Episode 104: Implicit Racism, Transgender Ban, Deep Seek, Trump's First Week

In this episode of Latter Day Lens, hosts Matt, Shawn, and Marc engage in a lively discussion that begins with personal anecdotes about oil changes and transitions into listener feedback regarding the podcast's branding. The conversation then delves into the complex topics of racism and implicit bias, exploring scientific perspectives and societal implications. The latter part of the episode focuses on transgender policies in the military, examining the intersection of diversity, meritocracy, and military readiness. The conversation explores various themes surrounding military readiness, healthcare rights, and the implications of transgender surgeries within the military context. It delves into the political strategies of the Trump administration, particularly regarding public approval and the effectiveness of executive orders versus legislative action. The discussion also touches on the intersection of AI technology and censorship, raising concerns about national security. Additionally, the role of religion in politics is examined, emphasizing the importance of civic engagement and the balance between humility and self-praise in faith communities.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Oil Change Anecdotes
02:57 Listener Feedback and Podcast Branding
05:59 Racism and Implicit Bias
09:01 Scientific Perspectives on Racism
11:59 Transgender Policies in the Military
14:53 Debate on Military Readiness and Diversity
27:48 The Impact of Medical Procedures on Military Readiness
30:09 Healthcare Rights and Military Insurance
31:11 Gender Dynamics in Military Spaces
34:29 Trump's Political Strategy and Public Approval
38:40 Executive Orders vs. Legislative Action
42:10 AI and Censorship: A National Security Concern
50:10 Religion and Politics: A Civic Approach
56:08 The Balance of Praise and Humility in Faith

Keywords
Latter Day Lens, racism, implicit bias, transgender policies, military readiness, listener feedback, podcast branding, societal issues, personal anecdotes, diversity, military readiness, healthcare rights, transgender issues, Trump administration, executive orders, AI censorship, religion in politics, civic engagement, national security, public approval

Transcript

Matt (00:01.112)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Latter Day Lens with Sean and Matt and Mark is with us here today again. It's good to have you back with us, Mark. How are you doing?

Marc (00:11.468)
I'm delightful, thank you. Just changed my oil, so I'm like in the zone.

Matt (00:16.716)
What is it that made you decide you should change your oil? Was it the mileage? Did you look at it and it just looked dirty inside?

Marc (00:22.688)
Well, I was about 2,700 miles past my change point, so, you know.

Matt (00:28.76)
You thought time to do this. Sean, have you ever changed your oil in your life?

Marc (00:30.513)
Yeah.

Shawn (00:34.114)
Dude, that's a tough, worked, if you recall Matt, when we got off our mission and we moved to the Glenwood there in Provo, on BYU, you didn't work because you come from money.

Matt (00:44.824)
Yes, I did. stop it. I worked at the MTC, Sean.

Shawn (00:49.748)
Which isn't a job. That's just a fun thing to do. Just kidding. I know you worked really hard. You did. You did. I know you needed the money too. Well, my first job I got was a Jiffy Lube right across the street, right behind the leg. it was Q Lube. Yeah. Actually I take it back. was the sec. yeah. And then, so I learned a little bit about change in oil, but then I remember Matt, you knocked on my door one day. Actually we were roommates. didn't knock on anything and you said, Sean, I'm getting a job. Why don't you come do it with me? I'm like, sweet. What are we doing? Remember what we did?

Matt (00:58.99)
No, it was, it was Q lube, Q lube. Yeah, it was Q lube.

Matt (01:18.456)
We sold living scriptures. I did it. Everybody knows.

Shawn (01:20.226)
For those who don't know what Living Scriptures is, it's a $30 VHS tape for a $30 TV show. It's a cartoon of the scriptures, which were super high quality. Like I love the product, but back, like what's the equivalent of $30 of VHS tape today, Matt? would the, yeah, but what would the price be?

Matt (01:32.184)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Matt (01:39.56)
Netflix subscription something like that for Netflix like a hundred dollars a month probably I Did it one time and I felt no I sold it to two people I felt dirty inside and I quit and Sean's like no way this is good money. I'm not stopping

Shawn (01:45.856)
Yeah, that's what it would be. That's how expensive these videos were. And we knocked on doors.

Shawn (01:56.93)
I only did it for another like couple of months and then I hated it too. So anyway.

Matt (02:00.042)
yeah yeah okay so Sean used to change other people's oil before he sold out to the corporate machine and became a nasty person

Shawn (02:04.226)
That's right.

Shawn (02:08.374)
before my my my corporate capitalist greedy buddy Matt was like, Come on, man, let's do this. Yeah.

Matt (02:15.886)
Do you remember when you worked at QLube, you brought this guy over to our apartment and let him live with us for a while and then he stole all of our stuff and then left? Yeah, of course.

Shawn (02:21.922)
He was homeless. Well, he was homeless, number one. So I was being kind and charitable, number one. Number two, he only stole your one bottle of cologne.

Matt (02:34.562)
He stole my cell phone. He stole my cell phone, Sean. And all of our roommates had expensive things that he, like anything we had of value, he stole.

Shawn (02:38.239)
he did?

Shawn (02:43.286)
Well, he stole a cell phone and some cologne, think is all he got. I'm sorry, Matt. I feel so bad.

Matt (02:46.122)
No, no, he's still, can't remember. It's okay. was, listen, sometimes you try to do the right thing and people are not like good people, right?

Shawn (02:54.57)
I did the right thing at everyone else's expense.

Matt (02:57.302)
Yeah, it's okay. Everybody tried to warn us. They said, you know, maybe you shouldn't have a homeless person living on your couch. And we're like, no, no, he's he's trying to turn his life around. He's not he's not scouting out our apartment trying to find things of value that he can take with him before he leaves.

Shawn (03:07.468)
Ugh.

Shawn (03:12.834)
It's a good life lesson, man. He never stole anything from me. He just stole it from all you guys. So I came out ahead. I came out ahead. I felt good about helping him and I didn't lose any.

Matt (03:19.67)
Yeah, okay.

We have two things from the mail back. So first, one of the listeners writes, I love the new logo and I love that you're going back to the latter day lens title. It's so much easier when I'm recommending your podcast to others to help them understand that you're viewing our present day issues with a latter day lens. Real Mormonism just didn't help people understand that. It was weird. Thanks guys. I look forward to Wednesdays, partly because of you, but I do miss Sam.

Shawn (03:48.832)
We miss Sam. We love Sam so much. We miss him.

Matt (03:50.102)
Yeah. Hey, I'm just happy that this listener that we can bring some joy into her life, make her happy, make her look forward to Wednesdays. And I'm glad that she came down on the side of of Sean won the fight. Sean won the battle about the logo and the name. And that always makes you feel good inside Sean when you're right.

Always.

Shawn (04:12.054)
Well, only if you get imaginary points for it, right? Hey, hey, I completely submit to you, Matt, because you are the specialist, the political science. So you know that every topic I'm just like, I don't have an opinion on this. Matt's the professional. I'm going to just let him win. And I'm the branding and marketing guy and you need to do the same to me. yeah, trust, listen to our listeners. Latter-day Lens is best.

Matt (04:30.926)
Thank you.

Matt (04:37.376)
Okay, I do trust you Sean. I would like to apologize for any time in my life I ever did not trust you. I will always trust you in the future. Okay, another listener says, have a problem of assuming that Elon Musk is racist just because he was born in South Africa. Are you guys racist just because you're members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and they have a history of racist policies? One of the reasons that Musk left South Africa is apartheid and not wanting to enforce it through military service.

Shawn (04:44.546)
You

Shawn (05:06.674)
Mm-hmm. What you say about that, Matt?

Matt (05:08.213)
I will answer that question. We are racist. We are.

Shawn (05:11.187)
my gosh, what the crap?

Matt (05:15.853)
Listen, this is, I think that people misunderstand when I use the word racist. I believe that almost everybody is racist, but by racist, like everybody has these automatic implicit attitudes, right? So my father-in-law, anytime I had a problem with my car, he would say, well, did you put Chevron gas into your car? I was like, no, I just put the cheapest gas. And he's like, well, you gotta buy Chevron gas cause Chevron is going to fix that problem.

Or some people really like Fords and people really like Chevys, right? If I would talk to my father-in-law and say, hey, I'm thinking about buying a Ford, he'd be like, Ford stands for fix or repair daily. Like everybody has these preferences, like.

Shawn (05:54.86)
Having a bias and a preference isn't the same as being racist. No.

Matt (05:59.169)
everybody has an implicit racist bias. You can, if you, if you Google project implicit race, I A T you can do a little test and it'll tell you if you have a bias towards white people or bias towards black people. And I use, no, it's not an internet test. Sean, this is a scientific test. I use this in my research methods class. I've been doing it for like six years because I help students try to understand

Shawn (06:02.443)
No!

Shawn (06:15.636)
an internet test because an internet test is going to be accurate.

Matt (06:26.646)
whether the measures they create are reliable or valid. so every semester, go ahead, Mark.

Marc (06:30.228)
You know.

The only project I'm worried about is project 2025. That's what we need to be worried about.

Matt (06:37.486)
I know. I believe you. Well, so anyhow, over the course of these years, students take this test and it's almost every single time. White people have a bias towards white people, a preference towards white people. Black people have a preference towards black people. It's just how it is.

Shawn (06:51.65)
Do you think that what was the purpose? Do you think there was, do think the test maybe had its own bias and was trying to produce a result and maybe did produce the result it wanted?

Matt (07:02.688)
No, because I can take the test in different ways and make it say what I want it to say. Cause I've learned, I've learned how the test.

Shawn (07:06.388)
Yeah, but you're Matt Miles. You know exactly. You are smart enough. You know how to manipulate those kinds of things.

Matt (07:13.63)
what I'm saying Sean is there's a book called Blind Spot. It's a very like widely popular book based on the data that they collect. And it's just a reality that everybody has these automatic preferences towards people of their own race. So one example is I had a student, he had a brother and a sister who were adopted from Africa. So his brother and sister are black. And this test comes back and tells him that he has an automatic preference towards white people. And he's like,

Hey, and it kind of like bothered him because he's like, I love my brother and my sister. I don't like that this is telling me that I have an automatic preference towards white people. Right, but it's not. So what my point is when I say is someone's racist, I'm not saying that you hate people of another race. I'm saying that you have this automatic sort of preference towards people of your own. And it's like without cognitively thinking about it, people have those preferences. And so.

Shawn (08:04.322)
Yeah, but why don't you call people then adulterers? Why don't you say everyone's an adulterer? Because there's this natural tendency for mostly men, let's say just men, to have a wandering eye and look at many different women. So why don't you say all men are breaking the law of chastity, all men are adulterers? Because in fact, racism isn't a behavior. No, that's what I mean. I think having a wandering eye and letting, like the scriptures are even clearer.

Matt (08:18.872)
Well, because it-

Matt (08:23.596)
Because that's a behavior. That's a behavior. Racism is no.

Shawn (08:33.75)
The thoughts that you have are like, I'm not. So you're saying that everyone has this, this bias towards a race and they act upon it. It's not, or they don't act upon it. But as long as they have the thoughts that makes them racist.

Matt (08:46.53)
I'm saying that everybody has a bias and it's incumbent upon people to try to make sure that that bias is not manifested in the things that they do in their everyday lives.

Shawn (08:55.808)
So everyone has a physical attraction to people and everyone has a choice to not act upon that. Same thing, why is it different? So then why don't you call everyone an adulterer?

Matt (09:01.1)
Yeah, there's, that's right. People, well, I'm not calling them a, I'm calling, I wouldn't call them adulterers. I'd say they're lustful, which I think I could find in the scriptures. And I would say men are dogs, but like, that's a very common thing to say. Like men are right, lustful and, and carnal. I think we say humans are carnal by nature. So I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that individuals have a natural tendency towards racism. And unless they do something in their own life to

Shawn (09:09.151)
Shawn (09:22.081)
Yeah, but...

Matt (09:30.488)
combat that, then that will naturally manifest itself.

Shawn (09:34.252)
So we didn't intend to linger on this, but this is fascinating. what do you think is the either scientific or religious principle that says mankind is naturally, for whatever reason, they see people's skin color and that defines the way they think about people? Because I absolutely reject that, 100%. I think people can be, yeah, societies and people can be trained to think that way, but to say it's a natural bias, absolutely false, no way, absolutely not.

Matt (09:53.9)
Well, well, okay, so.

Matt (10:03.266)
Okay, so first of all, the sciences, Sean, like I've seen it over the last six years in the data that I see, but there's also the book Blind Spot that shows that this is how people are. And if you want more science, then you can look at Kahneman's book, it's called Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow. And it explains how like, as humans, we have to make thousands of decisions every single day, and we can't cognitively process every single one of those decisions. So most of the things we do, we rely on this sort of automatic thinking. This is what you do in branding, Sean.

Your whole world of branding is to create this automatic preference for your brand instead of some other brand. And that's the way human, because you're not saying, how can I make people sit down rationally and look at the pros and cons of my product versus another product and get them to purchase it? No, it's all about this like automatic preference, or we call it affect, this sort of like emotional instinct towards your brand versus another brand. And that's how, that's the science of it.

The scripture of it is Mosiah 3.19. The natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam. So why would we not think that humans by nature are naturally racist?

Shawn (11:09.634)
Where does race? Okay, let's definitely bring this up as a as a topic for a future episode because holy moly, dude, we couldn't disagree. We couldn't disagree more.

Matt (11:14.182)
okay.

Well, just for the listener, if I say, for the listener, if I say Elon Musk is racist because he grew up in apartheid South Africa and you say, then you must be racist too. say, yeah, that's right. The way that I define racism, yeah, almost everybody is racist unless they live in a very mixed race world, then everybody has a natural preference towards people of their own race. Sean, the science on this is like ubiquitous. It's everywhere. could.

Shawn (11:28.054)
That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous.

Shawn (11:41.142)
hate that and that's not true.

Matt (11:44.684)
I could spend like an hour just telling you study after study that shows how people have this automatic racism inside of

Shawn (11:51.488)
Yeah, but study doesn't mean anything, man. Like, I'm sorry, but it's.

Matt (11:54.766)
Well, that's what's What are you saying mark?

Marc (11:59.719)
I don't know. Can I make an inappropriate joke or are we not doing that on?

Matt (12:05.354)
you can say whatever you want to say Mark.

Shawn (12:05.762)
If you have to ask, then I think it's inappropriate.

Marc (12:09.166)
Bye.

No, think it's sounds like both points because if the science is saying everyone's racist, well, I mean, why not? But, I'm not racist. I just like funny words and jokes I'm not supposed to say.

Matt (12:27.918)
Well, yeah, so like when we talk about say institutional racism, Sean, the idea is this, like, let's say that everybody, like, if we say everybody in society has this natural preference toward Ford trucks, and then you notice that in society, there's Ford trucks everywhere, you would say, well, that's a manifestation of those automatic preferences, right? And so then racism in society or institutional racism is when you say,

Marc (12:35.234)
I didn't know we were making stuff up.

Matt (12:57.814)
A majority of people have these automatic preferences. And if you see that manifest in society, then you'd say, that's a manifestation of these automatic preferences. And if we want to combat that, then we could say, yeah, go ahead.

Shawn (13:06.604)
But what if I see it, what if your science says that everyone is naturally racist and then you start saying things like there's a four truck everywhere so I see the evidence of it everywhere. What if my anecdotal experience is I don't see it everywhere and I live in a pretty diverse place? So you're saying that I'm not, because of my conditions that I live in, I'm not racist but you are because you live in a homogenous place, is that what you're saying?

Matt (13:26.318)
That's why.

Matt (13:35.958)
You'd have to take the test, Sean, but yeah, that is true. People I know that the people in my experience in my classes, right, students that take this test, the students who don't have an automatic preference for either white or black are either Latino or Asian kids who white, black isn't their world, right? Or they don't like both of them equally the same. They have an automatic preference against both whites and blacks, or it's kids that grow up in very racially diverse.

Shawn (13:38.71)
Ha ha.

Matt (14:04.098)
households and communities. They tend to not have an automatic preference towards white or black. But if you live

Shawn (14:09.696)
Matt, what's your astrological sign? do you believe that that says something about you? Because there's science and there's, Marcus too, because there's science, right, that says that you being a Pisces, you're going to be a certain way. Do you believe in that? Do you agree with that?

Matt (14:12.716)
I'm a pacist.

Matt (14:23.866)
I have not seen that science, Sean. I haven't seen it. But Sean, take the test. Why don't we like this week, you can go take that test and you can tell me if you have an automatic preference and then have your whole family take it. It'll be really fun. And all of our listeners take that test.

Shawn (14:25.872)
wow. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Shawn (14:39.404)
Don't you think I can find 10 other scientific tests that would maybe conclude the opposite thing? Why would I put the trust in some internet test that's gonna tell me that I'm racist or not? Why would I trust that?

Matt (14:53.334)
Well, okay. So I'm going to tell you this, don't want to be like, but you were talking about how you're this expert on branding, right? I'm pretty good at social science research. Like I teach people how to do good social science research. So I'm not here telling you, Hey, go take the Buzzfeed quiz that tells you if you're Hufflepuff or if you're in like whatever Harry Potter house, I'm telling you about a good rigorous scientific method of analysis. Now you can disagree. We do this in my class. That's why I choose this test.

because there's room for disagreement about whether it's actually measuring what we think it's measuring. But in terms of the science, it's a pretty good test.

Shawn (15:29.378)
I'm willing to take your test offline and then we could talk about it. Okay, that's awesome.

Matt (15:32.865)
Yeah, yeah, let me know what you think about it.

Marc (15:35.624)
I remember when I took it in your class, it just had the one question, are you racist? I mean, I know I'm scientific, but

Matt (15:41.134)
By the way, did you know that's the best way to measure self-esteem? Just ask him, do you have good self-esteem? It's also the best way to measure narcissism. Are you a narcissist? And people who are narcissists will proudly, openly tell you, yes, I'm a narcissist. Some things you can just do that more, but racism tends not to be something people are proud of. Okay.

Shawn (15:41.506)
HA

Shawn (15:57.974)
You

Shawn (16:06.42)
Amazing. don't think I don't think our listener expected that answer from you, but I'm with the listener and the listener gets the points. I think you're sorry. In this case, full of crap, Matt. I'm sorry, but I'll take the test. I will take the test.

Matt (16:16.496)
okay. Well also, the other thing on Elon Musk is I read Elon Musk's biography and I saw nothing in there about him leaving South Africa because he didn't want to enforce apartheid. The reasons, according to the biography, Elon Musk left South Africa was either his dad was tired of him playing video games and doing nothing with his life and so suggested that maybe he should go to the United States. That's his dad's story. Elon Musk's story is he had dad issues and he was tired of his dad controlling his life.

And so he's like, I got to get out of here. And a ticket to the United States was his way out or to Canada was his way out.

Shawn (16:51.104)
Matt, the next time you make fun of me for bringing up anything Elon Musk, let's point out the fact that you're the only one I know who has read his biography. I don't know anyone who's read his biography. You must love him,

Matt (16:58.604)
Really? You didn't read his biography? Well, I actually don't love him because I've read his biography. And I say, what do people like about this person? But that's okay.

Shawn (17:08.754)
Okay. That's fascinating.

Marc (17:11.879)
But I'd like to point out that the one guy who doesn't like Elon Musk is also a self-admitted racist. So it makes sense that he's trying to go after our most successful African American.

Matt (17:18.286)
Alright Mark, you're up first with the Thought Provoker.

Shawn (17:18.607)
HAHAHAHA

Shawn (17:24.364)
HAHAHA

Marc (17:30.402)
this will be fun. Going from racism to the next one here. Isaiah 59, our transgressions are multiplied before thee and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us and as for our iniquities, we know them. In transgressing and lying against the Lord and departing away from God, speaking oppression and revolt, et cetera, et cetera. The question is, President Trump has removed transgender.

Matt (17:34.84)
You

Shawn (17:36.034)
You

Marc (18:00.154)
people from the military and is defined that the federal government's position is officially male, female, nothing else. So, I guess the question is, as Latter-day Saints, do we want to say, yeah, go get them, Donnie? Do we want to say this is just rude, oppressive, and inappropriate, and it's not Christ-like, or is there third, more, well, there's

Matt (18:17.006)
You

Marc (18:26.352)
First option is the only reasonable option, but is there another option that's also unreasonable?

Matt (18:26.4)
Nuanced, more nuanced. Do you want to go first, Sean?

Shawn (18:33.506)
Sure, sure, So in analyzing this, see giant hypocrisy in this administration for this policy. Here's why, here's why. Because all I've heard for months and months and months is get rid of DEI because a meritocracy is the fairest, wisest, safest way to go. It's the smartest way to go. Meritocracy, right? You shouldn't judge anyone based on anything except for their merit, their ability, their talent.

Especially they would say if you're looking at the government or the military, you don't look at color. You don't look at sexuality. You don't look at anything. You look at merit. We need the best people doing the job protecting us. Right? Have you heard that Matt? That's what I've heard for months and months and months. Yeah. I mean, that's a

Matt (19:17.42)
Yeah, I hear people saying that. Not people in the Trump administration so much, but yes, I do think people think that.

Shawn (19:24.632)
I've heard a lot from the Trump administration. And this is why I think it's hypocritical because now what they're saying is if they're saying it's, it's either, they're saying it's meritocracy and it should be in merit, but not for the people we don't like. Right? So if I have a transgender man who is most qualified for the job, who based on meritocracy should be doing the job, they can't do the job now. That's absolutely hypocritical.

Matt (19:51.662)
Right, they would get fired.

