December 13, 2023; Is the World Safer than Ever? Does the FBI deserve our respect? Anti-Semitism on College Campuses, Policy vs Doctrine part II

Hey, hey listener, welcome back to another episode of the Latter Day Lens. It's good to have you with us. So we have some, we've got a lot of stuff in the mail bag that we need to talk about. So let's start with this first listener. This first listener really liked Sean's topic last week. He says, what a great discussion of media and propaganda. I have just one thought to add.

Sam (00:29.174)
Perfect.

Matt (00:54.097)
When looking to hear both sides of an issue, pay attention to who is determining what the two sides are. When it comes to propaganda, dictating the questions is far more powerful than dictating the answers. The political center is arbitrary, so how do you decide which two sides to listen to? Do you let the two political parties decide for you? So that's a good question, right?

shawn (01:15.441)
What an amazing question or thought. That's fascinating. Yeah, I mean, it definitely is. No way, there's no way to avoid being, there's no way to avoid letting the powers that be dictate those questions nowadays, right? But I love the idea. Oh, how, Matt.

Matt (01:32.361)
Sure there is. Sure there is.

Sam (01:33.334)
Yeah, there is absolutely. Oh, there is absolutely.

Matt (01:36.986)
Yeah, right.

shawn (01:38.42)
Look at everything we talk about on this podcast. Most of it is what the left says and what the right says and what the Democrats say and what the Republicans say. You don't think so, huh?

Matt (01:43.461)
I don't think so.

Sam (01:46.335)
Oh, no. In fact, one of my favorite movies is Clear and Present Danger when Harrison Ford, I think says, don't accept the premise of the question. Do you remember that? And in fact, there's a great book in LDS Culture called The Lord's Question, right? Where he asks the big question, which is, whither thou goest? Where are you going and what are you doing? In sales, we understand the value of a good question. Politicians do it to control their subjects and their topics. Salespeople do it to sell.

shawn (01:57.373)
No.

Sam (02:15.014)
Educators do it to focus thought. We absolutely control the questions or can.

shawn (02:21.88)
But then you're making my point. Oh, you're saying we, yeah, the people in the power do. The people in the power do. They, no, oh.

Matt (02:25.297)
We decide. Mm. No. Which is.

Sam (02:27.018)
Yeah. No people in power, people not in power.

shawn (02:32.331)
Oh

Matt (02:32.977)
Which is why Sean, when you say to me, hey, but what's the other side say? I say, I don't have to say what the other side says. There's my side, there's my perspective, and that's what matters. And then everybody has their own perspective, but this idea that we have to like equally represent two sides of an issue, first of all, there's always more than two sides of an issue. And second of all, who decides what those two sides are? We decide what those two sides are by the things that we think and the things that we share. So we have this platform.

We use this platform to express our views about the issues, but I don't feel any obligation to discuss other perspectives that I don't share.

shawn (03:08.652)
You are that way, Matt, that's true, that's true. Yeah, and Sam, you are.

Matt (03:11.245)
Yeah, you are that way too, Sean. Sean, you're the most like skeptical, anti-institution person I know. You don't like sit there and say, hey, what do the Republicans say about this? Let me repeat their talking points. Right.

Sam (03:17.102)
Ha ha.

shawn (03:22.516)
Oh, that's true. That's true. But I don't think I've done what the listener says, which is really like, well, wait a minute, even before considering any question, let's go back and say, what's the motive of the powers that be presenting that question? And maybe, like you said, maybe it's like, don't even consider it. Yeah.

Matt (03:39.769)
Right. You, I think you do that, Sean, you just do it kind of like maybe unconsciously or not intentionally, but you're not the type of person that just like, like somebody says something and you just take it at face value, what they say and say, Oh yeah, that's what, that's the right way to think about that.

shawn (03:55.556)
Well, I'm gonna remember that when I ask my question coming up here because I have a feeling you're gonna think I'm kind of biased in that question.

Matt (03:59.41)
Yeah.

Well, of course you're biased. So that's the question isn't, how do we avoid bias, right? The question is how do we avoid succumbing to propaganda? And, and last week we talked about you avoid succumbing to propaganda by seeking out multiple perspectives. You seek out perspectives for people you trust, people whose opinions you value, people who you think will give you like the truth as they see it. But that's not saying let's go here both sides.

shawn (04:06.04)
Ha ha.

shawn (04:11.565)
Oh, yeah.

shawn (04:18.698)
Yeah.

shawn (04:31.64)
So from the people who are establishing the questions.

Matt (04:35.365)
Well, no, like, like in this show, who determines the questions? We determine the questions. We don't have like some party out there telling us what questions to ask and what to talk about.

shawn (04:45.42)
But the point is really good, right? Because when we brought up the examples of, for example, Zelinsky is a Nazi, which you ask a Russian and they're gonna say, well, yeah, because I mean, the question was, is Zelinsky a Nazi or is he not? And then they provided evidence and instead go, well, consider who's asking that question is the right place to start. I like the listener's point.

Matt (04:51.655)
Yeah.

Matt (05:06.017)
Oh, okay. All right. Okay, so the next, so Sam last week asked this question, like whatever happened to respect for billionaires and CEOs and stuff like that? So this listener, they have a comment about that. They said, when Sam asks why we don't use the wealthiest role models like we used to, I think the big difference is the wealthy were maybe only three or four times wealthier than the average worker in the 1960s and 1970s.

during the era of the great compression of income. But since then, there's been a huge divide between the CEOs and everyone else. CEOs make three to 400 times more than the average worker, and the parallel between growth and productivity and wages is no longer there. In other words, the shareholders are benefiting and workers are not. So if people look unkindly or distantly at the CEOs being wealthy, it's because there truly has been a separation in our society since the mid to late 70s.

shawn (06:04.348)
are benefiting and who says there has to be a parallel? Go get them, Sammy.

Matt (06:08.829)
Hahaha!

Sam (06:10.558)
So I think it's so funny. In business, when I'm talking to employees who are struggling, some people will tell themselves a story that let themselves off the hook to not succeed. So the story could be, hey, you know what? The marketplace is different. My product is bad. My people aren't well-trained. They try to lay it on something that's beyond their sphere of control.

And trying to compare your wealth or success to someone else by a multiplier is just relative. Whether they're a hundred times more successful than I am, or they're a thousand times more successful, there are lessons to be learned by everyone. And it's pure pride and ego and an inability to learn a lesson and be humble and figure out better ways to do something. If you're looking at someone else and saying, Hey, just because they're 400 times more successful than me, I'm not going to listen to them. Like.

What's the threshold? I'm going to listen to somebody who's makes 10 times more money than me, but at 20, I'm going to like get, uh, frustrated and at 30, I'm going to go burn down buildings like that's stupid. If someone's doing something, well, let me learn the lesson.

shawn (07:06.427)
Hahaha

shawn (07:15.672)
Well, there's the listener, Sam.

Matt (07:16.945)
Well, so Sam.

shawn (07:21.56)
The listener Sam suggests that there should be a parallel, right, the threshold is the growth rates should be the same. Isn't that what he's saying? Or is she?

Sam (07:28.494)
The listener probably has no idea what they're talking about.

Matt (07:28.942)
Yeah, well, I don't, I just think that...

Well, I think they do. I think they know what they're saying. But I, so I think Sam, when you equate wealth with success, then that probably rubs some people the wrong way, right? Because you can be very successful in life without being very wealthy in life. And, and I, I think that each of us has, has gotten to know enough of these wealthy CEOs personally to say that, you know, the richest wealthiest CEOs are not necessarily the most

admirable people that you should want to emulate and strive to be like, right? There are some rich people that have gotten rich through unscrupulous means and they're not deserving of our respect no matter how much money they have. Right? So.

