Marc 0:01

You say you hear good and bad about Canada's healthcare. You almost never hear good about American healthcare. It's always just the bills. Oh my gosh, the bills.

Matt 0:15

Welcome to the Latterday Lens, your home for faith promoting, unscripted discussion of current events. If you'd like to contact us, you can send us a text message through the link in the show notes. You could also email us, latterdaylens at gmail.com. If you want to know more about the show, please visit our website, latterdaylens.com. Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Latter Day Lens. I'm your host, Matt. With me as always is Sean, and we're so excited to have Mark back with us again. Mark brought his own applause track. That was, and it was Sean and I jumped in as well. It's good to have you, Mark. Thank you. Uh I hadn't intended to do anything from the mailbag, but some people wrote in some pretty nasty things, and so I like to uh I like to read some of the nasty stuff. Can't wait. So this was on uh we talked about the difference of constructive patriotism and blind patriotism. And one person wrote and said, You are full of SSS exclamation point. That means like doo-doo, right? SSS.

Shawn 1:15

Or does it mean Nazi, no SS? No, that's SS.

Matt 1:19

No, no, just be the SS. I don't know. And then somebody else said, the Dems actually have destructive patriotism. And then uh somebody else said, exactly, what a waste of time this video was. So there you go. People don't like it apparently if we state the obvious.

Shawn 1:39

Those kinds of comments please you though, don't they, Matt?

Matt 1:42

Yeah, yeah. I I like it when people are mean to me. It doesn't get me down. Yeah. Oh boy. I like sad movies. I like people that are mean to me. All right. I've I've specially chosen topics this week because I knew Mark would be our guest host, and I I like to draw on Mark's historical knowledge and his uh affinity for the Republican Party and his what is the opposite of affinity for communists? He does not like communists.

Marc 2:08

Enimity title.

Matt 2:09

Yeah.

Marc 2:10

Unlike some. I'm not named. I follow the prophet.

Matt 2:13

I like it. All right. So first up this week, Donald Trump and his family made $1.4 billion last year from cryptocurrency projects, including a token called World Liberty Financial and a coin named Dollar Sign Trump. While the president made a fortune, most regular people who bought these digital coins lost their money because the values dropped drastically, with the Trump coin losing 97% of its peak value. Some investors are frustrated by their losses, while others accept the risk they took. This situation has caused some people in Washington to argue where many now want to pass a law that stops the president and other elected officials from profiting from the crypto business or crypto businesses while they are the ones setting policy for the industry. So the question is: did Trump do anything wrong and should there be some kind of a law to prevent this kind of behavior?

Marc 3:04

It was not illegal or anything, but it was probably just mean.

Matt 3:09

Yeah, for whatever reason, all the laws that regulate behavior of other elected officials don't apply to the president of the United States. So if the president wants to defraud people or do things like this or insider trading, Sean doesn't like insider trading. Technically, the president is legally allowed to do that. But I still don't think that makes it right.

Shawn 3:30

So i in the sense that you think that the laws should be changed, or do you think that people like in power, like the president, should just choose not to do these things because it looks so bad?

Matt 3:40

I don't believe anyone should be above the law. So if there are laws that say that members of Congress or people who work in the executive branch, or a political appointees like the head of the State Department or the head of the treasury, they're not allowed to do that. So if they're not allowed to do that, the president shouldn't be allowed to do it either. So there should be laws saying the president cannot. Okay, the president of the United States, and then of course you've got the monetary policy by the Federal Reserve, right? The president of the United States' number one job is to protect the United States and look out for the interests of our currency, the dollar. You don't get to start a business where you create a competing currency with the US dollar while you're supposed to be regulating the dollar and then make money off of your alternative currency.

Shawn 4:24

Okay, but your issue is your issue with the type of business he started, or do you think that he shouldn't be able to start any type of business that would profit him based off of his position?

Matt 4:35

No, yeah, that's right. Nobody in office should be able to have a business that they are regulating the industry that they're competing in.

Shawn 4:43

Okay, so that's the main issue. I mean, that's good clarity, right? Because you wouldn't argue that Barack Obama shouldn't be allowed to write a book and publish a book and make money off of that book or do have speaking engagements, right? These obviously all these guys are gonna make money off their position and name.

Matt 5:02

Right. So if you're setting policy in the Middle East, you shouldn't be allowed to do business with businesses in the Middle East who are gonna invest in your company and then get contracts from our the U.S. government for certain things that they might want. As long as you're like in charge of running the country, you shouldn't be involved in businesses that are also doing business with the U.S. government.

Shawn 5:22

Yeah, I don't know how do we argue against that? I'm not gonna take an alternative like of course, that makes sense.

Matt 5:27

Okay.

Marc 5:28

All right. Well, that was easy. There's a wiggle room for a debate if we want just the idea of executive privilege. Uh, as Nixon said, it's not legal if the president does it. I think there's room for a whisper of executive privilege, but not much. I would keep it a very short leash.

Matt 5:44

Okay.

Shawn 5:44

Yeah, I mean, Matt Matt, do you think that part of his legacy is gonna go down with crap like this where it's like, okay, maybe it was legal, maybe you were able to do it, but should you do it? Like, why would you do that? It just it just tarnishes like the title, it tarnishes the party, it tarnishes your legacy. Like, why would you do this?

