Social Justice - A Conversation

Unknown Speaker 0:00
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Unknown Speaker 0:18
Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV. And the Boyd School of Law.

Unknown Speaker 0:24
Hi, I'm Gabriella Tam. I'm a fourth year accounting student. And

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welcome to social justice, social justice, our conversation a

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conversation.

Unknown Speaker 0:37
Well, good evening, everybody. Welcome back to social justice, a conversation with my partner who just spoke every exam. And it's good to have you all with us today. Tonight, I should say. And we're going to talk about a few things that are, I'd say, obviously, disturbing, I guess, I usually say that every week we start the show. But of course, if you look at it the other way, if there weren't disturbing things, and they weren't things that were really tearing at the heart of the country, we wouldn't have a program, we wouldn't be our

Unknown Speaker 1:07
soldier, social justice and conversation would not exist would not

Unknown Speaker 1:11
exist. But I came across it during the last few days, a few things that I found very interesting. from a social point of view, there was a huge article, there was a huge article in the New York and in the Sunday, New York Times. And it was on the 14th of April, having to do with teenage sexuality. And as somebody who you know, had, you know, worked with children and teach in the university, and, of course, did a lot of sports coaching when I was younger. You know, I'm trying to keep up on those, those those matters. And I thought, you know, when reading the article, I thought what the article was going to be was, of course, the fact that there was an increase in teenage sexuality, there was an increase in sexual diseases and all the rest of this stuff, which of course, was obviously very worrisome. But it was about it was actually an article written by a person who was who was a physician who had a number of cases involving involving a woman who had been basically choked, strangled, what have you, during what was supposed to be something that obviously was not supposed to happen? Yeah. And I just found, you know, just reading through the article, I found like enormously disturbing, I found it an enormously disturbing because obviously disturbing in a sense that people can be injured or killed, you can be fixated. Right, which, you know,

Unknown Speaker 2:48
it's, it's hard because like, a lot of kids nowadays are acting way older than they are supposed to be. And like, of course, when I was when I was younger, I was told the same thing like, Oh, you're, you're acting like my, my Spanish teacher. She She told her class, she was like, You guys are acting like, you're way older. Like you're acting like you're adults, like, enjoy, like being a child. And like, I think that would be like my advice to like, kids nowadays is like, yeah, like, enjoy, like, just being a kid and like having no responsibility like no notice, in quotation marks, no responsibilities. Just like, enjoy your life when you're young. Enjoy. But you know, not choking someone improperly. No, it's

Unknown Speaker 3:28
yeah, it's Yeah, I don't Yeah, I don't know, either. I don't know where it comes from.

Unknown Speaker 3:34
It's coming from all these TV shows all these games like, Yeah, I mean, of course, it's difficult to somehow make sure like the kids who are buying like certain games or watching certain shows are, you know, the age that they're supposed to be? But yeah, I think yeah, I don't know how you would even try to parents, of course, but like, even if the parents are not involved, how else could you make sure who, who's watching your show? Who's playing your game? Is the ages they're supposed to be?

Unknown Speaker 4:11
Yeah. And who you're going out with?

Unknown Speaker 4:13
Who you're going out with? They

Unknown Speaker 4:14
are? What they are, you know, it's just a fascinating thing. Because, you know, when when I was when I was growing up, I'm sure you were probably had relatively the same experience. While you were monitored and what you were doing. Yeah, you know, in other words, like, it was a different era at least speaking for myself. It was a different era. Now like my mom and dad. We can't I came from basically religious household. Yeah, same same but not but not. It wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like it wasn't overly strict. Yeah, there was like healthy balance is a healthy balance, but Somehow you knew that there were certain things that you did not partake in. Yeah. And that was, I mean, like there was it just I don't know how to explain it. But you you knew when you went to school, that you went to class, you conducted yourself in a certain way. When you went to high school, I went to high school in New York City. And everything was pretty orderly, for the most part, you played sports and everything. Then I went on to New York University, and it was pretty much the same. And then of course, on to law school. Yeah. But there was always like, a code of behavior, though. And then you didn't. I'm not saying there weren't people that didn't do bad things. That's been in every, every era. But as far as like, you know, hurting somebody, that's like, far, far out stuff.

