Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / The Story of An Illiberal Turned Conservative

Transcript

The Story of An Illiberal Turned Conservative · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

0:15
Speaker 1: All right, now, this is going to be a fun hour.
0:18
Speaker 1: I've been looking forward to this since I threw out
0:22
Speaker 1: the hail Mary, the Bolo, the apb. I read a
0:29
Speaker 1: piece that was amazingly published in the local newspaper, the
0:35
Speaker 1: Gannett outlet, the Tallahassee Democrat. It used to be a newspaper,
0:39
Speaker 1: it's now a publicist wing for the party. But I digress.
0:44
Speaker 1: And I was surprised because here's the headline, the Democratic
0:47
Speaker 1: Party has failed young Floridians like me. And it's a
0:52
Speaker 1: short op ed piece written by a young man named
0:56
Speaker 1: Owen Gerard. And so I did what I do. I say,
1:00
Speaker 1: somebody's got to know this guy. Someone has to know
1:05
Speaker 1: him and can say, hey, Preston talked about your column
1:11
Speaker 1: and wants to get you on the show to talk
1:13
Speaker 1: with you. Lo and behold, not a half hour went
1:17
Speaker 1: by and the connection was being made. And so sitting
1:21
Speaker 1: here with me is one Owen Girard. How are you.
1:25
Speaker 2: I'm doing great today? How are you?
1:28
Speaker 1: First of all, thanks for coming in, Thanks for calling.
1:31
Speaker 2: Out for me.
1:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you ever listened.
1:34
Speaker 2: To the show occasionally, yeah you're in there, yep occasionally. Huhh.
1:38
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try not to have my feelings hurt about it.
1:40
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we all got busy lives.
1:42
Speaker 1: That's all right, that's all right. I thought young people
1:45
Speaker 1: like you would know about something called a podcast, but
1:47
Speaker 1: you know, never mind, us older people are all into
1:50
Speaker 1: that technology. Okay, let's get to the meat of this.
1:53
Speaker 1: You are described at the tail end of this piece,
1:57
Speaker 1: Owen Girard is a lifelong Tallassi resident. Let's start there.
2:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, lifelong Tallahassee resident or go to school. I
2:04
Speaker 3: was homeschooled, actually raised in northeast Lyon, you know, with
2:08
Speaker 3: my family, lived in the same neighborhood my whole life,
2:11
Speaker 3: you know, really proud of my community, proud of the
2:13
Speaker 3: you know how the city, you know, the people in
2:16
Speaker 3: the city, seeing it change a lot over the years,
2:19
Speaker 3: as I'm sure you have. And uh yeah, I just
2:21
Speaker 3: care a lot about North Florida, care a lot about
2:23
Speaker 3: the Panhandle, and really do everything I can to make
2:26
Speaker 3: sure my values are represented even in these types of
2:29
Speaker 3: you know, communities that are deep blue like Lyon.
2:32
Speaker 1: It says right after that liberal turned conservative student activists.
2:37
Speaker 1: Let's take the first half of that, all right, because
2:42
Speaker 1: homeschooled and liberal don't usually go in the same sentence,
2:49
Speaker 1: how did that end up being your situation? Get me
2:53
Speaker 1: to that liberal thing?
2:54
Speaker 2: Yeah?
2:54
Speaker 3: So I was raised at one point in you know,
2:58
Speaker 3: exposed to a lot of different communities growing up that
3:01
Speaker 3: you know, had a lot of progressive ideologies, especially with
3:03
Speaker 3: social issues, spirituality.
3:05
Speaker 2: You know.
3:06
Speaker 3: I was taught to believe that all religions were totally
3:11
Speaker 3: equal and valid and you know, all this stuff which is,
3:14
Speaker 3: you know, it sounds nice and all, and then you
3:17
Speaker 3: realize that they all fundamentally contradict each other and they
3:19
Speaker 3: can't all be true, right, So it leads to a
3:22
Speaker 3: lot of questions, a lot of issues, and I embraced
3:25
Speaker 3: a lot of that you know, left wing you know
3:28
Speaker 3: ideology really pushed by you know people I was told to,
3:31
Speaker 3: you know, look up to mentors, you know, peers.
