David Gallagher and RJ Young

00:02 RJ young, I'm 34 years old. I'm recording this conversation. You having this conversation virtually at my home. I just met my conversation partner. His name is David and I met him through this platform called one small step.

00:20 My name is David. Today is September 29th, and I'm having this conversation virtually as well. I'm in Oklahoma City and this is the first time for me to meet my conversation partner RJ.

00:33 Great Bagel, David. What made you want to do the conversation today? I want to be a part of the solution acrimony. The things that you hear, the people I work with people and family is is just beyond toxic and if he can get people to talk a little bit, I wanted to share a quote and that was you can't work with people. You don't trust. You. Can't trust people you don't know.

01:00 So, way to expand that Circle little bit. I thought this would be a good, a good vehicle for that.

01:06 Very cool. Now. I enjoy that and I appreciate that. I wonder if he had any success yet. I think I've I told Kaylee early. I might have ended this process under slightly false pretenses. I think I'm a lot more left in my bio. Let on

01:29 Moving to Philly change things for me is a lot different than the growing up in Arkansas, and Southern Baptist in the highly conservative, which is the formative years, but if ever, he would get along better and play fair, I guess would be my man trip. I had one.

01:48 What made you? What brought you today?

01:52 I wanted to see someone else. That might think something differently.

01:58 I'm a black man. I live in Tulsa High School, College University and yet I feel differently than many of my fellow citizens about the place where I live in Lakeland, and I wondered

02:17 What were the inflection points that brought us here to seem like a good opportunity to get an answer, the questions? I hope I can help I moved here last year in April middle of endemic from Philadelphia or just outside. And so, in the last year-and-a-half, I really realized I'd forgotten how red Oklahoma is.

02:44 Yeah, I haven't had that privilege of forget. He'll rest a lot of stories. There are weak and very interesting part of. This is how we describe ourselves. This is David file as he wrote it. My name is David. I grew up in South largely conservative moved to the Philly area in 1995 and gradually shifted a little left. I feel my combined experiences and both parts of the country. Give me a different perspective. I'm mostly interested in healing the divisiveness and encouraging people to read more and maybe argue a little less right? Very cool.

03:33 So the thing that I thought was most interesting about your bio is that she grew up here and that you went away, and that came back and as you alluded to earlier.

03:48 Your position. On some things may have changed might not have changed. I wonder what were some of the experiences that inform your connection. Well, my father my family was Southern Baptist, strong conservative. He was in a hurry member. He was a Firearms dealer. I was textbook Southern Baptists. We lost me in a car crash in the late 80s and I moved away and got married in Philadelphia and spent 25 years. They're married with two kids and one of the big things that I never been around a big city before in Philly is a monster and it gave me a different perspective on things like gun control.

04:34 It's one thing to have a shotgun in the back your truck in Oklahoma at the whole other thing to have a sack for the 9 mm in Center City if you will. And so I come to see more both sides of that situation. That was my first example, probably and so overtime surrounded by people that were more progress. If I just tell myself cleaning and we need more of that way.

04:57 When you say both sides of that situation, can you describe the sides? I enjoy shooting guns. I like trap shooting at a target pistol that sort of thing. But I think we need some more control, you know, we can't give you a background check that you know, I read something today. CDC is looking to have some fun in the finally address the study of gun violence in its effect on health. We haven't even been able to do that. So I'm hoping to see some more progress in that area.

05:32 Very cool night. This is this is a gun-loving state or something with you.

05:42 About four years ago. I became an NRA certified. Basic pistol instructor. Yeah, and I had not shot a gun until I was 24 years old, and that was the way in which I had got to know an older white man in my life because he must have been the only older white man in the state of Oklahoma who could care less about the Sooners of the Cowboys. So it was a way for me to try to get to know someone in a way that also may be extremely vulnerable to them. How did you understand gun violence and understand what gun control means work. Should need to some. I don't you anymore cuz that was the vehicle that I used to get to know someone. Not something I needed to hold on to.

06:37 And that is one of the reasons that I'm here is that experience informed me about what my peers that think differently than I do actually believe and why they believe it. I appreciate that. You do have that perspective on guns in the United States.

06:56 It's a tough one. It's a tough one night. My father used to say and I like that, say it a lot is if it was an easy problem. We just fixed it already.

07:05 Then I'll have the number issues that fall under that. That umbrella. I think it's cool. You went shooting. I like that. Give you a sense of what people and other is a very visceral activities.

