Liberty Revealed

The US Government, specifically President Joe Biden, has proposed mandating vaccinations for COVID for everyone. Mike is joined by Cason Pratt to discuss this and other liberty related issues.

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about why I believe you should oppose lockdowns.As you are no doubt aware, the response to the COVID pandemic has been to lockdown entire countries. In the United States, this has happened on a state by state basis. What started as a “two weeks to flatten the curve” lockdown has now extended into an 8 month-long period of lockdowns of varying severity.The issue I have, and it is why I say you, too, should oppose lockdowns, is that this response is not based in scientific evidence despite us being told we need to listen to science.The World Health Organization has come out against lockdowns. They say lockdowns hurt economies (duh) and are not needed. Despite the many warnings, California, where I live, is now on lockdown yet again. Some counties have closed up all restaurants. Others have allowed outdoor dining. The problem is there is no logic to any of this.In Los Angeles County, they've insisted all restaurants only be open for takeout, yet restaurants are not in the Top 10 of places they've tracked infections to. What's even more ridiculous is the #4 spot on the list of tracked infections is government offices!Of the restaurants that have had cases tracked back to them, chains like McDonalds are the only restaurants on the list.So why are we on lockdown again? Because the government says so and you, the citizens, have allowed it to not only start but to continue in what seems like an indefinite amount of time.It is times like this that we need to stand up for our rights. Yes, we need to take precautions so we don't infect the sickly, but that responsibility doesn't fall solely on our shoulders. Everyone needs to assess the risks and act accordingly. Take the precautions required. Wash your hands. Stay away from close proximity with others. If you must, wear a mask when in public. These are simple things that can help according to the government.Why aren't you questioning the government more? Why aren't you asking “if masks and social distancing work, why is Walmart open and my local burger place has to be closed?” It is time we all start questioning the lack of logic behind the actions being taken. We all want to minimize the risks associated with the virus, but not at the cost of our livelihoods. These things are only continuing because we have not held the government's feet to the fire. Get going! Call out your representatives. Demand logical answers. Don't let them get away with illogical closures. Stop them from doing illogical things.Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi's Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That's it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you've heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you'd like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about how to handle liberty issues without being selfish.I recently had an interaction in a Facebook group and it gave rise to what we are about to discuss. It showed me exactly how much the Libertarian party is failing at its messaging. The fact that people still have a completely erroneous idea of what Libertarians stand for is evident by the conversation I am about to share.The person in question shared an article that described libertarianism as destroying our society. I immediately got intrigued because, to me, for that to happen, libertarian principles have to be prevalent in society and they are not. That’s what initially made me perk up and take notice. Upon reading the article, it was apparent that the author didn’t understand libertarianism at all. The author (and the person I encountered on Facebook) looked at libertarians as being on the far right of the political spectrum. They viewed our stance on personal liberty as selfish. Why?To me, there is just a very poor understanding of personal liberty and how it applies to society and in private. There is a failure to understand that personal liberty does have limitations when in a group.The phrase “your rights end where my rights begin” needs to be understood in order to remove that “selfish” label.Yes, we believe we should be allowed to do whatever we want as often as we want in the privacy of our own homes. However, upon leaving our homes, we must respect the boundaries others have. Just because it might be our right to do something a certain way doesn’t mean we have the absolute right to do that in public. As an example, some people like to walk around naked. That would be their right in the privacy of their own home, but not in public. In public, others have the right not to be forced to look at naked people everywhere. Their rights start where our rights end.This very simple concept clarifies the meaning of personal liberty. When something has no effect on other people, it is our absolute right to handle it how we see fit. And why not? We are not causing harm to anyone else, so why shouldn’t we be allowed to partake in that activity?It is important to note that everyone chooses what they want to do. Nobody is forced into doing things they do not wish to do. It is always their personal choice. That’s what personal liberty is all about. Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about the importance of continuing the fight for liberty.The election is over. At least that is what the media has said. Donald Trump clearly has another opinion.Whatever you think about the outcome of the election, one thing is very clear-- we libertarians need to continue the fight for liberty. We must be diligent and do this starting now. We cannot wait until it is an election year. That just doesn’t give us the time to spread the word.I am proposing that libertarians start campaigning now for liberty. The democrats have been very successful by taking control of local elections. They do this by having small democrat clubs that help with donations and campaign volunteers when a candidate surfaces for a given office.Anyone who has run for office as a libertarian will tell you that the sound of crickets is deafening when you ask for volunteers. There is just something about libertarian thinking that creates a selfish attitude. I’ve heard people proclaim that they won’t help because the candidate has no chance of winning. Well, without help, that’s exactly correct.Running a political campaign takes a lot of time, energy, and money. Want to see libertarians in office? Then do like the two corrupt major parties and work together to make it happen. My plan is very simple and will work if libertarians just embrace the concept that the fight for liberty isn’t just happening during election years.Local chapters should look up what cities have city council vacancies coming up. They should then seek to find 1 or 2 candidates who would be interested in filling those vacancies. Pay special attention to school board races because they are very winnable and they get our candidate the “incumbent” tag later when it counts.I am then suggesting that local chapters should form smaller groups throughout their larger geographic areas. These groups can help source potential local candidates. They can help with fundraising. They can be an army of volunteers. This aspect of my plan is huge. Local coordination broken into smaller chunks is going to be more effective.The big move our chapters need to make is finding businesses that are friendly to our cause. We must ask them to donate to our campaign war chest fund. Rather than wait for individual candidates to run for a given position, let’s recruit donations from liberty-friendly businesses right away. Let’s point to the positions we want to fill and then let’s get some money from them. Imagine how much easier it would be to recruit candidates if the recruitment call included the statement “...we will be able to give you $10,000 to fund your campaign right away”? Imagine having the money to put out advertisements for recruiting volunteers? By tackling two of the biggest hurdles a candidate faces, the party is setting the candidates up for success. Fundraising is something that should never stop. As an organization, we tend to rely too much on membership dues and small donations. We need to approach small businesses. They are the most affected by strangling regulations. They would welcome the libertarian approach to government and commerce. Let’s show them we are the only party that is completely business-friendly.To summarize, we need to:Identify positions we want to targetForm small local groups that can help spread the wordRecruit candidates Approach businesses for donationsFundraise all the timeWhen we can have all of this run like a well-oiled machine, we will be making real progress.Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about the importance of voting for the candidate who most resonates with you.As I record this episode, it is election day in the United States. We have endured a solid year of campaigning and rhetoric. Perhaps, like me, you voted for the Libertarian candidate for President? If so, and you made this known on social media, you’ve no doubt been told that you are wasting your vote or that you are really voting for Trump. Today we are going to discuss these things and we will come to a very solid conclusion.When someone tells you that you are wasting your vote by voting for a third party candidate, remind them of how selfish their comment is. Help them to understand that we don’t try to vote for the winner, we vote for the person we are most ideologically aligned with and then we hope for them to win. Anyone saying you are wasting your vote has an ulterior motive. They want to amplify their own vote. They want you to vote for their candidate, thereby giving them an extra vote for all intents and purposes.This selfish attitude permeates American politics. People all over don’t really care what a candidate stands for as long as that candidate belongs to their party. That’s a very low bar to set and one that has lead our country into bedlam. Donald Trump is a result of always voting for the lesser of two evils. The two major parties don’t even attempt to run a principled candidate any longer. They know people are accustomed to voting for the lesser of two evils. The problem is that the lesser of two evils is still evil.What would be a wasted vote?An unprincipled vote is the only wasted vote. The purpose of voting is to tell the state and the country what your vision of government and society really is. What happens when you cave and vote in what is called a defensive vote? You sell out your personal beliefs. You become a political prostitute. You are no longer standing up for what you believe in because you’ve caved and voted for the lesser of two evils. I don’t know about you, but I do not want to be a political hooker. If you believe the Republican or Democrat candidate really does match your beliefs, go ahead and vote for them. If you don’t believe they match your beliefs, you are helping to preserve the status quo you despite.As I said, we don’t vote to pick the winner. WE vorte to tell everyone else which choice best represents the direction you want your state to go. You gain a power that a non-voter does not have--the chance to change your state.Voting for the lesser of two evils is sending the wrong message. It says that you are OK with just a good state, not the best state possible. Please don’t settle for anything less than the best.Learn from history. Radical ideas come to fruition all the time. That is, as long as you vote in a principled way. Remember, the only wasted vote is one for a candidate that doesn’t send the message you intend to send. Also remember that voting for the lesser of two evils is still casting a vote for evil.I hope that you cast a principled vote today. If you caved in and voted for one of the big two candidates, don’t feel bad. You can fix that by vowing never to do that again. Take a moment and promise yourself that every vote going forward will be a principled vote.The last thing I want to address is the ridiculous assertion that a vote for a Libertarian is a vote for Donald Trump (or anyone else). These people assume that had you not voted Libertarian you’d have voted AGAINST Donald Trump. That simply doesn’t cut it for me and my group of friends. We would never have voted for a Democrat or a Republican. Thus, our vote is for the candidate that most aligns with our belief system. Simple math will prove these people wrong, but their comment has nothing to do with math. Again, they are attempting to shame you into magnifying their own vote by getting you to vote for their candidate. Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about the lockdowns that have been caused by the pandemic.First, thank you for bearing with me as it has been several months since an episode has been released. The show will get back to a regular frequency going forward.On March 13, 2020, life changed as I knew it. That day, in particular, we were moving from one home to another. We got an automated call from my son’s school announcing that in-person instruction was suspended due to the coronavirus. From there, things just got worse.The California state government installed lockdowns that have crushed the economy and taken away the rights of the people. The government has rushed to find a way to control the spread of the virus. Across the world, a range of surveillance technologies are being deployed in an effort to find out more about who is sick. Although a crisis may make increased surveillance more palpable to the billions under some kind of lockdown civil libertarians shouldn’t be shy about highlighting the ineffective nature of many emergency measures and insisting that even those that are effective be strictly time-limited.Tragedies, panics, and crises tend to result in extremely bad policy decisions. The 9/11 terrorist attacks prompted a wave of unnecessary and ineffective laws and policies. The establishment of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Transportation Security Agency (TSA), the passage of the PATRIOT Act, and the rollout of a wide range of new surveillance programs are among the most notable domestic examples. The effectiveness of these measures should embarrass government officials. Post‐​9/​11 mass surveillance did not thwart large terrorist attacks, with a White House panel finding that one of the most famous mass surveillance programs — the snooping on telephony metadata — was “not essential in preventing attacks.” Meanwhile, the TSA has demonstrated that it’s more efficient at fondling law-abiding citizens and residents than it is at passing its own security tests. Predator drones, often associated with US foreign policy, fly along the northern and southern borders adorned with the Customs and Border Protection logo.Even when emergency measures are effective they can sometimes stick around longer than necessary. At the beginning of the Second World War, the British government passed a range of policies that infringed on civil liberties, including the introduction of ID cards. In September 1939 First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill gave a speech in which he emphasized that infringements on freedom would be temporary. Churchill said:“Perhaps it might seem a paradox that a war undertaken in the name of liberty and right should require, as a necessary part of its processes, the surrender for the time being of so many of the dearly valued liberties and rights. In these last few days the House of Commons has been voting dozens of Bills which hand over to the executive our most dearly valued traditional liberties. We are sure that these liberties will be in hands which will not abuse them, which will use them for no class or party interests, which will cherish and guard them, and we look forward to the day, surely and confidently we look forward to the day, when our liberties and rights will be restored to us, and when we shall be able to share them with the peoples to whom such blessings are unknown.”The surrender of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan did not spell the end of British ID cards. It wasn’t until 1952 that the British government finally scrapped ID cards over the objections of many in law enforcement.Crisis measures are often ineffective and can survive the crisis they are implemented to counter. We should keep these facts in mind while addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.There are important differences between the Second World War and the current pandemic. The Second World War had clear victory conditions and the enemy’s territory was geographically defined. It’s unclear what it will take for governments to declare the current pandemic to be over, and the pandemic is a crisis that is indiscriminately affecting countries across the world.Knowing more information about people is valuable in a pandemic, and some have cited examples around the world of information gathering being effective. Singapore is one of the countries most mentioned in pandemic surveillance discussions. A recent Harvard University study found that if other countries had used Singapore’s methods to detect imported cases of COVID-19 the number of detected imported cases could have been about three times what it is now.In South Korea, international visitors are required to download an app that helps users check for COVID-19 symptoms. Those in quarantine also have to download an app, which allows officials to track those who break isolation. A handful of European governments (Spanish, Romanian, Slovakian, and Polish) have embraced the South Korean approach and have developed their own app.The Trump administration is reportedly considering cellphone surveillance as a way to track the spread of COVID-19. However, it’s unlikely that South Korean surveillance methods would be effective in the U.S at this point. As Spencer Ackerman explained in the Daily Beast, pandemic surveillance is not like counter-terrorism surveillance in key regards:“Coronavirus surveillance isn’t like the kind of surveillance used to track, say, terrorist suspects. Public health officials seeking to arrest an outbreak start with a positive test of a patient and then work outward to find and warn people the patient was in close contact with. Counterterrorism surveillance, in practice, tends to gather everyone’s data first—often without warrants—analyze it for connections to targets of interest (a practice known as contact chaining), and then either purge it or keep it.[…]But according to epidemiologists, America is unlikely to replicate South Korea’s success. South Korea (and China) tested extensively for COVID-19 early on. That was the key step for being able to identify and isolate those infected before they spread the disease further. No such thing occurred in the U.S.—and accordingly, domestic pandemic surveillance in late March 2020 would resemble the anticipatory guesswork of counterterrorism surveillance, more intrusive than effective.”That surveillance tools and methods won’t be effective hardly means they won’t be deployed. Hospitals across the U.S. are set to experience an influx of patients that is beyond their capacity. This will undoubtedly increase criticism of the government. Amid frustration and anxiety, we should expect officials to embrace a more aggressive “do something” approach. The Trump administration already has relationships with companies such as Palantir, which prides itself on building tools ideal for mass surveillance.American lawmakers and officials haven’t only considered increased surveillance in response to COVID-19. They have told citizens and residents across the country to stay at home, and businesses have been forced to close or make dramatic changes to how they operate.When local officials announce restrictions on freedom we should be sure to ask them what conditions will justify an end to such restrictions. Earlier this week, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser issued an order requiring all “non‐​essential” businesses to close until April 24, 2020. However, the order notes that the deadline could be “extended, rescinded, superseded, or amended” by another order.Those of us enduring these imposed periods of isolation deserve to know when the isolation will end. How will officials define the end of this ongoing pandemic? The end of a war is easy to define. The end of a pandemic isn’t. If we are to endure restrictions on our freedoms in the name of public safety the least officials can do is tell us when it will all be over.Increased surveillance and restrictions on movement need not be the only options officials consider. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, my colleagues have been writing and discussing the numerous policy changes that could have allowed more people to access COVID-19 tests more quickly and allowed for a more efficient response to the pandemic (visit this link to find out more). Among the few silver linings of the current crisis is the possibility that lawmakers and regulators will learn valuable lessons about how to respond to the next pandemic.Lockdowns, curfews, and increased surveillance are infringements on freedom, but civil libertarians should be prepared to concede that such measures can sometimes be justified, if only in rare and extreme circumstances. But accepting that such measures may be necessary should not make us complacent. We should continue to raise concerns and highlight policy changes that could alleviate the effects of the pandemic. In addition, we should ask lawmakers tough questions about why specific pandemic measures are necessary, why they think such measures will be effective, and when the measures will be abandoned.Any blind acceptance of the measures being put into place by the government should be reconsidered. The government will take as much of our freedoms away as it can get away with. We must not allow that to happen. Speak up and let your government know that you want an end to the restrictions that are currently in place. Ask them to reopen the economy so that your fellow Americans can begin earning an income again.This pandemic response has been so disastrous that it is estimated that almost 50% of all businesses will be closed permanently. This cannot be allowed to stand.Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about universal basic income.Universal basic income is so much better than our current system of welfare. If such a program were to be implemented in the United States, the details become extremely important. The main pout is that universal basic income would replace welfare.Current federal social welfare programs in the United States are an expensive, complicated mess. According to Michael Tanner, the federal government spent more than $668 billion on over one hundred and twenty-six anti-poverty programs in 2012. When you add in the $284 billion spent by state and local governments, that amounts to $20,610 for every poor person in America.Wouldn’t it be better just to write the poor a check?Each one of those anti-poverty programs comes with its own bureaucracy and its own Byzantine set of rules. If you want to shrink the size and scope of government, eliminating those departments and replacing them with a program so simple it could virtually be administered by a computer seems like a good place to start. Eliminating bloated bureaucracies means more money in the hands of the poor and lower costs to the taxpayer. That’s what’s known as a Win/Win.Universal basic income would also be considerably less paternalistic than the current welfare state, which is the bastard child of “conservative judgment and progressive condescension” toward the poor, in Andrea Castillo’s choice words. Conservatives want to help the poor, but only if they can demonstrate that they deserve it by jumping through a series of hoops meant to demonstrate their willingness to work, to stay off drugs, and preferably to settle down into a nice, stable, bourgeois family life. And while progressives generally reject this attempt to impose traditional values on the poor, they have almost always preferred in-kind grants to cash precisely as a way of making sure the poor get the help they “really” need. Shouldn’t we trust poor people to know what they need better than the federal government?Both Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek advocated for something like universal basic income as a proper function of government, though on somewhat different grounds. Friedman’s argument comes in chapter 9 of his Capitalism and Freedom, and is based on the idea that private attempts at relieving poverty involve what he called “neighborhood effects” or positive externalities. Such externalities, Friedman argues, mean that private charity will be undersupplied by voluntary action.“[W]e might all of us be willing to contribute to the relief of poverty, provided everyone else did. We might not be willing to contribute the same amount without such assurance.”And so, Friedman concludes, some “governmental action to alleviate poverty” is justified. Specifically, government is justified in setting “a floor under the standard of life of every person in the community,” a floor that takes the form of his famous “Negative Income Tax” proposal.Friedrich Hayek’s argument, appearing 17 years later in volume 3 of his Law, Legislation, and Liberty, is even more powerful. Here’s the crucial passage:“The assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appears not only to be wholly legitimate protection against a risk common to all, but a necessary part of the Great Society in which the individual no longer has specific claims on the members of the particular small group into which he was born.”To those who know of Hayek only through second-hand caricatures of his argument from The Road to Serfdom, his claim here will no doubt be surprising. Hayek was not opposed to the welfare state as such (not even in the Road to Serfdom). At the very least, he regarded certain aspects of the welfare state as permissible options that states might pursue. But the passage above suggests that he may have had an even stronger idea in mind - that a basic income is not merely a permissible option but a mandatory requirement of democratic legitimacy - a policy that must be instituted in order to justify the coercive power that even a Hayekian state would exercise over its citizens.Before I close, I want to say at least a little about the different policy options. But there are a lot of different options, and a lot of details to each. So bear in mind that what follows is only a sketch.Universal basic income involves something like an unconditional grant of income to every citizen. So, on most proposals, everybody gets a check each month. “Unconditional” here means mostly that the check is not conditional on one’s wealth or poverty or willingness to work. But some proposals, like Charles Murray’s, would go only to adult citizens. And almost all proposals are given only to citizens. Most proposals specify that income earned on top of the grant is subject to taxation at progressive rates, but the grant itself is not.A Negative Income Tax involves issuing a credit to those who fall below the threshold of tax liability, based on how far below the threshold they fall. So the amount of money one receives (the “negative income tax”) decreases as ones earnings push one up to the threshold of tax liability, until it reaches zero, and then as one earns more money one begins to pay the government money (the “positive income tax”).The Earned Income Tax Credit is the policy we actually have in place currently in the United States. It was inspired by Friedman’s Negative Income Tax proposal, but falls short in that it applies only to persons who are actually working.The US Basic Income Guarantee Network has a nice and significantly more detailed overview of some of the different policies. You can watch Milton Friedman explain his Negative Income Tax proposal with characteristic clarity to William F. Buckley here. And for an extended and carefully thought out defense of one particular Universal basic income proposal from a libertarian perspective, I highly recommend Charles Murray’s short book, In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State.Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about data privacy and how I feel it should be dealt with.Protecting internet data privacy without hindering innovation requires a dose of legislative humility and strong trust in consumer intelligence. Neither is easy for a Libertarian to swallow.The recent data breaches at Google and Facebook have amplified the debate around data privacy and the laws governing the same. Commentators seem to feel the US regulatory approach to all of this is akin to the Wild Wild West. They act as though no regulation exists.Some are calling for the adoption of heavy-handed, European-style controls such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which imposes 45 specific rules on data-driven enterprises. They have applauded new data regulation rules in California, which grants sweeping power to the state’s attorney general to collect fees, impose rules, approve business plans, and solicit public support for class actions against internet companies. It is reasonable to be skeptical of the notion that increasing government power is the key to protecting privacy, but without federal preemption, the nation could balkanize with 50 sets of online privacy rules, undermining the seamless digital experience consumers enjoy today as well as the internet economy which powers some 10 percent of national gross domestic product.I, for one, feel the regulatory approach to data privacy and protection of the internet is just flat out wrong.One reason people believe the US has an inferior, laissez-faire approach to internet regulation is that they confuse data privacy and protection and because they are not familiar with America’s own substantive privacy protections developed since its founding. In fact, there are literally hundreds of laws on privacy and data protection in the U.S.—including common law torts, criminal laws, evidentiary privileges, federal statutes, and state laws. America’s tradition of protecting privacy is predicated on ensuring the individual’s freedom from government intrusion and pushing back the overreach of the administrative state. By way of comparison, the EU’s laws are relatively new, officially dating from this century, and still lack the runway of judicial scrutiny and case law that characterizes U.S. law.This experience from Europe gives us a glimpse of what to expect should we adopt a similarly heavy-handed regulatory approach in the USA. Simply put, the EU’s laws don’t work to create trust in the online ecosystem. After a decade of data protection regulation—in which Europeans have endured intrusive pop-ups and disclosures on every digital property they visit—Europeans report no greater sense of trust online. As of 2017, only 22 percent of Europeans shop outside their own country (a paltry increase of 10% in a decade). Moreover, only 20 percent of EU companies are highly digitized. Small to medium-sized European companies have neither modernized their operations nor marketed to other EU countries because data protection compliance costs are too high.To do business in the EU and comply with the new rules, US firms with 500 employees or more will likely have to spend between $1 and $10 million each to comply with GDPR. With over 19,000 firms of 500 employees or more in the US, total GDPR compliance costs for U.S. firms alone could reach $150 billion, twice what the U.S. spends on network investment and one-third of annual e-commerce revenue in the U.S. Not surprisingly, thousands of online entities, both in the EU and abroad, have proactively shuttered their European operations for fear of getting caught in the regulatory crosshairs.Moreover, there is a business model behind data protection regulation. Not only will Europe have to hire some 75,000 new data protection professionals as regulatory compliance officers, but regulatory authorities are also doubling their staff and budgets to take on the increased workload of managing compliance and complaints. Just seven hours after the GDPR came into effect in May 2018, Austrian activist Max Schrems lodged complaints against Google and Facebook, demanding $8.8 billion in damages because their services are so popular that they effectively “force” people to use them.Politics continues to play a huge role in data privacy and protection.A decentralized, limited government approach has been empirically shown to better protect data privacy, but regulatory advocates are too powerful, organized, and determined to let well enough alone. They consider themselves the self-appointed protectors of all Americans, who they deem unwitting digital serfs, forced to engage in transactions against their will and too stupid to learn how to be safe online.  While freethinkers value sovereignty and choice, they are diffuse and difficult to galvanize. The sweeping regulations adopted in California and the European Union were enabled by a small yet vocal group of activists.While the media emphasizes the partisan chaos in Washington, there is a bona fide, fact-based, bipartisan effort within Congress to create a rational policy for consumer online privacy. The Senate Commerce Committee has hosted a series of hearings to gather input from a variety of stakeholders.  In addition, the Trump Administration has tasked key agencies with developing scientific and policy principles that ensure standards and guarantee freedom of choice for individuals while also giving organizations legal clarity and the flexibility to innovate. It may seem counterintuitive that we need more privacy legislation, but in this case, the outcome will be worse for freedom if Congress does not clarify a single national policy.I personally prefer a market-based approach to data privacy and protection. To me, the required trust in consumer intelligence is difficult, but necessary if we are to both protect our privacy and data and protect our freedom.The elements of a market-based approach includes a consistent national policy that promotes technological innovation, consumer education, and freedom of choice for consumers.Privacy-enhancing technologies. Continuous technological improvement of online systems will always be better than regulatory regimes that rely on bureaucrats to decide how data should be processed and which abuses to adjudicate. Scientific research demonstrates that privacy-enhancing innovation (a field including dozens of technologies such as encryption, data minimization, anonymization, attribute-based access controls, etc) makes the online experience safer and more private than a bureaucratic approach can. Moreover, soft law instruments such as multi-stakeholder processes, scientific best practices and standards, and codes of conduct can address emerging data protection challenges without resorting to heavy-handed rules. Policymakers should consider the role of incentives for design and experimentation with privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs). These can include grants, awards, and competitions. Importantly, a national policy would include a legal safe harbor for innovators so that they can experiment without punishment and so that enterprises can be confident that they are complying with the law.Consumer education. Informed consumers who have the freedom to choose among a robust array of goods and services are the bedrock of a free-market economy. This assumes a marketplace in which there is sufficient information, ease of market entry and exit, and minimal regulatory distortion. Scientific research concludes that the consumer’s level of knowledge about the online experience is crucial when it comes to creating trust online. Notice and consent are meaningless to consumers if they don’t understand the nature of the transactions in which they engage, how online platforms work, and the associated costs, benefits, and alternatives. (See p. 13 of this filing to the Federal Trade Commission for the history of consumer education and models of online privacy education.) Individuals need to take the responsibility to educate themselves about the online services they use and policy-makers must ensure that there are transparent ways for consumers to get access to that information. Moreover, educated consumers are a powerful check on unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, limiting the need for regulation in the first place.Choice. Individuals must have freedom of choice over whether to share their data in exchange for a service as well as the ability to say no to terms and conditions which make them feel uncomfortable. When a consumer says no and declines the service, this sends an important message to providers to improve their products and services. A key problem of the California and European rules is that they obligate providers to deliver services even if users object to sharing their data. This perversion creates a free-rider problem, which increases the amount of processing that must be performed on consenting users so that the service provider can cover its costs. Moreover, it removes the essential feedback that providers need from users so that they can improve their services.Flexibility. A recent Senate hearing featured the architect of the California Consumer Privacy Act, Alastair MacTaggart, who took offense that his local Supercuts hair cuttery requested his email and phone upon checking in for an appointment. MacTaggart called it “out of control” and intimated that this practice should be eliminated for all Supercuts customers. (He also spent nearly $3.5 million of his own fortune from a successful real estate business, which, ironically, relies on the same kind of data processing he now wants to eliminate.) This kind of elitism fails to see how many people appreciate SMS reminders for their salon appointments and want to receive email offers of coupons for hair care products, discounts, and so on. The situation is a reminder of the need for regulatory flexibility. Consumers who do not want to participate in such programs should not have to, but those who want to should be allowed. Regulatory advocates don’t like the idea that a customer loyalty program has such requirements. They don’t want enterprises to have the flexibility to reward loyal customers. Again, this creates a free-rider problem. If enterprises are obliged to make offers available without any minimum requirements, the provider’s incentive for offering the promotional program is thus removed, and the provider pulls the offer. This leads to overall price increases while reducing welfare for the set of customers who wanted the offer in the first place. In any case, there are technical workarounds that can secure privacy without eliminating enterprises, such as anonymizing email addresses and phone numbers. (See p. 11 of the filing for the discussion on anonymization).Consistency. America’s 50 states are a single market, which is a boon to America’s digital economy. An app posted in Maine can serve a user from Hawaii. However, California’s new privacy law disrupts this seamlessness, inhibiting commerce both inside and the state. Other states (NY, NJ, MD, MA, RI, IL, and CT) are threatening to make their own rules. We need a single federal privacy standard enforced by a single Federal regulator – ideally the Federal Trade Commission.  The FTC can enforce the standard and deliver enforcement with the cooperation of state attorneys general.The cycle of privacy panic, the manufactured fear that accompanies new technologies, has been a well-documented phenomenon for more than a century. When first introduced, photography was maligned for violating one’s privacy. As people experience new technology, they grow more comfortable with it, ultimately adopting it in a way that demonstrably improves their lives. When asked what has brought the biggest improvement to their lives in the past 50 years, Americans name technology more than any other advancement, notes Pew Research in a 2016 survey.Today’s debate about the data-driven economy is no different. Market-based solutions can address data privacy concerns without surrendering the internet to government control. If anything, this legislative moment is about reaffirming America’s history of data protection and privacy. We need federal law to stop state-level overreach so that the freedom of individuals and enterprises can flourish.Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

 Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to discuss why I am so disappointed with Americans in general and Libertarians specifically.As I record these words, much of our country is under lock down. This has happened due to an attempt to control the spread of the virus known as COVID19. The problem is that the story keeps changing. Let’s begin by addressing some very concerning issues.Right now the government is exercising vast power to keep citizens inside as much as possible. On March 30, 2020, Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington DC announced people will receive 90 days in jail and a $5,000 fine if they leave their homes. The only exceptions: grocery shopping, essential workers, and outdoor exercise. What the hell is wrong with people?Why aren’t people marching in the streets in protest? Why are people so willingly relinquishing their rights? Why can’t they see the obvious problems with the story the government is feeding us?It is extremely concerning to me that we are so willing to do exactly what the government is telling us to do. This is unprecedented. We didn’t do this for SARS or MERS. Why are we so willing to voluntarily destroy our economy? It baffles me!Where are Libertarians during this crisis? Yes, a small number with leadership qualities are speaking out, but so many are silent on this issue. That, too, baffles my mind.Now is the time for us to stand up and shout about our liberties being taken away. It is time for us to be leaders and show the rest of the country that we are being aggressively oppressed. We need to let President Trump know we will not continue with this lockdown. We need to tell people that they can be safe from the virus and still have a mostly normal life. There are ways to accomplish this that don’t involve completely destroying our own economy. Using common sense would be the place to begin.It frustrates me that people truly believe the government can and should hold our hand and take care of us.are you serious? The government that can’t figure out how to run things without massive taxes is supposed to protect us from a virus? Are we not capable of conducting ourselves in a manner that addresses hygiene and cleanliness to avoid spreading this virus? Think! Our government was not at all prepared. They were not just caught with their pants down, they were caught naked and asleep at the wheel. That’s the government people expect to save them?Libertarians! Now is the time for us to get our message to the masses. We need to explain to them why Liberty is so important. We must show everyone that we know how to handle this issue without shutting everything down for an extended time period.We need to use our social media accounts to spread the word. We need to explain our principles to everyone. If we have to do this multiple times a day every single day, it needs to happen.We are at risk of losing our liberty permanently. How do you think the government is going to react once this is all over? Have you considered that they will create restrictive regulations to control us because they see how we’ve rolled on our backs like scared dogs? That’s exactly how our government works. We give them an inch and they take that inch for themselves plus a few hundred miles more.As for me, I’ve been speaking out. I am not going to allow this to happen to my country without a fight. Are you with me? If you are, please email infi@yogispodcastnetwork.com and just say “I am in!” If you do that, I will respond and we can begin to work together to spread the word. Only when true patriots stand up against this oppression will it stop.Instead of us wasting time worrying about the name people give to this virus, we should put our foot down and demand things change immediately. Again, email me at info@yogispodcastnetwork.com and let’s get started.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about why the United States should stop its constant interventions in foreign countries.Over several decades, Libertarians have expressed opposition to United States intervention in foreign countries. We have offered alternatives that have been ignored by the leadership in Washington DC. Every election cycle the Republican and Democrat candidates claim they will bring peace and stability and never seem to do that. The American people are growing weary of this constant cycle of intervention. Is it now time for a Libertarian foreign policy?Adam Smith taught that for there to be a tolerable government, there needed to be in place the essential ingredients of peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.” War doesn’t make the list for good reason. It is probably the largest and most far-reaching of all statist enterprises. It's an engine of collectivization that undermines private enterprise, raises taxes, destroys wealth, and subjects all aspects of the economy to regimentation and central planning.It also alters the citizens' view of the state in a subtle way. "War substitutes a herd mentality and blind obedience for the normal propensity to question authority and to demand good and proper reasons for government actions," the late scholar Ronald Hamowy writes in The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. He continues, "War promotes collectivism at the expense of individualism, force at the expense of reason and coarseness at the expense of sensibility. Libertarians regard all of those tendencies with sorrow."Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman stated the issue more clearly. "War is a friend of the state," he told the San Francisco Chronicle about a year before his death. "In time of war, government will take powers and do things that it would not ordinarily do." The evidence is solid and irrefutable. Throughout human history, the government has grown during wartime, rarely surrendering its new powers when the guns fall silent. War is a means used for the government to increase in size and that’s not a good thing.Some people make the claim that a particular threat to freedom from abroad is greater than anything we could do to ourselves in fighting it. But that is a hard case to make. Even the post-9/11 "global war on terror" — a war that hasn't involved conscription or massive new taxes — has resulted in wholesale violations of basic civil rights and an erosion of the rule of law. From Bush's torture memos to Obama's secret kill list, this has all been done in the name of fighting a menace — Islamist terrorism — that has killed fewer American civilians in the last decade than allergic reactions to peanuts. It seems James Madison was right. It was, he wrote, "a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."Some would say the United States is an exceptional nation that serves the cause of global liberty. The United States pursues a "foreign policy that makes the world a better place," explains Sen. Lindsey Graham, "and sometimes that requires force, a lot of times it requires the threat of force." By engaging in frequent wars, even when U.S. security isn't directly threatened, the United States acts as the world's much-needed policeman. That's the theory, anyway.In the real world, the record is decidedly mixed. This supposedly liberal order does not work as well as its advocates claim. The world still has its share of conflicts, despite a U.S. global military presence explicitly oriented around stopping wars before they start. The U.S. Navy supposedly keeps the seas open for global commerce, but it's not obvious who would benefit from closing them — aside from terrorists or pirates who couldn't if they tried. Advocates of the status quo claim that it would be much worse if the United States adopted a more restrained grand strategy, but they fail to accurately account for the costs of this global posture, and they exaggerate the benefits. And, of course, there is the obvious case of the Iraq War, a disaster that was part and parcel of this misguided strategy of global primacy. It was launched on the promise of delivering freedom to the Iraqi people and then to the entire Middle East. It has had, if anything, the opposite effect.Libertarians harbor deep and abiding doubts about the government's capacity for effecting particular ends, no matter how well-intentioned. These concerns are magnified, not set aside when the government project involves violence in foreign lands.In domestic policy, libertarians tend to believe in a minimal state endowed with enumerated powers, dedicated to protecting the security and liberty of its citizens but otherwise inclined to leave them alone. The same principles should apply when we turn our attention abroad. Citizens should be free to buy and sell goods and services, study and travel, and otherwise interact with peoples from other lands and places, unencumbered by the intrusions of government.But peaceful, non-coercive foreign engagement should not be confused with its violent cousin: war. American libertarians have traditionally opposed wars and warfare, even those ostensibly focused on achieving liberal ends. And for good reason. All wars involve killing people and destroying property. Most entail massive encroachments on civil liberties, from warrantless surveillance to conscription. They all impede the free movement of goods, capital, and labor essential to economic prosperity. And all wars contribute to the growth of the state.It is my own personal belief that when something isn’t working we should stop doing it. Clearly, this constant intervention into foreign issues is not working. We are not accomplishing the goals our leadership claims exist for these interventions. Instead, we are risking both American and foreign lives in a fruitless endeavor to be the police for the world community. While the concept may on the surface appear admirable, the end result is anything but. This is where a Libertarian foreign policy would change everything.Now, as my regular listeners are aware, I am a pragmatic Libertarian. While I believe 100% in libertarian principles, I know that our society is fully entrenched in its current ways and any change is going to take time. There are a lot of political and structural impediments to the government doing less of anything. We face a problem when dealing directly with the American people. There's a strong bias among the American people that when you face some economic or social problem — from healthcare to education to welfare — the government should do something. When you say the government should do less or limit its response, many are skeptical.When it comes to foreign crises, you're constantly faced with bad actors on the international stage — from dictators to ayatollahs. The argument that we should restrict intervention or avoid projecting strength often doesn't resonate with the public. What's interesting, however, is that you generally don't get both of these attitudes — government activism at home and abroad — from the same person. Those most likely to grasp that government is not the solution to every domestic problem are the most likely to be skeptical of that argument when it's presented in relation to foreign policy. And that really means that those advocating a libertarian foreign policy are men and women without a country. In our binary political system, there's no party or constituency that's really speaking for that viewpoint.You can see the evidence of that in the congressional vote for the Iraq War. Among Republicans, there were only seven who voted against authorization. What's less well remembered is that half the Democrats in the Senate voted to authorize the Iraq War. The list includes Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, and Harry Reid. These are not "back-bencher" Democrats. They're some of the most prominent figures, including the supposed Peace Party's most likely next candidate for president of the United States.That means that the parties really present an echo, not a choice. There's this "me tooism," even when it comes to Democrats. In some respects, that makes sense because they're the party that believes in the government's ability to keep us safe all of the time and in every situation. But some of it is also a relic of politics from the 1980s and 1990s, when a lot of these people came of age at a time when the Democratic Party was seen as weak on foreign policy. A lot of Democrats internalized that critique and regarded it as a political liability. Ultimately, they tried to counter that liability by becoming more hawkish.The odd thing about that is that it doesn't reflect many of the trends in public opinion, particularly those of rank-and-file Democrats. But politicians tend to stick with the ideas they adopted during their formative years. So you have a generation of hawkish Democrats leading a party of people who are hesitant to see such an outsized U.S. role in the world, and particularly in the Middle East. Thus a lot of the core assumptions that are being batted around by both parties in discussing the potential nuclear threat from Iran are very similar to the core assumptions that led us into the Iraq War.So what do we do about this? There was a period when we were seeing real growth in the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, and some chastened conservatives seemed to be moving in that direction. But, again, it's easier to make those arguments when everything is going well. As soon as there's any significant instability in the world, it becomes much harder to make non-interventionist arguments in foreign policy. The Republican Party seems at the moment to be reverting to form.But I don't think all is necessarily lost. True, the political incentives for even the best-intentioned libertarian-leaning Republicans are bad. They will be punished by the loudest voices on the right if they say anything that deviates from the idea of aggressively projecting strength. At the same time, there's been a lot of success framing a libertarian non-interventionism as President Barack Obama's foreign policy. Now I find it interesting that a president who escalated one war, launched two more without congressional approval, and proposed a fourth is any kind of non-interventionist. But there you have it. Our binary political system makes it difficult to have these debates in a nuanced fashion.On the positive side, I've always argued that we need to get people who are engaged in economics — those conservatives and libertarians who specialize in fiscal areas — to be a little more vocal on foreign policy. In private, you often hear a lot of conservative budget experts express their doubts about an ever-expansive military footprint abroad. There, of course, still needs to be some foreign policy expertise that comes from a less interventionist perspective on the right.But, in the meantime, as we cultivate those voices, there's a vacuum that needs to be filled by people who are philosophically sympathetic to less intervention and yet specialize in other issues. They shouldn't let the wall of separation between budget gurus and defense hawks dictate what the Republican Party's foreign policy is going to be.Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about lying to a governmental body.Every state in the United States has laws regarding public meetings. These laws prescribe the procedures for open public meetings. From the notice requirements to what legislators can address during a meeting, these laws aim to provide transparency in government. The concept is most definitely positive. Keeping government transparent is essential to the progress of the liberty movement. In July of 1987, the Los Angeles Times published an article that has a very important title -- “Brown Act Keeps Sun Shining on Government.”  For those who don’t know, the Brown Act is California’s open meetings law. These laws work best in smaller settings like commissions and school board meetings because there is very little public attendance at these meetings. These open meeting laws force the government to conduct business in the so-called light of day. Is this necessarily a good thing?Open meeting laws require that, with notable exceptions, most meetings of federal and state government agencies and regulatory bodies be open to the public, along with their decisions and records.Although open meeting statutes are closely related to the Freedom of Information Act of 1966, no national minimum standard defines “openness,” and it is not mentioned in the First Amendment. Much of the litigation over open meeting laws has centered on whether particular exceptions justify closing certain meetings of government bodies.These laws ensure the public’s right to access to the internal workings of government at all levels. This “right” cannot be traced back to America’s common law tradition with England or to practices in place when the United States was founded.Until the mid-1800s, sessions of the English Parliament were closed to the public, and attempts to publish its debates in the press were punishable offenses. In America, sessions of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention were held in secret.Although neither the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights requires public access to government meetings, the principle is entirely compatible with the concept of popular sovereignty and an informed citizenry. The freedoms of speech, the press, and the right to petition the government in the First Amendment all presuppose a “right to access.” To criticize or support a government policy effectively, citizens must be informed of the reasons for that policy.In the 1950s, even before Congress enacted the Freedom of Information Act, the American Society of Newspaper Editors had formed the Freedom of Information Committee. It pressured state legislatures to enact “open meetings” laws as part of a general move toward more responsive and responsible government.By 1976 all of the states and the District of Columbia had passed sunshine laws that created a legal right to (limited) access.In general, most statutes require public bodies to meet and deliberate in public.Although these laws guarantee that the public and the media can attend, they do not guarantee the public’s right to speak.What constitutes a meeting is usually defined by its purpose — to perform public business (social gatherings are not considered meetings) — and the number of participants—a quorum or majority. All such meetings, unless specifically and legally exempted, are presumed to be open to the public, and agencies are required to give advance notice of the date, time, place, and agenda.Exempted meetings are normally held in closed executive session and may be devoted to such things as personnel issues, ongoing investigations, collective bargaining, conferences with agency attorneys, the acquisition or sale of public property, or a debate among members of the agency prior to a decision.Nevertheless, the agency must compile minutes or transcripts, and formal action must be taken in a public session. Both federal and state legislatures have the discretion to enact statutes to change or add exemptions at any time.This brings me full-circle back to the topic of today’s show--lying to a governmental body. It has recently been suggested that local government bodies such as city councils should put people under oath before allowing them to speak in front of that body. The reason for this suggestion is to avoid situations where someone comes before the body to lie to them. Is this a good idea or a bad idea? Let’s think it through, shall we?Proponents say that lying is fraud. They argue (as do Libertarians) that fraud is a crime society cannot stand for. But are lies always fraud?The legal definition requires that for a lie to be fraud, it has to be an intentional lie. If you truly believe you are telling the truth, but it is determined you were wrong, that does not qualify as fraud. That doesn't excuse willful denial or ignorance of the truth. If you should have known the truth or could easily have discovered it before telling the lie, it could still be a problem.The second part is about the liar's intention. A lie that you don't mean anyone to take seriously, such as a joke or hyperbole, wouldn't constitute fraud.When it comes to proving intent for fraud, courts often look at what the liar could gain if someone believes the lie. If the liar benefits from someone believing and acting on the lie, that tends to show intent.The legal analysis will also rely on context. A lie, while you’re trying to sell your house, is more likely to result in a lawsuit than a lie told over drinks at a bar. Those are obvious examples, but there are many situations in between where the line isn't so easy to see.The third element is whether the lie actually caused harm.If the listener believed the lie, acted as if it were true, and suffered some kind of injury because of that belief, then there may be some liability for fraud.Injury can mean actual physical harm or financial loss. In general, emotional "pain" isn't enough to build a case for fraud.In general, anything other than a white lie (like how nice your spouse looks) should be avoided. Remember, a lie runs the risk of becoming fraud if you expect the listener to act on the lie. Keeping it honest isn't just good personal policy; it's a sound legal strategy too.So why not put people speaking at public comments under oath? You would be able to hold them accountable if they lied under oath. You would be able to take action against those who lie for personal gain. An example of where this would apply happened recently at a Buena Park City Council meeting.I am part of a group of people who have been trying to recall a corrupt councilmember. We attended a public meeting and were accosted by the husband of one of that councilmember’s staunchest supporters. When I say accosted, I mean we were physically assaulted. The entire incident was captured on video.A week later that man appeared at City Council and stood up to tell his side of the story. He claimed he was merely protecting his wife. He claimed his wife was being attacked and he simply stepped in as her defender. The problem is the video evidence clearly stated otherwise. It clearly showed he was the aggressor. But what was his purpose in lying at City Council?We may never know, but several speculated that he was attempting to set up some kind of legal action against our group. At the very least, he was committing libel against us. He knew he was lying and he knew he was attempting to gain personally from those lies. He had committed fraud by the legal definition. Had he spoken under oath, he may have been in some hot water.While I can see the benefits in a situation like this, I question whether making people speak under oath will accomplish the right goal. I don’t believe most people go to a City Council meeting to intentionally lie. I fear that forcing them to be under oath would discourage people from exercising their First Amendment rights. I am afraid that people would fear prosecution for perjury if they spoke out at a public meeting and what they said turned out to be false. I know many will say they simply have to prove that any untruthful statements were unintentional, but I ask why they should need to prove that in the first place.In order to come to a conclusion about this issue, I think we need a better understanding of how many people intentionally lie at these meetings. If it is a rampant problem, putting people under oath is something to consider, but if it is a minor, once in a blue moon type of issue, putting people under oath has too many negative connotations for it to be a good thing. Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about approval voting and why I believe it will lead to better representation for the United States.I am certain you are wondering what approval voting is. It is a single-winner electoral system where each voter may select ("approve") any number of candidates. The winner is the most-approved candidate.Robert J. Weber coined the term "Approval Voting" in 1971. Guy Ottewell described the system in 1977. It was more fully published in 1978 by political scientist Steven Brams and mathematician Peter Fishburn.Approval voting ballots look like the ballots we are currently used to. They have a list of the candidates running for that seat for each office being contested. Next to each name is a way to select that candidate.Each candidate is essentially treated as a separate question: “Do you approve of this person for this job?” Approval voting allows the voter to indicate their support for one, some, or all candidates. Every vote counts equally and all voters get the same number of votes: one per candidate. The winner is the candidate supported by most voters.If a voter happens to mark every candidate the same it will have no effect on the outcome of the election. It is a wash. Each candidate approved is considered preferred to any candidate not approved, while the voter’s preference for their approved candidates is not specified. Approval voting can be considered a form of range voting, with the range restricted to two values, 0 and 1—or a form of majority judgment, with grades restricted to good and poor. Approval Voting can also be compared to plurality voting, without the rule that discards ballots that vote for more than one candidate.Approval voting has already been put to the test in various places.Approval voting has been used in privately administered nomination contests by the Independent Party of Oregon in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2016. Oregon is a fusion voting state, and the party has cross-nominated legislators and statewide officeholders using this method; its 2016 presidential preference primary did not identify a potential nominee due to no candidate earning more than 32% support. It is also used in internal elections by the American Solidarity Party, the Green Parties of Texas and Ohio, the Libertarian parties of Texas and Colorado,[ the US Modern Whig party, and the German Pirate Party.In 2018, Fargo, North Dakota passed a ballot initiative adopting approval voting for local elections, becoming the first United States city and jurisdiction to adopt approval voting.Approval voting advocates Steven Brams and Dudley R. Herschbach predict that approval voting should increase voter participation, prevent minor-party candidates from being spoilers, and reduce negative campaigning. The effect of this system as an electoral reform measure is not without naysayers, however. FairVote has a position paper arguing that approval voting has three flaws that undercut it as a method of voting and political vehicle. They argue that it can result in the defeat of a candidate who would win an absolute majority in a plurality election, can allow a candidate to win who might not win any support in a plurality election, and has incentives for tactical voting. The first two "flaws" are considered advantages by advocates of approval voting, as it chooses centrist candidates with broad appeal rather than polarizing candidates who appeal only to the majority. Supporters also point out that any voting method is subject to strategic voting with more than two candidates, as pointed out in Gibbard's theorem.One study showed that approval voting would not have chosen the same two winners as plurality voting (Chirac and Le Pen) in France's presidential election of 2002 (first round) – it instead would have chosen Chirac and Jospin as the top two to proceed to a runoff. Le Pen lost by a very high margin in the runoff, 82.2% to 17.8%, a sign that the true top two had not been found. Straight approval voting without a runoff, from the study, still would have selected Chirac, but with an approval percentage of only 36.7%, compared to Jospin at 32.9%. Le Pen, in that study, would have received 25.1%. In the real primary election, the top three were Chirac, 19.9%, Le Pen, 16.9%, and Jospin, 16.2%. A study of various "evaluative voting" methods (approval voting and score voting) during the French presidential election, 2012 showed that "unifying" candidates tended to do better, and polarizing candidates did worse, via the evaluative voting methods than via the plurality system.A generalized version of the Burr dilemma applies to approval voting when two candidates are appealing to the same subset of voters. Although approval voting differs from the voting system used in the Burr dilemma, approval voting can still leave candidates and voters with the generalized dilemma of whether to compete or cooperate.While in the modern era there have been relatively few competitive approval voting elections where tactical voting is more likely, Brams argues that approval voting usually elects Condorcet winners in practice.[55] Critics of the use of approval voting in the alumni elections for the Dartmouth Board of Trustees in 2009 placed its ultimately successful repeal before alumni voters, arguing that the system has not been electing the most centrist candidates. The Dartmouth editorialized that "When the alumni electorate fails to take advantage of the approval voting process, the three required Alumni Council candidates tend to split the majority vote, giving petition candidates an advantage. By reducing the number of Alumni Council candidates, and instituting a more traditional one-person, one-vote system, trustee elections will become more democratic and will more accurately reflect the desires of our alumni base."The approval voting method seems to me to avoid poor choices by voters. The research I’ve done indicates that it would be an extremely fair and equitable manner in which to elect our representatives. Of course, this is predicated on voters doing the right thing and actually voting for all candidates they approve of. As an example of what could happen, I looked at my own past election experience. Because there were 3 candidates in my race and the voters had to choose just 1 candidate, I was at a disadvantage as a candidate running in a third party. The victor got 65,000 votes, the second place got 30,000 votes and I got 16,000 votes. We know that 16,000 people approved of me, but what if the 65,000 who voted for the winner also approved of me? I would have won the election! This is the easiest way to make sure that everyone has an equal chance at winning if they are qualified. It is a simple change. Unlike Ranked Choice Voting, which requires a complete change to the ballot and massive voter education efforts, approval voting (as I mentioned) uses the same type of ballot. The main difference is voters can vote for as many candidates as they’d like. Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about censorship.What exactly is censorship? Defining this term properly will help you decide if it is ever a good thing. Censorship is the coercive silencing of dissenting views by political authorities generally in order to protect an official orthodoxy or to prevent the spread of ideas not authorized by the powers that be. As Alberto Manguel writes in A History of Reading, censorship “is the corollary of all power, and the history of reading is lit by a seemingly endless line of censors’ bonfires.”It should be noted that censorship has been and continues to be a common feature of oppressive regimes. John Milton, whose Areopagitica (written in protest of the censorship of his writings on divorce) remains the most eloquent defense of the free press written in English, provided a history of censorship from 411 B.C., when the works of Protagoras were burned in Athens on the grounds that they taught agnosticism. In the Republic, Plato advocates censorship of poetry and music that fail to promote the state’s interests. This tradition has continued in modern times. Beginning in 1933, Josef Goebbels oversaw mass book burnings, which became a trademark of the Nazi regime. In the Soviet Union, an agency called Glavlit oversaw all printed publications, including even food labels, to prevent the dissemination of unacceptable material. Today, officials in China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other countries have implemented censorship of books, periodicals, television, radio, and the Internet to ensure that political dissent, religious heterodoxy, or sexually provocative material are not disseminated to the general public.The introduction of the printing press and the Protestant injunction for believers to read the Bible for themselves made censorship an increasingly important subject of debate in Reformation Europe. In 1559, the Catholic Church issued the first Index Liborum Prohibitorum, which lists books forbidden as dangerous to the faith; the Index was not eliminated until 1966. Protestant nations were no less censorious. Henry VIII ordered the burning of Reformation books prior to his own break with Rome, including English translations of the New Testament, and established the licensing requirement for publishing that Milton would protest a century later in Areopagitica.In the ensuing decades, the English common law gradually developed a principle of free expression that barred the government from engaging in “prior restraint” (i.e., the forcible prevention of publication). But no rule protected authors from punishment after publication. Thus, although William Blackstone explained in his Commentaries that the prohibition on prior restraints was of the essence to English liberty, there was no “freedom from censure for criminal matter when published.” Dissidents could print their views, but the threat of prosecution for “seditious libel” and other political crimes helped temper criticism of the government. In America, however, the famous 1735 acquittal of John Peter Zenger largely eliminated seditious libel as a threat to colonial printers. Prosecutions for the publication of indecent material did continue, however. The first book to be banned in the United States was John Cleland’s pornographic novel, Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, which was prohibited in Boston in 1821 and, when republished in 1964, was again banned, leading to an important Supreme Court decision defining obscenity.Because the common law defined freedom of the press by the absence of prior restraints, the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects the freedoms of press and speech, has been interpreted as an almost absolute prohibition on prior restraints. Some have argued that the 1st Amendment goes no further, whereas others contend that it goes further than common law and prohibits certain forms of post-publication punishment or other government actions intended to limit the dissemination of information. American courts have identified three broad categories of censorship other than prior restraint: (1) the punishment of those who produce material—such as obscenity or extraordinarily intimidating threats—which is determined not to qualify as “speech” or “press” as the terms were understood by the authors of the 1st Amendment, (2) the use of libel and slander to punish those who utter falsehoods or unflattering comments, and (3) the removal of books from public libraries.It is widely conceded that certain material is so obscene that it contains no ideas or expression worthy of constitutional protection. However, defining the word obscene has proven extremely difficult for courts because too broad a definition might well threaten the dissemination of provocative, but serious, material. In 1973, the Supreme Court defined obscenity as material that, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in sex, that portrays sex in a patently offensive way, and that lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. This definition has proved difficult to apply, and in recent decades, governments in the United States have largely given up the efforts to ban pornography. Worse, it can be dangerous to declare that certain forms of expression are not protected forms of speech. Prohibitions of “hate speech,” or of expressive actions thought to be extraordinarily offensive, such as flag-burning, are similar in that they can often be justified on the grounds that such forms of expression communicate sentiments that are unworthy of legal protection. The dangers of such a rationale are evident in the area of sexual harassment laws, which in recent years have been expanded so as to intimidate some speakers or to prohibit some forms of expression that, whatever their merit, are clearly communicative and not obscene or threatening. In addition, this effort to define certain categories of expression as outside constitutional protections has spawned legal theories that seek to define certain categories of speech as deserving “lesser” constitutional protection. This regime of diminished protection prevails in the realm of commercial speech, defined to be speech that proposes a commercial transaction. Although the Constitution provides no warrant for such discrimination, the Supreme Court has found that commercial expression can be extensively regulated because it is not considered part of the political or cultural dialogue thought essential to democratic decision making. Likewise, campaign finance regulations, although often restricting the rights of individuals to express their political preferences, are frequently defended on the grounds that limiting the expressive opportunities of wealthy groups fosters broader democratic debate.Libel and slander laws have regularly been abused to stifle criticism of political authorities, but in the United States these efforts were severely curtailed by the 1964 Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan, which held that “public figures,” such as government officials or those who choose to partake in matters of public concern, can only rarely prevail in libel cases. Even publication of obviously false and obscene material about a public figure has been held protected by the 1st Amendment, as when pornographer Larry Flynt successfully defended his right to publish a counterfeit interview suggesting that minister Jerry Falwell had lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse. Although public figures can virtually never succeed when suing media for such libel in the United States, European countries, particularly England, do not prohibit such suits. As a result, criticism of political figures in England is still often hampered. Worse, because publications produced in the United States are easily available in England, public figures who have been criticized have brought suit against American writers in English courts and recovered, although these suits would be constitutionally barred under American law. This “libel tourism” has become a matter of increasing concern in the age of the Internet.One common source of debate over freedom of expression in the United States involves the removal of controversial books from public libraries and libraries in public schools. Although not strictly a form of censorship—because the publications remain legal and available elsewhere— such attempts to prevent reading are common and are monitored by the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom. The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled that such removals are prohibited by the 1st Amendment, but in Board of Education v. Pico, a plurality of justices held that while school boards have broad discretion to choose what books are appropriate for curriculum or classroom use, and to choose what books may be placed in a library, they may not remove books that are already in the library on the basis of the ideas contained in those books or in an attempt to prescribe orthodox opinions.To me, it would appear that the vast majority of censorship is bad. I feel like going down the path of allowing censorship is an extremely slippery slope that leads to some very dangerous situations. If you allow censorship of things you define as bad, what stops others from defining as bad things you see as good? How do we determine what does and does not get censored? Perhaps we should use similar standards to our libel and slander laws? Many look towards protecting children as a good reason to censor things. Marjorie Heins does not argue that unfettered access to all forms of expression would benefit children. Even as some studies have claimed that violent images may help create violent children, Heins cautions against simplistic conclusions. “When you look at it, the definitions of violent entertainment are all over the lot,” she said. “There’s very little attempt to put violence in context, so it would be impossible to frame any kind of censorship legislation that would pinpoint what the harm is.”Rather than “intellectual protectionism,” Heins advocates media literacy programs and sexuality education to help children cope with their surroundings. She also questions the efficacy of “forbidden speech zones,” which may attract children to the very material that adults would deny them. Better, she said, to teach children to make the best choices than to pretend those choices don’t exist.“Kids are going to make some choices about culture, and those choices can be influenced by their interaction with their parents and their teachers,” said Heins. “It’s sort of similar to food. I think when your kid is a baby you can feed them good healthy baby food. Once they get into nursery school, they’re going to start learning about the other temptations, so the most parents can do is to try to continue to make some rules and try to explain why they’re the right rules.”Heins concludes that concerns about violence, language, and sex “have more to do with socializing youth than with the objective proof of psychological harm.” Censorship on behalf of children, she believes, is really done for the adults who demand it.I have to agree with Heins. We don’t censor to protect children, we do it because adults demand it. I say we should handle this very carefully. We should consider that the vast majority of censorship is simply wrong and should not be allowed. Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to talk to you about someone who gets bashed on a continual basis. This person gets bashed when they do something right and when they do something wrong. I am speaking of President Donald Trump.Let me begin by saying that I am not a huge fan of President Trump, but I am definitely a fan of fairness. I feel that we shouldn’t judge a leader because they do or do not do things the same as previous leaders. It is my personal opinion that a leader should choose a style and approach that fits them the best. Criticizing a leader for not following the traditional approach seems wrong on many levels. Let me give you some examples of what I am talking about.At the start of President Trump’s term he took a lot of heat (and continues to take a lot of heat) for separating families at the border and detaining children. The issue is that this has been going on since Bill Clinton was the president. Each president since Bill Clinton has continued to allow this policy. Why are we attacking Trump for simply doing what every other POTUS since Clinton has done? Some say they are justified in criticizing President Trump because he should have considered the policy and changed it. The problem is, how do these critics know he didn’t consider changing the policy and then decided to keep it? Why shouldn’t it be his right as the leader of the United States to continue a policy that was created 23 years before he took office?I understand that the policy itself is a bad one in the minds of most people (myself included), but that doesn’t mean the leader of the country should feel obligated to change it. Perhaps he knows of issues that will arise if changes are made? Maybe he possesses information we don’t have? Another area where people routinely criticize President Trump are the treaties he has decided to end. People continually say things like “This has been our agreement for

