American Thought Leaders - How Utah Is Giving Up on Freedom and Embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Jason and Alexia Preston

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

"You may be surprised what's happening in your backyard if you start peeling back the layers."Alexia and Jason Preston are hosts of the Utah-based podcast, “We Are The People.” They’ve been exploring how institutions like the Chinese Communist Party, the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations have been influencing local politicians and policy for decades."It's really not to see what people want. It's how to get the programs they want passed through, so then they can bring it to legislators and say, ‘Well, 98 percent of the community wants walkable communities, so they want smart cities.’ So, they're shifting perspective in that way and shaping perspective," says Ms. Preston. "You're seeing programs roll out in a way that it is really testing the public to see just how much will be allowed to roll out in Utah.""We need to stop. We need to look at where we're heading as a nation, where we're heading as states," says Mr. Preston. "Is this technology that can be used for good or bad—is this going to lead our children towards a safer future? Or is this potentially going to lead them to a future like China?"Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

It is said that Utah is the birthplace of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Fourth Industrial Revolution was coined by Klaus Schwab. So you have this technocratic, authoritarian government stepping in with programs such as Smart Cities. Alexa and Jason Preston are hosts of the Utah-based podcast, We Are the People. They've been exploring how institutions like the Chinese Communist Party, the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations have been influencing local politicians and policy for decades.

You're seeing programs roll out, testing the public to see just how much will be allowed to roll out in Utah. We need to stop. We need to look at, is this technology that could be used for good or bad going to lead our children towards a safer future or a future like China. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek.

Alexia and Jason Preston, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. It's great to be here with you, Jan. It's very good to be here. Thank you. Well, I don't talk much on the show about Utah. And, you know, when you contacted me, I got very, very interested because, you know, you typically think of Utah as a very conservative state. You don't think of it as a place where there's a lot of experimentation with things like 15-minute cities or digital ID or other, let's say, modern innovations that comport with a more top-down vision for the world. So you guys have been in the thick of it looking at this. So why don't we start? Alexia, what's going on?

Utah is a very unique state because when we first came out there, and Jason's from Utah originally, I come from the East Coast, you would think that Utah is this conservative red state. But what we learned quickly is it's actually in a very interesting transition period. And there are a lot of these pilot programs going on there. What you're seeing there is a lot of these shadow governments in the form of regionalism, stepping in with programs such as Smart Cities. Many people say we elect Republicans, but we govern Democratic. And you're seeing programs roll out in a way that it is really testing the public to see

just how much will be allowed to roll out in Utah. So with that, you see the 15-minute Smart Cities. We've had confrontations with the governor where he's flat out denied that these are in existence. I don't know what you're talking about. There's no such thing as a smart city. So stop making up stuff to try to make me look bad. Meanwhile, he's hosting luncheons that are showcasing how we could be the first smart state.

And allow us to continue to lead the nation in technological advancements in smart cities and really there's no reason we can't be the first smart state as we use these partnerships. So it's an interesting contradiction because coming there and thinking that it's going to be conservatively governed and yet you see it more leaning to a much more progressive base. Well, but maybe this is just a kind of a great interest in technology.

Because I know a lot of the people that are interested in doing things this way, they're not thinking of it from the perspective of we want to impose authoritarian control or something. They're just thinking, hey, look, there's this great new technology. Why don't we use this to make people's lives better? You're probably right. I think we probably have a lot of legislators who are just thinking they're doing what's in the best interest of the state. You know, when Klaus Schwab talks

about the fourth industrial revolution, I think if you don't understand who Klaus Schwab is, you don't understand what World Economic Forum is, what their objectives are, and you just hear fourth industrial revolution is about introducing more technology, I'm sure it can seem innocent too much of that power in the hands of the wrong people can be dangerous or or if things go south for example what happens the next crisis in the hands of the wrong person and to me that's where my concern is. It's like, hey, you know, we're really moving very quickly down this road. And I don't think any of the public's having any

conversation about or even is aware of what's happening. And to me, that's the concern is, shouldn't we have some public conversation about what's happening here? Well, you know, and of course, Utah is a very Mormon state. Of course Mormons put a very high value on autonomy, right? I mean this is why they're in Utah in the first place. So what you're describing doesn't seem to comport. Yeah, that's interesting because I do legislative research and I work all around the country and when we moved to Utah in 2017, I was excited because part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, their doctrine is actually that the Constitution is literally inspired by God, that God

