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 0:25
Hi, I'm Gabriella Tam. I'm a fourth year accounting student.

Unknown Speaker 0:28
And welcome to social justice, social justice, our conversation

Unknown Speaker 0:33
a conversation.

Unknown Speaker 0:37
Well, good evening, everybody. Good to be back with you. This is Professor Charles Stanton along with my partner in this broadcast Gabriela Tam, hello. And we're here to discuss some interesting things today as we continue our program about social justice. One of the things that is really scary to me, and I just I, it just really bothered me, was how one of the presidential candidates, Nikki Haley now is going to have to have Secret Service protection. Because of all this, because of all the threats against her. Apparently, there was somebody who actually tried to get on the stage and, you know, remove her from the stage or attack or they don't really know what what was going on there. But it's really crazy, though, how our politics is so disintegrated. And whereas, you know, I mean, even going back, and you know, I remember, you know, some of the presidential campaigns. I never heard of this kind of stuff. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:40
it's so it's so violent now. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's, I guess, am I shocked? Like, no, because I had, like, I had a feeling of what happened, you know, like, you know, she, she's a woman going against Trump, who has a lot of so in followers, who would like who would literally do anything for him, you know? And it's just, it's sad that I'm not shocked about it, I guess. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 2:14
Well, I think that's, I think you hit the nail on the head with that, because so many of the things that have been said and done to denigrate her, yeah, we're not shocked anymore, because it's gone on for so long. But the problem is, that it was allowed to fester, that nothing was done about it. Yeah. That the people in the Republican Party primarily, but but not just in the Republican Party, but in in the institutions that we supposedly have to protect our democracy. Didn't aggressively fight back against it. And this, this has been going on since 2005 2015. When you know, the, in the initial speech at the tower, when it was the Mexicans and all the rest of this stuff. And then it progressed over it progressed over time. And now basically, well, this is just normal. And it's really like people have just gotten used to something. That should not be Yeah, exactly. It's, it's mind boggling to me, because now I remember growing up, and you had, oh, you know, you had people who are running for office, you had President Nixon, President Carter, President Ford, there was none of this stuff. I mean, does that mean they would have debates? And they would, they would disagree about issues and everything. But there was never a question like that, you know, like, I want to harm this person harm this person. Yeah. I mean, it's very, it's very disturbing. And that's, that's on top of the fact that Jack Smith was a special prosecutor, just spent over $4 million protecting this man and his family and the people who are involved in this investigation. There's something radically wrong in there, though. It's, you know,

Unknown Speaker 4:23
yeah. Like, I don't understand how people like they see this, they see what's happening. They just like, don't, there's like, they don't mind or they don't really like, think about it, I guess. And then there's also people who were who aren't like, wow, that's actually kind of crazy how we want to, like, fit like, we want to cause harm to these people and their family. And they don't. I also like, feel like they don't, if they looked at it, I had a perspective of like, Okay, what if this was happening to me? Like, what would I do? Like, it's just like the lack of empathy and the lack of like, critical thinking It's just like, crazy.

Unknown Speaker 5:01
Well, I think, I think a lot of it is people are indifferent. Yeah, I think that's, I've said this before. And I believe that people are indifferent. It's our national illness, that people know that certain things are completely wrong. And they'll still support somebody. I mean, it's just like, it's just like some of the candidates. I mean, I admire. I admire Nikki, Nikki Haley for her courage and running. I mean, the chances are minimal, but she has a right to speak out. She has a right to, you know, Speaker mind and presenter issues. This is not a monarchy. Yeah, this is not England, in the olden days with King George, or somewhere in Russia. This is the United States of America, where people were supposed to be able to have a free exchange of ideas and people were supposed to run for office. Exactly, yeah. And espouse those ideas to the voters. And the voters can either accept it or reject it. It's interesting to have so many of those people that were running was so critical of the ex president. And then once they drop out, they support them. Ron DeSantis, in particular, well, if you were saying all these things about him, how and that he was unfair, and he shouldn't have done all these different things, then how would you be supporting?

Unknown Speaker 6:27
Yeah, how can you, like stand on that? Like you, you lay this foundation, but like, the foundation is so is so like, weak? You know?

