Nicholas Provenzo and Arthur Zey join Robert and Amy Nasir on Five Minutes with Robert and Amy Nasir to discuss The Objective Law Initiative and the principles, legal strategy, and long-term institution-building behind its work.

The conversation explores why objective law must be grounded in reality, reason, and individual rights; how OLI's planned amicus advocacy differs from client-centered litigation; the relationship between philosophy, constitutional doctrine, precedent, and judicial reasoning; the present state of the courts; jury nullification and judicial temperament; and OLI's plans for public education, collaboration, and growth.

This is an external media appearance produced and published by Five Minutes with Robert and Amy Nasir.

Read transcript

Transcript notice: This transcript was generated automatically using speech-recognition and speaker-diarization models and has not yet been manually reviewed. It may contain errors in wording, punctuation, names, or speaker attribution.

Robert Nasir 00:00:12: Well, hello friends and lovers and thank you for joining us. This is Five Minutes with Robert and Amy Nasir and as you can see on the screen, if you are catching the video version and not just the podcast, it's a special edition of Five Minutes with Robert and Amy Nasir and Nicholas Provenzo and Arthur Zey. Nick and Arthur, thank you for joining us on Five Minutes with Robert and Amy Nasir. We are glad you are here. I'm super glad to see you both. It is September 20th, 2026, and we have a segment where Amy and Robert talk about the news. Because we don't do a lot of news, we don't do a lot of current events, but it seems like Prezi McApprentice, our leader, our ruler, dominates the news of the day and there are so many things that our president does that are bad but the worst of them are precedent setting and the only bright side of it since the Congress has proven to be absolutely worthless is that the Supreme Court at least sometimes is showing well what you hope the Supreme Court would be i think if the culture if the if the country is going to survive it's going to be through Law. But that's iffy. Well, there's a new organization that's going to make sure that's not too iffy. Guys, thank you for joining us to talk about the Objective Law Initiative. Now, do you have an elevator pitch version of 50 words or less of what is the Objective Law Initiative?

Nicholas Provenzo 00:01:57: Law needs to be grounded in reality, reason, and rights. And so the idea of the group is to make that argument, kind of like from stem to stern, the idea that we should be looking at existence, the requirements of human existence, and what do we need in order to thrive as individuals and as a people. And I would argue individual rights and an institution that protects individual rights.

Robert Nasir 00:02:27: That sounds very Ayn Rand. It sounds very Objectivist. Because we have, or at least we try to have a general audience, not everybody is going to understand that verbiage. So I guess the next question would be then, and I appreciate Arthur bringing this up in the pre-show discussion, How is the Objective Law Initiative distinct from Institute for Justice, Pacific Legal Foundation, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression, I keep going back to Rights in Education, but they've gone beyond that. This is a new initiative and I love the work that IJ and PLF do, but it doesn't seem like they were quite in the position to address Well, I shouldn't just bring it down to the administration because it's much wider than that, but what's going on legally in the culture?

Arthur Zey 00:03:30: Yeah, so let me take a stab at that. You know I think they they have built really powerful issue specific or vertical specific programs right so you know they might go after things related to property rights or free speech or whatever and those are all great we we absolutely desperately need Good people, good organizations doing that kind of work. I think one of the things that we bring to the table is something more horizontal across all of them. So the idea of objective law, that law needs to be Knowable, very specific. People can plan their lives around it. It's not just up to whim or whatever like that, as well as the fact that law needs to be about the protection of individual rights. That's something that cuts horizontally across all of these different areas. And so we kind of position ourselves as being complementary to what all of these other organizations are doing, but maybe on a deeper philosophical level. And unlike those organizations who actually take on specific clients and represent them, and therefore are constrained by needing to argue zealously for their client and win the case, and make whatever argument is going to be persuasive in court, we are not going to be nearly so constrained in the kinds of arguments that we'll be able to make. So because we'll be filing what are called amicus briefs for important cases, we'll have more flexibility to make good philosophical arguments to make the case, so to speak, on whatever issue is at hand. It's not that here we're going to just go and make philosophical arguments and say like, well, Ayn Rand said this. That's clearly not going to land. We're still going to be making, you know, good legal arguments that are grounded in the Constitution and kind of like revivifying what has been really great about the Constitution but sort of forgotten over the centuries and maybe not fully ever understood and fleshed out. So we're really kind of taking what's already the best in our legal tradition and kind of revivifying it and making it more robust.

Robert Nasir 00:06:02: I appreciate the idea that you don't have to wait for a client with a specific situation to be able to address it in a brief.

Arthur Zey 00:06:18: Well, we have to wait for the case to come up, right? In some ways- Sort of, yeah, exactly. Yeah, right? The case already has to be there for us to submit a brief about it.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:06:28: So in some ways- Right, but it doesn't have to be- We're not hunting for clients. We're hunting for good cases to illustrate Basically what Objectivism brings to the table in terms of a theory of law.

Robert Nasir 00:06:41: Right, but if I understand correctly, though, you don't have to wait for someone to come to you.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:06:47: No, no, no, no. It'll be a case that's before a court. Like, for example, the Supreme Court. It's a constitutional question. That constitutional question has implications far beyond the parties before the court. That matters to the whole country in some cases so you know these are cases where it makes sense to come in with a certain expertise with a certain intelligence with a certain outlook to assist the court you know i i will be successful if we assist the court in seeing the issue as it needs to be seen and what i would say right now is what needs to be seen is that individual rights animates our government from stem to stern and if it doesn't If it's something else, if it's robbing Peter to pay Paul or let's sacrifice to those who don't deserve it or something like that, those are terms that Objectivists would be familiar with, then we need to illustrate in a way that a court can understand in the given context that we live in, That this is a problem and here's a solution. And so it'll be everything from how to look at a particular case to a theory of how to interpret the Constitution as such. You know, I'll give you an example. There's always this conflict between judicial activism and judicial restraint. The idea that the activist judges are imposing their will unfairly and acting as a micro legislature. You know, the people already have a Congress. They get to elect them. Congress is supposed to write the laws. But if you're the court doing the same thing, that theory goes, that's unfair. They're unelected, unaccountable, lifetime tenure people. That subverts the whole thing. I would look at that differently. I would say what we need is an active-minded judiciary. We need a judiciary that thinks philosophically about the questions that come before it when those questions affect What is the nature of government? What is the proper mission of government? What are individual rights? What are the powers of government to protect those rights? How can government violate individual rights itself? Because, you know, the classic problem, you need a government that's strong enough to get things done, but not too strong that it ends up being a Leviathan against you. Well, I think we live in an era, I mean, and I just point to the federal debt as example of it. We live in an era where our government is doing far, far more than I think it ought to. I think it's unhinged, unshackled, and I want to unshackle producers and shackle my government. Limit government to its proper mission. And I think we're going to have a much better society, a much better culture, a much more productive world. And so the goal of the initiative is to find these cases and make the argument. And I'll be frank with you. It's not going to be home run right out the gate. They're not just going to, you know, the first brief, oh, you're so brilliant. The dynamic duo of Provenzo and Zey will just have them quaking in their boots. No, it's going to be a long, hard fight to try and articulate a vision that then sticks and lands. That's the goal we have the ideas we're building the team basically right now what we need is support we need you know Objectivists to stand with us and and support what we're doing basically financially yes and you can you can go to ObjectiveLaw.org uh and donate yes we will say that more than once

Robert Nasir 00:10:27: The end goal here, there are several, but the obvious end goal here is support for the initiative, ObjectiveLaw.org.

