Matt 0:12

Welcome to the Latterday Lens, your home for faith promoting, unscripted discussion of current events. If you'd like to reach out to us, send us a text message at the link in the show notes, or you can email us latterdaylens at gmail.com. If you want to know more about us or listen to all of our episodes all the way back to the beginning, you can visit our website, latterdaylens.com. We'd love to hear from you. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Latter Day Lens. I'm your host, Matt. With me as always is Sean, and we are so happy to have Porter with us today. Porter, welcome back. Thank you. It's so good to have you. Uh you're you were just telling me you're a college graduate and working. So that puts you in a very small minority of people in this world. And you're working in something that you got your degree in, kind of, right? Like, way to go.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Yeah. I got my degree in political science, American government. Uh, I'm working as a legal assistant slash paralegal for uh an uh immigration law firm that does mostly like litigation. So I spend a lot of time doing what I did in college, like writing memos and doing research and working in R, making charts. Thank you, Brother Miles.

Matt 1:31

You're welcome. You're welcome. See, for all of our listeners out there who wonder if a college degree is worth it. Porter says, yes, absolutely, it's worth it. You learn stuff, you can do it for a job, you can find joy and happiness in that path.

Shawn 1:45

Except for the fact that, Porter, you've decided next you're gonna actually go back to school.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

I'm gonna go to law school, yeah.

Matt 1:53

Well, there are many people that say they're gonna go to law school and never do it. So it's okay. It's all right if Porter chooses a better path. For instance, Teddy Roosevelt said he was gonna go to law school and then became president of the United States instead.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

So Porter. Yeah, back then law school was a little more optional if you wanted to do law. Yeah, it's a different world now.

Matt 2:16

Well, welcome, Porter. We're glad to have you. Okay, so uh we have a couple of things in the mailbag. The first is one listener writes the way to find your favorite tax is to remember that whatever you get you tax, you get less of. If you paid if you tax paid imports, you get less imports. If you tax paid work, you get less paid work. If you tax inheritance, you get fewer entitled trust fund babies. The one exception is land because nobody is making more land. What is Sean's favorite way to fund the government? In other words, what's my favorite tax? I think so. I think that's what the listener wants to know. Sean, what is your favorite tax?

Shawn 2:54

Do only socialists have favorite taxes? Is that I mean, no one has a favorite tax except for socialists. I uh I mean, there's a billion different ways to structure taxes to provide for society. Like, I mean, very few people are gonna go, yeah, I don't think we should have any taxes. Of course you need taxes. But no one has a favorite tax. I mean, I could make an argument. We could go in deep in a rabbit hole and make an argument that a personal income tax structured in a certain fair way is the best way. And then you limit all other because here for example, for example, you could argue, Matt, that you are holding, Matt, you and your beloved workers that you proclaim to love, you're holding them back if you are limiting them to just one source of income. If you don't enable them to make wealth through property, through um real estate, through equipment, if you tax it so much that it limits their ability to grow wealth that way, then it's a regressive tax because you're you're basically attacking the poor. So if you don't like I'll never have, for example, the skills, talents, and and and work demand abilities like as Levi does, for example. He's a super smart dude. So if we just are limiting it to like income tax and don't tax people and their incomes, then I'll never ever, ever be able to rise the way that Levi is. I will always be stuck. But allow me to invest in real estate in San Diego, and I'm getting there.

Matt 4:17

Um, my favorite tax is tithing. Tithing is the way to do it, right?

Shawn 4:21

Tithing's not a tax.

Matt 4:23

Well, everything you have comes from the Lord. 10% of our increase we give back to him. So it's however one defines increase, you give 10% of that back to the Lord.

Shawn 4:33

Yeah, but you're conflate- I'm not gonna let you do that. You can't conflate tax with tithing.

Matt 4:37

Well, I'll just do it to the government instead of to the church or to the Lord. I give an additional 10% to my government.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

Yeah, but then you have to go in front of a a judge once a year and they'll ask you, Are you a full taxpayer? And you say yes or no. And if they discern that you're lying, then then they take away your citizenship.

Matt 5:03

Yeah, I don't know. I when Levi said he had a favorite tax, I thought that was the most hilarious thing ever. I don't even know what it is to have a favorite tax. But I'm I'm okay with the way God does it with tithing. Um, but yeah. Anyhow, thanks, listener, whoever you might be, for bringing us into the favorite tax topic. Another person wrote in and said, speaking of plural marriage, more than a shadow, it has kept tons of people from joining, and many have left because of polygamy. I believe Emma. The Lord calls it an abomination. It is not doctrine. President Hinckley was brave and said it is not doctrinal. So there you go. Uh okay, I don't know what to make of that.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

Um, as is the sinner saying that like polygamy was wrong? That like Yes, they're saying it was never what is it, section 132? That's that's just shouldn't be canon. I don't know.

Matt 6:00

Yeah. By the way, when President Hinckley said it's not doctrinal, it was on a TV show. Larry King Live asked him if our church practices polygamy, and he said no, it's not doctrinal.

Shawn 6:12

Right, today. Yeah. Yeah. But so I I I mean it's it's a tough discussion. No one likes polygamy, but you but the same way if she's saying, look, I uh there's no doctrine in it, it's an abomination, uh the DNC or whatever, you'd have to say the same about the Bible. The Bible is full of polygamy, and God sanctioned polygamy, God uh uh managed polygamy, right? For example, he commanded Nathan the prophet to go give to David the wives of Saul. That literally says, I am the Lord command you to have these wives.

