Matt (00:01.219)
Hey everybody and welcome to the Latter Day Lens. I'm your host, Matt. With me as always is Shawn and we have back, almost from the dead, Porter. Porter's with us. Welcome Porter. I say almost from the dead because last time you were with us, you were in Washington DC and then you went like radio silent after that.

Porter (00:12.27)
Thank you.

Porter (00:20.613)
Yeah, that's true. Nope, back in lovely Rexburg, Idaho.

Shawn (00:22.369)
You still Washington DC Porter?

Shawn (00:27.726)
Kind of the same place, pretty much the same place.

Porter (00:31.301)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt (00:33.069)
You know, I saw a Facebook post from someone. She was like, I'm a Democrat and I live in Idaho Falls and I feel all alone. Are there any other Democrats here? And then all these people were like, yeah, yeah, we're here. You're not alone. It just feels like you're alone sometimes. DC is probably the opposite of that, right, Porter?

Porter (00:51.085)
Yeah, yeah, it's probably the strongly Democrat place I've been.

Matt (00:59.191)
Yeah, there's a lot of them there.

Porter (01:00.792)
And I lived in Southern California.

Matt (01:03.747)
Well, Southern California is like not really Democrat, right? Sean, there's tons of Republicans where you're at. Yeah. Yeah. You have to get kind of, I guess in the big cities there will be Democrats, but then it's got to get kind of Northern California before it gets a Democratic stronghold.

Shawn (01:10.146)
Where I'm at? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yep, yeah.

Shawn (01:22.796)
Not that it matters, right? The districts have been redrawn, or least given the legal pass to get redrawn. So we will always be a Democrat state.

Matt (01:32.951)
Yay for Sean. It's every libertarian's dream come true. Hey, well, instead of opening the mailbag this week, I thought we would just pitch some content that our hosts are doing. Graham mentioned offline last week that he has a TikTok channel. He's called City Manager Guy on TikTok. So he's got like 35 followers right now, but you guys could help boost his TikTok channel by following at City Manager Guy.

Sean actually... go ahead.

Shawn (02:04.11)
It's, it is pretty awesome. It is pretty awesome to see an LDS a strong, he's in the state presidency. He's also a city manager of a large city here in Southern California. And he's just, just the coolest guy ever. And he goes out and he does all these amazing things like last week or two weeks ago, they went out and they, they would just, they recorded themselves just meeting the homeless people in a city. It was just awesome. So yeah, it's a fun, it's a fun one.

Matt (02:27.255)
Yeah. And then Sean has the mission stories podcast.

Shawn (02:31.884)
Yeah, we're at like 35 episodes at this point. Yeah, you encouraged me to do it, Matt. And in the end, I can't believe how amazing these stories are of these kids. your generation used to depress me and now your generation just excites me. It's amazing. It's amazing these kids' They're so faithful and they're such strong understanding of the gospel. It's awesome. Yeah, so please go check it out, Mission Stories.

Matt (02:33.377)
It's exciting, Sean.

Matt (02:43.224)
Yeah.

Porter (02:49.419)
Peace.

Matt (03:01.121)
My niece opened her mission call last night. She was called to the European Central Turkey Persian mission and she's been assigned to labor in, she's going to learn Persian as the language. But what happens in this mission is the headquarters is in Germany, but you're assigned to labor in either Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan or Turkey. And, so you just like,

Shawn (03:09.478)
my gosh.

Matt (03:28.365)
go to one of those countries, but there's not missions in those countries. So the headquarters is in Germany and they learn she's learning Persian in the MTC, but this mission is only a year old. So that's kind of exciting, Sean, that like new missions are opening in new places. Yeah. Yeah. When she read it, I was like, I didn't know that this mission, I didn't know there were missionaries learning Persian, but that'd be awesome to learn Persian. Yeah.

Shawn (03:39.566)
Dude, that's incredible. That's really incredible. Whoa, man.

Shawn (03:49.378)
No, seriously. Dude, you gotta wonder too if that's prophetic. Yeah, you gotta wonder if Matt's favorite president, Donald Trump, is gonna help Iran become this old Persian country the way it used to be, this free country, and maybe the church is gonna get in there. So thanks to Matt's.

Porter (03:50.827)
Yeah.

Porter (03:54.134)
We.

Porter (04:13.355)
You know, there's a Persian speaking branch in DC.

Matt (04:19.837)
I like Porter's take on that better than Sean's. Sean's was a little bit depressing. Like what is the America first Trump about to do in Iran? Sean's got me nervous. I don't think I mentioned Iran. I was like Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. Persian, that's true that there are Persian speaking people in Iran, but yeah, okay. But so are other places. Apparently other places speak Persian like in Washington DC.

Shawn (04:20.462)
Cool, that's so cool.

Porter (04:25.014)
Hahaha

Shawn (04:36.686)
You said Persia, Persian, I read.

Iran is Persia.

Porter (04:48.17)
Yeah, the Persian Empire was really big. it's a good language to... It's definitely a valuable language to learn on your mission if you want to work for the US government.

Shawn (04:51.64)
Have a good one.

Shawn (05:02.375)
yeah, interesting. That's cool.

Matt (05:02.573)
Yeah, that's true. I don't think she wants to, but I'll tell her she's wasting her skills. You owe it to the world.

Porter (05:08.128)
She needs to work for the CIA and then she'll know for sure without a doubt that she is doing the right thing with her life.

Shawn (05:08.174)
I want you. I want you.

Matt (05:13.3)
Hahahaha

Matt (05:18.323)
Hey Porter, do you have any content you want to pitch?

Porter (05:24.017)
no. But I'll let you know when I do.

Matt (05:25.429)
Okay, yeah, for sure. I also do another podcast called the Latter Day Lens. I only host it once a month, but sometimes I do interviews with cool people there.

Shawn (05:32.672)
No, This weekend, latter day lines. Or this weekend, latter days.

Matt (05:36.685)
this one's called the latter day lens. I do one called

Porter (05:37.978)
Hahaha

Shawn (05:39.916)
Matt, so that you're so drawn in so many different directions as a talking head that you get confused. I know.

Matt (05:47.609)
yes, that's right, Sean. It's called this week in latter days. And, my sister and I talk about the news related to the church.

Shawn (05:53.602)
Yeah, that's awesome. I love listening to it.

