[00:00:00] John Bush: There's so many people that are aware of the problems in the world, technocracy, the New World Order, predator class, being ruled by satanic pedophiles. We're beyond the need to wake up. We need to build the alternatives to show people that there is another way to go about organizing society. If not, we'll just be caught in a cycle of endless revolution and frustration with the government.

[00:00:20] John Bush: That's part of the psyop, to isolate people and make you feel like you're crazy and kooky. You're not crazy and kooky. You just haven't found other people. What's missing is strength in numbers, and strength in numbers was the underlying principle for the Freedom Cell network, which now is a global phenomenon.

[00:00:36] John Bush: 43,000 people have been registered on our website. We're creative human beings made in the image of God, and it's about time we step into that power and build the world that we desire.

[00:00:55] Luke Storey: What do you think it is about human nature that [00:01:00] causes so many of us to choose comfort over freedom? And I ask that because it seems that's, that's the lever, you know? Privileges and benefits seems to be the thing that we, um, have historically fallen into as a trap of control.

[00:01:18] John Bush: It's a great question to lead off with.

[00:01:20] John Bush: Um, okay, so obviously, people prefer a state of comfort to discomfort, and I often ask myself, as a teacher trying to help people... Well, I was gonna say wake people up, but we're beyond the need to wake up. It's time to take action and start building. And there's so many people that are aware of the problems in the world, technocracy, the New World Order, predator class, being ruled by satanic pedophiles.

[00:01:47] John Bush: Yeah,

[00:01:47] Luke Storey: that's kind of a problem.

[00:01:49] John Bush: Yeah, that's not optimal. Not optimal at all. Um- I like predator class. I usually call it the parasitic class. Okay,

[00:01:56] Luke Storey: yeah.

[00:01:56] John Bush: That's a good one too. Yeah. I got predator class from my associate, Derek [00:02:00] Bros. Uh, I think it sums it up pretty nicely. So I'm always thinking like, "Well, why is it that so many people are aware of the problem, but they're still not taking adequate action to feel more at ease?"

[00:02:10] John Bush: That no matter what happens, it may not be easy to navigate, but they're gonna be okay. And I think for me, yeah, to put the distinction between comfort and discomfort, in order to really build a life that is full of freedom and prosperity, and o- sometimes even a life that's in alignment with our values, it takes hard work.

[00:02:31] John Bush: And I think, unfortunately, people aren't willing to put in the work. Um, and then an even deeper thing is that a lot of people come up against limiting beliefs and, and internal discomfort. So learning Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, for example, I teach a lot of older folks how to do cryptocurrency, and I just saw time and time again- What I, the real value that I was providing wasn't step one through three.

[00:02:59] John Bush: You know, [00:03:00] set up a wallet, make sure you write down the seed phrase, and then here's how you send and receive, and you copy and paste the address. It was people coming against their own internal resistance because they have messed up with technology in the past, and I g- I've, I've not been good with technology.

[00:03:15] John Bush: I can't figure it out, so the moment that they- Can't keep

[00:03:17] Luke Storey: track of my passwords. Yeah, me either. It's like even a normal password, let alone some of the codes you need to deal with, uh, crypto. Yeah.

[00:03:26] John Bush: So I think limiting beliefs are another piece. Uh, people just don't wanna be uncomfortable inside or put in a lot of the hard work, and I say that as a generalization.

[00:03:35] John Bush: There are a lot of people that are putting in the work, and I think that's what it's all about.

[00:03:39] Luke Storey: Yeah. It's, it's just an interesting observation to me because not having freedom to me is more uncomfortable than change. You know, it's like I'm willing to change anything in order to have a sense of freedom, but it, it, it does seem like, uh, [00:04:00] many people are willing to go along to get along, and that makes it, I think, difficult for the rest of us that would rather fight for our freedom even if it's uncomfortable, you know?

[00:04:12] Luke Storey: But one thing I really like about your approach to all of this in my study of you prior to this conversation is that you are very solution-oriented. Mm-hmm. And I think, um... I mean, I've been a conspiracy analyst since about 9/11. You know, that was like my wake-up call, and started going down all of the rabbit holes and developed a pretty alternative point of view.

[00:04:35] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. And then, uh, just kinda kept it to myself and did my thing. And then when the plandemic rolled out, it was like gloves off, roll up the sleeves, I'm done with this shit. This is serious. And I think that was the case for a lot of people, but- Oh, yeah ... m- y- myself and many people I know I think have a difficult time with getting stuck in the learning and understanding of who's doing what and why and who's at the top of the pyramid, [00:05:00] you know, controlling this, and, um, kind of living in this state of fear- Mm

[00:05:05] Luke Storey: and losing track of solutions. So I really love that you're in very real time helping people to reframe where we are as a, as a culture, as an opportunity, and seeing it as an awakening rather than- Yeah ... you know, that the totalitarian tiptoe is about to step on our neck. And this is something I personally struggle with because I wanna know what's going on in the world.

[00:05:30] Luke Storey: Sure. But if... I find if you lean into that too much, it becomes kind of a black hole. Mm-hmm. And it becomes disempowering when knowledge at one level is empowering. It's like almost like if we get too much knowledge It feels hopeless. Sure. So we're-- I guess the question in there is, you know, where do you see us, you know, speaking as an American, uh, culture right at the moment, where do you see us in terms of positive versus negative as the powers that [00:06:00] want to be kind of continue to encroach?

[00:06:02] John Bush: Okay. An overall

[00:06:04] Luke Storey: assessment of where we're at. So- Or even how, how you look at it. Like- Sure ... how do you, how do you stay positive about life when you- Yeah ... when you have an awareness, a deeper level of awareness than maybe your average person does, who is getting their information from the television?

[00:06:18] John Bush: Well, I always teach my clients the antidote to overwhelm and anxiety, which comes from a over-researching.

[00:06:27] John Bush: And a lot of the documentaries and a lot of the articles, and a lot of the influencers and leaders in this space are playing up the fear because it's a clickbait fear porn kind of phenomenon. It's like, uh, I love amusement parks and going on roller coasters, and so we seek that thrill. So reading that exhilaration, you kind of almost become addicted to it, and people fall into that trap, which leads to anxiety, which leads to feelings of overwhelm.

[00:06:52] John Bush: Uh, lately it's like an information overload. In fact, I think in Event 201 and a lot of the COVID operational planning, 'cause it was like a [00:07:00] military grade PSYOP that took place, they were deliberately saying like, "We need to just hit people with so much information that they can't even make sense of it all."

[00:07:11] John Bush: And so I teach folks the antidote to that is action. Of course, you're gonna feel overwhelmed if there's no outlet for this fear and frustration. But the moment you start meeting up with other freedom people, like later this evening, we'll be at a Our second, we do it every other week, so our bimonthly Bastrop Freedom Cell social dinner, um, and it's growing and growing.

[00:07:33] John Bush: There's people that we're recruiting from the local Bastrop Facebook group, you know, to come into the fray, and there's a lot of folks from my old days as a conspiracy guy and running a conspiracy bookstore here in Austin that are showing up, and it's super groovy. But you show up, you meet people, you see that there's other people that think like you do.

[00:07:49] John Bush: You're not alone and isolated. You start digging in the backyard and building a garden, and you see the fruit of your efforts, right? You, you learn how to trade with precious [00:08:00] metals, or you find a local vendor or convince a local farmers' market vendor to accept precious metals or cryptocurrency, for example.

[00:08:08] John Bush: And then you start to see, like, okay, I have a little bit more control over my life than the predator class, than the propaganda machine would like me to believe. And I would argue there's a lot of hyperbole and fear being injected into the m- through the mainstream media, but there's also a lot being injected through our own alternative media.

[00:08:28] John Bush: A lot of sensationalism, a lot of World War III, a lot of civil war is supposed to erupt between the left and the right, and I don't know how many times this was already supposed to have happened, and it hasn't. Same thing with the collapse is right around the corner. I think that our side of the aisle is responsible for a lot of the fear, which has left people feeling impotent.

[00:08:46] John Bush: So if, if any of the viewers are feeling overwhelmed, anxious, impotent, what do I do? I just encourage you to just start taking action, even small actions. It makes a world of difference. You begin to realize that you do have [00:09:00] control over your life and your circumstances. And then the more of us that realize that, of course, the better.

[00:09:04] John Bush: And so to answer your question, too, about the assessment of the current state of American affairs, I, I'd see there's a fracturing taking place. So you have the masses And for the, the bulk of the masses, mass man, mass woman, they're not really gonna buck the system. They're just gonna go along to get along, which is fine because there's always been a mass group.

[00:09:26] John Bush: They don't change the course of history. It's, it's the fringe minority that shifts the course of history. And so I see, as an observer of this movement, having been awake since 2002, caught a documentary by Alex Jones here in Austin on cable access. 9/11: Road to Tyranny. Yeah. And w- and was like, "Whoa, this is crazy.

[00:09:45] John Bush: I've been lied to about 9/11. This is nuts." And then went down the rabbit hole and started burning DVDs and passing them out. That's what we would do back in the day. Yeah. We would pass out burnt DVDs. I d- I did a bit of that too. Loose change and stuff. Yeah.

[00:09:56] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:09:57] John Bush: And so having observed the movement, and then Ron Paul [00:10:00] came around, and then you had this libert- modern liberty movement expands, then it shifts into voluntarism- Mm-hmm

[00:10:05] John Bush: and then more, uh, anarchism, and then of course the, the sovereignty through law piece has been there since the '90s and even before then, but that's now having a resurgence. So our movement is expanding and expanding. Our, our broader freedom movement, health freedom, conspiracy, whatever it may be, and there's like...

[00:10:23] John Bush: It's so big that there's different factions and different circles, tons of overlap. I just got back from Confluence. There was like 1,160 people on site. They sold h- like 800, 7 or 800 tickets, and it's just all these people. So I think the idea of freedom and personal responsibility and exiting is really starting to take hold, and I see much more momentum building in the future, and I think it's important w- that we recruit people from the masses 'cause things like COVID happen, and people are like, "Huh?"

[00:10:56] John Bush: So journalism and good videos will help break people [00:11:00] out of that. But then we gotta bring them into a constructive space where we're building the alternative- Yeah ... parallel systems because if not, we'll just be caught in a cycle of endless revolution and frustration with the government. We need to build the alternatives to show people that there is another way to go about organizing society.

[00:11:18] Luke Storey: One positive thing, you know, everything obviously can be looked at From a non-dual sort of perspective, right? So you think about COVID, for example, that whole era, which I would argue we're still in, in many ways, right? 'Cause it's like once that overreach steps forward, it never steps back, right? It's like think of the, uh, the Patriot Act, right?

[00:11:41] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Or any of these, like, temporary measures. I mean, income tax was meant to be temporary. The body scanners. Yeah. Yeah, exactly, right? So I, I try to look at, you know, what has happened, um, from a place of positivity in the sense that so many people, uh, that were just kind of, um, you know, your average [00:12:00] person who wasn't involved politically or interested in any of the stuff that we'll be talking about today, they were kind of brought in partly because everyone was forced to stay home, and what do you have at home?

[00:12:10] Luke Storey: You have the internet. Right? And if you kind of have a, a sense like, "Hmm, something feels a little off here," I mean, it's like they locked everyone in their house- Yeah ... with the internet and ended up waking up more people than they, you know- Yeah. Then they saw

[00:12:22] John Bush: Mickey Willis' Plandemic when they had a little s- tiny window to watch it.

[00:12:25] John Bush: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:12:26] Luke Storey: So I, I try to see what we've been going through, this sort of tipping point as something positive. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, on a good day, I can view it that way. But one thing recently that I think has been really positive, um, in the last however long it's been with, um, orange man at the helm is, um, I, I think there's a really positive thing happening right now where people are realizing that the issue that we're facing is not a left or right thing, and that we're not going to vote our way out of this.

[00:12:58] Luke Storey: So I think a lot of people [00:13:00] were pretty hopeful, um, you know, when Donald Trump got elected. I mean, I've... I don't really believe in politics myself personally, but there seemed to be this kind of, um, I don't know, renewed sense of hope that things were gonna change 'cause things were going so off the rails during COVID.

[00:13:17] Luke Storey: And now, at least to me and most people I know, it's pretty clear that they're all on one team, and it's not our team, you know, for the people that value liberty and love and equity and kindness and cooperation and collaboration and all the things, like true unity, right? Uh, what is your take on, on that particular piece?

[00:13:40] Luke Storey: Do, do you see more people waking up to the fact that it's kind of humanity against the anti-human forces versus left or right, liberal, conservative, and so on? Do you think that fallacy is starting to kind of wear more thin these

[00:13:58] John Bush: days? I sure as heck [00:14:00] would hope so. Um, a- and I like to analyze out, like, when I...

[00:14:04] John Bush: The fracturing, right? So I do think it's still... It's, it's more so fra- it's more so, uh, breaking apart the left-right paradigm with the masses. And of course, you would expect that our movement, this freedom thing, would already be beyond it. But I was actually surprised to see so many people fall for the Trump thing again.

[00:14:23] John Bush: And I was, I knew that Trump was full of it in 2016. Um, and then for his first presidency, all you have to do is look at his record and you see that he wasn't about greater freedom. And a lot of these deep state stuff and lock Hillary up was, like, false promises. Right? And now they're, like, chummy and stuff.

[00:14:43] John Bush: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've been chummy the whole time. It's a giant

[00:14:45] Luke Storey: facade. I, I love the, the, in propaganda, there's always three words. Build the wall. Lock her up. Oh, yeah. You know? It's like the- He's a good,

[00:14:52] John Bush: he's

[00:14:52] Luke Storey: a

[00:14:52] John Bush: good

[00:14:52] Luke Storey: slogan man ... tho- those

[00:14:53] John Bush: slogans. I sure did enjoy the debates. They always come in threes,

[00:14:56] Luke Storey: you know?

[00:14:56] John Bush: Yeah. I enjoyed the debates in 2016. That was awesome, him ripping- [00:15:00] That was really entertaining. Yeah, so I was excited about that. But at, you know, in 2020, I even ran this campaign, it was called the Exit and Build Town Hall, and we brought back Vote for Nobody. I just saw a Facebook memory in 2011, it was like, "Vote for Nobody in the 2012 election," 'cause I just saw that it was a f- a fraud early on, and I'd hoped that a lot of people in our freedom movement would think the same, but they ran such a f- sophisticated campaign to bring people back into the fray, and I think, I don't know what level of awareness the enemies of freedom and the intelligence agencies have about really what's going on.

[00:15:35] John Bush: Probably a high level. They have all sorts of sophisticated artificial intelligence now. And I, sometimes I try not to give our movement and these ideas too much credit, but I think Leading up to 2020 and 2024, because there was so much distrust and because so many people were beginning to withdraw their consent to be governed and, and reject the false authority that is government, especially at the [00:16:00] federal level, I think they had to run a campaign that brings people back into the fray of believing in a politician, believing in a party, believing in government again.

[00:16:10] John Bush: And a lot of people did fall for it, and that's okay. I'm so grateful to see a lot of people now saying, "Man, that was a mistake," and we see it for what it is. I just worry that they'll roll it out again, uh, now that Trump has been so bad. And I think they're like- Right ... "Let's leave this bumbling idiot Biden in, and let's destroy and sabotage things as much as we can so it makes Trump more palatable."

[00:16:31] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:16:32] John Bush: Um, but it was disheartening for me to see a lot of freedom people and libertarians even, and former Ron Paul people, 'cause that's how I really went even deeper in my activism, was in the Ron Paul campaign in 2008. And there's these Ron Paul folks, and, you know, Ron Paul's anti-war, free markets, all this stuff.

[00:16:48] John Bush: Trump's none of that. And it was so crystal clear that Trump was bought and paid for by the Adelsons and was clearly gonna be a puppet for the Zionist regime in Israel. Um, [00:17:00] a- and that's most definitely what's played out since then. So I just hope it's not gonna be another Charlie Brown situation where home girl's holding the football and repeatedly mistaking it.

[00:17:11] John Bush: That's why, that's why the exit and build thing is so important. We have to build these alternative structures because the, the conversation was, "Well, it's better than Kamala being in office." I don't know that it actually is better than Kamala because Trump is a sophisticated businessman that knows how to effectively allocate capital, and he also knows how to build a team, and he surrounded himself with effective capital allocators.

[00:17:30] John Bush: I borrow that from Elon Musk, who Points that out about certain people. We should leave money in the hands of people that can allocate capital well, right? He surrounded himself with technologists, CEOs, and executives, and has more of a business mindset as opposed to for CBDCs, for example. If CBDCs were to be to rolled, rolled out through the D and C faction, they would be having congressional hearings, and it would be all this bureaucratic nonsense, but instead they found a way to trick everyone.

[00:17:57] John Bush: They are-- Now they're rolling out [00:18:00] CBDCs as stable coins, which is in the private sector, and it already is existing. Same thing with all this artificial intelligence. So I think actually when it comes to technocracy, which is the real enemy of freedom, this digital panopticon surveillance state they're erecting and the Great Reset, Trump has been much more effective at implementing that because he knows how to execute, unlike crooked politicians that have a career in Washington or all they were were lawyers.

[00:18:26] John Bush: So I think they pulled one over on us, and our hope next time around, so more people don't get duped, is to help them remember who we are. We're creative human beings made in the image of God, and it's by time we step into that power and build the world that we desire. And if we can make progress there, then next time an election rolls around, we can be like, "No, you don't have to vote for either one of those clowns.

[00:18:48] John Bush: Come help us build the, the life raft." Right. "W- And look at all the progress we've made. We're growing our own food. We have our own alternative communication systems and meshtastic communication networks and [00:19:00] all sorts of stuff." That's the hope 'cause a bunch of people are gonna go back into politics. I can already see it.

[00:19:05] John Bush: Although the- It happens every time ...

[00:19:07] Luke Storey: it's, it's, it's so-- And I'm certainly no expert on politics. I mean, I have very little understanding of how it all works. I'm kind of a big picture observer. Mm-hmm. So you saw, you know, in the Biden time, it was like things just went so crazily left. And woke. Yeah, all the, you know, the censorship and language policing and just really, um, I don't know, just forcing so many strange agendas that I think even your average person is like, "What?"

[00:19:38] Luke Storey: Um, it-- but it's like things got so nuts that it was a perfect positioning to offer this, quote-unquote, "anti-establishment" leader, right? It's like they're just driving people to Donald Trump- Mm-hmm ... 'cause they made things so weird- Mm-hmm ... that you were willing to, like, accept anything. Yeah. I mean, I've never voted in my life and never will, [00:20:00] but, um, for those people that have a belief that that means something.

[00:20:04] Luke Storey: It was so interesting, the, like, false dialectic kind of thing, right? Where you just make things so extreme and so crazy that, like, what's going on over here seems reasonable- Mm-hmm ... when it's ultimately the same thing, just going about it a different way, as you just described so clearly. Um, the level of sophistication.

[00:20:22] Luke Storey: It's like the same end goal is being worked toward. It's just a matter of, um, strategy of how they're going about it. But when you look at things, you know, going back to the early days of 9/11 and all that, it's like everything always kind of heads in the same direction, regardless of what's going on politically.

[00:20:41] Luke Storey: It's just kind of the, the way they paint it, right? They paint it one color or the other color, but ultimately it's the same goal. So I'm really, really supportive of your perspective that changing the system or tearing the system down is likely, [00:21:00] if not impossible, would take forever . So I love your perspective, like, cool, you guys are doing your thing over here.

[00:21:07] Luke Storey: Have fun. We're starting to build our own parallel system. And I really think that's the only way that we'll be able to find our way out of this. And mainly because, I'm sure you're familiar with Larkin Rose. Mm-hmm. Alex Et gave me that book, uh, a couple of years ago, and I was just like, "What?" It became so clear to me that really the human issue and why we're so susceptible to this evil is, I really think it's just our fundamental belief that we need to be governed and that we can't make it as a civilization unless we put arbitrary random people in some position of authority.

[00:21:41] Luke Storey: It's like the belief in authority as a principle seems to be the problem.

[00:21:46] John Bush: Yeah. And I mean, I have two kids, they're 13 and 14, and I think we might have been a little too laissez-faire with them when they were younger, 'cause kids do need order and boundaries. Uh, it's like a [00:22:00] river. You wanna be the banks of the river, and it'll, it'll shift, but you wanna guide that river.

[00:22:06] John Bush: But the way that even, you know, people parent their children creates this false authority, because I said so, so to speak. So not only do we have government and government schools conditioning the children, but the parents, even within our own movement, often condition the children to just have this, this undue respect for authority.

[00:22:25] John Bush: So yeah, we gotta smash through that. But people, like I shared before, people don't know an alternative There's no other alternative. How are we gonna organize society? Um, how do we build the roads? How do we render justice without the state? It has to be demonstrated, which, which is a challenge, and, you know, it's uncharted territory.

[00:22:44] John Bush: We're n- new pioneers in all of this. But yeah, the work of Larkin Rose is good, and, and I appreciate more and more how we're having these conversations about voluntarism and about alternatives to government, because a lot of people haven't even contemplated that. And I think with [00:23:00] advancements in technology and cryptocurrency, and there's just...