directed the founding fathers in creating that. And so coming from Florida, where you saw Florida standing up against the federal government and really pushing back. We're like, wow, we're going to Utah. And it's going to be like, let's go. And that's why I think we were so shocked at once. Because I think when we got to Utah, we were really expecting that. And then all of a sudden to see how soft they were on immigration and how our elections were ranked so poorly and just all these little issues we started to see. It was like the more we got involved, the more we got ingrained in Utah. our elections were ranked so poorly and just all these little issues we started to see.

It was like the more we got involved, the more we got ingrained in Utah. It was like we went from very naive thinking that everything was like this was the great patriotic state to realizing that we're setting ourselves up for, I think, possibly to lead the nation in the wrong direction. But it hasn't always been like that. If you go back to the 70s, where it was Ezra Tess Benson and people, that it was not just church leadership at all, political leadership, exactly. So I think there has been a gradual shift over time. And it's been some of the programs that are in our state,

like think tanks like Envision Utah, which have used religion to kind of shape the thinking and the mind frame of the state and subvert the state with some of these programs. Well, so let's talk about that a little bit. I mean, I was looking at some of the literature, Envision Utah itself has put up on its website, you directed me to that. It's very interesting. They're speaking very transparently about using the existing way of thinking of people to introduce particular policy which they're interested in, to making it conform to fit into the viewpoint. And they're actively doing that. It was really great because we've

had James Lindsay out recently and Trevor Loudon, and they really started digging into everything going on. And it's fascinating, James Lindsay is like, this state has been, this is one of the best examples of subversion, subverting people's values. When you look at where this state was so strong for property rights, so strong for the Constitution and constitutional principles, this is the last state you would see pushing regional governments. This is the last state you would see pushing, you know, regional governments. This is the last place you'd see them pushing special districts. This is the last place you'd see pushing digital ID and mail-in voting and ranked choice voting and all these progressive things. And I think what Alexia and James Lindsay are really getting to is you even see Envision Utah bragging about how they've subverted Utah and they even go into studies and by the amount of money and marketing they've put into understanding people's

values focus groups and then saying okay here's their values so when we say this this is I mean it is all broken down because they've done such a great job that they're literally articles explaining how they've what they've done with the great job that there are literally articles explaining what they've done with what they call the Utah model. They're now trying to use that as how to teach other governments how to do that in other areas. So explain that to me. And I want to touch on a few of these things. For example, regional governance, that actually doesn't sound like a bad thing. That sounds like something you might want, actually. But you made it sound like it's something you don't want. I'm

gonna get you to explain that to me a bit more. But what is this Utah model? What does that mean? Well, the Utah way is, and of course this is something they've discovered with focus groups and studies, and they meaning the Envision Utah process, is how they focus group and plan what's important to Utah, so how they can shift messaging plan what's important to Utah so how they can shift messaging, what's important and what's gonna stick. And essentially it's really not to see what people want, it's how to get the programs they want passed through so then they can bring it to legislators

and say well 98% of the community wants walkable communities so they want smart cities. So they're shifting perspective in that way and shaping perspective. And this is something that has been creeping in through for over the last several decades. So we're seeing that through Envision Utah and through other groups that are using public opinion, directing public opinion to create policy. I think a great example is John Christ came out to Utah to do a comedy show in June. He posted on his story on Instagram and we reposted it. But he said, he says, oh, my gosh, like what's happened to Utah? Is any is any state flow, you know, given up and flown the white flag so fast?

