Matt (00:00.834)
Hi, everybody, welcome to the Latter Day Lens. So good to have you with us this week. I'm your host, Matt, and with me as always is Sean. And we are so excited to welcome you. Welcome, listener. Welcome. Thank you for joining the podcast this week. You should think of yourself as like a a ghost host, a tribute, a host in in spirit.

shawn (00:22.062)
We know that some of them actually do when they listen, they start screaming at their at their at their microphone as they listen.

Matt (00:25.774)
They do. And they send me text messages and their thoughts about the episode and things like that. So thank you for being so interactive. Thanks for joining us. It's good to have you with us. I just got back from Boston, Massachusetts. So I'm feeling very patriotic. Love of country.

shawn (00:43.384)
Yeah. All right.

Matt (00:46.282)
Not as much as Sean though. Boston gives Sean all kinds of happy, liberty, good feels.

shawn (00:51.512)
I've only been there you've been there many times. I've only been there once. We l we had the greatest hotel right on the on the Freedom Trail. We walk it was the oldest hotel in Boston, so it was this really beautiful, nostalgic thing. You'd walk right outside, you're on the Freedom Trail, and we got to walk it. But you've been there many times.

Matt (00:54.85)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (00:58.67)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (01:09.399)
three times, maybe four. Y you know my favorite thing about Boston? They have Trader Joe's. I don't have a Trader Joe's in Rexburg. Trader Joe's.

shawn (01:15.92)
Pretend that you didn't spend a hundred percent of your time going around looking at nerdy memorials and historic sites. Pretend that you just hung out at Trader Joe's. No, you went

Matt (01:26.284)
Historic things? Yeah, we did that.

The first thing we did after I checked into the hotel, I said, honey, there's a Trader Joe's, let's find it. And then within two blocks, I found two different Trader Joe's, and I was like, this place is heaven. It can't get better than this. let's buy a banana or an orange or something like that. I love that place. Hey, well, I decided I love living in Idaho. but it does make it more exciting to visit other places when you're like,

shawn (01:45.326)
Ha

Get out of you, Idaho

Matt (02:00.407)
For example, an IKEA, I saw an Ikea store. I haven't seen one of those in a very long time. Like there's stuff in other people I know. Like you guys have things in your lives that I don't get to experience. There was a a Raising Canes in Boston. There was a Shake Shack in Boston. Yeah. I dn I didn't eat at those, but they were there. And it was exciting. There was a chocolate store. I forget what it's called. it was in the mall. And

shawn (02:05.37)
So excited for you, man.

shawn (02:19.748)
You're excited to see them.

Matt (02:27.925)
When I saw this chocolate store, I was like, this looks like the place. When I visited my son in Germany, he took me to, he's like, you're gonna get some like authentic German chocolate. So we went to Mannheim, Germany, went into this store, and I was like, wow, this is amazing chocolate. I think, I think they charge like $40 a pound or something like that for their chocolate. And I go into the mall in Boston and there's that store in Boston, Massachusetts. I'm like,

shawn (02:53.9)
Matt (02:56.105)
My son took me to like a a mall store. He didn't take me to I mean it's Swiss chocolate, but so's like lint, right? Lint is so's like stuff I can get at Costco's as Swiss chocolate as this stuff was, I guess.

shawn (02:59.268)
Ha ha ha ha.

shawn (03:08.42)
Now, Matt, for the sake of our listeners, these stories make you sound like you live alone on a trashy in a trashy trailer park or something and don't get But you're one of the most traveled you're my most yeah, you travel. You travel all the time. You've been everywhere. And you talk. So listeners, when he talks like he's it's just living in a trailer and has never seen anything, that's not true. Okay.

Matt (03:15.904)
Yeah.

Matt (03:26.774)
I do.

Matt (03:33.047)
That's my culture. That's my culture. Even when I see cool stuff, I'm there you can't take the trailer out of me, Sean. I'm all right, let's up go ahead.

shawn (03:40.08)
The Ogden Utah trailer? Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (03:46.508)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I like never mind, we're not gonna talk about Octon. Okay, let's open the mailbag. So one listener wrote in and said, Matt, it was not too long ago that the anointing for women would mention that we would become queens and priestesses unto our husbands. Now it says with our husbands. It was only recently that women ceased to make a covenant in the temple to obey their husbands. Working with the addiction recovery program, I saw firsthand the pain that this caused women

As men use that to exercise unrighteous dominion. So, yes, the true doctrine is absolute equality between men and women. As far as the church interpretation, historically, that has not been the case. She really meant that to you, Sean, not to me, because I I mean, I'm the one that says that, yeah, I do believe that men and women are equal doctrinally, but in the church culture, they're not. Absolutely not.

shawn (04:30.703)
You think so?

shawn (04:42.42)
yeah, you are the one that says that. Yeah. And I argue that it doesn't matter what culture. Yeah. Well, there's tons of missteps that we take culturally, not in the past, not just in the past, but today. There's so many missteps we take culturally. And that's always going to exist because we're humans. What's beautiful about the doctrine that is canonized, that is supported by prophets, that is clear, crystal clear, is that yeah, that's if we would just only worry about that, we would find the doctrine and it isn't much clearer.

Matt (04:44.343)
Yeah.

shawn (05:11.172)
And yeah, sure, there are some gray areas or some dissonant doctrines, but the scriptures are clear how we deal with these gray areas and dissonant doctrines. He says, seek and find and seek and find. In fact, the mysteries of God are only delivered to those who seek diligently. God doesn't want us to just read it once and go, Well, I guess I have to obey my husband. No, go seek diligently, and the scriptures will teach you the truth that you are equally exalted through Jesus Christ.

Matt (05:37.997)
But the challenge is church is taught by lay members of the church, right? So when I go to Sunday school or I go to Elders Quorum or Relief Society, I don't get taught doctrine very often. The I get taught a lot of culture in those meetings.

shawn (05:47.802)
You're triggering me. You're triggering me, Matt.

You're tr you're triggering me so. Who says, whoever said that the way I'm supposed to learn, discover, find God, and learn of his doctrines is to go sit in a building and let someone teach me. Whoever's taught that. No, that's not. Go. No, you're supposed to go to church to take covenants under the authority of the priesthood. You're not supposed to go there to learn about Jesus. You're supposed to read and feast upon the scriptures. So you I

Matt (06:03.585)
Go to church. That's in the that's a you're supposed to go to church to learn about Jesus.

Matt (06:16.247)
So then I can leave after this first hour. I don't have to go to second hour, Sean.

shawn (06:20.588)
I'm fine with that. Go ahead.

Matt (06:22.093)
No, you're not. Sean's not fine with that.

shawn (06:26.468)
There's other purp I'm not, but there's other purposes for that. It's not but it's I don't think you go there to to be taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why would he give us in abundance the sources like the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine of Covenants and the Bible? We are supposed to feast upon those words and study them ourselves. So

Matt (06:43.497)
Okay. Well, then I guess the we agree with each other and we agree with the listener.

shawn (06:47.778)
we're all on the same page. Yeah.

Matt (06:51.071)
We all get the points on that mailbag. All right, let's move to the thought provoker. So I

shawn (06:53.136)
this one dude. I I'm afraid we're gonna spend the whole hour on this one because this one is fascinating.