Matt 6:02

Well, we know why Trump would do it, but yeah, I would I would hope that a state's like a I would hope a president of the United States would say respect the office enough that they're that would not try and profit off of the office. But yeah, Trump is the first president to ever do this to this extent. And so I think that like this frequently happens that we all have sort of have these uh informal rules the of behavior and decorum that we follow. And um, not until somebody breaks those do we say, you know what, maybe we do need to have a law that says you can't just go do whatever you want to do.

Marc 6:38

Now, this is not a country to be run by sharia law, so we don't need a law.

unknown 6:44

Okay.

Matt 6:45

We need several laws. We need more laws than that. All right. Let's go to the I thought uh I thought Mark would be more supportive of Trump on that one, but that's okay. I'm not trying to push his hand.

Marc 6:59

Moral.

Matt 7:00

All right, here's the next question. Following two devastating earthquakes in Venezuela that killed nearly 2,000 people, exiled opposition leader Maria Machado is fighting to return home to assist with recovery efforts. However, the Trump administration has blocked her requests, calling her plans a political stunt that distracts from disaster relief. Machado in 2024 led her opposition coalition to a landslide victory in the presidential election, where independent observers confirmed her uh her candidate defeated autocrat Nicholas Maduro before the government altered the results. Despite the electoral mandate that she has and the eventual ouster of Maduro by U.S. forces, Washington has chosen to partner with the interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, prioritizing business deals and stability over Machado's push for immediate transition. Without U.S. backing, Machado remains stranded abroad while politicians argue over whether her return would further destabilize the crisis stricken nation. So the question is this is the U.S. getting in the way of Venezuelan's self-determination?

Shawn 8:09

Mark, what do you think? Uh yeah, I believe they are. I mean, you can't argue that obviously they, you know, what was it, a year ago when they I don't know. I mean, they insert we inserted ourselves into their self-determination, right? Or is the argument, Matt, that they didn't have self-determination because of the leadership that they were under, it was more authoritarian. And we are enabling that.

Matt 8:32

It's true that Maduro uh falsified results in an election to become president, right? But but if you're gonna intervene in a nation, uh, right, we we captured Maduro. He's sitting in a U.S. prison right now, awaiting trial on charges he's been indicted on. But even if you want to argue that that was okay to do that, at some point you have to step aside and let the people who were exiled return to the country and fight in elections and try to win elections. And you don't say, well, but Marco Rubio's running the country now, and we don't need you in his way. Like that's so I I don't see any way that um this is good for Venezuela, except that when an opposition leader returns, there tends to be more political, you know, like infighting and stuff. There's more activity because people are excited about changing the direction of their country. I mean, isn't it what they say?

Shawn 9:27

Isn't this one thing that the MAGA movement has been very consistent with? They they don't really hide their motives, right? They wear everything on their sleeve. So it is interesting to see this whole thing go down and go, oh, so really Trump was just in this to really it was for oil and for like control of the place. It wasn't to free the people, it wasn't for democracy. I mean, is that true or no? Am I misreading it?

Matt 9:52

Mark will have to tell me what MAGA people think.

Marc 9:55

I well, I I don't know. I haven't talked to any. But uh personally is I don't try too hard to question motives because only Donald Trump and God know what he personally was motivated by. Maybe he really was in the right zone to do the right thing. And I don't know. But my wouldn't there be greater evidence though? I haven't investigated all the evidence, so I don't know. I my view though is we if Maduro really was worthy of arrest, great, do it, and then let Venezuela be free. And if you want to have what was it, Macarina? Macarina wants to go back, let her go back.

Matt 10:38

Yeah. Well, you know, you my my view of why they're not letting her go back is because they're trying to use the oil from Venezuela as part of a blockade of Cuba because they want to starve Cuba of oil to lead to a popular uprising to overthrow the Cuban regime. So I think that what they're doing in Venezuela is part of a larger play to overthrow Cuba or to destabilize Cuba. So I think Marco Rubio is not done. Venezuela was just step one, and then Cuba's step two, and then I guess we'll see what happens next.

Shawn 11:10

Oh my how power of the So Matt, if that is strategy that eventually benefits the people of Venezuela and Cuba, eventually, not now.

Matt 11:21

How does how does it?

Shawn 11:22

I don't know. That's what I'm asking. Does it or does it not? Eventually.

Matt 11:26

Well, okay, well, I'll just try and since since Marcus persuaded me, I shouldn't try to uh judge other people's motives if I don't know them. I'll just put myself in the spot of a Venezuelan. Uh-huh. And if a foreign power came to my country and arrested my president and took them away and chose a new president and said, Well, this other person you voted for can't come back to your country, even though there's been an earthquake and there's all kinds of problems, I would not like that foreign power who came into my country and I would say, leave my country as soon as you can. We're not a toy for you to play with.

Marc 12:01

And then I would say your English is really good.

Matt 12:05

Well, you know, Mark, that Trump has been indicted in Iran on murder charges. Yeah. Okay. So if Iran came to the United States and took Trump and put him in jail and said, we're going to put someone from Iran in charge of the United States for a period of time, even if their English wasn't good, we would still not be very happy that they were in charge of our country. Or even if their English was good.

