# How Do We Explain This When the Aliens Land?

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 2 Sep 2025, 46 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/67286711/podcast823_explainaliens.mp3

If extraterrestrials arrived tomorrow, how would we explain the insanity infecting our country (and world)? From the stage at the Nashville NANOCON event, Seth Andrews took that journey. SPEECH VIDEO Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through.
[0:13] Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If
[0:18] Speaker 1: I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
[0:22] Speaker 1: not because.
[0:22] Speaker 3: I put my hand on a book and made a wish.
[0:25] Speaker 1: And working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 3: Take the risk of thinking, feel so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 2: Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 2: When you're preparing.
[0:57] Speaker 3: Material to do in front of a life audience, you
[1:01] Speaker 3: always think, well, I kind of know how this should play,
[1:04] Speaker 3: but how is it going to really play? In other words,
[1:07] Speaker 3: you anticipate a good response, but will people take the ride?
[1:11] Speaker 3: So I was putting this particular speech together and I
[1:16] Speaker 3: had those thoughts. You know, the audience is going to
[1:18] Speaker 3: totally take the journey, and I'm going to resonate with
[1:21] Speaker 3: them and we're going to all be on the same
[1:23] Speaker 3: page and it's going to be amazing, or they're going
[1:26] Speaker 3: to circle the building with torches and which is it
[1:29] Speaker 3: going to be? Well? Fortunately, I gave this speech in Nashville, Tennessee.
[1:33] Speaker 3: I gave it in Sarnia, Ontario, several cities in Texas.
[1:37] Speaker 3: Now I am playing the audio of it for you here,
[1:40] Speaker 3: and the response was overwhelmingly good.
[1:43] Speaker 2: People. I don't know, they seem to need.
[1:46] Speaker 3: What was being said, like it spoke to them in
[1:50] Speaker 3: this cultural moment, which is what I had always desired
[1:54] Speaker 3: for this thing. I really wanted it to serve a purpose.
[1:58] Speaker 3: And I don't know. I'll just qualifying it. But the
[2:02] Speaker 3: YouTube version has all the slides, like one hundred plus visuals.
[2:06] Speaker 3: The audio plays just fine without it, you may miss
[2:09] Speaker 3: a couple of things. But if you want to watch it,
[2:12] Speaker 3: that link is in the description box. This is the
[2:15] Speaker 3: version that I gave. Well, I mean it's the same speech,
[2:18] Speaker 3: but this is the recording from the Nashville Nuns Conference
[2:23] Speaker 3: anys not Nuns Catholic Nuns as in no Religion, the
[2:27] Speaker 3: Nashville Nuns Conference, which was the third weekend in July
[2:32] Speaker 3: in Nashville, Tennessee. The speech is called how do we
[2:36] Speaker 3: explain this when the aliens arrived? Oh my god, this
[3:00] Speaker 3: Thank you so much for allowing me to be a
[3:02] Speaker 3: part of Nanocan today, those of you who know me, No,
[3:08] Speaker 3: my reputation is a pretty easy going god, not quick
[3:12] Speaker 3: to anger. I mean, we all have our moments, right,
[3:15] Speaker 3: even tho most chill people have their breaking points.
[3:19] Speaker 2: But I have been called and I'll take it.
[3:21] Speaker 3: I've been called the mister Rogers of secular activism.
[3:27] Speaker 4: So hello, neighbor. Fred Rogers. He was a humanist first.
[3:39] Speaker 3: He was the man who famously said, as human beings,
[3:42] Speaker 3: our job in life is to help people realize how
[3:45] Speaker 3: rare and valuable each one of us really is.
[3:48] Speaker 2: His calling card was kindness.
[3:53] Speaker 3: Yet even the nicest people have their limits, and today,
[3:58] Speaker 3: in many ways, I don't feel nice.
[4:03] Speaker 2: I'm two people at war, the.
[4:06] Speaker 3: Hopeful and the hopeless, the optimist and the pessimists, the
[4:10] Speaker 3: light versus the dark. I'm reminded of that classic George
[4:16] Speaker 3: Carlin quote. He said, when you scratch a cynic, you
[4:19] Speaker 3: find underneath a disappointed idealist.
[4:24] Speaker 5: Today, both men stand before you.
[4:28] Speaker 3: My two halves will take turns speaking to you.
[4:33] Speaker 2: With those segments separated by.
[4:35] Speaker 5: This and this, all right, we are all likely navigating
[4:48] Speaker 5: conflicting ideas and emotions as we are just fire hosed
[4:52] Speaker 5: in the freaking face with the headlines of the day.
[4:55] Speaker 2: Do you feel that you know it's important we weather
[5:01] Speaker 2: the ranging.
[5:02] Speaker 3: Storm with clear eyes and focus and.
[5:06] Speaker 2: Sincere compassion, Compassion.
[5:09] Speaker 3: For the millions upon millions of people who have been
[5:12] Speaker 3: brainwashed into alternate realities, realities of fear, distrust, conspiracy theories,
[5:18] Speaker 3: even hate.
[5:21] Speaker 2: Approaching our interlocutters.
[5:23] Speaker 3: With awareness and self control and good listening skills and
[5:27] Speaker 3: seeking opportunities to see ourselves and others embrace better ideas.
[5:32] Speaker 2: I know it's controversial.
[5:35] Speaker 3: I was a conservative evangelical who was a good person,
[5:39] Speaker 3: and I want.
