Mr Bearded Truth – 31 – Small businesses fighting big government with Erin Davis

DISCLOSURE

FULL TRANSCRIPT TEXT

my
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hello and welcome to mr america the bearded truth covering political and social issues one liberty at a time
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with entertaining insights of current events and important discussions on topics that affect us all
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shining the torch of liberty and brightening the future by bringing libertarianism into our everyday life
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and now your host the friendly neighborhood libertarian jason lyon mr
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murica the bearded truth on muddied waters media
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hello [Music] everybody welcome in for another
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wonderful friday show hopefully you guys are doing well i think i’ve gotten our bugs fixed with
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the event planning uh let me know if you guys are still there over in the facebook world let me know if everything
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uh was a nice simple segue over um because i’m really hoping that this
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is working out um it’s been a struggle we’re trying to grow we’re trying to do
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new things trying to build this up and so i want to thank you guys all for being a part of this i sadly can’t see
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the chat anymore which is kind of ridiculous but we are we’re out here troubleshooting we’re
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trying to make a better broadcast podcast and platform for all of you so thank you guys all so much for
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joining in and being a part of this i am currently trying to find where the
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chat button is over on the new restream but i’ve got you guys over here so i’ll
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be able to see you guys there for at least the little bit so thank you guys so much for being here welcome in of
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course i am mr merkel the bearded truth jason lyon um it’s it’s exciting to
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come back and talk to you guys once again today i’ve got a one hell of a guest i’ve got the one and only aaron
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davis uh we’re gonna be talking a little bit about the struggles that small businesses have to face in order to you know for all of us to pick pick
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ourselves up by our bootstraps as they always say but of course the government has been standing our way in so many different
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ways so we’ll hear about some personal um stories and some some ways that we’ve fought in order to to end those barriers
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in order to help people be successful in whatever it is that they would like to bring to the market in order to provide
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for themselves and of course provide to others so it’s going to be one hell of a show i’m so excited you guys are here
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thank you guys so much for that um i want to give a thanks to matt and spike for continuing to give me a
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platform to come out here to talk to you guys and bring these amazing guests on here as we talk about different liberty
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issues and of course self uh self growth and so it’s just from the bottom of my heart thank
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you to matt and spike for that uh big shout out and thank you to brian scott lambrick and of course for jenny for the
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intro that we use every episode here on money or on uh mr mark of the bearded truth
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and of course thank you guys for checking us out whether you’re on facebook youtube twitter twitch stream
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uh odyssey float wherever however you guys are watching this live thank you so much
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for being a part of this if you guys are listening to this later on on any of your favorite podcast apps thank you for that as well make sure you guys are are
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supporting the stream wherever you’re seeing this big hype for everyone who’s done that whether it’s through the comments
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they all mean the world to us and helps us grow so thank you guys so much for that um if you guys want to be a part of
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the exclusive group getting exclusive content being a part of the exclusive muddy zoom once a month you guys can
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head on over to anchor dot fm slash muddied waters slash subscribe get on over there for the cup for the price
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of just a couple lattes a month you guys will be able to get so much good good muddy waters content you guys
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will not regret that decision i want to give a big thank you to some of our sponsors today we’re going to be
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talking about kelsey lyon designs if you guys are looking to upgrade to renovate how you have your
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small business if you’re looking to have events or if you’re on the campaign trail you need to reach out to kelsey lyon at
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kelseylinedesigns.com she’s going to be able to help revolutionize whatever it is that you’re doing take it
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to the next level and i guarantee you that she comes at it from a different aspect than what you’ll see most graphic designers so she’s
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going to hook you up with the logo with the branding with the business cards with the publications and so so much more
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she’s an incredible wealth of knowledge and you will not regret your decisions to head over to kelseylinedesigns.com use the code
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muddied waters she’ll give she’ll hook you up with a nice discount and i promise you you won’t regret that
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i also want to give a big shout out because if you guys are looking for some real knowledge go get go get you some
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nugs of knowledge head on over to nuggetknowledge.com use the code uh bearded truth you’re going to get 10 off
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you’re going to get some nugs sent to you you’re going to gain some knowledge about it because they’re not allowed to legally as we talk about uh barriers
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they’re legally not allowed to tell you exactly what’s in it but i promise you you’ll be feeling high and you’ll be
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feeling great so head on over to nuggetknowledge.com use the code beardedtruth
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and you’ll get 10 off and of course defy the power stitches and glitches you
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guys are looking for those tumblers you guys are looking to be able to change up the way that your tumbler is working for
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you you want to have hot things hot you want to keep cold things cold but you don’t want to do it at the same time of course in these tumblers but you want to
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be able to to custom customize these things we’ll head on over to defythepower.com they’ve been traveling
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the country going to conventions going to events they’ve been supporting the libertarian movement and the uh
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candidates so go ahead go out there and support them use um
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you can go to either stitches at glitches.com or defythepower.com and thank you guys all for the supporters out there and of
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course last but not least thank you to each and every one of you guys who are here and watching this you guys
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are much much much appreciated thank you so much for that
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um but without further ado let’s go ahead and bring on aaron davis uh i’ve been
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i’ve i’ve known her for for quite some time she’s an incredible woman she’s an incredible activist she has helped in so
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many campaigns that we know of she’s worked on so many different initiatives in her state and her area
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um just a wealth of knowledge and something that a lot of people didn’t know that she’s got a lot of background
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with families uh with her own family working in small businesses and everything else so it’s
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just i’m just so excited to have this conversation with her aaron how is it going
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hi jason it’s nice today actually i’m waiting for the rain to come in here in virginia but absolutely beautiful and i
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am so excited to number one see your face and number two to talk trash to you publicly
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so this is gonna be fun yeah it’s a perfect opportunity uh you actually reminded me so we actually have a storm
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warning right now so my my oldest is leaving school right now our friend is picking her up from school so
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this show may drop out at any moment and i apologize if it does but we’ll we’ll hang in there but um
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as part of the course my life yeah we’ll have the muddy waters uh trademark
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uh issues as normal but we’ll we’ll get through that so you said you’re in virginia now i know
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that that’s not where your history began so go ahead and let us know where you came from kind of your little bit of
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your past and how you joined the liberty movement in the libertarian party um
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so originally um up until december of 2020 i was only a resident of one state
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um that state was indiana i am a former hoosier still a hoosier at
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heart still back up my people every chance i get um i began
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learning about the liberty movement at a very young age i was extremely lucky to
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have the grandfather i had my mother’s father worked for the government
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by now right um but he was very much libertarian um he taught me
