Hey, parents, kids like us have a problem and it's one that you
can help solve. But most parents aren't even aware the problem exists. Here's
the issue. Most schools today aren't teaching young kids some really important concepts,
like how the economy works, or what our rights are, or the definition
of true laws. For you were born, schools often taught the principles of
a free society, but not anymore. That's why our parents have us read
the title Twins. These books teach children about economic and civic truths that we
need to learn, and there's nothing else like them in the world. Each
book covers a different topic, helping us learn how the world really were.
For example, these books teach kids things like how the free market is the
kid of prosperity, the history of the money we use, what our rights
are and why we should protect them, how kids can be entrepreneurs. I
definitely want to be my own bosson day, and these books will help.
Kids like us absolutely love these books, maybe because they don't treat us like
little children. Instead, they help us learn important ideas and develop critical thinking
skills. Chances are your kids are missing out on learning these things, especially
in a way that's fun and enjoyable for the whole family. And even better,
when you buy the set, you also get me awesome activity workbooks for
free. Now listen, there are a lot of crazy ideas out there,
and you need to prepare your kids. Yeah, if you want to as
a freethinker, you're gonna need something that teaches about freedom. So purchase your
books now, but be careful. Your kids will learn ideas that many adults
don't even understand. It makes for some really interesting dinner conversations. Those kids
are cute, but I bet yours are cuter, and imagine how much they'll
enjoy the books. So what are you waiting for? The Lincoln Grab your
sect. Joining us now is Connor Boyak, and I'm really excited to talk
to him. I've had a lot of people ask me about tell me I
should know who the Tuttle Twins are. We don't have young kids or grandkids,
so I didn't know it yet. But a great series for homeschoolers.
And of course he's also involved with the Libertas Institute and they've done a lot
at the state level in Utah, so I want to talk to him about
that as well. So homeschooling topics and he's got other books that he's written
besides the children's books. So joining us now as Conner Connor boy, I
thank you for joining us, Connor, thanks for having me. It's great,
too great to have you on those two kids there there. It says
in your bio that you've got homeschool two kids. Where there's your kids that
are in that video. That's correct. Yeah, I thought so there's a
better are very very cute, really enjoyed that. And good salespeople. What's
that they're they're good at sales. They help promote well, it's a good
example of what you've been able to create with homes going. Tell us a
little bit first about the Tuttle Twin books. So, these are children's books
that teach the ideas of human flourishing, what healthy societies look like. We're
talking entrepreneurship, sound money, property rights, personal freedom, the dangers of
socialism and central planning and so forth. And so these are story based books
that allow kids to access these often adult level complex ideas. People often ask
me what age. Therefore my go to answer is our children's series we have
we have told their books, we have books for teens, but we're best
known for our children's series. So my answer to them is they're about for
age five to ten and members of Congress that that's kind of the running gag.
We sold over five million copies. We have a cartoon now, all
kinds of stuff, and it's heavily of interest with homeschoolers. I should also
note we have a huge contingent of our audience where they their kids go to,
you know, public school, private school, charter school. And for
those families, you know, the homeschool families are using it more as like
curriculum, like hey, we're going to learn American history, or we're gonna
learn, you know, economics. For the public schoolers, private schoolers,
their parents are recognizing that their children are not getting these ideas in the school,
and so it's a supplement. I might almost even say it's a counter
agent because they know that not only are the kids not getting it in school,
they're getting opposite type of ideas victim mentality and and and entitlement mentality and
so forth. So so they're broad appeal to families and and really trying to
fill this void that's been in the marketplace for resources that can help pa talk
to their kids about real world ideas and what that means for them. And
we were homeschooling our kids, you know, about fifteen to twenty five years
ago or whatever, and uh, you know, and so we would go
down and we would look at we'd go to a Barnes and Noble and take
a look at what your first grader needs to know, your second grader needs
to know, and we would do a lot of counter programming, just like
you talked about. You know, they say, well, this is what
we're teaching the kids, and it's like they need to understand how the you
know, what this is. We're not going to just ignore it. We
need to define this for them and counter it. But I think that and
then we also, you know, just kind of kept an eye out for
where they needed to be. But I think that's a real important thing.
But I think the most important thing is to have a positive vision. You
know, we don't want to just be negative, but we do want to
say, now, this is reality here and have it in mind the other
stuff that they're being taught us. It's great to see that there's this type
of resource. And you said a cartoon is that with the Tough Twin Show
is a cartoon that's correct. So we partnered with Angel Studios. They're best
known for doing the Chosen or Sound of Freedom, and so we partnered with
them. We already have a season and a half complete and out, free
to watch, no cost, no sign up. You just go to Angel
Studios on your favorite app platform, your Apple, TV, your Roku,
your phone, whatever. And it's funny these cartoons. The whole writing team,
it's me and a bunch of comedians, and so they come up with
funny jokes and really make this an entertaining show for the whole family, where
we then kind of sprinkle in these ideas of freedom, but just have a
lot of fun. So that's a blast, and we hope that it just
we turn it into the new Simpsons where there's like thirty seasons, but enriching
content, not this dumb down stupid stuff, but like really informative, enriching
content, but also super fun for the whole family. That's really good.
Yeah, I was just saying, I noticed somebody say, you can't win
the culture Wars if you don't have a culture. We have to produce content,
and so that's what's really important with the Tuttle Twins, with your Tuttle
Twins show and the rest of this stuff. We need to we've lost this
ability again to define what culture really should look like in a positive vision of
politics, economics, and just what society looks like. That that's really really
important. Let's talk a little bit about libertas. Tell us what is going
on with the think tank there. And you've had a lot of effects on
laws. Your bio says that you've had about one hundred laws that have been
changed there in Utah. And I think that's important because of the focus on
what is happening at the state level, because I think that federal government is
gone, and I think we need to make changes at our state and local
level. We saw this especially in the last few years. The things that
really mattered. We're having good local officials. They can make things much worse
or much better throughout this lockdown all the rest of this stuff. So tell
us a little bit about what is going on at the state level. You
know, I think it's a tragedy of our civic system where everyone's attention is
drawn to the level of government that they can impact the least. Everyone is
so focused on the federal issues, national crises, congressional stupidity. And I'm
not saying don't pay attention. I'm not saying you need to completely shut it
off. But everyone's energy is so focused on talking about and complaining about what's
happening at the national level, where the average person has statistically zero influence.
