Shawn (00:00.162)
that kind of thing. You're not qualified. A construction man.

Matt (00:06.744)
Okay, we're recording now. Hey everybody, welcome to the Latter Day Lens. I'm your host, Matt. With me as always is Sean. Welcome to December, listeners. And if you could see this on YouTube, which you can't because we don't put it on YouTube, you would see that right here I have a nativity set in my office. And then right over here I have a Christmas tree in my office. And I have a nice

Shawn (00:32.945)
And what else you got in your office?

Matt (00:34.81)
I got a wrestler. My office is like a museum. If you... I have a Lenin... Do you know, he's sitting right next to Karl G. Marx. Can you see him over there? I've got all the Greek philosophers and then I got Lenin and Marx. And yeah, I've got stuff from all over the world. And if we look in Sean's office, I see zero, zero Christmas things, because Sean doesn't believe in celebrating Christmas.

Shawn (00:37.708)
Where's your- where's your linen bust?

Shawn (00:46.734)
that's him.

Shawn (01:00.622)
Of course I do. Look, there's Christmas stuff.

Matt (01:04.037)
Look at that. Okay. you guys have stock. You have a fireplace.

Shawn (01:08.322)
We have a fireplace with stockings, dude. That's more festive than your fake Christmas tree and right next to your Lennon bust and your Marks bust.

Matt (01:10.278)
Wow.

Matt (01:15.132)
Do you know, we don't have a fireplace so we put our stockings on the wall. Pretty... Hey well Sean, there's a lot of fun stuff to talk about. I think this is going to be a good episode. We're going to start with listener mailbag. For some reason, I find a lot of joy in reading people who are mean to you. And so you can just know if I don't open the mailbag it's because people were mean to me.

Shawn (01:22.006)
Nice, nice. That seems like a Matt Miles thing to do for sure.

Shawn (01:38.614)
hahahaha

Matt (01:44.516)
And if I do, like if I don't read what you said, it's because you weren't mean to Sean. So we've got two.

Shawn (01:48.376)
Look, I like that listeners are passionately listening in their cars, screaming out loud. Don't get angry. Don't lose your temper. Don't get emotional, right? Like that's the point of Latter Day Lens is we can have these discussions when we're trying to view things through the eyes of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We can be tolerant of each other's views, but properly listeners keep calling me out. I'm here to learn. I'm here to grow. If I think things or say things wrong, I have no problem changing my mind if I'm wrong.

Matt (01:53.808)
Yeah, no, no.

Shawn (02:17.922)
So go ahead, call it out, let's hear it.

Matt (02:19.216)
And just so everybody knows, whenever I listen to this show with my wife in the car, she shouts at me. She doesn't just shout at the car. She shouts at me and tells me that I'm wrong. So that's true. She doesn't text into the show. So I get it on a personal level. Sean gets it on the podcast. Okay, this person writes, say, it has been a long time since I yelled at you guys in my car. I love you guys and I even appreciate that you care about women's issues, but I'm disappointed that neither of you could articulate even to.

Shawn (02:27.756)
Well, I shout at you all the time, so I guess it's okay.

Shawn (02:34.552)
Yeah

Matt (02:48.462)
or three reasons why a huge portion of women might consider moving to other countries. For example, the standard in many European countries is a year of paid maternity leave. Quality of food is better in other countries. It's easier to breastfeed children. I don't know how I never thought about that one, Sean. That one just totally slipped my mind, like the restrictions on breastfeeding, but it's true. It's more open in other countries. People are more family-friendly and supportive in other countries.

My friends, when they've traveled abroad with young children, are put at the front of lines and ushered into restaurants quickly and given a nice place to sit down with their children. They've observed this in different parts of South America and Europe, but in the United States, the attitude tends to be, it's your fault you had kids, so deal with it. This is both cultural and governmental. We do not provide support to mothers in the United States.

Shawn (03:36.332)
Well, look, since our beloved listener provided anecdotal kind of evidence, can do the same. I don't know a single American woman who looks at, by the way, looks at this free marketplace of country offerings and goes, yeah, France looks better, Denmark looks better, I'm gonna leave. I don't know a single one. I know a lot of pretty happy, pretty content people. And I also know a lot of, nah, nah, I was just about to qualify that. I also have friends who struggle, who,

Matt (03:59.13)
You live in paradise, Sean.

Shawn (04:05.758)
are appreciative of the things that America offers because let's face it, lot of they would struggle in Denmark too, like it's, but they appreciate some of these things. And we talk about this idea of federalism. I like that there's a worldwide kind of federalist, I don't know if that's right way to say it, but there's this, like, I like that there's options. Look, truly I'm glad that there would be an option for a woman if they value the things that this listener mentioned more than what they can find in America.

I love that they've got the option. Go do it. Leave and go live your better life. There's nothing wrong with that. I love choices. God put us on this planet and an agency was such an important thing, go do it. So it doesn't mean that those things are necessarily better. If they were better, I think we really would have women leaving instead of just complaining about it according to your poll, right?

Matt (04:38.074)
Yeah.

Matt (04:56.54)
They're not just complaining. They would like to. Well, yeah. Okay, but I think there's...

Shawn (05:00.491)
Put your money where your mouth is would they like to or they just have freedom of speech and they're just complaining

Matt (05:04.316)
I don't know. Well, I think there's two things our listener said that you would agree with. So number one, when we were adopting our two youngest sons from Russia, we were talking with them about life in the United States and they said, so how much maternity leave is Sandra going to get when these two boys come home and we're like, maternity leave? You don't get maternity leave for toddlers. And they're like, in Russia, you get three years of maternity leave, paid maternity leave.

Yeah, and you can stagger it, right? So you can split it up. And so they're like, how could you guys like, why would you not value children enough that you want the mothers at home taking care of their children in those really, really important years? And then the other one is I think you also agree that it is hard to find high quality, nutritious food in the United States. Like there's been an industrialization of the food supply that makes it hard to find healthy food options for people in a number of places in the United States.

Shawn (06:06.126)
I mean, okay, maternity leave. What's the right amount? What's the righteous amount of time of maternity leave? What is it? Seven years, there you go. There you go. There you go. There's an arbitrary number. I like that you've brought in the latter day lens. It's gotta be eight years, because it's a huge cut. But you're gonna have a different opinion, an arbitrary opinion by every state, right? Every country.

Matt (06:14.31)
Seven years until they reach the age of account, eight years at the age of account.