Matt (05:57.879)
Hey, thanks Sean. Okay, so first up this week, the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution define the rights of American citizens, but nowhere in the documents does it include healthcare as a right. Yet for decades, an ever increasing number of Americans have believed that healthcare is not only a right, but the government should provide it and taxpayers should pay for it. So the question is this, do we believe that humans have rights beyond those listed in our founding documents?

And if so, is healthcare one of those rights?

Shawn (06:31.393)
All right Porter, what do you think?

Porter (06:35.264)
I think rights, human rights, are a really interesting topic because at the end of the day, our rights are really whatever we commit to each other that our rights are going to be. The Declaration of Independence will say that we have inalienable rights of life.

Shawn (06:50.318)
interesting take Porter.

Matt (06:58.691)
That's right.

Porter (06:59.74)
that among these, it doesn't say it's an exhaustive list, but that among these are life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, but then alienated, alienal, aliened? Yeah. But then they were taken away by that very government for a very long time.

Matt (07:12.322)
Inalienable means you can't take them away. Governments can't take them away.

Now.

Shawn (07:20.308)
Ha ha ha!

Matt (07:22.029)
pursuit of happiness cannot be taken from you Porter. Life, life, they can't take life away from you.

Porter (07:23.9)
That's true. We've got that.

Shawn (07:31.054)
See ya in a minute.

Porter (07:31.067)
I think they definitely for sure can also liberty and they've done that and but now you know they set up those aspirations that we're going to provide. We're going to guarantee each other those rights and and now we do much more than we used to and I think we've been on a good trajectory but the reason why health care is a little bit different is it's not a

It's not like these other rights that you'll find in the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence that's supposed to be this is where the government stops, they're not going to cross this line. Healthcare is something that you want the government to provide in some indeterminate amount. And healthcare didn't really exist when they wrote those founding documents. So something that we've got to think about differently now is the

Matt (08:21.699)
Well, Porter, it says endowed by their creator with these rights. So rights are things that are not given to us by the government, the rights that we possess just as by very nature of being humans. And so you're saying healthcare is not a right because you're saying like the right to life. What we're saying there is government can't take that away or the right to liberty. We're saying government can't take that away. But if we say we have a right to healthcare, then that's saying government needs to do something.

It's like a proactive thing. It's requiring government to do not a passive. Don't take this away from me because I already have it. Is that what you're saying?

Porter (08:58.861)
Yeah, I'm saying that it doesn't fit into that list the same way the others do, but I'm also saying that when they say that they're inalienable and granted by God these rights, that's a very nice propaganda statement. But what does that mean? Because they clearly can be taken away and they are taken away all the time. So you only have a right insofar as everyone else is willing to guarantee each other these rights.

Matt (09:13.379)
hyperbole.

Porter (09:28.503)
I think we should absolutely aspire to grant each other all those rights in the Declaration and in the Constitution, and that we should try to take care of each other as much as we can.

Matt (09:46.585)
What about Porter from a theological or a moral perspective? Does God grant humans rights that a government, if it impedes on those rights, the government is doing something wrong or immoral or unjust because we have certain human rights that aren't given to us from each other. They're not given to us from government. They're given to us just by virtue of the fact that we exist.

Shawn (09:49.576)
Yeah.

Porter (10:10.969)
We have the gospel is what we have that gives us priorities for how we should treat each other and if you deviate from that even even on a societal level as a government then that's wrong morally DNC 5240 and Remember in all things the poor and the needy the sick and the afflicted for he that doeth not these things The same is not my disciple so I think absolutely our

priorities as a society and as people that make up a government that we should be focused on taking care of the poor and the needy and the sick and the afflicted and that we should try to, you know, try to make it so that everybody can have that.

Matt (11:00.089)
But you're saying no inalienable rights granted by God.

Porter (11:05.188)
no, because God doesn't step in and stop anybody when somebody goes in and tries to violate those rights. They are alienable. But you would be wrong to violate them.

Matt (11:15.373)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Shawn (11:21.582)
Yeah

Matt (11:21.943)
And a government would be. A government would be. Okay. Sean, what are you saying?

Porter (11:23.421)
Yes. Yes.

Shawn (11:24.942)
Yeah, I'll differ a little bit, Borda, just for the sake of it. I do think that the attempt, like I like E Pluribus Unum, No, Aniokoptis, God prospered our endeavor, they said. They all said there was a spirit pushing us to establish truths from God. It wasn't us making decisions on what, it wasn't some social contract where we're like, all right, we think we will give ourselves these rights. Their statements were God.

drove us to establish these pre-existing liberties. Like every human being, these are the rights that every human being should have. They're not promised services, right? Like they're not provided these self-evident rights, think inalienable. Wasn't that inalienable? Wasn't that a word substituted by something else? Wasn't it originally intended to say holy or like God-given?

Porter (12:05.485)
you

Matt (12:19.725)
Well, Jefferson wrote a draft of the Declaration of Independence and then Ben Franklin gave him suggestions. And I don't remember if inalienable was the suggestion he made instead of other things, but,

Porter (12:27.045)
you

Shawn (12:32.876)
Yeah, I think it was like, are holy rights. Like these are God given rights. These things are like they existed prior to government. They're not created by law.

Matt (12:38.157)
Yeah.

Well, that's what endowed by their creator, right? That's what that implies.

Shawn (12:44.78)
Yeah. Yeah. And so to me, I think the people who want universal healthcare are shooting themselves in the foot by saying healthcare is a right because it's not a right, it's a service the way that Porter's saying it. all the common, if you look at the whole bill of rights, know, all whatever 52 or however many there are due process, right? The right to bear arms, no soldier quartering, equal protection, voting rights,

Matt (13:01.337)
Hmm.

Porter (13:06.345)
What?

Matt (13:12.941)
The right to privacy.

Shawn (13:14.286)
private privacy, practicing your religion. All of these things are negative laws, negative rights, the things that basically saying government cannot, they can't infringe upon these things. And then all of a sudden you put this one in there that says, and they have to do a positive right, which is you have to provide a certain service, which by the way would require someone else's labor, someone else's expertise, someone else's property. That's it. It has, it's not in common with those other rights. So I think you're shooting yourself in the foot by saying healthcare is a right.

It's actually it actually doesn't fit in that category. It could be a social contract, but it's not a right.

Matt (13:50.403)
Well, if I have the right to life and you, does that imply that you also cannot just sit there and watch me die? Right? If I have the right to life and I'm injured, then I would expect that like the government, if it's able to, would try to preserve my life or save my life or help me from, from dying. Cause I have the right to life. So I think the right to at least some kinds of healthcare is inherent in the right to life because the right to life means that

we have an obligation as a government to try to save life wherever possible.

