of cult.

19:20 Of. Right and wrong. And this is one of the reasons why Christians today are starting to find themselves more persecuted, because they do try to hold their children to a general norm of education that has nothing to do with that propaganda, and therefore their kids don't quite fit in when the rest of the world is kind of going mad, right? But but from the original context and idea. This is important because ultimately all ideas have to be. Debated.

20:02 They need to be evaluated, examined, explored and debated. And so if you're a minority and you've got a different culture, if there's good things in that culture, we want that. That's a good thing. If there's bad things in that culture, we want to avoid that. And the only way that's possible, though, is getting everybody up to a certain baseline standard of education so you can think and express and communicate those kinds of ideas 100. Percent Does anyone have another take on that? So I'll tell you my take on that real quick.

20:44 As I was looking at it, I thought, man, that that just feels, you know, I thought about in terms of like going to school or stay, you know, homeschooling or whatever. But I wondered for a moment if that's what they were actually talking about when it says to, to attain to the general norm of education. I was wondering if it wasn't talking about more of our social norms that we would find here. And certainly, as Justin pointed out, there's some problems there with that. And I, I kind of go back and forth on this. I would love to shelter my kids entirely from the crap in the world. But unfortunately, you know, well and fortunately shouldn't just say unfortunately, they're going to have to navigate this world. And that means that if if they're going to navigate this, this society, they have to know certain things, right? And look, if it was good times, it would be something different today.

21:41 I think it's a matter of, of, you know, teaching them how to navigate these things without becoming part of them. And so I, I do think that there's some play there with that, with that second one. And again, I'd if anyone else has any any thoughts on that, I would really, I'd really enjoy hearing what you have to say about it. So I have a oh, go, sorry, go ahead. Vanessa had her hand up. Then we'll go to you. Taylor. Vanessa, go ahead. Vanessa, you're muted. Thank you some of my thoughts on this like you were talking about like kind of a norm of I forgot the word you used but it talking about the culture gap.

22:35 I see it a lot in multicultural marriages. You get 2 people from two different worlds, and if they can't find common ground, then it creates a lot of conflict that is almost irreconcilable. And so I can see that as people come in and want to integrate into United States, if they can't find that common ground that we've all basically agreed to, then it will create conflicts that they might have a different way of doing things. And if they can't meet us where we're at, then it won't be solvable. And so I can see that in the education and in the language and in all of these things, we have to be able to kind of have a common definition of what's right and wrong and how we do things. And anyway, those are my thoughts. Oh, that's great.

23:30 Good stuff. Thanks. Vanessa Taylor, your turn bro. Yeah, I was just going to highlight an idea that I think the first time I ever encountered it was when I was reading the Autobiography of Louis Lemoore, Education of a Wandering Man. And he talks about his education, which was very unorthodox. He was basically self educated and but he he said, I can't remember if it was like his father or mother or somebody that was influential in his life gave him some of the most important advice he ever got, which was never let your schooling get in the way of your education. And you know this, that these two concepts are just really conflated in many people's minds, especially in this like the education system quote, UN quote in the in the United States, schooling is not education. Like Justin was saying, if if schools become stations and you know, implements of propaganda and dogma, that's not learning any more than, you know, a church that changes gospel and ordinances and stuff is teaching the gospel. Like, you know, it's I would look at it analogous to the church and the gospel.

24:53 You know, the church is supposed to be the repository that holds things and and preserves things, but it is not the gospel. That's that's just the information. Whereas schools are supposed to hold information and knowledge and and, you know, to perpetuate that and to disseminate that amongst people. But but it's not education. Just going to school is not education. So anyway, that's that was just I wanted to make that point. Oh, that's great. I appreciate that, Taylor. OK. Anybody else have anything they want to add before we move on to the to the other two here? Maybe to? Clarify a little bit. Based off of your comments, Dave, you know I really agree with that and I believe that it's very important not to over shelter children as well. So as far as attained to the general norm of education, there's value in understanding it ultimately, even if you don't accept it.

25:54 And there's a very, very well, especially as as Mormons, we have a, a very special responsibility to develop that kind of an understanding and awareness of the things going on around us. Not necessarily so we can participate, but so that we can understand what it is and so that we can speak for or against it with with. Authority. And so regardless of the right or wrong of that education, there is a immense value, no matter, no matter what side you're on, to getting to a general norm of education in the world and culture that you find yourself a. 100% Justin, I loved how you tied that back to us as Mormons, because I think if we look back at at some of the purposes for the school, the prophets, it was to to educate not only in theology, but also to educate about, you know, certain, you know, different societies, norms and customs and language. I, I great job on tying that back in. I didn't even think about that till you brought it back till you brought it up.

27:09 So good. Good on you. All right. Anybody else? All right. So this one down here, the becoming economically independent, I think we can all see how that that is a good thing, right? We want people who are going to come into America that that can contribute financially. And you know, at least for me, I, I am somewhat sympathetic, right, to, to, to some of the immigration that's going on. I know it. I always try to make these things personal. I think it makes it easier for me to. To see both. Sides of the story of the the the story here. And gosh if I was the dad living in an anarcho state I would move heaven and hell to get my kids to a better place. Having said that, it has to be done the right way. It has to be done the legal way.

28:04 And on top of that, yet being financially independent or self-sufficient, I think is a huge way that you can contribute to that science society. Right off the bat. I look at some of the people who got off the boat from Ellis Island and I've been there a couple different times, and I'm always impressed that in those days there really wasn't too much of A social safety net. You had you had philanthropies and churches, but by and large, the government was out of it, at least on the federal level. And I think it just stands to reason that that that would be something that we would hope that that people would overcome and crossing this culture gap here. What I want to ask another question here 'cause it's too easy sometimes I think, to just assign a numeric monetary value to what it means to be an asset.

29:00 But in your mind, guys, what do you think it means here when it's just to become an asset to the community? Well, I think that like you said, it's, it's pretty easy to to categorize in, in monetization terms, but there's way more to being an asset than money. You could be an asset, you know, morally, you could be an asset theologically. You could be an asset through your religion or through your adherence to cultural norms and being able to hold those up as a pillar of the community.