Amy Nasir 00:10:36: Okay, I'm going to go ahead and test out your donate button on your website, ObjectiveLaw.org.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:10:42: By making a donation.

Amy Nasir 00:10:44: Let's see, I got some money in there.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:10:46: My fingers are crossed.

Amy Nasir 00:10:51: Let's see if it works.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:10:53: Please make it work.

Amy Nasir 00:10:58: So before it goes through, it says, how did you hear about the Objective Law Initiative?

Robert Nasir 00:11:02: How did you hear about the Objective Law Initiative?

Amy Nasir 00:11:03: And I'm going to go ahead and mark friend or colleague.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:11:05: We should have a good friend thing, you know, like a good, long-time friend.

Amy Nasir 00:11:12: That's right.

Robert Nasir 00:11:13: I think we heard pretty directly from the initiators of the initiative.

Amy Nasir 00:11:20: Yes, yes, and then you can–let's see here–easy. I can just use my Google Pay. I think that might work. Let me see if it works.

Robert Nasir 00:11:38: Well, you can use your Apple Card. What could be easier? Support the Objective Law Initiative now. Now that we've established that, I want to go back in time a little bit.

Amy Nasir 00:11:44: There it is. It looks like it says it's sending.

Robert Nasir 00:11:47: It's very friendly.

Amy Nasir 00:11:48: Thank you for supporting OLI, it says.

Robert Nasir 00:11:51: OLI, Objective Law Initiative, very good.

Amy Nasir 00:11:54: Your contribution helps the Objective Law Initiative build the research, writing, publication, and legal advocacy capacity needed to clarify and defend objective limits on the government power and individual rights those limits exist to protect.

Robert Nasir 00:12:07: If you can make a contribution while at the same time we are hosting a podcast, obviously it could not possibly be easier. Now what I want to do is go back in time. Nicholas, we met you way back when, when the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism, the Moral Defense of Capitalism, was as always putting their principles into action and you invited people to come to Washington, D.C. To 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and tell at the time Bill Clinton what we thought of the various groups that were pushing Earth Day right Earth Day is still kind of a thing but it seems like it's gotten slapped down and and some of the interest has been lost and hopefully the voices like our group marching in front of the White House had some something to do with that which is why when we talk about getting your voices into the well not just the conversation but in actual briefs i think it matters and there's no way to know there's no way to know who hears or who reads a given thing said but what i do know is if it's never said then we're lost so way back in april 22nd 2000 i had to look up the date um yeah we're out in front of the White House we've got uh the protest signs very professionally done signs so we're marching up and down in front of the White House and and protesting and who is why would you protest against right right it's a classic man bites dog

Nicholas Provenzo 00:13:47: Protest like how are you what you hate you don't like clean water with you yeah you're nuts you don't like going for a walk in the woods and then having a slave well of course we love these things we value these things tremendously we also value industry and technology and we're not ashamed to say that we value industry and technology and you know so so to vilify huge segments of productive life just because and a whole nature is this intrinsic value that you know no man should walk through you know the the the the woods or whatever because his mere existence sullies it is mistaken so you know we were arguing basically for a human measure let's uh let's use a human analog a human yardstick to weigh All our technology, all the pollution, and the facts of reality that we have to deal with. Because again, there are these products, side products that you have to deal with. But kind of coming up with an objective standard, a human standard to evaluate these things, not just a knee-jerk, oh, if only there were… Some of the stuff which is… I always loved, especially from that era, was, you know, human beings are a virus. They're, you know, we'd be better off if there were a billion less human beings on the earth. Well, you know, which are you going to go with you? I mean, who?

Amy Nasir 00:15:11: Yeah. Yeah. Go first.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:15:13: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And and so you know to to go in front of the White House with these big beautiful yellow signs i remember the yellow signs yes uh and you know proclaim these values that you know basically what what happens is it's a man bites dog story so local media picks it up because it's interesting i think uh C-SPAN covered our press conference you talk to people and you just get to be your best self you know standing in defense of your values and you meet other people who share your uh There was a whole bunch of people who became friends as a result of that activity. And it was a great time. And then what made it interesting was that was the morning that Elian Gonzalez

Amy Nasir 00:15:59: We wake up they're coming in with the guns yes on poor little ellian yeah we wake up to the image of the uh the man you know shielding ellian gonzalez's four-year-old in the closet with this paratrooper with his his rifle up against their heads and and uh of course we were all absolutely aghast and um It was such a sinister thing.

Robert Nasir 00:16:26: It really was.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:16:28: We ended up changing gears, and then there were a whole bunch of other people. People were coming to the White House, more against than for. There were a couple for, but most people were just shocked and appalled.

Amy Nasir 00:16:44: Yeah, I remember there was one man, he wasn't affiliated with our group, but he had a sign that said, shame.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:16:50: Yeah, yeah, and he's just standing there.

Robert Nasir 00:16:52: Yeah, just stood there for an hour, just unmoving, and it was perfect. The expression on his face was just right. We got lucky that the protest signs that we were working with were double-sided and double-mounted so that we could actually flip them over, flip them around, and have a blank sign.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:17:07: And this guy. Went to the store, had a whole bunch of the big markers.

Robert Nasir 00:17:10: Yeah, the big Magnum Sharpie, yeah.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:17:13: Ad hoc.

Amy Nasir 00:17:15: Uh yeah rebranding uh yeah i gotta say i gotta give credit to robert he robert redid a lot of those signs and robert has excellent penmanship i don't know if you know this i remember that i remember excellent penmanship just he he can do calligraphy well it was it was just beautiful it was an event that that warranted uh trying to make them look as good as we could because it you know you and all of us came up with some great ways of saying that uh

Nicholas Provenzo 00:17:45: You know there is no freedom in cuba in cuba this protest wouldn't be allowed yes right right right right no i remember it was it was it was it was it was right on the money really illustrated why sending this poor child back to a slave state was a bad idea you know parental rights don't trump uh individual human rights his basic fundamental human right to be free of brutal oppression and uh and so and that was emotional because a lot of people were you know in the country were against it they supported it like oh yeah father's rights trump all and then you go in and like well no i mean this is a little more complicated yeah I like the opportunity to use current events to try and explain this is where we're coming from. This is the moral principle involved. This is why this is a little bit more complicated than you're seeing in the mainstream discussion. And again, an opportunity to stand up for your values and show your values in action because you're proposing alternatives. You're saying this is not the way it should be. Here's how it ought to be. And so to to do that do that publicly i mean again we got good we got good media coverage for a small group i mean what was there 20 25 people maybe uh uh but we we got excellent coverage and it just goes back to my theory of if you want to change anything you have to be willing to do things yes make you stand out stand up take a stand You'll learn as you go. You'll have to learn how to refine your message and how to talk to people and how to be persuasive and do this standing on one foot pitch because people aren't going to want to hear a whole insane diatribe. But if you're clear, if you're concise, if you're thoughtful, people respect that even if they disagree with you. And I think that's good. Even if they don't agree with you, just that they recognize that's an idea that maybe I need to consider.

Robert Nasir 00:19:46: Yes, you are planting seeds and you don't know where they're going to grow.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:19:49: You don't know how that's going to germinate. And so, no, those were good times. You know, I was with Rob Straczynski and

Robert Nasir 00:19:57: We all worked hard and again people came from all over the country i think the michigan you guys were the biggest contingent yes we had a good group because eric uh you guys yeah and even even friends of ours from out of state who came to michigan and then came down like kelly for example yeah yeah we had a real good group yeah and uh yeah yeah and and i i was proud of taking a you know i have friends of mine who look at the result of that. Well, but Elian got sent back to Cuba and now he's kind of brainwashed. That was not, it was the point, but it also wasn't the point. There are 10 good things that came out of speaking out, out of putting that voice out there, out of letting the administration that not everybody is falling in line, out of letting all the kindred spirits out there know you are not alone and we are speaking out. And the one thing you know, and I've said this earlier and I'll say it again, is that if you ever wonder why does nobody speak out, it's because you're not speaking out. When I speak out I know I did, I know everybody I worked with did, and I know that there are others like me out there. If you're going to change the culture, silence isn't going to cut it.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:21:09: Well, you know, I look at, I was really inspired by Frederick Douglass's life. And this spring, my son and I were listening to the audiobook. So it's 20 minutes to school, 20 minutes back. So we're going through the audiobook. And so we'll look at his activism and look at the eight ball that he was up against. Institutional slavery. He was a slave himself. He had to educate himself by hook and crook. He had to escape He had to teach himself how to be a speaker. And then it wasn't like he gave the first speech and all of a sudden, well, Frederick, you're just so brilliant. You know, here you go. No, it was peppering all over the country. People with these ideas that this is just a fundamental abomination. And even intellectually, I knew that slavery was wrong, but to hear his telling of it and his dramatization of slavery and its evils was so powerful and compelling. You know, you're kind of like driving in the car just shaking because he's talking about a, what was it? This woman got burned. In a fire, in a cooking accident, and so she couldn't work. And they basically decided that she had no value, so they left her, her owner left her out in the woods in a shack to just fend for herself. And that was slavery, that the minute she couldn't perform a modicum of work, she was utterly disposable as a human being and not allowed, her family wasn't allowed to comfort her or care for her or anything like that. And that was just one of a hundred different examples. And so, you know, to put yourself in situations where you're telling these stories and communicating to people your ideas and your values like Frederick Douglass is, I think is a worthwhile endeavor. So, you know, circling back to the group. We want to do it. We want to do it on an elevated level. Going before a court, a court is an intellectual institution. It's bound by the law. And they take their work seriously. We have an uphill battle. But then there's also the side aspect of it, where, OK, we want to communicate to the media after we write a brief. And we want to reach out to law students and try and get them to work for us. What would be a really awesome thing to do? To be able to fund people to do their summer associate work. So when you go to law school, typically you take the summers off and you work somewhere and get the OJT on the job experience as you go about your legal education. Well, wouldn't that be great if we could be a place where law students would come to work and learn how to write and learn how to argue and learn how to manufacture a compelling brief alongside us and then have a whole generation of Intellectual activist lawyers who can assist in the larger struggle to vindicate our rights. That would be a wonderful thing. So that's where your support can really help us build an institution that works on many different levels to basically make the case. I guess we have a good angle. We have a good idea. And now what we need is the help to act on these facts and fight the good fight.

Arthur Zey 00:24:40: Yeah, and I want to underscore something that you said, Nick, which is that it's not just about creating these briefs and getting them in front of courts and then hoping that they're going to get noticed or cited or whatever. We're also, anytime that we write a brief, we want to be able to create a lot of content that is accessible to the general public. So Nick mentioned making sure that we reach out to the media and so on. But nobody in the general public is gonna be reading these maybe very technical briefs, even though I think they'll be more accessible than typical briefs because we're not going to be, doing intellectual gymnastics to make a philosophical argument. Nevertheless, not a lot of people are going to be reading these briefs. So we want to actually put out content that explains what our position is on a particular case. What is the objective law issue that's at stake in the case and why it matters to general people, you and me and non-lawyers who care about Living in a free society, having their rights respected, being able to conduct their lives as they see fit. And so it's going to take some doing to make sure that we can put together videos and articles and whatever else so that it's not just legalese.

Amy Nasir 00:26:07: Yeah so so it sounds like to me that you are looking for young people who are studying perhaps studying law to possibly work with you or to volunteer their time or really anybody to volunteer are you accepting like volunteer positions you're building a team what does that team look like you're doing legal and scholarly research amicus briefs and educational programs so I don't know, fill me in on what's your next step here, you know, other than just getting the word out like you're doing here on our show. What's the wish list that you have right now in terms of going forward?

Arthur Zey 00:26:51: Yeah, I mean, look, we've only just gotten founded this year. So everything is very fresh and we're just getting off the ground. Before I tell you what the next step is, let me tell you what the longer term vision is, because I think that will help us to sort of work backward and tell you what the next step is.

Robert Nasir 00:27:09: Excellent.

Arthur Zey 00:27:10: Look, long term, I think it would be great if we were able to generate tons of donations and we got lots of financial support and we could actually hire people to do all of this great work, right? And that includes all the things that we just mentioned. It'll include participating or even hosting various symposia and conferences and whatever. There's so much that we can do with a properly funded organization. To get there, I think we're gonna have to be scrappy. And for now, we don't have yet enough donations to be able to pay people for work. So do we want volunteers? Absolutely. So if people have expertise in, even if it's fundraising, right? Like if people have expertise in fundraising, if people have expertise in video production, if people have expertise in media outreach or whatever else, you know there are all those things in addition to people who will actually do legal research legal scholarship and so on so we'll see kind of how things unfold what kind of interest is generated but yeah for the time being I think we're gonna have to rely on volunteer efforts and with time we hope that we'll be able to pay handsomely for The great value that people will bring to the organization and derivatively to the rest of the world.

Amy Nasir 00:28:42: Great.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:28:42: I feel very strongly that we have to pay people and reward their productivity. I'm a trader in every way. And yeah, it's great to assemble a team of volunteers. People are passionate. That's how we're going to get this to snowball. But at some point and some point soon, we're going to have to reward people for their effort.

Amy Nasir 00:29:05: Absolutely.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:29:07: How do you raise a family? How do you sustain yourself? How do you do any number of things that you need to do without earning a living? And so this should be, I want this to be a living for the people who do the lion's share of the work. So if you're full time, yeah, I want it to be a competitive living because it would be

Amy Nasir 00:29:30: I was just going to say, I know both of you and both of you are stand up gentlemen and you mean what you say and you don't just have intentions, you follow through with action and I appreciate you both. I just want to put that out for the record.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:30:00: Thank you so much, Amy. It's a mutual love fest with you guys too.

Amy Nasir 00:30:06: Thank you. I love that word, love fest.

Arthur Zey 00:30:12: You know, I want to drive home really, really transparently too, right? Like, Nick and I don't want to do this for free either, right? Obviously, we're very passionate about this. And right now, we're having to do this on the side of, you know, whatever else because, you know, it's, it's not yet financially remunerative. So like, we can't We can't justify putting our full-time effort into it. Necessarily, everything is on the side for us right now, and we're trying to get this started. The sooner that we can get all the proper support, the more even the two of us can give it the full-time attention that it deserves. It's going to be important. Nick has a good lucrative career as an attorney and I've had a very lucrative career in tech. And if I'm going to spend all of my time and focus on this, then for both of us, it's really to be worth our while.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:31:13: My view with Arthur is you can't pay him enough because he's brought so much value. And I feel that very passionately about productive people who are trying to move the ball forward. You really can't pay them enough because they create so much value. What we're talking about is, again, creating a massive shift in legal thought. And it won't be easy, but I also think it's within our grasp. I think it's within our grasp because we have good ideas and we have people who are passionate about making those ideas real in the world.

Amy Nasir 00:31:44: Now, I have to say, though, in Objectivism, there is an international audience of folks, including one of our good friends, Matthew, here, who is in the chat. He's actually a barrister in England, in London.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:31:56: Oh, how cool is that?

Amy Nasir 00:31:57: And so he asks, can British lawyers join?

Nicholas Provenzo 00:31:59: Absolutely, absolutely. I did my summer abroad. In law school in Aberdeen, Scotland, and it was a real treat because, you know, I was doing comparative law and I was kind of focused on criminal justice issues and just learning about how, you know, like the Scottish courts have a not proven verdict, which is very interesting. And, you know, again, as a law and econ guy, what are the implications of that? Having lawyers from around the world assist us in assessing our legal system doing some comparative work yeah you know any insight they bring to the table hot damn i'm there in a new york minute i love it awesome i love it i love it i love it so hopefully matthew you're still on and you're listening i'll follow up with you later i'd love to have matthew's uh uh insight as as we grow

Arthur Zey 00:32:51: And especially because, sorry, just to quickly say, especially because we don't need to be making arguments that are necessarily based on the precedent that is implicated in a particular case. We're making philosophical arguments that are grounded in like good philosophy and the Constitution right it's like this integration of our constitutional history and also you know what Objectivism brings to the table philosophically so i don't think there's any real constraint on who in the world can help because you don't need to be an expert in you know united states law like you know even though i went to law school you know i never practiced and you know i don't really know that much about law directly not having actually Really done any real lawyering so you know my background here is sort of like loosely on the legal side but like mostly philosophical right so if we have people who have actually practiced law even if not in the united states right that that is only complementary like that's only going to help us be able to make better more robust arguments overall so

Nicholas Provenzo 00:34:04: Yeah, objective law is a big field because you have, you know, the rights and then you have the process and the process is very important. You know, how do you effectively administer justice? Let's say, you know, we wanted to, all of us, you know, we're on a desert island and we decided we're going to make the court of our little island. What does that court look like how does it function uh how does it reach decisions what are what are the procedures so that you know that's just as much a part of it as the philosophic underpinnings that animate it so uh you know there's a lot of different angles that we could go to you know something i find interesting and i think we're kind of unique in our approach uh with ollie is you see a lot of oh if we only could get back to the good old days And I don't agree with that at all. And I'll tell you why. There were many things that were wonderful. I think philosophically the founders were quite brilliant, but they also had their blind spots. And I don't denigrate them, and I don't denigrate their achievement by saying there were some blind spots. And we could call slavery or Jim Crow one of them. Or we could say that it took some time for them to figure out that women should vote.

Robert Nasir 00:35:15: How many amendments are there to the Constitution at this point?

Amy Nasir 00:35:19: I think they understood that they had blind spots. They left it open. You could amend it.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:35:26: Yeah, exactly. But the work is ongoing. There's what they call the case of first impression. It's a new problem.

Robert Nasir 00:35:35: How do we solve this new problem?

Nicholas Provenzo 00:35:37: And I think we have to look forward. That's where I think that this philosophic approach to looking forward is going to be very important. You can't go back. I have a 12-year-old son, and he's one of those kids who thinks about why Rome fell a lot. And uh you know like dad i don't i'm not too happy with the empire you know a good king is a bad idea is uh is what he likes to say and that's kind of an interesting question you know why did the republic fall well the republic had some corruption You know, and it paved the way for the empire. And I asked myself and my son asks me, you know, where are we now? What does this look like? What is this turning into? And so, you know, I don't think we can go back. I think we have to go forward. And so that's why I think Objectivism is such a powerful tool and a philosophic approach to legal questions is such a powerful tool. And I think courts abdicate their responsibility when they don't look at issues philosophically and explain them. And again, the fear is, oh, you'll just have that extra legislature imposing their will. And I don't think that's the case. The founders wrote the Ninth Amendment, which said, just because we haven't specifically enumerated every individual right that exists, doesn't mean that these rights don't exist and aren't important. And that imposes a burden on a court. You're gonna have to think objectively about rights. Does rights mean that you have a right to a square meal or an education or free dental work or free healthcare or whatever like that? Is that a right? And there's gonna be some heavy lifting and there'll be some argument and it will take work and effort. And we hope to be part of that work and effort every chance we get. But again, it all circles back to I mean, it costs money to file things. It costs money to edit things. We want to bring Objectivist experts who can leverage their professional expertise on a particular question, but you can't expect them to do it for peanuts. You can't expect them to do it for free. If we're going to be efficacious and actually fight on the big boy level,

Robert Nasir 00:37:50: You have to reward people for the extra amount of work the herculean task of you know moving the mountain forward yeah and and to get you started with that you can go to ObjectiveLaw.org and you can donate you can start from the bottom up and i would want to make the point and i think amy just made the point by contributing if you are not in the millionaire class and ready to put out hundreds of thousands of dollars that's the point is a starting organization especially ongoing as well but especially at the beginning the small donations can be exactly what's needed until even more wealthy donors are ready to come online and support the organization so folks by all means take advantage of the opportunity to get in early if you want to hear rational voices if you are watching cases that are happening in the news and thinking they should do this they should do that these voices somebody should be saying these things Here's your opportunity to be part of that.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:38:48: I consider myself a relationship builder where my donors are whatever level, whether it's the $500, $5,000 or the $5 level. I'm building a relationship. I want to show that I'm giving them value because they're giving me their value, whatever it is. I'll meet them however they come to me, and that's awesome. And let's become partners, so to speak, in standing up for our values. Yes, the $5 a month donation, give me 50,000 of those and I can move the ball forward. Yes. A $500,000 donation, yes, it just hit the lottery, but I can do a lot with small donations too. And again, let's build the team, Team OLI, to get this ball moving.

Robert Nasir 00:39:37: Yeah, you talk about a snowball effect. I also think the $25 guy has got friends who he is talking to about this. One of those might be another $25 guy, but one of his friends might be your $2,500 guy.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:39:51: Share this video and help both us and you guys promote your hard work because you guys are doing important things and standing up for your values and have been doing so for years.

Robert Nasir 00:40:04: Well, I appreciate that and of course you're right, but that goes to the point of what you have to say I can't say and that needs to be said we all want what you have to offer to be out there to be part of the conversation and to be part of the legal system to be filed to be on paper where it's being read and having its impact we can say well nobody's going to listen to you know pick whatever your issue is they're definitely not going to listen to it if nobody says it right so so i have a hot question sure that this is well it's not a question to me

Amy Nasir 00:40:42: I've been rereading Atlas Shrugged and and I've been paying very care this is like the 26th time or so that I've read Atlas Shrugged and you know you just you just keep filling in everything everything becomes more solid more colorful more there's more depth to everything you wonder what's going on behind the scenes all of this and so I thought about this with with regard to ObjectiveLaw.org um what is the state of our court system right now and i know an Atlas Shrugged for instance you know judges and justices they were in courts where they were being bribed you know and this and that and the other thing and things were far more i think Far more desolate than they are now, as it was portrayed in Atlas Shrugged. Kind of comparing and contrasting to what things are today and what Ayn Rand envisioned for the future of how our courts may have… Where are we at right now?

