# America: the Idiocracy

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 12 Nov 2024, 1 h 12 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/62674475/podcast_771_unitedstatesidiocracy.mp3

Your humble host has been having dark post-election thoughts. We explore those thoughts and hear from plenty of callers. VIDEO of this stream PayPal donate link is HERE Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Semio 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 in this country is going.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Through the rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred.
[0:18] Speaker 1: If I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
[0:22] Speaker 1: not because I put my hand on a book and
[0:24] Speaker 1: made a wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 2: Truth Fusian 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: There is video of this live stream the YouTube link
[1:00] Speaker 2: in the description box spontaneous, unplanned just to host venting.
[1:05] Speaker 2: So for all of its flaws, I apologize, but it's real,
[1:10] Speaker 2: and here it is. I'm going to admit to you
[1:15] Speaker 2: a few things I can't believe. I'm going to admit.
[1:18] Speaker 2: And then, of course the phone lines are open if
[1:20] Speaker 2: you want to call and vent. I know a lot
[1:22] Speaker 2: of people have a lot of stuff on their mind.
[1:24] Speaker 2: I have been struggling a little bit with sleep anyway,
[1:30] Speaker 2: and the past few days have just been a freaking nightmare.
[1:33] Speaker 2: And I'm sure you may feel the same way, which
[1:36] Speaker 2: is weird. You know, I know that I am in
[1:38] Speaker 2: probably the least endangered demographic right now. I mean, I
[1:43] Speaker 2: get it. Even though I'm an atheist activist, I think, well,
[1:47] Speaker 2: you know, I'm a CIS white male, and so I'm
[1:50] Speaker 2: not going to be the one as much in the crosshairs.
[1:54] Speaker 2: But I do grieve about the potential, the possibilities of
[1:59] Speaker 2: what is to come. So you know, I'm able to
[2:00] Speaker 2: drop off, and then I wake up and my brain
[2:03] Speaker 2: is like a spinning hard drive. Do you know what
[2:05] Speaker 2: that's like? And I lay there and I get myself
[2:09] Speaker 2: worked up and I worry, and then I get up,
[2:11] Speaker 2: and then I get mad that I can't sleep. Then
[2:14] Speaker 2: I eat something and I'm like, I'm not eating because
[2:16] Speaker 2: I'm hungry. I'm eating because I'm bored. Stop eating, and
[2:19] Speaker 2: then I finish what I was eating, and then I
[2:20] Speaker 2: try to go back to bed, and I can't sleep,
[2:22] Speaker 2: so I doom scroll, I go on social media. Terrible idea,
[2:27] Speaker 2: especially in the middle of the night. You don't want
[2:29] Speaker 2: to log onto the news sites. I've been in avoidance mote.
[2:32] Speaker 2: I don't even go to the news. I don't want
[2:34] Speaker 2: to know what the headlines are. Because I know what
[2:36] Speaker 2: they're going to be for the next several years. Avoidance.
[2:41] Speaker 2: Is it a healthy avoidance or is it not? Sleep
[2:44] Speaker 2: has been a problem. I woke up this morning. I
[2:47] Speaker 2: told Nat, I just feel sad, just sad and angry
[2:52] Speaker 2: and all those other things. So I had some friends
[2:56] Speaker 2: and again, I can't believe. I'm it's not a big
[2:58] Speaker 2: deal to you, but it's kind of a deal to me.
[3:01] Speaker 2: And so they're like, here and they gave me a
[3:06] Speaker 2: gummy and they're like, if you cannot sleep through the night,
[3:11] Speaker 2: take that. I was like no, They're like, seriously, just
[3:16] Speaker 2: take that now. I don't even think this is legal.
[3:19] Speaker 2: But don't you have to have a license or something
[3:21] Speaker 2: like that. They're like, here, take what I mean, it's
[3:23] Speaker 2: no big deal. But I know I sound like a lamer,
[3:27] Speaker 2: but I'm fifty six something years old. I've never been
[3:30] Speaker 2: drunk in my life. I really don't drink. I've never
[3:34] Speaker 2: been high, never done drugs of any kind. And I
[3:39] Speaker 2: kind of don't want to break the streak. That's stupid. Like,
[3:43] Speaker 2: if you can't sleep, then help yourself sleep. What are
[3:46] Speaker 2: you waiting for? You don't want to be at the
[3:48] Speaker 2: end of your life and say, you didn't do the gummies? Yeah,
[3:54] Speaker 2: I mean, are there some things that you want to
[3:56] Speaker 2: try before you leave the world. Yeah, But I don't
[4:02] Speaker 2: want to break the streak. So I was looking at
[4:05] Speaker 2: it last night. I was all wrapped up. It was
[4:08] Speaker 2: sitting on the night stand, like, well, do I take it?
[4:12] Speaker 2: I don't know if I want to take it. If
[4:14] Speaker 2: you're not sure, you shouldn't take it. But come on,
[4:16] Speaker 2: take it, Jesus Christ, come on. It's not cocaine. It's
[4:19] Speaker 2: a gummy and you need the rest now. But if
[4:22] Speaker 2: you take it, you'll have broken the streak. Fifty six
[4:24] Speaker 2: and a half years. I slept for about an hour
[4:27] Speaker 2: and a half, woke up, got mad, went around the house,
[4:31] Speaker 2: ate something that I wasn't hungry for, doom, scrolled, and
[4:34] Speaker 2: finally got about two and a half hours before the
[4:37] Speaker 2: morning came. And then I just woke up sad and no,
[4:39] Speaker 2: I didn't do the gummy. So I literally have this
[4:45] Speaker 2: weird thing that I'm like, well, I'm sitting on the
[4:47] Speaker 2: night stand right now, and what's what good is the
[4:51] Speaker 2: streak do? I just like being able to say that
[4:53] Speaker 2: I've never done anything like that. I'm not getting drunk
[4:57] Speaker 2: half a gummy. I don't know. I don't speak gummy.
[5:01] Speaker 2: I don't speak gummy. I don't know what I'm doing,
[5:03] Speaker 2: but I do feel like I could use an assist
[5:07] Speaker 2: when it comes to trying to deal with what's going
[5:10] Speaker 2: on all around me. And here's the next thing I'm
[5:12] Speaker 2: going to admit to you. I think I talked about
[5:16] Speaker 2: this with the cognitive dissonance guys, and they were it
[5:19] Speaker 2: was a Tom who was speaking about how you think
[5:22] Speaker 2: and how you feel, and how they are often in
[5:24] Speaker 2: conflict with each other. And when you're feeling something you
[5:28] Speaker 2: know is irrational and even harmful, but you would never
[5:32] Speaker 2: act on that feeling. It's that dark part of your
[5:36] Speaker 2: heart that you often preserve and sometimes you don't even
[5:38] Speaker 2: tell people about. So it's weird that I'm telling you
[5:41] Speaker 2: about it because there may be somebody who quote minds
[5:45] Speaker 2: me or thinks the worst of me, or calls me
[5:49] Speaker 2: a hypocrites. But I just don't give a shit. I'll
[5:56] Speaker 2: tell you because I suspect you may feel the same way.
[6:03] Speaker 2: Have you ever been in traffic and you're doing it right,
[6:07] Speaker 2: You're spatially aware, you're doing at least around the speed limit,
[6:11] Speaker 2: You're responsible and somebody comes and they jack their car,
[6:14] Speaker 2: a little hot rod in in front of you, and
[6:17] Speaker 2: they act like they own the road, endangering everybody around you.
[6:20] Speaker 2: They're on their phone texting. You can see them through
[6:23] Speaker 2: the window, just being a jerk, reckless. You ever fantasize
[6:31] Speaker 2: about just taking your car and just just right into
[6:35] Speaker 2: their back quarter panel, or you just right off the
[6:39] Speaker 2: shoulder into the river or into the trees. You don't
[6:42] Speaker 2: want to kill them, but you want them to pay.
[6:46] Speaker 2: Take that sweet little ride that you're so proud of,
[6:49] Speaker 2: and you want everybody on the highway in all three
[6:52] Speaker 2: or four lanes to notice. And I want you to
[6:57] Speaker 2: have it totaled. I want you to pay for the
[7:03] Speaker 2: endangering that you are doing, for thinking that you are
[7:06] Speaker 2: the only driver on the road potentially endangering you know me,
[7:11] Speaker 2: my passenger's children, peep a school bus, I don't care
[7:14] Speaker 2: what it is. And you, in that emotional part of
[7:17] Speaker 2: your brain, you fantasize about just right into the guardrail
[7:24] Speaker 2: and fuck that sports car up. Oh, I'm sorry, you're
[7:31] Speaker 2: going to need a toe drug. Oh you're going to
[7:33] Speaker 2: have a hard time getting another ride. That's terrible. Bye bye.
[7:40] Speaker 2: In my heart, my emotional self, the ration. I'ms a
[7:44] Speaker 2: rational self the uncivilized? Would that be the ID? Would
[7:47] Speaker 2: that qualify as ID? Don't tell me you haven't thought
[7:52] Speaker 2: this way. I know you have. I used to have
[7:56] Speaker 2: a boss. It was my first radio job ever and
[8:01] Speaker 2: I hadn't started the gig yet. It was my first
[8:04] Speaker 2: radio job. I was going to be a radio disc
[8:07] Speaker 2: jockey for a Christian station and I was just a kid.
[8:11] Speaker 2: I was so excited. And I remember the manager called
[8:16] Speaker 2: about something and I sat on the phone. I said,
[8:20] Speaker 2: by the way, you know, I learned in school how
[8:22] Speaker 2: to do commercials. I learned how to do production. We
[8:24] Speaker 2: call it production when you make commercials. And I was
[8:27] Speaker 2: just a young, eager, enthusiastic person who was desperate to
[8:31] Speaker 2: try to just to help to be a radio guy.
[8:36] Speaker 2: And on the phone, I remember he switched and he
[8:39] Speaker 2: yelled at me and he said that production room is
[8:41] Speaker 2: for this, this, this, and this, and you have no
[8:43] Speaker 2: business in there, and I don't ever want to see
[8:45] Speaker 2: you in there, do you hear me? I mean he
[8:47] Speaker 2: just dressed me down on the phone and I went
[8:51] Speaker 2: sheet wide, I'm sure, and I felt totally humiliated, and
[8:55] Speaker 2: I said, yes, sir, Yes, yes, sir, and I hung
[8:57] Speaker 2: up the phone, and it stuck with me. I've never
[9:00] Speaker 2: forgotten it. And that began a long run of verbally
[9:06] Speaker 2: abusive behavior toward everybody that worked for him. I hate
[9:12] Speaker 2: to say this, but he suffered from and I think
[9:14] Speaker 2: this is a thing he suffered from little man syndrome.
[9:18] Speaker 2: He was a very, very very short guy. And there
[9:21] Speaker 2: were some people who they don't determine their strength and
[9:24] Speaker 2: character by stature, right, and then there are some like
[9:29] Speaker 2: this man, I think, who spent their entire life compensating
[9:33] Speaker 2: for their self consciousness about the fact that they weren't
[9:36] Speaker 2: six foot three. And this guy compensated by not raising
[9:42] Speaker 2: himself up, elevating himself in terms of who he was
[9:45] Speaker 2: as a human being, but by tearing the hell out
[9:49] Speaker 2: of everybody around him. And he did. Every time he
[9:52] Speaker 2: came in. You could feel the temperature drop. We dreaded him.