Matt (07:00.587)
We we might. So Adam Grant is a psychology professor at Wharton School of Business. He says that how people achieve success matters more than the success itself, and that building students' character from a young age is the best way to reduce cheating. He argues that schools cannot stop cheating simply by making it harder to cheat. They need to change how students think about it. After giving his students an exam, he found that most did not see cheating as wrong.

They made excuses like everyone does it. AI tools like ChatGPT have made this worse since cheating is now so easy that many students no longer feel guilty about it. Grant explains that people with a strong moral identity, meaning they care deeply about being honest, are less likely to cheat, even when it would be easy to get away with. Honor codes and honesty pledges often fail and can even backfire by making cheating seem normal. Instead, real ethics education works better.

Evidence from financial advisors shows that studying ethics deeply and starting early in life leads to less mic misconduct even in later years. Unfortunately, I see a lot of students cheating at BYU Idaho, which makes me wonder, do people in the church still believe that it is morally wrong to cheat a little? Are we failing to instill instill a strong moral code in church members?

shawn (08:23.962)
Woohoo hoo hoo. Matt, are we ready to get into this? Dude, I'm really grateful we don't have a guest today because I love you when you and I get into deep fun topics. And this may seem like a surface topic, but this is deep. I mean, my my first question back before I start giving my opinions are it's it's it's an interesting case study that you bring in in talking about ethics morality to bring in school and cheating on like an exam or something like that. As if that's the barometer for how we determine ethics. Okay, so.

Matt (08:36.204)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (08:53.004)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (08:53.86)
For example, before I get into this real deep, Matt, would you say when you get in a car and you sit down and you drive from your house down the block, takes thirty seconds, and you do not put a seatbelt on. Is that is that unethical?

Matt (09:07.329)
Mm-hmm.

No. That's okay. Yeah. Correct. That's okay. I s morally I'm I'm morally okay with people breaking the law. I don't think that's a moral for me, laws of man don't define morality.

shawn (09:11.076)
But you've broken a law. Hang on. You've broken an authoritative law.

shawn (09:26.596)
Then I hope you agree with me that then your example here with school and cheating applies in the exact same way. Following a rule of a professor in order to get a grade is not a moral or an ethical issue. If the professor says, Matt, Sean, you cannot, if Matt, you're my professor, you say, on on today's political science test, Sean, you cannot use a calculator. If I use a calculator, is it unethical for me to use that calculator?

Matt (09:34.795)
Okay.

Matt (09:51.149)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (09:56.429)
it's cheating.

shawn (09:57.145)
Is it unethical for me to not put a seatbelt on? So is

Matt (10:00.224)
It's just it's just cheating. So I okay, so I would say that it's dishonest, right? It's dishonest to to for you to hand in your exam and and claim that you haven't used a calculator if you have used a calculator.

shawn (10:17.082)
But the same way that when I sit in a car and go, you know what? Me putting a seatbelt on to drive two houses down is an arbitrary just because it's there's authority behind it doesn't mean it's ethical. It's not me cheating. It's just not ethical.

Matt (10:30.751)
No, I know. So what's what's what's what's dishonest is if you don't have your seatbelt on and then you get pulled over and then you put your seatbelt on because you don't want to get a ticket for having that would be dishonest, right? Because you're trying to deceive the officer. You're trying to make them feel like, I was wearing a seatbelt all along when really you weren't wearing a seatbelt all along.

shawn (10:46.768)
There you go. There you go.

shawn (10:51.77)
Beautiful. So if you, the professor, says to me, you may not use your calculator on this exam. And I go, I don't look, you have arbitrary rules for me to graduate, like arbitrary grading systems, arbitrary letters that represent whether I'm a good student or not. So your arbitrary rule about a calculator, I'm not going to take as an ethical thing. So I can use my calculator. However, if Matt, you said to me as a professor, you may not lie about your work. You may not copy another student's work or answers.

Matt (11:12.812)
No.

shawn (11:20.238)
You may not submit someone else's work as your own. Inherently, malum and say, or no, malum prohibitum, in there's an intrinsic immoral, unethical issue there, right? Whereas don't use a calculator is malum and say, which is there's nothing in and of that rule that is actually moral or ethical.

Matt (11:20.364)
Yeah.

Matt (11:26.925)
Uh-huh.

Matt (11:33.589)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (11:42.934)
Well, okay, but if the exam is can you do addition? And so I'm supposed to be testing your ability to do addition and you're using a calculator, then you're handing in work that's not your own because you're using a tool to get you to an answer. There I'm supposed I'm trying to test your ability to do that.

shawn (12:00.474)
But that's a gray area, right? Because I don't view you as a my teacher who's testing me to see if I can, you know, get the right answer. I view you as a teacher who's teach supposed to teach me stuff. So if I can learn how to get the right answer, then I should be rewarded by that.

Matt (12:10.55)
Well.

But I'm sp the wait I Okay, so then z I agree with you that cheating is when you create content that's not yours and you submit it as if it's your own. Right. So to me that's cheating.

shawn (12:24.076)
Only if the rule is right, if that's a rule, if that's a rule, then

Matt (12:27.125)
Yeah, right. I put it in the syllabus in advance. It says you can't use AI tools to do this or

shawn (12:32.398)
Right. And scriptures and scriptures would show that yeah, there are probably it's violation of God's laws, therefore it's can be probably deemed as unethical, right? That's bearing fal false witness.

Matt (12:42.145)
Well, let me ask you this, Sean. So yeah. So I have this rule in my class that says, if you take a a quiz and you get the wrong answer on this multiple choice thing, and you think that your answer is right, then you can like email me and you can say, Look, this is what I put was the answer and this is why I did it. And so I and I'll just give you credit for that because you're showing me that you're trying to learn. But I had a student

shawn (13:08.73)
Good teacher.

Matt (13:08.897)
That I don't know how he I still to this day I don't know how he did it, but he would go in and he would create like these fake these screenshots of the quiz that were not accurate. And it would be like, this is what like he'd say, there's a glitch in the computer. Anyhow, this person was like doing something dishonest, making the quiz look as if something was happening on his end that wasn't really happening on on his end, and claiming to me, like, I I need to get points on this quiz because you set up the quiz in a bad way, and like

So that is an act of dishonesty, right? Because you're going through trying to create, you're telling me something that's not true about the quiz in order to get points when you didn't know the answers. So, right. So there's there's a lot of ways that people could or could not cheat, but the the morally wrong thing is dishonesty. If you're doing something dishonest, and and sometimes we just call that cheating, but sometimes we just call that dishonesty.

shawn (13:57.509)
Yes, that's right.

shawn (14:03.982)
And but what I'm questioning is if you come up with an arbitrary non-moral rule towards the end of giving me an arbitrary nominal grade, then I don't know that I can say that's ethically cheating for me to learn your system. I I don't think it's dishonest because you have arbitrarily set up these authoritari authoritative rules.

Matt (14:16.493)
Great. Uh-huh.

Matt (14:23.148)
Be dishonest?

shawn (14:31.354)
They're not moral authoritative rules, they're malum and say as opposed to malum prohibitum.

Matt (14:31.755)
Mm-hmm.

