Mr Bearded Truth – 39 – Standing out for liberty with Nathan Slusher

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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 the very truth on muddy waters
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media
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hello everybody welcome in i am so excited for today’s conversation we have
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one hell of a guest i the first time i spoke to this man and i think you guys
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are gonna fall in love with him the same way that i do the first time i spoke with this man he
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you guys have known me for a while i love the libertarian philosophy i love being engaged with the community i love showing people how much we care how
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empathy works how we can push forward to make a difference in our communities for the betterment of
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our people to set people free in our lifetime and i’m pretty engaged and pretty pretty
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energized but the first time i spoke to this man nathan slusher from brevard county florida
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i felt a burning inside my soul to just come out there and and set the trees of
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liberty of flame and and just let it be an undeniable force an undeniable vision
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for the republicrap party for people across the political spectrum for anyone
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in office anyone out of office to be undeniable that what we are doing is for
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the betterment of society nathan slusher is one of those guys that can energize and engage with anyone and everyone and
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he’s got some incredible stories that he’s going to share with us today about how we can stand out no longer being
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looked at as those keyboard warriors but as somebody who cares about our community so i hope you guys are excited for today’s show i am incredibly excited
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to be sent out and talking with nathan slasher today um the chair of libertarian libertarian party brevard
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county florida so before we get there though of course we have to do a little bit of the house cleaning so thank you
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guys all for hopping in here today friday 2 p.m eastern um june 24th thank
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you guys so much for being here i love you all i appreciate you all whether you guys are watching this on facebook youtube twitter twitch float read or not
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gotta talk about some of the sponsors pay the bills for the day up coming in august august 20th and 21st
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uh saturday and sunday if you guys are near the columbus uh ohio area you guys
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gotta come out for the criminal justice reform summit uh plenty of great keynote speakers will be there spike cohen will
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be there i will be there speaking um and we’re going to be talking a lot about incredible things that we could be doing
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in the liberty movement in order to help change legislation and to help empower the people to have better conversations
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about how we engage with elected officials which we’ll be talking with nathan about that as well
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confirmation i will spread that confirmation to you all next up
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this one might be a little foreign for for our guest today but if you guys are looking for something to
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do this election night head on down to brevard county florida
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where they are having the 2022 golden liberty gala
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you’ll have some incredible speakers there such as myself and spy cohen you’ll also have jordan marlow
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a elected and re-elected libertarian mayor of newberry florida and of course you’ve
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got the wonderful shelley the brazilian porcupine so come on down to brevard zoos in uh melbourne florida it’s going
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to be an incredible night um we’re gonna we’re gonna talk a little bit about this more i’m sure with nathan um but
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this is head on down there so sign up today to go to by going to lpbrevard.org
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gala and if you’re looking to spread your online business you’ve got a podcast you’d like to pimp out whatever
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it is you’re trying to do head on down there to lpbrevard.org gala hyphen sponsors and you can sign up
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today they’re going to appreciate it it’s only going to make this event even bigger and better with you a part of it
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so sign up today and somebody who’s been a huge help and a
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receiving now without further ado before i i ramble for too far too long about the
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excitement that i have for today’s show um and and bore the guest and and
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potentially put him to sleep as he’s sitting outside in the floor to heat uh let’s go ahead and and give a round of
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applause for my guest today nathan slusher how’s it going man hey hey how’s it going thank you for
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having me on the podcast i am super excited i follow along i just i listen
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every every new one that pops up while i’m working i throw it in and listen to so big shout out to you you’re doing
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great you weren’t boring me at all it’s awesome i’m just excited to be here i’m excited to share my experience and my
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knowledge and anything we can do to help so i’m i’m looking forward to this conversation a lot perfect perfect yeah
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so today um you know we started talking two months ago potentially two to three
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months ago and and the thing that you really brought forth to the forefront of
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my mind the entire time was how you guys were standing out both as individuals right nathan celeste are going out there
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and standing out amongst the community getting support um changing uh the minds
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the hearts and minds of of your county council of city councils and you know
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even some representatives from other parties other parties um
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you’ve managed to stand out in a positive way it’s not you parading around uh streaking and being
