Mr Bearded Truth – 33 – Uniting with Unlikely Allies with Nate Banks

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hello and welcome to mr america the bearded truth covering political and social issues one liberty at a time with
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entertaining insights of current events and important discussions on topics that affect us all shining the torch of liberty and
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brightening the future by bringing libertarianism into our everyday life and now your host the friendly
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neighborhood libertarian jason lyon mr murica on muddy waters media
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hello everybody oh my word we’re back it’s friday i
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apologize everybody i had a scheduling conflict earlier and so weren’t able to
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make it at 2pm like we normally do um but don’t worry the guest tonight was able to work with
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my my shitty uh scheduledness and so he’s coming on we’re gonna be talking
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tonight about some fantabulous conversations about communicating with people to be able to
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bring in unlikely allies to be able to unite with one another and to push forward on initiatives right we see this
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on so many different issues there are bipartisan issues there are tripartisan issues there are issues that span across
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the spectrum and so how do we come into and engage in conversations
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where there are people that have different principles different values to bring them together to make a difference
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well that’s what we’re going to be talking about tonight with my good friend nate banks i’m so excited for that and thank you guys again for for
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bearing with me as i made some mistakes today um in the scheduling so i’m excited to have him come on and talk
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with us but before we dive into that tonight um we do have to do a little bit
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of housekeeping so thank you everybody each and every one of you guys for being a part of this for joining in for
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code beardedtruth you’re not going to regret it but now without further ado thank you
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guys all for bearing with me through that i have an incredible guest tonight his name is nate banks we’re going to be
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talking of course about being able to connect with people being able to communicate with people despite
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principle differences despite value differences to be able to bring them into the fold and push together in order
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to change what it is we’re facing when it comes to legislative action or whether
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or even to change the culture itself and so if you guys will of course welcome
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with me mr nate banks how’s it going tonight great man thank you for having me absolutely and uh thank you for for
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bearing with me i know i had some some scheduling issues today so thank you for for sticking out late night i know
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you’re over there uh it’s not so deep into the night but thank you so much for for bearing with me on that um
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you and i we met back in dc and the for lack of a better
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term the of the country if you will um and we kind of hit it off really easy
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um we never we never had too much of a of a value difference just based on where we
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came from um you were a veteran you are a libertarian through and
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through believing small limited government and and structuring it for the good of the people
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um but even even in the first couple of conversations that we’ve had with other
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people it became clear to me that you were an expert on being able to to work with
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anyone to make differences and um you know there’s a couple good conversations of course i don’t know if
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we need to share those but i i want to i want to start off with
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this conversation of course of what brought you to liberty what brought you to the libertarian move
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well i was raised a in a reagan conservative household right that was it
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was the gold standard ronnie could do no wrong um
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i was i was very naive i didn’t really look
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very deep into policy i didn’t really understand it just whatever i heard on television that
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was that was basically what the way it was and then you know i had
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my dad as a very positive influence in my life and and uh you know he used to
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it’s kind of funny his transformation is a lot different than mine he went from
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being i call him a chagobara worshiping communist because he used to have a poster of shay on his wall
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to uh to in in his words being farther right than jesse helms
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so i grew up in that environment and it was it was that was my starting point
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i i joined the navy in 1999 um
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spent almost eight years on active duty and was still just as terrible conservative as there was i was trash
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when it came to messaging um i had people you know unfriending me on social media
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because of the way i engaged with them it took a long time
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and it was through some of my work experience you know
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being in the military either while you’re on active duty or shortly thereafter seems to be one of
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the fastest pipelines toward liberty yes um
