Speaker 1: There's a little brew haha happening in the city of Clovis, California,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about it because I think
Speaker 1: it could have an impact on the state. More broadly,
Speaker 1: I think other local governments should think about this, and
Speaker 1: I think it impacts the national immigration issue. It has
Speaker 1: to do with whether or not local police, local sheriffs
Speaker 1: can or should declare themselves to not be a sanctuary jurisdiction.
Speaker 1: Should local cities or county governments declare themselves not to
Speaker 1: be a sanctuary jurisdiction and declare that they're not going
Speaker 1: to follow California's various sanctuary state laws. All right, So
Speaker 1: let's I want to step back and explain all these things.
Speaker 1: What does it mean when California says that it is
Speaker 1: a sanctuary state? Okay, so what it means is that
Speaker 1: local police and let's remember this basic principle when you
Speaker 1: talk about local governments or county governments or city governments whatever.
Speaker 1: All county government, all city government is a creation of
Speaker 1: state government. If the state says x, the county and
Speaker 1: the city have to do it. There's no kind of
Speaker 1: separate autonomy that local governments or county the city governments
Speaker 1: or county governments have from state governments. Okay, it's different from, say,
Speaker 1: the relationship between a state government and the federal government.
Speaker 1: The state and the Feds are two different sovereigns that
Speaker 1: we live under, and each has its rights individually and
Speaker 1: has its visual spheres of autonomy separate from the other.
Speaker 1: Not so with local governments. Local governments are total creations
Speaker 1: of state government. So if state law says X, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: local governments have to agree with it, have to follow it.
Speaker 1: What is California's sanctuary state law. California's Sanctuary State Law
Speaker 1: aka the California Values Act, which was signed into law
Speaker 1: passed in twenty seventeen, went into effect in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: under Jerry Brown. Basically, what it does is it limits
Speaker 1: the ability of state and local law enforcement to cooperate
Speaker 1: with federal immigration Well, excuse I should say, limits their
Speaker 1: ability to communicate, share information, cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
Speaker 1: Now there's some extent to which they can communicate with
Speaker 1: federal immigration enforcement. For example, they can tip them off
Speaker 1: if someone who has committed a serious felony, someone convicted
Speaker 1: of a serious felony is about to be released from prison,
Speaker 1: but that's it. It doesn't seem to me that it
Speaker 1: doesn't allow for police on the front end to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we just picked up this guy in a raid. He's
Speaker 1: not even supposed to be, you know, in a gang
Speaker 1: raid or a drug raid or something. We just picked
Speaker 1: up this guy. We don't think he's even supposed to
Speaker 1: be in the country legally. Why don't you guys just
Speaker 1: come pick him up Ice. So basically our sanctuary state law,
Speaker 1: it limits the ability of local police to communicate with ICE,
Speaker 1: or with I S or with the Border Patrol only
Speaker 1: for people who have committed serious felonies. And I believe
Speaker 1: from my reading of the law, and I want to
Speaker 1: actually see if I can get someone from local law
Speaker 1: enforcement in. It seems like it's mostly just on the
Speaker 1: back end that after this person has been convicted of
Speaker 1: a serious felony, then then you can let them know,
Speaker 1: let the immigration authorities know after they're leaving. So it
Speaker 1: says in the law law enforcement officials shall have discretion
Speaker 1: to cooperate with immigration authorities only if doing so would
Speaker 1: not violate any federal, state of local law or local policy,
Speaker 1: and where permitted by the California Values Act. Additionally, the
Speaker 1: specific activities shall only occur in the following circumstances. The
Speaker 1: person has been convicted of a serious or violent felony,
Speaker 1: and the person blah blah blah blah. So it's usually
Speaker 1: it's on the back end that you can then tell
Speaker 1: immigration authorities. But it's not on the front end where
Speaker 1: a police officer could pick up a guy in a
Speaker 1: drug rate. Can't just pick up a guy during a
Speaker 1: raid and say, hey, this person shouldn't even be in
Speaker 1: the country in the first place. Let's call Ice and
Speaker 1: get this guy's rear end deported. Now, I think that
Speaker 1: local law enforcement should have the discretion to do that,
Speaker 1: to do precisely that. Diane Pearce, who's a closed city
Speaker 1: council member things likewise, Miss Pierce noticed that the city
Speaker 1: of Huntington Beach, California, had introduced and adopted a city
Speaker 1: resolution declaring Huntingdon Beach to be a non sanctuary city
Speaker 1: for illegal immigration for the prevention of crime. They issued
Speaker 1: big local resolution to that effect, and they introduce this
Speaker 1: local resolution. It's got, you know, a couple pages. It's
Speaker 1: a couple pages long in which it lays out some
Speaker 1: legal arguments. It actually lays out the legal arguments for
Speaker 1: why they think California's sanctuary state law actually is in
Speaker 1: violation of controlling federal law, and they declare their intention
Speaker 1: to not follow the state's law and instead to follow
Speaker 1: federal law. So there Huntington Beach is making this argument.
Speaker 1: We understand that the California Values Act is on the books, However,
Speaker 1: we don't think it's legal basically the way the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court has interpreted a lot of federal immigration law. I
Speaker 1: don't know that this was originally the case at the
Speaker 1: time of the founding, but this is sort of what
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court has decided a lot of controlling Supreme
Speaker 1: Court President basically just says that the federal government is
Speaker 1: in control of immigration matters, and there is federal law
Speaker 1: on the books that would seem to me. Again, I
Speaker 1: haven't read into it super in depth. I'm not you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not claiming to be an expert on this area
Speaker 1: of law, but there does seem to me to be
Speaker 1: some federal statutes on the books that contradict what the
Speaker 1: state of California is doing. So the statute that Huntingdon
Speaker 1: Beach sites that I think is most relevant is eight USC.
Speaker 1: Thirteen seventy three eight United States Code thirteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: which says, notwithstanding any other provision of federal state of
Speaker 1: local law, a federal, state or local government entity or
Speaker 1: official may not prohibit or in any way restrict any
Speaker 1: government entity or official from sending, two or receiving from
Speaker 1: the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or
Speaker 1: immigration status lawful or unlawful of any individual. No person
Speaker 1: or agency may prohibit or in any way restrict a
Speaker 1: federal state of local government entity from doing any of
Speaker 1: the following with respect to information regarding the immigration status
Speaker 1: lawful or unlawful of any individual. One sending such information,
Speaker 1: two or requesting or receiving such information from the Immigration
Speaker 1: and Naturalization Service, two, maintaining such information, three exchanging such
Speaker 1: information with any other federal, state of local government entity.
Speaker 1: So you've got at least this one federal law on
Speaker 1: the books that to me kind of looks like it's
Speaker 1: flatly contradicting California state law. Now, I'll admit that I
Speaker 1: haven't done a really deep dive on this. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: I'm missing something here, but here's this federal law. Several
Speaker 1: different federal statutes that would seem to say no, local governments,
Speaker 1: state governments cannot restrict local and state government officials from
Speaker 1: communicating with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They're just not allowed.
Speaker 1: Just that you're not allowed to restrict it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I think there's some kind of an issue there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I find it find it odd
Speaker 1: to think and the city resolution, the resolution by the
Speaker 1: City of Huntington Beach, sites other legal arguments, et cetera.
Speaker 1: All Right, So Diane Pierce raises this question on her
Speaker 1: She has like a Facebook page, and she raises it
Speaker 1: on there. Hey, do you guys think that Clovis should
Speaker 1: declare itself not to be a sanctuary city? Should Clovis
Speaker 1: police work with the I n S? Or should Clovis
Speaker 1: police operate in communication with ICE and with other immigration authorities?
Speaker 1: Should we allow them to do that? Should we declare
Speaker 1: that we're going to sidestep state government? Now this seems
Speaker 1: to immediately be the dynamic on the city council and
Speaker 1: in Clovis, And I think it's a dynamic in a
Speaker 1: lot of places, and it's a dynamic that I hate.
