Meet the TOP Contender for Utah's Next Governor!

[00:00:31] Welcome, welcome back to Rise To Liberty Podcast. Today I am joined by a very special guest, much like all of our guests are very special. Today's guest is Rob Latham, the gubernatorial candidate for Utah representing the Libertarians. How are you doing today, Rob?

[00:00:53] I'm well, Jacob. Good to be with you and with your listeners and audience.

[00:00:57] Yes, definitely. Thank you so much for coming. So I don't want to, you know, hang up on a bunch of introduction things, but for anyone who doesn't know, who are you?

[00:01:12] I'm a born and raised native Utahan and have lived all over the U.S. actually, but of course most of my life in Utah.

[00:01:23] If folks know where Olympus High School and Holiday is, that's kind of my home turf. Although I've lived in Davis County, I've lived in Summit County, and I've run, by the way, for county attorney in both Davis and Salt Lake County.

[00:01:44] And then 12 years ago, I moved down south to Washington County and ran for county attorney there as well.

[00:01:54] And spent some time, by the way, growing up in Tucson, Arizona, got into that desert vibe and noticed that St. George was kind of like that, but also still in Utah, just where, again, my kind of family friends.

[00:02:10] And so being a lawyer, my license is only valid in Utah. I could get licensed in other places.

[00:02:18] But here's where kind of I choose to be and try to make a difference and, you know, protect the constitutional rights of, you know, my fellow Utah neighbors.

[00:02:27] And so this seemed like a good move and have it's been a good move down here ever since.

[00:02:33] I think when I was up in northern Utah, I felt like there was a critical mass that was starting to kind of advance the liberty movement.

[00:02:41] So I said I need to start dropping, spreading the seeds of liberty elsewhere.

[00:02:47] And so this is where I've, you know, moved to kind of engage in that effort.

[00:02:55] So that's, I think, a little bit about my background.

[00:02:58] But I'm now almost 30 years practicing law.

[00:03:03] I know it doesn't seem like that given my, you know, disposition.

[00:03:08] Other people are surprised to hear me that, but I'm older, I suppose, than I look.

[00:03:13] Well, there's not much wrong with that.

[00:03:15] Am I right?

[00:03:16] It's my good, clean libertarian living is what I get.

[00:03:21] So one question I do have, where did you find libertarianism and what was it about libertarianism that, like, drew you in and said, this is the choice that I'm making?

[00:03:36] You know, I think like with a lot of people, because sadly, I think so many of us are probably conditioned away from what probably should be a natural inclination toward, you know, the philosophy of liberty or dealing with our fellow human beings in, you know, non-aggressive, consensual way.

[00:03:58] And, you know, I was reflecting on this in the past week, because if you're in the libertarian movement long enough, people ask you about your libertarian origin story.

[00:04:08] And for the longest time, I was going back to high school debate when I was a senior.

[00:04:14] And they assigned topics when you're in debate, you know, class.

[00:04:19] That year, it happened to be agricultural policy.

[00:04:22] But there was this list of debate topics you could choose from.

[00:04:27] And the one that apparently appealed to both my debate partner and I was marijuana legalization, which you're like, what does that have to do with agricultural policy?

[00:04:38] Well, there was an argument that, you know, it is a crop.

[00:04:43] It's a significant crop in the United States.

[00:04:47] And by, you know, moving it out of the black market, we would avoid a lot of the consequences of the failed war on drugs and environmental pollution and just all kinds of negative side effects that we have from marijuana prohibition.

[00:05:04] And, of course, this was back when I was in high school, back in the mid 80s.

[00:05:09] And this was something that libertarians have been pushing since then.

[00:05:14] And as you see, of course, that movement coming across the country where we're now looking at marijuana being rescheduled to be less severe than it is now from Schedule 1, I think, to Schedule 2, if I'm not mistaken.

[00:05:27] I could be wrong on that.

[00:05:30] But that's going to make those laws less punitive in Utah and elsewhere across the nation.

[00:05:35] And so in a lot of ways, we've been vindicated.

[00:05:37] So I say that was my libertarian.

[00:05:40] I thought that was my libertarian origin story because, you know, you learn that just because something might be a moral bad.

[00:05:48] Is it really best to have a monopoly government, a state in charge of prohibiting or prescribing that moral bad?

[00:05:58] Are there more effective ways?

[00:06:00] Are there more moral ways to go about that?

[00:06:03] And I these days I don't even necessarily go that it's bad.

[00:06:07] Yes, cannabis can be a very strong medicine.

[00:06:09] And yes, people should be careful in what they're ingesting and putting into their bodies.

[00:06:16] But, you know, like a lot of other things in life, it can be used medicinally.

[00:06:21] It can be used recreationally and it can be used responsibly.

[00:06:25] And we shouldn't be putting people in cages because they're doing either of those things.

[00:06:29] And so I say that, though, just because that's an important origin story.

[00:06:35] Maybe other people arrive at libertarianism in a similar way.

[00:06:40] But what I was reflecting, I think what actually got me down this path earlier, and it is one of the things that I've made both a key part of my campaign,

[00:06:52] but also just my practice as a lawyer, was an episode that happened up in Summit County, Utah, back when I was eight years old.

[00:07:02] And there was a gentleman by the name of John Singer.

[00:07:05] And people might be familiar with the Singer family saga.

[00:07:09] And if you want to go online and research it, and his wife, you know, I think was Vicki Singer.

[00:07:16] And there was a book written about it.

[00:07:17] I think it's called American Tragedy.

[00:07:20] I could look it up maybe when we have some downside.

[00:07:23] Anyway, the short was, so this would have probably been in the mid-70s.

[00:07:29] And John Singer was this immigrant from Germany.

[00:07:34] He hated the Nazis, but because at the time when you were in Germany, you kind of had to join in the Nazis or bad things would happen to you.

[00:07:42] Escapes Germany, comes to the United States, raising his family, still has those kind of, you know, old world values,

[00:07:51] and has his kids in the government schools here in Utah.

[00:07:55] Well, he decides that he wants to remove his kids from the government schools and educate them at home.

[00:08:01] And, you know, we might say in hindsight, he had some views that we consider somewhat antisocial today.

[00:08:07] Many people still have those kind of views, but they were basically peaceful folks, you know, leaving people alone.

[00:08:12] But the school district didn't like him pulling his kids out of the school.

[00:08:16] And this was back before we had that, you know, explicit right that parents can opt their children out.

[00:08:23] So he gets kind of into it with the school district.

[00:08:26] They end up sending, you know, deputy sheriffs out to his house, you know, basically forcing his kids back that time that the precursor to Division of Child and Family Services gets involved.

[00:08:40] They're saying, you know, put your kids in school or we're going to take your kids from you.

[00:08:43] A lot of parents obviously get upset about that kind of stuff.

[00:08:47] And he so because this was back before smartphones and, you know, video surveillance in your home and that kind of stuff.

[00:08:55] We don't really know what was what was what happened.

[00:08:58] But he apparently kind of came to have a conversation with, you know, some armed member of the local law enforcement agency.

[00:09:08] Some say, you know, he he and he brought a gun with him.

[00:09:11] He brought a rifle with him.

[00:09:12] The law enforcement officer said he raised the rifle to him.

[00:09:16] Some say Singer was shot in the back.

[00:09:18] So make of that what you will.

[00:09:20] Anyway, Singer was shot dead.

[00:09:22] And that kind of created an outcry in the Utah community among parents who were wondering, gosh, you know, if this can happen to this, you know, John Singer guy, what does that mean for my rights as a parent?

[00:09:36] And and I just remember this as a young child because my my father reacted pretty strongly to that.

[00:09:44] In fact, he even kind of put me up to calling the judge in that case who kind of was responsible for an order and just making a statement about, you know, being grateful that he didn't put an order to kill my father.

[00:09:59] So I was I was thinking about that.

[00:10:02] I was like, you know, maybe that even radicalized me at that young age to some of the excesses that the government can engage in.

[00:10:10] Now, thankfully, you know, maybe we have that option now.

[00:10:14] And then, by the way, people know there was an aftermath of the Singer family and going back and forth with not just the state of Utah, but they ended up, you know, bombing a local, I think, ward house or steakhouse up in Summit County.

[00:10:29] And you can go on to the Utah Department of Corrections website.

[00:10:33] There was a corrections officer who was involved in this standoff in Marion, Utah.

[00:10:39] And they give kind of their you know, they say the winners write the history.

[00:10:43] So they have a history that's very favorable to law enforcement intervention, not so favorable to the family.

[00:10:49] They kind of portray them in a poor light.

[00:10:53] And as far as I know, though, they're just kind of living by themselves peacefully.

[00:10:59] Now, of course, going and bombing a church is isn't peaceful.

[00:11:02] And but they had this grievance and but it kind of shows when, you know, government initiates something, there can be a blowback from that.

[00:11:12] And so if we're, you know, trying to be peacemakers, trying to live peacefully with one another, it's kind of our job, in my view, to be deescalating that institutionalized aggression rather than provoking and escalating it, which sadly, I think, is kind of the.

[00:11:31] The way of a lot of state actors these days is do it our way or we're just going to escalate, escalate, escalate, provoke, provoke, provoke to get you to comply or we, you know, carry out the ultimate sanction, which is to kill those who are resisting us or objecting to what we're doing.

[00:11:49] So, you know, these days I I I was a criminal defense lawyer for a long time.

[00:11:59] And then I just as luck would have it, I stumbled into the juvenile courts in Utah and thought I would be doing kind of kiddie criminal defense, delinquency cases and whatnot.

[00:12:11] But what I ended up discovering is that most of what goes on in juvenile court involves DCFS, what I call the Division of Child and Family Separation.

[00:12:21] Of course, they don't call themselves that.

[00:12:24] And and and, you know, they are family police and they get reports from from neighbors or others that, you know, they say this family is not running their family in the way that we approve of.

[00:12:38] And these they use these definitions of abuse and neglect that are very broadly written that can almost encompass encompass any normal childhood experience.

[00:12:49] In fact, the judge before whom I normally practice would joke when a child would come in and, you know, be exploring the courtroom and, you know, maybe trip and fall down.

[00:12:59] No, he'd joke. Oh, we have another abused child.

[00:13:01] Well, funny for the judge, not so funny for the family who has to show up to court on a regular basis, maybe take time off of their work, have their family under surveillance for often about a year before they can get DCFS from leaving their family alone and going back to where they were.

[00:13:23] And there are federal incentives that kind of create, you know, this this system.

[00:13:30] And anyway, I so as a lawyer doing this, I I started representing parents who had these family policing cases going on and just began to, you know, discover what what a racket and an injustice it was.