Nicholas Provenzo 00:41:50: Well, the chum answer to chum the waters would be, oh, it's a disaster. We're on the brink of apocalypse or something like that. I think that's unfair. I don't think that's objective. I see strengths and weaknesses. I see, again, I don't like that individual rights is in front and center in every constitutional question before the court. What are the rights at stake here? What is the fundamental mission of government here? And is government actually violating that? Is there a hierarchy? And sometimes they're difficult questions. I'll give you an example. Imagine the post office. There's a part in the Constitution that says the government shall have a post office. Does that mean that it can draft people to serve against their will to deliver the mail? You'd say you recoil in horror. I mean, no, no, no, no, no, no. Of course not.

Robert Nasir 00:42:46: But if nobody wants to hire in, wouldn't they have to?

Nicholas Provenzo 00:42:49: So in order to interpret the post office clause, which is a very innocuous clause, all things equal, you still have to look at it with an intellectual framework that by the power that the Constitution gives the Congress to raise a post office doesn't mean turning people into slaves. So, you know, I'd like to see more of that thoughtfulness. That's a very low hanging, obvious bite in the nose example, but where it's a tougher case. Now there are always disputes like this jury didn't get it right or this jury didn't get it uh got it wrong uh got it You know what I mean, got it right, got it wrong. The infamous cases. Infamous cases are interesting. An infamous case kind of landed on my lap when I was asked to watch a little girl whose mother was sitting at the court martial of the man who was accused of murdering her husband. This case was a pretty big deal in 2008. Made the New York Times and everything. A soldier had been murdered by someone under his command and there was this trial and I was kind of instant-annying because I had an open schedule and people felt that I was good with kids and trustworthy enough to handle that responsibility. That case ended in acquittal. I have looked at the case quite closely. I would not have voted to acquit. I'm rather frustrated with how that case played out. I believe the government proved its case. And then there's the question of, well, that's the procedural. What was the process? Because there were, you know, how did the jury get selected? Did they understand their instructions how the vagaries of military law and how that all works there's a lot of little fine you know dot your i's cross your t's kind of work that i could point out like oh that was that laid a foundation for something that really came out quite badly uh those are those kind of problems and so I mean, in my partner's late husband's case, I mean, it led to the man who murdered him going free.

Amy Nasir 00:44:58: Right. That's a lot to deal with. That's terrible. That's a lot to stomach.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:45:02: And at the same time, someone could look at that case and say, well, that was the way it should have been based on the evidence, based on the jury's analysis of that evidence. It was a completely honest rule. So, I mean, even, you know, it's a struggle. Justice is hard. Yes. And to have a judicial temperament is hard. And actually, that speaks to one of my frustrations with the jury. So voir dire is the process where the defense and the prosecution kind of ask questions of the prospective jurors. Well, where do you stand on this? How do you feel about that? In the military, I served five years in the Marine Corps. We take an oath. I'm going to dedicate my life to upholding and defending the Constitution. It's a solemn moment in a service member's life. It should have some meaning. If I'm going to uphold the Constitution, that means I'm going to uphold the law. I'm not going to substitute my whim or my discomfort or whatever like that with my obligation, my professional obligation to uphold the law. And a military service member, it's not just some guy off the street. They're in an elevated stature there. But you go through the voir dire, you have two types of people. You have the automatic death penalty people. Oh, well, he killed his commanding officer, automatically executed. Well, that's not the law. And then you have the, oh, I could never impose the death penalty because I'm ideologically opposed. Okay, I get it. You might have your own discomfort with something and that might be a good reason for you not to serve on that jury. But do you support the rule of law? Can you uphold the rule of law, even if you have some reservations about exactly how it's functioning? Because again, if there was a fundamental defect in the case that would go up to appeals and appeals court would handle that. That's not necessarily a jury's job, but to teach people a philosophic approach, a principled approach to the rule of law would have been of tremendous value, in my opinion, in that case. Others may disagree with me. They have their own analysis of that case. But I think, you know, I am troubled by the fact that it looked like there was a lot of whim worshiping. And of course, you know, the automatic death penalty were excluded. The let them off automatically were excluded. But then the people that you were left with, I had some reservations. So, you know, long story short, Justice is hard. Teaching people how to have, again, that judicial temperament, I would call it. The mindset of, I want to think slowly. I want to think deliberately. I want to look at the big picture. I want to evaluate all the relevant evidence. In this guy's case, you could have honestly arrived that he didn't merit a death penalty. He killed two people, so that was a death penalty eligible murder trial. You could honestly arrive for reasons that had nothing to do with him you could say killing him would hurt his child he had he had he had a boy he was a teenager and it's just like that creates a collateral victim as as horrific as the crimes were we're not going to do that and uh you know that that's the law right now that's a a a consideration that you could have oh and that would require some deliberation or you know some extenuating circumstance yes deliberation

Amy Nasir 00:48:23: So a quick question. So I have never served on a jury. I've been called up and I've been let go. Called up and let go. When you are in a situation where it's a murder case, a murder trial, um how often or do do the jurors get any kind of literature do they need to study anything before of course I mean they've got the case of the case like the facts of the case but Are they provided with any material?

Nicholas Provenzo 00:48:58: They're given instructions. They're given instructions. They're typically given oral instructions. So the judge, the parties will agree on the elements of the case, the key facts the jury needs to consider in order to arrive at a legal decision, a just decision. Those are given, in America, they're typically given orally by the judge. Now, it was interesting. I sat in on, when I was in Scotland for that summer abroad, I sit on a shaken baby murder case. And it was very interesting how the Scottish courts charged their jurors. We'll call that charging the jury. It was much more informal. And the judge was kind of acting like an informal advisor. You'll want to consider this. You'll want to consider that. Now, he was impartial. So he has to sit above the trial. His goal is a fair trial. But it was more conversation, the tone. Like, this is how you need to approach this. This is how you need to approach that. Consider this. Don't consider that. Basically, don't be biased. Look at the evidence. Weigh the evidence, what you know about common sense. But there was a circumstantial case. So explaining circumstantial evidence and a lot of cases circumstantial evidence is very good evidence it's where you don't see it directly like uh uh you didn't see me kill someone but you can infer because I told everybody that I had an ax to grind against the victim. I was the only one who had something that resembled a murder weapon. I have no alibis that show me being somewhere else. My conduct subsequent was incriminating. You could have a lot of little lines to establish How do you know he was 100 yards away while I saw him? The process in Scotland that I observed for the shaken baby case was much more informal in training the jury how they needed to think. I think some people are like, whatever, I'll do what I want. I'm not going to convict this person because they're a man or I'm not going to make this person because they're my preferred race or whatever. And I just I find that outrageous and offensive. Right. What you want is someone who will carefully Take the time to listen to the instructions that they're given. Think about it. Share their reasoning with others. Because again, what would you want to do if you were on a jury? You'd want to say, well, this is how I've arrived at my decision and I will show you how I've arrived at my decision. And then they'll be like, well, I see it different, Amy. What about this other fact? Then you have that discussion because this is someone's life. One way or another, you got a victim, you got an accused. Lives are in the balance here. And what would you want if you were in the dock? You'd want someone who took the time to deliberate. Who was thoughtful about it, who had the judicial temperament that, you know, oh, I got to get out of here because I get back to work or something like that. Yeah. Take as long as it takes. To arrive at a just decision. And so if just that conversation was something that we could have at OLI, the guide to jurors or something, I think it would have value. To do it well, to teach that, to share that. It's a big investment of time and effort because again, you're trying to… Show and demonstrate what a judicial temperament looks like, what a judicial mindset looks like.