Matt (06:27.444)
You

Shawn (06:35.072)
And who's to say that because Denmark only gives two years, that they're not as evil as America because Russia gives seven, right? Like it's this arbitrary debate. Like there's no right or wrong answer. So again, it's all about freedom of choice. If you value in your life that I need 12 to seven, I mean one to seven years of maternity leave, then go and you're going to give up a lot by going to Russia and getting that seven years of maternity leave. But if that's what you value more,

Go do it, it gives you choices, that's awesome.

Matt (07:07.696)
Yeah, okay. And food, Sean? You know, you know food's a big issue in the United States.

Shawn (07:10.051)
the f-

Your opening statement of it's really hard to find healthy food in America, that's so lame. That's just dumb what you just said. It is so easy to find healthy food in America if you choose to eat healthy food. If you choose to eat unhealthy food, it's really easy to find unhealthy food in America.

Matt (07:28.732)
I can't talk to Sean about food. Sean, what is it that you eat now for all of your meals?

Shawn (07:34.126)
You'll appreciate it. Buckwheat, what did we eat every day in Ukraine? Buckwheat, toasted buckwheat, whole grains. The word of wisdom says that whole grains are the staple of life. If the word's the staff of life, right? That's a pretty important phrase. So I'll eat buckwheat and bulgur, a little bit salt, a little bit chicken.

Matt (07:39.715)
End.

Matt (07:46.268)
The staff of

And what do you put on your buckwheat, Sean?

Matt (07:58.128)
What do you put when you have bulgur wheat? What do you have with your bulgur wheat?

Shawn (08:01.528)
Some banana. Why do you people don't want to hear this dude? Some banana, some almonds, some toasted almonds. Toasted almonds.

Matt (08:05.126)
They have to hear it, Sean. They have to know why. They have to know why I can't.

There's a reason I don't talk food with Sean. Sean, do you remember saying this in the MTC? Won't it be great in the next life when we don't have to eat? And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, yes, you're like eating is such a burden. Eating is such a chore. I hate it. I can't wait till I have a resurrected body and I don't have to worry about eating food anymore. I'm like, what a...

Shawn (08:21.056)
I never... Did I really say that? I did not.

Shawn (08:31.672)
That's what you remember. I don't remember saying that, but that's what you remember from being the MTC. my gosh. Why did I, why did I think that? That's weird.

Matt (08:35.228)
100 % you said that in the MTC. I was like, what is wrong with this person? Probably because what do you eat, Sean?

Shawn (08:43.574)
Ha ha! Buckwheat and bulgur and bananas and apples!

Matt (08:46.832)
Yeah, okay. You're right, that's easy to find in the United States. I take it back. Yeah. Hey, hey mothers, feed your babies bulgur wheat, buckwheat, bananas, and almonds? Chicken. It's everywhere. Yeah, you can go to WinCo and buy that stuff in bulk. It's cheap.

Shawn (08:50.446)
Yeah, it is. It is. It's super easy.

Shawn (09:00.554)
Almond chicken? Yeah, what's the problem? It's all healthy.

Shawn (09:06.86)
You can! That's what I do every month, it's great! It's cheap! It's... Okay.

Matt (09:10.244)
Alright, alright, I take it back. I forgot I was talking with Sean about food. You can't find delicious healthy food, but you can find healthy food in the United States. Alright, another listener writes, I would love to hear someone explain to Sean how laws, which are not explicitly racist, can put people of color at a disadvantage. A good place to start would be to talk about voter suppression in the post-Civil War South. If Southern states could no longer pass laws that said black people can't vote,

How did they rig the system to keep black citizens from voting? I know the answer to this question, but I don't want to explain this to you. I just thought I'd read that to you.

Shawn (09:51.982)
Well, I would say, hey, listeners and Matt, please always point out the wrongs in our past. Always. We should. We should remember them, right? It's important so that we don't repeat them. like, for example, redlining. Absolutely, absolutely, 100 % agree. Redlining was a horrible practice, for example. It was evil. I hated it. And that's a good example of what the listener's saying. I would never deny that just because

Matt (10:06.374)
Yeah, the... Yeah.

Shawn (10:21.346)
I mean, that was a pretty systemic racist law, even I agree that there are gonna be, but bringing up past wrongs that we have made attempts to and have fixed or improved or have worked hard to overcome, that wasn't our discussion. When we were discussing this, we were talking about in 2025, now, right? And no one can give me a single example now.

Matt (10:43.396)
Yeah, yeah, well, and, well, I can, the Texas gerrymandering that they're doing in the state of Texas, right? That policy is designed to make it so African-American voters have less of a voice in elections.

Shawn (10:58.42)
made okay so you're saying that the listener is correct because that's not the the intent is purely political has nothing to do with racism but you're saying but because african-american voters tend to vote democratic this does disadvantage them that's what you're saying so it's not explicitly racist but there is a there but it can affect them

Matt (11:15.014)
Well, yeah.

Yeah, and the arguments that they made in court, right? The arguments they made in court, showed evidence that the people drawing those boundaries intended to split up the votes of racial minorities so that they didn't have as much of a voice.

Shawn (11:28.142)
So that's a great example, right? If you can find me real practical examples like that one, then I'm with you side by side. Let's fight it. There shouldn't be that garbage gerrymandering, not in Texas, not now in California, which is happening. It's happening all over. And you have to be consistent and honest, right? If California does it, but you're not calling it racist, but you're calling it racist in Texas, there's inconsistency there. Be at least honest and consistent about it, right?

Matt (11:44.058)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (11:56.732)
Well, so that's the reason I don't want to explain it to you because you and Sam both have persuaded me that calling those policies racist is not useful because, because, and I, don't know, I think it was maybe you Sean that said that when you call policies racist, then the word racism loses some of its meaning. And so I think that it's worthwhile to say, let's call racism explicit bigotry.

towards another person based on their race. And other things, like what we would call implicit racism, right, if I have a natural tendency to avoid people of a particular race because of an unconscious bias that I have, let's don't call that racism because that dilutes the word racism, which everybody agrees is bad. Yes, yeah, so that's why.

Shawn (12:45.742)
Yeah, it's ignorance. It's ignorance and it's bias.

Matt (12:51.992)
I agree with the listener that there are policies that are not explicitly racist that give the disadvantaged people of minority races. I agree with that. But I think I've been persuaded that it's not good to call those policies racist because it stops the discussion right away. Like I can have a discussion with Sean about gerrymandering and I can say, okay, is it wrong to redraw boundaries based on race versus party identification? And we can have that discussion. But if I call the policy racist,

Shawn (13:07.65)
does.

Matt (13:21.488)
then it stops all dialogue about it because nobody wants to be on the position defending racism. Right? And so then you can't talk about it anymore.

