828: The Biggest Threat to America - Politicians Abandoning the Constitution

Brian Nichols  0:46  
2024 Elections are right around the corner. And if you are from the great state of Colorado, you may be looking for a new congressional representative. So today, let's talk about that instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Wow, hey there, folks, Brian Nichols here on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on of course, another fun filled episode. I am as always your humble host, joining you from our cardio miracle Studios here in lovely Eastern Indiana. The Brian Nichols Show is powered by amp America very excited to be part of the amp America team. Also, I'm very excited to be a contributor over amp America writing some Dare I say pretty awesome pieces over in our opinion section. Namely, I just wrote an article outlining why are all these so called libertarian outlets going after one libertarian president in Argentinian Javier Malay Great question, I thought so I went through and gave a scathing rebuttal to those different entities out there, saying he's not libertarian enough. Where have we heard that before? So you want to go ahead and check that out, plus a bunch of other great news pieces, head over to amp america.com also cardio miracle? Yes, I am super excited to have them as one of our phenomenal sponsors here on The Brian Nichols Show. Namely, they are one of our studio sponsors, and folks, I'm a user of cardio miracle, meaning I can 1,000% put my name behind cardio miracle, because I've seen the cardio miracle difference for myself, and it's 100% real. So what is cardio miracle cardio miracle is a phenomenal supplement that I take morning and night. And it helps improve your overall heart health. That means lower blood pressure, that means a better night's sleep. That means a better pump, at the gym, and more. And if you want to experience all of those different benefits for yourself, here's what you got to do. If you're joining us on the video version of the show, head down below into the show notes, you're gonna see the link right there to our friends over at cardio miracle, go ahead and give it a look. And if you decide, Hey, this looks like something that might be for me go ahead and use code TBNS at checkout, because you're gonna get 15% off your order. Now I can see, I can hear most of you folks out there who are maybe sitting on the fence right now you're saying this sounds great, Brian, but is it really something that will benefit me while I'm confident it will. But if you're still a little weary, have no fear, there's a 100% money back guarantee. So even if you order cardio miracle, and you feel that it just isn't working for you, you can get your money back 100% No questions asked. But I know you're not going to have to worry about that. Because after I've been using cardio miracle for well over a half a year now I've seen the difference for myself, and I know you will, as well. So join the 10s of 1000s of other folks out there who are experiencing the cardio miracle difference for themselves. I guarantee your heart will thank you. All right, folks, let's go towards the topic of conversation that I have today. And that is yeah, it's 2024 Meaning there's an election right around the corner. Closer than many think. Yeah, we're recording here, end of March beginning of April. And the election is literally a few months away November 2024. So if you are looking to vote for a nominee most folks are always focus on what the presidential election every four years right now. Looks like it's going to be another Biden Trump election unless I don't know the insane happens like it did in 2020. When you know the whole world shut down because of a virus but we're not going to rehash that conversation are we know for today, though, we want to talk about some of those down ticket races and namely for US Congress now. In the Congress. You have two branches, the Senate and the House and today's guest he's gonna be tossing his hat in the ring for the house specifically in the great state of Colorado. Joining me here on The Brian Nichols Show candidate for the Libertarian Party, Patrick bow hand over The Brian Nichols Show. How're you doing?

Patrick Bohan  4:51  
I'm doing great. How are you doing Brian?

Brian Nichols  4:54  
doing phenomenal Happy Friday as we're recording here today, Patrick and Happy Easter peek behind the curve We are recording right before the Easter holiday. But Patrick, folks are here to listen to me rant and rave about the Easter Bunny and the Easter holiday. They want to hear about you. You're running for office in Colorado as a big L libertarian. But before we get there, do our audience a favor, Patrick, please introduce yourself to the audience. And who is Patrick Bohannan. Why are you running for office as a big L libertarian?

Patrick Bohan  5:24  
Yeah, I put my name out there because I finally came to realize that I believe the biggest threat in the United States is actually coming from within. It's an it's not an outside adversary or enemy. It's coming from politicians who refuse to uphold their oath to serve and protect the Constitution. And because of this, I really think we're losing our country. So I think we're losing focus when we focus on things like Ukraine in Israel instead of focusing on you know, what's going on in our own country. And I think we're really losing losing our place in history right now.

Brian Nichols  6:05  
So Patrick, your background, it's quite diverse, right? You you are in a world of engineering, entrepreneurship,

Patrick Bohan  6:15  
athletics.

Brian Nichols  6:15  
So while you're acknowledging that there may be a lack of political political acumen or experience in your world, you do seem to have a pretty strong understanding of our Constitution. And frankly, its vision for a limited, constrained government. So how do you see your unique background as perspective for being an asset more or less as you're now trying to run and serve in Congress?

