Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
Justice w/ Jax crossover part 1
Freedom, surveillance, and veterans' unique perspective on democracy collide in this riveting crossover episode featuring hosts from Left Face and Justice with Jax. When progressive activist Jax Armendiaz had their entire digital life confiscated by police following a housing justice protest—despite never being convicted of any crime—it exposed the dangerous erosion of Fourth Amendment protections happening right in our backyard.
The conversation takes an unexpected turn when Dick Wilkinson, a retired Army veteran and podcast co-host, reveals his background as an NSA surveillance professional. His insider perspective illuminates the stark contrast between federal intelligence agencies' strict protocols regarding Americans' privacy and the seemingly unlimited reach local police sought through search warrants targeting activists. This firsthand knowledge adds critical context to Jax's ongoing ACLU lawsuit against the City of Colorado Springs, now approaching 690 days in litigation.
What emerges is a troubling pattern: military-heavy communities like Colorado Springs, where veterans comprise 15% of the population, often become testing grounds for surveillance tactics and civil liberties infringements. The hosts explain how military culture discourages political participation during active service, creating patterns of disengagement that continue into civilian life and leave these communities vulnerable to governmental overreach.
Against the backdrop of recent political assassinations and heightened tensions nationwide, this conversation couldn't be more timely. The hosts grapple with how fear functions as a tool to suppress political engagement while emphasizing the vital importance of pushing through that fear to protect democracy. For veterans, military families, and civilians alike, this episode offers crucial insight into how surveillance and constitutional rights intersect in our increasingly digital world.
Ready to hear veterans speak truth about surveillance, democracy, and political engagement? Subscribe now and join the conversation about protecting our constitutional rights in military communities and beyond.
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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Left Face. I am your co-host, adam Gillard. Not with me today is my co-host, dick Wilkinson. We were able to cut an episode of Justice with Jax with Jax Armadillas a couple weeks ago, and we will bring you the first part of that interview right now.
Speaker 2:Good afternoon everybody. This is Justice with Jax, season 3, episode 4. Once again, we have a phenomenal human being for you, and once again I'm here to remind you today is Friday, june 20th 2025, and that's one year, 10 months, 20 days or 690 days that the case Advent, that is, versus City of Colorado Springs was filed and represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. So I'm back with another episode to share some of what that journey is looking like and where we're at right now. But first I want to pass the mic to my wonderful guest today and let them introduce themselves.
Speaker 3:Hi, jax. Thanks for inviting me over here. My name is Adam Gillard, I am the chair of the El Paso County Progressive Veterans, and joining us also is my co-host on the left face, dick Wilkinson. We're going to set him up real quick here. Like always, dick likes to show up a couple minutes late.
Speaker 4:He's the talent. I have everything ready for me when I get there. Yeah, I try. I'm sorry I don't have your order.
Speaker 1:I've got one over here for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my name is Adam Gillard. I run the Progressive Veterans. We do a lot of community activities around town, helping out just wherever we can People reach out and we help. Got involved with 5051, doing a lot of the planning for protests and stuff downtown.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that important work.
Speaker 3:It's a lot of fun. Last weekend was such a good vibe downtown for having 10,000 to 12,000 people.
Speaker 2:Seriously yeah.
Speaker 3:There was one small incident but everybody like was just happy to be there, that you know they were, you know dancing and happy just to be out doing something so joy is resistance.
Speaker 2:We talk about that on this show.
Speaker 3:So yeah, not giving into like the. The violent rhetoric is huge. You know you don't give them those wins by being a peaceful movement, um, so yeah, yeah, it's been a whole lot of fun, a lot of great learning opportunities, meeting tons of great people. And then, yeah, me and Dick do Left Face, giving a veteran's political perspective on what's going on in the world and kind of bringing it back to the local scene here.
Speaker 2:Well done. Well, do you want to take a beat to introduce yourself as well, Dick?
Speaker 4:Sure, absolutely. Thanks for inviting us over to be guests on the show and do a crossover episode. My name is Dick Wilkinson and I'm retired from the Army after 20 years. I retired back in 2019. And as soon as I retired, that was my opportunity to get into politics. I ran for state Senate down in New Mexico, where I was stationed at the time when I retired and had been in the community for about five years when I separated. So I decided that was going to be my long-term home for a while, so that would be where I did politics, ran that race for a few months, backed out of it. Didn't run it to the end, but that led me into a lot more engagement with the Veterans Caucus in New Mexico and that really opened my eyes to how you can make traction happen at the state level and how that can still have real, genuine impact on military members and their families. So that's something I've been passionate about over the last few years and it's really my focus for political work.