Matt 6:46

And he took Saul's or he took David's wife away from him at one point. Or maybe God didn't do that. When he went to Michael, his wife Michael was given to somebody else. Was that gone? David had a wife named Michael who was Saul's daughter, and at one point his wife was given to another man, and then he came and got her back again, and she's like, I don't want to be with you.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Yeah, there are some marriage situations in the Old Testament that are infinitely more offensive to me than just the idea of plural marriage. Yeah. Um there is uh DNC 132 3, there's kind of a stipulation for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same. If God reveals the law of plural marriage to you, you must obey it. If not, you do not. And all the church resources, I don't know, seem to indicate. I don't know where this person is headed with saying like that it's somehow church doctrine because President Hinckley said that on a TV show that that this is like a false revelation. But if you read anything the church has published right now about plural marriage, it'll say yes, it was commanded, it was revelation, and we don't do it anymore.

Shawn 8:05

So, but by the way, verse 3 in DNC 132 applies to every single commandment across the board. Right? All he's saying here is this if you're accountable because you know a law and I require it of you, then you have to keep it. I don't think he's saying if you know about polygamy, then you have to practice polygamy. That's not what it's saying.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Well, knowing about it isn't it isn't the same as having it revealed unto you. Like we've had the we know about the law of Moses, it hasn't been revealed to us to follow it.

unknown 8:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Or the law of consecration, right?

Shawn 8:39

And there's a lot of clarity around polygamy where the Lord has given us real clear look, the law is this marriage is one man and one woman. That's the law. And in very few and certain circumstances where I, the Lord, command it to raise up a generation unto me of covenant children, then I will command it. That's the law. So if the Lord reveals that law, of course, the same way that if he reveals the law of consecration or the law of tithing, then we have to live it.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

We're obligated And I think polygamy plural marriage in the history of the church occupies this weird political space of like the concept of being married, of like being in a polyamorous relationship now, is not offensive to a lot of people. But in this context, for some reason it is. And I'm wondering if those crowds of people overlap or if this is a different group of people that is maybe more influenced by like a more of Americans, like Puritan culture of being offended by that to the point of wanting to leave the church.

Matt 9:49

I think people are just offended at the idea that they might be required to be in a plural marriage for all of eternity. But that's not doctrinal.

Shawn 9:58

That's not doctrinal. There's no doctrine that teaches that.

Matt 10:00

No, I know, but there's still people that believe that in the church.

Shawn 10:03

But that's a wrong belief. That's cultural belief. And so do your studying and you'll find that that doesn't isn't taught.

Matt 10:09

That's right. If you're bothered by that, read the scriptures more.

SPEAKER_03 10:13

Read that the church has such a great little thing on on plural marriage. That'll answer any question you have.

Matt 10:22

All right. Well, uh speaking of not wanting to let topics die, we're gonna we're gonna move into the thought provoker. So Jana Reese is uh, she's a I would call her a journalist, but from time to time she teams up with Benjamin Knoll, who's a political scientist, and they do uh interviews, public opinion surveys, and they ask questions of people who are members of the church or who are leaving the church. Anyhow, they have a book coming out uh in Oxford by Oxford University Press. It'll be released sometime next year, and it's all about why people leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And so she wrote a little op-ed this week talking about why young women are leaving the church. And according to her data, she says it comes down to three P's politics, purity culture, and powerlessness. So here's the question: Has Jana Reese identified anything that we missed in previous discussions about why young women are leaving the church?

Shawn 11:20

First, can I just plant the seed of skepticism about the accuracy of Janet Reese's or Jana Reese's um Yeah, yeah.

Matt 11:27

You don't Sean, if you're gonna be skeptical about Gallup and Pew, go ahead. Be skeptical about Jana Reese as well.

Shawn 11:35

I mean, I mean, I I read your dang study, Matt. Whenever you provide these things, it forces me to go read everything. I read it, I did a whole background study on Jana. Good. Um you can't say that there's not um bias? Interpretive bias. Let's call it interpretive bias, right? No, for sure. I'm not saying she's I'm not saying she's doing anything wrong, but there's definitely interpretive bias in this.

Matt 11:59

Okay. She interviewed Sean. She interviewed a hundred people.

Shawn 12:03

That's right. That's correct. A hundred people who, by the way, were not what what's the term, Matt? Randomized.

Matt 12:12

Right, right. She did not randomly select these hundred people. She used She did not.

Shawn 12:17

She handpicked This is not data. It's not data. She handpicked ex-Mormons, right? Who people who have left the church and focused on the demographic that is her demographic, which is a a woman who has left the church. So skepticism, Matt? Yes. Okay. I don't I don't think her findings are actually.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Yeah. Probably not. The other thing is gonna be she she says it's not just people who have left, but also what she calls liminal Mormons who are are just not um she says not as stalwart, they're not as uh devout as your typical member, active member of the church. But the issue is if she's picking people that she like knows, this is also gonna be regionally biased. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it doesn't really line up with the data we were looking at before, which by the way, really I don't think the data said that much. It was showing that what, like young women in the church were there's like a 60% chance.

Matt 13:20

Forty percent of young women aged 18 to 20 uh were still members of the church, and 60% of young men that age were.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Yeah, but then it evened out as they got older. It doesn't seem like that huge of a gap to me, and I think it is interesting to look at why the gap is there at all. And I think her reasons probably do have something to do with it. All of them.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Matt 13:45

But I think we've talked about I think we talked about all those on the podcast.