Patrick Bohan  6:41  
Yeah, you're right, Brian, I don't I don't have any qualified qualifications in terms of holding prior office. I'm really truly an outsider. I think my best qualification is kind of like what you said, is understanding constitutional law and American history. Now, I'd never made any of those. I'm not a lawyer. But I have studied those pretty extensively. And I think that they shouldn't be a prerequisite for holding federal office. I mean, I was, I have a neurological disorder and neuromuscular disorder that's plaguing me for 20 years, it's still hasn't really been diagnosed. And I you know, so I had a lot of downtime, I was training for races, I was still competing, I was still actually becoming a national champion cyclist, despite having this this debilitating neuromuscular disorder. So I had a lot of downtime, because I was training, I was tired. And so instead of just watching TV, I started to open up textbooks on constitutional law and studying American history. So that's what I've been doing for years. Absolutely

Brian Nichols  7:50  
love it, Patrick. So a central theme of of your campaign has been the idea of not just constitutionality, but frankly, restoring this this vision of the framers and the founders and that vision of being, again, limited, federal government that's focused on protecting the citizens fundamental rights. So in your view, what are the essential roles and responsibilities of government? And how do you see that we've strayed from that ideal, had,

Patrick Bohan  8:21  
the only responsibility I see government having is really just to protect our rights. That's it. The only reason why people consent to government in the first place is for protection and safety of our rights. I think we're making government a lot more complicated than it needs to be. The rule of law basically says that the law is, is valid as long as it's not arbitrary. And it just apply equally to everybody to individuals and companies. And that's what we need the government to do. Unfortunately, the government does not really protect our rights equally. It likes to protect them based on our demographics, or, in other words, kind of like and how we look and think the government creates does this by creating these preferred classes of people using, you know, things, sexuality, diversity, and, you know, other world metrics instead of just treating everyone the same? And I think the government just hasn't realized that every stain in American history has resulted, because the government took sides on how we look and think, you know, big, big mistakes such as slavery, Denix, and tournament segregation. Today, we're making this the same.

Brian Nichols  9:47  
Patrick, you you talk about how you've seen in we just outlined here, the the federal government, it's vastly overstepping its its constitutional bounds. And with that, there has been, I think, everybody in the audience Ian's acknowledges a severe infringement on not just individual liberties of the citizen. But let's also address the elephant in the room. I think we've seen also a vast overstep when it comes to state rights. So can you give us some examples of areas that you specifically have seen government saying, you know, Hey, guys, there's no business for you to try to intervene or or to regulate?

Patrick Bohan  10:26  
Yeah, I think climate change is probably the best example of that, you know, that the government's with with climate change is in this place of picking winners and losers in industry. And that's, that's not their responsibility. The government is supposed to be, as I said, an equal arbiter of the law. If you read the Constitution and you in what you will, what you'll see is that there's no caste system of people or, you know, protecting certain kinds of businesses. So, you know, even if climate change is real, and is manmade, it doesn't matter. That's not That's not the place for government. If the, if the government wants to help green energy, give subsidize everybody, by giving everybody a tax break, you do that. And then, you know, what you may find out is even oil and gas companies have motivation to because they're complete. They're, they're competing against renewables, they may have motivation to come up with better technologies. So let everyone innovate, if that's what they want to do. That's their choice. But it shouldn't be the government's choice.

Brian Nichols  11:36  
So Patrick, you're running for Congress. Right. And as a congressman, I am assuming you're going to have some goals, some objectives. So if you're elected to Congress here in November of 2024, you're going to be entering a very divided polarized Congress, and, frankly, a polarized political climate too. So given the many policy positions and reforms that you've outlined before, what would you see as kind of your top priority and chief objective starting day one as Congressman bowhead?

Patrick Bohan  12:10  
Yeah, I think it would be the first thing I would really want to accomplish. And I, again, maybe I'm being naive that I think that it could get accomplished as some kind of fundamental rights legislation could be an amendment or both. And I think the purpose would be and I you know, everybody, even even liberals agree, we have rights, it's just a matter of defining them and putting them out on paper. So I think it's something that everybody could get behind. I think, you know, the purpose would be is to move sovereignty back to We The People instead of being it being with federal government. So I think an amendment can can contain, you know, several, several parts. I don't know if that's what you want to get into, I could get into what some of those parts can be. Yeah.

Brian Nichols  13:01  
Because well, one thing I want to quickly address here, Patrick, because you mentioned you keep I mentioned these fundamental rights, I guess, to the audience, who is a little wishy washy on what those might be, what are you articulating and defining here today as being fundamental rights?

