Free Speech & Spilled Milk: Why We Can't Look Away | Ep 263

Free Speech & Spilled Milk: Why We Can't Look Away | Ep 263

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We explore how to respond when facing difficult situations without easy answers. From small challenges like getting caught in the rain to major corporate crises, our reactions reveal our character and commitment to ethical principles.

• The natural response to challenges is limiting negative impacts, similar to avoiding rain
• A pharmaceutical company's decision to recall contaminated products demonstrated ethical leadership despite financial cost
• Standing up for what's right often means choosing the harder path instead of looking away
• Free speech allows us to share information and disagree respectfully without forcing consensus
• Mental illness is real and classified as a disability that deserves acknowledgment and support
• Some content you'll agree with, some you won't—that's the beauty of free expression

If you can give us a thumbs up, subscribe, like, and share our TV show and podcast Voices for Voices, we'd greatly appreciate it. These free actions help us reach our goal of helping 3 billion people. Until next time, please be a voice for you or somebody in need.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome to Voices for Voices

1:17 Facing Difficult Situations

5:43 Corporate Response to Crisis

14:26 Standing Up Despite Opposition

19:57 Free Speech and Mental Health

25:16 Call to Action and Closing

#FreeSpeech #SpilledMilk #SocialCommentary #CulturalCritique #LookAway #FreedomOfExpression #ModernSociety #MediaAnalysis #ControversialTopics #ViralDiscussions #PublicDebate #CriticalThinking #HumanBehavior #ThoughtProvokingContent #UnfilteredTruth #TikTok #Instagram #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Voices for Voices
• 1:17 Facing Difficult Situations
• 5:43 Corporate Response to Crisis
• 14:26 Standing Up Despite Opposition
• 19:57 Free Speech and Mental Health
• 25:16 Call to Action and Closing

Transcript

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 0:02

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'm your host. Founder of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode. We're over 260 episodes in our catalog. Please check out some of those other episodes. I promise you that you'll be glad you did and that's a huge milestone for us. We're going to be hitting 300 total episodes by the end of calendar year 2025. And that's all because of you, because you're tuning in, you're watching, you're listening, whether in the United States or another country, province, territory across the world. So we want to welcome you and to the Voices for Voices family. Welcome you to express your voice, share your voice and if you'd like to be a guest on the show, please reach out. We'd love to have you on.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 1:17

What do we do when we are faced with situations, experiences, where things are really really hard, really tough that there's not a real straightforward answer or an obvious answer? What do we do? How do we react? How do we process that? We don't know all those parts At least, I don't as far as how the brain processes information, as far as how the brain processes information. But what I do know is a little bit about how I say react under some pressure, under some circumstances. Maybe I wasn't expecting, the organization wasn't expecting. I mean, that can be anything from I walk outside the door and I wasn't expecting for it to be raining outside. I wasn't expecting a storm outside all the way up, to let your imagination go. So in the walking outside and it's raining example, hypothetical we would want to limit the amount of time that the rain is coming down on us so we may go back inside and pick up an umbrella that might be our way of defending against the rain. Or maybe we don't have an umbrella near and so we carefully walk as quickly as we can from inside to Walk as quickly as we can From inside To Outside, whether that's a vehicle that's picking us up, whether that's our own vehicle, and so we like to. In theory, we'd like to Limit that time.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 4:28

So when bigger challenges come, I think we take a little bit of that same mindset. I think we take a little bit of that same mindset. I think we take a little bit of that same mindset. We want to limit and do things and talk to people who are knowledgeable, have had prior experience, and so we try to limit whatever that is, whatever that may be. So, from a small challenge to a large challenge, at least in the way my mind works, I try to limit.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 5:45

At least in the way my mind works, I try to limit the things that may negatively impact you or I, or a company or an organization, one of the I'm not sure if it was Tylenol, but a producer of, let's say, pain relieving products, let's say pain relieving products, and when some individuals opened those up a period of years ago, they're finding, I think, needles or they're finding something that wasn't supposed to be there. So there was a public outcry Don't purchase these, let's not purchase from this company. And I can only imagine they, and I can only imagine the look or just that experience of opening up that bottle, seeing something that wasn't supposed to be there, seeing something that wasn't supposed to be there. And so the organization that was responsible for these products, for this product, had a decision to make Did we just close our eyes and pretend nothing's going on? Or do we do something that may cost quite a bit of money to do, which is to pull every one of those products from all the shelves, and then I think they destroyed them? I'm not sure what the outcome was, but they weren't sent to where consumers were purchasing, so it could cost a lot of money to find out every single store, how many are on a shelf.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 9:03

Now, where we're at in 2025, the year 2025, things are much different. We have so much information at our fingertips. That process would have went much smoother, much quicker, but in any event, this company decided to pull the products, issue a statement, and so they were faced with adversity. They tried to limit that adversity, limit that negativity. Oh yeah, there was information and examples. They try to limit that adversity, limit that negativity. Oh yeah, there was information and examples of what shouldn't have been in those particular bottles.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 9:59