Marc 12:27

And maybe I this is my ignorance, but did the Venezuelan constitution have a correct procedure for the next line of authority should the president fall or be captured?

Matt 12:39

I have no idea what their constitution said. Do you think Iran's gonna care? Do you think Iran's gonna care what our constitution says?

Marc 12:47

But if Iran managed to take President Trump, which is extraordinarily unlikely, I'm sure J.D. Vance would step up in a pinch just because we have the line of uh what's the phrase I want to use?

Matt 12:59

Authority, succession.

Marc 13:01

Succession, yes.

Matt 13:03

Did you know we didn't have a line of succession until after Kennedy was assassinated in 1960?

Marc 13:08

Uh there was a small one, at least. It was president, vice president, and then there was not legally, but they thought Secretary of State. Hence, that's why John Wilkes Booth says, let's get Lincoln, Johnson, and Seward. But it wasn't in the Constitution until after the 1960s. But it was kind of an assumed.

Shawn 13:28

It was just assumed, but never law, huh?

Matt 13:32

Yeah, not in the constitution.

Marc 13:34

When uh what's his name, Tyler became president after Harrison, he never took a vice president.

Matt 13:39

And never called himself president. Well, it was a fight, right? Some would call him president, most would not call him president.

Shawn 13:48

It's so fascinating listening to his political scientist nerds about this stuff. It really is for guys like us. It's like, this is fascinating. How do we not know this stuff?

Matt 13:56

You went to school at Columbine High School, Sean. Well, so all I'm saying, Mark, is like maybe Venezuela, even if it's not in their constitution, maybe there was something assumed. But whether or not I'm sure that the assumption is not whoever takes our president gets to run our country.

Marc 14:18

I'm saying we should let Macarena go back and let Venezuela.

Shawn 14:22

So, Matt, you've asked now two really interesting topics, but we're all agreeing with you on these. You didn't hope you didn't expect that, did you?

Matt 14:30

Well, I didn't know. I always just I yeah, I don't come into it with anything predetermined. I knew that these next two topics were gonna go, it's gonna be fun. And so I'm okay that the first two topics are fast because I know that there's no way you're anticipating what I'm gonna say on some of these, and so it'll be a lot of fun. Nice. Okay, so this is the next one. Democratic Senator John Fetterman strongly criticized the progressive wing of his own party following a series of high-profile Democratic Socialist primary victories in Maine and New York, also happened in Colorado. Uh, he called the progressive triumphs an orgy of socialism. Fetterman openly blasted the far-left candidates as anti-America and expressed frustration that other moderate colleagues within his caucus refused to condemn their platforms, which include abolishing prisons and abolishing ICE. The senator pointed directly to controversial Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner, alongside Mamdani endorsed New York primary winners who unseated a high-ranking House incumbent. Fetterman's public remarks reflect a deepening ideological divide among congressional Democrats, highlighting moderate anxiety that the highly visible success of these far-left candidates is dragging the national party's image into extreme territory. So, this is the question Is this infighting among Democrats a positive sign for the country, or is it cause for concern?

Shawn 16:00

Great question. This is a good one. Curious, Mark, what do you think?

Marc 16:05

I think it's good for the country. Because it shows that there's a struggle and it's not just going one way or the other, but they're trying to actually grapple with some ideology, and uh I hope that the Fetterman side wins.

Shawn 16:23

So that is interesting, Mark. Like, would you say that the Republican Party has landed where you have? Because it seems like to me they haven't. It seems like whatever debates at one time and differences Republicans had, as soon as Trump got control, squashed it all. And it's basically like, let's not even debate, let's not even consider differences or different opinions.

Marc 16:44

It is this way, get on board, play ball, or yeah, I'm not loving that either because Thomas Massey, I think, was a fairly principled fella and uh was what the scriptures would tell us to look for, wise and honest enough for a politician. So uh yes, I don't love the that's why I'm saying it's good for the Democrats to be struggling. And I'd I'd like to see one side win, but it would win through struggle rather than just fiat, which is kind of what happens.

Shawn 17:14

Mark, do you feel like when the Trump era is over, that it will go back to that in the Republican Party? Or do you feel like those leaders are gonna be like, look at this, we can control everything, let's keep it dogmatic?

Marc 17:26

I I think Donald Trump personally has enough just chutzpah that when he is done and it presumably goes to pres vice president Vance, I think he'll calm down a little bit because he's a little more open. He as senator he worked with both sides, and he's famously somewhat chummy off and on with uh AOC and others. So I would I would hope that the Republican Party could calm down a little. Yeah, what matters?

Shawn 17:55

Oh, so you I was gonna say before you came in and just some took the opposite side, you're agreeing.

Matt 18:01

I'm saying I'm agreeing that it's good for the country, but for wholly different reasons. It's good for the country because it's about time that the United States had a truly socialist Democrat party, and they can kick all of those moderate Democrats, let them be like the moderate Republicans who went all the way of the earth, as they say in the Book of Mormon. And the Democratic Party now has an opportunity to purify itself of the Joe Biden wing of the Democratic Party and be a party that's truly for the people. And I think that that's a platform that will win all across the United States of America. Hold on. And eventually, even the Republicans will go away.

Shawn 18:37

Wait a minute.

Matt 18:37

AI wrote what?

