Matt (00:01.29)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Latter Day Lens. I'm your host, Matt. With me as always is Sean. And I'm telling you, we've been anticipating, excited, so happy Levi is back with us again. Welcome Levi. You guys didn't hear this because Sean mentioned this offline, but Sean was dreaming about Levi even last night. So it's really exciting.

Shawn (00:12.932)
Yeah!

Levi Barnes (00:13.891)
Yeah!

Shawn (00:22.623)
The Carlsbad mission here where I live is getting a new mission and we're excited and my dream was that Levi's been called as the mission president. That's so exciting.

Levi Barnes (00:31.265)
Yes!

Matt (00:31.274)
But it was just a dream. Like all dreams, he woke up and found out it wasn't true. Levi is not doing that. Sorry. Sorry, Sean.

Levi Barnes (00:36.59)
Womp Womp. Listeners, feel free to share your Levi-themed dreams in emails and texts.

Shawn (00:38.249)
That is heartbreaking. Heartbreaking,

Shawn (00:45.887)
you

Matt (00:46.324)
And actually we're not, we don't even have anything in the mail bag today because I asked people to write about aliens and nobody chose to do that. And so take that, take that. People came up to me and talked to me about it. People would send me text messages about it, but they didn't write to, no, I'm serious. They're like, do you really believe that? This is what I get from people. Do you really believe that? I'm like, that's not a comment I'm going to read on the show. Do you really believe, I believe I was honest in expressing my feelings about that.

Shawn (00:53.311)
Oh, I wonder why. I wonder why.

Shawn (00:59.743)
You're lying.

Shawn (01:12.415)
Well, if we're making up people's responses to your alien question, I'm going to make up one and say, people ask me, was that maybe the dumbest Latter-day Lens podcast question of all time? Maybe?

Matt (01:25.744)
Who asked you that? Nobody asked you that. okay. Yeah, I can answer that if that's what listeners want to know. The answer is no, that was not the stupidest one of all time. There have been way

Shawn (01:28.073)
Sure they did. No, they didn't. No one did. No.

OK.

Levi Barnes (01:35.118)
you

What's your vote, Matt, for stupidest podcast question of your first 150 episodes?

Shawn (01:42.216)
All time, yeah.

Matt (01:43.518)
It was, it was when I let Sam before the 2024 election talk about why he supported Donald Trump. That was easily the stupidest thing of all time. We should never have let Sam do that because I'm telling you, Sam drops that list of why Trump's so great. He casts his vote for Trump so we can all watch him vote for Trump. And then he leaves the podcast forever. that was hands down. Like that was a drop the mic moment that Sam probably wishes he could have back.

Shawn (01:49.214)
Shawn (01:55.037)
Shawn (02:04.68)
I'm

Levi Barnes (02:06.67)
You

Matt (02:12.954)
let you have it back Sam but you're not here so that was the worst. What do you say is the worst Levi?

Levi Barnes (02:19.244)
I love them all. What was the worst? don't know. I think they're fantastic. Full disclosure, I haven't actually listened to last week's episode. So I listened to podcasts on a different app. And so they got a lot like, I don't know, when you guys switched over, they no longer get picked up. So I have to run over to Spotify, an extra step to go find you guys. So Evan, let's do it.

Matt (02:23.808)
Yeah.

Matt (02:27.456)
Mmm.

Matt (02:40.67)
Wait, they're not, they should be back on that other app. They're not back on your app yet?

Levi Barnes (02:44.748)
I use a thing called pocket casts. yeah.

Matt (02:47.134)
Yeah, it's not show Mac. It should be back on pocket casts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a there was a problem there, but it should be back on all of them from what I've heard. But if not.

Levi Barnes (02:51.414)
yeah, okay, I'll check it out.

Shawn (02:59.295)
Turns out that you don't need a higher education to be a good podcast producer. yeah, that's right.

Matt (03:05.76)
No, you're trying to say the opposite. You're saying turns out no matter how much of a degree you have, it doesn't make you a good podcast producer.

Levi Barnes (03:12.078)
You're still sick of podcasting.

Shawn (03:13.109)
is that what I meant? yeah, okay, okay. That's what I meant, I thought.

Matt (03:17.384)
Yeah, it does turn out that that's true. But yeah, which probably surprises nobody. There's probably nobody out there that's like, I would love to produce a podcast if only there was a degree I could get that would make me good at that.

Shawn (03:27.519)
there's gotta be, there's gotta be.

Levi Barnes (03:27.758)
How can we produce a podcast without a political science PhD? How will we do it?

Matt (03:32.768)
All right, we're going to move to the thought provoker. So first up, Leon Panetta. Now wait, Levi, you know who Leon Panetta is. I forgot. Did he work in the Bush administration, the Obama administration? Do you remember who Leon Panetta is?

Shawn (03:34.643)
Ha ha ha ha.

Levi Barnes (03:47.156)
I thought my vague memory was that he was defense or something or security or CIA under Obama or something. Let's look him up. We can fact check ourselves real time here. Sean already knows.

Matt (03:54.026)
CIA?

Matt (03:58.034)
Okay. Yeah, okay, I think he's-

Shawn (04:01.449)
Matt, I know who he is. He's the guy that huge nerds would know what administration served under. He's that guy.

Matt (04:03.065)
who is he, Sean?

Matt (04:07.648)
Okay. Leon Panetta. Levi's helped me out. Leon Panetta was the director of the CIA in the Obama administration and he may have worked in the Biden administration. Anyhow, he wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, which is a conservative leaning newspaper. Their op-ed is typically conservative people. That's why I wanted to be clear. Like Leon Panetta is a Democrat writing in a Republican leaning newspaper.

Levi Barnes (04:10.689)
You

Matt (04:35.104)
So he says the United States right now is at a critical turning point where it must choose between a national renewal or a steady decline. He argues that both the Republican and Democratic parties have abandoned their duty to govern by choosing partisan fighting over the public good. Panetta points out that while past leaders often work together to pass major laws and balance the budget, today's politicians are paralyzed by division and extreme views. This lack of cooperation has led to serious problems.

including a massive national debt, failing social security and Medicare trust funds, and a government that only reacts to crises instead of preventing them. He warns that if leaders do not start putting the country before their political parties, the nation risks following the path of failed empires. So here's a question. Is the United States really at risk of becoming a failed state or a failed empire?

You go first, Sean. I want to hear what you have to say about this,

Shawn (05:31.711)
I mean, there's a theme throughout all these questions, which is interesting, Matt. You're very good at that. mean, the cause, obviously his suggested cause of this potential disastrous threat is that we've got two polarized parties that people are being loyal to and there are such odds with each other that it's becoming impossible to keep the union together.

Levi Barnes (05:32.974)
Okay.

Shawn (06:01.169)
Isn't a robust debate and disagreement really healthy and important? when, like when I have to defend my beliefs religiously with my Protestant friends, I love going home and cracking open the scripture and going, wait, why did I say that? Why do I, do I believe that? Like, okay, there's a, there's a religion who is just feeding many of my, I guess, beliefs and doctrines, but I love going home and going, wait, why did I say it if I haven't really studied it or truly believe it?

Levi Barnes (06:18.875)
Okay. Okay.

Shawn (06:30.761)
So isn't the same true with Levi the Democrat, Matt the Republican? You guys can have debates and discussions about things that you differ wildly on. And when you are at each other's, know, in the discussions, doesn't it force you to go and really try and believe what you believe and then change when you realize, maybe I'm not making such a good point. Isn't it good and healthy to have these polar opposites that...

Levi Barnes (06:56.356)
But I think Leon Panetta is talking about something else. I don't think he's talking about that we used to agree on everything and now we disagree on stuff. I think he's saying we used to disagree on stuff.

And then it'd come up to a vote and we'd say, okay, all right. I, know, I don't like exactly the way you did it, but for the purpose of moving it forward, I'm going to vote for your bill because it's better than nothing. Right. And so, and I think to a great extent now, but I don't know, Matt, what are, how would we answer the question? Are we failing to get stuff done? Are we getting less done than we used to?

Matt (07:33.724)
No, I don't think so. I think that the risk isn't that parties are paralyzed by division and extreme views. think it's that I think that the problem is that there's no will among the American people to sacrifice and do hard things. So to me, I don't don't blame. I think that the elected officials are representative of the voters who put them in office and

Levi Barnes (08:01.006)
Okay. Okay.

Matt (08:02.56)
And when you have a, Idaho is all Republican, they're getting tons of stuff done in Idaho and in California where there's all those Democrats, they're getting tons of stuff done in California. If on the national level, things aren't happening and things are paralyzed, I don't think that that means that the whole nation's going to fail. I just think that it means that you're going to see like some reshuffling of things. This is the way things change in the United States and it's the way historically things have changed in the United States. So I don't think that's a problem on the national level.

because the states are still functioning well. Cities are still functioning well. Most people are not turning out to vote and most people are not participating in protests. So most Americans are kind of content with what's happening. So I could see why if I was say Mitt Romney or Leon Panetta and I'm looking at the nitty gritty details where I say, whoa, we've got some big issues on the horizon and we're not even close to handling those. I could see why they would be scared.

