Derek: 00:27

Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. In this interview, I had the opportunity to interview Ron Schultes, a longtime friend and somebody who has quite a lot of experience working in the government. We kind of meander around in this episode, and we do talk a bunch about different ideas related to corporate propaganda. But I think one of the things that stands out to me from this conversation the most is this idea that a lot of this stuff is kind of gray and nebulous. What constitutes free speech?

Derek: 01:06

What constitutes propaganda? What constitutes rational discourse? And even if we can identify all of those things, where's the line when we call for governments to restrict, or or where is the line in regard to what's moral? Sometimes there's this policy of just, well, you know it when you see it. You just know that something's wrong when you see it.

Derek: 01:31

But that's really subjective and doesn't sit too well with with most of us. But I think that's good to understand, and I think that's good to kind of wrestle through this idea that things aren't always so black and white. And, there's a lot of difficulty in in assessing these things and a lot of humility that we should have when we come to these conversations. I also think this episode is important because a lot of the tone of the, the previous episodes in this section might have given you the impression that, you know, maybe I leaned a little bit more towards, being anti capitalistic or anti free market or whatever you wanna call it. And in this conversation with Ron, we get to kind of hash that out, especially at the end, where, you know, I'd I'd discuss how there are really flaws to every system.

Derek: 02:26

And, you know, the the accrual of wealth and and capital, while not an inherently bad thing to to get wealth, is really problematic because we know how people use power and abuse power. And money is power. Right? Most of our conversation is us talking about how politicians are influenced by money. It's just how it works.

Derek: 02:50

That's what builds relationships, and that's what is going to, fuel legislation. Right? So that's that's a problem, I think, fairly clearly. But at the same time, other systems have their own inherent problems, and they they just accrue power slightly differently. But they they wield it the same.

Derek: 03:13

They wield it, and end up harming others, especially those who are kind of on the margins. So this episode is good because Ron comes from more of a free market standpoint. And so we get to talk about, maybe corporate propaganda, but then kind of round that out by discussing, some of the the pros and kind of what Ron is going for, especially as a Christian. And I think that's where our episode on the false prophet and how Christianity has dealt with wealth comes in. Wealth and freedom, are are good things.

Derek: 03:50

Right? Plenty is a good thing. Having what you need is a good thing. But as a Christian, well, I want to enable others to have freedom. God's call to me personally and to anyone who calls themselves a Christian is to really reflect on on what he's given to us and figure out what do we do with that?

Derek: 04:12

How do we live generously in love, helping the people on the margins rather than creating legislation that's going to wall up my wealth and protect me and my family while harming others, right, at the expense of others. So this is a a good episode to kind of balance out this section of the season and to just get a get a good finishing look at, propaganda in the corporate world. So here it is, the interview with Ron Schultes. So I'm not sure how much of a a background I've given, to you about wanting to talk to you, for for this episode in particular. But I've I've been doing a lot of a lot of studying on propaganda.

Ron: 05:03

Okay.

Derek: 05:04

So as I as I'm looking at propaganda, I looked at a lot of different areas, you know, propaganda and abuse, how abusers use propaganda to to, manipulate their their victims, and how they they cover it up, and, you know, propaganda in politics, propaganda in in with corporations, all kinds of things. So when when I got to the corporation aspect, I was trying to figure out who can I talk to that that might have some insight into how this all kind of, intermingles? And so I thought of you, and I thought of you because, there are there are a lot of overlapping areas that I think you have. So you value corporations and and free market business. Right?

Derek: 05:51

You have experience pushing back against the corporate overreach at the same time through politics, and you've told me a number of ways that you you can't stand how how corporations kind of, are intermingled with government. And at the same time, you're also a Christian who who values justice, who values mercy, generosity, and and all of those those things. And I know that a lot of people's heads probably explode when they think of all of those three things kind of coming together because some of them, I think, in our culture seem like they they just can't go. But but I feel like you you try to embody those three values. Would do you agree with that?

Ron: 06:30

I think so. I mean, maybe it's a walking contradiction. But, no, I think you're right. I mean, I think for me, it's obviously Christian faith is number one first and foremost, obviously. But then how that plays out in a nonreligious, let's just say, human interaction, societal sphere, you know, I think the best way to live a lot of our Christian faith and values is through free market economics and and individual liberty.

Ron: 06:56

And so, I try to embody those and and fight from it from that perspective. And so, you know, it's part of one of the reasons why I do what I do and and where I work and and and, you know, why I've kinda made that my mission, I guess, is to remove government barriers. That way people can flourish in whatever way that makes most sense to them. Right? And so, I I think you hit it pretty well.

Derek: 07:24

Okay. Well, before before I, start grilling you with all the questions, maybe you could just briefly introduce who you are and and kind of some of your background that might be pertinent for Yeah. For the discussion.

Ron: 07:36

So, my name is Ron Schultes. We've known each other for many, many years now. I guess in terms of a pertinent background for this discussion, always been interested in politics and policy. Kinda figured that's what I wanted to do with my life. The reasons why I changed over time, you know, obviously just hit on that a little bit.

Ron: 08:02

But in terms of background, kinda cut my teeth, right at the end of college and right out of college. Worked in the Georgia legislature as a legislative aide for a bit, and then moved to Chicago, spent some time in the private sector while Kristen was in my wife was in grad school. That's kind of when I did a lot of my ideological reading and and kinda working through issues in that time. And then, five, six years ago, five and a half years ago now, started working for a free market think tank. We focus solely on the state of Tennessee, and it's where I live in is in Tennessee.

Ron: 08:44

In that in for my think tank, I'm our director of policy and research. And so I do a lot of economics research, policy writing. And so I lead all of our in house research efforts. I've published many research studies, been interviewed quite a few times, both mostly state, a little bit of, had some articles placed nationally, TV from time to time, things like that. And and as part of that, I also I know we wanna get into a little bit about this.

Ron: 09:17

Also lobby, registered lobbyist, and so help to try and get some of the reforms that my organization researches and cross the political finish line and enacted into law, through through the political process. So that's a little bit of a background about, I guess, who I am and and what I do.

Derek: 09:36

So Alright. Perfect. So I think the probably the best place to start for a discussion in regard to propaganda and corporations is, with maybe the idea of free speech. Because I I think, you know, propaganda can can be done in a lot of different ways. You can do it through images and and whatnot.

Derek: 09:55

But a lot of it comes through speech and, you know, what is speech? And image is speech. And so there's a long history of the the progression of how speech has been viewed in regard to corporations. You know, are corporations individuals? Or, so do they even have the right to free speech?

Derek: 10:17

And what is free speech? What constitutes speech? So maybe you could give us a little bit of a of a history as far back as you can go, at least, in regards to United States. I know that a lot of people think of Citizens United, but that only that's only, like, 2010, and I know that there there's a history prior to that. My understanding is that, you know, late eighteen hundreds, there was there was some stuff that was going on starting to change.

Derek: 10:42

So enlighten me, please.

Ron: 10:44

Yeah. Well, first of all, like, you know, I'm not a historian, nor am I a lawyer. Just like to pretend I'm one. And so I'll talk a little bit about, Citizens United, but I'll go back even further. I mean, this is something the idea around free speech, right, is, you know, obviously, our constitution and a lot of the ideas embodied, they come all the way back even before The United States was around with England, issues with the king and the enlightenment and and things along those lines.

Ron: 11:11

And so, you know, these have been long running ideas around the idea particularly around free speech. There there were colonial constitutions when we were still English colonies. For example, the Virginia Declaration of Rights included the ability around, freedom of the press. Usually, that's where speech kinda started with this concept was around the press and being able to, criticize leaders. Right?

Ron: 11:41

It was this pushback against this idea of the divine right of kings. And so press should be able to criticize. And this was something that was tempted very early on in even in American history. I think a lot of people don't realize this. Like, you know, as soon as our founding fathers created and wrote down the constitution, there were debates upon what it actually meant and how it applied pretty quickly.

Ron: 12:06

So, for example, president John Adams, the second president, kinda dealing with, like, a a little mini war with pirates. I think it was the Barbary pirates at the time, passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. If you haven't heard of those, and one of them essentially, the Sedition Act made it illegal to criticize the federal government, and they tried to lock up, like, newspapers that were critical of the federal government. Now, technically, it had to be falsehoods. Right?

Ron: 12:36

But when the government is the one who's in charge of arresting and charging you, and if for if if you criticize them, you know, what they deemed a falsehood was a pretty broad interpretation. And and oftentimes, they went after, so John Adams was a federalist. They went after Democrat, Republican, or essentially Jeffersonian newspapers and tried to have them arrested. When the Jeffersonians took over, basically, they repealed almost all the alien and sedition acts. Other than, I think, one, I think it's like the a, alien enemy act, which essentially allows the president and it's still been it's in in in effect today.