[5:40] Speaker 2: To think, I need to think that.
[5:43] Speaker 3: Maga right wingers might also be reachable and teachable.
[5:48] Speaker 2: And what the fuck is wrong with those people?
[5:59] Speaker 3: Jesus Ah Broh, You and I are watching in real
[6:05] Speaker 3: time the brainworming of the entire United States.
[6:12] Speaker 2: People I used to think.
[6:14] Speaker 3: Were somewhat reasonable and centered and focused have brought us
[6:17] Speaker 3: to this moment, a cultural moment of mind blowing, jaw dropping.
[6:22] Speaker 3: What the fuckery that has made satire nearly impossible?
[6:30] Speaker 2: Look? Really, really, this surreal house.
[6:37] Speaker 3: This is owned by a woman named Leslie Rossi in Youngstown, Pennsylvania,
[6:41] Speaker 3: made a Trump house.
[6:44] Speaker 2: How do we explain this shit?
[6:46] Speaker 3: When the aliens land right, So here's the scenario. Extra
[7:00] Speaker 3: terrestrials land outside the door tomorrow and they say, hello,
[7:03] Speaker 3: creatures of the Earth, we come in peace. Tell us
[7:06] Speaker 3: about your species, What knowledge do you possess, What advances
[7:11] Speaker 3: have you made? What is your system of government? We're like,
[7:17] Speaker 3: wait a bit, you mean now you would like me
[7:22] Speaker 3: to de strong the current political, religious, and environmental conditions
[7:28] Speaker 3: of this country and the world. Oh have a sea,
[7:31] Speaker 3: but be super quiet about it, because just landing here
[7:36] Speaker 3: puts your non white skin at risk of being chucked
[7:40] Speaker 3: into the back of an ice van. Because right now
[7:44] Speaker 3: there's a huge percentage of human beings who are bigoted
[7:47] Speaker 3: and stupid and irrational and terrified and ridiculous and destructive work.
[7:54] Speaker 2: But also capable of wonderful things.
[8:00] Speaker 3: Our history and our headlines are filled with the stories
[8:04] Speaker 3: are worthy aspiration, innovation, hard work, and historic achievement. We
[8:13] Speaker 3: revolve primates, you know, once a species of grunting and
[8:17] Speaker 3: stone tools. We've developed to fill our world with complex languages.
[8:22] Speaker 2: We've been dreamers and.
[8:24] Speaker 3: Inventors, explorers, problem solvers, heroes and icons to emulate and admire.
[8:31] Speaker 3: We've constructed technology, complex technology, wonderful technology upon this world
[8:38] Speaker 3: of earth and water.
[8:41] Speaker 2: We are the.
[8:42] Speaker 3: Species that produce the writings of Homer, the sculptings of Michelangelo,
[8:48] Speaker 3: the philosophies of Aristotle, and the calculations of Einstein. We've
[8:54] Speaker 3: invented vessels that can withstand crushing ocean pressure. Humans have
[8:59] Speaker 3: walked on the Moon. We've sent vessels of ingenuity and
[9:03] Speaker 3: discovery over fourteen billion miles away and counting. I can
[9:09] Speaker 3: show you an invention, a device that allows us to
[9:11] Speaker 3: see and talk in real time to somebody with a
[9:14] Speaker 3: similar device on the other side of the planet. I
[9:20] Speaker 3: might play for you our greatest music from Beethoven Symphony
[9:24] Speaker 3: number nine to the Beatles. Well, my guitar gently weeps.
[9:29] Speaker 3: We can fit an entire library of books on a
[9:33] Speaker 3: single card the size of a fingertip. My species has
[9:40] Speaker 3: decoded the genome. We've countered deadly viruses by inventing microscopic miracles.
[9:47] Speaker 3: We weren't born with wings, so we built our own,
[9:50] Speaker 3: and we fly. We've also pierced disguise with awesome structures
[9:55] Speaker 3: once considered impossible by our ancestors. Thanks to something we
[10:00] Speaker 3: called the Internet, our species has immediate access to a
[10:05] Speaker 3: near complete database of knowledge, which is why millions of
[10:12] Speaker 3: people believe you just landed on a disc.
[10:20] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
[10:23] Speaker 6: Millions of my species, people who have access to absolute
[10:30] Speaker 6: proof for a spherical planet, remain convinced in the year
[10:33] Speaker 6: twenty twenty.
[10:34] Speaker 2: Five that it's all a big cover up.
[10:38] Speaker 3: Planetary scientist, meteorologist, the entire airline industry, every space agency,
[10:44] Speaker 3: all world governments owe they're all in on the cover up.
[10:48] Speaker 2: They're all in on the hoax.
[10:50] Speaker 3: And you know the International Space Station astronauts that you
[10:53] Speaker 3: passed while flying your ship on the way here. Millions
[10:56] Speaker 3: of my fellow Homo sapiens are convinced that the space station,
[11:01] Speaker 3: the Shuttle orbits, the Moon landing, the satellite images, they're
[11:04] Speaker 3: all nothing but a bunch of greenstreamed bakery funded by
[11:08] Speaker 3: deep state.
[11:09] Speaker 2: Billionaire sphear mongers who.
[11:13] Speaker 3: Really don't want all the rest of us to wake
[11:15] Speaker 3: up someday and realize that the Earth is shaped like a.
[11:18] Speaker 2: Thin crust pizza.
