HS 153 – Government Overreach and Changing Laws with CO Rep Jared Wright

Check out this episode

———————————————————————————————————-

Jason Hartman is joined by Colorado Representative Jared Wright to talk about some of America’s hot topics, including the NDAA, the use of drones, gun rights and the legalization of marijuana. Representative Wright expresses his concerns with how new laws are being written, particularly the broad language of the National Defense Authorization Act, which many citizens see as unconstitutional. He also discusses the use of drones and other technology that are raising privacy issues. There are legitimate purposes for high tech equipment, but limits need to be placed on its use, such as law enforcement officials obtaining a warrant prior to using a drone in an investigation. Rep. Wright stresses the need for balance in public safety and privacy.

[iframe style=”border:none;margin-bottom:20px;” src=”http://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/2355104/height/100/width/480/thumbnail/yes/theme/standard” height=”50″ width=”480″ scrolling=”no”]

Rep. Wright believes strongly in the free market and allowing America’s entrepreneurs, small business owners, ranchers and farmers to live the American dream with minimal taxation, regulation and government intrusion. He is opposed to anti-gun measures and NDAA legislation. Jared Wright is a second generation Grand Valley Colorado native and a proud husband and father. Rep. Wright attended Mesa State College in Grand Junction,CO, and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in political science. He began his career in public service early, first working as a legislative intern at the Colorado State Capitol and then transitioning onto Congressman Scott McInnis’s (R-Colo.) staff.

Inspired by others who protect and serve, Rep. Wright attended the Delta Montrose Law Enforcement Academy in 2006 and served as a police officer for the City of Fruita between 2007 and 2011. As a police officer, Rep. Wright was a Critical Incident Techniques certified officer and specialized in effectively dealing with highly volatile situations involving the mentally ill. Rep. Wright also served as a public information officer (PIO) for the department and received specialty training as a child forensic interviewer, working diligently to protect and find justice for innocent children victimized by the worst criminal predators.

Narrator: Welcome to the Holistic Survival Show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary for you to survive and prosper? The Holistic Survival Show is your family’s insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently, to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. Sudden change or worst case scenario, you’ll be ready. Welcome to Holistic Survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host Jason Hartman.

Jason Hartman: Welcome to the Holistic Survival Show. This is your host Jason Hartman where we talk about protecting the people, places and profits you care about in these uncertain times. We have a great interview for you today and we will be back with that in less than 60 seconds on the Holistic Survival Show. And, by the way, be sure to visit our website at HolisticSurvival.com. You can subscribe to our blog, which is totally free, has loads of great information, and there’s just a lot of good content for you on the site. So make sure you take advantage of that at Holistic Survival.com. We’ll be right back.

Male: You know Penny? Sometimes I think of Jason Hartman as a walking encyclopedia on the subject of creating wealth.

Female: Well you’re probably not far off from the truth, Rich. Jason actually has a 6 book set on creating wealth that comes with over 100 hours of the most comprehensive ideas on investing in business. They’re in high quality digital download audio format, ready for your car, iPod or wherever you want to learn.

Male: Yes and by the way, he’s recently added another book to the series that shows you investing the way it should be. This is a world where anything less than a 26% annual return is disappointing.

Female: Jason actually shows us how we can be excited about these scary times and exploit the incredible opportunities this present economy has afforded us.

Male: We can pick local markets that are untouched by the economic downturn. Exploit packaged commodities investing, and achieve exceptional returns safely and securely.

Female: I like how he teaches us how to protect the equity in your home before it disappears and how to outsource your debt obligations to the government.

Male: He’s recorded interviews with Harry Dent, Peter Schiff, Robert Kiyosaki, Pat Buchanan, Catherine Austin Fitts, Dr. Denis Waitley, T Harv Eker, and so many others who are experts on the economy, on real estate, and on creating wealth.

Female: And the entire set of advanced strategies for wealth creation is being offered with a savings of $385.

Male: Now to get your Creating Wealth Encyclopedia Series, complete with over 100 hours of audio and 6 books, go to JasonHartman.com/store.

Female: If you want to be able to sit back and collect checks every month just like a banker, Jason’s Creating Wealth Encyclopedia Series is for you.