Well, they're moral no, they're moral to me, right? Because I I have like course objectives. And so if you get an A in the course, what I'm saying is you know how to do the things in the course objectives. And if you don't know how to do those, because you've created some alternative system to make it seem as if you know those when you don't know those, that's on you, right? But then you're making me vouch for your ability to do something that you don't actually have that ability. So that's on you because you're

shawn (14:41.349)
But but

shawn (15:03.066)
The I I I I hear you there. That does make sense, except for the fact that you're saying that your rules are here to teach me something and you're trying to help me learn something, then why put this arbitrary reward system to it? An A, a B or C. It is. If

Matt (15:04.737)
Dishonest.

Matt (15:20.757)
It's it's not a reward system. It's just an evaluation of how it's an evalu. So, like for example, in one of my classes, I've got like six different objectives. And somebody might do awesome on five of those objectives, and they do horribly on one of those objectives. So the this the grade is a reflection of can they do all six of them super well? Or are they good at five and not good at one? Or are they just not great at all six of them?

shawn (15:44.475)
But but a okay, so if I step back and go, okay, in order for me to get my self-interest in out of this class, I would like an A because my authority has told me that the way I get accomplishment and better my life is I get an A, not a B, not a C. So then I go, Well, then I if I can just get through the system and and get an A, that's what they're teaching me is the important part. So if he says don't use a calculator,

But I don't see that as a see, I have a moral compass. I don't want to lie or cheat or covet or bear false witness. But if he says, don't use a calculator, I go, there's nothing intrinsically evil about me using a calculator. If his goal for me is to get an A, I'm gonna do what he wants. I'm gonna get an A. And if a calculator helps me get that and I'm not lying or cheat or cheating to like misrepresent, if I'm not stealing someone else's content, then is it ethical? Unethical.

Matt (16:38.349)
But if the if the purpose of the course isn't to teach one how to use a calculator, but it's one to teach it's to teach somebody how to program a calculator, right? And my test is can you write a calculator that can do these things and you just choose to use somebody else's calculator, then you're being dishonest because you're presenting something as you when it's actually somebody else's work or somebody else's effort that got you there. So the fact that you

shawn (17:03.394)
I did it. I just used tools to do it to do it. I mean, we all the the formulas that you teach me, those are just tools. Why isn't that cheating?

Matt (17:10.679)
But I'm testing can you use those tools? Can you use the tools? Not can you copy some

shawn (17:14.146)
I I can use the I can use the I can use the little tool in my pocket called a calculator. Why is it that that your reward for me is an arbitrary A, but you're also trying to set the rules for me that are seem arbitrary as well? Like if tool A, which is a formula, is okay, but tool B, which is a calculator, is not, and intrinsically that's not unethical to whether I'm using a calculator or not.

Matt (17:19.369)
Yeah, I understand.

Matt (17:40.46)
Because A's not because A is not an o of reward. A is a reflection of what you can do. Right. So let's take it out of the school set context and let's just put it in your workplace context. And you're trying to hire somebody to do a job and you're like, can you do this? And they're like, You better believe I can do this. And then you give them a job to do, and then they just go steal your competitor's intellectual property and submit it as their own.

shawn (17:53.04)
Okay.

shawn (18:04.728)
No, no, no. We agree. No, we agree that there are intrinsically unethical behaviors like stealing, like bearing fal false witness. But but if if in a job I tell my employee, man, you've got to, yeah, get a website built. And if he comes back to me and goes, dude, I built it. And there's no way you could have built it that quickly. Yeah, I did. I asked ch ChatGPT to do it. Or Grokbot just did it and it saved us fifty thousand dollars. I can't go back and go, you cheater.

Matt (18:15.04)
Uh-huh.

shawn (18:34.744)
You cheated. Unethical.

Matt (18:35.501)
Okay, but okay, but no, that's like there's some things where it's fine to find workarounds. There's the but you are hiring a person to do a specific job. And if instead of doing that job, they take somebody else's stuff and submit it as if it's their work, that would be unethical, right?

shawn (18:49.968)
I agree. We both agree on that. The same way that in your class, if I plagiarized or if I just copied someone else's work, you're breaking a Ten Commandment there, right? You're breaking God's law. Clearly, it's unethical.

Matt (18:57.453)
Uh-huh.

Okay. So then why is it people don't know this? Why is it that young people I will tell them, Sean, I will tell them at the at every assignment, you can use artificial intelligence in these ways. And if you do this thing in artificial intelligence, you will get a zero on the paper, you will flunk the class, and I will turn you in for plagiarism and cheating. 20% of my students, every single time, will do it. And it's not the freshman, actually. The freshman, that doesn't happen with the freshman. It's the

shawn (19:24.142)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (19:30.471)
Older students, the ones who've been around longer. Like the freshmen come in and they say, We believe in the honor code, we've signed the honor code, we're gonna follow the honor code. But something about being at BYU Idaho, after a couple of years, they're like, Honor code, whatever, nobody's following that. They're all cheating, I'm gonna cheat too. And so it's my upperclassmen that are more likely to do the cheating stuff than the brand new students. I mean

shawn (19:50.672)
Huh, that's interesting. Wow. I mean you're not gonna like my answer or my opinion on that.

Matt (19:56.684)
Why?

shawn (19:58.341)
Because what I think is the system itself, the entire

shawn (20:05.978)
The yeah, the entire system is basically telling that guy, I don't I the teacher, I the university, I don't really value what you learn. I value you obeying my authority. I value you keeping a checklist of things. I don't really care if you're learning anything. All I care is like I'm not gonna spend the time with you to make sure you're learning it. I'm not going to you know, like.

Like my cousin right now, or my my nephew. At a junior college, he loved us so much and he thrived because he just was one of a few and he could sit with every professor and they would teach him and they would spend all the time. Now he's going to USD or U US San San Diego. I don't where he's gone. And San Diego State. No, no, no, UCSD. And he's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's awesome. And they don't care at all. And he's having s he's like, dude, I had got much more value out of this free community college.

Matt (20:49.783)
San Diego State.

Matt (20:54.416)
wow, good for him. Well those professors don't care at all about him.

Matt (21:04.673)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (21:04.846)
Because I was learning. They cared about me learning. Here all they care about and he's he's companions or he's roommates with a bunch of med pre med guys. All they care about is getting the grade.

Matt (21:17.643)
Yeah, I know. well, so my story is when I was in high school, I thought of it similar to as you're describing it. I was like, they are they've created some system of what how you what you do to get A's and what you don't, right? And I'm and I'm just finding a way around that system and I just saw the whole thing as a game. And so I did a lot of cheating in high school to get grades. Not a ton, but enough. I'm like, you guys are gonna make it so easy to cheat. Why wouldn't I cheat and get that grade? Because that's so easy to do. But then when I went to BYU my freshman year.

shawn (21:39.287)
Mm-hmm.

Ha ha ha.

Matt (21:47.852)
My religion professor was like, your entire grade this semester is going to be based on reading the scriptures for 30 minutes every day and saying your prayers and writing in your journal. And you're never going to hand anything in. Just every day you're going to and when we come to class, you're going to just mark each day, did you read the scriptures? Did you say your prayers? And your whole grade is going to be based on that. And I was like, That's going to be the easiest day ever. And he's like, and you're just honest people. You've signed the honor code. And so

I trust that you will not be dishonest. And I worked harder in that class. Like I never did that much homework in ever, like in in high school. But my freshman year, I was like, I was reading the scriptures like crazy. I was praying a lot, writing in my journal because I wanted to get the grade. And he was like, and and he put it like as a matter of integrity, right? Like, don't lie about doing this because you guys are better than that and you've signed the honor code. And so for me, that was like transformational, where I was like, okay.

shawn (22:15.994)
Trust you.

shawn (22:29.753)
Wow.

