 okay okay dad we're gonna we're gonna do a little libertarian interview now since you're kicking this off with politics tell me what you're doing right now I'm voting for all the Republicans that are on his ballot yeah okay but what so your mom are voting early voting this is early voting they mail it to our house because we're senior citizens don't have to go out there fight the line but you're but you're you're taking your time on a Thursday afternoon to vote right yes why because both of our sons were sleeping and totally bored with us so we decided we come out and do something but why do you think voting is worthwhile why do you think it's not just asking your question what you say earlier about your civic duty and all that because I want to have someone in there who I think can run our government properly yeah but you don't think you're going to make a difference to you well if everybody felt like that no one voted we'd have a we would have a another adult Hitler or maybe another Putin Russia running our country their point maybe the military we say okay we're just gonna point one of our commanders to run our country okay yeah I don't want that I don't want to have a military government I've heard that line of reasoning before okay no I don't think it really makes a lot of sense but I appreciate it doesn't make sense to a libertarian well different libertarians think different ways something you should maybe the problem I don't know all libertarians think the same way I guess because it's a new philosophy I don't mind what do you think why wouldn't libertarians kind of want to unite are you are you guys in the business to change the form of government that we have well I don't know what's going in different directions oh dad let's see how would I put that it's complicated topic but if you recall when I first voted in 1984 when I was 18 my first vote was for Reagan but I was registered Democrat if you remember why I was registered Democrat you remember why yeah you were registered Democrat because I kind of insisted that she registered you were always a Democrat but you're voting you just said you're voting Republican what that means I'm a registered Democrat I haven't taken you're still registered as a Democrat no yes I am you're kidding why did you never change it it's true but you're voting right you hey it doesn't make any difference what I'm registered it's where yeah you can't vote in the Republican primaries if you're not registered I can you can yes in Louisiana you can oh okay no why don't there is need to get more information man you're right you start the interviews well we take it we grab when we can okay let me ask you something my libertarian son if there's six candidates on here for a state board of elementary and set secondary education and you don't know any of them yeah what would you do leave it out or would you vote for somebody just out of the clear blue are they by are they by party Republican Republican Libertarian oh Jason France libertarian I'd vote for the libertarian or since I don't know anybody else I think I would all right good good all right good I feel man I yeah he's my man why would you vote libertarian because they're tend to be better than Republicans why because they're libertarians that I'm around although for what is it for school board member of the state board of elementary and secondary as you can I don't really know what he's gonna do what the hell they do yeah I don't know no one does I'm not too worried about now assessing I would I voted I used to go I would vote libertarian whenever there was one and if there wasn't I'd vote Republican unless basically what I'm unless I knew something I hate to say this but there's not be one libertarian on this entire ascension parish ballot oh that's just is that just ascension parish what about the what about governor this is state no this is state well wait wait wait wait wait what about I guarantee there's a libertarian for governor let me see I don't think so well there's a there's a burl bill out this is no party the yacht there's a Jeremy Odom this is no party mm-hmm there's a Eric Paul Osher on it says other I don't know I don't know what other means communist mother mommy not always say kill a commie for mommy that is let me see that ballot that I can't believe that I'm probably violating federal law by looking at this let's see here governor Republican no party Democrat Democrat no party David Vitter huh well maybe they didn't get ballot access and maybe the Republican libertarian is one of the others I don't know hold on a second here mom you hold this camera just pointed me I'm gonna do a little web search real quick and see who the Republican candidate is for the libertarian candidate for governor Louisiana mom put your fingers in the way take your finger there you go okay let's see here Louisiana governor libertarian candidate okay yeah you'll have these six right or not yeah you're doing all right I'm just trying to see who the raise it up so he sees tough he's here yeah that's good it must be a libertarian party of Louisiana are you supposed to be making a keynote speech at it I know I need to I need to bone up on my Louisiana politics libertarian party Louisiana hold on a second we're gonna figure this out okay you're gonna vote libertarian if I can find the guy I'm voting now well wait hold on for me well you can vote for mom can vote for it keeps saying David Vitter is he a little libertarian I give up I've heard of Vitter but I don't know much about him but um okay so dad do you remember one time when I was a teenager like maybe 14 and we were having dinner and you started getting agitated about the communists yeah and I started laughing because I thought you were exaggerating and you really lost it I know but you were like kind of like in a communist conspiracy plot rage so you so you don't like communists and you don't like Democrats but your register Democrat all right who would you prefer David Duke or Edwin Edwards when they ran against each other you voted for the crook the thug versus the crook what about the current election we got Trump kind of a thug I'm just saying we have who do you like in the election you like Hillary Clinton or Trump who would you pick okay Biden or Clinton how come okay Bernie