Start of Interview with Jared Wright

Jason Hartman: It’s my pleasure to welcome Colorado State Representative Jared Wright to the show. He is one who believes strongly in the free market and allowing America’s entrepreneurs, small business owners, ranchers and farmers to live the American dream with minimal regulation, taxation and minimal government intrusion. Today, we’re going to talk about some major topics that include the NDAA legislation. And we’ll talk about drones, we’ll talk about the recent legalization of marijuana in Colorado and gun rights and federal government overreach, so a lot of good stuff to talk about. Jared, welcome, how are you?

Jared Wright: Thank you very much. I’m doing well and I appreciate you having me on the show to talk about these extremely important issues to not only Colorado but to the country right now. Thanks for having me.

Jason Hartman: Yeah, the pleasure is all mine and all ours. Let’s first talk about NDAA and this very, very scary threat of indefinite detention in the country where we thought we were innocent until proven guilty. We thought we had habeas corpus. Maybe not anymore, huh?

Jared Wright: I’m certainly getting those indications from our policy makers in Washington, D. C. that isn’t necessarily the case anymore that we may not have those protections that we come to expect as citizens of The United States. And specifically what bothers me is in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act – and keep in mind the National Defense Authorization Act is something that happens every year – it’s an omnibus bill that contains basically budgets, provisions, it provides funding for US military and create policy for that fiscal year for our armed forces – so this is not something that just happened in 2012 but what did happen specifically in the 2012 NDAA was language in the bill that allows a United States citizen to be indefinitely detained under military law using the laws of war is that citizen.

And this is a quote from the language in the bill itself, is so much as belligerent against an interest of The United States government. It doesn’t go on to define what belligerent means. The bill was sold as being an anti-terrorism bill in allowing our armed forces to make sure that terrorists or suspected terrorists are taken off the streets of this country and dealt with accordingly. The problem is this now applies to US citizens. And even if the United States citizen is so much as suspected as being involved in a terrorist movement against the United States government or is even belligerent against the United States government, arguably they would be candidates for being indefinitely detained. I have a problem with that because, I’ll tell you, I myself have been belligerent against The United States government and I think it’s our right as citizens to be upset with the government that is supposed to be of the people, for the people, and most importantly by the people.

So, I completely disagree with this bill, and I’m not alone. A great number of people find Americans out there who have been working against this bill since the day that it was signed into law by the president.

Jason Hartman: What is their defense of this, though? It bothers me, frankly, that even foreign citizens can be detained indefinitely. I mean, those people in Gitmo, as much as I don’t side with Obama on anything, but I remember hearing the cry from the Obama supporters the first time he was elected saying that hating George Bush for his policies which Obama’s just Bush number 2 it seems like and maybe worse, I mean you can just pick people up anywhere in the world, Americans, not Americans, and just throw them in the dungeon forever, period, right?

Jared Wright: Well, that’s exactly right. As this law is written, that’s exactly correct. Again, their defense of this is that in the wake of events like 9/11 and other even mass killings, their definition of a terrorist has broadened, by the way, and they’re claiming that the term “terrorist” doesn’t necessarily just apply to someone that’s operating in a terrorist cell in the Middle East like Al Qaeda. It may be someone that’s living in our country that might even be a citizen of our country who’s planning the next great attack on innocent life. And to that I agree. The way that they’re dealing with it, however, I completely disagree with.

Jason Hartman: Let me just interrupt you for a moment if I could. The distinction is this, is that normally during a war in the olden days, there would be prisoners of war. And they’d pick them up and first of all a war would actually be declared by Congress, that’s the first thing. And then the war would actually end. Now, it was never declared and it never ends.

Jared Wright: Correct. We are absolutely in a perpetual state of war. You are correct.

Jason Hartman: Unbelievable. That’s the difference. Like normally, during World War II for example, you might pick up an enemy combatant and they’d be imprisoned for 2 or 3 years and then the war would be declared over and they’d be returned.

