(((My Fellow Americans))) #124 – For All Tennessee

DISCLOSURE

FULL TRANSCRIPT TEXT

i’ll be buried in my
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that is
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before i become
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we have solely changed
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i’ll be buried in my grave
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that is
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but it seems like since
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we have sorely changed
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oh
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[Applause]
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south carolina you’re watching my fellow
americans
with
[Applause]
thank you
i survived
i didn’t i didn’t die of clover keep
clapping if you’re happy that i didn’t
die why are you all
i said keep clapping if you’re happy i
didn’t die of covet and then you stopped
clapping welcome to my fellow americans
i am literally spike cohen and i have
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as always folks if you follow my social
media
well i’m happy for you because it’s good
stuff on there huh yeah uh but if you go
into my social media uh you will often
hear of me talking about a group in
tennessee called for all tennessee and
uh and i’m gonna let uh one of the
people uh i probably should have uh what
you can tell me no one’s gonna hear you
what is your title at for all tennessee
again you’re one of the founders but is
your friend
the president and founder co-founder
founder uh who uh but for all
tennessee.com for well that is their
website uh but or dot org but if you go
to for all tennessee they have some
incredible stuff that they are doing uh
and we have the president and founder of
the uh of for all tennessee on the show
we’re gonna be talking about what they
have done uh in just one year’s time and
what they plan to do in the coming year
ladies and gentlemen my fellow americans
please welcome to the show mr justin
cornett justin thanks for coming on
again man
thanks for having me spike as always the
pleasure is mine
yes well thank you i i do my best uh
even when i do uh forget what your title
is uh but no you uh no i i’ve been very
thrilled to to uh help promote y’all as
much as i can and i’m really happy to
have you on and folks uh before we get
started as always i will remind you to
uh leave us in the comments if you’re
watching this live uh leave us your
thoughts and questions and we will tell
you if you are right or wrong now if you
are watching this and it’s not live
anymore go ahead and leave your comments
because we’ll probably one of us will
probably answer anyway i know i will at
some point uh so justin before we get
started talking about 2022 for those who
have not
watched previous episodes with you on it
first of all how dare you uh and second
of all uh but for those who haven’t uh
tell us a little bit about for all
tennessee
the catalyst
behind what made you decide to do it and
uh a little bit of a cue there uh and uh
and and tell us a little bit about what
you were able to accomplish uh in just
your first year of lobbying on on the
capitol hill there in tennessee
yeah sure so um
i’ve uh kind of background
doing some work lobbying work on the
hill with a handful of different
organizations including the libertarian
party
americans for prosperity uh and this um
and
what we set out to do was create an
organization that genuinely works for
regular folks um
something that
asks people uh what they would like to
see done at the legislature and then
goes and
does it it’s a really crazy concept
that’s insane
apparently we’re the only ones so
um and yeah um the idea came uh
it kind of struck me when uh i i was in
dallas in your presence trying to find a
way to impress you um
so
so i i came up with the i fired my best
shot and uh you said it was not a bad
idea and uh here we are
so so this all started
in front of me and you’re like i’m in
front of spike cohen
the man who is about to to place third
in his race for vice president
i assume many other people running third
place that’s you know it is what it is
and uh and
podium i have i have to say something
that gets put on the podium exactly this
man is about to get on the proverbial
podium for the white house and i have to
say something
what am i gonna say i’m doing a
grassroots lobbying group in tennessee
and and and now
you actually
you called your own bluff and now you’re
doing it no tell tell us a little bit
about uh about some of the things i was
just beyond impressed with what you were
able to accomplish you and and josh in
such a short period you know when you
said we’re going to go out on on on
tennessee capitol hill i’m assuming the
first year is just spent you know kind
of getting in there getting to know
people you know starting trying to make
relationships maybe you you get some
proposals out there i was utterly
shocked with what you were able to
accomplish tell us a little bit about
what you were able to do in your very
first year uh in in the tennessee
capitol
yeah well i mean we had established
relationships going into this um
we at one time
um ran the largest libertarian party
affiliate in the country according to
the former national chair uh and we
would regularly every month see
somewhere between 60 and 80 people
and you know just the regular monthly
meetings and what we were doing was
we were
acknowledging that we didn’t know
everything about the way government
works because it’s one thing to say
it shouldn’t be this way and it’s
another thing to figure out how to fix
it um so
the more knowledge that you could pour
into somebody’s lap the better informed
they are when it comes to
decision-making time i mean that’s the
basic logic
so we would run uh
elected officials through our meetings
and let them tell us what they were
doing in the community and what was
going on and we’d partner with
a representative on
you know constitutional carry
legislation or decrim legislation or you
know a number of different civil asset
forfeiture stuff i mean a number of
different things uh and made friends
that way uh and that kind of
gave us a ramp to get into
doing this so wasn’t starting completely
from scratch but right right same time
it’s not like we’ve got a lot of
connections or allies or people willing
to stick their neck out for us right now
either right right right right
so
give a couple exam like what are some of
the big things that you were able to
accomplish uh for 2021
well i am
we got three bills through out of 12
that we were trying to get through um
and
we got one bill through that
honestly we thought was a really good
bill pertaining to civil asset
forfeiture
in tennessee
prior to this legislation
the
agency that seized your property was
responsible for attorney’s fees
up to 3 500
or
uh 25 percent of the property value
the average seizure that we’ve seen in
tennessee is
somewhere maybe not even two thousand
dollars which means that you’re getting
four or 500 bucks for your
defense which means you’re not getting a
defense so uh we got rid of the 25
percent language and we got that moved
uh we got the cap moved to ten thousand
dollars thinking the calculus now
changed and
you know police have to think there’s a
chance we’re going to pay out ten
thousand dollars of legal expense for a
three thousand dollar forfeiture right
it’s not worth it yeah
so
um like say
logically it sounds like a great bill
but um i spoke to
uh the head of uh defense attorneys
association here in tennessee and he
told me that nobody ever gets reimbursed
for those fees anyway like never like
he’s never known anybody that’s ever
gotten reimbursed for it because they
write the rules on how the reimbursement
works too and you can only get it in one
place in the entire state so you know
certain places if you want to challenge
for your
your compensation you got to drive six
hours one way to get to the court where
you can challenge it
good times i remember that i remember
when you talked about that reform so
they actually have i assumed that it was
whatever the same system is that they
use to reimburse public defenders or
people that are providing defense
in general so they actually have a
special system
tennessee is the only state um according
to
institute for justice because they’re
working with us on uh civil asset
forfeiture stuff but according to my
source
institute for justice tennessee is the
only state that uses an administrative
court system and that administrative
court system is the court room is
at the department of safety
it’s not held in a courthouse it doesn’t
ever see an actual elected judge it’s
not in a court of record you’re not
entitled to defense none of that stuff
in tennessee
wow
so in theory what you passed was a good
thing there
uh really actual practice you’re finding
out it’s it’s it’s not maybe we were
thinking about but now
but there were some other things that
you did pass that were pretty good as
well tell us about that
so we had a bill that would have uh
prevented uh
anybody at the
city county or state level um from
naming businesses uh essential or
