The Right to Revolt: The Declaration of Independence's Call to Action
Jun 15, 2024
Kelly Tshibaka and Niki Tshibaka
Can an ice sculpture spark a debate on free speech and government overreach? Join us as we tackle this provocative question and delve deep into the confluence of art, politics, and free speech in our latest episode. We recount personal experiences and examine broader examples, like the censorship faced by journalist Naomi Wolf, to highlight the immense costs of defending our constitutional rights. Our discussions critique the legal system's inefficiencies, especially the concerning practice of enforcing laws before their constitutionality is assessed. Through this lens, we reflect on the complexities of governance and underline the necessity for stronger safeguards to protect individual freedoms.
To wrap things up, we invite you to stay connected with "Stand You're with Kelly and Josiah Chewbacca" via StandShoworg on social media, TV, and radio. Be sure to subscribe and become one of our standout members. We're thrilled to announce our upcoming event featuring the distinguished Alan Dershowitz on June 27th in Anchorage—don’t miss your chance to get tickets online. Tune in next week for another round of compelling conversations, same time, same place.
Can an ice sculpture spark a debate on free speech and government overreach? Join us as we tackle this provocative question and delve deep into the confluence of art, politics, and free speech in our latest episode. We recount personal experiences and examine broader examples, like the censorship faced by journalist Naomi Wolf, to highlight the immense costs of defending our constitutional rights. Our discussions critique the legal system's inefficiencies, especially the concerning practice of enforcing laws before their constitutionality is assessed. Through this lens, we reflect on the complexities of governance and underline the necessity for stronger safeguards to protect individual freedoms.
To wrap things up, we invite you to stay connected with "Stand You're with Kelly and Josiah Chewbacca" via StandShoworg on social media, TV, and radio. Be sure to subscribe and become one of our standout members. We're thrilled to announce our upcoming event featuring the distinguished Alan Dershowitz on June 27th in Anchorage—don’t miss your chance to get tickets online. Tune in next week for another round of compelling conversations, same time, same place.
Welcome back to stand where we proudly step on dinosaurs. We're here with Kelly and Josiah Chewbacca, and today we're going to continue talking about the market, humor and politics. So we just finished our interview with Craig Campo and talked a little bit about stepping on dinosaurs and one thing that I thought was interesting was that statue, that ice sculpture that he made, because I hadn't heard that story and I'll be honest, when he said that, one of the thing, the only thing that came to my mind was so how did you, how did you, keep the pipe from getting hot and melting the ice?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, great question. We should get him back on and ask that. I imagine that they used some form of insulation, because they showed it on national news, right?
Speaker 1:
because it was up for a while.
Speaker 2:
Super effective. Yeah, yeah, but you're right. Maybe that was why Al Gore's mouth was so big in the statue Right or in the sculpture it started normal size and just melted from the smoke.
Speaker 1:
But yeah, really interesting piece of art and just to think about as a political statement, this idea that people are blowing smoke out of their mouths and then, ironic, that he's doing the very thing that they don't want him to do by senselessly pumping gas into the air and emitting carbon emissions. But it's just. For me it's so interesting the interplay of free speech over politics and that that's an expression of speech. That's a constitutionally protected right. But I have a feeling that some of our friends in dc who support climate change agendas would try to restrict that and would absolutely tear him down on social media for daring to commit such a treasonous, useless waste of resources and just harming the environment for no reason.
Speaker 1:
So what are your thoughts on just what's the responsible limit of free speech, and then also what's the responsible limit of limiting free speech, and why do we see such a disregard and disrespect for the First Amendment when it comes to controversial issues?
Speaker 2:
It's a really good question. You know, we talked a little bit about that during the interview, this encroachment recently by government, and especially by the judicial system, into what used to be widely recognized constitutionally protected not only free speech rights, but I would even say journalism rights interview that we did here on stand with Naomi Wolf for those who didn't catch it, this was a while ago. She's a journalist who said some pretty, I think while the things were controversial, they weren't inflammatory, and she also was canceled. She was dropped by all of her media publications and her career is totally destroyed, totally destroyed by the leftists and progressives who support an agenda rather than support finding the truth. And she was asking a question. She was saying that we need to look into this more. Something's going on, so she was supporting essentially what we would call journalism and so and it was on social media. This wasn't something that was published and it goes to your question of where is that? Where is that balance?
Speaker 2:
We recently ran into this with our family where I engaged in free speech activities and then someone filed a frivolous complaint about it before a government commission mission and the staff decided that that needed to be fined $27,000. And then they offered. You know well, I could pay the fine, which would have been less than the lawyer fees to challenge it, or we have to fight it all the way. We had to make the tough choice that if we don't fight, the individual doesn't fight against the encroachment by government on free speech rights, then who does? There's not some free speech police that come in and say, oh, did your free speech rights get violated? We're here to rescue you.
Speaker 2:
It was really given to us.
Speaker 2:
The Constitution was given to us by our founders as our right to defend and protect.
Speaker 2:
The problem is that our right to defend and protect it comes at a really big cost, which is part of the reason why I think that the declaration is signed Our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. They were foreshadowing to us, by the way, this is what it's going to cost and they ended up paying that price, and we ended up paying a price to defend too. By the way, we were unanimously vindicated at the end that it was free speech rights. The complaint was completely baseless and thrown out, but it came at a cost and I think that you're right that there shouldn't have been any kind of the government staff that investigated should have just said at the beginning, this is baseless and thrown it out and it shouldn't have cost us anything, but it did go all the way, even to the point of us threatening having to take it up to the Alaska Supreme Court in order to get the result that we needed, in order to have the outcome that was deserved and just I think we're seeing this happen all across America right now.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, there definitely needs to be harsher punishment for parole violators, Steve.
Speaker 2:
And world peace, and world peace.
Speaker 1:
But it's just. I remember there was something I think it was something that Biden did a couple of years ago maybe it was some mandate that he did, and at the time it was extremely controversial. It was probably a COVID mandate and I remember I think a couple months later, maybe even up to a year later, it was overturned and deemed unconstitutional.
Speaker 2:
That's exactly right. It had already affected and impacted so many things. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1:
I remember I was like 14 or 15 at the time and I just sat there stumped just like in the thinking man position, like so which genius brainiac founding father designed the system where we write laws before we determine if we're even?
Speaker 2:
allowed to enforce the law, so he was.
Speaker 1:
It's not just him, it's laws that are proposed by the legislator all the time, where it's like the Supreme Court literally exists to say oh wait, no, these laws are unconstitutional. Why do we pass laws and begin enforcing them through the executive branch before we verify that they're actually constitutional through the judicial branch? Shouldn't we have the judicial branch be reviewing these laws? We?
Speaker 2:
actually have a legal office in the executive branch that acts as an internal court system to vet, and there also is a legal office in Congress that tells them yes or no, and that is part of our problem in the breakdown right now. You're right on. The problem with this is so. Two examples Biden was told it's not like this stuff's hard. I mean, as someone who went to school a quarter of a century ago to study it, you can smell a rotten constitutional law from a country away. So when they pass something in DC and I'm like that's not constitutional, it's not like this is hard. Only the hard stuff is supposed to go to the US Supreme Court. And so he wrote this unconstitutional law and was told that's not constitutional. And the response from the administration was well we'll— we don't care. Right, we're going to get as far as we can until the Supreme Court can shut it down, knowing that our judicial system works at the speed of a snail.
Speaker 1:
That's illegal.
Speaker 2:
And what's our remedy as people? Our remedy is the ballot box, and that also happens every four years. That's also a snail-like process and, to your point, you're here going wait, wasn't there a law he passed? How many people out there remember? Didn't they intentionally impose unconstitutional laws to push their illegal, unconstitutional agenda on Americans? They intentionally violated the constitutional right of every American and got away with it.
