Matt (00:01.253)
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Latter Day Lens. I'm your host, Matt, and with me as always is Sean. And we hope you guys are having a fabulous summer vacation. Like it's summer in full swing. And I can't promise we'll have regular episodes over the summer because as I travel, it's not always easy to record, right, Shawn Sometimes sometimes we need to take a break too, right?

shawn (00:24.226)
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes life piles down on Matt when he d has no job for the next seven months and he needs a break. Is that what you meant?

Matt (00:27.441)
Sean.

Matt (00:33.425)
I just got off of a cruise. I was on a one week cruise. So yeah, I need it. Yeah. Well, next week I'm gonna go visit my my granddaughter. So like I I every moment I'm out there with her I wanna spend with her. So I don't know that I would record a podcast when I'm with my granddaughter.

shawn (00:40.014)
Yeah, you need a break from that.

shawn (00:47.0)
No.

shawn (00:52.462)
That that's a great point. But the truth is I do believe that that our listeners come to the podcast for me and not you, so that's okay. Right? It's for me. They want to hear me talk about politics and the and the religion and not not necessarily this this this political scientist who who's a know at all. No, not a know at all. Wait, are you

Matt (01:00.849)
That's true. That's true. That's true.

Matt (01:12.177)
I I think I think they like the back and forth, Sean. Actually, my wife and I were just listening to last week's episode and she's like, You guys are pretty heavy in like f like communist theory philosophy stuff. I'm like, sorry.

shawn (01:26.062)
She th She doesn't think people want to hear that stuff. But hey

Matt (01:31.11)
she's like, This is at a very high level, a very high

shawn (01:33.762)
I think but I think people have to hear it because there's a there's a big part of the Democrat Party that is that is promoting it. And dude, when I was on the plane to Estonia, I sat next to a girl named Anna. Her name like she was twenty-one years old, and she kept asking, like, Well, so what do you think about Mamdani And at the end I was Why are you so obsessed with Mamdani Like, what's that all about? And she's like, Socialism is awesome. And then I was like, Wait one minute, tell me about your

History of Estonia. Just tell me what you know about the history of Estonia. She's like, I don't really know anything. I was wait a minute, what about the communist years? What about the Soviet Union? She's like, I don't know that much about that. So quickly, Matt, our ma our kids, they don't learn history. But so I think it's important. We need to talk about communism and the evils of communism and the evils of Karl Marx and those who follow and like Karl Marx.

Matt (02:13.359)
Yeah.

Matt (02:21.061)
Well

Matt (02:25.55)
Well and to be fair, I I took a class on Marxism in graduate school. So that's why I read everything Karl Marx ever wrote. I ha I'm not a Marxist in ho at my s at my heart, but Marx

shawn (02:39.991)
Thank you for clarifying that. Thank you for clarifying that. Thank you.

Matt (02:43.662)
Yeah. But Karl Marx is so important to the political history of the world that you can't you can't study or understand political science unless you understand Marxism because it's everywhere in the world of politics. So that's why I know it so well. But I do have a a good friend who's also a political scientist that grew up in communist Yugoslavia. And anytime I say anything remotely kind about Marxism or communism, he's like, Have you ever lived in it? And I'm like, No. He's like

Don't talk about it in a positive way if you haven't lived in it. He's like, 'cause I grew up in it and it's not so good.

shawn (03:16.301)
Ha ha

Amen to to that. Please listen, you and Levi. Please listen. But I know what you'd say that that's not the proper application of the first principles of communism or Marxism, but that it

Matt (03:25.775)
Yeah, so

Matt (03:32.473)
No, no. All I'm all I want to say is that I think I've said this a lot of times on the podcast. I do not believe that there is a morally right and a morally wrong when it comes to government. And so if somebody is a communist and they're a member of our church and they feel like communism speaks to the their moral view, then that's fine. Like that's I'm not saying it's a good way of government. I'm saying that you can find

Principles of communism that are compatible with principles of the gospel. And so I just try to help illustrate those points.

shawn (04:06.465)
But don't you think I mean that's a bold statement that that that all forms of government you can't have an immoral form of government. There's just different forms of government. That sounds like relativism. And I I think that there I think but there's but there are some absolute and universal truisms and principles that exist. For for example, you know what the DNC says about ownership of property, for example. And and human

Matt (04:17.328)
It's about the people. People.

Matt (04:28.224)
I know, I know, I know. Yes, I know, Sean. Well, and that's it's okay that we disagree about that.

shawn (04:33.759)
And freedom and liberty and human rights, right?

Matt (04:36.61)
You can have freedom and liberty and human rights in any form of government. Yeah, it's not.

shawn (04:40.221)
Not but if you study the first principles of the Communist Manifesto, you cannot.

Matt (04:45.838)
Well, it's okay that we dis so I just want to be clear. I'm not a Marxist, I'm not a communist, I don't advocate for that, but I do know that there are active members of our church who feel that way, and I think that it's okay that they feel that way. And sure there can. Sean, you have not met Gen Z. I told you, I'm it's not when I tell you that like the the socialist revolution is coming to the United States of America, that's not me being wishful and hoping for it. That's what the young people want.

shawn (04:56.961)
There can't be very many. No there

shawn (05:14.637)
But Anna is from Estonia, perfectly represents Gen Z in not understanding or knowing what communism is. Not the principles, not the history, none of it. So when they learn, I don't think there's gonna be a bunch of people lining up for communism or socialism.

Matt (05:32.719)
Okay. Well, we'll find out. And and by the time we find out, it won't matter to me anymore. They can take everything I have and give it to the poor. All right, we had some comments from listeners in the mailbag. Some of them are kind of long, but I think they're important to read. So I'm gonna read them even though they're a little long. So one listener wrote in and said, Just when you thought you were done talking about the reason young women are leaving the church, I have an interesting perspective of this phenomenon. I'm a faithful member, a woman.

shawn (05:35.191)
Yeah.

Matt (06:01.816)
And a mental health therapist with a practice that is primarily comprised of female clients aged 12 to 20 years old that are LDS, and they are a generation that uses their critical thinking skills in a way I never did when I was their age. We have a theology problem that needs to be addressed, and it doesn't necessarily involve who has the priesthood and who doesn't. A lot of females I see in my office are so disheartened.

By what they think their lives will look like after this life experience. Yes, families are forever, but it sounds like it is still very male-centric, and women are voiceless and invisible to them because of the way we talk, or rather, don't talk, about our heavenly mother. A video of President Oakes speaking in Europe last year was leaked where he speculated that we might have heavenly mothers, plural. So.

Sean can say that plural marriage is not a part of our theology today, but President Oakes disagrees. One reason women are leaving is that they aren't excited about the picture of Mormon heaven that they are given. None of them are excited about being numbered wives who aren't allowed to have a voice or even what appears to be a direct relationship with their children. Mormon heaven for many feels like a sad place that fills them with existential dread.

And then the text message, I we didn't get to read the rest. So I think that's a super important point, super valuable. And I say thanks to the listener for pointing that out. It's fine with me if if you guys want to text in and tell us all the different perspectives, I'm happy to share them because clearly as two guys, we haven't covered all of the different perspectives about why young women are leaving the church. And so I think it's an important perspective.

shawn (07:48.45)
And I would have to and I agree. Thank you so much for the the time you took and for giving us that perspective. It does open our eyes. It does open my eyes. However, I think there are a couple things to address, right? Like the the first thing would be to to speculate on that that video of President Oakes saying what he said. That's speculation. You there's no way I would listen to that and conclude, he just taught a principle of eternal plurality of of of wives. There's no way. like he's in his nineties.