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it wasn’t enough for me i worked in law enforcement shortly after that worked in the oil and gas industry which
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is full of you know ultra right wing mega types and
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[Music] it it wasn’t even enough then right working
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in law enforcement i was a detention officer in a county jail and
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i mean if you ask me now you couldn’t beat me into taking that job again but
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it was just a long gradual process what really did it for me was was some
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hindsight looking back at some of the the candidates that i had supported and defended
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on the gop ticket you know oh well i’ll vote for this guy because they most closely represent me but i’m
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gonna i’m gonna stick to it and vote for this guy if he wins just because i have to because
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uh we can’t have the other team win yeah that good old partisan team game
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yeah looking back you know george h.w bush wasn’t all that far removed
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from bob dole who wasn’t all that far removed from john mccain or george w bush or
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mitt romney like i started looking at these guys and doing closer research on
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them and discovered that they were all basically representing the same things
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there’s not that much separation between the two main parties uh you know the two corporate parties
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the way i look at it now is uh there’s just one team there’s the big government team
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one of them plays offense the other one plays defense and then they switch and that’s a great way to phrase that
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it’s incredibly accurate so uh
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when gary johnson ran by the way i’m i’m in albuquerque i’m behind the steel wall in albuquerque
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new mexico um gary johnson was a very successful
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governor in the state of new mexico he may not have been everybody’s cup of tea when it came to libertarian presidential
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candidates but he governed this state as a republican but in a very
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libertarian ideologically uh ideological fashion
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he he left the state with a surplus he cut spending he
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actually cut the size of government he improved the roads
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while cutting the budget um lowered taxes
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he used to he had the nickname of governor no because he vetoed more legislation in the state in his term as
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governor than anyone pre prior to him yeah um
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i remember watching the the gop presidential debates and he only had basically one line in all
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the debates that he showed up then which was like two or three not very many and he made the comment that his
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neighbor’s dog had created more shovel ready jobs than the program that was
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passed by barack obama at the time i can’t even remember what it was called it was but they were they were always talking
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about all the shovel-ready jobs that were going to be created he became the most googled uh person that day on
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google and [Music] i started looking into a little bit more deeply myself
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i didn’t live here in the state whenever he was the governor i was that was when i was on active duty
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and they um
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i started looking into the libertarian party because shortly after that he decided to run as libertarian party
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candidate and won the nomination and [Music]
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that was the first time i broke away from the the gop uh platform and and voted for somebody
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besides their candidate wow because he most closely represented i believe that was in 2012
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and [Music] in 2016 when he was running again
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a friend of mine well he’s a friend now he at the time he was he was a stranger just reach out to my wife
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um and asked if she was interested in helping
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to with a slate to take over the new mexico
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libertarian party we’re living up in the northwest corner of the state it’s a little town called
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farmington so we were making trips to santa fe to albuquerque their you know three hour
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trips each each time in each way making these trips to show up at
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campaign events and
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worked on the johnson campaign as volunteers showed up and when he did his fit to be pres
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event and just started getting more and more closely aligned i was still a registered
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republican uh still regis vote in the state of colorado my my home of record
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and um it wasn’t until
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after that slate that i decided to switch my registration and i registered
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libertarian it was a successful bid but the the lp here in new mexico at the time
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they had no interest in running candidates or supporting candidates they they actively worked against some of the
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candidates for for national offices and
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that was when my friend reached out and well he started showing up to their meetings and he was like all right so
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what’s the plan what are we going to do who are we supporting who’s running for what yeah he was excited and they were
