Shannon Bray: Being Open to Changing Your Mind

Shannon Bray is currently the Libertarian candidate for the US Senate in North Carolina. In this episode we discuss, what is a libertarian, how Shannon joined the Libertarian party, how crypto leads to freedom and why liberty matters. We dive deep in this podcast and I can guarantee you'll walk away with some knowledge you didn't know before.

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This week we were sippin' on Tullamore DEW
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How to find Shannon Bray
Twitter: @ShannonBrayNC
Website: shannonbray.us

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Transcript

0:31

Welcome back this week we have Shannon bra who is actually running on the libertarian ticket for North Carolina, us Senate. Is that how you say it? You got that, right? Yeah, that's right. And I'm super excited too. Not only are you the first person that we brought on the podcast that is verified on Twitter. nice, but yeah. But one of the favorite reasons why I wanted to have you on as well is I've never been excited to vote for someone in an election until I voted for you in 2020. Oh my goodness. So yeah. Very rarely do, do I get excited about someone who's running? So I want, that was the main reason why I reached out to you. Wanted to have you on, well, I appreciate, I don't really know what to say about you could have given me little heads up. No. Oh, no. Sorry. It makes it fun that way. yeah. I, I I appreciate that. That's just, I, I have no words, so thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And, but before we get into more of your background, Chris, what are we stepping on today? So this week we, we were looking through all the ones we have here in two Littlemore due. Which we had the exo version a couple weeks ago. We have the original Irish whiskey this week. It does have an E in the name of it, though, for those who are oh, interesting. Asking or wondering, there are different versions of how to spell whiskey, but this one is Irish whiskey with an E Y. It's very different on the pallet, it has more like a honey banana chips, very fruity flavors on the pallet. And then if you sniff it on the nose, it's more like red apples and still kind of fruit and a little bit of toy, you know, my favorite stuff and then has more of a traditional finish to it. But yeah, I'll be intrigued. I'm MIS mixing it up. I'm doing it. Neat. And then I do have. A little ice chip here. Just see if it changes it up a little bit. But yeah, that sounds good. The one thing I was talking about just a few minutes before we got onto the podcast with one of the bar owners in the cargo district area is how the progression of tasting whiskeys is, and kind of starting out with kind of drinking like a Jack Daniels and then kind of how you progress through that and how this podcast in particular, how, when you read it out that you actually like take that moment to like actually sniff it and like, oh, do I smell that? Do I taste it? So like I've had TTU Lamore do multiple times, but until you said that banana chip and that those fruity flavors, I never really like thought about looking for'em until you said'em yes. I feel like interesting whiskey combinations are literally like, when you build concrete, you're like, oh, it's just concrete. But in reality, as much of other things mixed into it, that gives you that final thing. I know that was kind of random, but cheers, cheers, cheer. Very good. Yeah. This is a nice one for, if you, if you want a low budget whiskey to drink or it's a good mixer too. I feel like this would be good mix into like a ginger or like, yeah. I usually do a ginger beer with my little more dude, just cuz it does have those fruity flavors to it. See, love it, learning something every day. But Shannon, tell us a little bit more about your background and kind of how you got to where you are today. Well I, I guess my background really kind of starts at my, my adult life. yeah. uh, Shortly after I graduated high school a little early and shortly after I, I went to college to. Tried to get into computer science. Yeah. But you know, I had kind of a sheltered life as a kid. We were, we were pretty poor, you know, I didn't really get to see a whole lot of new things. So when I got out on my own yeah, I, I got straight A's the first two semesters and then I was a wrecking ball. right. I you know, stopped going to school, really got interested in you know, some of the party life of the, the early colleges and the clubs and all of that. And then kind of also, you know, I I was kind of naive at the time, so I kind of fell on with the wrong people because they're not your typical bad people. Right, right. You, you have like your gang bangers and stuff, like when you see them, you know? Yeah. You know, that they're either. You know, they're, they're dressed to intimidate. But when you meet people in suits, right, mm-hmm and their, and their games are completely evil in you. Sometimes you're not ready for it. So, you know, I kind of found myself in some trouble, went into the Navy. And uh, I first went in as a nuclear engineer. Oh, wow. School, school sucked. I have a friend who did that. It was rough. I went in as a CT but my brother my half brother died while I was going to school. I missed three or four weeks of school. Couldn't catch back up rolled out and then became a Navy diver. Oh, wow. Um, And then from there on, I got attached to submarines and that's kind of where I spent most of my career soon as I got out, but I I was looking at either. Going into commercial diving, which is what most people were doing or getting back into computers, which was kind of like my, my early passion in life as a kid. Mm-hmm Yeah. So then I went, self-taught built a career 20 years. You know after about 10 years I started working for the federal government. Okay. I worked for DARPA, I worked for D O D. I worked in places in Hawaii that have some initials. Uh I've I've worked some places in Virginia, they have different initials. Right. And then, you know, I was in Afghanistan doing it. Server builds you know, in, in Kevlar wow. Yeah, in, in 2013. So I've had an interesting, you know, adult life and it's something that I've always kind of been proud of. Right. And I never really liked politics. But, you know, it was, it was during the Sarah Palin years. Yeah. Right. Um, And when I heard the words come outta her mouth, I was like, man, I, I can't be a Republican. This isn't what I, this isn't what I was, what I believe in. Right. Right. They were at, at that particular year, right. There were women bashing. We're not paying for your contraceptives. You Hore. Right. Mm-hmm Mm-hmm uh, abstinence is best. Right. This was the messaging coming out from the Republican party at the time. Most people totally forgotten about that. Right. But on the dad of two little girls. Right. And I am not gonna let the us government or any old man in Washington tell my girls how they're gonna live. Right. So I started looking, I went online okay. I'm not a Republican, I'm not a Democrat. You know, what, what am I, you know, what other parties are there. I took that little libertarian test and was like, wow, I don't even know what a libertarian is. Mm-hmm But then that was it. I took the test and said, okay, I'm a libertarian. Yeah. And at the time I'm in Colorado and that's just how I identified. I changed it on my, my license. Didn't go didn't know any other libertarian ever. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I just kind of read it and was like, yep. I believe in the second, I believe that all I'm in are created equal mm-hmm I believe in giving people the opportunity to come to the us as long as they're law abiding citizens. And, you know, I I'm very fortunate that my parents, you know, had me as a child here. Mm-hmm you know, as a baby, cuz that's all that matters. Right. Um, So I, I was, I was kind loosely a libertarian, right? Yeah. Now you get online and you talk to real libertarians. Right. And at the beginning it's like, you're not a real libertarian. Yeah. But you know, then. I moved to, we moved to North Carolina. I'm working for the federal government. Trump gets elected and I get furloughed a couple times. Right. Mm-hmm but I'm working for the government and apparently cybersecurity analysts aren't aren't needed. When, when the government shuts down, oddly enough, that's interesting. Yeah. Russia, China, Iran, they all know this, so they're heading us even harder. So the real frontline of defense for our country yeah. Are all sitting at home unpaid, and we're not even allowed to work for free the way the government works. So oh, wow. We're scared for our country. Right. But nobody knows this because we're not allowed to speak out. Mm-hmm so then I was like, screw this a Congressman passed away here in Eastern North Carolina or and I was like, well, I'm just gonna run mm-hmm like, same day he got furloughed is pretty much what