non-essential the next time that we have
pandemic chaos or whatever um
governor didn’t like not being able to
make that call so we amended the bill
and got him off of it but we did pass it
so that cities and counties can no
longer do that um
governor is the only one that can do
that now so
not the entire win but close
and then the biggest one we got um
is
uh probably the strongest police reform
bill that’s been passed uh in the last
few years since everything’s been on
fire every summer for the last couple of
years um and uh we did it in tennessee
and we did it we got there was zero no
votes on this bill um so i can’t take
all the credit i will say that i i did
not talk to
132 members in the legislature but um
yeah
the governor
the governor in the state
has a mind to do some criminal justice
reform items um so i we found out
about midway through the process that
he was pushing in our direction as well
so it kind of lightened the load on that
one but that particular bill
banned no knock raids outright
requires de-escalation training it
has limitations around firing at moving
vehicles it is duty to um intervene if
yeah duty and intervene and duty to
report are both in there i mean it’s a
really really solid bill and again
no zero no votes in the entire
legislature on that bill so uh
something we were happy to see and
something that gives us a little hope
for some of these other things that we’d
like to see done
yeah that’s fantastic man and that duty
to intervene i know a lot of people
focused on the the no knock raids and
the chokeholds and stuff like that um
duty to intervene in the last few months
after talking with people in other
police departments and other states uh
and other public defenders and also some
prosecutors in many states they have the
exact opposite they have a duty not to
intervene they have a duty to observe
and report which literally means we you
know when you often will see a police
officer standing by another police
officer while they murder someone or
beat them up or do something that’s
obviously a violation of the law and the
person’s rights that they’re that
they’re violating uh they actually just
stand there and and often in many states
it’s because they have a duty not to
intervene if they intervene they
actually get charged for breaking the
law they’re supposed to just observe
what they saw and then report it to
either their superior or internal
affairs or however it works in the in
their in their uh department or in their
state um tennessee has the opposite
they’re actually required legally to
intervene so that’s it that alone is a
huge thing but coupled with the rest of
the reforms in that bill that that was a
huge uh reform of policing practices
it really was and again i mean when you
really think about the things that are
in that bill and
then being passed in a state that has a
republican supermajority and is a
republican stronghold
it’s definitely encouraging
because there’s a lot of room to improve
in the criminal justice system for sure
um
and this this shows that there’s
definitely a willingness to look at it
uh with an open mind
yeah no i think it’s i think it’s
amazing um so before we get into
this is in the comments before we get
into uh some of the stuff that you have
coming up for 2022 i need to address
something that the scientific
libertarian has mentioned in the
comments and on posts that they i don’t
know if it’s he or she keep tagging me
in uh uh about their plan b
which i don’t know what plan a was but i
really would like to revisit plan a but
their plan b
of
confiscating
fecal matter from tom brady
for
i don’t know what but something about
how that helps with the gut biome i
don’t
i if there was a plan a
i want to revisit plan a please i don’t
know what
whatever plan like i just want to know
what plan what a was because it’s got to
be better than that but thank you for
your input anyway um so uh speaking of
which i guess uh
so you have uh eight items that are the
items that you are actively working on
uh for this for the 2022 session uh in
in the legislature there now just uh so
i understand it these are things you
actually brought up in polling to your
membership and to people who who
submitted uh to your polling to say what
the top priorities were right like this
wasn’t just chosen randomly
yeah so um as you alluded to earlier i
we alluded to earlier right the idea is
to
um kind of serve the general public so
what we do is we spend a lot of time
uh putting issues out with explainers
and asking people their opinions on them
uh and then uh after you know we get so
many of these different things out there
we will have a vote and what they vote
on becomes a short list and uh then it’s
you know what bills can we get filed and
uh you know
how much capacity do we have to work how
many bills can we work how can we
consolidate them all those different
things so
um i think we’ve landed on i think it’s
about 14 bills i haven’t counted
recently uh but i think it’s 14 pieces
of uh legislation that we have
on the sheet total and yeah like four
bills are civil asset forfeiture bills
um there are three
um that are on bond reform and then
there’s you know ballot access bill
there’s a
two on facial recognition or
data collection and you know the
information state kind of stuff
um
so
a nice wide diverse uh set of uh
policies because we want there to be
something for everybody to love in that
and nothing for anybody to hate you know
you can disagree with with some of that
stuff i mean you can think that police
need an extra source of income and still
not think that uh or think that they
should not be allowed to use facial
recognition technology um yeah so
hey wait we try to set it up
with the vote um
so they we don’t work on anything that
the membership does not improve people
that give us money do not approve uh and
then the other thing is is we do keep
all those buckets separate
so if you want to donate you can donate
to whatever issue is important to you
and you don’t have to worry about your
money going to something that
you know is not or against your
interests
okay i like that so you’re actually
you’re not just saying you know we want
your input on what we do and what we
don’t do and if there’s any kind of
significant pushback we’re not going to
do certain things you’re even saying
even after that you actually segregate
these things from each other and if
someone
only wants to give to this specific
thing or these
or everything but this specific thing
they can continue doing that i like that
okay cool so this is base go ahead
i was just going to say you know we
looked around at other non-profits and
uh you know they operate in this policy
space and what we found over and over
again was every single thing out there
um has this has a board or a group of
people that set an agenda and then they
come out and ask everybody to buy into
their agenda and throw money at it and
the problem with that is
there’s so many different things that
we’re divided on these days that
it’s hard for a person to find something
that
works only toward everything that they
want uh so
the we thought let’s let them vote and
that means that we’re going to get a
more accurate representation of what
they want and then on top of that we’ll
segregate it so if anything gets through
that they don’t like they don’t have to
feel obligated or they they don’t have
to feel like their money’s going to
something that they don’t want to do i i
think it’s a
i think i really think it’s a paradigm
shift and the structure of a non-profit
and i think it’s why we will inevitably
and ev we are inevitable because of the
way this works i think i was going to
say there are so many people i know a
lot of people even in the libertarian
spheres who you know civil asset
forfeiture they’re behind getting rid of
or at least greatly reforming it um you
know certainly decriminalizing marijuana
uh you know ballot access stuff but the
bond reform thing might scare them maybe
they
and it may even be because they aren’t
fully informed on it but they look at
bond reform and go well you know what i
want uh you know criminals to to you
know not have easier ways to get out i
know that yours is addressing
non-violent bond but i’m just giving an
example of like
and if someone is strongly enough about
that
that that sours them on the whole thing
or just keeps them from from helping or
donating or being involved but where you
say no you don’t have you can you could
support every other single thing on here
except for that that allows for that
kind of decentralization i think it’s
great so let’s go over these uh like you
said you’ve got them they’re in uh 14
bills in eight broad categories um so
i’m gonna just do them in the order that
you have them numbered here uh the first
one are a few bills that
either limit or eliminate civil asset
forfeiture why don’t we go over those
sure so um
again the way this the state works
currently is we have this administrative
court system and it is
a bureaucratic court
that
doesn’t
abide by the same rules of any court
system in the state um so
i
the
we have one big goal to or one big bill
that would end it entirely
it would in the administrative court
system it would turn everything into a
criminal seizure and it would even leave