[9:56] Speaker 2: Is he in the building? Is he in the building?
[9:58] Speaker 2: When's he supposed to go home? Does anybody know? Oh
[10:02] Speaker 2: my god, it's a religious radio station, right. Everybody else
[10:06] Speaker 2: was wonderful, but this guy, he was just awful, awful
[10:11] Speaker 2: to people, and he would dress me down. Here's something
[10:15] Speaker 2: I don't know why, I'm telling you all this. Maybe
[10:17] Speaker 2: it's just because I haven't slept and I don't give
[10:19] Speaker 2: a shit. So we had a radio console in the
[10:24] Speaker 2: main control room, right you had your soundboard at the time,
[10:27] Speaker 2: there were these cart decks where you played commercials and
[10:30] Speaker 2: then CD players, and they were all on this desk.
[10:34] Speaker 2: And you've seen what a radio studio looks like. Well,
[10:36] Speaker 2: it was built for a seated announcer. It was built low,
[10:42] Speaker 2: way down low, and down here near the bottom, that's
[10:44] Speaker 2: where they kept the actual albums. And yes, we still
[10:47] Speaker 2: played a few albums at the time, actual vinyl records.
[10:51] Speaker 2: But because somebody apparently a few years ago with a
[10:55] Speaker 2: chair had scuffed the wood on this day, ask the
[11:02] Speaker 2: boss decided from now on you can only stand. You
[11:06] Speaker 2: were not allowed to sit when you do your radio show.
[11:09] Speaker 2: I'm six foot one and my first shifts were twelve
[11:15] Speaker 2: hours long, and so what we were then required to
[11:21] Speaker 2: do was you would sit in a chair in another
[11:24] Speaker 2: part of the studio and then you would have to
[11:26] Speaker 2: get up, organize yourself, do your you know, your little thing,
[11:31] Speaker 2: you know, and announce the song and the time and
[11:33] Speaker 2: the weather and do whatever you're supposed to do, and
[11:35] Speaker 2: try to organize that, and then when you were done,
[11:36] Speaker 2: you went back to the other part of the room
[11:38] Speaker 2: and you had to sit down. And when you're working
[11:42] Speaker 2: six pm to six a m. I mean, come on.
[11:47] Speaker 2: And one time I just had enough and I pulled
[11:50] Speaker 2: a chair up and I sat down right there. It
[11:53] Speaker 2: was just like, oh God, microphone was right here, the
[11:58] Speaker 2: card deck and the CD players, everything was where. This
[12:01] Speaker 2: was how the thing was built. It's how it was designed.
[12:04] Speaker 2: And I didn't hear him come into the building. He
[12:11] Speaker 2: turns that corner and my heart sank down to my feet,
[12:16] Speaker 2: and I thought, oh, what are you doing. I'm sorry, sir,
[12:23] Speaker 2: it was such a long shift. I hope it's okay.
[12:25] Speaker 2: I just for a few thought i'd pull I wanted
[12:27] Speaker 2: to pull a chair up. And he looked at me
[12:30] Speaker 2: and he said, well, you can go work for somebody
[12:32] Speaker 2: else if you want. I mean, he just then he
[12:33] Speaker 2: just dressed me down. It was just horrible. And every
[12:36] Speaker 2: day was that way, and when he was not around,
[12:42] Speaker 2: I would fantasize about something horrible happening to that guy.
[12:49] Speaker 2: I didn't really want it to happen here, but here
[12:52] Speaker 2: in the id or the uncivilized part, I thought, I
[12:58] Speaker 2: wouldn't it be nice to say, not only will you
[13:01] Speaker 2: never speak to me this way again, but you'll never
[13:04] Speaker 2: speak to my coworkers, You'll never speak to your family,
[13:08] Speaker 2: you will never speak to strangers, you will never speak
[13:11] Speaker 2: in this way to anybody again. And then you take
[13:13] Speaker 2: a baseball bat in your cracks fucking skull open.
[13:16] Speaker 3: Right.
[13:17] Speaker 2: It's this totally uncivilized, this total primitive thing.
[13:21] Speaker 4: That you do.
[13:22] Speaker 2: You just think to say everything you've ever wanted to say,
[13:27] Speaker 2: and then just just end him, you know, because you
[13:32] Speaker 2: were just stripped raw, you were just humiliated. And I've
[13:43] Speaker 2: had some of those feelings post election. Not about violence,
[13:49] Speaker 2: but my brain and my heart are having an argument.
[13:53] Speaker 2: And I'm fully aware that I'm being in some ways irrational.
[13:59] Speaker 2: And here's what I mean by that. Seventy two million
[14:04] Speaker 2: people just voted to enable a sociopath too essentially set
[14:08] Speaker 2: fire to American democracy. I can't even imagine what the
[14:13] Speaker 2: next several years are going to look like. I can't
[14:16] Speaker 2: process it. Have I can barely log onto the world.
[14:22] Speaker 2: There are a few people that I know who are associates,
[14:25] Speaker 2: friends on my tennis team, etc. Who have called about
[14:29] Speaker 2: something else. I let the phone ring, I cannot. I
[14:33] Speaker 2: cannot speak to them. I'm so angry because even though
[14:39] Speaker 2: I know in this this area over here of their lives,
[14:43] Speaker 2: they are genuinely good people, but they have the Trump
[14:46] Speaker 2: box somewhere inside their skull, and for whatever rationalization they made,
[14:52] Speaker 2: they checked that box on the ballot, and they are
[14:57] Speaker 2: one of those seventy two million reasons that a sociopath,
[15:01] Speaker 2: predator con manchild is going to essentially wreck us. I
[15:07] Speaker 2: can't even talk to him. I'm supposed to release his
[15:12] Speaker 2: speech that I've been giving, and I still hold to
[15:14] Speaker 2: this about how we change minds in this world. We
[15:19] Speaker 2: have to engage those even awful people sometimes to try
[15:23] Speaker 2: to realize that people who perpetuate bad ideas are often
[15:27] Speaker 2: victims of bad ideas, and I was one of those people.
[15:31] Speaker 2: That's still true. I'm not sure I can release the
[15:34] Speaker 2: speech because it feels tone deaf against the absolute heartbreak
[15:39] Speaker 2: that I feel right now. How can I release a
[15:44] Speaker 2: presentation that rightfully says that we have to use things
[15:48] Speaker 2: like street epistemology and the Socratic method, and we have
[15:51] Speaker 2: to try to get into the why. And yes, good
[15:53] Speaker 2: people can do not good things. Some people can enable
[15:57] Speaker 2: bad things because they're deluded or brainwash. You know, beyond
[16:01] Speaker 2: the bigots, beyond the haters, beyond the ones that fit
[16:04] Speaker 2: the caricature, I mean everybody else. You know, the people
[16:07] Speaker 2: who have rationalized that Trump is somehow God's man. The
[16:10] Speaker 2: Lord sometimes uses flawed people to deliver the kingdom unto us.
[16:15] Speaker 2: They believe it is a righteous cause. So they're operating
[16:17] Speaker 2: supposedly for the noblest of reasons. I don't want to talk.
[16:21] Speaker 2: I just can't pick up the phone. As a family
[16:27] Speaker 2: event earlier this week, celebrating somebody's birthday, I stayed home.
[16:32] Speaker 2: I had nothing else to do. I had no excuse.
[16:34] Speaker 2: I had no reason to go or not go. Rather,
[16:37] Speaker 2: I just who wants to sit at the table and
[16:40] Speaker 2: feel that sort of We were at dinner last night.
[16:45] Speaker 2: Somebody walked in with a T shirt on and it
[16:48] Speaker 2: just said Trump won. And he's exactly the kind of
[16:53] Speaker 2: dude you would picture, exactly the kind of guy that
[16:59] Speaker 2: would wear a Trump one T shirt. I would wager
[17:04] Speaker 2: if I could sit him down for three minutes and
[17:06] Speaker 2: quiz him about the founding Fathers, the United States Constitution,
[17:12] Speaker 2: the Pledge of Allegiance, God on the coins, God on
[17:16] Speaker 2: the money, the rest of the world. He wouldn't know
[17:20] Speaker 2: a goddamn thing about it. He would be historically, constitutionally
[17:29] Speaker 2: culturally illiterate, and tens of millions of people just like
[17:36] Speaker 2: him are the reason that in the coming years we
[17:40] Speaker 2: may lose the Department of Education. People like RFK Junior,
[17:46] Speaker 2: a wacky conspiracy theorist, may dismantle the FDA. Ryan Walters,
[17:53] Speaker 2: the superintendent of public instruction in my own state, has
[17:57] Speaker 2: been running for office all of the crazy headline grabbing
[18:01] Speaker 2: shit that he has been doing for the past several years.
[18:04] Speaker 2: He's been waving his arms in the air so that
[18:06] Speaker 2: Trump will notice him. And now that Trump is elected,
[18:10] Speaker 2: Ryan Walter's once a high high position in the Trump administration,
[18:15] Speaker 2: and he very well may get it. He's terrifying. He's
[18:20] Speaker 2: the one who's been jamming the Ten Commandments into public
[18:23] Speaker 2: school classrooms, which spurred Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling. He's the
[18:29] Speaker 2: one who mandated Bibles be in every classroom and that
[18:32] Speaker 2: the Bible be taught. And I don't mean comparative religions.
[18:35] Speaker 2: I mean taught like truth, science and history. I think
[18:40] Speaker 2: of the poor people in Ukraine. If Trump abandons Zelenski
[18:46] Speaker 2: and our allies in Ukraine, Pudin just essentially just skates
[18:52] Speaker 2: right in. He leaves NATO, we begin acting, you knowilaterally,
[19:00] Speaker 2: because we just don't give a shit about the rest
[19:01] Speaker 2: of the world. We're so myopic America, America, America, not
[19:06] Speaker 2: realizing that what we are and what we do affects everybody.
[19:13] Speaker 2: I worry about the white supremacists who think that Trump
[19:16] Speaker 2: is one of them, and I think he is too.
[19:21] Speaker 2: Who was the politician or the pundit somebody on television said,
[19:25] Speaker 2: even if Donald Trump isn't a racist, the racists think
[19:30] Speaker 2: he's a racist. That's the kind of person he is.
[19:37] Speaker 2: And so then I go to that dark part of
[19:38] Speaker 2: my heart and I think, Okay, if you check that
[19:44] Speaker 2: box for Trump, if you voted for this, if this
[19:47] Speaker 2: is what you want, this is really what you want,
[19:52] Speaker 2: then I hope it crashes down on you in the
[19:55] Speaker 2: worst possible way. Oh fine, to put an anti vax
[20:01] Speaker 2: crank in charge of public safety, Okay, fine, fine, And
[20:07] Speaker 2: when the measles or whatever comes for you, right whenever
[20:11] Speaker 2: some horrible virus, a vaccine preventable virus, or a sickness
[20:18] Speaker 2: that science would be needed to intervene on, when it
[20:21] Speaker 2: comes for you or someone you love, and it's not there.
[20:26] Speaker 2: It'll be a consequence of the vote that you cast.