Shawn (13:27.896)
Good point. That's a good point. And the intention matters, right? It does. Like to label someone racist, meaning I make my decisions based on the color of someone's skin, and not on their character and not on anything else, then that's racist. But if gerrymandering is all about political votes, their motive isn't, look, we're going to try and disenfranchise or disadvantage someone because of their skin, then that's not racist. It's not.

Matt (13:56.272)
Yeah. Well, you've persuaded me I shouldn't use that word to describe it. Yeah. Is racially biased? Does that feel like the same word as racist? Racially biased? Racially motivated?

Shawn (13:57.718)
And so you're right.

Shawn (14:08.302)
Yeah, think that's it. mean, racially motivated. Sure, that's the same as it sure it does. Yeah. Yes. And if gerrymandering was racially motivated as opposed to politically motivated, then let's talk about it in those terms. But it's not.

Matt (14:13.414)
Sounds like racism, right? Yeah, so then we just have to find another word for it. And I think that...

Matt (14:26.374)
Well, that's the challenge is like you really can't legally, you can't really differentiate between those two, right? If I want to disadvantage black people, because I don't like the idea of seeing black people representing me, I could, right, but I'm not gonna say that because it's racist, right? So I say it in a different way that sound.

Shawn (14:41.528)
That's racist.

Shawn (14:49.194)
No, no, no, no. Okay, now you're getting to... So you believe that all of Texas has this...

Matt (14:53.166)
No, no, no, no, no. So what I'm saying, no, I'm not saying, so that's what I'm saying. I'm saying legally, there's no way to differentiate between those two motivations. You can't know if the motivation of a state legislature, which is hundreds of people, is a racial bias or a partisan bias in that situation.

Shawn (15:12.974)
I mean, for the listener, if you've got evidence that Texas is doing it and it's purely a racial motive, please teach me that and I will go fight it with you arm in arm. But I just, I just done 2025.

Matt (15:13.883)
And so-

Matt (15:23.728)
Well, no, that that evidence is in court. That evidence is in court. That's why the appeals court said that the redistricting in Texas was unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court overturned the appeals court. But that's why that happened was because somebody presented evidence that it was racially motivated. Yeah, that's okay. Hey, listeners, thanks for writing in. We like to open the mail back, especially when it's telling Sean he but you know what the first listener kind of came after both of us. So I don't know. I guess I

We just like the passion. Thanks for writing in and having an opinion. All right, the thought provoker. This one's a little long, Sean. Actually, all of them are a little long, but I think this is, yeah, that's okay. It's listener. This is like settle in. It's gonna be worth it. You're gonna love this. So for the first time in a decade, more young children will die in 2025 than in the year before. About 243,000 more children under the age of five

Shawn (15:55.468)
Yes, absolutely.

Shawn (16:00.27)
Go for it. Yeah, it's kind of long.

Matt (16:21.52)
will die this year compared to 2024. Since 1990, fewer and fewer children have died each year. Vaccines, medicine, and better food have helped save many lives, and now that progress is stopping in some places. The problem is worse in Africa. Countries like Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia are seeing many more children deaths. These countries face several challenges. They have wars and conflicts. Their hospitals and clinics are weak.

They owe a lot of money to other countries and they're receiving less help from rich countries. Bill Gates, the kind, benevolent, virtuous Bill Gates says the main cause is that there's less money being spent on global health. Rich countries, including the United States have cut their aid by 27%. The Trump administration reduced funding for USAID, which helps poor countries.

Shawn (16:59.224)
you

Shawn (17:02.968)
You forgot righteous, you forgot.

Matt (17:18.182)
Gates called this a huge mistake, but of course the White House disagrees with this. The article that I linked to in the show notes tells the story of one mother in Somalia who lives in a camp for people who had like a refugee camp called Mercy Corps. They used to get food from the health services, but Mercy Corps lost 80 % of its funding from USAID. And so then the help that she was receiving stopped. Her two-year-old son got sick with diarrhea.

She had to walk five miles to get to a hospital, but the doctors could not save him and he died. So this is the question. Are Americans too concerned about saving the lives of unborn children and not concerned enough about saving the lives of living children, Sean?

Shawn (18:02.562)
Well, to not take your bait and turn this into an abortion discussion, I'll just, here's my resources. I have two points. One, if you look at the history, I'm gonna break the premise just a little bit. You tell me if I'm right or wrong. But foreign aid, the tradition of foreign aid in America has never really been about helping the needy and the poor. It's been a strategic partner relationship building endeavor.

Like you look at it's really the biggest, the beginning of America giving aid was after World War II and Truman, what was it called? I wrote it down. The Foreign, okay, well the Mutual Security Act. So my study said, is that what it's called? But I like the term Mutual Security Act as being the genesis of foreign aid from America because look at the name.

Matt (18:40.565)
The Plan. The Marshall Plan.

Yes, them-

The Marshall Plan. Yeah.

Shawn (19:00.172)
We are trying, it's about security. This was about strategic partners. And so the aid that we were giving was to build up countries who were in a weak position against Hitler, basically. Communism, right? So I'm gonna suggest that the, of course a byproduct of that is people get help. People who have needs get help. But I'm gonna suggest that in my studies, it's less about being charitable and helping people not starve. It's more about

Matt (19:10.78)
Communism. Yeah, communism. Yeah.

Shawn (19:28.512)
strategic political military advantages to its building partners.

Matt (19:35.664)
Yeah, we would call it soft power, right? The idea is that Somalia is not a military threat to the United States and Somalia isn't a country we have to worry about like fighting against. But if we give them aid and we help them build like institutions in their society, then they're going to be more likely to be democratic institutions. They're less like when a dictator comes along and says, I'll give you whatever you ask, just put me in power. They're going to be less likely to support a dictator. They're going to

Shawn (20:02.52)
Right. That's not charity, That's not charity. That's strategic meddling or partner building.

Matt (20:06.076)
No, that's not charity. Yeah. And they're going to be more friendly to the United States. And if down the road we want to put a base in their country, they'll be more likely to say, yeah, put a military base in our country. We like you guys. You're good to us.

Shawn (20:18.998)
Yeah, exactly. Strategic partner building. So I do hope and wish, and I love that the model that the church has taught us is give 10%. I hope that our taxpayer, our tax dollars, I hope that the government, our government would give us a portion, give a portion to actual charitable efforts. 10%, let's say 10%. I don't think they're doing that. And I think it's not totally terribly wrong that they use

this mutual security concept that some people call aid in helping children not starve, but in fact, it's actually just mutual security building. Like, let's be honest about it, right?