3:34
Speaker 1: Do you mind checking off a list of some of
3:36
Speaker 1: the names that we might recognize that we're listed to
3:40
Speaker 1: you as people to look to.
3:41
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well nationally, I mean I was a big
3:44
Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders fan, okay off until the twenty twenty election.
3:46
Speaker 3: I was a Bernie bro I was. Yeah, absolutely, and.
3:49
Speaker 1: I'm not going to make fun of any of that.
3:51
Speaker 1: I'm and I hope you'll hear my heart and maybe
3:54
Speaker 1: you've heard the show enough to know I'm just genuinely
3:57
Speaker 1: interested to know your journey. So you started kind of
4:02
Speaker 1: in this process from a political perspective, looking at and
4:06
Speaker 1: embracing the philosophies of a guy like Bernie Sanders. What
4:10
Speaker 1: appealed to you about that.
4:11
Speaker 3: The populist rhetoric, I mean the idea that you know,
4:14
Speaker 3: you can stand up for the working class, stand up
4:17
Speaker 3: for the common man, and fight against the establishment, the
4:20
Speaker 3: political establishment, which is so corrupt and so evil and
4:24
Speaker 3: you know, is working against the interests of the you know,
4:27
Speaker 3: the American family and the American worker and all this stuff.
4:29
Speaker 3: And a guy like Bernie can go up and he
4:31
Speaker 3: can give his pitch. And of course I don't agree
4:34
Speaker 3: with him on a lot of issues anymore, but I
4:35
Speaker 3: respect him for the fact that he went up against
4:37
Speaker 3: the Democratic establishment. And of course they ended up I believe,
4:41
Speaker 3: you know, they they did everything they could to make
4:43
Speaker 3: sure that he wasn't president. They're there nominee in twenty
4:45
Speaker 3: sixteen and twenty twenty. They put you know, millions behind
4:48
Speaker 3: Hillary and Joe Biden, and that's why we never had
4:52
Speaker 3: a president nominee Bernie Sanders, because he was very popular,
4:56
Speaker 3: especially amongst the youth, but really amongst common people on
5:01
Speaker 3: both sides, again recognizing that populist, that rhetoric.
5:04
Speaker 4: It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott, oh and Gerard
5:15
Speaker 4: with me.
5:16
Speaker 1: We're talking about his journey, his life thus far, life
5:20
Speaker 1: lived thus far as a young man. How old are you?
5:22
Speaker 2: I am twenty years old.
5:24
Speaker 1: And so we're going back now to a time when
5:28
Speaker 1: you were in favor of Bernie Sanders, but not old
5:31
Speaker 1: enough to vote for Bernie Sanders.
5:32
Speaker 3: That is correct, yep, twenty twenty election. I was very
5:35
Speaker 3: invested in the Democratic primary and very proud of you know,
5:39
Speaker 3: Bernie and everything that he represented. I really wanted him
5:42
Speaker 3: to be that nominee and I wanted him to you know,
5:44
Speaker 3: lead us into the future.
5:46
Speaker 1: What happened?
