Speaker 1: Ryan Walters has caused many headlines since becoming superintendent of
Speaker 1: schools in Oklahoma. This time there are some consequences to
Speaker 1: him tweaking the curriculum. Jonathan has the story.
Speaker 2: Ryan Waters is the Oklahoma state Supervisor of Elections and
Speaker 2: he's trying his best to lie about the performance of
Speaker 2: the Oklahoma schools. First, he claimed he had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with lowering the standard's on state testing, boosting scores
Speaker 2: by thirty three percent, basically falsely. His under and lings
Speaker 2: admitted that they closely supervised the revision process and did
Speaker 2: not allow any public comment, did not inform the school districts,
Speaker 2: and sought no public input Sadly, the boost and proficiency
Speaker 2: was a lie. When tested by the standards set to
Speaker 2: comply before the change that were set to comply with
Speaker 2: the federal standards, it is lower than ever Oklahoma's forty
Speaker 2: ninth in education in the United States. They're only better
Speaker 2: than New Mexico and Alabama's actually better than THEMS like
Speaker 2: not a good seat, not a good site, not a
Speaker 2: good look for them. And this is an indirect attempt
Speaker 2: to destroy public education in Oklahoma and do it without
Speaker 2: anybody noticing they're meeting their objective. As I said, they
Speaker 2: are forty ninth and the K through twelve, and not
Speaker 2: just overall education, but also in K through twelve. So
Speaker 2: a lot of times the universities bring that number up,
Speaker 2: but not but not in the K through twelve.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 2: So this story is by Noria Martinez Kiel the Oklahoma
Speaker 2: Voice and printed in the Oklahoma on eight twenty three,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. I yield to the panel for discussion.
Speaker 1: Well, actually I was going to come to you, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: and first, since you introduced the story, how does the
Speaker 1: lack of transparency in the changes to the test scoring
Speaker 1: effect public trust in educational assessments and government agents.
Speaker 2: Well, it obviously isn't good. But the problems, you know,
Speaker 2: the problem of life. Saying this much about it and
Speaker 2: this on the heels of his story, we also already
Speaker 2: cover about his putting a Bible in every classroom kind
Speaker 2: of puts his and as we know, conservatives hate public education.
Speaker 2: It doesn't serve their needs at all. It tends to
Speaker 2: teach people how to think, and they don't want anybody
Speaker 2: to think. They want them to just follow the propaganda
Speaker 2: and not actually think for themselves. But this is that
Speaker 2: attempt but it's fraudulent and it's going to end up
Speaker 2: really irritating a lot of parents who now have to
Speaker 2: contend with a school system that is not working for
Speaker 2: their children because they're deliberately trying to sabotage it. They're
Speaker 2: in a related move that we're not covering necessarily. But
Speaker 2: there's another action that mister Walters did was to tie
Speaker 2: the school's accreditation to the state to the test scores. Oh,
Speaker 2: this will help them with their accreditation. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of new rules underneath all these that well, let's
Speaker 2: just say, is backed by churches but opposed by teachers.
Speaker 2: So the checklist that they of these items is mandatory,
Speaker 2: or the school gets a deficiency on their accreditation, many deficiencies,
Speaker 2: and the school can be closed or taken over by
Speaker 2: the state. So this is setting up local school districts
Speaker 2: to fail, and they want them to fail because they'd
Speaker 2: rather have them all going to religious schools privately. So
Speaker 2: this is really a serious issue that we kind of
Speaker 2: cover in a lot of our stories. But how long
Speaker 2: are the parents of these kids going to tolerate this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. Eventually it's going to reach critical mass,
Speaker 2: and I don't think they're going to like the results
Speaker 2: of that. And that's kind of what I have to
Speaker 2: say on it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'm always like a person that supports
Speaker 1: a critical mass to make chain, but I don't know
Speaker 1: if Oklahoma, or maybe the constituency there is really organizing
Speaker 1: to do that. I but then again, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just expressing my ignorance because I really don't know what
Speaker 1: the advocacy and the activism on the ground to push
Speaker 1: back against some of the policies that Ryan Walters is pushing.
Speaker 1: But you know, Scott, I'm coming to you because you're
Speaker 1: an educator and you've been an educator for quite some time,
Speaker 1: and you know, I would like for you just to,
Speaker 1: you know, answer, what are the implications of lowering performance
Speaker 1: standards on long term educational outcomes for students that happen
Speaker 1: to be in Oklahoma.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, if he had gotten away with it,
Speaker 5: the short term impact would have been to artificially inflate
Speaker 5: the effectiveness of their current policies.
Speaker 4: Scott, I have to say it.
Speaker 1: I do apologize he would gotten away with it if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for those meddling kids.
Speaker 6: Those kids.
Speaker 5: It's old man Mahoney at the Haunted not good amusement park.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 4: Exactly, go ahead continue.
Speaker 5: So he's artificially I mean, it's it's a misrepresentation obviously,
Speaker 5: but it's a it's a deceit at the at the
Speaker 5: deepest level. He's you know, Jonathan was talking about how
Speaker 5: he's deceiving the public.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 5: They they they lower the standard to make it look
Speaker 5: like they're being more effective. And and I think I'm
Speaker 5: presuming here. I don't know this for a fact, but
Speaker 5: I'm presuming that it's to prop up the other changes
Speaker 5: that they're doing to say, Look how effective we are now.
Speaker 5: Look how effective book banning is doing. Look how effective
Speaker 5: it is now that we have the Ten Commandments in
Speaker 5: the in the classrooms. Look how effective we are now
Speaker 5: that we're incorporating Bible stories into our day to day
Speaker 5: lessons and that kind of thing. And so it's just
Speaker 5: artificial inflation. What does the effect that What effect does
Speaker 5: that have on the education? It gives it. First of all,
Speaker 5: it guts one of the main tools that educators have
Speaker 5: to assess themselves and to assess how effective they are
Speaker 5: with their students, and that is assessments. Right, It's it's
Speaker 5: responses from testing whether it be standardized testing, whether it
Speaker 5: be testing in the classroom, whether it be written paper tests,
Speaker 5: or whether it be activities or you know, it's just
Speaker 5: totally invalidating all all of those.
Speaker 7: Efforts to improve.
Speaker 5: I think I don't think I'm going out on a
Speaker 5: limb here when I say that educators generally go into
Speaker 5: the field because they care, because.
Speaker 7: They want to do well.
Speaker 5: They want to do They want to help children, they
Speaker 5: want to empower children, they want to you know, teach
Speaker 5: them things. They want them to be enlightened and educated. Citizenry. Right,
Speaker 5: it's good for the country, it's good for the individuals,
Speaker 5: it's good for the neighborhoods, it's good for the local government,
Speaker 5: it's good for it's good for everybody. And so so
Speaker 5: what this is doing is it's just taking away the
Speaker 5: effectiveness of those of those methods. As teachers, we like
Speaker 5: to talk about critical reflection. We want we want to
Speaker 5: look back at ourselves. We want to look back at
Speaker 5: what we're doing, and if we can change things to
Speaker 5: make them better then we can't, then we do that.
Speaker 5: And so this is not only is this covering up
Speaker 5: a problem that was there. I think Jonathan said they
Speaker 5: were forty ninth in the state. Yeah, rah rah right.
Speaker 5: And so it's covering up a problem that was there,
Speaker 5: but it's also making the problem look like it's a
Speaker 5: good thing.
Speaker 7: And so it's kind of giving them a.
Speaker 5: Free path, or it would have, if it had worked,
Speaker 5: given him a pass to incorporate more of these changes
Speaker 5: that will also undermine the educational system even further. And
Speaker 5: and like you both mentioned, I would have to assume
Speaker 5: that part of the goal at least is to get
Speaker 5: rid of public education. And so it's it's a I mean,
Speaker 5: it's it's very callous, and it's very devious, and you know,
Speaker 5: it's almost almost too cruel to imagine to do something
Speaker 5: like to to take away a child's ability to become
Speaker 5: a better human being, to learn how to become a
Speaker 5: more productive member of society, to take away their their
Speaker 5: power to make their lives better.
Speaker 7: And that's really what it's doing.
Speaker 5: That's the ultimate cost that education can pay can pay
Speaker 5: here is we will lose the effectiveness of the educational
Speaker 5: system we have, and we will in fact even roll
Speaker 5: back even further and make it even less effective.
Speaker 1: Well, Cindy, you are on the outside looking in, all
Speaker 1: safe and tucked away in a different country, but I
Speaker 1: know that you definitely pay attention to a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that are going on here in the good
Speaker 1: old us of a American apple pie.
Speaker 4: Four by four.
Speaker 7: So anyway, don't forget the guns.
Speaker 1: We got guns, yeah, Jesus guns and babies.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, gotta get that straight, my bad guys.
Speaker 1: But you know, Cindy, I'm just wondering because, like you know,
Speaker 1: since you like pay attention to a lot of these
Speaker 1: things that's going on, what do you really think I
Speaker 1: think that you know, Scott alluded to it a bit,
Speaker 1: but can you expand on really what the motivation is
Speaker 1: behind the I call the Shenanigans in O Colahoma. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to send the rest of the song because
Speaker 1: I don't know the rest of the words, so I'm
Speaker 1: just not going to do it and embarrass myself. But
Speaker 1: what is the motivation behind, you know, doing the things
Speaker 1: that they are doing when it's quite obvious that well,
Speaker 1: I guess to us that happens to be on the
Speaker 1: other side of the looking glass that this is detrimental
Speaker 1: and harmful to the kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: On top of everything that Scott said, and I think
Speaker 8: was very very much one point, there's another side of this.
Speaker 3: Let's say that this worked and nobody.
Speaker 8: Noticed what happens to the students Once they leave those
Speaker 8: schools and go to university. They will be behind everyone
Speaker 8: else because they think they did very good and they
Speaker 8: think they have the level to be in a university
Speaker 8: and they don't. And what happens They feel like they
Speaker 8: don't belong here, and they feel bad about themselves, and
Speaker 8: then they feel like they're stupid and not deserving of
Speaker 8: more education. And I'm wondering if it's an intended purpose
Speaker 8: or if it's just a sad consequence. But I think
Speaker 8: that's something we need to take a look at, because
Speaker 8: if this keeps going in the future, whether it's this
Speaker 8: specific action or any other that the Republican r are taking,
Speaker 8: the United States is going to be very very much
Speaker 8: behind in terms of workforce. In terms of education, of course,
Speaker 8: which is already the case, but yeah, workforce economics, because
Speaker 8: economics are linked to the workforce, which is linked to
Speaker 8: the education. And so I think it was a couple
Speaker 8: of years ago that China took the first place in
Speaker 8: terms of scientific publications, and I don't see that specific
Speaker 8: story helping in this situation. So yeah, I think as
Speaker 8: as Scott said, the Repulican survive on an uneducated base.
Speaker 8: That's how they've been surviving in the last twenty years,
Speaker 8: and so they do everything they can to keep that going.
Speaker 7: Last fifty years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was pretty much I would say that's even longer. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, guys, this is not in my notes, but
Speaker 1: I did read this little document called Project.
Speaker 4: And one are nine and twenty five pages.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not going to say that I read through
Speaker 1: all nine hundred and twenty five pages, but I did
Speaker 1: go through the contents, and I would go back and
Speaker 1: forth and skip and skim and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: But you know, one of the things that is in
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five, and it's also on you know,
Speaker 1: on the on the darket as far as like you know,
Speaker 1: platform items for people who happen to be conservative on
Speaker 1: the right is to get rid of the Department of Education.
Speaker 1: And I'm always like concerned because like one of the
Speaker 1: talking points is let's get rid of the Department of
Speaker 1: Education on the federal level and leave the decisions on
Speaker 1: how to run schools to the state, including having parents
Speaker 1: be able to utilize I guess text dollars to do
Speaker 1: school choice but you know, I'm curious to know, and
Speaker 1: especially since we're looking at stories like this from a
Speaker 1: person the superintendent that has clearly demonstrated and said out
Speaker 1: of his mouth that he is a Christian national, what
Speaker 1: type of really horrible, horrendous implications could this have if
Speaker 1: there is no oversight or regulatory body over education on
Speaker 1: the federal level.
Speaker 4: And do you all see.
Speaker 1: His actions kind of fulfilling that that wishless that the
Speaker 1: that the project has implicated. Jonathan, I'm going to start
Speaker 1: with you, and then Scott and then Cindy.
Speaker 4: I would like to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Well, first off, this is this is a process that
Speaker 2: they've been already implementing. As we see here, the uh
Speaker 2: the accredit accreditation changes I look through kind of indicate this.
Speaker 2: So it would penalize districts that maintain active employment of
Speaker 2: teachers under investigation for certificate or vocation. That's one thing.
Speaker 2: There's quite a few.
Speaker 3: I'm going to skip some of them.
Speaker 2: But the the other thing it would do is districts
Speaker 2: would not be able to receive state funding if they
Speaker 2: support or maintain certain diversity you know, DEI programs, And
Speaker 2: so that means that kind of tells you where they're
Speaker 2: going with this moment.
Speaker 1: John, I just want to actually tell the audience for
Speaker 1: those who do not know what DEI means, that needs diversity,
Speaker 1: equity and inclusion continue.
Speaker 2: Please, Yes, my brain had a hole for that and
Speaker 2: would subject teachers to potential dismissal for sexual acts and
Speaker 2: this is not in school. This is Uh. If sexual
Speaker 2: acts or acts that appeal to the period interest in
Speaker 2: sex as found by the average person applying contemporary community standards,
Speaker 2: or acts that excessively promote sexuality, they can be refused.
Speaker 2: Employment critics say it could be used as grounds to
Speaker 2: terminate teachers who engage in after hours activities like drag performances,
Speaker 2: if those performances were recorded and put online. And uh,
Speaker 2: there are some people who say that that you know,
Speaker 2: in my comments, I said, you know, this could mean
Speaker 2: that if somebody happens to catch you at home watching
Speaker 2: Rupe Paul's drag race, they could fire, you know, if
Speaker 2: they could twist this to make it fireable.
Speaker 7: New America, Welcome to America.
Speaker 2: To do what you want in your own time, or
Speaker 2: they watching a porn channel or something. You know, it's
Speaker 2: none of those things.
Speaker 1: I lived in Oklahoma, they would have fired me a
Speaker 1: long time ago because I love that damn show. But
Speaker 1: but you know, Johnathan, can you spend this a little bit,
Speaker 1: because it almost sounds like that what you're saying is
Speaker 1: that they're trying to penalize you for either being allied
Speaker 1: or being part of the LGBTQ community and also living
Speaker 1: your truth out lot.
Speaker 4: Is that what? That's what I'm That's what.
Speaker 2: I'm they want to they want to suppress that, I'm
Speaker 2: quite sure because these rules are rather draconian if you
Speaker 2: think about it, And if districts fail to comply after
Speaker 2: receiving notice from the department, they will receive an accreditation
Speaker 2: deficiency as well. So it's like, you know, it would
Speaker 2: strike from existing rules on local school boards that board
Speaker 2: members shall refrain from involvement or interference with the administrative
Speaker 2: functions of the school. That means the school boards could
Speaker 2: come around and say you can't do that, No, we
Speaker 2: want it this way, take the power out of the
Speaker 2: principle and the teachers and start micromanaging what's going on.
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, well I think.
Speaker 6: You should this right? Do you want to follow what
Speaker 6: gets worth? Sure? Sure?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Okay, So let me give me a second here, I
Speaker 7: gotta catch my breath.
Speaker 5: Okay, all right, So so you were asking about I'm sorry,
Speaker 5: could you repeat the question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bas I was asking, you know, with Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five and the right basically allowing themselves to get
Speaker 1: rid of the Department of Education on the federal level. Great,
Speaker 1: what kind of implications could this have? Like detrimental implications
Speaker 1: could this have, you know, on kids, you know, especially
Speaker 1: who happened to attend public schools.
Speaker 5: I think that attacking the indirectly attacking the Department of Education,
Speaker 5: I think I'm not entirely convinced that that's either the
Speaker 5: main goal or even one of the main goals here.
Speaker 5: That might just be you know, gravy, right, that's just
Speaker 5: a fringe benefit. I think what's really happening here, and
Speaker 5: again this is my opinion, but what I think is
Speaker 5: happening is that Oklahoma lawmakers they just want to operate
Speaker 5: in this fictional world, and they want to dictate how
Speaker 5: things operate, and they want to enforce that perception of
Speaker 5: that fictional world onto others as well. Gas Lighting. That's
Speaker 5: I mean, this is really just high stakes gas lighting.
Speaker 5: And so the problem is the drawback to that is effectiveness.
Speaker 5: Educational effectiveness be damned, right, I mean it's like, that's
Speaker 5: not it's hard to imagine that that would be a
Speaker 5: consideration at all. It's all about how do we look
Speaker 5: and what can we do with it? And you know
Speaker 5: that is just misguided leadership right there. You know, it's
Speaker 5: it would be hard to make up something worse than that.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's just sacrificing the kid's futures in order
Speaker 5: to enforce this story that you know, they they can't
Speaker 5: back it up themselves there, you know, their their religious stories.
Speaker 5: They can't justify that kind of belief and so but
Speaker 5: what they can do is they can kind of morph
Speaker 5: the rest of the world back into their viewpoint. And
Speaker 5: you know, like I said, education be damned, and it's
Speaker 5: it's it's really infuriating and asinine.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to give the semi last word to Cindy. Cindy,
Speaker 1: say what say you?
Speaker 8: I remember in twenty sixteen, after Trump was elected, I
Speaker 8: read this fascinating article explaining how and why Trump won
Speaker 8: back then in red states and mostly rural areas. It's
Speaker 8: because but by destroying the education system in these places,
Speaker 8: the only source of information the public has is the church.
Speaker 8: And so if you don't have enough information about why
Speaker 8: you are in a bad situation, then the only source
Speaker 8: of information again comes becomes the church. And that's the
Speaker 8: point of Christophacism. It's to give back central place to
Speaker 8: the church, not in terms of not only in terms
Speaker 8: of society and community and everything else, but also information.
Speaker 8: Because when you control information, of course, you control uh
Speaker 8: the entire population. And I think it's uh, it's basically
Speaker 8: what's what's happening here again, it's just more and more
Speaker 8: of the same stuff. Just control information from uh, from
Speaker 8: the people you want to uh to to not to lead,
Speaker 8: but to control. And so that's that's the only way
Speaker 8: to do it.
Speaker 1: To destroy education, yeah, I definitely i'dhere exactly what you
Speaker 1: guys are saying, especially when it comes to if you
Speaker 1: want to control the minds of the people who happen
Speaker 1: to be under you destroy the institutions that educate them.
Speaker 1: And when test scores suddenly improve, but it's due to
Speaker 1: alter benchmarks rather than real student gains, it's a red flag.
Speaker 5: Even covering up actual student losses. It's not just false gains,
Speaker 5: it's covering up losses.
Speaker 7: And it's so it's even worse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it's it's covering up the losses that happen
Speaker 1: to know, come to those who are not getting the
Speaker 1: proper education that they're supposed to get, oftentimes because the
Speaker 1: curricula and also the benchmarks for them for their achievements
Speaker 1: are being altered. But schools, parents and lawmakers deserve clear
Speaker 1: and upfront information because when it comes to education, the
Speaker 1: only thing worse than Perer performance is a lack of
Speaker 1: honesty about what the numbers really mean. So let's remember
Speaker 1: if something sounds too good to be true, it might
Speaker 1: just be a change in the rules. Always ask what's
Speaker 1: the real score? And if you dear viewer and listener
Speaker 1: want to ask what the real score is, or if
Speaker 1: you want more nonprofits, click here.
Speaker 10: In a familiar tale of Florida High school has concerned
Speaker 10: parents reporting that a math teacher's sugary attempt at divine
Speaker 10: indoctrination has been occurring. The teacher, armed with Christmas pamphlets,
Speaker 10: leads students on a divine journey involving candy canes, questionable
Speaker 10: biblical interpretations, and downright nonsense the Freedom from Religion foundations.
Speaker 10: Chris Line steps in reminding the school district of the
Speaker 10: establishment clause and the fine line between education and indoctrination.
Speaker 10: With a dash of humor, co president of the Freedom
Speaker 10: From Religion Foundation, Laurie glor equipped public schools exists to educate,
Speaker 10: not to discriminate or indoctrinate into religion. It's up to parents,
Speaker 10: not math teachers to decide religious upbringings. Unwrapping the absurdity,
Speaker 10: FFRF calls for divine discipline in the classroom. This story
Speaker 10: is from the Freedom From Religion Foundation on the fourth
Speaker 10: of January twenty twenty.
Speaker 11: Four, and unfortunately there isn't a whole lot to this story,
Speaker 11: but as always, kudos to the FFRL for being on
Speaker 11: the forefront of the battle against religion in our public schools.
Speaker 11: It's an important job and I'm glad they're there. They are,
Speaker 11: they're doing it. Toy boat, toy boat, toy boat. It
Speaker 11: really bothers me that in today's day and age, that
Speaker 11: there's still people, still still people that have the idea
Speaker 11: that this ardent a parent preaching is going to be legal.
Speaker 6: Somehow in a public school.
Speaker 11: I have no idea how they think it's going to
Speaker 11: be They're going to be able to get away with it.
Speaker 11: And it makes me wonder where these people have been
Speaker 11: living at and so that they still have these nineteenth
Speaker 11: century ideals instead of living in the modern day. They
Speaker 11: have to know what they're doing is wrong legally, So
Speaker 11: why do they keep doing it? What is it that
Speaker 11: keeps driving them to keep going? Do they think their
Speaker 11: God is going to protect them from prosecution? I said prosecution,
Speaker 11: not persecution. Their God hasn't been able to protect them
Speaker 11: from the constitution yet, so why would they think this
Speaker 11: is going to be any different?
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 11: In fact, why is the constitution stronger than their God?
Speaker 11: What's going on there? Why do they think? What's the
Speaker 11: mindset of these people that they have no idea that
Speaker 11: they're going to get stomped by this? I just don't
Speaker 11: get it, Jimmy, do you want to add something to that.
Speaker 12: I think they think that repetition is key here, and
Speaker 12: they're probably just trying to nudge their little plan along
Speaker 12: to maybe kind of I don't know, pull up the
Speaker 12: big fish one day and get away with it. This
Speaker 12: is not really something we are unfamiliar with, right we see?
Speaker 12: I guess I'm going to use the word attacks on
Speaker 12: children or victimization on children when it comes to this
Speaker 12: kind of behavior. People in positions of authority that are
Speaker 12: able to corner the children, and then children, you know,
Speaker 12: not knowing how to respond to that authority or thinking
Speaker 12: they might face some kind of reprisal. So the people
Speaker 12: in this position have kind of identified their target and
Speaker 12: they just kind of push along, push along, to see
Speaker 12: how far they can get. Now, as far as the
Speaker 12: establishment clause going, it should certainly apply here, considering that
Speaker 12: public funds are being used to run this operation. Theoretically
Speaker 12: it's a little bit of a stretch, but public school,
Speaker 12: public servant, public teacher, the kids in that environment should
Speaker 12: be free from this kind of prosselyization. But what I
Speaker 12: found interesting is that the Florida Constitution and its Free
Speaker 12: Exercise Law states that religious freedom shall not justify practices
Speaker 12: inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety. And I have
Speaker 12: to ask myself, what are the public morals in this area?
Speaker 12: I mean, this is Florida. Now, typically in this area
Speaker 12: it's a little bit of a I guess left leaning
Speaker 12: area where there isn't so much would I would say
Speaker 12: the traditional or the wave of Christian nationalism picking up,
Speaker 12: But it's still Florida. It's heavy with you know, Latin roots,
Speaker 12: which is typically very strongly Christian and can be conservative
Speaker 12: in that respect. So you know, maybe these people think that, well,
Speaker 12: their own are going to look out for them, a
Speaker 12: good old boy system, if you will, So Infidel, what
Speaker 12: do you have to say about that.
Speaker 13: Kelly, when you were talking, I have to say that
Speaker 13: I think I know exactly what they were thinking. They're
Speaker 13: they're they're in Florida, and that is a hotbed of
Speaker 13: backwards thinking, and it starts literally from the top.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 13: Admittedly, if if if I were a parent of a
Speaker 13: student in that classroom, I want their heads on the
Speaker 13: proverbial John the Baptist platter. But the reality is this
Speaker 13: is just a symptom of the blue whale in the
Speaker 13: room Florida and a very backwards mentality. I mean, they've
Speaker 13: they claim to reject material that indoctrinate students, but you
Speaker 13: know they've They've made one of their required courses now
Speaker 13: is a financial responsibility class. And then that's fine, but
Speaker 13: it's this guy. Dave Ramsey is the is the author
Speaker 13: of the textbook, and he even includes proverbs inside the
Speaker 13: textbook are using in the classroom to promote this type
Speaker 13: of thinking and of course it teaches that you know,
Speaker 13: debts for losers and and things like that, that just
Speaker 13: really a whole nother story. I mean, Florida's even welcomed
Speaker 13: Prager you into their classrooms. So I mean what we're
Speaker 13: seeing is, and I believe Phoebe may have mentioned this
Speaker 13: on a previous episode, about how we just kind of
Speaker 13: whittle away at a law and before too long, we're
Speaker 13: building precedent up on something that never was what the
Speaker 13: original intent was. And I think that's what they're wanting
Speaker 13: to do, like they've done with other issues like that,
Speaker 13: attempted for for decades with abortion, They're wanting to just
Speaker 13: whittle away at these protections. They think that over time,
Speaker 13: if they just you know, push a little further, each
Speaker 13: test will continue to allow them to get more latitude
Speaker 13: in what they're trying to achieve. So for me seeing Florida,
Speaker 13: you know, being the state of education by right wing
Speaker 13: talking heads Dave Ramsey and Dennis Prager, you know, they
Speaker 13: both literally want their dogma taught to everyone's children. They're
Speaker 13: in the indoctrination business. So the idea that a mad
Speaker 13: teacher would take that and go, hey, let's run with
Speaker 13: this and let's see, you know where this can go.
Speaker 13: I think also, we have a very friendly Supreme Court
Speaker 13: right now for all the wrong reasons. And I think
Speaker 13: we have people who say, let's see what what our
Speaker 13: money got us? Where's this going to end up? And
Speaker 13: so I guess the one good thing is is that, uh,
Speaker 13: you know, I did notice the tired old story about
Speaker 13: the origin of the candy cane was included in the pamphlet.
Speaker 13: You know, it's a good thing it wasn't a history teacher,
Speaker 13: because that would be an even poorer reflection considering the
Speaker 13: inaccuracy of what they're talking about. But I just want
Speaker 13: to go on record and say one thing. If there's
Speaker 13: ever a special candy made for me, say an eye
Speaker 13: and made in my honor, make sure it tastes better
Speaker 13: than a candy cane.
Speaker 14: Damn you.
Speaker 10: You are a real true heat You are a proper
Speaker 10: nonprofit you bloody heathen. You you get you get from
Speaker 10: me for the rest of this segment. You and this episode,
Speaker 10: you get you know, downgrade at the other two. They're
Speaker 10: they're nice people. You are a heathen. And you know
Speaker 10: we can't have that kind of nonsense spouted around. You
Speaker 10: know what, you Are you secretly a true Florida man
Speaker 10: like this Florida lunatic? Are you secretly a true Florida lunatic?
Speaker 3: You men expose?
Speaker 11: You do know that candy currant canes come in all flavors?
Speaker 7: Now right?
Speaker 10: Yeah, this is what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: You can get.
Speaker 10: You didn't have just mint. You can have a whole
Speaker 10: range of flavors. You can have cinnamon, you can have
Speaker 10: any flavor that you're like. Now, I mean, the twenty
Speaker 10: first century has been good for a lot of things.
Speaker 10: It's been good at it's been good at debunking, you know,
Speaker 10: Young Earth creationism, and it's been really good. They're giving
Speaker 10: us flavored candy canes.
Speaker 13: I must enter, I must enter, Jack Phoebe, you talk
Speaker 13: about me being a bad person. Why I'm not the
Speaker 13: one who doesn't believe in the one true candy Cane.
Speaker 13: Kelly over here was talking about different flavors. So you
Speaker 13: want to talk about heathen heretic? You handle your own
Speaker 13: house over there, but.
Speaker 10: Own this panel has sin. The TV show.
Speaker 12: Murderville, Oh what a great show.
Speaker 10: Who's in the Christmas special? And I want to know
Speaker 10: when that candy cane is being put on trial for
Speaker 10: murdering Santa Candy canees a dangerous and I think we're
Speaker 10: seeing how dangerous they are when they are put in
Speaker 10: the hands of proselytizing teachers in classrooms. This is just
Speaker 10: how absurd we have got in this day. It's Florida.
Speaker 10: Florida has forgotten the one thing that teachers are supposed
Speaker 10: to be doing. Teachers are supposed to do what the
Speaker 10: name says. They fail at. What we say in England
Speaker 10: is the one Seal Test One Seal for those of
Speaker 10: you who don't know, it's a brand of varnish for
Speaker 10: outdoor fencing and the advertising One Seal does exactly what
Speaker 10: it's says on the tin. Florida teaching does nothing what
Speaker 10: the title suggests. It's absolute nonsense. You have these people
Speaker 10: who are spouting complete and utter rubbish. I mean, I
Speaker 10: want to go and take this pamphlet and I want
Speaker 10: to go and shove it up this teacher's backside, but
Speaker 10: I get done for assaultant battery. But I can't go
Speaker 10: and prosecute this teacher for committing a Sultan battery on
Speaker 10: the senses of the poor children that sat through the classroom.
Speaker 10: They had to listen to this waffle and listen to
Speaker 10: this waste of paper. All I hope is that every
Speaker 10: student in that classroom at least recycled the pamphlet they
Speaker 10: would give they didn't cause more environmental damage. I mean,
Speaker 10: we have Florida passing nonsense after nonsense after nonsense, complete
Speaker 10: crap coming out of Florida. When it comes to education.
Speaker 10: You have Florida teachers that can't get pay rises because
Speaker 10: the Florida Standardized Attainment Test metric means that they need
Speaker 10: to have their students have a higher AVERATAN the max
Speaker 10: the score available for the teachers to pass the teacher assessments.
Speaker 10: This is how absurd Florida has become, and they have
Speaker 10: become detactual reality. I mean, you've got bans on what
Speaker 10: teachers can and cannot say, which auld federal judge recently
Speaker 10: in another state said, these laws that prevent you from
Speaker 10: talking about gender unerthy sexuality means you can't talk about
Speaker 10: any gender identity and sexuality. You can't use any pronouns whatsoever,
Speaker 10: even when it comes to cisgender heteronormative pronouns. This is
Speaker 10: how absurd and how far off the deepend Florida has
Speaker 10: fallen into the Gulf of Mexico. I mean, I've got
Speaker 10: a real serious question for the three of you here.
Speaker 10: Do you think what Florida is doing at the moment
Speaker 10: and what these people in Florida, such as this lunatic, nonsense,
Speaker 10: candy cane loving teacher, he's actually pushing the envelope in
Speaker 10: their favor. Or do you think people are getting so
Speaker 10: fed up that let us go, we don't want this
Speaker 10: crep and it's pushing in the other direction.
Speaker 3: That's easy.
Speaker 11: Yeah, Yeah, I think you're right. I think you know,
Speaker 11: when the pendulum swings swing so far in one direction,
Speaker 11: it's bound to come back. And the farther you bring
Speaker 11: it into the one direction, the faster and harder it's
Speaker 11: going to swing back. And I think we're seeing that.
Speaker 11: I think we've been seeing that over the last few
Speaker 11: years now. This is why these people have lost in
Speaker 11: the elections in the last three election cycles. It started
Speaker 11: out real slow, but it's really building up momentum, and
Speaker 11: I really it makes me not as worried about the
Speaker 11: future as I have been recently, so I have a
Speaker 11: lot of hope for the future that people are finally
Speaker 11: waking up. Unfortunately, I've had that feeling before, like I
Speaker 11: got that in the nineties. I really thought we were
Speaker 11: starting to wake up in the nineteen nineties, and I
Speaker 11: don't know what happened somewhere along the way, it just
Speaker 11: kind of died off. But I think the kids today
Speaker 11: seem to be a little more aware of what's happening
Speaker 11: in the world socially and politically, and that gives me
Speaker 11: a lot of hope. So I'm hoping that as that
Speaker 11: pendulum does swing back, it does swing back harder and
Speaker 11: we're seeing a more balanced society instead of one that's
Speaker 11: swinging so far to the to the right with these
Speaker 11: Christian ideals. Jimmy, what do you think, Well.
Speaker 12: I think there are enclaves that are not really moving
Speaker 12: at all, such as maybe Florida being a good example,
Speaker 12: or or specific maybe governmental or or localities on the
Speaker 12: on the state and local government level that are probably
Speaker 12: just going to dig their heels at even further. Something
Speaker 12: that I think was disturbing about this story was that
Speaker 12: only one parent complained, right, I mean, this is a
Speaker 12: Florida school, uh that was you know, had had religious
Speaker 12: pamphlets being passed out and one only one parent spoke up.
Speaker 12: And I think that that reflects maybe the society at
Speaker 12: large around in that specific area, which is and that
Speaker 12: also speaks to the idea that Florida's Constitution, like I
Speaker 12: mentioned earlier, states that nothing shall I don't remember exactly
Speaker 12: the wording I used. I think it was here we
Speaker 12: go so free exercise. You know, freedom shall not religious,
Speaker 12: freedom shall not justify practices inconsistent with public morals. Well,
Speaker 12: the public morals are defined differently in certain areas than
Speaker 12: they are for the rest of us. And so while
Speaker 12: children might be aware, there's still not in any more
Speaker 12: of a position to kind of fight back.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 12: It really takes their parents to kind of step up
Speaker 12: and do their bidding for them, and that I don't
Speaker 12: see happening enough.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I would have to say that I think most
Speaker 13: of the children in that classroom are so readily indoctrinated
Speaker 13: in other areas of their lives that I don't think,
Speaker 13: for the most part, that it even triggered. It wasn't
Speaker 13: even a thought of Wow, this should this be happening here.
Speaker 13: It was just another day in the life of a
Speaker 13: person in Florida. Without a doubt, we've seen repeated attacks
Speaker 13: and integration of religion into the schools, creeping in and
Speaker 13: Florida has welcomed it with open arms. So for someone
Speaker 13: to go, hey, this is outside the norm, I agree.
Speaker 13: It is an unfortunate reflection of what's going on in
Speaker 13: Florida when we have one parent saying this is a problem.
Speaker 13: And I only hope that when something like this continues,
Speaker 13: because I don't think this is just a one off,
Speaker 13: and as I said earlier, this is just you know,
Speaker 13: this is ignoring the blue whale in the room as
Speaker 13: far as this one incident, because this is a pattern,
Speaker 13: and this is something that I agree with Kelly answering
Speaker 13: his question about whether there's been a backlash to it,
Speaker 13: I absolutely do think that we have seen that backlash now,
Speaker 13: But is it going to happen in a place like Florida.
Speaker 13: Maybe an isolated pockets, but those isolated pockets are still
Speaker 13: going to be under the thumb of the state government.
Speaker 13: So how far what control they have is ultimately going
Speaker 13: to be decided more by the state. With some attitude
Speaker 13: with them, I wish them luck. I hope that this
Speaker 13: does change and we don't see this again. But I
Speaker 13: think that in Florida, I don't think we can be
Speaker 13: surprised if we see round two, round three, and ultimately
Speaker 13: a lot of things like this are going to need
Speaker 13: to be decided and with a generous US Supreme Court
Speaker 13: if it ever ended up in a court system. Well,
Speaker 13: I just don't know.
Speaker 10: But I think you've all written Florida off. I think
Speaker 10: that's a problem here. I think you've written off the students.
Speaker 10: I think you've written off the parents here.
Speaker 3: Because the way you've got.
Speaker 10: To understand here is that whilst one parent complain, how
Speaker 10: many students didn't even bother to tell their parents and
Speaker 10: they just ignored it. Majority How many these students do
Speaker 10: we think actually took this seriously? It only takes one
Speaker 10: student to complain. It only has one parent. Why do
Speaker 10: we not have mandatory pledges of allegiances in America in schools?
Speaker 10: Because one Jehovah's witness family stood up and said we
Speaker 10: do not agree with this, it violates the establishment clause.
Speaker 10: That's why the pledge of allegiance is not mandatory in
Speaker 10: schools in America. The case of Barnett, it took one
Speaker 10: Jehovah's witness family, who were chased out of their town
Speaker 10: that they lived in, for standing up. It takes one
Speaker 10: parent to complain about a pamphlet like this. It takes
Speaker 10: one parent to say I will not allow my right
Speaker 10: to be trampled upon. And the fact that there was
Speaker 10: one parent makes me smile, because somebody actually turned round
Speaker 10: to the educational establishment.
Speaker 3: In Florida and went.
Speaker 10: To a lot of you. And I think that that
Speaker 10: is what we should be applauding here, not the fact
Speaker 10: that it was only one somebody actually stood up and
Speaker 10: turned round to Florida and went, well, you bloody how
Speaker 10: are you doing in this classroom now? Dare you instead
Speaker 10: of teaching mathematics to my children, you're teaching sugar based nonsense.
Speaker 12: Yeah, that's absolutely right. I think the they deserve commendation.
Speaker 12: But to get the fact that it gets to that point,
Speaker 12: it's because there's so many parents that are following this
Speaker 12: trend of not doing anything. And yes, that one domino, right,
Speaker 12: that one domino seems to have fallen over, So I
Speaker 12: can't write off all of them. And you bring up
Speaker 12: a very good point, but I think I I think
Speaker 12: I've written off the speed at which these enclaves will
Speaker 12: turn toward doing the right thing.
Speaker 7: One is certainly promising.
Speaker 12: Let's turn that into two to four to eight, and
Speaker 12: so on.
Speaker 10: Here's a question. Here's a question, in all seriousness, to
Speaker 10: the three of you here, would you have the time
Speaker 10: and inclination to complain if your child had told you
Speaker 10: the story that is this story? Would you have actually
Speaker 10: stood up, taken the time and followed through with a complaint?
Speaker 10: Would you have in all honesty actually done that yes,
Speaker 10: and said that this is rubbish, I can't do anything.
Speaker 3: I've done it.
Speaker 11: But you got to remember, look at the three people
Speaker 11: you're asking. We're sitting here and doing this, so we're
Speaker 11: the kind of people that would stand up for something
Speaker 11: like that.
Speaker 6: But my bigg that the.
Speaker 10: Audience out there, and more important, if your answer to
Speaker 10: that question is actually no, I wouldn't actually bother to
Speaker 10: stand up. Ask yourself?
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 10: Ask yourself what machts to you? And ask yourself, are
Speaker 10: you comfortable with what happened in Florida potentially happening in
Speaker 10: a child's classroom near you.
Speaker 11: Or in your child's classroom? Even more importantly, and that's
Speaker 11: the all three of us here are that you asked
Speaker 11: or we're all parents, so it is it's a question
Speaker 11: that does hit home for us, right, And that's why,
Speaker 11: because I am a parent, I would stand up for it.
Speaker 13: So yeah, and one of my biggest concerns is the
Speaker 13: fact that, yes, one parent standing up change things. I
Speaker 13: just have a much greater concern about how politicized our
Speaker 13: court system is. So admittedly it's beyond It's not the
Speaker 13: lack of confidence in Florida, because yes, it only takes
Speaker 13: one person to stand up. My problem is is I
Speaker 13: lack confidence in many aspects of our court system right
Speaker 13: now making the right decision.
Speaker 11: I also want to point out it wasn't just one
Speaker 11: parent standing up. It was one parent standing up and
Speaker 11: getting the f F fire up involved in it.
Speaker 10: And I think that ultimately, if you see things like
Speaker 10: this and you're a parent, do something. Don't just allow
Speaker 10: the envelope to keep pushing. Don't keep pushing that envelope.
Speaker 10: Make a complaint to your school if this was happening
Speaker 10: near you, If you want to hear me complaints and
Speaker 10: more more nonprofits is available here.
Speaker 1: Well, Dicky Doc is at it again, spreading misinformation and
Speaker 1: downright lives because of his bigotry and get off my
Speaker 1: lawnness while wearing Bermuda shorts, open told BIRKENSX and Arga socks, Yes,
Speaker 1: Argas socks Rob has the story Rob Yeah so.
Speaker 15: Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion in two thousand
Speaker 15: and six, posted on Twitter or x if you're nasty.
Speaker 15: He said, quote two men masquerading as women were allowed
Speaker 15: to box in the Olympics against real women. The problem
Speaker 15: with this is that he's simply wrong. Iman Khilif from Algeria,
Speaker 15: who won gold in boxing in the Olympics, was assigned
Speaker 15: female at birth and identifies as a woman. She's not trans,
Speaker 15: she's not intersex. She has always identified as a woman.
Speaker 15: Then later after this, his Facebook page was taken down.
Speaker 15: He jumped the gun and accused Facebook of deleting his
Speaker 15: page for what he said on Twitter. That claim was
Speaker 15: also incorrect. He eventually apologized to Facebook, but not to Kalif.
Speaker 15: This story, which has really big old man yells at
Speaker 15: cloud's energy, is from the Friendly Atheists by Hamant Metta,
Speaker 15: published on August eleventh, four.
Speaker 1: Yes, we were all remarking on how we feel big
Speaker 1: boomer energy coming from the story right now. But I'm
Speaker 1: coming to you, Phil. I was wondering if you wouldn't
Speaker 1: mind us talking about the main accusations that Dicky Doc
Speaker 1: made about the female boxer in Mark Khalif in money
Speaker 1: Heali and how were they actually debunked?
Speaker 16: Well, yeah, so the acquisition is that Calif or Halife
Speaker 16: will pronounce it was actually a trans woman and do
Speaker 16: you want to do reasons given for that statement was
Speaker 16: that she that she during the IDEA the International Boxing
Speaker 16: Association We're championship tournament the year before, which I think
Speaker 16: will be in plenty twenty three, was in the finals
Speaker 16: after she won on the finals against a Russian woman, right,
Speaker 16: she was disqualified. And the reason given by and get this,
Speaker 16: the Russian the IDEA director who is Russian, claimed that
Speaker 16: the certain test results showed that Caliph was x y and.
Speaker 3: Not x X.
Speaker 6: Sorry, was x y and not xx. But yeah, he
Speaker 6: did not present any medical evidence.
Speaker 16: So based on that, apparently it seems as if people
Speaker 16: brought that backup as.
Speaker 6: A means of saying, no.
Speaker 16: She is a transwoman, but there was no evidence at
Speaker 16: all for such. And to make it matters worse or better,
Speaker 16: the IOSC, the the International Olympic Committee actually banned the
Speaker 16: idea because the claims were not substantiated and there were
Speaker 16: other issues with the ideas, some other onhand issues apart
Speaker 16: from those, so and also calif she she.
Speaker 6: Actually did not. She did not. She actually passed.
Speaker 9: The the the conditions, the conditions for the Olympics, all
Speaker 9: the conditions, so there was no reason for her to
Speaker 9: be exempted at all.
Speaker 16: And in addition to that, there was another woman who
Speaker 16: decided to was trans women from Taiwan at the same time. Right,
Speaker 16: but that lady also was shown to fit the conditions
Speaker 16: for the for the Olympics. So it is it is
Speaker 16: strange that person's the way people were behaving. Is it
Speaker 16: because she was Algerian? Was it because the other person
Speaker 16: was Chinese?
Speaker 6: I don't know. I think I saw, yeah, racism, Rob,
Speaker 6: What you have to say about that.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 15: If yoube tell me about racism, Yeah, about racism.
Speaker 10: As the Whitish person on here, racism.
Speaker 1: Exactly, because that's how this works.
Speaker 10: That's somebody who does have some Algerian Berber heritage. This
Speaker 10: is something that you know does feel very odd because
Speaker 10: I don't feel safe going to Algeria, and I don't
Speaker 10: think Himanic would feel safe going to Algeria if this
Speaker 10: was true. Because you know, what is femininity in this case,
Speaker 10: short white Italian woman who is a stereotype of Western
Speaker 10: European centric white femininity defeated by tall, non white woman
Speaker 10: who she complained hit her too hard and she'd never
Speaker 10: felt a punch like it in a boxing match. It's
Speaker 10: a boxing contest.
Speaker 4: Right, she did.
Speaker 15: She didn't apologize for that after.
Speaker 10: I gat to apologize afterwards, but it don't make any
Speaker 10: difference when you've been such a sore idiot in the ring.
Speaker 10: I've never been a boxing match before, because boxing shouldn't
Speaker 10: be like seriously.
Speaker 15: The problem is that she apologized for it, right, which
Speaker 15: is better than Darwkins, because Darkens didn't apologize for that.
Speaker 15: So even the person who got punched said that they
Speaker 15: did regret saying anything that could be misconstrued with misidentifying
Speaker 15: their gender, and then headspin.
Speaker 10: That prunch probably made her head spin. Maybe Dawkins should
Speaker 10: have had his head spin a few times and then
Speaker 10: come back to rationality. But here's the thing. When you
Speaker 10: get to you know old Richie d. He is not
Speaker 10: a specialist in sports biology, sociology, ethnographic studies, or anything similar.
Speaker 10: He's just a bloke on the internet screaming into the void.
Speaker 10: As George W. Bush said, when someone throws their food
Speaker 10: on the floor and you run over and pick it up.
Speaker 10: You're giving them what they want. Twkins threw his food
Speaker 10: on the floor, everyone ran over to him, and he
Speaker 10: got what he wanted. He got the attention he wanted.
Speaker 10: We should stop doing that, and we should stop doing
Speaker 10: it to all of these idiots, and we should just
Speaker 10: go well.
Speaker 1: I well, let's let's talk about that. Rob, what do
Speaker 1: you what do you think the best way to tell
Speaker 1: these people to f off would be? Should we actually
Speaker 1: pay attention to what they say just because of who
Speaker 1: they are, or should we just say nah, I don't
Speaker 1: I'm not going to happen anymore.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean a little bit.
Speaker 15: Yes, you should pay attention, partly because they have said
Speaker 15: things that are useful and smart in the past, things
Speaker 15: that you know that doesn't mean that they're going to
Speaker 15: be useful or smart in the future, broken clocks. But
Speaker 15: also because if we want people to not fall victim
Speaker 15: to fallacies like appealing to authority, then we do need
Speaker 15: to give them the option for appeal to expertise. That
Speaker 15: does not say that he is an expert in the case.
Speaker 15: I'm just pointing out appeal to expertise is a thing
Speaker 15: that can occur. The reason why this whole thing really
Speaker 15: messes with me is not like what he said on Twitter,
Speaker 15: which is awful, right, It's specifically that after he said
Speaker 15: it on Twitter, his Facebook page was taken down for
Speaker 15: completely unrelated reasons which I can.
Speaker 6: Bring up in a moment.
Speaker 15: And then he connected he said what I said a
Speaker 15: thing on Twitter which caught me backlash, and then my
Speaker 15: Facebook went down. Clearly, these unrelated companies are conspiring against me,
Speaker 15: which is frustrating because that level of persecution complex is
Speaker 15: something that I'm used to getting from like Christians, which.
Speaker 10: Is like must appetizers lawsuit.
Speaker 3: So like that.
Speaker 15: That blew my mind that he went from Twitter to
Speaker 15: Facebook and said I'm being persecuted because of that. Then
Speaker 15: later what happened was he got a hold of the
Speaker 15: Facebook's security experts. I forget her name, but she said
Speaker 15: that the reason why they locked down his page is
Speaker 15: because they had reason to believe that it was hacked
Speaker 15: into and that they wanted to stop any damage before
Speaker 15: it occurred. And then that makes sense, right, because they're
Speaker 15: going to do that and then tell him what goes on,
Speaker 15: But it doesn't matter because old old man thought a thing,
Speaker 15: so therefore they took down his page and he's going
Speaker 15: to get real upset about it. He then apologized to
Speaker 15: Facebook for going sorry, you're right, I see that you
Speaker 15: did not delete my page, and he ain't said shit, well.
Speaker 4: He's not going to.
Speaker 1: I think that the most disappointing thing specifically about Richard
Speaker 1: Dawkins that I think that a lot of us, well
Speaker 1: I will speak for myself, is that, you know, I
Speaker 1: read The God Delusion, and Richard Dawkins was one of
Speaker 1: the people that I listened to when I was coming
Speaker 1: out of religion that really kind of helped me think
Speaker 1: about evolution, how to separate reality from fantasy, and some
Speaker 1: of the arguments for the and how to de monk them,
Speaker 1: you know, really, you know, kind of helped me on
Speaker 1: the straight and arrow.
Speaker 4: I would say.
Speaker 1: But as of late, it seems like that he just
Speaker 1: has this this like vendetta that he's going to stick
Speaker 1: it to trans people as best as possible, and and
Speaker 1: and and just to to clarify, he's a biologist, but
Speaker 1: he's an evolutionary biologist. It's when it comes to the science,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to the medical science, that is
Speaker 1: even behind you know, sex, it's quite obvious that he
Speaker 1: is completely inept and and even when uh, because we
Speaker 1: covered him, according to Phoebe one too many times for
Speaker 1: saying something gaffy. He would just mention to say that, well,
Speaker 1: you know, someone who identifies as trans, I I do
Speaker 1: respect their pronouns just because I'm being nice, not necessarily
Speaker 1: because I agree with and and and it's and it's
Speaker 1: very disheartening that we're here to the point where this
Speaker 1: man is running along with a lot of these other uh,
Speaker 1: misinformation buffs when it comes to something that should never
Speaker 1: have been politicized. A boxing match that is on the Olympics,
Speaker 1: you know, for on the women's division, should have never
Speaker 1: been a political event. It is a sports event that
Speaker 1: people can look at and if they enjoy boxing and
Speaker 1: and say, oh wow, don't don't they look great? And
Speaker 1: then as like you you mentioned Rob, the Italian boxer,
Speaker 1: I've never been hit so hard in my life. I'm like, well, honey,
Speaker 1: why are you in the hell in the Olympics fight
Speaker 1: in a boxing match?
Speaker 6: Contest? Right exactly? You know, that's just a boxing match.
Speaker 6: I'm like, you know the point.
Speaker 1: I'm not a boxer, but I've watched a few boxing
Speaker 1: matches in my life.
Speaker 10: You're not a student at the ancient art of fugionism.
Speaker 1: No I am not, do you know, with the Queens
Speaker 1: Queens Queensberry rules.
Speaker 6: Yes, I am not that.
Speaker 1: But I have watched a few my boxing matches in
Speaker 1: my life, and I believe that the object is to
Speaker 1: hit the other person hard.
Speaker 4: Am I wrong?
Speaker 10: The gloves and the head make contact, and the gloves
Speaker 10: and the body they're supposed to make contact as well,
Speaker 10: and then judges sit there and go that person did
Speaker 10: better with the gloves making contact.
Speaker 3: With the other person.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's how it works and.
Speaker 1: In hitting is what I'm saying. So let me let
Speaker 1: me come back to the conversation though, because I really
Speaker 1: want to talk about the role of media and how
Speaker 1: media has really played in this whole scenario of making
Speaker 1: what Dawkins said even relevant. You know, Phoebe, What does
Speaker 1: the role of media or us even play in correcting
Speaker 1: misinformation is actually when it comes to high profile individuals
Speaker 1: like Dickie Duck.
Speaker 10: So you have to take into consideration is why is
Speaker 10: this person still being covered? What is this person's reason
Speaker 10: for being covered? I mean, is this person in any
Speaker 10: way other than somebody who just shouted a lot and
Speaker 10: somebody went, oh, that person shouted a lot on something.
Speaker 10: That's the problem that you have here because if I
Speaker 10: was started walk down the street and go to Speaker's
Speaker 10: Corner and Hyde Park, you don't see those people getting
Speaker 10: media coverage and they're saying similar things. The media has
Speaker 10: a responsibility to actually report the news. This is not
Speaker 10: the neoves because, for the love of Jesus Christ, the
Speaker 10: news media has stopped reporting the news. The news is
Speaker 10: something that's gone out of fashion. It went out of
Speaker 10: fashion when you're a Soviet Union when out of fashion
Speaker 10: in the early nineteen nineties by the looks of it,
Speaker 10: and it just has to go back to the news
Speaker 10: media reporting the neoves. You have to report on actual
Speaker 10: events that are actually newsworthy and not things that are
Speaker 10: lazy and easy for you to write about. News is
Speaker 10: not always easy to get to. The hearth or three
Speaker 10: Mile Islands was not an easy story to cover, and
Speaker 10: I'm pretty sure if three Mile Island and Richard Drkin's
Speaker 10: saying something had happened on the same day, Richard Dowks
Speaker 10: would still have been somewhere in the news even though
Speaker 10: three Mile Island was actual new news. This is news.
Speaker 10: The news. The sports news here is not what Richardwkins said.
Speaker 10: It's the results of the first round boxing match between
Speaker 10: an Algerian and an Italian that didn't finish because of
Speaker 10: anything that was done by the Algerian boxer. It's because
Speaker 10: the Italian woman's headgear kept on slipping and she got
Speaker 10: irritated enough that she just went, I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 10: And her headgear had to be replaced twice in the fight,
Speaker 10: and in the end the referee just went, stop, don't
Speaker 10: do this. Your headgear is not working properly.
Speaker 6: Go away.
Speaker 10: So there was nothing to do with her being knocked
Speaker 10: out or being punched too hard. The referee stepped in
Speaker 10: and her corner stepped in after the second time that
Speaker 10: her head gear wouldn't fit properly, and that's why she
Speaker 10: abandoned the contest because she got too irritated with her
Speaker 10: own head gear. That's an actual story. First round boxing
Speaker 10: match abandoned because of equipment failure. Not old man yells
Speaker 10: and howls that Moon transforms into werewolf and runs around
Speaker 10: screaming nonsense.
Speaker 4: That's not the news, as.
Speaker 1: Not Phoebe would say the news that here the.
Speaker 10: Actual news for good misakes.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's that that needs to be a tell TV, uh,
Speaker 1: not a TV that needs to actually be a shirt. Greg,
Speaker 1: I hope you're listening, so fill and Rob. Phil I
Speaker 1: want you to answer this first, and then Rob if
Speaker 1: you can chime in as well. Where is the accountability
Speaker 1: when it comes to people like Richard Dkins spreading misinformation
Speaker 1: and especially like a person who, for a very long time,
Speaker 1: until he hit his head on the on the news
Speaker 1: one day, lost his mind? So where where is the
Speaker 1: accountability as far as like what he has said? And
Speaker 1: where can that accountability be found? Are we the ones
Speaker 1: who are supposed to hold him accountable or somewhere else? Phil,
Speaker 1: I want you to answer and then Rob.
Speaker 16: In terms of their comfortability, I think I think every
Speaker 16: every person should hoil him a comfortable because he is
Speaker 16: this major figurehead among the heat TIS community.
Speaker 6: And not only that, but I think also.
Speaker 16: The science community should hoil him uncomfortable because he's making
Speaker 16: some statements that are not and keep him if the
Speaker 16: data at all right, And I I am kind of
Speaker 16: shocked that a person who's supposed to be an evolutionary
Speaker 16: biologist are making claims about trans women and trans not
Speaker 16: being something that is part of nature. Then there's adequate
Speaker 16: and multiple evidences within nature to show that this is
Speaker 16: also a part of nature. So he has me kind
Speaker 16: of confused. I'm wondering, honestly. F two, he is dementia
Speaker 16: with his age. Dementia is setting in because some of
Speaker 16: this the sort of outrageous claims that I've been hearing
Speaker 16: in the past few years from Richard Dawkins about trans
Speaker 16: and taken into a congrez agent.
Speaker 6: Wondering if he's.
Speaker 16: Going and being an evolutionary biologist, whole evolutionary biologists will
Speaker 16: be making these claims. I can see that he's agent.
Speaker 6: Maybe he is.
Speaker 16: There's some mental issues going on there, you know.
Speaker 4: Or could he just be a biggot?
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, it was always a biggot.
Speaker 16: But no, you know what, sometimes what happens with people
Speaker 16: with they men shoued hidden things actually start to come
Speaker 16: to the forefront because there's no in ambition anymore. It
Speaker 16: is like a person who is basically let's say, a
Speaker 16: person who has drunk a lot and starts pulling things.
Speaker 6: The true character starts to show up.
Speaker 1: Well, he already called himself a cultural Christian, so you know,
Speaker 1: raging bigot probably is up there to rob what say you.
Speaker 15: So it's hard when it comes to accountability because there's
Speaker 15: a couple reasons for that, the main one being the
Speaker 15: people who should hold him accountable or the people who
Speaker 15: have something to lose.
Speaker 3: By being associated with him.
Speaker 15: So the the like easily twittered, possibly, but Twitter with
Speaker 15: the elon price itself on being not just like free speech,
Speaker 15: but the freest speech that ever did speak freely, and
Speaker 15: that means that they actually benefit by letting him say
Speaker 15: largely whatever he wants, and that's not unique to him,
Speaker 15: that's just anyone can say largely anything. So then you
Speaker 15: have to start going to because again earlier, right, it's
Speaker 15: appeal to expertise. He is an expert in some things,
Speaker 15: and we do need to give him that credit. That
Speaker 15: way we can honestly deconstruct the things that are wrong
Speaker 15: or problematic. And I mean that in a social way,
Speaker 15: just like literally the problem with reasoning. So who should
Speaker 15: hold him accountable the people who give him degrees. If
Speaker 15: the people who gave him degrees in professional association, it
Speaker 15: becomes an issue that they are associated with this person,
Speaker 15: they should be holding them accountable because ultimately, there's nothing
Speaker 15: out in the fabric of the universe is going to
Speaker 15: say you have said an untrue thing. Therefore, snap, you're done.
Speaker 15: Like it's only people people in brains. I can't speak
Speaker 15: to the content so the health of his brain, and
Speaker 15: I don't want to, So it's going to have to
Speaker 15: be everyone else who thinks that they need to well.
Speaker 1: In a world where misinformation spreads quickly, we must prioritize
Speaker 1: integrity over ego. Correcting our mistakes is a sign of strength,
Speaker 1: not weakness. As we work towards a just, interrational society,
Speaker 1: we must remain vigilant against falsehoods and stand in solidarity
Speaker 1: with those who are unfairly targeted. Only by doing so
Speaker 1: can we build a world where everyone is treated with
Speaker 1: dignity and respect they deserve. On a side note, I
Speaker 1: need Richard to go take some adderall, drink a hot
Speaker 1: cup of Granddad and shut the fuck up. Perhaps you'll
Speaker 1: feel better in the morning and stop making the news
Speaker 1: by showing his ass on the internet. And if you,
Speaker 1: dear viewer, want to see more of us on the
Speaker 1: internet quick Here.
Speaker 13: In a saga reminiscent of Keystone Cops, a two year
Speaker 13: pursuit of felony charges against school librarians in Granbury Texas
Speaker 13: unfolded like a farcical mission gone awry. Right wing extremists.
Speaker 13: Scott London embarked on his vendetta and poured over stacks
Speaker 13: of literature while sporting a bodycam to capture his quest
Speaker 13: to persecute, I mean, prosecute his target, three school librarians
Speaker 13: allowing miners to check out books at the library, some
Speaker 13: deemed obscene. Despite subpoenas and dramatic investigative theatrics, ultimately the
Speaker 13: case did fizzle when the disc attorney did decline to
Speaker 13: indict citing insufficient evidence. So stick around for the sort
Speaker 13: of details of Scott London's attempt to stop kids from reading.
Speaker 13: There's a lot more idiocy to cover the story from
Speaker 13: NBC News by Mike Hixenberg. It's by Tyler Kingcaid, Scott Freeman,
Speaker 13: and Nave Parks on July twenty third, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 13: Now said, I know there's a lot of talk about
Speaker 13: deciding what books should and should not be in schools
Speaker 13: or libraries or things like that. What do you think
Speaker 13: who should be making those type of decisions. Is it
Speaker 13: somebody who ultimately runs around with the camera trying to
Speaker 13: invade privacy or do you think there might be a
Speaker 13: more mature way to do it.
Speaker 8: No, I definitely don't think that self righteous As for
Speaker 8: who has nothing to do with his days, apparently that's
Speaker 8: not the person who should make those decisions, and he
Speaker 8: won't because basically he works for two years for nothing,
Speaker 8: because he proposed some charges to be filed and they weren't.
Speaker 8: So unfortunately, I don't think it will have the effect
Speaker 8: I wish it had, because I'm pretty sure someone else
Speaker 8: will try another time. But yeah, I think it should
Speaker 8: be done at the federal level. I don't see why
Speaker 8: a child in Texas should have access to different books
Speaker 8: than in California. There's no reason for for that. So
Speaker 8: I don't think uh school boards should exist. I think
Speaker 8: it should be done by the Ministry of Education, which
Speaker 8: should be funded accordingly, and not let by people who
Speaker 8: want to destroy the public system like like it was
Speaker 8: for quite a bit. But yeah, it's I think it's
Speaker 8: symptomatic of a portion of the population who uh cease
Speaker 8: education as as as a bad thing, you know, uh,
Speaker 8: and and there are many reasons why, and we can
Speaker 8: jump into it, but basically that's that's that. It's just
Speaker 8: a miserable cup who thinks too much of his beliefs
Speaker 8: and wants to impust them onto everyone else.
Speaker 3: That's just what it is.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I can't disagree with you there. It's really a
Speaker 13: case that we're kind of mind boggling me though, that
Speaker 13: the police were getting involved in books and Eli talking
Speaker 13: about children and books and all of that. You know,
Speaker 13: the privacy of the children was as something that he
Speaker 13: took into consideration. Or are we talking about how exactly
Speaker 13: far did he go with that?
Speaker 14: Yeah, he sure didn't consider that. So he even went
Speaker 14: so far as to gather a list over the past
Speaker 14: two years of like the names of children in these
Speaker 14: schools that had checked out these books. And it's ironic
Speaker 14: to think to see that he thinks this is creating
Speaker 14: like this is creating a safe environment for children, like
Speaker 14: this is this is the protection that children need. And
Speaker 14: you hit a lot of points that I really agree with, Cindy.
Speaker 6: He he is.
Speaker 14: Just pushing his personal beliefs. He said in an interview
Speaker 14: with the same source back in twenty twenty three. This
Speaker 14: has nothing to do with the constitution. I don't know
Speaker 14: what a constitutional constable is, but he said in the interview,
Speaker 14: this has nothing to do with his job, So he's
Speaker 14: just like being paid taxpayer money to just do this
Speaker 14: thing and persecute like librarians under felonies for letting kids
Speaker 14: read books. And it's just such a strange, Like I'm
Speaker 14: starting to not believe. I saw somebody say that, like
Speaker 14: everybody watches America the same way America watched Tiger King,
Speaker 14: And I really see that, Like that makes a lot
Speaker 14: of sense to me, And I'm starting to no longer
Speaker 14: believe that the things that happen here are reality.
Speaker 13: You know, I have to say that, it really is
Speaker 13: a little amazing to think that you're going it's okay,
Speaker 13: we're going to punish librarians for this, but really, where
Speaker 13: is it do you draw the line? If you ultimately
Speaker 13: decide this is a book that's bad, who would you
Speaker 13: Who would you decide is the person who bought the book?
Speaker 13: Is it the person that put it on a wagon
Speaker 13: and wheeled it into the front door. Where do you
Speaker 13: as a physical possession? Is it writing on a piece
Speaker 13: of paper? What ultimately decides whose responsibility it is? Is
Speaker 13: books in your library? We're going to give you a
Speaker 13: felony that's absurd all around. What are you going to do?
Speaker 13: I mean, that's just absolute absurd. So let me ask
Speaker 13: you this, Cindy, dude, do you think this is a
Speaker 13: deliberate chilling effect to try to as you mentioned this
Speaker 13: people who want to not have education. Is this more
Speaker 13: in the along the lines of what we're looking at
Speaker 13: there just really not wanting it to.
Speaker 8: Have I think it is when you look at all
Speaker 8: the cases where legislators, local legislators are trying to impose
Speaker 8: this kind of those Benning books. But in this specific case,
Speaker 8: I don't think Okay is smart enough to to to
Speaker 8: go this far. I just think he thinks he's uh,
Speaker 8: he's he's he's.
Speaker 3: Just right in his mind.
Speaker 8: He's just self righteous, and and he just wants to
Speaker 8: impose his views.
Speaker 3: On on on anyone.
Speaker 8: And you know, we we are talking about the the
Speaker 8: idea of Panning books, but we're not talking about the
Speaker 8: reasons why he says he does it because the content
Speaker 8: he doesn't like. It's not like there's there's a quote
Speaker 8: at some point where she says, uh, something like imagine
Speaker 8: if we got to give maxims on you know, like
Speaker 8: pornographic material in the hands of kids, and and that's
Speaker 8: not what's happening. Uh, you know, it's it's not like, uh,
Speaker 8: those books first of all, contain images of actual sexual
Speaker 8: depiction or anything like that. It's it's just books of
Speaker 8: things that make him uncomfortable. And that's just what it is.
Speaker 8: It's just talking about there, it's talking about most sexuality,
Speaker 8: it's about talking about all of this, and that's just
Speaker 8: make him ikey, and so he just wants to prevent
Speaker 8: everyone to uh, to read those books. And it's just, yeah,
Speaker 8: I can't see and I can't see it's in any
Speaker 8: other way than just I don't like it, so others
Speaker 8: can have it.
Speaker 13: It's it's not a matter of a matter of right,
Speaker 13: it's a matter of a feeling of discomfort, loss of entitlement.
Speaker 13: And you know, and and and maybe you're right. Maybe
Speaker 13: it's not his deliberate attempt to bring in the idea
Speaker 13: of a chilling effect. It could just be that, you know,
Speaker 13: it's it's a it's a feature. He didn't even know
Speaker 13: about it. This is an added bonus, because yeah, I
Speaker 13: think at the end of the day, it's really not
Speaker 13: even I think you probably hit the nail on the head. Elia.
Speaker 13: Where where where did you come from?
Speaker 3: This?
Speaker 14: What?
Speaker 16: What?
Speaker 3: What did you get this?
Speaker 4: So it.
Speaker 14: I've said a lot of times that I don't think
Speaker 14: censoring information is the way to teach kids the right information.
Speaker 14: I think if you teach them how to think, not
Speaker 14: what to think, teach them how to discern correct incorrect,
Speaker 14: correct from incorrect, true versus from not true, you know,
Speaker 14: good source from bad source, then it doesn't matter what
Speaker 14: they're like. They can see and read and take in
Speaker 14: whatever they want, and now they have the tools to discern, like,
Speaker 14: this is something that's helpful to me, and I should
Speaker 14: hold onto this, and this is something that's not quite
Speaker 14: so helpful, and I should get rid of this. What
Speaker 14: makes a kid want to go and seek something out
Speaker 14: more than anything else. Tell them that they can't have it,
Speaker 14: and then they're gonna want to go find it. And
Speaker 14: it's like we talked about this on an episode recently,
Speaker 14: and somebody else on the show on the episodes said
Speaker 14: the same thing. They're going to go get the book
Speaker 14: on Amazon for like seven bucks. Anyway, as soon as
Speaker 14: they realize that you took it out of the library
Speaker 14: specifically so they wouldn't be able to read it. So
Speaker 14: it's not doing anything to stop them from accessing this material.
Speaker 14: And it's just punishing people that are like just trying
Speaker 14: to educate kids. There was a person in the video
Speaker 14: in the article that said the same thing. Nobody should
Speaker 14: be facing threats of felony charges just for trying to
Speaker 14: educate people and provide information to the world. That would
Speaker 14: be like the three of us, if if somebody came
Speaker 14: to the three of us to say that, you know,
Speaker 14: we were committing a felony because you know the things
Speaker 14: we talked about on one of these shows. I think
Speaker 14: that's it's it's akin to that, and it's it blows
Speaker 14: my mind.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'd like to to Sorry, just just one point,
Speaker 8: I'd like to come back to what you just said
Speaker 8: when you talked about Sorry, I lost it. Now I
Speaker 8: go go ahead. Uh, I'm sorry, I forgot my train
Speaker 8: of thought.
Speaker 13: Oh no, it's fine.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 13: I guess that happens to us sometimes. I know I've
Speaker 13: already forgot. Who are the two of you again, Kelly?
Speaker 13: Oh that's right, Kelly. I thank thanks for failing in
Speaker 13: for Eli. Now, having said that, you mentioned LGBTQ books, Eli,
Speaker 13: h what about sending people of color that also seem
Speaker 13: to draw a share of attention. I wanted both of
Speaker 13: you to kind of comment on what do you think
Speaker 13: that was about? Is it just a it can't be
Speaker 13: an icky thing. Surely this far in history, we're past
Speaker 13: ichiness when it comes to race like that, aren't we. So,
Speaker 13: I mean, I was just trying to figure why don't
Speaker 13: we want to pretend that people of color don't exist
Speaker 13: when they exist around us. I don't understand that motivation.
Speaker 8: I can answer to that, and I can come back
Speaker 8: to the point I forgot. You said that children they're
Speaker 8: just going to buy the book on Amazon. The problem
Speaker 8: is it increases the divide between the education of poor
Speaker 8: people and people.
Speaker 3: Who have the means to go to buy those books.
Speaker 8: And we know that in the US it's one of
Speaker 8: the major problems that education is extremely uh related to
Speaker 8: your revenues. So poor people have much much worse education,
Speaker 8: and then rich people and even the middle class. But yeah,
Speaker 8: there's this this this idea that not wanting to uh
Speaker 8: to acknowledge your past. Because if you look at you know,
Speaker 8: Rosa Parks and all those pictures you see about black
Speaker 8: people trying to eat in a restaurant and being attacked
Speaker 8: by people, I think it's still fresh in the memory
Speaker 8: and people are so ashamed of it, that they just
Speaker 8: pushing it away and try to make it like it
Speaker 8: it didn't happen. I think that's one of the reasons
Speaker 8: why so many books talking about race issues in the
Speaker 8: US are on the list of band books.
Speaker 13: So it's a more of a discomfort level than anything else.
Speaker 3: You know, it's you.
Speaker 13: Know, and really I think I understand a little better
Speaker 13: that at the end of the day, it's it's It
Speaker 13: is a very difference of just wanting to stigmatize versus
Speaker 13: one of to naturalize. And I think that that is
Speaker 13: fundamentally one of the differences, because so many of the
Speaker 13: things that he talked about are things that at the
Speaker 13: end of the day is a so what you know,
Speaker 13: who cares?
Speaker 6: Move on?
Speaker 13: And but you know, the unfortunately people like this keep
Speaker 13: popping up and we keep having to play whack a mole.
Speaker 13: But you know, do you think that this is a
Speaker 13: winning argument or is this a losing argument? Is this
Speaker 13: something that that people are receptive to, or or is
Speaker 13: this losing something?
Speaker 7: What do you think? You lie?
Speaker 14: I think that hopefully fewer than I think, but probably
Speaker 14: more than I think, people are are receptive to book banning.
Speaker 14: I think that most people probably think they're restricting information
Speaker 14: is the right way. And to your point, Cindy, which
Speaker 14: is a very good point, for those people who don't
Speaker 14: have the income resources to get that education outside of
Speaker 14: the school, if the school is now banned from providing it,
Speaker 14: they're just out of luck. And that's just another hurdle
Speaker 14: they have to overcome in order to have the same
Speaker 14: opportunity or even a similar equitable opportunity as anyone else.
Speaker 14: And I think what happens is that when you look
Speaker 14: at historically the people that are likely to ban books,
Speaker 14: they're historically Christian or religious at least, and I think
Speaker 14: in most cases Christian at least. The ones that we've
Speaker 14: talked about, I think it's more likely to be white.
Speaker 14: I think the more likely to be heterosexual or heteronormative.
Speaker 14: And I think it's also really common for everybody, regardless
Speaker 14: of any type of background, for somebody in power to
Speaker 14: feel defensive when things that they have done that are
Speaker 14: not that great are brought to light. And that happens
Speaker 14: a lot to white people and to hetero intestrate people
Speaker 14: and to sist people, because there's a lot of examples
Speaker 14: of white and cysts and straight people causing harm. So
Speaker 14: when books like The Bluest Eye, which was one of
Speaker 14: the ones specifically mentioned in the article and was on
Speaker 14: the ten top ten most challenged books in the United
Speaker 14: States in twenty twenty three and was only one of
Speaker 14: one of only a few books on that list that
Speaker 14: was not about lgbt q I A plus issues, but
Speaker 14: also one of only a few that was written by
Speaker 14: a person of color. And it's because these books are
Speaker 14: challenging the white normativity in the hetero normativity, and that's
Speaker 14: what they don't like. And I think until it becomes
Speaker 14: clear that the perceived majority in society and in culture
Speaker 14: that you know that white sis hetero people perceive sorry,
Speaker 14: until it is understand that perceived majority isn't as strong
Speaker 14: as it is perceived to be, that's going to continue
Speaker 14: to be the case where they the majority of people
Speaker 14: feel like this is the right thing to do and.
Speaker 13: Sending any thoughts or any any comments.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think there's one of the biggest fuels of
Speaker 8: the conservative movement in the US is the amount of
Speaker 8: shame they have to overcome to be part of the
Speaker 8: current society because the conservatives they are against, they still
Speaker 8: have some racist ideas. They still have homophobic ideas. They
Speaker 8: still have all those wrong ideas that have been proven
Speaker 8: false like fifty years ago, but they still have it
Speaker 8: because they grew up with those ideas and since they
Speaker 8: are no longer accepted in the society and we are
Speaker 8: tribal creatures, we want to be to our society. And
Speaker 8: the response.
Speaker 3: To to this.
Speaker 8: Exciting, I would say, like like they're pushed on the
Speaker 8: side is trying to either prevent this information that they're
Speaker 8: different from reaching the kids, or trying to impose their
Speaker 8: views on everyone. And so you have those two, uh,
Speaker 8: two movements in the conservative movement. You have one where
Speaker 8: they're trying to impose their views on everyone, like parietal abortion,
Speaker 8: like preventing gay marriage, like all this, and at the
Speaker 8: same time you have this, uh, let's make sure that
Speaker 8: our kids are not educated as they need to be
Speaker 8: in order to understand the society and stay with our ideas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would.
Speaker 13: Also I would also have to say that in many ways,
Speaker 13: the books are symbolic because it's a it's a it's
Speaker 13: a notation of a lack of acceptance that obviously so
Speaker 13: much further than books. This is, as you, as we
Speaker 13: mentioned earlier, stigmatized. This is to exclude this is this
Speaker 13: feels beyond just icky. This feels like, you know, the
Speaker 13: censorship that goes far beyond. But we but it's it's
Speaker 13: what's it's what's happening now, Eli, did you have any
Speaker 13: other thoughts on this, nothing in particular.
Speaker 14: I'd say, yeah, it does go beyond the ikey, it
Speaker 14: goes it's it's I mean, it's it's not just like it's.
Speaker 14: I don't like this, and I don't want I mean
Speaker 14: a lot like I was saying a minute ago, I
Speaker 14: don't want, you know, the my children to feel responsible,
Speaker 14: to feel guilt, to feel shamed for the actions of
Speaker 14: my you know, of people in the past, which I
Speaker 14: can't say is unreasonable. But I don't think anybody wants
Speaker 14: your children to feel ashamed for the actions of people
Speaker 14: in the past.
Speaker 3: It doesn't serve a purpose.
Speaker 14: Right exactly, And and I don't think anybody wants that.
Speaker 14: I think it's just that these things need to be
Speaker 14: acknowledged so that we understand what did happen and why
Speaker 14: it is important to make sure that everybody has equality
Speaker 14: and everybody is treated the same, regardless of their background.
Speaker 14: And when you continue to remove the examples of that
Speaker 14: not happening, and the results of that not happening, then
Speaker 14: you remove the motives or the incentives to make sure
Speaker 14: it doesn't happen anymore.
Speaker 8: Sending you a final thought, Yeah, I'd like to point
Speaker 8: out that in order to be educated on what your
Speaker 8: previous generations did and not feel guilty, that's possible that
Speaker 8: everyone else does it, but you need education for that.
Speaker 3: You need properly trained educators.
Speaker 8: And if you defend the education system, then it doesn't happen.
Speaker 8: And it's you know, it's it's a it's a chestrangity too.
Speaker 8: You cannot solve this problem if you don't manage to
Speaker 8: find a way to teach that. Yes, your grandparents did
Speaker 8: some horrific things, but it was a different time, they
Speaker 8: grew up in a different way. And although we do
Speaker 8: understand now that it's not acceptable and we're trying to
Speaker 8: change it, we don't feel guilty because we didn't do
Speaker 8: anything wrong.
Speaker 3: We are not our grandparents.
Speaker 10: No.
Speaker 13: As a parent, my youngest being fourteen, we had talked
Speaker 13: earlier about Amazon and what you could find on Amazon
Speaker 13: and the reality. So yeah, I just accept a certain reality,
Speaker 13: but it doesn't change the reality. Also, as you mentioned,
Speaker 13: the income disparity, and also the exclusion that comes along
Speaker 13: with all of this. So all these things being very important,
Speaker 13: I'm glad that both of you brought these up. A
Speaker 13: trucker convoy calling itself God's Army is on a campaign
Speaker 13: to take our border back. Humanitarian aid or border security Nope,
Speaker 13: they claim divine calling to drive the undocumented out of
Speaker 13: the country. Their zeal comes in the aftermath of the
Speaker 13: Supreme Court permitting the removal razor wire in Texas, or
Speaker 13: tragedy claim the lives of a migrant mom and her
Speaker 13: two children. The intersection of religious fervents and political tensions
Speaker 13: take center stage, prompting questions about the motivations and consequences
Speaker 13: of God's Army on this apocalyptic quest. This article is
Speaker 13: from Ross Story published by published on January TwixT, twenty six,
Speaker 13: twenty twenty four. And Phoebe, what did you think of this?
Speaker 10: Who they reclaiming you from? Is what I have to ask.
Speaker 10: It's the first question here. I mean the rhetoric they
Speaker 10: use in this. I feel like I was reading the
Speaker 10: loss end of a Margaret Atwood novel, and I felt
Speaker 10: like I was seeing the beginnings of the foundations of
Speaker 10: the Republic of Gilead, and it was short just to
Speaker 10: be hang on the bit taking the nation back. Who
Speaker 10: the nation of immigrants for crying out loud? You know,
Speaker 10: as the Native Americans said in the cartoon to the
Speaker 10: white man shouting at the black man, go back to Africa.
Speaker 10: Why don't you all just fuck off back where you
Speaker 10: came from, the nation of immigrants having such hate towards
Speaker 10: immigrants is one of the most bizarre things that I
Speaker 10: will ever experience in my life. The melting pot of
Speaker 10: America is one of the most anti immigrant places on
Speaker 10: the fringes from people who are just immigrants to this
Speaker 10: country from another place, whether it be the seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 10: whether it be from the twenty first century. They're all
Speaker 10: immigrants from here unless you're part of the native population, which,
Speaker 10: let's be frank, the immigrants didn't treat them very well
Speaker 10: to start with, so I think the immigrants may have
Speaker 10: done some damage to the native population. So the immigrants
Speaker 10: campaigning about more immigrants is one of the most ironic
Speaker 10: things that you're ever going to notice. Here, this extremist rhetoric,
Speaker 10: this wet dream of Oh I'm coming to fight God's nonsense. Yes,
Speaker 10: I must. I must go to the border. I must
Speaker 10: get my lovely polished firefarm ount. I must beat my
Speaker 10: chest and wear a hair shirt and drive and you know,
Speaker 10: feel manly and you know, beat back the nasty person
Speaker 10: that's coming to take everything from me that I took
Speaker 10: from the people who were here before me and may
Speaker 10: stop me. Wow, I need what a load of absolute
Speaker 10: cod swallow. I mean, the people organizing this, they need
Speaker 10: to get a better hobby. I mean, there are things
Speaker 10: in this world to worry about, but you know, a
Speaker 10: nation of immigrants worrying about more immigrants. I mean, Kelly, come.
Speaker 11: On, Yeah, I get it, I get it. And what
Speaker 11: really gad to me too is they can't then can
Speaker 11: themselves an army of God, their God's army. They're people,
Speaker 11: They're not even following the world words of Jesus, right.
Speaker 11: And one of the things that I like to bring
Speaker 11: up with bigoted Oh shit, I said the word. But yeah,
Speaker 11: they're going down to Texas. I don't know what they're
Speaker 11: going to do when they get there. Yeah, yeah, let's
Speaker 11: get out of here.
Speaker 10: Some translations going.
Speaker 11: Yeah. But as I was saying, one of the things
Speaker 11: I like to bring up with biggot I'm not going
Speaker 11: to say the word again, far right Christians is the
Speaker 11: parable of the good Samaritan right, because Samaritans were the
Speaker 11: aliens of their day. They were looked upon by the
Speaker 11: Hebrews back then as foreigners in their country lots of centuries.
Speaker 11: I hate in this religion, isn't there. And the idea
Speaker 11: the parable was that these bad people were still good people,
Speaker 11: and if Jesus were alive and living in the United
Speaker 11: States said hey, I think that parable would be the
Speaker 11: good Mexican you know. And this, this whole caravan is
Speaker 11: just a Christian, nationalist, jingoistic, big I almost said it again,
Speaker 11: intolerant movement. These people don't believe in the Jesus or
Speaker 11: the Bible. They believe in the Jesus that is wrapped
Speaker 11: up in an American flag and curing an assault rifle,
Speaker 11: ready to rain down vengeance bullets on the unworthy. Unworthy
Speaker 11: quote for brown people too, you know, the ones that
Speaker 11: rick him torn bless his little sweater vest once called
Speaker 11: the blah people.
Speaker 10: People like the governor of Florida, you know, the non
Speaker 10: white governor of Florida.
Speaker 6: Exactly.
Speaker 17: Yeah, the most concerned part of me part of this
Speaker 17: article to me was when someone that's part of this
Speaker 17: convoy says, this is a biblical monumental moment that's been
Speaker 17: put together by God.
Speaker 3: And I'm just curious.
Speaker 17: Where in the Bible does this see say to keep
Speaker 17: people out of your country.
Speaker 10: I don't plague.
Speaker 17: I don't remember that verse. Maybe somewhere in the Old Testament.
Speaker 17: But wait, no, I think in the Old Testament the
Speaker 17: command was to go and commit genocide in somebody else's country, right.
Speaker 17: I think that that was kind of the theme of the
Speaker 17: Old Testament. Jesus, I can't I just can't think of
Speaker 17: anything Jesus might have said that said go to your
Speaker 17: borders and attack people that are coming into your country.
Speaker 17: I just you know, it's trucks.
Speaker 7: The trucks.
Speaker 17: Yeah, I don't remember Jesus mentioning trucks and convoys. As
Speaker 17: a matter of fact, I remember quite the opposite. I
Speaker 17: remember Jesus saying things like, if someone strikes you under
Speaker 17: your cheek, turn to the other one.
Speaker 3: Let them hit the other.
Speaker 17: If they take your cloak, give them your coat. It
Speaker 17: seems to be like Christians should instead of getting in
Speaker 17: convoys and going down to the border to protest border security,
Speaker 17: they should instead be giving away their belongings to these immigrants.
Speaker 17: They should be opening their doors and letting people have
Speaker 17: their homes and their houses and things like that. They
Speaker 17: should be overjoyed to quote unquote lose their jobs, even
Speaker 17: though that's not what actually happens. You know, I have
Speaker 17: no relief statement on the United States border policies, whether
Speaker 17: they're good or bad. I know they're pretty inefficient and
Speaker 17: ineffective right now, understaffed at best. But my problem isn't
Speaker 17: with our border policies. My problem is making this move
Speaker 17: and religious turning it from a policy about immigration to
Speaker 17: a religious argument. Because when you feel like you have
Speaker 17: a mandate from God, when you feel like God is
Speaker 17: telling you to protect your border, what won't you do
Speaker 17: to secure that border? What actions won't you take? And
Speaker 17: in Bible, God commands genocide. How long until a religious
Speaker 17: leader commands that says that God commanded that we can
Speaker 17: miss start committing genocide against illegal immigrants. I wouldn't be
Speaker 17: surprised if it's already happened and somebody has already said it.
Speaker 17: There's nothing you can't justify and excuse based on faith,
Speaker 17: and most people it's benign. And you know at worst,
Speaker 17: causes them to go to church more than they'd like,
Speaker 17: but encourage them to be good and moral. But it's
Speaker 17: a slippery slope because the standard of good, what's good,
Speaker 17: and bad doesn't come from any objective standard. It just
Speaker 17: comes from this is what the big guy says, and
Speaker 17: so whatever the big guy says, that's what I'm going
Speaker 17: to do. And we can look out in the world
Speaker 17: and see some pretty horrendous examples of people using this
Speaker 17: kind of logic, but it just doesn't work because who
Speaker 17: speaks for God? Who Who's who's giving us the actual
Speaker 17: message from God? It's not God himself. I haven't heard
Speaker 17: a voice. I haven't seen God come down and give
Speaker 17: a press conference and let people know what there's what
Speaker 17: they should be doing as far as border security or
Speaker 17: anything else. Is h is correct. We just need a
Speaker 17: better standard for determining what's right and wrong and whether
Speaker 17: our policies are good or bad, and that should be
Speaker 17: more based on human well being and not on what
Speaker 17: some uh, some religious leader or God says. Infidel.
Speaker 13: The reality is that Christianity here in the United States
Speaker 13: has nothing to do with the Bible. It has nothing
Speaker 13: to do with what's said in the Bible, because unfortunately
Speaker 13: a large portion of the Christians in our country have
Speaker 13: been completely radicalized into an idea that, let me quote
Speaker 13: this one person who was or an organizer that says,
Speaker 13: by ballot, by choice, by bullet, if forced, the republic
Speaker 13: will be restored. What what does that right?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 13: You know, And and and one thing that I I
Speaker 13: find so absurd is that what they're doing is they're
Speaker 13: listening to people behind pulpits who are telling them and
Speaker 13: feeding them a story, and they're getting whipped up with
Speaker 13: this rhetoric. I absolutely hate it when I hear people
Speaker 13: use military style rhetoric God's army and all these other things,
Speaker 13: because what they're doing is they're they're they're creating a
Speaker 13: mindset that's very dangerous. I know one of the people
Speaker 13: made the comment besieged on all sides by dark.
Speaker 3: Forces of evil.
Speaker 13: Yes, very scary words, because when people are thinking things
Speaker 13: like this, they will do very dangerous and unhinged things. Now, fortunately,
Speaker 13: it does seem that these people are rather incompetent. They
Speaker 13: can't seem to get their act together. Not many people
Speaker 13: showed up. They're having tire slash problems, they're having organiz