Shawn 18:41

Matt, you can't possibly believe in what you just said.

Matt 18:44

I do believe that. Well, I think. Let me summarize.

Shawn 18:47

Let me see if I understand. You like that there's infighting right now because it will expose the Mark Fetter or the Fetterson, Fetterman side of things that will go away. Eventually, the Democratic Socialism will win and eventually become so popular that it will destroy the Republican Party. That's what you said?

Matt 19:04

Yes.

Shawn 19:05

What the Mark, why are we letting him say stuff like that?

Matt 19:09

Well, let me let me say it first in a history.

Marc 19:12

You like Joseph Stalin more than you like Abraham Lincoln.

Matt 19:16

I I believe that history repeats itself. And I think that we, if you look at what's happened in the United States, the last, I don't know, we'll go back to from Jimmy Carter till now. We've had this nice Republican pro-business party that's controlled the White House. And it's very similar to what happened prior to the New Deal. And we had these Republican presidents, and by the way, the last Republican presidents were pretty corrupt. If you put in Warren G. Harding, very corrupt president of the United States. Herbert Hoover, more interested in the business community than he was in the welfare of Americans.

Marc 19:56

Oh, FDR just copied and pasted what Hoover was doing and gave it a new name.

Matt 20:01

Well, to that, in the same way that FDR copied Hoover, I think that the socialist wing of the Democratic Party is going to take advantage of Americans are mad. Americans are upset and they're tired of the first trillionaire criticizing charitable individuals, the first trillionaire thinking only about how he can make more money for himself, and a president of the United States who's so concerned with making money for himself and all of his friends that are all of his crony business friends. And so Americans trusted Trump. They thought, here's somebody who cares about us. Here's somebody that's going to rein in that business community and make sure that Americans are taken care of. And especially at the age of AI, the dawn of the AI age, I think that the socialist movement in the Democratic Party is going to grow and grow and grow until it takes over, as they say in the Communist Manifesto. The entire world. I don't know if the boomers will ever find their way to it, but millennials, Gen X. God bless the boomers.

Shawn 21:18

Matt why is it where it are. Matt, why do you hope that the two-party system goes away?

Matt 21:23

No, it's not the two-party system will go away. You just you're just going to have a dominant democratic party that's going to, when they do this, they'll be able to make real changes in the United States that are going to benefit the masses. And then give it about 60 years, and the masses will get they'll get like placated and they'll be like, oh, I'm tired of all of this regulation in my life, just like they did at the end of the Carter era. And they'll say, Let's have no more regulation, let's get government out of our lives, and it'll swing back the other way. But you're about 60 years of peace you're stating.

Shawn 21:52

Oh, I see. You're saying that the 60 years will be will be Zion. And even though it won't last, because things swit your whole premise. Here's that things will sway back and forth. That's why you're hoping this happens. But you're saying we'll have a good 60 years of Zion.

Matt 22:07

I think I'm not saying I hope that this happens. I'm just saying I think this is what's as good for the country if this happens in a way that the Democrats are able to take this message and spread it in the I think it's going to catch fire across all of the United States in the next four years. And there are Democrats out there that are like, communism is a losing message. Socialism is a losing message. And so they're afraid of it. James Carville's afraid of it. John Fetterman's afraid of it. And that's fine. They can be afraid of it and then they will get voted out of office. And the ones who are not afraid of it will come into office and they'll change. Like America needs big structural changes so that the working class in the United States can earn a living wage, can afford to pay for health insurance, can afford to pay for health care. And it's time to just sort of change things. And so I think that's what's going to happen.

Marc 22:57

They had a great time. The working class of the Soviet Union could afford anything they wanted as long as they were allowed to afford it.

Matt 23:04

I don't see any of these socialists talking about taking away freedom of religion, freedom of speech. All they're doing is saying, let's take back the money.

Shawn 23:13

So you're saying, hang on, Matt. So you're saying because the Communist Manifesto explicitly says we're going to take away their property and their religion and their families specifically, then there's no then then we can fear that. We can make sure let's not adopt that. But now you're saying that the modern communists are socialists, they're not specifically putting their cards on the table. They're not saying that they're going to be restrictions to religion or things like that. And so it's safe. Let's go down the path of giving up property and becoming socialized in a major way. Our religion will be safe. Our free speech will be safe. You're just assuming that because they're not saying it, that great.

Matt 23:50

Well, there are many things that Trump actually said he was going to do, and I warned you, I said Trump's going to do this, and you guys are like, no, no, no, he just says stuff. I'm saying, like Mark, we can't judge their motives. They tell us that they're a kinder, gentler, freedom-loving communist group, and we should trust them.

Marc 24:09

No, I'll I'll go with you on that. I'm not their motive. But I'm simply going to say the ideology of socialism naturally will lead to somebody who will say. I think we should uh stop having so much Christianity in the public square. I think it's time for the marginalized voices to have a say. And then whoops, it's uh guillotine time and they decapitate the president, and uh we have Robespierre show up again.

Matt 24:39

I'm not worried about that because I've seen the separation of powers work just fine in the Trump administration as he's tried to tear down institutions of government and remake things to give himself power he shouldn't have. The courts have pushed back, Congress a little bit pushes back. So I'm not worried that we're gonna lose constitutional liberties, even if we're run by communists and socialists. We will lose Sean some of that beloved property. Some of that property is gonna go back to the public coffers and me. What's that? Lend me $400. Okay, we'll take it. I'll let you have the $400 that uh Trump's gonna. I don't know. Trump's got tons of money he can hand out.

