Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 2: You'll shoot your eye out...

Episode Date: May 4, 2011

News Items This Week: M

It's considered perfectly normal in this society to approach dying people who you don't know, but who are unbelievers, and say, now are you going to change your mind? In fact, it's considered almost a polite question. And as you know, there's a long history of fraud about this. People claim that Darwin had a deathbed recantation, they've made up lies about Thomas Paine. It goes on all the time. it's a very nasty little history but it there's also a horrible undertone of blackmail to a bule right and say look you've got you've got about one chance left now aren't you going to take it i'm writing to you as a friend they've even tried on me when i've

been very ill and not i haven't had quite the vinegar I'd like to have had in a hospital bed. I don't mind. I can take it. But I think there are a lot of people older than myself, iller than myself, perhaps at the risk of seeming conceited, less educated than myself, to whom that's a horrible experience. It's very depressing and alarming to be spoken to in that way. I mean, if Sam and I were to form a core of people to go around religious

hospitals, which is what happens in reverse, and say to people who are lying in pain, say, did you say you were Catholic? Yes. Well, look, you may only have a few days left, but you don't have to live them as a serf, you know. Just recognize that that was all bullshit, that the priests have been cheating you, and I guarantee you'll feel better. I don't think that would be very ethical. I think it would be something of a breach of taste, but if it's in the name of God, it has a social license. Well, fuck that, or the easily offended.

The explicit tag is there for a reason. 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, Matt. This is our second episode, Cecil, of Cognitive Dissonance. It's our offshoot show. If you came here from Everyone's a Critic, welcome back. If you didn't, we'd like to know how the hell you found us. No kidding. everyone's a critic welcome back if you didn't uh we'd like to know how the hell you found us so i think uh first things first we're glad you guys are listening and uh we're glad for the feedback that we've gotten it's been mostly positive we've ignored the negative yeah which we always do i mean yeah because the negative is there's so fucking much of it. It's like spam at this point.

You know, it outnumbers actual email. Yeah. You know, at least three to one. It's just boner pills and fake Rolexes anyway. What do I care? Right, right. Princess of Nigeria. That's most common, I think.

Won the lotto in England. I don't even play the lotto in England. I didn't even know they had a lotto in England. Do they even have money over there? It's not even real country. Yeah, they have shillings. So moving on, some pretty big news. The royal wedding.

I know, that's huge news, Tom. The royal wedding is enormous news. Oh, you read my mind. My wife had to tell me there was a royal wedding. So that's not something that I care about at all. Anyway, I'm sorry. Who cares about the royal wedding? Are you fucking serious?

Oh, no. My figurehead married your figurehead. Who is sitting at their television at 4 in the morning over here? Because over there it's like happening at fucking like three in the afternoon or whatever, but like over here, it's 4.30 in the goddamn morning, and you're sitting there with your little fucking blankie around you

and your cup of coffee huddled around your plasma screen watching some fucking rich fuck marry some other rich fuck. Who cares? Come on. Cecil, I have known you for a very long time. If you said to me, Tom, I'm getting married at 4.30 in the morning.

I'd be like, good luck to you. Yeah, I'd Tebow that shit. I will see you at the reception. Which hopefully is at a fucking regular hour after fucking dawn. How about that? Take a long time getting married. That's all I'm saying. Four fucking 30 in the morning for a bunch of silly Britons to wear goofy hats.

Oh, and they looked fucking goofy as hats. I liked his red coat outfit, though. He totally looked like it looked like George Washington was going to storm in and shoot his ass. What's with all the medals and shit on there? What did you win a medal for? He was in, wasn't he Afghanistan though? Wasn't that kid in Afghanistan?

Who cares? I thought he did some things. I don't know. Did he kill Osama bin Laden? Nobody's going to tell me that they sent the prince of whatever the fuck over there and he actually served in real combat. No one's going to. It was probably a cook or something. He's the sheriff of Nottingham.

So I guess the other story, which. Yeah, which is slightly less of importance. I don't know if you heard this or not. That the prince shot Osama bin Laden? Bang, bang. Right in the face, Osama bin Laden. I know. They shot his fucking eyes out, man.

So not only did they shoot Osama bin Laden in the face, but then they dumped his corpse in the ocean. Yeah. Well, the conspiracy nutters are already fucking all over this at this point. They were all over it the day of the announcement. Yeah. Yeah. It was like one of the first things on Google was like, he's been dead for 10 years and been on ice. And he just like thawed the body out. He thawed his body out so he could win an election. You know, the other thing I saw is right after Osama bin Laden was – blew up all the towers or whatever, a bunch of people – like one person photoshopped his face as a dead man. They took one of his photos and they photoshopped his face to make him look dead. Well, they – a bunch of people started – when they first heard about Osama bin Laden dying, started searching for pictures, right?

Because that's natural. I think, you know, when you hear about a gory scene, the first thing us sick fucks try to do is dig around with moderate safe search off on Google and fucking look for the most gruesome fucking picture of somebody's brains hanging out of their head that you can find. I mean, Tom, I know you do it, right? I did it on my phone. I found the picture that you're about to talk about. I found the picture. I was like, wow. It really shot him right in the eye.