[00:13:48] And and and I'm so I'm still doing that work now.

[00:13:51] Now, I was so effective in doing it that, number one, an adoption attorney who's also a deputy county attorney or was down here complained.

[00:14:02] She was also, by the way, the prosecutor in the juvenile court.

[00:14:04] So she would kind of and she used to be what's called a guardian ad liens.

[00:14:08] So these are attorneys who represent young people in these cases.

[00:14:13] And then she flipped, went to be a county attorney, also an adoption attorney.

[00:14:17] And then in Utah, we have the attorney general's office.

[00:14:22] Assistant attorney generals also represent DCFS.

[00:14:25] They represent many state agencies, but one of them is DCFS.

[00:14:28] So they represent DCFS in these kind of cases.

[00:14:31] Anyway, I started having apparently more success in juvenile court cases, these family surveillance cases than they were used to.

[00:14:40] Over time, they had caseworkers and they had the attorneys and whatnot complain to the county commissioners.

[00:14:47] And in Utah, those who represent people who can't afford to represent or hire a lawyer get court appointed counsel.

[00:14:54] So that's the way it works in Utah.

[00:14:56] Other states are different, but we still have it county by county.

[00:14:59] And of course, most families who are regulated by DCFS are folks who cannot afford their own attorney.

[00:15:09] No big surprise there.

[00:15:11] They go after people who usually can't fight back.

[00:15:14] And so anyway, they decided that I was too effective in representing family rights, which is, by the way, constitutionally protected.

[00:15:25] And it's one of the highest protected rights.

[00:15:27] We don't talk about that a lot.

[00:15:29] I mean, think about freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

[00:15:32] These are fundamental rights that the United States Supreme Court says that we have.

[00:15:37] Well, family integrity is also one of those constitutional rights.

[00:15:41] And yet it's probably one of the least regarded or protected rights in our judicial system.

[00:15:49] So that's been just kind of the eye opening experience for me when I got into that, probably in the mid 20 teens and have been anyway paying attention to that ever since.

[00:16:02] So going back to the county commissioners, they complain to county commissioners.

[00:16:06] They said, we're not renewing your contract.

[00:16:09] They didn't give me a reason why.

[00:16:12] I think everybody in the legal community understands the reason why.

[00:16:16] And so here we are.

[00:16:18] And maybe the good news, not even though I you know, one can feel bad for the families in Washington County, you know, who who maybe don't have the benefit of my assistance unless they can afford or have a loved one or or friends to to hire me.

[00:16:34] And these cases are not cheap at all.

[00:16:36] Yeah, sadly, they are like divorce cases plus criminal cases.

[00:16:42] And they're just, you know, people gripe about all the money they pay in divorce and custody cases.

[00:16:47] Well, add, you know, the criminal element to it.

[00:16:50] And it's it's just usually a very time intensive mess.

[00:16:53] And that's what the state tries to do is when people put up a fight, they try to grind them down.

[00:16:58] They try to exhaust their resources to get what they want.

[00:17:03] And so Utah, a couple of years ago, started what's called the Utah Indigent Defense Commission.

[00:17:09] It's a statewide agency.

[00:17:11] It's just still kind of in its, you know, fledgling time.

[00:17:14] But once my, you know, my Washington County opportunity went away, you know, they approached me and said, hey, you know, we can tell that you're a person who's willing to fight for their clients rather than just roll over.

[00:17:27] Do you want to come work with us?

[00:17:29] And I said, sure.

[00:17:30] And they had some interesting opportunities.

[00:17:32] So I'm now doing that kind of work with them and also going back and doing the criminal stuff that I originally kind of came down here to do.

[00:17:41] And then, of course, on occasion, I, you know, I still have private clients.

[00:17:45] So they allow me to do that.

[00:17:48] And anyway, that's the kind of work I'm doing.

[00:17:50] And I'm enjoying doing that.

[00:17:53] They say that, you know, lawyers are foot soldiers of the Constitution.

[00:17:56] And I love the fact that I get to go into court and assert, you know, the constitutional rights on behalf of my clients and just make sure that they're treated fairly in the process.

[00:18:08] I shouldn't say make sure I try the best I can.

[00:18:11] I can only do so much as one person.

[00:18:13] Often there are a lot of institutional forces arrayed against the individual and against families.

[00:18:19] And you can only do so, so much.

[00:18:21] But I like to think that, you know, based on the positive feedback I've received from my clients, not necessarily attorneys on the other side of me in courtroom, that I'm doing an okay job.

[00:18:32] Yeah. So would you say that it's fair?

[00:18:36] Would you say that this characterization would be a fair statement to make, that you have been a survivor of seeing the overreach of government as somebody on the outside, but also experiencing it on the inside through your practice as an adult?

[00:18:57] Sure, I do think that's fair.

[00:18:59] You know, in our professional work, we attend these things called continuing legal education courses, kind of ongoing training to maintain our licenses.

[00:19:08] And a frequent topic, by the way, is secondary trauma.

[00:19:13] So we see it's horrible to see a family, you know, dismantled and terminated by DCFS.

[00:19:22] You know, they call it the civil death penalty.

[00:19:24] And again, one of the things I'm, you know, adamant about is that we can protect children, even when they have, and I have seen a handful of cases.

[00:19:35] You know, I don't want to deny that abuse and neglect doesn't ever happen.

[00:19:40] That maybe doesn't warrant that kind of, you know, at least physical separation to protect a child from, you know, an unhealthy situation.

[00:19:49] But what we're also discovering is that completely severing that.

[00:19:55] And so what they do is they say, well, we've got to basically tell this child that these are their parents, their biological parents.

[00:20:03] We're never in the picture.

[00:20:03] And that creates more problems down the road.

[00:20:07] Things like ambiguous loss and adverse childhood experiences and a lot of the data.

[00:20:13] So this goes back to my criminal defense practice.

[00:20:15] I go and I talk to my clients, you know, who are incarcerated or in prison.

[00:20:19] And I started noticing a disproportionate number of them are adopted children.

[00:20:24] And I said, huh, that's kind of odd because why would that be showing up more than just in the regular population?

[00:20:31] Turns out the data is all there.

[00:20:33] And, you know, and I get I've talked to some folks who, you know, are adopted.

[00:20:37] And I don't want to say that's, you know, a universally horrible experience.

[00:20:42] But the numbers don't lie.

[00:20:43] And it's a disproportionate number of folks who are adopted who just have adverse, you know, outcomes long term.

[00:20:52] So what's the solution to that?

[00:20:54] The solution is we have things called permanent custody and guardianship.

[00:20:58] And we also have, you know, open adoptions.

[00:21:01] Just maintaining that family tie.

[00:21:04] So when the child, you know, say goes and has a DNA test, which many more are having now and say, oh, I guess the folks I thought were mom and dad are not mom and dad.

[00:21:14] You know, what is my identity?

[00:21:17] They can do that.

[00:21:18] They can know their origin story.

[00:21:20] They don't have to suffer that ambiguous loss.

[00:21:23] And that that ideally should be a lot more healthier for them than what we're doing now and all the trauma that we're creating.

[00:21:31] And again, it's not just traumatic for the children.

[00:21:33] It's also traumatic for, you know, the biological parents who, you know, lose that child.

[00:21:39] And there's all kinds of, you know, when you think about how a family builds intergenerational wealth.

[00:21:46] And usually a lot of the adoptees, adoptive families are well to do.

[00:21:54] They have means.

[00:21:55] And by adding another child, they are gaining what this family without means is losing.

[00:22:01] Yeah.

[00:22:02] And it's interesting kind of to look at that as just another involuntary transfer of wealth.

[00:22:10] So one question I want to ask is, what is the reason that you wanted to run for governor of Utah?

[00:22:21] Obviously, it seems as though that you were doing quite wonderful work within the state of Utah and have done wonderful work.

[00:22:28] So what what was it that made you look at what is going on in the governor's office, the governor's mansion, I assume, in some cases that made you say that this is something that I have to jump into.

[00:22:43] I feel as though this is what I have to offer because whatever is working is not working.

[00:22:50] Right. So because the governor runs the Division of Child and Family Services and because the governor makes appointments to the juvenile court.

[00:23:04] And recently I just I wrote a guest commentary that was published in both the Provo Daily Herald and I believe the Ogden Standard Examiner kind of talking about we need to end what an author Dorothy Roberts has called the benevolent terror of the family policing system.

[00:23:22] So, again, just this.

[00:23:24] Boy, howdy.

[00:23:25] Yeah, this thing that I think a lot of a lot of people don't want to talk about.

[00:23:29] And I get it.

[00:23:30] I get that it can be very uncomfortable to talk about.

[00:23:33] Nobody wants to even contemplate the idea that the government can just swoop in and, you know, take their children away or at least, you know, intervene in a very significant way with their families.

[00:23:46] And and the governor is the one who administers all that.

[00:23:50] And when I've, you know, butted heads with, you know, the folks at DCFS, it's been, you know, department heads and regional directors and those folks.

[00:24:00] And just in studying this scene, the federal financial incentives involved.

[00:24:06] It's it's going to be the governor's office where that can those changes can be made.

[00:24:12] Can they also be made at the attorney general's office?

[00:24:15] Yes.

[00:24:15] Yes.

[00:24:16] But I think we also have a good candidate doing that.

[00:24:20] Andrew McCullough in that race who both through his own work and I think I've I recruited in back when I was the party chair of the Utah Libertarian Party many years ago in the 90s to run for attorney general.

[00:24:34] And so I know he's been sensitized to those issues over the years and has also represented a number of parents now in these kind of cases himself.

[00:24:42] So so he's aware of that.

[00:24:44] And, you know, maybe down down the road, I will take take a turn at running for attorney general.

[00:24:51] But for this election cycle, it seemed like a good fit.

[00:24:56] Not too many people were talking about it.

[00:24:59] There seems to be a raised awareness of these kind of family policing issues and problems in there.

[00:25:05] I think I'm well positioned just given my, you know, professional experience in that space to talk about it.

[00:25:12] And so I'm happy to bring it up.

[00:25:15] And, you know, for better or for worse, the incumbent has really teed up the issue for for for us in terms of making this big push for, you know, trying to get more foster parents.

[00:25:28] And by the way, I don't want to, you know, bad mouth foster parents.

[00:25:33] I've encountered in my work some great foster parents.

[00:25:36] I sometimes like, gosh, can you adopt me?

[00:25:38] I mean, you're great.

