Matt (00:01.031)
Hello everybody and welcome to the RM podcast with Sean, Matt and Levi. Levi, it's so good to have you back with us again this week. I heard lots of good things about you. Everyone I talked to had positive things to say about you. They said, you know, we don't need Sam anymore, but, you know, you also love Sam and we love Sam and so.

Levi (00:10.49)
That's gonna be back.

Levi (00:23.382)
Mwah!

Matt (00:27.569)
We'll let him come back to his podcast someday. Whenever he decides. I actually kind of feel like maybe Sam's wife or his family a little bit. We're like, we love you daddy. Come home again soon. Let us know when you want to come back.

Shawn (00:37.959)
You

Levi (00:39.652)
Ha ha ha.

Well, we love you, Daddy Sam. Come home to us soon.

Matt (00:44.733)
You

We can have this kind of fun because we know that Sam never listens to the podcast. Sam, if this happens to be the first time you listen, we do this all the time when you're away. Listen to our old episodes. You'll hear us having fun with you. Okay, so last week we talked about gambling and one of our listeners was very passionate about this and wrote a lot of stuff about it. And so I want to make sure we talk about it and not any other topic. So this is what they said.

On the issue of gambling, absolutely think the government needs to get involved by setting up safeguards for gambling, especially for children. In the last five to six years, has, okay, so I like pieced things together of this very long thread. So I'm now reading it, trying to make sure it like works out okay. Okay, in the last five to six years, there has been a large controversy going on in the video game industry over predatory gambling, like game.

mechanics being implemented in various game titles like FIFA, Madden, 2k basketball. You pay real world money for a small chance at a rare in-game item. First one is free each day, but after that, everyone costs money that requires a credit card to purchase. So absolutely yes, the government needs to get involved and put a stop to this before it gets worse and does some psychological damage to younger up and coming generations.

Shawn (02:12.753)
Here we go again, government should be parenting. Government should parent us. Because when that 12 year old is playing a video game and it says, would you like to purchase something? The parents shouldn't be the ones responsible to be like, here's your credit card, go gamble. What do you mean government should get involved? That should be parents. Should it not be parents? It should be parents. Where are the parents?

Matt (02:32.771)
i think the parents don't know this is the problem i think that in the gaming world kids are doing things that parents don't know what they're doing

Shawn (02:37.397)
Then you've answered the society's failure as opposed, it's not government, it's parents not knowing what their kids are doing.

Matt (02:45.213)
But Sean, have you ever monitored your children and have them say to you, stop monitoring me? I'm a big kid, leave me alone. What?

Shawn (02:50.299)
No, no, because we have a relationship. We don't punish them with fear like some of the parents on this podcast.

Matt (02:58.009)
No, like even like my kids will always want to use phone tracking to know where I'm at all the time, right? Cause they want to know where I am. And I say, that's fine. You can track me, but I get to track you back. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, you don't get to track me back. I don't, I want to see you, but you can't see me.

Shawn (03:08.18)
You a-

Shawn (03:12.379)
So maybe the different approach, Matt, was, hey guys, you can have a phone, but the rules are we're gonna track you. And they say, okay, I want a phone. So great, track me. We were the same way with social media. What, you want Instagram? Okay, but I get to be on your account until you're an adult. And they're like, okay, I'd much rather have Instagram. Okay, great, let's do that. And they were grateful.

Matt (03:18.64)
Okay, and you-

Matt (03:31.056)
Yeah

Matt (03:35.563)
my goodness, At no point did they ever say, stop tracking me. I want the phone, but I want you to stop tracking me.

Shawn (03:40.859)
Never. Not once because we communicate about it all the time.

Matt (03:46.169)
Yeah, but they don't want at a certain point, they don't want you communicating with them about it. They want to do things that are unseen. want to, it's like part of growing up where they express their independence and want to be able to do things without no, their parents knowing what they're doing all the time.

Shawn (03:54.655)
Well, we... Yeah, but we give them.

Shawn (03:59.401)
We give them plenty of privacy, lots and lots of trust and respect and privacy. But when it comes to things that could potentially be very dangerous, like social media, or like driving a car without knowing where they are, or like somehow using a credit card on video games, those things we are involved in until they're 18.

Matt (04:17.277)
Well, I'm going to give you father of the year award, Sean, at the end of 2024, you get the father of the year award, but I'm going to say that not every parent has the same situation.

Shawn (04:23.701)
Hey, hey, hey.

Levi (04:24.41)
Oof.

Shawn (04:27.623)
Levi, can you point out like you did last week about Matt's ability to give a backhanded compliment?

Matt (04:33.661)
That was a sincere, genuine compliment.

Shawn (04:35.603)
You

Levi (04:35.894)
I thought that felt sincere. yeah, I think we think you're a great dad. I've seen it in action.

Matt (04:38.705)
Yeah, there's nothing.

There is nothing backhanded about Father of the Year. Like you should be so happy about, you might say, well, it's Matt gave it to me.

Levi (04:46.842)
I think there was maybe a little sarcasm in there, I felt like.

Shawn (04:50.047)
Ehh, God!

Bingo! Bingo!

Matt (04:53.169)
jeez. No, I really would give it to you, Sean. I think you should be Father of the Year.

Shawn (04:59.561)
Levi, what do you think on this?

Levi (05:01.902)
Well, so I didn't want to interrupt Matt's point, but I didn't want to say I think this might be a case where sometimes some government interference can give us more freedom. And I know that's maybe a controversial idea, but like we talked about last time, if we can kind of like put some put some guardrails around it, it can enable people to do things that they couldn't do. Some people are addicted to gambling. Right. And that limits their freedom.

Right? And so if government can take some actions to help people to come out of that, they are more free than they were before.

Shawn (05:38.867)
I hate everything you're saying.

Matt (05:41.085)
Well, let me

Levi (05:41.838)
Well, so there's another example, Sean, is like trespassing, Trespassing, laws against trespassing are objectively a restriction of someone's freedom, right? Like suddenly I used to be able to walk onto that land and now I can't walk onto that land. But I think that most of us could agree that that expands the freedom of most people, right? To have a space that belongs to me, even though that's objectively a restriction of somebody's action.

Shawn (05:42.685)
Respectfully.

Shawn (06:07.189)
Bit of fight?

But if I walk on your land, unrestricted, and it's your land, and you say to me, this is my land, I don't want you on my land, and I keep doing it, watch what happens, right? Something bad's gonna happen to me. And then I've learned a valuable lesson in life. I don't need government to come in and force me, force me, coerce me to do things to keep me safe. I need to learn, God put us on this planet so that we could choose between good and evil, right and wrong. And the point is to discern between the two.

And if I have a daddy government constantly saying, I will teach you what is the good and what is the right and what is the wrong, we don't learn.

Matt (06:45.639)
Well, so it's.

Levi (06:45.732)
Sorry, so did you just come out against land ownership? I, we might be agreeing there, Sean. I believe it's silly for humans to own land, but I didn't know you did that.

Shawn (06:49.449)
hahahaha

Matt (06:52.431)
You

Shawn (06:54.389)
Nah, just trespassing laws. That's all.

Levi (06:58.958)
Just trespassing, but not theft, because theft is also the same thing, same restriction on somebody else's activity.

Matt (07:05.457)
Here's going to be our breakthrough. Our breakthrough for the week, Sean, is going to be this. When you told me about the way that you are a parent, I thought to myself, that is good government because you're governing your family and you have to think of government the way you think of parenthood. Like there's good parents and there's bad parents and there's good governments and there's bad governments.

Shawn (07:10.069)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (07:19.486)
Hahaha

Shawn (07:28.191)
So this is a perfect example about your world perspective, right? You look at adults as if they are dumb children who can't make decisions on their own, right? You compare citizens of our country to dumb little kids who don't know what to do in life. And I view it completely... they know, they know.

Matt (07:37.607)
Some are. Some are.

Matt (07:43.559)
Some teenagers.

Levi (07:44.216)
I'm telling your kids you said that, Sean.

Levi (07:49.894)
But no, but there's another example and it is companies, right? That the people who are the most insistent that government ought to get out of economies, they always govern like Chairman Mao inside their own companies, right? Nobody says, hey, you know what? You guys are adults. You guys just do whatever you want. I'll, you know, do whatever you want. Everything's going to be fine. No, everybody shows up and says, no, I'm Chairman Mao. I set the vision and you guys do what I say.

Matt (08:10.461)
Come to work!

Shawn (08:17.525)
man, I hate what you're saying. That's so wrong. Anyone who works in a company agrees or chooses to abide by certain rules willingly, not like Chairman Mao. Levi, you work for a company and when you sign the contract to get paid a great amount of money to do a great value, you agreed to all the things that you freely entered into an exchange. Chairman Mao doesn't give anyone a choice. He forces them, coerces them, which is what governments do.