some carve-outs for the
semi-truck that’s picked up on the side
of the road that’s got you know a
hundred thousand dollars and a couple of
uh kilos of cocaine inside of a locked
trailer and the driver doesn’t know
who’s it is or who he’s driving for any
of that stuff right so
it leaves those carve outs in it uh and
we think it actually has a good chance
uh based on the conversation that we had
uh last year in subcommittee uh on some
of our bills there were a handful of
reps and most of them were lawyers
that were suggesting that the whole
thing needed to be in a court of record
and that’s exactly what this bill does
so um it’s a first bite at the apple so
not a lot of them have heard this yet
and it’s an election year
uh so
the goal is to move through session as
fast as possible and not bring up a
whole lot of controversial things so and
it could be deemed as controversial and
something that they need to think about
for a year before they really actually
act on it but i i think it’s got a
legitimate chance at passage uh
particularly in the house um
so
but if we if we get that one through we
don’t need any of the rest of the bills
that we have which is kind of wait the
the rest of the bills that we have uh
two of them are carryovers from last
year um one of them removes a 350 bond
that you have to pay before you can
attempt to try to get your stuff back
from the agency that took it from you
it’s true story it’s exactly how it
works bylaw
and it’s 350
so if they took some cash and a car and
a gun it’s three 350 dollar bonds
so um yes
so no joke
um
so we had a bill straight up highway
robbery
right so
so we had a it’s a fee in order to
attempt to get property that was taken
from you when they didn’t charge you or
convict you of a crime yes
um
so at any rate we got the bill passed
through the relevant committees and it
got hung up in finance last year
and ended up what’s called behind the
budget which means
it was passed but it didn’t get funded
so it’s sitting there this year
and we’re hoping to get it funded this
year um
the that we’ve got another bill that’s
in the same boat actually um
but hey so that one is from last year
and we’ve got a reporting bill
that got shot down from last year
because right now we don’t know how many
criminal convictions are eventually tied
to a civil forfeiture um and so
we think that’s a relevant piece of
information if we would like to well
how much of a problem we have in a state
where we average somewhere between 15
and 18 million dollars seized through
civil forfeiture every year
um
so
um and then the last one we have um
is actually targeted at tennessee
wildlife resource agency uh and it would
make them uh run all of their seizures
through a court of record um so because
they handle it all in house in twra
oversees the seizure proceedings for the
stuff that twra sees
that’s incredible so and
that would also make it where the uh
it’s deposited into a general fund and
not in their agency which kind of
disincentivizes the whole thing because
you’re no longer getting to keep this
money for your agency it’s going into a
general fund so it’s not like you’re
getting any additional money
correct that section is probably
not going to actually make it through
because
the fiscal note
attached to the bill so
to draft a bill you file the bill the
bill
gets a review by fiscal review which
assesses whether or not it’s going to
cost or bring in money
and
the fiscal review on that particular
line
suggested that the state could lose 27
million dollars in federal funding uh if
it diverts that money to the general
fund so i don’t expect that piece of it
to go
very far but we might be able to take
the rest of it with it hopefully so and
like you said hopefully we just you can
just completely scrap this entire civil
asset forfeiture and that you don’t have
to worry about anymore we actually got a
question from doug haynes uh asking why
would a bill that eliminates a bond
require funding to be able to be a part
actually um
because theoretically there are x amount
of seizures a year say there’s ten
thousand seizures in a year
um then
each one’s paying 350.
10 000 times 350 what three and a half
million or 350 yeah whatever whatever it
is 350 and some zeros um and
if you get rid of the bond they would
lose that revenue so it’s a decrease so
they have to a decrease in revenue is
so
you know whatever whatever their version
of the congressional budget office says
it’s going to cost they have to have
that actually worked into the budget in
case in case it actually costs that much
okay all right cool well so we know that
and see these are the types of things
that
like you said it’s one thing to say
government shouldn’t run this way it’s
another way to actually look at the
mechanism and say okay great it
shouldn’t run this way who do we talk to
about changing it how do we get it
changed and then how do we actually make
sure that change happens and how does
that work um so it’s you know this is
the part libertarians often hate because
we hate the entire function
but if we want to actually get it done
you have to know these things and you
have to work through it
we just don’t have the patience
and for the minutia
and the nuance that is required to be
you know actually successful in an
effort to change things we
constantly
jump the gun and
yell really loud and get mad because
nothing happened when we yelled really
loud it’s just not the way that the
the game that we’re forced to play works
yes and you would say that because
you’re not a real libertarian so anyway
the uh uh
no i know i know you’re like such a fake
libertarian anyway so bond reform is the
second thing here um and i believe this
is just one bill right uh and tell us
i mentioned this this is something that
is often controversial even in
libertarian circles what what is your
bond reform bill that you’re trying to
get through
so uh there’s actually three bills
and one does
one thing that’s completely separate and
the other two are very very similar um
but um one of the bills is very simple
and
current law in tennessee is
you know you are arrested you go to jail
you do whatever you get out you’re on
probation okay right while you’re on
probation you commit some kind of
offense and you violate your probation
you get a dui okay something like that
whatever uh so
um
what happens is is you’re arrested for
the dui of course okay you go to jail
and you bond out
two days later your probation officer
catches when to the fact that you got a
dui
so he issues a second arrest warrant
and they go and they pick you up at work
because they know that’s where you’re
gonna be and you’re less likely to be
armed and that probably ends up making
you lose your job and that starts the
spiral that creates dependency on the
state and all these different things
right so all the first bill does is take
that second arrest for violation of
probation and turn it into a summons to
court
that’s all it does which is so
incredibly
right we don’t expect a whole lot of
fight on that one um we really think
that that one will sail right through i
will be
really disappointed if it doesn’t
because i mean it’s just such a minor
thing and it makes perfect sense um so
um but the other two bills
uh would require a judge
to have in his opinion clear and
convincing evidence
that bail is required
to
prevent a person from fleeing the
jurisdiction
or
uh causing harm in the community
so what the and what that will do is
open the door for a lot of people to be
released on their own recognizance and
show up to court and save a ton of tax
dollars um on
pre-incarcer or pre-sentencing
incarceration
there’s a institute a group called the
sycamore institute in tennessee that’s
tied loosely to the state and has
funding from a lot of uh prominent
institutions in the state and they did a
study in two 2017
that said
51
of all the dollars spent on
incarceration in tennessee were spent on
people that had not yet been convicted
of a crime
people that were
yes people that 51
right people that were sitting there
because they couldn’t afford to bond out
or something along those lines
cost more than the people that have
actually committed crimes and been
convicted
so
this this we hope held that scenario yes
over half
wow yes this would definitely help that
scenario now one thing i will say i mean
hopefully this gets passed one thing i
will say i actually talked with a uh a
judge or actually a retired judge who
talked to me about there’s actually a a
phrase they use to describe this problem
when it comes to bail decisions and
thing and
sentencing decisions and leniency
decisions and things like that a judge
especially an elected judge
so theoretically let’s say a judge has
100 cases in front of them and out of
and there and they tend to be a more
lenient judge and so you know unless
someone opposes a clear and uh present
uh danger to the public they tend to err
on the side of letting that person go or
on giving you know letting them have
some kind of a parole or probation
instead of sentencing them or letting
them out on their bond if we’re talking
about this type of thing or letting them
out without a bond and 99 out of those
hundred times uh they go you know very
smoothly or a hundred out of hundred
