The Language of Freedom

We think we're free. But are we? And what does it mean to be free? Is it the old image of "Your right to punch ends at the tip of my nose"? Or is it something more?

What is 2 Parachutes Podcast?

The Two Parachutes Podcast is a collaboration, well, more like a conversation, between a CEO and an FBI Agent. Shawn Baker-Garcia and Scott Olson first met when they were working at US Embassy Baghdad; Scott for the FBI and Shawn for the US State Department. Over the years they’ve worked together, given advice and assistance to each other, and now see that the synergy which comes from open, civil, and thoughtful discussion is very much needed in the modern discourse. Join them as they dive into everything interesting to humanity. The goal of 2PP is to recreate the experience most people have had when they stumble into an insightful conversation with a new acquaintance at a conference or a dinner party. The kind of conversation that makes the rest of the room stop talking and listen. The kind of conversation that gets your mind working as new thoughts tumble out. Let the 2 Parachutes Podcast drop into your world!

Shawn: 00:03

Alright. Welcome to another episode of two Parachutes Podcast. I'm your cohost, Sean Baker Garcia, the happy accidental CEO. And with me here is my buddy, Scott Olson.

Scott: 00:15

Yeah. I'm the other cohost. I'm Scott Olson, as many of you know. I'm a retired FBI agent and currently a private investigator because I spent most of my life chasing people. So let's chase this down, Sean.

Scott: 00:28

What are we talking about?

Shawn: 00:29

All right. I'm gonna take the jump and chase the conversation. Yeah. I thought, you know, we have been talking a lot lately, Scott, about just the world that we're living in, and how people and human beings are and have and will be in the future, you know, interacting with each other, and how, you know, that can be improved, I think. And lately, we've been talking about use of certain types of terms.

Shawn: 00:56

And I think a lot of times in human interaction, we kind of self sabotage because we all make the assumption that we're all talking about the same thing, you know, that we understand the terms in exactly the same ways. So if I say, I enjoy that donut, you're like, yeah, she enjoys a sugary, you know, treat that is, you know, you can get at a local shop somewhere and maybe with a cup of coffee, and that's all pretty understood. There's a lot of times in conversations though, where you think that you're on the same page about what something might mean, and certainly what it means to you, and that may not be the case. And most of the time, that's probably not a huge deal, but it is a big deal if you're talking about big concepts that have a lot of impact on how you live your life and how you see others around you living their life. And so I thought for this episode today, Scott, it would be really interesting to look at the word or the concept freedom.

Shawn: 01:53

Like, what does that actually mean? I'll I'll throw a little additional wrinkle into it as well because you had me spinning the other day about the concept of freedom and what it means to me as as as a human, as an American, and as a citizen, right, of this nation. We're coming up on our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of this nation. So this is an important moment in our timeline to be really looking at this in light of that milestone event, in light of what's happening around the world in geopolitics and right here at home, in our nation. And, so, you know, let's let's dig into this concept of freedom and and what it means to us and and others.

Shawn: 02:36

And at some point during the conversation, if we can, you know, talk about the difference between that and liberty, I wouldn't be mad.

Scott: 02:44

Yeah, that's a great start point, particularly in in view of, you know, our reason our reason for being, you know, our our metaphor is where the shoot two parachutes Podcast, and we're gonna we're gonna take a start point, jump out of the plane, and and see where it pushes us, see where the wind pushes us as we float down to the ground and come to some sort of endpoint in the conversation. And, you know, freedom is a fascinating thing. But before I dive into that, you've as you usually do, you've shaken some old thoughts loose and some old memories loose. And I remember when I was at the FBI, I was a counterintelligence guy. So I'm chasing spies and working with different agencies in the US government and working with different agencies in different governments and one of the things that I used to say when we were working through an issue and not understanding each other is, folks, this is like talking to an Australian.

Scott: 03:52

You know, you think that since you understand the words, you understand the meaning and you don't. And I think that's part of the hard work of interacting. Is recognizing that just because you think you understand what the other person means, you you may not understand what they mean and I think the flag on the play at some point when you are beginning to have that emotional response, you're beginning to have the frustration that comes when you're communicating with somebody that you disagree with because the the hard part of interacting is not communicating with somebody you agree with. It's communicating with somebody you disagree with because when you communicate with somebody you agree with, again, you may think you understand what they mean and you don't but it matters less because you're happy because you're feeling secure because everybody agrees and you don't have to go through this process of, gee, we don't agree. Therefore, one of us is wrong and therefore one of us is bad and it can't be me.

Scott: 04:58

And, you know, going down that in a productive way takes maturity. And that's part of the hard work of interacting as well. So the the flag on the play is if I'm starting to get frustrated, maybe the first thing I do is take a step back and really try to confirm whether I understand what the other person means rather than just focusing on understanding what they say. So with that as the background, for me, freedom is a fascinating thing because of how important it is, but it's also a fascinating thing because of how unique it is. And this is what I mean.