5:47
Speaker 3: So as time went on, really through COVID, it started
5:51
Speaker 3: to change a lot of my views on a lot
5:53
Speaker 3: of different issues, and I started to realize that, you know,
5:56
Speaker 3: the big government approach to a lot of issues is
6:00
Speaker 3: is not the solution. Now, I know I talked about
6:02
Speaker 3: the populist rhetoric. I still think, you know, something that
6:07
Speaker 3: I like about someone like Trump now is also that
6:10
Speaker 3: populist rhetoric. I think that fighting against the establishment, being
6:13
Speaker 3: an anti establishment figure is very appealing, especially in today's
6:17
Speaker 3: day and age, especially to young people. So I still
6:20
Speaker 3: think that's that's very important. But I mean in the
6:24
Speaker 3: bigger picture, I mean, you know, I started looking, I started,
6:27
Speaker 3: you know, realizing, you know, what was going on the
6:29
Speaker 3: world around me. You see the lockdowns, you see the mandates,
6:32
Speaker 3: you see other states, you see the way people are
6:34
Speaker 3: living during COVID, and then you compare it to the
6:36
Speaker 3: a state like Florida, which was relatively free and open
6:40
Speaker 3: and appealing, and then you see the results of that,
6:42
Speaker 3: And of course I talked about that in the article
6:45
Speaker 3: that I did. Is the fact that, you know, you
6:48
Speaker 3: got hundreds of thousands of people moving to Florida ever
6:52
Speaker 3: since COVID because they've realized how great of a state
6:55
Speaker 3: it is, how affordable it is. You know, you get
6:57
Speaker 3: your no income tax and everything, no state income tax.
7:01
Speaker 3: You got, like I said, the affordability. You've got a
7:03
Speaker 3: good climate, and you've got a government that actually, you know,
7:06
Speaker 3: cares about the people. And you've got Democrats Republicans everywhere
7:10
Speaker 3: coming from states like California, and New York primarily to
7:13
Speaker 3: a state like here. So I think you seeing all
7:16
Speaker 3: that kind of really shifted my views on a lot
7:18
Speaker 3: of the economic issues and things like that.
7:22
Speaker 1: I sometimes note in some people's journey because unlike you,
7:28
Speaker 1: I came out of the box conservative thinking, even though
7:32
Speaker 1: my family was all except for one brother, liberal, very liberal.
7:38
Speaker 1: But I had a different philosophy from the get go.
7:41
Speaker 1: But even in that, there are what I call Aha
7:45
Speaker 1: moments where you look back and go ahh, and I'm wondering,
7:51
Speaker 1: looking back now at what you were thinking when you
7:55
Speaker 1: were in your formative teen years, and then looking at
7:57
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders and looking at the big govern and this
8:00
Speaker 1: is the solution for all people? Were there such things
8:04
Speaker 1: as aha moments where things just started to make sense
8:07
Speaker 1: in a very different way for you?
8:09
Speaker 3: I think it was it was a gradual process. I
8:12
Speaker 3: went from, you know, going so far to the left
8:14
Speaker 3: at one point that, you know, once Biden became the
8:17
Speaker 3: nominee in twenty twenty, I was like, well, time for
8:19
Speaker 3: the Green Party, you know. But but after that, you know,
8:23
Speaker 3: is when I started to you know, I started to
8:26
Speaker 3: look at alternative perspectives on different issues, you know, using
8:31
Speaker 3: the lockdowns and everything as an opportunity to just explore
8:34
Speaker 3: different ideologies, different belief systems. Not that I was necessarily
8:37
Speaker 3: going to you know, support them or get indoctrinated by
8:39
Speaker 3: them or whatever. I just wanted to learn, you know,
8:41
Speaker 3: I was curious about politics, and I learned about you know,
8:44
Speaker 3: libertarianism and things like that, and you know, it's it
8:47
Speaker 3: becomes very appealing to me over time.
8:50
Speaker 1: And so what was feeding that? What was your source?
8:55
Speaker 1: What were sources for you to learn those alternative perspectives.
8:59
Speaker 3: I think it definitely stemmed from a change in my
9:01
Speaker 3: faith life. You know, as I mentioned before, I was
9:04
Speaker 3: raised with exposed to a lot of different belief systems,
9:07
Speaker 3: Western and non Western religions. I ended up over time,
9:12
Speaker 3: you know, picking up the Bible and becoming Catholic actually,
9:16
Speaker 3: and that really opened me up. It opened up my
9:18
Speaker 3: heart and my mind to the opportunity that you know,
9:22
Speaker 3: there are alternative ways of thinking and that's okay. People
9:25
Speaker 3: with alternative views, you know, that's okay, and exploring those
9:29
Speaker 3: So I think that's when it started to happen.