Shawn (14:24.907)
Or does it just mean I'm protected against my government from doing things that would take away my life?

Matt (14:32.089)
Well, you can take away somebody's life through inaction, right? If there's a medicine that I have in stock and I know that it'll save your life and I choose not to give it to you, then that's infringing on your right to life because I have something I could give you and I chose not to give it to you.

Shawn (14:48.296)
What if my right to life is defined by I have to order to live my fullest life, I need a big mansion and government has that resource. They should give me the big mansion.

Matt (14:57.547)
it's not, we're not talking about self actualization, Sean. We're just talking about life survival, right? So, so I think that you can make an argument that there's some level of healthcare that is a right. If life is a right and it's inalienable means it can't be taken away by government. Then government has some obligation to the extent that it can to protect you from dying.

Porter (15:02.258)
you

Shawn (15:21.816)
Do you do think that this is right then? You think that out of all the Bill of Rights, all the laws that exist that protect our rights, you believe that there should be one exception out of the category that says, and there should be a right to a specific service.

Matt (15:34.777)
I'm not saying it's an exception. I'm saying that it seems to me inherent in the right to life that healthcare would be a part of that. Also, public safety is a part of that. Stopping fires is a part of that. If you go back to the founding of our nation, police force and fire departments, none of that stuff existed. That stuff was all privately run, right? But at some point, no, but at some point people said,

Shawn (15:46.456)
Which other?

Shawn (15:58.606)
But that's not in the Constitution, but that's not in our Constitution. Nowhere in our Constitution does it say

Matt (16:03.917)
Some people said, look, I have the right to be safe where I live and you should protect me because you're threatening my life or at least my neighbors are threatening my life and the government if it can should help me stay safe. And I think in this.

Shawn (16:15.65)
Okay, not long ago, a years ago here in Southern California, these giant fires burned through LA and burned down thousands and thousands of homes. You're saying that the government by law was required to prevent that and now make it right.

Matt (16:36.569)
Well, no, they don't have to make it right, but they have to make an effort to stop your home. If there's a fire burning all around your house and you're in danger like they did in the fires, they should try to save your life if they can.

Shawn (16:50.111)
So what, but if it's a right though, and they've absolutely completely failed to save, you know, any of those homes and some people's lives, there's no account, there's no accountability there. You think there should be, you think the government should be sued?

Matt (17:00.366)
Yeah.

Matt (17:03.767)
No, think, I think the government regularly fails to protect rights. Just like Porter said, there's, it's it's a regular thing that they fail to protect rights. But when you're arguing a situation or you're thinking about a case, you should consider the right to life. And when, and so if I'm, let's say I'm in front of the city council and I'm like, Hey, I think we need a larger fire department to protect us because there were these fires and all these people died. And somebody else says,

Well, I don't want to pay for that and taxes theft and you shouldn't raise my taxes to pay for that. I think that it's reasonable to make the argument that the government has an obligation to do what it can to protect life, to protect all human life. And sometimes that means.

Shawn (17:44.814)
mean, that's a big qualifier. That's a huge qualifier in there to do what it can because if it's a right and you're defining it that way, then there's no to do what it can. There's only, you have to protect right. That service must be provided so anyone who loses their life in a fire or in an earthquake or then accountability should be played. Yeah, right.

Matt (18:06.071)
in a school shooting.

Porter (18:08.6)
Well, I think the scriptural directive here is if we as a government do not consider, remember in all things, the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, that we are not disciples of Jesus Christ. So I think if your government can be whatever you want it to be and can have whatever rights you want it to protect and whatever services you want it to provide,

If your system says, you know, we don't want to do that, figure it out yourself, it's just not a Christian system. And it's still a system, it's just not Christian.

Shawn (18:45.784)
Yes, yes.

Shawn (18:51.278)
See, that's where I disagree. I'll respectfully disagree, Porter. I think that the latter-day lens in the Constitution shows that all of these rights are the gospel latter-day lens, like the right to practice your religion, speak your opinion.

Matt (19:06.105)
The right to bear arms, Come on. The right to not have soldiers quarter in your house?

Shawn (19:09.132)
protect yourself.

Porter (19:09.165)
Well, it also says that one of the purposes of the Constitution is to promote the general welfare.

That's in the preamble right at the beginning.

Shawn (19:21.356)
Yeah, but the general welfare, if we have liberties and if we have protections like due process that protect me from you doing bad things to me, then I think that's good general welfare. And maybe it is up to interpretation. the moment you cross a line and say that the way for us to implement God's plan of taking care of the poor is to require that government does it, is the moment you stop being Christian.

Then what you're doing, I see this all the time, whenever someone... What?

Porter (19:54.285)
Where does it say that in the Bible? Where does it say that in the Bible? That it's Christian to take care of people unless you call yourself a government. Then that's wrong.

Shawn (19:59.576)
So what?

Shawn (20:07.532)
I don't see a commandment anywhere in the scriptures that command. I see all, commandment I see is for us individuals to take care of people. Nowhere do I see it saying that an institution is supposed to take care of people. Show me one scripture that says an institution is supposed to.

Matt (20:22.453)
The the church is, don't, scriptures are hard, right? Cause they're so old and they had different, like different situations. It's hard to find the scripture, but there's principles that aren't necessarily in scripture. That's all I'm saying. And if.

Shawn (20:28.042)
What did you just say? Pearl and I are fighting for our lives, you're trying to bring in the latter-day lens and you're like, scriptures don't matter. It's nothing or no big deal.

Porter (20:40.553)
And we government of the people, by the people, for the people. So if the commandment to the people is to take care of each other, then yeah, why shouldn't our government reflect the principles that are most important to us? And I would say that they do, and if they didn't, you would not like it, Sean.

Shawn (21:02.83)
How do you take this now, again, my view, crossing over from these are inalienable rights, God-given rights that we're just, government's here to protect, that's it, protect. Negative rights, to just protect things, make sure they don't infringe. And then you add this one that says, and you must provide a certain service that requires someone else's labor, someone else's expertise, and someone else's property. In other words, in, okay, how?

Matt (21:23.865)
Piece of cake. Piece of cake. Okay, Sean, we have a military, right? The purpose of our military is to protect. We can have government healthcare systems that protect life, that provide basic healthcare. Like that's easy. That's a simple solution.