[11:20] Speaker 5: Right.
[11:23] Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sorry. You documented your arrival when you.
[11:26] Speaker 3: Flew in, so you can prove the spherical planet with facts,
[11:33] Speaker 3: you can demonstrate that you did not in fact travel
[11:36] Speaker 3: through the atmosflat. Well, my alien friend, allow me to
[11:49] Speaker 3: show you what you are up against if you are
[11:51] Speaker 3: selling reality.
[11:52] Speaker 2: These days, vaccines.
[11:56] Speaker 3: Prevent diseases and save lives, so people refuse to get them.
[12:04] Speaker 3: Fluoride strengthens tooth enamel, reduces cavities, and prevents tooth decay,
[12:09] Speaker 3: so we are banning it. The metric system is more
[12:14] Speaker 3: efficient and makes more sense because it's decimal based.
[12:18] Speaker 2: It has no fractions.
[12:19] Speaker 3: Every conversion is done by some power of ten, so
[12:23] Speaker 3: of course most Americans refuse to use it. UV radiation
[12:30] Speaker 3: is a major cause of skin cancer, so of course
[12:34] Speaker 3: we sunbathe when we.
[12:36] Speaker 2: Do get cancer.
[12:37] Speaker 3: We've got the resource of highly educated, highly trained, highly
[12:41] Speaker 3: experienced oncologists providing science based treatments, but we reject the
[12:48] Speaker 3: non thing called Western medicine, and instead we entrust our
[12:53] Speaker 3: care to untrained and often wildly expensive nobody. Natural paths
[12:59] Speaker 3: to vibrate our energy, Meridians tell us to eat more
[13:03] Speaker 3: kale and shove coffee up our asses. Louisiana's House of
[13:13] Speaker 3: Representatives recently banned the non thing called keem trails, which
[13:22] Speaker 3: are harmless condensation trails behind aircraft, which many believe are
[13:28] Speaker 3: mind control chemicals dropped by the deep state.
[13:32] Speaker 2: Oh, what's the deep state.
[13:34] Speaker 3: This is a largely undefined shadow network which is engaged
[13:38] Speaker 3: in everything from witchcraft to human sacrifice. Many whistleblowers about
[13:45] Speaker 3: this deep state got their information from QAnon.
[13:49] Speaker 2: What's q andon.
[13:52] Speaker 3: Qwanon is a series of nutbar conspiracy theories which originated
[13:57] Speaker 3: with some anonymous shit poster on four chant So of
[14:01] Speaker 3: course it all has to be true. Genetic and archaeological
[14:06] Speaker 3: evidence overwhelmingly proves that Homo sapiens descended from earlier primates
[14:12] Speaker 3: migrating out of Africa, so of course we have white supremacists.
[14:19] Speaker 3: By the way, even though our genetic code confirms that
[14:22] Speaker 3: human beings evolved were proven products of evolution, one third
[14:28] Speaker 3: more than one third of Americans believe the unsourced myth
[14:31] Speaker 3: that our ancestors were a pair of cosmically conjured garden
[14:36] Speaker 3: nudists who chatted with talking snakes. That same true book
[14:43] Speaker 3: contains slavery, sea monsters, blood, rain, giants, magic, mud, ghost sex, fire, chariots,
[14:52] Speaker 3: and the story of a guy named Jonah who lived
[14:55] Speaker 3: for three days in the belly of a submerged prison fish.
[15:03] Speaker 3: How many Earthlings embrace at least a version of this book,
[15:07] Speaker 3: Pew Research says only two point three billion. Now, whether
[15:13] Speaker 3: they're Bible literalists or they think it's metaphorical truth or
[15:16] Speaker 3: a pretty good book or whatever, that's almost a third
[15:19] Speaker 3: of the entire species. A ton of Americans won a
[15:23] Speaker 3: government based on that book. Yet they can't tell you
[15:27] Speaker 3: what's in the damn thing or who wrote it. Most
[15:30] Speaker 3: Americans can't even recite half of.
[15:33] Speaker 2: The Ten Commandments.
[15:34] Speaker 3: Oh, but for them, the Bible is the preferred US Constitution.
[15:41] Speaker 3: Speaking of government, my alien friends, there is a state
[15:50] Speaker 3: within the United States called Georgia. Georgia District fourteen elected
[15:59] Speaker 3: this woman, and twice had your spaceship landed in her backyard,
[16:06] Speaker 3: she might.
[16:06] Speaker 2: Have suspected that you were the Gaspacho.
[16:10] Speaker 3: Police, you were grown by Bill Gates in a peach
[16:16] Speaker 3: tree dish, or maybe you're part of a cabal of
[16:22] Speaker 3: astro Jews using space lasers to set fire to the
[16:27] Speaker 3: state at California. This is the same woman who joined
[16:32] Speaker 3: the banchshit conspiracy wagon claiming that the Deep State is
[16:38] Speaker 3: purposefully cloud seating climate catastrophes for the woke lib agenda.
[16:45] Speaker 3: And if you think she's alone in my home state,
[16:48] Speaker 3: we recently saw Oklahoma News nine have its weather radar
[16:52] Speaker 3: vandalized because some guys thought meteorology tools were surveillance and control.
[16:58] Speaker 2: Devices being used by the deep state.
[17:03] Speaker 3: But one Internet commenter at a great refutation to these
[17:07] Speaker 3: conspiracy theories.
[17:09] Speaker 2: They said, the.
