Curtis Puckett and John Carpenter

C shares more about his life. He says he grew up poor in Southern Illinois but had the fortunate opportunity to join the Air Force and was able to travel and get an education. C says he has a large family and raised four kids. C adds that his family came into the United States in 1621.

M says that he grew up in Northern Virginia with a bit of a fractured home life due to divorce. He says that he spent six and a half years in the Army. M says he enlisted but ultimately left as an officer. M says he grew up conservative and worked for the last fifteen years for a conservative non-profit. He says he joined an Episcopal Church several years ago that was very focused on social justice issues. M says it was an eye-opening experience and he learned a lot of history that he was not taught in school. M says over the last several years he has found it difficult to have a conversation with his very conservative friends.

C says he is just right of center. He says he is a Republican by values and financial beliefs but has found the past several years very difficult. C says since January 21st, 2021, he’s decided to turn off the noise and limit his exposure to media and social media. C says it keeps him peaceful and he is a better person for it.

C says more about his unique upbringing in a rural town in Southern Illinois. He talks about a pattern he notices across cities in the United States of the stark differences between the North side of a city and the South side of a city, or the West side of a city and the East side of a city.

M talks about his community in Richmond, where he moved to in 1988. M says he moved from a predominantly white town to the downtown Richmond area that is much more racially diverse. M shares how he felt when confederate statues were taken down in Richmond.

C speaks about how the media portrays events such as the statues being taken down in Richmond to folks who don’t live in the area.

M says more about the “Sacred Ground” program at his church.

C says he was able to live abroad for several years. He describes how he sees America as a spoiled teenage brat. C says we, the United States, still have growing pains and are still trying to rationalize who we are.

C says he is not worried about the country because since the wealth gap is becoming so large, those in power will have to make market adjustments or there will be a revolution.

M says given his military background, he respects guns but does not think assault weapons should be allowed to the general public. C says although he is an advocate for guns, he also supports the banning of assault weapons. C says if we do not ban them, they should not be sold to anyone under twenty-five and there should be a heck of a lot of paperwork to obtain them. C said he’d also like to ban the media from showing the name and face of anyone who commits a mass shooting.

M details his career in IT. C says he is also in IT.