9:31
Speaker 1: Owen Gerard with me described as a liberal turned activist,
9:36
Speaker 1: do you agree with my supposition that liberalism is gone,
9:42
Speaker 1: and it's been replaced by illiberalism. I don't think people
9:45
Speaker 1: are I think there are liberals out there, and those
9:48
Speaker 1: are kind of old school Democrats that are today considered
9:52
Speaker 1: moderate and maybe leave the party because they believe fundamentally
9:56
Speaker 1: in liberty. But that what's called liberalism today and progressivism
10:01
Speaker 1: is actually illiberalism.
10:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, you know, the idea of liberalism
10:06
Speaker 3: is liberty and freedom, you know, I mean, that's much
10:10
Speaker 3: of what our country was founded on. Is you know,
10:13
Speaker 3: classical liberalism obviously is a term that a lot of
10:15
Speaker 3: libertarians and you know, people like Thomas Jefferson liked to
10:18
Speaker 3: use and but no, I mean what you see today
10:21
Speaker 3: is you see big government. You see you know, the
10:23
Speaker 3: regulatory state. You see these people that are you know,
10:27
Speaker 3: really just crushing the the the American dury, and people
10:30
Speaker 3: that are making it impossible to own a home, raise
10:34
Speaker 3: a family, get a decent job, have a decent career,
10:37
Speaker 3: or even be proud of where you come from and
10:39
Speaker 3: who you are. And I think that's that's really tragic
10:44
Speaker 3: that that's the direction it has has led to.
10:47
Speaker 1: You heard me talk in the last half hour about
10:50
Speaker 1: Brandon Straka, the Walk away campaign, and his light bulb
10:53
Speaker 1: was news media. He was recognizing that what the media
10:58
Speaker 1: was saying about Donald Trump was not remotely accurate in
11:02
Speaker 1: terms of what he said and what he did at
11:05
Speaker 1: different rallies, different events.
11:07
Speaker 2: And so forth.
11:09
Speaker 1: That was him for you during COVID. That lockdown proved
11:14
Speaker 1: to be remarkably beneficial in the grand scheme of things.
11:18
Speaker 1: And you were turning to Praguer You how'd you find
11:21
Speaker 1: Prager you? I?
11:22
Speaker 2: Honestly, I don't remember.
11:23
Speaker 3: I was probably going through YouTube and things and some
11:26
Speaker 3: popped up, saw some of their videos or something like that,
11:29
Speaker 3: and obviously, you know, at the beginning, I used to
11:31
Speaker 3: I guess you could say like hate watch or hate
11:34
Speaker 3: listen to people like Ben Shapiro or something, you know,
11:37
Speaker 3: listen to them and try to debunk them or whatever
11:39
Speaker 3: and be like, no, that's wrong obviously, and then you
11:41
Speaker 3: listen to it after a while, you know, like, ey,
11:43
Speaker 3: maybe that's actually kind of true, you know, but it'd
11:47
Speaker 3: be things like that, and similar with Prager you. I.
11:50
Speaker 3: Something I've just found with a lot of this conservative
11:52
Speaker 3: media is that it wasn't actually like this evil, you know,
11:57
Speaker 3: hate filled group of people who we're trying to like
12:00
Speaker 3: push these you know, narratives and trying to indoctrinate the public.
12:04
Speaker 3: I mean, really, at the end of the day, it's
12:06
Speaker 3: you know, it's just it's about having a balanced perspective.
12:08
Speaker 3: I mean, I listened to liberal media, I listened to
12:10
Speaker 3: conservative media. I listen to what is supposed to be
12:12
Speaker 3: considered you know, the moderate mainstream sources. And you know,
12:16
Speaker 3: I think that is so important for you know, being
12:18
Speaker 3: able to craft your narrative or sorry, craft your beliefs,
12:22
Speaker 3: you know, based off of the different narratives, because that's
12:25
Speaker 3: the only way you're actually going to be able to
12:26
Speaker 3: understand you know, who you are, the world around you,
12:29
Speaker 3: and your involvement, and it really regardless of what political
12:32
Speaker 3: views you have. So I would say, you know, having
12:35
Speaker 3: an understanding of media, of the media and how they
12:38
Speaker 3: influence people, because you know, they are basically the source
12:41
Speaker 3: of a lot of these problems with our culture. You
12:44
Speaker 3: know that that that really is the center of it.