Scott: 05:46

I'm gonna compare and contrast, and I hope you're ready for this. You know, the concept of freedom with the concept of love. And I'm gonna do it in a very specific way. I have three children and they're all in their thirties. So I've been a I've been a father for a long time.

Scott: 06:04

But I remember when my first child was born, I got this little infant girl and I don't even know how to change a diaper and excited to be a dad but I I don't know what I'm doing. One of my big takeaways from that event being in the hospital and my wife was recovering in the bed and I have this little baby and I'm trying to figure out how to change her diaper. I didn't love my wife less because I now loved this child. And that's the wonderful thing about love is that it's limitless. It's not like money or houses or air.

Scott: 06:40

Amen. We we have a finite amount. When you love a person, you can love another person without taking love out of one bank and putting it into another. So it's it's truly an infinite thing. Freedom is also an infinite thing.

Scott: 07:00

And this is how I get to what I think is the most important thing about freedom and what I'm interested in what this shakes loose for you. And that is how does freedom manifest in a person who believes in freedom? And it the the illustration that I like to use is this notion of when we're talking about freedom, my freedom to throw a punch ends at the end of your nose. And there are many people have probably heard that, and I did a little research, and it's widely attributed to the judge William O. Douglas, who was a supreme court justice, and it's widely attributed to him when he was sitting on the ninth circuit court of appeals, but he actually didn't say it.

Scott: 07:48

So for those of you who are saying, oh, William o Douglas, it's not that, but the concept itself is still important because it it illustrates the point. And what I propose to everybody is that is not a good descriptor of what freedom is. Freedom is not my right to punch extends only to the tip of your nose. It's not that. I think freedom is much more fundamental.

Scott: 08:17

If I believe in freedom and I believe that I am a free person, My freedom does not exist if I am not also surrounded by people who are free. So if I believe that I am a free person to do as I will, I must also necessarily believe that all the people around me are free to do as they will, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. And so if I believe in freedom, I'm not even gonna throw the punch because I know if I throw the punch, I'm interfering in somebody else's freedom. And so freedom is inherently not selfish. It's not necessarily selfless.

Scott: 09:03

You're not trying to save the world from everything, but it recognizes that behavior that interferes with somebody else's freedom is an expression of not freedom. And in a free society, freedom is not an individual thing. It is societal thing. It's a group thing. And so each individual is responsible for the whole in the same sort of metaphorical way that, you know, love is infinite.

Scott: 09:38

Freedom is also not, you know, freedom for me and not for thee. And and that's why

Shawn: 09:47

Well, you got some good singers.

Scott: 09:48

Yeah. So and I what what I what what my instinct is is to now go down this hole and start talking about governmental systems and, you know, which ones are free and which ones are not. And then the debate of are the free ones really free, and are we interfering with what people are doing? And, you know, should somebody be, you know, free to commit murder and, you know, if somebody else is gonna, you know, commit an assault, they're interfering with somebody, you know, and and we need to have that discussion. But I think for today, I'm very interested in what you think about this concept of freedom being inherently not selfish.

Scott: 10:28

You know, sort of the the I may disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death. You're right to say it. Notion that people who aren't me are also free in a a ethical way. And then we can start talking about what that means in a practical way. But what do you think?

Shawn: 10:52

So I think there's, like the way that I'm thinking about it is in sort of a hierarchical sense. So I think at the top of the hierarchy of concept food chain is the notion of free will. Okay? That's sort of the internal like, an internal just capacity for me as a human being to make a choice. Right?

Shawn: 11:14

Like, you know, in the context of Christianity, which, you know, I'll always lean on, you know, for my analogies or examples in life, it's like, you know, God gives us the free will to, like, choose. He's not forcing anybody to accept, you know, his way. Underneath that, right, is then sort of freedom, which I see as an external condition. Right? Like, do I have the freedom to exert my free will?

Shawn: 11:46

Is is are the conditions environmentally present to actually facilitate that free will? And and then there's a sort of like a third layer to that, which maybe this is the liberty piece, which is does you know, in in the in the nation in which I reside or in the community in which I reside, Or am I is freedom as a condition in which I aspire to live or that we collectively aspire to live protected, you know, by minimizing either undue government interference with that that free those freedoms, you know, while also protecting, you know, my sort of citizen rights to do whatever it is as a society in the beginning of our founding, you know, moments, they agreed should be inherent rights, you know, and and as a right of freedom, like, I mean, there's layers here, but but I guess so it's like, you know, internally, you know, the the sort of we should have free will and the freedom to choose how we live to the extent it doesn't violate. Right? And this is kind of your your example of my your my freedom stops at the, know, would you say, where my fist meets your nose kind of a situation?

