In this episode, we chat with Lewis Bollard, a long-time friend who has gone on to become a philanthropist and animal rights advocate after leaving Harvard. We talk about how they met, how they became friends, and what it was like growing up in the same house in Cambridge, MA. We also discuss Mark Zuckerberg's recent letter to the House Judiciary Committee, and why he should have been more vocal in standing up to government demands that they censor certain information related to COID19. And, of course, we talk about the first time we met, and how we ended up chatting about martial arts and the UFC, which is a story you probably don t want to miss. This episode was produced by VaynerSpeakers and edited by Annie-Rose Strasser. Our theme song is Come Alone by Suneaters, courtesy of Lotuspool Records. Our ad music is by Build Buildings Records, and our ad music was written and performed by Micah Vellian. We've been working on this episode for a year and a half, and we're very excited to finally have it on the pod! We're working on transcribing it and editing it so we can make it into a podcast format. We hope you enjoy it! We'll be working on a new episode next week, so stay tuned for that! -VaynerMedia, LLC. -Jon Sorrentino Timestamps: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11) 13) 15) 16) 17) 18) 19) 20) 21) 26) 25) 27) 24) 28) 29) 30) 31) 35) 36) Theme Music by Ian McKirdy ( ) 36 37) 38) 39) 40) 41) 45) 42) 47) 44) 46) 48) 49) 51) 6 45 Theme Song by Ian Mac Miller ( ) 45) Theme Music (Music by Ian Dorsch ( ) 47) & 45) & 46) Music by Ferell ( ) 51) & 51 46 47 56) Music by Zapsplat ( ) &
Transcript
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00:00:00.000We are joined this week by actually a longtime friend of mine who I've been looking forward to catching up with on a lot of things, but we're going to have a good discussion on today's podcast.
00:00:10.000My friend Lewis Bollard, who I know dating back to my days at Harvard College, where he was, I think, about two years younger than me.
00:00:17.000We lived in the same house, Kirkland House, and he has gone in some very interesting directions after leaving college, and we're going to explore some of them.
00:00:26.000So, Lewis, welcome to the podcast, man.
00:00:33.000So I was going to cover a number of topics relating to what you're doing now and what you've been doing in the world of philanthropy and animal rights advocacy, which I think is going to be fascinating.
00:00:43.000But a news item in this week that I thought was pretty interesting, and I'm curious if you either saw it or what your reaction to it is.
00:00:51.000Mark Zuckerberg, who by the way, was also another Kirkland House guy.
00:00:57.000I don't think you were quite there yet.
00:00:59.000But he was a guy who obviously dropped out, found a Facebook, became this big company most people might have heard of.
00:01:06.000He said something this week that I thought was pretty remarkable.
00:01:09.000And there's actually a funny backstory on it that I haven't talked about publicly, but which I could share here.
00:01:14.000Where he was responding to a letter from the House Judiciary Committee and responding to Jim Jordan about some of the censorship decisions, content moderation decisions, whatever you want to call them, Facebook made in 2020, including in the run up to the presidential election.
00:01:30.000And the thing I thought was most remarkable about it, both in reference to certain COVID related topics, as well as relating to their throttling of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
00:01:43.000Yeah, so the issue was basically there was this claim that Hunter Biden's laptop, which contained all of this potentially compromising information, was just Russian disinformation.
00:01:52.000And a bunch of intelligence experts said that.
00:01:54.000And so Facebook, in response to that feedback, throttled.
00:01:58.000That is to say, it didn't totally suppress, but it limited the reach of those stories.
00:02:03.000Now we know that actually wasn't Russian disinformation, but it was actually true.
00:02:06.000But I think Mark Zuckerberg did something interesting, which is that he came out this week in this letter and just basically openly said, I regret a lot of the decisions that we made.
00:02:14.000And if we had the same facts that we do now, that we would have made different decisions and that we should have been more vocal in standing up to what were, he openly admitted, government demands that they censor certain information related to COVID-19.
00:02:28.000Which, putting the politics of it to one side, I thought was just a fascinating move on a personal level to be able to do something that I don't think you see that much from leaders inside or outside of politics, which is to say that I had a big decision I had to make.
00:02:44.000It was an important decision and I got it wrong.
00:02:48.000And I just thought that was kind of interesting.
00:02:49.000And it was different, I think, than certainly what a lot of people were expecting of him.
00:02:53.000I have a backstory on this, which I'll share in a second, but curious for your reactions to that, given a lot of our shared background and some of our own perspectives on free speech.
00:03:02.000I think something we absolutely agree on is the importance of free speech and the importance of open debate.