29:42 You know, money is really just one aspect of a person's being and and all other aspects can be an asset or not to the community. Absolutely. I love that. Tim, Justin, I saw you come off of of mute for a second. Is there something you wanted to add to that? Yeah, you know, I think to define asset it depends on what you value. Right. Yeah. And that's something that really kind of needs to be considered because the things that, you know, that I value aren't necessarily the things that the world values. And because of that, I'm a lot more open to certain types of immigration into the US that, you know, my, my fellow Republicans might not be as open to.

30:30 Because if you're just looking at it from from a financial perspective, he might be like, well, Gee, these people, what are they, you know, they don't have $1,000,000 in a, in a startup to bring into the US. Why do we want them? Well, there's a lot of the, the, well, as we've been discussing this, one of the greatest struggles we're having right now in this country is the lack of morality and religion, at least good religion. And so I think I could argue that people who are coming in with, if somebody's bringing a religious Christian Judean value system into the US and they intend to continue that with, with their, you know, with their posterity. And then that would be a much bigger net value than, you know, some kind of a atheist Elon Musk who's got trillions of dollars to bring into the US through immigration, but is ultimately just going to kind of contribute to the moral depravity that is already overburdening that the government in the state. Yeah, no, I, I think you're right. Both you and Tim, I think there's so much more that goes into this than just contributing monetarily. It was kind of interesting.

31:59 I was looking at the stats from the last election last year after, after Trump won, I guess. Yeah, about a year ago, just over a year ago. And the thing I was surprised is how many Latino voters voted for Trump. And when, when everybody was trying to break it down, both the left and the right agreed on what had happened there. And that was that Latino voters were voting kind of almost morally right. They'd seen some of the craziness go on with with transgenderism and that sort of thing. And they flip sides because that just wasn't in keeping with a lot of their norms that they are used to coming up with, right. And it's strengthened kind of, for lack of a better term, maybe the more conservative side of things that already existed here in the United States without immigration. And so we can see that in some ways, in a lot of ways, if, if immigration is, is done with a, with a good eye, right? Looking for, for folks who honestly want to contribute that it can be a benefit to us in general. And I, I think that's important to, to keep in mind here as, as we go through and continue to talk about minorities here a little bit.

33:23 Does anyone have anything else they want to add here before I change slides? All right, perfect. So we have seen that that there have been weaponizations of minorities and the longer minorities and immigrants are allowed to sit in the culture gap, the more the likelihood of them being Co opted by America's enemies increases. And I want to provide a few examples of this. Now, this is going to to be about one group of minorities, but this kind of applies across the board. So if we look at this gentleman here, his name's WEB Dubois.

34:06 He was the founder of the N double ACP. Let me just move this out of my way here real quick. Sorry about that. I got and he was, he was the founder of what would become the N double ACP. And following a 1926 trip to the Soviet Union, Dubois expressed strong alignment with Marxism, later stating that communism is the only way of human life. He ended up officially joining the Communist Party in 1961. But his, his, his really just vitriol towards the American system was was pretty evident.

34:48 In fact, when he goes to, I believe it's Nigeria, when he leaves for Nigeria, the FBI just says, yeah, you're not coming back in because he was really starting to call for for certain, you know, acts of violence, that sort of thing. And So what we see here is that we see that he gets Co opted by by communism and essentially under the banner of equal, you know, equality. He's willing to do all sorts of horrible things. Moving on in history we have the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers were were founded here and I want to say it was in Oakland, if I'm not mistaken. And they ended up spreading all over the country and they they made no bones about it that they were Marxists and Leninists. Again, anytime a certain segment of the country sits in in that culture gap, they are ripe for the picking. And then I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Black Lives Matter.

35:53 I'm going to play a clip here and this is from a kind of AI don't know public access show I think is what it comes off of. And this guy here is going to be talking to one of the Co founders of Black Lives Matter. If you guys can't hear this, please sit, tell me and I will get it fixed. He was concerned or is concerned that that there's a lack of perhaps ideological direction in Black Lives Matter that would allow it to be to to to fizzle out. And as he said, in comparison to Occupy Wall Street as you are are advanced in your own organization as you all are headed to Cleveland to participate in this Black Lives Movement conference. How do you respond to that particular critique? Again, a loving critique from an elder of the struggle that some others share that I've even shared as well as to be frank, is a concern about in part because of the cooptation and and the appropriation that that a more clear ideological structuring might be of some value here. But how do you respond to to, to those kinds of, again, loving criticisms?

37:11 I think that the criticism is helpful. I also think that it might. I think I think of a lot of things. The first thing I think is that we actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists. We are super versed on sort of ideological theories. OK, so she tells you right there that that, you know, she was a trained Marxist.

37:55 Now, I'm not telling all you this just so I can paint communists in bad light or black people in bad light or any of those other things. What I am doing here and what I am saying is that the longer somebody stays in that culture gap, right, not not quite in and not quite out, what you're going to get is that these people are going to be easy pickings for those who would want to use them to kind of further their own agendas. And so it becomes important for our own national stability that within the minorities we have in the country, if they're law abiding citizens, if they're contributing, if they're assets to society, that we we make sure we recognize that they cross that that culture gap so that they can have a full integration there.

38:44 Does anybody have anything they want to add here to that? I know that was a lot to digest. OK, he was. And despite all of this, we have plenty of examples of people who have bridged that culture gap, right? You got guys like, you know, Justin brought him up, Elon Musk. You have Schwarzenegger. You have, of all people, one of the lead singers from KISS, Gene Simmons. Now, I'm not a KISS fan, wasn't really my jam, but if you ever want to hear something absolutely moving, go listen to the story that he tells about him and his mother when they then when they move to America from Hungary, his mom was actually in the concentration camps and and they they all come over and they all do something.

39:44 And then of course, we can't leave out John Taylor, right? He is an immigrant from England. And so we we can't see that our culture can be enriched. It can be, it can absolutely benefit from legal immigration. Anybody want to say anything in regards to that? OK. Oh, Justin, I saw you. Coming from you, this is more of a general observation, but I just think I think it's important to really be thinking about and considering this kind of stuff because ultimately Mormonism in and of itself is a minority position here. It's a minority culture, it's a minority theology and you know it.