Shawn: 13:11

Again, I love your zinger so, so much. But also, you know, yeah. So it's only because it's not violating the fundamental rights or freedoms of somebody else. But then also recognizing that, like, we we as a society may also just fundamentally disagree, right, on what some of those rights need to be. So, you know or or the and this goes back to say, like, how do we determine define freedom or the either as a use of a term or as a concept because, like you you said, you referenced earlier, like, we can't we don't have the freedom to just kill anybody.

Shawn: 13:51

Right? So so that obviously is an automatic restriction that is based on an agreed upon social compact humans in most societies, if not all, have kind of come to a general consensus that, yeah, okay. Regardless of your beliefs or other things, you probably you know, freedom doesn't extend to just, like, the willy nilly killing of whomever you want for any reason. And this you corrected me once on this before in an earlier podcast, but it's not to say we can't ever kill, or that people, you know, or that your societies won't ever agree that there might be conditions under which it is sanctioned to take life. Regardless of where I, as a Christian Catholic, stand on that, I recognize that that is a major distinction.

Shawn: 14:34

But overall, I think, yeah, we've got humans in their respective clusters, you know, societally have decided certain things are generally agreed upon as fundamental rights as opposed to other things which are like, nope, that's the nose. That's the fist hitting the nose off limits, you know, kind of a thing. So I don't know if that framing is useful to this conversation. I know that it has helped me just by hearing you. I was able to kind of start thinking about how It's not just a simple question.

Shawn: 15:06

And think that And then I'll throw the last thing out there and then punt it back to you, is I think part of where we get so twisted up in our societies today, one, because people aren't interacting in person as much anymore. And I think that that's a whole other conversation thread that we can go down later we have time or another episode if we don't have time. But I think the other piece of it is just we're fighting battles based on assumptions, I think, that we all understand these words to mean the same things. And I don't think that they always do. You know?

Shawn: 15:40

And so then there's natural tension there. You know? Yeah. So maybe we could pick that apart. I I don't know.

Shawn: 15:47

But, you know, over to you for your thoughts.

Scott: 15:50

Yeah. And it's I mean, this is this is a hard one. Mhmm. And I think part of the point here at 2 Parachutes Podcast is we are not gonna sort of put this on hold and move on to something else because it's hard. This is this is the the hard work of interacting and the hard work of being an individual in a group and that's that's a lot of what the the tension is because as soon as you're an individual in a group, you're going to have disagreement And and how do you disagree?

Scott: 16:29

How do you as an individual function when another individual wants to do something that you think you wouldn't do and you don't want them to do? And and how do we how do we figure out what's intrinsically fair? We start talking about, you know, these concepts which are really very subjective. They're, you know, what's fair depends on the view of the person who's looking at that and you and I and 15 other people can look in different facets of a of a diamond and see different things. We're looking at the same object but we see different things.

Scott: 17:13

It reminds me of the old parable of the the the five blind men who were looking at an elephant and one felt the tusk and one felt the trunk, one felt the leg, one felt the tail, and they all had different opinions of what an elephant was and it's because and it's the illustration of the story that they believed that the entire elephant was the part that they were understanding and interacting with. And so they didn't understand the entire elephant and they wouldn't understand the entire elephant until they all came together and put a joint description together. And that's the the hard work of interacting. That's

Shawn: 17:57

Can I just pause you on that though? Because that's a beautiful, beautiful and accurate metaphor for how human beings in America today, and probably other places, I'm just using America because it's our country, and that's our home. I just, it's, I think that when people are going after each other these days online, and on these like, you know, niche issues that are out there in the world, and sometimes they're not niche, sometimes they're actually really fundamental. But I think that they're only feeling the tusk, or they're only of the person on the other side.

Scott: 18:28

Yeah.

Shawn: 18:29

You know? I just think that's a beautiful metaphor. I'd like to just let people let that wash over. But you know, it certainly is washing over me in a nice way.

Scott: 18:37

Yeah, and that's, I think that's a wonderful next step for that story, which is you have an interaction with a person, and it's not just first impressions. You know, you meet somebody and you, you know, you you leave with a first impression. Sometimes it can be somebody that you've known for a very long time and they say something to you that is surprising and you immediately change your opinion. You've only felt the tusk and now all of a sudden you feel the trunk and I think part of the way forward is to recognize that we are, all of us, necessarily blind. Not that we see nothing, but we very rarely see the whole picture because the whole picture is very good.

Scott: 19:29

And not just from a standpoint of we have all this social media and there's so much data out there we get overwhelmed. That's true. But people are complex and people change. And a person that you've known for forty years will sometimes be the same in some ways and will sometimes have changed in some ways. And I think part of the road to doing the hard work of interacting is trying to find some level of fascination with just what people are.

Scott: 20:06

And it's to give you shocking example to make my point, it's hard to be fascinated by a serial killer because what a serial killer does

Shawn: 20:20

You're obviously not a middle aged woman who spends all her evenings like falling asleep to real crime. So Well,

Scott: 20:26

look at you. I just I just went from the tusk to the trunk.