He's old. He could have made a mistake. He could have met something entirely different. So you're speculating on that, right? And the the idea that it it it is an under it is trying to understand doctrine. The idea obviously, if all I know about the church is that I go to church and I look and see who's on the stand or I look at our leadership, then you can say it's a male centric, it's a male dominated religion. But if you study the church's doctrines, the real doctrine.

Matt (08:25.774)
Yeah, but I would say the point yeah, go ahead.

shawn (08:49.185)
There is no inequality between men and women. You know what I mean? Like the fact that a bishop sits on a stand and presides has nothing to do with his salvation or exaltation. And when I study cl like I have my whole life, can a man and a woman will they attain to different levels of salvation or exaltation when it comes to what the Lord has to offer? The answer is absolutely just unequivocally no. Like everything, there's no way that a post-life, like after this life,

There's not a it is not I don't see any evidence of male domination or male privilege. There's not. I will become a king and a and a priest, my wife will become a a a a goddess and a priestess and a queen. Those things are equal in their exaltations under God.

Matt (09:37.339)
But the fact that you've studied it a lot and thought about it a lot suggests that there is ambiguity about it s enough that you would feel like you need to study it a lot. And and I think that I think what I think what people are saying is that whether or not you and I see this as a a theological problem, it's a at least a cultural problem in the church, in the way that people talk about it. So if I go to every day Sunday school, anywhere in the church.

shawn (09:46.957)
N no, that's not true.

Matt (10:06.978)
And we talk about marriage and we talk about family, I know that there are going to be a a number of people in that room who believe that plural marriage is is celestial marriage, who believe that there is more than one heavenly mother, who believe the things that the what what's

shawn (10:21.751)
But there's a remedy. There's a good remedy to that. Second Nephi 32. The dozens of other scriptures, the words of the prophets repeatedly and annoyingly over centuries. And that solution is feast upon the words of Christ. And it will teach you otherwise. You can't have just because there's a blind and ignorant faith in something doesn't make it true. Go study the scriptures and you'll see that that that there's no evidence of that.

Matt (10:38.874)
Maybe.

Matt (10:48.026)
But I think it's I think it's deeper than that. I think that I think that what she's saying about young women in the church is true. That that's the way that most people think of things. If if I were to say, okay, what is your family life going to look like after this life? If you're faithful in the church, if you do everything right, like what does that life look like? Celestial marriage, celestial kingdom, all that stuff. The picture that is painted in the church of what celestial marriage looks like does not appeal to.

Lots and lots of people who are raised in the church. So

shawn (11:21.035)
I don't I don't see that. Like whoever is painting that picture i is is a fringe painter.

Matt (11:25.24)
Well, what if you're gay, Sean? What if you're gay? Right? There's lots of gay people in the church. So the the painting that we paint of for them, if you're a gay man where you're hey, you get to be married to a woman for all eternity. Well, that doesn't appeal to them, right? And so there's that that picture that we're painting to people and that we're presenting to the world. I think that there are a lot of people in the church that say, I don't want that. And if you don't want,

shawn (11:30.945)
What what if

Matt (11:54.095)
what it is that the church is promising you is the big thing you get in the end, then you say, why would I go through all the effort to be in the church? Because I don't even want that in the end.

shawn (12:00.897)
But but yeah, but what I'm saying is there is a a blind faith misunderstanding of what the promise is. And it's and like you said, that's culture driven, and it's really easy to remedy that. Don't rely on any culture of any society, community, state, or church to define for you what God is promising us in heaven. Just go straight to the scriptures, and what you'll find is there's an absolute equal.

Absolute equal offering that God gives to my wife and to me, there's no difference whatsoever at all. The promise of salvation and exaltation is completely equal, and there's no doctrine. Like, like clearly, clearly, there's a temporal teaching and implementation that is governed by God when it comes to polygamy on earth. But when it comes to, and there's there's debate that we can have over DNC 176 about sealing power, and if you're sealed to multiple, all that, yes, we can discuss that.

Matt (12:56.832)
One thirty one one thirty six? One let me think. One thirty two probably, right? Yeah, one thirty two.

shawn (12:58.251)
Or one y is it one thirty six?

shawn (13:03.596)
Yeah, I got

Yeah, 132. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That that's that's that's great to discuss. We can discuss that. But I'm pretty clear, and I've studied it a ton. I'm pretty clear that this there there's there's more requirements than just if someone has the priesthood and seals you, it's a done deal. There's three or four requirements in here. It has to be sealed, for example, by the Holy Spirit of promise. It has to be God's will, all these different things. Right? Just because I have the priesthood and seal someone doesn't

Matt (13:08.025)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (13:31.472)
Okay, but Sean, even the fact even the fact that anyone can do that, the fact that in the scriptures there is a a process through which a person, a man can have more than one wife, it makes it very hard for you to argue that there's not plural marriage in the eternities.

shawn (13:46.519)
Well well hang on. There's a there's a process in scripture that talks about killing men, women and children, right? God commanded

Matt (13:53.165)
Not an ordinance. That's not a priesthood ordinance that has to be sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise and has to be done in a temple.

shawn (13:58.104)
That's true. Yeah, that's true. But but most but hang on, but show me one instance in scripture where it says that plural marriage is sealed in a temple under the priesthood. Show me one place. Did it happen did it doesn't say that? No, it doesn't.

Matt (14:12.816)
132. Uh-huh. well, so this is a good time to read the next comment. This person wrote in and said, Hi there. You read my comment on your show. Just following up following up to say, yes, Sean, you got that right. I don't believe it's a true doctrine, and that it should eve have even been practiced to start with. I did my own research. Regardless of no evidence of this to be true.

shawn (14:20.341)
Okay.

Matt (14:40.684)
Many still believe that it will be practice and therefore there is a shadow that hangs over the church. That men in the church can sit around and joke about this is insane to me.

shawn (14:52.031)
I agree, that is insane. And if we ever took it lightly, I I would apologize for that. I don't mean I would never intentionally take it lightly.

Matt (14:59.716)
I don't think the listener's talking about us joking about it. I think I think that there are men in the church that joke about it all the time. And and I don't know how how much it I just know that my dad would regularly talk about how excited he was for plural marriage, but he's excommunicated now and no longer a member of the church. So I mean I it's just there. It's a part of our culture. It's a part of our it's a part of our church. And I think that listeners are good to point out that this is another reason.

shawn (15:13.025)
What?

shawn (15:17.771)
Yeah. And I

Matt (15:28.484)
Why young women are probably leaving the church.

shawn (15:31.447)
But again, it's to me there's there's it it's a complicated it's f listen, there are a lot of complicated topics in the gospel that require deep, deep interest and study. Now, I I don't think you could possibly say that any Bible-believing person can argue that polygamy wasn't implemented by God. Like there are so many verses. It's all over the Bible. So to say it was a mistake and never should have been implemented, I I you can't say that.

Matt (15:49.838)
Of course, it's all over the Bible. Yeah.

You c can't say that. The Abraham Abraham has four wives with him in heaven right now. The doctrine and covenants tells us that.

shawn (16:03.969)
What doesn't it say that it what does it say that?

Matt (16:05.998)
It says he's exalted on his throne with he has his his wives and his mistresses or what I don't remember what they're called. Something like that.

shawn (16:10.475)
It it doesn't say it doesn't say that. Where does it say it doesn't even say anything close to that? Show me that. Show me that.