The contrast to that is when you focus on a state and local level,
you can have a disproportionately high impact. So I cut my teeth politically working
on Mike Lee's campaign when he first ran for the US Senate from Utah in
two thousand and nine and ten. So I was one of like five or
six people on his early campaign. There were a dozen other candidates. You
know, we got Mike through the primary and got elected, and we remain
good friends and talked often. But here's a guy who has wanted to go
support the constitution and limited government and restrain you know, government largesse. And
I love Mike, but he and everyone who believes like him have been woefully
unsuccessful because you know, the system is stacked against you. Meanwhile, so
you know Mike's up in Congress doing this thing. Meanwhile, I work here
in the state capitol level, and as you pointed out, we've changed in
the same amount of time, less time than Mike Lee has been in office.
Not to pick on him, but just to use that story as an
example. We changed like over a one hundred laws. We've got a ton
of amazing legal reforms passed to protect people's freedoms and so forth. And it's
it's not that hard. I'm not an attorney by training. I'm not an
economist. I used to build websites for a living and I launched this nonprofit
and kind of pivoted and kind of changed my career trajectory. But I have
no formal training in this. If I can do it, anybody else can
do it. And it's amazing. You think of your city council. You
go to city council meetings. Who's there Maybe a couple of boy scouts,
maybe the miss you know whatever, pageant queen, maybe a few developers trying
to get you know, zoning approvals and stuff, and nobody else. More
importantly, there's no journalists anymore, because the whole newspaper model has been blown
up and these guys can't afford to have people sitting in city council meetings to
play the watchdog role, which means that no one's paying attention. These people
are getting away with a lot. And if you just show up, if
you just ask questions, if you just show them that you're watching, you
can have a big impact. And so I spend a lot of my time
inviting people, pleading with people, you know, turn down the national news
pay attention a lot less. It's it's I think, really designed just to
get this class warfare, constant battle and distraction going on. I'll recommend a
resource to your audience. So you mentioned Liberti's Institute, which is our organization
in Utah. We work across the country and a lot of stuff, but
primarily in Utah. There's a group and I believe every single state from a
conservative libertarian perspective, working on state level policy. Here's where your viewers can
find out about that. The organization i'll point you to is called State Policy
Network and their website very simply is SPN dot org State Policy Network and they've
got a map there directory that you can click on. Find your map,
find the group working in your state, subscribe to their newsletter, their email,
follow them on social media, go to their events, you know,
donate and support them. These are the people working in the trenches in your
state, and it's very easy for people to go get involved and be a
part of it. That's so important and that is really good. The State
Policy Network SPN dot org. Now you pronounce it differently, and I thought,
I thought it would be libertas. You pronounce it lebertas or so.
When I started this organization, I went to a linguist and I said,
how would how would the Romans have It's Latin, it's a dead language.
You said, well, there's two schools of thought. There's the Germanic like
libertass, which, to be fair, is what ninety five percent of Americans
pronounce it as. And then there's the think of like the Italian the Romantic
language is libertas. And I was like, oh, that sounds texy.
I want to do that. So so we say libertas and everyone else says
libertass. But I'm a libertarian, so I don't care how you pronounce it.
That's great. So tell us you know when you go to the state
level. And I know from the standpoint of what I've seen when we were
homeschooling our kids. We're in North Carolina, and I know there was a
constant battle, especially at the very beginning from the teacher's union to try to
shut it down, and this very powerful union with a lot of connections to
state government was shut down by letter writing campaign by grassroots organizations. I know
that they look at this stuff by the pound, and you know you're not
necessarily going to change these people's minds about with an argument, but they're looking
at the quantity of responses that they get and that does have a big impact
on them. What type of what have you found to be most effective in
terms of working at the state level. You said going to the meetings and
that type of thing, But give us an idea of what this looks like
when you get involved in this. So here's how the average person, any
of your viewers, can be impactful. A little pro tip that few people
do, and if anyone wants to get involved make a difference without a lot
of time. Here are a couple ideas that have a huge leverage in terms
of your time versus your impact. Number One, gather ten or fifteen friends
at your home for a little cottage meeting, have some dessert, and invite
your local state senator or state representative or mayor or city councilman to come speak
to your group, super easy. These people love to talk about themselves,
by the way, so they will take you up on the offer. Food
attracts everybody. And more importantly, what's happening here is you are fostering a
relationship with that politician to show them two things. Number One, you're creating
value for them by giving them an audience of people to talk to and get
support from. But number two, you're showing them that you are a connector
you're an organizer. Right. The worst thing that you can do in politics
is go up and say I don't like this tax or I don't like this
law. You're one person with an opinion. They're not going to pay attention
to you. By contrast, if you start an organ Let's say you have
your cottage meeting and you call it Connor's Cottage Meeting on Mondays, right,
and that's the name of your group. And I go up to the capital
or a city hall and say, hey, I represent an association, a
cottage meeting group where a lot of us get together and blah blah blah,
we're really concerned about this and this is something that we're paying attention to and
we'd like you to vote against it. You've shifted it from I to we.
It's not I think this, it's we think this. They don't know
if there's a thousand people in your group or five, and they don't need
to know. The point is that you're you're It's like those animals that when
a predator approaches, they like puff up and get really big so as to
like signal that they're dangerous. That's what you need to do. If you're
the average person, you need to puff up a bit and show them that
you mean business. So do a cottage, meaning super simple. Do it
once a year, do it once a quarter, and invite different local you
know, politicians or people and rotate them through. Okay, number two,
take a politician to lunch. Don't do it during their busy season. So
if it's the legislatures in session, then maybe wait a while. But but
you just said, because everyone's got to eat, and you've got to think
through like how can you create value for them? So if I were to
do this, I would find my state representative on the website. I would
see what bills he's been running or what he's been working on, and I
would email him and or text him, and I would say, hey,
I really love this bill that you were working on super important. I've been
talking with some friends of mine and some stakeholders. I've got some ideas for
how you can actually improve this or something else related you can do, or
whatever. Could I take you to lunch? And very often they will say
yes. Now they will say yes even more if you are known as a
connector. So if you do step one and then step two, if the
cottage meeting, the networking, and then you start making those requests, will
be very more successful. This doesn't take a ton of time, hardly any
time. But this all boils down to relationships. That is what drives this
business. This is why lobbyists are so successful. You need to foster relationships.
