Challenging the Two-Party System: Maad’s Libertarian Bid for Congress

Peter Pappas: Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on when you're listening. welcome to the Carolina Cabinet. I'm Peter Pappis, your host, along with the lovely Laura Musler. Hello, hello. Thank you for being here as always, my trusted compadre. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. And welcoming Maud. I'm not gonna say the rest so I so Maud, go ahead, introduce yourself and so I don't hack your name, please, because I I I'm probably the only Maud running, so I think that'll be good enough. Okay, okay. It's Abu Ghazala. I just said it. Did you hear me? Let me hear it. Abu Gazala. That's perfect. So to make it easier, Abu means father and gazala is gazelle. So it's father of the gazelle. so I'm running for US Congress, North Carolina seven. So that's where David Rouser's the incumbent. Okay. yeah. So did you want me to Well, let's let's talk about this. so I did a little bit of research on you and you grew up in Not in the United States. I didn't. So growing up in Saudi Arabia, what was that like day to day for a kid? well, we were spoiled because I lived in an American oil compound. So it was a little piece of America in the middle of Saudi Arabia. Okay. And they had a fence around us, which we thought would protect us from everybody outside, but I think it was the other way around because we were a bunch of rowdy kids. But you know, because of that upbringing, I I really got to see what American culture was like within this context of being in the Arab world. And, you know, it's always was my dream from the time I was a kid to come to America. Okay. So well obviously you don't have a American last name. I mean well it could be American as people naturalized, but both parents from over there? Yeah. From the same town. Okay. Which is actually in the West Bank. So I was born in the West Bank. Okay. And then My father worked for this oil company in Saudi Arabia, so I grew up there. Excellent. Okay. Well, definitely a different culture. but as a fellow Mediterranean dweller of Greeks, we have good food. So at least but we'll have a fight in a minute about who made some of the foods. Who who won the soccer or whoever the hell, you know. so what's the first thing that struck you as strange or great or just different when you actually got to the United States? You know, it's it's a cultural thing. Is The in America you use it's it draws people who want to make it on their own merits. Right. So in the Arab world, and I assume it's the way in a lot of places overseas, it's like what family they ask your name, what family is that? Who do you know? You know, what's what what group are you with? And then we're gonna treat you according to that. Maybe have you traveled to Greece a lot or yeah, I may have been there enough. Yeah. I bet it's a lot like that. Is well it's like we're always trying to find community. Yeah. But in America, the fact is you have your community, but at the end of the day, people judge you by, I mean, that'll get you, that'll open a few doors for you. End of the day, you gotta make it on your own. For better or worse, is like, you know, what are you made out of? But what, you know, how much grit do you have? You know, that that seems may seem like a cliche or a romanticized version of what people think America is. And it's probably got, you know, a little bit of you know, cracks around the edges that it's not quite all that. Mm-hmm. But there's a lot more of that in America than there is overseas. Right. Right. Right. Okay. So I'm gonna give you one more like easy, easy one. Let's see. So I don't know how many easy questions there are. There's a few. There's a few. So you know, first thing that you ate in the United States you still crave. That's the easiest one I got for you. We d for some reason we we did a lot of American food, but just lasagna. Lasagna. I'm a big lasagna fan. So okay. All right. So tell me about career. What is it you do day to day? So I'm not doing much anymore. I I I've been dabbling stuff. I worked my butt off. Don't get me wrong. I I lived in Silicon Valley for about thirty years. Okay. and I I had a math degree. So when you're you know the mentality of immigrants is you you gotta be an engineer, whatever. Engineer, doctor, or lawyer. Not not so much lawyer. No. For for Arabs, lawyers aren't that big of a deal because you you don't really have much power as a lawyer. It's not like in the States where lawyers run the country. Yeah. Over there you got the dictators run the country. So but sure, sure, doctor and engineer basically. Right. So I even though it didn't really suit my personality, I got into engineering. I got into computer science in nineteen seventy-nine. I I started a college in at Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame, did mathematics and I did that corporate job sitting behind the desk for two years at Company called Texas Instruments. They're not that big anymore. Yeah, a little company in Dallas. Only the pioneer of computers at a certain point. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. so what would I know anything that you were working on from TI or absolutely it was like I said, it was well, I graduated in '83. and I worked on semiconductors. So semiconductor design. Okay. Automation, which is now, you know, it was the early, early stages of that. So a lot of stuff that now is is in you know, everybody does. Back then it was still research. yeah. so I worked on that for a couple of years and it it just wasn't me. It's like, you know, this is what I was sort of pushed into. But personality wise, I don't have that kind of personality that's just gonna put the blinders on, sit behind a cubicle and just start crunching numbers. so then I went and got my law degree. Okay. When I realized the only reason I'm engineered is because everybody pushed me into being it. Well, I mean, you Notre Dame, what's the big deal with a degree from Notre Dame? I mean, you're really aiming low on that one, huh? So law school, where'd you go? so I I wanted to come sil to Silicon Valley. So I'm I've moved to California and the law school is called Santa Clara. Okay. you know, it's a it's a good school, but it was in San Jose, so it's where I wanted to be. And I I love the whole concept of California being out, you know, in the in the you know the edge of America. I wasn't into politics that much at the time, but I loved to windsurf and do outdoor stuff. So I really liked that part of it. Okay. Okay. Yeah. We're not gonna ask your GPA, don't worry about it. I mean, you're a lawyer, you got license, that's good. That's it. Nobody asked your grade. Yeah, California bar was not easy. That was a tough exam. Okay. But I got it. So So West Bank by birth. you grew up in Saudi Arabia, immigrated here. How old were you when you immigrated over here? Seventeen. okay. So I I was I went to they don't have high schools. My you remember I was in I grew up