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like oh we don’t do that they just wanted to be you know a coffee club where they sat and
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yeah [Music] about gun control and you know talked about taxes and how wrong they are and
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they it was like social media in person it’s a it’s a social club and we’ve seen that in so many different states and
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yeah no it’s why why why waste people’s time with that exact why waste your own time
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if you don’t you don’t have to hold those titles to do the same thing that you were doing
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so it was a successful bid uh every single office was was uh
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voted a new new member was voted into each office and [Music]
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that was when i really started getting heavily involved in the libertarian i like it um now i noticed when you were
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talking about this right you first started off with talk about when you were a republican you know before you were in the military and when you were
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in the military you were very uh you had a lot of conflicts people
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deleting you on facebook social media what have you clearly you weren’t converting them and
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then when you talked about your own conversions it sounded like people came to you
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showed you a better way showed you better ideas but put truth to practice or theory to
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practice and i think that that’s a really good start strong foundation of
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one of those things of why like i was like this nate guy he’s he’s got it you know he’s got the haircut he’s got he’s
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got a bigger beard than me i i won’t i won’t tell you who’s got the the better beard but um [Laughter]
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but um but it it was one of those things that it’s true for all of us or for a lot of
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us that just showing up being better
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not being better at arguments not being better at fighting not being better about beating each other with our ideas
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but just coming there and allowing for our ideas to flourish is is is incredible so i’m glad that you
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went through that process um thank you matt right um i’ll be hashtag
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all beards alive or all beards matter um you’ve got some length that’s fine
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but but i think that’s a great starting point and so you know of course coming at this thing with
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not fighting people is a first start but i want to know like what you’ve experienced as well since
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joining in with libertarianism i’ve seen you be an influence in your communities you work right now in a capacity where
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you’re working with people across the spectrum um you may have some left people you may have some right people you may have some
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libertarians but you’re able to work with them and so i what’s the mindset there that has helped you
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push past areas where you may have disagree to find those agreements
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well to understand that i i feel like i owe it to everybody to explain a little bit more a little a little deeper into my
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past yeah uh when you came to engaging with people on social media i used to
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believe like a lot of people do that that was that’s what what it meant to to move the ball forward right to swing the
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pendulum back in the other direction was to engage with people on social media and i did that in the most awful
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disrespectful ways possible i truly believed for a long time that
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winning an argument on facebook meant getting blocked right so i just kept the pressure on until they finally blocked
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me and then i was like all right i went yeah it wasn’t until i i started the job that i’m in now with
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the organization i’m with that i started looking at things like
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humility and uh respect and integrity and
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realizing that i wasn’t displaying very many of those those principles that
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i find value in and it was a slow process and it uh it took
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you know i had some some conversations with supervisors and things like that about my engagement on social media
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and even that wasn’t really enough uh it pointed me in the right direction but
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it ultimately it fell on me right i would throw in you know introspection
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and and learning as i as i moved along
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realizing that engaging with people and being disrespectful you know that wasn’t really doing
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anything for our movement it wasn’t doing anything uh to even stem the tide of tyranny that
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that we’re seeing if anything it was it was counterproductive it was moving people
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farther away from it and that’s when it really changed the way i engage with people
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so what was the question again so i can yes so i i that was a perfect lead up to it
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and it was just like what is that mindset you know you spoke about humility and about respect and about integrity
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and and so how do you go about um you know some of the specific things
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that you may have to remind yourself as you’ve made that conversion as you changed uh the way that you’re you’re
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working within your communications how do you have respect for people how do you show humility how do you um how do you work
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through that process what’s the mindset there so you could be successful in communicating
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i guess like um so so for me when i think about that um the respect thing i
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think that this is one of the one of the things that i saw like the most impactful
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is when i’m communicating with people is be able to talk with them to share their values
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so you know you and i have both worked on health care issues career more times than we can count
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probably um right and so it’s like when somebody says you know you just want to break the health care system
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that’s not that’s not that respect it’s like you want to fix the health care system i want to fix the health care
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system now let’s see where we can find that but go ahead
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what i did i started looking for common ground with people to your point right
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we i work uh on a lot of veterans issues and one of the ones that i work on most
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specifically is is va healthcare reform and va accountability
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there’s a lot of people on the other side of this movement that think that what i’m trying to do is just completely
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privatize the va and uh put everybody out of work and
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it’s that’s not really what i’m about what what we want is if the va is going to be there that it
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should be a great option for veterans when they choose if they choose to go there for their health care
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and at the same time there’s a lot of veterans that live really far away from va facilities
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and it really puts them out to have to drive three hours four hours
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six hours in order to get to a va hospital like alaska is the the
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absolute worst example of hawaii because there’s no va hospitals in either of those states so they have to drive
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or or take a ferry or a vote or you know if you’re coming from alaska you you’ve
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got to go to seattle in order to get healthcare from a va facility if you’re coming from hawaii you have to
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fly into san diego or los angeles right and
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that’s not serving those veterans you know there’s a lot of upfront costs for those vets to
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to travel to to get their healthcare at those places so trying to to combat lies or you know
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misunderstandings that people have you have to find common ground with them because if you just come immediately
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come at them and attack them back they’re going to put their defenses up they’re going to tune you out and they’re not going to talk to you
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so instead of instead of being
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instead of responding with terrible tones in language finding common ground and understanding that
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either they’re misinformed or they misunderstand something and or they just don’t see it the same
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way you do you know their truth to them some people are comfortable with it you know they they’re okay with certain a
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certain level of government uh or a certain level of government involvement in their lives
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it’s not really who i am um but trying to find places
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where where we have agreement where there’s too much government involvement or not the right type of
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engagement and and i think you know when you were talking about the the va healthcare right this is one of those
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things where when you’re like i want to be able to provide healthcare services to the veteran community
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and you say you know for somebody who’s out there as you pointed out alaska or hawaii is like
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we want to give them an opportunity even if that means they have they can go to a private healthcare
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i your concern is with the veteran and finding that to also be the same as
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somebody who says you know i just want to fix the va healthcare it’s like we both val we clearly both value veterans
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and their healthcare we have a difference on that and so being able to you know to reflect on that to be able
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to to share that common ground of we care about the veterans let’s actually
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have a conversation about how this can work out instead of the mudslinging the
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the the conservative or the uh conservative and the the lib tart and
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all those it’s it these are all all things out there i do want to say because this comment uh really is is
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important to me in some way um sheila foster uh
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you know i i love your son i love what your son did but sheila foster uh mother of gary foster says she may want
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to talk to you um nate banks because she’s writing a book about unity in this country um so so i
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will miss uh mrs foster i will definitely reach out to you i’ll give you uh nate’s
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contact if he’s cool with that and uh yeah perfect i’ll reach out to you i’ll get you that um so you can have that
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conversation um but but you know that that reshaping of how we’ve come into
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things right and i think that this is one of the biggest things that libertarians face we have the best ideas
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we have the historical understanding we have the context of how it works we understand economics we don’t just say
