The Wrighter’s Block Episode 72 – Paul Robbins, Jr Gets Wrighter’s Block

DISCLOSURE

FULL TRANSCRIPT TEXT

[Music]
my
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so
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i
am
i am swinging
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i don’t need anybody’s help
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cause if there’s room enough for one
there must be
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i’m
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is
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[Applause]
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[Applause]
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don’t bother swimming to save me i will
only drag you
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i don’t need anybody’s
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yes everybody it is me matt wright
welcoming you here on a beautiful
thursday evening
live from muddy water studios right here
on the writer’s block uh first and
foremost
allow me to thank the fantastic and
wonderful people at nakamal
at home that is nakamal at home.com for
the cava i’m drinking on today’s episode
uh to them and to all of you tuning in
this evening i say bulabanaka
uh
uh thank you all for tuning in truly
honestly uh it is the greatest joy of my
life that this is what i get to do
uh for fun and uh you guys are part of
that reason that i get to do this for
fun so thank you for when we all have a
lot of choices to uh
on what we can do on any given evening
uh so thank you for choosing to spend
your thursday evenings here with me
on the writer’s block a muddied waters
media
production
um i’ve got a great guest tonight very
excited to have him on um but before we
get there we have to pay the bills and
that starts as always with the
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find the libertarian party waffle house
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joe soloski joe solowski’s running for
governor of pennsylvania and if you live
in the pennsylvania region of these
united states you should definitely vote
for him
he is not only the voice of muddy waters
of freedom but
he is a fantastic human being and uh
just a truly stand up guy who is a
principled libertarian and i have never
been more honored to throw my support
behind somebody running for a political
office of any
denomination
um
so uh vote for joe solowski he is the
key to pennsylvania’s success
jack casey
jack casey is a fantastic human being
and
i don’t care what any of you say about
him jack casey is a wonderful person
and i will never read these books
because i like to make fun of them way
too much for me to read them and then
feel bad about it later but you should
read these books and tell me if they’re
any good
i will again i’m never going to read
them not even once because i know way
too much about jack casey to even want
to open a book that he has written
uh but you should and let me know how
they are i understand that they show the
journey of jack’s personal
descent into anarchis
anarchism and uh
and
woven across the
fabric of a fantasy world that sounds
like game of thrones had sex with lord
of the rings
so you should definitely go and pick up
jack casey’s books um and if you are
looking to save money in the future buy
your friends those books
give them to them for christmas and then
they won’t invite you out anywhere ever
again so you will save a ton of money
all you have to do is buy jack casey’s
books
and give them to your friends it is a
win-win for everybody
so without further ado let me
welcome on my next guest paul robbins jr
is the communications director of the
alaskan libertarian party he is also a
marine um and an elected libertarian on
the school board for the ketchikan
ketchikan school district uh where i
happen i use i lived in ketchikan for a
summer and uh i am very i’m looking
forward to having paul on getting a
chance to talk to him about uh
everything catchy can and uh see what it
is that he’s got in store so please
welcome with me everybody paul robbins
jr
paul i love the batman
[Laughter]
thank you so much for uh taking time out
of your thursday uh
thursday afternoon where you are
um
to hang out with me for about an hour
yeah thursday afternoon and uh cheers to
all my fellow veterans
we marines are on our second day of
celebrating because yesterday was the
246th birthday of our beloved poor right
we are on our second day of sanctioned
alcoholism
in celebration of something
still having a good time
so i obviously you were a marine um so i
have to ask
is your favorite flavor uh strawberry
raspberry or gold
none i’m uh i’m a purple guy purple
you’re purple purple all right yeah
purple crayon got it um
yeah i actually my wife made a cake uh
last year for the marine corps birthday
and we decorated it with crayons and
took it down the american legion i
brought all my rainbows in and i brought
out my sword and we cut that cake with
the sword and had our little mini
ceremony for the birthday so yeah we’ve
adopted that joke it doesn’t harm us
yeah i um
i know i had tons of like uh i have tons
of friends who have served in all
branches of the military um and all of
my all of my marine friends
they
they get on board real quick with the
crayon joke
they they don’t mind the crayon joke
they’re like oh yeah no like purple’s my
favorite you know or reds might you know
whichever one they are
they’d pick their favorite color or
whatever and they said that’s my
favorite
but the joke that they will never get on
board with which means it’s my favorite
is when i say
you’re just navy guys
and they don’t like that joke at all
you’re just a department we are the
men’s department of the navy
every ev every drunk needs a sober ride
i’ve heard that as well um
what is it marines my ass the navy
my ass rides
navy equipment yeah that’s it
that’s the one the navy is the greatest
uber service in the world we love them
um
so
you’re so obviously you’re a marine um
since we just talked about it for five
minutes but so obviously you’re a marine
how is it that you went from
being in the armed services being a
marine uh to
getting
to finding your way to the libertarian
party like how did you make that switch
it was a fairly quick transition and the
military service was only about half of
it so i was
a staunch conservative and lifelong
republican due to my family and then due
to being the marine corps which is a
rather red organization in general right
so that that was kind of my upbringing i
really didn’t move towards
libertarianism until
uh well i’m described as a gary johnson
libertarian so right around his run i
had just recently gotten out of the
marine corps in 2015 i was working in
california
and it was a combination of my
reflection on my service and my
departments to iraq
and what those meant
