Episode 95: Warning Labels, Biden pardons Biden, Abraham Lincoln and the Book of Mormon vs Gandhi and MLK Jr.

The Thought Provoker:
Matt: I recently learned that reusing a single use plastic water bottle or microwaving food in a plastic container is exposing me to micro- and nanoplastics. Some of these materials are toxic and can have lasting health effects. I am angry that corporations are allowed to put hazardous materials into products that could harm me or my family without some kind of warning label. Should these manufacturers be forced to put warning labels on their products?

Shawn: President Biden has announced that he is going to pardon Hunter Biden because Hunter was treated differently by the justice system for political reasons. Trump says that the January 6 participants should be pardoned for the same reason. Is Trump right? 

The Big Question: Savannah Eccles Johnston has an article in Square Two comparing Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum Address with teachings from the Book of Mormon.  She argues that both teach that the only way to prevent tyranny and political collapse is devotion to the rule of law. Lincoln argued that unjust laws must be obeyed to protect and preserve freedom. This is in contrast to Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for civil disobedience. They taught that by refusing to submit to the wrong or cooperate with it in any way, individuals can non-violently confront evil and lead society to a greater good. How should members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints confront unjust laws and policies?

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Absence of Sam
02:10 Work-Life Balance: Perspectives on Employment
03:45 Healthcare in America: Capitalism or Regulation?
05:51 The Dangers of Plastics and Consumer Awareness
17:05 The Role of Disclosure in Consumer Products
19:44 Political Discussions: Hunter Biden and Justice System Bias
20:05 The Controversial Pardon of Hunter Biden
30:05 The Rule of Law: Perspectives from Lincoln to Gandhi

Transcript

Matt (00:01.102)
Hello listeners and welcome to the RM podcast with Sean and Matt. Once again, we are without Sam this week. He is missing in action. I've tried to call him on the phone. He doesn't respond to my phone calls. I've texted him from time to time and I feel like somebody lower on.

Shawn (00:19.859)
Yeah, well, Matt, what you don't understand, because you're not in the, Sam's a capitalist, right? And what you don't understand is, at the end of the year, this is Christmas time, when free exchange happens between two parties, it's called business, and things get hectic, and you get too busy for your best friends. You know what I mean? Because you're making money, and it's all about producing. Or what does Sam say? He must be taking a risk somewhere, some house right now. That's gonna pay off.

Matt (00:35.182)
That's kind of pay off. Do you know what happens for professors at the end of the year? We get prepared for Christmas break. We like prepare for... I kind of work a little bit less at the end of the year, not more. So I have a different lifestyle than Sam.

Shawn (00:59.497)
Sounds good, but I'm the man, I'm business, I'm capitalist and we're in between. Self-employed, yep. I got a more.

Matt (01:08.342)
Yeah, you are. You're self-employed, Sean. You're... Yeah, you don't have a whole lot of employees to manage and things like that, so maybe it gives you more freedom. I actually think it probably gives you less freedom to be self-employed. This... No, I know, but seriously, Sean, like, if you take a vacation, is there something in the back of your head saying, if I were working, I could be making money or wait, where's... see?

Shawn (01:22.409)
I'm here. Am I not? I'm here. I'm here.

Shawn (01:33.125)
all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've not been good at doing vacations, but you have to learn. Over time, I've gotten much better at being able to prepare, prepare the clients and say, I'm taking off time and you get better with age.

Matt (01:41.697)
Yeah.

Matt (01:46.24)
Wow, yeah, see I couldn't do that, Sean. That would be very hard for me. I don't know if I've mentioned this on the podcast, but I'm on what we call a sabbatical and I haven't taught a class since July and I've had a lot of vacation time. I mean, I work too, but a lot of vacation time and I've never worried about paying the bills. So that would be hard. That'd be hard to feel like you have to work in order to pay the bills. That would be

Shawn (01:48.967)
Why, you could too.

Shawn (02:05.449)
That's nice. That is nice.

Do you remember so many years ago, when we were on a mission and every day you woke up and you didn't go, this is so nice. I don't have to do anything. I can just go teach people the gospel. I'll teach them and or someone will hand me a list of things to do. No, dude, wasn't it fun and exciting to wake up every day and go, there are 3000 Ukrainians out there that I get to talk to today. And I'm going to find the one that is looking for the truth.

Matt (02:32.364)
Yeah.

Matt (02:35.852)
Yeah, of course.

Shawn (02:40.189)
And it is so exciting. Isn't that chase so exciting to you?

Matt (02:43.5)
No, I really do love being productive and working, but I don't love the pressure to feel like I have to work in order to provide for my family. That's there's like anxiety there that I don't handle very well. Hey, hey, let's open the mail bag. So we talked to one listener last week. So this listener writes as the one listener who Matt addressed, I would like to say the electoral college stuff that Sean said was boring. I actually found interesting. Keep it up.

Shawn (02:55.109)
that's right.

Shawn (03:11.837)
I'm glad because we both found it interesting. just got a little nervous, but thanks for the feedback. We'll keep talking about that kind of stuff.