Matt (22:45.387)
I'm gonna work. I actually got a ton out of that class. It changed my life in so many ways. And I just feel like we need to do a better job of teaching young people the value of just be honest. And if you're gonna sign your name to it, you're gonna put your name to it, that should mean something to you. Now, who cares what the professor thinks about it, but it should mean something to you that you created it, your name's on it, and it's gonna be there as like something you did. So you should be proud of it and not have it be something that AI created for you or something you cheated.

shawn (23:14.326)
I love that, dude. I love it, Matt. You get the points. And just to add to that, I dropped out of college because I didn't have any professors like the one you described. All of my professors were like, here's what I require out of this class. And none of it was to help me learn. It was just for them to be able to manage me and control me, really. And it was just to get a grade. And so I was so like upset by I'm not learning anything. Like you're making me do all this stuff.

Matt (23:33.974)
Yeah.

shawn (23:43.224)
So that I can pass the test, so that I can get the grade, and I'm not learning anything. So I wish I would have had more professors like you. But it did drive me to learn on my own. Autodidact.

Matt (23:52.6)
Hey, look what look what shirt I'm wearing, Sean. This is the mascot of Yeah, it's UVU. I love them so much. Yeah, I'm a huge UV. I was talking to my buddy in Boston. he was at the same conference from UVU. I was like, I love that school so much. And his attitude was much more like your professors that you had at UVU. He he wasn't as passionate. He was complaining to me.

shawn (23:55.141)
The UVU Is that UVU? Nice.

Matt (24:18.901)
Because there wasn't enough snow in Utah last year for him to go skiing. He was like, I finally got a semester where all of my classes were online so I could go skiing every day and it didn't snow enough for me to go skiing. I was like, You sound like Sean's professors at UVU.

shawn (24:29.674)
Ha ha ha.

shawn (24:36.943)
Awesome.

Matt (24:37.047)
Hey, if you teach at UVU, we're not talking about you. Obviously not everybody's like that.

shawn (24:41.74)
And as a qualifier, there were two teachers at UVU that w absolutely changed my life because they were the only ones that did care about me learning and it was founded fundamental. Like it was great.

Matt (24:51.243)
Yeah, and my son went to UVU for a couple of weeks this year. And like that that university is a special place. They really do they really care about their students and they really look out for them. So I love UVU. I'm a huge fan, even though I don't teach there. Okay, next up, during a podcast with Mark Cuban, Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Tallerico said his Christian faith

Drives his plan to break up healthcare monopolies. He argued that Jesus spent most of his life healing people, not preaching, and said caring for others' health is a calling for everyone, religious or not. He has a plan to break up large health care companies, expand patient choice, limit insurance denials, and target what he calls a racket where one company controls a patient's hospital, pharmacy, and insurance. But this is the question. Is Talerico right?

To bring the teachings of Jesus into the debate over health care in the United States.

shawn (25:51.269)
I mean it's right if he's talking to Christians, to everyone else who's not a Christian, who cares? Like it's it's dumb, right? But is he right to bring it in? Is he right to like set a moral standard? That's the question.

Matt (26:00.63)
Yes, that's right. Jesus, do you do you agree with this? Jesus spent most of his time healing people, not preaching, and caring for others' health is a calling for everyone. There's a religious obligation we have to provide for health for other people.

shawn (26:13.328)
Yeah, and and there's a religious obligation to not be compelled to do that. It's to choose to do that. Why you laugh? That's the truth.

Matt (26:23.413)
Ha ha ha.

Matt (26:27.533)
I know that's how you feel. I saw a map today, but again it was on the Facebook page called Mormon Democrats. But it was like a a globe and it showed countries around the world where they have like universal healthcare to some degree or another. And the only country in the world that doesn't have it is the United States and a handful of countries in Africa. I was like, I don't know if like if it is really a religious obligation, if it really is a moral obligation, then shouldn't we do it in the way that's most efficient, regardless of

Property rights, individual freedom, being compelled to pay taxes, all that sort of stuff, right? If if government is the most efficient way to provide health care for everybody, and if Talarico's right that like everybody has a a religious obligation to care for other people's health, then shouldn't we say who cares how it gets done?

shawn (27:03.216)
Do you really believe what you're saying?

shawn (27:18.458)
But you have to do you you agree that that statement that government is the most efficient way to deliver healthcare can't be proven. There's no way you could suggest that's true, especially when you look at who has tried that in the most extreme ways, like the USSR or other communist countries. It has not gone well. It's not a good healthcare system.

Matt (27:35.319)
Well what what well what we're trying I would say we're on the extreme end of the capitalist version of healthcare, and it's certainly not good, right? Like like

shawn (27:42.992)
Yeah, but it's not really but it's but there's no like Adam Smith would look at our healthcare system and say that is not even close to capitalism. Not even close.

Matt (27:46.645)
Our healthcare

Matt (27:51.032)
But our healthcare, our system is the most capitalist of any healthcare system in the world, and it's failing miserably. So then if I was Yeah, and so so whether there was a private market solution that would fix healthcare in the United States, I don't believe that there could possibly be one. So then I would have to say it has to be more government would be the solution to it.

shawn (27:58.682)
we agree it's failing misery. Yeah.

shawn (28:12.74)
But by the way, let me backtrack that. I'm gonna represent Sam here. I don't think Sam would say that our healthcare system is the worst on the planet. I don't think that it's a miserable failure. It's too expensive. There's too many middlemen. There are monopolies that control it. It is too self-interested for sure. But it's also very innovative. It's also very forward think of.

Matt (28:31.037)
If you want Viagra, or if you want like breast enhancement, or if you want a whole lot if you want weight loss drugs. It's really innovative for things that make money, but it's not innovative for things that like help people's lives.

shawn (28:43.736)
I don't I mean, those aren't mutually exclusive, right? There are many the drive to make money to to cure cancer or to do these things, that's okay that there's a profit motive.

Matt (28:48.311)
Yeah.

Matt (28:52.055)
comes. Yeah, but most of that funding comes from the government. No, this is the way that our healthcare system fails. If you are self-employed and you have some kind of a terminal illness or you happen to get cancer or you have when you're in your 30s, our healthcare system will destroy your life. It might cure your cancer, but your family and your children and your children's children are going to be saddled with debt.

And the loss of earnings and the loss of income that's going to stay with that your family for generations. It fails in that regard. And if you're a poor person and you need just basic health care, not poor like enough for Medicaid, but let's just say you're a Walmart manager, you're never going to make enough money that you can afford to get regular checkups, good health care, regular visits, because you're just priced out of that.

shawn (29:43.632)
Yeah.

Matt (29:44.171)
So in that sense, it's a failure, right? It's we fail to take care of the basic healthcare needs of most people. A person gets sick.

shawn (29:50.511)
I don't I don't I don't know I don't know that you can agree with and I don't think I agree with that. It it obviously it's you're you're you're being loose on the description of a basic healthcare need. Yeah, if anyone gets sick and goes into the ER, the system is as expensive as is and they're gonna try and send bills to everyone and everyone and anyone, it still will take care of that person.