why they happened i started doing more
research into the war itself and the
start and of course what i saw over
there as what we were doing and
occupying fallujah and ramadi
and
the impact it was having
and
the
lack of cause behind it the more i
looked into it started to really eat
away at me and then
the other half of it that pushed me
towards libertarianism other than gary
johnson just being a fantastic guy and a
charismatic salesman for the libertarian
party
was i couldn’t believe when you leave
the military like i was in san diego
for five years and thought california
was the greatest place but that’s
because i didn’t have to pay any of the
taxes and fees and cost of living i was
completely insulated from that by the
military i like to joke that after you
leave the military you have to grow up
because you have to deal with everything
but they’ve been protecting you from
like health care costs and taxes and
things like that that you right never
had to deal with your entire military
career
but
trying to take care of my family in
northern california with my new job i
was broke all the time and just
barely making ends meet and this was and
i was making more money than i was as a
sergeant of mines and
that just all started to click i started
looking at the numbers and what i was
getting back for those numbers and uh
i’m not a proponent of taxation stuff i
hate that term it’s it’s you can explain
it as extortion uh is a more appropriate
term
the term is very effective so i don’t
use it very often but taxation is a a
terribly misused thing and i like the
extortion thing because
as angry as i was at how much of my
money they were taking i was even
angrier when i looked at how they would
misusing it
which is which is a huge portion of it
um
it
i i personally believe me um and i’m not
gonna say that this is an
all-encompassing all all people that
watch a show should believe this but
this is i believe anything that we have
could be funded privately
and if it couldn’t be funded privately
why do we have it
if you need to force people to pay for
it is something that we don’t need
um i think that the military would be
funded by different uh people and
organizations in order to make sure that
things are protected um i think that
any hospitals could be funded privately
you wouldn’t need the government
interference in it you don’t need the
taxes you don’t need to steal money from
people in order to pay for it uh people
will help out especially when they get
to keep 30 to 42 if this buildback
better goes through 60 of their
paychecks if they get to keep that they
are going to be more willing to give
money in order to
support the services that they support
so if you’re somebody who is very
anti-war and doesn’t like the military
you wouldn’t give any money to the
military if you’re somebody who
doesn’t care about low-income health you
wouldn’t give any money to hospitals in
low-income air i mean i i don’t know uh
but other people would uh you
people would give money to support
things like a
private food stamp uh a private food
bank things like that where peop where
people of lower incomes can go and get
food
um uh god i don’t remember the name of
the singer there’s a guy i think it’s
jason aldean but
nobody should quote me on that uh he
opened a food bank in nashville where if
you don’t make a lot of money you can
just go and grab food and no government
needed
he just opened it he’s he pays to stock
it and that is more effective than
anything that the government does
in my personal journey
um
i’m with you philosophically on that
matt but i want to say that
one of the i think weaknesses of the
libertarian party libertarian general
when we talk about this because
philosophically and morally
we are right
when it comes to voluntary association
and all these things right getting rid
of taxation for that voluntary
involvement there’s no arguing that our
way of doing things is more morally
sound and likely would be more effective
and lead to a happier society the
problem we have is
a lot of us are so hardcore about it
that don’t bother to explain that there
needs to be a transition like
it’s all about end all taxes today right
okay but that is going to be detrimental
to our society
it is going to be a horrible thing for
our country over the short term over the
long term will be recovering things get
better maybe but we need to be able to
talk about scaling things back and
moving towards that future of voluntary
association and maybe even talking in
the middle about hey stop getting rid of
these taxes maybe now we put in laws
where the taxpayer gets to
say no to a certain amount of things and
where their money can go and that can be
the start of your involvement in being
more
having more say in your money before we
finally just give it all back to people
show how that voluntary association
works but we have a huge problem i think
in the lp about uh appearing as those
hardliners where we just want to end all
taxes straight without thought of those
repercussions
and i
i will agree with you on that um i do
the end goal is no taxes everything
voluntary association
you are going to have to scale it back
and to do so
libertarians are going to need to be
elected in order to help cut spending in
the federal government and in state
governments um
they’re going to have to be elected in
order to cut spending so that way
you can say okay we’re cutting this
spending let’s give this back to the
taxpayers no we aren’t going to just
pocket the rest of the cash and like
move it over somewhere else no we are no
longer using this money
we are not taking it anymore from
taxpayers so we’re going to cut it by
this much
and then start
transitioning to a system where
uh somebody stephen andrew whit in the
comments said a fair tax um
a fair tax or a flat tax uh but you get
to say which departments would get that
money because then you are saying where
your money is going and there needs to
be
uh open source accounting so you can see
that yes my money went to the park
service or my money went to the military
or my money went to health care or you
know something like that and then as you
continually cut back on government
spending people keep getting more of
their money but they will enjoy giving
it to the places to the departments to
the organizations that
they enjoy giving it to and those things
will stay open they’ll stay funded and
they won’t have to deal with the gov
government bureaucracy that
everybody has to deal with now
um so yes i 100 agree with you uh we do
say it seems like a hardline thing but i
think most libertarians um
understand that yes you need to have it
scale before we can make it to that
point
um
so when you were
when you were a marine uh before the
show we talked about this a little bit
uh you spent 12 years i think you said
yes 12 years in what was it you did
i was a public affairs marine so i
started off
