Ethics, what's that?!

...but really tho.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. Undoubtedly, you're probably enjoying Two Worlds, One Cup, or whatever it is you soccer fans call it. I'm Thomas Jenkins and I'm here in the studio with Blair. This is the People's Voice Podcast here on WFUZ TV. Blair, insert prompt here.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hey, what's up? Today I want to talk about the law and ethics. Two of my very favorite things that I'm sure people are going, oh, that's so boring right now. Um, first of all, if you in case you noticed right away, I'm here today with my real hair. For those of you that talk behind the scenes about my hair all the time.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

We've gotten inquiries as to whether you were bald or not.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Frequently asked question, this is my real hair. This is what it looks like. So now you know it's nothing secretive. I just like to change it up. So uh it's not that exciting. Sorry about that. But uh back to ethics and why it's important. So we've had a lot of people on this show that are judges, lawyers, politicians, whatever. And we always ask them, you know, what motivated you, what made you get started. And, you know, some things I frequently hear are, well, God just told me to run. We hear that a lot. And we hear, well, my dad was an attorney, I'm a fifth generation attorney. I, you know, it's just like their family does it, so they do it. And I find that interesting. Um, but that's not that was not my motivation to get to go to law school and to get into politics. I want to just kind of have a brief little story time and talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

What's your story?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Okay. Um so when I was 18 years old, I got called to be a witness in a homicide case. A boy that I went to high school with and my best friend from high school were stabbed, and the boy died, and my friend almost died, and there was a murder trial, and he got convicted for attempted murder. And while this trial was happening, at the time I was 18 years old, I was really scared. I was actually pregnant with my son. I had no idea what was going on. And I got called in for depositions. I had to go through the whole court process, got called by the state as a witness, got cross-examined, saw all this stuff, and I saw a lot of things go wrong with this trial from the procedural side of it. And I was, you know, humiliated as a witness in some respects. And the trial actually got a mistrial because of jury instruction and different things that the jury was made privy to that they weren't supposed to. We had to go back and repeat the whole thing a couple years later. It was very traumatizing for everybody involved. It was a very taxing process emotionally and resources-wise, like to bring all these witnesses in over and over again and go through this. So the guy got convicted for murder, sent to life in prison, got a mistrial, then he got reconvicted for murder, life in prison, got sent back. It was a whole ordeal. But it was very eye-opening for me because the process was so messed up. There were so many things that went wrong. And after living it and being a witness in this court case, I was just like, I want to really go do it the right way. I want to put the bad guys away. I want to, you know, be a prosecutor. Of course, I didn't ever end up being a prosecutor. But the the ethics behind that, the justice behind that, the fighting for that, it was something deeply ingrained in me because I witnessed something really unjust happen and a whole community fighting for justice for this cause. And did they get it? In some respect, yes, but it was very, very hard. And I didn't think it should be that hard for people to get justice. And I really thought people should be more ethical, especially the attorneys trying the case. Like they were so unethical in a lot of things they did, to be honest. It was a big old boondoggle of a mess, as I've said before. It really was. Um so as we look now at the people running for office, I think especially some of them are lawyers or, you know, went to law school and have a legal background, have a background in policy, and they ran for office and they make laws. Like when you're electing someone to an office, they're going to be in charge of passing legislation. They need to have some legal background. That's like why I went to law school, because I wanted to be in a place to affect policy and write legislation. So if we're electing people to do that, ethics need to be the biggest part of who they are. If you're not an ethical person, you don't treat people with respect and dignity, you're not willing to stand up for what's right, then like what good are you? What good are you as a politician or as a representative if you cannot be ethical? And I think you're no good if you can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

And so how does that this tie into what's going on in our lives right now?

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Well, I seem to notice there's a pattern, as some of our friends would say, where the public is ill-informed or for whatever reason, they keep electing really unethical people. Um not all of them, a lot of them. And that's a problem. And now, you know, a lot of people you meet them, I would say I would caution anyone when someone's running for office and they just appeared out of nowhere. They're not like long-standing in the political scene, they're not like deeply involved, they don't have any like civic groups that they're associated with. They just, I want to run for office, plop, I'm here in Baldwin County, Scambia County, whatever. I'm ready to run. This is who I am.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