Matt (03:17.792)
Yeah, we'll go in depth on political science stuff from time to time. A separate note, as someone in healthcare, every time you guys talk about healthcare, I wanna bang my head against the wall. Well, that's because you are expecting accuracy from the podcast and we've never promised accuracy. We've only promised entertainment. A question I would love you guys to discuss and ideally do some research on and talk to your healthcare buddies about is this.

Shawn (03:28.649)
Ha

Matt (03:45.846)
Is American healthcare truly operating in a capitalist system? Hint, there is a right answer and you guys usually get it wrong. We know the answer to this, Sean. We didn't even need to talk to our healthcare buddies. We know the answer. Is it a capitalist system? Well, it depends on how you define capitalism, right? Is it a true free market? Yeah, it's not. Yeah.

Shawn (03:58.089)
It's not it. It's not. No way.

Shawn (04:07.569)
No, not at all. And I think that's what they're suggesting, right? It's highly, highly, highly regulated. Yeah, and there's no chance for a free exchange, a truly free exchange because of those regulations. And so yeah, it's not a pure capitalist system for sure.

Matt (04:13.996)
Yes.

Matt (04:23.68)
In a true market economy, person purchasing the goods gives money to the person who's offering the goods in an exchange. And that is a huge part of having the free market control prices. But in the United States healthcare system, you have this intermediary, you have a health insurance. And so the consumer is not actually paying the price of the goods that they're consuming, the insurance company is. And so you don't have a true free market.

Shawn (04:42.59)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (04:53.056)
in healthcare in the United States. But when you say capitalist, that gets into a whole lot of other stuff that I don't want to discuss right now. Maybe someday we'll talk about the difference of capitalism and other forms of government, or forms of economic systems. yeah. Okay, so let's go to the thought provoker. I'm up first. So normally we would have Sam go first, and he would share some random thought that happened to pop into his head this week.

Shawn (04:54.953)
Yeah?

Shawn (05:17.125)
You

Matt (05:21.614)
We don't have that this week. listener, if you were hoping to hear from Sam, sorry, we're going to go on without him this week. Okay, so I'm going first this week. Okay, so I recently learned that reusing single use plastic water bottles or microwaving food in plastic containers is exposing me to micro and nano plastics. My wife regularly tells me don't microwave that stuff in that Tupperware. And I'm like, why?

And she's like, well, cause it warps the Tupperware and it makes the sides look all bad and the lids don't fit so well. And I'm like, that's not a good enough reason to make me inconvenience myself. Or I went on a cruise recently with my mom and she wanted a water bottle and she'd get these single use water bottles and she would refill them and use them all the time. At no point has it ever occurred to me that that is actually bad for my health. But I read recently that these materials, some of them are toxic.

and they can have lasting health effects. So this makes me upset that corporations are allowed to put hazardous materials into products that could harm me or my family without some kind of warning label. So the question is, should these manufacturers be forced to put warning labels on their products?

Shawn (06:36.445)
Okay, so before we actually answer the question directly, just wanna ask a couple questions and lay the groundwork here. So do you really believe that there's not a single product on this planet that doesn't have both benefits and potential adverse effects? That you're wearing, the scriptures aren't a product.

Matt (06:39.843)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (06:52.654)
the scriptures. The scriptures. Okay, so something I purchased at the store, like a t-shirt. Yeah, okay, a t-shirt has no adverse effects. I don't think so.

Shawn (07:01.969)
In commerce, right? commerce, right? We're talking about, Well, none at all. What if it's a fabric that can chafe on a certain skin type and all of a sudden you get rashes?

Matt (07:11.328)
Okay, then I'm gonna find out about that. yeah. Okay, so for some people, yes, that's why the shirts tell me what they're made out of so that if I have an allergy to polyester, then I'm aware that there's polyester in that shirt.

Shawn (07:15.581)
Do you need a label? Do you need a label for that?

Shawn (07:23.453)
Very nice. Very nice. Here's another example. I'm looking at you now with your new nice headphones on. And those of you who don't know or can't see Matt, Matt has a giant head, huge head. Those things could be squeezing so hard that, you know what I mean? Like there's so many, every product potentially has a benefit and an adverse effect, don't you think?

Matt (07:31.126)
Yeah, yeah,

Matt (07:35.212)
It's so big.

Yeah.

Matt (07:46.51)
okay. I'm going to just go with your premise because it'll make your argument better. Yes, Sean. Yes.

Shawn (07:49.289)
Okay. Okay, based on that premise then, so the discussion here really is about who do I want to trust to disclose the benefits and the adverse effects? Do want to trust government or do I want to trust that company?

Matt (08:01.73)
Yes. No, no, don't trust the company because clearly they're manufacturing products with nano plastics that can just fall off. so if you drink a water from a water bottle and you do it again, those nano plastics could like get into the water and get into your system and your body has no way of getting rid of them. And why would, why would a company tell me that of their own accord?

Shawn (08:21.641)
Okay, again, we're.

Well, okay, so again, whether it's a water bottle or your t-shirt, there's benefits and then there's consequences, right, to everything. So really, I like that this is an interesting discussion to me because it does boil down to, there is a religious principle here, which is fascinating. I'll bring up in a minute. But in the end, why would I trust government to control

Matt (08:31.586)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. huh.