Jared Wright: Yes, there’s a significant difference there. And I would actually add that’s a great segue into another point that I wanted to make on NDAA. A lot of the people that are proponents of policy have said, well, this is language that’s needed for military to do its job. But we know that it would never turn, our military and our government would never turn on its own citizens and enforce this with the broad brush of authority that we’ve given them and they cite that there are no examples of The United States government ever doing this before. Well, I argue that that is simply not the case.

In fact, we need not look further back than a little over 70 years ago to World War II, an actual war with a start date and an end date that you’re speaking of where a man by the name of Fred Korematsu, a Japanese American, who his father served in the military in World War I, so this is a child of an American that served in the war, he’s an American citizen, he lives on US soil, and the American government by executive order 9066, and that was signed by FDR at the time, decides that they’re going to take him away from his home, his way of life, his family. They arrested him on a street corner, and they took him to an internment camp. We all remember the Japanese-American internment camps.

And it wasn’t just Japanese-Americans. It was German-Americans, it was Italian-Americans, over 100,000 ended up being placed in internment camps. Korematsu’s case is unique because he challenged that case to the US Supreme Court in Korematsu versus United States in 1944 and the Supreme Court upheld his detention. So, we already have case fall. We have precedence in our court system that allows for a US citizen to be detained with suspension of their constitutional rights: their rights to an attorney, their right to a speedy trial, their right to be confronted with witnesses against them. All those rights were suspended for Mr. Korematsu. And he was not granted relief until years later when a district court vacated the Supreme Court’s position.

Now, this is getting a little bit into the weeds on the legal argument, but it’s important because the proponents argue that because that decision was vacated on the district level, the 2012 NDAA could never apply, that’s simply not the case. It would have to be vacated by the US Supreme Court. A district court doesn’t take precedence over the US Supreme Court. You can think back to your high school civics class and we all know that’s not the case. So, the carpet has already been rolled out by our core system in this country. And the proponents are saying that this could never happen, that this law being written as broadly as it is could never create a problem, that’s an outright falsity.

Jason Hartman: What do we do about this? How can an individual citizen defend themselves against these types of threats? Well, maybe before you answer that, we should talk about some of the other threats because it’s a lot more than this.

Jared Wright: If I may, before we go one more step forward, here’s another important thing for all of us to think about is that our president now, President Obama himself, at the end of 2012, he waited until literally the last day of that year, the last moment that he could sign that National Defense Authorization Act in 2012. He waited until December 31st, and he signed the NDAA, but in his signing statement he made the statement that I am gonna sign this with my name, but I’m not gonna put the smiley face in yellow like I normally do. He said that he disagreed with the indefinite detention provision of US citizens in that he would never enforce it.

So for a President to recognize the broad power that he’s given and to have to say that he disagrees with it when he signed the bill, we know that it’s a relevant concern. He then comes out and we have several people that have challenged this in the court system for its constitutionality. One of them is Chris Hedges. He’s a New York Times reporter. The other is Noam Chomsky. These are not exactly your average freedom fighters. They certainly wouldn’t be considered extremists. They are considered relevant intellects of our time. But they recognize the data in this policy. They sued.

In this case, Obama, a district court judge in New York State said that this law was unconstitutional. The Obama administration immediately filed an emergency stay, making this law relevant while it’s being challenged through a court of appeals. Now, what that means in your average terms for all the average folks out there is that the Obama administration sees a need for this law to be in place now. What that means is somebody somewhere is utilizing section 1021…

Jason Hartman: They’re after somebody.

Jared Wright: Exactly. So this is happening now. It’s very real, and it’s one of the most valid threats that we all face. I mean, obviously we have other concerns, we have the budget, fiscal cliff, sequestration or survival financially as a nation. But when you’re eroding fundamental constitutional rights like this, it goes to the very core and heart and soul of what our country was founded on. I think this is where we have to focus our attention to make sure we overcome this as a people.

Jason Hartman: Well, yeah. Let’s talk about some of the other threats. Last year when Obama signed the drone bill for the drone aircraft being able to fly over an American airspace, nobody seemed to pay too much attention to it. Now it seems like they finally are and you’ve got a big picture of the drone on your website. That’s JaredWright.us. I hear that these are already being used in law enforcement. They’re already being equipped with riot and crowd control weapons if you will, tear gas, rubber bullets, bean bags, things like that. I don’t know if that’s all true. I just keep hearing it. But what are your thoughts about the drones?

Jared Wright: Well, it’s ranking up there as an important issue. Obviously, that’s why I have the issue on my website. It’s the topic that I’m working on, trying to limit the powers that the government has in utilizing drones significantly in the state of Colorado right now. That’s one of my main focuses in addition to the NDAA. It is a concern and it should be a concern. It’s one of those concerns that if you think about your cell phone you might be holding there or listening to this radio show right now, think about the technology that existed just 5 years ago and how primitive that was to what we’re using now. The technology around us has developed so quickly. And I think it speaks a lot to the ability we have as a society. I think that’s great that a free society we’re coming up with great technology.

But some of those technologies are overtaking I think legitimate privacy concerns that all of us should have. Drones is one of those. I live in a really small town where I used to work as a police officer prior to becoming a state representative. And one of the calls that I went on as a police officer was a high speed chase with some out of state drug dealers that ended up crashing a car and two of them escaped and landed into a field. My county sheriff in a very small rural community utilized an unmanned drone. And it was armed with infrared canvas that helped us locate these two individuals. So, arguably that was a legitimate purpose. It did help law enforcement locate two people.

Jason Hartman: Yeah, what size was that drone? I mean, how big was that machine?

Jared Wright: It’s very small. It looks more like your kid’s remote control helicopter if you’re a hobbyist and fly remote controlled airplanes. It was more that.

Jason Hartman: Was it 4 feet in length?

Jared Wright: Oh, no. It was probably somewhere between 2 and 3 feet I would say.

Jason Hartman: And that can be equipped with high tech infrared technology so they can basically find you based on your body heat?

Jared Wright: Yes.

Jason Hartman: Wow. It doesn’t have to be a big drone. Wow, that’s just amazing.

Jared Wright: No. No, it doesn’t. And just like with your smart phone, as technology continues to progress…

Jason Hartman: It’ll get better and better, yeah.

Jared Wright: It gets better and better. Things get smaller and smaller. And more importantly, prices get cheaper. We have the ability for you to buy a drone…Literally, the prices are down enough for an interested private citizen or hobbyist to buy their own drone right now armed with cameras. The prices have come down a few thousand dollars to the most advanced law enforcement drones being somewhere around $40-$50 thousand.

So when you look at a state budget or a local law enforcement agency’s total budget, it’s very inexpensive to purchase these drones.

Jason Hartman: Yeah. And these drones, civilians can use them, too. I believe a civilian can have a drone with any FAA clearance or anything as big as 4 feet long. Something like that I think, right?

Jared Wright: That’s correct. And there’s an altitude limit. I believe it’s 500 feet right now before the FAA has valid concerns for airline traffic.

Jason Hartman: That’s pretty cool though if you think about it. If that has a long range and it’s equipped with camera and maybe sound equipment, I’m sure Google is buying these things up so that they can invade everybody’s Wi-Fi router and nail down their IP address and stick it in some database. Scary, scary stuff. They have basically bionic airplanes, little drones that are the size of dragonflies now. There are all sorts of things. Soon you might be sitting at the dinner table shooing a fly away and that fly is a robot that is listening to your conservation.

Jared Wright: Sounds like something right out of a James Bond film. And it’s very true.

Jason Hartman: It’s a year away I bet if not already here. What do we do about this? What’s the anti-drone technology?

Jared Wright: There isn’t technology. I think that with private use of drones, what you’ll see is you will see companies developing drone defense technology for lack of a better word to help individuals secure their privacy. And I think that’s gonna be needed. But more importantly, as policy makers of the government level, where we can intervene I think it’s imperative that we simply must. We need to establish policies that require a law enforcement agency to obtain a warrant for information that they want to collect using a drone.

We have plane flight principles that traditionally are used in law enforcement where if an officer can’t see it with his own eyes, he has to take extra steps through applying for a warrant in order to gather that information, and I think that simply has to be the case for drones.

Jason Hartman: Yeah, there was an interesting case – I believe it was last year or maybe the year before that the Supreme Court took up about a GPS monitor placed on a suspected drug dealer’s car and they stuck it in the bumper or something like that and they used it to make the arrest. And it went all the way up to the Supreme Court. And I believe the outcome of that, correct me if I’m wrong, but the outcome of that case was the Supreme Court said no. The police should have had a warrant to use that. But what’s interesting is that the police, the state basically, argued that, look, if a police force had enough staff, they could have just manually in that plane site rule followed the guy with their own eyes but they’re just understaffed because they don’t have the budget to enforce things like that. And the Supreme Court said, you know what, no way. Get a warrant if you want to use this evidence. Am I correct in my interpretation of that case?

Jared Wright: You’re absolutely correct. That was the decision. I think it was very appropriate. It was heartening to know.

Jason Hartman: The argument from the state was actually pretty good. They had a point. I mean, as much as I hate to see the state win in something like that, in a way, of course we all want the state to have all the rights it needs to do the things we want it to do like catching drug dealers or other more serious criminals, but then again you think of how it can be used in the wrong ways and it’s really scary.

Jared Wright: It is. And you’re referring to United States vs. Jones for people that want to look up that case. Very interesting opinion that the Supreme Court issued. And I think, again, that it is appropriate. And I think, again, it is appropriate. And kind of like you, I see the legitimate use of new technology for law enforcement. One of the things that we face as policy makers who come out opposed to this new technology is, well, you’re just not with the times, you’re old school, you’re old fashioned, you just need to catch up with the 21st century and allow our police officers and law enforcement to use this technology.

But someone needs to be in that position. Someone needs to be a moderating voice that slows down this process to make sure that we carefully develop policies that does balance the legitimate use of new technology to keep people safe with also protecting people’s constitutional rights to privacy. And it is a fine balance to strike, but I think it’s one that we need to pause and allow our policies to catch up with this technology in order to keep people’s privacy secure. It’s just something that we have to do and I think that we’re going to see a fundamental shift of what this country is meant to be and what it continues to be from what it was originally and meant to be by our founders. And I think we don’t want that to change more than it already has.

Jason Hartman: Yeah, it’s just hard to determine what that is. I mean, look at the federal government with this new data center that they’ve built in Utah. I remember before 9/11 there was a big outrage, and I even spoke about it at one of my office meetings for the real estate company I owned, it had nothing to do with real estate really, against Carnivore which was the device that the government wanted to place into various ISPs, Internet Service Providers, facilities where it would basically monitor all the email and internet traffic of people. And then 9/11 happened and anybody that was against Carnivore, the world didn’t even want to hear what they had to say. Screw you. We’re going to have Carnivore and a lot worse.

And you just gotta ask yourself at some point – I mean I don’t know how far you go with some of your thinking on this, but what is happening to The United States? There must be an outside motivation that’s beyond The US that’s forcing the hand of people like Obama and Bush, both sides of the aisle. It’s like they’re the same thing, just slightly different flavors. It really doesn’t matter if it’s a republican or a democrat.

Jared Wright: I’ll tell you this much. I believe just as the founding fathers in this country did that there is always an outside force that pushes the government towards being totalitarian, towards limiting people’s freedoms. That’s why they gave us all the checks and balances in this country that we enjoy. That’s why we have a Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They knew then from their own experience with government prior to coming to North America that this was a legitimate threat. We always see government move itself towards tyrannical type of governments. And I would say it’s a naturally occurring force in nature.

Jason Hartman: And you know why? I’ll tell you why. I realized this one – I used to serve on a bunch of different charity committees and boards and things like that and I just kind of realized that every organization, the goal of any organization, is just to perpetuate its existence and expand its power and influence, whether it be good or bad. It’s just the nature of things. It all degrades into tyranny.

Jared Wright: That’s a great observation. I think that hits the nail on the head. And since we’re working against these natural forces, again, when it comes to technology I think that emphasizes people’s freedoms. And to some degree safety is important, but safety not in the name of total elimination of freedom. And the internet is one of those. Technology is developed I think for the good of mankind. It’s one of the least regulated technologies out there, the least taxed technologies out there – the internet.

Jason Hartman: Oh, the internet in general, okay.

