EP 97 Flooding, a disgraced delegate and transmission lines

Summary

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Mountain State Libertycast — EP 97

Date: August 4, 2026
Host: Ty Ward
Guests: Taylor "Big Daddy Data" Richmond, Bubble C, and (unnamed fourth speaker)

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Main Theme

This episode explores current West Virginia headlines and policy debates from a Libertarian lens, focusing on three central issues:

• The recent catastrophic flooding and disaster response
• The scandal involving Delegate David Elliot Pritt, accused of sex crimes with a minor
• Controversy over utility-scale transmission lines and data center legislation

The hosts—who are themselves Libertarian Party candidates—blend personal campaign anecdotes with robust discussion about state and local government roles, property rights, education, and political consistency.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Hosts’ Campaign Updates & Local Events

• Ty Ward (Host) is running for the WV House of Delegates, 15th District (Wirt and Roane Counties).
• Taylor Richmond is running for State Senate, District 13 (Greater Morgantown/Fairmont).
  • “Been going to a lot of things up in this area, but this Saturday I’ll be down at the Boothville Volunteer Fire Department golf scramble… helping with the floods recovery and everything.” —Taylor (01:50)
• Both discuss the rhythm of county fairs, livestock shows, and supporting youth agriculture (including buying rabbits and engaging in local festivals).
  • “You’re not paying market prices. You’re paying for, you know, the future of the youth and to reward them for their hard work.” —Ty (03:58)

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West Virginia Flood Response: Private Action vs. Public Role

Timestamps: 06:00–23:21

Overview

Central WV was hit by severe flooding, devastating areas like Weston and leaving the Walmart there under 3 feet of water. The response, who should coordinate it, and how fast help arrives became focal points.

Notable Points

• Private Responses Outpace Government Aid:

  • Individuals, churches, volunteer fire departments, and local businesses quickly gathered and delivered supplies.
  • The organization and generosity of private groups and faith communities is emphasized repeatedly.

• Skepticism of City Government’s Role:

  • Ty critiques the City of Spencer for using public funds (taxpayer money) to buy water for flood victims in another city.
    • “That is not really the role of a city government—to be using tax funds to buy water and supplies for another devastated area.” —Ty (10:01)
  • Taylor agrees, arguing cities should first focus on local emergency needs, and warns the gesture could be political posturing.

• Slow Government Relief:

  • National Guard, FEMA, and bureaucratic state response are described as essential but inefficient and delayed.
  • “The government is supposed to move at the speed of smell. And when you’re talking about depending on them for disaster relief, that doesn’t work.” —Ty (16:41)
  • Mennonite-run groups could build bridges in a month, while state aid took years to distribute after the 2016 flood.

• Libertarian Perspective on Disaster Aid:

  • Private-sector, mutual aid, and efficient voluntary organizations often outperform state or federal disaster agencies.
  • The "Defend the Guard" movement is highlighted—National Guard troops should be home for emergencies, not overseas.

• Role for Some Public Services:

  • Consensus that critical weather data (NOAA) and related services might be justified public actions, but vast federal programs like FEMA are inefficient.

Notable Quote

• “No matter what you hear on the news… it’s always a dearth of donations of people’s time and money in donations. And I’m sure it’ll be the same case here.” —Ty (22:23)

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The Pritt Scandal: Sex Crimes Allegation Against a State Delegate

Timestamps: 25:03–53:20

Background

Delegate David Elliot Pritt (Fayette County) was arrested federally for allegedly soliciting sex with a 15-year-old via Snapchat and Roblox. The state GOP and House Speaker called for his resignation, but procedural barriers keep him on the ballot for now.

Key Insights

• Details of the Allegation:

  • The use of chats in Roblox (notorious for predators) moved to Snapchat—leaving a trail described as irrefutable in official documents.
  • Pritt is currently in federal lockup in Kentucky.

• Immediate and Broad Political Fallout:

  • Despite “innocent until proven guilty,” both the state GOP and legislative leadership have removed Pritt from committee roles and called for his resignation, but cannot force expulsion until special session resumes.

• Procedural Roadblocks:

  • Due to recent state law, Pritt’s name stays on the November ballot unless he is convicted of a felony by August 11, 2026.
  • The challenge affects both Republican strategy and local representation.

• Pritt’s Political Background:

  • Described as a “political carpetbagger”—once a Mountain Party member (socialist-leaning), then Democrat, then an influential Republican.
  • Noted irony: Pritt was a public school teacher, on record for supporting laws to restrict parents’ ability to withdraw kids from public school amid abuse allegations (Raleigh’s Law). Just months ago, he advocated emotional speeches for “protecting children.”

Notable Quotes

• On the hypocrisy:

  • “The heartbreaking irony… is that while Mr. Pritt was making this impassioned plea… to keep [children] in public classrooms where they can be safer, he was allegedly abusing or having these relations with this underage student all in the same time.” —Taylor (45:09)

• On teacher trust and school choice:

  • “There’s not some sort of moral paradigm where we need to put public educators and public schools on this pedestal. They’re people and they need to recognize that as well.” —Ty (50:13)

• On accountability:

  • “If a public school teacher is convicted of these kind of crimes… there should be no end to the punishment you receive. You are not a normal citizen. You are somebody that the community has put an immense amount of trust, responsibility into.” —Ty (54:39)

• Consistency in condemnation:

  • “Evil exists in every paradigm, both sides red or blue, that evil exists. And we need to weed out the evil and focus on that first and foremost.” —Ty (57:11)

Reflections on Education, Trust & Public Accountability

• The hosts stress the need for “school choice”—families must have options when public institutions fail, regardless of the rhetoric from public education defenders.
• They urge the public—and particularly political parties and churches—to police their own communities hard, not just blame “outsiders.”

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Data Centers, Transmission Lines, and Eminent Domain

Timestamps: 61:07–86:53

Data Centers & Legislation

• A data center corporate rep was caught boasting at an NC council meeting that “we wrote” WV’s data center law, removing local governments’ right to regulate.

  • “They wrote legislation that they passed… so localities wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.” —Ty (62:08)

• There’s bipartisan concern about corporate lobbying—especially when it shields disruptive industries from local accountability.

• Lobby-written bills aren’t new, but the lack of transparency and local voice in siting, noise, impact, etc. is a concern.

• Taylor notes that most legislators don’t write their own bills (“that’s how sausage is made”), but the key is whether they understand and amend what’s handed to them.

• Actual local control over siting only exists in some big cities; most counties have little say.

  • “There’s a difference between being truthful and being factual. Yes, they are being factual, but they’re not being truthful in their intent about it.” —Taylor (67:44)

Eminent Domain & Property Rights

• The hosts draw a hard line: government should not have the power to seize private land for transmission lines or pipelines, even for economic development.

  • “If eminent domain is going to be involved, I’m against it. All my opinions aside, 100%.” —Ty (70:21)

• Ty shares personal experience: having a gas pipeline on his property restricts use for recreation or agricultural improvement.

• The “growth vs. rights” tension:

  • West Virginians must reckon with the cost and consequences of economic expansion rooted in coal and power generation.
  • “Do you want growth? Do you want coal to be the backbone of our growth or don’t you? Because there’s things that come along with that, the dirty things we don’t like to think about.” —Ty (71:13)

Economic Impact and Transparency

• Speculation about the consequences if the much-touted data centers go bust—will the up-front cost and property loss be worth it?
• Ratepayer impacts: Unclear if average citizens will see lower power costs, despite being asked to pay upfront for new infrastructure; more public debate is needed.
• Critique: State and companies have failed to provide credible public outreach on these major changes.

Consistency Principle

• Libertarians can take clear, principle-based stances: respect for local property rights, suspicion of government overreach, skepticism of corporate cronyism.
• Praise for personal consistency—winning trust by sticking to foundational values, even if it costs short-term political points.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On government disaster response:
  • “The government is supposed to move at the speed of smell. And when you’re talking about depending on them for disaster relief, that doesn’t work.” —Ty, (16:41)
• On photo-op politics:
  • “My first thought…was a picture of like your mayor…standing next to the pallet [of water] with a thumbs up that he’s going to use down the road for a campaign post.” —Taylor, (10:56)
• On National Guard priorities:
  • “We need our brave men and women who are volunteering for our state to be in our state when these types of disasters arise.” —Taylor, (13:37)
• On “Defend the Guard”:
  • “Perfect example…while [engineer units] are deployed, if there’s an issue like Weston’s having, they have to bring in somebody from somewhere else.” — Ty, (14:24)
• On hypocrisy in moral advocacy:
  • “...based on the timeline, while Mr. Pritt was making this impassioned plea to protect kids…he was allegedly abusing or having these relations with this underage student all in the same time.” —Taylor, (45:11)
• On being honest even when it hurts:
  • “It almost pains you to say it…because you’re defending your opponent. But…I take a beat and I go, that’s just not true.” —Ty, (85:49)
• On Libertarian clarity:
  • “Don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff—that’s the main core of what I want to do. People get that and they agree.” —Ty, (88:42)

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Flow, Tone, and Style

The conversation is informal, candid, and often features dry humor and personal anecdotes. The hosts openly admit their own biases, but continually strive for consistency and logical, principled arguments. They discuss complex issues in plain, accessible language—favoring skepticism of both government and unchecked corporate influence, while celebrating grassroots action and individual liberty.

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Useful Timestamps for Key Segments

• Campaign intros & community engagement: 00:05–04:00
• Flood relief, mutual aid, and government response: 06:00–23:21
• Pritt scandal (allegations, legal/political implications, school choice): 25:03–53:20
• Data center legislation & transmission lines: 61:07–86:53
• Libertarian principle wrap-up: 88:16–89:29

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Summary Takeaway

Through the lens of real-time West Virginia news, the hosts lay out the libertarian case for personal generosity, skepticism of government scope-creep, fierce protection of property rights, and the need for all political actors and institutions to be accountable—even (and especially) to their own. The importance of consistency, transparency, and voluntary action over top-down mandates comes through as the episode’s core message.

Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to the Mountain State Liberty Cast.

[B]

I am your host, Ty Ward.

[A]

I am joined as always by Taylor Big Dady Data Richmond.