Porter (21:39.332)
And what rights do you have that don't require the services of somebody else? you know, you have a right to vote and that requires a lot of people in government to do all the logistical processing and handling to make that happen. have the right to, you know, all of these require, you have a right to an attorney. That's in the Bill of Rights.

Matt (22:01.229)
Yeah, that's somebody else's service.

Shawn (22:04.962)
Yeah, could argue that that violates due process, not violates, but that doesn't have to be a part of due process.

Matt (22:10.349)
Bye.

Porter (22:12.553)
Well, that's a bill of rights. That's the very, one of the very first ones they chose. You have a right to an attorney.

Matt (22:12.739)
the right to an attorney. But that's in the Constitution.

a right to a jury trial that requires other people's labor and service. But okay, I'm still gonna give Sean the points.

Shawn (22:23.928)
Yeah. That's true.

Matt (22:29.229)
because that was a very good libertarian defense of healthcare not being a right. And I totally disagree with Porter that there's no such thing as an alienable right. So given the choice, I have to choose Sean over Porter.

Porter (22:40.211)
Damn.

Matt (22:46.285)
Who are you giving the points to, Sean?

Shawn (22:48.024)
I'll give it to Porter. Porter fought hard and made great points. I'm thinking about it differently. Yeah, I I'm glad that you introduced the concept that government is simply what we people decide to do with each other. was just, we could choose anything. I don't like that. I don't think that's true. I want to believe in this like Providence governed it and established these things in order for the gospel to be restored. But I like that you're taking that stance to make me think. So points to Porter.

Matt (23:16.481)
Okay. All right. Next up, artificial intelligence is changing the way that judges manage their courtrooms. So early on legal scholars were skeptics of AI because there was a lot of hallucinations and people were submitting briefs and it was a little bit embarrassing. But now judges are using these tools to help manage backlogs.

Judge Javier Rodriguez of San Antonio began using AI after discovering it could recreate weeks of manual research in just minutes. While he and other judges emphasize that they still make all the final decisions, the efficiency gains of AI are undeniable. Legal tech companies are now tailoring products specifically for court systems to help resolve disputes faster. This is something that Sean has mentioned many times on the podcast. King Solomon asked God for wisdom

in settling legal disputes among his people. So there's the question. Does the use of AI in judicial opinions and judicial research hinder the ability of judges to seek wisdom from the Lord?

Shawn (24:21.662)
Are you assuming that judges seek wisdom from the Lord?

Matt (24:24.729)
I'm gonna say, I'm just going to say that that would be the ideal, right? The ideal would be that every judge in the United States sees their job as like adjudicating and how can they really know the right answer? So I'm using that as like the best case scenario of human judgment over AI judgment. So I don't assume they all do it, but I would hope they all aspire to it.

Shawn (24:42.616)
I mean, Matt, it's this standard. mean, you, think Matt, months ago when we were discussing AI, you framed it perfectly. And I've thought about it ever since. You basically said, look, the moment a human being uses AI to replace God, then it's not only bad, but it's like false worship. It's right. It's false God worship. And so I assume this is the same category. This, this, this applies.

Matt (25:06.457)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (25:10.582)
Like what a great tool if they're able to use AI to do their research and to gather information and data facts, law, all that. What a great tool. But the moment the judge replaces their, I guess, I don't know how you'd apply it there. guess their intuition or their compassion or their, or their judgment, maybe judgment. Then I think it's crossing over into that line the same way that it would if.

Matt (25:11.129)
and

Matt (25:25.974)
Intuition.

Matt (25:35.288)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (25:38.614)
if I start praying to AI and stop praying to God for my answers.

Matt (25:43.789)
think that inspiration a lot of times works through the work that you do to get there, right? Like when you have to issue a calling to somebody or you're over an organization and that process where the scripture say, study it out in your mind and ask me if it is right. I think that study out in your mind is an important process in the revelatory process. And if all I'm doing to study something out in my mind is asking an AI tool, Hey, go do this research for me. Then I'm skipping that step.

and I can't expect to arrive at the proper resolution.

Shawn (26:16.557)
Or do you think there's a way to use AI and also be studying it out of your mind? Like getting the data faster or finding that reference quicker could be a tool, right? I agree with everything you just said, but that doesn't mean don't use AI, right? You can still proactively think.

Matt (26:32.429)
What do you think, Porter? Do think you can?

Porter (26:35.267)
I think it is a little bit dangerous, a little bit slippery to think of AI the same as any other tool like a computer or something like that because AI is designed to think for you. Now that said, I don't really know what all goes into

this judicial process. And I don't know how much of it really is just compiling, organizing stuff. And I think that would be a good use of AI in that situation. If you just need AI to, you know, process things to, you know, put it together in a format that's more usable for you to then go through and study yourself. I think that's worthwhile. as soon as, like Matt said, as soon as you start allowing AI to

to do any of the studying out for you, to offer you like summaries of information. And something that is as consequential as, you know, somebody going to prison or not, I think that is inappropriate and does get in the way of wise discernment.

Matt (27:47.384)
Yeah.

Matt (27:51.309)
Yeah, some of this is probably just old school in me, but I went to, I did a PhD at a time when there was no AI, right? And so I had to go to the library, look at books, read books, read articles. And I found I would, I would pray before I did my research and I would pray after I was done with my research. And I found that heavenly father guided me a lot in understanding like, because there's so much information out there.

there was this process where I'd like, my goodness, I can't believe I found like all of the exact stuff I needed just for this particular thing. Or I would be reading one thing and then I'd just kind of like follow this other little caveat and be like, whoa, there's all this stuff I didn't know about. And then sometimes there were things I didn't know about that other people could like point out to me. But I feel like if you try to use a tool to do that process for you,

you're missing out on revelatory processes. And I think that great discoveries and things like that happen when we put in the work to go study things. if I think like as a paralegal, what would a paralegal's job be? Let's say here's this case that's before us, here's go find the relevant case law that applies to this situation and summarize it for me. And then as a judge, I can look through that and then I can say, okay, this one applies, this one doesn't apply.

but I feel like there's something about having a human find the case law and bring it to you that leads to better outcomes and better abilities to make decisions in the end than if you have a tool, go find that stuff for you.