00:03:08.000And indeed, something I think that's been a basis of our friendship is even when we disagree on issues, we can have a really fair-minded, open debate.
00:03:17.000And I think that's how you reach progress on these issues.
00:04:04.000They came over and introduced themselves to Purvin and myself.
00:04:07.000We ended up chatting about a lot of things.
00:04:09.000It's a funny story I haven't told, but in light of what he did this week, which I thought was pretty admirable, it was an interesting interaction.
00:04:16.000Where he talked about, hey, shouldn't we actually have more of this, right?
00:04:44.000Because I think part of him is, and I think the same is true for Jack Dorsey, for example, is a lot of that Silicon Valley 1.0 generation did view themselves, and even in some sense do view themselves, as As the guardians of free speech through fostering a free and open internet.
00:05:03.000And I do think he struggled with a lot of those decisions, and that was evident in my conversation with him as well.
00:05:07.000So this is about three or four months ago.
00:05:09.000But what I told him was, listen, I think it would actually go a long way, if you mean it, right?
00:05:15.000You don't have to mean it, but I think there's very little downside to you.
00:05:18.000If you came out and just said, I'm sorry, we screwed up.
00:05:21.000You're a human being, and we're all human beings.
00:05:25.000He was visibly uncomfortable, but I think what he said at the time was, I'll think about it.
00:05:30.000I think it's a decent idea, and I'll think about it.
00:05:31.000And so when I opened the newspapers yesterday and saw him come out with exactly that quote, you know, I'm sure other people have told him the same thing.
00:05:37.000I doubt it was just my conversation with him.
00:05:41.000But regardless, I think it's a good thing for the healing of a country where, regardless of the issue of free speech or not, where we're all able to say...
00:05:50.000I'll take a look at a different perspective, and if I've changed my mind, I'm going to be able to apologize for actions I might have taken in the past.
00:05:56.000I just thought that was a pretty beautiful thing this week.
00:06:20.000Yeah, so tell me what some of your experiences are in the world of philanthropy, right?
00:06:25.000Because I've gone the business track, tried to be philanthropic in my activities, but a lot of that's giving to philanthropic organizations where I have very little visibility what's actually happening or being done with the money.
00:06:36.000You're in that world, and I know you think with a business-oriented mindset, with a very pragmatic mindset, What are some of your learnings, right, coming from the background that you have, right?
00:06:47.000Educated at Harvard, you have parents who have come from an economic background or economics-oriented background.
00:06:53.000You're now in the world of philanthropy.
00:06:55.000What do you see that you think the rest of the world doesn't see in the way the philanthropy industrial complex operates, both for the better and for the worse?
00:07:05.000I mean, I think philanthropy is an essential part of our society because it's able and willing to do things that government won't and maybe government shouldn't.
00:07:14.000So there are areas, there are issues that are too controversial, they're too new, it's too novel.
00:07:20.000Whatever reason, the government's not going to do something about it.
00:07:22.000I think philanthropy has an incredible track record of addressing those issues.
00:07:26.000The Green Revolution came thanks to the philanthropy of the Rockefeller Foundation decades ago.
00:07:30.000Now, I think there's a trap philanthropy falls into where it often becomes an end in itself.
00:07:36.000It often becomes you get these bureaucratic institutions, giant foundations who just exist to justify their own existence.
00:07:42.000But I also think there's a really exciting area of philanthropy where people are overwhelmingly focused on impact and overwhelmingly focused on whatever vehicle, whether it is philanthropic, political, government, corporate, that can achieve the best results.
00:07:55.000And so what has been your area of focus when you're working at this organization?
00:08:00.000Yeah, so I'm focused on factory farming.
00:08:02.000And for those who are new to it, I guess, this is the system that produces much of the meat we eat.
00:08:10.000And I think in recent years, there have been increasing people across the political aisle saying there's something wrong with the system.
00:08:18.000And I think that's where the philanthropy can come in.
00:08:21.000Now, you say across the political aisle.
00:08:24.000That's actually kind of one of the topics I was interested in discussing with you and why I wanted to have you on, because I think it's an interesting, you know, it's an interesting political dynamic.
00:08:32.000Most people may think about animal rights activism as a traditionally left-wing or liberal issue.
00:08:38.000But you've made reference in our conversations over the years as well to this actually being more of an issue of bipartisan concern than people might appreciate.
00:08:47.000Tell me more about what you think is the conservative case for animal welfare and concern about animal rights and where you think that comes from.
00:08:56.000Yeah, I mean, conservatives have always opposed animal cruelty.