It shot his eyes out. And then you match the picture up, and you could see it's clearly Photoshopped. So this was obviously a conspiracy, right? Oh, my God. Well, too bad it was done Photoshopped 10 fucking years ago. Right. And they didn't release pictures of his fucking nearly decapitated corpse. One thing I got to talk about, Cecil, is the reaction to the news that Osama bin Laden was shot.

So what I heard a lot of the night of, so I actually found, I was actually searching for the White House Correspondents Dinner speech on my computer when, like, right as the announcement kind of hit the airwaves, and it was like, well, video will begin shortly, so, you know, I was sort of, like, right on top of this thing as it was happening, because I just happened to be

in front of my computer at the time. And immediately, and I mean fucking immediately, what you get is a lot of God bless America and a lot of this sort of like giving the credit to God for having killed Osama bin Laden. And I thought God had 10 years to smite that motherfucker. Like if God was doing the smiting, God took a decade and had to send in the Navy seals. God doesn't use, look, look, you don't get to use,

you don't get to say, well, you know, through, through God, we were able to murder our enemy. That kind of doesn't work. It's actually through planning, rigorous training, technology, and force that we were able to murder our enemy.

Right? I mean, that's how we got him. And bags and bags full of money to pay for a war. Bags of money. Truckloads of money to kill this guy. Right. It wasn't God. God didn't, you know, maybe it would be God if he like, if a tornado.

Lightning bolt. Right. If Osama bin Laden walked out and a giant flaming sword swooped down from a cloud and cleaved him in twain, then I would probably say, God, look at there. Big hand, flaming sword from the cloud. God, smite him. There's some natural disasters I would attribute to God, like a tsunami, say, if he was in the mountains. I'd be like, okay, that's God.

That's God. God got him there. I'd give it to God there. But if just an earthquake, nah, sorry. That's plate tectonics, God. You don't get this one. It's just, it makes me crazy, this nonsense, this idea that like, you know, God bless America. Really? America's 200 years old, 230 years old. This whole idea that we're some kind of favored nation.

old. This whole idea that we're some kind of favored nation, where does that even come from? Even if you believe in a 6,000-year-old Earth, even if you're that fucking dim-witted that you believe in a 6,000-year-old Earth, who did he love for 5,770 years? Was he just like impatiently tapping his foot? I can't wait to invent America so bad so I can bless it special. Man, God is a slow mover. In the time that it took God to kill Osama bin Laden, I got three degrees. Fuck, fuck, dude. It takes you a long time to die. I'd hate to fucking, I'd hate to have to go to the bathroom while you're in there. You know, you'd be like, God, God, I really have to go. God, can you, can you hurry it up? And God outside, like I've been doing the pee pee dance for 10 years.

Seriously, though, God has got, God has got nothing to do with it. But well, you know, who also has nothing to do with it is like George Bush. And I saw tons of shit about George Bush on there. Like, George Bush. Thanks, George Bush. A bunch of people said that, like, on Facebook. And I saw a bunch of threads about it, like, thank George Bush. I'm thinking, thank George Bush.

Any fucking person who was in office at that point would have just, you know, the requisite thing to do would be like, yeah, we're going to kill the guy responsible. Well, no shit. You know, it's do would be like, yeah, we're going to kill the guy responsible. Well, no shit. You know, it's the same thing as like, thank thank Obama. Obama got him. I'm seeing all this shit like, yeah, Obama got him. What did he get? Where's his gun? I didn't see him.

You know who I'm thankful for? The Navy SEALs that went in there and risked their fucking lives and shot him in the face. That's the guy who did it. That's the guy you say thank you to. Right. What are you going to say thank you to Obama for not, for like, we're sure I'm glad he didn't discontinue the policy of going after him. Yeah. Well, thanks for not, thanks for funding the United States military.

I do that, fucker. You don't do that. I fucking do that. Well, Cecil, I'll say thank you to you. Thanks for killing Osama. Thanks for funding the military, Cecil, I'll say thank you to you. Thanks for killing Osama. Thanks for funding the military, Cecil. It all comes out of your paycheck. Fuck.

Military just got down to one person. It's a guy named Steve who's untrained with a.45. Look out. We're coming to get you. The other thing that people were saying when they were talking about this thing, you know, Osama bin Laden got caught. And one person posted, I saw it on a Facebook feed where somebody said, yeah, and it's nice that, you know, Osama bin Laden kills a bunch of people and a bunch of innocents. And we sent the Navy SEALs in and they didn't kill anybody who was innocent. They just

killed him. And I'm thinking, yeah, this operation, this military operation didn't yield any civilian casualties. We have been in military operation mode for 10 years. There have been a lot of civilian casualties. No kidding. So let's not fucking start sucking our own cocks just yet here. Okay. There's a lot of things that have been going wrong up to this point. And we killed a guy. Now, was this guy the face of terrorism? Was he the face of, you know, all the bad things that about about about the Muslims, about Islam? I think he was. And I think that, you know, Jon Stewart said last night on his show, he said, gone is the face of Osama bin Laden from the Muslims. Now it's the face of the people in Tunisia and the people in Egypt who are looking for democracy.

