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Social Justice - A Conversation
Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV. And the Boyd School of Law.
Unknown Speaker 0:07
Hi, I'm Lana weatherald. I'm a third year law student, and welcome to social justice, social
Unknown Speaker 0:11
justice to conversation conversation.
Unknown Speaker 0:13
Good evening, everybody. And thank God elections are over, right, I'm sure we are just in the midst of what's about to come in the court system. However, we are probably going to hear the last of those horrendous commercials on our television every night. So thank you to all of those who voted. I'm sure next week, we'll go over some of the results as they begin to get finalized, and we'll have some more information and updates for you. So stay tuned to next week's episode for that. Now, I think this what's been in the news a lot and sort of aside from elections, kind of get your mind off of all of that has been Kyrie Irving and his anti semitic or however you want to view what it is he posted, promotion of anti semitic comments, whatever. And sort of get the, you know, me and me and the professor's take on what's going on with Kyrie Irving. So I'll let Professor lead it off tonight.
Unknown Speaker 1:07
Yes, thank you. At best, it was exceedingly poor judgment that he utilized. I think that it showed a lack of sensitivity, a lack of awareness and a lack of common sense. I think that I think that, in today's times, you know, someone said, you know, we're suffering from an overdose of political correctness. But I think there are situations in which a person should really give a lot of thought to what they're saying before they say it, particularly in light of the fact that there's been such an alarming rise in anti semitic incidents in the country. And it was interesting that last week, last Friday, for the first time and my memory, having grown up on the East Coast, that there was an alert of the different synagogues and Jewish religious institutions in New York and New Jersey. And the ADL, who monitors this stuff, has been, you know, talking about this for the last three or four months, where there's been a huge increase in these in these incidents, particularly in New York City, where there has been a lot of assaults against people who are Jewish people who are Hasidic. And I just think that, you know, he has to he has to, he has to work that out for himself. He has to come to terms with with himself as to as to being responsible. And I know that the team has made efforts to try to get him to do that whether the efforts are too much or too little. At this point, it really doesn't seem to matter, because it doesn't seem to have gotten anywhere. But I think that I think that the jury is out on this. From a sports point of view, of course, the team is the team is basically a shambles to begin with. They just got rid of their coach. They are basically, patently shopping. They're their number one player, Kevin Durant. So there's a lot of things going on there. But I do think I do think in conclusion, that there has to be a standard of conduct for the for the athletes to play, or not just athletes in any profession, of what any line of work that you're engaged in. There's a certain code of behavior that you you're supposed to follow. And, you know, he didn't do that.
Unknown Speaker 4:01
I want to start by saying that I don't agree with him posting something like that on his Instagram story. It's dumb, right. But you heard the professor talk about real, not supposed threats of violence happening in New York and New Jersey, that I would venture to go got 25 to 50% of the level of media play that this drama with Kyrie Irving got, which I'm telling you right now, what he posted just to his 4 million followers on Instagram, which means maybe half a million people saw it at the time of posting maybe how many of them then clicked the link? How many of them that I mean, at the end of the day, this was a non issue. That became an issue because the corporate owned media wanted it to become an issue. I don't think anybody genuinely cares what Kyrie Irving is watching on Amazon. The fact that it had terrible anti semitic undertones is not surprising half of the athletes post racially ambiguous weird crap on their stories all the time. Everybody in the NHL is posed in solidarity with Morgan Wallen, and half of the NBA, you know, is, to a lesser extent not educated on these topics. So why do we care what they're saying about them? I think this got blown out of proportion. Why are you getting your source on, you know, the Jewish community from Kyrie freaking Irving? I think when we suspend an athlete for saying, or posting or reposting a movie clip, or whatever it is, we're started, we're setting a really dangerous precedent that these guys can't think for themselves or hold problematic views. We're all allowed to espouse problematic garbage on our Instagram without facing repercussions at our job, why is he any different? Why are you holding Kyrie Irving to the standard of, you know, what we would hold on not even our elected officials to I don't get it. I think this was if you want people to not pay attention to that movie. If you don't want people to have access or promote, you know, anti semitic media, then why do you continue to report on this story? Why is this story been in the news for two weeks? You know, again, I don't condone what Kyrie Irving did it was dumb, but this why are we? I mean, why are we still talking about it? Who cares? He is not the authority on the Jewish people. And I think we should not set the precedent that athletes should be suspended for what it is they say on the internet. Well, stop.
