Episode 106: The Economy, Robocalls, Ranchers Rights, Promoting the Family

In this episode of Latter Day Lens, hosts Matt, Shawn, and Levi engage in a deep discussion about immigration laws, the complexities of undocumented immigration, and the economic implications of these policies. They explore the nuances of fiscal conservatism, the impact of government spending and taxation on the economy, and the historical context of immigration debates in the U.S. The conversation highlights differing perspectives on how to approach immigration and economic policy, emphasizing the need for a fair and effective system. In this conversation, the hosts delve into the intersection of economic growth and political ideologies, exploring the claims made by conservatives regarding the impact of liberal policies on economic performance. They also discuss scriptural perspectives on economic systems, emphasizing themes of self-reliance and community support. The dialogue shifts to the topic of robocalls, questioning whether they represent a market failure or an innovative business model, and culminates in a debate about the ethical implications of profit-making in society. This conversation explores the themes of consent in market transactions, the complexities of externalities in public land use, the debate surrounding wolf reintroduction, and the balance of competing interests in land management. It delves into the importance of self-reliance versus government dependency, the role of science in ecological decisions, and the scriptural perspectives on land ownership. The discussion transitions to the family as a fundamental unit of society, addressing the need to support diverse family structures and the cognitive dissonance that arises from differing definitions of family within religious contexts.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Special Guests
01:24 Immigration Discussion Begins
08:17 Understanding Immigration Laws
11:39 Economic Perspectives on Immigration
15:03 Fiscal Conservatism Defined
19:24 Economic Growth and Political Ideologies
21:05 Scriptural Guidance on Economic Systems
25:02 Robocalls: Market Failure or Innovation?
36:45 The Ethics of Profit in Society
38:25 The Importance of Consent in Market Transactions
39:08 Externalities and Public Land Conflicts
39:57 The Wolf Reintroduction Debate
41:09 Balancing Competing Interests on Public Lands
43:52 Self-Reliance and Government Dependency
45:03 The Role of Science in Land Management
46:01 The Scriptural Perspective on Land Ownership
49:58 The Family as the Fundamental Unit of Society
54:49 Supporting Diverse Family Structures
01:00:02 Cognitive Dissonance in Family Definitions

Keywords

immigration, economic policy, fiscal conservatism, undocumented immigrants, immigration laws, inflation, economic growth, political debate, border control, asylum seekers, economic growth, political ideologies, scripture, robocalls, market failure, innovation, ethics, charity, coercion, capitalism, consent, externalities, public land, wolves, ranchers, conservation, self-reliance, science, family, diverse family structures

Transcript

Matt (00:01.282)
Hello and welcome to the Latter Day Lens with your hosts, Sean and Matt. And today we have our special guest, Levi. Levi's not a special guest. Levi's been with us before. You're not special, you're just a host, I guess, our co-host.

Levi (00:10.467)
Hey!

Shawn (00:17.555)
Yeah.

Levi (00:20.323)
No, it was fun before. yeah, I'm excited to do this again.

Matt (00:24.28)
We'll call you a special guest then. Levi will keep it as that.

Shawn (00:28.807)
How a special host? How about that? Just a special host. Yeah. I'll call you both special because in the planet that we live on and that exists of all the people that exist, there are no better people on this planet than the two of you from my opinion. That's my humble opinion. These are my two favorite people despite the fact that we're about to talk and maybe disagree on a bunch of stuff.

Matt (00:32.726)
Okay, yeah, we'll call Levi a special host.

Matt (00:49.154)
Thank you, Sean.

Levi (00:49.627)
Okay, I'm telling your wife.

Matt (00:55.51)
In the last two days, I've driven for eight hours because I drove down to Provo and then back and I listened to more stuff than I normally listen to. And so even though this isn't like on our rundown of things we're going to talk about, we just have to talk about immigration for a second. I'm really sorry, Sean, because I know you like to be prepared, but I just can't take this. I cannot take this. I just need to I need to know what you think about this, Sean. OK.

Shawn (01:15.091)
It's okay, it's okay.

Matt (01:24.852)
Entering the country undocumented is a misdemeanor, right? I mean, I think we can all agree on that. I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea of creating a different class of citizen, right? Because I see like right now what I hear people saying is like, hey, round these people up and kick

Shawn (01:55.581)
We lose you Matt.

we lost Matt.

Levi (02:01.211)
Something in the corner says 94 % uploading, is that right? Is that normal?

Shawn (02:05.201)
Yeah, yeah, so it'll upload. It'll always give us that update, but we lost him. Maybe he'll dive out. Let me text him.

to start over. there he went.

Shawn (02:20.563)
costume out.

Levi (02:21.987)
be prepared this time.

Shawn (02:24.435)
Do you what? No, I'll be prepared. Yeah.

Levi (02:25.827)
Now we can prepare this time. I feel like it was kind of a slow start anyway. Hey.

Matt (02:26.891)
See?

Shawn (02:30.515)
You want to start over, Matt?

Matt (02:32.46)
That must have been a really bad sign because it just kicked me out.

Shawn (02:35.219)
That just said see ya. No, that was actually good. We should talk about it. I think that's a good good start you want to start over though?

Matt (02:41.93)
No, we'll just keep going. can cut this stuff in. They'll just re-add this. We'll cut all that other stuff out and then we'll just start right here. Omar, start again right here. So I'm trying to understand Sean, like the logic behind creating a different class of, because if you commit a misdemeanor, the punishment doesn't say if you come in the country illegally, you get kicked out of the country. That's not in the law anywhere. So if that's not in the law,

that coming in the country means you get deported, then why are we deporting people? And why are we like saying you can't have a job, you can't like have a house, you should like be in fear of all, like I'm trying to wrap my head around this, because that's the fundamental part I don't understand. And I know that you're a conservative that does not like undocumented immigrants coming into the country.

Shawn (03:34.387)
I never, well, I think that's overstating my stance. I guess I'm probably conservative, but I wouldn't, I know I love immigration. I don't have anything against immigration. I, in fact, no, no, it's not that I don't dislike undocumented. In fact, not at all. Even San Diego, California, I live right next to Tijuana. have like 10 % of my friends, my close friends are undocumented. I have an issue with having a law or a system.

Matt (03:45.388)
But you don't like undocumented. You don't like undocumented.

Shawn (04:04.241)
whether it's a misdemeanor or not. And we don't implement any of it. There's no meaning to it. It's trivial. And then based on whoever's in charge, they're either going to apply it or they're not going to apply it.

Matt (04:10.454)
No it's not.

Matt (04:16.874)
Okay, so that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. It's not that they apply it or they don't apply it, right? The punishment for a misdemeanor is some fine or something like that, right? If you come into this, if you come to the, go ahead Levi.

Levi (04:29.787)
was going to say, this is where I feel like we're in over our heads, right? We need an immigration lawyer that's going to come and explain to us what's the law by which immigrants can be deported. And I see Sean's point that we need to follow the laws that exist. Yeah.

Matt (04:45.42)
But the laws that exist don't say deport people. That's the part that's arbitrary.

Levi (04:48.997)
Well, that's what I'm saying is do they or not? I don't know. get the hive mind to fact check that.

Matt (04:53.312)
Yeah. All right. So then, I guess we can like talk about, again, I came into this completely unprepared, but go ahead, John.

Shawn (04:59.516)
Hahaha

I agree that it's pretty messed up to say, I think it's pretty messed up to say, we're not going to stop you from coming into the country, whether you're legal or not. Like come in and wait your turn or do whatever. And we're to let you live here and establish a life. And then all of a sudden we're just going to change our mind and force you out. Yeah, I think that's messed up. I definitely think that's messed up. Like, like if you once, if you failed to implement law that helps someone come here legally and you let them in accidentally or whatever.

Matt (05:19.702)
Yeah, okay. think, yeah.

Shawn (05:32.295)
then pretty jacked up that you're not gonna, you know, let them deal with the consequences of your mistake. Like, I mean, it's messed up. I agree it's messed up.