[C]

Wow, that almost took a really weird turn.

[B]

That was my.

[A]

My brain was in the middle of saying big Data.

[B]

It went to Big Daddy.

[C]

So it went to Big Daddy. They call me Big Daddy.

[D]

Oh, duh. Bubble C bird there.

[B]

Gross. He's dead.

[A]

So, yeah, today we are going to

[B]

talk about a lot of West Virginia things.

[A]

But from the top, please follow us on Instagram, Facebook and X. You can donate to the podcast. This is a value for value podcast, meaning whatever value you get out of it, please give it back to us if you feel like doing so. Go to lpwv.org yeah.org right. And hit that donate button.

[B]

Give us a few dollars. Whatever you feel is appropriate.

[A]

It's your decision. Whatever you get out of it, give it back, please. I am running for the 15th House District of the West Virginia House of Delegates. That's Wort and Roan County. Lots going on this the 28th, I'm going to a public meeting at the Spencer Armory where there's going to be a question answer session for the Valley

[B]

Link transmission line that's gonna be going through Roane county one way or another.

[A]

I think there's two routes that they're

[B]

proposing that go through Roane county. So we're gonna be there asking questions about that. So we'll talk about that a little bit later too.

[A]

But Taylor, you are running for the State Senate.

[C]

Yeah, I'm running for West Virginia State Senate, District 13 representing the Greater Morgantown and Fairm. Been going to a lot of things up in this area, but this Saturday I'll be down at the Boothville Volunteer Fire Department golf scramble meeting. Some brave men and women who volunteer in that area, which is in the southern part of the district. I know several of them have been down in the Westin areas and helping with the floods recovery and everything. So happy to go out and support those guys and gals and meet some folks in that corner of the district.

[D]

But yeah, it's getting close to November time.

[B]

Yeah, a little bit too close. It's going to come right up on me. I'm.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now do you say that the July

[A]

5th through the 8th is the work county junior?

[D]

July or August.

[C]

We've already passed July.

[B]

Yeah, August. My bad.

[D]

You missed it.

[B]

Summer flies by for me. Yeah. So August and I'll be there at least one of those days to meet people and walk around and. And maybe buy an animal tailor. I'm Big putting our big boy pants on. And I'm thinking about buying a rabbit. That's about all I was going to say.

[D]

About all I can afford.

[C]

I'll say.

[D]

What.

[C]

What animal you looking to acquire?

[B]

We're not. We're not in that kind of funding yet, so. No, that's.

[A]

It's good to see.

[C]

This is a campaign mascot or what. What is it that you're.

[D]

It's.

[B]

Oh, sorry, I forgot you're not a real West Virginian. It's a livestock. Every fair in the state has.

[D]

You're buying a rabbit Big country boy.

[B]

Yeah, well, they.

[A]

They are. See most fairs and festivals they have

[B]

when they do livestock show and say a lot of them will have the small animal where they're show. They'll show chickens and rabbits and ours

[A]

this year in Roan county, they're.

[B]

They're doing that as well for the first time ever. But we're. County's been doing that for a while

[A]

and I think I can actually.

[B]

To buy a rabbit or a chicken. So.

[A]

Yeah, help the kids out. That's the idea of it.

[B]

You're not paying market prices. You're paying for, you know, the future of the youth and to reward them for their hard work. So it is a lot of work. Our kids show my daughter showing a goat this year in the Black Walnut Festival, my son showing a pig. So I know all about it. So if you want to come to that and see me, that'd be great.

[D]

Do they.

[C]

They show pigs so they do that funny like walk where they smack the pig with the stick. Yeah, well, they look real mean like that one. That one girl who's like viral.

[A]

Oh, there are whole levels of showing animals and. Yeah, no, at the higher levels. See that girl? Those are the kind of fairs, like it's a big like expo where they're putting.

[B]

They're putting like thousands and thousands of dollars into these animals.

[A]

And a lot of those, they're. They're more about showing off the farms

[B]

like the breeding stock of their. And it gets in publicity and stuff. But this is just like you go. You go buy a show pig and

[A]

you get in there and my son, he. He takes it pretty seriously. Yeah, well, see, when I showed. I show.

[B]

Showed a pig one time in high school and pigs are super easy to raise. I mean basically, as long as you feed them and like are halfway attentive, they get kind of friendly and it's.

[D]

And then he took her to prom.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. There's people that do take it much

[B]

more seriously, but pigs Are kind of like. They just like, corral them into a pen and the people just walk around pretending like they have control over this pig.

[D]

It's like a. I don't know, man. That girl be whipping that thing.

[A]

Well, see, that's the thing. If you work. If you work with them enough, they do kind of respond to it, but it's a pig. Like, they do whatever they want, like.

[B]

But, um, so my son's into that, so.

[A]

But he used. They use little whips now. When I showed they. It was like a cane. Just like a big wooden cane that you used.

[B]

And I don't know why. Why they went away from that, but they. They use a little whip now. So. Yeah, so that's fun.

[A]

But so, Taylor, and you reminded me.

[B]

We'll start with this.

[D]

So the segue here.

[C]

Go ahead.

[A]

You're in your talking about the people volunteering in Weston. So we had a big storm that

[B]

came through and, you know, everybody was on pins and needles seeing what was gonna happen.

[A]

And I think most of the state that they said was gonna get, you

[B]

know, issues like us down here, they

[A]

said it was potential to come through, but kind of the Roan. Greater Rhone were our area.

[B]

Calhoun. It kind of just the. The clouds parted.

[A]

We did here. The thing is, Taylor, we needed rain,

[B]

but we didn't need that kind of rain.

[D]

So it's like asking, I shall receive.

[B]

Yeah, so we kind of. We were kind of lucky in that we got, you know, a little bit of rain showers, but nothing much. But some of the, you know, central West Virginia, the Weston area, Lewis County, Upshire county, they got pretty. They got hammered pretty hard, and they had some pretty severe flooding. I think the Walmart there in Weston,

[A]

I don't know if you've ever been

[B]

to that area, and it kind of

[C]

the cheapest gas in the state. I always stop at the Walmart in Weston.

[A]

Okay, There you go.

[B]

Well, it was. It had.

[A]

Well, I don't think. I guess that's. Yeah, that must be the Walmart they're talking because there's another Walmart. No, there's not.

[B]

That's not a Walmart.

[C]

There is. There's a Walmart down, like, further past, like, between Buchanan and Elkins. But the one they showed was the Westin one.

[B]

Okay.

[D]

The one that right off the interstate,

[B]

it had three feet of water in it, which is pretty bad.

[A]

So, yeah, the people are, you know,

[B]

sending donations or people volunteering to go down help.

[A]

And so that's, you know, it's really interesting. You know, the National Guard always comes in and they, and in my opinion,

[B]

you know, being again, a pragmatist and if you're talking about libertarian theory, if you're, if you're a full on anarchist, you would say, you know, the National Guard shouldn't even exist or whatever. I don't know. But you know, being more of a minarchist, meaning, you know, the smallest amount of government possible,

[A]

the National Guard does

[B]

play a pretty, you know, essential role in emergency situations like that. You know, for my entire life, you know, I did flood duty when I was in the Guard. Now I was in public affairs. So we would kind of go down and take a B roll for news stations and get stories and stuff like that. But you know, the heavy equipment operators here, they would go down to these places and use their equipment to, you know, move dirt and debris and stuff

[A]

and, and help people and, and do some of the cleanup.

[B]

So the National Guard is there and I saw the government, the government, the governor posting about flying around a helicopter. I don't know if he actually landed. And you know, people, yeah, you know how people are. They always come, well, you better be down there.

[A]

I'm like the worst possible thing would

[B]

be for the governor there being in the way.

[A]

So, you know, the state is playing that role. But Taylor, I don't know, in your area, like here in Spencer, there's been several churches and then the fire department,

[B]

they are setting up.

[A]

And one of our, in Newton, our local, the Newton store, they, they took a bunch of stuff down to the

[B]

Carolinas when they had their devastation down there. And they're, they're renting a box trailer and they're taking some supplies up there this week. So everybody's doing their part down here to collect items for them. You know, bleach, trash bags, non perishable food, stuff like that for people to bring up there.

[A]

But our local city, the city of

[B]

Spencer and I want to get your take on this as well because I think you'll kind of agree with me.

[A]

They posted that they, they, the city of Spencer had purchased at least a

[B]

pallet of water from the tractor supply here in one of the local grocery stores and they were going to be taking that up to, to Weston.

[A]

And while, you know, it's easy to

[B]

kind of just take that at face value and say, oh that's, that's great, I'm glad they're doing that.

[A]

My first thought and reaction was that

[B]

is not really the role of a city government to be using tax funds to buy water and buy supplies for another devastated area.

[A]

It's one of our main topics.

[B]

We talk about here what the proper role of government is.

[A]

And as callous as that sounds, I

[B]

started this off by saying individuals, churches, the volunteer fire department and local businesses

[A]

are collecting items and taking them up

[B]

there from here to help people out. But the city of Spencer, I mean, their job is to, you know, provide the services here for the city of Spencer.

[A]

And my first thought was if they

[B]

have enough excess money to be buying water for a community hundreds of miles away, they're collecting too much taxes. What say you, Tyler?