Jared Wright: The internet in general. And I think that it absolutely needs to be maintained that way. We can’t argue that it was developed to be that because it was actually developed by the private sector. Aerospace was highly involved in the internet in various biosciences for translating volumes of information in a quick fashion. Al Gore did not create the internet.

Jason Hartman: Of course not.

Jared Wright: But it turned into a technology that I think is extremely useful for mankind and I think the government ought to, to the most possible extend, keep its hands out of it and allow it to continue to be a great day for people to communicate across the world with one another their ideas for whether it be developing new technology or simply sending a letter to grandma. It needs to be an open and free forum for free-flowing information.

Jason Hartman: No question about it. Talk just quickly, if you would, about the recent legislation legalizing marijuana in Colorado and Seattle. I’m kind of curious what your thoughts are on that one.

Jared Wright: Sure. It’s something that I initially came out against. It was something that, having been a cop and seeing the damaging effects that marijuana specifically was having on our local high school and schools in young kids and the studies that we’ve seen that shows that marijuana use has a pretty strong negative effect on the development of the human brain at a young age really bothered me. And I felt that it was something that the government should appropriately regulate. I still have a lot of those concerns, however, that said…

Jason Hartman: But wouldn’t you have the same concerns about alcohol?

Jared Wright: Yeah, I absolutely do. And we saw obviously the same abuse by kids in high school there and that’s a legal product. And this was something that was passed by the people of the state of Colorado. It wasn’t initiated by a politician. It was something that was put on the ballot by a citizen’s organization. It was well funded but it was still a citizen organization nonetheless and it passed. Same as Washington, it passed as a ballot initiative by the people. And I think as a policy maker, my duty at this point is to defend the will of the people.

And here is what has changed my opinion just a little bit about this issue. When I see organizations like the United Nations pressuring the federal government to overturn Colorado and Washington’s laws, that bothers me. That sends up a red flag not only are we talking about the federalization of the state’s rights, we’re talking about the internationalization of the state’s rights when we have a group like the United Nations’s pressure for these laws to be overturned. That bothers me and that causes me to take an even more defensive stance to defend these laws and the will of the people in this state from the interests of international organization or even federal interests. I will definitely stand up for the people of this state when that time comes.

Jason Hartman: Do you think that the federal government is becoming so over the top in their intrusion? Do you think that we’ll ultimately see any real momentum and real action behind any of these secession movements?

Jared Wright: I think that you’re going to see an increase. I don’t think these movements will die out. I think each time an oppressive law in the minds of the citizens of this country is passed at a federal level you’re going to see these discussions being amplified and I think that is completely appropriate. It makes me think back to the words of Thomas Jefferson that talked about revolution freely in his speeches. He talked about having a peaceful revolution every generation through this political process but he did not negate the need at times in this country for a complete revolution of the people. And the founders built a framework for that to occur and into our constitution and that’s in the form of the 10th Amendment.

Rights are supposed to be reserved to the people, to the states of this country, and we’re seeing a complete erosion of the 10th Amendment on a case by case basis at the Supreme Court level and that’s worrisome. And that’s why I think that you’re not see these conversations of seceding stop. In fact, I think you’re gonna see more and more as we move forward.

Jason Hartman: I know. But what’s ultimately gonna happen? I mean, if one state really does it, are we in for a civil war?

Jared Wright: Times are very different from the period when this country saw its last and only civil war. Given the, again, some of the changes we’ve had in technology, free flow of information, military technology, literally already the erosion of people’s privacies where we have closer to television cameras in large cities and now drone technology. I think the definition of civil war, as we might apply it using past history, might not apply. I think it may be a very different type of war, an information war so to speak that would occur if states moved forward and started that sort of a movement.

Jason Hartman: See, the way laws work and the way liberties become eroded, I don’t have to tell you this, but it’s like the analogy of boiling the frog. You put the frog in the warm water, it gets comfortable having a nice Jacuzzi and you turn up the heat slowly and it’s just like one by one by one there’s another freedom that evaporated. It’s another layer of privacy is gone. There’s just this constant erosion. And people are so busy on Facebook and watching TV that god forbid they might have time to actually think about this stuff and much less do anything about it.