Matt (05:40.17)
Yeah, I think a majority of the people who we would say are undocumented immigrants in the United States either came on a visa through a legal process, but then they overstayed their visa. So that's a misdemeanor, right? You can't overstay your visa, you need to reapply. But the punishment for that is not we kick you out of the country. The other thing that will happen is there will be asylum seekers. And the proper way if you want to seek asylum, like you're fleeing,

some kind of persecution in your country is you go to the border of the United States and you say, I'm an asylum seeker. We let you in the country and then you have that process be litigated. And if we give you asylum, then there's all kinds of legal benefits that come with that. If we deny you asylum, then you're supposed to, I don't know, it doesn't say you're supposed to leave the country. We just say we deny you that legal status. And if you stay here beyond that, again, it's a misdemeanor, but I don't think that there's any law that's written that says,

Shawn (06:10.589)
Yeah, to a port of entry, right?

Matt (06:36.692)
you, we denied your asylum case. Therefore you have to leave the country immediately. Cause if the, it did say that we would have them leave immediately as soon as that happened. Yeah. So that's, think the arbitrariness comes in and how different presidents decide they want to enforce these nuances of the law that, aren't, that aren't really in the law.

Shawn (06:46.963)
Fair point. Yeah.

Shawn (06:55.708)
Yeah, that's right.

Levi (06:59.547)
Well, and just one other point for people who are sort of constitutional textualists, right? People that read the text and interpret it very literally. I don't think the border patrol is in there, right? There's no article the constitution gives the federal government the right to stop anyone coming through the borders. That's something we've written into the constitution later. Some people are okay with that, but textualists should not be. There's no textual, you know.

Matt (07:12.406)
No. No.

Matt (07:22.027)
Well, I mean...

Matt (07:28.106)
in the oath of office for the president, which is in the constitution, he swears to protect the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And so they would say that gives him the right to control borders, I suppose.

Levi (07:28.569)
way to justify that.

Shawn (07:44.669)
But outside of all that, you both agree though, there should be a fairer and a way that you can actually execute. There should be a way that gets more people here, right? Like it should work, but no one implements it, so it's a problem.

Levi (07:44.698)
Yeah.

Matt (07:59.166)
Listen. Yeah.

Of all the things were... Yeah.

Levi (08:04.567)
people come and leave, right? That's the way kind of immigration used to work is people would come, people would leave, and then we shut the borders and now people that come have to stay. And that's kind of too bad.

Matt (08:10.017)
Yeah.

Matt (08:13.824)
Yeah, even when they want to leave.

Okay, so I'm going to go first for the Thought Provoker this week.

Shawn (08:21.309)
Matt, were hoping I'd fight a little against that, weren't you? Yes, you were. Yes, you were.

Matt (08:25.518)
No, don't come to the podcast looking, I don't come looking for a fight. I just come looking for like understanding of different perspectives. And the

Levi (08:28.229)
What up your dukes, John?

Shawn (08:30.619)
Okay, good.

Shawn (08:37.265)
You make a good point. You made a great point. There's no law that specifically says if you come in here, the misdemeanor, the punishment for the misdemeanor is you immediately get deported, which to your point, for many presidencies, they don't deport. so in fact, it happens way less than it does. Right. It doesn't happen very much to deport people.

Matt (08:51.2)
Right.

Matt (08:57.482)
Right, we have people sitting in federal prison who've committed crimes and are here undocumented and they are not deported, right? We make a decision as a country that we would rather have them in our jails than deport them to another country. Because quite frankly, like if there was an undocumented immigrant that committed a crime against my family, I would rather have them punished by the US legal system than deport them to some other country. That's basically giving them a get out of jail free card.

Shawn (09:04.179)
Mm, mm.

Shawn (09:21.843)
Mmm.

Matt (09:24.396)
Like imagine Sean, went to China and went on some murder spree and killed a bunch of people in China and they said, yeah, well we're going to send you back to San Diego. Like, thank you. That's what I was hoping you would do. So to me, it doesn't make any sense to deport criminals like who've committed crimes here.

Shawn (09:32.275)
Hehehehehe

Yeah

Shawn (09:40.284)
Interesting. Okay.

Matt (09:42.048)
Okay, so.

Levi (09:42.875)
There are a of laws actually. There's the Immigration and Nationalization Act of 1952, apparently allows for removal of undocumented immigrants.

Matt (09:54.69)
It allows you to do it, right? But it doesn't say that the punishment for committing this crime is, it's like Trump and his however many felonies, right? For each of those felonies, a judge could sentence him to federal prison for X number of years, or a judge could say there's a fine, or a judge could say nothing at all. And so with these misdemeanors, there's so much latitude in what a judge could decide should happen.

Levi (09:55.611)
I'm not a lawyer.

Shawn (10:17.319)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

Matt (10:23.04)
It just seems odd to me that as a society we're going to say, we're going to take that law into our own hands and create this second class of citizens and all of these other rules and stuff that surround that because it makes it harder for those people to survive in a legal way.

Shawn (10:34.375)
Yeah.

Remember in the 90s when the debate was less about deportation, was more, it felt like at one point it was more about like, let's just secure the border in a way that allows us to control the ins and the outs in a safe way. But for everyone that's here, remember the debate was like, well, do we give them amnesty or do we deport them? I felt like in the 90s, that was the big discussion and the Republicans were all upset like, you're gonna give them all amnesty and you make them citizens, da, da, da.

Sure, you failed to implement a nice policy, so sure, let him stay. That's what I think.

Matt (11:11.382)
Yeah. Did you know Ronald Reagan granted them amnesty when he was president? Yeah, Ronald Reagan did do that. Yeah. Okay, Sean, this one, I'm specifically coming after you. I'm not looking for a fight. I'm looking for understanding, Sean. Okay, so the economic numbers came out this week. So inflation is up under the Trump administration, but it's only been a couple months, right? But it made me just start looking.

Shawn (11:16.253)
Was it right, Reagan that did that? Huh.

Shawn (11:28.573)
Good, good, good, good.

Shawn (11:38.963)
It's been less than a month.

Matt (11:41.238)
No Sean, it's been a month. Has it not been a month? you're right, January 20th. Okay, less than a month. Okay. So I just started looking. Okay, what happened in the Biden administration? What happened in Trump's first administration? And then I know you love the president of Argentina. Milié, is that how you say his name? I know you love that guy. You told me how you, yeah. I don't know, do you like Viktor Orban in Hungary? Some conservatives really like him. okay.

Shawn (11:44.135)
Okay, yeah, I'm on.

Shawn (12:02.193)
I like him. I like him.

No. No, I don't.

Matt (12:09.696)
Well, I just started saying, okay, let's see what they're doing. Cause so then I looked at inflation and I was like, look at Argentina did this huge spike in inflation. And then they brought in this Argentinian, this new guy, this janitor that doesn't know anything. And look, he brought down inflation in Argentina. And I looked at that. said, that's exactly the same as what happened in the Biden administration. And same thing, Orban in Hungary, right? They're having problems with inflation in Hungary right now. If you look at economic growth, we've talked about it before, but

Biden's figures for economic growth are better than Trump's figures for economic growth were when he was in his first term. And so I started thinking like, okay, people love these conservative leaders that come in and cut spending and cut the size of government, and they say they love it because it's good for the economy. But I decided, I don't think it's really that. I think that Sean, maybe you don't even care if it's good for the economy or not. You just like the idea.

of cutting spending, right? Because Biden brought inflation down and at the same time he lifted the middle class, he lifted the working class. He didn't do it through austerity in ways that hurt the workers. The way that the guy in Argentina is doing it, right? They're bringing inflation down, but there are a lot of people suffering in Argentina right now. And so I thought, Sean just likes that. He just likes the doge, come in, cut it all up, slash it all up, and you don't really care if it actually helps the economy.

Shawn (13:20.915)
Haha

Matt (13:36.0)
Right Sean, just wanna know that? Okay, so tell me. Tell me that I'm wrong about this.

Shawn (13:37.075)
dare you? How dare you? Well, I mean, first a few things, right? Like you can't say that you first you can't you can't compare the economy of Argentina to the economy of America's economy, right? Especially when you get numbers like Yeah, I know. But the performance of America. Yeah, you're laughing. I got it. Okay. Biden's 22 % rise in in in inflation.

Matt (13:52.308)
I just did. I just did that.

Shawn (14:06.895)
over his four years is not the same as a 200 % inflation rate in Argentina. And if Millet drops it by 120%, is that any more impressive than Biden dropping at 3 %?

Matt (14:17.954)
I'm saying look at the picture, right? They both go up a lot and then they come down a lot, right? It goes up a lot in Argentina, then comes down. Biden, goes up a lot and then comes down. And now inflation at the end of Biden's term is as low as it was when Biden first took office, right? So sure it is, yeah. And now it went down to like almost 2%. Yeah.

