Speaker 1: Right now, we'd like to welcome to the Armstrong and
Speaker 1: Getty show fan favorite who we used to call Tim,
Speaker 1: the lawyer Tim Sandford. He's the vice president of litigation
Speaker 1: for the Goldwater Institute.
Speaker 2: Welcome Tim, Thanks for having me that guys.
Speaker 1: Our main question, of course, is what is the libertarian
Speaker 1: opinion on solar eclipses.
Speaker 3: You're against the.
Speaker 1: Fantastic So I follow your Twitter feed, which I think
Speaker 1: is everybody should follow because it's damn damn interesting. You
Speaker 1: were upset when local university to you you're in Arizona
Speaker 1: paid Ebram x Kendy how much money to come.
Speaker 3: Talk at a university?
Speaker 2: Thirty five thousand dollars for a one hour speech. And
Speaker 2: he is famous for what well, he's of course the
Speaker 2: primary intellectual in the anti racism movement, so called because
Speaker 2: in fact he's a proponent of racism. It's just racism
Speaker 2: against a different group of people, so it's therefore okay.
Speaker 2: He's quite open about this fact. He said the only
Speaker 2: remedy for past discrimination is future discrimination, and he's in
Speaker 2: favor of that. And so that was the propaganda that
Speaker 2: he was willing to stew for an hour at Arizona
Speaker 2: State University and charge the Arizona tax payers thirty five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the guy that invented this whole idea of
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as being not racist. You're either
Speaker 1: racist or anti racist, which is yes.
Speaker 2: And therefore there are acceptable forms of racism, and that
Speaker 2: means hating white people is acceptable, whereas anybody else it's
Speaker 2: not acceptable. And you know, of course, this is nothing new,
Speaker 2: this sort of this doctrine that it's okay for the
Speaker 2: so called oppressed to be racist against those who have
Speaker 2: allegedly oppressed them. You know, that's well over a century old.
Speaker 2: It was you know, fashioned first in Germany in the
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties.
Speaker 1: Right, So this transitions nicely into the fact that DEI training,
Speaker 1: kind of similar to the ibramex candy philosophy, is catch
Speaker 1: and fire all across the country, or has over the
Speaker 1: last several years, businesses, universities, schools, all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: and the Goldwater Institute is playing a role in that.
Speaker 3: What are you guys doing?
Speaker 2: That's right? And now Arizona passed the law not long ago,
Speaker 2: and a few other states have copied this law that
Speaker 2: prohibits the government from requiring people who work for universities
Speaker 2: to take any kind of training in what the law
Speaker 2: refers to as divisive concepts. That is, the idea that
Speaker 2: you are responsible for the crimes committed by others of
Speaker 2: your racial group in the past, or that you ought
Speaker 2: to feel guilty, or that the or that you know
Speaker 2: the country is evil because of these things, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. You know, if you want to spew that
Speaker 2: kind of thing, you're perfectly free to do so, but
Speaker 2: you shouldn't be able to make me pay for it.
Speaker 2: And so the Arizona legislature passed this law prohibiting mandatory
Speaker 2: DEI training and prohibiting the government from spending tax para
Speaker 2: money to develop such training even if they don't actually
Speaker 2: require it. And a FU has basically thumbed their noses
Speaker 2: at this, and they've been requiring their faculty to take
Speaker 2: and pass this training program in DEI, and not just
Speaker 2: take it once, but every every few years. You have
Speaker 2: to retake it to make sure that you haven't, you know,
Speaker 2: somehow become a racist in the interim.
Speaker 1: What sort of things will they will they, I don't know,
Speaker 1: require you to believe with this DEI training, this particular quality.