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the the mindset of understanding to follow the money to follow what’s going on in the background
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um you know the whole uh bread and circus um he he definitely put in my mindset to
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understand that those people in power are being you know being um
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being given that power by the same people so if you do look at donations you’re going to see a lot of the same
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people both on the republican democrat side um so i was really lucky to have someone
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who worked in politics teaching me about the outside of politics and how it
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impacts individuals i really wish he was still around to see all the work i’ve done
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the work that i will continue to do um and i just yeah i wish she was still
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here and i wish a lot of people um it’s amazing real quick on that it’s
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just amazing when people see the inside baseball of government how quickly they turn to go in this is just a giant croc
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of uh this this doesn’t work for the people yeah um and i got to see um
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i got to see what it did to our family as well too because of him being in that line of work
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but he also owned a small business um so i also got to learn about small
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business through him and my additional family members um in our family we have owned over 13
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small businesses i come from a huge family so don’t get me wrong my mom is one of 10 and my dad
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is one of 16. i have over 100 cousins so 13 is actually quite a small number
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when you think about it in perspective um i’ve had have you guys just never heard of the
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internet like you guys just seemed to be busy the whole time like what’s up with this
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well they were as apparently people like to say in certain
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um certain uh uh clicks they were catholic so
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um there wasn’t a lot of tv and there wasn’t a lot of birth control
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so a lot of children um so lucky me i come from a huge family a very loving family i’m very grateful
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to my parents for always being so supportive with everything um and they always have them which is
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absolutely amazing um i have one grandparent who’s left which is my grandmother and every time i do get the
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chance to talk to her we do discuss how to bring the government down um which i absolutely love and this was my
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grandfather’s wife okay say his widow um
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so i got to learn a lot from him um i then um in college um
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became really interested in sociology um psychology is where a lot of people
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go but for me sociology was really big because of the way trends impact people’s groups
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um i think my favorite thing i ever studied was the story of a tribe and i
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read this entire story and it really fascinated me it was like my freshman year of college and um
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the the name was really weird it was um
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a um i see e-r-a
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somewhere in their line saying uh but what it was that’s not even the right spelling so i’m never gonna want
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to spelling bee but this was a tribe of
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when you flipped it it was america and it was literally telling you the
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story of how tribes in america how clicks and how socioeconomics and um how
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viewpoints and religion would group people together um so i thought it was just absolutely fantastic fascinating um
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so throughout college i was trying really expanding my views on religion
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and communication and different things that would impact um politics i actually did take a class
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on the sociology of drugs i learned how to make meth in college not even cop came in and showed us the different
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ingredients you need to know that would only be better if you use
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federal loans to pay for that course specifically the federal government paid for me to
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learn about making meth on college loans so
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there we go um and then my senior year i was invited as a keynote speaker to
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the midwest sociology conference um my um my my conversation my speech um was at st
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mary’s of the woods in indiana this is a catholic college so it made me a little nervous um i then
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um was able to present um religious impacts in american
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culture specifically colon marriage um so
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what i did was actually spoke about how american cultures impacted the rights of individuals not being able to get
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married in the united states such as the gay community um so it was really important for me um to
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able to represent them in such a great light again this was a catholic college so it was very very nerve-wracking for
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me i’m 22. and i’m going to go speak in front of these people about how their religion
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impacted other people’s life lives um room of 500 um there are people standing
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it was intense and i was worried um but i got a really great um feedback from it
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um and it really really um honed in with me that i can’t always judge people as well
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either on how they’re gonna perceive things so really opened up my mind to know that there are people who are in
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that gray area yeah um and it wasn’t just myself and my
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grandfather there were other people um so i started really looking into things um
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probably about the time um i was 24 about local activism um and
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i do apologize i’m getting over some summer cold so i’m like oh you’re good you’re fine
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um so um i really started digging into things that were impacting people
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and i met this amazing man um he lives in columbus ohio so paul shin if you are
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listening to this at all hi um he actually was a big supporter of the
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things that i was doing and um because of him i actually joined the
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party um i’ve been around the party since 2010 but not an active
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member i even worked at the state level to try
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to help advocate and pull back some regulations on mental
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health issues to help people who had impulse controls through
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um brain injury um and the state kept pushing back and pushing back on me and i was like i
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can’t do this by myself alone i needed to find my tribe of people um so i got
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all and i also met other people in my own community who felt the same way so i got really lucky to have such a tight
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family um in 2016 i then became chair of the local county
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organization um by 2018 um i was pretty much embedded in
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the state and became width for our state at the national convention
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oh wow um yeah in 2009 i was voted in as the lpin vice
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chair and also worked on communications or not communications well i did help with communications but i also was
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outdoor director um i enjoyed immensely working with minorities throughout the state of indiana um where
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i became fascinated with zoning laws like oh they’re exploring the world yes if we’re going
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to dive into that of course we have to but you really fascinated me on how they impacted individuals lives um at the
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time i was working with douglas mcnaughton um i was his campaign chair for the mayor of indianapolis which is a whole another
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deal um but shout out to douglas love you dude you’re amazing um
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and i really got to learn a lot of things and i got to also at the time work with outreach director uh our
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minority outreach director of the gop in indiana um so i got to have her
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perspective as well too but i was also working with democrats across the aisle for minorities and individual
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individual rights with cannabis and looking with them at the business
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regulations when it came to that as well too um looking also like looking into other states and how they were handling
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it um so in
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2021 i got engaged to my amazing late husband
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christopher davis um and starting december i started slowly
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moving out here um and then um
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became involved with them uh with the lpva um in june of 2021
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um so actually i’m so sorry it’s december 20 20.