Levi Barnes (08:48.654)
Okay.

Matt (09:00.244)
But historically, we always solve those problems when we have to. We're not a forward thinking country, but we do respond to crises when they happen. And that's the way it's always been in my perspective.

Shawn (09:03.676)
Whoa!

Shawn (09:10.807)
What an optimistic view, man. My goodness. But Levi is going to fix that optimism. Go.

Levi Barnes (09:12.302)
Well, no, I was also thinking about what are so if we had a sort of a functioning Congress, what are the things you know, either either low, know state level government or national level What is the thing that we would want right? And so I thought like gun safety, right? I think that's the thing that I think you could find pretty broad bipartisan support for

Matt (09:16.212)
Hey

Levi Barnes (09:41.134)
Campaign finance, right? I feel like you'd get, you could find common sense campaign finance.

Matt (09:43.642)
No, Levi. No, Levi. Levi, you've got to come to Idaho. No. No to both of those. No. No.

Levi Barnes (09:50.06)
Yeah, they won't do any of that, huh? No, but I think in national polls, like there are, you know, gun safety regulations that are very popular with people. There are...

Matt (10:02.546)
No way. So in my opinion, the people who are the people who are active in politics are getting exactly what they want. The people who voted for Trump are getting exactly what they wanted from Trump. Now, the fact that 60 % of Americans don't like that, mean, 60 % of Americans don't vote. So that's fine, right? Like the people who voted for Trump are getting what they want. The people who voted for Biden got what they wanted from Biden for the most part.

Levi Barnes (10:04.15)
Yeah, okay, interesting.

Shawn (10:04.403)
Not in-

Matt (10:31.4)
And to me, that's how representative democracy works. Now, the fact that like that Trump and Biden can't come together and find common ground on issues where most people agree, that's also never been the way things were done in the United States. It's never happened that the thing out there where there's, and by the way, when Levi says there's majority support, let's say it's 60 % want gun controls. If there's never been anything where 80, 85 % of Americans want something and nothing happens on that issue. So

The issues like we're talking about are issues that are divisive. The things where everybody agrees that stuff's getting, that stuff's happening. There's no conch, the Epstein files, guess what? The law was passed and it's not done yet.

Levi Barnes (11:00.27)
Okay.

Levi Barnes (11:12.488)
And we still don't have the FZ files. Yeah.

Matt (11:15.36)
But if that pressure continues, then we'll eventually get the Epstein files. On things where everybody really does agree, we actually see movement on those issues. We only see division on the divisive issues, which is as it should be. But no, campaign finance reform, Levi, there's no way Republicans, even moderate Republicans, want campaign finance reform.

Shawn (11:15.518)
Wow.

Levi Barnes (11:18.84)
Yeah.

Shawn (11:30.526)
Ha ha

Levi Barnes (11:37.58)
Well, and I was looking at that one and thinking, because I have this memory of like, what are the last times I remembered Congress working together? And they were McCain-Feingold, right? Which was, I looked at it a little closer, and the other one was the Patriot Act. And then I thought, maybe I don't want bipartisanship. But like the surveillance state expands dramatically when Congress starts working. So who needs that?

Matt (11:47.648)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (11:47.935)
Mmm.

Matt (11:54.272)
That's right. Department of Homeland Security. That's right.

Shawn (11:57.628)
Wow!

Shawn (12:03.676)
Wow!

Matt (12:03.998)
Yeah.

Levi Barnes (12:05.558)
But then I was looking at McCain-Feingold and it was, yeah, there were some Republicans that came over, right? Like, and some big names, Fred Thompson, right? And Susan Collins at the time voted for McCain-Feingold and John McCain, obviously, but it was mostly partisan. It was mostly Democrats for Republicans against. Yeah. I mean, I think you're right, Matt. I just don't think there's the same will for campaign finance that I estimate coming in.

Matt (12:28.063)
LIT

Matt (12:33.546)
And you're forgetting about the first Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was near unanimous support. In fact, it was unanimous support for all of those huge funding bills to make sure that people got vaccinated, to make sure there was that like a paycheck, paycheck, whatever program. was, there was literally a trillion dollars of funding in the COVID pandemic to fund both schools and businesses and, tax rebates to Americans.

That stuff was unanimous and there was no problem getting that stuff through, even though you had Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump fighting with each other about everything else. So I don't think we're to.

Shawn (13:11.827)
Wow. I'm gonna give points to Levi for doing his research, for bringing up the only two or three moments where Congress worked together and it was unity.

Levi Barnes (13:13.027)
Yeah.

Levi Barnes (13:20.652)
Well, I have more. There are more points to be had. Like I was also thinking about like in the 90s, you had Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton. And I think that they robustly disagreed on stuff, but they passed stuff. Right. I mean, I think they came together and, that's when we did see, you know, we were running a budget surplus for the first time in a billion years.

Shawn (13:24.977)
Yes?

Matt (13:25.396)
Yeah, we'll keep.

Matt (13:46.77)
As a Democrat, should hate that example, Levi. Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton was not a Democrat. He was a Democrat from Arkansas and he governed as a Republican. And sure, he and Newt Gingrich got a lot of stuff done that completely angered the left and didn't he did.

Levi Barnes (13:49.748)
yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Levi Barnes (13:58.509)
Yeah.

No, I'm totally with you, Matt. I'm not in favor of that, but that was an example of Democrat, we'll put it in air quotes, a Democrat coming around and working with a Republican. The other one I thought of was Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan. They got along and got stuff done. Right? Another example, like whenever there's bipartisanship, bad stuff happens, right?

Matt (14:07.872)
Bipartisanship.

Matt (14:19.238)
Again. Again. No! No!

One side's losing. One side is losing. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Levi Barnes (14:28.334)
I mean, was, you know, I mean, Clinton, was when we that was when we got NAFTA and we got, you know, that was when we we handed the handed U.S. manufacturing to the to the rest of the world. So, yeah, bad things can sometimes happen.

Shawn (14:28.563)
Wow.

Matt (14:33.78)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (14:40.03)
Yeah, I don't

I don't like any of the examples Levi gave of the parties coming together to work on things. But I think the most recent one, Trump and Pelosi in the pandemic, that's unanimous bipartisan support and Republicans are still mad about what happened during the pandemic. that was Trump. Trump signed all that stuff into law.

Shawn (15:00.777)
Yeah.

Levi Barnes (15:01.76)
And Republican senators and congressmen voted for it all, right? I don't know why Republicans aren't mad at them.

Shawn (15:05.545)
Yeah.

Yeah, good point!

Matt (15:08.736)
All right. So next up, recent research shows that Americans are increasingly unhappy with both major political parties. Like this isn't super new, but, the number is new. So, I'm going to just read this. So the Republican party has lost the strong lead it once held regarding the economy and national security. Both parties are now tied on who can best manage the country's prosperity.

Levi Barnes (15:30.062)
Yeah.

Matt (15:34.464)
While Republicans are still slightly preferred for handling international threats, that gap is closing. Most parties view both, most Americans view both parties unfavorably, often disliking the GOP and its leaders and the Democratic party for its perceived lack of political strength. It used to be that about 30 % of Americans were independent and about 33 or 34 were Democrat and about 33 or 34 are Republican.

Levi Barnes (15:59.607)
you

Matt (16:03.882)
But now 45 % of US adults now identify as independents. And the number for Republicans is around 27 % and Democrats is around the same. So the question I have is, is this now the time for a new party to come in and start representing Americans on the issues that unite us? Like the ones Levi mentioned before. Now that most Americans dislike both parties and almost a majority of Americans

identify as independent, is it finally the time for a third party or a new party?

Shawn (16:40.787)
Do you think so?

Levi Barnes (16:43.324)
Yeah, I think I think the Republican Party should abandon MAGA. Grab the middle.

And be a real party. I think it's ridiculous, ridiculous what happened to that party.

Matt (16:57.268)
Yeah, they kind of kicked me out. I was a really happy Republican for a lot of years, but I feel like they're trying to kick me out. Like they don't want people like me in their party anymore. Yeah, Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake.

Levi Barnes (17:04.044)
You and Mitt Romney, you guys both got shown the door. Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn (17:08.255)
But that's not an argument for a third party. That's just saying, come on, dumb Republicans, go back to what Republicanism is. Levi, do you miss the good old Republican Party the way it was? Would you be much happier? know you'd... Yeah, do you miss the traditional Reagan year Republican Party? You were?

Levi Barnes (17:16.259)
Yeah.

Matt (17:16.287)
Yeah.

Matt (17:22.09)
The Reagan years.