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to discuss freedom of speech.As a libertarian, I value the freedoms we are given by the Constitution. One of these is the freedom of speech granted by the First Amendment. Where I personally struggle is with allowing people who tell complete lies to do so under the guise of freedom of speech.On the one hand, I completely grasp that people need to be allowed to speak their minds. I agree that being able to speak up about our government is extremely important. But lying about another person is fraudulent speech. Should fraudulent speech be allowed?On the surface, the answer seems like it should be a resounding “no!” Why do we have libel laws if it is OK to lie about others? Well, if you are a business owner and a client is going around lying about you, that is not protected speech. You have every right to go after them in court for lying about you. On the other hand, if you are a political candidate, activist, government official or any other type of public figure, you won’t be successful in trying to stop the lies through the legal system. It turns out that the Supreme Court has already come up with a decision on this matter. In The New York Times vs. Sullivan (1964) the Court extended First Amendment protection to false statements of fact in a defamation suit.  The Court held such statements, when made about a public official, could not be the basis for awarding damages, at least without evidence that the false statements either were made recklessly or with knowledge of their falsity. In Hustler Magazine v Falwell (1988). Hustler magazine had stated that a prominent fundamentalist minister, Jerry Falwell, had drunken sex with his mother in an outhouse.  Although the Court noted that "false statements of fact are particularly valueless," it drew a distinction between false statements not meant or likely to be believed by readers and other false statements of fact.  The Court held that First Amendment prohibited awarding damages for false statements about public figures that cannot reasonably be believed. Satire and parody often involve false statements, and so long as persons would not take the statements to be true, they cannot be the basis for a tort action.Based on my own experiences, this tends to make sense. My recent experiences have shaped my opinion on this matter. When someone tells lies about another person, that person has the right to either defend themselves or ignore the lies. The person being lied about needs to rely on the public being smart enough to not believe the statements. While this is risky, it is likely the best scenario. I have found that engaging with liars does no good. Anyone hell-bent on lying about someone will do so regardless of the facts presented. If someone is loose and free with the truth, what makes you think to challenge what they say about you will change that? What makes you think they won’t simply make up another lie about you to back up their previous lies?In my own experience with this issue, the person will throw out false statements. When those statements are challenged, the person then hones in on some of the finer points and creates stories about them that are false. This is a never-ending cycle. Thus, ignoring the person and letting them “speak their mind” is what I feel is the best course of action. It is a roll of the dice, but a necessary one at that. Any other approach will simply encourage the liar to continue lying.As with most things relating to the liberty movement, it is better to allow freedom than to restrict it erroneously. As the Supreme Court has stated, it is impossible for the state to determine the fine line that sometimes exists between fact and fiction. We do not trust the government to make these kinds of distinctions. We expect the judicial system to step in and define what is OK and what is not OK. All of this begins to make sense when you look towards the greater good. While I abhor liars, I value freedom even more than my hatred for liars. This brings up a solid point.People who speak falsely about others should beware. If they are protected by the First Amendment, any response that is untruthful is also protected by the First Amendment. Perhaps someone being lied about who is unscrupulous will respond in like manner? These are the risks one takes when they lie about someone else. You eventually reap what you sow. One day you will be on the receiving end of this type of treatment. Keep in mind that you can be attacked in the same manner you attacked others.It is important to note that the First Amendment rights really only extend to comments made about public figures.and limited public figures. Those people have no right to seek restitution even for false comments made against them. The problem is what constitutes a public figure or limited public figure. I feel that this is an area where our system needs a better means of defining the terms used. Right now, if you “thrust yourself into the public” you are considered a “limited public figure” yet you might actually only be supporting a political candidate (as an example).Nothing makes this case more clear than that of Terry Rakolta. She led a boycott against the show Married With Children. She made television appearances to spread the word. What she quickly found out is that as a limited public figure, people speaking out against her didn’t need to tell the truth. She found out that she had no recourse for the lies spread about her. It is part of the territory she entered into. It is a good thing that the First Amendment is carefully protected by the court system. Even the fact that people are allowed to lie about someone is probably a good safeguard in the end. The main objective should be to protect the rights of those who might otherwise be abused by the system itself.Enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of speech grants all Americans the liberty to criticize the government and speak their minds without fear of being censored or persecuted.Judges, lawmakers, and scholars continue to struggle with balancing strong speech protections with the necessity of maintaining a peaceful society.Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. It allows society to develop and progress. The ability to express our opinion and speak freely is essential to bring about change in society. Free speech is not only about your ability to speak but the ability to listen to others and allow other views to be heard. Going against people who have different views and challenging them is the best way to move forward.Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed, the show dedicated to revealing personal liberty to all who listen. I am your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to discuss what it means to be a pragmatic Libertarian.I’ve spoken about things like this on the show in the past. So many Libertarians are dogmatic with their positions on the issues. They want to see the Libertarian position in play and nothing less. Unfortunately, we live in a society where there are people who think like Libertarians, Republicans, Democrats, etc. Unless one election cycle every other party is voted out and Libertarians replace them, this is not a likely thing to happen.The United States is not likely to create an open border policy any time soon. However, it is highly possible that Congress will expand the number of highly skilled immigrant visas allocated each year. It is highly unlikely that drugs will be legalized in the United States in the near future, but it is possible to expand access to Naloxone programs to reduce deaths by overdose.The USA Patriot Act is likely here to stay. However, we could reduce some of the powers the NSA has to enhance personal liberty.I do not see our government privatizing marriage, but at least every American is now entitled to be married.This is why I strongly believe in pragmatic Libertarianism.It is clear that if all Libertarian policies were implemented, it would be radical. However, being radical does not cause policy change in the short term.A pragmatic Libertarian understands this issue and is happy making policy changes at the margin of issues. By continuing to work with lawmakers and making these small changes at the margin, we slowly move policy towards more and more Libertarian ideals. Being pragmatic and approaching governance in this manner, we slowly create a better society where personal liberty is at the forefront.Many advocacy organizations seem to believe that public opinion can and does shape public policy, but the research disagrees. This is because public opinion tends to be very fickle.If public opinion shaped public policy, trade would be more restricted, the minimum wage would be much higher, and corporations would be more regulated and more heavily taxed.If honest, most Libertarians would admit that they, too, oppose public opinion. They believe that influencing legislators is only possible through the use of carrots and sticks: campaign contributions to reward good behavior and vocal activism to preempt or punish bad behavior.Because most politicians are not influenced by public opinion, it gives us the opportunity to influence the formation of policy in other ways.If public opinion matters less than most people think and politicians are motivated by more than simply election concerns, it is clear that engagement with policymakers, politicians, and bureaucrats can produce better returns on investments than grassroots activism aimed at moving the needle of public opinion.While public opinion and activism can be effective at stopping policy changes perceived as negative, it is wholly inadequate at the task of furthering positive policy change.Some libertarians argue that policy compromises are “selling out” fundamental principles to the government machine. But we libertarians will never pass pro-liberty legislation without assembling larger coalitions or without working toward small gains within the machine itself.Politics is all about compromise--like it or not. When we are unwilling to engage in politics in pursuit of Libertarian policy, we are accepting the status quo. While public support of Libertarian policy is very helpful, it doesn’t define our success.Obviously, it would also help if we elected pro-liberty politicians. The problem is that there are not many pro-liberty lawmakers. One thing is for sure--there are many Republican and Democrat lawmakers who are pro-liberty on a range of issues.It is a fact that many young people find Libertarianism due to their belief that our political system is broken. Libertarianism offers a new narrative, seemingly unique, revolutionary, and focused on improving the lives of all people. However, most pro-liberty success, including the recent Supreme Court decision on marriage and the legalization of cannabis in a handful of states, falls short of the revolutionary political change many people are looking for.Small policy changes like the marriage decision or the legalization of marijuana dramatically improve people’s lives. The dogmatic Libertarian tends to disagree with just small changes like this. They want to see bigger things and they feel that these small changes are selling out libertarian ideals.Preventing 15,000 opiate overdoses through harm-reduction is not selling out libertarian ideals. It’s merely recognizing that a full end to the drug war is not plausible right now but that there is still plenty of room in the short term for policies that reduce the harm the drug war causes. By focusing on actionable policy improvements given the reality of the current political terrain, libertarians can achieve real change.Launching a new guest-worker program in agriculture may not abolish the borders, but it will dramatically improve the lives of a few thousand Haitian immigrants. There’s beauty in that small step forward.Libertarians can also look at historical examples of pragmatic libertarianism. During the Carter Administration, a diverse ideological coalition came together to deregulate the airline and trucking industry. The solution was not perfect. But it resulted in abolishing the Civil Aeronautics Board and the Interstate Commerce Commission. Abolishing government agencies is a huge victory for libertarianism and one that would not have been possible without sustained and strategic political engagement.When I ran for Orange County Supervisor in 2018, I had many dogmatic Libertarians give me grief over my stand on the homeless crisis. They would tell me I am not Libertarian enough and that I didn’t deserve Libertarian support. This always baffled me because, to me, Libertarianism is about making lives better through expanding personal liberty and reducing the government. The position of these dogmatic Libertarians baffled me. I even referenced utopian Libertarian outcomes in many of my speeches, but even this didn’t satisfy the dogmatic crowd.“Pure” libertarian orthodoxy should not dictate political strategy. Libertarian-friendly legislation and regulation are entirely plausible and desirable. Young libertarians should avoid rigid devotion to utopian outcomes at the expense of incremental policy improvements.While most of us acknowledge the value of a let-a-thousand-flowers-bloom strategy, the overwhelming balance of resources devoted to the libertarian movement is geared towards changing, educating, and inspiring public opinion. We as a movement continue to underinvest in making incremental changes to public policy through engagement with the people and institutions that actually dictate the pace and direction of policy change.There is a clear case for pragmatic libertarianism with a desirable influence in the halls of Congress. By directly engaging in the policymaking process, libertarians can have a real influence on our country, which means more liberty in our lifetime.Tell me your thoughts on this by leaving a voicemail on the Yogi’s Podcast Network hotline at (657) 529-2218.That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free! 