12:47
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that, because I have ridiculed the
12:51
Speaker 1: legacy mainstream media outlets for abandoning their core responsibility, which
12:57
Speaker 1: is to hold elected officials accountable to the people. And
13:03
Speaker 1: we rely on the media to expose us to what
13:07
Speaker 1: is really going on, what's consistent with the record, with
13:10
Speaker 1: the law, with whatever the case might be. We've lost that.
13:14
Speaker 1: So what sources do people have? And I'll just say,
13:19
Speaker 1: other than a place like this show where we try
13:22
Speaker 1: to throw ideas out at people and talk about the
13:24
Speaker 1: stories that are going on, where do young people turn
13:26
Speaker 1: Because I mean, yeah, I have some young people that
13:29
Speaker 1: listen to this show, but they're not going to find
13:31
Speaker 1: this show unless someone points them there.
13:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I think really what it starts with is
13:35
Speaker 3: just building that community. So you know, I'm involved with
13:37
Speaker 3: organizations like Turning Point USA, and they do a great
13:40
Speaker 3: job not just educating the youth on why we as
13:44
Speaker 3: conservatives believe what we believe, but how they can actually
13:46
Speaker 3: make an impact in their community. You know, after this show,
13:50
Speaker 3: I'm going to go on campus at FSU and table
13:52
Speaker 3: with our Turning Point chapter and you know we're going
13:55
Speaker 3: to go and invite people have conversations with people just
13:58
Speaker 3: walking through you know campus.
14:00
Speaker 2: How does that go?
14:01
Speaker 1: Because Turning Points of it's it's a it's kind of
14:04
Speaker 1: a fire starter, no doubt about it. Charlie Kirk does
14:07
Speaker 1: an amazing job in rebutting that stuff that that gets
14:11
Speaker 1: thrown at him, and I'm sure makes an impact that way.
14:14
Speaker 4: But what have you observed?
14:16
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, honestly, FSU is A is a pretty
14:18
Speaker 3: decent campus. Obviously, we have some some more you know,
14:21
Speaker 3: radical people, some more radical organizations like Students for a
14:25
Speaker 3: Democratic Society and things like that, so you know, you'll
14:28
Speaker 3: you'll have some some you know, scuffles and confrontations every
14:32
Speaker 3: so often, but I think we have an amazing group
14:34
Speaker 3: of kids on campus. We have a ton of amazing
14:36
Speaker 3: conservatives on campus who are passionate about their faith, passionate
14:40
Speaker 3: about their political beliefs, and a lot of them came
14:42
Speaker 3: from similar situations to me, where you know, they were
14:45
Speaker 3: able to open up and actually experience alternative perspectives after
14:49
Speaker 3: being raised in a specific you know, narrative and way.
14:52
Speaker 4: It's The Morning Show with Preston Scott.
14:59
Speaker 1: This conversation started with a piece amazingly published. Are you
15:05
Speaker 1: shocked though when they published it?
15:06
Speaker 2: Yeah?
15:06
Speaker 3: Well, honestly, I got to give the Democrats some credit.
15:09
Speaker 3: So this is actually the second piece that they've published
15:11
Speaker 3: of mine. The first one was how I titled it,
15:13
Speaker 3: I'm gen z and I'm voting no on Florida's ballot
15:16
Speaker 3: amendment for and they liked it. And they actually, as
15:19
Speaker 3: a matter of fact, said that they wanted me to
15:22
Speaker 3: write some more pieces because they wanted more conservative opinions.
15:25
Speaker 1: Hallelujah.
15:26
Speaker 2: And they want more young conservatives.