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just print out all the money we want to and just pay all the things we we understand how things are interconnected
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to one another on on many of these topics and we go into these conversations and we want to force it
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into other people and we say you just gotta accept what we’re saying because we’re smarter than you
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right we have the best ideas but we are the absolute worst messengers on the planet
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yes and that’s why i’m having you on that’s why i had a couple weeks ago i had um
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stephen uh or steve dosbach on to talk about this i’ve had this conversation a couple times with with many great guests
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and every one of them fully qualified to to give you the full hour long ted talk on these things um
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because this is one of the most important things about liberty this is one of the most things about actually setting people free in our lifetimes and
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um but so so we’re getting into these conversations with people we’ve connected with them on a value system
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we’ve found those common grounds now how is there a methodology that you have in
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order to expand to find more common ground with somebody um talk me through some of that process
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well everyone that i’ve engaged with to my knowledge as a human being right
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and we all have uh feelings emotions some of us are better about you know
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ignoring them shoving them down or you know some some of us wear them on our shirt sleeves but
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we’re all humans we all deserve respect so it’s one of those things you should
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give what you expect to get from people if you want to be insulted insult people if you want respect from
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people respect them you may not agree with them giving them respect doesn’t mean that you agree with
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them or that you they’ve changed your mind or anything like that it’s it’s about
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it it’s just it’s about that just giving them respect you know the respect that they deserve as a fellow human being
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and i used to think that um
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you know like i said the insults were were great i was going to change people’s minds by by hurling insults at
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them but it it reminded me of uh where
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you and i uh first started talking about me me coming on with you we were having a
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conversation with a gentleman on facebook and i simply stated that you’ll
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you’ll convert more people your way by being respectful then you will buy hurling insults at them
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and i can’t remember his name but this gentleman just doubled down and tripled down and you know every single time he’s like
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no this is the hill i’m gonna die on i will continue to own insult people because i
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because that’s the way that i was converted somebody else told me that i was a or
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you know a or whatever and and that i was a warmonger and neocon and whatever
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whatever it was that that finally triggered him and got him to start looking at himself
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um that’s a rare breed there’s not very many people on the planet
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that are going to respond well to that type of engagement and
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i feel like i stayed pretty respectful the whole time i was no matter how frustrating
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it got you know how or anything like that it was i tried to maintain um a level of respect for him
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because i understand his position that that’s where that’s where he was converted was from that that position
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but yeah it may work occasionally but i think that you should at least be
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willing to uh accept that other people won’t respond that way
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and that’s all i was trying to ask get him to understand and asking him about was
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don’t you think that there might be some people that aren’t going to respond well to being insulted like
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honestly if that was a winning tactic or a winning strategy everybody on facebook would have been converted a long time
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ago and i think when when he was talking um he was talking about this was his friend
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that was insulting him so there was already there was already a level of respect of camaraderie there was already
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a level of comfort there these aren’t things that most people just automatically have because they got
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engaged with somebody so you know don’t take you know for anyone in the audience don’t take this as a playbook of one
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person made this conversion because his friend did so now i could just do this with my facebook friends et cetera et
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cetera and i think that this brings up another really important point of when you have text right we have comments
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coming in and i appreciate each and every one of your guys’s comments but i can read your comments 17 different ways
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because it’s just merely words on the line there’s no there’s no inflection there’s no tone of voice behind it i have to
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assume the best the worst or whatever i’m assuming at that time so maybe just maybe picking up the phone
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maybe just maybe grabbing a cup of coffee are ways that we can actually
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engage with somebody in a positive meaningful way make that connection with somebody before you try
