Latest / The Junto Podcast / E41: Liberals With Guns? Why the Left Is Arming Up

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E41: Liberals With Guns? Why the Left Is Arming Up · The Junto Podcast

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Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto Podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I am your host, Edgar Mills. Thanks for joining.
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Hello, good people. Welcome to episode 41 of the Juntoe podcast.
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Thank you all for listening. I appreciate each and every one of you.
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All right. Topic of the day. We're talking about the Second Amendment and we're
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talking about the rising trend of gun ownership among liberals,
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extreme liberals, but certainly moderate liberals and and their motivations and things like that.
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What that is showing us is it's starting to unveil some truths about human nature
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as it relates to the Second Amendment and gun ownership.
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And it's starting to reveal some things that some of us suspected existed all
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along, but we're going to examine it.
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Now, of course, I'm going to break it down objectively, as objective as possible,
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with my built-in biases. I mean, I can, but I can still be somewhat objective.
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But you all know that I believe in and support the absolute authority of the
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Second Amendment as a fundamental right not to be infringed for any reason from anyone.
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It exists for the sole stated purpose to resist tyranny and also by default
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individual tyranny, right, personal self-defense.
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So I don't believe it's a partisan issue and don't believe it's ever been a partisan issue.
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So we're going to talk about it. I was inspired to do this episode by a friend of mine named Jordan,
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and he, Jordan, operates the A Better Way 2A podcast, and I was a guest on their
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podcast a couple years ago, and.
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I believe he's probably, well, he's more liberal than I am, for sure,
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as far as that goes, politics, but not a radical, for sure.
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I mean, he's a very rational person, and we probably disagree on some policy
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issues, but we're both reasonable humans. We're both mature adults,
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and we both have the capacity to agree or disagree without becoming emotionally unhinged.
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We both agree that beyond it all, no matter what your politics are,
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you still treat people with good manners and a baseline of human respect.
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So, yes, I think he might be a little liberal, but he's also a very smart guy.
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And he also has very, he's objective.
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I think he's objective and intelligent.
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And what, so, so he is the person who inspired this and why is because he made
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a very, he made a comment on a, on a news article.
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NPR did a news article on the rise of gun ownership amongst the,
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the leftist left, left wing segment of society there.
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And they interviewed several people and Jordan did a very thoughtful and succinct
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commentary on, on one of the Instagram, I think, or whatever social media posts.
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And I mean, I thought it was brilliant.
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So I texted him and asked, could I riff on his commentary? So that's what I'm doing.
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I just want to add my two cents to it.
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So yeah, that's the motivation there. So in that news article from NPR,
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now straight away, NPR, I think, is basically a leftist propaganda machine.
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And in the 90s, even in the late 80s into the 90s, I listened to NPR.
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At the time, I just, I thought it was straight news.
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I didn't realize it was slowly but surely becoming more and more divisive.
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But as everything is, right, as every news outlet is, one way or the other.
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But what I liked about NPR was back then, they would highlight emerging musicians.
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Some of them went on to be popular and famous. Some of them didn't,
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but they always highlighted very independent music, unique music, and it was good.
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Anyway, enough about NPR specifically.
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This news article, they did some interviews and things like that.
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So Broadview is one gay man who they interviewed.
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He expressed his desire to own a gun because of his fear of unrest surrounding the ice raids.
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Now, I don't know that this man was a citizen, I'm sure,
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so I don't know why a gay man specifically would fear ice raids,
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But generally speaking, they are kind of viewed as militaristic and scary.
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Well, you can make a direct comparison to the riots during the George Floyd riots, right?
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The conservatives were very concerned about the riots during that time.
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So they pushed gun ownership. Well, no.
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Despite the politics around both of those, I think both sides have a legitimate fear,
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or maybe it's an irrational fear, but a legitimate concern about their own safety, right?
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And here in America, well, not some states, but you don't have to express a
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need for safety, right? That's just inherent.
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And one young woman, there was a father-daughter crew that they interviewed,
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she said she felt strong through shooting, which, yeah, I'm sure.
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And that kind of challenged, I thought, like the stereotypes of gun ownership.
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There is a stereotype. People think about gun owners and they think,
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you know, I guess truck four by four driving redneck racist.
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Some people attach that to racism and all that stuff.
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A young left, well, left-leaning woman thought owning a gun made her feel emboldened and strong.
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And then they interviewed a trans individual who was motivated by the January
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6th events, of which there's still people in jail.
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Only one person was shot and killed during that entire incident,
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and that was by a Capitol Police officer on an unarmed protester. Yeah.
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So this trans individual was motivated by that. And what is that?
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Is that rational or irrational? Right, wrong, or otherwise, whatever you think
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about the January 6th, there was an institutional failure.
