Now this is the FCB Podcast Network, a brand Mansoda day that we won't saying, and we won't say all we got it? Does no one get tatto? It is gonna be okay Ada day that we won't saying and we won't saying all we gotta Does no one get tatto? Innay, It's donna be okay. Hi, everybody, welcome to another episode of Just Listen to Yourself with Kia Davis. I am your host, Kia Davis, and I'm so glad to have you back this week. I'm assuming most of you are getting prepped for the holiday, the July fourth holiday. I've got a great episode for you next week. I had my former Red State colleague on Andrew Malcolm. Andrew just turned eighty. He is a prolific writer and political commentator, and he is like an old school reporter. He used to work back in the days he worked for the New York Times and the LA Times when they used to give reporters assignments and rent them a car and tell them to drive across the country and get stories. So he has so many road trip stories, and I feel like the great American road trip is such a part of our culture. Particularly in the summer, and a lot of times over the Fourth of July weekend. I and Andrew and I used to have the best conversations because I would record his podcast over at Red State, and before we would get started even we would always end up in conversation. And he has the most amazing stories about trips he took and people he met. And I was like, you know what, we need to share this with people. People need to hear what you know. People need to hear your experiences. You know, it's really important, I think to preserve a lot of this stuff. It is preserved in writing. But Andrew wrote back in the day when we had printed newspapers and you took your story down on a memo pad, So you're really going to enjoy the interview. He just told tales of what he learned on the road and some of the experiences he had. And he's eighty so his mind is just filled with so many historical facts and figures. We talked about the development of the interstate system and how that changed society forever and how it changed travel, and we just had a really good time. I think you're really going to enjoy that conversation. So that's coming up next week for the fourth of July holiday. This week, I'm in Canada. I'm visiting my mother on Prince Edward Island for a week, and I'm recording this episode ahead of times. I'm actually not physically there right now, but as you listen to this, I will hopefully be enjoying some lobster and some authentic Prince Edward Island potatoes, maybe muscles, and and chipping the red clay out of my sneakers. We'll see. I'll let you know how when I get back. I've got twenty four hours of travel coming up, so I'm not really looking forward to that. But we're together now. We have some things to talk about now, and I was really debating if I wanted to do sort of a regular episode this week. I have a couple of topics on the white board that I want to tackle, but in the interest of honoring the date and what's coming up next week, I thought this would be a good week to talk about government. I've been thinking a lot about government and what good government is, and so I thought, well, you know, the fourth is the day we celebrate our nation and the government that created it, So let's talk about it what makes good government? Because we have I have on this show, and we all have tons of conversations about what ad government does, what why the government is bad, and all the mistakes that are making. And I don't know that I hear like I hear a lot of my progressive and liberal friends, you know, talk about government as if it's good, and they liked the things that the government did, you know, during the pandemic and stuff like that. But because I don't agree with them on the function of government, I don't count that as as good government. So what does good what makes government good? I understand this is probably more of a matter of opinion than fact, but I do believe that the results sort of support my opinion of what makes good government. And I'm not even necessarily saying that's our government as we as we go down this list of bullet points. But government is a fact of our lives. We need it. It's biblical, and so I just really would love to spend some time talking about what are good aspects of government or what does a good government look like. When I was making a list, I was like, I don't I don't think we have a good government. Like it was like everything that our government does not do. So I'm going to ask you guys for your help. Also, I would love for you to answer the question for me. What are some things that government does right? What are some good things about And I'm obviously talking about our American government. Maybe you're in a different country and you have some things that your government does right, go ahead and send that into me. J L. T. Y at ProtonMail dot com. J L. T. Y at ProtonMail dot com. I'd love to hear if you're in another country what you think your government is doing right. But clearly, because I'm an American and we're in America, this is focused on our American system. So I started by doing a search on Google, well not Google ID ducduct. I have found Google to be absolutely unusable these days when it comes to search engines. It's just it's too much. It's not I get that you have to have some parameters, but and it used to be annoying, but the way they it's just advertising. It's all advertising now and you don't get pure results and I never combine what I'm actually looking for. So I've switched. So I was doing a search on duc duct go. They don't support this show, I'm breaking a role of radio and podcasting, which is not mentioning products that don't sponsor us. But I did a search just a general like what will pop off if I put in what makes good government? And I found a cool little list of the pillars of democracy. You may you American students may have had this in your schools growing up, but it's a great way to start. And I recognize that today is one of those episodes that's aimed at sort of how do I put this? It's a discussion for dummies. A lot of you already know this stuff about government, and I'm not revealing anything new. But one of the things I like to do when I'm doing this show is a lot of people ask me, like, how do you talk for an hour? Like I always imagine people in front of me, But a lot of times I'm talking to myself twenty thirty years ago, before I knew much about politics and what I thought about politics, And so I'm explaining things to somebody who doesn't really