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 0:06
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 0:17
Good evening, everybody. And thank you once again for tuning in with us here at Social Justice a conversation. I'm Lana weatherald, a third year law student joined as always, by Professor Stanton, a professor at the Boyd School of Law, as well as the UNLV Honors College today, and we would like to wish you and of course, hope you had a really wonderful Thanksgiving with you, your family and friends. But today we'd like to talk a little bit about what's going on within the Supreme Court little bit about some gun control stuff a little bit about what happened, once again, circle back to the horrible shooting that happened at Club Q as well as some things going on with Nick quantize convictions for sedition, because we will talk about all sorts of things tonight. So with that, I would like to pass it over to the professor to open us up and start the conversation. Yes, thank

Unknown Speaker 0:59
you, Lana. Thank you so much. Yeah, so the Supreme Court seems to be under a lot of a lot of scrutiny. lately. Overdue scrutiny, overdue scrutiny, probably, as well. And one of the very fascinating things that's come out of the Hobby Lobby case, is the confession by one of the plaintiffs in the case as to how he got an advance copy of the decision. A number of weeks before the decision was supposed

Unknown Speaker 1:33
to be released, much like similar to what happened in Dobbs as similar to what

Unknown Speaker 1:37
happened in Dobbs. Exactly. But what was very interesting about it was, he revealed not merely that they had been given a copy of the decision, but how they had basically a game plan to try to influence the justices. They have apparently an organization that is designed so I guess they give money to the Supreme Court for upkeep and what kinds of different things and they have dinners and they have these different functions. But people were basically told to contribute money to the court, get to know the justices. And then from there on to invite them on outings, invite them to their house, you know, maybe vacation or so. And so, and certain things like that, which obviously, when you are a litigant for for the court, should never be done. But unfortunately, apparently it is something of a common practice. And it's amazing how, you know, Jones Day, of course, the law firm that's appeared before the court many times and it's put, actually people on the court. There's a whole system that works here, the Federalist Society, Jones Day, these different organizations are not passive. They really have an agenda. And they really want to change. America, by any means necessary.

Unknown Speaker 3:15
Yeah, their agenda usually does not include picking the candidates that are best suited for the job based on merit based on their education based on their, you know, history with whatever it is. When we're talking about the figures that end up getting elected to these positions of power that are placed in these positions, they end up being the ones that are the most effective mouthpiece for the agenda that's trying to get there. I think, you know, the professor, and I've talked about this many, many shows before, but it's, it ends up being the people that are the easiest to manipulate or the people that are most likely to just espouse agenda items rather than, you know, affect real change or really do when they're in that position or elected in that position are placed in a position to do. So. Yeah, I agree with the professor wholeheartedly. And I think when we talk about what the agenda is, it's placing someone there. That is just a mouthpiece and not really much more than that. I

Unknown Speaker 4:07
think it's I think it's going on top of what Lana said, I think it's very, very interesting, though, that the the ex president was unique, and my memory as far as any president, that I understand, regarding Supreme Court justices that he he made a deal with the Federalist Society and the conservative movement to gain their support. And in return for gain their support. They would give him a list of people that should be put on the court. And I think that never that's obviously never happened before. And they had four or five people in particular, that they had singled out and of those four or five people that they had singled out. Three of them are now on the court. It's very interesting also, in that regard, that One of them was Brett Kavanaugh and Brett Kavanaugh, Brett Kavanaugh. Like much like Clarence Thomas, was accused of sexual improprieties. And what's been vet was very, very fascinating. And this has been going on for a while now, is an attempt to fully unearth what happened with the investigation. That wasn't right. The investigation only lasted basically a week. And very little was done to try to find the truth. The recent book, the recent book about Ted Kennedy, goes back to the time when Clarence Thomas had been nominated to the court. And we see again, we see again, the same pattern of disinterest. What's fascinating in the book, of course, is the fact that because of Ted Kennedy's and proprieties, beginning with Chappaquiddick, and then continuing on from that, that he was a relatively mute voice at the Clarence Thomas hearings. And joining him in silence was his co collaborative, which was Joe Biden, because Joe Biden was the chairman of the committee. And in that, in that effort, he failed completely, particularly in the sense that they had a number of other women who were ready to testify. And he, for whatever reason, chose not to engage in that investigation of the committee could have undertaken in the case of Kavanaugh, of course, it was given to the FBI. And they were put out like on a one week time limit. But I think they definitely I think one of the things that Biden hasn't has not done as loot has not really reevaluated the FBI, because there's so many major things involving not just that investigation, but preparation for the insurrection, the abuse of children. The Larry Nasser case is a whole bunch of stuff, that they did not do their job. Well,