07:18 Yeah, nothing like being really good with a Glock 17 and then coming understand why somebody would not want to walk around without one, right? Because I'm a black, man. I don't see it. As cut-and-dry as especially, when you take into account, how many folks are killed, by guns? And how many of them look like me? Right? Right, right, right. Way to go about living your life. Specially police officers, got firearms, and they can kill me with people in your situation. Not once I've been pulled over driving while white, you know, it's never been.

08:07 The thing, and

08:10 It just I feel for you.

08:12 Thank you.

08:15 I think it's my turn to read your bio. Maybe I attended High School in Tulsa attended. All three, major universities, t, u OU OSU and iron degrees from two of them. I've been married and divorced. I turned 34 in July but never had the same job for more than two years. My life's work is trying to make people care about. Someone will never meet never know how little influence.

08:47 RJ at my first impression was kind of a community organizer. Sort of thing. Is that even close?

08:54 No, he's not got my occupation. Yeah, that is an enormously long story, but I write books in addition to that and like my wrote a book about getting to be very good with that pistol writing a book about.

09:19 The Fallout of the Tulsa Race Massacre and I try anyone. But the thing that I keep coming back to is

09:27 I need people to care. I need them to care about people that can't emphasize with to use the term. You used earlier to hear their lived experience and respected to understand that.

09:42 What you're afraid of might not be what I'm afraid of both of those things deserve reference. So, have you found the right? There? Are some places that have in common, if you found that to be true.

10:01 Yes.

10:03 And yet, I like that. So what have you thought? I had a couple, but I'm curious to what you found.

10:12 Nuance. That's what I found. If you can get to a place where people are for station forces, the word to speak about a very large and we'll call it radioactive issue. With Nuance. You usually come to some agreement that human beings are important right there where that you don't, that was also like it's interesting to think about for an estate like the one we live in which is

10:47 Extremely.

10:49 Christian, We Believe quite a bit in and going to church.

10:57 And if you have a discussion about an issue, like abortion people are turned off until you get them into a situation where they can talk about it, right, like human beings as opposed to like policy. And that's what I thought about many of the issues that we disagree on. And then there's a way in which you read us the way and what you consume news, but I'm a journalist. I believe in it, right? I'm leaving the news. I also believe that we

11:25 Get the news, we deserve the same goes for politicians. I think so. I tend to think so. And yet that can be tremendously, discouraging for a person like me. And I suspect a person like you, and yet we still have to continue to try. Try. Try, try. Try. I want to share something. I've been reading this week and I came across a lady in a Tik-Tok video that said, people who are pro-life aren't don't carry that to The Logical extreme. If you're if you're saying that baby's alive from the conception that the person you can take out the insurance on time, you can have it taxes, apply to them. They're US citizen. You can't Deport their mother because she's carrying a US citizen. I never thought about some of those things before, they look at the person to person.

12:18 Life Starts, then not at Birth, but we don't issue life. Certificate, Swedish your birth certificate.

12:24 And so it made me think a little bit that the far-right. I'm not sure. They thought all that true.

12:33 I'm interested in something. I think you just glossed over David you on tiktok. I'm not worried about this discussion.

12:46 Got you, cuz that that's interesting. And also that a transcript of Tik-Tok made it to you. So you say feed is that like Facebook or is that I try to get news from as many places as I can. No one no one source is going to get it. Perfect.

13:15 Nobody using these social publishing platforms and interesting, especially to me because I'm on all of them as a necessity mostly, right.

13:27 There is something to be said about what news gets served to you, but how you react to it? I'm always interested in taking hold themselves. Again, people are much less likely to want to pigeon-holed themselves. Right? Right. A lot of time on Twitter post to Facebook or Instagram or Tik-Tok and the way in which we choose the social platforms and how we can send me things that are recommended to us. I find interesting is much different, then picking up the newspaper. In a different way. Not so much too.

14:19 Make us react.

14:31 That way, I don't have to say that if the media is not saying something they like, but obviously they think the media is being manipulative and, you know, time it's been a bit of a left-leaning but there's a reason for that, you know.

14:49 We come from a lot of a lot of problems.

14:52 What to get all to get back to what you referenced earlier with fairness. Right? Do you think you think the news is fair know? I meet you at the box scores. They probably got that right, you know.