40:32 It can be easy to look at the, the, the Somalis today and say, hey, man, those people, those people. But the fact of the matter is, is that we are, we are also minorities. And so we need to have some discernment and judgement in these things and and judge the way that we would like to be judged because to a very large degree, even just as Mormons, we are very much a minority culture here in this country. Justin, that's a great point. And and look, we do carry with us, right? This is something that's interesting, right? We do carry with us certain things that we don't want to be influenced by the society on. Nevertheless, we most of us have to engage the larger society and be able to navigate through that. And and so Justin, I think that's another great point. Where where?

41:29 Where am I? Yeah, I think everybody on here is a fundamentalist of one sort or another. And that's kind of doubly so, I think, for us. Good stuff. Anybody else? All right, so I know this seems like a weird thing to just pop up, but this is the Colossus of Rhodes. This was one of the wonders of the world back in ancient times. And so the Colossus of Rhodes kind of stood, stood at a harbor and that he looked in towards the city.

42:17 And it was, it was one of those things to say, hey, you're entering Rhodes. And Rhodes was over, I think by Greece, if I'm not mistaken. Now, why is this important? Well, if we look here, the Statue of Liberty has been called the New Colossus. And it, you know, the thing we all remember about it is give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. And when you just say that part of it, it makes a sound like a hospital or like a sick ward, right. But when I was back East visiting the first time around, when I lived back there, I read the full poem on the, on the, the Statue of Liberty, which is called the New Colossus.

43:06 And I, I want to read that here for you because I think it's going to paint a different picture of, of immigration here in the States. And you're going to notice that down here, I have this, this section highlight kind of bolded. That's because there was 2 versions of this. And the one that's officially on the statue just doesn't say. Rather it just says send. But I wanted to be fully transparent here. So let me read this for you. Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame with conquering limbs astride from land to land, Here at our sea wash sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch whose flame is imprisoned lightning and her name, the mother of exiles from her beacon hand glows worldwide.

43:56 Welcome her mild eyes command the air bridge harbor that Twin Cities frame. Keep your ancient lands, your storied pomp, Cries she with silent lips. Rather send to me these. You're tired, you're poor. You're huddled masses yearning to breathe free The wretched refuse from your teeming shore. Send these the homeless, The Tempest. Toss to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door. It's a little bit different. Have you? Has everyone here read that full poem before? Yeah, I have many times. Yeah.

44:38 No, it's it's a good one. So Tim, in your in your opinion, what's this really saying here? Well, I think it's really an invitation to the disenfranchised. And I think that it really speaks to where our forefathers frame of mind was because this is who they were when they left the old world. Absolutely Anybody else? So here's my take on Oh, Justin, go ahead. I saw you come off mute. Go ahead bro. Yeah, I was just going to say to me, it's those. The original idea, I believe, is those seeking escape from Babylon. Yep, Yep, it in a weird way when when the author was asked about this, she said she intended to mock the old system. Right, that as she saw the Statue of Liberty that that she just imagined the this woman in this harbor, which by the way, faces the opposite direction that the Colossus of Rhodes did. The Statue of Liberty kind of faces, it's a little bit of on an angle, but it for the most part, it faces out towards the ocean in that harbor.

45:55 And basically she was saying, you know, all the people that you reject, send them here because they can make it here if they have, you know, the, the right attitude and, and whatnot. And that this is the, the place here. And so I, I wanted to put all this together to kind of of give two things here. 1 is, is that we, we need to be cognizant that as we engage in immigration that that we are being that that place that we were set up to be and that I truly believe God meant us to be. At the same time, if America is going to be a melting pot, the ingredients have to melt.

46:36 They have to be able to, to work together. And so we need to make sure that, that in with immigration, that they're crossing that, that culture gap so that they can become fully American rather than African American or Mexican American or whatever it is. And that's not to say that you need that, that we need them to completely get rid of all their culture. I mean, look, as a guy who really likes food, I'm super glad the Hispanics held on to their recipes because I, I am firmly in favor. And I, I, you know, I say that in jest and joking a little bit, but in truth, I think we can see that America's different because we've been enriched by, by a, a bunch of different flavors, if you will. And the, the trick is, is to get everything to mesh. Justin, I saw you come off mute again. Yeah.

47:28 So, you know, the Statue of Liberty, it was dedicated in 1886. And it's important to understand that this happened before World War One. Before World War 2. America was not a superpower at this time. It was just some small backwater country that nobody thought anything of. And so when it's saying break, you know, send rather these you're you're, you're tired, you're poor, you're huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It's not because because we're wealthy and we'll take care of them for you. That was not the message. That is the message today.

48:09 That's how it's being interpreted is well, we, we're the superpower. We've got all the welfare. We'll take care of everybody. There was no expectation that they wouldn't be responsible for themselves. Right. So what was being called for was those who had that yearning to breathe free, those who have been persecuted, those who are oppressed, those who want to live in under the rule of law with equal rights to have opportunity to prosper, to succeed or to fail. That's what the Statue of Liberty is calling forth, not, not some kind of weird government nanny state that you know it's interpreted to mean today.

49:00 Absolutely couldn't couldn't have said it any better myself. It it she, you know, if if you read the poem, she does stand in defiance of the old system as as you're pointing out, Justin. And also that I can't help but think from time to time that if we could, if people could get the full message of of this this whole thing here, I often wonder if it wouldn't help to restart the engine in America here a little bit. All right, anybody else before we move on from the slide. OK, so we're going to switch gears here a little bit and we're going to go to to equal rights, not equal things.

49:44 And it's principle 7. And I saw this meme a while back and I just had to save it. And it's Christ here teaching at the Sermon on the Mount. And it says help your neighbor and take care of the poor and the hungry. And this guy down here says, you mean give money to the Romans and let them do it, right? And the Savior says, OK, I'm going to start over. Let me know where I lost you sometimes. Well, let me let me ask you this way. How do you guys feel when you either give to charity or you tie the church? What's the overall feeling you get from that? Robbed. What's that, Justin?