Unknown Speaker 7:12
when so many people in one institution are completely nefarious, you'll protect the other nefarious deeds that others do. Because, right, you don't want your own crap to be on Earth. And I think that is a lot of what we see going on, you know, with the Supreme Court, obviously, you know, I don't think any, any member of our institutions Senate Congress, so you know, Supreme Court doesn't have men that are doing similar things to what Brett Kavanaugh wasn't accused of, by and large, right. So I think when we start explaining how horrendous and wrong those things are behavior, like what Brett Kavanaugh or what Clarence Thomas, or what any of these men espouse and do, is inappropriate, and we say and we've take a hard stance on that, and we say no, when they do face punishments, well, then the dominoes start falling, or at least that's the fear, right? I think among perpetrators are men generally are the boys club, generally, however you want to put that. So I do think, yeah, there's a level of like self protection and self preservation among our elected officials in some way, especially where nefarious, nasty sexual misdeeds especially are concerned. as unfortunate as it is, it really just is a boys club and you you protect your own crap.

Unknown Speaker 8:21
Yeah, though. It's interesting, because there was a article recently it was it was entitled The men of me too. Yeah. And there was about all these different men who

Unknown Speaker 8:30
had been accused by multiple women or, you know, the faces of that movement, right.

Unknown Speaker 8:34
And some and some, of course, like, like Charlie Rose, unless maanvi is at CBS. You know, a number of people that worked in 60 minutes. Yep, yep. Yep. You know, I mean, 60 minutes, it's like a really fascinating story. Because in 60 minutes, you had this iconic television program, the longest running television program in history, history. And they wanted to do this. They wanted to do this oral biography of 60 minutes, and they got a guy to do it. And the guy, of course, was was, was mistaken, and what his purpose was that he's what His purpose was to tell the true story,

Unknown Speaker 9:15
a real story.

Unknown Speaker 9:19
And they sold it. So he was removed, and they got another guy who was the producer of the show. And then so many months later, the guy that who was the producer of the show was fired for the same improprieties that were going on, you know. So it's interesting. I was thinking about it when I was watching the insider one night have the you know, having to do with CBS is a reveal of the tobacco companies, you know, conspiracy to hide, you know, the idea how poisonous nicotine was right? And, you know, you look at these people like like Mike Wallace, like Mike Wallace was like the ultimate interviewer like he was, you know, the gold standard and then, and then you get into the backgrounds of These people when you say, you know, you gotta really think about who you idolize, you really gotta think like three or four times, because that person that you see on the screen a lot of times on radio or whatever, is not is not the person. There's somebody else. You know, and I think what you say is exactly right, though that there is a there is an acceptance of mistreatment of women. I mean, that's, I mean, it comes out, I came out on the bus when he's on the bus, the guy and he says, you know, why do X, Y and Z rail? And I think, you know, this is, but it was just locker room talk. But, you know,