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Whether it was a staged event or whether it was the institution and the administration's
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inability to protect the protesters,
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because the left will tell you protesting is inherently American,
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but not on January 6th at the Capitol, just everywhere else.
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So that's a divisive issue. But this trans person was motivated by that to be a gun owner.
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So what I'm getting at here is if you strip away all this friggin' partisan
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hyperbole and this left and right framing of the topic,
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the NPR article shows a very common human need for safety and for individual
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agency, autonomy, and personal dignity.
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Yeah, because this world is increasingly uncertain and uneasy.
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And I think the politicians foment that, but that's a whole other thing.
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So let's talk about this, this shared common desire. This...
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The universal need or right to self-defense, that's not selective and demographic, right?
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Every one, every individual has a right to self-defense.
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And, well, people understand I'm speaking from a libertarian perspective.
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I will highlight what I think conservative perspectives are.
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I'm a little more conservative than liberal, well, in some cases, but conservative.
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Again, I'm coming from a more libertarian perspective here, but this universality
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of self-defense, it's everybody.
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Everybody gets it or is afforded that.
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Not through law, by the way, but through natural rights by virtue of being born.
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And the desire to protect yourself in any situation.
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Now, it's not ideological, folks. It's inherent to the human condition.
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It's a subconscious reaction to protect yourself.
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It's a subconscious reaction. It's the human condition.
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Everybody, regardless of politics, wants to preserve their own life and liberty
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when they think it's threatened.
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Yeah, when they think it's threatened.
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The second amendment is not a partisan tool now some
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people may believe like that the that the
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conservative right took ownership of the second amendment somehow and it's not
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for everyone else that's bull crap that ties into the stereotypes and we all
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know yeah stereotypes are all founded in a little bit of truth but now get out
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of here man the second amendment right,
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applies to every American citizen.
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And the right to self-defense applies universally, citizen or not.
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It's the last line of defense, folks. It says it right there in that.
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It's a defense, first and foremost, against tyranny from the left or right.
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It don't say what side of the aisle the tyranny should come from that makes
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the Second Amendment valid.
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Any political tyranny. Because the left and right, good people,
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I don't care what side you think you're on.
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They both seek to control you.
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That is their desire. It's the same exact beast.
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The Second Amendment is our defense. It's our last line of defense against tyranny
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from the government and against individual ground-level tyranny,
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assault, right? Self-defense.
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And it helps us maintain some kind of grounding in a state of uncertainty,
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right? Think apocalypse.
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Think societal collapse. What are you going to do if you're not wealthy or if
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you're not among the elite class and we go into some kind of bizarre societal
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collapse and you don't have a firearm and you aren't able to defend yourself
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against other people with firearms?
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Now, that's extreme. But is it?
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The state will not protect you, good people. Understand it. They will not.
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Second Amendment ensures that our personal security don't depend on government
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largesse or government, worse yet, government efficiency.
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I can't remember. I think it was von Mises or Milton Friedman.
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Somebody like that said that if the government was in charge of the beaches,
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there would be a shortage of sand in five years.
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Government efficiency is not a thing. It don't exist.
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If you rely on government benevolence or government efficiency,
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you're going to be a subject. We will all be subjects within just a few years.
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We have to maintain our own autonomy.
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And that starts with the First and Second Amendments.
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Now, critiquing conservative fears during all these leftist riots when it's
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some racially motivated thing or whatever,
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critiquing that as bad faith and being disingenuous, and then turning around
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and validating liberal fears during these border patrol incidents and these ICE operations,
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all that does is expose your hypocrisy and your unwillingness to really look
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at the crux of the matter.
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But what it does show, though, yeah, it shows hypocrisy if you're for one but
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not for the other. And that's on both sides, good people.
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You can't critique the left for being concerned about these ICE operations that
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are somehow very public and somehow very large scale with masked operator-looking types.
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You can't critique them for wanting to own guns and protect themselves and then
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think it's okay during these BLM riots and all this and that.
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It might be a little apples and oranges. That's a different podcast.
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But what it does expose beyond the hypocrisy is that how your proximity to risk,
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right, when it becomes personal to you, all of a sudden armed self-defense is unassailable.
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It's just become a very reasonable option, right, when it affects you.
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So treat it the same as when it affects other people but not you.
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It's still a very reasonable and, well, it should be unassailable right.
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Armed self-defense, and I say this a lot during training and things,
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some people are not familiar with violence.
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And if you're not familiar with violence, you kind of develop irrational fears.
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But when you are familiar with violence, and that don't mean go out and do crime.
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You can go be a part of a jiu-jitsu gym or you can go, and I wouldn't even say
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training firearms makes you, that doesn't even make you familiar with violence
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because firearm training is just a tool.
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It's either violent or nonviolent. It's just the use of a tool.