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like look at that that’s a libertarian no it’s holy smokes that’s a libertarian he’s a fantastic guy he cares about us he cares
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about our issues he resonates with us and and so that’s really where i wanted to start today’s conversation off and
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and of course we’ll talk a little bit about that wonderful gala later but i want to know you know when
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because this is a new movement for brevard county and it’s not just you a part of this this is your whole team everyone’s
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picked up their different things so what is it how was it that you guys came through to this mindset and and tell me about what that mindset means
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so let me give you a little background about how we started uh as this easy so the libertarian party of brevard existed
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uh prior to the cc forming uh they’ve ran some candidates in the past but um
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it’s never grown exponentially uh it’s never been a challenging force here
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and so after the jorgensen run uh against donald trump and against joe biden
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then we came together after that and said we’re tired of the red and blue
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and how do we make brevard county differently how do we how do we become different here
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and when we started there were four of us uh in a park meeting at a table with a cup of coffee
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and that was the first official meeting that i went to and we decided that we were going to be
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different we got some people from other places to come in and they joined with us and then in
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january the following january so november december january we had our first elections at a carabbas
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because we didn’t have an office at the time we had nothing we just had a caravas so we met there a couple times we had our elections there and we had
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like nine people there and we elected five at the ec and from there
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we had a lot of work to do yes so we had to rebuild the constitution the
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bylaws the website and so i appreciate the credit that you have given me
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however it’s not possible without my team i mean the the people that i have
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that we have that this county has standing up for them have put in tons of hours of work i can’t tell you
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how many hours and nights we were up till midnight doing bylaws to make sure that we were resilient for the future
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going in and so you know we did all of that and that took time as soon as that was
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finished we changed our viewpoint and said what do
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we do how do we grow how do we actually make change in brevard and we picked the
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government meetings and said well let’s start by going down to our local government and finding out how it works
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so i went and another guy went and then we had a guy go to coco which is down the road here one of our other
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municipalities and we just went and sat and we listened we went to titusville into brevard
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county and we sat for three months i think it was before we ever said a word
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we just wanted to learn because we wanted to make sure when we did speak that people listened yeah so
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we studied the government how does it work locally because it’s different than how it works federally or state level
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and every get this what most people don’t realize is every city works different they can each set their own type of government
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so we had to learn what those types of government was were and
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once we got to the point that we understood how the process worked then we had to understand what they were
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discussing in their viewpoints and that’s the point where we started speaking
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after about three months of being there um i think the first trigger for me was
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when i was sitting in a meeting and uh the region nine rep brian fleming he’s a great guy we were sitting in a meeting
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together and the citizens of this city were challenging the county because they wanted to turn one of our sand actually
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the park is literally like across the river directly where i’m sitting but they were challenged in the county because the county wanted to pave the
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park and rebuild the park and the citizens wanted it dirt for the kayaks and the jet skis they wanted to be able
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to access the water so there’s like 75 people in the room and the attorneys on both sides and it’s
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going crazy people are yelling and i looked at brian and i said somebody’s
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going to want to know what happened here today so i started taking notes and i’m like write notes down on a piece of
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paper just write notes and i went home and i took all those notes and i put them into an article and i put it out on
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facebook in some groups for the city and the next day i had to take off work
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because it went micro viral we had like 19 000 hits in the city and it was in that moment
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that i realized how we could affect change in brevard county yeah no see that’s that’s the incredible
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thing that you know i think that when we look across the libertarian spectrum when we look across people that have
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identified themselves as a libertarian they go well we have to do something
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we have to do something and then they go i don’t know i don’t know what to do and then they just kind of sit on their
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hands but you guys said we have to do something where can we be effective and you guys said who’s infringing upon us and you
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know to not steal from spike cohen too much you know the most important government is at the local level so why
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don’t we influence that those are the ones who are arguably infringing upon us the most