Matt (30:01.472)
No no like

Matt (30:07.626)
Yeah, and but if

Take care of him in a little bit, right? I told you about my son who got electrocuted, went to the emergency room. They did absolutely nothing for him but monitor his heart to make sure he wasn't gonna die. And then they charged him $3,500. Like, yeah, right. And that was after insurance, by the way. Insurance paid 50% of that, that cost. Yeah. I could if if I have if I get electrocuted in Mexico.

shawn (30:21.892)
That's pretty good.

Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah, I agree.

shawn (30:31.79)
Yeah, that's crazy. That's off that's a failure. That's a giant failure. I agree.

Matt (30:38.379)
I go to the pharmacy, there's it's like ten dollars. There's a doctor's office next to the pharmacy. They can run the same tests in Mexico and say, You're not gonna die. And if they say, you know what, you are gonna die, here's a prescription for a drug that's right next door that you can get on the cheap. Like

shawn (30:52.624)
Yeah, see th see that's where I'm a skeptic, Matt. I don't I don't trust the the I don't trust a Mexican pharmacy equal to an ER doctor in the United States. I don't think they're equivalent. No. What?

Matt (31:02.057)
I will tell you, as someone I go to I go to pharmacies in Mexico all the time. It's great. It's the same medicine. I mean, there's the there's the street stuff, and then there's the pharmacy stuff. But if you go to a reputable farm, there's Costco pharmacies in Mexico. Costco pharmacy is not gonna sell you a bunch of garbage. Like the medical care, the the amount of knowledge you need for basic medical care. And by the way, if I were to go to Spain, it would be totally free.

The amount of knowledge you need is not something that requires that level of cost that we pay in the United States. Like, I I just sometimes, Sean, wants you to go to a country with socialized medicine and like break your arm and then see how it costs you like 15 bucks to get your broken arm taken care of, and then say, why in the world are we paying thousands of dollars for that in the United States?

shawn (31:50.651)
But okay, but I was just in the Baltics where that is the case. And also I talked on the streets with all of these older people who are pensioners who all of their money got s got spent. They have no savings. They have no real estate because in their entire lives they were paying into a system that allows them to fix a broken arm for fifteen bucks. Now they have no wealth and they have no money because all of it went into the system.

Matt (32:12.789)
We can do it better, Sean. And other countries are doing it better. So that's the question though. Is that if let's just say if if the government could do it cheaper and it's a religious obligation, then shouldn't we just say who cares about the liberty, property things that Sean talks about all the time and say

shawn (32:14.435)
Okay.

shawn (32:30.352)
Where that all f no not at all, no, because where that all falls apart is if it truly is a Christ-like commandment, if it's a Christian commandment to take care of the health of others, if that's true, there's no details of well, how do you do that? And you're assuming that the most because you love government, that you're assuming that that's the most efficient way to do it. Many of us are not even close to being convinced by that. In fact, a lot of us say, well, the regulation that gets involved

Matt (32:45.9)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (32:59.188)
good intentions, but it makes it even worse. Like the regulation is where why there is an enabled process that makes fifteen middlemen in between the customer and the drug maker and all those markups that make it so expensive, a lot of that's because of the government regulating it. And so it gets really, really expensive.

Matt (33:15.775)
Yeah. Well, he wants to get rid of that. He wants to get rid of that stuff. Well, here's why where I say he's wrong. I think that it's wrong to use Jesus to justify your positions on political issues, right? First of all, Jesus was so much more than just a healer. But if Jesus w is primarily a healer, and that's how I want to think of him as a healer, he's not a healer as a doctor. He's not a healer that's opening up a clinic saying, Come in and let me just heal you, right?

shawn (33:28.399)
Matt (33:45.218)
He's a healer in different ways through either the power of the priesthood or he heals people's souls. But it's a it's a faith promoting experience, not a let's take care of all of your problems that you're dealing with kind of experience. And when a when people take the teachings of Jesus to justify pol political positions, it cheapens the religious experience and it hollows out all of the important authority that is in religion.

And makes it nothing more than just a slogan for politics. And so that's why it's wrong. Even if even if he sees some justification for it in the Bible, it's wrong for him to use that to justify his political position. Because we can disagree about his position on politics, but we should never talk about Jesus in a way that makes people disagree about who Jesus is fundamentally and what his purpose was.

shawn (34:35.376)
If you would have just led with that, I would have said points to you, I concede, like that would have a great answer, and let's move to the next topic. Because that was beautiful, Matt. I love it.

Matt (34:43.251)
okay. Okay, well then we'll move to the next topic. by the way, I love James Talarico, Sean. I'm a huge fan of James Tallerico.

shawn (34:54.2)
Well, what that tells me is based on whenever I ask you, give me, Matt, who your journalists and and give me all your favorite people. And I go with my whole heart, Matt, I go try and be fans. I just know that your taste is maybe nerd is the right word. 'Cause so James Telarico must be a nerd.

Matt (35:00.119)
Ha ha ha.

Matt (35:11.221)
No, no. Y you don't know who he is? Have you heard of him? He was he was going to seminary. He wanted to be a preacher. His dad's like a minister. And then while while he was in that process, he decided to be a politician instead. So he's like a very religious guy. Democrat, like old school. No, probably more like mainstream, mainline, like a Lutheran maybe or yeah. Mm-hmm. Something like that. Yeah, I imagine he's Protestant.

shawn (35:14.617)
I don't I don't.

shawn (35:23.983)
Yeah.

shawn (35:27.566)
Evangelical.

shawn (35:33.328)
Protestant or Baptist or Lutheran? Okay. Protest but Protestant, so

Okay. It

Matt (35:40.406)
You would like him. He talks he talks about religion all the time in terms of Democrat politics, but he talks about religion a lot. Yeah. Okay, let's go to this next topic. I love Charles Barclay. I know you like him too, right? You like Charles Barclay? Yeah. Okay, so during an interview with CNN host Michael Smirkonish, NBA legend Charles Barclay said, I hate CNN, criticizing the network's political coverage.

shawn (35:44.24)
Okay, I'll go follow him. I'll go I'll go check him out.

shawn (35:51.472)
I love him. Absolutely.

shawn (36:05.562)
Ha ha.

Matt (36:08.641)
Barkley, who identifies as an independent, argued that many people are brainwashed by both political parties. He said CNN's talk shows feature Republicans and Democrats who simply blame each other for an hour, calling it a waste of time. He also claimed that wealthy panelists on the network encourage ordinary people to fight each other over politics, distracting them from shared economic struggles like poor schools and lack of opportunity. His solution, he says, is that people should stop identifying strictly as Democrats.

or Republicans and instead become independents who judge each party's actions on their own merits. Now I know that Sean agrees with Mr Charles Barclay about this, but this is the question, Sean. Is this consistent with scripture? What does the latter day lens teach us about identifying with a political party?

shawn (36:57.264)
I mean, I know this has been I think I'm gonna try and guess before I answer your stance. This has been kind of a platform that you've been really effective at pushing out there. So I'm assuming you're gonna say there is not a an official or even a guess an assumed political party that is affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints. And this this false assumption that if you're LDS, you're Republican, it's so far from the truth, and you've quoted prophets.

Matt (37:11.157)
A latter day.

shawn (37:25.614)
You've there's zero, absolutely zero evidence in scripture that would show that you're supposed to affiliate with one of these parties. Right? Okay.