Welcome to another episode of Liberty Revealed. I am your host, Mike Mahony. This is the show that puts personal liberty at the forefront of all discussions. Today I want to talk to you about the homeless crisis in our country and specifically, Orange County, California where I live. I will start by telling you that I do not have a particularly libertarian view of the solution to this problem. As I’ve explained many times, I am a pragmatic libertarian, believing that a utopian libertarian society would be the ultimate place to live, but understanding that we must integrate into the society we currently live in, a society where, unfortunately, the government does play a role in social issues. While I am completely opposed to this, I understand that solving problems in today’s world depends upon the approach used in today’s world. As many of you listeners know, I live in Buena Park, California, a city in Orange County. Like most places in the United States, Orange County is struggling to solve a homelessness crisis. Due in large part to an impotent Board of Supervisors who does nothing to help the community, this crisis has continued to get worse as time passes. As if it isn’t bad enough that our tax dollars were collected and then earmarked for the homeless issue, the Orange County Board of Supervisors sat on $900 million in funding while the homeless crisis continued to grow. They failed to even apply for other grants and funds that were made available for this issue as well. Their complete inaction has created a crisis of epic proportions that must be solved. Let me explain to you what a libertarian approach would be and then add my own spin to that. It is my strong belief, and has been for a long time, that since the tax dollars will never be returned and since they are specifically earmarked for the homeless crisis, they should be used towards solving that problem. I do believe that private charities should spearhead the effort, but the government can take the money it has earmarked for this issue and give it to the private charities so they are well-funded and can begin to work on a solution to this issue. Supporting these private charities is going to create the most efficient solution to the problem. Everyone needs to be held to the same standards. It is just wrong to say that people with jobs and homes can’t pitch a tent on the street while allowing the homeless to do so. I understand that the 9th Circuit court has ruled that there must be adequate resources available for the homeless before there can be enforcement of anti-camping ordinances. That’s why I feel we need to get busy on this problem. We need to provide the resources to the homeless so we can get back to enforcing the law equally. We need to let residents own the safety role in their neighborhoods. When the person doing the work is close to the person paying for that work, everything works more efficiently. Let residents of an area decide who will police their streets. Perhaps they want to pool their money and hire a private police force? Let them! The government does not have to handle this for us. We also need to remove the barrier to cheap housing. Things like tiny houses, RV parks and Alfresco Gardens go a long way towards providing cheap housing. The government needs to step aside and stop with all the red tape that makes it almost impossible to implement these kinds of programs. Let people choose to love in housing they can afford. Get rid of the “too libertarian” approach often used by libertarians. We clearly don’t agree with the war on drugs, but there is a role for law enforcement in these matters. We want drug dealers to be afraid of being arrested. That is a good thing. Hard-core libertarians believe that private charities can help those in need better than governments can, in part because coercive government programs often subsidize the wrong behavior. In a speech about what some call the “voluntary city,” economist Robert P. Murphy stressed that it is wrong to equate free-market conservatism with sink-or-swim social Darwinism. “You can admit that ‘yes, there is a need in a humane society for institutions that take care of people who are poor, who maybe made poor life decisions, or who just got struck with some rare disease or things beyond their control.’ We don’t want as a society to sit back and let those people die in the street.” He sees the answer in voluntary philanthropic organizations. This brings me back to the local situation here in Buena Park, California. In an effort to comply with the 9th Circuit ruling, the city began seeking locations for a homeless transitional housing center in the city. They initially selected a building on a main street. This building was close to a school, houses and a senior housing area. The argument was that it is “too close” to these things. The naysayers complained that while they are not opposed to helping the homeless, they didn’t think that location was good and wanted to see the shelter in an industrial area. I personally found the arguments against the shelter location uncompelling. The homeless are already near the residences. The homeless are already near the children. The homeless are already near the senior housing. How can one use as an argument against something things that exist before the something exists? After much debate, the city identified and approved a location in an industrial area. Guess what? The same people who were in favor of helping the homeless as long as the shelter was in an industrial area are now opposing the new site. Seriously! You can’t make this type of stuff up! To me this exemplifies why we have some work to do before the libertarian idea of philanthropy takes hold. We need to educate the public on the importance of contributing to these things. We need to show them that philanthropic solutions work. Once that is in place and we have the public on our side, it will be far easier to fight against taxation. Right now, when I mention cutting taxes completely, I hear questions like “Who will pay to fix the roads” and other similar questions. Philanthropy is still the answer. If there were no taxes and the roads were getting in bad shape, companies like Amazon and WalMart, who depend upon the roads to deliver their goods, would chip in the fix the roads. That’s exactly how it should be. Private enterprise making a profit off the use of the roads should be paying to maintain the roads. This is a mindset change and we need to begin the process of showing society that this will work better than the system we currently have. The homeless crisis can and should be solved the way the rest of society’s social issues should be solved–through private charitable organizations. Since we are not yet at that point in our society, we should allow the government to provide the cash to these private charitable organizations so they can get the job done. I’ve had libertarians yell at me and cuss me out for the stance I take on this issue. I say be realistic. We cannot snap our fingers and find ourselves in a utopian libertarian society. That is just not happening. The money they have earmarked, while coming from tax dollars, is never going to be returned to us. Would we rather have them not spend any of that money and watch as the homeless on the streets die or would we rather have them spend it to save lives? Isn’t it time that we realize there is a need in a humane society for institutions that take care of people who are poor? Let’s encourage this and help it grow. That’s it for this episode of Liberty Revealed. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time…stay free!

Mike introduces his guest,Greg Kotstafis. Greg tells the story of how he wound up in trouble and losing his freedom. Greg says losing his freedom was devastating. He says the repercussions of getting out are worse than when you are in. Greg says you lose credibility. Your relationships have difficulty with trust. New relationships require you to disclose what you did. It can be hard for people to understand and it takes time for them to trust you again. He says he's been dealing with this for 7 years and he is still dealing with it. Greg advises that people need trusted people they can talk to about these issues as they arise. Greg discusses how he was given the advice to file for bankruptcy. Greg explains how we take so much about our freedom for granted. Greg points out that one mistake caught on social media can also ruin your life forever. Greg says that when you can be transparent you have better relationships. Mike and Greg discuss the need for boundaries.

Mike introduces the topic of Media Bias. Mike introduces John Daly, today's guest. John speaks about fake news. He says it is a worn out term. John points out that not only the media is biased–everyone is biased. John says the best way to get more informed is to set up a Twitter news account. Mike discusses the fact that the best way to solve a problem is to know all the different sides. John talks about what happened when he did a commercial for a book on the Trump tax cuts. John says listening is the key to everything. Mike explains why he agrees with John.

Mike introduces his guest, Abe Abdelhadi. They run through the candidates. Kamala Harris: Abe says she was one of the worst attorney generals in California history. He mentions she is beholden to corporate interests. Elizabeth Warren: Abe says she's great at chastising people doing unethical things, but never introduces legislation to deal with the issues once and for all. Beto O'Rourke. Abe lists his record of voting to bail out banks, not opposing wars and several other issues as a reason not to vote for him. Tulsi Gabbard. Abe says he respects her as a veteran. He likes her voting record. She backs up what she says. She holds journalists' feet to the fire. Pete Buttigieg. Abe calls him the Gay Obama. He says that Buttigieg uses identify politics to get recognition. He talks about values. Cory Booker. Abe calls him an empty suit. Bernie Sanders. Abe says Bernie is dead to him because of how he handled the 2016 primary. Andrew Yang. Abe says he has a business background, but he is still a corporate Democrat. He is into Universal Basic Income. They divert into a discussion of minimum wage. Marianne Williamson. Abe says he has a friend who is a big fan. He doesn't feel she understands foreign policy. Joe Biden. Abe reminds us that Uncle Joe wrote the Patriot Act. He also reminds us about how he treated Anita Hill. John Hickenlooper. Abe says he's a non-starter. Not even a blip on the radar. Bill Weld. Abe says that Bill is too much about decorum and has no real substance to him. The discussion turns into one about Trump and his policies. Abe says Democrats refuse to accept responsibility when they lose. Will socialism be a differentiator in the race? Mike is a proponent of Universal Basic Income. Abe suggests supporting the food companies so they can help feed the hungry rather than waste money on the defense industry. Mike discusses the hypocrisy of those who oppose the homeless shelter in his town. Both Mike and Abe say they are consistent in their viewpoints. Abe says Russiagate was a ridiculous thing. Mike rants about the Libertarian approach of “all or nothing.” Mike says religion and politics are the same thing to him. Mike discusses the flaw in the Libertarian system.

Mike introduces his guest, Damian Grasza. Damian believes “facts don't care about your feelings.” Damian says that regarding border security, there needs to be strict border control and the government must control who goes in and out. He doesn't think the government should track people inside the country, but they should know who is in the country at any given time. Mike asks how that will affect trade and the free movement of goods. Damian says the elected officials will figure that part out. Damian, who as Mike points out, advocates for closed borders, does not think tourism would be effected. Damian gives his opinion on Trump's travel ban. He says he sees both sides of that issue. Mike asks Damian what he thinks of Trump. He says at first Trump was immature, but he is growing into the job and he may be re-elected in 2020. Mike says he expects Trump to be re-elected in 2020. He compares this to team sports and preparation. Mike sees no credible opponent for Trump. Mike asks about immigration. He explains how some countries are required to have a visa while others do not need a visa. Damian states visas are necessary. He says most people come for vacation and not funerals. Mike asks about work visas. Damian believes it is a good idea to issue work visas. He doesn't feel people should come in to take advantage of the welfare system. Mike points out that countries with socialized medicine have stricter rules for entering their country. Mike asks if Damian is OK with legal immigration. He is. Mike asks Damian how a country should insure people don't overstay their visa. Damian says that countries with an ocean around them have a different approach. They are not worried about people walking across the border. He believes a physical barrier is required. Mike says that workers should be given a special visa to work. As long as they are employed, they should be able to stay as long as they want. Damian agrees. Damian asks what happens if people overstay. Mike says that is something lacking here in the United States. Mike points out that Australia sends officers to hunt down the people who overstay. Mike says that holiday visas are more difficult to deal with. The government just has no easy way to determine where the people went. Damian explains the fears people have when trying to get a visa to the United States. Damian explains the issues with Brexit and why it is costing so much money to fix. He explains that it was a very close vote (about 4% difference). Mike and Damian discuss how people should work together rather than against each other. Mike says the media is the problem. Mike explains that these indictments that came down during the Mueller investigation were all about things that have nothing to do with the issue. Damian says the media is hurting Theresa May. They turn the opinion of the citizens against her.

Mike introduces Rick Dawson, a Libertarian activist in the State of California. Rick says this is a dream come true being on Liberty Revealed. Rick talks about seeking an At-Large position with the California Libertarian Party. He explains why he is running. Rick is looking to support candidates and help them win elections. Mike says he is also running for the same seat and for the same reasons. Mike complains the candidate support system was non-functional. He feels that state parties should have strong candidate support to help them through the election process. Rick talks about his run for Congress. He also felt the candidate support was non-existent.

Mike introduces Gina Clayton-Tarvin, Trustee at the Orange View School District. Gina says that both parents were very political. Her dad had been appointed to the Board of Equalization. He also ran for office when she was 2 years old. Her mom was the President of the San Diego County Republican Federated. She was born and raised a Republican. The first campaign she worked on was for George HW Bush. She is a teacher and got involved in the union. She was asked to run for school board in Long Beach when she lived there. She ran against an incumbent. She lost by 200 votes. Later when she moved to Huntington Beach. She went to a school board meeting in 2012. She spoke on the topic of class size. Her neighbor, Gino Bruno, told her the teacher's associate wanted to speak with her. They asked her to run for school board. She gave them her terms and they agreed. Mike explains what lead to his run for school board in 2010. Gina explains her initial time on the board in Ocean View. She discussed how she and John Briscoe attacked the asbestos issues in their district. She says this is what started a cultish following of her. They then sued a trash company. They have an open air trash dump next to a school. They prevailed and got a $26 million settlement. She picked up some enemies, including Chris Epting. This started a 3 year aggression towards Gina. Mike says that he immediately liked Gina because of her attitude that she will do what is right rather than worry about getting re-elected. He likes her willingness to speak her mind. He feels they are connected. Mike discusses meeting Norm Westwell at a Libertarian meeting. Mike found him to be very interesting, but not in a great way. Mike says he was a bit “off”. Gina explains her situation with Norm. She begins stating how much alike the Libertarians can be with some Democrats. She explains that Norm has become an obstructionist. He calls kids and parents failures. He calls the staff failures. She explains about the Proud Boys coming to their board meetings, threatening her and heckling her. She had to get a restraining order against local blogger, Chuck Johnson. Norm went and testified on behalf of Chuck. She said that during meetings he made many rude comments with sexual innuendos. He sexually harassed Gina during a meeting. During her trustee's comments she outed him. He denied it. President John Briscoe wrote a censure. They had debate about it. Norm tried to stop the debate, but everyone else let him know they knew he was lying. Mike relates his experience at a city council meeting where some racists bad mouthed a man and later realized he was on their side. Gina relates how people have threatened her. She says that you are free to say anything to her at a meeting, but don't threaten her. Mike agrees. She discusses the keyboard warriors who were opposing her. Mike explains his take on Gina's situation. Gina points out that people claimed she was a “climber” and she has stayed where she is for 7 years thus far. Mike says again that he loves that Gina is outspoken. He relates a story about when he was running for office and how people advised him what to say. He says one should never say things they don't agree with. Mike says he was mortified by the behavior of Chuck Johnson. He brings a parallel with Dirty John, the podcast. Mike says it isn't right that people can say whatever they want about elected officials. She points out that Chuck Johnson got arrested for drug and alcohol charges. This guy claimed Gina was moonlighting as a stripper. He said she was having an affair that she was NOT having an affair with. He knew these things were not true. He then took images, doctored them and put her in weird historical circumstances. He claimed she is a megalomaniac. Mike discusses his own stalker and what happened. She claimed Mike had a major criminal record. He explained how she blatantly disregarded a cease and desist order. Gina explains how people have believed many of the false statements about her. She says she tries to live ethically. She says that basic right and wrong dictates you should not lie about another human being. Mike talks about meeting a Boston Globe reporter at Politicon. They finish up talking about things they agree with each other on.

Mike introduces Ethan Ellis, host of The End of Politics podcast. Mike administers the world's smallest political quiz to Ethan. Ethan's results from The World's Smallest Political Quiz Ethan says the Venezuela situation is similar to Iraq. We have delegitimized a left leaning administration. Mike asks if Ethan feels oil is the driving factor. He says yes, but that with this administration they have some weird ideological motivations. Ethan started his podcast as a person who wants to be a history teacher. He feels this is the end of political understanding and thus the name. Mike points out that intervention by the United States tends to make things worse. Ethan says he thinks it is an extremely dangerous move on our part. Mike discusses the research he has done on the issue. He says the media is not really reporting the truth here. He still feels it is 80% about oil. Ethan agrees the media doesn't know anything about the situation. He points out how popular Maduro is. Mike points out that the war on terrorism is a joke because the United States created terrorism through its interventionist policies. He points out that each and every POTUS has made the same mistakes. Mike asks Ethan what he thinks is the solution. Ethan says that Juan Guaido needs to stop what he's doing. He needs to allow the legitimately elected administration to complete its term. The United States needs to stop censuring Venezuela. Maduro should pick a successor with the ability to continue what his agenda is about. Ethan's feelings about interventionism is that we have been insane. We are bad at “aide” because there is always an ulterior motive. We knock out the enemy, but then we just “hang out” doing nothing to stop a radical group from grabbing power. He mentions Saudi Arabia's role. Mike says there are theories that our interventionist policies are in place because they make our leaders richer. Ethan says it is less of a policy and more of a law. Mike points out that our policies are inconsistent. He compares it to losing weight by drinking diet soda. He questions why we are still so friendly with Saudi Arabia. He says that when any POTUS lies, it is generally about foreign policy. They discuss the idea that term limits would fix this issue.

Mike introduces George Reis, Orange County Libertarian Party Secretary and founder of the HB Liberty Club in Huntington Beach, California. Mike reveals that he is friends with George. They work together at the HB Liberty Club. Mike describes an email George sent to the core group from HB Liberty Club and the LPOC. The email discussed what we can learn from best practices for building a business and how to take that and build a viable party. George explains he started listening to business-based podcasts. He wanted to learn from them and apply the ideas to his business. He also wondered if they could apply those ideas to Libertarian Party activism. Mike discusses his visit to the state executive committee meeting and that they were so focused on Robert's Rules of Order that they missed the point. George discusses the book “No Fail Meetings” by Michael Hyatt. Mike discusses how most people don't grasp that being prepared ahead of time helps a meeting go smoothly. George points out there must always be a goal attached. Mike relays his experience as a CTO with a delivery service. He discusses management without authority. He likens it to handling volunteers. George says that empowering volunteers is the key. He mentions the Ritz Carlton's policy about customer care. George explains how in a volunteer organization, everyone is autonomous, but they are not given details about how they can use that autonomy. Mike relates to George a time when he was a retail manager and he would empower his employees to handle customer complaints. He says that clarity is the key to empowerment. Mike announces he is running for At Large with the California Libertarian Party and he is running to help with candidate support. George wants to see the party become more goal oriented. Mike explains he feels religion and politics are very similar subjects. George says we need to increase our registration to become a choice when people vote. He says we need to give people a reason to join the party. We need to learn to “close the sale”. The party needs to be the guide to the voter. George says we need good candidates. Mike discusses the issue of passion. He explains how he has been recruiting people for City Council in 2020. George mentions the Los Angeles Libertarian Party and how they built up interest in their group. Mike says they need to be flexible about the direction things go. He uses the example of the HB Liberty Club to prove the point. George says that if you want to build you must delegate. Mike makes a plea to the youth to come out and volunteer. George agrees. George mentions the Fullerton Libertarian Club. It can be found on the Orange County Libertarian Party website.

Mike opens the show introducing his guest, Ray Denaro. Ray is a candidate for the New York Assembly, 47th District. Ray ran for City Council in New York in 2017. Mike mentions Ray wrote an article about why he switched from a registered Democrat to a registered Republican. Ray says he was inspired to run for assembly because he is a community advocate and he feels there is a need for change in Brooklyn. He mentions “the zombie vote” where Democrats take hold of a seat and hold on to it forever. This happens because there are more Democrats than Republicans by a count of 6 to 1 in his district. He is 28 and has lived in his district his entire life. Ray's platform involves community. He is concerned that the community aspect is now missing. The local politicians are not paying attention to the community. Sports programs have dwindled. He sees some negative change having taken place. Mike mentions his kinship with Ray due to having run for office multiple times. Mike asks how he felt when the results came through. Ray says election day was a great experience. He got 30% of the vote in just 3 months. Ray describes the challenge he intends to bring to his opponent. Mike asks Ray how he feels about term limits. Ray says that he agrees with term limits. He feels his opponent has become out of touch with his community due to the lack of term limits. Mike talks about his own opinions about term limits. Ray mentions that opiate addiction is a major issue in his district. He mentions shooting facilities and seems to be slightly against them. Mike discusses the shooting facilities and explains why he is for them. Ray is opposed because they don't know where to put them. He is afraid they will put them close to schools or in the midst of residential neighborhoods. He doesn't think it solves the problem. Ray says people are turned away when they seek help because there is no funding. Mike talks about the homeless issue in Orange County. He mentions that the citizens don't want a homeless shelter near their homes. He says they make the same excuses — that people don't want help. Ray says that the people who want and desire help should get help. Mike discusses forcing people to get help and how that is wrong. Ray discusses his campaign and how he has been fighting for what he stands for. The community is excited about his run. Mike is somewhat amazed by the number of assembly districts in New York. He then explains that he finds the diversity to be one of the cool things about our country. Ray discusses his article about why he became a Republican. He explains all the things that bother him and lead to the change for him. He is offended the Democrats are coming off as anti-cop and anti-logic and anti-American. Ray says that New York City is the capital of the world and cannot get Amazon to agree to come there. Amazon says they didn't have the support of the politicians. The impact has been horrible. Ray explains we need to get back to the basics. Mike points out what influenced Ray according to Ray's article. He says it is interesting how children follow in the footsteps of their family. Mike points out that Ray did this and then changed directions. Mike explains he became a Libertarian because he realized his ideology fit better with them. He says not enough people look at their true beliefs are and then align themselves. He asks Ray how he feels about that. Ray says you must be true to yourself at the end of the day. He feels people idolize politicians and follow them like a cult leader. He says you should align yourself with the party that makes the most sense to you. He says not all Republicans are racists or misogynists. He agrees with Mike. Mike discusses how he tries to select the best person for the job without regard for party preference. He points out some of the flaws in the political world today, including the fact that people think because you vote third party you must have helped the other person win the election. Mike says people used to avoid talking politics so others wouldn't influence them. He feels people are giving others multiple votes. Mike asks Ray how he feels after having voted for Trump. He says he is happy to support Donald Trump. His vote was not only a vote for Trump, it was a vote against Hillary Clinton. He feels she is a terrible person with no real message. She wasn't going to be a good president. He is in favor of the wall at the border. He feels Trump is better for the economy and says that unless the Democrats can blow him away with a candidate he will vote for Trump again. Trump got 45% of the vote in his district. Ray points out that he supports the POTUS. He says this is because if the POTUS does a good job, it benefits his constituents. He reminds people he is running for local office and can only effect the local scene. He tries to keep voters focused on local issues. Mike asks Ray how he feels about Donald Trump's blatant dishonesty. Ray says that the “news” media gives their opinion. He seems to say that the opinion of the media influences society in a bad way. Mike points out that he uses CNN as a barometer on how Trump is doing at that point. When he is accomplishing something good, CNN has lots to say. Mike discusses how he has seen the media change over his lifetime. He says when he was younger, the media all reported the exact same thing. The news was in the middle. Now the news is biased no matter how you look at it. Mike labels them entertainment media. Mike then asks Ray how Trump's dishonesty compares to other presidents. Were they just as dishonest? Ray says that Trump is a polarizing figure. He says he appreciates that Trump is blunt. Mike predicts that unless the Democrats come up with a miracle candidate Trump will be re-elected. He points out how the polls anointed Clinton the POTUS yet she lost. Ray points out how Trump was filling large arenas and Hillary was not. He says the polls got it completely wrong. Mike discusses the speaking tour the Clintons took of Canada and they failed to fill any place they went. They even sold half off tickets on Groupon and still could not sell out.