[00:25:39] And, you know, they're really trying to step in and really engage in kind of a healing attitude there and also recognizing that they're there temporarily and they're not there to permanently, you know, take this child.

[00:25:54] Sadly, there are probably more who see foster parenting as a cheaper way to adopt a child.

[00:26:02] And and and also they get money.

[00:26:04] So they have a financial incentive to take the child into their home.

[00:26:09] And then when it comes for court review hearings, say the child saying this bad thing about mom and this bad thing about dad.

[00:26:16] And so we keep got to keep the family separated for longer.

[00:26:20] And and and it should that shouldn't be that way.

[00:26:22] So we're being given this perverse incentive to keep the family separated longer than it should be or separated forever.

[00:26:30] So we just have a lot of bad incentives in the system now.

[00:26:35] And I think a lot of people are just not aware of it.

[00:26:39] Yeah, the juvenile courts are public.

[00:26:42] Usually anybody can walk into a proceeding and and observe it and just not a lot do.

[00:26:47] And so I think a lot of this just gets hidden from the public.

[00:26:51] I also learned, by the way, that in Utah, our government run schools mandate that children have to get to courses, basically, in what adoption is.

[00:27:04] And and I didn't know that either.

[00:27:07] I think it was a relatively new law.

[00:27:11] And those of us who kind of, you know, have been paying attention to the space.

[00:27:15] You know, we kind of talk about big adoption.

[00:27:18] These adoption industries and agencies that have a financial incentive to, you know, and I call it state sponsored child trafficking, where they use the state agency to remove the child from the home.

[00:27:30] Then they put the child on what they call a marketplace, believe it or not.

[00:27:35] And and then the people who are interested in adopting children can look at the available children and kind of indicate their preference.

[00:27:41] And it's a little of the notes.

[00:27:44] Yeah, no, it's it's it was I kind of was stunned when, you know, I saw them use the terminology they did.

[00:27:51] And and so and I'm trying I'm maybe losing my train of thought of where I was was going with some of this.

[00:28:01] Maybe we need to back back up.

[00:28:03] And I anyway, the reason you were running for governor was was what I had asked you.

[00:28:10] OK, well, there was there was an interim point in in some of that.

[00:28:15] Well, I think we were talking about the financial incentives.

[00:28:19] Yes.

[00:28:20] For those for, you know, the family.

[00:28:22] So, you know, I think being, you know, be a rate.

[00:28:26] We're talking about raising awareness and what happens in the courtroom.

[00:28:29] That's where that's where it's going.

[00:28:31] So a couple of years ago, there was an attorney who was in the same spot that I was, who I guess, you know, parental rights were terminated for his client.

[00:28:41] And then he ends up showing up to the subsequent legal process, which is an adoption proceeding at the adoption hearing.

[00:28:48] And, you know, making objections to what was going on, because that attorney saw as what I do.

[00:28:56] It's state sponsored child trafficking.

[00:28:58] Well, guess what the courts do?

[00:28:59] They close adoption proceedings.

[00:29:02] So now what used to be open to the public are now closed to the public.

[00:29:06] Now, I've sat outside in courtrooms waiting for other cases to kind of come and go.

[00:29:11] And when they have an adoption thing, you know, they invite in the extended family and maybe friends and whatever.

[00:29:18] And people are, you know, often dressed in their Sunday best.

[00:29:21] And it's like this big celebration.

[00:29:24] But they are not really paying attention to the long term consequences that we know these adoptees face.

[00:29:32] And by the way, I'll just, you know, for those who are listening, there are national organizations for adoptees.

[00:29:39] You can just Google.

[00:29:40] There's Adoptees Connect, National Association for Adoptees and Parents.

[00:29:46] There's many organizations out there.

[00:29:48] Go to my website, freeutons.org.

[00:29:51] And I link to some books and resources that can, you know, provide support.

[00:29:57] There's a good organization in Salt Lake City that has worked with me just on kind of connecting people together on that.

[00:30:07] So, again, just when we're talking about government and overreach and why, you know, we can talk.

[00:30:12] There are all different flavors of government overreach.

[00:30:15] This is one that I don't think gets talked about enough.

[00:30:19] Again, I think I'm one of the few people kind of uniquely positioned to talk about this aspect of government overreach.

[00:30:27] It's one of the things that when the Utah Foundation issued their 2024 Utah Priority Survey of Utahns, what most they were concerned about, government overreach ranked, you know, among the highest.

[00:30:40] And, of course, housing was there and also politicians not listening to voters was there.

[00:30:46] And we can talk about, you know, that and what I'm proposing as a remedy to that in a little bit.

[00:30:51] But I think if we can raise awareness of government overreach in the family policing system, people will look at that, I think, in a more skeptical and critical way.

[00:31:04] And there are places around the country who are also looking at this, looking at ways to reform it.

[00:31:12] Some say abolish it because it can't be reformed.

[00:31:14] And, by the way, when we talk about abolishing, people say, well, would you just do nothing?

[00:31:19] No, we wouldn't just do nothing.

[00:31:21] But just like prison abolition, we reimagine it.

[00:31:24] How do we solve these problems without this family policing system?

[00:31:30] Because these problems existed before the family policing system was constructed.

[00:31:35] And so going forward, how can we do that in a healthy way?

[00:31:39] So what are some states doing?

[00:31:41] They're proposing what's called a family Miranda law.

[00:31:45] So when, you know, a DCFS caseworker comes to your door and wants to talk to you about your family,

[00:31:52] in most states, they don't get to tell you your rights, even though, you know, they basically act like cops.

[00:32:01] And you have constitutional rights as a parent not to let that DCFS caseworker in,

[00:32:06] not to let that DCFS caseworker talk to your children without a court order.

[00:32:11] But a lot of parents don't know that.

[00:32:13] So they just, you know, comply because they and I've seen police videos in criminal cases where,

[00:32:18] you know, the officer on their body worn camera will say, do what we say or we're taking your kids away.

[00:32:24] That's an incredibly horrific threat that these agents of the state make to parents.

[00:32:30] A lot of parents would gladly, you know, go to jail rather than have their kids taken into the system.

[00:32:36] So it's this incredibly coercive power that the state wields, you know, against families.

[00:32:42] And so a lot of states are saying, let's try to balance out, you know, that power, that power imbalance,

[00:32:49] that that power dynamic and let families know that they have rights when a caseworker comes.

[00:32:55] So one's a family Miranda law.

[00:32:57] Another is the mandatory reporter law.

[00:33:01] So a lot of us say, you know, gosh, when when we know that a child is being hurt,

[00:33:08] shouldn't it just make sense that the person should be required to go to the police and say, hey, this child, you know, is in danger?

[00:33:16] And morally, I think we can largely agree that that's that's usually a good thing to do.

[00:33:24] However, there are cases where that may not be an appropriate thing to do.

[00:33:28] And also what we see is that a lot of people with licensure in the health care field overdo it.

[00:33:35] They they report something where maybe they shouldn't have reported just to err on the side of caution,

[00:33:41] because what's happened and I've seen, you know, letters from the attorney general's office and others threatening,

[00:33:47] you know, not just health care workers, but also large hospital systems.

[00:33:52] You do this practice or we're taking your license away.

[00:33:56] So they're obviously using the big stick of government to say, hey, we want you to be, you know, a snitch.

[00:34:01] And, you know, sadly funnel these children into our, you know, child trafficking funnel.

[00:34:08] So, you know, we can give them to folks who are politically favored in Utah, you know,

[00:34:13] rather than people we think shouldn't have families, shouldn't have children.

[00:34:17] So it's this very pernicious practice.

[00:34:21] And and and we're also, by the way, recognizing Utah.

[00:34:26] And this just happened in the past legislative session where they codified in law that members of the clergy do not have to be mandatory reporters.

[00:34:36] So it was a little unclear before whether they were required to or not required to.

[00:34:43] There were some pushbacks that, you know, especially among the Catholic Church, this they can possibly be defrocked if they violate what's told to them in confession.

[00:34:54] So but but the Utah legislature agreed and said, OK, we're going to let these folks make that decision for themselves with their own conscience as to whether they should report it or not.

[00:35:05] Why can't we extend that to everybody else?

[00:35:07] Why should the rest of this face a criminal penalty and potentially be thrown in a cage?

[00:35:12] If we decide we using our own discretion, there might be a better way to solve this family's problem than going to the family police.

[00:35:22] So so and there's never been any and I linked to an article on this.

[00:35:27] But, you know, there were never any studies on whether mandatory reporter laws do any good.

[00:35:33] Now, some people might say, well, of course, but where's the data?

[00:35:37] And the data suggests, again, that because you have this either over involvement by health care professionals or under involvement by people who do who are aware of abuse or neglect.

[00:35:49] But they don't want to say anything because the reaction from the state is so disproportionate to maybe the harm that they're seeing.

[00:35:57] And some people, you know, talk about maybe rather than mandatory reporters.

[00:36:01] How about mandatory supporters?

[00:36:03] So if you see a problem, why don't you, you know, be neighborly, exercise some mutual aid and see if that family needs some support?

[00:36:12] And again, we see some horrible situations.

[00:36:15] And I use the example if you want, you know, you know, what would the radical libertarian approach maybe be?

[00:36:22] One might be kind of a libertarian A-team.

[00:36:25] A-team is a reference to an old, I think, 1980s, 1970s TV series involving Mr. T and other colorful individuals.

[00:36:34] They were basically kind of former military.

[00:36:37] Now they're like a, you know, mercenary squad.

[00:36:39] People could hire to solve a problem when the government wasn't able to solve their problem or wasn't willing to solve their problem.

[00:36:46] So, you know, I think those are ways.

[00:36:49] And by the way, Utah has a statute that any individual in Utah, if they see a problem with a family, they don't have to call DCFS and wait for DCFS to do something.

[00:37:00] They can go to court themselves and say, judge, here's a problem.

[00:37:05] And I would like to be the solution for that problem.

[00:37:09] Now, would that be expensive?

[00:37:11] Yes, are a lot of people by relying on DCFS engage what I call rent seeking, right?

[00:37:17] That's getting other people to pay for something you want to have happen.

[00:37:21] When you go to DCFS, that's basically what you're doing is you're saying, I think somebody, something should happen to this family, but I don't want to pay for the something that should happen to this family.

[00:37:32] So that kind of perpetually grows the state at that point.

[00:37:35] If nobody wants to pay for it, the whole not in my backyard thing.

[00:37:40] Yeah.

[00:37:41] And then that's going to grow the state, increase taxes.

[00:37:44] Right.

[00:37:45] Exactly.