times it goes very smoothly there’s no
news story about that people will go oh
local judge is very lenient on uh you
know people can uh um being
accused of crimes what a great thing and
they interview people who go oh i could
have been in jail right now but i’m not
i’m at home with my family
if one of those people
unrelated to what they were even in
there for goes off and robs a bank or
kills someone or whatever
the story is
lenient judge causes death of you know
daycare workers or whatever ends up
happening and so even even with nothing
but good actors there’s this fear among
among judges
or i shouldn’t say fear there’s this
tendency among many judges to just be
really really tough because especially
elected judges because
they’re not rewarded for
the times that they’re the the vast
majority of the time that their leniency
leads to a net positive they’re punished
for when it doesn’t this still at least
gives them that option instead of
creating this statutory requirement uh
that they come in but sort of in the
same token that the uh that the um
the civil asset forfeiture thing didn’t
go quite originally the way that that
everyone was hoping i i wonder i will be
interested to see if this bond if if
that bond reform gets passed as well the
first one you said is like you said
that’s a no-brainer you’ve already been
arrested you’re already being you know
processed having a second arrest that
simply
muddles the process cost taxpayer money
probably loses you your job that makes
no sense i don’t think there’s going to
be any issue there i will be interested
to see if that other bond reform gets
passed
how
much resistance there is by judges to
being maybe slightly more lenient
because of that issue i don’t know if
you’ve if you’ve talked to anyone about
that but that that would be a an
interest of mine how that would play out
the the the particular
that clear and convincing language uh
that represents a 75 percent threshold
of certainty that a judge has to have so
they have some wiggle room there for
sure uh and it’s still to their
discretion um
but you’re right uh that story would be
the story that breaks the problem is is
that story is always going to be the
story that breaks on any of these things
and you know we the people have to be
smart enough to realize that that’s uh
part of a scare tactic that’s
intentional that it has a particular
mission to it you know um
so
but
we’re actually in pretty good shape on
this bill um
like i i
i think it’s got a better than 50
percent chance of passage um the
person that is bringing the bill in the
senate
well one bill is a republican bill
and the other bill is a
democrat bill
all right and
uh the the republican bill is actually
arguably stronger there’s one line
in the democrat bill that references um
bail
having to be set at a dollar amount that
could be
paid by the individual you know um
that that line is not in the republican
bill and where i’m in talks about trying
to get that line added to it um but
the senator who’s sponsoring the bill is
the chair of the judiciary committee
that would hear the bill
initially and
the
sponsor in the house is the chair of the
civil justice committee that would hear
the bill initially
that’s that’s good because those are
their committees and those are the
committees that they have to go through
um also there’s a different senator
um who has been touring the state uh and
having conversations about bail reform
and stuff like this he’s the number
three guy in the senate um
republican all that good stuff so um
so this is something that he was
passionate about and he had a component
uh that was the 75 percent threshold in
a different build that we had on our
list but he pulled that section off and
now his bill is just a uh
bond bail bondsman licensing scheme
but i i wonder if he pulled his off
because
this bill is similar enough to his
language and everybody’s happy with that
particular bill and
we’re going to talk about a couple
different ways to
regulate bondsman and that’s going to be
the real topic of discussion uh in this
session around bond
yeah i i was going to say when you were
saying that i thought well maybe that’s
just because he knows the this or and or
the other bill are largely addressing
what we’re in his anyway so um that’s
good i mean there’s certainly a taxpayer
savings uh argument to be made here if
nothing else especially if you’re saying
over half is people that haven’t even
been uh
convicted i think everybody realizes
that in the state too i mean even the
people that are
you know more pro-law enforcement or
however you will describe it you know
tough on crime uh i think that they even
they realize that
the founding fathers wrote the
constitution and you had certain rights
for certain reasons and if you were not
a threat to society you were not
supposed to be sitting and rotten in a
jail cell uh your day in court will come
and your penalty will be assessed i mean
it is what it is so yeah no it’s a it’s
a non-vi you know you specified
non-violent crimes here and
if it’s a non-violent crime that means
the likelihood of this person being a
threat to the public is markedly lower
which means it’s basically they’re being
imprisoned for being poor
and that’s
without being charged without being
convicted of anything yet so okay so
this next one i’m sure
yes absolutely so i i hopefully it will
pass um next one automatic criminal
record expungement which i absolutely
love talk to us about this
um
so i’ve learned a lot on this one and
there’s definitely some nuance in this
that i didn’t really think about um and
it seems to
that’s kind of
these two bills that are here that you
see there are
um one’s a republican bill one’s a
democrat bill the republican bill
um
clarifies that
just because you got a new offense
doesn’t mean that you can’t have an old
qualifying expense
um
offense expunged
um so you know it’s a small cleanup bill
nice and easy
but one that works for sure um
the
the democrat bill is an automatic
expungement once your time elapsed
qualifying offenses all that good stuff
because there’s an expungement system
that exists in tennessee right now um
if you
meet certain things like you were never
convicted
stuff still hits your record
and you can get those things expunged
with no charge if you have
a conviction you have to pay a fee and
fill out a form but it’s an easy process
i’m not saying it’s not
the the democrat bill would make that
process entirely automatic
but there’s a question about
whether or not there should be
a place that stores the sealed records
of the expungement or if it just
disappears because
there have been some cases in which the
person who was guilty of the offense had
to go back and get that documentation
and that documentation doesn’t exist in
a typical expungement oh
okay so
right so there’s some there’s some
nuance there that i’m honestly still
trying to catch up on because i didn’t
realize it was there when i picked it up
um but the bill general this bill would
create a sealed records vault
essentially that could only be accessed
by
a lawyer
the the lawyers and the judge working a
case that pertain to the individual or
the individual itself
so with those stipulations in it i don’t
really see a huge issue with that
um
but one of the uh
the the gentleman that’s running the
other bill um on expungement that you
see there uh he’s actually the number
two guy in the house uh republican he’s
the a majority leader
and
he intimated that
and if you have an expungement it should
just be gone that shouldn’t be sitting
in a sealed record somewhere for you
know it to come back and bite you on the
back end so
um
i don’t know
we’re gonna we’re gonna use this bill to
test the waters i can’t say expect it to
go incredibly far
but we’re going to have some
conversations we’re going to learn about
some
reasons that people might oppose it and
see if we can come out with a more
perfect bill next year
yeah i was going to say because the fact
that the number two republican their
concern is privacy in the future
that bodes well for
whatever this ends up looking like
passing because if that’s the concern as
well if we create this thing it could
bite them in the future which is the
whole point of why we’re trying to let
them get expunged that’s the kind of
answers you want to hear right like you
want to hear concerns about that but
wouldn’t that be ironic you get
something expunged then you have to
prove it was expunged but you can’t
because it was a sponge
i know i know just look me up and see
that i don’t have a i don’t have
anything on my record no we have to know
proof that it’s expunged but it was
expunged yes but we need proof there’s
no proof that so
yeah that is that’s interesting that’s a
process question but but that will be
good you you run it through you see what
the process concerns are going to be and
then either in this session or the next
one you can uh you can bring in the the
more perfect bill and actually get this
done hopefully the other cleanup one
gets done in the meantime
yeah it’s it’s uh had it’s already gone
through two committees uh it’s already
passed uh the two committees and is
ready to get funded
nice nice um the funding thing is
interesting because i’ve heard that at
