Matt (00:01.48)
Hey everybody and welcome to The Latter Day Lens. I'm your host Matt, with me as always is Sean, and we're happy to welcome back Graham. Graham, welcome back to the podcast.

Shawn (00:08.659)
the man!

Graham Mitchell (00:10.336)
It's good to be back!

Matt (00:12.266)
Yeah, we took a little break there over Christmas time where things were a little bit, I don't know, technologically challenged. Sean just says I'm a bad producer, but we're good to have all of our co-hosts back with us on a regular basis. Okay, let's start with the mailbag. So one listener wrote in and said, Matt said that Americans no longer have the will to do hard things. Why do you think that's true? Did we once have the will to do hard things? What happened?

I'm going to say I don't remember saying that.

Shawn (00:39.904)
So when you say, yeah, what was the context of, yeah, you definitely said it. What was the context though of that discussion?

Matt (00:46.858)
It's probably about Congress and, yeah, I don't think I was saying Americans don't want to do hard things. I was saying Congress doesn't want to do hard things.

Shawn (00:55.508)
Yeah, one of our listeners and friends texted us afterwards and kept saying that was so right. And I got kind of angry and was like, what do mean, man? I'm willing to do hard things.

Matt (01:05.352)
No you're not. Sean, you are not willing to do hard things. Like, do you ever shovel the snow in front of your house? Right. You're not willing to live in a place where you would have to do that, are you?

Shawn (01:08.66)
haha

Nope, don't have no, no, no.

Shawn (01:17.376)
But I think that's a topic that when our friend Levi comes back, I want to hear his take on it because he was really passionate. He does believe that Americans aren't willing to do hard things anymore, but I need to know, I need to really understand what he means by that.

Matt (01:30.676)
Graham, what's your take? Do you think that people in general are willing to do hard things?

Graham Mitchell (01:34.382)
I think we're soft. We become really soft. Yeah, I mean, even like thinking about church, like Trek, organizing Trek, Sean and I actually organized the Trek with the youth and how many parents were so concerned. My child has to hike for three miles. That's inappropriate. So anyway, I worry that we've created a of a soft society.

Matt (01:38.408)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn (01:38.645)
Do you?

Shawn (01:46.112)
huh, huh.

Matt (01:46.196)
Yeah.

Shawn (01:59.562)
Yeah.

Shawn (02:03.581)
South Society.

Matt (02:03.74)
At BYU-Idaho, we really, really like to talk about teamwork and how important it is to work in teams. And what I've noticed is whenever you have teamwork, there's like one person that does everything and then the rest of the team like free rides. And I was on a call yesterday with like some really big names scholars. There's this big project we're putting together. I was so honored to be in this group of scholars, maybe like 12 of them. And then we're all just chatting about the project. And then it was like, okay, now who's going to get started and do something? And nobody like...

like all of the most well-respected people when it's time to actually do something they're like, nah, I don't want to do anything. Somebody else gets started, I'll proofread it, I'll look at some things like down the road, but when it's time to like get to work and do stuff, I'm with Graham, I think most people don't want to do the work, they're soft.

Shawn (02:50.112)
Wow, I mean hearing you two say that, my son, who's at BYU right now, he's a sophomore, he says that all the time. He's like, I'm sorry, our generation is really, really soft. But what we're talking about is baby boomers and Gen X, like we're not supposed to be soft. All right, I'll challenge it. When Levi comes on and can explain what he means by that, I'm ready to challenge it.

Matt (03:09.554)
Okay, but you can say it national, and you really do think Americans want to do hard? Just give me an example of something hard that Americans are willing to do.

Shawn (03:18.352)
Work wake up and work every day How about that? What I mean to live Yeah, it's really hard though for someone to have a family and to work every day in America I'm not saying it's hard relative to other countries. I'm saying it's it's a challenge, right? We have modern stresses upon us. We have modern challenges in front of us. They're not easy. They're not easy

Matt (03:19.562)
Stop! That's necessity. That's like, that's nec-

Matt (03:40.842)
But what I'm saying is like, there are big challenges on the horizon that require sacrifice on our part to like think about how we're gonna do it better than we've done it in the past. nobody's, well, artificial intelligence is a great example. Like there's a genuine threat that artificial intelligence could kill a lot of jobs in the future. That most of the things we do for a living, you won't be able to do 10 years from now as a job.

Shawn (03:50.782)
Okay, you name me one. You give me one, give me an example.

Shawn (04:05.504)
So what's the hard thing we're supposed to do in order to mitigate the damage?

Matt (04:09.482)
Sit down and think about like what that should look like what we should do what we don't even talk about like what? Regulations there should be on AI like as a group as a society We're not thinking about like these hard questions of like how do we make sure that the next generation? Has the same kind of opportunity that we had in our generation like all kinds of big things we don't do

Shawn (04:28.106)
You think we're just like enjoying the Kool-Aid and just everyone's just drinking it up and going, this is fun. get to use ChatGPT to write an email for me and they're all excited. They're not willing to go, okay, what is the consequence of me turning my brain off? That's the hard thing is being able to like really think about the consequences of me letting ChatGPT run my business or write my email.