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to plant the seeds of liberty or try to push them off the cliff to liberty
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for sure remove some of that distance right uh the
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the last two years two and a half years as as the government responded to the pandemic
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some of the worst tyrannies were were
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displayed by my very own governor here in this state when even california was you know
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repealing certain mandates and things like that mine was just like that dude that i was engaging with she doubled
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down on it no matter how bad the idea was and [Music]
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i think uh losing that human connection a lot of people lost some nuance on on how to engage
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with people how to how to talk to a person like a person um it’s already bad you know engaging
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with people through social media but when that’s the only form of communication the only form that you
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have to get together with with your friends or family it still leaves that same distance
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between you that that that we had to deal with throughout throughout the response to
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the pandemic and we’re pack animals right we’re social
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preachers we we crave being around like-minded people
32:24
and whenever you remove
32:30
that that personal touch being you know across the table from each other or sitting at a park and you know enjoying
32:35
a cup of coffee or grabbing a beer uh it removes a lot of the humanity from it
32:42
right it’s like you said it’s just a line on it it’s it’s letters on a line words on the
32:49
line there’s no way to to read sarcasm or
32:54
anger well i guess if they’re typing in all caps you can read anywhere but they might also be a boomer but you know
33:03
so sorry for the boomers yeah it i don’t know it’s just really important i think to to try to find that
33:10
common ground with people and build build on that foundation where you
33:16
agree and move forward from there and understand and realize that
33:21
people don’t have to agree with you a hundred percent on 100 100 of the time on 100 of the
33:28
issues there’s some there’s been some times where i agreed with somebody on one issue
33:34
and everything else we were you know we were rams button heads at each other
33:41
and but i’ll still i’ll still work with that one person on that one issue yeah to get
33:46
to move move progress in that direction and on that i i had an activist out here
33:53
that when i was working in on health care reform yeah i couldn’t believe it
33:59
they were they voted for bernie sanders they supported universal health care for all they
34:05
supported you know universal basic income they were just down the line there were things that
34:11
just staunchly stood against my values and my principles but i sat sat down one day and and we
34:18
were having coffee and i said hey what do you know about the health care system as it stands and they were like well
34:23
it’s broken it’s expensive it doesn’t work for people it shouldn’t it shouldn’t bankrupt people
34:29
you’re absolutely right i i’m 100 agreement with you he’s like so you believe in universal health care and i
34:35
was like no not quite i and you know i brought up certificate need laws and right and because we were in this
34:43
conversation where we had that common ground established i said what are your thoughts on certificate
34:48
need laws when he didn’t know i informed him i said here’s some articles here’s some some articles from the left side
34:54
here’s some articles from the right side i want you to be informed on this but i want to i want to talk about it i want
35:00
to you know engage with you on this and from that moment on they respected
35:06
me they they they felt like i had their concerns their values in mind and we
35:11
were able to work forward on on helping change that this is
35:17
you know putting that that theory of what we’re talking about into practice this is how we can make that happen
35:24
completely unlikely ally you see us out there he’s in a democrat rally i’m at a
35:30
in a liberty rally you know where our camps don’t touch but when it comes to these issues they
35:36
become so important because they’re so valued right and and um you know when
35:42
people talk about health care when people talk about education when people talk about uh just general
35:47
infrastructure these things are so important that we can find common ground it’s just a matter of how we approach
35:52
those and and i i know that you’ve done this i know that you know everybody who’s kind
35:58
of worked in our field that when we find those common grounds we’re we’re
36:03
throwing seeds off of the common ground planting the seeds of liberty and seeing it how we can we can
36:10
take this one topic where we value each other and how we can grow that and how we can
36:16
get more fertile ground for more growth for more common ground and everything else um
36:22
i wanna go ahead oh speaking of engaging with people on
36:27
social media or at the grocery store or wherever you might be
36:33
there’s a good chance that you’re not going to change the mind of the person you’re speaking to especially with one conversation but there’s a lot of people
36:41
that are observing these conversations and the way that we interact with each other and if you’ve got one person that’s
36:48
doubling down and just trying to be the biggest biggest jerk there is and then you’ve got yourself who’s being
36:53
respectful and putting out good ideas and doing it in a classy way
36:58
the people that are observing that conversation and that are looking at you from the outside
37:04
those are the people that whose hearts and minds you’re going to change yes and that that is such an important note
37:11
because what we have seen in culture and and i was listening who was i listening to
37:17
um somebody was talking about how social oh this was on the um the patrick bed
37:24
david show if you haven’t seen that they just had on spike cohen um larry sharp and dave smith it was an
37:30
incredible three hours um absolutely invigorating but but spike was talking about this or the three of
37:36
the the panelists were talking about it and when it comes to the socialists they have been able to really grab a hold of
37:43
of the culture in a way it’s where they’re able to throw out these quick little slogans they don’t mean anything
37:48
in in the the understanding point but they’re able to grab on and latch on to the people’s
37:53
heartstrings and so when you are confronting this and and here’s where
37:58
it’s just leaping off of that conversation when you confront this you can’t be the
38:04
deranged one you can’t be the one that’s upset you can’t be the one shouting them down saying this isn’t how it works you
38:09