Mike: Hey, welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed. I'm Mike Mahony, your host, and today I have a guest with me. His name is Matt Plautz. He's the 17-year-old host of Unfazed with Matt Plautz. His podcast focuses on current events comedy, philosophy and various subjects that guests bring in. So please welcome to the show, Matt. Hey Matt Matt: Yeah thanks so much for having me, Mike. Mike: How are you doing today? Matt: I'm doing great. Just excited to get going and talk a little bit about what we were talking about with Howard Schultz and everything like that. Talk about some independent candidates in just 2020 in general. Mike: Sure well before we jump into that, you know since it is Super Bowl Sunday when we're recording…Patriots or Rams? Matt: I'm Patriots. I got a patriots jersey in my closet right now. I am a Bears fan, but they never make the Super Bowl so I usually root for the Pats and I've got Pats by seven. Mike: Alright, awesome. Yeah, I think it's gonna be a good game, that's for sure. So, we'll see. So, so yeah, you mentioned Howard Schultz and I mean, that's been the the big uproar in the media. You know, everyone's afraid that Howard Schultz is going to run as an independent and taking votes away from the democrats, that he will help re-elect Donald Trump. So what are your thoughts about that? Matt: Well, first of all, I mean, I think it's a little ridiculous that everyone's attacking him for running as an independent when he is an independent. Like, what else would he be running as? He was a former Democrat, obviously, but he no longer aligns with the Democratic Party in terms of, you know, free college for all he doesn't agree with, as far as I'm aware, free health care just doesn't think it's affordable. So when your party has shifted, people leave the party. It's just like, you know, you wouldn't expect someone to continue to vote for the Democratic Party if their opinion has changed on it. So I mean on that side of things, I just think it's a little unfair for everyone to be so accusatory towards him when really, it's just, he's still very against Trump. Whether you like Trump or hate Trump, you can't say that Howard Schultz is trying to help out Trump in any way. And I don't think there's any guarantee that it really would help Trump because personally, I've worked on the Republican side for a couple years now, and I know a lot of Republicans who are agitated with Trump and I know a lot of Democrats that love him. So there really is no way and that just as you saw with 2016, deep diving and analytics doesn't really work anymore because people are extremely unpredictable with how divided our nation is right now. So I don't know I think they're being a little bit unfair. What about you? Mike: Yeah I completely agree with you. I think that third party candidates in general get bagged on and you hear how if you're voting for a third party candidate, and you tell somebody if they're Republican, they claim you're going to help get the democrats elected. And if you're if you're a Democrat, they claim you're going to help get the republican elected. And like in the last election in 2016, I personally voted for Gary Johnson and I was told by both sides, you know, you're going to help the other side get elected, you're going to take votes away. And I asked them well, you know, you like a Democrat, you're assuming I would have voted for Hillary Clinton. I'm gonna tell you something. If I was forced to vote for either I wouldn't have voted. So you know, there's no you can't use this, oh, you'd hurt my side, because both sides think that and there and they're both wrong. I mean, the most third party candidates, and that's what I find really interesting about Schultz is he saying he's not just saying he's going to run as an independent he's going to run as a centrist independent, which is, if you're, you're too young to remember this guy. But you probably heard the name Ross Perot Matt: Did it didn't he didn't Ross end up getting about like 15% in some states? Matt:Yeah Mike: He definitely affected that election. But it was because he ran more on as a conservative independent and so he, you know he made that, he created, you know, a situation that they're claiming Schultz is going to create. I don't think he will. I think if he runs with a position in the center he's going to have a good chance of getting a lot of votes but he's going to pull them from both parties. That's the key thing that I think they miss. Matt: Yeah. Did it didn't he, didn't Ross end up getting about like 15% in some states? Mike: Yes, yes I mean, he did quite well but of course, Matt: Yeah. Mike: You know, a similar situation to Schultz, he was a CEO of a major tech company. He had a lot of money to burn and I mean, that's, you know, money and politics is another topic for another day. And maybe you can come on another time and we can talk about that, but for now, I mean, I think. Matt: For sure. Mike: It's known that one of the weird things about our country is, you know, I think it was Thomas Jefferson that said, you know, we should avoid political parties and you know, I think he was right. I think political parties…what it does is you get some people who are automatically against Donald Trump because they're democrat and then you get some people who support anything he says, because they’re republican rather than, you know, I've gone through the last two years as a libertarian. I've gone through the last two years going well, okay, I like that idea. Oh, I hate that idea. I can't believe you said that. I'm all over the place with it, because he's all over the place. And that's how it should be. But then you get the people that are like, in lockstep and I know they're intelligent people because I know some of them personally and you just say how is it that you miss like, like, how do you feel about this wall that he wants to build? Matt: The wall well, yeah, just before I talked about that a little bit, I 100% agree.What I always say is that you get entrenched with a two-party system you're forced to check a box that you stand slightly closer to and then everyone gets mad at you if you check that box was oh you agree with this that he said. No, I don't! I was forced to choose one of them because there isn't a viable third party and, so yeah, that I totally agree that it's a broken system I don't know that parties are unnecessarily the problem, maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but I think the lack of choices it's just not representative to the population, you know? You have people that couldn't check republican or democrat and that's why there should be four to five parties maybe even more maybe less. But and with the wall, it is it's a hot button issue and I can go either way on it. I understand both sides because you on the Democrat side of things, their reasoning for not wanting the wall is mostly financial saying that it's not worth the dollars spent..And then there are also those further to the left that just think that it's inhumane. Um, I think there's definitely an argument to be made if it's worth the money or not if it would actually be effective and depending on what side you are, they're going to say one thing or say the other, but I think it's a little ridiculous, the inhumane part, because in my opinion, it just…it's not inhumane to keep people out of your country when they can come here legally whether or not the system's broken,you know I don't actually know too much about that because everything every information you're getting they're trying to nudge you one way or the other so it's really hard to truly know how broken the system is, but to say that it's inhumane to try and keep border security, you know, talk to the people that are that are being raped, and being murdered and stuff by people that we didn't get a chance to vette and I don't think that all illegal immigrants by any means. I don't even think the majority of them I think most of them are coming here because they want abrighter future, but you know, they can come here legally. And the argument I've always had is because I'm actually I leaned away and the wall that's one of the things I do like about Trump, because he's so adamant about border security. I always say, you know, regarding illegal immigration, it's just like, for me, you know, it's, it's way easier for me to just hop on the highway and never take driver's education never have to go get my license at the DMV, because God knows no one wants to go to the DMV, you know, it'd be way easier to do that. But in a society, there are laws that may inconvenience you just for the sake of the general population safety and if we need to vet people, we need to vet people if you have a problem with that, you know, I think that maybe you should look at going somewhere else. That's just my personal opinion. What about you? Mike; Well I mean I kind of have a kind of a hybrid libertarian view on this issue i think that you know first of all, let me tell you, my wife is from Canada and we've been going through the immigration process herself. And the first thing I'll tell you is it's extremely inefficient Matt: Yeah Mike: .We've been in the process for quite a while now. And we still don't have it. We we've been told there's an interview date been picked and that it's being sent to us. But you're talking over two weeks ago, why does it take two weeks to process a letter that goes, you know, from maybe I think it's coming from Chicago to Orange County. Matt: sounds like getting approved by iTunes Mike: right? It's exactly like why Why does it take so long and And not only that, I mean, we spent over $5,000 on the process. And I mean, imagine if, you know, I'm lucky enough to I'm running multiple businesses and making good money. Imagine if I was making $10 an hour How do I afford the 1400 dollar filing fee to get her here? And so I think that what we need to do is we need to be Matt: Yeah Mike: Give people a pathway that if they want to come here and work that they can do that with a work visa, where we vet them, like you said, and we also make sure then that they're paying their income taxes because you know what, they don't pay their income taxes, we can revoke their visa and have them sent out of here. But I also think that it comes down to this there if there's going to be an immigration system at the federal level. And I don't think we're ever going to see that go away. And if that's where it's going to be, then they need to have it so that the pathway to being a legal immigrant is affordable and something you can have helped doing if you don't if you know, that's one of the things that's lacking. Like if you don't have you don't understand something you call the immigration people and they'll mostly tell you, well, you're supposed to check this box and you're supposed to make sure that this is filled out, but they can't really give you advice should you fill out this form or this form and there needs to be someplace ever I mean, I don't know how it is in every state, but I know in a few states I've been in the court systems have helped centers that people are there volunteering their time to help you so that you are able to avail yourself of your rights and of course as a libertarian personal freedom and liberty it's huge for me. So I think if they could they could fix that. Then we get to the point where and this is where I think I part ways with libertarians because I feel Remember I said if they don't pay their taxes we can revoke their reason and get them out of the country. I think we need if once we've had an affordable system that makes sense the people can understand and actually have a legal path to work here. Then we need to be like Australia where you don't you overstay your visa they send somebody out to find you and support you and attach a penalty to it you're banned for three years you can apply again for three years I think what would fast happen is we would be would make a lot more revenue in the immigration system because you know, it's it's a volume thing more people going to going to apply legally and you're going to you're going to make that that money but also you're going to have higher tax revenues because you're you're getting people in this country who really want to work and they want to take these jobs and I don't know they it seems like we should allow them to do that that's just the where I where I go with it and i think you know as far as I my stance on the wall is i think it's it's it's extremely expensive and I think they need to use a system like we have on the Canadian border on the Canadian border we have technology there's electronics that if you walk across the border it goes off and they and it'll trigger infrared cameras that'll turn on I mean they can find you if you're you know trying to tempt into the country illegally the wall I mean they're going to go around it they're going to go under it. They're going to go I mean right away. The joke was if it's a 50-foot wall, someone's gonna make a 51-foot tall ladder. I don't necessarily think they'll climb the ladder to go over it but you know they're gonna they're gonna find their ways yeah you know they're gonna they're gonna find their ways and I think we it may just be too much money especially since there are areas of the border where the terrain it won't allow someone to cross so don't have a wall there..Yeah, you only have two choices. Matt: Yeah. And so. So when I say that I'm I'm pro wall. I think it's just because I'm forced to. Like I said, that's the problem with the two party system, you have two choices. And the Democrats, they want to say that they have no word for border security. They're not really doing a whole lot about border security and they don't want to and that's very clear for risk because because they receive a primary amount of the votes that come from that, but that's a discussion for another day, but it's um, it's a little unfortunate that you're forced to check one of the two boxes, which is almost no border security or border security that I don't think is the most effective and I've always agreed with the argument that well, the wall isn't the most cost-effective option on the wall isn't X, Y, or Z, that those are legitimate arguments. What I have a problem with is when people come in, and you know, they, they try and instead of doing a logical appeal, they use an emotional appeal. And that's my problem is because I've never really been a recipient of emotional appeal because, you know, it's not the best way to do things. You know, if you make a decision based on an emotional reaction, it's usually not the best result. And so I think the discussion that should be had is not and I understand Trump's angle Trump wants to build a wall because it's it'd be very hard for the Democrats to undo that to justify undoing it because once the money is spent, that's what we have, you know, taking the wall down wouldn't make sense it'd be very hard to justify so I get that angle of it. But at the same time, it's you really have to think about is technology a better solution? You know we have drones we have all kinds of technology we could be using to our advantage we just need to figure out how to make that a permanent solution and also how to fix the system it's similar to taxes you know you should tax people when we tax the rich far too much they just load all their money the Bahamas you have to find the right percentage where people will actually be willing to get taxed. So we need to fix the immigration system like we try to fix the tax system is where people it's easy enough for people to come. But we also can at least attempt to filter out the bad ones, you know that we have to find some type of a sweet sweet spot where it's effective. But also like you said, I didn't know that type of angle from the Canadian perspective. And I'm similar. I'm sure it's similar to Mexico because one of my friends had an immigration problem as well. They had to move back to Mexico for like a year to resolve it. So it is it is a broken system.we do need to figure out how do we fix it as opposed to just not doing anything so like like I said it's that's what's important about a third fourth fifth and party is so that we can have other ideas then just build a wall or do nothing it's a two extremities is what it is MIke: Yeah I agree with you and I think like how do you think someone like let's say Schultz were to run and by some miracle he were to win. So now you have, you know, probably a democrat-controlled house or a Republican-controlled Senate, and you have an independent president in the middle. How much do you think that would affect the outcome of issues like this? Matt: I think the the opinion that Schultz is a true centrist is I think it's a little bit skewed because if you look, you know, he's a lifelong Democrat I think it would be similar to like having a 2000 democrat or 2004 Democrat in presidency..He would probably lean towards democratic issues but the the more radical progressive you know Alexandria, Kazuo Cortez Bernie Sanders type of thing I don't think those would be I don't think he would fight for those but the more moderate type of you know Nancy Pelosi would do very well I think if that makes any sense in a Schultz presidency she tries to be progressive but we all know that she was a moderate and she's just switching with the times to keep on staying relevant I think it would lean democratic to be completely honest and then everyone's know on maybe tax issues he'd lean a little more conservative from what I've been able to understand he he's not a huge fan of taxes but he thinks Trump's tax cuts were a little extreme you know top heavy whereas they should have been towards the middle class which I honestly agree with you know if I could have chosen one or the other I as a libertarian with some conservative beliefs as well not a big fan of taxes i live in Illinois one of the most tax states in the nation and I can tell you people are fleeing out of here so we have to find like I said a sweet spot with taxes as well where people are not you know loading out there money to the Cayman Islands to the Bahamas. We need to find something that people are actually willing to pay and it's it's a truly fair and balanced tax, but that's difficult. Mike: But ok so like one of the things I read is the you know, they actually think was Fortune magazine said well you know maybe he can maybe he could help fix this country because you know he's a corporate he's been a corporate executive he's run a large corporation Starbucks of course but then isn't that what they said about Trump? Matt: yes and no, um, I think the fact that Schultz wouldn't carry in very many. You know, opinions. He's not the most he's more of an open minded whereas Trump it's kind of my way or the highway. And some people love that. Some people hate it. I'm not trying to reprimand or trying to praise him for that. But I think that's pretty obvious that people love Trump because he's so close minded and the people hate him for that reason so but I think Schultz is that the type of person that will listen to both sides I almost think that he would be easily influenced for bad and for good just because he he is so open minded but he is a smart guy at the end of the day obviously you can't be where he is today but I think it's kind of interesting that the the democrats primarily are attacking him so much for his success when he came from almost nothing he's he's quite honestly living the democrat you know, the dream of coming from nothing and becoming something but it's a he's being attached..That and I think that's why the democrats are almost losing their mold if that makes any sense. Mike: Well, I think like I was you were saying that I was thinking about how if you are a third party candidate so you know, of course of the major third parties that makes sense and have a big, big enough numbers to make a dent in a run for president, you're talking about either green party or Libertarian Party and the problems that they have getting elected is people say, Well, okay, if I had voted Gary Johnson and is the president he goes into office with no allies on either side. I disagree with that, by the way, he goes in there with no allies. I think that's too simplistic of a concept. Matt: Yeah. Mike: I think that he would definitely have allies because I think what it would do is it would force Congress and Senate to start thinking long term and start thinking about the best interests of the people they represent. Rather than their party line because they're going to have a president who's going to say, Well, okay, the Republicans, you're thinking about the solution this way yours is a democrats your solution is be but like my solution is see kind of a hybrid of a and b. So now what are you going to do? And I think what will happen is for the first time in a long time, you would see kind of that bill clinton cooperation where, you know, Clinton I you know, despite his moral issues, I think he was a pretty darn good president and he he managed to speak to both sides of the aisle and convince one there was an important issue and he needed some support on the on the left, he would go after it when he needed support on the right he would go after and I think that's what you would get with more of a third party slash independent president is someone who would pull support from both sides so that what passes would be something that the majority of our country would buy into. Matt: Do you think people want that though? Like, I mean, I want something similar to that, that I feel if you go on Facebook or Twitter, which obviously isn't necessarily representative to the the small towns and all that. But if you go on Facebook and Twitter that doesn't seem like something that people actually want, they like to pretend like that's what they truly want. But is America in a situation where we truly want cooperation or or do we just want my way or the highway and let's switch for years of being selfish and crying when we don't get what we want. Mike: Well, yeah, you make a great point because I'm very active in the California Libertarian Party. And as a side note of that there's a person that I've met here locally who runs a… well he calls it a Liberty club but it's essentially a chapter of the libertarian party at a city level and he there's a city here in Huntington Beach California you know the Beach Boys made it favorite famous and it's his club meets there and we just had a meeting this past week and they're sitting there talking about how a lot of them were saying hey you know what, you know I wasn't really I'm not a big fan of Trump's tax cuts but it was a step in the right direction and they say that but what I've said and even have an episode out of liberty revealed I think that the libertarians and I do think pretty much every party is like this they're more of a political cult than anything else they they have an ideology and that's what they want and I always tell them like okay guys I understand what you're looking for you're looking for the utopian libertarian society but the reality is you're never going to get that ever it's not going to happen so you need to do is you need to get yourself elected using reasonable ideas. And then once you're elected, show people how you can govern. Like, for instance, I ran for Orange County Supervisor this past election cycle. And one of the things that I told they kept saying, Well, how are you as a libertarian going to make a difference in the county? I said, Well, the first thing I would do, I've reviewed the staff numbers, and they have like, 25 staff members, and they're spending $4 million a year each office that's $20 million on five districts offices a year that, hey, I could probably cut that down to five people per office. So I would reduce the size of my staff and they said, Well, what does that show it? What if it works? Well, if it works, it means we can also reduce the size of government because we just proven that we can do the same job just as efficiently with less people, which thereby saves a lot of money which means that money is available for either cutting taxes or using the money for something like homeless people.It's think that you have to be more pragmatic in your approach and that's the problem you know if you're a republican your your problem I mean, of course we're speaking in absolutes here and absolutes are never you know realistic in society but you're right i think if you were to do a poll I would say more than 80% of Republicans fall in line with the Republican platform and more than 80% of the democrats fall in line with a democrat platform and even I'm going to say 80% of libertarians 80% of Green Party members I think the majority fall in line with the platform and the don't bother to think about the real world implications of the decisions they're trying to force on society and with libertarians it's kind of ironic because I'm not sure if you're aware of this but like when you become a a dues paying member of the Libertarian Party. One of the things that you initial says you will not use us or support any idea that imposes its will by force on anyone So you know you have a non aggression principle and it's great it really is but at the same time they're trying to force their ideology on everybody by saying we're there's one guy I met at convention last year who's running for president and his he says that he'll be the shortest term president ever because he's going to get into the office and then he's going to eliminate the federal government ask yourself you really think the republicans and democrats and house and senate are going to say oh yeah sure let's just eliminate the government we don't need the government anymore and and and that's where it comes down to being more like a cult because they're they're only thinking about their ways the best way I mean if you've ever I don't know if you're religious at all but like religious cults they all say the same thing our way is the way and and so that's what it is you know political party Our way is tthe way and I think really That way is a mixture of all of the ideologies Matt: Yeah, it's actually really interesting how the Foundation of America was, you know, the, the popular phrase is a melting pot. But the thing about a melting pot and I said this on my podcast, too, I'm in a melting pot. Nothing can just remain solid. You can't, you can't entirely remain solid and everything else melts. No, I'm gonna keep my beliefs everyone else you all be open. I mean, you'll be open minded to me. But I'm not going to be open minded to you. I'm not going to understand your opinions you know we all have to mount and I don't think that was necessarily talking about race. I think that was talking a lot about ideology, and in the the foreshadow of this type of thing, I think they knew that something like this will eventually happen and… Mike: So I've really enjoyed this conversation. I think. I think we're in agreement actually more than I thought we would be. So why don't you tell people where, where and how they can find you. Matt: Yes. So I'm on almost every platform, iTunes, Stitcher. Google podcast will be on YouTube next episode and you'll just look up, Unfazed with Matt Plautz. I've got an Instagram at unfazed.podcasts and I'll talk a little bit about politics current events, I'm going to be having guests such as you know as well.Mike said I'm going to be having I'm going to be doing the cardinal sin of having a pastor on that I also want to have a lot of other religions on and just talk a little bit about philosophy and how they look at other religions I think would be interesting and also might be able to get some state representatives possibly even a congressman on so it's gonna be a lot of a lot of everything almost I don't have a set theme you know I'll talk about politics one episode then maybe comedy one episode it's just really whatever is going on and yeah Mike thanks so much for having me Mike: Do you have a website? Matt: we don't have a website yet I host on PodBean right now Mike: I'll put that in the show. I'll put that in the show notes and I encourage my listeners to go listen to and subscribe to your podcast. unfazed and definitely follow you on social media and I I've got your social media links I'll put those in the show notes as well and again it's been a pleasure having you on and I'm sure we'll follow up and have you on again in the near future Matt: Yeah thank you so much Mike: Alright well this has been another episode of liberty revealed If you or a friend or family member wants to find out a little bit more about liberty just go to https://YogisPodcastNetwork.com/libertyrevealed it's all there for you and we appreciate you listening.