Patrick Bohan  13:17  
Yeah, that's a good question. So that would be part of defining what the fundamental rights amendment would be. I think the first aspect would be to reinforce enumerated rights. And those rights are already listed in the Constitution. And they have to be reinforced again, because we've seen things like gun rights and, and religious liberty, under assault, so they have to be reinforced. But there's also a list of rights that are unenumerated rights. And those are rights that aren't listed in the Constitution. And the courts have in some regards, protected some of these things there. There's things like parental rights, family rights, the right to profit from your labor, the right to travel to work, the right to obtain knowledge, all of these can be unenumerated rights. But in order to come up with a list of unenumerated rights, we have to define what a what a fundamental right is. And I think a fundamental right was defined by John Locke. John Locke is a natural law philosopher in his second treaties of government, he wrote that a fundamental right is one that's kind of unanimously accepted by society, and if not unanimous, but near unanimous, so it has this real big supermajority. And I think if you if you use that as a metric, what you will find is our rights are really god given because what you'll be able to do is up able to discern most of those rights and principles in the Bible, you'll be able to corroborate them, you. So I think that's important. And the other aspect is, you know, we have to define what the mechanism that are right would be protected by the Constitution. That's something that's also become very convoluted through our Congress and courts. So the the last aspect of a fundamental right would probably be something that's very important that any rights that are listed in this bill, or industrialization or amendment, they cannot be infringed for any reason. And I used to be a proponent of emergency powers for government and times of emergency and crisis. You know, things like war, pandemics, you know, great depression, you know, terrorist attacks. So, but what I've seen, especially with the pandemic is that the government really just can't, cannot be trusted with temporary rights. And a lot of times they turned what should be temporary grants and power into permanent grants of power. We saw a great deal of that during the FDR administration. And we see during COVID, how even you know, temporary grants of power can be very harmful. You seen what happened to education in our country because of it.

Brian Nichols  16:35  
So we talked about establishing those rights. But how do we in building on that last question, how do we protect those constitutional and fundamental rights? What would be the best means to avoid a another situation where we have an overarching government, like what we saw during COVID? Being able to say, well, in the case of emergency break glass here, Patrick, what's the answer there?

Patrick Bohan  17:01  
Yeah, actually, the Constitution really has two mechanisms and which rights can be protected. A lot of people don't know that the Ninth Amendment actually protects unenumerated rights. It says that just you know, because we didn't list the rights in the first eight amendments, it doesn't mean that it's not protected. And then, because of lack of use and precedent, go after the Civil War, the 14th amendment was drafted. But what happened just after that it was redacted. The privilege and Immunities Clause was redacted in the slaughterhouse cases. So because of lack of use and precedent, the ninth amendments forgotten and important to the 14th Amendment were redacted. So the courts kind of invented a doctrine called substantive due process, which actually uses part of the uses of the due process clause of the 14th amendment. And although substantive due process has done a, you know, some good to protect some rights. It has done a lot of harm, in the sense that during that era, what we saw is that what the courts moved to this two tier system of rights were a NUMA enumerated rights were protected more vigorously than unenumerated rights. And so I think we have to move back to the I don't I don't see why we just don't use Ninth Amendment. It's beautiful. i It's my favorite 21 words in the Constitution. But, you know, what do I know?

Brian Nichols  18:38  
You know, quite a bit. You're running for office, I hope at least No, I'm just teasing. Patrick, let's let's dig in.

Patrick Bohan  18:44  
I'm pretty I'm pretty. I'm pretty naive, in a sense, is when it comes to running here.

Brian Nichols  18:49  
Hey, you know, right, at least we at least we're acknowledging what we know. And what we don't know. Because I see far too many politicians who are asked a question, they don't know the answer. And they're like, Well, let me give you the political speak answer that really is just a bunch of mealy mouthed nothingness. I prefer when candidates say, I don't know, that's more refreshing, but that's okay. But let's let's

Patrick Bohan  19:10  
piggyback on a row, but I actually told people, you know, that worked for me in the past. It's just like I write just telling me, you don't know, instead of giving me some brown bow

Brian Nichols  19:23  
all the conversations getting getting into the weeds of nonsense if you just don't know, just like say say it from the beginning. I love that. Yes. Yeah.

Patrick Bohan  19:30  
I mean, it's a credible answer, especially if you say yeah, I don't know, but I'll check into it. Amen.

Brian Nichols  19:37  
And you know, let's let's maybe I'm gonna put you on the spot here. I mean, so for for you know, these different rights. We talked about free speech, we talked about religious liberties, we talked about property rights, the right to bear arms. Yeah, I think everybody in the audience acknowledges these have all been under attack. But Patrick, do you do you see any of these fundamental rights? That had been more are egregious Lee targeted versus the other rights? And if so, how do you feel that you have a role in Congress to help restore those rights?

Patrick Bohan  20:09  
Yeah, well, that's what the purpose of the the fundamental rights of men do. And I, like I said in the in the previous question, I think that unenumerated rights have been been attacked more than numerated rights. And so if I was going to pick one, and what a lot of people don't understand, is that our, there's no, right, that's better than another, they all have equal weighting. And they're all interrelated. I mean, Aristotle was the first person to mention that. And in doing so, if one right is diminished in some regards, and we'll see as all rights are diminished. So that's why protecting every single right is so important. But if I were to pick one, I would say, the right to profit that's been attacked, especially most people don't don't view as a right. And some people say, well, won't be unanimously accepted, liberals won't accept that. It's just like, I have never seen a liberal turned down a raise or, or, you know, you know, some kind of promotion of some kind. So, liberals, I think we're in this selfish era of rights, where a lot of people believe that I have the right to free speech, but because I don't like what my neighbor has to say, well, I don't think that they should that right. And so that's right. And so I think it's the same thing with the right to profit, but that's really come under assault with taxation, right? I mean, I view the the power to tax as I think libertarians love saying It's theft. I think it's more than that. I think it's I think it's the power to destroy, and probably destroys the right to profit, it destroys the economy, it destroys growth, innovation, it, it destroys your right to make choices, because you're gonna have less buying power. So you're losing your right to choose. So I just see it as where the government says, Hey, I know how to spend your hard earned dollars better than you do. And it's just it, we're in this vicious cycle, right? Because the government taxes you more. And then people start clamoring for entitlements. And the more that they clamor for entitlements, the more they tax you and so you're in this vicious loop of just increasing taxes. It's, it's not sustainable, it's gonna break at some point. So I think you're right, the prophet.