You're talking about like Yankee carbon bagger song bitches that go crawling off into the wire grass?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Some, yes, I'm talking about those, and I'm talking about people that live here and just didn't really get involved until they wanted to run. And now they're like, well, now I'm gonna run, so I'm gonna jump in and like try to do stuff. And they start going to all the meetings and doing all the things, but I feel like too a little too late. You need to show consistency, you need to show a background and willingness to do this, you need to have the experience when it comes to listening and being involved in your community and not just pop out of nowhere and want to do it to get elected. And let's say you lose. Let's say you lose your race. Okay, well, like if you really care, then keep doing all the things. It doesn't matter if you win or lose. You should stick around and be a voice for the people like you said you were gonna be, because it doesn't really matter if you're in office or not, you can still affect change if you really care to do it. So is it really about you or is it about the people? If you're ego-driven, it's about you and you're probably not gonna be a good representative. If you care about people, then you're gonna keep fighting and keep talking and keep, you know, actively doing what it is ever you want to do to fight for people. So I don't think it really matters if you win or lose.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

So what about the ethics of the people that are calling out the ethics of others? What about those throwing stones who have glass houses?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yes, ethics section. Uh, there's so many people out there that portray themselves one way, then you get to know them, and the mask falls off. And they they use people, they take people for granted, they, you know, get free stuff out of everybody. Everybody's a user. That's what sucks about politics. Like user, you say. Very few people are not willing to use up a connection's resources, whatever else. Everything they've worked a career for, they'll just suck it up like a freaking Dyson, suck that resource up, and it's theirs.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Dyson's an efficient machine.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yes. It is uh that's what they do, and it's sad, and I hate to see people treating other people that way, be it, you know, colleagues, whatever. Like it's just a commonplace thing, and I really hate it, and it's got me bummed out a little bit. And I can see why people have, you know, political fatigue and why they don't care about this stuff, because does it really make a difference? Like, I don't know. But I think it does still. I'm always an optimist here. I refuse to believe that changes won't ever happen. And I keep reminding myself little changes are happening here and there, but I would just caution everyone really look into someone's ethics. Don't take one, you know, entrancing speech to be what it is. Get to know somebody for over a longer length of time to see their character in their proven actions, because words are just that. Look at someone's actions, look at what they've done for you know an extended period of time before you can really get a true assessment of them. So, yeah, that's my little spiel on ethics and the law. And if you are someone who claims you uphold the law and that the law is everything to you, then do that. Because to me, it's everything. To me, it's my entire life and my entire career. So if you're, you know, not willing to uphold those things that you say you believe in, then I don't think you deserve to be perhaps elected.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

So let's pivot to ethics and ethics complaints.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

So in order to have ethics, sometimes you need to make ethics complaints. I think it is justified to call people out on their bad ethics and on things that are truly unethical, especially when they take an oath and they promise to uphold a standard of some kind when they're not willing to do that. And, you know, hesitate sometimes to say that out loud because people are so dissuaded by negativity and drama. But the truth of the matter is, if you're really someone who's ready to fight for what is right, then you need to be willing to call it out. So I am glad there are people out there calling out certain things. I would encourage everyone to look at every side of a story and look broad, look beyond one town, one city, one district, one area. Look at our country as a whole, look at all the regions and see what is happening. Because when you start to look more broadly, you will see that these are things happening all over. It's really the same people in power everywhere you go in this country. It's not really a difference between Alabama, DC, Florida, whatever else. It's kind of the same power players and the same games and the same puppeteers pulling the strings. So as we say that going forward, there've been already people running for 2028. There have been people coming out to do this. We will continue to fight in whatever way we can for what is right, for ethics, and for, you know, things that are legally sound. I think we need to keep upholding some kind of standard no matter who is in the White House or who is currently in office and what their behavior may be. That needs to reflect a standard of decorum and it will happen from both sides. So, you know, I'm making kind of a pledge to go forward to uphold that standard a little more, maybe, than I have done in the past, in terms of, you know, my personal bravado or whatever like statements that you make publicly. I think that just because things get a pass in the national news doesn't mean we as a local society need to stoop to that level sometimes. So that's kind of where I like am sitting on it. But as we go forward, I just hope everybody starts to make a little more change. This isn't such a nasty environment.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yes, as we've seen, negativity does not uh win at the polls.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Right. Nobody comes up out to vote when they're frustrated and when they feel like nothing matters and everything's trash. So everything's not trash. So let's try to remember that and let's try to, you know, keep a bright outlook going forward.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Indeed.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

That's all I got.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

All right, and with that we wish you a bluebell country day and we'll see you next time.