Shawn (29:24.718)
Porter, it like everything Matt's saying, is it for your generation? Not offensive, but it is it. I will echo Matt's advice there to the death because we are so afraid of your generation turning your brain off. I was with my son and we were working on this creative project as he was submitting his application for the advertising program at BYU. There was a point where we were like,

Okay, let's brainstorm on some concepts and ideas. And the first thing he goes to is AI. And I kind of got mad and stopped and says, no, never will we have an original thought. You can use AI after you've created an original thought, but that original thought must originate from you. Then we can go ideate and kind of riff on it using AI, but never an original thought. Because we are scared to death Porter that you guys are going to stop thinking, stop being proactive in your thought processes. Is that offensive to you, to you, or should we?

Porter (30:19.72)
No, the... the... like, I'm in school, and I'm assigned a lot of pages to read every week as a political science major, and the temptation is always there to just plug whatever I'm reading into Notebook LM and say, me a summary, and then I'll write whatever I need to write about it. And for some things, I'll do that sometimes. If my goal is just to finish that assignment,

Shawn (30:20.056)
Be faithful to that.

Porter (30:48.869)
and the reading doesn't look like it's going to be that valuable. If it's a textbook or whatever, sometimes I'll do that. But then I'll get like classes that are, you know, they've got me reading historical source documents. If they want me to read and write about the Federalist Papers, Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention. That temptation is there because you've used it and you know how easy it is to just get that assignment in and get a good grade. But

Shawn (31:13.486)
Pause real quick, Porter. Ask Matt if he ever used cliff notes. And do you know what cliff notes are?

Porter (31:20.037)
Yeah, I had, I went to high school pre-AI and used cliff notes.

Matt (31:23.285)
Hahaha

Shawn (31:26.21)
Matt, did you ever use Cliff Notes?

Matt (31:26.359)
Yeah, sure, of course.

Shawn (31:29.91)
Okay, so that's no different than what Porter does with notebook LM going in there and just being like, me a summary.

Matt (31:33.879)
Okay, if you're paid to be a judge and you have a lifetime appointment and we're paying you a nice salary to be a judge, I don't want you using Cliff Notes. I want you putting in the work. Like we're paying judges to put in the work. And if the workload is too great, then let's hire more judges, but let's not turn everything over to AI because the reality is AI is wrong. And so unless you have the expertise to understand where they're right and where they're wrong and to say,

Shawn (31:42.358)
Okay. Yeah.

Matt (32:00.195)
By the way, you got this wrong, you need to fix that. And then sometimes AI doesn't even fix it after that. Unless you have that, then AI is going to mislead you. And I think that that leads to then faulty judicial decisions in the end.

Shawn (32:12.064)
Matt, I was kind of lukewarm on this topic and you have thoroughly convinced me. I think you're right. Like ban it almost. Like, like I don't want judges using AI summaries or data to make judgments on things. Like it's going to be wrong. It will be wrong.

Matt (32:19.458)
Yeah

Porter (32:19.983)
Wait, yeah, because you

Porter (32:27.982)
you also would just end up with worse judges. You miss out on the accumulation of knowledge. The reason I don't use AI to summarize a reading that I feel like is important is because there's no way to get all of the the nuance and the the real historical understanding of these things or to understand somebody else's perspective when you have an AI in between you. And I accumulate so much knowledge and

I mean, the main thing is maybe it's maybe it's prideful, but I don't let AI do a lot of things for me because I know for sure that I can do it better. I can understand the Federalist Papers better than an AI can understand the Federalist Papers because it was written by humans and I'm a human. I know I can write. I can write better than AI because I'm a human writing to humans. AI is not a human.

Matt (33:05.399)
Right.

Shawn (33:09.816)
Horner, you're restoring my faith in your generation. Nice.

Shawn (33:20.332)
Well done, dude. man, Matt, you earned all the points. But then Porter said that and I'm like, okay, okay.

Matt (33:25.817)
All right, keep giving Porter the points, Sean. That's the way to get guests to join us. You give them all of your points every time. All right, so there was a big shakeup at both CBS News and the Washington Post this week. They fired a lot of people and a lot of people are sad. A lot of journalists are sad about what's happening to news in the United States. Barry Weiss is the new head of CBS News. She's transforming CBS News with the digital first strategy.

to combat declining broadcast audiences by hiring digital creators and focusing on investigative scoops, she calls them, she aims to reach viewers on social platforms. Unlike the traditional model of chasing fleeting headlines, her scoop of ideas prioritize deep explanations and intellectual shifts. I am skeptical of a world where the value of ideas is based on their popularity in an online marketplace.

I think the most popular ideas are often incorrect and misguided, but right now CBS News is stuck in third place in viewership and it skews older so I could see why they would want to make changes. But what I want to know is, is CBS News making the right choice? Barry Weiss, the way, Barry Weiss, she has a YouTube channel of like the does news. I forget the name of it right now, but she created a successful YouTube news channel. And so CBS hired her because they're like, hey, do that.

Shawn (34:36.686)
I mean they're making their right

Matt (34:51.031)
but for us instead.

Shawn (34:52.75)
She's like the Ariana Huffington of the 90s.

Matt (34:57.875)
maybe I'll, I'll Google real fast what her news was. Go ahead.

Shawn (35:02.51)
So your question is CBS News making the right choice for their revenues? Yes. For journalism? No. Right? Isn't that kind of your contention? At least you kind of made that point in your question.

Matt (35:17.367)
Yeah, I'm not sure where I come down on this, but yeah, that is the way I frame the question.

Shawn (35:21.336)
Like they're going to make more money because they're going to find an audience. They're chasing where the audience is and they're going to start implementing click bait and all the tactics that get people to click on their stuff. But that dilutes and waters down the accuracy and the integrity of the journalism. Right.

Porter (35:40.763)
but that's gonna be good for everyone, right Sean, invisible hand?

Shawn (35:46.546)
Let's see if the invisible hand, how does the invisible hand apply here? The invisible hand is the opposite Porter. It's the opposite. If I start, if I start providing you with garbage content, that's just click bait. Eventually you're going to go, that was wrong. They just are getting what I'm not going to be a patron of CBS news anymore. The invisible hand applies and it has the opposite effect.

Matt (35:52.941)
Right. He was being sarcastic.

Porter (36:06.238)
But you just said you think they're gonna make more money doing this, which means people are going to like it more, which means it's the right move for the market.

Shawn (36:14.094)
No, misunderstand. You misunderstand the invisible hand. Value is what money will follow. Temporarily, I can trick people into giving me their money, but only true value is where money will follow. So if I'm not providing a true value, people will stop giving me their money. That's the message of the invisible hand. Value for value in a free market is what causes prosperity. I can't trick you.