Matt (16:17.38)
Yeah.

I don't know.

But you're exalted as a couple. You can't be exalted without your couple, right? So who's who's the wife that Abraham's with in his exalted state?

shawn (16:34.567)
Whomever God's God's will, right? It's it's God's will and whoever was sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. Like we don't know.

Matt (16:36.432)
Hagar Sarah?

Matt (16:42.02)
Both of all four of all four of them were sealed to him.

shawn (16:45.503)
Sealed, but it's gotta be also by the Holy Spirit of Prom the the sp where is it? It's gotta be

Matt (16:51.564)
I know, they say it like eight times in one thirty two.

shawn (16:54.593)
They do. And it has to be the will of God and it has to be sealed, not just sealed by authority, but sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. I we don't know, right? We don't know. We de definitely don't know. Yeah, what about Jacob? You mean Jacob? Yeah.

Matt (17:03.108)
Well what about what about Isaac? Is he with Rachel or Leah? Right. What about Jacob? Wait, was J Isaac had more than one wife, right? Isaac had to work for so long and he got one wife and then he worked for more years and got the other wife. I see. Okay.

shawn (17:13.394)
It doesn't really say.

That's Jacob, Israel. I mean, that's a great point, right? He was the son, he was the covenant father who had twelve children from these four separate wives. And you're right, it's a good question. Is he sealed to all four of those wives in heaven? So some could argue, some could some could argue that God's law, which is clearly preached throughout the doctrine of the scriptures, is one man, one woman, right? That's clearly preached.

Matt (17:26.736)
Yeah.

Matt (17:30.434)
I hope so. Of course he is. Why wouldn't he be sealed to them?

shawn (17:43.734)
And then it preaches that then it preaches. it's all over. What do you mean? There's an abundance of scriptures that teach that. But then it Genesis, leave thy father and thy mother, cleave unto one another. That's the first book of the scripture, the first chapter. it doesn't apply to the whole world. They didn't even have a mother and father, dude. So it has to mean it applies to everyone in the planet, everyone that comes after Adam.

Matt (17:44.065)
Matt (17:49.688)
Not prior to Abraham.

Matt (17:57.787)
Well, that's just Adam and Eve. That's just those two.

Matt (18:03.352)
Matt (18:14.084)
Well, Sean, I think this has been very good for you to to try to defend the position that I think everybody wants everybody wants to agree with you, Sean. I don't I don't think there's any question that people would like for what you're saying to be true. And we all hope it is. And and if you if if you are, let's just say this if you are a man who's dreaming of plural marriage in the eternities, just keep that to yourself. Don't share it in church, don't talk to other people about it.

'Cause it doesn't help anybody. It doesn't it's not a

shawn (18:43.585)
I don't know anyone that would has ever said any been in the church for fifty years, I've never heard anyone say that. Have you? Minus your dad joking about it. But he's joking about it.

Matt (18:49.89)
I well, I'm my dad. Yeah. I don't know, maybe you didn't spend enough time at the dorms at BYU. All right. Well, let's get to the thought provoker. So, first up this week, artificial intelligence threatens to eliminate millions of human jobs, leaving top economists worried about long-term unemployment. Listeners, I forgot to mention this little disclaimer. Last time we talked about our favorite taxes. So

shawn (18:58.551)
Ha ha

shawn (19:19.029)
Yeah.

Matt (19:19.152)
I'm gonna see if I can get to like what's Sean's favorite tax, but that's where we're leading to. So currently, U.S. tax law favors technology over people by taxing business assets and equipment at much lower rates than worker rate wages. To slow down job losses, many economists recommend raising taxes on capital or lowering taxes on human labor. Equalizing these taxes removes the financial incentive.

shawn (19:21.677)
nice.

Matt (19:47.889)
For companies to replace employees with machines while also helping generate the needed government government revenue. So this is the question, which is more moral taxing wages or taxing assets and equipment?

shawn (20:03.019)
Matt, you're so good at this. Like these are such interesting questions. You're so good at this. Does it boil for I gotta ask something, some clarity? I had to look up how is it the equipment being taxed? Because I've always seen or believed or even experienced that equipment is a tax write-off. I can I can depreciate that. I and I was shocked to say that some states do tax people's equipment, but all states

Matt (20:05.264)
Ha ha ha.

shawn (20:32.981)
allow for the write off. So it's a very small tax. But is that what you're talking about? Okay.

Matt (20:37.092)
Yeah, that's right. So that's one of them. Well, so so the first thing that they do with equipment is like if I purchase a bus, over time my bus is going to lose value. And I can take the the loss of the value of the bus and I can take that to offset my taxes, right? I can say, this loss, even though I didn't actually lose anything, right? Just the fact that my bus isn't worth as much as it used to be.

That loss I can count as a a loss of expenses in some way. So that's one way. But then the other thing is if I purchase something, there's usually a sales tax. But what they'll allow you to do is you can purchase a very expensive piece of equipment as a lease instead of as a whole purchase. And then you can avoid that sales tax. And you don't have those same kinds of go ahead.

shawn (21:20.981)
Right. Yep. And you c yeah, and you can and you can depreciate it over time and yeah, it's a it's an incredible tax benefit. Yeah.

Matt (21:29.189)
Yeah.

And so the same is true, by the way, of my workforce. As my workforce ages, their ability to work is also a loss that I'm taking over time. We don't allow employers to depreciate age of employees. As a person gets older, their healthcare expenses become more expensive. We don't allow them to write off that sort of stuff as a person ages. So, and then the taxes on those, right? So we tax the wages that you pay to the employee. We

And we don't treat employee labor the same as we do equipment labor, which incentivizes a company to say, if I have the same amount of money and I can buy a bus or I can buy a man to ride the bike and haul stuff around, the bus is a better tax choice than hiring a person for that job.

shawn (22:04.46)
Yeah.

shawn (22:19.415)
So one more question before we can like discuss it. Is the essence of this question this if I own a business and I have the choice in front of me, okay, I can hire this, this, this person, or I can buy a computer and buy an AI agent, like spend money on an AI agent. Are you saying, look, we are humans, we need to support each other? Let's tax the c let's make the cost of a computer and an agent.

more of an expense so that I will make the decision to hire the human. Is that what it boils down to?

Matt (22:54.042)
Well, so taxes typically the the real purpose of a tax is to fund the government, right? But we all know that the way that a government taxes people teaches people about what should be valued in society. So if there's something we don't want people to do, we put a really heavy tax on that to say, you shouldn't buy that, because it's really expensive and you ought to avoid it.

shawn (23:16.747)
So cigarette cigarette tax, tax taxing tobacco like crazy. Now it dis dissuades people from doing it.

Matt (23:20.536)
Uh-huh.

Or sometimes we say, What you're doing is creating a cost to society. So you need to pay for that. So we tax fuel because that helps pay for managing the roads and things like that. If you're buying gas, that means you're driving on the roads and we can use that money.

shawn (23:36.289)
So so you would go in the extreme case, you would go all the way and say, remove all taxes on humans and let's put heavy taxes on computers, trucks, buildings, and let that fund the government. Is that correct?

