Matt (00:01.587)
Hello and welcome everyone to the RM podcast with Sean, Sam and Matt. Wait a minute, we don't have a new logo yet, Sean. This is the Real Mormonism podcast. Welcome to Real Mormonism with Sean, Sam and Matt. Listener, when you see this logo, you're gonna wanna buy it. You're gonna want t -shirts, you're gonna want a hat, you're gonna want all kind of merchandise and I can't promise it will sell it. We might, what is tchotchke?

Shawn (00:13.583)
It's coming, it's coming.

Sam (00:15.926)
Mm -hmm.

Sam (00:25.784)
Chachki. Chachki.

Chachki is all the stuff that people sell that's crap, that is completely worthless. Like, you know, key chains and key rings and little car hangers and rear view mirror tags and such. Yeah. Yes. We sell lots of Chachki and it's worthless crap. So yes.

Matt (00:34.116)
Shawn (00:36.335)
swag, it's swag, it's branding, Sam. Sam, you oughta know better, it's branding, it's not garbage.

Matt (00:41.906)
Yeah, this -

Shawn (00:45.945)
Sam, don't you work for the big auto conglomerate?

Matt (00:49.117)
Yeah, that's why he knows what this well, well, we're not going to sell this stuff. We're going to make the value really high by not letting people have it. We're going to create scarcity. Okay. So we've got some, we actually have a lot of stuff in the mailbag this week. I chose one specific item because I thought it would be fun to talk about. So, a listener sent us this story. It's in the economist. There's a link to it if you want to read the whole story, but basically it says that research shows that religious students,

Shawn (00:58.829)
Yeah

Sam (00:59.426)
I love it.

Matt (01:18.973)
do better in school. It says pious pupils have higher grades, better attendance records, and complete more years of college. But then there's some caveats. They're like, although the academic evidence seems to support the positive academic impact of religiosity, there are a couple of things to consider. So first, atheists actually do better in school when compared to the mildly faithful. But religious people seem to be motivated by God.

The second one is religion.

Shawn (01:50.255)
I needed a study to be told that.

Matt (01:54.253)
Hey, I didn't find this. Somebody emailed it. Yeah, the listeners sent. Yeah. The second one is that religion leads to outperformance only for certain people. So it's more helpful for working class and middle -class children. Poor children have too many other barriers to overcome. And then the last one is religious children are less likely to graduate from selective colleges like the elite colleges for some reason.

Shawn (01:58.083)
No, I'm not making fun of it. It's true.

Matt (02:21.897)
religious people don't want to go to these elite schools. Okay.

Sam (02:26.06)
love, I love how people make inferences from super narrow studies. Therefore, we know religious people don't like Harvard. So if you're religious, don't go to Harvard. This is the takeaway. No, they can get into Harvard. A lot of people I know who go to Harvard who are religious disaffiliate, right? So I don't know. Is that true? It takes them away. It makes them jaded and

Matt (02:31.081)
Or maybe, maybe they can't get into Harvard. Maybe Harvard hates religious people and they won't let you in.

Matt (02:50.274)
Harvard takes them away from religion.

Shawn (02:53.859)
Well, you said, Matt, was it your comment or was it the listener who said that they tend to prioritize their families and communities pursuing an elite education is less important to them? no.

Matt (02:56.393)
Ugh.

Sam (02:57.432)
High and mighty.

Matt (03:04.113)
Yeah, that's in the article. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think that you can.

Sam (03:05.826)
Yeah.

What about elite employment? When presented the choice between religiosity and elite employment, which do people choose?

Matt (03:19.365)
You can't ask about things that aren't in the study, Sam. We can't.

Sam (03:21.874)
Okay, to whoever sent this in, we would like a broader, more general survey so we can draw crazy conclusions on our own.

Shawn (03:22.115)
And what the heck is elite and what is elite employment?

Well, there's nothing shocking in it to me. Like, in fact, this is a little bit of a tangent, but I hope that in our country, we trend away from like the dominance that universities and higher education has. I watched, I read a little study about how when governments subsidize things, Sam, this will shock you, but things tend to get inflated when government puts money into things. And when government starts to subsidize college and university,

Matt (03:28.284)
Yeah.

Sam (03:33.558)
No, it makes sense.

Sam (03:56.888)
more expensive.

Shawn (03:57.217)
shocker the prices of universities go up and up and up and up and up and it convinces a lot of people that this is the the only path to a career. I don't like that. I think that's terrible.

Sam (04:06.776)
Hmm.

Matt (04:07.783)
I don't think that government subsidies always make things more expensive. The government subsidized like solar panels that made those less expensive. It subsidizes oil. Oil is more expensive because of subsidies.

Shawn (04:11.883)
Of course you don't.

hang on. Hey, no, no, no, no, no, no, there. Stop there. Okay. I live in CA Matt, Matt, I live in California. Okay. So they subsidize solar panels, right? And it got, and it caused, I don't remember the details, but it's caused such, we did it. We got solar panels and we got the, the, the tax break from it. So what happened was now there are so many solar panels in California and this, and the energy companies are struggling so much to make a profit.

Sam (04:17.068)
More expensive, more expensive.

Matt (04:25.927)
Okay.

Shawn (04:43.257)
They've passed a law that says, okay, no longer will anyone be charged for their, we're going to basically put a tier system based on your income. They've now bypassed it. And now solar is worthless, completely worthless. In fact, they're going to find ways to, and what's the other thing that's happening is more and more people don't care about peak days. So they're using more and more energy. It's not, no, no. Prices have gone up because they're, they're upping all the, well it is because

Sam (04:55.352)
Hmm. Hmm.

Matt (05:06.025)
But wait, but wait, if you just said solar is worthless, then it would be less expensive.

Shawn (05:14.691)
Well, no, it's worthless because I'm now paying. I'm not paying based on what I produce. I'm paying on whatever my income is. one.

Matt (05:21.023)
they don't buy back your excess production anymore? well.

Shawn (05:25.153)
Some of us got grandfathered in, but moving forward, no, no.

Sam (05:28.33)
Okay. I'm bored. Let's, let's go on to the next topic. Now I'm lost and bored. Therefore next up Sean.

Matt (05:31.689)
Kesh... Sean you're up first!

Shawn (05:36.349)
I don't think Sam has, Sam didn't prepare a topic. I don't think he's allowed to be bored and to demand a change of topics.

Matt (05:40.411)
No, no, he's, he's, he's right. He's right. We moved, we moved from religion and college to solar panels. I can understand.

Sam (05:40.512)
I have a topic. I have a topic.

Sam (05:47.074)
Yeah, it's like, it's unaffiliated to quote a great movie with Richard Clooney or George Clooney. I as of yet remain unaffiliate. yes, we're moving on. Sean, you get to go. Sean, this is so exciting. It's your topic.