That's the new face of the Muslims. And that's awesome, right? That's great. But, you know, we got to look at this in perspective. We spent a lot of money. We searched for a long time. And we finally killed a guy. And there's been a lot, a lot, a lot of different types of collateral damage and

excess expense that went into this. And that's something we shouldn't lose sight of. Yeah. You know, at this point, everybody that I, all the, all the commentators I was listening to all agree on the same thing is that he was basically effectively just a symbol at this point, you know, and I don't get me wrong. I have no moral compunction about killing the guy, about our being involved in killing the guy. Of course I didn't do it. You know, good. Fuck you.

You know, I don't. You're better. It is better that that symbol has been destroyed. Right. I think that's better for us. I think that's better for the world at large. So please don't mistake me. Simon Bin Laden's gone. Good fucking riddance. But let's not pretend that that affects anybody's operational

capacity because it doesn't. He was a symbol and that's pretty much agreed. And, you know, let's call that shit for what it is. This was this was a bit of vengeance and it was good vengeance. And I think it was good to get rid of that symbol. And I don't think that killing Osama bin Laden ends anything or changes anything. You know, it's not like we're all of a sudden going to be like, well, done with terrorism. We got him. Yeah. Got him. You know, no more pat downs at the airport. Nobody, you know, no more extraordinary rendition or, you know, all these things that, that all these liberties and freedoms and rights that changed and all the ways that fundamentally our world is different now. It's not like we go back.

Yeah. Can't reset the clock. Yeah. Do you solemnly swear to tell truth or truth and nothing but the truth? Why don't you answer him? He's talking big right now. I don't know what he's saying. He's asking you if you swear.

No, but I know all the words. He's asking you if you swear. No, but I know all the words. He's asking you if you'll swear to tell the truth. Truth is stranger than fiction, Judgey Woody. There was a musician who decided that this is an interesting story that you sent me. And a gentleman named Evan Emery decided to play a little joke. Kind of backfired on him a little bit. Yeah. Little bits.

Yeah. This guy is just, you know, some schmuck decided to sing a dirty song and interpose the video. So looked like he was singing it to a bunch of school age kids. So he, you know, he went to a school, played in front of a bunch of young kids, played a silly song for him, you know, some innocuous, goofy song, and then he changed the video out so that it looked like he was singing this crazily dirty, kind of hilariously filthy song, and it was all a practical joke. You know, it appears that he's doing this performance in front of a bunch of little kids. And I ended up this.

This guy kind of got fucked. 60 days in jail. Two years probation, 200 hours of community service, mandatory counseling and fines and costs. Can't be within 500 feet of children under the age of 17. That's the kind of thing that happens to people who are actually, you know, doing something bad. Right. Right. That's the kind of ridiculous punishment that you would give an actual sex offender.

Right. This guy didn't even do anything. All he did was post a video. It'd be like Photoshop offender. Right. This guy didn't even do anything. All he did was post a video. It'd be like Photoshopping something. Right. And then getting in trouble for doing the thing that you Photoshopped the image of. Like, I Photoshopped me robbing a store. Well, we're going to arrest you for grand larceny.

But the store still has its items. Right. Like, do an inventory. All the items are there. This is crazy. This guy got totally fucked over. He did. He really got fucking hammered.

And, you know, I agree that there should be some sort of punishment, right? Like I see this guy and I say, first off, you filmed a bunch of kids and you put them in a video where you're talking dirty. I mean at one point he says, I want to stick my index finger in your anus in the song, okay? I know I wouldn't if I had a little tyke. I certainly wouldn't want his fucking beaming face on YouTube when somebody's playing. I certainly would want the video taken down. I would want him to have some sort of fine,

maybe so he wouldn't think that that sort of thing is a good thing to do. I think that the thing he did was not smart. I think that the thing he did is punishable. I don't think the thing he did is punishable by like however much fuck a 60 days in jail, 200 hours community service, two years probation, mandatory counseling, and can't come within 500 feet of children. I think that is fucking retarded. I think that is justice system basically fucking teabagging this guy.

Well, it does seem absolutely part and parcel of our crazy sort of reactionary attitude toward sex and sexuality, right? Like, here's this guy who, you know, posts a video that's in very poor taste, and it should have been taken down, and he should have apologized. I think he should have, you know, publicly apologized to the parents and kids and been like, yeah, it was a fucking stupid thing to do, and I'm kind of a D-bag for doing it. Sorry about that. And, you know, here's some money that can all go into a little college fund for your tykes. End of story, right? You know, dumbass does something dumb. Nobody's actually hurt, but instead he gets busted for manufacturing child pornography. Yeah, that's ridiculous. There's no child pornography involved. The kids are sitting

in like a circle listening to a guy play a guitar. You can't sell me even if the song is a bad song that he interposed in the fake video. What are they supposed to believe these preschool kids went on fucking YouTube. Yeah. I hear I'm on YouTube. You can't even spell YouTube. You can't spell it wrong. And he's not filming the kids filleting him. OK.

