Bad Laws & American Character: Legal History, Civic Power & the Fight for Your Rights

Moore To Consider: Welcome to another edition of More to Consider. Today I have on Leslie Juvin-Acker She is a legal scholar. She's written a book, Bad Laws, How Legal History Reveals the American Character. So she, from the study I have, and we've just met and we're going to have fun here just talking about these issues, there is, and I believe this is absolutely true, how laws are made. how laws are enacted, how they're perceived by the public, whatever public that is, whatever nation, whatever locality is a reflection of what the people's character is, their morals, et cetera. And that's one of those, I guess, key issues would ask, which shifts which? Is there a movement in the culture that shifts law? Does the law change culture, et cetera? Ma'am, how are you today?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: I'm great! I'm having fun! Thank you so much for having me on your show. I'm loving all of your decor in the background.

Moore To Consider: Yeah. So I'm a crazy Washington Redskins football fan, and this is a lot of my history growing up. So I do a lot of it's, it's crazy because as far as the podcasting world is kind of hard to pick a lane. I'm big into history. I'm big into sports. I am an attorney. you know, I had to practice law and, you know, I talk about some legal issues and history. So given that opening, I love this title, bad laws, how legal history reveals the American character. What

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Yeah. Yeah.

Moore To Consider: What does all that mean? Tell us, the audience. What does that mean? Why that book? Why that subject?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: So I have a history as a career coach, executive coach, career development is my expertise, ⁓ life coaching for executives, celebrities. So the law is something I have a very big passion about. I'm a military brat. My dad was in two branches. I was born on a base. I lived in Berlin after the wall came down. I lived in Key West on the Air Force base there, NAS Jax. So you're talking about the law, the military and politics that affects your life.

Moore To Consider: Okay.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Hey, Nia, I was born in that stream of consciousness, right? So that's something that I was very much ⁓ absorbed in growing up. And so I got a degree in international affairs, comparative politics, sociology, because you also want to understand why do people make the laws? Why are things the way they are? And how is this like cycle between what we believe and what we're engineering society to do come back around with unintended consequences? So I went to law school.

Moore To Consider: Right. Sure. Mm-hmm.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: in California, and I had a panic attack as I was studying. And my husband being an NLP practitioner, he was coaching me through this panic attack. And the result of the panic attack was this limiting belief or this kind of like undertone of my subconscious about why do bad things happen when you read ⁓ cases? Like for one case example, there was a teacher who coerced a student to and have sexual relations with him before she graduated with a threat that she wouldn't graduate unless she did. And so the student engaged in a, ⁓ abuse relationship with this person. And so then they filed, ⁓ they went to go file ⁓ an action and prosecute him. And the judge said, I wish I could, I wish I could rule in your favor. I wish that I could help this student, but the law was written in such a way. The statute does not say coercion. says by threat, a physical force or death or some kind of thing. And that didn't happen. So the facts don't satisfy the law. And so that just one of these many cases that causes panic attack made me realize, ⁓ reason why people suffer at the hands of the law is because of bad laws. And I created a five question framework that helps the everyday person in seventh grade reading language.

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: So this is not an advanced textbook. This is me and you every day, your mom, your dad, somebody went to junior high, kids can read it and understand it. To understand what makes a bad law and how do bad laws affect every aspect of your life. And this includes 14 bodies of law.

Moore To Consider: Well, it's interesting for the, for the listeners. I wanted to get your take on this. I was a criminal prosecutor and one of the jobs I had at one time for about 21, I think it was 21 months, I was the domestic violence prosecutor. And so I had a lot of crimes against women type of cases. And I explained to my class common law and statutory law and how it's all in the code of Virginia now it's all been codified, but the common law crimes like literally. When you looked at the one for robbery, the title was how punished because robbery was a common law crime. So you looked at the case law through the history. Then there were statutory laws. So I use this example. I'd ask the class like, what is stalking? And everybody kind of had, well, that's when Jimmy's still not over Sally. He follows around from some grocery store to the seven 11, cause he can't get over her and it becomes annoying. And it's like, okay, everybody kind of has a garden variety definition. Well, the state legislature, and these were advocates for women's rights or for women's safety that throw together this law. And the way they wrote it is on more than one occasion, Jimmy does follow somebody and poses a threat to safety, sexual assault, et cetera. And there were kind of grave ⁓ acts that were contemplated in that. And then every time I got into court, We had that M1A1 type of case where everyone knows Jimmy's following Sally around. And then the defense attorney would ask, you know, the, victim there beside me, Oh, so when he pulled up at seven 11, you knew he was going to kill you. Uh, well, no, I didn't think he was going to kill me. He was going to sexually assault you. Well, no, I didn't really think he was going to do that. He would walk through each one of the ones. And she would admit, well, I didn't really think he was going to do that. Your honor, I asked for dismissal and the judge would have say, well, basically. So I'm talking about that one night in class when I was teaching criminal justice and a young lady who was up on it said, ⁓ they changed that. And I went and looked and then they said it was a per se accepted all of these different threats to follow someone. And what I'm driving at is the people that wrote that would have wanted to capture all of the people that were doing this type of behavior.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Mmm.

Moore To Consider: But they wrote it in a way that's kind of unintended that nobody could get a prosecution. And I did like eight, nine of them and I never got a prosecution. And I followed the steps. Did you see Jimmy? Yes. On more than one occasion, he was here, he was there. But then in each case, the defense attorneys learned you drive her through. ⁓ you didn't think he was going to kill you. You didn't think. So I'm just saying that's an example of, and then the legislature cured it, I guess, by coming in and then establishing that the person by that action. had a kind of rebuttable presumption that that's what they meant. So what's your take on something like that?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Well, I think it's very good. You are a very good student because the second question in this five question framework is, does the law have unintended consequences? And when we're analyzing legal writing and how we're writing laws and how we're social engineering based on public policy and for those people who don't know what that means, it just means our unspoken rules, our culture of how things should be. ⁓ We're talking about, well, what does that mean, politician? Well, these are people who are shaping and forming how our laws are by these belief systems that we have as a society. And so you're exactly right. It's one of the questions that students and the everyday person should ask, what are the unintended consequences of this law? And there are always grave consequences.

Moore To Consider: Yeah. And the reason I say that particular issue, I ended up on a board where one of the people, was a woman there that was involved in writing the first statute. And I don't know that. And I said, well, as a former prosecutor, it was kind of a useless statute. We could never get a conviction. And she took offense. And I was like, well, the practicality is every defense attorney, as I said, walked him through. Well, you didn't really think he meant that. You know, she kind of took offense and I'm like, look, I'm not trying to disparage you because I know what your intention was, but the way you worded it, you didn't reach the very actions that you thought you would because you left a trap door of defenses that were very allowable or, or, know, very practical. And that's what kept happening. And again, they cured it. They came back, but that was definitely when you, when you gave that first example of the judge, like, I'm sorry, but the law is not here.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Right. Mm-hmm.