00:09:01.000You know, you see these people saying, oh, only liberals care about animal cruelty.
00:09:22.000So you've got laws in the early states back in the 1820s.
00:09:27.000You've got these laws existing for hundreds of years.
00:09:30.000And the crazy thing that's happened in modern times is factory farming lobby came along and created exemptions under these laws.
00:09:36.000They said, we know we're violating the animal cruelty laws, but we're going to create some exemptions to allow us to do it.
00:09:42.000On your point of conservative support, I mean, the strongest federal law we have, the Humane Slaughter Act, was signed into law by President Eisenhower.
00:09:50.000It was upgraded in a push, spearheaded by Senator Bob Dole.
00:09:54.000More recently, Tucker Carlson has said that he dislikes the way factory farms treat animals.
00:10:00.000Joe Rogan has talked about this a whole lot on his podcast.
00:10:04.000You've got people in other parts of the aisle.
00:10:06.000Robert Kennedy Jr., he started a group to sue factory farms.
00:10:13.000When we had a ballot measure in Arizona years ago to ban one of the worst practices, gestation crates, the chief cheerleader for that ballot measure was Sheriff Joe Apaya.
00:10:26.000Yeah, Sheriff Joe ran ads and he said, you know, he said, I eat bacon, I eat this meat, but I don't want the animals to be tortured.
00:10:33.000I don't think they need to be tortured in the process.
00:10:36.000This is easily caricatured as a left-right issue, but there are plenty of Democrats who have been terrible on this issue, like Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and there are plenty of Republicans who have been really stellar on this issue and have been absolute leaders.
00:10:50.000So let's talk a little bit about the moral underpinning for the case for...
00:10:55.000Animal protection, or at least protection against cruelty.
00:10:58.000How do you define what counts and what doesn't count as torture?
00:11:01.000Let's get the definitions on the table, and then let's back into what we think is actually wrong or not wrong about it.
00:11:08.000What actually constitutes torture versus non-torture in the case of what you call factory farming?
00:11:14.000I think for most of us, it's pretty common sense.
00:12:02.000So you're saying we have existing state laws, some of which you say are dating back to the 1820s, which have generally defined cruelty against animals relating to starvation, abandonment, overcrowding, perhaps, and infliction of pain.
00:12:18.000And your point is that actually the laws that were passed after that were not generally expanding the scope of limiting what people could do, but instead were exemptions built into the law for what exactly?
00:12:31.000So the most common exemption is for what's called common agricultural practices.
00:12:37.000And this is a great Orwellian game because a common agricultural practice is anything that you make common.
00:12:44.000So, you know, there was this case of a farm in Ohio, sorry, in Ohio, actually, where there was these sickening abuses on the farm where they'd been picking pigs up with forklifters and then lifting them up in the air.
00:12:58.000The kind of thing no one thinks is acceptable.
00:13:01.000Local prosecutor brought them to court and said, this is crazy.
00:14:19.000So it's this industry that operates with almost complete legal immunity.
00:14:24.000If it decides it wants to do something, if it does it enough, it becomes legal.
00:14:31.000So, why do you think that has been so persistent in the face of, you know, basic human intuitions?
00:14:37.000I think most people are against the idea of harming animals for their own sake.
00:14:40.000It's one thing to say that you're going to do it for sustenance, or for nutritive value, or for even commercial purposes, but the idea of just basically, you know, going out, there's a big controversy about this in the Republican Party earlier this year, by the way, of just going out and shooting your dog, or whatever, right?
00:14:54.000It shocked the conscience of a lot of people, so much so that Even amongst conservatives, it really launched a backlash against that type of brazen toughness to cruelty on animals.
00:15:06.000So against the backdrop of those basic intuitions, the ones that resulted in the passage of those laws as early as the 1820s in the United States, why do you think it is that these exemptions then have been so persistent?
00:15:45.000to film or record in factory farms and to share that footage and the only reason you want to do that is because you don't want people seeing the way these animals are being treated.
00:15:55.000The same thing we've seen on the corruption side Where you get these practices tend to be regulated by state and federal departments of agriculture who are thoroughly infiltrated by people from the industry.
00:16:10.000So Tom Vilsack, first he was Secretary of Agriculture under Obama, then he went and became a lobbyist for the dairy industry, and then he came back and became Secretary of Agriculture under Biden.
00:16:22.000You see these people who have worked for industry go straight back in, there's a revolving door, And there's a huge amount being paid to legislators to not legislate on this issue.
00:16:31.000So you think it's an old school case of bought and paid for politics?