Shawn (05:47.555)
Let's go to science. Let's go to science. All right.

Shawn (05:57.729)
Okay, can we go to science, science, scientific, wow, scientific podcasts. Okay, there's a scientific podcast called Ancient Temple, it's on ancient temple rights. And it has Utah listening like crazy. Apparently all the S people are eating this up. I've started listening and it is pretty fascinating. The ancient, the it's called the ancient tradition, you're gonna like it Sam, it's fascinating. So

Matt (06:01.713)
No muting, Sean.

Sam (06:15.33)
Wait, what's it called? What's it called? I'm gonna download it.

Sam (06:21.866)
I'm downloading it right now.

Matt (06:22.747)
I love that Sean's topic is to promote an inferior podcast to ours. But okay, tell.

Shawn (06:27.599)
So the ancient tradition is a podcast hosted by Dr. Jack Logan, who is a professor who has researched religious traditions throughout the world. In her study, she found reputable scholars that kept pointing out similarities in all these different traditions all over the world. And they indicate that there was one original ritual system. Like she probes ancient texts from Egypt, Hebrews, from the Maoris, Mesopotamia, Mayans, and all these describe

really common, like stubborn similarities in myths, symbols, rituals, and they all point to one original religious rite that Dr. Logan says was given to man in the Garden of Eden, basically. So she references reputable academic scholars, really does a good job at referencing right people.

Matt (07:11.249)
I mean, we don't know if there's such a thing as a reputable academic scholar of religion, right? We question that.

Shawn (07:17.88)
There were scholars of cosmology, archaeology, like all kinds of different fields.

Matt (07:21.113)
Right see? Is cosmology really a field though, Sean?

Shawn (07:26.183)
I mean as much as political science is.

Matt (07:28.071)
It's okay. I don't want to interrupt.

Sam (07:29.016)
Matt, Matt, it is commonly accepted that cosmology, not so much cosmetology, yes.

Matt (07:38.249)
Alright, keep going Sean.

Shawn (07:38.511)
So anyway, so the evidence is so profound that they concluded a lot of these scholars and concluded it is incontrovertible that religions of today were descendants of some common source. So the question is this, why are LDS members so interested in this? And if the findings are true, are they a big deal, a little deal or no deal?

Matt (07:49.993)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (07:57.649)
Okay, before I answer this question, the common source is the Garden of Eden.

Shawn (08:03.535)
No, they're saying that the common source points to the creation story, God creating man. Egyptian and Maori and Chinese ancient stories all have a Garden of Eden story basically and a pre -premordial creation story and temple stories and how God communicated with man through temples.

Matt (08:22.941)
Mm -hmm.

Sam (08:24.194)
Wait, why would it be a surprise that why would it be a surprise that members of the church are fascinated by this? Like I think all of my youth, ever since I was a kid, people were fascinated by going back and showing in history a link between things like the Book of Mormon and other scriptural texts to science, right? Like horses in America or, you know, whatever, wanting to be able to show a concrete link.

Shawn (08:31.065)
Well, it's not. I'm asking why do you think they are?

Shawn (08:49.519)
Yeah.

Sam (08:53.122)
There's danger in that, but then there's also, kind of makes you feel proud, comfortable, and it makes you feel good knowing that like a third source or science can verify it. The challenge is as often as we feel like we found verification, it's sometimes turned out to not be correct, which is why you've got to, you've got to approach that carefully. I'm fascinated to the, listen to the podcast. That'll be fun.

Matt (09:20.979)
I know. just checked it. I checked out the webpage of the podcast and I'm not impressed, Sean. I think it looks kind of boring and sort of like sort of lame. try.

Sam (09:25.95)
Wait. It. The.

Shawn (09:27.491)
You took, Matt, you're not fascinated that the Egyptians, the Maoris and the Chinese traditions all have stories about the great flood, a primordial.

Sam (09:34.84)
The podcast cover has a tree. looks like Jack Johnson, not Jack Logan. It looks like the guy that wrote the theme song for Curious George. I like it.

Shawn (09:41.135)
You

Matt (09:41.161)
First of all, I know where Egyptian religion came from. I watched the movie Stargate, so they're not right about that. The Maoris, I don't know, but like I was watching a show today, there was this origin. This religion's origin story is that the earth was like a mother water God that shed her skin and created life. I know that the Shinto religion, Confucianism, they don't share that common.

Shawn (09:49.017)
Hehehehehe

Chinese.

Shawn (10:03.033)
So Matt, so Matt, here are some of the common ideas. They all, Chinese, Maori, Egyptians, they all point to a great flood. They all point to a prime, go listen to the podcast, man.

Matt (10:13.577)
Mmm, I don't think so.

Matt (10:18.674)
I'm not interested in this podcast. think it's propaganda, Sean. I think it's, I think it's propaganda that gets people in Utah.

Shawn (10:23.927)
Matt, this comes from your people. These are scholars.

Sam (10:24.354)
Wait, whose propaganda, Matt, whose propaganda would it be? Like who benefits from?

Shawn (10:29.249)
Yeah, who's pushing this? She's not LDS. She's not LDS. Who's...

Matt (10:32.475)
Right, right. Can you can't think of like how excited and giddy like Christians are going to get when they say every religion in the world agrees with our idea about the Bible and the Garden of Eden and all of these big ideas and they all descended from us. Like it makes them feel.

Shawn (10:48.335)
So you think she's, so we know how you feel about evangelicals. You think she's an evangelical who's just trying to prop up there.

Matt (10:54.119)
No, no, I think she's appealing. I think she's appealing to a specific kind of Christian audience that feels superior. There you go. I don't, I don't know the scholarship of that field really well, but the people I know that study Chinese religions, I don't think they would agree with what she's saying about Chinese religions.

Sam (11:00.312)
She's mass communicating.

Shawn (11:15.693)
Maybe go listen to her evidence and see her references.

Matt (11:18.437)
Okay. But I would also say this, like the field of psychology suggests that individuals have the psychological needs that religion fills. And so people create common stories depending on their cultural or geographic context. And so we shouldn't be surprised that so many of them share a lot in common because religion was created to fill those same psychological needs.

Shawn (11:26.788)
Yeah.

Shawn (11:36.527)
But that.

Okay, but that Freudian theory that you just preached was created because he was an atheist and said, there is no source for answers of to why we're here and where, so I'm going to create those answers myself. And his way of doing that was saying, if you believe in religion, you have a mental disorder. And how do you fix a mental disorder? psychotherapy. that's convenient. That's convenient. He actually offers psychotherapy.

Matt (12:03.143)
Right.

Matt (12:07.017)
Well, what's the agenda of this other podcast? Like I understand everyone has an agenda, right? And the information that they promote.