Shawn 25:26

So again, Matt, so again, we have to sound like a broken record here because this is the latter-day lines, but how do you support that when the doctrine of covenants clearly states that private property should be protected? That is an inspired scriptural principle, and that we should we are justified in defending it. How do you align that?

Matt 25:47

I'm not saying we get rid of all private property, we just tax private property to the extent that people are giving back to society. We don't pay any taxes. That's a novel idea. Uh we could even just go with Jeff Bezos' idea, right? Jeff Bezos is like poor people shouldn't pay income taxes at all. All the income taxes should be paid by the wealthiest people. Like we could we could actually just look at the way wealthy people take advantage of the current tax system and just we don't even have to like change anything about taking away property. We could just make sure that rich people pay their fair share in taxes, that whatever portion of your income, Sean, you pay in taxes, all the rich people pay that same amount, and we would be fine. I'm good with the flat tax. We can call it whatever we want to call it. It's just that like the fact that Trump and his family pay no taxes, we can change that. We just have to change that so that the billionaires are paying taxes now. We don't have to take away people's property.

Marc 26:48

I mean, we could just do that.

Shawn 26:50

Okay, but but but Matt, you sound you sound a little flip-floppy right here. That's a pretty bold statement to say, let's just take people's property. Like, let's do that. Let's let the government own your home. Oh, well, I guess, I guess let's not do that and let's just tax people more, tax the rich more.

Matt 27:07

Look, there's various ways that that democracies around the world implement socialist policies. And if you look at the the socialist democracies around the world, that you can't look at North Korea because that wouldn't be one of them. You don't get to look at China, you can just look at Norway, you can look at England, you can look at Belgium, you can look at Sweden, very free societies that have a that have a high tax and they use that money to benefit society. So you don't have to do the Communist Manifesto.

Marc 27:40

Because in England, you might say you're free, but a woman's not free to walk down the streets of Birmingham at night these days.

Matt 27:48

Well, you there's similar problems in the United States. That's not a function of socialism.

Marc 27:54

So are we getting into racial territory here? Because I wasn't ready for that. Hold on.

Matt 27:58

No, no, no. I mean, that would be my second point, but uh we'll stay away from the racial stuff for now because the latter-day lens on racism is clear. The latter-day lens on racism is it's bad. And so there's no need to go down that path. But I'm just saying, so Sean, you can you can take some communism, you can take some socialism, and you don't have to take all of it. You just take the good parts and leave the rest behind.

Shawn 28:22

Give me that short list. What are the good parts?

Matt 28:25

Uh the the really, really short list.

Shawn 28:27

Yeah.

Matt 28:27

National health care. That's the first thing you need to change. We need to have a government-sponsored healthcare system. And change that alone, and Americans would be happy.

Shawn 28:37

And you picked that one just because you like the idea.

Matt 28:40

No, I picked that one because that's where most people spend more, they spend more on healthcare than what they get in return. It's an area where socialism actually makes sense. And countries that have socialized their healthcare provide better health care for their nation, and they do it at a lower cost than the United States. So that's why I start with healthcare.

Shawn 29:00

I mean, we're we're almost at socialist principles when it comes to health care, a little bit. Not completely obvious, it's not communist, but yeah. There are many. Matt, Matt, there what you tell me you know better. What portion of people who reside in America get free health care? A lot, right?

Matt 29:17

No, we we just had millions of all of course old people get Medicare, right? They get access to that. Poor people get access to Medicaid. But we just had millions of Americans where they got rid of the Obamacare subsidy that no longer have health insurance at all. So um, that's one. I would start with healthcare. Then the next one I would move to is subsidies for oil companies. I would get rid of, I would get it so that oil companies are not getting those subsidies. And I would take those subsidies and give them to housing or something like that.

Shawn 29:47

Matt, according to USA Fax, I don't know. I haven't I don't have time to that sort of thing.

Matt 29:54

What does USA Fax say?

Shawn 29:55

40% of Americans receive practically health care free at the point of service. So 40, about 40% at this point.

Matt 30:05

So free is like, right? Like there's no way, even if 40% are getting it for free, there's a whole lot of us that are paying a lot of money in premiums and not getting anything close to free healthcare. 40% isn't a really high number. It's almost half. Okay, I want everyone, everyone to have free healthcare. Yeah. Not free like you pay this, like you pay a copay, and then there's not expensive, but practically it can't exist.

Shawn 30:33

It can't easy.

Matt 30:34

Easy can't. Canada has it. England has it.

Shawn 30:38

And I've heard, I mean, I've heard really great stories about Canada's healthcare system, and I've heard absolute horrific stories. Now, you could say the same about America too, I guess. But to claim that Canada has perfect health care, that's so far from the truth. I've heard nightmare stories about people waiting in line for you know 12 months to get their free healthcare MMA back. Like it, like there's no solution. You can't say Canada is a beacon for uh socialist healthcare.