Matt (36:38.617)
But what I'm s-

Shawn (36:40.086)
into convincing you that what I'm offering is value when it's not. Eventually I will see through it and stop giving you the money.

Matt (36:46.179)
But okay, so I go ahead Porter.

Porter (36:46.451)
I think you absolutely can trick people into seeing value, but I actually I think that this will make them more money and is a good thing for journalism. Because what makes is there TV news that is exclusively targeted at boomers going to be

Shawn (37:01.949)
how?

Porter (37:16.191)
not sensationalized? there something intent, you know, intrinsically more? Is there intrinsically more journalistic integrity in TV news for old people than there is in, you know, whatever internet news for everybody? I don't think so. I think if they have journalistic integrity, they will still have journalistic integrity online. And I think that they will no longer have to pander to an audience a demographic that

loves crazy sensationalized nonsense, even though the younger generation does too. Everybody loves crazy sensationalized nonsense, but they will no longer have to pander to an audience that's a little more gullible. I think younger generations are more skeptical and have do a better job at discerning between real and fake news.

Matt (38:09.273)
Are you serious? Are you kidding me? man.

Shawn (38:09.546)
What? Do you really Porter? Can we chat? I like what you're saying. I love what you're saying Porter. In fact, I think you're convincing me because it's like, yeah, you're right. Fox news is just pandering for clicks. MSNBC is just pandering for clicks.

Matt (38:21.017)
But that's not C- but CBS News isn't that right now. CBS News doesn't pander for clicks. CBS News-

Porter (38:26.397)
Then why would this change their character?

Shawn (38:26.414)
Don't they?

Matt (38:29.401)
well, right? So like you have 60 minutes. That's like the gold standard of like journalistic integrity that they'll take on anybody and tell these long form stories. Like, I don't know why CBS news doesn't just double down on 60 minutes and say we need more content like that.

Shawn (38:44.428)
And CBS News owns 60 Minutes? And 60 Minutes, Porter, is the exact baby boomer. That is the baby boomer platform, right? Okay, keep talking, that's interesting.

Matt (38:54.775)
Yeah. So I, I don't believe, I don't believe that hiring influencers to tell the news gets you better news. And I haven't, I've yet to see like YouTube personalities that are doing like hard hitting journalism better than a network television news. Like network television news is that every story they've got some report on almost every major national story. They're on the ground. They're telling you what happened, what's happening to me online news and like

YouTube personalities, they're just clickbait. They're just offering you opinions. They're just, as Sean likes to say, talking heads. And I don't think that they create the same kind of value. So if you, as a network, say we're gonna go chase that kind of stuff, then you're gonna get worse news. It's not gonna be better news.

Porter (39:40.631)
I think your perception is just a little skewed because the internet is an open platform, you're going to see more of everything and especially more of what gets more clicks. So there are a lot more just sensational, not real journalists doing news on the internet. So it's going to seem like, if they move to the internet, that's what it's going to become. But I, as someone who

Matt (40:03.021)
Yes.

Porter (40:09.226)
has never watched 60 minutes of my whole life have watched a lot of really quality long-form journalism on YouTube

Shawn (40:18.062)
Can you, Porter, can you give us some examples? So for example, there's a YouTube channel called Trigonometry, Konstantin Kissin, and he's a Russian born, but he's a citizen. To me, he's a perfect example of what you're saying, Matt. I trust this dude. I think he is objective. I think he does a good job. It's journalistic. But I can't think of anyone else. So Porter.

Matt (40:38.637)
Well, Barry wise, she started something called the free press. And so that's where she kind of, and the free press does this sort of long form investigative journalism, right? The free press puts somebody in Russia right now in Russia, asking Russians what they think about things that are going on. So like they, are trying to do it, but I don't know. I'm really, really skeptical.

Shawn (40:47.338)
Okay.

Shawn (40:59.756)
I that you pointed out 60 minutes as the gold standard, because I never would have even gone there and thought that, but I think you're right. They really do. It's objective and it really is long form. So, Port, can you think of example? You said you watch, you find a lot of YouTube journalists who are long form and objective. Can you think of anyone like Sheriff is saying?

Porter (41:16.14)
Yeah, the thing that I think is great about YouTube is that they can be really high quality because they can be hyper topical. There's a space for everybody. So the big news that I get on YouTube most often that's really high quality is usually science and technology news. For anything about nuclear energy or anything related to atomic stuff, watch there's a YouTuber called Kyle Hill.

Shawn (41:34.414)
Shawn (41:46.382)
Dude, I am torn here, man. Matt, because you convinced me with 60 minutes, but Porter, you're convincing me too. You're right. There is a lot of good content. Matt, I'm so torn right here. I'm literally, I'm in the middle.

Porter (41:46.485)
He's very good.

Matt (41:51.735)
No.

Matt (41:55.769)
Porter's making me think that YouTube is like Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a lot of, let's say, just garbage out there.

Porter (42:01.844)
It is.

Although Wikipedia is much more reliable than YouTube.

Matt (42:08.929)
Right. Initially it wasn't though. Initially Wikipedia was like if you cited Wikipedia, people were like, what's wrong with you? Why would you cite that garbage? But over time, the people who care about certain topics keep the pages on Wikipedia updated and informed. And like if you want to know about, hey, what's the system of government in Senegal, you're to get really good information from Wikipedia about that because there's no reason to like go and put in bad information. so maybe maybe YouTube has the potential to become like Wikipedia over time.

But I'm just the other day on Facebook, I saw this thing about Steve Young and something he had said about Donald Trump. And I read this story is like this font is weird. This is crazy. And then I Google it and it's like Steve Young has never said anything about Donald Trump, but you can just put it there on Facebook and there's nobody.

Shawn (42:48.622)
Yeah, it's... And it's so much of that. there's so much of that. Just blatantly false headlines. And it takes me five minutes to research and go, see, that's not even true. Nothing even happened. Literally untrue. Yeah, it's scary.

Porter (43:09.482)
And if a real news agency is now going to start injecting verifiable, high quality journalistic content into that internet space, I think that's going to be good. And it's going to drive out a lot of the nonsensical slop that we get in the internet today. Because a big part of the reason why internet journalists are always a step behind of

Matt (43:28.622)
I sing.

Shawn (43:30.318)
The reporter may have convinced me that.