have a day to day grasp of these issues the way I wish someone would have explained it to me. So forgive me. This seems like a simplistic discussion to you. But I do feel like it's good to go back to basics today. As one of those you know, jilt wife for Dummies episodes. Some of you out there may have never had this conversation out loud. So here's the seven pillars of democracy. This is what it's called democracy. We do not live in a democracy. We live in a republic. By the way, I want to say this, this is not an episode about which the style or which form of government is best. This is about the general idea of government. What it does not, the way it doesn't. So here's the seven pillars. Number one, legitimacy that is necessary for good government. Legitimacy is the acceptance and recognition of the power to govern given by the people. Now we have seen over the last I will since twenty sixteen, questions about the legitimacy of the person in office, and you can see how just the questions have been hugely damaging to American unity, to the national discourse, to peace. I mean, are we've been just in utter chaos. And I believe as this as this little document says that this is a pillar accepting that this is your government and you might not like them, but that's who your neighbors elected. Is a vital part of a functioning society. Otherwise it's it's a basis of distrust, right, it's sort of it simmers under the surface, and that energy, that vibe, if you will, it permeates everything. And we have seen the results of that. When you question the legitimacy of your leaders, that they maybe shouldn't they maybe didn't even belong there in the first place, I believe it says everything else on end. But that's always been the superiority. I shouldn't say that. So has been a strength of the American system that we have united under the banner of the flag, and we unite under the authority of one president. We may not like that president, we may not respect that president. We may be counting the days until we can boot that president out, but there's always a recognition that this is the president. There's a certain measure of respect to do the office, no matter what idiot is in it. Because you're not respecting the idiot, you're respecting the office. I had the privilege of interviewing President Obama via the Internet. We weren't in the same room, but I had the privilege years ago of being on this It was a blogger call five. They chose five people from acrosstination to be on this call to be on this video hangout, remember Google hang out with the President and we got to ask him any questions we wanted and Google said that and they meant it, and they claimed they weren't giving them president the questions ahead of time, but they said, like no, that In fact, that's why they chose me because I was conservative and they were like, we need some representation here. So they were like, no, like, don't even worry about it, and they honored that I did. I was the only person on that call that asked the president uncomfortable things, which he answered not very well, but he answered them, so kudos to Google for that. Anyways, I asked him some very like straightforward questions about the economy, about like some of the shady stuff that he was doing. I asked him about transparency, and like I said, some uncomfortable questions. But it was a great time, Like it was super fun. And then in the end we got to ask one fun question and that's the video I posted every Valentine's Day because we did it on Valentine's Day and so I asked him to issue an executive order to my husband to celebrate Valentine's Day, and that was fun too, and I was super excited after I did it. And when I finished, I was inundated with messages from conservatives going, you sold out. I can't believe you sat there and talked to him like he was a human being. You you weren't if I had been on that. First of all, I never would have taken it. I never would have agreed to be on a call with this president. He's destructive and YadA YadA, YadA YadA, and or I would have told him what he's doing is wrong. Why didn't you give him what for? Like people were people thought I sold out. I did ask the hard questions, by the way, and I was the only one, but they wanted some. I guess a lot of people thought, hey, this is your one shot in front of the president, like you should unload all your moral outrage on him. And first of all, I'm a professional so and I was there in a professional capacity, so I certainly wouldn't do that. But second of all, I'm an American and I have a respect for the office of president, even if I don't respect the man or maybe one day the woman holding the office. There are a lot of people in this world that I don't respect who hold positions of authority. I respect the position of authority, not the person. And that is what we mean when we say we respect the office of president. And when you can't unite under the legitimacy of one leader, it creates chaos everywhere else. This is supported by Romans thirteen. Romans thirteen one says, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. And what that means, or what I think it means. I'm not a theologian, but it's not necessarily that like, hey, God gave you that dictator. Hey hey, God gave you Ki Kim jung un to torture you. And this is about to break off into a theological discussion, so I don't want to go too far, but there is sometimes God takes his hands off right allows us to have what we want. You know, the Jews wanted a king. They didn't want judges, they wanted a king, and so God gave them a king. And then they regretted it because they got some awful kings. But but it's it's about there are instances in the Bible where God does appoint thing, but I think appoint people. But I think this verse is really more talking about, Hey, government is something that's necessary, and God endorses the idea of governance, you know, and so He's given you the tools the ability to create your systems and established governments. And because God is a god of order, it's really important for you to operate within some system of governance. That's how I take it. And sometimes, yeah, it is appointed by God. And sometimes it's just like, well, y'all ask for this, so my hands are off deal with it. And other times I think it's just a general Hey, we have government. God has endorsed government because humans need structure and patterns. I could be wrong, though, You tell me how you interpret that. JLT White, ProtonMail dot com. All that to say that it is it