It's a little different. It's just different, okay? And may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us. Madam President, I

hear the floor and suggest the admins of the court. Clerk will call the roll. Hear the floor and suggest admins of the court. Clerk will call the roll. Expressions of approval or disapproval are not permitted. Idaho, it turns out, not the most progressive of places. I'm not sure if our listeners overseas realize Idaho, home of delicious potatoes.

Delicious. That's really about all Idaho has to offer. They recently put forth a bill suggesting that abortion, even in the cases of incest or rape, yeah, that's the hand of the almighty. That's God. That's God. That was God. That wasn't a rapist, actually. You know, hey, everything happens for a reason. This is like those folks, hey, everything happens for a reason. So when your sister was raped, that was God.

That was just God. That was God. God did it. You know, hey, if it was good enough for Mary, right? Right, right. It's good enough for your daughter or your sister or your mom. Yeah, it's the hand of the almighty. It's the hand of the almighty fistinger, right?

Like, that's what it is. That's actually not the hand, usually. You know, I had no idea God was into rape porn. I just, I didn't know. I had no idea God was into rape porn. I just, I didn't know. You know, some of the, some of the justifications are just an outrage. It's not the child of that rape or incest is not the child of that rape or incest. Also a victim asked representative Shannon McMillan, Republican shocker of Silverton.

It didn't ask to be here. It was here under violent circumstances perhaps, but that was through no fault of its own. Look, no one is suggesting it's the kid's fault, right? No one's suggesting that it's the zygote or fetus's fucking fault for having been conceived. But what kind of a mother, what kind of an upbringing is this child going to have? You know, how do you look at a kid and say, oh, yeah, mom, who's my dad? Well, funny story. It all starts with the worst fucking day of my life.

Yeah, right. That then went on for nine months, and now is you. Right. Aw, you're so cute. Where's the children's book explaining this to the kid? Where's the children's book? I was the product of rape. Like, where is the kid's book for this?

This is a terrible children's book. It's the worst children's book ever. And here's the thing that I think that really is the most upsetting about this. You're putting a 20 weekweek time limit on this thing, okay? So you're saying after 20 weeks, there's a penalty. It's against the law after 20 weeks. Now, the baby is the size of about an orange, I think, at 20 weeks. So you're about halfway through your pregnancy. The baby is getting bigger, but it's not a very big thing at this point. It's 20 weeks old.

It's half through the gestation period, okay? So, you know, it's not a big thing anyway. And there's a lot of shame and a lot of denial that goes in with both rape and incest. So let's say you get raped as a girl or you have incestuous sex. Now you're trying to say, I'm not pregnant. I'm not pregnant. There's probably a lot of denial that goes along with that, right? I'm not pregnant.

I don't need to get tested. Well, what happens if she starts to show after 19 weeks, 20 weeks, 22 weeks, and then she goes in and gets the test? She's like, well, I think I might be. Now she's fucked. Now, oh, well, you know, you're after the 20 week fucking time limit. So too bad. Can't get the abortion. Now you got to come to terms. We're forcing you. The state is forcing you to come to terms with a product of rape or incest that's inside of you. Yeah, that's fucking that seems perfectly fucking fine, Idaho. Yeah. well, you know, beyond that, even if she knows she's pregnant, she might even have the option. What is she going to do?

Say like, hey, dad, remember that time that you raped me? Yeah. I would really like to have that checked out because I think I might got the preg. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. You know, speaking of religious justifications. Speak that. Oramana shanda karaba. Lokorimene mele. Jere kede burushida. Kede birasada. You know, speaking of religious justifications of some awful shit, there was an article on alternate.org that was just, this kind of blew my mind.

There's actually a really well-known religious thinker who kind of gets taken apart in this alternate article. William Lane Craig is evidently a theologian, and he's a pretty well-respected guy. And in some discussions about parts of the Bible, parts of the Bible where awful shit happens, we're talking like genocide, like men, women, children, all destroyed. Basically, he writes an article saying, hey, if God said they were bad, it's cool to kill them all. The kids all get to go to heaven because they're kids. And anyone who dies as an infant or a kid, although I don't know what the age limit is on that exactly.

Like they all get to go to heaven. That's been decided. who dies as an infant or a kid, although I don't know what the age limit is on that exactly. Like, they all get to go to heaven. That's all, that's been decided. And that's better than our earthly existence. So slaughtering them isn't a moral evil because they get to go to heaven. So genocide is justified. That makes some sense. I mean, come on.

You know, he even says it here. He says, moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God's grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. They're actually happier now that they're dead. They're in heaven. Why not just kill all the kids? It makes sense. We just line them up, shoot them. They're happier.

They'll be happier. They'll be way happier in our magical land of fairies. They will be so fucking happy, happy, happy, happy. Well, that's what, I mean, that's obviously what Gacy thought, right? By that logic, anybody who's a devout Christian, it's cool to kill them. Sure. Because you're really sending them back to a better life. You're doing them a favor. You're severing their earthly ties to, so they can, they can have a celestial existence with, with big J. I mean, like who wouldn't want that? This is ridiculous. Really? You're going to go, you're really going to go on the side of genocide for this one because God said it's cool? That's some fucked up shit. They are trying to make sure that their fucking 4,000-year-old book still can be morally justified even though when you read this book, you see it is fucking horrendous.

They are just trying in every way to make sure that their book is still relevant, that there's still this spark, that it is divinely inspired. And here's why. It's divinely inspired because God wanted it to happen this way. that it is divinely inspired. And here's why. It's divinely inspired because God wanted it to happen this way. So it's a good thing. Even though when you read it, it's all about slavery and rape and genocide and people fucking destroying entire other peoples. And they're just like, but it's cool because God wanted us to do that. And you're like, well, all you're doing is grasping at straws, trying to fucking validate your book.

That's all you're like, well, all you're doing is grasping at straws trying to fucking validate your book. That's all you're doing. And they do the same thing with creationism or intelligent design and evolution. They do all the same shit. They do the same shit with morality. It's just – it's convoluted and you're following a fucking primitive book. Primitive book was written by primitive people. Right. Right.

Right. And all the slavery stuff right now is just ignored. Like it's just ignored completely. Right. It's part of the pick and choose intellectual backflips that are required to get from a 2011 perspective and look back at a zero perspective. Right. A negative perspective. Right. A negative perspective. Right.

A B.C. lifestyle and say, yeah, that's how I'm going to go. That's how I roll. I roll like that. You know, genocide. OK. You know, that's cool. That's cool. Why stop them then?

Right. I mean, why stop genocides across the world? Exactly. Why do we give a shit when people in Darfur are being murdered by that? Hey, maybe that's God. How do we know? Maybe that's God talking to people and saying, hey, man, those tutus had it coming. Fucking ace them all.

Here's your machetes. These are God machetes. G-O-D in the house. Cut some fucking hands and legs off. People say, oh, religion is a personal belief. It's a personal belief and it doesn't do any harm. And why do you care what people think? Well, here's why I care what people think.

Because you've got assholes in Idaho who decide that women who are raped and victims of incest need to have kids. You've got people who are influential theologians writing about justifying genocide. You know, these things, we can't pretend these things don't matter. Well, they do matter. They influence decisions, decisions that policymakers make. You know, in order to be an influential policymaker in this country, you've basically got to say, like, I go to church. Here's the church I go to. Look at the backflips Obama had to go to to prove that he was really a good Christian in order to get people to fucking vote for him. And this is the kind of nonsense that being a good Christian means, is I have to look at your book and say, yeah, well, you know,

when they slaughtered men, women and children by the thousands, that was I'm cool with that. I'm down with them taking those slaves. Really? I don't think we should be down with that shit. The other thing, too, that you've got to think about is that here we are in the year 2011 at this point. OK, 2000 years, give or take, after the birth of their savior, okay? So shit has changed since then, okay? Shit has changed. The book still is the same, basically the same, right? It's still got some, mostly the same stories in it. You know, obviously there's been

some translation errors in the past, although you can't fucking tell people that. But, you know, it's basically the same book, 2,000-year-old book. Well, you know, back a long time ago, the Roman Empire, they used to walk in and just slaughter people, and that shit was fucking fine. They were like, you know, hey, you fucking lose the war. You don't surrender. Your shit gets fucked. They basically come in and fucking destroy everything, take everything, rape all your women, kill all the men. And that's just fucking how it goes. That's just fucking, hey, the way it rolls in ancient fucking worlds.

You don't get a choice. You either get to surrender or you don't. Those are your two options, right? That shit doesn't work like that anymore because our ideas about how shit should work have evolved. Our ideas about morality have evolved. Our ideas about morality have evolved. Our ideas about technology have evolved. Suddenly you're trying to apply this 2,000-year-old book to modern-day ideals, and it doesn't fucking work. It just doesn't work.

You look at it and you're like, wait, we don't have slavery anymore. Okay. Wait, we don't think genocides are cool anymore. Okay. We think you should fucking eat shellfish. We're kind of cool with two dudes or two women having sex. Well, fuck, our think you should fucking eat shellfish. We're kind of cool with, you know, two dudes or two women having sex. Well, fuck, our book means nothing now. And they're grasping at fucking straws trying to make this book relevant in a modern-day society where it's useless.

It is a useless document, okay? Yeah, is there stuff in there that is sort of this, you know, ideals about morality and the way you should treat each other. Yeah, sure. If you pick and choose, it's all in there. But, you know, it's all fucking common sense, too. And you don't need to be a religious person to know what's good in the Bible. And it's not like it's the first time, you know, be a nice guy has appeared anywhere in writing before. Right. Right. I mean, what else is there in that book that's that revolutionary? I mean, honestly, what is in that book that is really that revolutionary that's never been heard of before? That is so mind blowing. If you take out the theology and just look at the philosophy in it, really, what is in that book that that nobody had previously considered that changed the whole scope of how the world works? that changed the whole scope of how the world works.