Speaker 2: The The de I training consists of things like explaining
Speaker 2: why you know certain forms of expression or you know, microaggressions,
Speaker 2: why you need to watch what you say in order
Speaker 2: to because there are people with different backgrounds who have
Speaker 2: different perspectives who might interpret what you say in a
Speaker 2: way that is offensive, and so forth and so on,
Speaker 2: and it's it's the usual sort of thing that we've
Speaker 2: become accustomed to in the past decade or so. But
Speaker 2: the big problem here is that this is a form
Speaker 2: of right thing, a form of indoctrination that is basically
Speaker 2: requiring you to step up and agree. And it's no
Speaker 2: different than if the school were to require you to
Speaker 2: take training in a religious view If they said you
Speaker 2: are required to sit here and take our day long
Speaker 2: training on why the earth was created in four thousand
Speaker 2: and four BC, and why the Gospels of the literal
Speaker 2: Truth and every other religion is false. We would obviously say,
Speaker 2: you know, people are free to believe those things, but
Speaker 2: they shouldn't be able to force taxpayers to shoulder the burden.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what's going on. Anti racism so called,
Speaker 2: is just a new religious viewpoint. It's a dogma that
Speaker 2: can't be shaken by facts or logic. It's just been
Speaker 2: a belief that people adhere to for personal reasons of
Speaker 2: their own, and they're welcome to that, but they shouldn't
Speaker 2: be able to force tax payers to subsidize it.
Speaker 1: This is a ViBe's question, not a legal question. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like the DEI thing peaked a while back
Speaker 1: and it's in retreat, we're on the march.
Speaker 2: I do think that, I do think that it has peaked.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be around for a while.
Speaker 2: Of course, because these things never completely go away. They
Speaker 2: didn't go away after the first time that the ancestor
Speaker 2: of DEEI was defeated in the April of nineteen forty five,
Speaker 2: and it's stuck around and it's come back, and I
Speaker 2: think it'll stick around even after this. But I do
Speaker 2: think people are tired of it and they're sick of it,
Speaker 2: and I think there are some great examples of this.
Speaker 2: There was oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the title
Speaker 2: of the movie, but there was a movie that satirized
Speaker 2: the cultural attitude in particularly the East Coast, toward race
Speaker 2: and how everything just has to be categorized in back
Speaker 2: and it was nominated for an Oscar, and there are
Speaker 2: other comedies and things that are starting to make fun
Speaker 2: of this, and people are just tired of it. I
Speaker 2: think the culture is turning away from it and saying
Speaker 2: enough of saying that it's okay to be racist against
Speaker 2: white people. Why don't we just, you know, accept the
Speaker 2: idea that all people are created equal and that it's
Speaker 2: wrong to engage in retaliatory racism.
Speaker 3: I hope you're right about that, that it is on
Speaker 3: the retreat.
Speaker 1: It feels that way to me too, but it might
Speaker 1: be you know, the people I follow versus the rest
Speaker 1: of the world that it's People talk a lot about
Speaker 1: being in a bubble or whatever.
Speaker 3: It's hard not to be in a bubble, wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 2: I mean, you got to work at it, you really.
Speaker 1: You have to really seek out other sources otherwise you
Speaker 1: just keep you know, we all talk amongst ourselves to
Speaker 1: each other and agreed, And.
Speaker 2: It's funny because we all thought that the advent of
Speaker 2: blogging and Twitter and Facebook would would make it easier
Speaker 2: to get outside of our bubbles, and I guess it does,
Speaker 2: But it also makes it easier to stay inside your
Speaker 2: bubble if you choose to.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which a different topic, and I want to get
Speaker 1: back to the DEI, but do you have any opinions
Speaker 1: of where you think artificial intelligence is going to take us?
Speaker 2: Oh so far my dealings with artificial intelligence it consisted
Speaker 2: of me yelling at Alexa for not understanding my question,
Speaker 2: or just this week, you know, yelling at at like
Speaker 2: a madman at Walmart's chadbot for not delivering my item
Speaker 2: within the week that it claimed it would. And I
Speaker 2: feel like an old man screaming at clouds. So yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I don't really think it's at the stage or we
Speaker 2: can predict where it's going to go.
Speaker 3: Man, it's certainly not there yet. Yeah. I was yelling
Speaker 3: at the old.
Speaker 2: Enough to remember when virtual reality was going to be
Speaker 2: the wave of the future, or the Segue was going
Speaker 2: to revolutionize life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well Segue, Yeah, definitely. Segue was supposed to
Speaker 1: be huge and didn't do anything. But like I've done
Speaker 1: the Apple Vision pro and I think, man, I think
Speaker 1: this could be a big thing for learning or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was screaming at the automated thing at the pharmacy yesterday,
Speaker 1: what can I help you with? And whenever that the
Speaker 1: computer says what can I help you with? I always
Speaker 1: know you're not going to understand my question or my problem,
Speaker 1: and they never do.