Matt (21:00.026)
Yeah. Yeah. I guess I'm less concerned about the specifics of USAID than I am about American attitudes. The people who say America first, let's worry about ourselves. Let's worry about our own country and let's forget about the rest of the world because you can, you can give aid to other countries through the government or through charitable organizations. But I just worry that the Americans have just become

Like to me, the idea that that many children are gonna die, right? And they're not in the United States. Like we're doing a great job of taking care of our own. But the idea that as a country, we could be so worried about the price of eggs, or we could be so worried about whatever thing we see on the news, that we just close our eyes to what's happening in other countries. That's sad and shocking to me.

Shawn (21:53.07)
But isn't that the role of the individual, the family, and the church? It's not the role of government, right? I I don't mind that the government calling it a mutual security act. Their job is to make sure we're secure and free and our rights are protected and that there's no threats that are gonna destroy us. So that's what they're doing with aid, right? But you look at our church, right? The wealthiest religious entity, I think, right? In America at least.

And what are the numbers? We don't know the numbers. We know the numbers of how many people or children will die. How many children were saved because of the church's efforts using our tithing to go out and save children, feed children? It's got to be in the hundreds of thousands.

Matt (22:33.712)
No, I agree with that. think the church's number is almost $2 billion. They spent last year on humanitarian efforts. I agree with that, Sean, but in the case of the United States, Congress has passed laws allocating money to foreign aid. And we have a president that's choosing that instead of spending that money on the foreign aid, like the law says he should, he's choosing to, I don't know, put billions of dollars in Argentina, right? Saving their currency.

Shawn (23:03.564)
Yeah, I don't think you're being consistent here though. Just because they call it foreign aid doesn't mean it's charity. I don't think it ever has been. It's got to be all partner building.

Matt (23:03.804)
or

Matt (23:10.48)
No, I know, but.

Okay, but we have a president that's not spending the money on aid the way that Congress said the money should be spent. And instead is spending it on, like we know the Department of Homeland Security use their entire budget within the first three months of the year, right? And so they're spending all their money and then some, whereas other, like the State Department had their budget cut in half, not by law, but by the president. So I'm just saying like to the extent that Americans are like,

hey, I really like the leadership and the switching of focus and things like that. like, I mean, yes, we should give to charity. And yes, we should let laws function as they were originally intended to function. And we can do good in the world.

Shawn (23:51.246)
Yeah.

Shawn (23:57.902)
I hear your point. I just think there needs to be a more honest delineation between what is actual charity that our government could give versus, in quotes, foreign aid, which is actually just mutual security building. Like, let's be honest about it. Like, Congress, I wish there was a more honest delineation. Like, hey, guess what? There is a portion of our budget that we as Americans have decided we are just going to give altruistic.

We're just gonna take care of the poor and the needy across the world. It's not about political partnering. It's not, like we're gonna give it to Russia because there are kids there that are starving, right? Or China. Like do that and then have another thing called mutual security where the aid is clearly for partner building and political strategy. Don't you think that it should be more upfront like that or no?

Matt (24:34.158)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (24:45.582)
Yeah, okay. I can't see our government ever just giving charity to, right? And just ignoring the politics of the country that we're giving the A to and asking nothing in return. We would...

Shawn (24:58.36)
So then why would you be upset that the Trump administration is using it for partner building and not aid? If it's never been aid and you see that they'll never give aid, true charitable aid, why would you be upset?

Matt (25:01.308)
Yeah

Matt (25:10.052)
Yeah, yeah. Well, cause yeah, because children are dying, Sean, and they don't have to, right? We used to give aid to Somalia. We took the aid away and now people are dying. so.

Shawn (25:17.198)
That's not

Shawn (25:22.382)
But it was for political purposes and if a byproduct of that was that children don't die, that's really awesome. But how could you possibly long term rely on that if the motive of the giver was political, not charitable, right? It's like it's not a long term solution to save children.

Matt (25:33.798)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (25:38.374)
Well, Sean didn't answer the question, but I'll still give you the points, Sean. You didn't even say anything about unborn children, but I like what you said. Take the bait. Okay. Next story. Maria Aspen of NPR. My favorite radio news organization is National Public Radio. Sure. Sure. Wait, should I change my mind on that?

Shawn (26:00.11)
Still, huh? Still? Okay.

Well, they've changed over the last probably eight years, seven, eight years. No, seven, eight years.

Matt (26:09.616)
Well, they had to, no, they've changed over the last year when they lost their funding and had to start like, okay.

Shawn (26:17.07)
And I'm saying over last seven, eight years, they have changed based on what political power is in office.

Matt (26:23.844)
Yeah, think that to some extent they, yeah, I won't disagree with that, that's true. They still have reporters, which makes me love them. Okay, this by the way, isn't a reporter, this is just a story, but this person did some analysis, Maria Aspin, says that the healthcare system in the United States is broken. At pro...

Shawn (26:30.264)
Yeah, I like that. Yeah.

Shawn (26:40.938)
genius! wait a minute, give her an award! she wrote an article about it?

Matt (26:43.996)
Well, what she did that I thought was interesting was she explained how it's broken, which we don't always get. there's, yeah, there's three things that are broken in the US healthcare system. And she argues that right now, nobody is benefiting from the current system. So more than half of Americans worry that they can't afford healthcare. So Americans are not benefiting from the current system. Big healthcare companies are losing money.

Shawn (26:51.433)
okay. That is unique. That is unique.

Shawn (27:02.648)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (27:14.036)
And United Healthcare Group, this is the company that Luigi Mangione shot the CEO of United Healthcare Group, right? Because he was so mad about big healthcare and all that stuff. Well, their stock fell 44 % this year. And investors no longer think healthcare companies are safe investments. So there's nobody, according to this article, who's benefiting from the healthcare system. Now,

I'm going to disagree with that personally. think doctors are doing just fine. Whenever the economy turns south and things slow down in my community, I always see new doctor's offices popping up. There's always a new dentist in town. They're always redoing their facilities. My dentist recently moved from this old building to a brand new building in a new location, and my cost went up as part of that.

Shawn (27:44.232)
Good point,

Shawn (27:53.048)
Good point.

Shawn (28:04.878)
I'm glad you're pointing that out, because my point later is going to build on that. That's interesting, though. OK.

Matt (28:09.106)
okay. Okay. So I think both Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, I did my homework on this, I think Adam Smith and... They would blame the government. Smith was deeply suspicious of government business entanglement. He saw concentrated economic power and regulatory capture as enemies of the genuine markets, which he would say is happening in the healthcare system. Friedman specifically criticized medical licensing, tax incentives that tied insurance to employment.

Shawn (28:14.55)
I saw that, Yeah.