Ron: 13:18

It can be used. Allows the president in wartime to essentially detain noncitizens. And so that that is still on the books from the eighteen hundreds. But, essentially, this idea of, like, the freedom of the press and freedom of speech, you know, has been in conflict. Like, what does that actually mean pretty much since our you know, even our second president, believe it or not?

Ron: 13:43

The idea around corporations, you know, I think really has certainly taken on much more of an issue. And you mentioned Citizens United. Like I said, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not gonna get too much into legal analysis. But, essentially, the idea was there was a law at the time that said, businesses, registered corporations could not engage in electioneering within a certain time frame before an election. So I think it was like thirty days before a primary, sixty days before a general.

Ron: 14:16

That might not be exact, but you kinda get the idea. And, a conservative group called Citizens United tried to to challenge that. And essentially, you know, they rested on the idea of the first amendment, which says, Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. And so, essentially, what happened was is they said, look, you're politicking. Right?

Ron: 14:42

The ability to talk politics is if if you could argue is probably one of the most important types of speech. Right? Particularly what the the framers had in mind. Right? Being able to talk about our civil government and everything, because they wanted to run ads, I think, that were critical of Hillary Clinton in the, two thousand eight primary or something like that.

Ron: 15:02

And, you know, the the supreme court agreed. Essentially, if nothing else, right, you know, maybe a corporation isn't a person, but it is an association of individuals. Right? Essentially, that's what a corporation is, is a group of individuals who have joint proportions of ownership in a company. And so, therefore, individuals should not have their rights to free speech, limited.

Ron: 15:28

And so that barrier was struck down. And the reason why is they applied a an idea called strict scrutiny. You'll if you go to law school or anything like that, you'll kinda understand this. You know, judges kinda come up with tests over time. The judicial system come up with tests.

Ron: 15:47

And the idea around strict scrutiny is if you are going to infringe on a constitutional right, it it's a very high bar. Right? And, essentially, you go into it assuming that the law is unconstitutional. And so for it to be upheld, you essentially, the government has to prove there's an overwhelming and urgent need and that the law that they have serves a very particular government interest, and it's extremely narrowly tailored to address the issue at hand. Right?

Ron: 16:21

So it's a very high bar for the government to overcome to prove the constitutionality of that law. And, essentially, the ideas of corruption or anything like that from running ads, the justices didn't buy it, and said, you haven't met this idea of strict scrutiny in order for us to restrict an individual or a group of individuals through a corporation's right to politic. There are lower tests that courts apply called, like, for example, rational basis, which is basically the the courts start from the position of, hey, we assume that this is constitutional. And as long as the government has a rational reason, it may not even be the a good reason, may not even be correct, or there may be less restrictive ways to accomplish the end, it's okay. But we don't apply that usually to constitutional rights, because they're seen as obviously the highest forms of rights that we have.

Ron: 17:25

And so that's essentially what happened. And and so ever since then, right, we've, you know, corporations being people or, obviously, associations of people, they apply the idea of, you know, of the press as an association to be able to talk in politic, as much as they choose. So, does that kinda answer your question, I think, or, you know, best of my abilities probably. So

Derek: 17:49

Yeah. Yeah. It it definitely gets at it, and I wanna I wanna dig a little bit deeper with the next question.

Ron: 17:55

Okay. So,

Derek: 17:56

you know, we've got an idea that's okay. So we have a constitution, bill of rights, all that stuff, and it and it gives us some, some freedoms. And so if you're going to try to restrict your freedom or punish somebody in some way, then you need to you need to prove that that, you know, in a strict, what what's the not strict construction. Strict scrutiny. Yes.

Derek: 18:21

So you need to you need to prove that, the the burden of proof is on you. Okay? That that kinda makes some sense.

Ron: 18:28

Mhmm.

Derek: 18:29

But, you know, when we're we're talking about communication, a lot of the authors that discuss propaganda mentioned that, you know, in in democracies, they're susceptible particularly susceptible to propaganda, because free speech kind of has has some loopholes in them, in regard to it. So, like, democracies, and and especially capitalistic ones where where you, con consumerism is important and and freedom of choice in the market. You know, they're they're built on pillars theoretically of rational discourse and informed consumers. Right? Informed voters, whether you're consuming products or consuming, politicians.

Derek: 19:11

Sure. But, propositions then need to be they need to be accessible and able to be evaluated. Like, that's what speech and discourse is. Mhmm. But one of the problems as you start to look into what a lot of corporate advertisement and corporate speech ends up being, what a lot of propaganda is, is that it's it's built around non rational ideas.

Derek: 19:32

So for example, one of the famous ones with, I think it was, the first George Bush, the Willie Horton commercial where they've got this, I I forget who you'd know who it was against. Who was the the guy that he was?

Ron: 19:48

The first time he ran?

Derek: 19:49

Yeah. Yeah.

Ron: 19:50

Al Gore?

Derek: 19:51

No. No. No. The first George Bush.

Ron: 19:53

Oh, that was Bill Clinton. He ran against oh, when he won? Was that George Dukakis, I think?

Derek: 19:59

Yeah. I think I think it might have been Dukakis. But I they they had this commercial, Willie Horton commercial. You can look it up on YouTube. And it's, like, it's clearly dog whistling.

Derek: 20:09

Like, it's it so it's it's Yeah.

Ron: 20:11

I know the ad. I remember the ad. Get who it was against. Yeah.

Derek: 20:15

Yeah. It's just this this one story, this this black guy, the the way that it's framed, it's kind of like, well, they're they're talking about this event that happens, but everything about it, you're like, oh, I I know what they're really saying. And and it's not really a rational discourse. It's not okay. Well, let's evaluate the policies that got Willie Horton out.

Derek: 20:35

Let's evaluate who's responsible for it. It's it's framed. And so it's not really rational discourse. Right. And, corporations use that kind of stuff a lot, like, to to get at your emotions, and they're not really telling you about a product.

Derek: 20:48

If they were, they could just say, hey. Here's our product. Here are all the pros for it. You know, here's the nutrition value.

Ron: 20:55

Yeah.

Derek: 20:56

Take it if you want it. But that's not what that's not what they do because they know that that's not what what, triggers you to to purchase something.

Ron: 21:04

Sure.

Derek: 21:04

So corporations, a lot of what they do everybody who uses propaganda, but especially corporations, they, they seek to form desires and ideologies and associations within consumers. So it's kind of like like, the movie Inception where they they plant things inside of you.

Ron: 21:22

Right. Right.

Derek: 21:22

And then when you're at the store, you're like, oh, I want that. And you you don't know how to evaluate, well, why is it that I want that?

Ron: 21:28

Sure.

Derek: 21:29

So we see that there are laws against things like libel, slander, perjury, false advertising. You know, certain forms of advertising which are even harmful to your health, like, you know, smoking in kids in kids shows you can't do. And maybe you'd be forced some of that. I don't know. But, you know, something like like libel, well, why can't I have that free speech?

Derek: 21:50

Well, because when you say something that's that can be damaging to somebody else, or it can create false perceptions in somebody's mind, then that can that's a problem. So how do you deal with with these ideas? We live in a democracy where rational discourse is really what we're trying to protect. Free speech is what we're protecting, but a lot of that is rational discourse that makes democracy run. Sure.

Derek: 22:15

At the same time, you've got, in particular in this episode, corporate free speech that kind of violates that a lot. So how do we synthesize, those concepts here?

Ron: 22:28

Yeah. Well okay. So a couple of things, I think. First, it's always important to remember, right, is one, there's a reason why throughout history, people have been skeptical of democracies. We don't live in a democracy.

Ron: 22:45

Right? We live in a republic. Right? That's why we say to the republic for which it stands. You know?

Ron: 22:50

The founding fathers essentially thought democracy was rob mob rule. Right? And so that's how you can get swing of large populations. Right? You know?

Ron: 23:00

Now how they try to go about creating an educated, rational voting public by basically limiting it to white male landowners. You know? I'm not saying that that was the way to do it, but there was an idea that they were like, yeah. We don't want everybody involved in making decisions, you know, in a lot of for the reasons why you're talking about. You know?

Ron: 23:21

And I think in terms of the propaganda, though, I would argue that I would say that I think democracies or, you know, republics are less likely to be swayed by propaganda because you can have various sources. You know, look at some of the I think the most the states that have been most, held by propaganda are the ones where there is no free speech. Right? Like, think about North Korea. There is no such thing as free speech or freedom of the press.

Ron: 23:50

I mean, and they think, like, because own there's only state sponsored news, which is essentially propaganda. Right? There's a reason why. Don't they think, like, they've won every World Cup or every medal in every Olympics, and that's obviously not true, but they completely believe it because it's the only source of information. Right?

Ron: 24:10

I mean, we, you know, saw it even going to the Nazis in the strict censorship. I mean and you wanna talk about a population that was swayed to do, obviously, or go along with awful horrible things. So I I disagree that the fact that a, you know, constitutional republic, democracy, whatever you wanna say, is most susceptible to propaganda due to free speech. I I would disagree with. I think history has shown that at at the very least, when you have the ability to have competing ideas, it can balance things out.

