Phoenix: Part 1

If you have a history of criminal behavior, and we know it, you're not coming. There are no garbage. There are human beings. This looks so good. You're black. You're picking out of candidates. You're talking about feelings. I'm going back.

Nobody's illegal. It's important to be direct with what we're upset about. It's wrong! Is this where we start fist fighting? I would describe Phoenix as... Some cowboys wandered off in the desert and decided to play golf. Phoenix is a very friendly city to raise a family. It's very welcoming. It feels like a place where you can express yourself artistically and be yourself. You have people from all walks of life joining together to kind of embrace a sort of idea. You have so many people moving here.

It's really becoming a hot spot. Not too many people are from Phoenix. Different ethnic groups becoming a melting pot here. My name is Rodolfo Reyes, and I own Culinary Brigade Private Chef Services. I've been in Phoenix for about 34 years now. The Phoenix area is very eclectic. It's full of colors, noises, smells, sounds. Well, we're in the tip of the Sonoran Desert, so tonight's menu is called the Sonoran Flares, so that we can showcase the flavors that the desert has to offer.

Big influence of northern Mexico with chilies and bringing out cilantro. We've got the earth tones combined with the citrus. My name is Nika Aguilar. I am from Southern California, originally. I would never step in a room and be like, let me teach you about politics. I would identify, if I had to pick a party, I would say I'm a Democrat, and I'm more liberal. But I'm not, like, dead set on that, though, you know? My name is Van. I was raised in Phoenix ever since preschool.

I was raised by a Democrat and a Republican. Good to meet you. Very exciting. I'm an independent, but I lean left a little bit. My name is Erin Jo Harris, and I am from Denver, Colorado. Well, technically, I am a newly registered Republican.

I lost trust in the mainstream everything quite a long time ago. My name is Coca Gonzalez, and I am from Guanajuato, Mexico. Nice to meet you. Yes, nice to meet you. Hi. I moved to Phoenix 22 years ago. I think I'm Democrat. Have you always voted Democrat? Yes. My name is J.D. Harris. I'm from Waukegan, Illinois. I moved to Phoenix because of this, the weather, and I look at it as the land of milk and honey.

My political affiliation is just like me, independent. You're starting off very fresh, very light, with a seared ahi tuna. You've got cucumber, radishes. You've got some sweet peppers. Very straightforward, fresh. Enjoy. Thank you so much. I love tuna.

Don't be shy. Here we go. Another one. Hey, because I am from Mexico, I like tuna. Yeah, there you go. Awesome. Nice. I think one of the things that's like... What is attractive about America is because it is a melting pot. One more.

Do you feel like it's like a cultural war, in a sense? You know, before, it didn't matter if you were Democrat or Republican. It didn't matter if you were conservative or not. If you don't go with the main thought. Cultural thought in society. What is the main cultural thought? Like prevailing thought in the media at the time. That's where I was going, yeah. I mean, our country, it's a republic, so it is ideas. But when people start attacking those ideas...

That is, for me, the most dangerous of all, because that's the core of what it means to be American, is those ideas. Someone might pass that down. Get in on this. You can't have any. I was listening to that song, and I'm proud to be an American. I remember so very clearly. When I was younger, every time I'd hear that song, I'd be like, yes, I'm American, and I was listening to it recently to see, like, does that still feel the same?

And it didn't, because, you know, I served in the military. When I saw the flag flying, it made me emotional, because I'm like, we're united, we're fighting for something, like, we care about this. I just feel like the last couple of years, it's like to see people, like, burning the flag. And I'm like, oh, but that meant something, and we were proud, and we were united. When you see those heartbreaking images of people demonstrating in such extreme ways, I think it speaks to the freedoms that we are granted.

You know, ultimately, those demonstrations Come from this common desire that we all want things to be better, you know? I feel even though flag-burning is technically protected as, quote, speech, it's not speech. It's an act of treason. I feel it's because everything started with family.

When I grow up... Our parents didn't spoil us. If we don't do something that we are supposed to be doing, then we grow our pants, and they spanking us. Here, if you spank your child, you know, they are going to call CPS, and you are in trouble. I feel society here is more spoiled. Yeah.

Sorry, did you say that you were? Spanked as a child? Yeah, my dad spanked me. How do you feel in you as well? Yeah. Anybody else? Rare. Very rare. We were spanked. How do you guys feel that that affected you? I would never spank my child. I can't even imagine smacking a kid. I just found out Arizona is one of the few states where corporal punishment is totally allowed. Yep.

You can't leave a mark. Yeah. For parents. You can't use an object, you can only use your hand. And the parents can give permission to the schools. You just can't leave a mark. And that's how it was when I grew up. Yeah. Well, I didn't know that. I didn't know that either. It is. Now, the thing is, they can only use their hand. Oh, my word. Well, I thought you'd say that. No, but that's what I'm saying. That's actually worse, right?

But also, too, one of the things the past few years. Which has been challenged, is our right for freedom? I mean, everything you do has a consequence, right? And freedom of speech. And that's where I was going. For the first time, it really seemed muzzled. So, if you had a thought that challenged what the quote-unquote mainstream was, there were consequences for that. Twitter, prime example. Okay. You were getting banned. To kind of push back on that a little bit, I mean, Twitter is a private company.

And… You know, they're entitled to run their company as they please. Well, I'm going to challenge you. It came out like what Zuckerberg said. He was being told certain things to block on Facebook. So, I mean, that was being done. There's a lot of crossover. Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean, he and others have been influenced. So, we should target his relationship with those people that are telling him those things. There was a higher power than just... Zuckerberg with it. It was our government.

I believe that government censorship on any social media platform, whether public or private, is a dangerous precedent. It's important to frame it. Correctly, and be direct with what we're upset about. You know what I mean? So, how do I... So, go after these people who we know are doing specific things. Well, I did. I said they were. Right, but I'm just saying, we started out with saying Twitter is doing X. No, I said I gave an example.

Our second appetizer is a staple here in the state. It's Navajo bread. Oh my gosh, free bread. Top of black bean chili, some cheese, lettuce, tomato, and some olives. Thank you very much. Thank you. What I love about the concept of family for me is you can have a chosen family if the first set wasn't.

Family is who you choose. Family is who you choose. It doesn't have to be blood, and I love my family. I have become really close with the family that I have gotten to choose and keep in my life, because sometimes families can be very toxic, and I learned at a certain point that you don't have to stay around that if it's harmful to you. Marriage is the foundation of A household. Amen. Some boundaries that you teach your kids, that you honor your father and your mother.

Coco, do you think a... The requirement is a legal marriage between one man and one woman, or do you think that it's the idea of that partnership? Well, it's just, it sounds like fairly traditional. I'm just curious what your take is. Well, I am a Christian believer, and as I go to the Bible, maybe we're going to have contradictions here.

That's okay. We're here to disagree. I got your back with the Bible, girl. I got your back. Go ahead, say what you want to say. I believe in the Bible, and the Bible says, you know, man and woman marry, and marry Christ. So, my marriage is, you know.

Say. Kogo didn't really answer the question at all. I think it's silly to base your opinion on a book that was written centuries, thousands of years ago. I believe in marriages that is only for men and women. In the Bible, yeah, it doesn't say woman and woman and men to men. From my experience, I grew up with my parents getting divorced when I was about five years old. I didn't have a good example of what...

A good, pure love is. There's no toxicity or abuse, and because of that, I'm so grateful that I live somewhere where I have the opportunity to say, I don't want to get married, and I don't want to have kids. I grew up Christian, and a good portion of my family is still very Christian, and I have my own personal relationship with God, and also I've been told that I'm not allowed to be Christian because I'm bisexual. So, What I've seen in my family is a lot of… A lot of homophobia, a lot of sexism, a lot of racism from people who claim to be a follower of Christ, people who claim to preach love, and they don't.

So, I think it's awesome to raise a family, and that sounds like a living hell to me. Even though I believe in marriages, I got divorced, so I am married again. The things that I can see in my marriage now that is working and is making me stronger. It's because I put the faith into it. And by faith, you know that the other person and you are committed because missing out to really feel loved, protected, and not to be alone. I was able to see what a good nuclear family looked like.

I saw my dad. I unselfishly love my mother. Right. And he was a pastor, planted over 200 churches in Africa, Czech Republic, things like that. And one of the things that I loved about my dad and people that Have alternative, I'll use for lack of a better term, alternative lifestyles. One thing we're taught, you love people where they are. Do you think that people who subscribe to, as you put it, alternative lifestyles are capable of that kind of accountability? Yeah, I'm going to say this, because it's probably more divorce rates in the Christian community, so I'm not lying.

Because you have people that aren't Christians, that are Hindus, that don't get divorced. Can I ask why it's an alternative? Alternative lifestyle. No, I said a lack of better. Okay. I prefaced it with that. JD's use of the term alternative lifestyle really pissed me off. We're basically being othered, which is a sugar-coated way of saying it isn't normal, nor is it the correct way to live your life. You have three people that subscribe to the Christian faith, and that's what allegedly, allegedly, our country is based off of, things like that.

Well, I mean, the First Amendment of the Constitution says that we're not going to found the country on religion. So, I'm just going to put that out there. Read deeper on it, but I'm going to finish up. Continue. I'd like to say, before I lose this thought, to have a very healthy upbringing and a healthy example of parents is a privilege. And I feel that it is a privileged and limited way of thinking, because for people who don't have that, you're raised in chaos.

You're not going to know how to be a wife and a mother or subscribe to those ideas, because they didn't grow up that way. Well, I would respectfully challenge that. It's like, I'm going to love you where you are. And that was one of the biggest things with my dad. They're like, he always showed me love, and that impacted their lives. And, like, for example, it was a gentleman that was a homosexual, but the way my dad treated him, he always treated him with respect and love.

He's a human being. That's what we're taught, right? But that's why I said religion versus Christianity, because the religious people, like, why are you with, you know, to your point with family, environments, surroundings can make a difference. But then everyone has a choice at that point. So, it's like a similar situation. I grew up with parents that split when I was five, and that caused deep... Issues. But it's like, I recognized the places where they went wrong, and I want something better for myself, so I had to take it upon myself to learn.

I want some amazing version of marriage and family and all of that kind of thing. I'm still looking to cultivate that, you know? But to your point about the founders, the founders also said a republic will not work. Unless you have a morally upright people.

Where do you think people get morals from? Well, I believe they are written on our hearts from the Creator. There are no garbage. There are human beings. Why don't they just make their country better? I dare say a very privileged take. She didn't put down anybody. Do you believe that they should stay in Honduras and fix their country? Based upon what? The statistics. They wanted to get you here that bad, you know what I mean? Is it a privilege to come to America, or is it an entitlement?