Speaker 1: Well, it seems that we have a lady of the
Speaker 1: cloth coming to the rescue against a congregation of not
Speaker 1: very nice men. It seems that the nasty man has
Speaker 1: called the lady of the cloth, who called for anything
Speaker 1: but being nasty, to be the one on the receiving
Speaker 1: end of things. Helen.
Speaker 2: So imagine if you may, regardless of your belief or
Speaker 2: left thereof that a bishop ask you for compassion for
Speaker 2: vulnerable people, Ask that for once, consider your effects on
Speaker 2: others and call that person nasty. Now imagine you're the
Speaker 2: president on an inauguration day, so episcopical, I never say
Speaker 2: this right. Bishop Marian egar Bud gave an impassioned speech
Speaker 2: for Trump to consider the effect of his words and
Speaker 2: policies that would affect communities. Now, I don't think Trump
Speaker 2: has ever been the introspective sort, but this should be
Speaker 2: reminder that people who cannot consider the lot lived experiences
Speaker 2: of other human beings, maybe they shouldn't hold power. The
Speaker 2: vicious speech was a reminder to all of us to
Speaker 2: have compassion for people and other communities outside of our
Speaker 2: immediate circles, and people in power should consider the populace
Speaker 2: as a whole. This story comes from Humanism on the
Speaker 2: Hill by bisch By Reattas by Steve Holland and Jeff
Speaker 2: Mason on January twenty second, twenty twenty five. I don't
Speaker 2: know why asking for compassion is considered a nasty thing.
Speaker 1: Please explain, because the wrong people you're asking for compassion
Speaker 1: for right now, find people, don't you know? They're not
Speaker 1: real people, don't you know?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: I have a couple of white of summarizing this article,
Speaker 1: but there's not many ways that are more British than this.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is a Wazok, not a Wazuk.
Speaker 2: That's a I have not heard.
Speaker 1: There's no other ways of putting it. Here's the weather
Speaker 1: vein of American politics. Shall we say he will go
Speaker 1: wherever the wind blows him.
Speaker 3: Here's a symptom.
Speaker 1: Yes, And here's the thing about symptoms. You can cure symptoms.
Speaker 1: The problem is prevention is always better than cure around
Speaker 1: these parts. And we should have prevented us getting to
Speaker 1: this state in the first place. And how we now
Speaker 1: get ourselves out of this? I'm not entirely certain. I'm
Speaker 1: not a sochologist, I'm not a political expert. I just
Speaker 1: happen to be the person that's conducting this show tonight.
Speaker 1: But it does always feel very odd when you see
Speaker 1: your own sense being dehumanized one of the most powerful
Speaker 1: people from client and then you have one of the
Speaker 1: strangest moments as an atheist can have when you have
Speaker 1: a Lady of the Clock come running in white nighte
Speaker 1: and going, don't do this, don't do that. It does
Speaker 1: feel very, very weird that this is where we've got
Speaker 1: to in this world. Wouldn't you agree, Aaron?
Speaker 3: It's a very strange world right now. This is not
Speaker 3: where I thought the world would be. I thought four
Speaker 3: years ago that that was the last wee we're going
Speaker 3: to see of the Orange One. Yeah. Well, if you
Speaker 3: look around the world, from what I understand, there is
Speaker 3: a dissatisfaction in general with people in power, and incumbents
Speaker 3: are losing, regardless if they're left or if they're right.
Speaker 3: People are not happy people the voters, right, the voters
Speaker 3: are not happy. They want to change. They do not
Speaker 3: like what they see, they do not like the choices
Speaker 3: they have to stop you here.
Speaker 1: Incumbents are not losing around the world. That's a myth.
Speaker 1: Incumbents one in Finland, incumbents one in the Republic of Ireland,
Speaker 1: incumbents are most likely to win. In Scotland, incumbents are
Speaker 1: doing strange and wonderful things. In Spain, it's just saying
Speaker 1: incumbents around the world are losing is a myth. Yes,
Speaker 1: incumbents lost in the United Kingdom, but that was because
Speaker 1: they've been in powers in twenty ten one way, shape
Speaker 1: or another. To say that incumbents are losing around the
Speaker 1: world is a convenient yet incorrect myth. So in the
Speaker 1: Republic of Ireland, the most recent election, which was earlier,
Speaker 1: which was late last year, resulted in the two main
Speaker 1: coalition parties, Pheno Foil and Siana Gale actually increasing their
Speaker 1: vote share and the main opposition party Shinfein not having
Speaker 1: the predicted big win that it was supposed to do.
Speaker 1: In Spain, the Socialist Party of Spain surprisingly held on
Speaker 1: to power for another few years when it was expected
Speaker 1: to lose against the Conservative People's Party. In Finland, the
Speaker 1: incumbents got stronger. In the Netherlands, the incumbents got stronger.
Speaker 1: To say that we have this plethora of overthrowing of
Speaker 1: incumbents is a nice myth, but it's not true.
Speaker 3: Oka I stand corrected well here in the United States,
Speaker 3: there is dissatisfaction at best with our current our current framework,
Speaker 3: our current political system. I don't think people are happy
Speaker 3: with it, and I think people want they want they
Speaker 3: want change, and they don't care who is going to
Speaker 3: who is going to give it to them.
Speaker 1: What does change mean?
Speaker 3: I don't know. Burned down and sterical over again. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's hard to see anything other than that on why
Speaker 3: people are voted the way they did. Maybe we're not Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: humans are not rational creatures. We're not logical, rational creatures.
Speaker 3: As much as we think.
Speaker 1: We are, Katie trying to be.
Speaker 3: We are trying to be, but people are not. And
Speaker 3: people vote against their own interest all the time, and
Speaker 3: it's going to continue to happen, and I don't know
Speaker 3: what we do about it.
Speaker 1: So when you read this article, what did you think
Speaker 1: of this obticle as a mirror to the society that
Speaker 1: America has devolved or developed? How you look at it into.
Speaker 2: What's amazing that I have never heard someone had to
Speaker 2: tell President this, and all the years of following, you know,
Speaker 2: and my forty five plus years on this planet, I
Speaker 2: have never heard a person of the cloth or anyone
Speaker 2: else have to tell a president to take other people
Speaker 2: into consideration. That blew my mind. Not that it's not
Speaker 2: so much that I expect Trump to be an He's
Speaker 2: never had an introspective thought in his life. He has
Speaker 2: never looked inward and looked at his own behavior because
Speaker 2: he's an orange shit given so he doesn't have higher
Speaker 2: thinking skills. But it says something about the seventy seven
Speaker 2: million people that voted for him. Either they don't care
Speaker 2: because I don't want to assume other people's motivations, but
Speaker 2: it concerns me that a person and I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: with the bishop. I'm like, good on you, good on you,
Speaker 2: because as I the fact that she had to say
Speaker 2: this to someone that is the most powerful person in
Speaker 2: the world, had to say this to him, Please consider
Speaker 2: other people, Please show compassion because people are terrified. But
Speaker 2: I think it's kind of amazing. It's amazing in a
Speaker 2: terrible way.
Speaker 1: I think this does show the major flaw with well democracy.
Speaker 1: And this isn't an anti democratic ran This isn't anything
Speaker 1: that's pro or anti democratic, but it does allow anybody
Speaker 1: of any qualification to be able to ascend to any
Speaker 1: position that they're constitutionally allowed to because we do have
Speaker 1: some of the least qualified people trying to run the
Speaker 1: government at the moment, and it is quite frankly, quite scary.
Speaker 1: I mean, back in twenty sixteen, the current president, who
Speaker 1: was then the forty fifth president of the United States,
Speaker 1: had no previous political offices that he had ever held.
Speaker 1: He'd never done it before, whereas the guy who was
Speaker 1: number forty six in the office had been. He was
Speaker 1: the furniture that they just moved around a bit and
Speaker 1: then they moved him down the street. That's how long
Speaker 1: he'd been there. He was part of the furniture. And
Speaker 1: when you go back to president's past, you take a
Speaker 1: look at Bill Clinton, he had been on Arkansas politician
Speaker 1: for decades. You take Ronald Reagan, he'd been a California
Speaker 1: politician for decades. You take Richard Dixon, he'd been a
Speaker 1: California politician and vice president of the United States for decades.
Speaker 1: Go back to president's past. It was seen as okay,
Speaker 1: you've done the job. Interview of how well you can
Speaker 1: actually do this election thing beforehand, and then you rise
Speaker 1: out of the rank. You don't normally have the first
Speaker 1: political office you hold being the number one top job.
Speaker 1: That's not normal in these circle ass we're not living
Speaker 1: in normal times when you can just catapult from nothingness
Speaker 1: and obscurity as a reality television star running your own
Speaker 1: show to becoming the forty fifth and forty seventh president
Speaker 1: of the United States. And it should tell you something
Speaker 1: when contestants on the reality show are asked and the
Speaker 1: source for this is the magician Pendulect when he said,
Speaker 1: I did not win the last celebrity edition of The
Speaker 1: Apprentice hosted by Donald Trump because I was told by
Speaker 1: the producers I had to say it that I thought
Speaker 1: he would be a good president, and he said, I
Speaker 1: don't believe that. I just straight up don't believe he
Speaker 1: would make a good president. So therefore, the guy who
Speaker 1: is now the President of the Ice States decided that
Speaker 1: he wasn't going to win the show. This is the
Speaker 1: level of not normal that we're living in in this
Speaker 1: day and age, and this article is the epitome of
Speaker 1: not normal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no there's no political consequences anymore for anything.
Speaker 3: Right in his first in his first campaign, the Orange
Speaker 3: one said that he could shoot someone on First Avenue
Speaker 3: and he wouldn't lose a vote. And I think that
Speaker 3: was the most pressient thing he said, and it's true.
Speaker 3: There's there.
Speaker 1: Everyone ridiculed him for it. Everyone ridiculed him, but it
Speaker 1: was true.
Speaker 3: All the teams that came out during that first election
Speaker 3: didn't didn't FaZe him, and area is back as forty
Speaker 3: seventh the president the United States. So I've only love
Speaker 3: to believe that people just don't care who the president is,
Speaker 3: right because normally before both things would have had consequences,
Speaker 3: and now they don't. Why not? I don't know, I
Speaker 3: don't I'm not And that's in these areas.
Speaker 1: Here's the real here's the real CrOx of the matter.
Speaker 1: Why is it that the three of us I guaranteed
Speaker 1: to know who the occupant of sixteen hundred Pennsylvany Avenue is,
Speaker 1: But are nine hundred and ninety nine times out of
Speaker 1: one thousand not going to have a clue who represents
Speaker 1: us in the Senate, not going to have a clue
Speaker 1: who represents us in the House, or even who the
Speaker 1: mayor of the city we live in need?
Speaker 2: I think, because I mean I do, I do know
Speaker 2: that I'm plunked and just plunt in the past ten
Speaker 2: the mayor of the city you live in, No, actually,
Speaker 2: you know I knew the mayor of Serrisoda. I don't
Speaker 2: know the mayor of Port Charlie as I just moved here.
Speaker 1: So that's fair. That's the last question. Then do you
Speaker 1: know that that I'm your local represented.
Speaker 2: My local level, oh city council. Oh you know what,
Speaker 2: I don't know. So that's fair, Okay, so fair. And
Speaker 2: I think that's because I think that because this is
Speaker 2: this is the thing, and I'm and I am not
Speaker 2: going to excuse myself or anything like that. I think
Speaker 2: part of it is that for most people, like they
Speaker 2: are aware of bills that are going forward, like when
Speaker 2: I'm voting, I will start looking up stuff when voting
Speaker 2: comes around and see who aligns with my values and
Speaker 2: you know, and what they voted on when elections should
Speaker 2: come up with the two to four years between that,
Speaker 2: I will admit it. I'm not always paying attention and
Speaker 2: I'll and I'll own it. I'll own that, I think
Speaker 2: because but we'll pay attention to broader politics, will know
Speaker 2: who our senator is, Like you know, we know Marco Rubio,
Speaker 2: and I know you know Rick Scott, and I you
Speaker 2: know all these butt heads, you know, the Santis and
Speaker 2: so on. So for the fourth because because they are
Speaker 2: the ones that are in front of my face. My
Speaker 2: local representative is not, and also as well because they
Speaker 2: are trying to gain more power and they are part
Speaker 2: of the larger government system. But the local representative, that's
Speaker 2: like running your school board. Not a lot of people
Speaker 2: are paying attention to that. And that's a problem, which
Speaker 2: I agree that it is a problem, and I and
Speaker 2: I'm not and I'm going to own my shit. But
Speaker 2: but the thing is, though, is that I think for
Speaker 2: most people, even though like I am politically educated, I
Speaker 2: know that i'm but there are places that I'm you know,
Speaker 2: I'm missing Gafts because I also think too for people
Speaker 2: that maybe voted for Trump. One of my one of
Speaker 2: my friends, voted against her best interests because she wasn't
Speaker 2: plugged in. She just hurt. She thought Trump was funny,
Speaker 2: didn't know anything about him, and just voted for him
Speaker 2: because he was in her face.
Speaker 1: So here's the next question. What is democracy today? If
Speaker 1: democracy isn't devolving power down to the lowest level of community,
Speaker 1: it's come to the point where you don't really go
Speaker 1: out and vote anymore because no one stands against the incumber.
Speaker 1: What has become of democracy? A meanly.
Speaker 3: Democracy is only as strong as the people that are voting.
Speaker 3: It's only as strong as the people that choose to
Speaker 3: get involved. There's only as strong as the people that care,
Speaker 3: that care about the issues. They know who represents them,
Speaker 3: that knows what. Even more important than knows who representative,
Speaker 3: knows what the people that represent stand for and what
Speaker 3: they will and what their agendas are and what they
Speaker 3: want to put forth. Democracy requires work from the people
Speaker 3: that are voting.
Speaker 1: And democracy isn't just voting. This show is democracy in action.
Speaker 1: The three of us on this show and the producer
Speaker 1: and the ICI, and that's democracy.
Speaker 3: Action, being able to speak your mind, speak your peace.
Speaker 3: Democracy is also a free press. Democracy is also in
Speaker 3: a decent press that's actually informs the public and that
Speaker 3: the public trusts and listens to that. In my view,
Speaker 3: a good press is the fourth branch of government of
Speaker 3: for his.
Speaker 1: States, It's cool. Yeah, Democracy is not just voting. Out
Speaker 1: of just voting, this is what democracy is. Democracy is
Speaker 1: the freedom to make your own choice at his most
Speaker 1: fundamental level, whether that be to choose your own representative,
Speaker 1: or to choose what you speak about as we do
Speaker 1: on this show, or to choose what you pick up
Speaker 1: and read. This is where the disconnect has become because
Speaker 1: a lot of people have forgotten what democracy is. People
Speaker 1: think it's just picking up a pencil and going and voting.
Speaker 1: But that's nonsense.
Speaker 3: My junior English teacher in high school said that he
Speaker 3: was he did not like the get out and vote campaigns.
Speaker 3: He said, I don't want you to get out and vote.
Speaker 3: What I want you to do is understand the issues
Speaker 3: and then vote. What I want you to do is
Speaker 3: to be an active participant in the voting process and
Speaker 3: then vote. That's more valuable than just having people get
Speaker 3: out and vote. And as I get older and I
Speaker 3: see things, you know what, I kind of agree with
Speaker 3: that view. If you're not going to be informed, if
Speaker 3: you're not going to pay attention, if you're not going
Speaker 3: to care, then I'd rather you just stay home and
Speaker 3: not vote.
Speaker 1: But here's the next thing. Democracy survives when you have
Speaker 1: an active citizenry. Protests. As much as people may loathe
Speaker 1: them for the inconvenience, will try to shut them down,
Speaker 1: they are the backbone of democracy. Talking to your elected
Speaker 1: representatives is another backbone of your democracy, and holding your
Speaker 1: elected representatives to account in open public for that's democracy
Speaker 1: as well, but that's not all democracy is. Democracy is
Speaker 1: about having that expression that civil society is doing what
Speaker 1: civil society wants. It's not having an imposition placed upon
Speaker 1: it by a top down set of individuals, such as
Speaker 1: a North Korea would, because that's not an open civil society.
Speaker 1: That's not democracy. It could call itself the democratic whatever,
Speaker 1: but that's not democracy. And it's frightening to see democracy
Speaker 1: taken for granted.
Speaker 2: Always have them, But I don't know because there's been
Speaker 2: you know, like if you look at any sort of
Speaker 2: rhetoric online about like why we have gotten into where
Speaker 2: we are, I don't know why. There's different theories. I
Speaker 2: don't know because I don't I don't really care why
Speaker 2: we got here. I want to know. But we are
Speaker 2: now dealing with the result, and the result is that
Speaker 2: we have someone in power and has all of his
Speaker 2: rich buddies also empower of people that are in it
Speaker 2: for themselves and don't have compassion, don't have that broader
Speaker 2: respective because even even the basic president understood that I
Speaker 2: need to appeal to the broader demographic of my constituents.
Speaker 2: You know, these people are in it for themselves. And
Speaker 2: if that is what democracy has become. That is the
Speaker 2: message that we are getting that we should be in
Speaker 2: it for ourselves, and that's not what a democracy is.