Brian Nichols  22:53  
I was gonna say, not not getting off the topic of government wanting to spend all of our hard earned money. Let's take a quick segue towards the conflicts that are taking place over in Israel and Ukraine, shall we? Because I mean, foreign policy and Americans role in the world. It's an area where I think you as a, you know, a libertarian, you're breaking away from some of the more conventional positions of the, you know, the traditional left to left Team Blue and right teams, Red Team, blue teams, and you stated, you believe that the US should full stop, stop supporting financially, Israel and Ukraine. And instead, I don't know, maybe start focusing on defending our own sovereignty, our own borders, where we're seeing a lot of issues right now. So could you expand on that perspective and how it fits into more or less this broader like America first approach?

Patrick Bohan  23:44  
Yeah, I just don't see why we're so concerned about the sovereignty of Israel and Ukraine, when our borders are just wide open. It just doesn't make any sense to me. At it shouldn't make sense to anybody. You know, the government's first role, like I said, In the beginning, is to protect national sovereignty and individual sovereignty, our rights, and the only way to do that is to protect the nation and to protect us as individuals. And what I think a lot of people don't understand is why did Ukraine in Israel go to war in the first place? They went to war because their sovereignty was breached national and individual sovereignties they've come under attack. And, but yet, we're gonna let the same thing happen every day at our border. And you know, a lot of people saying, well, it's not the same thing. They're not attacking us. But at the same time, if you're losing some of your rights, because you have to spend more money to support migrants coming into this country, then then you are under attack. It may not be in the sense of a war, but it's still something that's going to affect people.

Brian Nichols  24:55  
So speaking of of being under attack crime rates had been rising nonstop public safety is a major concern for voters, I think across the aisle right now. And as you've articulated today, the federal government has obviously overstepped in these areas, arguing that crime enforcement should primarily fall on state and local authorities with federal law enforcement restricted to specific more enumerated crime. So how would this approach help reduce crime while respecting constitutional boundaries? Yeah,

Patrick Bohan  25:28  
well, you know, the interesting thing that this one, this was a tough one, because I think the best way to handle crime and you may disagree with that, and feel free to is that I would like to put together a as part of maybe the Fundamental Rights Amendment is is a is a victims rights amendment, and a victims rights amendment. You know, the Constitution protects defendants pretty well. And, and with good reason, because we're innocent until proven guilty. So that's, that's important. Victims Rights Amendment could be like piggybacked on, say, the Eighth Amendment, which protects against excessive excessive fines and punishment. And but there's no reason why you can't say in there, what would be good minimum mandatory sentences for and fines for certain violations. And if you have these guidelines, then perhaps it hold states accountable. And it may not be enforcement agencies that have to get involved, that would be if the courts aren't, aren't doing their job. So it may be more and getting the federal courts involved instead of getting federal agencies involved and, and promoting crime because like, like you said, I think there's only about four grants of power in the Constitution for the federal government to oversee crime, I think counterfeiting and treason and slavery and, and, you know, national security and, and that's, that's about it. So, but I think that that this way, this will provide people closure, it will hold states accountable. And at the same time, I think I think it could deter crime. It's kind of like, you know, a lot of people may commit crime and not necessarily know what their penalties gonna be, right? It's kind of like when you go into the go into the doctor's office, right? There's, there's no menu out there. And when it's going to cost, we never know how much it's gonna cost and we get the bill. It's like, Oh, my God, what happened? Right? And so it's the same thing with crime, maybe it deters crime, if people start seeing well, no matter what this is going to be my minimum sentence, you know. So I think that's an approach. I don't know if you would agree with that. But

Brian Nichols  27:54  
well, hey, it's not a matter of, I guess, for me to agree or disagree as voters to decide Patrick. And honestly, I think you articulated though, very well, why that's your position. And to that, right. I wanted to actually piggyback on that question a little bit to you talking about people not knowing what something cost because you tease that go into the doctor's office, but let's talk about education, right, because a lot of parents don't know what their kids education is going to cost until they look at their tax bill every year. So with school choice, and parental rights and education becoming a hot button issue, I know in your plan, you're calling for a school choice amendment, which is going to stipulate the tax dollars that should follow each child to the respective schools. So could you maybe elaborate a little bit more on that specific view regarding parental rights and the role of the Big Daddy government when it comes to education in kids lives?