supports the idea of legitimacy being at the heart of good government. Hey, y'all, this is Alie Michelle. I'm a conservative social media influencer that has been censored by big tech. So I broke away from the restrictions and started a podcast called pillow Talk with Alie Michelle. My show is a space to have real conversations about the issues that impacked our everyday lives without the fear of being canceled by the big tech tyrants. Subscribe to pillow Talk with Alie Michelle and FCB podcast on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you hitch podcasts. That's Ali a l II. Come check on my show. I'll see you there, all right. Pillar two. I know I'm already going really long. I'm doing an hour of radio every day this week at KBC Radio in LA and an hour of radio is really actually forty one minutes because you have so many commercial breaks. I am finding it it's very difficult. It's very difficult to condense your thoughts into five six minutes at a time. It's kind of I love radio though, because of that. That's what I love about live radio. Actually, I find it a challenge to fit into that. Clock number two. Separation of powers. Separation of powers is another important pillar of democracy. It is a segmentation of government powers to sidestep the problem of dictatorship and trannical leadership. That's pretty simple. Separation of powers is just branches, like we have three branches of government, those powers are separated, or supposed to be. We have the Supreme Court, so we have judicial executive, which is the White House, and legislative, which is Congress. I get I know you all know this, but I swear there are people out there listening to this who have never heard it broken down like this before, I promise you. So that's what separation of powers mean. It's just like in North Korea. You have one guy making the decision for everything in the country, what things cost, where food goes. You know, what food goes where, how long you can keep your lights on. That's one person. But separation of powers makes it so. Hey, all of these different bodies have to be accountable to each other. Check some balances, which is the next pillar, check and balances, which is what it sounds like. Each branch is supposed to check each other. The Congress is supposed to be a check on the presidential office. Americans, because we've been so inundated with socialism these days, and because Hollywood sells us this utopian vision of Canada or Europe, Americans have this idea that somehow Congress is answerable to the president and that is, it's absolutely the opposite. That is why you can see, um, the two people like Speaker of the House right now it's Kevin McCarthy, but like whatever Speaker of the House summoning the president's Capitol Hill, summoning the president to Congress demanding I mean, because they are allowed to do that, and the president typically must obey. I mean that. I don't know what the law is regarding that. But Congress is the president's boss essentially. So whenever you hear the president, be a Biden or Trump or anyone going, I'm going to tell Congress to do that, it's just it's hot air. They can't. They can't. It's not they can. They can lead through intention and motivation and support obviously, but they can't make Congress do anything. That's not how that works. Congress is the check on the White House, not the other way around. Anyway. I think that's a very interesting part of the American system of government and I like it very much. The next one popular participation. So that's opinion polls and voting, that kind of stuff. Popular participation, So it's basically like everyone in the nation is involved in politics in some way or another, and I think we can definitely say that something that's happening to America right now. And this point made me say to myself, maybe it's not so bad. Maybe it's not so bad. For sure, it's worse than ever. The discourse and the vitriol. I'm with you, like, obviously, we talk about it all the time in this show. I feel a lot of angst about it. But on the other hand, I was looking at this and I'm like, well, it's actually a sign that we're still thriving in some way. Because in countries where people aren't engaged in political discourse, it's because they can't, because it's none of their business. They're not allowed to be. So even the fact that we can so regularly engage in political discourse and that politics is so prevalent in nearly everything we do, that's a sign of a thriving democracy, I think somewhat. I know that we're broken. I know that, but that was like a little positive thing that I thought about that I hadn't though about until I read that. The next one is periodic elections, of course, and then of course rule of law. The rule of law simply means supremacy of the law. It pauses that the law is above everybody in a political system, And I would like to add that at least the notion of the rule of law, because I think I talked about it last week on the show. But you know, yeah, everybody in federal government is above the law in some way. They get to wield the law. They have all the tools, they have, all the inside knowledge, they give each other sweetheart deals. I think we have an innate sense that many politicians are about the law. Look at what we're seeing happened with Hunter Biden in the last week or two, clearly, and we'll look at what we're seeing happening with our own president. Here we have proof that he actually was engaging in bribery as vice president, but nothing's going to happen to him. He's above the lab But at least in theory, a pillar of democracy is the rule of law and that that supersedes your political interests. And then lastly, fundamental human rights. The last important pillar of democracy is a respect for fundamental human rights. And of course, as you know, this is my favorite thing about our constitution, which recognizes human rights where they come from, and that they cannot be usurved. Okay, so now that we've been through the pillars, I asked myself to dig a little further into what I believe makes good government. Again. For some of you, this is obvious. Others of you, this might be the first time you're hearing this spoken out loud. Good government is limited a lot of these values. I'm about to post a pretty libertarian. I always tell you guys, I am a conservative with very strong libertarian streaks. So I think good government is limited because government is an entity at the end of the day. Yes, it's it's people, and it's people who feel positions, but at