Speaker 1:
Doesn't it break the oath of office?
Speaker 2:
And what's the consequence? And similarly, us Congress passed an unconstitutional law which was overturned, and there was a question posed to one of the leaders of the bill and in the media and he said yeah, we think that this is probably unconstitutional, but that's for the Supreme Court to decide. No, it's not. You have an oath and obligation as a leader, I would say as a servant of the people of the United States, to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States above all else. States to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States above all else. And if you're not going to, then not only have you violated the oath of office, but isn't that somewhere along the line of treason? If you're out there intentionally violating the US Constitution as you fulfill your duties as a representative or US senator, then you need to be kicked out of office Like this is what we're supposed to be impeaching people for. Not because they called out an illegal association between the Bidens and the leaders of Ukraine, which is now being absolutely substantiated by the bipartisan House Oversight Committee.
Speaker 2:
These are the things that, to your point. What is the remedy for the people? You got me on my soapbox. I'm so glad. Where did that soapbox go. I thought we brought it today. I'm so glad that you pointed out the fact that, as people who are supposed to be leading the government of the United States, we really don't have much opportunity to hold the legal counsel in the Department of Justice and the legal counsel for US Congress, the White House Counsel's Office, accountable for giving them the legal advice necessary, enforcing good legal advice and instead waiting for the US Supreme Court who, by the way, right now I think is actually doing a pretty good job of coming out with balanced judicial opinions. Some of our circuit courts are still leaving a little bit to be desired but on balance, the US Supreme Court seems to be coming out with protecting the Constitution.
Speaker 1:
I thought it's been very solid and I think one of the issues that I'll just touch on because I don't care about the future and what people think about me is just January 6th. And everyone gets so touchy whenever anyone brings up January 6th and the quote unquote riots. And I don't understand that at all because for me it's just like say what everyone about, who was writing and what groups they were a part of and who dressed up as who. For the large part it was mostly peaceful and also they were all allowed into the Capitol.
Speaker 2:
By Capitol Police by.
Speaker 1:
Capitol Police and also, regardless of what you like, there's no such thing as an insurrectionist in America, and I think the remedy for this issue where government moves too slow but also people are wildly frequently abusing the Constitution and destroying the country that has been created and the values we've all agreed upon is when government becomes destructive to these means and ends. It is the right and obligation of the people to establish a more perfect government.
Speaker 2:
And where do you get that from?
Speaker 1:
That is from the Declaration of Independence. That is page one, paragraph one. And that's why you say and that's why I say there's no such thing as an insurrectionist, because it's not only your right to not overthrow but replace, modify and improve the government. It's your moral obligation to your fellow humans, because they've become destructive to the means and ends of the natural rights inherited to each and every man by their creator.
Speaker 1:
So you have a moral obligation to insurrect, and I think that that's the remedy. The remedy is take a stand and hold people accountable and let's not freak out when people do what they are morally obligated. And what we all have a nation, have decided together, is what we do when government becomes destructive to our rights.
Speaker 2:
You have a moral obligation to take a stand for your country and to improve government and, as you said, it's laid out in the Declaration of Independence of what we have to do when our government is refusing to be held accountable to the people. As we know, here in America, the government only gets its power from the consent of the governed. So when that is no longer happening, then there has to be a means to hold them accountable. A means to hold them accountable, otherwise we just slip into another autocracy, another tyranny, another monarchy, another form of government that's already been tried and failed and we know what that looks like. And we are contending for a form of government that is led and governed by the people, who are inherently powerless, other than by a group of elected leaders who are held accountable by the people.
Speaker 2:
So this has been another episode of Stand You're with Kelly and Josiah Chewbacca. You can find us at StandShoworg. Catch us next week and same time, same place. Social media, tv and radio StandShoworg. We'll see you then. Make sure to hit subscribe, become one of our standouts, and catch Alan Dershowitz with us June 27th in Anchorage. You can get your tickets online. Thanks so much.