Ron: 24:44

Obviously, it leads to division and, you know, a lot of the stuff that we have today, which is so I'm not saying that there's no cost. So, I mean, I think that's one important point to think about. But in terms of, like, you know, balancing also some of the things around corporate propaganda and this idea around, like, libel and and and slander and all that kind of stuff. Right? Yeah.

Ron: 25:05

I mean, there isn't necessarily a a unlimited right to free speech. I mean, we have what are called, like, time manner restrictions. Right? It's the whole idea. You can't scream fire in a in a crowded theater.

Ron: 25:18

Right? You know, we've all heard that example. The ideas around libel and slander are around not knowingly publishing falsehoods that damage somebody's reputation and cause harm. Right? But I think a lot of that kind of stuff often comes back to the idea of harm.

Ron: 25:37

Right? I mean, most of our laws started off with this idea of of fixing wrongs. Right? I mean, that's why we have punishments for criminal crimes. Right?

Ron: 25:47

It's to make whole or civil lawsuits. Like, if I injure you, you know, you can sue me for the harm that I've caused. That's the idea around libel, slander, and a lot of those things or, like, you know, knowingly deceptive false advertising. Right? It's it's you're trying to defraud essentially somebody knowingly.

Ron: 26:11

And so that's kind of the lot of the checks that we have. Right? I mean, that's the whole idea around, like, screaming fire in a crowded theater. One, you can cause harm to people in a mass panic, But two, you've also caused monetary harm to the theater owner by essentially interrupting the show and and people leaving. Right?

Ron: 26:31

And so a lot of these, you know, restrictions we have are are around that idea. I think let's see. What what else do you think you wanna touch on? There's there's a lot in in that kind of of question or anything.

Derek: 26:47

Yeah. Maybe just to, before we kinda, move on or or dig deeper, some of the things that you said, you know, I I'm so I'd if I'd said that democracies are the most susceptible, that's not what I intended to convey. But but they they said that there is a susceptibility. They're particularly vulnerable in the sense that so sometimes you'll see people like Richard Dawkins is a famous example. So he's this this, staunch atheist, and he refuses to debate Christians, like like William Lincrad because he he says, I'm not going to give that position validity because by engaging with the idea, you give it validity.

Ron: 27:26

So, you

Derek: 27:26

know, do you have do you have a debate on, the the humanity and value of Jews or black people with somebody from the KKK? Right. You're not gonna have a debate on that because by having a debate, you give some sense of credibility or credence, to some to some people who'd be looking on and saying, hey. You know what? Well, that he made some good points.

Derek: 27:50

I I thought the idea was crazy, but well, if they're engaging in debate, like, maybe there is something to it. And so you'll have people who who don't want to engage with with certain fringe ideas

Ron: 28:02

Gotcha.

Derek: 28:02

So as not to give them validity.

Ron: 28:04

I mean, I think maybe it's not necessarily you wanna give them as much time at the light of day, but I do think that there is merit in allowing people essentially to trip themselves up in awful ideas. And I think most people are gonna realize that. Right? I mean, there's, the old saying of Voltaire of, you know, I may disagree with you, but I defend your right to say it. Or even think think about the ACLU when it defended the Nazi's ability to parade down Skokie.

Ron: 28:30

Right? You know, unfortunately, the first amendment and the idea of free speech is not there to talk about the weather. It's there to talk about controversial things. Right? And so, you know, I don't think by having the Nazis parade down Skokie in Illinois, it lended credence to Nazi ideas.

Ron: 28:53

You know? So, I mean, that's a a a personal opinion of mine. You know, and and, yeah, I'm not saying that democracies are the most susceptible, but, I mean, I think it's a it's a human nature. Right? And and and so at the very least, in a in an idea of free speech, we have the ability to kinda, like, have those ideas play out against each other.

Ron: 29:14

You know what I mean? So

Derek: 29:16

So then, you know, the other thing that you mentioned was with something like Vibal. You know, you're you're causing damage or harm to to somebody else. So if I think about Bush's Willie Horton advertisement, and I think about what he was saying without actually saying it, that causes damage to the other party because people make decisions based on what they infer from from particular advertisements. Mhmm. I mean, what constitutes damage?

Derek: 29:47

What constitutes speech? Well, it it seems like it's it's very fuzzy.

Ron: 29:52

It is. You're right. I mean, that you know, unfortunately, that's why we have obviously, courts have played this kind of stuff out for forever. I mean, trust me. I have seen some political ads that I just see here in the state.

Ron: 30:04

Like, for example, this is a a true story. We had a congressional race here in, Nashville area. And, I mean, it's almost laughable to think about one of the candidates for the Republican nominee for this congressional seat right in the primary. It was a primary race, and it was widely. It was one of those races where the the primary is the real election, essentially.

Ron: 30:34

And, one of the candidates was the former Tennessee speaker of the house, and she had voted years ago to allow illegal, immigrants to have driver's licenses. K? And literally, there was an attack ad on her, where, hey, they showed her voting for, allowing illegal immigrants to have voter licenses, which was a a a true fact. Right? But then the ad continued with, hey.

Ron: 31:05

The people who bombed nine eleven were got illegal driver's licenses, and therefore, she supported nine eleven. Right? And you're just like, I mean, that was all I mean, it was laughable on its face. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. You know?

Ron: 31:20

I mean, in clearly, like, falsehoods that she supported nine eleven, but that was an ad that was a real thing here in Metro Nashville this past fall. And, you know, where is that line in terms of, like, causing harm and falsehoods? Now I don't think it probably caused a whole lot of harm just because I think it was so laughable on its face that, hopefully, nobody was really swayed by that, but you never know. But you're right. It is fuzzy.

Ron: 31:47

I mean, and that's why, you know, you have civil lawsuits and litigants that kind of figure that out. When does it cross that line? We have, you know, generally different standards for public figures. Right? You've probably heard about that.

Ron: 31:59

You know, the idea of, like, publishing somebody's dirty laundry that's just an average citizen versus a well known politician. Right? We've kind of over time developed these different standards, but it it's something that plays out all the time. You're right. It's it's it's it's a fuzzy area.

Derek: 32:18

Yeah. I wanna move, a little bit more into the the, practical from from the theoretical and murky. And I want you to just kind of lay out how some of the stuff has has played out.

Ron: 32:31

Sure.

Derek: 32:32

So I know you've seen some things in in your time in in politics

Ron: 32:36

Mhmm.

Derek: 32:36

In regard to corporate influence. So I I wanna know things like how much legislation is influenced or controlled by corporate lobbyists. Mhmm. How many resources are are they throwing at this? And and do you have any specific examples of, of that kind of thing?

Ron: 32:51

Oh, yeah. I mean, it happens all the time. I mean, you know, I here's what I'll tell you, at least at the state level, okay, which, you know, is a whole separate discussion in that I don't think people pay enough attention to the state level. You know? I think we all generally know hardly anything ever happens in Washington.

Ron: 33:10

Right? Whereas your state government is gonna pass hundreds of laws every single year. You know? They pass as many as Congress does practically in a decade in every single year, generally. And so, I would say the vast majority of laws or proposed laws come from some kind of special interest.

Ron: 33:33

I'm just gonna be real with you. Most most state elected officials, for example, don't necessarily have a whole lot of ideas in terms of what they wanna run as a bill. They run on principles, generally, and then they get elected. And then people come to them with specific ideas for bills and legislation. You know, to the point of, like, it's almost I don't wanna say a joke, but, like, I have seen it where a state lawmaker will say, like, I actually thought of this one myself.

Ron: 34:14

Like, you know, because nobody came to them. I mean and and part of it is just gonna be the fact of the matter is is that, you know, you can't be an expert on everything. Right? And so they're just they know their area or their general like, if they're a business owner or a farmer or something like that, they know their one thing. Right?

Ron: 34:34

And they maybe have principles that kinda guide them generally about specific topics. And then it's usually some kind of, you know, quote, unquote special interest that says, hey. In you know, you say you stand for this. Here's an idea for you. Right?

Ron: 34:52

And, you know, I think special interest is is maybe we should talk a little bit about that. But, like, yeah, some of sometimes at specific companies. Right? Sometimes that's most people probably don't realize that there's a good chance that they have a lobbyist that represents their profession. And so chances are most people are a special interest, right, even if they don't realize it.

Ron: 35:18

You know? If if you're a teacher, for example, you better believe there is a lobbyist that represents whether it's your teachers union or in a teachers association, right, to lobby for the special interest of teachers. Right? It I mean, professional associations is is very common. And then there's a very small group of nonprofits that represent usually issues or ideas.

Ron: 35:46

For example, the organization that I work at. But, yeah, I mean, if you wanna talk about, like, how much of the laws that are out there are influenced by associations, organizations, corporations that get them at least introduced, it's a very, very, very high percentage, particularly at the state level. Like, I would say 85%, ninety %. Yeah.