Matt (04:51.85)
I mean, it's not just and I think Graham had an even better example when it comes to church things. Like if you look at most wards in the church, there's like 10%, maybe 20 % that are doing everything in the ward, everything in the church. And a lot of people are just happy to kind of sit back and free ride.

Shawn (05:07.166)
Hey Matt, thank you for bringing up the Pareto principle. That's interesting that you love that principle so much, the 80-20 rule, the 90-10 rule. That's smart, but that's never been different. I would argue that I bet throughout the history of time, 20 % of the people are doing 80 % of the work. I don't think that's a symptom of today's culture.

Matt (05:26.058)
Okay, well then, then I think we'll just say that Sean agrees with me that 80 % don't want to do hard things and 20 % do. And so when I said Americans no longer, I guess we just debate about whether it's any, whether it was that way in the past, but the greatest generation, World War II, they made considerable sacrifice and it wasn't just 20%. It was a huge shock of the US population set aside their personal, like their own jobs, everything that was going on at home to go fight a war in another country because they said,

Shawn (05:32.825)
is that the statement? okay, then I'm agreeing with you.

Shawn (05:45.792)
Hmm

Matt (05:55.624)
this is a threat that we have to stop before it spreads overseas. And we have similar threats today, and I don't see people like jumping up saying, let me do something about that.

Shawn (06:07.488)
Okay, good, I'll think about that. Okay, interesting, good example.

Matt (06:09.086)
Okay.

Alright, let's go to the Thought Provoker. So first up this week, the Doomsday Clock. It's something I don't hear about very often, but it made the news.

Shawn (06:17.65)
You liar. You have a feed to something called the doomsday clock and you watch it every day. That's come on. This is something you would be telling too.

Matt (06:21.834)
I really don't. I don't. But I know this because it happened this week. the Doomsday Clock has moved to 85 seconds to midnight, which marks the closest point to global catastrophe in its 80 year history. It's the Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to represent how close humanity is to self-destruction. So according to them,

The decision to move the clock forward reflects a lack of progress in managing existential threats. The primary drivers for this include the growing risk of nuclear conflict, the worsening effects of climate change, and the rapid development of disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence. So here's a question. Is humanity right now closer to self-destruction than it has been at any point in the last 80 years?

Shawn (07:15.648)
Graham, you wanna take that first?

Graham Mitchell (07:20.334)
I grew up in the DC area in the 80s. And I can attest, I felt like we were on the brink of destruction then. Like as a kid, I felt like, I mean, I would see a shooting star and I would think that was a Soviet missile heading towards Washington DC. So that was my existence as a kid. So I don't know if I really think that we are closer then than we were now or now than we were then.

Shawn (07:29.92)
Mmm.

Shawn (07:37.664)
Wow.

Graham Mitchell (07:50.85)
But having said that, it does seem like we can't even agree on what the problem is right now. mean, it seemed like there was a maybe it maybe just looking back, nostalgically, it was simple, right? There was good guys, there's bad guys. Now, I don't think we can agree who the good guys are, who the bad guys are. We can't agree that there is global warming. There's people deny that that is actually exists. We have yet to tackle anything poverty wise in developing

So there's a lot of things that we have not been able to get our heads around. So that does concern me. So I kind of agree with the scientist. Let's move it forward.

Matt (08:23.109)
Ahem.

Shawn (08:31.616)
Wow. Wow. I kind of took the, I wanted to seek for a latter day lens. So I think I got to believe like two things I find in scripture. One, there are many civilizations that came and died, were destroyed. So I got to believe that those, those civilizations were a lot worse off than we were and they didn't have nuclear weapons. so it must be cyclical, but then I look at the real, the, the, the latter day lens,

Matt (08:31.658)
What do say, Sean?

Shawn (08:59.744)
in Ether and in 2 Nephi that talk about the last days. And it seems to say to me that destruction in the last days is only going to come when the Lord is, well, after the Lord comes, right? Isn't there a promise that there will be no more apostasy, there will be no more destruction until the Lord comes?

Matt (09:17.108)
Well, those aren't the same thing, Sean. Apostasy is destruction.

Shawn (09:20.242)
I would say apostasy would lead to destruction.

Matt (09:22.248)
No, isn't one of the signs of the second coming that like there will be wars all over the earth? Like that happens before Jesus comes again.

Shawn (09:29.182)
Right, but if we're talking about humanity, the destruction of humanity, I think the Lord has promised that that's not going to happen, right? I think, that's at least what I read.

Matt (09:38.986)
I don't know that that's true. When I read the Book of Mormon, it says that if you're not righteous, then you'll be wiped off the earth like the Nephites and the Jaredites were.

Shawn (09:49.632)
2nd Nephi 32, I will punish the world for evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease and will lay down the haughtiness of the terrible. Yeah, there's lots of warnings like that, but if you couple that up in the context of Scripture, doesn't it say that we live in a time where the gospel has been restored and in order for the kingdom of God to be built up on the earth, society has to exist?

Matt (10:13.074)
Okay, but Sean, the scriptures say where two or three are gathered in my name, I'm there. So as long as there's two or three people left on earth, then you can still have the church, the restored church on the earth. So maybe it's not the complete annihilation of all humankind, but you could wipe out a huge portion of the seven billion people that are on the planet and still have the church there instead of all those, like all those prophecies don't protect us from people doing really stupid things that kill a lot of people.