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But being unfamiliar with violence, if you've never been punched in the face,
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right, and the first time you ever get punched in the face is when you're a
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grown man, you're probably going to have a semi-extreme reaction to it.
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And you're either going to bow up and become the Hulk or you're going to shrink and cower.
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So you should become—so at any rate, when it becomes personal to you,
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then things start to look a little different. Self-defense starts to look a little different.
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We can't rely on police. We can't rely on the government to protect us.
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Libertarians have long argued that true equality comes from individuals empowering themselves, right?
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Not waiting for permission or for protection from a central authority.
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You have the right, use it. You have the right, use it.
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I don't mean you have to go kill
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people, good people. You don't have to be violent to protect yourself.
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But violence is sometimes very random, so it may happen to you.
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Having a gun, I say this all the time too, carrying concealed right out in the
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public as a self-defense tool, it's much like a parachute, right?
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You don't need it until you do, and then it's the only thing you need, right?
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So empowerment. Let's go to empowerment. Now, this article gave an example of
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a daughter who said she felt strong through firearms training.
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And that aligns directly with values of self-reliance and personal agency that
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I think everybody should have.
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That's very much libertarian as far as politics goes, but everybody should have
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that value of self-reliance and personal autonomy.
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Guns, good people, are the great equalizers. They level the playing field in
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uncertain and violence, right?
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Guns level the playing field. And I've said this in multiple podcasts.
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I believe an armed society is a polite society. If a bad guy thought that everybody
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out there walking the street had a gun on him, he would have to be way more
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selective about choosing a victim.
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As opposed to today in the modern day, if I'm walking down the streets of New
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York City, I can assume that almost no one has a gun with the exception of a cop. Yeah.
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Guns level to play and field and in places where
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gun ownership is still considered a
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right right and a lot of the red states i'm just going to say a lot of red states
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that are that are more pro gun there are a lot of gun owners and a lot of concealed
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carriers and you may very well get shot if you try some bullshit on someone
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guns level to play and field when it comes to violence,
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whether you're a woman, minority, transsexual, elderly,
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if you are numerically or physically disadvantaged,
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guns help level that play and fill it out.
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Now, I'm not just saying the gun, right? You still have to train.
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But again, that's another episode.
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There's a lot of stereotypes around gun ownership that I think the left foments and...
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The right, I don't know, I think they might even relish in it a little bit,
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but there's a lot of stereotypes around gun ownership as being, you know,
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toxic, masculine compensation for having a small dick or whatever.
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Well, that doesn't hold up compared to this interview, right?
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This NPR interview, there was nothing remotely resembling that.
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But what this NPR article did expose and what my friend Jordan's comments did
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expose is that the right to bear arms empowers vulnerable people.
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Yeah that empowers vulnerable people and
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and fosters independence that so that you don't
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have to rely on the state or or
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the cops or some bizarre collective blm group of black panthers carrying around
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they are mmp-15-22s with anyway
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there's some bizarre pictures out there of collective gun ownership.
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So it's not about endorsing or opposing some kind of social identity, right?
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Be who you are. And it's not about labeling people as an ally or an enemy.
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It's about recognizing that the Second Amendment, the authority of the Second
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Amendment extends to everyone,
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enabling you to protect yourself in a violent world, right, where threats do not discriminate.
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Now, some people target certain groups or certain things, but it's famously
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some of the gay gun groups, they had a t-shirt out there that says,
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armed gays don't get bashed.
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Seems pretty succinct, right? It's hard to discriminate physically,
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violently against people who have the means to protect themselves.
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And again, the threats in the real world, right?
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We're not talking about these ideological make-believe apocalypse,
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societal collapse things.
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I'm talking about desperate, you know,
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drug addicts hanging out in dark corners and you walk by and you look like a
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victim and they need money or they need whatever they need or want and decide
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to try to take it from you.
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That still happens. That still happens. or if you find yourself in the wrong,
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you know, you're visiting a major city that you're not familiar with and there
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happens to be some bizarre riot going on and you make the wrong turn and now
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you got rioters jumping up and down on your car and want to pull you out and
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beat you to death because you're the wrong color.
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Well, that, what are you going to do then, right? You're going to talk them
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down, going to have a rational debate with them.
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It's kind of hard at that point.
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So the trans interviewee on that NPR article talked about January 6th.
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And January 6th, again, whatever you believe, whatever you think about it politically,
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at its core, it shows us one true thing, and that's that governments are fallible.
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Now, whether that January 6th thing was an inside job with agitators set up
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to make it look a certain way,
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had Capitol Police letting people in and out of the Capitol building,
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like basically escorting, you had a bunch of weird shit going on, right?
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It don't matter who's in charge of the government. That is the government at inaction.