Unknown Speaker 5:58
I think I know, we've mentioned this before, or like, at least I have, it's like, I think having, like, a religion is a good foundation for I don't know, just being like a good, decent human being. Yeah. And like, maybe, because what I think nowadays, like kids are being able to use their phones during school, like maybe they get iPads. I know, I got a laptop when I was in like, middle school, high school, but I was monitored, like they like the it at my school implemented like a little monitor. And they would see like, what we were like searching up and stuff, which is not I think about it is like, it actually like makes sense why they had that much when I was younger. I was like, they're watching like, oh, so I'm not like, you know, yeah, but I think yeah, I think maybe it's difficult to say because there's good things that implementing religion. And of course, there's like, the bad parts. The people that make it bad and harmful. But yeah, like, I just think having a religion or something.

Unknown Speaker 7:08
Well, that's a set of beliefs. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 7:10
A set of beliefs. set of beliefs is a better term. Yeah, just having a set of beliefs. Just sets up for you to have a good moral code. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 7:17
Well, I'm always I'm always talking about that. And I say to the students, yeah. You know, regardless of religion, in other words, I don't I don't say that any religion is superior to any Yeah, I believe that there's, there's a higher power than us. You can call them Jesus, you can call them Allah. You can call them Confucius or Buddha, whatever it is, but it's basically about you know, some form of enlightenment, doing good things, helping other people. But that you need it that you need a rulebook. Yeah, you need five, whatever it is five things 1617, whether it's the 10 commandments, whatever it is, whatever it is, yeah, that you will abide by. But the society that we live in basically. It doesn't seem that that's the case. It doesn't seem like I mean, there's always been corruption. There's all those things as it is, as you know, I've always gotten one. I think what's scary today, though, is that it's not hidden, really. In other words, it's, we'll talk about, let's say, like corporate greed or something like that. Well, there was always that was always, always there. It was always there going back to probably the founders, even if not the first Corporation. Yeah, going way, way back. But now like, there's no subtlety you? Yeah, it's just like, grab as much as you can grab. And you see it all over. Now you see it in, in industries, where, where people basically are making a huge amount of money, but they don't have any, they don't have any stop sign. It's all about you know, adding to the bottom line, the price of the stock, whatever it is, and the actual consumer, the actual person who is a customer has no say in anything, basically, you're just basically

Unknown Speaker 9:27
well, you're just there to give them money.

Unknown Speaker 9:28
We're just there to give them money, basically. Yeah. And I think that I think there's been a I think there's been I think morality and in that sense, has sort of come apart a little bit at a time. I don't think in life that these these moral choices, you know, whether it's, you go out with somebody, how do you conduct yourself or let's say you're in a position of financial authority, where you have to approve financial records or you're in it Ernie and you have to decide what kind of client you will accept. I don't think it happens all at once though, I think in life, life in many ways is very incremental. Yeah, you know, so that you you're let's say you're in a position of financial trust. And somebody asked, asked you to do them a favor. And then maybe six months later, they asked you to do another favor, and you do a whole bunch of favors for people. And then down the road, they asked you to do a very big favor, which ordinarily, you wouldn't do. Because your moral conscience and your your moral guide would say, I can't do it. But because you did all the other favors. Your integrity, in a sense was chipped away. Yeah. So now you're going to do this favor, even though ordinarily, when you came into the corporation or establishment, what have you, you would never have done it. Now you're going to do it. And you see that all the time in politics, where people will vote for legislation that they know is wrong, and they know it's harmful. But because they got money from the lobbyists, they had their campaigns are funded in a certain way. Their moral core has been sort of taken out. And they're just they're basically not to serve us at all.

Unknown Speaker 11:23
They're there to serve like the lobbyists. Yeah. And the corporation.