[20:29] Speaker 2: You did it to yourself. And then I switch because
[20:36] Speaker 2: I'm like, well, that's not fair to their children, who
[20:39] Speaker 2: didn't have a say in the matter. I don't want
[20:43] Speaker 2: to see suffering in the world. But then I switch
[20:46] Speaker 2: again and say, but I sure do want to see consequences.
[20:48] Speaker 2: I want to see action and reaction. Fine, you want
[20:51] Speaker 2: to say, we're going to do whatever RFKG Junior wants
[20:55] Speaker 2: to do, remove fluoride and use ivermectin for COVID or
[21:00] Speaker 2: whatever else he is doing. You want to do that. Fine,
[21:03] Speaker 2: you want to do that. If you want to see
[21:05] Speaker 2: what that kind of world looks like and you end
[21:08] Speaker 2: up in the intensive care unit, I'm probably not going
[21:12] Speaker 2: to be holding a vigil outside the door. That's how
[21:15] Speaker 2: I feel. You want to give a temperamental, vengeful man
[21:22] Speaker 2: child access to the United States military, potentially engaging US
[21:26] Speaker 2: and who knows what, turning the National Guard or worse
[21:31] Speaker 2: against United States citizens who dared to disagree. All right, fine,
[21:36] Speaker 2: you want to see what that's like. Sooner or later,
[21:39] Speaker 2: that's going to come for you. You're going to think something
[21:42] Speaker 2: or say something that there's going to be a point
[21:44] Speaker 2: of perhaps disconnect, and then that militarized nation that's supposed
[21:50] Speaker 2: to protect you within its borders will come for you.
[21:53] Speaker 2: Are someone you care about, and you're going to see right,
[21:56] Speaker 2: you're going to fuck around and find out. I kind
[22:00] Speaker 2: of want that. I want these people who are going
[22:05] Speaker 2: to thumb their nose at climate scientists, I want them
[22:10] Speaker 2: to experience in my emotional heart right, not in my
[22:14] Speaker 2: logical brain, in my emotional heart, in my primal part,
[22:18] Speaker 2: I want the hurricane to fuck up their stuff. I
[22:20] Speaker 2: want to see the fine. You want to see the
[22:23] Speaker 2: consequences of not taking care, not being a steward of
[22:27] Speaker 2: the world on which we live, and it comes back
[22:31] Speaker 2: to bite you in the ass. It's not karma, that's action, reaction,
[22:36] Speaker 2: cause effect, and you pretty much had it coming. I
[22:39] Speaker 2: want the people who have enabled what is about to
[22:42] Speaker 2: happen to feel consequences for what is going to happen.
[22:48] Speaker 2: I don't want them to remain in the privileged class
[22:50] Speaker 2: where they wanted the public school system turned into a
[22:54] Speaker 2: Christian church and then they got it yay them, or
[22:57] Speaker 2: where they're a white heterostack, actual Christian family, so the
[23:02] Speaker 2: whole game works in their favor. All the rules advantage them.
[23:06] Speaker 2: I don't want that. I don't want them to sit
[23:08] Speaker 2: back smugly and say, oh, good for us, we got
[23:10] Speaker 2: a seat at the head of the table. Let's dole
[23:12] Speaker 2: out the scraps. Do everybody else. I want to see
[23:15] Speaker 2: somehow what's about to happen flip. I want to see
[23:19] Speaker 2: some chaos, and I want to see them receiving the scraps,
[23:22] Speaker 2: going how the hell did this happen? And already in
[23:27] Speaker 2: the chat I can see someone's like, you know, Seth's
[23:30] Speaker 2: just butt hurt because he lost, and these people aren't
[23:35] Speaker 2: hearing me. I'm amazed and struck and a little bit
[23:40] Speaker 2: amused because once Trump won so decisively, I had some
[23:44] Speaker 2: people who were I think they're atheist or whatever. They
[23:48] Speaker 2: gleefully came onto my social media pages just a gloat.
[23:53] Speaker 2: That's what you get, you lefties, you libs. You thought
[23:57] Speaker 2: you had the temperature put was going on, and now
[24:00] Speaker 2: you fucked around and found out. How does it feel,
[24:03] Speaker 2: mister woke? I thought about trying to explain how just
[24:09] Speaker 2: because something is popular it doesn't make it right, but
[24:12] Speaker 2: then I realized I would be wasting my time and
[24:16] Speaker 2: energy on someone who just came to gloat. Oh, the
[24:21] Speaker 2: majority decided doesn't make it right. Doesn't make it right.
[24:25] Speaker 2: It doesn't make the assault on democracy right. It doesn't
[24:28] Speaker 2: make stacking further stacking the Supreme Court right. It doesn't
[24:32] Speaker 2: mean waging war on scientists right. It doesn't mean endangering children.
[24:38] Speaker 2: It doesn't mean any of that stuff is right. It
[24:40] Speaker 2: just means it's popular. And the fact that it's popular
[24:43] Speaker 2: actually exposes one of the problems. One of the deeper
[24:46] Speaker 2: root problems, is that we are as a nation spoiled, rotten,
[24:50] Speaker 2: and pretty much functionally illiterate. I know somebody right now,
[24:58] Speaker 2: master's degree in college, works in the medical field, thinks
[25:04] Speaker 2: the earth is flat. Refused to get the COVID vaccine
[25:11] Speaker 2: because it was all a big conspiracy in the vaccine.
[25:14] Speaker 2: And she got COVID. And you know what she did
[25:17] Speaker 2: when she got COVID. She went to the fucking movies.
[25:22] Speaker 2: She went to the movie theater, a closed space, surrounded
[25:27] Speaker 2: by other people, knowing she had COVID. Nineteen big into homeopathy.
[25:37] Speaker 2: I don't want that regular western medicine, that evil pharmaceutical medicine.
[25:42] Speaker 2: I want an unregulated debunked pseudo scientific remedy, master's degree
[25:51] Speaker 2: in college works in the medical field. Voted for Trump.
[25:57] Speaker 2: I don't think I could sit at the table with
[25:58] Speaker 2: her right now. I just don't think I could stomach it.
[26:01] Speaker 2: Do you feel that. I don't mean to go on
[26:06] Speaker 2: and on? You know, the war on science has consequences,
[26:12] Speaker 2: disinformation campaigns from within and without, and yes I'm including
[26:16] Speaker 2: interference by Russia. They love the chaos, but I mean
[26:21] Speaker 2: the wellness industry, the conspiracy theorists, which are going after
[26:27] Speaker 2: everything from the moon landing to everything. I mean, they
[26:30] Speaker 2: are essentially priming a culture to believe the craziest, most
[26:35] Speaker 2: whack a doodle shit. And then those people go out
[26:39] Speaker 2: and they're not we don't live in a shared reality. Well,
[26:42] Speaker 2: if they aren't living in our shared reality, if they're
[26:45] Speaker 2: off in gumby Land, And then they start to make
[26:48] Speaker 2: decisions decisions about how they act and react, whether or
[26:52] Speaker 2: not they sit next to me in a movie theater
[26:55] Speaker 2: while they have COVID nineteen and dangering me and everybody
[26:59] Speaker 2: else into the city, whether or not they're going to
[27:01] Speaker 2: indoctrinate their kids with anti vax nonsense and then potentially
[27:06] Speaker 2: harm them sending them off to school where diseases exist.
[27:11] Speaker 2: They're going to jam mythology. You're going to teach Noah's
[27:14] Speaker 2: Ark as historical fact in public school history classes. I
[27:19] Speaker 2: said in a video that I sometimes I fantasize that
[27:23] Speaker 2: what if we were to partition the country into two halves,
[27:26] Speaker 2: and our half could celebrate the science, root ourselves on
[27:31] Speaker 2: solid ground, see ourselves as not just a country of individuals,
[27:36] Speaker 2: but a community of shared humanity. We'd be good stewards
[27:42] Speaker 2: of the planet. We would vaccinate our children. We would
[27:45] Speaker 2: embrace and teach the wonders of the science of evolution.
[27:50] Speaker 2: We would reject the idea of the billionaire, the money hoarder,
[27:55] Speaker 2: the oligarch, who could buy an entire social media platform
[27:59] Speaker 2: and sing handedly weaponize it against the rest of us.
[28:05] Speaker 2: We wouldn't allow that to happen. Who was it who said,
[28:09] Speaker 2: you know, all right, fine, if you hit nine hundred
[28:12] Speaker 2: ninety nine million, nine hundred ninety nine thousand, nine hundred
[28:15] Speaker 2: ninety nine dollars, we give you a plaque that says congratulations,
[28:20] Speaker 2: you won capitalism. We name a dog park after you,
[28:24] Speaker 2: and then we take all of the extra money and
[28:26] Speaker 2: we use it to feed the poor, and fund cancer
[28:29] Speaker 2: research and build homes for the homeless, and develop a
[28:32] Speaker 2: better society. Jesus Christ, how many thousands of millions of
[28:36] Speaker 2: dollars does one person need? The society that I would
[28:42] Speaker 2: like to live in would never allow for that, because
[28:44] Speaker 2: that society would be broken. Trickle down was always a myth.
[28:52] Speaker 2: I would like to see people who are acting in
[28:55] Speaker 2: anti social ways, who are the agents of harm, to realize,
[28:59] Speaker 2: even if at this moment they don't get it right,
[29:02] Speaker 2: it'll be like, don't touch the stove. Who was that comedian?
[29:07] Speaker 2: It was Chris Porter. He had this joke with his
[29:10] Speaker 2: kid and he was like, don't touch the stove, don't
[29:12] Speaker 2: touch the stove, don't touch the stove, and the kid
[29:15] Speaker 2: wouldn't listen. And then finally he's like, you know what,
[29:17] Speaker 2: fucking lick it right now. You can't taste anything because
[29:23] Speaker 2: you're stupid. There would be a consequence, action, reaction. Only
[29:29] Speaker 2: when the people feel some kind of pain. Will they
[29:33] Speaker 2: change some of these people only whenever there are consequences
[29:36] Speaker 2: to what they do. I'm not talking about like us
[29:39] Speaker 2: acting in illegal ways, not talking about civil war, I'm
[29:42] Speaker 2: not talking about violence too. I'm talking about something that
[29:45] Speaker 2: happens as a direct result of what they voted for,
[29:48] Speaker 2: and it sort of splashes back on them, right, So
[29:53] Speaker 2: they help to concoct the poison, and then all of
[29:56] Speaker 2: a sudden, the barrel of poison explodes and they get
[30:00] Speaker 2: splashed with it, and they're like, oh shit, what have
[30:02] Speaker 2: we done? That kind of thing, And that's the emotional
[30:05] Speaker 2: side of me, and I've really been navigating that. Callers
[30:12] Speaker 2: are next, and I've got plenty of them. Hang on,
[30:22] Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening. This is idiocracy. It
[30:26] Speaker 2: is also therapy. As we go to the phones, David
[30:33] Speaker 2: out of the UK, are you there? Okay?
[30:35] Speaker 5: Can you hear me?
[30:36] Speaker 2: I can.
[30:38] Speaker 5: I don't know if I'm being irrational or overly anxious
[30:41] Speaker 5: some from the United Kingdom, but I'm terrified Trump pulls
[30:45] Speaker 5: out of NATO and Russia seeks revenge on the United
[30:49] Speaker 5: Kingdom and that our country might be finished because we're
[30:52] Speaker 5: not in a position to fight Russia want to learn.
[30:56] Speaker 2: I think that's a very legitimate concern.