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed with me, your host, Mike Mahony. Today I want to talk to you about a realization I’ve had. In recent episodes, we discussed the leadership issues I see with Libertarians. Today's topic is an extension of that topic. Today I ask the question “Is the Libertarian Party just a big political cult?” Allow me to delve into this so you can understand where I am coming from. To my way of thinking, the purpose of a political party should be to get candidates into office who mostly agree with the party’s ideology. The goal shouldn’t be to find someone who matches our particular personal ideology. I don’t believe any one person agrees completely with the party they belong to. Show me a Democrat, Republican or Libertarian who claim to agree 100% with their party and I will show you a liar. There are many reasons people choose to belong to a particular party. If you have a litmus test for them that involves them agreeing completely with you on the issues, you’re litmus test is flawed. You should be seeking people who mostly agree with you. Recently I was told that I do not sound the least bit Libertarian. The person telling me this has some extreme views. His proclamation came during a discussion we had about immigration and who has the right to make laws regarding immigration. Now, in the past I’ve had discussions with members of religious cults. The approach they use is to appear o sources sympathetic to their cause while ignoring very clear evidence to the contrary. In fact, they prefer the sympathetic source to the documents that created their religion in the first place (ie. The Bible as one example). The Libertarian I was discussing immigration with did this very thing. He did not approach the discussion with the attitude that he was going to listen to what I said. His goal was to convince me I was wrong. Despite my presenting him with text from the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation, he preferred to stick to writings that were sympathetic to his position. I’m not sure about you, but when I see the original of a document and I read it and later I see an interpretation of that document that ignores the actual text, I am skeptical. To me the original document contains the most correct ideas. This is part of the science of hermeneutics. By breaking down a long text and looking at all the places it addresses a subject, one can come to a solid interpretation by seeing what the most clear portion of the text says on an issue. As an example, if I release a book about marketing and I mention social media 25 times and in one of those mentions I say social media is a tough place to market and the other 24 times I make it clear that I love social media for marketing, you, the reader must interpret my meaning with the most consistent commentary. Perhaps I mean social media marketing is tough because it requires patience? However, clearly I’ve said you should use social media for marketing purposes. The point is you interpret the weaker or less transparent issues in light of the more clear issues. When you approach a text in this manner you won’t be mislead by the alternate interpretations of others. We, as humans, love to listen to those who agree with us. This is the exact reason I despise people who go on social media and block anyone who disagrees with them. It creates a dangerous side effect of not hearing what the other side is saying. This brings me back to my discussion with the Libertarian friend. He had chosen to listen to the interpretations of others. Perhaps those interpretations made the most sense to him. Meanwhile, he labeled me as “not very Libertarian sounding” because I held a different opinion. Religious cults will tell you they are the only true religion. They are quite dogmatic about the issues. The same can be said for many Libertarians. Rather than work hard to get a Libertarian elected, they would rather argue about who currently has the right to pass immigration laws. Thy prefer to dissect every issue and make an attempt to get everyone to agree with their opinion on the issues. Until this stops, the Libertarian Party will never be more than just a political cult. Michael Lind wrote an article called “The Question Libertarians Can’t Answer” in which he asked why there are no Libertarian countries if it is a viable system. In his follow up article, “Libertarians: Still a Cult”, he States: “The weak logic and bad scholarship that suffuse libertarian responses to my article tend to reinforce me in my view that, if they were not paid so well to churn out anti-government propaganda by plutocrats like the Koch brothers and various self-interested corporations, libertarians would play no greater role in public debate than do the followers of Lyndon LaRouche or L. Ron Hubbard.” While I partially agree, I see solutions to this problem. The solutions lie within the party itself. We Libertarians need to stop the dogmatic approach and be willing to compromise to get elected. The numbers prove this. There are 5,411 lower house seats in the United States. The Libertarians hold just 3 of those seats. There are 1,972 upper house seats in the country. The Libertarians hold 1. As of this year there are exactly 174 Libertarians holding any sort of office. The story comes into greater focus upon hearing these numbers. We Libertarians need to stop with litmus tests. If you meet a Libertarian candidate who you think isn’t “Libertarian enough” ask them questions. It is quite possible you’ve misinterpreted their words. Give them the courtesy of allowing a response to any questions you have. Only make up your mind about them Ayer hearing the answers they give. We Libertarians need a system of candidate support in place to help Libertarians get elected. We fail to donate financially to campaigns. We don’t volunteer for campaigns. We prefer to debate small issues rather than working together to get our candidates elected. With no system of support in place, Libertarian candidates are on their own against both Democrats and Republicans who have a massive localized presence to help their candidates. These are my own personal thoughts after meeting many Libertarians while on the campaign trail. I feel that we will not be taken seriously until we stop acting like a political cult. We have to be willing to work with other members of society in ways they are comfortable as well. Until we realize this we are going to have a hard time winning elections. I recently saw a comment that all campaigns need name recognition, a message, and a plan. The person making this comment stated he has yet to see a Libertarian candidate who had more than 2 of those 3 items. I feel that the message and plan need to resonate with the public or they won’t vote for you no matter how much name recognition you garner. My advice to aspiring Libertarian candidates is as follows: Understand the district you are running in (the issues, the unique economic situation, small issues, etc.) Speak to as many constituents as possible before you run. Craft a message that addresses the concerns of the constituents, yet holds true to your own ideology. Lead by example (meaning get out there and do things for your community) Document (via photos and video) what you are doing to be a productive member of the community. Let’s stop acting like a cult and start acting like a force to be reckoned with. That’s all for today’s episode. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time…stay free!

In today's episode, Mike is joined by RJ Cutler, the creator and Executive Producer of The Oval Office Tapes podcast. RJ discusses why he started the podcast. He explains how they process each episode. He also tells us about some of his favorite podcasts. This is a very different type of episode, but we are excited to have had the opportunity to interview RJ Cutler.

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed with me, your host, Mike Mahony. Today I want to follow up some more on the leadership issues raised in Episode 10. I spent the last 90 minutes speaking with a friend, Chuck McGlawn, about the liberty movement. Chuck disagrees with my stance in Episode 10 regarding Libertarian Leadership, but he brought out some good points I felt needed to be added to the last discussion, so here I am to add those and explain my own take on them. Chuck relayed a story to me about his introduction to the Libertarian Party and how he helped out in many ways and they liked his ideas, yet nobody once asked him to join the party. His point seems to be that it is difficult to truly grow the movement when the members themselves spend all their time talking to each other and not recruiting new members. I believe this is the same problem candidates have with raising money for their campaigns. They need to learn to ask for the donation. The Libertarian candidates I’ve come in contact with seem to rely on people knowing they need money rather than simply asking for the money. In addition, the candidates don’t ask for enough money when they do finally ask. I’ve watched Democrat and Republican candidates shamelessly ask for $500 donations. They do so because they know people who can donate that much will and those who can’t will donate something smaller. By asking for the higher amount they show the urgency to their campaign. If I get asked for $500 and can only afford $100, I am going to give $100. At the same time, if I am asked for “any small donation” I may just wind up giving $50. I once read a book called “Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary” which was about the reasons people don’t attend church but are otherwise believers. The number one reason why people who are believers were not in church this past Sunday--nobody invited them. I would have to believe it is the same thing with party membership and even donations. People don’t join the party because they are not asked and people don’t donate because they are not asked. All leaders need to set aside fear of rejection and ask the tough questions that will further their cause. As stated in the previous episode, I believe a leader should be aware that ideologies in society don’t change overnight. Any candidate from any party that thinks they will run for office and if elected, change things to their way of thinking is completely out of touch with reality. There has to be a process wherein that person who won the election convinces others that their ideas are worthy of consideration. The hard work begins upon winning the election. It appears that many leaders in the liberty movement think that a person’s presence at their event means they will join alongside the others in the movement and begin working towards spreading the word about the movement. This just isn’t the case. Many people are moved by one single event and so they attend. It is while you have them at that event that you need to ask them to get more involved if that is your goal. In other words, whatever the goal of your event and its outreach is, ask people to follow you along that path. If you are trying to get people to register as Libertarians or switch their registration to be Libertarian, ask them to do so at the event. Don’t expect them to be moved to do that on their own. If you are trying to recruit members for a meetup group, say so. Let people know that you want them to join your group and help you spread the movement. Don’t be shy about it. The worst that can happen is they say no thanks and you don’t have a new member. If you don’t ask, the best that can happen if you don’t have a new member. Asking increases your odds of getting what you want. It brings clarity to the people attending your events and they can then decide what action they would like to take. This leads me to the qualities of a leader that make this discussion possible. Leaders should be honest and have integrity. This is why I say candidates need to stick to their principles. Leaders should be confident. This is why I say leaders should ask for what they want. Leaders should inspire others. This is why I say candidates should work hard to get elected and then work with their colleagues to change how things are done. Show others how the liberty movement can be effective in government and then inspire them to change things. I think as a Libertarian candidate it is going to be important for you to explain your platform in a way that shows it can co-exist with the existing way of doing things. Upon winning the seat you’ve sought, you can then utilize your leadership skills to inspire your colleagues to change their approach to government. One example I heard quite a lot as a candidate revolves around tax cuts. Libertarians believe in abolishing income taxes completely. Thus, when President Trump announced tax cuts, I got behind that idea. Many of my Libertarian friends were irritated by my stance. They felt I should have only supported completely abolishing income taxes and that a tax cut wasn’t going far enough. To me, it doesn’t work that way. I have to take my own ideological thermometer and see how close these other plans are to what I believe. To me, a tax cut is a giant step in the right direction and for that reason, I would support it. This can be applied to many ideas in government. I say that if the ideas are close to your ideology and they help move society closer to a Libertarian society, those ideas deserve our support. Through this approach, we can slowly move society towards our Libertarian ideas. As stated earlier, this won’t happen overnight. Anyone who thinks it will is completely out of touch with reality. I’ve spent about a decade writing articles about how to get into great shape. I’m good at giving out the advice that will work, but I’m horrible at following that advice. Why? Well, I know exactly what I should be doing, but I am so impatient that I expect almost overnight success. This is the case even though I preach baby steps. Baby steps work with weight loss and they work with changes to society. I completely understand and respect that there are those who feel that an all or nothing approach is the right way, but I strongly disagree with that approach. I believe we need to show our leadership qualities. We need to let society know we can effectively govern. We need to win the trust of our colleagues. We need to support the issues that most closely fit our own ideology. This is how we will move society closer to a Libertarian view of things. Each small step brings us closer to that ultimate goal. That’s all for today’s episode. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free! ‘

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed with me, your host, Mike Mahony. Today I want to discuss how I believe Libertarians should change their approach to running for office. We live in a society where there are many ideologies on the political spectrum. We have two major political parties here in the United States and a multitude of smaller parties, including the Libertarian Party. It is important to remember that even members of the same party will see the issues differently. There is just nothing as a political party where every member agrees on every part of the party’s platform. As I’ve traversed the social meetups within the local Southern California Libertarian scene, I’ve noted a problem. I’ve noted the same problem on Facebook pages and groups frequented by Libertarians. What is up with the “all or nothing” philosophies libertarian candidates have? Any candidate from any party that thinks they will run for office and if elected, change things to their way of thinking is completely out of touch with reality. There has to be a process wherein that person who won the election convinces others that their ideas are worthy of consideration. The hard work begins upon winning the election. This is exactly what I would like to discuss today. I believe strongly in Libertarian values. In my opinion, a Libertarian government would afford the best society possible. It would make us all happier and more prosperous. So why am I'm arguing against an ”all or nothing stance” you might ask? I feel that the only way to slowly change the world to a libertarian viewpoint is to take things one step at a time. This is where my recommendations that follow come from. Libertarian candidates need to be realistic in their platform choices. When I ran for Orange County Board of Supervisors, I did a lot of research, attended meetings, spoke to potential constituents and then came away with what the people feel is important. One of the big issues was homelessness and another was crime. Both of these are directly addressed by libertarian ideas. As I researched the homeless issue I determined two major things--the county had almost $1 billion that was given to it to solve homelessness and mental health issues and people felt law enforcement wasn’t doing enough. Now, generally speaking, I don’t like spending public tax dollars on social issues. I feel that is wrong in general. However, with this situation, it was an all or nothing proposition. You either spent the money on what it was meant for or you would lose the money to some other crazy project. I could have taken a hardline libertarian approach and said “We cannot spend public money on the homeless,” but I knew that morally I couldn’t ignore the homeless on the streets, so I opted to include spending that money as part of my platform. It was unpopular with some libertarians until I explained my reasoning, at which point many came to my way of thinking. It was the same with crime. People wanted to change the laws and be tougher on crime. I was fine with that idea as long as non-violent drug offenders were not sucked into the mess that is the criminal justice system. To me, crimes involving fraud and harming of others should always be prosecuted and that’s it. If you want more details on this, have a listen to Liberty Revealed episode 5. This, too, was not a popular stance with libertarians, but mainly becasue they thought I would be advocating for non-violent drug offenders to be jailed. They felt this way because common public sentiment is to repeal Propositions 47 and 57 here in California. These propositions made it misdemeanors to possess certain controlled substances. I would never have advocated for such a thing. I would have definitely gotten behind being tougher on fraud and being tougher on violent crime. What do you see from the two examples I gave just now? With the homeless issue, I was trying to handle the concerns society brought up while also servicing those in need. Any plan I would have put into effect would have included private charitable organizations running the show. I would not have wanted the government running these programs. Had I been elected to the 5 member board, I would have had to use my leadership abilities to convince the others that this was a good approach. I would have had to show them why the libertarian approach was the right one to accomplish our needs. Eventually, I could have convinced 2 people to vote my way and since you just have to learn to count to 3 to pass resolutions on the Board of Supervisors, I would have gotten my program into place. This is what Libertarian candidates seem to miss. You can attempt to do the all or nothing approach, but the majority of those in society don’t think like you do. Instead, you have to be a leader and show them why your way is the right way and potentially the only way. You have to be willing to compromise. Had I been elected to the Board of Supervisors, I would have immediately reviewed my staffing needs and would have cut down the staff to a reasonable size. I would have argued with my colleagues that they should do the same. In this way, I would have started advocating for smaller government. With a small victory such as reducing staff size, I could have shown my colleagues the real cost savings associated with the staff cuts and could potentially convince them to make cuts elsewhere in the government. By taking a one step at a time approach, I could have begun the path towards making county government smaller and agiler. If Libertarians want to see their beliefs propagated to the current system we have they are going to have to exhibit strong leadership. They will have to look for small victories and use those to show others how their ideas worked for the better. By taking things one step at a time they will be able to affect many changes over the course of their time in office. There is no way to make sweeping changes all at once without some sort of revolution and that is not something I want to see as a Libertarian. If you are a Libertarian and you are running for office please consider the approach I’ve outlined. Stay true to your beliefs. Vote against tax increases and increasing the size of government. Do your research on the issues. Compromise where needed. We must not come off as the extremist party and we are in danger of that when we take an all or nothing approach. It is time to show society that our ideas will work and will change things for the better. That’s all for today’s episode. .If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to another episode of Liberty Revealed with me, your host, Mike Mahony. Today I want to discuss gun ownership and why it is vital to our personal liberty. I will be up front and let you know that I have never owned a gun and probably never will, but I support the right to own a gun for many reasons. Today I want to discuss what those reasons are and give my own insight on gun control in the process. This will be a quick and easy discussion, but many of you won’t agree with me, even those who are gun owners presently. It is OK not to agree--that’s how dialogue is created. I enjoy a good discussion just as much as anyone else. Most people would agree that the right to defend yourself is a fundamental right. At the same time, people will tell you that we should not be allowed to own guns because guns cause violence. I completely disagree with those who say we should not be allowed to own a gun. I want you to stop for a moment and visualize this situation with me. A small person is walking home in the dark. They finished work and are headed home to get some rest. Along the way they are attacked by soemone twice their size. The smaller person fights back, but is no match for the larger person. Now change the scenario a little. Imagine if the smaller person was armed with a gun. Do you think the situation would then turn out differently? It most definitely would. There is a group of people who politicize every single event that involves a gun death. They claim that we need to ban guns entirely. How has that worked out for the rest of the world? Let’s have a look at that right now. To me, the key factor is the homicide rate. People who want to ban guns claim it is becasue so many people are killed by them. These deaths are included in the homicide rate. But will the homicide rate decline if guns are banned? History tells us no. In each country where guns were banned, the homicide rate is flat or slightly higher than it was prior to the ban. What this tells me is that if soemone wants to kill another human being, they will find a way to accomplish that. Banning guns will not change the homicide rate at all. So why take away a basic protection mechanism if it isn’t going to change the homicide rate? What is even more interesting is that when they did a study of the intentional homicide rates of dozens of countries, those with the highest rate of intentional homicide also have the strictest gun control laws. What does this mean to everyone? Please remember that banning guns will not curbe violence or death...it will simply change the nature of the deaths. Criminals don’t obey laws. Banning guns would simply give the criminals more power over the average citizen. Violent criminals will be emboldened knowing average citizens cannot defend themselves. Banning guns would mean people who should be free to go about their business, for example traveling home from work after dark, will live in greater fear. It will mean that people who live in more dangerous areas (and who are typically poorer) have fewer options to defend themselves and their families. People who own guns feel safer. They own guns for their own protection. This is what the studies show. For those like me who don’t own a gun, safety is the number one concern. Still, there are some who scream and yell for strcter gun control laws. When it comes to enacting stricter gun control laws, Americans see both pros and cons. Most (58%) worry that new laws would make it more difficult for people to protect their homes and families. Roughly the same number (54%) say stricter laws would reduce the number of deaths caused by mass shootings. Gun owners themselves are split on the idea of stricter gun control laws. Many believe stricter laws will reduce deaths, while others see it as a move by the government to exert unnecessary control over them. I tend to side with those who feel it is an attempt ot exert unneccessary control. The problem as I see it relates to the definition of terms and how they are used in the debate about guns and gun control. Proponents of gun control talk about “assault rifles”, but that’s a term that was coined as part of the debate. Silencers don’t completely silence a weapon, they make them quieter. Purchase limits won’t stop a criminal from planning ahead. Any competent person can quickly swap out gun magazines. Gun shows account for only a small percentage of sales, and dealers still must follow the usual rules. Machine guns are extremely hard to obtain, and the legally owned ones have been used in a crime only three times since 1934. It is important to note that none of this means there aren’t problems that we should address. One is crime. Gun control would ensure that only criminals had guns. We need to do better at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals instead of harassing the law-abiding. We also should focus on protecting people from criminals, whatever their weapon of choice. Gangs are an incubator of crime, including gun violence; the problem has been exacerbated by the illegal entry of violent gang members from Central America. “Gun control” for the law-abiding won’t disarm these killers. Women are arming themselves in greater numbers. They do so to be safer. Women will tell you they are prey. The female gun owner is different from the male gun owner. She only owns a handgun. She’s more likely than male gun owners to live in an urban area, and less likely to have grown up in a gun-friendly household. And regardless of how many and what types of guns she owns, she’s more likely to report owning firearms for protection than men. The interesting aspect of female gun ownership is that most of the female gun owners live in urbran areas. At a recent meeting of the Well Armed Woman’s Central Maryland chapter, members of the women-only gun club were emphatic that they own guns for self-protection. These women hailed from the suburbs and city in the Baltimore area and if they did not already own a handgun, they were in the market for one. Regardless of which side of the debate you are on, it is important to acknowledge both sides and come to some real conclusion. Stricter gun control laws is really not the answer. Just have a look at Chicago and the constant gun violence there. It has some of the strictest gun control laws in the United States and gun violence runs rampant. The evidence is clear that being allowed to own a gun is something that is related to personal safety and personal liberty. What are your thoughts? That’s all for toda’s episode.If you like what you’ve heard, please rate us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and Google Play. If you’d like to learn more about personal liberty, grab your free copy of my book “Liberty Revealed” by heading over to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Until next time...stay free!