Moore To Consider: That I think might imply to some people, or they may read into that like, well, okay, bunch of people put together a law that's kind of without teeth because they didn't want to ever reach anything. I think that sometimes when they sit down, they just think that everybody else, including defense attorneys in court, are going to accept that the ill that they're trying to get out or they're trying to punish is accepted and it's not. That's all defense attorneys are doing, are trying to find a way to poke through.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Mm.

Moore To Consider: some law that's written. right. I asked that question. I'll go back to it. Do you think, which one do you think is more of a driving force, culture or the law? Like a chicken or the egg, which do you think comes first? Do you think the law is a reflection of the culture or do you think that sometimes the law drives culture or is it just equal?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: ⁓ man, remember that maxim. I'm not going to say an opinion. I'm going to just say, you know, legal history says, you know, the law no longer is necessary if the reason for it no longer exists, you know. So if, if we don't have a reason for the law, obviously there's no use in having it, or maybe we need to abolish it or maybe have it evolve based on that. And, you know, look at I mean, securities law, that's something that has evolved over and over again. We talk about unintended consequences, the Glass-Steagall Act. You know what I mean? That was something that allowed banks, if nobody knows what that is, it allowed banks to use bank deposits for risky investments. That was blocked. And then when you have people who have greedy, self-interested interests, people on the board have been drawn, who are married to politicians, who could stand to gain. You know what I mean? Then they remove such limitations, regulatory ⁓ limitations, and look what happened. That was an unintended consequence of that. Could anybody really have known that we were going to have a collapse that big? No, unless you were a trader who could watch the storm from the horizon and see it, and then you could hedge and bet on it. But lawmakers, there's the double-edged sword to that. Lawmakers are nose or right against the paper. We're seeing word for word. Sometimes you have to a big view on that. But the hope and the challenge of this book is to have us ask the question, what are the outcomes that we are trying to create? What was it Charlie Munger said? He said that if, he's a billionaire investor and he said, well, if I'm looking to help a country, I would just ask myself, well, what are all the ways that I could hurt the country? And so I would just do the opposite of that. So I would say my recommendation to lawmakers and anyone making any kind of policies to go, well, what's the best way to hurt somebody? Then don't write the opposite law. Think about it. And I'm not saying that that's the medicine. I'm just saying it's a framework for re-evaluating how we write laws and their use.

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm. Yeah, see, I'm, ⁓ I'll just be right up front. Anybody listens to my show? I'm kind of like the anarchist libertarian libertarian. I'm like radically libertarian because, and then when I was taught my criminal justice classes, first thing I'd say by what authority and they'd go, well, cause the state says somebody or the federal government says something. And I'm like, but you ever stopped to think by what authority someone in a black and white vehicle with the blue light on top can pull you over. you know, we know somewhat. from our civics courses or, you know, Saturday morning TV in America when they used to get the ⁓ schoolhouse rock and they would teach us all about these different aspects of civil life. But do ever really go any further to think how did all this come about that certain groups of people get to go to some state capital or, or the federal government, the Washington national capital and make laws and, the laws that fill volumes of books that affect our lives. Like by what authority do the people do that? And, and I think that's why important the Declaration of Independence was important. When I point that out to him, I said, you know, what Jefferson's saying is he's, he's saying there's going to be a break from England. And he gives all the reasons why and it's written to the world. This is a justification for what we're doing. And when he says in the very document that when governments fail to meet these ends, it's the duty of the people to alter or abolish it. So it's a pretty radical thing. then, people will bring, yeah, and he was a slave owner. But he said all men are created equal, which caught heat. I mean, there was, was a lot of heat involved in making statements like that, but he's saying that government has a duty. Life, liberty, he says, pursuit of happiness is from Locke, you know, it's, it's a property, but that's really kind of the question is what is the function of government? And I'm not, not to put you on the spot, but like, what do you think would properly be the role of government in people's lives?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: think it's funny that you say you lean more libertarian because my mentor ⁓ in law school who wrote the foreword of this book, who is the former state supreme court justice for Mississippi, was, he's got his best friend, John Grisham wrote a book about him, about how he was attacked by the chamber of commerce. He even writes in the foreword that I lean a little bit more libertarian, but it's just to challenge some original ideas that are constitutionally based, right? So.

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: I love where you're going because the book intuitively goes into this about the principles, the values, ⁓ which is very Libran astrologically, right? The values, Venusian ideas of what liberty and justice and equality are ⁓ for this country. And we're looking about inequality, liberty and justice for all, that all men are created equal. And in my book, I talk about how we must

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: It is our civic duty. is our national duty to knock down all the barriers of inequality, of equality, and to look for inequality in our laws and look for inequality in our society that marginalizes people. What does marginalized mean for the intro people here is that they're purposely excluded from key places in society, from banking, from business, from health choices, from regulating bodies, administrative agencies. If these individuals are so called equal, then why don't they have equal access to the places where the decisions are being made that will affect them? It's very, you know, it's very, very feminist in that regard, but it really asks, it begs the question if the fundamental premise of this country is that our identity as a citizen is that we are all created equal.

Moore To Consider: Well.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: then by that premise, I ask the question, where we have systematic legalized injustice, which promotes exploitation, which again is legalized, then we must ask those questions. We must break down those barriers to ⁓ equality in our laws.

Moore To Consider: Yes. ⁓ You know, we get into the question of, the law and of, you know, other private results too though. So that becomes the question when we talk about people or what Jefferson's view of all people, all men are created, he said all men, all men are created equal. There's the question of equal in front of the law, but then the outcomes that come from that might not have anything to do with the law. might have everything to do with the law.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Mm-hmm.

Moore To Consider: But it becomes that balance of, we look at things? Like you said, you may look at a group of people and then we have an identifying characteristic. It might be an immutable characteristic. And we said, well, therefore we're not seeing the outcome, but there could be all types of reasons why. Outside of some legal structure that's keeping people out of access to certain things, it might just be, have different preferences. It might be just things related to their culture and how they grow up and things like that. So. You know, that becomes the tension when we look again at outcomes and say, well, okay, I'm seeing something that would suggest that there is a problem when may again, it may just be simply preferences. You see what I'm driving at? Like, so what would be.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Maybe, but we have to look at legal history. mean, let's always go back to the authorities and let's go back to the history. The history says there were judges who literally said, and it's in the book, women don't have a soul and therefore she has no legal authority over her property. ⁓ That's the kind of reasoning I'm talking about. Go back, go deep, go to the original thing. If a woman doesn't have a soul, then that means she has no right to property. She has no control over her body.