[17:10] Speaker 3: Fact that Marjorie Taylor Green is not frequently struck by
[17:13] Speaker 3: lighting is proof democrats do not control the weather.
[17:28] Speaker 2: Intelligence and goodness have long.
[17:30] Speaker 3: Chased Marjorie Taylor Green, and yet she has always been faster.
[17:38] Speaker 2: Her canoe has no.
[17:39] Speaker 3: Oars, the wheel is spinning, the hamster is dead. She
[17:47] Speaker 3: is so dense that light bends around her. By the way,
[17:59] Speaker 3: a company with a sense of humor called Concord Industries
[18:03] Speaker 3: makes a product for sale that I bought and it
[18:06] Speaker 3: sits on a shelf in my office at home. It
[18:09] Speaker 3: is an actual Jewish space laser. This is a functional
[18:19] Speaker 3: light and fan switch. You can take your light switch
[18:23] Speaker 3: out of the wall, and why are you can turn
[18:25] Speaker 3: your lights and fan on with the.
[18:26] Speaker 2: Jewish space laser. It's awesome.
[18:30] Speaker 3: It's false, But Georgia's District fourteen is responsible for the
[18:36] Speaker 3: fact that we are even dealing with the Jewish space
[18:40] Speaker 3: laser conspiracy theory. However, Georgia also saw the election of
[18:53] Speaker 3: state Representative Stacy Abrams, an attorney, a human rights activist,
[18:58] Speaker 3: a crusader again voter suppression, and unlike Marjorie Taylor Green,
[19:03] Speaker 3: can actually read and ranked. Abrams has written New York
[19:09] Speaker 3: Times best selling books. She is a crusader for equality
[19:13] Speaker 3: and humanity. She's the best of us. If I could,
[19:18] Speaker 3: I would introduce my alien friends to Maryland's Representative Jamie Raskin,
[19:23] Speaker 3: former constitutional law professor, co chair of the Congressional Freethought Caucus,
[19:29] Speaker 3: and a fearless defender.
[19:30] Speaker 2: Of democracy and equality.
[19:32] Speaker 3: He was diagnosed with cancer twice in twelve years, and
[19:36] Speaker 3: he's still out there on the front lines fighting for
[19:38] Speaker 3: what's right. This person is known by her initials Alexandria
[19:46] Speaker 3: Oconsio Cortes. Today represents New York's fourteenth district. She attended
[19:51] Speaker 3: Boston University, double majoring in international relations and economics, and
[19:56] Speaker 3: she graduated with honors.
[19:59] Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, AOC defeated a.
[20:01] Speaker 3: Ten term incumbent in the primaries and she became the
[20:05] Speaker 3: youngest woman ever elected to Congress. She wants medicare for everybody.
[20:11] Speaker 3: She wants tuition free college, the abolition of ice, science
[20:16] Speaker 3: based climate initiatives, and greater economic equality across the board.
[20:21] Speaker 3: From what I've seen, she seems pretty fearless person of conviction,
[20:26] Speaker 3: and I think she would be a.
[20:28] Speaker 2: Smart, fair and kind representative for our species to meet yours.
[20:34] Speaker 3: By the way, have you heard the one about AOC
[20:38] Speaker 3: and Marjorie Taylor Green at the ballgame? Okay, so there's
[20:44] Speaker 3: a Major League baseball game which hasn't started yet. Everybody's
[20:48] Speaker 3: warming up on the field, and just by chance, Marjorie
[20:51] Speaker 3: Taylor Green and AOC end up with seats right next
[20:55] Speaker 3: to each other, and all of a sudden.
[20:57] Speaker 7: Pregate AOC stands up, reaches over and grabs Marjorie Taylor Green,
[21:04] Speaker 7: hoists her up over her head and chucks her out
[21:07] Speaker 7: onto the field.
[21:10] Speaker 3: And the umpire stands up and looks up, and he says, no, no, no, no.
[21:14] Speaker 2: I said, throw out the first pitch.
[21:28] Speaker 3: Whether or not people agree or disagree with her politics,
[21:33] Speaker 3: Americans have fully admired the hard work and accomplishments of
[21:37] Speaker 3: a strong, successful, self made woman. No, millions of Americans
[21:45] Speaker 3: like this guy, dismiss her as a moron.
[21:50] Speaker 2: The creatness.
[21:51] Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson leads with the word bartender when he describes her, which,
[21:56] Speaker 3: by the way is an insult to the entire American
[21:59] Speaker 3: working class. And of course AOC is a woman of
[22:03] Speaker 3: Puerto Rican descend so that makes her a DEI higher.
[22:08] Speaker 2: Oh what's DEI will?
[22:13] Speaker 3: Diversity? Equity inclusion. It is a lovely idea. It's a
[22:19] Speaker 3: worthy goal to set a framework that promotes spare treatment
[22:24] Speaker 3: and equal access to all people, particularly those who have
[22:28] Speaker 3: been poorly represented or who face discrimination for race or gender, disability,
[22:35] Speaker 3: something else.
[22:37] Speaker 2: It's equal opportunity for qualified people of color and gender
[22:42] Speaker 2: in the workplace.
[22:43] Speaker 3: It's about erasing ethnic barriers, allowing fair access to opportunity,
[22:48] Speaker 3: guaranteeing pay equality. It's about parental leave, protections against workplace harassment,
[22:57] Speaker 3: modifying our spaces to accommodate those with special needs.
