Social Justice - A Conversation

Speaker 1 0:00
The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Speaker 2 0:13
Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV. And the Boyd School of Law.

Speaker 3 0:19
Hi, I'm Gabriella Tam. I'm a fourth year accounting student.

Speaker 2 0:23
And welcome to social justice, social justice, our conversation,

Unknown Speaker 0:28
a conversation.

Speaker 2 0:31
Well, good evening, everybody. And welcome back to social justice, a conversation. I'm here with my partner, Gabriella Tam, hello. And we're here to talk about those events that sort of stir the pot of our country. And I guess we could start out at first at the at the top of the food chain, at least and least at least in the judicial sense. And that's the Supreme Court. And of course, I'm sure everybody by now knows that the Supreme Court on their own, actually, they were dragged kicking and screaming to do this. Their new quote unquote, ethics policy for the nine justices of the Supreme Court. And it's quite fascinating, of course, because usually, in most cases, when you set up rules and different regulations, there are very strict standards judged by a third party usually not by you of themselves, you know, checks and balances and balances. And of course, the other part of it is that there are penalties for viewing viewer misdeeds, if you're caught, you know, doing stuff that's, you know, incorrect. Well, anyway, this thing that they cooked up is not really a plan. That's gonna go anywhere. For many reasons, you can just Yeah,

Speaker 3 1:53
I mean, like, if we look at it in a positive way, like, at least it's something I guess, but it does really suck that there's no penalties, which is like, really weird, honestly. And then we were talking about this before, like, it's a self report. Yeah. Like, they're gonna be like, oh, sorry, you guys. I did the I did it. I, we need there's no punishment. Like, what are they supposed to do? Say after that? Yeah, of

Speaker 2 2:20
course. Well, of course, I mean, the whole idea of one of those plans or whatever they whatever they cooked up, presumes the ethic construct of the people who do it. Yeah. So in other words, if you presume that these people are ethical, then I could say, well, it can go somewhere in a positive direction. But But can we can we actually presume that an institution who has members that are receiving all kinds of humongous gifts, travel around the world staying in different lodges? In the case of Clarence Thomas, getting an ru V basically, for nothing?

Speaker 3 3:13
And then, though, one guy like excluding his wife from Yeah, well, that's included, as well as

Speaker 2 3:18
the judge Justice Roberts and his wife, who was the who's, you know, who's the headhunter? And she basically, you know, has hired so many people to her firm that appear that appear before the court. There have been so many cases in the last few years. And I think it's gotten

Unknown Speaker 3:38
worse. No, definitely where

Speaker 2 3:42
you can make I always say this about politics, you know, you can be a conservative or you can be a liberal or progressive, whatever it is, yeah, I can understand. I can understand somebody making a decision based on on those things. Because you're a human being and you have different ideas about what will happen. Yeah, what should happen. But there's a difference between that and somebody who has relationships with people who have given you various gifts. Yeah, and then you're supposed to decide a case in a totally unbiased way, when you have this deep relationship, not only a friendship relationship, but a lot of times a financial relationship, where somebody has done all this stuff for you. And it's kind of it's really strange belief that a person can just blow that off and say, like, Oh, John gave me all kinds of goodies and everything, but I'm going to decide this case impartially. I'm not going to favorite John, even though he I went to his yacht and I wasn't a Ruby. I did all these things. It's kind of it's kind of like mind blowing that. I wonder. There's two ways to look at it. I suppose. One way to look at it, of course is that They know what they know what the deal is, they're getting the stuff that they're getting. And they're basically, you know, they're gonna decide in a certain way because of that. But the other way of looking at which is even more frightening, where they don't really have a bad motivation, but that they think that it's normal. They think that all these things should be given to them. Oh, yeah. And then like, well, of course, I'm gonna decide the case. Honestly, I would never give a thought. And maybe, and maybe they don't, which is scary. No,

Speaker 3 5:37
yeah, I remember, what was it, um, when we were electing like, they were electing a new speaker of the house. And like, someone didn't get votes, because he didn't reach out to everyone. And like, I was just like, wow, you feel that entitled, that someone needs to be like, hey, like, please vote for me. Like, I'll give you like, anything you want. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Which is that? You