Shawn (12:12.727)
So she is so as far as anyone can figure out, she's not affiliated with any religion, but she clarifies in the first episode, she has always known God. She feels the love of God. She believes that God exists. She's faithful. She does believe in the Bible. And she just says, look, I just wanted to study and see, was interested. There was nothing that existed that put together a whole story of what these ancient religions are, their similarities. And as she did it, she found so much that she made this podcast and it's fascinating.

Matt (12:39.623)
Hmm. Okay. I'm still going to say no deal. I'm still going to say it's not all that exciting to me, but I'm glad that it's if it excites you, Sean.

Shawn (12:43.629)
OK.

Sam (12:46.52)
But it, it, it may not be exciting, Matt, but you understand the desire of members and non -members to connect it all together. Like there's something alluring about making sense of all of it. Like we heard that on our missions all the time. You talk to a drunk guy sitting in ploshed linen and he would say, all religions end up in the same place. Right? Like everybody kind of goes up the same.

Matt (12:52.936)
Yeah.

Matt (12:57.019)
Yeah

Matt (13:11.731)
Yeah.

Sam (13:15.072)
whatever, and everybody ends up in the same place. You just get there a different route. Like there's something appealing to that concept that ultimately there's some sort of a common route in our religion and in others.

Matt (13:25.447)
Yeah.

Shawn (13:25.657)
Yeah, Matt, you're not, you're not, like, it's not fascinating to you that let's say, Maori, Chinese, and Egyptians all have an ancient history that say that God only revealed his truths through temples. You wouldn't be interested in that?

Sam (13:33.08)
Fake news, Sean, it's fake news. It's fake news.

Matt (13:37.865)
Whatever conceptualization they have of temple worship is so different than what I think about for temple worship that the fact that they created sacred spaces. No, that doesn't surprise me at all. Every religion has a sacred space where they talk to God. So that doesn't like excite me very much.

Shawn (13:54.263)
Yeah, but that's the point. When you go back into those histories and you find the origin story of why they use temples, it all points back to because when God created the earth and man was banished from God's presence, God commanded them to build temples as a sacred place where he would commune with them. That's not fascinating to you that that story is an Egyptian and Chinese and Maori story?

Matt (14:16.795)
It's not in these Eastern religions. It's definitely not in Hinduism at all. But the idea of creating shrines and say, Buddhism? Buddhism is barely even a religion. They don't talk to God in Buddhism.

Shawn (14:22.415)
She points out that it is in Buddhism. It's in Buddhism. Go study it.

Shawn (14:32.473)
Go go listen to the podcast Matt and tell me what you think.

Matt (14:36.145)
I'm not going to listen to the podcast. This is what else. This is why I'm so resistant to this Sean. Like for my whole life, there are like either BYU scholars or various other like kind of church scholars. And I understand she's not a member of our church, but they like go around and they like, it's almost like a buffet. They go around Latin America, probably on a cruise ship. And then they find this thing and they're like, that looks like the tree of life. this looks like something from the book of Mormon. And then they write some book where they put all this stuff together.

Shawn (14:38.883)
You

Matt (15:05.607)
and they package it and sell it at Desert Book. And then I have to hear about it in Sunday school or at seminary. And then it doesn't take but five years before scholars are like, that's a bunch of garbage. that's not.

Shawn (15:15.695)
Well, I agree that sometimes the scholars of the day attack other radical ideas because it questions their own profession, but why don't you judge it on its content instead of just on nothing?

Matt (15:31.027)
Well, I'm just judging it based on the content you've told me so far. It doesn't seem consistent with the things that I know about those religions. but look, listen.

Shawn (15:37.149)
okay. okay. So you're a conservative. You're a conservative when it comes to academic fields and studies.

Matt (15:44.326)
I'm a conservative when it comes to politics, when it comes to religion, when it comes to my approach to life, I'm very conservative. But Sean,

Shawn (15:52.249)
Sam, you get all the points because you were nice about it.

Matt (15:55.185)
Okay. Well I'll give you the point, Sean, because it's not often that you get excited about, this kind of thing.

Shawn (15:56.068)
Yeah

Shawn (16:02.863)
scholarly studies. That's true. That's true.

Matt (16:04.165)
Right, right. You usually you you usually do what I just did. You usually tell me how scholarship is horrible.

Shawn (16:08.653)
Yeah, that's true. I'm glad you're a skeptic. Yeah, that's true. You get a point then.

Matt (16:13.171)
I'm not a skeptic. I'm just, I just hate it when people like mix science and religion. I really, really don't like that. It's not like you can't learn something, right? You can go to any museum anywhere in the world and all of the art that they're showing to you was like originally religious art. So there's like things you can learn as you study religion, but I don't know that

Shawn (16:20.193)
OK. That's fair.

Shawn (16:33.325)
I I agree with you. would never ever say that any scientific findings or historian can help your testimony grow. Absolutely not. The scriptures are clear. The spirit is the only one that does that.

Matt (16:40.837)
Yeah.

Sam (16:42.072)
but you are looking for scientific validation of the root of it all. Right.

Matt (16:47.918)
That's the part that I don't like. And so, yeah.

Shawn (16:50.135)
Yeah, I agree. don't I don't love that a lot. Do you feel like Sam? That's that's a helpful thing. It's a useful thing.

Sam (16:56.14)
I think people crave it. I think people love it. They want it. And the challenge is it's a house of cards because it doesn't always, you try to connect dots that don't connect and then you put your faith or your belief in it. And when it crumbles, you, you know, you, you, you question it all. And in a lot of times it does crumble. love, I don't know if you guys have ever been down to South America, right? If you've done the Chechnitsa and Tulum and all that stuff.

Shawn (17:11.673)
Great point.

Shawn (17:23.619)
Ha ha ha.

Sam (17:24.344)
There are actually two different sets of tours you can do down there, right? So there, there are people who are members of the church that one run one set of tours, and then there's archeologists and others that do a complete different set of tours. And they make pretty big leaps, in how they explain all that down there. And look, do I know what's true or not? It's, it's, it's very entertaining, right? They'll show you all the spots where they believe everything happened.

Matt (17:24.99)
Yeah.

Shawn (17:40.697)
You

You

Sam (17:50.486)
I don't know if it's based in science or not, it's a leap, right? And, you know.

Shawn (17:51.331)
Wow.

Matt (17:55.345)
It's like when, when you go to Europe, every major city has a cathedral. If you go to Cologne, they say, we have the bones of the three wise men. And if you go to Venice, they say, we have the bones of St. Mark's. And if you go to, can't remember if this one was in Luxembourg or where exactly this one was. And they said, we have the, clothing that baby Jesus wore after he was born. It's like this little outfit that he wore. It's like, I mean,

Some people really believe that stuff, right? And some people really believe that it's like legitimate proof that the wise men existed and all because we have their bones. And so if you didn't have their bones, right. But I just think that, I just don't think that God works that way. I just don't think that it's all about science. Like, I don't know. I just don't like the academic approach to developing faith. That's all.