15:08 But I used to ask people this question about if I'm done it all my life and that is, if you ever read a news article about something that you knew a lot about like you were personally, involved are professional involved and thought. All right, not once I've ever had somebody think that

15:25 They got it, right?

15:27 That makes me think, almost every time they get it wrong, cuz there's something left out. There's another side of the story, whatever it is.

15:37 I think we're having a discussion about what we think. The truth is I tend to believe.

15:48 People are searching for the truth, especially when they write something that they know will be shared publicly. I have made my living so many different ways. Specially in media, that everything, I write everything that I've said. I believe it's the truth and it is not necessarily what people want to hear and that is called outrage, right? When you telling somebody, they don't want to hear and they are y'all back at you. But friends, since you talked about the box scores, which is empirical, right? Like a scoreboard, what happened with what happened? It's just a representation of the result. Are you for 10?

16:36 If I told you that OU and OSU played a baseball game that ended 9 to 5. That sounds like the result. That's not what happened.

16:45 Does that make sense? That right? Right, right. Right, right. The truth is someone with sliding into home, any recalled safe. Somebody else saw it and thought they should have been called out.

17:02 Which side are you going to? Tell is what the journalist is there to do? And usually, usually I think we can get to what happened. The result is the Empire called that person safe. You think that person should have been called safe or out. That is where I think the new wants it, right? Cuz then rather than have a discussion about whether or not the umpires, blind or stupid, or whatever becomes a discussion about is the rule. Okay, you know, right. All right, do we have video replay? Probably not. But if we did, I got think that's when I seen you. Once you're willing to actually talk about

17:46 What you think the truth is and why somebody else might think that truth is different and that is news. I think that you got to be Discerning. It's what I mean is I value the radio station classic kosu is

18:05 I'm not an idiot. She was to believe that the people that are reporting, the news aren't idiots, what they're doing in Philly and was so excited, I'm using voice here with a OSU. I really like it. I listen to it every day and I'm with you. I think they'll always get it right? And that comes probably from hearing so many times of things not getting right or nuanced to a left or a right direction.

18:41 Well, they were pretty smart people.

18:45 And I just know you know when you can tell when somebody's the adjectives are using the nouns that describe a lot of times will tell you which way they're trying to leave. I feel like and so like anything, nothing's perfect. It takes an amalgamation of sources to come up with what what probably really happen.

19:06 Infinite, we talked about history things that I am.

19:11 Doing in the work writing. This book about the master is what happened. What is empirical the fact is? We still don't know if you lost a lot of information. I'm embarrassed to say until last year. I didn't even know what it was.

19:31 What we lost a lot of information. But we also to your point suppress, a lot of mass Graves down the street, from where I live. I swear up and down, were there all the time.

19:54 And we were told no people would never do that. No matter how bad it got the entire District in to kill, hundreds enough to throw them in a ditch together.

20:10 So, when you talk about the adjectives, that people use in the now is that people use

20:16 I don't know that.

20:19 I don't know that they even know, right? I would put myself into this category again. I'm right here. My parents are veterans. Parents go to church. They believe in it.

20:34 I kept reading.

20:36 You know, I stayed at my parents. Well, read, I, I just kept reading. I came up with something different and the idea that that something different can lead us to you wanting to hurt each other.

20:48 Is where I have a problem. What is it that we are doing that. Leads us to want to hurt each other, both verbally, and physically. We think I'm a tenth of the population but 40% of gun, violence happens here. I mean, it's crazy. I am curious all, I don't want to interrupt what you were saying.

21:13 Some of the bottles we have not politically. What are your thoughts? Can we fix it? And you think it's fixable?

21:20 The toxicity.

21:28 I have to say yes, I do too because the otherwise get turnt all down. I just don't see it carried down to what what? Right, right, right, but that doesn't mean, there aren't some foundations. We need to change, it might be things like term limits.

21:46 Things like ranked voting things like, gerrymandering money. If I lose a number of things that are real basis, I think would fix it would change things, but we need the majority, don't want to change you. That's that's what one of the reasons that I'm here. I'm not in the majority, and I don't mean that politically. I just mean. 7% of the country, looks like me, right? Identify as male, that by definition. Doesn't matter what I think in as far as changing policy.

22:20 I also have to believe that it gets better because if it can't, we're all doomed. And are you familiar with Frank Herbert and dune really back in high school?

22:37 I always took that novel as a warning and I've learned here recently that people have taken it as a Manifesto.