Matt (23:50.587)
Well that's the question, Sean. Is it more moral to which of those taxes is more moral? Taxing wages or taxing assets and equipment?

shawn (23:52.405)
It's n it's not.

shawn (24:01.205)
I don't think there is a moral. Like clear clearly the scriptures teach that government is ordained of God. And and clearly a government can't exist unless it has assets to actually operate, right? So I guess the the society has agreed that taxes are the way to do that. The question is, like you're bringing up how to tax it and how much to tax it. But but to to say which one is moral or immoral, I don't know that you can. I don't know that there's a latter day lens on this. Is there?

Matt (24:22.476)
Mm-hmm. And what to tax?

Matt (24:30.906)
There is a latter day lens on this. I think it's in Thessalonians, but it talks about the importance of work. It says I if a man would not work, neither should he eat. But there are a lot of scriptures that talk about idle hands and how idleness is bad, and we should be thrifty and we should work and all those sorts of things. So, as a society, if you want to incentivize labor, you

shawn (24:32.0)
What is it?

Matt (24:58.596)
Don't tax labor. It's as simple as that, right? You don't tax the fruits of labor. So if you want if you want to incentivize people to go work, then don't tax them on the wages that they earn at work. So that's immoral. That's a wrong thing to do, to tax people's wages.

shawn (25:00.801)
Ha ha ha ha.

shawn (25:17.355)
So g I'll give you a scenario, okay? So now we're only taxing property and equipment in order to fund your beloved beloved government, right? Right? Okay.

Matt (25:26.872)
Okay. Well well there's other ways there's other t well we can tax consumption. I'm okay with taxing consumption. I I think

shawn (25:33.357)
Give me an example of that. So if I drive my car more than a certain amount of miles, I pay more taxes, a higher tax rate, than you who are this conservative driver, like that kind of thing.

Matt (25:44.573)
well so so a gasoline tax is taxing consumption, right? You're using gas. That means you're using that gas in ways that are gonna consume things. So we're gonna tax you on that because it helps us build repair the roads and all of that sort of stuff.

shawn (25:59.224)
but isn't that proximal to taxing my labor? No?

Matt (26:03.618)
No, no, we're I'm taxing your consumption. I'm taxing what you're choosing to spend your money on, what you're choosing to do with your free time, not your labor. Work is incentivized and y what you earn at work is yours to keep forever until you choose to spend it on something, and then we can tax that.

shawn (26:13.089)
But but

shawn (26:20.171)
Okay, so let's say so let's so let's say I'm a I'm a capable, I don't know, whatever my career is, I work on a computer. And the only equipment that I have is I can work out of my home, so I don't consume a lot in in gas. My only equipment is a computer. So I'm barely hardly contributing to our tax base because I don't have much com I'm not taxed my income's not taxed. My and let's say and I'm not hardly consuming anything.

Matt (26:46.234)
But you're not consuming anything. You're not consuming anything. Right.

shawn (26:50.229)
Okay, and then take, let's say, I don't know, my sister who teaches piano. Okay, to teach piano, she needs a a well air conditioned room, so she needs to rent a space. She needs a really expensive, high quality piano, right? She needs all this equipment and so now maybe she's not making as much money because make teaching piano isn't quite as pro y you know what I mean? She's not even making as much money as me.

So now I who make a lot of money with my little computer and pay zero taxes because my computer is my only piece of equipment, she's gonna be paying tons and tons of taxes because she has more equipment. That's the way you want it to work?

Matt (27:24.333)
She's that's consumption, right? She's using that equipment. And so using the equipment, yeah, you're going to tax that.

shawn (27:29.889)
That's I would s if you're if you're trying to frame it in a moral or immoral, I think that's immoral. I think it's a burden you're putting on someone just because they are you let's frame it in the they're they're they're using God, they're creating as God. They're either using the assets that God has given them, they're organizing.

Matt (27:41.059)
What

Matt (27:47.057)
They're not they're not getting taxed on that. They're not getting taxed on anything that they create. They're not getting taxed on anything that they teach, any of that's and all of the work that they do is not taxed. It's just the equipment

shawn (27:58.136)
But she makes right, but she makes a third of what I make, yet in order to make that third of what I make, the equipment she has to use costs ten times as much as mine.

Matt (28:06.2)
You

You would be shocked, Sean, at how the the way that the amount of money people earn changes when you change the tax structure. She might not earn a third of what you earn if you change the tax structure. She might be able to say to those parents of those children, listen, I have to buy all of this equipment. I mean, I'm I'll give your kid a discount if they're willing to do it in the heat and they're gonna sweat as they're playing the piano. But if you want them to be in this comfortable place, then you're gonna have to pay more because I have to pay for all of that.

shawn (28:30.88)
Immoral.

Matt (28:36.9)
You just pass that on as part of the the cost of doing business.

shawn (28:39.831)
I think it's immoral. It puts an unfair burden on different types of livings. And I think it's yeah, I think that's immoral.

Matt (28:47.766)
Okay. But I had scriptures for mine.

shawn (28:50.925)
You did. That is true. That means I have to give you the points? Dang it.

Matt (28:53.677)
All right.

no, no, you don't have to give me the points. The other thing I was thinking about is that Americans are frequently concerned about no. Like a lot of the problems that we see in society, like pornography use, right? Things like that. People are doing things that we prefer they not spend their money doing, and people are like, well, you're free to do whatever it you want to do, and things like that. There are choices people make that create costs for society.

If somebody chooses to drink alcohol, that's a burden on society. If they choose to do drugs, that's a burden on society. Somebody consumes pornography. Tax that stuff. That stuff should be taxed like crazy. Make it super, super you want to go to OnlyFans? Great. There's gonna be a huge fee that you're gonna pay in taxes to go to OnlyFans. But the labor, you should never be taxed on the labor and your work that you create. That should be free. Okay.

shawn (29:27.137)
You want to tax that?

shawn (29:48.138)
I'll give you the points for that, but it I mean this that could go into a deep, deep discussion, but I'll I'll give you the points 'cause you're thinking outside the box. I thought the question was leading into a different direction, but y y okay, you get the points, Matt. That was interesting.

Matt (30:01.188)
All right. So bestselling author Stephen King criticized Utah. Again, it's Utah, so it's members of the church. That's it's LDS adjacent. Yeah, he criticized Utah on social media after his 1982 book, Different Seasons, was removed from public school libraries statewide. The removal was triggered by a 2024 Utah law that automatically bans a book from all public schools if it is flagged as age inappropriate by multiple school districts.

shawn (30:07.797)
It ties in. Yeah.

Matt (30:29.722)
While King defended the collection as stories of friendship, critics pointed out that its dark themes include a teenager bonding with a Nazi war criminal. Critics also clarified that the book is still freely available for purchase to the general public despite its removal from school shelves. So this is the question Is this Utah law doing more harm than good? Okay, Sean. Tell me more.

shawn (30:49.452)
Yes.

We're gonna agree? We're gonna agree on that. I think it it violates this principle. It 'cause basically what it's what it's saying is that a minority of school districts or my a minority of groups decide what's appropriate for all schools. Like we we I I think you've been persuaded to like this idea of federalism. You like federalism, right, Matt?

Matt (31:16.514)
I don't like federalism, but President Oak said it's an inspired part of the Constitution, and so I accept it as divinely inspired. But no, I don't like it.

shawn (31:23.081)
Okay, so if it's so this violates the principle I think of federalism, right? This idea that a minority of schools or decision makers can decide what is appropriate for all schools. Like 'cause my when you first posed the question, I thought for a minute, I thought, yeah, that's okay. It's like a mini version of federalism, right? Right. So if this school decides and votes that this isn't an appropriate book, but then I realize what you're saying here. It's like, well, wait a minute, the law the law i is a bad law because it's literally saying a few people

Yeah, what is it? How many schools have to decide that this is a bad book and then the rest of them have to apply that? That's a terrible law.