50:28 Robbed. Robbed when you when you like donate to church and stuff. You're tithing well, certainly in the LDS church. I kind of did. OK, all right, fair enough. How about today when you give a when you give a a charitable gift or something like that. I don't know about anyone else, but I like giving to charities or tithing it where I go to church at now I totally different. It's a good thing. Yeah, it's totally different because now I, I tied into, you know, for one thing in in the Mormon legacy ministries, right? I'm tied in two things where I know exactly what it's going for and how important that is like, you know, to host zoom meetings and stuff like that. So I understand exactly what that's going to. And then often, you know, with give, send, go or, you know, those kinds of projects.

51:23 I know exactly what I'm, what I'm contributing to, and it's not about the recognition. It's about it's about the understanding. When it, when I was in the LDS church and I tithe, it felt like I was robbed. It felt like taxes, to be honest. This is going to go into some gigantic fund. It's going to be managed by people who don't understand or recognize the sacrifice that this was. And it's likely going to go to fun things that are completely against my own interests and desires. And, you know, that feels like being robbed. But what? What? But when you see somebody on the street who needs help and you decide to give, you know, look in your wall when you got 5 bucks, 10 bucks, when when you see somebody in a really rough situation and there's a fundraising campaign for that and you contribute to that, those things actually matter.

52:19 And you know that it matters. It does. It's not about the recognition. Even when I do that, I usually donate anonymously, right? If it's an option. It's about knowing that your sacrifice actually matters and actually is making a difference. 100% yeah, I when when I give to charity or I tithe at my church, I feel pretty good about where where that money's going. When I, when April 15th rolls around, I don't feel so charitable. And I just, you know, again, saw this meme and thought it was kind of appropriate for what we were going to talk about here.

53:01 So what is the danger in redistributing wealth? And I want to read you the the Pilgrims first attempt or their their first. Yeah, their first attempt there. I mean, they didn't go anywhere, but they, they did have to change some things up. The Pilgrims attempt at socialism, socialism in the Plymouth Colony face significant challenges. They envisioned A communal society where everyone worked together and shared resources, drawing inspiration from Plato's ideal. However, this system led to economic disaster as the less industrious members relied on others for labor, resulting in a lack of productivity and food supply.

53:42 Governor William Bradford ultimately realized that private property was necessary to encourage work and efficiency, which led to a successful harvest and the eventual establishment of a more productive society. So as they're coming over, the thought was is OK, we we have this, this account out of the Bible, right? New Testament, I believe it's an axe. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. If that's not where it's at, where it talks about kind of this. If if you just read it cold without anything from Joseph Smith, it, it doesn't give a lot of background or information. So you're like, gosh, is this an attempt at communal living? And it, And so they read that and they thought, OK, this must be the way to do it.

54:28 But they show up and what ends up happening? Well, look what for anybody, what happens if you're not fairly compensated for your labor, right? What happens if, you know, Justin puts in 80 hours at the office and I only put in 30, but we both make the same amount of money. What's what's the outcome there usually? Probably some some angst, some some malcontentness. Yeah, there's malcontentness.

55:14 What else? What else can happen? Anybody, well, those who are really productive, they just stopped working, right? They're like, you know, what if we're getting paid the same thing and Dave's over there and he's putting in 30 hours and then the rest of his time he's just, you know, playing Candy Crush. Justin's going to be like, man, nevermind, screw it, I don't want to put in 80 hours anymore just so I can support Dave. And So what we see is, is that this is not a great formula for allowing a country to not just become wealthy, but just to become sufficient because we see it happen time and again with with socialized countries. Whether that is in Russia, whether that is in China, it doesn't matter.

56:08 At some point human nature kicks in and it says, well, if I'm getting the pay is paid the same amount and I'm doing twice the work, I'm just going to stop and it's a recipe for economic ruin. I would say that the the principle there is when personal responsibility is abstracted, it is lost. Absolutely good stuff. Anybody else have anything to say on this one before we move on? All right, so there's something to keep in mind here, and that's this modern application of this. And if there's one thing that the nefarious side of politics likes to do, it's to change definitions. We saw this with with Hillary Clinton back when she was running against Barack Obama in the primaries back in, I want to say that was 2008.

57:14 She had she was in a debate and someone asked her if she considered herself a liberal. And she said, well, I actually consider myself a progressive, which has rich historical significance around the turn of the century for America. And so I went back and just, you know, said, OK, well, what's a progressive? Because I wasn't familiar with the term and I looked it up and it was, you know, all sorts of bad stuff, everything from like eugenics led by Margaret Sanger to, you know, redistribution of wealth. I mean, just go down the list. It's every, every bad talking point we've ever heard and every bad idea ever tried.

57:55 And so today we see these two words being tossed around. And they're kind from folks who are nefarious. We see that they kind of use them interchangeably until they catch you and then they will tell you what you signed up for. So the first word is equality, right? Equality is providing everyone with the same resources, support and or opportunities across the board. True equality means that there would be no difference in treatment despite, you know, your, your gender, race, economic background, whatever. So basically, you know, if someone can come in and do the job and they're just better at the job, they get ahead under kind of equality.

58:39 Then there's equity and equity means something different. Equity means resources are distributed based on need. So some people will get more than others. And that's, this is actually from a, a left-leaning kind of think tank here and how they, they, they recognize that. And so equality means that essentially everyone's got the same shot, right? Everybody, whether you're born in a horrible position, whether you're born in an advantageous position, it's all about what you're going to do with your opportunity and not having a cap on that opportunity only what you were born with. Equity means you're going to get the same as everybody else and they're going to make it, make it be that way. And so to in today's day and age, I would say be very careful as you read through things because they will swap the word equality out for equity and they will also you were we use words like shareholders and that sort of thing to, to describe this. One of the ways I had first read about this and, and noticed this was actually where they were discussing an article about a country.

59:56 I want to say it was down in South America somewhere who had nationalized a bunch of businesses and to do it they they kept swapping out equality for equity and people just bought into it. All right. Some of the other dangers in redistribute in in redistributing wealth. This is from Sam Adams. The utopian schemes of leveling and a community and a community of goods are, as is, visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and in our government unconstitutional.