[C]

You know, I don't know the fiscal situation there in Spencer, but not good that they have. I'm glad they have enough for a pallet of water. And I agree about the role of the city government. It's not a response. If anything, there should be a rainy day fund for things that happen in your town so that you're ready for emergencies that happen there in your backyard. Not like you said across the state. I don't know the actual distance from Spencer to Weston and Buchanan, but still the point stands regardless. And maybe it's because now that I'm running in an actual election, callous to this kind of thing, Ty, but the first thought that I had was a picture of like your mayor or the city councilman, like standing next to the pallet with a thumbs up that he's going to use down the road for a campaign post or whatnot. Because, you know, I just saw here in Morgantown, Oliverio was with Joey Garcia and Gino Schitterelli or whatever his name is with some check from the state. And you know, it didn't take like 2 seconds to Google or a. I searched that. This was like some development check, you know, grant check that higher ed and other things are given by the state. And they were literally just playing postman and delivering it. They had no role in actually doing anything to get that money. They didn't lobby for it specifically for those schools or anything. You know, it was just them for a photo op. So when I see a lot of stuff like this, especially on behalf of state offices or city municipalities, my first thought is, oh, some politician is using this as like a campaign thing. You know, maybe it's not and I'm just callous, but your point is valid and correct and it's not the role of another city. And I would just say in terms of the flood in general, Ty, that I would ask folks, obviously in the moment if you, especially if you live down there, you're got bigger priorities than to do this but for the folks who are going to volunteer or donating and things are just scrolling through TikTok, Facebook and Instagram about it and see just notice that the vast majority of the things that are going to be there in terms of resources are going to be from individual donations, churches, charities and nonprofits. A lot of the response is gonna be or a lot of response from the state is gonna be way delayed and too late really to be of significant help when it comes at all. And then also I think to your point on the National Guard issue, Ty, I think it's just another reason why libertarians like ourselves especially who aren't necessarily full anarchists but close enough are such big proponents of defend the Guard because as we see things escalations rise over in and servicemen and women are losing their lives again unfortunately that we need our brave men and women who are volunteering for our state to be in our state when these type of disasters arise.

[A]

Yeah, perfect example. I mean that's the thing.

[B]

When I was in Iraq,

[A]

I was

[B]

in a unit from Clarksburg, 115th Engineers. And while the,

[A]

the they're. They're in the.

[B]

In the army. There's vertical and horizontal construction. I mean this is, you know, keep it simple, stupid. But the horizontal construction is basically your heavy equipment and vertical is, you know, building things.

[A]

And we were there as a, you know, vertical construction. So it's a little bit less relevant for this. But you know, their, their horizontal construction had deployed I think two years before that. So you know, in Clarksburg, you know, while they're deployed, if they have an issue like Westin's having, they have to bring in a. Instead of having somebody right there, they have to go to another unit, an engineering unit in the state to come

[B]

up, drive to that area to react.

[A]

So it is a real concern. And that's the thing.

[B]

And I mentioned the National Guard.

[A]

They have a mandate and they just receive orders and all the governor has

[B]

to say is hey, activate.

[A]

They get.

[B]

They tell the adject in general there, hey, activate your units or whatever we need this or whatever they tell them

[A]

and then they issue orders and then that unit responds.

[B]

And that can happen in a day. And I worked in the department that when I worked for the state Department of Commerce, I was in the office that did the rise flood relief for the 2016 flood.

[A]

And it took years for them to

[B]

initiate all those funds they got from the federal government.

[A]

And at the same time when they

[B]

were, you know, deciding who was going to administer these funds, the. There's an organization that I think is run by the Mennonites or. I don't know if it's the Mennonites, one of those weird religions.

[A]

They, there's a group that builds bridges and they were down in our area,

[B]

down here in the Clendenin area and in some of southern Roan.

[A]

They were down here, you know, in a matter of, you know, as soon

[B]

as everything got cleaned up and people were submitting what needed to be done,

[A]

they were down here in a matter

[B]

of, you know, a month or two building bridges to people's houses, you know,

[A]

free of charge and doing all the work themselves and getting it done and

[B]

not having to ask any questions of the government or go through any kind of processes.

[A]

Well, meanwhile, like I said, it took

[B]

the government, the state government, you know, years to finally get everything done. And that's the problem. I mean, the government is supposed to move at the speed of smell.

[A]

And when you're talking about depending on

[B]

them for disaster relief, that that doesn't work. I mean, when is FEMA gonna come? I mean, months from now, right? So that's the, that's the problem. That's one of the reasons again, as we said on here at nauseam, it's

[A]

not that we just are obstinate and,

[B]

and hate government just because we don't

[A]

want them to do it, because it's

[B]

been proven that it doesn. It doesn't. It's not a great way to deal with any of these problems.

[D]

No, yeah, you're right.

[C]

And the issue is that most of the things that the government's going to do is just distribute funds for the most part, and it takes them months and years. Meanwhile, people devastated by these floods are struggling right now. They need cleanup supplies, they need food, they need help paying bills because their business is devastated and they won't be able to operate and bring in income, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, unfortunately, I guess Ty, the frustrating thing is that people will comment or yell at you online and stuff. It's like, well, what will happen in a natural disaster like a flood? And it's like exactly what we're saying, that the government will take way too long. People will be hard pressed on their life for even longer than if we relied solely on a free market and gave people more of their hard earned tax dollars backs to put back into the communities when things like this happened. They hear FEMA and we've been Stockholm syndrome into thinking that only FEMA can respond to things like this. And I was reading a good biography on Calvin Coolidge and him and Herbert Hoover, when he was rising up in the notoriety, helped to run the Red Cross response to a major flood. And they brought in like back in the 20s, brought in millions of dollars directly to those communities within days and weeks. And so this was happening even before the modern technology. And the private sector has always been proving that it's better than the government yet. But for some reason we created a federal agency to help with this and we large swath of population has grown to believe that we can't survive without it.

[A]

Yeah. And you know, while you could, you

[B]

know, nitpick on every single thing and

[A]

try to brainstorm how everything could be done privately, you know, just to give,

[B]

you know, a little bit on our

[A]

side, you know, there's things like, you

[B]

know, NOAA and some of these weather related things that they provide a lot of information beforehand. And one of the reasons we have all these maps and stuff that we

[A]

can track is government related, you know, scientific funding.

[B]

And, you know, I think you would

[A]

agree that, you know. Well, yeah, okay. I mean, if it's working and the people as a general rule think that

[B]

it's a beneficial thing and they want

[A]

to give money to those kind of things. Sure.

[B]

I mean, I've got no real problem with that. You know, in, in the way things are going now. If we get to a point where, you know, in some kind of utopia where we are, you know, think everybody's thinking the way we do and we

[A]

can try to move all that stuff

[B]

away from, you know, being related to

[A]

government at all, fine. But you know, there's a lot of

[B]

things that government does aren't working and

[A]

those are the things we should focus on first.

[B]

And we've said that on here a lot, you know, those kind of things

[A]

we should be addressed and people need to get out of the mindset of

[B]

just because something has been doesn't mean it always has to be.

[A]

You know, we tried it, we tried fema, we tried it and it really

[B]

doesn't work that well.

[A]

I mean, all this money could be going somewhere else and faster.

[C]

And I would just say that, you know, talking with especially the conservatives and folks who ask the questions, it's like, well, would you cut X, Y and Z? And looking at things like no. And others. Yeah, if I'm going to work my way through the federal state governments, things like that would be the last thing that libertarians like you and I would cut if we were disassembling government in a systematic and a pragmatic way. Right. Those are things that have some general benefit and probably would take a little time. But here's the other thing. Ty, you're not going to. I mean, again, we have to deregulate the insurance market. But insurance companies wouldn't want to know how to predict for storms and prepare ahead of major floods and snowstorms and hurricanes and all the rest. Of course they would.

[D]

And they would want to alert people

[C]

to that to prevent loss of property and life. And they would likely. A lot of folks have not speculated but hypothesized and things that the insurance companies and similar entities would fund such agencies and operations because it would be a giant cost savings for them, profit incentive to a lot of these things being privatized as well. But they're not going to do that so long as the government does it for them.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. And.

[A]

And you know, people would be incentivized to get insurance.

[B]

The, you know, roundabout what you're saying is, is they'd be more incentivized to get insurance if they knew.

[A]

Just like Social Security, people don't really

[B]

pay attention to retirement because like, oh, I'll have Social Security when I get old. So, you know, when a lot of

[A]

these people, people don't have enough insurance or don't have savings and then when these things happen, they're devastated and then they're stuck waiting for months and years

[B]

for the government to maybe give them some money.

[A]

And it's not only is that not a correct role of government, it's not

[B]

efficient and it hurts people. So.

[A]

Yeah, but we are you know, just

[B]

to, you know, wrap this part up on a positive note. It is always very encouraging to our way of thinking when you see so many people just immediately start responding on their own, you know, and almost you always have a dearth of donations and they have to every single time, Taylor, and I'm sure you've seen it, you see a news article saying, hey, stop sending stuff because there's just too much stuff. And that's incredible. I mean, no matter what you hear on the news and what you hear, people being negative and the people on the left saying we need taxes because people won't give or the private sector can't do this and that, it's always a dearth of donations of people's time and money in donations. And I'm sure it'll be the same case here. I mean, you're going to see, you know, pallets of water waiting are sitting around rotting for. For years after this because people are just so generous with their time and their money. So yeah,

[A]

Taylor, onto Some more, you

[B]

know, grim, grim news. If you can be more grim than a flood. Oh, I didn't just to go back for a second, I didn't see where that anybody had died or been seriously injured in the flood. Have you had you.

[D]

I think we've two fatalities so far.

[B]

Oh, no. Oh, well, that's terrible. But I mean that just, you know, all things considered, it could be worse. So that's.

[D]

Yeah. If you look at the pictures and

[C]

the rapid rise, I mean they've got 40, they got 4 inches in like 45 minutes. So the flash flooding in impacts and again, every loss of life is important and everyone has a child of God and that's a heartbreaking loss of some family. But in comparison to like when you look at the scope and the totality of what did happen down there, you know, it is a blessing that it wasn't more. There weren't more fatalities, given how quickly this caught some people off guard.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'll say this, you know, being an old man, dad, don't drive through floodwater.

[D]

Do it.

[A]

Don't go into floodwater, don't go back into your house. Those are all things we've been taught since we were a kid, you know, millennials. That's.

[B]

I saw a thing, Taylor, it said, when I was a kid we were

[A]

taught a lot of talk about stop, drop and roll.

[B]

I would have thought I would have been on fire more than exactly zero times in my life.

[D]

That are quicksand.

[B]

Moving on to the next topic, as I discussed before, a little bit somehow worse than fl.

[A]

We have a delegate from the Fayetteville area. Right. He's from Fayetteville.

[D]

Yep.

[B]

The delegate, Pritt.

[A]

What is his first name?

[D]

Not Pritt, it's David Elliot Pritt. Yeah, or Elliot David Pritt. I don't know. He's got some weird like hillbilly two name thing going on.