Unknown Speaker 6:23
Well, I think I think in his case, of course, some of this past behaviors have led to, he was
Unknown Speaker 6:31
an easy scapegoat, he was a very easy scapegoat, because of who he was,
Unknown Speaker 6:35
by by by fear. And the whole thing, though, you know, way beyond what he has to say, is how the internet and social media has normalized and legitimatize. A lot of a lot of hate speech and a lot of things that have become almost normal. So that when you come out with these, these racial diatribes against another group of people, it doesn't provoke the outrage they used to, because it's become so common. And I think that's I think that's that can we can segue into the poor Pelosi conspiracy theories, abundant now. And I think it's interesting because from a factual point of view, you have an 82 year old man who had a skull fractured, he was not the intended victim, the intended victim was his wife. And what amazes me, of course, is the fact that after this guy was basically weaponized by social media to to go out and do what he did. Either the complete lack of responsibility for the for the impetus to get him to do it, but also a lot of people who basically have treated the attack on her husband as a joke, or that the police were hiding information about what happened that night. And we're seeing we're seeing with this, in this particular case, what we've been seeing with with with the vote, and the election, hoax and all the rest of these things, that unreality becomes reality. And if you have enough people who are promoting these crazy theories, it has it has a fertile ground among a lot of people who listen to and go on social media. And they believe this stuff. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 8:44
I mean, for some of the theories I've seen surrounding this Paul Pelosi incident, I mean, they're completely unsubstantiated. It's like the most ludicrous, salacious things you could possibly dream up of which they have no, no evidence to, to, you know, to bring forth. I think it's absolutely, you know, just a symptom of another way to, you know, stoke the fire on with unsubstantiated claims. It's very, it's very sad because again, like you say, this is an 82 year old man with a skull fracture, there's nothing salacious about it other than that, just just sort of horrifying and how things can become so twisted and used for political gain either way. I mean, this was, you know, a brutal attack on an elderly man that has become the topic of like gossip among Republican talking boards. It's just really unfortunate.
Unknown Speaker 9:29
I think it I think we can see it also tie into political advertising. Absolutely. The days dwindled down to the actual vote, we see the race card coming out again, where basically, they don't actually come out and say it but crime is out of control. You're not safe in your home.
Unknown Speaker 9:50
And you know, here in Las Vegas, there's an advertisement that comes right out and you know, says illegal immigrants caused murder on the strip, you know, and just it I mean, they come right out and say it in a lot of these situations. And you know, when after the strip stabbings happened to it, professor and I started pontificated that that would be the narrative surrounding that horrible incident was that he was an illegal immigrant and then look not, you know, a month later, that's what shows up in political ads trying to get you to vote Republican because this guy went crazy on the Strip. It's sort of insane. But yeah, I guess it absolutely all does. Sort of, you know, this violence that we saw with Paul Pelosi does kind of get could go back to the things that are seen in political ads, when Nancy Pelosi is painted as the villain in the, you know, high tower. I'm not surprised something like this happened, right? I mean,
Unknown Speaker 10:36
dark and deep, and Nancy Pelosi is going to keep your children away, and Nancy Pelosi is going to keep grime in the streets.