Shawn: 20:29

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Scott: 20:31

Yeah. But it's I I and and I'm I'm making an illustration.

Shawn: 20:36

Sure.

Scott: 20:36

Sure. And is all. It's and and pick your pick your poison. When you're when you're being fascinated by a person, a lot of times you will find things that you don't understand, and sometimes you will find things that you you just can't get on on board with. But being fascinated by it, even though you don't agree with it, is the point.

Scott: 21:00

It's the whole point. And the reason that we're having the problems that we have in the public dialogue right now is because there is something that is masquerading as an ethic, which is actually a huge boat anchor attached to people, which is if we disagree, we can no longer talk. If we disagree about something really important. Yeah. We cannot talk and we cannot compromise because to do so is morally wrong and and it's it's just fundamentally incorrect, and I'm gonna pull us back around to this notion of freedom.

Scott: 21:40

And I I don't believe that, you know, my freedom to swing my fist ends at the point of the next guy's nose. I believe that my concept of freedom means that I will not swing my fist because I recognize that swinging my fist erodes freedom and so the concept is the ethic is I believe in this thing called freedom for me but I in order to do that, I necessarily have to take ownership of the whole. I have to take ownership of the concept of freedom for everyone, for for my society, for our way of being. And that means that I am immediately gonna be placed in this Patrick Henry situation where I'm defending a person that I don't agree with. I'm defending their right to be, to speak, and to do in a way that I don't agree with.

Scott: 22:42

Now I can dispense with the the murder issue very quickly. Murder, when you harm physically harm another person, you're interfering with their freedom. So I think it's very rational and very easy to understand why most societies reject murder. It's because murder is not consistent with freedom. And so we as a group should not do that.

Scott: 23:12

I think the more difficult one would be the use of drugs. You know, if I if I use drugs and it's a self inflicted wound, and I mean, across the spectrum from things that are illegal like heroin to things that are legal like Prozac. It's fundamentally a self inflicted wound, but now we get into this situation where do, you know, do we as a free people allow the people the freedom to make stupid choices to do things that will harm them. I see somebody doing something that I know will harm them, and they don't understand it will harm them. You know, what what do I do then in this Well concept of freedom?

Shawn: 24:04

Yeah, let me just throw in a quick example of that, because I think it's important to be able to wrap our heads around that exact tension that I think societies often can experience. And in The United States, I would say, And this is going to be a spicy sort of, you know, example to give, because I think people have pretty, pretty strong feelings potentially on this. But I think that the issue of the transgender issue for youth, for example. Now, you you may choose, as the parent of a child, to allow your child to explore that gender ideology, and, you know, but at what point for society, whether it's integrating trans ideology in curriculum in elementary schools, you know, like at an early age teaching about these concepts and ideas, or medical intervention where things are happening to kids who theoretically, like, you know, don't have the aptitude to actually consent, you know what I'm saying, to certain things being done that are gonna have a permanent or irrevocable impact on the rest of their adult lives. And so I think that that's an example of something where it's like, well, like, you know, leave me free to do for me and mine.

Shawn: 25:26

But but what I think detractors are saying on the other side of that conversation is, no. We have an, you know, a societal compact to protect the children of our community. And so now you're threatening the body politic, not just, you know, what happens in your home stays in your home kind of a situation. And then also, further to that, know, my understanding is that some of this stuff is potentially coming up in public school systems. And you know, I certainly know it's impacted Virginia here.

Shawn: 25:58

You know, certain, I don't know about curriculum being taught or anything like that. But you know, certainly, parental rights are definitely curtailed here, and things like that, surrounding kids practicing these gender ideologies or gender expressions in schools without the parent without doesn't necessarily require both parents to be consenting, for example, or even be informed. So I think that might be an example of what your point was, is it's not always just in black and white if it's curtailing my independent freedom. But, like, what's the implication? If there's a cascade impact that could cause societal harm, are we then, as a as a community, free to take action?

Scott: 26:41

Yeah. And it's I I think you're shaking loose two things for me. The first is that the transgender issue set is not new and it's not unique. During my time growing up in the late 60s and early 70s, the analogous, I guess, situation was boys who were gay, who were homosexual coming out of the closet. And the the issue set at that time was parental disapproval.

Scott: 27:20

And you had some boys that would come out and they would rather come out and be known as as homosexual rather than hiding that and not dealing with parental disapproval. And you had some parents that were very supportive and some parents that were not supportive. What we see today with transgender is a similar thing. Some kids will be public, some won't. Parental approval or disapproval is the big issue.

Scott: 27:59

The difference now is that you have teachers in school who think and and administrations in school who think that it's okay to keep this status of children away from their parents because they think their parents will disapprove. And my posture on that comes back to this concept of freedom. What does freedom require? And freedom always requires openness. It always requires honesty.