Marc 31:05

I would I would take their system over ours. I don't if you knew the reality, I don't think you would. The one pushback I might give is that uh you say you hear good and bad about Canada's healthcare. You almost never hear good about American health care. It's always just the bills. Oh my gosh, the bills, I'm going to die. I have a bill right now because they coded it wrong to insurance, and insurance is like, I know, and then they're like, well, that's the code. No. And so they're trying to stiff me with the several hundred dollars that I can't afford.

Matt 31:32

Right. My son went to the emergency room and it cost $2,000.

Marc 31:36

Success story is just, hey, they got the thing out of my ear. That was great, but I'll be paying for it for the next 40 years.

Shawn 31:43

But but if you were to take, but but if we were to take away all the regulated healthcare levels that enable all that, let's just say we lived in a society, Mark, where you just have free market doctors and you have something needed to get pulled out of your ear, I guess, and you go to that doctor and he says, you know what, I can do this, it's I can only do it for $700. You're in the same situation, right? Like the idea that I can force someone who knows how to get something out of my ear to do it for free is a myth. Well no, it practically doesn't happen.

Marc 32:15

It needs to go one way or the other. We need to go either back to just the good old country doctor that that's who you work with, and he says, I got you, boo, and insurance is a thing you can do if you want, but it's just whatever. Or we would have to go all the way the other way. There's no middle ground that's going to be sustainable.

Matt 32:35

My point is this is good for the Democratic Party, and this is good for our country because this debate will not matter anymore. You can tell stories about how bad it is in Canada, you can tell stories about how good it is in Canada. It won't matter because the people with power will say the debate is over, it happened on election day, and we're taking America to the socialists.

Shawn 32:55

That's an interesting prediction. That's a fascinating prediction, Matt. We agree that it's good, but for different reasons, right? I think it's good because uh the robust debate will enlighten people and educate people, and then people have more freedom to choose. It's all about agency. I don't I hope that it doesn't go to less agency like you want.

Matt 33:17

Different agency, different agency.

Marc 33:19

Being an American.

Matt 33:22

All right. Um, I'm gonna I haven't given any points this entire time.

Shawn 33:26

Yeah, Matt, you won the first two points because you asked questions that we all agreed to, right?

Matt 33:30

Oh, okay. Well, I'm giving points to to Sean on this one because Sean brings in the important latter-day lens about property and uh socialism is bad. And Mark's give given me the points, right, Mark? Uh, not for this one, no.

Marc 33:50

Being an American.

Matt 33:53

All right, here's the all right, I can't wait to talk about this one. This one's gonna be so fun. All right, the 2026 midterm elections are coming up, and voters are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Anthropic and Grok as quick, nonpartisan researchers to help them navigate crowded ballots. While major tech companies train these chatbots to avoid direct political bias, voters have successfully bypassed these restrictions by asking the tools to analyze candidates' voting histories or align choices with specific political values. Many users report feeling more confident and saving dozens of hours compared to traditional research methods. But experts, such as myself, warn that the practice carries significant risk. So this is the big question. Because I know that Mark could tell us every dystopian political theory book in the world. Uh, there are lots of stories written about technology and democracy. So this is the big question. What role should artificial intelligence play in elections? So, Matt, this is a fascinating topic.

Shawn 35:02

So I can, I guess, believe what you stated, what the report states, that anthropic really actively tries to train its models on non-bias answers. But here's the truth: whatever they are training it on, they truly are training it on to detect what does Matt want to hear. So maybe not need it, may not be biased as far as we're gonna insert a theory, a philosophy, some morals. Obviously, it does, but if they're trying not to do that, it's it's it is being trained to be like, okay, I want to quickly comprehend what kind of answer Matt's looking for, and then I'm going to feed his bias as far as what he's looking for. And it is good at that. Like the other day, me and my friend were playing around with it. We were trying to get AI to confirm a business name of an idea that we're working on, and we wanted to see if it would confirm the stupidest, just dumbest name. And in like a 10-minute process, by the end, it was like, guys, we've got a huge winner here. Like Smelly Butt is uh landscaping is a really, really creative and great way. You guys are on the right path. So it's it's like like clearly, AI should play no role in in politics. Like it's just looking for, it's like glorified Fox News or MSNBC. It's trying to snap out what'll get me clicks, what will get me engagement, so that I can pay for tokens, and it's gonna feed your bias. Confirmation bias in AI is giant. It's rampant. Don't you think?

Matt 36:31

I do. This is why I have a completely different take than you, based on the exact same set of facts that you're sharing. Okay. AI knows your preferences, and AI knows what it is you want to click on and what it is you want to hear. Therefore, AI knows who you really should be voting for for president of the United States, who you really should be voting for in each of those local offices. Therefore, AI should be doing all of the voting for everybody in the United States of America. Any person who asks AI who to vote for or to research candidates for them should be automatically put into this other pool that they're no longer allowed to vote on their own, and AI will do the voting for them. In addition, we have a huge voter turnout problem of people not even going to exercise their vote. AI knows those preferences in advance. AI knows exactly what they want to do. And so we can actually use artificial intelligence to get the preferences of everybody, not just the people who want to go vote. And then AI will vote, cast a vote for you. And I'm to keep it democratic, you just opt out of the system. So if AI casts a vote for you, and you would prefer that they not cast the vote for you, you opt out and you say, I actually want to go on election day and vote for myself. Otherwise, AI is gonna take all of your preferences and just vote for you.