Levi Barnes (17:26.158)
I a Republican then. Like I voted for George W. Bush twice. Yeah. yeah. I was Republican.

Matt (17:28.015)
Hahahaha

Shawn (17:32.777)
So do you miss that? Would you be more inclined for Unity and...

Levi Barnes (17:37.708)
No, well, no, I wouldn't vote for him, but I think it'd make for a healthier country, right? Like I, you know, the, yeah, I do miss the, when Mitt Romney and John McCain were the, were representatives of the Republican party. Yeah. yeah. I missed that.

Shawn (17:53.753)
that's interesting. That's surprising me to hear you say that, and that's interesting.

Matt (17:59.466)
Sean, what do you think? Are you ready for a new party, Sean, or to remake one of the parties in?

Shawn (18:04.543)
I mean, the problem is it's never, ever, ever, never, ever, ever, ever, ever worked, right? Teddy Roosevelt, what was his called? The progressive, the bull moose party. Now they were the closest, right? They had what, 27 % of the popular vote? And that was the-

Matt (18:08.842)
That's Bull Moose Party.

Matt (18:17.408)
Ross Perot in 1992 with his Reform Party.

Shawn (18:20.639)
19 % of the popular vote. So those are kind of close, but not even close, right? Because isn't I mean, who else was there? George Wallace? Ralph Nader, like 2 %? Yeah. George Wallace.

Levi Barnes (18:26.37)
Yeah.

Matt (18:26.398)
Yeah.

I'll tell you.

Levi Barnes (18:29.324)
Ralph Nader had a very failed run. Yeah.

Matt (18:34.73)
I'll tell you the one time that a third party candidate won the White House was Abraham Lincoln. The Republican was a third party. He won the White House. He was inaugurated in March and the Civil War started in April. So yeah, it was the Whigs before that. Yeah, and the South boycotted the election. So anytime I hear Americans hoping for a new party to emerge, I say, careful what you wish for.

Levi Barnes (18:43.117)
Right.

Shawn (18:49.683)
He was a third party?

Levi Barnes (18:50.894)
Yeah, it's a brand new party, yeah.

Matt (19:03.872)
Cause the only time it's ever happened, led to the civil war one month later. So it's not a kind of thing that just happens lightly in the United States. what the things you mentioned, Sean, I think are instructive, right? The bull moose party, you had FDR that had the same kind of political leanings as Teddy Roosevelt with the bull moose party. So what did FDR do with that movement that was supporting the bull moose party? He took it and put it in the democratic party and the democratic party said,

look at all these voters out there. Let's go grab those voters. And one of the reasons that Bill Clinton was such a Republican president in his ideas was because Ross Perot. Ross Perot showed there was a big group of voters out there that he could grab if he supported NAFTA and those sorts of things. so what happens is the parties are strategic. If voters vote their true intentions and don't just vote whatever the parties tell them to do, right, then the parties will adjust

Levi Barnes (19:36.719)
So, Thank you.

Shawn (19:50.207)
Wow.

Matt (20:01.236)
and they'll adapt to the voters. The challenge right now is not that the parties are not representing the people. The problem is that the voters are allowing the parties to choose the candidates and they just vote for whatever candidate happens to be on the ballot when there could be a better candidate out there. That's the problem. Like right now, voters are not supporting third party candidates. If they did, then the parties would adjust to pull in those voters from the third party candidates.

Levi Barnes (20:04.707)
you

Levi Barnes (20:26.222)
But Matt, you know why they're not supporting third party candidates. Why are they not supporting third party candidates?

Matt (20:31.006)
Because Trump has everybody so convinced that if they don't vote for him, the Democrats are going to destroy America. And the Democrats have everybody so convinced that if they don't vote for them, Trump's going to destroy America. And Americans are just believing that.

Shawn (20:40.851)
Matt Levi, how does it feel that Donald Trump read Saul Alinsky's book and just verbatim applies his strategy rules for radicals and is now winning with his strategy? How does that make you feel?

Matt (20:51.85)
You

Levi Barnes (20:57.302)
Yeah, yeah, totally right,

Matt (20:57.64)
I, you really think that Trump read that book. You think Trump read that book? He didn't. Right. He had a pal in the mafia who was a fixer that taught him the rules for radicals. Isn't just about politics. started in business for Trump. He just took that that he was doing in business and applied it into politics, but he didn't read Saul Alinsky.

Shawn (21:01.511)
Whether he read it or not, he's applying it to the tea and it's working.

Levi Barnes (21:20.266)
Okay, so, but rank choice voting, Matt, up or down?

Matt (21:23.808)
100%. If you have ranked choice voting, look at Alaska, right? Alaska is not dominated by the two parties. They don't have the same kind of fight between the, you have just as many strong Democrats and strong Republicans in Alaska as you do anywhere else, but they have a moderate candidate.

Shawn (21:35.463)
Matt, Alaska a shining bright example of how states should be run? Is it? Is it really?

Levi Barnes (21:38.722)
Yeah.

Matt (21:43.71)
Yes. Yes it is. Sean. Yes. I mean, I travel to Alaska more than I should cause I go on cruises. And when I do, I talk to the locals like the Uber drivers or whoever I bump into about politics because I can't help. Like they have really strong political views in Alaska and they call themselves the law. In fact, Sean, I'm wearing my Alaska t-shirt here. It's called the last frontier. They call themselves like there's a strong frontier mentality. There's a strong mentality of individual rights, keep the government out of our lives. Like,

Levi Barnes (22:03.095)
you

Matt (22:13.586)
All of the stuff that people would say, this is what's wrong with Republicans because they don't care about their neighbors. You get all that really strong in Alaska, but they get elected officials who are not on the extremes because the electoral system they have tends to allow the majority voice, which tends to be more in the middle. It tends to allow those candidates to win in the end. And so you get Lisa Murkowski. They had a Democrat in the house who's relatively moderate. Like it's a really good system, right? Which is why

Shawn (22:20.338)
Okay.

Matt (22:42.11)
When Idaho was considering ranked choice voting, the Republican party spent millions of dollars on ads trying to defeat ranked choice voting because it diminishes their power in the state of Idaho. Of course, ranked choice voting is great.

Shawn (22:48.511)
against it.

Levi Barnes (22:55.842)
Well, but why didn't the Democratic Party also oppose rank choice? Like, I would have thought that that's not, that's not disempowering the Republicans. That's just disempowering the parties, right?

Matt (23:02.378)
They did.

Matt (23:06.856)
Right. The Democrats also oppose ranked choice voting because it makes it harder for them to recruit good candidates. Right. In the state of Idaho, a Democrat can say, here's a moderate Republican. Let's have them run as a Democrat. Whereas if you had ranked choice voting, that moderate Republican would stay a Republican and it would weaken the Democratic party as well. Yeah. No, both.

Shawn (23:25.329)
Levi, can't pretend that Idaho doesn't exist. You have to consider the Idaho factor in your opinions.

Levi Barnes (23:30.062)
you

Matt (23:33.088)
Sean, as a Republican in California, Sean, you should want ranked choice voting so much.

Levi Barnes (23:36.951)
Yeah.

Shawn (23:38.341)
I would love it. would love it. Yeah, absolutely.

Levi Barnes (23:41.646)
Well, and the thing that I love the most about ranked choice voting is wouldn't it feel so good to vote for somebody you love, right? Like you could say, you know what, there's this candidate that I love and they're not going to win. And I'm going to mark them as one and cast my vote for that person that I'm really excited about. You'd get higher voter turnout. People, I mean, especially young people would come out and they'd say, yeah, I'm going to cast my vote for the person that says, the Gossan genocide.

Shawn (23:52.222)
Yeah.

Levi Barnes (24:11.726)
and free college or whatever, you know, whatever policy they love, right? They vote for things that they love and then they get to mark their, you know, their safety candidate for two or three. I think it'd be voter enthusiasm. I think it'd be great.

Shawn (24:23.177)
Wow. Inspiring Levi, that's awesome. Yeah.

Matt (24:27.872)
But the other solution to the problem is this Americans need to get involved in the political parties. We have decided to leave the political parties to the control of the people with extreme views. Whenever I go down to my local precinct Republican party meetings, it's a bunch of like very extreme conservative people that say things that offend me. And so it makes me say, I don't want to be a part of this because I don't want to be affiliated with these wackos. But the truth is that means that I'm giving them the power.

Shawn (24:53.363)
So you.

Matt (24:57.3)
to decide who our candidates are going to be for office. So if we don't want to have extreme candidates who don't represent our views, we need to take our friends and go to those precinct meetings ourselves. And then we have the power to make the change. So the Republican party could be whatever we want it to be. The Democrats could be whatever we want it to be. We're the ones that decide. And so when 45 % of Americans say, I don't want to do anything to do with either one of them, then you're leaving it to the people with more extreme views to decide.

who's gonna be the leaders of our country. So it's a little bit our fault too if we don't get involved in parties.

