 So I feel like a fish out of water, not a lawyer. I'm now gonna make my comments about what judges should or shouldn't do. I have no clue. I have no clear opinion about that. I'm really gonna address here more the political philosophy aspect of this and the economic aspect of this. I think the reason I've been invited here is because I might be the only one who can make Professor Epstein seem like a moderate. My pleasure. So I'm gonna take the common sense approach that Todd I think initially started off with where you eat economic protectionism is a legitimate state interest. No, that seems quite self evident. That seems quite obvious. Put aside constitutionality, this state has no interest, should have no interest in establishing monopolies or in, in my view, any kind of economic activity. And this really begs the question of what is the wall of the state? What is the wall of government? And this may be Hawkins back to yesterday's panel more than it does to today's. But what is the purpose of government? Is really the answer from a political philosophy perspective one has to answer in order to figure out whether economic protectionism is a legitimate state interest. If the wall of government is to hand out favors and to hand out the, to divvy up the social pie in a way that seems legitimate to legislatures or to avoid some kind of democratic process, then sure, government can do anything. But is that the wall of government? Should that be the wall of government? And was that the intention at least of some of the founders of this particular country? And I would argue the answer to all of those is no. The wall of government is to protect individual liberties. I think the founders are quite clear in the Declaration of Independence about what that wall is. It's to protect our rights, our individual rights, our individual rights, the life, liberty. I wish there was property there, but property and the pursuit of happiness. It is to leave us free, to protect our freedom. To protect our freedom, to engage in voluntary activities that do not impose coercion, that do not impose force, that do not impose authority over other people. Ideally, that is it. That means the voluntary exchange, voluntary transactions in an economic sense should be protected under economic liberty, should be protected as any other voluntary exchange. And should be immune from state regulation, any state regulation and any state control. The wall of government is in the economic sphere to intervene when fraud occurs, when there is, we're clearly people using coercion in their economic transactions, but otherwise to leave the economy alone. Richard Epstein yesterday said that free markets cannot be improved upon. That is absolutely right, but it's not just right from the perspective of social welfare, a term that I'm dubious about. It's a philosophical legitimacy, but also, but certainly it is a truth from an economic perspective in terms of maximizing economic wellbeing, but it also is a truth in terms of free markets cannot be improved upon, in terms of individual liberties, in terms of our ability to pursue our own happiness. Markets are acquired in order for us to be able to pursue our own happiness. And the wall of government is to preserve those markets or to protect those markets from the initiation of force by the Bernie Madoffs of the world. And it's worth noting, just as an aside, when we talk about regulation, that of course Bernie Madoff was not, the government failed in its ability to protect us from a Bernie Madoff. The SCC, which was already mentioned, failed to actually catch Bernie Madoff and do anything to stop his massive fraud. It was family members who actually ultimately discovered his fraud. And I would argue that to a large extent, the SCC was unable to catch Bernie Madoff because they were too busy monitoring me and people like me who are legitimate actors in the financial market, the SCC is doing so many things, it can't catch the crooks. And in most cases, the crooks are not caught on financial markets. Instead, there's plenty of prosecution over all kinds of insignificant details and insignificant violations of the rules. So in my view, in the economic realm, the only role of government is to define property rights and protect them. Basically that's it and protect us from these fraud. Now, I wanna say a little bit of economic consequences just to beef up this idea of free markets cannot be improved upon because they cannot. If one just looks at history before the existence of any kind of protection of property rights and any kind of free markets, existence of free markets or any kind of existence of economic liberty, we will all do it to poor. I mean, all of us would do it to poor. It is only the protection of economic liberty that led to economic success, to economic prosperity, to economic thriving, to the massive economic growth that was the 19th century, a 19th century that had very little state intervention, some but very little state intervention is compared to today in terms of economic liberties. And I think, again, Professor Epstein yesterday mentioned 1870 to 1940, I would say probably 1930, 1870 to 1930 as a period of massive economic boom, a massive economic success in the United States to a large extent because that is the freest period, not just in American economic history, you're probably in world economic history for any country, any place at any time. But if that is not proof enough, then all one has to do is look around the world and observe clearly that those states, those countries that have allowed for economic liberty, that have protected property rights, that have restrained the state from intervening in economic activities, have succeeded, have flourished, have created wealth, have extended life, have done wonderful things for human being, that economic liberty pays off and it pays off quickly and incredibly effectively and it's so tragic and sad that whether it's the fault of legislatures, the courts, the constitution, whatever, it is so sad that economic liberty has been in such massive decline in the United States and we have been moving away from economic liberty for such a long time and the consequences, I think of that all around us, the consequences are low, slow economic growth, low wage growth increased or decreased, significant decrease social mobility, economic mobility, all the things that are obvious from an economic economist's perspective, once you institute licensing laws, once you institute minimum wages, once you institute all kinds of economic interventions in the economy and protectionist policies, you're