When you just show up to the capitol or to city hall and you
raise your fist and say, you know, I don't like this, they
all know that you're just going to speak your mind and go back to sleep,
and they all have like you're not going to be there every week.
You're not going to be watched dogging them whatever. Right, But if you
have relationships, when I text a legislator like, hey, I got questions
about that vote you just made, or hey, are you going to work
on that bill? They know that I'm out there not only watching that,
but talking to a ton of people because they know I'm a connector that I'm
not going away, and that I have a lot of relationships that can be
helpful to them or harmful to them. So the average citizen, you want
to get involved, you've got to start developing some relationships. And these are
just a few of the very easy, low cost, low time ways that
I think the average citizen could start to do it. That's really good,
and of course that is a key thing because you're also making You're not just
connecting to politicians, but you're also making connections with the people that are going
to be meeting with you. And having that community doesn't just magnify you to
the politicians, but that's a real value to all of us in the future,
depending on what is going to come down the pike from Washington. We
really need to have those local communities. That's so important in so many different
ways. Tell us a little bit about what you have focused on these hundred
laws that you've got changed. What have you focused on there? I know
you're conservative libertarian focus. What types of things have you guys been able to
get through there. I'll give you a small and example, and then I'll
give you a more weighty and substantive one. So the small and silly example.
A few years ago, we saw some headlines across the country where little
kids lemonade stands were getting shut down for not having a business license or a
food handler's permit. And you know, one of the stories, it was
a four year old girl selling fifty cent cups of lemonade along the path of
like a five k near her home and mom was sitting there obviously she was
only four, and the food safety whoever you showed up and oh, you
don't have a permit? Costs eighty five dollars. That's one hundred and seventy
cups of lemonade just to break even on a permission slip let alone the rest
of your expenses. So we saw these headlines, were like, this is
ridiculous. We go up to our legislature. We came up with a model
bill and it passed I think unanimously, are close to unanimously, which now
says that if you are under eighteen in Utah, you do not need any
license, any permit. You don't have to collect and remit sales taxes like
literal a literal free market, or miners to encourage them to be entrepreneurs.
You know, let's let's let them wait until they're eighteen before the crushing weight
of the state comes upon them and all its taxes and regulations. But at
least to all they're miners. Now they're free. We've helped a few other
states past similar laws, but Utah's remains the gold standards. That's that's a
example. That's great. That's not that's a really fundamental thing. And that's
that's such a great idea. And what legislator is going to want to go
out there and be the screwge that says, no, you're gonna have a
license from these miners. That's a great idea. Yeah, that's exactly.
Okay, So here's the other example. Let's say I'm Elon Musk and I
have a car company, Tesla, and I want to do something different where
I don't want to have car dealerships. I want to sell my cars directly
to individuals, a direct to consumer model. However, in a whole bunch
of states, including my own of Utah, it was illegal. It was
literally against the law to sell cars, for a corporation to sell a card
directly, or a manufacturer to sell a card directly to a person. Because
the car dealers are very politically connected, and over the years they've gotten all
these laws passed saying that you have to go through car dealers, and you
have to do it this way, and you have to pass these inspections.
So I'm Elon Musk and I'm thinking, well, what do I do.
Well, I've got a lot of money, so I can hire lobbyists,
and I can hire lawyers, and I can go sue and I can go
lobby to get the laws change. That's what Elon and his buddies did,
right. They were able. They had the resources to muscle through the political
process. Like in Utah for example, they had to go to the state
Supreme Court and they were battling until they finally got fixed, which is ridiculous.
Now imagine by contrast that I'm poor connor, middle class tradesman who has
a business idea. I'm sitting at my kitchen table scribbling this idea on the
back of a napkin, and I'm like, this is awesome. I pull
up Google, I start research low and behold, my awesome idea is against
the law. There's some thirty five year old arcane law on the books that
prevents me from doing what I want. I have no huge life savings,
I don't know any lobbyists and lawyers. I have no network, no connections,
no leverage. I abandon my idea and move on. My American dream
goes poof because of my inability to muscle through the process. What we innovated,
what we got past in Utah, and we've helped dozens of other states
work on this as well, is a concept called a regulatory sandbox. What
this is, let's use this tradesman with it. We'll call him Bob.
So Bob's got this business idea. Bob can now apply to the state to
come into the regulatory sandbox, and he can pinpoint a law that or a
regular or a regulation that stands in his way, and he can say that's
preventing me from launching this business. The regulators will talk. They'll have an
opportunity to review his quest to be shielded from that regulation or law for two
years so that he can do R and D. Or he can go to
market right and start to prove and collect data, like, hey, there's
no consumer harm, there's no lawsuits, there's no nothing. Can we get
rid of this regulation, right because like everything's okay and we're you know,
and so it's a way to develop real world data like a pilot program,
almost under a lower regulated environment. The chief problem that we've seen over the
last decade is we'll go up to the capitol and think of like food trucks.
That we passed the country's first and only food truck freedom law to knock
down all these local regulations and zoning crap and stuff that gets in their way.
And so we go up to the Capitol and we say, hey,
guys, the world will be so much better if we allow these micro entrepreneurs
to just operate where they want and not have all these you know, city
restrictions and so forth. And then then the city lobbyists go out there and
they say, oh, no local control, we need we need to allow
our cities to ban food trucks and to say that they can't operate within half
a mile of a restaurant because competition is horrible. Whatever. You're a legislator,
you're trapped in the middle of the free market guys with their talking points
and the incumbent industry protectionists with their talking points, and both sides are claiming
the sky will fall or it will be great well with a regulatory sandbox.
Now the legislators don't have to say permanent yes or no to either side.
They can say, well, let's give it a try and see how it
works, and put these people in a sandbox, watch them for a year
or two, gather some data, and then at the conclusion they can say,
should we amend that regulation or law, should we fully repeal it?