have to meet that that compassion that empathy that they’re showing in their rhetoric and you have to beat that you
38:17
have to be able to say i care about health care too i care about this too and when you when you
38:23
find that common ground with somebody that you know wildly disagrees but people see that you were able to to
38:30
compete against that now you have an actual competing of ideas for the audience that’s viewing it you may not
38:35
plant seeds with them but you may be planting seeds for the people viewing it and that’s it’s incredibly important that you
38:41
brought that point up absolutely what show was that on uh that was on uh
38:46
pbd um patrick bed david um
38:52
i can drop a youtube link in the comment section as well um for anyone watching it if you guys
38:58
didn’t see this the three of them did an incredible time
39:04
of breaking down the libertarian philosophy and talking about it in a way of not
39:10
just in theory but also in the practicality of how to move forward and
39:15
this is also one of those things um this is also one of those things that’s important with communication i
39:21
would love to to hear your thoughts on on the applicability of it but when we talk
39:27
about theory when we talk about ideas the way that you can communicate things for people to latch onto it is to talk
39:33
about where you are where you want to go in a tangible realistic path to get
39:38
there um those three things are important but but i’ll let you take that away
39:44
sure um it’s it’s really difficult
39:52
it’s really difficult to have these conversations and to cover all of that in in one conversation honestly
39:58
uh i think that it’s important to to understand that that it’s not likely
40:04
going to be done in one conversation you have to think of it as a marathon
40:09
instead of a sprint yes if you think about it the the socialist movement in this country you know likely
40:16
started mid to late 1800s and
40:21
you know with the the european revolutionaries you know uh migrating this way and and
40:29
influencing um leaders in this country uh
40:35
including abraham lincoln you know he was he frequently read uh columns
40:40
written by karl marx you know and he was a big fan of him
40:46
um but it didn’t happen overnight right they
40:52
it took decades or over a century for them to really really uh erode
40:58
everything to the point that we’re we’re in it today so understanding that uh
41:04
just not even turning the ship around and going in the the other direction but slowing it down
41:10
um it’s going to take time and it’s going to take a lot of reasoned respectful conversations
41:16
finding that common ground planting those seeds and to your point um
41:23
take a policy issue from somebody that they respect and that they like
41:28
and don’t be insulting about it but just tell them why why it is that you think that that’s
41:35
damaging to liberty instead of uh you know instead of a win
41:40
like they think it is one one of the biggest issues uh that i engage with my conservative
41:46
friends with is on qualified immunity and
41:51
and qualified immunity reform uh here in the state of new mexico we were successful we passed landmark
41:57
legislation and you know it got amended up and marked up
42:02
pretty badly going through the legislative process through all the committee hearings but it’s still
42:08
even as as bad as it is and the exemptions that they made in it it’s still far better than
42:14
where we were before that bill was passed and signed into law i would have preferred that it had
42:20
included judges and that they weren’t exempted but i’m not going to just throw the whole thing away and say well that’s
42:26
not good enough it’s a great starting point so with my
42:32
oh go ahead before before we get too far into this um because it’s been a long
42:37
while since i talked about qualified immunity um with a guest on here on it could you give us a quick synopsis what
42:43
is qualified immunity how does it work
42:48
so an example i’m driving down the road and a police officer pulls me over and
42:56
i get out of the vehicle somehow my my rights my were somehow my rights were violated
43:03
and it’s and a case that has never been seen before
43:08
right they don’t have any precedent on it so it automatically gets thrown out and you don’t get your day in court you
43:15
can’t sue the the police officer you can’t sue the police department you can’t sue the jail that they locked
43:21
you up in uh you can’t sue the judge that that threw your case out
43:27
that’s what qualified immunity reform or that’s what qualified immunity is they are
43:32
they they have qualified immunity because they’ve never seen it before so it automatically gets thrown out and
43:40
the the problems just continue yeah and and and for the audience so there
43:47
are qualified immunity cases cases that were thrown out um where is
43:54
the semantical differences in some of these cases where uh i believe that
44:00
there was one where the precedent was a man sitting on the ground handcuffed with his hands behind
44:07
his back handcuffed sitting on the ground legs flat out in front of him and
44:13
uh a canine um was biting him and so he wanted to press charges because his he
44:18
was already detained but then he was aggressed by the dog well there’s a second case that came later so that was
44:24
the precedent so if there’s another case like that they you wouldn’t have had qualified immunity because there’s a
44:30
precedent there saying that this would have been been wrong the next case the person was laying on
44:37
the ground flat and had their hands handcuffed behind their back and was
44:42
already detained and attacked by a k-9 unit qualified immunity because of the semantical differences between sitting
44:48
up and laying down was enough in order to provide protections for uh the officers and everyone involved
44:54
right uh it’s it’s like i work on foreign policy a lot too and they’re one of the jokes that i
45:00
love is um and it’s terrible but it’s not a war crime the first time
45:06
oh oh yeah
45:11
that’s the same thing that you’re talking about with qualified immunity it’s it’s not it it’s not a illegal or a rights
45:18
violation the first time it’s brought up it’s
45:24
just because of that one little tweak that one little difference yeah so so anyway so continuing on so
45:30
you guys have gotten some reform coming through um got butchered up a little bit then
45:35
covered the judges and then i i stopped you there right so uh
45:42
the organization i work for they they actually partnered with the uh
45:49
american civil liberties union who opposes in in this state they oppose a lot of
45:55
what we do most of the time and
46:00
through sheer determination one of my good friends just continued to message
46:06
and reach out and contact the one of the leaders of the the aclu
46:12
here in albuquerque and finally they met for coffee and they talked about this one issue
46:19
and it’s something that they were passionate about too they had to understand it the the way the state
46:26
legislature is made up here there’s democrat super majorities in both chambers and a democrat governor
46:34
so to in order to to move something like that forward
46:40
there was relationships that needed to be built with a lot of elected officials a lot of state senators a lot of state
46:46
house reps and we didn’t have those we didn’t have
46:52