Shawn 37:51

Okay, I'm gonna represent your wife and family here to start digging into your little thing here. Okay, let me ask some questions of clarity, Matt. So you're saying that the three years of collective knowledge that my AI has about me, you're saying whether I try to manipulate it, it's just naturally it's it's been training and understanding me over three years. It just knows me better than anyone. And so you're saying, yeah, take the true uh intentions or values or morals of Sean and let this expert go, Sean, based on everything you think and believe or you you are, you really should have voted for Kamala Harris. So that's your vote. You've given me approval, I'm voting for Kamala Harris.

Matt 38:36

Yes. That's what you're saying? Yes. Not just you, everybody. So many people are uninformed in their votes and they cast votes for the silliest reasons that make no sense. And AI knows their preferences better than they do. And AI understands all the candidates better than they do. So AI will just cast a vote for everybody. Everybody who has a residence in the United States who has used an AI bot sufficiently, boom, cast the votes.

Shawn 39:03

Matt, your creative brain. I love your brain, Matt. You think outside the box?

Matt 39:09

It's flawless, right, Mark? This is a great system.

Marc 39:13

Um what? I wasn't listening. You zoned out, huh? I'm good with AI helping someone make their mind up to a degree. Uh I I did see a study the other day about bias, and it showed that I think it was Grok and Gemini are the the two that are like the most balanced and will give you both sides to a degree. I like that. Uh I also rec this is to the viewers, people. I sidewith.com. That's a great test. So many questions. You get yes, no, or you can hit other stances and be more uh specific. And at the end, it just takes what you said about these topics and says, well, here's how much you agree with the different parties, different candidates, here's your ideology. And it's not too simplistic, it's pretty in-depth. So I recommend. Okay, Matt.

Matt 40:05

Okay, so let's just do let's just do that, Mark. And everybody goes to dot com and they tell the website what they like, and then AI votes for them.

Marc 40:12

And I no, I almost hang on, Matt.

Shawn 40:16

Let me stress test your theory, can I?

Marc 40:18

For sure.

Shawn 40:19

Okay, good. So why don't we apply this to uh various different important decision-making things, like, for example, religion. So, for example, my neighbor Mark, he is looking for he's left his 30 years devotion to uh Protestantism, but he still has this like thorn in his side about Joseph Smith and the LDS Pro. So when um his three years of history of him asking very biased, like anti-Joseph Smith questions, when he's now going, hey Grok, I would really like your help to know which Christian sect or Christian religion I should I should join. Well, it's definitely not gonna say the LDS church because it's taken an aggregate of all of his questions and biases and thoughts over the years, and it's gonna go, well, you definitely shouldn't be LDS because you really hate Joseph Schmidt. So why would you at all trust this biased system who's just fielding questions and inquiries? Not necessarily at least questions and inquiries, teaching him about what my heart and values are. It's just a way to explore things. It's not giving true, honest uh evaluation of who I am.

Marc 41:31

But what have you told Mark about Joseph Smith to make him hate him so much?

Matt 41:39

I think I think Sean that that AI bots are good enough that they could detect the change that he's experiencing. He's gonna ask different kinds of questions, they'll ask it in a different way. Like they know you really, really well. Try as hard as people might. They can't stop doom scrolling, they can't stop watching certain videos. AI just knows what it is people want. And in and I I think in religion it's probably bad because religion actually matters for your eternal salvation. But in something as trivial as politics, something as trivial as an election, let AI do it for us. Take all of that effort away from the people.

Shawn 42:16

Okay, so you've revealed your hand, right? You believe it's trivial, so let's do this weird experiment. Look, if it's so trivial, then you'd be good with me just throwing darts at a dartboard and picking who to vote for.

Matt 42:31

Yes.

Shawn 42:32

Okay, well then that reveals the the value, the quality of your AI opinion.

Matt 42:37

Well, I think that that's what most people do, anyways. I so I'm okay with it because I think that's what most people are doing. Is it really better for a person to say, you know what, I grew up in this particular community, and everyone in this community is a Democrat, and everybody in this community always says this, and so now I'm an adult and I have a chance to vote, and this is what my social media feed is telling me, and this is what all my teachers in school told me. So I'm just gonna vote for the same party over and over and over again, which is what probably 80% of voters do. That's not a better system.

Shawn 43:07

But Matt, isn't that the human? Like God put us on this planet, and he says, you're going to have the mortal experience. And progression is all about being stuck in biases and learning things, and then using agency to make choices and seeing the repercussions of those, and then learning from it and changing, learning and changing, learning and changing. Like, like, I don't know, I don't know if you really are this anti-agency where you do want government to make all your health decisions and all your financial and property decisions, and now you want AI to make your voting decisions. Agency is such a valuable thing in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's our whole modal experience. We're supposed to practice it, make bad decisions, see the consequences, learn from it, make good decisions. So let this person from Idaho, you're from Idaho right now, let this person from Ogden be brainwashed a little bit and then Vote a few times and go, wait a minute, I don't like how I was supposed to vote that way according to how I was raised, and now I don't like the outcome. Look, you learn. But if you're just handing your agency over to some bot, you're giving up your agency now. You're giving up your the purpose of your life.