going to, the result is going to be massive dead weight losses, massive economic constraints, massive economic slowdown and that's exactly what we've been experiencing for a very long time and if we don't start turning the ship around, it's going to get a lot worse. Thank you. Well, I think we did spoil Eden or at least as close as humanity has come to Eden, so I don't think you have to believe that the funny fathers who were already geniuses and did so much, got everything right. I don't think they did. We have the benefit of 250 years of hindsight, so we can look back and say, maybe Hamilton was wrong about the bank and about tariffs, although you can't say that these days about tariffs. Is that a musical? Yeah, so he's got a musical and we've got a president who agrees with them on tariffs. So again, my role here is not to talk about what judges can or cannot do, but to appeal to you as law students, I think law students, I think lawyers, I think play a disproportionate role in setting the direction of a country, not just as judges, not just in your function as lawyers, but just as intellectual leaders within your communities, as intellectual leaders within the world in which you live. And I think it is good for you once in a while to hear some opinions that don't just come from the perspective of we're gonna treat the Constitution as the truth, but rather let's look at what is the truth and if the Constitution needs to be amended and to fix it, you know, one day maybe we'll get to the point where we can do that, at least I would like to believe that day is possible. Suddenly the Constitution has been amended in the past and I think when it comes to economic liberties, I think the founders left a lot on the table that can be fixed in amendment and approved upon. But to do that, one has to engage in education first, one has to first have people who actually believe that economic liberty is important and that economic liberty is an important personal liberty and is an important part of what it means to have the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. And that is, I think, what the Federalist Society is partially all about. It's about that educational process. So I would encourage you to sometimes go out of the bounds of just talking about this case or that case. I find it weird, I guess, we talked about this, about how this is so morbid. It's all about funeral homes and so on. And to really think more philosophically, more broadly and more economically about what should the policies be, not just what they are. And to question some of the democratically, I mean, there's a lot sense in which the Constitution is trying to protect us from democracy and I think that's something we have lost. And I'm not a big fan of majority rule, of conventional majority rule democracy. The majority is often, I'd say almost always wrong. And part of the Constitution is there to protect us from that. Maybe that's a point of view that needs to be resurrected and thought about state legislatures and voters do and say a lot of really, really, really bad stuff. And we should fight against it. Thank you. Can I just make just a brief comment? I mean, I think that, I think that Todd is not cynical enough about the political process or the regulatory agency process. I mean, the idea that regulatory agencies are not captured and the idea that regulators don't then go work for the industry and they are not motivated by incentives created there. I think it's naive, I think that's just not the evidence suggests that regulatory agencies are just as captured as politicians are, if not more so. But this is, I think, the principle. The principle is that once you allow the political process to engage in where it should not engage, to bring the full weight and force of the course of power of government into voluntary economic transactions. Once that is allowed, we can quibble about which agency should restrain it the most. But none of them do, none of them do. And that's why these powers have only increased and the involvement of state and federal governments have only increased in the economy have not decreased. There are short periods like the Jimmy Codd administration of all administrations where there was some deregulation. But it was indeed short lived and in other realms the regulations increased even during that period. So, again, I think one has to solve these kind of problems. One has to look at some kind of principle. And at the margin, we can make it less imposing here or there. But unless we actually advocate a principle of economic liberty, we're not gonna move the needle much over the longer. Yes, in that same vein, there's an important Texas case from the Texas Supreme Court called Patel authored by now Judge Willett and Justice Willett. And he goes through the analysis to the federal and Texas constitutions but ultimately decides that the judiciary has a role to get involved there because liberty pre-exists the sovereign and the only legitimate goal of the sovereign is to secure that liberty that pre-existed it. And so that is his role. That's where he sees the judiciary's role there. And so what I'm wondering is if you agree with that, if you find any merit in that and that he looks past the idea of the federal and state constitutions but what pre-existed each of their ratifications? Sounds like one for you, Ron. I mean, I certainly agree with that. You know, I think the most important document here is the declaration rather than a constitution. I think the idea of an indelible right, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should guide every decision that, you know, that I think it should have framed the constitution more explicitly and I think it should guide every decision. That is ultimately what the courts are there to protect. They're there to protect the individual liberty of individuals to pursue their lives, to engage in action, to act based on their values free of coercion, free of force, free of impediment. Now, that science fiction for me to believe that more judges would take up that view and I won't be surprised if that's overturned but that is the core. The core is all we as individuals free. All we as individuals right to act as long as there's no coercion to act in volunteer exchange without the interference of other people and without the interference of the state. That is a fundamental question that needs to be answered and I think the answer is yes, we should be free and that most laws, almost all regulations if not all regulations are therefore anti-individual liberty and therefore should be wiped off the books.