Scott: 28:34

The slippery slope, the dangerous thing is, oh, I have this information, and I'm not gonna tell it to that person who is gonna be impacted by this information because I think their response is going to be bad. And what we forget is we think that their response is gonna be bad, but that's our opinion. It's not their opinion. And so in a free society, information needs to be free, and it's not information, you know, be free consequences be damned. But recognizing that

Shawn: 29:16

Free flowing, I think, is kind of where you're going with that. Yeah.

Scott: 29:19

Free flowing. It's it's Yeah. It's recognizing that if you keep information from another person, you are violating this concept of what freedom is. You are expecting that they will behave in a way that is not free, that's negative or violent or, you know, hurtful or all these things. And fundamentally, what you really are thinking is they're gonna have a negative reaction and I'm not gonna be able to handle it.

Scott: 29:49

And and that's, you know, it it's very easy for me to say, oh, that that's weak and everybody should be strong and some people are weak and some people are strong and that's part of freedom too. But I I wanna give you now a simpler

Shawn: 30:07

And I and I want

Scott: 30:08

that of this. Go ahead.

Shawn: 30:10

Something for future potential reference. Plant away. Especially as a former FBI guy, I would love to, at some point, hear how you what your opinion is, having said what you just said, which is that, like, information or or, like, you know, freedom is sort of the transparent flow of information or, you know, being in the know.

Scott: 30:33

I know where you're going.

Shawn: 30:34

Yes, you do! Say it again. Maybe the audience like, how, what are your thoughts then on the limits of that same transparent flow of information when it is in the national security or in the government context, right? Like, transparency obviously is You know, I know lots and lots of journalists, and lots and lots of, you know, media people who are like, yeah, that's exactly the right position to take. But then there are caveats, I guess, that, you know, especially at the national security level that that that maybe that wouldn't always apply.

Shawn: 31:11

But then we do have Freedom of Information FOIA, the Freedom of Information Act. So, anyway, I'm just kind of I'm now just poking the bees hive a little And

Scott: 31:20

this is this is what we do. These are these are the wind currents. Right? So you're you're talking about the classification system. Information that's confidential, that's secret, that's top secret, that's in a in a TS compartment.

Scott: 31:33

You know? Okay, Olsen. How do you reconcile this with your highfalutin talk about about freedom? But it's it's actually really useful. And again, the point is here at 2 Parachutes Podcast, let's have the conversation.

Scott: 31:52

Yeah. Let's figure this out with the goal, particularly for today, to be how do we manage this stuff in the context of freedom. But as we're talking about children, again, this goes back to me being a father and, you know, dealing with little kids. And, you know, little kids running around being little kids and and it it was very easy for me when I was very new at being a parent to to do what a lot of parents do, which is, you know, holler at your kids. And one of the things that sort of illustrates the point is when you have a two year old who knows how to walk, and they are running around the living room in their stocking feet on a wood floor with, you know, coffee tables and couches and side tables that have sharp corners.

Scott: 32:52

And inevitably, they're running around and they're playing and somebody slips and they bang their head on a sharp corner and they start crying. And of course my instinct and my wife's instinct was to yell at them to stop running around. And what I realized as I sort of tried to get ahead of this issue, I I I don't want my child to be hurt. They're engaging in behavior that I think is likely to cause them to be hurt. The problem is the child doesn't understand that it's risky behavior.

Scott: 33:28

Yeah. Because the child has never slipped and banged their head before. I I remember the first time we served my oldest child chocolate ice cream. She was probably 18 old and we put this dish of chocolate ice cream in front of her with a spoon and we expected her to be thrilled and she started crying. And I'm looking at this child going, come on, it's chocolate ice cream.

Scott: 33:59

Why are you crying? And what I realized was she had never had chocolate ice cream before. And so what I had just put in front of her was a bowl full of a brown lump that was cold and I wanted her to put it in her mouth and she was like,

Shawn: 34:19

no way, man.

Scott: 34:19

I'm not putting this cold, brown, sloppy, nasty looking thing in my mouth and she got stressed out and she started crying. So, I I dabbed a little bit and I put it on her lips and she immediately went from crying to being delighted and she sucked the whole thing down but it because she didn't know. Yeah. What we forget about children is that they don't know. And so when we're talking about, you know, teenager who is struggling with the concept of being gay, struggling with the you know, whether it's it's it's a boy or a girl who's struggling with the concept of, you know, liking their own gender sexually instead of the opposite gender.

Scott: 35:07

And it's it's a struggle. The transgender, all of the, you know, I wanna dress this way and I don't wanna dress that way and dealing with difference of opinion. The challenge in that realm sort of of the teenager is trying to understand the complexity of it because sometimes they know, sometimes they don't know. Sometimes they know when we expect them not to. Sometimes they don't know when we expect them to, It also has an impact on us.