Shawn (18:44.365)
I like that. You earned points, Matt. Yeah, and I'm not suggesting at all that we should use it to develop faith. Not at

Matt (18:50.593)
Okay, okay, so my topic is it's in Sam's wheelhouse you guys might not know this about Sam, but he's in the auto industry and he is a philanthropist not to be confused with other words that sound like philanthropists, but Sam Sam Sam does a lot of good in the world and In my community, there's a car dealership that they wanted to give back to the schools in the local community So they had a fundraiser

Sam (19:02.196)
Interesting. Yes, philanthropy.

Matt (19:18.761)
in which they raffled off tickets to win a brand new Toyota Camry. So I don't know the exact cost to a dealer of a Toyota Camry, but I'm going to guess that maybe this cost the dealer $40 ,000. But in raffling off tickets, they were able to raise over $300 ,000. So it took that initial like money that the dealer was giving and it increased it eight times because people wanted to purchase raffle tickets. And then somebody won this car.

And everybody's happy, right? Because the dealership like gives the car away or they give away, they make a donation and then more people donate money and the school gets money and then somebody actually gets a car. But this got me to thinking like the church is really explicit in the handbook of instructions that you cannot use raffles to raise money for like young men's and young women's things. And they talk about how, yeah, that's really specific because you can imagine Sam, the kind of money you could raise for instead of like,

Sam (20:09.112)
Really?

Sam (20:15.786)
yeah, Pater, man. Yeah, that'd be cool. Yeah.

Matt (20:17.043)
putting flags in people's yard, right? Right. Like, right. You could buy some expensive thing. You could buy an iPad, right? And say, for the ward fundraiser, we're going to raffle off this iPad. And you would make way more money than putting flags in people's yards.

Sam (20:24.994)
Yeah. Hey, what's, what's the difference between multi -level marketing and raffles? Just in this case, out of curiosity.

Matt (20:34.931)
Well, you can talk about that when you answer my question, Sam, but this is my question is, is it morally okay to use raffles as a way to raise money for charitable causes in our communities? So, right? Cause it seems to work, but on the other hand, the church doesn't love it. So is it morally wrong to do something like that?

Sam (20:37.524)
Okay, go ahead.

Sam (20:56.322)
Why, so what harm is the church attempting to protect against when they institute, when they say no raffles?

Matt (21:02.087)
The, they say that raffles and games of chance incentivize people to try to get something for nothing. Right. And so you should be providing a service.

Shawn (21:12.825)
Did they say, you, is that what you think is the reason or is that a stated reason?

Matt (21:18.281)
Well, if I look in like old church talks when they talk about how gambling is so wrong, right? The wrong thing about gambling and games of chance.

Shawn (21:25.327)
Okay, but that's about gambling, not necessarily raffles. Like there's no, like.

Sam (21:29.352)
Raffles are a version of...

Matt (21:29.555)
Well, when they say not to have a, yeah, raffles is a game of chance, right? You're giving money in hopes to win something. It's just a lottery.

Sam (21:36.248)
So, so, so I, I would extend it one step further. Cause I hate multilevel marketing. I've just seen like, it just, it's such a scam. So it's interesting. You think of, so you think of gambling, you go sit at a table in Las Vegas and you put down a thousand dollars and you lose it. And then you put down another thousand and then you put 10 ,000 and you're out a hundred grand before long, whatever. Right. That's flat out gambling. You're kissing that money. Goodbye. Raffles.

You feel good because you're supporting a good cause. It's 20 bucks. There's, it's a small pool or whatever. You've got better odds in a raffle. That's a community raffles, a fundraiser than anywhere else. And you've got the twin benefit of a little entertainment value. Plus you're doing good in the world. Right. So there's a degree of separation. And then you go another degree where it's like, Hey, I signed up for a multi -level marketing thing. spent a thousand dollars on crap product. And the only way I'm going to make any money is if I unload this.

garbage on someone else, right? Like, so.

Matt (22:37.703)
Well, some of it is really high quality vitamins, Sam. Some of it is like got this special formula that's going to help you live a long time. And some of it is

Sam (22:43.084)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why they don't use, that's why they don't use normal distribution channels. They decide to like have friends push their friends because friends really do a good job of pushing crap on other friends. Right? Like if I know you, Matt, I'm telling you this cream, this cream, this will really help you. This is gonna, and it's packed in from Mexico by camels because the FDA doesn't want to approve it. And therefore that's why blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? So

Matt (22:56.847)
It's the government. It's the government.

Matt (23:08.969)
Hopefully it's not laced with fentanyl.

Sam (23:12.088)
So, so what's interesting is, is what's the degree of separation from outright gambling where you're sitting at the table, putting money down versus a raffle versus MLM. To me, a raffle is super helpful in a community. I've seen it do more good than harm. And it is a favorite, fundraising channel for businesses that want to do well in a community and even sports teams and whatnot. go to a baseball game or a basketball game and you can put $20 down on, you know, a raffle that

pays out that same day. And the odds are pretty high because the number of people paying into that raffle are pretty low. A portion of it goes to charity. And, you know, the potential of you winning and, and, and kind of the excitement of that ends up being, being pretty high. So,

Matt (23:59.401)
Well, let's compare that Sam with there was somebody came to my door today with a fundraiser. They're like, we're going to wash cars and we're going to have people pledge. Like you can give us $1 for every car we wash. And if we wash 500 cars and your donation is $500, like, does it feel different if you're giving money? Let's say you're going to give $500 anyways. And you say, I'm going to give $500 in how many cars you wash versus I'm going to buy $500 in raffle tickets. Like,

Sam (24:10.552)
Mmm.

Matt (24:28.647)
Maybe those feel different, those two behaviors, and that's why the church would say one's better than the other.

Sam (24:35.49)
Wait, why would they say one's better than the other? I'm still confused.

Matt (24:39.197)
Because if somebody says, I'm going to go work and wash cars and I know that I've got all these pledges. So it's like, I'm incentivized to do more work to get the money.

Sam (24:46.069)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get paid more because more people have pledged and therefore my ROI on working is harder. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (24:52.327)
and I'm working harder, right? Right. So, so one of them incentivizes work and the other incentivizes hope of something that getting something for nothing.

Sam (25:04.162)
Here, I think the church will never say it's okay to do a raffle because it has the appearance of gambling. Even though the good that can come from a raffle like that far outweighs in most cases, the negative, nobody's going to like become addicted to raffles. Like you don't ever hear of anyone that's like, it's a raffle. It's a charitable raffle. Wait, pack up, pack up. Yeah. Pack up the kids. We're we're.