Speaker 2 5:58
know, I mean, I worked in politics. And, you know, we were talking before the broadcast began about the Ides of March movie with with George Clooney and Ryan Gosling. That's pretty close to the truth. No, yeah. I mean, you know, and what was interesting in my experience in politics was that the people who were the volunteers and the people who went out to get signatures, and those were the idealists, those were people who they truly believed in the candidates they were supporting. And there's still there's still a lot of people, I think, you know, the people in Ohio who worked so hard to put in the state constitution, the right to an abortion, and in various states where people will do that. But my experience was, what I found is that the higher up the food chain, you go, the less idealism you see. And when you get to the top, it's basically

Unknown Speaker 7:01
you just become like, jaded, you become

Speaker 2 7:03
jaded. And of course, it's what's in it for me and look at what I can get. I mean, of course, in the in the Ides of March movie, of course, the movie unmasks basically, not just the political process. But the total cynicism of these people who actually have the audacity to talk about issues related to helping people and everything, and actually don't believe in anything. Yeah, you see, and I think that's why we're in this situation when our country politically, it's how it's how the ex president could be so popular, because the institutions that we are supposed to respect, and the political process that we're supposed to respect, has shown itself to be to be morally bankrupt. Yeah.

Speaker 3 7:53
And now everyone has just lost all kinds of respect. Yeah, yeah. The institution.

Speaker 2 7:59
Absolutely. I mean, I mean, we have, we have the situation in the Senate with Tommy Tuberville, the guy who's the senator from Alabama, and he's been holding up for months and months, the promotions of all these people in the military, oh, over over 400 of them. And the reason he's doing that is because the guy who's the head of the Defense Department wants to wants to give women wants to give women the right to medical care, appropriate with this circumstance. In other words, if they if they need to have an abortion, or if their their life is in danger, et cetera, et cetera, he wants to limit that he doesn't want the military to be able to do that. So my thing is, well, all those women that are in the military, they're serving their country. Yeah. So nobody, nobody, you know, question their patriotism or their their zeal when they wanted to go into the military. But now, all of a sudden, well, we have a right to control a woman's body. Okay. And you can still be a soldier. Whoa, wait a minute there. Yeah. Wait a minute. That's not

Speaker 3 9:12
I thought it was, you know, like, support our troops and all that. Well, yeah.

Speaker 2 9:15
Well, that's, that's a whole that's that's all a whole other tributary to talk about, because the Republican Party. Yeah. You know, you know, it's like peeling an onion, in a sense, a lot

Speaker 3 9:30
of things that they say and a lot of things that they do are very contradictory, contradictory.

Speaker 2 9:35
Well, it used to be it used to be, yeah, that the Republican Party was for patriotism. Yeah. And a strong defense. Yeah. Also, they were against having big deficits. Yeah. They were for, you know, trying to limit the power of Russia. That's all gone. And now

Speaker 3 10:00
it's all, like flown out the window and

Speaker 2 10:04
all disappeared, it all disappeared. And now basically Now basically what you have is that you have them trying to block aid to the Ukraine, because all of a sudden now because of Trump's insolence, Russia is not the evil enemy that it always was for the United States. You have the situation with the deficit. And it's so humorous to me was and no one can blame. No one can blame. I mean, you can blame Joe Biden for some things. No one can really blame Joe Biden for the deficit when the deficit was largely created. When the when the Republicans put together the biggest tax cut in the history of our country. Yeah, under John Donald Trump, benefiting actually benefiting actually, not really even the 1% benefiting maybe the 10th of 1%. The point

Unknown Speaker 11:00
the point 1%. Point, one

Unknown Speaker 11:03
one 1% point 000.