Shawn (08:50.695)
the disclosure of these things more than I would trust the company, right? Here we're gonna go back to Adam Smith and capitalism and the invisible hand. Go ahead, laugh, go ahead, go ahead. The invisible hand says this, if I create a water bottle and I give it to Matt and that water bottle has these adverse effects in that it does these micro, whatever you said, it starts to make nanoplastics and it starts to make you sick, is it in my self-interest to solve that problem?

Matt (08:58.562)
Mm-hmm. No, no, I like it. I like it. Yeah

Matt (09:11.394)
Nanoplastics.

Shawn (09:18.631)
Or is it in my self-interest to lie about it and make sure people keep getting sick? Clearly it's my self-interest to add value to your life. So I'm going to try and fix that problem. Why? Why?

Matt (09:26.71)
No, no, no, it's because if you can deflect blame and if you can say, actually, I'm not the one that caused that adverse health problem, that's caused by McDonald's or that's caused by some other company, then it's more profitable for me to continue manufacturing something that causes harm to you because it's less expensive and try to shift the blame to somebody else.

Shawn (09:48.457)
Okay, if it's in the dark, yeah, so for example, let's say it takes 50 years for anyone to even notice that that micro whatever is gonna damage you. So sure, can see that if there's a company who knows that and chooses not to disclose that, that's a dark and pretty nasty thing. here's the, but well, but okay, but what I'm saying is this.

Matt (09:57.196)
Yeah.

Matt (10:04.685)
Yeah.

Matt (10:09.614)
But they do that all the time.

Shawn (10:15.429)
I love that there are courts, our government provides courts where we can set up so Matt can go, hey, look, this water bottle made me sick. I'm going to sue that company and I'm going to make them pay damages, high damages, so that they fix the problem. Why would I, I think that's a good part of the capitalist system as opposed to some bureaucrat or some government employee who's not very talented, who is trying to then make it a system. Because I've met them. Have you ever met them?

Matt (10:30.702)
But then, but then...

Matt (10:41.568)
Why are they not talented? Of course there's, of course I have. They're, plenty talented. Listen, Sean, have you been following the Alex Jones, Sandy Hook lawsuit? Okay. So the families are awarded what? A billion dollars from Alex Jones. Are they ever going to see a billion dollars from Alex Jones? No, no. What? huh.

Shawn (10:45.659)
Yeah, I've met them. No.

Shawn (10:52.349)
Yes, absolutely.

Shawn (10:57.469)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn (11:02.569)
Probably not that amount, they did, but they did, I mean, the courts did force him to liquidate and it was purchased. And so there is money that will be handed out. They will get money.

Matt (11:11.466)
huh. And is Alex Jones done? He'll never go into business again. He'll never be able to do that stuff again. No, he's going to. Right. So, okay. So the lawsuit first, so the first thing is that the families are never going to see the money. They might see some fraction of some fraction of the money, but the end result is that Alex Jones declares bankruptcy, liquidates some assets. He's still got a multimillion dollar home that he's living in.

Shawn (11:16.253)
That wasn't the result of the lawsuit. The lawsuit was that he had to pay damages. Doesn't mean he can't talk more.

Shawn (11:27.657)
They'll see some, they'll see some money.

Matt (11:39.98)
And then he's going to start some other platform under a different name that's not legally obligated to pay whatever. Like this is what companies do, Sean, right? They say they do something that's illegal or unjust or let's just say in the dark corners or whatever. Then there's a lawsuit and they have to pay, they're ordered to pay a whole lot of money and they just declare bankruptcy and they go out of business and then they start again and do the same thing all over again.

Shawn (12:02.313)
Okay, let's, well, why don't instead of being hypothetical, let's use a real example. Do you remember the 60s or 70s? There was a car that had a part, what was it called? There was a car that had a part that if it got tapped like behind, it would cause the car to explode. And the company knew, I don't remember if it Ford or Chevy, I don't remember, they knew that this would happen, but they did the math and said, okay, the amount of people,

Matt (12:20.93)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (12:31.677)
that will die and the cost to pay out damages for that is higher than the cost to replace all these parts. So we're just gonna keep it quiet and we're just gonna let that happen. And that's a perfect case study because that was obviously immoral and when they did get sued, they did pay the damages, but that was such a great case study because now if you look at the auto industry, how often do you read in the news a car company has a recall? All the time, all the time.

Matt (12:58.688)
A lot. Sure.

Shawn (13:00.487)
And that is self-regulation because of the damages that were paid, had to be paid out in previous situations.

Matt (13:07.694)
But that's only because it's an auto company that's interested in having a long-term lasting influence in society. I'll give you a better example,

Shawn (13:15.047)
The invisible hand, that's the invisible hand. The company that makes your water bottle doesn't want to just get a quick buck and die and then make everyone sick. No, they want to last. That's not the, no, the invisible hand says that their self-interest is to provide value for you because they'll continue to get value in return. It's the goose and the golden egg. It's the goose and the golden egg.

Matt (13:23.736)
Sure they do, sure they do. Of course.

