Kristi Noem, Liberty and the Pandemic | National Leadership Seminar

as you know uh i've been praising south dakota every time i've stood up this week and i have to do it once more in front of the governor among the things to admire is its speed laws and if you ride motorcycles sometimes then you'll really love them um also i've got nowhere i've been negotiating with south dakotans all day about my offer to trade governors and and my offer to include six state senators and the way the negotiations are going they want me to take six state senators so you know i would do that and so i've put the point to the governor and she's thinking about it so it's a remarkable woman um she's uh negotiated her way through this mess brilliantly better than anybody uh i'd like to say she's the best man in politics since margaret thatcher and um and uh i i've been reading her speeches and there's a big reason why she's been able to negotiate through this she understands something she understands the difference between common sense and expertise and that was a great subject theme subject of winston churchill and almost nobody understands that today expert expert knowledge is narrow knowledge and you can't make decisions on it by itself ever her career is spectacular she grew up on a rancher family her father was killed in an accident on the ranch when he was 42 she told me she basically took over all that when she was 22. she got a big tax bill immediately she had to restructure her business and start some more businesses and pay off that tax bill and you know it made her mad at the government and uh and mad at the tax system and so then she gets selected at the state house and then the congress and now governor and i can't see that she's ever lost a race uh and i i've just been encouraging her to have many more she's probably the best governor in america christy noam well thank you oh my goodness [Applause] well thank you welcome to south dakota we are so thrilled that you're here and that your meetings have gone well and that you get a chance to enjoy a little freedom know i think to understand the decisions that i've made uh you need to understand me a little bit my background so that's what we were discussing a little bit at my table my background how i was raised and really the challenges but also the moments of teaching and one of the things i'll tell you before i give you my words for today and i want to talk a little bit about freedom i think the actual topic that i've been given is political issues and controversies is your theme and they wanted me to specifically talk about liberty and the pandemic so i will do that but i also want you to understand that in the last six months it has amazed me to watch fear control people that that this pandemic really used emotion and fear to manipulate people in ways that we've never seen before and what bothered me early on was recognizing the fact that when you have a leader overstep their authority in a time of crisis that that's when you lose your country so we were talking at our table a little bit about why i've spoken about the things that i've spoken about why i've chosen to use my press conferences as educational opportunities it was because it was necessary it was it became very real to me that i was making different decisions than virtually any other governor in the nation and that people didn't know why and that a little bit of our history constitution the reason that america is special needed to be revisited again and that really is behind a lot of the decisions that we've had here in south dakota so you are in a special place because as you travel from state to state you'll see a lot of challenges when you come to south dakota you realize that our people are happy they wake up happy in the morning and they're optimistic about the future so for those of you who aren't from south dakota and you don't know me i've gotten a lot of attention recently from the mainstream media what i tend to say to individuals is six months ago you probably had no idea who i was the reason that you know who i am is because the mainstream media told the world that i was the only governor in america that was making all the wrong decisions on how i handled the pandemic in fact specifically rachel maddow elizabeth warren the new york times the washington post you name it i was the focus of every single one of their stories but this week a very prominent national reporter wrote me a note and said governor if you hadn't stood against the lockdowns we would have had no proof as to how useless they really have been so at the start of 2020 i outlined to all the people in the state about how we are unique i encouraged people from across the country to come to south dakota and the opportunities that we provided i talked about our people about their work ethic their values i talked about our government how it was limited we had a low tax and regulatory structure and i also talked about our way of life what made south dakota special one that respects uh our and cherishes the principles of thrift hard work family and self-governance south dakota was second to none and then a global pandemic hit so rightly so all of our attention shifted from telling the country that south dakota is open for business to making sure that south dakotans had the best information available to them to respond to the virus now this virus posed many challenges for us and the situation has been historic in the absolute worst way but with every challenge comes an opportunity to learn to adapt and to improve so let's take a couple of minutes to walk through some of the lessons that we have learned and perhaps the most significant one of those lessons lessons that we've learned is that more freedom and not more government is