Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 14: Miracle Babies

Episode Date: September 26, 2011

Miracle babies aren't much of a miracle. Pat Robertson advocates divorce of Alzheimers patients. Criminals in Alabama can go to church instead of jail. Bad call by an atheist. Pledge of Allegiance petition to take Under God out. Bill O'reilly threatens to quit. President Obama will make guns illegal. Rick Perry and the crazy people who work for him. Syrian girl mutilated. Troy Davis is executed. Ann Coulter is a jackass. Audience boo's a gay soldier. A teen contributor to "It Gets Better" kills himself. Excommunicated gay Mormon kills himself.  Clips Used: , 700 club,  Jail or Church, Fox News, The Simpsons, Entertainment Tonight, Lou Reed, Jesus Camp and Blue Suade Hooked on a Feeling, News World.

People that are against gay marriage, if they just openly said, I'm against gay marriage because thinking about two men having butt sex or two women having scissor sex kills my boner, dries up my vagina. I can't have sex. It ruins my life. That's why I'm against it. That would be a valid argument. We'd have to actually debate you on that. But these lunatics always go, well, because it says in the Bible.

Okay, stop. Hang on. I'm glad you like a book. I really am. I'm glad, hey, I'm glad you like a book. I really am. Hey, I'm glad that... But just because you like something in a book doesn't mean you can have the thing you like in the book happen in real life.

That's what crazy people want. I can't go to the White House with a bunch of Green Lantern comics and go, I want a Green Lantern ring. I saw it in a book I like. Make the thing in the book I like be here now. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance.

Every episode, we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome mat. Cecil, we are here for our 14th episode of Cognitive Dissonance, and this has got to be like our sixth episode that has actually come out on a weekly basis. I said earlier it's the Rapture. When did that jackass say the Rapture was coming again? He said it was like six months after the original Rapture. Yeah, isn't it going to be like Oktoberfest Rapture?

We're sort of smoothing right up to it now at this point. We're sort of like gliding in. We're just gliding right into the Rapture. Sam Adams is going to have the Oktoberfest Rapture beer now. It's pretty good. I've tried it. Grains of Paradise sprinkled in it.

You know, not bad. Tastes like burning. Only like 100,000 cases are being made. So, you know, it's kind of a bunch of Jews have to convert to beer. I don't know how that works exactly. Spring of shit that I don't know how that works exactly. I don't know how it works. It's time to launch right into our first and I'd like to say possibly worst

story. You gotta start out strong, Tom. You gotta start out strong. Miracle baby pastor to be extradited to Kenya. I gotta just lead with when you're being extradited to Kenya, I got to just lead with, when you're being extradited to Kenya, you have made some fucking mistakes in your life.

When Kenya's like, uh-uh, no, uh-uh. I want them. You bring that motherfucker over here. We've got some priorities here. Look, this is a country with standards, damn it. Yeah. priorities here. Look, this is a country with standards, damn it. This story, Tom,

when we came across it yesterday, and Tom and I very rarely will we be in the same room when we're actually making notes or when we're planning the show. We do a lot of stuff electronically because we live about 40 miles away from each other, but luckily yesterday we got a chance to hang out and we're hanging out and we decided to

do some notes together. So we're sitting next to each other on computers, sort of going through, looking at some news stories, discussing what we're going to talk about. And both of us opened this article. We first were confused by the title because the title, you're like miracle babies, pastor. What does that even mean? Is that like a show on fucking Nick kids, miracle babies? Like, what is that? So then we started reading it and both of our jaws just fucking dropped when we read this story. We could not believe that something like this would

actually happen. Yeah. There was, there was silence in the room, which is, that doesn't happen when you and I are in the room. Uh, it doesn't happen when I'm in a room, you know, just by myself. It's very true. So, yeah, it was just dead silent. The evangelical pastor, Gilbert Deya, is wanted on child abduction charges in Kenya. Basically, he had a scam where he would tell infertile couples, you know, to pray and, you know, probably donate money. I don't know. Almost certainly donate money. And then, you know, they would go to his clinic and lo and behold,

they would deliver a miracle baby. But they didn't really deliver a miracle baby. What he did was hand them a stolen baby. It's a miracle! It's a miracle! what he did was hand them a stolen baby, which is the, except for, for the people I stole the baby from. Yeah. The people, the people who he stole the baby from are,

it's a tragedy. Yeah. Right. And in, in backstreet clinics in Nairobi, I can't think of a place I want to be less by the way than a backstreet fucking clinic in Nairobi, having a baby in front of an evangelical preacher.

That's just – God, some shit has gone wrong when that's your – Jesus. But it was child trafficking. I mean it was just clear child trafficking. He was stealing kids to give them to people and be like, here's your miracle. And then you know this guy was collecting a check. Oh, yeah, because it says the latest available accounts for his charity. I'm reading directly from the BBC article here. Gilbert Day Ministries date back to 2009 and show an income from voluntary donations of

more than one point two million. And there's a funny symbol next to it. I think it's pounds. Yeah. Pounds or euro or dollars. You know, it's not a funny symbol next to it. I think it's pounds. Yeah, pounds or euro or I don't know. It's not dollars. It's not a dollar. Whatever.

It doesn't matter. It's definitively pounds because it looks like a – I don't even know. What the fuck symbol is that? It's like a curvy L or like an angry E with flatulence or something. Yeah, I think it's an angry E. I think it is. It's a very sophisticated E is what it is. Yeah, I'm not sure what that is.

We're pretty – we've been accused of being too American. I think this show is going to put that to rest, Cecil. Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. No, but it's 1.2 million pounds. That's what, like 60 billion U.S. dollars. So he's a rich dude. He is.

He was. And this story, you know, this story, I'm looking at more on this story. This story has been developing since 2004. Yeesh. You know, August 2004, they had a BBC article called Pregnant by Jesus. And then later on in September, tracking down Kenya's miracle babies. And now finally he's, you know, coming up on charges and finally being extradited I think this is his last appeal

basically fell through, he can't stay they're going to extradite him back to Kenya and good fucking luck in Kenya, doofus right, yeah, that's I cannot even imagine what a Kenyan prison is, I'm sure it's just filled with lions he deserves every fucking moment

in there, like you're stealing children to give to other people so you can make money off of them and exploiting the people who like are faithful for this purpose. Like it's like it's so awful. It's like it is the worst thing I've ever heard anybody do next to like killing six million Jews. Right. It is, if you're going to say like, let's think of one worst act, this has to be in there. Like it's at least a contender. Right. Right.

It's like in your, it's in your like favorite five or whatever, you know. It's like, let's see, does anybody win other than the person who's perpetrating the terrible, terrible crime? No. No, the kid loses because he got fucking yoinked away from his real parents. The real parents lose. You know, parents

are like, oh, this is my kid. He's not really your kid. No. No. We're just going to shake your faith and then we're also going to make you question your parental lineage with your son or daughter and you're broke. I love that when they went to get DNA testing, his response, because they're like, hey, our

DNA doesn't match the miracle baby you gave us. And he's like, it's not something I can say I can explain because they are of God and things of God cannot be explained by a human being. Or maybe we could just explain it as you were fucking yoinking the kids away from somebody else and giving them to somebody else. Well, you know, I have to say, I kind of agree with him to some degree, right? Because Jesus's sperm, you know, cause these, these women were obviously inseminated by, by Jesus and his sperm is like, it's like really strong. So it's really just Jesus' DNA. Right.

And that's why they don't find any of her DNA, because it's just, you know, that's some tough stuff. Right, it's just Jesus. You wouldn't expect otherwise. You'd be like, oh, that's just fucking hubris to imagine you're going to co-mingle your DNA with. Come on now. Jesus.

That's just ridiculous. Something happened a long time ago in Haiti. And people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the prince. True story.