Patrick Bohan  28:46  
Yeah, so I, I had this conversation with so many people that a lot of people don't really understand that parental rights, a lot of liberals make it sound like it's something that's fabricated something new, it's not been around for a long time. Supreme Court protected the parental rights in a case called Let me get this right, Pierce V Society of sisters, I think it was about 100 years ago. In that case. Justice Vic Reynolds, I believe, held that the the that the responsibility for the upbringing of children and this was an education case. The responsibility for the upbringing of children resides with the parents, not the schools, not the states. That not the children, not teachers. And so I think mental rights like you said, and education go hand in hand because what that means to me is that parents get to choose where their child gets to go to school. And so if it's their choice, then their tax dollars should fall into that school. I think that's the important aspect of it. And if if your child is homeschooled, then I truly believe that, that that family should get a tax refund. That's only fair to pay that education. And I think parental rights means a lot more than that. I think it means that, you know, parents should get permission slips to approve extracurricular activities, I hear some of that's going away. Parents get to approve books, and review books and curriculum. I think you improve education through you know, competition, and, and parental oversight will go a long way to I think I could even get into this a little bit further about the Department of Education, which, you know, please, please annihilate the Department of Education. Patrick, please, which I was not a big fan of. If you look at taxes, it well, just just just look at government agencies, I think that about 90% of government agencies are, there's no constitutional grant of power, and it may even be more than that I haven't counted up. And education is a perfect choice to get rid of because at education was important during the time of the founding, it was extremely important. But yet the founders saw no no reason to give it any federal grant the power. And so you fast forward a couple 100 years. And so for about the past 45 or 50 years, we have a department of education, I believe that's the timeframe and and what's happened since education, since they've taken over education, well, costs have gone way up. And of course, performance has gone way down every year reinvest scores go down. So if you just look at it from that metric that first off, you know, hey, if our founders thought it was was good, they would have put it in there. And they did. And because a lot of people always make up that you have to keep up with the changing times. And that's not true. So you just add another level of bureaucracy, where it's this one size fits all national education over, you know, you know, overriding what, what local municipalities and states have, and I think they have a better idea of what's going on. So I think you could remove that whole level of, of bureaucracy there and get rid of the Department of Education.

Brian Nichols  32:42  
I love to hear it. Yes, at the Department of Education, please. 1970s are calling they want their terrible policies back. Let's segue into religious liberties, because I know religious liberties and freedoms. They're their fundamental rights, obviously, enshrined in our First Amendment, but you're arguing that the separation of church and state has been twisted to infringe instead on religious liberty. So Patrick, how do you believe that the Constitution protects religious liberty? And what reforms would you champion in this area to avoid this separation of church and state doctrine from being twisted to infringe on said religious liberties?

Patrick Bohan  33:22  
Yet? That's a good question because I, I had separation of church and state, the fictitious doctrine, at least a way it's applied. No way that it can be true, I think proponents of it say it's part of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. And that can't be the case, the Establishment Clause was was was put in place to be a prohibition against the government from establishing and sponsoring some religion. I think what a lot of people don't seem to forget is that what our original colonies were formed, many of the states were formed on religion. And over time, what happened is that that citizens were taxed to support sponsored religion, even if they weren't part of it. And so basically had a conundrum in this country because we had taxation without representation, the same thing that we were trying to fight against England. So that's why that problem had to be corrected. If you look at every single clause amendment in the Constitution, it's a prohibition against the government. It's not a prohibition against the people. And that's what a lot of people just seem to forget. And it's, it's certainly not a prohibition against people showing religious allegiance on on on public grounds. If you look at separation of church and state, the way it's applied now is is is preaching Freedom From Religion, not freedom of religion, it's doing just the opposite of what it should do. It's either you either apply the doctrine correctly, or you have to just get rid of it. I just don't see it as a fair doctrine. You know, the thing is, is there's always been separation of church and state. Even if you look at a biblical times, you know, you know, you had Moses and Aaron, you know, Moses handled the state and era and handle the spiritual aspects of society. So there's always been, in some regard separation of church and state, but it was never meant to be enforced this way.

Brian Nichols  35:32  
All right, Patrick, we're talking about, you know, liberties and such. But does it all really matter? When the federal government is spending themselves like drunken sailors 30 Plus trillion dollars in debt. So obviously, reducing the size and scope of the federal government should be a major focus, not just for you, I think for anybody running for Congress, or at least anybody who's trying to do their job effectively, it should be their their primary focus. So you've mentioned you've been on today's episode, eliminating agencies like yes, the Department of Education, but more agriculture, energy, the EPA, IRS, and others. So walk us through your vision for dramatically cutting federal spending. And, Patrick, will that leave Americans who maybe take advantage of those different departments high and dry? What would be the alternative?