the answer now while freedom isn't uh necessarily the one thing that will solve all of our problems it will certainly take us down the road much farther towards where we want to go freedom is a much better friend to true science than government-centered or government-controlled science freedom not government is the best friend of innovation freedom focuses on politics of persuasion and the intellectual strength of all of our positions not on control coercion and the heavy hand of government and if someone is interested in the common good in all of its iterations and complexities freedom is the one and the only choice available to us now my approach to this virus was to provide south dakotans with all of the information that i had available to me and to then allow them to exercise their freedom to make the best decisions for themselves and for their families we took a unique path we did not lock people up we did not close any businesses in the state of south dakota not once did we issue a shelter in place i didn't even define what an essential business was because i don't believe that i have the authority to tell you your business is an essential in return the mainstream media spent countless hours and endless column inches in their papers attacking me for it and frankly that's the only reason that i'm in the national spotlight today is because liberals as i told dr arn here is that have literally been kicking me in the head every night on national tv for the decisions that i made for south dakota rachel maddow elizabeth warren have relentlessly attacked me night after night for the decisions that i've made now while the washington elites and the mainstream media hurled their relentless criticism the vast majority of south dakotans have thanked me they've thanked me for the opportunity to be trusted beyond that many of my peers though apply to one size fits all lockdown other ordinary americans though the life mud of the nation were watching what we were doing here in south dakota they saw the different actions that we were taking and many said that's exactly the way that i want my government to treat me i want my government to trust me not dictate to me this leaves me to wonder what does this stay what does this say about the state of our media today when they hold up elected officials who they believe are making the wrong decisions and they attack them and go after them personally and politically but yet other officials that are elected into office are praised because they fall into aligned with the agenda that they have and they're shielded from real scrutiny of the results of their actions and this also brings me to the topic of modeling now while modeling certainly has a place models have two shortcomings today and really no model can actually predict the future and especially when those models are based on incomplete information which we saw widespread throughout the last several months and no model can actually replace human freedom as the best path to responding to our life's risks including in response to this virus that is why central planning of the economy including has failed us every single time the government has tried it now in south dakota we used modeling as a tool we used it to prepare for the worst case scenario should that come thankfully it never did it still could in the future and we are prepared for that but we have not seen it yet today but there's no model that can take into consideration all of the factors that make real life work a blind reliance on insufficient modeling has led some politicians to institute disastrous lockdowns that have only jeopardized people's health and their welfare but also created conditions for a financial catastrophe that will cause untold burdens on costs of their people for generations to come the financial burden of government lockdowns made one thing one thing clear that urban life isn't all that it's cracked up to be in south dakota the rural way of life is the preferred way of life folks who want to stay on their land pass it on to their kids and their grandkids they also want to be in their communities that they've called home for generations and they want to eat in small mom and pop restaurants visit some of the world's most beautiful places and have their kids spend more time with their tackle box rather than an xbox and sure big famous cities like new york city are home to some iconic buildings and some beautiful museums but they also come with traffic with noise congestion and in a post covered world they're going to come with sanitary issues as well as we've seen throughout the pandemic population density does come with a steep cost so some think that covid19 will accelerate a move of people out of the cities that it will move people to rural areas because of that preferred way of life but that story is still being written one of the few things we know about this virus is that density is one of the key factors contributing to the spread but because of that new york city and silicon valley could look very different in the future but the lessons of this virus do not stop at city limits while many can work remotely from their laptops and definitely a key takeaway from covid that i've learned and that i hope all of you learn is that america's workers the farmers the truckers the ranchers plumbers grocers health care workers the builders in the and the producers of this country are more critical than ever that the fundamentals of life haven't changed that people still need the basic necessities of life the grocery stores still need to be stocked lights need to stay on and doctors need to keep seeing patients so for those of you who are the builders and the producers and the essential workers of today and you're scattered throughout the country