Matt (25:26.985)
I bought 40 ,000 in raffle tickets and didn't win the car.

Sam (25:32.536)
We're going to the church event. We've got to buy $10 ,000 worth of raffles. The other, the other fun thing about raffles is the recognition that the winner ends up getting. Right. So you sit in a large room where my company, we're doing a big charity event here in two weeks. And we raise a million dollars at this charity event. And we always play on people's desire to be recognized and seen as being philanthropic as a way of raising more dollars. So.

Matt (25:39.292)
Matt (25:42.898)
Right.

Sam (26:02.558)
All as the MC, I'll stand up at front and I'll get two people bidding on one item and you play against each other and they'll ultimately give more just to be seen as being philanthropic giving back. then also, you know, they're seen as giving more to, to, get this prize, whatever the, whatever the big item is. And I think a raffle has just a little bit of that. Right? So you're doing good. You're seen is doing good. And then if you win.

Matt (26:22.691)
Right. Being the winner.

Matt (26:28.104)
Yeah.

Sam (26:31.596)
You've got the tail of it, but at heart it's gambling, but you know, it's, it's got a, it's, it's got a benefit to it.

Matt (26:35.207)
Yeah.

Shawn (26:36.419)
I don't know, Matt, do you think?

Do you think maybe there's nothing immoral about a raffle and maybe it's just good policy? Like for example, remember back, you you talk about our grandparents back in the days who were, they were pressured to like put forth their own money to build a local church building or to hire the cleaning crew, whatever. That's gone away in a big way. Maybe it's just good policy that basically says, look, you pay your tithing. That's a faithful issue. It clearly has worked as far as financially for the church. Any activity that's gonna,

Matt (26:55.208)
Right.

Shawn (27:09.537)
Add additional pressure for members of the church to give money is probably a good policy. Don't do that. Maybe it's just that.

Sam (27:15.192)
Wait, like scouting.

Matt (27:15.283)
Well, but you can do, you can do a fundraiser though, Sean. We do the put the flags in the yard fundraiser. It's a lot of work and I guarantee I could raffle something off and make more money than I do putting flags in people's yards. Yeah. Well, I don't, yeah, I think there's just this element of games of chance are wicked and immoral. Like a lottery is the same thing, right?

Shawn (27:18.027)
Hahaha

Shawn (27:28.579)
okay.

Sam (27:36.552)
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How is a raffle a game of chance? That's wicked. You purchase a ticket to benefit the boy scouts so they can go off on their camping trip.

Matt (27:41.885)
You purchase a ticket hoping that you get to be the one that wins.

Matt (27:49.097)
But you get nothing in return for that, right?

Sam (27:53.196)
You get the possibility, you give back to the scouts, therefore they can go do their camping trip and you have a small.

Shawn (27:58.371)
man it's entertaining for you to give that money with a chance of winning something. Right Sam, it's entertainment. That's the argument that, that's the gambling argument. That's just entertainment. This money's fine to be spending at risky activities because it's entertainment.

Matt (27:59.037)
Right.

Yes. Well, it's the chance. It's the chance element of it. Yeah.

Sam (28:07.703)
Yeah.

Matt (28:09.435)
Right. Yeah.

Sam (28:10.164)
Yeah, I don't know. I took the opposite side of this. I've never, I would never win a raffle. I'm kidding. I've never won. I've never won a raffle. interesting.

Shawn (28:16.056)
you

Matt (28:19.153)
Okay, I'm actually gonna, I'll give you the point, Sam, because you did a really good job explaining, explaining why raffles are the best form of fundraising. And if our listeners take nothing else from this podcast today, they'll know. Listen, if it's not the church telling you you can't do it and it's like legitimate, you need to raise funds, a raffle is a killer way to do it. There's a reason why those casinos are so big.

Sam (28:30.989)
Ha

Shawn (28:31.673)
Ha ha ha.

Sam (28:40.906)
Okay. All right. So for, so, so for my topic, I told you my topic would come to me almost as whatever it would just land on me. I've got my topic now. All right. So I'm going to, I'm going to take your raffle and we're going to one up it with a real life business case. two weeks ago, do you know where Purdue is Purdue university? Yep. Lafayette, Indiana. They had a great basketball team. They play football.

Matt (28:48.904)
Yeah.

Okay, well it's your turn.

Shawn (28:51.951)
Wow, exciting.

Matt (29:00.861)
Yeah, Indiana.

Sam (29:08.408)
Last week, they had one of these deals where a kid comes onto the field. He has to kick three field goals in 30 seconds. And if he does it, he wins a lease on a car. It was sponsored by a local car dealer. It's an advertising scam. The car dealer in this case, it's a scam. It's actually, you know what? I apologize. It is not a scam. It's an advertising ploy technique, right? And, and, and.

Matt (29:24.924)
scam.

Matt (29:29.225)
Technique technique

Shawn (29:35.075)
I like this Sam shoots from the hip and gets fired.

Sam (29:38.186)
And, and here's, and, and, here's what's interesting is if you ever go golfing. So again, we talk about games of chance, right? There will be ultimately on one of the holes you golf on, there can be a hole in one competition. And if you hit a hole in one, whoever's sponsoring that tournament will give away something. Maybe it's a new car, maybe you get a hundred thousand dollars. Maybe it's whatever. And the

Matt (29:53.373)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (30:02.611)
Mm -hmm.

Sam (30:03.636)
Entity putting on that competition goes and buys something called hole in one insurance. And it's called that whether it's golf or whether it's at a football game or whatever. The idea is, is they've set up rules that make it really tough for anybody to actually win this. So this kid traipses onto the field. He's not a professional athlete. He's not part of the soccer team or the football team or anything else. And he amazingly makes all three field goal kicks and does it in.

Matt (30:30.343)
Whoa.

Sam (30:31.64)
30 .0005 seconds and everybody celebrates. lose their mind. The, the sponsoring dealer. won't say who it was. Congratulates the kid. Everybody feels good advertising deal sealed. Well, yesterday it came out in the news locally there in Lafayette, Indiana, that the whole in one insurance didn't pay out. So the sponsoring car dealer, yeah. And it didn't because this kid's

Matt (30:56.668)
You

Matt (31:00.681)
It's more than 30 seconds.

Sam (31:00.92)
foot as it, as it hit the camera at 0 .0005, like an increment almost so minor that you can't see it. His, his, his foot wasn't on that ball in that fraction of a moment. And so they declined it. so the business came back and said, Hey, you know what? We apologize. The insurance company went and looked at cameras. We all thought he qualified and did this incredible thing. didn't. So this article hits the newspaper this morning.

Matt (31:16.178)
Wow.