22:48 Killing billions 60 billion. If I remember Garson trillion, give me if I remember correct seen as some sort of christ-like figure meant to bring order to the world or can you leave your pop culture references? This will probably get better when the movie comes out. But Daniels wanted to give her a happy Universe because you thought that the people that make up the place where the reason that it was going to die and we got a large country, got a lot of people here. We're going to have a lot more people here.

23:22 I have to believe it. It's not even that we're smart enough that we have the will to want to do this and we think he is a German producer or writer, but his quote, his take on where we are is America's just now waking up the idea that we could finish, Ali have a third of the country kill another third while the last third watches.

23:52 I think that's a little simple, but I see the thought the building materials industry. We sell roofing shingles. I'm around. People that look like me all the time and I work with them and buy a larger great people, but the the entrenchment is just daunting.

24:22 I would I would I run into that. I'm always.

24:26 Not Ford.

24:28 But I also recognize more now than ever. That introspection is not easy and to find out that what you have based your life on, right? That's really the right thing to do.

24:44 Is unmooring and debilitating.

24:52 Yes. Yeah. Yeah, you're everything. You thought was real looking statues in the south things like that means, crazy. So you fight it. Right? Right, right. Nobody wants to feel like there been a dummy, either whole time.

25:09 Or misinformed. Right, Right. Alright, who is been the most influential person in your life? What do they teach you? My bad, you know formative years. I miss him when he's gone, but he told me a lot. Some of it, not maybe things. I wanted to learn now that I'm older. I mean he was a southern guy and brought up that way and did a racist and my grandfather the same way. And so I grill kind of thinking that was okay and that jokes and stuff like that. The one tied up a book, the room with you when I got out the real world and started to see things differently. I started to feel differently about it, but it was definitely him.

25:54 How about you?

25:56 I will answer your question. I just I wanted I was interested in a bit there.

26:02 You said a bit of a racist? What do I mean?

26:13 No, it's, it's important to me because the degrees I think, or what we're actually talking about night. That's why I asked. I, I've never met anybody that described. Anybody. They know is a full-on racist, except to say that person is weird. Like, that's, that's why I asked what it, what is, what constitutes racism today. As some people see it. That's, that's an interesting question for me. And I apologize. Pizza intrusive. Not at all. I saw something the other day I saved on my phone when I call institutional racism, and it is just, it was the right to be 20 things on it. And everything's like black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth, like people are five times less likely to have adequate Healthcare. My girls were four times more likely to be suspended from school for the same infraction and you can't talk all that stuff up just to statistical and I'm

27:15 And they don't lie some more cuz you don't see what people like, you guys are facing a little daunting.

27:26 You're the one that always gets me as mass incarceration. That, oh my God.

27:32 I think of I think of the players that I cover in college and high school and did I say that out loud all the time and

27:42 The idea that they ever wanted three chance of,

27:46 Going to prison still bothers me specially as I believe in abolishing prisons, but

27:54 Yeah, that it's not as if we are the majority that is the other thing that I continue to harp on it is.

28:01 It's a very small group of people who make up the majority of the people being punished ingredients. Stand that.

28:11 Being a survivalist. That's that's what it is. And I get that the question about the most influential person in my life. So my grand mommy, my grandma passed away 3 years ago.

28:27 But she is cute. She is.

28:32 That angel is my grandmother never had a bad word for anyone and yet was bowled. Ronnie sued, the state of Mississippi for voting rights reapportionment. Yeah, and she 101.

28:49 But the thing that I always follow up with is,

28:53 The next fifty years of her life.

28:57 We're so hard.

29:00 She was blackballed in her own Community. Getting back to this idea of minority, right? Even if he had his Burg Mississippi black folks are minority and they are forced to patronize each other. And when they are forced to patronize a white establishment there, usually

29:20 Treat it, like what we might call second-class Citizens to use the PC term but less your dad. And as she was challenging, the state of, Mississippi.

29:32 Her friends, her peers were being told. If you throw in with that lady, you will not be able to come here after you.

29:42 And you can do that quietly. You don't have to be loud about that. Have a German Shepherd that is chasing someone.

29:51 Executing in lynching folks that are trying to register. I left the boat in Philadelphia, Mississippi. You can simply just be trying to make sure that your vote matters as much as anybody else's. Right app forever. Hold on to that because

30:08 She's one of those bright and because of she wanted what was right and wanted to

30:14 Change things that we talked about today.

30:17 Mini.

30:19 Didn't enjoy that because it was playing with hierarchy playing with the status quo.