Patrick Bohan  36:28  
Well, if you if you reduce spending, then then everybody should have some more money in their pockets. Right. Like I said, there was this vicious cycle going around that, you know, people start clamoring for entitlements, because they need them because the government starts taking more of their money. So yeah, I think a lot of agencies can certainly be scrutinized that for some reason, it just seems to be taboo to anything, that the government passes any kind of legislation, or if they create an agency, it just seems to be taboo to get rid of them. And it's really the case, especially again, like the Department of Agriculture, because again, I can make an argument that, you know, agriculture was probably the most important facet. During our founders, that was really the main industry other than merchants, and then, you know, there was some small businesses, but everyone was a farmer. And again, and after the after the, the Revolutionary War, the, you know, farming industry was was completely dismantled. I mean, farms were trampled and burned, and, you know, crop prices, you know, went down and, but yet our founders saw no reason to provide any federal protection. So there's, there's a lot of good examples of getting rid of, and if we want to talk about, you know, cutting taxes, that and cutting taxes, you know, you cut spending, but a great example would be if you're if you cut taxes in full men say like a fair tax or a national sales tax of a like 8%, on on goods and services, and everyone will get a tax break, because I think the lowest Federal Bracket is 10%. And then you could do away with the IRS, you could do away with the 16th amendment. And, and because there's no, there's no real need for it, and then it makes people's lives a lot easier. So you could cut taxes by getting rid of the IRS. And the other thing that it won't actually do that, I think is probably the most important thing, it was a Make, make us compliant with Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution, which says that taxes should be uniform. It does not say anything about any progressive tax rates. And I hear this all the time. And not only does that progressive tax rate, take down innovation and growth and job growth and but at the same time, you always hear liberals talking about this, this wide gap between between the rich and the poor, and between the middle class and and the wealthy. And the one of the reasons why we have this big gap is because of progressive tax rates. If you think about it, if you're poor, and you start earning more and more money, what happens to you, you go up a couple rungs, but you get knocked down a rung or two because you start getting taxed more. So it's it's harder to live the American dream and I don't think that they really realize that.

Brian Nichols  39:45  
Well, and you're talking about the American dream, part of what made the American Dream, the American dream was the opportunity and yet we've seen with federalism and state rights. I mean, they're central to your vision, but we've See if there has been a complete overstepping of states rights. So you've argued that the 10th Amendment, which it specifically reserved powers, to the states and the people that they've been trampled, so what policies would Patrick Baudin bring to the table that would help advance and restore this proper balance between federal and state authority just as our founders and framers actually intended?

Patrick Bohan  40:24  
Yeah, I think that there's a couple things to bring federalism back I, I'm really a big proponent of like some kind of nullification law or amendment of some kind. As a matter of fact, these things could be included as part of the the, the fundamental rights amendment and legislation, because if you read the 10th Amendment, it says that these powers are reserved for the states and the people. So it still goes hand in hand with protecting individual rights by protecting and I like using the word state rights. I'm only like using the word the powers for I think people rights and but in any event, I think there's two things you can have a nullification legislation, or that will allow states to double what they believe are our federal laws that that violate the Constitution. And I think that the other critical aspect is to have some opt out legislation. And what I mean by that is, if there's a some kind of appropriations bill that has a lot of costs with it, like say something like Obamacare or something, and it what states be able to opt out of the legislation, and if they do so then those constituents should get a tax refund, because the power that the federal government has over states and people is this power to tax, it's very coercive. And if you think about it, I have to state say, Well, we have to sign on to this Obamacare, otherwise, our constituents are going to lose whatever tax revenue they pay, and it's gonna go to other states. And so they feel compelled to sign on. And I just think that we have to eliminate this force of element because that's one of the reasons why the federal government is growing eyes and scope so much. So,

Brian Nichols  42:24  
Patrick, you you throughout your campaign plan, you you articulate that, and as we've talked about here on the show today, the US has quite clearly drifted from our founding principles, and frankly, the Constitutional Republic framework that we built. And I think as anybody in the audience is listening today, it's pretty obvious that we're heading down a very troubling path towards socialism. So if elected, what would be one of the biggest misconceptions about America today that you would want to help correct or maybe reframe and Congress to help change that public discourse? Yeah,

Patrick Bohan  43:03  
I, there's one thing that really aggravates me and I hate using the word Noy, but that it doesn't matter if you're talking to Republicans or Democrats, they all seem to think that we live in a democracy. And it just bothers me to no end that our founders abhorred democracy. They want it no part of a democracy. I think James Madison said that democracy is it never lasts long and exhaust itself is I think, is was his words. And, and so but I think we are moving towards more towards a democracy and even more towards a socialist state. So they may be more correct. Now saying that, but it was never the intention. Our founders created a constitutional republic, because they, they want it to be a nation of laws, and those laws will be the rule of law. And the rule of law would be treating everybody equally. And as long as a law is not arbitrary, in any sense, and taking sides, then it was a legitimate law. But now, if you have a democracy, instead of having just a nation of laws and going by the rule of law, what you have is it's whatever a majority says our rights are, it's whatever a majority says the law is, and it could be a simple majority at that. And that's not what our founders wanted. That's why they put in all these checks and balances and, and separation of powers because they didn't want any one person or any any one entity of government to have too much power and that's, and that's where we're at. And if there's just if that's the one thing that I think is a huge fallacy is bringing back that we're a constitutional republic because there is a big difference. I think a lot of people think that those terms are even interchangeable, but they're not, they're not. Here here,

Brian Nichols  45:03  
we have a few more questions for you, Patrick. And I want to talk about something I think a lot of folks have had top of mind. And that is you look at the world right now and the ideas of like manners and civility, they're gone. And I know you've articulated in your campaign plan, the idea of bringing back and restoring these ideas of just common sense manners and civility in politics, arguing that the polarization that we see in the division there, frankly, tearing our country apart, so you're running as a third party candidate. So how would you work to bridge the the very deep partisan divide and find common ground with both Democrats and Republicans alike? In Congress?