if you've seen how south dakota has managed this pandemic and you like it we'd like you to move to south dakota [Applause] to those of you who are professionals who are working from home permanently if you value our way of life where people love freedom smaller communities lots of wide open spaces i'd like you to really consider making your workplace your workspace right here in south dakota as well and for those of you who own businesses in other states who are frustrated that your business was forced to close that you saw one leader's decision completely take away your life savings and your way of life i will remind you we have the friendliest tax environment in the entire country the lowest regulatory burden and we will not close your business for you we trust our business owners to be flexible we gave them the opportunity to be innovative and we allowed them to take care of their customers and their employees and put food on the table we would absolutely love for you to move your business to south dakota [Applause] now not all governors in this country trusted their people like i did different paths mean that sometimes people have different choices but in south dakota like it always does we choose common sense if you want freedom personal responsibility in a government that works for you rather than dictates to you south dakota is the place to get it our trips to the store might look a little bit different today and our sporting events might change but that's not necessarily a bad thing it's an opportunity for us to do better to be innovative to create new ways of serving each other but i want to leave you with this thought no one saw 2020 playing out the way that it has each and every one of us has dramatically changed our day-to-day lives we had to adjust to be adaptable and to all those who have lost loved ones throughout this pandemic my heart breaks for each and every one of you things will not be the same in the future but today we do have a very different opportunity than we had in the past don't ever forget this one fundamental truth the windshield is much bigger than the rear view mirror for for a reason there's a purpose to it in south dakota we always look at adversary or adversity we always look at challenges as an opportunity to do better we focus on our future what's in front of us and it's bright hope is in front of us we are emerging from this stronger than ever and we are concerned what the future may hold for you if you don't join us we would love to have you in our state and that wherever you are that if you choose to come to south dakota just remember this that the air is fresh the people are free and the possibilities here are endless so thank you thank you very much for inviting me to be with you so i understand we're going to take a few questions thank you governor gnome yes uh we now have time for some q a if you have a question please raise your hand and wait for a microphone to be brought to you thank you governor with your approach to the pandemic how have your hospitals survived with the um with their capacities yeah they've done a fantastic job we have three major health care systems in the state of south dakota and we immediately brought them in back in january that was when we first started hearing about the virus in other countries and i opened up an emergency operations center and started working and studying what was happening in those countries what we could learn about the virus before it got to the united states and then as it came to the united states what was happening in other states to learn so we brought them in at the ground level and helped us with planning and implementation and responding to people's needs and they're doing great so dr fauci told me on my worst day i'd have 10 000 people in the hospital from covid 19. i think my worst day so far i've had a little over 200. so that's one of the things that we did is even through no mandates we encouraged people that if they were of the vulnerable population to stay home that if they were going to be older they had health conditions that could put them in the hospital that we wanted them to take extra precautions told them that we would serve them and help them get groceries and do those kind of things that gave people the recommendations on social distancing all of that but i also said in south dakota we're not going to focus on positive cases of the virus we know we can't stop this virus the science tells us that all we can do is slow it down so that we have the capacity to take care of people in our health care systems what i talked about every single day and still talk about today is how many people do we have in the hospital that was our main focus was that we made sure we had the experts ready to respond at a time of need so today i have about nine percent of folks in my hospital systems are there because of covid19 i think in my icus 12 of the people that are there are there from covid19 so we're in great shape as it comes to having that capacity available for those folks that would catch the virus and need that care have any other governors called you and have you given them advice and what reaction did they have well that's that's kind of the behind the scenes that people don't really know is that we spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on the phone talking as governors you know there's several different national organizations that facilitated calls but then there's many of us that had individual calls and then groups of eight or ten of us would all get on calls and talk at night as well so what i will tell you is that every piece of piece of information that i had available to me they had available to them as well i consulted with all of my health experts i consulted with