I, I heard. Right. So, you know, I, I ran out of my own district and whatever. Yeah. Met, met Tim mm-hmm good friend of mine now. Love him to death. Love to see him get elected. That'd be fantastic. Yeah. And, but he, he kind of, I learned a lot from him the way he debated the way he talked, the way he, he addressed his issues. Mm-hmm, the way that he wasn't scared to look at someone and say, no, this is the way he had is, and this is why you're wrong. Yeah. Right. I so I, so, and he doesn't, I've never, so hopefully he actually hears this and I can give him his accolades. Right. Yeah. But I learned a lot from him to where I wasn't gonna really do anything again, but then I was getting people from all over the state saying, Hey, I would've voted for you. Had you voted in, had you. Been in my district right. And stuff. And I was like, well, you know, thanks. I uh, you know what, let me just try to run for the us Senate. And you know, in the most contentious election ever Trump versus Biden battle for the Senate, Donald Trump you know, and, and so they're spending a billion dollars between those two mm-hmm mm-hmm right? Yeah. One of'em can't keep it in his pants, sleeping around with army army Wises. Right. And the other one is just wishy washy as all hell. Mm-hmm given away our military money for, for border walls and yeah. Left and right. It was just, it was just ridiculous. But the fact that I got, you know, almost 172,000 votes mm-hmm in an election that was. You know, the most important election of our lifetime. Yeah. Told me that people were ready for Liberty. Right? Absolutely. They're like, you know what? We're not, I'm tired of the Republican agenda. I'm tired of the democratic agenda. Every four or eight years, they switch power and we're not getting any better. In fact, we're getting worse. Yep. The Republicans take our power. The Democrats take our power and our money mm-hmm right. So the Republicans might be better, but then now they're dictating how you have to live inside your own home. Right. Right. Which is completely against everything they stand for on paper mm-hmm so there are a bunch of hypocrites. Yep. The Democrats are a bunch of hypocrites. In fact, the only people I find that are not hypocrites are the people who actually walk the tenants of the libertarian party because it's designed not to have hypocrisy. Yeah. The only. One that really kind of pushes the, the boundary. There is the abortion topic. Right. But by and large, we don't believe the federal government should be involved in this decision making anyway, mm-hmm so it, it kind of, you know, it lets it lets us have that fight locally where, where it should, where it should be. Yeah. Right. And then, you know, and then kind of let, because the federal government has no business doing anything for us outside defending us. Yeah. Right. That's and you know, they, they snuck in this 16th amendment on us just so that we could pay for world war. I yeah. and now we're paying for desert one, desert two mm-hmm you know, Biden's half action. You know, when we had the, the shootings in front of the embassy's thirteenths service member died and that very unfortunate, right. And then, you know, they come out and they say, well, this was a, a huge disaster. Uh, We are, it's gonna take us months to figure out what happened, but we're, we're gonna, we're gonna respond mm-hmm in the next morning Biden bomb's kids. Yeah. Right. Thinking that, that, where is the we're going to look at the intelligence, we're going to find things and you know what, they were just called casualties of war mm-hmm So the difference between murder and casualty of war is your GPS location. And that's a shame. It is certainly true. And we, you kind of touched on the two people that you were running against in 2020. So just a small background on. Kind of where I come from. Just real fast to where we are now is I found out about libertarianism, unfortunately in December of 2016. so right after that whole thing and it was actually on a podcast called Freakonomics and it was something along the lines of like 10 reasons why you might be a libertarian. So I listened to it and I listened to Gary Johnson and I heard a lot of the things that he had to say. And I was like, oh shoot. Like, I actually kind of associate with these a lot more than either one of these sides and you don't have to vote for the lesser of two evils. And then we got to 20, 20 elections and presidential election aside. That's a whole nother story, but when it comes to the us Senate for North Carolina, I'm like, if you look at Democrat and Republican, There's no lesser of anything here. It's just two evils. And so, and I already knew a little bit more about libertarian part. I looked a little bit more into it. I saw who you are and I looked down your like, website and what you stood for. And I was like, you know what? There is no voting lesser of two evils. I'm voting my conscience. I'm voting for who I actually agree with. I'm voting for Shannon bra and anyone that heard my voice before I had a podcast, I was like, Hey, you don't have to do this. And then of course you get the argument like, well, if you don't vote for whichever party that person associates with you're voting for the other one, it's a throwaway vote. I'm sure you hear that all the time. I do, but I there's actually I can prove why that's a fallacy and that's why I wanted to bring this up. Cause I wanted you to talk about that. yeah, that was one of the things that I was trying to educate people last, last cycle on was that third party vote and, and the importance of it. Yeah. Right. So this time around uh, so I'm gonna, I'll talk about last time around and then this time around. Yeah. So last time around, there were four people on the ballot. Mm-hmm um, the Republican, the Democrat me as the libertarian and a guy from the constitution party. Right. So I got over 3%. Mm-hmm he got one and a half percent. Well, in order to maintain ballot access, you have to get 3%. So for people who were constitutionalists, but were like, oh, you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and vote for. For Tom, because he's a Republican. I don't wanna waste my vote. Well, now you just, your party just lost access to that ballot. Yep. Because you didn't break 3%. Now, if you break 5%, 10% and 15%, mm-hmm there's additional bonuses that candidates get. Yeah. Right now the federal government gives the Republicans and the Democrats money to campaign with mm-hmm but third parties don't get it because we're not getting high enough on the percentages. Yep. So you're not wasting your vote. You are slowly changing the paradigm of how the duopoly controls these elections. Mm-hmm that's you worry that much better than I ever could. so thank you so much. So We were having this back and forth conversation. She was like, oh, it's a throwaway vote. And I'm like, you wanna know something voting Democrat in Texas is a throwaway vote. That's a vote. Yeah. I was like, so if you vote libertarian, you're at least giving one more vote to that percentage where you can have something different than a Democrat or Republican. Yeah. So whether it worked out or not, we haven't talked about who she voted for, but but you know that, but that's what those parties do. In fact, they, it's very hard for them to even acknowledge third parties because they don't want people to know that they're in them. Mm-hmm Yeah. So they only fight amongst each other to, to kind of keep that, to kind of keep that down. Like last year I didn't get any TV coverage. Mm-hmm until after the election, the day after I got three TV interviews. Oh, you did really well. How did it feel to go through an election and nobody knew you were in it? Well, the reason nobody knew I was in it is because your media coverage doesn't. Help right. The democracy. You only go after the dollars. Mm-hmm so you're part of the problem, right? I did at least do one at least TV spot before this election. Yeah. But it was before the primary. So, you know, you get mixed up yes. With all of those other people. And right now, you know, it's all focused on the Republican and the Democrat, which is fine by me because my number one goal is to really try to help the down ballot guys. Yeah. Right. I want people to, to hear about me enough to say, oh, that crypto guy mm-hmm right. Oh, he's proli crypto Liberty crypto. And I don't have to worry about him coming and taking my guns. Right. Uh, I may not like what he stands for right here, but let me check out what some of these other libertarians, you know, do so, right. And at the same time, as they're going out, going door to door, People are like D Watson. Yeah. You're you're you're excellent. In fact, I didn't know that libertarians were so awesome, right? Yeah. So now they might be looking for other LS mm-hmm because you know, in, in wake county, you know, we have, we have some amazing candidates. We, we pretty much fill up the wake. There's somebody running in every race. Yeah. Coming outta wake county. And it'd be great to see that in, in all the other counties throughout North Carolina, mm-hmm we're in new Hanover county and. A little bit in Brunswick county, too. We're kind of in our infancy when it comes to the libertarian party. But with that being said too, there's just so many people disenfranchised with both that since 2016, the increase in libertarian party affiliated voters increased by 33%. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. And then. To your point earlier, too, the unaffiliated has grown exponentially as well too. And guess what? Democrats Republicans have both lost affiliations. So there's clearly room for something different. And that, that's the reason why I wanted to have you on this podcast. It's cuz there is something different out there, like it's right here in front of you. I want to introduce you to it. I saw we were, we were at a planet fitness in Holly Springs yesterday and there was this guy that had like this sports car. It was badass. Yeah. But on the front of it, it said unaffiliated and then we, the people dot, dot dot are pissed. so it's like, my wife was like, check that out. You need to do that. yeah. that's a good way to get some publicity there. That's a good way to get attention. Right. So cuz we're we're asking all the fun questions and you. It's very interesting to hear a, a veteran say, oh, well, I'm not a Democrat or I'm not a Republican. And I, I just wanted to point that out. Like a lot of people assume that if you're a veteran, you are like, most people are gonna argue. You're probably voting Republican or the very minority in the military. They're like, oh, you're democratic. And I'm like, there, there are so many other options for people that people should look outside of that. Yes. I know when you're, you're in the military or sworn, you know, you, you do what the president says or you're governor, if you're in the national guard, but you still have an opinion, like you still have the option to vote for somebody to make a change for what you're doing. So I, and I always felt like when I was overseas, I'm like, man, I'm here. I'm doing my job. but are there other ways to get this done? Are there other ways for us to get things in motion to help other people and you can't get there, if you don't put that person into office or at least give somebody the option to get there because they give you the narrative, they want you to know. Yeah. Right, right. I mean, when, when I went, I was, you know, gung ho I'm I'm killing bad guys, right? Yeah. I'm I'm going in at the end of the cold war. Right. And we have Russia and I'm here on submarines and we're we're tracking Soviet boats. You know, because the Soviet union's the bad guys. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's why we have under God, in our pledge of allegiance. Right. Mm-hmm because they changed it in what, 1954, to, to, to show that we're the good guys and the Soviets are the bad guys and you know, we've been fighting. We've been doing that with communism there for a while. It it's, it it's amazing how, you know, people say nationalism is, is wrong. Right. We, they admit that now mm-hmm mm-hmm but we've been doing it for decades. Yes. Right. We're in indoctrinating our youth, right. With the pledge of allegiance and you get outta high school. And the, the most honorable thing you can do is go defend your country and you come back and you're proud. Mm-hmm and then you find out that why you were sent there was bullshit. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut. You can swear as much as you want on this podcast. I it's a whiskey podcast. If you, I feel like it's a little off, George Bush broke my heart. Yeah. Right. I went to war for Bush, senior. Well, yeah, I know. Not Bush, senior, but that's what I always call him. Right. And and Bush Jr. Man, once, once I heard that the Intel was all mm-hmm, bad. It. It broke my heart and, and made me anti-war mm-hmm right. That's when I was like, you mean everything that we've done really is just for our own agenda, right? We're not helping anyone. You wanna stop terrorist attacks on us soil, stop killing brown kids overseas. Uh, I mean, it's a retaliation, right? Because we feel like we've been blessed the king makers of the world, and we're involved in stuff that are thousands of years old, and we're too naive to even understand the. The nuances in it. Right. And you know, people are just like, make it a lake bombing. Yeah. Just why, why? I mean, those kids are just as important as the kid stuff on the other side of the border and the ones who are born in the United States. So they don't tell me that, oh, abortion's about saving kids, but then bombing'em is something completely different, right? Because I will call you a hypocrite mm-hmm That was, that was one of the biggest things is just kind of, when you take a step back and you're willing to let go of the narratives of the Republican and Democrat stories, Mara stories, and take a step back and look at it for what it actually is. You start seeing these hypocrisies everywhere, and that's kind of what kind of makes me kind of lean more libertarian than anything is because you can look at something and be like, Hey am. Am I infringing on someone else's rights first and foremost as a libertarian, and then you go from there and there's, there's no looking at that on either side to this point. No, and that's, that's how easy it is for libertarians to, to make policies. Right? Mm-hmm when something comes at me, I don't, I don't need to like understand every nuance if I'm reading through there and it looks like you're restricting Liberty, right? For no reason on people who have done nothing wrong and don't have due process, then it's wrong. Right, right. There's no. Oh, well, I'm gonna go ahead and pass this and we're gonna hope that we can kind of clear it up. No, we've been doing that for decades, right? Mm-hmm taking away human rights because of bad people. yeah. so, and that's, that's my. My biggest thing against kind of what's going on right now too, is they've made this nation so divided that you have the Republicans going, the Democrats are the bad people. We need to make laws to cut out the Democrats and you have the Democrats going, the Republicans are the bad people. We need to make laws to cut out the Republicans. We're American citizens are supposedly on the freest nation in the world. Like, why are we making laws to give let's be honest, you more power, right? Like that, that's the only thing that's happening. It's not because you're helping me or the other person or a Democrat or a Republican. No, you're giving yourself power and whoever wins, it actually becomes the communist party. Right. Right. They're like, the Republicans are like, oh, we're anti communism. Mm-hmm But we're gonna monitor everything you do in your house. And if we don't like it, we're going to arrest you. And you're gonna pay taxes and if we can't bust you on anything else, I'm gonna get you on tax evasion. Mm-hmm you know, that's it you're like whale or some trumped up gun charges. Right, You know, oh, oh, you, you you've got this and, oh, you've got that weed plant outside, right? Oh, you must be a NACO smuggler. Right? that was the funniest thing. We were talking to Francis a couple weeks ago. And we were like, you know, as good kids, quote unquote. We were like, I, if I went to my friend's house and they had a pot plant growing in their front yard and I was like 1920, I legitimately would've been like, okay, cool. That's that's a plant. I would've never known it. Doesn't affect me. So I don't have to worry about it. but you get to a point and they're like, well, you know, we need to make sure that people aren't growing weed because it's the, it's a bad thing. Mm-hmm I mean, why, what makes weed a bad thing compared to alcohol? Yeah. The person who is behind it with the most money mm-hmm big pharma. Yeah. Yeah. big pharma hates wheat because then yeah. All the vets are off opioids. Yep, exactly. So, and we're not killing ourselves anymore. So there is a, it's actually another podcast that's literally across the, straight from us. They're called signal fire and I love those guys. They're all veterans as well. And. I was supposed to meet with one of'em this week, but he's up in Raleigh fighting for the bill. That's going, that actually is slowly getting passed through North Carolina of Congress, which is amazing and incredible. So fight saying, Hey, we need this marijuana bill passed because they're actually selling shirts right now. They call it the combat cocktail. Mm-hmm yep. About when you get home from like here's a pill to make you go to sleep. Here's a pill to wake you up in the morning. They're like, you know, we could have this without all of the side effects, if you just make marijuana legal. Yeah. So that's what they're up there fighting for now. So yeah, some of the side effects on those pills and, and those cocktails of suicide. Yeah. So it's, it's like they are driving this to be a problem. Exactly. Pharma. Yeah. There was a you actually may even have it too, but I was reading another article saying that there's so many people that are committing suicide in parking lots to the VA mm-hmm yes. That should never be happening. That's crazy. A guy, I went to basic training and he did his time deployed, came back and he did that. Wow. And it was just, it breaks your heart. Yeah. I mean, it, it rips you from the inside out. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I gotten so heavily involved in crypto mm-hmm was to try to raise money for veteran services. Oh yeah. And, and stuff. Cause I had a buddy like, and you know, I, I didn't talk to'em in a decade, you know, just, you know, we grow up, we grow apart. We have our families, you know, we try to check in every once in a while and then, you know, sometimes time slips and then you, you fail someone like that. Wow. Um, So yeah, the, you know, that that's all uh, It's one of the things that I hope that we're able to, to fix. Right. Yeah. But the best way not to have more veterans killing themselves is to stop sending them to war. Yeah, definitely. And so you know, that's, that's where I'm hoping to at least start with right. You know, some of this bullshit. Yeah. Certainly. For probably the overwhelming majority of people listening, what would you say are the three tenets of being a libertarian? So they kind of have an idea if this is something for them. Well, I, I like to just break it down into the uh, you know, we, we really have two good, good point. Yeah. You're right. don't hurt people and don't take their stuff. Yeah. Right. Good. Good ideas don't require force. Right. So, and you know, we also have the nap, you know, the, the non-aggression principle. Yeah. So we're, we're peaceful. Loving people who like to be well armed in case we have to defend our homes. Mm-hmm and you know, with the second amendment, it's not just guns. Right. When you read it, it's the right to bear arms and I'm getting ready to argue that that includes my cyber weapons. Yeah. Right. If the government comes after me who says it I'm, you know, you know, I may have whatever I need to disable communications or anything like that. And that's the right to bear arms. Now there's laws against that. Mm-hmm right. But when it comes down to it, they're gonna have to beat me constitutionally. Yeah. So people have, you should be able to defend your home though with equal or greater force than what it's going to be attacked. Mm-hmm right. And how are we gonna do that with a 20. Pistol. Right. you can't do it. I'm happy you bring that. Cuz I never even thought of it that way of we are in this new world of cyber warfare with not even just other countries, but to that point too, I've never even thought of it that way. So that's a very, very good point. Yeah. People are fighting about guns right now, but that ain't the weapons they gotta worry about. Mm-hmm very smart. Yeah. And my favorite thing about the non-aggression principle kind of ties into um, so you know how the Democrats have the donkey, the Republicans have the elephant. So libertarians, we have the porcupine, which fits in perfectly with that. They have these really spiky things. They don't typically attack someone unless they are attacked. And then the spikes come out. That I, I just like that kind of and that, that kind of always fit my, you know, I, I don't care what people do. Mm-hmm, just leave me alone. Now, if you, if you come after me, I'm gonna come back with the full force of whatever I can to shut you down. And then after that, I'm good. I'll move along my life, you know? Um, And you know, I kind of raised my kids that way. Be independent thinkers. Mm-hmm, don't, don't let anybody mess with them, but at the same time, don't mess with other people, you know, don't be bullies, don't impose your will on other people. It's the golden rule, right? Doing others is you want them to do to you? I mean, it's, it's that simple, right? I mean, everything we need to know in our adult, we learned in the first grade mm-hmm So I was talking to one of our very first episodes. Thadius who we brought on. He's been growing a business in this area of town and I was talking today and just. Life in general, we just had a conversation and he goes the best way that you can really look at life is just follow the kiss principle, keep it simple, stupid. He goes that that's really all we need. he was like, if we just took everything where it is right now and knocked it down a few notches and just kept it simple, he was like, we'd be at a, such a better place. I was like, good point. He's not wrong. All our laws should be that way. Right. But they're all, they're all written to catch, you know, they're all written to be biased. Mm-hmm whether it's eco economically or racially biased or, you know, their laws are written to be used as weapons. Yeah. Not as these are what we would like you to follow. Right. Cause if not, yeah, it would be. They wouldn't have all those gotcha catches and all of that three strikes stop in frisk. Yeah. Mm-hmm I hate how they name these bills too. They come up with a name out of nowhere, typically for'em and sometimes they get cute and making an acronym, but like the Patriot act. Yeah. Like the Patriot act. Oh my God. And then, and then the most recent one that keep our kids safe, bill, that, that makes it illegal to clean your own gun, Yeah. And then when you say no to that bullshit, then they're like, they're like, oh, you said no to keeping our kids safe. Yes. Right. Yeah. And you know, what's gonna be, was all over the TV in October. It was like, so and so said, no, it's keeping our kids safe. He says that we should not have gun free zones. Right. exactly. It's, it's all just like the political, like the stance and the agenda, because everyone's like, Hey. I want my name to be out there. So let's do, what can I do to make people memory? Let's make this bill called keeping kids safe, but then it's, you know, 500 pages long. And you know, in page 2 62, we add something random that helps one my people or help some I'm like, no, I don't understand why all these law packets are just when you throw it on a table, I'm like, no, cause they're not good enough to win on their own merit. Right? Exactly. Here's 10,000 page bill vote on it in two hours. Like How do you know it's? When are we supposed to read it? Oh, no, don't worry about it. You read it later. Yeah. We'll find out after its pass. He Pelosi says it's okay. Right. good. So, cause we were, you mentioned it earlier using crypto to help you fund different things. Mm-hmm cause I know a lot of people are like, you know, I'm just gonna get money from all these like either big pharma or from oil industry or from people who have an agenda who then try and put money in your pocket. So that way they can reach in there and get something out in the future. Is that what drove you to try? I'm completely. Self-funded so far. Okay. Oh, wow. Um, So I, I took$10,000. I stuck it in one crypto wallet. I took$2,200 and stuck it in a different crypto wallet bought ship with that. Mm-hmm it blew up. I made six figures last year. Right. So we were using some of that. But yeah, I've, I've I think I may have received$200 in donations from just random people, but I've never, never asked for'em. Because I, I, well, I was working on a master plan that didn't didn't quite work out, but the plan was I had, I had created several wallets for several different charities and had these tokens blew up. Instead of having$50,000 in the campaign fund to make the Senate. Yeah. I was gonna donate all of those to charities and try to get my TV time that way and not play the political game. Right. Unfortunately, the bear market with crypto. Yeah. It, it, it, it crippled me. Right. I sure. I thought I had a great plan. It didn't really work out. But as long as crypto market recovers before November, yeah. Then, you know, I could potentially at least have you know, a commercial or two and there's, there's, there's some crypto communities out there who are actually asking to help. Oh, wow. Like col Dow they're, they're like uh, you know, they're, they're a group of people who are, you know, anti large government mm-hmm and it's all, it's all crypto and. It's uh, it's a it's a fascinating structure and it's really where I kind of see crypto moving in the future. Right. But and in some of the other communities, I work for a cryptocurrency token blue Sparrow. So, okay. When that, when that market comes back then, then I'll also have more money but, you know I always felt guilty, right. Going to people saying, Hey, you know, the other side's spending billions of dollars. You know, can I have$5 of your money to kind of help? And you know, we get my ass beat mm-hmm So what I would rather do is find ways to maximize how I spend money. I think they waste money anyway, what kind of candidate is gonna get up there