And we have some data to inform that process. So we let Utah to
become the first state to have a right regulatory sandbox any business, any industry,
any size. And now we've helped a number of other states pass these
programs as well to promote entrepreneurship and innovation. Level the playing field, so
it's not just the elon musks that can muscle their way through. Now the
little guy has a shot to launch their American dream. Yeah, that's very
important, coach, the people who got there already, you know, they
always want to solve the lower rungs of the ladder of success so that you
can't get started with it. That's a great approach. Let's talk a little
bit about what do we do about what is looming over the horizon. We've
got so many things that we see being pushed from the international level down to
the national level, and the Biden administration all of these regulations trying to take
away appliances, just just basic conveniences that we've taken for granted for a very
long time. And now since we took them for granted, the federal government
is looking to take them away. And so you know, there's this big
push. Most of the stuff is now coming on the basis of climate.
They want to take cars, they want to take appliances, and on and
on. Is there anything that you're working on there in Utah to address that
type of you know, confiscatory regulations that a lot of it are coming from
the EPA, but you know, any anything that's coming from the federal level.
I know here in Tennessee where I live, they have told the government
when it comes to a lot of the regulations about transgender type of things,
they said, well, we're willing to forego two billion dollars worth of bribery
in order to do things the way that we think they ought to be done.
And that really is the way that the federal government usually insinuates itself in
the process. As they don't have the direct legal authority because the Tenth Amendment,
they will bribe local and state governments to do what they want with money.
So how do we how do we tackle this looming monster that's being pushed
down on top of us? Oh man, you are hitting all the buttons.
Such a challenge. By the way, in Tennessee, I would encourage
you to look up the Beacon Center. They are the think tank there in
Tennessee. They do an awesome job. I will thank you. They would
be great to connect with. Now, what you're talking about is so tough
because there's so many disincentives for people to engage in the process. I think
of the road, like there's this meme floating around the internet right now.
How often do men think about the Roman Empire? You know, and everyone's
kind of joking about it right now. I think about it quite often,
and in particular that the aspect of bread and circuses, where they would often
uh, you know, feed the citizenry, have you know, gladiators and
all these big spectacles designed to distract the populace from what was happening politically.
A distracted society is a disengaged society, in particular with the federal regulations that
you're talking about. I am a big believer in state interposition and state nullification.
What are those things. Yes, state interposition is the state coming in
between you and the federal government to say, no, we're we're shielding Connor
from that you know gun control law that Connor passed, or you know people
like Connor not just a single individual, but but the state interposes itself and
passes a conflicting law to say no, we're not going to force this.
You know, we're going to protect you, and our attorney general will be
you know, go sue the government or the federal government on your behalf.
So the state can interpose itself to be this protecting shield. Even better than
that, a state nullification. There's a fantastic book written about a decade or
so ago by Tom Woods called Nullification that gets into the American history of what
this is. This is basically when a state gives the middle finger to the
feds and the Feds pass some law. Let's say it's an EPA thing,
and imagine Tennessee the legislature getting together and passing a resolution and saying in this
state that EPA regulation is null and void. We will not enforce it,
we will not tolerate it, we will not allow any federal officials to enforce
it within our state. And it is the state asserting itself. Here's our
chief problem. Ever since the Civil War, the Union of States has changed
from a voluntary union into this serfdom like subservient status where state legislatures see themselves
as subunits of the federal government. We now have a national government where it
controls and regulates the states. The states do not assert their own authority.
They do not stand up under the tenth Amendment that you pointed out and the
ninth Amendment to say that these are our rights. We did not delegate this
to you. There's so many fantastic stories here, especially from like the Kentucky
and Virginia resolutions with Jefferson and Madison when they were basically given the middle finger
to John Adams and the Federalist Party and trying to undermine what they were doing
by getting state legislatures to say we are not going to comply. There are
modern examples. Think of medical marijuana. Federal law still says that cannabis is
illegal, and most states have given the middle finger to the Feds, and
the Feds have just, you know, decided to not enforce it, and
they've had their Attorney general memos and their things, but it's still on the
books. And that's the power of what the states can do. By contrast,
here's another example that I'm sure your audience well, that one before we
leave marijuana was excellent because you know that I love that one because the left
are the ones who've been doing the nullification and they're the first ones to scream
racism and this is about slavery or whatever, you know, when you start
nullifying, and so that really nullifies the left as well when you use that
as an example, because this is a Schedule one drug and they say there's
absolutely no use for it if you point out more than half of the states
or they either have a medical exemption or recreational exemption. Jeff Sessions, that
was a key issue with him, but he wouldn't touch it because he knew
that he didn't have the constitutional authority for that. That's an excellent example.
Yeah, go ahead, next one, here's an unfortunate one. By contrast,
so medical marijuana is kind of a winning one in terms of state sovereignty,
states standing up for themselves. Here's a losing one, real ID.
When Congress over a decade ago, past the real ID Act, this National
Driver's License National ID there was a huge uproar, massive uproar across the country.
State legislatures were passing resolutions, were passing laws. They were standing up
and and nullifying. They were giving a middle finger to the Feds. And
so the Feds retreated and they, okay, you know, we lost the
battle. And what did they do you mentioned it a moment ago. They
bribed the states into compliance. Over the next decade, not not wholesale,
but piecemeal. They would attach financial incentives to particular aspects of the real ID
Act, even though you know what, it was no longer being passed reinforced,
and they would bribe the states into compliance, and the states, eager
for money, these politicians, wanting more money for their programs, would say,
okay, yeah, we'll do that. Okay, yeah, we'll do
that. You fast forward a decade and now, like you know, I
travel the airport all the time, my driver's license has this stupid you know,
yellow star at the top. Now that means real ID compliant. My
state over a decade ago stood up and said no, and now I have
a driver's license from my state that is real ID compliance. Isn't it interesting
that they did the yellow star. It seems like there's some point in history
where that was used. Things like, I should you know it's a it's
a white star inside of a yellow circle. I guess off. No one's
described to me. When I changed we moved here, it was described to
me because we did that about two years ago. It's described me as a
yellow star. You know, they described it the same way, and I
thought, I don't really want a yellow star. Watchful. These people are
persistent, they are patient, They have the long view in mind, and
so we like think of the tea party, right tarp and the bank bellouts
and everyone's like, you know, all these conservatives erupted. The tea party
is a huge thing. There's tea party, patriots, tea party, nonprofits,
tea party, everything, and two or three years later nothing that they
went back to sleep, They went back to work and family and everything.