Unknown Speaker 11:27
Yeah, I was talking about that with somebody today, and we're talking about how they should have like, will not just fledge the legislature, but the Supreme Court, they should have like term limits? Oh, 100%? No, because if you have, if you have a job like the Supreme Court, it's a lifetime appointment. So basically, you're insulated from any kind of scrutiny. But then the other part of it is, which is which is also disturbing is they don't have a mandatory code of ethics. So basically, whereas in the in the federal judiciary system, all the other courts in the system have a mandatory ethics protocol, as Sue, you know, obviously, things that you can't be doing, but also cases that you can't hear, because you might have a financial interest, you might own stock, etc. But the Supreme Court doesn't have that. So I would say they should they should. Well, obviously, they need a mandatory Code of Ethics behavior. Yes, they don't have, but they should have like a limit. It should be like the Senate, you should get like, alright, it's a six year term, two terms. 12 years. That's it, you're out you go, won't you move on? Yeah. And you have these p one and the sad Assam, debonair, 3540 45 years time

Unknown Speaker 12:47
times change, we need like new people, unless they're regularly updating like, yeah, and checking up on everything and like, seeing how our country is developing? I don't, yeah, I don't see appointing them staying so long, they're going to have these views that are so like, so far back, you know? Well, I

Unknown Speaker 13:08
think what was very interesting when one of the classes, we had the confirmation movie about Clarence Thomas, and it was very interesting, because all the people who were basically sitting in judgment of him, were people who had been in the Senate forever. And, you know, they basically, they were basically walled off from what's going on in the society. So when it comes to like, women's rights, and people being treated fairly, and women's equality, just just as one issue was they're not, they're not really conversant with that, because they've been in an environment basically, which is completely removed. So you know, you could get somebody I mean, I think when when they had the situation with Justice Cavanaugh, and Dr. Blasi Ford came forward. And she and she gave her testimony. Well, ordinarily, you'd say, wow, you know, this is this is very

Unknown Speaker 14:09
bad. That's crazy. Maybe we should, you know, look more into more into it, but

Unknown Speaker 14:13
But it's almost like a script they follow. They're not really interested in getting to the truth of actually what happened. That's the scary thing. So they'll have a hearing. It's just like with the social media companies, they have a hearing, they bring these people together from the various companies. And then of course, they criticize them and they say, We're sorry, we're gonna do better in the future. And then eight, nine months later, they call them back again, and they're still going over the same thing.

Unknown Speaker 14:47
The same questions over and over again. They keep asking the creator of TiC tock. Oh, huge. Are you a member of the Chinese Communist Party? And he's like, No, Senator, I'm Singaporean. saying over and over again. Right?

Unknown Speaker 15:01
That's right. That's right. But I think that I think that's a major issue, though. And I think one of the reasons, Gabriella, that I think you can't you can't get to that area is the fact that the country is so divided. So what you have basically is what you have legitimate, where you have legitimate concerns about independence and all the rest of that stuff. The country is so divided in a way now that you're either for us or against us. In other words, there's like no middle ground. I mean, whereas it should be like there's certain ethical principles that everybody should follow. But no, you're against the Republicans. No, no, no, like he was you're against the Democrats. And as a result of this, this chaos, nothing happens. And we're seeing it now. We were discussing this. Before we came on the air, about the situation with trying to choose the jury. And the case of the ex president. It's so crazy, it's almost impossible. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 16:06
cuz it's like, that's what I was thinking. Like, when I was watching the news. And they were talking about it. I was like, that's gonna it's gonna be impossible, because you're either there's a lot of people who are like, there's not, no, let me rephrase. There's not a lot of people who are impartial about the ex president. Exactly. And it, it will be a miracle truly, if they somehow managed to find a group of people who are impartial about the ex president and also like fit their standards, like we were talking about before.

Unknown Speaker 16:39
Yeah, well, I think the other thing, though, too, is though, that in a sense, knowledge, knowledge is divine value. So in other words, oh, the idea would be that the truly impartial jury if they could ever find such a bunch of people, they don't know anything. They don't read anything. They don't watch any television. They have no political views. They're in their own little box. Yeah. So you bring you bring out 12 Completely uninformed, uneducated, lazy, there's

Unknown Speaker 17:15
no like, there's actually no way that they'll find some, it's not I shouldn't say No way. Maybe they will. They'll pull someone out of the hat or something put like a little rabbit. No, but like, it will, like obvious so shocked if they truly find someone who is knowledgeable, but also like impartial about the ex President.