Speaker 2 11:06
But but it's but it's true, though. It's true, though, when you see it when you I had a chance to look a few weeks ago, at Forbes magazine every every fall or autumn, they come out with the 400 richest people. Yeah. And what's scary about it, it's not that people are rich, there's nothing wrong with people being rich. Yeah, but the concentration of wealth, and fewer and fewer people. That's the scary thing. In a space of like a year, where there was like a huge increase in wealth about it's for about 15 or 20 people who got you know, 10s and 10s of billions of dollars extra money. Yeah. And that's why and that's why Oh, wow, all these things are going on in the country. That are, you know, the homelessness, the drug addiction, the whole the whole deal. Yeah, is scary, you know, but, you know, so So, so that's, so that's interesting. And, you know, what's also interesting, is how our people are being treated, and when I say our people, you know, we're a very divided society. Yeah, especially right now. So, you know, everybody's in their silo, and you know, their own their own ideology, their own ethnicity. So this person is wack, this person is white, this person is Jewish, this person is Christian, etc, etc. We're all on our own little box. We're all in our own little box. But it was an amazing story. You know, we have talked previously about killers of the flower Moon, the movie. Yeah. And of course, we we recommend it highly to anybody who wants to get a little idea of the whole dynamic of how the Indians were treated in Oklahoma and all the rest of it. There was a story in I guess it was yesterday's times. That that absolutely blew my mind. Not yesterday, but a few a number of days ago. They on their reservation Indian reservations, they have a problem with drug addiction, and with alcoholism. So apparently, an organization was started to basically try to help treat these Indian people who had this affliction. Yeah. But it was a scam. Basically, it was just a way to basically siphon off federal money. And all of the things, all the things that were going on, that these people were trying to escape, were actually going on in these halfway houses. Oh, my God, there was smoking, crack and drinking and doing all kinds of stuff. And I'm saying to myself, well, where where are the legal authorities in Maricopa County and in Phoenix and all these places? What are they doing? How was this allowed to happen? All these people were dying. Yeah, faster than they would have died if they had just been where they were. Yeah, you know, they just don't care that well. They don't care. They don't care. There's a very interesting, there's a very interesting series of shows, I guess, I guess it's National Geographic. It's called drugs Incorporated. It's been on for six or seven years. But I remember the one about Phoenix where they have a tremendous, they have a tremendous drug problem and problem with the cartels and everything. But what's interesting in a lot of these cities in the United States is the cooperation between the banks, the drug dealers, just like everyone, everyone's involved, everyone is involved. It's a very incestuous It was I don't know what you say system. Oh, yeah. whereby people get you know, corrupted. Yeah. And the young people who just get corrupted into using this old stuff. I think there's a parallel between the trafficking and drugs. Oh, for sure. You know, I mean, especially, it's like the same people. It's the same people, you know, especially in this city. Oh, yes. Very, it's very interesting. Yeah. That, you know, a lot of these things go on. And people look the other way. You know, yeah. You know, and the hotels and other places.

Speaker 3 15:46
Yeah, I saw on the news that like, like, they were like, oh, like, enjoy f1. But we're also worried that it could be like people are gonna be victims, like human trafficking and stuff. It's really sad.

Speaker 2 15:59
Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're, you know, there have been articles about how a lot of a lot of the crypto money is going into trafficking now. They're, they're, they're funneling that money into trafficking. Oh, my God, it's, it's really become an enormous business. You know, when they talk about when they talk about that we know they recently had the guy and he was the Nygaard, who was the fashion mogul in Canada. He was just sentenced to prison and, you know, you know, Jeffrey Epstein stuff. But it's really, it's above that though. It's like a whole set of people in these different places, Hollywood, you know, Paris, et cetera, et cetera, who it's almost like an industry. It's like, it's like, a lot of it's what's interesting is like, a lot of these quote unquote, model agencies are not really like legitimate, you know, used to be Yeah, no,

Speaker 3 16:59
yeah. Like, like, what was it? I feel like when I was like a kid, and then I like the, like, modeling stuff. I like the malls and stuff. My parents would be like, Oh, no, like that's, that could be dangerous. It can be taken away from us forever. I was like, oh, I want to be a mom. Yeah,