Matt (31:58.433)
I see. So you're saying it's it's robbing people of freedom because it's not allowing because if like let's just say it's ten, I don't know how many school districts it is, but if ten school districts can ban something in the entire state, then that's tyranny of the minority, right? Because it's allowing a few people to make decisions for everyone else.

shawn (32:14.039)
Yeah.

shawn (32:18.517)
Yeah, and I and one of your other questions we're going to talk about the tyranny of the majority. And yes, I think both both are bad. What do you think?

Matt (32:24.814)
Yeah, Sean, that was a really good argument. I can't I can't that's pretty good. Yeah. It's I agree with you. Yeah, that was a really good argument. it's it's hard for me to take the side of book banning as a good thing. I I like when when it comes to public libraries, and I have to be careful because my sister is a public librarian and she does a very good job. My sister Melissa reads more than a hundred books every year.

shawn (32:29.965)
You agree?

shawn (32:48.708)
shawn (32:54.7)
Whoa.

Matt (32:54.978)
You can't name a a like a book targeted towards young people that she hasn't read. And so she takes her job as librarian very seriously. And so I trust

shawn (33:05.569)
I I I I I bet your sister hasn't read Ayn Rand.

Matt (33:10.544)
That's not targeted for young people. No. But I I'd actually would surprise me if she hasn't read it. She's she's read kind of everything. And she knows, she knows. So when I look at her and I look at the work she does in her public school library, I say, okay, I trust her to identify content that's good. There's always nuance in trying to decide like what's a good book, what's a bad book, what should, what should a child have access to, what should they not have access to.

shawn (33:13.449)
It's not? Okay.

Matt (33:40.235)
And I trust my sister's judgment on that. And so I right, so if my sister were to say a book should be banned, then I would say, yes, ban that book. I trust the school librarians on that. So that's that's that's that's my position on this is that we need to trust people who have expertise. In my world, there are lots of parents that come to me. Not there are parents that

shawn (33:53.858)
Hm.

Matt (34:07.78)
That care a lot about what their kids are taught in school. And they they want to voice their opinions to people with expertise. And they get offended when those people with expertise don't really listen to them. Because a parent's just one person, right? And you have an important perspective, but your perspective is about your child. And I can't take what you want for your child and then apply that to everybody else and say, well.

shawn (34:19.735)
Ha ha

Matt (34:32.932)
You don't understand. I have to do everything differently now because this one parent cares about what happens to their one child in this class full of people. So I think that the in society we need to trust people with expertise. But your argument is really good that, like, yeah, having a tyranny of the minority is also bad. Where if if a majority of school librarians say a book is okay, but a minority can say it's not okay, then that's also bad.

shawn (34:39.725)
Okay.

shawn (35:00.885)
Yeah, and we if we agree on the the question or the answer, I don't know that I agree that it sh 'cause could couldn't Yeah. dude, I don't know if we want to get into that, but

Matt (35:12.932)
Get into it, Sean. Well, I feel I feel like I feel like when you send your child away to school, you have to trust them as a as an individual that they're gonna I find content that you find objectionable, and you have to trust that they're gonna be able to navigate that decision of whether to read it or not to read it with the with the influence of the Holy Ghost in their lives. And you have to let them live their lives and experience it. And you can't get mad.

that they came across something that you wish they'd never knew about or something you didn't even know about. Like that's what life is, is people having individual experiences and learning things on their own.

shawn (35:50.444)
I agree with you there 100% what you just said. But instead of this idea of leaning on some supposed specialists or or industry experts about what book is appropriate or not appropriate, maybe let the let it be a robust debate and discussion, right? I would love like like hearing your sister and some parents debate Stephen King's book, what's it called?

Matt (36:06.072)
Matt (36:13.328)
different seasons. Different seasons. No, no, it's not healthy.

shawn (36:14.369)
Different seasons. That's healthy. Let it be debated. Your sister, as as as talented and as amazing as she is, and I do love her, she she's she's not the moral authority on what books everyone should or shouldn't be reading. And so let the debate happen. Let it be a health healthy debate, and maybe do try to apply more of a a federalist principle of okay, let some schools choose this and let other schools choose not to have Stephen King's book.

Matt (36:30.841)
Okay.

shawn (36:44.577)
I guess it doesn't really apply for federalism because I I can't move my kids from school to school. Go go ahead. Go ahead.

Matt (36:45.06)
Okay.

Matt (36:48.432)
Now you get my argument about why robust debate sometimes is a bad idea. So I was at a workshop, this would be maybe 10 years ago. There was a person who came and they were teaching us a teaching technique. And the technique is basically you put a multiple choice question up on the board and you have the group kind of talk it out with each other. What you do first is you have them vote.

shawn (36:54.903)
Yeah.

Matt (37:14.788)
So you can kind of see where people are at. And then you say, okay, why don't you guys talk amongst yourselves and figure out what the right answer to this is? And then we're going to vote again anonymously and we'll see if we can all come to a consensus about what's the right answer. And this guy who was teaching the workshop, he was a physics professor. And so he put some physics question up there that I didn't know anything. I had no idea what the right answer was. And so I'm walking around the room trying to find the right answer. And I go to this table, and it's all engineers.

And I'm like, what do you guys think the right answer is? Now, obviously these guys know physics, they're engineers. And they're like, the answer is B. And I was like, why is the answer B? And they're like, they explained it in words that didn't make any sense to me and wasn't very compelling. And I was like, hmm, whatever. So then I go to a table with music teachers and English teachers. And I was like, What do you guys think the right answer is? And then they told me the answer is C.

shawn (37:59.23)
Huh.

Matt (38:09.316)
And I was like, why? And they had this most the brilliantest, like the best argument of why the answer was C. I was like, that is such a good argument. So I put C. And then guess what, Sean? C was the wrong answer because they didn't have any expertise about physics. And I do this over and over in my classes. You have to, you have to have, in order for group discussions to work, you have to have at least 50% of the room has to know the right answer.

shawn (38:21.399)
Let me guess.

Matt (38:38.232)
in order for them to be able to get everybody else on board. But if I have forty percent of the class has the right answer and sixty percent has the wrong answer, then when we debate and discuss it amongst ourselves, the people who had the right answer actually go the wrong way and you end up with fewer people with the right answer.

shawn (38:55.255)
So so here's the flaw, I think, in your example. Aren't you the one that preaches all the time that our society is way better if every individual would go and educate themselves or earn an education? And not a trade, and not necessarily like a sp like be well-rounded, like go and learn. You're the one that preaches that all the time. I preach it in it. Uh-huh.

Matt (39:17.058)
I believe that e I believe education is a religious obligation.

shawn (39:21.293)
So instead of, so here's your flaw. Instead of Matt, and I can just picture you wandering over to table one and going, What's the answer? And then wandering to table two and go, what's the answer? Matt can sit down and study and learn. Yeah, you're a smart guy. You don't have to be an engineer to be able to go and get out get resources to find out what the answer could be. And you'll get to study that in your own mind and then enjoy the debate that takes place. See, that's the flaw.

Matt (39:22.842)
President Nelson said that.

Matt (39:49.966)
No. No.

shawn (39:50.668)
I don't want people, I don't want people to just close their eyes and go, Well, there's a binary of choices here. Let me just close my eyes and think, well, they're cool answer, they're more qualified. That's not a healthy way to do it. Go educate yourself.