Matt 44:15

I think it's a good micro argument, but now I'm gonna make the macro argument. Elected officials are responsive to their voters. We can look at it with Trump, we can look at it with kind of almost any elected official. They really only care about the people who are gonna vote for them or potentially vote against them. And so because elected officials care about the groups that they perceive to be their supporters, they say, let's get my supporters out to vote, and let's get the people who oppose me, let's make them stay home. Then we don't have as good of representation in the United States because elected officials have a really good idea of who's gonna support them and who's not. So, for example, in Idaho, the Republican senators know they can do virtually anything they want to do because Republicans are gonna vote them back into office because they're Republicans and the state's just gonna go Republican. But what if AI was making the choices for the people? Then the elected officials would, like Mark has this wonderful website, these are the things you care about, these are your preferences. Oh, let's look at this person's voting record, let's look at how they actually behave. And then the elected officials actually end up becoming more accountable to the preferences of their constituents because they don't get to try to manipulate voters and tell them this is how things really are. They don't get to lie to people and confuse them and cheat them in some way. So you don't think AI is holding them accountable and keeping everybody honest.

Shawn 45:44

So you're saying politics. So this goes back to your view of humans, Matt. You believe that people are stupid and that we need leaders and let's call it professors to guide the way, to save everyone. So you think the politicians are so smart that they are manipulating all the dummies, and but they won't be able to manipulate the the companies that run and train the AI models. They won't be able to. There is one pure treatment. We'll lock them out. They won't be able to get in there and affect the algorithms. Elon Musk won't get involved at all and pick his favorite politician and influence the outcome of elections. No, that won't happen.

Matt 46:24

We'll make that illegal. That would be against the law to do that.

Marc 46:29

Murder. Illegal. And it won't.

Shawn 46:33

Wait, wait, wait. Why don't you say murder is illegal and therefore it never happens?

Matt 46:37

Yeah, he was being funny. This is the thing, Sean. When you talk about the voters, you act as if there's like millions and millions of people out there voting, but there's not. If you look at voter turnout in these primary elections that determine the candidates, you got like less than 10% of the population even participating. Because so many voters realize that their vote doesn't matter. So what I'm saying is you get more representation because that 90% of Americans that stay home from primary elections, or the 40% that don't vote in presidential elections, suddenly their views are being expressed in a meaningful way. Like not meaningfully, checking a box is so like 1700s. Why would we do voting that way when we have better technology?

Shawn 47:22

Okay, let me ask you this, Matt, because you've harped on this philosophy for a long time. You basically say the data says no one, not enough people vote. Therefore, the system should be a little more controlled and written. Well, how about this? Change your tune a little bit. Let's make it more compelling to vote. Let's make votes count more. Because there's so many scriptures, Matt, that say, like, for example, I just read Alma 30 today, seven days. Now there was no law against a man's belief, for if it was strictly contrary to the commands of God that there should be a law that should bring man onto unequal grounds. When you put things in place that take away our beliefs, our agency, and you implement something like AI, you're putting people on unequal grounds. You're giving all the power to these companies. Dude, these are profit-driven companies. Are you kidding me? They're not going to be altruistic. So why not if your whole issue is votes don't matter? People think they matter and they don't matter. Let's change matter. Fight, shift your focus. Let's make sure that votes matter. Let's make it more relevant. Let's actually make it like worth something.

Marc 48:24

I think we should reinstitute a test for voting because I don't believe we are that racist of a society as we might have been in the South with the Democrats in charge. So we should reintroduce the need to understand government when you vote. And when you vote, you don't have to be required to go to something like I side with us. You ought to consider it, it should be encouraged, and that way people can figure out how do I actually feel and answer truthfully and then see. Oh, I didn't realize I actually agreed with Joe Biden 46% of the time.

Matt 48:59

Well, this will be an interesting test to see what happens in the future. You two, in my opinion, are living in the past. You wanted to use old school, antiquated systems of selecting people. And I don't know. I feel like maybe I'm one of the founding fathers of the new future, where we have a more socialist, more artificial intelligence-driven society. And people can opt into voting. You don't have to let the AI do it for you. It's just that you just have to opt in and say, I'd rather vote myself.

Shawn 49:28

Matt, I like how progressives always have to proclaim how progressive they are. I like that.

Matt 49:36

By the way, I think most progressives would listen to what I said and say, What is he crazy? That's not a leftist idea. He must be a political scientist. There's no party that represents that idea.

Shawn 49:46

Matt, I love that you think I love that you think outside the box. And I love that you allow your brain to go into you're liberally minded, you're able to go broad. But man, sometimes they just don't hold water, my friend.

Matt 49:59

Well, listeners, if you like the things I've said on this episode, don't look to me as your leader because I'm a very bad leader. But you could start a movement of your own where you espouse these ideas and try to make the country a better place to live. If you think I'm crazy, it seems like a lot of people do. And that's just the way it is sometimes. Hey, thanks for joining me today, guys. Listeners, talk to you again next week. It's always sad to say goodbye, but we hope you'll join us again next week. New episodes drop each Wednesday. In the meantime, subscribe to the podcast, give us a like, and visit our website for past episodes. You can comment on the show at realmormonism at gmail.com. Thank you for making us one of the most listened to podcasts. We love our listeners.