Sam (31:30.76)
And this car dealer, it's not us, it's not affiliated with us, is getting crushed out there on social. Getting crushed. These guys are Satan incarnate, right? So here's my question for you. If you're a business owner, what do you do?

Matt (31:36.049)
Of course they are! Of course they are!

Matt (31:41.639)
Yeah, of course.

Matt (31:46.685)
You pay, who cares if your insurance pay. You said it's how long is the lease on the car that they're going to.

Sam (31:51.576)
So the value of the prize, according to the article, I believe as my memory, as my recollection is about 16 ,000 bucks.

Matt (32:00.347)
my heavens, pay that. Pay that ten times.

Shawn (32:01.359)
Sam, are you sure you don't want to talk about Vladimir Putin endorsing Kamala Harris for president? Are you sure?

Sam (32:08.01)
I do not. I'm so tired of Putin and Kamala.

Matt (32:08.681)
Sean, you're the marketing guy, Sean. What do you do? What would you tell them?

Shawn (32:13.035)
You got, of course you have to pay it out. Of course you do.

Sam (32:16.012)
Yeah. So guess what they did? They didn't pay it out. They're pushing back. They're refusing to do it. So guess what this kid and, and, and, and, and I may have knowledge cause we, we would probably pay it out very quickly, even as a ploy to get the upper hand in the whole deal. this kid. Yeah. This kid has been, this kid has been, contacted by everybody to try to make it quote unquote, right for him. Cause that, you know, the terrible car dealer didn't right.

Matt (32:16.489)
like 16 000

Shawn (32:20.2)
man, how stupid are they?

Matt (32:32.005)
Right, right, you need the positive publicity.

Shawn (32:32.739)
Yeah, marketing opportunity, huge opportunity.

Matt (32:44.85)
Yeah.

Sam (32:46.003)
and

Shawn (32:46.477)
Dude, Sam, your dealership needs to call the kid and say, come on over, we'll invite the TV cameras, we will give you that thing that you rightfully won. Don't ever go to the other dealership, Yeah.

Sam (32:52.214)
I'm not, you know what? think there's a long line of people that are willing to do that. Probably us included. I mean, it would be a huge PR stunt. It's a big miss from a company.

Matt (32:58.086)
Everybody wants it.

Matt (33:03.817)
So Sean, like what does $16 ,000 buy you in terms of branding? It's very like $16 ,000 isn't a lot of money, right?

Shawn (33:12.855)
Not if you're not if you have budget marketing budget. Yeah, billboard is a good one is five grand a month or you get three months of a billboard or that's a TV spot, you know.

Matt (33:18.47)
Wow.

Sam (33:19.928)
But the negatives you get, the negatives you get from defending your insurance company deciding not to pay after everybody's celebrated, you can never make up for those negatives. It'll tarnish your reputation for a long time.

Matt (33:21.854)
Yeah.

Matt (33:25.897)
from not paying $16 ,000.

Matt (33:33.737)
Like if I was this company's competitor and I put up a billboard for three months at the $15 ,000, right? Just to say bad things about them. That billboard would nowhere near have the negative effect that it has when you congratulate somebody for doing something and you don't give them the thing you promised them just because the insurance, like insurance companies, I get it. They're going to, they're going to do what they're going to do. But as a company, like you're the one that promised that

Sam (33:43.426)
Yeah.

Sam (33:50.317)
Yeah.

Matt (34:01.381)
And are you really going to go to like a thousandth of a second? You're going to stake your reputation on a thousandth of a second.

Sam (34:07.384)
So what is it about human nature going back to your thing and going back to MLMs and going back to every scam known to man since the beginning of time, Sean, there's your route. That's your route. If you go back to the beginning, what is it about people wanting and believing they can get something for nothing and then being devastated when they don't or they can't, right? We look, we are allured by this idea of winning a raffle or

Matt (34:20.659)
That's the religion.

Shawn (34:28.271)
It's the fall. It's just the fall, right? It's human nature. It's the fall.

Sam (34:36.012)
Making three kicks and winning a car or, you know, walking into Vegas. Do you know that there's a game in Vegas of chance called war? And literally all it is, is they slapped two cards down and the highest card wins war. that game we played as kids, right? It's insane.

Matt (34:41.447)
Yeah.

Matt (34:52.434)
Yeah.

Matt (34:56.627)
People will gamble on anything, right? Remember Michael Jordan throwing pennies in the corner against the security guard because he's just got so competitive. He's just got to compete all the time. But no, think that there's something, Sean's right, right? That's the natural man tendency to try to get something for nothing.

Sam (35:11.97)
Yep. All right, Sean, you get all the points, natural man, all the, something for nothing. love it.

Shawn (35:15.545)
That's a man.

Matt (35:18.185)
Okay, we're going to go to the big question. Now I've got to warn Sam so he doesn't mute me in the middle of the big question. There are a lot of details in this big question because I got to like lay the foundation.

Sam (35:24.219)
Shawn (35:32.111)
He muted you already. He's muted.

Sam (35:33.816)
You know, what's crazy is as long as I have the control, he's muted. So that's ultimate censorship. Matt, welcome back.

Shawn (35:40.621)
Look at him trying.

Matt (35:43.049)
Wait, what did you not hear? What was the last thing I said? Anyhow, I gotta lay the foundation.

Sam (35:49.652)
Yes, go ahead and lay the foundation. We did censor you early, so I won't be accused of censoring you late. So yes.

Shawn (35:50.425)
Go!

Matt (35:53.787)
Okay. Okay. So I was in Philadelphia over the weekend and I went on a tour of the building where they signed the declaration of independence and where they signed the constitution. And they have a tour guide there from the national park service and they have a number of stories that they tell. But one of them that she chose to tell was this was, she talked about the day that the declaration of independence was signed and everybody goes out into the crowd.

Shawn (35:56.708)
Ha

Matt (36:22.393)
And she talked about this man named James Fortin. have a link to him in the show notes if people want to know more, but he goes out and he sees members of the militia, the various militia kind of marching through the streets of Philadelphia. And James Fortin was a black man. His, was a freed man, but he was of African descent. And he sees this regiment of black militiamen marching through the city. And one of them looks at him and catches him. He looks at him in the eyes.

And something for James Fortin about like seeing that black man marching against England for freedom, it inspired him. And so James decided that he wanted to join the cause and he gets captured by the British. And one of these British officers that had captured him was so impressed with him. said, Hey, listen, I'll let you out of jail. You can come live with me on my estate in Great Britain. I'll train you. I'll give you money. You can.