Shawn 13:48

I think we did, yeah. But here's the here's my point I want to make, Matt, is whenever you try to answer the question of faith or activity and you approach it from a sociology paradigm, you're not gonna get to the heart of it. Like what it boils down to is when someone l leaves a religion, they just stop they choose to not believe in it anymore, and they instead choose to believe in other things. It does boil down to faith, right? And the scriptures are clear on that. You don't think so?

Matt 14:16

Um, there's I think there's multiple things. I think that's one of the reasons people leave. I guess what I would say is this uh 2014, so this would be 11 years ago, 12 years ago, I did a survey. I did it the right way, where you randomly select people, they're not people I knew. I got 450 people to participate in my study, and it was a long survey, and I tried to find every single thing you could do to empirically demonstrate why people leave the church. And what I found was there's not an answer to why people leave the church, and there's not three answers. Like every single person is different, and so I think there's two things going on. One, everybody has their own path of faith, and so the reason they stay, the reason they leave is very individualized. But then the second thing is people don't really know themselves why they stay or why they leave. And if if, for example, I'm the kind of person that like my whole life I really wanted to be like go to bars and drink alcohol, and so then I start doing that, and then I leave the church, and somebody says, Well, you just left the church because you wanted to drink alcohol. I'm gonna reject that psychologically. I'm gonna say something like, Well, I've moved beyond, or I've grown, or I've become a better person, or I've learned to see things differently. So it's just such an individualized thing. I don't believe that it's actually possible empirically, or as Sean would say, sociologically, to identify patterns that are consistent across individuals and times and places.

Shawn 15:44

I love that, Matt.

unknown 15:47

Yeah.

Matt 15:48

Can I give points? Can I give Matt points?

Shawn 15:50

Yes, yes, Matt gets all the points. That was beautiful.

Matt 15:53

I still applaud the people try to do it. I have no problem with people trying to do it, but but don't you guys find in scriptures, like there's you read something about something that happened a thousand years ago in some totally different situation, and it speaks to you, and you're like, this is describing like my life and my situation and what I want to what I'm going through. And I I just feel like there's something about the human experience that like is universal across time and place, but also is so individual that like my experience really can't be aggregated or averaged across time and place to say everybody's like this or most people are like this.

Shawn 16:29

I'll go with that. Sure. Yeah. But but there are some common principles, right? Like, for example, Helam in 512 does talk about how look, there's a way to build a firm foundation upon which you cannot fall, right? In Ephesians, it talks about how um we become children tossed to and fro, carried around with every wind of doctrine by the slight of man and cunning craftiness whereby line we to deceive. And then it talks about, but if you're on that firm foundation, which is built on Jesus Christ, you you won't be pushed. And I see I think we get so distracted uh in our modern world with so many things and discussions and topics, whereas coming to Christ through faith and repentance and baptism to get the Holy Ghost, like that core foundation sets us on a firm rock. And like that's the that's the latter-day lens, right? Come unto Christ, feast upon his words, pray often, renew your covenants in faith, and nothing else matters.

Matt 17:22

I do think it's fascinating that there is one plan of salvation for everybody, and that plan of salvation works for everybody. At the same time, nobody has the exact same experience in their path to salvation.

Shawn 17:36

Nice.

Matt 17:36

Right? Like when I try and tell my kids, here's what the Holy Ghost feels like, they don't have common experiences with maybe some a little bit here and there, but it really is very difficult to say, this is what works for me, this is gonna work for you, in like a really specific kind of way, right? Yeah, in the general, come unto Christ, pray, repent. Like in the general way, it works, but the specifics are always different for everybody, the way that all of the mix of everything goes together.

Shawn 18:02

I have to think about that a little bit. I kind of think about it. I'll think about it.

Matt 18:05

Yeah. All right, here's the next topic. The Trump administration is deporting many Southeast Asian refugees who came to the United States as children, but later committed crimes. Some, like Mongtron, lived in the United States for decades, built families and careers, and then were sent to countries they barely remember. Meanwhile, Senator John Curtis introduced a bill that would let states create their own temporary worker visa programs based on local job needs. He says the bill is needed because businesses have worker shortages, and states should be able to choose immigration policies that fit their economies. Workers could stay for three years and their visas could be renewed. Some immigrants who have lived in the United States illegally for the last 10 years could also receive legal status if they pass a background check and pay $1,000. Each of these approaches angers different people. So here's the question: what's the best approach to immigration moving forward? And lucky for us, Porter knows something about immigration law. I know a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 19:03

I know a lot more than I did three weeks ago when I started this job. But um, when you're talking about how there's one plan of salvation that works for everybody, it was reminding me of our immigration system in America where we've tried to create a different plan of immigration for every single person for every possible scenario. It just doesn't work. Everybody's interesting, has everybody has different reasons for why they leave a place or why they go to a place, why they stay, why they go back, what they do while they're there. I I don't know. My position on immigration policy is pretty radical for today. It wasn't radical a hundred years ago that I think we should just have laissez-faire immigration. And let everybody in. Anyone who wants to come in can come and stay. Yep. Come and go. Uh just a free market. The most important part of any market is the people in it. Um we somehow just forgot that a long time ago. And not somehow, it's because of racism. I I like our entire immigration system is built on racism.