00:16:57.000So let's maybe take a rewind on the linkage between certain conservative commitments and where you might find that common cause with animal rights activism.
00:17:34.000I mean, one of the books that made me most compelled to work on factory farming was this beautiful book called Dominion by a man, Matthew Scully, who was a speechwriter to President Bush.
00:17:45.000He was an editor for the National Review, and he wrote the conservative case for caring about animal protection, including farm animals.
00:17:53.000And he is someone who is devoutly pro-life.
00:17:56.000And in his mind, and it's joined, I think, by his Catholicism, In his mind, there is a very clear connection about protecting the vulnerable, protecting the speechless, protecting those who can't defend themselves.
00:18:10.000So make that case a little bit further from a Catholic perspective.
00:18:14.000You know, that looks, we as human beings are made in the image of God, but that doesn't include animals from a Christian or Catholic perspective.
00:18:22.000So where does that moral commitment arise to somebody who is not made in the image of God?
00:18:29.000Yeah, so I, I mean, I'm not a Catholic, so I won't play my Catholic case.
00:18:34.000But, you know, I can tell you, I mean, the last Pope, Pope Benedict, spoke out against factory farming and said this is not in line with Scripture.
00:18:41.000This is not the image of the relationship with animals that God wants us to have.
00:18:46.000C.S. Lewis had a great line where he said, God has entrusted us with dominion for the animals, which means what we're doing is either rightfully sanctioned stewardship, or it's blasphemy.
00:19:00.000It's something that is out of line with the divine plan.
00:19:04.000I think most of us have a sense, most of us who believe in God have a sense that God wants us to observe moral limits, that we can't just do what we want because it's the most fun, because it's the cheapest, because it's convenient.
00:19:16.000Instead, we need to observe some basic moral limits.
00:19:18.000And I think when most of us think about those limits, we realize, yes, certainly humans are going to be the object of first concern, but there are things we can't do to animals and things we shouldn't allow other people to do to animals either.
00:19:33.000Do you draw distinctions between different types of animals?
00:19:49.000You know, if your neighbor got a pet pig, so if your neighbor came home with a pet pig, you know, I don't think you'd be surprised if he kept him outside in the paddock or something, you know, just fed him every now and then.
00:19:59.000But if he then said, you know, I've decided to castrate this piglet, and I'm not going to use any paintbrush.
00:20:05.000And I've decided that I want to put him in a crate.
00:20:41.000But I think we also have that intuition that even when you cross species into a pig, maybe even a chicken, there are certain things we're still not comfortable with being done in our name.
00:20:54.000Yeah, look, people are going to reach different- Just to play it out, yeah.
00:20:56.000People are going to reach different frontiers, right?
00:20:58.000So they're going to reach different conclusions for themselves.
00:21:01.000I personally don't want to see fish tortured.
00:21:04.000I don't think it's necessary, but I would say don't let the full extent of this- I think sometimes you get these animal advocates who just focus on the most marginal cases.
00:21:18.000They say, let's go and talk about the mouse or something.
00:21:21.000I think the thing we can all agree on is that we shouldn't be torturing the majority of animals.
00:21:27.000And so, you know, if that's just pigs, if that's just chickens, people are going to reach a sense in their mind of where their circle of concern ends.
00:21:35.000But I think for most of us, it goes a lot broader than humans.
00:21:38.000Yeah, but just for the sake of, you know, understanding, not to say that the core cases aren't the ones that deserve the most attention, but just to understand sort of the moral basis, you go straight down the line, right?
00:21:48.000All the way to, you go to fish, you go to...
00:21:54.000Is there some case for, is it emergent consciousness?
00:21:58.000Does that heighten the moral stakes versus sentience, versus not actually even feeling the same level of pain, which is what we presume for bugs and certain sorts of insects?
00:22:08.000There have to be some type of moral categories where we say this is a greater moral offense than something else that we're not going to really...
00:22:19.000prioritization for focus on animal rights, right?
00:22:21.000So what do you think that dividing line is?
00:22:30.000Talk to me about what you think those lines are that raise the stakes of, or ought to raise the stakes of our concern. - Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
00:22:42.000Does this animal have the ability to suffer?
00:22:44.000Do they have the ability not just to react negatively to something, but to really suffer, to feel pain, to feel fear in a way we would recognize?
00:22:52.000And, you know, we don't know where that ends, candidly.
00:23:05.000There's still a lot of uncertainty about that.
00:23:06.000And so I'm not saying, you know, we need to go into those marginal cases where we're uncertain and we need to do anything.