Like we you know, people on the right focus on that actually improves our
society, but they disengage politically. These these eliteists, these leftists, everybody
knows they just have to wait out the storm. Let everyone like get really
in an uproar, pass their resolutions against real ID and then we'll just work
on this incrementally over time and still get what we want. So we are
playing a losing game by not engaging and being watchful and being persistent when the
other side absolutely is that's right. Yeah, the price of liberties eternal vigilance.
And of course you also have to have a goal. And I think
that was always a problem to me for the Tea Party. Taxed enough already,
okay, so what do you want to do? You want to cut
spending or you know, cut taxes or what do you want to do?
Which taxes do you want to cut? Which spending do you want to cut?
There was just nothing there, and you had everybody jumping on board with
that to make money, you know, the people who are organizing it.
And I think the people also looked at this and you know, said,
well this is you know, there's not really anything here, and it kind
of fall away. But you're right with the good example is the real ID
thing. Because people just went to sleep and now we've got the TSA out
there doing facial skins, taking it to the next level. Uh, you
know what, you know, what do we do about the TSA Because here's
my concern. You know, a key thing that we saw, especially in
the last few years, what was it that helped us to survive this lockdown?
And that was mobility and it was cash and it was being outside of
the system. They now want to take away our cash. They want to
take away our mobility. If they're able to take away our cars and make
us dependent on renting our rides, you know, renting a vehicle by the
ride, not even you know, leasing a vehicle. If they're able to
do that, if they're able to take away our cash, they really have
got us and there's not really anything we can do. So what do you
think we should do about and what are you working on in terms of that
in Utah? But this is such a challenge what you're pointing out, because
I'll use your last example just as a direct response this rent your vehicle,
Like, imagine a world two decades from now, which I don't think is
a far off fantasy. Yeah, probably sooner where I can have my car
drop me off, self driving car, fully autonomous it drops me off at
work rather than sitting ors right outside my office window, right here, outside
of frame right, rather than sitting there for eight hours. I can monetize
that vehicle and I can have it go basically play uber and earn revenue for
other people who will pay it. And I just say, hey, you
just need to be back here at five o'clock, you know, to pick
me up. Well, all of a sudden, I you no longer need
parking lots. If you if you have a society where there's very few people
who are just owning their car and sitting there right, you can conserve a
ton. You can at least substantially reduce the size of parking lots because you
don't need just all these big empty spaces that can do tremendous things. So
I am someone who loves technology and sees a huge upside to improving society when
implemented the right way, things like AI like I think, I think it
can bless humanity in a whole ton of ways. But these things like self
driving cars or I'm a big fan of bitcoin. But then you got cdbc's
on the other side, this kind of you know, dark version of what's
going on or self driving cars or Tesla robots that they're building right now,
neuralink thing like all these things can do so much good and make our lives
so much more convenient, enjoyable, productive, But we have to have a
philosophical base in our society of human freedom and flourishing to inform and guide and
limit all those activities, to keep them constrained. Otherwise, I'm worried that
these amazing technologies, while they have their positive side, are going to emerge
with the dystopian side, with these kind of elitists and controls. So I'm
not what to say, Well, because our philosophical base is not there,
and we don't have a society that believes these things, let's shut all this
technology down and you know, make sure that we don't have this orwellian future.
I am one to say, look the cats, the toothpaste is out
of the tube. These things are going to happen anyways. Let's focus on
strengthening that philosophical base so that the innovators and the regulators and the politicians and
everybody else approach this and handle everything the right way so we can have the
positive outcomes while minimizing the negative ones. And that's where the tuttle twins comes
in, because you've got to you've got to set up those values, those
bases. And it's because we've had families atrophy and schools and churches of atrophied
and we don't have those types of values that are being put out there.
As you point out, all this stuff is tools, and you know,
a very powerful tool can be a really good thing or can be a really
bad thing depending on who is wielding it. And so we have to shape
the people who are going to be wielding it, which is going to be
our kids and the future generations. That's why it is so important, you
know, taking that approach, and I'm glad that you have put that resource
out there. We know people need to take a look at that. More
people need to be doing that type of thing as well, because it's really
where the battle is. The battle is really for the spirit and the soul
and the heart, and the battle for the future is the battle for the
soul and the heart of our children. And so that's that's the key thing.
Talk to me a little bit about your books. You've got a couple
of different books, Mediocrity, Children of the Collective, maybe they're some other
ones here tell us a little bit about mediocrity. So that was a fun
one. I'll share the story this way. In April this year, it
was the fortieth anniversary of a report that the Reagan administration put out April twenty
six, nineteen eighty three. They titled it A Nation at Risk. It
was the conclusion of an eighteen months study that a team that called themselves the
National Commission on Excellence and Education. Their study went across the country. They
were on a listening tour, talking to teachers, parents, reviewing textbooks,
curriculum, everything else, trying to understand what's going on, trying to assess
education in America. They write this report, A Nation at Risk. And
in that report they said, and I quote, that America's educational foundations are
being threatened by a rising tide of mediocrity, and that if a foreign government
had attempted to impose upon America the very mediocre educational performance that now exists,
we might have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands,
we've allowed this to happen to ourselves. Nineteen eighty three. When I share
this story when I'm out speaking, I'll ask audiences Okay, raise of hands.
Who here in this audience believes that education in America has substantially improved in
the last forty years Today, Maybe I'm an intimidating person and people are scared
of raising their hand in general, but no one has raised their hand ever,
because we all know that education has gotten worse. If they said in
nineteen eighty three, that was mediocre, rising tide of mediocrity, what words
would you use to describe what it is today? I might choose some four
letter words that might not be too family friendly, you know, and that
is I mean, could consider this data point. I got so much I
can share here, but but I'll just share this. A few weeks ago,
a couple of months ago, now, the NAPE scores came out.