Matt (37:34.345)
Mm, those are different questions. Yeah. no I I

shawn (37:39.359)
well well th I'm sorry. There's zero scriptures that say which party you should affiliate with. You're saying but you're saying there's evidence that you should affiliate with your choice of party.

Matt (37:43.627)
Yes, that's right. That's right.

Matt (37:49.719)
President Oaks tells us that.

shawn (37:51.428)
Yeah. Wait, does he?

Matt (37:53.922)
He does. He tells us that we should get involved in campaigning. This is in his talk, The Living Constitution, right? Or the Divinely Inspired Constitution.

shawn (38:02.128)
So he's he's not saying it dire he's not saying it directly. He's saying you're saying by by our prophet saying get involved campaigning, you have to be affiliated within a with a a party. He's not saying okay. okay, okay. Okay, okay, okay.

Matt (38:13.163)
Yes. And he says you should run run for office. That means you gotta be in a party, right? If you wanna run for office. He says donate to campaigns. I mean, you gotta choose a side if you're gonna I don't think it does you any good to donate to both campaigns, right?

shawn (38:28.718)
Okay, so you're disagreeing with Barkley saying, Don't no, no, no, we shouldn't be an independent. You in order to be effective, the prophet has said, get involved in one or the other. Now, don't let it define you. Don't carp launch agree with and apply everything that is preached through these man-made profit-driven parties. But in order to be effective, you have to be choose one and go be a part of that, which is evidenced by the amount of politicians that have in the LDS church who are active and strong.

Matt (38:38.144)
Yes.

Matt (38:46.539)
Yeah.

shawn (38:58.554)
Who have been both a Republican and Democrat, right? Harry Reid, Mitt Romney.

Matt (39:00.989)
Right. Yep. There's a whole bunch of them. Yeah. Right now you got Ben McAdams in Utah that's a LDS running for an office and then there's a Republican running against him. Yeah. Lots of Democrats that were active in the church, lots of Republicans active in the church. But Yeah. Yeah, he was a Democrat. Yeah.

shawn (39:17.038)
James E. Faust, wasn't he a Democrat? No. Was he? That that's the most that's the most beautiful, amazing man ever. Yeah.

Matt (39:26.625)
The but no, this is what I say is the latter day lens about this is where Charles Barclay is wrong. What you should stop doing is watching talking heads fight with each other about issues, and you should stop letting other people define what the politics is gonna be about. Right? It's like because you and I both love sports, right? people who just sit around and watch ESPN and listen to those people shout at each other about sports.

And then they're like, yeah, yeah, like my dolphins, we're doing great. And listen to what all the things they say on TV about my dolphins. Or I only listen to a Miami Dolphins TV station. I'm not a part of the team. I'm not a part of the I have nothing to do with the Miami Dolphins, but I just sit around and I cheer for them. Like what the what the latter day lens is, is it's not about who you identify with. Identify with any party you want. I don't care what what you I care what you do with your time.

I care how you spend your life. And if if someone were to say, hey, you need to stop like just fighting about sports all the time, that doesn't mean you can't be a football coach. It doesn't mean you can't be a football player. It means don't spend your time sitting around just watching people argue about sports.

shawn (40:41.424)
Okay, so how do you counter the response to that that says, Yeah, but Matt, when I look at the Democrat Party, they're pro abortion and that's murder. And so I cannot you can't use a good LDS member can't be a Democrat.

Matt (40:56.045)
Turns out that there are Republicans that are pro-abortion. There's a Republican running Michelle Tefoyer is running for Senate in Mont Minnesota. She's pro-abortion. Donald Trump was pro-abortion before they told him he shouldn't be if he wanted to be president of the United States. Like, the parties don't define that. The people define that. So if you're anti-abortion, you can be a Republican or a Democrat. And guess what? You can win because Donald Trump was pro-abortion and won as a Republican. So

shawn (41:23.908)
Yeah, it's a great answer. I think that's the underlying message from the Latter day Lens. It is don't ever define yourself or be loyal to the doctrines of a given party, which by the way, change all the time. So there's no like absolute universal principles for either of these man-made parties. That's the Latter day Lens. Sure. Use these, but don't abandon your principles. But use these parties to get involved and influence the country in the direction you think it should go. But don't be loyal to them.

Matt (41:52.128)
And also and also when the prophet says like peace in politics, right? Or avoid contention or all that stuff, they're telling you stop spending your time watching people on TV argue about stuff. Because Charles Barkley is a hundred percent right about that. Right now you've got rich people hitting poor people against poor people on issues that don't matter to them, so that they can continue controlling the country.

It turns out there's way more poor people than there are rich people. So why are the rich people the ones that are always in power? Why is it whether they're Democrat or Republican, they're rich people or the ones that are I know you hate this, Sean, but it's true. Like the rich people always win. Why? Because they know what how to just Marx called it the opiate of the masses, right? And he was talking about religion and other such things. But rich people know how to turn the political game into a fight.

shawn (42:31.61)
Yeah.

Matt (42:46.497)
Where one side fights against another side and they can just pick which side they want to affiliate with, like Trump did. And then those they'll never unite and say, hey, let's do what's in the best interest of all of us. Most Americans agree about like 80% of the issues that are out there. And they vote based on these tiny, tiny little issues where rich people get people to divide against each other. And then they take control and then they do whatever they want to do. And people are like, well, government doesn't represent me very well because they're not involved. They just watch people fight about it.

Do you agree with that, Sean? Stop watching people fight about politics.

shawn (43:18.658)
Absolutely, I do. A hundred percent. Especially the yeah, the news sources that are that are just clickbaiting, right? They don't care about the truth, they're just making money, which is a negative side of capitalism. But I wish that we as as as citizens were smart enough to recognize that, yeah, capitalism is going to just chase my it's just gonna pander to me to chase my my money and my vote. Don't give in to that. So yeah, I definitely agree with that. Yeah. But I also disagree with your statement that that the whole system

Matt (43:43.563)
A while Yeah, go ahead.

shawn (43:48.388)
should be viewed through the lens of power imbalance. I I I hate that. I think that is so unprincipled. Like and it's not

Matt (43:53.192)
I mean who name name one poor person who's been elected to office recently.

shawn (44:00.017)
AOC. She wasn't rich. She was super poor. John Fetterman. You said that name one. John Fetterman. And those are two people

Matt (44:02.623)
Okay. Out of four hundred and thirty five.

I know, I know, I know. That's what's that's how rare it is. That's how rare it is. So you can name them by name. It's not a poor person.

shawn (44:13.284)
Bernie Sanders.

He was well he wasn't wealthy when he w he's more wealthy now because of his politics, but No.

Matt (44:18.571)
Yeah, yeah, he was. That's true. Nancy Pelosi. Just kidding. I just did that to trigger you. No, I agree. You can definitely break through if you're not a rich person. It's possible. There was that dude in Maine, right? I forget his name before it came out, all the bad stuff he did. James Tallarico. James Tallerico's not a rich guy. Maybe he'll break through. Maybe. I mean. I I used to get I used to complain about the news. I was like,

shawn (44:34.305)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

shawn (44:39.96)
Really?