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sorry um my life just kind of comes with one big ball i think we’re all like that anymore i think once covered happened kova just like kind of wiped out the
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timeline i keep liking kobe my complaining willow’s brain i can also blame part of me is a little bit of blonde so it’s
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fine um so i did take up some of his responsibilities um per his diagnosis
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with cancer um and then became huge part of their event coordination was the
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convention chair here in tucson for 2022 um
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the most successful and most profitable convention of the lpva so very proud of
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that and i got to work with other local organizations meet with businesses talk about the issues um and now
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very excited um because during some of this time i was also the operations director
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operations manager for a small business um while doing all this stuff too so i
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was learning that side of it while i was learning from my family um so i got to see both sides i could
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see how business owner handles it and i got to be um the person that stepped in for the business owner to handle it
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um what a background so so like just to recap that yeah just to
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recap that you started off and and your grandfather was like here’s the inside baseball and you’re like what okay and
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you took that and then you started you you had a heart unlike what we see from a lot of people who get
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political where they’re just like my agenda my ideology i don’t care and you you you poured that out for people and
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you made connections you grew you learned from uncommon allies right
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you worked with republicans and democrats to find on the issue based things to talk about and never
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but never compromise yourself yeah um and and so you’ve done like so many amazing things
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and now we’re here today where you know you’ve helped make virginia already a little bit better um
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so by by approximation you’ve made the country all better because virginia and indiana
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are better because of what you’ve done um you know i can get out of bed most days i feel like i’m doing a world of
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justice i’m kidding yeah um but so
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nationals i’m very excited oh yes so you are you are going to be speaking at a national you’ve got a a
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meeting i have informed um by eric gradship that i will be um
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hosting one of the breakout sessions um luckily based on my background because i do have a hr political and operations
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business background and one of the things i thought was really important especially with today’s environment in
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in politics is sexual harassment training so i would be putting on a one-hour session at three o’clock that
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friday of convention um for those people who are interested in adding um sexual harassment um policies to their
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campaigns as well as to their affiliates um because of what we’re seeing in our culture we need to make sure that
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everyone is protected and that things are transparent so that we as a as a
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community can help protect one another yeah absolutely and and so yeah if if
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you guys if anyone’s going to reno make sure you’re there 3 p.m on that friday come see aaron davis um it’s it’s going
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to be incredible i won’t be in reno i’ll be back here with the kids but um i’ll be i’ll be over here at least here
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though um but so getting into today’s matter right you’ve
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already touched on a little bit of of stuff some of the struggles that people have faced um
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we touched on the zoning laws and and we’re going to dive into that but you also talked about something else that’s
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within the minority community um many people like to throw those statistics out there of you know the the
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income disproportionality between you know the majorities and the minorities and and there’s a lot of
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hurdles there um but i think that you know one of the first things i i wanted
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to dive in first was occupational licensing where this was something that was stemmed as a as a means of keeping
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that separation um you know and um
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so i i know that you’ve toppled some of the licensing and some of the controls that have happened i believe it was in
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indiana um of just preventing businesses from operating in some ways but
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um it’s you know it’s funny people throw a lot of statistics and data
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and i’m gonna tell you it’s interesting is that no one cares about that yeah
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no absolutely with their feelings they don’t care about facts they say they care about
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facts let’s be honest they care about the feelings but um for me um i i
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absolutely i’m a hundred percent against state licensing and i know this one’s
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really weird because it’s kind of a 50 50 if you think about it in some people in some some groups
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libertarians that are for it and a majority who aren’t um so i try to take the perspective of both sides i do try
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to play devil’s advocate um when it comes to things like this i understand um like if we look at one of the biggest
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issues hair right hair is huge i got a lot of it um
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so i can’t understand why people would be so upset oh you wouldn’t just allow