Matt (40:02.498)
Okay. But when I but when I'm at a school board meeting and we're trying to decide should we ban a book and there is one librarian with expertise and there are ten parents with no expertise, who's gonna win?

shawn (40:16.045)
Okay. The question is how do you decide who's right or who wrong? Should we ban the book? The question is this: if you haven't read the book, you're not qualified. So if the parents haven't read the book, they're not qualified. Go read the book. Go read the book in order to have an opinion. Go get your own educated have a say. No?

Matt (40:35.536)
Do you know what happens when you say that at a school board meeting? They go, Boo, boo, sit down. You're such an elitist. I have to read the book in order to have an opinion about the book. You're so you need to go be a what's the word? An autodidact. Hey. No, I don't know. I I haven't been to a school board meeting even one time in my life. Didn't Levi tell us a funny anecdote about the word autodidact?

shawn (40:37.877)
What

Do they really?

shawn (40:48.737)
Autodidact. That's right. That's right. Do they really? They're

shawn (41:03.297)
Ooh, what did he say? Yeah, he did. What did he say though? Do you remember?

Matt (41:05.196)
Yeah. there was a New York Times game. There was a New York Times game and the word was autodidact. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Sh Sean, you get the points because w really we could have after you made your argument, we could have just ended that whole discussion because you you were right. I liked what you said. But I Okay. All right. Last last thought-provoking topic. First Lieutenant Tyler James Fienn, a 25-year-old Southern Utah University graduate student, was killed.

shawn (41:10.549)
That's right. I was so pleased about it.

shawn (41:22.043)
thanks.

Matt (41:35.227)
During an Iranian military attack in Jordan, Feein was weeks away from completing his master's degree in business administration, which the university will now award to him posthumously. The university plans to memorialize Fein across campus, joining tributes for other recent American casualties from the ongoing conflict. The founders were opposed to having a standing army. Our constitution requires congressional authorization for military deployments.

I believe these fears are an important founding principle of our nation. So this is the question Is it morally wrong for a president to require members of the armed forces to risk their lives if Congress has not declared war?

shawn (42:19.085)
There's so many interesting aspects of this. I'm not sure exactly where to start because I want to like discuss so much of it. I just I just listened, I drove all day today, and I listened to like a three-hour-long podcast about the Civil War. And one of your comments is that a standing army was not wanted by the the founders. Yet the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln, like revered as the best or the second best president of, he fought.

fought to have this s like and ever since then we've had a standing army, right? So so so the question I have is is this when this young man

Matt (42:51.407)
Yeah.

shawn (43:00.277)
When he decided to join the army, did he not freely agree in contract to the to to say that if my leaders, superiors, now if the debate is does the president have power to declare war, obviously he doesn't, right? Right. So so I don't know, like I like it's too simple of an answer to say, well, maybe is is your question, does this kid have an obligation, even though he signed a contract to say that he would obey? Does he have to obey?

Matt (43:16.752)
Correct.

shawn (43:30.665)
A gray area president? Is that the question?

Matt (43:30.894)
No, that's a that's a no, that's a legal question, right? And and and the president is the commander in chief, and so someone in the military is gonna do what the president tells him to do. No, the question is the president. Is our president doing something morally wrong when he asks members of the armed forces to go to deploy to Iran, to deploy to Venezuela, to deploy anywhere?

shawn (43:52.696)
But but he doesn't believe that he believes that he's legally within his rights to to ask these soldiers to do that.

Matt (43:58.01)
Doesn't matter.

So so not not getting inside of Trump's head, but just generally, right? As a is it morally wrong for a president, any president, it could be Biden, Obama, I don't care. By the way, presidents are always gonna think they're doing the right thing. So it doesn't matter to me like their perspective on it, right? But but the there's a constitutional process, there's a legal process. I understand there's the bat the

shawn (44:15.863)
Yeah.

Matt (44:26.542)
the separation of powers and there's always going to be struggle for power and all that sort of stuff. But the question is, is it morally wrong? Because you talk about the founding principles, right? And so is a president violating important founding principles when they ask someone to sacrifice their life or to put their life on the line for an action that hasn't been authorized by Congress?

shawn (44:50.679)
But how does it immediately become moral if Congress does ask the soldier to go sacrifice their life? I I'm struggling with is it a moral or immoral thing?

Matt (44:57.988)
Well, okay, so the founding principle is as a nation, because we didn't like Great Britain, we didn't like the idea of them having soldiers in our country, and we didn't like the idea of them saying, Hey, we can take your kids and force them to fight. Right. And so there was this idea that in the United States, this is the pr the founding principle as I articulate it. In the United States, we have no army, we have no military.

As a people, we're going to rely on God for our protection. And if something should happen where we need to have a military to fight, then Congress can authorize the creation of an army. Then the president becomes the commander-in-chief. And then we'll fight. Because then we know that whatever threat it is is so great that the country has united around this cause, and then we'll go fight. So the question is like,

shawn (45:55.831)
Can can can I

Matt (45:56.855)
Absent that are is a president doing something that's morally wrong.

shawn (45:59.598)
So can I say it would be morally wrong to compel these people to go into fight and to die? But it maybe isn't morally wrong if they are freely like that's what the Civil War War was. Those are all volunteer. That was a volunteer army. Yes, it sure was. Yes, it was. There was no conscription. They were volunteers.

Matt (46:15.256)
No, no, no, no, no. No. Sean, yes no, there was plenty of conscription, I promise. Gotta watch the movie Cold Mountain. But

shawn (46:22.957)
Let's fact check this. But I just listened to a three hour podcast where they talked a lot about it being a fully volunteer army.

Matt (46:32.484)
it was not fully volunteer, especially in the South. And plantation owners would send their slaves to fight in the place of their sons. If you were

shawn (46:41.921)
They weren't fighting. No, no, no. They they they clarified that. They sent them to do the work that supported the fighters, but there were not there were not southern blacks fighting on the South Side. There were, but there were volunteers. They chose to do it. Were the soldiers? well, I'm looking it up.

Matt (46:50.554)
There were also northern blacks that were conscripted. No. No.

Matt (47:00.012)
Yeah. But that's okay. Whether or not that happened in the Civil War. so a person who a person who says I'm gonna sign this contract to to join because so this is the thing, Sean, my son's in the military. He would love to get deployed. So like whether they're volunt go ahead.

shawn (47:16.513)
Hang hang on. Sorry, real quick. Civil War soldiers were mostly volunteers who chose to fight, but both sides later used compulsory draft when the war went on and on and on and on. And the soldiers who agreed to fight were agreeing under the impression that, hey, you told me to sign up for 90 days. And after time, they would get upset. But the majority of the soldiers, including the the the African American soldiers, they were volunteers.

Matt (47:43.099)
There were both volunteers and people that were forced. But a person who signs up to be in the army today, there's three million people in our armed forces. Not every single one of them is signing up to go put in to go fight in Iran, right? Or to go be in to go be deployed. so I I'm just gonna make

shawn (48:00.248)
But don't they agree? But what when they and I'm ignorant, when they sign a contract to join the military and receive the benefits of that military, right? And education, financial support, whatever it is, learning a trade, aren't they c agreeing by contract that we will obey our commander in chief and we will obey the constitution? So if the commander in chief, legally or not legally, he believes he's l legally, you know, starting a war in Iran, aren't they morally obligated to obey that?

Matt (48:19.184)
Sure. Sure.