[31:00] Speaker 5: I'm like, should I be making plans to flee to
[31:02] Speaker 5: another country? I mean, I'm someone who makes close to
[31:07] Speaker 5: minimum wage?
[31:07] Speaker 2: Not why?
[31:09] Speaker 5: And I can top up my money from online poker.
[31:12] Speaker 5: I know you wouldn't want to encourage gambling. I'm not
[31:16] Speaker 5: claiming to be a genius in either category. I'm working
[31:19] Speaker 5: my way for a statistics degree and I'm not claiming
[31:23] Speaker 5: to be a statistics genius. But I can say I
[31:25] Speaker 5: have verified my results to I am profitable online poker,
[31:29] Speaker 5: And I'm like, should I just be doing everything I
[31:31] Speaker 5: can to get my money together to just flee this
[31:32] Speaker 5: country before it's too late? Is that irrational?
[31:36] Speaker 2: I don't know if it's irrational or not. I don't
[31:39] Speaker 2: know if I'm being irrational. Whenever I think where in
[31:41] Speaker 2: the world would I like to live? I told somebody
[31:45] Speaker 2: the first time Trump won, I went into battle mode.
[31:49] Speaker 2: This time, I feel like I'm going to I'm going
[31:53] Speaker 2: to continue to battle. But again, in my emotional side,
[31:56] Speaker 2: I feel like I'm going to have to find a
[31:57] Speaker 2: chair and essentially bear witness to the end of democracy
[32:02] Speaker 2: in the West. You know, so I fantasized about leaving
[32:06] Speaker 2: as well. So all I know is that I feel
[32:09] Speaker 2: what you're feeling, and I'm afraid as well. Sir.
[32:11] Speaker 5: It's just terrifying, Like there was a period of my
[32:15] Speaker 5: life where I'm embarrassed to say the first time Trump
[32:17] Speaker 5: was running, I was a pro Trumper, and I know.
[32:22] Speaker 6: What caused it.
[32:23] Speaker 5: I know what pushed me to be pro Trump, and
[32:27] Speaker 5: I kind of go a responsibility to put out there
[32:31] Speaker 5: what it is to cause me to be pro Trump.
[32:33] Speaker 2: And there's a number of things.
[32:35] Speaker 5: First of all, there's been a lot of lies about
[32:38] Speaker 5: Trump said. And I'm not saying he's a good person
[32:40] Speaker 5: because he isn't, and I've got a lot of criticisms
[32:43] Speaker 5: for him. But the media manipulate and lie about Trump
[32:47] Speaker 5: a lot, and that makes Trump look like the guy
[32:50] Speaker 5: who's telling the truth. And I know Trump tells a
[32:52] Speaker 5: lot more hies on his side than what the media
[32:56] Speaker 5: tell about him, but it's not helping our cause when
[32:59] Speaker 5: people lie like that.
[33:01] Speaker 2: My friend, all I know is I'm terrified. I'm going
[33:04] Speaker 2: to keep fighting. But my optimism, the optimism I had
[33:08] Speaker 2: not long ago, I don't feel it. I literally think
[33:12] Speaker 2: I mentioned Gore Vidal and how he had talked about
[33:16] Speaker 2: witnessing the decline of Western civilization. I don't think it's hyperbole.
[33:21] Speaker 2: I think we may be the democraty, the American experiment
[33:24] Speaker 2: may be imploding in on itself, and we will be
[33:27] Speaker 2: a nation that died of stupidity and cruelty. Those would
[33:30] Speaker 2: be the two main ingredients.
[33:32] Speaker 5: I think that I've been fearing for climate change and
[33:35] Speaker 5: what's going to do to our planet and whether our
[33:36] Speaker 5: species is going to continue to exist. And when I
[33:39] Speaker 5: look at the science and by no means qualified scientists,
[33:43] Speaker 5: but just looking at the history of our planet and
[33:45] Speaker 5: making a guess, which is you have lacked so much
[33:48] Speaker 5: information on I think it looks like intelligent life is
[33:51] Speaker 5: so incredibly rare in this universe. But then just how
[33:55] Speaker 5: large the universe is, there has to be other cases
[33:58] Speaker 5: of it, and anything for how long the universe is
[34:00] Speaker 5: going to exist after this and anything we're so utterly
[34:04] Speaker 5: insignificant does it really matter? And then I'm just reminded
[34:09] Speaker 5: of this thing that I saw from a film, but
[34:11] Speaker 5: I don't know what film it is, but as there's
[34:14] Speaker 5: character who's meant to be like this religious icon in
[34:17] Speaker 5: the film, and he tells the parable of there's this
[34:20] Speaker 5: girl walking along the beach and she sees a load
[34:23] Speaker 5: of fish on the beach, all being washed up and
[34:25] Speaker 5: all dying, and this little girl is picking up the
[34:27] Speaker 5: fish and throwing them back into the ocean one by one,
[34:31] Speaker 5: and the guy says to this little girl, what are
[34:34] Speaker 5: you doing. You can't save them all. You can't make
[34:36] Speaker 5: a difference, And then the girls comes back round back
[34:39] Speaker 5: to them, says yes, but to that individual fish, it
[34:42] Speaker 5: makes all the difference in the world. And I'm thinking,
[34:45] Speaker 5: as bleak as things are and as dark as things are,
[34:49] Speaker 5: we can still make us tiny difference, however insignificant, to
[34:53] Speaker 5: try to at least meet things better for the few
[34:56] Speaker 5: people we can.
[34:58] Speaker 2: Does I don't know, does that so stupid? It does
[35:00] Speaker 2: not at all. You know, it sounds like a little
[35:04] Speaker 2: bit of a cliche, but it's like, we can't change
[35:07] Speaker 2: the world, but you can't change the world for one person.
[35:10] Speaker 2: And the fact that it's a cliche doesn't mean that
[35:12] Speaker 2: it's not true. And I think that's that's something I'm
[35:16] Speaker 2: glad you left us with that thought before we finish
[35:18] Speaker 2: the call, David. All I know is that we'll be
[35:20] Speaker 2: watching what happens and trying to react as best we can.
[35:23] Speaker 2: In the meantime, be safe over there, okay, Yeah.
[35:26] Speaker 5: My plan is just to try to do what I
[35:28] Speaker 5: can to get as much money together as I can
[35:30] Speaker 5: and as soon as if it happens, I hope it doesn't.
[35:33] Speaker 5: But as soon as I see America pulling out of NATO,
[35:35] Speaker 5: just plead his country. I don't know where to but
[35:38] Speaker 5: the Russian babble secret venture in UK have America to
[35:42] Speaker 5: protect it.
[35:43] Speaker 2: All right? Well, thanks David, thanks for calling, Thanks for
[35:45] Speaker 2: your input. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, you bet. I've had
[35:50] Speaker 2: this thought, and it's a naive one, I'm sure, But
[35:56] Speaker 2: when the tyrants go crazy Putin whatever, what would cause
[36:02] Speaker 2: everybody around that tyrant to not shut it down? Like
[36:06] Speaker 2: if you know, we know that so many of the
[36:09] Speaker 2: Russian people think that the Ukraine war is just bullshit
[36:13] Speaker 2: and they don't support it and they don't want it,
[36:16] Speaker 2: and you know, there have to be some people in
[36:18] Speaker 2: Putin's government who feel the same, this is bullshit, we
[36:21] Speaker 2: don't want it. This is one guy's you know whatever.
[36:26] Speaker 2: What would keep those people from removing the tyrant at
[36:31] Speaker 2: the top of the pyramid? Is it the power that
[36:33] Speaker 2: is bestowed? Are they afraid for their lives because the
[36:36] Speaker 2: dictator has that much power? And I think to myself,
[36:40] Speaker 2: at what point, where's the critical mass point where people
[36:43] Speaker 2: say this is crazy and we've had enough and you're gone.
[36:48] Speaker 2: I realize it sounds rather childlike, when why don't the
[36:50] Speaker 2: people around the tyrant do something about the tyrant?
[36:53] Speaker 4: Like?
[36:53] Speaker 2: I understand, but I do have that thought. Maybe you've
[36:57] Speaker 2: got a thought on it. Four zero five, it's Sam, welcome,
[37:01] Speaker 2: what's on your mind.
[37:03] Speaker 7: I remember it was almost twenty years ago that I
[37:06] Speaker 7: actually graduated high school here in Oklahoma, and we were
[37:10] Speaker 7: ranked pretty high in education as I remember.
[37:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't know what we were ranked
[37:15] Speaker 2: two decades ago, but education in Oklahoma, I think we're
[37:19] Speaker 2: in the forty eight. We're either forty eight or forty nine.
[37:22] Speaker 2: I think it depends on if you incorporate college. But
[37:26] Speaker 2: I think if you take college out of it, if
[37:28] Speaker 2: it's elementary in high school, I think we are just
[37:30] Speaker 2: above Mississippi in terms of education ranking. So yeah, that's
[37:35] Speaker 2: our one of our claims to fame. I think we
[37:37] Speaker 2: are down near forty nine. So yeah, I understand your frustration.
[37:40] Speaker 7: Basically, it's becomes such a shit show in education in
[37:45] Speaker 7: Oklahoma alone, let alone every other far red state. That
[37:50] Speaker 7: not does sound crass or anything, but it's a good thing.
[37:53] Speaker 7: I don't have any kids.
[37:56] Speaker 2: No, I don't think that's crass. I think a lot
[37:58] Speaker 2: of people would be afraid to bring children up in
[38:01] Speaker 2: a place where their rights would be fewer tomorrow than
[38:04] Speaker 2: they would be today. I don't think that's crass. I
[38:06] Speaker 2: think it's understandable.
[38:08] Speaker 7: Now. I could try and move, but I don't have
[38:11] Speaker 7: any real resources to find a new job or get
[38:14] Speaker 7: any kind of loan to go somewhere else because I
[38:18] Speaker 7: have nothing set up anywhere else. Everything I have is here,
[38:22] Speaker 7: And honestly, I've just been in a really almost numb
[38:26] Speaker 7: state because I'm stuck here. Other people are going to
[38:31] Speaker 7: be stuck here. I just need to help somebody, and
[38:35] Speaker 7: because it's going to get worse, I got someone to
[38:39] Speaker 7: help me figure out how I'm going to do this.
[38:41] Speaker 7: But I'm going to go help some kids that are
[38:44] Speaker 7: trans are clear despite myself being you know, a cis
[38:47] Speaker 7: white man, they need all the help they can get.
[38:50] Speaker 8: Now.
[38:51] Speaker 2: Well, I think advocacy is the point, right, I mean,
[38:54] Speaker 2: I don't think only LGBT people can stand with LGBT people.
[38:58] Speaker 2: I don't think you have to put an ass to
[39:00] Speaker 2: risk there. And I think that's good medicine. I think
[39:03] Speaker 2: that's you know, we're back to you can't change the world,
[39:05] Speaker 2: but you can change the world for one person. Two people,
[39:08] Speaker 2: five people, So I think, you know, we start where
[39:11] Speaker 2: we are. I don't know really much of what else
[39:13] Speaker 2: to do. I think we make. I'll definitely be making
[39:15] Speaker 2: some grand gestures. But I'll also I think once my
[39:19] Speaker 2: resentment begins to, if it does subside, begin to try
[39:23] Speaker 2: to do more work here one on one, two on
[39:25] Speaker 2: two on the ground. So I think that's good stuff.