These are the kind of statistical assessments that they all the standardized testing that they
do for kids, and they do it, you know, fourth grade,
in eighth grade and twelfth grade, and they've been doing this for decades to
track academic progress. Not that I'm a fan of standardized tests, but they're
at least one useful way to kind of have your finger on the pulse.
Well, the data that came out just a couple of months ago. This
particular data point is from eighth graders across America, and it found that only
thirteen percent of them are proficient in civics in American history one three, not
three zero one three thirteen percent proficiency. I mean there's like way, way,
way worse than a failing grave. So so now fast forward twenty years,
forty years, sixty years. These kids who have been educated so called,
in a system of sub mediocrity are now voters. But they're ignorant,
they're historically illiterate, they're civically disengaged, they're distracted by the bread and circuses.
They know nothing about their history. You know the quote those who don't
learn from the past or condemned to repeat it. So they're much more likely
to support the authoritarian thugs and the socialist crazy people who are repeating every doomsday
failed thing from the past. And yet today's electorate doesn't know any better.
It's the whole you know, fool you fool me once, Shame on you,
fool me twice, Shame on me. These kids are not learning history,
they're not learning these basics about our society. Thirteen percent is abysmal.
It is not mediocre. It is way, way, way worse. So
one might say in response, well, yeah, COVID all this learning loss
it's been a no no. This has been a down and downward trend for
a very long time pre COVID. Absolutely. So my plea to parents out
there is not necessarily to homeschool, although I'm a big fan of homeschooling.
It's just do something else. It could be a private school, a micro
school, it could be a homeschool, it could be homeschool co opic.
You know, there's so many options today, but why would you want to
send your children not only to an intellectually sub mediocre system. Even if you
think, oh, well, I live in a good community, and you
know how many libs of TikTok videos have we seen now from conservative communities where
the schools are teaching garbage and parents don't realize it until it's too late.
So so do something else. Wake up. Don't think well, I went
to public school and I turned out fine. Right Like, it is a
different world and you need to pay attention. You need to be intentional and
take action to save your kids. I'll end with this. The pastor Vody
Bacham has this quote. I love where he says, can we, as
Christians in his case this religious quote, can we as Christians really be surprised
when we send our children to Caesar's schools and then they return home as Romans?
Right? And so we have to realize if we're surrendering our children to
certain people, then it's those people's values and worldview and things that are being
put into our kids. We need to wake up and be more intentional and
rescue our children from this sub mediocre system. That's right. Yeah, it
was a real blessing. I think in disguise as the schools. When to
zoom classes, parents could finally see what was happening in their child's classroom.
They always had this when I talked to you know for decades, Oh,
it's not happening in my kids classroom, even if it's happening in the same
school, same school districts that you know, and all the rest of this
stuff. But it seems like, you know, you talk about the Reagan
administration. I remember that report that you talked about, and I remember Charlotte
Isabey, you know, goes to Washington to help to shut down the Department
of Education, which was created during the nineteen eighty campaign, as Jimmy Carter
created it, and Ronald Reagan was going to get rid of it, and
yet they didn't do that, and so she got out of it, and
she wrote the book deliberately dumbing us down. Now they were able to dumb
us down, but now they're they're going into a kind of a deprave mode.
You know, Let's take the kids even deeper, Let's take them subterranean.
And that's what they're doing with the social engineering that we see. And
I think it's very key that the Obama administration the Biden administration have been using
the power of the purse to incentivize this. But now it's kind to the
point where when you talk about people getting active locally, you know, showing
up and and uh, you know, talking to people, not just criticizing,
you know, but also making relationships with people. But when you have
these school board meetings, you know, it was It's kind of interesting how
over the last couple of years now since the IT stuff, how the school
board meetings have become of national interest. The Department of Justice is taking an
interest in this, and you got to look at this and say, why
is this so important to them? And why is it not important enough for
us to just do this completely differently. You know, it seems like these
people are pushing on this, this institution that's not going to change, but
they keep pushing on it, and that seems to be really the way that
they want to run this through. You know, what do we do to
wake people up to get them to try something different? As you're pointing out,
well, I think of the Reagan quote as you point out, you
know, he was supposed to repeal the Department of Education. That didn't happen,
but he himself said that the closest thing to eternal life on earth is
a temporary government program. Right, And here we are with this Department of
Education and all the billions of dollars that they've spent, and can anyone point
to a single statistic and a single educational outcome that has measurably improved as a
direct result, even I'm not even asking for causation, let's even just go
to correlate. Do you have any correlated data to suggest that education outcomes and
government schools has improved in the past forty No, you don't, No one
does you know? These guys have just been spending all this money while they
oversee the decline of the and the dumbing down, the deliberate dumbing down of
the American education system. I think of a public school teacher. His name
is John Taylor Gotto passed away a few years ago. He was a public
school teacher in the state of New York for gosh, almost thirty years.
And he was someone who would work within the system. He hated the system
of which he was a part. He really struggled, but he was working
from within because he loved kids. He wanted to inspire them and connect with
them. His classes got rave reviews, His students loved him. They kept
in touch for a long time. He would he would buck the trend.
He would like take the kids on impromptu field trips and just go to the
park and get him outdoors. And you know, he's this guy that love
kids. So then he gets awarded later in his profession New York City Teacher
of the Year, and then the following year he gets awarded New York State
Teacher of Year. Keep in mind these awards, these Teacher of the Year
from the establishment, the PTA's, the teachers unions, and so forth.
He wins New York State Teacher of the year, and in the very same
year that he wins this award, he writes an op ed in the Wall
Street Journal titled I Quit, I Think, in which he goes on to
say, if anyone knows of a profession where I can help kids without also
hurting them, please let me know. He quits his profession, he starts
writing books and goes on a speaking tour, and his last years of life
amazing guy. But it shows, like what we're up against this system.