[B]

So we're, we'll do the whole, you know, innocent until proven guilty. Everybody's do their day in trial, but day in court, but. So this delegate has been arrested, I guess.

[A]

Was it the state that arrested him

[B]

or feds or what?

[D]

It was federal. And the allegations are that he was having relations with a minor. I think the girl is always to be or have been at the time, 15 years old. And he was utilizing Snapchat and a apparently popular video game called Roblox, which because it's an Internet, Internet based platform, crosses state lines, becomes a federal issue. And I think there was some questions folks had about, well, why is he being charged federally and that's because his solicitation of a minor utilized more interstate commerce style methods via the Internet.

[A]

Yeah, so I guess and just the

[B]

PSA to everybody my kids have messed with a little bit, but they don't have any access to the, the Internet with it but. Or whatever. I don't know. My wife deals with it. But Roblox is a big problem. I guess it's been a, a known thing that, that you know the chat thing on Roblox. Cuz it's a community based. Well you, it can be. So you, you build these communities in Roblox and, and people, perverts, pedophiles, whatever

[A]

you want to call them, they use

[B]

it as a way to groom kids in this game and get them to do horrible things. I mean there's a lot of really unspeakable things that they've done on this platform. And so I guess this guy got on there and it sounds like grooming is the best way to describe what I read. And then you know, he moved over to Snapchat to further discussions and some. It's very clear from what the indictments. Indictment, Indictment charges, whatever, I don't know whatever you call it. The, the documents from the government. I'm not a lawyer or a doctor or. All right.

[D]

I didn't stay or anything really.

[B]

Anything really. I got lawns for a living.

[D]

Buys rabbits.

[B]

Yeah by rabbits. I'm a rabbit man. I hate rabbits.

[A]

So he's in big, big trouble. Big heap trouble. He, I guess he's in prison in

[B]

Kentucky right now as you said that, you know, in a federal, federal, federal lockup. The big clink.

[A]

So this has been going around, you

[B]

know, social media and it's a big to do here in West Virginia as

[A]

well it should be. And the, the big. You try not to points put something

[B]

like this into a political lens. But he is a delegate and he represents his constituency there and has been,

[A]

you know, he, he has been involved in passing legislation and so as it sits right now, he has not resigned

[B]

as a delegate, which seems insane to me, but it seems maybe this guy's going to try to be the sicko he is and try to get this over

[A]

and again. Everybody's innocent until proven guilty.

[B]

But I don't think the feds or police in general really make these kind of charges without significant evidence. So I anticipate probably that going through. So they're having a problem right now with him not resigning from the House of Delegates and, and so he's still in, in the election. I don't know how that works.

[A]

Have you, have you heard how that works?

[D]

Yeah, a couple of things I'll just, I'll just note Ty it is and well, first let me ask you a question and, and you kind of, I guess maybe alluded to your answer that the assumption of, of innocence until proven guilty, you know, as you see a lot of times with various things that, you know, famous people do and not saying this guy should be or is famous for any anything but obviously he has notoriety because he's delegate. But when things like this happen, you know, significant percentage of the time there is a innocent until proven and people are like, well that's, we're not going to, you know, rush to judgment. We're going to wait until, you know, day in court, all that kind of stuff. It. And I don't know because, because of the allegations, this type of allegation, the type of crimes, it's like, no, this guy's, you know, fry him and let's get, let's get him out of here. So I was somewhat shocked. I give credence to your point of, you know, he, the feds and the state police don't generally just arrest people like this with little evidence. It's generally you're, you've done something bad. Whether it's fully to the extent of what you're in there for, you're probably a pretty bad person. But anywho, what's your just initial reaction to how quickly everyone has kind of just throwing the, trying to throw that book at this guy?

[B]

You know, I think it's appropriate. I mean, I don't know, I've not seen any, you know, comments on, on

[A]

him anybody like talking about like, oh,

[B]

I knew this guy was creepy. You've, you've actually seen, you know, I think TJ Meadows put out an article saying we all were fooled.

[A]

And, and you know, it's one of those things. I don't think that's really the right way to frame it. Like you're not, you're not, you haven't been fooled. Like nobody assumes, you know, if you're electing a delegate and they're not like actively like doing that kind of stuff in front of you. Like you're not being fooled. Nobody assumes anybody's doing that unless you're

[B]

just like completely paranoid.

[A]

I mean you get, you know, everybody

[B]

and I'm, I don't know if you've experienced it but you know, but as

[A]

a dad, it kind of turns up to 11 when you have kids. But that creep out factor about Some people that you get like, even as, even when you're a kid, you kind of can read that on people. And that's one of the things that

[B]

a lot of self defense people tell

[A]

women is listen to your body, listen to your instincts, thinks. And, and you can get a feel on a lot of people. And, and from everything I've, I've read, you know, and, and you know, his, him being very bombastic in the.

[B]

And we'll talk about that.

[A]

But you know, it's one of those things that like, what do you, what do you do? I mean, there's no way of knowing

[B]

that this guy's doing this unless you're like.

[A]

And if you did know and you didn't say anything, I mean that you're an awful person too.

[B]

But.

[A]

Yeah, but so that's my thing is my main, my is, as you said,

[B]

I alluded to it.

[A]

My main thing is I, I've interacted enough with state police. Despite what everybody thinks, our West Virginia

[B]

State Police are, you know, a respectable organization and they do try to do the right thing most of the time.

[A]

I've seen people in situations where I

[B]

would have thought, you know, this is

[A]

a pretty clear case as crimes being committed.

[B]

And I've heard them say, well, we

[A]

don't have evidence to prove it.

[B]

We can't just arrest people.

[A]

So that's what you want to hear from police, you know, and in this instance, this is probably something, this is

[B]

evidence that they've collected. And you know, in, even in the,

[A]

the stuff I read about what he's being charged was, there's details in there that like you, you, they're not just

[B]

going to make it up like this. It would be like some kind of weird fantasy novel if they had been making this, made this up.

[A]

So it's like, and, and I, and

[D]

I haven't, yeah, I haven't read, you know, any of the details of alleged evidence or, you know, what about the charges. You know, I personally, I have known people who have been victims of false allegations of, you know, sex not with children, but, you know, sexual harassment and other things. And obviously the poster child for this, right, is the Duke lacrosse case and everything, Brett Kavanaugh and his trial in his affirmation hearings and so on. And again, not that he's innocent by any stretch, but in the court of public opinion and with everything that the way our society is nowadays, it's the allegation alone can damn you and ruin your life. So anyways, it was just one those things to me and partly, probably Because I haven't looked at any of the supposed evidence, but it was how quickly everyone was like, no, let's fry the guy. Okay. Anyway, back to your question about the procedural things. So a couple of things I'll note that one, obviously both the state GOP chair and the speaker of the House, Roger Hanshaw, those are two different people. Josh Holstein is the GOP chair. But both those gentlemen have called for Mr. Pritt to resign. He can. They cannot force him to do so while the legislature is out of session. Mr. Hanshaw, in his capacity as speaker of the house, has removed Mr. Pritt from all delegates, all committees and all responsibilities of any. Well, all of them. A little bit of note which one of the things that should interest listeners and watchers of West Virginia politics. Mr. Pritt was a Democrat until 2022, so switched in 2023 to be Republican and very quickly rose to be like assistant or a majority leader in the House or something. Second or whatever. He was like third in command, I guess, which is. We kind of joked about this. And I've made this comment to folks in my campaign that the West Virginia GOP has just allowed former Democrats had just rise so much in their ranks. It's comical anywho. But yeah. So they can't do anything until they are called back in the session. Now, there obviously has been talk about a special session to address school aid funding and possibly some other things. And likely Mr. Prid has not resigned. He would be forced out by the legislature at that time based on all the writings on the wall. The other thing is that he cannot be removed from the ballot because he is obviously like all House of Delegates running for reelection come November. He cannot be forced off the ballot like would happen if he were deceased or something else until he is formally charged or not charged, convicted of a felony.

[C]

Right.

[D]

And that probably won't happen very quickly, unfortunately for. Well, let me actually sit back. Fortunately, our judicial system is judicious and allowing individuals to be prepare and mount a defense and for their day in court. That usually takes weeks, if not months. They have until. Sorry, a recent law pushed forward by the GOP chair kind of redid some of this. But effectively what is now in place is that he cannot be removed from the ballot until like 84 days out of the the election and be replaced. So if nothing happens before, I think it's the 11th of August, he is basically. And by anything I mean him being charged with the felony. He is the GOP nominee on the ballot right after August 11th. So the GOP is kind of in a bad way down there that he does have a Democratic opponent writing on the wall four days ago was that it was another shoo in win for the Republicans down there there, given his ties to education. Oh, can we just also note, and I'm sure you probably were going to talk about it here in a minute when we got to the Rayleigh's Law, that Mr. Pratt was a public school teacher. But given his tie to the public school system and support he would likely would have had by the unions and everything else, it was going to be a shoo in. So yeah, unless he is charged with a, a felony, he cannot be removed from the ballot as the Republican nominee and the GOP will be forced to keep his name there. There's obviously talk about write ins and the like, but we haven't heard anything else so far. But unfortunately the timing for them really puts the GOP and Fayette county in a bind.

[A]

Let me. Since it just literally came to my

[B]

mind and you probably don't know, but

[A]

you know, as far as our party goes, if something like this were to happen in the Libertarian Party, could we legally or by our bylaws could we

[B]

pull a candidate since we don't have primary elections?

[D]

So no, I think. Well, I'd have to look at this law that was just passed that I was alluding to because I don't know that it is like major party specific. I think it's anyone that is on the ballot. Yeah, yeah, I think it's that level. So you know, let's say I, I was found in a similar situation. I don't believe that we as a party could do anything regardless of what our bylaws is. I think this is now a state level. Is it amended some state code relating to elections? I could be wrong. You know, maybe they did tailor it and only mentioned the Republicans are Democrats or they did something stupid because they're so humble. But mine are my topograph or my tertiary reading or no, what's, what's the phrase I'm looking for? Not that. Anyways, my reading of the top level, surface level reading of that bill was that it was for all candidates.

[A]

Yeah. So in this is not, I'm not

[B]

saying that this is the two things are related but you know, in, in kind of getting information about him related to this, this news coming out.

[A]

It is very ironic to me that this prick, I don't know if he had a challenger in his primary or not.

[B]

I know a lot of races in West Virginia didn't. There Was a. There wasn't any challengers in the Republican side. But you know, we've talked a lot about here about the Republicans closing their primary because they had too many, you know, Democrats with Republican clothing on, you know, running in elections. And the primary, the closing, the primary was, was the intent was to have.

[D]

Purify.

[A]

Yeah, purify.

[B]

And so those people weren't getting elected because real Republicans were going to be voting for the more conservative candidates.

[A]

And aside from this, these allegations, this guy's resume, like he's the poster child for, for Rhino. Like he former.

[D]

Well, he's. He's the poster child for political carpet bagging. I mean, he's almost, you know, he's worse than Mike Oliverio or, you know,

[B]

oh, is he not running?

[D]

Well, he's not like those gentlemen are from here. But my point was political carpet bagging, meaning jumping around and finding a home where he's welcomed or can win.

[A]

Well, he wasn't just a Democrat.

[B]

He was like a mountain party guy. Right, right.

[D]

He was a mountain party guy. Bellatopia alludes to like Socialist party.

[A]

Yeah. So that's, that's a little bit different than jumping around party. That's like ideological. Like you're not getting anywhere in the Mountain party. Like you might as well be a libertarian

[D]

so that he's one step, one step above Richard Ojeda.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So.

[A]

And then even, even his, his remark, and we'll, we'll go to that in

[B]

relation to the allegations.

[A]

But all of his remarks on. And Rayleigh's Law and all this stuff is he's very clearly one of the problem Republicans that they're talking about. And I've never heard word one from anybody about him being somebody that they

[B]

needed to oppose or he was a Rhino or whatever.

[A]

Maybe I just didn't see it.

[B]

But maybe he flew under the radar enough that he wasn't a big player.

[D]

I think that's what it was. I think that was the point of about or somewhat of the point in Ty's. Ty, in TJ's commentary about it was that he wasn't bombastic. He wasn't the, you know, the Mike Pushkins, the flu Hardys, you know, the McGeehans. He wasn't the type to really make a big fuss or be known on the legislative floor.

[C]

In fact, you know, I think he

[D]

says in the commentary that he doesn't even think that Pritt was ever interviewed by Metro News. And the time he's been down there, which, you know, they had just about everybody. I mean, hell, they'd have me on. So you, you know, if you're a legislature and you haven't been interviewed by the major talk show in the state, especially during session, about things important to your district, that's somewhat surprising if you've been there a number of years. So I think to your point, he was kind of an under the radar kind of guy, but where he got, you know, relatively infamous was in the last day of this past legislature when they, when we brought up or when they tried to pass Raley's Law, which Raley's Law is a piece of legislation that would block parents from being able to withdraw their children from public education environments if there was ongoing investigations of abuse or neglect in the home for seven, 14 days. I forget the exact number. Maybe it's like two school weeks or however they calculate it anyways, for a number of time, less than a month, but it's somewhere around like one or two weeks. Anywho, the idea is that because teachers are mandatory reporters, they've got eyes on these kids every day. They have an idea of if or a better idea than most of if they're being abused or neglected. And if they see something and say something, then an investigation starts. It would prevent the, you know, these abusive homeschooling parents to just come in and steal their kids away and take them home for more abuse and neglect. That's the intent of the bill. But you know, what it really does is it creates additional burdens on parents, especially homeschooling and private schooling parents who remove their children from situations not unlike this, but for lesser things, kids getting bullied, kids getting having issues with classmates or whatever, not excelling well enough and wants to be put in a more tailored and specified program, et cetera, et cetera. All a teacher has to do is file a complaint and investigation starts and then a clock begins of how long they have to stay within the public school. And Mr. Pritt was infamous on the waning hours in the 11th, you know, 11pm or whatever it was, of calling for passage of this bill, which I think was on its fourth year, trying to get moved. And he stands up and makes this impassioned plea and he's got tears coming out of his eyes. He said, we've got to do this. And you know, I'm not going to quote him, but basically emphasizes the importance of protecting children. And there's an iconic picture now that's floating around the Internet of after he gave his speech, realizing the writing on the wall that it wasn't going to go, he's got his head in his hands, all despondent. His plea and his oration has not won enough hearts and minds to move and pass Rayleigh's Law. The really heartbreaking irony of all this is, based on the timeline, is that while Mr. Pritt was making this impassioned plea to protect kids from harm and neglect in homeschool and the home environment environment and to keep them in public classrooms where they can be safer, he was allegedly abusing or having these relations with this underage student all in the same time.

[A]

Yeah, and that's what I was.

[B]

I was. I was telling that to my wife and she said, yeah, well, that's why he did it. I mean, that's. He had that on his conscience and he had that in his mind of

[A]

what he was doing.

[B]

And so he was, you know, making a big show of it because, you know, clearly that's what he was, who he was talking about. And of course, that's all speculation, but

[A]

human psychology, it fits right in with

[B]

the timeline and the psychology of somebody that's doing something like that.

[A]

And then later on, which was brought to my attention, I mentioned to you.

[B]

But

[A]

our friend of the show, Katie

[B]

Switzer, had pointed out that. And now as I thought about it, she was the reason I even knew about it. But during the interim session, one of the interim sessions this year, while they were doing their, you know, inter meetings,

[A]

they were discussing hope scholarship and homeschooling, and somebody had brought up bullying for a reason. People were pulling kids out of school. And he had made comments along the lines of, you know, bullying is good for kids.

[B]

It teaches them how to live in the real world. And that shouldn't be a reason why people are allowed to pull their kids out of school.

[A]

So it just adds to the fire of this public school teacher doing this

[B]

stuff, grooming this, this girl on and

[A]

Taylor, you know, I don't know, adults playing video games is a convictable offense

[B]

in my opinion anyway, but it's beside the point.

[A]

But this guy is doing this and talking about bullying and abusing kids, and it. You try to be objective. This is one guy, you know, he doesn't represent all, you know, educators.

[B]

I don't think I need to say

[A]

that, but I just want to make it clear that we're not saying that. Oh, well, see, we told you all, all teachers are perverts. We're not saying that. We're just saying that this is the

[B]

irony of this guy making these impassioned

[A]

pleas and making all these points and being very.

[B]

I don't know what the right word

[A]

is, maybe arrogant about it, but it does go to a pattern of the reason why. One of the reasons why. And Kathy Hess Kraus, you can get

[B]

on her Facebook, she made a pretty good post about it.

[A]

But one of the reasons why we want school choices, there is a certain fear that parents have and they should be able to be given a choice that not every, every community is created equal. There are areas where, you know, some communities have better public schools than others. And whether it's something like this or bullying or just, you know, there's too many kids in a classroom and the teacher can't handle the kids, your kids shouldn't be, have, be having to be

[B]

exposed to something like that.

[A]

So our, our thesis is, yeah, you should be able to choose where your kid goes. If they're not getting the education for whatever reason, that's none of the government's business, whatever reason reason, you should be

[B]

able to choose what education is right for your kid.

[A]

And his statements kind of echo a similar statement I've seen across the spectrum of public education advocates of this concept

[B]

that makes our skin crawl that these

[A]

teachers, in a lot of cases, it's a burden that's been put on them by parents who don't care and by

[B]

the government and community as a whole

[A]

is that they become more of a daycare center, mental health facility, a food shelter, somewhere where, you know, abuse is being found. And it's sad, but they have a point that it is true in an instance, but they need to understand that teachers are people and they're not better, they're not worse. There's plenty of private schools with people that are just as passionate as they

[B]

are about educating kids.

[A]

When a mom's homeschooling, there's nobody more passionate about the safety of their child

[B]

than a mother who is making the decision or a father, whoever.

[A]

Parents that are making a decision to educate their kid at home and make

[B]

those hard choices to maybe give up

[A]

income or have to take something away

[B]

from maybe a vacation because they have to spend money on curriculum.

[A]

And they're making these decisions. And I think my point, and I think you agree, is that there's not

[B]

a paradigm where there's some kind of conflicting worldview.

[A]

We all want what's the best for kids. And when you have people that are

[B]

representing you, they're making these statements and

[A]

it turns out that there's some of the people victimizing kids, you have to take a look in the mirror and

[B]

say, you know, maybe there's a point

[A]

to this, maybe there, there is something to this that not every teacher, you

[B]

know, the vast majority, 99.9% of teachers aren't going to do something like this.

[A]

But Taylor, you and I noticed, I mean, in our chat, you know, it's

[B]

a kind of a, a joke a bit.

[A]

But every time we see a case of a teacher in West Virginia or somebody related to schools abusing kids or, or downloading child pornography off the Internet and getting caught, there's not some sort of moral paradigm where we need to put public educators and public schools on this pedestal. They're people and they need to recognize that as well.

[B]

I think that would be our only point in relation to this.

[D]

Well, yes, I agree wholeheartedly. I would say that the other point, and maybe it's a side point or however you wanna look at it, but for what's frustrating for me, Ty, is the view that people within the 55 strong public school sphere have about public schools is that it's this infallible perfect entity that shouldn't be questioned, shouldn't face scrutiny, shouldn't all these other things. And I say that because imagine the world. Imagine the alternative universe where Mr. Pritt was not a educator in the Fayette county public school system, but was a teacher down at the closest one I know is Greater Beckley Christian School or some charter school or a homeschooler and something like this happened. Imagine the hang of that would be going on by the 55 strong teacher union community to basically have his neck and in the same vein, in the same breadth of having his neck, want to close every private school and force all students back into the safety of public schools. That would be the narrative. We've seen it done before and they tried to, to pass legislation necessarily like Raley's Law, but others about stricter controls on private schools and homeschooling. In terms of things like this, then we have watchdogs for public education. And that's for me what's frustrating is that you mentioned looking in the mirror. A lot of these folks cannot do that in terms of the public education system. A lot of rules for the. And not for me and also just a general approach to it that is really one sided. So I think your point about parents and the like is very well, well stated and founded. And I just wish that those who are just so strong public school advocates would. Again, I don't want to weaponize this story, but you know, it should be an inflection point or reflection point to say, okay, bad things happen in every educational environment. Unfortunately, because like you said, we are not angels. There are demons among us, and they hold every profess, every level of education. So I would just say let's stop pretending like public school is this safe haven and perfect institution. It's not in West Virginia, it's not in any state. And trying to tailor and protect and weaponize legislation against private and charter and homeschooling under that guise, I think should be shattered now.