Speaker 2:Glad to hear that it sounds like. Another thing we talk about on this show is community building and there's lots of layers to that and there's lots of layers to that and there's lots of ways to do that. And it is super cool for this to be the first time I get to collab with another force doing the good work here in El Paso County by really bringing out local voices, local perspectives and keeping it actually really relevant to current events so people stay knowledgeable it actually really relevant to current events.
Speaker 3:So people stay knowledgeable. Yeah, yeah, you know, especially, you know, when we have such should be national level huge topics, like you know, the folks that got, you know, kidnapped and that are still missing and our government officials are silent on, like we talk about it pretty much every week. You know we try to keep them, you know, in the cycle because it is absolutely tragic and horrific that it's already passed those 80 plus people just gone.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and their family members are the only ones that understand the impact and, as we've talked about on our show, they're also some of the least well positioned to do anything about that impact. And so the you forget about the people who are missing, you forget about their family members that are impacted by that because the origin is Colorado Springs.
Speaker 2:Right. And so that's the case where the ACLU is representing myself and the Chinook Center, who you all may have heard of, because they're another organizing force for progressives here in Colorado Springs as a nonprofit. They're another organizing force for progressives here in Colorado Springs as a nonprofit, and so we're still waiting for an opinion from the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. So hurry up and wait, as my friends from the military understand.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, For sure yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a prominent feeling and this was like a violation of the search or the arguments are really uh some first amendment grounds, but prominently focused on the fourth amendment, which is the right to privacy. Right and so what? Uh, the key, like peace, people should take away from that is there are really, really dangerous warrants that the police filed when they accused me of a crime of which I was never convicted, and these warrants that the police filed when they accused me of a crime of which I was never convicted.
Speaker 2:And these warrants are so egregious that, were they allowed to stand as part of our law, we really would be endangering democracy and that right that we have to privacy the fourth in the Bill of Rights and, like I said, it's connected to the First Amendment as well, because when I was accused, arrested and then investigated where they took all of my electronic devices with search warrants, we were in the midst of a housing justice protest and so it was the protest activity it was the story, and this was during the big BLM movement too, right? Actually, it was the summer after that.
Speaker 3:Summer after okay.
Speaker 2:It was August 2021. So we're coming up on a few years here now, and so that's why one of the big things because it involves the first amendment for me it was like okay, well, I'm going to talk about this because clearly they're trying to oppress and make you be quiet, Right. And what I've been dealing with lately is I really don't enjoy at all how the case is a foreshadowing of what has been going on, Right.
Speaker 3:So, as you're talking, I was thinking about just how they use this area as a test bed to do things like this, like raid a nightclub and steal people illegally wiretap folks. You know illegally wiretapped folks, because the general population here is so pro. You know police force and everything that they're blind to like. You know you need some restrictions and things like that Some balance.
Speaker 2:We're going to talk about that dynamic for sure, because it's something, like you said, I think is a part of the reputation of where we live right, el Paso County, colorado.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a test bed for folks to run these things to see what they can get away with really.
Speaker 2:And just like you did, because we're going to talk about the case you filed. But for better or for worse, we could dive in on another episode but for better or for worse-.
Speaker 3:I think we're up to like six episodes that we got to record now. That's right, because, for better or for worse, it takes. I think we're up to like six episodes that we got to record now. That's right, because there's so many rabbit holes you can go down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just keep diving. I love it, but you, in our democracy, identify that there's, unfortunately, like an onus on the individual right to keep the government accountable at certain points and so that's really what this case is about. That's really what this case is about. And we have people who are organizations, who joined us on what is a growing surveillance state right, which now we're hearing about even more, when we have law enforcement at the federal level straight up abducting people, and so I'm so glad I'm oblivious to social media I've dialed it down substantially.
Speaker 2:I'm off almost everything.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I am as well and I yeah, I, I appreciate it. I agree, I got off of facebook, uh, man, like four years ago, and talk about not looking back election day 2024, uh after.
Speaker 2:well, the day after, that's when I was like, nope, I'm good. Facebook, and that's the interesting part, and adam, when I were talking about this a little bit, is just all these platforms that are out there and there are people who are stepping up, both trying to keep the government accountable, doing what we're doing, bringing voice to a lot of issues in our community, and so at this point, I think, with our case, we are hoping that the context of the times just really underscores how important the aclu's arguments are in this case, and so there's just been so much going on and I did want to take a beat.