Unknown Speaker 10:39
that's how it's yeah, that's how it's quantifying? Yeah, it's the use of women's and I don't want to say real life trauma, because a lot of the times women have become so conditioned to believing that this is just what they have to accept and what their life is that it isn't trauma, but it is I mean, at the end of the day, every time someone grabs your ad or grabs your butt, excuse me, let me use the correct language. Anytime someone, you know, you just become conditioned to accept those things as your normal everyday life. And unfortunately, when we create those types of situations, and the Brett Kavanaugh has get away with it, but I don't want you know, you never want to be the woman or to be the one that raises those concerns. And b n is the scapegoat and is the black sheep. I mean, look at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh, his accuser all the nasty memes that were made about her all the nasty, horrible lies and things that were spread about her in the safety of her family became a concern. And, you know, she was well spoken legitimate, and I believe had a very legitimate claim against him. And just that wasn't enough for some people, her standing there crying on national television, giving her story wasn't enough for some people, she still had to be vilified. So when there's no good way to bring about or affect that change anyway?

Unknown Speaker 11:45
Well, it's, you know, it's interesting, because, you know, looking at, you know, as an outsider in this race, I'm not a woman, they have a terrible dilemma. Because on the one hand, seeing what happens to Blasi Ford, and the confirmation hearing, is certainly a disincentive for anybody to come forward. But if you do come forward, you're not believed. And if you do come forward professional, probably in many professional capacities, your career's over,

Unknown Speaker 12:18
right, they couldn't have brought out a more, you know, well spoken a more successful and more, you know, so imagine just your everyday girl, just your everyday average, if Miss Ford was not believable to the average American Day, but what would I be? You know, so I think the net loss situation for women where this is all concerned, rather, unfortunately, is.

Unknown Speaker 12:37
So the second thing we wanted to talk about today, and I'm going to try to tie these the two things together, and what the Atlanta is the rise in deaths by gun in our country, that it is, it is the highest in 28 years. And of course, you know, they throw out all the explanations, you know, it was COVID, you know, all these things. And I'm not saying that, that some of that doesn't play a part. But we in our country are awash in guns. If you compare us to any other civilized country on the planet, we lead not not merely in guns, but but death by gun by an astronomical amount. And what's interesting about it, is that the general public basically is numb to these is numb to these cases. You know, why I think

Unknown Speaker 13:31
some of it is the more I think about it, so much of you know, so we're talking about in general, where the highest death by gun we've seen in 28 years, right. Do you wonder, and do you not suppose that maybe that is because we sent her so much of the narrative around mass shootings rather than intrapersonal one on one homicide type situations, we focus so much on these mass killings where someone takes a gun and goes in AR style, but a lot of the gun deaths in this country are just one on one individual homicides, right. So much of that is what's happening on the streets on the ground, especially here in Las Vegas. So I think maybe reframing that it could be your neighbor that takes the gun and just kills you doesn't mean he's gonna go shoot up movie theater. But it's if your neighbor has a gun in your house if your dog walker has a gun in your house, if the local neighborhood you know, we'll call we'll call him naughty guy has a gun in his eye. It's just It doesn't necessarily have to be him this mass shooter situation and this mass death that brings fear Stokes fear in people where guns are concerned, it could be just because you know your scary uncle who uses it to shoot deer, it could be a bad day for him and then the gun gets used. You know what I'm saying? So I think maybe framing it as it is it could be as close as anybody you know, that has a gun could use it to against you, not just in a mass shooting scary type. Because you have to I think in this country and we talk about it all the time professor use fear mongering to sell certain areas, and you have to have people just stoked and satiated with fear in order to get certain things moved in a certain way or Get them to move in a certain way. And I think it really could be as simple as, hey, we live in a country where your mom could shoot you. Yeah. You know, isn't that a little weird? Instead of you know, it has to be framed as you can't go to the movie theater or churches anymore. It's like, no, your

Unknown Speaker 15:12
mom could shoot you. It's that scary. It's that serious? I don't know. Maybe it's a framing issue too, as well.

Unknown Speaker 15:18
Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. Like, you know, as far as mass shootings are concerned, when they had the situation in New Zealand, of course, buy the guns

Unknown Speaker 15:30
go was gone by a couple of days. You don't get this anymore. You didn't play nice.