[A]

Yeah, in last session, I think it

[B]

was, or maybe the session before, they did increase the punishment for any sexual abuse related to a minor.

[A]

But I would go as far, and I believe this for police as well, or any person, any kind of public authority, I would be fine sponsoring legislation

[B]

that if a public school teacher is

[A]

convicted of these kind of crimes, I don't think you could go far enough,

[B]

you know, or just, you know, wood chipper, go burr.

[A]

But whatever the, whatever the sentence is, it should be intensified. There should be some sort of doubling

[B]

of the sentence because you are breaking,

[A]

you know, what they would call a sacred trust. I mean, you and I would love if public schools, and we've said this before, if public schools were the paradigm everybody said it was, we'd be fine. We wouldn't be arguing for school choice

[B]

because we didn't need it.

[A]

Public schools should be. Public schools should be the safest place

[B]

that your child could go.

[A]

You and I want that to be true, but we know it's not. So when you're breaking that public trust, if you want to maintain what you have, even though it's imperfect, as we've been displaying, you have to hold these people to a higher account. And that if you're a public educator doing something like this, I mean, there should be no end to the punishment you receive.

[B]

You're not a normal citizen.

[A]

You are somebody that the community has put an immense amount of trust, responsibility into.

[D]

Yeah. And to that, you know, I've always been interested by and like the approach that we see with levied for, you know, how to handle certain situations within police. Right. Where, you know, the whole one bad apple spoils a bunch mentality. One of the suggestions is, well, if something happens and a police officer is found civilly liable for their actions while wearing the badge, then the money shouldn't just come out of some government slush fund. It should come out of the local pensions for that police department. And that way those local police officers would police themselves much more stricter because they know that if it got some hothead who's likely to shoot off or do something stupid or Foolish, then they'll make sure they handle that within. Or they'll get rid of him. So their pensions are in jeopardy. Similarly, if something like that were to happen within the public education sphere, within teachers, I think you would see a lot more folks coming forward with, you know, concerns and questions. And hey, I think, you know, Mr. Pritt is being weird around this student or doing something that they might otherwise not be so willing to do if they didn't have a stake in the situation.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you have seen, I mean, that

[B]

our favorite socialist candidate, that Brit Aguero,

[A]

who's running for Congress, you know, everybody, this it, everybody shows their, their true

[B]

colors when something like this happens. Is she made a post of. Along the lines of, you know, it's never a trans person, it's never an immigrant, it's never. Whatever. It's. It's. But it is. Oh, really? Republican?

[A]

Yeah. And I'm like, okay, lady, this is the wrong one. Because this guy, like, as we've stated,

[B]

this isn't your average, you know, conservative Republican.

[A]

So this case is. That's not a great point to make.

[B]

He's a Republican, you know, whatever. That's true. But the idea that this guy's some kind of social and fiscal conserv is laughable.

[A]

But, you know, you have.

[D]

He's been a member of every party but ours, thank God.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So

[A]

the idea, that's just, you know,

[B]

it's distasteful at the kindest way of

[A]

framing it, but you do have both sides saying stuff like this, and it does.

[B]

One of my friends helped me with a campaign.

[A]

He's actually listening to this podcast. Gabe.

[B]

Hello, Gabe.

[D]

Shout out. Gabe.

[A]

He made a comment on one of the news.

[B]

You know, evil exists in every paradigm, both sides red or blue, that evil exists.

[A]

And we need to weed out the

[B]

evil and focus on that first and foremost.

[A]

And I will say this as a conservative.

[B]

Not a conservative, as a Christian. Sorry, I was going to say Christian conservative, but I don't like even saying that.

[A]

But as a Christian, when you see, you do see a lot of pastors

[B]

doing stuff like this and grooming kids and the right finger quotes, the right in Christians and things like that.

[A]

And people, they should be, you know, a lot of the times Christians.

[B]

Not you and I, because, you know, we're real Christians. But a lot of people who, you

[A]

know, want to put, you know, morality

[B]

into legislation and create this society and

[A]

kind of, you know, parallel the idea

[B]

of a, you know, Christian nationalism.

[A]

They should be policing people harder than anybody else. Like the Whole idea I've said on

[B]

here, you know, leave no doubt.

[A]

When you have pastors doing things like this, Republicans, you're just giving fodder to the people who are against you, saying, look, see, they claim to be the moral high ground, but look what they're doing. And they're not wrong, Taylor. I mean, they're just not wrong. I mean, how many pastors do we

[B]

have to see doing stuff like this?

[A]

And you don't see a bunch of people that, oh, drag queen performer, blah, blah, blah, gets arrested for child pornography. You don't see those stories. They're not wrong. So, I mean, what are we doing? You can say the act of Drag

[B]

Queen Story Hour is child abuse. You can make that political and cultural argument if you want.

[A]

But the things that we find that are illegal and the most reprehensible things,

[B]

like what this delegate did, did, you

[A]

don't see that happening from those people, quote, unquote. So there is an argument to that, and that's not one.

[B]

I'm not making those kind of arguments because I understand human nature is way more complicated than that.

[A]

And there are people that do find sick people that find haven in these communities.

[B]

So it's something that, as Christians and as people who are in a more

[A]

conservative vein, need to police our own

[B]

more than anybody else.

[A]

And you and I have heard the

[B]

debauchery that goes on in the state legislature.

[A]

I mean, how many times you have

[B]

to hear about, you know, that's why we're running.

[A]

Right, right, exactly. That's the thing is you're not going to catch me at any, you know, social hours, you know, drinking bottles of

[B]

whiskey in the state capitol, as we've heard stories of from, you know, Senate presidents of the past, you know, celebrating and getting drunk in their offices and stuff like that.

[A]

So, you know, that's something that needs to be held to account. If the Republican Party wants to be this moral paradigm, you've got to, you know, walk the walk, because the talk

[B]

doesn't mean anything when these stories keep coming.

[C]

Mm.

[A]

Yeah. So I agree.

[D]

Except for if I win, I will be drinking bottles of whiskey in my office.

[A]

I think that might be illegal.

[B]

I don't know.

[D]

So, actually, I'll take some. I'll take some moonshine, of which only drink the 51st gallon in my. That I've made in my office or whatever. Whatever the law won't let me do.

[B]

Right. Yeah. Just don't sell it.

[D]

Oh, damn it.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

To anybody but family.

[A]

You can sell it to family. What's happening I don't know if they know anything about West Virginia.

[D]

Everybody's really. Everybody's related down from Rolling county, where I'm from, bro. Maybe that's Richmond's running around.

[A]

Maybe that's the secret, you know, loophole

[B]

in that loophole up my holler. Everybody's related, literally. They don't have the same last names, but literally everybody's related.

[A]

So not me. I'm fresh blood.

[B]

But yeah, so we got that desirable, unvaccinated, non West Virginia blood

[D]

on a California.

[B]

Yeah, only if it wasn't. Only if that blood didn't come out of me.

[A]

Yeah. So last, last topic I wanted to

[B]

cover just because I think it's important to. Some of the narrative that we've been talking about with data centers is there was, shoot, I pulled up that article and then I closed it. I wanted to quote it correctly. Trying to filibuster as I'm talking. There was a representative from one of

[A]

the data centers, fundamental data guy named Ted McGaveran. He was down in North Carolina talking

[B]

at a city council meeting about data centers. And they were talking about noise and the generators that these data centers have and that he was basically all but encouraging localities to put in noise ordinances that they would have to follow if they have a problem with the noise.

[A]

And then he mentioned that in West Virginia we don't have this problem because

[B]

we wrote legislation that they passed to put the control of regulating data centers at the state level so localities wouldn't

[A]

be able to do anything about it. And the key point to that is he clearly said, and it wasn't a misinterpretation, he said that they wrote the

[B]

legislation, that they passed the House bill, whatever, 2014, that they wrote the legislation. And so they're not gonna have that problem in West Virginia. And a lot of, you know, civilian proponents of or opponents of data centers and delegates like Sean Fluharty and Mike Pushkin are making hay out of this

[A]

story that, you know, hey, this is what we told you. This is all about cronyism. And this isn't the first time this has happened.

[B]

I mean, you have lobbying groups writing legislation all the time, you know, including

[A]

stuff that we would support like the

[B]

West Virginia Citizens Defense League. You know, doing the work and making it easy on legislators is something that

[A]

positive that lobbying groups can do in

[B]

a 60 day session is expedite some of that process. But when you have, you know, a large corporation basically writing legislation that makes

[A]

their lives easier, we would call that,

[B]

I don't know, socialism, cronyism you know, not. Not conservative Republicanism.

[A]

So that came out, and then the

[B]

Governor Morrissey made a statement, his office made a statement basically saying that this wasn't true and that this guy should be ashamed of himself and that this isn't what. So I don't know what the truth is.

[A]

I mean,

[B]

as I just said, it's not like it would be the first time that a outside group or organization has written legislation, so it wouldn't surprise me at all.

[A]

And I would bet that even if they didn't write it, they had a

[B]

lot to do with it being constructed. This guy didn't just make this up.

[A]

Even if he didn't necessarily mean fundamental

[B]

data, he meant, you know, the data center lobby in general. We know that, you know, from the testimony of other delegates that Roger Hanshaw,

[A]

who represents data centers as a lawyer, was one of the biggest proponents. So you had these delegates didn't come up with this all on their own, did they, Taylor?