Shawn 20:11

You sound like a disciple of Matt Miles.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

You know, just like the plan of salvation. The plan of coming to America is different for each person, and I think our economy and our culture and our our country in general and the world would be much better off if you just gave people agency, and the most basic fundamental component of liberty, which is to just be in a place that you want to be and move around where you want to move. I think if we hadn't betrayed that component of liberty, we would be better off. And I think if we fix that now, we could be we could uh be better off still.

Shawn 20:50

Interesting. That's one of those. It's it speaks to me. It speaks to me, but your question introduced another like factor into this whole thing. Federalism. That that's that's not a bad idea, right? Like if Porter has that one idea, which I can get behind, but then someone else has the idea that goes, yeah, but we don't want to let like criminals and like really bad characters into our country, then why not introduce the concept of federalism? I like that. Some state like you said, Porter, all different states have different needs. So let each state define their own immigration rules, and then whoever comes in is subject to those rules.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

I like federalism. This bill, they are writing it up as it being like, oh, we're gonna do federalist immigration now. It's really not. Um anytime you're gonna come to the United States, there are two steps. I mean, there's like a billion steps, but there are two main components. The first one is with the Department of Homeland Security, you file a petition. It's gonna be different depending on why you want to come here for how long. And then if they determine that you meet the documentary requirements. Requirements, then you can file a petition with the State Department to be interviewed by a consular officer who has absolute unreviewable discretion to decide whether or not you actually get the visa that you're applying for. It does not matter if they followed the law, it does not matter if they followed any identifiable statute, it doesn't matter if they gave you your visa, let you make all your travel arrangements, quit your job, uproot your life, and then take it back and say, actually, never mind, we're not gonna give it to you. The the the court system has decided that it's not allowed to review those things. So even if all this bill does is gives states the opportunity to file the first half of that process, the the DHS, the USCIS petition, in order to sponsor a foreign worker, that foreign worker then still has to wait a very long time for USCIS to process it. If they process it at all, they currently have a pause on processing for 75 different countries. All third world countries, they just are not processing their applications right now. We have lawsuits against that. So is that the firm is?

Shawn 23:22

I mean the question is is that the best approach? Do you think that's the best approach?

SPEAKER_03 23:25

The the approach of this bill? I think it's better than what we have, but it's gonna fix almost nothing. Like, because the second half of that process is still just unreviewably in the hands of the State Department, and our State Department is 100% anti-immigration, legal or illegal. They've done everything they can to limit legal immigration despite just a just deluge of litigation.

Matt 23:48

So here's here's my take on it. Because Sean likes to say I'm a communist and a socialist and all I love big government. I'll tell you the one place where I don't like I like to say I'm a conservative Republican, and uh Sean just won't agree with me on that. But here's what I say I hear two arguments from people who do not like immigration. They say, number one, uh, we don't want bad people coming into our country. We're afraid they're gonna commit crimes and they're gonna make our life more dangerous and all of those sorts of things. And my response to that is I trust the police officers and the communities to take care of crime. We don't have to stop people for I don't have like a border before you come into the state of Idaho keeping criminals out of the state of Idaho. So I don't think we need that around our country. The second thing I hear them say is people say, I'm afraid that immigrants are going to come and take our jobs, and I'm nervous that I'm not gonna be able to get a job because they're gonna hire a low-paid immigrant instead of me. And so to me, the solution to immigration is this there is no longer any such thing as citizenship in the United States. We just get rid of citizenship and we get rid of all immigration laws altogether because, like Sean said, we can trust the invisible hand to guide so that if if the only reason you're getting your job is because you have this imaginary thing called citizenship that gives you some kind of special status over the other person, that's not good for the economy in the United States. That's not good for the employers, that's not good for businesses. So you just get rid of citizenship. Since all citizenship laws were based on racism initially, we can just say those laws are racist, no more citizenship, no more, you can just come in the country, not come in the country, you can live where you want to live. If you can afford to live there, buy a place. If you want a job, apply for a job. And we'll be the first country in the world to abolish citizenship.

Shawn 25:32

So, Matt, how do you so the the natural consequence to that is not consequence, but the result of that is you have a giant influx of just millions and millions and millions of people, right? And that's that's going to be disruptive to our society. Disruptive how? It's disruptive in that it is like like like look what just happened in what was it, Spain? Where like like literally, if we had 15 million people in three months cross borders, now I live in San Diego, right? I'm a border state. Our our um the infrastructure of the of the city doesn't handle that, right? You've got people, where are they living? Where are they staying? Where are they how are they commuting? How are they getting around? So I'm just saying, if they're pragmatically, how do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_03 26:12

I mean, people don't we live in the internet era. People don't just walk into a city and are like, all right, let's go wander around until I find a place to live and a job. Did you not see Spain?

Shawn 26:23

Did you not see what happened in Spain just two weeks ago?

SPEAKER_03 26:26

They are like uh refugees, you know, unless they're fleeing actual imminent violence. But you're talking about Spain, what I've seen a lot of from Spain is headlines of people complaining about immigrants and not a lot of actual you know, the society of Spain is not collapsing. Spain is gonna be fine.

Shawn 26:44

Yeah, no, no, but I'm asking you about the the thing.