Sam (08:15.466)
Well, that parallel works in religion too. There are some great members of the church that are absolute scum and that live their religion terribly and aren't worthy of following or emulating. What CEOs do you know? Of course, there are terrible CEOs. There are people that aren't worth learning lessons from. But it's pure ego if you want to say, hey, just because you make 50 times my income, I'm not going to listen to you because

Because why? I mean, I don't understand that. That there are bad people in every sphere of life, but they're incredibly good people. And thinking about questions, the question, what can I learn from another person? What do they do really well? What do I want to emulate? How do I want to become better? What areas of their life are not reflective of my own values? And I'm not going to listen to, but it's ego to say, Hey, just because that multiplier on your income.

shawn (08:48.204)
He's right.

Sam (09:11.874)
disqualifies you for my admiration. That's ridiculous. Open your eyes, be curious, and learn where there are lessons to be learned.

Matt (09:17.16)
Yeah.

Matt (09:20.749)
I think that the listener is saying there was a time when as a group CEOs were more admirable than they are today. Just like there was a time when politicians as a group were more admirable than they are today. I mean, I just think that's what they're trying to say.

shawn (09:31.744)
No way, no way, I don't think so.

Sam (09:33.538)
So in my humble opinion, it's always been a story of workers and wealth. There's always been that division and that division has grown massively. When we were kids, people that were successful were looked up to. Today, there's a divide that's been created socially where people who are successful are looked down upon.

And even that extends to all areas of life. It happens, Matt, you see it in education. The smartest kids in some areas of education aren't held up as the beacon of success. It's like, Hey, you know what? Let's not praise those successful kids too much because we're going to make the people that are dumb feel bad about themselves. Right. Um, let's not, let's not hold up the really, uh, good

Matt (10:05.606)
Yeah.

Matt (10:19.11)
Yeah.

Sam (10:23.554)
faithful members of the church as an example, because everybody's imperfect and they're going to make people that struggle and sin feel challenged. There's no greater divide than in business, where it makes people uncomfortable to hold people up that have been successful. Money is a metric of success. Whether you want to admit it or not, income is a scorecard. Just like a degree in college, a degree

shawn (10:44.915)
Thank you.

Matt (10:46.898)
Well...

Sam (10:48.97)
shows a certain level of dedication to getting a PhD or a further education. Just like an Eagle Scout, we go back to scouting, Matt, you hate scouting, but for those kids that got that highest, highest ranking, right? It's okay to have metrics of success that other people can say, Hey, I want to learn from that. I want to follow it. That's okay. Let them have it.

Matt (10:59.58)
I do.

shawn (11:03.083)
you

Matt (11:12.241)
Well, I think I said last week that I'm not the best person to talk about this because I really don't respect very many people. There are very wealthy people whom I admire and respect. I think that there are some people that do good things with their wealth and that accumulate wealth in honest and valuable ways. And there's people that I don't respect at all that are wealthy. And so, and that would be the same of every walk of life, right? There are Walmart workers that I come in contact with.

that I really respect and value and I try and learn from them. And then there's some that I say, you know, you don't seem to be working so hard and, uh, I dunno, maybe I, they don't engender the same kind of respect. So I, again, I think I'm, I'm not good at talking about like why some groups of people are held in higher regard than others, because I think people ought to be judged by who they are, not by what they do. Yeah. Hey, let's.

shawn (11:58.778)
You don't like it.

Sam (12:03.726)
What do you learn from someone if you can't hold them up a little bit though, Matt?

shawn (12:04.317)
Mmm.

Matt (12:10.129)
Well, so I think with everybody I encounter, I try to see if there's something I can learn from them. And I think I try to give them a chance, but at some point people just sort of reveal themselves. And if somebody is like selfish, greedy, really interested in like, like that they're willing to make money by any means or dishonest, then I just don't really care. Rich, not rich. I'm not interested in like spending time with that person or trying to learn from them. Cause there's other people that are not that way.

Sam (12:40.43)
Before we move on, the last point I want to make is it's not their income level or the disparity between the income that is the differentiator there, it's character, Matt. And character is a good test no matter if we're talking about businessmen or religious leaders or politicians or anyone.

Matt (12:52.229)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (12:58.937)
Yeah, yeah. So I think when I was young, um, maybe like 14, 13, 14 years old, there was a man in my ward. Uh, and he was like, he was a scout master and I don't know what he did for a job, but he was not a very wealthy person, but he was probably the best man I had ever met in my life up to that point. And I realized when I, at that point, I was like, it doesn't matter what I do for a job. It doesn't matter what calling I have in the church.

It doesn't matter if people know my name or nobody knows my name. Success in life is measured by other things. And this man, for me, I put him way high on a pedestal and I said, I want to be like that. And so from, from kind of a young age for me, what, like all of these other sort of like worldly metrics of success haven't really mattered that much to me. And so I don't know how to, I don't know how to talk about how other people measure, like how that the worth of other people. Cause I just, I don't know.

Sam (13:57.782)
We're not tight. Okay, we'll move on. Yeah.

Matt (13:57.921)
Okay, let's do the thought provoker Sam. You're... Oh yeah. No, no, it's not... Yeah. All right, Sam, you're first with the thought provoker this week.

Sam (14:07.49)
All right, so here's my question. So I have friends that listen to our show and friends that are in the Chicagoland and in the Michigan area, Detroit, and other areas in the upper Midwest, and we've often talked about crime rates in those areas and some of the challenges that face people politically, economically in those areas. And I was joking recently with someone about going out for a run super late at night in the Chicagoland and talking jokingly about

Hey, is it really safe to be out there? I mean, there's no cash bail. We've seen crime. And he actually came back and showed me stats that show crime in the Chicagoland versus Detroit, measuring it to other major metropolitan areas, trying to make it say that it's not as dangerous as what I try to make it out to be. So curious about that. I went and did a little research, right? And I stumbled into this topic.

And it's covered in a, in a, in a, it will have this in the notes and the scientific American, and it talks about how in our day and age, we live in one of the safest times that have ever been. So you think about, uh, automotive accidents, the rate of auto accidents is, is lower than it's ever been. Airplane accidents lower. This article actually claims that instances of racial discrimination and racial violence and religious discrimination and religious violence.

This article claims that it has facts to support. It's the lowest it's ever been. And yet because of news and the political debates and some of the things we often talk about here, we feel more unsafe in our environment today than we've ever been. And so my question is today is what is driving that?

feeling of being unsafe. Why do we feed into that narrative if in fact we live in one of the safest times ever? And this article goes into talking about physical safety versus mental safety, how the world is responsible for physical safety, creating a safe environment. And it's up to us individually to create a safe mental environment and how sometimes parents unintentionally by hovering and over protecting based on their own understanding of the world.

Sam (16:23.49)
will sometimes create a perception of mental unsafety that ends up kind of feeding and self-fulfilling that narrative. And then maybe COVID and some of the other things that went on around that made it even worse. So my question for you is, do we live in a safe time or is the premise of this article not correct? And if we are in a safe time, why is there this perception that it's much less safe and why do we feed into that?

shawn (16:26.664)
sometimes create a perception of mental health.

Matt (16:43.963)
Yes.

shawn (16:44.228)
Thanks for watching!

Matt (16:54.845)
Do you want to go first, Sean? So my mom loves to listen to true crime podcasts. And when she's falling asleep at night, she'll always have something like Dateline NBC on, and she loves to read murder mysteries. And she lives her life in fear, right? Like sometimes she'll lock her door and like her garage door, you know, the power will go out or something. And so she'll be locked out of her house. And I will say to her,

shawn (16:56.33)
You go ahead, Matt.

shawn (17:13.069)
I'm sorry.

Matt (17:21.989)
Why do you lock your door? You live in a neighborhood where nobody is going to come into your house. And if they did come into your house, what are they going to do? They're going to maybe take some things like, what are you so afraid of? But she always locks her door and gets locked out of her house. And I do think that the entertainment we consume and the news that we choose to consume, it shapes our view of what's happening in the world around us. And it creates a sense of paranoia and fear. That's not.

realistic, it's not based on facts. And I think that like true crime podcast is like the number one genre, I think of podcasts, people love that stuff. And I think that, and then if you watch the news, like the good happy news isn't what you see when you turn on the news, you see all of the crime and all of the problems because that's what people want to consume. And so I think that it does lead to unrealistic perceptions of how dangerous the world is.

shawn (18:18.536)
So, I wonder if there isn't some... Yeah, I wonder. I read the other day, D&C 4526, and in that day, meaning our day, shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men's hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayeth His coming until the end of the earth. I mean, I...