great relationships with with the right people with enough people
46:57
but they did right so leaning on on their relationships that
47:03
they have uh along with the the policy expertise that we had
47:10
and the grassroots capabilities that we have we were able to drive the change that we needed on that one issue and now
47:18
instead of you know normally i tell people just work on that one issue and go back to hating each other no instead
47:23
we’re looking for more areas that we can work on on on reform
47:29
and and to that point so this is one of the the fantastic things that i got experience here in south carolina we
47:36
were pushing on a civil asset forfeiture so another criminal justice reform bill um
47:41
and so i went and spoke at the republican um the gop meeting i went and spoke at
47:48
the dnc meeting and i even spoke at the naacp meeting and got endorsed and
47:53
supported by all of them across the board and and so you can take these things and and
47:59
working with organizations is great when you have when you’re doing coalition building but then on top of that from
48:06
there i had connections from people in the grassroots of their organizations and finding things where i can work with
48:12
them on and then using that in order to um to expand out my connections to my
48:19
network so i knew people that were driven by criminal justice reform i knew people that were driven by education
48:25
reform health care reform all these things and you can use those things in order to
48:32
you know i i think that the term that we like to use was like a super connector where you had this this rolodex of
48:38
connections for different things you can could point and and work with so many different people through that effort you
48:44
know the aclu is one that a lot of people i’m glad that you brought that one up specifically a lot of people look
48:50
at the aclu and they see how terrible they are on many issues and they they write them off and they say don’t
48:56
talk to them don’t associate with them but you guys found a way to find that common ground because of that you guys
49:03
revolutionize the way that new mexico looks at qualifying immunity i think that that’s incredible
49:08
um i want to give you a last couple of minutes i any big stories any big
49:14
thoughts any big overview things last minute tidbits where we can find your next uh next
49:20
events or or anything that you’re doing plug yourself the floor is yours take it away my man
49:27
so i just wanted to bring up one more example before we we say you know see
49:32
you later um working on foreign policy we were working on ending the war in afghanistan
49:40
bringing all the troops home we partnered with another organization
49:48
called vote vets and they they’re a veteran organization but they represent the other side of the
49:53
spectrum you know they’re very very progressive very socialist leaning
49:58
veteran organization but they they agreed with us on this one issue
50:03
again you know we we’ve opposed each other like you know the the sun rises in the morning and if we would have said
50:09
the sun rose they would have argued and said no you know or or whatever the case may be the sky is blue no it’s not
50:16
um but on this one issue we we joined forces and we gathered together and we went and lobbied together in dc
50:24
i think i i had something like 30 more than 30 meetings in
50:29
in this this little time period is three days i think oh wow and
50:35
lobbying with boat beds members right next to me in the same offices
50:40
uh talking to uh i think it was lee from los angeles
50:45
california one of the one of the reps from the la area in california and then you know going and having a
50:51
conversation with um kirsten cinema in arizona and then
50:57
scott tipton who used to be the the rep where i grew up in colorado and
51:03
you know he’s very conservative kirsten cinema is very moderate lee is very progressive so just hitting the spectrum
51:11
with these unlikely allies uniting on this one issue and and getting a win right we’re we’ve
51:17
ended the war in afghanistan um the withdrawal was a debacle
51:22
yeah we didn’t have anything to do with that uh the previous 20 years was in
51:28
in a lot of ways and even greater debacle but
51:34
i lost i i lost activists in my my own community over that relationship with both vets you know because of certain
51:41
people that that funded that organization and i just
51:46
it blows my mind that people are willing to throw away a win over something as petty as
51:51
as that people yeah find find organizations that are
51:58
fighting on thing fighting for things that you’re passionate about
52:04
and make the change man be it do it live it yeah absolutely i think that that’s
52:10
that’s an incredible um thing to to end on stop worrying about who you’re uniting
52:17
with unite with people make a difference live it out i i think that that’s beautiful um i
52:23
want to i want to thank you so much for coming on tonight nate thank you for working with me on my scheduling i apologize again i love you i appreciate
52:31
you so much um we’ll get you back on here soon if you’re cool with that absolutely i i love media i love being
52:37
on on the air any way i can perfect all right i will see you in a couple minutes
52:44
all right what a conversation that was i mean you you
52:50
nate banks is one of those guys when i met him [Music] three four years ago
52:57
you could tell he was a special guy he was an incredibly special guy and so uh
53:02
i’ve loved working with him i’ve loved seeing his work i’ve loved seeing what he’s doing to change his communities as
53:09
well as you know outside of this nation as well on the foreign policy
53:15
so he’s got a wealth of knowledge there tonight the conversation just covering a wide spectrum of of how we can engage
53:22
from a personal point of how we can share our heart share our values with people link up connect with one another
53:29
break down the defenses and be able to plant seeds i think that this was an incredibly important conversation i
53:36
loved every second of i hope you guys enjoyed it as well but we’re coming up at the end of of the
53:41
muddied week which means that next week you guys got to come back so next wednesday night 8 p.m eastern ish
53:48
make sure you guys are tuning in back here muddy waters of freedom spy cohen matt wright it’s going to be one hell of
53:55
a show you know it will be so make sure you guys are tuning in for that thursday night matt wright is coming back with
54:00
the writer’s block you’re not going to want to miss that and friday 2 p.m eastern i have the one the only
54:07
shane hazel running for governor of georgia coming on and we’re going to be talking
54:12
a little bit about deregulation what does it mean how does it work how has it been vilified and how does it actually
54:18
improve your life your and your accessibility and of course as in a time of inflation
54:26
how it actually drops the prices for you so i’m excited for that conversation next week is going to be an incredible
54:33
week you’re not going to want to miss this wednesday thursday friday here on muddy waters media thank you guys so
54:39
much i’ve been incredibly honored to have you guys all here with me i love nate banks and
54:45
having him on tonight but you guys be well i’ll see you guys soon see you guys next week be good be well see you soon