00:23:12.000I think where we should focus is, here are the cases where we're confident.
00:23:16.000Here are the cases where we know that mammals are capable of feeling pain.
00:23:19.000We know that birds are capable of feeling pain.
00:23:21.000So let's focus on those cases and let's oppose as much of that cruelty as we can.
00:23:26.000And the one thing I say is I'm okay with a moral hierarchy.
00:23:29.000So I don't think it means, you know, just once you accept sentience, you don't need to accept all animals are equal.
00:23:34.000I think it's absolutely fine to say humans are at the top of the pyramid.
00:23:38.000And indeed it's because we're at the top of the pyramid that we have moral responsibilities.
00:23:42.000I don't think a chicken has a moral responsibility.
00:23:45.000I don't think they're capable of feeling one.
00:23:47.000I certainly don't think they have rights in the way that a human does.
00:23:50.000But I do think that they absolutely deserve to live free of unnecessary pain and fear.
00:23:58.000And so I think even those basic protections can apply down the hierarchy.
00:24:02.000And you're drawing a real distinction between the act of killing for the sake of food production or sustenance as distinct from torturing prior to the period that said animals actually killed.
00:24:20.000If someone wants to go out and hunt a deer and feed their family with an animal that they shot themselves, I don't have a problem with that.
00:24:27.000I'll tell you, even when you look at the cattle industry, most of that is based around giant ranches where the cows basically get to live their life out on the ranch.
00:24:35.000Now, you know, it's not ideal in every way, but I don't really have a lot of problems with that either.
00:24:39.000My problems are with the factory farms.
00:24:41.000We've taken these animals, we've crammed them indoors, we've put them in cages, we've cut off farms.
00:24:45.000So you're really fine with the idea of just in free-range nature, hunting, killing an animal for your own self-sustenance and use, and or even selling it commercially in that context even?
00:25:28.000What kind of steps do you think we could take to limit that while not having a major impact on the way that human beings are able to live their lives, either from a quality of life or economic or health perspective?
00:25:44.000I think that's the fear that a lot of people have.
00:25:46.000Agreeing with you that human beings are at the top of the hierarchy, we as a human species are to view ourselves as pro-human in that regard, but how do we achieve said goal that's your concern without actually compromising what our own quality of life actually is for most human beings?
00:26:07.000I'd say first, Let's acknowledge the place we agree.
00:26:10.000We all agree when we look at these images, this is wrong.
00:26:13.000And I would encourage people first to go and do their research to say, you know, if I'm skeptical about this, go and look it up online.
00:26:19.000Once we agree, there's something wrong here.
00:26:21.000There's going to be debate about the best way to do this.
00:26:24.000One option, John Mackey, who I'm sure you know is a libertarian, John Mackey at Whole Foods said, I'm not going to let factory farm meat in the store.
00:26:32.000I'm not going to let the worst kind of meat in the store.
00:26:34.000I'm going to set some basic standards for my store and people can trust when they go to Whole Foods that they're getting meat from animals who were treated better.
00:26:46.000So there's a simple, there's a market solution right there.
00:26:48.000And that's also, I think, what people like Joe Rogan argue for is, you know, go hunt the animal yourself or make sure you get meat from a very high-welfare animal.
00:26:56.000I do think, though, there's a role for the government.
00:26:59.000And I think there's a role for the government in setting basic standards, in saying, for instance, in Arizona, where we had this ballot measure to ban gestation crates, which are these tiny crates that pigs are confined to.
00:28:35.000I think it's a great thing to let the people decide on this.
00:28:37.000The threat right now is the latest measure from the pork industry is they've gone to Congress and said, stop letting states be able to do this.
00:28:44.000So let's preempt all these state laws.
00:28:47.000And they knew they wouldn't get this in a standalone bill through Congress.
00:29:15.000They always have an additional political route because they have so much political power.
00:29:18.000And so what would be the constitutional hook wearing our old law school?
00:29:22.000Actually, I forgot to mention, we were not only classmates, we were not only overlapped in college, but we were classmates in law school.
00:29:28.000So that was fun, along with J.D. Vance and others who people know now.
00:29:32.000So anyway, but even wearing our law school classmate day classes, we were in our small groups, we were in the same constitutional law class together.
00:29:40.000What would be the alleged or at least purported Article I basis for Congress to pass such legislation that would go so far as to preempt state ballot measures?
00:29:52.000Because that's a pretty striking step to take.
00:29:55.000Is this going to be some sort of expansive reading of the Commerce Clause, which is certainly something that no conservative is on paper supposed to be a fan of?