Shawn (10:17.915)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (10:38.208)
Okay, okay, but then I can go to the words of the prophet Joseph Smith in the DNC. The church and the work of God will go forth boldly and nobly. like he seemed to have this independently, he seemed to have this really optimistic view of what it looks like up until the Savior will come again. And sure, you got to contrast that against John the Revelator and all those revelations about, well, there going be some wars. But dude, we've had wars and rumors of wars for hundreds of years now, like thousands of years now, like the same. We're no worse.

Matt (10:46.685)
Independent.

Shawn (11:07.133)
war wise than it's been.

Matt (11:07.562)
But we have weapons that can annihilate huge portions of the population in no time at all. And we have world leaders that are willing to use them, at least are willing to threaten to use them. And so I think that there's good reason to say, so in the 1980s, we had the Cold War, there was legitimate fear about what the Soviet Union might do, but they weren't threatening the use of nuclear weapons the way that Putin threatens them now, right?

Putin's like, if US troops come into Ukraine, then I will use nuclear weapons, or I'll use all of the power available to me. In Iran, we're saying we're going to destroy your nuclear program. But what does that incentivize Iran to do with their nuclear weapons? If we threaten their entire destruction and they have nuclear weapons, why wouldn't they use them to try to preserve them? So I think that we have more nations with nuclear weapons now than we did in the past. I think that there is a higher probability that they would be used by the people who have them right now.

and we have less control over who gets a hold of them. So it's more likely now than it was in the 80s that a terrorist organization could get a nuclear weapon and could actually use that nuclear weapon. And once that happens, then nobody controls what happens next. So I think that there's reason to be scared and think that it's worse today than it was in 1980s or any other time in the last 80 years.

Shawn (12:29.056)
Wow, that's pessimistic. That's, dang, Downer.

Matt (12:32.389)
So I'm giving points to, I'm giving points to Graham because Graham made that point first. And I'm, I'm giving no points to Sean because Sean's latter day lens is the scriptures say that the church is going to be here forever. So we don't have to worry about anything. And that's not the right attitude, Sean. The church doesn't protect us from human nature in doing stupid things.

Graham Mitchell (12:39.566)
Hey!

Shawn (12:50.909)
You

Shawn (12:56.07)
That's a point.

Matt (12:57.643)
A nuclear weapon could still destroy the Salt Lake Temple, even though we've just renovated it and-

Shawn (13:00.864)
Do you?

Do you believe that your answer is only true because of the nuclear weapon factor?

Matt (13:06.314)
Cough cough

Matt (13:11.914)
I know, I mean, I live in where I'm living right now. It's like spring weather. It's the most amazing winter we've ever had. But my son in New Jersey, my son in North Carolina, like climate change is really affecting their lives right now. And there are people dying as a result of climate change. And that's, that's just this particular winter. If you think about the human population that's built along the coastal areas in the United States and the extreme weather patterns that are happening along coastal areas, there is real problem that

Like people who live in most of the world are dealing with climate change. And Graham's right, a lot of people don't even acknowledge the problem. So we're not even starting to think about a solution to that problem. So when you...

Shawn (13:53.184)
But when you recognize that problem, don't many people say, and we'll deal with it. It's not catastrophic. We're going to have to move back off of the coast in the next 20, 30, 50 years. And that's okay. People adapt.

Matt (14:04.968)
That kind of mass migration kills people, hurts people. It's hard to do. You can't just all pick up and leave at the same time. You've seen those lines when there's a hurricane and everybody's trying to get out of town. those sorts of, that kind of displacement and the refugees it creates, that's a big problem. Like it's not just nuclear weapons.

Shawn (14:18.197)
Yeah.

Well, let's just, well, to end up this topic, let's just say one of the three of us is not like the others. One is optimistic, excited about the future, and the other two seem to be a little, a little whir, whir, whir.

Matt (14:34.762)
You have no basis for excitement, John. Your basis for excitement is like, la la, God will protect us because Joseph Smith said he would.

Shawn (14:42.528)
Okay. I like what Graham said, Graham, when you said when I was X years old in the eighties in a certain area, the, your mindset was the world, the history of the world revolves around me and right now. And I'm going to frame my perspective around that. And I think we as human beings all tend to do that. So Matt Miles goes, well, the most important year that has ever existed on the planet is 2026, January. And of course this is the most scariest.

the most dangerous because we are the center of the universe. I think that paradigm is a mistake in every generation and I know I don't think we're special. I don't think we're any different than the sons and daughters of God 5,000 years ago or in a hundred years from now. And so no, we're not, we're not special.

Matt (15:27.786)
Good point, Sean, but no points to you. Graham still gets the points.

Shawn (15:29.983)
HAHAHA

Graham Mitchell (15:30.232)
Yeah, let me listen, Sean. I agree. When I was a high school kid, the world did revolve around me and I was very naive to what was going around around the rest of the world. I am not naive now, right? I see what's happening around the world and it does not, it's not getting better. There's a lot of places where it's just not getting better. So that's, that's a concern.