Levi (08:18.817)
inside their companies.

Levi (08:40.708)
Well, you could leave, but yeah, I mean, you could leave our country, Sean.

Matt (08:46.365)
You also, Sean, choose to enter into the social contract that you're buying by our government. We're all choosing to be a part of this. I'm just saying, how can we make it better? But this is another thing related to the listener's email that I, this is a pet peeve I have. I do not like it when people say, this is okay for adults to do, this is bad for children to do, let's have the government come in and protect children.

Levi (08:47.736)
and be as free as you want.

Shawn (08:55.071)
Yeah, no, you're right.

Matt (09:15.153)
because they need to be protected, but adults, whatever. Like in my opinion, if it's bad for adults, it's bad for kids. I don't like when we say, let's stop this for kids, but we're gonna allow it for adults. If we're gonna stop it for kids, we need to stop it for adults. And I think sometimes they're trying to do the same thing. They say, let's stop kids from doing this, because they wanna ultimately stop adults from doing it too. And I think we should just say, let's just say it's either good or bad. And if it's bad, nobody gets to do it.

Old people don't get to, young people don't get to, nobody gets to. And if it's good, then everybody can do it. You like that, Sean? Yeah.

Shawn (09:48.949)
I know you've always had that opinion. Yeah, it's an interesting perspective. I like that. It's interesting. Yeah, I think so. I

Matt (09:56.007)
but

Levi (09:56.632)
I mean, but maybe there's a broad swath in the middle where I'm not going to make decisions, right, Matt? like, mean, obviously rooting for the Raiders is the best thing to do, right? But I'm not going to enforce that, right? So there's maybe a wide area in the middle where, you know, way over here.

Matt (10:12.229)
yeah.

Levi (10:18.528)
Yeah, child pornography is a thing I'm not going to allow, not for kids, not for adults, right? And maybe somewhere in the middle, there's lots of space where you can make your own choices. Yeah, Matt?

Matt (10:29.981)
There's the Victoria's Secret catalog, something like that.

Shawn (10:33.385)
You

Levi (10:34.894)
Yeah, maybe that's up to you. Maybe we leave that up to citizens. You can read that or not. For the articles, obviously.

Matt (10:43.229)
Okay. All right. Hey, listener. Thanks for the email message. I hope I did it justice. If you're dissatisfied with response, you're in the camp of everybody who writes into the show and is dissatisfied with the response. We're going to move to the thought provoker. Levi, you are up first this week.

Levi (10:56.762)
You

Shawn (10:57.525)
You

Shawn (11:02.015)
You picked a fun one, Levi.

Levi (11:02.892)
All right, so did you think it was a fun one? I'm worried we're gonna bore our audience, but it's my last episode, so I'm gonna burn it all down. All right, okay, so Lena Kahn is our youngest ever FTC chairperson. She's kind of been making waves by filing lawsuits against all kinds of big companies. There was the merger of Kroger and Albertsons that she was kind of opposed to. She sued.

Shawn (11:06.933)
I'm low. I'm gun. I'm loaded. Ready with guns a blazing. I like this one.

Levi (11:32.11)
Google and Apple. And so she's been winning applause from some people on the right, like Matt Gaetz and Josh Hawley. And Matt's man crush, JD Vance, also has come out and said that Lena Conn ought to be kept. And other people, you know, like she's earned.

Matt (11:50.128)
I love him so much.

Levi (11:57.306)
razzies from billionaires like Ellen musk and shoot mark cuban right yeah so so a lot of people a lot of billionaires don't like are both from the right and from the left what do you guys think should we be

Matt (12:04.069)
Mark Cuban.

Levi (12:14.542)
Preventing monopolies in this way? Should we keep Lena Conner and her more aggressive approach to splitting up big companies or not?

Shawn (12:23.049)
Matt, you want to start before I unload or do you want to? Because I'm assuming I know the answer from both of you. Is that a fair assumption?

Matt (12:25.479)
Well, so norm.

Matt (12:29.519)
Normally, normally I am in favor of getting rid of monopolies. I'm not a huge fan of monopolies, but Levi mentioned the, that she blocked the merger of Albertsons and Kroger and I'm really upset about that. And so now I'm conflicted because

Shawn (12:42.175)
Matt sometimes gets his stances based on how it affects him personally and that's it.

Matt (12:49.211)
Right, because we have an Albertsons in town and I wish we had a Kroger and I thought, I could have both at the same time. And she messed that up. So now I kind of don't like her. disapprove of, like, monopolies are bad. I cannot think of a good instance of a monopoly. And so I always say break it up, but this would have been a good thing for me. And so I'm conflicted. I am. can't, seriously in my mind, I can't imagine how...

Shawn (12:51.381)
See? See that?

Shawn (12:56.533)
Bye.

Shawn (13:12.501)
Shut up, man.

Matt (13:16.22)
Kroger and Albertson's merging together causes problems. They have to compete with Walmart and Amazon groceries and all that stuff. They're not creating a monopoly. So I think like she's overstepping her bounds here in this particular case.

Shawn (13:25.621)
Whoa, whoa, Wow, objective, huh?

Levi (13:28.566)
Interesting, okay. What about, I'm actually most interested in the big tech companies, because that's the thing that's kind of split people along funny lines, that you have Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley on the same side of things, right, which is an interesting pairing.

Matt (13:30.045)
Ugh.

Matt (13:37.991)
Break up.

Matt (13:46.301)
So, I mean, I'll get specific. think Nvidia, them having a monopoly on the chips that are necessary for AI does not bode well for the future. It's anti-market letting them have the monopoly that they have in that space. Meta and Google and perhaps Apple are also in too many spaces. They're not competing with each other and so there's nobody driving down the prices.

They're all increasing their prices and they're not afraid of competition stuff. So in terms of tech companies, I'm in favor of breaking some of them up that have gotten a little bit too big. Just not Albertsons and Kroger. Let them merge. And frankly, airlines, again, in airlines, I don't think we're in any danger. If Spirit and Frontier had merged together, I think that would have been totally fine. They're in a totally different space than other airlines. I...

Shawn (14:29.05)
because Matt likes his grocery stores.

Matt (14:43.237)
I guess maybe sometimes she's making decisions that I would disagree with, but I am in favor of breaking up some of these big companies. What do you say, Sean?

Shawn (14:52.083)
No way. Well, here's what I say. There's two, you're gonna hate my responses, Matt and Levi, so I'm sorry, but that makes for at least an interesting discussion. Matt, first, Levi, what does it feel like to be on the same side as Matt Gaetz?

Matt (15:05.703)
Well, they're not talking about teenagers, and so it's okay.

Shawn (15:07.177)
That can't, that can't feel good.

Levi (15:08.162)
Yeah, right. We don't have the same taste in women, if that's what you're saying.

Shawn (15:11.185)
So, so

Matt (15:16.067)
Sean, inevitably if you're on the right side of something, bad people are going to agree with you sometimes.

Shawn (15:20.969)
But Matt Gaetz, know, it's just cringy, cringy. So, but there's two types of monopolies. There's coercive monopolies, which I think are very bad, a social evil. And I think that, and then there's non-coercive monopolies. And there's nothing wrong with non-coercive monopolies, right? I can give you a million examples of a non-coercive. Microsoft, Microsoft.

Matt (15:41.415)
Just give me one, give me one non, Microsoft is not a non-course of monopoly.

Levi (15:44.538)
There's not nothing wrong with them.

Shawn (15:46.899)
Well, I think good on them. You know what mean? Like Microsoft was first to market with something that has changed the world, has given both of you your careers, me my career, and they at one point had 100 % of the market share. Now the government...

Matt (16:00.593)
That's because they will be, when they say to computer manufacturers, you have to put our software on your system. Then that becomes coercive, Sean.

Shawn (16:08.585)
Yeah, but okay, okay, so watch. No, they're not being coercive. They are providing a service and a product and the free market is saying, I want that, I'm gonna use that. Now watch what happened. Now, hang on, hang on. The government came in and tried to use the Sherman Act to break apart Microsoft and they completely failed. Now, right now, back then when they were trying that, Microsoft's Internet Explorer had 100 % of the browser market share. Guess what they have now?

without government intervention, without breaking them up, guess what they have now? What percentage?

Matt (16:40.399)
No, there was, but there was government intervention. The government, no, they didn't. The government, they didn't break them up, but they told them, they told them you cannot force computer manufacturers to make Microsoft Internet Explorer the default browser.