Scott: 35:41

Nobody wants to be the parent of the dorky kid because it's embarrassing to the parent. Nobody wants to be the parent of the kid who got arrested. It's bad for the kid, but it's also embarrassing for the parent. And so the the challenge of parenting and the challenge of being a a child very much impacts freedom because there's the teaching piece, there is the conflicting reputational piece, and it takes a lot of maturity as a parent to go in and deal with that. It takes a lot of maturity that maybe the child doesn't have to be the child saying, I feel a way or I am interested in doing things that my parents will disapprove of, and they have to deal with straining that relationship in whatever way it gets strained to be independent.

Scott: 36:49

I was watching a movie the other day about Tommy Morris, the great golfer. It's it's a a fictional account of his life. And the the scene that I'm remembering is a a fella, and this is, you know, mid eighteen hundreds Britain. And the there's a a friend of his that's talking about how his dad was a blacksmith, but when he was nine, he went to apprentice as a stonemason, and his dad hated it. And one of the other characters said, well, why did you do it?

Scott: 37:23

And the guy who the the character was probably 22 at the time said, well, you have to leave your father. And and what a mature thing. Mean I

Shawn: 37:32

Yes.

Scott: 37:32

It's a fictional account, but what a mature thing at age nine to go, I I I have to find my own way even though my own father will disapprove of me. So it's it's an illustration, and it's something just left there. But how do you how do you structure the the complexity of this? You know, giving somebody freedom because if you're going to be a free person, you need to be responsible for the free society.

Shawn: 38:01

Right.

Scott: 38:02

But also, you know, keeping people from harm, from self inflicted harm. And maybe you have it wrong. Maybe it's not self inflicted harm to them Yeah. Than it is to you. How do you manage that?

Shawn: 38:15

Well, I mean, you know, obviously, we are all subject to operate under the rules of the societies and communities that we live in. And so how I would sort of structure it if I was queen for a day, and know, impose certain parameters or conditions, maybe on some days, I feel like it might be different than what I'm experiencing. But at the end of the day, I think, you know, how our government thus far has interpreted what it means to be free, and structured our systems and our checks and balances from a governance and a societal perspective, I think they're pretty good. And I think that, you know, I think for me, freedom probably means the same to me as it does to most other people. I just think that maybe where we're differing is is, you know, on how we exercise that freedom.

Shawn: 39:17

You know what I'm saying? And on where we draw the lines on societal harms that now, to me, like, you know, if you if enough people in a country decide this is a societal harm, they should have, and theoretically in our country we do conceptually, we have the ballot box, right? That's how we fight our, you know, governance battles, cultural norm battles, and whatnot. But for the most part, I think freedom for myself, you know, I actually, regardless of where where I live, it doesn't matter if I was living in, you know, Tehran, Iran, or or, you know, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, or wherever, you know, I I first and foremost, I have free will. Now, nowhere on earth will you go where you have perfect freedom, you know?

Shawn: 40:15

And so the most important thing to me as a human, as a Christian, as a citizen, is just to know that I have the freedom to make my choices. Now, those choices sometimes are changed by the rules of the road imposed by whatever community I live in, whether that's Fairfax County, or the Commonwealth of Virginia, or The United States Of America. But, you know, I always have the freedom to choose to live somewhere else if I don't like the conditions, you know, that societally have been imposed. So I guess for a day to day practical answer, that's how I understand freedom, just my ability to exercise my free will for things that are important to me in my life. And then the liberty piece, which I was kind of loosely referencing earlier, is what constraints does the government put on itself to not get in the way of that, you know, so that I'm able to exercise my freedoms as they've been declared in whatever body of policy document that we've got.

Shawn: 41:31

When it comes to your analogy about little kids who, you know, like your story about your daughter, it's, you know, part of me is like, wondering if there is a there there in that example that we could apply to, you know, The freedom to be informed. You know, again, so in my career, I've been a national security policy expert, and I've done a lot, you know, in the global security context. And I very much appreciate that there are certain times in sort of the world where you have to protect certain information. It's not a question of permanently keeping it hidden, but strategically, you know, opaque, so that it doesn't put people in harm's way, you know, while you're pursuing a certain goal or action. So I think- but I will always on the side of more information is probably better, but I also have a healthy respect of when things are sensitive.

Shawn: 42:48

I'm like that little child as an average citizen. I don't know what I don't know. And I don't see the things that a lot of times the people who we have elected to represent us to be that global watchdog for us that they are privy to. So to some extent, I would expect that they would restrain from divulging information, you know, if it meant that it was going to save lives, American lives, or that it was going to save any lives, really, but, you know, protect us and protect our freedom. But I do think that their accountability mechanisms need to be in place for if and when those things are abused, and things are held from the American people that ought to be put to light.

Scott: 43:35

Yeah. That's you really have my brain going, and you're pulling me in a a bit of a different direction. And as much as I I wanna sink my teeth into the classified world and the the national security world, and it's something that we as a a people need to talk about. And our our goal here at at 2 Parachutes Podcast continues to be not providing answers, but leading out by trying to figure out the correct questions to ask. There you go.