and say, yeah, I spent a billion dollars getting elected but now I'm going to watch how I spend your money. Yep. That's it's. I wanna, I wanna vote for the guy who spent$400 on trying to get elected because he's watching, he's watching the budget. Yeah. Right. But you know, is it really about the economy or is it really about outspending everyone else and it's about out spending everyone else? Yeah. Here in Newhan county, I've been getting more and more involved in the, the libertarian party, not even just Newhan county, but just the Cape fear area in general. So Brunswick county Newhan Penner and Onslow. And one of the ideas that we might start working on soon too, is very similar to that, where we're giving back to the community as our funds to get the publicity. So there's ways to raise money for things that people are being taxed on right now to raise that money, put it towards that. So we don't have to raise those taxes there. Hopefully. At the very least we're, we're still giving back to the community, which is essential. We're trying to do anyway. And then too, hopefully we do get that publicity so we can start running our own candidates to get up there on that platform. Be like, Hey, your taxes, didn't go up. Cuz we were doing this, this and this to build these bridges to Brunswick county to make the river walk look nicer and whatnot. So I, I love what you're doing and that's one of the ways that we're hoping to grow our little community down here as well. Yeah. Dows I think are going to be exactly how we do that. I mean, it's the answer to, you know, when people give us the libertarian question about roads, right, right. Dows would fix that. And then they look at me crazy and then I'll draw it up on, on the board if you like. But you know, it'll be a toll road up until, you know, it's it's toll road and whoever is in, in the Dow, those funds go into the. The liquidity pool mm-hmm And so everyone gets a piece of the pie who is actually invested in it and gets to use it. Right. And instead of actually paying money, maybe you're even making money because then you have people from out of state who aren't there. So there's so many different things that we can do with medical care and all of it and all sort of crypto. Yeah. But the it's so it's so grand in my, in what I see in my brain mm-hmm is, is hard to convey to the. The normal person who has no crypto understanding at all. Right. Because it's too much of a leap mm-hmm for them to even understand how a code is currency, let alone how NFTs can replace graduation certificates. Yeah. How steeds any know change your loan processes down from days to minutes mm-hmm you know sending money to loved ones anywhere in the world and no longer having to worry about TSA asking if you got$10,000 in cash on you. yeah. You know, all of that stuff goes away. Yeah. We had another um, woman on her. Name's Raylen very involved in cryptocurrency. So we talked a lot about these things too, about how NFTs and smart contracts and DAS can change the way that we We see life, but the one thing we didn't talk too much about is um, Dows in that conversation. So for our listeners, I probably don't know what a Dow is. Can you explain a little bit more what a Dow is um, consists of? Yeah. So consists of? Yeah. So think about it as like a organization, like a company mm-hmm now I I'll explain the cult Dow a little bit, just so that I can talk truth to a particular one and people can kind of look it up and kind of see. So they have and, and they're also very libertarian ish in their, in their wording. Right. So they have a manifesto and it's very, it's very uh, anti big government mm-hmm but your top 50 holders are your guardians. Right. You can kind of consider them your house of representatives. Okay. And then you have all of your other holders who are holding much smaller amounts, but the holders contact the guardians and they're like, look, this is, this is what we want to do with our, our Dow, the guardians you know, put. For, then it gets voted for everyone else. And then they, you know, they, they move forward on it. So it's a very democratic way where like-minded, people are able to accomplish the things that they want to accomplish. Right. And you know, what, if you don't like the mission of them, pick another one. Yeah. Pick one that you do like the mission to, and then that's where your money goes. Maybe there's a down strictly for donating money to the Ukraine. Mm-hmm well, that may not be a cause that I personally would like to do. But you're able to do that and you know, your money's going straight there. Yeah. Right. Or maybe you want to send your money to have guns dropped in the middle of Afghanistan. So Taliban can have'em. Well, that's not something I wanna participate in. Right. But you're more than welcome to go ahead and participate in that if you want to. You know, things like that. That's what I love about it too, because back to libertarian principle where um, let your dollars talk, let your feet talk. And it kind of takes away the um, the, the crazy nonprofits that we have now you're giving money towards something 90% of the time. It's not really going to where you think it's going to one of my biggest things, and my dad taught me this years ago, before you donate to any nonprofit, look at the financials, find out where it's going and when it comes to Dows, it's basically that on steroids. Yes. Because you can watch where every dollar goes, not just the random. Federal documents that they show you that it may or may not be going to. So you can see where every dollar goes in that house and you can track it forever. It's all right there in a digital dares. No, there's no hiding. Mm-hmm there's no, you know, stealing there. Oh, there you can. don't exactly. You know, so people are all like, oh, drug dealers are doing that. No, no. They're kind of using cash mm-hmm right. Because, because they know it can be tracked, right? Yeah. Yeah. Crypto can be tracked cash, you know, cash is, I mean, that's why we don't. Millions of dollars in Fiat currency on pallets, you know? Yeah. In the middle east on parachutes mm-hmm wait, I don't know why we do that, but we never to be seen again, never to be seen again. And that money, you know, gets used for all sorts of stuff against us. Mm-hmm you know that as you are aware, you know, the Taliban was created by Reagan, right? and then armed by Biden. mm-hmm it's just, it's just insane. How many times you can look back to see how we're fighting wars against wars that we created, right? Like it's so it's so, so funny. Everyone's like, oh, we gotta, no, are they hurting me? Are they intending to hurt me? Nope. Leave'em alone. Mm-hmm like the whole BS. When you went in Afghanistan. Well rush, we saved them cuz Russia was messing with them. You should have learned something when Russia was doing it. Don't cry. It. As soon as Russia left. Well, they went back to doing their own thing. I, the conversation that I get a lot of too, when I tell people about what libertarians stand for and they're like, but we're the good guys. We need to be the police of like, we need to protect these other places. I'm like, but what are you protecting? Because you don't know what those regions or countries actually want. Right? Because like you're getting the narrative, what the us wants to tell you that they want, but you don't know if that's true or not. And let them figure it out. Like. Of course, like if there, if there was a true like Nazi situation, like there's a certain type of thing you could argue there, but there's really nothing like that going on and odds are, it'll be found out so fast nowadays the way information travels. Oh yeah. Yeah. There's really no way that that could ever happen. Again. We are getting so close to where I don't think we need these massive governments. Mm-hmm it's the people information travels at the speed of light, right? Yeah. People are starting to man that their voices are heard. Mm-hmm I mean, people, even in the Soviet or Russia, I Soviet right. I have a cold war vet too, so um, but you know, they're revolting against the attacks on Ukraine. Mm-hmm so it's it's we just need to get rid of the government agendas. Yeah. All over the world, even our own, right? No, I. I actually kind of agree with that. I, we were laughing cuz I was saying this earlier, cuz I saw sent something, Tyler. I was like, everyone was arguable, you're left and right. And then you go and look at Europe and they're like, well, both sides are really far on one side compared to what we have over here. And then you look at the EU and they got just like our like Senate and Congress. They got a bunch of people that represent the different countries over there, but they have different representation. It's not like one and two and maybe three there's like six or seven. Like I feel like everyone should go in and look at how the EU actually has representatives for each country because everyone, every single country believes