Shawn (16:43.059)
They failed. Yes, they did. They didn't break up Microsoft.

Levi (16:48.196)
Alpethate, they didn't break them up. Yeah, go ahead, Matt.

Shawn (16:57.225)
They tried to, they didn't force that. They said, we're going to break you up because you're doing that. Now, but here's the truth, here's the reality. Back then they own 100%, 100%, that's a monopoly. Non-coercive, that was literally just, there's one product out there and there's a very, everyone loves the product and is using it. Well, what happened was eventually Google Chrome came along and says, this is a terrible product, this Internet Explorer, let's just improve it. And all of a sudden people started going, wow, this is a much better product.

And then Mozilla came along and says, Hey, we're going to do much more ethical. Let's do it. Let's do it for free. Let's do it without, buying people's, using people's data. And people were like, we love this product. And eventually what happened was an internet Explorer now only has what? 30, 35 % of the market share. And that's because the free market enabled competition. So monopolies will enable innovation and competition. Like I got, and yes, they do still the, the, the the steel monopoly was broken up.

Matt (17:51.74)
No.

Shawn (17:56.175)
solely because of innovation and competition. Rockefeller, in fact, that wasn't a good example, of course, of a monopoly. Rockefeller had such influence over government that he was winning every permit. was winning laws were being passed, local and national governments were enabling Rockefeller, I'm sorry, this is oil. They were enabling him, standard oil, right?

Matt (18:00.061)
no.

Matt (18:20.207)
Standard oil.

Shawn (18:23.605)
And that's a good example of a coercive monopoly and that was bad and that should have been broken up and it was broken up. But then you take steel. So all the big jobs, who was it? was Charles Schwab, JP Morgan, all these big guys got together and says, let's dominate steel. And they did. At one point they owned, I think 85 % of the steel manufacturing. Now the government decided not to break it up. So they were just going. Here's what happened. The free market came in and said, there are two companies, Republic Steel and I think National Steel. And they said,

We got to do this better. We got to be more efficient, use technology and they created more steel, use more steel alloys. They were cheaper and all of a sudden, little by little, they start digging into that monopoly. And it, and what it did is it, it inspired innovation. So monopolies aren't bad. In fact, okay, so now you're to love it I'm going to bring in Ayn Rand, who you both love.

Matt (19:12.995)
I love, love, love. Is it the fountain head? Is it please the fountain head?

Shawn (19:15.069)
You love Ayn Rand. You also love second second voice is Milton Friedman. So these two voices said it is. So these two guys said that the only and if you look at all through history, the only bad monopolies that have existed were monopolies that were created by government. Government comes in and it's true. Give me examples. It's true. It's absolutely true. I can I mean,

Matt (19:21.913)
Is it Atlas Shrugged?

Matt (19:36.714)
my goodness. my goodness.

Matt (19:41.885)
Okay, how about the post office? The US post office is a is a

Levi (19:43.727)
Well, so...

Shawn (19:44.507)
Exactly. That's exactly right. It's a coercion. That is a coercive monopoly that the government utilities are the same thing.

Matt (19:52.535)
The US post office is, I was using as an example of a very good thing that the government does. They provide a service that no private company can provide.

Shawn (20:00.413)
A horrible service that no one likes and is horrible when finally...

Matt (20:02.809)
You hate you hate getting letters in the mail, Sean. You hate it when you hate sending postcards and getting postcards.

Shawn (20:09.223)
I hate that it's slow, that it's bad service, that it's taken years and that it's a bloated, super expensive thing. Yeah, it's fast, compared to free market competitors who do it much more efficiently and for profit.

Levi (20:14.202)
super fast.

Matt (20:17.745)
Did you know that I can, did you know, did you know that if I want to, if I want to mail a package and have it get to my intended recipient by Christmas day, I think Saturday, December 21st is the deadline for the US Post Service. might be, it might be now, but did you know that FedEx was December 12th? Like the private sector isn't doing it faster than the US Postal Service.

Shawn (20:44.981)
No, I didn't know that.

Matt (20:46.095)
Yeah. US postal service and by the way, the US postal service serves areas that FedEx won't serve and they provide services that FedEx won't provide. So I think that that's a

Shawn (20:52.021)
But I promise, but I.

Yeah, they have their they have it's because they have a monopoly. It's because the government coerced the free market and gave them a monopoly.

Matt (20:59.249)
That's what I'm saying. It's a government and it's better than if the free market we're doing. That's what I'm saying.

Shawn (21:05.157)
Absolutely not. markets like FedEx, for example, is able to do what they do equally as good and sometimes better, way more efficiently and for much more profit. The USPS

Matt (21:17.201)
Have you tried to mail a letter with the FedEx? FedEx mails, the mail a letter is much more expensive with FedEx. Nobody, nobody sends postcards via FedEx.

Shawn (21:26.057)
Yeah, it is.

No one sends postcards in general anymore, but.

Matt (21:31.677)
Well, sure they do. I just sent out a whole bunch of postcards. Sure, people send out postcards. What I'm saying is the US Postal Service provides services. And by the way, you can get your letters on like Saturday delivery. You can go to your local post office and you can purchase stamps like.

Shawn (21:46.549)
But if you surveyed 100 people and said, what do you think of the service? And if you really disclosed how inefficient and how much money it takes for the inefficient agency to do what they do, 99 % of the people are gonna say, yeah, that's not a very good, not a very efficient program.

Matt (22:06.493)
Do know what the Postal Service does? thing that none of the private companies do. No. What the Postal Service does that all of the other private businesses rely on is the US Postal Service has a database of every address of every individual in the United States. And they maintain that database and everybody else uses their database. Like if you want to do the US Census, you want the US Postal Service's information.

Shawn (22:09.393)
Wasn't it bankrupt like two years ago? It was too.

Shawn (22:29.661)
I've no no no a co

Shawn (22:35.989)
Yeah, of course. Of course. Matt, of course USPS has lots of value because it's a coercive monopoly. Of course it has value. But listen to this. This was just 18 months ago. The US Postal Service recently announced quarterly financial losses of $1.7 billion. $1.7 billion. Now a monopoly.

Matt (22:36.367)
on individuals and where they live, you don't want FedEx's database or UPS's database.

Levi (22:56.972)
On what kind of gross? What was their gross receipts?

Matt (22:57.245)
Well, they're not a private company. So if they're at a loss, they're funded by the federal government.

Levi (23:05.442)
Amazon lost money for whatever two decades before it turned to profit. Amazon. So yeah, private companies lose money year to year. Sure.

Shawn (23:10.463)
Who did?

Matt (23:11.641)
Amazon. Right.

Shawn (23:13.749)
Yeah, but the US yeah, but this is a man this is yeah, but this is a monopoly They're the only ones allowed to do this. for okay. Okay, that's that's that they're 1.7 billion dollar quarterly loss is not better at it. Yeah, go ahead to Levi

Matt (23:21.179)
Yes, because they're better at it than anybody else is. That's why.

Levi (23:28.674)
Anyway, so Sean, do you have any problem with...

So you have problems with tech monopolies? You feel like Twitter's doing a good job?

Shawn (23:41.043)
Yeah, I don't have a problem with tech monopolies unless they're coercive, unless there's force, maybe collusion, right? If there's collusion, that price, I'm okay with laws that protect against price fixing and collusion, but something like Twitter or something like Facebook or Meta or Google, the free market is so innovative, it's going to balance things out. It will. There's no way there's going to be lasting monopolies that don't provide competitors. There's always going to be competitors coming in.

Levi (23:46.319)
Mm-hmm.

Levi (24:09.464)
Well, but this is always a confusing thing to me that conservatives always say, well, I mean, yeah, sure, it was a monopoly, but it only lasted 30 years. And then it finally, you know what I mean? Like, well, like Microsoft, like you're talking about, know, Microsoft had, you know, now of course, Microsoft, there was antitrust action that did cause them to change their behavior and allowed competitors to come in. But like, I think that conservatives

Shawn (24:21.257)
Like what, like speaking about what, for example?

Levi (24:38.476)
suddenly take this long 50 year viewpoint and they say, yeah, every monopoly breaks up eventually. Well, but I kind of feel like you can do a lot of damage in 20 years as a monopoly. So I don't mind if somebody says, let's create more innovation by breaking up big companies.

Shawn (24:46.748)
I don't know if it's...

Shawn (24:52.115)
but take Microsoft,

Shawn (24:59.519)
But Microsoft innovated something that was never to market. No, I don't think so. think the reason it becomes, if an earned monopoly, well, yeah, because Microsoft earned their monopoly. They were the only one creating a private computer, a personalized computer. They innovated something. Not for many years, not for many years they weren't.