Speaker 1: It's a Jerry Dyer dynamic. It's a dynamic of a
Speaker 1: lot of local government officials who basically, at the mere
Speaker 1: mention of some kind of broader conservative idea, put their
Speaker 1: tails between their legs and run away. You know, here's Clovis.
Speaker 1: I don't know how familiar all of you listeners are
Speaker 1: with Clovis, but I don't think I'm breaking any great
Speaker 1: news to you to say Clovis is a really conservative city.
Speaker 1: It's a heavily Republican city. I don't know the breakdown
Speaker 1: Trump to Trump to Harris, but I have my suspicions
Speaker 1: that it was overwhelmingly pro Trump. All five of our
Speaker 1: city council members are at least in name, Republicans, run
Speaker 1: as Republicans. I deeply suspect at least one, if not
Speaker 1: several of them are actually not very conservative at all.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I keep seeing as
Speaker 1: soon as Diane Pierce joined the city council, it really
Speaker 1: shook things up. She used her platform to bring attention
Speaker 1: to the ridiculous stuff that was going on within Fresno
Speaker 1: County libraries. Because she goes to the Clovis Library and says, hey,
Speaker 1: look at all these books that are you know, borderline
Speaker 1: pornographic that are on the shelves here for you know
Speaker 1: a seven year old to grab. She raises that question,
Speaker 1: and immediately all of her colleagues on the city council think,
Speaker 1: how horrible it is, How horrible. Oh, that's not something
Speaker 1: that we deal with on the Clover City Council. That's
Speaker 1: county government responsibility. Why are you doing that? Are you?
Speaker 1: Why are you making this such a divisive issue. Well, oh,
Speaker 1: you're making people who work for city government feel uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: to which I would respond, and most Clovis citizens I
Speaker 1: know who are politically engaged, by the way, would have responded.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate Diane Pierce bringing attention to this. I
Speaker 1: appreciate the fact that she then proceeded to bring this
Speaker 1: to the attention of the County Board of Supervisors in
Speaker 1: a way that a local government official can that maybe
Speaker 1: I can't. It resulted in Steve Brandau introducing his Library's Bill,
Speaker 1: which unfortunately got preempted by state law. But she actually
Speaker 1: did something about it. She noticed something bad and used
Speaker 1: the platform she has as a city government official to
Speaker 1: make a big to do something about it, propose a
Speaker 1: city council resolution saying that the County Board of Supervisors
Speaker 1: should do something about it, and both then and now
Speaker 1: you have foot dragging from other members of the Clover
Speaker 1: City Council. So now it's Drew Bessinger, who's a Clovis
Speaker 1: City Council member, who proceeds to say, we can't, we
Speaker 1: can't declare ourselves not to be sanctuaries. And now this
Speaker 1: is as reported by Diane. Diane reported it very kindly
Speaker 1: and didn't have anything negative to say about mister Besseinger.
Speaker 1: She just said, you know, my friend Drew Bessinger says
Speaker 1: that he doesn't think this is a good idea and
Speaker 1: that this is not really something that we could do.
Speaker 1: I disagree. So Diane was very kind and respectful to him.
Speaker 1: I am not going to be so kind. I am
Speaker 1: tired of Clovis City Council members and local government figures
Speaker 1: throughout the San Joaquin Valley, whether that's Jerry Dyer or whoever,
Speaker 1: taking these sort of I guess I'm gonna call it
Speaker 1: classical liberal or almost Rollsian approach to government, that the
Speaker 1: work of local government is just fixing roads and hiring cops,
Speaker 1: and that there's no like great d ethical framework in
Speaker 1: which they operate, that big decisions of right and wrong
Speaker 1: just aren't really the domain of local government officials in
Speaker 1: the San Joaquin Valley. No, no, no, that's a state question.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't We just shouldn't get involved. That it's gonna
Speaker 1: lead to a lot of people. It's gonna lead to
Speaker 1: a lot of ill feeling and disagreement. And that's not
Speaker 1: what the city council's about. Because they've accepted a certain
Speaker 1: sort of framework of looking at the world. They're goldfish
Speaker 1: thinking that the whole universe is only the parameters of
Speaker 1: their goldfish bowl. And here's Diane saying, hey, maybe there's
Speaker 1: something more here. Okay, we're just accepting that state law
Speaker 1: says X, therefore we're gonna accept X. Well, maybe state law.
Speaker 1: Maybe the law passed by California is itself violative of
Speaker 1: federal law. The Supreme Court has been very open to
Speaker 1: the idea of immigration being exclusively the domain of the
Speaker 1: federal government. Now, I'll admit maybe there's some sticky legal
Speaker 1: issues between you know, what, can the Feds tell state
Speaker 1: governments to do? Can Feds tell state governments not to
Speaker 1: tell local governments what to do? Does federal law here
Speaker 1: completely preempt any state efforts to insert itself into federal law?
Speaker 1: I think it raises some interesting legal questions when we return,
Speaker 1: what would it actually cost the City of Clovis to
Speaker 1: declare itself not a sanctuary city. Next on the John
Speaker 1: Girardi Show, the city of Huntington Beach, California declared itself
Speaker 1: not a sanctuary city, said they would not follow certain
Speaker 1: provisions of the California Values Act. They say, they try
Speaker 1: to argue that federal law coulds in this area, and
Speaker 1: there's federal law in the books that says state and
Speaker 1: local jurisdictions cannot prohibit state and local officials from communicating
Speaker 1: with I N S. They say, Hey, we think federal
Speaker 1: law controls here. The proposals put forward to the City
Speaker 1: of Clovis by City City of Clovis council member Diane Pierce,
Speaker 1: who is the mayor pro tem Clovis, passes the mayor
Speaker 1: title around to all the different members of the city council.
Speaker 1: It just basically Clovis doesn't have like a strong mayor
Speaker 1: like Fresno does. It's just basically a title you run
Speaker 1: the meetings. Basically you're just a member of the city
Speaker 1: council anyway. So Diane Pierce is introduced, has floated this idea.
Speaker 1: She hasn't formally introduced anything, but she's floated this idea of, hey,
Speaker 1: should the City of Clovis join Huntington Beach and declare
Speaker 1: itself not to be a sanctuary city, and immediately is
Speaker 1: met with no, no, no, that's not the City of
Speaker 1: Clovis's responsibility or state law controls here. And we came
Speaker 1: and that's not what It's just going to create a
Speaker 1: bunch of ill feeling and all right, this is the
Speaker 1: response that her city council members, her city council colleagues
Speaker 1: are giving her. Now, what would it act? Now? I
Speaker 1: would disagree with this on a number of fronts. One
Speaker 1: one of the actual key responsibilities of city government. Local
Speaker 1: government is policing. And I guarantee you if police, as
Speaker 1: they're picking up bad guys, could you know, as they're
Speaker 1: picking up a bunch of bad guy, low life drug
Speaker 1: ye gang members in a raid, if they could just
Speaker 1: do a little check on this guy's immigration status and
Speaker 1: call up ICE, the world would be a better place
Speaker 1: if they had the freedom and latitude to do that.
Speaker 1: It would be a good thing. Guarantee it now that so,
Speaker 1: at first I reject the contention from some of the
Speaker 1: folks on the Clover City Council who seem to be
Speaker 1: dragging their feet on this that well, those are really
Speaker 1: city responsibility. Well it is kind of part of your
Speaker 1: city responsibility. It would make one of these core functions
Speaker 1: of city government work better if City of Clovis police
Speaker 1: could interact with the immigration authorities. Now, maybe we condition
Speaker 1: it internally within the police department in a way or
Speaker 1: within the city council in a way that makes it fair.
Speaker 1: They say, hey, you have the latitude, if you've under
Speaker 1: certain conditions where you have some sort of greater assurance
Speaker 1: of guilt or something or blah blah whatever, then you
Speaker 1: contact immigration authorities. Again, I think it's a straw man
Speaker 1: to think that City of Clovis police would all of
Speaker 1: a sudden just be pulling over any group of Mexicans
Speaker 1: in a truck to try to check and see if
Speaker 1: they're in the country legally or not, and deport them
Speaker 1: if they aren't. I would say it makes tons of
Speaker 1: sense though, in the context of criminal law enforcement. You know,
Speaker 1: you're busting up a drug ring or a gang. You're
Speaker 1: doing a gang sting operation. Hey, you've got this guy
Speaker 1: who's maybe has a prior criminal record. You know, call
Speaker 1: up Ice. I think there are ways you can condition
Speaker 1: it to ensure that it's really fair and really just,
Speaker 1: and that you're not sending you know, you're not just
Speaker 1: rounding up random groups of Mexicans or something like that.