Unknown Speaker 6:37
Yeah. Well, I think I think, you know, I've said this, I've said this in the class, and you, you know, how I feel about this? I think there's a lack of belief. Yeah, I think that's the problem that a lot of these people who are supposedly representing us, at the bottom line, it's all about power. Yeah. the attaining of power and being close to power. I mean, there was so many people who were part of the, of the of the Cabinet who knew that things have gone wrong. Who knew that stuff was completely beyond what was supposed to be? Yeah, but they didn't say anything. And then okay, then they leave, then they leave the cabinet. And they go write a book. Yeah. But the answer is not writing a book. The answer is to confront the thing, man, what's going on? Yeah, it's by the time the book is written, the all the harm has been done. Yeah. And like

Unknown Speaker 7:40
you like they literally leave not doing anything. Like that's how you're gonna. That's your that's your, like, governmental like legacy, basically,

Unknown Speaker 7:49
what was it was like, it was like Mike Pence, I mean, your mike pence. Okay. You know, he did. He did his duty that day. And he, you know, registered the votes and everything like that. But clearly, Mike Pence was was the vice president for all those years. Like you didn't have any idea. Yeah, that

Unknown Speaker 8:10
you had you what was going on? You had no, you actually had no say and like,

Unknown Speaker 8:15
now there's something there's something there's something. There's something wrong there. But as I say, politics is is not about serving us. You know, we have a divided country. We have, you know, we have on many, many, many levels. But it's an illusion. It's an illusion for the people who are divided from each other, to actually believe that a lot of these people who will come into office would do anything for them or believe in anything. Exactly. That's this whole mythology about us, oh, you know, this person is going to get in and because they believe like saying a boy, for abortion or against abortion, these people will believe exactly what the majority of people want. They'll switch their views on a dime. You're seeing this in the Republican Party now, where they never mentioned abortion. Abortion is like not even mentioned. Why? Because they know it's it's, it's a toxic issue for them. But they were the ones they were the ones who were the behind, you know, revoking Roe

Unknown Speaker 9:21
v. Wade. Yeah, it's literally their fault.

Unknown Speaker 9:26
It is their fault. That Well, we can segue from that into the recent decision of the Court of Appeals in the DC Circuit, who one Republican and two Democrats are the three judge panel, and they rejected the idea that the President has immunity from criminal charges after he leaves the presidency. I don't think that should have been a shock to anybody. I think that the law and this is very clear. I mean, it even even And when when you had sitting presidents, which was, which was President Nixon and President Clinton. In the one case, all the documents and tapes had to be released by President Nixon. In the case of President Clinton, he was he was summoned before and had to appear before a grand jury and give testimony case with Monica Lewinsky. But I don't think there was any doubt about it. Now we're going to see, we're going to see what happens with the Supreme Court. Now, that's that's the clincher. Because you know, what, first of all, are they going to hear the case now? Law a whole bunch of people that, you know, you know, I've been able to, you know, listen to what they had to say, people who are experts in constitutional law and all the rest of it. I haven't really heard anybody who says that there's any case here, that the precedence of the court and the way these cases would be decided would be that once the person leaves the office, they're subject to the criminal law, as anybody else would be. Obviously, if that's not the case, then you could have a dictator, basically, yeah, you could have a person who's who would do all kinds of terrible things. And then he leaves the presidency. And he has some problem of immunity. Well, he's the president to commit all kinds of terrible acts. How could that be, though? It certainly in my mind, wouldn't be what the Founders intended. I don't think the Founders intended that. Yeah, you know, but

Unknown Speaker 11:36
it's not about what the Founders intended anymore, which is really sad. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 11:41
Well, well, we're gonna we're gonna see what happens. So they have that case. And then they have the case, with the states, taking the ex President off the ballot. That's the other case. Now to me, to me. I hate this. I hate to sound cynical. I do not see any way. This way. This, I do not see any way that the Supreme Court is going to allow the ex president to be removed from the bout. So

Unknown Speaker 12:10
yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 12:12
think I think that this is, this is, you know, it's a fait accompli, it's what's going to happen. The question is, the question is, of course, with the, with the court of appeals decision is, are they going to take the case, which most people say there isn't any case to take? Or are they going to take the case, but delay as much as they can? From hearing the case? So weeks, months go by until the point where by the time they do it will be right on top of the election? The actual voting? And maybe that's it? Maybe that's it? That's, that's? Yeah, I think that I think that's, I think that's a possibility. But people people have not, people have not really taken grasp of what it would what would happen in the country, I think of a situation where this man was found guilty and one of these charges, and then he's gonna go into the presidency, and pardon himself. I don't think people have really grasped what that would do to the country, basically, and the ramifications of what would happen if basically, he became the law. And of course, the other thing from your historical point of view is that the country was founded on removing the monarch or the sovereign from our government. It was a King George was the enemy of the colonists. And while the founders, because people didn't want to live under that kind of a system of government, that's

Unknown Speaker 14:00
exactly like I was thinking, I was like, we literally broke off from the monarchy. And now you want to go back to a monarchy slash dictatorship, like and then also with, like, the dictatorship thing, like, we bash like North Korea and China for like dictatorship, but like Trump has, so like he has potential to become a dictator. And that's like a very scary thing.