Unknown Speaker 15:34
Yes. So So what is what is that is that part of it is it's so ingrained in the culture that you you have to have a weapon.

Unknown Speaker 15:45
You know, the people, the biggest proponents of guidance, and I have so many of them that I know so many of them are in my family, so many of them are friends of mine. And again, I think up until a certain point, right, the right to own a handgun is very different than the right to own an AR 15. But they do believe it's fundamental to their sense of liberty, like if I don't get to shoot this deer. If I don't get to carry this pistol, my whole life changes. Like I no longer feel that sense of Americanism. My patriotism is affected by my right to own a gun. That's how they framed this issue. You know, not about right like how we've just been discussing for the past 10 minutes mom could kill me or I can't go to church or I can't go to the movie theater. No, it's framed by Liberty is affected by this gone and I want to put that's really how it is for them. If they can't shoot a bear, if they can't feel personally protected, or God forbid they get any number of any other weapons that are available to you as a public consumer. I don't know. But when you frame it as it is my liberty, it is my rights. It is the thing I do for fun and my family and my country. It's harder than it's harder to argue against that and that's certainly how they Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 16:52
I don't I mean, I you know, from having been in the justice system I see it as basically, you know, if you're a law enforcement you need you may or may not have heavy weapons, right? Absolutely. If you're if you're a police officer, what have you needed if you have a gun to protect your home I can see it

Unknown Speaker 17:15
right there are certain neighborhoods I've been to outside of Chicago where I would need the hands on in my home I would feel like that would probably be necessary. It's more of the AR fifteens and we've got six or seven of them in a safe along with six rifles.

Unknown Speaker 17:27
Yeah, and of course you know two as far as like the hunting I'm not I'm not I'm not into the hunting as part of I mean, I mean to me if I'm you know, if the if I'm not in the animals not bothering me I'm not gonna bother the

Unknown Speaker 17:40
I could you imagine if the deer just decided to get up arms and shoot us Oh, it's sport

Unknown Speaker 17:46
but does there was in the in the in the Yellowstone series where the one of the episodes in the first or second year we takes the young kid out to exercise his manhood or heavy right I'm shooting like an innocent animal but what I think it's it's it's always struck me as being very interesting that people are given free will people are given reason people are given all these things that most animals are not given. But the animal most animals, the largest quantity of animals, even the most ferocious animals do not kill, just to kill don't know if a lion is like a lion is hungry. The Lions looking for some nice provoke unless provoked. Exactly, exactly. They don't kill. It's not for Swat, I mean an animal. There was a great thing. And it was on YouTube four or five months ago, had to do with it, a place in Africa where they had a pride of lions. And instead of pride of lions comes a fox. And the Fox had I guess the Fox had some kind of injury. And, you know, you think well, this five dinners here but anyway, well, the male lion, the male lion comes and he wants to eat the fox. The female lion comes over says no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The fox is coming with me. And it's gonna be one big happy family nurse de facto nurses. And so you see in the animal that there is there is that kind of wisdom that you're not you're not you don't just kill to kill you know, maybe

Unknown Speaker 19:31
that's part of the reason that we do see such you know, I don't just want to say hunting equals people kill people. But really, when you're when you're able to, I think look, no matter what it is deer Bear DUCK. Well, you know, it doesn't. I don't, I was able to look something in the eye and take its life away and watch that life fade from the eyes. And we're able to accept that that's okay. In a hunting situation just enmasse as Americans, I'm not surprised that we're a little bit behind on finding it's so abhorrent when it's regular people When it's actual human beings, because we're willing to do it without animals, yeah and maths in say that it's part of becoming a man or it's part of, you know, team bonding or whatever excuse they use to justify their activities. Yeah, I think it is, at the end of the day, you're taking away life. You're watching Life escape bys. And if you're willing to do that, and we're willing to allow that at any level. What does that say? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 20:23
I think there's a definite, I think there's a definite because it's