[39:28] Speaker 6: Sam.
[39:28] Speaker 2: I got to move on, my friend. But it's nice
[39:30] Speaker 2: to talk to a fellow Oklahoma. And you'd be safe
[39:32] Speaker 2: over there. Okay, yeah, you too. All right, We'll see
[39:35] Speaker 2: you later. Take care. Thank you, by the way for
[39:38] Speaker 2: the super chats paid superchat donations on the YouTube stream.
[39:44] Speaker 2: Not to get too far into the weeds, but as
[39:46] Speaker 2: a producer, I use a company for music licensing and
[39:49] Speaker 2: I've had them for fifteen years and they are the
[39:52] Speaker 2: reason that I'm able to have the show intro music,
[39:54] Speaker 2: and then I may able to use all the sort
[39:56] Speaker 2: of next level production music for pieces like something to
[40:00] Speaker 2: Full and the Pale Blue Dot and the Story of You,
[40:03] Speaker 2: and the background music for a lot of the sit
[40:05] Speaker 2: down interviews that I've got. Producers pay for that why
[40:09] Speaker 2: you pay for the right to use it, and the
[40:13] Speaker 2: company that I use is it's just the best one
[40:16] Speaker 2: that I've ever found, and that's why I've stuck with
[40:18] Speaker 2: them for so long. And the contract was up for
[40:22] Speaker 2: renewal and there was an increase, and so at this moment,
[40:27] Speaker 2: I'm at this precipice where I'm like, all right, and
[40:30] Speaker 2: I'm still grandfathered in at a pretty good rate, But
[40:32] Speaker 2: I'm like, do I let it expire and then go
[40:35] Speaker 2: to and there are other resources. There's like Adobe Audio,
[40:39] Speaker 2: and there's is stock Audio and pond Vive Audio, and
[40:42] Speaker 2: then there are some independence and I've had people who
[40:44] Speaker 2: are musicians say, let me provide the music, trust me.
[40:47] Speaker 2: It doesn't work that way. So I'm at this moment
[40:50] Speaker 2: where I'm like, Jesus, do I We're talking about in
[40:53] Speaker 2: the thousands of dollars. Do I bite the bullet even
[40:57] Speaker 2: though I really can't afford it, so I don't lose
[40:59] Speaker 2: it because if I let it lapse, then I may
[41:02] Speaker 2: have to come back in a year and then it's
[41:03] Speaker 2: double the money. Do I renew and find a way
[41:06] Speaker 2: to pay for it or do I roll the dice?
[41:09] Speaker 2: And then it may affect how much music I'm able
[41:13] Speaker 2: to use for things like ghost stories, you know, the
[41:15] Speaker 2: annual podcast and all of the other things. I'd have
[41:17] Speaker 2: to change the intro music to the show and the aftro.
[41:19] Speaker 2: I'd have to do a bunch of different I'd have
[41:21] Speaker 2: to essentially refit the channel. Anyway, super Jets, thank you.
[41:27] Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not proud. You know, I've been doing
[41:30] Speaker 2: this for fifteen years, and I'm thankful for the resources
[41:33] Speaker 2: I have, and i feel like I've got a leg
[41:35] Speaker 2: up in it, right. I know, I know how to
[41:37] Speaker 2: produce things. I'm a flawed producer, but I'm pretty I
[41:41] Speaker 2: think you have to know what you're pretty good at.
[41:43] Speaker 2: I'm pretty good at production, and I want to make
[41:45] Speaker 2: sure that the quality of this channel remains Otherwise, why
[41:49] Speaker 2: bother because there's a shit ton of other resources. When
[41:52] Speaker 2: I first started, there weren't very many of us, and
[41:54] Speaker 2: now we have so many great channels out there and
[41:57] Speaker 2: so many people. A lot of them are younger people
[41:59] Speaker 2: at there coming up, you know, these new generation of
[42:02] Speaker 2: producers and debaters and hosts and whatnot. And I'm not
[42:06] Speaker 2: threatened by that. I think it's freaking amazing. I high
[42:09] Speaker 2: five them. I think wonderful. But I'd like to still
[42:12] Speaker 2: keep doing what I do as long as it serves you,
[42:15] Speaker 2: and having the best quality of resources helps me to
[42:18] Speaker 2: serve you. So anyway, there's also a donation link if
[42:21] Speaker 2: you're not on YouTube, that link to donate in the
[42:24] Speaker 2: description box two one zero. I don't see a name
[42:28] Speaker 2: given high. What is your name?
[42:30] Speaker 9: It's Clay Clays.
[42:33] Speaker 2: What's going on, Clay?
[42:35] Speaker 9: I just want to say that, you know, I think
[42:37] Speaker 9: a fatal flaw we may is we talked to all
[42:40] Speaker 9: these people who they're not Trumpers. They just think everything sucks,
[42:46] Speaker 9: you know, so we talk to them like they're stupid.
[42:49] Speaker 9: But what we need to do is we need to
[42:51] Speaker 9: talk to them like we're stupid, because they're like, hey,
[42:55] Speaker 9: the price of eggs is super high, and you know,
[42:58] Speaker 9: these people are born on the show, so it's their fault.
[43:01] Speaker 9: And what do we do We counter it with what, Well,
[43:04] Speaker 9: here's a fifteen hundred word essay on why eggs cost
[43:07] Speaker 9: so much, and let's go into the supply chain and
[43:10] Speaker 9: the monopolies and all this. Instead, what we need to
[43:13] Speaker 9: say is, you know, we're going after Walmart because they're
[43:17] Speaker 9: fucking us over. You know, that's the message itsels, But
[43:22] Speaker 9: on a more cathartic note, I just want to say
[43:24] Speaker 9: that yesterday. My daughter is fourteen years old, and she
[43:29] Speaker 9: kind of snapped at me and my wife a couple
[43:32] Speaker 9: of times yesterday, which she's fourteen. They do that, but
[43:35] Speaker 9: it was in a way that was kind of unusual.
[43:37] Speaker 9: And then I went into a room and I was like, hey,
[43:40] Speaker 9: you know what, you can't talk to us like that.
[43:42] Speaker 9: What's going on? And she's like, yeah, whatever, you know,
[43:44] Speaker 9: it's super passive aggressive, and she's like, Okay, it doesn't
[43:46] Speaker 9: fucking matter. Okay, I'm a girl, this is Texas. I'm
[43:50] Speaker 9: absolutely screwed. I have no future and just the whole
[43:53] Speaker 9: world is going to fall apart, and you know what,
[43:57] Speaker 9: in that moment, I'm like, my my fort and all
[44:00] Speaker 9: her girlfriends are just as freaked out, and I can't
[44:04] Speaker 9: believe we're living in America and this is happening, and
[44:07] Speaker 9: I'm I'm not gonna lie. I cried with her too,
[44:10] Speaker 9: not hard, but I definitely cried, and I just, you know,
[44:14] Speaker 9: told her like it's going to be okay. I don't
[44:17] Speaker 9: know that I believe that, but I also told her
[44:19] Speaker 9: I was scared, and because I am scared, and I
[44:21] Speaker 9: think she's old enough to deserve to know that but
[44:24] Speaker 9: at the same time, know that she's fourteen. There's literally
[44:28] Speaker 9: nothing she can do about it. But four years from
[44:30] Speaker 9: now she can vote. I do think there'll be elections
[44:33] Speaker 9: four years from now. I think it's our last chance
[44:36] Speaker 9: to really win. But on a positive note, not positive,
[44:40] Speaker 9: not even hopeful, just not doomor I believe what Trump
[44:44] Speaker 9: is ushering in is the fourth right. But because of
[44:48] Speaker 9: these already been in power once, we're not Germany nineteen
[44:51] Speaker 9: thirty three. We are Germany nineteen thirty eight, and we're
[44:56] Speaker 9: closing in on the expected lifespan of a fashion government.
[45:01] Speaker 9: So when shit really goes to shit, like it's going to,
[45:05] Speaker 9: I think my next Christmas, there's only going to be
[45:08] Speaker 9: one side to blame, and there are good people who
[45:12] Speaker 9: really just care that eggs were expensive.
[45:15] Speaker 3: I think that's all I got.
[45:18] Speaker 2: Well, you said a lot of relevant stuff, and I
[45:21] Speaker 2: think a lot of people feel what you're feeling. Go
[45:23] Speaker 2: hug your baby girl and tell her that we got
[45:26] Speaker 2: her back out there. Okay, thank you sir.
[45:28] Speaker 9: All Right, I definitely do that, and everybody, I just
[45:31] Speaker 9: hope we get through it.
[45:32] Speaker 2: All right, We'll keep on keeping on. Thanks for calling.
[45:34] Speaker 2: Appreciate it. You see that Lincoln Project commercial like you
[45:37] Speaker 2: know what I think. I played it on the show
[45:39] Speaker 2: If You earlier this year where the cop pulls over
[45:43] Speaker 2: the father and the daughter. The daughter had gotten pregnant
[45:47] Speaker 2: or something, and so they were driving across state line
[45:49] Speaker 2: so that she could have the pregnancy terminated and it
[45:52] Speaker 2: was like four weeks or whatever. And because it was
[45:57] Speaker 2: this sort of post Trump era where the Project twenty
[46:01] Speaker 2: twenty five stuff is kicked in and the Puritans have
[46:04] Speaker 2: taken over and the evangelicals are running wild, there is
[46:08] Speaker 2: a database and so the cop is able to say, hey,
[46:12] Speaker 2: I see that you are this far along in your pregnancy,
[46:14] Speaker 2: and that your home is here, and that you're driving
[46:16] Speaker 2: across state lines and that you have been, you know,
[46:19] Speaker 2: messaging about this and about that. And at first I thought, well,
[46:24] Speaker 2: it's it feels like hyperbole, and then I thought, nope, no,
[46:28] Speaker 2: it feels like if you had told me what was
[46:33] Speaker 2: going to happen in twenty sixteen, between twenty sixteen and
[46:37] Speaker 2: twenty twenty, I wouldn't have believed you monumentally naive. I mean,
[46:41] Speaker 2: I was thought, now, it's crazy, it's crazy. And I've
[46:45] Speaker 2: gotten to the point now where I will probably believe
[46:48] Speaker 2: almost any horrible scenario that you tell me about. I mean, like,
[46:52] Speaker 2: anything's possible, Anything's possible. And then let's say that Donald Trump,
[46:57] Speaker 2: who is in what is he seventy eight guys, eats
[47:01] Speaker 2: fast food at every meal, He's one of the most
[47:03] Speaker 2: unhealthy people. Let's say he grabs his heart and keels
[47:05] Speaker 2: over in the next sixteen months. Then we got Dvance,
[47:10] Speaker 2: who is much smoother, much sliquor, who has been primed
[47:13] Speaker 2: by the heritage folks, primed for gilliad, primed for the
[47:18] Speaker 2: institution of essentially a male dominated former democracy. And then
[47:25] Speaker 2: I think, well, no, actually, that my fears and that
[47:28] Speaker 2: Lincoln Project commercial, they're not fans, maybe they could actually happen.
[47:35] Speaker 2: Alex making a web call, Alex, are you there? Can
[47:38] Speaker 2: you hear me?
[47:39] Speaker 10: Hello? Let me know if you can hear me.