in this little camp. We didn't have a high school in that camp. So ev the all the kids at like fourteen had to go overseas by themselves. So at fourteen I flew out to England. My dad really had a high impression of the British system, education system. So I got stuck in a really strict boarding school in England for two years. And I said, Okay, I think I'm done with this. So I was seventeen and I just said I'm I'm going to America. This is where I've always wanted to go. I applied to a bunch of schools and I got in. Okay. Okay. Well, why are you running as a libertarian? I mean i there's other major parties that most other North Carolina election math says you have a chance. Mm-hmm. Libertarian, why are you doing it? it it it's I'm always like to be the underdog. So we'll start there. Well you certainly have accomplished that. So that's the one of I could be even more of an underdog and go green or something. but yeah. I was telling him about Mr. Dublin on the show a few weeks ago. Character. So but it's the core of why I I'm I don't believe I need to go back. the the context of what got me into politics is the two governments that I grew up under was we s we grew up In Saudi Arabia and spent our summers in the West Bank under military occupation. Okay. So the only governments I knew were the Saudi strict, crazy government, which wouldn't let you do anything. And the Israeli military occupation, which was, you know, it was very brutal. It was you didn't have any freedom as a Palestinian living in the West Bank. so that's what I that's the governments I saw. So I've always felt that the biggest threat to my happiness was tyranny, was the the government being abusive physically to the people. And the the the one party that really that's their, you know, that's their DNA. The Libertarian Party is all about is you gotta watch the the government. Be careful about the government. Cause that that they could turn on you and make your life miserable. And I the other part of it is I'm anti establishment. I think you know, you guys aren't gonna like this, but I think it's I call the Uniparty because the same people pay both sides. And, you know, they say completely different things, depending on who you are. One side's gonna appeal to you more than the other. But once they're in the government, they don't listen to us. Left wing, right wing, same bird. Same exactly. You see, Mott, you just you just haven't paid attention to us. You know, we're very aware of our thing. Yeah. We haven't done a GOP talking points audit lately. Yeah, I'm overdue with that. I have one. But even with these talking points, how much of the audit you mean how much of what they say do they actually do? Right. They lie a lot. Yeah. We go through it and say, Is this true? you know. No. Look at the budget. It's like Trump got into office saying he was gonna reduce the deficit. Yeah. It went up. It went up. Forget about the debt. The deficit keeps increasing. So it's the rates increasing. No, it's true, and that's pretty indicative of a Republican president. Whenever we do have a conservative president, we normally do go up. so running for libertarian for you is you're the underdog. Yeah. Anti establishment. anti government. Anti government. That means anti regulation, which is what I am. Yeah. So you but you figured maybe to beat the man you gotta be the man and you gotta get into office. I think everybody's got a role in the world. this is comfortable for me. I I enjoy talking with people. You know, I it's it's interesting for me is because people when they see my name, I'm not what they're expecting. So I go out to places where you're not expecting to find me. Like I go to country music concerts and handout flyers. And I bet you most of those people have never seen I'm not Muslim, I'm I'm not religious, but that's my cultural background. I bet you they've never seen anybody like that. Do you still have your mom? Yes, I do. So is she the typical doting and inside your business? well she actually wants me to sort of just enjoy life. She doesn't like what I'm doing. That's all right. That sounds familiar. So, you mentioned civil liberties, that you realize that tyranny does not give you the lifestyle that you would like to be happy. What have you seen in our own government that you want to try to change with our civil liberties or the due process afforded to us? And what do you think has been eroded from us that you wanna fight for? I I think it starts with the money. You always gotta follow the money. And I think Citizens United, I don't know if that's the problem and solution, but it seems to be some correlation into how corrupt our government got. Once we started seeing millions and millions of dollars being funneled into these campaigns. So once that happened, once you've had lobbyists with more power than the voter, basically democracy was shot. You know, I'll give you an example. I don't know if we're not a democracy though. we we are in the sense that we believe that part of being free is having self determination. So we we want to feel that we have a say in our government. So in that sense, we're democratic. Like you said, which is not a pure democracy. We have representatives. But the purpose of all that is just to enable us to feel we have some self-determination. By by being a constitutional republic, we are. Yeah. The the the motivation for our government is to empower the people, not to empower the lobbyists. And and you know, if you followed the Thomas Massey campaign, you know, here's a guy. Who was consistently getting 70, 80 percent of the votes, and then millions of dollars came from out of his district and they got him out. And how how can you watch that and say, well, this is what the will of the people is? The people kept voting him in until all this outside money flipped the race. So that to me was proof that democra if the the motivation for this country is to empower the voter rather than the people with a lot of extra money, that didn't work. So campaign finance will be at the top of your to do list. It sounds like it's it's a tough one to address because I think the bigger problem, the easier way to solve this problem, because the easier problem is to say no money in politics, good luck. There's always they're gonna find some way to get money in. If you've got billions of dollars at stake with these government contracts, and all you gotta do is pay a few million, the rate the ROI return on investment is just makes it worth it. So for me, I think it's it make more sense to to nip it in the bud, which is don't give these contracts. Don't if you control government spending, what's the motivation? Let's take Israel for example. they they pay, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars per campaign cycle, but they get minimum, absolute minimum three billion. So the ROI makes sense for them. And and that's just one example. You can take any lobbyist and you'll find that rate of return. If we Cut that off and stop funding. Stop getting involved in business. the government get government out of business. I've heard that somewhere. Their motivation for doing it would go away. Where'd you hear that? Didn't I just say that like thirty minutes ago? I think you did. I messed up. Yeah. You may have could, yeah. I was actually listening to it. So all right. So so that's how I address that. My my my I would rather address it that way than to try to legislate it away. I I think if you address the problem at its source, which is we shouldn't be giving money out. The government shouldn't be handing money out into business, then we don't have to worry about the lobbyists. Well then but when you talk about government contracts they're doing jobs for us though, then how how do the how do we handle government contracts? There's gonna be some, but I'm saying the number is just outrageous. It's like why why is the government is one too many or is two too many? Yeah. W that's That's why we have representatives to figure that out. But right now it's anything goes. It's just a free-for-all. Pharmaceutical companies making a bunch of money. How much money are they putting in lobbyists? They're putting a lot of money. And like I said, the the pharmaceuticals and then you had the defense contractors and you have the foreign lobbyists. So you're saying we don't need defense contractors? We do, but it it's it's just overboard. Again, it comes down to the our representatives saying, I wish the representative would just not take the money so that we can say, look, if they want to give these do this contract, they're doing it because they think that's the right thing to do. Right now I'm looking at it and I say, well, I want to see who got who paid your finances. You know, I want to see your if you want to give this contract to this company, I want to see that you're you don't have stocks And that's happening too. They're all getting rich off of stock. But how how are you libertarian and want to get into the middle of how they do their finances? I'm a libertarian in the sense that I I yeah, I'm it's I'm not an anarchist. Yeah, no, no. Generality. What you mean by you guys? Do you identify as a cisgender female tonight? Didn't no, didn't we just say that what's great about America is you treat everybody as an individual? So so what do I think? Yeah. All right. What do you what do you think about, you know, regulating members of Congress from having a stock portfolio that outperforms buyers? They find other ways. They find other ways. Okay. Well, it you gotta get money out of business. the government out of business. If you got the government out of the business, all that extra money wouldn't be floating around. So what would be their how you do that? Well, I mean, the government's too big. It just you start you know where you start? You start with balancing the budget. You start there because we're if we just did that, I think a lot of these problems would go away. Because the the reason we're having problems now is the budget's open ended. You need if it if it exceeds your revenue, you just print more money. If you were restricted to saying you've got a budget, you can't have a deficit, there won't be money just floating around waiting for companies to take it. There there'd be core issues that we'd have to spend money on. Which, you know, there's a lot of things, even as a libertarian, I'm not an anarchist. I'm a libertarian. I believe we're all part of a society because we want some a safety net, amongst other things. So I'm for something like that. We'll have enough money to cover that. But once you start piling on and you say, Well, we have an open ended budget where we just keep printing money if we run out, that's when you're gonna get all these companies saying, Well, we want our fair share. Right. Okay. So put me at ease, I guess. You don't have to, but So you're not an anarchist. So you want tell me about the border situation. How do you handle that? So libertarians, you know, I've been a libertarian. We're talking about this earlier. I've been libertarian for about 25 years. At that time, this is where your blood pressure's gonna go up. Come on. At that time. That took my bill today. Come on. Well, at that time, at that time, I was an open border sky. Okay. Okay. But my mindset was as a libertarian, I was like, If somebody wants to come to this country and you don't have services for them, the only people who want to come to this country are people who want to work. They're coming here because they want to get a better life for themselves. and then, you know, I saw, I saw what happened in I've been to London. You know, because I I know there's a lot of this anti Muslim talk and hype, but I've been there and that that didn't seem right to me. That didn't seem right to me. It's like You can't let that happen. There's so to tell it tell people that don't know what's happening in London, what's happening in London. And this is coming from a guy who's, you know, those are my peeps. Those are my people. And when you say peeps, that you mean the Muslims that have taken over London. Go ahead. Well, they're not taking over London, but you you gotta you the culture just got it's like a title. You know, we're we're seeing tsunamis, you know, we saw that thing that happened in in Nepal. And that's what I'm seeing is like you gotta You have to have time to adjust. Your culture has to have time to absorb. I I love America being multicultural. I love that. But there's continuity, right? That there's like, here's what we're about. We're about individual liberty. You know, we're about judging people by who they are. We're not about communal rights or you know, group rights. We're we're about individuals, right? That's what we're about. If you want to come here You gotta make or break it on with on your own sweat and tears. You know, you gotta do assimilate. No. No, I I I assimilate to the that system, the system that you gotta figure out how to make it on your own. Right. Not assimilate in, I gotta eat hamburgers. No, you don't have to eat that. And French fries. But you don't bring your your you can bring your culture into your family, but not out into the community and force it on others. You can't force on them. You can say this is what we're about. If you like it, great. If you don't It's up to you. I like that part where we have a little bit of extra color, but you're absolutely right. It's like everybody's like, if you're a devout Christian and you say, Well, I don't believe what you believe, it shouldn't be a conflict. Then why is that a conflict? It's it's not a conflict for me, but however, for the Muslims it is. If I don't believe what they believe, it is there is a conflict. Give me an example. I could be stoned to get death if I could live if I lived in Michigan and was out and about and showed my ankles. Because they are trying to implement Sharia law in Michigan, which is in North which is in North America. I haven't seen that evidence. So I'm on your side and that we don't want people forcing their values on others. In some of those cities, they're playing the the the call to prayer. They do. Yeah. And if you're out th they're they're literally making their towns like Sharia law and and that's that's the part I just need evidence for. Okay. I'm not saying you're wrong, I but I I I know people are saying that. I'm saying I haven't seen that. Okay. Would you like to take a road trip? we're going to Dearborn. She's with that. She drives pretty fast, man. I'm up for that. That'd be I would I would that wouldn't that be a great show? Is me and you show now you go to Dearborn. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We go to Dearborn. We have they have good food there. Mm-hmm. And we wanna we wanna see how much Sharia law is being enforced in Dearborn. Okay. 'Cause you say there there is some and I'm saying I don't think so. I don't know. Let's see. 'Cause we we're all bombarded by you know, we're in our little social media bubble. So we're gonna hear what we're we think we wanna hear. So it'd be nice to actually go there and find out. I that's I don't participate in social media. That's cool. So how do you get your information? I I read, I go on the internet and and search things and and look for sources. Info wars. The other side. Well, let me just ask you one quick question. I don't want to get into debate because we don't have really the the core sources for this. But give me an example of Sharia law that's being implemented in Dearborn or proposed in Dearborn. Well I can't think of a s story right after but I but I've seen stories written in newspaper articles and things like that of things that have happened to people because they're outside or they're doing things or they're a w woman was lashed because sh her hair was showing I was like in in Michigan. Now I don't know if it's true because I wasn't there. I didn't see it. But I would think a local paper would there was some truth to it, but don't know wasn't there. I I'd like to see that 'cause that would change my view if that actually did happen. Yeah. 'Cause my view is that it didn't. And if it turns out it it is happening. If you have a view that it didn't happen, then you already have a view as opposed to I don't know if it happened or not. Well, you're stuck having a view. Okay. I'm I it's but I know that it's an opinion. I 'cause I don't live there, so I don't know for sure. I don't that's why I say I wasn't there. I don't know for sure that it happened, but I saw the article in a local paper through I go down rabbit holes, I'll start searching for something for hours. And and this one said that some woman was stoned. No, she no, she was lashed. Lashed? I don't know what that means. Because she showed her she had her hair out or something like that. I don't know. That's more an Iranian thing, I would think. A lot of this stuff is is more nationalistic. I'll give you an example. San Francisco. When I first moved there, there was a huge story about a family. It was a Muslim and a Christian boy. it was a Muslim boy and a Christian girl wanted to get married. And they and and the parents were against it, especially one of the fathers. And and it turned out he they ran away, they eloped. And when and the father says, Hey, come back. I'm sorry, I love you. You know, I'm I didn't mean to drive you away. They came back and the father had his son, his his under age son, so he was a minor. He had him kill the daughter. And the point I was gonna make, Laura, is the this was a Christian. It was this was an honor killing. by a Christian meaning that it a lot of the things we we consider to be Muslim is cultural. That was a cultural killing. I don't agree with any of it. But it always seems to be against women. I must say that though. I don't disagree. But Th there's places in the world you don't want to be a woman in, that's for sure. or a LGBTQ participant. That no doubt. That is one thing about weaponizing the the the radical DSA part of the liberal agenda. You know, these kids are on college campuses, you know, flying rainbow flags and it's like you these people don't like you. They're supporting Palestine. It's like I don't think they feel the same way about you that you do for them. Well, no, those I wouldn't knock them completely because if they if they're concerned to to be let's say you're gay, to feel that I I care more about people not being civ like children being killed than gay rights is a not an unreasonable belief. So I don't think they're stupid for doing that. It's I don't think that they think, you know, they're they're perfect. But you know, the the children that are dying in Gaza aren't you know, they haven't done anything. Yeah, yeah. They're col they're not collateral damage, but they're victims of the stuff right. So so I I'm not sure I understand why if you're gay, you would ch you should not speak up about kids being killed. I mean you can. I just you're advocating for Well, it depends what they're advocating for. So if they're advocating for a Muslim society or a Muslim government, that would be wrong. Yeah. But I think they're just advocating for not killing children. Who's killing children? Israelis. You don't think Israel's killing children? Do you think that the I knew I knew we were gonna get here? I was hoping we'd build up a little bit of you know We did a little cordial for a while, but I knew we were gonna end up there. Hey, this is hey, this is all anybody at war is killing it killing children. So both sides are go guilty. Not there's not one side. War all war is bad. How much family do you have left over there? Wayne County. so in the West Bank is where most of my uncles and aunts are and cousins. And I actually I I established an animal sanctuary in the West Bank. Okay. And so I used to go there a lot and And then October seventh happened and I I'm afraid to go there. So but so yeah, I have a lot of family there. So what what are they seeing day to day? Like how have they in the West how have their lives changed since October seventh? They can't live. Yeah, because the the settlers are you know, I hope we can agree on that. The settlers are out of control. Can can we agree on that? I look it. I get it. That place has been upside down forever. It seems like. And I I hope they can find peace. but it's gotten worse for your family that they're more restricted now. Is that what you're saying? A lot more. And and even after October seventh, it's gotten a lot more in the last year than it was even then. that they can't even travel from one city to the next without getting harassed by the settlers. Do they have to have like papers and stuff to cross those little town borders? I what is it like over there to travel? so if they have separate license plates. They have if you're Jewish, you get the yellow license plate, Jewish or Palestinian living in Israel, which is about a third of them. Mm-hmm. So most of the Palestinians are gonna be in the West Bank in Gaza. Those Palestinians have a green license plate and the Israelis, which is if you're if you're in the West Bank and you're Jewish, you get a yellow license plate. You can travel freely. with the yellow license plate. You can there's roads you can't even go on with the green license plate. And there's checkpoints every time you come and go from a city. Okay. The yellow license plates go through those. If you have a green license plate, you can be sitting at the checkpoint for hours. So it's impossible to do business there because at any point you you just get shut down. All right. And and they they there's Christian towns as you know that are being burned by these settlers. there's this my good friend in Saudi Arabia I grew up with this guy, he's he's from a town called Taibin, which is one of the oldest Christian towns in the world in the West Bank. And it's just Christians, just Palestinian Christians. And the settlers of pilgrims there, for some reason they've decided they want to take over that town, and so they're harassing all the Christian residents every single day. It's all over religion. So so if they could if what I would like to see happen is well first of all it's not really up to me 'cause I think you were saying this, I th I saw this one episode you guys did when the Iran war started. Laura, I think you were s the one saying, Look, every time we try to fix the governments there, it just they're not they're not gonna do it. They're gonna do their thing. Yeah. They're not gonna do what we want. So I we can pun certificate and say this is what I think I think everybody should have be treated equally and all that. End of the day is I think we just got to get out. It's like right now we are funneling billions and billions of dollars on one side. Right. And so you may think, well, you know, there bad things will happen to these people if we don't do that. The other side of that coin is if they feel that they they have big brother watching their back, they can do whatever the hell they don't have a motivation. To be friends with their neighbors if they know they have this huge military might behind them. So I don't want Israel to disappear. I just want it to become a country. I am for the one state solution. And you could call it Israel, but everybody needs to be treated equally. I don't know why that's such a radical concept. Because one side says death to everybody that doesn't see that the way we see things, and one side doesn't. I don't know how we're And again, we started this conversation by saying you gotta treat people individually. I don't I don't see it that way. I live there. Okay. I don't see people saying death to America. I don't see them saying I've never seen them say death to the Jews. There there probably are plenty of people that say that. I'm I lived in the West Bank or I I spent time in the West Bank. Yeah. You've never seen any of those chants or anything like that? In in Gaza, maybe? Yeah. Or or I like you were doing saying the other day, is in Iran they'll say that. Do you know the context of why they say that? And I'm actually curious. Wha why do you think Iranians hate America? They hate everybody that's not like them. It says it in the Quran that it that they are to subvert us and to conquer us and if we don't believe like they believe they we should be put to death. The infidels, which is anybody that doesn't isn't So if you if you want to take parts of a religion out of context, why do you just focus on Islam? Why don't you look at Judaism? I'm not gonna tell you I'm not I'm not I'm not saying that Judaism is all right. They killed Jesus. So but you're you're you're you're saying you want you want Israel to be a Jewish I assume you're saying you want it to be Jewish. I want us to get out of their mind our own damn business. See we can we can waste our time arguing. I'm more interested in Maud telling me about his family and the experience he has there than I am national politics because it it's a cesspool. I mean, how many how many Camp David Accords have we come up with to try to find a solution? There's no solution. It is incumbent on the people that live there to get to a point where they can figure it out. No influence from us is gonna help that. That's exactly right. But we we are influencing. We're influencing. But we absolutely are. No, absolutely. So are we at a stage where I know that is there a contingent within the Republican Party that believes like you do that we need to get the heck out of there. And and make sure there's no massacres. If there's any kind of massacre, we gotta stop it. But other than that, you guys gotta figure it out. I think there's a lot of people that think that way. However, you had the October 7th, which was a brutal, brutal attack by any measure, and it changed a lot of people's lives. And they're mistaking defending Jewish people from the state of Israel. What do you think? Do you do you think can you be anti Zionist and not be anti Semitic? See, I'm not sure. B because to define each one of those I'd need to dig into that. I don't know. I just I feel like that we Americans are helping the government do these things, whether we like them or not. They are heinous. But we need I I would hope we're caring for the the Jewish people more than we are the Israeli government. I don't like there's gotta be a separation there. I So if if if it was a grassroots, hypothetically, because this is all just a side issue because we're here to talk about American politics. And the American politics I think but I think we're able to talk about because I think we agree all agree. I think we all agree is we need to get out Yeah, and and we keep redoing it. So So I think we we can all agree that we need to get out of we stop funding the wars, stop funding Egypt, stop funding Jordan, stop funding whoever else we're funding, including Israel. And like I said, if there's any kind of massacre, we step in and say, Stop the fighting, but we're not gonna be involved in it. See, and I think over the last seventy five years, we kind of our method of geopolitical politics was throw money at it. And then we become the world's policemen, as in Somalia. Bosnia and all those other places. We have to stop jumping. But do you that if there's a massacre, like you said, somebody has to step up from the like Bosnia or something. Yeah. I mean But but like you said, when even when we were in the neoliberal, because there's neocon view, which is we just kick everybody's ass, right? And there's the neoliberal view, which is we just buy everybody out. Neither of them works. Even with the neoliberal view, they didn't like that. The countries over there never liked that. They 'cause they're saying, Well, this you're just CIA. You're just trying to buy us out. Mm-hmm. You just get out. You know, just it's like we got so many problems too. I think Senator Kennedy from he's in Mississippi, you know, he says, let them hate us for free. Yeah. You know, and I I'm all about that. So, you joining the Congress, you would have the opportunity to be foreign affairs, whatever. So you would have some influence in that. let's bring it down to our backyard. All right. So What tell me what part of the district you live in? I I live in Wilmington. In Wilmington. Okay. It's a big long district. Yeah, it's very thin. It goes from all the way from Fayeville to Wilmington. Has it been gerrymandered on that? Yeah. And Design's district. Mm-hmm. Okay. And my neighbors live in District Nine. Okay. Just totally random. It's not even a major street. The line has to be someplace. Yeah, but I would say major roads should be not not go in one street and then back out the next one. I mean, just because it's a road doesn't mean it's a line. You know, on a map maybe. Whatever. it should make I agree with you, Laura. It should make more sense. It should like you should have a representative that represents a region. Right. If you're just randomly drawing lines anywhere, that's not how do you and Wilmington represent me and Faye though we're totally, completely and totally different. It's a challenge. It's definitely a challenge. It last week I was You know, talking to the NAACP and this week I'm talking with Republicans, very different mindsets. But but one thing we should all have in common is we hate the Epstein class. You know, that's that's one thing that should unite everybody regardless of where you are. Turn that into a class now. Epstein class. Just talking to people that went around the The oligarchs. I the yeah. Bernie Sanders saying we need to get the oligarchs out. I'm like, hey. Hey, hey, you're with that pedal, Jackass. Like he is an oligarchy. I mean, he's been there forever, has had no real job, but the guy's wealthy. How did that happen? Or whatever, Pelosi. The usual suspects. I realize that on my three hundred thousand dollar salary, I can I too can become a multimillionaire in three years. Yeah, sure. That works. That works. The math works. The math is mathing. District seven's all the way from Wilmington up to Fayetteville. Does it go past Fayetteville? No. No. stops on my street. Yeah. stops on your street. Yeah, it's not even all affair. Yeah, it's like half a fair. All right. Well, I actually And then everything in between. You got a lot of rural country. Yeah, I mean the difference between Wilmington and Fayetteville is and then you take something like Bladen, you're like, it's all country. But but that's that's why you gotta come up with a message that unites people. And I think that is the message. You don't maybe like the word oligarch, but we know what we're talking about. We're talking about These these billionaires that are making a profit, not by their hard work, but by grifting. You know, and this is what Trump was elected to do is you know, clean the swamp. So whatever the swamp is, whether you're left or right, you know, that's our common enemy. And if you can deliver that message, be believable about it, you know, I think you got you got a movement. And and this is why I think I'm helping the Republican Party. Is you people are saying, Well, libertarians are taking votes away. I I I'm what's holding your establishment accountable. If there were no libertarian party, if it was just either vote for the crazies on the left or or you're stuck with us, whatever we are, we're not crazies on the right. You know, whatever. It's just our crazies versus their crazies. That's exactly right. Nothing's gonna change. Right. But if all of a sudden you say, Well, we we're gonna lose three percent because now these three percent are gonna vote for people that are saying we wanna balance the budget. We don't want this crazy foreign military. spending or foreign war spending. all of a sudden the establishment's accountable. They're they're not accountable right now on either side. And that's the good thing about the DSA is they're they're holding their establishment accountable. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't know about that. Or you think they're part of the establishment. I don't know that there's anything good about the DSA. There's not a I don't think there's a good you think they're part of the the establishment. No. I think they're lunatics. I I'm sorry, but Look, you've got a bunch of rich kids out there advocating for socialist ideas to take away stuff, property from people, to give it equitable distribution. But don't you think it's good for Mam Dani to implement socialism in New York so we can see? yeah, totally. They're gonna regret the they're gonna regret it. That's a good experiment. It's a costly one. They voted for They voted for They got exactly what they asked. No, no, no. But we get to watch. We get it for free. So we get to see what happens for free. We get to watch this iteration of socialism go around that won't work again. Yeah. Yeah. So as a libertarian, how do you feel about the Convention of States? The States Conventions. What what do you like be more specific? That were there they're they've put together a conven they're trying to get a convention of states to change the the Constitution. Constitution. Thank you very much, brain fart. to make it so that to be fiscally responsible. So that we can't make a budget that's higher than the GDP. That we put term limits. And I do not think we need term limits until we get rid of the people that are employed by the state, because otherwise those people that are there for thirty years, they're running the country and our electeds aren't. Just my opinion. But whatever. I'm I'm with you on that. It's a it's a cheap way out of just saying do your homework, you know, 'cause you're gonna get rid of good people. Right. With bad people. Right. So how do you feel about the convention? I love the idea. I mean, it depends on what the platform's gonna be, but they have three main goals. I know it's the the balance of the budget. I know it's term limits and there was something else I can't remember what it is, but you have to have a convention of states, you have to move for the and then they actually call for the constitution and you can only vote on those things that they've called the convention for. So it can't like we're right rewriting the constitution, yeah, buddy. But you can only change with the convention those things. And that would be in the form of an amendment. Yeah. I think it's critical. I I think sorry, the I think the like I was saying earlier, the fact that we don't have a bounced budget is gonna be our demise. I agree. This is what all empires, this is how it ends. It ends with you overextend yourself, you you get rich, you overextend yourself and you go bankrupt. Look at the USSR. You know, they ended up going bankrupt. And we don't I don't understand. why people aren't taking it more seriously. It's forty trillion dollar debt. It's just such an inconceivable amount that all the other problems you're you have are secondary. You can't fix anything if if