[D]

Well, no. And let's just be. I'll be. I don't know how you'd operate, Ty, but I. I'm not a expert in writing legislation. I would lean into groups like Gun Owners of America, for example, and blanking on others. But there are some organizations that I trust in terms of helping craft policy and legislation that if they came to me and said, hey, we have the rough stones of a bill for you to pass in West Virginia to, to do, to eliminate the income tax, to do, you know, libertarian thing, X, Y or Z. Yeah, I would look it over and I would probably would tweak a little bit, but I would probably be fine with them writing the majority of the actual stupid bill because that has to be written in a certain way and it's, you know, that kind of stuff now. So I don't care so much that, you know, that a lobby group or an entity like that quote, unquote, wrote to legislation. You know, that's. That's how the game. That's how sausages do. Made, whatever. I don't expect that significant percentage of any of our legislatures, even the ones that we like, are actually writing a lot of the stuff themselves. So that doesn't really matter to me. What's important is, are these legislators reading what's being put in front of them? Are they tweaking it? Are they making it fiscally conservative or irresponsible? And all the things that at least libertarians would want to see. That's where I would say that probably not as much as we like, and probably most of them aren't. So that's the issue that I have to the bill itself. I think the governor and his folks that are with him on this are kind of speaking out of both sides of their mouths, from my understanding of the legislation, because while it doesn't necessarily negate local control in a very nebulous way, it's written very strategically that. So that all the counties that don't have certain planning entities and processes in place, like Charleston, Morgantown, Martin, you know, some of the bigger cities have. Some of the bigger counties have. If they don't have those, then no, there is no mechanism for quote, unquote, local control. So they were able to safeguard certain cities and certain pockets of the state from these data centers, but it left the rest of the state pretty much white. So they can say, oh, no, the bill allows for local control. Well, yeah, only if you're one of these handful of municipalities or counties that have these large bureaucratic planning organization, planning associations in place, then you're sure you're technically correct. As we've mentioned on this podcast before, Ty, there's a difference between being truthful and being factual. Yes, they are being factual, but they're not being truthful in their intent about it. Because as we've seen, counties like Tucker and others now are kind of faced with a hands behind the hands tied behind their back fighting some of these things. So, yeah, I think he's probably right in his defense of how he's phrasing it. But I also think that we are not think we've seen. We know that a lot of these counties do not have the local control that would prevent them. But I'll say this, Ty, because I was actually asked in a message from a constituent, a possible supporter, where's my stance on quote, unquote, local control in data centers? Yeah, my position is government that governs more locally and smallest governs best. I would like decisions to be made more at a city and county level than at the state or federal level 100% of the time. But at the same time, I don't want my city council or my county commission to ban me from doing something on my private property that can provide me and my family a sustainable income. So there's obviously a free market distinction to be made here, at least from the libertarian perspective.

[A]

Yeah, that seems to. It's really interesting, Taylor, and I'm sure

[B]

you've noticed this as well, is that

[A]

the Republicans, Democrats, everybody, anybody in government, they make it very easy for us to stick to one or two principles and just run on that and not make any real firm opinion based statements. Because everything that they're doing, data centers, these transmission lines, they make it very easy for us to just take purely principal stances of no, the state government shouldn't be managing every single thing that happens with data centers. The state government isn't the place to, for the, to collect every dime of money and then redistribute it. We don't believe that's how government should work.

[B]

Even if you're going to have a government.

[A]

No, we don't believe that. Transmission lines, yeah, we need, you know, we need infrastructure. We need, you know, if we're going to generate power with coal, natural gas, it's got to be able to get to somewhere for us to sell it. But you can't negate people's property rights. If they don't want it going through their farm, then you can't tell them. You shouldn't be able to tell them. Yeah, it's just going on your farm whether you like it or not. Those are principles that we can stand by and don't. Not even give or I don't even have to give my opinion on these transmission lines and whether I think they're ugly or what effect they're going to

[B]

have on livestock or you know, the

[A]

herbicides they have to spray around them to keep them clear. I don't have to talk about that stuff because they want to force people to do it. And you know, and again, here's the.

[B]

And I've talked about that maybe the last episode.

[A]

I have a hard time, you know, discussing these things sometimes because they don't

[B]

put out a lot of details.

[A]

And you know, while eminent domain for these transmission lines is one of our main issues, I've not even heard anybody say the word eminent domain from anybody official. I don't see how they can put a transmission line through without it if people don't want it. If, you know, one farm that has, you know, 600 acres in the path

[B]

of where they've decided to go, says, no, I don't want this, they're not going to do a weird 90 degree turn around that farm.

[A]

I don't think so. It's like it's almost a foregone conclusion, even though I've not heard somebody say it. But I just make it a point that, you know, if eminent domain is gonna be involved, I'm against it. All my opinions aside, 100%. And Taylor, I was, I was telling, I believe I was telling my mom

[B]

this about, you know, because, you know, she said that, well, that this is

[A]

what people voted for. And I agree. And to a. But to a different extent of Governor Morrissey and his, his administration have been very clear that power generation is one of their main focuses. They want to turn West Virginia into the power hub of the country. You know, 50 megawatts by 2050. And how do people think that that happens? You have to be able to sell the energy you're making and you cannot sell the energy if there's nowhere for it to go. This was an inevitability. They have to. Whether you think they're going to data centers in Virginia or going to data centers in Pennsylvania or wherever they're going, they have to be able to sell the energy they're making. So there's the NIMBY thing not in my backyard. Well, people in West Virginia have to come to Jesus moment of do you want growth? Do you want coal to be the backbone of our growth or don't you? Because there's things that come along with that, the dirty things we don't like to think about. There are things that come along with that growth that we might not necessarily like. And I think, I don't know if I made the point on here or somewhere else but. Or to a constituent, but I don't live in rural Roane county because I want a ton of stuff, because I want a ton of services. I have to drive an hour and 20 minutes to get to the nearest Home Depot or Lowe's. I know that I have chosen that lifestyle. So I don't really. I'm not the give and take is. I know I'm not going to have a ton of high speed Internet. I know that the power is going to be, you know, give and take. Because a tree falls on the power

[B]

line, it's going to take a while to get it fixed.

[A]

I know this, this is a decision I've made. So my point is, is I'm not a hypocrite. No, you're not going to put the power line through my property because I have the property because I want to avoid this stuff. And I've made the hard decisions and given things up to live this lifestyle. So you saying that you're going to force that lifestyle on me, well, that's immoral and it's, it's a violation of our basic property rights. An eminent domain. And you can say what, what you want about it, you know, is one of the worst things that the founders

[B]

ever put in the Constitution.

[A]

But I understand you and I are fully in. We, we Understand the concept in the give and the take. If you put a pipeline through and it's going to be providing natural gas to the whole country and everybody's going to benefit if you have to use eminent domain to put it through, that's a no go for me. I. And again, I'm going to reiterate, I fully understand the ramification implications of that. I fully understand it. I get it. But there's a violation that I'm not going to compromise on, and that's property rights. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna violate that. Because once you have a pipeline through your property, which we have one pipeline through our property, there's a right of way. There's a. Everybody's seen them. If you live in West Virginia, you've seen them. There's a clear path through the woods. That's obviously not natural. That's probably a gas line. Or if there's obviously a power line

[B]

above it, you know what it is

[A]

you, that is no longer your property. Go put a hunting blind on the top of a ridge in the middle of that path and see what happens. They'll use their right of way power to get you to tear it down. You no longer own your property when that goes through. I can't go. There's a place on our property where I would like to put a pond, but I can't because it's too close to that gas line. What does that mean? Somebody other than the person that's on that deed has control over that property. So that's what you're giving up. And that's a compromise that I don't think people should have to make. Now, if they can get enough people in a path to voluntarily, you know, whatever, I don't know, sell the lease the rights to their property or get a payout or whatever it is, or even give it, I don't know, volunteer to let them put the power line through. I don't know, maybe they'll build roads

[B]

and then they'll have more access. Who knows all the different scenarios if

[A]

they can get enough people to voluntarily let them a power line through the property. Okay, fine. I'm not against product progress. I'm not a Luddite. The power's got to go somewhere. But my main priority is eminent domain and property rights. And I don't. The whole. The issue with them writing legislation is, you know that the PSC is going

[B]

to make this decision on whether these lines go through. And you, and we've talked in here before is, you know, they're, they're going to say yes, we know that they are. I mean it would be very.

[A]

There would have to be a huge groundswell which there potentially could be of people against this and politicians getting involved

[B]

saying no, we're not going to do this for this to happen.

[D]

Well, I would just say that there's been a groundswell for the moral line up here and you know, the northern central part of the state and it, all the writing on the wall is that they're not going to listen to any of that anyways and still push it through. So yeah, it's going to be a matter of. My bet would be that not a matter of do they use em in a domain, it's just a matter of how much emain they have to utilize.

[A]

Yeah, but, and again, I mean I get it and it's a little bit different with these utilities because they are,

[B]

you know, it's a, what do they call it, a public private partnership.

[A]

And, but I mean all the money and, and here's. I don't know if you've gotten any details on, on the moral going through there, but you hear a lot of stuff and again, I don't like to comment because I don't know if it's true, but them saying that the ratepayers

[B]

are going to pay for these power

[A]

lines and there's a story about two, you know, one megawatt power plant going

[B]

up in the eastern panhandle and it's basically the only customer is going to be a data center and the ratepayers are going to have to pay for that.

[A]

And I don't know if that's true

[B]

or not, but it's just like adding

[A]

insult to injury is you're going to

[B]

take our property away from us and you're going to make us pay for it.