Welcome back to Liberty Revealed. I’m your host, Mike Mahony, and today I want to discuss an issue we’ve heard a lot about since Obamacare was put into effect--healthcare. To many, health insurance is a right. I do not agree with that statement even a little bit. I want to explain to you how the healthcare industry could be profitable and yet costs for that healthcare could be reduced. The answer is actually simple. Libertarians believe that healthcare prices would decrease and quality and availability of healthcare would increase if providers were freed from government meddling and control. By removing government interference and enabling the free market to work, healthcare prices would come down and the quality of healthcare would increase. Currently our government controls healthcare in many ways: Government and a handful of insurance companies have a virtual monopoly as payers. Because of this, they make most of the decisions about what kinds of healthcare are available. Government regulates where, when, and who may open new healthcare facilities. Government agencies greatly slow development of and access to new medicines, devices, and technologies that may improve quality of care and reduce cost of care. Currently, the healthcare industry is virtually monopolized by the government and a handful of insurance companies. They hold the checkbook and wield it for their own benefit. They do not care about the consumer at all, they only care about maximizing the profits they make. Each year, the government sets prices that they will pay providers including doctors and hospitals. Each year, these payments increase at less than the cost of inflation, while the cost of providing medical care increases by a far greater amount. This has unpleasant consequences for everyone. Providers are incentivized to do what is quick and cheap, not what is in the best interest of a particular patient. Doctors are forced to reduce the time they spend with patients, and this reduces quality of care. Hospitals are discouraged from upgrading facilities, and this reduces quality of care. Worse yet, insurance companies often set their payments according to the government’s prices. This regular ratcheting down on payments to providers, while actual costs to provide care increases, makes providers less able to provide high quality healthcare. Government also regulates where medical facilities can be built, who can build them, and when. The process for applying for permission to build facilities is very costly and very slow, thus it favors the biggest corporations and prevents smaller organizations from opening new facilities that could serve patients. This greatly limits patients’ access to medical care and increases costs compared to a system where government permission was not required. Institutions such as the Food and Drug Administration also limit cost-effective access to quality care. The approval processes for new drugs and technology is lengthy and expensive. Because of this, the process favors the biggest companies with the most lawyers. There are many stories of patients dying while waiting for approval of a new device or medicine. Instead, Libertarians call for free-market testing which will be inherently incentivized to be efficient and fair in their processes. Additionally, Libertarians believe in the “Right to Try”, especially in situations with a terminal diagnosis. The government must not be permitted to deny patients access to new medical advances. Tort reform would also greatly reduce the cost of health care. The current tort system raises the cost of care by encouraging unnecessary testing and procedures which increase the cost of medical care by forcing medical teams to devote significant time and resources to preventing or defending against unwarranted legal actions. When legitimate claims arise, they should be taken seriously and resolved fairly through the courts. However, frivolous and fraudulent claims should not be tolerated, as our current system does. These disparage our healthcare providers and the quality of medical care they can provide and that we can receive. Libertarians oppose fraud in all forms. In short, Libertarians believe that each person has the right to make their own medical decisions. Libertarians support removing government meddling from healthcare. We think this and tort reform are the best ways to improve quality of healthcare, increase access to healthcare, and decrease prices of healthcare in our country. Now that I’ve explained how I think healthcare should operate, allow me to address the details and some objections I’ve heard. I believe that if you need an MRI you should have the ability to look up a list of MRI providers and pick the one that gives you the best value. You should be able to see ratings and pricing for each provider which will enable you to make an informed decision as to which provider you want to engage with. I’ve heard the objection that a free market healthcare system won’t work because of emergencies. First, I currently have a Direct Primary Care physician. I pay him a monthly subscription fee to use his services. He is available by phone and text at all times. If I have an emergency like a major cut or a broken bone, he will meet me at his office and take care of it. That won’t eliminate the need for the emergency room though. For those situations each person would need catastrophic insurance that covered the big things. The price for this insurance would be cheap because it would only be used for major emergencies. The fact that the providers would be keeping prices competitive would also help keep the cost of the catastrophic insurance low. The free market approach works for things like this because they create competition. It is important to note that insisting something be paid for by someone else never works. It is a recipe for disaster. It changes our behavior and we no longer look for the best prices. It is not in the best interest of hospitals and doctors to do things cheaply. They want to keep prices high so they make the most money. It is up to the consumers to force the prices lower by exercising their right to choose. One way to see the truth that a free market healthcare system will work is to look at the real data. Today, 7 in 8 health care dollars are paid by Medicare, Medicaid or private insurance companies. Because there's no real health care market, costs rose 467 percent over the last three decades. By contrast, prices fell in the few medical areas not covered by insurance, like plastic surgery and LASIK eye care. Patients shop around, forcing health providers to compete. The National Center for Policy Analysis found that from 1999 to 2011 the price of traditional LASIK eye surgery dropped from over $2,100 to about $1,700. These are numbers you cannot really argue with. Competition creates better pricing for consumers. This is a basic concept that most understand, but resist applying to healthcare for some reason. What is stopping this type of system from taking hold? A true free market in health care provides patients with medical options that they can assess with their primary care physicians to maximize their own health outcomes with the least amount of risk. To do this, Republicans and Democrats must confront powerful special interests who are now calling the shots and who would be financial losers from genuine changes. What are your own thoughts about free market healthcare? Do you see problems? Please send your comments to info@yogispodcastnetwork.com or leave your feedback at http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/feedback. If you want to find out more about personal liberty, claim your free copy of my eBook on personal liberty at http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed. Keep fighting the good fight for liberty. The battle has just begun. Change requires sustained action, so please join the fight for freedom. Head over to yogispodcastnetwork.com and register for our regular newsletter so you are kept abreast of all the happenings. Thank you again for listening and please be sure to give us a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts, Google Play and Stitcher. This is Mike Mahony and this has been Liberty Revealed.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Liberty Revealed, the show that focuses on teaching you about personal liberty and the adjacent issues that are affected by it. My goal is to teach concepts that are important to society and help you understand how these concepts are linked together into an important ideology. It is my personal belief that too many in our society simply follow the herd without any understanding why. I would love to see all of you listening vote Libertarian in elections, but that desire is balanced against my need for you to be informed and understand the issues our society is facing. Liberty Revealed was born from a desire to help all of you understand the issues. It came about from my own experiences on the campaign trail speaking with voters and seeing just how many follow a particular party and don’t understand why. Foreign policy is one area that most people don’t have a great understanding. It can be a very complex issue to some, but to me it is pretty straightforward. There is a need to have a measuring stick and that’s what I hope to provide you in today’s episode. The United States relies too heavily on our military might in foreign policy. For more than a decade, our country has been waging active wars in the Middle East. This has left our military tired, with several thousand dead, and many more thousands wounded physically and mentally. This then begs the question--what have we gained from this decade of active wars? A decade ago, the United States entered into nation building thinking that it would help improve corners of the world that terrorists find opportunistic. Sadly, some of the nation building which our country entered into with genuinely good intentions has backfired. We now know that no matter how sophisticated our military is and no matter how much money we spend, nation building is far more complicated than we originally thought. Additionally, it may likely create more terrorists than it quells. Imagine if China had a military base in Montana. Or Russia had a military base in Texas. How would Americans feel about that? We would likely feel insulted, oppressed, and mad. Some Americans would likely seek to actively opposed those bases. And the escalation would continue. That is what we have seen in the Middle East with our involvement there. We have emboldened the terrorists and they are now using our interventions as excuses for attacking innocent people. The argument can be made that our own aggression as a country has lead to a spread of terrorism in the Middle East. What started under the guise of making a region more stable has evolved into something that has destabilized that region. Libertarians believe that war is justified only in defense. We are opposed to a draft. If a war is just and necessary, Americans of all backgrounds will volunteer to fight it. We believe that a draft enforced by law is no different from slavery. As lovers of personal liberty, we do not believe in forcing people to do things they would not normally do on their own. Libertarians believe that American foreign policy should focus more heavily on developing communications among peoples and finding peaceful resolutions to disagreements. We believe in maintaining a military that can defend us well if we are attacked and we believe part of that is ensuring that our troops are not so war-weary as they have been in recent years. How much better would the world be if the United States used its influence to encourage dialogue and open discussions? Can you imagine what would have happened had the United States used its influence to bring Saddam Hussein to the negotiating table rather than invaded Iraq? Perhaps the terrorist organizations could have had a voice in those discussions, which would have kept them from escalating the conflicts that were already happening? Unfortunately, the United States, as far back as World War 2, has used military intervention to bring permanent militarization upon our economy. It is true that even Libertarians are at odds with each other when it comes to military intervention. Some prominent Libertarians supported the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Still others supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Pew Research Center even found (in 2014) that Libertarians were just as divided as the rest of Americans on the issue of foreign policy. Let me cut to the chase here. The US policy of interventionism has been at tremendous cost. The costs in terms of blood, treasure and prestige have taken their toll. The American public at large is growing weary of this policy of intervention. Adam Smith taught that “peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice” were the essential ingredients of good government. War is the exact opposite of this. It also subtly alters the citizens’ view of the state. “War substitutes a herd mentality and blind obedience for the normal propensity to question authority and to demand good and proper reasons for government actions,” the late scholar Ronald Hamowy writes in The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. He continues, “War promotes collectivism at the expense of individualism, force at the expense of reason and coarseness at the expense of sensibility. Libertarians regard all of those tendencies with sorrow.” Some might claim that a particular threat to freedom from abroad is greater than anything we could do to ourselves in fighting it. But that is a hard case to make. Even the post-9/11 “global war on terror” — a war that hasn’t involved conscription or massive new taxes — has resulted in wholesale violations of basic civil rights and an erosion of the rule of law. From Bush’s torture memos to Obama’s secret kill list, this has all been done in the name of fighting a menace — Islamist terrorism — that has killed fewer American civilians in the last decade than allergic reactions to peanuts. It seems James Madison was right. It was, he wrote, “a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” But surely, some say, the United States is an exceptional nation that serves the cause of global liberty. The United States pursues a “foreign policy that makes the world a better place,” explains Sen. Lindsey Graham, “and sometimes that requires force, a lot of times it requires the threat of force.” By engaging in frequent wars, even when U.S. security isn’t directly threatened, the United States acts as the world’s much-needed policeman. That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, the record is decidedly mixed. This supposedly liberal order does not work as well as its advocates claim. The world still has its share of conflicts, despite a U.S. global military presence explicitly oriented around stopping wars before they start. The U.S. Navy supposedly keeps the seas open for global commerce, but it’s not obvious who would benefit from closing them — aside from terrorists or pirates who couldn’t if they tried. Advocates of the status quo claim that it would be much worse if the United States adopted a more restrained grand strategy, but they fail to accurately account for the costs of this global posture, and they exaggerate the benefits. And, of course, there is the obvious case of the Iraq War, a disaster that was part and parcel of this misguided strategy of global primacy. It was launched on the promise of delivering freedom to the Iraqi people and then to the entire Middle East. It has had, if anything, the opposite effect. Libertarians should immediately understand why. We harbor deep and abiding doubts about government’s capacity for effecting particular ends, no matter how well intentioned. These concerns are magnified, not set aside, when the government project involves violence in foreign lands. In domestic policy, libertarians tend to believe in a minimal state endowed with enumerated powers, dedicated to protecting the security and liberty of its citizens but otherwise inclined to leave them alone. The same principles should apply when we turn our attention abroad. Citizens should be free to buy and sell goods and services, study and travel, and otherwise interact with peoples from other lands and places, unencumbered by the intrusions of government. But peaceful, non-coercive foreign engagement should not be confused with its violent cousin: war. American libertarians have traditionally opposed wars and warfare, even those ostensibly focused on achieving liberal ends. And for good reason. All wars involve killing people and destroying property. Most entail massive encroachments on civil liberties, from warrantless surveillance to conscription. They all impede the free movement of goods, capital, and labor essential to economic prosperity. And all wars contribute to the growth of the state. This is Libertarian foreign policy at the core. We want civil liberties protected. We want goods, capital and labor to have free movement in order to create economic prosperity. We want smaller government that focuses on its true purpose--defending our safety from direct threats and being the arbiter of our rights when there is a conflict. That is what government is best at and it really should avoid the things it is not good at. Give this some thought. Really get into the core of the matter and understand why you feel the way you do about it. If you support the massive war machine that is the United States foreign policy at the current time, at least be able to enumerate why. I am personally OK with any viewpoint as long as it can be adequately explained. This concludes today’s discussion on foreign policy. I hope you have learned something from this discussion. Should you have any questions, please head to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/feedback and submit your question. I will get back to you in a reasonable amount of time. Any question is welcomed. Please remember that if you enjoyed this episode, go to Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher or any other platform you use to listen and give us a 5 star rating and leave us a positive review. This helps others who want to learn about personal liberty by pointing them to this show as a good positive source of information.

Welcome back to the podcast where liberty is front and center always. Today I want to blow your mind with a discussion about education and why I believe a free-market education system is best for parents and students. For those of you who are just discovering this show, I am Mike Mahony and my goal is to educate you on the issues that are important to our society. I comem at things from a Libertarian perspective because I believe that is the most reasonable perspective. Today the US Department of Education utilizes a one size fits all education approach. This is holding back our children. The truth is that every single child is different and their communities are also very different. This is a great place to start. It is my belief that we should abolish the United States Department of Education. It really does not serve the citizens well because it truly believes in the one size fits all mentality. As mentioned, each child is different...every community is different. Education that is successful has to meet the needs of the children and the community it serves. This is impossible with the philosophy of the Department of Education. Just like church and state must be separated, education and the government really should be separated as well. Coming from the standpoint of absolute sovereignty, it makes sense to place the education decisions square in the hands of the parents. Do you recall in our very first episode where we discussed personal liberty? The minimum amount of government involvement results in the maximum amount of freedom. Freedom naturally brings about diversity, peace, and prosperity, as no one is forced to reconcile his or her values for the sake of others. Under a Libertarian government, individuals would have the right to exercise sole dominion over their lives so long as they didn’t infringe upon the beliefs or practices of others. The inherent rights of individuals include the rights to life, liberty of speech or action, and property—any interference on the part of the government that affects these rights is opposed. Since people are most free of government restriction when left to make their own economic and property decisions, a free market economy is believed to be the only one compatible with these viewpoints. This includes education. Put simply, it is not the role of government to educate our children. One fear is that letting the government teach our children will lead to the indoctrination of our children which, in turn, will interfere with the free choice of individuals. Education, like the economy, is best left to a free market, where it can achieve greater quality, accountability, efficiency, and diversity of choice. Because the government is not responsible for the education of youth, parents are able to determine when and how they would educate their children; this includes home schooling, technology or trade-based education, etc. Since it is recognized that education is important to the development of values for children, the authority of parents in this matter is important and should be returned to them. Parents would also be responsible for all funds in regards to educating their children. In order to encourage the growth of private schools and variety education, Libertarians support interim measures such as tax credits for tuition and other education-related expenditures. Tax credits for childcare would also be supported at this time; national childcare is another frowned upon industry. The denial of tax-exempt statuses to schools because of private policies on hiring, admissions, and student deportment is opposed, and the repeal of taxes on income or property of private schools, both for-profit and non-profit, is supported. Under free market education, poor children would not necessarily be stuck with poor schools. In the current education system, public schools must accept every local student, regardless of whether they are dangerous, disruptive, or simply have no desire to learn. This impacts the quality of education for everyone in those schools, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and poor education. On the other hand, wealthy parents, especially in inner city areas, can afford to send their children to better or safer schools. Free market education would allow competition between local schools, and would allow parents to send their children to the one with the best reputation, or which best matches their educational or ideological goals. Free market education would have a similar effect on the affordability of colleges, according to the Libertarian Party. Federal intervention in schools drives up the price of higher education due to subsidies and costly mandates. Competition is the solution, forcing colleges to choose between decreasing tuition, or going out of business due to lack of enrollment. This would theoretically wipe out massive student debt for future generation. Free-market competition, it is believed, will raise educational standards, lower costs, and prepare students to compete in a global economy. The proof of the failure of our current system lies in the test scores. 4th and 8th grade students have remained steady in math and reading from 2015 to 2017. This marks a decade of educational stagnation in the United States. Since the biennial test, called the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP, was first administered in the early 1990s, student achievement, particularly in math, steadily improved until the late 2000s, then flatlined. Reading scores also stagnated. In 2015, scores dipped in math among both fourth- and eighth-graders, and these math scores did not bounce back with the 2017 test. Average students’ scores remain well below what test overseers consider to be “proficient” for each grade level. In reading, 37 percent of fourth-graders and 36 percent of eighth-graders were proficient. In math, 40 percent of fourth-graders and 33 percent of eighth-graders hit this threshold. These numbers are alarming and explain why our country has fallen behind in so many areas. We have tried the Department of Education’s way, isn’t it time we give a free-market education system a try? That’s all I have for you today. If you want to learn more about personal liberty, head over to yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed and claim your FREE copy of my eBook, Liberty Revealed. Please remember to give Liberty Revealed a 5 star rating and a nice review on Apple Podcasts, Google Play and Stitcher. Your reviews help me know what I can do better, so please consider leaving one after you finish this episode.

Welcome back everyone! Today I want to talk to you about an important topic in society--crime and justice. I will likely be presenting a perspective that you may not agree with, but I have a strong argument to support my perspective. One of the biggest problems facing society today is that many things that should not be considered crimes are labeled as crimes. Worse yet, many of these actions are punished more harshly than are violent crimes. This has evolved over time as society has gotten more and more irritated by where society is headed. I believe that the label of “crime” should be limited to actions of force or fraud against another individual or group. To me, that is what defines a crime. I believe that such crimes should be prosecuted and punished by our justice system but that actions that don’t involve force or fraud should not be criminalized or penalized in the first place. I believe all laws that create crimes without a victim should be repealed. Only actions which infringe upon the rights of others should be considered crimes. I believe in restitution where the criminal must make their victim financially whole again. Crime and Punishment and the Three Strikes Laws Many areas of our country have instituted “three strikes and you’re out” laws that seek to be a deterrent to future criminal acts. These provisions are unlikely to significantly reduce crime. A relatively small proportion of all offenders commit most of the crime. Removing these “career criminals” from society makes sense. But, the “three strikes” approach is illusory. Nearly every study of criminal behavior shows that men between the ages of 16 and 35 commit most of the crime. Those leaving prison after the age of 40 have an amazingly low recidivism rate. Yet, “three strikes” would keep three time losers in prison into their 60’s, 70’s and beyond. With prison costs running at more than $60,000 per bed (plus $23,500 per inmate per year to incarcerate an individual), there is a significant danger that “three strikes” could lead to the early release of truly violent criminals serving their first or second sentence, in order to warehouse elderly criminals who pose little or no threat to society. Crime and Punishment and Increasing Crime Here in California we passed a two ballot measures that have created a significant increase in crime. Propositions 47 and 57 were sold to the voters as positive things. In fact, by reclassifying crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, the State of California facilitated the early release of some 10,000 criminals. Again, if these people committed acts that constitute fraud or involved the use of force on others, they should have remained in jail. While several provisions like recreational use of drugs were reduces penalties, fraud was also one that was reduced. I believe this is wrong and has definitely lead to an increase in crime across the state. The War on Drugs Affecting Crime and Punishment I believe that ending the racist War on Drugs is an essential part of any plan to improve our justice system. Millions of people, most of whom are people of color, are arrested, jailed, and given a criminal record because they voluntarily chose to consume something. Not only is it immoral for the government to decide what is and is not acceptable for people to consume, criminalizing drugs does nothing to reduce the scourge of drug addiction and abuse. The War on Drugs hurts the people we should be trying to help and diverts criminal justice resources away from prosecuting actual crimes committed against people and property. Drug abuse should be considered a healthcare issue, not a criminal issue. I plan to cover the war on drugs in more detail in a future episode of this show, but for now, this is my position. Punishment Fitting the Crime I also believe that our current justice system has many punishments that far outweigh the crimes committed. It is my belief that punishments should be proportional to the crime committed and should be fair and humane. Prison systems across the country are commonly reported in the news for their terrible living conditions. I believe this must change. All people’s rights matter, whether they are incarcerated or not. Our prisons need to be as safe, clean, and humane as possible. In addition, many jails around the country are violating the rights of those they imprison. Here in Orange County there has been a scandal involving the county jail system. Apparently the Orange County Sheriff's office has been using jailhouse informants to get information on those who are incarcerated. This has caused a major issue in Orange County, with demands for an investigation. Abuses such as this need to be curtailed. The appropriate way to suppress crime is through consistent enforcement of laws that protect individual rights. I am calling for an end to “hate crime” laws that foster resentment by giving some individuals special status under the law. I applaud the trend toward private protection services and voluntary community crime control groups. Hate crime laws are being used to punish black people and that has got to stop. Setting Up Former Inmates for Failure Additionally, our justice system currently sets up former inmates for failure. When someone is released from prison, the goal is for them to find a steady job, stable living situation, and avoid criminal activity. Evidence shows that overly long prison terms do very little to reduce recidivism and may actually make it more likely for someone to re-offend. Currently, recidivism rates are very high. These rates could be easily reduced by making prisons more humane (so that prisoners are not physically and psychologically traumatized by the experience), making sentences more reasonable and proportional to the offense, and welcoming offenders who have served their sentences back into society and the workforce. One thing that has always made me shake my head is that former inmates cannot hold certain professional licenses. Why does this make me shake my head? While in prison, inmates are taught certain skills that require a professional license in order to do skill for a living. Why are we wasting time teaching these skills if they are useless once the prisoner has been released? I say we should allow former inmates to have a path to holding these professional licenses. It just makes the most sense. In my opinion, I want to see crimes that are truly crimes prosecuted and punished. I also want behavior that does not involve force or fraud legalized and dealt with outside the criminal justice system. I want to see justice for victims and also justice for the accused and convicted. The rights of every person matter and we must not turn a blind eye to the rights of the accused or the convicted.

Today on Liberty Revealed we will be discussing civil liberties. People often make the claim that Libertarian philosophy is a sink or swim ideology. This is a complete misunderstanding. Libertarians believe that the equal rights of all people matter all the time. No exceptions. It is very common for other parties to prioritize the rights of some, but not others. Libertarians value the right of all to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose. This is what I mean when I continually say “my rights end where your rights begin.” Most importantly, we believe the government must treat all people fairly and equally before the law. There are many things Libertarians seek to protect, so as each new episode of this podcast is released, I will go through some of the issues for you and explain my own stance on them. Today let’s discuss my stance on freedom of speech and why it is so important. Freedom of Speech is a cornerstone of the United States. If we take a step back and look at liberty, we find that our most fundamental right is our right to our own lives. We have the right to pursue our values without interference from anyone. We also have a right to defend our lives from violence. Only when we have true freedom to live our lives will we be truly free. Freedom of speech comes in right behind the idea of freedom to live our lives how we see fit. We cannot pursue our own values, we cannot create or exchange values, or peacefully defend our rights if we are under constant threat of being punished for saying the wrong thing. In a free society, individuals may use their free speech to counter the speech of others, but they may never use force as a means of countering speech, especially if they seek to use the force of government to do so. I was recently at a demonstration surrounding immigration. There were police officers present to keep the peace. I spoke to one of the officers and he espoused these values I just mentioned. The officer commented that as long as people did not get physical, they have a right to say anything they feel they need to say. The free speech issue is becoming even more important as we have seen how the “micro-aggression” culture that has been promoted on college campuses has made its way into the realm of Twitter and Facebook in the form of conservative and libertarian advocates being banned for posting “offensive” material. Private companies do have the right to police what happens on their own sites, one can only wonder how long it will take for the government to begin overtly suppressing speech when the ideology that has destroyed free speech on college campuses has found a way to dominate the two largest social media platforms on the planet. It may be tempting to dismiss the urgency of the free speech issue because there is no physical coercion being done, but restricting free speech is simply coercion against the mind. Wherever there is coercion against the mind, physical coercion will always follow as a means of enforcement. If we are to remain a civilized and prosperous society of relatively free people, then protecting freedom of speech must always remain at the top of our priority list. Freedom of speech is not just a principle that leads to better education, or a more informed populace. It is a principle that is necessary in order for people to live their own lives, and make their own choices. I don’t think it is an accident that the freedom of speech is found in the very First Amendment of our Bill of Rights: the Founding Fathers knew that in order for people to be free and productive, they must be able to speak freely without fear. Defending freedom of speech is about much more than just words, it is about retaining our ability to pursue our values. If the freedom of speech is lost, then it is only a matter of time before all other rights are lost with it. While we have spoken at length regarding what freedom of speech is, what is not something covered by freedom of speech? Yes, freedom of speech has limitations. People are not free to spread false light about others. It is not OK to lie about someone and then publish it online or in a newspaper or a magazine. Anyone resorting to that behavior will find themselves in a courtroom defending their poor decisions. To me, purposely lying about someone is akin to using force against them. Lies put people in a position where they must decide how to respond, if at all. Sometimes a response is required and other times ignoring the issue is the best course of action. However, the lies being told put the person in a position where they are forced to deal with the issue. Lying about someone can also be a matter of coercion. Most lies are aimed to frame a dialogue in a certain way. People lie to force some kind of response from the person they are lying about. This is not a freedom of speech issue. Never let someone lie about you and claim they are protected by the First Amendment. It is well-established that we are not allowed to yell “FIRE” in a crowded place and we are also held accountable when we publish lies about another person. Freedom of speech has its limits, but when it is used in a diabolical manner it damages all of us. Government's role is to be the arbiter of our rights. Unfortunately, when the government is forced to step in, it often overreacts by passing restrictive laws to control our behavior. This is exactly the opposite of what we all want. To repeat what I said earlier, “We cannot pursue our own values, we cannot create or exchange values, or peacefully defend our rights if we are under constant threat of being punished for saying the wrong thing.” That’s all I have for you today. If you want to find out more about personal liberty, go to http://yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed to pick up your FREE copy of my eBook called, appropriately, Liberty Revealed. Thanks for listening!