in something different. Just like every single state in the us mm-hmm believes in something different or you have different tenants. If you don't believe you don't like it move to a different state. But like I feel like each state should have more representatives that are. Different mm-hmm than just one or two, right? Yeah, yeah. Or one and a half, two and a half. Like you never get away from whatever that agenda is. Yeah. Right. One of the things that I know we talked about it one time before you sent me a tech talk, we talked about, and, and then another one of my friends, we were, the other thing we were talking about too, is why should a us representative in the Bronx be telling someone in Missouri how they should be living their life. And that's another, one of the big things for libertarianism is, Hey, let this states be what they were supposed to be and what they were meant to be and run themselves because having New York or California telling Missouri or Montana, what ju doesn't make any sense at all? There's there's no correlation, no overlap. or getting big pharma from Virginia to right. Donate to the Senate campaign of either their favorite Republican or Democrat mm-hmm mm-hmm right. So you got outside money from the state coming in to influence, you know, our state elections. Yeah. That's another huge thing too. Cuz I got into a small debate with someone talking about like, oh, we can't have Russia interfering with our elections. I'm like, you're okay with Facebook interfering with our elections. You're cool with mark Zuckerberg doing it. And they're like, wait, what? well, last year the democratic party sent out a bunch of flyers on my behalf. I heard this story yeah. What story? Yeah. You'll appreciate this. Yeah. so, so I was, I was this couple days before the election. Okay. And I'm just working normal or whatever my phone rings and on, on my political line. So I answer it and it's the mailman and he's pissed. He's like calling me a motherfucker and all this stuff and I'm and I'm like, sir, what I'm sorry that you're upset. What's going on. And he is like, you print these addresses too small and I can't deliver'em and I'm like, well, you apparently found my phone number. Yeah. Uh, So you know where my address is, just put it on my mailbox, just gimme my bills and I'll take care of it. And I apologize. Yeah. And then about a few minutes later, I get another phone call from someone saying, oh, I just got your flyer. You know, I'm glad you're standing for the second amendment. And so, and so, and I'm like, what? So then and then some people from Onslow called me and they're, they're like, Hey uh, have you, uh, have I love your flyer. And what turned out that the democratic party sent out a bunch of. Second amendment flyers talking about how Tillis supported red flag laws, which was true. Yeah. Everything was true. Mm-hmm Republicans were mad cuz they were calling me a liar and all that and I'm like, Hey look, Hey, I didn't send this out. and B somebody just spent like a quarter of a million dollars on flyers and all I spent was 400 bucks. So but yeah, these flyers went out all over the state like couple days before. And you know, it was a Democrat because they were trying to split the Republican libertarian vote. Mm-hmm Hey, I mean dark money man or money. It was influencing the election. I'm glad, I'm glad you brought that up. Cuz I was gonna write that down and I forgot because I was listening to um, I I think you had an interview with oh shoot. What's his name? He has the podcast on YouTube on behalf of the North Carolina libertarian. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You were telling that story on there too. I was like, oh YouTube. Yeah, coach. Yeah. Yeah. I just think that's funny. It gets very political, but I I'm with you. I'm like, why are we giving so much money? Oh, it's cuz it's a tax write off. That's why mm-hmm but it just, you know, everyone wants to either vote red or vote blue. I'm like, no, do the right thing vote for who you think makes the most sense for you. And don't, it doesn't matter if they've, if they're red or blue or green or yellow, you know, do your research. Mm-hmm that's my biggest proponent is this is 20, 22. If you are one, not voting, you know, tisk too. I feel like everyone should be doing some sort of research. You have your phone in your hand, like minimum three hours out of a day. Take some of that time to do some research into like what's coming up. I mean, I always laugh at my wife. I'm like, I don't know what news is going on. Like, I didn't realize this happened unless she told me. And I mean, obviously I did know because it pops up on my phone a little bit, but you know, you have to do some sort of research and understand what the big topics are. Mm-hmm you can't just show up and be like, oh, well that guy voted for the, you know, protect our kids, bill. We should, do you even know what that bill was? Mm-hmm no, that, that bill was for them trying to take your guns and you're you support two a like, that's totally against what you wanted, but you need to do research. My, my thing that I've been telling people too, is like, imagine if you show up to the voting booth and there wasn't an R R and D next to people's names, people would be so lost these days. Absolutely. Like, oh, I'm just gonna go home. oh, I love it. But I do have one. I got a fun question for you cuz you do work in the crypto space. I, I always ask at least one silly question for everybody. Even if we get like very serious and everything um, what was the, if you can talk about this, what was the biggest thing you invested in, in crypto and what is the wildest thing you invested in the wild? My biggest loss mm-hmm was ICP. Okay. It's still, it's a utility token. Okay. And it's still gonna do great things, but it came out at$700 a token. And I was like, wow, that's cheap. then I bought it at$600, a token 5, 4, 3, 2, it's now trading somewhere around$6 and 90 cents. Oh, wow. Um, But I did it's called dollar cost averaging. Right. As it went down, I was buying it. And then before the bear market, it had a popup run where everything went green and I sold. Oh yeah. Uh, But I am um, last week I did get back into it because it at$6 is ridiculous. Right. They're the future of the internet, but no one knows it yet. Mm-hmm right. So you have to understand the technology and all of that. I just got into it. Knowing the technology, but then not really worrying about the market. Right. Had burned me. Yes. Uh, Ship. I made six figures last year in that beam coin. Yeah. Blue Sparrow. I'll probably change my status to crypto millionaire. uh, Sometime this year. Nice. Wow. Um, So they're, they're they're, they're kind of the, the big ones you know, I've done, you know, say Toma, they they're kind in, and a, a lot of'em right now are kind of in the red mm-hmm but I'm still well ahead because of the, the, the, the run that sh had last year and working with, working with blue Sparrow has been a true blessing. That's very cool. Yeah. I, I just heard about that cause I was back bouncing on your Twitter for a little bit too, and I was, I need to do a little bit more research on this. Yeah. We, we actually, that one we. We built a school in, I don't know if did I say this, but no, we built a school. We're we're in the process of building a school in Kenya, Africa. Okay. Wow. For a for a tribe mm-hmm they had no running water. The girls the little girls would, their job for the day was to walk five miles to get water and, and to walk back. Wow. They, they physically castrate their girls here. Right? They're where they're, they're not, they're not treated well. They, so now we're, we're building a school in a water tower. Wow. So now the kids, instead of having a child go five miles a day to get water, they just go to school and we have the water tower and they can bring the water home. Wow. We're doing one in the middle east as well. Mm. Um, So that's, that's my passion project, because not only is it crypto to where I'm still helping the investors by building utilities cause right. I'm, I'm actively writing code to kind of help expand this. Oh wow. Working, working with the team, but it's all charity focused. And then the holders from all around the world, they have, we have daily drawings, right? So as long as you hold a certain amount of the token, seven people a day get$250 an E oh wow. We have weekly drawings. We have monthly drawings. We've given over, you know,$60,000 to charity so far. And we've only been around for six months. Wow. That's credible. So this whether politics or anything, whether the people of North Carolina realize if I'm, you know, if they don't realize that I'm good for the North Carolina, I am. Still focusing on rev revolutionizing the way crypto can change our world. Mm-hmm right. And if the Senate doesn't work out for me, I'm gonna be a crypto lobbyist. Yeah, because of stories like this. Right. And I won't even, I won't even work for