He says this state used to stand up, you know, used to be so conservative. And he's like, now there's there's a gay flag on every corner. It's he says he's just like he's, they just threw their hands up and gave up. And you have a lot of very good people with very good values. But the problem is certain values have been elevated and pushed through the media, through leadership as higher values than others. In other words, the values of tolerance, belonging, acceptance, love. While values of truth and protecting our children are not talked about. The values of liberty and freedom, property rights, those values we're not going to talk about. What we're going to do is elevate these principles. And so now what happens, you have a lot of these just great people thinking

we want people when they come to the state to feel loved, welcome, and that this is a safe place for them. And that's a good thing. It is a good thing to be loving and tolerant. But the problem is what's behind that agenda. That flag is not about kindness and love. There's a much darker side of it. And that's the challenge is that they're not seeing that. And you ask about regionalism and why that is a bad thing, because it does sound like a good thing. But when you think of it through the lens of shadow governments and pushing boundaries and not pushing boundaries and in the progressive way, but literally overstepping boundaries and creating these new forms of governments, perfect example would be what they're trying to create

with the first model of the smart city with the point which is right on the border of saw lake and utah counties what they will have in terms of governance there is not necessarily going to be a mayor or a city council what it's going to head into is a mix of these unelected uh shadow governments that are going to be the authorities i'm just going to jump in for a second when you say shadow government that's not necessarily an obvious not everyone will understand what you mean by that. So we have something that, and we have actually hundreds of them. One of the most well-known are the League of Cities and Towns, the Wasatch Regional Council. And they're unelected officials, but they're the ones behind. And we've even done shows with Trent Staggs, and he's the mayor of

Riverton that's actually running against or running for Mitt Romney's seat now that he's resigned. And he's acknowledged that these are the ones that are creating policy, creating legislature behind our elected officials. How did they get into a position of power in the first place, I guess, if they're unelected? Who appointed them? It's, I think one of the ways to look at it is like a special district. Basically, it's a corporation that has bought this, we'll talk about the Point, which formerly was a prison at the Point of the Mountain in Utah. And you've got this public-corporate, private-public partnership. And they're building this, but the problem is it's

not part of any existing city. But you have on this, on the board, you have former mayors, usually former politicians that sit on this board, you have former mayors, usually former politicians that sit on this board, and high profile people who are, again, it's these, and that's what she refers to as shadow government, is they're not actually elected government, but they're basically making these decisions of, here's what we're going to do with this land, and here's how we're going to develop it, and we're going to have everything within walking distance, and we're going to have, you know, but it's also coordinated with the state. But it's this new form of government that is completely unconstitutional.

I mean, I think you could look something similar what they did in Disney, right, in Orlando with some of the property that Disney had where he wouldn't have the, not really a Disney that owned it. And I think they're saying, they're starting to realize that's maybe a bad idea. But in Utah, that's what we're starting to push forward is more of those type of governments. So it's basically, I mean, a completely privatized municipality that has some government influence? Yeah, so it has a board. So it's almost more like a corporation has a board. And I think the way they're talking about doing it is the people who live there would be able to elect initially people on that board. So it's just very, it blurs the lines of the constitutional government

our founding fathers gave us. And to me, that's a huge red flag, especially when you're going to also start putting in the elements of a smart city, more of the surveillance, more of the digital ID. That's, to me, the recipe for disaster. That's not, I don't think, the type of country our founding fathers intended us to be living in. So, I mean, Klaus Schwab, you know, World Economic Forum, the UN, they're very big on these regional governments. And of course, what is the World Economic Forum? It's basically,

it is the same thing. It is unelected leaders creating a self-proclaimed government. And then you add in the influence of technology and the emergence of technology. I mean, it is said that Utah is the birthplace of the fourth industrial revolution. So you have this technocratic, authoritarian government that's coming in and putting through legislation and policy. Then that's what they're calling it. There's an article, and there's actually been a few articles- In Deseret News. In Deseret News, yeah, about Utah being the birthplace of the fourth industrial revolution.

And interestingly enough, the author of that article is actually a board member of Envision Utah. Along with the media outlets, the major media outlets being on the board of Envision Utah. And that's, I think, one of our concerns with Envision Utah is you have several governors on that board. You have the media on that board. You have a lot of very high, I mean, some of the biggest business players in the state on that board. You have church leadership on that board. All of these new technologies, and I want to kind of, I want to break down a little bit.

I want to understand how far this development of a smart city or 15-minute city has gone. You know, is it, is that simply just an idea? Is it just replanning that's been done? Or, you know, is construction Or has construction begun? I would love to know more details about that. People will say these are technologies that can be used for good, which indeed they can. And probably that's what you made the point earlier that in the wrong hands, and that's always in the end, when? When you look at the American

Constitution, the idea was that things have to be precisely set up because they will get into the wrong hand. You just have to take it for granted that that will happen. And how do you set up a system that won't let things go very dark very fast when that happens? Yeah. I think the thing that concerns me is you look where we're heading as a world. You look what's going on in China with their social credit system. You look what happened during COVID and it was shocking to see how quickly we gave up our freedoms and our rights and how aggressively those were trampled on. There is this growing swell that people are not feeling very trusting of the people in power right now.

I imagine Rome, before it collapsed, when all that power was being accumulated at the hands of those people, I imagine it attracted probably some of the worst at the very end because there was less controls. People sense that. People are frustrated with where we are politically as a country. We feel like we've lost control of D.C. I mean, when you've got the FBI saying that mothers standing up at school board meetings are domestic terrorists, it's frightening when you have a president who stands up with two Marines and is back behind him and basically saying that anyone who really got behind our last president

is a threat to this country. A lot of red flags about where we are heading as a country. It is clear we are putting our children in a very dangerous situation. I think it would be irresponsible not to say we need to stop. We need to look at where we're heading as a nation, where we're heading as states. And is this technology that could be used for good or bad, is this going to lead our children towards a safer future? Or is this potentially going to lead them to a future like China? And, you know, the World Economic Forum, the UN, and China, they are just arms of the same octopus.

They are not competing. They have the same end goals. Again, the fourth industrial revolution was coined by Klaus Schwab. That should send off concerns to people when we've got in our own backyard unelected leaders saying that, hey, Utah should be the birthplace of this. As I understand it,

there is also kind of a lot of interest in the Chinese Communist Party models, I guess, or at least, you know, relationships in Utah. Maybe you can tell me a bit about that. Yeah, there was actually a great article that came out from the Associated Press. It's hard to get actual truthful reporting because of the media reporters and publications sitting on Envision Utah. But Associated Press actually came in and took a deep dive and looked at about 25 of our legislators, about 25 percent of our legislators that have known Chinese ties.

They've tried to either pass CCP-friendly legislation, and there are personal business trips that these legislators are taking to China that can go completely unaccounted for. There's no need for reporting to it. In Utah. In Utah. So this opens up the door to all types of backdoor deals and discussions that is really not in the best interest of the state. Well, so one thing that I'm aware of is that a lot of churches, for example, have ministries

in China. From what I understand, that's something the CCP uses that basically against them. You know, it's interesting is there's a gentleman in Utah, I think it's a Tawon Lee, I believe. In fact, the Associated Press, the FBI kind of spotlighted him as a national security threat, clear ties to the CCP. He came to Utah, I think, in 89 and was baptized a year or two later. And he's one of these individuals, there's been several of them that have been very engaged in working with our legislators. And one of the examples that blew me away is there was a legislator back in 2021, I believe 2020 or 2021, who wanted to basically condemn what China was doing with the Uyghurs.

Right, the resolution. Yes. Right. Because we know what's happening there. I mean, that's one of the biggest human rights abuse issues in the world right now, what's happening to Uyghurs. So I thought that's a great thing for one of our legislators to do. And my hat's off to him. hasty in condemning China. You should think of this in the same light as the way members who are not a part of your church condemn Joseph Smith, the original prophet of your church. So he used that and then he says, pray to God and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit before you make this decision. Pray to God and ask the Holy Spirit if condemning China for what

they're doing to the Uyghurs is right. Well, guess what? The resolution failed. The next year, someone else tried to make a resolution, a similar resolution, and it went nowhere. So, I mean, yes, so they do use even religion. And again, was this legislator a bad guy? No, I mean, he was trying to do the right thing. But, you know, there's these China-Utah relationships that the Associated Press talked about. So, like Alexia said, I mean, they said there's no

state they have a greater influence on than Utah, where they can push legislation forward or stop legislation they don't like, and that was an example there. It's a very telling example because even at the federal level, you know, in the building behind us, you know, very pointed resolutions, and these of course don't have the force of law, have been passed about forced organ harvesting against the Falun Gong practitioners or the genocide. I mean, but it's impossible to pass that in a state legislation. That is very telling. And we even see things in the school system where they're encouraged to write letters to

Xi Jinping and encouraged to get the messages back and praise him for being just like a cool grandfather. So you see how the narrative and perspective shift is in Utah, even in our schools, in our education system, not just in the legislature. Run this by me again. Yeah, it was basically one of our schools sent some letters, I think it was Happy New Year's letters

to China, to Xi Jinping. Well, he sent a letter back to this school, and we had two state senators, one from the Senate floor, talk about how exciting it is to be acknowledged by Xi Jinping, another one on his conservative radio show, gushing about how Xi Jinping is noticing these Utah students. Other people commented saying this is basically exactly what China wants, is to be able to use this type of PR to show, you know, that, to their own people to show what a great, what great leadership they have. And this is one of the most brutal dictators they've had in decades.

And I might add, you know, with dissidents that I've spoken with and a number of dissidents I've spoken with, it's precisely that kind of, I'll call it propaganda, which is used basically to demoralize the dissidents. Basically I know a number of people who had this type of stuff played for them, like video recordings saying, look, you think the Americans are going to help you? No, the Americans are on our side. We had one representative after being taken to China, spending time with, I think, the Ministry of, spending some time, I forget what department,

but spending time in China, comes back and then he puts together a resolution expressing solidarity for the CCP after COVID was released. And meanwhile, something similarly happened in Wisconsin and it got shut down as propaganda. They tried to pass something in Wisconsin and the Senate president blasted it as a piece of propaganda. So in Utah, we're pushing this stuff out. Wisconsin sees this stuff as propaganda. So I've been concerned about China for a long time. I mean, we have been feeding this wolf that is climbing the hill to take us down. The strength that wolf gets comes from us feeding it through trade deals. Well, when Trump gets in,

one of the things I was most thankful for is he starts turning off the money train to the Communist Party. Well, what do our reps do? They reach out to the Chinese press. Utah is not like America. Utah has a long friendship with China. Why are we doing this? They have animosity towards us and they are looking to take this country down. Why are we fueling it? Let's talk about these. We mentioned a few different elements here. Okay, so I want to hear more about this specific city that you're mentioning, the specific 15 minute city that is in development. And also, you know, I understand there's a pilot project around digital ID as we speak.

Legislators actually shut down the bill that would put forward digital IDs. So we would give credit to them. Yeah. And interesting how it happened too is when they tried to pass, I think it was a year or two ago. They've tried it a few times, but then it just got shut down every time. But we had a ton of grassroots conservatives show up and say, no way. I mean, we filled up and to our legislators credit, they says,

all right, we're not passing digital ID. Right. And then just earlier this year, I believe it was in April, they came through as a pilot program. And what they do in the state typically is they just keep pushing out the sunset date on these pilot programs until they just come to be. So they worked around the legislators to put it forth and and you can't have some of these smart cities the infrastructure without having digital ID. So explain to me how this works the the legislature said no multiple times but there's a pilot program as I understand so how does that work? The governor just signs it into law basically backdoor around the legislators so you have people are involved even from the county commission level.

So it's confusing to us as well how things like this that should follow a proper path, how it gets backdoored into law, essentially. But that's just one of the examples. Other legislation that's passed is they've had things like license plate scanners, even just putting up new streetlights lights things that seem pretty benign but things that you need to create the infrastructure of a 15-minute or smart city so smaller things like that but they all equate to this surveillance state that you'll need in order to govern in a 15-minute city if you go to utah.gov they have the citizen portal the the backgrounder i guess for your digital id and you can actually see in there it says personality type where it where you where

it has each individuals their personality for like actual individual people yes yes uh their interests their likes um they create an actual avatar for each individual, and they have the infrastructure there that they're creating in this Internet of Things. We know social media companies, you know, for anyone that's seen the film The Social Dilemma, we know they create these virtual avatars that know more, you know, colloquially saying they know more about us than we know about ourselves, right? So you're saying this is being, the same sort of thing as being built on the government website with respect to personality interests and of course the corollary is you know how you can be

influenced. I don't want them having my girls interests, their personality to dial like why does the government need to know that about my daughters? Why do they need to know about my wife? Why do they need to know that about me? To do they need to know about my wife why do they need to know that about me to me that's an absolute abuse of privacy like I want the government out of my life not knowing my personality tastes and my likes and what's my interests are in my habits so you know again you tie that to digital ID you tie that to digital currency this is Utah what are we doing like this is not Utah this is Utah. What are we doing? This is not Utah. This is not who we are. And I don't think most of the people in Utah would be okay with this, even with the focus groups out there, even with the rebranding. If people knew what was going on and knew outright what was happening,

people would stand up and say no. Where we've been focusing on our backyard, I think that is a message I think most of your listeners should be thinking about is what's happening in my backyard because we have control over that. And you may be surprised what's happening in your backyard if you start building back the layers. During COVID, one of the silver linings was that people got to see what was being taught to their kids through Zoom or whatnot, right? And were appalled and it activated them basically to say, oh, we don't want that. It's almost like they were forced to look. In this case, it may well be that there's very, very troubling things being basically sold in a very sort of pleasant guise, right? And it's very interesting. How did you guys get into this? Why don't you give me, tell me a little bit about yourselves.

So Jason's actually worked in politics for legislative research for some time now. And then in 2022, we just got fed up with seeing what was going on in the state, even before pulling back the layers and seeing some of these programs. But you moved to, in 2017, if I recall, you moved to Utah basically to try to be in a, what was the impetus? We moved for family, for family. It was like a family decision to move for our kids, just where we needed to be. This was when things were going bananas politically. And so obviously we were very attuned. By 2021, we realized a red wave was coming. You know, you look at the Tea Party

movement that happened when Obama was in office. That led to a Tea Party movement, a huge red wave that eventually led to Trump. And even before Trump, Obama's second term, there was a massive house cleaning, the House and the Senate. By 2021, we knew that there was gonna be a massive red wave, although it got a little crushed. So we started looking around in Utah, and we realized, you know what, this is, and I'd been so frustrated,

because it's like every time I would sit with a rep, it was always so frustrating when I'd ask him about the proper role of government and ask about the constitution because it's like almost every time I just it was always disappointing because they'd get up on stage and they talked about all the you know all the great they'd say everything right and then as soon as you get them one-on-one you ask them a few questions you realize there's no depth they don't understand the principles of liberty and it was just always this frustrating thing I'm like you know what? I'm not a politician.

I don't have a pedigree for being a politician, but I love the Constitution. I understand the principles of freedom, and I understand the proper role of government. So we felt very compelled to do it. And it was an incredible experience. You ran for Congress. I'll just spell it out. Yes, we ran for Congress. That's where we really fell in love with Utah to a whole new level because there are so many great people out there. I mean, you want

to talk about people, like I have done political, I've had political conversations with people all over the country. And you get down to Florida, you get down to Alabama and Texas, there are some just great, great like ride or die patriots. But I will tell you in Utah, because of that pedigree, because of that culture where the Constitution is inspired by God, it is literally in so many people's DNA that there is nothing more important than defending liberty. So you have some people there that literally would give everything for the cause of liberty. And we met a lot of those people and it was so inspiring. But in the contrast, you see what's happening in our state and it was so inspiring but in the contrast you see what's happening in

our state and it was just like what is going on here like it just didn't make sense because you have two extremes you have these just people who just love the constitution and liberty and the principles of of liberty and you have a government that absolutely was not reflecting it and the more we got involved the more it just became like what what is going on here in Utah? And that's where all of a sudden we realized over time that this state had been subverted to some degree. Well, and you started talking about this on your podcast, of course. So we took the congressional run with great grassroots support. It was a really encouraging thing to go through. And there was this resurgence of the grassroots that you haven't seen since probably Mike Lee's early campaign when he first

got into the Senate. So we took that momentum from the congressional run and we rolled that into a local radio show, which was great. And then from the local radio show, we decided that we needed the message to go out a little bit broader than just the great. And then from the local radio show, we decided that we needed the message to go out a little bit broader than just the Valley. And then that became the We Are the People program, which hopefully has been growing exponentially in the last year. Because I think the thing we realized is that,

look, we have an information problem. We have a lot of good people, and I'd say across the country, who just, who are blind because they don't know where to look. They don't understand the problem. So our we thought look for instead of running for office more important than running is help letting people see what's actually happening in our backyard and so that's where folks been and I'll tell you you know there are the thing about Utah there are so

many groups Utah Freedom Coalition defending Utah I mean we could go down the list of just incredible influencers and groups. And that's why to me, it's like, wow, Utah's really an interesting place because you have some of the greatest patriots and the greatest groups and organizations. And yet on the flip side, you have all this, the fourth birthplace of the fourth industrial revolution. So it's like ground zero, it feels like. I've really enjoyed learning about this because, you know, sometimes you you just simply there's so much to know out there.

What's nice about our program and the demographic that we mainly service or attract I should say it is actually the younger generation we have a lot of college-age and young adults that have been learning about local politics through our program. So that's been the really fulfilling part is actually learning that we're making a difference in our state but we're also engaging a new portion of the population that might have not been so politically motivated previously. Our biggest demographic is actually young men. It's actually shifting a little bit older lately, but we watch those numbers. It was 18 to 24. Now it's more 24 to 28. There's a shift that's happening organically anyways, right? I think a lot of these young

college kids are just, the garbage has been pushed so far down their throats that they're starting to push back. Okay. So as we finish up, I still want to talk about the point, which is this 15-minute city that's in development. What is the status of that? And also, let's talk a little bit about why this concept is so problematic, because it seems so efficient and helpful, at least in the messaging. Sure. Well, they've demolished the prison, so they are full steam ahead with planning.

They have monthly meetings. They are open to the public for input, although it's the way they speak about it. They, of course, try to show the positive spin of it. But what we like to highlight and what you've done so well before on your show is actually when these smart cities have rolled out mostly in the UK, you see what this looks like for residents of these cities. You know, it's very restrictive on when you can leave, if you can leave. It ties into your social credit score, like what we're seeing in China. So it becomes a very restrictive lifestyle where it's being sold as, well, everything is so convenient. It's 15 minutes away. So, you know, it's a walkable community.

So it's definitely marketed to the population to be something that is a positive. But when you actually pull back the layers, what you're going to see is this total surveillance state, which is tied to essentially your social credit score. Yeah. And I think initially it probably will not be that. I think initially it will be kind of this cool, like walkable city, minimal vehicles. But again, the question is with this framework, the next time there's a lockdown, what are they able to do with this? Everything becomes on a smart meters or smart this, smart this. Everything's controllable. And what happens when you get on the wrong side of that with the powers that be? Or when the next time there's a lockdown and you don't want to wear your mask, you don't want to obey the government. What happens? How easy would it

be to restrict or turn off your freedoms, your rights to leave that? The way those smart cities are set up, it is the perfect breeding ground for exactly what they've been doing in China. That's the thing is it doesn't take a lot of imagination when you look what is happening in China. When you jaywalk and the camera picks up your face or your gait, your social credit score goes down. And then your friends know your score. And if you hang out with somebody who their score is low and your score goes down, it becomes, it's just a, I don't want it.

I think the best way to look at it is technocratic governance versus constitutionality. Well said. And if we're living in a regime where we don't have that freedom that is granted to us in the Constitution, are we really even free? And this is a foundational question of our time. And Alexia and Jason Preston, such a pleasure to have had you on. Yeah, it was great to be here with you. We're very thankful to be here and love everything you guys are doing.

I mean, Epoch Times is, there is a huge need for real honest media and people are fed up with the garbage, all the mainstream garbage. So this is the only way to, this is the most important fight is information warfare and you guys are leading it. And there's so much to fit into just such a short period of time. We try to dive into a lot of these things in our program. So if anyone wants to learn more about smart cities or some of the legislation or Envision Utah, we do a four-part series on that.

They can come to our channel and check that out. You know, and I just say this too, something that's kind of cool is a lot of the research that's come to us is just regular people and i think that's the neat thing we live in a day where the average person can make a huge difference you know i mean who are we nobody you know we just got involved and just doing what we can where we're at and i think it's you know if to your listeners if they if they're frustrated or they want to get involved i mean they don't need to be elected in an office to make a difference in the country right now.

It's like, just dig in, make a difference, get involved because there's, anybody can make a difference right now. Yeah, and the local level is where to do it. That's what everybody's telling me. Again, such a pleasure to have had you on. Thank you, Jan. Thank you all for joining Alexia and Jason Preston

and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.