writing stories and taking photos for a
base newspaper in camp pendleton and
then i moved on to community relations
helping set up parades and social events
and hearing complaints about the sound
of freedom flying over their houses
and uh then i moved on to media
relations where we just fielded all the
calls from the movie about our
operations what was going on and
as i got up and ranked all of those
responsibilities just got put into one
and it became just a general public
affairs role for whatever unit i was
attached to and dealing with all of
their external communications
very cool
um very cool
um
of all the jobs you could have as a
marine that one seems like it would be
one of the better ones
it is the best one and i’ll tell you why
because i got to do everything that was
cool in the marine corps without the
negatives for example i decided to do a
story in amphibious assault school so i
went out there took a bunch of pictures
and then i let me drive an aed i got to
go fast roping with uh forced recon but
i didn’t have to do the 18-mile ruck
they did before we went past worldly you
know i go and i fire all the machine
guns with the infantry guys and when
they go back to cleaning i’ll go back to
my office and edit my photos and send
them copies later they’re excited
they’ve got awesome photos of them
machine guns and i was deployed to iraq
my job was to attach to the infantry
units i was attached to an injured
italian and i would just pick which
patrols or operations to go on be a part
of that squad and then when we’re done
with whatever mission we had i would
come back and write a story about it and
i’ll tell you what uh let me piss off
some libertarians real quick to tell you
i was
i
was in ramadi writing stories about
kinetic operation about how we were
engaging the enemy trying to take back
sections of that city that that were
contested and uh
three or four of those stories were
thrown in the garbage before i just gave
up and kind of told the major line even
brought in one of my officers from
public affairs to argue with the xo to
say hey this is what’s happening these
stories need to go out
but the the line i got back from the xl
was
we aren’t fighting here we’re supporting
the iraqi army and peaceful operations
and
at that time we were being attacked 56
times a week so it kind of looked like
looked at him like he had a something
growing out of his forehead
he had the third
yeah but i was a marine so it ended up
being i sir and i started writing
stories about delivering rice to mosques
and
you know reopening schools and things
like that but at the same time you know
we during that deployment lost 13
marines and had over 100 wounded
we wanted to pretend like we weren’t
fighting over there that was
enraging
that’s
under understandably so that that is
enraging when when you are there and
you’re seeing what is actually happening
and then you’re being told no we can’t
even
report this because we have to continue
the lie
and push that on to the american people
um
it was during the surge with uh it was
during the surge of troops in iraq that
president obama
okay
all right yeah i remember i remember
when he did that
um
so as as a person who’s a veteran
um and a member of the libertarian party
besides the taxation is theft
what are some other
what are some other common mistakes
that libertarians in general as well as
you know members of all parties uh what
are some messaging mistakes they make
when they are speaking to veterans and
trying to get their vote
i think the main libertarian mistake
i’ll start with is there’s a lot of
libertarians that like to
attack veteran service because they
conflate the veterans willingness to
serve which we should be celebrating
people who want to volunteer to defend
us the people who want to voluntarily uh
put themselves in danger on behalf of
others
the oath that they swear is one
libertarians should support the defend
the people in the constitution right
they conflate it with the wars that
they’re set to fight and the decisions
that the government makes and that
to be quite truthful the the dishonor
and the betrayal that our federal
government has undertaken for the past
20 years of all veterans and the oath of
this war and the reasons they join
so we’ll have libertarians you know
back in the arvin borah days and stuff
like that you know he’s calling us
murderers and baby killers and things
like that and
there are certain extreme members
of uh probably smaller libertarians for
the most part but
who like to attack veterans for their
choice and how could you possibly join
an organization you know knowing that
you’re going to be
committed to these atrocities and things
like that well first of all most of us
joined when we’re 18. i don’t know how
brilliant all of you were when you were
but i wasn’t
right it took me a long time to come to
where i am today and understanding of
how the government misuses our military
and how unjust our wars have been but at
the time i was a young man who wanted to
serve i wanted to carry on my family
legacy of serving in the marines
services and i wanted to be a part of
something bigger i had
genuine and heartfelt reasons that
in general libertarians would support to
serve
and those were betrayed and that’s how
we leave the message to veterans
nowadays is we understand that your hope
has been betrayed you understand why you
joined we understand that your service
was still honorable and you did the best
you could in the situation that you were
in and it is our job as a libertarian
party to make sure that that is never
done to you ever again
that we’re never entangling you in
foreign wars that never should have
happened and that if we ever do decide
on the rare occasion that a libertarian
would that you need to leave these
shores and go fight that it will be for
a truly honorable reason actually
defending the people of this country yes
i i agree 100
um one thing
one thing i kind of want to touch on uh
much like
republicans will say that person’s a
veteran you have you know you have to
respect them um
democrats
right uh and that’s that’s what i want
to touch on veterans
i respect
the vet like a veteran like i i respect
you i respect my friends who are
veterans i respect a lot of people who
are veterans but just because somebody
is a veteran doesn’t mean that they are
worthy of my respect or anybody else’s
all respect has to be earned
um i know a lot of veterans that are
terrible people sure that was going to
go with the much worse word
um but like i know i know a lot of
veterans who are you know terrible
people and they haven’t earned any sort
of respect from me but i know a lot of
veterans who have and those are the ones
i respect i don’t respect the ones who
just expect it just because they served
um
so
but yes i do agree that not every
when i joined because i i was in the
army um
i i joined i signed up when i was 17.