[23:02] Speaker 2: It's about affordable.
[23:03] Speaker 3: Housing, bigotry, free laws and policies, mutual respect, and open doors.
[23:10] Speaker 3: Yet tens of millions of people say DEI is a
[23:14] Speaker 3: Liberal plot to give preparential treatment to unqualified minorities. And
[23:21] Speaker 3: somehow AOC gets shoehorned into this insult. Even when she
[23:27] Speaker 3: arrives at the party with a double major and honors
[23:30] Speaker 3: from Boston University. She's elected democratically in a process that
[23:38] Speaker 3: is supposed to be the American way. Oh what's the
[23:42] Speaker 3: American way? You ask, well, at the time of your
[23:46] Speaker 3: arrival my extraterrestrial buddies. The markers for being a good
[23:51] Speaker 3: American are apparently giant highway crosses, fossil fuels, and Jesus.
[23:58] Speaker 2: Fish bumper stickers.
[24:00] Speaker 3: Also, if you want to demonstrate the American way publicly,
[24:03] Speaker 3: you must dress yourself like.
[24:05] Speaker 2: The Roman candle.
[24:10] Speaker 3: To punctuate your americanisticness, wave around to sixty round a
[24:16] Speaker 3: minute AR fifteen, which fires lethal projectiles at a velocity
[24:21] Speaker 3: of thirty two hundred feet per second and is frequently
[24:24] Speaker 3: sold to mass shooting psychopaths. My country has forty four
[24:31] Speaker 3: million of these things floating around. While licenses here are
[24:35] Speaker 3: required to drive a car, use a trademark, sell alcohol,
[24:42] Speaker 3: even go fishing. In some states, it's harder to buy
[24:47] Speaker 3: allergy medication than it is to buy the Great American
[24:51] Speaker 3: Death Stick.
[24:56] Speaker 2: America.
[24:56] Speaker 3: The United States has more firearms than citizens. Gun murder
[25:02] Speaker 3: happens hourly, so, of course, our society has committed time, energy, money,
[25:07] Speaker 3: and resources to wage war against windmills, brown people, vaccines,
[25:15] Speaker 3: national parks, history books, and rainbow flags. The forty six
[25:22] Speaker 3: thousand people who die by gun violence every year. There
[25:25] Speaker 3: is small price to pay in the service of democracy.
[25:31] Speaker 2: Oh what's democracy.
[25:32] Speaker 3: Well, democracy is a system of government by and for
[25:38] Speaker 3: everyday people.
[25:41] Speaker 2: The power resides in the people.
[25:45] Speaker 3: Leaders are appointed and elected in free and fair elections.
[25:50] Speaker 3: Americans have a constitutional right to be or not be religious,
[25:55] Speaker 3: to speak, to assemble. We have courts of law, we
[25:59] Speaker 3: have voting rights, we have minority protections, and a representative
[26:03] Speaker 3: government serving everybody.
[26:08] Speaker 2: The American experiment was unprecedented in the late eighteenth century.
[26:13] Speaker 3: While our founders were far from perfect, their declaration of
[26:18] Speaker 3: independence and that constitution bucked the political order, established a
[26:25] Speaker 3: representative republic, encouraged a diversity of ideas, installed checks and balances.
[26:32] Speaker 2: Against the types of power they had just escaped.
[26:35] Speaker 3: And founded a nation without tyrants and despots, dictators, or
[26:40] Speaker 3: a king and shit. Allow me to introduce you to
[26:53] Speaker 3: today's founding Fondler, the commander in thief, Genghis Dawn Tangerine
[27:08] Speaker 3: Palpatine ejected from the womb with a silver spoon already
[27:23] Speaker 3: in his mouth. Donald Trump is convinced tens of millions
[27:27] Speaker 3: of swooning cult members that an entitled trust fund baby grifter, bankrupt,
[27:33] Speaker 3: pussy grabber, warmonger, and tantrum throwing mango man. Somehow he
[27:40] Speaker 3: has convinced people he's the chosen one, and millions of
[27:43] Speaker 3: people agree. Like this guy, two saviors on one banner.
[27:52] Speaker 3: People love putting Trump and Jesus on the same message board.
[27:57] Speaker 2: And check this out.
[27:58] Speaker 3: There's an actual organization called Women for Trump.
[28:05] Speaker 2: Given his history.
[28:07] Speaker 3: Given his words and behaviors, given the judgments of our courts,
[28:12] Speaker 3: the Epstein connection everything, women.
[28:15] Speaker 2: For Trump is the equivalent of chickens for Tyson.
[28:26] Speaker 3: Yet an entire generation believes that he is the chosen
[28:30] Speaker 3: One his own words. Perhaps it's understandable, as he apparently
[28:36] Speaker 3: possesses god like omnissions. Nobody knows more about taxes than
[28:42] Speaker 3: I do, and income than I do.
[28:43] Speaker 2: Nobody knows more about construction than I do.
[28:45] Speaker 3: Nobody knows more about campaign finance than I do.
[28:49] Speaker 2: Nobody knows consultants better than I. Know more about drones
[28:52] Speaker 2: than anybody. Nobody knows much more about technology.
[28:55] Speaker 3: Nobody in the history of this country has ever known
[28:58] Speaker 3: so much about infrastructre.
[29:00] Speaker 2: Donald talk, I know more about ices than the generals do. Believe.
