The Long Game of Libertarianism : Mike Ross

Mike Ross, a candidate for governor of North Carolina, shares his journey into politics and his vision for the state. He was inspired to run for office after witnessing a case of police violence against a homeless veteran and his service dog. He started a series of rallies advocating for the homeless and private property rights. Despite the financial challenges of running against well-funded candidates, Ross believes in the power of grassroots support and viral messaging. He emphasizes the importance of embracing the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the 10th Amendment to reclaim power from the federal government. Ross is committed to fighting for a future that prioritizes liberty, justice, and prosperity for all. Mike Ross discusses the long game of libertarianism and the importance of playing it. He emphasizes the need for a peaceful decentralized revolution and highlights the potential impact of winning even small local elections. Ross also discusses the power of the people and the importance of holding elected officials accountable. He shares his post-election plans, which include supporting other libertarian candidates and amplifying their successes. Ross encourages listeners to visit his campaign website, firetheuniparty.com, and donate to help him participate in debates.

Mike Ross' Socials: @firetheuniparty
Website: firetheuniparty.com

Host: Todd Stevens
Co-Host: Travis Groo
Guest: Mike Ross

Intro track "Rich and Strange" by The Threats.

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Transcript

Todd Stevens (00:00.91)
Gentlemen, welcome.

Groo (00:03.359)
Hello? Hello, Todd.

Mike Ross (00:04.965)
Hello.

Todd Stevens (00:05.166)
Today we have, hey, hey baby grew, we got baby grew, Travis grew on. We also have a special guest today, we have Mike Ross. Mike Ross is running for governor of North Carolina. It's kind of a big deal, Mike.

Groo (00:20.511)
Hello, Mike.

Mike Ross (00:20.806)
A little bit, it is, yeah Todd, and thanks so much for having me on today guys.

Todd Stevens (00:24.846)
Absolutely, absolutely. So tell us, you know, nobody wakes up one day and says, you know what I think I'll do? I think I'll do something really complicated today. I think I might go on the path of running for governor. So what what led you to that? I mean, that's it's not like even something local. It's like I'm going to go for governor.

Mike Ross (00:43.621)
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's certainly something I never saw happening and two years ago if someone told me I'd be here today I would have laughed at them and called them crazy. But it really all started with some local activism in Gastonia.

I saw in my local community, basically there was a homeless veteran who had a service dog, some Karen called the police. Police come out there, they escalate to violence. Needless to say, the service dog gets tased, ends up getting hit by a car while this guy was in jail. And it's something that could have been as fixed with a conversation, a little bit of compassion. So I went to speak to my local city council because WCNC, the news station, submitted a request to get the body cam footage and a judge denied it.

So I went to the city council to just say, hey, take a look at this. And in that time, I met a guy named Pastor Moses Colbert, who runs a local church that feeds and takes care of the homeless in Gastonia. And just seeing the alignment of the two reasons that we are there speaking, we ended up kind of starting a series of rallies and we ran nine rallies called the Rallies for Justice and Compassion, really advocating for the homeless, advocating for private property, advocating for really freedom and liberty for people that are

quite often overlooked by society and around rally number seven, someone who I respect who's been a party member for a long time said, Mike, we want you to run for governor. And I kind of just laughed it off, right? And then fast forward to two more rallies. And at that point, you know, national attention kind of started showing from this and the fight was escalating, but.

We were getting some wins. So the more people asked me, I kind of said, you know, I'll do this. It's not really something I ever saw myself doing, but I'll do it as long as you guys are willing to help. And I'm blessed to have an amazing staff. I couldn't do it without my staff. And I said, you know, if you people believe that I am the messenger and the right person for this job, you know, to bring the message of liberty in this increasingly polarizing environment, I'll do it. And then kind of fast forward, that's,

Mike Ross (02:54.519)
That's really how it happened. And then we had a primary and I was a little worried going up against Shannon Bray who got like 174 ,000 votes before when he was running for Senate. And people of North Carolina selected me for this role at this point. So I view it as now through November, I'm gonna do everything in my power to bring a Liberty First message that advocates for the people of this great state, resisting all of the tyranny that's coming from DC and the stuff that the Uniparty rams through.

You know, from now through November, that's what I'm going to do. And if enough North Carolinians check the box next to my name, I'll spend four years fighting the state like no governor in the history of this country.

Todd Stevens (03:34.157)
Wow, wow, that's a great story, man. I mean, I wonder, do most people start out that way as well, where there's like some type of cause, something kind of leading them towards, I guess that would make sense, right? Like there's something that happens that they get involved and it's usually something political that they want some type of change. And then that leads into, well, hey, would you maybe take this position or try to run for this position? Yeah, I mean, that makes total sense. So,

All right, so here you are. There's a lot of people who try to run for these positions as well, especially when you start talking to these bigger positions like governor and president and the amount of money that it takes really to fight the two major parties. How do you feel like, because they're running all these campaigns, I mean, are you able to run the equivalent amount of campaigns? Are you able to put the equivalent amount of money behind it? Because it really, I mean, it's like anything else. It's like when you market a product.

Mike Ross (04:06.437)
Yeah.

Todd Stevens (04:34.51)
right and you are the product. So when you market a product you have to get it in front of people as often as you can so that they go okay I've seen this multiple times let me check this out. It'd be the same thing as you. I've seen this guy pop up multiple times let me check him out. So how's that going for you? Like explain your campaign and how that compares to the big guys.

Mike Ross (04:53.221)
Yeah, man, that's been a really interesting challenge to think through, right? Because here's the reality of the situation. I'm a financial, or I was a financial planner. I shut down my company on March 31st. So I guess now I'm unemployed or semi -retired, however you want to look at it, right? I'm doing okay and I'm blessed that I can take off until November. But the reality of the situation is between the Republican and Democrat,

Todd Stevens (05:10.637)
There you go.

Mike Ross (05:21.317)
This is possibly going to be the most most spent for any gubernatorial race in the country. Okay, they're estimating between 150 to 200 million dollars is going to be spent on this race. I'm a pretty smart guy. I ran numbers my whole career and I really quickly came to a realization that to compete in this race with money playing their game the way that they play would be a fool's errand, right? I mean the reality is even if I raised 10 million dollars to try and run

the ad game and compete the way that traditional campaigns compete, the math doesn't make sense. So why would I, a guy who...

lies in math, logic and reason attempt to do that. So it really got my campaign thinking. And honestly, the biggest encouraging thing that I've really been able to take from it is what happened in Argentina, right? Everybody says that these political campaigns for these big races, that it takes all this money, that money is the only thing that determines who the winner is. And Javier Mele didn't spend a penny on advertising and he's the president of Argentina running as a, you know, no compromise and cap. Like that's the reality. That happened on

Todd Stevens (06:28.653)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (06:29.751)
this planet in the very near future. So that's kind of in the very recent past. And I think that in the near future, we can tap into that. You know, things are not as bad in America as they were in Argentina. Like if we had 100 percent inflation year over year for like a decade, I think Americans would be chopping at the bit for, you know, small government libertarian ideas like they were in Argentina. But when we think through kind of the strategy, right, is really leaning into the things that we have control over, right, is

Todd Stevens (06:33.709)
Mm -hmm.

Todd Stevens (06:49.39)
Yeah.

Mike Ross (06:59.205)
timing, the message, the infrastructure. So one of the things that I did early in my campaign was try to travel around to a bunch of different county affiliates and build up support because the reality is anybody who's done work in the Libertarian Party at the national level, the state level, or even the local level is we have to wear a lot of hats. The game is very much rigged against us. We don't have the endless buckets of money that the Uniparty does nor the networks, but getting that network is I think what

Todd Stevens (07:20.237)
Yeah.

Mike Ross (07:29.111)
really helped me through the primary, right? I was going against somebody with name recognition. I've never run for anything before. And despite that, I won a primary. And I think that a lot of that comes from kind of the grassroots work that my team was behind, right? We visited all these county affiliates, met with the local libertarians and said, hey, go out, talk to your other libertarian friends. And I think that that same model is how we're gonna try and take this into the general, right? And when I think back to that, I'm 41 years old. Okay, I don't know how old you are, Todd, but.

When I think 48, okay, so this is gonna probably hit very true to you. How old are you, Gru? 29? So, you know, the reality is, when I think back to the 90s, before we had widespread proliferation of the internet,

Todd Stevens (07:58.476)
Yeah, 48. Yeah. Yeah.

Groo (08:01.855)
Oh, you were 28. Okay. Oh, yeah. 29. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd Stevens (08:04.109)
Yeah, young, young, awesome dad though.

Mike Ross (08:17.061)
Right? You would think that we have so much more ability to connect ideas and for things to get out there today. But I think back to the 90s and there were things that, you know, when I was a kid and teenager, like games that were being played by me, I grew up in South Florida, by my cousins in New York and by like friends in California. So creating that kind of ground level internet free virality is something that happened all the time. Right? All of the urban legends, all kind of the things that predated memes.

Todd Stevens (08:23.821)
Yeah.

Todd Stevens (08:44.942)
Sure. Yeah.

Mike Ross (08:46.967)
That happened without the internet. So when I think through like what a libertarian high level office means, like president, governor, you know, that's never happened. And I truly believe that most of our wins are going to come at the local levels, town boards. However, as a state level race, it's my job to elevate our lower, you know, our candidates that are running for those lower offices, but also to try to create that virality. So we've been putting a lot of thought into how do we get that situation where even if the uniparty says, oh my God, this might

like Ross guy might win. There's nothing, you know, there's no hesitation that thinks if they truly believe that I was gonna win, that they do everything they could to censor me, shut me down, do anything they could to stop this because it would be a true threat to their power. And, you know, we already saw when the Uniparty just said, hey, we don't even need warrants to spy on Americans, right? Like they just passed that with the, you know, the freedom caucus.

Todd Stevens (09:34.958)
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Ross (09:39.301)
chair of the house being the deciding vote on that. So since we know that happens, it comes down to how do you actually create that same kind of virality? And that's what we're really trying to tap into is how do you create this environment where regular North Carolinians are talking to their neighbors? I can't reach enough people on a one -on -one basis, even if I was traveling 24 hours a day from now through election, shaking hands and having one -on -one conversations with people across the state. Not possible. There's just not enough time. But if we can create that situation where everyone in New York is

Todd Stevens (10:05.871)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (10:09.207)
like in North Carolina. Sorry, I was thinking about my family up there. If everyone in North Carolina is telling their friends and neighbors, hey, you got to vote for this Mike Ross guy. Here's what he's going to do. Here's how he's different. You don't need the internet for that. You don't need to pay Facebook for that. You don't need to pay the Washington Post who bought out all of the local. You don't need to play that money game. So we're really putting a lot of thought into how we tap in on that. We're, of course, leveraging social media. I'm here doing podcasts and interviews as much as I can.

Todd Stevens (10:29.135)
Yeah.

Todd Stevens (10:37.84)
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Ross (10:39.063)
as much as possible and hopefully, hopefully see wow, you know, this guy's not a politician, he's just a regular dude who thinks through some things and I think that that's something that people are really, at least, you know, at a minimum secretly hoping for but I think pretty openly hoping for. I think people are sick of the status quo and it's just gonna be a matter of who's able to tap into that and create.

that virality that can be the first domino falling. Because I think once that starts, I believe this, as a libertarian, I've put so much more thought into my positions because I definitely have minority positions on a lot of things. I put so much more thought into that than the people who have their majority opinions because those are just the mainstream opinions. So I'm more than happy to defend any of those positions. And a lot of times I've seen people who are very conservative or very progressive. When you

sit down and have a conversation with them about how libertarian ideas are going to be better for even things that are important to them, which many people may think are different. I think a lot of times they're not, right? At the end of the day, most of us just want, you know, life, liberty, happiness, prosperity. And the reality is the Uniparty is acting as a counterweight to those things, and I'd rather be a headwind.

Todd Stevens (11:44.88)
Mm -hmm.

Todd Stevens (11:48.687)
Yeah, yeah.

Todd Stevens (11:57.36)
Oh, completely agree.

Groo (11:57.823)
Mikey, Mikey, I've known you for a long time and I have a lot of respect for you. And you mentioned wearing a lot of hats. You know, I'm wearing my awesome dad hat right now. It leads me to my question. How, how is your family support? Are they supporting this? Because I would, you know, I've seen campaigns pull away from your family time.

Mike Ross (12:01.829)
Yeah.

Mike Ross (12:08.965)
Yeah.

Groo (12:26.239)
or from your time being a dad. And really that's most important through all of this is that you have your family support and that you are still able to allotted enough time to be with your kids. How's that going?

Mike Ross (12:45.765)
Yeah, I mean, well first off, I mean, at the end of the day I realized that I've already won.

Like in life and everything else, I have an amazing, beautiful wife. She's an amazing mother. She's my number one cheerleader, as well as in many cases, you know, the toughest coach, right? So having that support has been instrumental. And if my wife wasn't on board, I would have told, despite the fact that I respect those libertarians, sorry, not on board, right? There was quite a few conversations when that idea was being floated with my family. You know, the reality is I did have to let something I loved go in the form of my company.

Todd Stevens (13:02.897)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (13:21.719)
You know, it did get to the point where I had so many hats where I had to make some decisions And the reality is there's certain things I'm not gonna compromise on right? I homeschool my son. I'm a homeschool dad ever since the kovat era I kind of got forced into that right where I was sending him to a private school and all of a sudden They're like, hey, we're closing the doors. Here's all the work you teach him and I was still paying full tuition, right? So after that kind of a few months, I'm like, well until they're gonna like have regular school Why the heck am I gonna pay for this?

Todd Stevens (13:41.841)
Mm. Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (13:51.575)
and I'm just gonna be homeschooling. I could just buy the curriculum directly. So that's what we did. And now fast forward, he's really bloomed in homeschool. He's happy and I get a lot of time with him, right? I mean, there's so many parents out there that can't say, hey, I start out my day with like four hours of education with my kid, right? Like that's, to me, that's non -negotiable. So it's been really good. There's been some challenges outside of that, but I think that...

Todd Stevens (14:11.089)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (14:17.189)
running a non -traditional campaign has been helpful, right? Like right now, both my mom and my wife's mom have been pretty sick, right? We've had a lot of hospital visits in the past six months in and out of the hospital. Things have been challenging there, like I was on my way to a campaign event and my mom had a stroke in October, right? So there's some challenges that we've kind of come across, but the reality is I've got a loving and supportive family and...

Todd Stevens (14:32.754)
Oh wow, I'm sorry.

Mike Ross (14:42.853)
I'm blessed that at this point in my life I made enough good decisions earlier that I can say, hey, you know what, I can go a year without income and it's not really a big deal. And I can dedicate a year of my time to trying and fighting for the future. Because when I look at things, especially as I get older, when I was in my 20s, it's like, how do you advance in your career? How do you grow all these things? And as I get older,

You know, we're almost $35 trillion in debt. And as a math guy, as a financial planner, I don't think the average American or the average North Carolinian has any idea what that means in a tangible manner. But when you think about this, when you really think about what's going on at the federal level, $35 trillion in debt comes out to about a quarter of a million dollars per taxpayer, keeping in mind that half of American citizens don't pay federal income tax, but it's a quarter of a million dollars per taxpayer. Now, I would like to think,

Todd Stevens (15:32.209)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (15:35.543)
I would like to also think I'm an awesome dad, Travis, but as an awesome dad, I'd like to think that I'm gonna equip my son with the skills, the knowledge, the drive that he can one day grow his ability to sustain himself to a level that he becomes a taxpayer. Either that or the libertarian's a win and there won't be any more taxpayers. But if he is a taxpayer, I look at that, it's like, wow, how fair, moral, or ethical is that to say that this 12 -year -old is a quarter of mil,

million in debt for stuff that was already spent.

that he's not even of voting age to be able to consent to, but he's gonna be paying it off. His kids are gonna be paying it off. His grandkids are gonna be paying it off. And that's something that as I get older, like, hey, do I go the route of just trying to push forward, make a bunch of money that the state could probably steal? Or do I try to fight for something to actually have a just future? A truly moral and just future where we are governed by consent, where we don't have these corrupt people funneling billions of dollars.

and billions and at this point trillions of dollars to things that are not in the interest of our country, to things that are not in the interest of our people. And you know, at that point, you know, when it becomes a matter of like fighting for a future for my kid,

Todd Stevens (16:42.066)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (16:55.909)
I guess it just became a better place for me to focus my talents, right? You know, cause that's something I, there's not, what can I do? Even if I make a bunch of money and give him a big inheritance, he's okay. But what about like every other kid? It's not like I'm outraged for it just because my kid is a quarter of a million dollars in debt. I'm outraged because every kid in this country is a quarter of a million dollars in debt. Yeah.

Todd Stevens (16:59.891)
Sure.

Todd Stevens (17:11.827)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Groo (17:16.159)
You know what, that's a noble cause and I appreciate you answering that question in full. That's a very noble cause and a noble direction that you're taking and I appreciate it, Mike.

Mike Ross (17:27.237)
Yeah, man.

Todd Stevens (17:27.38)
Yeah, I was, you know, here's, here's, here's the deal, Mike, like you're fighting on a, on a level that, that I think most people don't fight, right? They don't try to get involved politically. Most don't. So, um, at what point do you think that the fight politically ceases and we start to become like other countries where we literally start picking up the gun? I mean, there's a movie that just came out, Travis and I went and saw it. I don't know if you've seen it, but civil war.

You know, it's this it's a great film. It's a modern take on what would happen if if America kind of split, you know, and we're it's very real. You know, we feel it in today's society. So I just wonder if and I and I say this with all respect to everyone that's running for political office, because I think that a lot of people get into it such as yourself. And the goal is to change. Right. And I think what happens is people get in.

Mike Ross (17:56.901)
Not yet.

Mike Ross (18:04.997)
Yeah.

Todd Stevens (18:26.451)
and the system wears them down, right? The system wears them down to where they can't get anything passed that they really want to get passed. And all these big changes that we all really want, like I would say a ton of Americans, I would say well over half of Americans, probably three quarters at least want the same change. Like you had said, we all want the same thing. We all want to live in peace, harmony. We want to raise our families. We want to have enough money in our bank accounts. And we just want to enjoy it, right? We don't want our foods to be poisoned, right? We don't want to be taxed to death.

all these things. So at what point do you think that the political system just doesn't work and we end up like another country where we start bearing arms and going after our own government?

Mike Ross (19:08.837)
Yeah, I mean, that's a tough one and I get that a lot.

because there's certainly a lot of that sentiment. And maybe I'm naive, maybe I'm too optimistic, but I am actually still a believer that it can be done peacefully. And I believe this because of two things, and they're two founding documents to this country. And I think that if we, the people, can radically embrace these two documents and take those to kind of the logical conclusion of what they should mean, we can turn this around and claw back that power without firing a shot. Because I am a very much a, I'm not a pacifist,

I'll defend myself, my family, but I am not a believer in aggression. I think that words, dialogue...

Working together negotiation is a much better way to solve problems than violence. Truly to my core believe that. But the idea really comes down to the Declaration of Independence and the 10th Amendment. And if you look at those two documents side by side, pull up the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and actually listen to what the founders were saying. Really listen to what they were saying and look at it through the lens of plain English, right? Not all of this stuff where the lawyers try to argue this and make it complicated like the Second Amendment.

trying to dance around like really look at these documents and what it tells you is that essentially we the people have the power to do whatever we want with our government that our government works for us that it is something to design to give us a more cohesive free just prosperous society and then you look to the 10th amendment and the 10th amendment makes it very clear and I think the 10th amendment is really the root solution to a lot of our problems but the 10th amendment basically says the federal government has the powers explained in the Constitution.

Mike Ross (20:49.495)
Anything that is not granted to the federal government by the Constitution lies to the state.

or more respectively to the people. Well, when you look through that, I think the ultimate way that you can use this as a peaceful kind of nonviolent decentralized revolution is to look through how do you take over a thousand town commissions across this country? Right? Because now you have little towns, five thousand, ten thousand people where you get an entire board who's willing to test the boundaries of the 10th Amendment. Now, if it's just one, just one municipality, the federal government can come swarming down on them with lawyers or even troops if needed. But if

If a thousand municipalities all decide at once, hey, you know what? You know that federal nonsense that's going on that nobody in our community wants that's screwing us over? Yeah, we're just gonna say no. We're gonna tell our law enforcement, don't work with the feds. We're gonna tell them, hey, if you're gonna keep spying on Americans without a warrant, we're not gonna assist. Because when you look at the power of the federal government to enforce literally anything,

Todd Stevens (21:26.258)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (21:50.661)
anything. They rely very much on the state and local law enforcement. They rely on state and local government for the legal system. And if you can get enough momentum where local town boards say, we have had enough, what you were doing in DC is immoral and reprehensible and we do not care. We are going to say, step away from it. If it's one municipality, the federal government will crush that. But what would happen if like 10 ,000

Todd Stevens (21:51.506)
Yeah.

Todd Stevens (21:59.506)
Very true.

Mike Ross (22:20.567)
municipalities, right? All at once said we're gonna ban the IRS from entering our community, feel free to invest in your community with your new savings. Right, like those are the kind of thing, if one municipality does that...

Todd Stevens (22:31.122)
Mm -hmm.

Sure.

Mike Ross (22:34.885)
They're done, but what would happen if 10 ,000 municipalities do that? I'll tell you what would happen. 10 ,000 municipalities would now have people who are not paying federal income tax and the federal government would get choked off and starve of the money that they steal from us. And maybe they'd have to actually think through, hey, what are our priorities? What happens if we can't print, if we can't steal this money? Maybe we have to get back to small, common sense governance that deals with some of the basics, defense infrastructure and not sending a hundred billions of dollars at a single time to fight

Todd Stevens (22:58.897)
Right.

Mike Ross (23:04.791)
foreign countries that you know up until a decade ago we were calling some of the most corrupt countries on planet earth right like that's

Todd Stevens (23:10.673)
Mm -hmm. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean then that's what you're talking about there. You're talking about that. I mean that almost sounds radical I mean that that does sound radical right for no, and that's cool. No, I'm dude. I'm totally down. I'm totally down I'm not gonna lie. I'm one of those that sometimes a little bit different than you were I just say maybe we need to burn it down Maybe we need to burn it down and start over but what you're saying right there what I mean by that is what you're saying, right? You're saying you're saying burn it down Exactly, and that's my whole point too. Whenever I say that

Mike Ross (23:17.221)
I am radical. I never said I wasn't radical. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Ross (23:32.773)
Yeah, yeah, I'm saying burn it down metaphorically as opposed to physically. Yeah, I mean if... Yeah.

Todd Stevens (23:40.656)
Um.

Groo (23:48.959)
Oh yeah, you're freezing up. That's OK.

Todd Stevens (23:52.737)
Alright, hold on a second. Can you hear my audio? Okay, so I may have to switch this thing to just audio only. Let me see if I can't get my camera back. It is gone.

Mike Ross (23:52.773)
We lot.

Groo (23:55.711)
Yes.

Mike Ross (23:55.845)
We can.

Groo (24:04.799)
See what happens? The birds aren't real and the CIA just shut you down, Todd.

Todd Stevens (24:10.497)
Just shut me down. Alright, well, you screwed it up, dude.

Mike Ross (24:11.589)
I talked about municipalities banning the IRS from entering. They've already shut this down and I wouldn't be surprised if there's SWAT teams around all of our houses at this moment.

Groo (24:17.375)
knew this was happening.

Todd Stevens (24:20.577)
I know. All right, so let me... It did, man. All right, so let me... Okay, let me... Let me complete my thought here. So my thought was, what you're talking about, Mike, is exactly what happened in that film, right? So in the film, basically, you had all these other states that, you know, they don't really go into it, but I could see what you're saying being a part of it, where they go, listen, we're not going to do it anymore. We're not playing by your federal rules anymore. We're out. We're out. We're out. We're out. We're out.

Groo (24:21.535)
This happened last time we got into a controversial discussion. The fed shut us down, I'm telling you dude.

Mike Ross (24:25.125)
Ha ha ha!

Todd Stevens (24:50.592)
So all of a sudden, I think it was like 16 or 19 states are out. So what happened was the federal government and the president then decide, no you're not, and we're gonna take you by force. So then you have these Western Front forces, Texas and California joined together, and then they fight the federal government because the federal government came after them first. So I could see, I see what you're saying, and I think, yeah, I'm with you, but then all of a sudden I could see how the federal government would be like,

Oh no, no, no, no, no. You just took billions and billions and billions away from us. Uh, we're getting that back.

Mike Ross (25:29.189)
So, you know, granted I didn't see the movie, right? And I don't know, you know, how they were divided, right? Was it like states? When you think through, you know, the Civil War, it was pretty geographic split, right? North versus South. When you think of like, at least how I envision it and looking at the makeup of the country, I think that it would be really truly decentralized, right? It wouldn't be like, hey, these five states are doing it and the other 45 states are not. I really think it would be one of those things that, you know, you start with one, you know, a small local board that just, you know,

tests the limits of nullification on something simple, right? Like something like cannabis. Hey, we're just not gonna enforce cannabis law in our state or our county or our town, whatever it may be. You know, you don't jump straight to the more extreme, hey, we're gonna ban the IRS from entering if you don't stop spying on us without a warrant kind of thing, right? Those are kind of taking it to the extreme. But when you have 10 ,000 municipalities spread throughout the country, I really think it would be in all 50 states at that point.

And I think that maybe that offers some degree of protection and maybe it doesn't. It's hard to say when you look at what the federal government has done. It's not like we have an aversion as a country to killing people. We've certainly done enough of it over the course of the last 100 years in this country, our federal government. So maybe they would kill Americans. I don't know. I'd like to think that if it's done slowly,

that maybe that would offer some safeguard. And I would like to hope that whoever is running the federal government at that time would not just...

Groo (27:03.775)
Yeah, Mike. Yeah. And I appreciate your take on this because, you know, I'm also a very peaceful person that believes in diplomacy rather than violence. But, you know, we have gotten to the point where the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights doesn't mean anything to people anymore. It certainly doesn't mean anything to the federal government.

Mike Ross (27:09.093)
Yeah.

Mike Ross (27:27.045)
Certainly not the government.

Yeah.

Groo (27:30.847)
They brushed that under the rug years ago and we've allowed it to happen. That's the problem is we've actually allowed it. We asked for it. We voted for it. We voted for it and we keep voting for it. So, you know, when they say America will implode from within, this is how it's happening. It's happening through our

Mike Ross (27:38.949)
Mm -hmm. In many cases, we asked for it. That's the sad thing. Yeah.

Todd Stevens (27:44.898)
Oh yeah, yeah absolutely.

Groo (28:00.479)
voting system and through our media blitz and through just ignorance really of kicking the Constitution under the rug and kicking the Bill of Rights to the side, kicking the 10th Amendment to the side. And, you know, it's almost not valuable to people anymore because we're in a state where

Todd Stevens (28:09.57)
Mm -hmm.

Groo (28:28.415)
Although I like what you're saying, it's very, very difficult to negotiate with tyrants at this point. Like it very much is.

Mike Ross (28:42.981)
So what's the solution then? I mean if I give up kind of the hope and optimism that we can do it peacefully and that leaves that...

Todd Stevens (28:49.313)
Mm -hmm.

Groo (28:49.599)
Well, I'm optimistic too. I guess I'm playing devil's advocate here.

Mike Ross (28:53.285)
Yeah. I mean, I know what my plan would be, right? Like I have no interest in fighting a war, especially not a war here in the country that I love with some tyrants who put over that. You know, listen.

Groo (28:59.967)
Right. No.

Todd Stevens (29:05.729)
Mm -hmm.

Groo (29:08.895)
We're not fighting a physical war right now. We're fighting literally a psychological war right now. A war of differences, a war of opinion, a war of constitution versus non -constitution ideas. And that's the war we're fighting right now. It's more... Yeah. Yeah, it's not going to be good.

Mike Ross (29:13.285)
Yeah, it's an ideological war right now. Yeah.

Mike Ross (29:30.661)
Yeah, and I'm all in for that war, man. But when it comes to shots, that's the beautiful thing about 2024 is I can get the heck out of here, right? I can take my family and take everything and thanks to...

Todd Stevens (29:40.258)
Mm -hmm.

Groo (29:41.983)
You would think so, you would hope so until they stop you.

Mike Ross (29:45.957)
Yeah, well, thankfully, thanks to Bitcoin, I'm able to do it really easily, put it essentially on a thumb drive and take my whole net worth with me, behind a key that's in my head. And there's...

Groo (29:48.671)
Yeah.

Groo (29:56.767)
Yeah.

Mike Ross (29:58.533)
If it came to that, where an actual outbreak of violent war in our country, at this point I'd probably try to go to Argentina and follow that libertarian experiment where at least 56 % of the population there doesn't think I'm crazy for my ideas and try to build up that society to the...

Groo (30:08.159)
Yeah. Yeah.

Todd Stevens (30:15.714)
sure.

Groo (30:17.727)
Puerto Rico sounds real nice about now too.

Todd Stevens (30:20.769)
You

Mike Ross (30:21.189)
Well that's part of the United States, man. I'm Puerto Rican and I'm not gonna flee to Puerto Rico if war breaks out in America. We got bases down there.

Groo (30:22.943)
It is, but yeah. Yeah.

Todd Stevens (30:25.377)
I'm...

Groo (30:28.191)
Yeah. No, it's, you know, I don't advocate for war at all. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just, I'm just saying the constitution. Yeah.

Mike Ross (30:35.077)
Well, in the context of the movie, right? You know, that's a theory that, I mean, that's something that in theory could happen.

Todd Stevens (30:39.073)
It's well, it's what's interesting though is it's it is a theory, right? And you watch the movie. But what's crazy is it's happened here before it's happened here before, right? The original Civil War. What's also fascinating is in history, we can look at every great superpower throughout recorded history. And it always ends like this, right? They take over. They're the most powerful nation on the planet. And then they have so much abundance.

Mike Ross (30:46.373)
Sure.

Yeah.

Mike Ross (31:00.965)
Yeah, every time.

Todd Stevens (31:07.297)
Right? And that's us. And that's one of my biggest arguments here nowadays is we have so much abundance that our arguments are over, are you a boy or a girl? What are you? Like, that's our arguments, right? No, other people in the world right now are still arguing over food and clean water and all these other things. So in history, it's always shown us that these nations get so big, then they start to turn on each other. And then when they turn on each other, they start to turn on beliefs and the political system.

And then it all crumbles from within and it has to be rebuilt. I, I would love to be optimistic. Um, I think what you're saying is 100 % true. I think that's how we do. We have to change the mindset of Americans to go, Hey guys, which one do you want? Here's your two choices. You have two choices. Um, it can all implode and we could all, uh, the comfort that you have, the food that you can go down to the store and get the clean water that you have, it can all erode.

And then we can start to rebuild it and it's going to take forever. But in the meantime, there's probably going to be other countries that invade us and take over certain sections of America. Or we can all start thinking differently and get on the same page and say, F the government. Which one would you like to do? And it seems for some reason, people's minds don't go that far to think of how crazy it could be because they've never had experience. Because here, it's all nice, man. You know, if I live in a nice area, like I don't really experience crime. Like, you know, everything's good.

Mike Ross (32:36.325)
think of how much we've been propagandized as a society too, like over the last 100 years, right? So rewind 100 years, right? You're looking at the ramping up of the 20s, right? Headed for the Great Depression that's coming up. But at that point, we're only like a decade after the creation of the Federal Reserve. And at that point, government spending, like total government spending, federal, like all of the government spending,

Todd Stevens (32:52.128)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (33:06.279)
as a percentage of GDP was under 10%.

Okay, so I mean, that's the reality. And since then, we have moved and I think that part of it when you look at some of the things that were conspiracy theories that since have been proven to be true from documents leaked from the CIA, right? Like Operation Mockingbird. We have been so heavily propagandized over the last 50 years where the average American doesn't realize that we had roads in this country before the federal government took her spot. Like that's something we get so much.

Todd Stevens (33:38.304)
Hehehehe.

Mike Ross (33:39.911)
as a joke is libertarian, it's like who's gonna build the roads? Go look at a picture of New York City in the late 1800s. We would find a way to do all of these things. The problem is you've gotten to the point where...

total government spending in this country is like between 40 and 50 percent of GDP. Like a hundred years ago anybody would look at that and if you look at it just from a metric standpoint as far as like government spending is a percentage of GDP that was like a very socialist country in 1924 if you had 40 to 50 percent spending.

Todd Stevens (33:57.312)
Mm -hmm.

Todd Stevens (34:09.632)
Yeah.

Groo (34:10.239)
When you talk about government spending, you're also talking about government taking.

Mike Ross (34:15.205)
Yeah, like all of these things that government does, I believe that they can be done privately, right? Like who would build the roads? Like if the government tomorrow stopped building the roads, you know who would build the roads just out of necessity? Like, well, yeah, but let's say the government stopped funding it too, right? Like Amazon, Walmart, those companies would think how the hell do we build these roads so that we can keep this money coming in? Like...

Groo (34:26.367)
same people.

Todd Stevens (34:38.432)
And they've and those companies have done it so many times before, man, if they need a bridge to get into the thing, if they need a new roadway, they'll build it just to make it accessible to their. You're 100 percent right. Yeah, we've seen it.

Mike Ross (34:48.485)
Yeah. Yeah.

Groo (34:50.655)
With the naming rights, Amazon Bridge, you know, whatever. Yeah.

Mike Ross (34:53.157)
Yeah, and you know, they'll put ads on the side of the highway, right? Like if they took over funding of the highway, now every product is good. But we would find ways to do this. Like, you know, there's some people who think that if the government just disappeared tomorrow, that society would collapse. And I just don't believe that.

Groo (34:59.359)
That's it. Free advertising. Yeah.

Mike Ross (35:12.677)
I believe in the power of humanity. I believe in my neighbors. I believe in the people around me that if the government stopped doing everything tomorrow and we see it, maybe it's because I'm from Florida, right? Like I grew up in South Florida and I lived through Hurricane Andrew. And while the government responds in these cases of natural disaster and you hear FEMA and all of these things, the reality is most of the work of people taking care of their communities is neighbors helping neighbors. Like voluntary interaction, like,

Oh my gosh, you're my neighbor. Maybe I disagree with you over politics or maybe your dog peed in my lawn and it made me upset, but your house is under water. That humanity that comes out in disasters, part of me thinks, some people would think that the government ceasing all of its operations would be a disaster. I would say maybe it would be, but once the people come together and solve things, we'd be in a whole glorious new age. So that's part of it as a statewide race. There's eyes on us. There was a thing.

Groo (35:51.519)
Yeah.

Todd Stevens (36:06.815)
100%. Yeah.

Mike Ross (36:12.551)
there.

My job is to get these ideas out there because it's not a quick turnaround. It's not like we're going to have one election and all of a sudden we're back to the constitutional republic that our founders thought of. But if we don't start that message now and work diligently every single day to spread the message and create more little mini spreaders, right? Like I view myself as someone who's spreading the ideas of liberty. My greatest possible accomplishment would be converting everybody that I spread liberty to convert them into someone who's also spreading.

Todd Stevens (36:23.615)
Yeah.

Mike Ross (36:43.543)
liberty because when we do that...

Fast forward 10 years, some of these things that we're kind of theorizing about may actually be real, and we might actually be able to pull it off, but if we're not and we're just sitting around accepting the status quo that the Uniparty's ramming down, we'll just have another 10 years of garbage and nonsense to undo when we finally do get enough people to wake up, and I just hope and pray that it's not gonna take 100 % inflation year over year for a decade to the point where the middle class of our country has been completely destroyed into

Todd Stevens (37:10.975)
Yeah.

Mike Ross (37:16.023)
poverty by the poor decision -making and evil actions of government.

Todd Stevens (37:20.703)
Sure, and you have to think about it too, like the, you know, our grandparents, the greatest generation, right? And our parents, the boomers, those, they saw development. I mean, the greatest generation also saw the depression, but, you know, they saw the development of the United States, basically. They saw it go through like, you know, after World War II, just this huge boom, right? And like you, you know, we're all over our 40s, so, you know, we remember the 80s and 90s, how they were just awesome.

Mike Ross (37:38.181)
Yeah.

Todd Stevens (37:50.432)
You know, like they were just incredible. So I think it's what, you know, we right now we're seeing that the the greatest generation is is almost gone. The boomers are, you know, they're they're getting up there pretty good. I mean, they're in their 70s and 80s and and they're going to be passing away within the next 10 years, like you said, probably. So then that leaves Gen X. And I think Gen X had a totally different mindset, totally different mindset than than than our predecessors. Right.

Like we were kind of more along the lines of like, wait, that doesn't make sense. Cause they were more along the lines of like, listen, this is how we've always done it. This is how we do it. Yeah. I mean, the government knows it's also the doctor knows everybody knows except for me, right? They're professionals. They know. Whereas the gen X kind of came up saying like, but hold on, are you sure? You know, we started questioning it. And I know like when I look at my kids and my kids are like,

You know, obviously they're, they're under my house. So they've seen how, how I kind of take things in and, and then speak about things. They question things. And I've always taught them that I said, just because it is what it is, doesn't mean that it's true. Always question it. Like when we, you know, my kids are now all of us, there's five of us in the household. I have three children. They're all old enough to vote this year for the first time. And we're all going to go vote together. And they said, I don't know who to vote for. So we'll start researching now, but it's up to you. Like if you decide.

Mike Ross (39:07.813)
Okay.

Nice.

Todd Stevens (39:15.936)
that Trump aligns with you. I'm not gonna question you, it's your decision, it's your right. You shouldn't vote who I vote for because I vote for them. You should make that decision, right? So that's kind of where I raise my kids, like question everything, research it, then you can make an informed decision, right? So with that being said, it's going to take, I think a little more time, but I love it, okay, I love what you're saying. You're basically saying, if we keep starting now,

Mike Ross (39:42.053)
Yeah.

Todd Stevens (39:45.344)
Each year we do it and we keep pushing it harder and harder and harder. By the time our kids are running the show and their kids are running the show, this may be an entirely different America. Yeah, I love it.

Mike Ross (39:55.909)
Yes, it is. There is no silver bullet or no overnight. Like even fast forward to the low probability scenario, right? Because I'm not going to get up here, and I've had it with my team, where as the next governor of North Carolina, right? It could happen. And I'm not going to say, but.

I'm a realist, I understand probabilities. But if that happens, right, and enough North Carolinians, and I think the magic number if we convert it to a three -way race is gonna be somewhere in the 2 .3 to 2 .5 million, right, if 2 .3 to 2 .5 million North Carolinians check the box next to my name, even then I can't pull all of this off as governor. It's not like it would be a snap overnight. What it could do is I could use the power of the pardon to undermine some of the things like the drug war, the gun war, right, all of these things that are,

Todd Stevens (40:18.624)
Sure. Sure.

Todd Stevens (40:45.568)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (40:47.511)
they're there, because we have a pretty limited governor model, right? The governor's not very powerful in the state of North Carolina, though, you know, though Cooper seems, Cooper through the COVID era seemed to not care and seemed to want to test that. But even getting there, you know, I'm going to do as much change as I could at that level, but it's still not the silver bullet that fixes this. But I'll tell you what it does is it probably shaves a few years.

Todd Stevens (40:59.744)
You

Mike Ross (41:12.581)
off of that timeline. If you get some kind of big shock win like that and you now have a sitting governor of a state that's saying, hey, take the power into your local communities. If there's something that we're doing here at the state level and your local community says no to this, if you guys want to exercise the 10th Amendment, I will not stick the AG on you. Right? Like that's the kind of thing that we can do, which I think could bring real change to North Carolina in the short term. And we could make our lives of a lot of North Carolinians better, but it's not going to fit.

Todd Stevens (41:22.848)
Mm -hmm.

Todd Stevens (41:32.192)
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're right.

Mike Ross (41:42.487)
fix the mess of $35 trillion in debt, but it could be something that takes us from a 20 year time horizon down to a 15 year time horizon. So, yeah.

Todd Stevens (41:44.832)
No, no, but you're.

Todd Stevens (41:49.28)
Yeah, Mike, I love it, man. Are you familiar with Georgia's governor, Kemp?

Mike Ross (41:55.397)
Yeah, vaguely, I mean a little bit.

Todd Stevens (41:56.864)
But so one of the things is when he first ran, I wasn't a huge fan because to me he felt more like just kind of a good old boy who was going to just keep doing the same conservative thing. And and although I find myself I'm like this again, I'm a libertarian. So I'm like this weird mix of conservative and liberal. Right. Like, you know, so the one thing, though, is when he got in and covid hit.

And what I saw him do completely changed my mind on him as a governor. He basically, I mean, because Georgia was one of the only states, probably Florida was another one that didn't really just shut the world down. Like we kind of shut down for a second because it was just, you know, a fear like, well, okay, whoa, what is this? And then we slowly kind of got back to it. But, um, he put the power in the local government. He said, listen, you know, you're.

Mike Ross (42:46.245)
Right.

Todd Stevens (42:56.96)
You know your city. You know your county. I don't know your county. Make a decision. Should you all wear masks? Should you shut businesses down? And that to me just blew my mind because I was like, I couldn't fathom a governor saying that. He didn't make it. He didn't throw down the gavel and say, nope, shut it down. He said, you know your... Dude, it was killer. And he's had that, yeah.

Mike Ross (43:19.429)
Yeah, I wasn't familiar he did that, but that's, I mean, that's the way it should have been. Either that or, you know, then that becomes the argument with like, what do you do with the local tyrant, right? Where you now have like a mayor who's saying you can't leave your house kind of thing. But hey, if...

Todd Stevens (43:35.2)
Oh, sure, sure. But I tell you what, though, I'll tell you what, though, it's I think what happened here in Georgia was a lead by example type thing. When Kemp, when Kemp did that, every county like mayor, every county participant basically went, OK, let's let's proceed with caution, but let's not shut this down. And.

Groo (43:36.383)
Tar and feather buddy, tar and feather.

Mike Ross (43:44.837)
Yeah.

Groo (43:58.719)
I love that approach because then on a local level if your mayor decides, hey we're going to keep masking and keep 10 feet away from each other, then you get your local community involved going, yeah this guy's an idiot.

Todd Stevens (44:14.944)
Exactly, but Travis great point because if you that's the thing is like when you start talking president It's hard to influence the president from a very small level, but you talk local mayor We can all show up to the dudes house and be like, uh -uh cut it out and he's gonna be influenced, right? So I love the way that he did that

Mike Ross (44:28.293)
Yeah.

Groo (44:31.199)
And then as mayor, you would say, hey listen, you do what you want in your household. If you want to mask up and you want to isolate yourself, go right ahead. There's no law that's saying you have to mask or you have to social distance. My family, we're going to wear a mask. We're going to social distance. That's just what we're going to do. And that's what I recommend until we figure this thing out.

Todd Stevens (44:53.472)
Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Groo (44:59.455)
You go ahead and you do what's best for your family. So as a good mayor, you don't throw down the gavel and say, our town is going to mandate this or our county is going to mandate this. You leave it up to each family to decide what's best for the family and the business. Yeah.

Todd Stevens (45:13.984)
I mean, even business, right? Even business. Listen, if you own a business, yeah, if you own a business and you're scared and that's fine, dude, just shut down for a while. It's your choice, but for the government to come in and go...

Groo (45:21.759)
The trickle down effect. Yeah.

If you do what you want, if you go out of business because you decide that you're going to require masks, that's on you. I'm not telling you what to do as a mayor or as a county commissioner. Like, I'm not telling you how to live your life and how to raise your family.

Todd Stevens (45:48.384)
Well, yeah, and your decision's gonna, you know, your business is gonna be affected by your decision, right? So you have to be wise. I mean, who was it? What was it? I can't remember where it was. Was it in North Carolina where the bakery wouldn't do a wedding cake for a gay couple? Do you remember that? Where was that?

Groo (45:56.767)
That's it.

Groo (46:05.151)
Oh, that was years ago. Yeah, that was years ago. That was years ago. Yeah, that was a that's like a go to story. Yeah.

Mike Ross (46:05.381)
That was Colorado.

Colorado.

Todd Stevens (46:09.632)
Okay, but even that though, so think about that. Right, but no, my point being, think about that. It's the same concept as this, right? How did that affect their business? Greatly, because then those people posted all that and everybody who was like, oh dude, I'm not gonna do business with people like that, like that's jacked up, you know? It affected their business. That's how it should be.

Groo (46:17.535)
Yeah.

Groo (46:27.967)
Right.

Mike Ross (46:31.717)
Sure. Yeah.

Groo (46:31.871)
Right, exactly. It's their right to serve who they want to serve. If they decide, hey, we're not going to do gay cakes or whatever that is, then don't make gay cakes. You know what I'm saying? Don't make cakes for transgender marriages. You know what? If they need to post that on their door though, we don't make gay cakes. You know what I mean? I guarantee you within a month they're going to go out of business.

Todd Stevens (46:33.504)
Not the government.

Todd Stevens (46:42.528)
Cake cakes.

Todd Stevens (47:00.575)
Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Groo (47:01.695)
You know, but that's on them. There shouldn't be a law, a discrimination law saying that you have to serve people. No, you don't.

Todd Stevens (47:05.216)
should not be a law. Yeah.

Todd Stevens (47:09.472)
Because Mike, like you're saying, it's the court of public opinion, right? Like the court of public opinion should be the way it goes because the public's going to say, hey, you, you're not making gay cakes. We find that jacked up. We're going to tell the community that you don't support the community as a whole. And your business is going to go under.

Groo (47:17.759)
RRRR

Groo (47:26.911)
Well then it opens up a market for some other company to make gay cakes. Yep. Homo cakes. Exactly! So I mean it's literally free market solutions.

Todd Stevens (47:29.824)
Gay cakes. New business, gay cakes, right? We only do gay cakes.

Mike Ross (47:36.197)
I mean...

Todd Stevens (47:40.96)
Yeah, we're kind of getting off topic with the gay cake thing, but the point being is just the, you know, the ability.

Groo (47:45.087)
Does a gay cake taste different? I don't know.

Todd Stevens (47:48.096)
I doubt it does. I think it's the same sugar and flour as in milk, as any other cake. But no, I mean, Mike, I love it. I love the fact that you have kind of a long game here. I love that you're a realist. You know, you know that there's always a chance that you might get this. But if anything, you're shaking up the system a little bit and you're a well -spoken guy. I love your ideals. And man, I truly wish you the best of luck in this, man, because...

Groo (47:50.943)
Gotcha.

Todd Stevens (48:17.76)
You know, I'm not in North Carolina, but man, if you can get it there, it's a trickle down, dude. I'm not too far. I'm here in Georgia.

Mike Ross (48:24.485)
Man, if it happens, whether it's through this election for governor or if it's a small town somewhere anywhere in this country, once you have libertarian governance, and this is something I truly believe, at whatever level we can get it, once you have that and we truly lean into libertarian principles as kind of the North Star for how we govern whatever geographical area we can get electoral power over, right?

going to spread like cancer. Because if you have one little town that's like, hey, we're going to deregulate and strip off the taxes and make this the most business friendly municipality in the state. What's going to happen to the people who are right on the outskirts of that county? They're going to move, right? Like, hey, if I move a mile down the road, I'm going to cut my tax bill in half.

Todd Stevens (49:12.956)
Mm -hmm.

Todd Stevens (49:18.972)
Oh yeah, yeah.

Mike Ross (49:19.941)
Who's not gonna, once that happens and people see that it results, because that's the biggest knock that libertarians have had from the Uniparty in so long, right? Oh, well when did you libertarians actually make this work? Sometimes if you never get an opportunity to hit a golf ball, right? Like.

You don't know how hard you can hit, but I'll tell you what, if you practice form for 10 ,000 hours and you're taking the swings, you know what? I trust that kid to go out there and hit that golf ball and he's probably going to crush it. Right? And they're kind of holding down libertarians. And that's why I think I'm very, very much keeping a very close IR in Argentina because you have essentially what I would argue is one of the most radical flavors of libertarian in Javier Millet, an open anarcho -capitalist, right? And he's the president.

Todd Stevens (49:45.467)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (50:08.933)
of a big country, right? And fast forward 10 years, I mean, his initial few months have already given me so much hope.

Todd Stevens (50:10.044)
Yeah, that's crazy.

Mike Ross (50:20.357)
and validity to our ideas that we've been theorizing about for all this time. But you know, you fast forward five, 10 years and you see real results, I think that that only helps the Liberty Movement and I think it's something that will continue to drive eyeballs and ears towards the LP, towards libertarianism as an idea and towards the broader Liberty Movement. And I think that the end result of that is all positive for those of us who believe in freedom and liberty.

Todd Stevens (50:46.203)
Mm -hmm.

Groo (50:46.495)
Exactly, it's kind of like gaining power just so you can abolish power. And that's really the libertarian mindset is, you know, it's like that meme, we're slowly trying to take over the world so that we can leave everybody alone. It's the same thing. You've got the power to basically abolish power. And when you don't have a huge ego, and you're not a power hungry...

maniac you can relinquish power back to the people and you have the power to relinquish the power and that's really libertarianism is giving the power back to the people to decide what's best for them and you're able to orchestrate that and that's really why libertarians need to get elected. So I have a question post election.

Mike Ross (51:27.941)
Yeah, 100%.

Mike Ross (51:38.789)
Yeah. Yeah, man.

Groo (51:44.703)
Let's say you do not win. Let's just say for some reason you do not win.

Mike Ross (51:50.981)
expected outcome right so the expected outcome based on a probability basis well I I'll say that prop from a probability standpoint that is absolutely the expected outcome you know but okay so so that happens

Groo (51:53.311)
No, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. I'm expecting you to win. I'm not saying expect it.

Groo (52:03.807)
Well, post, the day after election, what are you gonna do? What's on the game plan? Are you gonna remain an activist? What's your deal? What's your mindset post -election?

Mike Ross (52:18.533)
Yeah, post -election, right? Hopefully, we'll be celebrating some wins, right? Because that's one thing that I don't take lightly. As the gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina, we have about 50 libertarians running across this state. So while I think that...

my chances, at least from a raw probability standpoint, are probably the lowest. I think we have some libertarians who have a good shot at winning, right? So between now and the election, obviously, how can I help them do that? Right after that is I want to meet with our candidates who win, right? And say, how can we do this? Because to take this on, right, in the long run, I'm thinking in terms of decades already, as far as what it's going to take to move here and move the needle towards liberty. So if we've got some

some candidates who win on the town council or whatever they're running for. The question be, my role doesn't really change at that point. Win or lose, I've accidentally stepped myself into being a microphone for these ideas, right? So it then becomes, okay, we got some wins, even if I don't win the governor race, how do we highlight these candidates so that when they're taking over and bringing libertarian ideas to their communities and bringing about real change,

just like I talked about, you know, spreading like a cancer. How do we make sure that in two years when we have more municipal elections or the next year, like how do we get that from, hey, we've got, you know, 10 libertarians elected, how do we get it to 20? How do we get it to 40? How do we get it to 100? Like that's what it's gonna take. So being able to go around and, you know, work with the candidates that are now taking in and stepping into their roles in governance, how do we take what they're doing?

Todd Stevens (53:53.982)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (54:06.615)
in their communities of implementing libertarian solutions. How do we give that a megaphone? Right? Because if they're in a small town, maybe things are changing for their small town for the better. But if everyone else in the state doesn't know about it, it's not really helping towards that goal. So if I can come out of this as a mouthpiece and we're taking all of these local wins and we're now saying, okay, well, let's have the megaphone for the 2024 gubernatorial campaign continuing to put this out to all of the people.

that align with these ideas, where they look at it and say, wow, maybe that inspires next year somebody who was a supporter of my campaign who came here and says, wow.

Mike now highlighted that we've got a new mayor in this town and they're doing these and leading in this way. Maybe we now have someone who's willing to run for office in 2025. Like there's so many ways we can come out of this. So I mean, that's kind of the other big goal is if I don't win the governor's race, how do I take all of the data, all of the connections, all of the people, how do we pull them in? Right? Because what I'm talking about is truly like a peaceful decentralized revolution. I can't do it by myself.

Todd Stevens (55:16.061)
I love it.

Mike Ross (55:16.599)
myself, the only way I'm going to do this is if we can pull all of these people where instead of being on the sidelines and just coming in and voting, how do we turn them into, you know, multipliers, force multipliers, where in 2025 we may jump from 10, you know, and keep growing so that, you know, in 2035 we might have a real shot at the governor's race where we come in and they're looking at it from day one and saying, wow, this is a three -way race. Is this going to be the year that the, you know, where

Todd Stevens (55:44.093)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (55:46.455)
But if we don't set that groundwork, right, I think our record is what, Travis? You've been with the party in North Carolina a lot longer than me. I think there's a record somewhere in like the 3 % range -ish or something for the governor race. Yeah, I mean, it's, so, you know, obviously that's a goal, right, is set the record.

Groo (55:56.863)
Not good. Yes.

Todd Stevens (56:01.886)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (56:03.397)
for percentage of the vote that we can get in the state. Like there's a lot of smaller wins that we're trying to line up that are much more manageable, attainable, and specifically that the odds can be shifted in our favor. I don't know if we can ever get to the point where we can shift the odds in our favor for winning it. Maybe we can, but it'd be one of those things that I think if I win, it would certainly be a shock. And to me, that's actually almost more powerful because I think if we fast forward to 2015,

Todd Stevens (56:31.262)
Oh yeah.

Mike Ross (56:33.303)
2035 and they're like, hey, the libertarians are in this it's not a shock when they win So in my opinion, it's less of a mandate like if you really think through what it means, right? They're spending the most money in any state for our governor's race If enough people check that box and I somehow win it despite the fact that I'm refusing to spend money with the newspapers the social media Like I'm not playing into their game Because it's a fool's errands and it's a waste of money. I'd rather see that money go to charities that are actually doing some good in the world that

than lining the pockets of meta and these mega corporations. But if I somehow pull this off, to me, that's a mandate from the people of this state, really, for my platform, because it's not me, right? They're getting behind the platform, the things that I am advocating for, the problems with the system in this state that I'm pointing out that are harmful to them. So I think on day one, it really comes down to, you know.

give me bills for everything in my platform and if you don't, two years from now I will have libertarians running on my platform against you in all of your districts and I will spend the whole time talking about how despite the fact that you shocked the world and elected this libertarian, every Republican and every Democrat is spitting in your face, doesn't think what you want matters. You do that, you can create real pressure and I think that when you, you know, everybody said that was gonna be the problem that Javier Millet ran into, right? Oh, he's just the executive, he doesn't have the

It's a new party, it's all of this. He'll never be able to do it. When you shock the system that much, it's a mandate and I think it strikes fear into the hearts of all of those who are happy just clinging onto power. So if I do pull it off, I think it's a mandate where I can really on day one say, look, you deliver everything that the people voted for or you are spitting in the face of the people of North Carolina. Throw it in their court and if they don't want to play ball, you just spend two years being a megaphone and making sure that the entire union.

Todd Stevens (58:11.806)
Oh, for sure.

Mike Ross (58:28.919)
Unifarty gets replaced at that point.

Todd Stevens (58:30.397)
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, that's what's nuts is I think, like you were saying, if one person gets in somewhere in this country in a big role, right? Governor. Let's say governor. If if if one of these states can get a libertarian governor, I think you see a snowball effect, right? The second that the population can look and go, what's happening in North Carolina? Like, wait, that sounds awesome.

How do we do that? Well, it's this other party. Holy shit. Okay. You know, and then they start going that route. Um, and I'm with you, man. I mean, again, this long game, but it's the second, it's like what happened in Colorado with the legalization of marijuana, right? Like they pulled it off and other States were like, okay, we watched it for a while. That wasn't that bad. Okay. Let's try it. Um, it's the same concept, man. Wow.

Mike Ross (59:00.133)
Yeah.

Mike Ross (59:14.725)
Yeah.

Groo (59:25.919)
The mic.

Mike Ross (59:26.341)
Well, look where we are now. I mean, people don't realize this, and I was on another podcast. In 2018, Trump accidentally legalized weed across the country anyway. Like, people aren't realizing it, but...

The 2018 Farm Bill, they found loop arounds where in every state in this country, they're selling it as hemp, but it's basically non -taxed weed. They just, you know, and to me, that's, I don't think that would have happened without Colorado and everything moving in that direction, setting the groundwork. It's just, it's a long game. That's the sad reality of politics. It's a long game. And sadly, I think that...

Todd Stevens (59:54.269)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (01:00:04.773)
if you don't start strategizing and planning and putting in place a long game strategy, you're never gonna even be there on the field when the long game is actually finished. And I think that's one of the big problems that everybody wants political change now. And I get it, I understand that urge, 35 trillion in debt, $100 billion of time being set.

Todd Stevens (01:00:12.862)
Mm -hmm.

Oh yeah.

Todd Stevens (01:00:24.797)
Mm -hmm.

Todd Stevens (01:00:29.148)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (01:00:29.925)
spying on Americans without a warrant. But the sad reality is, you know, it took 100 years to build this system, right? Like from when they put the Federal Reserve in place and then like the various things that happened along the way, like in 71 when they pull us off the gold standard. These things take...

Todd Stevens (01:00:45.436)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (01:00:47.365)
time periods of decades, and if we're not coming up with how can we make it so that in a decade, our efforts are just, are amplifying that, I think that's one of the big problems with a lot of political movements, and you see it fizzle out with so many, whether it was Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, like you saw these movements that built, they were built on this kind of frustration with things now, and they were demanding immediate change, and whether they got co -opted, whether they got stomped out,

I feel like they weren't really playing the long game and I think that that's the challenge because I think if if they were playing the long game We might have seen some some positive movement that libertarians could have gotten behind coming from both of those movements even though they are supposed, you know Supposedly on opposite sides of the the left -right paradigm I think there were things that most libertarians can probably look at both of those movements and say hey We could have got behind that and I for one view it as a missed opportunity that they got co -opted so quickly

And you see a lot of the Occupy movement that came out where it's like when COVID hit, the same people who were down with all the big banks and down with Raytheon.

those companies, you know, VirtuSignal with their VAX policy and the same people who were trying to shut them down a decade before or cheering them on. Right, like that's my challenge, like that's my problem with a lot of the movements that I think that libertarians maybe could have got a little excited about was they were just not playing the long game. If we don't start playing the long game, we're never gonna win in the long run.

Todd Stevens (01:02:05.726)
Right.

Groo (01:02:18.463)
So Mike, how can people view your platform? How can our listeners view your platform? Where can they go to find out more about you, donate? Where can they go for this?

Todd Stevens (01:02:18.494)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Ross (01:02:32.901)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for asking and letting me go into the plug, Gru. So if you like what you're hearing about my candidacy, head over to my campaign site. It's firetheuniparty .com, U -N -I -P -A -R -T -Y. And if you can donate, right now the news in collaboration with the Uniparty has decided that they don't want me to speak to Mark Robinson and Josh Stein in this debate. So they put a little...

Groo (01:02:38.335)
you

Mike Ross (01:03:02.807)
where I have to raise a million dollars by June 30th to be able to participate. My campaign had no intention of spending a million dollars as I hopefully got across earlier here. So if you will help me, whether it's a dollar or 6 ,400, the limit, if you want to hear this message and these ideas presented in the debate stage, that's what we have to do to make it happen. I told you if we do raise this million dollars, I'm not gonna suddenly change.

and start buying TV commercials and playing their game, I'll probably find Liberty -focused charities and try to do some good in the world out of a political campaign. But if you could help, that's where we're sitting. They're trying to lock us out of the debates, trying to prevent the people of North Carolina from hearing these ideas. But if we can get to a million dollars, they're gonna have to deal with me. And there is already a debate of me debating our sitting state treasurer and a retired Supreme Court justice who are the number two Republican and number two Democrat. And I won the straw poll there, so I really don't think.

Robinson and Stein wanna have to debate me, but if the people of North Carolina or the rest of this country can help get us to that million dollars, I promise that I'll present these ideas in a reasonable, rational way that will stump both Robinson and Stein and get these ideas out there. So thank you, and it's firetheuniparty .com.

Todd Stevens (01:04:21.18)
Awesome.

Groo (01:04:21.535)
firetheuniparty .com, the best website domain of all time. Seriously, it's perfect.

Todd Stevens (01:04:27.421)
ever. Can't believe it was available. Oh, Mike. Yeah. Mike, thanks so much, man. Like we've enjoyed talking to you and I really Travis, we both wish you the best of luck because somebody like you, uh, helping run a state is, is what we need to change America and America needs to wake up and, uh, and realize that. So thank you for coming on, Mike.

Mike Ross (01:04:31.141)
Cheap too, right?

Mike Ross (01:04:40.997)
Thanks guys.

Mike Ross (01:04:52.293)
Thanks so much guys, have a wonderful day and happy to come back anytime. Alrighty, bye guys.

Todd Stevens (01:04:55.804)
Awesome. Take care.

Groo (01:04:56.959)
Thank you, Mike.