and uh
you’re not smarter at 17 than you are at
18. in fact you’re probably dumber um
so you know signing my signing away you
know years of my life at a young at when
i’m
not even legally old enough to pick who
gets to choose to send me somewhere
um
is not the brightest thing that somebody
can do
uh
and
i still respect anybody i still respect
my friends that do it but because of
that i learned there are a lot of people
in the military who aren’t good people
and i’m not going to respect them just
because they served
however i’m not going to not like all
veterans because some of these people
are terrible people
uh so
libertarians
sorry go ahead please the military is a
diverse
i’m talking organization uh in the
reasons that they join in the type of
people that they are these are all
diverse things so just saying that
you’re a veteran and because you serve i
respect you is
lacks any critical thought really that’s
exactly it’s a talking point uh and an
empty talking point of that i i don’t
automatically respect veterans either
just because you decided to serve
doesn’t make you a great person like i
said you could have decided to serve
because you had no other choice that’s
make it based on your socioeconomic
situation where you are you could have
joined and this happens in the army and
the marine corps you could have joined
because the other
uh reason the other place you could have
won is jail my dad had a choice between
being an eleven bravo in the army or
spending a couple of years in jail and
uh it was a hard choice but he chose the
other
and uh
so
that and you can respect you should
start out respecting anyone i’ll say
that
you should start with respecting an
individual period so you can have
respect for everyone whether it’s better
you’re not
but i think where the problem is and i
think what you’re leading to that is
there’s an expectation that you consider
every veteran hero
and that is absolutely wrong right
because as we mentioned there are
veterans who are flat-out terrible
people and then there are veterans who
serve
and they deserve respect for taking the
oath and stepping forward and serving
the reasons but that doesn’t make you a
hero if you never left uh camp pendleton
san diego and you spent four years
enjoying the beaches and working in an
admin shop
thanks for helping you did a good job
marie
you’re not a hero i did multiple
deployments to iraq i am not a hero
i did my job over there i did a good job
uh
nothing heroic about it that term is for
very specific things wearing a uniform
and swearing a note and doing your job
does not make one a hero
i i agree 100
um
switching gears uh mildly not really new
york times uh recently published an
article stating that veterans have
become the unlikely lobbyists in the
push to legalize psychedelics
and i know that this has been a big
thing they’ve talked about how
psilocybin mushrooms uh have been
known to kind of help with ptsd um also
i hear like ketamine does the same like
also does the same thing but we’re just
gonna keep on the psychedelics instead
of hitting the ketamine um
what what are your thoughts on uh
whether or not psychedelics help with
these things and whether it should be
legal
well i think you should explore every
avenue to help with uh
mental issues whether it’s veterans or
just
our citizens in general mental health
issues are huge across the united states
we’re really just breaking
uh
touching the surface of the problems as
we realize how many people are afflicted
with mental conditions
so when we see opportunities to help
people whether it’s
big pharma’s pills or it’s
natural remedies like marijuana or or
psychedelics we should be all behind
them and it’s great that veterans are
able to do this we have this this is
where we take advantage of that
propaganda that the democrats and
republicans have put out about us and
that we’re heroes and everything you say
has to be applauded so if we’re going to
be given that fake power let’s
absolutely use it to help each other and
push things like
stop throwing people in cages for
marijuana because it actually helps us
cope with our ptsd
stop trying to throw people in cages for
popping mushrooms because that doesn’t
harm anyone but in fact it could help
some people right and so if we have that
platform and we’re able to do it great
but uh i’d like to see
more veterans pushing for their appeal
of the aumf
as excitedly as they are pushing the pot
mushrooms
no absolutely um
absolutely so uh completely
switching gears
uh
you
you are an elected libertarian which i
love saying those were i love saying
those words to one term
one term
oh i said it’s a fun term to say oh it’s
a fun oh okay i thought you said one
term i was like oh you’re only you’re
only going for one huh okay um
but yeah you you are an elected
libertarian um and there were two other
libertarians elected in your town
last week
uh one other elected last month in
october we had we had october elections
for local okay uh and he was elected and
immediately made school board president
so he’s on the school board with me the
other libertarian that i mentioned was
actually elected last year and he’s on
the borough assembly so they have one
assemblyman and two school board members
here in ketchikan that are elected
libertarians we actually have a story
about the three of us and not only how
we got elected because we want to share
that so other libertarians can
can get those tips on how to be locally
elected but also what we’ve accomplished
and why it matters because something i’m
trying to push for the aop here is if
you want to win statewide if you want to
win all these national races we’ve had
fun playing in first you have to show
people how libertarians govern so we
have to show people how stephen bradford
helped
create the local election fund which
took
away the assembly’s ability to throw
their pet projects into the school
district’s budget
and allow the school district to
determine their budget and tell the
assembly this is what we want to do and
then they said they just approves it
and then austin our assembly member he