the end and the end of the day, it's an entity. It's a bureaucracy. It is not human to human interaction. It is a system, and as such, systems are are heartless and disengaged. And it's just mechanics running, right, It's just mechanics. It's the mechanics of some kind of machine running. Well, that's not very human. So you want to be careful not to let the machine run the human. Right, the human's got to run the fork. If soon as the forkliff starts deciding what that human is going to do, that's going to be mass chaos and probably a video that ends up on TikTok where the forkliff runs into an aisle of shelves full of bottles and they all just tip over one by one. We've all seen those horrifying videos. So I think Upperman has to be limited. Clearly, we live in a society right now where it is not. But I think that is what makes good government. Our federal government, however, is more limited in the United States than anywhere else. And we saw that over the pandemic because even though we were raging, and I just did that pandemic episode last week, and so you guys know how I'm raged. I am and was and still am. Even though we were raging about all of the restrictions, the rest of the world was looking at us, going those Americans are crazy. They're still like walking around, driving around like sure, they did what they could to keep us still right, closed schools and businesses, YadA, YadA, YadA, But you could still get in your car and drive across the country if you wanted to. You could still get on a plane and fly across the country. So we walked down in March. I was in July. I was on the road with my daughter for two weeks just taking a road trip or no not July September and then October I was flying to Georgia. Like we were we could move, We did have the ability to move. Now what you could do? You know, me and my daughter took that road trip and hardly anything was open. But what you could do that was a different story. I know, Like my Canadian family were like, what are you guys doing down there? That's crazy? Like how can people still how can one state be sitting at home and then a state like Florida's having spring break? You guys are all gonna die. Our outrage at what they did make us do is a sign of how well I think liberty still works in the United States. I'm trying to find positive things here at people Okay, So I think a government is limited. Here's a quote from Thomas Jefferson. He says he wrote letter to James Madison in seventeen eighty seventy said, I own, I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always impressive. And again going back to that pandemic episode, once we gave them the power to do, you know, to shut down your school. It was even when things got better These people couldn't take their hands off the power. They couldn't they It was addicted immediately. It's twenty twenty three. Governor Gavin Newsom only gave up his emergency powers in February. The pandemic started in twenty twenty. He couldn't let it go, not because we didn't. Life is chugging along here in California. We didn't need that. We weren't in a state of emergency. I mean we are, but no one's gonna declare a state of emergency. See for the things we really need to in this state, like the border crime, homelessness. But we weren't in a state of emergency. But it was just because he emergency powers gives it a governor the ability to make soul decisions like a tyrant like Inn Jungoon, and he didn't want to give it up. So Jefferson was very prescient, and so were many of the other founding fathers. Here's another quote from James Madison. It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. And that is exactly it. And this is why I find progressivism, and you guys will notice I don't. I rarely use the term liberalism or liberals because I have liberal friends and I used to be a liberal, and that's a different kind of person. Progressivism is a call. Liberalism is a political belief. So I think this is the issue I have with progressivism is that progressivism says that humans need to be restrained, and classic liberalism, or as we call it these days, conservatism, believes that government should be restraint, that power should be restrained. Government is meant for structure, not restraint. Right, The restraints are on the government, not you. Why because, just like Madison said, power is of an encroaching nature. Please name one place where someone has gained a little bit of power, where they haven't asked for more, where they haven't wanted more. Actually, that's a great exercise, that's a great intellectual exercise. Can you think of any kind of place, maybe a CEO of a local corporation or a principle of your school doing something, or something happening in your government, someplace where someone got this access to sort of this really exclusive power, did what needed to be done and then left the only thing that comes to my mind is George Washington. And what a gift. Right, let's stop and think about that for a second. What a gift that a man who even I mean, let's go ahead and go with the BLM framing of our founding fathers. He was a slave owner. He you know, he probably I've read biographies of George Washington. He was a great man, but I don't think he necessarily was that good. I don't think a lot of people liked him. He was very prickly. Not to mention, there's the you know, the slavery thing. I don't mean to be dismissive of it, but he definitely was a product of his time. So I don't necessarily hold that against him. But anyway, if we want to hold that against him, let's just say that, oh this guy, what a power hungry, powermad racist. Well, he did have the opportunity to become the king of America essentially, and he turned it down. And thank god, if that one guy had made one different decision. Are we all here today? That blows my mind that he had the forethought, and who knows, maybe he he you know, the history books tell us that he was like, no, that's not what we fought for but maybe he just was like, I don't even have time for this. I'm trying to go back to my farm, back to my wife. I want to sit with my wife. I want to read my books, you know, I want to I want to harvest my tobacco. That might have been it, but for whatever reason it was, it was fate, and it it changed the course of America. So he recognized that that power had to be restrained. And I'm just trying to think of anywhere else where you've seen that. I remember when Obama was a president and we were all supposed to be like worshiping him. It was like year two or year