the congressional at the federal level
but a lot of people don’t realize
something can get passed and then if it
hasn’t been funded
it’s like it hasn’t been passed and so
then you have to go back
and say can you fund this because
otherwise it’s an unfunded mandate um
which if that’s social security or
medicare that’s perfectly fine but
everything else
you know has to be funded um
everything else it’s a ponzi scheme
everything else is a ponzi scheme uh
we’re not requiring a bond
uh to get your own stuff back that was
taken without uh any kind of conviction
it’s a such a scam we gotta make sure
this is funded first uh so okay so
number four um i like and and uh it’s
basically different alternatives uh to
incarceration or pre-trial detention
tell us a little bit about that
that’s the two bond bills i was just
covering i apologize
uh um
formatted the way that it is okay okay
flattered it but yeah that’s the bond
bills that require the 75 threshold
before judge says bond no i like it i
like it i i’m i’m a huge fan of bond
reform i think if if my two and i know
all the arguments against this but if my
two options are the status quo or the
absolute elimination of bond for all
things and the judge has to flat out say
that this person’s a threat or else they
get to go on their own recognizance i
would go with that so i’m a huge bond
reformer fan in general i’m about as i’m
almost as much of an absolutionist uh on
that as i as you as absolutist on this
as it can be uh so number five go ahead
i was gonna say you’d find yourself in
good company with some of those guys
that helped write the constitution and
found the nation and signed off on the
work yeah and would deter and feather
politicians and stuff yeah now that that
so that’s a total side note here
it is very interesting to see that this
country which was founded by some of the
what we would consider to be you know
like straight up insurgent extremists
god rest their souls uh
now and understandably so with the
concern of stability and things like
that people
you know
we get together once a year this has
nothing to do with anything you’re doing
but we get together once a year and we
shoot off rockets to commemorate the war
that happened between
the people that were in charge back then
and the people who wanted to kill them
and and who then won and then created a
new country that where there was going
to be protections and everything and
then and then we turn around and anyway
uh it’s it’s a very interesting thing
but um
but yeah
what i would point out is you know the
country was essentially founded by a
group of guys that
got drunk in a bar dressed up as indians
went and jumped on a boat started
throwing tea in the ocean and gave the
middle finger to the king telling him to
come and take it and
you know just a few days ago we had
homeland security put out a
threat warning about domestic terrorists
being interested in their individual
rights and stuff like everyone
what world do we live in man
if you post on social media your
concerns about covid19 restrictions you
are
a potential domestic terrorist and will
be treated thusly
anyway
no i it’s well listen if i’m not on i
need to be on i i say this many times
because people were like how do you know
you’re not they’re not tracking you i’m
like if i’m not being actively monitored
by at least like seven national
governments then they’re then they’re
not somebody’s doing their job someone
is failing someone is failing anyway so
number five
uh number five uh is uh one of our
favorites of course decriminalizing
marijuana and this actually has you know
the stereotype in the south i live in
south carolina where we treat we like
heroin right and i mean it’s it’s been
here so the stereotype is that there’s
like no appetite for this uh for this
kind of stuff even with cannabis uh
how has this these tell us about what
you’re trying to pass and how has how
have these been received so far
well this bill is again a different bite
at the apple um okay this bill puts a
question on the ballot um it does not
it’s a non-binding referendum so
it doesn’t create law regardless of how
the vote goes right but it will tell the
the legislators uh where the registered
voters in the state land on three
questions uh decriminalization
legalization and medical um it’s being
brought by
like
the guy that has a life-size cut out of
trump in his office uh is the house
sponsor on the bill and a democrat is
the senate sponsor on the bill
so um
we’re going to go out and work this bill
and uh you know the the house sponsor
told me that he thinks that the people
should be able to decide the question um
and we’re gonna go out we’re gonna
lobby uh everybody else to vote on this
bill by asking them the question it’s
really simple do you think the people
should be able to weigh in on this
question that’s really that that’s
that’s all that’s all this is if you
support it that’s what you support if
you do not support it then you do not
support people’s voice being heard and
self-governance and all those fun things
that we talk about as conservatives that
we want to see
well i mean this is literally do you
think people should be allowed to give
a
public poll as to whether or not they
support this thing
with like you said there’s no binding
here at all there’s no obligation at all
interestingly enough you mentioned
life-size cut out of trump trump has
said multiple times he thinks that
cannabis should be legal uh and that uh
he he would have uh signed any bill uh
that had gotten in front of him that did
that and i i tend to
uh i believe when he says that because
he’s been kind of consistent on that for
quite some time even before he was in
politics so i i tend to think that was
actually true i i think i i it the fact
that we’re still having this
conversation despite the fact that the
vast majority
of people support either full
legalization decriminalization or or at
least you know
greatly um
honestly they support i mean it’s like
in the 60 70 percentile range support
full legalization and yet we’re still
having to play these baby steps at many
state and the federal level it just
shows how government’s like the lagging
indicator of the will of the people but
i yeah no i i will be hopefully this
gets in and people will be and like you
said in your in your notes here uh 92
of
uh of
arrests related to cannabis
were just for possession so even if
you’re like oh but the drug dealer the
this is just people possessing cannabis
right small amounts because possession
is a small amount um i
intend to distribute is a different
crime and you get intent to distribute i
think if you’re holding anything over an
ounce
so i mean we’re not talking about
yeah we’re not talking about people
moving gigantic amounts of drugs or even
multiple bags like i remember back in
the day
of my previous life where one of the
first things i would do if i got
multiple bags was put it all in one bag
because that was a crime that you know i
was like oh you’re distributing it’s
like no it just came in more than one
bag um but uh yeah so uh not that i’ve
ever done drugs or anything like that
but uh uh
but number six because in south carolina
you want to talk about a reform needed
south carolina there is no statute of
limitations for
anything
really anything
wow
and i know that because i have great
memory because i’ve never done drugs in
my entire life not in south carolina
[Laughter]
it’s probably a good thing that you
haven’t done them in south carolina
anytime i even considered it i would
just go over to north carolina where
they do have a statute of limitations
then i’d come back to south carolina
once it was completely out of my system
i’d sober up and then come back to south
carolina because i powdered so beautiful
yes it’s good thankfully i lived close
to the border um so number six uh is
something
that uh is just an incred so minor party
party ballot access i’m gonna let you
describe what this does and then we’re
gonna have a talk about how this went
last year because i thought this passed
last year but tell us about this
well it’s the the favorite libertarian
pet issue uh valid access uh for uh
everybody and not just the uh two big
boys so in tennessee uh democrats
republicans and independents have to
have 25 signatures get on a ballot uh
everybody else has to have 56 082
signatures
to put in perspective how
tall of a mountain that is in maine
the republican party was trying to
collect i think it was
51 000 signatures or something like that
to get something on the ballot in this
past election cycle
they spent 750 000
the republican party who has this
gigantic network spent 750 000
and failed to get the 51 000 signatures
um so
it is a barrier to say the very least
and it’s an unwarranted barrier
uh there are four states in the country
that requires zero signatures
and uh none of those are states that are
dominated by third parties or
have third parties that are wildly
competitive versus the two big guys so
um
it’s it’s a
it’s a pointless number
that we have that is
unattainable uh and uh
instead of asking them to make it even
and fair we are asking them to bring us
in line with the rest of the country
and drop our number to
a
something closer to the 13 to 15 000
range from that 56 000.