Unknown Speaker 20:28
not hunting gathering that I think we're talking about. I'm not talking about, you know, foragers, or people that hunt to feed their family or people that fish to feed their family or people. I'm talking about people that do it in mass for sport, people that spend 10s of 1000s of dollars going out on retreats every year to do to just kill, just kill. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 20:44
that's an interesting story. My from one of my friends told me, his dad lives out in Minnesota. And he goes ice fishing. So he's out there. You come from the north north, coming from the north. It's, you know, one of the customers that they absolutely official one night, he comes back to the house. And this five wolves by the house, I bet there are not the wolf, of course, we have a certain idea of what the wolf is. So anyway, they leave. And then the guy you know, he's, he's out in the woods, he you know, he's taunting, he's doing all these things. He says, I'm going to do a little experiment on this five walls, I'm going to pull out some meat for them. And these plates every night, and see what happens. And he puts it out in the meat has gone. So one night, he's coming back. And the walls are waiting for him by the door. And he says is interesting. And they're all like looking at him. Right? Exactly. Yeah, that they don't want to kill him. They just want to get some of the meat. Right. So the animal has that wisdom, though, the analyze the wisdom. And, you know, it's interesting to think about it, but you know, the gun thing, and I wanted to bring up the road deaths. Now that's another really interesting thing, because we in the United States, have probably we probably spend more money on safety, on car on car improvements than any other country in the world. And among the major industrial powers, we alone are the only country where automobile debts arising. I think it was between five and 7% last year. And, you know, living in living where we live in the city of Las Vegas. As you will probably attest

Unknown Speaker 22:40
I have I have tweeted out something akin to every day on the roads in Las Vegas, Nevada is do or die. I mean, every single time I get on the roads here, I truly wonder if today's gonna be the day. I'm not kidding. I mean, it's like people do not care about their life, about yours about their car, about the safety of others about enforcement, they do not care. I mean, it's it's ranging from people who will go 50 miles an hour and a 35 to 100. And if I mean, this is I've never experienced anything like what I've experienced in Las Vegas. But Florida wasn't much better as far as drivers and Indian, just not people not being considerate and stuff. But I think it goes back to the things we've discussed. People don't value human lives anymore. And don't view human life is important, and are very much of the opinion that what they do does not again, not immediately affect others. And even if it does, oh, well, you know, human life is something that's not doesn't have that same tangible value to other people. Like I believe it used to. And so you know, if I go 100 Well, not only did people believe I'm not going to crash into anybody, but so what if I do? You know,

Unknown Speaker 23:44
I was I was apathy, I think is a huge? Yeah. Well, it's, it's I think it's I think it's three things. I think there's definitely apathy, that's one thing. I think that, you know, in looking at one of the problems in our city, which is homelessness, there's a lack of empathy. But the third thing is our societal illnesses, indifference. Yeah, people just don't care. Right? You know, I gotta get somewhere five

Unknown Speaker 24:16
minutes, which is more important than whatever, you know,

Unknown Speaker 24:20
maybe I'm gonna take a shot and I might hit somebody or whatever. But it doesn't bother me. And I think that I think that driving as completely the point of driving is you have a weapon. Yeah, the car is a weapon just like the gun is a weapon. And it's just like a joke like people don't take it seriously. And I really wonder and I don't know if there's any statistics I don't even know how you could find this out. I wonder how these people even get their license. When you see them?