Like I had a teacher, not a teacher, a parent a few months
back of speaking to a parents group, and this woman in the q and
A after raised her hands said, look, you know, critical race theory,
social emotional learning, garbage books in the libraries, all this, you
know, pet litter boxes in the classroom, and like all these not not
for pets, right, yeah, right, And so she's rattling off all
these problems, and she says, the school system is so broken. I
say, whoa, whoa, hang on, hang on, I'm gonna respectfully
disagree with you. I do not believe the school system is broken. I
believe it has been perfected based on a flawed design. When you go back
to its originators, it's creators do you go back to Like Horace Mann,
here's a guy who brought over the Prussian education system, first commissioner of education
in the country in Massachusetts. He's this this fabian socialist, secular humanist guy,
and and and the collectivist. He wanted to take children from their different
religions and cultures and values and family traditions and homogenize them into one single American
culture. That was his dream behind his common school. So he brings over
this Prussian model to America, this very authoritarian model, which is the model
that our government schools are now based on. He's got this quote where he
says, we who were involved in the sacred cause of education should look to
parents as if they have given hostages to our cause, referring to their own
children. He talked in another quote about how men are like cast iron,
children are like wax. It's it's very hard to change the mind or the
heart of an adult. It's like cast iron, very firm, but children
are like wax. This is exactly what you know. All all the authoritarian
thugs, the despotic dictators, the Hitlers, the Maos, the Stalins,
they all say similar stuff. They all go after the kids because they want
to propagandize them and brainwash up. So back to this woman, I say,
I don't think it's broken. I think all these manifestations you're seeing are
outgrowths of a particular design that was designed with intentionality. These people did not
want to create a populace of critically minded excuse me, critical thinking, independent
minded, entrepreneurial individuals. They want to to create a society of subordinate soldiers
and citizens who would do what they were told and follow orders and learn their
station and support the collective. That was their intent. What we're seeing today
is just an outgrowth of that. We need to discard the design and reboot
the system in a way that will produce the outcomes that we want, rather
than kicking against the pricks and getting frustrated that why are kids turning out this
way and why are the schools not doing this? It's because they were designed
this way. We need to scrap the blueprints and build something better. That's
right. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do. And when we
look at the different means of control, again it's the purse showering people with
money, but then they create the standards out of their regulatory you know,
the Department of Education has been very very powerful in terms of providing the money
the bribes to do this kind of stuff, but also the standards. You
know, when they put out those standardized tests, that's a way for them
to control when you do do something different, like you know, if you
want to have some kind of an independent school or set something up, if
you want to get it accredited, then they're going to tell you what you
have to teach the kids and whether they have to regurgitate in or to get
accredited. So the standardized tests are going to control the content. They're going
to control the textbooks and all the rest of this stuff. But at the
same time, you know, the bread and circus things has taken itself to
the level for our kids of the furries or whatever. It's gone to not
just a banality, not just to a mediocrity or stupidity, but it's gone
to a depravity because again it's very much like a brave new world where they
want to take them into a world of sex and drugs so that they're not
a threat to them and a way for them to control the kids. That's
what we need to be aware of. I think that's really what we need
to push back against. And when you talk about your your next book,
The Children of the Collective, I'm sure that that is what you were referring
to when you talked about a horseman and his approaches to that. But that
has always been the issue. You're right back, going back to the middle
eighteen hundreds. He's socialists said, well, we can't change society the way
we want to because we can't get to these kids early enough. So let's
get them at a very early age. And of course, you know,
God tells us you train up a john on the way they go should go,
when when they're old they won't depart from it. We're being told this
by everybody from God to Hitler has told us this stuff. Maybe we want
to pay attention to it, right, Yeah, No, I think you're
you're onto something here that that book, in particular, Children of the Collective
was the result of a quote I read years ago from Michael Novak. I've
got the quote pulled up right here. The entire book is basically an expanded
version analyzing why this quote is so true. Here's what he says, Between
the omnipotent state and the naked individual looms the first line of resistance against totalitarianism,
the economically and politically independent family, protecting the space within which free and
independent individuals may receive the necessary years of nurture. So he illustrates on the
one and you've got this omnipotent state. You've got naked individuals, socially naked,
emotionally naked, spiritually naked, right physically naked in terms of their insecurity
and weakness compared to the authoritarian state. And in the middle, he's got
this first line of resistance what I find fascinating, which is the politically economically
independent family. So our families need to be independent. We need to be
financially independent. I mean, think of the founding fathers who would have been
there had those particular individuals not had had the financial station in life to just
go sit in a room and debate politics for weeks on end right. And
so being financially free is critical, not just so you can go relax on
a beach, so they can move up Haslow's hierarchy of needs, and you
can actually do greater things to bless humanity because you're not hand to mouth,
you know, working the whole time, and so What I find fascinating is
is he says this economically and politically independent family unit is the first line of
resistance. So then you think, well, it doesn't say it's the line
of resistance, it's the first line. What are additional I like my skin,
Let's say someone in my office sneezes or something. There's pathogens floating around
the air. My skin an organ is my first line of resistance. But
if that pathogen, like if I have a cut on my skin, or
if I breathe it in or whatever, my body has additional mechanisms to still
try and fight that pathogen even if it gets past this first line of resistance.
If the family is the first line of resistance, what are additional ones?
Well, I think the extended family certainly is a really important one,
beyond the nuclear family, having multiple generations under one roof or in one community
where you can support one another. But beyond that, I would say,
and this you're asking a lot of good questions about like what can the average
person do, or what can people do, or what's the message? Here's
a critical one. I think when Alexis to Tokio was sent to this new
nation to kind of survey what the heck was going on in America. He
wrote the Book's Democracy in America was his survey in the early eighteen hundreds of
of what was going on here, and he talked about with a sense of
awe and wonder, what he called mediating institutions. He says it was so
remarkable that throughout Europe, he says, whenever someone would have a problem,
they would raise their hand and ask some minister of government, some public functionary,
some elected or bureaucrat person. They would go to them for help to
solve their problems. That that was the common thread behind problem solving in Europe.
By contrast, he said, when Americans have a problem, they form
a society, they form an organization and induce people voluntarily to try to come
to the aid of their fellow man. And he was blown away that there
was this whole fabric, this social fabric, of mediating institutions, and then
they were all over the place. I would give you a very particular example.
There's a gentleman named David Beeto b E I. T O. He
wrote a book a few years ago called From Mutual Aid the Welfare State.