30:28 Always bothered me because it also reinforces.

30:33 I don't know that a lot of people want.

30:36 Equality.

30:38 Because that means that you would have to give something up.

30:42 For the world, to be the kind of place that you or I would like it to be.

30:47 Means that we're going to be dealing with doing a lot less and black folks as a tradition have been doing more with less forever. So it doesn't bother me as much but it seems to bother a bunch of other people who might think we're come to know. Hey you are where you are because you had

31:07 Institutional wealth, right? You had generational wealth in a place like Tulsa where houses are burned down that goes away or we had that 90. What if my parents were descended from landowners as opposed to descended from slaves, right? How much does that change the landscape of the United States? Their opportunities change increase.

31:37 There's a ton of things that happened.

31:41 Yeah.

31:43 Yeah.

31:44 When my grandmother.

31:48 Also continued to be about the work.

31:52 And as I got to know, just how deep in the Civil Rights Movement she was I also got to know the pain that she's not hurt.

32:01 I don't know that there are a whole bunch of people that had that backbone. They think they have that worries me. What? So your 34. Did you, did you get to know your life is a child? A big fart.

32:20 My grandma me.

32:22 Would buy my Easter Sunday clothes out of JCPenney catalog and I always wondered about this. And then I learned, you know, black folk did not always have an opportunity to go into.

32:39 Suit store, tailor shops to buy their clothes. Might not have a robot black community. Like the one Greenwood was. And you also did not want to be treated as if you want. Money. Did not matter with your patronage, did not matter, right? Folks, would order a catalog. I didn't know that.

33:02 And all sorts of little things like that. I think inside of communities that make more sense when they are explained to be pragmatic decisions, as opposed to.

33:12 Emilio rituals.

33:20 I just want to share this out. I worked. When I lived in Arkansas. I work at a lumber yard with the older fellow. His name is David Whyte, and he was a very skinny black man, and he died about two weeks before. He's about to retire, which was top, we like fish and we talked about fishing a lot. He was just the the most genuine guy and so me. And another guy went to his funeral out in Helena, Arkansas and it was what I would have thought at the time that your national black funeral and we would only white people there and then they made us feel so welcome. And it was a real chance to understand, is his brother gave a eulogy and said there's a big guy said, me. And David, we grew up chopping cotton. And you had to chop a hundred pounds a day, you get a whippin and by going to David, what is it every day? And I just couldn't it?

34:12 And it is the first time to really give me a window. I guess and I hope I'm not being.

34:19 Wrong offensive in some way. I just I felt privileged to be a part of that. I guess is what I was, what I was trying to say. I don't take it as a defensive or stories are stories. Right? Right. With you. I think speaks highly of you. I always, I got my family is from the south. My father was still

34:49 Picking peas and cotton, as a child in Campbellton, Florida. His father was a sharecropper.

34:56 Napoli soon as my father learned that there was a military to join at 18, get all these things. But my mother also integrated an elementary school that was called. Jefferson Davis, Elementary School, and I went to that preschool fry named after the Confederate president within my community or my family cuz it's just what you do, but when you explain those things to people that never knew, never thought to know.

35:41 It's a little jarring and this is

35:44 This is, I think one of the issues.

35:48 With getting to a place of equality. And one reason that I wanted to do this.

35:55 It's very difficult.

35:58 To explain to someone who is white. Why you might fear the police, if you are black for instance.

36:06 They're getting a little easier to do but not without great cost right now.

36:13 Beliefs needed to execute. A no-knock warrant, whenever that is murder, a black man on the street. By strangulation be very, very public displays of lynching, were what it had taken. When those are, the majority of the ways in which we feel threatened. I feel threatened by a female betta. Lemme just Coast Along 2.

36:43 Let you investigate their trauma, right? That's one reason. I wanted to write the book is that that that is a great place books or a great place to learn. Someone's lived experience. Tell me a little about the book. I want to know some more.

37:00 Oh, man, so I decided I wanted to write this book.

37:06 In large part because there were so many people who just came out of the woodwork to say that they had never heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre until a few years ago usually because they watched an HBO television show based on a comic book bright because many of those folks.

37:25 Live in my community there from Tulsa.

37:28 And I found it unconscionable. I can you not know that this is our history? And how can you not know that this is your history that this is your Birthright? This is your heritage and I

37:42 Had to deal to do it in the skill, to do it.