Shawn (25:32.947)
Levi, my favorite punk band, Fugazi, I think has a song called Take Your Friends to your local Republican meeting or something like that.

Matt (25:40.128)
Do they? You can't understand it. It just says like,

Levi Barnes (25:49.444)
Sean, I catch my kid, my 15 year old listening the other day to Fugazi. I'm like, who told you about Fugazi? He's like, everybody knows Fugazi. Everybody knows Fugazi, turns out, Sean.

Shawn (25:59.049)
Yes sir! Awesome. Nice.

Matt (26:02.944)
Sean, my favorite punk band is the Mighty Mighty Crabjoys. Have you heard of the Mighty Crabjoys? No, the Crabjoys. You gotta watch the movie Superman, Sean, and then you would know about the Mighty Crabjoys. Yeah.

Shawn (26:08.423)
You mean the boss tones? The crap? Never heard of them.

Shawn (26:15.344)
yeah, you told me about them. That's not a punk band, that's a bubblegum punk band.

Matt (26:19.36)
Okay. Sean, who gets the points on that one? Sean, I'm giving you the points on that one because rather than going to the latter day lens on the subject, you just try to make me feel old and weird by going to punk bands on that one. So you get all the points. Good job, Sean.

Levi Barnes (26:25.454)
The fugazi lens, let's start that podcast. The fugazi lens.

Shawn (26:32.927)
I'll take that.

Levi Barnes (26:39.244)
What's your most memorable Fugazi lyric?

Matt (26:41.248)
Did I tell you I have a friend who's a political philosopher? He wrote and it's been published with the great press, a book called the political philosophy of Taylor Swift. And like he goes through all political theory, political philosophy, philosophical theory, and uses Taylor Swift songs to explain the various ideas and political philosophy.

Shawn (26:41.993)
Hahaha

Shawn (27:01.823)
Dude, Matt, that is just good branding and marketing because people go, what? Dealers' wave has political theories. That's all it is. Yeah, smart. Underground. Fugazi's underground.

Matt (27:06.752)
She's brilliant, but they don't do it with Fugazi. They don't do it with Fugazi.

Levi Barnes (27:13.152)
Not yet. But I know that I do think this is a way to sort of reach people that like I think, yeah, you come from the Taylor Swift state for the political theory.

Matt (27:23.006)
Yeah, it's a good idea. All right. So public labor unions, public approval of labor unions in the United States is strong right now. 68 % of Americans approve of labor unions. If you compare that to the Supreme Court, which right now is 43 % approval, the president, 40 % approval, Congress, 16 % approval, or the police, this would be local police, is 69%.

Shawn (27:23.295)
Good marketing.

Matt (27:53.066)
People seem to really like labor unions, which is interesting because only 15 % of Americans even belong to a labor union or have a family member in a labor union. So the question I have is, even though there's big partisan divisions, Democrats clearly love labor unions, Republicans generally don't love unions. Although 41 % of Republicans do like labor unions, does this broad favorability of labor unions suggest

that they are a force for good in the United States.

Shawn (28:24.735)
I think there's an easy answer to this, The reason it doesn't, theory, like labor unions principally, like they're principled, wonderful, free exchange, people getting together, organizing. Like I love the concept. I absolutely love the idea of a labor union. We have the power as the workers to get together and organize and put our free agency at play to have some free negotiations with my employer.

Matt (28:26.707)
Okay, good. Good, good.

Shawn (28:54.437)
Absolutely principled, wonderful, latter day lens idea. The reason it doesn't work is because it is so incredibly difficult to actually make it work. Practically, it's incredibly difficult to take. Now, here we go, socialists. It's incredibly difficult to take a bunch of individuals who you guys could would say, you guys have really common interests. Well, they don't, they're a bunch of individuals. So it's really hard to take a bunch of individuals.

and find a common interest and not have it turn into the few who are in power apply their interests, their personal interests. It's just so hard to apply that it doesn't.

Levi Barnes (29:31.87)
It's better to just surrender to the few implementing their vision.

Shawn (29:35.107)
I said they're great, dude. I said they're great. I love unions. I'm saying in theory, it's wonderful. It's amazing. It's principled, but in practical application, it's so hard to apply that a lot, just fail at it. And that's why so few people are a part of them.

Matt (29:37.396)
Ahem.

Levi Barnes (29:41.528)
Yeah.

Matt (29:52.554)
Well, so I was on a cruise, no shock, and I was sitting, I was having breakfast next to this guy and he is from Ohio and he is a trucker for Chrysler. And so, you know, we were just chatting about life as working at a, both for an auto manufacturer in the United States, but then we got into the discussion of unions and he was telling me how he hates unions because the union makes it so that

Shawn (29:55.475)
What? You were?

Matt (30:21.086)
He has to work harder that these young people come in, they don't work very hard, they're lazy and the union protects them when they do wrong things. so he feels like the union is terrible and unfair because he's working hard, but all of these other people are getting benefits that aren't working hard and the union protects them. But what he also fails to recognize is he has a pension. Sean, do you have a pension where you work? Yeah, most Americans

Shawn (30:48.211)
No, well, I do. I've got my own pension. Yeah, I'm an individual who, well, I created my own retirement program. That's correct, yes.

Matt (30:51.73)
You have your own pension. That's right. You have

But yeah, so he has a pension. has health insurance benefits from the moment he retires till the day he dies, he will have full healthcare for the rest of his life. Most people don't get that. has all he, he was on a vacation on a cruise. He's able to take all kinds of vacation time. Like on, so on the one hand, I feel like union workers, people in the union, they, they caricature the union by the worst representatives of the union, the worst people in the union.

and they fail to recognize everything that the union's giving them that they wouldn't have. Cause I said to him, well, why don't you leave the union and go work on your own? then he told me, well, because then I'd have this and this and this and this that he could be an independent trucker. doesn't need to work for the union, but he chooses the union job because he does get a higher wage than everyone else. He does get all of these other benefits. So it's interesting when we think about unions, because there is the bad stuff of the unions, but overall it's a net positive.

Even for the people who hate the unions, they still choose union over non-union.

Shawn (31:54.463)
Well, but so before we hear Levi's take and learn why are so few people then part of a union if it's so, if it works so well.

Matt (32:03.872)
because the union wants to keep people out. Because it's not in a union's interest to let, yeah, there we go. The management, that's right.

Shawn (32:06.55)
what?

Levi Barnes (32:08.014)
The management wants.

Yeah, management wants to stop unions. The Bezos doesn't want a union at Amazon, right? And Starbucks doesn't want unions and Walmart. Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn (32:17.057)
you just-

you just think that the founders and the owners are winning the battle.

Matt (32:21.088)
Walmart doesn't want him.

Right. Walmart doesn't want unionized workers. Elon Musk doesn't want a union at Tesla, right? Pick any corporation out there. They would prefer to not have union workers. And they make arguments like the ones that you're making, Sean, to people who are voting whether or not to have a union, or they make threats, which are often illegal threats, that if you unionize, then we're going to retaliate in these ways. And so people say, well, is a union really going to benefit me?

Or is it just going to benefit these lazy people who don't want to work?

Levi Barnes (32:56.152)
But Matt, that was always the case. think management always didn't want unions. Why are they more successful now? I mean, they used to shoot people for joining a union. How did they get so good at tamping down unions?

Shawn (33:03.667)
Yeah, good question. Yeah, right.

Matt (33:10.068)
Well, so there was, it's the opposite of right to work, right? There was in the 1930s, 1940s, laws were passed state by state that made it easier for people to unionize and offered them protections. And in the 80s and 90s, all these states passed what they called right to work laws that made it more difficult for unions to organize. So when you make something more difficult to do, fewer people are going to do it. And so as we get rid of these laws that make it easier for people to unionize, you see fewer and fewer unions.

Shawn (33:40.479)
So you truly do see that this is a true example of the workers, because of laws, it's so difficult to unionize. Because of laws, you're saying it's systematic. It's systemic. It's too hard for them to do it.

Levi Barnes (33:40.674)
Yeah, I was.

Matt (33:52.286)
Yes.

I'm saying there's a strong correlation between laws that make it harder to unionize and the decline of unions in the United States.

Shawn (34:01.247)
Wow, that's disheartening.

Matt (34:04.138)
What do you say Levi, are unions good?

Levi Barnes (34:07.468)
I do, I love unions. I was looking at the history of them and it does seem like something happened in the 80s, right? So in the 80s, you watched like in the 50s, that was the peak of union membership. It does start to decline in the 60s, 70s. It's trickling down. And then in the 80s, it starts to really fall hard. And I wondered what was going on there. It also, incidentally, like the, looked at somebody plotted it against a graph of the

the share of income going to the top 1 % and that hits a trough in the 70s and goes nuts in the 80s. It was like 4 % in the 70s and then 15 % by the time Reagan left and just keeps marching up from there. So yeah.

Matt (34:53.376)
So you're saying the decline of unions is correlated with the rise in the gap between rich and poor earners and the top income earners.

Levi Barnes (34:59.982)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's just a historic correlation. Like maybe that's not, maybe that's not a causal, but I think it's worth considering. Yeah.

Matt (35:13.28)
There are lots of other things that are in play, right? So when unions first started, unions would provide health insurance to the union members, which is why they have continuing health insurance after they... And so early on workers would join unions because it was a way to get health insurance. The government also passed laws that made it cost effective for businesses to provide health insurance to their employees.

Levi Barnes (35:17.195)
Of course.

Shawn (35:40.927)
Matt (35:41.044)
And so when you had the rise of these laws that incentivized employers to provide health insurance, then that was a benefit unions weren't providing anymore. And so there was, they kind of took that incentive away. So there's a lot of these like policy by policy.

Shawn (35:50.751)
But isn't that a positive result that caused by unions that eventually a lot of people were getting pretty decent healthcare? Sure, not union provided, but provided by their companies they work for. That's a positive effect down the road from a...

Levi Barnes (35:53.826)
Interesting.

Levi Barnes (36:06.796)
An excellent point, right? Maybe unions became less necessary as worker conditions improved across the board.

Matt (36:15.968)
But then what happened in the 80s, once unions started going away was corporations would say, do you know what is our biggest expense? All of these benefits were paying out to retirees. We need to renegotiate our deal with the unions and we need to get rid of these benefits that we're giving to retirees because that's the easiest way as a CEO to become profitable is to cut these really big expenses. why? No, it's not anecdotal. You can go industry by industry.

Shawn (36:40.279)
Yeah, that's that's I mean, but like, well, okay, mine's anic, mine, mine is anecdotal thing because most retired businessmen that I know, extremely are comfortable with their with their, you know, their retirement plans, their pensions, their like, and maybe I run in different circles, but

Matt (37:00.682)
It's.

Levi Barnes (37:01.474)
These are the manage, these are management people, right? These are people that owned a business and.

Shawn (37:06.537)
Both. No, no, no, both.

Matt (37:08.128)
No. So here's what happened, Sean. It used to be that the unions provided health insurance for the rest of your life. And what happens now is there's this, let's say you retired at 55, which seems unheard of today, but my grandpa retired when he was 55 years old, lived to 85, right? He lived on a good retirement for 30 years of his life with great health insurance to the end. Well, what happens now is it's so expensive to provide healthcare for somebody over the age of 60 that we put all of that into Medicare.

and we have the federal government providing health insurance for people. And so the union only has to provide healthcare up until 62, and then they provide a supplement to Medicare. So in effect, what happened when companies start, when unions kind of started pulling out of this is that burden of who's gonna provide health insurance to the working class all shifted to the federal government and to taxpayers.

Shawn (37:38.409)
There you go.

Shawn (38:02.011)
But that's a yeah, but to blame that entirely on the free market or on big business, why aren't you blaming political will for that? Right? The reason for isn't that the social safety net that, for example, Democrats push for? We should be providing for the government.

Matt (38:16.49)
Well, so what I'm saying is that that's a great messaging point, right? That's a great message to say, it's not fair that if you're not in a union, you don't get to have health insurance. Let's just give health insurance to everybody. And then in time, unions say, well, then why are we providing this? We'll just provide a little benefit to that, right? Sure, that's public will, but it's not the best thing for society, right? And if you're a free market and then there's a free option for seniors.

and you're a business and you're like, we could also do it ourselves. Of course you're to let everyone choose that free option that's paid for by taxpayers, but it doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. It'd be way better off to have unions provide it for workers.

Shawn (38:51.953)
I like, I like, I like that you're agreeing that the government is screwing up and providing a less than valuable service by providing health care and retirement. I like that. Good job, man.

Matt (39:03.712)
Yeah, I agree. I 100 % think that Medicare is not a great idea unless you're going to allow people to buy into it when they're young. that you as like Sean, you're a small business owner. If you wanted to have health insurance through Medicare, you should be able to pay a premium and buy into Medicare and you shouldn't need to have an employer provide it for you. Right? So, so sure. I'm all in favor of what some people call Medicare for all, which is a plan that allows anybody to buy into Medicare.

and you pay your premiums and it's just an insurance company. And then that would help reduce the cost of all those seniors that are in the Medicare program.

Shawn (39:39.659)
then the percentage of people in unions will go down to like 3%. Yeah, there you go. That is the destroyed.

Matt (39:44.362)
Possibly. It's not necessarily bad. It's not necessarily bad, right? If unions show a way and then everybody else wants to do, they're like, hey, unions found a nice path for taking care of people. Let's everybody adopt that. That's not bad.

Shawn (39:57.917)
Okay, so now you're teasing me or tempting me to go back to that free market. So maybe Levi, maybe the solution to get unions more abundantly populated is maybe they need to offer better things. They're not offering good enough things right now. That's what Matt's saying.

Levi Barnes (40:16.184)
I wonder, yeah, or not letting people know enough about it, not making it clear what the difference is. I think that the right got better at media, and so they have a pretty good media machine that convinces people unions are a problem. Sam bought into that, right? You hear that. But of course, think Sam is management, Matt, are you guys unionized?

Matt (40:16.35)
That's possible.

Shawn (40:20.766)
Yes.

Matt (40:23.945)
I mean I'm

Shawn (40:30.12)
Yeah.

Matt (40:36.564)
Right. Sam's in the auto industry. He fights those unions every single day of his life. Of course he doesn't like them. No, we're not because I'm a church employee and so there's no church union, but a lot of professors at other universities are unionized. Yeah, but

Shawn (40:36.745)
Yeah

Levi Barnes (40:48.611)
huh.

Yeah, yeah. Do you think you're worse off for not having a union than your colleagues?

Matt (40:58.144)
So I think it depends on your management, right? Like I think that the church as a management organization looks around at best practices in various industries and they want to be competitive. And so they say, if this is what other universities are offering, then we're going to offer that to our faculty. So I think that I'm benefited from unions indirectly in that unions are setting the wage, they're setting the benefits and all that stuff for other people. But I'm also blessed to be a part of an organization that

has good management that says we want to attract the best and brightest. So let's just follow what everybody else is doing.

Levi Barnes (41:34.382)
Yeah, that's a point.

Shawn (41:35.231)
Wow. I think then the takeaway is the net result of unions has been a wonderful thing. Maybe not directly, but indirectly in many cases. So yeah, we're all pro-union,

Matt (41:36.352)
Levi Barnes (41:45.77)
Well, I think that and this points to Sean, and this leads, think, into the next question, which is, I think that labor, big, like labor unions are an essential bulwark against the power of big money, right? There's like big business and I feel like it's always going to be competing against big labor. And so it is important for workers to unionize and organize in opposition to big business. Yeah.

Matt (41:46.826)
Points to you, Sean.

Shawn (42:09.055)
And Leigh, as a capitalist, I love that. I'm with you, Capitalism is all about free exchange with each other. And if you can give more power and equalization of exchange, it's awesome.

Matt (42:22.24)
So this is actually something I taught in my classes this week, which we weren't planning on talking about. But you know, when president Oaks talks about the divinely inspired principles of the constitution, he has five of them in his talk. He's a lawyer. So he or by training, right? He's he's got legal training. So he looks at a certain set of things as like parts of the divinely inspired constitution. There's another thing in there. There's actually a lot of them, but some of them that he doesn't mention that are, I think are definitely part of the inspired constitution is

Levi Barnes (42:22.43)
Matt (42:52.116)
The United States is the first government in the history of the world to say, we have a separation of church and state. That was in our constitution that president Oaks acknowledged. We also created the first separation of business and state because before the United States under monarchies, business and state were always combined into the same force. We're also the first country ever to separate military and state where we had civilian control of military with militias. But

This idea that Levi's talking about of this clash between business and state, this happens because of our political system created by the founders that separated that power. And from the very moment of our founding, business clashes with government because government is trying to protect the masses against the inclinations of the business community. And business is trying to use government for their own purposes, like they've done in countries throughout the history of the world. So that clash between business and government is a real thing.

in my opinion, part of the inspired constitution.

Shawn (43:54.031)
preach it.

Matt (43:55.102)
Yeah. Okay. So let's go to the big question. I love talking to Sean about socialism, especially when Levi's on the podcast. So this is, this is why we're not talking aliens this week, folks, because, okay. So I put a link in the show notes. There's a great infographic through at the economist that gives you a history of liberalism in terms of like political thought, like what liberalism is. Yeah.

Shawn (44:02.676)
Ha

Shawn (44:17.353)
So hang on though, hang on though, can we just, just for clarifying terms, is there a difference between the modern usage of the word liberal, conservative, liberal and liberalism? There's a big, big difference. That's what we need the audience to maybe understand here. So it's not so clear.