Unknown Speaker 10:44
I mean, that's really how these things are framed. And so you know, it's not surprising when something like this happens,
Unknown Speaker 10:49
I think I think that a lot of that has to do with the fact that the people who are promoting this stuff, don't actually have any plan to run anything. Basically, all of the stuff that they put out is negative, designed to appeal to hate a lot of it. And when you come to ask them, Well, what is your what is your campaign program? How will you get inflation under control? How will you do all the things that you claim Joe Biden is doing wrong, and they never have a plan? I mean, the only thing that you can say about them is guaranteed if they take power, and Congress is they'll be trying to promote the tax cut bill, because that's what they always do. And what's also interesting about it, and you know, which is dismaying is the fact and we were discussing this, how many candidates that they running that are completely unfit to run. But the thing, but the thing they're recourse and what's even makes it even worse is a couple of months ago, Mitch McConnell was talking about the terrible candidates that they were putting out, he said, we don't have the best candidates. But the need and the hunger to be a majority leader in the Senate. Again, it takes overall rationality. So in the last two or three weeks of the campaign, literally 10s of millions of dollars, was thrown into Ohio, was thrown into Wisconsin, in Wisconsin, apparently, the Senator Johnson, his connection to two of the richest families in the state, who he's helped get huge tax breaks over the years. And that's the that is the support. That is his financial support. And, of course, you know, also the fact that many people in the electorate, electorate are not intellectually curious, right. And that there's a, we've discussed this before, that their source of information is one source of information, which is either Fox News or, you know, some way on and worse, and they don't want to look at anything else. They don't want to be told anything else. So one of the problems we have as a society now is how do you convince people who are voters who have voted that their candidate actually lost legitimately. So in other words, I think what we're going to be seeing, and it's going to play out over the over the next few weeks, maybe even months, is a whole host of challenges, to the to the to the elections. And it's going to be more fodder for the idea that the election was a hoax, that it wasn't real, that there was massive vote for the whole deal. And you have this continuum of people who just do not believe that if their candidate loses it's legitimate. That's why
Unknown Speaker 13:44
it is not you know, it should be the law of the land that he failure to procure, or at least a an admission that you will not adhere to the rules for a peaceful transfer of power, quite frankly, are nothing short of treasonous. I mean, that is anti democratic to not, and to come right out and say prior to an election, I will not have or maintain a peaceful transfer of power within my constituency is treasonous. I don't understand how it's anything but but it's become normalized. And we just accept this as Oh, yes, you probably willing to contest the results of a fair and democratic election. Why wouldn't she is insane. I mean, what are we talking about here?
Unknown Speaker 14:18
I think a lot of this has to do. And you know, we've kicked this around before. The whole concept of what justice is right. But basic, but basic justice, basic justice is that no person should be above the law. That's what it's supposed to be. Now we know of course, that in many ways America falls short of the mark many times in the way it treats inmates. There's a whole bunch of things. But there has to be at a certain point, certain guidelines, certain rules that have to be set in stone to secure democracy to secure democracy and now For example, now, the whole situation with the documents at Mar a Lago, any other person, any other person, including yours truly, and my co host sitting across from me at the table here, we would be in prison, right? We would not be doing this show, we will correct the high likelihood as we might not even be seen anything here. Yeah. And you have a situation where basically, the law is the law was clouded. And the the the people who are supposed to be the stewards of the law, that people that are supposed to uphold the law, are nowhere to be found. We saw this situation with the FBI. Regarding the Larry Nasser case, where nothing was done about it, we've seen a whole bunch of cases where nothing was done about it. And all that all that that is doing is involving as emboldening people to do what they're doing and accelerating what they're doing. But you have to have, you have to have one standard of law, you cannot have, you know, whoever what will be I mean, what's in there was it was an interesting case of a woman who basically had documents in her home, who was the top secret documents that she had taken home, and the woman was sentenced to seven or eight years in prison, right? It was there wasn't even a debate about it. And I think the mistake that people are making, is, it's thinking that this is gonna go, it's gonna go away, it's not gonna go away. It has to be dealt with, you know, it has to be dealt with, aggressively. And I think the other thing too, is that we're ceasing to become a society of ideas. You know, politics in America used to be that you had the Republican Party, you had the Democratic Party, and each had a platform, and voters could evaluate the platform that each party put forward as to as to, you know, what would be preferable. As far as you know, voting, you don't have that anymore, you only have one party that has a platform. And the other party, basically,
Unknown Speaker 17:11
their platform is damage control from what the other party said, you know,
Unknown Speaker 17:15
exactly, exactly. And one of the one of the main examples of that is the guy out in Wisconsin, who's running for the Senate, he basically wants to get rid of, of Social Security and Medicare. And if you get, I highly recommend that if you get a chance to go on YouTube, or go MSNBC or CNN, you'll see, you know, President Obama's commentary on that. What always would always fascinates me and strikes me is that of the largest bloc of the people that are going to vote Republican, are people
Unknown Speaker 17:52
who are utilizers of Medicaid,
Unknown Speaker 17:55
who are utilized as a Medicare that utilizes of Social Security, they tend to be older, they tend to be to be more white than then diverse. And these are the people that you know, their benefits are going to be either curtailed or completely shut off. And you're going to vote for these people. I mean, what is the what is the ration now, of people who are completely voting against their own interests. And a perfect example, you know, with all the criticism of Joe Biden, they put through the bill, which is going to lower lower Medicare drug costs, which people were always clamoring about, they're going to be, there's going to be a $2,000 out of pocket expense, they're going to eventually get a whole bunch of drugs, brand name drugs, that will become generic, and they'll get, they'll get a better price on those too.
