The David Knight Show - INTERVIEW TuttleTwins Creator Tells Us How to Effect Change at State Level

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Connor Boyack, creator of the popular TuttleTwins.com books, talks about the books and about making change at the local and state level. His organization, libertas.org, has been able to successfully change over 100 laws in his state to move in the direction of free markets and libertyFind out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @[e-mail] App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Money is only what YOU hold: Go to DavidKnight.gold for great deals on physical gold/silverFor 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to TrendsJournal.com and enter the code KNIGHTBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

Have you received a red light or speed camera violation in the mail? Vehicle owners can pay or dispute online. Learn more at toronto.ca.aps Dear Canadian exporters, What you do matters more than ever. And in the face of uncertain times, Export Development Canada has your back. Whether you're navigating currency fluctuations,

need additional working capital, or are mitigating supply chain risks, we can help you overcome the challenges. It's what we've been doing since 1944. Because the world needs more Canada. Together, let's give it to them. Visit edc.ca slash export for more. Hey parents, kids like us have a problem, and it's one that you can help solve. But most parents aren't even aware the problem exists. Here's the issue. Most schools today aren't teaching young kids some really important concepts, like how the economy works, or what our rights are, or the definition of true laws. Back before you were born, schools often taught the principles of a free society.

But not anymore. That's why our parents have us read The Tile Twins. These books teach children about economic and civic truths that we need to learn. And there's nothing else like them in the world. Each book covers a different topic, helping us learn how the world really works. For example, these books teach kids things like how the free market is the key to prosperity, the history of the money we use, what our rights are and why we should protect them, how kids can be entrepreneurs. I definitely want to be my own boss someday and these books will

help. Kids like us absolutely love these books, maybe because they don't treat us like little children. Instead they help us learn important ideas and develop critical thinking skills. Chances are your kids are missing out on learning these things, especially in a way that's fun and enjoyable for the whole family. And even better, when you buy this set, you also get the awesome activity workbooks for free! Now listen, there are a lot of crazy ideas out there

and you need to prepare your kids yeah if you want to raise a free thinker you're gonna need something that teaches about freedom so purchase your books now but be careful your kids will learn ideas that many adults don't even understand it makes for some really interesting dinner conversations. Those kids are cute, but I bet yours are cuter. And imagine how much they'll enjoy the books. So what are you waiting for? Click the link and grab your set. Joining us now is Connor Boyack, and I'm really excited to talk to him. I've had a of people ask me about tell me i should know who the tuttle twins are we don't have young kids or grandkids so

i didn't know it yet but a great series for homeschoolers and of course he's also involved with the libertas institute and they've done a lot at the state level in utah so i want to talk to him about that as well so homeschooling topics and he's got other books that he's written besides the children's books. So joining us now is Connor Boyack. Thank you for joining us, Connor. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you on. Those two kids that are there, it says in your bio that you got homeschooled two kids.

Were those your kids that are in that video? That's correct, yes. I thought so. They were very, very cute. Really enjoyed that. They're good, very cute. I really enjoyed that. They're good sales people. What's that? They're good at sales. They help promote all things.

Well, it's a good example of what you've been able to create with homeschooling. Tell us a little bit first about the Tuttle Twin books. So these are children's books that teach the ideas of human flourishing, what healthy societies look like. We're talking entrepreneurship, sound money, property rights, personal freedom, the dangers of socialism and central planning and so forth. And so these are story-based books that allow kids to access these often adult level complex ideas people often ask me what age they're for my go-to answer is our our children's series we have we have toddler books we have books for teens but we're best known for our our children's series so my answer to them is they're about for age five to ten and members of Congress so um that that's of the running gag. We sold over 5 million copies.

We have a cartoon now, all kinds of stuff. And it's heavily of interest with homeschoolers. I should also note, we have a huge contingent of our audience where their kids go to public school, private school, charter school. And for those families, the homeschool families are using it more as curriculum. Like, hey, we're going to learn American history, or we're going to learn economics. For the public schoolers, private schoolers, their parents are recognizing that their children are not getting these ideas in the school. And so it's a supplement. I might almost even say it's a counteragent, because they know that not only are the kids

not getting it in school, they're getting opposite type of ideas, victim mentality and entitlement mentality and so forth. So they're of broad appeal to families and really trying to fill this void that's been in the marketplace for resources that can help parents talk to their kids about real world ideas and, uh, and what that means for them. Yeah. And we were, uh, homeschooling our kids, you know, about 15 to 25 years ago, whatever. And, uh, yeah. And so we would go down and we would look at, uh, we'll go to a Barnes and Noble and take a look at what your first grader needs to know. Your second grader needs to know. And we would do a lot of counter-programming just like you talked about, like you talked about you know they say well this is what we're teaching the kids it's like they need to understand how the uh you know what this is we're not going to just ignore it we need to uh define this for them and counter it uh but i think that and then we also you know just kind

of kept an eye out for uh where they needed to be but i think that's a real important thing but i think the most important thing is to have a positive vision you know we don't want to just be negative but we do want to say now this is reality here and have have it in mind uh the other stuff that they're being taught uh it's it's great to see that there's this type of resource and you said um a cartoon is that what the tuttle twin show is a cartoon that's correct so we partnered with angel studios uh they're best known for doing the chosen or sound of freedom and so we partnered with them we already have a season and a half uh complete and out free to watch no cost no sign up you just go to angel studios on your favorite app uh platform your apple tv your roku your phone whatever and and it's funny these

cartoons the whole writing team it's me and a bunch of comedians and and so they come up with funny jokes and really make this an entertaining show for the whole family where we then kind of sprinkle in these ideas of freedom uh but just have a lot of fun so that's that's a blast and we hope that it just we turn it into the new Simpsons where there's like 30 seasons, but enriching content, not this dumbed down, stupid stuff, but like really informative, enriching content, but also super fun for the whole family. That's really good. Yeah. I was just saying, I noticed somebody say you can't win the culture wars if you don't have a culture. We have to produce content. And so that's, what's really

important with the Tuttle Twins, with your Tuttle Twins show and the rest of this stuff. We need to, we've lost this ability, again, to define what culture really should look like in a positive vision of politics, economics, and just what society looks like. That's really, really important. Let's talk a little bit about Libertas. Tell us what is going on with the think tank there. And you've had a lot of effects on laws. Your bio says that you've had about 100 laws that have been changed there in Utah. And I think that's important because of the focus on what is happening at the state level.