you're if the dollar tanks. Right. And that's what that's what people are saying, well, where's all this inflation coming from? It's coming from the fact that we keep printing money because we can't balance a budget. Weren't libertarians, weren't you guys advocates for like the gold standard stuff like where's hoping you're gonna say that that's yeah well that's inflation way ahead of their time. Absolutely I I would support that. yeah the fact that our dollar this is a in a tax that's invisible is the fact that they can just print dollars means that they they can take money out of your pocket without you even without asking for it. Because now your dollar is gonna be worth less. I mean you know that is is as they're printing money, as they print printed trillions of dollars fortunately it was Trump that did it. during COVID, that was taxation with without really voting on it. Because your dollar was devaluating every time they printed another dollar. Mm-hmm. So yeah, the gold standard would solve that problem. You can't print I don't think we have near enough gold though to get back to No the government bought it all. Did you not know that? The government actually went on a buying spree and on the seventies? All those we buy your gold. Yeah. Wasn't it seventy two Nixon took us off the gold standard? Okay. So and from first they bought it all back and then they're like, Yeah, we're going off the gold standard. Ha ha go figure. Yeah, but we can't possibly have as much gold as we have currency circulating in this world. yeah. So I mean, I I don't know if you've looked at crypto. it's kind of scary to me. I'm not sure I can trust that. Way scary. There's no more babysitting. There's no more giving your grandkids five dollars for, you know, mowing the lawn. There's no chunk of gold. Yeah, right. Yeah, here. Let me Yeah. Well that's Yeah, so there's there's practical limitations, but I I'm pretty sure we can get around it. The key is just to have something you can't keep increasing the vo the the source of. Right. Right. Well, yeah, finite supply of gold, finite supply of money. And you just gotta do the best with it. So tell me about what's specific to your district that is an issue that spurred you to want to run. You're not gonna like it, but I I ran here we go. We're gonna go in circles. Okay, here we go. I I ran in two thousand and two. Okay. in California as a libertarian because of the war in Iraq. Okay. I saw this was before the war started. The the war started in two thousand three, March two thousand Two thousand and three. In two thousand and two, I ran because I I looked at it and I said, This is not gonna go well. This because everybody was saying at the time, I don't know if you remember this much. you're a little kid. I'm old enough. I was I can remember where I was nine eleven. People were saying, they're gonna the same stories, the same repeat stories. They said, they're gonna welcome us with flowers, right? Who the hell said that? Neocons. They were saying the soldiers are gonna march through and they're gonna rain roses on them. That wasn't gonna happen. And so, you know, and I looking at it, it's like cause they were saying Saddam Hussein's this devil guy, and once we get rid of him, the people will be so happy that we're gonna liberate them. That's not how it works. Is like people want and this is something I talked to my friends in the States about to help them understand this is you want your own leader, right? So e even if you don't let's say Biden got reelected, how would you feel if China said, Well, we're gonna liberate you from Biden. So we're gonna bomb Washington. I don't know. That's one of those tough decisions. let me think about that one. All right, that example. I thought I was gonna I don't know. I I don't know how bad I could hate Chinese people. I d you know. All right. I thought that was gonna go better. See, Maud, for me, running as libertarian because you were miffed about the Iraq war, that makes sense. You had the cultural background, you had the familial tie to that. I thought I had something to offer. Yeah, and I so I completely that's a completely noble reason to say I think I can do a better job. Yeah. I understand the situation. Yeah. Right. Well, and you probably knew that weapons of mass destruction was a BS you know, I read Well, if they had We gave it to him. Absolutely. That's so that's why at Fort Bragg. All right. Because we wanted to kill a Russians in Afghanistan. And we gave Saddam chemical weapons. yeah. Yeah, no, we we we always tend to be friends and then we're not friends anymore. We go and invade their country. Noriega, remember him? Yeah, he helped the CIA launder a little bit more. For a while. Yeah, until it was no good. Until he wasn't. And then he tied into Iran Contra, didn't he? Yeah. Okay. So it's all right. So so you're saying you don't do you see that why it's a problem now is that we are going bankrupt with these wars overseas, including the war with with the Israelis and and the Palestinians, including Iran, that whole region is blowing up. And it's like I'm gonna give the message of let them alone. It's like we got to deal with our own problems. We got a forty trillion dollar debt, like Laura keeps saying, is like we can't Enforce force our system onto other people. It's never gonna work. So why do we keep doing well and I I said it earlier, I government's large enough to do more than one thing at a time. And I do feel that there is some merit to having a presence or having an influence because we are part of a world economy, a world community. This is not isolationist pre world war one. Right. We we can't afford to do that. That's really how, in my opinion, you get another nine eleven. You start isolating countries like, you know, Afghanistan and the crazies come out. And it's not like I did you ever see Charlie Wilson's War? It's a movie. It's about the Afghan war and of course there's a Greek guy in the CIA in there, so I like that. but you know he says, you know They helped us kill the Russians. We accomplished our goal, but these people don't get the New York Times. It was covert. They didn't know. Now they have all these weapons. They yeah, i well they said they have you have a population that the average age was like f sixteen or something, because they killed all the men with guns and ammo. You had a whole country and I think they said in the movie, and then you have the crazies filtering into Kandahar like a toilet drain. Like they're just that's where they're going. so we use them to our means and then Wouldn't even give money. But you know but people got rich doing that. Yep. In the US. People got Halliburton got rich in Iraq. So yeah, it's like we aren't benefiting from these wars. We we need to defend I'm pro military. I think we need to defend America. I don't think we it serves our ends to have all these military bases all over the world. In every country in the world, just about we have a military base. I I agree. I mean in We have the military bases usually because we went to war there and we just left something behind. I think that's our or we have a puppet dictator. Yeah. That we wanna Well, don't talk about South America in the sixties and I'm thinking Egypt, you know. Yeah, well, yeah, there was that guy. So but again, back to our district from Wilmington to Fayetteville. What is something you see that we really need help with here? I'm concerned because of my background in computer science. I have a real problem with the data centers. Okay. How so? We might or might not disagree with you on that one, but well, a hundred percent we the government does not need to subsidize them. So that we should agree on that. it is affecting our electricity bill because you know, per watt, I guess they're paying as much as everybody else, but the the extra demand requires new infrastructure, which is very expensive. So they they need to be they need to pay for that. Right. So we they can't just pass that extra infrastructure buildup to the average consumer. you know, I also think it's bad for the environment with the amount of water it takes up. And to be honest, I mean this is a bit of a tangent, but the kids will understand. AI's a problem. AI's a problem. So the government shouldn't be the ones helping this out right now. Cause if you ask college kids about their future. What are you gonna say when you've got AI that's taking all their jobs? You know, right now it's a problem. And and imagine you're like 19, 20 years old. What's it gonna be like when you're 25? Very uncertain. Yeah. So, you know, I I I think we definitely need to limit the growth of data centers. And I'll add one thing on top of it. Maybe as a libertarian, this may be my biggest concern. It's this this isn't for chat GBT bots. This is for surveillance. You know, they're gathering all this data about everybody. What happened to the good old days when they needed a warrant to know anything about people? Maybe people don't appreciate privacy like they used to. But it's a it used to be where you can just say, you know, I don't I want to just check out. You know, I don't wanna be I just wanna take a month and just get off the grid. Right. Not allowed. Not allowed they you can't you don't you can't get money. You're talking about maybe flock cameras. Absolutely. So look, what about so libertarians want to defend the country, but there is a case to be made that the data centers support our national security by being better than the Chinese. So your concern is the Chinese will militarily beat us? Well it laps us with yeah w well that's what that's what's being offered as a a reason why we need to pursue the data centers is that we need to remain competitive against the foreign countries because those foreign actors have used cyber attacks. Cyber attacks are a real thing now. Yeah. I I mean I'm can I'm I don't see China as my biggest enemy, right? I'm not saying that they're good actors, they're bad actors, right? They want to dominate the country the world. They're already in Africa. They're in South America, they're everywhere. I just don't care. It's like I want America to be the best it can be. And if China's being assholes, sorry. are we allowed to say that or we just they're good. All right. If they're being whatever they're gonna be. I don't care. As long as we've defending our borders, we spend it's we got a one point five trillion dollar military budget. Mm-hmm. You're saying, Well, w what about cyber threats? Spend some on that instead of aircraft carriers. You know, if if we if our concern is just our own people as instead of being competitive with China, it's like maybe we're better than them militarily, maybe we're not. But as long as our borders are safe, you know, that's what I care about. And so yeah, it's g you're it's a hard sell to tell me that all these cameras on every street corner are to protect us from China. Right. That's a hard set. No, not no, no. Certainly not to that level. No. They and and I believe there should be in nine eleven we had the Patriot Act come out that people traded very quickly, safety for Yeah, Benjamin Franklin quote. Yeah. So it really we have been down that path and we have a whole generation now that's been grown up under that less freedom kind of Patriot Act post nine eleven time. you've seen flock cameras abused in Mooresville, I believe. There was a Yeah, here in Bay here in North Carolina. Yeah. Yeah. It was Moore Mooresville. I think she was this one cop was looking after her boyfriend's ex wife. Yeah. You know. So there's gotta be, you know the access to this stuff has to be regulated. It has to be You shouldn't be able to get into it unless you have a warrant. And there should be at l three people at the switch. You can't just one person walk in there and look up what you want. I I think that's the Patriot Act is what allowed warrantless searches. And and it is you can just throw out security and you can see whatever. Well they created what the FISA courts that were one it was. Secret evidence and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, these these things are not good. So definitely we're not for mass surveillance. Yeah. We want strong borders. And clean water. Clean water. You want to drink water? Nah. I wouldn't drink it out Cape Fear. Okay. Yeah. So well Here particularly the Fuquay Verena wanted six point seventeen million gallons a day. we're still that's still out, by the way. That's still an open case. Department of Environmental Health has not decided what they're gonna do. where can people find you? So I have a slogan. Don't get mad, get mod. Okay. A A D. So my website is get mod dot or g. Okay. get A A D dot O R G. I'm sixty four so I'm just not good with the the Instagram and okay TikTok and stuff. I'm on Facebook. Nieces, nephews, anybody around can help out, you know. Any family around? It's just me. Just you? Yeah. Okay. Libertarian Party's helping out. So okay so everybody knows campaigns run on what? Two things. Money and people. So if you want if you like what you hear and you like Maud, then call then send an A a link to him or send an email to him or whatever, volunteer, send money, whatever you want. If you like what you heard from Maud, we are looking for money and donations because that's what campaigns run on. That's right. And the bottom line is whether you vote for me or not, is like we got to recognize the enemy's the establishment. So if you're gonna vote Republican, Democrat, whatever you want to vote for, the big problem is you gotta get the establishment out. Agreed. Well, Maud, it's been a pleasure having you. I appreciate you made the trip all the way from lovely Wilmington. come back when it's close to election day. Yeah, even if you don't come back, you can call in just for a few minutes, let us know how things are going. Right, just do that. Look forward to hearing from you and good luck to you, sir. I appreciate you having me on. Thanks for being here.