Thanks, George. So yeah, the homeless issues pretty close to my heart. Because I mean, pretty much any of us could be homeless, you know, just like that. And so I'd want to cover a little history of homelessness in Orange County. And I'll give you some of the facts about that. And then we'll talk about within that history, what the politicians have done to cause the problem, or at least make the problem worse. So at last count, and they do a point in time count every two years in Orange County where they physically go out and count the homeless, and at last count, there were 5000 plus homeless. Introduction to Homeless Issue Now, the interesting thing about that number, though, is if you're a couch surfer who doesn't have a house, but you're staying in this friend's house for one day, and at another friend's house for another day, you're not considered homeless. And if you sleep in your car, you are not considered homeless. There's a lot of stories about people going, you know, you hear people say, oh, there's all these resources available for the homeless, and then they show up there and they get through all the paperwork. And then the last thing is, what, "Where do you stay?" Well, I stay in my car, "oh, you're not homeless, you don't qualify for those benefits." So it's kind of a Catch 22 if you're a homeless person. Now, it's not a new issue. The problem is not new. Since 1989, there have been three grand jury reports in Orange County about homelessness, and every single one of them says pretty much the same thing. They make recommendations for the homeless issue Of those three, only twice did the county respond the both times their response was sort of like, "Hey, we're doing the best we can." How Politicians Have Shown They Don't Care But the most recent one was in 2005. And one of the things they said in there is, clearly homelessness is not a priority to the Board of Supervisors. Because in your budget, you only have $145,000 allocated and it's for an executive salary. And the response from the CEO of Orange County was like, but we have $145,000 in our budget. Why? How can you say it's not a priority to the board? Well, two years later, in 2012, they came up with the 10 year plan to solve homelessness in Orange County. and like any of you who've ever worked at a business where you have to meet goals, they set these goals but the goals were for them. And so they didn't actually police themselves or hold themselves accountable for those goals. So in 2017, they cancelled the plan, the 10 year plan to end homelessness, because they had gone in reverse. There were more homeless on the streets than before. The estimate is that if you include the people in their cars is going to blow your mind if you include the people in their cars and the people who couch surf, there's about 35,000 homeless in Orange County and only 3000 beds for the homeless. So Santa Ana Riverbed...everybody's heard about the Santa Ana Riverbed. And we've heard...we've seen stories Torya and I have been down there numerous times and somebody, because there's an election year, decided time to clean that out. I mean, they spent 10 years ignoring the growth of those camps down there mostly because I think they didn't know what to do. And the reality is I think from the politician's standpoint leaving them where they were until they had a plan was probably the better choice because now they have problems with them in neighborhoods that they weren't in before and so people are complaining about that and there's a lot of people who have been being very vocal about get them out of the riverbed now wish they were back because they're they're patrolling their neighborhoods. Now, you know, as a libertarian public money for social issues is a sore spot for me, but then I start to think about it more pragmatically. And it's like, okay, there's $900 million that's been...tax dollars...that's been earmarked strictly for mental health and homelessness, and it's earning interest, $30 million a year. So it's been sitting there for three years. So it's about a billion dollars that's sitting there. So the pragmatist in me says, "Are they ever going to give me back that money? No, they'll probably if they don't spend it on this, they'll probably wasted on some stupid program to bolster some other program that failed", like we spoke about earlier. So some advocates got word that this money was sitting there not being spent for anything. And so they filed a lawsuit on behalf of some homeless people, because 32 cities in Orange County have anti camping ordinances, which means it's essentially illegal to be homeless. Because where do you sleep, if you don't have a home, you go to sleep outside, that's camping, it's illegal. Is Homelessness Illegal? So the police attempt to enforce those laws, this judge steps in and says, "Well, hold on a second, you don't have enough resources for these people. So if you don't have enough resources for these people up, can't enforce those laws. That's just not gonna happen." Um, you these are human beings, and they need to be taken care of some way somehow, and you've got all this money sitting there and you're not doing anything with it. Maybe we should audit you, maybe we should...he even pointed out that there were politicians who were picking up the homeless from Newport Beach and moving them to Santa Ana...dumping them off. And so he stood in front of a crowd of people and he invited every city to this meeting. And he stood in front of a crowd of people at the Santa Ana city Council Chambers. And he said, "I have proof that you're dumping human beings, it's against the law. If you keep it up, we will have a federal indictment come after you." We will. And he had a US Attorney taking notes in the gallery and he basically told him if you want to, if you want to argue with me that that's not happening. I'll put you under oath right now and come up here and you testify. But I'm going to tell you, he looks at the sheriff. And he says with video evidence, right? sheriff's like thumbs up. We have video evidence, we know who's doing it. And so the judge said, Look, here's the deal going forward from today. No more dumping. We're going to forget about what happened in the past. So that's one way that the politicians have created the homeless issues that they're taking them from wherever they don't want them and they're moving I'm some other place and they're making it that city's problem. And you've seen the you work at the Civic Center sometimes. GEORGE And I mean, you've seen the crowd people that used to be there. pretty awful. So what is how do the politicians create this problem? Well, first thing I think, is that the Board of Supervisors is extremely afraid to make tough decisions, you know, they decided they were going to use their county owned land in Irvine to move the homeless there for a while till they figured out what to do with them, The Board Of Supervisors Won't Make Tough Decisions Irvine sends busloads of people to the Board of Supervisors meeting the next day. They change their mind. They're not...they're not willing to investigate, do their research and then make a tough decision. At the recent supervisors candidates forum, we were asked a question, you know, and the question was first the premises, you've done your research, and you've covered every angle. And you've decided about Yes, on this issue. And 1000 people show up, and those thousand people are screaming at you to vote no. Well, most, everybody kind of equivocated a little bit. And you know hemmed and hawed around it and I just said, Look, if if you told me the premise is, I did my research and I'm voting yes, unless somebody in that thousand tells me something I hadn't already thought of I'm not changing my vote I might at the worst...and I said at the worst I'm going to table the vote to another time so I can examine it more. To me that's decision making. You know you you do your your research and then you make your decision that you came upon. I mean, if you're not confident in your decision Why are you making decision first place. So what else does the Board of Supervisors do? Well, after multiple times trying to find a place to put the homeless, they've now pushed the decision to the cities and the judge. They basically said "Hey guys figure it out we don't have anything to do with it" and plausible deniability right? If Newport Beach decided, all right, we're gonna put some homeless out on the beach, in tents and there are people...citizens got upset, the board can say, wasn't us, it was your city wasn't us. So and having the judge do it. He's one of the things I will say about this judge. He's very forward thinking. So he says, Hey, guys, I can make a ruling right now. Like it or not, I could say, and this is how it's going to be. But if I do that, it's set in time. It's like, it's like riding it in concrete. And the only way that that ruling gets overturned, is if another court says, No, no, I'm not going to do that. But if you guys work together as a community and decide together, well, then you can be agile and work through the issues. But if I say to you, it has to be this way. I don't care what issues you face, you have to take care of the issue. So what can we do about it? Well, as I've studied this issue over the past couple of years, and as I mentioned before, you know, there's all this money sitting there, that's eventually going to just go to some stupid program somewhere. So I think that's a start, We have to deal with the key issue, which is that, you know, law enforcement can't enforce the laws because there's no resources. So somehow, we have to provide the resources so that law enforcement can go back to enforcing the laws, I really have absolutely nothing against them saying people can't sleep outside, you know, on in front of the Albertsons or Stater Brothers, I have nothing, no problem with that. If it's if it's scaring a business's clientele away, that's hurting that business that shouldn't be allowed. So because the courts have demanded that there has to be resources available or they won't allow the enforcement of the law, it kind of ties the hands of law enforcement. So then you end up in this situation where the population as a whole is screaming and yelling about why aren't you doing something about it, you're the police. I mean, even get as nit picky as, hey, a shopping cart. They stole it, it's illegal. Go arrest them, you know, like, that's how, how petty they get about it. So I came up with a five point plan to basically eradicate homelessness and parts of the planet have been used before and places around the world. And they're very successful. Um, it all involves, though, bringing private organizations in to pick up the burden and, you know, allow the government to use that money. But see, the thing is, one billion dollars sounds like a lot of money, right? Eventually, it's going to be gone, not going to get more, at least not as much. So whatever you do, you have to plan big and get it settled once before. So first thing is offer up some sort of temporary shelters, they need some place to go and sleep if there's 5500 homeless and there's 5500 beds. Well, now we can enforce the laws because places for them to go. Then while they're there, we get them paperwork ready. And we connect them to private services, drug rehab, alcohol rehab, you know, If you have mental health issues, you know, go for it. Right now, the mental health department in Orange County is in charge of all this and they're overwhelmed they can't they cannot handle it. They do a very good job, in fact, at the riverbed there a big reason why there wasn't a big violent outbreak, because they went for days ahead of time talking to people, hey, this is the last day on this date, we're going to be coming through here, and you got to leave. And they kept coming back and coming back and coming back connecting people to services. But even those people were telling us, we've never had somebody come here offer us any services, they just don't do it. So once you get them connected services, and you get them paperwork ready, that's a big one. Because Think about it. If you're homeless, and you don't have an ID, you can't rent a hotel motel room, you need ID, you know, so you could have someone gave me $500, but without ID doesn't do any good. So then the next thing this is the where the controversial part comes in. Because a lot of people don't like this idea. But I think it would really work. And I've seen it work in other in other places in the world, permanent assistive housing, but Come as you are permanent assisted housing. So if you're an addict, you can still come to the permanent assisted housing, get you off the street and give you an opportunity to clean up the history has shown like they did in New York City, they did it in Utah, they did it in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, and the history shows that those people for whatever reason, there's a mental change, and you must have something to do with not having to sleep on the street all the time, they want to clean up and they want to do better, and they want to go get a job. And I think that's really the key, you know, any solution to homelessness has to involve connecting them to work. And I think that's one of the things that the government is failing, what I would do if elected, is go and work with businesses and say, all right, if we put these people through this, this, this and this, and we certify that they're ready for a job, are you willing to hire them. And if you get yeses out of that, I mean, there's there's a program called jobs for life. And it's a really teeny tiny program right now run by OC united out of Fullerton. And what they do is they teach people at homeless shelters, how to get a job, they teach them, you know how to shake hands, and, you know, introduce themselves and how to create a resume that will get them a job, they don't teach them job skills, they just teach them the right approach to getting the job, how to get through the interview. But it's a step in the right direction. And like, they're very strict about the rules to if you miss two sessions, it's a two sessions a week for eight weeks, or 16 sessions. If you missed two, you're out. So the first time they started with 24, the graduated 12, but all 12 of those people off the streets. They didn't go back Yeah, they got jobs, and they're working. It's huge. And that, to me, is where the permanent assistive housing comes in. Because one of the problems for getting a job is you got to have an address, they, you know, people have this picky thing about wanting to know where you live, if you're going to work for them, then you're still going to have a group of people that they're just think like being out on the street. That's what they like doing. They live that crazy lifestyle off the grid. I met a few people who've been out on the streets for 25 years, and they like it that way. Well, there's still the issue of police are going to enforce the law is now there's resources. So for those people, there's a program that's a it's a nonprofit called Alfresco gardens. And it's essentially mobile home park for the homeless without mobile homes, what they do is they use these big submit tubes, and they're sealed off, there's got a window in the back and a door in the front. And there, they've got a flat floor gets people out of the elements. And the funny thing is, the only opposition to that are the people who say, That's not human, you're still leaving them out in the elements. What's wrong with you, you know, you'd, rather than sleep up against the buildings, I'm wearing them, let them go. And it's and they're gonna charge them $150 a month per unit, there's a security guard who fingerprints scans you to get in the police have access. So it's just like a gated community, please, can come and go whenever they want. They will, yeah, there's bathrooms, there's bathrooms, showers, storage units that they can pay a little bit extra for, but at least they have a place to put their stuff when they're going to work. That's another big problem. They have, you know, your stuff in a shopping cart, where to put it when you go to work. Um, and after that, once you hit that now, law enforcement can enforce the law, they can do what's necessary. And the problem though, is, once again, we're talking about how politicians have caused this issue. Nothing that's presented to them is good enough. You know, there's always an excuse you're leaving. That's cruel, you're leaving them out in the elements? No, it's a hell of a lot better than sleeping up against a wall wall. It's raining, you know, they're covered. It might not be as warm as a house. But it's a heck I mean, even let's face it. If it's windy, you're in an enclosed area, it's going to be a lot warmer than if you're outside. So that that will help. I also believe because of all the inaction the police haven't been able to enforce the laws, the citizens get upset, you run into my gosh, nevermind on Facebook, just in person. I've heard people say my solution is give them as much drugs as they can take that they all die of an overdose. Another person said, put them on to a storage container, throw it in the ocean. I mean, these are brutal things that people you're saying, but we all shake our heads. But it tells you how frustrated the communities are with the homeless because they feel like nobody's doing anything but they don't take it back to realize why nobody's doing anything. And it all starts with making decisions to do something about it. So you know, law enforcement can enforce the laws but the biggest thing that has to happen is there has to be a collaborative effort between all 34 cities in Orange County they have to come together and they have to agree on what the rules are around homelessness if there's going to be anti camping ordinances and needs to be an all 34 cities and they need be enforced the same way because you know where Victoria comes from there's a city and then there's an hour drive and then there's another city and and there's an hour drive you know it's a very rural compared to here but here you know you've got boy in a park Anaheim Stanton they're all stacked one on top of one another and when I go out with law enforcement what they've all told me every department we have a in this area because three cities meet and we don't know what that cities regulations are and if we arrest that person we get chastised because hey they weren't violating that city's law so that's another big problem is there has to be consistency among the laws for those type of things like you know we've been talking about them legalize and a lot of cities are putting the kibosh on you know having dispensaries and whatever that's their right to do that. I see nothing wrong with that they can do whatever they want. Personally I think they should just open it up and forget about it but that's their right if they want to do that but I think when you're dealing with human beings and where where their well being is everybody has to have a cohesive plan it needs to be a countywide plan not a Irvine plan a San Clemente Plan A ciphers plan a palm apply, it needs to be a cohesive countywide plan. Once you have that now, law enforcement freedom, they know what the rules are, and they're free to to deal with it. Now, that brings me to the final no point about how to deal with homelessness. And that is the affordable housing issue that we have in Orange County, you know, we've all been talking about how expensive it is to live here. And a lot of people say, Oh, just send the homeless somewhere else. Well, you can't do that. Because they don't have the money to go somewhere else. and sending them somewhere else is just doing exactly the whole dumping thing. It's just a little more organized. Um, it's it's an issue, but come to find out that was at a meeting last night, and a woman was sitting with us. And she told us, she's a planner. And she said that in California, there is enough land already zone for affordable housing, that you could fix the problem. And she says, what they do what builders Do you know, you have this apartment unit that has 50 units in it. And it's beautiful on the outside, they just build another one exactly like it. But they put 100 units in it. So they're smaller. But they're also cheaper because they'd still only need total total rent comes out to the same and now it's divided by 100 instead of divided by 50. And one thought that I've had and I haven't fully thought this through yet. So don't hold me to this. But I think one way to leverage this is right now, you know, I don't know if you know this. But if you're a developer, and you go into a city, and you bought a property and you put houses in there, for every house, you build, you owe so much money to the city for park space. That's one of the things that California did to make sure that a lot of places do it to make sure that there's open space. Well, how about you tack on to that? Well, you can either donate money to this organization over here who's going to build these hot affordable houses or you build the affordable house it's your choice and you put the onus on the developer who's making money on the deal in the first place to do that now there's a lot of red flags that go off for me on that idea a lot of red flags but I think if you thought through that you could probably come up with a workable solution that wouldn't require putting someone's arm behind their back and forcing them to do something it's sort of like a launch pad for the idea just like for for my five step solution to homelessness It all started at the fifth step How can law enforcement enforce the law so that the because I believe once they start enforcing the laws the community will be like up here and those kind of settle down and you can focus on helping these people it's unfortunately I think our entire tax system is a big part of the problem because I don't really like spending my tax dollars on issues that the government chooses to put it to But that also means that I don't have that money to give to a homeless organization to fix it and that's what I would like to do I'd like to be able to donate my money and then have them take care of it put the onus on the private charitable org ization and not on the government because as we all know anything the government does they never do it right so you know even even getting a plan like this to pass you're going to get people who are going to say well what where where are those homeless shelter is going to go I don't want it in my city you've a huge problem that NIMBY stuff that not in my backyard stuff they fight tooth and nail to keep homeless people out of their area and like I don't know if you guys have ever been to the bridges shelter down there and Anaheim slash Fullerton area but they y require a referral to get in there from police department or the county and they do not allow people to hang out outside. They have security that makes them move on. And basically, if I were to take you there right now, you'd be like, Where's the homeless shelter. I don't know where that it's not like skid row where there's people everywhere. And I think that if people realize that it couldn't be done like that, I think they've changed their tune. And they would donate money to get this taken care of. Now to me is the ultimate solution is, you know, maybe start out with the government helping and then slowly pull back and bring in more and more organizations that can fix it right now. The United Way has declared war on homelessness. And here's an interesting fact that I forgot to mention right now the top 10% of the homeless people as far as utilization of services are costing us taxpayers $65,000 per person per year. And that includes emergency services, Emergency Room Services, hospitalizations, somebody has paid for it. So it's costing us taxpayers money. If you take that same 10%, I know everyone else is about 10,000 per person per year. If you take that top 10%, and you drop it down to you put them in homes, like in the system housing, the cost drops to $10,000 per person per year for everybody, including the cost of thousand, you save the county, $20 million a year, and you house the people. So to me, that's a huge win. Because, again, as a taxpayer, I'm paying less out of my pocket for fixing a really serious social issue. Um, yeah, because there's more preventative care is happening at those places, they're not in the elements, so you don't get a lot of the exposure issues that you get. If you ever seen someone who's been homeless for a really long time. Usually their legs and ankles will be about this big and it looks like an elephant skin. That's what the elements due to the human body and these people somehow moving them indoors. Like I said, it inspires them to get work, I think they start to feel more human. Again, big few myths to dispel, you know, you hear the majority of them are are crazy, you're on drugs, not true. It's about 25% that fit that category. That means are 75% out there who are like all of us, and they're just looking for a place to live. And they can't afford to the biggest thing that keeps those people homeless, not having the money for a down payment on on apartment. They don't just don't have the money. So, you know, they're trying to come up with, they might, a lot of them have jobs, and they could afford to pay rent. But the first step is, hey, you need, you know, 1600 dollars a month. And then you need 1600 dollar deposit. there you go. And, you know, in you were probably lucky enough to be able to do that. But I'm bet it was a stretch to. But the point is, the politicians tend to just look the other way. They're all looking towards the next position that they're going to run for. They're not really caring so much about the legacy that they leave behind. proof of that is you create a 10 year plan to solve a problem and six years in because it's not going the way you want to abandon it. I'd like to do that at my job. You know, I'd like to have a goal for revenue and be like, Oh, I'm only hitting half of it, forget it. We're canceling the goal. You know, she'd kill me. But okay, what's the question? [Question about a Texas plan that has the homeless doing work for the state in order to receive shelter and food] I think it's a good idea. Because the, as I mentioned, they're very motivated to do those kinds of things when they have shelter. And so why not have them help, you know, get some of that recruitment, some of that money that we're spending or not, I see nothing wrong with that. And, and I don't know about you, but like, I've had periods of unemployment and you feel like garbage. And then when you get a job, you're like, yes, you're so motivated. And I feel like, you know, a big part of the problem with homeless people that I've spoken to is they feel really down. I mean, I've asked probably 50 homeless people, what can I do for you, and most of them have responded with one common thing, please tell people we're not animals or humans just like you. That's sad. It hurts my feelings to hear that because it tells you how poorly they're treated by other people in society. I can remember being, you know, going to downtown LA for work, and I would take the train down there and a train back. And every time coming back, there was a lady that would sit right in front of me, and the smell was horrible. But she's a human being, you know, not gonna, you know, be like, go away, you know, but yeah, I think I think having them do some work, especially on jobs that were, you know, like you say, picking up rubbish and things like that. I mean, that's something we don't have to pay for job. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, Yes. Well, yeah, I mean, a lot of these zoning laws are creating the issue. And then like, like, in Cyprus, they have this measure a, and everyone's fighting against putting in more houses because it's going to be crowded, but yet, they don't realize that if they don't change the zoning, they could put in a Kaiser hospital there. I think a Kaiser hospital will bring a lot more traffic than maybe 1000 homes would, and also a Kaiser hospital isn't going to bring them a ton of tax dollars, whereas 1000 Homes is gonna bring them a lot of property tax money. It's just, you know, it's a start anyway, any other questions from over there? Okay. Okay, that we're living in the car. Yeah, they end up moving around me. We have a lady near our home that has lived in her car probably the entire time I've lived there. And it's been three years and all she does such doesn't annoy neighbors as she pulls around the corner and, and she goes down a little further than after she's been there for a few weeks, she comes back over here, and the police just leave her alone because they know that she's just down on her luck and she's homeless and she has a job she goes to work every day and the one time that I was walking my dog and I said hello to her and I was talking to her for about five minutes and she told me can't afford a deposit on apartment that's the problem I can't save enough money and it's you know, she's making minimum wage and even the minimum wages and enough for her to do that. But you're right I mean, you could pick up a second or third job if you could, if people would pay you you know, $5 an hour maybe you could stock up on the money Any other questions Its combination above it's a combination about The charity organization when seem to be more effective They cost less I mean they put they built bridges and you put in 200 beds and it was $2 million that it costs to do that and really it all it is is a giant industrial building with a huge parking lot with a fenced off and the fit 200 bunk beds you know hundred hundred bunk beds with two beds into the facility it's not fancy I don't know what they spent $2 million on but $2 million to do that Whereas you know the nonprofit's...their volunteer driven so any money that they get, they throw it right out those people to help them find jobs. You know what, you need to pay $25 to get your driver's license here's $25 to pay for your driver's license,. They take care of that stuff. And the government doesn't do that. They're also there's less from what I've heard, this is just, you know, hearsay, I've never actually witnessed it. But people have told me that the government runs facilities don't have very good security. So women are afraid to go there because they get, you know, rate molested while they're there. Whereas the private facilities are usually run again by volunteers. And the organization's check those volunteers up pretty carefully, because they don't want liability and runs much smoother churches. I know a guy His name is Mark from going to Starbucks. And he was living near on Valley View. And Lincoln, he was living at the Walgreens, Walgreens, I was there and the, the no trust, trespass to that whole parking lot. So all the homeless had to leave. And I was a little worried about him. But he found a spot at a church and he can come and go there as he pleases. There's a curfew, you know, you have to be backed by certain time. And I think that's mostly logistics of they don't want to keep opening and closing the door, you know, for people and he likes it. He's a lot. He also looks a lot healthier. He has a few mental issues that he's got going on that he needs to have handled. But I mean, if you think about it, that's a huge problem. Like, you can't force a person to go get mental health services, and you can't force someone to rehab. They have to want that But yet, that's what society wants, they want us to land heard them up and send them to, you know, rehab facility. Any other questions from the peanut gallery over there? No, I'm glad people are watching. Hi, everybody. The internet's an interesting thing. Any other questions from the room here? It's not actually did the fact the only thing keeping it from that is that it's not earmarked for that they are not allowed Joseph but the Yeah would have to be docked. Why believe you would offer how that run by private organizations and not the government because otherwise someone's gonna be like, here's so much for you. And then here's so much for this guy. And I agree with you there, it'd be rampant corruption. And I say that based off of past experience, you know, you've seen what they did they need they need to build sure they need to build the the assistive housing without money and then let private organizations run it so it'd be run more efficiently and not pay them to run it. But have them from the base of their donations that they get run it Yeah, right. I wouldn't, I wouldn't want that at all. Because I agree with you somewhere. Somehow someone's gonna figure out how to rip you off. sad state of affairs, right? So all right. Well, if there's no other questions, that's all I've got for you today. Thank you for having me. To find out more about the show, head over to yogispodcastnetwork.com/lr. 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Hello and welcome to Liberty Revealed. I am your host, Mike Mahony. this is an introduction episode aimed at setting the stage for what you can expect from the show going forward. I believe defining terms is important when entering into a discussion and a podcast about liberty is no different. Liberty is defined as the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. It can also be defined as the power or scope to act as one pleases. I want to introduce you to liberty in depth. Every episode of this show will have personal liberty as its driving force. What does personal liberty mean anyway? I live my life by the philosophy of personal liberty. I believe my rights end where your rights begin. I believe I can do whatever I would like in the privacy of my own home. As soon as I am in a position to come into contact with you, I must modify my behavior so as not to infringe upon your rights. A great way to think about personal liberty--you are free to swing your arms around madly right up until the point where you would strike me with your arms. That’s where your right to swing your arms madly ends. That is personal liberty and it conforms to a fair way of interacting with others. It is my belief that if society completely understood and executed this topic the world would be a much better place to live. Personal liberty helps define how a civilized society should act. If every single person paid attention to this topic we would have less frustration in life. This, to me, is a fact. I cannot be convinced otherwise because in my lifetime I have experienced this over and over again. It is an indisputable fact for me that personal liberty is the key to calm interaction with the public. As a registered Libertarian I want to teach you what it means to be a Libertarian. I plan to address every aspect of the Libertarian Party platform in the first group of episodes. At times I will have interview guests. Whether a solo episode or an interview, personal liberty will always be at the forefront of this podcast. I hope that if you are a Libertarian you will continue to listen to each new episode as they are released. If you are not a Libertarian, my hope is that you will learn something from each new episode. Either way, please be sure to go and comment on each episode. Your comments will help drive the content for future episodes. This podcast is a passion of mine and I want as much feedback as I can get. To find out more about the show, head over to yogispodcastnetwork.com/lr. If you’d like a 10 page eBook explaining personal liberty from the Libertarian perspective, sign up for my mailing list at yogispodcastnetwork.com/libertyrevealed and I will send it to you free as my way of thanking you. https://yogispodcastnetwork.com/lr © Yogi's Podcast Network