Sanders are killer Clinton okay what about on the Republican side which one do you which one do you think would be right now I'm leaning I like Marco Rubio I like Carly Periani yeah I like Ted Cruz maybe you like them I like what they say I like the way they sound I like their track records you think you like how they want to start more wars with other countries they haven't said that oh really all they've said is they want to strengthen our military you don't think our military strong enough biggest kid on the block we already are the biggest kid you understand our military is like bigger than the top next 19 combined or something no it's not that's really that's false well who's bigger than us where where's your information this is like where could I go to get that it's widely known dado what about who hold on hold on mom hold the camera all right I'll find it for you I got it where would you go to find it just you do you go please don't go to the Pentagon no you just do let's see size of military by nation by country military spending you really need strength of military well you gotta have some okay this is listed countries by military expenditure here's a here's a chart what that's something you spend 600 billion dollars a year on the military the next biggest is China 200 one third of us Russia's at about 100 billion one sixth of what we spend and the other ones that are big why are they pushing us around in the Middle East that's but that's okay that's a different subject they're not pushing who's Russia yeah Russia's put Putin is pushing Obama around like a little kid well they have their own interest in will ISIS and we have our interests what do you want you want a new pressure president I said do you want to nuke Russia no I don't want to leave us alone well they are leaving us alone they're not over here are they well let me tell you how I feel about the Putin's ideas and supporting Assad in Syria versus Obama's idea trying on the door yeah I like to support it so now you like you know when when Bush got rid of Hussein in Iraq that opened up a can of worms it's been chaos over there ever since I don't care about their human rights records they had their country under control there was no such thing as ISIS the Taliban was screwing around over there trying to get a little power but every time they try to do something we're saying we're crushing yeah but all the other side we're crushing all I'm we trying to see we're gonna throw a side out Obama wants to throw a side out but he doesn't know who's gonna take that place but all these Republicans you're talking about want to go intervene again overseas this is what got us in trouble in Iraq intervening intervening why don't we just call our troops home and mind our own business right you like that mom that's why you letting dad vote for you he's gonna vote the wrong way well what do you mean our current president he's been less we're like president wants to just back out of everything let him push us around but you let him take all that all in the Middle East and we'll we'll be isolated why don't so then they're gonna come over and they're gonna take us you would you like to be controlled by ISIS I don't know that's like that's like Sanders versus Clinton who would I rather Isis or Barack Obama hmm that's a tough choice so I'm voting for a guy named Jason France let me know I don't know these people's area really for what office well you need to call him up and tell him that you know you're at my house and I just voted for him that you could be the keynote speakers the libertarian convention in April it's probably illegal for him to give you a payment for that vote though so okay well most people want money okay no no so here's my question for you do you when do you guys remember that I got into politics when when did you get into politics your life no second year in LSU really you don't know when you up there and all the podiums free speech alley yeah you don't remember you don't remember when I was in 11th grade at Catholic high and Miss Reinhardt got me reading iron rand and the fountain head and I started getting the philosophy and all that then yes I do remember well that she was the one she's one that did that mm-hmm is that good or bad who can say who can say no do you remember what you said when I said I was switching from engineering and I was going to law school remember what I said mm-hmm probably oh shit you weren't happy you come out said oh well I showed decision what did I say you were like why why I think I knew why you'd already been in two interviews and you came back completely disgruntled what you did you went to your first interview if I remember right it was either Texas instrument of boring I don't remember which one was first TI and it wasn't Boeing it was general dynamics okay so you went to TI first and you came back and you said the cubicle was too little in your room be just a little bit expect it part of this big enormous I don't remember saying that but that sounds right I don't remember that at all so you said I'm gonna go get my master's so you went to your master's and you went interviewing boy no general dynamics dynamic and you came back and I said well how did it go you said the only difference between having a master's degree and a BA degree is that the cubicle is about four inches wider in each direction really I said that yeah I don't remember that being my motivation at all completely disenchanted with engineering engineering huh so then you said law school so I said you want the law school and so halfway through law school or two thousand signs going up I was about the time I tore my shoulder up playing tennis and you came up to me one day and you put your hand on my shoulders and then a few years I'll be able to fix your shoulder. Oh I was messing with you? Oh I was gonna be an orthopedic surgeon? Yeah you meant that. No I was never gonna be that was a temporary flirtation orthopedic surgery. Was it really? No I never regret not becoming a doctor. Hell no. Oh no. You think that would have been a mistake? Oh yeah. Are you happier now being a lawyer? Yes by far. Okay. Oh are you finding any satisfaction at all in being a patent lawyer? Yeah it's it's it's been a challenging career. It's not boring. No it's not boring there's