Pat Robertson, back in the news again, making some controversial claims. I know people will be shocked. Most things Pat Robertson says, pretty above board, pretty, you know, level-headed. In this case, he made some comments regarding Alzheimer's. Pat, this is Andreas, who says, I have a friend whose wife suffers from Alzheimer's. She doesn't even recognize him anymore, and as you can imagine, the marriage has been rough. My friend has gotten bitter at God for allowing his wife to be in that condition, and now he started seeing another woman. He says that he should be allowed to see other people because his wife, as he knows her, is gone. I'm not

quite sure what to tell him. Please help. That is a terribly hard thing. I hate Alzheimer's. It is one of the most awful things, because here is the loved one. This is the woman or man that you have loved for 20, 30, 40 years, and suddenly that person is gone. They're gone. They are gone. So what he says basically is correct. But I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again. But to make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her isn't that the vow that we take when we marry someone it's for better for worse for richard i know if you respect that vow but you say the death do us part this is the kind of death

i certainly wouldn't put a guilt trip on you basically this guy suggested that if your spouse has alzheimer's rather than stepping out on your spouse in order to, you know, have a relationship with somebody else and still be married to your spouse, you know, you just got to divorce him. You know, give him custodial care and hit the bricks. You know, people are so hard on Pat Robertson. He didn't know where he was when he was saying this. know people are so hard on pat robertson he didn't know where he was when he was saying this so you gotta you gotta be you know you gotta look at pat robertson and be like you know maybe he's got a little dementia these days so you know people are a little hard on him about this sort of thing uh whatever happened to you know till death do we part does that not actually because

if you're gonna be a if you're gonna fucking sign up for the monogamy experience maybe you should fucking play it out till the end dummy dummy. It's insane to me. You know, I'll be honest. Like if your spouse gets Alzheimer's and they're not fucking there anymore and you've still got years and years of your life left, you know, far be it for me to say that you shouldn't, you know, find somebody else to keep you company. But I think at that point, you have to find somebody else to keep you company and take care of your spouse. Right. You still have to honor the previous commitment that you made. I mean, I it strikes me as horrifying to be the kind of person who says like, well, I want to cheat on my spouse because my spouse is unavailable to me emotionally or physically. But I think that's immoral.

So the more moral thing to do is to fucking sever all ties with my spouse. The more moral thing for you to do, if you feel like those are your two choices, is to say, OK, well, I've made a commitment to this person. I will stand by that commitment and I will be there for this person. I'll take care of that person. I will continue to love that person. And if somebody else comes along, you know, then I've got two people I need to balance in my life now, not just like, well, if I get best thing to do, divorce your wife. That is an awful thing to do. Yeah, but here's the problem with your logic, Tom, is that

you're using logic. I gotta stop that. The difference between you and somebody who's going to be a devout Christian is they think that the invisible man in the sky wants them to sever all ties with this person before they move on to the next one. So, whereas a person who just intelligently thinks about this entire situation and says,

hey, you know what? I got an obligation to this person who I spent, you know, even if it was just five or 10 or, you know, 20 years with, I got an obligation to that person. You know, if I was in this situation, I would hope they would take care of me, that sort of thing. All those memories you have with them. First off, how could you just throw all that shit away? But then, you know, yeah, I'm going to have to deal with, you know, handling

that person, but I do have needs as a, you know, emotionally and physically. So I'm going to go and have either a girlfriend or whatever you do there. You know, that's how a logical person would look at it. You know, yeah, I am signed up for the monogamy experience, but the one experience is gone and I need to make sure that I'm, you know, I'm getting my needs met. I get what you're saying, but the problem is, is that they feel like the invisible man in the sky is watching them and saying, no, you have to choose. It's either fucking vanilla or chocolate. You can't have fucking Neapolitan ice cream. Yeah. It's, it's, you know, if the idea is that you can only fully love one person at a time, you're doing it wrong. Pat Robertson, you know, I got to say, this seems a little foolhardy.

You're not a spring chicken yourself. Maybe he's priming his fucking audience for the day he divorces his Alzheimer's. I was thinking the same thing. You know what I mean? Like, that's the first thing that came to my head is he's fucking priming the pump, so to speak. Exactly. Exactly. He's laying ground work for infidelity is really what he's doing. You know, this is the same jackass though, that'll like condemn other people for consensual sex between adults when he's talking about, you know, homosexuality, but you know, that's, that's immoral, but having a, you know, divorcing your

fucking completely fucking Alzheimer wife, the person who is completely into Alzheimer's and doesn't even know who you are at this point and relies on you to take care of her, that's fine. Dude, you're fucking, your morals, you're doing it wrong, dude. Fucking read an ethics book. What the fuck? And an actual ethics book, too. Not a Bible. Right. But an ethics book, Something that contains ethics.

Nonviolent criminal offenders now have a choice some would call simple. Do time behind bars. Or work off the sentence in church. So along the same lines of making terrible choices, in Alabama now they've got a program where nonviolent criminals have a choice, Cecil. They can choose jail, not usually anyone's first choice, or church, which I would choose as an atheist.

I don't know. It's like a scared straight program. You know what I mean? You're just like, we're going to put you in church. No, don't put me in church. Oh my gosh. Would I still go to church?

I would go over jail. Yeah. Over jail. Are you fucking kidding me? I would choose the most anything else over jail, right? Right. Jail is designed to be as unpleasant as possible.

That's why it's jail. Like, I'm thinking back, and I went to a Methodist church when I was a kid, when I grew up. And I'm thinking back, and it mostly consisted of songs, inane rambling, the occasional sip of grape juice, a pig roast in the summer, a block party on occasion. Yeah, you know what? I got to shake hands 45 minutes in and say peace be with you. Okay. Yeah, big deal.

That's better than shaking whatever Bubba's holding out. Yeah, no kidding. Or having Bubba shake you. Because there's going to be some bad touching going on. You know, here's what I don't, why I don't think this is a good idea. I mean, besides the fact that it's fucking moronic, but whenever I've been to church, now, Tom, I've been to church many times in my life. I grew up not as a person who went to a lot of church. I'll admit that. But I grew up a religious person. And then after a while, dropped it. But I married a woman who was very religious. So I went to a lot of, not a lot of

church, but, you know, four or five times a year, went to church with her. And so I got a chance to see what a Catholic mass looks like. I've been to other types of masses. I've never been to a mass that treats people like they're actually criminals. You know, yeah, it'll say you're a sinner maybe once in a while. But the reason why you put somebody in jail is because they do something bad. I think that the idea behind church is that people are inherently good. So you're putting somebody in and that's just – you're not even telling them that they're doing anything wrong. You're just saying go to church and here's how you be good.

Well, if they don't really have those things in there to make them be good, then what is putting them in church going to do except for maybe give them potential victims? Right. It's a networking opportunity. You know, like, hey, what do you have in your house? I would like to steal it. You know, this church gets how much money in time? No kidding. Right. It's, um, you know, the state should never be in a position like the separation of church and state, right? It should never be in a position where it's saying, you know, we, we, we, we have a program which suggests that you should go to church.

You know, notice it's church. It's not synagogue. It's not religious services. It's not very true. Very true. It's not. Yeah, it's not fucking. They're not going to the to the Muslim mosque.

Right. So it's church. So you're already violating horribly separation of church and state. You're already endorsing religion. You're already stepping over your boundaries that have been pretty clearly established as a state. So that's fucking bad news. It's not going to be effective. If I'm a fucking, if I got caught because I'm, you know, making meth in my basement, nonviolent crime.

So I'm making meth in the basement. Am I going to stop making meth because I went to church on Sunday? Are you serious? Am I going to not be addicted to drugs because I went to church on Sunday? That's insane. That's nonsense. It's foolhardy. Am I not going to be subject to the same kind of social pressures and poverty issues that

cause people, that are one of the causes for people to turn to crime as an option? No. You know, the church is not going to, going to church is not going to fix those things. It's not going to turn my fucking life around. People don't get their lives turned around just because they were ordered to go to church. Now, I'm not suggesting that there aren't some people who have their lives turned around because of some, you know, because that stuff anecdotally, it happens. But it's not because they were forced to go to a thing.

Don't misunderstand me either when I say you're sending them to church. What's the use in that? I'll be honest. I sometimes wonder why we send people to jail. I'll be honest when I sometimes wonder why we send people to jail. Lots of times the problems are not about incarceration. We do it to punish them in some way, but jail doesn't seem like a way in which to correct things sometimes. It's not a smart system.

I don't think the jail system is a smart system. I think that there's plenty of ways in which to correct behavior if you address the thing that's causing that behavior. If you're addressing the drug problem that got the person to do the burglary, there's something in there that you can unpack and change that person's life. And church doesn't change. I don't think church is going to change how somebody is going to look at the world and make them a better person if they go into it, especially if those sermons aren't specifically directed to helping them change. If it's just going in there and the guy is saying, hey, put some money in the pot. Let's stand up and sing and let's fucking maybe be good to each other once in a while. That's not going to change how this guy thinks. how this guy thinks.

I do believe that atheists are parasites in the sense they're benefiting from everything that religious culture is built in America, but they're doing nothing to add energy into the system. So BBC One had a program called The Big Questions. That's actually nice

because America, we just have the small questions. We just have the fucking rhetoric. It should just be called the rhetoric. America, the diatribe. But they had a program called the big questions and they were, I've only seen a small clip from it, but they were debating religion. And they had a woman, Kate Smirthwaite, from the National Secular Society. And she was chatting with some folks about religion. It looked like

they had a panel that was comprised of religious leaders from a variety of different faiths. And she represented no faith. And it was interesting. It's, you know, on some of the message boards, it's described as her giving a bitch slap to these folks. And I have to disagree very sharply with that assessment. Yeah, I just think it's her being a bitch. You know, you watch this thing and this is a show. There's two divergent paths you can take, and Tom, you and I talked about this recently. If you have a show like ours or a show where somebody's trying to talk about being an atheist

or understanding the world through a humanist perspective, you have a show like ours, and then you have shows like this where it's kind of two different sides, and there's sort of a coaxing that needs to go on there, right? You're never going to convince anybody of anything if you're on one of those shows by calling them idiots, by saying you're an idiot. And that's what she says. She says, you know, I don't believe that stuff because I'm not an idiot. And basically implying that everybody who believes in anything other than what they can see evidence-wise is an idiot.