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So whether it's nefarious or whether it's incompetence or whatever,
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that you can't depend on it to protect you as an individual basis.
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I think Ashley Babbitt was her name. She couldn't depend on it.
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The government's ability to protect you is an illusion, 100% illusion.
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And that illusion is shaped by agendas from these people.
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And it's backed by inefficiency, again, be it incompetence or ill will,
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and especially for marginalized groups.
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And the fact of the matter is states, history shows us that states,
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governments, whether it's state, federal government.
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They either fail, they either overreach, or they selectively enforce certain
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law, depending on the agenda at the time.
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You can rise above that simply by owning a firearm and not capitulating to whatever.
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I'm not telling you to go riot good people with firearms.
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But these days, here's what I noticed the government and the news is using a
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lot, is they're calling people who protest insurrectionists.
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They're starting to use that word a lot, insurrectionists.
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That's not happenstance. That's by design, because insurrection means something
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different under legal authority than just protester.
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So beware armed insurrection will get you hemmed up some people call january
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6th an armed insurrection i beg to differ again the only person shot and killed
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during that was was a protester and she was unarmed um.
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So instead of calling for government intervention or more laws,
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gun laws, this interview specifically just reinforced the fact that the Second
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Amendment is the ultimate backstop.
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Because when it came down to it, these people, these left wing people who they
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interviewed, eventually it came down to an individual responsibility.
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They discovered now, especially with Donald Trump, right?
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Donald, what do you call it? Trump derangement syndrome.
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That works on both sides. Yeah, that works on both sides. That works on the left and the right.
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And finally, they decided that, man, it's possible that this guy could try to target my group.
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And what happens if that's the case? I have to take responsibility for myself.
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And that's always what it's been, folks, always.
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The Second Amendment has always been the ultimate backstop. It's an inalienable,
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unalienable right that ensures an individual can defend themselves when institutions
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will not or cannot without needing to trust in their efficiency or impartiality
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or abilities simply to react.
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So these people, they're very skeptic of the government. Well, guess what?
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Skepticism is not extremism. Good people. I love America. I'm very skeptical of the politics.
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I'm not an extremist. No, no.
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I'm not extreme in my thought process. I'm prudent in my thought process.
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Founding fathers made this, they enshrined this as an absolute right.
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To protect the individual against uncertainty, political unrest,
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crime, state inadequacies and overreach.
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Yeah, you can hate on the Founding Fathers if you're a lefty,
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if you want to, but the document is still one of the greatest documents ever to be written.
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So what we do see from this article and then from other people I know,
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I know people who are on the extreme right and on the extreme left.
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What this article, and this is a welcomed article, by the way,
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it exposes that it's a common ground.
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Now, tragically, it's common ground based in fear and self-preservation,
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but it's still common ground.
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And it's a core right for all, and it's an individual core right,
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and specifically the Second Amendment
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and First Amendment specifically transcend politics, good people.
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It transcends politics.
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Pursuit of life, liberty, and property transcends politics. Politicians love
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to tinker with those things.
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But once again, Second Amendment's the backstop.
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So instead of trying to solve these gun problems, right? It's not a problem to be solved.
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Instead of trying to ban guns, and because if that happens, let's just say America
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banned all guns and somehow magically managed to police up all the guns in America.
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Which I can't remember, 400-something, 500 million guns in America.
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If you managed, is that right? I think it's more than that.
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Even to do all that, then who has the guns? Because they're not going to ban
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guns for the government, good people.
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Government is still going to have them. So now, let's take the left-wing people
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who believe in banning guns, and then let's draw the comparison to,
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okay, now you're out protesting,
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and ICE is the only ones with guns.
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And now you step in front of you, you're in your car and you decide you want to drive away.
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However smart or dumb that is. And an ICE guy pulls his pistol out and blasts you.
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You've got no, there's, that's it. There you go.
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So banning guns, good people, is only going to, basically you're giving away
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the farm there. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
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The guns aren't the problem. Guns aren't a problem.
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They're to be celebrated when more citizens take on ownership of their self-defense
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and as an individual responsibility. Yeah.
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Guns promote a society of empowered citizens, individuals. Yeah.
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And guess what? The First Amendment, here's the thing. You can say the things
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you want to say, however radical.
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And half the population will disagree with you.
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But the Second Amendment, good people, doesn't require any alignment on any other issue.
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It requires no alignment on any other issue.
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You can be the leftist of left, and you can be the rightist of right,
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and you can both agree that you both have a right to self-defense.
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Require alignment on any other issue. It doesn't require capitulation on any other issue.
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Simply as an acknowledgement, the Second Amendment has absolute authority.
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It's neutral. The Second Amendment is the guardian of personal sovereignty.
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It's neutral. It applies to everyone.
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There's nothing to be agreed or disagreed with.