[00:23:05] John Bush: It's a, it's a opportune time to experiment with alternatives to government as well.

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[00:24:38] John Bush: Okay, so we were talking about earlier how whether it's left or right or whether it's 9/11 or, um, COVID, there's an agenda that's been advancing, and that agenda is technocracy, uh, which was communicated by Klaus Schwab with the Great Reset. Um, I guess it's Larry Fink now [00:25:00] that's the head of World Economic Forum, the BlackRock guy.

[00:25:03] John Bush: That's a, that's a trip. But technocracy, it ultimately is the enemy, in my view. Not left, right, Trump, Biden, Kamala. That's all just a dog and pony show. And as you pointed out, the... it's always advancing towards technocracy. So if you think of, of a pendulum swinging from left to right, it's not just swinging just E- ecstatically.

[00:25:25] John Bush: It's, imagine it's swinging, but it's also moving forward towards a totalitarian surveillance society. That's a great metaphor. Yeah, and then, and then every time it swings forward at a faster rate because we're so against the left now, we're okay with Daddy Orange Man using government against the left, and then it's only a matter of time.

[00:25:48] John Bush: We're so against the right, and the patriots, and the right-wing extremists, according to the Department of Homeland Security's report they put out, that we're okay with the left increasing surveillance in the police state. [00:26:00] But all the while, it's moving closer towards the police state and the surveillance state.

[00:26:05] John Bush: And the deeper understanding of that is this system of governance known as technocracy, which is essentially instead of having politicians rule people, it's have scientific, uh, dictators and algorithms rule people. And we don't wanna have people rule others anyway. We want to self-govern as the ultimate solution, which is why the sovereignty through law stuff is so important.

[00:26:28] John Bush: Technocracy was a movement that sprung up, uh, in the early 1900s, and especially started taking root after World War II when everyone was just completely dissatisfied with, like, government is totally screwing things up. This business class is totally screwing things up. We need another way to manage society.

[00:26:47] John Bush: How about there's science, and, and algorithm, and experts, the expert class? And so that was communicated through the Great Reset, which was just a dramatic reshaping of not only government, but also [00:27:00] economics, environment, how we relate to one another, how we work. That's the Great Reset. Um, you'll own nothing and be happy.

[00:27:07] John Bush: And so ultimately, that's the goal, and it looks like a surveillance society where everything is completely monitored and detected. And so there's four tools that are being utilized in order to roll this out, and I've just shifted the Four Horsemen. It was CBDC. It was digital ID, CBDC, vaccine passport, and social credit score, which are all still concerning, but I'm shifting it up, somewhat inspired by Catherine Austin Fitts' work.

[00:27:36] John Bush: So now the Four Horsemen, in my view, in- influenced by her understanding of the CBDC system, is, uh, surveillance technology, which is flock cameras, which is our smartphones listening, which is, well, you know, surveillance when you're in a store, you name it, which is smart meters, which is your car driving down the road, and it has cameras [00:28:00] and such, and there's little cameras on the light posts and all sorts of crazy stuff.

[00:28:05] John Bush: So that's surveillance And then you have digital ID. I'm sorry, digital ID's the first piece, and then surveillance. So digital ID, which is creating a single point of data collection and retention that you then have to use in order to engage in life services- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm ... commerce, travel. And then you have the surveillance piece, and then you have the artificial intelligence piece, which is taking all of the data that they're collecting through surveillance and now being tied to your digital ID and analyzing it in an effective way to make it useful information.

[00:28:40] John Bush: And then you have the central bank digital currency paradigm, which will then take the information that they gathered and analyzed through artificial intelligence and use it to socially engineer and control the public. This is all gonna eventually be worked into a form of energy credits. That's part of the technocracy.

[00:28:57] John Bush: They wanted to have an energy credit instead of money. [00:29:00] So it's just like the total bastardization of money, from sound money with, with gold, right? And then you had fiat money, debt-based fake money, and now they're moving it further to this energy credits system. It's kind of a trip. But those are the four horsemen of technocracy: digital ID, single unifying data collection point, which will be housed on your phone, but really it'll be like a mark of the beast number, a code, a serial number, so to speak.

[00:29:26] John Bush: Then you have all this massive surveillance just being soaked in, which was already the case. It's even more so now. But without artificial intelligence, that information wasn't very useful, and the beast system had to rely on human beings and intelligence assets- Right ... which doesn't scale. Right. But now we live in an environment where all of that information can come in through complex artificial intelligence, which will be the primary reason why so many data centers and computing power is being put on- Is that

[00:29:52] Luke Storey: why they're being built?

[00:29:53] John Bush: Yeah. It's not so that we can- ... you know, query ChatGPT about the recipe or-

[00:29:58] Luke Storey: Yeah, that's, I, I thought that too. [00:30:00] I'm like, I- it works pretty well for what it is. I mean, I'm sure- Yeah ... it'll advance, but I use ChatGPT all the time. Like, my plant's dying, like I take a picture and I think, "It works," you know? This is great.

[00:30:10] Luke Storey: I'm like- Sure,

[00:30:10] John Bush: build another data center for that. That's nice ... yeah, why do we need

[00:30:12] Luke Storey: another data center? It seems to be functioning just fine. Yeah. There's no, there's no lag time. It answers right away. Sure. What's the problem, you know?

[00:30:19] John Bush: It does get kinda slow if it goes all, if you're on the same chat for a while.

[00:30:22] John Bush: If you stay

[00:30:22] Luke Storey: on a thread, yeah. Yeah. You know what I actually started doing is, um, bookmarking certain threads. Mm-hmm. When they, when they bog out like that- Mm-hmm ... I'll bookmark them, um, in my browser so then I can go back when I wanna add something back to that, 'cause they do get slow. So maybe we do need more data centers.

[00:30:39] Luke Storey: No, just kidding.

[00:30:39] John Bush: Yeah, but no, it's, it's all about creating total information awareness, and that was actually a early Department of Justice, sorry, Department of Defense program under DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. It was called Total Information Awareness. This guy named John Poindexter that was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, and was like a felon, was leading it, and that's [00:31:00] where they created the technology to soak up mass amounts of data.

[00:31:04] John Bush: That's where they created speech To text analysis, that's where they researched how to effectively create a massive database and then query and research it very effectively. That was called Total Information Awareness, and the icon was a pyramid with an all-seeing eye above it. Of course. And then that got shut down, and it's speculated by folks like Whitney Webb, who does great research, that it just went into the private sector, which is less regulated.

[00:31:31] John Bush: So- Ah, right ... yeah, make no mistake-

[00:31:33] Luke Storey: Kind of like with the, with the, uh, UAP disclosure stuff. Like, a lot of that seems to be, uh, siloed into the private so they can avoid FOIA requests and things like that. That makes sense. Yeah. Seems to be, like, a pretty common strategy now.

[00:31:47] John Bush: Yeah. The, the goal is total information awareness.

[00:31:49] John Bush: To, to avoid

[00:31:50] Luke Storey: oversight,

[00:31:51] John Bush: right? Sure.

[00:31:52] Luke Storey: And transparency.

[00:31:53] John Bush: Yep, and it can be hidden a lot more, and there's less accountability. Not that we should have government deal with things. Um, things [00:32:00] should be private, but not if it involves this mass... It is a public-private partnership ultimately. But yeah, th- and then they're gonna tokenize everything.

[00:32:10] John Bush: Like, a token, you have a cryptocurrency blockchain, and you can create these tokens that represent information. M- a common one is called a stablecoin, where one Tether, for example, it's a token that's pegged to the value of a dollar. Well, they wanna tokenize every single real-world asset out there, uh, including all of the biodiversity on the planet.

[00:32:30] John Bush: So not only can they track and catalog it, but they can also create sophisticated financial markets in order to bet on if this ecosystem or this swamp is gonna be around in 15 years. Or even an entire population, they can go and inject a bunch of educational instruction and fund nonprofits to teach y- the youth robotics, artificial intelligence, coding, and such, and then they place bets, it's called impact investing, as to whether or not in 10 or 20 years that's going to [00:33:00] come to fruition in the form of entire industries or shifting an entire city into a new, uh, sector, so to speak.

[00:33:06] John Bush: Anyway, all of that is for the purpose of advancing along this technocratic agenda, and that's the real enemy. Not Donald Trump, not immigrants from South America. Uh, not Iran, uh- Yeah ... or the Persians. It's, uh, it's this dastardly plan to create a total surveillance society and, and create an environment where they can have their way with us.

[00:33:31] Luke Storey: To me, what you just outlined sounds... It doesn't sound paranoid or conspiratorial. It sounds pretty logical, but I think to some people listening or watching I don't know, that haven't been as tapped into this stuff as long as you have and kind of watching it progress and keeping an eye on it, it could sound really crazy.

[00:33:53] Luke Storey: Um, but if you look at, like, if you go back to 2018 and say, "Hey, in a [00:34:00] couple years," and you describe everything that happened with the plandemic, people would think you were nuts- Mm-hmm ... until it actually happened you know? So it's like- Yeah ... I think I've been tracking these things long enough where I'm like, "Actually, this sounds very logical to me."

[00:34:12] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Um, and also, as I was alluding to earlier, that, um, y- voting for the right person does not seem like a viable way out of this because it's like, A, no one's going to be put in a position of power unless they're allowed to be. You know, it's this idea that we have that we actually have some choice when we're given a menu, uh, you know, that is all the same food, right?

[00:34:38] Luke Storey: Yeah. It's like, do you, which kind of pizza do you want? It's still

[00:34:41] John Bush: pizza. Or which torture device are you gonna choose? Exactly. One's slightly better than the other, but you're still getting tortured nonetheless.

[00:34:48] Luke Storey: So if I think forward to the, the really eloquent, um, model of the technocracy that you just rolled out, of course, I'm thinking like, oh, okay, well, if this continues on and it's uninterrupted and I don't [00:35:00] opt to exit the system in the ways that we're gonna continue to talk about today, first thing that came to me was, um, like, my water meter, as I was telling you before.

[00:35:09] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Uh, we got off septic and got onto city water, and when that happened, they install a smart meter so that the, the city that controls the water can, you know, kind of monitor your use, right? Mm-hmm. So it's like a, it's a micro-surveillance, and I could think, whoa, what does that matter? It doesn't really matter right now.

[00:35:26] Luke Storey: I just can't turn the sprinklers on at certain times. It's a little bit of an inconvenience. Mm-hmm. But I'm thinking, you know, however many years down the road or months, you know, who knows, is like, I tweet something that's unacceptable- Mm-hmm ... right? And then I get a notice like, "Hey, we saw your tweet, so you're not gonna be able to get water for a few days, so you better knock it off," right?

[00:35:48] Luke Storey: I mean, I think that sounds paranoid unless you look at the past few years in an objective and honest way. Uh, you know, you couldn't get on an airplane unless you wanted to put a f- a diaper on your [00:36:00] face. You know, people lost their jobs. You couldn't see grandma in the hospital. It's like much more radical things than that are already happening.

[00:36:08] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. And it seems like when they roll these things out, too, they kind of test them and pulse them- Mm-hmm ... to see how much people are gonna push back. Oh, yeah. You know, it seems like the whole, uh, COVID saga, a lot of that was just them kinda fucking around and finding out. You know, it's like- ... what are they gonna put up with?

[00:36:25] Luke Storey: Yeah. And it turns out we put up with a lot, you know? Mm-hmm. We're just like, "Keep me safe, daddy. I'll do anything you say." It's really- Yeah, wild ... it's unfortunate

[00:36:33] John Bush: and pathetic. You make a great point, though, that a lot of people It's kind of a trip that it's-- that used to seem like some paranoid thing, and a lot of people would deliver it in kind of a paranoid, weird way.

[00:36:44] John Bush: Yeah. Like Alex Jones would just get all worked up. Ah. Sometimes for your typical American, that's like, "Wait a second. What the heck?" But if you can communicate it in a calm, rational way, and, you know, we're just... People are giving me the benefit of the doubt, but this is all well-researched, and people could go down whatever rabbit hole on their own.

[00:36:59] John Bush: [00:37:00] Um, but still then, even if people are aware of it, they're like, "Well, it's not happening to me now," and they're not motivated to take action or make change. So it's this frog in the boiling pot thing, and if you are aware of this, then I would argue that we all have a ethical responsibility to be doing more because more so than this agenda impacting us, which it's going to, I mean, 2030 is their target year, and we're gonna see a massive advancement in the implementation of these systems.

[00:37:30] John Bush: But it's gonna be like a generational kind of situation where the youth are born into a scenario where these systems are already in place, and slowly but surely they- Right ... weed out undesirable behaviors like questioning the idea of there being m-m only, you know, people that think there's only two genders.

[00:37:51] John Bush: We gotta do away with that. So we definitely can't have people talk about it on social media. Then if we can let it be known inside the school system when we have the kids that they're, or, that are [00:38:00] more than two genders, then over time they start to really shift how people think and things that people know.

[00:38:07] John Bush: And so they're definitely gonna use the CBDC as a machine, as a mechanism of controlling our behavior when it comes to environmental controls, especially when it comes to woke agenda, when it comes to shots and, and medical procedures as well. So I just wanna add- Yeah ... interesting. That's, that's,

[00:38:26] Luke Storey: that's a really good point.

[00:38:27] Luke Storey: It's like I'm, I guess they call me, uh, Generation X. I'm 55. I think that's what generation I'm in. Sure. Uh, and it's interesting. I read something recently that, that my generation is the last generation that will have known the pre-internet, pre-digital life- Mm. ... and post right after that, and I thought, "Oh, that's so weird."

[00:38:48] Luke Storey: Like, kids being born today can't imagine what it was like when you had a rotary phone on the wall that you had to dial. You know, and you just showed up at your friend's house. You know what I mean? Uh, you remembered a bunch of phone [00:39:00] numbers. You knock on the door. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. "Tim home to play?"

[00:39:02] Luke Storey: And, you know, you hear people talk about, "Oh, we used to just, you know, go run wild on our bikes," and you had to be home by sunset. You know, that- Oh, yeah ... kind of thing, right? But- Those were the

[00:39:09] John Bush: good old days ... when you

[00:39:10] Luke Storey: were describing that, I'm thinking about, um, like a kid in North Korea or even someone who's, like, 30 in North Korea right now.

[00:39:17] Luke Storey: If they're completely cut off from the rest of the world because the propaganda is so isolating, um, they wouldn't even know that they're living in a totalitarian- system because that's all they've ever known. Yeah. And it seems like that's kind of the direction we're going. The boiling the frog analogy that you used earlier is that it happens so incrementally that even when you're someone who was alive when things were different and seemingly more free, you kind of forget about it, and i- it's like all of these steps at control just kind of become normalized.

[00:39:52] Luke Storey: I mean, I even know myself, I'll be about to post something on social media, and I'll catch myself like, "Ah, I don't know. Is this a little too hardcore?" [00:40:00] Like, I just got deleted from Facebook last month, um, of course, that dystopian nightmare, uh, meta, if you're listening. Just, just kidding. I love you guys. But yeah, just this...

[00:40:11] Luke Storey: You know, I'm caught in this web. They won't tell me what I even did. I don't think I did anything. Mm-hmm. The chatbot's telling me, "Oh, it was a system error. We'll fix it right away." They don't fix it, this kind of stuff, you know? So it's like- Imagine

[00:40:21] John Bush: that being your ability to buy and sell

[00:40:23] Luke Storey: basic necessities.

[00:40:23] Luke Storey: That's what I'm saying. So it's like we get little hints at it. Mm-hmm. And I can already see in my own life, I'm, you know, a little bit... I tiptoe a little more than I would have pre-2020. When I said the Zionist regime

[00:40:33] John Bush: comment, I was like, "Is this going out on YouTube?"

[00:40:34] Luke Storey: I thought that too. When you said that, I was like, "Oh, shit.

[00:40:37] Luke Storey: Are they gonna- ... Are they gonna call this the anti-Semitic podcast?" It's like that's what they're doing to us, right? I know. Where it's like you can't objectively... I mean, A, I think you should be able to say whatever you want. I'm a free speech absolutist to the absolute maximum. Um, but the way that we're conditioned like that, say, uh, if you were being critical of the, [00:41:00] um, the, the government or leadership of, um, I don't know, any country, right?

[00:41:06] Luke Storey: Then there isn't a name for that yet, but if you criticize the government of Israel, you're called an anti-Semite or that- Yeah ... you're some kind of racist. You know, this kind of programming that teaches us to stay in our lane and restrict our perspective and point of view because the last thing anyone wants to be labeled is someone who's ignorant enough to hate someone based on their religion or the color of their skin.

[00:41:28] Luke Storey: Sure. It's like any logical, intelligent person would really not enjoy that. Mm-hmm. So it's just funny how we get, um, we get trained to behave. The behavior modification and control is wild.

[00:41:41] John Bush: And that's what those four pieces are all about. Right. And the, and the person that they're trying to mold us into is not a free person that is fulfilled and able to express their, their being and their essence.

[00:41:55] John Bush: It starts to, like, homogenize people into good little serfs, manageable serfs.

[00:41:59] Luke Storey: [00:42:00] With the, with the surveillance, um, one thing I noticed too that's another one of those, like, boiling the frog, roll it out slowly, is the, um, the biometrics, the taking your photo at the airport.

[00:42:10] John Bush: Yeah.

[00:42:11] Luke Storey: Which I always opt out of.

[00:42:12] Luke Storey: Yeah. My wife's like, "What's the big deal?" Like it's not a big deal yet. Yeah. Right? Um- That kind of thing is ter- the surveillance to me is, like, the most terrifying part because it's, like, what we know is going on is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Yeah. I'm sure many people listening have had that thing where you're having a conversation about y- bow hunting, and all of a sudden you open your phone and you're getting fed ads for that.

[00:42:38] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. You know? I mean, that to me is terrifying. And before I forget, I just wanna say that it would be terrible if people started vandalizing the Flock cameras. I just wanna state that- ... expressly and clearly. I think it would be a real tragedy if people started dismantling those things, along with all the cell towers.

[00:42:57] Luke Storey: Uh, but what, what else- We are getting subversive [00:43:00] here.

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[00:43:24] Luke Storey: And that's why I use the Apollo Neuro. It's a wearable that sends gentle rhythmic pulses through your body, and that signal communicates safety through your sense of touch. And when your nervous system feels safe, everything changes. Your breath slows down, you settle in faster, and you can actually drop into a meditative state without all the struggle.

[00:43:44] Luke Storey: I've noticed when I use the Apollo, I just go deeper and faster, like my body finally decided to cooperate with my mind. And it doesn't stop there. Apollo comes with an app called Smart Vibes AI that learns your patterns and automatically adjusts the support you need when you [00:44:00] need it. Here's where you wanna go to get your nervous system dialed in.

[00:44:03] Luke Storey: It's called apolloneuro.com/luke. And if you use the code Luke, you get $99 off the Apollo wearable and Smart Vibes AI bundle. Apollo takes the friction out of my meditation practice, but the real win is how it helps my system stay calm, present, and way less reactive throughout the day. So you definitely wanna check out apolloneuro.com/luke, and that code is Luke to save $99.

[00:44:31] Luke Storey: What else is going on, uh, specifically around surveillance that you see right now? What is already happening, and where do you see, like, worst case scenario, that going?

[00:44:43] John Bush: Well, uh, the Flock cameras are a big trend and phenomenon, and those are all linked in with Palantir systems and all sorts of, like, sophisticated, uh, Israeli corporations and...

[00:44:56] John Bush: And, like, I don't wanna hit on Israel just A- again, right? It's [00:45:00] not an antisemitic thing, but it's like that's like a, a- where s- a lot of intelligence technologies are being incubated in Gaza, and, like, Gaza is a test case where we can really deploy some hardcore authoritarianism, some hardcore population management through surveillance, and then it can be exported out to the world.

[00:45:20] John Bush: That's exactly what's taking place. So Flock Camera Systems are using technology from all that stuff, but those are a big hot button. And there's a lot of little local jurisdictions that are pushing back, thankfully. But those will tie in the information to massive databases. They soak up all sorts of information, not just the camera, not just your license plate, but they are gonna soon be equipped with facial recognition technology likely.

[00:45:45] John Bush: So that's a big concern. And you find, just like you brought up the airport I noticed that travel is a great, for the predator class, is a great, uh, area, a great space to deploy a lot of this [00:46:00] technology and to get people used to being subjected to that type of surveillance, like we saw with the body scanners when they came out.

[00:46:07] John Bush: We actually pushed back on the body scanners back in, I don't know, it was like 2011 or something, uh, maybe 2013, I don't remember exactly when it was. Here in Texas and in the city of Austin, like we, we used to do protests and stuff. Really? We even dressed up as TSA agents and paraded- ... around the Capitol doing mock little pat-downs and creating these little turnstiles, and people had to go through them.

[00:46:26] John Bush: That's amazing. And then we would like have one of our people be a dummy. Like, we were in TSA uniforms with Nazi, uh, little banners there. Oh, my G- Maybe I am antisemitic, I don't know. But, uh, it was pretty provocative, and then we'd had our person in plainclothes, and we would grab them in front of everyone and do a pat-down.