Matt (13:35.982)
I'll tell you the better story, the better real true story. So this is maybe 10 years ago, if you went to GNC, the hottest supplement was called craze and everybody was taking craze because it was giving them all this energy. And if you look on their label of like what the ingredients of craze were, they didn't actually tell you what it was, right? They're not following the laws with supplements where supplements you're supposed to list the ingredients of craze. So then there's a food scientist

who decides to go purchase some, he purchases a bottle of Cray's and then he tests it. And he says, what is the active ingredient in Cray's? And the active ingredient turned out to be meth. They were putting meth in a nutritional supplement. Turns out people were getting addicted to it. Turns out people just couldn't get enough of this stuff. They made millions and millions of dollars and once they're out of business.

Shawn (14:17.616)
Hahaha!

Shawn (14:26.377)
And where are they now? Hang on, where are they now? did they go to business because they caused damage and they didn't provide value and they got sued. I'm looking at the lawsuit now. They got sued and because they didn't focus on creating true value for people, instead they wanted a quick buck, they're dead.

Matt (14:35.644)
huh.

Matt (14:39.202)
Mm-hmm.

They made millions of dollars. They don't care that they're dead. That's right, they declared bankruptcy. All of their assets, all that money, they paid out to themselves in salary. They didn't keep it in the company. So then when they get sued, there's no money left for anybody to take because they already made their quick buck and then they took off. So the invisible hand doesn't always save people.

Shawn (14:45.033)
They don't have that money anymore.

Shawn (14:54.472)
Okay.

Shawn (15:00.647)
Okay, so maybe here's the, well, no, it definitely doesn't. Obviously, if people lie and cheat, there's gonna be really negative consequences and some people are gonna get rich off of the backs of other people, of course. But government's not gonna solve that. Government's putting a label on something. You're still gonna put your thing in the microwave, Matt, I promise, if there's a label. I'm gonna give you, the whole story I was gonna paint was, Matt, you wake up and you realize that there's some McDonald's leftover.

Matt (15:13.037)
Yes.

Matt (15:20.11)
I did it this evening.

Shawn (15:30.077)
and you get so happy a tear comes to your eye, because for breakfast you get to put it in the microwave, but there's a label on that bowl that says, there could be some adverse effects if you do this. You're gonna do it anyway, aren't you?

Matt (15:30.158)
Mmm. man.

Mm-hmm.

Matt (15:40.878)
Sean, you live in California and so there's every time I go to like, maybe it's an ice cream place, there are fast food places that I go to that say, establishment does something that is known to the state of California to cause cancer. Do know what I'm talking about?

Shawn (15:55.657)
Yeah, it's everywhere.

Matt (15:58.942)
And I always ask the people, like, is, like, when I read that label, I'm like, wait a minute, why does the state of California know that this causes cancer and nobody else does? But it also gives me pause. And then the employee's like, well, you know, it's not that big a deal, but the state makes us do it. That's all I want, Sean. I just want people to be like, look, the government happens to know this is gonna give you cancer, choose to do it or not, but at least we told you.

Shawn (16:09.415)
Ha ha.

Shawn (16:19.281)
Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Shawn (16:25.673)
But there's such a joke because you even admit yourself, you look at that and laugh at it and go, okay, this is, yeah, you still consume the product and you look at it and just laugh it off because you know that an inept, overreaching government is ineffective in applying real world solutions. And that's a perfect example. Thank you for giving it.

Matt (16:31.04)
I still consume the product.

Matt (16:35.598)
I

Matt (16:44.502)
No, that's not why. It's because when I want the chocolate or whatever it is, I say, I could trust the expert who knows that this causes cancer, or I could trust the employee that's offering me something sweet that I want right now. And I'm going to trust the person that's offering me the thing that I want right now. I don't want cancer. I want this treat right now. And so I just choose to believe them.

Shawn (17:03.113)
Can I offer a scripture that I think will build common ground here? Because I think there's one real issue. So I was reading in Alma 37. It says this in chapter 37, 22 and 23. It says, for behold, the Lord saw that his people began to work in darkness and work secret murders and abominations. Therefore the Lord said, if they did not repent, they should be destroyed from out the face of the earth. And the Lord said, I will prepare unto my servant. Do you know who this is?

Matt (17:09.048)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (17:30.734)
Gazellum, gazellum. I know the scriptures, yeah.

Shawn (17:31.965)
How did you do that? How did you know that? That's incredible, Matt. So, Gezellum, and this is so weird, listen this. I will prepare into my servant Gezellum a stone which shall shine forth in darkness unto light that I may discover unto my people who serve me that I may discover unto them the works of their brethren, yea, the secret works, their works of darkness and their wickedness and abominations. So they're talking about the Gadiant robbers and how they would come into these secret combinations. And there's some dude named Gezellum

who was given like a Urim and Thummim or something, a stone that would reveal all these secret lies and these secret things. So imagine, Matt, so the reason I'm bringing this up is because this, I think the real problem is it is about, think laws should, I think I agree with you a little bit, laws should require disclosure, or at least the courts should punish heavily when you don't disclose things, right? Because I don't think that,

I don't think that that car company did anything wrong by making a decision, look, it's gonna cost us more money to pay out damages than it is to replace this part. What they did wrong was not disclosing that, right? Because if I then admit, like you are, in the candy store, and I go, okay, so I can buy this car for $2,000 cheaper, but there's a X percent chance that I'll die by getting blown up, I at least can make that choice. And I think scriptures teach us that the Lord hates that secret.