Matt (28:37.626)
and regulations limiting the supply of providers, he would probably argue that the US healthcare is not a free market that failed, but a heavily managed system that never allowed market discipline to operate. It's not a free market. On the other side, John Maynard Keynes, he said, markets are inherently unstable. Unlike Friedman who blamed government for distortions, Keynes believed governments should do things that private enterprises cannot accomplish well.

Shawn (28:49.996)
Absolutely true. Absolutely true.

Matt (29:05.456)
Healthcare might qualify for three reasons. One, patients face true uncertainty about their future needs. Two, individually rational decisions can produce collectively irrational outcomes. And three, people need care now rather than after the market's eventually self-correct. So when we look at what Americans are really angry about in the United States right now, rising healthcare costs are high on the list.

It seems like we have an unstable compromise somewhere between what Keynes would want and what Friedman would want. So my question is, would it be best for the US to just pick one of these two options and go all in, or is there something a little less dramatic we could do to solve our healthcare problem?

Shawn (29:48.834)
I mean, for the sake of the discussion, I'll pick a side. And take a guess which side.

Matt (29:52.248)
Okay. You're going to go with John Maynard Keynes this time. You're going to say healthcare should go all in, free market, no regulation, no insurance, no licensing for doctors.

Shawn (29:56.357)
No!

Shawn (30:07.854)
I mean, I'm just gonna start, I'm gonna go back a little further and just start on the basis of the principles. Let's start there. I think there's probably some room for regulation and like maybe, I'm not gonna go into those details. This is such a complicated issue, but I'm gonna say, okay, listen, I'm gonna just for the sake of the argument and discussing, I'm gonna argue for free market based on two ideas. Okay, here's the first idea, right? The idea that there's inequity, right? That let's take 100 of us.

that 20 of us will get so sick that we will consume 80 to 90 % of all the medical costs, correct? And so this concept of insurance was a good one, right? Because we don't know which of the 100 of us is gonna get sick. So 100 of us are willing to do our best to pay into this insurance system to have the peace of mind that if I am one of those 20 that gets sick, I could be taken care of. And so I think there is a win-win in that insurance situation.

Matt (30:42.929)
Yes.

Shawn (31:06.71)
if it wasn't so freaking regulated. So I think that's problem number one, is that some of us are going to feel, well, I got gypped because I paid into this system my whole life and I never used it. Yet these people over here used all of it. But I think that's a free exchange and a fair free exchange because I did have the peace of mind that if something did happen to me or my loved ones, it could be taken care of. So I think understanding that concept is important. The second concept is this.

You can't force someone to use their skills against their will. So a doctor or a pharmaceutical company who has the solution for sick people, you can't force them. You have to pay for what they demand. You have to, you can't force a doctor to save my life. Right, that's slavery. You can't, you just can't. So I think those two issues make this such a complicated thing. So I'm gonna argue for free market because

I'd rather lean on the altruism of an individual than I would the altruism of the government. So if we go to free market and you're basically saying, all right, doctors who have these skills, like I'll give a good example. My grandma gets into a car accident many, many years ago and it damages her heart. They immediately rush her and who happens to be the premier heart specialist was

Matt (32:12.572)
Mm-hmm

Shawn (32:34.816)
our ex-prophet. Yeah, so he operates on her and saves her life uniquely. And afterwards they say, we have no idea how we're gonna pay for this and he frankly forgave them of the debt. And I know he's a prophet and I wasn't apostle at the time so I know there's a higher standard for him. I'd much, and many doctors won't do that so there's a problem.

Matt (32:37.936)
Hmm.

Matt (32:43.612)
Wow.

Matt (32:49.532)
Wow.

Matt (32:53.477)
Yeah.

Shawn (33:00.568)
But I'd rather rely on the altruism or the good-natured charity of those individuals than I would the government. Does that make sense?

Matt (33:08.188)
Sean, I'm gonna shock you. I'm gonna also say free market solution.

Shawn (33:13.612)
my gosh. What?

Matt (33:15.738)
because I think this is a situation where the free market actually can solve the problem and where Keynes would say you need the government when the free market doesn't work properly, I would say that's not healthcare because we had a free market in healthcare in the late 1800s. And so the solution then to the healthcare crisis in the United States is you have to get rid of

licensing, you have to get rid of regulations, you have to get rid of the FDA, you have to get rid of all of that stuff. Because we see in the United States, we have two systems, right? There's the vitamin industry, and there's the alternative medicine industry that I don't see a lot of people dying because they're getting access to vitamins, or they're using alternative medicine like faith healers or whatever.

Shawn (33:48.83)
my gosh.

Matt (34:13.594)
So the unregulated healthcare in the United States isn't killing a lot of people. So, yeah.

Shawn (34:17.834)
Even if some of it's just snake oil, If 80 % of the vitamins that people, the supplements people believe in are non-effective because they're not regulated to have to prove that they're effective, you're saying, yeah, but there's not really a lot of harm being done. No one's dying from that.

Matt (34:32.454)
That's right. And I think that the artificial intelligence and the information is sufficient out there that people can inform themselves that we don't need to have prescriptions. We don't need to, so you just make the entire thing unregulated and free. And if I want to put up a sign that says, medical doctor, Matt, come see me, then you can come see me and I'll tell you what I think about your illness.

but you don't have to see me in order to get a prescription to get an antibiotic, you can just buy that at the store. You have to get rid of all the regulations about buying drugs across borders. You have to get rid of everything and you get rid of all regulation. I think it solves our problem. I think it would solve our problem.

Shawn (35:09.518)
so excited. I'm so excited right now, Matt. Because then if I'm sick and I'm shopping, I'm gonna do some quick research and go, well, Matt didn't actually even go to medical school, whereas these five doctors did. So I'm gonna be able to make an informed decision on who I ought to probably go to. Or I'll look at reviews and people will say, you know, Matt didn't go to medical school, but my goodness, 10,000 people have said that he actually knows what he's doing and he helped me. Okay, well then I can trust the marketplace on that.

Matt (35:22.628)
Right.

Matt (35:36.614)
Right.

Shawn (35:39.053)
Wow.

Matt (35:39.066)
And look at, by the way, look at the trends in higher education. It's about 50 % of Americans right now that say going to college isn't worth it. So then why is it that it is so competitive to get into medical school and people are going into so much debt in order to get a medical degree? Why is there so much demand for medical degrees when there's not demand for any of the other degrees? Because regulations have created a false market there.

where you can't be a doctor. And why do we have shortages of hospitals and nurses? Because regulations require that you go through all of these certification processes. So we're creating a system that props up the cost to get trained in order to do that. So then they have to charge you more money because they had to spend so much money to get trained. Whereas the nursing profession, if I don't have to get a certification, I can just open up my shop and say, I'm a nurse.