Scott: 44:17

You know, everybody has a chance to to weigh in and debate because what's what's missing in the dialogue right now is debate. And there are things out there which is, you know, you being polite is another method of suppression. It's not. Being polite is communication, and that the goal is good communication. But the place that you're drawing me to when you you talk about expertise, if you will

Shawn: 44:45

Yeah.

Scott: 44:45

Is how the administrative state has developed. Like the child that doesn't know that there's an elevated risk of banging your head if you run around on a slippery floor with socks. We have there there is going to be a a big faction of the public dialogue that says, well, yeah, that's just like Anthony Fauci saying we have to mask up and stay home because he's the doctor and we're not. So doctors understand stuff. I can't go into my backyard and build a house without getting a permit.

Shawn: 45:27

Yeah.

Scott: 45:28

And I hate that. But the reason for it is there have been a lot of people that went out and built houses who didn't know how to build houses, and they installed wiring that caused a spark that caused it to burn.

Shawn: 45:42

Right. Or,

Scott: 45:44

you know, they they put up four stories and they didn't build the foundation correctly so the thing fell down and hurt people. And so just because I know how to operate a saw and a nail gun. Doesn't mean that I know how to build a structure that is going to be safe and not fall down. Right. Doesn't government need experts?

Scott: 46:08

Because if you just watch somebody build a house and then you went and build a house on that example, you may cause problems for yourself and other people. Isn't isn't that the same? And the question very quickly becomes, where's the where's the line? Where's the line between so little supervision that everybody is reinventing the wheel?

Shawn: 46:35

Yeah.

Scott: 46:35

And so much supervision that you have what we have now and I'll annoy people by saying this but here we go. We have so much licensing and permitting requirements that were actually causing the cost of housing to spiral up because there's less housing than there are people who want houses. So we're by trying to be safe, by trying to manage expertise, we're actually causing people to be hurt. And where's the balance? And I think as we're, you know, talking about all these issues that we need to figure out, my two giant steps back is is this.

Scott: 47:26

You look at the the American system, The United States system, as detailed in The United States constitution, my view, and I'm happy to be disabused of this, but my view at the moment is that the constitution is a decision making document. It's a decision making structure document. It is not the way European systems are, which is whichever party gets the most you know, wins the most seats in parliament has the majority, and the majority can pass whatever laws it's want at once. We do not have a majority rule system in The United States.

Shawn: 48:05

Right.

Scott: 48:06

Because the guys that were writing that document were concerned about what they called the tyranny of the majority. If most people think a thing should be done, then the people that are not in that most people group, you know, lose their freedom. They are being dictated to. So how do we not do that? And it's a difficult question.

Scott: 48:28

How do we not do that? And the way that The US constitutional system functions is we just make decision making really difficult. And what we do is we have a system which ensures that we have to argue. We have to debate, debate, debate, compromise, do trade offs until a supermajority agrees. And then that supermajority pushes their agreement through the system.

Scott: 49:02

And so nobody's unhappy, but also nobody's really happy. And the problem that I see today is we want to win, and so we want to change our system so it's easier to win. And I think freedom is hard. Question of what do you do with a child who wants to do something that you think is risky and they don't see the risk? That's hard.

Scott: 49:31

What do you do with a person who just wants to build their own structure and you think they're gonna get hurt? That that's hard. But okay. It's hard. That's why it's the hard work of interacting.

Scott: 49:46

And for those that wanna criticize me for saying I'm just punting. I'm actually not punting. I'm saying, let let's do the hard work. Let let's figure this out.

Shawn: 50:02

Well, so I'll take that as a personal challenge, and I know that we're kind of probably gonna be running out of time here soon. But that personal challenge to do the hard work, I think, what I actually see happening more lately than in many decades prior to this, which hopefully is a the spark that'll light the flame to get people more engaged, is, you know, educate yourself on our founding framework documents. Go buy a copy of the Bill of Rights or the Constitution, or in its entirety, or the Declaration of Independence, or even some of the precursor writings of the founding fathers, so that you can kind of get into their head about what they had envisioned you know, for this society. And, you know, I think that a lot of the arguments that are taking place right now in our society are happening because, you know, and again, this goes back to full circle to the original kind of few minutes of the conversation, which is, you know, do we all agree on the terms and agreements? Do we all understand certain terms, words to mean what they actually mean?

Shawn: 51:14

Or are we suffering from an interpretation problem? You know, where we're coming in with baseline differences of opinion on what the foundational concepts and words actually mean. And I don't know how to solve that problem, because I think what you would probably find is, unfortunately, there's so much What do you call that? Like, when it's reinforcement reinforcing bias, right? Even AI.

Shawn: 51:44

Reinforcing bias, yeah. Yeah, even AI does it, right? So I just saw a little clip the other day where it was a Muslim apologist, which is just somebody that advocates on behalf of Islam as a religion, who was saying, oh, I went into this AI chatbot, and I asked it, like, ChatGPT, like, you know, you know, what would you be if you were, you know, sentient, like, real human? And it was like, oh, I'd be Muslim. And you know?