Patrick Bohan  45:43  
You know, the thing is, is I always thought that I was kind of more of a middle ground in the sense that we'll talk about that rights aren't based on how we look and think. So I think that's our everybody has in common. And that's the government focuses on and instead of wedges between different groups in society and focusing on our diversity and what makes us different. That's not That's not what the government's about, it's not about regulating anything like that. And so I think if you focus on what Americans have in common, instead of what we have, that's different than you would think that that will get that would bring the tone of tone down. But I don't know if that that will work or not. It just seems intuitive to me, that would but I'm not so sure that that that would be the case. And again, I think it was, I think it may have been Sam Adams that said that, you know, Liberty cannot exist in the face of bad manners, when there are bad manners, your country is is is on its way out. And just like what, you know, James Madison said about democracies, you know, if we truly are trying to emulate more of a democracy, well, they don't last long. You know, it may be 100 years or a couple 100 years, but it's not going to be as long as if we had a constitutional republic. And if we have bad manners, and we see that now, where, where I talked about the selfishness that I have this, right, but you don't have this, right. And you if you have that selfishness, and you can't look at another person and just respect and love that other person, even though you disagree with them. We're in a bad state in this country. You're just it just cannot exist that way. And that's how REITs ended up going away. And you see our government's getting involved in that, right, because they pick preferred classes of people. And what do anti discrimination laws do? They discriminate? Because it protects one group of people against it pits everybody against someone else? So we're going about things all wrong. I'm not so sure. I thought I had a good solution to it. After seeing how people receive my thing, oh, yeah, I'm not so sure that, but it seems logical to me that if you get the government at of promoting what makes us different and promote will have in common that it would bring people together. But you know, that's not what some people want to hear a few

Brian Nichols  48:27  
closing questions here, Patrick. So we've covered a vast number of topics today. I mean, we've gone through constitutional principles. We've outlined specific policy proposals. But as you're out and about and you're on the campaign trail, what are some of the top concerns that you're hearing from the words of the actual voters in Colorado seventh district? And frankly, how do you see your ideas and platform addressing those key issues?

Patrick Bohan  48:52  
Yeah, I think probably the biggest thing facing people right now is I think people are starting to are concerned about you know, the, the unsecure borders. I think even, you know, Governor, Governor, plus in our in our in our state is bringing up concerns there. But I think the still the main concern is I talked to people about how did they even survive in this economy. And I'm pretty, I'm pretty fortunate. If we keep going at the way we're going. I don't think I'll be fortunate. But I just don't know how people are surviving. And the best way to deal with the spending is to reduce or inflation is to reduce the spending, the spending, you keep flooding the economy with with money. And it just it just inflates everything and inflates prices. And I think it was I think Biden came out with a proposal for his budget and I think it was $7.3 trillion. I may be wrong. But that is that is just reading kill us. We don't bring in anywhere near that. And so our debts gonna grow. If you keep spending at this, this rate, inflation is going to get up persist at very high rates and, you know, it will never recover back to where we are. I went to the store the other day, and I bought fruit and it costs me $30. I mean, I don't know how people are surviving. So I think that's the biggest issue. And I think the only logical choice is to stop spending. But the thing is, is it just seems that the liberal solution is that they think that we could spend way out of inflation, you know, they pass the inflation Reduction Act and all these other things. And it's just, it's, it's absurd. It's

Brian Nichols  50:45  
like an alcoholic, saying, you know, I always feel like my hangover goes away, when I take an extra sip of alcohol the next day hair or the dog, right, but no, you're just making the problem worse. And that's exactly what we're seeing here today. I couldn't have said it better myself, Patrick. Um, how about this, we are going to the last question I have for you. And that is your slogan for your campaign. And I think the audience can guess it restoring our founders vision. So as we wrap up this conversation, what does that slogan mean to you? And when you're making your closing message to the voters, and you're talking about restoring this vision that you believe is so critical to the future of America? What are you seeing as kind of the captivating moment that voters are going to actually get on board with the idea of restoring this true founders vision? Yeah, I,