Moore To Consider: Right. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: All right, so there's one of those premises society has said, which allowed her to be excluded from banking, from finance, from property ownership, real property, et cetera. Right? Even the management of her children, she didn't really get to decide who her children were married to because she didn't have a soul. So there's that. Then we look further and we look into other areas of history for Black people. Well, back in the day, historically, white men who had relations with their ⁓ black slaves had to be legally responsible for their children by bylaw. That's how it had to be. But there was a convenient rationale that said, OK, well, let's just apply the fact that while you own her, she's the same as a cow. And by that legal providence, then the children have the providence of the mother and not the father. So therefore, you don't have to be financially responsible for that child. let alone move that child from the slave house into the big house. So these are the types of things that I'm getting readers to really look at. mean, the needy gritty, get your nails dirty and really tear down the illusions of what the law is and really look at what were really people thinking. You know I mean? Not how the law was written, but what were really people thinking when they were writing this stuff. There was an engineered intent to all of that. So it is

Moore To Consider: Well, mean, Dred Scott is very clear. It's 1857 and Roger Taney says in the Dred Scott decision that a black man, a black human being does not have a, he's not a citizen and does not have a right that could be recognized by a white nation, basically. That's the decision. And I've thrown that to people when they talk about the Supreme court, this and that. And I'm like, you don't think they ever get it wrong. Now there's an American civil war. And really the 14th amendment that overturns that. Now there's a civil rights act of 1866 that comes just before the 14th amendment in 1868. Now that's overturned. People can argue, I agree with you, that is a person in a position in the Supreme court that writes an opinion making that statement. And I don't think that, I was just actually listening to a story the other day talking about if it had not been for the American revolution under British law, The colonists didn't have the authority to end slavery. They didn't have it in that time. And because in large part what Jefferson wrote in the declaration, just following the constitution, going out to the states for ratification, Pennsylvania abolished slavery, which is something they would not have done had it not been for the revolution. So the point was made. of course, it's whole argument. It's going to die a natural death or it's going to take an American civil war, which it took. But many of the Northern States began to do things that historically when the world had not been done. So they're taking a different view of slavery and it's going in that direction. that's kind of my point too. I would agree with you. You can go back and find in 1857, these types of situations and how the law reflected ⁓ that they believe that some portion that were living in the United States did not ⁓ bear citizenship. or even reflect humanity in that sense. I think that's true. But now here we are in 2026. I guess that really becomes all the questions. What do you do to remedy that? And I get it if you ratify the 14th Amendment and say, okay, there you go, 13th Amendment in 1865. Okay, slavery ends. Boom, all right, fine. All right, so now there's many people now who had been slaves, now they're not. What does that mean? Are they citizens? Okay. Then you come up the next and you come up with an, ⁓ with the 15th amendment about voting. So there have been these amendments. And then after Jim Crow, of course, once we pull from reconstruction, basically everything that was in the 13th, well, not the 13th so much, but the 14th and 15th, were they really even applicable at that point? Because they weren't being recognized by the South for a hundred years. So there's law and then there's reaction to law and then there's actual practice. And

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Yeah Yeah. Yeah, I think those are also different sects of white religion in America. You you talk about ⁓ the Amish and the Quakers specifically, historically have condemned slavery. And that's the reason why Pennsylvania and Northern states, ⁓ you know, turn their laws to condemn that. So we have to look at religion also playing a role.

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: in laws for the best, for the better, and for the worst. So there's that. So it just goes back to the fundamental point is what we believe and what we assume to be true about ourselves and others, our own self-concept and the concept of others, which goes back to inequality, which is dehumanization of others. If we have this concept that others are unequal to us in any way, shape, or form, whether above us or below us, then that does shape our outcomes, our legal outcomes.

Moore To Consider: Always. Mm-hmm. Right.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: because it determines, ⁓ who participates in the legislation process and even the rulemaking process. ⁓ And also, you we talk about remedying that today. I think the remedies, I talk about that in the section of remedies is about, you know, ⁓ for Black Americans and former slaves ⁓ talking about how we have to evaluate what does reparations mean.

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: You know what I mean? And I don't necessarily give an answer to that, but I mean, reparations can mean what? It's for example, I had a friend of mine who's white and super successful. He works in one of the largest website companies in the world. I'm sure people know what it is by just me referencing that. And he's just like, I don't understand why you and all these other people are having problems, you know? And I just looked at them and I say this in the book, I say, you don't see the barriers because they weren't built around you. So when it comes to legal history and it comes to writing and policy and the sociology and how laws affect us from all ways, who is this law intended to marginalize? Who is this law intended to benefit and profit? We have to ask these questions. And yeah, a lot of us, when we're experiencing the short end of the stick legally, we go, ah, well, it was all written by rich white men. But at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves the questions as a minority. And that's the reason why I wrote the book. We just like, you got to get involved in the process. You got to get yourself in the room. And how are you not going to participate if you don't know what your rights are? And it always starts with what that is. And I think the constitution is this wonderful. Bill of Rights, wonderful document that puts to us a north star of how we can, again, break down all those barriers to equality, but allows us to go, hmm, what are my rights? Am I standing up for my rights? Am I allowing myself to use my voice? Am I participating in the process? Because this isn't just about whites and minorities and this and that. This is about people who just say, What's the point of participating in the process? What's the point of going to city hall and talking to our city councilors? Hey, it's not going to help me. And what I'm trying to do is try to get people from all walks of life and all across the political spectrum, all Republicans and Democrats know your rights, know how the law is supposed to serve you. You go back to that original question. How do I think that the, what is the role of the government? It's supposed to work for you. You're not supposed to be an enslaved to it.

Moore To Consider: Okay. See, I'm a big fan of Ayn Rand. And I remember somebody asked her one time in 25 words or less, what's the function of government? And she said, is to protect individual rights, your life and property from force and fraud from others. Boom. So when I used to teach criminal justice, I'm like, let's take that. Somebody's walking down the street, they're knocked over the head and their wallet's taken. What's been affected? Their life's been affected, their property's been affected. So if we're going to have a force of government and government always comes down to somebody pointing a gun at you. Eventually it's going to be a gun pointed and the students are like, well, that's kind of, I said, you could not pay a credit card debt and they could go in and get a judgment. And eventually they're to come in and try to garnish your wages. And if you don't show up for an interrogatory, there could be a bench warrant issued and the person is going to come out and execute that warrant and cuff you as a guy with a gun or a gal with a gun. Somebody's going to come with the gun. And I'm like, eventually with government acts, I used to be in court all the time. I saw judges say, I now sentence you to X.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Yeah.