my state epidemiologist my secretary of health and listened and studied the models one of the things i think i did that no other governors did was i also sat on quite a few conference calls of nationwide secretaries of health and listen to them many of those calls i was the only governor on the state epidemiologist from every state would have weekly conference calls that i would sit on and just listen i didn't want to rely on somebody else to to relay to me what was said on those calls i wanted to learn from myself but i also consulted with my general counsel i also consulted with attorneys who specifically focus on constitutional authority and i wanted to know what authority did i have that the u.s constitution gives me because i have the i have i've taken the oath to uphold that constitution and i wanted to know what the constitution of the state of south dakota told me my authority was and what it wasn't so i came at it from that viewpoint of really what my role was as governor and what my role wasn't and i had all those debates and discussions with all those governors before they made their decisions to institute lockdowns and mandates and those were conversations that we did have they just made a different choice but i one one of the honest conversations too that i i mean it wouldn't be unfair for me to say that every if i did not point out that every governor has a different situation but i do know that in listening to them talk i heard the fear in their voices they were dealing with a health crisis and often the response i would get would be christie but if i do that people might die and that that was what they really wrestled with so i think the reality of it being in leadership at this point in time was a very lonely place to be you know we all have incredible teams around us that give us advice and give us wisdom but ultimately when the final decision had to be made it was that governor that had to make that decision for me it was okay governor now you need to decide and i had to make it so that really was the challenge i think governors faced and while they had the information they knew their authorities some of them made very different decisions and i think for their people it's extremely unfortunate we have a question on the speakers right sure i'm a cresty old veteran and on behalf of my network of crusty old veterans we want to thank you you are the governor who most embodies the freedom we all entered military service to defend besides that a lot of my veteran friends are constantly talking and asking what can we do as ordinary people to advance freedom in this world where we get shut down on social media where we get yelled at if we bring up a point that's not the normal narrative and we just feel helpless a lot of the time and love to hear what you think we can do okay can i just tell you how remarkable this is right now we have somebody who served in our military went and risked their lives to defend our freedom asking what more they can do to defend our freedom [Applause] so that's what is incredible about our country and we should be able to turn on our nightly news and see stuff like that rather than the garbage we have to watch every single night but thank you for serving our country and and for doing that due diligence to make sure that we are intact and we're the special country that we are today what i would say is that we need you to be normal people and to go out and have conversations that you're not having today i'll get real candid here for a minute but when you go fill your car with gas are you asking the person at the pump next to you who they're voting for and why and having that conversation when you go to church are you talking to people about how important it is that america's fundamental freedoms are protected and you know that's we all have these conversations in our groups and we but there's people that we just avoid that conversation with and we also need to remember not to do it in an aggressive mean manner you know we people will be attracted to us by our optimism by our hope i honestly feel like and i'm a republican and i'm proud to be a republican that all we did here in south dakota was we implemented the republican platform that we say we believe other people stand up as republicans and say they believe it but they never do it we actually did it and so what we've seen now is incredible benefits to people that now we can point to as it actually works but i also know that for many people we are paying the consequences for how we speak to each other how we talk to each other has consequences and we have dehumanized each other throughout that process so we need to remind each other that we are people and have a heart connection with them and when we're talking to them really listen and and and tell your stories i think your stories would be most impactful how you decided to go into the military how you decided to protect this country and why it was important and then use every opportunity to teach people because that's what i realized throughout this pandemic was nobody really knows or reflects on our history and what it brings to us this tearing down of our monuments breaks my heart it is our history and these people were not perfect i'm not perfect who of you out here has lived up to your own ideals we have flawed leaders that helped our country get through challenging times and did incredible things for us we didn't say they were perfect but we can learn from them and they're part of our history and that's one of the things that i think people are not reflecting on today so just don't lose sight of the value of individuals and their willingness to have a conversation and remember to be happy you know i'm i'm a christian and i believe that people are attracted