said why do we have these stupid
ordinances in here that don’t allow food
trucks in our tiny community so he was
able to make the assembly defeat and get
rid of that ordinance and now we have
food trucks popping up and not only do
we have an opportunity for more local
businesses but we have more food options
being brought to our small community
which is a big deal catch can only 13
000 people we only have so many
restaurants so anytime there’s a new
type of food popping up we’re excited
and then me the the best thing i’ve been
able to do in the past two years is
covid and schoolwood right that’s a tiny
bit of a controversy right so in
ketchikan
we were able to in the entire school
year last year after this one
keep our kids in school five days a week
in school in front of teachers the
entire time
and that was an insistence by the
community it went against a lot of cdc
recommendations and even local state
health recommendations but we decided
based on community input and based on
our
board believing that the parents need to
lead decisions on education that we
would keep kids in school we did that
and we’re about to vote to sunset the
rest of the proven mitigations and bring
our schools back to normal
despite a lot of
controversy that has now do you guys
have the mask
mandate right now
in the district we have
mass mandated at two risk levels high
and substantial and then if we’re at
moderate or low risk based on community
spread and having cases of the community
the max didn’t really optional which the
optional part was something i put into
the start strong plan at the beginning
of the year
and primarily the primary reason i put
it in at that and let them have the high
risk
mandated masking is prior to that the
levels the numbers that we put in we
were at for two thirds of the year we
were at moderate or low which means for
most of the year we’d have mass choice
which is what i wanted
and then right after school started we
had like 100 active cases a day for two
months so we’ve been
fully masked for the entire school year
uh despite my best attempts because of
just this crazy outbreak we had in
vegeta
sure um so before before we go on uh i
just i have pictures that i want to show
people if if anybody out there has not
been to ketchikan i
have a ton of pictures on my phone uh
from my time there uh these are two just
from the downtown area which
saying downtown ketchikan is a very
strange thing to say but
um
but here are a couple of photos from
down from downtown ketchikan uh
it’s the most southern city in alaska
correct
yeah we’re closer to seattle than
mainland yep closer to seattle uh and i
believe over a million
uh a million cruise tourists a year come
here um
through southeast alaska but not catch a
can ketchup can gets a couple hundred
thousand is it okay i thought uh the
year that i was there i thought they
were celebrating the millionth person
but maybe that was like over
a certain amount of time
um
it’s only juno usually that hits the
million mark okay fair
um
but yeah when you said that when a new
when new food opens in ketchikan that
it’s
it’s a big deal um there was a
it’s probably still there uh there was
like a convenience store
down at the corner of i don’t remember
the names of the roads right before that
big uh set of stairs that i would get
reindeer dogs from like
almost every day up until i discovered
the alaskan fish house and i started
going to the alaskan fish house every
day
um right but yeah there was not a lot of
places to eat like on my day off i went
to that other uh
i got a
caribou burger from that place that you
had to take like the elevator up to
um cake box lodge that’s it um
that’s it
great burger loved it uh but
my timing my time in ketchikan uh will
always be remembered fondly minus the
job that i had uh but seeing this
seeing the scenery out there and going
on the hikes and uh everything that you
were able to do out there the lakes the
uh the lakes the ocean everything
beautiful uh absolutely gorgeous
um
so getting back on to
uh your run
what was it what libertarian policies
did you say okay these are the ones that
i’m gonna push these are the ones that
i’m going to give to the community in
order to get elected where were your
what were your pillars that got you into
office
so the the thing about local races and
why they’re so important whether it’s
starting
right so i don’t run as a libertarian
nobody’s running as a republican or
democrat you’re running as you
and you’re just talking about
local issues so and it’s very important
the part where i say you’re running you
because that’s how i won that’s how
stephen won
and it’s mostly how austin won which is
in these local elections especially in
small towns your platform
doesn’t matter nearly as much as who you
are to the community
stephen bradford won because he had
served on the school board before he
served on the assembly
he was a local attorney he was
active in multiple local charity
organizations
he was known throughout the community i
won because i was the vfw commander for
two years because i was a volunteer
baseball empire for youth baseball i
volunteered for the local student team
i was active in the american region all
these different things where i
touched different people in the
community positively and demonstrated
that i cared about the community through
my actions and not just through a
political campaign
so that’s what gets us elected locally
is our activity in the community that’s
the first thing i tell to alaska to want
to run for office is what are you doing
in your community right now what how are
you going to sell people on the fact
that you care about your community
because anybody can make a website
anybody can put together some pretty
words the same on a video that’s not
what wins votes locally so that’s how we
won but if we had to pick
a platform position
that was libertarian in nature that
people attached to me that was helpful i
would have to say that i was a huge
advocate for parents being the strongest
voices in education
and that is a huge thing
here in ketchikan here in this small