so
um
we
had the votes last year in subcommittee
um eight people on subcommittee
we we had five votes uh confirmed the
day of
and uh
we lost on a voice vote
um somehow
um despite
actually losing
um and
and in that uh
i in that subcommittee we had a
representative get up and explain the
opposition to the bill in a way that uh
was very truthful and commend i commend
the guy for his own i was honest he was
honest yeah
um but i think most people would
disagree with uh his logic on that
because he essentially said that we
shouldn’t pass the bill because if we do
people might vote for these other
parties and that would take votes away
from my party and your party mr sponsor
i mean that’s
paraphrasing but it’s doggone close to
exactly what he said
yeah no he flat out the two things that
really stood out there were
well the fact that you had the votes
five people out of the eight said i and
then the person in charge said yep the
nays have it um so that was fun but uh
the other the telling thing was and i
forget that uh representative’s name um
but he
oh okay yeah and and he and he said very
honestly he said
you have democrats and you have
republicans and if this passes then it
could you know confuse things and have
more people uh not voting democrat or
republican and
he literally said he we have democrats
and we have republicans and i think
everybody in tennessee thinks one of
those two ways yes yeah there is a
binary you’re you’re yeah no that’s what
he said you’re either a democrat or a
republican and this could confuse things
people might start thinking there’s
other stuff well yeah because there is
anyway so uh but you’re saying so you
believe this
you’re fairly confident that this will
pass this time or at least in committee
it’ll pass
yeah so um
the house we think we will do well in
the senate is a much bigger question
mark uh okay so the strategy on this is
try to move it fast in the house
uh and get it
to the floor or maybe even get it passed
in the house and then try to slam it
through the senate with uh
you know
being able to tell them it’s already
passed the house we’re just waiting on
y’all
so
we went back the subcommittee is the
same this year as it was last year we
went back to our five yes votes made
sure that they were all still with us
they all said they were i had a
conversation with the chairman who i
would like to reiterate swears he didn’t
do it on purpose
and uh he knows that he the bill’s
coming back and uh did not say anything
like well i’m gonna kill it or anything
like that you know he just told me to
make sure that people speak up because
he knows what happened last time okay
yes uh and literally did tell me that
make sure
particular people speak up um
i
yes
so we’re gonna we’re gonna run it
through subcommittee next uh next week
uh barring any flukes and uh that’ll
have it ready for the full committee um
looking at the full committee
i think 75 percent there’s like 20 on
the full committee
and i think i think probably 15 of them
have either
co-sponsored the bill last year or the
year before i haven’t chased down
co-sponsors this year
so they all know what it is uh and i
think we’ve got a strong majority in the
full committee as well so um
i’d be surprised if we didn’t get it to
the house floor at the very least um
whether or not we can get it to pass in
the house um
i think we can but i can’t say with 100
certainty uh and like say the senate is
going to be a much bigger chore
we’ll see i the fur the closer you get
to it the more it gets normalized the
more the idea of like hey uh
and the thing is tennessee’s
constitution
mandates that your elections are free
and equal so this doesn’t even try to be
free truly free and equal would be the
same 25 signatures that republicans and
democrats and independents have to get
this is saying let’s let’s break the
let’s split the difference you know
right now we’re at absurd amount let’s
go to less absurd amount instead of
actually free and equal so i think it’s
a perfect a reasonable compromise so uh
at least that less absurd amount is
possibly attainable whereas the an
absurd amount that we have now is not
it’s not no the in fact the libertarian
party of tennessee doesn’t even try
because 56 000 is more like 110 120 000
whatever
it’s yeah that’s yeah so okay so number
seven uh this is actually two bills that
would
each of them in a different way restrict
facial recognition use by uh by the
government by law enforcement talk to us
about that
sure um so
yeah it’s two pieces um
the i think the first one that’s listed
there i’m not looking at the list uh the
uh well they’re both bill bills um
actually they both have the same two
sponsors um at any rate
one of the two bills is based off of
new hampshire code so new hampshire
passed a
a ban on law enforcement
use of
facial recognition technology at the
city county and state level uh and i in
doing my homework i found it read over
it it’s really good looking bill ran it
through
the folks out at libertas uh ran it
through
um
ij folks
a handful of uh professors out here at
local universities uh and just kind of
got their feedback and stuff on it and
this is what came out in the wash um
hey the bill um would prevent
currently as it’s written the state
couldn’t touch like nobody it could
provide information through facial
recognition tech to the state and the
state act on it like they
they can’t do anything at all with
facial recognition with this bill
so
it might have to
have a slight opening in it because you
know i would imagine
you know bridgestone arena where we have
preds hockey games and uh you know we’ve
got
concerts and stuff you know maybe
they’ve got an unruly fan or something
and they banned him from the building
and that’s the way they or the reason
they use this but you know outside the
building one night he tried to get in he
gets in this gigantic fight and they can
identify him because they’re using this
technology on their premises you know i
i kind of wonder if there needs to be a
carve out where they could say hey this
happened outside we have it on video we
also know who your suspect is because we
have this technology
as it’s written right now the police
couldn’t act on it that way um but hey
they say
it’s a that’s a conversation that i’m
having with uh legal counsel in the
senate right now um and the senate
sponsor um
but nonetheless very good very clean
bill cut and dry they can’t use it
bottom line
and the other bill is actually about
communications like electronic
communications
currently i the
there’s no warrant required to search
any of the any of the databases that
they have access to none at all
they can call up your
you know cable company or whatever and
say hey i need this and they don’t have
to have a warrant to do it
which how does that even pass
constitutional muster don’t they i mean
any idea
i don’t have any idea but i i i
so this bill there’s an organization in
tennessee called the beacon center that
does a lot of more economic leaning uh
liberty oriented issues uh and um they
actually wrote this bill and we’re
partnering with them on it
and uh
when they handed me this language you
know i’m pulling it up because the way
these bills work it’s like you know this
code this piece of code is amended by
deleting and substituting this so i’m
like reading it in the code and
yeah the the code as it’s written now is
just like yeah if a da asks you got to
give it to them if police ask you got to
give it to them i mean it’s as simple as
that
this strikes me and it’s good that
you’re that you’re addressing this with
this bill this strikes me as one of
those things that obviously is gonna
absent being removed by this by this
change is gonna end up in front of the
courts the federal courts and they’re
going to go
the fourth amendment you can’t like you
have to have a warrant for this kind of
stuff there’s no reason that you would
do there’s no uh uh you know absent some
kind of immediate exigent threat or
something like there’s absolutely no
reason you should be able to casually
call someone’s cable company be like
yeah yeah we need all their information
we need all their communication like
that’s you know they’re you’re going to
get more from someone’s communications
than you can from searching their house
like give me a break um
let’s be real here i mean
let me give you an anecdote uh true
story from uh
week
not this past week but the week before
um
i was on the hill um in the senate
trying to find somebody to sponsor the
full-on ban on facial recognition right
uh i was
you know going office to office asking
who wants it right
um and i walked into this one guy’s
office because he was suggested to me by
somebody
and i’m having this conversation with
him about what the bill would do and
what the new hampshire legislation
looked like and all that good stuff and
i’m explaining
the fourth amendment general warrants uh
as a lawmaker
to a lawmaker state center
uh and as i’m doing this
he cuts me off and says
i don’t know a lot about history or the
constitution so i don’t know if i’d be
the guy to run this bill
so i mean you can you can say how does
it pass constitutional muster the answer
is because the people that are there
that swear the oath to it um don’t know
what it says uh so they say that they’re
protecting it and protecting your rights
and all that stuff but they don’t know
what the heck they’re doing here no clue
i have no clue
that is incredible which is why stuff
gets struck down constantly so this
actually i mean that this arguably is
also a taxpayer savings because that is
inevitably going to go to the courts and
the state’s going to spend a fortune
fighting it uh only for the supreme
either either a uh
uh it may only go as far as a uh as a
circuit court uh and and turned down
from appeal by the supreme court or it
might make it all the way to the supreme
court but at some point
that is uh gonna not pass muster in
front of a court and however many
hundreds of thousands or millions of
dollars will be spent by the tennessee
taxpayer fighting it in the meantime
what a bunch of nonsense
uh nashville uh has already passed an
ordinance banning uh the use of facial