Because I think that federal government is gone. And I think we need to make changes at our state and local level. We saw this, especially in the last few years, the things that really mattered. We're having good local officials. They can make things much worse or much better throughout this lockdown and all the rest of this stuff. So tell us a little bit about what is going on at the state level. You know, I think it's a tragedy our uh civic system where everyone's attention is drawn

to the level of government that they can impact the least yes everyone is so focused on the federal issues national crises congressional stupidity and i'm not saying don't pay attention i'm not saying you need to completely shut it off but everyone's energy is so focused on talking about and complaining about what's happening at the national level where the average person has statistically zero influence yes the the contrast to that is when you focus on a state and local level you can have a disproportionately high impact I so I cut my teeth politically, uh, working on Mike Lee's campaign when he first ran for the U S Senate from Utah in 2009 and 10. So I was one of like five or six people on his early campaign. There were a dozen other candidates, you know,

we got Mike through the primary and he got elected and, and we remain good friends and talked often, but here's a guy who has wanted to go support the constitution and he got elected and and we remain good friends and talked often but here's a guy who has wanted to go support the constitution and limited government and and restrain you know government largesse and and i love mike but he and everyone who believes like him have been woefully unsuccessful because you know the system is stacked against you meanwhile so you know mike's up in congress doing this thing meanwhile Meanwhile, I work here in the state capital level. And as you pointed out, we've changed in the same amount of time, less time than Mike Lee has been in office, not to pick on him, but just to use that story as an example. We've

changed like over a hundred laws. We've got a ton of amazing legal reforms passed to protect people's freedoms and so forth. And it's not that hard. I'm not an attorney by training. I'm not an economist. I used to build websites for a living. And I launched this nonprofit and kind of pivoted and kind of changed my career trajectory. But I have no formal training in this. If I can do it, anybody else can do it. And it's amazing. Think of your city council. you go to city council meetings who's there maybe a couple boy scouts maybe the miss you know whatever pageant uh queen maybe a few developers trying to get you know uh zoning approvals and stuff and nobody else more importantly there's no journalists anymore because the whole newspaper model has been blown up and these guys can't afford to have people sitting in city council meetings to play the watchdog role, which means that no one's paying attention. These people are getting away

with a lot. And if you just show up, if you just ask questions, if you just show them that you're watching, you can have a big impact. And so I spend a lot of my time inviting people, pleading with people, you know, turn down the national news, pay attention a lot less it's it's i think really designed just to get this class warfare constant you know battle and distraction going on uh i'll i'll recommend a resource to your audience so you mentioned libertus institute which is our organization in utah we we work across the country on a lot of stuff but primarily in utah there's a group in i believe every single state from a conservative libertarian perspective working on state-level policy. Here's where your viewers can find out about that. The organization I'll point you to is called State Policy Network.

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Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling And their website, very simply, is spn.org, State Policy Network. And they've got a map there, there directory that you can click on find your map find the group working in your state subscribe to their newsletter their email follow them on social media go to their events you know donate and support them these are the people working in the trenches in your state and and it's very easy for people to go get involved and be a part of it that's so important and that is really good. The state policy network, SPN.org. Now you pronounce it differently than I thought. I thought it would be Libertas. You pronounce it Libertas or. So, uh, when I started this organization, I went to a linguist and I said, how would, how would the Romans have pronounced it's Latin. It's a dead language.

You said, well, there's two schools of thought. There's the Germanic like Libertas, which to be fair is what 95% of Americans pronounce it as. And then there's the, think of like the Italian, the romantic language is Libertas. And I was like, oh, that sounds sexy. I want to do that. So we say Libertas, and everyone else says Libertas. But I'm a libertarian, so I don't care how you pronounce it. You do however you want.

That's great. So tell us, you know, when you go to the state level, and I know from the standpoint of what I've seen when we were homeschooling our kids, we were in North Carolina, and I know there was a constant battle, especially at the very beginning, from the teachers union to try to shut it down. And this very powerful union with a lot of connections to state government was shut down by a letter-writing campaign by grassroots organizations. I know that they look at this stuff by the pound. And, you know, you're not necessarily going to change these people's minds with an argument. But they're looking at the quantity of responses that they get.

And that does have a big impact on them. What type of – what have you found to be most effective in terms of working at the state level? You said going to the meetings and that type of thing, but give us an idea of what this looks like when you get involved in this. So here's how the average person, any of your viewers can be impactful. A little pro tip that few people do, and if anyone wants to get involved, make a difference without a lot of time, here are a couple ideas that have a huge leverage in terms of your time versus your impact. Number one, gather 10 or 15 friends at your home for a little cottage meeting, have some dessert dessert and invite your local state senator or state representative or mayor or city councilman to come speak to your group

super easy these people love to talk about themselves by the way so they will take you up on the offer um food attracts everybody and more importantly what's happening here is you are fostering a relationship with that politician to show them two things number one you're creating value for them by giving them an audience of people to talk to and and get support from but number two you're showing them that you are a connector you're an organizer right the worst thing that you can do in politics is go up and say i don't like this tax or i don't like this law you're one person with an opinion you're they're not going to pay attention to you

by contrast if you start an organ let's say you have your cottage meeting and you call it connor's cottage uh meeting on mondays right and that's the name of your group and i go up to the capital or city hall and say hey i represent an association a cottage meeting group where a lot of us get together and blah, blah, blah. We're really concerned about this. And this is something that we're paying attention to. And we'd like you to vote against it. You've shifted it from I to we. It's not I think this.