[47:41] Speaker 2: I can. Indeed, Alex, Let's talk what's on your mind?
[47:44] Speaker 10: So I think I kind of just wanted to give
[47:46] Speaker 10: some people a little bit of hope, I guess, or
[47:48] Speaker 10: at least like motivate them. So I think the most
[47:52] Speaker 10: common sentiment I'm hearing and I felt the same way
[47:57] Speaker 10: is like when Kamala and all these people kind of
[48:01] Speaker 10: went out and they had very good intentions, their heart
[48:05] Speaker 10: was in the right place, and they genuinely thought that
[48:07] Speaker 10: she was going to win. And there was a lot
[48:09] Speaker 10: of people such as like Alan Lickman, who were suggesting
[48:13] Speaker 10: that his like thirteen keys thing was going to predict
[48:16] Speaker 10: that she was going to win. So, like, there was
[48:17] Speaker 10: a lot of people that So people were very shocked
[48:20] Speaker 10: when she didn't win. And I immediately started seeing people
[48:24] Speaker 10: that were just saying, like, I give up, I'm done,
[48:28] Speaker 10: I'm never voting again, things like that, Like it's very
[48:31] Speaker 10: very very common that I'm seeing and that is just
[48:36] Speaker 10: not the right way to go about it, because I understand,
[48:39] Speaker 10: like I felt the same way, But we have to
[48:42] Speaker 10: stand up and fight against it, because like, these are
[48:44] Speaker 10: people's rights that are being taken away. And you think
[48:48] Speaker 10: about it, it's like when people say things like I
[48:51] Speaker 10: don't care anymore, you do care, because the reason that
[48:55] Speaker 10: you're so upset, the reason that you're so sad and
[48:57] Speaker 10: you're having this such an emotional reaction, is because of care.
[49:01] Speaker 10: So I think that a lot of people need to
[49:04] Speaker 10: understand that take a break if you need to. I
[49:07] Speaker 10: know everybody's sick of hearing this guy. And I was
[49:11] Speaker 10: listening to you know, Tim Walls, and at the end
[49:13] Speaker 10: of his campaigns he kept saying like, isn't it going
[49:15] Speaker 10: to be nice? And we never have to see this
[49:17] Speaker 10: guy ever again on TV, and like, so, yeah, people
[49:20] Speaker 10: are tired of of seeing this guy and we don't
[49:22] Speaker 10: want to go to four years of him again. But
[49:25] Speaker 10: I think that the difference between the right is that
[49:29] Speaker 10: when they lose again, they did this insurrection thing, and
[49:32] Speaker 10: obviously that's a ridiculously terrible thing, but they didn't just say, oh,
[49:36] Speaker 10: let's just give up, let's give up, I'm going to
[49:39] Speaker 10: end my life, I'm moving out of the country and
[49:41] Speaker 10: all this. These people they banded together, they formed a
[49:44] Speaker 10: bunch of organizations, they funded into a bunch of things,
[49:47] Speaker 10: and they went out and they tried to change things,
[49:49] Speaker 10: even if they were changing things in the wrong direction, obviously,
[49:52] Speaker 10: but that's what they did. So we need to do
[49:54] Speaker 10: something somewhere. We can't just give up. And it makes
[49:56] Speaker 10: me really scared to see that all these really good people,
[49:59] Speaker 10: these people who do care about facts and not living
[50:02] Speaker 10: in an ultimate reality. They have such good intentions. They
[50:05] Speaker 10: care about democracy, they care about women's rights, they care
[50:08] Speaker 10: about human rights, they care about like Ukraine, and they're
[50:10] Speaker 10: just saying, oh, I'm just going to give up. I'm
[50:12] Speaker 10: going to leave the country. And you have to understand,
[50:14] Speaker 10: first of all, every other country has their own problems. Okay,
[50:18] Speaker 10: I'm from Canada. We have somebody named Pierre Polyeff. He
[50:22] Speaker 10: has similar policies to Trump. He's coming up, He's almost
[50:25] Speaker 10: guaranteed to win. France is going in a similar direction,
[50:28] Speaker 10: Germany's going in a similar direction. And also now that
[50:31] Speaker 10: Trump has won, it's like basically people have understood that
[50:35] Speaker 10: they can win with this whole denying reality and just
[50:38] Speaker 10: attacking migrants and attacking minorities and whatever. It's not going
[50:43] Speaker 10: to go away. You can't just move to another country
[50:45] Speaker 10: and just like bar your head. So you have to
[50:48] Speaker 10: have hope and you have to keep fighting. And so
[50:51] Speaker 10: I just want people to know that because everybody is
[50:53] Speaker 10: just saying, oh, I just give up. I'm never voting again.
[50:56] Speaker 10: I don't know, what do you think about all that?
[50:58] Speaker 2: I think you are the best medicine I have heard.
[51:02] Speaker 2: I woke up this morning feelings. Did I admit it
[51:06] Speaker 2: as much in the monologue? Maybe I did? I feel
[51:09] Speaker 2: that way. I almost feel resigned. Resigned is the word like,
[51:14] Speaker 2: how much more can we do? How much more can
[51:16] Speaker 2: we fight? How many more days can I wake up
[51:17] Speaker 2: and see this motherfucker on the front page of every website.
[51:22] Speaker 2: I'm so tired of hearing his name. And you are
[51:25] Speaker 2: a wonderful reminder that if we give up, people get
[51:29] Speaker 2: hurt even worse, and they need us now more than ever.
[51:33] Speaker 2: I mean, I'd rather go down fighting than fold my
[51:35] Speaker 2: arms and stop off and say as screw it, that's wisdom,
[51:39] Speaker 2: that's really good. Thank you for that.
[51:41] Speaker 10: Could I say one more thing? Please do the other
[51:44] Speaker 10: thing that we need to realize? Yeah, And I mean
[51:46] Speaker 10: the reason I'm like this is because I'm I've been
[51:49] Speaker 10: kind of like a political entire life. Like I mean,
[51:52] Speaker 10: I always care with certain things, but I've kind of
[51:54] Speaker 10: like had the face that, Okay, well, there's these two
[51:58] Speaker 10: candidates that are running. But I know that they're going
[52:01] Speaker 10: to uphold human rights and I know that they're going
[52:03] Speaker 10: to like not throw us under the bust, and they're
[52:06] Speaker 10: not gonna end democracy. Like maybe their policies aren't the best,
[52:09] Speaker 10: but I have trust that if either one wins, it's
[52:12] Speaker 10: gonna be fairly okay, Like think of like Mt. Romney
[52:15] Speaker 10: and stuff, like I mean Romney versus Obama, Like Mitt
[52:18] Speaker 10: Romney is not going to end the entire democracy, give
[52:21] Speaker 10: it over to Russia and like end all human rights.
[52:25] Speaker 10: But I think that now I'm just really motivating to
[52:27] Speaker 10: figure out why this happened. And if you look at
[52:30] Speaker 10: the I've kind of wondered for a long time, like
[52:33] Speaker 10: why these people are like this and why they believe
[52:36] Speaker 10: like why they just believe Trump no matter what he says,
[52:38] Speaker 10: and like they live in this alternate reality. It's really
[52:42] Speaker 10: it's a hard thing to try to figure out. But
[52:44] Speaker 10: I think that, like I'm trying to figure out myself,
[52:46] Speaker 10: But I think that it's a different upbringing. I think
[52:49] Speaker 10: people on your channel and things like that, we have
[52:52] Speaker 10: the understanding that we want evidence for something, right, like
[52:55] Speaker 10: if if you're gonna make a claim, we don't want
[52:57] Speaker 10: to just believe your claim just because you repeat it
[53:00] Speaker 10: without evidence. But these people are clearly different. They are
[53:04] Speaker 10: fact resistant, they don't care about facts, and it's like
[53:07] Speaker 10: we have to figure out why that is. Like I
[53:10] Speaker 10: was listening to Alan Lickman the other day, who's like
[53:12] Speaker 10: a professor illness, and he talked about the way that
[53:15] Speaker 10: Trump does it is he and Also, Mark Cuban said
[53:18] Speaker 10: this Trump basically operates out of fear. He knows he's
[53:22] Speaker 10: a businessman. He's a brilliant salesman, so he can figure out,
[53:27] Speaker 10: what are you scared of? And how do I meet
[53:30] Speaker 10: you even more scared of that? And she knows how
[53:34] Speaker 10: to deliver that message. And then I don't feel like
[53:36] Speaker 10: the Democrats are doing that as well. And even though
[53:40] Speaker 10: Trump is lying and people are debunking him and things
[53:45] Speaker 10: like that, it's like people are looking that up. There's
[53:48] Speaker 10: a thing on Reddit I just saw where they I
[53:50] Speaker 10: think they pulled the much of people who voted for him,
[53:52] Speaker 10: and they showed that inflation for example. They have this
[53:55] Speaker 10: feeling that the inflation is like super super super high,
[53:59] Speaker 10: but it's actually like very low, like over the last
[54:01] Speaker 10: year it's gone lower because it's like Biden and stuff.
[54:04] Speaker 10: But they're not living in that reality, and so they
[54:06] Speaker 10: have this perceptions Like why do they have that perception?
[54:08] Speaker 10: I think it's because Trump what he does, if he
[54:11] Speaker 10: like watch him, he just repeats things over and over
[54:14] Speaker 10: and over and over and over, and it's like I
[54:16] Speaker 10: think that if he repeats something over and over and
[54:19] Speaker 10: over and over, and it's what people fear and it's
[54:21] Speaker 10: what people want. They're just gonna believe it because it's
[54:24] Speaker 10: like he just keeps repeating and repeating and repeating it,
[54:26] Speaker 10: and people won't have the energy or the time to
[54:30] Speaker 10: go and like research and oh is this true. Let's
[54:33] Speaker 10: look into the economy and let's look into this and
[54:35] Speaker 10: how does this work? And is the vaccines actually, let's
[54:38] Speaker 10: look into how virality works. Like people aren't gonna do that.
[54:41] Speaker 10: So I think that's part of the reason. And we
[54:44] Speaker 10: can't just give up. And we need to look into
[54:46] Speaker 10: why do people believe this stuff? And I think we
[54:49] Speaker 10: need to like use it against them. I think we
[54:51] Speaker 10: just need to like figure out, Okay, this is a
[54:53] Speaker 10: psychology of why these people are doing this. Let's just
[54:56] Speaker 10: use it against them and to get our message of house,
[54:59] Speaker 10: you know, like he's the same strategy, but for the truth.
[55:01] Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, there's a lot of psychology about repetition and
[55:06] Speaker 2: how the repetition of ideas, whatever they are true or false,
[55:09] Speaker 2: actually embed in people's brains and then somehow what is
[55:13] Speaker 2: false becomes true. It is nuanced, it's complicated. Now you
[55:16] Speaker 2: got me wondering if I should go ahead and release
[55:18] Speaker 2: my speech in a couple of weeks about why facts
[55:21] Speaker 2: don't change minds. I'll pray and fast on it and
[55:24] Speaker 2: seek the Lord and decide shortly. Alex, you speak wisdom
[55:28] Speaker 2: today and I had someone in the chat say that
[55:30] Speaker 2: you have a very calming voice. So you're a calming, centering,
[55:34] Speaker 2: zen like presence on the live stream today. So thanks
[55:38] Speaker 2: for your contribution.