Porter (43:38.649)
mainstream network news is because they don't have the resources. They've got journalists and anchors in every part of the world researching stuff and that's their full-time job. And if we can get that content onto the internet in a way that's more palatable to everybody, I think that's a good thing.

Shawn (43:55.918)
Okay, so Matt, I'm gonna give poor the points because of what he just said. And the idea, no, no, no, listen, listen. I'm gonna take him away though. I like your optimism that look, you can be a YouTube journalist and do a good job. But earlier when you said that your generation is more open-minded and skeptical, don't, how, where, I don't see that. I just don't see it.

Matt (43:56.419)
Alright.

What a surprise.

Porter (44:02.0)
Hahaha!

Porter (44:23.305)
My generation is... This is a hypothesis. My generation would be... would perform far better than your generation in a test to see who can recognize what is AI by looking at it.

Shawn (44:23.63)
I see that you guys are way more following, way more.

Matt (44:23.671)
I think he's saying that-

Matt (44:40.409)
He's saying that they're better at discerning truth from error because they've grown up with this content that he wouldn't have been fooled by the Steve Young thing that I saw on Facebook because he would have seen the crazy font that it was using. He'd be like, that's garbage. He wouldn't have had to go and Google, did Steve Young really say anything about Donald Trump? Because he would have just recognized immediately that's garbage. That's what he's saying.

Porter (44:53.609)
you

Shawn (44:54.808)
Hahaha

Shawn (45:03.054)
Okay, all right, all right.

Matt (45:04.001)
But my fear is that if CBS News, so my original fear is that CBS News becomes one of these places putting garbage out there to compete with the garbage. But Porter's saying, what I think you're saying Porter is, CBS News is going to put good content in the garbage space and then they're going to shine because your generation can recognize garbage and good stuff. And so they'll, it'll make the whole space better because there's something of quality in there competing with the trash.

Porter (45:31.91)
Absolutely, and I think they'll have good quality stuff to compete with too. It is not only trash, there's just a lot of trash because it's easy to make so there's going to be more of.

Matt (45:43.501)
Alright, I'm giving you the points, Porter. For the first time in the whole episode, Porter gets the points. And once again, I get no points from anybody, but that's okay.

Shawn (45:45.367)
Yeah, me too.

Porter (45:47.216)
Hahaha

Shawn (45:48.728)
Jeff Porter.

You get points in the form of absolute love. Does that work? Okay.

Matt (45:56.427)
Okay, that's all I need. Yeah. Alright, for the big question this week, I tried to make it more religion-y because, you know,

Shawn (46:03.799)
this is a good one, dude. This is a hard one. This is really, really hard one.

Matt (46:07.607)
because early on I said something latter day lens about not scripture or something that made Sean upset. And so I wanted to like give him something where he's like, yes. Okay. So Jeremy Yagi, I think is his name. Maybe it's Jaggi in the last general conference. He said, if the savior is the great connector, then the adversary is the separator. He, Satan tempts us to separate ourselves from our consecrated places of worship and from the protection of Jesus Christ.

So first of all, when I looked at his citation about the Savior being the great connector, there wasn't really anything in scripture that says that. So that's why I kind of thought, let's think about this a little bit. So does this idea apply to context beyond worship and covenants? Is the Savior always trying to bring people and things together? And is Satan always trying to separate them? If so, what does that imply about how we ought to behave when it comes to politics?

Shawn (47:00.622)
So I'm assuming that in general conference he's talking about spiritual things, he's talking about the religion. So when he's calling Christ the connector, he's talking about the atonement, right? If Satan is the draw for us to die spiritually and be separated from God, from God's presence, Christ is wanting us, atoning for us to become back into God's presence. So he's connecting us back with God and with our families. I'm assuming he means, but I love how you're applying this now to politics or everyday life. And it's a really tough one for me, Matt, because

I can read scriptures like in Jude that say, I exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which is once delivered unto the saints. In other words, if there is a truth, whether it be spiritual, political, mathematical, contend for it. But then I can also, on the other hand, and I can read in Alma 2111, they contended with many about the word. They would literally go out on the streets and try to convince and contend. But then I can read in 2 Nephi 28 where it says, and they shall contend with one another, priests shall contend one with another.

And basically it's a really bad thing because they're denying the power of the Holy Ghost and just trying to rely on their own wit, words of man's wisdom. And I can point to Paul who says, look, I don't come to you with enticing words of man's wisdom, but instead of the power of the Holy Ghost. So I can see examples in scripture that say, contend for that which is right, whether it's political or scientific or spiritual. And then I can see other places where it says, no contention. Contention is of the devil. That separates us. So how do you do it?

Matt (48:29.657)
Can you contend in a way that connects people and brings them together?

Shawn (48:35.372)
I gotta believe we show that in this podcast a bit, And I gotta see, I do see, but man, overwhelmingly I see that people fail at that.

Matt (48:45.527)
Yeah. What do think, Porter?

Porter (48:48.418)
The initial question was interesting because you said is is Jesus always trying to connect us and Satan always trying to separate us and I could immediately think of many situations in the scriptures where Jesus was separating people the Nephites and the Lamanites and the Canaanites and the Israelite all the time

Even to violence, know, Moroni killed like 4,000 of the king men, this, you know, political faction that was harmful to everybody. And so I realized, okay, maybe not in every situation ever is, are we coming together in unity with everybody all the time? But I eventually, through a lot more scriptures, to Jacob 5.

the allegory of the olive tree, where we realize that Jesus is playing the long game, that his goal is to connect everybody. But that involves calculated, careful mixing, separating, diversifying, integrating at different times and in different seasons.

that people will be separated so that eventually they can all come together as one. And so what we really need to do is listen to our modern day prophets and apostles and see what they are saying. And overwhelmingly, especially in the last like five years, I found at least eight general conference talks, and I'm sure there are a lot more that are instructing us to not worry about.

Partisan or racial or national differences of any kind and to come together with everybody as much as we can and to avoid contention So we are in a period of great togetherness and and anything other than that it is Satan's intention and not Jesus

Shawn (50:56.302)
Reporter, did you use AI to find those references? Just curious. You did! You did!

Matt (50:56.462)
Yeah.