Matt (18:38.349)
Yeah.

Matt (18:51.918)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (18:56.093)
darkness, the non-disclosure stuff more than anything else, right? Give us agency. So I think that's the principle.

Matt (19:01.826)
I like it. Okay, Sean, you get the points for that. I'll give you the points.

Shawn (19:06.155)
Now you get the points for knowing who Gazalem is.

Matt (19:08.366)
I don't know why I have a lot of stuff memorized, but I do.

Shawn (19:13.161)
Have you ever considered gaseolum and this like magical stone like where I I've often met I've awesome often ask people when you die who's the first person you want to go meet and I often hear people like Joseph Smith or obviously it's it's or it's I want you to say gaseolum and I want to say I want to play marbles with that magic stone

Matt (19:18.38)
I think about it.

Matt (19:23.96)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (19:31.022)
Listen, I have a whole belief system around magic and the church and I don't talk about it very much, but yes, I do believe in magic and the church. All right, Sean, you're up next.

Shawn (19:44.613)
I can't wait to talk to you offline. Okay, good. Okay, good. All right, you ready for this matter? You ready? Because I know you're gonna have really strong and unorthodox opinions on this. All right. So in case no one listens to the news, President Biden has announced that he's going to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, because Hunter was treated differently by the justice system for political reasons. And Trump says that the January 6th

Matt (19:52.812)
Yeah.

Matt (19:56.503)
Okay.

Matt (20:05.483)
yeah.

Shawn (20:13.225)
should be pardoned for the same reason. I'm not gonna ask you, is Trump right? I'm gonna ask you first. Well, I will ask that, but first I want you to just give your general reaction to Hunter Biden being pardoned by President Trump. to our listeners, we get this special treat to have a respected political scientist give us either some history or just a reaction. So I just want your raw reaction to it. Non-biased.

Matt (20:33.59)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (20:41.112)
So I teach a course on the executive branch. And so I know a lot about the history of the pardon. the first thing I want to say is, I know, the first thing I want to say is this. When you go through presidents and you try to say who's the best president of all time and presidential greatness, there's a problem because every president that does really, really good things also does things that are really, really bad.

Shawn (20:50.185)
Nerd. You're a nerd. You're a nerd.

Matt (21:10.048)
I can tell you about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Yeah. And, Joe Biden, know listeners might not agree with this, but Joe Biden was up on that list of really great presidents in the way that he helped us come out of the pandemic and stuff. know, I know people, but listen, this pardon of Hunter Biden is going to go down in history as a, as a tarnish on his reputation. anytime, anytime a historian wants to make the case,

Shawn (21:12.723)
Really? Really?

Shawn (21:23.273)
Shut your

Matt (21:40.13)
Joe Biden was a great president. They're going to have to deal with this pardon because in the history of pardons, this is one of the worst. This is one of the worst pardons in the history of presidential pardons ever.

Shawn (21:53.875)
And you're saying this is what he'll forever be known for and that's it.

Matt (21:56.526)
So if you say what is the worst pardon that has ever happened in US history, let's see if you can guess it, Sean. The worst pardon that any president ever did.

Shawn (22:07.187)
this.

Matt (22:08.138)
No, no. The worst one is Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, right? it's historically the worst. The, the number one reason why is he pardons Richard Nixon for everything that he may or may not have done. So like what we say, a president has the power to pardon. Typically a president is going to pardon you for a very specific crime that you were either convicted of or something you've been charged with or something you're like,

Shawn (22:12.711)
Why was that the worst?

Matt (22:37.186)
very specific thing. With Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford said, he's pardoned of everything that he ever did in this time period.

Shawn (22:44.307)
So he literally could have, he or Hunter Biden literally in the last X amount of time that's covered could have cold blooded murdered someone and pardon.

Matt (22:51.81)
That's right, that's right. And we'll never know what Richard Nixon may or may not have done in that time period because he was pardoned for everything. And so then there's no interest in like going and finding out what exactly he did. So this is why the pardon of Hunter Biden is bad because it's the only the second one in the history of the United States where a person has been pardoned for everything that they may or may not have done in a time period. And that's a horrible, horrible thing to do.

Shawn (23:13.673)
Okay, so let me ask you about that because listen to this timeline. Remember the whole, what's the biggest political scandal for the Biden family? Is it not the Burisma relationship that began by Hunter Biden being put onto the board of a Ukrainian energy company and then there being all kinds of somewhat evidence of

very large amounts of money being passed through to the Biden family, something like that, right?

Matt (23:45.826)
Well, that's what they've been investigating for the last few years, right?

Shawn (23:49.139)
So look at the timing of things. Hunter Biden was put on that board in April of 2014. Guess when the pardon begins. It's January of 2014.

Matt (23:55.822)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (23:59.534)
Is it April of 2014? Okay, so he's basically saying everything that the Republicans have been investigating Hunter Biden for from that whole period of time until now, he's pardoned of everything he might have done.

Shawn (24:12.437)
So how do you think, do you think that was obviously saving his son, but do think that was also saving him as well? Like why would he be, why so specific? Is there potentially some guilt there?

Matt (24:18.862)
Mmm.