1:00:43 How is redistributing wealth despotic? What's the problem with that? I mean, if I, if I see, you know, if I see that Taylor has, you know, all these things, right? Taylor's worked hard. He's got big house, he's got four cars, you know, a swimming pool in his backyard. Why shouldn't, why shouldn't Taylor be paid, made to pay a little bit more or to have his wealth redistributed? What? What's the danger in that? Anybody.

1:01:33 I guess I can go again. Yeah. So I think the, the, the issue here is, is whose wealth is it? It's an issue of ownership because if there's redistribution of wealth, there is no ownership. There's no ownership for anybody ultimately under that kind of a system. And if the government has permission or authority to redistribute wealth, then nobody owns anything. And if nobody owns anything, you have now lost responsibility and and that just ultimately does not work. 100% the, The thing is here is that I don't want to say this works because it doesn't work.

1:02:24 But this can only go on so long, right? And we saw examples of this when, during the Bolshevik Revolution, when, when the communists were taking over. Because what would end up happening is, is that at first all the poor people were really excited about this prospect, right? You're, they're going to come in, they're going to break up all these, all these folks who own the, the, the land and they're going to get a piece of their own land now and they're going to be able to go to work. And that's great until they got successful and their stuff was seized to redistribute again. This becomes the issue if if you allow this for yourself, all you've done is enable them to do it to you as well, Justin. Yeah, you know, I'd like to share a personal story here, so. You know, I, I.

1:03:16 Work in IT and. In the early days of the Internet. I did a lot of websites that was kind. Of my bread and butter. And there were. Often times when I would do websites for people kind of pro bono because they were friends and I thought what they were doing was good and, and maybe they didn't have the funds. And the, the challenge with that is though, is even when I was single, right? I'm just a lone guy. I don't have a huge, you know, I don't need a whole lot of money to survive, but nonetheless, when I'm doing something pro bono.

1:04:02 Is a lot. Harder to put time into that it, it just really is, it's a, it's a human nature thing. It's not like I thought like, well, I, I, I don't care about that. No, these are things I actually did care about, right? These were, these are things I wanted to do for people. But there is just a inborn innate thing where, you know, I don't get my paycheck if I don't show up for my, my 8:00 meeting. So I'm going to show up for my 8:00 meeting. It's just going to happen. Things are going to get done when it's hey, I'm going to help you out with this. I'm going to, I'm going to try to help you take care of you with this. You know, it, things don't get done the same way.

1:04:44 The work doesn't happen. And I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm an outlier here, but I even with the best intentions, it just doesn't work in my own personal experience. There has to be compensation, because without that compensation there's no responsibility and ownership. 100% You know, so often I think people kind of look at the founders and what they did and just figured, you know, they just kind of reached up in the sky and, and saw some, you know, asked about some stuff they liked and pulled it off and, and put it in there. And that's not true.

1:05:27 I mean, they, they were very careful about what they did. And part of that was trying to understand human nature and understanding that humans are pretty much the same as we've always been. We're concerned first and foremost about ourselves and our family, about putting food on the table. And if if you limit the opportunity that man has to get ahead, you're going to run into problems. And we'll talk about a few more of those right now. One of the one of the things that will happen is that at some point when you don't feel like you can get ahead and that it doesn't matter how much you innovate or any of those other things, you just kind of stop.

1:06:16 It's, it's just like Justin was saying, if there's no benefit to it, we're, we're going to stop. And I think that's ingrained in us as kind of a survival mechanism. I think it's divinely placed there. Everything is a risk to reward, excuse me, risk to reward ratio. And we're, we're constantly doing that analysis, probably even subconsciously for, for to, to a large extent. And this always brings up the question of how it is, are we going to to care for the poor? And, and we're going to talk a little bit about this now, because Jesus told us that the poor is always going to be among us.

1:06:57 That's just, I think that's a part of the human condition. And as I've looked at most people, I think most people experience poverty at least once in their lives. And and so I think we all have a certain amount of sympathy there, Taylor. Yeah, There's a quote that comes from James Donald. I believe he was a British actor. I don't, I'm not familiar with his work, but I really liked this quote. And he says selfishness may not be a virtue, but if selfishness is forbidden, you are not free. In order to be free to do what you want to do, you need space to do it in and things to do it with. Property is simply those things that one is free to use or misuse as one pleases, wisely or unwisely, without asking permission.

1:07:53 Thus, freedom and property rights are inseparable. 100% and what we're going to go over that a little later too, because that is 100% a true principle and I don't. Yeah, we'll get there, because there's some interesting stuff that goes along with that. Franklin had something interesting to say about how to care for the poor, he said. I have long been of of your opinion that your legal provision for the poor in England is a very great evil, operating as it does to the encouragement of idleness. We have followed your example and begin now to see our error.

1:08:33 I hope we shall reform it. So that's from Benjamin Franklin. He's already nervous about how the government's going to attempt to take care of the poor. And so some of the don'ts that the book outlines, I think are are very are are worth some discussion here. So compassion that enables an addict to stay an addiction is counterproductive. We've all seen codependent relationships, right, where one person has has an issue and the other person kind of feeds that to keep them happy. And oftentimes it's done from a position of, gosh, I just want to make this person's life better. I love this person.

1:09:20 I want this person to to feel better. And they will enable them in all sorts of ways from from, you know, continuing to give them money, knowing good, good and well where it's going to go, go to all these other things. And so it becomes counterproductive because the person stays in his position and never gets the opportunity to to work out of it. Compassion, which breeds debilitating dependency is counterproductive. I want to share a story now that kind of a personal experience I had when I was when I moved out to Baltimore and because I was the new guy, I got all the really crap jobs, right?

1:10:10 The jobs that the other guys just didn't want. And so I rolled into the office 1 morning and they said, OK, we're going to we're going to send you down to inner city Baltimore. And so I had to go down there and I had to to do some work. And they said you're going to meet a guy down there who lives down there. We've used him before and he's going to escort you. So they didn't say it this way, but I picked up the vibe. So basically I could leave at the end of the night without being hurt. And this allowed me to really have a good chance to talk to this guy. And as we were talking as we were as I was working, he was just literally like an escort. And I asked him, I was like, do you live down here? And he said I do.