[00:46:44] John Bush: Anyway, this guy named Representative David Simpson pushed a bill forward that would make it a felony to do the pat-downs. It would've been like an assault on that TSA agent. Wow. It passed the House, and as it was about to pass the Texas Senate, the [00:47:00] Department of Justice came to the Capitol and they said, "If you guys pass this legislation, we're going to stop air travel in and out of Texas."

[00:47:08] John Bush: No way. So the federal government basically like embargoed travel in and out... Said, th- threatened to embargo travel. I don't know if that's the right word. Uh, and of course, the Senate buckled and the bill went nowhere. But we were on the verge of passing a piece of legislation that would've outlawed all of that nonsense.

[00:47:24] John Bush: Respect. Yeah, it was cool. Um, that was... I did so much political activism, I ma- I came to realize that we weren't actually slowing... We weren't actually creating greater freedom. Mm-hmm. In most cases, we weren't even slowing tyranny, but when we would have a victory, all it was was slowing the growth of tyranny.

[00:47:40] John Bush: We weren't creating greater freedom or moving the ball forward. We were constantly on- Right ... the defensive and the reactionary, and that was part of my journey towards, uh, exit and build and away from politics. But yeah, the biometric surveillance is a problem. You can opt out of most of it still, but we already have most of our pictures and stuff in social [00:48:00] media.

[00:48:00] John Bush: And so practically speaking, the concern is, in cities especially, that an environment is being created where you're gonna be constantly tracked and traced no matter where you go, which is why one of the solutions I motivate people to do, we do a whole event about it, is to get out of the city and get into the country.

[00:48:18] John Bush: You can pl- if you're, if you're well off, you can have a place in the city. I love Austin, but I live in Bastrop now, a smaller town, but now there's flock cameras in Bastrop too. Are there? Oh, yeah. There's like probably a couple dozen of them. It's not like Austin, but it's coming everywhere, so the surveillance cameras are a big problem.

[00:48:35] John Bush: Um, one thing that comes to mind, in Mexico They're pushing the digital currency faster, which is a surprise 'cause Mexico is extremely rural, and there's a huge ga- there's, like, basically not a middle class, and it's very hard for the central government to govern, but they're pushing forward digital ID, uh, in order to use the cell service.

[00:48:56] John Bush: That's one of the ways that they- Oh, interesting ... implement this stuff, is they take [00:49:00] away privileges or they take away things that you're used to and they say, "You can now use this if you do A, B, and C." Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Which is why digital ID is gonna, of course, be tied to accessing the internet eventually.

[00:49:12] John Bush: Um, but what they said recently was like, "We're now doing away with cash payments for toll booths and gas in Mexico." Oh. And that's, of course, to push people into a digital payment system which will eventually be a full-blown central bank digital currency, but it's also because it takes away your ability to navigate throughout the country anonymously.

[00:49:36] John Bush: If you have to use a card or some sort of- Right ... cellphone payment service every time you go through a toll, they know that you're now in this new region, and every time you fill up gas, they can track where you are and where you're going. So that's

[00:49:48] Luke Storey: how they're able to do it in rural

[00:49:51] John Bush: areas- Yes ... where

[00:49:52] Luke Storey: you would normally be able to travel freely.

[00:49:54] Luke Storey: Yeah, it's pretty sophisticated. Wow. Um- So that's a big concern about the surveillance. Yeah. It's about controlling our freedom of movement as well. [00:50:00] Totally. I mean, that's, I think, one thing that, I mean, I'm just, I value sovereignty and freedom so much personally, as I know you do too. I often compare myself when I think about this, you know, kind of the, the matrix grid that is this corporate political grid that's been superimposed on this land mass we call the United States of America.

[00:50:24] Luke Storey: It's like I look at wild animals, right? I look at a bear, a deer, you go out in nature. And there's-- at some point it just occurred to me, like, I'm the same as that thing. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, that thing just does what it wants to do, and it's provided for by the abundance of nature. Yeah. There's water, there's food, there's bugs to eat, there's smaller animals to eat, there's vegetation to eat, right?

[00:50:45] Luke Storey: It's like animals just-- in this neighborhood even, there's so many deer, right? The deer just migrate around. They're just living their life.

[00:50:50] John Bush: Yeah.

[00:50:51] Luke Storey: I'll find myself envying the deer. It's like if I wanna go from here to there, I need some little card in my car unless I wanna have an argument with a [00:51:00] policy enforcer on the side- Sure

[00:51:01] Luke Storey: of the road, and it's just like, wow, what would it be like to actually be free? None of us, well, very few of us have ever experienced that. And i-i-- and if you do wanna experience that, at least up until now, and I'm looking forward to hearing some of the things that you're building to make this more accessible for people, but it's like if I wanted to be like that deer, I can't even go live on, like, federal land out in a forest somewhere, right?

[00:51:25] Luke Storey: I'd be trespassing on government property. And if I had my own big, massive property and I just wanted to go live like that, um, I would have to be really adept and skilled at knowing how to do that, and there's no way I could do that myself because I'm not very handy. I'm just not, you know, I didn't grow up with a dad that taught me how to do things, right?

[00:51:44] Luke Storey: So I'm someone who, like, sees that wild animal and I wanna be wild, but I don't have the skill set. I have a lot of skills, but that doesn't happen to be one of them. So let's talk about how we need each other [00:52:00] and to be able to lean on each other's resourcefulness and skill sets in a unified, communal way to fill in those gaps to make it actually possible, I'm talking geographically more free, right?

[00:52:13] Luke Storey: Sure. I know you do a lot of work about getting people out of the cities, and y- we saw, you know, in the '60s there were a lot of communes. People had this idea, and oftentimes that, um, fails because it's built around a charismatic leader or something of a cultish nature, you know? So how do we have, like, an egalitarian sort of micro culture societies wherein, uh, there is no boss, there is no leader, there is no oversight in terms of a government, at least, you know, maybe on your plot of land.

[00:52:47] Luke Storey: The thing that's curious to me is, like, how do you bring people together in a way that is cooperative and people know what their value is in terms of what they bring to that? 'Cause I would love to just go off, me and my wife- ... and just go live [00:53:00] our best life in, in the wild somewhere, but I wouldn't be able to survive unless I became educated on how to do that.

[00:53:06] Luke Storey: Sure. There's a lot of

[00:53:07] John Bush: good

[00:53:08] Luke Storey: YouTube

[00:53:08] John Bush: videos about that stuff. Yeah, you'd

[00:53:10] Luke Storey: have to have a Starlink out in the middle of the woods. Yeah. Like, all right, how do I grow a turnip, you know?

[00:53:13] John Bush: Yeah. Um, I appreciate how you think about envying animals. I can totally vibe with that. Um- Well, 'cause

[00:53:20] Luke Storey: we are. I mean- We're animals

[00:53:22] Luke Storey: we- we- Yeah ... we've

[00:53:22] John Bush: just been trained out of it We've been conditioned- Yeah ... it's a trip. The state of the human animal has just been completely, uh, what's the word? Subject- domesticated. Yes. We've been domesticated. Yes. And you might catch myself, like I don't wanna manifest with my language, you know? We've been domesticated.

[00:53:39] John Bush: That means that we are domesticated, but look at our lives, you know? And n- n- it's, it's like a economic thing, and having to ask permission to government, but then also there's this l- line, uh, Natalie Rise, awesome conscious reggae artist, by the way, if anybody's ever heard of her, Natalie Rise. And- We'll put her in the show notes of the- Yeah, [00:54:00] she's great

[00:54:00] John Bush: at lukestray.com/johnbush. There you go. She performed at the, the, The People, The People's Reset, which is this freedom event that, uh, Derek Bros organizes. He and I started The Greater Reset back in the day. She's performed there, too. Total badass. Anyway, she has this thing where it's like, "Why are humans the only animals that have to pay rent?"

[00:54:16] John Bush: And part of me's like, because I don't mind market, free markets, and capitalism, I think, has done us quite a bit of good. But also it is the case that, like, there is this rat race phenomenon where human beings are finding it more and more difficult to express themselves creatively or to, you know, have the time to go sit by the river and, uh, philosophize over a picnic and a glass of wine with a date or something.

[00:54:46] John Bush: I don't know. Because that monetary system. Now, it doesn't have to be that way, and even though w- with the status quo, it doesn't have to be that way if somebody really wants to put in the effort to create the freedom and the environment for themselves. It may be extra effort 'cause of this government and this debt-based [00:55:00] money system, but yeah, it's just riffing on what you brought up about the animal Yeah, we're the

[00:55:05] Luke Storey: only species that, that has to pay to live on the planet.

[00:55:10] Luke Storey: Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

[00:55:12] John Bush: It's a

[00:55:12] Luke Storey: monetary system. I mean, like, a, a lion has to pay, has to output energy to catch- Sure ... a gazelle, right? A different type of payment. Yeah, but it's not being forced to pay. It's choosing to pay because that's how it survives.

[00:55:24] John Bush: There's probably retreats, like I can see men's retreats where it's just, like, carnal.

[00:55:28] John Bush: You know, you go out for a week, and it's like, it's the land. You pay to be there, of course. Right. So there's that challenge. But then it's like we're out here, and we're hunting for our food, and we're just... You know, it's gonna be s- good, raw fun. Anyway, um, you're asking about people and skills and the idea that we need to work with others.

[00:55:48] John Bush: So man, I've, I've, I... We're selling our 10-acre homestead, actually. I went through a divorce and separation last year. The divorce wrapped up a m- a couple months ago or a month ago. I don't even know now. Um, [00:56:00] and we had a 10-acre homestead, but it was no, by no means were we able to do it all alone. Um, actually, I'm sorry, as I share that, the...

[00:56:10] John Bush: Actually, the homestead was in the best shape when it was just me. Everybody left. We had an intentional community that completely fell apart. Uh, my best friend was living there. He left. He was my business partner, too. He later came back. Thankfully, we made amends, but there were two other households. They all left, total drama.

[00:56:26] John Bush: Um, and then it was just me, and then my wife left me, and I was like, "Whoa, this..." Everyone, everything fell apart, and I was like, "If this is what rock bottom looks like, I think I got this." Mm. And then my wife left, and I was like- ... "Oh, this hurts really bad, and now it's time to do some major soul-searching."

[00:56:42] John Bush: There are levels to the game of the bottom. There's levels- Yeah ... to the game. I was... And then I was dragging around the bottom for a while. But it brought me closer to God, and I f- found a deep relationship with Jesus Christ, which I'm grateful for. But I, there was a period where it was just me, and the place looked better than ever because it was [00:57:00] me and I was dedicated to doing it.

[00:57:01] John Bush: That being said, I wouldn't have been able to build all of the food systems that we had. So it definitely takes a village, and there's a challenge when you have a village because then all of our human dynamics clash against one another and our traumas and our never learning to effectively communicate our feelings and needs.

[00:57:19] John Bush: But, uh, we definitely need other people, and it's something that I've, um, immersed myself in for quite some time. So having been a conspiracy guy and then a libertarian, um, I... And I started to see there's all these people that, after the Ron Paul campaign in 2008, and I sat out the 2012 campaign 'cause I was already an anarchist by then, and I saw also, like, the 2012 Ron Paul campaign was more about data collection and fundraising to get Rand Paul into office.

[00:57:50] John Bush: Oh, okay. Which is fine. I mean, they're playing the political game, the Ron Paul, the Paul dynasty, and kudos to Rand Paul. He's done great work and pushed forward, him and [00:58:00] Massey pushing forward the Epstein files disclosure, however good that did. The satanic pedophiles still haven't been held to account.

[00:58:07] John Bush: But anyway, I started to see that, like, there's all these people that believe in freedom, and they understand freedom, and a lot of people are beginning to reject the authority of government, yet we're all still complying, most of us complying, paying taxes, driver's license. Like, what are we, what are we missing?

[00:58:24] John Bush: And that's when I started really coming to the conclusion that what's missing is strength in numbers And strength in numbers was like the underlying principle for the Freedom Cell network. Uh, and so I was like, "Well, how can we get from here to there? How can we get from a status society with government and big corporations and war to a genuinely free society?"

[00:58:46] John Bush: Well, it's gonna take people, it's gonna take building alternatives, but it can't just be a bunch of people completely disorganized. We need to be organized, but then there's a problem with organizations because when they're hierarchical, [00:59:00] they are more susceptible to corruption- Yeah ... or to external interference and intervention through some sort of cono- COINTEL, counterintelligence- Mm-hmm

[00:59:09] John Bush: program kind of thing. Mm-hmm. So if we're gonna create an organization, it needs to be decentralized. And around this time, this was back in 2013, 2014, I started contemplating this, and I started to see all this stuff about small group organizing. So, uh, there was a guy named Bob Podolsky that wrote a book called Flourish, and he and this guy named John David Garcia, they did this scientific research, and they determined that eight people is the optimal number of people for a group for maximum creativity to take place.

[00:59:40] John Bush: Oh, wow. Yeah. They did all these res- all this s- actual scientific research and studies and tested the different numbers. It's also optimal for there to be four men and four women. Uh, and also at the same time, like Stewart Rhodes and the Oath Keepers. I don't know if you're familiar- Mm-hmm ... with Stewart Rhodes.

[00:59:55] John Bush: No. He later got indicted and put in prison from the January 6th stuff, but he started [01:00:00] Oath Keepers, which was an organization for law enforcement to recommit to their oath to the Constitution and say no to unconstitutional orders. Took on a huge life of its own, but at the time, he was, like, organizing in smaller groups.

[01:00:13] John Bush: It's more vulnerable if we have a big national group. It needs to have, be smaller county groups. Then there's this Ron Paul guy in Minnesota that put out this small group manual, and it referenced, like, the Soviets organized in small groups to push forward the Bolshevik Revolution. Uh, Christian ministers, m- uh, missionaries, whenever they were persecuted, would organize in small groups.

[01:00:32] John Bush: Anyway, so I'm like, "Well, maybe small group thing is what we need to do, and maybe it needs to be eight people." And that birthed the idea of the Freedom Cell Network, uh, which now is a global phenomenon, uh, with over 42,000, 43,000 people having registered on our website, freedomcells.org, where you can go and see a map if, with people in your area.

[01:00:53] John Bush: Uh, we encourage people not to put their address of their home, but an address of a park or a coffee shop down the street. [01:01:00] Um, and before COVID, you know, it was just kinda inching along. Derek Broz came along, and the idea resonated with him. He helped to grow it, and James Corbett did an interview, and it started to grow, and it had like 1,000 people, and then COVID happened, and it just went to 20,000, 30,000 people 'cause everyone's like, "Oh my God, this is happening."

[01:01:20] John Bush: Kind

[01:01:20] Luke Storey: of like the population of Austin.

[01:01:22] John Bush: Yeah, sure. About the same time, yeah. Yeah. It's a good place. Yeah. And there was, there's tons of Freedom Cell activity here in Austin. Uh, there's like 600 people in our Central Texas Freedom Cell group. But the idea is, like, you get together with a small group of people, approximately eight.

[01:01:36] John Bush: Doesn't have to be eight, could be eight. Ideally it's eight. And you start working together on common goals, like let's have a bug-out plan, let's get gardens going in everybody's backyard, or let's chip in and buy a small plot where we can garden there and put a RV. It could be our bug-out spot. Let's set up encrypted communication via Signal and create a group for ourselves, whatever.

[01:01:58] John Bush: Let's homeschool the kids or [01:02:00] let's create natural health, uh, co-op or whatever it may be. Um, eh, but then you connect with other small groups to form a larger group, and then that larger group comprised of small groups connects with other small groups. And in this way, this network can scale, but it doesn't scale vertically, it scales horizontally.

[01:02:19] John Bush: Ah,

[01:02:19] Luke Storey: yeah.

[01:02:20] John Bush: Okay. And that's exactly what's taken place. So in Central Texas, we have the Central Texas Freedom Cell Network, which is a regional group, and then we have the Bastrop Fayette County Group, which is where I live, and we're having a dinner tonight with folks that are coming out. Uh, and then we have the Hill Country Group, then there's even a Far Hill Country Group.

[01:02:36] John Bush: There's a Downtown Austin Group. There's a South Austin-

[01:02:39] Luke Storey: Shit, I need to get in the Hill Country Group, dude. That's right, yeah.

[01:02:41] John Bush: That's where- The Hill Country Group's popping. Really? Oh. And people host meetups, social gatherings, uh, workshops about Meshtastic communication prepper stuff. People are like, "We just had more chicks hatch."

[01:02:52] John Bush: People are selling chicks. "Hey, should we go in together and purchase a half a cow butchered or whatever?" So the idea is, like, find other [01:03:00] freedom people and work together on common goals, and in this way, to get back to your question, we can share knowledge, and we don't have to be a jack of all trades. We can have our own skill, add our own value, and other people can step in and say, "Well, yeah, well, I'm a carpenter," or, "I know how to shoot really well for defense, and I'd be happy to host a training."

[01:03:23] John Bush: So it creates this environment where freedom people that are solutions-focused can find other freedom people in their local area, start meeting up and building these parallel structures and systems, and stay connected and trade amongst ourselves and hire... Like, pretty much everybody that works with me in my companies I met through the Freedom Cell network or through this whole freedom thing.

[01:03:46] John Bush: Cool. So we're hiring each other. We're trading amongst one another. We're growing food together. We're getting together for social dinners. There's a lot of people in this movement still, you know, we should feel blessed we know people, and we could go to a dinner with a [01:04:00] friend and such, but there's a lot of people that wake up And then they're so freaked out and they like word vomit over their family.

[01:04:07] John Bush: They even turn their family away from them, and now they feel all alone and isolated, and that makes it really easy for the predator class to have their way with someone. That's part of the psyop to isolate people and make you feel like you're crazy and kooky. You're not crazy and kooky. You just haven't found other people, you know?

[01:04:23] John Bush: We're out there, and the Freedom Cell network creates an opportunity and a, and a mechanism for helping people to find people, but not just to find people, to find people and then start building together.

[01:04:34] Luke Storey: Amazing. I love it. It makes me, uh, think about just the human nature aspect of hunter-gatherer tribes.

[01:04:42] Luke Storey: You know, I have this romantic idea that things were better when it was that way, like pre-agriculture, you know? Sure. Not that we weren't running around killing each other- Mm-hmm ... but we just had less firepower. It was more natural. But thinking about that, you know, you would have had one guy who was the best hunter, and this woman's the best at this thing.

[01:04:59] Luke Storey: She's the [01:05:00] oracle, spiritual leader, you know, whatever, right? Mm-hmm. It's like everyone would kind of settle into their role and- Yeah ... contribute value to the whole organism in a decentralized way. Um, again, like I'm generalizing, but that idea that human beings throughout history have kind of been able to figure out who has what skill set- Mm-hmm

[01:05:17] Luke Storey: that they can bring to the table, uh, that, you know, contributes value and that not everyone has to have the same skill set. Yeah. If you had an intentional community and everyone is like, uh, an expert marksman, but no one's, no one knows how to grow potatoes, you got a problem , you know? Yeah. So I like, I like that idea.

[01:05:34] Luke Storey: It makes me feel more confident because I think, "Wow, there's a lot of shit that I don't know how to do, but there's a couple things I could do pretty well." Sure. You know, that's, that's, uh, I think one of the big challenges. And, and when you're speaking of, um, you know, how your homestead started to kind of, uh, fall apart, I think that's another thing that I've thought about too when I get these dreams of living around like-minded people in a more free [01:06:00] way, is that people are dynamic and we change, and those social dynamics that we build also change.

[01:06:08] Luke Storey: So if I would have moved here like we did in 2021 and put together a little 20-acre plot with a bunch of people I thought were cool, chances are that by now, a few years later, we wouldn't think we're so cool. It's like you get to know people over time and, um, cracks in the social adhesion start to show, and that, that's something that kind of concerns me too, going back to the '60s cults and things like that when people- Mm-hmm

[01:06:34] Luke Storey: went and tried to live communally. Ultimately, they seem to fall apart. There's not a lot of long-standing examples that haven't somehow become corrupt or fractured by the humanity that is inherent to them. What, what do you think is like... The eight people thing makes sense, right? It's like less Emotional and mental bodies that need to be managed.

[01:06:56] Luke Storey: But what about, um, you know, finding [01:07:00] like-minded people? Like, how do you think we can determine our longevity in terms of being able to actually get along and work in a productive, cooperative way while people change and are dynamic, and you might vibe with someone for the first two months and then you don't, and now you're, like, stuck on land with them?

[01:07:19] John Bush: That is the challenge .

[01:07:20] Luke Storey: Right? I mean, I guess there's not a solution to that, but as you've- Yeah ... been spending years thinking through this kind of process- Sure ... I mean, what are some of the, I don't know, what are some of the things that you've come up with as possible solutions to that?

[01:07:35] John Bush: Uh, so there's a w- a wide variety of ways to go on that one.

[01:07:38] John Bush: I think the first thing is, like, ultimately we all have to do the work, and like attracts like. Your vibe attracts your tribe. Mm-hmm. I just did a show on my podcast with sharing my reflections of having gone to Confluence for four years in a row, and the first... And it was five reflections. The first one was your vibe attracts your tribe.

[01:07:59] John Bush: And [01:08:00] it was noticing that these different big events and these leaders, they ha- the, the group has a different makeup, and it reflects the lead organizer, the, the face of it. And so that's one of the reasons why I enjoy Confluence so much, 'cause I'm a, I'm a big fan of Alex Zeck. Yeah. You know, he's a friend of mine.