[00:37:46] So that's, you know, and then, you know, one thing, you know, as a gubernatorial candidate in this space, I'd like to see happen.

[00:37:55] So we have these federal funds that, you know, basically put bounties on children to remove them from families.

[00:38:02] And the more severe the intervention, the bigger the bounty.

[00:38:06] So that puts an incentive on DCFS to do the termination of parental rights because they get more money for that outcome than they get, say, for returning the children to the family or for doing an interim measure, maybe placing with what's called kinship.

[00:38:21] A lot of times we try to do that if it doesn't look like, you know, it's in the cards to return the children to the family.

[00:38:27] We say, well, how about, you know, an aunt and uncle, a cousin, whatever, so that, you know, family bond can remain.

[00:38:34] And and oftentimes we find DCFS fighting us on that.

[00:38:38] And they won't say it in open court, but they get more money if they just completely take this children away from, you know, even extended family and which is just super unfortunate.

[00:38:49] And so that's, again, why I'm one of those who until they fix those problems that I think are kind of rippling throughout our society, creating all these bad outcomes.

[00:39:02] So we're living with these generations of folks who are torn apart from their families and just all the survivor trauma that they have to deal with.

[00:39:10] And, you know, I'm in favor of dismantling DCFS until they can fix that.

[00:39:16] So, again, I think the governor's, you know, race, the governor's position is the best place to affect that change.

[00:39:23] I'd like to see an audit of those federal funds.

[00:39:26] I don't think that's been done in quite some time.

[00:39:29] It would be interesting to see how those federal funds are being used and what policies DCFS is using.

[00:39:36] Are they cherry picking again?

[00:39:40] And there's been some interesting data.

[00:39:42] There's a gentleman.

[00:39:43] He's a law professor back east, I think, in Maryland.

[00:39:45] Daniel Hatcher wrote a book and some other law journals, but his book is The Poverty Industry.

[00:39:52] And he talks about how there are these private contracting firms that advise states on how to score, you know, families based on risk levels.

[00:40:00] And can we, you know, get those federal funds for adoption?

[00:40:03] Can we get survivor benefits from Social Security for children who have lost their parents?

[00:40:08] We've seen that scenario where, you know, a child has lost, you know, one or both parents.

[00:40:14] They're entitled to assess benefits.

[00:40:16] But then the state says, hey, we'll just take those because now you're in our custody.

[00:40:20] So we get those.

[00:40:22] They're not going to the child.

[00:40:23] They're going to the state.

[00:40:26] And that is shameful.

[00:40:28] It's shameful.

[00:40:29] It's shameful.

[00:40:30] And, you know, the good news is there is starting to be some raised awareness about these practices, but obviously not enough.

[00:40:37] So, you know, part of my campaign is just to raise awareness of those kind of practices because awareness is going to be the first step towards correcting those practices.

[00:40:46] So this is kind of an off-the-cuff question that doesn't necessarily have to do with your campaign per se, but it is related to the topic.

[00:40:59] And it's mainly for the Utah people watching.

[00:41:03] But what is your take based on what you know, if and how much you know about the Ruby Frankie case?

[00:41:13] Because I believe that's down more in the southern Utah area.

[00:41:18] That's definitely in my neck of the woods.

[00:41:21] I followed it a little bit.

[00:41:24] I'm actually, I have to be a little circumspect in what I say because I was basically retained for someone tangentially involved in that matter.

[00:41:39] So, but I, you know, I can tell you what is public information and in the news, but I also have to be somewhat circumspect because there were just a lot of people around the immediate players.

[00:41:54] Who were, you know, who were, you know, being investigated and, you know, they, some came to me for guidance on that.

[00:42:04] So is this, let's see if I can ask this in a way that you would be able to answer.

[00:42:12] Okay.

[00:42:12] Is, is, is this in, in your opinion, would, would this be a less or more typical scenario in, in the state of Utah?

[00:42:28] Oh, not typical at all.

[00:42:31] No, not typical at all.

[00:42:33] I mean, this, this was definitely a, a outlier for sure.

[00:42:39] And, and, and, you know, this is one of those cases where I say, was this an appropriate case in which to intervene?

[00:42:46] Yes, it was.

[00:42:47] Now, again, I looking at that case though, and back to the story of there were family members that knew or had a strong suspicion of what was going on.

[00:42:57] Now, maybe not to the extent of some of the stuff, but they said, gosh, we called DCFS.

[00:43:04] DCFS, we called DCFS.

[00:43:07] They could have stepped up and use this law in Utah to go to court and ask a judge to intervene.

[00:43:13] And, and, and again, that would have been an expensive proposition.

[00:43:17] And I get that.

[00:43:18] Yeah.

[00:43:19] Uh, but if they thought it was so important, you know, what, why did they wait for DCFS to act or not act?

[00:43:26] And we've seen, you know, it's tough because we see other cases and then DCFS gets criticized for not intervening where they're like, you know, how did you miss all these red flags?

[00:43:36] And, and the sad part is then they overdo it on very marginal cases, um, where, you know, somebody administers a spanking and, um, whether you agree in spankings or not, we, we have law in Utah.

[00:43:51] That reasonable discipline is, is okay.

[00:43:54] Um, and, and, and yet we have DCFS getting involved in those kinds of cases.

[00:43:59] Uh, and then, you know, they're gray areas.

[00:44:02] So sometimes we have to have a court hearing about whether it was appropriate spanking or not, you know, who's an expert on that kind of stuff.

[00:44:09] And it's just often left up to someone's kind of personal preference.

[00:44:13] Uh, you know, just very arbitrary way as to whether, you know, you're going to have your family surveilled, um, or not.

[00:44:20] Uh, and so, but back to that case, no, I, but in my career, you know, and maybe doing this now for six, seven years, I mean, I can still count on one hand, the number of cases I've seen.

[00:44:33] And there was another horrible one.

[00:44:35] I know in Southern Utah that kind of made national news where I'm like, yeah, that was appropriate for, um, someone to get involved.

[00:44:42] Uh, but you know, I, I always think again, people say, why are you so critical of the state?

[00:44:48] And, and are you, you know, anti-government?

[00:44:50] No, I'm not anti-government.

[00:44:52] I'm anti-monopoly government.

[00:44:53] I think if we had, uh, competing governments, um, you know, governments like signing up for insurance, uh, dispute resolution organizations, call them different names, what you want.

[00:45:04] That's going to be a more efficient and a more effective way of solving problems than waiting for, you know, monopoly government to get around to maybe doing what we hope it will do.

[00:45:12] And they almost never do what those who feel like something needs to be done, you know, wants to have happen.

[00:45:19] Um, but again, handful of cases where I thought intervention was appropriate.

[00:45:24] And, and in many other cases, uh, we, we have this option in Utah called voluntary services.

[00:45:31] So routinely in these kinds of cases, I'll say, can we do voluntary services, uh, with this family?

[00:45:38] And usually the division will say no.

[00:45:40] And the, and the division DCFS will say no because they don't get federal funding from voluntary services.

[00:45:46] So they kind of need to justify themselves, um, by having an open court case and, um, you know, monitoring this family for months on end.

[00:45:56] Yeah.

[00:45:57] So I'm, I'm one of these people who are incredibly critical of all things, anything government.

[00:46:05] And I, I always, uh, and this is just my personal stance is I always begin with the worst possible that I could imagine and then work my way backwards, uh, until, you know, proven otherwise is it's the government's fault.

[00:46:21] It's them that's guilty until proven otherwise.

[00:46:23] And maybe that's just because of what I have lived through personally, what I have seen.

[00:46:29] Um, and to me, it seems as though that the larger the organization itself, the more issues that we run into.

[00:46:39] Um, I don't disagree that something like DCFS should exist, but I believe that it would be a lot more controlled, um, a lot more transparency.

[00:46:53] At the county level versus a state agency.

[00:46:57] A state agency.

[00:46:58] There's a lot to hide behind at that level.

[00:47:01] There are, although all, I mean, the, the horror stories run in all kinds of directions and at all levels of government.

[00:47:09] And, you know, when you say county, you know, we're, we're in Utah, but hop over to California where they have these huge counties that, that dwarf our state.

[00:47:20] And, um, they're there.

[00:47:23] They often do these, you know, family policing at the county level.

[00:47:27] And they, I hear all kinds of horror stories when I'm comparing notes with my peers who also work in this field.

[00:47:35] And then going into rural Utah, where there's just not a lot of oversight and it's the good old boy club.

[00:47:41] And, um, you know, so they, they have less kind of pushback because, you know, again, if you get out of line, then you don't have the contract to do the defender work anymore.

[00:47:53] And so nobody's kind of keeping them honest.

[00:47:57] And, and so I often see a lot of worse abuses in the rural parts of Utah, just because there is not a larger system keeping them accountable.

[00:48:07] Yeah.

[00:48:08] So I don't know what, what the magic number is.

[00:48:11] Um, and, and, and so I know where some of the reform energy is going on in Utah is saying we do need a statewide defender system just because then we can, uh, get that critical mass.

[00:48:32] And, and, and, and, and, and I think at the end of the day, what I come back to, it's just a, a problematic system.

[00:48:53] It's a failed system that gives perverse incentives.

[00:48:56] And that's why it's a system that needs to be abolished.

[00:48:58] And if we had something, you know, maybe with, you know, bounties, um, and again, you know, back to the 18 model, um, where, you know, folks have financial incentives, but also accountability.

[00:49:10] If they get it wrong, um, you know, again, a more decentralized model that, that might be a better way.

[00:49:17] Just, you know, you can do a very targeted approach to these problem areas.

[00:49:22] And, and I think, you know, we see different parts of our community where we're saying we need to focus our attention on this problem area here.

[00:49:29] And just the way, when you hit your, you know, cause to the state, you know, everybody gets, you know, taken around, taken along for, for the ride, so to speak.

[00:49:38] And, and, and so, um, where, whereas we have a decentralized model, we can have different approaches that, and, you know, there may be different solutions for different problems.

[00:49:48] So, but I, you know, I, I come back to you, the libertarian analysis often is, um, here's a problem.

[00:49:55] And we, you know, say, you know, that many people want to say, well, that was a market failure.

[00:50:00] We say, well, was, was this a case of government failure or state failure?

[00:50:05] Um, what, what role did the government play in, in this problem?

[00:50:10] Yeah.

[00:50:10] I mean, until I see otherwise, just my personal opinion is that it's usually correct.

[00:50:17] Uh, to blame them or their intervention in some way or another.

[00:50:22] Um, usually where they shouldn't be, um, seems to be what I, what I have noticed.