Levi (25:00.612)
Don't you think there's more innovation when you have fewer monopolies?

Levi (25:07.875)
Really?

Matt (25:15.291)
No, they weren't. Apple was doing that. They're the ones that, Microsoft stole the software from Apple and created an operating system.

Shawn (25:23.581)
Microsoft was first to market and they were first to deliver a private computer and so everyone wanted it, everyone was buying it and they provided a great service. Eventually, it inspired Apple to innovate something that competed with it which naturally destroyed their monopoly.

Matt (25:41.085)
But Microsoft's monopoly was about the Windows operating system and forcing people to buy Windows operating system and then putting Internet Explorer on that.

Shawn (25:44.862)
I once

Levi (25:45.496)
Yeah.

Shawn (25:47.519)
Yabbo!

Yeah, but Internet Explorer was a perfect example. They didn't break up Microsoft and say, all right, now companies go ahead. You take this portion, this portion, this portion and create something better. The free market created better things. Chrome was not created because government got involved. Chrome was created because Google was like, we can do something much, much better. No, Google Chrome.

Levi (26:06.266)
It sure was. It absolutely was. No, Chrome was created because they threatened to break up Microsoft. And Microsoft said, OK, we'll play fair. We'll start allowing other browsers. And then we have more browsers.

Matt (26:10.043)
I'm gonna give...

Shawn (26:20.245)
I mean, what I read was that they tried to force Microsoft, that failed. They didn't break up Microsoft. They didn't say you have to start letting other browsers be on your computers. They tried, but what was happening behind the scenes? I mean, maybe that threat had some influence over Microsoft. I don't know. But in the end, Google was behind the scenes not going, okay, let's wait to launch our product until the government allows us to. No, they were saying this Internet Explorer thing is garbage. Why don't we make a browser?

that has something called search and this search will be more robust. They were innovating behind the scenes motivated. It wasn't government allowing Chrome. Absolutely not.

Matt (26:59.101)
Sean, I'm gonna give you the points because I learned something about Standard Oil today. And I know that you like both Anne Rand and Milton Friedman, but you used them both in the same sentence. And so that's why I'm giving you the points.

Levi (27:13.269)
Whoa.

Shawn (27:16.797)
Levi's at one point on our mission, Levi was like, Sean, I can, there's two girls that I'm choosing between to marry. One is the one you actually married and the other one was Ayn Rand. You just loved Ayn Rand. Right Levi?

Matt (27:30.17)
Levi the Young Missionary lusting over the German philosopher.

Levi (27:30.362)
9 round. Gotta love it.

I've read a lot of Ayn Rand in my life. I have lots of thoughts about Ayn Rand, but we'll see them for another time.

Shawn (27:36.308)
Have you?

Matt (27:37.53)
I have not.

Shawn (27:39.625)
Hahaha!

Matt (27:41.477)
Okay Sean, do you want to give the points to anybody?

Shawn (27:44.187)
Levi for bringing up such a fun topic. I'm sorry. Levi, what's your final opinion on it?

Break up the tech companies?

Levi (27:52.566)
well, I'm just glad, I'm just really glad that the righties are discovering, the Republicans are discovering that economic power is power, right? I feel like sometimes Republicans tend to be really sanguine and tend to say, yeah, private companies could never do anything wrong because economic power is not power, right? We say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And then Republicans pipe up and say, except economic power, that never corrupts, right? And I feel like this is a time when Republicans are saying,

Shawn (28:18.397)
No, I think, I don't think that's...

Levi (28:21.772)
Wait a minute, all of this power that Amazon has, that Facebook has, now that they're using it to do things we don't like, suddenly they're worried. Suddenly they're like, wait, economic power is power.

Shawn (28:34.197)
Gotcha.

Levi (28:35.194)
That's my thought, yeah.

Matt (28:35.261)
So, so Sean's still, he's still gonna give you the points Levi, not just for the topic, but because he likes, wait, what you say why you're giving him points Sean, I'm not gonna say why.

Shawn (28:44.437)
Yeah, what are you doing?

Matt (28:46.757)
Well, I don't know, like, usually we give the points and then we move on and then like this time you gave points and then moved back.

Shawn (28:52.083)
You have to answer, but you have to answer your question. Should the tech companies be broke?

Matt (28:58.417)
He already answered this.

Shawn (28:59.357)
No, he didn't. What do think Levi?

Levi (29:01.658)
Should the tech companies be broken up? Yeah, I think we should have a discussion about whether we can find ways for them to be more competitive. Yes, I think so.

Shawn (29:14.569)
You think they should be broken up? All right, I take away the points. I give them to Matt. No, I give them to me. Matt didn't say anything really, other than he wants personal companies, for personal reasons, he wants grocery stores to be broken up.

Matt (29:15.025)
What about my quote? Yes!

my goodness.

Matt (29:27.333)
Levi, didn't answer my question. Should Albertsons and Kroger be allowed to merge?

Shawn (29:31.005)
You

Levi (29:33.131)
no, also no.

Matt (29:35.048)
my goodness, my goodness. Okay, you're never getting points from me ever again. Alright, Sean you're up.

Shawn (29:43.473)
All right. Levi, do you know who NBA Youngboy is?

Levi (29:51.246)
Barely. I mean of course I do. Yeah, of course I do.

Shawn (29:52.181)
Okay, well.

Shawn (30:00.533)
the intro into a second.

Matt (30:02.877)
Wait, that sounded like you too to me. Was that you too?

Shawn (30:04.305)
NBA Youngboy is back in the news. Yep, it was Imagine Dragons. Okay, so here's my question. So we've talked about NBA Youngboy in the past, right? And this week he was sentenced to 23 months in prison on gun possession charges. the federal, because federal law bars gun ownership for felon, by felons, right? And he's a felon. And that whole story about how his lawyers convinced the judge to, hey, instead of putting him in jail, let him, let him, he's agreed to get out of the environment that is, that is really,

Levi (30:13.521)
You

Shawn (30:33.481)
bad for him in his, I forget where he was, let him move to Utah, let him buy a home in Utah and he will just have, be on home arrest and he'll try and straighten up. And so for the last two or three years he's been that and that's been a fascinating, especially for us LDS people, because missionaries were visiting him and he loved that. He wrote a couple of hit songs that had Book of Mormon verses in them and in the music videos anyway.

Matt (30:48.922)
Yeah.

Matt (30:55.549)
Wow. See?

Shawn (30:59.761)
he is a felon though. He's a convicted felon and so he's not allowed to have guns. So multiple times they've caught him with guns. So, even though he is trying, it seems like to change his life, right? Become a better person. So question is, is it morally just, this is really about law and the justness of punishments. Is it morally just for convicted felons to forfeit their constitutional right to bear?

Matt (31:11.377)
Yeah.

Matt (31:22.629)
No, I say no. say, listen, in the declaration of independence, we say that people are endowed with inalienable rights. And in those we say life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. But the bill of rights is all about saying that there are human rights that we have that the government should be limited in its ability to tell us what we can and cannot do with these individual liberties.

And I say that getting convicted of a felony does not deprive an individual of those liberties. That's my.

Shawn (31:55.029)
Holy crap, I'm shocked Levi, what do you think?

Levi (31:59.962)
Yeah, I'm going to come down on the same side and this might be where I burn it all down and I'm never invited back. I believe that most restrictions related to felonies are systemic racism. So you have a much larger, our criminal justice system is much harder on people of color. And so then you end up with people of color having more felonies.

Shawn (32:03.605)
Holy moly!

Levi (32:28.302)
And then when you use that to restrict rights, you're doing it on a racist basis. You may not be trying to do that, but the effect of that, and that's what we mean by systemic racism, is where you do something and you didn't intend it to be racist, or you didn't write the word black or Hispanic into your law, but the effect of it is to take gun rights from people of color. So I'm in favor of restricting.

Guns, right? I'm okay with saying guns can't go in certain places. I'm okay even with saying certain kinds of guns aren't allowed. You can't buy a rocket launcher, right? I feel okay about that. But when it comes to people, I think that's bad idea. I don't think we should be saying these people aren't allowed to own guns. And actually, just to make sure I'm never invited back, I believe strongly that

Shawn (33:21.865)
Hahaha

Levi (33:23.16)
that people of color should own guns because I want every ICE agent to approach every door with the credible fear that they'll be shot.