[01:08:16] John Bush: He's a great guy. Yeah. He's super grounded and, like, he's been through hell. Yeah. If you're familiar with the story. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man, he's, he had a really rough upbringing. Uh, but he managed to transmute that and that pain into purpose, and I think that's why, one of the reasons why he's such a badass.

[01:08:33] John Bush: Anyway, so just be aware, like, if you're attracting some toxic people, it's probably 'cause there's a little bit of toxicity in you, right? And we all have some little level of toxicity there, whether it's a whole lot of toxicity or a little bit of toxicity. We were raised in a trauma-based society, and you just go back a couple generations and all of the men were off and dying in World War II, uh, and then came home and weren't [01:09:00] expressing their emotions, and then took that out on their families, and then passed that on to their kids, and then that was our parents, or, you know, d- depending on what generation.

[01:09:09] John Bush: And so we're all a bunch of broken children for the most part, just to varying degrees. Yeah. And so you really have to, if you're gonna be in community, in any relationship for that matter, a marriage, raising children, like, you gotta be super grounded and conscious and be able to deploy all sorts of communication modalities.

[01:09:33] John Bush: Mm-hmm. Non-violent communication, whatever it may be. Um, and I think an important thing is not to take things personal. And so, yeah, it is a challenge. Um, one tip I would give people if you're going to be in community together is always have an exit clause Always have a way for someone to be able to get out, because if you buy land cooperatively and we're all on the deed together, that could be a challenge- Yeah

[01:09:59] John Bush: in getting [01:10:00] out of that situation. It's kind of

[01:10:00] Luke Storey: like a, a prenup for a communal prenup.

[01:10:03] John Bush: Sure, yeah. Ex- Yeah ... it's exactly like that. Yeah. Um, uh, and I'd love to share about Haven Village, 'cause we've come up with some models that I think can really help overcome a lot of these challenges, but so there's a, there's a structural thing to be aware of.

[01:10:17] John Bush: Um, and then at the same time, though, that's what we went into with our 10-acre homestead was like, "My kids are being raised here. We wanna build an intentional community, but it's also our home. So we don't want to sell off a quarter acre or go in with people when we buy it. We want this to be our place, and then we're gonna invite people, and they're gonna rent an RV pad."

[01:10:38] John Bush: But that created a power imbalance and a, and a, and a dynamic where there was a imbalance of authority and, and people are now, "I'm investing in your property, but what if I have to leave or you kick me out and I just put all this sweat equity in here?" So that's a challenge, too. So I think the structurally there needs to be a way for someone to be in, to build [01:11:00] value, and then when they leave, they can take some of that value with them.

[01:11:04] John Bush: And then when it comes to vetting people, if you're going to be in community together, take your time. There was a period where we were like, because we're like the exit and build intentional community homestead people, and, "Hey, on Instagram, look how great things are going," you know? So there was this tendency like, "We gotta keep doing big things, and, and crap's gonna hit the fan someday."

[01:11:25] John Bush: I've never really been worried about that, 'cause I thought crap... I've been thinking crap's gonna hit the fan since 2006, and we're still here. And even though COVID was crazy, and even though gas is h- expensive right now, society's functioning pretty damn well and smooth. It has been this entire time for most people, right?

[01:11:42] John Bush: Mm-hmm. Um, and so there, but there was an element of like, "We need to get food production going. Crap's gonna hit the fan." And everyone- Totally ... "It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen." So there's this tendency to push, and then that push, uh, we brought on some people too quickly. So we invited a family to come onto the property, [01:12:00] uh, after two meetings.

[01:12:02] John Bush: And now sitting down for a meeting, everybody's gonna be on their best behavior. Uh, so I would encourage you to have, I would encourage people to have trial periods. So if it's your land and someone's coming on, or if it's like, "Let's go on a retreat together if we're gonna buy land together," and spend a significant amount of time together, and put yourself in stressful situations.

[01:12:23] John Bush: Which is why when we host these big events Our accident build conference, for example, it was like 350 to 400 people came at one of the, at our biggest one. That's a stressful thing for the l- volunteer team, you know? And we're like, "Go, go, go," and there's a fire over here, and somebody at the front desk didn't get their ticket and they're throwing a fit.

[01:12:42] John Bush: And so I would recommend that you, if you have potential collaborators or community members, you deliberately put people in situations that are more likely to be challenging so you can see how they respond. But again, we're not gonna be able to move into things without risk. There's no way to know [01:13:00] everything, so sometimes you just have to dive in.

[01:13:02] John Bush: And as you said before, uh, the tr- where, you know, when you, you brought up I would rather be free and uncomfortable There's everything is trade-offs. So it's like, sure, we're putting in some risk that in a year or two or five years, this relationship may go south. Uh, same thing with a marriage. Marriage doesn't guarantee that it's gonna work out, and I've been through two divorces, so I know that pretty well.

[01:13:25] John Bush: I didn't plan to get divorced when I got married, you know? Yeah. But it's like there... Yeah, you're putting yourself in some risk by building community, but you're also putting yourself in risk by not having community. Totally. Or by being stuck in the city or not having food production systems, and then we cannot do it alone, so it's just choose your risk, but again, mitigate the possibility of it being some relationship that you cannot get out of or one party can't extract themselves from, them from.

[01:13:51] John Bush: Because the last thing you want is some- you're stuck with somebody, and it's bitter- Yeah. Yeah ... and it's uncomfortable. 'Cause that's what... We were kind of in that situation. They had a RV, but the [01:14:00] RV was all busted up. It, it actually took a lot of work to even take it out of there, and they built this big structure to cover it, which we never should have agreed to, but we were desperate.

[01:14:10] John Bush: But anyway, it's a 10-acre homestead, and the RV pads are, like, right outside of our window. And at one point, the community became resentful of me and my ex-wife, the property owners, and we couldn't even go on a walk on our nice, the back eight acres, 'cause we'd have to walk past all the other people, and it was all awkward and uncomfortable.

[01:14:27] John Bush: So I've learned a whole lot about how not to build an intentional community, thankfully. Um, but I'm involved in a project that I think, I think we're doing it right. So, uh, yeah, it's, it's never gonna be perfect. Yeah. And the n- number-one thing that we can do is continue to do that inner work. Because the more inner work we do, the less tolerance we'll have for people that haven't done the inner work, and the more easily we'll be able to spot people- Yeah

[01:14:52] John Bush: ahead of time. Yeah. Kind of like, "I kind of vibe with this person, and, and I can see that, like, just... I can see they've been through it." And to be [01:15:00] honest, I've been dating now, and, uh, whenever we go deep in a conversation and they bring up some hardcore stuff they've been through, you would think it's a red flag, but I'm kinda like, "Oh, that's as a, as a green flag," because you're sh- vulnerably sharing these struggles that you've had in relationship or in your upbringing, and you're telling me the lessons that you've learned from it.

[01:15:18] John Bush: And for me, I value that. Yeah. Yeah. I'd rather be in a relationship with someone that's been through it and came out the other side stronger than someone that's new to the game, naive, and ends up getting crushed by all of my drama that I have in my life, you know?

[01:15:33] Luke Storey: So, uh... But I mean, I think that, that's probably really the core of it, is, you know, we love freedom, we love sovereignty, but that, that really does begin with working out your own shit, you know?

[01:15:45] Luke Storey: For sure. And as you said, out of that comes the discernment and healthier boundaries. I know the more I've faced myself and been honest with myself and been willing to look at those parts of myself that are less than desirable- Mm-hmm ... excavating the shadows- [01:16:00] Mm-hmm ... the, the more, um, integris I've become.

[01:16:03] Luke Storey: Yeah. But also I have much higher standards for other people than I've ever had because the standards I have for myself are higher than they've ever been. Yeah.

[01:16:12] John Bush: That's a beautiful thing. You know, so it's like

[01:16:13] Luke Storey: what I'm willing to put up with from myself, um, has gotten, the road's gotten much narrower, and that's also cleaned up a lot of those relationships that are, you know, not supportive and draining.

[01:16:24] Luke Storey: So I feel like I'd, at this point, be pretty good at, like, vetting a little community. Yeah. Right? Not that I wouldn't make mistakes, but if I was trying to do that 20 years ago, I probably would've created some social dynamics that had a lot more drama than I would now, and that's not 'cause I changed anyone else.

[01:16:40] Luke Storey: It's just 'cause I've been continuing to change myself, you know? Yeah.

[01:16:43] John Bush: Or, or right after COVID, a lot of people went and bought land together or rushed into something, and they were coming at it from a place of fear. Yeah. And so they brought that energy into it. So I would encourage folks, even if you are afraid, to, like, do some soul searching and come at it from an energy [01:17:00] of, "We want to build something beautiful that's in alignment with our values and that gets us closer to maybe what heaven on earth might look like."

[01:17:08] John Bush: And when you come at it with that energy, you're more likely to manifest that as opposed to, "We're afraid, uh, that the government's gonna crack down on us, and we need to go rush into something," that can be a recipe for disaster.

[01:17:18] Luke Storey: Totally. It's like jumping into a relationship because you're really lonely.

[01:17:23] Luke Storey: Sure. You know? I'd be willing to settle and ignore red flags 'cause you're just desperate for that, you know? Maybe that's what I'm doing. Hey, you said it, not me. Yeah, I know. No, but, um, ah, there's so many things I wanna, I wanna cover here. As I, I... My goal with sitting down with you, as I said in the beginning, I mean, you seem so solution-oriented, a- and I think that's so important as more of us start to wake up.

[01:17:47] Luke Storey: It's like, "Okay, cool. Let's acknowledge the problem." Mm-hmm. But it's so easy to kind of get stuck in that. I mean, I find myself, the last two days I've banned myself from Twitter just because I notice when I go [01:18:00] check in on world events in there, I just feel less empowered. Yeah. It's not really serving me- It is definitely

[01:18:05] Luke Storey: to know what's going on, you know? There's always this balance of like, "Well, I don't wanna just ignore everything and put my head in the sand," but the more you pull your head up into the air and look around, it gets pretty daunting. So I like all of this solution-oriented stuff. Um, going back to the surveillance piece, you know, we can't stop the rollout.

[01:18:28] Luke Storey: Um, you know, as I said, it'd be terrible if people use paint guns to disable, um, s- ... uh, surveillance cameras. Terrible idea, but, um- Terrible ... are, are, do, do you know of any practical things people can do in terms of your digital footprint? You know, I know a couple years ago people were switching to Telegram and Signal, and then you hear things like, "Oh, those are being monitored by the CIA.

[01:18:50] Luke Storey: There's, like, no real truly encrypted communication." Um, are there any practical ways, um, and maybe you could touch on cryptocurrency in, [01:19:00] in this way? Uh, I think you're into m- what's it called, Monero or- Monero-

[01:19:03] John Bush: Monero ... and Zeno are my two- Yeah, so like- ... favorites ...

[01:19:06] Luke Storey: maybe start in the how to kind of circumvent surveillance in the physical outside world, and then move into any insights you have in terms of our digital privacy.

[01:19:17] Luke Storey: Sure.

[01:19:17] John Bush: In the outside world, there's not a whole lot you can do as far as, like, moving around society. Um, you're gonna get spotted by a camera. Uh, there's gonna be license plate scanning cameras. There's a whole rabbit hole to go down with the not for commercial use plates and all that stuff. Right. Um, the right to travel game.

[01:19:38] John Bush: But, um, when it comes to not opting into big tech, uh, you can use a de-Googled phone, for example. My friend Hakeem Anwar has a company called Above Phone, and they do these de-Googled phones. There's also instructions online for you to get an existing Android phone and reset the [01:20:00] operating system to one called Graphene OS.

[01:20:03] John Bush: Um, I don't use a de-Googled phone as my primary phone, but I have one, and I use it for some functions. Um, and it's not that much of a learning curve. There's also Linux-based laptops, and so the idea is if, if we can use devices that aren't Android, Apple, Windows, or Mac, then at the very least we're not- Constantly sending information to the mothership, to their main servers Right It's called telemetry when there's just information going off of the machine, off of the device constantly reporting.

[01:20:35] John Bush: Same thing, you can avoid big tech or you can have one of these de-Googled phones that is like, "This is where I do my phone calls. This is what I bring as my EDC, my everyday carry, and then I have my social media device." That could also help with social media addiction, which, um, we all struggle with. Yeah.

[01:20:52] John Bush: The damn algorithm is so sophisticated and gets you really sucked in. So those are some things that you can do. You can also make it a habit to put your phone on airplane [01:21:00] mode or leave it somewhere, and then roam around your house or wherever, especially if you're out socially.

[01:21:06] Luke Storey: We- I don't even trust airplane mode.

[01:21:08] Luke Storey: I- I know. It's true ... I put my phone in a Faraday bag when I really- Okay ... wanna be- There you go ... left alone. Yeah You know? And that's helpful. But I like, I like your idea. I've, I've, 'cause I've thought about this, of having two phones, 'cause it's like the iPhone is just such a black hole. Mm-hmm. You know? But it's like, well, I, you know, I...

[01:21:25] Luke Storey: Okay, so it's really useful to be able to access my email and things for business, text communication and so on, but because it's in the same place as the social media icons that I try to resist clicking, inevitably I end up doing things that aren't productive on my phone, right? Sure. So I've thought about that, of having- Yeah

[01:21:44] Luke Storey: what was the term you used? Everyday use or something?

[01:21:46] John Bush: EDC. EDC? Everyday carry. It's like a prepper term for what, like this- Oh, okay ... EDC knife here, you know, if you have the- Okay ... if you have little tools in

[01:21:53] Luke Storey: your pocket. Well, I like, I like that idea of just like y- you know, having two channels of communication as a way to kind of [01:22:00] discipline yourself and also have privacy.

[01:22:02] Luke Storey: Yeah. But in terms of like digital privacy I think, I'm always trying to superimpose myself into people listening or watching that might have a different perspective- Let's go ... on things. But it's, it would sound like that digital privacy would be something that would only be necessary if you were breaking the law.

[01:22:17] Luke Storey: You know, if like you're a drug dealer, you're trafficking guns, doing some shady stuff, then you would need to do that. But for me it's like I don't want, I don't want that surveillance system knowing what I'm doing even though I'm not doing anything wrong. I don't want them to know I'm making a smoothie at 5:00 or whatever, you know?

[01:22:34] Luke Storey: It's like I just value my own kind of sanctity of my space and my operations.

[01:22:40] John Bush: Well, again, like, uh, if you accept the premise that the country and a lot of the big corporations and the monetary system is governed and ruled by Satanic pedophiles, right? Which it is. Which used to sound crazy. It used to sound crazy.

[01:22:59] John Bush: In [01:23:00] Bohemian Grove and all sorts of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Like it's so obvious now. Um, you know that they're not good people and they do have dastardly intentions for humanity. And so their ultimate goal is to socially engineer the public into becoming docile servile slaves, like a slave class of people. And I think the goal behind that ultimately is to create an environment where there is a guarantee that there's not gonna be more uprisings, 'cause these are like, uh, megalomaniac, insecure, ego, freakish people, uh, that were also probably traumatized as children with all these weird- Yeah

[01:23:40] John Bush: perverted family bloodlines and stuff. There's probably so much trauma that goes back generations and generations in their, in their being, in their essence, in their spiritual nature in these families. So they, like, are really insecure that they're gonna lose their power. Um, and so they're trying to create an environment where everyone is manageable, uh, [01:24:00] and there's all sorts of weird satanic stuff about that as well.

[01:24:03] John Bush: Anyway, my point is, any information that these folks have, they're creating sophisticated profiles on each and every one of us, and it's my belief, and it's not just my belief, this is already happening, that the artificial intelligence is going to take the information that's collected on you and use it in order to socially engineer you through AI-based ads and AI imagery and AI videos, and what type of information they're showing you now to all bring you into this digital slave class.

[01:24:33] John Bush: So yeah, I'm not doing anything wrong, so what do I have to hide? Well, there's evil people that are in control of this massive system, and they're wanting to use it against you so you can't resist. People need to take that seriously. I get frustrated with my, my brother-in-law, for example. Love my brother-in-law.

[01:24:50] John Bush: He's great. He's smart. My sister's super smart, too. A- and we'll debate this stuff, especially if we're a few whiskeys in or something, right? You know? And it's like he, he, I... He's so smart and he knows [01:25:00] it. He knows that it's true for the most part, not everything that I have shared. But now with the Epstein files and stuff, it's like, okay.

[01:25:07] John Bush: But it's like, well I, I don't care. I wanna enjoy my life. And to one degree, I totally get it, because I would rather live like that than be freaked out and spazzed out on this stuff, and annoy your family, and, and no one wants to be around you. You lost all your friends, and you got big giant bags under your eyes, and all you do is- Hmm

[01:25:24] John Bush: spend time on the computer and on Twitter and all sorts of stuff. That's not healthy. I'd rather be- Have you been watching the Sabrina

[01:25:30] Luke Storey: Wallace videos about the internet of bodies? I don't know Sabrina Wallace. Oh, dude. It's gnarl- It's good stuff? Gnarly. Is that who you spend all night on? No, I b- I like, will tune in.

[01:25:40] Luke Storey: I'll s- sh- I don't know, she's very, um, uh, well, you, you haven't heard of her, but, um, she was involved in the military intelligence or something, um, at one point. But she is, like, a savant with the, the science of how they do what they do. Sure. And so she goes a lot into the, you know, nanobots and graphene oxide and [01:26:00] cell towers and mind control, the internet of bodies.

[01:26:02] Luke Storey: Yeah. Like, she's, like, the expert on that. It's a trip. And I'll, uh, dip into that for a second. I'm just like- This is the- I actually don't wanna know. It's, like, too- It's intense ... it's too much, you know? It's happening. But again, it's also one of those people where I think, ah, they, you know, they're probably just paranoid, and then some more time goes by.

[01:26:16] Luke Storey: I mean, even, like, David Icke, man, I mean, I used to go see him speak years ago and, um, I mean, a long time ago. And it's like, you know, he d- had me up until a certain point. I mean, I still don't know about the reptilian shape-shifting stuff, but I'm also not convinced that that's not the case either. Sure.

[01:26:32] Luke Storey: 'Cause I understand that I, th- there's much more that I don't know than I do know. Mm-hmm. But you watch these people over time, and it's like stuff that used to sound nuts is now just kind of, like, taken for granted as the way it is. And it's really easy to get sucked into that. And then people know it,

[01:26:50] John Bush: but still we're not doing anything.

[01:26:51] John Bush: Right. So Yeah, like I just like, it's easy now, and it's like, let's go watch the kids' baseball game and enjoy life and have a [01:27:00] tequila and go see Bruno Mars. I'm talking about my brother-in-law. I don't know if he's gonna watch this. I love him to death. I love my sister, too. I... They do great in life, and they have a very happy life, but it's like, it's, it's more so about what our children are gonna grow up in, and especially about what their children's reality is going to be.

[01:27:17] John Bush: So if people are watching passively, it's the podcast sphere, and it's like a hobby to watch podcasts and be informed, I just really wanna press on people to take greater action, and those actions don't have to be some uncomfortable, weird stuff. It's like grow food, meet people, use alternative currencies, begin to move outside of the system.

[01:27:38] John Bush: You don't have to abandon all of your inside the system life. I call this the inside-outside strategy. You don't have to let go of all of this. You don't have to completely withdraw and get rid of your 401and move to a cabin in the woods. But we all need to be doing more to build outside of the system because we may come...

[01:27:56] John Bush: We, we are likely to come to a time when the [01:28:00] predator class again is gonna put us in a position where if you don't take the shot, if you don't comply with the vaccine regime or the carbon output score, your personal carbon allowance, which is a thing the World Economic Forum pushes, then we're gonna start taking away your ability to buy and sell.

[01:28:16] John Bush: We're gonna take away your ability to visit your grandparents in Canada or whatever. We're gonna take y- away your ability to earn a living unless you do this and this and this. So that's when you're gonna be super grateful that you took this seriously and started shifting some of your life outside the system because you may be faced with a difficult decision someday.

[01:28:34] John Bush: And again, don't just think about our own comfort and discomfort. Think about the future generations that are yet to be born, what life is going to be like for them if we don't dramatically... If we don't create an alternative to all of this, this stuff.

[01:28:48] Luke Storey: Yeah. I mean, thinking back a couple years ago, people were getting de-banked and de-PayPaled and, I mean, I think you went through some of that, too.

[01:28:57] Luke Storey: Yeah. I was listening to one of your interviews. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's like terrifying to [01:29:00] me. I've... If right now Wells Fargo and PayPal were like, "Bye It would be a problem Yeah ... you know, 'cause I haven't built that. So I think, "Oh, I'm living fine. Everything's kinda comfortable. I know it's crazy out there, but I don't need to worry about that stuff.

[01:29:13] Luke Storey: I just wanna live my life." Well, that's true right now, but will that be true in 10 years when they- Less than 10 years ... you know, when I sit down and have a podcast like this with someone like you and discuss these things we've been discussing, and the powers that want to be, uh, see that and just go, "Oh, yeah, we're just shutting him down.