It's we think this. They don't know if there's a thousand people in your group or five. And they don't need to know the point is that you're you're it's like those uh animals that when a predator approaches they like puff up and get really big so as to like signal that they're dangerous that's what you need to do if you're the average person you need to puff up a bit and show them that you mean business so do a cottage meeting super simple do it once a year do it once a quarter and invite different local you know politicians or people and rotate them through um okay number two take a politician to lunch don't do it during their busy season so if it's the the legislature's in session uh then maybe wait a while but uh but

you just say because everyone's got to eat and and you got to think through like how can you create value for them so if I were to do this I would find my state representative on the website. I would see what bills he's been running or what he's been working on. And I would email him or text him. And I would say, hey, I really love this bill that you were working on. Super important. I've been talking with some friends of mine and some stakeholders. I've got some ideas for how you can actually improve this or something else related

you can do or whatever. Could I take you to lunch? And very often they will say yes. Now they will say yes even more if you are known as a connector. So if you do step one and then step two, if you the cottage meeting, the networking, and then you start making those requests, you'll be very more successful. This doesn't take a ton of time, hardly any time, but this all boils down to relationships. That is what drives this business. This is why lobbyists are so successful. You need to foster relationships. When you just show up to the Capitol or to City Hall and you raise your fist and say, I don't like this. They all know that you're just going to speak your mind and go back to sleep and they don't have like you're not going to be there every week you're not going to be

watchdogging them whatever right but if if you have relationships when i text a legislator like hey i i got questions about that vote you just made or hey are you going to work on that bill they know that i'm out there not only watching them but talking to a ton of people because they know i'm a connector that i'm not going away and watching them, but talking to a ton of people because they know I'm a connector, that I'm not going away, and that I have a lot of relationships that can be helpful to them or harmful to them. So the average citizen, you want to get involved,

you got to start developing some relationships. And these are just a few of the very easy, low cost, low time ways that I think the average citizen could start to do it. That's really good. And of course, that is a key thing because you're also making, you're not just connecting to politicians,

but you're also making connections with the people that are going to be meeting with you. And having that community doesn't just magnify you to the politicians, but that's a real value to all of us in the future. Depending on what is going to come down the pike from Washington, we really need to have those local communities.

That's so important in so many different ways. Tell us a little bit about what you have focused on, these 100 laws that you got changed. What have you focused on there? I know you're conservative, libertarian focus. What types of things have you guys been able to get through there? Can artificial intelligence be a force for good? At the University of British Columbia, we believe it can. Dr. Raymond Ng and team are using AI to harness crucial data within the healthcare system to help deliver care to patients faster.

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To learn how we're moving the world forward, visit ubc.ca forward happens here. I'll give you a small and silly example, and then I'll give you a more weighty and substantive one. So the small and silly example, a few years ago, we saw some headlines across the country where little kids lemonade stands were getting shut down for not having a business license or a food handlers permit. And, you know, there's one, one of the stories, it was a four year old girl selling 50 cent cups of lemonade along the path of like a 5K near her home. And mom was sitting there, obviously. She was only four.

And the food safety whoever showed up and, oh, you don't have a permit. It costs $85. That's 170 cups of lemonade just to break even on a permission slip, let alone the rest of your expenses. So we saw these headlines. We're like, this is ridiculous. We go up to our legislature. We came up with a model bill and it passed, I think unanimously or close to unanimously, which now says that if you are under 18 in Utah, you do not need any license, any permit. You don't have to collect and remit sales taxes, like a literal free market for miners to encourage them to be entrepreneurs.

You know, let's let them wait until they're 18 before the crushing weight of the state comes upon them and all its taxes and regulations. But at least while they're miners, now they're free. We've helped a few other states pass similar laws, but Utah's remains the gold standard. So that's a silly example. That's great.

That's not silly. That's a really fundamental thing. And that's such a great idea. And what legislator is going to want to go out there and be the Scrooge that says, no, you've got to have a license from these miners. That's a great idea. That's exactly. Okay, so here's the other example. Let's say I'm Elon Musk and I have a car company, Tesla, and I want to do something different where I don't want to have car dealerships.

I want to sell my cars directly to individuals, a direct to consumer model. However, in a whole bunch of states, including my own of Utah, it was illegal. It was literally against the law to sell cars for a corporation to sell a car directly or a manufacturer to sell a car directly to a person because the car dealers are very politically connected. And over the years, they've gotten all these laws passed saying that you have to go through car dealers and you have to do it this way and you have to pass these inspections. So I'm Elon Musk and I'm thinking, well, what well what do i do well i've got a lot of money so i can hire lobbyists and i can hire lawyers and i can go sue and i can go lobby to get the laws changed that's what elon and his buddies did right they were able they had the resources to muscle through the political process like in utah for example they had to go to the

state supreme court and they were you know battling until they finally got it fixed which is ridiculous now imagine by contrast that i'm poor connor middle class tradesman who has a business idea i'm sitting at my kitchen table scribbling this idea on the back of a napkin and i'm like this is awesome i pull up google i. Lo and behold, my awesome idea is against the law. There's some 35-year-old arcane law on the books that prevents me from doing what I want. I have no huge life savings. I don't know any lobbyists and lawyers. I have no network, no connections, no leverage. I abandon my idea and move on. My American dream goes poof because of my inability to muscle through the process. What we innovated, what we got passed in Utah, and we've helped dozens of other states work on this as well, is a concept called a regulatory sandbox. What this is, let's use this tradesman, we'll call him Bob. So Bob's got this business idea. Bob can now apply to the state to come into the regulatory sandbox and he can pinpoint a law or a regulation that stands in his way. And he can say, that's preventing me from launching this business. The regulators will talk,

they'll have an opportunity to review his request to be shielded from that regulation or law for two years so that he can do R&D or he can go to market and start to prove and collect data like, hey, there's no consumer harm. There's no lawsuits. There's no nothing. Can we get rid of this regulation? Because everything's okay. and so it's a way to develop real world data, like a pilot program, almost under a lower regulated environment. The chief problem that we've seen over the last decade, is we'll go up to the Capitol. And think of like food trucks that we passed the country's first and only food truck freedom law to knock down all these local regulations and zoning crap and stuff that gets in their way.