town that don’t want as much state and
adherence i just got back from the asb
conference this uh state school board
conference that they have every year
right and one of the things they said in
the opening statement was uh local
control not only survived the pandemic
but it was strengthened by it and that
is kind of the mantra and i was excited
to hear that statewide but that’s kind
of the mantra of alaska state schools
was them recognizing hey the important
thing that got us through this and got
us through it stronger was the fact that
we let local school boards and
communities determine their plans
and that and personally like i’ve been
saying this for years um
that we need to get education out of the
federal government’s hands
and back into the local communities um
where i am here in uh in florida in i’m
in pinellas county uh
the education should be handled by the
people here it should be handled the
parents should know what is being taught
uh they should be approving what is
being taught it should not be
what you’re seeing in a lot of places
all across the country where parents are
going in and saying we want this uh
taken out of the schools and the people
are like
no you don’t have a choice here um and
that was the death knell for uh
mcauliffe up in virginia was he was
saying no you don’t
you don’t have a right to that sorry
like that’s just not gonna happen uh and
that that crushed him that killed his
campaign
um and now i think that you’re seeing
that a lot of people across the country
uh are wanting to move in the direction
that it appears that a lot of alaska is
already in where you have the local
communities getting together saying this
is what we want taught we don’t want
this other stuff
let’s just teach this stuff that is
important that uh we’ll educate our kids
and we can stay away from all of the
other
garbage that the federal government
wants us to throw in
um
so
as as a libertarian who lives in alaska
i’m going to preface this question with
the producer of this show is very biased
because she lives in alaska
but uh she
she said do you think alaska will be the
first state to go gold
the first state to go gold now
part of that preface is what do you mean
by going gold are we dominating the
state legislature or is it just me
getting the governor what is going on
that’s a man she did not put that in
there so i’m going to say personally
dominating state legislature
dominating state legislature
i think that alaska is one of maybe
three or four states that has the
potential to be first because of the low
density of our population and because
there are a number of libertarian ideas
and ideology
points that are already welcomed
in alaska they just mistakenly think
they’re a public right that’s fair
that’s fair that’s a that’s a lot of
places i have discovered is a lot of
people mistakenly think they are
um
yeah for years i
um
okay well while you figure it out i
guess i’ll just answer that question
you’re having about the other two three
states yeah yeah
so i think the
and if you haven’t read it i think the
the book uh mullen lobb by boston tea
party is this pseudonym he uses
has had a great idea with that and
that’s the
north western states a number of them
you’re talking about wyoming and things
like that for marshall
these
these are the places that we’re going to
have a chance because you can
we can hit these rural areas which tend
to be independent thinking folks which
tend to be folks who want to be left
alone those are going to be the places
to begin winning
as libertarians and bert has showed us
that way uh we’re going to start showing
that way locally here in alaska because
the rural folks are more aligned to want
the government out of their lives it’s
going to be
near to impossible for us
in the short term to win in cities
and population centers because their
dependency on the government will keep
them from
really being open to our ideas but here
in alaska in wyoming
i think new hampshire’s really getting
the deal they’ve got the kind of three
state project going there but there’s a
couple of places where the lower
populations where we can really jump in
and once we have elections there and
state representatives and you can start
showing this and this is the key showing
people what libertarian governance looks
like
putting more power back in your hands
being more
transparent with how the money is spent
keeping
the government out of education all
these things that people already want if
we can show them that we actually do it
on a small scale on a local scale and
then on a statewide scale and these
smaller states then we can use those as
proof sources
be elected elsewhere
yeah i would have to uh how’s the audio
sound is it better
it’s great now okay cool um
it’s weird it did it on tuesday uh also
just randomly i can’t hear it it’s not
like to me it sounds fine um but other
people were saying that it wasn’t good
and trying to fix it on the fly is never
easy because i still don’t know what
causes it i just
turn something off and i turn it back on
and it works
um
yeah i would i would agree with you new
hampshire’s up there i i will say even
though i think that they have a bit of a
mountain to climb uh pennsylvania they
have been electing a ton of libertarians
they’ve been there electing and i could
i could see them getting a good number
of libertarians into their state offices
um
i don’t know if they’ll take over
anytime soon but i
i think that they will be able to build
a good base there
which will help the people in
pennsylvania see that that is
a direction that they should be kind of
heading in
um they should be an inspiration to us
all i saw that’s the one that they had a
week ago and immediately started
messaging folks who said listen we’re
going to be at the new pennsylvania 2022
let’s run every local candidate we find
especially to these positions that
aren’t normally all that popular and
let’s start doing what we’re doing here
in ketchikan just showing people what
local libertarian governance is that’s
what that’s why pennsylvania is going to
win because they’re going to have 150