to us because they want more of what we have and if you give the persona that it's all negativity and ugliness and condemning and judgmental that doesn't really attract people to the right viewpoint of what's special about america last last thing i'll say on this point is and i'm sure my staff is tired of hearing me say this ian's laughing you know we all love to be offended this country is addicted to being offended aren't they i mean i they really are we we turn on the news and somebody says something oh it's so offensive that they said that and we can't believe it and it's just unbelievable and we just really need to get over ourselves you know it we really do i had a pastor tell me one time he said christy people are going to throw out of fences all the time you're the one who decides if you want to pick him up and carry him around he says then you're the one carrying the burden so who's losing in that situation i think that's true people are going to offend us all the time and we need to just decide we're going to let it lay walk by it and just go on and be happy and understand that what we have is special governor i'm here from minnesota and i just want to say i'm enjoying breathing the free air um last spring i'm not sure exactly when i'd heard you interviewed on hannity i believe talking about hydroxy chloroquine and some studies that you were going to do and of course any positive news about that it would never receive the light of day so i'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit was that something that you brought to fruition and what if anything came of that yes we in south dakota did the first ever statewide state-backed partnership with our all of our health care systems on a trial on hydroxychloroquine that's never happened before in the country but where the state government partnered with our three major health care systems to open it up to every single person if the state if they want to participate it was remarkable we have several sanford health is our health care system in the state that has the research arm to it and is doing several different trials on therapeutics but also vaccines and has been very helpful throughout the pandemic to get the facts and information out we have time for one more question sure hi i certainly appreciate the fact that you're here christy uh i married a south dakota gal back in 1951 and have a lot a lot of in-laws and outlaws back in the sioux falls there you do seriously i've lived in montana now but in illinois wisconsin minnesota and michigan and i'm sick to have to admit that the governors of those places followed up so badly you had one incredible instance at the old morel plant in sioux falls smithfield i guess owns it up how did you have it was a big hot spot and everything how did you happen to handle that so quickly and it disappeared as a negative thing for you well you know and we've seen these in different parts of the country but we had a a group of positive cases come out of a meat processing facility and we went in there and addressed it worked with a company brought our health care officials in to do testing to get people the information that they needed and many of these families that worked there were living in close quarters working in close quarters and so it was natural that it would spread but i think what was important was that we didn't overreact we took care of people and and that was important we got it under control and i told people from the very beginning that we're going to see cases go up cases go down people we're going to have different counties different communities that are going to have an increase in cases and then go back down i said there may be days that i stand in front of you and i say we have thousands of new cases i've never had to do that yet but i prepared people for the fact that if that were to happen that would be expected and so calming people down and letting them know what was in the future and being truthful i think was incredibly helpful but by not getting distracted or pressured by media and people who had an agenda beyond taking care of people i think was incredibly important my secretary of health said to me one day before the pandemic even started in south dakota she said governor i just want to tell my team do you want to make decisions that make people feel good or do you want to do good and i said we will always do good so we took the emotion out of our decision making right away so that we could focus on the facts in the science and the data of what was happening here in our state and use that to make sure that we're implementing things that actually worked please join me in thanking governor gnome thank you everybody [Applause] you

Channel: Hillsdale College

Views: 498,483

Rating: 4.9189024 out of 5

Keywords: hillsdale, politics, constitution, equality, liberty, freedom, free speech, lecture, learn, america, South Dakota, Governor, Pandemic

Id: R6HQm3ZzyhM

Length: 31min 34sec (1894 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/dhmt]

I flaired it "Human Rights", because that is the main principle under which she governs.

• science requires freedom
• Modelling - two shortcomings

Q&A

• How many people in the hospital, peak?
• She consulted with Constitutional lawyers
• Discussed with other state governors - she heard the fear in their voices
• What can ordinary citizens do to more convince others?
• USA is addicted to being offended
• Statewide trial of HCQ
• handling a meat packing company hotspot - by telling the truth

Eventually, everyone will realize what a terrible mistake society has made, and we will realize what a principled politician she is. I think she will eventually be president of the US.

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