Matt (33:35.473)
You know, we had, we did some research during 2020, the George Floyd and all that stuff. Those, those protests and the, the black lives matter movement motivated a lot of racial minorities to go purchase a gun for the first time in their lives. The unrest in the United States is motivating a lot of racial minorities to purchase firearms. But like to the moral question, Sean, right? That the U S constitution is a list of things that the government cannot do. Well, so if the government can just

Levi (33:48.195)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (34:04.285)
put a felony on a person and now we can do those things, then you're essentially allowing the government to bypass the U.S. Constitution. So I think that a person who's convicted of a felony should serve some penalty to society. Maybe it's jail time, whatever the jury decides it is, but a felony should never be a reason why a person loses the liberties given them that are guaranteed in the Constitution.

Shawn (34:32.117)
So does your argument, it's not a moral argument, it's a legal argument then.

Matt (34:36.251)
No, it's morally, I believe that individuals have rights and that governments are responsible for protecting those rights. And in our system, we've delimit, like there's some of those rights that are in the bill of rights, but certainly not all of them. And so anytime that the government is infringing on human liberty or human rights, that's morally wrong.

Shawn (34:58.357)
Accept the right of building a company that is so liked that everyone wants my products. But you literally believe that owning a gun is a human right equal to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

Matt (35:04.305)
That's not a, that's not a human right. That's not right. When I'd say,

Levi (35:11.706)
you

Matt (35:14.493)
I think that that one would be a legal argument, right? So I don't, the right to bear arms is a right that the United States has decided to protect. I don't believe that that's like a fundamental individual right.

Shawn (35:25.843)
Well, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. So on this topic, you're making a legal argument more than you are a moral argument. You're not saying NBA young boys should get his guns because morally the constitution has got that principle right. You're saying legally, constitutionally, he should have his guns because there's nowhere in the constitution that says penalty for breaking this law is absolutely this, but that's a legal argument, right?

Matt (35:48.923)
No, what I'm saying is it's morally wrong for any government to find justification for violating the constitution that protects individual liberties. So, so our U S constitution might protect individual liberties that I don't think are necessarily natural rights, or maybe I don't think they should be protected, but the fact that they are protected, the fact that they are listed in the bill of rights, it makes it immoral for the government to violate those rights. That's what's immoral. It's not a legal argument. It's just,

Shawn (35:59.253)
Hmm.

Matt (36:17.765)
It's immoral for a government to violate individual rights.

Shawn (36:21.247)
But when you're deciding on which rights belong, when you're trying to interpret that, you are including in guns, firearms. Yeah, okay. But Levi, yours is definitely a moral argument. You believe that this specific, you say give NBA Youngboy his gun because the moral blot of systemic racism says take that gun away from him. So you're saying that's immoral.

Matt (36:30.725)
Well, in the United States, but it wouldn't be that way in other countries.

Levi (36:49.208)
Well, but I think my argument is right along the lines of Matt's that it should just apply to all people equally, right? That like, OK, that's why I say, yeah, you can go ahead and ban bump stocks or, you know, I would support any number, lots of not lots, but some restrictions on gun ownership. they need to apply to everybody. You can't just, you know. And I also think that this would I think that lifting the restrictions on certain people.

would help us to have a healthier conversation around gun control. Because I think there are a lot of people that say, yeah, I don't favor gun restrictions because their vision of the gun owner is always a good guy with a gun. But if we started to have this discussion and said, now, know, criminals are going to be subject to these same restrictions, right? Then they'll be like, wait, actually that is a good idea.

Shawn (37:32.575)
Does your

Shawn (37:43.445)
So just so I understand the systemic racism perspective or angle on this, do you have the same opinion if it was like a Nazi white supremacist felon who was on home arrest? You would say, give him his gun. Is that right?

Levi (37:58.508)
Yeah, I mean, I think it has to apply to everybody equally. Although white guys do have it pretty easy in the justice system.

Matt (38:02.493)
Think about this. Think about this on the other side. So Donald Trump's been convicted of what? 40 felonies. So he also is barred from owning a firearm. Could you imagine that he would get sentenced to 23 months in prison if Donald Trump was found with a firearm in his possession or if he purchased a firearm? So.

Shawn (38:21.769)
Or if he lied about purchasing that firearm when he was addicted to drugs, right?

Matt (38:24.741)
Right, right. So again, like when you have, if you're going to have laws and you're not going to be able to apply those laws equally, if we're going to put NBA Youngboy in jail for 23 months for having a gun, but we wouldn't do the same if Donald Trump did the exact same thing or Joe Biden. Well, Joe, no, Hunter Biden hasn't been convicted of any felonies. Joe Biden hasn't been convicted of that. I mean, you can pick any.

Shawn (38:40.981)
Or Joe Biden or Hunter Biden.

Shawn (38:47.519)
That's because he was... That's right. That's because he was a...

Matt (38:53.583)
And it's not just Donald Trump, right? We can think of any number of rich white people who if they were doing the same thing, yeah, doing the same thing would not have the same consequence.

Shawn (38:59.157)
So.

Levi (39:00.846)
Yeah, Martha Stewart.

Shawn (39:06.239)
But it's also, but also rich black people, no? No?

Matt (39:10.247)
I mean, I don't know. That part I don't know about. But I do know that people who understand the...

Shawn (39:13.631)
Hakeem Jeffries in the same situation wouldn't have the same protections that Joe Biden has gotten just because he's the color of his skin. I think we've moved past that in a large sense in this country. I don't know that.

Matt (39:21.725)
I'm not

Matt (39:27.483)
I'm just saying I'm not sure about that. That's all I'm saying. Rich and powerful people often get away with things. I'm not sure. We don't have enough. We don't have enough data points of rich and powerful black people breaking the law. We don't have enough of those for me to confidently say whether they get away with it or they don't get away with it.

Shawn (39:34.089)
Yeah, but I don't

Shawn (39:44.885)
Well, can I bring in the opposite? I was shocked by both of your answers. Let me bring in, and they were good answers. Thank you for giving me, I'm learning lots. What about so Alma 42? So Alma 42 is kind of a guiding principle, I think. It says, now if there was no law given, if the law was a man murdered and he should die, would he be afraid he would die if he should murder? So 16, repentance could not come upon men except there were a punishment.

which also was eternal as the life of the soul should be a fixed opposite of the plan of happiness, which was as eternal also as the life of the soul. Now this, how could a man repent except he should sin? How could he sin if there was no law? How could there be a law save there was a punishment? So doesn't this principle kind of say, all right, MBA young boy, you're trying, you're improving your life, but isn't it just, isn't it a just punishment to say that if you committed egregious, aggressive laws,

felonies by threatening people with guns or using a gun, why is it not a just law to say, you don't get a gun anymore? Why is that not fair? mean, Matt, like, like, for example, Matt, you say if someone rapes someone castrate them, remove their ability to even have the freedom of. So why not apply that same? Why is it not a just, I mean,

Matt (40:50.353)
Well, because because

Matt (40:56.349)
Sure. Sure.

I'm all right with that because the US Constitution is there to limit the authority of the federal government in the laws that it makes. And the Second Amendment says, Congress shall pass no law infringing on the right to bear arms or something like that, right? It's really specific that it says like something about a free nation being necessary. The right to bear arms shall not be infringed. Therefore,

the US Congress cannot pass a law that infringes on the right to bear arms. Specifically, you can't pass a law that says if you have a felony, you no longer have the right to bear arms. So Congress is being unjust in passing a federal law that says you cannot own firearms if you're convicted of a felony. So they're the ones. So how do you punish Congress, Sean? You punish Congress by, right, we don't know how we punish that.

Shawn (41:33.461)
Okay.

Shawn (41:55.539)
You

Levi (41:56.026)
Well, what about search and seizure? Like there are other Bill of Rights rights that we infringe on based on people's actions and circumstance. Matt, what do you think about those?

Matt (41:59.399)
Yeah.

Matt (42:07.377)
Well, again, if you violate... So I have a right to not be searched without a warrant, right? They have to get a warrant in order to search me or seize my property?

Shawn (42:18.389)
Yeah.

Levi (42:18.528)
Yeah, aren't there exceptions where like if they have probable cause to believe that they're, you know what I mean? Like and so we, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Also racist, yeah.

Matt (42:22.331)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't like those either. Especially the way like, your tail light was out. So now I'm gonna search in, yeah, now we're gonna sniff and see if there's marijuana or alcohol in your car or whatever. Yeah, there's a lot of these things that happen. But listen.

Levi (42:35.972)
Yeah.

Shawn (42:38.121)
Maddark, I'll give you the points for being okay with protecting guns but allowing castration.

Matt (42:45.917)
Listen, I'm livid that NBA Youngboy is in prison over this. 23 months in prison over owning a firearm. I'm livid about this. I'm very displeased.

Levi (42:47.94)
Yeah, not worth the lux.