I don't know that there's a lot of people in our sector of thought that would disagree with that. I mean that would disagree so sharply with that. But I think that there's a way in which to say it that you don't come off like a total bitch. And when you and I are here and we kid around and we joke around and we make fun of people, this isn't a show. Like this isn't a – don't mistake this show as a show that you would give to somebody if that was teetering on the edge of wondering if they're going to be an atheist or if they're going to stay religious. Or if they're a conservative and they're leaning towards being a liberal or whatever. Like this isn't a show I would give those people because we are sort of preaching to the choir in this show.

We're not trying to convince anybody of our ideas. Everybody who's listening to this show already believes all this stuff. We're just reinforcing all the ideas that everybody else already has. Heck, we get most of our stuff from listeners for crying out loud. You know what I mean? It's like they're sending us stuff to talk about. So there's a difference. There's a very big difference between what we do

and what sort of atheist shows that are based towards atheists are, and then shows and books and media that are based towards convincing people. And this is a buck and missed opportunity. Yeah, I completely agree. This is, she had a chance. You know, our show is Guns and Ammo, right?

You pick up an issue or a magazine, Guns and Ammo, and it doesn't try to sell you on the idea of guns. It assumes you already like them. Yeah. Right? You didn't pick up Guns and Ammo because you – oh, you know, I've been thinking about whether a gun is a good night. Yeah, it's fucking guns and ammo. Right. This show is guns and ammo. Right. This is atheist porn, basically. Right. And and that, you know, those things have their place. And and they and they have their place, especially our show, because it's our show. Yeah.

And, you know, that's not what her role was here. Her role was to be representative of people who don't have faith and to discuss how people without faith would answer big questions about heaven or the afterlife or, you know, the topic of discussion at hand. It's not to throw ad hominem out there in a smug sort of rejoinder and then to sit back and watch the fireworks. That's not useful. That's, I don't do that. I don't think people should do that. I don't think it does anything. I don't think it promotes anything. Yeah, she was doing great until she threw out the insult. She really was, you know, she, she was doing fine. And then to just insult people, it doesn't serve a purpose and it undermines your point. And, you know, if I were in some,

engaged in some kind of debate with a religious person, first of all, I don't really do that. I don't debate religious people unless somebody is trying to proselytize to me. And that very, very rarely happens. I'm fortunate, I think, that that does not happen very often. But I certainly don't go seeking to convert people away from their faith of choice to no faith at all. I just don't have any interest in doing that. It doesn't strike me as useful and it strikes me as the same kind of nonsense that, you know, the Jehovah's Witnesses do. You know, nobody does that. Nobody that's not annoying does that um so i'm not sure what she hoped to gain by throwing an insult out at the end of this thing other than just to

alienate herself and alienate the cause of secular people to the audience the the audience is religious because most of earth is fucking religious yeah just – I'll just sling insults at most of Earth and then sit back and see if they agree with me. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm an idiot. I hadn't thought of it that way. Yeah. Nobody is going to have a fucking revelation from what she said.

And I'm with the people. There's comments on this YouTube video constantly. People are always like, fuck religion. Fuck those people. They're ruining the world, on and on and on. Maybe they are. Maybe – and there's a lot of arguments that you could lay. I mean Christopher Hitchens in his book God Is Not Great lays out some really pretty convincing arguments that religion is a pretty awful thing.

So I'm not going to defend religion and religiosity. But at the same time, I don't think that you should, you should come at it with guns blazing like this. If you have an opportunity to change someone's mind, I, you know, geez, why don't we just put on, you know, WWCD, you know, what would Carl Sagan do? You know what I mean? Like, like, what would he do? What would he say that? And no, he wouldn't. And he was, you know, you look at somebody like that. That's a spokesperson for for the secular world. I don't even know that Dawkins would say something like that.

I don't think he would. I don't even think Christopher Hitchens would say something like that. Not even Hitchens resorts to ad hominem. Right. And Hitchens is as vitriolic a spokesperson as there is. He's incredibly well-read, extraordinarily knowledgeable, phenomenally well-spoken, and when you're all of those things, you don't have to be smug and you don't have to be arrogant and you don't have to throw ad hominem out there.

And, you know, you're right, Tom. It's totally ad hominem. I mean, it's the definition of ad hominem. I don't believe that because I'm not an idiot. Like that's, I mean, that is, look it up. That's exactly it. So. And it's false continuum, you know what I mean? Because it's like, really, you're going to suggest that all religious people are idiots? Yeah. That's, that's what you've, that's what you've said. All religious people are idiots. I, I know some religious people who are fucking smart. So do I. So do I. Your wife is a smart person.

She is a religious person. She is not an idiot. Right. And I work with people that are, you know, PhDs in theology, and they're really smart people, and they're really good people. And just because they're religious doesn't mean they're bad or they have distorted views on the world or whatever. They have their own views. And, you know, if we can work together, rather, especially in moments like this, work together with somebody rather than we're trying to force that wedge, you know, you can accomplish a lot more. And I just think that that's a bad way to do it. That's not to say that I don't think that if this woman was talking, I might

not agree with what she has to say. But I feel like in this situation, she just she gambled and lost. to say, but I feel like in this situation, she just, she gambled and lost. God has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place with an organized religion. So there is a petition, Cecil, at whitehouse.gov. Now anybody, so I should throw this out there. Just because it's at whitehouse.gov doesn't mean that it's a petition which is sponsored by the president. You know, you can go on there and create a petition. Um, and, uh, the, the petition, um, to the Obama administration is to edit the pledge of allegiance to remove the phrase under God, um, petitions signatures needed by October 21st to reach the goal of 5,000. They've got 12,000 already. I think this is totally, the under God was inserted after the fact.

It's not useful. I think it's alienating. I encourage people to sign this petition. I encourage secular people to have the same voice that the religious right has been pushing and having and screaming into the faces of our politicians now for so very long. I don't think that this is ever going to happen. It will never happen. And the reason why is because no president is going to want to be the person unless they unless by some miracle, we elect a atheist president. Right. No, no president would ever want to take the rap for this. No president would ever want to take the rap for this.

No president would ever want to be the one to say, we're going to take under God out of the Pledge of Allegiance. No president would want that on their record. No president would ever want that to be reflected on them. So they would never do it. This is something that I think we're going to have to deal with.

I encourage people to sign the petition. I've already signed it. I encourage people to sign the petition. I've already signed it. I encourage you. Sign the petition. But I really don't know that anything would ever come of this because I feel like you're committing political suicide if you ever say anything like take under God out of the Pledge of Allegiance because you're not American, man. That's America. I'll tell you what. The day under God gets removed from the Pledge of Allegiance is the day it didn't need a petition to get it done in the first place. There's already been a swing at that point.

Yeah. That is not likely. I can't do it. We'll do it live. We'll do it live! Fuck it! Do it live! I'll write it and we'll do it live!

Fucking thing sucks! Bill O'Reilly threatened to quit if higher taxes for millionaires were enacted. As people following American politics realize at this point, there's a pretty strong push by the Obama administration to change the way that the wealthy are taxed. So as it stands right now, many, many wealthy people make the majority of their money on investments. Investments are taxed at about 15 percent through capital gains tax versus payroll tax, which is what, you know, folks like you and I, Cecil, pay. And our tax rate is substantially higher, you know, 20 percent or so higher. substantially higher, you know, 20% or so higher. And so if you're a, you know, a trader or somebody working in the financial markets and you make most of your money on investment, you're paying significantly less taxes in terms of whole percentage than middle class or lower class

Americans. And so there's a big push to change that. Bill O'Reilly, of course, like all these nut jobs in the GOP that for some reason are so opposed to this idea, he lays out his claim about why this shouldn't be done and follows it up with a threatening to quit. Good. Quit. Good. You'd be heartbroken. Oh, it'd be a shame. Yeah. Then you and Ann Coulter can go buy your own fucking island. Go get on one of those seasteading things,

those fucking, those fucking barges that the libertarians want to put in the ocean. Go sit out there then. You know, you're making money off of the off of the prosperity of being an American. You've made a substantial amount of money living in the United States and benefiting from us being prosperous and from you being a privileged person in this in this society. And you shouldn't pay your fair share. That's ridiculous. That's outrageous. And the idea that he keeps on saying, like, well, that money is already taxed. It's been taxed once. Well, so what? So what? You know what? You're not fucking hurting. You're not fucking hand to mouth. You're not weak to weak. You're not tightening your belt. None of those things are happening. You're living in fucking immense excess. give up a little bit of your access just so, you know, we can pay for things? Because what?

Because road construction should be on my fucking back? Fuck you, dude. You drive the road just as much as me. In fact, your car is probably fucking worth more, douchebag. So you should pay more. The fact that you just – the fact of the matter is that trickle-down economics doesn't fucking work. It didn't work before. It's not going to work now.

And they've been trying trickle-down economics, Tom, for the past fucking 10 years, like fucking cut the fucking tax rate on fucking giant businesses and really rich people. And they'll create jobs. Well, that fucking doesn't happen because you know what you need. You need a fucking demand for jobs to be created. If you don't have money in fucking people's hands, like me, the fucking suckers that fucking tighten their belt and live week to week, you're never, ever, ever going to increase the economy. All you're ever going to do is put more money in this fucking douchebag's pocket. Absolutely. You know, and he talks about taxing achievers in his little talking points memo thing.

That is that's so insulting. It really is. To say, you know, so those of us who are not millionaires, we're not achievers. We're not, you know, you want to tell me that because I don't make a million dollars, I'm not an achiever because you want to tell all of the school teachers across this country, our military across this country. You know, the people that that that are the fucking apple pie of America. Right. Those people that are the untouchable beloved of America, they're not millionaires. And we're going to look them in the face and we're going to say, hey, you know, thanks for taking care of my kid for six hours a day, you know, while I get to work and

you teach him. And, you know, I appreciate that. Sucks that you're not an achiever, though. I'm going to wipe my ass with some money now. I mean, if we're to live in a society that is sort of a society like he seems to be suggesting, where the only people who are successful, the only people who are worthwhile, those who achieve great financial success. Well, I mean, fuck it. Why would anybody join the Peace Corps? Why would anybody be a teacher? I mean, you want you would the best and the brightest would only go on to the financial markets where they can make the most amount of money. Right. Fuck it. Cecil, why be a doctor? There's no reason. Why would you? I mean, yeah, doctors make good money. Don't get me wrong. But if you're going to spend that kind of time and that kind of effort, you could make a fucking lot more money in the markets being a trader, being an analyst. So fuck that. This guy makes fucking $20 million a year.

I mean I'm looking at his fucking Wikipedia page and it's from a linked Fox article that shows that he makes $20 million a year. Guy fucking graduated with a master's of public administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy school for government. Like, you know, how fucking more privileged do you have to be? Right. Man, I didn't get a fucking, I didn't get to go to Harvard, dude. You know, maybe I'd be making a lot more money if I went to fucking Harvard. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm sure you had to fucking work hard to get in there. But the fact of the matter is, is that you're a white fucking privileged dude living in a country that fucking loves white privileged dudes. So you're going to make a lot of fucking money. Your $20 million is fucking, you know, the money that they're going to try to take away from you is a pittance compared to what you really make and what you can keep. And then all the money that makes money for you.

It's outrageous that you would be so against taxation when you live in a country that fucking you benefit from so greatly. And the fact of the matter is, is that I was looking, you know, here's, here's what really just boggles my mind, Tom, is I was looking this week and I was doing just a little bit of research on, um, on taxation. And I got a chance to see a post from somebody who was talking about the differences between now and in the past, how much people were taxed. And they were saying like the richest corporations back in during Eisenhower's times for every

dollar an American spent, they paid like a dollar fifty or something like that. So they were paying a lot more money back then. But now it's down to a quarter. Like so every dollar I pay, they pay a quarter. Well, that's just outrageous to think that, that we've dropped so much taxes off of the ultra rich. I mean, you know, I understand the ultra rich get put in a government or the ultra rich get a chance to go up and tell people, hey, you need to vote this way and whatever. And that's what happens. And then the American people get screwed because, you know,

we don't have a lobbyist, Tom. I know you don't, you can't fucking hire a lobbyist for fucking Tom to go up there and be like, you know, I'd really like you to fucking do all these things that Tom wants. Promote the Tom agenda. Yeah, exactly. And they don't promote the fucking Cecil agenda. I can't fucking hire anybody to do that for me. But these big giant businesses can do it. And they get in the government's ear.

The only way we ever get into the government's ear is when we vote fuckers out of office that do fucking the wrong thing. And, you know, that's what we've got to do. If anybody fucking goes up against this bill, you know, Republicans and Democrats need to stand together and be like, fuck you, pay your fair share, just like the rest of us fucking working stiffs. I don't think it's a secret on this show. I'm a gun owner. You're a gun owner. We both like to shoot. I can't in good conscience join the NRA. I can't in good conscience join the NRA because I think they're nuts.

Personally, if there was a law that could be enacted tomorrow that would, in practical terms, wipe out private gun ownership, I would support it immediately. I'd give up my guns. Boom. Gone. That's not going to happen. So I think that's a nonsensical pipe dream. I don't think anybody in America is really pushing for that. So, you know, it's not even really worth considering. and as large a gun as possible. And there should be no limits to the types of guns that people own. These are the same people who oppose assault gun bans, oppose registration. I know here in the state of Illinois, there's no registration of your firearm. No. So you just own them.

Nobody knows if you have them or don't, except for you and your basement. You know, you got to register a car, but not a gun. It's insane. The NRA is claiming that there's a massive Obama conspiracy not to ban guns. Cecil, I think the evidence is clear because he hasn't tried to ban guns yet. Right. So the evidence is right there. I mean, you know, here's what he says. This douchebag, what's his name? Wayne LaPierre. That guy sounds French to me. What does he have? What

does he have a gun for anyway? He says in public, those are one French. They'll probably actually the French listeners would be like, fucking A. Right. They'd probably be happy. They'd probably be embarrassed if they had a gun. Same thing with our UK listeners, too. They'd probably be like, you guys own and shoot guns? What the fuck is wrong with you? Just casually? Yeah.

You casually shoot a gun? In public, here's this guy's talking. He says, in public, he'll remind us, and he's talking about Obama, that guy's talking. He says in public, he'll remind us. And he's talking about Obama that he's put off calls from his party to renew the Clinton assault weapon ban. He hasn't pushed for new gun control laws. The president will offer the second amendment lip service and hit the campaign trail saying he's actually been good for the second amendment. That's a big fat stinking lie. It's all a part of a massive Obama conspiracy

to deceive voters to destroy the Second Amendment in our country. What, by not doing anything? When your evidence that somebody has a conspiracy to ban your guns is that the guy did nothing at all to ban guns, you're fucking reaching at this point. I mean, really, really reaching, you know, the NRA is opposed to Obama because they think that he's going to ban their guns, even though he's never said or done anything.

And that's that was his he's lulling us all into a false sense of security to get a second term where he can push his real agenda to ban all guns. Tom, what is the conspiracy of? Like, I don't know that the guy understands what conspiracy means because it should be Obama, right? Right. Isn't that, I mean, wouldn't a conspiracy necessarily include other people? One would think so.

Because you have to conspire with someone in order to have a conspiracy. Right. Right. Yeah. His conspiracy, I guess, is with like the liberals, but the liberals are upset that he's not done more. Exactly. Like liberal gun control advocates are upset that he's not done anything at all.

It's a massive Obama conspiracy. That's what he says. It's all part of a massive Obama conspiracy. So what I'm wondering is there – is there a conspiracy about Obama? It's a conspiracy of one. That's what it is. No, Obama doesn't actually exist. There's a conspiracy to make us think Obama exists.

I've heard he's just a puppet like Weekend at Bernie's style. That would be awesome. It's fucking Joe Biden driving around. He's got Obama with the sunglasses. He's like fucking waving his arm by pulling the pulley and shit. He's like, hey, Obama. They're dragging him behind the motorboat. Hey, look at him water skiing.

Weekend at the White House. That's awesome. A massive Obama conspiracy. It's massive. It's a massive Obama conspiracy. He doesn't even. Here's the thing. It's such a secret.

He doesn't even know about it yet. Nobody told Obama. It's. He hasn't. So. Yeah. You heard it here. Second. Guns will never be it here. Second, folks.

Guns will never be fucking illegal. Like that's just ridiculous to even think that. Nobody is going to come in and be like, well, guns are illegal. How are you going to get them? How are you going to take them away from people? They have a gun. And nobody knows who has them. That's the other problem.

That's a huge problem. The only thing we have is the Federal Firearm Registry, which you get when you purchase a brand new gun. But then, Tom, if I bought a brand new gun, it's registered to me, but then I could sell it to you within the next day. I got to wait 48 hours. I'll wait that 48 hours. Don't worry. But I wait 48 hours to give it to you, and now it's yours. You could sell it the very next day, three days later or whatever, 48 hours waiting period.

We could sell it six or seven times. It could wind up in somebody else's hands. Nobody knows who has it. Oh, sure. It could get stolen. Right. Unlike a car. Like your car gets stolen, and you report it to the police.

It's a big goddamn thing. You notice immediately when your fucking car is stolen, your car is registered. The VIN numbers, you know, so it gets tracked. It's a, you know, oh, my car got stolen. I'm going to call it. Your gun gets stolen. You might even notice it until the next time you go for your gun for something. You know, like let's say my gun got stolen in December.

We don't shoot in December. It's fucking cold in Illinois in December. I wouldn't notice that fucking thing was missing for five months. Sure. May rolls around and you're like,

what happened to it at that point? Hon, where'd you put my gun? Oh, your kid had it for a little while. I don't know if he's outside with it. They were joking.

Well, like any responsible gun owner, I keep it loaded under the bed. With a string around the trigger tied to the door. Pointing out. Yeah. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. Hookah, hookah, hookah, chaka, hookah, hookah, hookah, chaka, hookah, hookah, hookah, chaka.

I'm hooked on a feeling. I'm high on believing. Texas Governor Rick Perry, obviously, he's now become, I think, the frontrunner in the GOP primary at this point. That's what I've been hearing. He's announced his team. So, you know, these guys all put together a team. One of the members, his co-chair, Pam Olson, founder of the Tallahassee House of Prayer. She has some interesting ideas about tornadoes, Cecil.

I think she's getting a little concerned about their phallic nature. I love the image. We're going to post a link to this story. The image, under the image, the caption says, does this tornado look gay? And I got to admit, there's a shaft on that tornado. I'm telling you, it's penetrating. But it's penetrating Mother Earth. So I don't know.

That's true. Maybe it's just a MILF know, I don't know. That's true. Maybe it's just a MILF tornado. I don't know. One of the things that is said in this article, which I think is pretty funny, I'm going to read directly from it. As Right Wing Watch notes, though, Olson also believes that gay marriage and its increasing acceptance among American Christian is causing destructive natural disasters across the country. Here's what she said back in July. God is shaking. If anybody looks at the news and has seen what has been happening recently with the

floods, the fires, the tornadoes, God is shaking. That's just, what the fuck does that even mean, Tom? God is shaking. I don't know, but she actually gets a little crazier too because then she also says, sure, you have the enemy shaking. You have both. And I don't want to say, oh, that's the judgment of God or that's the enemy. But the reality is God is judging us. I don't want to say it's the judgment of God.

But the reality is God is judging us. So somehow we've managed to piss off God and the enemy? They're both shaking? Heaven and hell is just like, ah, we're all unhappy about it. What can we do here, you nut hut? I mean. Okay, I'm going to fucking believe. Look, lady.

Okay, Pam Olson, founder of the Tallahassee House of Prayer. I'll believe you the moment a tornado comes into a town and kills only gay people. I'll believe you. The moment it rolls through and it's just like, oh, there's a gay house. And it knocks, you know, car with a fucking, the car with the rainbow bumper sticker gets flipped over. And, you know, the guy in drag gets killed, thrown up in, you know, up in the tornado. I'm with you then. I'll be like, okay, God hates gays and God exists.

But you know what? God just is – he has terrible aim. He just has really bad aim, collateral damage like a motherfucker on that guy. This would be the most fabulous tornado ever. It would be. It would be multicolored. How could the tornado be gay anyway? It's just one of them.

It's just like – so the tornado's just like masturbating. Like, you just like have to look at it and be like, what's that tornado thinking about? Oh, fuck! Natural disasters are caused by nature. Right. And the fact that we live on a planet that has geological events and an atmosphere and wind and, you know, is constantly changing. And we can predict many of these things, right? Like hurricanes, you can predict.

Why can you predict a hurricane? Because the forces that fucking create it are physical and known. It's not, there's no fucking divine intervention. It's not like, okay, so it's going to rain on Thursday. We may or may not have a hurricane in the afternoon. That never happens. Nobody gets fucking surprised by a hurricane. Whoa, where did that come from?

You don't get surprised by these things because you can fucking watch them develop because they're not fucking the hand of divine God, you know, wreaking some kind of justice on a whole group of people indiscriminately for no reason. And God has no fucking imagination. Like, all he can do is send hurricanes and fucking tornadoes at us. Why doesn't he fucking bombard us with, like, fucking burning baboons? Like, do something fucking epic, dude. Do something awesome. Do something crazy awesome. Instead, it's just like, oh, another tornado.

Right. Wouldn't lightning be his sniper rifle if he wanted to get – You're right. Just like he wants somebody like specific and bop. Really? Great God. Why didn't God hit like Osama bin Laden with a tornado? Or lightning bolt or whatever.

Yeah. Or a flaming baboon. Why are we talking about this story? It's because this is somebody who's fucking, you know, hanging out with fucking Rick Perry. Right. This is his co-chair. Yeah, these are people that believe the same shit he's done

because they're in the Tallahassee House of Prayer, not the International House of Prayer. Right, which is more delicious because they've got the pancakes. The Tallahassee House of Prayer is more like the Waffle House. So we're going to take a short break at this point and give you some information on how to contact us, how to berate us, how to scream at us about how we're wrong. And stay listening, and we'll come back in just a moment. You can email these assholes at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. Be sure to visit the Cognitive Dissonance website, dissonancepod.com.

Be sure to like the show on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. The Twitter handle is at dissonancepod. Thanks to everyone who shares our podcast through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. We'd also like to thank the people who have rated us and subscribed on iTunes and Podfeet or promoted the show through message boards like Reddit. Your help is fucking greatly appreciated. Death penalty has been in the news all across the world, particularly here at home, but also in Syria. First woman dies in detention, 18-year-old woman whose brother opposed Syria's regime. They not only found this woman, but they found her dead and horribly mutilated.

I mean, she was decapitated, her arms were cut off, and her skin was removed. So you don't get a whole lot deader than that. It's not much more level of dead. You look at something like this and it's undeniably barbaric. I don't think there's any other way to discuss it. It's undeniably barbaric. So when you see something like this and then you turn around and you see the death penalty here in our own country, here in the United States, and you see the death penalty here in our own country, here in the United States,

it's impossible for me not to also consider that barbaric. Sure. You know, somehow when the Syrian government captures somebody and executes them for a crime, that's awful. But when we do it, well, that's justice. That's ridiculous. Yeah. That's utterly ridiculous. That's a sad day in America is what that is. It really truly is.

Recently, Georgia put to death Troy Davis. Troy Davis may or may not have been guilty. There's a fair amount of evidence that he probably was guilty, but there is some doubt there. There were recantations. Some of the eyewitness testimony that was used in his trial was recanted. There was no substantive physical evidence of his guilt. And they fucking killed him the other day. He's fucking dead.

Yeah. So at this point, the only thing you can do is just, first of all, I think it's wrong even if he was a murderer to kill him. But the only thing you can do at this point is just hope you got it right because there's fucking no take backs now. One of the things that I read about, I was reading the appeal because there was an appeal that was written. They denied his appeal. But when that happens, there's no like trial, right? So appeals don't happen like that. The appeal gets written and then a lawyer rebuts it in a paper so that you get a chance to read that paper. And I got a chance to read it and look through it. And one of the things that popped out at me was the lawyer who was rebutting it said, does the new testimony

and the recanting of testimony and a little bit of new evidence make this more, does it give it more doubt? And the guy who's doing this appeal, the guy who's rebutting the appeal, basically saying it's cool to kill him, says, yeah, it adds a little more doubt, but not substantially.

And I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, even if there's just a fucking shred of doubt, what is the benefit of killing this guy? Why would you murder this guy if there's just that little tiny bit in the back of your head that says, you know, maybe this wasn't the guy who did this. Maybe this is, maybe then we got the wrong guy. Maybe he didn't

do this crime. Well, now what? Well, now he's fucking dead. And there's no way you're going to fucking pull out the fucking defibrillator, dig him up, and fucking shock him back to life. Because he's fucking extra fucking dead, and he's fucking extra fucking dead and he's in the ground and there's nothing we can do about it now our system of justice that we have our system of determining guilt or innocence is not a perfect system it is a flawed system by nature it

is flawed we accept testimony which could be flawed we accept uh you know we accept evidence which also could be flubbed and flawed. You can't have a perfect system so that if you can't have a perfect system, how can you murder somebody without absolutely 100% proof that they're guilty? It's not, it's, it's, it's not about proving someone's innocence at this point. It's about proving 100% that they're guilty. And that's not something that we just have the ability to do, let alone the fact that the death penalty is just a stupid, cruel thing to do to somebody for no reason.

It doesn't help anybody. Nobody's helped by the fact that this guy's dead. The person who's dead doesn't come back because Troy Davis is dead, even if he did kill him. The person who's loved one that lost a loved one, they don't get to feel any better because their loved one is still fucking dead. So nobody fucking wins. The people don't win.

Troy Davis doesn't win. Fucking we are just fucking epic losers at this point. I think you have to question why the death penalty appeals to you if the death penalty appeals to you. What are the parts of you that are appealed to? They're not rational. They're not the rational parts of you that, that, that are, uh, appealed to? They're not rational. They're not, they're not the rational part. It's your blood lust, you know, and let's, let's real, let's, let's all be really honest with ourselves. We all have a little bit of that. We all have a little bit of that thirst for blood, a little bit of that thirst for vengeance, a little bit of that anger that boils over when you hear a story about somebody who commits a terrible crime and murders an innocent person.

And you you want like part of you wants as an individual to take revenge. And that's why we don't get to have vigilante justice. Right. Right. Because there's a sober, reflective, rational side of us which sets aside a system which isn't based on the base part of your nature. It isn't set up to appeal. You know, the justice system should not be set up to appeal to your emotions. It shouldn't be set up to appeal to the parts of you that aren't cold and analytical and rational. Because it could be you up there. You know, innocent people have been exonerated many, many, many times. Which means they're as innocent as you are. They're as innocent of that crime as I am. So there is really a very, very thin line that separates them from me.

And if I'm not willing to put myself in that position to say, I would like to be judged by your rage. I would like to be judged by your thirst for vengeance. I would like to be judged by your bloodlust. If I'm unwilling to do that to myself, if instead I would like to say, I want to be judged in accordance with your better nature. I want to be judged in accordance with your better nature. I would like to be judged in accordance with rationality. And rationality never gets you to the death penalty. And I'll be honest with you, Tom.

When I was a young person, and this is maybe 20 years ago, maybe a little less, when I was pretty young, I was way more conservative back then. I had a conservative mindset. I was for the death penalty. I was against more conservative back then. I had a conservative mindset. I was for the death penalty. I was against health care. I had a lot of – I thought a lot more I think viscerally than I do now. I think a lot more logically than I do – than I did when I was younger. And I want to attribute – and I don't want to be condescending when I say this, but I will say that education and empathy have changed how I think.

Education, first off, and education doesn't have to be formal education. Don't get me wrong when I say education. What I mean to say about education is just learning about the human experience, just learning about your life, learning about other people's lives, changes how you look at the world. If you're insular and you don't care about your life, learning about other people's lives changes how you look at the world.

If you're insular and you don't care about other people, you don't have empathy for other people, and you don't try to expand your viewpoint or look at other people's viewpoints and try to see whether or not you agree with them, you're never going to grow as a person. You're never going to think logically. You're never going to achieve a level where you can actually look at this objectively. You're just going to look at this, like you said earlier, just be very base about it and be like, well, they killed somebody that deserved to die. Well, that's not thinking. There's no thinking involved with that. That's just the base part of you saying, I want to feel satisfied about this. And there's no thinking that goes into that. And there's also no empathy that goes into that either. Because, you know, there's a thinking that goes into that and there's also no empathy that goes into that either because you know there's a lot of circumstances where people kill people and then

like really regret it afterwards and you know i mean like that doesn't happen it's not like people that kill people are just murderers like fucking foaming at the mouth banging at their fucking head at the bars trying to get at the next person that comes near them they're not rabid dogs they're humans just like you and I. And situations happen to people. And I really feel so different than I did when I was a young person and the way I look at these things. But I'll be honest with you, even when I talk about like Gacy, when Gacy died, I'll be honest with you, as a person, Tom, I'm happy John Wayne Gacy was murdered. As a person talking to you right now. You know, you can't really fake finding 33 young boys in your fucking cellar.

You know what I mean? Like that's not something like the level of guilt, the level of guilt on that, the error bar was very small. I'm not – and I'll look at you and say I'm pretty happy that that guy is dead. But that's not a policy decision. That's a Cecil decision. And Cecil doesn't get to make fucking decisions for everybody. The government makes decisions that base everybody. And you can't make a policy decision on murdering someone.

Well, yeah, your personal feelings should not be how you set policy. Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Vietnam was saying? no actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam I don't think that's right Canada did not send troops to Vietnam

Indochina? no Canada second world war of course Korea yes I think you're wrong no it took a pass on Vietnam I think you're wrong no Australia was there not Canada I think Canada sent troops well I, it took a pass on Vietnam. I think you're wrong. No, Australia was there, not Canada. I think Canada sent troops.

Well, I'll get back to you on that. Okay. Coulter never got back to us. But for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam. Ann Coulter called Troy Davis the media's latest baby seal, which seems to suggest that she's pro clubbing baby seals. Which is just like, really? Like that's what you're leading off with?

Is that somehow the media got it wrong on baby seals too? That's kind of crazy. Like, you know, most people are pretty down with not clubbing baby seals. I think most people, 59%, she even points out in her own article, 59% of Americans now believe that an innocent man has been executed in the last five years. I think that's staggering. I think that's genuinely staggering. More than half of Americans believe that an innocent man has been executed.

Knowing that to be true, you simply can't support this. She goes through and outlines the case for Troy Davis's guilt, and I think that she's missing the point. Troy Davis may have been very much guilty of that crime. I'm not going to argue whether he was or wasn't guilty of that crime. Well, it doesn't matter now anyway. What the fuck? Yeah, that question has been rendered fucking irrelevant. Yeah, no kidding.

But what matters is that we killed him. That's what really matters. People were not advocating for his release. They weren't advocating for him to be, at least most people, were not advocating for him to be set free. They were just advocating not to fucking kill him. There's a big difference there, Cecil. That's a fucking huge difference, Tom.

Like, you know, that's the thing that I think a lot of people don't understand when they say, you know, we shouldn't have the death penalty or when they go up against, especially when it's a specific case and they go to the specific case and they say, this person shouldn't be killed. And like, well, nobody's fucking advocating, fucking flinging the fucking door to the jail open and letting him skip out. OK, nobody's fucking advocating that. What we're saying is maybe he's not fucking guilty. How about you commute his sentence down to fucking life in prison with no possibility of parole?

It's not like he's fucking going to go anywhere and maybe commit the same crime. One of the things she says in her article, though, Tom, this. OK, first off, she's a fucking—I can't stand this woman. I—you know, she's the only person you ever want to just reach out and just choke when you read what she writes. But—and she does this perfectly. I mean, she tries to come off as a giant cunt every time she writes, and she fucking successfully comes off as a giant cunt every time she writes. But I want to read directly from the article. And she fucking successfully comes off as a giant cunt every time she writes. But I want to read directly from the article.

Davis pulled out a gun and shot two strangers in public. What? And she puts in quotes here. Physical evidence. Were you expecting? No houses were broken into. No cars stolen. No rapes or fistfights accompanied the shootings.

Where exactly would you look for DNA? And to prove what? Well, if you don't have fucking good physical evidence, then maybe you shouldn't murder someone. I think that's nonsense too. And she knows it's nonsense because she's an attorney. You know, DNA is not the only form of physical evidence. You know, there was no murder weapon found. They don't have a murder weapon.

The only evidence they have are shell casings. That's it. That is the only thing they have are shell casings. An ey it. That is the only thing they have are shell casings. And eyewitness testimony, which some of those people recanted. You know, did he do it? Did he not do it? I don't know if he did it or didn't do it. But now he's fucking dead.

And like you said, nobody wins. It's not like we killed a killer, so now there won't be any more killings. Nobody will kill again. We did it, guys. We solved it. I want to take that back, though. I think people like fucking Ann Coulter win. I think people that are base and unintelligent and just want to fucking bang their fucking caveman club on the ground, those people won.

Those people won when Troy Davis died. But those people aren't fucking considered, in my opinion. Those people are not considered as somebody who I would care whether or not they win. You're all dead. Oh, be nice. Oh, my son doesn't stand a chance. The whole world's gone gay. Oh, my God.

What's happening now? We work hard. We play hard. Everybody dance now. We've got three stories regarding the gay community. Let's end on a depressing note today, Tom. Yeah, let's go ahead and do that. There's no option at all.

Where's our dwarf? I know, we need a dwarf! We need this laugh and smile as we dwarf porn star eaten by badgers. So much better than this. I don't even care if it's true. Yeah, I know. Just like Ann Coulter.

Well, we need his listeners to send us well, we need his listeners to send us, you know, just obviously fake stories we can end end with just so we can end on a high note. So Rick Santorum – Santorum, by the way, is hilarious because I don't know if other people listen to Savage Love. It's a podcast by Dan Savage or read the Savage Love column. column. But many years ago now, several years ago now, he redefined Santorum on his in his column as the unfortunate mix of lube, blood and fecal matter that sometimes results from anal sex. So he redefined this guy's last name. In fact, if you Google Santorum, um, Santorum, Rick Santorum is not the first thing that will pop up. Yeah. It's become so ubiquitous that it, it, the first thing that pops up is the

frothy mix of lube and fecal matter. That is sometimes the by-product of anal sex. Number two, anal sex. Number two, Senator Rick Santorum. That's so awesome that his name has become reappropriated as what it has become. So Rick Santorum has always been. It's the best thing I've heard all day. It's so awesome. I had no idea. I had no idea that that's the case. That's fucking the greatest thing I've heard all day. I love it. I love it. So he's become a joke in and of himself. So every time I hear his name, I just kind of giggle like, ha ha ha. But he was at a GOP debate. Is he even a legitimate candidate? I think that's silly. He was at a GOP debate, and a soldier called in. They had like a video uplink of a soldier who called in and basically said, hey, I'm gay.

I'm out. I'm a soldier. Don't ask, don't tell has been repealed. Would you put me back in the closet? Would you do that? And he basically said yes. I'd like to see him physically put this buff-ass soldier in the closet because that soldier would beat the ever loving Christ out of him. Holy cow.

The only thing I would ever say to that soldier, Tom, is yes, sir. Absolutely. This guy asked me out on a date. We're going. We are going. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. The soldier.

First off, that's not the only thing that happens here, though. Santorum says that. But other people in the audience boo when he says like he's gay and stuff like that's really just fucking distasteful. I can't believe that, you know, you stand behind the military, stand behind the military, stand behind the military. The only fucking people in the audience there are the fucking, you know, rabid Republicans willing to go to something like this like this and they're gonna boo a soldier who's fucking on tour right now you know the idea that people would boo this soldier you know these are the same people who so vehemently uh want us to have this massive military right these are the hawks right the republicans are the hawks you cannot you you can't boo a guy in the fucking army when you're pro the army we have in case anyone hasn't noticed we have an all-voluntary military it's all a volunteer there's that's it there's no draft. So if somebody wants to go fight for us, let them go fight for us. Right. You don't boo this guy.

You know they boo this guy because he's on a fucking TV. Yeah. That's how they booed him. Let's boo this guy when he's in your fucking living room having this conversation. That would be the last fucking thing that escapes your lips looking at this guy. Be the last fucking thing that escapes your lips looking at this guy. You know, one of the things that he says is he wouldn't do anything to the people that are in the military now that are gay, that are already out. But he would basically put in, don't ask, don't tell.

He would basically put in, you know, you can't be openly gay in the military. And I asked you earlier, I'm like, how the fuck would that work? I'm an 18-year-old kid who's gay. I go to the military and I'm like, hey, I want to get into your thing. And they're like, sure, just don't tell us if you're gay or not. You'd be like, yeah, but my fucking staff sergeant is fucking gay and he says he's gay. Well, I can't tell you I'm gay then? Why not?

You're never going to be able to take this fucking away from the soldiers. And that's how rights work. You know, when you give people rights, you don't get to take those. But there's no take backs on rights. And this is a civil rights issue. People should be able to tell you who they are as people without facing persecution, loss of a job. You know, that's that's just a basic civil rights issue. And you can't take back civil rights. You know, segregation isn't coming back.

That's not going to happen. Like, we aren't shuttling folk to the back of the bus again. Right. That's never going to happen, no matter how much a small fringe group of asshole nuts want that to occur. It can't happen. You can't take back rights. You're never going to

take back these soldiers' rights either. You know, every soldier who comes out is one more person. It's one more voice being added to that groundswell that says all across America that gay people are, they're our sons, they're our daughters, they're in our military, they're at our, you know, they're not just, you know just the kooky guys at the gay pride parade. They're the cops. They're firefighters. They're all the people you've revered your whole life. They're all the people you have always felt such love and respect for. And once you see that, once you see that the world is made up of people who are gay and people who are straight, you can't take that back again.

That's called progress. Go back in time. It would be nice, though, if we were able to go back in time for the next two stories. These two stories are very sad. They are very sad. Teen contributed to the It Gets, uh, took his own life. Um, this is, this is just so sad. It, it, it clearly did not get better for this kid.

Uh, 14 year old Jamie Rodmeyer, um, said that, uh, uh, basically anti-gay bullies at school, um, drove their son to take his own life. This is, it's unfortunate, very, very unfortunate that he couldn't take heed of the advice of the It Gets Better Project, because it is true. It does get better. Adults don't care. It's it's juveniles that care and people with juvenile attitudes that care. I don't know anybody at this point that that's really worried about who's gay and who's straight. And I know that that's not the whole of the country, but you just leave the parts of the country that are backward. That's that's that's the solution to that problem.

And it's so, so terribly unfortunate that this 14 year old teen wasn't able to weather the terrible storm that he suffered and committed suicide recently. It's really a shame because he also received a bunch of attacks online as well. I'm going to read directly from the article. Predictably, the abuse Jamie reported suffered wasn't just in school but online as well. On Formspring, an Internet outlet that is popular among adolescents, it is known and known for its verbally violent posts from anonymous users. Jamie receives us messages as, Jamie is stupid, gay, fat, and ugly. He must die.

And I wouldn't care if you died. No one would. So just do it. It would make everyone way more happier. And there's an exclamation point there. God, you just wish that there was some way to track that person down. That's just a horrible thing to do to somebody. There's a kid who's teetering on the edge that you're saying things like this to.

It's awful. It's horrifying. This kid was no different than you or I. He just had a different sexual preference. I mean what's the big deal? Nobody's hurt in his sexual preference. Nobody's injured by it. But we have so much vitriol. I'm not going to use we in this. Fuck that. These assholes have so much vitriol for gay people, and they will come out and say things

like this. We talked about a story recently about, um, about, uh, gays being murdered in, uh, in Uganda about the kill the gays bill there and how we kind of look down on those people. These are people who would kill a gay person. I mean, these are people that if you're going to incite somebody to suicide, I mean, that's, that's inches away. I don't understand why somebody would, would be motivated to kill another person because of their sexual I mean I really I do not get that at all my that disconnect on that is so deep and fundamental

that it just doesn't even I mean it doesn't even make sense it's like trying to explain the fucking universe is made of fucking like churned butter like I just don't get it I'm just like man I can't even get to fucking point B here. You're completely on a fucking – on a tangent that is so off logic and reasoning and intelligence that I can't even get to where you're at.

I can't even come close to where you're at. I can't even – I don't even know what fork you took to get there. Well, you shouldn't. And really I have to say that the It Gets Better project is great. But there should also be like a no quarter project, which gives bigots no quarter. You know, bigots and bullies should be, those assholes should be kicked out of clubs, kicked out of churches, kicked out of organizations. You know, you want to talk about, you know, we talk a lot about the sort of reverse, you know, where, and we're going to talk about it in a moment where a gentleman came out as gay,

he was in the Mormon church, they kicked him out, he commits suicide. We need to be kicking bigots out of our social circle. We need to be kicking bigots out of our churches. We need to be kicking bigots out of employment. There should be no quarter for this type of behavior. It gets better, but only if we make it better. If your kids are involved in bullying, take them to fucking task for it. There cannot be a moment where you allow this kind of nonsense to go by without your reaction to it, you know, without strong and unequivocal social reactions to it. The people who need to feel ostracized are the people who are the bigots, not the people who just, you know, have a different sexual orientation. They don't need to feel ostracized. They don't need to be

the ones who feel like they don't have a place in the world. You know, you want this to get better. Isolate Rick Santorum. Isolate him. Remove him from friends and family. He wouldn't be a friend of mine. I wouldn't allow this guy. You know, you wouldn't allow people like this in your home. You wouldn't allow them in your social circle. Don't allow them in your churches. Don't allow them in your workplace.

Don't allow them anywhere near you. You know, make these people feel like what they are. Make them feel like pariahs and outlaws and bigots. And I think that that is a good idea, the idea that you would then take people to task for being assholes, for being someone who is so damaging to someone that they would want to kill themselves. Well, you know what? We're going to call you out. We're going to point out that you are the bully, that you're the jerk. You're the one who's causing all this problem.

It's not the 80 percent of the people that aren't giving this kid a problem. It's the 20% of the kids that are giving this kid a problem or that are, you know, these people, and we're going to talk about this in a second. Actually, let's just start it now. The gay Mormon that was excommunicated from his church, he commits suicide. He was a 40-year-old, and he grew up a Mormon, and he wound up having a wife and several children and he struggled with his sexuality, his real sexuality for years and years and years. And then at 40 years old comes out. Well, he's immediately his wife leaves heads to Tennessee with all the kids like, oh, you're gay.

Well, I'm gone. And now so he's by himself. His family rejects him. His church rejects him. And now he's all alone. His family rejects him. His church rejects him. And now he's all alone.

That's like if that's not a plan to have somebody kill themselves, if you shouldn't be fucking held accountable partially for that. I don't know what the fuck is a plan to kill. Have somebody kill themselves. You basically left this guy with zero support structure all because he fucking likes the dick. Are you assholes? What is wrong with you? This is your fucking son. This is your fucking husband. This is your fucking husband.

This is the father of your children. This is your church member, somebody who you've seen for years and years, and you're just immediately going to say, oh, well, you know, he likes fucking chocolate cake, so I can't like him anymore. That's ridiculous. It's outrageous that you would call yourself a good person if you would do that to somebody. There's not a – there's very few things somebody who I've been a good friend with or in a relationship with or even just a colleague of for a long time. There's very few things they could say to me that would make me be like, uh-oh, I can't talk to you anymore. Like one of them would maybe be like, I'm a fucking pedophile. The next one would be, I'm a pedophile murderer. Like that's really the only things that

I'd be like, Oh, I don't know that I could talk to you anymore. There's very few things. You know what? One of those things would be is, Oh, I abandoned my wife or husband because I found out they were gay. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, that's, you know, the, the people that need to be this, this woman who took her five kids and ran away to Tennessee, you know, she should have no place to go. She should have no place to call friend. She should have no quarter. You know, she should be given no quarter.

She committed a heinous and terrible act. She committed a hateful act by doing this. And, you know, I think you made a good point. It's 20% of the kids or less that are the bullies, you know, it's a small fraction and, and they wouldn't have the ability to be as effective as they, as they are if the other 80% gave them hell for it. But unfortunately we turn a blind eye toward it. We let it go. People don't say anything, and they need to say something. I can't believe a guy's church turns his back.

They don't even try to work with him. Even if they have a stance that's an anti-gay stance, they don't even try to work with him. They excommunicate him from the church. That's awful.-gay stance. They don't even try to work with him. They excommunicate him from the church. That's awful. That is awful. I can't imagine how I would feel if my wife took my son and left me and all my friends turned their backs on me. And I have nowhere to go.

I mean, I can't imagine feeling lower than that. To do that is an act of terrible violence against somebody. That was the most depressing end story. I know. We would like to apologize to the audience right now for the depressing end of the show. Well, let's get into some listener mail here, Tom. We got some listener notes. A person by the name of AllSportKate, it's at AllSportKate on Twitter,

put out a couple of tweets at us on Twitter that I just want to read out loud. She said, first, the current cognitive dissonance, basically she said the current dissonance pod, but she's referring to the last show. Shook free, the bigoted, distorted, dare I say, cognitively dissonant cobwebs acquired in my hometown visit this weekend. Glad we could help Kate. And then later on, Kate sent another tweet to us that we made the most brilliantly simple argument against capital punishment in episode 13. Everyone should hear it. And she put applause.

Kate, I just want to say that every argument we make is brilliantly simple because we are brilliantly simple. Okay? At the very least, it's simple. I don't know about brilliantly, but it's very simple, nonetheless. We also got some

Android app feedback, which I think is great because we sold two Android apps. We're up to two, bitches! One of them two Android apps. We're up to two, bitches. One of them was my wife. We're up to one, bitches. But we got some Android app feedback from Dusty. Dusty's feedback is, I think, perfect. You guys fucking rock donkey balls.

I love you, Dusty. It's true. I keep a pair in the corner just in case I need to rock them. Dusty had a show idea. Dusty, I liked your show idea, so I'm not going to give it away because we might end up using it. I appreciate that. If anybody has ideas for the show, we would encourage you to buy our Android app and send it to us in feedback because I get $1 when you do that. $1. We had some comments last time, Tom. A couple of people commented

on our Westboro Baptist Church. Both of us said they got to be trolls. We're not sure what they are. One person said, this is a person by the name of Anthony, they sent an along a sort of, a sort of a quick little email they had and they said, they're not quite trolls. Anthony said that they're all lawyers and that they, they try never to cross legal lines and they try to make sure that they, they sue for it. Anthony also said, love the podcast. Thanks for listening, Anthony. Yeah. You know, I,

I've heard that too. And Zach also said that, you know, some of them actually do believe it, that some of them are kind of crazy and, you know, might actually believe it. So Zach had a different view on it. But we can all agree that they're just a fucking bane of fucking thinking people everywhere. They are. They're pretty awful people. It is amusing, though. After I saw this, I did a little bit of Googling around.

I watched a couple of documentaries about the Westboro Baptist church. Um, and, uh, I saw some YouTube videos. There's a lot of YouTube videos. If you guys want to have a good time for a few minutes, um, where the Westboro Baptist church shows up places and they are ridiculed until they have to leave. Um, so if, if, if you are in the mood for some really simple-minded humor, you can watch the Westboro Baptist Church. Just Google Westboro Baptist Church and Long Beach, California. It's actually very funny. They get made fun of so badly, they just pack up into their van and drive off. And it's a total hoot to watch.

We appreciate all of the feedback. John Matthews sent us an email. And it's a total hoot to watch. We appreciate all of the feedback. John Matthews sent us an email. It was a little hard to see what he was getting at. Great fucking show. Your podcast is the best show I have ever listened to. They should put you guys on HBO or something. Or something. I would go with the something.

I would definitely not go with the HBO. The only HBO I belong on is like the home buffoon outlet or something. Like certainly not the home box office. I'll tell you this much. I've got a face for radio. That's all I'm putting out there. Video podcasts would not be my friend. Yeah, absolutely not.

Yeah. That's not. No. The hours I'd have to spend in hair and makeup just to look not like the troglodyte that I am. No, no. I wasn't I wasn't gifted by God with this voice to waste it showing you my body. That's that's all I'm saying. He says he's so sick of these fucking religious nutters and their endless loads of mythical bullshit.

Imagine a show based in reason and fact on HBO. Isn't that Game of Thrones? I was going to say Bill Maher. I was going to say Bill Maher's on there. He's pretty – he's relatively reason and fact. I mean for the most part. There's some stuff that he gets into that he's a little crazy. But Bill – is that his name?

Bill Meyer? What is it? Bill Maher? Bill Maher. Bill Maher, is that it? Yeah, I messed up. Not Bill Maher. Bill Maher.

Sorry. He did that movie Religious. So he's got – he's not bad. Penn and Teller's bullshit. Yeah, that's on Showtime. Yeah. Well, that's Or Something. Yeah, that's the Or Something, I guess.

That's the Or Something. Well, there's Mythbusters too, right? I mean, that's on an Or Something. Yeah, Mythb that's or something. Yeah, that's the or something, I guess. That's the or something. Well, there's Mythbusters, too, right? I mean, that's on an or something. Mythbusters is pretty good. There's Bad Planet by the Bad Astronomer. That's or something. There's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of different shows out there that are much better and more thought out than ours, that's for sure.

It's kind of depressing when you think about it, Tom, actually. Let's stop naming them all, actually. Let's just quit talking about those shows, those good ones. I don't think that's helping us. Not presenting our case here. Well, we want to thank you, John. At the end, he says, keep the good work. You guys have the best show ever. We like to think so. And if you know, if you guys do agree, if you do agree and you think our show is pretty good, if you could just do us a favor and rate us on iTunes or rate us on PodFeed. We only have one sickly little rating on PodFeed. It's the most inept PodFeed ever.

You can link to it. If you go directly to our site, DissidencePod.com, at the bottom, it will say rate us on iTunes or on PodFeed. That or on PodFeed is a link directly to PodFeed. So go ahead and click on it, and you can rate us there. We're starting to climb up the ranks on the religion other section. So if you know anybody that would like the show, please tell other people about the show. We feel like there's a lot of people out there that would enjoy this show even if we are just preaching to the choir.

Yeah, it's a big choir. Help us overtake DruidCast. Yeah, no kidding. What the fuck? Come on, guys. DruidCast is beating us. Yeah, like the a big choir. Help us overtake DruidCast. Yeah, no kidding. What the fuck? Come on, guys. DruidCast is beating us? Yeah, like the Paranormal Podcast? Like there's so many different podcasts that are just like the conspiracy cast.

Like come on. Help us out here. We got to beat the conspiracy cast. Problem is it's a conspiracy against us. Yeah, it's a giant – it's a huge Obama conspiracy. It is. At that, Tom, we're going to leave the listeners with a huge Obama conspiracy. It is. At that, Tom, we're going to leave the listeners with a huge Obama conspiracy and, as always, the skeptics' creed. Credulity is not a virtue.

It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night info-docutainment. Leo Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. stigmata nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody,

evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. We'll be right back. Thank you. you