Speaker 2:you know the spectrum of the what I often call the chaos era. Right is that we've been sold to recent political assassinations and I wanted to make sure to say their names right which which, melissa and Mark Hortman, were assassinated in the state of Minnesota because Melissa was a state legislator and state Senator. John Hoffman and his wife, yvette, were also shot and are in recovery, and so, mm, hmm, it is a lot to process these days, but we can't not talk about it right, right, and I mean that news came out right before we started our big protest.
Speaker 2:The no kings yeah.
Speaker 3:And so you know, talking to the marshals beforehand, you know everybody's worried. You know you never know when the next one's going to be, and we saw it in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 4:In my mind it put a real weird tone on like safety around the whole day yeah. And not because I was personally like expecting to participate in anything, but just nationwide. I was like man talk about unease and like opportunity for copycat situations or you know, just just confusion causes opportunity.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and that was what. I felt on Saturdayurday morning was like oh, this is a chance for other people to do things inside this confusion right and thankfully, this is why we have to do it, though right, and I respect people who have the fear and push through it, and I would never diminish someone um their opinion is, you know, it's better for me to stay at home right like to each their own.
Speaker 4:If you feel that gunned down politician that might make you want to stay home that day, I understand that.
Speaker 2:100 and that's the point, right, and I also another is the point another. The fear is the point, the chaos is the point. Another layer to it that I would love for you all to chime in on is that you know, especially with a veteran's perspective, this commander in chief is really using incredibly terrible ways as a form of distraction for their number of failures on, you know, a substantial, substantive, like policy work that's the other topic we talk about every week. And the feint right. How are they showing us?
Speaker 3:one hand but punching with the other. We talk about that every week and it's always projecting something.
Speaker 2:And LA paid the price. Who else is going to pay the price?
Speaker 3:And I guess the appeals court just gave Trump back control of the National Guard With restrictions right.
Speaker 4:I know the courts are going back and forth real hard on this, one every few days.
Speaker 2:I figured it will make the Supreme Court eventually.
Speaker 4:I read the headline this morning that said controls back. You know like basically he can do what he wants, but I didn't get to read about the restrictions because it was just like on screen, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it's still horrific when. Any amount of yeah, you still have like the 700 active duty marines or 700, was that the number that are there waiting. And marines are good at their job and their job is to shut their humanity off and get control of the situation.
Speaker 2:So you could understand why people will be scared absolutely yeah, so like just having them there they're.
Speaker 3:Those are dogs waiting to attack right now. It's an escalation yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:A show of force against our people, citizens, our citizens, other Americans, which is horrifying, I know folks that are there too, and it's such a small area of what's going on there also.
Speaker 3:I always like to mention that it's such a small area. It's like one little corner intersection where you know they ordered.
Speaker 2:Like about two blocks?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they ordered like cars to come up. You know, they did the driverless car order like an Uber type thing, so the driverless cars pulled up and then that's when they lit them on fire, took their pictures and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:In this media environment, all it takes is one photo, one GIF, and the way that it spreads like a virus, right?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And there's so many complicated layers to it. Because the political assassinations? The guy disguised himself as police officer.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Way to set that off right and he went to different homes too. He had a huge list right, and then there's always going to be people criticizing the way law enforcement handled it too.
Speaker 2:Right. And so then we're seeing all these political, democratic political officials being accused of assault and arrested and stuff my house that they accused me for second degree felony, attempted aggravated assault, because one of them charged the crowd right and I dropped my bike like what the hell? You coming for me? And um, because it landed next to him, they were able to accuse me that I had like lifted it up and thrown it and tried to um assault him, which was never the case yeah, and so thankfully, I was ultimately never convicted of a crime, but that gave them the impetus to confiscate all my electronic devices.
Speaker 2:Leave me in a total blackout because that's what happens in today's world, when you don't have devices and leave me with the very direct message of sit down, shut up little girl, you be quiet.
Speaker 3:shame on you this thing is happening, what you're afraid of. It's happening when I give you your phone back. On you yeah, yeah, um, this thing is happening, what you're afraid of it's happening when I give you your phone back. You say thank you, yeah, so I gotta I have to offer this detail because it's relevant.
Speaker 4:I worked for the nsa for my entire career oh wow, yeah, I'm a surveillance guy let's talk about it.