Derek: 36:11

But you you make a good point that, okay, a politician gets an office. They don't know about farming. Or if they do know about farming, they don't know about teaching or,

Ron: 36:21

you

Derek: 36:22

know, all all the many, many things. So it doesn't make sense to have to have experts come to you. I think Mhmm. Maybe one of the things that that makes me a little bit more uncomfortable. I just talked to my my cousin, and he, you know, he's he was in the FDA for a bit.

Derek: 36:38

Now he's a consultant. I've talked to some friends who who've been in the army, and read a number of books where people talk about the way that the system works. You know, you go in, you come out, and you do consulting. Mhmm. It's it's this revolving door.

Derek: 36:54

Oh, yeah. And and, you know, you go you get a lobbyist, and then you get out of you get out of politics, and now you have a nice cushy job in that. And it just seems it's it seems very, I don't know, self self interested and and, muddy.

Ron: 37:11

Oh, yeah. I mean, I there are many former lawmakers that go on to then become lobbyists or, employees of different departments that become lobbyists or, legislative aids, you know, like I used to be that go on to become lobbyists for different, associations or or, you know, for profit lobbying companies who basically almost like a lawyer. They don't represent a specific company. They are a business, and they try and get clients that then they turn around and represent. And I think it comes down to, you know, at at that kind of level, generally, the currency of of politics is relationships, right, is is is a good way to put it, I think, is the idea that if somebody has a relationship with somebody, right, they are more likely to get in the door and have their idea heard.

Ron: 38:11

Like, take the word lobby. Right? It's literally about sitting in a lobby hoping to be able to interact with that decision maker. Right? And so the the the currency of that is is relationships and and being able to get in the door and meet with someone.

Ron: 38:29

You know? So for example, I mean, it just is a matter of fact that, you know, when you're an elected representative, right, you represent tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people. You know? And sometimes you're kind of approached by crazy people. Right?

Ron: 38:47

And so if it's somebody that you know and that you trust, you know, and they're like, hey. I wanna talk to you about something just because of that long standing relationship that you have, you're much more likely to at least hear them out and get, you know, them the right of day. Like, I I'll talk about, for example, this past year, my organization worked on a bill around food trucks, where, food trucks, if you think about it, are obviously mobile businesses. And so the problem is is they often face a patchwork of regulations when they travel around. So they go from city carnival to fair or whatever, and they can face a very different regulatory environment in every city that they wanna operate, which makes it incredibly difficult.

Ron: 39:33

Right? In some cities, they have to pay us a a permit every single day they wanna operate. In some, they're banned completely. In some, they face extremely protectionist regulation. So for example, some cities to protect brick and mortar restaurants over food trucks, say, hey.

Ron: 39:53

You can't be within sir so many feet of a brick and mortar restaurant. Or, like, there's one city in Tennessee that says, hey. If you sell, you know, you can't be within a certain distance of a brick and mortar restaurant that serves a similar type of food as your food truck. So, for example, if you sell tacos out of a food truck, you couldn't be within a quarter of a mile of a Mexican restaurant. Right?

Ron: 40:14

But we can have KFC and Chick fil A to brick and mortar places right next to each other, but we couldn't have a food truck. And so, anyways, we wanted to just say, hey. If food truck wants to operate on private property, they can do so. Cities can regulate as much as they want, ban whatever on public roads, public parks, all that. But if I'm having a pool party or a birthday party for my child and I wanna have a food truck over to serve my party, my guests, whatever, you can't ban that.

Ron: 40:45

And we thought we started to get movement until cities band together to kill it. And essentially, what happened was is every lawmaker that was gonna have to vote on our bill got a call from their local mayor, right, and said, don't do this. This is a local issue. We should be able to regulate or ban these or however we want. And we lost the votes within a matter of an hour, essentially.

Ron: 41:11

Right? That's a true story. I've I went into a committee thinking I had the vote, like, 15 to five, and within an hour beforehand, it swapped from five to fifteen because every single one got a call from their mayor. And so that goes to that idea of influence that I talked about. Right?

Ron: 41:24

Like, if you're a state politician and one of your local mayors calls you, that mayor just has access through, you know, through connection and influence that an average person didn't have. So we had food trucks that were their own constituents just saying, hey. I just wanna operate my business, but it didn't matter because they weren't as influential. They didn't have the relationship that a city mayor did with that state representative, and so they listened to one mayor over 10 constituents, you know, as an example.

Derek: 41:55

So may maybe it's a stretch, but that it feels like such a double standard to me that that we protect corporate speech. Right? And I know I know it's probably a push to say that this is freedom of assembly for for me to have a pool party and and have a food truck there. But it seems like if it's on private property, like, that's that's a right. So it and that's that's where it's it's such a struggle here because, for me, because I understand the importance of of free speech.

Derek: 42:26

But I think that a lot of a lot of the way the ways that we see corporate speech,

Ron: 42:31

it's

Derek: 42:31

not really rational speech. And then at the same time, it's used to curb the the rights of, other people, generally people with less money. So food trucks, I would take it has less money have less money than KFC and the brick and mortar stores probably.

Ron: 42:49

Yeah. I mean, you know, I think now that was an example of other politicians using speech. But, I mean, that kinda happens all the time when where essentially larger corporations use speech to, essentially gain a monopoly. I mean, that happens all the time. It's it it the term is called rent seeking or political entrepreneurship.

Ron: 43:12

And because the idea is let's say let's say you're a business. Right? You're a large, large company that is facing some kind of, upstart, competitor. Right? And you have two choices.

Ron: 43:29

You either have compete through the market, which can cost I I I'm just gonna make up numbers. A hundred million dollars through sales, ad campaigns, all that. Or you can spend $2,000,000 or even less than that oftentimes. Let's say you spend a hundred thousand dollars on a lobbyist to restrict your competition, right, you know, through some form or measure. Well, in terms of a business's profit motives, it's like we could spend millions of dollars or tens of thousands on a lobbying effort and gain the same gain the same advantage.

Ron: 44:05

Why shouldn't we take that route? Right? I'll give you I'll give you an example. We we were dealing with an, one time around this idea of auctions. And and so, generally, auctions or auctioneering is licensed.

Ron: 44:24

It's a licensed profession in most states. Right? If you wanna be an auctioneer, you have to get a government license in order to do that in most states. And the idea around that is is fraud, handling money, all that kind of stuff. Well, as you can imagine, the auctioneering industry is kinda going the way of the dodo bird as with the Internet and technology and eBay and things like that.

Ron: 44:48

Right? And, and so here in Tennessee, one year, we had this idea, there was this idea of extending online auctions to or sending the auctioneering license to online auctions and essentially regulating the Internet. Right? Well, essentially, what happened was was eBay was like, well, that's not gonna happen. We're that hurts our business model.

Ron: 45:15

And so they had a lobbying effort and got themselves exempted from the bill. Right? Now they didn't care that anybody else was gonna be regulated. They they knew that they weren't gonna be regulated. And some other ones, Copart, which is a, like, a car parts, manufacturing and, you know, automobile, like, online auction site.

Ron: 45:37

They got exempted. But we found some small businesses who didn't run that. We're like, wait a second. So now I'm gonna be regulated when my big, big competition isn't. Right?

Ron: 45:47

And so our organization actually sued that. Also, on first, or, one, you're regulating online commerce. It's a form of speech. So we actually got that struck down on first amendment grounds. But also the commerce clause because, essentially, you could be out of state running an auction business, and we have Tennessee clients, which we required you to be regulated, which states don't have the ability to regulate the Internet because it's interstate commerce.

Ron: 46:14

But it's a great example of a a large business just saying, hey. Instead of dealing with this, we'll deal we'll hire a lobbying effort to get ourselves exempted or get ourselves a favor. Right? And and and beat our competition through that way. Like, the very first example I ever saw this, and I think we've talked about this before, And it's kind of what led me down a rabbit hole of there's a difference between what we are today and, you know, what we call capitalism and what really is.

Ron: 46:49

And it was dealt with, Delta when I worked in the Georgia General Assembly. After 09/11, obviously, the airline industry was extremely hurt. Right? People were afraid of flying. And Atlanta has the largest airport in the world.

Ron: 47:06

And is it you know, Delta's their number one employer. The airport's the number one employer generally as an industry, as a place. And so it was gonna be a huge impact on Georgia and Atlanta's economy. And so what they did was they said, okay. Hey.

Ron: 47:20

For a period of time, we're gonna, essentially cut the sales tax on jet fuel. Right? And so all the it reduced the cost for all airlines, which, you know, I think is that's that's a general thing because it impacted everybody equally, so it wasn't an issue. When it came back up to be renewed, only Delta was able to get the credit going forward. Right?

Ron: 47:46

Only Delta was, and that was through a strong lobbying effort. And I saw that play out in real time where there were elected officials that were really struggling about, I don't think it's fair, but Delta's the number one employer. They're saying they're gonna leave Atlanta if we don't do this for them, which I always think is overblown. Right? You know, I know you wanna talk about stadiums, which is another area that this plays out.