always new inventions and it's not boring at all. If you had to if you had to sustain yourself being a patent lawyer financially in Houston could you do it? Absolutely. What kind of income would you have a year? Oh it depends on it depends on what kind of firm you work out how many hours a week and all that. You work for yourself you're doing patent law now aren't you? Yeah. So how much money are you making a year working for you? This is going on the internet I can't say but it's okay yeah it's it's it's it's it's it's pretty good put it that way. That's all it counts. So what makes me happy is that you think that I've been preaching to you and Mike ever since you're old a little is whatever you do do something that makes you happy that you like to do. You don't dread the work. When you started out in engineering I couldn't for a while when you came back from the first interview I said well that might have been bad advice on my part but I didn't really promote you in engineering. I think he just kind of felt like engineering was the place to go. Why did you pick electrical engineering over chemical engineering? Because I like computers and I didn't like chemistry. That's a good answer. Good reason. So the bottom line is you're happy doing what you're doing. Sure. I'll rest my case. That's all it counts. But in retrospect I would do something I would do some things differently if I'd known. It worked out really well but I probably would have tried to get into MIT. I probably would have tried to go to Harvard. I probably would have looked into international law at first. Maybe international I don't know maybe lived in Europe for a year in school something like that. Those things didn't occur to me. Harvard and MIT are very good schools. They have good reputations. That's probably where some of the elite people in this country come from. Not too many come from LSU right? No I don't think that's true. You get successful people from all over. You never know where they're gonna come from. The fact that LSU law is the only school in the nation I think that teaches Napoleonic code. Well Loyola and Tulane do too to some extent. That's because of Louisiana's school. Yeah. But there's no schools out of Louisiana to teach that right? I don't think so. I think there's like Columbia or some of the others have a Roman law component or something. That's more academic and scholarly but no yeah of course the Louisiana schools focus on that. That's what I'm gonna talk about in my speech for the Libertarian Party Convention in April in Louisiana. Is that right? Yeah. The Louisiana code. Partly. Partly. Partly. Yeah. Louisiana system. That you're gonna do a good job out of this. Tie that into the goals of the Libertarian Party. Yeah yeah the tie is that there's a certain understanding of the kind of legal system we should have in a free society and legislation is not generally the way to go. Like the way to make law should not be by legislation by a bunch of guys sitting up in a committee voting on what the law is gonna be. In the old days it would have the court system a common law system or a Roman law system. With judges hearing cases hearing the sides of both parties and making a decision and then gradually that law develops based on that. They could only decide the matter before them. They can't make the law. Well they could maybe make law a little bit between those parties but even then if it was outrageous then the judges that came after them wouldn't have to follow it. So there's kind of a natural limit on how far they could go and they can't just legislate from the bench. So they just have to basically decide who's right in this case A or B. And over time that develops a body of rules that most people think is common sense and works works fine. You know what happened in Ban Rouge this past week? We have a judge Pamela White who overturned a jury's sentencing of a convicted kill. Okay. He was sentenced to 30 years. He's been in jail for five years so she looked at the records looked at the jury's decision and looked at everything and she commuted 25 years of his sentence and let him out on her own. The jury found him guilty and the jury sentenced him to a maximum sentence of 30 years. For what crime? Murder. Well now she looked at it and she said well he was intoxicated at the time. You didn't know for sure what he was doing. So I'm gonna take 25 years off of his sentence and let him out of jail. She did that. It's probably more complicated than that. I don't know the details but the basic idea is that the state is very powerful and dangerous and so you want to have the state have the burden of proof to put someone in jail right? So one thing we have is we have the Constitution. We have civil rights. We have the rule against double jeopardy. We have the rule against being incriminating yourself the Fifth Amendment right? We also have the right to jury trial which means you have the right to have a jury of your peers and you also have the right for the judge to look at the law. So if the jury sets you free you're free. If the judge sets you free you're probably free. So there's all these hurdles the government has to overcome to put people in jail and that's a good thing because the the big danger is not these random criminals but it's the government. Governments killed a lot more people than these random murderers. But does the judge have a right to overturn a jury's decision? She does. In some cases not to not to overturn it but she can release someone like for example the judge could never convict someone if the jury acquits them. That's what double jeopardy means. That's what the right to by jury trial means sorry. Okay but this is just the opposite. It is the opposite. So basically either the jury or the judge can set the guy free and that's a good thing because that means. Any time after the sentencing? No I don't know the rules probably not but yeah I think judges and the right courts can. I can't think that a jury can come back. No the jury's job is done after the trial is done but let's say five years later someone protests protesting their sentence and they prove that they were there's evidence out there that wasn't considered or the prosecutor was unfair or hid evidence or that they're actually innocent. Or they paid