Amy Nasir 00:52:49: Right. I would love to see you guys in the future reaching out to high school students in law clubs or in college clubs. Absolutely. And obviously train them up while they're young.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:53:04: Yeah i would love to see that i think that would be a lot of fun because again you're you're dealing with a young mind and trying to find the relationship where they're interested in what you have to say yeah yeah so you know i mean part of part a court has to listen i mean somebody a clerk is going to read your brief you know how persuasive it'll be whether it moves a judge or not that's a different question but you you kind of got a captive audience Education is another captive audience. They are paying you ideally to educate them in one way or another. So that relationship I think is powerful.

Amy Nasir 00:53:36: Yeah, Arthur, did you have something? I think I heard you.

Arthur Zey 00:53:40: There's an interesting nuance too with respect to jurors that parallels the issue of judicial activism because you've got, you know, obviously there are people who can be biased by, you know, I do or do not believe in the death penalty or they may be biased because of the race or gender or whatever of, you know, the The victim or the accused or whatever. But there's also an issue around, you know, whether you believe as a juror that something is actually like morally wrong to be a law, right? Like imagine you're a juror on, you know, some drug case, right? But you don't believe that the government should be regulating drugs, right? And you think that that as a juror, that that actually violates the Constitution. Maybe you like know a thing or two. Right and so that's actually very tricky because on the one hand do you uphold in a sort of more narrow acute sense the rule of law on this particular issue in this right in this narrow way or do you uphold the rule of law in a broader sense right and then kind of exercise your right to jury nullification right like so there are a lot of really interesting nuances there obviously we can all say hey like if you're going to make a decision as a juror on the basis of someone's race uh you know where that clearly is not a relevant factor but then that's problematic that's wrong that's bad that's not part of this judicial mindset that Nick was talking about on the other hand if you are thinking about it very active-mindedly and think well gee like we have laws that conflict you know could I live with myself if I convict somebody under a law that is itself unconstitutional and like and I know it whether or not the judge knows it right like that's tricky right because that is now taking the law into your own hands in a way and blurs that line between a you know a country of laws versus a country of versus of men right and um so that yeah that that's tricky and it kind of gets to the same issue that we were talking about earlier with judicial activism right like there's there's a way in which that's not even the way that it's frequently framed is incomplete right we talk a lot about judicial activism because some judge has some pet social outcome that they desire and so they're going to twist things into the outcome that they want, right? Like that's the kind of judicial activism that's oftentimes decried, but then that's kind of mashed together and not differentiated from really active minded, Hey, yes, this is a law on the books right now, but actually that conflicts with the Constitution. It conflicts with individual rights. It conflicts with living in a free society. So that would be an example. Is it judicial activism? You can argue that it would be for a judge to rule against the current narrowly construed law about a thing. But maybe that's the right thing to do. Maybe that is what it means to be objective. So there are going to be a lot of disagreements about these kinds of things in cases that come up. And it's going to be challenging to be able to articulate that in a cogent way that people will be able to grasp. In one case, we say, no, that's an inappropriate use of judicial activism for some social outcome. And in this other case, this is an appropriate use of judicial activism because it's actually being active-minded in terms of reconciling the more fundamental constitutional principles with maybe some problematic law.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:57:27: I absolutely agree with Arthur, and it's well said. You kind of see judicial activism as any decision that I don't agree with, and that's just silly. I struggle. The point that Arthur brings up, basically, on jury nullifying, what if I got tasked to sit on a fugitive slave? Law case. We're going to send some poor soul back into a bondage and the federal Constitution tolerates that as it's being wrongly interpreted in my mind.

Amy Nasir 00:58:01: Or in today's cases of states where they have banned abortions, are you going to basically send a woman who had an abortion to jail for murder? What are you going to say?

Arthur Zey 00:58:17: I was just following orders, the orders in question being the judge's charge.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:58:22: Right, right, right. I mean, I think the ability to nullify a law is a tacit power of a jury. I also think it's a dangerous power, and I struggle with when is the right time to do it. My view is if I'm willing to go over civil war, to fight a civil war over it, it's probably something that's important. And so would I be willing to fight a civil war over enslaving women to carry an unwanted fetus to term? Yeah. Would I be willing to wage civil war over sending a man, otherwise a competent human being, into slavery? Yeah. So I do think that there are cases where I would be The flip side is then Emmett Till's killers. Emmett Till, the boy who was murdered in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman or looking at her inappropriately, according to his murderers. Uh you know that jury nullifies it well that that's a horror they committed murder they murdered that poor boy uh savagely brutally and unforgivably and uh you know the the justice system broke down right and then that's also something that you uh well now we're gonna look at war too because if you can't get any justice in a court when your boy is murdered what kind of country are you living in an intolerable one and that's why i absolutely reject the idea oh we have to go back to some you know glorious era yes no there's always been challenges we're going we're we we're looking forward and we want to be more just and justice uh i'll go to my grave saying it maybe i should put on my epitaph justice is a struggle and it's going to require hard work

Amy Nasir 01:00:11: Yeah real quick to follow up on the whole idea of being a juror and whether or not you uh you are accepted onto the jury now you're in the case and uh but you you have a fundamental um philosophical opposition to the law and what do you I mean would you would it Would it have been more rational to excuse yourself from being on the jury and say to yourself and your intent being, I'm not going to serve on this jury because I oppose this particular law. And I'm going to try to fight this law in other ways rather than being on this jury and nullifying it.

Nicholas Provenzo 01:00:52: I think it's both legitimate and illegitimate, but it requires a case-specific analysis. So you'll have to come, you know, what are you willing to live with? I would never lie. You know, the attorneys will be asking you questions. Be absolutely scrupulously honest because lying will come back to haunt you and is not fair. It's not just to lie about your position. So be honest you know like if it's a drug case and you object to the drug laws yeah if if they ask you if you feel you need to volunteer it if you say you know i'd like to add that i have my own personal reservations about this law and don't feel that I could faithfully uphold it. I'm unwilling to faithfully uphold it. That may be your own act of protest, of registering, but whatever you do, I wouldn't hold your cards close to your vest. If you have an objection like antitrust, or any number of laws that our lovely government has that violate rights, you know, I have a reservation. I would like the court to know that I have a philosophic objection to the law that I'd be asked to enforce.

Arthur Zey 01:02:01: I don't think I'll ever be asked to be on a jury.

Robert Nasir 01:02:08: You've pointed out some tensions here that to me are both fascinating and we could have another hour-long conversation about. Um it's interesting we have two comments in the chat on the facebook side of things from Larry who points out that his in his opinion case law ruined the system we had of constitutional law the current system references the outcomes of other cases I think is important about the whole system of precedent. But anyway, he says, instead of directly addressing the Constitution. But then he goes on in another comment to say, thoughts on jury nullification on the premise of ethics such as the charge of assisting a runaway slave. And he goes on, and there's a tension between those two. And I think, to me, the tension is between, you know, we had Thomas Paine's Rights of Man when the Constitution was written, but it wasn't until Ayn Rand and man's rights and the nature of government that we really understood individual rights and the source of that, the requirements of man's survival in his free use of reason. I say free use of reason. There is no use of reason if it's not free, and that's the point. So you're absolutely, I totally get that there's going to be, I shouldn't even say tension, but this need for

Nicholas Provenzo 01:03:29: Um an organization like yours yes because unfortunately Ayn Rand wasn't there when the Constitution was written and she hasn't been there until you know the 1950s 1960s yeah you guys you raise a very important point in my mind and that's the idea that you just can't throw Atlas Shrugged at people and expect the perfect civilization to come out of it it's going to take people animated by a A rational approach to existence to look at the particulars in front of them and address them. And, you know, those arguments will sink or swim based on their tie to reality. But yeah, it's going to take new work. And I think that there's a, I don't know, the words in my brain is lazy, but I don't think that's exactly fair. I think The problem with Ayn Rand, where it becomes a crutch and not a help, is because she's so clear, she makes things look easy. And then rather than being able to explain things in your own voice, you just want to point to Ayn Rand and say, well, she said this and look at how brilliant it was and everything like that. And it was kind of funny. So, like, I gave you the art tour of Washington. Yes, which we loved so very much. And you guys had to tap out because it was too much. Like, we got to sleep, you know.

Amy Nasir 01:04:56: Well, I wish I could have continued that tour.

Nicholas Provenzo 01:04:58: So, I have other people that I take on their art tours. And so, my son and his best friend, Joseph, they're 12. And I have opinions on art. And they're starting to rub off on the boys. And I was trying to explain to them, look, you guys gotta realize that I am not the only voice here. And if you're just parroting what I said, you're no better than a parrot. And that is, you're going to have to come to terms with these issues. I think they're relevant issues. I think I'm right. But if you can't see it with your own eye and think it with your own brain and explain it with your own mouth, then you are selling yourself short. And it was just, you know, we were looking at the war memorials and which one was good and which one was bad. And I think like the Korean, they look like zombies. So the Vietnam, it's a black wall of death. I have very strong opinions and then you can see it rubbing off on the kids and all of a sudden there oh it's a black well be careful because there's also arguments that go against be aware of them it's not just the Nick show and and so the the idea uh circling back to what OLI wants to do is obviously Ayn Rand gave us an incredible gift in the form of this integrated philosophy, which I think points to reality quite, quite, quite brilliantly.

Amy Nasir 01:06:21: Yes.

Nicholas Provenzo 01:06:22: And it's been a useful tool in my life, useful tool in Arthur's life, useful tool in your guys' lives. But Again, she gave you an integrated philosophy, but she didn't exhaust every single analysis to every single question. We're going to have to do our own work and carry the burden of our own lives.

Arthur Zey 01:06:43: Let me explain the point that you made, Nick, because I think it's important. Because you made a statement that the way that she explains things so clearly in places oftentimes lands with people as like, well, this is so obvious, right? And it's just so obvious, it's so easy, right? You use the word easy. And I think that's why we're oftentimes I'm very tempted to say things like, well, gee, wouldn't it have been great if Ayn Rand could have been there at the founding of the country, right? Like been one of the founding fathers, right? Like given them input. And it's a nice idea in some ways, but it's actually not a nice idea because she could not have ever existed were it not for the country that came about from how the country was actually founded, right? It's all ultimately a progression, right? You also made a point earlier, Nick, about how you don't mean any of your criticisms of our country's founding disparagingly, just because you're pointing out that there have been some contradictions, some problems, and so on, right? Right, because it was part of a long history of evolution and development, right? Like we were all humanity, all savages once upon a time, and it takes time for the right ideas to develop. And this country's founding was one really major milestone in that development. And there will be developments in the future that they'll look back on today and be like oh how could they have not got it so obvious it's so easy if only you know they so and so had been you know back in time you know to to help them understand that no that's just not how that's not how history unfolds it's just not how a culture develops right and so Ayn Rand only came about because the Founding Fathers did what they did in exactly the way that they did it and so and so yeah it's um you know that and of course that integrates with your point that you can't you also just can't throw Atlas Shrugged at people because it's not Whether it's Atlas Shrugged or, you know, Opar or… I mean, it's a big book.

Nicholas Provenzo 01:08:55: It'll hit. It'll hurt if you get it.

Arthur Zey 01:08:58: My favorite book that I really want to make a plug for is Tara Smith's Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics, right? That's my favorite presentation of the Objectivist Ethics ever. Yes, yes.

Amy Nasir 01:09:06: Tara Smith's great.

Arthur Zey 01:09:08: Really fantastic but but my point is that you know you can't just throw that at sort of Tara Smith's book actually comes close that you can throw it at somebody and get it but but but actually but the reason that that lands so well with a lot of people is that it actually articulates The principles that are implicated in a way that really triggers a lot of self-reflection on people's own experience. And that is the kind of approach that we desperately need to take here, right? Because it's one thing for us to file briefs, because I'm going to go back to this point. But we also need to be able to articulate the issues at stake to people in a way that connects to their own lives so they understand what this is all about and why some abstract issue around eminent domain, for example, actually matters to them. Even though their property hasn't been and probably never will be at risk of being taken over under eminent domain. It's going to be interesting figuring out how to do that. And we'll need to articulate that to people and also to judges, right? Because what do judges care about, right? We can give them fantastic philosophic arguments, right? They're going to be correct on all the merits. They're going to be perfectly articulate. I mean, between me and Nick, I don't know, maybe I'm giving us too much credit, but I think we can articulate things pretty darn well in terms of written philosophic argument. But that's not necessarily going to land with somebody who's not receptive. They're going to say like, ah, who are these guys? They've just got some- Yeah, these cranks.

Nicholas Provenzo 01:10:52: What are these cranks doing bothering us?

Arthur Zey 01:10:54: Yeah, exactly, right? And this goes back to another point that we didn't really get to explore too much, but about how we regard precedent, right? We have to take doctrine seriously. We have to engage with it seriously because, I mean, after all, precedent matters because the law has to be stable and intelligible. It has to be institutionally continuous, right? But it's not self-justifying, and so we need to engage with precedent in a way that is going to make what we say philosophically, it's gonna be that judges and other people reading our briefs will be receptive to all of that, right? Because they're like, oh, they're actually engaging with the law in the way that the law works. And not just be like, well, here's the Objectivist proof for why A is A. What else do you think?

Nicholas Provenzo 01:11:53: We all have identity, folks!

Robert Nasir 01:12:02: It's funny, I don't know how long you guys can run, but something I would want to point out. We've said on the show many times, and in other forums as well, one of the challenges you run into in a philosophy like Objectivism, maybe only in a philosophy like Objectivism, is that you learn these ideas, you see their power, you go into a bar and you talk to some guy, or maybe a friend, but somebody you don't know that well, and you tell them about it. And you could spend you could spend a whole hour sharing these ideas with him yeah and if he doesn't get it you get impatient you may even go as far as to call him an evader and you completely forget you know it took me a couple of years to learn these ideas and to understand them and really you know see what i see now and The point is that I actually had to learn these ideas and then apply them. In other words, it took thought and it took work.

Nicholas Provenzo 01:13:01: It's never like, oh, your syllogisms were so brilliant, I shall abandon my former wayward ways right here, right now in front of everyone.

Robert Nasir 01:13:11: The first job interview I had, I put a copy of Atlas Shrugged on the desk and said, obviously, you've got to hire me.

Arthur Zey 01:13:18: Yeah yeah exactly by the way of why why oftentimes a lot of atheist organizations and activists and whatever why their arguments land flat with people right because they've got all these like fabulous logical arguments for why certain religious views are irrational and That doesn't land with anybody because they're not speaking in a way that connects with what the other person's values are, what maybe drew them towards in the first place, right? I remember being in college running my Objectivist Club and I don't know, it wasn't that something suddenly clicked for me, but I think at some point I just tried talking to one of my religious friends and instead of saying anything, giving any criticism about religion or anything like that, I just painted him a picture of how I make decisions in my life and how I run my life in a completely secular way. And I didn't have to say anything bad about religion. It's irrational or this or that. None of that, right? I didn't need to come up with all the arguments about whether belief in God is arbitrary or what. None of that was relevant, right? All I had to do was tell him, hey, this is how I run my life. Now, did he convert to being an atheist the next day? Obviously not, right? But I think that he ended up being more receptive to what I had to say and to looking at things in a more secular way than might have been the case if I just kind of came at him hard saying like, you know giving all of my you know brilliant arguments around you know why religion is problematic and they may well be brilliant arguments but that's not the point yeah i got i got exposed to Objectivism i got a couple times where uh

Nicholas Provenzo 01:15:19: When I got out of the Marines, I was doing summer school at University of Buffalo before I started at George Washington and had to do an ethics paper. And it was a virtue of selfishness. I had to read one of the essays out of that. And I was arguing that I didn't agree with Rand because it went against my view of what the Congressional Medal of Honor recipients do and why they do it. So it was like this, I mean, it was so dumb. But then what happened was when I was at George Washington, I was in the College Republicans. And there was a very strong Objectivist club and we had a drug legalization debate and I got creamed by the Objectivist oh it was so bad and that really it was shocking because I couldn't disagree with anything that he was saying he was what are individual rights and one is one man's need of mortgage a life another and very theatrical I mean we would they were having a lot of fun and with me uh but i i want like how did i just get i thought i came into the debate all prepared and i just got completely unraveled how the heck did that happen i ended up sharing office space with these guys my club and their club and so we would discuss and debate and then i'd say over you know six months or so of these discussions i finally read Ayn Rand and thought about it I started with the non-fiction first and the last gasp for me was just you know I was Roman Catholic and I practiced so we would I went to church and I was the Marines I went to church I was a lay reader and everything it was just a part of my community it was a part of you know you'd see the same people big hugs you know they're happy to see you you're happy to see them you see somebody's mother oh how are you how's your mother you know all that good stuff That was not the most pleasant thing to leave because that was a big part of growing up. But when I examined the ideas and I was always a big ideas guy, it was time to go and there was no question. But was it automatic? Again, did I just cave on the first syllogism? No, I had to think about it. And other people I've interacted with, I had to think about it. You don't see it in front of you. It's always off page. Where uh you know the process of of of of of doing it and you shouldn't i i think arthur was really nailed uh the nail right on the head when any gain you get is a good game yeah you didn't have to manufacture an Objectivist he just shared how he thought yes and showed this is valuable for me and this guy was impressed with it and there you go and and that's a win that's a win you just have you just helped make someone's life better

Amy Nasir 01:17:56: How cool is that? How rewarding is that?

Nicholas Provenzo 01:18:00: You have to, you know, get the whole enchilada. Oh, you're disintegrated. You're a shit show over here. No, no, no.

Amy Nasir 01:18:08: No, I love, I love, love, love what you guys are saying. And, you know, the themes on the Five Minutes with Robert and Amy Nasir has has with between us have always been um show people how you actually use this philosophy or these virtues or explain to them how you think of a morality and how it benefits you in your life and you know it's using the i statements in to the nth degree in that way um but yeah you you have to understand how these ideas are actually applied to your life and how they benefit you and how they make sense of the world and how they give you such, not just insight for debate with other people, but insight for your own introspection and understand what your values are and you've only got one chance here and you're still living and you can still go out and get what you want in life and it's not hopeless and it's a beautiful world. But yes, I'm totally on board with what you guys are saying.

Nicholas Provenzo 01:19:14: That's why I look at myself as a perpetual optimist because, again, the the world will go be will run over me however it does there's nothing i can do about that but i love interacting with people i love sharing with people i like getting back from them that's why like again you you know it was so much fun when you guys came down from michigan to washington just uh you know put some signs up we marched around and we all got to know each other and we've all been friends since yes and you know and and just how much fun that is and uh you know Do enough of that. Do it intelligently. It'll start to snowball. But even whatever it does is rewarding on its own terms. Absolutely.

Amy Nasir 01:19:58: Values are exponential and spiritual values are exponential between friends who are like-minded and who respect each other for the right reasons. And I certainly respect both of you for doing what you're doing at ObjectiveLaw.org where you can donate.

Robert Nasir 01:20:14: So in that regard, going back to my example of if you do eventually get through to somebody in regard to philosophic ideas, they're still going to have to work hard rationally. They're going to have to think intelligently and they're going to have to get out there and apply things. And you can't just walk into the job opportunity, put a copy of Atlas Shrugged on their desk and say, hire me. And that's not how philosophy works. And the point I wanted to make is Again, in regard to our sometimes precarious cultural legal situation that we're in, that's exactly what we need is people who are really smart and really rational and also are willing to work really hard. And that is why folks, if I can encourage you to follow the actions and ideally financially support the actions of the Objective Law Initiative, I can't think of a better way to address the last bulwark against the current administration and I don't mean to keep going back to politics because obviously law is wider than just Donald Trump but the kind of the kinds of things that need to be said the kind of voices that need to be out there the more the better and from folks as intelligent and consistent philosophically consistent as the two of you I can't think of a better way to fight back

Nicholas Provenzo 01:21:45: I really appreciate that, Robert. Both you guys. You know I love you, so there you go.

Amy Nasir 01:21:49: We love you too, Nick.

Nicholas Provenzo 01:21:50: You know how I feel.

Amy Nasir 01:21:51: And you too, Arthur.

Robert Nasir 01:21:53: We're not shy here. So folks, please do go to ObjectiveLaw.org. Link is in the show notes, in the YouTube description, in the Facebook description as well. If you're listening to this on the podcasting apps after the fact, you know what to do. And again, you don't need to go there and dump a ton of money. Until you decide it's the right time to do that but check them out look at the information there are examples of the kinds of briefs that they will eventually be filing the kinds of actions that they're going to be taking we all want people to speak out and we wonder why they don't well Nick and Arthur and the folks that they work with are going to be speaking out they're going to be saying the things that you Want, need, and wish that people were saying right now. Guys, thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate you being on the show. We will continue to follow. Now, if folks want to keep up to date on your activities, so the best way to do that, is there a mailing list or to go to the socials? What's the best way to keep an eye and stay connected with you all?

Arthur Zey 01:22:55: Yeah, I would say for now, follow us on Facebook. We'll also be posting on Twitter and LinkedIn and occasionally Instagram if the format is right. When we come out with videos, we'll be posting those on YouTube. So follow us everywhere there. We'll eventually get a mailing list once we're cranking out content on a more regular basis. But we'll keep folks posted.

Robert Nasir 01:23:23: Excellent. So we will keep an eye on you and we will continue to share the content that you post. Guys, thank you so much.

Nicholas Provenzo 01:23:29: Hey, thank you. It's so nice to get together.

Robert Nasir 01:23:33: Thank you so much. Folks, thank you for joining us. It's been Five Minutes with Robert and Amy Nasir and Nicholas Provenzo and Arthur Zey and the Objective Law Initiative. We will see you next Sunday. Same time, same place. That's it. That's all I got. Amy?

Amy Nasir 01:23:48: That's it.

Robert Nasir 01:23:49: All right. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.