Ron: 48:15

But Delta was able to get it. And within several years, Airtrain, which was also based out of Atlanta, went bankrupt. Right? Now do I think it's solely because of that? I don't think so.

Ron: 48:27

But the idea that they had to compete, it's the same business, same industry, same place. But just because they weren't as big as Delta, they didn't get the same tax break. Right? And so you can see this all the time, how much rent seeking plays out in politics all the time.

Derek: 48:49

So one of the things that you said, I think back when we were talking about the food trucks, you said that it's not so much corporate propaganda. It it's politicians doing these things. But I guess from from my, novice understanding, it would seem like the reason that the politicians want something or advocate for something is because the businesses who fund their campaigns are are telling them to do that. And so even if even if it's the politicians, aren't the politicians by and large the mouthpiece of corporations? And and again, I I know that you can you can catch it kind of as well, yeah, but those are the people that they have relationships with.

Derek: 49:38

And and I'm sure that's true to some extent. Like, sometimes it is it is just relational. But me, as as just a lone individual, I'd be thinking, okay. Well, that's that's great. But what you're telling me is that I'm not gonna have a relationship with my senator.

Derek: 49:55

Really, the relationship revolves around who has money. So what what what talks isn't speech. What talks is money. Money is speech in politics.

Ron: 50:06

Yeah. I I mean, I don't disagree with that to a large extent. You know, it's it it's a problem of incentives, right, where, unfortunately, most politicians' number one incentive, once they become elected, is to stay elected. Right? And how they do that is through campaigning, which requires funds.

Ron: 50:31

And so who donates to campaigns, right, usually gets that influence, right, that that opportunity to at least get in the door. You know? And so it and, yeah, it's obviously a combination of somebody that's been there for a while that has, you know, long standing relationships. But, yeah, a lot of it also comes from who's going to help donate to my campaign. Right?

Ron: 50:57

I mean, we there's a saying, you know, talking about political influence here. And it's like, it's not the last check that that that matters. It's the next one. Right? And so politicians are usually very, deferential to make sure that they get that next check that helps them fill up their campaign coffers.

Ron: 51:18

Right? And so what they're willing to do or or at least talk to to hear out in order to, you know, to get that donation to fund that campaign is, is is exactly that. So yeah.

Derek: 51:37

Alright. My next question, I'm as I'm looking at it, I'm trying to to figure out how to to phrase it the best. So, hopefully, you'll you'll understand what I'm trying to say, but I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm not sure.

Derek: 51:51

So a lot of what we've been talking about has been more, like, positive sorts of of bills that are are put in place. Have you ever seen anything like, let's say there's a lot of social upheaval about, say, global warming, and, like, everybody really wants it. And, but then, industries, corporations are able to kind of, kind of divert that attention to something else, or or kind of deflect a bill that's that's, maybe going against them and sway public.

Ron: 52:30

Yeah. What I can give a specific example of is actually almost the opposite, and that's what made it so unusual. Maybe that's a a the the most specific answer I can give was, and and, you know, I don't I'm not saying anything of where I stood or particularly my organization stood on this. But, as a result of COVID, right, there were a lot of thoughts about what can or should a business be able to require of its employees and all that kind of stuff. Right?

Ron: 53:11

And, typically, you know, small business owners are very influential members or or people, I should say, particularly of of state and local elected officials. But there was such a clamoring from grassroots, folks in Tennessee that they shouldn't be fired or banned from not refusing to, you know, get a vaccine if, if their employer required it, that they actually went against business interests. And, it was so remarkable, that for once they're like, hey. To our friends in the business community. Right?

Ron: 53:51

I mean, I could even play you the clips. Like, I know that this isn't something that we would normally do is is go against your wishes in in essentially so, you know, uncertain terms. But we have heard such outcry around this that we have to. You know? So I I can't say that I've heard where they've diverted or squashed, but I have for I've I've seen a specific example of where, like, it was so unusual that they didn't hear side with, you know, particular businesses.

Ron: 54:26

One that I can think of.

Derek: 54:27

Yeah. Because I yeah. No. That's that's a a good example. What I was thinking of and maybe you haven't seen it, but there was this I don't know if it was a Stanford study or something, but there's this,

Ron: 54:41

Oh, I I do have one example that's not necessarily by a corporation, but kind of a similar example. Go ahead and finish. Sorry.

Derek: 54:48

Yeah. So there's this there's this, Stanford study, and and they were trying to determine what's what influences public policy. And so they they have this graph, and it's it says, okay. What you would expect is that, if if public policy followed public opinion, you'd expect this linear graph. The more public opinion the higher the public opinion, the higher the chance of this Something happened.

Derek: 55:15

Law being passed.

Ron: 55:16

Yeah.

Derek: 55:17

But what they what they show is that okay. Right right around 30% is where or 50 or something. I think it was 30. It's kind of like, it doesn't matter where public opinion is. 30% is the chance of of a bill getting passed.

Derek: 55:32

Mhmm. What they what they do show is that there is an almost linear graph with, in terms of, lobbying your corporate influence Sure. For the bill, corporate desires. Now I've I've heard some people kind of push back against the study. So I you know, and how do you determine the methodology of of how strong a public opinion is and how how strong corporate influence is?

Ron: 55:53

Right.

Derek: 55:54

The the it's nebulous. But it makes a lot of sense to me, and so that that's kind of what I was what I was wondering is if if public policy follows corporate interests, and but corporate interests don't wanna be the bad guys, how are they are they able to kind of, create the public opinion

Ron: 56:13

Right.

Derek: 56:13

To center around the the bills that they're passing?

Ron: 56:16

Well, I think it comes always down to the idea of the vocal or influential minority over the will of asylum majority. Right? So a great example of that, and this is where I was going. Like I said, it's not a corporate interest, but similar vein where, in a lot of states still, particularly conservative states. Right?

Ron: 56:40

Public opinion is overwhelmingly for, if not recreational, at least medical marijuana. Right? Like, overwhelmingly.

Derek: 56:50

You said particularly in conservative states.

Ron: 56:52

Yes. Well See,

Derek: 56:53

that that kinda surprises me.

Ron: 56:55

Well, let me sorry. But oftentimes, it's not the case. It's still illegal is is what I'm saying in in conservative states. There isn't a huge difference between blue states and red states around medical marijuana. But yet still, there are many red states that have not passed any kind of marijuana legalization, including my home state of Tennessee because of influence from cops.

Ron: 57:25

It's what it boils down to. The vast majority of people support at least medical marijuana. Like, recreational is a little bit different, but on the medical side, it is extremely popular. It's, like, 80%, right, plus. But, yeah, because cops don't like it in a lot of states, it is often defeated particularly in red states because, you know, got a back the blue, you know, wanna be seen as pro police, and and and the influence that your local sheriffs, policemen have with state elected officials were even though it is extremely popular, particularly as, you know, in the aftermath of I shouldn't say aftermath, but the result of the opioid crisis, right, as an alternative to a pain killer, you know, recreational marijuana is even popular amongst, you know, people that were very anti marijuana very even ten years ago.

Ron: 58:22

But in many red states, it is still not allowed because of influence from police.

Derek: 58:27

So so

Ron: 58:28

that's a great example of, like, that public opinion. Right? Or, one that I've personally seen, that I worked on, like I said, is not a, a corporate specific interest, but similar that that same vein in terms of public opinion doesn't necessarily make policy. Tennessee is one of the four states that doesn't have a cap on the growth of property taxes. Now Tennessee is very often considered a low tax state.

Ron: 58:58

Right? It's one of the few states that doesn't have an income tax, all that kind of stuff. But along with Vermont, Hawaii, and New Hampshire, it is one of four states that does not have a cap on the growth of property taxes. Those states, at least particularly Vermont and Hawaii, are extremely blue, and then you have Tennessee very, very red. We did a poll.

Ron: 59:21

We tried to say, hey. We're not saying you can't increase property taxes. But if you we had a bill once that if you wanna increase it by more than a certain percentage, you gotta get a voter referendum approval to do so. If we pulled it, it was, like, 95% approval rating amongst voters. Like, that's that's, like, maybe even higher than Jesus numbers, right, in terms of a poll favorability.

Ron: 59:45

And it didn't stand a chance because local governments using their influence, essentially, the government that local people support through taxes, use their tax dollars to lobby against something that would have helped their own constituents. Right? So I've seen that. That's a personal example. But, I mean, I think it always comes back to that vocal, influential minority rather than a diffuse silent majority is is explains a lot of what you're talking about there.

Derek: 01:00:15

And I guess that's why you say that local matters more because nobody's paying attention to what happens locally. So therefore because I'm like, well, how do those people get reelected? Well, because that's not on the nightly news.

Ron: 01:00:27

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. More people know, like, things that, you know, Ted Cruz or AOC say than somebody that actually represents them in their own backyard at their state capital. Right?