And so we go up to the Capitol and we say, hey, guys, the world will be so much better if we allow these micro entrepreneurs to just operate where they want and not have all these city restrictions and so forth. And then the city lobbyists go up there and they say, oh, no, local control. We need to allow our cities to ban food trucks and to say that they can't operate within half a mile of a restaurant because competition is horrible or whatever you're a legislator you're trapped in the middle of the free market guys with their talking points and the the incumbent industry protectionists with their talking points and both sides are claiming the sky will fall or

it will be great well with a regulatory sandbox now the legislators don't have to say permanent yes or no to either side they can say well let's give it a try and see how it works and put these people in a sandbox watch them for a year or two gather some data and then at the conclusion they can say should we amend that regulation or law should we fully repeal it and we have some data and then at the conclusion they can say should we amend that regulation or law should we fully repeal it and we have some data to inform that process so we led Utah to become the first state to have a regulatory sandbox any business any industry any size and and now we've helped a number of other states pass these programs as well to promote entrepreneurship and Innovation level the playing field so it's not just the elon musks that can muscle their way through now the little guy has a shot to launch their american

dream yeah that's very important of course the uh the people who got there already um you know they always want to saw off the lower rungs of the ladder of success so you can't get started with it that's a great approach let's talk a little bit about what do we do about what is looming over the horizon. We've got so many things that we see being pushed from the international level down to the national level in the Biden administration. All of these regulations trying to take away appliances, just basic conveniences that we have taken for granted for a very long time. And now, since we took them for granted, uh, the federal government is looking to take them away. And, uh, so, you know, there's this big push. Uh, most of the stuff is now coming on the basis of climate. They want to take cars and want to take appliances and,

and on and on. Uh, is there anything that, um, you're working on there in Utah to address that type of, uh, you know, confiscatory regulations that, that a lot of it coming from the EPA. But anything that's coming from the federal level, I know here in Tennessee, where I live, they have told the government when it comes to a lot of the regulations about transgender type of things, they said, well, we're willing to forego $2 billion worth of bribery in order to do things the way that we think they ought to be done. And that really is the way that the federal government usually insinuates itself in the process since they don't have the direct legal authority because the 10th Amendment, they will

bribe local and state governments to do what they want with money. So how do we tackle this looming monster that's being pushed down on top of us oh man you are hitting all the buttons um such such a challenge by the way in tennessee i would encourage you to look up the beacon center they are the think tank there in tennessee they do an awesome job i will thank you they would be great to connect with now what you're talking about is so tough because um there's so many disincentives for people to engage in the process i think of the road like there's this meme floating around the internet right now how often do men think about the roman empire you know and everyone's kind of joking about it right now

uh i think about it quite often and in particular that the aspect of bread and circuses where they would often uh you know feed the citizenry have you know gladiators and all these big spectacles designed to distract the populace from what was happening politically a distracted society is a disengaged society in particular with the federal regulations that you're talking about um I I'm a big believer in state interposition and state nullification what are those things yes state interposition is the stateification what are those things yes state interposition is the state coming in between you and the federal government to say no we're we're shielding Connor from that you know gun control law that Connor passed or you know people like

Connor not just a single individual but but they the state interposes itself and passes a conflicting law to say no we're not going to enforce this. We're going to protect you and our attorney general will go sue the government or federal government on your behalf. So the state can interpose itself to be this protecting shield. Even better than that is state nullification. There's a fantastic book written about a decade or so ago by Tom Woods called Nullification that gets into the american history of what this is this is basically when a state gives the middle finger to the feds and the feds pass some law let's say it's an epa thing and imagine tennessee the legislature getting together and passing a

resolution and saying in this state that epa regulation is null and void we will not enforce it we will not tolerate it we will not allow any federal officials to enforce it within our state and it is the state asserting itself here's our chief problem ever since the Civil War the the Union of States has changed from a voluntary Union into this this serfdom-like subservient status where state legislators see themselves as subunits of the federal government yes we now have a national government where it controls and regulates the states the states do not assert their own authority they do not stand up under the 10th amendment that you pointed out and the 9th amendment to to say that these are our rights we did not delegate this to you there's so many

fantastic stories here especially from like the kent Virginia resolutions with Jefferson and Madison, when they were basically giving the middle finger to John Adams and the Federalist Party and trying to undermine what they were doing by getting state legislatures to say, we are not going to comply. There are modern examples. Think of medical marijuana. Federal law still says that cannabis is illegal and most states have given the middle finger to the feds and the feds have just you know decided to not enforce it and they've had their attorney general memos and their their things to but it's still on the books and that's the power of what the states can do by contrast here's another example that i'm sure your audience well that one before we leave marijuana that was because, you know, I love that one because the left.

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within the healthcare system to help deliver care to patients faster. It's AI that puts our health first. At UBC, our researchers are answering today's most pressing questions. To learn how we're moving the world forward, visit ubc.ca forward happens here. Are the ones who've been doing the nullification and they're the first ones to scream racism.

This is about slavery or whatever, you know, when you start nullifying. And so that really nullifies the left as well when you use that as an example, because this is schedule one drug and they say there's absolutely no use for it. As you pointed out, more than half of the states either have a medical exemption or recreational exemption. Jeff Sessions, that was a key issue with him, but he wouldn't touch it because he knew that he didn't have the constitutional authority for that. So that's an excellent example. Yeah, go ahead. Here's an unfortunate one by contrast. So medical marijuana is kind of a

winning one in terms of state sovereignty States standing up for themselves here's a losing one real ID when when Congress over a decade ago passed the real ID Act this National driver's license National ID there was a huge uproar massive uproar across the country state legislatures were passing resolutions were passing laws they were standing up and and and nullifying they were giving a middle finger to the feds and so the feds retreated and then okay you know we lost the battle and what did they do you mentioned it a moment ago they bribed the states into compliance over the next decade, not wholesale, but piecemeal. They would attach financial incentives to particular aspects of the Real ID Act, even though it was no longer being passed or enforced. And they would bribe the states into

compliance and the states eager for money, these politicians wanting more money for their programs, would say, okay, yeah, we'll do that. Okay, yeah, we'll do that. You fast forward a decade. And now, like, you know, I travel the airport all the time. My driver's license has this stupid, you know, yellow star at the top. Now, that means real ID compliant. My state over a decade ago stood up and said no.