recognition technology for asheville
police or i guess metro police uh so i
that’s a big step in the right direction
obviously it sends a signal to the
legislature in theory that you know even
the
the the left cities that you would think
or the
um you know ones that want to track
everybody everywhere they go um you know
those and they’re they’re willing to
they’re not trying to track everybody so
hopefully
the republican legislature will be
responsive to it because honestly
so
i’ve got the same sponsor in the house
on both of those bills but that that
particular sponsor has a handful of
things that are going to be fights uh
and he wants us to move
uh the uh the
the
outright ban to another sponsor so
something that i’m trying to do is
locate another sponsor i’ve literally
talked to at least 15 maybe more like 20
uh different republicans in the house
asking him if they would like to sponsor
that bill and
nobody nobody wants to do it
everybody everybody
shine away from it for a number of
different reasons it’s a
wrong thing it sounds like we may have
to uh uh do some kind of social media
call to action call out some of the uh
the especially republican members of the
state legislature and say hey you know
that the constitution thing that you
guys talk a lot about uh it’s in a lot
of your uh in the background of a lot of
your facebook cover photos um turns out
if you read it
uh go far enough down about the fourth
amendment you’re gonna find that that uh
this thing doesn’t pass that uh and
maybe you should change that so we
should probably uh we should probably
work on that as a call to action in the
near future um yeah i actually remember
a time when the progressive left was
against the government spying on you but
that was
that was just you know decades
more and more i kind of feel like you
have one party that is
really devoted to
the welfare state
and one party that is really devoted to
the police state
and
that’s why we never shrink
is because whichever one you’ve got in
charge is the one that’s taking its
opportunity to grow its particular brand
and it yes and it also seems like
whoever’s in charge really starts to
make peace with the police state no
matter how they felt initially it’s like
way to say oh we can use this to for all
our stuff yes actually i like the police
state um so okay so that brings us to
this last one uh which is a professional
privilege tax which just sounds like
exactly what i expected to be tell us
about this and what you guys are trying
to do here
so
so uh
you know
years back um
tennessee actually passed a
constitutional amendment uh banning an
income tax
um so it’s part of the constitution now
and uh
this particular tax is left from that
period of time and it is a tax because
you work in one of seven professions
physician lawyer lobbyist
a handful of other a securities broker
things like that
you
literally just pay a 400 tax because our
six hundred dollar tax one i think it’s
400 yeah it says 400 here yeah
so uh yeah but you pay that 400 tax
simply because your job title is what it
is um and you know that’s separate from
any licensing that you would have to
have as a you know a physician for
example or you know bar requirements for
a lawyer or any of those different
things so
it’s not licensure it’s not anything
it’s simply a tax because you have a
particular job
so the bill
this is the other bill that has already
that passed everything last year uh and
is waiting to get financed as well uh oh
you gotta fund it gotta you gotta
think that four hundred dollars times
all those people
ruin
the the tennessee budget if it’s not
fully funded i love it so this is it so
this is not licensing this is just
straight up it’s a great uh profession
you have here be a shame if something
were to happen to it that’ll be 400
right right no that’s exactly what it is
uh but that bill will eliminate six of
seven of the of the uh
positions the one that it won’t is the
securities broker thing and the
what i’ve been told is the logic behind
that is a lot of people from out of
state
have to register because they’re able to
sell securities and they’re licensed to
sell securities in tennessee and this
makes it
this is the only way that the state
would have to
locate these people that operate in our
state
and they’re also taking money out of the
state and they’re not getting taxed for
it because we don’t have an income tax
right
so what will likely happen is if this
passes then it will carve that out for
everyone except them
and they’ll successfully be able to sue
because they’re being discriminated
against but that’s another that’s
another that’s for someone else
that sounds like a problem for them and
not me
that’s a them problem
that’s not a y’all problem
i said there are two kinds of problems
there’s a me problem and there’s a
yellow problem and that is solidly a
y’all problem no i love it um but no but
that’s that’s the foot in the door once
you’ve said that you know this violates
the constitution then that means it
always violates the constitution so um
so these are the eight main
subjects that you are working on these
are things that your membership
essentially voted on or pulled on these
all pulled the highest and your
membership is able to choose
how many all all but one only one of
them they can choose whichever ones uh
up to and including all of them that
they can that they can financially
support so each thing is earmarked um
you are already working on all of these
things they’re all at various
various levels of you know being pushed
through the legislature or reworked or
whatever they are so this brings us to
the final question here um
actually two questions one of them was
came in the comments a long time ago and
i forget who it was but they asked uh do
you use the same stylist as ted cruz
ow
right that’s what i that’s i that’s what
i said
if i had feelings
that probably
um but as somebody that has to go and
have conversations with sitting state
senators about how they don’t know
anything about the constitution and keep
a straight face
i don’t know
no i don’t
the same stylist
listen first of all you look fantastic
so whoever said that’s probably jealous
first of all no second of all
on the bottom
what’s that
i’m not wearing anything on the bottom
but there you go exactly no no you
listen you look great and second of all
like you said this doesn’t bother you
because you’re a soulless lobbyist so
it’s not like it even you feel anything
anyway right so uh but but here’s here’s
the real question which is if someone is
hearing all of this and saying i want to
get involved i want to be a part of this
i want to be you know helping
donate to this cause and tell people
about it and and get involved i want to
be able to vote in future sessions on
the things that that you’re working on i
want to be a part of for all tennessee
uh how can they get in touch with you
how can they find out more how can they
get involved
uh
4ltn.org is the website uh for all
tennessee on facebook twitter instagram
um
you can reach out to us through the
website there’s a info at
4alltn.org email that you can one click
and send a message to and that actually
comes right to both mine and my
executive director josh heckles phone
um
so
you know we’ll see it and you’ll know if
we’re ignoring you because i just told
you that we see it
but
you know the big push right now is
lobbying uh of course because it’s that
season so uh we’re definitely looking
for people that would like to come to
the hill and meet their legislature or
legislators and
you know
tell them that they should side with us
on some of these issues
we need
people that would like to come more
often than that and help us
divide this labor up because uh 14 bills
is a lot of work for sure um so if you’d
like to come and give us a day a week on
the hill and uh help us move some of
this stuff you know that’s that’s a lot
of help um
the uh
if you’re not in tennessee
um know that
we are actually for all incorporated
legally
tennessee is just the chapter uh the
idea is to get it off the ground here
and move it to other states
so if you’d like to see a chapter of
this in your state that is a entirely
plausible and b it would be incredibly
helpful if
you helped us prove that we can be
successful with it here in tennessee um
but um aside from that
you got what you got to understand about
this organization is we designed this
thing to facilitate the wishes and goals
of the regular folks in in this state um
a as far as
a liberty oriented
policy would go so
if you’ve got ideas we want to hear
about the ideas i don’t care if you’re
in tennessee or not if you’ve got ideas
on policy crypto is something that i
know
scarily is
a scarce amount about but i have a lot
of desire to work a policy on uh so
if you’re the crypto guy
help me out because i’ve got ideas but i
have no idea how to shape them
so
you know
we need
big thoughts we want these ideas we need
these uh ideas for reform you know this
year we put out
somewhere around 30 different issues um
and
we ended up with a list of about 14
items so
say we get half of these items done
because that would be spectacular if we
got seven bills done out of 14 okay
that means that next year we’ve got
seven plus the other ones that didn’t
get done we need 20 or so more uh and
i i would love to have
um
the
folks that
are impacted by some of these laws
bring it to our attention that’s how we
got that bail bond bill about the
probation thing i had a bail bondsman
call me up and say he felt guilty
because he got to double dip in these
particular situations and it was wow
that’s a true story and it i that turned
into a conversation with a legislator a
legislator and the legislator says i
know exactly what you’re talking about
i’m happy to take it on and i i i can
write the legislation and get it fixed
and here we are with a bill trying to
get it done i mean this is the way we
want this to work uh you know uh
we we mentioned being able to separate
the dollars out and all that good stuff
uh the reason for that is because
you can vote on ballots but we also
think you can vote with your dollars i
mean imagine if you’ve got thousands of