[29:05] Speaker 2: Nobody knows more about environmental effect statements.
[29:07] Speaker 3: And I think I know more about the environment than
[29:09] Speaker 3: most people.
[29:10] Speaker 2: I know a lot about wind. I know a lot
[29:12] Speaker 2: about wind. Yeah, I know, winning knows very much. I've
[29:15] Speaker 2: studied it better than anybody. I understand the power of Facebook,
[29:19] Speaker 2: maybe better than almost anybody. I know more about renewables
[29:22] Speaker 2: than any human being. Nobody who knows more about poles
[29:25] Speaker 2: than me. I know more about ports than any human
[29:27] Speaker 2: being on Earth. Nobody knows more about bankers than I do.
[29:30] Speaker 2: Nobody knows more about trade than me. Well, obviously he
[29:32] Speaker 2: doesn't know about nuclear weapons. I know more about nuclear weapons,
[29:35] Speaker 2: and he'll ever know.
[29:36] Speaker 6: I understand the tax lawyers better than almost anyone who.
[29:39] Speaker 2: Knows more about lawsuits than I do. I'm the King.
[29:41] Speaker 2: I know a lot. I know more than I'm ever
[29:43] Speaker 2: going to tell you. Who would fall for this?
[29:51] Speaker 3: This untethered claim by Captain covefe that somehow, somehow he
[30:00] Speaker 3: more than the world's most credentialed scientists, historians, philosophers, logicians,
[30:07] Speaker 3: specialist scholars, and Nobel laureates on everything from finance to
[30:12] Speaker 3: the Middle East to nuclear weapons. This is the same
[30:18] Speaker 3: guy who boasted about passing that basic cognition test where he.
[30:22] Speaker 2: Had to remember five words in order.
[30:25] Speaker 3: He's still boasting about it today, and yet apparently this
[30:31] Speaker 3: qualifies him to be not just king, but maybe a
[30:35] Speaker 3: supreme being, and his minions seem to agree.
[30:38] Speaker 2: They build idols in his honor.
[30:41] Speaker 3: This is an actual idol that was brought to the
[30:44] Speaker 3: twenty twenty one Conservative Political Action Committee Conference and people
[30:49] Speaker 3: were posing with this golden calf. Sculptor Alan Catrill of
[30:56] Speaker 3: Ohio built himself a fifteen foot Paul Braune. Donald Trump
[31:04] Speaker 3: he wants to have his own face put on Mount Rushmore.
[31:09] Speaker 3: Check out this bizarre AI image, which was posted on
[31:13] Speaker 3: the official White House social media account. This shit is
[31:16] Speaker 3: so straight up North Korea that I actually went and
[31:20] Speaker 3: photoshopped him here next to the statue of North Korea's
[31:24] Speaker 3: Kim Jong ill for comparison. She had some serious Dear
[31:28] Speaker 3: Leader bullshit right there.
[31:30] Speaker 2: Right.
[31:35] Speaker 3: But you ask my alien friend, you ask me why
[31:39] Speaker 3: would Americans who escaped a monarchy.
[31:42] Speaker 2: Want a king? Because tens of millions of registered voters
[31:48] Speaker 2: in this country are as sharp as soup. That's why.
[31:55] Speaker 3: They won't understand today, because they don't understand yesterday. They
[32:02] Speaker 3: love savior figures and they're easy meat for charismatic con men.
[32:11] Speaker 2: But but.
[32:16] Speaker 3: Tens of millions of others are also writing up to resist.
[32:28] Speaker 3: They do understand are present in relation to our past,
[32:34] Speaker 3: and they're fighting.
[32:35] Speaker 2: Hard for our future.
[32:36] Speaker 3: They're protesting, They're pushing back, always with conviction, and often
[32:41] Speaker 3: with great humor. Can I show you some examples of
[32:44] Speaker 3: humorous messaging from some of the No King's protests.
[32:48] Speaker 2: I enjoyed this one. Hey, Maga, go fact yourself.
[32:58] Speaker 3: Ikea has better cabinets, honk if you.
[33:06] Speaker 2: Never texted secret war.
[33:08] Speaker 3: Plans, imagine this car filled with bees clean up on
[33:21] Speaker 3: Aisle forty seven? Does this ass make my country look small?
[33:33] Speaker 3: Here's the sign I just made for the next protest.
[33:37] Speaker 3: I haven't taken it out in public yet, but I've
[33:39] Speaker 3: got it in the queue. It says, the Republican Congress
[33:42] Speaker 3: prepares to convene. Oh, my extra terrestrial friends, humanity has
[33:56] Speaker 3: its moments, standing up for the best the worst of times.
[34:02] Speaker 2: Could you see from space?
[34:04] Speaker 3: Could you look down and see on your monitors some
[34:06] Speaker 3: of the recent protests from across my nation under threat?
[34:09] Speaker 2: It'll warm your heart. This happened in Chicago, Illinois, recently.
[34:17] Speaker 3: New York City, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Check out this amazing aerial
[34:27] Speaker 3: photo from San Francisco on June fourteenth. People didn't just
[34:31] Speaker 3: hold the signs, they became the sign They sent a
[34:36] Speaker 3: message that they are not royal subjects, they're free citizens.
[34:43] Speaker 3: They believe that the power of the people is stronger
[34:46] Speaker 3: than the people in power. At least that's the nation
[34:50] Speaker 3: they want to live in. That's the country they're fighting for.