three. We're all like the first black president. Obviously because he's black, he is the most noble person on earth. Like white people, white progressive just lose their minds when they get around black folks. I swear, I swear some of the y'all are crazy. It's like, oh, this person is an angel because he's black and the president, he can possibly do anything wrong. Anyways, I find it at the time it was arranging. Now I chuckle about it, but I remember here listening to Patton Oswald, comedian, and him saying, and who knows what kind of battles we were having at that time, probably over Obamacare or something, and him saying on an interview, you know what, I really wish that Obama could just be a dictator for like six months. I wish we could just make him a dictator for a short period of time and then he comes in and he just does is all the stuff and then that needs to be done so that people can see that it works, and then, you know, then we go back to our system. It's like, if we could just get all this stuff done, then everything would be great. First of all, what a naive statement. I mean in regards to anything. The whole thing is is naive. Number one, the idea that all of the things Obama wants to do are going to be good for our country. But number two, the idea that if you gave someone a complete and unchecked power over the United States of America for six months that they would suddenly give it up. And number three, the idea that you have to force people into the greater good. That's such a that mindset particularly is completely abhorrent and destructive and has led that mindset has led to every human mass, human tragedy that at the hands of the from it on earth, the idea of the greater good will you. I tell this story on the show all the time. It's on my mind nearly every day because it's a metaphor for so many situations. But I told you about the guy that designed the Berlin Wall and the old man, and I saw an interview with him from the nineties when he was still alive, and he was even then he was a bitter old communist, Like the wall hadn't been down very long, and you could tell he was not happy about it. And they asked him, why did you build that wall the Berlin why'd you build it in the first place. Why do you have to keep people from each other? And he said, we had to build the wall because we were doing we were we were enacting socialism, and the people kept running away, they kept leaving, and socialism needs needs people to work, It needs all of society to work. So we had to build the wall to keep them in so that they could see that socialism works. Okay, so meet chills to say it, but that's a that is the attitude. That is the attitude right now, the idea, and that's what Pat Nolan will Oswald was saying, well, we have to make people do they'll then they'll see they'll be so glad that we forced them to do this. Then we'll know we're right. That's a dangerous attitude for anybody. I don't care if you're conservative, you're liberal. That's a dangerous attitude. The government must be limited. Hey, y'all, this is Ali Michelle. I'm a conservative social media influencer that has been censored by big tech. So I broke away from the restrictions and started a podcast called pillow Talk with Alie Michelle. My show is a space to have real conversations about the issues that impact our everyday lives without the fear of being canceled by the big tech tyrants. Subscribe to pillow Talk with Alie Michelle and FCB podcast on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you getch podcasts. That's Ali a l II. Come check out my show. I'll see you there. Government must be negative, which means it doesn't assert power, it protects power, It protects power of the individual. I think that's good government no matter where you go. And so again this idea from progressivism and from socialist circles that government bestows your rights, and government allows you to do things. That's actually I don't think that is the best form of government. The superior form of government, and what we have constitutionally mandated, even though we have trade very far from it, is the idea that the government is not a positive force in your life. It doesn't as as an idea as a notion. It it doesn't bestow your rights. It doesn't give you your rights, It doesn't give you things. It simply protects the things that are important to you, know the nation, It protects your rights. I think good government or the best government, is where individuals are empowered to make their own decisions about the most aspects of their life. I understand that they're when you live in a society, particularly an advanced society like the West here in America, your life comes with all kinds of concessions. I can't make decisions about the water rates, I can't make decisions about zoning or you know, stuff like that. I mean we make we make those decisions corporately. We do that through the election processes. Are corporate decisions, which means my voice might not really matter. And so I understand that. But good government owes airs on the side of the individual making the decision. Let's let's go back to the pandemic for instance, my argument and your argument, too many of you, we all chatted about this over the years. My argument for a proper pandemic response and making sure that people were the safest was to leave the power of that of those decisions to the individual. So you decide if you want to risk being out and about. You decide if you want to risk you know, the damages that could have come with keeping your business open. You decide if you want to risk succumbing to this virus by going to your job. You make those decisions for you keep yourself healthy. You make your decisions for yourself. And if you think that there are too many people out there who are too reckless and make too many bad decisions, then your decision needs to be to stay home away from the reckless people. But individual decision making is it goes to hand in hand with limited government. Okay, good government serves the community efficiently. I was wondering, I was trying to think. So this is the part of my thought process where I did the basis because I did the good Government for Dummies thought exercise for myself. I hope some of you got something out of it. Then I was like, Okay, what is good government policy? What policies have I seen that are exemplary and that we should really replicate when it comes to government, or we should at least venerate, And I couldn't think of any I couldn't think of anything specific, especially