[01:29:28] Luke Storey: You know, you're done." That was the craziest thing- And then when they

[01:29:30] John Bush: pick up on your flock camera comments?

[01:29:32] Luke Storey: Yeah, exactly. Like, "What was he saying?" People start paint-balling all the cameras, and they point it back to me- ... on this one episode. Um, but, uh, you know, the, one of the gnarliest things that I saw was when they, um, when they de-platformed Alex Jones.

[01:29:45] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. You know, whether or not you like Alex Jones, I mean, I don't agree with a lot of the things Alex talks about, uh, as of late, but he sat right there in that chair, and he's a really great guy. We had a really fun conversation. My wife walked up- Remember that era

[01:29:55] John Bush: where he was, like, doing the podcast sphere 'cause he was so de- Yeah

[01:29:59] John Bush: platformed, and- I [01:30:00] got lucky Were you nervous, though? 'Cause a lot of people got in

[01:30:02] Luke Storey: trouble for that. I mean, he, he had already been de-platformed, and so I think that was one of the reasons he was willing to do a show like mine that, you know, comparatively with his reach, is relatively small. Mm-hmm. Um, but he was kind of, like, so vilified in that moment.

[01:30:17] Luke Storey: I think he's just like, "Man, I'll go talk to this guy." Yeah. But, uh, point being is when he got de-platformed, it's like even if he was someone that I disagreed with across the board and just hated- Mm-hmm ... I would've been just as alarmed by that. If they did that to, I don't know, Klaus Schwab or whoever, like Bill Gates got de-platformed- Mm

[01:30:37] Luke Storey: I would also think that is wrong because they're being de-platformed in their ability to communicate and live their life for something that they've said that, you know, the system doesn't agree with. But that was, like, a real domino moment for me in the way that it was orchestrated so perfectly. I mean, it was when, within a number of days, the guy was just, nuked his entire persona- Mm

[01:30:58] Luke Storey: from the internet. And it was [01:31:00] like, wow. Whoa. I think a lot of people thought, "Well, you know, he, he's a loud mouth and, you know, deserves it," right? People that didn't like him. But I think a lot of us were like, "Oh, that'll never happen to me." But I took note of that and was like, "Hmm, that's interesting." I mean, I'm definitely not someone who's politically activated, and it's not something, um, I talk about on the podcast a lot.

[01:31:20] John Bush: But you talk about controversial, pretty provocative stuff- Yeah, totally ... for the- I mean- ... for the beast

[01:31:24] Luke Storey: system ... I mean, you know, I have talked a bit about vaccines and things like that, but yeah, it's kinda like- Even the sovereignty through

[01:31:29] John Bush: law stuff.

[01:31:30] Luke Storey: Yeah. Like

[01:31:31] John Bush: withdrawing consent to be governed and using alternative private structures, that's pretty subversive.

[01:31:36] Luke Storey: Yeah. So I, I think your perspective- You're a troublemaker. Yeah, I

[01:31:40] John Bush: am.

[01:31:41] Luke Storey: Yeah. I got a little bit of the rebel archetype left in me. Yeah. Um, but to your point of let's start building parallel systems now- Yes ... before it's too late, I think is really important, where you don't have to be paranoid or an alarmist or have bags under your eyes from doing too much research.

[01:31:58] Luke Storey: It's like you can step back [01:32:00] from all of the fear and victim mentality and still start to be proactive in ways that are relatively sane- Yeah ... and, um, logical, you know?

[01:32:14] Luke Storey: I've had a lot of big breakthrough moments in my life, ceremony, deep personal work, and just major life transitions. It's those moments where something just clicks and you see life through a new lens. But I'll be honest, the hard part isn't the insight. It's what happens after the insight. It's taking that clarity and living it, changing your habits, showing up differently, staying grounded when life gets real.

[01:32:39] Luke Storey: That's been a huge edge for me, and the one tool I've used for years to support that process is the line of flower essences from Lotus Wei. And these aren't essential oils, family. They're solar infusions that carry the energetic imprint of specific flowers. Sounds out there, I get it, but I've truly felt the difference.

[01:32:57] Luke Storey: Otherwise, I wouldn't share it with you. When I'm in a [01:33:00] season of change, whether it's stress, growth, or just feeling off, I use their elixirs and sprays to help regulate my system and integrate what I'm learning. To keep it simple, Lotus Wei helps me feel more chill and less reactive, like I can embody the vision of myself I'm becoming.

[01:33:15] Luke Storey: Highly recommend you check it out, and here's how you do so. Visit lotuswei.com/luke. That's L-O-T-U-S-W-E-I, lotuswei.com/luke, and when you get there, you can take their master flower quiz to find your match and use the code LUKE to save 10% off your first order. That's lotuswei.com/luke. 'Cause here's what's up.

[01:33:38] Luke Storey: Anyone can have a flash of insight, but if you want to stay aligned when life tempts you back into old patterns, this is your ally. That's lotuswei.com/luke.

[01:33:50] John Bush: Yeah, and if you, if you... Like, cryptocurrency is the perfect tool for that. And I was debanked, by the way, and, uh, it was because I had it... My other company, I let that company go.

[01:33:59] John Bush: I was [01:34:00] selling kratom and, uh, Delta-8 Which is now outlawed in Texas, the Delta-8 stuff. And then I was actually selling Delta-9 with this loophole where the, it was like the weight of the Delta-9 compared to the gummy.

[01:34:12] Luke Storey: Oh, funny. Anyway,

[01:34:13] John Bush: nobody's even taking any of those laws seriously nowadays. But, uh, I couldn't do credit card processing at a brick-and-mortar.

[01:34:20] John Bush: Brave New Books, I used to operate for a couple years down in downtown Austin. It was a conspiracy freedom bookstore. We had Alex Jones down there and hosted Ron Paul debates and- Oh, cool ... all sorts of cool stuff. Jim Marrs and all these great conspiracy legends. And so they shut down my credit card terminal 'cause I was selling kratom.

[01:34:37] John Bush: Are you familiar? It's a- Oh, yeah, yeah ... psychoactive remedy, yeah.

[01:34:39] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:34:39] John Bush: And then, so I was like, "Well, let me-" I

[01:34:41] Luke Storey: took some this morning.

[01:34:42] John Bush: Oh, yeah? Fair enough. Uh, let me set up Square, and that got shut down. And okay, well let me try Stripe. That got shut down. Let me try my roommate's Stripe account. That got shut down.

[01:34:52] John Bush: Let me try Cash App, and I can actually send a link to people with Cash App, so maybe I could take credit card online this way. That got shut down. [01:35:00] And just shut down, shut down, shut down, PayPal, all these payment processors. And then my actual bank, Frost Bank, which is a Texas bank. Mm-hmm. I thought I was doing a good job by using a Texas bank instead of Chase or something.

[01:35:11] John Bush: And one day I get a call from the downtown branch manager. "Hey, this is Karen with the downtown..." That wasn't her name, but, "This is, uh, Karen with the downtown branch of Frost Bank, and, uh, unfortunately because you're selling CBD project, products, we're no longer gonna be able to do business with you anymore."

[01:35:26] John Bush: Now mind you, the farm, uh, the farm bill had passed by Trump years before that legalized CBD, CBD in hemp. And then in the state of Texas, they codified that same regulatory schema, so hemp, which is a cannabis product with less than, cannabis plant or product with less than 3% Delta-9 THC, totally legal. And I was just selling CBD oil, and they de-banked me.

[01:35:52] John Bush: And so it was funny 'cause I said, "Well, you know, Karen, this is why I'm a big fan of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, because there's no branch [01:36:00] manager that can call and shut you down." And she said, "Well, if we knew you were doing cryptocurrency, we would've shut you down a lot sooner." I was like, "Oh, my God." Um- Oh, my God.

[01:36:11] John Bush: But yeah, some of these solutions, it doesn't have to be some weird thing, and if you actually get into cryptocurrency and start using and holding cryptocurrency, it can be building outside the system that's actually incredibly fruitful, financially fruitful, and it has been for quite some time. Since I've got into it in, in 2013, it's been doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, going up and up and up in value.

[01:36:32] John Bush: So a great thing that we talk about at, at, at my company, Live Free Academy, we focus on two areas to exit the system, to be most prepared for what's to come and to build better alternatives. The two areas are countereconomics, which is trading outside the system, alternative currencies, alternative investments, entrepreneurship, having a side hustle, right?

[01:36:55] John Bush: So a lot of things having to do with money and finance And land and community. [01:37:00] Getting to land, homesteading, growing your own food, being prepared and, and building community, whether you're on the land together or you're connected with all your neighbors. And so when it comes to countereconomics, cryptocurrency's a great financial tool, a currency to be able to buy and sell goods and services with no one being able to stop you.

[01:37:22] John Bush: And that's important as the central bank digital currencies come online. But we don't just encourage people to use cryptocurrency, which is digital and does have some limitations. The fact that cryptocurrencies are digital is both a liability and an asset. It's an asset in that you can send money anywhere in the world.

[01:37:42] John Bush: It's an asset in that through decentralized cryptocurrencies, especially the private ones like Monero and Zeno, um, there's nothing anyone can do to stop that transaction or confiscate that cryptocurrency. But we also encourage people to use precious metals. [01:38:00] Mm-hmm. Um, of course, the liability, sorry, the liability with cryptocurrency is that it's dependent on the internet.

[01:38:05] John Bush: Right. And if, if you need to access the internet, you gotta have your digital ID or they shut the internet down, stuff like that.

[01:38:10] Luke Storey: In the zombie apocalypse, when you go to your local farmer to get a side of beef you're gonna need some silver or gold. Yeah,

[01:38:17] John Bush: you're gonna wanna use precious metals. Yeah, yeah.

[01:38:18] John Bush: So we teach folks that, too. A lot of older folks, too, are like, "I don't... I'm still uncomfortable with crypto." Yeah. Even though I did a course, Bitcoin Basics for Boomers and Beginners,

[01:38:26] Luke Storey: and, like, really tried to teach folks slow. I feel like I need to take that. I've, I've been pretty slow on the crypto. Uh, uh, from my basic understanding, it seems like Bitcoin is maybe more suitable as an investment for people that can tolerate a little bit of risk and, like, long-term growth.

[01:38:44] Luke Storey: Maybe not something that maybe someone who's kind of strapped financially doesn't wanna be dumping money into Bitcoin every month. And to the privacy thing, isn't, um, Bitcoin and that version of the blockchain a bit more transparent? Like, you can [01:39:00] see those transactions, and there's a record of them.

[01:39:02] John Bush: Mm-hmm.

[01:39:03] Luke Storey: Whereas the other ones that you're describing, would they be more useful for day-to-day trade? For sure. Because they're, they're not monitored and traceable? No, that's- Do I have that right? Completely

[01:39:12] John Bush: accurate. Yeah, so Bitcoin was originally supposed to be peer-to-peer electronic cash. It was meant to be a medium of exchange To transact outside of the system.

[01:39:23] John Bush: A sovereign currency, not a government or a bank or a corporation backing it, completely decentralized. And so it still is that, except the use case or the value, the utility of Bitcoin has shifted to more of a store of value, uh, digital gold instead of a digital cash. Got it. Okay. And there was actually some chicanery and conspiracy along the way, 2015 or so, this era that were called the block size wars, where Bitcoin was scaling to the point where the transaction fees were like $20, $50 because you can only fit so many transactions on a [01:40:00] blockchain.

[01:40:00] John Bush: The blockchain is the decentralized distributed ledger that contains a collection and a history of all the transactions that took place, and because it's decentralized and distributed, this ledger across the world, it makes it very, uh, anti-fragile and resilient to attack. Um, but there were so many transactions taking place that in order to fit your transaction in the next block, a new block gets added to the blockchain approximately every 10 minutes.

[01:40:28] John Bush: In order to fit your transaction in that block, you had to bid up and have a really high transaction fee. Well, people were like, "Well, how do we grow Bitcoin?" Because at this time, Dell.com, a local Austin company, Dell.com, uh, was accepting Bitcoin for their computers. Uh, Newegg, Expedia, all the... Apple and Amazon were kinda talking about it slightly.

[01:40:50] John Bush: All these companies were coming online. Adoption was happening. Bitcoin was actually used instead of like a Venmo or a Samsung Pay, and if it were able to [01:41:00] scale effectively, it could have completely replaced all of those, and it's not even the dollar, which is really cool, and it's decentralized. It can't be shut down.

[01:41:10] John Bush: So it was like, well, how do we scale Bitcoin? One group was like, "Let's just increase the size of the blocks so more transactions can fit." The other group said, "No, we can't do that because if we increase the size of the blocks, eventually the blockchain's gonna be so big it's gonna take massive data centers and big companies to manage the blockchain.

[01:41:27] John Bush: Instead, we should create a layer two solution where we trade Bitc- we, we take our Bitcoin and we put it into this layer two and we trade amongst ourselves on the layer two and it only every so, ever so often gets settled on the layer one blockchain." Are, is this making sense? You following me? Yeah, pretty close.

[01:41:44] John Bush: And so that's how the Lightning Network came about. Ah, okay. That's what Lightning Network Bitcoin is. It's a layer two solution, and then later people were like, "Well, let's fork away from Bitcoin and create Bitcoin Cash Anyway, I like to share that story because originally [01:42:00] Bitcoin was supposed to be peer-to-peer electronic cash.

[01:42:02] John Bush: It was, it had the network effect, it had all this marketing, all this momentum. It very well could have overtook the United States dollar as a medium of exchange amongst Americans and globally. Mm-hmm. Trading globally with one another. But that shifted because it wasn't able to scale, and a lot of people started using Lightning Network for these smaller transactions.

[01:42:23] John Bush: Not even a lot of people started using it. That's one of the reasons why all these other alternative cryptocurrencies started springing up, because we're, there's not a lot of innovation taking place on the Bitcoin blockchain. And when the Epstein files were released, it turns out that Epstein was actually funding some of the companies that were pushing for these layer two solutions, not to scale the blockchain, uh, by increasing the size of the block, which would have kept it more decentralized and peer-to-peer.

[01:42:51] John Bush: But instead he was pumping money into some of these, um, companies and institutions that were creating layer two [01:43:00] solutions, which are easier to control, 'cause a lot of people use those with custodial apps where they can shut you down, not a decentralized wallet, so to speak. Right. I just went on a little rabbit hole- No, it's cool

[01:43:11] John Bush: about the Bitcoin scaling wars, but it's important because- It's cool ... y- you, you raised the point, like now isn't it more of an investment kind of deal? And it is. But it wasn't supposed to be. '

[01:43:20] Luke Storey: Cause there's a KYC. I mean, if you have a Coinbase account, I mean, it's like they know who you are and what you're doing, right?

[01:43:26] Luke Storey: Which to me kind of defeats my original understanding of it, that it was more private and decentralized. It's kind of like, this is another version of a bank. So couldn't Coinbase, like, deplatform you, for example?

[01:43:39] John Bush: Yes, and they do deplatform people. So y- the, the use case more so now with Bitcoin, you can still use it as peer-to-peer electronic cash, but the narrative As f- in the mainstream world, in the financial sector, and then Twitter especially, Bitcoin Twitter, is it's a store of value, akin to a digital gold, where, that you take [01:44:00] your money out of dollars and you put it into Bitcoin, because Bitcoin has a high likelihood of going up in value because it's a finite digital asset, unlike the dollar, which is inflated all the time.

[01:44:11] John Bush: Yeah. It's even more scarce and finite than gold, 'cause there's, we don't know exactly how much gold is in existence, and they're constantly increasing the supply of gold at a unknown rate, and if the price of gold goes up, there's now more money to go into mining equipment, and now we're gonna get more gold out.

[01:44:26] John Bush: Right.

[01:44:27] Luke Storey: Well, I mean, to be fair, once we do the Fort Knox audit, that'll all be clear. Yeah, that

[01:44:31] John Bush: was,

[01:44:31] Luke Storey: that was a campaign promise. That was a good one. I

[01:44:34] John Bush: love- There's a lot of good ones. Ending the income tax. Yeah. I love, dude- Instead we got Iran and coverup for pedophiles I

[01:44:40] Luke Storey: love, like, every few months, you know, there'll be something, Trump said he's gonna end tax or audit this or that.

[01:44:46] Luke Storey: I mean, it's just like, oh my God, at what, like- It's the Charlie Brown thing ... at what point are people gonna not believe this stuff? It's

[01:44:51] John Bush: crazy. Some people still do, like the hardcore MAGA thing, it's like a cult. It's wild to see people, and you're like, "Wait, you seem like a good person that's [01:45:00] somewhat level-headed, but you're so bought into it that you make all these excuses for this egregious stuff that you were just cheering on during the campaign-" I mean,

[01:45:09] Luke Storey: all I n-

[01:45:10] Luke Storey: when you were saying that this was-" I only need to know one thing. It's called Operation Warp Speed. Yeah. I'm, I'm done, right? I mean, I'm done- That was sufficient ... anyway, but that is like, dude, if that can't wake you up out of your- Yeah ... QAnon hopium delusion, I don't know what will. The QAnon thing is still a thing.

[01:45:24] Luke Storey: I guess. We're still

[01:45:25] John Bush: waiting for all the arrests and stuff. Yeah, the

[01:45:27] Luke Storey: white

[01:45:27] John Bush: hats are coming. Ooh, it's a trip. Anyway, so yeah, store of value, and as you brought up a great point, so there's two ways to go about acquiring cryptocurrency. One is what I call above board, through an exchange, a regulated licensed exchange like Coinbase, and in order to use a regulated licensed exchange to acquire Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, you have to complete what's known as know your customer.

[01:45:52] John Bush: This is where you scan your driver's license or your government ID to verify your identity. It's part of a [01:46:00] KYC/AML check. Know your customer/anti-money laundering. Comes from the Bank Secrecy Act, which is a part of the Department of Treasury's effort to ensure there's not money laundering going on.

[01:46:11] John Bush: It's also part of the IRS's desire to track and trace people's gains and what they should or should not be- Paying taxes on. So that's above board, and there's also peer-to-peer or underground, uh, ways of acquiring crypto. So ultimately, the number one way to acquire crypto privately is to offer goods and services in exchange for crypto.

[01:46:34] John Bush: Now you can get crypto without having to scan your driver's license. If it's more of a private transaction, I teach folks the can it be known test. So if you are selling a good or service, or let's say you're a masseuse, or you do haircuts, or you watch someone's dog, or you house sit, and you show up, and you do the service, and then they pay you with Bitcoin on your phone, can it be known by the government?

[01:46:58] John Bush: No, it can't be. I mean, there [01:47:00] could be sophisticated NSA tracking on your phone or whatever, but they have their hands full. Th- I don't think, I don't think that's a problem. So it's like, can it be known that I just received $500 to house sit someone's house for a week or whatever? I don't know what the going rate on is that.

[01:47:13] John Bush: Love to house sit at your place. Pretty cool place. But, um, then it's like, can it be known by the man? No, it can't be known. So maybe it's an under-the-table kind of deal, right? We should be keeping more of our money out of the hands of grubby governments. So that's the best way to acquire cryptocurrency privately.

[01:47:28] John Bush: Another way is there's peer-to-peer exchanges. So these are online marketplaces that connect buyers and sellers. Now, you're gonna pay a 5 to 10% premium, um, but there's reputation rating systems where you can see, like this person has 99% positive reviews, and they've done 1,200 transactions. So they're probably a good actor, and I can pay 5%, 7% premium, mail them money, like in a card or something, or deposit money in their shared branch credit union drive-through, and then [01:48:00] you show a picture of the receipt, and then they send you the Bitcoin, and it's called peer-to-peer.

[01:48:04] John Bush: Oh, wow. There's an exchange called hodlhodl.com, H-O-D-L-H-O-D-L.com. There's other ones that have since shut down because they're, uh, a little afraid. But this is how things used to be. It just alway- it all used to be like this Wild Wild West. But there is something to be said about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency being such solid financial instruments, that it's only a matter of time before the legacy financial institutions are like, "Hey, we want some of that.

[01:48:32] John Bush: Maybe we could hold that as, uh, custodians with our banking services. Maybe we create a ETF," which is like a paper version of Bitcoin that people can trade in their retirement accounts. So Bitcoin is a really powerful tool, and it was only a matter of time that the legacy financial system kinda started emulating it.

[01:48:51] John Bush: But it's kinda one of those things where if we can't beat 'em- We join them. And now there's actually a lot of co-opting going on, bringing in this [01:49:00] radical alternative financial system, capturing it with regulation. That's what's taking place with the stable coins, which are these tokens that are pegged to the value of a dollar.

[01:49:11] John Bush: Most popular ones are Tether and US Dollar Circle, and the private sector rolled these out, and they're tools where people can buy and sell. You can send money with ease overseas. A lot of countries in Latin America that have currencies that are being debased and losing value consistently, they're trading with these digital dollars, so to speak.

[01:49:30] John Bush: Um, but now the federal government, through the Genius Act, is capturing that industry, bringing under its banking and- Ah ... KYC surveillance regime. Uh-huh. And in the US, they're simultaneously saying, "Don't worry, we're banning central bank digital currencies. The Federal Reserve Bank will not be issuing digital currencies for everyone to use," but they're simply going to take all of the government's benefits of central bank digital currency, which is centralized.