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why don’t we go and change that and so you guys went straight from spike at all my man that is
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something we say on a regular basis local government is the most important government in our lives as u.s american
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citizens the local government is where the seat of power should be in your area it should not be the feds it should not
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be the state absolutely the the most powerful item
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the most powerful area is the individual period but the most powerful government should be
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the local government in your own backyard because that’s the one that you can alter or abolish quickly yeah
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it’s important to make sure that you’re involved in those local governments absolutely and that’s where we focused
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absolutely and that’s that’s one of the biggest things now i standing out as a libertarian and going to the
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directly to the source that’s a great and fantastic thing but you’ve done something a little bit different that i want to highlight here and it might be a
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little topical if you will you stand out in the room because people look at you and they go i know that
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purple haired guy i know that guy that wears the purple suits so you decided to make a a decision to stand out
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physically vocally and ideologically um i did could
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you walk us through some of that mindset because so that decision was completely intentional okay um this
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started i’d say about two years ago i don’t know the exact timeline because i’m a great
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hair dude i’m 32 in gray hair it just runs in my family it’s who i am and i was so frustrated at the time that
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i was walking through a pharmacy with my daughter and i’m like i’m tired of being great hair you pick a color pick any
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color and i’ll dye my hair you know and my daughter at the time was like yeah okay haha i’ll pick purple and like okay
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fine i’ll do purple i ain’t afraid so i did purple and then i fell in love with it because i’m
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working my own company nobody’s gonna fire me i spent 10 years in restaurants where you can’t have purple hair you
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can’t have tattoos you can’t have piercings so there’s nobody to tell me what i can and can’t do
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so then when i got into politics i realized i could use that to my advantage because the first thing when i go to
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people’s doors to fix their home is they see my hair and it doesn’t ever
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turn off and create a negative appearance or a negative insinuation it just instantly makes everyone go quiet
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and they process so it gives me an opportunity to set the first impression
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every time i see somebody and so when i started speaking i made sure
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that i went in and i had my purple tie and i had my purple hair and my black suit i think i got a white shirt at the time
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the first time i did it but i go in and i walk up to the the podium
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and i stand there for three to five seconds intentionally not speaking because in that moment every person in
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that room says what’s the dude with purple hair doing up there and they actually stop and listen
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because i have purple hair and they’re like what is he gonna say and that is the moment that i have
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command of the room and i can actually make a decent impression immediately
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you’re standing so that is why yeah yes because it makes people be quiet i have
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watched person after person walk up to that podium and i can’t tell you the amount of people that they walk up there
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they start talking and everyone else in the room is talking one it’s you know it’s it’s rude you
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don’t talk when others you should not interrupt people like that they’re they get their freedom of speech they get their three minutes they have a right to
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talk you know but on the other hand as the person at the podium you have control of
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that you can command the room you can tell everybody i want you to listen to me
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without being rude and the best way for me to do that was by having a color that was so bold that
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people stopped and said wow he’s got a his hair’s kind of purple
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we had a meeting at county last year at the county level they were trying to
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raise the fire assessment which is fire taxes for our firefighters that we pay it was a 35 increase in the fire
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assessment and i there was hundreds of people there it was so many people there that they
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couldn’t fill up they actually had to move a tv outside and have seats outside and we had people in the parking lot because we couldn’t get them in the room
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so some of our libertarian people were out in the parking lot they couldn’t get inside the room well when i wouldn’t have to speak
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i took my three to five seconds and from what i’m being told from the outside everyone outside was like that dude’s
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got purple hair his hair matches his tie or a shirt i think i was wearing a purple shirt like his hair matches his
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shirt but then everyone listened they didn’t agree with me but they
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actually stopped and listened to what i had to say yes when you stand so that
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when you stand against the grain in some way when you stand against the grain in some way people notice you and then it’s
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it’s our job as good speakers as good or raiders to keep their attention it’s not necessarily correct to change their
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hearts and minds so you know i i see all too often that we we have people that go out there and they stand in front of a
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of a body of people and they go i’m changing your mind today oftentimes it’s never going to happen
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but you can use those opportunities to plant those seeds of i care about you i’m compassionate for the community i