Yeah. Well, so if you're, so again, this is why the Gerald Ford pardon of Nixon was, is, is seen as the worst ever. Right. Because it's like there, who knows if Gerald Ford was in on some things like, like Gerald Ford's approval rating after that pardon just tanked because Americans, you know, unilaterally said this is a horrible, terrible thing and it's an abuse of power. And, it's unclear whether or not it's actually constitutional.

right? Whether or not a president actually has the power to pardon somebody for everything they did in a 10 year period. Come on. That's crazy. so it would not surprise me if this went to the Supreme court to review the constitutionality of this, but it also wouldn't surprise me if the courts upheld it. But, but again, as a political scientist, this is a terrible thing to do. It's, it's a horrible precedent because, because now, now you've got the second one, right? So

Shawn (24:58.537)
That's crazy.

Matt (25:17.23)
If the pardon of Nixon was the first one and it's this anomaly in history that everybody says is horrible and a president should not be able to pardon you for just everything that you did in a period of time. Now, Joe Biden's opened the door with the second one and now future presidents are going to feel free to just pardon people of everything. And, we can only imagine if you get a bad person in office, what they might decide to do with that power.

Shawn (25:30.377)
Hmm.

Shawn (25:41.75)
Got anyone in mind there?

Matt (25:44.014)
I don't want to make it too partisan. I'm supposed to be objective. No, like, right? People can make their own judgments, but...

Shawn (25:46.705)
Why Sam's not here?

Shawn (25:51.475)
So you're saying one of the worst fallouts of this is the fact that let's say Donald Trump goes nuts and starts pardoning whoever he wants, the personal favors, family members, all that kind of stuff. He now has precedence and will not even nearly look as bad as Joe Biden pardoning his son, Hunter Biden, for that 10-year period.

Matt (26:02.669)
Yeah.

Matt (26:07.992)
We know that Rudy Giuliani asked Donald Trump to pardon him for everything he did up to a certain point of time was he was trying to defend Trump and all the 2020 election stuff. We know that Giuliani asked for that and that there were lawyers in the room that said, the president doesn't have the power to just pardon you from anything. You have to be charged with a crime, something specific. Trump did pardon Flynn, but there was Mike Flynn.

Shawn (26:19.966)
Wow.

Shawn (26:33.585)
a bunch of people apart from like 10 people.

Matt (26:37.71)
there was something with the Russia investigation. So Trump did pardon Mike Flynn for everything related to the Russia stuff, right? So people, again, they were like, that's a bit of a stretch. You can't pardon him for everything. You have to wait until there's a specific charge before you pardon them from that. So this is why the Biden, setting aside the nepotism, right? Setting aside the pardoning your own child and the fact that he promised he wouldn't do it. Like this goes on the list of

Shawn (26:45.63)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shawn (27:05.161)
I was so annoyed that all day today there's like 10 minute long videos of people posting Democrats for the last eight years saying no one is above the law. No one is above the law. Like 30 people. No one is above the law. We are the Democrats. No one is above the law. And then this.

Matt (27:06.978)
horrible things.

Matt (27:16.238)
Yeah.

Matt (27:21.642)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm at the same time, Sean, if you were a father and you were in his position, would you not do the same thing? I totally would. I totally would. Pardon. would.

Shawn (27:32.841)
That's a big hypothetical. Like so few people are in that position. There's no one in that position.

Matt (27:37.952)
I don't know. Yeah. Okay, but put, okay. So Joe Biden has two kids, right? I don't know if you know Joe Biden's history, but when he's first elected to the Senate, his wife dies and he's, he's got these two young boys and he's trying to raise them on his own. And he takes the train into Washington, DC and all of that stuff. Right. You have two sons and the one son is a war hero. He fought. He's like everything great, everything you could love.

Shawn (27:48.009)
Yeah, I do. I do.

Matt (28:07.276)
and that son dies of brain cancer. I think it was brain cancer. And then you got this other son that's just a knucklehead and does all kinds of bad things. And he tarnishes the family name and makes things look so bad. And then you, I'm not, I think it'd be hard to say that there's, that he would have been treated the same if Joe Biden was not president or was not running for president, right? Like the Republicans had an incentive to try to attack Joe Biden through his son, Hunter Biden. So then you feel like, okay, my other son's being

treated unfairly and in a negative way for no good reason except for he shouldn't be punished for my sins. I could see like, I think if I were in that situation, I would do the same thing. I'd be like, I have this power. I'm gonna exercise it. I'm gonna pardon my son. You guys will never touch him again.

Shawn (28:50.887)
Yeah, and your logic, and your logic would be screw everyone. But you can't as a president of the United States have the attitude of screw everyone. I'm going to do what's best for me. You can't do that.

Matt (28:55.086)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (29:00.108)
yeah well this is why i'll never be president of the united states because i i i have an uncontrollable urge to do what's best for me and who cares what everybody else yeah

Shawn (29:04.585)
because you would just do what's best for you. So you'd pull a Joe Biden then, okay, all right. Well.

Matt (29:14.914)
I just think I couldn't not do it. That's what I'm saying. Like you saw Jill Biden's comment on this, right? Like somebody asked her, she's like, am I mad that my husband pardoned my son? No, I will never be sad about that.