Matt (18:37.833)
Do you think that means like they'll have heart attacks? Their hearts shall fail them? It means they'll be scared?

shawn (18:41.184)
No, I don't. I think it's their faith. I think it's talking about faith, but I also think it is talking about, because I mean, fear is kind of an opposite concept of faith. So I think it is talking about fear, and it prefaces it by saying wars, rumors of wars and commotions. I think it's fair to say we live in a day and age. Is it different from past, you know, ages, the amount of commotion and war?

Matt (19:05.553)
Yes.

Uh, you hear about it more, right? It's more prevalent. So, so in previous times, if there was a con, like imagine you're Nephi and there's a war in Gaza, you're not going to hear about it in...

shawn (19:18.948)
So you think that common phrase, rumors of wars, is what that means, is that our media today allows us to know about all the wars. Well, like we talked last week, I watched 20 Days in Mariupol. Talk about commotion and war and fear. Yeah, so.

Matt (19:31.061)
Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. I think I actually think it's unhealthy to consume too much of that stuff because it really does play on your emotions. And then that leads to these unhealthy thoughts and feelings. And I know people that are afraid, like I tell them, Hey, I'm going to go to California and they say, be careful. It's dangerous there. And I'm like, it's not dangerous in California. Like, okay, it might be dangerous in some places in California, but it's not like

a dangerous place to go. And there are so many, so many people like will not go places in this world because they're afraid of what they think is happening in those places.

shawn (20:08.465)
So whether it is a truth or not that times are worse and there's, but it does say that there will be more fear, right, our hearts will fail. So I think that is true. And it's interesting because it follows up and says, because of that, the love of men shall wax cold and iniquity shall abound. And then it gives the answer to how to overcome it in 28. When the times of the Gentiles has come, that's us, and a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness and it shall be the fullness of my gospel. So clearly, I mean, the cliche, but true answer is.

Matt (20:17.682)
Yeah.

shawn (20:36.332)
Missionary work, right? The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only answer to all of it.

Matt (20:36.669)
gospel.

Matt (20:40.889)
Yeah. What do you think, Sam?

Sam (20:43.522)
So the gospel is an answer and it's interesting, this week's Meet the Press, Mitt Romney was on it. I don't know if you've listened to it or not. It makes you realize what the country could have had with someone at the political helm like him, someone of character, someone who cares, someone who's honest. He actually talked about the importance of political conversation and discourse and the responsibility that's an old notion of

political leaders contributing to positive political discourse and setting the example. That's what he claims disqualifies Trump for becoming a president again and qualifies others for doing it. Matt, you've talked a lot about that on this show, political leaders, finding political leaders and leaders everywhere, in business and elsewhere, that contribute positively to that narrative, that don't try to tear people apart, divide people on fear.

Fear, there's two paths, right? Tearing things down and creating fear is a heck of a lot easier than building things up and doing things right. And yet building things up and doing things right, ultimately lasts longer. And, uh, it was fun to hear Romney because he's a, he's a person of character. He's wrong on a lot of stuff, obviously, but he's someone that contributes to, to kind of that peace and comfort rather than trying to divide people along the lines of fear.

Matt (21:57.244)
Yeah.

Matt (22:14.729)
But it is interesting, like you can, you, you look at the shows that exist, the popular shows on social that have social media presence, the popular shows where people pay for subscriptions, and so many of them are peddling fear and anger and contention. It's the easy way to make, to make money and get clicks, but it is harmful for both the consumers and society more broadly, I think.

shawn (22:29.142)
Yeah.

shawn (22:39.662)
Yeah.

Matt (22:40.913)
So Sam, I'm going to give you the points for this because at the very beginning of your question, you seem to be admitting that crime in Chicago is not as bad as you made us all once believe it was.

shawn (22:51.556)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Sam (22:51.726)
So I was reminded by my friends that I run late at night in downtown Chicago without fear of being, uh, you know, crime or beat up on. I believe that and I've been downtown Detroit. I love these places. They they've, uh, you know, they've become a second home. I was downtown this weekend and we did a big Christmas party with the, uh, with, with the employees of my company.

shawn (23:00.11)
Heheheheh

Matt (23:01.561)
Assaulted, accosted.

shawn (23:08.501)
Look at...

Matt (23:08.604)
Yeah.

Sam (23:16.186)
And it's, it's a, it's an incredibly diverse and a rich place and a beautiful place. And we had a tough time checking. We had a tough time checking and we had a tough time checking everybody in for the party because there was a pro Palestinian rally for people as they came into town. And it was kind of interesting because everybody had a story about what they encountered as they came into the hotel. And you don't get that just anywhere, right? Like it, it is a vibrant city. So.

Matt (23:22.961)
Yeah.

shawn (23:23.768)
Sam, you sound brokenhearted and contrite.

Matt (23:42.301)
Wow. Right.

Sam (23:45.558)
So if I've come across as anti-Chicago, I apologize. I'm wrong. Thank you all.

Matt (23:47.462)
Yeah.

Matt (23:52.577)
Okay, so you get the point, Sam.

shawn (23:53.548)
Penitent wow prodigal son

Sam (23:54.946)
There you go.

Matt (23:56.457)
Okay, I get to go next. So Sam's message was all about how things aren't that bad, but my message is actually a little bit different. So the FBI director, Christopher Wray, was asked to testify before a Senate hearing this week, and Lindsey Graham, the ranking member, a Republican, wanted to just sort of nail down and get Christopher Wray on the record about the threats that the United States is facing right now.

shawn (24:05.713)
Hehehehe.

Sam (24:06.222)
Hahaha.

Matt (24:26.093)
And so the stuff that you might have heard on the news is, is a Lindsey Graham said, you know, people talk about how before September 11th, there were blinking red lights and there were warnings that maybe we should have seen this coming, but people missed those. And he said, are there any blinking red lights? Do you see anything right now that we should be worried about? And director Ray said, there are lights everywhere I look. And then he says, what I would say that is unique about the environment we're in right now in my career is that while there may have been

times over the years where individual threats could have been higher here or there than they are right now. I've never seen a time where all the threats or so many of the threats are all elevated all at exactly the same time." And then Lindsey Graham asked him to go through the threats that Russia poses. He talked about how Russia is the king of cyber attacks around the world and that a lot of these cyber attacks like...

that you see are either funded by Russia or directly done by Russia. He talks about how China manufactures all of the raw materials that you need to create fentanyl and meth that's being manufactured in Mexico, including the stuff to make the actual pills that China's funding all of this drug trade in Mexico. And he also said that the FBI just last year, sorry, in the last two years,

seized enough fentanyl that it would have poisoned 80% of the US population. That's just the amount that they seized coming over the Mexican border. He talks about Iran trying to assassinate individuals in the United States. And then he talks about the international terrorist organizations that he says since October 7th, that it's at as high a level as he's ever seen as director of the FBI. And I just thought, man,

Like there are threats against the United States coming from every direction.

shawn (26:24.038)
Man, it gave me you just gave me a pet. You just gave me a panic tech Matt. I'm moving to Chicago. I'm moving to Chicago.

Matt (26:30.765)
Right. So, so it's not like these attacks, right? The FBI is working day and night to help keep us safe. But I find it interesting that at the same time, most Americans distrust the FBI. There was a survey done, 17% of Republicans say that they trust the FBI. And then there's a lot of distrust of local police. So my question is,

Should we as Americans maybe be a little bit more grateful to the FBI and to the local police and not be so skeptical of what they're doing and just be more like, thank you for keeping us safe.

shawn (27:01.156)
But isn't that?

shawn (27:06.948)
But isn't the, Matt, isn't the Republican distrust of the FBI kind of seasonal at this point? Because isn't it based in, the only thing that I can find that would support that or that is a reason for that is Russiagate, right? When the administration went after Trump during the election because, and accused them of colluding with Russia, right? And then what happened was, was it Durnham, the Durnham Report?