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care about these issues you probably care about these issues too at least now they they they’re kind of
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cognitively forced to listen to you they don’t have to agree with you as we’ve said but they the seeds are planted now
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when you come back a month later a couple more you know if you’re trying i i don’t mean to interrupt you you’re good you’re good you’re good
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but when you’re going up there and you’re trying to influence change and you want people to listen to you um
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there’s some things that have to that intentionally you have to intentionally think of first of all is you have to
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realize that you’re not going to change everybody’s mind so instead of trying to persuade everybody to your side just stand on
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your convictions you know i heard a long time ago those with the strongest convictions create the strongest gravity
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i like that and i have found that true in those facilities those who have the strongest
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convictions and believe in what they want and they’re passionate people pay attention to
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i love that so you have to stay strong on your convictions you have to be respectful
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yes whether you know i can’t i cannot stress that enough as a company owner as a father i teach people all the time you
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have to be respectful you know and and that doesn’t mean we want to be as human beings there are
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times that you don’t want to be people upset you people you want to get argumentative but respect must be given
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not earned you have to be respectful you have to smile when i go up there i
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take a breath and i smile at the people because it instantly breaks the ice and that’s important you need the five
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or seven or however many people are sitting on your diaz you need them to be paying attention to you so you need the
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ice broken so i walk up to the stadium you can ask me or up to stadium jesus i
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walk up to the podium um in the room and i take three to five
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seconds and i breathe because it gets the whole room time to calm down they look at my hair they
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focus and then it gives the people who are sitting up there they get the papers they adjust their papers and they look
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at me and then i smile even if i’m challenging what they’re doing i still smile yeah um because it’s
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important you you have to break that ice and then you start speaking you and and i just i can’t stress enough how
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important it is to be respectful and professional just like you were speaking to a board of directors because they
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really are they’re a board of directors and in that room we know that the citizens have the power
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we know that they don’t know that yep they think they have the power
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and as long as they’re in control of that room they will continue to use that power so we take it upon ourselves to command
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the room and hold the power which the only way to do that is to be professional be respectful
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and have stronger convictions than the people who are elected because that’s how the room pays
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attention a couple of years ago i was sitting down with a very successful businessman and
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and one of the things that he was talking about he was talking to us about good activism
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he was like i’m not a great activist i’m a great businessman and i can go in and i can sell people
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whatever i want to sell them and he’s like they may not feel like when i walk in the room that they need
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what i’m selling them but by the time i leave more people are think at least thinking i need what he’s
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talking about and it’s because if we if we stop treating um our ideas as just
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ideas but we treat those as as a commodity we treat those as a from a business person’s perspective as
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some a service or good being sold would we go in there every person who is hearing our voice as a potential client
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would you if you are not respectful if you’re not appreciative of them at least listening
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to you are they going to come back and want to listen to you more are they going to be like forget that sales person i don’t want anything to do with
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that entire corporation and so absolutely on those notes it’s just it’s
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too important to not be respectful on that front and it doesn’t you know does that mean that they have the authority
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absolutely not um pardon me uh just not to interrupt you but the rain just started that storm
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just hit so if you hear thunder i apologize in advance um but it’s raining all around me right now it’ll stop at
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five minutes to find this florida yeah okay so back to my point
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you know you don’t have to see the people who are
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up there whether it be your council whether it be your commission whether you’re talking to a state legislator you don’t have to look at them like their
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mass authority and they control everything it’s not necessary but they are human beings
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and if we’re this is important if we are going to grow this party
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we need their votes yes yes we need those five people to vote
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for us even if they disagree and that’s when you realize that you need them on your side
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not you need to force them to do what you want you need them on your side which means
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the best way to get them to you is to have stronger conventions convictions yes because then they start coming to
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you and go oh wow these guys are right good example if you’ll allow me to here um i did a speech in titusville on
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it was on civil asset criminal asset forfeiture civil asset forfeiture um the