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this person to do this i’ve done all this i was licensed we get it i absolutely understand you got you got
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your money taken from you just to prove you could do something when you already went through the training
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have the certificate that you receive the training um when i say i want to com
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when i say this is bothersome for me as an individual i have had horrible haircuts
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by people who are licensed by the state yes um but i have a degree
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no one’s ever asked me to get licensed by the state to work in politics yeah it’s it’s
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up your life and take money from you and take away your rights and your freedom throw you in a cage
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but this person can’t braid your hair because the state’s not not gonna let them unless they pay the money to do so
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and and i know like statistics don’t matter that much but the the feelings behind this one that i’m about to drop
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in in the states of like utah um you can’t did i lose it no there you go um in
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states like in states like utah they have oh yeah uh in states like utah
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you have 2 000 hours required for these courses that’s 40 hour work week 50
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weeks at 40 hours for somebody to be able to do your hair and like you said the quality is not guaranteed from that
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a lot of these things are learning about cleanliness and and not um passing a communicable disease from one
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paper not patient one um one customer to the next but then when we saw kovit come around
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barbers were one of the first ones lopped off from from the market they were cut off entirely and so you had all
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these barbers and hairstylists and everyone else trying to trying to find work and they were prevented wow
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that’s ridiculous yeah and and there was no reason for it because what was the point of those 2000 hours of training if
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you can’t trust them so these things are destructive
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um law officers who have to have a proportional smaller amount but they’re
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expected to you know we we just let them go out because they are supposed to know everything yeah our
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other people have to go and have thousands upon thousands of hours for something that they already actually
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had training on and and um there’s one of my favorites was in louisiana they actually had
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occupational licensing for putting a bouquet of flowers together
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because um i saw that and i saw it get deleted um i
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also saw that they are talking about legislation over it in in noaa as well as in the state of louisiana you they
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have to because it’s so ridiculous you can’t cut a rose the right angle you can’t make sure that flowers look pretty
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for people you have to go and you have to get these certificates it’s ridiculous i saw another one where just
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packaging objects packaging objects for shipment to be able to put something in a box and
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to tape it shut and descend it you had to go and get a permit in some states it was eight states
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if you’ve seen me wrap a gift i should probably get a permit to do that it’s like literally it’s like i’m using
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newspaper and duct tape it’s just how you know it’s it’s made with love yeah no see me i just leave it
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in the walmart bag wrap up the walmart bag throw a piece of scotch tape around it it’s good but i’m not you know it’s
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not for business it’s uh you know to let kelsey know i still care about her um so so you know she don’t need no permit for
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that no no you already had to get a permit for that it’s called marriage license
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[Laughter]
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um but no like it just saddens me to think that people can go through all this training and all
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this time to be told you can’t do it unless you pay the state yeah um because
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i’m gonna tell you don’t tell anybody i cut my children’s hair
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oh no horrible i should probably be thrown in jail definitely um that’s that’s my
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first gigs um when i was super young was cleaning up hair in my aunt’s salon
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and she tricks and tips now i have this amazing long head of hair
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um i do my own hair i would never suggest anyone do that
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no but i’ve had you know almost 30 years of being around
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beauticians where i’ve had tics trips tips and tricks given to me throughout
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the years um and you know when it came to the pandemic who was gonna cut this this girl was like an inch a month this is
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insane like so i needed someone to do it and so i was like okay i’m gonna listen
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to what everybody’s ever told me and i’m gonna handle this myself um but i’ve always handled my daughter’s
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hair um since she was little um i think maybe three people have cut her hair
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other than me and it’s only been one or maybe twice because she doesn’t trust anybody else
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um so things like that can can seriously impact but not only that family matters
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but for people who are low economics you know you have someone who who wants
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to who has talent has skill and has has helped their family their whole lives and they do hair
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why should they have to pay to do something they’re talented at and they know they can do and other people trust
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them just to get a permit from the state that costs money they’re going to be knocked out