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Is murder wrong? Yeah, absolutely. Whether you shoot somebody or stab somebody
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or beat somebody to death with a hammer.
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That's got nothing to do with gun ownership.
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People conflate those things. They conflate inner city crime with guns.
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And every morning on the news on Fox 5 Atlanta, somebody is dead in South Fulton.
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Yeah, it's almost every morning you hear it.
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And the first thing they do is say gun crime.
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It's not gun crime. There's other issues there.
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There's other cultural and societal issues at play. The gun just happens to be the tool.
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Don't conflate the result with the tool itself.
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The Second Amendment is neutral, good people. Yeah.
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So, ultimately, good people, if you can put yourself above all the partisan noise.
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And you can see, and this article helps to highlight this a little bit,
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that we're all driven really by the same kind of natural instincts for security and autonomy.
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Well, that kind of universal need for security is, that's it,
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it's protected by the Second Amendment without any favoritism, without any bias.
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Yeah And that's where we have Our foundation for true freedom Right there If
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we can stand To say what we want And defend it Against anyone,
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I'd love to hear your arguments on it. There's a lot of statistics.
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Some people do very, very specific surveys to try to get very specific numbers.
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The fact of the matter is more guns equal less crime.
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That's the way it is. Because the more law-abiding citizens that are armed,
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the less apt bad guys are to carry out their ends.
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There is a level of responsibility, good people, that is required.
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But check it out. Here's where the government goes south.
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Acknowledging that there are dumbasses in the world. The government wants to
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make rules at that base. They want that to be the baseline.
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We're banning guns because of the lowest common denominator.
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Instead of assuming that all Americans are responsible...
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All Americans are irresponsible. Therefore, they should have some kind of right to limit our rights.
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Well, that's bullshit. That's wrong. It's wrong.
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There are irresponsible people out there. There's people with ill will out there.
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There's people who have perfectly clean criminal records who may snap and kill people.
34:18
Yes, that's right. That happens.
34:22
We're talking about contingencies in very small numbers in comparison.
34:26
There's people who accidentally shoot each other.
34:30
Yeah. I always bring up the instance of a father who's cleaning his shotgun
34:36
in his house, on his couch, and his son was sitting and he blasted his son.
34:41
And the only thing he could say after the fact was, I thought it was unloaded.
34:46
Well, to me, that's unacceptable.
34:49
But that's where training comes in. And believe me, there is no shortage of
34:52
people willing to train you.
34:54
There's different levels of skill out there, and that is 100% for sure. But,
35:00
is a baseline safety knowledge that exists. There's four universal rules of
35:05
firearm safety that exist.
35:07
And all you have to do is know those and implement those.
35:11
The skill can come, right? You can always, anybody can be taught to put bullets on a certain spot.
35:19
Your gun handling is one of those inherent Habitual things you have to You have
35:25
to know, understand And execute.
35:29
Know Treat every gun as it's loaded Keep your finger off the trigger and out
35:33
of the trigger guard Don't point anything you don't want to shoot Be aware Of your target,
35:40
And be aware of its surroundings Clearly identify your target And be aware of its surroundings,
35:46
Those are the four universal rules of firearm safety They apply everywhere all
35:49
the time It doesn't matter if you're on the range or in combat or at the Waffle
35:53
House parking lot at 3 a.m. They apply.
35:59
So if you're lefty, well, chances are you're not listening to my podcast if you're extreme lefty.
36:05
But even if you're borderline lefty, you still probably like guns if you're
36:10
listening to my podcast.
36:12
So I don't know if this has reached people that I wanted to reach.
36:15
But let me say this, if you're a hard right guy.
36:18
Uh-oh. Just had a glitch.
36:21
Let me say this, though. If you're a hard right guy, and you don't think that
36:25
if you think it's okay to ban guns for queers or trans or blacks or whoever, you need to rethink.
36:36
Rethink your political, man, I keep, there keeps being glitches.
36:40
I don't know if that's the internet connection or what.
36:43
If you think that you need to rethink your sort of politics and your,
36:47
whether or not you're a, you think you're a hypocrite or not.
36:51
Yeah. I mean, that's, that, that's, that's what I'm saying.
36:55
Now, I know some of you hard right out there who are listening right now,
36:59
you're thinking to yourself, let's use a trans community. Cause I always pick on them.
37:05
Is there is there psychological issues there and now we're getting into the
37:11
capacity for people who are mentally unstable to own guns hey i don't have the
37:16
right answer on that necessarily i don't,
37:19
and it's something to be discussed amongst smart people i'm not qualified to
37:26
speak on mental health necessarily as it pertains to gun ownership.
37:31
But until somebody has proven something and then the tragedy is they have to
37:38
do something bad for you to discover their state of mind,
37:42
so that's a complex issue and it's a discussion to be had.