And now I have a driver's license from my state that is real id compliant isn't it interesting that they did the yellow star it seems like there's some point in history why that was used i should you know it's a it's a white star inside of a uh a yellow circle i guess no it's described to me when I changed that we moved here. It was described to me because we did that about two years ago. It was described to me as a yellow star. You know, they described it the same way. And I thought, I don't really want a yellow star.

These people are persistent. They are patient. They have the long view in mind. And so we like, think of the tea party right tarp and the bank bailouts and everyone's like you know all these conservatives erupt the tea party is a huge thing there's tea party patriots tea party non-profits tea party everything and two or three years later nothing that's right they went back to sleep they went back to work and family and everything like we you know people on the right focus on that actually improves our society.

But they disengage politically. These elitists, these leftists, everybody knows they just have to wait out the storm. Let everyone like get really in an uproar, pass their resolutions against real ID. And then we'll just work on this incrementally over time and still get what we want. So we are playing a losing game by not engaging and being watchful and being persistent when the other side absolutely is. That's right. Yeah. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. And of course, you also have to have a goal. And I think that was always a problem to me for the Tea Party. Taxed enough already. Okay. So what do you want to do? You want to cut spending or cut taxes? Or what do you want to do? Which taxes do you want to cut? Which spending do you want to do? You want to cut spending or, you know, cut taxes or what do you want to do?

Which taxes do you want to cut? Which spending do you want to cut? There was just nothing there. And you had everybody jumping on board with that to make money, you know, the people who are organizing it. And I think the people also looked at this and, you know, said, well, this is, you know, there's not really anything here. And it kind of fell away, but you're right.

The good example is the real ID thing because people just went to sleep. And now we've got the TSA out there doing facial scans, taking it to the next level. You know, what do we do about the TSA? Because here's my concern. You know, a key thing that we saw, especially in the last few years, what was it that helped us to survive this lockdown? And that was mobility. And it was cash. And it was being outside of the system. They now want to take away our cash.

They want to take away our mobility. If they're able to take away our cars and make us dependent on renting our rides, renting a vehicle by the ride, not even leasing a vehicle, if they're able to do that, if they're able to take away our cash, they really have got us, and there's not really anything we can do so what do you think we should do about and what are you working on in terms of that in utah this is such a challenge what you're pointing out because um i'll i'll use your last example uh just as a direct response the this rent your vehicle like imagine a world two decades from now uh which I don't think is a far off fantasy

probably sooner yeah probably sooner where uh I I can have my car drop me off a self-driving car fully autonomous it drops me off at work rather than sitting here it's right outside my office window right here outside of frame right rather than sitting there for eight hours I can monetize that vehicle and I can have it go basically play uber uh and and earn revenue for other people who will pay it and i just say hey you just need to be back here at five o'clock you know to pick me up well all of a sudden i you no longer need parking lots if you if you have a society where there's very few people who are just owning their car and sitting there right you can conserve a ton you can at least

substantially reduce the size of parking lots because you don't need just all these big empty spaces that can do tremendous things so i am i am someone who loves technology and sees a huge upside uh to improving society when implemented the right way things like ai like i i think i think it can bless humanity in a whole ton of ways but these things like self-driving cars or or I'm a big fan of Bitcoin but then you got cdbcs on the other side this kind of you know dark version of of what's going on or self-driving cars or or Tesla robots that they're building right now Neuralink I think like all these things can can do so much good and make our lives so much more convenient enjoyable productive but we have to have a philosophical base in our society

of human freedom and flourishing to inform and guide and limit all those activities to keep them constrained otherwise i'm worried that these amazing technologies while they have their positive side are going to emerge with the dystopian side with these kind of elitists in control. So I'm not one to say, well, because our philosophical base is not there and we don't have a society that believes these things, let's shut all this technology down and make sure that we don't have this Orwellian future. I am one to say, look, the toothpaste is out of the tube. These things are going to happen anyways. Let's focus on strengthening that philosophical base so that the innovators and the regulators and the politicians and everybody else

approach this and handle everything the right way so we can have the positive outcomes while minimizing the negative ones. And that's where the total twins comes in because you've got to set up those values, those bases. And it's because we've had families atrophy and schools and churches have atrophied and we don't have those types of values that are being put out there as you point out all this stuff is tools and uh you know a very powerful tool can be a really good thing or it can be a really bad thing depending on who is wielding

it and so we have to shape the people who are going to be wielding it thing or it can be a really bad thing depending on who is wielding it and so we have to shape the people who are going to be wielding it which is going to be our kids and the future generations that's why it is so important um uh you know taking that approach and and i'm glad that you have put that resource out there we you know people need to take a look at that more people need to be doing that type of thing as well because that's really where the battle is the battle is really for the the spirit and the soul and the heart. And the battle for the future is the battle for the soul and the heart of our children. And so that's the key thing.

Talk to me a little bit about your books. You've got a couple of different books, Mediocrity, Children of the Collective. Maybe there's some other ones here. Tell us a little bit about Mediocrity. So of the Collective. Maybe there's some other ones here. Tell us a little bit about mediocrity. So that was a fun one. I'll share the story this way. In April of this year, it was the 40th anniversary of a report that the Reagan administration put out April 26th, 1983.

They titled it A Nation at Risk. It was the conclusion of an 18-month study that a team that called themselves the National Commission on Excellence in Education, their study went across the country. They were on a listening tour, talking to teachers, parents, reviewing textbooks, curriculum, everything else to understand you know what's going on trying to assess education in America they write this report a nation at risk and in that report they said and I quote that America's educational foundations are being threatened by a rising tide of mediocrity and that if a foreign government had attempted to impose upon America the very mediocre educational performance that now exists, we might have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we've allowed this to happen to ourselves. 1983.

When I share this story, when I'm out speaking, I'll ask audiences, okay, raise of hands, who here in this audience believes that education in America has substantially improved in the last 40 years? Today, maybe I'm an intimidating person and people are scared of raising their hand in general, but no one has raised their hand ever because we all know that education has gotten worse. If they said in 1983 that it was mediocre, this rising tide of mediocrity what what words would you use to describe what it is today i might choose some four letter words that might not be too uh family friendly you know and that is i mean consider this data point i got so much i can share here but but

i'll just share this a few weeks ago a couple months ago now uh the nape scores came out these are the kind of statistical assessments that all the standardized testing that they do for kids. And they do it, you know, fourth grade and eighth grade and 12th grade, and they've been doing this for decades to track academic progress. Not that I'm a fan of standardized tests, but they're at least one useful way

to kind of have your finger on the pulse. Well, the data that came out just a couple months ago uh this particular data point is from eighth graders across America and it found that only 13 percent of them are proficient in in Civics in American history one three not 1-3, 13% proficiency. I mean, that's like way, way, way worse than a failing grade. So now fast forward 20 years, 40 years, 60 years, these kids who have been educated, so-called, in a system of sub-mediocrity are now voters. But they're ignorant. They're historically illiterate. they're civically disengaged they're distracted by the bread and circuses they know nothing about their

history you know the quote those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it so they're much more likely to support the authoritarian thugs and the socialist crazy people who are repeating every doomsday failed thing from the past. And yet today's electorate doesn't know any better. It's the whole fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. These kids are not learning history. They're not learning these basics about our society. 13% is abysmal. It is not mediocre. It is way, way, way worse. So one might say in response, well, yeah, COVID, all this learning loss, it's been a, no, no, this has been a down and downward trend for a very long time, pre-COVID, absolutely. So my plea to parents out there is not necessarily

to homeschool, although I'm a big fan of homeschooling. It's just do something else. It could be a private school, a micro school. It could be a homeschool. It could be a homeschool co-op. There's so many options today. But why would you want to send your children not only to an intellectually sub-mediocre system, even if you think, oh, well, I live in a good community. How many libs of TikTok videos have we seen now from conservative communities where the schools

are teaching garbage and parents don't realize it until it's too late? So do something else. Wake up. Don't think, well, I went to public school and I turned out fine. It is a different world and you need to pay attention you need to be intentional and take action to to save your kids I'll end with this the pastor Vati Bakum has this quote I love where he says can we as Christians in his case this religious quote can we as Christians really be surprised when we send our children to Caesar's schools and then they return home as Romans right and so we have to realize if we're surrendering our children to certain's schools, and then they return home as Romans, right? And so we have to realize if we're surrendering our children to certain people, then it's those people's values

and worldview and things that are being put into our kids. We need to wake up and be more intentional and rescue our children from this sub-mediocre system. That's right. Yeah, it was a real blessing, I think, in disguise as the schools went to Zoom classes. Parents could finally see what was happening in their child's classroom. They always had this, when I talked to them for decades, well, it's not happening in my kid's classroom. Even if it's happening in the same school, same school districts, and all the rest of the stuff.

But it seems like you talk about the Reagan administration. I remember that report that you talked about. And I remember Charlotte Iserby goes to Washington to help to shut down the department of education which was created during the 1980 campaign as jimmy carter created it and ronald reagan was going to get rid of it and yet they didn't do that and and so she she got out of it and she wrote the book deliberately dumbing us down now they were able to dumb us down but now they're they're going into a uh kind of a depraved mode.

You know, let's take the kids even deeper. Let's take them subterranean. And that's what they're doing with the social engineering that we see. And I think it's very key that the Obama administration, the Biden administration have been using the power of the purse to incentivize this. But now it's gotten to the point where when you talk about people getting active locally, you know, showing up and, you know, talking to people, not just criticizing, you know, but also making relationships with people.

But when you have these school board meetings, you know, it's kind of interesting how over the last couple of years now since the COVID stuff, how the school board meetings have become of national interest the department of justice is taking an interest in this and you got to look at this and say why is this so important to them and and why is it not important enough for us to just do this completely differently you know it seems like these people are pushing on this this institution that's not going to change, but they keep pushing on it. And that seems to be really the way that they want to run this through. You know, what do we do to wake people up to get them to try something different, as you're pointing out? Well, I think of the Reagan quote, as you point out, you know, he was supposed to repeal the Department of Education. That didn't happen. But

he himself said that the closest thing to eternal life on earth is a temporary government program, right? And here we are with this Department of Education and all the billions of dollars that they've spent. And can anyone point to a single statistic and a single educational outcome that has measurably improved as a direct result? I'm not even asking for causation. Let's even just go to correlation. Do you have any correlated data to suggest that education outcomes in government schools has improved in the past 40? No, you don't. No one does. You know, these guys have just been spending all this money while they oversee the decline and the dumbing down, the deliberate dumbing down of the American education system.

I think of a public school teacher. His name is John Taylor Gatto. Passed away a few years ago. He was a public school teacher in the state of New York for, gosh, almost 30 years. And he was someone who would work within the system. He hated the system of which he was a part. He really struggled with it, but he was working from within because he loved kids. He wanted to inspire them and connect with them his classes got rave reviews his students loved him they kept in touch for a long time he would he would buck the trend he would like take the kids on impromptu field trips and just go to the park and get them outdoors and you know he's he's this guy

that loved kids so then he gets awarded later in his profession new york city teacher of the year and then the following year he gets awarded new york state teacher of the year keep in mind these awards these teacher of the year from the establishment the ptas the teachers unions and so forth he wins new york state teacher of the year and in the very same year that he wins this award he writes an op-ed in the wall street Journal titled, I Quit, I Think, in which he goes on to say, if anyone knows of a profession where I can help kids without also hurting them, please let me know. He quits his profession. He starts writing books and goes on a speaking tour in his last years of life. Amazing guy.

But it shows what we're up against this this system like i had a teacher uh not a teacher a parent a few months back i was speaking to a parents group and this woman in the q a after raised her hand said look you know critical race theory social emotional learning garbage books in the libraries all this you know pet litter boxes in the classroom now and like all all these are not not for pets right for the furries yeah right and so she's rattling off all these problems and she says the school system is so broken i said whoa whoa hang on hang on i'm gonna respectfully disagree with you i do not believe the school system is broken i believe it has been perfected based on a flawed design when you go back to its originators its

creators you go back to like horus man here's a guy who brought over the prussian education system first commissioner of education in the country in massachusetts he's this this fabian socialist secular humanist guy and and a collectivist he wanted to take children from their different religions and cultures and values and family traditions and homogenize them into one single american culture that was his dream behind his common school so he brings over this prussian model to america this very authoritarian model which is the the model that our government schools are now based on he's got this quote where he says we who are involved in the sacred cause of education should look to parents as if they have given hostages to our cause referring to their own children yeah he talked in another quote about how men are like cast iron children are like wax

it's very hard to change the mind or the heart of an adult it's like cast iron very firm but children are like wax this is exactly what you know all all the authoritarian thugs the the despotic dictators the hitlers the maus the stalin's they all say similar stuff they all go after the kids because they want to propagandize them and brainwash them so back to this woman i say i don't think it's broken i think all these manifestations you're seeing are outgrowths of a particular design that was designed with intentionality these people did not want to create a populace of critically minded uh excuse me critical thinking independent-minded entrepreneurial individuals they wanted to create a society of subordinate soldiers and citizens

who would do what they were told and follow orders and learn their station and support the collective that was their intent what we're seeing today is just an outgrowth of that we need to discard the design and reboot the system in a way that will produce the outcomes that we want rather than kicking against the pricks and getting frustrated that, why are kids turning out this way? And why are the schools not doing this? It's because they were designed this way. We need to scrap the blueprints and build something better.

That's right. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do. And when we look at the different means of control, again, it's the purse, showering people with money. But then they create the standards out of their regulatory. The Department of Education has been very, very powerful in terms of providing the money, the bribes to do this kind of stuff. But also the standards. When they put out those standardized tests, that's a way for them to control when you do do something different.

Like if you want to have some kind of an independent school or set something up, if you want to get it accredited, then they're going to tell you what you have to teach the kids and what they have to regurgitate in order to get accredited. So the standardized tests are going to control the content. They're going to control the textbooks and all the rest of this stuff. And but at the same time, you know, the bread and circus thing has taken itself to the level for our kids of the furries or whatever. It's gone to not just a banality, not just to a mediocrity or stupidity, but it's gone to a depravity. Because, again, it's very much like Brave New World where they want to take them into a world of sex and drugs so that they're not a threat to them and a way for them to control the kids. That's what we need to be aware of. I think that's really what we need to push back against.

And when you talk about your next book, The Children of the Collective, I'm sure that that is what you were referring to when you talked about Horace Mann and his approaches to that. But that has always been the issue. You're right about going back to the middle 1800s. These socialists said, well, we can't change society the way we want to because we can't get to these kids early enough. So let's get them at a very early age. And of course, you know, God tells us you train up a child and the way they go should go. And when they're old,

they won't depart from it. We're being told this by everybody from God to Hitler has told us this stuff. Maybe we ought to pay attention to it, right? Yeah, no, I think you're onto something here. That book in particular, Children of the Collective, was the result of a quote I read years ago from Michael Novak. I've got the quote pulled up right here. The entire book is basically an expanded version analyzing why this quote is so true. Here's what he says.

Between the omnipotent state and the naked individual looms the first line of resistance against totalitarianism, the economically and politically independent family protecting the space within which free and independent individuals may receive the necessary years of nurture. So he illustrates on the one hand, you've got this omnipotent state, you've got naked individuals, socially naked, emotionally naked, spiritually naked, physically naked in terms of their insecurity and weakness compared to the authoritarian state. And in the middle, he's got this first line of resistance. What I find fascinating, which is the politically, economically independent family. So our families need to be independent we need to be financially independent we i mean think of the founding

fathers who would have been there had those particular individuals not had had the financial station in life to just go sit in a room and debate politics for weeks on end right and so being financially uh free is critical not just so you can go relax on a beach so they can move up haslow's you know uh hierarchy of needs and you can go relax on a beach so they can move up hazel's you know uh hierarchy of needs and you can actually do greater things to bless humanity because you're not hand to mouth you know working the whole time and so what I find fascinating is is he says this economically and politically independent family unit is the first line of resistance so then you think well it doesn't say it's the line of resistance it's the first line of resistance. So then you think, well, it doesn't say it's the line of resistance.

It's the first line. What are additional, like my skin, let's say someone in my office sneezes or something, there's pathogens floating around the air. My skin and organ is my first line of resistance. But if that pathogen, like if I have a cut on my skin or if I breathe it in or whatever, my body has additional mechanisms to still try and fight that pathogen, even if it gets past this first line of resistance.

If the family is the first line of resistance, what are additional ones? Well, I think the extended family certainly is a really important one beyond the nuclear family, having multiple generations under one roof or in one community where you can support one another. But beyond that, I would say in this you're asking a lot of good questions about like what can the average person do or what can people do or what's the message here's a critical one i think when alexis de tocqueville was sent to this new nation to kind of survey what the heck was going on in america he wrote the books democracy in america it was his survey in the early 1800s of what was going on here and he talked about with a sense of

awe and wonder what he called mediating institutions he says it was so remarkable that throughout europe he says whenever someone would have a problem they would raise their hand and ask some minister of government some public functionaryary, some elected or bureaucrat person, they would go to them for help to solve their problems. That was the common thread behind problem solving in Europe. By contrast, he said, when Americans have a problem, they form a society. They form an organization and induce people voluntarily to try to come to the aid of their fellow man. And he was blown away that there was this whole fabric this social fabric of mediating institutions and and that they were all over the

place i'll give you a very particular example uh there's a gentleman named david beto b-e-i-t-o he wrote a book a few years ago called from mutual aid to the welfare state it is a phenomenal book highlighting how these mediating institutions were basically put out of business by the omnipotent state by the welfare yeah that in early america you had you know whether you were irish or you were protestant or you were mormon or you were you know mexican or whatever all these communities fostered mutual aid societies where they would help one another we're talking life insurance death insurance orphan care elderly care and america was littered littered with these mutual aid societies very economical and very i mean think of like the koanis and the rotary and all these other groups that are kind of legacy

holdovers and have really just decayed because our society no longer values these things. But in early America, they were everywhere until the welfare state started to be passed. They started passing these laws. Suddenly, people were like, wait a minute, my membership dues for this mutual aid society are $10 a year. This was back when inflation wasn't nearly as uh in effect I'm paying ten dollars a year for this mutual aid Society but I'm paying taxes of like you know uh eighteen dollars a year and that's providing all these welfare benefits why am I still in this mutual aid Society so everyone made the rational decision to, I mean, they went out of business literally, like, I mean, not literally, but figuratively overnight because of the state.

This is why, this is why we need not only strong families, but we need mediating institutions. We need to rebuild social fabric. You can have libertarians like me out there saying, shrink the government, you know, stop passing stupid laws. Let's vote that person out of office but if our society is not strong then the state will be that's right if our society is weak then the state will be strong if we want a weak state if we want to limit government we need a strong society where we're taking care of one another uh where we're supporting one another when where that when there are problems we bring solutions rather than turning to the government for help we're not there we're a ways off from

what alexis tokeville saw but i think that has the answer as well to fight the collectivists to fight these central planners to shrink the state we got to focus on our families we got to rebuild social fabric we got to strengthen our society and then naturally the state will go weaker because fewer people will be turning to it to be the source of their comfort and providing for their needs they'll turn to these social programs in the true sense of the word societal programs mediating institutions that's where we need to be as a country so well said and you know and i as you're talking about this i'm thinking about i've talked about this many times, you know, the, uh, we've, we've had, uh, you know, Charles Murray talked about the deliberate, uh, talked about, um, um, you know, the, the effect

of the, the welfare state. Um, I started to say deliberate dumbing down of, of America, but, um, it was losing ground was his, uh, uh, book that he did. Uh, now he's out there pushing universal basic income. You know, it is amazing to see how this shift has happened. And it's been done in a very subversive way in the sense that, and it's subverted not just the poor people in the inner city. You know, I've talked to Jack Cashel, who's got a book, Contenable. He was talking about how he saw this happen in the city where he was.

Talked to people who have, you I talked to people who are my age, and they had vibrant black communities, and it was decimated. They had businesses that were working. They had intact families. And then the welfare state comes in, and everybody just starts taking the free money. And it's a very corrupting thing. They want to do that with universal basic income. But as you're talking about this, I'm thinking, you know, it hasn't just taken the poor. It's taken the middle class, the upper middle class, because the government is always there to hand you money to get you to do whatever they want you to do. And there is so much money that just this unlimited printing press

coming out of Washington that they can bribe each and every one of us if we let them. The discussion that we're now seeing in terms of the Department of Education, well, let's allow people who are homeschooling to get money and to come and participate in these activities. And I've always opposed that because I realize what a corrupting thing it is to take the money. We have to start taking responsibility for what we want to do in our families. And it's even corrupted the churches.

The churches used to be a part of these mediating institutions. The churches would start hospitals. The churches would start schools. They don't do that anymore. The government does everything for everybody. And so we don't even connect to our fellow man anymore. We're all connected to the government, as you were talking about earlier in the program. Everybody's like, well, what's going on in Washington?

And who can I vote for in Washington? Why? Because that's where the money is flowing from. And so that's the thing that I think we've got to get past and beyond. These standardized tests, but it's really the money the money that is flowing uh through all this stuff and um you know that you know de tocqueville said everybody is is focused on the on what's the government going to do to fix the situation we had voluntary libraries voluntary fire departments we did our own schools our own hospitals now everything has got to come from washington we've been trained

we're like wild animals who used to be able to take care of themselves. And we've been hand-fed for so long by the government that we're dependent on it. And now the government has turned feral. And when you go to the national parks, you see the signs that says don't feed the animals for that precise reason. If we care about their long-term health and strength as a little animal community, they need to be able to survive on their own. You're actually harming them by supporting them. And so if the government is supporting us, it is harming us. And just like the education system is being deliberately dumbed down, I think it is also deliberate that we are being, so many of us

are financially supported. over half of Americans are directly financially supported by the state if you talk about government schools as well it shoots to like 90 percent right but excluding the the schools direct payments it's over 50 percent no wonder voters are increasingly shifting blue no wonder many of our red states are turning purple. When people are directly connected to the state, they are much more forgiving of it and they are much more tolerant of its abuses because they don't want the gravy train to end. That's right. Yeah. What we have now in the area where I live there, the Smoky Mountains, they're very concerned about people not feeding the bears. Our federal government has essentially gone through everybody's neighborhoods,

putting trash cans to give us junk. And we've been so acclimated to this garbage food and the trash cans, we would never be able to survive without it. It seems like, but we've got to break that dependency somehow. A great way to do it is with the next generation, with the Tuttle Twins books. And you've got TuttleTwins.com, right, where people can go find that, as well as I'll just pronounce it as libertas.org. Okay.

So tuttletwins.com and libertas.org. It's really been a pleasure talking to you, Connor. Thank you so much. Likewise. Thank you. Thank you. Connor Boyack, doing great work there. Thank you so much.

Well, folks, that's it for today's program. Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you tomorrow. The Common Man. They created Common Core to dumb down our children. They created common past to track and control us. Their commons project to make sure the commoners own nothing and the communist future. They see the common man as simple, unsophisticated, ordinary. But each of us has worth and dignity created in the image of God.

That is what we have in common. That is what they want to take away. Their most powerful weapons are isolation, deception, intimidation. They desire to know everything about us while they hide everything from us. It's time to turn that around and expose what they want to hide. Please share the information and links you'll find at thedavidknightshow.com. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing. If you can't support us financially, please keep us in your prayers.