37:46 So, I must do it that I wanted to see in the world.

37:50 And it's been very fulfilling to report. This book. Always had great respect for that sort of thing. And I'm not saying this to brag, but I the last 10 years, I've gotten more into the stand up comedy, and I'm trying to make a go of it. And so I know it's like to put yourself out there and if people look at your work and decide but the need to get it out, I really understand it when I'm trying to say nothing like telling a joke and nobody laughs.

38:32 Know that that is ungrateful to hear that. They're a lot of folks believe they can do it. And then they, they will try to stand on that stage in front of the microphone really inside the motion from people, which I think is

38:50 Yeah, I say this is a writer. It's walking out into the middle of traffic and pull your pants down and take a look at me. I have no clue what to see in here, but it ain't going through. Well, maybe but your there's a there's a shred of that, you're right, but I think it's what it feels to me about it. The most is it's all you. So when it works you get all the credit.

39:25 But when it done, there's nobody else to blame that on.

39:29 I think we got it this a little bit, but I want to ask it anyway.

39:34 Could you briefly describe in your own words? You are personal political values. I saw a question and I didn't want to waste a lot of time.

39:48 Fairness.

39:51 Fairness for all human beings.

39:54 And they had some basic rights.

39:58 I saw a good thing today by an ethicist 21. A million-dollar prize is giving it away. And the question he likes to ask is if you're walking and you see a child drowning in a shallow Pond, do you help?

40:14 And yes, everybody does, even though you're probably get money and your clothes will get dirty or you'll be late or whatever who doesn't say yesterday. And the point he was trying to make was sometimes you got to help other people. Even if it's a little bit inconvenient to you.

40:34 And I wish that was a wider lesson.

40:37 I would complicate that just a little bit, if I might.

40:43 If you saved a child that was drowning in the shallow Pond, we will call you here. Oh, that is an extremely socially acceptable behavior.

40:56 If we told you that that person drowning in that shallow Pond of water, a rapist is a murderer with his whole heart that you need to die.

41:10 Would you say that person? You're right? That's most definitely a complication. So

41:26 Is all life, sacred question. You're asking points towards a debate on the deck done with a little bit.

41:34 Similar Arguments for both sides of the older, I get the bigger problem I have with it. So I think you still save them.

41:43 I think you have to it's not my job to judge. I'm very big on that. It's not my job to judge.

41:52 I would say.

41:54 I'm sorry to interrupt. I feel bad. One thing that one thing that David was talking about, before you got here RJ, something that I'd like him to kind of help explain. So, I know his bio whenever he says he like has tentatively left more over the years. He actually identifies as a Libertarian. So, I was hoping he could kind of talk about how that look, what that actually means I guess for somebody who identifies as a Libertarian. Cuz I know I know that like a lot of Libertarians I've done with this project. They don't use the terms like liberal and conservative to describe their politics. Sorry. I thought that you should know that also.

42:37 Do you use the term libertarian? And the older I get the more I look into it. That platform has its faults too. But I appreciate is the one about and I think this is an area that liberals and conservatives actually agree on, get out of my life. Whether it's liberals for the bedroom or conservatives for their businesses. They both want the government out of the way.

43:06 And Libertarians are really big on that, but I think they fall short on some of the social stuff.

43:12 I haven't voted for a republican since Reagan. I think my biggest one of my biggest things is we should have another party. I voted for parole. I voted libertarian only because I think the two parties don't do anywhere near big enough job of representing everybody.

43:32 I don't want the government to stay out of my life because I believe with

43:39 Tanzanian, president Julius Caney area had once said, which is the government is supposed to make your life easier.

43:48 The government is there so that

43:51 You don't have to worry about what happens to your family. If you dies The Breadwinner, right? I also tend to think that

44:02 Folks that are liberal come from a place where they absolutely needed some help at some point in time, and maybe they all came from the government. Maybe it didn't.

44:13 But it's an interesting thought because we all think that we want people to stay out of our Lives. When really, we need each other to survive Our Lives. Wouldn't I wouldn't argue with you there. The social safety nets, important, the Breadwinners, a good example, you know, I should have then. Then people in poverty is a good example. It's not their fault.

44:39 Where you been, you know, this idea of staying out of the bedroom.

44:45 Find that to be fascinating because the government was not actually interested in our sex life until about 1965. Okay, that was actually the government. It was you and I going I don't like that. That person does that.

45:04 With a hurting you. Why do you care what to do on a factory, right?