Matt (48:29.238)
No, the Geneva Convention says that they are morally obligated to disobey an illegal order.

shawn (48:36.429)
So why doesn't why doesn't it go to the Supreme Court?

Matt (48:39.192)
So so if the president orders them to Well, so that's now you're moving beyond the the moral question to the legal question. And I just wanna know the moral question.

shawn (48:51.277)
Man, I don't know. My the only thing I can think of is that if I if I freely sign a contract that says I'll obey my commander in chief, then that's my choice to th and I'm saying I'm accepting the risk to go to war. Is that not morally

Matt (49:06.052)
But I'm asking you for the president, is the president doing something morally wrong when he asks them to go to war?

shawn (49:10.55)
without Congress is but that's why I have to but that's why I have to bring in the legal question is because if he believes that it's legal, then he believes that it's moral.

Matt (49:15.246)
Yeah, and I'm gonna say yes.

Matt (49:23.426)
Yeah, so it's not about the president's it's not about what the president believes. In my opinion, it's not about what the president believes. if we if we want to just go by what the constitution says, it says very clearly in the constitution. And the you know, the people who say, hey, let's go to the original language of the Constitution, it says the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces, the navy, and something else, and the militia of the several states when called into duty by Congress.

So unless Congress has called them into duty, then the president doesn't function as commander in chief. So the president's not as according to the Constitution, a standing commander-in-chief at all times. So

shawn (50:06.089)
Okay, then you've convinced me. Then you've convinced me. Yeah? That convinces me. Okay, if that's what the Constitution says and I should have done a little more digging in that. If that's what the Constitution says and that there's no authority that the president has to to take soldiers into war, then I guess I I think you've convinced me. I can agree with you that it is immoral.

Matt (50:09.732)
okay.

Matt (50:28.344)
It says the president is the commander in chief when called in to the actual service by Congress.

shawn (50:34.817)
So how does it s I wish I wasn't as ignorant on this as I am, but how does how does Trump get away with it now then?

Matt (50:38.308)
It's okay.

Because they passed the war powers resolution that said a president can act. The president can take military action when the United States is threatened, and the president has 90 days to seek authorization from Congress. So under the War Powers Resolution, the president can send troops to protect the United States because maybe Congress isn't in session and there's an imminent threat and we need to protect America. And so

The war powers resolution allows a president to do that, but it also requires that they get authorization. In this particular case, Trump sent troops into Iran. And then at the 90 day period, he did not seek authorization from Congress. He signed a ceasefire. And then Iran, he said, breached the ceasefire. And then he argued the 90 days starts over again, and I don't have to get authorization from Congress.

shawn (51:37.277)
And so is he so and j now he thinks he does not have to get authorization from c from Congress, period? Or does the ninety days just start over and he's attempting to get the authorization?

Matt (51:38.916)
Yeah.

Matt (51:44.976)
Correct.

Matt (51:48.77)
No, he has never attempted to get authorization from Congress. And yeah, Congress

shawn (51:53.602)
But y but you're saying but you're saying I see I I'm struggling a little bit with it being a moral decision because let's say Trump magically does seek for authorization now. Let's say in thirty days Congress gives him the authorization. Now in your mind all of a sudden it's moral.

Matt (52:08.91)
Yeah, because you've met the threshold of there is a threat sufficient to require our military to sacrifice their lives. But as president of the United States, to just decide that you're going to send troops into harm's way without authorization from Congress, you haven't met the threshold that was put into place to protect against abuses of power.

shawn (52:18.06)
Whoof.

shawn (52:34.167)
Did did Abraham Lincoln get congressional authority to go into where did the war start? Like

Matt (52:41.2)
it was in South Carolina. No, because Congress was not in session and because half of the states in Congress had seceded from the Union. Yeah.

shawn (52:51.885)
So he was solely acting on presidential authority to to do that then.

Matt (52:56.036)
He had no authority to do what he did. Yeah. When

shawn (52:58.635)
Was so but was that immoral? 'Cause he'd have to follow that logic that he what he did was immoral then.

Matt (53:05.452)
Yeah. I mean, that's the challenge with these sorts of things, right? So the reason that I forgive Abraham Lincoln is because he was trying his best to follow the constitution. I believe that if Congress were o in town, he would have sought authorization from them. I think that the reason, like you said, they signed 90 day contracts was because in his mind, that's all that he had the authority to do. And then after that, Congress would re regain like they meet together in session again.

And then they could declare war and solve the problem. Yeah, I don't know.

shawn (53:35.905)
Hmm. Hmm. I don't know, it sounds somewhat similar to Trump's justification. Obviously it's very, very different situations and it's easy for us to look and go, Yeah, I can who's n who's not gonna support Abraham Lincoln and what he did? But it does seem like a similar situation.

Matt (53:42.519)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (53:50.543)
Well, I'll tell you the difference. I'll tell you the difference. In the Civil War, there was a riot in Baltimore, which was just down the street from the White House. So there was there was violent action happening in the streets of the United States, and then the South attacked a military base in at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. So Lincoln, first there was an attack, then there was a response. In Trump's case, there was no attack. There was he acted preemptively.

shawn (54:13.366)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt (54:19.994)
To prevent an attack. So that's a very different thing, saying, they're they might hurt us, so we're gonna hit them first. In my opinion, that's never the morally appropriate thing to do. I see no justification in scripture to hit somebody before they hit you.

shawn (54:28.715)
S so then

shawn (54:35.177)
So then I'm gonna ask you a really complicated question. George W. Bush did get congressional authority to go into Iraq. So that was moral. And y by your logic.

Matt (54:43.865)
Yes.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he did the morally correct thing to do in that situation.

shawn (54:51.689)
Okay. And you're not asking if the Iraq war was moral or if the Iran war was moral or if the civil war was moral. You're just asking is the president behaving in the right way?

Matt (55:01.802)
but to me it's well, it's hard because I've said there's no right and wrong government. But but to me there are moral principles. The I believe that there are inspired principles in the Constitution. And and this one was not mentioned by President Oaks, but I do believe that it is an inspired principle that we should s should promote peace. We should seek peace as much as possible. And I believe that our Constitution

shawn (55:06.253)
You called yourself out, dude. I didn't even think to call you out for that. You called yourself out.

Matt (55:31.769)
We we were also the first nation ever to separate military power from government power. In my view, that is an inspired principle in our nation's constitution, the separation of military and government. And what we're seeing is the merging of military and government again. And I believe that that is immoral and it's I mean it's dangerous, but I just think it's it's immoral because it's stomping on one of the most important principles in our constitution, in my opinion.

shawn (55:41.515)
Hmm. Hmm.

shawn (56:02.679)
Wow, that gives me a lot to think about dude. I'm gonna be thinking about that all week.

Matt (56:06.86)
Okay. Well, let's talk about the big question of property again, Sean, because this is part three. Okay. I know. I think I have just two more after this one, but yeah. Okay. There's a whole bunch of scriptures here, but you know, big the big scriptures are if you think about Joseph in Egypt, where he taxes the people. There's the seven years of famine, right? So Egypt stores up all of this stuff through taxes, by the way, in the plentiful years.

shawn (56:10.381)
Dude, you are doing your work on this.

shawn (56:17.037)
Amazing, man.

Matt (56:36.76)
And then in the set the years, seven years of famine, as he's r allocating the the money and stuff, there's taxing the people. So it's very clear in Genesis 41 and 47 that Joseph, as a leader in Egypt, is taxing the people 20% over the land of Egypt. Joseph implements that tax. Then in Samuel, when he's warning about kings, he's hey, they're gonna have taxes, and then there's all kinds of other verses talking about.