Ron: 01:00:40

I mean, because we've nationalized everything, essentially.

Derek: 01:00:44

So So going back to, to what you said about the the police and and marijuana, is that and and maybe you don't know, but is that kind of like like with war, I think a lot of times there's this idea that, well, it and and, like, investments. Right? Gambling. So if you if you lose and but you play and you play and play and you keep losing, it's kind of like, well, I've invested all of this money, and now I have to I I have to keep playing to get my my money out of it. Is it kind of like that where the police are like, hey.

Derek: 01:01:18

Look. If if right now we say that we're not gonna criminalize marijuana, that invalidates my life for the, you know, my whole career because now you're telling me that what I did was was worthless. It was pointless. It was maybe even wrong that we were locking those people up. Do you know what the rationale behind that is?

Ron: 01:01:39

I mean, I'm sure that's part of it. You know, you're talking about, like, some cost fallacy. I think part of it is it just makes their job more difficult. I think part of it is is it's, you know, marijuana is used as a reason to stop and look for other things. Right?

Ron: 01:02:02

It's usually like I use this, you you know, for people listening, I'm using air quotes like a gateway investigation. Right? Like, you know, the whole joke of it being a gateway drug. Right? It's like, I can it's the same thing with, like, you know, taillights.

Ron: 01:02:17

Right? If if we criminalize having your taillight out, it gives me an opportunity to stop you and search for other things. Right? And so I think some I think that's part of it as well. You know?

Ron: 01:02:30

So I think there's a lot of reasons why. I mean, you know, I think some of it is just legitimate in terms of enforcement of, like, okay. If I'm a standard police officer, I catch somebody with marijuana and they say it's a prescription. How am I as a cop supposed to determine is this a valid prescription or not? Like, I mean, I think there's, you know, some legitimate concerns over the, enforcement of that.

Ron: 01:02:56

Right? And and and how do you deal with that in the moment? But the idea like that that's hasn't been figured out by a lot of other states now at this point, you know, is kinda silly. Right? And so so, I mean, I think there's a variety of factors as as to why that happens.

Derek: 01:03:13

Yeah. That's just that's just crazy when you're talking about people's lives, you know, that well, you know, if if we just keep it illegal, and we keep sending people to jail, and we keep using all that tax money, do you think any of it's also, it's not I don't think it's imminent domain. What's the, or imminent domain?

Ron: 01:03:30

The the asset forfeiture. So

Derek: 01:03:31

There you go. Yeah. Asset for do you think that maybe has something to do with it too?

Ron: 01:03:36

Oh, I I think personally, absolutely. Right? We, there's a report, for example, that before I got to where I work now, our organization worked on some civil asset forfeiture reform. Getting rid of it is extremely difficult. But at the we we were able to get some reporting requirements around it, like, hey.

Ron: 01:03:58

Every police department or sheriff's office, you have to at least report what you have taken, right, through civil asset forfeiture. And, you know, the idea around it is is is that that money or whatever was being used in the process of a crime. Right? But one of the I remember the first time I ever read it, it was like it included, like, some I think there were, like, three trombones and a flute that had been seized. And I'm like, what does that have to do with anything?

Ron: 01:04:27

You know? And so it's just some of the funny stuff you see. But, yeah, you know, I think that's possibly part of it. You know? I don't know.

Ron: 01:04:37

I hate not gonna speculate. So

Derek: 01:04:41

Right. Okay. That that's probably safe safest thing to do. And and and, I mean, there usually isn't just one answer and just a simple answer. There's there's a multitude of of answers.

Derek: 01:04:53

Sure. Yeah. Right. Alright. So to kinda move move just a little bit further, you know, and maybe this is a little bit off base.

Derek: 01:05:05

But one of the examples when I think of I I would call it corruption maybe, or kickbacks as sports stadiums. Oh, yeah. Maybe I'm maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I don't understand how it works. Maybe it it's it's great.

Derek: 01:05:19

But you you build these I and the price of these things what what I don't remember what the Cowboys stadium was, but it was 1,000,000,000, maybe 2. I don't remember what it was, but we're talking billions. That's

Ron: 01:05:31

pretty cheap now, actually.

Derek: 01:05:32

Oh, really?

Ron: 01:05:33

SoFi Stadium where the Rams play and the Chargers play, I think is the most expensive stadium, and I think that was, like, 7,000,000,000, maybe or 5,000,000,000, something like that. I think it was 5,000,000,000. 5 billion plus.

Derek: 01:05:44

Do you know what percentage was paid by taxes?

Ron: 01:05:47

So, actually, funny story, that's the first time really in a long time that it wasn't. It was completely privately funded, SoFi Stadium. But, this is very near and dear to my heart right now because the Tennessee titans are getting a new stadium, and it is the largest, public subsidy of a of a football stadium in American history. Their new stadium is gonna be about 2,200,000,000, and the state alone is offered $500,000,000 towards it.

Derek: 01:06:20

So Well, there you go. Your property taxes.

Ron: 01:06:24

Yeah. Well, sales taxes because it's from the state. But yeah. So, so yeah. So I'm very familiar with this subject.

Ron: 01:06:33

I've done a lot of work in in on it and unfortunately have lost.

Derek: 01:06:38

Yeah. Okay. So may maybe you can kind of elaborate then. And maybe there's not really anything to elaborate on. Maybe it's as simple as it as it looks.

Derek: 01:06:45

But so you get these these billion dollar stadiums, these investments, a lot of times subsidized substantially by the state. Yep. To me, it seems extravagant and wasteful. And it seems like there are probably a lot of people benefiting, you know, construction companies, the the sports teams themselves, the owners, wealthy investors. Is there something more to sports stadiums?

Derek: 01:07:08

Or is this a good example of, you know, kind of being sold something that's that's really not true. Like, it benefits me.

Ron: 01:07:18

Yeah. You know, it's really funny in a in a world of, division around a lot of things in this country. Actually, sports stadiums, is something where, both sides of economists agree is they make no sense whatsoever, is stadium subsidies. They are willfully inefficient. Oh, I mean, it seriously, they're they're a terrible deal for taxpayers.

Ron: 01:07:49

And, essentially, why they happen is is exactly what you described. Right? Special interests from construction, tourism, in, offices, tourism, economic development agencies, obviously, the billionaire families. Right? And it's sold through what I would call press clip economics.

Ron: 01:08:12

Right? If we do this, we're gonna have, you know, the Super Bowl, and we're gonna have all these people, tourists coming here and and all this kind of stuff, you know, that's gonna pay it's gonna pay for itself. It never does. First, a couple of things. What all always ends up happening, a new stadium does not make the difference between somebody coming to a city to view a game.

Ron: 01:08:38

Right? It it doesn't work. They come there for the game itself regardless of the stadium. Right? Second, it doesn't lead people to spend more money.

Ron: 01:08:48

It just diverts their spending. So lot of studies show this that you spend a bunch of money on a new stadium. Yeah. Maybe you go to a stadium, a game now, but that money that you would've that you were gonna spend on tickets, maybe you would've gone to buying clothes or going to restaurants or movies or something, some other discretionary spending. So it doesn't create more spending.

Ron: 01:09:14

It just diverts it. And then the idea around, like, the one time events like the Super Bowl or final four. They're woefully exaggerated, studies have shown. And they most of the benefits for them come from the existing stadium. So you have these massive investments for an incremental benefit.

Ron: 01:09:38

Usually, it's like, alright. You already had a team. You already had games. Right? Oh, you spend billions of dollars new stadium to have a one time event like the Super Bowl.

Ron: 01:09:49

You know? So it doesn't create billions of dollars in value to have one week, you know, of the Super Bowl. Some studies have shown, for example, that, like, a baseball stadium, right, which, you know, has a lot more home games than a football stadium does. You know, was it like I'm not a baseball guy, but, like, 80 some odd home games plus playoffs has the average economic impact of a midsize department store like a Kohl's. Because a Kohl's is open every day.

Ron: 01:10:19

People come in and spend money, whereas so much of the time, stadiums just sit there empty. You know? And and this is something like left leaning organizations like Brookings, or, Stanford University has found that, you know, the the Mercatus Center, which is very right leaning or, you know, conservative libertarian. It it is it is terrible economics. They don't create economic growth.

Ron: 01:10:48

They're they're a huge waste. They they cost taxpayers millions, if not billions of dollars, all that. So you're not wrong.

Derek: 01:10:56

So then how do how do they keep happening? Is it because, like you said, we don't pay attention locally? I mean, everybody if there's a stadium being built in your city, you know it happens, and you know what's happening. You know that it's coming from your tax money. Right.

Derek: 01:11:13

But is it because you don't associate it? Like, when I go to pay my taxes, it's not like it's itemized. You know? It's not like there's there's a line item. Like, well, you know, this this percentage of your taxes went and paid for the stadium.

Derek: 01:11:25

Like, what goes into that to to keeping me from firing all of my congressmen?