anybody. Right. Because I'll be working, you know, inside a crypto market that is, is actually quite, you know, it's, it is taking care. It's letting me do the, the things that I really enjoy doing. Right. And I have a greater impact now than I ever have in my entire life. Helping kids who will never know who we are. Yeah. Right. And it, in, in my mind with, you know, my military background and, and stuff like that, this is something that now I'm truly proud of. Right. Right. It's no longer just an honor. This, this is where. We're we're repairing, you know, parts of the world and we're using technology to help people who will never even understand the technology that, that that's benefiting.'em. So yeah, that's, that's just that, that to me is where I'm supposed to be yes. In life. And I can continue to do that whether I get elected or not. Yeah. So, and, you know, there's other projects I'm, you know, working with to, to really try to do the same thing and, and, you know, help help crypto as a community and turn it into a positive thing instead of where people think the drug dealers go. Right. Right. Yeah. Which is complete fallacies. Right. Yeah. That's awesome. No, I really appreciate that's incredible. I didn't know everything they were doing there, so yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. It's and we get pictures, man, and it is just so heartwarming. Yeah. Right. To, to see the impact. That, that you're doing across the, across the world. And you know what, we, we picked the poverished areas of the world because you know, here in the United States, there's enough programs, not taking care of everyone. You know, I'd really love to have one for homeless vets and right. And things like that. But kids buy and large, you know, they're on the WIC program and they're educated and we don't mutilate our girls here. And you know, and our kids aren't treated as slave labor. So to change that well, to a, to learn about mm-hmm that this is still happening yeah. In our world, a drives you to sickness mm-hmm And then when you realize that you can change it, that gives you purpose. Yeah. Just on a broader aspect, I found out last year that there's more slaves in the world now than there's ever been ever in history that's, which is mind blowing to me. Can't came from fathom freedom is so just people we've given our liberties and our freedom away so long that, I mean, some people don't even, you hear people all the time, like the second amendment just, just get rid of it. Well, a you can't because it's not what the government allows us to do. It's what we allow the government to do. Right. It's our document, not the government document. But that's also the only amendment protecting the rest. Mm-hmm after they take your guns, if they tell you to shut up, what are you gonna do? Right. You gonna, you gonna keep talking? I don't think so. Yeah, probably not. I saw a Navy vet in this was, oh, the one thing that turned me from kind of, you know, like a, a, a libertarian until I, until I went full throttle, like was, you know, when I Portland, Oregon, when I saw that that unarmed Navy veteran get beat down by federal police For, for no reason. Right? They, they were just beating on him. He was a white guy, right. I mean, I, it, it, you know, not that it's good, bad or indifferent on anything else, but you don't, you just saw this guy just beating him for no reason. And I was like, that guy served our country. I have no idea if it's honorably or not, you know, anything like that, but for you just to go up and think that you can just start beating this human being that wasn't causing any damage no, no. Right. And then you got you, we, you know, we got Ruby Ridge and then we've got king and then we have all the racial injustice that's going on. And, you know, we've just got people that are just unhinged and they're just angry and they just, they want to impose their will on anyone for any reason. And people are just shit. it's yeah, it, we just need more people that just care, you know? Yeah. Oh, for sure. Before we get into the very last question one of the things I think is hard for a lot of people to find and to grasp libertarianism from what I've been able to gather is it has a little bit of some of like the Democrat viewpoints, some of, a little bit of the Republican viewpoints, and then there's libertarian viewpoints in it and just people have been so um, just kind of pushed into their own corners that if there's something other than what their team is saying, they're not willing to cross over to think any different. And that's kind of the biggest thing that I've been um, facing, trying to get people to come over too. Do you have any thoughts on, yeah, most people wouldn't even. Care about half the tenants of these other parties, if they weren't told to. Right. Right. When did I mean, right, right now what's being over spun is well, you can't say gay. well, that's got over. I mean, I don't even, I don't even know why we're talking about sexual education in second grade. You know, this is where school choice is so important. If yeah. If we shouldn't have the federal government in charge of our education system anyway, mm-hmm right. So exactly the libertarian ideas are made for things like this, but they would rather just throw more money at the problem. Both sides. Yep. Right. Make laws hope you can't say gay. Oh wait, wait, we can't make laws this tell you not to do that because that violates the first amendment. But in this case you don't get that. Right. Right. right. You're like a hypocrite, you know? And then you got, most people don't even understand the constitution, like one Republican. Senator was like writing a book and the book publisher, you know, because of the January. That's right. Yeah. Was like, we're not gonna publish your book. And he's like, well, you're violating my first amendment, right? No, no. The first amendment says Congress shall make no laws. Right. Which stops the government from infringing on all of those rights. But it doesn't stop a publisher from saying, Hey dude, you're a jackass. we're not gonna publish you. Yeah. That's not what the first amendment means, Uhuh. So, you know, most people don't even understand the constitution. I mean, it's on my wall in two places in my house. Yeah. And you know, I don't read it every day, but every once in a while I like to just go, especially the second one. Right. so not be INFR. Right. But yeah. I'm sorry. I kind of caught a fun INFR oh, no. Yeah. That, that answered a lot of it though. So yeah, no, that if there's nothing else for me The school choice is one of the largest things I have a two year old and a newborn right now. So the school choice is huge for me. I don't plan on leaving North Carolina. So that's one thing that I'm specifically passionate about. So if nothing else, I hope that's something that changes a lot here. Yeah. Yeah. I'm you know, minor uh, in middle school getting ready to go to high school. Mm-hmm so they're kind of running, you know, running. No, they've had a good education and I, I, you know, but I'm also heavily involved in, in my kids' education. Right. My 14 year old has her Bitcoin and awesome some meme coins. And so she she's tracking the market. You know, they all have their little green light cards. They, they I'm teaching them. The stuff that I wish were taught to us like economics, right. and debt mm-hmm and how all of this things and what I'm not teaching them is how, how to think and how to believe like, we, we we don't push religion. Mm-hmm uh, in in fact, I'm, I'm an atheist and I'm quite proud of that. But I'm also one of the biggest uh, fans of the first amendment. Right. Right. I believe in your right to, to, to do that. Right. To believe in whatever, and I'll, I'll fight for your right to mm-hmm to do that. And all I expect is the same. Right. Right. Not to be chased or, or judged for for my elevated scientific thinking. Yeah. see. On, on the other side of that very similarly, but again, other side I'm Christian and same thing, I will fight for any Muslim I'll fight for any atheist. Cuz I think anyone gets the right to decide what they believe is right. Or what they believe is a higher power or not, or so be it. Right. And, and that the higher power is there weren't we given, you know, freedom of choice. Right? Right. So if, if if for those religious people, if freedom of choice is supposed to be on us, then we should be able to exercise 100% government telling us otherwise. Yep. Exactly. I know you have um, some time restraints today too. So I'll drop my last question real quick. And that is, if you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be? Oh, that I'm stupid. There isn't one thing there isn't one thing that I believe now that I believed when I was 30. Yeah. I mean, I came outta the military. It was one thing. Right. 