Shawn (42:57.769)
Yeah, because it is he was convicted as a felon. His punishment was house arrest. And during his house arrest, law said you can't own a firearm. He got caught twice, I think, with owning or having a firearm. And that's why he's going to prison, right?

Matt (43:13.341)
Do you know, think about this, Sean, if he had been on house arrest. Yeah. So Biden recently pardoned what, like 1300 people? Many of whom were on house arrest. He commuted their sentences, right? How many of these people whose sentences were commuted were poor minority kids like NBA Youngboy who were in jail?

Levi (43:13.55)
Yeah, let's start a hashtag. Free free NFL Youngblood.

Shawn (43:31.178)
Hmm.

Matt (43:41.949)
for gun possession, he would not, like NBA Youngboy, his sentence would not have been commuted by Biden because he was convicted of a violent offense. This is the other thing we do, right? It's a violent offense because you robbed somebody with a gun in your hand. But if you embezzle $50 million from your company, that's a nonviolent offense. And so we'll commute that sentence because you're not a danger to society. It's like...

Shawn (44:05.727)
Hmm

Matt (44:08.317)
There's so many, this is the institutional racism stuff that Levi's kind of talking about, right? Where it's like, you don't apply justice equally in these kinds of situations. It makes me upset. We should protect rights. Okay, I'm gonna give Levi the points, cause he brought in institutional racism. We've never talked about that on this podcast ever.

Levi (44:24.57)
Bam.

Shawn (44:28.841)
I don't think...

Levi (44:29.326)
Wow, we should have whole big question about that sometime. That's good.

Shawn (44:32.543)
Yeah, we should. We absolutely should.

Matt (44:35.069)
Okay, my topic is this. It's a switch of gears a little bit. In a video posted on social media earlier this month, Pete Davidson, along with several current Saturday Night Live stars and fellow alums opened up about the biggest indulgence they splurged on after receiving their first paycheck from the show. He said that he was paid around $3,000 per episode. Hosts like these famous people that host the show, they get paid around $5,000.

for hosting. Keenan Thompson, who's been there forever, told Variety that new cast members at Saturday Night Live have to pay their dues a little bit when it comes to starting salaries at the show. Easy for him to say since he's making more than anybody in the history of Saturday Night Live per episode. So Saturday Night Live makes so much money, shouldn't they pay their cast members much more than $3,000 per episode? This is morally wrong, Sean, would you not agree? I do.

Shawn (45:32.489)
You want me to go first?

Matt (45:34.651)
You've got your finger on the pulse of the entertainment world.

Shawn (45:38.645)
Okay, here you go again, trying to butt your nose into forcing people to do what you want them to do. Pete Davidson, as a human being who knows how to make his own decisions, freely entered into an absolutely uncoerced free exchange by saying, I will work for this company and in exchange I'll have $3,000 an episode. Eyes wide open, totally free exchange.

Matt (45:41.166)
Hahaha

Shawn (46:05.511)
and decides, okay, I'm going to balance this out. Is it better for my career? Is it good for my career? Is this going to harm me? Will I be able to live and eat? And he makes his own decision and enters into an agreement with a private company. Matt, it's none of your freaking business.

Matt (46:18.013)
Sure. I can say whether they're being morally correct in that. I'm not saying the government should do anything about it. I'm saying Lorne Michaels has enough money. The show's making enough money. We know the advertising revenue that they bring in for the network. So he could.

Shawn (46:29.586)
You can't

You can't judge, you can't judge immoral free decisions that two people make to enter into an exchange with each other. No, you can't because if

Matt (46:41.455)
Of course I can. I do this, this, I spend my life judging the morality of decisions other people make.

Levi (46:43.034)
Of course we can.

Shawn (46:47.637)
That's called judgment. You can't be judgmental, Matt. The only way you could say it's immoral is if there was coercion, if Saturday Night Live tricked him or lied or didn't disclose this or that. That's the only way you could judge. Pete Davidson saw something at SNL that he wanted, and he was willing to exchange for what he wanted, his talent, period. And for what amount? They agreed on an amount. That's a free exchange. There's nothing immoral about it.

Matt (46:50.267)
Yes! Yes!

Matt (46:56.868)
No.

Matt (47:01.265)
No.

Matt (47:11.313)
But look

Matt (47:15.525)
I mean, but this is how this is what they did back before there were child labor laws, right? They used to say, look, you agree to these working conditions. Sorry that you lost your arm today, but that's just the way it is.

Shawn (47:24.703)
Don't be stupid. Children, children can't agree. They can't enter into free exchanges.

Matt (47:28.667)
Okay, but like when you're working on the railroad back in the day, well, sorry, like this is the job we offered you. We offered you no money to do it. We're going to make a whole lot of money off of your labor. You're going to risk your life. And we wrote into this contract. Like if you lose your leg, it's not our fault. Like

Shawn (47:43.701)
That doesn't happen in the United States anymore because over time those people who were injured were able to, some of them, many of them got screwed, but eventually they were to take them to courts of law, they would sue for huge damages, and then the policies would change.

Matt (47:47.335)
I know.

Matt (47:56.069)
and lose. No, they changed because the laws changed because you had the progressive movement where they said, let's elect people though. What I'm saying, let's don't change the law. Let's just say if you're Saturday Night Live, you don't need to pay new cast members $3,000 an episode. You can pay them more. So do it.

Shawn (47:59.765)
Well, that's how the laws changed. Yeah, but that's how the laws changed. Yeah, that's how the laws changed.

Levi (48:00.548)
Yeah.

Shawn (48:14.079)
Go start a company that is really entertaining every Friday night, make it really funny, then you can decide freely how much you want to pay your talent.

Matt (48:23.077)
It just seems wrong to me, Sean, to take advantage of people because they're trying to become big stars. Some people, Pete Davidson became a big star. Kenan Thompson became a big star. A lot of them don't. And a lot of them work insane hours and they're not fairly compensated for the toll that it takes on their life.

Shawn (48:28.916)
Ho!

Shawn (48:34.527)
So should he give?

Shawn (48:40.051)
Well, welcome to a fair life. Welcome to a really fair life where I get to choose and learn and make a mistake and then learn from that and go on to improve myself. where do you stand on?

Levi (48:52.288)
One thing that's going on here, and I think it is worth looking at, is the power imbalance that everybody brings to these negotiating tables. And this is happening with SNL, but it's happening in a lot of places. When Matt talked about early labor movements, would notice this too, that I show up, my choice is I can go to work for your company or probably starve. Or there are two other...

Shawn (49:20.383)
That's not the choice.

Levi (49:20.654)
totally exploitative companies. Right? And so I do think that it's important to recognize the power imbalance that precedes, that is the context of the negotiation. So yeah, in the end, that man agreed to go down into the mine and work 90 hour a week so that his

family could have a house in the company town and then he lost his life in the mine and they kicked his family out of the house. Yeah, he agreed to all that, right? All that was in the contract. But I do think it's really important for us when we talk about morality and actually when we talk about laws to understand what we bring to the negotiating table that you brought no power to the negotiating table. And so you ended up with a bad result.

Shawn (50:03.829)
So can I challenge that a little bit? In order to go with what you've said, you have to presuppose that people are not qualified, are not talented, they don't have the ability to look out for themselves, to provide for themselves, to solve life's problems. You have to presuppose that that coal miner is dumb, weak, and unable, stupid. They don't have the ability to

Levi (50:08.461)
Mm-hmm.

Levi (50:31.364)
Poor? Poor. All I have to assume is poor.

Shawn (50:33.057)
advocate for themselves. have to, so you are going to conclude then you're going to presuppose that anyone who is poor, anyone who is poor does not have the ability

Levi (50:43.642)
brings less power to a negotiating table than someone who is rich. Yes, absolutely.

Shawn (50:48.293)
to the point where they are being forced to enter into a bad situation. You think that literally there's no way that a human being who is poor is able to learn, grow, try something, fail at it, try something, fail at it, learn and grow and get to a point where they can improve their lives. Isn't that, scripturally, isn't that...

Levi (51:07.946)
Well, but I don't know why you have to talk about this as a binary that either I am, either I have total freedom or I have none. I think it makes more sense to say, okay, so Lorne Michaels sits down with Pete Davidson. Yeah, everybody has a little bit of freedom. Lorne Michaels has a lot of freedom, brings a lot of power to there. And Pete Davidson brings much, much less. And he can walk away, sure.

Shawn (51:28.725)
but he didn't in the beginning. But he didn't in the, but at the beginning of his career, he didn't have a lot of power. And so when he was negotiating with someone, he decided for himself, is this an opportunity for me or a good one or a bad one? He took it, maybe failed, took the next one. And as humans, whether they're rich or not, poor, rich or poor, as they make decisions to better their lives, they go up and up and up. And some, like Lorne Michaels, gets to a point where he earned, he earned.