Moore To Consider: A person with the gun and handcuffs took them out, not the guy with the robe, the guy with the robe on the bench. They didn't do it. Somebody with a gun always did it. understand government equals force. So if we're going to punish somebody for knocking over the head and taking the wallet, one could say, seems like a reasonable aspect of government. But then some have said, and I'm in there, once government gets into providing certain things, or as some people say, serving them, then it can be. One group of people get access to the apparatus and they're able to enrich themselves by being involved in quote unquote government programs, et cetera. So, and the other thing I think that we've lost clearly is the Republic. think that, you when you mentioned the bill of rights, the bill of rights was argued for clearly there was a question, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, there were those that were concerned. There were a lot of clergy that were concerned. especially in the first amendment, like, wait, you go start putting in there what the U.S. government's role is as to religion, it's going to be interpreted against religion. You know, there were concerns with that. Like, once you put something to paper, you know, that's why there's such a morass of all these different ideas on the second amendment. For me, it just simply meant that they didn't want standing armies. They wanted the state militias to be called in in time. That's what's in Article One, Section Eight. But all of this stuff is fought over because they put it to paper. But I think in a large part, were like, the states felt that they were little nations and all the federal government had to do was have a very narrow jurisdiction in certain fields. We're not that anymore. Everything's top, everything's top down.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: I agree with you. I totally agree with you. think, I think, you know, that's just me, my personal opinion. The book on its own is very even keeled about it and just is really heavily fact and story-laden. I have my own experiences, which I say in the story, but the whole goal of the book is to get the average person, the person who didn't even pass high school. I mean, really, I mean, really, you know, you're thinking about Mexican people you're talking about people who people in Ohio most of my family's in Ohio when they're working-class Americans They don't know what their rights are. They don't they don't believe because the government is so big that they can influence Where they are right in their little circle and so when you have this image that the government is this big nebulous thing With all the power and all the might and that there's no more power in you We don't have a democracy because democracy If anyone's listening and goes, what is democracy? Everyone talks about democracy. All democracy means is shared power. That's it. That we all share the power from an individual to a collective. And if you have authoritarianism and fascism, which is the collection of power and the aggregation of power in one particular group in any perspective, left or right, then we have a problem. And I agree with you there that it begins in your local city hall. It begins in your HOAs. It begins in your school. It begins where you can see when you step out of your house, right then and there. And then you can build up and up and up. But this sense of the federal government is this gigantic monologue that has become so inefficient and all it does is police your lives. Then you feel like, well, what's the point? you're just completely you give up. And that's the reason why I wrote the book was to just give people a little bit of fire under the bums. I

Moore To Consider: Yeah. But, but you know, no, was going to say you mentioned that, you know, Ohio background. was in Columbus back in January. I didn't realize it was that larger city. It's like the 14th highest population in the country, big city. But I was in Ohio and I grew up in Virginia. Like I said, I have been around farmers. I have been around, you know, mechanics working in a shop garage. They know more world history politics than anybody I've been around. And you know this from going through law school. I think that what I just think that that's one of most arrogant professions in the world. Like, I got it. You know, I went to law school, I passed the bar, whatever. I was not that impressed very often by the real grass people had on what I think is the law, what the law should be. They're heavily indoctrinated in that, which makes them powerful. So yeah.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Elitism. Elitism. I write about that.

Moore To Consider: Right. I think so, so when you say that there might be some people kind of common people, and I know you're not being offensive at all. You're talking about even family members, because I felt the same way. My dad got a chance to go to OCS because his, he got drafted during the Korean war. His IQs through the roof. They put him in OCS without a college education. He's one of two that don't have a college education. He finishes in the top three. Goes to state police school. He finishes one. I'm very proud of my dad. I never met a person. more intelligent than him, but he wasn't well educated. I mean, he wasn't highly educated. He grew up on a farm and sticks, but every time he got placed in competition, he could, but he learned to survey when he was nine years old. He was out there with a rifle when he was nine years old. You know, he had to drive the tractor when he was a kid. He had to learn a lot of practical aspects of life. And then when he got thrown into competition with people that more educated, he could compete because I think he had a lot of innate intelligence. say that to say. I'm worried sometimes that what we mean by today, that which is highly educated is just highly indoctrinated in a system that makes them more elite because of the system. Does that make sense?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: But you talking about the premise of my book. I mean, it really is that it's, it's the systems, the outlooks and the concepts of people in society. And again, it could be from various quarters of civilization. I'm not just saying like elites, but when you have, when I wrote a professional responsibility section in here about paper cuts and elitism in law school and how, ⁓

Moore To Consider: Okay.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: because there's, I don't know if you know, but like, well, you know, but in law school, it's like, everybody's so competitive and teachers can actually quite be, can be quite abusive that that culture goes into the legal system. And then it becomes very cutting. And I call it like, there's somebody who wrote a paper and I cite that in there, in a legal journal that we are so abusive that we, we kind of do just a little bit of abuse. So it doesn't rise to the level to meet all the elements, know, like they're strategic.

Moore To Consider: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: And that culture is highly embedded in elite culture. Well, I'm just going to abuse you. Look at that Steam files. I'm just going to abuse you just enough, but it's not actionable enough. And it's going to take me to bend over backwards to find what the crime is because I've broken the laws. I've bent it in a little way, but I haven't broken it. So that kind of elitism, like people can use the law and the law is something above the people. That's dangerous conception that, um, that people have, that lawyers and judges and policymakers are just above them on this mountain top. And we should talk about in the book is that it's our responsibility as a citizenry to humble them a little bit by participating. So we talk about, know, Redskins, my family, my dad's family ⁓ lives in Washington state, and then my brothers and my other family live in Ohio and I grew up in the Bible belt. So talk about Redskins.

Moore To Consider: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Red skin, we talk about red neck. And the thing that really got me angry growing up is that ⁓ a lot of these people are just so exploited at work and their wages when they get injured. And then the misinformation that gets people to vote against their own interests. And I write a lot about that in tort reform. But

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: For me, it's just if people realize that they have the power to contract, they have the power to have a say in what their laws are, participate in the process, then they will not feel so disempowered. They will not feel like their life is completely out of control and they can't afford to make ends meet and give the kids the education they deserve and have health care and retirement.

Moore To Consider: You know, one of the things that, ⁓ I tried to, when I went to law school, I'm thinking like, I'm going to be among them. Like I said, a lot of great legal minds and all the rest. And when I would teach at the community college level, 18, 19, 20 year old kids, ⁓ criminal justice, I'd say, what does a five, four Supreme court decision heavily imply? And they'd look at me I'm like, that it was a coin flip. And I was making the point that.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Hahaha!