Ron: 01:11:31

Yeah. Exact I mean, so, I mean, it goes back to one that idea of, diffuse benefits and concentrate or diffuse costs, concentrated benefits. Right? Like, yeah. You're right.

Ron: 01:11:43

In the grand scheme of things, right, it might cost you a hundred dollars of your taxes towards a new stadium. Is that gonna get you all fired up to go and pick it outside city hall or go, you know, travel to your to your capital if you don't live there to sit down with your state representative when they're gonna be voting on it and they have, like, four days notice. Right? I mean, that's something that often people don't realize is, like, it's not like you know exactly when something is gonna be coming up often much in much long in advance. And so, you know, I mean, you're a busy guy or your dad with, you know, bunch of kids and all that.

Ron: 01:12:22

Like, you're not you don't have as much time to go and care and fight for something that maybe will cost you a hundred $50 or something like that of your taxes. But when you multiply that by every single person in a city or in a state, it's hundreds of millions. Meanwhile, that, you know, construction industry or that billionaire family, right, that owns the football will own the football stadium. You better believe it's worth their time. Right?

Ron: 01:12:48

You better believe it because they're getting all the benefits where the costs are diffused amongst the general population. So I mean, I think that that has a a lot to do with it. You you you're right. It's not itemized. You know, this talk this gets, talked about, like, with corn subsidies, you know, a lot at the federal level.

Ron: 01:13:07

Right? Like, if corn subsidies make no sense economically, but it it would be like a dollar off your federal taxes, right, every year. Well, you're not gonna care about that. You're not gonna get engaged over a dollar. But for, like, 350,000,000, right, that go to a hundred farmers in Iowa and Nebraska, you better believe it's worth their time.

Ron: 01:13:29

Right? I mean, so that's just an incentive problem that we have in in, you know, in in governance. And and oftentimes then too, it's a positive thing for those politicians. They get to have the ribbon cutting ceremonies, breaking ground, all that kind of stuff. Right?

Ron: 01:13:46

I called it press clips economics, you know. And the idea that then they can take credit for a look how many jobs we've created. Right? Through the construction and and all that kind of stuff too. So there's sometimes strong incentives for politicians to make these kind of decisions even if they don't make economic sense.

Ron: 01:14:09

Right? They make political sense. You know? And that's often what it boils down to, like we talked about. Because remember, their number one incentive usually is to get reelected.

Derek: 01:14:21

Yeah. So I think one of the things that oh, I don't know. I I'm a happy person, and I'm I'm optimistic in the sense that, you know, I I enjoy life, and I'm not worried about the world ending tomorrow, even though I think it probably will. But I'm not worried about it. But going through this this, season and doing a lot of research on on various areas, it certainly makes me makes me really cynical about the world, about people, about life, about, a lot of things.

Derek: 01:14:57

So right now, I wanna talk to you a little bit. You know, you you've given a really good picture, and I I love every time I talk to you, you always give very specific examples. And I love that you can you can kind of bring ideas to life. So that's extremely helpful. But, right now, I wanna talk to you more as a a Christian.

Ron: 01:15:16

Sure.

Derek: 01:15:17

And and kind of get at the okay. Well, what do we do with all of this? And and how do you kind of come to the conclusion? How do you live life, seeing the things that you see and probably much more than what you've you've expressed today. But how do you, yeah, how do you move out from there?

Derek: 01:15:37

So as as a Christian who values business, who values, you know, hard work and and, a free market,

Ron: 01:15:47

Mhmm.

Derek: 01:15:47

As somebody who who values politics. I mean, that's your your life. You're you're passionate about it because Yeah. You're able to help food truck people when when, the brick and mortar stores want or eBay or whatever wants to kind of or is content to have them taxed or or disadvantaged. But then also, it's not because you you just want you know, instead of eBay getting a piece of the pie, you want a piece of the pie and you just wanna be rich.

Derek: 01:16:16

Like, you enjoy helping others and and giving to others and and, seeking justice and love. Mhmm. So how do you how do you live in that world seeing all of those things and creating, forming, and extending the values that you have? Like, what what practices do you have? What what, ideologies do you cling to?

Derek: 01:16:41

Yeah.

Ron: 01:16:43

Yeah. That's, that's a great question. I mean, I think for me, it boils down to right? As God's children, right, we are told to go forth, multiply, and and essentially prosper. Right?

Ron: 01:16:57

It was one of the first commandments we gave or he gave us. And I have found or are, you know, believe nothing helps human flourishing more than freedom. And so what I am always looking to do is to allow for human flourishing. And and, essentially, what are the ways that, we inhibit that? And, generally, I have found in in, you know, my understanding of history and what I've seen personally, it's it's government getting in the way.

Ron: 01:17:37

Right? Or or picking winners and losers often. Right? Which is a lot of the examples that we've talked about today. And so fighting for those food truck operators just being wanting to operate their business.

Ron: 01:17:49

You know, I've talked, can give you a lot of examples of, like, people who, were threatened with jail time for massaging horses because they were told they were being a vet, even though they were just massaging a horse. And, you know, fighting for them to be able to run a horse massage business. It's because I wanna allow people to live their version of, you know, an American dream, but, essentially, for them to flourish in in a way that makes most sense for them. And and so what are the ways that I can help serve to essentially, one, either get government out of the way or or put everyone on a level playing field. So that way they can, you know, find a way to opt to flourish.

Ron: 01:18:35

And I've generally found and believe that, freedom and free markets makes every is peaceful. It's the most peaceful way of interacting in terms of a society and economics, and it leads to the most human flourishing. And and and that's something that I think wanna see, you know. And so that plays out in, you know, fighting for respective property rights. It's fighting for restrict reductions on regulations or whatever.

Ron: 01:19:02

So, does that answer your question, I think?

Derek: 01:19:06

Yeah. So freedom. Yeah. Freedom is great. And and so if I understand it correctly, you're you are trying to use the government to fight itself, like, to push back against itself.

Ron: 01:19:20

It's encroachment. Restrain itself. I will say restrain itself. Yeah. So, generally, you know, I mean, I think a lot of the reasons why we've seen, you know for for example, take the stadiums, for example.

Ron: 01:19:36

Right? A lot of the reasons why you have these bad decisions or unfair decisions and all that is because usually government has the ability to act in a certain area. And so it allows an arena, right, for special interests, large businesses in order to use their influence and money to take advantage of a of a of a system. You know? And so if you get the less the government is involved in, in my opinion, then you have less opportunities for those with more resources, more time, more connection to take advantage of the system.

Ron: 01:20:16

Right? So it kinda goes back to that example of rent seeking that I mentioned. Right? Like, if a business has to, you know, spend a hundred million dollars in competing in the market versus a million dollars in a lobbying effort, they're always gonna choose the lobbying effort because it makes financial sense. But if they don't have that ability because government doesn't decide that issue, then they have to compete on the market side.

Ron: 01:20:43

You know? And that puts everybody at a level playing field. So, what I try and do is get the government out less involved and essentially restrain itself. So that way, people are free to flourish as best they can and compete evenly. So Okay.

Derek: 01:21:00

Alright. And that that kinda brings me to the the closing idea I want you to to touch on. When you talk about corporations, I think, obviously, everybody's minds goes to to capitalism. And, even though you have you have corporations in in, more socialistic countries and capitalism, socialism, it really is more of a spectrum. Mhmm.

Derek: 01:21:23

As as not like you have, pure free markets and, and such. So and I would say that capitalism seems to be trending downward in in the eyes of a lot of society, I think.

Ron: 01:21:37

Mhmm.

Derek: 01:21:37

And and you've helped me to I'm very pessimistic pessimistic about capitalism a lot of times because, yeah, talk talking about money and the influence that money has. And on on free markets, somebody's gonna accrue a lot of money. And when they do, what power and money do, and how you can use that. It's always gonna lead to to terrible, terrible things. But at the same time, you know, you mentioned North Korea earlier.

Derek: 01:22:05

We know that I'm also very skeptical and pessimistic about socialism and communism. Right. Which which is why, you know, anarchism makes makes a lot of sense to me, because I'm like, everybody every system is just really, really messed up.

Ron: 01:22:23

What what's the common denominator in all of it? Right? It's

Derek: 01:22:25

Government. Yeah. It's government. So so that's why I can respect what you do because you're not trying to get your party to just be the strongest and, you know, go and bludgeon everybody else. You're you're trying to, even though you're using government, you're you're trying to restrain it.

Derek: 01:22:43

And so I I respect and appreciate that. So maybe we've done a lot of talking about corporations and, what would be more capitalistic idea ideas and and how, money and, capital and corporations can, in that system, can propagandize and influence. But I think it would be unfair to just completely focus on that. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the the flip side of the spectrum, maybe some specific examples, from history, from around the world, from maybe even even in The United States, some some socialistic aspects of of, things that have occurred here throughout our history and how you've kind of seen propaganda or conspiracy and and those types of things show forth in that system.

Ron: 01:23:33

So how have we seen, like, propaganda in, like, socialist systems in communist?