15:28
Speaker 1: They must want to sell some more papers, right because
15:31
Speaker 1: the circulation been dropping. I was shocked that they did,
15:36
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, but I'm grateful that they
15:38
Speaker 1: did because it led to our conversation. We've talked about
15:42
Speaker 1: this journey and how you started with a way of
15:46
Speaker 1: thinking that I would describe now as illiberal, and how
15:49
Speaker 1: you are now considered a conservative activist and a central
15:54
Speaker 1: component that we haven't talked a lot about, but you
15:57
Speaker 1: mentioned that I want to zero in on because I
16:00
Speaker 1: can see it in your face and I can hear
16:02
Speaker 1: it in your voice, and I'm grateful to hear it. Owen,
16:06
Speaker 1: is you believe a massive component in all of this
16:10
Speaker 1: that is missing with some millennials, a bunch of millennials
16:14
Speaker 1: and certainly the gen Z is the numbers show it
16:18
Speaker 1: is faith?
16:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, faith in really honestly anything at this point,
16:23
Speaker 3: because I mean, young people, we don't believe in anything.
16:27
Speaker 3: We have no direction, We have no meaning, We have
16:30
Speaker 3: no purpose, right Our entire life is the material pleasures
16:32
Speaker 3: of the world around us. And it's it's awful because
16:36
Speaker 3: you know that is everything that means anything to us.
16:40
Speaker 3: Are the relationships in our lives, you know, mean nothing.
16:43
Speaker 3: The obviously, our faith, our connection to God mean absolutely nothing.
16:47
Speaker 3: It's it's disgusting what pop culture and the media and everything,
16:52
Speaker 3: you know, all the narratives that have been pushed on
16:54
Speaker 3: young people for really generations and all throughout history. Obviously
16:57
Speaker 3: that's what sin is, but especially here, you know, especially
17:01
Speaker 3: in the age of the Internet, it's so easy to
17:03
Speaker 3: be influenced by these these opinions that frankly I believe
17:08
Speaker 3: are satanic. Sure, and you know again it's like it's
17:11
Speaker 3: they're elevating people. They're making people believe that they can
17:15
Speaker 3: elevate themselves to a level of godlike status. I can
17:18
Speaker 3: do whatever I want, there's no consequences, there's no whatever.
17:20
Speaker 3: And I think that is the most basic thing we
17:23
Speaker 3: need to do to get back. If we want to
17:24
Speaker 3: have a decent society again, if we want to have
17:27
Speaker 3: a society where we can agree to disagree on issues
17:30
Speaker 3: like the corporate tax rate, we need to understand what
17:32
Speaker 3: it means to be a human being. We need to
17:34
Speaker 3: understand what it means to be an American.
17:36
Speaker 1: I showed you the quote of John Adams that the
17:38
Speaker 1: Constitution was meaningless for anything other than a moral and
17:43
Speaker 1: religious people.
17:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, And that's another one of these narratives
17:46
Speaker 3: that they push, is that the separation of church and
17:49
Speaker 3: state argument, which I'm sure you know the whole history.
17:51
Speaker 1: Oh, I know all of that.
17:52
Speaker 2: I talked about it the other day. There you go,
17:54
Speaker 2: there you go.
17:55
Speaker 3: So, I mean that's really not in any of our
17:57
Speaker 3: founding documents. And you know, all of the found the
18:00
Speaker 3: fathers were very, very religious, and they believed that America
18:03
Speaker 3: was I personally believe they they thought America was always
18:06
Speaker 3: going to be a Christian nation.
18:08
Speaker 1: You know.
18:09
Speaker 3: They just wanted the freedom for the colonies and the
18:11
Speaker 3: states to you know, choose what church they wanted to
18:14
Speaker 3: affiliate with. I mean, you look at I mean, Charlie
18:16
Speaker 3: Kirk actually talked about this at one point. You look
18:18
Speaker 3: at all of the founding charters for all of the
18:20
Speaker 3: original thirteen colonies. I think every single one of them
18:23
Speaker 3: mentioned that you have to be part of a specific
18:25
Speaker 3: Christian denomination, you know, and it's like they all had
18:28
Speaker 3: the intention that this was going to be a Christian nation.