[55:40] Speaker 7: Hi, thanks healing, See you later.
[55:43] Speaker 2: I had somebody I saw a meme earlier and it
[55:46] Speaker 2: said something like, don't forget to register today for your
[55:51] Speaker 2: emotional support Canadian. I thought that was awesome. Do you
[55:57] Speaker 2: need an emotional support Canadian? I was like, hell, yeah,
[56:01] Speaker 2: I want that. I would like an emotional support Canadian.
[56:05] Speaker 2: Would you be if you're in Canada? Would you be?
[56:07] Speaker 2: My more calls, more conversation, more venting, more idiocracy after this,
[56:22] Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening. If you'd like to support
[56:25] Speaker 2: me and this podcast, if you want to donate towards
[56:28] Speaker 2: the production library that we were talking about earlier to
[56:31] Speaker 2: help me cover that contract that links in the description box,
[56:34] Speaker 2: or you can just become a patron Patreon dot com
[56:37] Speaker 2: slash Sith Andrews with my thanks, I've got wow. Indulge
[56:44] Speaker 2: me as I see a call from my hometown. It's
[56:46] Speaker 2: Mark at nine to one age Mark, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
[56:51] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm stuck in northwest Arkansas for the last six years,
[56:54] Speaker 3: but I can't wait to get back to my pigeons.
[56:56] Speaker 3: We kind of ran in the same circles you were
[56:59] Speaker 3: my KSOJ DJ growing up in No Way, I was
[57:02] Speaker 3: in a band until you call that. Do you remember
[57:05] Speaker 3: Admiral playing the band.
[57:06] Speaker 2: Admiral Twin Yeah, yeah, I used to play them on
[57:10] Speaker 2: the Gospel According to Music Part two. I think overnight
[57:13] Speaker 2: or something. We played them I think after hours, because
[57:15] Speaker 2: weren't you heavier edgier band, right, We were more an.
[57:19] Speaker 3: Indie kind of like the seventy seven's in the choir
[57:23] Speaker 3: undercover of Savers. The stuff you played after midnight?
[57:27] Speaker 2: Wow? Wow, wow man, you and I have our paths
[57:30] Speaker 2: crossed after thirty years. That's why. Oh, I'm sorry, I'll
[57:34] Speaker 2: shut up. Go ahead. I was just having a moment.
[57:36] Speaker 2: Go ahead, what's on your mind?
[57:38] Speaker 3: It helped you kind of gave me permission, you know.
[57:40] Speaker 3: When I saw you as like, oh, no, him too,
[57:41] Speaker 3: and I was like, wait a minute. But I've been
[57:44] Speaker 3: on my de conversion journey since I was probably eleven
[57:47] Speaker 3: years old. I just didn't realize it. But I just
[57:50] Speaker 3: I'm curious. My question. I guess feel free to rain
[57:53] Speaker 3: the end because I'm very autistic ADHD and OCD, so
[57:57] Speaker 3: I can be all over the map and I've been
[57:59] Speaker 3: on the phone for an taking notes. So here's my question.
[58:03] Speaker 3: I'm curious as some people just are intellectually unable to
[58:08] Speaker 3: access ration and reason because I was an eleven year
[58:12] Speaker 3: old kid. I remember, you know, I remember in Sammi school,
[58:16] Speaker 3: I just gave my life to the Lord for the
[58:18] Speaker 3: three hundredth time. I'm eleven years old, and they're saying
[58:21] Speaker 3: you got to get sanctified next and filled with the
[58:24] Speaker 3: Holy Ghost. And I was like, okay, well what's sanctified?
[58:27] Speaker 3: And no one could tell me what it was. And
[58:29] Speaker 3: that was like those things started adding up. You know,
[58:33] Speaker 3: nothing made sense to me. So I was kind of
[58:35] Speaker 3: a questioning kid from the beginning. I remember going to
[58:38] Speaker 3: Cornerstone and watching like Josh mc dowd actually given reasons
[58:42] Speaker 3: for medical necessity abortions and rape and incests, and the
[58:48] Speaker 3: Cornerstone Festival tenths, you know, a band played there like
[58:51] Speaker 3: three years and Cornerstone was an environment where you were
[58:56] Speaker 3: able to question. It was a bunch of hippies and
[58:58] Speaker 3: punk rock kids that were raised and evangelical churches that
[59:02] Speaker 3: probably were restless like me and just realized they needed more.
[59:06] Speaker 3: But I don't know. I mean so I feel like
[59:09] Speaker 3: I was kind of born and raised to be a
[59:11] Speaker 3: questioning kid. Maybe that's part of my eighty h D part.
[59:14] Speaker 3: I just need to know stuff, and you know how
[59:16] Speaker 3: shit works to function, and I know that for thirty years.
[59:21] Speaker 3: I probably was thirty years old before I even looked
[59:24] Speaker 3: at a candidate on the ballot that wasn't rid. It
[59:27] Speaker 3: was so easy. My pastor would say, hey, we all
[59:30] Speaker 3: need to vote for so and so, and I'd be like, oh,
[59:32] Speaker 3: thank god, I don't have to look at all that
[59:34] Speaker 3: political crap. I did get stuck in the dittohead thing
[59:38] Speaker 3: in the nineties for like ten minutes, but I realized
[59:41] Speaker 3: I can't even look at myself then and go. I
[59:42] Speaker 3: was shutting off part of my brain. I was letting
[59:44] Speaker 3: that ego part of my brain run crazy. And I
[59:48] Speaker 3: think I'm in there right now, so pull me in.
[59:50] Speaker 3: What do you think people just.
[59:54] Speaker 2: Well, I think let me come past. I mean, your
[59:57] Speaker 2: deconstruction stories is always interesting, But are there some people
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: who simply aren't cognitively able to bust out? There are
[1:00:05] Speaker 2: certainly cases of people who simply don't have the tool set,
[1:00:09] Speaker 2: but I think those people are largely a very small minority.
[1:00:13] Speaker 2: What I don't want to be guilty of is the
[1:00:15] Speaker 2: bigotry of lowered expectations. Some people need religion, or some
[1:00:18] Speaker 2: people simply aren't going to be smart enough or intelligent
[1:00:21] Speaker 2: enough to be able to bust out. I honestly think
[1:00:23] Speaker 2: the vast, fast, fast majority the people can be rescued
[1:00:26] Speaker 2: from bad ideas even if they are cognitively limited in
[1:00:30] Speaker 2: some way.
[1:00:31] Speaker 3: So as we lose community, and that's the saying, they
[1:00:33] Speaker 3: still have community, and I think that's what keeps them
[1:00:36] Speaker 3: all just like glued together. They have community, they have
[1:00:40] Speaker 3: a leader, and they don't have to use their brains.
[1:00:43] Speaker 3: Thank god, I can use it for other things.
[1:00:46] Speaker 2: No way I thought I should post my speech on
[1:00:51] Speaker 2: identity beliefs, I should go ahead and probably post it
[1:00:54] Speaker 2: in a few weeks. So yeah, No, I think we
[1:00:57] Speaker 2: get into the number of reasons why people hold onto
[1:01:00] Speaker 2: an identity, and whether that's your Christian, evangelical, conservative, capitalist, Republican, whatever.
[1:01:07] Speaker 2: There are a lot of reasons that aren't data related,
[1:01:10] Speaker 2: that are community and identity related, which is why when
[1:01:13] Speaker 2: you and I go in and say this is a
[1:01:14] Speaker 2: problem and here, here, here, and here, and they just
[1:01:16] Speaker 2: shut down, get mad or walk out, there are reasons
[1:01:19] Speaker 2: for that. So now you raise a really good point.
[1:01:22] Speaker 2: When the speech goes out later this month, we can
[1:01:24] Speaker 2: have a further discussion about it in the online community.
[1:01:26] Speaker 2: I think Mark, you'd be safe. Thanks for calling. We'll
[1:01:29] Speaker 2: see you later. Okay, see you later. I do like
[1:01:34] Speaker 2: the idea, and I think news stations should have a
[1:01:37] Speaker 2: side screen at all times, and they should have a
[1:01:41] Speaker 2: team of let's call it twenty five real time fact checkers.
[1:01:45] Speaker 2: So whenever you know, somebody is interviewing Mike Johnson, Speaker
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: of the House or whoever, and they're just spilling out
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: the bullshit, it's just rolling. The forked tongue is in
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: full swing, and as they speak, it's like, this is incorrect.
[1:02:01] Speaker 2: Here's the date of this, this is what actually happened,
[1:02:04] Speaker 2: Here's what Trump said. I just think there should be
[1:02:07] Speaker 2: a and we get to the point where we are
[1:02:09] Speaker 2: conditioned as a culture to expect it. You will see
[1:02:11] Speaker 2: the actual interview or the report or the claim and
[1:02:15] Speaker 2: over here it's just real time fact checking. And then
[1:02:17] Speaker 2: there would be a way to source it, because without
[1:02:19] Speaker 2: sources we're doing is sort of taking somebody else's word
[1:02:23] Speaker 2: for it. So we'd need some vetting. We'd need to
[1:02:27] Speaker 2: know that the fact checkers were qualified to do so,
[1:02:30] Speaker 2: and there would need to be sources for those fact checks,
[1:02:33] Speaker 2: and then they would be there. How would we do that?
[1:02:35] Speaker 2: It would have to be a more interactive form of television,
[1:02:38] Speaker 2: wouldn't it. I'm just saying, Doug, Doug, thanks for calling.
[1:02:44] Speaker 2: Are you there?
[1:02:45] Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me your game?
[1:02:47] Speaker 6: I can?
[1:02:47] Speaker 2: What's on your mind?
[1:02:48] Speaker 8: I just wanted to say thank you for everything you do.
[1:02:51] Speaker 8: I'm from tell Us. Also. Oh yeah, you and I
[1:02:53] Speaker 8: and my oldest daughter had dinner on time. You helped
[1:02:55] Speaker 8: us with to write a paper for our larrance. I
[1:02:57] Speaker 8: don't if you remember that or not.
[1:02:58] Speaker 2: Hang on your second hold on, Doug. Let's see, I
[1:03:02] Speaker 2: think I do. Your daughter was working on a school
[1:03:04] Speaker 2: project and you ask if I could provide input, and
[1:03:07] Speaker 2: I think we met at a sushi restaurant. Am I
[1:03:09] Speaker 2: remembering that?
[1:03:10] Speaker 4: Ryan?
[1:03:11] Speaker 8: That's exactly it? Yeah, I can't believe you remember.
[1:03:14] Speaker 2: No, No, that's amazing. No, it was on ar go ahead, dog,
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: go ahead.
[1:03:18] Speaker 8: No, that's I just mostly I will keep it the
[1:03:20] Speaker 8: longest one to say thanks.
[1:03:21] Speaker 11: And real quick.
[1:03:23] Speaker 8: Has the topic of abortion come up much so far
[1:03:26] Speaker 8: today on the show. I didn't know if it had
[1:03:29] Speaker 8: or not. My youngest daughter is twenty two now, and
[1:03:32] Speaker 8: she sent me a meme of a or a video
[1:03:34] Speaker 8: of TikTok of a fourteen fifteen year old girl that
[1:03:37] Speaker 8: walks into I don't know if it's the DHS for
[1:03:39] Speaker 8: what to try to like put in paperwork to adopt
[1:03:42] Speaker 8: a child, and of course the person behind the characters,
[1:03:44] Speaker 8: well you can't adopt. Your too young to adopt. She's like,
[1:03:47] Speaker 8: but I can get pregnant and have a baby. Yeah,
[1:03:50] Speaker 8: you can do that, because you can't adopt a child.