2001 happened. I wanted to get back in you know, I, you know, I was indoctrinated all the way it took while to see, you know, the damage and stuff. Not, not just, you know, in the middle east. Right. Or Kuwait but on our brothers and sisters, right. That are coming back and you see the damage that's on them. Mm-hmm and the ones you knew before and when they come back, they're different. Right. Mm-hmm and um, it, it, it doesn't prepare you for. For for life necessarily. Mm-hmm so it's those experiences of trying to take care of your brothers and sisters and understanding? I was very Republican mm-hmm right. So I was kind of the second amendment. I didn't have a gun, but you know, I wanted one. Right. But you know, it was, it was really when they, they got into the religious aspect because I was an atheist, it was like, I don't don't, don't judge me by whatever you think your deity is. And don't judge someone else because you don't agree with who their deity is, who. What arrogance do you have to think that you are truly that correct? Mm, right. I mean, because when you trace, I mean, I study religion. Yeah. You know, I grew up Mormon. I, I studied I've read the Quran, I've read the Bible bunch, you know, I've so I'm not uneducated when it comes, certainly. Um, But then, you know, I've also done the chronologically, put things in Vince in order and actually studied stuff and realized where some translations come from. And I just had enough. It was just like, it's all, you know, man manipulated. It doesn't mean that I'm not a good person. You know, I'm still certainly out, you know, to charity. And I just don't, I just don't believe in that mm-hmm but I raise my kids to to just take care of everyone. You know, they, they uh, um, my kids, when I, when I go to Fayetteville and we do the run to remember. And I'm wearing a uniform. My daughters are standing with me holding the flag, you know? Yeah. Remembering the Memorial of the people that we've lost, you know, not celebrating war mm-hmm And I just want so that's kind of the thing that I've kind of learned is your life experiences are going to change you. And if they don't, then you're not challenging yourself, probably because the things that, you know, at 18 aren't, aren't good. Right, right. You you've made a lot of assumptions. And I can tell you're wrong. Mm-hmm I was wrong. I was having a argument with a guy the other day and he says, well, I felt the same way when I was in middle school. I'm like, how old are you now? He's like 21. And I'm like, dude, you're such a baby. Still, your brain's still growing until you're 25. And he got so mad at me. He's like you can't call me a baby. I'm talking about no, the physical development of your brain is, is not you. Here's Dr. Phil. Here's a Google search. Yeah. And he's like, you're lying. Your science sucks. I'm like, dude, come on. all right. I'm just gonna go ahead and quit on my PhD right now, right? Yeah. I apparently don't know what I'm talking about, but yeah. You know, it's uh, it doesn't uh, but he was, and I was like, man, you're, as you go through your life, you're going to understand what's important and, and where you've been lied to. And that that's really the difference. Yeah. I was lied to it and didn't know before, so I believed certain things. And then once I realized and was able to kind of see behind the curtain mm-hmm then I started making my own decisions. Right. And that's really, I think the big difference. And it all started with Becoming a libertarian. Yeah. Like saying I had enough, what else is out there? And then not just believing what you see on CNN or Fox. Right? Mm-hmm because they both have merit. They're both spun, like, you know, mothers, like they'll use adjectives. They get people all, all hating, but how many conspiracy theories have we heard that have actually been true? Right, right. I'm getting tired of saying dude, that's conspiracy theory. And then me having to go eat dirt after like, oh yeah. Maybe, maybe it did come from there. Right? exactly. It did come from a lab. that's been the biggest thing for me since I started kind of looking down the libertarian lens is you can take a step back from the two stories that you're hear. You're hearing all the time and take an objective view and you can call both sides out for what they are as clear as day. Once you have that vision. Exactly. I've I've been talking about this on the past couple podcasts about another podcast that I'm thinking about starting called the 3d glasses project. And basically there's a red lens. There's a blue lens. When you take it off, you can see their true colors. That's essentially what I I'd want the podcast to be about is just taking objective view and not looking through either color lens, because what um, even if you are Democrat and you wanna look through the red lens to see how wrong that they are, or if you're a Republican, you wanna look through the blue lens to see how wrong they are. You're still looking through the same blue or red lens, and you're still not seeing the true colors that are out there. And that that's, what's crazy. So just being able and whether or not you choose you more libertarian, or what if you just take the blue and red glasses off and take a step back? How much more clear it looks? Yeah. And cause I can tear less if people are libertarian. Right. All I care is if they're a voting their own agenda. Yep. Right. Voting their own conscious and not doing it because someone told them to. Yep. Yeah. I, we literally had this conversation like two minutes before I went to get you on. I was like, I don't even care if someone comes in and says that they're a socialist, but if you're voting Democrat and you're a social, you're not voting for your true meaning, like find the green party or something that closely more like relates to you. I'm like, it makes me more upset that you're not voting your true conscience than anything. Like, I disagree completely with all of your theories, but at least vote for what you actually believe. Like, come on. I love it. All right. But yeah, we won't make you too late here, so we'll, we'll start wrapping it up and we'll let um, Chris go through our outro. So want to thank you Shannon, once again for coming on. Where can people find you on the interwebs? The, the, the best place is probably on Twitter. Mm-hmm at Shannon bra, NC NC for North Carolina. I'm on Twitter, 24 hours a day, almost seven days a week. It's really where it's my office now in crypto world. And also@shannonbra.us is the, is the campaign site. Okay. Mm-hmm, if you, if you want to see you know, some of the, I don't have my whole platform, but it is the libertarian platform. So if anyone, you know, has any questions, you know, it I, I don't mind speaking. I'm happy to talk about'em, I'm happy to talk into the weeds, but by and large, you know, I just want people to know that everything that I do starts from personal Liberty mm-hmm and works his way backwards or outwards. And if any time that personal Liberty gets messed with, then I'm, I'm against it. So as long as you know, that you can pretty much pick where I'm gonna be on any bill. Right. And there's no, there's no hypocrisy. Mm-hmm, there's no bullshit. There's no flip flopping. It's just the way it is. Yep. Um, So, you know, that's clear cut there's um, and. I guess that's it. yeah, I love it. So I, I just loved having someone on here and kind of making a man out of a politician. Cuz I feel like a lot of times you see people on line and they're like, oh Hey, well I'm this person or that person and you don't see the real person behind it. Mm-hmm and I feel like we sat down and got to talk to you. We actually got to see your true point of views, not just what you're expected to say. When you're out in the world and everything. So it was kind of nice to sit down. I started letting people down a long time ago. this is what we, we, this is what we expected to say. I'm like just kidding. but he didn't let us down. We had the two little more do a nice Irish whiskey, super classic. I tried it both ways. It is definitely just a very chill Irish whiskey does taste nice on rocks. Yeah. Taste nice. Neat too. It does. It does. Yeah, we've been on here for a minute. So I split like halfway through and just drive above. So definitely check that out. If you guys got any questions about Shannon hit him up on Twitter. We got questions about two little more do hit me or Tyler up on Instagram. Surprisingly enough, I am on Twitter no way, but I am low key. You don't wanna follow me? I follow a bunch of survivor people on Twitter, so it really, it's not very helpful. But yeah. Thank you guys for listening. This, like I said, it was a great conversation. I think if you guys didn't get any wisdom, I don't know what you were listening to, cuz I learned a lot. But thank you. Hit us up on social media, like, and you know, send us a nice comment and rating on all the social media platforms. Give us download and a listen and you know, we'll be out here next week. Yeah. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheer. It was nice meeting y'all thank you. Thanks. You.