1:10:52 And I said, man, do you like it down here? And he says I hate it down here. And I said, well, why don't you just move? And he said, let me tell you, he said, I am in a weird position where I don't, I make enough money not to starve, but I don't make enough money to get out. And he said, I said, well, who do you work for? And he said, well, I get, I get some government assistance now. I, I don't want, if, if anybody's on government assistance and they really need it, right? I, I'm not saying that we need to get, get rid of, of a social safety net. I like having a social safety net. I, I want to know that people are being taken care of when they fall on hard times.

1:11:38 I just don't want to see that, that safety net become a cookie jar. And what we see is that a person here was, was absolutely kind of Co opted. I shouldn't say Co opted, but but he kind of took the government money and now he's beholden to them because he doesn't make enough to get out and he he doesn't, you know, it's just enough to live on where he's at just now. I see your hand is up. Yeah, you know, this one is a bit of a passion point for me. So my great grandmother escaped the Indian reservations and it literally.

1:12:19 Took. Her whole life and everything that she had to do that because that is the definition of debilitating dependency. In exchange for the Indians land, they were given a permanent welfare status. And it is, it is completely designed to cause societal collapse and to prevent escape. And I've known, I've, I've known people that have struggled to try to escape from the reservations from that welfare state. There, the most of the benefits of being a Native American are only received when you're on the reservation, living in this essentially welfare communist utopia subsidized by the federal government. And because of that, people over time, over generations, they don't, they don't have ways of surviving and living outside of that dependency.

1:13:22 And this is a, a generational issue on, on these reservations a lot of times. And so, you know, this one is, is very poignant to me because my own great grandmother had to sacrifice and struggle greatly to escape. And that was absolutely her intention because she knew that life was not good there and she wanted better things for for her future, for her posterity and for her family. And she did whatever it took to get off of that reservation. And it wasn't easy for her because she didn't have the skills, the education, the the cultural knowledge. And she stumbled through all that.

1:14:05 And yet nonetheless, I was born off the reservation with no knowledge or connection to that, to that welfare system, with no fall back to it. And, you know, just like anybody else, just like everybody else. And that came about a a great sacrifice from some of my family members. And so to me, this idea of compassion which breeds debilitating dependency, that is not compassion. That is not compassion at all. And no. It has taken generations of of sacrifice and struggle to escape from that evil in my own family. Absolutely.

1:14:48 So let let me ask this question because those last two, they kind of go along with the third one a little bit, right. It talks about, you know, compassion that would blunt for the desire or necessity of work or that smothers the instinct to strive and excel. They kind of go hand in hand with that second one there. So let me ask you a question. How would you counsel somebody right that would come to you and say, gosh, I'm I feel like I'm stuck in this system. How do I get out? How would you instruct that person? How would you help that person get out of that situation? What advice would you have for?

1:15:42 It's a tough question, isn't it? And I think the reason it's a tough question is because it's going to require us to do something. If somebody was in that situation, we truly cared about that person, right? Maybe we got to spend some time with them. Maybe we got to teach them basic life skills, right? How to present yourself for a job interview, how to type up a resume, how to balance a checkbook, all those things someone's going to have to teach people. And again, I kind of go back to our rights versus our responsibility thing, right? If we want people to exercise their rights in a responsible way, then we have to exercise our responsibilities and taking the first step in helping people. And that's an can be an uncomfortable thing, especially for people who aren't like us, right? People who maybe are, you know, look, talking to most people here, look, none of us have 1,000,000 bucks. I don't think I could be wrong.

1:16:51 But for the most part, we all have jobs. We all have to get up and go to work in the morning, right? We have a ton of other things going on. And if we're used to being productive, sometimes it's uncomfortable from time to time to try to, to, to, you know, be around people who maybe don't have the same work ethic we do. But nonetheless, it's going to be necessary. And, and this, this knows no race or anything else. This is just humans in general. We can, we can see plenty of white people in this situation just like we can blacks or Hispanics or anything else. So I, I do think that if, if we want to help people, it's going to really require us going above and beyond what we're used to and being able to counsel with people and help them along. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to add here? Yeah.

1:17:50 The news for caring for the poor to relieve the misfortunes, and this comes from Ben Franklin to receive to relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures, and concurring with is concurring with the Deity. It is God like. But if we provide encouragement for laziness and supports for folly, may we not be found fighting against the order of God and nature, which perhaps is appointed wanton misery as the proper punishments for and cautions against as well as necessary consequences of idleness and extravagance. Whenever we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence and to interfere with the government of the world, we had need be very circumspect lest we do more harm than good.

1:18:41 This goes along with something else that Franklin said, which was you don't want to make the poor too comfortable in their poverty. And I know that may sound harsh, but I don't think it is because we we have to be able to incentivize people to not stay in that position to where they are needing assistance all the time. Justin, go ahead. Yeah. You know, I would, you know, in that settlement, I would like to just say thank. God for rock bottom. Honestly, absolutely, completely. I, I have, I have been there in my life in various aspects, maybe not economically, but in various degrees. I've, I have been there and there is nothing as transformational and therapeutic as as losing it all and being able to look at yourself and say I've got nothing and starting fresh. There's been times in my life where an escape that I had desperately wanted in that moment would have been catastrophic to me becoming the kind of person that I want to be and, and having the, the family that I've got right now. So honestly, it, it needs to be it, it's, it's, it needs to be in God's hands, right?

1:20:00 It needs to be in God's hands. But to a certain degree, thank God for rock bottom. Absolutely, absolutely. So often times it's, it's at that point of, of rock bottom that we will look up and, and be like, OK, well, I either get to sit here and die or I get to, to move forward and, and move, pick myself back up. And some of these are going to absolutely highlight that it says do not help the needy completely, merely help them to help themselves. Give the poor the satisfaction of earned achievement instead of rewarding them without achievement.

1:20:41 OK, I want to talk about those two for a second and and relate a story kind of on the opposite spectrum of the one I shared earlier. I when I was in the LDS church, I lived in a little town called Shoshone, Idaho. It's on the way up towards like Sun Valley and Ketchum. And I was up there and while I was up there, I got called as a ward financial clerk. And one night I got a call from the Bishop saying, I need you to come in to the church house right now, please, if you can. And so I, you know, got my shoes on and I went in and he needed me to print out a few checks for this family. And I knew that I knew the gentleman that was in there. And after I'd printed the check, I went in and I talked to the Bishop and I, I just said, OK, I'm, you know, it's done. I'm, I've made sure everything's put away. The checkbook is up.

1:21:49 I'm going to head out. And he was just kind of, I could tell he was, he was still thinking about some things. So I just kind of asked him. I said, is you know, you OK? You doing all right? And he said, yeah, he's like, we got to really help that family. And I said, OK, well, we, we kind of did right. And he said, no, no, we didn't help him yet. And I was like, well, we, we just, you know, paid their power bill and their rent payment and their, their, their Internet bill And, and we helped him. And he said, no, we didn't help him. He said we alleviated some suffering at the moment. And he's like, we're not going to help them until they're self-sufficient. And over the course of about 3 or 4 months, I saw a change in this man that that I hadn't seen before. The gentleman who'd received the help, he was pretty beat up. This was, this was during the downturn in the housing market about it was the very beginning of it. It was late 2007 and he was a builder and he was just out of work, right?

1:22:54 No one was building homes, no one was building commercial. Everything had stopped. And I remember there were times even before the, the, the assistance was offered, he just looked dejected. And I do remember when I handed him the checks for his various utilities home, that sort of thing. Boy, he was uncomfortable taking that. And he, you know, his head was low. He was not happy. After about four or five. Months of the Bishop working with him, setting him up with with, you know, opportunities to go and to learn a new skill and getting him going.

1:23:39 He was good. You could see light return to this man's eyes and he could he could kind of look at, I remember he said something, he had taken me off to the side and he had just said, look, I rethink the Bishop. I need to thank you for your discretion and not talking about this. I was like, well, absolutely. That's part of the calling. And he just said something with tears in his eyes. I'll never forget. He said I can look at my wife and kids again and feel like I'm the provider I'm supposed to be. And so not only had we helped this guy and just getting him through the horrible situation that he was in, but by teaching him earned achievement again, right? Rather than just take the hand out, we empowered him to be able to live on his own and to stand on his own. And not only did it fix him financially, it fixed him emotionally as well.

1:24:45 And I think that as as we help people, we have to ask the question, are we helping them? Or are we simply alleviating a crisis at the moment or alleviating some pain at the moment? And I want to say this, alleviating the pain that has to be done, right, that cannot not happen. But we also, I think if we want to have the best impact we can be and not just enable somebody, we've got to teach them to step up to, to kind of the next rung there on the ladder. Does anyone have any, anything they would like to share on that?

1:25:26 OK, well, let's let's just go down this list here real quick. Allow LaPorte who to climb the appreciation ladder, tent to cabin, cabin to cottage, cottage to a comfortable house. That just means that that, you know, you set, you hope that government has set things up in such a way that upward mobility is possible. And look, despite all of our problems, I want to say I do believe that America, you still have the opportunity to, to, to be upward mobile. Certainly I was proof of that. I think. I think we see it still where emergency help is provided.

1:26:09 Do not prolong it to the point it becomes habitual. Look, free money can be just as addictive as heroin. And if people get hooked on it, it's awfully hard to get them off. Strictly enforce the scale of fixed responsibility. Sorry for the typo there. And this one I felt was important and because there there is kind of a hierarchy, I guess you would hope people would go through before they they go to any place else. So the first is the individual themselves, right? Do they have savings, those sorts of things? Then if that can't help the family, then on to the church or another philanthropy, then the community, then the county and then finally if it's a disaster scenario, the state like the state of Missouri. Now this came out of the book and I want to I want want to get why you guys think this is the federal government should never be involved in public welfare.

1:27:13 Why do you suppose that is Vanessa? Part of the problem with welfare being in a government entity is that the government itself doesn't have its own money and its own assets to give. They have to take from others to give. And so if they're involved in public welfare, they really aren't in a position. It's not their decision, it's in order to fund it, you have to take it from the people. And one, that takes away from the people being able to fill that role.

1:27:53 And two, it's just it's tends towards government overreach. 100% Does anyone else have anything I'd like to add? That was an excellent point, by the way. Vanessa. Yeah, I, I don't disagree at all with what Vanessa said. How she described the government, though, I think is also true of state and even local, even county governments. I don't know of any. Well, I'm not aware of any government that generates its own income. All, all governments are run by taking from the people. And that doesn't mean governments are a bad thing, but it doesn't mean that they're funded by the people. I think the reason why federal government should never be involved in public welfare is because their hammer is large. They don't solve things at our level very well. Oh, that's a good point too.

1:28:46 Justin, I saw you kind of came off mute there. Do you have something you wanted to add? Yeah. You know, one other interesting thing here is when the federal government gets involved in public welfare, it generally involves printing dollars. And the reality of the situation is, is printing dollars hurts the poor more than anybody else. When? You're just barely surviving, living paycheck to paycheck, and the government starts printing dollars that raises the costs of everything. And you're probably not going to be in a position to ask. For a raise if you're poor. You know, when you're in the middle class, upper class, you can, you can mitigate these kinds of things. What, when you're poor, you can't.

1:29:28 And so when the federal government gets involved in public welfare, it's stealing from the poor to give to the poor as much as anything else. And that just creates more poverty and and more of a of a a dependent class. Absolutely. And you know, all those answers are are spot on. I couldn't couldn't say it better myself. I think there's another reason here that that we should look at this. And then I got a bit of a story here before we move on. And part of that is, is that the way the system was originally designed, federal money was never meant to go out.

1:30:11 The states were meant to contribute to Washington, DC. Now, that may seem backwards to us today, but the thought process on that was if the federal government ever got out of control, if they ever tried doing something they weren't supposed to, the states could just cut funding and then Washington couldn't run any longer. But now it's the other way around. Now we get a tremendous amount of money from the federal government to the states. It's completely flipped upside down. And so the power dynamic has shifted. That's why Gavin Newsom could get on a few months back and say, well, we're a donor state, doesn't matter to us. Meaning they ship more money out than they take in, which wasn't true once you broke down the numbers. But he was trying to, to stand on that, on that pedestal there and, and draw that line.

1:31:06 If we were operating the way we should be, the federal government would have no money to give. It would be just to operate the bare essentials, right? Provide for the for, for a stand for the, for the Army, a small federal government and that's it. I saw this go off the rails personally when we moved from Maryland back to Boise. We moved back to adopt my twins. My sister had given birth to a set of twins and she had used methamphetamine while they were in utero. And so they were in horrible shape and we got the call, talked it over with Amber and there was no question we were moving back to adopt them. So I went out a month ahead.

1:31:59 We move out, we, we jump through all the hoops, everything else, we, we end up starting the adoption process and we get all the way through about two years. And finally we're, we're, we're ready to go to permanent placement. Up until this point, we were just foster parents. And when we move, when we move back to Boise, everybody was on the same page, right? Oh, you know, yeah. It's, it's you guys need to adopt these kids. And, you know, we we called you because you were you were family. And their medical problems were so overwhelming that we didn't, we were going to have to split them up if you guys don't take them. So they've been in our home for about a year and a half, two years. And while you're a foster parent, you're kind of hemmed in, right?

1:32:46 You really can't go out of town unless you a clear it and then you really can't go out of the state at all, or at least you couldn't in Idaho. And you'd have to drop the kids off with a family to watch. Well, I don't know this other family and I'm not going to just drop these kids off who I'm who who I consider my own. Now. That's not going to happen. I don't know these people. So we couldn't leave the state. We were kind of stuck. So we were getting a bit stir crazy, right? We wanted to get this adoption done, then we wanted to take a nice family vacation. And I remember I begged to get moved to to permanent placement. And that was a different department within Idaho's health and welfare system for child services. And that's the adoption phase.

1:33:36 And they just kept dragging their feet. And so finally I just said, well, I'm going to call them today and something's going to happen. I was at my wit's end and so I'm at work and I'm on the phone and I said OK, you need to move my file. And she said well I'm really busy right now. I can't. And I said I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I've had that answer for about 6 weeks now and I'm pissed and I'm over it. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to pay my secretary to drive down to move the file. And the lady said, well, you can't do that. And I said, why not? And she said, well, there's privacy issues.

1:34:16 I'm like, great, have the file ready for me. And when I come down there, I will walk it down. And as long as that file, you have that file, I'll just pick it up and, and walk it down the hall. And she said, hold on one second, let me get get you the these kids as case manager. And at this point I was starting to get kind of nervous and this lady got on the phone and she said, hey, you know, we've been we've been talking things over and you know, you guys have done a great job at nursing these twins back to health. You guys have done, done fantastic. But you already have 4 kids.

1:34:57 And we feel wonder if maybe these twins wouldn't be better served to go to a family now that they're healthy, that doesn't have kids. And in that moment, I lost my mind. And I said some things that I won't repeat here because they were questionable to say the least. And I immediately went and found the nastiest, most attention seeking family practice attorney I could find. Now, I found a guy down there named Bill Knapp and he was excellent and he had had started to work on the case and it costed me a lot of money.

1:35:44 And he said, I think we got something. Why don't you come in here because we're going to go on a conference call. So I went in there and I sat down and he made the phone call and he said, look, I've I've done my homework and I've done my research and I know exactly what's happening here. The more kids you have on the roll, the more the federal government pays you guys. So it doesn't behoove you to move kids to a permanent home where they will have a forever family. It behooves you to keep them in the system. And he said in a state that's as far right as Idaho. I am really looking forward to prosecuting this and and really making a stink and talking to the to the news or anyone else who would listen about this. Three hours later, they had moved our case to a private adoption agency, paying for the whole thing. And they said, and we had it all wrapped up within about three weeks after that.

1:36:41 Now, whenever the federal government starts to give money to the states, you can bet your bottom dollar that graft and corruption are right around the corner. And I think the founders were smart enough in understanding this that they said Washington should not be giving money to the states. The states should give just enough money to Washington to keep it functioning. The whole reason Washington, George Washington elected to build Washington, DC, where it was at is because it's on a swamp. It's called Foggy Bottom Swamp. And in the summertime, before air conditioning was invented, that place was miserable to live in.

1:37:23 And that was by design so that we wouldn't have lifelong politicians and this ability to get rich by serving in Congress, by allowing Congress to send money to the states, which then get just like a person can get hooked on on on free money, states can get hooked on free money as well. And because that system is upside down now, graft and corruption run rampant through through government. Does anyone else have any other anything else they would like to add to this slide here? All right, let's go ahead and let's move on. All right, looks like we're out of time. We're about to start a new section. You guys want to wrap it up for the night or do you guys want to to keep going?

1:38:19 Anybody. I'm good to wrap it up. If we can continue where we're leaving off here, that'd be great. Yeah. No, we're good to wrap up here. So basically at at the end of all of what we went on here then and and wrapping up right here and then we'll move on to Principal 8 next week. Is that we we need to be careful on on how we're allowing immigration to happen and what we can expect if we don't follow through well with that and get get folks fully integrated into the society. The more they hang out, the more time there is for things to go wrong.

1:38:59 And likewise, to go along with that, how we deal with the poor and how we deal with charity is actually pretty important because it's going to affect us all and it's going to affect the the viability in the health of our nation at large. And I just let you guys simmer with that for a little while and we'll plan on seeing you next week. So let's see. Tim, can you give us a closing prayer? Yeah, you bet. Father in Heaven, we bow our heads before you at this time. Humble gratitude at the opportunity at being able to meet here. And we thank you for the spirit that has attended this. We ask we may go our separate ways now and keep your spirit with us and and that we might be able to commit some of this to memory and embed the ideals within our hearts and within our lives.

1:39:55 We ask for your guidance in doing so that all that we do I might be according to your will. We thank you for the proctors of this training and we thank you for all that you do for us. And we say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen. Thanks everybody.