Shawn (15:43.902)
Yeah.

Shawn (15:53.074)
You both, trust you both. So I'm gonna give points to Graham too. I'll trust you both because of anyone with a differing opinion that it's you two I trust. Okay, points to you guys.

Graham Mitchell (15:57.346)
Wow.

Matt (16:02.29)
All right. All right, next topic. So, Alicia Ann Seymour, she lived in West Jordan, Utah. She took her four children, left the country in early January, 2026. She took them to Dubrovnik, Croatia, and they took them over a month to find her. She left because she was motivated by extreme end times beliefs. Specifically, she believed that Salt Lake City, the spiritual center of the church, was facing imminent destruction.

Pause for a second. See Sean, some members of our church recognize that Salt Lake City could possibly be destroyed. But anyhow, these fringe views led her to abandon her life in Utah and take the children to Europe to seek safety from what she believed was an approaching apocalypse. She was arrested on felony charges of custodial interference and is currently in Croatian custody. So this is my question. We all know people who think that the end times are imminent. Is it irresponsible for members of our church to post things on social media?

or publish books that amplify concerns about the end times.

Shawn (17:06.954)
Graham, what's your take on that?

Matt (17:09.246)
First I'll say this, there's a YouTube channel, I call him The Man with a Spreadsheet. He gets thousands and thousands of views. Whenever he posts something like, end of the world is like next week, everybody tunes in to listen to how the end of the world is coming.

Shawn (17:14.911)
yeah.

Shawn (17:25.568)
Yeah, I've heard of that guy.

Graham Mitchell (17:25.614)
So two thoughts. One is a couple of thoughts. One, she's clearly mentally ill, right? I did all my research on this topic using only TikTok. So I am TikTok educated on her and I actually went through her TikTok channel, which is still active. And it was sad to watch this progression that she was progressively getting worse and worse and worse until the point where she took her children out of the country.

Shawn (17:41.429)
Nice.

Graham Mitchell (17:55.778)
So one, clearly there's a mental illness issue. I do think as a responsible member of the church, I think it's important to ask yourself, why are you promoting what you're promoting? And in the case of with the gentleman with the spreadsheet, it has thousands of viewers, he is probably monetizing some of that worship, right? So I would define that as priestcraft. And so using the gospel or people that believe in the things that he does,

Shawn (18:16.234)
Mmm.

Shawn (18:20.554)
Mmm.

Graham Mitchell (18:25.708)
the profit. I don't know the guy, he might be the most amazing person in the world, but that would be my concern is what is your motivation for sharing what you're sharing.

Shawn (18:35.059)
I love that.

Matt (18:35.444)
So tell me, Graham, why does it matter? if I'm, I understand why a church leader shouldn't engage in priestcraft, but let's just say that all these people that are monetizing these views are engaged, like who cares? Like what's so bad about that?

Shawn (18:50.464)
I'll... No, no, can double down because if you look through all, again, Latter-day Lens, if you look through all of scripture, whenever it talks about second coming or the big changes that'll come, the message is always then, okay, so don't procrastinate the day of your repentance, repent. It doesn't say hunker down, it doesn't say grab arms, know, take up your arms. It doesn't say seclude yourself and hide. It says repent. The signs of the times...

Graham Mitchell (18:50.7)
I... Go ahead, Sean.

Shawn (19:20.51)
are meant to help us go, what if the Savior does come as a thief in the night? What if it does tomorrow? Am I spiritually prepared? So any message other than, just repent, I think is misled, I think is either profit-driven or just misunderstood and misled. So I agree with, yeah.

Matt (19:37.554)
I've always been fascinated, like we have people that we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators, right? And they speak in general conference on regular basis. It's always fascinating to be the members of the church that are like, well, they're boring. They're not particularly interesting. And they really don't amplify that message at all, or even pay attention to that message. And they're like, I have something more interesting to talk about, something better to say. And in our current moment, it's social media, because that's just the easiest way to do it. But...

It used to be books and things like that. Like family members will come to me and they'll be like, did you read this book? This person had this dream and this is the stuff that happened and they wrote it in the book. And then like, you gotta watch that book. But now, read that book. Now they don't say to me, you gotta read that book. They say, you gotta listen to this podcast. You gotta watch this YouTube channel because somehow there's people out there that know things that like the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency seem completely ignorant of, but like I can go to some channel.

It fascinates me. So on the one hand, blame the people who consume that content, but I do think I need to blame the people that creating that content because to Graham's point, I don't know their motivations, but if they are monetizing it, then I'm super suspicious about what they're doing and why they're doing it.

Shawn (20:52.636)
so you guys are on the same page today. Am I good? Yeah. I mean, there's also the latter-day lens that says, at that day and hour, knoweth no man, not even the angels of God or of heaven, but my Father only. So to claim that you're supposed to be doing something because I have a spreadsheet that shows all the signs of the times that it's eminent, that's just ignorant, right? Compared to when you read what scripture says, nobody knows, nobody really knows. And again, in my mind, the real motive is,

let's encourage each other to repent. mean, that's the point. Don't procrastinate that day. I think the only urgency that comes from the end times talks is supposed to be, you spiritually ready?