Unknown Speaker 17:36
Well, I, I had an experience many years ago, when I was at that. Now, it used to be in the olden days. When when, if you're an attorney, you're automatically disqualified. No, it makes sense. Oh, wait, wait, why? Because they just felt that you had acknowledged that might have you know too much. That said, there you go. That's, that's what I was told. Yo, yo, you know, too much. But apparently, they've selected as of this broadcast, I think like seven jurors. And so the more attorneys that are on the jury interesting now now, when I was when I was going to be called basically. It was like a joke, though. It was like a joke. I mean, it was even a joke. And in the case of the ex president, because? Because ultimately, everybody's biased. Yeah. Can there's nobody out there that comes into this case, or cases like it. Who doesn't have some bias. Yeah. But the thing is, the thing is, though, for our system to work, as it should work, you're supposed to put that aside and decide on the facts and on the evidence, whether or not there's proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty or he was not guilty, but it's really not right that people just blow it off. And they say, well, and then of course, I guess the I guess the judge is in a bind, they really can't fault the judge because he doesn't want the cake. Whatever verdict comes down. He wants to make sure it's not reversed. Yeah. So he's, he's got to be careful about, you know, not letting people who were obviously bias get on the jury. But at the same time, though, it was like I was what I was watching what the commentator was saying and like, like 100 people at one time said that they couldn't hear the case. But that's their duty as a citizen to hear it. And it's their duty also, to look at the facts impartially and dispassionately and come back with a verdict. Now, if the verdict is that the President ex president was guilty, he's guilty. If it's not, then he'll be found innocent, but the fact that it's all like removed is not what's supposed to happen. It's really not. I mean, what's really supposed to happen is you get a bunch of people in there who might have had different political views. But the hope of the system is that the people will try as best they can to give an impartial verdict based on the evidence. It's almost like they're saying in this case, that it's not just that there's no hope of finding an impartial jury. It's that there's no hope of really having a justice system where a trial by your peers and partially looking at the evidence is completely gone now. Yeah. So that basically, any every case that you involve, that you're involved with, you're not going to be able to find that. And if that's the case, man, that what are we doing having a jury system? Yeah. See, that's that's the problem. That's the problem. And I don't know how, I don't know how you really answered. I was flabbergasted by it, though. And then you have all the other stuff, you know, the threats to the judge? Well, that seems to have stopped now. Because they have a gag order on it. But in all my experience in the law, there was never like, threatening to judge or threatening his family that never went on. But now like anything goes, though, no,

Unknown Speaker 21:14
that's what I'm kind of scared of, too, is like, you, when they select the jury, they're gonna have to have like, heavy security, they're gonna have to like, I don't know, probably never reveal who was on the jury, either. Because people are scary now. Like they will, like people will like go out of their way to find them and like their families. And like, I don't know, like, leak their info like doxim or something. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 21:39
well, well, not only the jurors, but the judge, the judge, everyone

Unknown Speaker 21:45
in that room, prosecuted

Unknown Speaker 21:46
prosecutors? Well, look at look at the whole thing. Look at the whole thing with Jack Smith. Now. Jack Smith came, he went, he had worked in the United States for a while. And then he had gone to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, to do law cases. Now, I think most people that that know of him and his reputation is that he's, he's an honest person, you can disagree with whether it why he should be prosecuted in the ex president, but that's a different issue. They've spent millions of dollars millions of dollars, protecting this man and his family, there's something wrong there. There's something wrong there. They should not be, you know, you should you should be able to do your duty, and do it according to the law, and present the evidence according to the law, and then the jury will decide what it is. But there needs to be more of those needs to be more strong prohibitions against people being able to threaten people. Yeah, all the rest of the stuff.

Unknown Speaker 22:48
People don't and people just like, just whenever they're like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna find your family to kill you and to kill your family. That's scary.