Speaker 2:That's what this conversation is about.
Speaker 3:He's like. I'm well aware of what you're talking about. Like Sam, is that you?
Speaker 2:I call my FBI agent Sam, or that's the joke on the internet, right, yeah, yeah, who's watching Gotcha?
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, I just wanted to offer it. You know, because I don't find myself in these arguments anymore. I guess maybe I was cared about it more when I had the uniform on.
Speaker 4:I don't know, sure, or people aren't as tuned in on the topic as much anymore either, but I get into a position of what I'm sure is staunch defense, but it's defense based on my firsthand knowledge that the federal government, specifically, and then the intelligence community Let me get even more specific, not talking about the FBI. Fbi is a member of the intelligence community, but it's man. They don't walk or talk like a duck.
Speaker 2:And that's domestic right. Right, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4:Everyone else. If there's 18 members, 17 of them are externally focused.
Speaker 2:And then one of them can do stuff on the inside.
Speaker 4:So you, know who we don't really play nice with. On the 17 others the FBI. Because they have a totally different set of rules a totally different title authority and perspective too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, when I see a nail, I know what hammer to hit it with. They don't see the same nail or use the same hammer, and so there's a lot of um, wait, wait, wait. Why is the FBI asking about this Right? Like that would be the initial response of like this is foreign intelligence. Why do they care about this Right? That's my first thing. Is, if I saw the FBI named in some list of emails or some you know distribution list, I'd say I don't produce things that they can consume. Why are they in this list?
Speaker 4:Right, and that's me defending, saying even that, far back, people like me, which is tens of thousands of people that are doing this type of surveillance, know hey, I know what my boundaries are, I know what my right and left limits are, and I know what US citizens are and what they're not.
Speaker 4:And not only do I know it, I have to prove that I know it every single year to maintain my clearance, that I understand the difference between an American citizen, an American organization or US entity and whatever is everything else. I know the difference and if I get information that crosses that line in either direction, I know exactly how to handle that Right, how to legally disclose that there was an accidental collection, how to destroy it, how to report that information got into the wrong database. Like hey, this is only supposed to have foreign stuff. But I see some you know 719 phone numbers, whoa huge red flag. I push the button and then I throw my hands up and say stop, something bad happened. I'm just one of 10,000 people that know how to do that, and so we understood the limits and the laws very carefully from a signals, intelligence, surveillance and using that equipment perspective, and we had the genuine fear of God in us that you do it wrong.
Speaker 4:Somebody will know. There's oversight on oversight and even if you think you've turned this on and you've done your little sneaky stuff and then you turned it off and you're being shady now someone knows.
Speaker 2:That's fascinating and you might appreciate this. That insight is so valuable because, um one of the arguments, of course there's, you know, a whole set that the aclu is making, but one of them is that the fbi has been saying they want to keep the entire digital fingerprint of my life that they confiscated because they took all my electronics right, even my, my hard drive with emo music from high school. Yes, they found every single one that they could and made a copy. And so now they're saying the ACLU is arguing that I was never convicted of a crime, so why are you retaining?
Speaker 3:that you need to destroy that or return that. Yeah, return it, because I have like 10 laptops from my lifetime that I need to pull stuff off of If. I get the FBI to do that for me, then give it to me on a thumb drive.
Speaker 4:That's some taxpayer use of funds. That is a positive.
Speaker 2:That's hilarious.
Speaker 3:I'm with you on that.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a good point. Maybe I can. I'll jot that down. That's why I was really. Oh, come on, if you identify right, it's progressive veterans, because that's one of your links, right?
Speaker 2:yeah it's like so don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think that's amazing because that's a viewpoint for residents here. Where are? We have five different military installations in this county, so that's going to be a relevant viewpoint to our community. So I think could you tell people a little bit about you know the origin story of the when and how Left Face came about.
Speaker 3:So I ended up getting into nonprofit work and taking over Progressive Vets in like 23, I think. And shortly after, I think, you came in and we kind of met and just talked and kind of went separate ways. And then I kind of stumbled around, did some other things with the progressive vets. You know, had a campaign for cd5 there. Um had to put the podcast kind of on hold during that time. Just you know how much time it takes to do these things I do.
Speaker 2:Technically, I'm doing the opposite for now right being running a campaign and a podcast?
Speaker 3:yeah, it's crazy how easy it is to do it. But but it is time consuming especially when you're learning.