And I said, but where were you trained as a nurse? And they're like, well, it's like a life coach, right? Some life coaches maybe know what they're doing more than other life coaches, but we can figure it out. Like most of nursing doesn't require that specialized of knowledge. So then you could have shops that would, I just think that it needs to be a free market solution. And the only way you get a true free market is the government has to get completely out of healthcare. And I think if the government got completely out of healthcare within five years, all of the costs would come down and people would be able to get the care they wanted.

Shawn (37:01.454)
You know, I try and debate you on lots of topics and I try to like, make it be an honest debate. I can sniff out when you are, I think I've known you long enough when you are making a false argument or you're just arguing for sake of arguing or you're trying to get under my skin or someone's skin. But every now and but I do truly, truly respect everything, every opinion you have. And it helps me when I can sniff out that you're playing devil's advocate because it makes me really think.

So when you sometimes, this will be a landmark moment here, sometimes when you say things that I think are sincere, even though I thought that I've thought that, had that opinion for many years, having you say it makes me go, okay, it's right.

Matt (37:47.384)
It feels right, doesn't it feel right, Sean? Get the government out of medicine altogether. Every little bit of it. If RFK Jr. has taught me anything, it's that people getting in, like the government having their hand in medicine just causes more problems than it fixes.

Shawn (38:03.214)
think it's right. I think it's correct. And I know I get it that the other side says, fear. But if you don't regulate it, if we don't protect you, these drugs are going to kill you or you're going to have quack doctors. But the idea that the market does kind of flesh that out is true. Right? The one time, and I know this is a costly side effect, but the one time that Dr. hurt someone because of he's not an expert, he's done.

Matt (38:31.324)
I'll have to find a new profession. I could be a life coach.

Shawn (38:33.389)
There's a, listen, there's a, okay, so there's this local story here in San Diego. There's this doctor 20 years ago, this baby is a birth doctor, right? And his whole thing was, I have delivered thousands of babies. In fact, I deliver like hundred babies a month. And then it went up to like 200 a month. Like this whole guys, I won't say his name, but his whole thing was, I'm the baby doctor. Like I'm so good at this. can just do, do, do, do, do, do. And I got to know the guy and he was just about the money.

It was all about the money and he was doing damage to all these women, but he was good at branding and saying, look at all these babies that I'm delivering. I'm the baby doctor. That guy got sued. That guy lost his license. Like I can't do a single thing in babies. Like the market took care of that really dishonest, greedy guy. And sure, some people got hurt. They did. They got hurt. But yeah.

Matt (39:17.724)
Yeah.

Matt (39:26.534)
I'm also noticing now that a lot of the money that's spent on healthcare is to cover seniors. And I've decided that senior citizens are just in a lot of pain for most of their lives. And they spend a lot of time going to doctors, trying to find solutions to problems that the doctors don't have a solution for, right? The solution is like 20 years ago, should have, yeah. And so we're spending a lot of money in this system.

Shawn (39:45.378)
They just, dude, well said.

Matt (39:52.71)
so that people can go and get prescribed a different thing or go do some different tests. Yeah, they're making a lot of money.

Shawn (39:55.598)
It's just pharma. It's just drugs. And you're right. There are regulations in place that 100 % guide what those doctors are giving these old people. What? You have pains? Well, the regulations say that if I say this or do this, then I could get in trouble. Here's your prescription. Yeah.

Matt (40:12.464)
Yeah, yeah. Whereas I could just open up a shop and I could say, you know what, like at your age, you're just gonna hurt all the time. Here's like, here's a handful of drugs that you could take. None of them are prescription. You'd actually don't need a prescription. So I'm not gonna tell you which one to take, but I'll point you to this app or to this website and you can pick for yourself which one you wanna take. Right.

Shawn (40:23.576)
pain relief.

Shawn (40:31.8)
And you can't get in trouble for that because there's not this government saying, whoa, you gave bad advice that we don't like. And so now you're going to get sued. Wow, dude, man, wisdom, wisdom.

Matt (40:38.766)
Yeah, see? There's some... I'm going with Milton Friedman, think, Sean.

Shawn (40:44.334)
Love it. And the free market will eventually get to the point where it says, hey, look at it. Like there's going to be some entrepreneur who says, look at all the data that says that when you turn 60, 70, if you haven't done these 10 exercises, you're going to ache and pain and be tempted to just take painkillers and get addicted. How about we're going to be the company that saves your future? You know what mean? There's going to be some entrepreneur that is able to convince us through the motive of profit that we need to do. Like Matt, I'm 49.

Matt (41:06.278)
Yeah.

Shawn (41:13.846)
and I've just discovered hanging and pull-ups because my grip strength started to get weak. And all of my father and my grandfather and my in-laws, they all say, I can't use my fingers, life is terrible, I have no grip strength. And it freaked me out. And so now all I'm doing for the rest of my life is grip strength exercises, because I don't want to lose it. That's the free market.

Matt (41:34.78)
Sean, sometimes you tease me and say that I'm old, but this episode our listeners have learned that you eat kasha and hang on a pole to keep. But there is a YouTube channel. It's a guy that does like geriatric exercises. He's like, if you're over 55, you should do these like stretch exercises every day. And I'm like, they're really easy for me now. I'll just start doing them now because keep me.

Shawn (41:42.254)
Good strength.

Shawn (41:52.014)
Dude.

Shawn (41:56.206)
Dude, I wish someone would have taught me in my 20s and 30s, I'm not a victim, I wish I would have done the research and realized there are five exercises that if you do, you're gonna be feeling really good at 50, and really good at 80, and really good at night, not really good, but anyway, that's a good top, I'll.

Matt (42:06.865)
Yeah.

Matt (42:10.224)
But, also stretching, right? You should stretch every day.

Shawn (42:13.218)
Bingo, man. okay. We're old guys talk.

Matt (42:15.676)
All right. So the USS Utah was christened on October 25th, 2025 with strong Utah community involvement. It is a Virginia class nuclear attack submarine that costs over $3.5 billion and will carry 135 sailors. Ship co-sponsors Sharon Lee, who's the wife of Senator Lee and Mary Kay Huntsman, the wife of former governor John Huntsman, broke a bottle of sparkling Sizer.

from the Slide Ridge Winery in Mendon, Utah over the bow to celebrate it.