45:20 Yeah, and I think that's the part of a Libertarian philosophy that I can see. But I'm also, as I continued my life experiences, a black person in the black man.

45:35 It does not make me feel good or proud to know that.

45:40 I don't achieve the things in my life without help, but at the same time.

45:45 I recognize I get to help other people, you know.

45:51 I believe that if you are one of these people that has had to have some help.

45:57 Then being a Libertarian doesn't fall for you.

46:01 Cuz like, you know, look, yeah, I would like to have done that on my own, but I can't just that simple. You know, I know, I know.

46:11 Good. Somebody said you, you can't pull yourself up by the bootstraps. If you don't have boots, I took a couple of tests on my beliefs in prep for today and I showed up Progressive every time not once did I wind up libertarian and so I wasn't real surprise. I mean, you know what, you know, so really it's more about just I just can't condone this consistent two party system that it's just a or b life's, not a derby.

46:42 Well, we can't.

46:44 Say, we can't.

46:47 That two party system. I don't think is the issue. I think it's that we are. Like, when that long ago, that being a republican meant something, totally different. Totally different. This state was founded. Like I want to think I love to tell people about Oklahoma's politically at the South because it had opportunity to be a free state like Kansas or slave state like Texas and it want to be like, Texas and that was law, that was first enacted in the sky was by democrats.

47:20 First law on ebooks is the state Senate. Bill one, which segregated streetcars my folks sit on that side. Had no idea. No one not taxes. Not land. Not anything important. Wow, from there, right? If I not to be, like, if we were making a state today, I would be very interested to see what the First Act of legislation would be. What would be at the top of everybody's agenda and one mind and Italy a past. That's a great question. I'm going to think on that. I didn't know that about Oklahoma. That's interesting.

48:05 People forget how young we are, how late to the game was statehood that we were, you know,

48:12 Especially being geographically in the middle. It's a little odd.

48:17 Yeah.

48:19 Being geographically in the middle and being late.

48:28 I agree. But then again you also have to think about it from the standpoint of. It was never supposed to be a state and then they wanted to put what they thought. It was refused indigenous people on the Wasteland and then if not because there was oil underneath the ground and then we got to move the indigenous people off the Wasteland. We got ordained in the state so we can take that Land from the hill, but we got a lot to be accountable for

49:05 Okay, so we apparently are running up on time. I see that I wanted about the 50 minutes.

49:12 I'll ask you first. And did you learn anything new today? I did a couple of things. I did about small things about the state of.

49:24 I should have rented out a couple of things, but that's his most definitely yet.

49:29 Yeah, me too. Me too. You can go away and come back. A different sense of where you came from.

49:40 Oh, totally. I was literally born Muskogee. I was a Merle Haggard song from day one.

49:47 Which is fun to tell people, but I was a child. I don't remember anything. So it is not the same as, you know, being gone for five years to give him back. But no idea. How about you RJ anyting learn. We make any progress.

50:04 Yeah.

50:07 The values of a Libertarian as they are parallel with the values of a Republican or Democrat as we see them today.

50:15 Okay. A little bit more like that. I think even Libertarians would like to admit, you might be right there.

50:23 Did anything surprise you?

50:28 I was cool. I would have guessed that but the microphone is a little giveaway. I like that. And look on the master is pretty cool. I'm excited for you about that. It's not just me passing by, but it's a story needs to be told.

50:47 I feel really bad that I was from this point area and didn't even know didn't couldn't hold what I meant. I would have missed it on Jeopardy. I would have answered that, right.

50:58 Do you know? Now? I know that's not nothing.

51:09 Did this last question? This is actually one night. When I I made it sound an original question. I know. But it's one that I think is kind of cool to hear the difference is what people want for our country. So glad you both could answer. That would be great for

51:28 Well, I hope one of days to come in our country, for our country, in the days to come.

51:43 I hope that we value our teachers more than we value, our politicians, and our athletes.

51:52 I like that. They teach you how to be a silver bullet. To get paid more than anybody. I'm I'm with you there.

52:01 As far as the days to come. I hope I hope buying can bend mansion.

52:08 That's what I hope right now in a few days. I need him to get off his butt. And do the right thing is the opportunities don't come around every day.

52:22 But that and more, this frankly, more of this, I think, would be productive. Okay, we have work to do.

52:34 Well, how was that for you? Both? You feeling? All right. Yeah, I appreciate you both that.