Yeah, I just

Matt (44:48.533)
We don't have any quality reporters. We don't have any quality news. It's all turning into this like journalists, not even real journalists, just people fighting with each other. And then I saw that that's exactly what's happened to the sports media landscape as well. Like ESPN fired all of their good reporters, replaced them with just these talking heads, right? Like Pat McAfee. Like, come on, what is it? That guy's not a reporter. He doesn't know he doesn't have like in-depth knowledge about like what's happening in the anyhow. This is what is happening to society. Now I feel like an old man.

shawn (45:00.666)
Ha ha ha.

Matt (45:18.399)
on a progressive commercial, right? Where they're like, Don't become like your parents or so I'm just like complaining that we don't have any good information.

shawn (45:24.302)
Why do you but I do and I I mean I I think as a skeptical person, I it's pretty obvious to me what Fox News is all about. It's pretty obvious to me what CNN is all about. Or yeah, these talk these these sports talk shows. But I do enjoy that we live in a time that's there's so much abundant information. I don't have to just default to the to the easiest one. I can do my research and I can find three or four other voices that are absolutely journalistic and fair and balanced and and

independent but why but why don't people do the work to go find them?

Matt (45:54.893)
Yeah, they're out there.

Matt (45:59.2)
Right. Well, because we like conflict. We like controversy. We like gossip. We like easy. Yeah. I don't know. We like the fun stuff. I'm just saying Charles Barclays right about one thing and wrong about the other thing. And I think that the Okay. Okay, here's the big question. Now I haven't thought a lot about this, but I know that Sean has. And so okay. So Mackenzie Richard and Ted Richards wrote an article.

shawn (46:12.762)
I like it. I like that. boy.

I have, yeah.

Matt (46:25.497)
About America's 250th anniversary from a Latter-day Saint perspective. They distinguish freedom, which is external freedom from control, from liberty, which is internal, freedom of the mind to choose good. Using example like examples like the Israelites, the Puritans, and Captain Moroni, they argue that outward freedom alone is never enough. It must be paired with virtue and righteous choices.

Something, by the way, that Sean has argued many times. They connect this to America's founders, citing Washington and Adams, who believe that political freedom only survives among immoral, religious people. They conclude that true lasting liberty comes only through Jesus Christ and encourage readers to use their freedom wisely by choosing faith and Christ. But here's the big question: if liberty only comes through Jesus Christ, what role do governments play in protecting liberty?

Is it not possible for me to have complete liberty if I live in a country that is not free? what freedoms does the government need to protect to ensure that I have liberty?

shawn (47:35.162)
Did you is complete liberty can we take out the word complete liberty? Is that really the question? Can I have

Matt (47:39.469)
Sure. The question is, yeah, how can you have liberty? Do do governments are governments necessary for securing your liberty?

shawn (47:45.358)
Right, dude. So

shawn (47:50.979)
So one side of the argument would say they are not. And the the best evidence of that would be Victor Frankel's Man Search for Meaning. So so those of you who haven't read Man Search Yeah

Matt (47:59.33)
That's right. I thought you would go there. Yeah. Go ahead. It's good, Sean. It's good stuff. This is something you taught me.

shawn (48:07.436)
good. I didn't know I taught you some. I'm not a professor. I don't how is that possible? Right. So he taught that the ult ultimate human freedom is the power to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. He being in a in a Nazi concentration camp and they took every call it freedom, call it liberty. They took everything from him his clothes, his food, his health, his wife, his parents, his job, his business, everything they took for him.

Matt (48:11.029)
Yeah, I know. I only listen to professors.

shawn (48:34.2)
And then one day in marching a line, he tripped and fell and they started coming and beating him. And I remember he says, This is it. They've taken everything from me, and now they're going to take the one last thing that I that I have, which is my life. And then this thought came in his head and he goes, I wonder, is there anything that it's not possible for these people to take from me? And he started and he created this theory called logotherapy, which is the idea that they can't take from me my ability to choose how to respond to all this.

And this is the theory the theory that he applied and this is how he survived. And this is what he said a lot of those fellow, you know, Jewish victims applied to survive. So to answer your question, yeah, no, I think ultimate liberty, you can't no government can take it away or give it. It's inalienable.

Matt (49:23.701)
Yes. Yeah, I agree. So then it doesn't matter. Like when it's the fourth of July and everybody stands up in testimony meeting and says, I'm so grateful to live in a free country where I can practice my religion. I can say in my head, but that's not what's giving you liberty. You would have your liberty even if you were in communist China and couldn't go to church. And you would still have liberty even if you were in Russia.

shawn (49:26.928)
You don't?

shawn (49:33.029)
Ha.

shawn (49:43.136)
night. nice. Whoa, that's deep.

Matt (49:50.828)
And they don't let you go to church. And you have liberty, even if you're Alma and you have to pray silently, because they're gonna like torture you if they catch you praying.

shawn (49:51.024)
Well no.

shawn (49:58.737)
I like that. That's really powerful. But there's a but though. God has said governments are for the use of man, right? Or for the benefit of man. So I think it should be government's role to preserve and protect as many freedoms as possible, considering externalities. You have to consider externalities. But bear like like like yeah, of course there's got to let's say this is a nod to Levi. Levi is big on externalities. But the govern government should do

Matt (50:09.206)
Yeah.

Matt (50:15.691)
Ha ha.

Matt (50:24.415)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

shawn (50:27.638)
Everything possible to give us as many freedoms as we possibly should have, without v you know, with it with a fair balance to externalities.

Matt (50:38.457)
Only because of Leva. okay, so the Declaration of Independence says that man men are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, right? So life, liberty, those can't be taken away. Those are which governments have found a way to take away life, right? They'll they'll kill people if they want to kill people. But liberty, we agree, comes through Jesus Christ. Governments can't take that away. So what does it

shawn (50:38.692)
Ha.

Matt (51:07.143)
what freedoms does a government need to protect to ensure that I have liberty? None. There's none. Governments are not the source of freedom. The right? That doesn't come from government. Liberty comes from God.

shawn (51:12.758)
yeah, liberty. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Well, but if we're sticking with the definition that these guys gave of freedom and liberty, probably it is necessary for freedom, just not liberty. If we're defining liberty as the so Victor Frankel explained it as the space between stimulus and response, emphasizing that humans are not mere products of their environment or or their drives even. Instead, there's a dynamic gap between what happens in a person and how they react. They get to choose we get to choose how we react.

Matt (51:29.687)
That's right.

shawn (51:47.14)
So yeah, whether I'm Victor Frankel and everything's been taken from me, I still have that liberty. But all my freedoms were taken away from me.

Matt (51:47.435)
Right.

Matt (51:52.15)
Liberty, yes. Correct. Yeah. So governments, the the la the scriptures teach us that governments are instituted by God for the benefit of mankind. So governments should do everything they can that would benefit mankind. But governments aren't the source of liberty. That comes from Christ. And freedom, freedom is nice, right? Every everybody all else sequel would probably prefer to live in a society with the most freedoms possible.

shawn (52:10.85)
Okay. I see the I see the distinction. Okay. I'm

Matt (52:21.185)
But freedoms are the things that we fight about. I think maybe for me that's the important part of the the question. Because I frequently say that there's not a moral right and a moral wrong when it comes to government. And you frequently talk about morum mo malum inha malum what do you say? Yeah. To

shawn (52:35.824)
Mm and say malam and say versus malum prohibitem. That there are, yeah, there are ethical moral laws, and then there are others that are not.