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because they can’t afford something that someone in the wealthier economic levels can and to me
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that’s not equality yeah no absolutely free
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and it’s it’s hard to watch because these people want to work they want to
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have jobs they want to be self-sufficient but when you put economics in the way of being able to do
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that you’re continuing the cycle of the situation they’re already in yeah
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and it’s hard to watch it is it’s incredibly hard because you know just like what you’re talking about they when
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you look at you know i’m i’m clearly a white person right i glow in the in the sunlight and
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but you know you do have people like in the african-american community where they braid each other’s hair and and you have
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people who have made a business out of that out of their own kitchen and they make they gross in
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about a month a bunch of money and then some of the other hairstylists who are licensed they catch wind of it they
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report them to the government the government comes beating down their doors takes their money um you know threatens them with lawsuits threatens
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them with criminal punishment in some cases um for operating without a license
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and it’s like you know people are just trying to find a way of surviving and so um i think it
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was larry sharp that coined this but he was like you know when you when it comes to this if you could trust your neighbor to do it you
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shouldn’t have to have a license for and you wouldn’t trust your neighbor maybe to to go and perform open-heart
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surgery on you and so maybe maybe there needs to be some form of a check there um but
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school you are received a certificate that you’ve done the training exactly
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exactly uh-oh i’m losing
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you see if i get her back in a second
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and baby okay i got you back all right sorry
31:56
about that um what i’m saying is um we do vote with our dollars so if you don’t like the way
32:02
someone um chooses a customer you should people go wherever you want with your money um so
32:07
having putting that extra layer um eliminates your options um to where
32:13
you want to put your money yeah and that’s that as a consumer is not a free market
32:19
at all that’s a controlled market yeah no
32:24
our options and and as the culture right now is f so hyper focused on cancel
32:30
culture i i’ve always viewed cancel culture as an economic means because you know just like you said we vote with our
32:36
dollars if a business isn’t going to live up to our standards we’re okay with them being canceled because we’re not
32:42
going to provide for bad services we’re going to go to somebody who can provide it better which is i always found the
32:48
city of bloomington indiana to be an interesting um city to look at when it
32:54
comes to cultures it’s very much a democratic city and they talk about big corporations taking
33:01
over and blah blah blah and i did a lot of work in bloomington when i worked with small businesses and
33:08
they were this this town being very democrat is huge corporation
33:13
town massive everyone spends their money in the corporate businesses um so it was
33:19
hard to watch these small business owners um sitting there arguing with people
33:25
who told them they want to support them but then give all their money to these big corporations
33:30
so anytime i get a chance i constantly will spend my money with small corporations small businesses because
33:38
of all the things i know that they actually have to deal with i know you and i prior to bringing me on um talked
33:44
about taxes um on top of all the licenses and the permits and all the
33:50
things you have to do um as a small business owner um to be able to function to run um taxes
33:58
is massive um small business owners depending on the industry you’re in um
34:04
if you add not only the professional business taxes but the personal taxes are paying anywhere between 50 to 65
34:14
of the money they bring in back to taxes it is insane the money they’re bringing
34:19
in goes right back to the government um i mean you’ve got if you have
34:25
vehicles it’s an insane amount of money you’re spending um on top of that
34:30
you have to get that have to be done every year um when i was an operations um manager for the small business i
34:37
probably spent two weeks of my entire year going over the stuff for the audit so
34:43
not being able to spend time with the clients and helping build the business i was doing that instead i’d have to go
34:49
sit down at the dmv and have to get my our permits for our
34:54
licensing for our tow truck and i was just like the processes have to be better than
35:00
this there is so much better free small business owners um and there are other things that small
35:07
business owners have such a huge impact on that people don’t think about it and one of those things is really big to me for the liberty
35:12
movement and to get our messaging out there especially when it comes to candidates who are in the liberty movement um
35:19
in 2019 um i went to the lp minnesota convention i
35:26
was their keynote lunchtime speaker and i talked about outreach to small business owners because this has always
35:32
been a passion of mine um how often jason do you go into a small
35:38
business and you hear people talk about politics
35:43
around here um i hearing just random customers not very often but hearing like the owners and
35:50
the the people working there they are concerned they’re massively concerned
35:55
they’re on one of the biggest free marketing free advertising for for candidates out
36:03
there um everything that impacts small business owners the majority of those issues
36:10
libertarians want to help with we as libertarian-minded individuals need to
36:16
be helping these people need to be advocating for them need to be helping in every aspect we can because they’re
36:22
not just talking about the policies they’re talking about the people that help them and people that talk to small
36:28
business owners about politics trust them so when we can get into their mindset
36:33
and help them become part of their culture they’re going to start talking about us and that’s another big thing when it
36:38
comes to small businesses is they need advocates like us to help them and know that we’re out there helping them yes um
36:45
so i am all about being very loud about it um again licensing i won’t be loud about it because i think
36:52
it’s stupid i honestly do and i’ve had arguments with friends about it um and i
36:57
do see their points and i understand them but at the same time i’ve had my hair locked off and they
37:03
look horrible no thank you yeah the license doesn’t mean a thing and and no and that’s so
37:10
incredibly important that when we do go out and we talk to the people who are most concerned about i i commonly talk
37:16
to when i talk to businesses or when i talk in general i think that the taxes shouldn’t be coming from businesses
37:22
themselves i think it should be coming from the people because then one we wake up to exactly how bad we’re being taxed
37:28
instead of that being sitting on the shoulders of these businesses now it’s on us we see our taxes percentage
37:34
drastically increase we go look at the benefit of what we’re getting from this exorbitant amount of money and we go
37:41
this isn’t working and then people suddenly don’t want to advocate for it but by cutting those barriers right when
37:46
you’re paying 50 to 65 of your your revenue and back into taxes
37:52
the business owners are actually covering quite a big portion of what’s
37:58
you know what they could put on customers or you know or even like when it comes to
38:05
the wage of their employees um i don’t think a lot of employees understand that
38:10
business owners actually have to pay a percentage to the state in certain states um of how much they’re
38:17
paying their employees yep the payment tax and then also the cost of the requirements for like health
38:24
insurance the requirements for this insurance that insurance this coverage that coverage i mean it’s so incredibly
38:29
expensive for business owners to own him or to have employees but then we have all
38:36
these people out there advocating for a higher minimum wage and it’s just like these things are only stopping small
38:43
businesses big corporations want people to scream about higher wages because it actually
38:49
takes out the small businesses as their competition these businesses can’t afford to pay these people because they’re already
38:56
overly taxed like if you do look at the difference between like a walmart and a small mom and pop shop
39:02
walmart’s or these big corporations are getting these great breaks at the local level
39:09
um from from city and county councils where the small businesses aren’t so they’re already saving so much money
39:14
already and if you can’t afford their people they’re going to hire them they can
39:19
afford the higher amount they can then put it on their customers and they’re not going to care at the end of the day
39:25
where small cops are just trying to survive and yeah we’re going to scream and yell at them because they’re greedy
39:30
and trying to take money no they’re trying to survive just like the rest of us
39:35
yes small businesses we should be treating them the same as people in low-income families give them the opportunities to
39:42
grab themselves by the bootstraps and actually survive but you know as as we’ve been beating on you can’t do it so
39:48
i want to move a little bit into the zoning topic um so you have a small business you’re getting through
39:54
you’re you’re being successful you’re you’re looking to to expand to grow and everything else or
40:01
or however you want to want to phrase this what exactly are the zoning laws how do
40:06
they affect affect small businesses and and i’ll let you i’ll i’ll open it up zoning
40:13
laws go zoning laws um are one of the most
40:19
boring regulations you will ever read in your entire life and they are so i’m never gonna put anybody through that
40:25
because that’s more my jam um zoning laws
40:31
in an essence restrict people of what they can and can’t do on their own property which is not freedom um you can
40:39
easily tell where the zoning laws hit communities the hardest
40:46
it is not hard to tell at all it is where you’re going to see food deserts
40:51
you’re going to see there’s not really a lot of small businesses people are having to leave their communities to
40:56
work so on top of the kids ending up in the families being lash key kids not
41:01
having their families around because parents got to drive out of the area to have a job small business owners can’t
41:07
provide anything in their local communities because they can’t get the right zoning um you can’t have a business right out
41:13
of your home um you lose money you lose opportunities um and i think the hardest
41:21
thing for me is watching these people so desperately
41:26
want to be successful and to own something but because of something so simple
41:33
as you can only have this type of thing in your song yeah they’re kind of
41:39
it’s i love molly yeah i so i’m looking um around my area
41:46
and we just recently had i say recently this was before kovitz so just before covet came through there was a major
41:52
concern because people had an extra bedroom at their house and so they were airbnb baby you come on in you could use
41:59
this it was a bed and breakfast you’d cook even food you take care of your customer because they were coming
42:04
through you’d give it show them good hospitality and the hotel said no so they went to the legislators the
42:10
legislators enacted laws and the zoning laws to say you may own your house you may own it
42:16
outright other than the property taxes that we’re going to continue to steal from you every year but you cannot rent
42:22
out your room for a short term yeah i mean it’s ridiculous it’s it’s what is that phrase we like to use out
42:28
of your pocketbook out of your bedroom now they want to be involved they want to be in your bedroom telling you who else you can have in your bedroom i mean
42:35
come on this is absolutely it’s it’s
42:40
what is it my daughter and i like to say this is definitely the steps toward hunger games uh i mean like and lucky for me i live
42:47
in district one so i get to have pretty outfits um
42:53
but it’s it’s it’s so hardening because people want to be so much better
43:00
and then i have to listen to politicians and candidates say
43:06
well i know better than them you don’t know the layout their home you don’t know the bills they need you don’t
43:13
know the network they have the kind of people they want to help the kind of people that they want to be in business with so tell me how you know better than
43:20
these people um zoning laws were a big thing when douglas and i worked on his campaign for
43:25
indianapolis you can easily look at the east side of indianapolis and see
43:31
um how they were much more restricted than any other of the other areas in
43:39
indianapolis it tends to be minorities in that region you’re going to see less grocery stores
43:45
they have to go out of their area to go to the store they have to go out of their area to get a job
43:52
it’s hard because they want to make their lives better but they can’t even revamp their
43:58
communities because they can’t invest in them exactly when you came in your community
44:04
then you just let it go to the waste side so not only does learning laws hurt the individuals they end up hurting the
44:10
community as whole yeah no and and that’s such an important aspect of this is when we talk about
44:17
communities that have been hurting for generations for decades or generations or whatever
44:23
what they need to have is a more flow of money throughout that community and if you’re zoned out if you can’t get
44:30
occupation or you can’t get the licensing in that area if you if you’re unable to work before and with the
44:37
people in your own community that money is going to come in and go right back out and those communities will never be
44:43
able to develop again and so if we want to if we want to give people opportunities it means that we need to
44:49
give everybody opportunity i mean south side of richmond is very much like the fear um i have a friend
44:55
that lives down there and i go to visit her and when we want to go out to eat or go anywhere um like we have to leave her