37:47
But I'm talking about in the broader sense here.
37:50
If you're a trans man and you're a perfectly reasonable human and you get up
37:56
and go to work or do whatever you do. You make your living.
37:59
You contribute to society.
38:02
You don't hurt others.
38:05
Yeah. Why not?
38:08
It's arguable that trans people probably need to be armed more than other people
38:13
because I don't think we've seen this a lot lately.
38:18
Good people in the nineties, we saw it where trans people were getting bashed
38:24
and beat up and whatnot. And that's a thing.
38:27
Even in the eighties, there was gay bashing going on.
38:31
These marginalized groups, good people, if you're a rational human,
38:35
you must concur that if you're
38:38
in that these marginalized people have every right not
38:42
to be brutalized think about that
38:45
good people think about it there's a
38:47
whole history around racism with gun ownership in the in the mid-century america
38:53
you know gun laws emerged because they didn't want groups of black people being
39:00
able to protest while armed and you know in certain places and things like that.
39:06
So just like everything the government does, it's a control measure.
39:10
They want to disarm either certain groups or everyone now as a control measure.
39:18
And the reason the right doesn't, the reason they're considered technically
39:22
pro-gun is because their constituency would frigging lose it if the right went anti-gun.
39:30
Because you do, I believe, It's their job to represent their constituency.
39:35
And there's a whole lot of gun owners in America who are conservative.
39:40
But the good news, and this is what this article points out,
39:43
and I'm on board, is that now there's a whole lot of lefties who are starting
39:48
to be gun owners. Now, are they all in?
39:52
If the government says, okay, we're banning guns for everyone,
39:56
or would they be willing to just willingly give up that right?
40:00
And they're just buying guns as a backstop, but they don't really feel it.
40:04
So there's all sorts of nuances out there, good people, all sorts.
40:09
What I would leave you with on this topic is be intellectually consistent and
40:17
be fair and consistent across the board.
40:20
If it's your right to carry a gun, why shouldn't it be someone else's right to carry a gun?
40:28
Among us shouldn't have a right to defend themselves.
40:32
Think about that. That's all I got on that topic, good people,
40:36
for now. Anyway, specifically.
40:38
And again, thanks to Jordan at A Better Way 2A.
40:43
I should read his... It's kind of long.
40:48
I'm not going to verbally plagiarize, but it's good stuff.
40:52
So, Libertarian Party of Georgia just had their state convention this weekend.
40:57
It's going on now until I think it ends at about 2.30 today,
41:01
but all the business was done yesterday.
41:04
All the voting on, you know, the delegates voted for candidates.
41:09
We are pushing a candidate up
41:11
for the U.S. Senate, and I'm going to find this. I'm going to find this.
41:17
It's Alan. And he got up and gave a pretty impassioned pitch, and it was pretty good.
41:25
And he's a lawyer, of course.
41:28
Yeah, everybody's a freaking lawyer in politics.
41:31
He's a lawyer, and he's a finance guy. He deals a lot with finance.
41:39
And he had a lot of very good sort
41:42
of platform ideas on on how
41:45
to control not control but fix fix
41:49
the money issue the the spending and tax and spending issues because that's
41:55
what's up tax and spending it's insane so i'm trying to find this guy and we
42:02
got a new secretary for the For the Libertarian Party of Georgia,
42:07
Zane Placey was the secretary, and he did a fantastic job. He's one of the smartest guys I've ever met.
42:13
And then yesterday, we voted in Sergio Ortega to be the new secretary of the
42:19
party, who is also one of the smartest guys I've ever met. I can tell you this.
42:26
Of smart people out there, right? But these are two humans.
42:30
There's some libertarians that are some very just incredibly smart humans.
42:36
And I enjoy that, right? I enjoy meeting these people and just being impressed.
42:42
I'm not easily impressed, 100%. I am not easily impressed.
42:48
However, I am impressed by Zane.
42:51
I'm impressed by Sergio.
42:54
And he lives up here, by the way. He goes to North Georgia College,
43:00
yes, but he is in our local affiliate up here in Bartow, Floyd County,
43:07
Polk County, affiliate.
43:09
So I get the occasion to listen to him.
43:13
On about policies and things. And man, he's awesome.
43:17
So I cannot find the post that of the guy we're running for Senate.
43:26
I think Chase Oliver got nominated to run as governor.
43:32
And now Chase Oliver was going to be a presidential candidate,
43:37
I think, or a, yeah, presidential candidate.
43:41
Now, we disagree on certain things, true enough, but he is a libertarian-minded guy.
43:48
And he's small government, right? And he's all about decentralized government.
43:55
Now, is he going to, again, what I really hate is that I know that libertarians
44:04
have a very minimal chance to get big elections.