the judge off a couple of mills to change the ruling. Well most criminals in jail don't have a couple mills. But maybe they have families and connections to it. Well judges have to give reasons for what they're doing okay so they have to have a reason she said he was intoxicated at the time of the case. Well you know I don't know the details. Is that a reason to commute to sentence because he was drunk? I don't know but but the same the same judge you're talking about in the same court you're talking about probably puts a lot of people in prison for settling marijuana, smoking marijuana, doing things don't hurt anyone. So they're the ones that are really dangerous. He sounded like Obama. Well Obama's not. He wants to release several hundred thousand prisoners in the United States. What do you think he wants to? If he wanted to he could do it. He's going to. Oh he's not. Put him back on the street. Yes. Well he said the prisoners are overcrowded. Some of them are getting 20 and 25 years for marijuana convictions and that may be unjust. It is unjust. How many years should you get? Maybe they are pushes. Well I think what he did commute the sentence of a few the other day. A few maybe a few dozen. I forgot how many it was. And they were all reviewed and they were all nonviolent. There was no other crimes involved and low level etc. And they had crazy sentences. Well why are these blacks killing each other black on black crime in all of these inner-city areas because of marijuana? Well because we have a well dad do you remember do you remember when we had prohibition in the country alcohol? I understand. Okay so you remember Al Capone and all the okay so we have a drug war because it's illegal. Well don't you think that the government making drugs illegal is why we have a drug war? I mean don't you think the easy way to stop the drug war would be to legalize drugs? Well in prohibition days the mafia will kill each other over those things and now the blacks are killing each other over the same thing. That's true. So why don't we just legalize marijuana and cocaine and heroin and be done with it? Free up resources? The cops can focus on real crime? Well if a guy is high on heroin and he runs into your family and kills them well how do you feel about that? Well make that it make that illegal then but you don't need to make the general. Wait a minute well you got to draw a line between making something illegal and illegal. Well draw the line a little bit closer to you know what the real danger is. So if a guy is high on heroin and sugar alcohol and he runs into your family and kills them they make any different what he's on. Right he's hurting someone because of his own negligence basically. So it's considered manslaughter. It could be voluntary involvement it could be a necklace what do you call it reckless negligent homicide vehicular manslaughter. Well it wouldn't be first degree murder okay because he didn't intend to do it ahead of time it would be some type of homicide depends on the state's criminal code. Well I did vote libertarian on this one issue well that's good. Jason France remember his name. I hope he wins. What's he running for? Member of the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Well probably unlikely there's not a lot of libertarian voters out here but what the heck. I think he's the only he's the only little boy I've seen on the ballot son. You guys got to get on a stick. Didn't you run for something in Texas or something like that. Now Court of Criminal Appeals. Court of Criminal Appeals. That's like the Supreme Court in Texas. Texas has a Supreme Court for civil matters and the Court of Criminal Appeals for criminal matters. So there's two Supreme Courts in Texas in a way. But that didn't work because people aren't. Well I didn't get elected. I didn't go to Austin. I'm really sorry about that. Especially when I was calling my mother and children that. I didn't vote for my son. I was the best on the ballot and y'all didn't have something up to realize it. Well I didn't campaign very much so I can't believe it. If you were in the state of Louisiana citizen and you could vote on this do you support an amendment to authorize the investment of funds for a state infrastructure bank to be used solely for transportation projects? I don't understand. I'd have to study that but probably no. Do you support an amendment to authorize the investment of funds for a state investment of funds? No. Let me tell you why I'm going to vote no for this. Back when Edmond Edmond was governor we approved a 4 cent per gallon sales tax on gasoline for road improvement and that money was supposed to be dedicated to road improvement. Yeah. That money ended up disappearing. Okay. Why shouldn't this money end up disappearing? Okay I guess that's a good reason of any. So that deserves a no. All right. You voting for mom too? Yeah mom's gonna vote with me. Mom do you? Yeah we vote together baby. We don't separate. You never voted separate. Do you support an amendment? This is this one now. Constitutional amendment number three. Do you support an amendment to allow any legislation regarding the dedication of revenue rebates and taxes? To be considered during a fiscal legislative session. Wait say it again? So damn complicated. Let me read it. Let me read it. Where is it? Right here. Do you support an amendment to allow any legislation regarding the dedication of revenue? God I don't know what that means. Yeah that is complicated. Looks like what they're talking about is there's a certain revenue stream they want to dedicate it to some purpose so I don't know. I guess I'd vote against no on anything I didn't understand. Yeah. That's exactly what I'm doing. Why can't they make this where a layman can understand what they're trying to say? Because they don't want to get it passed. All right we're gonna call it. This is some lawyer writing these things. It's not a lawyer. It's politicians. Don't confuse them with lawyers. Well most politicians are lawyers. Well most politicians are white males too so what? Do you support an amendment to specify that the add below on property tax exemption for public lands and other public property shall not apply to land or property owned by another state or a political subdivision of another state?