Speaker 3:So like I had to put it all kind of on the side while I did the campaigning and you know we did a lot as the progressive vets during the campaign to get you know signs out and have events around town and you know, lobby for the cannabis initiatives that we were a part of and things like that. So my old podcast just kind of fell off and I needed to get it going again for the group and keep the community educated. But I didn't want to do one where it's just like an infomercial for somebody. I loved having guests on and talking about what they were doing in their books and things like that. But at the end of the day I really want to just educate our community. And kind of randomly Dick reached out and we started talking again and I'm pretty progressive. I've hugged at least three trees today.
Speaker 4:Today so far.
Speaker 1:He's not done. He's not done.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm not done.
Speaker 3:So I'm a pretty progressive guy and and uh dick does a good job of kind of putting a different perspective on myself, because I don't like being in my own echo chamber either and just kind of hearing my own opinion same, you know.
Speaker 3:So he kind of gives me a different perspective on things, um, being more of a more of like a polis democrat, you know, libertarian, um, you know still very much. You know capitalist free market but cares about people, you know. So, uh, uh, yeah, but when you reached out we started doing it and it's, you know, we've been kind of rocking and rolling with it since then yeah, um.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I met adam when he was running his campaign and, um, I felt, the first time I met him I said man, why are you running against this like stalwart forever? Republican man.
Speaker 3:Like I feel bad that.
Speaker 4:You know, I was like oh, that sounds terrible, you know. And then I walked away from that meeting and I was like, I just like pissed on his shoes and I feel bad. It's a wind out of his sails.
Speaker 2:Candidates are used to that, I think.
Speaker 4:We're not close enough for me to go this is a terrible idea. But I was like why are you?
Speaker 3:doing that. I felt so pretty and he's just an ugly son of a bitch.
Speaker 4:And so then after that, I was like I need to stay in touch with him, Not just because I want to apologize, but because, actually, because I thought about it more and I said you know what I actually want to? I want to stick close to somebody who says I don't care if he's got 10 terms under his belt, I'm going to take her on it anyway, because my ideas are so different than his that I want people to hear my ideas, and if they like them, then we got something to work with. And I said you know what? That that's my same mode as far as politics goes, and so I want to work on whatever Adam's working on. So here we are.
Speaker 2:That's great. I can appreciate that We've talked about that on this show too is that there is a value again in raising the information, raising your voice, communicating with people, because when you're campaigning, I think if you're doing it the right way, you're community building as well. And you're connecting right.
Speaker 4:That's how your show came about and the goodness of any kind of grassroots movement comes in one getting your candidate elected. But then too, we like the network of people that gets, I'll say, left behind, if you will, right From that grassroots effort. So you used, you know, you get groups like, I'm sure, indivisible, and 50 51 are both groups that if you look back far enough in their history it was some other candidate's program or a nonprofit that was investing in a candidate and promoting them, and then it caught fire and turned into something else.
Speaker 4:So most of the really impactful social programs oftentimes are started from those type of like. We got it like you say, community rally, and then if the momentum's there, and then the effort stays right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one thing that I've really appreciated, coming, you know, from active duty or I was a reservist on AGR order, so I was active duty but coming from that community and back into like civilian life is how all this stuff has always been going on.
Speaker 3:And people like in the community are so dedicated and put so much time and effort and just themselves into building these things. Now that I'm able to kind of be a part of that, it's just wild to me to be surrounded by people who kind of think like me and just want to hug trees sometimes.
Speaker 4:You know I agree completely on the whole, as we are legally bound to not participate in politics that we knew what it was. We knew what the impact was, we understood how it impacted our own lives. But it's like I grew up watching the Dallas Cowboys. It's like when I joined the Army. If they said you can never watch a Cowboys game again until you retire, you can't go to the stadium, you can't watch the TV, you just know football exists.
Speaker 4:And 20 years from now, you get to watch a Cowboys game and then you'll find out all about the players and all the games they won and lost. And you'll get the whole download and you'll find out about all of it. But that's 20 years from now. Between now and then, don't worry about football.
Speaker 3:It doesn't exist. And our ballots. My ballot my local information was for Arizona because there was no taxes right, so I was voting for.
Speaker 4:Mark Kelly so.
Speaker 3:I didn't care about this area at all.
Speaker 4:Same.
Speaker 3:So you just don't get involved with local stuff, really, yeah.
Speaker 4:It's a discourager. It's attractive yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's just. I mean unfortunate.