Patrick Bohan  51:39  
the problem is with that slogan is I think that a lot of people aren't really too versed on our history anymore. And so maybe a little bit to overcome, but it's truly what I want to emulate. I think, like I said, I thought we have an enemy, then because politicians, you know, are not protecting the Constitution. They're, they're protecting themselves and not protecting and defending the Constitution. And that's the rove. And I think that I want to get across to people that the federal government was never meant for all this. Spec, it was meant to be a very limited role. If you look at Article One, Section Eight, very few grants of power for the federal government is expanded beyond recognition. And it's just not sustainable. The debts not just sustainable the. And so I think I went uphill battle and trying to explain that and then articulate that, and in some ways, but I thought, I don't think people really realize how brilliant our founders were. You know, if you look at things like, say, religious liberty or gun rights, well, why didn't they put in the right to self defense instead of guy? Why didn't they put in self preservation? Because our founders knew if any of our self defense rights would be attacked and regulated by the government, it would be gun rights. We know why they why they put religious liberty and what about our right to conscious thought all of our beliefs? Again, it's the same thing our founders put put religious liberty in the Constitution, because, you know, if there was anything going to be regulated, any of our belief systems, it would be, it would be our religious liberty. And if you think about it makes a lot of sense. Because, you know, the America was formed, basically people escaping religious persecution in Europe. So yeah, I think I think I have an uphill battle with that message. But as being a libertarian, that's an uphill battle to start out with. So part is going to be trying to educate people, and and hopefully I could get educated and what what are people's concerns about what the message is that I have? And so maybe, you know, things evolve as we go. But we'll say, Well,

Brian Nichols  54:16  
hey, that's why we have a show here dedicated to leading votes, educated, enlightened and informed. So, you know, I think education is absolutely one of the key components of not just like getting people to be on board with a different message, but also getting people to understand why that message is important. So Patrick, thank you for bringing that libertarian message as a part of your campaign to the voters of the seventh district. They're in Colorado and to the folks who are listening today. And maybe they're in your district and they want to learn more. where can folks go ahead, reach out, continue the conversation, but most importantly, support your campaign.

Patrick Bohan  54:55  
You can get information on campaign at Patrick bow hand BOE Jn, pa t. Ri CK Patrick Bohannan. Altogether calm and a Twitter on that. My handle is Patrick bow hand for the number four. And on Facebook on that patch Patrick bow hand for Congress. So those are my main outlets. fan

Brian Nichols  55:23  
tastic All right, folks, well, your call to action today if you are in the seventh district or heck, you are inspired by Patrick's campaign, I'm going to ask you to go ahead and not only give the episode a share, but please go give some dollars towards Patrick's campaign. We want to be able to see changes that are for the better here in this country. It requires us to have candidates who are for the better. And I firmly believe that Patrick is one of them. So folks, please go ahead support Patrick, all the links will be in the show notes for today's episode. Patrick. It's been an absolutely great conversation. Thank you for joining us. Any final words for the ises wrap things up today?

Patrick Bohan  55:59  
No, I just appreciate you having me. And I appreciate the chance to, you know, speak my mind. Because the only way I found that I could speak my mind when it comes to politics and have people listen to you and hear you actually to try to run for office. And it shouldn't be that way people that answer correspondence. But it's not that way.

Brian Nichols  56:21  
It's true, though. I mean, love them or hate them. Vivek Ramaswamy was successful because he was running for office. And now there's a million plus probably more than that folks out there who heard a message for the first time that they hadn't heard before. And that's, frankly, what's exciting about having candidates of all political persuasions, when they are in fact champions of liberty. Because once you change one person's mind, it's a lot easier to then change other people's minds. Because yes, the seeds you plant today might not grow into the tree that you want to enjoy the shade in tomorrow. But you know, who will generations from now? So we're playing a long game and it takes folks like Dr. Ron Paul, like Vivek Ramaswamy. And yes, like you, Patrick bow hand. So thank you for joining us here on the show, folks, if you got some value by way there. Yeah, what will get you there? Don't worry, folks, if you enjoy today's episode, please do me a favor, go ahead and give it a share. When you do tag yours truly at B nickels liberty on both Facebook, as well as on xx.com. If you're listening to the show, or watching the show, just know that the other version is available. So podcast versions, Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube music, and for the YouTubes Rumball, Facebook and Twitter. We have your video version of the show over on those platforms as well. And one final ask and that is to please support the folks who support us here at The Brian Nichols Show. And that is our phenomenal sponsors. So if it's you know, like our great cardio miracle studio sponsor, heck, we have a brand new sponsor over at Indy Emporium, and they're brand new Michael Scott 2024 shirts. So go ahead and check them out. Plus, we have some other sponsors like the wellness company, evils, CBD, and more, please go ahead and support them because they are the folks who support us. And one final thing that is again, a reminder, please go ahead and support amp America very excited to be part of the amp America team. And also check out that awesome article I wrote over there last week with a yes Javier Malay President of Argentina. Why are all these libertarian publications, libertarian publications going after Javier Malay I had some thoughts on it. Of course I did. Go ahead and check those out over at amp america.com. That's all we have for you today. Patrick, any final words for the audience? No,

Patrick Bohan  58:32  
just just thank you. And I appreciate and I appreciate anybody listening to sign on. That's great. Love

Brian Nichols  58:39  
it. All right, folks. Well, you heard your call to action now go vote and more importantly, help make America free again. With that being said Brian O'Neill signing off here in The Brian Nichols Show for Patrick Bo Han. We'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai