Think Local Act Local with Eric Rowell

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Welcome to conversations that matter podcast. My name is John Harris, and I have a guest with me today Eric Rao who is

00:06

Well, he's a local attorney in North Carolina and he's gotten involved with local politics.

00:12

We met at a conference I don't know what a year and a half ago or so and One of the things that Eric does which impressed me and why something

00:21

I want to share with my audiences he really does take to heart the The the adage think local and act local and I'm gonna read you a quote from Eric before He gets on and starts talking about some of his activities on the local level politically

00:36

But he said in 2016 the most depressing aspect of the presidential election isn't the candidates we have to choose from But how many individuals seem to believe the next president will have a greater impact on their lives than the impact each

00:51

Individual can have on his or her own life Start learning more about your local government prior to municipal elections next year if you want to make a difference in the election with a real impact on your life and Man, I thought that was just such a good way to to put that oftentimes we can get really frustrated with national politics and we want to Go online and say something about what's happening nationally when actually our voice means a lot more on the local level

01:18

And so I'm gonna give the floor to Eric Eric. Thanks for joining me Thanks for having me really appreciate this

01:26

I know you do a lot of good work on the podcast and you've had a lot of a lot of big name zones I appreciate you carving out a few minutes for me.

01:33

Yeah. Well Eric, you know You're doing something that a lot of big names aren't doing and that's getting involved on the local level and that's much more

01:41

Accessible for someone who wants to actually make a difference. So can you take me through your story a little bit?

01:48

How did you get involved in Huntersville, North Carolina with local politics? And and take me through a few of the accomplishments maybe that that you see that you think wow that that was something

02:00

I never thought I would do but here here it is. It happened Yeah, sure,

02:06

John. I mean I for a long time now I have been pushing folks to get involved locally.

02:12

It's clearly in my opinion where you can have the most impact So I started out like a lot of folks just kind of a traditional

02:19

I guess a Republican You know never really super involved in college in law school

02:28

I started getting a little more involved with you know, college Republicans and things like that But it was not until well after law school.

02:37

I think that I really started focusing on the local and So when

02:43

I'm when I got a law school my first job was at a in a small town and I started paying attention to what was going on in the small town sort of reading the local paper actually wrote for the local paper for a very short amount of time due to some legal threats that were made against some of the folks in town against the paper, but That was that was a very

03:06

I think eye -opening experience for me because I was able to have an actual impact locally in that small town in South Carolina And the example

03:15

I always give is the town Decided that it was a good idea to buy or to look into buying a local golf course that had kind of become run -down

03:27

Membership was dropping and for some reason the town thought it was going to be a good idea And me and another gentleman spoke out against this at a town board meeting

03:36

And again, this is a very small town in South Carolina. So you have a I think it was a five -member town board with the mayor

03:42

Very very few people Pay attention or show up at local board meetings so when one person or actually in this case, it was two when two people show up to speak out against a

03:54

An item that's actually a big deal. It makes a big impact and In part because of my efforts and me writing about this and speaking out against at the town ultimately decided to shelve that measure and Subsequently the golf course was purchased by a private

04:11

Entity and has now since turned around The golf course, they've made a lot of improvements invested a lot of money in it

04:18

It's a really nice golf course now and thankfully the town never had to spend taxpayer money to get involved

04:24

So that that for me was really the start of my think local act local Involvement and you know,

04:31

I always I'm a big fan. I know like I know you are. Dr. Brian McClanahan So I like to say that, you know,

04:38

I've been thinking local and acting local since before it was cool since before you know Dr. McClanahan has made it so popular

04:45

But after my time in South Carolina, I moved back to North Carolina and relocated to Charlotte and Continued to focus on the local

04:55

You know, I don't know what point I You know solely devoted myself to local issues, but you know,

05:02

I always kind of say The folks in Raleigh and the folks in Washington DC just really

05:08

Don't really are not going to listen to me You know, I can I can send those emails to my senators and my representatives in Congress.

05:16

I can even send Emails to the folks in Raleigh the folks in DC really have no

05:23

They don't care at all what most of us have to say Now the folks in Raleigh actually, you know,

05:28

I do know my former state senator Former state rep. I actually do know them the my current state rep.

05:35

I have met a few times know her and so I guess to some extent the folks in Raleigh would listen to what

05:42

I have to say because I've built a platform locally, but but but still to a much lesser extent than the folks locally and so You know when

05:54

I moved to Charlotte, I started getting involved Charlotte's a really big city But even in Charlotte the example

05:59

I always give is There was a petty cap ordinance That the

06:04

Charlotte City Council was pushing Eight nine years ago where they were trying to regulate out of town petty caps who would come in for events like Panthers games or big conventions that we would have, you know, like like the demo.

06:21

I think the Democratic Convention I believe it was maybe 2012 I don't remember but the

06:26

Dems came a few years ago and I think in the lead -up to that convention the City Council was trying to ban out of town petty cap companies who would come in and obviously the petty cabs are just the bicycle driven

06:41

Carriages that people will take around town and I spoke out against that. I went to City Council.

06:46

I spoke to my city councilman And I attended one or two City Council committee meetings on this issue and it was very interesting because one

06:56

City Council subcommittee meeting in particular always stands out You had whatever it was the

07:02

Transportation Subcommittee met, you know, two or three members of the City Council. You had a room full of folks the vast majority were in transportation industry and We went around the room and actually introduced ourselves and when it got to me, you know, it was a petty cab owner, petty cab owner, taxi cab owner, big corporate media representative, etc.

07:24

And I just said I'm just a local citizen here that's interested in anti -competitive measures And after that I had a bunch of people come up to me because they were just so confused as to why

07:34

I was there But that I was able to help significantly I think reduce the impact that that measure was going to have on competition, anti -competitive type issues here here in Charlotte And and so but again, that was me.

07:52

That was just one person speaking out on that issue And then, you know, I've now just taken that to Huntersville, which is a suburb of Charlotte Not a small town

08:02

But still small in the sense that only a handful of folks actually get involved on the, you know, local election.

08:07

You've got You know, a few old families still kind of control a lot of the the votes, so to speak

08:15

But we are we're a growing community a lot of transplants here And I'm doing my part to try to get people involved here in Huntersville You know because we have an election this year.

08:26

We have all fewer elections every two years So generally the focus is is just not there for the all fewer elections when you don't have a

08:35

You know congressional race or state house or Senate race or the presidential race? so the at least here in North Carolina the way our

08:43

Calendar works is the local elections are usually in the odd years And so a lot of times people just don't pay attention and I'm just I'm doing my part to try to change that Eric I want to get into some of the things that You've accomplished because the longest list you sent me which by the way,

08:58

I'm gonna post this if you go to worldviewconversation .com I'll post the list you sent me of some of the Accomplishments and you're not tooting your own horn

09:05

You're just saying this is what kind of an impact one person can make and as an example, I'm gonna post those on this podcast

09:15

Episode so you get a worldviewconversation .com you can find that and I want to get into some of those But I want to ask you what what what is it about local politics?

09:24

That makes that make locals not want to get involved. I mean you just kept saying over and over You know, not many people show up and so when you show up you can actually make a difference as a local citizen because no one else is there to Or if you're a few people are there to actually contradict what you're saying.

09:41

So why is that? Do you have an answer? I You know,

09:46

I can speculate. I don't really know why I think it's there are a lot of reasons especially specific to Huntersville one one reason people do not get involved for at least a

09:58

Number of years until after they've moved here is because they're coming from out of state somewhere. They're moving into town

10:04

They may not have a base of friends or family that are already involved So you're moving into a big suburb of Charlotte Charlotte You know takes up most of the space in the local paper the local news reports

10:17

Huntersville or the other suburbs make the news if there's a major crime event or some type of major Corruption in the local government.

10:24

Otherwise the vast majority of the news is Charlotte So if you're if you're new to town and you turn on the news or you open up the

10:30

Charlotte Observer It's going to 90 % of it's going to be Charlotte centric news and then you know, it's just When you're in a community and you're going to community events or you're hanging out in your neighborhood

10:45

Most of your neighbors aren't involved locally either. So, you know when you start talking politics whether it's on social media or in your neighborhood

10:53

You're either going to be talking about Charlotte or you know What the president has said or what's going on in Washington or to some extent

10:59

Raleigh? I don't really know why that's the focus because you know again like dr.

11:05

McClanahan talks about oftentimes You know the government that's closest to you is the government that has the most impact on and and as everyone knows

11:14

You know federal government has shut down a few times over the past few years and You know people kind of joke.

11:21

Well, no one notices when the federal government shuts down unless you're an actual Actual federal employee, you know you work at a park system or something like that There's very little impact of you know

11:33

The most of us feel and and same thing, you know, if your state government were to shut down Which yeah,

11:38

I don't think that's really something that happens often Generally, if a budget isn't passed you just you have measures in place to continue funding at prior levels

11:47

So the state government's don't necessarily shut down in the same way the federal government does But you know if your local government were to let's say stop working, you know, you trash probably wouldn't get picked up The water bill, you know water issues may pop up right away

12:03

You know, there are a lot of issues that may start impacting you Immediately, you know, no police.

12:09

That would be a big thing people all of a sudden maybe notice that there are no police on the streets No fire protection for a lot of towns

12:16

Depends on how your fire department is set up locally So, you know I'm just doing my part to try to make people aware that these are the issues that affect you the most and and obviously a

12:26

Big one here locally as well as property taxes You know, so most of your taxes that you're you're paying are going to be local for most of us at least

12:36

Most of us middle -class folks, you know, the big biggest portion of your your taxes are going to come from the state and local government

12:44

So, you know this this past summer when we passed a budget here in Huntersville whether or not to raise property taxes was a was a huge issue and You know, you've got trash fees you've got vehicle fees that they tack on the property taxes

12:58

So, you know, I don't really know why more people Don't get involved But but I you know,

13:04

I'm doing my part to try to change that because again the issues that impact you the most Are going to be coming usually from your local government

13:13

That's right. And it's also a stepping stone. I don't think you're using it that way necessarily but if you want to get involved with bigger or I should say more yeah, a bigger

13:24

I guess is the word I'm gonna go with bigger government issues if you want to go to Raleigh and then DC then

13:30

You're gonna have to probably Get involved at the local level at some point because not everyone's a

13:35

Donald Trump that can just go from the business world and jump To the presidency that just doesn't happen that often so So this is interesting to me.

13:44

You're a conservative guy. And so far you've given some examples that are about opposing Measures that were not fiscally conservative

13:51

But when you get to Huntersville walk me through that a little bit because yeah, there's a big list here

13:56

You sent me and there's there's a bunch of stuff including Some social justice stuff and some were

14:02

I guess socially conservative Measures that you were or against social conservative measures that you opposed and so forth.

14:10

So how did you get involved? And how can that serve as a blueprint for others who might want to do the same thing?

14:16

And then what kind of success stories do you have from getting involved there? Right. Well, I would say for me

14:23

You know, I moved into Huntersville and you know, usually when I move to a new town One of the first things

14:29

I do I register a vote Maybe get the library card signed up at the local library and then

14:36

Start looking at who is on the town board. And so That's the first thing I did here in Huntersville started checking out who the board members were

14:45

Because when I lived in Charlotte, I just I didn't I didn't really know anyone up here So once I moved up here,

14:51

I found out who the players were on the town board who the mayor was Started just trying to read the local paper

14:58

There really wasn't an online News source that focused on Huntersville We had one local blogger who does a good job of covering some of the local northern suburbs here in Mecklenburg County But no one solely devoted to Huntersville So I did the best

15:13

I could to try to get to know who the conservative players were on the town board and reached out to one in particular

15:19

Had developed a really good relationship with one particular town board member have actually helped him on Some of his campaigns over the past two years and So, you know that that's really how

15:31

I started to get involved. I Keep up with the agendas. Usually we have two town board meetings a month

15:37

So I've gotten on one of those lists to make sure that the you know The agendas are emailed to me so I can review those and then

15:45

I started writing We have a local weekly paper like a lot of towns do

15:51

No one was really covering the opinion that there was hard news coverage for local town board meetings, you know budgets, etc

15:58

But there was no one really providing any opinion on the local government and here at Huntersville We had again the local blogger that did a great job covering another small town

16:09

But you know, so I reached out to the paper it worked out wrote a column for about a year and a half Usually about once a month covering, you know

16:17

Kind of specific issues in Huntersville from a more of an opinion perspective, but a lot of it was just fact -based

16:23

So, you know one of the first things that I got in trouble for and I consider this a big success story The town of Huntersville actually kind of owned a gym and a gym slash pool and We were paying using taxpayer dollars to provide management of that facility

16:41

Paying a lot of the capital expenses and to me that jumped out immediately is Problematic.

16:47

I mean, you know, I don't think call me crazy I don't think local government should be in the business of running swimming pools and and gyms

16:54

So I started questioning that and one of the articles I wrote for the local paper just simply pointed out

17:01

Taxpayers are funding this facility in large part. The folks running that management company really were not happy Just that I pointed that fact out they in my opinion.

17:12

They like to operate under this Charade of this is a private facility

17:18

And so once people started, you know learning more about how much taxpayer funding was going into this place

17:25

Some of the local politicians some of the local town board members I think started paying a little more attention and got involved to the point where it's about two years about two years ago

17:34

It's summer of 2017. They actually brought up for a vote Finally, they they said look we've got to put out for bid the management of this facility

17:43

So, you know, it's not we may not have gotten to the point where we sold off the entire facility but at least now we're in a much better position where Taxpayers are not taxpayer dollars are not just being wasted on this facility

17:58

We've got a new management company that came in because the town board voted to bid out the management services, which was great

18:07

And so the facility is being run a lot better But again, that was one of those things initially

18:12

I was told hey, this is an issue. We really don't touch Things are going okay over there. You got a lot of the swim moms, you know, you've heard soccer moms

18:20

We have a lot of swim moms locally or happy they're voters. Let's let's keep them happy. Let's not really ruffle any feathers

18:28

Fortunately, I'm Usually don't listen to advice like that I'm pretty persistent when it comes to following up things that I probably you know

18:35

Could could maybe been better left alone but that was one of the early issues when I got involved here in Huntersville that I think

18:42

I was able to definitely make an impact on and You know again, that's something that's now and it was previously costing taxpayers

18:51

Hundreds of thousands of dollars now, we're in a position where we're at least breaking even potentially earning some income

18:58

Tell me about Because I know we talked about this. I don't know was a couple months ago.

19:03

Maybe it was last year time gets away from me, but This may not have been one of the biggest success stories you've had, but I remember

19:12

There was a social justice activist and on the public art committee What and you stopped the town from partnering with this social what so just because this is a for those who aren't

19:26

Bit big on the fiscal conservative not that they're not right, but that but social issues usually capture attention a lot more

19:33

So tell us that story. What was this? Person doing and what did you what how did you put an end to the town partnering with this individual?

19:44

I'll probably shouldn't you know talk about this too much because you know somebody may listen to this and say we got a we got to do something about that now that we know that we stop that person from getting on but Don't say something you'll regret

19:57

No, no, but this is a perfect example of again why it is so important to pay attention to what your local government is doing

20:06

You know just to give you a kind of a perspective for folks who are listening to Huntersville in North Carolina our town budget

20:12

We're roughly 35 to 40 million somewhere in that range for the effort and operating budget.

20:17

So obviously, you know compared to You know your county budget like you here in Mecklenburg.

20:23

It's about a billion dollar County budget And obviously the state budget far bigger and federal government is just you know

20:30

It's not telling how much money the federal government actually spends every year But the point is in with even with the 35 million dollar operating budget

20:39

There is so much waste and abuse and for all that takes place You know, you can spend a large portion of your week

20:47

Just focusing on the fraud and abuse that takes place in a small budget So one of the things that the town board had started looking at doing a few months back

20:57

Actually, maybe it's about a year ago that the topic of starting a public art committee came up and again, call me crazy

21:04

I don't really think that government should be involved in funding public art now, you know, some people a lot of folks you know, there are pros and cons to Public art programs and so but personally on the town level.

21:17

I was opposed to this Specifically the way it was being set up. And so The town ended up starting this it was a

21:25

I think a contested vote but the town started a public art committee under the You know under the premise that there will be no town dollars spent towards this but the thing is when anytime you have town staff that are acting as liaisons for some committee or You have town space being used.

21:42

There's always going to be resources and the way these things always start is you You know, just like the the federal income tax for an example, you know

21:50

Oh, it's only gonna it's never going to tax the middle class federal income tax is never going to impact those who are making under You know, it's just going to tax the rich right we know how that went

21:59

And so that's how that's why I think it's so important to get involved with your town government because if you can stop a lot

22:05

Of these things at the outset, then you can keep them from ballooning or growing or inflating later on because you know the

22:13

Government only grows one direction. I mean government only gets bigger government never gets smaller So what

22:18

I try to do is to start the public stop the public art committee from forming I mean look if a group of citizens wanted to get together

22:24

My suggestion was if these folks want to get together and have a private art committee that wants to meet and make

22:31

Recommendations to the town for you know art that should be funded sculptures murals in town for what you know, whatever that was fine but I didn't want the town to be directly involved and So but that was a contested vote

22:44

We lost on that and one and I started paying attention to the the minutes from these meetings and Maybe the first or second meeting there was already the suggestion that hey, let's partner with this local artist

22:58

She can come in. We've got some funding from one of the local hospitals They're going to fund, you know, they're gonna give us $40 ,000 for this this unspecified art project

23:07

I looked up this person and it was it was abundantly clear that she was a

23:12

What they call social justice warrior And so immediately I saw that this is going to be problematic that some of the themes that she was going to be pushing in Whatever art the town ended up funding

23:23

Would probably be something that a large number of citizens in town would probably either object to or have a problem with being displayed in the center of town

23:31

Because you know, this is not just going to be some piece of art Celebrating the town or the history of Huntersville and so All I did was bring to light this person's social media some of her past work and some of the themes that she's been involved with and and fortunately the town was able to Distance themselves from this person and and cut off that partnership

23:55

And again, I mean, you know I know this person is an artist and and you know A lot of artists obviously don't do what they do for free

24:02

And and so I'm not necessarily celebrating that she didn't you know, she didn't receive taxpayer funding

24:09

I just use that to point out that This is something that if you're able to get in at the ground level and you're able to stop this stuff it's a lot easier then than for this as opposed to this art being installed and Then having to take something down because then you're a censor, right?

24:26

Then the town is censoring art if we have an art some art installation put up in the middle of town

24:31

And that's one of the arguments I always made is as I said, um, you know to the town board members

24:37

Do you want to be in a position to be on the town the dais saying yes or no to certain art? I mean famously we had the the jar of urine with a cross in it

24:46

For example that I'm sure a lot of your yeah, you know listeners are from yeah are familiar with What if for example?

24:54

We have an artist here in Huntersville that provides something similar and wants to use taxpayer funding to display something like that Do you as a town board member want to be in a position to be saying yes or no to this art?

25:05

Yeah that was that was something that I was able to get involved with and we were able to stop at the public art committee still

25:10

Beats and I'm sure there will be another example of this, you know at some point But again, you know if you're involved with your town and you're and you follow the agendas you follow the committees

25:20

These are the kind of things you may be able to identify in your town. Now you you say that there's town employees that are

25:28

Concerned about the waste of taxpayer dollars, but they often can't speak out because of fear of retaliation And so you end up being a voice for residents who happen to be employees that are kind of gagged because They would write and that's kind of that's

25:43

I think why I feel a little bit of a kinship with you And I'm in a different area with at least my public presence

25:50

Where I see in this At least currently. I don't know if I'll stay here forever

25:56

I hope not but in the sort of greater evangelical world in academia there's kind of that same sense

26:03

I get messages from a lot of professors and People inside academic institutions students who are like man keep going keep saying what you're saying we feel this way, but we can't say it and and you're doing that for folks in Huntersville and So, I mean,

26:18

I'm sure they're greatly appreciative and I you have a Facebook group for 75 members

26:24

What's the name of that Facebook group? And is there a website with that as well or just the Facebook page? Well, yeah, that's that's

26:31

I guess another one of my quote -unquote accomplishments what I did is because I was never a social media person

26:37

I was on Twitter, but never on Facebook one of the few people I guess our age who had never really gotten on Facebook, but Once I got asked to leave the local paper second time up and kicked out of writing for a local paper

26:50

Because one or two guys were just advertisers. Yeah, they they may have pulled their ads from the paper

26:56

And local papers are in the business of making money. So I got asked to leave the paper

27:01

I said well Let me start a website because I want to continue to advocate for issues and I started a

27:06

Facebook page And then you know the separate group the group is hunters of politics, but it's a closed group

27:13

You know, so if you've got any listeners in Huntersville, North Carolina, or you know surrounding areas that want to try to join the group fantastic But you can also follow most of the stuff

27:22

I post on my website It's also at my Facebook page and it's just Eric Rowell And my website is

27:29

Eric W Rowell calm Again, they're definitely gonna be extremely boring to most of your listeners unless they're really fascinated with local government you know because again all

27:40

I focus on is the town of Huntersville, so But that's you know, that's something

27:46

I started I started this group because there was that there was a vacuum there and I tell people all the time You know, whatever your town is start, you know

27:53

You know that group that town politics on Facebook And I do the best

27:59

I can to try to try to provide a platform for all the residents of town You know, this is not just a quote -unquote conservative hunters of politics group

28:07

You know, I let in members of unaffiliated Democrats Republicans Libertarians Because I'm just trying to the majority of these issues locally are not partisan issues

28:17

You know, we're not we're not the town boards not be talking about gun control or abortion You know those kind of things town boards talking about contracts with vendors.

28:26

They're talking about taxes that kind of thing So if you if you know If you're interested in this kind of thing and you're there's no one in your town currently really focusing on local issues

28:35

Then you know be the one to just start that group Invite folks, you know in town And and I've got a large number of folks that I've never met in person

28:45

That have joined the group and you know, I do my best to post the agendas when they come out every other week I try to post about town events or the elections that are actually going on this year.

28:54

This is an election year So one of the things I've done like I'll send out candidate questionnaires so that I can post to the group things like that And so, you know,

29:05

I've always gotten a good response 475 may not sound like a lot but for a town the size of Huntersville where you only have two three four thousand people

29:15

Turn out to vote. That's actually a good, you know, good good -sized group Swinging like that way.

29:21

Yeah So, you know, you're an average guy. You're not getting paid to do this.

29:26

This is just kind of what you do In your spare time, I guess and and your concerns.

29:33

Yes to be clear I get no no money for this and it takes up a lot of time Right a lot of my family members frequently question

29:40

Why I continue to do these type things and when am I gonna start getting paid for this? So yeah, just to make sure your listeners know if you're getting this for the money

29:48

Do you have for you you don't have like a patreon or anything like that, do you No, I'm not a smart issue.

29:54

I had not gone Maybe I should well, yeah, maybe in the future For citizens who are concerned to give you a little something you might want to monetize that but uh, but right now

30:05

I mean you're just doing it because you're a concerned citizen. You're a husband. You're a father You live there and these things affect you and it would just be so much better.

30:14

I think for concerned citizens To get involved on a local level where they actually have more of a chance of not only getting heard

30:25

But making a difference not that you shouldn't be involved in Understanding what's happening in the national level and voting and so forth but you you're drowned out a lot of time and people listen when you go to a town board meeting, so Yeah, I appreciate having you on I also think you know,

30:41

I was gonna throw this out there for some of my listeners, but from just a Christian worldview perspective

30:48

Government is Government's responsibility is

30:54

Pretty narrow. It's to punish evil and there is a sense in which government is supposed to promote good but government

31:03

Things that are going on right now, especially on the federal level But even as you said on it on the local level are just crazy

31:09

They're outside the scope of what God ordained government to do and without fleshing all that out

31:15

This is this is a place for I think even Christians to get involved to put an end to governments basically acting like God and thinking that they can

31:23

Impose on the family and impose on the church and impose on other institutions on business when that's not their job

31:30

It's not their function and so I appreciate what you're doing and I appreciate you coming on to just Encourage people that you're a local guy and you started a website and you're making a difference.

31:40

So appreciate it Yeah, and and and I could go on and on all day about some of the issues where I've had an impact

31:45

Because that's just what I'm passionate about but you know to your point about the Christian worldview and how this impacts

31:51

Christians I mean just one example you know the town gives a lot of well not a lot but it gives

31:57

Tens of thousands of dollars to local charities and some of those charities are good charities

32:03

But the point is as government, you know every year It's a fight about how many charities should we be giving to and a lot of folks want to give to even more charities

32:12

But as you know, the more that government crowds out or the more the government gives to local charities then that has a usually a detrimental impact and effect on Contributions from you know local neighbors because they say well look the town of Huntersville is giving taxpayer dollars to this charity, right?

32:31

So they're good. They're well taken care of they don't need my help now as a member of the community Look how much taxpayer dollars they're receiving.