He wanted him to be a good influence on his son. And he's like, I will set you up in Great Britain and you'll have a beautiful life. And James Fortin, because he was so inspired by the cause of the Revolutionary War, he said, no, I don't want that. And they sent him back to jail. Eventually he was freed from jail and he became a really prominent business person in the city of Philadelphia, made a lot of money and worked for the rest of his life to try to end slavery. And he was a prominent

abolitionist. So this

Sam (37:49.954)
I see this coming. I see this coming. Go ahead. yeah, I do. I read to the end.

Matt (37:53.553)
No, no, no, no, you don't. So in political science, this, okay. In political science, this thing that happened to James Fortin, we have a word for it. We call it descriptive representation. And it's like when, even if you disagree with the person on policy, when you see somebody who looks like you doing something in politics, it like creates in you this feeling of like, I'm a part of this. This is my world. This is my community too.

Shawn (37:58.284)
Hahaha

Sam (38:02.54)
Yeah.

Sam (38:05.912)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (38:22.427)
And this happened when Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. Like millions of African -American kids were like, wow, I could be president someday because for the first time they saw an African -American president of the United States. And so I know on this podcast, we like to talk a lot about the American dream and all of the freedoms that we have as Americans. But part of that is that people have to believe that the American dream is there for everybody.

and descriptive representation is one of those things. So for James Ford, it made him believe like that in the cause of the revolution and it made him want to be a soldier. And so my question is, this is the big question, simply seeing Kamala Harris as president of the United States will send a message to millions of Asian Americans and millions of women that they too could be president of the United States someday. And it would create descriptive representation in the white house.

Sam (39:02.674)
yeah.

Sam (39:06.658)
There we go. There we go.

Sam (39:17.868)
Wait, Asian Americans?

Matt (39:21.415)
Yeah. Kamala Harris is Asian. She's African -American and she's a woman. Yeah. So the question is, wait, wait, wait, wait, this is, didn't ask the question yet. So is that alone a good enough reason to vote for Kamala Harris? Just the idea that we could have a woman, Asian, African -American president.

Sam (39:22.328)
Isn't she black?

Shawn (39:22.551)
What's him?

Sam (39:25.578)
Okay, very good. right. So to answer your question. Okay. Okay, go ahead.

Sam (39:42.36)
So I love when, when, president Obama was elected in, I remember that night and the party they had in Chicago and him on the edge of the stage and them celebrating for a flickering moment. There was just an enormous amount of pride that that hurdle had been broken, that it had been beat. Like it was awesome to think that our country could overcome racism to elect him and to do that was great. I'm going to give you a perspective.

Matt (40:00.765)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (40:10.109)
And the next day on TV, everybody was crying. They were so happy. There was so much joy. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Sam (40:13.078)
Yeah. Yeah. Oprah Winfrey was out there. Everybody was super excited. And then the reality of the presidency and some of the damaging policies were a problem. Right? So here's the challenge with, with Harris. And this is not my own perspective. This is a perspective of a friend that I work with who says, I'd rather her not win right now because she got to glide through the primary process without going through a normal selection process. And she says,

Shawn (40:17.261)
You

Sam (40:42.068)
She would hate to have the first woman, the first minority woman be elected president with an asterisk of not having gone through that, not having quote unquote earned it the entire way. Now that said, I don't totally agree with it because I think she's been vice president and she's earned it as much as any other vice president would. So here's the flip side. I think her policies would be so damaging to the economy and to the country.

That I think that would be the other reason. You can't just vote for someone based on their color or their gender. Just to break that ceiling. You've got to vote the right person in. If you do that, Matt, and you make that decision based on their gender and based on their ethnicity, that's as racist and as sexist as if you kept them out because of either one of those. You can't do it just for that. You have to do it because they represent

Matt (41:21.065)
Because

Sam (41:41.1)
the type of decision -making, the type of character, and the type of political views that are similar to yours or that you don't object to.

Matt (41:49.705)
But what if I'm doing it because I want every young Asian kid or every young woman who says, I can't do that. This like, there are a lot of people that feel like the deck is stacked against them and the American dream doesn't apply to them.

Sam (42:02.658)
So, so, so I think in and of itself, that's a great reason if it were void of politics, but you're not hiring that person to be a puppet. You're hiring that person to be president of the United States of America. And if she is awesome and she makes all the right decisions and our policy's great. And if everything else is in line, absolutely. But don't do it for that. Just for that. It's gotta be backed by, by all the right things.

Shawn (42:03.897)
So Matt, you, let's say.

Shawn (42:27.887)
Yeah, Matt, if your kids were discouraged from going into politics, for example, and Tim Ballard was running for president, would you be like, we have to get him in there because then my kids will realize that a Mormon can go to the top. Would you vote for Tim Ballard?

Sam (42:41.708)
the first Mormon man. Yeah.

Matt (42:43.433)
100 % that's the only reason I voted for Mitt Romney. I didn't like anything else about Mitt Romney. Well, I have to choose to, I had a real situation with Mitt Romney. I don't know what kind of president Tim Ballard would be. don't even, Sean, I don't know that he is LDS. He might be excommunicated. So you can't pick. Are you sure about that? I'm not a hundred percent sure that he has not been excommunicated.

Shawn (42:48.482)
No, answer my question. Answer my question.

Shawn (42:55.361)
No. Would you vote for him? because he's LDS. You do know about him.

Sam (43:03.862)
No, he's not. He's still old, yes. They still sell his books at the Deseret Bookstore. Yeah.

Shawn (43:04.596)
Answer the question.

You're trying to avoid the question. You're trying to avoid the question.

Matt (43:12.423)
No, I'm saying you picked like, could you pick somebody that I know as an active member of the church and ask the question? Do you have to pick somebody that maybe is excommunicated?

Shawn (43:20.387)
He's a prominent famous character who has some dirt, right? But what you're trying to say is that, what you're trying to say is his character doesn't matter as much as identity, perceived identity matters.

Matt (43:26.899)
some dirt.

Matt (43:33.127)
Wait, wait, are you gonna make a character argument in favor of Trump over Kamala Harris?

Shawn (43:37.975)
I'm not, I'm saying your argument here has flaws.

Sam (43:39.01)
That was not the quote, Matt. Matt, that's not the question you asked. You said, is it good? Is it a good enough reason to vote for Kamala Harris as president of United States that that others will be able to do identify with her and no, because that reason to vote for her just because of that is as sexist and racist as someone that would try to keep her out of the office. You've got to vote for the person.

Matt (43:43.709)
Yeah.

just for that.

Shawn (43:48.897)
Absolutely not.

Matt (43:51.037)
Yeah.

Shawn (44:00.355)
And it's the same reason. Matt, it's the same reason.

Matt (44:02.249)
But I did vote for Mitt Romney only because he was a member of our church. And I said, I want my...

Sam (44:05.538)
That was the wrong reason to vote for him. That was terrible. By the way, what were you doing voting? You don't vote. You just told us you've never voted for a president. You're lying to us now.