Shawn (29:27.081)
But that's so, that is so obtuse. it's so self-centered and selfish and obtuse, man. It's so...

Matt (29:31.062)
Yeah, I know.

Matt (29:35.938)
Yeah, but listen, at the end of the day, Sean, you gotta come home to your wife. At the end of the day, you gotta come home to the mother of your children. And no, I'm not trying to justify it at all. I led this by saying this will tarnish Joe Biden's legacy forever. any time, which I tried to for a little bit, any time somebody wants to make the case that Joe Biden was a great president, they will always come back to, yeah, but he pardoned Hunter. yeah.

Shawn (29:43.593)
Stop, stop justifying it.

Shawn (30:00.841)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (30:05.632)
Okay, well, you don't like it when I give myself the points, but I like it. All right, okay, we're get to the big question. Now, Sean, I need to know, did you read any of these addresses? Did you do some research on this? Okay. Okay, this is gonna be a good discussion. Okay, all right, so the big question is this. Savannah Eccles Johnston has an article in Square Two.

Shawn (30:08.361)
Please do. It was a good answer. I give you points too.

Shawn (30:15.507)
That's an interesting one.

Shawn (30:20.371)
Who do you think you're talking to? Do I look like Sam? Do I sound like Sam? Of course I read it.

Matt (30:34.456)
comparing Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum address with teachings from the Book of Mormon. In this article, she argues that both Abraham Lincoln and the Book of Mormon teach that the only way to prevent tyranny and political collapse is devotion to the rule of law. And in the Lyceum address, Lincoln basically says that slavery is an unjust law, but we have to obey the law. You have to obey unjust laws.

and you can try to change them, but if you disobey an unjust law, you're going to destroy liberty and you're going to destroy freedom. So the only way to preserve freedom is to follow a law even when it's unjust. This is in contrast to Gandhi or Martin Luther King who say, if a law is unjust, you have an obligation to disobey. You should be peaceful. You should not be violent, but you should never comply with something that is immoral.

and they taught that refusing to submit to the wrong or cooperate with it in any way is the best way to confront evil and lead society to a greater good. So in my mind, these two ideas are contrasting. And so my question is, how should members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints confront unjust laws and policies?

Shawn (31:57.833)
What a great question, man. And you're good at this, dude, because it ties into this kind of theme that we're talking about. Okay, so let me just make sure. And by the way, I've talked with a number of my friends about this, and I've gotten 50-50 responses. So the essence of your question is this. If there's a bad or immoral law, we all agree that it should be changed. Let's say we agree it should be changed.

Matt (32:11.42)
okay.

Matt (32:24.46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn (32:26.217)
how you change that law, we all know it's a very difficult process. You're making me choose between Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King on the approach, right? Yeah, Junior. Or Gandhi, right? Or the Book of Mormon and Gandhi. That's what you're making me choose between. Because on the one hand, I'll read quotes from Lincoln because nobody dislikes Lincoln, right?

Matt (32:33.294)
That's right Martin Luther King Jr. Yeah, yeah

Mm-hmm. Yes, yes.

Shawn (32:51.667)
He said, obey unjust laws until overthrown. So that's kind of a part you left out in there. He didn't say just shut up and obey them. He said obey them until they can be overthrown by legislative or judicial lawful processes. He did say, and he did exemplify, if there's a bad law like slavery, you do whatever is within the law to change it, right? Okay, so he says.

Matt (32:57.134)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (33:06.349)
Yes.

Matt (33:15.509)
huh. Yes.

Shawn (33:17.797)
obey laws, unjust laws until overthrown by legislative or judicial process. He warns that without strict commitment to the rule of law, people would distrust government and take power into their own hands by mob rule, by secret murdering efforts and by propping up demagogues. Right, mean, isn't, let's just analyze this one. Isn't a good world example if you look at Russia, right? So Russia, the people of Russia looked at their king and said,

Matt (33:29.88)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (33:33.934)
Hmm?

Matt (33:45.592)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (33:46.843)
everything this man does is unjust. And our whole society is based on this demagogue, right? Really. So the people say, you know what? Not civil disobedience, but just pure disobedience, right? Let's disobey everything he's doing. Let's rise up, overthrow him. And the end result was in the absence of the rule of law, a bunch of people took over who became demagogues themselves.

Matt (34:01.377)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (34:16.096)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn (34:16.829)
Right? Okay, so that's your one side of the argument.

Matt (34:21.996)
Yeah, so Lincoln says you can either obey the law or you can disobey the law. Disobeying the law leads to anarchy and war and violence and that's not tenable. Right? And so you have to obey unjust laws and seek to use the law to change the law.

Shawn (34:38.237)
Right, right, and there's lots of examples in this article where the Book of Mormon teaches the same thing. Okay, so then you've got the other side. You take Gandhi, Martin Luther King, who say, no, no, no, this is an unjust law. If we disobey it, and we don't use violence, if we civilly disobey this and we get punished for this, the symbol of that or the movement that that will cause will further and more quickly change that unjust law.

Matt (34:43.522)
Yes, the war chapters are basically that.

Shawn (35:07.869)
because of the media coverage we get, because of the statement that it makes. So civil disobedience is a more effective tool according to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Matt (35:11.874)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (35:15.862)
Yes. Yeah.

Shawn (35:18.515)
So half of my friends were like, it's immoral to break the law. You can't disobey the law. The Book of Mormon says obey unjust laws because it's the law. And the other side said, why would it be righteous to obey a wicked law? Like if the Nazi code or law was that I'm to kill a Jew, why would it be unrighteous for me to disobey that law?

Matt (35:29.357)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (35:46.379)
Right.

Shawn (35:47.555)
So where do you stand? What's your approach? What should the Latter-day Saint do?

Matt (35:52.782)
So I think that the way that Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. practice civil disobedience has a key that makes it so that you can actually have both of them be right at the same time.

Shawn (36:05.321)
Okay, so you're about to say they did break the law, right? Martin Luther King did break the law. Gandhi did break the law. And the way that they did it makes it okay, how?

Matt (36:08.43)
They did. They did. Yes.

because they accepted the full weight of the consequences of the law, right? So the law works as long as people are willing to accept the consequences of their decisions. So when Gandhi disobeys a law and then they say, like, here's the punishment and they beat him or whatever, he doesn't fight against it. He doesn't say, no, no, you should not punish me according to the law.

They accept the full weight and consequences of the law as punishment for their civil disobedience. So that's the key. What happens today, or oftentimes, is people engage in civil disobedience, pick whatever side of the fight you wanna pick. You can pick January 6th, you can pick Antifa, you can pick people burning buildings and stuff like that. What people do today is they wanna break the law and then not face the consequences of breaking the law.

Shawn (37:09.961)
Matt (37:11.49)
because they say my cause is so just that I shouldn't face the consequences of the law. But Martin Luther King and Gandhi only works, yeah.

Shawn (37:17.383)
You did it, you did.

You did it. I wasn't thinking, I was not thinking in that direction. You absolutely did solve it. That is the righteous way is you receive, you are obeying the law by saying, look, I'm knowingly breaking this law and knowingly receiving the punishment for this.

Matt (37:23.084)
Yeah, that's how you have to do.

Matt (37:38.06)
Yes, and in so doing, you demonstrate the unjustness of the law because you say, are you really gonna do this to me because I chose to do that? Please do, because that's what the law says and we're gonna submit to the law fully, right? I'm gonna take the consequence of that, but everyone's gonna see the consequence of this and they're gonna say, wait, that's wrong. We should not be doing that to people. And then you use lawful means to change the law.

Shawn (38:07.209)
Okay, so your conclusion is if someone is striving to be the most faithful disciple of Christ, they're able to do it with civil disobedience if they accept and receive the punishment. And on the other side, so are you saying that if that person runs away and hides, they break a law to civil disobedience and then they run away and hide and don't face it? Is that immoral? Wow.

Matt (38:18.573)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (38:29.784)
That's immoral in my view, right? That's what's immoral. So you should like feel free to use civil disobedience and nonviolent means to change laws, but you have to accept the lawful legal consequence of that choice.

Shawn (38:43.793)
I struggle with that because it's easy for me to differentiate when I read scriptures and learn of the laws of God. It's easier for me to compare those to the laws of man. And I see how in scripture, God teaches us that we shouldn't revere the arm of man or the wisdom of man or even the law. I mean, it does reference the laws of man quite a bit, but it's hard for me to go, am I really morally wrong if I disobey a law with a righteous purpose?

Matt (38:54.03)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (39:13.233)
and escape the punishment on purpose. Man, I know, Matt. Like seatbelt, seatbelt law.

Matt (39:18.51)
So do you remember, hey, if you want to break the seatbelt law, break it. But then when you get caught or you don't have to turn yourself in, right? But if the insurance company asks, hey, why weren't you wearing a seatbelt? You don't lie about it, right? You don't try and hide what you're doing. You're just honest. Do you remember the story where Joseph Smith, like, somebody like stole a horse or something like that. There was something and he had to levy a penalty against the person. And so he, he applies the law to this person in Nauvoo.

Shawn (39:25.235)
Turn yourself in.

Shawn (39:33.223)
Yes, absolutely.

Matt (39:47.65)
And then after the court, he says to the man here, here's my horse, go sell it and pay the fine. Right? Because Joseph Smith understands the importance of the law. You have to follow the law. You have to apply the law equally. Mercy comes in, in me sacrificing something of my own to help this person through that situation or saying, look, this is an unjust law. We need to work to change it. But while it's there, we're going to follow the law as it's written. Choose to disobey if you want.

Shawn (39:53.372)
Yes, I remember that.

Matt (40:15.586)
But the moral thing to do then is accept the consequences of that choice.

Shawn (40:19.145)
That's beautiful. I wish I could disagree with you somehow, but you've won me over. It was a good sermon. You preached Joseph Smith. showed... That's awesome. That's awesome.

Matt (40:25.87)
There you go. That's the key. Hey Sean, good episode. Hey listener, thanks for joining us this week. I can't promise that Sam will be back next week. I can promise that Sam will be back sometime in the future. But in the meantime, tune in. Sean and I have good conversations. There's more time for mailbag questions if you want to write those in, because without Sam, we have a little bit more time. So if you have questions, things you want us to talk about.

write to us, send us a text message through the show notes and we'll read them next week. Okay, talk to you guys soon.