18:30
Speaker 3: And of course, as time goes on that got a
18:32
Speaker 3: little bit more difficult. And now we have the modern
18:36
Speaker 3: narratives that you know, government and church are supposed to
18:39
Speaker 3: be totally separate. But my whole thing is, I mean,
18:42
Speaker 3: what is a law. A law is a moral judgment
18:44
Speaker 3: that there is a certain good thing and a certain
18:46
Speaker 3: bad thing. And we as law legislates moralities exactly, and
18:51
Speaker 3: that is a religion in itself, in the sense that
18:54
Speaker 3: you are agreeing to these principles and values and beliefs.
18:57
Speaker 2: Why is murder wrong? Right?
18:59
Speaker 3: I mean, why do we have laws agains of murder?
19:02
Speaker 3: And if everybody, if everybody's opinions and beliefs were totally
19:06
Speaker 3: equal and valid and worthy of, you know, the same
19:08
Speaker 3: amount of respect, then really nobody's right, right, and you
19:12
Speaker 3: can do whatever you want and I can't say anything
19:13
Speaker 3: about it. You could, you know, kick puppies in your
19:15
Speaker 3: backyard and I could say, oh that whatever, it's not
19:17
Speaker 3: my pa.
19:18
Speaker 2: Hey, if it works for you, you do you, you know,
19:22
Speaker 2: But that's the problem, and that's the world we live in.
19:25
Speaker 3: So if we need to get to that first and
19:26
Speaker 3: foremost before we get to anything else in politics.
19:30
Speaker 1: Forty one minutes past the hour. I remember when I
19:36
Speaker 1: left broadcasting Owen in the early mid nineteen eighties and
19:42
Speaker 1: went into vocational ministry. My my family generally broadly felt
19:49
Speaker 1: like it was a phase I was just gonna I
19:51
Speaker 1: was going to grow out of it, and my commitment
19:55
Speaker 1: to it ended up winning over a lot of members
19:59
Speaker 1: of my family. That's God's grace.
20:04
Speaker 2: In your world.
20:05
Speaker 1: You've mentioned at the very beginning that it's sometimes a
20:10
Speaker 1: little different when you gather with the extended family and
20:12
Speaker 1: so forth. You've got close members immediate family that are supportive,
20:17
Speaker 1: others maybe just sort of pat you on the head.
20:19
Speaker 1: I don't know.
20:22
Speaker 2: What's that look like.
20:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I just want to say that my mom
20:26
Speaker 3: is extremely supportive, you know. Like I said, we don't
20:28
Speaker 3: always see eye to eye on every single issue, but
20:31
Speaker 3: we have a wonderful conversation. She's absolutely amazing. She's a
20:33
Speaker 3: big role model to me. Single mother raised me and
20:37
Speaker 3: my sister. Just absolutely amazing. She's a teacher here in Tallahassee,
20:41
Speaker 3: and really, through some of the toughest times in my life,
20:46
Speaker 3: I you know, I relied on her. So you know,
20:50
Speaker 3: I feel like, you know, those relationships are totally possible.
20:53
Speaker 3: You don't have to agree on everything, whether it's philosophical
20:56
Speaker 3: issues or even economic or social issues or whatever, but
20:59
Speaker 3: you can have that cannet because you do have those
21:01
Speaker 3: core beliefs in those that core foundation you know, of
21:04
Speaker 3: the family, which is a really beautiful thing. But yeah,
21:08
Speaker 3: and you know, I mean in regards to other relationships,
21:11
Speaker 3: there are people obviously who you know, wanted to, you know,
21:14
Speaker 3: shut me out of of their lives after I you know,
21:18
Speaker 3: I told them that I started attending church. You know,
21:20
Speaker 3: I hadn't even changed my beliefs at one point. I
21:22
Speaker 3: was still very much a progressive. I had just started
21:24
Speaker 3: reading the Bible, and they didn't want anything to do
21:26
Speaker 3: with me.