Speaker 2 17:16
yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. No, it's interesting, because it used to be. It used to be that you had two major model agencies. Yeah. And at least in New York, one was one was Ford. And the other one was a leap. Ford was like, Ford was like, you know, Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley? You know, women like that, you know, when evangelist Naomi Campbell, they were poor. And then elite Elite was the arrival of Ford. But the guy who the guy who ran a lead, he was involved in that to a degree was involved in that to what degree he was, he was how can I put this? He had girls who were who were young? Oh, let's just put it that way. We don't have to. We don't have to we don't. We're not going to belabor the obvious. But there's like no regulation of that. I think, I think the computer, I think the computer has facilitated that. Yeah, I think social media has facilitated that. I think that, you know, the Facebook and all these different social media, social media platforms. And then, of course, then, of course, it falls on the parents to basically try to save their kid what the kid is doing. But, you know, I'm not saying there aren't a lot of delinquent parents. Oh, yeah, certainly are. But the parent can't be with the child every minute. Yeah. And then, you know, what's the school environment to? That's the other aspect of it, you know, what kind of what kind of discipline is in the school? You know, how do the students respond to the teachers, the teachers set out in ethical plan for the students? I don't think any more like really ethics are taught and then in grammar schools or high schools. Oh, no.

Unknown Speaker 19:26
Probably not. I mean, like, well, when you went to

Unknown Speaker 19:29
high school, yeah, I

Speaker 3 19:30
went to a Christian school. So like, I guess my ethics, you could say are slightly based on like, like, Christian values, okay, but I feel like religion. I feel like there are a lot of religions that have the say like the same, like base like foundation, you know, just like be like a good person, you know, love others. But yeah, I mean, I would say like, the only reason like I understand that thinks it's probably because I went to a Christian Christian

Speaker 2 20:03
School. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, it used to be. It used to be that they taught the 10 commandments.

Speaker 3 20:10
Yeah. You got that memorize the Bible verses memorized. Why?

Speaker 2 20:15
Well, yeah, the Bible for sure. And the course. I think that was beneficial. Yeah. You know, I mean, I mean, there's certain you mean, whatever religion you religion. Yeah. But you have to have certain certain things that you believe in you. Oh, yeah, we'll do it, you know, but I think it's all changed. I see the schools, you know, in my in, you know, having visited some of the schools and everything is basically like, they just want to keep the kids under control for the day. No, did

Speaker 3 20:48
you see, um, there was a kid here who, like, like, died because he got beaten up so bad. Yeah. Like, it was really sad too. Because the kid who died, like, stood up for this other kid. Oh, yes. I know. That made me so sad. Because he was like, what, like, 13? Yeah. And he was just trying to stand up for who even who knows if it was his friend, but now he like ended up, like losing his like life? Oh,

Speaker 2 21:16
yeah. Yeah. education system has changed. Yeah. Well, it's interesting, you know, and I always, I always say this that, you know, people talk about, you know, the abortion issue. Yeah. And they never people, I can see people who genuinely believe it's wrong. versus the people who believe that a woman has the rights or autonomy. Yeah, so I can, I can see. I can see each side of it from a principled point of view. But the idea that we as a society, are protecting children is totally wrong.

Speaker 3 22:01
No, that's your thing. Yeah. It's so weird, because it's like, oh, like, we don't want to allow abortions. But as soon as that baby is out of your womb, like we we don't care about that kid anymore. Like what? Yeah,

Speaker 2 22:13
I think I think that's I think that's true. And I also think, I also think that on like, unlike when I was growing up, and I guess, you know, to a lesser degree when you were growing up. The children were not exposed to a lot of the things that is also true. Yeah, that is they're seeing today. No, yeah, that's yeah. So how's you have? How do you have someone who's 1213 1415 years old? How do they evaluate all this stuff? So if they go like, like, you know, I don't know that much. I'm not I'm not into social media at all. But like, like, tick tock. I mean, how does the young person distinguish between what is fun and funny or enjoyable? Yeah, versus something that can be harmful to them? No, yeah. How do they how did they process that? I, you know, and it doesn't seem to be any regulation. Yeah. Especially,

Speaker 3 23:19
like, they wouldn't know unless their parents getting involved. But then like, then you're putting the responsibility on the parents. And I know parents today are very, they tried to how do I put it not like, discipline their kids lives, but they're trying to do it in a way where it doesn't like traumatize them, I guess. Yeah. What is it? Like? I say call like a Montessori like way? Yeah. They like try to speak to them calmly and stuff, but I don't know. I don't It's so difficult. Like, I feel like conflicted on that. Yeah,

Speaker 2 23:53
sure. Well, absolutely. Absolutely. I think you have to set certain rules. Yeah. It's just how you apply them, how you how you speak to children, how you how you know, how to instill in them. Something that's good and decent? Yeah. Like,

Speaker 3 24:16
you have to be stern, but not so angry with them. Like there's a difference between being stern and being angry?