[00:50:28] And, you know, maybe, maybe the solution isn't quite so complicated.

[00:50:32] Maybe it is just as simple as strengthening our communities and being able to look out for one another as, as we used to.

[00:50:40] Um, and one thing I think you pointed on that's very important,

[00:50:46] which I think is at the core of a lot of the issues, regardless of who's at fault or what institution is at fault.

[00:50:52] And that's incentive.

[00:50:54] Uh, people do not work or do anything without some sort of incentive.

[00:50:59] I mean, it, it could be what, what, whatever it is, there is an incentive.

[00:51:05] Um, even, even doing, doing things that are, um, you know, in act of others, uh, doing, doing good things for other people.

[00:51:16] You're still, you're still doing good because you're getting a good feeling from it or, you know, something as simple as that.

[00:51:23] There is always an incentive to do something.

[00:51:25] Yes.

[00:51:26] And, and I believe that these incentives are typically directed in, in the wrong way, such as there's an incentive for DCFS to, uh, rip certain families apart, not give them to other family members because they get more funding.

[00:51:40] Because there's a financial incentive to do the absolute worst thing possible.

[00:51:47] Um, so maybe it is as simple as that, but.

[00:51:51] And even if they're, and if I could just interject real quick, even if they didn't have the funding, sadly, I think part of the motivation is that power dynamic.

[00:51:59] Um, and just one of the things I'll be promoting in the campaign is this book called corruptible by Brian class.

[00:52:07] And he kind of talks about, there are certain people just drawn to power and they possess these dark triad personality traits and government is just, you know, like moths to a flame for folks with these personality traits.

[00:52:20] And, and, and when you add elements like qualified immunity, you know, there's no accountability if they get it wrong.

[00:52:27] Uh, and, and, and so, whereas, you know, again, in other situations, yes, it might be in our financial best interest, or as you're talking about, even our enlightened self-interest, you know, to do good.

[00:52:38] Um, those, those incentives and that accountability is often not present, uh, you know, when you're working for a state agency that, you know, is, is not responding to those kinds of incentives.

[00:52:51] So I do kind of want to shift gears here just a little bit.

[00:52:55] Um, uh, but sticking with incentives, what is the incentive for the voters of Utah to go with the libertarian option versus Republican or Democrat, even though Republican is the, the big player in the state, of course.

[00:53:14] Right.

[00:53:15] Well, I, I'm appealing to those who are either libertarian already and know they're libertarian.

[00:53:23] And maybe we'll talk about, you know, kind of what that means, or they're just discovering they were libertarian.

[00:53:28] So libertarian, you know, um, basically a person who adopts what's called the non-aggression principle feels that in initiating force or fraud is immoral.

[00:53:40] Um, and then our kind of philosophical system kind of evolves from there.

[00:53:48] Um, you know, the golden rule do unto others, you know, as you would have them do unto you.

[00:53:53] Um, and libertarian is, I think, you know, kind of goes nicely with almost all ethical moral traditions in the world.

[00:54:01] So there have been surveys over the years where they kind of look at people's policy preferences.

[00:54:08] Um, and those numbers generally have shown about 15 to 20% of the population is small L libertarian.

[00:54:17] So we, when we talk about small L and large L, large L kind of refers to libertarian party.

[00:54:22] Small L is, is, you know, libertarian in your outlook on the world and how, how society ought to, you know, govern itself and, and, and people ought to interact with each other.

[00:54:32] So there, there should be my, I recognize that maybe not everybody in the world is a libertarian or supports libertarian policy solutions.

[00:54:44] But when you come to an election, uh, you know, our candidates often get in the single digits, um, in the vote.

[00:54:52] So why is there that disconnect?

[00:54:54] Well, we can talk about, there was this thing called Diverger's law.

[00:54:57] Diverger, Maurice Diverger was this, uh, I guess, French either mathematician or economist.

[00:55:02] And he looked at election systems and he talked about if you have something called first past the post, which is what we have in the United States.

[00:55:09] So it's for the person who doesn't get the most votes, but, but they get, well, sorry, they do get the most votes.

[00:55:14] They don't get a majority of votes.

[00:55:16] When you have those kinds of election systems, then it usually creates two strong parties and then marginalizes everybody else.

[00:55:24] And that's why you see basically, you know, what I call the duopoly in the United States.

[00:55:29] You also see that to some extent, uh, in Canada and Great Britain, some of the last countries who have this first past the post system.

[00:55:37] Most of the, you know, small D democratic countries in the world.

[00:55:41] And I like to use the example of Costa Rica, where they have a proportional representation system, uh, means if you get 10% of the vote, you get 10% of the seats in your legislative or policymaking body.

[00:55:53] And there was some outfit called the movement until libertario.

[00:55:56] So it was the libertarian party of Costa Rica and, uh, one election cycle, they got 10% of the votes.

[00:56:02] So they got 10% of the seats.

[00:56:04] And I think places like New Zealand and Australia are also now doing some proportional representation.

[00:56:11] And so the, the nice thing about that is that yes, in those situations, libertarians aren't, aren't winning the government, but they're getting a seat at the table and they're getting a fair and proportional, um, you know, voice when those votes come up.

[00:56:26] And maybe in certain situations, they can form coalitions with other, other parties, um, as, as part of a coalition government.

[00:56:34] Um, there were possible prospects of that happening in Germany, uh, a while back.

[00:56:40] I know they just had another election.

[00:56:41] I haven't looked at the full details of that.

[00:56:43] Um, but so, so anyway, why vote libertarian?

[00:56:48] I, I, you know, a big thing in my campaign is grow the Liberty vote.

[00:56:52] Let's just stand up and be counted as, as to where we are in Utah.

[00:56:57] And, and I like to say, because in Utah, we still are kind of in a place where we know the Republicans going to win.

[00:57:03] Um, we have, we have the ability to vote our conscience.

[00:57:07] Um, and I've noticed a lot of the, uh, discussion, you know, where some people, you know, we have a very unique dynamic where we had a very split, um, Republican party right now in terms of what happened in convention and what happened in the primary.

[00:57:21] And so now there's a writing candidacy and people are saying, you know, oh no, if we vote for the writing candidate, then we're going to elect the Democrat.

[00:57:28] No, I don't think that's going to happen.

[00:57:30] So, and I, I, I, uh, you know, the writing candidate, I actually, I think have pretty good relations with, and I say, Hey, if your views are more aligned with that writing candidate, vote for that writing candidate.

[00:57:43] I think it'll be kind of fun actually to let, you know, let those writing muscles be exercised and see kind of what comes of that.

[00:57:51] So, but for libertarians in Utah, and I, like I said, I think there's probably, if we're just like the rest of, um, the country, 15 to 20% are libertarian.

[00:58:02] And by the way, let's say this about Utah.

[00:58:05] Sometimes the libertarian party, we say we're victims of our own success because we do have a lot of libertarian things going on in Utah.

[00:58:13] We should acknowledge that.

[00:58:14] I mean, I have my criticisms of, uh, you know, say Mike Lee or, or other, you know, folks who are elected, but they're arguably the most libertarian statewide elected representatives.

[00:58:26] And we see some of them, even at the state legislature level, at the county level, and we just need to acknowledge it, but they have, you know, got elected under another party and, you know, good for them.

[00:58:37] But so, and if that's working for you and you're getting libertarian outcomes without the libertarian name, we don't have any pride in ownership.

[00:58:46] We, we want those libertarian policies, you know, to carry forward, um, because, you know, why am I a libertarian?

[00:58:53] I believe that creates the greatest conditions for human flourishing, uh, that can exist.

[00:58:59] Uh, we can't force ourselves into a better world.

[00:59:02] We can't comply ourselves into a better world.

[00:59:05] Uh, liberty is, I think the optimal way to get us to a better world.

[00:59:10] Uh, so, you know, again, why vote libertarian?

[00:59:13] This is a great election cycle to do this.

[00:59:16] You know, we've got maybe moderates who want to vote for the incumbent.

[00:59:19] We've got, um, maybe a different flavor of moderates that want to vote for what I call the uniparty

[00:59:26] challenger.

[00:59:27] Um, is there much difference between the two?

[00:59:29] Um, a lot of people are not sure that there is, um, I, I'm sure I could parse out differences

[00:59:35] among, you know, all, all the candidates in the race, but I think this is a great election.

[00:59:40] If you're a liberty minded and, um, you know, what do you get out of saying, Hey, I voted

[00:59:45] for the incumbent, but at the end of the day, that person didn't deliver to me the policies

[00:59:50] that, you know, I favor as a libertarian.

[00:59:53] I think you're, you know, giving kind of a moral sanction to that where, you know, now

[00:59:59] is a time to exercise your voice, your voice, and your vote is your voice.

[01:00:03] Um, so if you want to express your support for libertarian policies in the clearest way

[01:00:09] possible, vote for the libertarian candidate.

[01:00:12] If there's another candidate out there that expresses your policy views in a way that is

[01:00:18] more aligned with your views, vote for that candidate.

[01:00:22] Um, but I'm here carrying the libertarian platform into this election, you know, again, to be a

[01:00:28] vehicle for libertarians, both capital L and small L, um, to be heard in this election.

[01:00:36] So this is kind of my breakdown real quick.

[01:00:39] Uh, and let me know if, if you would agree with this, even though if it might not be, uh,

[01:00:46] your position per se, but to me, the reason I would encourage, uh, Republicans in the state

[01:00:55] of Utah to vote libertarian are really for two reasons.

[01:00:59] Um, the biggest reason being that there is a very clear disconnect between the Republican

[01:01:06] establishment and the Republican voters.

[01:01:10] And it seems to be that the Republican establishment just doesn't really care about what the voters

[01:01:18] want, what they think or anything along those lines.

[01:01:21] And so we are without a doubt, the closest in, in my opinion, I'm a bit biased in this, that

[01:01:32] we are better, uh, in many positions.

[01:01:35] However, what the Republicans would want from a liberty minded Republican candidate, we offer

[01:01:43] the exact same thing.

[01:01:45] I agree.

[01:01:47] And, you know, I, I look at the Republican party platform sometimes and I'm thinking,

[01:01:51] gosh, that's a very libertarian document.

[01:01:55] Yeah.

[01:01:56] And, um, and, and, and so, but, but yet, you know, a lot of so-called recovering Republicans

[01:02:02] who let the Republican party express frustration, they say, why doesn't our platform translate

[01:02:08] into similar things through our elected representatives?

[01:02:12] And again, I think a huge part of that is the way our electoral system is designed.