SPEAKER_03 26:46

It's a lot of people saying, ah, there are a lot of different people from me that are around me now that weren't here before. I don't like it. Because there's a third reason that I hear from people about why they don't like immigration, and it's it it's it's watering down our culture, people say. Which I think is the most indefensible and racist reason. It's one that our current administration does not shy away from at all. They they'll milk that hard. Uh but people migrate to places because they have a better opportunity there. So you can go on Zillow and see if there's a place you can afford, you can go on Indeed and find a job before you go there. People don't usually just go places where they have nothing ready for them.

Matt 27:34

But I think what Sean's talking about in Spain is there's like a part of Spain that's close to Africa where they said if you come by sea, we'll let you in. And so then all these people got in the ocean and then swam over into that part of Spain.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

That part of isn't that part of Spain in Africa?

Matt 27:50

Yeah. It's a like colony over Yeah. Yeah, they weren't crossing the ocean to get to Spain, they were just swimming around a fence.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Yeah.

Matt 27:59

So you don't think that would happen in the United States? Like, because Sean lives, but you're familiar, you're from Arizona, so you're familiar. Like, if you if you were in Arizona or California, would you not worry that suddenly there'll be a whole millions of people that just show up at the border and say, let us in?

SPEAKER_03 28:14

If you take a town like, like, for example, in the Biden era, the reason we had a huge influx of people showing up at the border claiming asylum or refugee status is because Biden was an idiot with a terrible, terrible immigration policy. Rather than trying to push for like reform in our system, he said, Okay, I have this little bit of discretion where I can allow asyles and refugees and temporary protected status. Let's just like crank that up as much as we can. And so you have this very sub-ideal situation where people go, okay, I've been wanting to go to the United States for a very long time. There are no options for me to do that. Now there's an option, but that option involves me just presenting myself at the border for an asylum application. If you get rid of that, and people don't have to worry about getting stopped at the border, people don't have to worry about an asylum application. If you just say, move wherever you want, we're not gonna stop you, we're not gonna arrest you and put you in a prison, uh then people can say, Oh wow, I can move anywhere I want in the United States.

Matt 29:17

And so you're saying it might be a short-term there might be a short-term influx, but it wouldn't last long.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

There a hundred percent would be a huge influx uh at first of people coming in, but they're not just gonna show up where there's nothing for them generally. Like let's say you've been really wanting to move to the UK for a long time, but there's no opportunity, there's no legal pathway for you to do that, all of a sudden there is. Are you just gonna get on a plane to London and like hope for the best? No, you're gonna say, Oh wow, let me go and find a place to stay in London.

Matt 29:53

Let me go and you're saying they came to the border because that's what they had to do, go to the border.

SPEAKER_03 29:59

In order to apply for asylum or refugee status, you've got to just show up at the border and present. That's the that is the terrible, terrible system that the Biden administration set up because that's all they could do without actually legislating.

Matt 30:14

So you're saying that if there wasn't wasn't something that said you have to go to the border, people would plan, they would go to a different part of the United States, and the border states wouldn't be inundated with immigrants.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

Yeah. And where you go depends a lot on who's there. Like if you have family already in the United States, which is the case of a lot of people trying to immigrate here that just have not been able to. If you if there are communities of people that speak your same language, um, and we have those all over the country. It's not confined to border states.

Shawn 30:46

What do you say to that, Sean? I respectfully disagree. I uh they're good there's going not everyone can afford to get a plane and and plan to you know rent a uh hotel for a few days until they figure it out. There are gonna be people who go, I can now become a U.S. citizen. Like I just have I've got a family in my in my stake. They lived like south of or south of Tijuana and had a successful company, they ran a restaurant there, and then overnight everything changed because the the cartel came and took it over, and so they had to escape. And when they escaped, they didn't plan it, they literally just got out and crossed the border.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

Yeah. Okay, yeah. If you're fleeing immediate violence, then yeah, you can do that, but you can still do that now. You can still come and present yourself at the border with an asylum application. Less people do it because our system is much more hostile to that now. But like opening up immigration pathways is not going to increase the amount of violence that people are fleeing from.

Matt 31:42

The only thing I would say different from what you said, Sean, is that you said suddenly they can become citizens, and no, they can't, because nobody will be a citizen anymore. And so this is like to me, what I have to weigh is again, I live far from the border, so I have zero sympathy for the border states and their problems. But I have to weigh the people in the United States that I know who are hardworking members of society contributing, making our country a better place, who right now live in fear that they could get deported because something that happened 30 years ago and suddenly somebody decides, you know what, we're gonna we're gonna put you in a we're gonna put you in some kind of a detention facility, right? I agree. I meet students regularly who are who are just being detained, who are here legally, haven't done anything wrong, but they're just detained on suspicion that they might have done something wrong. So I have to weigh the the terror that some people feel right now with the terror Sean would feel with a whole bunch of new immigrants coming into the California. And I say it's worth it. It's worth it.

Shawn 32:45

I don't feel terror about that. I'm saying pragmatically, how do you deal with it? And I agree with you. Like if if our system failed and let people come in illegally, then our system let them in. They're here, they made it, let them be here. But you have to pragmatically think about how you're gonna handle the border states. It's gonna be chaos.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

This is how you do it, Sean. The invisible hand.

unknown 33:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:08

No housing for them in the border states, they'll go somewhere else, or people will build more houses.

Shawn 33:12

It'll still be chaos, but you are right. They are gonna have that's exactly right, but you're still gonna have absolute chaos. It'll not be orderly. It will be chaos. And our God teaches us that we have to be able to. That's okay. Pragmatic. No, it's not okay. Chaos is not the way of God. God wants order. So there has to be some ordered way to handle this.