Matt (27:33.841)
Durham. Yeah.

shawn (27:34.668)
Durham, Durham report. So this guy does a three year study on it and he's under the Biden administration. And he comes out with a pretty scathing report at the FBI basically saying, yeah, we're probably gonna indict some of these people or at least try to. And there's definitely, they did not do a good job. I mean, it really says they failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law about the events during the 2016 election.

Matt (27:55.656)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (27:58.68)
They also found that the senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor toward the information they received, especially from, uh, politically affiliated persons or entities. And they included that the FBI had relied heavily on investigative leads provided by Trump opponents. So isn't, isn't the distrust by Republicans simply a reaction to that? It's that they're saying it's a, it was a, it's a biased FBI. They're all Biden's, uh, guys.

Matt (28:19.698)
Well...

Matt (28:23.453)
Yeah, but that's just crazy, right? Because before the Durham report, there was the Mueller report, which showed that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. And like 16 people in the Trump administration went to jail. Yeah, Bill Gates or yeah, Bob Gates. And I forget his campaign manager, Paul Manafort went to jail because of the things he did in the 2016 campaign.

shawn (28:41.176)
So they.

shawn (28:46.524)
So 82% of Republicans are what? They're just cherry picking?

So what do you think's the reason then, Matt? Why would 80% of Republicans be against it?

Matt (28:54.469)
Because they're believing, because I think it's, yeah, I think it's the same thing again, right? They're listening to propaganda. Trump has an issue with the FBI because the FBI is prosecuting him. And rather than just stay quiet about it, Trump goes out there and says, the FBI is attacking me and they're coming after me, right? They hear from one side that there's this biased justice department. But if there really was just a biased justice department against conservatives, then why did they just indict Hunter Biden?

shawn (29:07.94)
And there you go.

Matt (29:23.505)
And why are they investigating Hunter Biden? So like people just, they'd let their political biases influence what they think about the information that they receive.

shawn (29:32.012)
That's right. Yep. That's it. That's the problem.

Matt (29:35.053)
Yeah. So then, so what does, what does the FBI do to fix? Like, do they need to just go out there and publicize? Hey, guess what? We stopped another terror attack. Hey, guess what? We stopped another big thing. Do they need to be like Trump and be out there just every day with like messaging saying, Hey, we're so great. You should love us too.

shawn (29:50.412)
They need to do...

shawn (29:56.452)
You say a PR campaign for the FBI?

Matt (29:59.373)
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what it is, right? Like I understand, yeah.

Go ahead, Sam.

Matt (30:41.308)
Yeah.

Matt (30:57.155)
Yeah.

Matt (31:04.273)
Right, started wars.

Matt (31:21.885)
I think what happened after Vietnam, like in the Vietnam War and the soldiers came home, there was like all of this hatred towards the armed forces and there was like this distrust of the military for a time. And Americans learned from that and they said, no, we're gonna respect the armed forces and if they're doing something in the military that we don't like, we might say, hey, the leadership is wrong. The leadership is doing something we disagree with, but we're gonna...

hold the people who choose to serve in the military in high regard. And I think that police officers and members of the FBI don't seem to get that same respect. The CIA, they don't get that same respect because for some reason, we've decided it's okay to attack those institutions. Um, and in attacking those institutions, we sort of attack the people who work in those institutions. And I just think that that's just as bad. Like, like,

saying bad things about FBI and police officers, to me it's just as bad as saying bad things about people in the military. We don't do that, right? We don't say horrible things about soldiers. If they commit a crime, if they do something wrong, Sean, you mentioned the Durham report, right? If in the Durham report, members of the FBI are doing wrong things, hold them accountable and put them on trial, which I believe they do. There just wasn't enough evidence in that report to convict anybody, but.

shawn (32:44.044)
Right, exactly.

Matt (32:46.589)
We shouldn't like say, Hey, the whole FBI is bad just because they're doing something here that I don't like. That just seems weird.

shawn (32:54.634)
Matt, in political history, do those agencies tend to be apolitical? Do they do a good job at that? Because they're appointed, aren't they appointed by the whatever administrations in power?

Matt (33:02.989)
Yeah, the Hatch Act actually by law they have to stay apolitical, right? Members of the armed forces are not allowed to go out and express their political views as representatives of the military, maybe in a personal life. They're also apolitical. They also can't come out and act politically. Sure, I think even right now they do. Seriously, if you're in the FBI and you violate the Hatch Act, they'll come after you, whereas in the past they wouldn't have done that. Yeah.

shawn (33:13.932)
But the FBI and the CIA. Yeah. And traditionally have they behaved that way? Okay.

shawn (33:31.096)
Hmm. Interesting.

Matt (33:33.865)
IRS, right? People who work in the IRS, they're not allowed to go out and publicly state their views on politics. Like there's federal laws that prohibit federal employees from being active in politics. But politicians wanna drag them in, right? They wanna make them a political tool so that they can...

shawn (33:53.716)
Isn't that what is it? So is that not what's happening with the Republicans party distrust of the FBI? Yeah.

Matt (33:59.865)
Yes, but on the Democrat side, that's their feeling about local police too, right? Democrats with the whole defund the police and things like that. Or there's Democrats that dislike border patrol agents, right? Because all that whole... Yeah, so politicians make these things political, but I just think that it's dangerous. I think it's not healthy for our nation when people politicize these groups that are trying to help us.

shawn (34:13.933)
Yeah. Yep.

shawn (34:22.893)
Hello.

I like it when you turn on your politicians. Let's go give you the points, Matt, for blaming politicians. I love it. Let's do it.

Matt (34:31.737)
Yeah, okay. All right. I like it, Sean. Okay, Sean, you're up next.

shawn (34:37.496)
Okay, well, Sam, I had a really good question that really doesn't poke at you, but it would have gotten you going. And I also had a good question that really pokes at Matt and gets his juices going like defensively. And so next week I'll do the one for you, Sam, and this week I'm doing it for Matt. This is, this is, yeah, you're gonna, yeah, okay. Poke at Matt. First I was gonna go over though, which is bigger news. This isn't really my question, but.

Matt (34:49.671)
Yeah.

Matt (34:53.67)
I like it.

Let's poke at me. Ha ha

shawn (35:04.576)
Is it bigger news that we have a new apostle, Elder Patrick Keaton? Or is it bigger news that Kieran? Oh yeah, Kieran, sorry, Patrick Kieran. Or is it bigger news that Paul Rudd was on the church's Instagram account promoting Light the World?

Matt (35:08.521)
Kieran, Kieran.

Matt (35:20.777)
Paul Rudd. Paul Rudd is bigger news.

shawn (35:22.884)
I knew you'd say that. I knew it. I knew it.

Matt (35:25.305)
No, because like look elder Kieran, I'm sure he's going to do a wonderful job and I have, I, I like his general conference talks, which for me is the most important precursor to any like member of the quorum of the 12 apostles because they speak to us so often. So I really like people if I like talks that they give in the past, but Paul Rudd and those giving machines, those giving machines are a big deal and they do a lot of good.

shawn (35:30.924)
That was... It was...

shawn (35:38.206)
Hahaha.

shawn (35:43.168)
Yeah. I just like if they have accents and he does.

Matt (35:53.833)
100% of the money that's given in those giving machines goes directly to the organization or the cause. The church is spending a lot of money to help with charitable giving over the holidays. And Paul Rudd has got to be the most beloved actor in Hollywood. Everybody likes Paul Rudd. So if he's on our side, who could be against us? Right. And Elder Kieran is just one of 12, Sean. There's

shawn (36:11.142)
Yeah.

shawn (36:14.852)
That's a huge boost, right?

Yeah, okay. That was a-

Oh jeez, oh man.

Matt (36:22.641)
So it can't be the biggest news because there's 12 apostles and he's one of 12.

shawn (36:28.008)
Oh man, I don't like what you're saying right now.

Matt (36:29.51)
Hahaha

Ha ha ha!