Speaker 4:Which is now that I was talking about wanting to do veterans initiatives, as I now can watch the Cowboys again, right.
Speaker 2:I want to play the game.
Speaker 4:right, I want to wear the shirt and I want to tell people about it, right. But I also want to be able to go get these military family members, especially maybe not the active duty person themselves, but the family members. I want them to not fall into that trap of well, I don't live in this County, like really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause it's going to affect you, you're here this county.
Speaker 3:Like really yeah, because it's gonna affect you three years. Your kids are here in school, aren't they? Yeah right, you know, yeah, yeah, if you register to vote here, you could run for are you gonna buy a house here? You could run for school board and help your kids any of those things right.
Speaker 4:So, whether they're you know just any level of engagement, or even just thinking about voting, or blow your mind, register to vote where you live.
Speaker 3:That's crazy so you don't have to register to vote back from every time, every time I talk to a representative and democrats aren't a fan of handing back, you know tax money, but I I harp on that like we need to get rid of that state income tax for active duty folks because especially in this area where we got so much air force, space force, they're a lot more progressive than the army folks. So I think it would be a net positive like at the voting station for if they did that we would lose some tax revenue. But I don't think a whole lot in the bigger picture. But yeah, I try to push that every time.
Speaker 2:That's a good point, because there are so many nuances to active duty military life that people don't even know about, because the military itself is what percentage of our country?
Speaker 4:It's usually less than 1%, less than 1 percent and one percent, and that part seven percent is veterans.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, right. And so I thankfully got a unique perspective myself, um, being in senator michael bennett's office and being the military and veterans constituent advocate for a while, and so that was fascinating to me because, like you said, adam, I would observe differences among, maybe, the branches, and this, you know, what I would say is something I really respect this commitment to being I guess, objective is the word to not engaging because, like you said, they know the commitment they made right, and yet you know there are some instances where you're active duty and you may need to Right, helped us every time like the staffers the staffers that work in the offices, especially when we bring military issues um, they always bend over backwards to help us out.
Speaker 3:It was usually pay issues and things like that, um, and it's amazing how you know a phone call from you know a congressional office that blew my mind witnessing that. Yeah, yeah, it's like on the caller id, and like it just starts flowing, like everybody starts flowing no sense, and all I had to do was write it just like that.
Speaker 2:You're asking her to prove a negative on the senator's letterhead and within a 24 hour period. I think even she was back on track and that was both chilling but also reaffirming in that, ok, like who you elect matters because they're supposed to serve you and that includes constituent services casework especially the federal level.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that should be a huge, huge thing for anybody that's front for office years. Always talk about you know casework management, because you're going to have a lot of constituents. So, like you know, seven percent we say are veterans, but here in our community it's 15 there you go so like we're even high for the state of colorado, because you know, colorado because, you know, colorado kind of falls along the national average.
Speaker 3:But yeah, yeah, we have a huge, huge contingency here that uh should have a lot more input into this community because you're a quarter of the community there's that mental vacuum of like I don't do politics so I mean me and adam are.
Speaker 4:I'm not because we're democrats or progressive or anything, but we're the exception as far as veterans that find the chance to. You know, watch Cowboys again and they say man, I haven't watched them in 20 years. I don't know who any of the team members are.
Speaker 2:I'm not that interested.
Speaker 4:I don't care, I got my farm I got the house that I wanted to buy out in the mountains and like I'm far enough away that the last thing I care about is who's in office, Right yeah. And that's pervasive here.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so you have people who move here and don't feel ownership over the community. You have people who stay here and aren't interested in politics, but yet they're impacted by all of these things and it's a higher percentage of that kind of I don't want to say checked out, but in encouraged to not participate, almost right.
Speaker 4:For a variety of cultural reasons, but there's a big piece of that population here, so it's a. It's a for folks like me and Adam it's. It makes our work harder because we got to motivate more people to pay attention and say this impacts you, and then the mentality is like no, like I'm from Tennessee, but you're going to live here for 10 years.
Speaker 4:You know, like after you retire, you're gonna be here for a long time and they're like, yeah, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna go back to the home town, you know, and so they just checked out, and so it's hard and not in a bad way, that's fine, I was the same, but uh, now I want to grab people by their uniform collar and go.
Speaker 1:We need you, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we need y'all yeah, uh, everybody on deck absolutely and we're just gonna wrap it up right there.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in for another episode of Left Face. My name is Adam Gillard For my co-host, dick Wilkinson. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you next week.