[34:56] Speaker 3: In that sense, my extra terrestrial friend, if we were
[34:59] Speaker 3: to divide here humans into their nature, maybe we could do.
[35:02] Speaker 2: So in a way that relates specifically to you, the alien.
[35:06] Speaker 3: In our recent history, we used to speculate a lot
[35:09] Speaker 3: about the aliens, and our opinions, and our media reflected
[35:12] Speaker 3: much of what we feared and what we hoped for
[35:15] Speaker 3: and who we were. The Red Scare and fears of
[35:18] Speaker 3: nuclear holocaust prompted an entire genre of nineteen fifties alien films.
[35:24] Speaker 2: That reflected a terrified culture.
[35:26] Speaker 3: They're coming to get us, They're going to steal everything,
[35:29] Speaker 3: and they're going to abduct us, and they're going to
[35:31] Speaker 3: destroy the world alien fiction, which also exposed American xenophobia.
[35:37] Speaker 3: In the minds of many, the outsider were a danger
[35:40] Speaker 3: coming to take everything we have, and people like that
[35:44] Speaker 3: exists today.
[35:47] Speaker 2: The late sixties.
[35:49] Speaker 3: Began a kind of turning point where humankind became slightly
[35:52] Speaker 3: less afraid a little more optimistic about other places and
[35:57] Speaker 3: other intelligences. We saw a lot of films in the
[36:02] Speaker 3: eighties and nineties that looked with wonder at the possibilities
[36:06] Speaker 3: of making contact, discovery, connection, a kind of cosmic kinship
[36:12] Speaker 3: with other sentient beings. And many of those optimists, dreamers,
[36:16] Speaker 3: and ambassadors exist on our planet today. So here you are,
[36:25] Speaker 3: You come in peace. Yet tragically, many of my fellow
[36:30] Speaker 3: citizens do not.
[36:34] Speaker 2: Humanity. You know, we've proven.
[36:36] Speaker 3: Both profoundly sensible and wildly senseless when it comes to
[36:42] Speaker 3: almost everything in our lives, where a species at war
[36:46] Speaker 3: with itself constantly, and I guess it's always been that way.
[36:51] Speaker 3: Only one hundred and sixty years ago in this country
[36:53] Speaker 3: it was another incarnation of that same human battle, one
[36:57] Speaker 3: side wanting to cage people, the other.
[36:59] Speaker 2: Side to liberate them.
[37:02] Speaker 3: One of the darkest periods in American history, resulting in
[37:08] Speaker 3: one of its brightest moments, the Thirteenth Amendment and the
[37:13] Speaker 3: abolition of slavery. Not that long ago, a culture of
[37:19] Speaker 3: sexist told women to shut up. Many of them stood
[37:23] Speaker 3: on the Bible when they tried to silence women. But
[37:26] Speaker 3: another culture of liberators stood up for gender equality, resulting
[37:31] Speaker 3: in the nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution in August
[37:35] Speaker 3: of nineteen twenty.
[37:36] Speaker 2: The right of citizens of the United States to.
[37:39] Speaker 3: Vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United
[37:43] Speaker 3: States or any State on account of sex. And we
[37:48] Speaker 3: know misogyny hasn't gone away, but the suffrage movement knocked
[37:53] Speaker 3: down sexist barriers to the ballot box. Fifties and sixties,
[38:01] Speaker 3: the dividers shouted America first, that sound familiar.
[38:06] Speaker 2: White America first.
[38:10] Speaker 3: The uniters among us said no, we are all the
[38:14] Speaker 3: human condition. Nineteen fifty four Supreme Court decision in Brown
[38:20] Speaker 3: versus Board of Education smashed school segregation. The Civil Rights
[38:25] Speaker 3: Act of nineteen sixty four outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex,
[38:30] Speaker 3: and national origin. Legal blocks to terracial marriage would be struck.
[38:36] Speaker 2: Down three years later. Invoking God.
[38:41] Speaker 3: Famous religious bigot Jerry Folwell and people like him famously
[38:45] Speaker 3: said that gay people were dangerous reprobates seeking a modern
[38:50] Speaker 3: day Sodom and Gomorrah.
[38:52] Speaker 2: They blamed homosexuals.
[38:54] Speaker 3: For everything from pedophilia, to the AIDS virus, to the
[38:58] Speaker 3: attacks of nine to eleven, the fearful and the hateful,
[39:04] Speaker 3: and the small claim that society had no obligation to
[39:09] Speaker 3: serve non heterosexuals. You want healthcare, you want a job,
[39:13] Speaker 3: you want to get married. Would you like us to
[39:15] Speaker 3: bake you a cake? Sorry, you don't have that right.
[39:22] Speaker 2: And yet millions of other people formed a resistance. They
[39:27] Speaker 2: stood up, and they continue to stand up.
[39:29] Speaker 3: For LGBT equality, gender equality, racial equality.
[39:35] Speaker 2: The struggle continues.
[39:36] Speaker 3: Sometimes it feels like half of humans are in human
[39:40] Speaker 3: Does anyone else feel that way? Christian nationalists are desperately
[39:48] Speaker 3: trying to build one nation in their image and make
[39:51] Speaker 3: the rest of us second class citizens or worse. And
[39:56] Speaker 3: yet many good people, including many Christians, are battling daily
[40:02] Speaker 3: for equality across the board. People like my friend Amanda
[40:06] Speaker 3: Tyler of the Baptist Joint Committee. She's founder of Christians
[40:10] Speaker 3: Against Christian Nationalism. We may disagree on theology, but we
[40:16] Speaker 3: share values, and she stands shoulder to shoulder with humanists
[40:20] Speaker 3: across the board to fight for what's right.