Shawn (14:20.859)
Yeah. OK.

Shawn (14:35.251)
No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it went up 22 % and it's gone down like.

Levi (14:41.179)
It's the same. It's like 3%. Yeah. But I think the important thing to note about Biden is that all the money printing was during Trump's final year, right? That Trump had this final year. He increased the money supply by 30%. Like, and that was nuts. And so of course we were going to have inflation. So the ninis blaming Biden for that is kind of silly. Yeah.

Shawn (14:43.667)
three of them.

Shawn (14:49.811)
That's a good point. Okay, good. I love it. I totally agree.

Well, I love that.

Shawn (15:03.527)
Yeah, I love that point. actually totally agree with that point. here first, Matt, let's get some definitions clear. What do you mean by fiscal conservatism? How do you define that? here's, does this meet your definition? Low taxes, reduced government spending, balanced budgets, and minimal debt growth.

Matt (15:11.672)
fiscal concern.

Matt (15:22.466)
That would be fiscal conservatism, yeah.

Shawn (15:25.211)
You do agree that that's the definition. By that definition, I think all but all but three presidents then would not be fiscal fiscally conservative in my research.

Matt (15:34.656)
I don't care about them. I'm talking about you. You say you're a fiscal conservative and I'm saying you don't care actually if it's good for the economy or bad for the economy. You just like fiscal conservatism. It just feels good.

Shawn (15:45.107)
That's crazy.

Shawn (15:48.733)
That's crazy. Well, again, low taxes, sure. Who doesn't love low taxes? You guys love low taxes. Yes, you liar. You liar. Right before this podcast, you said to me, what I want to do is try and earn differently so I can make less, pay less taxes. You said that specifically.

Matt (15:55.306)
I don't love low t- no I don't love low taxes.

Matt (16:05.504)
Right, I like low taxes for myself. I want high taxes for the rich. This is, no, this is a hundred, I've never ever deviated from this. The reason we have an income tax is because the rich people are supposed to pay an income tax and the middle class should not pay anything in income tax.

Shawn (16:11.771)
You've busted.

Shawn (16:23.281)
Okay, well then I just, then you, then I did, so it is not just cause I like cut, cut, cut. think low taxes is best for the economy, for everybody. Absolutely, course.

Matt (16:31.97)
For everybody, for every, but even if, but even if it wasn't good for the economy, you would still like that. Even if it was bad for the economy.

Shawn (16:40.615)
That's not true. That's not true. You said you challenged me on fiscal conservatism. So I'm taking each point line by line. Lower taxes is not about cut, cut, cut. It's better for the economy. Okay. Reduced government spending.

Matt (16:46.495)
Okay, okay.

Matt (16:51.404)
Well, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, Sean. If you reduce taxes, you have to cut spending, right? So lower taxes does mean cut, cut, cut. okay.

Shawn (16:59.517)
That's right.

Well, that's the next point for fiscal conservatism.

Levi (17:03.941)
I think this is an important point to make is that tax cuts are inflationary, right? And that's a thing that like there's, you know, there's sometimes this talk where spending is inflationary. Tax cuts are also in the same way inflationary, right? Yeah.

Shawn (17:08.86)
Yeah, of course.

Shawn (17:17.285)
Are they though, if you also cut spending, are they also inflationary if you cut spending? Why would they be? They wouldn't be.

Matt (17:22.658)
Sure. Because you give the money to, you're giving the money to people who are then going to spend that money. So that

Levi (17:29.295)
No, I disagree with that. think that as long as you're taking as much money out of the economy as you're putting in, that's inflationary neutral.

Matt (17:37.492)
You're saying if we cut taxes and cut government spending at the same time, it will have a deflationary effect or it'll have no effect.

Shawn (17:45.139)
That's the

Levi (17:45.327)
No, the issue is the money supply, right? So if you aren't running up new debt, you're not creating any money, it's going to be the same.

Matt (17:49.91)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (17:56.054)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (17:57.063)
Matt, I don't just arbitrarily go, I love the idea. I'm an idiot and I love the idea of just cook, cook, cook. I think that it is better for our society. is. Reduced government spending is better for our society. Lower taxes is better for our economy. And that's why I mentioned in the beginning, like three presidents in the whole history of America actually were fiscally conservative because even though some presidents like Bush and they lowered some taxes, they spent like crazy.

Matt (18:04.93)
Okay, alright.

Levi (18:21.913)
Which three?

Matt (18:24.482)
Okay, can I put Bill Clinton then as the fiscal conservative?

Shawn (18:27.879)
Absolutely. It's Bill Clinton. Let's see if I got my list here. It's Bill Clinton. It's Eisenhower. No, not George H.W. Bush. Uh-uh. He spent more than he, no, he did not decrease spending. And he raised taxes. Clinton, Eisenhower, and Coolidge.

Matt (18:33.154)
George H.W. Bush.

Matt (18:41.1)
But he did raise taxes to pay for that spending.

Levi (18:42.107)
90 % top tax rate Eisenhower?

Matt (18:47.956)
All right, okay. If Coolidge is a fiscal conservative, I wanna go back to that. I agree with, let's go back to that. I'll even go back to Eisenhower. That would make me feel good inside. Well, Sean, so then if, I just need to know Sean, like if over the next 10 years, there was like empirical evidence that showed that big government with high taxes on rich people and low taxes, no taxes on the middle class actually ended up being better for the economy.

Shawn (18:51.571)
You

Levi (18:56.441)
Okay.

Matt (19:18.016)
Would you change your mind on that?

Shawn (19:20.499)
I'll answer your hypothetical question with a hypothetical answer. Yeah, sure.

Matt (19:24.266)
Okay.

Levi (19:26.085)
But now, but I'd like to rephrase the question because when I talk to the conservative friends, well, you're gonna hate this one then. So when conservatives talk to me, they say, I hear them saying, look, we would like to be good people, right? We'd like to help the poor. We'd like to save the environment. We'd like to educate our children. But unfortunately, all those things are gonna result in lower economic growth. And it's not true.

Shawn (19:30.451)
Thank you, because maths was loaded.

Shawn (19:35.356)
Okay.

Levi (19:55.725)
It's never been true. We don't see the evidence for this. And so I would like to say, if the results are the same, why would we be mean? Why would we be conservatives if liberal policies result in the same economic growth?

Matt (20:11.776)
conservatives are mean. Is that what you're saying, Levi?

Levi (20:14.811)
I'd say like those are kind of mean policies where you're going to cut welfare spending and you're going to cut everybody's health care and you're going to wreck the environment. Yeah, I think those are kind of mean and I think the justification is always, well, but it's going to result in this great economic growth. I'd like to see it because it's not there. Trump produced the same economic growth that Obama did and Biden produced the same. It's all the same, right? So why be mean?

Shawn (20:15.699)
I mean, I disagree.

Shawn (20:25.553)
Okay, well, what.

Shawn (20:38.129)
Levi, I think your Portland conservatives are different from the rest of us conservatives a little bit because, you live in Portland, you don't know any conservatives. Are there any conservatives?

Matt (20:43.808)
Yeah, you don't know enough conservatives, Levi.

Make some friends Levi.

Levi (20:51.451)
There's an eastern half to Oregon, I'm just saying. We have two freeways in Portland. There's the Biden Freeway and the Trump Freeway. And sometimes I go up the Trump Freeway. So yeah, there's conservatives there.

Matt (21:00.93)
You

Shawn (21:05.093)
interesting. Well, let me ask you this, right? This is the Latter-day Lens. So we have to bring in some sort of...

Matt (21:12.5)
Levi's trying, right? Levi's saying be nice the way that Jesus would be nice.

Shawn (21:14.865)
Yeah, Right. So let's back up just a second, right?

I guess the one like I have a hard time finding in scripture or from prophets any guidance on economic systems. I don't find it. I don't find them talking about it. I do see a little bit of evidence in scripture that talks about number one, Matt's favorite phrase, the free, go ahead and say it Matt, free intercourse one with another, free exchange one with another and that added prosperity to all levels of economic classes is what the Book of Mormon says.

Matt (21:39.742)
intercourse for intercourse okay

Shawn (21:48.691)
The second message that I hear all the time throughout the prophets and a little bit in scripture is being independent, right? Being self-reliant, being able to basically take care of yourself. Now, how do you, now Levi, if, and I honestly sincerely ask this, yeah.