00:30:32.000Constrain the scope of the federal government.
00:30:33.000The combination of Article I as well as the Tenth Amendment wants to leave as much power as possible reserved to the states and to the people.
00:30:40.000So it says, here are the specific areas that Congress can legislate.
00:30:45.000If it's not one of these areas, Congress doesn't have the power to do it.
00:30:47.000And then they put the Tenth Amendment back as an insurance policy to really codify that and be clear about it from both angles.
00:30:52.000But one of the areas is Congress has the ability to pass laws that regulate interstate commerce.
00:30:59.000But that was designed originally in the literal sense of commerce between one state and another, not applying to what was happening within one state, but which could have a market effect on a neighboring state.
00:31:10.000Over the years, and this has been a liberal move, both in jurisprudence in the court system as well as in Congress, to say that, okay, because anything that happens in one state has some economic impact of what happens in a different state, That still counts as regulating interstate commerce, something that our founders never envisioned.
00:31:26.000And so the classically small government conservative point of view has been, no, no, we don't want to run a truck through that crack of the commerce clause.
00:31:34.000We want to keep that as narrowly constrained as possible.
00:31:37.000But when people hear this about industry then going to Congress to pass laws that preempt what the states want to do, some conservatives, I suppose, listening to this may have the perspective to say, yeah, well, we need to stop the craziness even if it's happening through the states.
00:31:53.000Remember, our core constitutional principles commit us, I believe, to having a limited view of what that federal government is able to do in the first place.
00:32:00.000And so if we don't like the Commerce Clause and its expanded readings when the left uses it, then we've got to be careful to make sure the same shoe doesn't fit the other foot.
00:32:09.000Because if we use it when it conveniences us, then that principle is then lost even when it favors the other side.
00:32:15.000So I just wanted to offer some perspective to people who may not have gone through the same con law class you and I did.
00:32:21.000But that being said, how successful have they been in advancing that?
00:32:27.000And the point you made was absolutely right.
00:32:29.000So they managed to get the Biden administration, the pork industry managed to get the Biden administration on their side in the Supreme Court.
00:32:36.000Oh, they got the Biden administration, of course, because the Biden administration loved the Commerce Clause.
00:32:39.000Because they wanted the expensive Commerce Clause.
00:32:40.000They wanted to be able to say, yeah, we can knock down all state regulations.
00:32:43.000So the Biden administration actually is the one that came down on the side of allowing for this preemptive legislation at the federal level to say these state ballot measures could be overridden by a federal law.
00:32:55.000So they had the Biden, they had the Biden DOJ alongside of, you know, the classic groups like the Chamber of Commerce and stuff.
00:33:01.000Yeah, they got industry, you know, they also got the industry groups on board.
00:33:03.000But it was this bizarre alignment between people on the right and the left who didn't care about the Commerce Clause, who just wanted to stop state laws.
00:33:11.000And unfortunately, the same thing has happened in Congress.
00:33:14.000Now, to their credit, the Freedom Caucus has opposed this.
00:33:17.000They are the primary group opposing this in the House.
00:33:21.000But you've got Republicans and you've got Democrats who don't care a lot about the broader principle.
00:33:26.000What they care about is they want to knock out these state laws that are interfering with an industry that they care a lot about.
00:33:34.000And one other thing that I would say there is normally when Congress comes in and preempts an area, it's because it establishes its own regulatory framework.
00:33:45.000It comes in and it says, okay, here's the new rules.
00:33:47.000Now let's get those inconsistent state ones out of the way.
00:33:59.000And we think this is the most efficient way to achieve that.
00:34:02.000So there's a double irony here, because on one hand, you have the left, which will wax eloquent about animal rights.
00:34:07.000Yet the members of which come in to say, no, no, no, we're actually going to take what the people, even if conservative or right leaning states like Florida have said they don't want to allow in their own state.
00:34:17.000As members of the left and the Democratic Party say we're going to use federal power to override what these otherwise conservative states that we lambast regularly, like Florida, the people of that state have chosen to do.
00:34:27.000And then on the other hand, you have conservatives who say, hey, we favor small government and we want a limited reading of the Commerce Clause.
00:34:32.000And we want the federal government to do as little as possible because we want to shut down the Department of Education and move it to the states, as I favor, for example.
00:34:38.000But except this particular case where we're lobbied, we actually want the federal government to override what the states are otherwise empowered to do.
00:34:45.000It's unbelievable hypocrisy actually from both sides the way I see it.
00:35:32.000This requires a little bit of speculation, but there may be some examples to draw from.