Levi (51:36.278)
sure, sure.

Levi (51:53.7)
Yeah.

Shawn (51:57.299)
his ability to have some power. Pete Davidson did the exact same thing.

Matt (51:59.111)
So that's the question though.

But the question Sean is, if you've earned a power advantage in society, is it morally right to use that power to take advantage of people or should you use your power in a different way?

Shawn (52:07.753)
Okay.

Shawn (52:16.085)
But that's you judging that Pete Davidson was taken advantage of. Pete Davidson, no he was not taken advantage of. Why would you judge that? Why?

Matt (52:19.313)
He was!

Matt (52:23.037)
The value he brought to each episode of Saturday Night Live exceeded the $3,000 that he was paid.

Shawn (52:28.437)
What equation are you using for that? How did you determine that?

Matt (52:31.141)
I mean, you can just look at viewership when he's on a show and when he's not on a show, right? You can see.

Shawn (52:34.973)
Okay, show me those numbers if you're gonna say, you can equate how much he's supposed to make based on viewership. You're making that up. Pete Davidson decided freely that I'm going to give in exchange for $3,000. My talent's on screen because I'm assuming in his mind he said, because I'm gonna land a movie deal over here, which he did many, I'm gonna land TV commercials over here, and I'm willing to work for 3,000 a week because of the opportunity. And he has...

Matt (52:54.264)
Sure.

Matt (53:02.151)
But I'm just saying that Lauren Michaels, he could have done something differently and it would have been more moral. It would have been a better thing to do. It would be better for him to.

Levi (53:11.672)
It would have made him less money and it would have been.

Shawn (53:14.489)
How much, Matt, you've talked before in the past, how you tell your kids, I'm gonna pay you some money if you do chores, right? You pay them a little money. How much do you pay them?

Matt (53:23.239)
Mm-hmm.

I pay them enough so that they are hungry to want more.

Shawn (53:29.197)
well, isn't that the same thing that that Lord Michaels did with Pete Davidson? I'm going to pay you enough so that you want to work hard and aspire to earn more money. How is that any different than what you're doing with your kids?

Matt (53:40.123)
because I'm not getting anything of value from my children's chores. They do the chores and then I have to do the chores again. Of course it's called, it's parenting is what it is.

Shawn (53:44.127)
So it's just charity? it's just charity? So maybe, so maybe Lauren, how do you know Lauren Michaels didn't look at Pete Davidson? That tall, awkward, dangly guy, you know what? This is gonna be charity. I'm gonna give him a job on SNL. He'll never make it in life. I'm gonna give him charity. And I'm gonna throw him a bone and give him three grand a month. How do know it's not that?

Matt (54:04.087)
this is the sta- this is the standard contract for everybody. That's why it's not that. I'm giving Levi the points because he agreed with me.

Shawn (54:12.085)
Leave I guess.

Matt (54:14.373)
Yeah, sure.

Levi (54:14.584)
I'm giving Matt, we've talked about a lot of parenting. I'm giving Matt some points for confessing that he's an oppressive, he's an oppressor in his own home. I mean, you're just taking advantage of those kids, Matt. You just, yeah, you're the meanest dad ever.

Matt (54:20.857)
Hahaha

Matt (54:24.765)
They tell me this every week. It's true. It's true. They do feel that way.

Shawn (54:27.689)
I I mean, that's the logic. The law. I think you're both wrong. The logic follows. If you think Pete Davidson was, was oppressed and you're doing the same thing with your kids, but I disagree. I disagree. dang it.

Matt (54:39.771)
I'm not giving you the points, Sean. You can't get them from me now. It's too late. I already gave them to Levi.

Levi (54:45.86)
Just be kind. My message is come to the negotiating table with a desire to give, to be kind, to be gentle with the people on the other side of the table. They're just people like you, right? Be kind to your workers, be kind to your contractors, be kind.

Shawn (55:01.909)
But how are you judging that Lorne Michaels wasn't kind to Pete Davidson? How are you judging that?

Matt (55:07.783)
he's not compensating him for the value he brings. Well,

Shawn (55:10.803)
says you but says but p davidson disagrees with you and so does lord michaels why are you guys judging this why do you make money the central value that is placed on individuals why is money the most important thing

Matt (55:22.895)
I'm the one that did that. I blame myself. I promised to place less value on money and then our society could be a much better place. Okay, we're going to move to the big question. We have to talk about Syria. For the last several weeks, I've been praying just out of gratitude that Syria has been relatively nonviolent and that they finally been able to get rid of Assad.

Shawn (55:26.431)
Ha ha ha.

Matt (55:50.077)
And my family's like, why in the world are you so happy about this? I feel like a lot of people haven't followed the history of the Assad regime in Syria very well. But the short of it is the Assad regime maintained power in Syria for 50 years by brutally terrorizing their political opponents. And for the last 10 years, there's been a civil war. It's been at a bit of a stalemate in which Assad supporters ruled the country generally, but there've been pockets of resistance across the country.

Less than a month ago, a rebel group took back a large city and now Assad has fled to Russia and the provisional government is going to try and establish a new political regime within the next three months. At present, and I'll put this link in the show notes, there's a really good map that shows the six groups that are controlling territory in Syria. The United States is one of them. We have troops in Syria controlling territory and there are five other groups that are doing similar things in Syria right now.

So I think that the United States has a tremendous opportunity to help our allies in the region and in Syria to share in the future governance of Syria and help it to develop as a peaceful, democratic, probably Islamist regime. And we could possibly have the first truly democratic Islamist regime in Syria, like that potential exists there right now. It would weaken Russia and it would weaken Iranian influence in the region.

Trump recently said that the United States should not get involved in Syria, that we should let it play out. We have seen what happens when we do not get involved globally. So the question is, does the US have a moral obligation to get involved in reshaping Syria?

Shawn (57:33.843)
Yeah, Matt, you've been consistent on this throughout the years. You've said the light on the hill theory, right? America should be involved because if we're not, our enemies will. And so you've been very consistent on this. And I love what you said, man. If this could be a democracy, Syria could be a democracy, right? Like in the same way that what Iraq kind of became a democracy, right?

Matt (57:36.989)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (57:47.292)
Yes.

Matt (57:53.958)
Yeah.

Matt (57:57.977)
Except for the Iraq, we kind of forced it on them, right? We overthrew their dictator and then we chose the next leaders and we sort of imposed our will on Iraq. And so that led to a lot of violence. But in this case, Syria has overthrown their dictator.

Shawn (58:05.151)
Shh.

Levi (58:07.129)
Mm-hmm

Shawn (58:10.333)
So that's my question, right? We watched Ukraine overthrow their Russian-influenced dictator and Ukraine was moving towards a real democracy, overcoming the corruption little by little. What if Syria, just to ask you the question, what if Syria doesn't turn into a democracy? What if they become a, you know, they get another, I don't know, what if it becomes another Saudi raid?

Matt (58:15.142)
Yeah.

Matt (58:19.868)
Yeah.

Matt (58:33.383)
Well, that's what I'm saying. We could help. They have said that they want to have a democratic system. They've got all of the pieces. The fact that they chose a provisional government shows that there are people that the rebels are interested in democratic representation, representative government, that they're not interested in a dictatorship because they didn't move into the palace and take over the guard and say, now I'm the new leader and trust me.

Shawn (58:49.621)
So you're, okay.

Shawn (58:55.829)
So you're saying America should only get involved to promote democracy. If the people started swaying towards, don't want a democracy, we want a strong leader who's gonna be a strong dictator, you would say do not support that and influence against that?

Matt (59:11.803)
What I'm saying is there are six groups in the region in Syria right now. ISIS is one of them. And I can assure you if ISIS takes control, ISIS is not going to establish a democratic system. We are also one of the groups in the region. We have troops there right now. And so I'm saying we have an opportunity to get involved in helping them perhaps write a constitution and helping them decide like how the power sharing arrangements should be put together because we have a truly democratic interest in mind.

and we don't have an interest in controlling Syria and using them as a pawn. But if we choose not to take that opportunity, the other players in the region are definitely interested in taking it and creating a different outcome.

Shawn (59:43.21)
and then pop.

Shawn (59:51.069)
And you're saying that a populist Donald Trump is saying the people don't want us to spend any more money on any foreign wars or governments. Let's stay out of it and see what happens and we'll spend our money here.

Matt (01:00:03.621)
I mean, I just put a link to what he said on Truth Social. We should not get involved in Syria. We should let it play out. And I think that that's a tremendous mistake.