Unknown Speaker 24:55
Well, you know, it is interesting. You got a you have to pass your driver's test once once When you're 16 That's it. That's it. Right? Yeah. I mean, that's sort of crazy. And then despite, you know, a lot of the times you'll suffer major illnesses throughout your life, you'll suffer catastrophic events, you'll move to different climates in there don't You don't retest among any of that situation. So, you know, driving in the Appalachian Mountains is far different than driving out in Florida or driving out here. So I find that, you know, maybe you don't want to bring more people to the DMV, right? Like, I'm not trying to advocate for more business coming to the DMV, but it is odd to me that once you do it at 16, well, you're probably good. But, you know, I think there should be, especially for people with chronic health conditions, because so many accidents are caused by people just passing out at the wheel. I think if you've been if certain amounts of like DUIs, it just should get stripped. And I know a lot of places have legislation like that. But I'm not convinced, like after one year shouldn't be monitored. I think when you move to a different climate, especially if you have proof of residency from a state with completely different road rules, or completely different climate, you should be returned. I mean, there are ways to like mitigate some keeping some of these monsters off the road that we don't even, you know,

Unknown Speaker 26:06
well, I was thinking, I was thinking, when I, when I use the word in difference, like, like the guy that was playing for the Raiders

Unknown Speaker 26:13
150, or whatever it was 180 or something. But there's something there's something he walks, right, he walks away. Yeah. And his girlfriend walks away. But this innocent 24 year old girl and her dog blow up.

Unknown Speaker 26:27
Yeah, well, the case, the case with the guy who killed all the cyclists. That's another example. That's another example. But one of the things that's interesting in, in almost all these cases, whether it's the gun or the car, or whatever it is, when you when you actually look at the the trials that they have, and then you know, does very little accountability. It was very interesting. It was very interesting in the Buffalo case, where the guy killed all the people in the supermarket, that the guy, the guy owns up to what he did. He said, Yeah, I killed these people. And you don't have that you don't have really a person or persons who commit these crimes, where there's any acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Right. And that's, that's troubling. And because some of them do some really horrific stuff, and they don't have any Stop function, and they just whatever feels good to do it, is what they're gonna do. And I think the society our society does not value introspection, what our society is, you know, we go from day to day, and, you know, but it's troubling, you know, we wanted to, you know, kick into the club Q thing. I've given that. Yeah, I've given that a lot of flub, what would you like to say about

Unknown Speaker 27:58
it? You know, I just think when we talk about things like what happened at Club Q, you always want to frame in mind that gun control gets a lot of talk, right? I mean, you and I just spent 1015 minutes talking about gun control and the importance of gun control, I want to make sure that we are talking about the importance of protecting uplifting and making sure our LGBTQ brothers and sisters are supported every step. Because at the end of the day, I don't believe Had that been a straight club that that's what have one would have would have went down that night, I think it would have been a very different situation. So I think as we're considering and sort of processing everything that happened at Club Q As a nation, we need to collectively remember that there are voices that I don't that they're gonna get muddied in the waters, especially trans voices, especially people of color that are trans people of color that are gay. And I think we need to listen to what they have to say about this issue. And listen, how would they feel their safety level is and how we can make them more comfortable in situations like this. Because you know, there's very little I think we can do in mass right now to create immediate gun control change. But what can we do right now to help those people that feel so affected Exactly. So as we close out our show, I realized this was probably a little dark, a little McCobb of a show. But I do want to remind everybody that you know, that sort of is what we're trying to do here is make you a little more comfortable talking to your peers about things like this, and maybe having more tools in your toolbox to talk about things like this or issues like this with your peers. And then remembering when we talk about all these things, whether that be victims of road deaths, victims of gun control victims of the Supreme Court, that there are real people that are affected by this, and we can talk to those real people. And we can ask those real people how they want us to respond. And sometimes that is better than forcing our opinions or our thoughts or getting to Twitter and talking about it. It's better to talk to the people on the ground and be a part of the community that is so affected by all the things we talk about here. So with that, I want to wish you guys a very Happy Thursday in a wonderful rest of your weekend. I want to give you guys a reminder, I haven't given it in a couple of weeks, but if you do have any questions or concerns or topics you'd like the professor and I to talk about, go ahead and shoot me an email at W e t h e l one At unlv.nevada.edu and we'll be sure to get back to you. Thank you so much for listening and have a wonderful like I said, weekend again.

Unknown Speaker 30:07
Thank you so much. Good night.

Unknown Speaker 30:09
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@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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