Shawn (19:54.21)
they would get fired because of this strange policy that puts someone in a box and judges them for it. Now, I think this is a response to DEI specifically. So it's less a topic about transgenderism and it's more a topic about DEI, but I do think there's hypocrisy here. Either you're meritocracy and you judge based on merit or I guess you're DEI. I guess those are the two.

opposing extreme options, I guess.

Matt (20:25.696)
Yeah. Do you want to defend that Mark? Do want to defend that policy?

Marc (20:30.338)
sure. And, and before I do, I don't know how I feel entirely. I just think that's a fun topic and this won't be at all controversial. So let's talk about it. I think the latter day St. Len's approach here would be to say as a church, have affirmed and reaffirmed that there are the two genders, male and female, and that the statement in the family proclamation refers to the gender that you are born with.

Shawn (20:40.108)
hahahaha

Marc (20:58.184)
Ergo, the idea of the federal government defining male and female and saying no more transgender prisoner surgeries are in the military or any of that stuff. For me, it sounds like it could, and again, I'm more saying a position, me personally, I don't know yet, but we could say that that is a victory for the Latter-day Saint theology of male, female, the end.

Matt (21:21.592)
biological sex wins out. But you know, but you know, Mark, that there is, there are like millions of people in the world that are not dichotomous biological sex, male or female, right?

Marc (21:23.785)
As always.

Marc (21:35.679)
Yes, and they're all going to hell. Every single one of them, I-

Shawn (21:38.262)
Hahaha.

Matt (21:38.542)
Well, no, it's not their transgender, right? It's their biological sex, right? So if the policy is you have to be male or female and like biologically you're neither male nor female, you're gonna have to choose.

Shawn (21:50.882)
Well, Matt, there's, hang on, but there's, this'll be my answer, my response to that. This will be somewhat of a trope, but the common response to that is, well, I've got a buddy, a close buddy who was born with an extra finger. So we don't automatically say, well then I guess people aren't born, humans aren't born with 10 fingers and 12 and 10 toes, because you've got a rare instance over here of someone who was born with 11. So now there is no such thing.

Matt (22:17.016)
I know but-

Shawn (22:19.028)
as a 10 fingered person, there's just a spectrum of people with however many digits we've got.

Marc (22:19.946)
you

Matt (22:24.654)
But if they made a policy that said people with 11 digits cannot serve in the military, then that person would be excluded from military service because of their biological anomaly. Okay, so if you're gonna say that a transgender person cannot serve in the military and there is an intersex person that's neither male nor female biologically, you're excluding them from military service because of their biological characteristics.

Shawn (22:35.286)
Yeah, Yeah, but if you also

Shawn (22:51.338)
Yeah, but I don't know that unless the, unless the intersex person identifies as transgender, then it's not a problem.

Matt (22:59.276)
Well, what if they identify as a female and they have a little bit of a male genitalia there?

Shawn (23:05.282)
Well, then I think what this policy says is what's your biological what are were you assigned biologically?

Matt (23:10.616)
There is no biological assignment. A person chooses in that situation, or their parents choose.

Shawn (23:15.444)
At birth, they were assigned biologically as something.

Matt (23:17.698)
So whatever their parents chose at birth, they have to stick with that, even if that doesn't fit with their perception of their biology.

Shawn (23:23.97)
I mean, I think that's the policy.

Matt (23:25.932)
Yeah, so it just seems to me like, well first of all, the military is having a hard time getting people to join the military. They've missed their recruiting quotas the last two years in a row. So the idea...

Shawn (23:36.706)
You know why this administration says that is? Because of DEI. That's what they say.

Matt (23:41.614)
That has nothing to do with, well, I mean, again, I'm gonna turn to the science on this, because the military studies this sort of thing, and they have a journal called Arm Forces and Society, where there's all kinds of literature about why the military has missed its targets, and nobody so far has mentioned DEI as the reason for missing their targets.

Shawn (23:59.104)
you'll have to produce those primary sources so I can read them. Go ahead, Mark.

Marc (24:05.256)
Well, the question is the people who have compiled those studies, have they been part of the military that's been DEI'd for the last four years? Because if they have been, then of course they're going to say, it has nothing to do with the DEI, it only has to do with whatever, it's not enough transgenders.

Matt (24:20.696)
I'll tell you what it has to do with, it's not a complicated question. Everybody has gotten a raise and the military has not. The military is not an exciting place to go work right now because of the requirements that they place on soldiers and because of the pay and the benefits that they offer them are not keeping up with the private sector.

Marc (24:37.552)
But... But we have the diversity. We don't need money. We don't need benefits. We have diversity. That's our strength.

Shawn (24:46.764)
Ha

Matt (24:47.325)
Well, again, I don't want to get too far off topic, but saying we're not going to allow transgender people in the military seems not a wise decision when you're trying to recruit people to be in the military. And the other thing I would say is there are so many jobs people can do in the military. It doesn't matter if they're transgender or not. before...

Shawn (25:05.078)
Matt, would you say about the three reasons that the administration has given? Reason number one is medical treatments while active duty limits physical capabilities plus the taxes would pay for it. Sure it does. If a biological woman is competing up against a 180 pound man, then there's physical limitations. Of course that's true.

Matt (25:15.393)
Not true.

No it doesn't.

Matt (25:25.166)
Like are you just talking about people who are infantry or are you talking about all the positions that a person could have in the military?

Shawn (25:32.49)
No, I think their policy is focusing on infantry because the second one says military readiness affected by a woman in a man's role or yeah, the readiness of the red.

Matt (25:41.368)
Have you seen these infantry people that they're recruiting into the army right now? I mean, I don't want to be like mean, but the military is reducing the requirements of fitness, physical fitness, because the people that are coming in as infantry can't run as far as they used to need to run, can't maintain a healthy weight. So this idea of transgender having anything to do with that, if that was really what their concern would be, they would be saying,

Shawn (25:47.2)
I mean, I've seen infantry people.

Shawn (26:03.7)
Right, that makes sense.

No, no, no, that makes it makes sense then that they are trying to return a physical standard, a physical capability standard. They're trying to raise that back.

Matt (26:18.594)
the women are better than the men. It's not about biological sex in that situation. I'm telling you, Sean, you gotta see these men that are out there trying to do pushups in the army.

Shawn (26:25.707)
You

Shawn (26:29.622)
I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. Well, the third.

Marc (26:30.231)
It's the video games.

Matt (26:33.346)
Well again, so I didn't, I used to not know a lot about the military, but then my son got in the military. So I've visited on base a couple of times. I paid more attention to the ROTC students that I see on campus. I've just paid more attention to stuff and I'm like, I don't know.

Shawn (26:47.042)
So let me make sure I understand your argument. Recruits to the military are overweight, unhealthy, can't, or they're sloppy, they can't work very hard, they can't, and so we need transgender people in there because they're in better shape. Is that the argument?

Matt (26:59.074)
Yes.

I'm saying it doesn't matter. I'm saying that Trump's argument that transgender influences military readiness is silliness. Most of the jobs

Shawn (27:09.078)
Well, just the con think of the, hang on, bring that back to just the concept of I'm a biological woman and I decide I'm a bio that I'm a man and I want to go be an infantry in the, the, I'm, and you're taking testosterone and, even though my bone density and my muscle mass will never be that of Matt miles, I should not be concerned about the physical limitations there.

Matt (27:17.952)
Okay, and you're taking testosterone.

Matt (27:33.902)
That's right, a transgender man taking testosterone is gonna be just as fit as a lot of these fatty kids that I see out there. Yes, it's gonna do just fine.

Shawn (27:43.65)
Okay, so again, your argument is that the average, yeah, go ahead Mark.

Marc (27:48.016)
Well, and one point you kind of hinted at, Brother Sean, there was that there's, if there's surgery or anything, it can really delay a person's abilities to be effective. We have, right now I'm working as a security guard and one of the filling people is a guy going into womanhood and he just had his breasts installed and he has been out of work since October and probably won't be back for another two or three months. So that's like five or six months just from getting...

tatas. And so if you did the other stuff, mercy laws, how long would you be out of commission, getting paid probably, and we go to war all of sudden with China, or North Korea, have millions of fit, ready to go soldiers, and we say, hold on, give us a few months, we just had a bunch of surgeries, we need to finish limping around right quick. It's just like in the Old Testament when they circumcised the village and then killed everyone because they couldn't get up. Pardon the pun.

Shawn (28:45.932)
Well, that's and Matt, that's one of the that's one of the arguments is that should our taxpayer money be paying military surgeries as such, that's just one of their justifications.

Matt (28:53.966)
Every single soldier, every single person in the army should have the right to get healthcare provided through military health insurance. And it's none of our business how a person chooses to use their healthcare. You wouldn't like it, Sean, if I came in and told you, your health insurance shouldn't cover this for you. You'd say, I pay for my health insurance, I get to my health insurance, I can have it cover whatever I want to have it cover.

Shawn (29:17.718)
You're not that's that's absolutely wrong what you're saying. If I if I can't make an argument that man, I sure would like Botox and cosmetic surgery and I'd like a nose job and my insurance should cover that and you shouldn't have a say about what your taxpayer money should cover. Like what if what if my wife wants all kinds of cosmetic surgeries you would say I don't think that the that the government's my taxpayer money should pay through their government insurance for

Matt (29:47.02)
I would say 100%. People's healthcare, it's none of my business what a person uses their health insurance for. So if transgender surgeries are covered by military health insurance, then it's covered. Whether or not a transgender person should be in the military is a separate question from whether their insurance should cover medical procedures.

Shawn (29:47.084)
You'd say that. You would not.

Shawn (30:09.122)
Mark, you're going to say something?

Marc (30:09.801)
That's a fair point, I guess. The only argument with the insurance aspect though is, Brother Sam or Sean or anybody, or Brother Miles, I want to go get Botox. Go ahead, it's your insurance, you're paying for it. But with the soldiers in the army, it's our insurance that we are paying with our tax dollars for them. So we do get a say in their healthcare.

Matt (30:32.834)
Well, but I, yeah, that's fine. But it's just a separate question from whether they should actually be in the military. And then the last point, the last point I'll make, the last point I'll make, and I hope you guys will give me points for this is that most of the people in the military are not serving in infantry. Most of the people in the military are doing logistics. They're doing healthcare. There's doctors, there's lawyers in the military. There's all kinds of, if you go to a military base, most of the stuff that's being done,

Marc (30:38.093)
It's connected. It's connected. what, what the... Yeah, alright.

Matt (31:02.186)
is not infantry. And so the arguments that they're making about readiness of the military, transgender, not transgender, shouldn't influence that.

Shawn (31:11.958)
I mean, I can see it both sides, Matt. I can see that an infantry person, there's problems there. A non-infantry person, there's still problems, but not enough to make a policy about it, right? Like for example, the third reason that the administration is giving is sharing spaces between men and women becomes really problematic. You were saying, Matt, you can't roll your eyes. Last week, your daughter was on this podcast and you were saying to her,

Matt (31:33.281)
They already have.

Shawn (31:36.768)
My daughter, if you're going to live with a bunch of guys, there's some hormonal issues that happen there and you just have to be really, that could be problematic.

Matt (31:42.786)
The military already has the shared spaces. So there already are men and women soldiers sharing living quarters.

Shawn (31:49.492)
Right, that's the administration's, that's what the administration's saying. There are lots of problems around that, so we're changing it.

Matt (31:52.482)
Well then why don't they get women? Why don't... so we're not going to let women in the military anymore?

Shawn (31:58.004)
No, but they aren't sharing spaces. There's not bathrooms that both men and women can share. I don't think that...

Matt (32:01.57)
Yes, there are. Yes, there are. Yeah, of course. You think that like when the military rolls out into like some kind of field exercise, they're like, okay, this hole in the ground is for girls and then this hole in the ground is for guys.

Shawn (32:15.114)
You know, they're not talking about holes in the ground. They're talking about bathrooms. They're talking about living conditions. What do mean?

Matt (32:18.754)
That's what do think they're doing with the holes in the ground, John? They go to the bathroom in those holes in the ground, right? When they go to the bathroom, they dig a hole in the ground and they go to the bathroom. They don't have a men's and women's separate like, here's where the infantry are going to sleep. Here's the guys, here's the girls. They are sharing living quarters already. Yeah.

Shawn (32:25.409)
Shawn (32:37.952)
Okay, all right. Well, I'm just saying that's their reasoning for saying it. I'm not saying I agree with it, but that's what their purpose, one of their reasons is. Now, I think I get the points because I'm trying to say that there's hypocrisy in the administration that you have hate for, and it is hypocrisy. They either need to stick with meritocracy and say, if you're qualified to do this job, whether it's infantry or on the computer or driving a helicopter, flying a helicopter, then by merit, whoever qualifies, qualifies. I don't care if you're transgender, gay,

Matt (32:46.519)
Okay, alright.

Shawn (33:07.542)
black, white, doesn't matter. And the hypocrisy is they're going against that.

Matt (33:09.495)
Okay.

Well Sean, since you made such a good argument for giving yourself the points, I'll give them to you. Because Mark didn't argue why I should give him points. So I have to-

Shawn (33:16.546)
You

Marc (33:20.931)
Mark didn't get a chance because Mark doesn't like to interrupt people. Mark's very respectful of everyone. Mark should get the points because Mark brought up with courage a controversial topic and he could have chosen not to. And the latter day lens, who else has mentioned the family proclamation? I just, you know, I kind of, you

Matt (33:25.921)
you

Matt (33:39.008)
Okay, okay, yeah, Mark gets the points. Good job, Mark. You get the points. Well done.

Shawn (33:40.94)
Points to Mark, points to Mark, I agree, Although Matt, maybe this could get me back points. Did you know that James E. Faust, a beloved apostle, quoted one time Thomas Jefferson, he wrote a letter Thomas Jefferson did to John Quincy Adams. Aren't you proud of me right now, Matt? Political science?

Marc (33:42.449)
Ah, you guys, you're too much, you're too much!

Matt (34:01.238)
I mean, it kind of depends on what you're about to say.

Shawn (34:03.914)
Okay, this is this is a tangent topic, but it says he said this to john quincy adams. There's a natural aristocracy among men, the grounds of this are virtue and talents. There's also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth without either virtue or talent. So that's too because meritocracy because I brought in that I told you it was a tangent, but I brought in meritocracy. This is making a point for meritocracy and aristocracy. That's right. That's right.

Matt (34:20.686)
It's a beautiful sentiment, Sean, but it has nothing to do with what we're talking about, so you don't get any points.

Matt (34:29.646)
And aristocracy, aristocracy and merit. Okay. All right. Well, I'm to go next. So, okay. My topic is this just over a week after being sworn into office, 46 % of voters approve of the job Trump is doing. I will say that that's better than last time, but it's worse than every other president so far in the United States. Right now, Trump is pushing an agenda that is unpopular with most Americans. Trump is, my question is, is Trump making a mistake?

by prioritizing the things he's currently pursuing instead of focusing on issues that are more popular with the American public.

Marc (35:07.129)
Nope.

Shawn (35:07.522)
Go ahead, Mark. Go ahead, Mark.

Matt (35:08.716)
You like what he's doing, Mark?

Marc (35:11.8)
I like what he's doing. I think if people would just give it time and try to separate, know, Trump, my goodness, he's going to just, if you just separate it, have a little optimism like the prophet said we should and just watch what happens, it might be good. You might be happy. You might say, he's, he's not too bad. Or you just keep watching the view and let them inform you and not the prophet.

Shawn (35:37.44)
Matthew, you watch the view.

Matt (35:39.374)
I'm trying to think of what the view is. Is that the women's show?

Marc (35:41.845)
It's a bunch of harpies, yeah.

Matt (35:45.39)
There's so many women's shows out there. Okay. No, I don't watch the view. I watch Inside Edition. That's where I get most of my news, Inside Edition.

Shawn (35:54.924)
So what do think of Mark's point? It's been two weeks. Two weeks! So you gotta give it time to see what...

Matt (35:58.798)
I'll tell you why I'll tell you why Trump is making a mistake. You get what we call a honeymoon period, right? You get this period of time where most Americans do what Mark says, give him a chance, see what he's going to do. And also members of Congress are doing the same thing. But Trump's problem is that he's pushing and I'm not even going to talk about the policies. I'm going to talk about the people he's nominated to head federal government agencies.

He's got such a small majority in the Senate and he's got a barely a razor thin majority in the House of Representatives. You only get so many chances to ask a Senator to vote for something that they don't want to vote for in exchange for a favor in return, right? So Pete Hesketh barely got confirmed, right? JD Vance had to break a tie. So there were three Republican senators that voted against Pete Hesketh for Secretary of Defense. And now you've got Tulsi Gabbard, who's up.

They've had hearings this week. I saw the hearings on Kash Patel for the FBI. the Senate is trotting out Republicans who worked in the previous Trump administration who say, this guy was not qualified to work for me in intelligence, in the national security agency, in the Department of Justice. So when Americans are seeing Republicans say Trump's nominees are not qualified for the positions they're in,

But then Trump is asking his Republican allies in the Senate to confirm them. He's wasting political capital. And so I think it's a mistake for him. What he should do is he should start out with things that everybody likes and then build rapport with the members of his party, build relationships with the members of the party, build good feelings with them so that later on when you have to have fights about maybe some of these other things, you have the goodwill and you have the camaraderie of people that are saying,

We want to support you. But when you start out by making them fight with you, then you lose any opportunity for legislation down the road.

Shawn (37:56.002)
So you think.

Shawn (38:02.274)
So you think he should have followed the old missionary white handbook and started off with building a relationship of trust before he goes in and does all the things he wants to do.

Matt (38:11.17)
Well, I think that if you want to have a lasting legacy, like if you try to say, what did Trump do in his first term that's had a lasting effect? You can't think of anything he did through executive order. All you could think of is legislation.

Shawn (38:26.934)
You don't think all that will have lasting effect, all that stuff he's been doing? All those execs?

Matt (38:29.922)
It all got reversed, right? Everything, all these executive orders he's doing, the next president can come in and undo all of those executive orders. If you want to have a lasting influence, you have to pass legislation through Congress. So he's making a mistake.

Shawn (38:36.383)
Okay.

Shawn (38:40.194)
Yeah, so these executive orders are just him showing his constituency, look, I'm doing what I said I would do. But you think in his mind, he knows none of these are gonna last.

Matt (38:51.682)
Well, some of them are already done, right? The courts have already turned some of them down.

Shawn (38:55.35)
Gotcha. that's interesting take. Okay. I didn't think of that.

Matt (38:58.722)
What do say, Mark?

Marc (38:59.113)
Well, one point to remember too is midterms are coming. Trump's already done this once. He knows what it's like to try and go gentle and build their approach and everything's friends and then I want to do Bobby Kennedy. And it didn't work out so good. So now he's got the mandate. He's got 18 months before things start to go squidgy and we might lose the House and the Senate. go fast, get it done. Yes, executive orders can get overturned.

But if we start with them and we start with all the confirmations from the get-go to hit the ground running, then that gives the legislature a chance to say, actually, we like that. We're going to make that official. I don't care about this. So we'll just leave that as an executive order. And if the next guy overturns it, Bob's your own.

Matt (39:47.982)
But you're almost assuming that you're going to lose seats in the house. Why not start with popular policies so that you could win a bigger majority in the house?

Marc (39:57.425)
Well, you got to hedge your bets because even if we do great, we might lose the house because if it was not for COVID, I believe Trump would have comfortably had a second term in a row. So you never know what could happen, what the Democrats will cook up next with Dr. Fauci's evil machinations.

Shawn (40:14.754)
I think I'm going to give you the points Matt because you're trying hard to give good advice so that Trump can succeed. And that shows that you have the country's interest in heart as opposed to just what you usually do, which is just say really bad things about whatever administrations in office that you don't like.

Matt (40:15.896)
What do you think, Sean?

Matt (40:23.819)
Matt (40:35.222)
Okay, I'll take those. Did that feel backhanded to you, Mark? Did that feel like-

Shawn (40:38.55)
Hahaha

Marc (40:40.719)
I, well, you know, I even had the Book of Mormon ready to defend myself, but if we're given points already, that's that, I guess I lose again.

Shawn (40:47.658)
You get, no, bring the scripture and that probably wins you the points. Go ahead.

Marc (40:52.056)
As Captain Moroni says, Behold, great has been the slaughter among our people. Thousands have fallen by the fentanyl. Well, it might have been otherwise if he had rendered unto our army sufficient strength and sucker for them. Yay, great has been your neglect towards us. Whether it's popular or not, it's about time we have an executive who is with passion and energy acting for the American people to the best of his ability and not neglecting us and saying,

You know, oh, uh, calm, well, uh, I don't know which way to leave the stage.

Matt (41:28.999)
Mark, I love you so much.

Shawn (41:30.924)
So could have been any president with a little energy, not just Trump.

Marc (41:31.353)
God bless.

Well, but he's the best anyway, so it's George Washington, Donald Trump, and then the rest.

Matt (41:37.23)
Okay, Sean, you're up.

Shawn (41:40.662)
Wow. Okay. All right. so there's a new, you guys, I'm sure you've heard this in the news, a new AI chat bot out there from China called deep seek and reporters at the wall street journal amongst a bunch of other industry experts jumped on this and they messed around with it and did some tests and found that it is almost as good as chat GPT with one major flaw. When asked about the so-called taboo topics, in China, the, three T's Tiananmen Taiwan, Tibet,

DeepSeek either spewed communist propaganda or refused to answer. So DeepSeek is coming under the market faster, quicker, cheaper than its competitors, but it doesn't come at a social cost if you're gonna have this kind of, well, I'll get to my question. we have a more obligation to be informed about these things before we use them and try to support other tools that are more in line with our values?

Matt (42:38.816)
Yes. Yes is the answer, Sean.

Shawn (42:41.771)
Yes, because so my question is, is this a censorship issue or is this a national security issue, Matt?

Matt (42:44.334)
You believe, you believe Sean in the free markets and you believe that the free markets will always lead to the best outcome because if there's some company doing some nefarious bad thing, then the market's going to drive them out. And I don't believe that that's true. I believe that markets only work if individuals think about things other than the direct or the immediate costs that they see in front of them.

Shawn (43:13.43)
Yeah, but I'm willing as a capitalist, I'm willing to look at, yes, I think that's the best economic and social system, but I'm willing to always look beyond that and say, okay, there are some situations where you're going to need a strong government. I know you'll be happy about that to help us balance things out. So my question to you is, do you think DeepSeek is a problem for national security reasons or for censorship reasons? Like they are censoring and therefore people who

get their information, they're gonna get false information. Matt, your opinion of people is that they're too dumb to know the difference, and so they're just gonna accept this false information. That's a censorship issue. Or do you believe it's a national security issue? Because I've talked to lot of people about this, and I get half and half. Some people say it's, we can't have censorship, and this is a company that's censoring. And other people say it's a national security issue the same way that they TikTok was, because now China is accessing all our habits, all of our thinking, our thought processes.

things we care for and don't care for. So in your mind, which is it?

Matt (44:15.956)
I have a really hard time when people say the Chinese communist government is going to have this information and that's bad, but Google has this information or Apple has this information or Metta has this information and it's fine because we can trust them. Cause I don't trust Metta or Alphabet or Apple, right? I don't trust. don't. So the, well, I don't, I don't think that I can trust them to have the community, the public good in mind.

Shawn (44:35.52)
Yeah. You don't, you don't like corporations.

Matt (44:44.874)
any more than I can trust China to have the public good in mind.

Shawn (44:46.752)
You put really you put a corporate, an American corporation on the same level as the communist Chinese government.

Matt (44:54.902)
At least I know what the Chinese communist government's agenda is. And so it's very easy to see how hard, why did wall street journals start with the Tiananmen square, Tibet and Taiwan? Cause we know that's what the Chinese communist government would censor. We don't know what the interest of meta or alphabet is. So we don't know how to stress test it and see what their bias is or what it is that they're not showing to people. So at least I know what China's agenda is.

Shawn (44:58.656)
Hmm, interesting.

Shawn (45:17.014)
I like that answer, man.

Which is totally what a wise capitalist would say. It's not like, if you're by nature a corporation, then you have altruism. Not at all. Not at all. So I like what you're saying. And I think that is in line with capitalism.

Matt (45:34.85)
What do you think, Mark?

Marc (45:37.063)
I like your answer as well, Matt. I gotta say that was thoughtful and insightful. And you get points for me, sure.

Matt (45:45.09)
Yes!

Shawn (45:45.218)
Wait, Mark, I haven't brought the scripture yet. I got scriptures lined up.

Marc (45:48.549)
I know but he still gets points, I'm sorry, it's too late. There's no backtracking.

Matt (45:48.878)
okay.

Shawn (45:51.138)
But I gave you points, but I gave you okay, I'm gonna try anyway, I'm gonna try

Marc (45:55.229)
And I appreciate that. I'm going to remember that. just... There's nothing I can do.

Matt (45:58.094)
Ha

Shawn (45:58.914)
Your hands are tied, I get it. Now, but here's what I think the answer is. There is an answer and I think we should always and usually tend towards freedom. Freedom of market, freedom of people to consume what they want to consume. Because there's a principle pretty abundant in scripture that says, remember Enos, Enos, I love the chapter Enos, just that one little chapter.

And he starts off by saying this, he says, I will tell you of the wrestle, which I had before God, before I received the remission of my sins and goes on to talk about how all day and all night he diligently labored and worked in order to access the knowledge that he was seeking. Like he, and it says that his, his soul hungered for truth and for goodness and for light. And to me, there's no way about it, whether it's secular knowledge, religious knowledge.

Marc (46:33.146)
Okay.

Shawn (46:52.532)
If you do not, if we do not seek diligently for these things, we'll never get it. We'll never ever, ever get it. So I think the answer is let the world, let the world produce and, and, and pitch what it wants to pitch. If China wants to pitch a propaganda, let it do it. And we as individuals need to learn that hard work and diligent seeking of truth is the only way to really discover. think that if we don't matter, if we don't have individuals with the habit of

Marc (47:08.733)
Okay.

Shawn (47:22.764)
being skeptical and questioning everything and doing the hard work to get knowledge, whether it's spiritual or social or secular or whatever, then we're in trouble anyway. It doesn't matter how much who's censoring what and who's holding back what. We're in trouble no matter what.

Matt (47:36.974)
I'm still gonna keep Mark's points and not give them to anybody. I'm just gonna hold onto them and embrace them. Sean, do you wanna give me points too? Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, it was a good answer. was just the points were already given away. it's.

Shawn (47:41.929)
hahahaha

No, I like I like my answer,

It's a true answer. Okay, but you admit that it's a true answer, yeah?

Matt (47:55.918)
Mmm, yeah, I don't know. was good, Sean. It was good.

Shawn (48:00.286)
You still will jump to the side that are the, your statement that people are idiots and will never have the ability to know right from wrong, good from evil, truth from fact from fallacy. And so we need to censor and we need to shut down deep seek. For example, you don't think that the answer is

Matt (48:16.386)
We started this podcast with me saying everybody's racist and yes, uninformed and yes, our natural tendencies are to that which does not elevate and inspire and uplift mankind.

Shawn (48:20.29)
You

Shawn (48:29.085)
So do you apply that to spiritual knowledge? So for example, the scriptures, huh?

Matt (48:32.974)
Of course that applies to spiritual knowledge. Naturally, nobody's looking for spiritual knowledge.

Shawn (48:39.394)
No, no, no. What I'm saying is let's say, so James 1.5, right? If you seek wisdom, if you lack wisdom, then do it, seek for it, ask, but nothing wavering. Be diligent, like work hard at it, really seek, right? And that's what Joseph had in him, Joseph Smith. It was this diligent seeking. was this true intent. so you...

Matt (49:03.126)
I'm not giving you the points, Sean. I'm not going to do it.

Marc (49:06.731)
I do have one additional thing just to hold on for the latter day lens as well. What political party has been constantly castigated by prophets and apostles? The Communist Party. Ergo, I would say for the latter day listeners, probably stay away from anything that's communist for sure. Like Google or Apple. I said on my iPhone.

Matt (49:28.018)
I see. Hey, that's an interesting point, Mark. Now I'm going to give you points, Mark. That was a good point.

Shawn (49:30.986)
you

Marc (49:36.461)
yeah. Aww, look at this. We have a thing going. Sorry Sean.

Shawn (49:39.639)
Ha

Matt (49:42.03)
Here's the big question. We've talked about Jonathan Rausch before, but he's an atheist and he is in a same-sex marriage and also a political liberal. He's a Democrat. Last week he was in Utah praising church leaders and BYU students asking them to amplify the message that he gleaned from the church itself. He said, one of the reasons that I'm here is that in all of Christian America,

Shawn (49:43.682)
I suck today. That's okay. You guys are doing great. It's awesome.