proof sources towards those state
offices we’ve got um
there’s a city here in uh florida called
frost proof
and there is a gentleman who is a member
of the libertarian party of florida
um
who ran for city council and one his
name’s martin sullivan
and
he stood up against the town and he
stood up against the mayor of the town
who was giving contracts to people
outside of the town
and he said no these need to be given to
contra these contracts need to be given
to people here we are going to build the
uh economy here we are going to bring
people back to frost proof
um he organized clean up events that was
completely voluntary for the
citizens of frost proof people showed up
uh people showed up some people grilled
out like they
turned it into huge events
and uh he ended up becoming deputy mayor
and then he became mayor i don’t know if
he’s still on i haven’t talked to him in
a little while
but he was showing what it is and
from the time that he got elected onto
city council to the time that he became
mayor
i think
i think they had five people on their
city council and four of them were
libertarians by the time
he was mayor
oh that’s excellent yeah no martin is a
wonderful case study on how just
walking the walk
will change the minds of the voters
um
well you need to get back in contact
with him matter i’d love to talk to him
but if he got four city council members
and a mayor i want to hear all about the
libertarian things that came out of
there the repeals of previous
regulations the new regulations that
came out about opening up businesses i
mean there’s there’s got to be just a
wealth of information to use oh yeah
now mark martin is a martin is a
fantastic guy and uh
he’s a dear friend i haven’t talked i
haven’t talked to him in a little while
just because life but a wonderful person
and truly an inspiration
um
now before because i know that it’s it’s
veteran’s day and i want you to go out
and enjoy your second day of uh
of
what what’d you call it earlier um
sanctioned alcoholism sanctioned
alcoholism yes yeah sanctioned
alcoholism uh as the communications
director of the uh alaskan libertarian
party
what perspectives uh
what perspectives can you give
libertarian candidates uh for quick
advice on interviews
the first thing i like to tell people
the most important is to understand in
an interview in the podcast whatever
you’re on
you
have the power let’s use the spike
terminal the person being interviewed
the guest
is the one who has the information you
get to determine what’s shared you know
to be honest i have been answering your
questions matt but to be honest i didn’t
have to you can ask a question and then
i can just go off on one of my tirades
uh on whatever i want which you see
politicians do all the time i’m not
surprised to do that i’m just saying you
need to feel comfortable when you’re
doing an interview because you were in
complete control over what you say and
over what is shared so first be
comfortable and the second is just treat
it like a conversation be ready
know what you want to get out you should
have a list of key messages already i
mean if you’ve developed a campaign if
you’re running for something you have
your key points right so you’re just
going to use the answers questions
as an avenue for you to get those key
messages out
you’re going to get asked a random
question and you’re going to
acknowledge it and then just move
directly into a related key message
because you just use interviews as a way
to talk to voters
so i feel like you already answered my
next question but what are some common
traps that you see candidates fall into
the most common one and the
the hardest trap to resist especially
for someone who hasn’t done a lot of
silence track so report you’ll give the
great succinct answer which by the way
your answer should be short because
they’re going to cut your audio clips to
five to ten seconds and they’re only
going to use one to two sentences that
you’ll speak to than their written one
right
so
you should have short answers and then
after the short answers if the reporter
hasn’t heard what they want to hear
they’ll just hold out the mic they’ll
record whatever they got and just keep
looking at you and most people will get
nervous and decide to keep talking but
all you should do in that point is say
did you have another question or did
that answer your question and put it
back on them to start speaking so that
you don’t fall into that trap and the
other one is there’s no such thing ever
i don’t care if it’s your
blood relative interview there’s no such
thing as off the record ever
absolutely accurate there’s no such
thing as off the record
as a person who talks on podcasts uh
often uh
if somebody tells me something i may not
say who said it
but if you tell me something that needs
that
fits with what i’m talking about i’m
telling people it’s gonna happen
i’m not gonna say who said it but uh
this is especially if what you say off
the record is more interesting than
everything
anything you’re saying on the record
yeah that’s what that is
100 accurate
um
well
thank you thank you so much for spending
veterans day with me and thank you uh
absolutely for your service um because
you’re right you you voluntarily signed
up and you chose to do this and you did
it in order to protect the country and
defend the constitution which i
understand completely because it’s why i
did it um
whether or not that’s what it ended up
happening
that’s kind of not our fault like we
we had to do what we not our control
right
um so before i let you go
uh is there anything that you’d like to
plug for uh ketchikan or for the alaska
lp
uh
although my board may not like it
instead i’m going to plug just a veteran
thing and i like people because after i
get off the show i’m going to finish
drafting my letter i’m writing a letter
to senators dan sullivan and lisa
murkowski one representative don young
and it’s going to be a letter asking
them to cease advocating the
responsibility for the declaration and
debate of war and to take back the
powers that congress has been giving
away to the executive since 1973.