Sorry, Sean.

shawn (36:35.852)
Well, that wasn't actually my question. That was just a lighthearted thing, but I'm glad you took it serious. That's good. But here's my real question.

Matt (36:41.989)
Alright. Okay.

shawn (36:46.308)
Should we wait? Sam's power just went out.

Matt (36:53.865)
It's okay, Sean, keep going.

shawn (36:55.86)
Okay, so editor, please edit that little piece out right there.

All right, so here's my question. You ready, Matt? You better be, because it's coming at you. So this week, presidents of Ivy League schools, Harvard, Penn, and MIT testified before Congress about the rise of antisemitism, or antisemitic activity in their schools, at their schools. So they faced massive criticism for evasive answers about whether, now this is specific, whether calls for genocide of the Jews violated school policies.

And so far, one of those presidents has lost their job and it feels like the other two will soon lose their jobs. So I've got a multiple part question. Here's the question, the first one.

First question is, how is it that our most elite thinkers and intellectuals could be so wrong on such a simple and fundamental idea? And I know you laugh because you think I have bias in that. And I'm super interested to hear you defend their stance because Matt, the reason it's really funny to hear you laugh at that is because immediately after that thing, I'm like, all right, don't come to any judgment. Go see

Matt (38:00.137)
That's so biased.

shawn (38:13.44)
I'm just curious what the world says about, reacts to what their answers were. I went to super left leaning and super right leaning. I went to the Young Turks, I went to MSNBC, I went to the Fox News, I went all over the place in Matt and a unanimous voice of condemnation came against these guys. So I'm surprised, I'll be interested to hear your response to that, but let me follow through with the other questions, that's just the first one. You know, do these people actually believe that there's...

Matt (38:37.265)
Okay.

shawn (38:41.604)
a certain context that would be make it okay to call for the genocide of Jews or Palestinians or anybody. And then or were these guys simply failed by their PR and legal teams?

Matt (38:55.561)
Mm-hmm. Those are my only three choices. Either they're dumb or they're...

shawn (39:00.876)
Now I'll give you one more. I'll give you one more. The famous, famous intellectual Thomas Sewell, was he correct when he said, experts, intellectual experts, may be smarter and have more information accumulated, but they do not command even 1% of the consequential knowledge required to adequately meet our needs. So he defines, we can get into it, but the consequential knowledge versus theoretical.

Matt (39:20.982)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (39:27.764)
intellectual knowledge is kind of what he compares it to. So yeah.

Matt (39:31.981)
Okay, so I'm going to say I'm going to pick none of those, Sean. None of those are the right answer. So the, the U S system of higher education is the envy of the world. No matter what country you're in, no matter how rich you are, you want your child to get educated in the U S system of higher education. And one of the reasons that we are the envy of the world in higher education is because we have created a space, probably the only

truly safe space where people can say whatever it is that they are thinking on a college campus and it'll be safe. So in order for like knowledge and like in order for science to work and the accumulation of knowledge, you have to have this space where there's the free exchange of ideas and nothing's off the table. And that's like the ideal. That's the dream of higher education. And so in order for that to work.

professors have to feel safe that they can say whatever they wanna say, and students have to feel safe that they can say whatever they wanna say. Because we all know that you grow in knowledge by expressing what you think. And sometimes you express what you think and then you immediately regret it because as you're saying it and articulating it, you're like, wow, that was a really stupid thing for me to say.

shawn (40:54.348)
This is, okay, this is the, sorry, but this is the weakest counter argument I've ever heard.

Matt (41:00.273)
It's the only place you cannot punish free speech at a college campus, except for there's things under the law where, right, there's some things you can't say because it violates the law. But aside from that, you've got to protect it.

shawn (41:03.876)
Okay, okay, two things, hang on. So two things, two things.

shawn (41:14.092)
Okay, two things. Okay, but two things. Harvard, who was one of the presidents representing their school, Harvard was rated in FHIR's college free speech ranking dead last for free speech and commonly lands on there.

Matt (41:24.509)
Oh, well, who is this? Who is this free speech ranking? You can say, you can say, Harvard has so much freedom of speech. You can say any, well, you can, Sean, you can go on Harvard and be pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian.

shawn (41:29.257)
I'll link it in here. I'll link it. There's three or four.

shawn (41:41.034)
Of 250 major institutions analyzed, Harvard University ranks last in free speech multiple years in a row. Once it ranks—

Matt (41:48.625)
Because what? What are they doing that's not allowing free speech on their campus? Okay, just tell me like the top two, top three.

shawn (41:52.812)
Well, there's a whole list. There's a whole list.

All right, hang on. Well, I gotta, well, how about I'll link it in the notes. I'll link it in the show notes. But the reason, so, but if you're saying that, okay, but here's, you gotta consider context. So if these highly educated, lifelong career intellectual educators are called to speak in front of Congress and give testimony, they know and understand, they're smart people, right? They know and understand that their answers aren't to the students.

Matt (42:01.017)
Yeah, link it in the show notes. Sean.

Matt (42:18.289)
Uh-huh.

shawn (42:25.928)
or to the faculty of their institution, when they're asked questions to Congress, they're there to testify and answer to a problem that is existing on their campuses, which in this case is a huge rise in antisemitism.

Matt (42:27.792)
Listen.

Matt (42:37.577)
But if you're the university president and you testify before Congress that you're going to limit free speech on campuses, the professors will revolt and the student body will revolt and their parents will revolt. Because if you're telling me, Sean, that, cause the question is shouldn't it, you condemn all like anti-Semitic speech on campus? What is, what is it they want them to condemn?

shawn (42:49.76)
Ha ha!

shawn (42:58.368)
Wrong, that's not at all what the question was. The question was this, calling for genocide of the Jews, is that against Harvard's values and policies? That was the question. Calling for the genocide. No, they didn't. They said it's a contextual decision.

Matt (43:12.301)
I would imagine they said it's against their values, but

It is, because Sean, if a student in a dorm room, if a student in a dorm room says to their roommate and they say something that sounds like calling for the genocide of the Jews, you can't have Harvard come in and take disciplinary action against someone for something they said in their dorm room on campus.

shawn (43:20.732)
Okay, what's the context that would allow-

shawn (43:36.648)
Matt. Okay, okay, but there's a difference between the president of Harvard testifying before Congress and some knucklehead 18-year-old in a dorm room non-publicly talking to their buddies.

Matt (43:48.241)
that's what contextual means. Contextual means it depends on the context in which they say it.

shawn (43:53.924)
Okay, Matt, is there any situation in your classroom if someone stood up and said, guys, let's rise up and kill all Jews? Is there any context in which that would be accepted?

Matt (44:06.157)
In my classrooms, because we talk about politics, students, I don't know that I've had any specifically anti-Semitic things, but I have had students justify horrific things in the past. I have had students say things that suggest

shawn (44:20.74)
Did they incite to violence? Did they incite to that genocide of a persecuted people?

Matt (44:26.189)
inciting, right? So if you say, let's do something actionable, then that's a crime, right? So if they say...

shawn (44:34.998)
Let's kill the Jews from the river to the sea by any means possible.

Matt (44:40.345)
young people don't always understand what they're saying. So if a student had a Palestinian saying like that in class, the last thing I should do is look for disciplinary action. The first thing I should do is say, let's have a discussion about what that phrase means and why you're saying that. Like that's what we do.

shawn (44:53.62)
Matt, why is it, Matt, why is it hard to answer if I just ask you a simple question, Matt, is it ever okay for anyone to say, let's go and murder an entire people? Genocide of the Palestinians, genocide of Ukrainians. Well, I couldn't, but it's easy, right? It's easy to say that. Why could they not say that?

Matt (45:08.709)
Of course, of course that's not okay. Of course that's not okay.

No, because their question is, is it against school policy? And that answer is, it's contextual. It could be, you could say that in a way that would violate school policy. But you could also be saying.

shawn (45:28.452)
You got pipe in Sam.