Matt (44:29.471)
Yes.

Matt (44:33.8)
Yeah. So liberalism is a moral philosophy centered on the protection of individual liberty and the belief that government should exist only by the consent of the governed. And this idea that life, liberty and property are inherent inalienable rights. That's what liberalism is. Right? So when we talk about liberal today versus conservative today, it typically falls down along these lines where

Democrats kind of like what we would call social liberalism, arguing that the government must actively provide a safety net like healthcare and education to ensure that individuals are actually free to exercise their rights. Whereas Republicans, they tend to align with classical liberalism where they see the government as a threat to freedom. And they say that free markets and private property and limiting state power is the best way to provide freedom.

So it's not like both conservatives and liberals in the United States are advancing these ideas of liberalism. They just have different ways of defining how you create freedom of like conscience and protect people from the state and things like that. Okay, so socialism also though has this idea called liberal socialism in which people think that socialist policies are the best way to lead to a truly liberal government.

They say that individual liberty is impossible if a person is trapped in material necessity or poverty. So by lifting people up economically, you allow them to actually express and exercise the freedom that's innate in human nature. So my question is, if Jesus were on earth today, which of these views, we've got social liberalism, classical liberalism, or liberal socialism, of those three, which would Jesus endorse if he were here today?

Shawn (46:29.555)
That thinks he's so clever Levi. He thinks he's so clever to pose a question in the way that.

Matt (46:33.77)
That's a, well, it has to be the latter day lens, right? And that's the latter day lens is like what Jesus would do, right? Of those philosophies. Cause I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm gonna say that Jesus would be a liberal socialist. That's my argument. Jesus would advocate for liberal socialism. So I can go, I can go later.

Shawn (46:42.655)
Because

Levi Barnes (46:44.3)
Yeah, does Jesus think government is the problem?

Shawn (46:54.18)
Which again, define, no, no, no, go ahead, start. Define the, why is he?

Matt (46:58.748)
Liberal socialism is that the government is an actor in the economy. The government owns, let's say a health insurance business. The government owns whatever business and private industries are allowed to compete, but the government takes whatever money it earns from its enterprises and lifts the people in poverty up to a sufficient level so that they can exercise their rights. That's liberal socialism.

Shawn (47:22.879)
I mean, I like that you think in terms of, you do think that the second coming is tomorrow, and so I like that you think in terms of, okay, what will our society look like? How will God govern? How will Jesus govern? I like that you think in terms of that. I should think more of that. So this is your solution. This is how you think God will govern.

Matt (47:26.954)
Hahaha

Matt (47:37.152)
I think that if I look at all the scriptures, everything in the standard works, everything that's been canonized, and I say, what is Jesus telling me I should support in terms of a political philosophy? I feel like Jesus wants me to be a liberal socialist, not a Democrat who's in favor of social liberalism or a Republican who wants that classical liberalism. Jesus wants me to support the government control of industries and the economy, or at least competition.

with other industries in the economy.

And Sean, I imagine you say he's a classical liberalist, right? Jesus wants the Austrian economics, hate government, government's bad, keep it out of our lives, that sort of thing, right?

Shawn (48:10.606)
EEEE

Levi Barnes (48:11.17)
Well, so...

Shawn (48:21.701)
Not necessarily, no. I don't think that the government that we live under now is going to be the exact same government when the savior is in charge. Absolutely not, no. But Levi, we're good.

Matt (48:31.05)
But if he was here, if he was here, what would he tell you in your soul, Sean? What would he tell you you should do?

Shawn (48:35.091)
Yeah, but you have to have to clarify since you're making up this scenario where he's here, you have to clarify what is his role in all of this? Is he just here watching or is he here?

Matt (48:44.212)
Yeah, he's just watching. Yeah, yeah. He's not here as the king on earth. Yeah.

Levi Barnes (48:45.251)
I mean, he is here. He's here like in this now. He's here, right? Like

Shawn (48:49.509)
watching. Well, that's why I'm asking for clarity. Matt says if he's here watching, which is now that's different from him being here and the church and the yes, that's what you're kind of getting at, right?

Matt (48:57.952)
at the second coming. No, I'm just saying if he's here watching, he's not, it's not the second coming. Yeah, right now.

Levi Barnes (49:04.334)
Right now right now. What does he want?

Shawn (49:05.683)
Yeah, like Levi said, he is here watching. So maybe frame it like that instead of what will the government be into the second coming?

Matt (49:08.68)
Okay. Okay.

Yeah, I didn't mean to, I didn't mean it to be like that. Okay. What does Jesus want you to be, or Sean? What does Jesus want you to, where does he want you to support? What kinds of things?

Shawn (49:20.831)
I can, Matt, Matt, I won't do this. can find principles in scripture that support both. In fact, how about this? Our living prophet gave the following quote. This is perfect. Thanks for queuing this up, Matt. This is perfect. I just randomly found this. This is Elder Oaks. Uh oh, where is it? Oh, here it is. Elder Oaks, or President Oaks said this. Those who govern their thoughts and actions solely by the principles of liberalism or conservatism or intellectualism,

cannot be expected to agree with all of the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As for me, I find some wisdom in liberalism, some wisdom in conservatism, and much truth in intellectualism, but I no salvation in any of them.

Matt (50:01.332)
Are you kidding me? President Oak said that?

Shawn (50:03.741)
Yes he did in 1987.

Matt (50:06.08)
Okay. No, no, that's fine. I was like, wow, I did not. have to be paying more attention. I didn't know he was talking about that. Okay. This was like when we were in elementary school, he said that.

Shawn (50:08.211)
That matters? Why? He's a prophet. He's a prophet.

Shawn (50:19.177)
Sure, yes.

Levi Barnes (50:19.214)
So this is Oakes taking the principled centrist view. So, so tired of this. You guys, get out of this. The center has just calvered us. You guys, get out of the center. Get off the fence.

Shawn (50:34.225)
Let's hear it. Teach me Levi, teach me.

Levi Barnes (50:36.588)
Well, I think it is pretty hard to make a case that Jesus in any way would have been behind the idea that government is the central problem that we're trying to fight. This is what I see is the difference between the classical liberals and the social liberals. The social liberals see, yeah, government is a problem. We gotta watch government.

Business is a problem. We got to watch business. You can oppress people with economic power just as easily as with political power, right? This is where the social liberals are sitting. And I think it's really hard to say, yeah, Jesus would have come down on the sort of government is the problem side of things. Jesus didn't rail against government. He was even given the opportunity, right? They said, you know, should I pay taxes? And he said, who's on the coin? Give it to Caesar, whatever. I don't care about politics, right? But what he did care about

Shawn (51:29.727)
That's right.

Levi Barnes (51:31.788)
was how we use our money, right? He was constantly harping against religious authority and economic power. Those were the things he was suspicious of, right? Not government. So it's hard to...

Shawn (51:41.053)
Where did he harp on economic power?

Levi Barnes (51:46.198)
All over the place. He talked about how your riches are going to corrupt you and drag you to hell. mean, you know, that's a summary, obviously, but.

Shawn (51:51.583)
But that's not economic.

Matt (51:53.824)
Sell all that you have and give it to the poor.

Shawn (51:56.287)
That's not economic power. That wasn't commentary on economic power. That was based on the principle that the love of money is the root of all evil. That has nothing to do with economic power.

Levi Barnes (51:56.483)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (52:03.41)
Okay. well, it's...

Levi Barnes (52:06.374)
You don't think Jesus was suspicious of the ways that we use economic power. You don't think that he thought money was kind of a corrupting influence in our lives.

Shawn (52:14.047)
But not in it as an on an individual level when he teaches the principle that the love of money is the root of all evil that gives us clarity about whenever he talks about money it is how does it affect Levi in his heart and in his soul I don't think at all. He was making political statements about There's a certain amount of money that someone has and they reach a tier where they're an evil person because they're a capitalist or there's the an oppression that is

had by people who have a certain amount of money. I don't think so. There's no evidence of that.

Matt (52:45.152)
Sean, what's that section in the Doctrine and Covenants that you like to quote about property rights? I can never remember. Is it 132, 134? Anyhow, I think it's verse one. We believe that government is instituted for the benefit of man. So Jesus is definitely on the side of government, that government is there for our benefit.

Shawn (52:52.521)
I think.

Shawn (53:04.637)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Sure.

Matt (53:08.35)
So then classical liberalism is kind of hard to endorse because they're so suspicious of government. If you see government as the bad guy, how do you reconcile that with Jesus saying government is there for the benefit of man? Classical liberalism is kind of tough to justify in that sense.

Levi Barnes (53:08.717)
Yeah.

Shawn (53:20.019)
That's okay, go to go to the next verse. We believe that no government can exist. Okay, first verse says you need government. Second verse says, but the government can exist except laws are framed that will secure individual the free exercise of conscious, the right of control of property and the protection of life. And so

Matt (53:39.072)
That's still social liberal. Democrats still want that.

Levi Barnes (53:41.442)
Yeah, I mean, I think we need to talk about what agency means here, Sean. Like, I think you can expand agency by redistributing wealth, right?

Shawn (53:42.821)
not if not if you're

Matt (53:50.484)
Yeah, of course.

Shawn (53:50.783)
How? But that doesn't that directly contradict. Redistributing wealth by definition is losing control of rights and property. By definition.

Matt (54:00.282)
Some people give it up. Some people give that up to expand the rights of others.

Shawn (54:05.215)
If you're willing to give it up, okay, if I'm willing to give it up, yes, but that's not the message of socialism.

Matt (54:11.41)
No, so I'm the one on socialism side. think Levi's on the side of social liberalism.

Levi Barnes (54:17.812)
I think Jesus definitely was a socialist. mean, I don't think there's much argument there. I'm just, yeah.

Matt (54:22.048)
Here's my example, Sean. Have you ever seen the Netflix series Black Mirror? Okay, there's a lot of nasty stuff in there, but in season seven, there's this episode with Rashida Jones, and she needs to have this surgery because she's gonna die. And so this company's like, we figured out a way we can remove this brain tissue, we hook you up to our cloud server, and we can save your wife's life. And all you have to do, the surgery's free.

but you just have to pay us $300 a month and then your wife is going to survive. And so she survives, but then in time, Oh, we need to upgrade our servers. So the subscription increases. Oh, we actually need to use some of your wife's brain power to fund this like other enhanced plan. And like at some point the couple can't afford anymore the care that she needs to keep her functioning the way she needs to function. And so in the end of the story, I won't tell the spoiler what happens in the end, but

Shawn (55:18.484)
you

Matt (55:19.178)
But the idea is if I have to pay a monthly fee in order to sustain a basic quality of life, I'm not truly free because I'm not free to just live life on my terms because if I don't pay that monthly fee, my wife's going to die. so the, the, if I have to take a little bit from somebody in taxes to make sure that other people can sustain a normal or a baseline quality of life, that's still liberal. It's still free for everybody.

Shawn (55:31.089)
I understand. But what you're saying

Shawn (55:40.509)
Yeah, see that's that. But that but it does the idea that money equals freedom is not a principled idea like in that black, whatever story, it is a sad thing that that Rashida Jones is relying on someone else's skills and talents in order to stay alive. And you would say, but and she's in an order for her to be free, they are obligated to give her those things.

Levi Barnes (56:01.742)
Okay.

Shawn (56:10.291)
Maybe in order to stay alive, yes, but you have to steal from those people in order for her to, you have to force by gun and steal from those people in order for her to, in your definition, be free. You need to take their money, their resources, their intellectual property in order for her to be free. I don't think money equals freedom.

Matt (56:27.914)
Well, what I would say in that particular situation is the government should be able to come in and compete with them and the government should be able to provide it at a lower cost. And if they can provide it at a lower cost, now there's true competition in this marketplace and she doesn't have to choose between this server and nothing at all. She can choose between this server and a government option. And then that makes everybody truly free because you're not taking from that company anymore. You're just competing with them.

Shawn (56:52.251)
So would you agree that at least in rhetoric, that's what, I'm not promoting this, but that's what Donald Trump is trying to say is like, look, we should use the government as an alternative in healthcare, for example, or in, for example, he's buying up all kinds of stock in all kinds of companies.

Levi Barnes (57:06.542)
because of the detailed healthcare planning he just put out.

Shawn (57:10.353)
Super detailed, yeah. Super detailed,

Matt (57:10.752)
The thing I heard him say was basically Obamacare. Well, I think he said we're going to give them a subsidy, which is what the Republicans are voting to get rid of right now. Like everybody has cash given to them to buy health insurance right now, but they're taking it.

Shawn (57:19.566)
yeah.

Levi Barnes (57:21.71)
Anyway, distracted by the laughable idea that Trump is going to fix healthcare. But all right. Okay, Sean, sorry.

Shawn (57:24.799)
It's true. It's not I'm not promoting it

yeah, he will not fix healthcare. totally agree. I'm not saying that, but there is a lot of rhetoric where he's basically saying, yes, the government should be a competitive player in the marketplace, which again, back to our like traditional Republican that hurts my soul, but that he does talk about.

Levi Barnes (57:45.422)
I don't like that either.

Matt (57:45.492)
Well, I'm going to say if Trump, to the extent that Trump is promoting that, then I say Jesus is happy and I'm happy as well. If Trump is promoting a public option to compete with private health insurance, I'm all for that.

Shawn (57:59.731)
I may be wrong, I think that's what I'm hearing him promoting a little bit, at least in rhetoric.

Levi Barnes (58:00.658)
I'm for that too.

Matt (58:03.132)
Okay, well then I think Jesus is happy.

Levi Barnes (58:04.322)
Buh-bye!

The thing I loved about the way that Matt phrased this was this emphasis on the idea that freedom is not just the absence of anybody interfering with you, right? Like there are some times when it doesn't feel like freedom when you're starving. It just, you don't think, well, I'm starving, but at least the government's not here. That doesn't feel like freedom.

Shawn (58:20.287)
Yeah, yeah,

Shawn (58:28.351)
But it is free, but just because it doesn't feel like freedom doesn't mean it's not freedom. That is freedom.

Matt (58:36.948)
You're free to starve.

Levi Barnes (58:37.326)
That's very semantic, right? I mean, we can talk about what freedom is, I think that you can, like if we talk about the number of choices available to a person, right? A person with no money has very, very few choices. And so that's not a lot of agency. And so I believe, like I can take $1,000 from Mitt Romney, right? And I can give it to somebody with no money. And the

Shawn (58:55.932)
do wanna-

Levi Barnes (59:05.772)
The freedom of that person that got a thousand new dollars is expanded dramatically more than the reduction Mitt Romney experienced, right? He doesn't get to spend another, you know, he doesn't get to have another really nice dinner with his family, right? And that's sad, but the poor person just got a car and now he can go to work. That's a bigger change in my opinion.

Shawn (59:15.423)
But only...

Okay, but that's.

Shawn (59:25.151)
But that's only true if you put so much value in money and you equate money with freedom. That's only true if you basically worship this concept of money because freedom does exist without money. I don't need money for freedom. If I don't have that thousand dollars that Mitt Romney has, I still can walk out the door and do anything that I want. I can create what Mitt Romney created or I can choose not to and I can go on weird cruises all the time.

Levi Barnes (59:36.589)
Why?

Matt (59:53.408)
But not if you have a disability, not if you have diabetes and you have to take insulin in order to survive. There are people for whom

Shawn (59:58.367)
Okay, that's true. That's true. Okay.

Levi Barnes (59:58.488)
But straight up not if you're born poor, frankly. Like, I think it's silly to pretend like everybody has the same opportunities. That's ridiculous. That's nonsense.

Shawn (01:00:08.191)
I mean, I'm open to trying to learn that from you, Levi, but I fundamentally think you're wrong. I would love to learn more. I want to. I've heard this argument for so long. Money does not equal freedom. Money is not the standard that we need to be shooting for so that we can all be equal. It's like this, it's like this. Hey, it's like this. I'm sitting in the hot tub with my son and his friend, and they're at this stage in life where they're back from their missions. They're excited to the world.

Matt (01:00:27.4)
Money provides a baseline.

Shawn (01:00:37.907)
They're going like, dad, how do we make money? Like, well, how do you start your career? What should we do? And I keep, I keep asking them, all right. They keep saying, look, I just need to get a million dollars. If all I had was a million, if someone could just give me a million dollars, my life would be set. And I finally got a little mad and was like, look, it's not having money that will make you guys happy and successful. It's learning how to earn money that will make you happy and successful. There's a huge difference there. The money doesn't make us free.

the ability, the, the, the growth that I have to earn resources and exchange with resources is what makes me free. It's the type of person I become.

Matt (01:01:14.912)
But what Levi's trying to say is the fact that your son and his friend were sitting in a hot tub while having that discussion suggests that they are at a starting place that's so different from where other people can start that not everybody.

Shawn (01:01:22.121)
No, no.

Okay, okay, I'll ruin that. Hang on, I'll ruin that discussion right now. Sure, maybe my son has some access to resources because of his parents, but the other kid does not, absolutely does not.

Matt (01:01:38.144)
Is that kid in college? Is that kid in Southern California? Is that kid in, like that kid has access to resources that maybe you're not recognizing. That a person who's, let's just say across the border in Tijuana, maybe selling goods on the streets in Mexico, then maybe your son's friend has more access to more resources than what you're thinking about.

Shawn (01:01:59.059)
I mean, can't we just talk about, you can't bring in a country that doesn't have these freedoms and these standards. America, does America have socialism? Is America?

Levi Barnes (01:02:05.016)
Socialism.

Matt (01:02:08.202)
socialism. Every every market in the United States is socialist. Yes, in my opinion, there's socialism in every market.

Shawn (01:02:15.167)
There we go.

Levi Barnes (01:02:16.494)
But I suspect that the socialist programs of the people's gay public of California, Republic for you, whatever that is, whatever Jack Donaghy calls it, anyway.

Matt (01:02:29.152)
Cal, we call it Californication. That's what we call it in Idaho. Don't California Kate, Idaho.

Levi Barnes (01:02:32.654)
Yeah, but whatever, you know, I think there's a lot to be said for the things that California provides, the socialist programs like public education, like CHIP, he's probably under, his health insurance is probably state health insurance.

Shawn (01:02:41.321)
point. It's a great point.

Shawn (01:02:46.687)
And full disclosure, to be fair, yeah, he does go to the free Palomar College, which is absolutely free for any local resident. So great point. Yep, it's good point. That is a privilege.

Matt (01:02:57.876)
Yeah. So that's all Levi's saying. Levi's saying that there are people that are of a low station in life that a thousand dollars would make a huge difference, which is why you have those micro loans, right? Where people get a thousand dollars.

Shawn (01:03:07.359)
Of course, any amount of money is going to make a huge difference in anyone's life. Of course, but if you teach people that they have no power and no freedom, unless they have Mitt Romney's thousand dollars, you are damaging them. You are hurting them. If you teach people that they have no power to improve their lives and get themselves out of poverty, unless someone gives them money, you are taking away a confidence and a...

a valuable life skill. Instead, we need to teach people. That's not true at all. That's not true at all. Your message, your central message is...

Levi Barnes (01:03:39.05)
Nobody does that. Nobody does that, Sean.

Matt (01:03:43.582)
Yeah.

Levi Barnes (01:03:44.75)
Nope, does that. Matt doesn't do that. When Matt teaches Karl Marx, for heaven's sake, he assigns people to read, what does he do? The pre-capitalist economic foundation? What do you guys read over there?

Matt (01:03:53.632)
Karl Marx.

Matt (01:03:57.824)
The GERTA program. But yeah, the critique of the GERTA program. It's really dense. It's really hard to read.

Levi Barnes (01:04:02.264)
Yeah. And Matt is one of the tenants of that program that you cannot succeed unless you're born rich. Is that one of the tenants of your program?

Matt (01:04:11.218)
No, no, no, no, no. No, of course I don't teach people that you have to.

Shawn (01:04:14.589)
then stop preaching it.

Levi Barnes (01:04:15.032)
But that's what Mark says, right Matt? No, it's not.

Matt (01:04:17.546)
That is what Mark says. That's Karl Marx. Karl Marx doesn't take a position on that particular issue.

Shawn (01:04:23.571)
I've read the print of the communists.

Levi Barnes (01:04:28.44)
Yeah.

Shawn (01:04:28.477)
read the Communist Manifesto many many times by Karl Marx and his clear message is that there's the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and we must take from that one to give to the others because the others can't get it themselves. That's a clear message. That's what the I've read the Communist Manifesto. That's what it says.

Matt (01:04:41.748)
That's not what he's saying. No, that's not what he's saying.

He's saying that when the proletariat owns the means of production, then everything else in society will change.

Levi Barnes (01:04:52.142)
Yeah, he says you can expand your freedom if you have control of the means of your own production.

Shawn (01:04:53.277)
Yeah, and those.

And how do you gain, how do you gain the means, not your own, no it doesn't say your own, how do you gain control of the means of production? How do you do it?

Levi Barnes (01:05:03.582)
yeah, it does. Yeah, he says, you are the one producing. You should own the means that you use to produce it. Yeah. He definitely says that.

Shawn (01:05:09.383)
And I should own the means of your production is what he says.

Matt (01:05:11.678)
Well, Sean, if you read the communist manifesto that ends, proletariat of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains, you have to recognize that he's writing to a specific audience trying to ignite a communist revolution. So yes, in that particular writing, of course he's going to advocate for revolutionary takeover of the means of production. But that's not what he teaches is like the ideal way to live in society. He just thought that that was necessary. It's like, it's like if I just.

Shawn (01:05:36.096)
What?

That's the core of his message.

Matt (01:05:40.146)
It's like if I said like, Donald Trump said, get out and vote. And so Trump's saying like, the only way you can do things is by voting. Now, Trump doesn't think the only way to do things is by voting. But if you're reading his get out the vote message, then of course that's what he's going to say in the get out the vote message. When you read the revolutionary propaganda pamphlet, then of course that's what it's going to sound like. But that's not his broad philosophy, although it's in there in spots.

Shawn (01:05:53.811)
I'm open to learning.

Shawn (01:06:03.315)
Levi, I do want to be open-minded.

Levi Barnes (01:06:03.468)
And he definitely did say that you will have more power. You will expand your opportunities, workers, if you unite and overthrow the capitalists. Yeah, if you own the means of production, you will expand.

Matt (01:06:15.464)
own the means of production. Which, which by the way, Sean was Sean says the same thing. Well.

Shawn (01:06:19.071)
So grab your guns. So grab your guns and let's go take the means of production from those who have the production and let's have that freedom.

Matt (01:06:27.304)
Well, that's, that was the Russian way, right? That was the...

Levi Barnes (01:06:28.556)
Well, property is violence. the violence began long before Karl Marx showed up. Let's be clear.

Shawn (01:06:32.859)
No, it's not. It's not.

Matt (01:06:36.286)
I just want to point out, Sean, that you too agree that a worker will be more profitable and more free if they own their own company than if they're working for somebody else. Okay. So, so, so you're halfway.

Shawn (01:06:38.259)
you

Shawn (01:06:47.357)
Yeah, but not by force. But not by force. can't be by force. There's no freedom in force.

Levi Barnes (01:06:50.904)
Well, but capitalism is by force, is what Marx was saying. He's saying you are experiencing force and violence right now. Those capitalists don't control because they're more moral. They control because the cops help them control. That's what Marx was saying.

Shawn (01:06:58.559)
Yeah, but he's wrong. He's... but he's so wrong.

Matt (01:06:59.071)
Yeah.

Shawn (01:07:07.079)
Right, but I think in a free market, he's dead wrong, right? I love the idea that I can be, like I'm not the smartest dude in the world, but I know how to work hard, I try to work hard, and I love the idea that I can go from nothing and I can go and improve my life, because the freedoms exist in my society and I can earn, whereas some other people were given or inherited or have, there's freedom in that sense.

Matt (01:07:30.016)
Part of the reason you have those freedoms in our society, Sean, is because the Marxist critique of capitalism in the not free societies of Germany and other European countries, they adopted those reforms to make it more free for workers in our society. So I don't think that if Karl Marx were here today, he would say, rise up and revolt. The only way to do it is through revolution, but that might've been true in Germany in 1848. It might've

Shawn (01:07:43.903)
I'm

Shawn (01:07:53.001)
don't believe you whatsoever. In order to make America a Marxist standard, the first 10 pages of his Communist Manifesto would apply. You need to have control of the means of production, which means by force...

Matt (01:08:07.028)
He might have adjusted.

Levi Barnes (01:08:07.064)
Well, but no, but Marx would say, you guys have lots of control of means of production. I was just thinking about why don't I, why am I not part of a union? Well, my company gives me stock. I'm management, I own stuff, right? Like my company has adopted, they said, let's see, we could either be overthrown in a Soviet revolution or we can start giving workers some more control over their systems and factories.

And they did. We've made a lot of progress empowering workers. so Marx would be very pleased with the direction we've headed, I think.

Matt (01:08:42.654)
In fact, wall street is Karl Marx's dream, right? Where the public owns the means of production and who owns Amazon and who owns Walmart and who owns all those companies, they're publicly traded companies owned by the workers. Yeah.

Levi Barnes (01:08:54.924)
Yeah, little grannies own them in their 401ks, yeah.

Shawn (01:08:58.129)
I'm willing to throw away the first 15 pages of the Communist Manifesto to learn this principle. I am willing to do that.

Matt (01:09:01.76)
All I'm saying is that Jesus would be a socialist today. He wants us to use socialism to advance liberalism around the world, which I know is hard for people to understand, but I think that's a good path for us to follow. Hey!

Shawn (01:09:09.048)
Hehehehehe

Shawn (01:09:15.251)
I'm open to that.

Shawn (01:09:19.987)
I'm open, I wanna learn.

Levi Barnes (01:09:20.27)
I hope you put the whole text of your, you put the whole text in the show notes, right? Because it's really worth reading. The summaries that Matt wrote are awesome, listener. Yeah.

Matt (01:09:26.389)
Yeah.

Matt (01:09:29.886)
Alright, I'll include them. Hey you guys, thanks so much for joining us. Listener, let us know what you think. We'll talk to you again next week.

Shawn (01:09:29.929)
Yeah, very good.