Unknown Speaker 18:52
So he's like what Mark Cuban is already doing in the private market? Exactly.
Unknown Speaker 18:56
Exactly, exactly what Mark Cuban is doing in the private market. And for doing that, and for also, you know, forgiving student debt, which was another very positive thing.
Unknown Speaker 19:09
And you know, what, credit where credit is due justice, Amy Kony Barrett allowed that to, you know, stay where it was. And shockingly, I did not think that was going to come down or that she was she didn't release any words along with that decision. But hey, she didn't need to good God. We're getting our money.
Unknown Speaker 19:25
Yeah, no, no, it's it's true. But I think that and then when and when he made the decision, particularly with the student debt, right. That's turned into an attack against him. He's favoring a certain group of people.
Unknown Speaker 19:41
Right. The Elite highly educated, liberal, indoctrinated folks. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 19:45
And they're taking they're taking money out of your pocket and then there then then they also lie about him and who is tax who was tax increases going to hit? I think I've said this before. I think the main reason that corporate America has poured literally 10s, if not hundreds of millions of dollars into the Republican candidates for Congress is very, very simple. Because so pay for what Biden is trying to do. He's having a 15% tax minimum tax on profits of over a billion dollars. And this is going to hurt these people. Because they have been used for so long to basically having a free ride in Washington, that the tax system is completely it's completely paid for, bought and paid for. And they have this enormous, not just lobbying group, but also this enormous legal network of firms that will jump right to their aid, not merely not merely as far as not only as far as tax issues are concerned, but defending them against opioid distribution and
Unknown Speaker 20:57
it with how the investments go throughout Congress, a lot of these corporations success is our Congress people's success. So there's no initiative to change that.
Unknown Speaker 21:06
Right. Right. Well, sure. I mean, absolutely. You know, going back, going back a couple of years, when I started teaching, we first started out, we first started out with all the judges in the federal judiciary, who was writing in stock, yep. And then we bounced along to all the people in Congress who were doing the same thing. Then we bounced the executive branch, so they were doing the same thing. And finally, we went to the Federal Trade Commission, which is supposed to regulate it, and they were doing, actually more than the other three were doing. So you say to yourself, you know, this is not this is not gonna get fixed. So I think what, what what maybe what you need to do in situations like that, is create a special investigative part of the federal government, nonpartisan, nonpartisan, whose only duty is to investigate the misdeeds of the other three,
Unknown Speaker 22:02
everybody that supports these massive corporations having these non taxable profit? Sure.
Unknown Speaker 22:07
And I think I think I think, you know, from an ethical point of view, I mean, that's an easy, that's an easy thing. Easy enough. Right. But but, you know, when you talk about like the judges, and you know, of course, that they're supposed to avoid conflicts of interest, and throughout the whole judiciary, throughout the whole judiciary, they have these rules that nobody apparently nobody apparently pays attention to. And then you have it in the Supreme Court, where actually judges hear cases, not only not only were they they have might have financial interests, but whether they have family members who are involved with actual litigants who are coming before the court. I think we all know what we're talking about there. You know, somebody said, It's boring to reiterate the obvious. But I mean, you know, you have Clarence Thomas, and the wife is involved in all these in all these different groups, who are basically trying to delegitimize the election. So so how so how actually, is that? How do you have that?
Unknown Speaker 23:11
And for those of you that aren't lawyers or you know, not familiar with sort of the practice of law, and what happens these they do not face sanctions state, right? I mean, these there's no trouble that ends up coming upon these federal judges are coming upon Clarence Thomas. I mean, this is not there are no sanctions to be faced from the ABA from the State Bar. And this is not anything that they face any trouble for, it's allowed to go on unfettered. So yeah, you know, when we say all these things, and we talk about them, like they are so grotesque, it's because there's no accountability ever for this going on. So
Unknown Speaker 23:41
yeah, well, it's not I think, I think the court in many ways, the Supreme Court is completely out of touch with the actual opinions of most people. And, of course, you know, when they made the decision, repealing Roe v. Wade, you had basically five of the six justices were men. Now, how could a man even the most intelligent man, how could a man know what it is? To carry a child to know what they
Unknown Speaker 24:15
would have never made the decision? Well, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And
Unknown Speaker 24:19
of course, of course, you know, that brings me to the interesting article in the Times that we were talking about how men are very ambivalent about, you know, supporting, supporting women now in the fight, you know, to, you know, I don't know I don't know what you could do with abortion. Now. I mean, it's been repealed, but at least to try to prevent further laws from being passed and to lens and to lend your support to women in this area. And men are like sort of like, disinterested bystanders or spectators, whatever you would call them and yet the the concern If you have a child, it takes two people to, to do it. Listen up
Unknown Speaker 25:05
men. And listen, God if you voted Republican on that last ticket, birth control whether you see it or not as on the ballot, and there are members and I know this sounds like fear mongering, because it may not be your representatives if you live in a metropolis, but there are members of the Republican Congress and members of the Republican House that firmly believe birth control is not a right a woman should have. And I'm telling you now, there will be some field, there will finally be some feeling there will cite and finally be some tension on the side of the men when it comes to women's reproductive rights when birth control gets stripped away, because there's going to be a whole lot of 18 year commitments running around this world, if that's how this is going to go. And I firmly believe that birth control is at risk. And I think maybe then, maybe then if then we don't have active access to contraceptives, and men are finally having to deal with the consequences of their behavior, because you know, we'll see it with Roe v. Wade. Now, in the coming years, I'm sure to maybe there will be some change of heart in how women's reproductive rights are viewed. But you know, I'm not holding out hope.
Unknown Speaker 26:05
Well, I said this to you before. I think I think the court it's not it's not just the court, the court is the court has nine people, it goes far beyond the court, right? The powers that be they want to they want to turn the clock back on America. They want to have nationwide abortion ban. You just mentioned contraception. I think they want to undo LGBT rights. As much, Clarence Thomas said, as much particularly gay marriage and all the rest of those things. And, you know, it's a shame, it's a shame that a lot of these rights don't don't have a unified opposition, not just not just from women, but But men, and from basically most of society. That is that there's, there shouldn't be a special right to privacy that you have that you have, you know, the right to your bodily autonomy. And when they were talking at all about the election, the number one issues, the number one issue if you're a woman, I'm not a woman, but I can I can it's
Unknown Speaker 27:11
reproductive rights, reproductive rights sale, right,
Unknown Speaker 27:13
full stop what it is, it is more than, you know, a 20 cent discount on your on your loaf of bread.
Unknown Speaker 27:20
You're getting more than gas prices, right? It's your livelihood, it's your future. It's your ability to control how you start a family. Yeah, it's
Unknown Speaker 27:27
the whole thing, you know, and but I think we're seeing I think we're seeing all across the country. We're seeing it now with there's a case in the Supreme Court more versus Harper, where basically, they want to basically have the state legislature take over the whole election process, that you would not even be able to appeal to the highest court in the state, it would all be done by the legislature. And they could deem pretty much everything that goes on with the election. And I would imagine, I would imagine pretty much deem what set of electors to send to Washington, if there was a presidential vote. And this is what this is what they have been working toward for a long time. This,
Unknown Speaker 28:12
this is the Supreme Court case that I think is most directly tied to our ability to function as a democracy in the future. Absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 28:19
I don't think there's any doubt about that. And I think I think what all of this is the gerrymandering, the voting restrictions, the intimidation of the polls, to not wanting to count absentee ballots in mail in ballots has to do with the fact that they realize that the demographic has turned against them. And they don't. And the only way they can remain in power basically, is to try to change the system, the system and disenfranchise as many people as they can, primarily people of color removed Dropbox and the whole thing. I don't think there's any I don't think there's any doubt about that, nor nor upon on deep reflection to why I think there was anything spontaneous about what happened on January 6, or anything that's going to be spontaneous
Unknown Speaker 29:11
in the coming weeks coming re election
Unknown Speaker 29:14
going downward toward judo. 2024 But again, again, you know, we can vote as people, we can talk as people, but our institutions, our institutions, and a certain point have to act. And I'm talking about the Justice Department.
Unknown Speaker 29:37
Yeah, and with that, I we hope you tune in tune in next week, so we can give you sort of a more comprehensive take on what's happening with all of these cases surrounding the election nationwide. So thank you for tuning in. And we'll see you guys next Thursday.
Unknown Speaker 29:48
See you next week. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 29:51
Thank you for listening to our show. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at weather one that's w e t h e l one at nevada.unlv.edu or to contact Professor Charles Stanton contact him at CHA R L E S That's Charles dot Stanton s t a n t o n@unlv.edu CNN axon
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