44:11
But what I do like is we also saw several people get nominated for small local
44:18
governmental seats and like even county, like one of them, it was kind of funny,
44:23
but Zane, who was the secretary,
44:27
got nominated to run for Fulton County Soil and.
44:32
Soil and land management, something or another, some obscure seat.
44:38
But they did have a sort of weird critical role.
44:42
And that's good, Matt. And that's awesome. So if he gets that, that will be awesome.
44:50
And there's a strong chance of it, by the way.
44:53
Ted Metz was nominated for Secretary State of Georgia, and that's Brad Rathlenberger's seat.
45:02
And if you're a conservative, you know Rathlenberger is not a conservative.
45:07
You may think he is, but he's not.
45:10
So U.S. Senate, Alan Buckley, Alan Buckley. So he's got a lot of very good plans.
45:19
And if he and if he gets up there, hey, man, we will have a good person in the
45:24
Senate that will try to help tame government spending.
45:28
Yeah, try to help tame government spending. And that's where it's at.
45:33
Don't don't hurt people. Don't take their stuff. Taxation is theft.
45:38
Free market. Yeah. True free markets. And that's to include no crony capitalism. Yeah.
45:47
And then there's Andrew Underwood, who is from up here in North.
45:54
He lives in the 14th District.
45:55
He is running as the only Libertarian for the District 14 seat that Marjorie
46:04
Taylor Greene has given up.
46:06
Now, I can't even tell you how many people are running for that seat Probably
46:12
20 plus And probably 15 of those are Republicans A couple Democrats,
46:20
And then one independent libertarian And his name is Andrew Underwood,
46:27
So there was a lot of stuff going on there It was pretty good You know,
46:30
I'm a voting delegate I listen to these people And I vote for who I think is
46:34
the right person for the party and then, you know, I try to support with range
46:39
days for the Libertarian Party and things like that.
46:42
That's the capacity I have, right? I have a shooting range and I have the capacity
46:46
to train people. So that's what I do to try to support.
46:50
So, and then there's always the Great Create DIY Freedom Festival that happens
46:57
every year that I participate in and they do that.
47:00
It's a fundraiser and it's to expose people to some alternative,
47:04
you know, lifestyle things.
47:07
And it's very good. And there's always great humans there.
47:11
So, you know, if you're dyed in the wool, red or blue, that good,
47:15
you know, good on you, I encourage you as a critical thinker to, to,
47:20
you know, ask yourself why is it because that's the way it's always been because
47:25
my dad and granddad voted blue.
47:28
What I do notice is there's a lot of Dixiecrats in the Rome-Floyd County area,
47:34
and that is deep southern Democrats.
47:39
You know, and then on the opposite end, there's extreme right wing Republicans.
47:48
But what I do think, though, is that the middle is growing as far as politics goes.
47:53
I think people are starting to see that the extremes on the left and right are
47:57
just kind of getting out of control.
48:00
Because what you get is you'll get some kind of bizarre policy or some kind
48:05
of bizarre political action that happens.
48:08
And then there's an extreme overreaction and response.
48:15
So it's just one equal and opposite reaction to another. And the more extreme they get, well, they...
48:24
And at some point, it starts to alienate people in the middle.
48:27
Hell, man, your average person just wants to pay less than two bucks a gallon for gas.
48:33
And they want to be able to afford groceries.
48:35
And they want to buy a house. These days, you go look at a house that should be about $150,000.
48:43
And it's $350,000. And they'll put that price tag on it with a straight face.
48:50
Because that's what the manipulated market bears right now.
48:56
It's crazy. Regular people can't afford life.
49:01
And you certainly can't afford to get ahead. And that leads us down the road
49:05
to serfdom, good people.
49:06
It's just we got to start looking at alternatives.
49:10
Your red and your blue guy ain't going to fix the problem.
49:13
Well, their platforms aren't going to fix the problem because ultimately the
49:18
red and blue just are after control.
49:20
The great thing about the Libertarian platform is that nobody is seeking to be in charge of you.
49:27
They are seeking to level the playing field equally for all people and then
49:32
let the free markets do what they do.
49:34
So anyway, Libertarian Party of Georgia, check it out.
49:38
There's probably an affiliate near you. Fulton County, they have a strong affiliate
49:42
up here in Bartow, Floyd, Polk, and...
49:51
We have that's an affiliate there might be one more county
49:54
in that and and you
49:58
know we get together regularly to meet about
50:01
initiatives specifically up here
50:03
we do Habitat for Humanity volunteering we
50:07
do they do a river cleanup I've yet to be a part of it it's always conflicts
50:11
with my schedule but they do a river cleanup initiative and then they you know
50:17
they go out and they put tables up at festivals and things and try to spread the libertarian thing.
50:24
And for the Libertarian Party of Georgia, we do a range day every year.