Matt (52:45.335)
To me, government is a fight over freedoms, not a fight over liberty. Liberty comes from Jesus Christ. So different people can put different weights on different kinds of freedoms. Some people I know want freedom from pain. Some people want freedom to do things. Some people want freedom from people telling them what to do. So governments are there to like to like referee the fight over freedom.

But that's not a moral question. It's not a moral question which freedoms get protected. And it's not a moral question, what is the best benefit of mankind? That's a political question that people can fight about. But the moral question of liberty is something that governments don't even have the power to take away. That's my take on the big question.

shawn (53:34.64)
That's super interesting. But you don't think there are moral drives towards certain freedoms, lawful freedoms? You don't think that

Matt (53:46.006)
I think that I think that in the sense that I think that a person might say that they're moral, they might say that their values are guiding them towards that, but there's not an inherent, like if we say truth is eternal, right? And truth never changes, those opinions about rights or what freedom should be protected, there's not an eternal truth underlying that. So here's an example. Here's an example that I thought of.

shawn (54:08.784)
Really? it's all it's all Malam and say, huh?

Matt (54:15.159)
So I watched this show. Listeners can be mean to me if they want to. There's this show called Naked and Afraid. And I know.

shawn (54:21.584)
Fuck Matt. But you didn't like the but you didn't like the movie Doubt, but you watch Naked and Afraid. This is awesome.

Matt (54:28.557)
So it's a like the first time I watched it, I was like, this is weird, just naked people surviving. But af after you watch it a little bit, you're like, I get it. They're n the reason they don't have clothes is because they have to start with nothing and try to survive, right?

shawn (54:43.044)
That's the reason yes, that's the reason there's a T V show of naked people. Good Matt.

Matt (54:47.797)
No, it's true. And like you watch these people survive and you're like, I c how are they walking through all that without shoes and all anyhow? They make their own clothes eventually and stuff. Okay, but so in this show, there's these there, there's people just trying to survive, right? And there's a woman who's a vegetarian. And then there's a guy who's like, but I need protein and I need meat and I don't care about animals. And these two would fight incessantly about it, to the point that like they move their whole shelter, they move to a totally different place.

shawn (54:49.861)
Ha ha.

shawn (54:54.288)
Okay, go ahead.

Matt (55:16.407)
They go live in a place where the vegetarian can find food. And eventually they find, like, here's a body of water and there's shrimp. And the lady catches some shrimp because she knows that the man would like to have some shrimp to eat. And she also catches a crab. And he's like, great. I'll use that for bait later on. Okay. And so then she's like, I want to keep the shrimp in a separate part from the crabs because those they're going to fight with each other. And he's like, Yeah, but we don't have that much stuff. Let's just put them in the same pot. And she's like,

You don't understand. Like, that's going to cause stress on the system of the shrimp. That's going to cause problems for the crab. I don't want to put them in a stressful environment. And he's like, But they're just we're just going to eat them anyways. We're just going to kill them anyways. And she's like, Well, personally, I wish you wouldn't do that. And and then at some point she's like, These are my fish or my shrimp. I caught them. I get to do what I want with it. Anyhow, this fight caused such a rift between them that they divorced basically. They're like, We're no longer going to try and survive together.

We'll just try to survive on our own because we can't work this out, right? Both of them just are coming from this same question from a different moral perspective. And they have really strong feelings about it. The one woman's like, I have such strong feelings about protecting life and shrimp and crabs that I'm willing to go through all this effort to be a vegetarian. And the man's like, I don't care about that, but I'm trying to survive with you. So I'll go through all this effort to help you be a vegetarian. But I would like it if you would please just respect my wishes about.

The shrimp and the crab can coexist in the same pot. To me, this is all government is about. We all have different perspectives, we all have different things. There's rights that you want to protect, there's rights other people want to protect. And we think it's better to stick together rather than to get divorced and like not work together anymore. And so governments just help mediate those fights. But there's not a true right and wrong.

shawn (57:03.408)
Qu the question would be this. Your theory works if if relative truths were made up a hundred per 100% of the questions. But there are and there are mostly relative truths, but there are also some absolute universals. You don't think that that government should it's a desirable thing that our government should apply absolutes and universals? Now I know that's scary because now you're gonna debate well, what's relative and what's absolute and universal? And if our government is the the you know the author of that.

Matt (57:18.444)
Yeah.

shawn (57:33.38)
they're clearly going to apply some things that aren't actually absolute universal. But if there are some obvious ones, inalienable ones, d shouldn't those be protected by government? Isn't that their role?

Matt (57:43.71)
Inalienable rights are not come from government. You'll have them. Whether whatever the government does, you'll still have those rights protected, those liberties. Well, so what I would say is, as a society, we should contest for the things that we believe to be morally right. The woman who thinks it's wrong to put shrimp and crabs in the same pot, she should contest for that. And the man who thinks that it's fine, and let let me just let's just figure out a way to make this work, he should contest for that.

shawn (57:51.386)
Freedom of spe freedom of speech.

Matt (58:12.375)
But we should always remember that none of the things we fight about are so important that it's better for us to just split up and divorce and not work together anymore, right? So it's all about, yeah. But but if society can't agree that it's wrong to kill shrimp or it's wrong to put them in the same pot with crabs, then we move on and we don't worry about that. You like areas where everybody agrees and where there's consensus, let's protect those rights. Let's make sure that government

shawn (58:21.389)
Okay. I see.

Matt (58:41.239)
provide it works for the benefit of our society. But if we can't agree on that, you don't just fight about it and try to win an election and force your way, right? If we can't agree on that, we should move on and say, let's talk about something else. Because we all have liberty and that's the most important thing. And that can't be taken away.

shawn (58:56.858)
The only but the only true way to really accomplish what you're doing is to implement something like federalism. That's it, right? Because now you live in the same country. But if you differ so much on shrimp versus not shrimp, Colorado's gonna be shrimp and Utah is gonna be not shrimp. And so you have to have a mechanism in there to allow us to live together where relative if you're saying relative truth should govern, doesn't federalism solve that? That's the only way to do it.

Matt (59:12.044)
Hmm. Well

Matt (59:24.621)
So then so then maybe as the United States grows, we just need a a lower level of federalism. Because what you need in San Diego is you need a federalism that separates you from the rest of California. Because you feel in San Diego like California's not respecting you guys, right? But we say the state is the lowest level and the states force all these cities to comply with them. So maybe the solution is like, fine, if if Los Angeles wants to have abortions, they can have but we're not having them in San Diego.

And maybe we just need lower levels of federalism so that people can get along.

shawn (59:55.93)
I like it. That's awesome. I like it.

Matt (59:59.957)
And could we do an electoral college based on counties rather than states? Just kidding. I don't want to like make all of our listeners go away. But I do think that that I think I think my real problem with federalism is it's too high a level right now. We need to get it lower down to counties and maybe cities and give them more power.

shawn (01:00:08.725)
Ha ha ha

shawn (01:00:17.136)
I'm gonna think about that a a lot.

Matt (01:00:20.159)
Okay. Well maybe we'll talk about it in the future.

shawn (01:00:20.922)
That's interesting. Yeah. Whew. Stimulating.

Matt (01:00:24.31)
Okay. Hey. Good job, Sean. Hey everybody. Thanks for joining us this week. We look forward to talking to you again next week. Have a good day.