45:03
community like we can’t just be there like we have to either go downtown or come to the west side which is where i
45:09
live um the east side is very industrial and they have the airport there um but the
45:15
west north and downtown is where all the businesses are about to eat and the majority of the grocery
45:21
stores for the south again minority owned area um a minority occupied area
45:27
they don’t have that kind of opportunity down there it’s
45:33
it’s so so painful um so i i occupational licensing zoning laws
45:40
what’s the other what’s the other big ticket thing in your mind that is stopping small businesses from taking off or from
45:47
being able to start up um i think one of the biggest things that
45:54
ha that that small business have a hard time with when it’s taking off or starting up
46:00
is honestly
46:07
the way that their communities are set up for them to begin
46:12
um sitting and and in city council meetings and county councils in state um
46:18
meetings seeing all the regulations put on them um seeing even them trying to just expand
46:24
their businesses um i know this isn’t necessarily a small business but it is
46:29
um ricker’s gas station in indiana they found a loophole to be able to expand
46:35
their business so they had the gas station and then they had their restaurant area they had their food service area um and they sold alcohol
46:42
but in the state of indiana up until a few years ago you couldn’t buy alcohol on sundays at a gas station or grocery
46:49
store um you can go to liquor store buy it you can only go to a restaurant order it drink it and then leave
46:56
that’s we want to do we want to have people on the road drunk that’s smart indiana way to go um
47:01
so you know no alcohol sales on sunday like you know maybe we should just get rid of milk on mondays
47:08
you know what let’s just get tacos on tuesdays because people might do something
47:14
right so um i was really fortunate to um to work with jay
47:20
rickers and other people in the lp on bringing the public into such a weird
47:26
situation um i had the honor of putting together the big event which was
47:33
the drink-ins um at the ricker’s gas stations across indiana um we literally sat in on a
47:40
sunday and drank alcohol all day and had the media come in and interview
47:45
our people and interview legislators and after that happened it just
47:50
snowballed um and within a year we had sunday sales now it’s very limited just
47:57
noon to eight and you can’t buy like cold beer or whatever the stupid crap is they want to
48:03
throw at us um because they’re afraid you’re gonna drink it in the parking lot well news to you when i used to drink i’d drink it
48:09
warm so yeah um like come on guys um alcoholics don’t care
48:15
about it cold or warm they’ll drink it so your policies are doing nothing to prevent um idiocy happening because
48:23
people choose their their consequences by their own actions you can’t legislate
48:29
morality away or legislate morality into somebody it just doesn’t happen
48:34
um so we were able to help not only um
48:40
agitate the state but to change a law by just looking at how it could possibly
48:46
impact people in the long run um jay unfortunately um knowing what they were
48:52
going to do to him um lost his license to be able to serve alcohol um but he
48:58
knew what he was doing he was going to be the martyr of that um
49:05
in that process um but i was really really happy that every now every year
49:10
that the the anniversary of sunday sales happens i get tagged in so many posts
49:16
because i know i did something to impact our economy in indiana
49:21
um the biggest thing for me now is now that i’ve done that and i’ve been doing all
49:26
these things my biggest focus is now how i can help liberty for my own children
49:32
um one thing and christopher really really fought for together was how to
49:37
help our kids become more free because my daughter our daughter wants to be um
49:42
wants to own her own dance studio now what kind of permits is she gonna have
49:48
to have to tell little children to spin yeah no and that that right there is
49:53
like one of the things that i think is the most daunting because we hear of these horror stories of people being
49:58
shut down of not being able to have their businesses and it’s just like you have to hire a lawyer to know all of the
50:06
laws in your state in your city in your county and whatever district this may be
50:12
whatever municipality may be over that to understand all of those things to be able to create a business to follow all
50:19
the zoning laws of what you can and cannot do on those and you have to
50:24
oh you’re good um um you have to do so many different
50:29
things with a lawyer before you can even start your business that there’s already like a
50:35
a higher level there that uh just a starting bid on this um
50:41
and and you know like what you were saying with the alcohol laws there are laws that just don’t make sense at all
50:46
that are standing in the way of people being able to do what they need to do in order to not just thrive but just
50:51
survive oh sorry about that no you’re fine um
50:58
um so i i joked with her the other day because we were talking about that and i was like honey you’re 14 years old now
51:04
you probably should start learning the laws so you can start getting this business ready for when you’re in your 20s yeah uh
51:11
how massive um i know my my boys my oldest um is
51:16
looking at real estate um and i know there’s so many laws around that as well too um
51:22
so it’s it’s i want to do the things that are going to help them build a successful future
51:28
um so maybe find something um that might help a lot then
51:34
but so so what i’m going to do as a mother is advocate for them to be
51:39
successful and if that means going up state and fighting for the things that
51:44
aren’t just for me but are for them i’m going to do it because if i’m concerned about this because my kids want this
51:49
type of future and this type of freedom financially there are other parents who feel the same way
51:55
there are other parents who are saying i would love for my kids to be able to pursue their dreams but i know because
52:00
of this it’s not going to happen so me as a parent and now i’m advocating not just for small businesses and for
52:06
our economy and for our future but for my children and i’m going to continue to fight for that
52:12
i i ruined my my oldest daughter when she was about nine years old she
52:18
we made lemonade one day and she was like i wanna make a lemonade stand and i was like sweet you want to i was like we
52:24
gotta go get a permit for that and she’s like what’s the permit i was like well it’s when the government you pay the government in order to do
52:30
things you were gonna do if you didn’t ask for permission and she’s like how much are those and we looked it up
52:35
and she’s like so i have to have money in order to make money i’m like gotcha um
52:42
but it’s true though my daughter my daughter was ruined by uh
52:48
rex um and russell from indiana in 2016. i will
52:54
tell you that um story probably privately um but it happens to do with
52:59
ice cream and politics um but man they ruined politics for her
53:05
like in a second she like with the ice cream stuff she was like uh politicians
53:11
and now everyone she was little every dog after that was named rex because she loved him
53:17
yeah i mean we have to do these things for our kids it’s important um because we’re we’re at the age now where our
53:24
what we do um doesn’t just impact us um lucy brenton i worked with her in indiana for