Jared Wright: Absolutely. You just put the progressive movement in a nutshell. That’s their modus operandi. When they push their movement forward they know it’s slow and methodical. It is piece by piece. Some of the gun laws or the gun control laws or the gun control laws that we just saw passed here in Colorado that I spent a majority of my time fighting against, unable to be proactive on as much of these other issues that I’d like to be were passed and signed into law by the governor and they’ve admittedly not gone as far as most or at least some of the members of the progressive movement. The members of the general assembly over here want them to go. They want to see admittedly all out gun registration by the citizens. They want to eventually – I’ve heard from a couple members of legislators – they want them to eventually be ceased by the government.

Jason Hartman: So legislators have just told you that directly. They’ve actually said that.

Jared Wright: They’ve actually said it, albeit private conversations, but they’ve said it. They’ve admitted that they think that less guns, if not all guns, off of the streets and out of the hands of individuals would create a safer society.

Jason Hartman: Well, that’s what every dictator in history has said, too. So where does that leave us?

Jared Wright: Here’s where I don’t want to leave off. I don’t want to leave listeners with a negative impression. I think that one of the things that we are facing now is a war for our minds. And one of the biggest tools in that war for I guess who I would describe to the enemy is fear. And maybe look at the war on terror, this perpetual war with no ending and a mysterious and ambiguous enemy that we’re fighting against. I think that you look no further for an example of fear. It’s legitimate fear, but it’s fear that society ought to harness and change into action and an action that adheres to our constitutional principles.

It’s not a fear that people should allow to just sign away their rights. People should not be so afraid of what’s happening in this country that they’re willing to sign away every one of their rights that protects the fundamental things that make this, in my opinion, still the greatest country on the planet. That’s their greatest tool is fear. We need to harness that, change it into action, be proactive, have a positive attitude, remember that we still do have a constitution that protects our rights, and organize. Be active in your government, go out there, get involved. Like you said, get off Facebook and out from behind the TV and come to an understanding…

Jason Hartman: Yeah, and one distinction there. A lot of exchange of ideas and influence happens there, but go ahead. I know you know that.

Jared Wright: Absolutely, yes. In fact, I’ve utilized Facebook quite extensively. If you’re in front of Facebook for the purposes of political activism, I’d say there aren’t many tools that are as effective. I think Facebook’s great for that purpose. It does help organize people very quickly and that’s great. Social Facebooking, if that’s completely taking over your life and you’re not focusing on what our founders intended to be a fundamental beauty of involvement in your government, that’s a different topic. But,l again, get involved. And I’d just encourage people don’t let the negativity get you down to the point that you think it’s over.

If every person in this country stood up for their rights, we could change this country overnight. And I say that on both sides of the political spectrum. One of the interesting things about running this bill that I ran in Colorado to block the NDAA and the legislation that I’m working on is there are people on completely polar opposite sides of the political spectrum that agree on these topics. They don’t want these privacies sold out. They don’t want to be indefinitely detained by their government. I mean, these are almost unanimous. There are certainly people out there working against it that are in powerful position, namely Lindsey Graham and John McCain, hate to name names. But there’s a consensus on these issues because people recognize the danger to their rights. So we just need more people standing up for their rights and literally the country could change overnight.

Jason Hartman: Good. Well, give out your website if you would, Jared. And tell people where they can learn more about you.

Jared Wright: Sure. It’s www.JaredWright.us – .com will also work, goes to the same place. And I update the website regularly. I encourage people to get on the website. You can also actually friend me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter and I provide daily updates on what we’re up to. So, I encourage people to head to that place.

Jason Hartman: Fantastic. Well, Representative Jared Wright, thank you so much for joining us today.

Jared Wright: Been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Narrator: Thank you for joining us today for the Holistic Survival Show, protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Be sure to listen to our Creating Wealth Show, which focuses on exploiting the financial and wealth creation opportunities in today’s economy. Learn more at www.JasonHartman.com or search “Jason Hartman” on iTunes. This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company, offering very general guidelines and information. Opinions of guests are their own, and none of the content should be considered individual advice. If you require personalized advice, please consult an appropriate professional. Information deemed reliable, but not guaranteed.

Transcribed by Ralph

The Holistic Survival Team
Holistic-Survival-thumb315