Marc (49:45.179)
Ha

Matt (50:10.348)
I can only think of one church that has worked out and articulated civic theology of how Christians should address politics and the public world. And you heard it here Tuesday from Elder Gary E. Stevenson. So this is the big question. Is Jonathan Rausch right? Is the best approach to politics today one in which people put their religion at the forefront of their politics?

Shawn (50:36.77)
So Matt, before I can give my answer, I need to know, because you usually ask a question like this and it's usually a setup for you to say the obvious answer would be of course, but you usually have really good insights about why it's not. you're disagreeing, dang it. All right, all right. Well, in Colossians 2, 8, beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. It's not that I dis,

Matt (50:48.428)
I'm not gonna go first, Sean. I'm not gonna tell you. You gotta say what you think. Say what you think, Sean. From the heart.

Shawn (51:06.41)
I don't think that philosophy, like man's wisdom is bad, but it is bad if we prioritize man's wisdom for sure. And I'm not saying that we have to put, I don't agree with the statement that you have to put religion above politics, but you do have to put religious principles above everything. So.

Matt (51:23.736)
Yeah, what I meant by that question was Elder Stevenson says we should wave four banners instead of these other flags people are waving. We should wave the banner of like belonging. Like it's these four like gospel principles, right? This idea that we should embrace our identity of children of God, children of the covenant, that that stuff should motivate the way that we think about politics more than some of this other stuff.

Shawn (51:47.82)
mean, if it crosses over into specific doctrine attached to one specific religion, then you can't do that. You can't. But the principles behind them, yeah, I would say yes, for sure. Absolutely.

Matt (51:58.733)
What do you say, Mark?

Marc (52:00.564)
Well, obviously I agree with Elder Stevenson. As for this other fella, first off, who? But secondly, I would, I, I, I once prayed and I think it's not a bad idea, that we might listen to our enemies and never believe the flattery of our friends. So I don't know this guy and if he's saying nice things, great, but I, whatever.

Shawn (52:08.098)
You

Matt (52:27.522)
But Mark, lived in the, I think you were an evangelical before you were a member of our church, right? I imagine you have friends that are in the evangelical world. Do you think this guy's right that members of our church are showing a better way or a better approach to politics than people in these other Christian faiths?

Marc (52:32.723)
Yes,

Shawn (52:45.356)
Now we're getting to the meeting of his math question, the purpose behind it.

Marc (52:48.918)
I mean, I did until I went to BYU-Idaho.

Matt (52:56.334)
But you since left BYU-Idaho.

Marc (52:59.325)
Yes, no, think it's a... Yeah, I don't know any other church that has a worldwide view with a charitable intention and ability separated from government. So I know we work with governments, a disaster happens, you have George Albert Smith to Harry Truman. How do we help Europe? We've got trains ready, but not that Europe didn't have too many trains as it was. That's bit of a joke, deep joke, dark joke. Anyway...

Matt (53:25.742)
you

Marc (53:28.979)
You know, I don't see the Methodists with this massive international organization giving millions to the Red Cross, nothing against them. They just don't have the numbers and the size. And it's because their theology is not the truth. We have the truth. All truth belongs to Mormonism. I, something along those lines, I don't know. These are just vain mutterings. I'm starting to get sweaty in my car. I don't have the air conditioning running. It's very humid.

Matt (53:43.116)
Yeah.

Matt (53:47.182)
Yeah.

Shawn (53:53.332)
You

Matt (53:55.63)
So one of the reasons I brought up this question is because I think this is what we're trying to do on the podcast, right? We're trying to show people how you can look at current events through this lens of something bigger than politics. But I am a little bit with you, Mark, where I get uncomfortable with praise from other people. And I think it makes me uncomfortable, especially when members of the church like get too...

I don't know, excited about or comfortable with or accepting of the praise because there's there's things we definitely do right, but there's things that we definitely do that are cringe and we would probably all disagree about what exactly are the cringe things. And I think it's better for us to try to avoid the cringe than it is to like pat ourselves on the back because an atheist happens to like us.

Shawn (54:43.33)
So you feel like this atheist praising us leads to some carnal security. Where is that scripture?

Matt (54:50.444)
Yeah, yeah. Cardinal security. I was watching YouTube. There's this guy on YouTube that tells you all the stuff that's going to get built in St. George. Did you know, Sean, that in St. George they're building this thing called Liberty Park or something like that? They're recreating like Monticello where Jefferson lived. They're recreating the Constitution Hall. They're recreating all of these like American symbols in St. George out there by Sand Hollow Reservoir so that people can like go there and like walk around. And I don't know what the purpose of it is.

But some of that stuff is a little cringe to me. It's like, we shouldn't be worshiping the symbols of this country. That's not what makes America great is the symbols of where things happen. We already have national monuments. Go see those if you want to go see those. We should be celebrating the principles upon which the country is founded, not the place that Thomas Jefferson lived in.

Shawn (55:22.178)
It is?

Shawn (55:36.746)
nice.

Marc (55:40.528)
Well, as Latter-day Saints, take note that until like the 1950s, we really didn't do the Fourth of July. We just did the 24th of July because we were celebrating leaving the United States to live the constitutional principles. So I could see some points going your way again. I'm not, I haven't heard Sean yet. don't want to get, Sean, get some points. You have them. I don't know what you're going to say, but God bless your, your mitzvah. Who am I to just-

Matt (55:55.854)
Yeah.

Right.

Shawn (56:01.282)
Hahaha!

Matt (56:01.678)
You

Shawn (56:08.962)
The only person that cares about points on this podcast is Matt.

Marc (56:09.668)
Anyway, go ahead.

Matt (56:13.718)
I care so much about them. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Marc (56:15.378)
There's two of them right now because I cared so much about the points.

Shawn (56:19.794)
Oh, well, so far, Matt kind of brought in a scripture and Mark, you haven't brought any scriptures on this topic. So Matt brought in second Nephi 28, 21, right? the others will, pacify and lull them away into carnal security that they say, all is well in Zion, Zion prospered all as well. And thus the devil cheated their souls and leadeth them away captive. So you're afraid, Matt, that if we pat ourselves on our backs too much, you think this, the atheist is like, I'm going to get these guys, make them, lull them away.

Matt (56:39.086)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (56:47.286)
No, no, no. I think, no, I think he has all kinds of good intent. But I think that when the Deseret News writes a story praising us and how wonderful we are, and look, even the atheists like us too, and the Democrats and the liberals, I just think it's, I don't know, carrying away into boasting or something like that.

Shawn (57:01.206)
Good for you, dude, for calling it out. Yeah, I like that. I like that because your message is stay humble. Let's not let's not puff ourselves up.

Matt (57:09.058)
We know that we're the greatest podcast in the world. We don't need other people to tell us that.

Shawn (57:11.49)
Unless they're a listener and then we do need that. Yeah, we need lots of listeners continuing to tell us that.

Matt (57:19.082)
Speaking of which listeners, I hope that you will all take the opportunity this week to find out if you're racist and let us know. We're very, very curious. I insist that you are.

Shawn (57:25.186)
You

Marc (57:27.918)
You're not racist.

Shawn (57:31.548)
Awful, Matt. That's awful. That's awful philosophy.

Matt (57:32.482)
Hey.

It's been really great talking with you all this week and we look forward to seeing you again next week. Have a good time.