21:27
Speaker 1: So, but that's scriptural. Yeah, now, you know, I mean
21:30
Speaker 1: that Jesus talks about dividing families because that's.
21:33
Speaker 2: What he does.
21:35
Speaker 1: Some people believe in, some choose not to. How do
21:38
Speaker 1: you think this will? What? What does your future look
21:41
Speaker 1: like to you right now? What do you think you're supposed.
21:44
Speaker 2: To be doing well as of right now?
21:47
Speaker 3: I really do feel a calling towards politics, you know,
21:50
Speaker 3: not because of any of like the power or the
21:53
Speaker 3: anything that anybody would really be you know, appealed to. Really,
21:56
Speaker 3: it's because I want to spread my faith and one
21:58
Speaker 3: of the best ways. There's a million ways you can
22:01
Speaker 3: spread your faith, but one of the best ways is
22:04
Speaker 3: to change the culture. And you know, if I can
22:06
Speaker 3: make an impact on some place like Florida State's campus,
22:10
Speaker 3: which is obviously extremely liberal and not open to conservative perspectives,
22:15
Speaker 3: or other communities you know here in Leon County, you know,
22:19
Speaker 3: I want to do that, And you know, I don't
22:20
Speaker 3: care how difficult they say it may be. I don't
22:22
Speaker 3: care how you know, I'm not in this to, you know,
22:27
Speaker 3: win fifty one percent of the votes and compromise on
22:29
Speaker 3: my values in the case of like running for an election.
22:33
Speaker 3: I'm in this to actually, you know, change lives fundamentally
22:38
Speaker 3: and you know, bring as many people to Heaven as
22:40
Speaker 3: I possibly can. So whatever way I do that, whether
22:42
Speaker 3: it's politics or not, that is my vision. And Michael,
22:45
Speaker 3: do you feel as though a possible run for an
22:49
Speaker 3: elected office.
22:50
Speaker 1: Is in your future?
22:51
Speaker 2: I don't know.
22:52
Speaker 3: Obviously, it'd be something I'd have to pray over a
22:54
Speaker 3: lot and talk to a lot of people.
22:55
Speaker 2: That's silly, old prayer.
22:58
Speaker 3: I know, but you know, maybe in time if people
23:04
Speaker 3: think that that's a that's a that's you know, a
23:06
Speaker 3: good thing for me to do, and people want that,
23:09
Speaker 3: you know, I would never want to do it.
23:11
Speaker 1: You know, what do you think God's saying.
23:13
Speaker 3: I think God's saying to you know, stay on the
23:16
Speaker 3: course that I'm on right now, which is really just
23:17
Speaker 3: making sure I'm exposed and aware to all of the
23:20
Speaker 3: facets of politics, you know, campaigns, journalism.
23:23
Speaker 1: Because there is a dirty underbelly to both of those
23:26
Speaker 1: that you just mentioned. Politics and journalist.
23:28
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, yeah, but everything you know, working with like
23:31
Speaker 3: nonprofit organizations like Turning Point, all that stuff, right, I mean,
23:34
Speaker 3: there's so many facets of politics, and I think, you know,
23:37
Speaker 3: we need good people, good Christians in every single aspect
23:41
Speaker 3: of it. And it's it's a tough world. It's it's
23:43
Speaker 3: good versus evil fundamentally, and you know, we need to
23:46
Speaker 3: fight for for what's right.
23:47
Speaker 1: I appreciate you making time to come in here. I
23:49
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this.
23:50
Speaker 2: Thank you.
23:50
Speaker 3: I really appreciate the opportunity to talk and let me
23:54
Speaker 3: know if we can help. Absolutely, I will
23:57
Speaker 1: Owen Girard, our guest and This will be in the
24:00
Speaker 1: Conversations podcast as well as the Program podcast as always,
24:05
Speaker 1: so hope you enjoyed that good visit forty six past
24:08
Speaker 1: the hour