[D]

Yeah, I, I mean obviously heard a number of different folks on this and from a number of different angles. The one counter is that it is a front loaded charge to obviously pay for the construction, but the base load would increase to such that actually the downstream costs on repairs would actually be able to decrease because of it. But I don't know if that's actually the case. That's obviously not my area. I don't have an area of expertise. What am I kidding? Um, but it does make sense. I mean we know that that happens with almost anything else. There's generally a startup cost for something you do have to pay out of pocket to, you know, put in a new. I went out and upgraded the router and modem in my house to get faster Internet, I had to pay out of pocket for those things and. But now I have the end result that I wanted because I improved my infrastructure and actually my cable bill went down anyways. All that to say that this is how things generally work. You have to pay upfront for the infrastructure, but then generally downwind or afterwards after the fact, at some point you reap the benefits. And a possible benefit by increased baseload is lower realized rates. So maybe that will actually happen, I don't know. But I think folks need to do a little bit more research and listen to all perspectives of it. Again, I'm not necessarily foraging it on the surface, but if the argument is, oh, you're going to see an increase in your rate of electricity, okay, maybe I do for a couple months, but then by this time next year, am I paying 25% less in perpetuity? I take that trade off every day of the week. I don't want it to be an imminent domain of. Obviously. But yeah, I mean, if the power company, if my Internet provider came to me and said, hey, we are upgrading our satellites, we need to, you know, instead of doing a perpetual rate increase of one penny, we're gonna, you're gonna pay $10 for your next bill and then it'll actually go down. Okay, fine, here's $10. Make it happen.

[A]

Yeah, and that's the, that's the issue

[B]

with all this is it's way more complex than what they're making it sound. And we've made an argument on, on both sides.

[A]

Yeah, on both sides.

[D]

It's important.

[B]

And so like we've had several epis and you can go back and listen in their title data center. So you can listen to, you know,

[A]

my perspective on it. And my issue has been that, you know, if you're going to say we're going to use these data centers as

[B]

a source of revenue and lower everybody's

[A]

taxes in a perfect, in a perfect world, as a libertarian, I'm going to say, I know you're not going to

[B]

get rid of the spending.

[A]

I know you're not going to do it. So I would rather a data center voluntarily pay the revenue for it, all

[B]

these services, than all the citizens.

[A]

Yeah, that's a better option. You know, everybody's happy the data centers want to exist here. They're happy to pay the taxes and none of us want to pay taxes. So if they'll pay it and we pay less, it's beautiful, great, fantastic. If you're not Going to cut spending and you want the government to exist this way. Okay, well, that's a better option. But as we've discussed, this is potentially a huge bubble. They're building more data centers than they need. We haven't got any news about the majority of these data centers or what's actually going to be in them or whether the revenue is ever actually going to exist or how long it'll exist. So there's all these variables. And then the power lines, again, you're creating power, you're putting in power lines that are going to feed these, these data centers. And as you said, okay, if you pay the upfront cost, these data centers are going to use the energy from those new power lines. And then once that actually happens, it's going to reach an equilibrium and all the existing infrastructure is going to continue to service the people and the normal stuff and everything's going to come out in a Wal wash and it's just

[B]

going to be an upfront cost.

[A]

Okay, but again, a million different variables of what happens when you've built these power lines and now these data centers

[B]

are giant empty ghost buildings.

[A]

What happens then? They've got to service these power lines, right. They've got to find new places to put it. Will it be. And they're, they're not, are they going to tie off into West Virginia? Because the, one of the biggest arguments is that these aren't going to serve West Virginia at all. It's getting the power out of here. So again, there's so many variables that aren't being answered. And my main beef, and we've taken talked about this is our government and the Republican legislature have done absolutely no effort in PR aside from a few delegates here and there condescending to their constituents. I don't know. I don't know legally or what their strategy is, but if I was one of these power companies First Energy or whoever, I would be doing radio spots, I would be doing TV spots explaining what's going to happen unless everything that people are afraid of is 100% true.

[B]

And the they don't want to talk about it.

[A]

So I don't. That's the thing is there's just no information radio.

[D]

But you don't listen to the radio. But they, the moral folks, the New Start, whatever their company is, they actually do have some radio spots.

[B]

Oh, I haven't heard them down here. I listen to the radio once in

[D]

a while, but okay, yeah, yeah, they do have some.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's just, I don't know, it's it's.

[A]

You don't want to fight, you know, the moving of economic.

[B]

I don't even want to say progress, because I don't know if it's even

[A]

progress, but you don't want to find. You don't want to fight the, the movie, the movement of economies and how

[B]

things work and, and, you know, building infrastructure.

[A]

But it comes down to principles of, you know, you don't get to tell people what they.

[B]

What to do.

[A]

Be that as it may, even if it's a really. Even if you think it's a really dumb decision that a farmer's making or

[B]

a landowner, and you have, you have

[A]

no agreement with them on their principles, hey, guess what? It's not your property. They're allowed to make dumb decisions. If, if it's going to result in their kid not. Or their grandkid not having a job. That's their decision to make.

[D]

Yeah. So you mentioned the data centers. I just wanted to.

[A]

This.

[B]

The.

[D]

I don't know why I have just seen this, and maybe it's because I don't live that part of the state or, I don't know, my algorithms are off. You know, all the complaints about the footprints and everything about the data centers. I just saw a flyover of the nuclear plant facility and its footprint down there.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Holy crap, man.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

What a monstrosity. That.

[A]

We've talked about that, too, haven't we? That, like, there's nobody. There are. Some people are complaining, I guess it's causing insane traffic issues down there on

[B]

Route 2 in that area.

[A]

But, like, where's the outrage about Nucor? As I've said on here, everybody's talking about water. They recycle metal there. You think there's not any environmental impact to Nucor. You think they're not going to be causing issues, but it's something people can understand. And there wasn't a whole groundswell of, you know, political nonsense against Nucor. So we're not. It's just. You don't want to say people are dumb, but it's like, hey, people, like, forest for the trees. Like, what. What are you. What are we. Is. You have to make sure that your

[B]

arguments are sound before you're making, you know, outrageous statements about stuff. Because you. It's the boy that cried wolf. You just sound like what they would

[A]

call a tree hugger.

[B]

You know what I mean? Like, oh, it's not real. Climate change is not okay.

[A]

Well, when you sound like one of them, people aren't going to take you seriously.

[D]

Yeah. And for me, it's not so much even. My biggest frustration is the lack of logical consistency is if you're going to raise this issue here, where were you with Nucor, which I don't know the distance from the two major facilities but it's massive. It's going to be noisy, it's going to impact water and power and everything else down there, I'm sure to some significant point. So anywho.

[A]

And we gave them $300 million.

[D]

Yeah, we don't hear, we didn't hear near the clamor against Nucor that we are hearing about these data centers. So it's just like, okay, if you want to oppose things because of X, oppose all things because of X. And maybe that's the autistic libertarian in me, but at least people, when they get to know me and we have local discussions, they learn, okay, well at least he's consistent. I'm the most consistent. MF or I try to be that for West Virginia, man, I tried to be that here and I think if more people were like that, you have more people listening to you. I think on both sides of the aisle a lot of people lose political capital for whatever they're doing because they lack that consistent.

[A]

So yeah, and I'm sure you've come across, I'm sure you've come across it

[B]

too, that there was, there's plenty of opportunities for us to just, you know, take the low hanging fruit and make political fodder out of stuff. And you just, it's really enticing to take the bait.

[A]

But I think in the long run, consistency, even if we don't win, I

[B]

mean consistency is going to last you in the long run. I mean I've had people say things about my opponent here and you know,

[A]

I am almost, I take a beat

[B]

and I go, that's just not true.

[A]

Like she's, I had somebody calling saying

[B]

that she was a liberal Democrat and I was like.

[A]

And again I took a beat and I went, you know, she's not like,

[B]

she's not a liberal Democrat. Like she's got a decent voting record. It almost pains you to say it like because you're defending your opponent.

[D]

But I'm like, you're the John McCain of.

[A]

I'm trying not to, I'm trying. Not a Muslim.

[D]

He's a good standing man.

[A]

Yeah. And then I would kind of shift into, well, you know, I think we should have somebody that's more involved and communicates with the people and is gonna be aggressive in pushing liberty and not

[B]

just sit back and wait for them

[A]

to present things, to vote. And there's plenty of criticism to have. That's why I'm running.

[D]

But it's really, she's not bad. She's just lazy.

[A]

Right, right. It's just, she's a, you know, just

[B]

there, I guess I don't.

[D]

Again, she's a backbencher.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that's, and that's fine.

[B]

But she's not a liberal Democrat.

[A]

So it's like I can't, I can't

[B]

sit back and let him.

[A]

And I don't even have to say

[B]

anything, but I'm, you know, it's as you've said, the consistency in the moral cod.

[A]

You know, I'm not going to make an argument just because it's going to get me political brownie points, but we can agree with a lot of people on a lot of things just by following our own principles. Public education, it's in our state constitution and you know, people have interpreted that it doesn't have to be public schools, but if you read the sections of

[B]

our constitution having to do with education,

[A]

if you come away with them with

[B]

there not being a public option, then you're just being dishonest.

[A]

So if we have a constitution that says we're supposed to have a free and effective education system and it's clear that public education is a part of that, you and I have principles that say government should be doing as much as it can to run efficiently and to do the best it's mandated purposes. And the constitution is a mandate on the state government and we will support making that as efficient as physically possible. And that's a principled stance as a libertarian.

[B]

So

[A]

you can agree with educators, you can agree with. And we're clearly pro choice. School choice. We're clearly school choice.

[D]

So very clear on the choices.

[B]

The choices. We're good with choices, except for murder. We're not for that non aggression principle. And Taylor, you know that. You know as well as I do and we'll wrap up, but you know, we try to avoid using weird autistic

[A]

libertarian lingo, but I've been surprised at

[B]

how well using the content concept of don't hurt people and don't take their stuff has

[A]

been very effective in explaining

[B]

to people what libertarianism is and it's

[A]

the reason it's a libertarian principle.

[B]

The non aggression principle is a little bit more academic and harder for people to understand.

[A]

But when I say don't hurt people and don't take their stuff, that's the

[B]

main core of what I want to do. People get that and they agree. So I think most people agree with us. It's just a matter of changing their mind. And being honest and consistent is the best, best way to do that.

[D]

Yeah, 100%.

[A]

All right. So we'll wrap up here. Little longer episode. So, yeah, if you've got anything you want us to talk about or comments or Mountain State, libertycast, gmail.com hit Taylor up at Taylor Taylor Richmond for senate.com

[D]

Richmond, the number four senate.com okay.

[A]

And hit me up on Facebook.

[B]

We both take donations to our campaign. Don't feel obligated, but it does help out as we get into the political season.

[A]

So until next time, don't hurt people

[B]

and don't take their stuff.