Speaker 2 24:24
Well, yeah, sure. I know, I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. Yeah. You know, I've we have a lot of I think we that's one of the reasons why, why we have so much abuse, abusive children, because a lot of the people who are in the parental roles are not able to do it. You know, that. They're not there's a certain temperament that you have to have. Yeah. And of course, as the country has grown, the problem has gotten bigger. And so you don't would have, in my opinion, the same advocacy for these children that you should have. Yeah, you know, but will we see it? Well, you don't have you don't have the advocacy for the homeless? Yeah, that's another thing. You don't have the advocacy for people who were there mental health to mental health. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, and of course, you know, advocacy for women's rights. It's crazy when I think about this, because I'm not a woman. But the majority of people in the country are women. Yeah. And,

Unknown Speaker 25:36
oh, isn't it like 51 to 49? I

Speaker 2 25:39
think it's something like that. Yeah. But I had, this was a couple of semesters ago, you know, in my class at the law school, where one of these women came to me, and said to me, if I would work to help her plan the itinerary for her trip, to go back to soda. I remember this. And and, you know, because she couldn't she couldn't fly. Yeah, she had health issues. Yeah. But she was afraid of winding up in a state. Where if something went wrong with her, yeah. She wouldn't, she wouldn't be able to get medical care. Yeah. But, you know, and the thing that's also disturbing about that is, though, I could see like, I could see like, people who believe in principally believe in it by principle that mean, they they even though I don't, I may not agree with them? I believe that they believe it. Yeah. But when you don't have when you have a law that doesn't have any, any exclusion for the health of the mother, or a child that's been raped, or a person who has been harmed by somebody, and the result of that is as a child, then I think to myself, what is really the purpose of that law? Yeah. Is the purpose of the law to control control control the woman? Is that what the real purpose of it is?

Speaker 3 27:15
I feel like it is yes. Do you think it is? Yeah, like, yeah, like, because it's just like, you don't really care about people with that law. It's just like, you don't care. You don't care about the baby. Like as much as they say they do. They don't care about the baby. They don't care about the the woman that is pregnant with the baby, and you don't care. Like, they just don't care. They just want to have control. Yeah.

Speaker 2 27:35
And I don't I don't, you know, I don't understand a lot of the women who are in politics, who are good with this.

Speaker 3 27:45
Yeah, I don't I don't understand either. I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 2 27:49
I mean, it was the guy that the guy that's the new speaker of the house. Oh, yeah. He, he comes from a religious background. And, and the wife, the wife comes from a religious background. The question is, though, we have freedom of religion in this country, we have freedom of belief. So I respect you know,

Unknown Speaker 28:17
I respect religion.

Speaker 2 28:18
I pray, I pray, and you know, ask God for help. And I, I'll tell that to anybody, but I think that's important. But we're a secular society. Yeah. See, you can't have a society where, you know, you have a secular society, and then you have people who are trying to impose religious beliefs. Because I think ultimately, that is not that is not Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam at all. Yeah, the idea of the religion basically, is that you pray to be better, you're free to do good, you pray to care for other people. And through your acts and your prayer. That's religion, but it's not religion to say, well, you know, you have to do exactly this or like, what's like, what the truth was with the transgender thing? Yeah. Who were these people to judge? Exactly? I don't know. I don't know. Well, we've had another, hopefully, for you folks. Another interesting and hopefully informative show. And we look forward to talking to you again next week. So I will say good night,

Speaker 3 29:28
everyone. Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to our show. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at tangi one that is t a M, G, one at UNLV thought nevada.edu. Or to contact Professor Charles satin charles.stanton@unlv.edu. See you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai