Christian lawmakers says teachers should be allowed to hit students with disabilities. This next
segment outlines exactly what happens when religion enters government, but more specifically, when
Christianity enters government. The state of Oklahoma, where it is legal for teachers
to beat students, is revising its policy to also include abusing children with disabilities,
which is currently which it currently cannot do. Christian Republican lawmakers are citing
the Bible to justify a teacher's right, no a teacher's need to treat children
with violence, quoting multiple Bible verses to include teachings from Jesus. Republicans,
who hold overwhelming majorities in both the Oklahoma State Senate and House of Representatives,
are supporting legislation that takes a parent's right away to choose if their disabled children
can be physically disciplined. This is not just some traditional approach to discipline.
Heck, it's not even just an attack on children. If we're being truthful,
which we always are on the nonprofits. This is what happens when Christianity
enters government. The tools of the state, including finances, institutions, infrastructure,
et cetera, are used against the people. It always starts with attacking
the kids, but it will result if unchecked, with mass oppression and human
sacrifice. We know that from looking into church history or even current events.
This story is from The Friendly Atheist by Hemmett Meta on April twenty fifth,
twenty twenty four. Kelly, Yeah, do they have to smack these kids
around? What course they course they do? First? They have to smack
these kids around. They got this learning disabilities. Don't you understand? You
have to beat everything into their heads. That's the best way to teach children
that they have trouble reasoning. Holy fuck, this medieval mentality is fucking appalling.
I have a real problem with this because I don't think anybody should hit
kids. I raise two kids. They're wonderful adults. There are so many
tools you can use with kids. They have short attention spans, they don't
know anything about the world. You can use those two things like to your
advantage all the time. There's no reason to court your children. Well,
I'm glad to hear that that you went a lifetime being a great father,
Kelly and raising your children without violence. You know, my wife and I
have already talked about this. I mean we are prepared. I'm a father.
Somebody ever puts their hands on my kids, that's the day I go
to jail. It's already been planned out. We've got you know, we
have to we have to be prepared. Jason, as a father, please
give me your reaction. I mean, y'all know me. Uh, there's
no mystery. Anybody knows me. Knows that I've been training, finding MMA
and doing jiu jitsu for almost twenty years, and my family knows that's it's
yeah, the same thing. You'd be bailing me out. And uh,
I'm not advocating for violence, no one in the ACM. Don't speak for
the ACA. But somebody harms my kid, you know, I'm gonna I'm
gonna do real bad things that I won't regret. My my kid also has
some special education needs. And again, like Kelly, I've never hit my
kid once. I have no need to. Luckily, they go to the
gym and got plenty of peers and cohorts that they can fight, you know,
and get it out. I just think it's it's repulsive to me a
lot of times. And it's so interesting because you see the people promoting this
shit, are these like fucking fake ass, alpha male type of misogynistic,
fucking spare the rod, spoil the child type people. And I'll tell you,
man, I see plenty of people with that mentality try to come in
the gym and act like tough guys. They don't last. They get schooled
by some nerdy math major, you know, by some queer guy like me
laying on them, rubbing my fucking sweaty body on them while I beat some
progressivism into them. It's just disgusting to me, you know. I think
it's it's a weak thing perpetuated by weak people to break down people who could
potentially be strong, and you surp their fucking shit absolutely, you know,
I am worried about the way that this can empower or embolden, excuse me,
people who just have this pent up rage, who are weak minded and
cowards. Does this signal to them? Is this some kind of dog whistle
that they are allowed now to take out their anger on children who don't even
know if they're doing something. If they're doing something wrong in the first place,
right, So a child may do something wrong and violence is not the
answer. But then you've got a child who has no idea, what's going
on and then violence is put on them. So you know, Kelly,
I want to ask you, is this legislation likely to become an outlet for
a do of lesser quality when it comes to being in the classroom. Gosh,
you know you would hope, you would hope not. I mean the
potential is there too, because they did a lesson that the qualifications to be
a teacher in Oklahoma. So you have this ability to have this happen.
I'm afraid that something like that that could happen that you get somebody or somebody
that has My stepfather had Huntington Huntington's disease, and he was unable to control
his temper. It was even if he tried, he couldn't control it.
It was just something that happened. So you get people that in this position.
And Huntington's doesn't even start taking effect with most people until they're in their
late thirties or forties, So they could be a good teacher for ten years
and all of a sudden boom, they start beating kids because they can't control
it anymore. So that's another thing that you'd have to watch out for,
not just somebody who's messed up and had to begin with. But that's somebody
that gets progressively worse because of a mental illness, That's right, So I
yeah, and I go ahead, Jimmy, I'm sorry, I'm having a
hard time. I have a hard time with this subject. So I know
that you do. And I think you brought up a great point, right,
Oklahoma is not exactly the mech for scholars to enter the classroom, now,
is it. And I'm not talking about the kids, but you know,
just in the past couple of years, they have lessened, like you
said, Kelly, lessen the requirements to become a teacher. You don't even
need a bachelor's degree anymore. Not to say that a bachelor's degree makes you
any smarter than anyone else, but the training, the training to do that
is more attainable for people who have no business being in that atmosphere. Right,
And so they don't require teaching certifications either. I mean, how easy
is it for people to get in these classrooms that don't belong there? And
I guess that's kind of a rhetorical question, but yeah, because teaching isn't
just knowing the subject you're teaching. Teaching is being able to interact with the
children. Teaching is being able to keep the children under control. There's teaching
that just knowing the subject absolutely, And we're opening up now teaching the people
who don't have that training and that kind of experience. So it's troubles Jason.
I'd like to know your thoughts on what we just talked about before I
move on. It just keeps flashing in my mind. Stanford prison experiment.
When you give when you give untrained, unprepared people, uneducated people, positions
of authority that involve the ability to use violence and force, you are it's
a powder cake. And we see it time and time again. So you
have I mean, we've seen it in the police, you know, Uh,
time and time again. Uh. It's a problem. It's like a
thing, you know, it's it's it's rare to hear about that with with
military folks. Military folks are trained. Military folks have prerequisites, they've got
to be in certain type of shape. But we got people who are pretending
they're military walking around the streets a lot of times, and they're not ready
and they're scared. So you start putting somebody who but they get some training.
But then you start putting somebody who's allowed to use physical force on a
child, especially a child with disabilities. And if they don't have a bachelor's
degree, how have they even been trained to deal and work with kids with
disabilities? What do they know? What do they know about developmental education?
I've got ten years of college under my belt, multiple degrees, licenses,
certifications, one of them degree in psychology. Agree, you know, dots
of science and psychology with a focus on developmental psychology and neuropsychology. And the
things I learned in those classes are invaluable in understanding kids' behaviors, especially kids
who have disabilities. To think that my child would be in a place where
some untrained, unlicensed, unprepared person is not only given the responsibility to teach
my kid, but given the right and freedom, and they're say, in
a Christian point of view, the privilege to harm my child. That that
is the most terrifying shit. It's awful that I could think of. And
in a country again, I feel like this is a theme I bring up
a lot. In a country again that values authority over autonomy, those kids
are going to have already been conditioned by families in media and culture and environment
that says I deserve this well, especially in Christianity, right, I mean
you are go ahead, Kelly, I want to get I want to switch
gears here, or it's going to do exactly the opposite. It's going to
take these kids that if I get up and I say something, I'm going
to get beaten back down. This is what authority is going to do to
me, right, Yeah, Yeah, that's in the wheelchair that can't get
away, who can't who literally can't get away. He has physically stuck there
while he's getting beaten. And believe me, that's a whole level of psychological
torture piled on top of the physical torture. Believe me. I know for
a spect this might. But maybe that kid is the next freaking top physicist.
Maybe that kid is going to be an incredible author, Right, he's
going to write movies that people are going to enjoy. But now he's not
going to because it was beaten the fuck out of them. Well, you
know, there's a lot of layers here about how this is so wrong.
We've definitely addressed the cowardice of adults to take out their anger. But what
I want to move into is the essential building blocks of Christianity. If you
will because it is it has been UH propagated over centuries that people are bad,
they deserve torture, they deserve to be treated with violence, right,
and they deserve to have that done by the people in the positions of authority
within that religion. Now, what we're seeing in Oklahoma is a gross violation
of the constitution because we have got Oklahoma government officials on the Oklahoma in both
houses of the Oklahoma Legislature openly advocating for implementing Christianity and the result is violence
against kids. Gentlemen, I want to ask you, how can we reflect?
How can we take this topic and apply it to a violation of our
constitutional rights? Kelly, you want to go first. He'd have to prove
that it was religiously motivated, and I don't know if that's possible. Well,
I think you can. I think you can prove it's religiously motivated because
empirical study after empirical study after empirical study. I've got him on my computer
right now, I've got him in a library because of this shit. Empirical
study shows that whenever this type of discipline is in limited, whenever you have
discipline and programs like UH corporate punishment or abstinence only programs. You see undesired
outcomes. There's there's negative correlations. I know that, Jason, But you
didn't prove to me that it wasn't religiously motivated. Well, because what else
would it be motivated by? You can you can tie directly speak just tradition.
Yeah, but what about this is the tradition of our society. It
doesn't have to be tied to religion. Yes, that's then, well,
then at that point it evolves past what religion and then it goes into the
field of what we call cultural culturally acceptable beliefs. That's a that's a bold
word in your textbook, culturally acceptable beliefs. We're not talking about it in
a textbook. We're talking about in a course. That's but that's how you
would use it. And there's empirical data that you can use to back how
these things can be harmful in Okay, I understand what you're saying, Jason,
but what I'm saying doesn't seem to be hidden with you. Yes,
it's a bad system. We can prove that it's a bad system, but
you have to prove that when they pass this law. They passed it for
religious reasons, well, Kelly, and that you can't do with the empirical
data that you're talking about. In the government. The proponents of this law
are actively citing the Bible. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, right Like,
they are saying, this is what we should be allowed to do because
of what is in the Bible. And so I think that that does kind
of transcend strictly government operations and shows a gross violation of our constitutional rights by
endorsing a religion. It's not even a gross violation, it's treasonous and traitorous.
What you're doing is a preferential treatment of a nuanced version of a religion
by a very specific sociocultural group in a certain region, like it is regionally
specific to a certain culture. I mean, if that's not preferential treatment over
all religious interpretations, to me, that that's disgusting. And I think it's
very specific and you can see a pattern, you can build off of it
and see the different people who believe these things are promoting them in their different
pockets, and then generally these motherfuckers talk to each other and interact and share.
Here's the thing too, I I just think we have a higher standard
when that the courts have a higher standard with something like this, and that's
why we have people, we have coaches, That's why we have coaches doing
prayers on football fields. I think that I think the courts have lower standards
and that's a problem. And we talked about this my last higher they have
higher standards for the evidence that you need to win this case. That's what
I mean. Jason, He's got a point, now, doesn't he.
So we've maybe we've got yeah, but we've got our And I'm going to
be very careful because I was on one episode of the Nonprofits and I called
him our Secretary of State and I got completely eviscerated, immistrated in the comments
our Speaker of the House there is because you who like to point out my,
my, uh my misspeaks, but our Speaker of the House is on
the house floor reading from the Bible, praying, not being held accountable.
So yeah, I mean, I think Kelly might have a point in the
fact that, well, Jason, I agree the standards are low, right,
but the that that only means that it sways so far in the other
direction for them to actually be convinced that what's happening is a violation of the
Constitution. Jolly, how did I do there? Yeah? That was good
and maybe not just convinced, but sway to give up what they what they
believe with all their hearts right, and it's not And I and Jason,
I totally agree with you with with that data. I totally agree with that.
I think there's way better ways to deal with children than to hit them.
You know, like when my kids through temper tantrums, I threw one
with them and that stopped it. You know, what this reminds me of
is opposition against queer people in queer marriage. There's no fucking reason why anybody
would oppose that except for religious motivation. Yeah, I mean, it's it's
so silly. There's no there's no scientific backing, there's no social fucking damage
to it. So you reverse it and you see something like this and I
can't help. I don't know. I don't know. And the reason I
said it's lower than my standard is that was discuss in the last law course
that I took before I got my degree, was that they value things like
a priori and precedent over over empiricism and repeated data. That's a problem and
just now we're I mean maybe in the past fifteen years when it comes to
like it's just I don't know from what I've learned and what I've experienced and
what I see all the way from compass sentencing software to I don't know.
I can start ranting, but I don't think the law and the way things
happen. I think it's exactly what you're saying. It's fucking public opinion and
sway and confirmation bias and has nothing to do with the fucking truth. It
disgusts me. So though there is something else that I think is incredibly alarming,
they're not even trying to hide it. They're not even trying to make
Yeah, I mean, yeah, man. They are out in public,
they are their records are being kept, They're out there quoting the Bible on
an open floor, and there is no shame. And the children are not
going to be the first victims. I mean, they're certainly not the least,
right, but they're not going to be the first. And they're going
to come for other people once they get once they establish kind of their control,
just like they've done in the past. They're going to come from members
of other religions. They're going to come for atheists and women and other minority
groups, and this is how it starts with an attack on children. So
I'd like to get your your comments on that thought, gentlemen, and then
we can close out. Go ahead, Jason meah, I feel like the
attack's already happening. Yeah, let's not forget. They're already allowed to hit
students, right, so well, I mean, you're already allowed to fucking
marginalize people and discriminate, you know, and you're allowed to do these things.
What I think happened is that, you know, possibly a certain political
figure who behaves a certain way did a good job representing a bunch of fucking
shitty people, and now they're emboldened. And now people have been left unchecked
because people who believe in things like peace and passivism, you know, think,
you know, maybe if I'm a reasonable logical human being, I can
reason and logic and fix things. But the problem is is there's seems to
be a lot more people who are swayed by fucking trash and really want to
behave that way. And it's sad because those motherfuckers have a lot of money
and a lot of resources and a lot of connections and our position. Put
in a prop up in a place of authority and then say the right words
and wave a fucking bible around and somehow they're elected in or given a bunch
of money. I don't know. I think I don't have much hope,
and I do think it's it's just getting more and more brazen, because good
people do good things, and generally those good things don't involve barging your way
into everybody's fucking brain and trying to indoctrinate them so and beating your religion into
them, right, and beating your fucking beliefs into them. I don't know.
I'm not a pacifist, but I think the best way to be is
probably a pacifist. So I don't know. I don't know. It just
it breaks my fucking heart and I don't see it getting any better anytime soon.
Ella thoughts, I get the really and beat out of me. I
was, I mean, religion was associated with my stepfather. He was the
one that maybe go to church, so you know, and I just I
feel for the kids that are going to suffer from this. I know that
they, like you said, they're already allowed to do it in Oklahoma.
We can only hope and pray that most teachers don't, that most teachers are
intelligent enough to understand that beating children is the last resource of incompetent, of
the incompetent to steal a phrase. But like, there's so many other ways
to deal with children and beating them. Like I said, they don't know
a whole lot about the world. You can use that to your advantage.
You can use that short attention span to your advantage. You just have to
be smarter than the kids. And how hard is it to be smarter than
a seven year old? You know? Yeah, So I want to kind
of take a different approach real quick and just ask you guys. With the
Bible being quoted in the Oklahoma House and Senate and then being used to support
a law that would generally lead to the overall harm of children, can we
consider the Bible a form of hate speech? Jason, what do you think?
I don't know. I think something like that is benign. I'm also
have a weird opinion on art and literature, things like comedy anything like that.
Like I really feel like anything should more or less be allowed because what
it is, it's like a model. It's not the real thing. It's
a model. It's a representation of an idea. So I catch a lot
of shit for this, but I'm okay with pretty much any idea being presented.
I'm okay with it being presented in any way they want to do it,
even if it's ways that offend people. That's how I feel about art.
The thing is this, so once you take that art and you weaponize
it, it's not the art that's doing it, it's the human being and
the structure around it. So by blaming words on paper, to me,
is missing the whole point, and you're missing what's really happening, and what
you're what's really happening is you have groups of people that you can identify by
name by name that are doing fucked up things. And we can blame the
Bible all day. You know, I can write a bunch of fucked up
words on a piece of paper, but if you know, somebody can do
what they want with it, it's not my fault. Real short, yes,
if there were still Amorites and Amalekites and Babylonians around it, just definitely
hate speech. Well yeah that's different. Well, you know we're gonna We're
gonna close this segment out, but I can't do so without referencing, uh,
you know Jason's point about comedy, you know, and I want to
quote Chris Rock when he said, you know, there are just some professions
you can't be bad at, right, Uh, And I think the teacher
is one of them. Right. Teachers are undervalued in our society. Uh.
And you know they deserve more. And when we continue, as we
continue to undervalue them, we're going to see them go away, and we're
going to get the ranks filled with people who just don't belong there. Uh.
And so I want to thank everybody. Of course, a teacher would
tell us that, yeah, true. Uh I teach one day a week,
so don't put the full title on me. But uh, yeah,
great discussion. Uh, this was This was a wonderful segment, And everybody,
thanks for tuning in.