Matt (21:34.474)
So none of us are on the side of this is good stuff and we should do more of this kind of content. Nobody's taking that side.

Shawn (21:38.944)
Points to Matt for coming up with a topic that we all agreed on.

Graham Mitchell (21:43.341)
Yes.

Matt (21:43.883)
Yeah, sometimes our listeners get mad though. like, hey, you all agreed in the first place. I didn't know. thought maybe somebody would like to, they're like, actually, I'm starting a channel doing that very thing right now. Okay, we're going to shift gears a little bit. So this case was recently heard before the U S Supreme court. It's called Wohlford v Lopez. Uh, the justices are examining whether Hawaii can legally require licensed gun owners to obtain explicit permission.

Shawn (21:52.862)
Hehehehehe

Matt (22:11.636)
before carrying a firearm onto private property that is open to the public. Hawaii's legal argument focused on the intersection of the Second Amendment and private property rights. The state's legal team argues that the Second Amendment does not give citizens an automatic right to enter someone else's property with a weapon without the owner's consent. They contend that the state has the power to set a default for this consent to protect the autonomy and safety of property owners.

To support this, they pointed to historical laws, including a law in 1865 in Louisiana that shows a tradition of regulating firearms on private land. Hawaii maintains that this law does not ban carrying guns entirely, but just shifts the burden to the gun owner to make sure that they have permission before they enter a business. So here's the question. Should property owners have the right to prohibit someone from bringing a firearm onto their property? If a store can say, no shirt, no shoes, no service,

Should they also be able to say no firearms?

Shawn (23:11.712)
Yeah, I can't wait to hear both of your responses on this because the libertarian view I think is actually a little surprising.

Matt (23:18.312)
What's the libertarian view?

Shawn (23:19.978)
Well, idea of freedom can't encroach upon someone else's freedom. so I think that absolutely, look, if you, Matt, don't like the idea that I prohibit you from carrying a gun on my property, then don't come on my property. It's similar to trespass laws. It's legal and fair and right to say you can have conditional entry onto

Matt's property, I can have conditional entry. You can make whatever conditions you want. No weapons, how about no cameras? How about no shoes, no shirt? How about no backpacks? Right? You go to concerts all the time or venues all the time that practice this. You can't bring a purse into our venue. Right? These are conditional entry laws. And if you disobey, that's trespass laws. So I think there's nothing wrong with that. Absolutely. I should be able to say what I would and wouldn't allow in my own property. Absolutely.

Matt (24:19.562)
But this was in the Jim Crow South, then they would say, hey, we're gonna separate white people and black people because this is a private establishment. And so if I wanna separate them, I can separate them. And so in the civil rights era, then the courts came in and said, if you have a public facing business, you cannot discriminate against people on the basis of race, religion, things that are constitutionally protected. And so that becomes a question.

Graham Mitchell (24:23.278)
Okay.

Matt (24:47.754)
Constitution protects the right to bear arms, and you've told me I can't be racist in my business, and you've told me I can't discriminate against the LGBTQ community in my business, but you can tell gun owners that they can't bring guns into the business? That's where the legal line is being drawn.

Shawn (25:07.572)
You went right to Jim Crow, huh? I didn't see that coming.

Matt (25:12.394)
That's a that's a I'm just saying that the the reason that they're even having the argument is it goes back to

Shawn (25:17.608)
Is that really, that's what's coming up in the discussions is, well, if we're gonna say to someone you can't bring a gun onto the property, then you can also eventually have a legal standing for saying that you can't bring a gay person or a minority or a woman onto my property.

Matt (25:21.311)
Yeah, this is...

Matt (25:33.458)
Yes, that same legal kind of, so if you remember a little while back, the question was, if I'm a photographer and somebody says I want you to take pictures of my gay wedding, can I say no? Because I don't believe in same sex marriage. And the courts...

Shawn (25:43.422)
Yeah. And where we land on that?

Matt (25:48.244)
We landed that you have to take pictures of their same sex marriage. You can't discriminate.

Graham Mitchell (25:49.026)
Yeah.

Shawn (25:53.64)
You can't proclaim that the reason I'm not taking you on as a client is because you are gay, because that's discrimination. But you can reject that person for undisclosed reasons, right?

Matt (26:05.214)
That's right. Well, as a society, that's what we do now, right? We say it's illegal to say it's because of race or religion or whatever, sexual orientation. So we're just going to say that it's for some other thing, and then you can't sue me for that. But the courts, like legally...

Shawn (26:17.792)
I gotta believe this still in America. There are people who will either serve differently or not serve a minority or some of the LGTBQ community without proclaiming that that's the reason, but that's their right to do so. They have the right to be an idiot and a jerk.

Matt (26:29.812)
Sure.

Matt (26:35.114)
But if I have the right to have a gun and I have a concealed carry permit, do you have the right to tell me I can't bring my gun into your church, for example? Because there are lots of states that say churches have to allow people with concealed carry permits into their church. But churches say, I should be able to say no. If I don't want a gun in my church, I should be able to say no, even if they have a concealed carry permit.