when it comes to the federal government. And this is probably not a great section to discuss in regards to the federal government, because the federal government constitutionally is supposed to be so limited. We shouldn't have to be dealing from a lot of policy from them, even though we are. Probably most of these policy discussions are going to be had more locally. So I was trying to think what policy is good outside of the basis right a robust defense of the border or collecting taxes that the very obvious things, and I couldn't I'm currently in a bitter anti government mode, so I couldn't really think of a lot of policies. And I was like, Yeah, this is a great policy, and I'm so glad our government has this policy. Now there are policies out there that benefit me. There are a lot of racially motivated policies that give me, as a black woman, a break on you know, like business expenses, or there's certain grants you can apply for. Like obviously there are things that benefit me above other people. But I still and I and I will take advantage of those if they're there. But I still don't think that it's good policy. I think it's bad policy. I just like putting that money in my pocket. But here's what I was what came to mind as I sat and thought about it. Mia Love in Utah Mea. Love was part of the Tea Party wave, just like twenty twelve area she won a congressional seat. She was the first Haitian American to serve as a Republican in Congress, and she was a part of that wave. But she started out as the mayor of Saratoga Springs, Colorado. And I had the privilege of interviewing her in those early days, back when I had a show on blog talk radio radio on the internet everybody, that's where we got all this podcasting stuff started. And so I had a show and I invited her on, and she won her congressional seat based on what she had done as mayor of Saratoga Springs, and it was incredible. The city was like many cities, and it's a smaller city, so let's be fair. This is this is a very local story, but I think it's exemplary. The city was underwater. They not literally, but they, like many cities, were over leveraged, they were in debt, city services were failing. There was a huge crisis, a huge financial crisis. She ran for mayor and they did some radical things there. She was able to have a city council that supported her and supported her vision, and they did crazy things like they privatized the library. Yeah. Like that was because she was like, the Light, here's what the library was costing us, and it was all of the and it was a lot of bureaucratic nonsense that was adding to the costs and adding to the cost So she was saying, what if, what if we have a system where the library is privatized. Now you may think, oh, well, that means bud Light's coming in and buying the library. Know that it was it was supported by the citizens. So the library isn't privatized as and owned by a corporation. The libraries all volunteer. The library is supported by or you know, they hold fundraiser and the library as a charity. Basically, they privatized the fire department, same idea, and now they had a town small enough to do that, right, But this is an unusual Actually, volunteer firefighters are everywhere, even in your city, there's a volunteer force. So that's not that crazy. But they they so they got rid of a lot of the bureaucracy surrounding that, and then they were able to strike deals with surrounding towns if they needed supplemental services, that they could pay for those services as needed. She limited they limited the city council's time, right, so inst I can't and it's been a long time since I had this interview, so I can't remember all the details. But instead of you know, being in session nine months a year, they were in session like over the summer or you know, like they didn't. This is a big problem big government is that they're working too too much. They're doing they're not working, but they're at work too long. In California, that is the problem. They're there almost all year round. They need to be there a month if you can't. And John Adams said this about government too. He did not believe in year around government. He believes, sincerely, you have one month where you come together, you do the business of the nation, and you go back and you live and you work under the laws that you created. That's how it should be. So that's what me I Love managed to do in Saratoga Springs completely revolutionized the city. They did some other things I can't remember. A lot of it was privatizing, moving to volunteer, putting certain institutions that we assume should be in the public specter, putting that in the hands of charity, and going you guys, go for it, you guys do this. We used to have a lot more charitable organizations in this country before the government stepped into do quote charity work. This is why I don't believe the argument that's like, well, government doesn't do it, no one will do it. That's absolutely not true. Only people who have never served their community think that. Like, if you've worked in community service like I have, then you go to events where you see hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of people who have dedicated their lives to serving their community. They're out there, they're restrained by the government when they're the ones supposed to be restraining the government, so the government only ever makes things worse. It might seem like we need the government to give free healthcare to people because people wouldn't be able to afford it. But people would be able to afford it if the government didn't drive up the cost so much because the government stepped in the first place. You know what I mean. It's a huge circle. So that's what I thought of. What I thought of what is good government? I thought of Mia Love Now, unfortunately Mia ran a foul of the Trump machine. She got into a fus with Trump. She didn't want to endorse them. I don't know what else went on, but she just had it when the Trump wave came in. I think she was sort of done with politics, and I think she was voted out in twenty twenty and U but she was a great mayor of sarah Telga Springs. I don't know how she was as a congressional representative, but if what she did as mayor as any indication sheep, I'm sure she served her constituents. Wow, that's that's great policy and it had immediately immediate results, tangible results. I think good government policy encourages production, and I would even say like, oh, a tax holiday, that that's good government