Unknown Speaker 22:55
Well, we've seen we've seen in the last three years, four years, okay. A lot of that stuff, a lot of that stuff where, where the the the issue of guilt or innocence is irrelevant? It's just a tribe a versus tribe? B. Yeah. You know, but in the in the case, but but all you have to do in a case like that, all you have to do. It's very, it's very, very simple. You listen to the evidence, you listen to the evidence, the case has to do with people who worked for the Enquirer who were involved. As part of the scheme. They have three people, apparently they're going to testify. You have Michael Cohen is going to testify. You have the various checks and financial papers that were involved in this. It's not it does not seem to me, as a matter of a lack of evidence. Yeah, you can say you can say that. Well, you know, there are people who have motivations to bring a trial against the ex president for various reasons. And that may be so I don't I can't look into a person's head as to what their motivations are. But there are a basic rule. There are basic rules of evidence, or basic rules of evidence. I mean, I'm amazed I'm amazed at how there's so many people out there who who don't grasp the seriousness of what's going on. I mean, in this case, this case is considered a relatively minor case compared to the Georgia case. The case in Washington DC, the case down in Florida. No

Unknown Speaker 24:55
this how you there's a lot of cases against this man, but He's still running for president.

Unknown Speaker 25:01
Let's see. See, the thing is the thing is that, on the one hand, you know, he has not been convicted of anything. So I mean, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't say that, you know, he shouldn't have the right to run. But what you what you can say, though, is, what you can say, though, is that there should be a lot of soul searching being done by the people who would support them. And the people in the Republican Party and the National Committee and all that, because if you look at the breadth of of the different cases, our one case is a case where apparently these women were paid off not to talk about paid for their silence over their size. So that's that's one case. Then you have the Georgia case, which is having to do with basically trying to influence state officials to change the vote in some way, which they wanted to do. You have the case about the obstruction case, and in Washington DC with a crowd attacking the Capitol. Yeah. But the last case, the last case, let's say, well, those other cases, couldn't be proven. But let's let's, let's give that give him the benefit of the doubt, let's say, but the last case, the law is unambiguous. The law I mean, hopefully, we're a country of laws, hopefully not opinions, hopefully, hopefully. But the law states very clearly, the mere possession of of certain documents is a crime. It's not it's not, it's not a something that's the street lightly. Now, the argument against that as well, you know, President Biden had some documents in his garage, and Mike Pence had some documents in their garage. But the difference is that in both of those cases, those documents were pretty much returned immediately. Yeah, it was within maybe a day, a couple of days that everything that they had there was was gone, it was gone. And the other the other interesting thing about it, too, is though, that when the when there was a notification to him on numerous occasions, to return it, he didn't return it. So the thing is, well, why would after he was, you know, it's all the National Archives and everything, that the stuff had to come back. He didn't do it. And then there was the other aspect of it where he didn't it wasn't secured. Yeah. So he had the stuff. He had the stuff in the, you know, his his state. But is the state was not locked down in a way. Yeah, someone could have easily just gone into commit and coffee, or whatever it is, you know, but but I think that I think that a lot of this chaos now has to do with the fact that the Justice Department didn't do what they were supposed to do for a long time. Yeah, this all should have been handled one way or the other years ago. And he either he either he was guilty of it, or he wasn't guilty of it. If he was guilty of it, he would be punished by law. If he wasn't guilty, then he was found not guilty. Yeah. And that's the system of justice. The system of justice is all based on the fact that the person is presumed to be innocence were found guilty, but the heart of the whole system, this whole system has corroded because of corruption in the judiciary, and all these other things. And you know, one side wants this one, but ultimately has nothing to do with that. It's like, you know, if I had a bag of Cheetos, and I saw your little hand go into that bag of Cheetos, and you took that in you took the Cheetos and and West soy, you and West came forward as a witness. And you were put on trial for it for I guess it would be a misdemeanor in the case unless the Cheetos had some other value. You will be tried on the basis of the evidence. Yeah, your politics, all the rest of that stuff gets that. That doesn't matter. It's out the window. Yeah. But anyway, two ends on that numerous note. We're so glad that you joined us again, and we look forward to talking to you again next week.

Unknown Speaker 29:31
Thanks for listening. Good night. Good night. 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 at charles.stanton@unlv.edu See you next time.

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