Matt (22:06.208)
Wait, wait, Sean. Okay, go ahead. Well, I just want to point out there is another common message about money systems, which is there were no poor among them.

Shawn (22:17.277)
But that's the point, how do you execute Nopura among them? If, for example, Matt, if the church is successful… Well yeah, if the church is successful…

Levi (22:22.517)
had all things in common. It's like the verse before, they have all things in common so they have no poor among.

Matt (22:24.364)
Yeah.

Shawn (22:28.883)
Right, right. So watch this though. I don't like that people make that about money. You guys default to money. All things means money. It doesn't. Like if my ward is successful at taking in 15 people who are poor and helping them be self-reliant, that is more kind, Levi, than giving them a thousand dollars a month or $600 a month. Because we as a community are rallying around our people to make them be self-reliant.

Now they can self sustain. They've become closer to independence and freedom than being dependent on a measly thousand dollars a month from some government who changed administrations. You only get 500 a month. You know what mean? Like it's not kind to me to, to, to, have temporary fixes just to make ourselves feel good. we're taking care of the poor. We're not like, know all many of my friends here who I work with who are on government programs, they're not happier.

And they're not better off. They're stuck. They're stuck in a mindset of, don't have to do the things that would give me success in this world. All I got to do is get that 600 bucks a month and barely squeak by. That's not a kind policy.

Matt (23:42.698)
Alright, so I'm going to give Sean the points for this one because Sean, we ganged up on you. It was two against one and you held your own. And I don't like the scriptures you brought, but you did bring scriptures.

Levi (23:52.047)
Hey, what's?

Levi (23:55.801)
What's the record for points for a guest host? I just want to know what I'm aiming for. The record for points. That's Melanie, probably Melanie Holtzett.

Shawn (24:01.287)
Well, told last week Levi last week we established that that 25 years from now when we end this podcast, you're going to see what those points add up to and you're going to get something. So keep working for them. Yeah.

Levi (24:11.323)
I'm going to cash them in. All right. OK. Good.

Matt (24:12.546)
think Levi and Melanie got all the points one episode because I mean, I don't want to seem sexist and so I kind of have to give her points because...

Shawn (24:16.615)
Yeah, she did.

Levi (24:16.634)
Man, I'm not gonna top that.

Shawn (24:23.027)
Well, how about watch this though, Matt. Levi, I'm gonna give you the points. I'm gonna give you the points because, yeah, because I know you believe that government providing charity is the kind, righteous way. And I appreciate you being open to like share ideas on that. I would love to learn from you on that. Cause I currently don't agree with that at all, but I'm open-minded to it. I would love to hear more.

Matt (24:26.656)
Whoa, whoa.

Levi (24:27.599)
Nailed it!

Levi (24:39.899)
It is.

Matt (24:49.068)
Well, you're not going to because he's got a different thought provoker this week. Sorry, Sean. We'll invite you back to Levi. Sometime Levi, we'll invite you back and you can tell us how liberals are actually kind and conservatives are mean. That would be interesting.

Levi (24:52.123)
Too bad. Shut it down, says.

Shawn (24:52.349)
No, ouch.

Levi (25:02.671)
I'm surprised that's surprising to anyone. Of course liberals are nicer. Yeah, okay. All right. Yeah, we'll just leave that hanging out there. All right, so I wanted to talk about another one of our sort of deep state denizens. Last time I was on, we talked about Lena Kahn, who is out. Brendan Carr is now leading the FCC and he's one of the authors of Project 2025.

Matt (25:13.1)
You

Levi (25:30.491)
We're actually not going to talk very much about it, but one of his priorities...

Matt (25:32.064)
I actually don't think that's possible, sorry, Levi, I don't think that's possible because Trump was very clear in the election that he had never heard of Project 2025, he didn't support Project 2025, and there'll be nobody in that involved in his administration. So I find that hard to believe that the chairman of the FCC...

Levi (25:48.881)
you know what? This is it. This is project two, two five, not a zero. So I think that's probably where he got away with that. So that's, yeah, that's my bad. That's true. Okay, so, so yeah, and it came out of nowhere. Trump was like, I've never heard of this guy, but Brendan Carr is now leading the FCC.

Matt (25:54.626)
Okay, okay. Sorry for interrupting you. I just needed that clarification.

Levi (26:13.915)
And one of the things he's set as his priorities is cutting down robocalls and everybody hates him. And so kind of my question is when a robocall is not fraudulent, it's still annoying. And the question is, can this be considered a market failure? Or if not, why isn't the market correcting that or is the market correcting that? And then the other question I had is, do the scriptures say anything about

how to solve this or whether it's OK to make your living creating something everyone hates.

Shawn (26:47.933)
I think it does answer it, but Matt, you want to go first before I answer?

Matt (26:50.656)
Yeah, I don't think it's fair to say everyone hates it because if everybody hated it that wouldn't exist, right? And they make money. Didn't you say it's a multi-billion dollar industry? So they have to be making money off of these things. Now it's possible that it's all scams and fraud, but I don't think it is all scams and fraud. Mostly what I get is like vacation people, right? They're selling vacations and

Levi (27:02.711)
It is, yeah.

Shawn (27:03.677)
it is.

Matt (27:17.462)
So I think of robocalls not as an industry, but robocalls as a technique and an innovative technique. we tend to like, the markets tend to favor people who come up with innovative new techniques. So it's a...

Levi (27:17.545)
Ugh.

Levi (27:24.261)
Yeah.

Levi (27:33.507)
And my question is, it does make money, but does making money mean that something is a net benefit to the economy? Can you make money without benefiting everybody to the economy as a whole? To the economy specifically. Can you make money without benefiting the economy?

Shawn (27:42.643)
society or to the economy? To society or to...

Matt (27:53.218)
100 % of course you can. Of course you can!

Shawn (27:53.587)
Well, no, no. Well, you can, but is it good for society? I don't think so. This is again, this is Adam Smith and the invisible hand.

Levi (28:04.217)
Agreed.

Matt (28:05.844)
I guess I just don't agree with...

Levi (28:07.471)
So then the question is, go ahead.

Shawn (28:09.307)
Levi, do know Adam Smith and the invisible hand? Do you know Adam Smith and the invisible hand? No, the invisible hand. You know, the invisible hand where it says if I don't create value for someone and but I make money off of without creating value, that'll never benefit society and therefore no. I mean, is that the crux of your question? If you don't create value for someone yet you earn off of that, that's not going to last.

Matt (28:11.372)
Have you ever heard of Adam Smith, Levi?

Levi (28:13.231)
Who? Adam who?

Levi (28:22.255)
Yeah.

Levi (28:29.965)
Well, I guess my question, I guess my question was, here's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing that people can make money creating robocalls. Only I believe that they are a net detriment to society, that they are destroying wealth, even though they make money. Do you think that those things are possible? Can a market have, support something that destroys wealth, but makes money?

Matt (28:41.143)
Yes.

Shawn (28:51.229)
Is that because?

Matt (28:54.7)
Yes. Yes.

Shawn (28:54.835)
So I'm going to suffer clarity. Let me ask Levi. So I'm going to ignore Matt disagreeing with you that he likes robocalls. Let's pretend or let's let's pre-assume what Matt. Go ahead.

Matt (29:03.201)
They-

I didn't say I enjoy getting robocalls. I'm saying that they're not necessarily a negative in society. They wouldn't be making that kind of money if what they were doing was bad for society.

Shawn (29:12.272)
I see,

Shawn (29:16.723)
Wow, look at Matt preaching the invisible hand. I like it. Okay, so let me assume Levi that your question is based, if it's real. Are you suggesting though that, because there are spam and robocall laws, federal laws in the books. Like it is illegal to spam an email without consent and it is illegal to robocall without consent. The only categories that you can robocall are political, charitable, and to your own customers.

Levi (29:18.413)
Mmm, I disagree about that. Okay

Shawn (29:46.597)
or an emergency. Those are the only legal ways to robocall. So Matt, someone cold calling you about a vacation, that's against federal law.

Levi (29:47.311)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (29:54.442)
I know, I have no problem with this.

Shawn (29:56.773)
Okay. But is that what you're saying? So, but I thought Levi, your question was about these robo calls are largely, they're fraudulent and it's coercion and it's tricking people and making their money that way. Is that not what it's about? No. Okay.

Levi (30:09.403)
No, I'm just meaning they're annoying to get and so every time somebody calls me they they make a call it costs them nothing it costs me whatever two minutes of my time I feel like what they're doing is they're sucking out thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of hours out of the economy and not compensating anyone for them and They make a little bit of money, right? But but the cost to society is much higher than the than the value they create

Matt (30:10.196)
No, he's saying though...

Shawn (30:21.968)
I see.

Shawn (30:34.941)
Well, I think this is...

Shawn (30:39.947)
I think this is a good place for government actually, right? Because government has these laws I think are okay. Yeah, I agree with you that the net benefit or the net negative of all that wasted time. And to be honest, a lot of Robocalls, it is fraud, it is coercion. But the laws, I think these are good laws, the laws are in place. They're just, guess, not being enforced.

Levi (30:46.704)
Yeah.

Matt (31:01.782)
You can't enforce these laws. How are you going to enforce those laws?

Shawn (31:04.935)
Well, I mean, there are hotlines. You can report these numbers. Then they'll make up a new one. Right. It's hard to enforce, but I agree with Levi. think Levi, you're right. It's a net negative.

Matt (31:07.926)
The numbers are made up fake numbers. They change the numbers. Yeah, right.

Levi (31:13.936)
Yeah.

Matt (31:16.93)
I think it's innovative. No. It is-

Levi (31:17.185)
Okay and is it a market failure? Is it a market failure? No not a market failure says Matt.

Shawn (31:23.121)
It's a legal, I think it's not a market failure, it's a legal failure.

Matt (31:27.138)
What?

Shawn (31:28.455)
because the laws prohibit robocalls and spam, yet they're happening anyway. If the laws were being...

Levi (31:28.844)
Wow.

Matt (31:35.01)
But if the market was working, you wouldn't need laws. According to Adam Smith, the market doesn't require laws.

Levi (31:37.785)
Yeah, sorry, the market requires this federal legislation preventing some particular economic transaction? That's kind of weird.

Shawn (31:39.058)
No!

Shawn (31:48.305)
Free market can't be, no, no, no, listen, it can't be a free market if there's coercion. Robo calls are coercion. You can't make free exchanges with someone if you bring coerce. If my 85, there is two, most of robocalls are coercion as well as spam. When most of it, most of the money being made is in coercion. My 86 year old grandma gets an email saying, crap, you just ran a toll road or you pay, you owe this on your credit cards, you better click here. It's mostly coercion. That's why it's illegal.

Matt (31:57.826)
There's no coercion.

Matt (32:13.858)
So then that's not even a market. That wouldn't even apply to a capitalist market because that's something that's outside of the free exchange. It's not a free exchange.

Shawn (32:25.747)
That's why it's not a free market failure. It's a legal failure in my opinion.

Matt (32:30.422)
But if you're doing it for charity, it's legal, right? Yeah. And robocall is probably one of the best ways you could raise money for your charity. Because the people with the money to give to charity, your 86 year old grandma, who's got a lot of money in retirement or whatever, I'm not going to get her on TikTok. I'm not going to get her by going viral. I'm not necessarily going to get her with some letter that I mailed to her. Door to door is expensive. Robocalls are cheap and easy and a good way to do that.

Shawn (32:33.619)
It's legal.

Shawn (32:45.939)
Mmm.

Shawn (32:54.451)
I mean, capitalism, it's a good debate to say what's the difference between a free exchange, persuasion, and coercion. Like that's a really, really important discussion to have. Sometimes if that grandma is making a free choice but is being persuaded, I don't know, that could cross a line over into coercion.

Matt (33:15.778)
There was a time when I was in college and I needed to make some more money. I sold knives for a little while. I sold living scriptures for a little while. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she bought knives. She was so nice to do that. And then I spent one week as a telemarketer for a group that was fundraising. We were raising money for the sheriff's some kind of thing. I don't know what it was. I can't remember the script that we would say from 30 years ago. And I remember my first night

Shawn (33:20.613)
I remember that. You sold knives to my mom!

Shawn (33:27.389)
Hahaha

Matt (33:45.48)
I was as successful at that job as a man who had been doing it for 30 years. 30 years this guy was calling people on the phone. We would work for 50 minutes, then we would get a 10 minute smoke break, and then we'd work for another 50 minutes, but we got paid for a full hour. And I was like, this is a great job. And then one time somebody said, how much overhead is there? And I had no idea what he was talking about. So I went and asked my boss, how much overhead is there? And he said, 95%. And I was like, what does that mean? And he's like,

That means that 5 % of the money we raise actually goes to the cause we're raising money for and 95 % goes to us. And then when I told the guy that on the phone, he's like, I'm not going to give you money. But at that moment I was like, my goodness, what a great business. Like there is so much money to be made. We would give them a little decal that said, support the Sheriff's Association. We're raising money for a good cause. Cause even though the Sheriff's Association didn't ask for the money,

Shawn (34:17.683)
Wow, that's disgusting. I hate that. That's awful.

Shawn (34:34.259)
That was your conclusion.

Matt (34:42.806)
whatever we gave them was more than they were gonna get on their own, because they weren't even use it. They didn't even know we were doing this for them. And we were making so much money for a good cause. But something about it felt dirty inside. That's why I didn't pursue that as a career. But I just have this soft spot in my heart for the people that do that. And RoboCalls is just an extension of that. RoboCalls allows you to do that without paying someone like me to repeat the same script over and over again.

Shawn (35:05.809)
Matt, you're.

Your takeaway from your story was I love robocalling. It wasn't the fact that charities are the overhead is 95 % and only 5 % goes to the actual people in need. That wasn't your takeaway that that's disgusting.

Matt (35:21.73)
Listen, 5 % of $1,000 is more than 100 % of $0. So it doesn't matter that there's a lot of overhead, right? That charity is getting more... Well, I'm just...

Shawn (35:29.555)
I'm not inviting you to join my charity.

Levi (35:35.227)
of a lesson on opportunity costs some other time, Sean.

Matt (35:38.082)
So I'm just having a hard time Levi with the premise because I know that it's annoying. I know that it bothers people, but there is a net benefit in society in my opinion. Again, throw away the fraud stuff. I don't like the fraud stuff, but if we're just focusing on the legal activities, charitable donations is one of them, then in my opinion that is a net benefit to society because those charities are getting money that otherwise they wouldn't get.

Shawn (36:04.083)
Levi, if you isolate just the coercion side, the fraud side, do you believe, do you disagree with me that that's, do you think it's a free market problem and not a legal problem?

Levi (36:16.557)
if we only consider the fraudulent ones.

Matt (36:21.312)
then of course that's a legal problem. There's people breaking the law.

Levi (36:22.762)
sure. Yeah, then I feel like fraud is... Yeah, but...

Shawn (36:25.533)
So then the legal ones, you consider the legal ones a market failure?

Levi (36:30.149)
Yeah.

Matt (36:31.149)
so you're not giving me the points for my very persuasive argument about...

Levi (36:34.543)
No, I'm giving you the points because it was persuasive. It was an interesting perspective. It's not my perspective. That's okay.

Shawn (36:35.44)
overhead

Matt (36:42.902)
You

Shawn (36:43.699)
Well, give me your name before we move on. Give me your main reasoning Levi. I feel like we haven't given you a chance to give your reasoning. Teach me. Teach me.

Matt (36:45.45)
Alright, well thank you, Levi.

Levi (36:51.277)
yeah, no, well, that's my question. But I would just say, yeah, I mean, we're taking whatever, five minutes a day from 300 million people. That's a lot of collective time that we're spending. And what's happening is it's a transaction between that caller and whoever's creating that robocall and whoever's trying to sell something. And they're both making money, right?

Shawn (37:04.061)
Bye.

Levi (37:18.863)
but they're sucking lots of time out of all of the rest of us. On net, it's making us all poorer. That's a market failure.

Shawn (37:22.803)
Points to Levi.

Matt (37:23.554)
Stop. I hate these. These collective time arguments are so ridiculous. I hate collective time arguments. Like I used to do, again, I can't do them now because people have decided it's unethical because it was collective time. But I've done all kinds of research projects where we create email accounts and we email elected officials and we ask them for help with various tasks and we can measure bias and

Shawn (37:26.141)
Points to Levi.

Matt (37:50.678)
how legislators respond to their constituents based on the demographics of the people in the email. And people will be like, sure, it's maybe like five seconds of a staffer's time, but if you've got all the legislators in all the country, you're wasting so much collective time for this task. I'm like, stop it. Like we're learning really good things from these and it costs that person five to 10 seconds. And so I don't like, I'm just, I have an aversion to collective time arguments.

Five seconds is five seconds. If it's 300 million people, it's still five seconds.

Shawn (38:25.651)
Wow, you're passionate about that.

Levi (38:26.245)
Yeah, points to Matt. I love that. I love the passion. I love the points. Points to Matt, 100%.

Shawn (38:32.409)
I'll split it Matt. I'm going to give you half the points. consent matters I think in a free market, right? Like if Matt calls me wanting to sell me knives and I don't consent to that, I do have the freedom to just hang up on Matt, right? I'm not being coerced to listen to Matt's knife pitch.

Levi (38:50.789)
But there are a lot of things that are non-consensual in our society, right? We are connected in a lot of ways. There are lots of externalities. Externalities is an economic concept where you and I make a transaction, but it harms some third person, right? And I feel like this falls into that category as well.

Shawn (39:08.529)
Okay, that's interesting. Okay. So right now this is, this is Matt's land, Idaho. So this is a fascinating topic, right? Ranchers in Idaho are fighting with conservation groups for like the last like five, six, seven years, right? It's been a long fight about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone. You wolves have actually, they went extinct. And then, and then I don't, was it the Biden administration? They, they took wolves.

Matt (39:09.29)
Alright Sean, you're up.

Matt (39:14.176)
Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Matt (39:33.917)
even even even further back than that like 20 years ago.

Shawn (39:37.267)
20 years ago, they brought wolves from Canada into Yellowstone and they've actually thrived. So on the one hand, people think that the National Park exists to protect and preserve the natural habitats, but even more so there's a $35 million a year industry in wolf watching, nature watching, right?

Matt (39:53.28)
I know, I know. Have you met these people at Yellowstone? my goodness. They know every single wolf by it's like they've got a name for every single wolf. They can tell you the genealogy of every single wolf in Yellowstone that they see and they come out and take pictures. It's amazing. These people.

Shawn (39:57.139)
No

Shawn (40:09.873)
Which shock, Matt, which was shockingly is a $35 million a year industry. Like that shocked me.

Matt (40:16.076)
People love wilderness wildlife photos, especially wolves.

Shawn (40:20.331)
Apparently, apparently. So on the other hand,

Levi (40:22.107)
So book recommendation, Never Cry Wolf is an old book, which is really awesome and everybody should read it. It's funny, it's interesting, learn a lot about wolves. It was awesome, great book.

Matt (40:32.524)
They made it a movie. It's a movie.

Levi (40:34.949)
They made a movie of it, yeah. yeah, they made a movie of it. But the book is fantastic, yeah.

Shawn (40:40.277)
good. Okay. So on the other hand, many ranchers are using these lands to feed their cattle and they pay fees to do so. They have contracts with the government and often it's hard obviously for government to accommodate two sides of this particular conflict. I mean, probably pretty often there are conflicting interests that the government has to deal with. So what do you guys think? What should the federal government prioritize when it comes to public land? And you know, when

competing public interests are presented, how does a government decide who gets the blessing and who doesn't?

Matt (41:18.144)
Yeah, that's a good, you go first Levi.

Levi (41:22.393)
Well, as I was thinking about this, I am inclined to say the government should make the choice that benefits the most people as it's the government of all of us. Let's find the thing that benefits a broad swath of people rather than something that maybe benefits a few people a lot. Let's find something that benefits a lot of people. And so we can side with those ranchers and we could say, yeah, I as a government, I'm going to give you kind of this.

Shawn (41:30.588)
Whoa!

Levi (41:51.44)
you know, give you this leg up. But I feel like that's not the job of my government is to pick, you know, is to say you get a leg up and you don't.

Matt (41:56.886)
Wait a minute. I thought you were going to say, I thought you were going to say go with the ranchers because everybody loves beef. And if you don't let them graze on federal lands, the price of beef goes up. And then that, I thought that does benefit the most people McDonald's. And I thought that's where you're going with that. So

Levi (42:12.411)
Levi (42:16.927)
I would say we all get let's make the land something that we all get to enjoy rather than something that the those particular farmers get to use exclusively.

Shawn (42:24.243)
So, so how, so real quickly, right? That was my first thought too, but then I heard a rancher give a counterpoint to that. Here's what the rancher said. He said, if you lose the ranches here, eventually, and I know if this is right or not, but eventually this land, much of this land will get developed is what they say. It's like, it's not like you're going to take, cause you got ranching, the ranchers land, if you can't run it as a ranch, you're going to develop that into something else that's commercially viable.

Matt (42:43.983)
no.

Matt (42:51.828)
Or you could just turn it into the National Park. could just expand the National Park into... I see. Well, so this is the interesting thing about the law.

Shawn (42:54.299)
Why would they do that? Why would they do that? They wouldn't do that. The rancher wouldn't do that.

And so anyway, their point is you harm the conservationist movement by developing all of this land. It's symbiotic. You want ranchers there. You don't want a shopping mall there or, you know.

Matt (43:15.18)
Yeah, so one thing that's really interesting about the laws as they are is if you want to get a grazing permit to have your cattle graze on public lands, you have to own land adjacent to the public lands. So that's why they say the ranchers are owning all these lands near the national parks and not developing them because the law says they have to own that land in order to get the grazing permits to graze on federal lands. But the flip of that, Sean, is that it means that I can't just start a cattle farm tomorrow.

Shawn (43:37.619)
Interesting. Interesting.

Matt (43:44.16)
and have access to those same permits, I have to buy into this. So the ranchers are protecting their investment by saying, look, we're maintaining all of this. And their argument is, of course, we're saving it from developers. But maybe developers would be a better thing than having a bunch of cattle ranchers on it. then, I don't know, maybe it's not so bad to have a bunch of developments that surround national parks. More people could access it.

Shawn (43:52.242)
Yep, of course.

Shawn (44:08.295)
until that goes against someone else's self-interest and they petition the government to say, now you're not treating us right. My bottom line is this, I'm gonna keep with our theme of self-reliance. Anytime we make ourselves and our livelihood reliant on our government, it's not good. It's not good. Because administrations will change their minds, right? I was just listening to, what's the story? Who's the lady that just, so Trump just became the

president of the Kennedy Center, and fired, I forget her name, she's been in there for a decade, and she's just heartbroken. It really is sad to see. She's just so sad. But when you form your life around being dependent on, for example, government, you're just setting yourself up for heartbreak. So I think the idea, this gospel principle of self-reliance applies here.

Matt (44:38.378)
Yeah, yep. The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.

Yeah, yeah.

Matt (45:03.82)
But if...

Shawn (45:03.995)
I think no matter what, the rancher's not gonna win and the conservationists are not gonna win, because eventually some administration will come in and change their mind and they're screwed.

Matt (45:11.422)
Mm-hmm. Well, I'm going to say you go with science. Whatever science says is the best thing for the land, that's what you do with the land. That's where I come down.

Levi (45:20.623)
I was actually gonna say I'd rather listen to the biologists, right? And I know that they don't know everything, right? The ranchers have some knowledge too, but I do feel like on these questions of ecology, that's a good question for the biologists.

Matt (45:23.479)
Yeah.

Matt (45:31.551)
I remember when they Yellowstone burn and people were so mad that they're letting a forest fire just burn down Yellowstone and the ecologists were like, this is the right thing to do. And there was a lot of political pressure to go in and put out those fires. But if you go to Yellowstone now, they have signs that say, this is where that fire was and look at this vibrant lush forest because this is how nature takes care of itself. And so, I don't know, to some extent I say if we just listen to the ecologists and

And developers, what they do is they go build in places where people will say, you shouldn't build your home there. That's not a great place to have a home. You're disrupting the ecosystem or you're have your home burned down or something. And then they say, well, I want a home right here. And then it burns down and then they blame society for that. I feel like we just need to let scientists make these decisions. And when individuals come in and say, I know what's best for me. I own this land. I should be able to do what I want with it. We should say, no, you don't get to do whatever you want with it. You have to follow science.

Shawn (46:29.725)
Sorry, sorry, Matt. I'm taking away any points I've ever given you.

Matt (46:31.97)
You don't like to believe science?

Levi (46:35.739)
Okay, so here's my bid for points. Sean, bring in the scripture, ready? This says, this is from Leviticus 24, sorry, 25, it's verse 23 and it says,

Shawn (46:36.807)
hahaha

Matt (46:46.854)
Levi lost my points.

Shawn (46:48.787)
Good going, Levi.

Levi (46:50.799)
The land, it says, the land shall not be sold forever, for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me. Now, it's long been my belief that personal, private ownership of land is a little hinky, right? That doesn't quite sit right with me. You didn't make the land, right? What business do you have owning it? And so it's long been my position that we should

Shawn (47:00.339)
Okay, sure.

Matt (47:00.822)
Yeah.

Levi (47:19.577)
replace a lot of our income taxes with an aggressive land value tax. And that's when we should talk about sometime. Henry George was an early economist that advocated a tax on the value of land. And it's great for a lot of reasons. Everybody should go read about it. Land value tax is the best tax.

Matt (47:38.55)
I like that because China owns so much land here. That way we could stick it to China. All right, Levi's got my points. He found a new way to punish China. I was not happy with the scripture, but I was really happy with this new idea that would punish people that own land. So okay, you got my point.

Levi (47:45.285)
Better than tariffs for getting somebody else to pay our taxes, right?

Levi (47:52.857)
Land value tax.

Shawn (48:02.867)
I would love to talk about that sometime with you Levi because you're saying that based on that scripture, you're saying it is God's will. Right? It's saying basically God is my land. So you have to treat it the way I will you to treat it. And you're suggesting that in your personal belief system, God's will, which can be argued a little bit in scripture, right? Right Levi, there are spots in scripture that say that the personal property is actually a scriptural, it's a principled concept.

Matt (48:28.514)
Sean found a verse, remember Levi? Sean has a verse about that. But Sean, you remember the year of Jubilee, right? The year of Jubilee, this was Law of Moses stuff, that every, I don't know if it was seven years or 20 years, no matter what land you own, it goes back to the original inhabitants. They get to come back and take their land back. So you could say it's very scriptural, this idea that nobody owns land forever.

Shawn (48:32.915)
Well, a couple of verses.

Shawn (48:54.931)
Oh, forever? Yeah, don't think there's... Yeah, there's no way this is forever.

Levi (48:55.065)
This is part of that law. And actually in Singapore and in Hong Kong, they implement this, right? Nobody owns the land in, there's probably some exceptions, but primarily the government owns the land in both of those places and you buy long leases on it. But eventually it returns to the government.

Matt (49:04.278)
Hawaii's doing this too.

Shawn (49:12.883)
So then what do you make of-

So then what do you make of the scriptures? Because I love looking at it holistically. Let's look at all these scriptures and try and understand it. Because I like that you brought in that maybe, all right, a different day. Okay, okay, all right.

Matt (49:23.114)
No, this isn't the topic. We have to do that a different day. Yeah. That was just Levi threw that in just to try to get points from me. We're gonna move on. Yeah, you got my points Levi.

Shawn (49:34.451)
I don't think, man, I don't think just.

Levi (49:35.643)
Did it work? Did it work, Matt? Okay, all good, good. All right.

Shawn (49:38.941)
Just because you, love points for no reason doesn't mean everyone else does. Maybe he was sincerely wanting to make that point, huh? Maybe? You ever thought of that?

Matt (49:46.428)
I took him at his word. I just believe the things people. Yeah.

Levi (49:50.491)
No, it was 100 % for points, you guys. I don't care about any of this, it's just the points. That's all there is, I'm here.

Shawn (49:53.629)
I'm giving myself the

Matt (49:58.612)
Alright, I like that Sean. I think you should give yourself. Levi, who are you giving points to?

Levi (50:05.567)
well, I thought it was a really great question. thought it was a just it made me think in ways that I didn't think before. I think it's a good it's something that doesn't have obvious sides to it. I thought it was a great question. Points to Sean.

Matt (50:18.092)
Good job, Sean, way to go. All right, the big question. There was a devotional at BYU-Idaho this week from a woman who teaches in the religion department at BYU and Provo, and she teaches the family class. Anyhow, she gave this really long devotional talk all about proclamation to the world on the family and the importance of family and all of that stuff. And so it got me thinking, like, so this is, want us to think about this. Okay, so church leaders have consistently taught

Shawn (50:43.089)
I love your question, Matt. You a great job.

Matt (50:47.522)
that the family is the fundamental unit of society, the church, and just to be clear, Elder Ballard, M. Russell Ballard said it's the basic unit of the celestial kingdom. Right now in the United States, 60 % of children live with married birth parents, right? 26 % live with one of their birth parents, and then 15 % live in some other kind of family unit.

It's not a lot different from what families look like in the United States 20 years ago. In fact, if anything, more people live in two parent households today than they did 20 years ago. So I have two big questions based on these two sets of facts. One, what does it mean that the family is the basic unit of society, the church, and the celestial kingdom? And then two, if that's true, then don't we have a moral obligation to support families of all types? Given that,

at least 15 % live in some other kind of family unit than what we would describe in the Proclamation to the World on the Family.

Shawn (51:52.179)
Nice one, man. Levi, you want to go or do you me to go?

Levi (51:59.707)
I'll go second on this one, is that okay?

Shawn (52:03.283)
Sure, sure, sure, Man, there's so many angles here, Matt. It's such a good question. It's so interesting. know, from a, because this is both Latter-day Lands and politics, from a political standpoint, like Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, always talk about how Ayn Rand would always talk about how the most important element or function of society is, it's the individual. That's the most important. And so I kind of believed that for a long time and I don't anymore. I don't, I really do believe that the family is

is the central part of all of society. Now your question is based on society, the celestial kingdom. It's a different answer there, right? It would be easy for us to read 15 scriptures, the family proclamation, and realize that God ordained marriage and family. Do we know the purposes and the reasons? Yeah, some we do, some we don't. So the celestial kingdom, and it's made very clear that only the top level, not just the celestial kingdom, but only the top level of the celestial kingdom, will we be actually divided into the same kind of family structure that we're in now.

and everyone else won't be. So that's an easy answer. But when it comes to society, here's my angle. We do not live, like Milton Friedman says, we don't live in an individual society. It really is based on families. And here's why. And I'll take one of your favorite topics, Levi. Inheritance tax. You believe that there should be no inheritance tax, right? So let's build, yeah, he hates it. So let's build that in.

Levi (53:29.979)
100 % adherence tax.

Shawn (53:31.889)
Yeah, that's what you want. know, I know. But let me find my note here because if you, hang on, let's see, let's see. Sorry, I gotta find it.

Matt (53:40.674)
It's okay.

Shawn (53:45.331)
Okay, if we live, we live really in a family society, not individualistic society, the greatest incentive of all is to establish a better position, not for self, but for future family. If you remove that incentive, you encourage people to dissipate their wealth in high living. In other words,

Matt (54:03.202)
spend all their money on wasteful things.

Shawn (54:05.585)
Of course, of course, Levi, I am saying my family is not the center, if every, like, we could easily have a discussion about how 90 % of our lives, the three of us, we spend time working, laboring, doing everything we can for what? For our families. Everything we do, 90 % of our lives is for our wives' children and their grandchildren. If you take away the incentive to labor for those things,

You really are disrupting this society in a fundamentally crazy way. And the biggest, the first and most destructive way would be why would I not just consume, consume, consume my earnings if I'm not passing it along to my family anyway? We're just gonna consume it, consume it.

Matt (54:49.89)
So then Sean, so Sean, you're making the case for same sex marriage. You're making the case for polyamorous marriage, right? So if what you're saying is true, don't we have a moral obligation to support all types of families in society? Because that's the foundation of having people be good, productive citizens according to apparently all of these very conservative thinkers.

Shawn (55:11.389)
Well, Matt, that would be a really easy answer if we didn't have a religion that tells us that God's ordained family is a man and a woman. That's really, it's a really easy answer. I mean, it would be super easy. It would be absolutely. Yeah. Any form of marriage would be good because even a gay marriage can adopt children and then their self-interest leaves themselves and is to better their children. And so they are going to do more to, to, leave that child with a good life. So

Yeah, if we didn't have the lens of our religion, then yeah, I would agree with you. But we do have the lens of our religion and it does teach us different.

Matt (55:46.722)
But, okay, but if only 60 % of children in the United States live in the kind of marriage relationship that God intends people to live in, what do do about the other 40 %? Do you tell them, I guess you guys, like, I guess we were wrong. Family's not the fundamental unit of society. guess family's not the fundamental unit of the church, because your family doesn't fit this one specific definition. Or do you say, a family is a family is a family.

and we're gonna support you. And of course there's an ideal that we're all maybe striving to, but even if you don't fit that ideal, we're still gonna support the family because we believe that the family is the basic unit of society and the basic unit of the celestial kingdom. What do you say Levi?

Levi (56:35.045)
Well, I just had a quick question. In these numbers, maybe you didn't know, but like I have an adopted daughter. I guess she would not be part of that 60%, right? Like I'm her dad and married to her mom, but she wouldn't be in that, right? So that would be a different, okay, all right.

Matt (56:46.656)
Right, same with, right, my kids are adopted, right? Yeah, we're not in that 60%.

Matt (56:55.83)
And my family's not in that 60 % because three of my boys are adopted.

Levi (56:59.227)
Uh huh. huh. well, I guess I, one thing I would say is, um, I, I hope that members of the church are remembering, I mean, I know we didn't live through this, but our reading our history and remembering that members of our church were actively persecuted by the state for an alternative family arrangement, right? Polygamy was in the church and we were driven out and persecuted.

because of that. And so I think it would be really a shame to forget that and to start persecuting sort of other alternative family structures legally, right? Now you can come in and you can say that you have a spiritual duty to build some particular kind of family, but legally, I kind of think we should leave, you know, we should support other kinds of families and not discriminate in the way that we were discriminated against so many years ago.

Shawn (57:56.819)
Great point.

Matt (57:58.082)
Yeah, so I think this is sort of what makes me think about this, right? Because when people say, and all these classes I see college kids taking about the family, I 100 % agree with you, Sean, about the doctrine. But I think that what happens when we talk about families and say, it's only this one kind of family that counts, then there's millions of Americans, at least 40 million Americans that would say, but that doesn't fit my situation, and so where's the place for me?

And so our doctrine is that the family is the fundamental unit of society. That's in the proclamation to the world on the family. And you can find that it's all throughout like modern revelation. We believe that the family is the fundamental unit of society and the church and the celestial kingdom. So if that's true, we should be promoting the family, not in an exclusionary way. We should be promoting the family because when I say, does it mean that the family, like in my mind, what this means is, and I just think about it personally, like,

Shawn (58:50.183)
Well, Matt.

Matt (58:56.414)
It's very, as a single person, as when I wasn't married and I didn't have my own kids, I felt a lot like what you were describing, Sean, where I felt like it was hard to find purpose, it was hard to find comfort, it was hard to know my place in society, it was easy to feel left out and excluded. It's hard to go to church if you're a single person and you're not in a YSA branch because you feel like everybody else has got this, like there's like...

Family is really, really important for people. It helps you emotionally, it helps you psychologically, it gives you financial support. And so I think that people, because their family looks different than the ideal, we shouldn't discount their family and say, your family doesn't count. It has to look like this.

Shawn (59:40.317)
Yeah, think anyone who says someone's family because they're different than not only what I have, but what we believe is God's ordained version of family. Yeah, anyone who says anything negative or, or, or segregates them. I agree that's evil and wrong. So, I mean, but you asked the question, you have to differentiate celestial kingdom from civil, from mortal society.

Matt (01:00:02.22)
But Sean, I can go to the celestial kingdom and not be married to a woman, right? Because we know that, yeah. So then it's possible you could have different kinds of relationships and be in the celestial kingdom.

Shawn (01:00:09.139)
That's correct. Yeah.

Shawn (01:00:15.7)
Okay, but Matt, you know Matt, but then now let's go back to the discussion of what is exaltation and what is salvation, right?

Matt (01:00:19.818)
You won't be exalted. That's right. That's right. won't. Okay. So you won't be exalted, but you can still say the family is the fundamental unit or the basic unit of the celestial kingdom. And it could be a different kind of family, the kind of family that maybe is not going to be exalted, but it could be a family in the celestial kingdom. In theory, right? I mean, I don't, I'm not trying to like say this is like, I'm just saying like based on the doctrine I've heard, that's a possibility.

Shawn (01:00:50.195)
I don't know if that is a possibility.

Matt (01:00:51.678)
If I'm living worthy of the celestial kingdom, right, if I'm following all of God's laws, however I'm supposed to, I can live with my brother and my sister. I could live with like people and have it be a family, right? My sister and I could adopt kids and raise kids together and call it a family. And we're still a family.

Shawn (01:01:04.051)
But it's.

Shawn (01:01:08.883)
It doesn't say that, in fact it says the opposite. It says unless you enter into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, that stage of exaltation, even in the celestial kingdom you will be single and an angel of God, right? A serving angel of God.

Matt (01:01:18.87)
is on

Right. Sure, sure. Okay, so sure. So sure my marriage isn't gonna be a celestial marriage, but my family, my family could still be there.

Shawn (01:01:35.751)
Yeah, I guess you're broadening the definition of family to mean something that's not within a marriage. And I don't know that that's...

Matt (01:01:43.49)
Well, my children are part of my family, right? My siblings are part of my family. Yeah. All right, so you could have like an alternative family arrangement and still be a family in the celestial kingdom.

Shawn (01:01:46.528)
Yeah, because you, well, okay. All right.

Shawn (01:01:59.635)
You're broadening the definition of family. Clearly when we say family in our religion, what we mean is the new and everlasting covenant of marriage that leads to exaltation. That is a husband and a wife, right? And then covenanted children, whether it's adopted or not. That's covenanted children. And that's a very narrow definition, but it's the one we've got.

Matt (01:02:17.748)
Yeah, I just think that as a system.

Levi (01:02:19.653)
Man, I kind of like that point from Matt though. That does make me think, because I think, hmm, I wonder when God's his family, maybe I've been making too many assumptions about what he means. Or what they mean, sorry.

Shawn (01:02:30.461)
Yeah, I like the math thinks that way.

Matt (01:02:32.258)
But whether or not that's what that means in the celestial kingdom, we can still think about it in terms of society and say, everybody in society is better off in a family, however they're gonna define it, and we should support the family.

Shawn (01:02:44.189)
See that I, I mean that I can agree with. I can agree with that way more, right? It really does become a different discussion when we're talking about the religion and what a celestial family or God's intention or ordained family looks like. I don't know. I think the doctrine is pretty clear what the celestial, the top level of the celestial kingdom looks like compared to every other station. When it comes to family. Yeah, when it comes to family. But I think in civil society and mortality, I like what you say.

Matt (01:03:02.208)
I agree. I completely agree about exaltation.

Shawn (01:03:10.845)
Yeah, why would we exclude anyone? We would love and support. And if it's going to be better in a family that doesn't look like my family, that's better than alternatives. You're saying that, right? It's better to be married in any form of like Matt, okay, let's test it. A polygamist family today is better than living single. Is that what you're saying? And a, however many consenting adults in a marriage is better than being single.

Matt (01:03:28.342)
Yes, yes.

Matt (01:03:37.172)
A single mother is better than a single person without children. It's like a family is just better. I was raised by a single mother and she kept our family close and I'll forever be grateful to her for doing that. Like a single mother is better than just being a single person, right? Like a family is better than being single. And I wish as a society we would talk less about try to fit this mold and more about

Shawn (01:03:52.275)
She's awesome.

Matt (01:04:04.342)
families are important and when somebody says, what about my family? We say, that's important. And they say, but what about mine? And we say, that's important.

Shawn (01:04:09.405)
But do you see, Matt, do you see that there's really, for members of our church, there's cognitive dissonance there? I agree with you. I like it. Nice, nice, nice.

Matt (01:04:16.808)
That's why we have the latter day lens, Sean, so that we can help us see the things that unite us are bigger than the things that divide us. Okay. Hey, you guys. All right. Hey, good episode this week. Listener, thank you so much for joining us. Levi, we hope you'll join us again sometime soon. It's always great to have you. All right.

Shawn (01:04:26.387)
Great point.

Levi (01:04:28.869)
to Matt all around.

Shawn (01:04:30.289)
All around.

Levi (01:04:40.569)
Yeah.

Shawn (01:04:42.215)
Yes, you will.

Levi (01:04:44.451)
I will.

Matt (01:04:45.292)
All right, hey, listener, give us feedback. Let us know what you think and we'll talk to you again next week.