SPEAKER_03 33:32

It's chaos in the sense of the free market is is chaos.

Shawn 33:36

Like the free market's not chaos. The free market is.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

What corrupts it is excessive regulation, which there is no there's nothing in America that is more excessively regulated than immigration. There's no component of our economy that is more over-regulated, that has more red tape than immigration.

Shawn 34:08

I'll give points to Porter for bringing in the the invisible hand in immigration. I like it. Me too.

Matt 34:14

That's awesome. Yeah, good job, Porter. And but you agree more with me, Sean, right? You're giving Porter the points, but you agree more with me. Just kidding. All right. Ohio Republican Max Miller has been accused by three women of violent behavior, including domestic abuse, but he denies the accusations. Some Republican senators have called on him to resign or to leave the race, while House Republican leaders say that they want to wait for an ethics investigation. Meanwhile, in the wake of being arrested on suspicion of operating while intoxicated last week in Milwaukee, CBS placed sports commentator Tony Romo on leave until further notice. After a caller asked Stephen A. Smith whether we'll see Romo back on air this season, he said, God bless him. It was a mistake to put himself in that position, but it happens from time to time. Thank God nobody was hurt or anything like that. Can't get behind the wheel of a car inebriated in any way, can't even give that impression. That's a very, very serious transgression, and we can't minimize that. But in the same breath, he's been a good dude. He's always been a good dude, and nobody's perfect. People make mistakes, and hopefully he can move on from here and live his best life and continue to do the great work he's been doing for CBS. So we've talked before about canceling people. This is the question should either of these people be fired because of their behavior?

Shawn 35:35

There's an easy answer to that, Matt. Yes, to both. No, there's an easier answer to that, Matt. It's none of your business because you've got two independent parties, right? You've got someone hiring the other person and someone agreeing to work for or with the other person. It's up to them. It's 100% up to them. It's none of your business. It's not your business, Matt. It's not your business to decide who gets to hire who or keep who uh or fire whom. It's up to them. Let the let let people be free. That's Sean's latter-day lens.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

Don't gossip. Hey, I found out recently about Congressman Miller. One of the people he allegedly abused is his ex-wife, who is Senator Brandon Moreno's daughter. Yeah. Yeah. So you have a U.S. senator who is his ex-father-in-law saying, Kick him out. Vote for anybody else. This is like the worst person you could ever have in this office. Um, I don't know.

Matt 36:38

He seems close enough to the situation to probably believe him. I want to be consistent with what I said, and I don't want to make it sound like, oh, Matt will defend racism, but he won't defend uh people driving drunk or people abusing uh their wives. But this is what's different about these situations. They are in a position of public trust. So you hold people in a position of public trust to a higher standard than you do everybody else. So if you are a member of the House of Representatives, the House of Representatives can kick you out whenever they want to. All they have to do is take a vote and you're out of office. So, in my opinion, if you are accused of abusing your spouse, not just one time, two times, and this guy three times, that's sufficient to have the Congress say, you're out, and they should just vote to kick him out. Same thing when you're on a television program talking about sports. You're in a position of trust. And so you need to be held to the highest standard possible because what happens is if you excuse the behavior of public figures, then individuals excuse that own that behavior in their own lives. And so you have an obligation to society, if you want to increase the morality of society, to teach what is appropriate and what's inappropriate by the people you place in positions of trust.

Shawn 37:58

Your first part of that was dead on. You're right. In a public situation, absolutely. But in a private enterprise, no, it can't you you can't force private enterprise to be the moral example of the problem. Nobody's forcing anybody. Like, Matt was saying you have to fire them.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

Getting fired is not the same as getting canceled. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're not saying you have to fire them. He got did he get fired? He's on leave. He's on leave. He's on leave. Okay, so he's probably on leave while they figure out what's going on, which I I think that's appropriate. Nobody's an appropriate approach. They have to. They're saying we are a journalistic organization that has a reputation to uphold. Now Matt is saying that the right and that reputation at stake.

Shawn 38:38

Matt's saying that that you should have to. That if you if you drive drunk, then automatically you're fired. Yes. It's got to be between the Matt, if you're putting the moral um authority to companies to teach society what's right and wrong, man, that's a big mistake. You have to let, I think we have to let a company and their employee work things out and let the decision has to be up to them. And then they have to justify it. And if there's cancellation backlash to their decision, so be it. They have to be accountable for that.

Matt 39:09

Okay, but can you agree with me that Stephen A. Smith is wrong when he says he's been a good dude, he's always been a good dude, people make mistakes, hopefully he can keep doing the great work. That's a wrong thing to say, in my opinion. Like I can understand saying I right, I can understand wanting to be supportive of your friends, but driving drunk, by the way, he got caught driving drunk. So I doubt that it's the first time in his life he's ever done it. So somebody doing that is engaging in such risky behavior that it's probably wrong for somebody to say, well, you know, other than that, they're a really awesome person. And I hope that like they don't have any negative consequences from that decision.