Moore To Consider: If they, if they get something in the Supreme court, it's political will that creates a five four. It's, it's got, it's, it's not a cl- my point is they've all gone to Harvard, Yale, Stanford Law School, that that's the people that are going to be there. If they're coming to a five four decision, it wasn't that clear what the correct answer is. They didn't go nine ⁓ So five four by its very nature means they have a worldview that influences the decisions they make.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Moore To Consider: And if you see it that way, you realize it's not like some great mystery. The law is not, you know, mystified and it takes a certain type of training and or certain type of a person to figure out what that is. So, you know, and if you demystify the kind of go like, ⁓ okay. I get you. said, look, look, what's at stake here. Look who the parties are and look at the backgrounds of the people that make these decisions. Okay. So.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Yeah. you got it. I mean, you got the book. It's really, it's really all about that. It's really about getting people to go, well, how are decisions being made in the courtroom? How are the decisions being made in the drafting halls and how are decisions being made? Not only that, may I add to people who are listening, who don't really know the administrative law process. I mean, that's the hugest one that affects every aspect of our life, administrative agencies and rulemaking. You have the right to participate in that process.

Moore To Consider: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Well, and indulge me on this again, too. I was listening to a guy today, a historian talking about Washington and how shocked would he be today if he came back and he could see the White House, not necessarily the occupant thereof, but just the power of the presidency. And the historian said he did everything he could. He goes, if you look at the constitution, Article 1 is the powers of Congress. Article 2, It doesn't go really heavy into other than there'll be a president and how it's selected basically. Then they go to article three at the courts. And he said he would be shocked. And what does he say on the way out? Do not involve yourself in entangling relationships with the rest of the world. And we have 700 and some odd military installations in 130 countries. That would shock him. ⁓ when I get into the second amendment argument, I ask people, and many people just have not looked at this. And I don't put you on the spot, but you know what it says about the Navy in article one, section eight?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Haha ⁓ you're just gonna have to tell me right now.

Moore To Consider: Provide for it. says, it says provide for it's like one sentence, which means they wanted a standing Navy. They had to have a standing Navy. Now, what are the ground troops of the Navy? The Marine Corps. All right. And they, that's what Jefferson sent the Barbary pirates to the shores of Tripoli that's in the Marine Corps. Him when it came time to send ground troops somewhere, he sent the Marine Corps. didn't send army regulars.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Yeah. The ground troops, yeah.

Moore To Consider: And so what it says about raising armies, and this is the point I'm going to get to, when it says raising armies, it says only in times of military need from the state militias, never for more than two years, so you could vote out an unpopular Congress. that always, it's all a part of the second amendment. State gets to keep the weapons. They get to control the state militias called in on times of military service, but properly done through a declaration of war. Well, that has consequences. We lost 58,000 young men in Vietnam in what?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Mmm.

Moore To Consider: whatever the hell that was. you know what I'm saying? And we lost troops in Korea. All of these post-World War II excursions of sending American troops, that's young people. You know, that's Marge and Jimmy's son from Topeka, Kansas to get sent off to some war, not constitutionally. So if they can do that, they can just say, well, War Powers Act, we can go over to attack some country and start dropping bombs. Doesn't seem constitutional to me.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Yeah.

Moore To Consider: And then that has an immediate effect on people where they get there, you know, and let's face it, you know, who volunteers for the military. It's a lot of kids that don't have a lot of other economic options. So they're the ones that get sent to all of these places to fight. And to me, these are all grave violations of the constitution done by well, mean, no, but when you're saying that people need to know their rights.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Yes? That's right. Preach, brother Moore. you

Moore To Consider: I mean, that's what concerns me the most is that somebody, it's males and females in service. They're getting sent all kinds of places into harm's way. And I think they're unconstitutional acts often, you know, the last 60, 70 years has been nothing but. So that's what, that's what concerns me when people lose what the Republic meant. That was the way in the bill of rights through the second amendment. They were like, we get to keep the weapons and we get to decide.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Moore To Consider: that we get through the voting process that members of the House we send to declare war and vote them out if it's an unpopular war. Well, that's all gone. The president just has its unilateral power. Hey, I'm going to go screw around and get involved with this. Congress, I might come back in 90 days and ask you if you continue to want to fund this. That's scary to me.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Mm-hmm, yeah. It is. I think what basically it's funny you saying all this because I talk about this in my book about the reason why we have three branches of government is to check power. It's democracy is shared power. Everybody has their power and there are limits to that power and that in the Constitution limits power. But right now when you have an accumulation of and consolidation of power and then that power does not have limits, what do we have? So

Moore To Consider: Yes.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: We're talking about living in a fascist world where that power is not equally spread out. It's that power does not have limits and there is no accountability to it. And then I talk about in my book, The Pillars of Democracy. Well, if you don't have limits to power, then the pillars of democracy, the legitimacy, for example, of the Supreme Court, any kind of decision that they make doesn't feel legitimate anymore because they're just allowing the Congress and allowing the executive branch to do whatever it wants. And so there's no legitimacy in the limits of that power.

Moore To Consider: Well, when we talk about the term democracy, ⁓ if we look at the writings, Federalist Papers, I mean, you Madison definitely swung more towards Jefferson, but Jay and Hamilton are also writing. They were especially afraid of direct democracy. And I think what's been lost in the whole Republican design too, the only thing that the framers would have considered being voted on by the people was their member of the House. The state legislature selected the US senators. That's overturned the 17th Amendment, progressive era, early 20th century. And if you read Article Two, it says that the president will be elected by a slate of electors chosen by the state legislatures by whatever method they choose. In the first election, 11 states voted, two had not yet ratified the Constitution, and six let the people vote, and the other five didn't. I don't think South Carolina allowed the people to vote until 1852. So the idea was you had your direct contact as a citizen with your state. And when the U S senators went to Washington from your state, selected by the state legislator, they went there to protect the state from Washington. Well, so it isn't, so isn't it interesting the more

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Yeah! Yes, that's exactly that. ⁓

Moore To Consider: that's been given to the people are accepted as powers of the people to vote. The more the government's grown out of control. And I think what it's been is it's been flipped on the people to think that they're gaining a greater control. And what they've done is they've taken the control away from the states that they would have had over the federal government, given the illusion of giving it to the people. And they've grown Washington to a point that's unrecognizable.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: My question to you is who is they? Just for clarification, who do you think is they?

Moore To Consider: Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. I just see people go into Congress with a net worth of $413,000 and they leave 20 years later worth, you know, $45 million. So do the math. I I wrote my master's thesis on the Kennedy assassination. And I often talk about Eisenhower's farewell address where he says, beware the military industrial complex. Now people have said he grew it, you know, he actually in the post-World War II state,

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Ha ha ha ha! Yeah.