Sam D'Arc (45:28.849)
I think what's a challenge for most people to listen to when they hear this debate is they see the fervor with which schools protect freedom of speech for minorities in progressive or left social issues. But they don't grant that same protection to...

you know, Jewish people in this case. So it would be a crime in most schools for someone to stand up and make some sort of an anti-gay, anti-lesbian, anti-trans, some sort of a homophobic comment, as it rightly should be. That type of speech would not be looked positively upon at Harvard or some other school. That would be actionable, right? And yet that same type of speech directed towards Jewish people for whatever reason right now.

that isn't met with that same, it's not met with that same challenge. And I get why it is, I get why it is. A lot of your argument makes a lot of sense because there needs to be a safe space to have the conversations. I think what people are frustrated by right now is that protection isn't equally granted.

Matt (46:29.201)
Yeah, I just...

Matt (46:44.089)
Yeah, or it seems that way, right? Because I know a lot of universities, you know, they let, what is his name? Milo Yiannopoulos or whatever his name was, right? They, like, there's all kinds of fiery speech that I hear at college campuses. There's people on the left that say crazy things, there's people on the right that say crazy things, and I say.

Sam D'Arc (46:46.684)
Well, in reality it's not.

shawn (47:04.54)
Yeah, but that guy doesn't exist at all anymore because he was canceled for saying those crazy things.

Matt (47:10.365)
but not by the universities where he said them. That's my point. The university.

shawn (47:14.236)
He didn't get him. He doesn't get invited back to universities. They canceled him. Yes, they have.

Matt (47:18.641)
Well, that's because student groups have to write student groups have to, well, and he probably said things that violated policies. What I'm trying to say is like universities are a place where they try to protect freedom of speech.

shawn (47:31.884)
But if the freedom of speech is against the law, incitement to violence, why is it the obligation of Harvard, why can't they see that it is clearly not in anyone's best interest and is immoral and is illegal to not take action against those students? That's what they couldn't answer and that's why they've lost their jobs. They're gone.

Matt (47:35.709)
Then.

Matt (47:50.37)
Well, that's not why she lost her job. Before the... That's one of four things, right? But even before the Palestinian conflict, she was... There were other things. That's why there's also a person on the board of trustees that lost their job at Pennsylvania. But I don't think that...

shawn (47:52.745)
It is too why she lost her job. What do you mean?

shawn (48:06.394)
They both lost their job after this congressional testimony because it went so poorly for them.

Matt (48:12.741)
Right, she was on the hot seat before that is what I'm saying. I would be shocked if Claudine Gay at Harvard University loses her job over this. Nah. No. Look, it's just hard, right? It's, it's hard. It's a hard situation. I predict that nobody else loses their job over this.

shawn (48:19.612)
Oh, she's I think she's gone. I bet she's all again. We'll we'll make predictions. It Okay, I predict that cladding a absolutely will lose her job next week.

Sam D'Arc (48:24.311)
Ha ha

Matt (48:35.389)
Well, that would make me sad because she's a political scientist and she's part of my fraternity or sorority or whatever we are.

shawn (48:39.136)
Yeah, I know.

shawn (48:44.093)
You know, Thomas Sewell had an idea about what happened. He didn't speak directly to this, but he has spoken for years about the difference between consequential knowledge and theoretical knowledge and how people who only have consequential or theoretical knowledge, for example, a professor, like Professor Gay, who basically just is able to pitch ideas, like the idea that there's somehow a contextual...

okay way to call for the extermination of all Jews.

Matt (49:16.393)
She's not saying it's... she did not say it's ever okay to do it. It's never okay.

shawn (49:21.32)
She said that it is not wrong in some contexts to call for the genocide of Jews.

Matt (49:27.773)
She's saying that you can't, saying that you would not punish somebody is different than saying that it's okay. That's what I'm trying to say.

shawn (49:34.328)
She's saying it's not against the ethics of Harvard. That's what she's saying.

Matt (49:39.525)
that they might not have a disciplinary result or something like that. I mean, I don't know, cause I didn't, I didn't watch it. Okay. Well, I can't give you the points on this, Sean. I mean, I want to give you the points, but I feel attacked and targeted and belittled and I can't, I can't give you the point. I really want to give myself the points on this, but okay. All right. Will you give me points Sam?

shawn (49:46.122)
There you go.

shawn (49:55.39)
I'm sorry, I took away your safe space. I'll give them to you if you like, sure.

Sam D'Arc (50:06.568)
Absolutely. Points for everyone.

Matt (50:10.977)
Okay, well here's the big question for this week. So last week we talked about Elder Pingree and his discussion of doctrine versus policy and I just want to-

shawn (50:19.422)
Matt, by the way, I think you're gonna get in trouble from the... Get ready for some emails.

Matt (50:24.913)
Because of the doctrine versus policy thing?

shawn (50:27.02)
No, no, because of the last up.

Matt (50:29.177)
Oh, listen, I hope that nobody thinks that I'm trying to justify bad behavior on campuses. I'm consistently pro free speech, and I'm consistently anti canceling people. Right? So

shawn (50:42.444)
But are you pro-free speech when it calls for the genocide of anybody?

Matt (50:49.701)
We talked about this before, that anytime that your speech is leading to violence or leading to danger or leading to harm, then it's wrong and it's unethical and it shouldn't be allowed. Like it should be.

Sam D'Arc (50:50.366)
Hmm

shawn (51:01.626)
And that was so simple to answer. And that's what these three knuckleheads should have done. And instead these idiots didn't, and now they're done.

Sam D'Arc (51:01.992)
I think...

Matt (51:09.673)
Well, maybe they're done. I'm just saying as an academic, if my president's out there testifying before Congress that students will be penalized for saying things in my class, I'm going to have a problem with that because I need free speech. They're young. They, they are young and dumb and learning. Someone has to, you have to tell them it's wrong.

shawn (51:11.196)
Sam, what do you think?

shawn (51:21.54)
penalized for saying things that break the law and that call for the murder of Jews. No, that's wrong, Matt. Matt, that's wrong to say.

Sam D'Arc (51:32.668)
I think the issue here before we move on, I think the big issue here is that freedom of speech is good and it should be preserved in a college setting, even when it sounds terrible. Because to Matt's point, I love the idea that people need a space that's safe where they can make mistakes and they can learn and they can figure out their views. The challenge is that safe space and that protection and that freedom of speech has to be granted evenly across all areas.

shawn (51:58.34)
That's right, it can't include calling out a certain class of student.

Matt (51:59.033)
I agree. That's right.

Sam D'Arc (52:00.324)
And it's, and it's not, and it's, and unfortunately it's tough in any aspect of American society for any institution to grant it equally everywhere. Everybody comes at an issue from a biases. Yeah. And, and, and our day and age, there are certain things that are. I love how, I love how Kirill Pahilko back in Ukraine used to say in communism, everybody's equal, there are just some of who are a little more equal than others. And, uh,

Matt (52:12.785)
Everyone has biases. Yeah.

shawn (52:15.128)
Yeah, but how s-

Matt (52:28.705)
I'm sorry.

Sam D'Arc (52:30.088)
And it goes the same for this topic, right? In college campuses, there's freedom of speech, and it's guaranteed for everyone, but there are some topics that are a little freer than others, and this is where this has become an issue. That's right, it is wrong.

Matt (52:39.762)
Which is wrong.

shawn (52:43.012)
But it's not wrong if it breaks the law or places people in harm's way. And antisemitism and actions of antisemitism are up skyrocketing.

Matt (52:43.271)
Yeah.

Sam D'Arc (52:50.04)
Sean, I'm never going to be a guy that's going to get on board with anybody that says any word that's anti-Semitism. But in a college campus with those young minds, people have to be able to make mistakes in a public setting and then figure out their thoughts and come to truth in the way that they come to it without quickly being... It doesn't help anybody if I make a stupid comment and then I'm judged on the worst comment I make.

Matt (53:03.004)
Right.

Sam D'Arc (53:14.968)
and I suffer the wrath of making that comment, I'm never gonna be free to truly explore my own thoughts. The problem is, is not everybody's granted that same freedom evenly, so.

shawn (53:20.472)
Sam, if you walked.