Derek: 01:23:38

Yeah.

Ron: 01:23:40

Well, I mean, you know, I I think you just have to look, for example, the freedom of the press. Right? You know, wherein communist socialist systems, right, there generally isn't a freedom of the press, the ability to criticize rulers. And so, you know, here here's what I always think about, right, is propaganda exists. Right?

Ron: 01:24:05

We've talked a lot about about corporate propaganda and and tricking you into buying things or trying to play on emotion rather than just logical reasoning and and facts. Right? I but I would always argue that government propaganda is the worst because they have the ability to do it at the power of a gun. You know? And so if they can outlaw competition, for example, or we you know, or essentially prohibit criticisms of it.

Ron: 01:24:34

Right? I mean, I think we've seen tons of examples of propaganda from from those kind of systems. You know? I mean, like I said, literally, I'm pretty sure North Korea believes they've won every World Cup. You know?

Ron: 01:24:52

Like, that only exists through propaganda. You know? And and look. The United States government has done it too. Right?

Ron: 01:24:59

I mean, obviously, the idea of trying to invade Iraq, you know, for nuclear weapons was kind of a propaganda effort, the access of evil. The first ministry of propaganda ever created was in The United States by Woodrow Wilson in World War one, right, in the lead up of World War one. So, you know, no propaganda kinda had a different meaning back then, so, you know, I wanna be fair. But, I mean, I think we've, yeah, we've seen it all all everywhere. But the difference is is, like I said, it comes back to that marketplace of ideas rather than only one source.

Ron: 01:25:38

Propaganda is very dangerous when there's nobody else to criticize it or push back. You know? And that doesn't exist here because we do have a a marketplace of ideas, a freedom of ideas. You know? People talk about frustrations in America around the media.

Ron: 01:25:56

Right? Both the right and left. Right? Talk about frustrations with mainstream media or or, you know, the left was very critical of how president Trump treated the news media. You know?

Ron: 01:26:09

Well, in other countries, I'm gonna easily have people locked up who criticize him on the media. Right? I mean, that happens all the time. Russia, China, all that kind of stuff. So,

Derek: 01:26:21

yeah.

Ron: 01:26:21

I mean, I

Derek: 01:26:21

think It it it seems to me like there's maybe two different ends of the spectrum where may maybe maybe, like, if you're familiar with Orwell in, you know, 1984, that's that's kind of a communist end. But then you've also got, Huxley who has more of the, he there there's a different end. You know, you can silence, which is, I think, what's, communist countries do. But then you can also inundate. And when you inundate, even if you have competing voices, it's it's easier for them to be drowned out

Ron: 01:26:55

Sure.

Derek: 01:26:56

Or for you to be sedated. So but but you at least right? You have some semblance of a choice there.

Ron: 01:27:03

Yeah. Well, I'm I'm not as familiar with Huxley, but I think also what's always very ironic to me is Orwell was not like a freedom he was a socialist. He was against what he would call, like, Stalinist communism. Right? Like, you know, the whole, like, oh, well, communism's never really been tried before.

Ron: 01:27:23

Right? It's like, oh, they did it wrong. Right? That's always, you know, there's a joke about that from freedom loving people criticizing communist. It's like, oh, well, you know, we say it's never worked, and they say, oh, it's just never been correctly done.

Ron: 01:27:37

Orwell was like that. Right? He he was a socialist, but was against the whole Stalinist idea of socialism and communism, and he and he believed in the the true sense. You know?

Derek: 01:27:49

So My people didn't have the guns, so

Ron: 01:27:51

Exactly. It wasn't right. Exactly. So that's, and and it's funny because people on the right use Orwell to make fun of or or to point out problems. I shouldn't say make fun of, but to, like, to point out, like, oh, this is just like 1984.

Ron: 01:28:05

Orwell was right. Look at big brother, you know, all that kind of stuff. But he was a socialist, which I always find pretty, funny and ironic. So

Derek: 01:28:16

Well, I think, I think that's all the questions I have for you. Oh, okay. Yeah. There's a lot that, that we could have gotten into. Maybe, if you stick around a little bit, we can talk a little bit more about, Wilson.

Derek: 01:28:30

I read this really interesting book, called Manipulating the Masses. Okay. And it really thick book. It it kinda got tedious, but, it it went into Wilson's creation of of propaganda, and it was it was fascinating.

Ron: 01:28:45

Yeah. I know you had sent me I'm just looking over the questions. I don't know, you know, Obviously, you run the show, but talking about, like, greed or anything like that, anything else you wanna touch on?

Derek: 01:28:55

If there's anything any other thoughts that you have that you wanna share, go for it.

Ron: 01:29:00

Well, I mean, I think, you know, talking about this idea of of the corporate propaganda and everything, particularly from a Christian perspective, you know, I always think, like, it's not that they're creating the idols. I think they're just identifying idols in our heart, you know, and and trying to play on it to get us to buy that new car, that new iPhone, or or whatever. And so, yes, I fight for the right for businesses to be able to act freely. You know? We you mentioned a little bit about the the whole, massive accumulation of wealth by some.

Ron: 01:29:40

You know? I think, though, is the difference is is is was it done through a voluntary means, or did somebody use the power of the state to accumulate that? You know? For example, that's why the Bible talks so much about, you know, generally how wealthy people are wrong because they use manipulation usually through slaves back in those days. Right?

Ron: 01:30:01

And so you were literally using the power of the sword to extract wealth through people, through slaves. Whereas in that free market sense, right, which we've talked about a little bit or hinted at and talked about before, there is a difference between I get why people are frustrated with if this is what they think capitalism is is what we have today. I would I'm be frustrated too. Right? That's literally what I do is try and fight against it.

Ron: 01:30:26

But it's to get to that true free sense of free market capitalism, true capitalism, which I think isn't necessarily around greed or consumerism. It's about using, you know, resources more efficiently to create value and through voluntary exchange. Right? Which goes back to that Christian ethos that we kinda talked about at the beginning. Right?

Ron: 01:30:48

Like, I always give the example. JK Rowling is a very wealthy author, and it's because I thought I was better off of spending $20 to read a Harry Potter book. Right? We increased income inequality every time I gave her $20. She got $20, but I thought I was better off because I got a book.

Ron: 01:31:08

You know? And so it's always through that voluntary exchange and and true a true free market capital sense that I think actually puts if the closest thing to any kind of check on greed because it's about providing value to others. So I think that's one thing I thought might be worth mentioning.

Derek: 01:31:29

Yeah. And I'll I'll, put a link to our last conversation because we got more into that kind of stuff there. And I and I appreciated how you you uncovered, yeah, how the system isn't really capitalistic. I thought the great example that you gave there was, I forget the the proper term, but with the, medical the medical licenses for, like, MRI machines and things.

Ron: 01:31:51

Certificate of needs. Yes.

Derek: 01:31:53

Certificate of needs. Yeah. That's it. And that was that was just fascinating to me because it's like, well, I I think there's there's a lot of injustice and especially so maybe it's maybe it's a little bit too different here in Romania. But we go to the doctor, and we don't have to pay anything.

Derek: 01:32:10

And we do pay. Like, we, you you have taxes. As, like, once a year you go in and you pay for for health insurance, and I'm sure the state subsidizes it. So it should probably cost me more here in Romania, but I think it's closer in Romania than than what it is in The States. Some some of the you know, an IV bag of saline water can be, I don't know, a hundred bucks.

Ron: 01:32:31

And

Derek: 01:32:32

it's just insane. And, it it seems unjust towards, especially certain demographic of the the population who can't afford that kind of thing. And but when you explain things like certificate of needs, you're like, oh, well, it's not capitalism that really did that. It's the government.

Ron: 01:32:52

Right.

Derek: 01:32:53

The the government not restraining itself.

Ron: 01:32:55

Right. Exactly. Yeah. So but, I mean, you know, just to kinda wrap up, I you're right. Influence plays out where, you know, propaganda plays out in every level.

Ron: 01:33:06

You know? Generally, I think it's better at least coming from a corporate side than a government side. But then even on the corporate side, I think it's because it it it has the ability to play out in so much of our lives and mislead us because we essentially allow the government to make so many decisions. So it creates opportunities for big corporations, wealthy individuals to take advantage of the influence and money that they have in order to protect themselves, increase their profits, gain unfavorable advantages. You know?

Ron: 01:33:36

So that's how it often plays out, and I see it all the time.

Derek: 01:33:40

Yeah. It is it does seem a little bit ironic to me that a lot of the people who who hate, corporations and capitalism basically want to give all the power to the biggest corporation that exists.

Ron: 01:33:53

Exactly. And the only one that can enforce things through the barrel of a gun.

Derek: 01:33:56

Right. Alright. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Ron: 01:34:01

Appreciate it.

Derek: 01:34:03

Alright. Have a good

Ron: 01:34:04

night. Alright.

Derek: 01:34:08

That's all for now. So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to nonviolence and kingdom living.