Kings taking lands, redistributing lands, taxing things. So this is the question. Based on these scriptures, is it morally acceptable for governments to take, tax, or reallocate property?

shawn (57:22.719)
I mean

Matt (57:24.432)
Because they do reallocate property, right? They're like, hey, you were a good soldier. All of these lands are yours. Hey, thanks for fighting for me. You get all of these lands we just conquered.

shawn (57:33.741)
But those were lands that that they conquered from some other someone else, right? They weren't going in and saying, All right, Matt, Sean works harder than you, we're gonna take your land and give it to Sean. Or Sean was a soldier and so we're taking away your land and giving it to Sean. Right. They didn't there's no evidence of that in scripture.

Matt (57:48.154)
But every sing but every single piece of land that anybody has in the United States was taken by force from Native Americans.

shawn (57:58.574)
Well, then you gotta keep going back and back because the all the Native Americans took each other's land. So someone who was the original owner of all the land because everyone took everyone's land, including the Native Native Americans, taking each other's land. So this so it's impossible. This is why it's an impossible discussion. You can't go all the way back to find out who the original owner of the land was. Go give it to them, right? That's the only just way to do it in this in this case.

Matt (58:05.977)
Yes.

Matt (58:12.292)
Yes.

Matt (58:23.61)
Well, so this is the question. Is that a morally acceptable thing to take another person's land by force and reallocate it to other people, or to tax their property, or to what's the other word I chose? To take, tax, or reallocate property?

shawn (58:40.013)
So z I mean tax obviously.

Matt (58:44.526)
The scriptures the scriptures say to me it's okay. The scriptures say to me, if the Native Americans or the Mexicans or the Aztecs or the Mayans wanna rise up and take their land back, if the Cherokee Nation wants to go back and take the state of Georgia by force and say, This was our land and you took it away from us unlawfully, it's ours now. Scriptures say that's okay.

shawn (58:48.886)
Ha ha

shawn (59:10.423)
That's hard to argue against. It doesn't seem right, but but it does seem like that's the history of the Bible and the Book of Mormon, right? No, no, but but but how could you possibly like what if there were chapters in the D and C and church history where it was like, all right, and then they went into Nauvoo and they basically killed everyone and took the property? Like that's that wouldn't fly, right?

Matt (59:18.776)
Yeah. Okay.

Matt (59:31.78)
Yeah. Why?

shawn (59:35.245)
What's the word for this? what's the word that says like, hey, g go in and if you can take Yeah, but there's another like legal term for it or historical term for it. it's manifest destiny. Isn't this manifest destiny? If you can take it, it's yours. It does you deserve to have it. Isn't that manifest destiny? So

Matt (59:40.954)
To the victor go the spoils?

Matt (59:49.942)
I'm mm hmm.

Matt (59:58.082)
I always thought of Manifest Destiny as like w trying to expand the United States from sea to shining sea, like going across the country. But I don't know.

shawn (01:00:08.471)
The United States was divinely ordained to expand its borders. Yeah, you're right. You're right. But why couldn't other people apply that, right? Maybe the Native Americans from one nation to the other said, Look, w we believe that we're good people. Let's go take it. Like manifest destiny is applying like doesn't everyone believe that they're doing it for righteous reasons?

Matt (01:00:11.822)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Matt (01:00:28.238)
Okay, so then I'm gonna push you on this, Sean, because this is taking it by force. This is like, right, the the the Native Americans say, we're gonna go take this back by force. Okay, what if instead of using military force, they choose to use elections as force? And they say, We're gonna win office in the state of Georgia. All the Cherokee Nation, we're gonna go win elections in Georgia. And once we're in power in Georgia, we're gonna reallocate the land back to us. There's even a Supreme Court case that says that it's their land.

shawn (01:00:42.903)
Mm.

Matt (01:00:57.114)
We're gonna take that Supreme Court case and we're gonna use it to apply it. And all of the land in Atlanta and Georgia and all that now belongs to the Cherokee Nation. That would be morally justified, right, according to scripture.

shawn (01:01:10.071)
It's hard to argue not because you you did provide a ton of scriptures that I I mean, maybe the maybe, okay, maybe this is the same qualifier that applies to all your discussions about communism. When God is commanding it, then you can justify it. But if people initiate it on their own, how can you justify it as something moral? Like God was literally telling, right? God was directing it. So if God commanded it, it's the same argument. I'm I know this

Matt (01:01:34.383)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (01:01:37.682)
To non believers, this is kind of a pathetic argument. But it's like, yeah, God says don't kill. But but then he told Joshua to go kill every man, woman, and child. And it's just, right? If God, God's the author of righteousness, it's just because God commanded it, right? So if God commands me to go wipe out a nation and take over Georgia, it's just. But if the but if Yeah, go ahead.

Matt (01:01:52.719)
Mm.

Matt (01:01:55.952)
Mm-hmm.

If God commands Mayor Mamdani of New York City to take back all the land in Manhattan and give it then it's just.

shawn (01:02:03.745)
Yeah. Yeah. It would be just. Yeah, it would be just.

Matt (01:02:10.88)
that wouldn't that be great? All of the as like Mom Donnie lays out his plans, a reporter raises his hand and is like, do you feel like God has commanded you to do this? And if he says no, we're like, wrong. You can't do it then.

shawn (01:02:19.669)
And he says that

Matt (01:02:25.678)
I gotta get on the White House press corps so that everything Trump announces, I can just ask him in the White House, do you believe that God commanded you to do this?

shawn (01:02:31.189)
I wish that would happen. I wish that would happen. It would never happen. I wish it would. But does that qualifier? Do you agree that that is the the main difference between all of your verses you provided? God commanded if why? In every one of these instances, God is the one that commanded them to take someone else's property and give it to other people. Never ever is there an example. Okay you found one?

Matt (01:02:44.002)
No, I don't.

Because

Matt (01:02:53.786)
First Kings

First Kings chapter nine verses eleven and twelve. King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. It doesn't say God well, who knows, right? Uh-huh. Yeah. And David does this regularly, right? People who help David as he's fighting, he just gives them things. this is in first Samuel 30. he he decrees the equal division of spoil between combatants and those who guardeth the baggage. They shall part alike.

shawn (01:03:03.425)
And you're suggesting that there's no eviden there's no evidence there that God commanded it?

Matt (01:03:25.486)
And he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel unto this day. So he's just like, Look, you guys get this. So I I I think it's a a

shawn (01:03:33.803)
Yeah, you've stumped me you've stumped me a little bit, Matt.

Matt (01:03:37.698)
Okay, I like it. That's great.

shawn (01:03:38.881)
You stumped me a little bit on this one. I'm not sure because there does seem to be this is dissonant in my mind. There seems to be lots of evidence of the treatment of property that goes a little bit against what the DNC says, which is no no no no property is sacred, and I justify you in f in defending it and physically defending it. That's what the DNC says.

Matt (01:03:59.067)
Yeah, that isn't the doctrine and covenants. Yeah. Well that's why that's why this is fun to dig through all of these scriptures and see what there is. Hey Sean, this was awesome. Thanks for joining me. Listeners, thanks for joining us, and we'll talk to you again next week.

shawn (01:04:02.839)
So this is dissonant.

shawn (01:04:08.433)
Ha ha ha.