It is a phenomenal book highlighting how these mediating institutions were basically put out of
business by the omnipotent state, by the welfare that in early America you had,
you know, whether you were Irish, or you were Protestant, or
you were Mormon, or you were you know, Mexican, or whether all
these communities fostered mutual aid societies where they would help one another. We're talking
life insurance, death insurance, orphan care, elderly care. And America was
littered, littered with these mutual aid societies, very economical and very I mean
think of like the Kohanis and the Rotary and all these other groups that are
kind of legacy holdovers and have really just decayed because our society no longer values
these things. But in early America they were everywhere until the welfare states started
to be passed. They started passing these laws. Suddenly people were like,
wait a minute, my membership dues for this mutual aid society or ten dollars
a year. This was you know, back when inflation wasn't nearly as in
effect. I'm paying ten dollars a year for this mutual aid society, but
I'm paying taxes of like, you know, eighteen dollars a year, and
that's providing all these welfare benefits. Why am I still in this mutual aid
society? So everyone made the rational decision to I mean they went out of
business literally like I mean not literally but figuratively overnight because of the state.
This is why, this is why we need not only strong families, but
we need mediating institutions. We need to rebuild social fabric. You can have
libertarians like me out there saying shrink the government, you know, stop passing
stupid laws, let's vote that person out of office. But if our society
is not strong, then the state will be That's right. If our society
is weak, then the state will be strong. If we want a weak
state, if we want to limit government, we need a strong society where
we're taking care of one another, where we're supporting one another. When where
that when there are problems, we bring solutions rather than turning to the government
for help. We're not there. We're ways off from what Alexis to Tokfield
saw. But I think that has the answer as well. To fight the
collectivists, to fight these central planners, to shrink the state, we got
to focus on our families. We got to rebuild social fabric. We got
to strengthen our society, and then naturally the state will go weaker because fewer
people will be turning to it to be the source of their comfort and providing
for their needs. They'll turn to these social programs, in the true sense
of the word, societal programs, mediating institutions. That's where we need to
be as a country. So well said, and you know, and as
you're talking about this, I'm thinking about it. I've talked about this many
times, you know, the we've we've had, you know, Charles Murray
talked about the deliberate talked about, you know, the effect of the welfare
state. I started to say deliberate dumming down of America, but it was
losing ground. Was his book that he did now always out there pushing universal
basic income. You know, it is it's amazing to see how this shift
has happened, and it's been done in a very subversive way in the sense
that and it's subverted not just the poor people in the inner city. You
know. I've talked to Jack Cashell, who's got a book, Contentable.
He was talking about how he saw this happen in the city where he was
talked to people who have you been who are my age, and they had
vibrant black communities and it was decimated. You know, they had businesses that
were that were working, they had intact families, and then the welfare state
comes in and everybody just starts, you know, taking the free money,
and it's a very corrupting thing. They want to do that with the universal
basic income. But as you're talking about this, I'm thinking, you know,
it hasn't just taken the Port's taken the middle class, the upper middle
class, because the government is always there to hand you money to get you
to do whatever they want you to do. And there is so much money
that just this unlimited printing press coming out of Washington, that they can bribe
each and every one of us if we let them. The discussion that we're
now seeing in terms of the Department of Education, well, let's let's allow
people who are homeschooling to get money and to come and participate in these activities.
And I've always opposed that because I realize what a corrupting thing it is
to take the money. We have to start taking responsibility for what we want
to do in our families. And it's even corrupted the churches. The churches
used to be a part of these mediating institutions. The churches would start hospitals,
the churches would start schools. They don't do that anymore. The government
does everything for everybody, and so we don't even connect to our fellow men
anymore. We're all connected to the government. As you're talking about earlier in
the program. Everybody's like, well, what's going on in Washington, and
who can I vote for in Washington? Why? Because that's where the money
is flowing from. And so that's the thing that I think we've got to
get passed and beyond, you know, these standardized tests, But it's really
the money that is flowing through all this stuff. And you know that,
you know, Dufel said, everybody is focused on the what's the government going
to do to fix the situation. We had voluntary libraries, voluntary fire departments,
We did our own schools, our own hospitals. Now everything has got
to come from Washington. We've been trained. We're like wild animals who used
to be able to take care of themselves, and we've been hand fed for
so long by the government that we're dependent on it. And now the government
has turned feral, and when you go to the national parks, you see
the science that says don't feed the animals for that precise reason. If we
care about their long term health and strength. Is a little animal community,
right, they need to be able to survive on their own. You're actually
harming them by supporting them. And so if the government is supporting us,
it is harming us. And just like the education system is being deliberately dumbed
down, I think it is also deliberate that we are being so many of
us are financially supported. Over half of Americans are directly financially supported by the
state. If you talk about government schools as well, it shoots to like
ninety percent, right, But excluding the schools direct payments, it's over fifty
percent. No wonder. Voters are increasingly shifting blue. No wonder many of
our red states returning purple. When people are directly connected to the state,
they are much more forgiving of it, and they are much more tolerant of
its abuses because they don't want the gravy train to end. That's right.
Yeah, what we have now in the area where I live there the Smoky
Mountains, they're very concerned about people not feeding the bears. Our federal government
has essentially gone through everybody's neighborhoods putting trash cans to give us junk. And
we've been so acclimated to this garbage food and the trash cans, we would
never be able to survive without it, it seems like. But we've got
to break that dependency somehow. A great way to do it is with an
ex generation with the Tuttle Twins books. And you got tuttle Twins dot com
right where people can go find that as well as I'll just pronounce it as
a libertass dot com or dot org. Okay, so tuttle Twins dot com
and libertass dot org. It's really been a pleasure talking to you, Connor.
Thank you so much. Appreciate it, thank you, Thank you,
Connor Boyak doing great work there. Thank you so much. Well, folks,
that's it for today's program. Thank you for joining us, and we'll
see you tomorrow. The common Man they created common Core a dumbed down our
children. They created common Past to track and control us, their Commons project
to make sure the commoners own nothing, and the communist future. They see
the common man as simple unsophisticated, ordinary. But each of us has worth
and dignity created in the image of God. That is what we have in
common. That is what they want to take away. Their most powerful weapons
are isolation, deception, intimidation. They desire to know everything about us,
while they hide everything from us. It's time to turn that around and expose
what they want to hide. Please share the information and links you'll find at
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