Shawn 39:46

That's wrong, right? I mean, last week you talked about how society needs to be more forgiving of these things and don't fire everyone. That's what you said last week. And and and that is a latter day lens. I I don't know. I still I think it needs to be up to his employer and himself, and they need to weigh out what social ramifications will happen versus what's right, what's wrong, and let them deal with those consequences. Like it's a great case study for us in society to look at and go, okay, does this guy, is he such so privileged that they're gonna give him his job back, slap on the wrist, and and no big deal. Well, I'm gonna judge that. But they should have the freedom to do that, and then I can judge that and go, okay, I'm not I'm not such a big fan of that company. That's the the invisible hand, right? They're not creating value, they're they're they're you know giving gifts to their cronies. That has consequences, and I think they should be free to play that out.

SPEAKER_03 40:37

They have the freedom to do that. I don't think anyone's questioning whether or not they should have the freedom to do that. We're just saying, should they do that? I I don't know about the situation of what he said about defending his character, because I don't know that guy. I don't know. Like maybe there are really awesome, really good things that he does in his life, besides this that would warrant his friends saying that. I don't know what those things are. I think anytime anybody has something good to say about another person, generally, I think that's uh good thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

Yeah.

Matt 41:06

I just have no tolerance for drunk driving. I think that and I think as a society we should have no tolerance for that.

SPEAKER_03 41:12

Yeah, but you don't have to like if people do something that you hate because it's wrong, that doesn't mean you have to throw out every other component of their character and reduce them to that one wrong decision.

Shawn 41:24

So, Matt. That's true. Matt, I had an employee one time, and she wasn't the greatest worker, and after a few months, she came to me and she's like, Sean, I'm so sorry to ask this, but do you think you could take me to the DMV to pick up my I have a court date? I'm like, oh, well, why don't you just drive there? I have to admit to you that I got a DUI and I haven't been able to drive. And in that moment, Matt, what would you do? I would fire her.

Matt 41:47

On what grounds? DUI. There's cause. If you have a DUI, that's a crime. I can fire you for getting a DUI. Okay. Did you fire her, Sean? Please tell me you fired her.

Shawn 41:56

No, I didn't. Nope. What what did you do, Sean? I tried to help her and I tried to um be kind and gracious to her. She ended up um not being a good employee and kind of kind of screwing us. So maybe it was a mistake. Maybe I should have fired her.

Matt 42:13

Okay, you get the points, Sean. Definitely you get the points for that.

Shawn 42:15

Thanks.

SPEAKER_03 42:16

Sometimes this reminds me like when I was a missionary. Sometimes missionaries would, you know, have serious breaches of conduct or the mission rules, and sometimes they would get sent home, but other times they would get promoted to working in the mission office so that they could be under closer supervision of the mission president and he could sort of rehabilitate and mentor them. So that's why not all the time. We sometimes had also just exceptional elders in the in the office and sisters. My mission president, Francisco Granja, was a very wise person, and I found it very inconsistent. Like sometimes people would do things that I thought were just it would be insane for you to let them stay in the mission, and they would get moved to the office. And some people would have much what would seem like more forgivable offenses that would get sent home. And I think he just had this incredible gift of discernment to be able to tell who needs help and is making mistakes, and who uh is just not in it, it's not gonna be helpful for them to be here anymore. Um regardless of the severity of their individual transgression. And that's why I think it's important not to reduce people to those mistakes. You gotta look at people as a whole and look at their their merits and their faults and and make determinations about what you can do for them.

Matt 43:33

Okay, I'll give you the points for that, Porter. When I was a YSA bishop, I found the same thing that there would be people I would send home for transgressions that were nowhere near as serious as uh people who I would call to leadership positions. So yeah, you're right. But that was just a hundred percent discernment. The Holy Ghost would tell me what to do, and I would just follow the Holy Ghost. But okay, I should think more along those lines. So I'll give you the points. Okay. Uh here's the big question. All right. I've got a whole list of scriptures again. A bunch in the Bible, a bunch in the a few in the New Testament, most of them from the Old Testament. This is what I think the verses are saying. You guys will tell me if you agree or not. I think these verses show that it is okay for governments to take property and use it for the benefit of society. Am I right about that? Read. Oh, you're not going to read the scriptures? No, there's so many of them, Sean. Okay. But um, right? There's the stuff from Joseph again where Joseph, like he he taxes the people, but I mean, like last week, Matt, you're partly right, right?

Shawn 44:34

The passages definitely show that the Bible recognizes legitimate governments and they do need a means of operating as a government, so it does show legitimate authority to do levy taxes and and like sometimes like they would collect tribute, allocate resources, but you go too far to say that they have an absolute right to take all property at all times. Never in scripture has that ever been the case. In fact, there are lots of examples that are. He didn't say that. Let me qualify. He didn't say all property at all times. Ask him. Ask him if he means all property at all times. He just said take property. Ask him.

Matt 45:11

Um I think that it says that governments can take property from some people to use for the benefit of society.

SPEAKER_03 45:22

Like a tax? That seems like to me just the most fundamental purpose of government. Oh, geez.

Shawn 45:29

What? That's not the fundamental purpose.

SPEAKER_03 45:32

The fundament like the most basic role of government is to not to take our property. To collect some resources and then use it for a collective good. The most basic is gonna be like protection. The most basic is gonna be like everyone volunteers some time to provide like the protection of your community. That's gotta be like the most basic level of government. So so but it but there's gotta there's But then if you are they have to compel you, because if you don't do it, you're not providing anything.