I mean, do unto others? Really? Nobody else had thought, hey, maybe I shouldn't fuck this person over because I might get fucked over in turn? You're right, Cecil. It is a useless book. I have no use for one. I'm sitting here in my office right now packing up for a move, and I'm packing all of my books, and what ain't in here man right and I'm not out there robbing stealing killing murdering folk yeah and it's and

it's exactly it's exactly what you said too you gotta fucking basically get down on your knees and praise God to get a fucking to be elected in this country what we have one atheist representative in the fucking house of fucking representative there There's fucking 500 people in there. 500 people. There's one guy who's like, yeah, I don't believe in God. He's from California. You expecting, I mean, you expecting me lighting a fucking dog on fire while he fucks it for Christ's sake. Like, come on.

This is a, we don't, we don't have, we don't have any kind of representation. All we have is a bunch of theologians. We have a theocracy basically in a lot of ways where these people constantly look at this book that is so old and out of date and useless. And they've got to – they're trying to force us to fucking follow it. Well, you know, your fucking arguments are balls and you should be called out because your arguments are fucking balls god has no place within these walls just like facts have no place with an organized religion you know speaking of balls cecil is this article that you you sent me how easter i think this actually was sent by Circle on Facebook. How Easter killed

my faith in atheism. First of all, you can't have faith in atheism. So we have problems here. We've got problems here right from the beginning. Atheism, let's see.

I just don't think something happened. That's not a faith. It's not faith. That's just like I don't, you know, I don't believe I can fly. I's not a faith. It's not faith. That's just like, I don't, you know, I don't believe I can fly. I don't have faith in not flying ism. That's silly. That's fucking ridiculous, right? This is the only reason atheism even, even gets that nonsense moniker is because it is in

opposition to the norm and happens to have a name, Right. As opposed to all the other things we don't believe in that just don't have a specific name for not believing in them. Right. Right. But this article is some bullshit. This guy's whole argument boils down to I was an atheist. My wife became a Christian. It made me sad.

I looked into it. Now I'm a Christian. I feel happier. Here's why. And and his arguments. I mean, if you go through this article, which we'll post on our site, and just look at these, look at the arguments he has. He keeps on saying, like, facts changed his mind. I don't care that this dude left atheism.

He was a fucking dullard anyway. Good. Go away. But what I want to say to him is, okay, it's not faith. First off, it's not faith in atheism, you dumbass, OK, because it's fucking it's about facts. And secondly, those weren't facts. That was fucking hearsay. Just admit the fucking truth.

If you want to believe in something, believe in it. Nobody cares, dude. I don't care that you believe in something. But don't say that the facts changed my mind and basically trying to convince other people that there's facts about this because there are no facts. Well, you know what else kind of makes me crazy too is the tone of this article. He says in here, I thought she was going to turn into a self-righteous holy roller. But over the following months, I was intrigued by the positive changes in her character and values. Sounds like she was something of a cunt before.

Yeah, no kidding. You know, I'm sorry. But if my wife turned into a Christian, I don't think it would change her character or values because she's got character and she's got values and they don't come from any religious foundation because that's not where character and fucking values come from. Right. Yeah. Everything about this argument is based on presuppositions that are lackluster at best. Yeah. And it is full of fail.

This thing is just full of fucking fail. God, I'm here to be trained. I'm here for an education. I'm willing, God. I'll do what you want me to do. I'll say what you want me to do. I'll say what you want me to say. In Jesus' name, amen. The creationists are at it again in Tennessee.

They're trying to equate creationism with evolution. They're trying to get it equal time in the classroom. Again, we've seen this so many times at this point. It's like old hat. This argument is, God, it's got to be 100 years old at this point. And it's interesting that it's back in Tennessee. They already played this game once. in Tennessee, you know, they already played this game once. Teachers in Tennessee would have a freer hand to guide students in the review, analysis, critique, and understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theory as long as they do it in an objective manner.

Okay. So now you're talking about the weaknesses of scientific theory as long as they do it in objective manner and also talk about creationism in an objective manner. But I want to point out what the word objective means, okay? Objective means not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice based on facts, unbiased. The very nature of intelligent design is a subjective nature. You cannot be objective when you start out with the fucking finished product. You can't say like there's a process of science, right, where you start out with a hypothesis and you work your way all the way to the end to the conclusion.

Intelligent design goes backwards. It doesn't actually follow the scientific method. So it says the conclusion is we are based on – we were intelligently designed and then it works its way backwards. Well, that's not objective, OK? That is based on personal feelings and interpretations and it has prejudice. That's not objective. That's going against the very nature of objectivity. You can't equate creationism with evolution because one is scientific, one has facts and evidence and things like science involved, and creationism just has nothing to do with science. Whether you decided to believe creationism or don't believe creationism,

whatever your stance is on creationism, that's fine, but that's a religious issue. Just talk about it at church. That's where people should talk religion, in church, not in a science classroom. You could even make the argument that you could talk about creationism in a history classroom. You could talk about creationism in an English classroom if you were studying the Bible as a piece of literature. But to bring it into – the science is actually the last classroom. Like it's like the only classroom where it doesn't belong. So, you know, this is I mean, I hate to say this, but this is like this is a reason not to live in Tennessee. Yeah.