Graham Mitchell (26:48.462)
Thank

Shawn (27:01.418)
Graham, what's the legal side of this? What do you say?

Graham Mitchell (27:03.667)
So I was looking at this case and the gun rights group in Hawaii is citing a court case out of New York City, New York, which is called the Bruin case. And what that was saying is New York passed a law that said that in order for you to have a concealed carry license, you have to show that you are, you have a need for it, meaning

you're in danger or your life is, Sean is different than Matt in that people don't like Sean or people like Matt. So Sean has to have a weapon to protect himself, right? And so the courts actually said that that is a burden that's above and beyond, right? So they're citing this as why you're placing an extra burden on the gun owners in Hawaii. But I don't think the, did a great job arguing

property rights portion, because really what this comes down to is two different rights. And same with the Jim Crow laws. It came down to which right is more important, property rights or non-discrimination of people of color. And so now I think the courts are going to have to decide what's more important, property rights or gun rights. And from a latter-day lens, we use that. see there's lots of conversation in the scriptures, especially in the Doctrine and Covenants about the right to own property.

don't see guns brought up. interesting.

Shawn (28:29.936)
Nice. Nice.

Matt (28:31.114)
So Graham's saying the latter-day lens is property rights win out over gun rights. Yeah, really, really want to find that it's gun rights that's more important than property rights, but I have a hard time making that argument, right? Like, the idea that the government would say to me, let's just say as a homeowner, although that's not this particular case, but that they would say, I have a concealed carry permit, I can come into your house with my gun if I want to. Like, that doesn't sit well with me.

Graham Mitchell (28:35.278)
Thank you.

Shawn (28:36.352)
I love it. That is true. That's what Scripture says.

Matt (29:00.756)
But even as a church, if the church wants to say, no guns in our church buildings, they should have every right to say, no guns in our church buildings. And the government should not say, this person's right to carry a gun outweighs your right as a property owner. Like, I really want to find the thing that protects gun owners in this case, but I have a hard time, like, arguing for that.

Shawn (29:22.334)
Matt, do you know that if today your business rejected someone for their skin color, is that grounds for a civil lawsuit or a criminal lawsuit? If it's civil.

Matt (29:35.306)
Yeah, it would be a civil lawsuit. I don't think there's a... It depends on where you're at, but I don't think there is a crime, like, where you would go to jail for that. It would be like being an undocumented immigrant, Sean. It's a civil penalty.

But did you know that party identification is not a protected status? So you could say, I'm not letting you in my business because you're a Democrat, and they could say nothing to you about that. That's not protected. Yeah. Yeah. Of all the things that are, I could actually say, because I have these questions all the time, because I'm in a political science department, and HR does trainings, and I'm like, okay, I know all the questions I'm not allowed to ask. Am I allowed to ask if they're a Republican?

Shawn (30:00.608)
No way! Are you kid-

Matt (30:18.728)
And if they say, yes, I'm a Republican, to say, we're not hiring you because you're a Republican, they're like, legally, technically, yes, but we would prefer that you found another reason than that. But you actually could just say, you're a Democrat, I'm not hiring you. And that would be totally fine, legally. Yeah.

Shawn (30:33.992)
Wow. Amazing.

Graham Mitchell (30:38.424)
Thanks for watching.

Matt (30:38.866)
Yeah, we should we should look at like what what the protected groups are in I don't know if we should take a better look at that because It's I don't know sometimes who gets protected if who doesn't doesn't make sense to me I'm gonna give graham the points on this one again graham because graham made the distinction gun rights property rights that made it really really clear

Shawn (30:53.888)
Mm-hmm, yeah.

I watched Graham, my friend Graham become preacher Graham on a sermon with a podium and I loved what you said, man. It was powerful. I was like, wow, he just convinced me using scripture and preaching. So it points to Graham.

Matt (31:11.582)
I'm sure you've seen Graham preach before. This can't be the first time, John.

Shawn (31:14.962)
No, I'm saying I love it when he does preach. I'm like, yes, he put that hat on. Whereas when Matt preaches, all I hear is I feel the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost makes me feel.

Matt (31:17.023)
okay. Okay.

Matt (31:23.466)
That's okay, I'm not a good preacher. I'll get better. If I wanted to make Sean happy with my preaching, I just need to say repent, repent, repent. Like for some reason Sean loves, if somebody says repent, it does something for him inside where he's like, yeah, that feels right. But Sean also is like no sugar. If you say no sugar, it feels the same to Sean. Or if you're like 10 more pounds, you can lift 10 more pounds or five more reps, that all feels the same to Sean as repent.

Shawn (31:29.536)
You are a good preacher.

Shawn (31:34.879)
haha

Shawn (31:41.472)
You

Shawn (31:52.338)
No, but there's one more category. And Graham, you mentioned early 80s in Washington. Let's all, the count of three, name the band that defined the post-punk era in 80s Washington. One, two, three, Minor Threat Fugazi. we didn't say it.

Matt (32:05.77)
Of all the things I didn't know, that's definitely on the list. I had no idea. The Fugazi is a 1980s punk band?

Graham Mitchell (32:07.128)
Wow.

Shawn (32:15.648)
The minor threat was post-punk or punk, yeah.