Unknown Speaker 14:24
Well, it's a it's a worldwide phenomenon now. Because if you look at so many of these countries around the world, you have the guy in Korea, you have the guy in China, you have the guy in Russia, and there's a whole bunch of others beside that. And they have this one one person rule. And the people basically have no rights. I was I was watching something last night. It was was very fascinating. I recommend it to everybody. It's on YouTube, and it has to do with the society. One of the societies that basically, you know, it's a dictatorship that's run is Cuba. And it's a thing that's on YouTube. Now it's very recent. I guess this guy or gal went down to Cuba. And they just, there's no there's no like, you know, he doesn't Narrator she doesn't narrate it, but it just walking through. I guess. It's mind boggling, like these feeble living impoverishment. Yeah. And they're trying to sell like this idea that, you know, this kind of government is beneficial to, to the people, and you have to see it, though, I can't really, you really, it's called, I think it's called the cube that they don't want you to see. It's on YouTube. So I would take a look at it, because it's, it's just, like, an exposition of what's going on there. And, you know, we don't want to go the same route that they're gone. Hopefully. Yeah, you know, so So that's so that's. So that's one thing that we wanted to bring up today. The other thing we wanted to talk about very much is the fact that why people are disaffected from the government, and why why people basically don't believe in our, I wouldn't say don't believe in democracy anymore. But they they believe in a lot of ways that our government has failed. And we've talked in the past about, you know, the different agencies that represent us. And it was very interesting, they had a huge article about the funeral home industry. This was this was in the this was in the times of a few days ago, and had to deal with the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Trade Commission is supposed to be regulating the funeral home industry. And of course, myself and my partner here, had the opportunity opportunity to see a movie called The burial. With Jamie, Jamie Foxx and of course, Tommy Lee Jones, so good. All the Yeah, all the different stuff that went on? Well, apparently, apparently, that that movie was the tip of the iceberg. Like that is like this massive, there's massive. I would just say fraud. There's massive overcharging of people and all the rest of it. And it's all about, you know, preying on people when they're in a demoralized state. They just lost somebody, how they manipulate the people. They promised them certain things, but they don't deliver them. Okay. So, you know, that's not exactly news. But what's interesting is the Federal Trade Commission, which is a government agency, which is supposed to represent us, they're supposed to be regulating them. And they found all these instances of malfeasance. So instead of penalizing these entities for what they did wrong, they put them on a kind of probation, okay. But the probation is basically, to take a virtual course, about how to be honest. And the people, the people who are administering this course, are the group that lobbies for the funeral home industry. So, so, I'm saying to myself, well, that's a reason why nobody believes in our institutions, because it's the job of the of these instances, the Federal Trade Commission, to have powers to enforce their regulations on those companies that are under their umbrella. And you're seeing you're seeing a lot of you're seeing and kind of a similar way to whole issue now with the FAA and Boeing were balling basically was was delivering planes that were not up to standard. And it was, it was It is the duty of the FAA to make sure that, you know, everybody flies on the safe plane. And they just had something a couple of days ago, where this this the new plane, that they have the max plane, that it was missing all kinds of bolts that was supposed to post to be put into the plane. And what's interesting about it was that they had two major crashes with many fatalities in each crash. And they didn't do anything about it. It was only it was only the last time when that when the side of the plane basically came out, where this woman was sitting with a child and thank God the child was was was, you know, bailed was was had the seatbelt on. And then they started to look at all these planes. And it's really interesting because you figure well, something like that, which is so serious. I mean, I mean, obviously, flight and aviation are very important parts of our economy. Yeah, no less to protect the people who have Why would you figure? You know, W right on top of that? Yeah, but they went out on top of it, they went out on top of it. And the what's interesting is how, in a lot of ways the the the industry is, is supposedly run by the agencies. But it's actually not run by the agencies. It's run by the lobbies. It's run by people who may have been who may be supposedly regulating them, but they're not doing their job. It made me think, you know, it made me think of the situation with the social media companies. Were the social media companies, they had the hearing,

Unknown Speaker 20:47
oh, they had all the CEOs. They're all there.

Unknown Speaker 20:51
They're all there. Oh, my God. And and, you know, it's like a play. It's like a play, but we've seen the play before. And they're sorry, and they're gonna do better the next time. I

Unknown Speaker 21:03
have a lot of feelings about that. I don't know. For me, it's like, how do you expect these, I guess, like the CEOs can maybe like, do something that helped. But it's like, it's also like your children, you're the one like letting the kids go on like social media at a very young age, you're the one that's giving them these these phones and iPads. And there's just the, I know, people don't like straight parents, but like, it starts with it starts with the parents, you know? And then also, of course, like, the one like, Was it like the one senator, the one guy was like, Are you? Are you Chinese? In the taxi? I was like, No, I'm Singaporean. And it's just like, yeah, keep going over and over. There's a lot of feelings I have about about that hearing? Well,