But Sam, if you walked into one of your car dealerships and you see a group of your employees and you overhear one of them say, guys, I'm sick of this. I think we just need to wipe the Jews off of the map.

Sam D'Arc (53:32.256)
It's a different, watch this, Sean, it's a different context. So in a business, in a business, in a business, it is not an inappropriate place. And there are federal laws that grant people protections. There are protected classes, right? So protected classes are religion, gender, race. There's a bunch of protect sexual orientation and we do not know.

Matt (53:38.017)
Right, it's contextual!

Matt (53:48.71)
Right.

Matt (53:55.601)
Sexual orientation.

shawn (53:58.744)
So they're allowed to incite to violence and call for genocide.

Matt (54:01.721)
No, no, that's what he's saying. They're a protected class. What I'm saying to you, Sean, is that the marketplace of ideas is a powerful thing. And anti-Semitism and racism and every bad ism in the world loses every time in the marketplace of ideas. And the only way you truly rid society of all the isms is you let people express their ideas

Sam D'Arc (54:15.805)
It is.

Matt (54:31.609)
and defend their ideas in this marketplace of ideas. And then they start to see, wow, these ideas I've had, these thoughts that I've had, they don't win out. And these other ideas are more powerful and I'm gonna embrace those.

shawn (54:45.144)
So you agree then that the appropriate action is to get these presidents fired because they see their dumb ideas don't win out.

Matt (54:50.255)
No.

The marketplace of ideas wins. And in a college setting, you have to allow free exercise of speech and ideas, because that's how people learn and grow.

shawn (54:55.576)
That's right, and they are gone.

shawn (55:03.396)
But to Sam's point, why is it so unequal when it comes to, for example, LGTB rights? Oh, okay. All right.

Matt (55:07.897)
Well, it shouldn't be right. It shouldn't be. Yeah. That's definitely a place to the extent that that's true. College campuses are failing if they do that. I've, I have not had that experience in my experience at college campuses. I was, I was in a pl- I went to college at a time when the church was very anti same-sex marriage and the world was very pro same-sex marriage. And if you had a view that said same-sex marriage is wrong,

and you express that view, then people out in the world would say you're homophobic. But in college, I could express my idea that same-sex marriage was wrong for moral reasons, and nobody shouted me down. I was allowed to defend my position and defend my views.

shawn (55:50.262)
consider the context of the school you are in.

Matt (55:52.749)
No, I was at University of Kansas. It was a secular place. It wasn't BYU, like come on, it's not BYU. Yeah, it's like, right? And my colleagues and the people around me were very pro same-sex marriage. And one of them was the world's leading scholar on LGBT politics, like very much disagreed with me politically. But you have a marketplace of ideas and I could express my views and they expressed their views and it was all about learning.

shawn (55:55.33)
Oh, okay.

shawn (56:16.876)
Well, that's wonderful. And I do expect that. And I thought that's how things were until I watched these three idiots testifying to Congress. And it crushed me, man. It made me so sad because I was like, this is Harvard, MIT and Penn.

Matt (56:26.313)
Hahaha

Sam D'Arc (56:34.635)
I vote we move on. We've crushed it. This issue is crushed. Sean, you get the points for bringing it home over and over and over and over again. So yeah.

shawn (56:36.344)
Hahaha

Matt (56:40.689)
What? Okay, I'm all right. Okay, so Elder Pingree, doctrine versus policy, right? We talked about this last week. So it seems to me like it feels like whenever there's a doctrine that changes what people do in the churches, they just look back and say, oh, well that was just policy and not doctrine. And it's not always clear in the moment, like right now, what's doctrine and what's policy, right? It feels like it's this thing we use in the church to say,

shawn (56:42.676)
No, no, I got the point.

Matt (57:09.853)
Oh, blacks and the priest said, well, it turns out that wasn't doctrine, that was always just policy. But I imagine in the 1960s, that felt a lot like doctrine to people and maybe a little bit less like policy. So how do you tell? Elder Pingree says, the nature of the Godhead, the plan of salvation and the atonement of Jesus Christ, those are doctrine. Is there anything else that we would say is doctrine? Are there any other teachings that we would say, these are eternal and don't change?

Can we right now say this is doctrine and this is policy? Or is it just only later on we look back and say, well that changed so that must've been policy.

shawn (57:48.64)
Good question. Sam, do you want to dive in?

Sam D'Arc (57:48.768)
I think I want to hear Sean, no I want to hear your answer first Sean, you're usually dead on this stuff so go for it.

Matt (57:52.677)
hahahaha

shawn (57:53.912)
I was gonna say, unless you wanna dive in, cause I got some scriptures to pull.

Matt (57:57.881)
Alright, Sean, tell us. Tell us what's not gonna change.

Sam D'Arc (57:57.992)
Let's do it. Teach us, Sean, teach us. Yeah.

shawn (58:04.816)
Well, I mean, so 3rd Nephi 11, I love 3rd Nephi 11 because Christ comes and at the very end, so 11 is like the pinnacle of the Book of Mormon. Christ comes and He reveals Himself and He establishes His identity and the fulfillment of prophecy and shows them that it's Him and that the atonement happened. He died and He was risen. Like all this amazing…

spiritual testimony gives to these people. And then he stops and he stands up and he says this. He says, Behold, verily, I say unto you, I will declare unto you my doctrine, and this is my doctrine. And for like 15 verses, he repeats the same four things over and over and over and over and over again. And he repeats the words, this is my doctrine, there is no other doctrine. And then he finishes that sermon by saying, verily, I say unto you that this is my doctrine, and whoso buildeth upon this, buildeth upon my rock, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you.

Matt (58:35.687)
Okay?

shawn (58:56.032)
and who so shall declare more or less than this and establishes it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil is not built upon my rock but of sandy foundation. So.

Matt (59:04.537)
Okay, so let's see if the things that Elder Pingree said is doctrine fit what the Book of Mormon said is the doctrine four times.

shawn (59:12.609)
Which one does he say?

Matt (59:14.065)
He says the nature of the Godhead, the plan of salvation, and the atonement.

shawn (59:18.872)
Well, I'm not saying that they're the same things that Christ is preaching there, because you know the four things that Christ preached, right? Faith in Christ. So if I think faith in Christ could be His first one, it could be the nature of God, right? What was the second one from Him? Okay, plan of salvation obviously is faith, repentance, baptism, right? And clearly the atonement.

Matt (59:25.865)
Faith. Repentance.

Matt (59:31.929)
Okay, the nature of the Godhead, okay. Faith, plan of salvation.

Matt (59:40.617)
That's what he's teaching there in Nephi, right? And the atonement.

shawn (59:45.864)
is only accessible through Christ by faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Matt (59:49.993)
But in that part of the Book of Mormon he does not mention temple ordinances.

shawn (59:53.912)
Okay, so that's a good point. So what my point in bringing this up is, in 2 Nephi 32, Christ says, "'Verily, verily, angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost, therefore they speak the words of Christ, therefore feast upon the words of Christ.' Because the words of Christ will tell you all things what you should do. In other words, the doctrine, the truth, is in the words of Christ, is in the scripture. So when we see things like 3 Nephi 11, and he says, look, verily, I'm going to establish my doctrine.

What we know is canonized scripture through prophets contains doctrine. So if I can find in canonized scripture something that says, Sam, you gotta wear a white shirt when you pass the sacrament, then I can consider it as doctrine. But if I... But if I can't find that, then I have no problem concluding that as a policy and it doesn't matter. It's just...

Matt (01:00:34.233)
Yeah, that's in Song of Solomon.

Matt (01:00:47.889)
So you say doctrine is in scripture.

shawn (01:00:50.708)
I say that as the guide. It is so simple and clear. If you can find it in scripture, canonized scripture, not, and I'll clarify this, not conference talks, not ensign articles, not BYU devotionals, not Institute manuals, not even Preach My Gospel.

Matt (01:01:03.727)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (01:01:07.377)
What a Institute manuals.

Sam D'Arc (01:01:12.805)
First presidency special messages.