It was a big deal. It was part of the Days of 47 parade and sailors were there and everybody was so excited. In a first presidency message in the June 1976 ensign, so it's almost 50 years ago, President Spencer W. Kimball expressed concern about the tendency to place trust in military power rather than in God. He warned against the idolatry of military strength and material wealth, said that these could distract from spiritual priorities and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

President Kimball encouraged members to seek peace and rely on the Lord rather than on the arm of flesh. He said that true security comes from living the gospel and following the savior rather than from accumulating weapons or wealth. This message was called the false gods we worship. That was nearly 50 years ago. So my question is, is that message still relevant today? Is it morally wrong for members of our church to get so excited?

Shawn (43:36.494)
Mmm.

Matt (43:48.036)
about building a strong US military.

Shawn (43:50.958)
It's definitely still relevant today. It's not morally wrong for people to get excited about that. yeah.

Matt (43:55.622)
Wait, wait, hold on. Wait, hold on. Did you know if you take the amount of money the United States spends on its military each year, and then you add up the 10 next closest countries and how much money they spend on their military each year, we spend more than the next 10 countries combined. We spend so much on our military.

Shawn (44:12.91)
Wow, that's fascinating. Wow, that's fascinating. I would say that's okay, right? Because we've got a special thing here. We have freedoms, we have principles that have been inspired by God that govern our constitution, right? So I think it's okay. I think it's okay.

Matt (44:32.358)
But don't you have faith that God will fight your battles for you, Sean? You don't need to-

Shawn (44:36.564)
I don't think that's what the prophets say.

Matt (44:40.408)
If he's saying we should not put our trust in the arm of flesh, we should not say military is going to save us, we should say God is going to save us.

Shawn (44:48.374)
Yeah, but you're jumping to that extreme interpretation where it's like, well, then let's quit my job and move to Kansas or not Kansas, but like, you know what mean? Like let's not work because the savior will be here tomorrow. if I, you know, you're jumping to that extreme. Look, the pro like the prophets role is to, I mean, it's Mosiah four nine, believing God is to preach this, believing God, believe that he is, believe that he created like it's.

Matt (44:54.204)
You

Shawn (45:11.276)
The role of the prophet is to teach us to come to Christ through faith, repentance, baptism, give the Holy Ghost. That's his role. Of course his message needs to be overwhelming. Put your faith in God. There's nothing wrong with, for example, I like freeways. I like the freeway system. I'm not gonna put my faith and trust in the freeway system. I'm not gonna replace my God with that. But I like it so I can get excited about it. I can get excited about a strong military to feel a little more secure. But I'm not gonna...

Matt (45:34.694)
That's the thing that's wrong. That's the thing that's wrong, Sean, is feeling secure because of our military. It's a false God. It's putting your, it's you feeling safer because you have, you're in the country with the strongest military in the world.

Shawn (45:37.516)
Okay.

Okay.

Shawn (45:49.902)
But I'm not replacing my faith in God. Like if I had the choice, like okay, choose to rely on God for your safety and comforts and blessings or choose to put it in the government, I'm going to choose God. He's proven over and over again that if I turn to him and have faith in him, he does bless me and gives me those safeties and comforts. But I don't think that God wants us to then do nothing else. I think he does want us to put into practical measures. That's why all through the DNC, he was counseling them to do this financial thing and that financial thing.

Matt (46:16.006)
Buh.

Matt (46:19.984)
that's different than a military thing, right? Canada doesn't spend a lot of money on their military. Do you think the people in Canada are like, wow, I feel really scared. Like something's going to happen to us. We should have a bigger military. Like to me, the challenge is when you, when you decide you're going to build a strong military, when you decide you're going to spend more than the next 10 countries combined, you create a temptation to do terrible things like, like

I write this, there's this discussion right now about the Trump administration and all these Venezuelans. They're killing in these drug boats, right? And, and you say to yourself, well, maybe that's awful. Maybe that's illegal. But if I'm president of the United States and I have the strongest military the world has ever known as such as temptation to use that in ways that maybe would be unrighteous or wicked. And if you don't have that, then you don't, you don't have the temptation to do those kinds of things. You don't have any option to do it.

Shawn (47:07.534)
Yeah, it wasn't.

Shawn (47:12.566)
Okay. Yeah, that's, I wasn't thinking about that way, right? The DNC does say you give someone a little bit of power and they, they, they are just going to want to practice unrighteous dominion. Yeah. I guess you have to balance that with the idea that there is good and evil in the world and there are evil entities that want to destroy certain people for their principles or for their identities. Right. And so you want to, you want to have a strong military to deter that, but I get your point.

Matt (47:41.402)
Okay, tell me what you think. I'm going to change the words of the verse a little bit, Okay. So it's in Doctrine and Covenants. It's the no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the, says the priesthood, but instead of saying the priesthood, I'll say the military alone, only by persuasion, kindness, long suffering, all of those other things, right? Like God's power.

Shawn (47:45.678)
All right.

Matt (48:10.19)
is the power to persuade. The way that God wants us to be as individuals is our power and influence never comes through, I'm stronger than you, I'm tougher than you, I can force you to comply. Power and influence is always persuasion, long-suffering, meekness, gentleness, the Gandhi kind of stuff, right? And so as a nation, if the nation is saying,

we're gonna be the most powerful in the world, because we're stronger than everyone else, then that feeds into the citizenry, where we sort of as a people say, like we feel comfortable and safe because we're mighty and powerful and strong. But if as a nation we say, no, we will never use our weapons to force other people to do things, we'll only use persuasion, then maybe we're doing things the way God wants them to be done.

Shawn (49:02.168)
Wow, that's pretty powerful, Pretty powerful. That is the Christ-like way. Gosh, man. I mean, there are lots of examples we could point to in scripture where they took up arms, right? The title of Liberty is probably the clearest example.

Matt (49:16.666)
Yeah, yeah, but I think that God had rules for them, right? And you can read about it, but like if you're not guilty of the first offense or whatever, right? And people were invading them. Like when is the last time somebody invaded the United States?

Shawn (49:29.806)
But that is the argument. They don't invade because of the military reputation that we have, the force that we have. Like if we didn't have that, maybe they would invade. And we did get invade, we did get invaded in 2001, right? That was the 9-11.

Matt (49:35.898)
Okay, do they in

Matt (49:41.926)
They attacked some buildings. Nobody invaded. There was an attack here. But nobody invades Guatemala. Nobody invades Mexico. Nobody invades Brazil, Colombia, Canada. Nobody gets invaded in the Western Hemisphere.

Shawn (49:46.798)
Okay, that's true.

Shawn (49:58.576)
I was gonna say Ukraine. Taiwan.

Matt (50:00.492)
No, no, that's right. right. But we're a whole ocean away from them.

Shawn (50:06.488)
Yeah, that's a good point. Gosh.

Matt (50:08.954)
I mean, maybe they don't get invaded because they're afraid of what we would do to them if they invaded Panama or something like that. But I don't know.