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city was presenting the police department needed a new logo or a new sign that’s just the titusville police
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department our sign was old they needed new uh light bulbs it needed a new plastic the sign was old they just
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wanted a new sign and it was like 30 000 for a giant sign around the building which is not it’s not excessive for a
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sign um that was not a battle i was picking at the moment but
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it bothered me that we were using forfeiture funds to pay for a sign
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so i went up there and it was funny because that night i was in a polo and jeans i just left work i wasn’t in my
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suit and i went up there and the room was full and i spoke and i basically told them i
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said guys forfeiture funds are money that has been taken from
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people because they didn’t do something the government likes so this is money that in your eyes has a bad past and i
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related to them immediately i’m like you believe that this person who lost their money has a bad past
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unlike there is a lightning there is a vast
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conversation around forfeiture funds in the country right now i said but i’m not here to talk about
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the ethics of forfeiture funds i said what i want to talk about is what we’re using them for and in this moment
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we’re discussing using them for a police sign a sign i said if our police department needs a sign just go buy one
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with the general funds we have millions of dollars i’m like just go buy one i’m like but if
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you absolutely need to use forfeiture funds because legally they’re going to be taken by the state or something
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then i suggest you take those funds that have a bad past and you buy a scholarship for somebody
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or you do something with a good future wow and i stopped and i walked away and
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the crowd actually got an applause that night that video is on my facebook page
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and it was just the nonchalant conversation like i didn’t think about it i just went up there and spoke my truth
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about how i felt about those funds being used on a police sign like i support the police
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if they need a if they need to sign buy a sign yeah you know we need a new building by building like there are things to battle that was not one of
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them and but the point was don’t use forfeiture funds that have a
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questionable path for a sign yeah that’s just bragging to me i love
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that you you you brought a round of applause from that speech and the thunder came today to to just go
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better than that one of the officers who guards the council because we have cops that stand in there and they do take
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people out every once in a while they get crazy and one of the officers waved me over after i gave that speech and he said
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nathan i could not have said that better myself no that’s an incredible thing
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it’s like when the cops are telling you that your speech on forfeiture funds are dead on i was like blown away oh and it
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was so nonchalant i didn’t practice it i didn’t write it i just went up and spoke my truth about how i feel and i did it in a respectful manner and
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i’m as you can see with my hands i’m a very animated person and so when i’m on the podium i’m like hitting the podium
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and and talking and then but here’s the thing the council didn’t listen at all they
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didn’t care they moved on it lasted two seconds the crowd cheered
28:59
but i made impressions with the audience and that that’s an important thing
29:04
because we talk a lot about good messaging here and and here’s something else that
29:10
you’re doing in brevard county your team is doing in brevard county that a lot of good libertarians are doing that not
29:15
enough of us are doing we’re so many of us are looked at as a protest as
29:22
don’t spend our money don’t do this don’t do that and that’s kind of the end of their conversation but what you did
29:29
was is you said look not only is what you’re doing wrong but here’s a solution
29:34
here’s how you actually work through this and so giving people a tangible path forward um away from a bad path
29:41
that they’re uh kind of looking at going down this is incredibly important and this is one way
29:47
that uh oh your internet’s going out um
29:52
i don’t know if you can hear me i’m the storm just kind of wrapped around me and went to the side you’re you’re good but um
29:59
so bear with us as as his storm takes everything out but you you guys uh you
30:04
guys don’t just let the um don’t let just the the protest be there you guys actually come through with
30:11
realistic answers for how to address these problems so that you guys aren’t just
30:16
the protesters you guys are are actually saying we belong in this arena of ideas
30:22
we belong in the arena of changing the course of the future because we have answers for people and that’s something
30:29
that we’re seeing people latch onto um yeah there’s there’s a story i don’t
30:35
know it’s one of the things that we started out with was one of the rules we gave ourselves of
30:40
the guidelines we gave ourselves is that any time we speak anytime we speak
30:46
we don’t just complain we actually provide solutions if we go
30:52
up there it must be a solution and you know obviously it’s it’s a guideline if you don’t you don’t it’s okay but we
30:58
want to make sure that every time we speak we have a solution in mind because you
31:04
don’t want to just be the complainer the city at every county you can go and sit
31:11
and find one person at least that goes to everything and does nothing but complain yep
31:17
you don’t want to be that person because nobody gives them credibility so if you want to prove the solution the
31:23
single thing you’re speaking about i mean if we all have facebook friends
31:30
because or twitter friends or or friends wherever and and you have that one friend that
31:36
you make a post and nothing that they’re nothing is ever good enough for them they’re just negative nancy on all of
31:41
your posts are these somebody that you’re going to go to and be like hey you know
31:46
how would you you know i i respect you and what you’re doing no but if you had somebody another
31:52
friend on your your your friends list that came forward and said hey look you know i disagree with it um i agree with
31:58
the premise of you know the importance of this but i wanna what about steering the direction this
32:03
way which of those two are gonna make the bigger impact you gotta take you gotta take the way of making an impact