Matt (01:01:13.393)
Dev... Devotional? It's gotta be in this scripture.

shawn (01:01:14.98)
No, thank you. No, no. And here's why it's got to be a scripture and I'll qualify why no general conference talks. 99, if not 100% of what the prophets and apostles talk about in conference are not new revealed doctrines. They are reiterating, repeating, reminding of the existing doctrines that exist. They're quoting, they're rewording, they're retelling. If something new gets revealed, it becomes canon.

Matt (01:01:35.549)
Okay.

Matt (01:01:43.273)
Okay. So canonized doctrine is doctrine and it won't change because the sacrifice thing changed, Sean, right? Sacrifice was in the law of Moses that you had to kill animals and then Jesus changed it to the sacrament when he came.

shawn (01:01:52.3)
What's Sacrament Sacrifice?

shawn (01:01:57.192)
And what, yeah, yeah. Well, he didn't change it, remember? He destroyed it, right? Oh no, wait, he didn't destroy it, he fulfilled it. Remember, Christ said, I did not come to destroy that law, I came to fulfill that law. So, Matt, all throughout the Old Testament, as they took that animal and they sacrificed it, when the Spirit came in and taught them the true reality of what they were doing, it was teaching them, this is a symbol of a thing to come, and when it comes, you will no longer do this because Christ did it.

Matt (01:02:04.497)
He did! Oh, he-

shawn (01:02:27.212)
He's the one that dies, right? So it was being fulfilled.

Matt (01:02:28.864)
Okay. Okay, so then that's doctrine. Sacrifice to Sacrament was always doctrine.

shawn (01:02:34.836)
Always doctrine.

Matt (01:02:35.992)
Okay.

Sam D'Arc (01:02:37.384)
So are the Relief Society sisters in San Francisco gonna get to be able to be back up on the stand then? Is that what that means? Do they get to be back up on the stand for Church Sunday? Is that doctrine or is that policy?

Matt (01:02:46.409)
I'm right.

shawn (01:02:50.616)
Okay, so Sam, what's funny about that is I brought this up with my good friend, my evangelical good friend, because he holds true to that scripture in, I think, Mark, that basically says women cannot preach and cannot teach. In fact, don't talk. No, no, no. He was trying to point that out. And it was so fun and fascinating to go take a deep dive into that and try to get the proper interpretation. And...

Matt (01:03:05.502)
Oh, so it's doctrine to keep the women off. Oh.

shawn (01:03:17.8)
It's hard, right, Sam? Because you can take many Scriptures and apply your bias and try and justify what you teach.

Matt (01:03:25.697)
Yeah.

Sam D'Arc (01:03:27.304)
Wait, by the way, that's not my bias. I think women belong on the stand more than we do. I'm just trying to find out. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out, are we able to get back up on the stand? Let them back up on the stand, Sean, come on.

shawn (01:03:31.384)
Hahaha

Matt (01:03:31.497)
We're going to talk over you, Sam.

shawn (01:03:41.048)
I mean, but I would because what doctrine says that they can't be there? This is a policy. It's just a thing that we need some order across all of the wards, right? It's just a policy. Sam, how many people should be in a stake? Is that doctrine?

Sam D'Arc (01:03:49.385)
Yeah.

Matt (01:03:54.137)
Uh, it's in the scriptures. The church just changed that policy, right? They changed, uh-huh.

Sam D'Arc (01:03:54.577)
244. 144.

shawn (01:03:57.612)
It doesn't say right that's correct from 3,000 to 2,000 big deal

Matt (01:04:06.271)
Okay, but there are things like the proclamation to the world on the family, right? Is that doctrine?

shawn (01:04:10.532)
Good, good, good. Which, has that become canonized? No, it has not. So it means it's either nothing new in there. There's no new revealed doctrine in there. It's just reiterating existing doctrine. Or it means there's something that needs to be changed in there before it becomes doctrine.

Matt (01:04:15.381)
No, it's not canonized.

Matt (01:04:28.71)
Wow.

Sam D'Arc (01:04:29.152)
Sean, I can't wait till you're a general authority. Things are gonna become so much clearer and easier. And I'm a little concerned that this show could potentially later on down the road become a substitute for general authority messages. So everybody listening needs to be careful. We're not moving to Rexburg. We're not going to Independence, Missouri. We're not starting a new book club. This is just the latter day lens. Yeah.

Matt (01:04:34.08)
I know, I know.

shawn (01:04:41.22)
I'm gonna go to bed.

Matt (01:04:44.959)
They're like I was...

Matt (01:04:53.353)
They're like, Elder records said this. No, no, he wasn't a general authority yet when he said that. He was very clear. It wasn't scripture, it wasn't canon, it wasn't doctrine. It was just Sean expounding things that he had read in the scriptures.

Sam D'Arc (01:04:58.516)
That's right.

shawn (01:05:09.348)
Well, I know it's annoying to be passionate about this, but...

Matt (01:05:12.761)
No, no, it's not annoying. I like it. These are like, sometimes Sean, I'm like reading through things and I say, I don't know the answer to this. And then I say, let's take it to Sean. Cause you think a lot about these questions. And I don't think about these questions very much. I just say, hmm, that seems like a paradox. But then I say, Sean, I know his thought about this. He's put some, he's put in the work.

Sam D'Arc (01:05:14.464)
It's good.

shawn (01:05:23.561)
I love his stuff.

shawn (01:05:33.684)
Another reason why I think it's fun, so when I go on my walks with my buddy, it forces me to have to defend what I believe in. And I have to often ask myself, whoa, wait, do we actually believe that? Because he's good at coming at me and going, hey, this prophet said this, and this prophet said this. And oftentimes I'll be like, well, show me your source. Let's look at what a prophet said in 1946. And it's very fascinating because sometimes there's very questionable stuff that gets said.

Sam D'Arc (01:05:41.312)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (01:06:00.8)
Well, how do I deal with that? Is that doctrine? Is it not doctrine? Well, it's an easy answer. Is it in canon? Is it canonized? Is it in scripture? God has revealed scripture. And if a prophet said something that was against scripture, that would have become canonized. Do you agree with that or no?

Matt (01:06:16.637)
No, I think that's right. So one of our listeners emailed me and sent me a letter that Elder Stapley of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles wrote to George Romney when he was governor of Michigan. And I guess it's a famous letter. So I was reading through this letter, and in this letter, Elder Stapley basically tells George Romney to not support the civil rights movement in the United States, and then goes through and delineates all these teachings from Joseph Smith.

that according to this apostle suggests that African-Americans shouldn't have equal rights. And he warns him, he's like, and look, people who go against the prophet Joseph Smith tend to lose in the end. So I'm just urging you not as an apostle, but as a friend to like ease off on this support of civil rights. And then George Romney in response becomes more of an advocate of civil rights after the letter. And he's like, I just disagree. So I do appreciate, Sean,

shawn (01:07:10.669)
Hehehe

Matt (01:07:16.677)
you help us to understand that we should revere and respect the prophets, the, and sustain them as prophets, seers and revelators, but we don't have to agree with everything they say. And we should take the scriptures as our guide, especially if the two seem to conflict.

shawn (01:07:32.412)
But it is hard for me to find places where they conflict. Like I haven't found.

Matt (01:07:37.157)
Yeah, but like this personal letter would be one, right? Where it'd be like, okay, that's an interesting perspective, but respectfully, I disagree with that. That's not the way I read the scriptures.

shawn (01:07:46.093)
Or, oftentimes when my friend presents me with something, I'll go look at the context of that thing and I'll go, wait a minute, this so-called prophet said this 25 years before they were a prophet in a third-hand heresy journal. Like, I can't trust that source.

Matt (01:07:57.212)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sam D'Arc (01:08:02.039)
It's contextual. That's interesting. That's contextual.

shawn (01:08:04.004)
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Matt (01:08:04.654)
Hahaha!

Hey, that's a great way for us to end the podcast this week. Listener, thank you for your comments. We encourage you to continue writing to us and filling up our mailbag. And if you're upset at me, let me know. I love to hear how I've said wrong things. Talk to you again next week.