Shawn (50:14.85)
Yeah. I like your, I mean, definitely points to you. I mean, I wasn't thinking of it in that sense, but of course that's the Christian message. And it's been proven to work over and over again by individuals and I don't know about by governments, but gosh, I'm, I gotta think about that more. I'm torn on that. You made me think. Yeah, you made me think.

Matt (50:32.484)
Okay. Well, you think on it, Sean, you think on it. Okay. We'll go to the big question. I put a ton of stuff in this on the big question. It was just to kind of like, it's for you. The listener doesn't need to know at all, but there's a philosopher named Ingrid Robbins who's come up with this idea she calls Limitarianism. She's like, communism is bad. Too much capitalism is bad and rich people really, really rich people are bad because they hurt the environment and they

Shawn (50:50.35)
Whoosh.

Matt (50:59.3)
earn billions of dollars and don't spend it on other people. And by the way, they didn't get it all by themselves. They required other people to do it. So her idea is you have a limit to the amount of money that you can have. You can have some income inequality, but her number is 10 million euros. Any amount of wealth you have that exceeds 10 million euros, the government takes it away from you and uses it for good causes. So you could, this is an idea I had decades ago. She just stole it from me.

Shawn (51:27.852)
You

Matt (51:28.088)
You could have your own accord choose to give away your wealth to other people or to other causes. But at the end of the year, anyone with wealth more than $10 million, it all goes to the government. There's loads of scriptures that I put in here that support the idea that we should not covet our own property and we should impart of our substance to the poor. So.

Shawn (51:42.637)
No they don't.

Shawn (51:47.502)
And I like that you gave this perfect example of someone coveting other people's property in Ingram Robbins and creating this idea of limitarianism. It's the perfect example of coveting your neighbors.

Matt (51:54.588)
You

Matt (51:59.12)
No coveting your own property. says to Martin Harris, don't covet your own property. Give your money. He actually tells Martin Harris to mortgage his house so that the Book of Mormon can be printed, right? So he's like, don't covet your own property, which is like, wow, that's a very high standard that I can't covet my own property. But okay, so what do you think? This actually seems like maybe it's not. Really?

Shawn (52:20.802)
The stupidest thing you've ever said? Is that what you're gonna say? This seems like maybe the stupidest thing ever. Here's what I would say. I think the main failure in her whole argument is that you're focusing, and it drives me nuts. A lot of people, so many people do this. I've seen you do this. You focus on the concept of money in the wrong way. Money isn't real. It's evidence of value, right? It's an exchange tool for value. So rich people create value, and that's why they get other people to give them money.

but money doesn't give them influence and power, their value offering gives them influence and power. So if she's all afraid that if you have too much power because you have too much money, right, you 15 million as opposed to 10, you've got too much power and influence. Well, if you capped that, like if you create the world's greatest smartphone, but you say you can only make so many of these smartphones because you're only gonna earn so much money, well,

Matt (52:59.132)
15 million euros. If you have 15 million euros.

Shawn (53:16.93)
That entrepreneur, that smart guy is gonna realize it's not about money, it's about value. So they're gonna figure out how to benefit and get influence, right? I'm gonna do some sort of barter exchange with the government so that I'm giving you 20 billion value of smartphones and not exchange for cash, but in exchange for X, Y, and Z. It's not the money. Like it's such a joke that she's fixated on money.

Matt (53:41.126)
Sean, you say it's not the money because it's not the money for you, but it's definitely the money for some people, right? some people, I don't know. don't, yeah, I just don't know that we...

Shawn (53:50.798)
If you are but if you arbitrarily put a cap of how much someone can earn that smart person who has created so much value that people want what they offer they're going to figure out how to Benefit without this monetary amount. They're gonna figure it out

Matt (54:04.422)
You put a cap on, if you put a cap on how much someone can own, not how much you can earn, but how much you can keep, then it gets rid of, I want, it gets rid of the keeping up with the Joneses sort of thing in society, right? Where you're like, I want to buy this and I want to buy this and I want to buy this because you can't.

Shawn (54:21.166)
No.

It's so ridiculous what you're saying. No, that's so ridiculous. Again, you're making about money. If someone has something so valuable that they offer that people are gonna want and they have a limit of earning or keeping, I guess, $10 million, they're going to figure out how to benefit and still offer that in exchange for something other than money. And that was what will give them value and power.

Matt (54:45.445)
Yeah.

I see.

Okay, well, okay. Now I'm going to sound like Levi Barnes for a second. But what if I say you as the person who earned it, fine, but you're once you're dead, it's all gone. It all goes away. Cause I was thinking about this like Michael Jackson. I know there's like mixed feelings about Michael Jackson, right? But the songs he wrote are owned by some estate somewhere. The people are making money off of things that Michael Jackson did 40 years ago.

and somebody owns his whatever and they're still making money off of that, that to me is an idea that like makes no sense at all, right? Once you're gone, you're gone and whatever you produced or created goes with you in the grave. Like if you can't take it with you when you're dead, other people who are left behind shouldn't get to have it either.

Yeah. Can I go, can I go limit their limit to 10 million euros for the

Shawn (55:40.802)
Look, no, not yeah. Absolutely not, absolutely not. Maybe if that, if Michael Jackson failed to decide and to direct what he wants done with his money, cause it's his money, then sure, maybe you can have some policy like that. I'm sure that's what happens anyway. But it is his choice on what gets to happen with that money after he's dead. If he chooses to give it to his child,

or all of his children, or his charity. That's his choice. That's his property. And he has the right to defend that. So no, that's ridiculous. Limitarianism. What an absolute joke. This is stupid.

Matt (56:21.094)
We've had similar conversations to this many times, but a listener said, hey, this seems like a great idea. And as I read it, I thought, this seems like a great idea, but Sean, you've persuaded me. It's a stupid idea.

Shawn (56:33.71)
Do you want to do you want to Milton Friedman quote about it or are persuaded?

Matt (56:38.224)
No, well, so first of all, I wanna say I did have this idea 20 years ago, which is why I thought it was such a great idea. But I think, yeah, let's have the Mill and Friedman quote be the last word to kind of put a nail in the coffin of a stupid idea.

Shawn (56:44.845)
Okay.

Shawn (56:50.978)
ha ha, libertarianism. Once you authorize that sort of discretionary authority, you're no longer talking about freeing people to pursue their own values. You're talking about the state imposing a collective judgment on private individuals.

Matt (57:05.914)
I don't like it at all, but it's the last word. Thanks, Sean. Hey, listener. Thanks for joining us this week. Talk to you again next week.

Shawn (57:07.47)
Okay.