policy. But it's just lifting bad government policy, which is the taxing. So I guess I can't say that. I was thinking of two things that the government should do and does right, and these are social issues. I this is one of the reasons I can't be a libertarian, because I do believe the government has some place in the social order. I'll give you two examples that are kind of under the same banner. Marriage and children. In Canada, when I was growing up, and I think they still do this, you got a I don't know what it's called. It's not a tax credit, but you get you get like a child credit. Every kid gets money every month. I don't even remember. I don't remember what it was when I was a kid because my mom, for obvious reasons, used that money. A lot of my friends, their parents gave that money to them, Like it was like not much, like a couple hundred bucks a month, but a lot of my friend's parents would give them the money. They would be like, here, this is like your allowance as to your little one hundred and fifty bucks. It was. It's an old law. I think I think they still do it. But it was an old law established by the founders of the nation. They were trying to encourage people to reproduce. They were like, hey, nation to survive needs taxpayers, needs producers, We need population, so we need you to reproduce. And Canada is kind of cold, and you know, only a small portion of the country is is livable and so it's inhospitable, is what I was saying most of it at that time. So they wanted to encourage people to reproduce and move there. So the government said, we will pay you to have kids. We need your kids. They're gonna grow up and be the taxpayers. We will pay you to have children. We will incentifize families, and families are the bedrock of a thriving society. That's indisputable. It's indisputable no matter where you go. So that's a decent policy. I mean, is it a little strange that the government's paying you to have kids. Maybe, but it's not like they're paying you to not have kids, right, That's it's not like they're not restraining you from something. There encouraging you to produce something. And that's where you can judge is this government good or bad? Is it a restraint or is it an encouragement? The restraint comes from you, right, They just offer structure. So I think that that is good because especially and maybe we don't need to do that in places like the US are certainly not like China or something like that. But in Canada even to this day, I mean they have ten percent of the population of the United States. They let in a lot of immigrants because they need the bodies, especially with universal healthcare, they need all those taxpayers. And then the other area is marriage. So I know during the marriage debate when we were debating gay marriage, a lot of people were like, government shouldn't be in it at all, and I was like, no, I do think government has a part to play, not necessarily because we need to give the government the right to tell us if we're married or not, and they don't. They give us a paper that tells us if the system sees us as married. But I mean there are definitely you know, marriage is something that happens before God. That being said, they do have a role to play in sort of the bureaucratic legitimacy of marriage because marriage is a bedrock of the family, and the family is a bedrock of a healthy society. So you need to incentivize good production the way you would incentivize businesses to produce faith like surgical masks quickly during the pandemic, Like we're going to take off all the red tape, We're going to remove the corporate taxes, Like whatever you need, we're going to give that to you to produce masks. Same thing with families. You know, we're going to take off these restraints. We want to encourage marriage, and so we'll give you a tax break, will give you a certain status, will recognize you a certain way. So it is in the government's interest to recognize marriage. And when I say marriage, I say a marriage that produces or has the potential to produce offspring. Take that as So those are two good policies I think government does because they have practical application, they have positive results, and they offer production not restraint. Hey y'all, this is Ali Michelle. I'm a conservative social media influencer that has been censored by big tech. So I broke away from the restrictions and started a podcast called pillow Talk with Ali Michelle. My show is a space to have real conversations about the issues that impact our everyday lives without the fear of being canceled by the big tech tyrants. Subscribe to Pillow Talk with Alie Michelle and FCB podcast on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you getch podcasts. That's Ali Ali. Come check out my show. I'll see you there. And I know there are other things that people might say government does well or that it's right for government to do, even some conservatives, you know, housing, housing and HUD Go back and listen to my conversation with doctor Ben Carson on this show about his time as a HUD director, a very interesting guy. Or medical care, you know, Medicare or Medicaid, that kind of stuff. And as somebody who grew up with socialized medicine and socialize everything, there is a part of me that it's like, yeah, this is nice of the government to do. Like some nice families get in trouble and you know, the government can dig them out. There is that part of me, and I understand what you're saying, Like Kira, people need housing and some people just can't afford it, and the government doesn't do it, no one will, and they'll just be out on the street. And I used to think that and even if I believe that's true. Even if I believe that's true, and I might in a certain way believe that's true that if the government doesn't offer free housing for certain people, they're going to be out on the street. Even if I think that's true, I don't think that the government can do it right. Like we haven't seen the government do it right. So I think even when you give that power to the government, they're going to ruin it anyway. So I think those decisions do have to be locally decided and that they should be private decisions. And again, don't let the word private frighten you, because the progressive lefts has correlated private with corporate, with corporations, and that doesn't mean that at all. It just means an entity that's not controlled by the government. And we do that. Again, I was in community services. There's a whole community in Lawndale, Chicago, the