00:35:36.000Do you think if it had gone through the legislative process and shown up on a governor's desk and go through the normal process of lawmaking, do you think they would have arrived at that same place?
00:36:11.000Yeah, this is something I'm not willing to deal with.
00:36:12.000I'm interested in this particularly because it's a controlled experiment of what the people said versus another law.
00:36:20.000It happens to have been Florida specific and I talked about it on a prior week's podcast, which is why it interested me to ask you about this.
00:36:26.000So I don't know if you're familiar with this.
00:36:56.000And what they're doing is they're basically engineering meat for, you know, nutritive value.
00:37:01.000they claim for taste, for other reasons that might be commercial in nature.
00:37:05.000They're not killing animals to do it, but they're using cells derived from animals.
00:37:09.000So they're from the animals, but that doesn't require torturing or killing them.
00:37:12.000But they actually make what they claim to be.
00:37:14.000I have no idea whether or not I can't vouch for the factual specifics of the product, but could in the long run, and there's other companies like them that are making meat that could be better than normally derived meat from factory farming or from other forms of traditional meat production.
00:37:30.000And what I thought was fascinating was, this is just a food that's out there.
00:37:35.000It's being served as a delicacy in some restaurants across the country, as I understand from reading the news and knowing the guy who I've stayed in touch with where they are.
00:37:45.000But then I wake up one day and see that the state of Florida, the same state where the ballot measure went to the people to say that we're against certain practices used in factory farming, where the people of Florida, hard red Florida, have said they're against it.
00:37:58.000And I would have voted accordingly as well.
00:38:01.000That is the same state that actually banned, just like outright banned, the sale of any lab-based meat or any engineered meat from being sold.
00:38:14.000So not to say that you get to choose to do it, but to say that actually you don't have the choice as a consumer in the free state of Florida to be able to make that choice, which I thought was fascinating because it's the same state that actually went in the other direction.
00:38:27.000When it came to this other question on factory farming.
00:40:00.000We want to protect this group of farmers and so on.
00:40:02.000And then you've got these conservatives in Florida.
00:40:06.000And so it is this bizarre coalition where you have got anyone who just feels uncomfortable with something new, uncomfortable with innovation, uncomfortable with a new industry coming in, seems to have teamed up together to say, it's not just that I don't want to buy this, which, fair enough, but I want to ban it, which is just a crazy thing.
00:40:22.000I mean, look, I think as somebody who is sympathetic to some of the points you're making, and, you know, I think you and I are, I mean, I don't know if you're still, I remember you were in law school, are you still vegetarian yourself?
00:40:33.000I mean, you know, somebody who makes myself also a similar life choice, I am happy to say with clarity that I am dead set against any ban on meat in the United States at the state or federal level.
00:41:26.000You know, so does Senator Klobuchar has something she calls the Dairy Pride Act.
00:41:31.000And what the Dairy Pride Act would do is almond milk, soy milk would have to stop calling itself almond milk and soy milk because there are all these poor, confused consumers out there who just keep buying almond milk when they meant to buy cow milk.
00:41:54.000Yeah, so this really scrambles politics.
00:41:56.000What you see instead is who is beholden to the industry?
00:42:00.000And my guess is the Freedom Caucus, which I actually admire the spine that many members of the Freedom Caucus actually reflect, my guess is the Freedom Caucus would be against something like this.
00:42:19.000So no, I think you've absolutely seen that, where you've got principled conservatives and principled liberals who are opposing this based on Simple grounds of free markets, avoiding government bans on things that present innovation and hope for the future.
00:42:36.000So what would be sort of your perspective, let's just say 40 years from now, right?
00:42:42.000Let's not talk about 40 years from now because that's trodden ground and who knows, right?
00:42:47.000But let's just say, I guess, 40 or 50 years from now.
00:42:52.000What do you think the American perspective will be looking back on the present moment we're in to say, okay, here's how we dealt with issues relating to factory farming, animal cruelty, animal torture, and how do you think Americans in the year 2080, 2075 will look back at this moment today?
00:43:18.000I think that when we've had the distance to look back at these practices objectively, we will be shocked at what we allowed.
00:43:27.000I think we will view this as a moral atrocity that we allowed on our watch.
00:43:32.000And I'm not the only person who thinks that.
00:43:34.000I mean, there was actually, there was a podcast episode of Tucker Carlson and Greg Cutfield where they compared this.
00:43:39.000They said, will this be the thing we look back on like slavery?
00:43:42.000Will this be that issue we look back on and feel totally ashamed at where we stood or where we failed to stand?