32:10
planting those seeds and and you’re not gonna change them that day but you’ll change them in the future hopefully at
32:15
least challenge them it’s a long process you know a lot of people i feel um they decide that they want to go to
32:22
the government and they want to change something they go in they are very vocal and then the council does
32:29
or the commission does what they always do and they say next and nothing happens and they get
32:35
disheartened and they leave and they complain online about it
32:40
but that’s not how you sow seeds you have to go in there day in and day
32:46
out every meeting and you have to go in you have to build relationships you have to speak your
32:52
truth and again i’m gonna circle back to this every time you have to have stronger convictions than those who are
32:58
elected yes and and and to speak to that um here in south carolina we were creating a
33:04
movement around sublastic forfeiture hey your internet’s back oh we were it’s
33:10
great uh we were making a movement around civil asset forfeiture right we had several
33:15
million dollars has taken over the time 39 either not accused or not found guilty of their crimes um
33:22
and that was the thing i went to every special election for the sheriff’s debates or there was a sheriff’s office
33:28
had a special election and we went to every one of the debates and we talked about civil asset forfeiture
33:33
we went to every county council meeting and spoke about civil asset forfeiture we went to uh the state house and spoke
33:41
about civil asset forfeiture we knew that we likely were not going to be successful in ending it that year but we
33:48
knew that we were going to get the attention of people people who had never heard of it people who may have
33:53
disagreed with it but now there’s new seeds the new perspective to be seen and so from that we had so many more people
34:00
contact us join in with our movement and we were able to snowball this effect and it was by being persistent having that
34:07
conviction of persevering through all of all of the trials and tribulations
34:12
because we were passionate and we were convicted to make a difference on this so and it’s not just you know you said
34:20
it you you said you went to everyone and you knew that you weren’t going to be successful i cannot explain how
34:27
important it is to know that 99 of the people of any party of any
34:33
party that walk into a government office lose yeah they all walk in and whether it be they
34:40
want to speed home whether it be they want a stop sign whether it be they want to actually make change or repeal laws
34:45
whatever they bring to the table because there’s a lot of different topics that come up they almost always lose
34:53
the council just says next and then move on yep and that’s it and
34:58
people get very disheartened by it you have to go in and if you want to change hearts and minds
35:05
you have to plant seeds for the future not for today not for right now we have lost
35:11
probably 95 to 98 of the battles we’ve picked but we continue to pick those
35:17
battles and we continue to build relationships and that is what’s making the difference that is why they now
35:22
listen to us you know the biggest one we want was uh we challenged the florida
35:28
department of environmental protection ooh the epa one of the alphabets yes
35:34
and so they posted a public notice in one of our newspapers that said this company is gonna
35:40
dump untreated wastewater into the lagoon uh our estuary here which is a big one of our
35:46
pillars and so someone sent it to me and was like can you do something about this and i said let’s find out
35:52
so i went to uh i went to the county and we presented a letter the whole executive committee
35:59
signed and we said sorry guys this is florida this is real florida but uh
36:05
we presented a letter the whole executive committee signed and we said we want brevard county as a government
36:11
to send a letter to the epa or to the dep and tell them that they need to host a
36:16
public meeting in this county not in their office in this county and tell us why it’s acceptable to do so
36:25
we did that and we got told next well in the room happened to be the news 13 reporter
36:34
who heard that and he reached out to us and i went on news channel 13 orlando on the five
36:40
o’clock news headline and the libertarian party of brevard was on that headline challenging the dep
36:48
so then the next week brevard county actually i missed it because i left at the last minute and it
36:55
was my fault because i walked out five minutes too soon but she looks up and she goes is nathan in the room
37:01
we need to let him know we’re accepting their proposal we’re gonna tell the dep they need to force a meeting here
37:07
and they did the dep came out they held a huge meeting out here in cape canaveral and there was a lot of
37:13
environmentalists that showed up and i went to that meeting and we challenged them respectfully
37:19
professionally we commanded the room and i’m hoping change comes of it
37:24
[Music] now there’s a story that i don’t know how to segue into this but i want to i
37:30
want to have this story i want you to share it but it talks about building bridges with uh unlikely allies if you
37:37
will where you may have had somebody within the democratic party say um
37:44
f the epa um oh yeah i would love that story so i can
37:50
i can definitely tell listen so in the city of titusville we have a pac a political action
37:57
committee uh they’re called speak up titusville it’s in a group of environmentalists uh they care about the
38:02
lagoon and they’re trying to change the charter they’re filing an amendment um filing petitions
38:09
that’s close they’re trying to get the charter change where we have an amendment in the charter that allows
38:15
people to hold the government accountable for negligent or intentional actions that result in pollution
38:20
i know that’s a lot of words but it just gives the citizens the power to hold the government and and at this
38:27
point um they’re doing a state one that will be able to hold companies it gives citizens
38:33
power is what it does it gives us the power to hold people accountable for polluting the river
38:38
so we had them come out uh to a libertarian party of brevard county executive
38:46
committee they brought the whole group and most of them came from the uh brevard democrat club i believe
38:52
and they came out and they presented their petition and they argued their point
38:58
and i told them all i said you’re going in a room full of libertarians if you want this to approve you’re going to have to argue your point and it lasted
39:04
i’d say a good hour and a half two hours and it was a heavy debate and it went back and forth heated at moments but at
39:11
the end of the day everybody was satisfied with the answers enough the executive committee actually endorsed it
39:18
and that was their first political endorsement was libertarians and it was very odd for libertarians to endorse a
39:24
environmental action yeah but because the way it was giving the citizens power to hold the government accountable we
39:29
were like this is not perfect by any means but it falls in line with libertarian
39:35
philosophies and so we enjoyed it well they went and every week they were
39:41
going to county and or to city and not at this point county too trying to get
39:46
the city to put it on the ballot so they didn’t have to follow through with the petitions they could just have the council do it
39:52
and it became repetitive going oh uh you know we want the charter amendment
39:57
because and their their line was always um water needs rights
40:04
nature needs rights um and that’s been their argument and and it works in some locations it wasn’t
40:11
working here and they did this weekend every week and every week they even made it no nathan
40:16
supports it and i’m like i do i like the petition i but i support it because i want to be able to hold the