[01:02:17] That's again, one thing when it comes back to this, you know, high priority of why Utah

[01:02:22] politicians are not, you know, listening to voters, why are voters not feeling hurt by their

[01:02:27] politicians?

[01:02:28] A lot of that is our electoral system that causes them to be, um, you know, insulated from political

[01:02:35] pressure.

[01:02:36] And of course the incumbents, and of course the establishment doesn't want things like

[01:02:41] ranked choice voting that would, you know, cause them to be more responsive to the voters.

[01:02:45] Of course they wouldn't want proportional representation to have a, a, a broader cross section of Utahns

[01:02:51] have a seat at the table because they're, they're happy with the system that protects them,

[01:02:56] protects their incumbency, protects their power, protects their privilege.

[01:03:00] And, um, but I think if you want to loosen up that system and I agree with you, I, my read

[01:03:06] of the Utah Republican party right now is it is kind of split almost evenly.

[01:03:10] You might say between the establishment and then more liberty minded Republicans.

[01:03:15] And if those liberty minded Republicans want to stand up and be counted, then a libertarian

[01:03:21] vote is a great way to do it.

[01:03:22] And you don't have to write anybody in.

[01:03:24] I'm going to be on your ballot.

[01:03:25] Uh, it's just an easy way to express that policy preference.

[01:03:29] And remember after the election cycle, when people are breaking down the results, you're

[01:03:34] going to be able to identify those liberty minded pockets in Utah and maybe do something

[01:03:40] with that in future elections in terms of maybe we need to run a more liberty, liberty minded

[01:03:45] candidate in this district to get more, you know, liberty minded outcomes.

[01:03:50] Well, and it just seems to me that it would work out.

[01:03:54] In, in the voters favor as they, they want to be heard.

[01:04:00] And in my personal opinion, you will not be heard in any way voting for the same party

[01:04:07] who has shown that they don't care about you.

[01:04:10] And so if you want to be heard, then what, what better way to send a message than saying,

[01:04:17] well, if you won't listen to us, then we'll put somebody else into office.

[01:04:21] I can't think of a better way to be heard.

[01:04:25] Yeah.

[01:04:25] And, and the flip side, if you just keep voting the way you've always been voting, it's the

[01:04:30] definition of insanity and expecting a different result.

[01:04:33] Um, you know, why vote for the, the incumbent parties, one of the unit party candidates, if

[01:04:39] you expect a different outcome, you're just basically giving, giving your sanction to

[01:04:44] be ignored more.

[01:04:46] Correct.

[01:04:47] And personally, that's, that's my opinion, why I think all Utah Republicans should be

[01:04:53] voting libertarian.

[01:04:54] Um, I do agree with you that, you know, Phil Lyman would be a great, uh, write in because

[01:05:00] I would like to see kind of how, how that would play out.

[01:05:04] I think that that would be very interesting, um, having a majority write in that would be,

[01:05:10] uh, very interesting to see how the establishment would, uh, would handle such a thing.

[01:05:17] It would.

[01:05:18] And I don't disapprove of, of, you know, Lyman's writing candidacy.

[01:05:23] Uh, I, I like to think I'm on friendly relations with him.

[01:05:26] I, I know there's a couple selfies that he and I have taken together floating around out there.

[01:05:31] And when people have done the, uh, active vote, um, you know, policy breakdown, there's a

[01:05:36] little grid showing where people kind of end up policy wise.

[01:05:40] I, I ended up being kind of the closest to him.

[01:05:43] Um, so he and I do have an alignment on a lot of issues and, you know, and I appreciate,

[01:05:49] I've been still following some of his critiques of state government, you know, just because

[01:05:54] of his position as a state legislator.

[01:05:56] And also just, I think because of the support base he has, uh, he has better access to a

[01:06:02] lot of that information.

[01:06:02] He also has just this, you know, as a certified public accountant, um, kind of that, you know,

[01:06:08] financial or, you know, maybe not, that's not the best word.

[01:06:11] Um, forensic maybe even, uh, look at, at public policy and just kind of the cost benefit analysis

[01:06:18] of those policies.

[01:06:19] And so, um, you know, I, I kind of applaud him for what he's doing because I think he's

[01:06:25] also helping kind of parse out, you know, where the, you know, liberty minded voter is from

[01:06:30] the establishment voter.

[01:06:32] Now, since, you know, we all declared our candidacies has Phil said some things where I

[01:06:39] said, Hmm, that's not maybe so libertarian and, and, and maybe I would part company with

[01:06:44] him on some of that stuff.

[01:06:45] And there are, uh, some of those areas and we don't necessarily need to get into those

[01:06:51] here.

[01:06:52] Um, I'm kind of trying to run my positive campaign on the things I'm trying to focus on and, and

[01:06:57] he's running on the things he's focused on.

[01:07:00] But, you know, a lot of the stuff I've been seeing, especially in terms of election integrity

[01:07:03] and the litigation he's doing, I, in my capacity, you know, as a libertarian party chair and

[01:07:11] attorney where I've had to go to court to help our candidates, you know, get back on

[01:07:15] the ballot, um, and navigate with the elections office.

[01:07:19] I'm very interested in, in the things that he's pursuing in the courts.

[01:07:23] Um, and so I, I like to think that, you know, maybe at the end of the day, depending on how

[01:07:29] things shake out.

[01:07:30] And by the way, he said he may, you know, leave the race if, you know, the governor, uh,

[01:07:36] comes forward and shows that his primary election was legitimate.

[01:07:39] So there may be, there may come a time where he's no longer a candidate.

[01:07:44] And then I think it's just obvious that the Liberty vote, you know, should go to the

[01:07:49] libertarian in the race.

[01:07:50] Um, so again, I, I'm grateful for, he's pushing what his pushing, he's pushing, I'm pushing

[01:07:56] what I'm pushing and it will be interesting.

[01:07:59] You know, let's say we get to the election to combine both of our votes together, what

[01:08:03] that shows.

[01:08:05] Uh, and so, yeah, I, I have no, no, no grievance.

[01:08:10] I, and, um, you know, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

[01:08:15] So I have personally never met a fan of governor Cox in person.

[01:08:20] Uh, I'm not quite sure if they exist.

[01:08:23] Um, I, I know they do only because I know people I went to law school with who now work

[01:08:30] in his administration.

[01:08:31] Um, so they do exist.

[01:08:34] They are, they do it.

[01:08:35] They do exist.

[01:08:36] I, and I don't want to out them necessarily, but, uh, they're, they're who you would suspect,

[01:08:42] um, you know, establishment folks who are comfortable being establishment folks.

[01:08:48] And, you know, I can't say that there's necessarily anything wrong with that other than I think

[01:08:54] they're, uh, they, they've had their time.

[01:08:57] So I think that, uh, it's, it's definitely time for, for some change.

[01:09:03] Things have been going the establishment way a little too long.

[01:09:06] And I believe the residents of Utah are suffering because of that.

[01:09:10] Uh, not to say that everything here is absolutely terrible, but as, as if you said, because,

[01:09:17] we, we do have some pretty libertarian things going on here, uh, constitutional carry is the

[01:09:24] one thing that I can say that I definitely support, uh, of governor Cox, uh, doing, um,

[01:09:31] that seemed weird because I don't.

[01:09:33] I don't representative down here.

[01:09:34] Walt Brooks actually carried that bill.

[01:09:36] Yeah.

[01:09:37] That, and that's, that's wonderful.

[01:09:39] I fully support that, uh, you know, all the way through.

[01:09:44] So it's not to say that everything is terrible, but I do think that the ways that are being

[01:09:51] screwed up are being really, really screwed up.

[01:09:54] Yeah.

[01:09:55] I mean, constitutional carry is, is nice, but when you look at the big systemic stuff, um,

[01:10:02] you know, the, the, the budget that they're blowing up, um, I remember complaining when John

[01:10:08] Huntsman was governor and saying $8 billion, you know, wow.

[01:10:13] And, uh, you know, we're, we're all, we're going to pass maybe 30 billion in the, in the

[01:10:18] next budget cycle, uh, if we don't change course in Utah.

[01:10:23] Um, you know, and, and I'm, you know, I, as a libertarian, I favor separating school

[01:10:29] and state, uh, and they just threw a ton of money at the government schools in Utah in

[01:10:37] the last legislative cycle, kind of hoping to bribe them, uh, to maybe pass this constitutional

[01:10:42] amendment to decouple, uh, income tax from the educational establishment.

[01:10:48] And the UEA, you know, has come out and said they're going to oppose it, uh, cause they don't

[01:10:52] want to, you know, shut off the money spigot to their deal.

[01:10:55] And, and again, going, sorry to be telling more stories of, but people I went to law school

[01:11:00] with who then went into school administration would just brag to me as to what a racket

[01:11:05] it was.

[01:11:06] Cause they're like, we're just getting paid a King's ransom and we're hardly having to do

[01:11:09] everything or do anything.

[01:11:11] And you go, go onto transparency, you know, utah.gov or transparent utah.gov I think is the

[01:11:18] website.

[01:11:19] Look at some of these school district administrator salaries, especially in the Alpine school

[01:11:23] district where they're, you know, talking about breaking it up cause it's just so huge and

[01:11:27] powerful.

[01:11:27] And these folks are getting $300,000 or more a year.

[01:11:32] I, you know, about a dozen of them for, to be school administrators.

[01:11:36] Um, that's, that's more than the governor of New York makes just, you know, by, by comparison.

[01:11:42] And, uh, so, so that stuff is really a scandal.

[01:11:44] And even with transparency, um, we don't seem to be fixing that too much.

[01:11:50] Um, and so I'm, you know, that, that's not one thing I'm focusing on so much because I

[01:11:56] think other folks are, but that's definitely a huge concern.

[01:12:01] Well, and it seems to me that one of the, the best ideas would just be to open up the

[01:12:07] market and put it to the test.

[01:12:08] Um, you know, let private schools compete with government schools.

[01:12:13] And if the government schools are really that great, then people are going to stay and it

[01:12:17] will win out in the market.

[01:12:18] Right.

[01:12:19] And yeah, decentralize, um, and that would be, you know, I think introduce some helpful

[01:12:25] competition and, and the UEA, I don't know if you just saw this in the past week is now

[01:12:30] suing the state of Utah, even challenging, um, this scholarship program that they did, you

[01:12:36] know, where they do the $8,000 payment, they're saying even that's unconstitutional.

[01:12:41] So they're even fighting that, you know, relatively small in the big scheme of things

[01:12:45] reform.

[01:12:46] Uh, and, and why, you know, why wouldn't they again, if they're in this situation that

[01:12:51] where they're getting unjustly enriched and they don't have to be too, you know, held very

[01:12:56] accountable for their results.

[01:12:58] Um, they're going to protect that as long as, you know, we voters and Utahns allow them

[01:13:03] to do that.

[01:13:04] And, you know, sadly, when you talk about folks being captured, there's a huge chunk

[01:13:08] of the population that works in that industry and they're not going to walk away from, you

[01:13:13] know, the $40,000 salary increase they got last year.

[01:13:17] Uh, you know what, why would they?

[01:13:19] Um, so again, that's why I'm, you know, focusing on things like mutual aid where we can, you

[01:13:24] know, kind of exit out of that system.

[01:13:26] Um, and, uh, you know, maybe over time, uh, that system just kind of collapses on itself

[01:13:32] because we find that we don't need to rely on that system to enjoy the blessings of liberty

[01:13:38] and, and, and live our good lives and that kind of thing.

[01:13:41] So, uh, this, uh, gentleman, Max Borders, who is not a libertarian author has written about

[01:13:48] the concept called under throwing the government.

[01:13:50] And again, just engaging in entrepreneurship and what he calls subversive innovation.

[01:13:56] Um, you know, cryptocurrencies and those kinds of things are ways of kind of building parallel

[01:14:01] economies to where, you know, we are not necessarily being surveilled and being manipulated and being

[01:14:07] controlled.

[01:14:07] Uh, and, and, and so those are things I want to promote as well.

[01:14:12] And in some ways we have the infrastructure in Utah where, you know, right now it's hobbyists

[01:14:17] maybe kind of mostly doing those things, but they are creating kind of the groundwork for

[01:14:23] more people to adopt those systems, uh, and engage in, in free commerce and voluntary exchange

[01:14:30] in those ways.

[01:14:31] And then just, you know, I talked a little bit about rank choice voting, proportional representation.

[01:14:36] I'm, you know, promoting those as well, because again, people ask, oh, you libertarians only

[01:14:41] get this certain number of votes.

[01:14:42] Well, it's, it's our voting system.

[01:14:44] And again, the incumbent parties want to keep that voting system because, you know, it insulates

[01:14:49] them from proper competition.

[01:14:51] And we see where those electoral systems are more competitive.

[01:14:56] Um, the outcomes in those elections, you know, more closely map the policy preferences of voters.

[01:15:03] So again, if there are 15 to 20% libertarians in the population, we would be seeing those

[01:15:08] numbers show up, you know, in town councils and county councils.

[01:15:12] Um, and of course state legislatures as well.

[01:15:14] And I would even suggest to people if they're involved in voluntary organizations, like, um,

[01:15:20] you know, your, a union, let's say, or, uh, a trade association, try to, uh, implement, uh,

[01:15:28] proportional representation and rank choice voting, uh, in those organizations.

[01:15:33] And you may find that the same old folks, maybe the folks we talked about the dark triad

[01:15:38] personality traits, you know, the folks who are seeking power, even in the organization,

[01:15:42] uh, who just kind of, you know, use those Machiavellian, you know, uh, characteristics

[01:15:47] to rise to the top.

[01:15:49] Uh, maybe there would be less influence by those folks in those organizations, and they would

[01:15:54] do better by their members, um, if they had a more inclusive thing.

[01:15:58] And I also, uh, talk about sortition or democratic lotteries.

[01:16:03] This was a system the ancient Greeks used to, uh, you know, govern their communities.

[01:16:08] And, um, we, we do this of course, United States with juries, right?

[01:16:12] So we randomly put folks on juries.

[01:16:14] And, um, can you imagine if we had to elect, uh, members to juries and how disproportionate,

[01:16:19] uh, that kind of system system would have, we would have, you know, largely prosecutors

[01:16:24] and police maybe sitting on those jerks.

[01:16:26] How fair would you feel that scenario would be if you were, uh, on the other side of a

[01:16:31] prosecution?

[01:16:32] So I think we all also want to explore sortition and that book, uh, that I talked about corruptible

[01:16:37] by Brian Kloss, uh, go, goes into that, uh, as a sortition, maybe being a way to preserve

[01:16:45] kind of small D democratic values, uh, but disrupt, um, kind of the, again, perverse incentives

[01:16:52] as we were talking about from elections where there's that kind of a, uh, competition that

[01:16:58] brings out kind of the bad characters.

[01:17:02] And I say this as someone who sat sadly is, you know, get jumping into the political field.

[01:17:08] So I'm just as maybe guilty, um, uh, of being a politician and engaging in the political

[01:17:14] space.

[01:17:15] I like to think, you know, the joke is among some libertarians, we want to, you know, take

[01:17:19] over the world and leave everybody alone.

[01:17:21] So I don't, I don't, you know, want to do this in a way to bring power to myself.

[01:17:26] It's kind of like, uh, you know, Frodo throwing the ring in the, you know, the fire, uh, we want

[01:17:31] to destroy power.

[01:17:32] Uh, we don't want to keep it for ourselves.

[01:17:36] So that leads me to a very interesting question and we'll, we'll start wrapping up here soon

[01:17:42] because I don't want to keep you too long.

[01:17:44] But, um, one thing, cause I myself am also a candidate this election cycle, um, running

[01:17:52] for state house district nine.

[01:17:54] And this has been something that not only have I been thinking for quite a while, but it's,

[01:18:02] it's also been bothering me just going through the whole experience of being a candidate.

[01:18:08] And this, this might be a little inside baseball for some people, but I think it is, it is actually

[01:18:14] very pertinent to voters as well is how exactly is a, a ethical person, a moral person supposed

[01:18:24] to work their way through and work with inside an unethical system?

[01:18:30] Because it seems as though that it is a breeding ground for a lot of these Machiavellian type

[01:18:38] personalities and they are able to get away with so much just carte blanche.

[01:18:45] And I've seen firsthand how some bills on Capitol Hill are, it, it, it should be a no brainer

[01:18:53] for everyone to vote yay on it and they just get squashed.

[01:18:57] And so it just seems like what, how, how is a ethical person supposed to move through an

[01:19:04] unethical system?

[01:19:06] Sure.

[01:19:06] Well, at the end of the day, I think it's ultimately up to that person as to how, you

[01:19:10] know, they navigate.

[01:19:11] And this is kind of this ongoing, you know, debate within the libertarian community, again,

[01:19:16] smaller libertarian, and it's important, you know, to put out that the larger libertarian

[01:19:23] party is just one facet of the liberty movement and perhaps not even the most important part

[01:19:30] of the liberty movement.

[01:19:32] But there's a recognition among some of us that it, it, there is some value in putting

[01:19:39] forth a libertarian message in the political process.

[01:19:42] And we lead by our hopefully moral example.

[01:19:46] And so when we put ourselves out there as a candidate where people can compare us to other

[01:19:53] candidates on the ballot, they are, are hopefully looking at, and not everybody's going to do

[01:19:59] this, but hopefully some people will say, you know, my moral values are more in line with

[01:20:04] the libertarian candidate than the incumbent in this race.

[01:20:08] Or, you know, and again, because maybe they weren't even exposed to libertarian ideas

[01:20:13] in school.

[01:20:14] This is the first time they are, you know, getting exposed to libertarian ideas.

[01:20:19] And they're saying, hey, maybe there is a, you know, non-aggressive, voluntarily, voluntary

[01:20:26] way to create better conditions for human flourishing that don't involve, you know, figuratively

[01:20:33] pointing a gun at someone to get them to do the thing that, you know, we would love to do.

[01:20:38] Like them to do.

[01:20:40] Maybe peaceful persuasion is, you know, not just a more moral way of going about it, but

[01:20:46] even long-term, a more sustainable and effective way of going about those things.

[01:20:51] So I think the political space is, is a, is a way for an ethical person to go and, you

[01:20:59] know, stay, stay true to your values and put forth your moral example.

[01:21:03] Um, and, and you know where to draw those lines, you know, best for yourself.

[01:21:08] But I, I'm recalling a time I lived in the, uh, San Francisco Bay area for a couple of

[01:21:13] years.

[01:21:14] I worked at a free market, uh, public policy research and education organization.

[01:21:18] And there were a bunch of, uh, you know, small libertarians out there.

[01:21:23] And, uh, one of these guys was a guy by the name of Sam Konkin and, uh, he's no longer

[01:21:28] with us, but he was kind of considered the founder of what's called agorism.

[01:21:32] Um, and you know, there was a nice little debate between him and another gentleman by name of

[01:21:38] Mike Mayakis.

[01:21:39] And the debate was, you know, political action versus voluntary action.

[01:21:43] And the debate was, you know, to the, the Konkin, the agorist folks argue that to the

[01:21:49] extent you're engaging in political action, you're taking away energies that could be

[01:21:53] devoted to the agora, to the market.

[01:21:55] Um, and, and, and I get that argument and I, it's, it's something that still stays with

[01:21:59] me, even though this was the debate, you know, I, you know, exposed to, was exposed to, you

[01:22:05] know, two decades ago.

[01:22:06] Um, but I think you can walk and chew gum.

[01:22:09] Uh, so I think you can still, you know, practice, um, you know, your, your market values.

[01:22:15] We do this every day, by the way, in terms of purchases, we make another friend of mine,

[01:22:20] Alexander Tabarrok, I worked at that thing, think with he co-host a website called marginal

[01:22:26] revolution may have marginal revolution university.

[01:22:28] And, and so the idea is that, you know, we're taking small steps toward a better world.

[01:22:33] We don't need to do this all in one fell swoop, uh, to bring about a better world.

[01:22:38] We, when we make different choices in products that we buy and in, you know, organizations

[01:22:43] that we join in, um, that's, that's, I think a marginal, a slow path toward a better world

[01:22:49] and being a libertarian candidate is just one of those ways to kind of nudge, you know,

[01:22:55] our, our neighbors and our society toward what we view as a better world.

[01:23:00] And then, you know, when election season's, uh, over, we can engage in our liberty, uh,

[01:23:05] evangelism, as I like to call it again, by just our advocacy and our example.

[01:23:10] Um, and, and again, so I don't think participating in the political process is necessarily, uh,

[01:23:17] you know, counterproductive to that.

[01:23:19] But I also respect the views of those who do, and I'm kind of grateful that there are

[01:23:23] those who have just completely checked out, you know, and, and, and in some ways I, you

[01:23:28] know, there's these festivals where they're just, they've totally checked out and they are

[01:23:32] creating this parallel, uh, space.

[01:23:34] So if, and when things, you know, collapse, um, they will have set good examples for us to

[01:23:40] just kind of plug in and, uh, you know, have a voluntary community that a lot of us are

[01:23:46] trying to nudge the world toward.

[01:23:49] So my personal opinion about this is that we actually need both.

[01:23:55] Uh, just like you said, we can walk and chew gum.

[01:23:58] Yes.

[01:23:58] Um, and it's totally fine if some people want to only chew gum and it's fine if some people

[01:24:03] only want to walk.

[01:24:04] Right.

[01:24:05] To me, it seems as though running for office or supporting a candidate because I myself am

[01:24:11] on, you know, the Agora side, the, the agorist side that says,

[01:24:15] you know, maybe, maybe this isn't, uh, a system that can be reformed.

[01:24:22] Maybe it's, it's kind of a waste of time, but yet I'm also still voting and still running

[01:24:27] for office.

[01:24:28] Uh, the reason I, I think it's important is because it is still a tool in our toolbox to

[01:24:34] fight for our freedoms and stand up for ourselves.

[01:24:37] Um, maybe it's not the right tool for this time, but I'm still not going to give that

[01:24:42] tool up.

[01:24:42] I'm not going to throw that tool away.

[01:24:45] Yeah.

[01:24:45] I mean, and Andy McColl and others have talked about, you know, maybe being a libertarian

[01:24:49] candidate or voting libertarian is, is in some ways a form of political self-defense.

[01:24:54] Um, and, and so again, we're expressing ourself through the election system and, you know,

[01:24:59] we haven't talked a little bit about jury nullification and I'd be remiss if I did not talk about that.

[01:25:05] Um, but, uh, I talk about, I talked about it when I ran for county attorney.

[01:25:10] Um, I've talked about that in other races and the reason why I talk about it so much is I

[01:25:16] think that's one thing that people are not educated about, um, in schools, um, at least

[01:25:22] effectively.

[01:25:23] Uh, but I know that's one way of protecting us against tyranny against unjust laws or at

[01:25:29] least laws that are unjustly applied.

[01:25:31] And I, I know that when I get a higher vote total in certain races, I mean, just, I, I

[01:25:37] ran for Washington County attorney two years ago.

[01:25:40] I got 21% of the vote.

[01:25:42] It was a two way race.

[01:25:43] Well, that's one out of five voters and also one out of five potential jurors.

[01:25:48] So when the prosecutor is going there and looking at that jury pool and knowing that maybe one

[01:25:54] out of five of those people voted libertarian, they might be a little more circumspect in what

[01:25:59] kind of charges they're going to bring, um, you know, or, or what cases they're going

[01:26:03] to take to trial.

[01:26:05] So, and I, I wish I could track this down.

[01:26:08] I want to say back in my think tank days, I did stumble across a study that correlated

[01:26:13] higher percentages of votes to either libertarians or Liberty minded candidates correlated with

[01:26:21] a lower tax burden.

[01:26:22] And when you think about that, that makes some sense.

[01:26:24] We hear actually about a lot of these politicians who pay attention.

[01:26:28] Maybe it's judges in a retention election.

[01:26:30] I just heard about this from another speaker where one judge, you know, got 25, 20, 27%

[01:26:35] no, whereas his colleagues got 25% no.

[01:26:38] And this judge would just obsess over why did 2% more of my community not want me to retain

[01:26:44] in this election?

[01:26:45] So some folks pay close attention to that.

[01:26:48] Um, and I think it would go for again, just other kinds of reform.

[01:26:52] If we can grow the Liberty vote in Utah, then I think that sends a strong message to

[01:26:57] policymakers that we're not going to put up with a lot of tyrannical anti-liberty and institutionally

[01:27:04] aggressive policies.

[01:27:05] And so, uh, I, I think growing the Liberty vote really helps just on a lot of other fronts

[01:27:11] in our lives where we can get very, uh, abusive and intrusive government out of our lives.

[01:27:17] So we'll, we'll wrap up here on this, but real quick, what is jury nullification for those

[01:27:24] who don't know jury nullification is the idea that if you are a juror, you're called a jury

[01:27:29] duty and you are looking at a case and you might say to yourself, you know, technically

[01:27:37] I think this person is, is guilty of violating the law in the technical sense, but because

[01:27:44] of my own conscience, I don't think that the law is just.

[01:27:48] And great examples of course, were, uh, back in the days of slavery, um, when people were

[01:27:54] being prosecuted for, um, being a runaway slave or harboring a slave, um, uh, people

[01:28:01] would nullify.

[01:28:01] And some people say that was largely responsible for why slavery went away is because you had,

[01:28:06] you know, juries just saying, we're not going to convict for this kind of stuff anymore.

[01:28:11] Um, and I, I can tell you as an attorney who's tried, you know, several cases involving,

[01:28:16] um, possession of cannabis.

[01:28:18] Um, we, we probably had cases where my client was technically guilty, but we had jurors, you

[01:28:24] know, say we're not convicting on this kind of a thing.

[01:28:28] So, you know, they voted not guilty and that person, you know, as a result didn't have a

[01:28:32] conviction on their record.

[01:28:34] Didn't, you know, lose their liberty potentially.

[01:28:36] Didn't maybe lose a job.

[01:28:37] Didn't maybe have their children taken from them.

[01:28:39] And so I think it's a very moral thing to do to, you know, vote not guilty.

[01:28:45] If you see the law, um, whether it's an unjust or unjustly applied, uh, there's the famous,

[01:28:51] I want to say it's William Penn, uh, story.

[01:28:54] People can go do their research on the revolution period.

[01:28:59] Um, I think that's a famous case about jury nullification.

[01:29:02] So the idea is, um, you have a right and courts cannot, you know, second guess.

[01:29:07] If you do that, um, to vote, not guilty, vote to acquit.

[01:29:11] Um, again, if you think the law is unjust or being unjustly applied, uh, there's a great

[01:29:17] website, uh, by put together by the fully informed jury association.

[01:29:22] It's F I J a.org.

[01:29:25] I linked to it on my campaign website.

[01:29:27] Uh, and, and they have a lot of great resources, videos on jury nullification.

[01:29:31] And I think if more people were aware of that, uh, they can, um, learn that option and hopefully

[01:29:38] protect a lot of people from a lot of unjust things that are going on in our courts, both

[01:29:44] state and federal.

[01:29:46] Hey, Rob, uh, let everyone know where they can, they can find you, where they can get ahold

[01:29:51] of you, uh, and any parting words you have.

[01:29:54] Sure.

[01:29:55] So the easy website is free utahns.org or free utahns.com.

[01:30:00] Uh, I have a couple other URLs that work.

[01:30:03] Uh, one is just latham for utahns.us.

[01:30:07] Remember if you're a native Utah, we don't have that second a, so, uh, it's Utah, U-T-A-H-N-S,

[01:30:14] uh, no second a, um, sometimes if you go on certain dictionaries, they will have that second

[01:30:20] day, but if you're born and raised here, you know that we don't do that second a, and,

[01:30:25] uh, we, we poke fun at those who do put that second a in there.

[01:30:29] Um, but that's on my literature.

[01:30:31] It's on my website.

[01:30:32] Please dig around, um, uh, on the website.

[01:30:35] I should be on most social media platforms.

[01:30:38] I'm always trying to expand others.

[01:30:40] If you see my content and like it, please share it.

[01:30:43] Uh, and, uh, you know, be your own Liberty evangelist.

[01:30:47] And, you know, let's, let's help the Liberty minded community in Utah find each other.

[01:30:52] And because, you know, we know that we're stronger, uh, when, when we show our numbers and, uh,

[01:30:58] we can do that again through voting in this process and kind of raising our voice and raising

[01:31:02] awareness.

[01:31:04] Hey, Rob, I want to thank you so much for coming on to rise to Liberty.

[01:31:09] It was a pleasure.

[01:31:10] Yes.

[01:31:11] Yes.

[01:31:11] I definitely want to get you back.

[01:31:12] We need to get you back and talk about the, uh, the results at the end of this and, uh,

[01:31:18] give kind of, or we might even do it earlier, you know, like, so my running late, Barry Short,

[01:31:22] who's, uh, the chair of the Utah Libertarian party, um, and, and, and should be a great guest

[01:31:28] in his own right.

[01:31:29] Uh, and then maybe once after you talk to him, we can even do, um, uh, a joint, uh, one of

[01:31:36] these.

[01:31:36] Yes.

[01:31:36] Yes.

[01:31:37] I would absolutely love that.

[01:31:38] Been trying to get Barry on for a while.

[01:31:40] So that, that will be the next, uh, political related show, uh, as far as a candidate goes.

[01:31:47] Um, but yeah, that's, that's going to be a lot of fun.

[01:31:50] So I'm excited, excited for that.

[01:31:53] Um, everyone else, thank you so much for tuning in, make sure and share this out there.

[01:32:00] The big tech overlords have made sure that it's very difficult to grow.

[01:32:04] Although we are growing, uh, just at a snail's pace because of, uh, them liking to shadow

[01:32:10] ban and block and all these things.

[01:32:12] So make sure and share this to anyone you think that could gain any sort of value.

[01:32:17] If you saw value in this, hit that share button, the like, the subscribe, all of those good

[01:32:22] things that we always say.

[01:32:23] And make sure to not lose touch because once again, the big tech overlords like to not get

[01:32:30] these messages out there to people who could find value in it to spread a message of Liberty.

[01:32:38] So go to rise to liberty.com slash links, where is everywhere you can find rise to Liberty, or you

[01:32:45] can go to rise to liberty.com slash sign up and actually, uh, be a part of the email list, which

[01:32:53] is, uh, now just starting to get going.

[01:32:56] So you will never lose touch with rise to Liberty.

[01:33:00] Um, with that said, Rob, there's one last question.

[01:33:04] I always ask everyone, uh, eventually I'll get a super cut of it because I love, I love

[01:33:09] hearing everyone's answers to this, but why does Liberty matter in the first place?

[01:33:16] Uh, Liberty matters because it creates the optimal environment for human flourishing.

[01:33:24] Uh, we were born to be free free.

[01:33:27] Liberty is our birthright.

[01:33:29] And to the extent we allow, uh, infringements on our Liberty, we are not allowing ourselves

[01:33:39] to reach our maximum human potential.

[01:33:42] That's why Liberty is vitally important and why we need to protect it and advocate for it.

[01:33:48] Hey, I think that's a perfect answer.

[01:33:50] Go ahead and hang out for just a second while we send this out.

[01:33:54] Everyone.

[01:33:54] Thank you so much.

[01:33:55] Once again, for tuning in, we deeply appreciate it.

[01:33:58] And until next time, everyone stay free, my friends.