Moore To Consider: CIA is formed 1947, 48 Truman's involved in that, of course, and then he laments that later. But we've become a country that sells war. We're funding both sides of conflicts, literally, and who always benefits the five surrounding counties around Washington, DC, or the five richest counties in the United States. They don't make anything. They're contractors.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Moore To Consider: So you know what I'm saying? So yes, somebody's getting rich off it. I think it's the war state in large part. I think it's the war state. think that's what drives it.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Well, I also talk in the book about corporate law and one of those components, historically, if you go back all the way to the king time, you would be able to have a right to form a corporation for the benefit of the people and namely the king, but the people. And so when we issue a license to operate a corporation is generally for the benefit of the people, but we don't have that anymore because we've changed the law.

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: the law is just for profit. And then I talk about the shareholder primacy theory and the stakeholder primacy theory. And when we shifted from a shareholder primacy, I mean, stakeholder primacy and went more into a shareholder primacy where we're just making my profit and that you are given, a corporation is given the legal right to sued, be sued, you know, all the principles of corporate law and business entities. But when you remove so much accountability to the individuals behind it, save for certain, you know, duties, you know, the, you know, which are really just formalities, ⁓ you know, ⁓ duty of self deal, if I get self dealing on them, but whatever. But when we have a system that encourages people to just make the biggest profit as fast as you can and use the law in such a way that exploits your environment, ⁓

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Women, minorities, uneducated people, ⁓ other countries, you have this virus. It's unchecked corporate power. It's a license to just take as much as you can. It's the corporate grab and it's moved to Washington. And I talk about that we need to really reevaluate how we structure corporations and as a public to really think about shareholder primacy or stakeholder. You know, my specialty in my work that I do is corporate governance, you know. I'm telling you from almost 20 years of coaching, these people, these corporate executives and board members, a lot of them don't even know anything about the law. They just want to make sure they don't get sued and go to prison, but they will do anything they can to make the maximum amount of profit. And I'm telling you, I worked in tech, I worked in pharmaceuticals, vendor capital, banking, Hollywood, I worked them all. And I can tell people,

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm. Right.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: that if we don't have clear, I wouldn't even just say laws, because I'm not here to say, let's just make laws for everything. That's not what I'm saying. If we don't have clear goals for our society and as business people, even if they're just principles, right? I'm not even saying laws. If we don't have clear principles of our values, again, going back to public policy, then we set ourselves up for what I call legalized exploitation and therefore the creation of the slave class. So it doesn't matter if you're black or white or gay or straight or this, that and X, Y, Z. There's only two classes now in America. There's the slave class where you're to work until you die because you can't afford. Now they want 50 year mortgages and you got medical debt out the wing, wang. And then the super mega rich that are obviously the oligarchs, the unnatural amount of power that corporate and business interests have in government policy. That's really where I'm going with this book is to be careful because that right there, right now, when you talk about bottom dollar, that's what we're having a problem on.

Moore To Consider: You know, one thing I've heard a lot of commentators make mention of in that late first part, the first decade of this century, you saw the tea party movement start with a certain message, right about the same time as Occupy Wall Street with the message. And they kind of converged. There's a 1%, we're getting screwed, et cetera, et cetera. And then you started to notice what began to really, and I saw.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: You

Moore To Consider: a very libertarian, a pretty high libertarian voice make this. He went and did a deep dive into all major publications of certain buzzwords as it related to sort of issues of pop culture, not pop culture, but culture issues as it related to race or sexuality, whatever. You saw this massive increase. It was a divide created overnight. was like, Hey, if we let the people kind of from one side of the political spectrum align with people from another political spectrum, because they're both sniffing out exactly what's being done to everybody, we need them to fight over another thing. And then the fight began. And so, you know, I looked, I looked at that argument and he starts showing this spike in certain phrases and certain. So then there's all this culture war over things that kind of divert your attention from what's really happening.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Exactly. That's where we're going. Yeah. I mean, it's, the thing is, is that you have to follow the logic follows the premise, right? That we're all created equal. And if anyone on right or left, look, I'm in LGBTQ community. I coach all the famous drag queens in the world. Like I'm definitely there socially. And I,

Moore To Consider: Okay. So we're so it sounds like wording. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: have swung in all different rooms, fortunately, I've been very blessed in my career to go in every open many doors, right? And but the thing is, is that if you are full of for a second that there's something that separates me from you in any way, shape or form, you've got inequality. And that's a dangerous thing. Even from the left point of view, I tried to tell my friends, like, don't look at somebody and try to create some kind of imbalance. Because if you do that from a legal point of view and from a way, problem solving point of view, we're in a deep, deep hole.

Moore To Consider: Right, right.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: because really fundamentally I talk about in the book, it's not a left versus right. It's up and down. I'm not just, it's not just rich whites. not even going there. I'm saying rich everybody. And I'm gonna, you know, look at China, look at there. They got oligarchs, look at Russia. They got theirs. Everybody's got their oligarchs. And so my goal is to get people to realize from a fundamental basis, where does it hurt right now? It hurts in your pocketbook.

Moore To Consider: Yeah, yeah.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: It hurts where you can't even sleep because you're paying like what right now the rent in California, just a rent for a regular 20, 300 square foot house, $5,500. That's crazy. When you're looking at the bottom dollar, when you can't afford basic things, we're in deep trouble. This isn't about who's in your bed or what church you go to. We're talking about legalized exploitation. We have walked into what I call in this book, the slave class, and it doesn't... matter what color you are, what religion you have, or what country you're from. We got to get together and we got to fix this. And I agree with you 100%. It starts locally, it starts in the States. And if people are not going to do that and hold their representatives accountable, forget it. You got unchecked federal power.

Moore To Consider: Yeah. I hear what you're saying and I think we're in agreement, but let's face it. Like I said, if there were people saying tea party types, we consider them more, you know, ⁓ Republican conservative right leaning and the, the Occupy Wall Street was certainly more not that. But again, what follows sort of a coalition of And you know, we're all getting screwed. was immediately like, no, I want you to fight over whether or not there's this sexuality or that, you know, that, that starts to become a thing. And I can tell you this, you know, I'm the white male, I'm the straight white male. So that I'm that guy. And I can tell you, I think when I talk among most people that probably could run in my circle, now I say that now, ⁓ God, that, I know it sounds like, you know, like I've even got some black friends, but honestly, if you saw the people I associate with, people quote unquote of color are mostly what I'm around and they're kind of libertarian thinking like I am. They all kind of think like live is let live. So I say that to say, let's face it, that's where most people are. Most people at the ground level that make up the 90%, they just want to feed their kids, make sure they go to safe schools, all that stuff. That's kind of what everybody's at. They're not actively thinking like, well, how can I hurt the person that doesn't dress like me or look like me or what? They don't care. That's literally what they don't care.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Mm.

Moore To Consider: But the culture or somebody driving the culture continues the fight, I think, to divert the attention from the things that are more important. That was my only point in that.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: agree with you. It's the weaponization of identity. And again, it's just to say, be careful, be careful from no matter what walk of life you have left or right, be careful about, you know, identity politics, because it's, you got to get out of that. You have to get out of it. You got to get out of it and you got to run out of it. You got to, you know, if we had conversations where we're looking at each other and sitting around the table, which I think is the hardest thing to do, because a lot of people don't want to sit around the table and have hard conversations.

Moore To Consider: Yes.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: I mean, you and I have been through law school just to read through things. Our head hurts to focus for an hour on something that's so complex. You know, it's, not easy, but that's the system is supposed to be, ⁓ not easy. So that way we could all get together, have a convergence of ideas and find something that works and it doesn't have to work forever. Just has to work for now. And so my goal ultimately with the book is to examine what your beliefs are to examine. Are you being played with propaganda? I talk about that in the book. Is propaganda tricking you? Because boy, the propaganda machine works everywhere and it works so well. And so I say to people, kind of wash your mind clean and get a free, slate of how you perceive the law, how you perceive the justice system. I even talk about retributive justice and restorative justice. And how do we help offenders? How do we...

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: provide remedies to victims to really just refresh and take a look at how we're we're Proliferating and executing Justice, what does justice mean? And so for me, it's not to get anyone at all in any any spectrum to believe a certain thing My number one goal is to get you to look at what you believe is to be true. What you assume of yourself is to be true. What you assume of another person to be true. And if in any way, shape or form there is any kind of inequality that you have created within yourself against any of your fellow man, your other fellow citizens, the work begins with you. It really does. And that's a very, very hard personal journey.

Moore To Consider: Yeah. And again, it's just because, ⁓ I'm a big fan of Thomas soul, Thomas soul be 96 this year. And he's a black man that started off as a Marxist and you he got his undergraduate, I think at Harvard, he got his ⁓ PhD in economics at Chicago. The guy's brilliant. He's 96 years old and he grew up in Harlem. Well, he was born in North Carolina and then he grew up in Harlem. And one of the things he said that kind of touched me as a Washington Redskins fan. The 49 I'd have over behind me was a black patch after the death of Bobby Mitchell. Bobby Mitchell was the first black man to play for the Washington Redskins. So the owner, George Preston Marshall, was a racist and segregationist, and he wouldn't integrate the Washington Redskins when everybody else started to. And for 10 years, they were awful. Everybody else was integrated and they weren't, he was forced to. But the long and the short of it is, With Thomas Soule, who's an economist, he said, you can say there's a moral dimension to discrimination. There's also an economic. So if you're in a field where you exclude people based on the color of their skin and you're in a competitive sport of that, you're going to lose in that. So I loved Bobby Mitchell growing up. He was the first black man to play for the Redskins. I was a little kid. I didn't know the difference. That's my hero. He's a black man and I have that up to honor him. I have his autograph. There is something in the free market argument too. If you want to be a racist or you want to be exclusionary, whatever, and you're in a market where other people are benefiting from the services of people like that, then you lose. So there is the economic aspect to it. There's the moral. I have Jackie Robinson over here in a doll form. I think he's one of the most heroic figures in American history. People know Rosa Parks, 1954. When he was a young officer at Fort Hood, Texas in 1944, He refused to move to the back of the bus and was court-martialed. And the person that stood up for him was the post commander's wife who he was escorting and the post commander and his wife both testified in his behalf and he won the court-martial. But people don't know that he was literally Rosa Parks 10 years prior and three years later he's playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. So there's a lot of stories of the history of these things that I think are triumphant, but also... They're practical. If I exclude someone simply based on an immutable characteristic, I lose. I lose.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Right. And let's just imagine, let's just imagine that we were living in a world where African ⁓ American people, Black people were the dominant ⁓ race in America, right? What if they all, what if they all just accumulated and aggregated and consolidated power and then all white people were slaves? I mean, think about that just for a second. It doesn't really matter.

Moore To Consider: Yeah.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: how it works is still the same. It doesn't matter what your identity is. If all the gays took over and did the same thing, it's wrong. It doesn't matter who's doing it. If it's happening, that's what matters. So we have to think, this is not about identity. It's about ideas. Where do we get our ideas about our identity? So yes, this is like big picture sociological, anthropological, like philosophical stuff, but I take it and I kind of make it super mega.

Moore To Consider: Sure, that's right. That's right.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Simple. Like literally that a 13 year old could read. I wrote it so that way my own children can read it is to really evaluate where are we getting our ideas from and how do the mechanisms in government as its own entity. Let's just say we're all energy beings, right? And as energy beings that government's working, right? You can't see me, you can't see you. We're just light pulsating in the universe. Like if identity didn't really matter and if it was happening,

Moore To Consider: Right. Right.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Wouldn't it be wrong nevertheless? So it doesn't really matter who's doing it. So again, it goes to accumulation and consolidation of power in order to exclude others from resources, which is about rights, rights or resources, to property and all, you know, your right to contract and to work and to have a home and all these other things and going even further with human rights, ⁓ which the United States champion and no longer does. ⁓ But when you're looking at all of these types of things, you got to say, okay, if we're no longer appreciating the limits of power, meaning that we all have shared power, but we all have limits to power. You said that earlier. All of us have our limits to our power and we all have our abilities to use and wield our power. That goes to every single level, from the local level to the state level to the government level. And I'm asking people to look at, from a very simple point of view, power. How is power being consolidated? How is power being used? To what end? To accumulate resources. So if you and me and every Joe Blow down the street, we don't have money, we don't have access to healthcare, and it's power is about access. If our access is limited across the scale for all people, then where is the power? We haven't got it because we don't have access to anything. So it's really just very simple, simple premise to get people to look at. all the areas of your life that the law affects you, but it boils down to power and it encourages you from a very simple and practical way to regain and reclaim your power starting from where you are. And that it goes to the constitutional premises that we're all created equal and we all have certain rights and we have the right to execute and to use ⁓ our rights and to protect them, all of us.

Moore To Consider: You know, when you talked about to what a world win, because I've gone through it, you've gone through it through law school. Right when I was getting ready to take the bar, I'm looking through one of these legal journals and this guy says, get my tapes, know, buy my tapes. I'll get you through the bar exam. And I bought these tapes. was like 10 tapes. He's a Yale law graduate. And he opened up with, he goes, they have been trying to make this all seem so crazy hard. It promotes that. where these great legal thinkers had to think like a lawyer. goes, here's the bottom line. Remember when your professor would say, what's the issue here constantly when they would read a case? He goes, the issue is always in criminal. The state wants the guy in jail and he doesn't want to go to jail. And he goes, when it's civil, somebody wants money and somebody doesn't want to pay it. It's that simple. And I started looking at it. goes, so when you read, when you're diagramming your answer, whatever, just stop and think what is the method they're trying to get money or not pay it, et cetera. And that really helped me because the more I listened to him, he's a Yale law graduate. He's like, this has all been to make you think it's more difficult than it really is. And so I sat at the pool and read old exam questions and model answers. got all my friends were all studying their outlines. And when I would study the outline, like, I don't disagree with that. Like I'd read it and go, yeah, that's it. But then when I would read the questions, it made me think about where am I going with this? So that, that was really interesting. And I took the bar and passed it the one time I took it, the only time I took it. But I started to see, oh, there's a system here. It's a gatekeeping system, but it's to make us think that law is this, you know, thing, the average guy. And I hear that as a lawyer, you know, and you've had that legal training, you know, people go, well, I'm no lawyer, but I think my garage door should be what, you know, and I'm like, well, you don't have to be a lawyer to figure, you know what I'm saying? It's always everybody prefaces it with, well, I'm no lawyer, but like you are, but I think this. And I'm like, yeah, and you're right. And I can't take apart that motor and put it back together like you can. So you have a skill that I'd be much more, that I think is much more useful than I think it's, ⁓ it's admirable, but you know, the law.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Yeah. Yeah, I do know. I always tell people, because I have a boutique that I also own. And when I check people out, I say, you know, I'm reaching for the calculator to do like 37 minus 12. You know I mean? And then, you know, and I say to them, I went to law school, I did not go to math school. And they just laugh because it's just like, you're so humble. But that process does, I think.

Moore To Consider: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ yeah.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: for me, having gone to correspondence law school, may I add this, California has a correspondence law school. went to Northwestern California School of Law up in San Domingo, Sacramento at distance. And I studied the law like Abraham Lincoln, who was my year I was a child. And I studied the law by myself and I paid for my education. If anyone's listening, I think in total with the time I got grandfathered in, I think I paid 16,000 bucks for my law degree.

Moore To Consider: Yeah, sure. Great. Right.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: It took me, it took me longer, but boy, oh boy, did I value it. And I worked hard. And then I also started a thing called law school for visual learners. I'm publishing a book right now about creating visual outlines in a visual way for visual people like myself to learn. And my premise is, that the law, law school is not for elites. It's something easy and you can learn, but You're right. I also talk about that in the book, how the legal education system is designed to make it like it's so elite and it's so impossibly hard and you'll never make it that you feel like this is something that ⁓ you can't tackle. You can't tackle the legal system because it's a monolith. Yeah.

Moore To Consider: Right. Exactly. Yes. Well, and you know, years ago, the movie paper chase came out from the book and that was at a time, which was true. And I, and my law professors talked about this. Now they expect you to graduate, but back 60, 70 years ago, they would bring in, and there was fewer law schools. They would bring in three, you know, undergraduates from whatever degree program they came out of into law school. And one of three was going to pass. And that was one of the openings in the, in the movie. He goes, look to your right, look to your left. If you're the one that makes it, they're both not, you know, and that's what they did. They just eliminated people and thinking they were going to get better lawyers and they made it again, kind of an elitist system. And then eventually with the cost going up, everybody got a chance to actually graduate from it. ⁓ so that's changed. Okay.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Mm-hmm.

Moore To Consider: Where can people find your book?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: It's on Amazon and also it is available for free on YouTube by audiobook. So you don't even have to buy it. I did that because after everything that's going on in the world right now, it's like, you know what? Give it away. Because my goal is just to get people informed and empowered. Informed and empowered. The more you know, the more you grow. And the more you grow, the more you go.

Moore To Consider: ⁓ great! I like that. I like that. What would you like to say in closing?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: I just like to say in closing is that the law is not something ⁓ that should intimidate you and that lawmakers are not above you. They actually work for you. This, the system is supposed to work for you, but it's not going to work for you unless you engage and participate. So please read the book, listen to it. It's for free and participate in all forms of government, local government, state government, federal government, participate, your voice, your presence matters, show up. Half the job is hard. of just getting in the room. Believe me, I know. But once you get there, you'll figure it out.

Moore To Consider: Do you, and I should have asked this probably an hour ago when we started, do you get any resistance, you know, you being out there kind of as an advocate or vocal on this, do you get any resistance from people saying, stop that?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: No, not at all. I've actually, I just feel like I've been very embraced by it. But again, you know, it's like Oliver Diaz Jr. who like, again, who wrote this, who wrote the forward to this book and who was persecuted, you know, for, from, you know what I mean? From the chamber and from all that, I mean, he was just kind of like, well, some of our ideas are more libertarian and so, you know, and, it's just, I just want people to, to just realize that

Moore To Consider: Okay. Yeah.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: The Constitution is this wonderful, wonderful document that espouses these ideas, ideas of freedom and liberty and justice for all. And if it means for all, includes you. So, you know what I mean? So, I just want people to participate in that system. I live in France. I left because I knew things were going to get bad. And I'm glad I did for my mental health. But for people who feel trapped, there's always a door. But the door is knowledge. the door is knowledge, because that knowledge becomes power when you use it. And I just want people to have access to it. And I'm not about gatekeeping, so go on YouTube and listen to it for free.

Moore To Consider: All Leslie, you've been a wonderful guest. This is more to consider. Please like and subscribe. Please comment. And you have a YouTube channel as well. OK. OK, that's it. And then people can go into there. Any other platforms that you want to talk about that people can reach you any other way?

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Yes, it's just author Leslie. I'm on Instagram. have ⁓ my coaching business and my boutique here in France. It's lejardindemour.com. And then I'm on Instagram as well, Leslie Juvenet-Guerre. And I'm just having fun and enjoying my best life here in France on that account. But if anybody ever wants to write me or talk about the book or have me come and speak, I'm happy to do so online for free. I just want people to feel empowered, feel inspired and get engaged.

Moore To Consider: Mm-hmm. Thank you so much for being a guest today. Again, this is more to consider. Please like, subscribe, share with people, write some comments. Please check out Leslie on all her different sites and please buy her book or go listen to it on YouTube. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you, Leslie.

Leslie Juvin-Acker: Thank you. Thank you.