40:22
government accountable yes and one day i sat down and had a conversation with the guy before we went
40:28
into the council meeting and nothing major we were just talking about the state petition and new things coming
40:35
and i went in there and i’m sitting down on my laptop i’m typing away at my articles and i heard him speak and he says the
40:42
words he says we need to be able to hold the dep accountable and i’m like
40:48
he just used our life and i’m like this is great
40:55
well since then i guess they’ve altered it and or they’ve altered their way they apply it and they’re almost to their
41:01
petition they have until july 4th but i i don’t know they might make it that’s what they have to july first
41:07
that’s so incredible um because you know you had
41:13
you are you’re willing to work and this is something that i think a lot of us need to understand while we’re trying to
41:19
corral more support it means that we’re going to have to go and work with people who we don’t ideologically align with on
41:25
a lot of things we won’t ideologically agree with every aspect of things that are going to come up to our table but
41:32
being able to create those allies to work with them i am i’m i’m proud of of the time of when i worked with the uh
41:38
naacp i’m time i’m proud of the times that i’ve i’ve went out and and worked
41:43
with black lives matter on some initiatives these are things that you know i don’t agree wholesale with their
41:49
actions i don’t agree wholesale with their ideology but there are things that there is that common alignment and it
41:54
only is going to give you more exposure go ahead and it’s not even that because the
42:00
reality is at least what we found here the democrats republicans libertarians green
42:07
party that live in brevard county we’re so much more alike than we are alike to the people in dc
42:12
yes like i can’t even explain that enough and so when you get us in a room
42:18
we can easily pinpoint each other’s topics that we care about and get each
42:23
other excited uh for instance i went to one of their pac events they were doing a uh
42:29
a clean water uh speaking event it was a candidate for him actually and they and
42:34
they made it tripartisan it was the first tripartisan event we’ve held in brevard county it was republicans
42:40
democrats and libertarian party all the executive committees and all other candidates were asked to come
42:45
well at the end of the day the republicans backed out at the last day and so it ended up being
42:52
a bipartisan event between democrats and libertarians so i got to go up there and speak and for anyone who follows brevard county uh
43:00
we have manatees that are dying in our lagoon uh by the hundreds manatees are just floating away dead um and some of
43:07
our citizens came up with the idea to feed them they got like a dump truck full of lettuce
43:13
they were ready to feed the manatees the fish and wildlife conservation commission or florida’s fwc
43:19
came into our town and gently reminded the citizens that it was illegal and
43:24
there would be punishments for feeding manatees so when i went to this event i brought
43:31
that up and said guys i was at this meeting well the lady i’m running against was sitting right in front of me
43:36
and i gave a speech about this and i said i want a counselor i want i want a
43:41
city council that when the state comes in and says our citizens are going to be fined or arrested has
43:47
the audacity to tell the state to go to hell yes nullify that if it’s not if it’s
43:54
not in the best interest of people get get out of our way we’re safe advantage great round of
43:59
applause from the crowd they ate it up and it’s true it’s really true because
44:05
what the people in power and the voters there is a mass difference there
44:11
mass difference the voting democrats the voting republicans the voting libertarians versus the elected
44:17
officials there is a mass disconnect and we are trying to capitalize on that yes
44:22
absolutely so this is incredible and the audience is going to hate me for this hard hard hard hard hard pivot but
44:30
you guys have something coming up this november where people can come out and meet you get engaged with the party um
44:36
meet a lot of other great libertarians podcasters you guys are having a star-studded event
44:42
talk to me about this event coming up november 8th so on november 8th we have our second
44:47
annual golden liberty gala um last year we had our first one
44:52
and it turned to just be it was a last minute thing we had like
44:58
90 days to pull it off and we were just trying to make a fun event that was dress up and raise money
45:04
as a fundraiser it was a success in our eyes it was a success uh did we
45:09
bring in a ton of money no but we sold like 40 tickets we had food we broke
45:14
even it was a great night and we got libertarians from around brevard to come in that
45:20
hadn’t involved gotten involved before we got a lot of donations that night it was a win
45:25
um so this year we are spending the entire year planning it
45:30
and we’re doing our second annual and what i need is i am currently
45:36
building and i’m gonna give a shout out to my gala chair committee uh marie peel
45:41
my vice chair she is building an exceptional gala i’m super stoked about
45:47
this thing but what we’re looking for right now is we want to build a libertarian base of 50 to 75
45:52
libertarians who are going to come they buy tickets they come we need libertarian businesses to sponsor us
45:59
because we’re going to take all that advertising money or all that money from sponsorships we’re going to dump it into advertising to get non-libertarians that
46:05
live here into the gala and then me you jordan and spike get to speak to
46:10
him it’s beautiful so i wanna i wanna go through some of the highlights of some
46:16
of the people that will be in attendance right you mentioned some phenomenal people on that list i’m excited to see you out there i i’m so looking forward
46:23
to meeting you but um john morrissey of defy the power will be out there so everyone who’s seen his tumblers across
46:29
the country you guys saw his tumblr at national convention you see him all the time he will be we’re actually
46:35
auctioning away another one of those tumblers that night if if for nothing else just come out for
46:41
the defy the power tumbler if for nothing else if you hate if you hate porcupines you hate libertarians you
46:47
hate making positive change to the interactions to find the power be there podcasters will be that we’ll have the
46:53
entire muddy waters team so make sure you guys come out there we not only the muddy waters team but the wives of all
46:59
the muddy waters team i am kelsey’s husband you got tasha’s uh tasha’s husband being there and sarah anderegg
47:06
her new name and her husband will be there you guys have you guys will also have in attendance
47:13
libertarian elected mayors and i believe you guys will also have a potential flipping to libertarian
47:21
mayor uh i believe that was in the discussion as well changing hearts at this point the
47:26
discussion has gone 12 different ways and i can’t even keep up anymore it’s becoming a big event that’s um it’s
47:32
beautiful i would love to see uh people come out i know we’ve got people coming from around the state we have jordan
47:38
marlowe who is an elected libertarian coming down from newberry florida which if you don’t know florida it’s on the
47:43
west coast and we’re on the east coast or it’s northwest of us but uh he’s coming we’ve got people
47:50
coming from around the state we’ve got a couple sponsorships already we had a home loans uh people sponsor us uh we’ve
47:57
got the libertarian party of florida to do a sponsorship so they’re sending their ec we have a table set up for defy
48:04
the power i know is coming we’ve got not a real libertarian podcast coming in um target trading is going to be there and
48:10
these are all guys that libertarians know yes and um so what i want and i’m going to ask this