Shawn: 52:14

So it was you know? But then when a Christian apologist took the exact same prompts and asked the same AI platform the same questions, it gave them answers that would appeal to that person. Right? Like, oh, I'd be Christian. Or, oh, of course, the Bible's real or what whatever.

Shawn: 52:32

So what I think we just need to be cognizant of is that we may be fighting about things that we're not It's like you're playing checkers and I'm playing battleship. You know what I mean? We may not even be playing the same We may think we're playing the same game, but we're using different terminology, and different framing, and different understandings. So it is important to try to understand the other person by maybe asking more questions. You expressed it earlier by just saying, I don't think you framed it this way, but the way I took it is be curious.

Shawn: 53:07

Ask questions. You know, like, well, why do you feel that way? Like, well, you know, where does this come from? Because I think what we'll do is we'll get to the core of where people are actually living. And then that helps us see the elephant in its entirety more often than not.

Shawn: 53:21

And if we can see the elephant, whatever it happens to be, whether that's talking about transgender rights, or whether it's talking about abortion rights, or any other big consequential societal issue that we're all working to figure out what does freedom look like in the context of those issues, then at least we'll be further along than when we maybe started out. Because I genuinely don't think people are that far off from each other as they think they are. I just think that one, we're often not understanding terms in the same way. Two, where we are understanding terms in the same way, we had a fundamental disagreement on what the expression of that term might mean. And freedom is a great example of that.

Shawn: 54:09

So that's kind of where I'm landing on all of this. I think if I were to say just one final parting word, is I would just encourage everybody. If we're already seeing AI is reinforcing bias, even though it's supposed to be objective or at least more objective than humans, then I think humanity is going to The challenge will be for humans to definitely pursue doing the hard work of interacting with each other in person as much as you can, because that's the thing that AI will never be able to replicate. And that's the only way you're gonna know what lives in the heart of somebody else, you know, is to actually talk to another human being.

Scott: 54:53

Yeah. And think the what I would add to that, as and we are coming into our hour here, so we're definitely in the you know, the the final thoughts, the things to think about as you go on to the rest of your day. It's we we've talked a little bit about this question of maturity and I think the way the mature that maturity manifests itself in the context we're talking about is when you don't understand and you are getting frustrated and you recognize that this is the flag on the play that you need to pay attention to as you are diving into asking questions and listening. Maturity means that it's genuine. You know?

Scott: 55:39

It it's not this concept of as I'm listening to what the other person says, I'm planning what I'm gonna say in response. It's not asking questions as technique to win the argument. It's inquiring to truly understand what the other person thinks and why they do. And the maturity piece is recognizing that you don't have to agree with the person to understand why they think what they think. And it comes back to one of our themes, which we probably don't mention enough, which is, you know, the public dialogue is going to be better if more people are thoughtful, have opinions, but are also open to being convinced.

Scott: 56:31

And being open to being convinced is the truly mature piece of this. It's, oh, I learned something and that changes my mind.

Shawn: 56:41

Yeah.

Scott: 56:41

If you think that you're right and you're never gonna change your mind, it means that you are not open to growing. It means that you are not open to new information. It doesn't mean that every piece of new information is gonna change your mind. You can hear something new and distinguish it and maintain your opinion, but that's being thoughtful. So be thoughtful, have opinions, and be looking at being convinced.

Shawn: 57:06

I would add one point one piece to that too.

Scott: 57:08

You got the last word.

Shawn: 57:09

No. No. I just because what you said is so important. It also means that you're not very confident in your principles if you can't hear something else.

Scott: 57:19

Yeah. Genuinely hear it.

Shawn: 57:20

Because it means you're worried. You know what I mean?

Scott: 57:23

Yes.

Shawn: 57:23

And and and so just honestly, I I think it's a beautiful piece of advice to close on. And and also just because the AI thing, it popped into my head another sentiment, which is, look, humans are hard to interact with. That's the way the world is. And that's also the beautiful part about it because an a human will always challenge you. You don't want to live your life in an AI world that never challenges you.

Shawn: 57:48

The beauty about humanity is our ability to challenge and check each other because we are a pack minded animal community and because, generally speaking, to challenge is to give the opportunity to surface the best possible outcome for humans. So I think that that's where I'll land on this episode.

Scott: 58:10

I love that. I love that. And AI is easy because it's not human. And and we need to be mindful of that. That's wonderful, Sean.

Shawn: 58:18

Yeah. Yeah.

Scott: 58:19

Well, we blew through another hour. Hey. As always, I'm energized after talking with you, and I can't wait for the next one.

Shawn: 58:26

I agree, and it was a delight. So we'll catch you on the next jump, Scott.

Scott: 58:31

Alright. Catch you on the next one.

Shawn: 58:33

Great.