Shawn (44:07.801)
Yeah, why did you do that? That's not good. Yeah, you don't even vote.

Matt (44:18.025)
No, no, no. So this is the way it works. Cause I think that my kids should believe in, no, I'll explain it to you. So for the last, since the 20 2008 election, I would say to my oldest kid who hadn't, would say, I will vote for president for whoever you tell me to vote for, but you have to have one good reason. So I voted for John McCain. Cause my son told me he's a war person and that matters to him.

Sam (44:20.694)
Wait, it's a lie. You've said that you've never voted in a presidential election.

Matt (44:44.839)
I voted for Mitt Romney because my daughter said he's a Mormon. And so you have to vote for him because he's a Mormon. So that I did. I voted for him only because he's a Mormon and everything.

Shawn (44:51.961)
All right, but you agree that that's you showing your kids how to vote, that's okay. you admit that that's not the right reason to pick a leader, right?

Sam (44:54.136)
So not only have you not not voted, you've given your vote away. You're worse than, you're worse than, that's fraud.

Matt (44:57.661)
Hahaha

Matt (45:02.001)
Yeah, I bring all of my kids with me into the voting. I bring them all with me into the voting booth and whatever they point at, that's what I vote for. just do -do -do -do -do -do -do. Yeah.

Shawn (45:11.097)
Hahaha!

Sam (45:11.852)
Will they continue your voting wishes after you're dead? Because a lot of Democrats do that currently, I would tell you, but back to your original question, it is not enough.

Matt (45:18.375)
Well, so my four kids, my four kids of all two. Okay, alright.

Shawn (45:24.035)
Matt, here's the other thing. Kamala Harris doesn't, just because she looks a certain way, doesn't represent a whole class, for example, of the proletariat, right? That's what you want. You want the proletariat to look at someone and go, if they can get there, I can get there. That's what you want, right? But look, her parents were wealthy. Matt, they went to Ivy League schools. She was given free tuition to go to law school.

Matt (45:34.217)
She doesn't run for the...

Sam (45:35.032)
Proletariat what do we? my gosh

Matt (45:42.471)
I'm just saying it's powerful. It's really powerful.

Sam (45:44.472)
Don't you see the sexism and racism in that though?

Matt (45:52.233)
She is a woman, Sean. She's a woman. If she doesn't win, Sean, if a woman with all of that privilege that you're talking about can't be president of the United States, then that says to women, that says to women, they'll never be president of the United States. It does.

Shawn (46:03.053)
It's because of her care, it's, it does not, Matt. It just says that that specific woman doesn't have the right qualifications. She can't say two words together without a script. She,

Matt (46:16.091)
I really don't think it sends the message that she can't say two words. What I'm saying. So this would be like in the 1980s, a kid asked Gerald Ford, will we ever have a female president of the United States? And Gerald Ford's response was it could only happen if there was a president with a female vice president and he stepped down and she assumed office. If that were to happen, we could have a female president. Other than that, and he said, and then that would open the doors.

Shawn (46:19.871)
It does.

Shawn (46:28.675)
Yeah, I saw that.

Matt (46:45.459)
that we can have all kinds of female presidents in the future. But unless there was a situation like that, he said, I don't think we could have a female president. So what I'm saying is like.

Shawn (46:48.387)
Yeah, well he's...

Shawn (46:53.773)
Your beloved, but your beloved politician is not a prophet. I don't think there's all truth in that.

Matt (46:57.597)
He understands the political landscape, right? He understands the way things work in America.

Shawn (47:01.977)
So you really want a place, if you think she's unqualified, if you think she can't speak very well in public, if she has bad policies, you would rather put her in place just so that Asians and African Americans can go, if she can get there, I can get there.

Matt (47:17.075)
So listen, Sean, I study the executive branch. I can tell you a number of things about every president of the United States from the beginning. And I can assure you we have had some horrible people as president of the United States and there's nothing Kamala Harris could do that would be, that would put her on the list of even the, like the top five worst presidents of the United States.

Shawn (47:37.263)
I don't know. she consistently was, she consistently has been the least favorable vice president of the United States, like the lowest rating since they recorded him.

Sam (47:38.902)
You take that back, sir.

Matt (47:40.933)
shit.

Matt (47:46.483)
Sean, we had a president that tried to overthrow our country. I don't think that Kamala is going to try to overthrow the country.

Shawn (47:52.653)
and he still had higher ratings of popularity than she did as vice president.

Sam (47:55.896)
Sean, Sean, Sean, you're getting dragged into a debate that has nothing to do with his question. His question simply is no, no, stop, stop. Do not drag him all around. And so in the car business, the idea is when a customer comes in to buy a car, you don't let that customer walk you all over the lot. You find the car, you land them on it. You listen. The question is, is

Matt (47:56.69)
with

Matt (48:01.544)
No, what I'm saying is

Shawn (48:03.556)
Hahaha

That's true.

Matt (48:17.971)
You

Sam (48:24.158)
Is getting someone voted in as president that looks like you in color and gender justification to vote for Kamala Harris? And the answer is clearly no. If those are the two reasons you're voting for void of anything else, it's sexism, it's racism, and it's, it's as wrong as keeping her out for that same reason. That's, that's it period swallow go. Yeah. Do not Sean Sean do not allow Matt to do that. That's awful.

Matt (48:44.177)
I was having fun walking Shawn around the car lot. I was having a really good time.

Shawn (48:48.012)
Yeah.

Shawn (48:54.328)
Hahaha

Matt (48:55.571)
Hey, so you guys, I think we did a really good job this week of being all over the place on topics. in the end, think, and in the end we came to a really powerful conclusion, which I think everyone would agree with me. It's okay to vote for Kamala Harris just because she's a woman. said that right as Sam took a bite. I know. No, it's just, saw Sam take a bite of food and I couldn't resist the opportunity to put words in his mouth.

Sam (49:00.726)
Solar panels, solar panels.

Sam (49:14.22)
No, wrong.

Shawn (49:15.759)
That wasn't even your question, Matt. What, you changed the question now?

Matt (49:25.531)
as he was putting food in his mouth. Hey.

Shawn (49:25.967)
I would have liked the question a bit if it was different, if it was more about women instead of about, anyway, just kidding. All go ahead.

Matt (49:33.773)
okay. Hey, listener. you guys have been doing a great job of sending us feedback and I know that we didn't get to a lot of it today. It was because I thought it was important for us to start with religion and then end with solar panels before we went back to religion again. Keep sending us feedback. Keep listening to us. We're excited to have you as part of our podcast community. And if you decide to listen to the podcast, Sean teased in this, that's fine. We'll give you permission to do that.

but you better come back to this podcast because this is the place where you're to find joy and happiness. Okay. Talk to you again next week.