48:17
what i want is i want everybody listening this to pause what you’re doing
48:22
stop right now don’t pause the video don’t pause the video though pause the video possibly what you’re doing listen to the
48:28
video i want you to go to your computer pull up another another tab
48:34
i want you to type in lp like libertarian party lp brevard
48:40
dot org slash gala g-a-l-a
48:47
that’s going to give you a direct link to the gala you’re going to go in there you’re going to buy tickets for you and
48:53
your whole family and then you’re going to sponsor it so we can get non-libertarians at this
48:59
event because we’ve already acquired an advertising agency who’s willing to work with libertarian party to get us out
49:05
there but it costs money so we need tickets sold if you’re in alaska if you’re in hawaii if you’re in
49:12
washington state you’ve got like four months to figure this out we can do this just buy the tickets or 50 bucks a piece
49:18
for a person we need as many tickets as we can sold so that we could turn around and use that money and get non-libertarians there because that
49:25
night that night i want to change hearts and minds and i want to see us change our registration
49:31
and the comment or the link is in the comments below i put it out on all the streaming platforms you guys don’t have
49:37
to type all that stuff in but you guys should um but you guys can click it if you guys are watching this live um i am
49:43
so incredibly moved by already by what you guys have done and just to have this all the your guys’s last 18 24 months
49:51
just be accumulated into one night as you guys explode liberty into brevard county i am so incredibly excited for
49:58
this night um stay tuned everyone of course over the next couple of months we are going to continue talking about this
50:04
there may be a raffle where you guys can win some tickets um and we’ll see how we can help support you guys to get out
50:10
there for the night as well it’s going to be incredible you guys have to be a stay tuned for that so um
50:17
but nathan i want to thank you so much for coming on today i i want to give you the last couple seconds if you want to
50:23
give us your last thoughts any any words on on last bit of wisdom to stand out or what have you yeah sure there’s one
50:29
thing that that we have done in brevard county and this was a team effort that i wanted to get across to everybody um i
50:35
know a lot of people wonder how did libertarians separate themselves you know how do we become
50:41
actually different um well the answer is simple you have to actually be different
50:47
and in order to do that you need to set yourself rules as a group uh rules and guidelines and we did
50:53
we were up late one night setting up rules and guidelines for ourselves first one we avoid national hot topics
51:00
i know it’s hard it’s very hard but when you go to your county you avoid national hot topics
51:07
and there’s been some hard ones in the last two years there’s been some real hard ones so what we did was we focused
51:13
on local hot topics we made our own hot topics government transparency the indian river lagoon conservation which
51:19
is our environmental pillar and um financial independence of our county getting out from underneath the leg of
51:25
the state so those are our three hot topics that we focus on and when the other two start arguing
51:32
we literally go in and they’ll be arguing about voting abortion that’s today’s whatever the hot
51:38
topic is of the day and we’ll walk in and everyone you know them arguing everyone and we’re like guys
51:44
we’re gonna save the indian river lagoon let them fight when we leave done done and that’s very difficult
51:52
because everybody everybody in the country has passions about those hot topics but if you want to be different
51:59
if you want to separate yourself from the other two you literally have to
52:04
you have to say i’m not going to get in the middle of this fight you know the school board was a major fight here
52:11
we did not get in the middle of it because it was they even came to us they came to us and they’re like what are the
52:16
libertarians saying and we’re like guys it’s real simple abolish the doa done
52:21
done we walked away we had different priorities and saving the indian river lagoon government transparency have been
52:28
huge in brevard county fine and that is that is what’s yes yes
52:34
find your own in your own county and stick to that don’t get sucked into the mess yes find a north star and follow on
52:41
that don’t turn don’t don’t go away follow that north star be different change the world and dye your hair
52:48
purple that’s that’s beautiful yeah purple or gold purple or gold we
52:54
just don’t do red or blue there we go there we go thank you so much nathan for for coming on today i’ve loved this
53:00
conversation i’m gonna go back and watch it a bunch of times i hope everyone listening will do the same um
53:05
thank you so much i i’m looking forward to having you come back on again and continue talking about some of the successes you know let’s see if we can
53:12
get let’s see if we get your entire county council just to say f the epa like i would love to see that would be
53:17
awesome but uh but thank you so much bud and uh we will talk to you here in a little bit man
53:23
thank you so much absolutely oh
53:28
are you guys are you guys feeling that in your hearts too are you guys feeling that in your guts where you guys are like just motivated to go out there and
53:35
listen to the boring county councils and actually be able to be equipped with the tools necessary in order to change
53:40
hearts and minds for the future for the betterment of your community um
53:45
i know i am nathan has that way he’s got that influence he’s got that touch he’s got that professionalism that we really
53:52
need to figure out how we can bring that into our own selves as we look to pursue
53:57
a difference so i want to thank nathan for for coming on today and and talking about this this
54:03
oh one of my favorite episodes by far for sure um but with that guys it is friday
54:11
but it’s not the last bit of muddy waters for you guys this week tomorrow night 8 p.m eastern make sure you guys
54:16
are tuning in we got muddied murica that’s right matt wright and myself will be sent down talking
54:21
about a recent supreme court decision tune in tomorrow night you guys are
54:26
going to enjoy that it’ll be a good time for sure but then next week of course we have three count them three episodes of
54:33
muddy waters of freedom matt wright and spike cohen sent down to parse through the events of the week two
54:40
of those will be made public the third one you have to head on over to anchor dot fm slash muddy waters slash
54:46
subscribe in order to be a part of that third one and of course we’ll be back next friday
54:52
and i believe yes it is next friday we will have the one and only spike cohen we’re gonna be talking about things on a
54:57
little bit of a different aspect we’re gonna be looking at the the inward part of of how we develop and grow through
55:04
some of the mental and physical ailments that we’ve faced despite cohen having ms but persevering through that and being a
55:10
champion for liberty is incredible myself being a military veteran with ptsd it is one of those things that is
55:17
you know it’s a struggle some days and so we’re gonna we’re gonna have a good sit down conversation talk about those
55:22
things and figure out how we can develop and push through those things and help each other as they’re struggling with those so i want to thank you guys all
55:29
for being a part of today’s conversation thank you guys all for the shares for the likes for the comments for the love that you guys give us each and every
55:35
week here on muddy waters of freedom or muddy waters media i love you all i appreciate you all and i’ll see you guys
55:42
tomorrow night 8 pm eastern love y’all take care be well