and
i listened to multiple speeches today
from good people some of them are
friends of mine talking about how much
they appreciate veterans and how
thankful they are and my response is
always if you’re truly thankful then on
my behalf and on behalf of all veterans
write a letter write a letter to your
congressperson asked them to appeal the
authorization of use of military force
in 2001 that is so broad it has allowed
us to attack 41 countries
uh since then
because of its broad language
ask them to repeal that and ask them to
take back the responsibilities so that
we don’t see this 20 years long war
again that is how you thank you veteran
properly on veterans day that is how you
remember the fallen on memorial day you
have you advocate on our behalf and make
sure what was done to us is not done
absolutely beautiful well again thank
you for your service i was thinking
about taking a bite of a crayon
for you but then the more i thought
about that over the last hour i decided
i’m not going to do that
mainly because i don’t have purple which
would mean i’d have to take a bite of
two crayons so the red and the blue and
i was like nah i’m not gonna chew them
up and you’d have purple right exactly
um
well thank you so much for uh spending
the last hour with me um if you need
anything at all please don’t ever
hesitate to reach out muddied waters
media uh is always willing to support
you and any of the libertarians up in
ketchikan uh and up in alaska um so if
you need anything please don’t hesitate
uh we will be more than happy to uh to
help out any way that we can
that’s great appreciate you having me on
yeah no thank you so much happy veterans
day thank you absolutely for your
service
youtube brother bye
all right thank you all so much for
tuning in uh on this fantastic episode
uh with paul robbins jr he was a guy he
was
he was so good he was uh engaging is all
hell
um i’m very excited
to say that i had him on today um
just so everybody knows
this weekend this weekend’s gonna be a
big weekend for muddied waters media uh
tomorrow
me superfan sarah andereg and the two
younglings are going to be driving up to
greenville south carolina where we will
be staying in the
lion’s
house the lion the lion’s house the lion
at jason and kelsey’s we’re going to be
staying at jason and kelsey’s um for a
fantastic weekend at the libertarian
party of south carolina’s convention
so tomorrow night
we
will be
recording an episode with jason me spike
sarah kelsey cajun
maybe some others
that will be available
to anybody out there who subscribes if
you want to become a subscriber go to
anchor dot fn slash muddy waters slash
subscribe and for the low price of two
cups of coffee from starbucks a month
you can get access
to exclusive content uh speeches that
spike has made uh speeches that spike
has made
panels a spike has sat on
episodes like this
special episodes are coming up as we
write them and produce them and because
we want to give their subscribers
fantastic content
and you will also have access to the
muddied zoom
which will be taking place the first one
will be taking place next thursday
in place of the writer’s block we are
going to be having the muddied zoom
right here
uh for all of our subscribers anybody
can watch it anybody’s going to be able
to watch the muddy zoom but if you are a
subscriber you will be getting an invite
in the mail and the email soon uh so
that way you
can be a part of the very first muddied
zoom and then they will be on the second
thursday of every month following uh so
it’s worth it oh you get 10 off at her
store too when you go to uh when you’re
spending your time bored at work and
you’re hitting up muddiedwatersmedia.com
store looking at all of the fantastic
merch that we have on there you get 10
off if you are a subscriber
literally this thing pays for itself
almost immediately
uh so
there’s absolutely no reason that you
wouldn’t want to do this unless you just
like getting all of the wonderful and
free content that we already produce and
put out and give to everybody uh because
we want to spread the message of liberty
all across
so tomorrow uh
there i don’t believe there is an
episode of
uh cajun eskimo from bayous to igloos
because we are going to be recording and
then on
we’re going to be recording uh the
special episode that night and then on
saturday you can tune in right here on
muddy waters media where you will be
able to get the live broadcast of the
south carolina libertarian convention
and we will be
uh going live i think five o’clock
eastern five to seven uh we may also be
showing the speeches not really sure
we’re gonna have to talk about some of
the details with uh the
with the people running the convention
but you’ll find out when we do and then
on
monday
then on monday i believe liberty
roundtable who had to move their show uh
is going i believe that they are going
to be going live monday uh
at 7 00 pm eastern 7 p.m eastern on
monday liberty round table then on
tuesday join me join spike cohen for a
brand spanking new episode of the
muddied waters of freedom where spike
cohen and i are going to parse through
the week’s events
like the
fresh off the convention tour chair boys
that we
pretend that we are um
and then on
and then on next wednesday
you are not going to believe who spike’s
guest is
you will be shocked when you find out
who spike’s guest is next wednesday
um
so tune in for that and then next
thursday right here the very first muddy
zoom
um
tune in for that
uh
thank you all so much for uh tuning in
have a fantastic weekend tune in for all
of the shenanigans going on in south
carolina
enjoy your weekend uh until then
i am matt wright and you are perfect
just the way
you are
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my hiding place is
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while i
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hey
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i don’t need anybody’s
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