00:43:50.000I think once people have had the time to step back and look at the truth and the reality of conditions, they are just going to be appalled at what we allow.
00:44:11.000Where do you see the momentum shifting?
00:44:12.000Because I have trouble reading the tea leaves on this.
00:44:15.000I usually have a good finger on the pulse.
00:44:17.000But when I see the ballot measures that you mentioned going in one direction versus the state bans on engineered meat going in a different direction, I don't have a good sense.
00:44:27.000And I think it's because even the conservative base of voters or even broader base of voters on the left and the right maybe don't yet know what they actually think yet either.
00:44:37.000And so this may be an area where people—there's times where politicians need to follow what the people tell them to do.
00:44:43.000There's occasionally moments and issues on which you have to lead the people to do what actually is right and tell them what they need to be told.
00:44:53.000And it does feel like one of those issues where people are looking to be led a little bit rather than demanding something of leadership.
00:45:00.000So what do you sort of feel on the ground in terms of the direction the winds are blowing or is it as yet indeterminate and they're kind of in a couple of different directions still?
00:45:11.000I think the winds are slowly going in the right direction, but it's going to be tough.
00:45:15.000So the things we have on our side is first that almost everyone agrees with us.
00:45:19.000When you survey people about these practices, you say, are you okay with gestation crates?
00:46:11.000I think that we're seeing some real progress in terms of states bringing these measures forward in terms of innovators bringing new products forward.
00:46:17.000But yeah, there is a long way to go and it is absolutely going to depend on the actions of individuals.
00:46:22.000It is going to depend on the actions of individuals.
00:46:24.000Do you choose to talk about factory farming, to do something about factory farming?
00:46:28.000And yes, absolutely, to push their political leaders to do something about it too.
00:46:42.000And does that inform your views on this or do you think you would get there even on secular grounds alone?
00:46:47.000I think you can get there either way, but honestly it does.
00:46:49.000I mean, I don't talk about this much, but for me, a lot of the progression was I came to believe in God when I was a child.
00:46:55.000So I was born, raised agnostic and came to believe in God.
00:47:00.000And it was when I came to believe in God that I felt a far greater moral urgency.
00:47:05.000To get rid of suffering in the world, to try and get rid of the worst things in the world, to spread compassion, to spread values that I believe God wants us to spread.
00:47:13.000And so I absolutely feel like working against cruelty to animals is something that God wants us to do.
00:47:20.000Certainly something I believe God wants me to do.
00:47:22.000And how do you classify yourself politically today?
00:47:54.000And I guess the last question is, even just to take a very, very specific question, because you've used this expression a couple of times without pain relief, right?
00:48:02.000It's one thing to kill an animal, another to do it, or torture an animal without pain relief.
00:48:05.000What's the best objection against the use of pain relief?
00:48:40.000Yeah, I think maybe if some of the pharma companies of the world that might have been, you know, peddling some of the opioids, maybe give a little bit less to people who might not have needed them or benefited from them, and maybe a little bit more to animals who could have avoided that right before they had their heads chopped off, maybe it would actually be a double win.
00:49:00.000And I'm only saying this, you know, half-jokingly, actually, in the first place.
00:49:09.000Well, I appreciate your passion for this issue and I appreciate that you were able to illuminate for me, I had some sense of this, but even coming out of this conversation, how much less partisan this issue is than someone might assume, thinking about Remixing the partisan boundaries.
00:49:27.000It allows people to think independently for themselves, right?
00:49:30.000I think that too often there's almost even a guilt to feel like you are selling out your own tribe if you take a position with such passion on an issue that otherwise falls outside of where your partisan team is on the question.
00:49:42.000And, you know, people know where I'm at on this.
00:49:45.000I ran for U.S. president as a Republican.
00:49:48.000But I think when you run into, when you encounter issues, I mean, you could put a number of other issues on this list, right?
00:49:52.000How do you deal with the future of AI in the country, right?
00:49:55.000How do you deal with a range of other questions that, you know, that relate to the foreign policy of the United States?
00:50:02.000A lot of these defy traditional partisan boundaries.
00:50:06.000But this issue is one of those that's less covered, that defies and even dissolves those traditional partisan boundaries.
00:50:12.000And I think the dialogue around this, therefore, presents actually the possibility for national unity at a time where we're, We're struggling to find areas where we might find national unity in our discourse.
00:50:22.000This might actually be one of the more underappreciated ones.
00:50:26.000And so I thank you for enlightening people about it.
00:50:29.000And, you know, hopefully we'll continue this conversation.