The Jason Stapleton Program

Well, today's my birthday. I've decided I'm taking the day off and enjoying a beautiful southern California day.

But I don't want to leave you without a show...

So I decided I'd let you hear a recent interview I gave to the boys over at Motor Madhouse. It's a great podcast about cars hosted by a couple of guys who love liberty.

If you want to check out their show here's the link:
https://themotormadhouse.fireside.fm/

Enjoy your weekend!

Jason

I had a lot of questions on Twitter after our short conversation about rights. I've been doing this so long that sometimes I forget we have people who are new to the idea of positive and negative rights, and so I thought it would be a good idea to discuss them using a few simple examples.

Libertarians believe in and support Negative Rights since they do not conflict. Positive rights on the other hand often conflict with someone's Negative Rights. Because of this most libertarians reject the idea of Postive Rights outside of those imposed by contract.

This will be more clear after you listen to today's show but I wanted to give you a taste of what you're going to hear.

***
As I suspected, in the absence of proper leadership and guidance some student protested descended into chaos yesterday with kids running through malls, throwing rocks at random cars and attacking the public.

For most of these kids, the opportunity to teach was squandered. Sad.

Jason

More than 3000 schools are expected to see kids from grade school to college walk out of class to protest gun violence in our schools.

If you're politically inclined to agree with the idea of more gun laws, increased background checks and raising the age to purchase then you likely welcome the protests.

If however, you oppose those ideas you likely think the kids should be punished or prevented from protesting. I've even heard someone people suggest that kids can't understand the issues well enough to have an opinion.

That last one cracks me up since I spend WAY to much time on social media reading comments from adults who clearly have zero understanding of the issue on which they're commenting.

I see these protest as an opportunity to help teach our kids several things.

1. Dialogue.
Why not use this as a chance to challenge these young men and women on what they believe? Use the protests as an opportunity to bring people with opposing ideas together in rational discussion and debate. Teachers! DO YOUR JOB! Facilitate positive interactions to help teach these kids how to have an intelligent discussion without name calling or shouting.

2. Teach Civil Disobedience
Our nation was founded on it, and kids in high school are not too young to learn how to engage in it. You have a right to peacefully assemble and petition your government. Teach these kids about the value of this and how it should be done.

3. Problem Solving
These kids, like their adult counterparts, are likely big on complaints and short on ideas. The ideas they do have are full of holes. I know this because most of the ideas being floated on solving this "problem" are full of holes. This is a chance for us to teach our kids how to use skills like deductive reasoning and problem-solving. You never know. There might be a young man or woman out there who comes up with an idea none of us have ever thought of. Crazier things have happened.

Don't dismiss the potential value of what's happening today. We as a society will screw it up, we always do. But there is potential here to mold the next generation and teach them valuable life skills that will serve them into adulthood.

Today Trump announced he has fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replaced him with CIA director Mike Pompeo. This should not shock you.

Tillerson and Trump have been at odds practically from day one. Tilleson even went so far as to call the president a moron.

It was silly to think you could put two power brokers like this together and not have problems.

Tillerson is the former CEO of Exxon Mobile. And he didn't start at the top. He began his carrier as a civil engineer and worked his way up. The guy is a winner and a leader with a massive amount of experience dealing with countries all over the world. He was the perfect fit to fill the role of Secretary of State.

There's just one problem.

Trump isn't used to having a peer as a subordinate and Tillerson isn't used to taking orders. A conflict of opinion was bound to happen. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long for things to come to a head.

***
A new study is attempting to make us all a little gayer. The study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (which I can only assume is some third-rate psychological rag) says that there is no such thing as a "straight" man or woman. Instead, we all sit on a sliding scale of gayness.

So let me just say this...As a man who is completely comfortable with his sexuality and apparently cannot call himself "straight" anymore let me tell you where I fall on the scale of not-gayness.

On a scale of not-gay from 0-100, I am 100% not gay. You throw as many flags symbols and gay porn you want at me (this is how the study was conducted apparently), and you won't move me off the 100% not-gay mark.

I just don't understand why some people can be gay, but there can't be some of us who aren't. We could have framed the study to say there's no such thing as gay. Why didn't we frame the study that way? If it's all a sliding scale why can't we say there's no such thing as gay?

I'll tell you why. It's because the goal is not to conduct scientific research it's to seek evidence to reinforce a predetermined opinion.

Well, that's it. See you tomorrow

Jason

A few days ago I talked about the Justice Departments decision to sue the state of California over its decision to protect illegal immigrants from deportation by passing a law preventing companies from voluntarily helping ICE.

Now, setting aside my distaste for a law which prevents voluntary association California does have some authority.

The Constitution does not give the federal government the authority to deal in this matter. It is left to the States or to the people.

Well, I got a little backlash on social media so I thought I'd go a little deeper today in a full breakdown.

Jason