Matt (32:17.055)
okay. All right.

You see, Sean, that both Graham and I are like falling asleep as you talk about post-punk era in Washington, DC.

Graham Mitchell (32:20.971)
you

Hahaha

Shawn (32:25.098)
Sorry, You guys go ahead and before the podcast started, you guys were talking about the education, hiring practices and how much you go back to fun, exciting topics.

Graham Mitchell (32:34.028)
Hahaha.

Matt (32:35.09)
Alright, here's the big question. Representative Marie Gluskamp Perez, I don't know if I said her name right, she's a Democrat from Washington. She co-owns an auto repair shop and she's a leading voice for a policy known as the Right to Repair. This proposal calls for manufacturers to design products ranging from smartphones and farm equipment to car headlights so they can be easily fixed and modified by their owners.

The goal is to move away from a disposable economy where consumers are forced to buy new products or pay for expensive subscription services because items are intentionally difficult to repair. So there's a big question. Is this a market failure? Do governments have the moral authority to force manufacturers to create products that can be easily repaired? I love this topic.

Shawn (33:22.273)
I'm so glad I can't wait to hear your stance, but I want to hear grams. I love this topic too.

Graham Mitchell (33:28.216)
Well, I think about this topic frequently because, I don't know you know this, but there's only like really one or two big fire engine companies that provide fire trucks and fire engines in the United States. And there's actually a class action lawsuit against them for price manipulation by slowing down production. And they have some very proprietary components. So like a bolt on a pierce fire engine.

Shawn (33:41.888)
Shawn (33:51.04)
Wow.

Graham Mitchell (33:57.868)
You can't just use a bolt down from the Home Depot. You have to use their very specialized bolts of the manufacturer way that you have to use their technicians. It's crazy, right? And there's a lawsuit on that. Having said that, I think this law is ridiculous. I think it's a great marketing opportunity. If I'm a car manufacturer, say I've made a car that even the average joke and repair, but you know, this is from my libertarian perspective.

Shawn (34:07.07)
Nice, nice.

Graham Mitchell (34:27.509)
I don't like this.

Matt (34:28.81)
Come on, this is total market failure, right? When a company captures the market, in a sense, they have a monopoly, right? Because there is no space in there for a competitor to jump in because they've either regulated them out of the market or they've priced them out of the market. And then once they're gone, they create these products. So this is my example of this. This isn't even 10 years ago. If you had a different smartphone, there were a different charger and a different version had a different charger.

So I have in my house like hundreds of different chargers and different cables because cell phones didn't have the same thing. But guess what? The European Union passed a law that said everybody has to have the same kind of charger and now everybody has the same kind of charger. That's not onerous and burdensome on a company to say, look, you have to make parts, you have to make it in such a way that people can repair it if they want to. That's a market failure. Libertarians should recognize market failures, government intervention is necessary.

Shawn (35:20.424)
Matt? Matt?

Matt, in both examples that you just stated, you prefaced each one and said, if a government regulates something and requires a company to do something, that has caused the problem of a monopoly. If you look at any monopoly, the reason a monopoly exists is because the government regulation have pushed those companies into a corner. It's caused by government regulation. So more government regulation is not the solution. It's not.

Matt (35:52.692)
Well, the solution is different government regulation. I don't have to pick and choose. The choice isn't government regulation or no regulation. The government is proper regulation or improper regulation.

Shawn (35:55.624)
No!

Shawn (36:02.688)
The only problem that would exist in this situation is when government regulates and forces companies or people to purchase or create in a certain way. That's the only situation where this can exist. A free market will always freehand here, Matt, here's the invisible hand.

Matt (36:19.946)
It will not, Shawn, it will not always. Tell me why then, why didn't the cell phones on their own just decide we're going to all use the same kind of cables to charge our phones? Why didn't they?

Shawn (36:22.589)
Always!

Shawn (36:27.776)
They didn't. No, Apple did that. And I don't have to buy an Apple. I can go buy a Samsung Google phone and there's a completely different charging station that I have 50 of.

Matt (36:36.554)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (36:41.108)
But isn't everybody better off that they all now have the same charging cable? Everybody benefits from that.

Shawn (36:48.672)
That's a good communist talk. There was only one right charging cable that all of us should use. Who are you to say what charging cable is going to be best for me or for them?

Matt (36:56.522)
I'm saying there are times when the market doesn't work. There are times when the market fails to produce the best good. And this is clearly one of them. We have so much garbage. This is the way you have to solve this problem if you want to have it be a market-driven solution. You have to have people pay for their own trash, right? Right now, the government subsidizes people's trash. So you can throw away as much as you want to throw away. we can throw away whatever we want to throw away.

Shawn (37:01.874)
Of course, absolutely.

Shawn (37:21.504)
Okay.

Matt (37:26.15)
If you want, then we'll say, we're to stop subsidizing that trash. And you got to figure out what you're going to do with all of this garbage in your house. Then we can have a market solution to that.

Shawn (37:31.904)
Once again, man, you're identifying the source of the problem, which is more government, more regulation. That's a great solution, Matt. I love that solution.

Matt (37:42.442)
You love the solution of getting rid of like government regulated trash management.

Shawn (37:47.728)
That's a really, really interesting topic. Yeah, why not? Because you're right. Am I going to be more responsible to the planet, to my finances if I am responsible for my own trash? Yeah, I'm going to be making more probably better decisions on more quality, longer lasting products. That's a great solution, Matt. Free market. Well done. Your argument is free market.

Matt (38:07.508)
A simpler, I mean, in theory that might work, right? If you like got rid of all the regulation on all of the different aspects of it. But another simpler solution is to just say, you have to make products that are easy to repair. If your product fails and like, why do I, by the way, have to buy an extended warranty of like two years on like a computer keyboard? Like.

Graham Mitchell (38:12.492)
you

Shawn (38:23.658)
It's ridiculous. So dumb.

Shawn (38:32.668)
You don't have to because there are 50 other options that disclose, this is a cheap keyboard because it'll only last you a year. And then there's another option that says, this is a really expensive keyboard because it's gonna last you a hundred years. And there's another one that says, is a $300 keyboard that has a lifetime warranty. That's the beauty of the free market. You can't regulate. That's beautiful.

Matt (38:36.756)
But they offer it to me because...

Matt (38:50.442)
That's not beautiful. You should not make a keyboard that's gonna last one year. That should not be allowed. You should build...

Shawn (38:56.96)
You know, Matt, you know when you're looking at keyboards and this one is $10 and this one's $300, you know that there's gonna be an expectation that one of these is probably not gonna last very long. You know that, you have common sense. And you have the freedom and it's a beautiful freedom to be like, yeah, right now I probably need a $10 keyboard that'll last me a year. That works perfect for me. But if you take that right away, you're forcing people to buy a $150 keyboard whether they can afford it or not.

Graham Mitchell (39:00.302)
you

Matt (39:09.162)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (39:25.342)
I thought for sure we would all agree on this one too, because this seems like such common sense.

Shawn (39:27.2)
You

Matt (39:31.786)
libertarians this is an interesting show sometimes we get liberals on the show sometimes we get libertarians on the show and you just can't control where they're going to go like sometimes you libertarians make a lot of sense to me but then sometimes it's like where are you coming

Shawn (39:46.432)
But I'm glad you provide the perspective, the other side. And you're right, if we would have today had a guest who is more liberal in their mindset, they would have argued, it just shocks me that would have argued that this is a good law. But thank you for taking that side.

Graham Mitchell (39:47.214)
Thank

Matt (40:02.858)
And like Graham works in government. He sees the good that government does on a day-to-day basis and he's still like, get rid of government. I want less government.

Shawn (40:08.592)
you

Graham Mitchell (40:13.57)
Always.

Matt (40:14.442)
We need to call Graham Ron Swanson. Graham is Ron Swanson. He works in the system to try to change it for the way he thinks it ought to be.

Shawn (40:26.8)
Which is incredible because Graham I saw your posts you and took your staff and you guys walked around well tell us about that real quick you walked around and Shaking hands and meeting the homeless people in your community in the interest of trying to understand like this is good use of government like that's public service

Graham Mitchell (40:42.722)
Well, it is a federal requirement that every city count how many people, homeless individuals reside in their city, right? So we, but we went above and beyond. actually map out where they're at. We dive in and try to get some better understanding of their drug use or their alcohol use. So we can craft policy that will specifically benefit them, not just sort of these platitudes.

Shawn (41:05.928)
You literally were going and shaking hands and meeting them and asking them questions.

Graham Mitchell (41:09.696)
At 4am, yes, it was fun. I'm still tired.

Shawn (41:11.548)
Absolutely incredible. I bet you are.

Matt (41:12.468)
Graham, the effect of that on Sean was like Christmas on the Grinch. Like Sean was like, wait a minute, there actually are public servants out there. There actually are people who work in government that want to do good for their neighbors. It was like watching the Grinch change.

Shawn (41:27.05)
Graham literally is that guy for me. It's true, Graham's that guy for me. He shocks me and goes, holy cow, good, amazing, righteous people can be in government. What? Yeah.

Matt (41:37.374)
Not only that, but President Oaks encourages that kind of behavior. The church teaches us that that's who we should be, Sean. The church teaches us to serve our communities.

Shawn (41:46.342)
If every choice I had in an election was a Graham Mitchell, I would be so happy. I mean that sincerely. Yeah.

Matt (41:54.314)
What a-

Graham Mitchell (41:54.446)
There's a lot of really good people out there, Sean. Believe it or not.

Shawn (41:56.896)
I mean, come on, I'm biased, but dude, I would prop you up in any situation. You know how much I love you, Matt. You've changed my life,

Matt (41:57.876)
What about me, Sean? What if they were all like me?

Matt (42:06.74)
That's right. Because in the end it's not about political ideology, it's about the good people. You want a good person representing you, who cares what they think about different issues.

Shawn (42:14.72)
Well, you're gonna get comments on that statement.

Matt (42:18.204)
Okay, I welcome them. Hey everybody, thanks for listening. It was good to have you with us this week. Graham, thanks for joining us. It was good to have you. Hey everybody, we'll talk to you again next week. Take care.

Graham Mitchell (42:25.486)
Thank you for having me.