[01:49:58] John Bush: It's a centralized digital currency. That's what a [01:50:00] CBDC is, a centralized digital currency, a surveillable digital currency, a censorable digital currency, and a programmable digital currency. Those are four characteristics of what I would call a CBDC. You can do all of those with stable coins, and so we're gonna see more and more bank-issued stable coins and these existing private sector stable coins.

[01:50:22] John Bush: You can expect that the American public is going to be pushed slowly but surely, just like Mexican public. You can no longer use cash for gasoline or for toll roads. We're gonna slowly be pushed into this digital payment system that will give them the very easy capabilities of De-platforming your ability to buy and sell goods and services Damn.

[01:50:44] John Bush: And then we're gonna be- I mean, that's- Then we're gonna be think- people that don't have an alternative, they didn't take our advice and build the alternative, they're gonna be thinking real hard whether they should say A, B, or C, whether they should not put the recycle out this week, whether they should not speak out [01:51:00] against their daughter's new boyfriend that's saying all this weird woke stuff or, or whatever.

[01:51:06] John Bush: I don't know how far it's gonna go, but that's where things are going. That's happening now.

[01:51:11] Luke Storey: I would turn my podcast into, like, a knitting show or something. There you go. Yeah. Oh, man. That was a good one. Um, okay, so if Bitcoin is, from your perspective, you know, a more, a viable, um,

[01:51:24] John Bush: store of value- And it is transparent, sorry.

[01:51:27] John Bush: Yeah All the transactions, if you s- if you... It's an address, so you have a long string of letters and numbers. It's kinda like your account number, but you can create an endless number of addresses within one wallet. Yeah. So if, if you were to show me your phone and I were to scan a QR code and get your address, then I send you Bitcoin from my address, that transaction is recorded on the blockchain that this address sent this much Bitcoin at this time to that address.

[01:51:52] John Bush: Right. That's not the biggest problem unless your identity had been tied to the address because you purchased it on Coinbase along the [01:52:00] way. Mm-hmm. So there's sophisticated, uh, analysis tools call-- It's like blockchain forensic analysis. One of the companies is called Chainalysis, and they can track and trace and deduce who, what identity is tied to what Bitcoin.

[01:52:15] John Bush: Um, I was at the Ross Ulbricht trial. He's the guy that did the Silk Road. Yeah, yeah. He's from Austin, by the way. Oh, wow. Yeah, his, he was born of the same midwife that birthed my two kids. Really? Yeah, interestingly enough. There's all this overlap, too. I think he shares the same birthday as my daughter or something like that.

[01:52:31] John Bush: His mother, Lynn, was a tireless advocate for getting him out there, out of prison, and he did get out of prison. That was one thing Trump did right. Anyway, I was at the trial of Ross Ulbricht in New York City, and we got to see the Department of Justice hired these blockchain forensic analysis companies, and they were able to deduce all sorts of information from these transactions on the blockchain.

[01:52:52] John Bush: So Bitcoin is transparent. Monero and Zeno completely obscure all of that transaction [01:53:00] information, making it much easier to send and receive money undetected by the government. So as this CBDC system comes online, as people are pushed into it or as it's just That's what the money is like in the European...

[01:53:13] John Bush: The euro is gonna be a central bank digital currency in other countries. Some are gonna have bank-issued digital deposits, bank-issued stable coins, so to speak, in some countries, and then other countries, like the US, it's gonna be private stable coins for the most part. As more and more people are pushed into the system, it's gonna become more and more important that we are using privacy-based cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zeno in order to continue doing business with one another online without them being able to stop it.

[01:53:43] John Bush: So it sounds

[01:53:43] Luke Storey: like learning how to use those two in particular would be really wise. Uh, it'd be really wise to do that w- before it becomes a have to.

[01:53:53] John Bush: Yes.

[01:53:54] Luke Storey: Right? You know

[01:53:54] John Bush: me, Frank, oh, I gotta figure

[01:53:55] Luke Storey: it out. Yeah. I mean, 'cause it's really, the whole crypto space to me is really [01:54:00] confusing. I mean, I've lost, I lost, like, $1,800 worth of, um, Ethereum.

[01:54:06] Luke Storey: Just I clicked on something, did the scan thing, and I sent it on the wrong chain. I don't know. It just disappeared. Yeah. It just disappeared. That's a thing. And the company that I was sending it to or from or whatever, "Hey, I don't know. It's still there." They're like, "It's still there." I'm like, "Okay. Well, give it back."

[01:54:19] Luke Storey: "Oh, no, we can't get it, but don't worry, you didn't lose it." I'm like, "The definition of losing it- Yeah ... is if I can't get it back." Yeah. I call that losing it. What do you call that? You know? So that- Yeah ... I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had situations like that. No, it's- I think I... Dude, I don't remember what year it was, but it was maybe early on when you got into it.

[01:54:38] Luke Storey: Um, I was buying something on the dark web, nootropics or something like that, and so I had to get some Bitcoin in order to be able to buy said thing, and then I didn't even know what it was, but I wanted the thing, so I figured out how to do it, and then I lost track of whatever that wallet was. And I was probably like, who knows, it could be worth a lot, 'cause it was a [01:55:00] few hundred dollars, like, when Bitcoin was, I don't know, a few dollars.

[01:55:03] Luke Storey: Yeah. You know, I'm sure there's so many people out there that are like, "Ah, I could've been a zillionaire- Oh, yeah ... if I just would've learned the tech better," you know? Sure. I think that's one of the big barriers to entry, and thankfully, there's people like you, you know, doing, like, the crypto for dummies kind of education.

[01:55:18] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Super important. Um, I'm glad we got to cover that. Uh, let's talk about, um, exit and build, you know, like what you're doing with your property. I think it's in Tennessee. Mm-hmm. Like, tell me about some of the steps you're taking and things you're building, and also how people can get involved with what you're doing.

[01:55:35] John Bush: Sure. So, um, I think we shared a link for a webinar about private crypto and such.

[01:55:40] Luke Storey: So- Y- uh, the one I have is lukestray.com/fourhorsemen

[01:55:46] John Bush: Okay. That one will go into solutions with crypto. Okay, cool. So it breaks down the four horsemen, and then we share some crypto solutions. But when people enter our world, there's courses we have and all sorts of teachings on how to do it, [01:56:00] and it is- Cool

[01:56:00] John Bush: it can be complex. So I'd like to think I'm able to take some of that complex stuff. I hope I did a good job just a moment ago- You've done a

[01:56:07] Luke Storey: great, you've done a great

[01:56:08] John Bush: job of doing that ... okay, making it as simple and understandable as possible, and then also, as I mentioned earlier, helping to recognize people's limiting beliefs when they start to push up against that discomfort.

[01:56:17] John Bush: Like, "I don't know. Where did it go? What, where do I download?" And all this stuff, and, like, really helping people to push through that. Um, but yeah, we do this annual event called the Exit & Build Summit, and the next one's gonna be taking place at Sovereignty Ranch in, uh, Bandera, Texas, which is where Confluence, Alex Zack's event- Yeah, yeah

[01:56:37] John Bush: uh, is held every year. Amazing property. I can't wait to see it again. Oh, yeah. Molly Engelhart's incredible, and they've just been really working hard. It's inspirational to go out there every year and see how much progress they've made. So this will be a perfect spot 'cause normally... Well, last year we did the Exit & Build event at Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm.

[01:56:54] John Bush: Oh, cool. He's been our keynote speaker for multiple years. Um, and it was really cool to be immersed [01:57:00] in his world. And then the three before that, two, three, and four were at Bastrop Convention Center. That's where, we live in Bastrop. And then the one before that was in La Grange at a country club. Actually, one of our community members let us use the country club he was at, which was pretty cool.

[01:57:15] John Bush: But each time it's like, come to the event and then go off to your hotel. But this year it's gonna be at Molly's, which is a 200-acre property, and we're gonna be camping on site. Epic. So they have little eco homes. I wanna go. Yeah. What month is it? It's November 5th through the 8th. November 5th through the 8th.

[01:57:30] John Bush: Cool. The website's exitandbuild.com.

[01:57:32] Luke Storey: Cool.

[01:57:32] John Bush: And folks will be able to come, and, uh, those two areas I was telling about, counter economy, crypto, trading outside the system, entrepreneurship, side hustles, alternative investments, and then land and community, those will be the focus areas. So people can come.

[01:57:46] John Bush: We'll hang out around the fire. There'll be music. There'll be talks, and then there's gonna be these implementation zones I always try to innovate what I'm doing 'cause I'm, I'm a huge fan of Steve Jobs and I like to study Elon Musk. I used to be a fanboy of [01:58:00] Elon Musk, but I think he's batting for the other team, unfortunately.

[01:58:03] Luke Storey: Um- He, he lost me when he went on Rogan and Rogan was asking him about, um, like EMF radiation from phones. Yeah. Okay. And Elon, who's supposedly some kind of genius says, "That's all fake. It doesn't do anything to you. I would walk around with a headband with five live cell phones strapped to my head. I wouldn't worry about it."

[01:58:20] Luke Storey: That's ... Yeah. I think 'cause he was asking about Starlink or something. Yeah. And I was like, I know, I don't know that he's a- You can feel the heat even if it's like barely there. Uh, yeah. Not to mention there's like 10,000 studies supporting the fact that, um, non-ionizing radiation is really bad for the human body.

[01:58:34] Luke Storey: Sure. But yeah, I mean, I never was like into the guy or trusted him anyway, but I was like, that was one I was like, I know he knows better and he's, he's being deceitful.

[01:58:44] John Bush: Yeah. Yeah. I, I lost all respect when he went on that apology tour in Israel and I realized like, oh wow, Israel even has Elon Musk who's like this maverick powerhouse oligarch.

[01:58:58] John Bush: Um, Israel's got [01:59:00] him kinda roped into the Zionist regime in Israel, I should say. Anyway, um- So I study though, I study Elon Musk, I study Jeff Bezos, I study Steve Jobs because I'm fascinated with innovation and scaling companies and doing massive things. And, uh, I'm always trying to figure out like, well, how can I do what I do, which is online courses and in-person events?

[01:59:21] John Bush: How can I innovate in that space? There's not a whole lot to do. It's an online course or whatever. But I came up with this concept for implementation zones. So instead of like just a workshop off to the side, there's gonna be these zones set up at the event where at any given time you can go to the privacy tech implementation zone, for example, and sit down with someone and get your phone set up to be more private with encrypted chat and such.

[01:59:46] John Bush: Amazing. Or there'll be computers for sale that have Linux on the laptop, and you don't just buy one 'cause a lot of people buy that stuff and then when they get home they're like, "What the heck did I just buy? I don't know how to use it. I'm overwhelmed. It's gonna sit in a box- Yeah ... [02:00:00] that's like 1,000 bucks."

[02:00:01] John Bush: Uh, but you can sit down and do a tutorial with someone on how to get set up and here's how to log in and stuff. Uh, there'll be a little, uh, Zeno zone or Cordle's another great cryptocurrency project that's trying to create a decentralized internet, and they even have like decentralized apps where the nodes connect and it creates its own alternative internet.

[02:00:21] John Bush: And there's like an alternative YouTube called QTube, it's called Cordle. Anyway, great project. There's gonna be areas where it's not just like, "Here's what a crypto wallet is and here's how to set one up." It's like, "No, sit down with some experts," and you walk away with the wallet set up. Amazing. And we're gonna send you some Zeno or some Cordle to get started.

[02:00:39] John Bush: Same thing, the Sacred Honor Educational Fellowship guys will be there. Yeah. Michael Joseph. Yeah, yeah. Uh, Phil, Daniel Mentz, Shiloh, uh, and, uh, Marsha Ann. And it'll be like, enter the zone. You gotta be a member first, a private member, uh, and so y- so they can make offerings, you gotta be a member first to keep it in the private, but it'll be like sit down and talk about your [02:01:00] matter and see if there's, if equity would be an appropriate remedy or maybe here's appropriate remedy for succession, remedy for succession planning with the trust and the trifecta.

[02:01:10] John Bush: So really excited to have them be a part of and collaborating with them deeper, but it's gonna be great. We're gonna hang out on site, great incredible speakers, and it's gonna be about implementing and actually building while we're there, not just- That's amazing ... a passive conference. That's huge, dude.

[02:01:26] Luke Storey: I mean, that, that is such a major Gap in in-person education.

[02:01:33] Luke Storey: Yeah Right? I mean, any kind of conference you go to, you hear these speakers and you, "Oh my God, I gotta do this," and then you leave with your little workbook full of notes- Uh-huh ... and you never do anything with it. Yeah. I mean, I'm speaking for myself. It happens. It happens. You get amped up in the moment, but then you get back in the inertia of your life, and it's like, "Ah, yeah, I should do that," and just ends up in a drawer, and you kind of don't.

[02:01:51] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. The application of the information is usually where- Yeah ... I think many of us like me get stuck.

[02:01:57] John Bush: So we're gonna... No, you g- you're doing it now. You're here for- [02:02:00] That's the talk ... three days, for four days. Get it done, and it... You can do this at 12 o'clock on Saturday, 5 o'clock on Saturday, 10:00 AM on Sunday, or 2:00 PM on Sunday.

[02:02:10] John Bush: Like, they're gonna be doing the workshops. Like, go show up. So that's one of the... I'm really excited about that. I am

[02:02:15] Luke Storey: too. I'm

[02:02:15] John Bush: in. Yeah. We're definitely- Um,

[02:02:17] Luke Storey: speaking of the sovereign law stuff, I've done a number of shows about this, um, because there, there are more people over the past few years that have... I don't know, maybe they were just kind of existing in the private, um, thought leaders, gurus, experts on law and common law and all this kind of stuff.

[02:02:32] Luke Storey: Um, and I first heard guys like Jordan Maxwell talking about the, the mythology and the language used in maritime law and the birth canal and all this kind of stuff years ago. Yeah. And it was like, "Oh, this is really interesting." Mm-hmm. But there weren't any real, that I knew of, any real practical ways forward to apply it.

[02:02:51] Luke Storey: Yeah. You kind of know there's a parallel system of law. Mm-hmm. And you're stuck in this commercial law system, but there were no real [02:03:00] bridges that I could find out of it. So when I started seeing people share more publicly on social media about this, I've done a number of shows about it, and I find all of it really interesting.

[02:03:09] Luke Storey: But it seems like it's a relatively new thing where people that are into, you know, freedom, the patriot types, are starting to merge with the law and use that in a way to create some of the parallel systems that you're talking about. So from your perspective of where you're sitting, um, do you see that, there's not really a name for it, I'll just call it sovereign law for lack of a better term.

[02:03:35] Luke Storey: In other words, like, using the legal system to become free of it in a way. Do you see that as something that's an integral part of building these parallel systems and, you know, living off grid in communities? Is that kind of part of your worldview or what you think is, uh, an important aspect of being able to do that?

[02:03:58] John Bush: Yes. Uh- And is

[02:03:58] Luke Storey: it a necessary [02:04:00] part, or can you just stay in the commercial system and also go off and kind of do your own thing?

[02:04:05] John Bush: Well, I've had a long struggle with, yeah, I call it sovereignty through law. Okay. You call it sovereign law, right? Okay. That's, that's how... And it's, it encompasses a whole wide world, and unfortunately there's a lot of charlatans in that world- Yes

[02:04:16] John Bush: and a lot of just false information that could get you in trouble. Yeah. And every, every once in a while, somebody that's super grounded, well-researched, and rooted is, is in that space, and that's why I honor Michael Joseph and Sacred Honor Educational Fellowship, and they do a lot of good work. But I heard about this back first in 2009 at Bob Schulz's Continental Congress of 2000, uh, 2009.

[02:04:39] John Bush: This guy named Bob Schulz does We the Pe- he's passed since, but he did We the People Foundation, and it was, like, a tax resistor thing, and he had this idea to organize a second continental congress. So he managed through his organization to host elections in all 50 states and have two delegates elected from each of the 50 states, and I [02:05:00] was the delegate for the state of Texas.

[02:05:02] John Bush: And, uh, it was me and Michael Badnarik, actually, who also has passed. He ran for president of the Libertarian Party. Total badass, this Michael Badnarik. Total legend, this guy. Anyway, we were there and at this, it was in St. Charles, Illinois. It's actually how I met the mother of my children, at that event. Um, and so there was all these folks with the right to travel, the 14th Amendment was never- Status correction, all that stuff

[02:05:27] John Bush: status correction, you name it. And I got the feeling like these all, these guys look all kinda like, like they live r- they're living out in the woods, and they don't make a lot of money. It must be easy to not pay taxes if you're not, you know, like, they look like they got the beat-up pickup truck with the not for commercial use plates, and I don't see anybody, like, successful doing that, and I just kinda wrote it off.

[02:05:48] John Bush: I had so much skepticism.

[02:05:49] Luke Storey: Yeah. I think that's, that's kinda where I ended up, too, at that point. And then

[02:05:53] John Bush: over time, I started building the counter economy, which is, like, under the table, [02:06:00] and if it can't be known by the man, then you just don't tell the man. But I started to realize, like, well, how do we scale this?

[02:06:07] John Bush: Because there's still value in having a bank account with the ability to receive credit cards, and through the counter economy, how can we steward land or hold title to property, for example? So, like, there's a missing piece, and then I kept hearing PMA, PMA, private membership association. And my good friends, River and Imani, who do the Haven Village, the 260-acre property in Tennessee, uh, I want to share about, they, they do a PMA.

[02:06:34] John Bush: It's called Haven Earth Trade School. And they were like, "We need to do PMAs." We were gonna do a land project together. And I'm like, "Well, we need to have a 506, you know, SEC fund and LLCs, and we bring on non-accredited investors, but we can only have a certain number of non-accredited investors. The other one's gotta be accredited," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[02:06:53] John Bush: "Let's pay $8,000 for this attorney to set it all up for us." And they were like, "No, y- we need to use a [02:07:00] trust to steward the land, a, a, a private irrevocable trust to steward the land. We should organize the community with a private membership association, and it should all have a ministry component as well."

[02:07:11] John Bush: And I was like, "I don't know. That sounds kind of hocus pocus. We wanna raise money and, and earn a income from it and, and make weal- build wealth with it." And that wasn't the right energy, but I just came to realize, like, well, they have a PMA and they're selling courses and doing trainings in person. I am doing the same stuff, selling courses and, and training people, but I'm using an LLC, and I gotta deal with franchise tax, and filings, and the department, uh, the Department of Treasury with the IRS, and the Secretary of State, and all this nonsense friction.

[02:07:43] John Bush: Why would I invite the government into my relationship with my clients and my members when I could use a private membership association, which is a private agreement amongst free people for a common purpose under the protection of a private contract, which has immense protections under the law? And that's when I started to [02:08:00] finally come around.

[02:08:00] John Bush: It was the private membership association. Ah, yeah. I was like, "Huh, this makes a lot of sense." And, um, that model, PMA, trust, and ministry, is what Michael Joseph calls the trifecta, and so I s- went ahead and set that up for my own world. We have a ministry called Freedom Family Fellowship. I have a private membership association called Divine Purpose PMA.

[02:08:22] John Bush: And I recently did a webinar about this trifecta with Michael Joseph. It's divinepma.com/webinar, and we break it down, all the different pieces. Um, and then there's a ministry. Well, there's a ministry, and then there's a trust. Ministry, PMA, and trust. I don't ever share the name of the trust. Got it. But it's a private trust.

[02:08:39] John Bush: Sure. And that trust stewards a bank account, and that bank account is able to receive money when somebody comes into my membership and, and learns and does some of the work with me. And it's all private, and it's all outside the system, but it's a bridge into the system.

[02:08:55] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[02:08:56] John Bush: And so, like, to take that a step further, that is the [02:09:00] f- structural foundation of this incredible 216-acre land project that I'm a partner and a trustee on called Haven Village.

[02:09:08] John Bush: So my good close friends, River and Amani, who really warmed me up about the trust thing, we were gonna do a project together here in Texas. Kinda fell apart. Uh, they went and found a big 216-acre property in Tennessee in this beautiful valley, lush green ponds, and, um, they were managed to work with somebody to acquire the property.

[02:09:30] John Bush: The property is held in trust. Um, there's actually these other parcels on the land that are gonna become the neighborhoods. They already are neighborhoods. And we're creating sub-trusts for those neighborhoods. Oh, cool. So it's a series of trusts, and this is... The purpose of this is to give the residents...

[02:09:48] John Bush: We don't like to use the word resident. Yeah.

[02:09:50] Luke Storey: Yeah. To give

[02:09:50] John Bush: the folks- That word has a lot of implications ... yeah, to give the folks li- And we were just hanging out with the Sacred Honor Educational Fellowship guys, and Phil was like, "You know, you should really not use the word resident." Yeah. You know? So it's [02:10:00] cool to have- Or citizens

[02:10:00] John Bush: those guys, like, keep, we're all he- keeping each other accountable to try to- Yeah ... dial this in, 'cause it really is like you're unlearning. But these neighborhoods and the folks living in those neighborhoods, not residents, but the people that are living in those neighborhoods, they're gonna have greater power in this trust, greater authority within this trust.

[02:10:21] John Bush: The residents are going to choo- The people living in the neighborhood- The inhabitants. The inhabitants of that neighborhood, the neighbors in that area. The human animals living on that land. That's right. The, the free men on the land are going to become the trustees, right? And then, uh, that creates greater resilience and decentralization in the project of, as a whole.

[02:10:43] John Bush: Everybody that comes onto the property, does any of the trainings, uh, becomes a potential inhabitant of the land. Um, they also have to become a member of the PMA. And then there's a hempel structure. It's like a hemp temple, because this guy [02:11:00] River is... I like to pump him up and say he's the m- country's leading hemp architect.

[02:11:07] John Bush: Really? He's got tons of experience with architecture. He's done huge projects in Europe and Russia, worked with, like, royalty in, in, in, uh, Europe and stuff, and so he's building these hemp homes. In a lot of intentional communities and communities, they have eco homes, but they're kinda crummy. Yeah. Falling apart like a cob home slopped together.

[02:11:28] John Bush: Yeah. Yeah. And it's cool. Don't get me wrong. Wow, that's cool. But this is like- A nice luxury custom hemp home

[02:11:36] Luke Storey: Really? And

[02:11:36] John Bush: they've already built one. A second one has been built. The third one's been built. Uh, there's a, the, the third one is starting to get built. Then there's, like, a tiny hemp home that they built in Texas and brought up there.

[02:11:48] John Bush: And so we're currently seeking new members to come, and, um, for the first phase, we wanna have 40 to 50 members. That's 40 to 50 households. And the project's underway. It's all in the [02:12:00] private realm. We're being super methodical with who we bring on. There's, like, a week-long immersion process, uh, where we vet the people.

[02:12:08] John Bush: They vet us. They learn about the private model. They get their hands in the dirt. They meet the other people. They meet the existing members as well. And so it's just kinda like a culmination of a lot of failed projects, of a lot of wisdom that is coming into this. I was just with River at Confluence. We gave a talk to a packed house of 200 people in one of the little side stage areas, and everyone was just totally blown away and into it.

[02:12:32] John Bush: And I was telling River, like, "This-- I think this project is, like, this is the one, so we better not F it up," you know? Like, i- and being a part of this project has forced me to become a better version of myself and, like, take the work that we're doing very seriously, because I've been in this space for a while.

[02:12:50] John Bush: I've been in the freedom space for, what, 24 years now. 23, 24 years. I've been in the intentional community freedom space for 10 years or so, [02:13:00] and I've never seen anything that's working like this and anything that's as aligned with our values and the principles. So it's a really sweet project. It's called Haven Village.

[02:13:10] John Bush: We do these immersions. There's one coming up in June, another coming up in September, where people will have the opportunity to come, uh, to the land- Epic ... and see if it might be a good fit.

[02:13:20] Luke Storey: I love that. Yeah. That's so cool. And w- and we're gonna have a lot of show notes, folks. Again, this'll be clickable, so you just have to remember one or click on this one, lukestory.com/johnbush, 'cause you've dropped a lot of links, and people are like, "What, what was that thing?

[02:13:34] Luke Storey: The crypto thing?" So is there a link for this, uh, this community too? Yes. That we can put in there? Okay. Yep. Okay, cool. Haven

[02:13:40] John Bush: Village, or havenearthtradeschool.net- Okay, cool ... that pulls into the, into the world

[02:13:49] Luke Storey: We're living in the most advanced time in human history. So why are so many of us exhausted, wired, and barely holding it together? Back when I started this [02:14:00] podcast in 2016, I was living under two cell towers in LA, and it was a nightmare. I had insomnia, migraines, blurred vision, vertigo, nausea. My system was just maxed out.

[02:14:13] Luke Storey: It was absolutely terrible. So when I moved to Texas, I hardwired the internet, shielded our bedrooms, and did all the physical EMF mitigation you can imagine. But here's the unfortunate reality. You can't eliminate every signal unless you live in a cave, and that's what led me to Quantum Upgrade. It harmonizes the field you live in, so your body stays coherent inside all that static that you can't control.

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[02:14:57] Luke Storey: So if you wanna upgrade your whole situation right now, here's what you [02:15:00] do. Go to lukestory.com/quantumupgrade and use the code Luke15 to start your 15-day free trial. If you want your space working for you instead of against you, this is one of the smartest upgrades you can make. Again, that's lukestory.com/quantumupgrade, and that code is Luke15 to get 15 days totally free.

[02:15:22] Luke Storey: You can also find those links and codes in the show description. I mean, I love this kind of progress because, as I was, um, alluding to earlier, the prospect of going and living rurally on your own is very daunting. Oh, yeah. I think a lot of people, especially since the pandemic, are like, "I gotta get the hell out of the city."

[02:15:43] Luke Storey: That, that's what happened for me. Mm-hmm. Um, and we ended up, you know, like, not in the city, but still, this is a little more suburban than I would probably prefer. So I'm always looking at land on Zillow and stuff, and I find things and going, "Yeah, but I don't know what to do." You know? It's like, I can't do that [02:16:00] myself with just me and my wife and our dog.

[02:16:01] Luke Storey: It's like, I would need other people that were like-minded, that had the same, you know, objectives and value systems and things like that, and also, as we were talking about earlier, people with different skills that can come together- Mm-hmm ... and support one another. So that sounds really cool. Uh, on the hemp homes, have you ever heard of a Geoship?

[02:16:20] John Bush: Uh-huh.

[02:16:21] Luke Storey: Oh, man. I did a podcast out in Nevada City. Sure. As I was hanging out with Michael Joseph out there. Dude, those things are freaking awesome. Mm-hmm. I'm so excited for them. They're, they're kind of getting to the point where they have, uh, I think they have their big model home just about done now, and they're, like In the process of making them commercially available Mm-hmm

[02:16:41] Luke Storey: which is super cool. So in alignment with kind of the freedom-minded movement and the building movement, I think there's a lot of really exciting stuff coming with that, where you can build an affordable home that is healthy and eco-friendly, and to your point earlier, that also is [02:17:00] aesthetically- Yeah

[02:17:01] Luke Storey: inspiring and pleasing. You know, it's like, I look at cabins sometimes on Zillow, and I'm like, "Eh, you're gonna have to put 400 grand in that little cabin to make it, like, a vibe," right? So- Yeah ... you know what I mean? Yeah. I think that's w- you know, the sort of preference for comfort, convenience, and aesthetics are a huge barrier to entry when it comes to living in that way.

[02:17:23] Luke Storey: And just like a lot of us, like myself, have the drive to make that move, but it's just like, wow, it seems like such a gap in the reality of where I'm sitting here and how I'm used to living to being, you know, much further out. Especially when you add the off-grid element, to me, that sounds very daunting.

[02:17:40] Luke Storey: I mean, the power goes out here, and I'm, like, lost. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I did get a little generator when I was in my prepping phase, but, um- That helps ... you know, I still feel very reliant on the infrastructure. Sure. So that's super exciting to hear that, you know, you and some other people are coming together and just going, "We're building our own infrastructure and our own system."[02:18:00]

[02:18:00] John Bush: Yeah. It's, uh, it's still tied into the grid, which is good. I like that. Some people wanna be completely off grid, but that's actually an extra redundant system. Right. Uh, Jack Spirko of the Survival Podcast teaches two, two is one and one is none. So if you only have solar and your inverter- Yeah ... and that goes down- Yeah

[02:18:17] John Bush: then you're in trouble, right? I, I

[02:18:19] Luke Storey: would... I don't think I'd feel that comfortable with just one thing. Sure. Just like I don't feel that comfortable with just one thing here, so I have my little backup generator. Yeah. I don't know how much it could run, but it would at least keep some lights on in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

[02:18:32] Luke Storey: Yeah, charge the

[02:18:33] John Bush: phone.

[02:18:33] Luke Storey: Yeah, run

[02:18:34] John Bush: the sun stuff. Run a space heater if it's winter. Right. Um, yeah, so there's tons of redundant systems. There's well water, and then there's ponds. Um, and, um, there's lots of solar. There's generators. There is tied into the grid. But there's a lot of food production going on, too, and I was blown away.

[02:18:52] John Bush: I've, I've been- Talk with them, collaborating with them. They speak at our event Exit & Build all the time, and, um, Amani was always wanting [02:19:00] me up there to be like, "Come check it out. You gotta come up and see what we're doing." And I would watch from afar and see the Instagram pictures and stuff, and nothing did it justice.

[02:19:07] John Bush: Actually being there, it's like, wow, not only is this land beautiful, not only are the homes actually being built, 'cause everybody has community land aspirations, and it's like a pie in the sky vision. But putting it into practice and actually building it and bringing it into the real world is, is really where the hard work comes in.

[02:19:24] John Bush: But on top of all that, the food production systems are pretty sweet, and at these events it's like all the food is food from the land. Oh, cool. And from the pig that got slaughtered last season, and the milk that we're putting in the coffee, I drink my coffee black, but that they make homemade ice cream with the m- milk milked from the cow.

[02:19:45] John Bush: Then you go over and- That's rad ... see the cow, you know, or you volunteer with the animals. It's super special. And then to supplement, there's a Mennonite farmer's market down the road, or there's a farmer's market- Perfect ... in Chattanooga, and at both of those places, I managed to buy some [02:20:00] vegetables with silver.

[02:20:01] John Bush: Oh, no way. 'Cause I'll bring some- Cool ... just to, like, let me show people it's not that challenging. You just gotta talk to some of the vendors and see if they're willing to accept it. Sure enough, there was somebody that I'd done a podcast with in Chattanooga, 'cause there's a ton of freedom people in Chattanooga.

[02:20:14] John Bush: And I'm walking by and he's like, "John Bush." And I'm like, "Oh, what's going on?" He's like, "We did a podcast about mutual aid networks." And I was like, "Oh my God, that's right." And I was like, "Well, do you accept silver?" He's like, "Heck yeah, we accept silver. We prefer it." So I bought- That's amazing ... herb cheese with silver, and then Amani was buying a bunch of mushrooms from the guy she normally buys it from, and it was like 160 bucks worth of mushrooms for the week.

[02:20:36] John Bush: And I was like, "Well- Culinary mushrooms. Yeah, culinary mushrooms. Yeah. Not psilocybin, no. Tennes- ... Tennessee's not that into- I was like- Not that into freedom ... psilocybin mushrooms are much cheaper than that,

[02:20:46] Luke Storey: just so

[02:20:46] John Bush: you know. Ah, you're getting ripped off, bro. Yeah. Well, it's funny, the culinary ones, it was a whole mess at culinary ones.

[02:20:52] John Bush: But I was like, "Well, can we pay with silver?" And he was like, "Sil- okay, yeah, sure." And he wasn't a freedom guy by any means- Right ... but [02:21:00] everyone knows the dollar's going to heck- Yeah ... and, um, that silver's real money. Not everybody, but most people. Anyway, so we bought half. I didn't have that, I had one silver ounce left and some smaller coins, but we bought half of the, the mushrooms with silver.

[02:21:15] John Bush: So we're trying to, like, really do it and use it as not only a place for us to live, for members to live, but we're trying to show folks a working model. Yeah. And it's not just an intentional... We don't like to call it an intentional community. We like to call it, like, a development. It's in a development building phase, and then it's gonna be a neighborhood, so to speak.

[02:21:35] John Bush: Um, but not only is it resilient, food production, natural, healthy hemp homes- A lot of people don't think about the makeup of your home. We're into natural health and protecting our body- Yeah ... and terrain theory. Yeah. This is what River was saying down at Confluence, but, like, the, what terrain could be more important than the home that you live in- 100%

[02:21:56] John Bush: which has chemicals

[02:21:57] Luke Storey: and all sorts of stuff. Dude, we live in poison boxes. It's a trip. I [02:22:00] mean, leave it alone- Especially if it's like a tiny home ... just the facts that, the fact that it's a box, to me, is energetically problematic. Yeah. That's why I love the GeoShips. You walk in one of those, it's just like your nervous system melts.

[02:22:09] Luke Storey: Yeah. It's amazing. Well, I like these. You got a round aesthetic in here. I try to get as many round things in the room as possible. To counter off the corners. But there's no right angles in nature. You're right. You know? That's the thing. It's like where, where are there boxes in nature? It's- I mean, every once in a while, a crystal will grow as a kind of a square.

[02:22:24] Luke Storey: That's about it, you know?

[02:22:26] John Bush: But, so it's the health- the healthy hemp homes, the food, the resiliency, the off-grid and on-grid, great people, food production, and then it's all in the private realm. Dude. The entire project. That's amazing. Our next phase is, like, let's con- let's complete this project, and in the meantime, as we get our f- feet underneath us, let's start teaching people how to build this on- Yeah

[02:22:51] John Bush: their land or with their project.

[02:22:53] Luke Storey: Yeah, man. Because we wanna see it replicated. I mean, you have a proven model. I mean, I think that's the thing with a lot of this stuff is it sounds [02:23:00] great. How do you do it? It sounds great. Show me someone who's doing it. I mean, especially in the law space, it's like that you hear, "Oh, you can discharge your mortgage," and it's like, eh, who's done it and isn't in jail or lost their house?

[02:23:12] Luke Storey: Nothing bold. Show me that

[02:23:13] John Bush: and

[02:23:13] Luke Storey: we'll

[02:23:13] John Bush: explore it ,

[02:23:14] Luke Storey: you know? And there's

[02:23:14] John Bush: something they could take, like a credit card debt or something is one thing, and I haven't gone down that road myself. Yeah. I feel like with that stuff, it's kinda like I signed up for it. Energetically, I'm on the hook. I know it's fake, phony money that was- Yeah

[02:23:26] John Bush: created and you already, you already paid for it with your signature, right? Right. Um, but there's something there. Plus, like- Anyway, I don't... The debts- Well, so- ... that I have right now are debts with my ex-wife. She doesn't want me to dabble in that. I'm just, we're just paying them off- Yeah ... right when we sell our house.

[02:23:41] John Bush: But to do it with a mortgage or a car, if they don't like the way you're doing it- Yeah ... there's something they could take, you know? So it's definitely- Secured debt is- ... a higher level of risk.

[02:23:51] Luke Storey: Yeah, secured debt is a, is a different animal completely. Yeah. But with everything in that law space, land patents, I mean, there's a lot of things that people, I'm sure are legitimately doing [02:24:00] successfully and lawfully, but as you said, there are a lot of charlatans out there, too.

[02:24:05] Luke Storey: And also in the law space, n- no one really does it the exact same way. You know, Michael and, and his crew, you know, they kind of have their lane, and it seems really solid as far as I can tell after getting to know them- Mm-hmm ... and doing a podcast with them. But it's like it can be very overwhelming when there are so many choices.

[02:24:24] Luke Storey: It's like, who do you trust? Which path is right for you and your temperament? Mm-hmm. You know, you got, like, Brandon Joe Williams, who's been on the show, and that guy just loves arguing and fighting and litigating. You know, it's like- He does not. He's a trip. I'm like, dude, there's nothing that's more antithetical to my nervous system and the way I roll than wanting to fight and argue and go to court.

[02:24:43] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. I'm just, like, so not interested in that particular approach, you know? But point being, I love, um, that you guys are producing a viable model that could be replicated. Sure. I mean, that's what we need here is, like, show me, don't just tell me. That's so cool.

[02:24:59] John Bush: Yeah. [02:25:00]

[02:25:00] Luke Storey: Um, okay, last thing I wanted to ask you is what's your perspective on, in terms of the United States, geographically statewide, what are some of the states that you think are more friendly to this kind of operation?

[02:25:15] Luke Storey: I'm sure you chose Tennessee for a reason. Sure. Um, and also, what do you see internationally as good sort of target countries for people that are like, "I'm just actually done with the US corporation altogether"? El Salvador has been popping up in my periphery a lot lately. There seems to be a lot going on there with Bitcoin, and I don't know, just it's in kind of a, um, a renaissance it seems right now.

[02:25:40] Luke Storey: Uh, Jared over here, he's, he's actually creating a, a similar kind of intentional community in Bulgaria, I think it is, so unfortunately I'm gonna lose him in a couple months. But, you know, it seems like more and more people are branching out into different countries or different part of the United States as they leave the cities.

[02:25:57] Luke Storey: What are, what are kind of the most hopeful hotspots from your [02:26:00] perspective?

[02:26:00] John Bush: It's a great question. Um, I'm partial to the US compared to other areas, in large part 'cause we have firearms. And-

[02:26:08] Luke Storey: Yeah, that, that's something I've thought about, too. Yeah. Like, okay, cool, El Salvador, Costa Rica sounds awesome, but it's like, what happens when the tide turns there?

[02:26:18] Luke Storey: You know, whether it's crime or the government trying to get you- Mm-hmm ... and you're totally defenseless. That feels a little uncomfortable to me.

[02:26:25] John Bush: Yeah, and I know Costa Rica was super hardcore during COVID. El Salvador probably was too. El Salvador was great, um, but it also was like they cleaned up the crime, and this may be easy to say as an observer, but it was extremely authoritarian the manner in which they cleaned up the crime.

[02:26:40] John Bush: Yeah. And that authoritarianism hasn't gone away. That being said, I'm sure the citizenry is grateful, you know? Yeah. So it's, like, easy to say as a commentator, but I don't like authoritarian regimes like that, and then I guess this guy's kinda staying in power it would seem. Anyway, I like America because there's still that [02:27:00] spirit of freedom alive and well.

[02:27:02] John Bush: A- and like you said earlier, it's like i- if we wanna look for the highest good in something, we can find it. We could also be jaded about America and say none are more hopelessly e- enslaved than those who falsely believe they're free, right? Um, or we could say, I- there's still places and people in the United States of America that care deeply about freedom, and there's a whole lot of them, and they still have firearms, which ultimately is the best check and balance.

[02:27:27] John Bush: Who knows? Maybe the predator class would have had their way with us even more extreme if they didn't know at the end of the day there is that possibility of armed resistance.

[02:27:34] Luke Storey: And when you look at Canada, UK, Australia- Yeah ... it's like, that's- They got it bad during COVID. Yeah, and

[02:27:40] John Bush: now. For sure. Still, Canada's, like, nuts now.

[02:27:43] John Bush: Yeah, and it's all weird and woke, and the UK's policing people what they post online. They're actually going to jail- They're arresting people- Yeah ... for

[02:27:49] Luke Storey: posting online. I'm like- That's hardcore.

[02:27:51] John Bush: This show, we already have been arrested, like, four times for some stuff we've said. 100%. The SWAT team would've already been in here in the first 10 minutes.

[02:27:57] John Bush: That's right. That's right. Um, I'm [02:28:00] not a big hoo-rah, fight the government with guns guy by any means. That's just like you don't wanna fight anyone in court. Yeah. Like, I don't wanna go fight folks in court. I wanna, like, hang out with my kids, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And, like, go on a walk every once in a while.

[02:28:11] John Bush: I don't wanna get in, in some endless rigmarole, but at the same time, as the expression says, it's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees, and there does reach a point. I would encourage everyone, now we're getting real provocative, not just the flock cameras and the paintballs, but, uh, I would encourage everyone- You like that idea, huh?

[02:28:28] John Bush: I like that a lot. Have you ever thought of that? I like how you subtly draw... No, I had, I had thought of, like, putting, like, a big ba- like, a paper s- like, a, a potato sack over, something to where it's not actual vandalism, to where if you do get caught- Right, '

[02:28:42] Luke Storey: cause the camera will see you doing it. Yeah. And probably- There's probably other cameras watching the camera

[02:28:46] Luke Storey: you're walking up to it with your paintball gun, and it's like, ch- ch- ch- ch, you know? You do drive-by. Biometric tracking into the AI system, and five minutes later they're, you know, pulling over. See, this is the stuff that would have our CBDC

[02:28:56] John Bush: account shut off for sure. Exactly. [02:29:00] Anyway, um, I do think that people should know what that line is, the line in the sand ahead of time, and I reference Michael Badnarik, God rest his soul.

[02:29:09] John Bush: He was my fellow delegate to the continental congress of 2009, and, uh, he has this really powerful talk on YouTube, hopefully it hasn't been scrubbed, where he's like, "You know, the Jews in Nazi Germany, when they were, like, starting to get rounded up or starting to get oppressed- It, like, it, the, the, the Germans kept pushing and pushing and pushing, and it was like, "Okay, well, we'll comply with that.

[02:29:37] John Bush: We'll put the star on. We'll have our stores crushed in," you know? And then we got backed all the way, and they kept, "Well, we're drawing a line here," but then they would cross the line and step back, and you step back ultimately into a train, you know? And then you go to Auschwitz or whatever the heck's going on there.

[02:29:54] John Bush: And I don't wanna get into any conspiracies there. I'll just accept it as fact. Maybe people will roast us for that, roast us [02:30:00] on the other side. Who cares? It's still a great story and an understanding that, like, you need to have a line in the sand, and if that line gets crossed, you need to be prepared to hold that line, uh, whatever that might look like.

[02:30:13] John Bush: It could be peaceful nonviolent resistance. "I'm gonna drop to the floor, and I'm not gonna willingly be carried. I'm not gonna walk on my own fruition to jail. You're gonna have to drag my ass out of here." Or it could be, "I'm going to defend my land." Or it could be, like for me, like, and we don't have to share what these lines are, but one thing for sure is like I ain't letting any government official stick a needle in my arm and most definitely not in the arms of my children.

[02:30:36] John Bush: They're unvaccinated through and through, at childhood and COVID stuff. Like, give me a break. That's a line for me. I ain't letting that line get crossed. Anyway, something for people to be aware of, and when it comes back to the conversation of where we ought to live, the US has firearms, but within the United States, as we saw with COVID, the concept of federalism is very much alive and well.

[02:30:57] John Bush: Was a big Tenth Amendment advocate back in, [02:31:00] I don't know, 2010, 2011. We would do these conferences with the Tenth Amendment Center, and it was called Nullify Now. And so it's like the Tenth Amendment says that all the powers not expressed in the Constitution for the federal government are reserved to the states.

[02:31:14] John Bush: And, um, we were like, "This is a joke," 'cause that doesn't even matter now, 'cause the federal government does whatever it wants. But now after COVID, you can see, like, it was night and day, New York, California, even s- especially cities like San Francisco compared to Texas and Florida. Yeah. So it does make a difference what state you reside in, and that's one small thing that people could do if they're a freedom person, if they know what about the conspiracy and they want more freedom.

[02:31:42] John Bush: You can move from New York, New Jersey, uh, Vermont, California, and move... Pennsylvania, move to a place like, I like Texas What's not to love? I like Tennessee. Lot of freedom people in Tennessee. Very limited government, no state [02:32:00] income tax, super friendly with gun laws. Not friendly with cannabis, although, I mean, if it's personal use, they don't really care.

[02:32:06] John Bush: But, uh, a lot more conservative, so for folks that are more socially liberal, you know, it's a, it's different over there. I like it. It's very salt of the earth, very Christian-leaning, right? And people are still open-minded. It's not, like, judgmental, kinda. It's like, "Are you a good person? You causing troub- You're not causing trouble in our area?

[02:32:25] John Bush: Okay. Maybe we could jam together, work together," whatever. Florida's a great state, too, that really did well with, uh, with COVID. So those are my three states I like. Cool. In New Hampshire, there's the Free State Project. So if people are more libertarian and they, like, care about libertarianism as a banner, um, New Hampshire has a movement called the Free State Project, where they got 20,000 people to sign and say, "When all 20,000, when we get 20,000 signatures, we're all gonna move to New Hampshire."

[02:32:53] John Bush: Oh, I- They triggered the move, like, 10 years ago. Huh. But people already started moving up there, and a lot of them have [02:33:00] taken up seats in the state legislature, and they're dramatically rolling back the size and scope of government, and, like- Really? ... cutting taxes

[02:33:08] Luke Storey: and- So an actual successful bottom-up change.

[02:33:11] Luke Storey: Yes. Wow. Slowly but surely. That's cool. I

[02:33:13] John Bush: didn't know that.

[02:33:14] Luke Storey: And the

[02:33:14] John Bush: Democrats hate it, and they're like, "Oh, my God, they're taking over our state," and blah, blah, blah. And they, like, put out little editorials, and then the Free State Project people share it, and they're like, "This is the best advertising we could have, the, the liberals and Democrats freaking out about us lowering taxes for public schools," you know?

[02:33:32] John Bush: Like, "Move here if you're a freedom person." But I like Central Texas. I like Central Texas a lot. I like living west of Travis County Dripping Springs area, tons of great freedom people out there, or east of Travis County in Bastrop. It's a lot more fertile. It's more affordable than west. West is more beautiful, but we're trying to populate and bring as many people to Central Texas as possible.

[02:33:55] John Bush: Ideally, you avoid Austin, although go to Austin. My family's still in Austin. [02:34:00] Lots of cool stuff to do in Austin. It's beautiful. It was a great drive over here until it started storming really heavy. Then it was like I couldn't really see. It was

[02:34:06] Luke Storey: like, when you showed up, it was like midnight out. It got dark.

[02:34:08] Luke Storey: It was so weird. I'm like, "What are they doing with the chemtrails, man? It's, like, literally dark out- It was raining hard ...

[02:34:14] John Bush: and it's 2:00." Um, but I'd lo- I would love to invite people to move here to Central Texas 'cause you'll be able to tap into a variety of different freedom movements, Health Freedom Movement, Mickey Willis, JP Sears, you know, all sorts of great freedom cel- like the Freedom Cell network is very established here in Central Texas.

[02:34:31] John Bush: So for people that are feeling isolated, we'd love to have you out in Bastrop County. We're doing a dinner tonight. There's regular meetups. There's cool folks doing cool things, relatively free state, lots of economic opportunity here in Texas. And if I were to pick another country, there's a lot of cool freedom people in Mexico.

[02:34:48] John Bush: Yeah. Yeah. Mexico's advancing really fast, though, with the technocracy stuff we were talking about, which is kind of a, a surprise 'cause again, it is so rural. But I feel like it's gonna be a challenge for them to really [02:35:00] effectively implement that stuff because it is so rural and the, there's very few...

[02:35:06] John Bush: There's tons of people outside of the city already in Mexico, but there's a big expat freedom community- Mm ... scattered throughout

[02:35:13] Luke Storey: Mexico. I noticed that during COVID. A lot of people were heading down there. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of the content creators I'd notice. I'm like, "Oh, he's in Cancun," or whatever, you know?

[02:35:22] Luke Storey: A lot of people went down there. Maybe it's like a, you know, the rollout is a bit of a, a testing ground to see what they can kind of get away with in, um, in a country like that- Yeah ... that is situated in the way it is, you know? Oh, if it works in Mexico, we can roll it through other countries in Central and South America.

[02:35:40] John Bush: Yeah, and they're sharing notes globally. Right. So, so we need to share notes, too, about- Right ... resisting and about building alternatives.

[02:35:47] Luke Storey: 100%. That's what we're doing here today, brother. That's right. Sharing notes. Let's go. Uh, all right. Tell us about anything else we can put in the show notes, Live Free Academy, any...

[02:35:55] Luke Storey: I mean, you got so many online programs and events. I c- I honestly can't keep track at this [02:36:00] point. I feel like we've- ... touched on a few of them. Sure. Um, but rattle off some sites and explain what they are, what they do, and then we'll just bucket them all in the show notes so people can kinda pick their path with you 'cause it's, you're doing a lot of stuff, and I want people to be able to further interact with you.

[02:36:16] John Bush: Okay. Um- It's kind of overwhelming, all the stuff, I guess. It's overwhelming for someone watching to receive all of that, and then I'm thinking like, "Geez, it's overwhelming for me." But I wouldn't have it any other way. Like, I feel like I've been given some gifts of communication and these crazy ideas. They wouldn't come to me were it not for God, like, "You have work to do."

[02:36:36] John Bush: You know? Like, we all have work to do. We all have gifts that we were born with or that we developed over time, and if... I said this before, if w- if we know that there is, that the world is ruled by Satanic pedophiles and they have these dastardly plans, and then there's even population reduction, and they, what they did with the shot and all that stuff, and people dying, and turbo [02:37:00] cancer and stuff, it's like, if you know that and you're aware of that, we have an obligation to do something about it, and that's not voting or protesting and yelling at government buildings.

[02:37:10] John Bush: We have an ob- an obligation to step into our creative capacity as God's children made in the image of God, the Creator. That means we have a innate creative capacity, but a lot of people forgot about that or it was indoctrinated out of them. So it's time that we start building and creating and remembering how truly powerful we are.

[02:37:31] John Bush: I'm still amped up after Confluence- Amen ... right? Um- Yeah ... so yeah, if people wanna keep in, keep up with me in general, I do a daily email newsletter. Oh, my God. On some days we s- That's, that sounds- On some days

[02:37:41] Luke Storey: we send two That sounds overwhelming in and of itself.

[02:37:44] John Bush: It's a lot. It's a lot, but it allows me...

[02:37:46] John Bush: Trust me, there's tons of people that have unsubscribed, but the sto- it's all stories, and I get vulnerable and share little insights and tips. So every day you can keep up with me, and that's kind of like a top of funnel, and I can share other [02:38:00] stuff. Or you could go- Cool ... sign the PMA agreement and do the webinar with us.

[02:38:03] John Bush: Here's what Haven Village is doing, all this stuff. But, uh, yeah, livefree.academy/newsletter, livefree.academy/newsletter, and that'll get you into the daily email newsletter. We talked about The Freedom Cell network earlier. Mm-hmm. Um, we're very active on Telegram. The website, there's people on the website.

[02:38:21] John Bush: You might, may find someone in your area. You may find a old dormant cell from the COVID era and people went back to life as usual. Uh, but that's freedomcells.org, and from there you'll be able to get the links to the Telegram groups. There's a bunch of Telegram- Cool ... groups that we documented all across the world.

[02:38:39] John Bush: Liv- uh, freedomcells.org. Uh, our big event in person, Exit & Build 6 is coming up. Uh, the whole Sacred Honor Educational Fellowship guys will be there. River and Imani, my partners in the Haven Village project will be there. Uh, Mike Winter, who does Qordl, will be there. Alex Zek will be doing the opening talk- Oh, man

[02:38:58] John Bush: the opening ceremony. 'Cause

[02:38:59] Luke Storey: I [02:39:00] missed Confluence for a number of reasons. It'll definitely

[02:39:01] John Bush: have a Confluence vibe. That's, that's part of our- It'll be very hard to recreate the magic of Confluence. Well, I- It's, you definitely gotta go next year. I- It's totally worth making it a priority ... I have talked to

[02:39:09] Luke Storey: Alec about it.

[02:39:10] Luke Storey: I'm like, "Don't let me not go." Next year It's your responsibility to make me go, Alec But what you're, but what you're describing with your event, um, is much more, um, narrow in focus, you know? It's more

[02:39:23] John Bush: building. Yeah. Which is- Zach's thing is more like spiritual breathwork and radical health modalities.

[02:39:30] John Bush: Yeah. Which is great- Yeah ... and the people are amazing. Ours is like, let's get that tribe and let's push them and motivate them and teach them to start building the new earth structures that we need to make it through all this craziness.

[02:39:44] Luke Storey: And the implementation- The implementation zones ... the little

[02:39:47] John Bush: breakouts, that's dope.

[02:39:48] John Bush: I'm stoked on that. I'm excited about that. Um, so that's exitandbuild.com. Tickets are available now, exitandbuild.com. Bring the kids. There'll be like kid activities and stuff. There's also a [02:40:00] VIP ticket where we always have like a more exclusive VIP dinner, a couple other perks here and there. And then, uh, if you wanna check out Haven Village, we're currently seeking families and younger able-bodied worker types.

[02:40:15] John Bush: Mm-hmm. Um, there's, from the first wave of members, it's a lot of older, retired, uh, single women, which is fine. In fact, that's the bulk of my audience. I tend to attract older single women. I don't know what it is. They see me as their, their young grandson or whatever. I'm here to help you with your computer problem, grandma.

[02:40:35] John Bush: I don't know what it is. Love, love my older single women, by the way. They're great. Uh, and we love to hang out with them at these events, but for the point with Haven Village is, uh, there's already a good chunk of the first moving members that are a bit older. They're... And we want this to be something that lasts generations.

[02:40:51] John Bush: Yeah. And the next generation picks up the work and continues it on well past our lifetimes, not only this property, [02:41:00] but the other ones that are using the same model. So we're looking for families, ideally parents with young kids. Teen kids is fine. Younger kids is great, too. And then like folks that can come and really get their hands dirty and put in some, uh, some labor into the gardens, into helping build the hemp homes and stuff.

[02:41:19] John Bush: That's what we're seeking now. Then go to havenearthtradeschool.net, and there should be a link there to check out these immersions that we have coming up. That's our five-day vetting process. Um, and there's only two left, and there's not a whole lot of membership spots, so we're gonna be conducting interviews and being very choosy with who we bring into those immersions, and even more choosy with who we ultimately offer an invitation to become a member.

[02:41:44] John Bush: We're trying to be super conscious with, with how we architect it because in my experience, River and Amani's experience in both business and community organizing and, and, and communities and development and all sorts of stuff, we've been around, us [02:42:00] three, decades and decades of experience amongst us. I don't know Maybe like 50 years of experience in this world amongst the three of us.

[02:42:08] John Bush: We've seen what goes wrong. Yeah. And we're trying to be very intentional with how we go about this project, which could be kinda jarring for some people, but we're trying to really steward it with integrity and, and, and have it work. 'Cause these things never seem to work, and I think we have the right pieces and the right people and the right purpose, three Ps, in place for this to be something that could really be emulated.

[02:42:37] Luke Storey: Awesome, man. Yeah. Well, I'm stoked. I'm excited to meet you, and I've seen you in the periphery and kind of known about you through Alec and things like that. Yeah. But I'm, I'm glad to hear it from the horse's mouth. And as I said a couple times earlier, man, it's just exciting to meet people that are not only identifying what some of the problems are, but are really helping people get out of victimhood and into actual sovereign [02:43:00] living in all the ways.

[02:43:01] Luke Storey: So thank you for that. Last question for you is this, my friend: Who have been three teachers or teachings, philosophies, books, people, anything you can think of that have contributed to who you are today and the work you do?

[02:43:12] John Bush: Okay. Uh, I'm gonna... I'll save the best for last. So, uh, I'll say Tony Robbins. He was the very first success philosopher s- that I got into.

[02:43:28] John Bush: Uh, must have been 2014 or 2013, 2014, 2015, when I started thinking about that, and just the whole mindset piece and mastering your mind, persistence, pushing through. He's still at it, of course, uh, doing a lot of training people how to do online courses and pursue their purpose. He's got a AI thing now. I think I signed up for it, and then I checked out the trial, and I was like, "I better cancel that," but I just wanna see what it's like, and I just got charged a couple days ago Oh, yeah.

[02:43:53] John Bush: So whatever he's doing, he's collecting money from it. Um- Yeah ... but Tony Robbins was the first. He's great, too, and if, if anybody's ever [02:44:00] struggling, like, Tony's a great place to start. And then Grant Cardone He's controversial. People are always like, "He's a Scientologist." It's like, yeah, that, he may be a Scientologist and whatever's going on there.

[02:44:10] John Bush: It's not even necessarily the, the most worst thing that someone could be, but he is somebody that helped, literally helped me to lift myself and my family out of, like, borderline poverty levels and get my mindset right about, uh, behind what it really takes in order to be financially successful. And I still have a long ways to go, and I'm still dialing in my financial life, but when it comes to my business, like, my company produces great revenue.

[02:44:37] John Bush: And at one point, I had a team of, like, two dozen people, so it feels really good to put people to work doing meaningful stuff, and I wouldn't been able to do that with- were it not for the mindset practices of Grant and the 10X thing, going to his courses, going to see him in Miami, going to the 10X Growth Conference, and then the whole sales and marketing stuff.

[02:44:58] John Bush: The sales stuff especially. [02:45:00] Sales is everything. So Grant really played a big role. But then I th- got so 10X that I think this, that was... I started neglecting my relationships because I was so, "Gotta go big," and built this, the company grew and grew. I started getting overwhelmed and overloaded and out of control, and then started controlling the closest people around me, my wife among them, and led to some issues in my relationship.

[02:45:24] John Bush: So there's a place for the 10X hardcore all-in thing if you're struggling, but eventually, you gotta start refining that and building a company that runs itself so you're not constantly working in the company, you're working on the company. Yeah. And you become a true leader/visionary, not wearing all the hats all the time, which again, is something I'm still dialing in.

[02:45:48] John Bush: And the third and greatest teacher of my entire life has been Jesus Christ. Um, I've been deepening my relationship with Christ for about four years now, [02:46:00] and especially with my mom dealing with cancer and, uh, seeing how much faith she had through it all and how m- uh, much of a rock she was and still showed up for my family even though, you know, she would get some pretty rough reports from the doctors.

[02:46:17] John Bush: It's, it's managed now. It's not an emergency, thank God. But to see how she persevered through that process, just trusting God, that was, like, a huge eye-opener for me. And then seeing all these successful people that are healthy, vibrant, and they attribute their success to Christ, like at Russell Brunson's 10X...

[02:46:36] John Bush: or Russell Brunson's Funnel Hacking Live I would go to. He's Christian. He had all these Christians talking about success, and wouldn't have been able to do it without God. I'm like, "Huh, maybe there's something to it." And I went to church with my mom. It's a Catholic church. Hadn't been in forever. And, uh- remember thinking like, "Wow, all these people sitting up and standing down, sitting, sitting up, standing up, sitting down, sitting up, standing down."

[02:46:57] John Bush: I used to think it was like a mind control ritual, but I [02:47:00] came at a d- came at it this time with a different mindset, and I was like, "There's really some reverence here, and this is the same mass that I used to come to as a kid." Then they had an African bishop whose people were getting persecuted in Africa by Muslims.

[02:47:13] John Bush: He came and led mass, and I was like, "This is the same mass they're doing in Africa." And then I was like, "It's the same mass they've been doing for over 1,000 years." And then I was looking at it like, "What is it about this Jesus Christ story that stuck with so many people?" Then I was like, "I'm just gonna go start reading scripture all the time."

[02:47:31] John Bush: Started reading scripture, and then my whole world fell apart in 2025. My friend, business partner left, community fell apart. I got sued. My son was going through this really deep emotional upheaval. Everything was falling apart, but through it all, I was like, "What is God trying to teach me? How did I bring all this into my world, and what lessons does God have for me now?

[02:47:54] John Bush: 'Cause I know I have work to do." And I was able to navigate a lot of adversity and come out stronger on the [02:48:00] other side. And then when I finally stepped away from this Christ consciousness phenomenon that kind of puts us on an equal footing with God or holds that we are God, we just need to tap into this Christ consciousness, which I think is a arrogant thing because in 2025, I realized I don't know shit.

[02:48:17] John Bush: I thought I had everything figured out. I've been in the freedom game for 24 years, and I started a great company, and I was-- I'm older than people around me. I got it all figured out. No, I don't know shit. So I just was humbled, and I finally submitted and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, which I resisted before out of an egoic kind of libertarian thing.

[02:48:36] John Bush: Like, "He's not my Lord. What does it mean to have a Lord?" When I did that and went deep, got out of my head and into my heart, and fully accepted Jesus into my life, it was a radical transformation for me. Wow. I f- I was able to forgive myself. I was able to really step more into a place of service and recognize that even though I give and give and give, a lot of it was coming from a place of selfishness, not true, genuine [02:49:00] service.

[02:49:00] John Bush: And it was this radical transformation. Then me and my daughter got baptized, and, uh, by far, among any other teacher, it's been Jesus Christ. So, uh, I was gonna say I'm not p- preaching, but I am preaching. If people are struggling in life, and they're, like, feeling lost, and they haven't yet tried having a relationship with Christ, it doesn't mean church.

[02:49:23] John Bush: It doesn't mean shame. It doesn't mean mind control, or it doesn't mean whatever experience you may have had as a child or whatever your parents tried to force you into. It's just connect with God through your heart. Give it a try. I promise it'll pay massive dividends. So that's something that I mix into my work now because- Beautiful

[02:49:43] John Bush: it's bore massive fruit for me.

[02:49:44] Luke Storey: I love it, man. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that and having the courage to. I know sometimes, um- People are really into spirituality, but if, if you're viewed as someone who's religious, somehow people often have a hard time with that, you know? Sure. Me personally, I [02:50:00] wouldn't consider myself, like, a Christian per se, but, uh, what's telling to me is that all of the anti-human, anti-love, anti-life beings out there that have seemed to gain control of the world, they all hate Jesus a lot.

[02:50:20] Luke Storey: So to me, that's like, "Hmm, I should probably lean into that." I mean, a couple... I've talked about it before, a couple years ago, I bought a Bible, 'cause I was just like, "If all the people that are against me are against Jesus, I think I need to be with Jesus." With Jesus, yeah. So, you know, I haven't taken it really far, but, um, those underlying principles, biblical principles, have changed my life for sure.

[02:50:40] Luke Storey: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing, dude. Great to meet you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you. I feel, I feel like I've met an, a, a, a great ally here, as have the listeners, so I really appreciate you coming and taking the time today.

[02:50:51] John Bush: Right on. Thanks for everything you do. Really appreciate your grounded approach, and just, you've shared a lot of great stories and, and had a lot of cool people on, and [02:51:00] thanks for welcoming me to your home.

[02:51:06] Luke Storey: Big thanks, you guys, for hanging with me on this week's episode and making me part of your journey. Now, before we wrap up, let me tell you about a project I've just leveled up. After years of neglect, my YouTube channel just got a makeover, and if you haven't checked it out lately, you are missing out.

[02:51:23] Luke Storey: Every new podcast episode now comes with a trailer, so you can sample the vibe before diving into the full show. And with a library of 600-plus episodes to explore, you'll always find a conversation that hits home. And there's another cool part. YouTube is also a place where you get your questions answered from me directly, so drop a comment, and if your question's a good one, I'll do my best to answer it.

[02:51:45] Luke Storey: So if you wanna get in the mix, head over to youtube.com/lukestory and make your voice heard. Whether you want a quick hit from the trailers, binge through the years of archived wisdom, or to join the conversation yourself, [02:52:00] youtube.com/lukestory is where it all

[02:52:01] happens.

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