50:29
I think last year we did it twice. We do a range day.
50:34
As our big range, should that get approved, you know, and then we're going to,
50:37
that's going to expand a little bit and be a little more robust and,
50:41
you know, a little bit more like a big event as opposed to just a range day.
50:46
So there's a lot of things we do and we, and it's all to minimize the power
50:54
of the centralized government and maximize the individual,
51:02
power, individual autonomy, and right to determination for ourselves,
51:07
and the right to keep the money we earn and spend it as we see fit,
51:13
and those types of things.
51:15
So, yeah, give it a look. Libertarian Party of Georgia. All right,
51:21
good people. That's enough of the politicking.
51:24
Everything kind of revolves around politics. It sucks that that's the case.
51:28
I'm going to start curbing that a little bit I think the next episode We're
51:33
going to try to talk about the arts a little bit I don't know,
51:36
The reason politics affects everything Is because they try to put their fingers
51:40
on to everything So that's what we're against,
51:44
Alright What's coming up I got nothing scheduled folks We got the pistol workshop
51:51
That's coming up Is sold out,
51:55
So thanks And thanks to all the folks who got a ticket for that,
52:00
it's going to be a good course.
52:02
We got private sessions. I'm pretty much maxed out through the end of January.
52:08
So as you all may or may not know, I'm probably going to be out of town in February.
52:14
I won't start scheduling private sessions again until March.
52:18
Now, if you have the capacity to look that far ahead, you know,
52:23
we can schedule it, right?
52:24
So don't think that you can't look into it. You can.
52:29
And I'm going to be reachable while I'm out of town. I'm just not going to be here to train.
52:33
And it's quite possible that if you want to train bad enough,
52:38
Ezekiel can probably come out and train with you as well, just not during the
52:42
week. He would only be able to do that on the weekends.
52:46
So that's available. But at any rate, go to OspreyShootingSolutions.com and check all that out.
52:53
Go to TwoTeamGuys.com. That's the number two, TeamGuys.com.
52:57
See what we offer by way of leadership development and team building via adventure, right?
53:05
We do a lot of cool things over there with the similar goals of developing strong leaders.
53:12
And formidable teammates.
53:17
Or by appointment or by schedule, right? If you and a small crew,
53:20
you need four people minimum to schedule a course and scheduling is flexible
53:26
and we will get you on the books,
53:30
and do whatever things you're interested in there.
53:33
All the course offerings are on the website, twoteamguys.com.
53:38
Of course, we have thejuntopodcast.com where you can read the blogs and listen
53:43
to the latest three podcast episodes.
53:47
However, all the episodes are on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio,
53:54
even YouTube, even though there's no video, it's all audio.
53:58
But the Juneteau podcast is on all the platforms.
54:01
And then, of course, you are able to write a paper of a topic of your choosing,
54:08
whatever you're passionate about, and pending a little bit of,
54:13
not editing, but as long as it's reasonable paper, and I don't mean content-wise,
54:18
I mean somewhat professionally written,
54:21
and not even professionally written, just generally free of error.
54:27
We'll post that up on the website. Let's see what's after that.
54:32
And then we have siloftc.com.
54:39
Most of you know that we are in a battle, if you will, to get approval to build
54:47
our range, which we're going to call Silo Firearms Training Complex.
54:52
So January 27th will be the final determination on that.
54:58
I think we've presented a really strong case today.
55:02
And I hope that it goes. Let's see.
55:07
And then finally, finally, finally, help a homie fund is my way of reaching
55:16
out to people within my reach who are in need.
55:22
However small that need is, it has to be small right now because we have very
55:27
little capacity. But my point is this, there are a lot of people out there in
55:32
need who don't qualify for this, that, or the other.
55:37
They don't qualify to be on a program or whatnot.
55:42
And things happen, you know, unexpected car repairs or unexpected illness or
55:50
we are working family and my husband or wife got laid off.
55:56
So we're on one income, which these days, good people, if you are,
56:01
if you have one or more children and you have only one income,
56:06
you are probably somewhat close to the struggle bus, unless you're,
56:12
you know, well off, real well off, but I mean, working class people.
56:15
So that's my way of helping them. Yeah.
56:19
And it's beneficial, and we've helped a few people.
56:25
But again, it's a very small change right now.
56:28
And that is givesendago.com backslash helpahomeyfund.
56:36
So again, if you're charitable, if you're a charitable person and you feel driven
56:41
to do this, yep, we will be good stewards of your money.
56:46
Other than that, good people, I thank you. I appreciate you.
56:50
Reach out to me via any of those websites to comment or give me some suggestions
56:57
or whatnot, or debate or argue or tell me how wrong I am, all the things.
57:03
So I'm here for you. Good people, thank you very much for listening to me.