Speaker 2: Never Jack Jack. Yesterday, Alexa asked me if I wanted
Speaker 2: her to tell me when it was snowing. I live
Speaker 2: in Phoenix, Arizona, so I said, yes, please tell me
Speaker 2: if it's nos.
Speaker 1: I lost my temper on one of those things the
Speaker 1: other day. My kids found it hilarious. I was really
Speaker 1: screaming personally.
Speaker 2: It's fun of having them, having the fun of having
Speaker 2: them as losing your temper. That's that's why I like it.
Speaker 1: Back to the DEI training, so I understand that pretty
Speaker 1: clear cut on why you don't want taxpayer money going
Speaker 1: to various colleges to teach people that racism is the
Speaker 1: way to fix things. Is there anything to be done
Speaker 1: in private corporations other than culturally?
Speaker 2: I do think so, but it takes something that private
Speaker 2: corporations lack, and that is courage. Unfortunately, history has shown
Speaker 2: that the last institution you can look for to defend
Speaker 2: freedom is private businesses. Private businesses, large corporations especially, are
Speaker 2: moral cowards, and they very much enjoy profiting off of
Speaker 2: the latest trend. No matter how antithetical to capitalism and
Speaker 2: how self destructive it might be. And look at how
Speaker 2: industry funds the universities, donating money to these campuses where
Speaker 2: the teaching is almost uniformly anti capitalists, and all that
Speaker 2: private industry is doing by doing that is feeding and
Speaker 2: generating its own destroyers. And the corporate world. What if
Speaker 2: there is anybody in the corporate world with a conscience
Speaker 2: and the clarity to see the importance of moral issues
Speaker 2: and political issues, they need to cut it off. And
Speaker 2: this is another reason why you asked earlier about optimism.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of optimistic in that I think the backlash
Speaker 2: against the universities because of the anti semitism that we've
Speaker 2: seen lately, I think that's a very healthy development.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really interesting observation that corporations, especially big corporations,
Speaker 1: almost all ways do the cowardly thing and whatever the
Speaker 1: latest hot trend is, even if it's anti corporation, how
Speaker 1: do they, after all these years, think this will get
Speaker 1: us on the right side of the young people and
Speaker 1: then the love our big, giant, evil corporation.
Speaker 3: It is never what I saw far.
Speaker 2: I don't understand. In the nineteen seventies, the companies like
Speaker 2: Exxon would run advertisements about how their fuel was the
Speaker 2: basis of civilization and it's the good thing, and that
Speaker 2: was great. They need to do that stuff again. But
Speaker 2: instead every day it's more apologizing for the very fact
Speaker 2: that they exist, feeding the alligator, hoping it will eat
Speaker 2: them last. And I think if corporate America woke up
Speaker 2: to how stupid that is and took a stand in
Speaker 2: self defense and said, you know what, we own this property,
Speaker 2: it's ours. We have the right to do with that.
Speaker 2: We will want. We have economic freedom, we have the
Speaker 2: right to make contracts and profit from our hard work.
Speaker 2: We are generating and perpetuating civilization in this world, and
Speaker 2: we have right and they deserve to be respected. I
Speaker 2: think if a corporation stood up and said that, I
Speaker 2: think people would rally to their support. I think Americans
Speaker 2: are sick to death of the apologizing and they and
Speaker 2: they would love to see somebody in the corporate world
Speaker 2: with backbone, and they just they just don't see it.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you're absolutely right, and the first corporation
Speaker 1: that does that is going to get so many huzzahs.
Speaker 1: You can lay out a screed pretty well. I know
Speaker 1: you never had any interest in getting to politics. But
Speaker 1: I could see you on a stage really getting people
Speaker 1: fired up if you ever decided to go that direction.
Speaker 2: I couldn't take the pay set.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this might be Tim talking in his personal life
Speaker 1: rather than representing Goldborger on this question, Tim, I thought
Speaker 1: about this over the weekend.
Speaker 3: I almost texted you, but I thought I wanted to
Speaker 3: ask you on the air.
Speaker 1: So the Supreme Court, with one of the rulings fairly
Speaker 1: recently unleashed the world of legalized gambling across this country,
Speaker 1: sports betting, and there's a basket. Tim's not a sports fan.