whole community that is a community zone and other words. A community activist group came in and they're they're led by Christians, and they started with one building. They bought one building to provide clinical services for free to people, completely independent of the government. This is a private organization run by people who live in the inner city, and then the program became so popular. They started getting donors. Things were popping, and they ended up developing an entire section of the community. So they have schools, they have a hospital, they have libraries, they have job training, they have tutoring. It's incredible what they have done, and they have done it as a non government entity. Do they take some money from the government, I'm sure that they do, but that doesn't mean that that money is not there without the government, And it also means that the government is not restraining them. The government is what encouraging production. I just don't think that the government. We may need housing for people, but the government ruins everything. There's no one you can trust in government to do it right. It just it can't be done. So we may feel like the government needs to do it, but look around you. Where are they doing it right? Oh my gosh. If you've ever been to the projects, like, it's hell on earth. My point is is that even if I think it's needed, I don't think government can do it right. So it has to be up to the individual. And the less restraint government has on its people, the more they are free to help each other. Again, this is one thing that Bush said at the time that I really admired. I thought it was he made a great point. He was saying, why are we taking over areas where private entities are doing the job and doing it better, particularly religious entities or instance, prison recidivism recidivism is very high no matter what program you go through. It's it's like relapse, addiction, relapse. It doesn't matter what kind of program you go through. Relapse rates are very high, and so are reidivism rates no matter what. But religious programs have a higher success rate than any other program when it comes to recidivism, and it's still not that high. If I recall the last time I read a statistic, it was something like religious groups. I think something like fifteen percent of the people that come through their succeed and move forward, they never fall back into crime. That's a pretty low number. But I think the government rate is like two percent. And so Bush was saying, why are we trying to do the job of people who are doing it better. Why don't whatever their beliefs are, they're doing it better. Why don't we just incentivize them to do it better by making it easier for them to have this designation, naking it easier for them to have this nonprofit designation. So I guess that was a good policy. I don't know what makes good government. Good government is what is limited? You know, let's go back down the pillars. It's legitimate, it has a proper separation of powers. Everybody feels like they can participate in it, even if it's just talking about it. Checks and balances, elections, rule of law, right structure, not restraint, and fundamental human rights. And anywhere you see restrained government, I think that's good government. Let me know, is any good government going on where you live? Is any good government going on where you live? Let me know? Are they making good decisions? I just wrote a story on my sub stack about Orange Unified School District. They they just pass a parent's Bill of Rights. They were there the next school district over and I worked with some of their parents, well, like we were all working together in this area, so I know the board members. And because they flipped their board and they just pass a parent bill of Rights. And they also passed a flag statute, which means the only flags allowed on school property, even including school flags. Only flags allowed are the US flag and the state flag. Good. I think good laws good positive laws. One is being positive about your state and your nation and prioritizing that, and then the other is empowering parents, so restraining the board, empowering the constituents. Anything going on in your area, right me? J lt Y at ProtonMail dot com. J Lty at ProtonMail dot com. Again, I would like to point out that there are some things that the government does that I do like, like I take advantage of it money they want to give my kid for being black and going to college. But do I think it's right? No, not necessarily. I don't think in the long run, it's good for all of us. If we get reparations in this eight which, folks, here's the secret, We're never getting them. But if we ever got reparations in the state, I'm going to pick up my check. Guess I am going to pick up my check. Do I think it's the right thing to do? No? You know, can the state afford to give every black person in the state three million dollars? No, it would be. It would be terrible for our state. But I will go pick up my three million dollars and move to another state where I can keep more of it all right. Well, you let me know Jilty at protommail dot com. As you listen to this, I am I don't know what I'm doing. I'm somewhere on the East Coast, breathing in the salty air and looking forward to getting back on American soil. No doubt. I love this country, and there's a reason why I have never returned as a citizen of Canada. I love Canadians, and I love Canada. But America it's my home in my soul, and I am proud to be an Americans. So as we pull in to the fourth of July to Independence Day, everyone remember that despite the belief in pop culture these days that America owes you some kind of opportunity, please remember that America really doesn't owe you an opportunity. America is the opportunity. So go out there and grab it. Follow me on Twitter at real Cura Davis. If you want to support me, join my sub stact just Kura Davis dot sub stack dot com. Buy my book Drawing Lines Why Conservatis must begin to battle fiercely in the arena of ideas, and like and subscribe to this podcast and leave a five star rating until we meet again every once in a while, just stop and listen to yourself. That we won't say we got does no want to get to setto d bath. It's gonna be okay. My brains are my soda day. That we won't said and we won't say all we got it does No one can take that away. It's gonna be okay. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where real talk lifts. Visit us online at FCB podcasts dot com.