Porter (50:59.902)
Ha

Matt (51:02.521)
So kind of to like, I think what I was thinking touches on what each of you said. So first, I think to Porter's point, the church ex communicates people, right? We will say to people, you are no longer welcome to speak in church, to participate in church with the intention always that this is gonna help bring you back again, because where you're at right now isn't working for you spiritually, isn't working for you in terms of growth in the gospel. So you need to take some time and go away.

almost like a time out maybe and then come back again. But I think that Jesus does always want to bring us together even when he's separating us or making us leave the fold for a time. And I think to your point, Sean, I think that contention, contending is not bad. Anger is bad, right? I think Satan uses anger, but I think that contending is a positive force. I think that in the best word councils, I think in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles,

people are contending for different positions. But there's a way to contend that's the Lord's way, and there's a way to contend that's Satan's way. And I think that you can contend in a way that connects and unifies and brings people closer together. And I think it ultimately leads to better outcomes because you're looking, as I contend for my side and you contend for your side, we can find solutions that neither of us had thought of before. That's probably the better way or the inspired way in some situations.

It's about how you contend, not whether or not you contend.

Shawn (52:32.312)
Wow. So how do you take though topics like I'm with my good friend, the Protestant. We're talking last night for an hour and a half about just things we just absolutely are different on and it's peaceful and it's kind and it's good. But in the end, we just get stuck in this. Yeah, but you believe that that's fine. I believe this is fine. We're not convincing each other and it's fun to kind of defend those things and contend. We definitely contend. It doesn't get contentious, but in the end,

Matt (52:57.933)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn (53:00.562)
no one's really convinced, but it does serve a purpose in, it does resolve. It does make me more resolved because if I'm trying to contend a certain doctrine, I really gotta do my research. I gotta make sure I believe it. And when I say stuff that I don't really believe, it makes me go, would I say that? Let me go make sure I believe that. So I think there's utility for our souls in contending, but how do you take political issues like abortion?

where you've got just absolute opposite. How do you contend for abortion when one side is not gonna budge?

Matt (53:34.777)
Well, I think that when you're in a position to make decisions, it's a whole different situation, right? So once you're in the position where you're writing laws, making policies, deciding how things are to be done, you have an obligation to your constituents to say, we have to write the best possible law in this situation. And regardless of my personal beliefs, and regardless of what I argue about with my friends on the weekend, I gotta come together with the people that are here making the decision and come to the best solution.

just like you would do in award council. So I think, like to some extent, there's these things that like happen and I always like wonder and ponder like, should I put my voice in there? Should I join this debate? Should I express my views on this? And frequently as I'm pondering that, I'll get this thought like, it's not gonna make any difference at all. It's not even gonna matter. And I think to some extent when you're just fighting with people over things that don't matter,

that does a lot to divide you. I think you create a space where Satan can easily divide you and separate you. And when you're in a space where your stuff actually matters, you have an obligation to sort of set some of the personal feelings aside to decide what's best for the community that you're making decisions for.

Shawn (54:35.47)
not to.

Shawn (54:44.782)
Wow, full circle King Solomon. God praise Solomon for praying for wisdom. You're saying have the wisdom to know when to contend and when it doesn't matter. And I like that you pointed out Matt that your opinion doesn't matter. No one is listening, no one cares. I like that you pointed that out. It's good.

Matt (55:03.885)
I mean, even if all of our audience is persuaded by me every week, which I know they're not, because they all come and tell me how they disagree with me, but even if they did, it still doesn't matter, right? It still has no real impact on anything that matters.

Shawn (55:09.963)
no, we are...

Shawn (55:18.766)
I mean, the way people vote, the way people get involved, I guarantee Matt, in your career as a political scientist and on this podcast, you have convinced people to get more politically involved. So you're contending and your contending has changed my mind on many things, which causes me to then contend with other people, change their minds. That's got to eventually lead to some action.

Matt (55:29.837)
Okay.

Matt (55:41.099)
I love your faith in the marketplace of ideas, Sean. I think that that's beautiful. But Porter just got back from DC where they were actually making these decisions and tell us Porter, how much did the marketplace of ideas influence the decisions you saw getting made in Washington DC?

Porter (55:53.784)
Big fat zero zero amount this one

Shawn (55:56.585)
Hahaha

Matt (56:04.109)
Yeah. I mean, it's good for society, right? It's good for people to be... Yeah, go ahead.

Shawn (56:04.11)
Well, that's depressing. You get.

Porter (56:05.368)
Well, hang on. I shouldn't say zero because public opinion matters a very, great deal to all of these people making decisions. They do care. I should say public opinion among those people who make up their core voter block. And that's

Shawn (56:28.194)
Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that all that Donald Trump does is he goes and find out what's going to, what the populist wants. And then he just does that. He's not standing on principle. He's just doing what keeps him in office. Isn't that what Gavin Newsom does every time he talks, he, he, he contradicts something he's said or done in the past because at the moment that's the thing he wants the people want to hear him say.

Porter (56:39.465)
That's all.

Porter (56:51.721)
That's every elected official that's ever existed in the history of the world that is up for re-election. You want to do what is going to get people to come out and vote for you again. So, well, at least you want it to look like that's what you're doing. You want it to look like this.

Shawn (57:03.618)
Matt, your industry is disgusting.

Matt (57:08.351)
not my industry. I didn't create this industry. I just teach people how it is. I just teach people how it is.

Shawn (57:09.966)
Yes, you are a politician. No, no, you're the boss of politicians, you political scientists. So you create the industry and it's disgusting.

Matt (57:21.379)
Well, so I think to what Porter is saying, I think that we can, if as a citizenship, if as people, we start modeling good behavior, we stop rewarding angry, like bad stuff, then the politicians will follow our lead. So it doesn't matter if I persuade people to think about things the way that I think about them, but I think it does matter if I start behaving differently towards the people in my community, because that will no longer reward bad behavior from elected officials.

Shawn (57:50.264)
So your idea is be super wise with where you contend, but mostly default to let's just bring people together. Is that what you're saying?

Porter (58:00.914)
I mean, look at Elder Oakes' talk on defending our divinely inspired constitution a little while ago. And honestly, his other talks recently about the divine nature of the family. He will come to these topics that are contentious for a lot of people and give the voice of the Lord

concerning those topics and invite us to as civilly, as peacefully as we can, try to make those a reality in our world through civil participation. And he encourages us to flip-flop between people that we choose to support depending on if they are good Christ-like people that embody those principles and not based on anything else.

And I think if people actually did that, then we would have more honest leaders.

Matt (59:03.993)
Boom, that's the last word, Porter. Nice job. Hey, thanks so much, you guys. And listeners, tune in again next week. Feel free to reach out to us in the meantime and let us know what you think. Have a great day.