Speaker 1: If you're concerned about fairness and justice, they're okay, let's talk.
Speaker 1: Let's come up with a reasonable policy. Now here's the
Speaker 1: question the city council members are. It's oh, this is
Speaker 1: just would be bad. We shouldn't do it. It's not
Speaker 1: gonna work, It'll cost us money. Okay, what would it
Speaker 1: actually cost the City of Clovis? What would it actually
Speaker 1: cost the City of Clovis to say, Hey, we're gonna
Speaker 1: join with Huntington Beach and declare ourselves also not a
Speaker 1: sanctuary city. We'll combine our efforts with Huntington Beach in fact,
Speaker 1: Huntington Beach Clovis, and hey, maybe maybe we get twenty
Speaker 1: other Republican led cities or county governments, I mean county
Speaker 1: governments could discuss this. Call up Gary Brettefeld. You think
Speaker 1: he wouldn't want to do this. See have the Fresno
Speaker 1: County Sheriff say, hey, we're not gonna be a you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna communicate with I n s. We just don't
Speaker 1: think that we're prohibited from doing it. So instead of
Speaker 1: just one city challenging it, let's have twenty jurisdictions challenging it.
Speaker 1: Twenty cities and counties all joining together in this federal laws,
Speaker 1: this hypothetical federal this hypothetical lawsuit that I'm envisioning. Because
Speaker 1: of course, once Huntington Beach does this, Rob Bonta will
Speaker 1: assuredly sue Huntington Beach. Maybe we combine the lawsuit all
Speaker 1: of us together. That'll minimize our attorney's fees costs. If
Speaker 1: we can pool our resources together, instead of one city
Speaker 1: paying for all the representation or just Clothes and Huntington Beach,
Speaker 1: have twenty cities reduce our legal costs significantly. Okay, pr costs.
Speaker 1: Oh no, the residents of Clovis will be so upset
Speaker 1: with you, Clovi City Council, that you decided to try
Speaker 1: to sidestep this sanctuary city nonsense, which most of the
Speaker 1: citizens of Clothes don't like anyway. Oh, it'll lead to
Speaker 1: ill feeling. Well, okay, I mean, the fact remains that
Speaker 1: we have this four year win, have opportunity to actually
Speaker 1: do something about illegal immigration. And I like the fact
Speaker 1: that Diane Pierce is actually willing to think of a
Speaker 1: creative solution to have the City of Clovis do something,
Speaker 1: have Clovis pde do something. Frankly, I feel like every
Speaker 1: city council should be thinking of outside the box ways
Speaker 1: of discussing this. Look, if the legal arguments advanced by
Speaker 1: Huntington Beach are totally garbage, Okay, I get it. Let's
Speaker 1: not participate if it's purely going to be a waste
Speaker 1: of state money. Fine. And I'm not saying like, disobey,
Speaker 1: Like if a court gives us an order saying no,
Speaker 1: you may not enforce this policy until the lawsuits completed, Okay,
Speaker 1: follow the order. I'm not saying, like, have the City
Speaker 1: of Clovis engage in rebellion against the State of California.
Speaker 1: That's not how this would work. They would announce the policy,
Speaker 1: it would be challenged by the Attorney General, they would
Speaker 1: have litigation. The court could order them to keep having
Speaker 1: the policy or not have the policy for the duration
Speaker 1: of the litigation. We follow what the court decides, But
Speaker 1: at the very least, like, why not push on this?
Speaker 1: It just seems like it could result in a big
Speaker 1: legal breakthrough, breaking the back of sanctuary jurisdiction law when
Speaker 1: we return our little Rawlsian public servants in local government
Speaker 1: in California next on the John Gerardy Show. John Rawls
Speaker 1: is one of the most important political philosophers of our
Speaker 1: last one hundred years or so. He was born in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty one. He died in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: and his ideas of classic liberalism and progressivism have been
Speaker 1: extremely influential, far more influential than any of you might
Speaker 1: guess who aren't philosophy majors or anything. A lot of
Speaker 1: the kind of built in assumptions to how the sort
Speaker 1: of Obamian left things and talks and acts are coming
Speaker 1: from Rolls. And one of the big one of Ralls's
Speaker 1: big ideas was from his book from nineteen ninety three
Speaker 1: called Political Liberalism. And he's not talking about liberal as
Speaker 1: in modern day American left wing. He's talking about the
Speaker 1: classical liberal tradition. And I think in many ways he's
Speaker 1: highlighting the flaws of classical liberalism. A lot of conservatives
Speaker 1: act like, oh, I'm a classical liberal, that's what I am.
Speaker 1: I think Roles sort of shows he takes classical liberalism
Speaker 1: and in some ways sort of takes it to its
Speaker 1: logical conclusions in ways that are not particularly satisfactory. So
Speaker 1: one of the things he tries to do is exclude
Speaker 1: from public debate any kind of ideas or thought that
Speaker 1: isn't part of our accepted kind of lowest common denominator
Speaker 1: accepted political and ethical framework. So any sort of arguments
Speaker 1: coming from religion, if they are in any way not
Speaker 1: agreeing with his conception of what we believe as a polity,
Speaker 1: that gets thrown out and that that well, and this
Speaker 1: leads you probably to ask, well, how is he defining?
Speaker 1: What is he defined as our sort of accepted political reality.
Speaker 1: Good question. It's basically the sort of lowest common denominator
Speaker 1: ethical libertarianism, freedom and equality and all these things that
Speaker 1: everyone sort of agrees with. But when liberals talk about freedom, equality,
Speaker 1: et cetera, they include things like, and I use this
Speaker 1: example because of something I think about a lot, Liberals
Speaker 1: would say that basic rereadom basic equality would include things
Speaker 1: like legal abortion, oh, letting people have the freedom and
Speaker 1: equality to make decisions about their own bodily autonomy. And
Speaker 1: when conservatives say, well, well, no, that doesn't seem right.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you say that the unborn child is created in
Speaker 1: the image and likeness of God? Oh? Whoa, We're not
Speaker 1: bringing God into this. Hey, you can't be talking about God. Hey.
Speaker 1: In our little rollsy and political universe, we can only
Speaker 1: talk about these things that are sort of part of
Speaker 1: our accepted public, you know, part of the public political forum.
Speaker 1: We have to commit ourselves to the ideal of public reason,
Speaker 1: only debating these things in terms of reasons whose status
Speaker 1: as reasons is shared between ourselves. So, oh, you bring
Speaker 1: up God, I don't like God. I don't care all
Speaker 1: you say about this person's made the image likeness of God.
Speaker 1: I don't care. Or if you bring up well, there's
Speaker 1: a fundamental dignity in human purses. WHOA, who's talking about
Speaker 1: fundamental dignity. No, I'm just talking about freedom and people
Speaker 1: should be free to make their decisions and it's it's choice.
Speaker 1: So a lot of modern day political liberalism frames itself
Speaker 1: as like this is just a value neutral proposition of
Speaker 1: what we're doing, like all the big questions have been
Speaker 1: answered already, All the big questions have been answered about who,
Speaker 1: what are human rights and who has them? That's all answered.
Speaker 1: Don't be coming in here with your big time sort
Speaker 1: of fundamentalist theories, whether it's religious ideas or fundamental big
Speaker 1: you know, big overriding ideas about anthropology and human dignity. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're just engage. We limit our political discussions to basically
Speaker 1: these kind of technocratic questions about the effective ordering of
Speaker 1: what's what's supposed to be. It's amazing how much his
Speaker 1: political thought has infiltrated its way throughout our discourse. Where
Speaker 1: I find this all the time. It's not that the
Speaker 1: left engages with and rejects conservative ideas about say, gay marriage,
Speaker 1: or transgenderism, or abortion, or are any of these big
Speaker 1: sort of social questions. No, they just kind of bypass
Speaker 1: it as obviously wrong, just bypass it as obviously what
Speaker 1: we think is right. Just totally don't even engage because
Speaker 1: so as they basically think any one of these conservative
Speaker 1: arguments that's appealing to some kind of overriding conception of
Speaker 1: the good or of human nature, of what is human good,
Speaker 1: of what is right and what is wrong. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're just restricting ourselves to these lowest common denominator ideas
Speaker 1: about freedom and equality and that's it. If you try
Speaker 1: to argue for anything, for any kind of concept that's
Speaker 1: beyond like freedom and equality, you're violating this sort of
Speaker 1: Rawlsian conception of the universe. And this stuff is coming
Speaker 1: from John Rawls and it has infiltrated all the way
Speaker 1: down to say the Clovist City Council or the president
Speaker 1: of city Council. Okay, I remember this with the president
Speaker 1: city Council a bunch of times, a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: Joaquin Arambula, who's a California State Assembly member, doctor, Joaquin Arambula,
Speaker 1: an actual medical doctor, unlike Jill Biden, who's a phony doctor.
Speaker 1: He got I believe this was in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: so the state was flush with COVID cash. And while
Speaker 1: quin Arambula got a one million dollar grant for the
Speaker 1: Planned Parenthood Clinic on Fulton Street, A million bucks. There
Speaker 1: you go. And the idea for this grant was it
Speaker 1: needed a local government to be the pass through entity
Speaker 1: to give the money to Planned Parentood. Apparently there's some
Speaker 1: reason why it couldn't just come directly from the state.
Speaker 1: And members of our city council propose there was some
Speaker 1: combo between Arambula and members of the City Council to
Speaker 1: propose that the President of City Council be the pass
Speaker 1: through entity. So as a result, you had the liberals
Speaker 1: on the presdent of City Council. Nelson is sparz. Uh Uh,
Speaker 1: how come I'm completely Miguel Arius all the most the
Speaker 1: four most liberal members of the present City Council all
Speaker 1: banded together to get this passed. Luis Chavez and they
Speaker 1: banded together to get this passed. And the reactions there
Speaker 1: were only two people willing to really stand up in
Speaker 1: opposition to it, and that was Mere Dier and then
Speaker 1: City Council Member Gary Brettefeld now council member Brettafeld was
Speaker 1: very vigorous in saying we shouldn't do this because abortion
Speaker 1: is wrong. Dire his whole approach to it was, Oh,
Speaker 1: this just isn't the kind of thing that the city
Speaker 1: should get itself involved in. This isn't what we should
Speaker 1: get ourselves involved in. And Dire constantly seems to try
Speaker 1: to sidestep any kind of urgent, like cultural or ethical
Speaker 1: question by trying to make some argument that this isn't
Speaker 1: a thing that we should concern ourselves with. This isn't
Speaker 1: a thing we should concern ourselves with. Oh, this isn't
Speaker 1: part of what the city is supposed to be caring about.
Speaker 1: And it's almost as if he takes this stance that
Speaker 1: the city government is basically just a technocratic thing where
Speaker 1: all the big moral questions are already already decided. The
Speaker 1: city shouldn't involve itself in any kind of moral questions whatsoever,
Speaker 1: And all we do is fix potholes and higher cops.
Speaker 1: Although not recognizing that even then, whether to hire cops,
Speaker 1: whether to fix potholes is itself something that's contingent on
Speaker 1: broader ethical ideas about what is good and what is right.
Speaker 1: Hiring cops was three or four years ago, if I
Speaker 1: recall correctly, a pretty controversial stance to take. For a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes, city of Clovis doing the same thing. Oh,
Speaker 1: Diane Pearce is getting angry about pornographic books in the
Speaker 1: kid's library. That's right next to our city council. Oh,
Speaker 1: she shouldn't do that. That's not an area of our concern.
Speaker 1: As if the only role of the Clovis City Council
Speaker 1: is again just hiring cops and fixing potholes. I just
Speaker 1: don't think that local government figures should think of their
Speaker 1: jobs that way. There's this desire to reduce your job
Speaker 1: to this lowest common denominator function. And yes, I get it,
Speaker 1: like it would be better in some ways, it would
Speaker 1: be better for local government figures to focus their attention
Speaker 1: on fixing potholes and hiring cops rather than getting themselves
Speaker 1: wrapped up in insane left wing cultural nonsense. But the
Speaker 1: only way you're going to fight against insane left wing
Speaker 1: cultural nonsense is if you have some solid right wing
Speaker 1: cultural principles ideas, and if you sort of say from
Speaker 1: the top, oh, I'm gonna exclude these things from public
Speaker 1: debate because people might disagree or not everyone agrees with
Speaker 1: my viewpoints, or you know, this is not really the
Speaker 1: role of government. The role of government here is just
Speaker 1: to fix the roads, and let's focus on just what.
Speaker 1: Let's not focus on these big cultural fights and these
Speaker 1: culture war issues. I don't know people who call big
Speaker 1: ethical questions culture war issues like dismissively. I can't stand
Speaker 1: people who's who talk like that it is it is
Speaker 1: actually really important these things. So in short, I reject
Speaker 1: this kind of this sort of little rollsy in attitude
Speaker 1: that seems to infect our local government figures, state government
Speaker 1: figure whatever, who try to make this claim, well that's
Speaker 1: not something for us to get involved. But you see
Speaker 1: at the federal level too, Now you got all these
Speaker 1: Republican politicis, oh, you know, abortion legislation, that's just for
Speaker 1: the states, that's just for the states. I'm just here
Speaker 1: to you know, cut spending and like trying to act
Speaker 1: as if what they're doing is this sort of value
Speaker 1: neutral proposition of just trying to, you know, make the
Speaker 1: mechanism of government work better. And no, there are actually
Speaker 1: big overriding ideas that if you are going to be
Speaker 1: in politics in government, you should concern yourselves with and
Speaker 1: if you don't have a strong conviction about those things,
Speaker 1: then you should have never run for public office to
Speaker 1: begin with. When we return, why I am skeptical of
Speaker 1: the libertarian freak out over Trump's tariffs? Next on the
Speaker 1: John Grardy Show, all right, I subscribe to National Review.
Speaker 1: I read it a lot, I use it a lot
Speaker 1: as show prep. I like it, but it is much
Speaker 1: more libertarian leaning than I am. And I open up
Speaker 1: National review dot com this morning to start looking for
Speaker 1: topics for show prep boom, the North American trade war begins.
Speaker 1: President Trump is promising pain for US. So Trump's tariffs
Speaker 1: are terrible. This at the terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. Libertarians
Speaker 1: hate tariffs. They're all convinced that tariffs are the worst
Speaker 1: thing in the world, that limiting free trade is a
Speaker 1: terrible idea. Tariffs are bad. It violates all these libertarian principles.
Speaker 1: Tariffs are just bad and you shouldn't do them. And
Speaker 1: it's attacks on people via on goods becoming more expensive
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah blah. It's terrible. How dared Trump
Speaker 1: do this? Well, the president of Mexico apparently just agreed
Speaker 1: in exchange for Trump only delaying the tariffs by a
Speaker 1: month on Mexico, the twenty five percent tariffs on Mexico
Speaker 1: that we're proposed. Claudia stein Shinbaum, the president of Mexico,
Speaker 1: is going to supply ten thousand Mexican soldiers to the border.
Speaker 1: Soldiers will specifically be designated to stop the flow of
Speaker 1: fentanyl and illegal migrants into the country. Of course, this
Speaker 1: is a truth social post from Trump. They're gonna pause
Speaker 1: the tariffs for a month, and they're gonna have negotiations.
Speaker 1: I don't know, guys, Trump's kind of kicking butt with
Speaker 1: all this international diplomacy stuff. Maybe he knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1: That'll do it. John G already shows see next time
Speaker 1: on Power Talk