people in a state that are essentially
throwing money at liberty oriented
issues that they think are important and
you know all of a sudden you get this
like
gofundme for good liberty policy ideas
and that’s that’s what we want to do i
mean if we get
20 000 on ballot access uh in that one
bucket dude i can hire a lobbying firm
to come out and put real pressure on
folks you know what i’m saying or we can
get out in the districts and we can pay
people to go door-to-door and we can do
all kinds of fun stuff you know um
but
we we need you to
throw the stuff behind what you believe
in you know put your money where your
mouth is right so
um
but you know i i appreciate the
opportunity to be on the show spike i’m
not trying to keep you all night uh you
know i love you and you know that yes
well i’m the reason for this i’m i’m the
entire reason this is even happening
yes yes uh
the the the
heart’s inspiration i think is what the
righteous brothers called it um
but uh i you know it means a lot to
um
put all this out there and put all this
effort into it because i mean i haven’t
taken a paycheck out of this
organization in a year i don’t know uh
we’re just we’re trying to do this
uh for the right reasons and not just
because we can get paid doing it because
ain’t nobody getting paid to do this
but
you know
it means a lot when you put all that out
there and
people believe in what you’re doing and
people want to see you succeed and
people try to
help you succeed and that’s i if we get
that from people that believe in liberty
we can make a big dang difference really
big difference in this world
you’re already beginning to make a
difference and that’s the thing and
that’s that’s
and not only do i believe in you not
only my am i continuing to help with
this but i mean as i as as you know
you’ve been reached out to people from
other states who’ve said i want to do a
for all michigan a for all california
four whatever because i believe
con you know proof of concept get it out
there and let this thing become a
a nationwide thing that where where and
someone mentioned in the comments and
i’m trying to see where it was uh
someone said uh brian virgil
virgili said i hate the word lobbying it
sounds like corruption and that’s the
problem lobbying was supposed to be
exactly what you’re doing just
individual people and groups of people
lobbying their legislators to do the
right thing and to not do the wrong
thing and it’s turned into this you know
entire industry because of their ability
to print money out of thin air and taxes
whenever they want to but this is
actually what lobbying was supposed to
be lobbying is supposed to be getting
rid of a stupid policy that results in
someone you know talking about this one
one of the more minor things we talked
about tonight which was that you know
the double dipping and the getting
arrested twice
think of the hundreds of people that
won’t lose their jobs as a result of or
have their their lives in jeopardy won’t
have their lifestyles in jeopardy
because of that one relatively minor
change uh on on how things are done and
that can be replicated over and over
again in tennessee and across the
country and i think it’s incredible what
you’re doing
yeah um
if i may you know i had this thought
earlier that i i
wrote down because i thought it was
actually a cool thought and i never do
scripts or anything but i wouldn’t i’d
like to share this thought
the problem with the political
environment that we have right now is
it’s a control system and that control
system doesn’t want to be threatened so
you know we vote in people that say that
they want to you know be there for the
people and they want to take america
back and all these fun things but the
the reality is is no one that has that
power
wants to give it up or if there is
somebody that has that power uh to make
law and make decisions and all these
different things um they are
in such a small minority they can’t have
any impact i mean look at the ron paul’s
of the world so
what we have so
we
the people have to demand
something different and we can’t do that
through
either of the two parties or even
through the libertarian party
because
they’re going to reject the idea of
power diminishing by from the party that
has control so yes the only way to fix
what is broken in this country is to
create some sort of
separate parallel structure to what the
party system looks like where it’s just
a bunch of people coming together around
stuff that they think is important to
them and applying pressure to their
legislators outside of the party itself
the parties divide us into two right off
the bat so if you’re a republican or a
democrat you don’t like something that
republicans or democrats are doing that
doesn’t mean that you’re going to go and
vote for the other party that means
you’re going to complain and then you’re
going to take what you’re being fed and
you’re going to hope it get that you
don’t get fed that same pile of poo next
time you know
so
that’s the problem with how we operate
right now and
the biggest thing that for all is trying
to accomplish is to unifying people
around
principles and trying to diminish the
power of personality and partisanship
in this country because if we cannot
find a way to do that
we are lost i mean it’s really as simple
as that
parties aren’t absolutely
absolutely i love what’s what you’re
doing you’re 100 correct we need to
unify people around ideas and solutions
instead of politicians and parties and
yes that even includes you know the
libertarian party which of course never
has any kind of infighting or or
challenges like that but but uh but in
the meantime it needs to be about the
solutions it’s not about partisanship
it’s not about do you like this person
or this person or this party or this
party it’s
is this going well
and if not would this be a better way to
do it and if so let’s work together on
this thing and then maybe we agree on
this thing as well in this thing and
this thing but let’s work on this thing
and get this thing fixed so i love what
you’re doing i love you i love joshua i
love everyone at 4l tennessee everyone
for alltn.org
go get involved with them they’re the 4l
tennessee on facebook
at for all tn on
twitter reach out to them uh they i they
promise not to leave you on red uh if
you message them that feeling when they
leave you on red but uh they they will
definitely get back to you and and uh
you know we can definitely do a lot of
work through 4l tennessee i’ve
completely endorsed the stuff that they
are doing i think they’re fantastic and
not just because this was all my idea
not just even if it wasn’t even if they
had already done this and it wasn’t all
brought together by my existence i would
still be saying all this justin uh thank
you again for coming on and uh and and
stick around we’re gonna talk during the
intro but folks thank you for joining us
for this fantastic first episode of 2022
of my fellow americans
be sure to join us tomorrow
on thursday at the right 8 p.m on the
writer’s block where my co-host matt
wright is going to be interviewing alex
snitker who is a former libertarian
senate candidate in florida he was also
the executive director of the republican
liberty caucus and he has some words for
you people about the liberty movement
and what he thinks about it and you’re
going to be hearing from him it’s
basically going to be a large airing of
grievances from alex snicker who also
has his own show you’re going to love it
go watch it i i’m going to tune in
because that’s it’s going to be wait a
second today’s friday alex snicker
happened yesterday
i’m so used to the show being on
wednesday go watch yesterday’s episode
of the writer’s block because that
already happened
you said wednesday in the intro and i i
i messaged him to twitter if he said
as soon as i said
i’m gonna tune in i remembered that i
did
and that this whole thing
covet doesn’t cause ongoing issues with
uh with fatigue uh anyway so i hope you
tuned in for that if you don’t go and
check it out uh tomorrow which is
saturday
uh join me in uh if you live anywhere
near the
the charleston area uh the ahwanda or
charleston area of south carolina come
join me tomorrow i will be at middleton
and maker barbecue at awendaw south
carolina if you follow my social media
you have definitely heard about elliott
middleton
a man who has helped nearly a hundred
families get into
vehicles and get back on the road in a
place that has no public transportation
so having a car is the difference
between being able to participate with
the rest of society or not
and we are going down there me and the
rest of the south carolina libertarian
party are going there to help
raise funds and awareness for the
middleton village to village foundation
i get to meet elliott for the first time
in person finally and help raise funds
for them and help raise awareness come
join me it’s my first in-person event of
2022 uh and then next week uh join us
right back here uh next tuesday for uh
the muddy waters of freedom where matt
wright and i parse through the week’s
events like the sweet little chipper of
middle-aged men who are still recovering
from covet that we are and then join me
back here next week wednesday
that next time wednesday
usual spike place in time different than
this week uh but uh wednesday for uh the
next exciting episode of my fellow
americans i can’t wait to see you then
guys i love you thank you for tuning in
i will see you very soon i’m spike cohen
and you
are the power god bless guys
[Music]
ah
[Music]
so
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
in reality you were my kin
though i view the world to another’s
iris if you slide in my kicks it might
fit we might just unite them come
together become hybrid at the least
slightly like-minded indeed the life
i’ve lived brings light to kindness
all you need is a sign
put a cease to the crimes put an ease to
the minds like mine sometimes darkness
is all i find you know what they say
about an eye for a night and a time when
the blind
[Music]
that’s
is
[Music]
tell me why
[Music]
make a change
[Music]
we
will make a change
[Music]
[Music]
you