I mean, it really is. When I was shopping for a house recently, the first thing I looked at when I'm looking at towns was how are the schools? Well, I got to tell you, if I was thinking about moving to Tennessee, I would take a look and say, well, how are the schools? Yeah. Oh, well, the science education is going to be shite. So not going to move to Tennessee. Dear Tennessee, you get none of my money. I will not live in your state. Your educational standards are poor. You're an embarrassment to the country. Yeah. It's just it's just another reason, you know, embarrassment to the country. It's just another reason, you know, we said it earlier, another reason why, you know, you really shouldn't be looking to the

Bible during your political stuff. I mean, obviously, if we're talking about creationism, I don't think that every religion believes the same creation stories. Now, I know the Bible creation story, but I don't know the Islamic creation story. Now, I know the Bible creation story, but I don't know the Islamic creation story. I don't know the Hindus creation story. I don't know the Buddhist creation story, if there is one. So there's a lot of people in this world that don't jive with the same creation story. So we're already talking about something completely different here. So the reason why we can't talk about things that some people believe and have no facts to support is because then we're sort of sponsoring a state institution. We're sponsoring state religion.

We're saying this religion has priority over another religion. This religion's creation story has priority over every other creation story. And that's not how America works. It just doesn't work like that. Well, I mean it shouldn't. Right. But, you know, the thing is that these sorts of things, you know, looking there's there's something else going on right now in Florida, you know, where lawmakers are considering bills that would allow their their their government to give money to religious groups and institutions. I mean, there's a reason we separate certain things like public school education.

The thing is, if you want to send your kid to a private school where they don't do science, but they do creationism, that's your prerogative. Go crazy, man. I mean, but that's not for the public schools because the public schools have to take the public into account. And the public isn't just you, just like the public isn't just me. So the public schools are always going to be a compromise. that that compromise is not going to be detrimental to your religious beliefs. It just simply won't interact with your religion at all. And that's important. Just have the law, have our government, have our schools, have our tax money not interact with your religiosity.

Yeah. Your religiosity needs to exist on a separate plane, on a separate level than government. And public schools are a function of government, of local and state governments. So if that's what you want, just send your kids to fucking private school. Yeah. 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 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. And actually, a startling piece of religious news. The Highlands Church changed its policy on marriage until their state, and this is in the state of Kentucky, so good luck, Highlands Church. You've been waiting a long time.

No kidding. This is, I think, isn't this the same state that has a creationism museum down there? Probably is. This is not going to work out for you. But anyway, they have voted to stop signing marriage licenses in protest of the state of Kentucky's denial of marriage rights to same sex couples. This is a great move. This is this is phenomenal. And I'll tell you what, we've talked about this before, but if if I were not already married, I would not get married right now. I would go and join my wife in a civil union to protect our rights, but I would not go through a marriage ceremony. A marriage ceremony, by my way of thinking, is a religious ceremony.

I want the civil protections. That's all that I want. This is a terrific move. This sort of standing up in Kentucky by a church to bigotry is exactly the kind of precedent more and more people need to set. And I'm so gratified to see it. I think it's great. One of the things that I always talk about whenever I'm talking about homosexual marriage is the idea that there is no rational reason why we shouldn't be letting people have gay marriage, right? Like homosexual marriage should be allowed. The only – there's really only – I mean my brain can only think of two reasons, right? The first reason is my book says no.

Like my book says no. Like, my book says no. And you're like, okay, well, great. Well, just don't marry a gay then. You know what I mean? Like, it's okay as long as you're not gay and don't marry a gay. Nobody's harmed in the making of this gay. You know what I mean? Like, nobody's harmed.

So it doesn't matter, right? It doesn't matter if your book doesn't like it. That's fine. But if, you know, Bob and Steve want to get married, then that's none of your fucking business. It's none of your business whatsoever. So that's, that's reason one. And reason one is really easily refutable. Your book says, no, we'll, we'll fucking take your book out of our policy and everybody's fine. The second reason, the only other, only other reason that I can see why somebody wouldn't want is because they're like, Ooh, it's ucky. It's ucky.

And you're like, okay, well, fucking don't look at it then. Don't pay attention to it. You don't have to fucking check it out. I mean, you know, you're not going to watch it on TV. It's not like you're going to go home and you're going to have to watch Bob and Steve have sex on your TV. You're not going to be forced to watch it. Now, don't get me wrong. If it was a lesbian one, I'd Tivo it.