[40:26] Speaker 2: My friend Rachel Lazar.
[40:27] Speaker 3: Practicing Jew, is president of Americans United for the Separation
[40:32] Speaker 3: of Church and State, an organization on the ideological and
[40:37] Speaker 3: the legal front lines to defend our constitution. There are
[40:40] Speaker 3: so many other good people across the religious and non
[40:44] Speaker 3: religious spectrum who are on the right side of these
[40:47] Speaker 3: issues and on the right side of history of humanity.
[40:53] Speaker 3: I can't explain to you why members of my species
[40:56] Speaker 3: would make a concentration camp the opportunity for a GOP.
[41:00] Speaker 2: I can't explain it.
[41:01] Speaker 3: To you, but I can tell you there are other
[41:05] Speaker 3: good people who are out there protesting and being outraged
[41:08] Speaker 3: about it because it is.
[41:10] Speaker 2: Wrong and immoral and horrible and inhuman. The cancerre a
[41:14] Speaker 2: microcosm of the world.
[41:15] Speaker 3: I'm trying to describe my species just it has the
[41:18] Speaker 3: worst and the best, the kidnappers and the liberators, the
[41:21] Speaker 3: killers and the healers, the builders, the burners. You have
[41:26] Speaker 3: landed in a place that's broken and unsafe, the divided
[41:30] Speaker 3: States of America. Given what's happening, my friends, I don't
[41:36] Speaker 3: think you should stay.
[41:39] Speaker 2: I think you're in danger.
[41:40] Speaker 3: If you stay, many will always fear and hate what
[41:45] Speaker 3: they don't or what they won't understand. But before you go,
[41:50] Speaker 3: I want to give you a reason to maybe return
[41:53] Speaker 3: someday as far as I go, I'm a work in progress.
[42:01] Speaker 3: I'm going to try to keep myself from just becoming
[42:04] Speaker 3: scar tissue. I'm going to try to keep from losing
[42:06] Speaker 3: the better parts of myself. I'm going to try to
[42:09] Speaker 3: keep from surrendering to despair and depression and exasperation. I'm
[42:13] Speaker 3: gonna make sure while I'm cursing the darkness, I'm also spreading.
[42:17] Speaker 2: And even enjoying some light.
[42:22] Speaker 3: And when we hopefully meet again, I hope the future
[42:26] Speaker 3: me is.
[42:26] Speaker 2: A better man than he is today. Good people will
[42:32] Speaker 2: still be.
[42:33] Speaker 3: Here when you return, dreaming, battling, building, rebuilding. I've met
[42:41] Speaker 3: a lot of these people, many are in this room, and.
[42:45] Speaker 2: I can assure you they will never stop. They'll never
[42:48] Speaker 2: stop fighting for what they believe in, for what is right.
[42:52] Speaker 3: They are the best of this And on your next visit,
[42:55] Speaker 3: on your next visit, I hope those people are the
[42:57] Speaker 3: first people you meet.
[43:00] Speaker 2: I hope it's somebody like April of Joy. I hope
[43:04] Speaker 2: it's April. She would be my ambassador.
[43:08] Speaker 3: I hope it's Gaale.
[43:11] Speaker 2: I hope it's Cold or David Canvas Stacy.
[43:23] Speaker 3: So this whole room, you're my pick, You're my ambassadors
[43:31] Speaker 3: because we are seeing visitors land here in our eyeline
[43:35] Speaker 3: every day, not necessarily from up there, but from right
[43:40] Speaker 3: here where we live. You would be humanity's ambassadors, and
[43:44] Speaker 3: I would proudly stand with you. You represent the goodness
[43:49] Speaker 3: capable of You are a reason my species might be
[43:53] Speaker 3: worth meeting again if and when that day arrives. My friends,
[43:59] Speaker 3: it is our deep his goal to be as humanity
[44:01] Speaker 3: worth visiting, worth knowing. At the very least, we're hoping
[44:05] Speaker 3: that there is a greater good and lesser evils.
[44:10] Speaker 2: Oppressors will fall to the liberators.
[44:13] Speaker 3: Kindness will conquer cruelty, Humanity will overwhelm in humanity. When
[44:21] Speaker 3: we look up and we see you arriving from the skies,
[44:24] Speaker 3: we're not going to respond with fear and hate. We're
[44:28] Speaker 3: going to roll out the welcome man. We're going to
[44:31] Speaker 3: greet you with big smiles, and we're going to teach
[44:33] Speaker 3: you how we hug and high five, will tell you
[44:36] Speaker 3: our story, will show you our world, and after our
[44:40] Speaker 3: great struggle, this world will indeed be a better world.
[44:44] Speaker 2: That's the goal, that's the dream.
[44:47] Speaker 3: Perhaps perhaps on that future day, as a species, we'll
[44:55] Speaker 3: be able to walk up to you and say, sincerely,
[44:58] Speaker 3: from the bottom of our hearts, we come in peace.
[45:07] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[45:21] Speaker 1: Follow the Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a
[45:25] Speaker 1: complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and
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[45:36] Speaker 1: and conventions. Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com.

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