Unknown Speaker 21:54
I'll tell you, you know, it is it is, you know, the parents responsibility. Yeah. You know, to watch what the kids are doing. I agree with that. And I think that I think that it's become increasingly harder to do that now. Yeah. Because the kids basically have to have their phone with them all the time if they're going to school. Yeah. So it's very hard to, it's very hard to watch the kids all the time. You know, it's in some ways impossible. The problem that I have, though, is, is the problem of the content. Yeah, the problem, the content can be regulated. Yeah, they can. If they're, if they're motivated to do it. I'm not gonna say they can cut down every single thing. But they could cut down a lot of what the material is, on, on their on their platform, they have the power to do it. They can they can they can, they can have or have to hire people who are going to screen it out. Everybody who wants to, you know, go one that that engine has to be approved as to what they're going to show what they're going to put out there. Which obviously, they don't really do what they're supposed to do. Because all this stuff is going out. Yeah. But now, but now. We have the other additional burden of the AI. Yeah. So what you're having basically is a technology that could be used for for healthful things, has been hijacked by people who, whose purpose is not to use it for healthy, good things, but for bad things. So you get situations where this through the AI process, that people can be impersonated that people can be defamed. Without any kind of regulation or restriction of punishment. You had the situation with Taylor Swift, where they were putting out a lot of stuff that was completely improper, wrong, whatever word you want to use, and the people who have been victimized by this, and don't seem to have any recourse, basically. But but it's not right, though. It's not right. And the problem was the what the problem was, was the AI is because of the technological advances that are being made. Now having made it blurs the line between what is what is actually real. So you know, you could have somebody, you could have somebody go out there and do all kinds of terrible stuff. Ah, but that but that person, the real person hasn't done anything. Yeah. And then you got law enforcement involved in everything. And they said, Well, you know, you were doing x y&z and the person doesn't know what they're talking about. It's very, very hard, you know, the technology, the technology that they've invented, is scary. Yeah. Because it's you could take somebody you could take somebody who I don't know, was putting stuff out there. They might be in a certain field, let's say, let's say they were in the film industry or something. But they can create, they can create you. And they can create you in such a way that it would take a very scrutiny this examination of what was shown to differentiate between you and the other you. Yeah. And the thing is, what the children with the children is that the children are being exploited, obviously, yeah. And they're putting out all this content out there. That should not be out there, that you have a lot of people who are disturbed, troubled, whatever the word you want to use, and they're victimizing these kids. And there should be a strict sanction on the on the providers of this material. I'll give you a perfect example, which doesn't involve doesn't involve children was the case of the guy to cut his father's head off. And he, he was on YouTube for four or five hours. And I had talked to one of my colleagues in the university. And he said, I couldn't believe what I was seeing that when you go on YouTube, that, you know, they'll have them like the most current. So like the news and everything. And there's this guy, I guess he was sitting where he was in his house. And he's got his father's head there. He cut his father's head off, and he's on, he's on YouTube for four hours, and that they're not screening out. He didn't take it out. Four hours is a long time. So long time. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 27:16
Max, that should be on there's like, two minutes. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 27:20
yeah. But again, you know, it's a question of who regulates it, though. See, that's the whole thing about it. In the in this, what we're talking about? It's a question of the question of the government doing their job. Yeah, that was very interesting. And the hearing that really stuck out to me was what one of the senators said, like, you know, he said, I hope that, you know, Google will always put people keep making money and be successful. He said, Because he says otherwise, he said, that have to lay off a lot of the members of Congress. So what is he saying? What does that mean? It means that it means that, that they're almost like working for these companies. That that, that the lobbyists and all these people are in charge of the Congress, I had a situation where I had gone. Last time I was in Washington, I had to gun a gun to visit the Office of one of the senators. There wasn't like 20 lobbyists, and the elevator was me. And it's all about getting influence, and giving money to a person's campaign and all the rest of the stuff. I'm saying I'm saying to myself, though, I mean, this is this is something that's that's against public health, safety, and child protection, all that stuff. That stuff should not be allowed. Yeah, I'm sorry to say, but it's the truth, though. Well, listen, we enjoyed being with you here again. One great thing about the program is that, you know, there's never a shortage of things to discuss, unfortunately, unfortunately, sometimes very sad things. Yeah. But we, I think we both have the message that, you know, we need change, but the change has to come from, you know, not just the broadcast, but from all of you out there listening, who make even small decisions about the kind of country you want to live in and be devoted to making our country more tolerant, more inclusive, more fair, and more, just, you know, so I guess we on that hopeful note, we will conclude, and I want to thank you all for listening so much. Thanks

Unknown Speaker 29:32
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 N, G one@unlv.nevada.edu. Or to contact Professor Charles satin at charles.stanton@unlv.edu See you next time.

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