But by pulling all the inventory off of the shelves and spending the money that I can only imagine that the leaders of the organization, board directors they probably didn't want to do, because I believe this organization is a publicly traded company on the Dow or the NASDAQ, which means people buy and sell shares of stock, so people have a good feeling about what the company is doing. People would be at a better advantage to buy versus a company who sells stock. That they close their eyes, pretend a problem like this, a situation. Now they can argue and stuff internally about how and why and all those things might happen. But first you got to issue that statement and second you need to pull that product off the shelf. And that ties to ethics, talks to common sense and it talks to limiting the negative press, the negative thoughts, the negative feedback. And don't get me wrong, there was negative feedback.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 12:12

It didn't just end once they pulled the product off the shelf. They pulled the product off the shelf as an organization. You almost wonder, once all that product is pulled off and the extra quality checks of the new product going out, products going out there's that question of like oh my gosh, are they going to want to purchase our product now? Are they going to trust our? So that's a risk. But the risk was much lower and pulling the product, issuing a statement and sending product that had a more stringent quality check process before it left the warehouse or the factory and landed on shelves where you and I shop at. So we're talking about an individual situation of walking outside and it's raining all the way up to an organization losing millions of dollars because of what happened. They would have lost many more millions and their stock price many more millions and their stock price would have went down even more. They even bankrupted the company. We don't know. It's just an example of limiting the negativity.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 14:26

We can be bold, we can share information, we can share experiences, and so we can be bold, share information, and we know, not every person, not every entity, company, organization is going to agree with all of our content, all of the guests we have on the topic, etc. You name it. But to sit back and close our eyes and not stand up, not stand up in the face of adversity, not to stand up in the face of challenges when they face us, not to take the easy way out. Not to take the easy way out. Now we can Right. There's at least two options, two response levels, or however we want to classify and talk about it. When, in good faith, information is shared, experiences are shared, we're either an organization that stands up for people and topic or we're not, and that's really what it comes down to. It's easy to take the easy way out, it's easy to stand down. That's the easy part.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 17:09

In some instances, maybe that doesn't make sense when things, when experiences, when experiences, when facts are brought from the shadows into the forefront, in front of the light. We can either be that organization that ignores, that, pretends like it doesn't exist, pretend like, well, I don't feel like it. I don't feel like I don't feel like it, I don't feel like standing up, I don't feel like being a change agent. I mean, that's the whole point. That's the whole point, the whole idea of having a nonprofit that has mission and vision and standing for something and something Otherwise, why would any organization want to continue on if, at the first glance of people and instances and experiences that may not resonate Not only may not resonate but may not agree with that's okay, that's okay On a day-to-day basis.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 19:28

There's so many things that I don't agree with that I watch, that I listen, communicate. But that's what makes us human beings in the greatest country on the face of the earth, united States of America, and what makes our United States of America Constitution and the First Amendment a free speech. We can agree to disagree, but we're not going to bully anybody into feeling changing thoughts and say, well, you need to come on this side, not that side. Now, if through research and that, that they decide one side versus another, it doesn't matter, because we're not the ones that are strong, arming us, we're the ones sharing information, we're following the laws that are out there, we're following the Constitution and if there's some spilled milk over us, our organization, our shows, there's something called a remote, there's something called scrolling, there's something called typing in something else to a search bar or a URL, you don't have to watch us, you don't have to listen to us, and that's your right. You're allowed to do that, you're allowed to make those decisions and at the same time, we're allowed to have opinion, we're allowed to talk and share under the First Amendment, free speech, especially when there's a public safety concern, because that's bigger than me, that's bigger than me, it's bigger than Voices, for Voices it's the public. The more information that's available, the more information that's available, and so we take that from the First Amendment to public safety.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 22:31

And then, lastly, mental illness. It's real, considered classified as disability, disabilities, and so how we react to challenges, we would like to be on I say the like to be on offense the whole game, for the whole time. That's just not feasible. There's times we're on offense, there's times we're on defense, there's times we're proactive, there's times we're reactive. But when challenges arise and we look in the mirror, at the end of the day and the end of the days. We're staying true to ourselves, like we have and like we are. We're following the Constitution, we're alerting others and the public and we're standing up for those with any type of disability, any type of challenge that they're working towards, whether it's mental, mental illness, like me, or something different.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 24:17

People have to have to decide, but the people are allowed to decide. They're allowed to decide. They're allowed to decide, and so you can always come to the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast page on our video partners, our audio partners, and you're going to see and hear some really cool things, really cool experiences, really cool perspectives. Some you're going to agree with and some you're not. That's just life. So thank you for joining us on this particular episode. Thank you for joining us, no matter how big or how small your contribution's been. We value it very much. And if you can do us a favor, if you can give us a thumbs up, subscribe, like, share our TV show and podcast Voices for Voices, we'd greatly appreciate it. Our TV show and podcast Voices for Voices, we greatly appreciate it. Those are some things that are free, that you can do to help us reach our goal of helping 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. So until next time, please be a voice for you or somebody in need. We'll see you next time.