[1:03:52] Speaker 8: And I just it was one of another amazing thing
[1:03:54] Speaker 8: that my daughters have bought fourth to me to show
[1:03:57] Speaker 8: me that like I can't. We just there's so much iron,
[1:04:00] Speaker 8: you know, I just can't believe it. And it's just
[1:04:03] Speaker 8: another example and I wanted to show it out it
[1:04:05] Speaker 8: really quick too. But that's about it. I just I'm
[1:04:08] Speaker 8: just like everyone else is called in. I just believe.
[1:04:11] Speaker 8: Of course you and I both know how to just
[1:04:12] Speaker 8: live in northeast Oklahoma, and I don't know. I don't
[1:04:15] Speaker 8: know where we go from here. I'm a retired federal
[1:04:17] Speaker 8: employee myself, and everybody's worried and it's not going to
[1:04:21] Speaker 8: go well, I don't think. But like your wanting to said,
[1:04:24] Speaker 8: we just got to keep plugging along. We keep trying.
[1:04:26] Speaker 3: We can't give up.
[1:04:27] Speaker 2: I got a storm shelter. Maybe we'll just put some
[1:04:30] Speaker 2: like really tiny furniture down there, and you know, it'll
[1:04:33] Speaker 2: be a freidy hole for the next forty eight months.
[1:04:35] Speaker 2: We'll see what happens. But hug your family for me.
[1:04:38] Speaker 2: Say hi to your baby girl, and I hope she
[1:04:40] Speaker 2: did well on her school project. Thanks for calling, Doug.
[1:04:42] Speaker 8: She did, Thank you, Seth.
[1:04:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see you. I've got Tyler at six three six.
[1:04:47] Speaker 2: Are you there?
[1:04:49] Speaker 4: Yeah, Seth, thanks for taking the call.
[1:04:51] Speaker 2: You bet what's up?
[1:04:53] Speaker 4: So, first of all, I wanted to say that I
[1:04:54] Speaker 4: agreed with what Alex was saying completely as far as like,
[1:04:58] Speaker 4: we can't just resign and I give up.
[1:05:01] Speaker 7: As soon as the sixth.
[1:05:02] Speaker 4: I joined a bunch of groups around here. I'm in Missouri,
[1:05:06] Speaker 4: so I'm in a deep red state and there's.
[1:05:08] Speaker 11: A lot going on.
[1:05:09] Speaker 7: Uh.
[1:05:10] Speaker 4: I think you were saying about fact checking and stuff.
[1:05:14] Speaker 4: The problem is with factchecking they think the fact checks
[1:05:17] Speaker 4: are liberal biased and that sort of thing. I had
[1:05:20] Speaker 4: a whole thing typed out here. But I kind of
[1:05:21] Speaker 4: lost money in train and stuff.
[1:05:25] Speaker 2: That's okay, that's all right. Well, what's on your what's
[1:05:27] Speaker 2: the main gist? What's on your mind?
[1:05:30] Speaker 11: Well, I don't know how we get out of this
[1:05:32] Speaker 11: media environment is my main problem. It's it seems, as
[1:05:37] Speaker 11: other people have pointed out there, other people are in
[1:05:39] Speaker 11: just their completely different reality when it comes to facts
[1:05:42] Speaker 11: and fact based knowledge and things like that. What I
[1:05:46] Speaker 11: can't tell you is I think it is very important
[1:05:49] Speaker 11: right now to go out, talk to your neighbors, talk
[1:05:51] Speaker 11: to people around you.
[1:05:52] Speaker 8: Make sure you build a.
[1:05:53] Speaker 4: Community around you, because if stuff does go bad, you
[1:05:57] Speaker 4: need to, you know, make sure the people around you
[1:05:59] Speaker 4: are there to protect you. That's the biggest thing. When
[1:06:02] Speaker 4: when authoritary is you know, start shipping people off, it's
[1:06:05] Speaker 4: a little harder to do when those people are organized.
[1:06:08] Speaker 7: So I would say, save money.
[1:06:09] Speaker 4: If you smoke, quit smoking, If you drink, quit drinking,
[1:06:12] Speaker 4: Save every bit of money you can and hope for
[1:06:15] Speaker 4: the best organized don't give up.
[1:06:17] Speaker 2: Thanks Tyler, thanks for calling. We'll caed you later. Make sense,
[1:06:21] Speaker 2: But if someone gives you a free gummy, then apparently
[1:06:24] Speaker 2: that would be a good way to cope, which takes
[1:06:26] Speaker 2: me full circle back to the beginning. I've got a
[1:06:32] Speaker 2: call from Denmark. I don't see a name. Can you
[1:06:36] Speaker 2: tell me who this is?
[1:06:37] Speaker 12: Well, my name is Coughing.
[1:06:39] Speaker 2: Thank you for calling. What's on your mind?
[1:06:42] Speaker 12: I'm just you know, and shock of what happened in
[1:06:45] Speaker 12: the United States. I think we all off in some way.
[1:06:49] Speaker 12: I would say that you have Trump and we have
[1:06:52] Speaker 12: some people like him in Denmark too, and.
[1:06:54] Speaker 6: It's just like a disease that is spreading.
[1:06:57] Speaker 12: So I don't know what this is going off, like
[1:07:00] Speaker 12: going down the grain.
[1:07:01] Speaker 2: Now, Well, I was going to ask you for asylum,
[1:07:03] Speaker 2: and you're telling me that you have a politician or
[1:07:06] Speaker 2: a few politicians that are Trumpian in You're part of
[1:07:09] Speaker 2: the world.
[1:07:10] Speaker 6: Yeah, well, it's completely the same bullshit. They say the
[1:07:13] Speaker 6: same bullshit as Trump, and they spread safe news. They
[1:07:18] Speaker 6: you know, the media is not trustworthy. The institutions is
[1:07:22] Speaker 6: full of.
[1:07:22] Speaker 12: Communists, and you know they're not many, but they have
[1:07:26] Speaker 12: a loud voice, and that's the problem.
[1:07:28] Speaker 6: I think they have a loud voice.
[1:07:31] Speaker 12: But you also like spin here and then like it's
[1:07:34] Speaker 12: been like homosexuality trends people, even what's been shown on
[1:07:39] Speaker 12: children's TV. You know, you have these idiots demonstrating and
[1:07:43] Speaker 12: unfunded claims that if you are trans, you a pedophile
[1:07:47] Speaker 12: and all that kind of bullshit. It's so tiresome, and
[1:07:51] Speaker 12: I do so sorry for you.
[1:07:54] Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that, and just know that many of
[1:07:57] Speaker 2: us are as alarmed and grieved and worried and scared
[1:08:01] Speaker 2: and pissed off is you are, and a lot of
[1:08:04] Speaker 2: a lot of our allies around the world are so
[1:08:06] Speaker 2: I feel you, and I appreciate this call across from
[1:08:08] Speaker 2: across the ocean. Be safe over there. Okay, Yes, thank
[1:08:12] Speaker 2: you you too.
[1:08:13] Speaker 5: Okay.
[1:08:14] Speaker 2: He brings up a really good point. The American media
[1:08:17] Speaker 2: has failed us because the outrageous stuff that has been
[1:08:24] Speaker 2: said and done, the second by second cognitive decline that
[1:08:29] Speaker 2: we have been witnessing. The non answer is the word salad.
[1:08:32] Speaker 2: The bizarre behavior. This should have been on the front
[1:08:36] Speaker 2: page of every newspaper. It should have been on every
[1:08:38] Speaker 2: news side, It should have been at the front of
[1:08:39] Speaker 2: every broadcast news outlet, we are in danger. We are
[1:08:43] Speaker 2: seeing someone who is losing their fucking mind, the rise
[1:08:47] Speaker 2: of fascism, et cetera. This the language should be. You
[1:08:50] Speaker 2: should have said, well, maybe you did see some of
[1:08:52] Speaker 2: the massaging of language that the New York Times and
[1:08:56] Speaker 2: other outlets have been using to talk about Donald Trump.
[1:08:59] Speaker 2: In a way, it was a de facto legitimization of
[1:09:02] Speaker 2: illegitimate behavior, of terrifying behavior, of alarming behavior. Instead of
[1:09:07] Speaker 2: waving red flags, it was more like, well Trump did this,
[1:09:10] Speaker 2: and this and this today in a legitimate sounding headline,
[1:09:13] Speaker 2: when it should have been something more accurate. Donald Trump
[1:09:17] Speaker 2: spins into nonsensical word salad in front of the United Nations.
[1:09:24] Speaker 2: I think the media totally failed us. Our media is
[1:09:28] Speaker 2: a broken thing. And I don't mean just Fox News,
[1:09:32] Speaker 2: and we know Fox News has fucked up. Hell. I
[1:09:34] Speaker 2: wrote a whole book called Confessions of a Former Fox
[1:09:37] Speaker 2: News Christian, which dismantles that whole network talks about right
[1:09:42] Speaker 2: wing radio leading to Fox News. Beginning in the nineties,
[1:09:45] Speaker 2: we talked about Reagan and the fairness doctrine being knocked
[1:09:48] Speaker 2: down and all these other precursors, and then the propaganda
[1:09:52] Speaker 2: mill owned by Rupert Murdoch, etc. Etc. I'm not just
[1:09:55] Speaker 2: talking about Fox News, though, I'm talking about across the board,
[1:09:59] Speaker 2: whether it was this agand over here, whether it super
[1:10:01] Speaker 2: left wing or everything in the middle. If you look
[1:10:03] Speaker 2: at how the media has been reporting, their language has
[1:10:07] Speaker 2: been de facto legitimization of an illegitimate guy, a guy
[1:10:12] Speaker 2: who has no business being anywhere near the halls of power.
[1:10:16] Speaker 2: And those should have been the headlines. They should have
[1:10:18] Speaker 2: been banging that drum so loud that you couldn't hear
[1:10:20] Speaker 2: anything else, and they should have been doing it twenty
[1:10:22] Speaker 2: four to seven on the order of years. And it's
[1:10:25] Speaker 2: that they talked about Donald Trump like he was just
[1:10:28] Speaker 2: another politician. Our media failed us. They just failed us.
[1:10:36] Speaker 2: I hope the conversation today has been cathartic for you.
[1:10:39] Speaker 2: At least you know others are feeling what you are feeling.
[1:10:43] Speaker 2: And if you're not feeling outraged, there's something wrong there.
[1:10:47] Speaker 2: And outrage can be a good motivator. Anger, justifiable anger
[1:10:51] Speaker 2: can be a good motivator. Let's try to emulate the
[1:10:55] Speaker 2: good and the just that we want to see in
[1:10:57] Speaker 2: the world. After we navigate the vat here Let's not
[1:11:01] Speaker 2: give up. Let's do what we do for all the
[1:11:05] Speaker 2: right reasons. Big hug from me and my family to
[1:11:08] Speaker 2: you and yours. I'll see you next time.
[1:11:10] Speaker 1: Follow the Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a
[1:11:13] Speaker 1: complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and
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