53:31
many many different projects um and one of the things that we talked about as mothers and as as i mean in
53:38
honesty we’re politicians we’re activists but what we talked about is we’re not laying the foundation for ourselves
53:45
you know the fight we are doing right now isn’t for us the fight that we are doing right now is laying the foundation
53:51
for our children to be able to have more freedom and we need to remember that it’s not about us it’s not about power it’s not
53:57
about influence it’s not about money it’s about laying a foundation where our children um are able to advocate for
54:03
themselves and become successful off their own merits and not because they were able to purchase a
54:08
piece of paper that that i was going to like give you a moment to like wrap this all up
54:15
um but but thank you for for knowing where i was going to go with that
54:20
yeah that was it’s my guys it’s not jason i promise
54:25
it’s always me just just blame it on mighty waters media everyone will understand but oh hannah they learned to
54:31
blame it on me i always told everybody i’m more than happy to be the person you throw under
54:36
the bus because i literally i’ve learned i have nothing to lose in life i always have everything to gain um so
54:44
um when it comes to these fights i’m absolutely always willing to put myself out there to let everyone else gain
54:50
from the advocacy that i do yeah no that’s
54:56
it’s important to stick your neck out and i know i just saw a comment from her from liz coquillard and her and will
55:03
henry will henry just stuck his neck out there in in a major way as well so
55:08
that’s a that’s part of being a great advocate and an activist um as we we push to to allow for our communities and
55:15
our children to be successful um but i want to i want to thank you so much aaron for for joining me today for this
55:20
um i want to know where can we find you where can we plug in to find what you’re doing what how you’re doing it and how
55:26
to be successful well um i am now in virginia i actually
55:31
have no titles i am not taking on anything um i’m doing some um i’m doing some
55:39
advisory work for a couple different campaigns one of those is angela pence
55:44
that girl is amazing if you have the opportunity to sit down and talk to her please do so but right now we are
55:51
working on fundraising for billboards in her and her area um
55:57
i swear to god stop it it’s all me um as we have seen
56:02
um we need to stand together as libertarians and help fight um
56:09
so um there we go um we need to stand together as libertarians and she is standing
56:14
there with her neck out going up against a republican um and we need to make sure as as
56:20
liberty many people that we’re helping each other so if you get a chance i say go talk to this lady that’s what i’m
56:25
doing i’m putting a lot of advocacy behind her um you know go pitch in with her
56:31
campaign go volunteer um she’s working on her um petitions right now for her signature so if you
56:37
are in her state the state of georgia guys yeah georgia
56:43
because she’s phenomenal um she actually we sat down and built a petition plan for the next 10 weeks so
56:52
girl knows you’re very very proud of her i’m going to be at national um so if you are interested in finding
56:59
out more about um what i’m going to be presenting there the sexual harassment training feel free
57:04
to reach out to your regional reps um they do have a way to connect with me um they have the original reps do have um
57:11
access to my phone number and my email so that you if and and they can they can the regional artists absolutely come to
57:17
me and ask if it’s okay to give out my information i’m more than happy to to you know give a yes or no on that um
57:25
right now just focusing on helping georgia and um
57:30
helping people who really do need it and that’s making sure i’m not in our echo chambers i’m outside talking to public
57:38
democrats independence screens um constitutionalists all of them my favorite the pirate party because
57:44
they’re awesome um i mean i just want to wear like i seriously i have an eye patch i actually
57:50
have a decorated one too um so yeah make sure you are you’re not staying in your echo chambers you’re helping people
57:56
because the only way we’re ever going to grow is to help the people who need it talk to small owners get involved with
58:02
your local community understand this is not about you and i think that’s a big part of people um
58:09
people having issues with with the movement is people have to quickly learn this is not about you this
58:15
is about the people you love um so so if you want to find me
58:21
good luck well i appreciate it so much aaron uh it was incredible conversation i
58:27
i love hearing your heart pour out for the communities for the people for the kids and everything else and and you
58:33
know your activism stands stands alone and um so i want to thank you so much for for spending some time hopping on
58:39
here today on a wonderful friday as the storm takes out our connection um i’m ready
58:46
oh no that’s the night well thank you so much for for joining me and i will see you in a minute
58:54
thank you what a conversation what a show this was
58:59
incredible and i can see your guys’s chat now i’m sorry i wasn’t able to see you guys during i will figure that out
59:05
after the show um but you guys were what an incredible conversation that was with aaron and a perfect segue there at
59:12
the end for next week’s show she was talking about how get out of your echo chamber communicate with people in the
59:19
republican party and the democrat party and the green party and and go ahead give a good r to the pirate
59:24
party but um next week’s show we’re going to have on nate banks we’re going to be talking about messaging and uniting with
59:31
unlikely allies so this is right there so continuing off of this great conversation with aaron davis of what’s
59:38
happening in small businesses and how that’s affecting us and and how we can better their conditions to to better our
59:44
own conditions and also help our kids and and people within all the different communities around the country
59:50
we will be able to find out where we can find those allies to work with us to make those differences and also how to
59:56
communicate more effectively with them so join me next week um as i sit down with nate banks next friday but next
1:00:01
week of course we have the full lineup i believe so we will see uh tuesday night with matt and spike on muddy waters of
1:00:08
freedom they will traverse those muddy waters i i promise you it’s coming i i promise um
1:00:15
hopefully it’ll be it’s tuesday uh wednesday night will be spike calling with natalie bruno i do believe and
1:00:21
they’ll be talking a little bit about what’s been on the minds of everybody when it comes to the abortion topic oklahoma’s been passing some bills roe
1:00:27
versus wade is being challenged right now will that um that leaked uh
1:00:33
transcript from or leaked passage from uh the supreme court hold
1:00:38
up you’ll have to find out on wednesday with spike and matt and thursday night you’ll have matt wright with the writer’s block and his amazing guest
1:00:45
and of course as i already said friday we will have nate banks coming on to talk about messaging and uniting with
1:00:52
unlikely allies i want to thank you guys all for being a part of this for sharing this out for for building this uh the
1:00:59
audience and joining me on these adventures as we continue to learn and develop i love you guys all i appreciate
1:01:04
you all and i will see you guys next week take