Shawn 46:01

You have to That's fine, but there's gotta be some really powerful, strict like um resistance and constraints against that, right? In first Kings 21, it shows us a perfect example, right? Ahab the king wanted Naboth's property. Naboth to to to like for the good of society. He wanted to like print plant crops and stuff. Naboth said, no, no, you can't have it. So the king, Ahab, used political power to take it anyway. And God, in the most clearest form, condemned him for doing so. So there's gotta be guardrails, and I think you error more on the side of freedom than you do on the side of, well, we need a government that needs resources for the good of society.

Matt 46:39

But there is, because we did Ezra and Nehemiah last week for Come Follow Me, so I'll use those verses. You have the the kings of Babylon, right? Darius and Artaxerxes, they finance the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem out of the tribute and taxes that they collect from people in completely different countries. So some though, right?

SPEAKER_03 47:02

Not the Babylonians.

Matt 47:03

Oh, yeah, sorry, Persians. Yeah, I said it wrong. We don't want to give undue credit to the stinky Babylonians. But but also the Babylonians, they let the exiled people go back, right? And they take the That was Cyrus, king of Persia. Oh, okay. All right. After he took over Babylon. So the Persians, that's right. Shout out to the Iranians. Thank you very much.

Shawn 47:26

Nice, nice.

Matt 47:27

Take taxes from other lands and use it to build a temple in Jerusalem. So it does seem to me that God says it's okay. Perhaps not always, if that makes you feel better, Sean, but it does feel like that God's saying it's okay to take property and taxes from one group of people to use it to pay for something else that another group of people in your society wants or needs.

Shawn 47:50

I mean, those were warring countries, right? Those were like those countries were fighting against each other. I think we live in a more of a society now that you're not, we're not that's not even a question. That's not in play. What's in play is how do you how much authority should you have to seize the property of your citizenry? That's more of the question in play, isn't it? And to me, you have to be you have to err on the side of freedom and and property ownership more than you err on the side of, well, government needs to really need to put a public bathroom in San Francisco for $10 billion. That'll take 30 years.

Matt 48:23

We really need an arch in Washington, D.C. We really need blue reflecting pond, whatever at the National Monument. We really need a new ballroom. We need we need a fund to like pay retribution to Trump's friends that have been persecuted. Well, I just think it's important in terms of the latter-day lens, right? I I have so many friends that if I say to them it is okay for us to tax the rich and use that to fund things for the poor, that they'll say that is contrary to the fundamental principles of the gospel because agency and um compulsion and all of that sort of stuff. But I do see a lot of evidence in the Bible of kings and government leaders taking property from some people and giving it to other people, and I don't see it condemned anywhere in the Bible.

SPEAKER_03 49:13

And people forget the fact that like taxes, whatever tax structure we have, is not coming from a king. We elect people who make the tax rules. So we we have a much more direct form of consent to however we're taxed than people previously did in the Bible. So if it was okay for King Cyrus to redistribute wealth for the building of a temple, I think it's super duper fine for uh an elected Congress to redistribute wealth for healthcare. Yeah, well said. I I also think though, I don't think God I don't think God thinks about right and wrong the same way on this macro scale of like governments as we do, because I don't know, I don't see a ton of scriptures uh that directly address like what's the proper role of government. You know, we know that the Constitution is inspired, that's definitely true. But there's not a lot of commentary on like uh what specifically until we get much more in the contemporary era. I think what God values and what is really apparent in the scriptures is individual choices, and that applies to leaders too, that your individual choices as a leader should reflect divine principles, your individual choices as a citizen should def reflect divine principles, but like how governments accomplish policy objectives, I really don't think uh I really don't think God has too strong of a preference about I love it.

Shawn 50:46

You want the last word, Sean? I mean, just go study DNC. I mean, I know you have Porter, but DNC 134 is pretty explicit with what the purpose of government is, and it does boil down to protecting freedoms, liberty, and justice. It does boil down to protecting property. I'm I'm this is Latter-day Lens, Matt. I'm quoting scripture. I mean, you gotta read it. I won't b bore you by reading it again, but it it does go so far as to even say that uh read it again. Read it again. All right, we believe that all men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances where personal abuse is inflicted on the right of property or character uh infringement, where such laws exist as will protect the same. We believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends and property, and the government from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of anyway. It goes on and on and on, right? It's pretty explicit the whole chapter about what the purpose of government is.

SPEAKER_03 51:41

It's a lot of instructions about how individual people are supposed to act. He's saying you, you the people should go to the government for a redress of your grievances for the property rights that you have. That's just one verse.

Shawn 51:52

You should not just roll over it, which is the rest the rest of 134 talks very explicitly about the limitations of government and what they can and can't do.

Matt 52:01

Okay. Sean, I'm only smiling because I love you so much, and I love the consistency of your perspective on the scriptures. That's the only thing I'm smiling about. Every time I hear you talk about government, it just puts a smile on my face because I'm like, I love that man. He he has the same view and it doesn't change, and that's okay. I'm not trying to change your mind. I just want to hear it. I just want to hear what you said.

Shawn 52:24

If scripture wasn't so explicit, I wouldn't have such a simple uh understanding or uh opinion on it.

Matt 52:31

That's awesome. We're gonna have that be the last word. Thanks so much, you guys. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to us this week. We'll talk to you again next week. Have a good day. We hope you enjoyed this podcast episode as much as we did. The best way to continue the discussion is with your friends and your family. So we hope you'll share it with them. Subscribe. Let us know what you think of the podcast by reaching out to us by the links in the show notes. And remember, we love you listeners. Thank you for making us one of the most listened to podcasts in the entire world. Have a great day.