32:38

So that's that's another area where you know, it's a small item in the budget, but every year One of the only people pushing back saying this is not a proper function of government

32:47

We should not be giving money to charity because force it's still you know It's it's it's taking money from others by force and giving it to your select charity

32:56

You know the commands in Scriptures But I think in the New Testament, especially the one in others that are given to Christians for the treatment of other

33:04

Christians But even expanding that into how we're supposed to treat our neighbor. These are personal commands there.

33:10

There was never any Concept of giving to some kind of a central authority to then distribute it was always

33:18

Personal and that's what I think Christians have traditionally done throughout time Because of the

33:23

New Testament is they set up I mean all the hospitals and it's a privately funded charity

33:29

And and I mean Salvation Army I mean, I'm sure some of these charities probably have their Christian roots that even

33:34

Huntersville is funding But it was a personal thing. It was never meant to to function this way this impersonal kind of We're just gonna put our all our money in a pot and someone else is gonna

33:45

By force really we're not even voluntarily doing this and they're going to write tribute this to those who need it

33:51

I mean talk about being lazy and kicking back and not even getting like there's no actual

33:58

Care for someone on a one -on -one face -to -face level and I just I don't like that at all

34:04

I think we ought to be getting involved if we're gonna do that on a personal level

34:09

So, so yeah, you make a great point there And look the easiest thing in the world is spending other people's money

34:16

That's right and taking credit for it and that's what politicians do best, you know, especially with the charity The one thing they always want to do is to say look how great this charity is doing

34:24

So, of course, we should give even more you're the bad guy for not wanting to give them anything We should write more other people's money away.

34:31

But then my favorite thing I always like to do is to ask those board members individually Well, how much money have you personally contributed to that charity?

34:38

and usually I met with some type of you know, either either no response or some type of Personal attack for why even question that but so you've actually asked meetings you said hey

34:48

How much are you giving and then they get upset at you? Well, I know I've definitely asked online

34:53

I don't because I've tried to avoid attending as many meetings as I can But yes I've asked that specific question and one one one response from a local town board member essentially was you know

35:04

My wife and I give money all kinds of money to charities and it's none of your business How much of our money we've given to this one charity?

35:10

So essentially it's a way to avoid answering the question But the point is that's a that's always a fun thing to do if you're involved locally and you go through your town's budget

35:19

And then you see your town is taking money to give you know to charity always email the mayor and the town board and ask

35:25

You know individually how much money have you given to that charity over the past year? That's right, because again, it's one thing to take money from other people and spend it

35:33

But then it says a lot when you know that that politician also may be giving out of their own pocket but you know again,

35:41

I could go on and the bottom line is you know, just Get involved locally find out who your local officials are find out when your elections are

35:49

I start paying attention the we're in a you know in a Technological age now where so many local meetings are streamed online

35:59

So you can really follow the video of these meetings and it's done, you know live

36:04

So you don't have to wait for two or three weeks for you know minutes to come out from a meeting I mean you can watch what goes on a lot of times you can comment on the

36:12

You know the video stream of the town board meeting You can you know get involved with Twitter things like that and a lot of town board members monitor these things

36:21

So, you know They'll they'll go back and see the live stream of their town board meeting the next day and they'll see the comments and they'll respond

36:28

To those because again, you're you're in a smaller setting here, you know, you're not in a congressional district with 700 ,000 constituents, you know, you're in a town board

36:39

Situation where you may have, you know less than 5 ,000 voters who actually participate or some small number

36:45

So, you know, you're they're going to be a lot more responsive So, you know again, you can really make an impact and you know, so sad you you if you really start digging into your towns budget

36:55

You'd be shocked at how much waste and fraud takes place at a local level This is not just you know, we don't just need to drain the swamp in Washington to borrow the president's phrase

37:05

I mean, there's plenty of swamp to be drained locally And again, it's something where you can really make an impact if you just start getting involved

37:12

Eric I appreciate it. You should write a book your your website's Eric W Rowell comm

37:19

Figure out a way to monetize this So I need to yeah when I put it up I'll probably air this in a few days.

37:28

But yeah, maybe by then you'll have like the patreon or something up there But anyway, Eric, I appreciate it

37:33

God bless you John thank you.