Speaker 1: There's a big basketball tournament going on right now known
Speaker 1: as March Madness. It has turned into the biggest legal
Speaker 1: gambling event in American history, maybe a world history.
Speaker 3: Where do you come down on.
Speaker 2: This?
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that the libertarian view is why would the
Speaker 1: government get in the way of you wanting to gamble?
Speaker 2: Yes, In fact, that's so much my view that I
Speaker 2: kind of was puzzled by what your question could be.
Speaker 2: Of course, people should have the right to bet whatever
Speaker 2: they want on the sporting event if they're stupid enough
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 3: Right, So I assume that would be the view and
Speaker 3: that's my view too.
Speaker 1: I hate the idea of the government being able to
Speaker 1: tell this now we probably shouldn't, but the reality is
Speaker 1: you just said, stupid enough to do it. Lots of
Speaker 1: people lose lots of money and get themselves into trouble.
Speaker 3: What's society's role then?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So now you've hear it on a point that
Speaker 2: I think is really important, which is you cannot have
Speaker 2: freedom unless you are willing to let people sail.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: If you aren't willing to let people pay the price
Speaker 2: for their bad choices, then you are also not willing
Speaker 2: to let them enjoy the rewards for their wise choices.
Speaker 2: And what the what the free market says is people
Speaker 2: should be allowed to make their own decisions and be
Speaker 2: rewarded for their wise choices and pay the cost of
Speaker 2: their unwised choices. But if you go around wiping everybody's noses,
Speaker 2: then you are eventually going to have to take their
Speaker 2: freedom away. If you promise to pay for everybody's you know,
Speaker 2: whatever it might be healthcare costs, for example, that's going
Speaker 2: to create what the economists called moral hazard. It's going
Speaker 2: to encourage people to engage in unhealthy activities because why not, right,
Speaker 2: you're going to pay their medical bills, so they might
Speaker 2: as well do whatever they feel like. Well, eventually you're
Speaker 2: going to go bankrupt that way. So pretty soon you
Speaker 2: start saying, look, I'll pay for your health care, but
Speaker 2: you must promise me not to you know, eat red
Speaker 2: meat or whatever it is. And eventually you start putting
Speaker 2: so many strings on all of the benefits you're giving
Speaker 2: people that you're taking their freedom away, and that is inevitable,
Speaker 2: it's inescapable. So you cannot have freedom unless you are
Speaker 2: willing to let people make bad choices and suffer accordingly.
Speaker 2: So my answer to that is if people bet the
Speaker 2: farm on a basketball game and they lose the farm,
Speaker 2: then they lose the farm. And if that puts them
Speaker 2: at the point of poverty, then they need to come
Speaker 2: to me and ask me politely if I will give
Speaker 2: them a second chance, and it's up to me to decide,
Speaker 2: based on their character and their past behavior, their responsibility,
Speaker 2: whether they've turned over a new leaf, etc. Whether I'm
Speaker 2: going to decide to help them out in that crisis.
Speaker 2: And that is the only humane system in the world.
Speaker 2: People act like there's something cool about that. Quite the reverse,
Speaker 2: because my doing that respects that person as a human being,
Speaker 2: respects their humanity, and treats them like an equal human
Speaker 2: being capable of running their own lives. It's the allegedly
Speaker 2: compassionate people who go around trying to take away people's
Speaker 2: freedom and then pay their bills, who are actually treating
Speaker 2: other people like their children, who are treating other people
Speaker 2: like their animals, who can't make decisions for themselves. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm saying that people should be free to make their
Speaker 2: own choices and joy their profits and suffer their rewards accordingly,
Speaker 2: and I think that the ultimate outcome will be better
Speaker 2: for everybody. I don't think you will have people starving
Speaker 2: in the street. The three or the society. The more
Speaker 2: generous it is, It's always been that way. We are
Speaker 2: incredibly generous as a society precisely because we are so free.
Speaker 1: That is the fantastic answer that I knew I would
Speaker 1: get by asking you about this. Where do you want
Speaker 1: people to follow you or turn to you or your
Speaker 1: substack or whatever.
Speaker 2: You can find me at Sandford dot typepad dot com
Speaker 2: or at Timothy Sandford on Twitter and just google me.
Speaker 2: I'm all over the place, one of the most interesting
Speaker 2: people around Armstrong and Getty