Shawn (01:00:09.673)
What do you think Levi?

Levi (01:00:13.53)
Yeah, I'm with Matt. mean, but here's the thing. don't know. I never know. I never am good at predicting what foreign policy perspectives are going to turn out to be right. So maybe the United States weighs in on the side of some particular faction in Syria. Do you think that helps that faction in Syria? Or is that, you know, we're not exactly popular in the Middle East, right? So

Matt (01:00:39.581)
Well, we are in certain regions, right? We've been helping. There are rebel groups in Syria that have aligned with us and they have a sizable following. So it's like every system, it's like every country in the world, you're gonna have people that hate us and people that love us. But you can, I mean, this is what we study as political scientists, you can put systems in place that allows everybody to have an equal voice and have an opportunity to have a seat at the table.

Levi (01:00:42.316)
We come in on air.

Matt (01:01:08.669)
through peaceful democratic means, like we, because we're involved doesn't mean we have to dominate the process the way we did in Iraq and other countries that Afghanistan. We don't have to take that approach, but saying we're going to do nothing is also the wrong approach.

Levi (01:01:17.016)
Yeah.

Levi (01:01:26.362)
Right, so you would say we insist on democracy, right? We insist on sort of democratic representation. We don't insist on that somebody be pro-Israel or pro-US. We don't insist on any particular, we're not going to choose your leader. We don't insist on any particular economic system. Can they be socialists? Yeah, good.

Matt (01:01:31.249)
Yes. Yeah.

Matt (01:01:38.597)
right. We're not going to choose your leader for you.

Matt (01:01:47.119)
Right. Sure.

Shawn (01:01:48.799)
Matt, when has the US government ever with their international actions acted altruistically? It seems like what you're saying is yes, go in and act altruistically as opposed to in America's self-interest. Because America's self-interest traditionally would say help someone in place who's going to be a friend and an ally of America, not just out of pure democracy. That's never happened, has it?

Matt (01:02:10.737)
This is.

Matt (01:02:14.973)
This is why George H.W. Bush, in my opinion, is the greatest president of the 20th century. Because at the fall of the Soviet Union, he allowed countries to choose what they wanted to choose. And we supported them in creating their own systems of government. So Lukashenko in Minsk, in Belarus, they have a more authoritarian system. In Kazakhstan, they had a more authoritarian system. Estonia created the most Ayn Rand friendly kind of government you could imagine.

and we just allowed countries to do what they wanted to do. The one country where we were really, really bad was Russia. Russia invited the American economists to come in and help them fix their economy. And they said, shock therapy, that's what you should do. They took our advice, they experienced a great depression and said, we don't like your approach. So the one country at the fall of Soviet Union, Russia, where we kind of tried to tell them what to do, led to really bad things. But all of those other countries where we said,

We're going to support you in realizing your self-government goals that worked out just fine. So we can support the growth of democracy in peaceful means without imposing it on other countries. Most of these times when you overthrow a dictator, it doesn't lead to democracy because we do it wrong. And I'm just saying we could do it right. We could do it the George H.W. Bush way, but saying we want no part of it is also the very wrong way to do it.

Shawn (01:03:26.581)
I like.

Shawn (01:03:40.863)
Dude, you are on a podium preaching truth and it's inspiring, Matt. I love that, that's amazing.

Matt (01:03:48.582)
Alright, well thank you Sean.

Levi (01:03:49.316)
That was great. Lukashenko is an interesting data point there. Was that a success? Like they're not exactly very democratic.

Matt (01:03:56.187)
Look, Belarus is peaceful, right? They chose their own path. You could say the similar kinds of things in Hungary, right? As we watch democratic backsliding in Hungary, we're not sending in troops saying, we're gonna tell you what kind of government you're gonna have. We're saying, allow the people to choose the government they wanna choose. Lukashenko is not accused of human rights violations. He's not accused of like doing terrible things to his people. Same thing in Kazakhstan, right? So as long as the...

Levi (01:04:06.285)
Right, right?

Levi (01:04:18.639)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (01:04:23.761)
the leaders are like adhering to what we would call like democratic norms. We should not have a preference about the specifics of the government they choose, but we should encourage countries to engage in self-government and oppose people that are gonna come in and try and take over, which, you know, there are those forces in Syria right now. But.

Levi (01:04:45.454)
Yeah, well, and some of those would probably violate what we might consider human rights, right? Like you watch what happened in Afghanistan. ISIS definitely would step in. And I don't know how their representation would work, but they probably would impose, they probably would be violating human rights as we would think about them, Yeah.

Shawn (01:04:45.525)
Wow.

Matt (01:04:51.923)
yeah, ISIS would.

Matt (01:05:05.723)
Yes, right. So there's always this temptation when you overthrow a dictator to take all that power to yourself. And what I'm saying is in Syria, we have a real opportunity that that isn't what happened. We don't have people coming in trying to take that power right now. We have a three month window where we could actually help them develop a truly democratic system. And I think we have an obligation to do it.

Levi (01:05:30.766)
The other interesting example would be Saudi Arabia here, right? Saudi Arabia, you know, we had an Arab Spring and we thought, hey, great, Mubarak was deposed and then they elected the Muslim Brotherhood, right? Which turned out to be kind of... sorry, maybe I mixed them up. wait, I said Mubarak. Yes, you're right. I'm talking about Egypt. Sorry. Sorry, you're right.

Matt (01:05:46.026)
Wait, are you talking Egypt?

Matt (01:05:51.877)
Yeah, Egypt. Yeah. But even, but even Egypt isn't like in an awful situation, right? Like it's not ideal. Like it could, but, but even, yeah.

Levi (01:06:01.06)
Yeah.

Shawn (01:06:03.391)
Matt, so you say...

Levi (01:06:03.95)
Yeah, I'm just trying to feel where are the boundaries of your of your perspective there,

Shawn (01:06:07.477)
So you say, yeah, you say self-governance trumps democracy.

Matt (01:06:13.585)
That's right. So Jordan has a king right now and it's an autocratic system, but the king is adhering to like basic norms of human rights, right? They're respecting human rights. And so who cares? Who cares if you have a king or don't have a king?

Shawn (01:06:28.967)
Levi, would you say self-governance trumps democracy?

Levi (01:06:36.386)
What does that, what do mean by self governance?

Shawn (01:06:38.655)
Meaning the country chooses to have an autocrat or the country chooses to have a theocracy, right? they have that, that is self-governance, right? If the people's voice is we want a theocracy, do you think Matt's saying that that is more important because then they choose it. They love it. They own it. You saying that's more important than democracy, than forcing, maybe influencing a democracy.

Matt (01:06:38.747)
like the country choosing its own leaders.

Levi (01:06:43.702)
If the country decides to have an autocrat.

Levi (01:07:04.228)
Man, I don't think you can do it any other way. I don't think you can step in and say, you want a king, you're not allowed to have a king. Right? I don't think that never works, right?

Shawn (01:07:15.411)
Yeah, I don't think it does. Maybe that's right. Yeah, I never thought of it that way.

Levi (01:07:17.198)
Yeah.

Matt (01:07:20.093)
Hey, well, listeners, let us know. Maybe we're wrong about this. Maybe I'm just think about this too much and so I persuaded Sean and Levi a bit too easily. If I'm wrong, I'm sure you historians will let us know all the things we're wrong about. Hey, Levi, it's been great having you as a guest host. And despite what you might think, I think it'd be great to have you back again sometime in the future. I hope you'd be willing to join us again.

Shawn (01:07:47.311)
no, he disappeared. no, he just, no he's back, he's back.

Matt (01:07:48.581)
Now we lost him. All right. he's back. Did you hear me say Levi, we'd love to have you back again sometime.

Levi (01:07:59.162)
well, yeah, give me a call. Sure, or have some other people, who else do we want on here? Anyway.

Matt (01:08:01.563)
It's been a...

Nobody else Levi. I was just saying it was good having you. You've done a great job as a guest host We'll have to have you back sometime in the future because it's fun. This is how Levi is listener He's like super he like makes you feel like he wants to be a part of your group But then he's like, well, you know, you could probably find other friends other than me. It's really tough It's like I'm glad Levi and I were never in the dating game at the same time because I'd have been like I don't know Does he like me? Will he call me?

Shawn (01:08:26.783)
Hehehehehe

Levi (01:08:30.81)
I'm trying to expand the group.

Matt (01:08:32.157)
But it's, yeah, yeah. That's not what a girl wants to hear when they're in the dating game with Levi. Hey, well, it's been good having you Levi. Listener, we'll talk to you again next week.

Shawn (01:08:38.335)
hahahaha

Levi (01:08:38.916)
Ha