But, you know, I mean, seriously, you're like, OK, well, there's no reason why except for your brain is saying it's not it's it's gross or it's it's it's ucky, I guess. Well, that's fine. You don't have to do it. Or your book says it's bad. OK, that's fine. You don't have to do it. There's no reason. There's no reasoning why you shouldn't allow it, right? Why we shouldn't allow it as a nation. The ucky argument is a valid argument, right? I mean, if you find it ucky, then there's, I've got two suggestions. Don't have gay sex. That's what I do. I just don't have gay sex because it doesn't appeal to me. You want to have gay sex? No. You know what? It's just not – that's not my thing. Right, right. So I just – and then I just don't watch the gay sex, right?

Like I think probably watching Squid have sex would be ucky. So I just don't watch Squid fuck, right? There's an easy solution to it. Like there's lots of things I think – like I wouldn't want to watch a surgery. Right. Right? Like I wouldn't want to be somebody like, hey, I'm going to have a – can you hand me the bowel retractor? I'm going to go in another room and get a cake.

Like I don't – there's lots of things that I don't want to watch. Right. It doesn't mean – the solution is at fucking hand, right? Yeah, you don't have to do it. Don't watch. And this is exactly what I'd love to see more churches do is say, well, you know what? We're down with people that are in love being married. We think that people who are in love should be married regardless of their genitalia. Well, you know what Jesus said about homosexuality?

Nothing. Yeah, nothing. He said a lot about divorce, though. And look at how many people are divorced. I wonder what he told Ted Haggard about trannies and crystal meth. I wonder what he said there. I don't know. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I rise today to introduce the Ocular Penetration Restriction Act of 2007, mandating a minimum five-year prison term for the offense of ocular penetration commonly known as skull fucking um john kyle we sort of lit into john kyle last time he solved the problem cecil he deleted his lie about planned parenthood from the congressional record unfortunately he didn't delete the fact that he is now a meme that's a little difficult actually yeah that's you's your joke now. Not intended to be a factual statement. It's awesome.

You know, John Kyle is actually a man in a monkey outfit, not intended to be a factual statement. So you can say anything, it turns out. Whatever. You can't fucking change history, dude. It's called the intertubes. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it already got you, bitch. So go fuck yourself. You delete anything you want from congressional record.

Try to delete that shit from Google, motherfucker. Little touch of quackery here. Alternative school closes due to outbreak in unvaccinated students. Alternative school? Yeah, the alternative was to get fucking vaccinated. You should have picked that alternative because your school would be open and you wouldn't all have whatever you guys got. It's like, what are you kidding me? Like, I've got pertussis.

Great. Guess what? I don't. I got Guess what? I don't. I got a shot. I don't have whooping cough. Yeah. Because it's not necessary to get fucking whooping cough anymore. And as time goes on, more and more people don't vaccinate their kids based off faulty logic.

Less and less chance of herd immunity actually kicking in because herd immunity is where, you know, if one or two people aren't vaccinated, it's fine because those people probably won't be carriers and all the other people will be not carriers. So everything will be fine. But then you start not vaccinating a large percentage of young kids because of some stupid fucking article in the Lancet, which has been blown out of the water. Now, now we're talking about herd immunity, not fucking protecting people anymore. And you're fucked, you know, getting your kids vaccinated is not, yeah. Is it optional? Yeah, I guess it is. But, uh, if you love your kid, maybe you probably should think about it. You know, you hear this argument like, well, you know, why should I give him the pertussis shot? You know, pertussis isn't fatal.

Well, it's not usually fatal, although sometimes it is. But, you know, it is a cough that can last for more than a month. Now, that's got to be comfortable. The coughing is so continuous that it results in gasping for breath between coughs, which is why they call it whooping cough. It can result in broken ribs, damage to the lungs, hernias. Why would you do that to your kid? Why would you be like, well, I'm not going to kill you, but I'm going to punch you in the face. Wouldn't another alternative to be like, I'm not going to kill you or punch you in the face. I'm going to give you a treat. Here's health.

Here's health. I guess you do it if a treat. Here's health. Here's health. I guess you do it if your kid's the product of rape or incest. Right? I'm not going to get vaccinated for anything at that point. I'm going to take them. You know, and then there was another story I saw recently where somebody took their kid to a measles party. I've heard of chicken pox parties, but not a measles party.

Yeah, this was a story told by one of our friends who said that the kid was taken to the measles party out in California, then rode on a plane back, and then also put in at a daycare then, where a bunch of these other kids had gone to the same party, I guess, where they had all gotten measles. The problem was is that at four months old, a kid doesn't get the measles shot. They get it a little later on. So this kid got measles and had complications at four months old. Well, should have never been around other children that he could even come close to having measles because we could fucking eradicate it with a vaccine.

But instead, some fucking dumb fuck parents don't want their kid uh you know becoming autistic based off faulty research but they'll certainly put another child in jeopardy somebody else's child in jeopardy because they don't want their kid to get a fucking shot i can't even imagine how furious i would be if i had a four-month-old kid that ended up with something like the measles which can can scar you, which can cause all kinds of complications in little guys, I would be murderously angry. Yeah. If they were like, well, I just thought I'd go to a measles party

then hop on a plane and put my kid in daycare. You know, what's the problem? You know, you hear sometimes when people saying like, well, you know, it's a personal choice. You just hear this all the time. It's a personal choice. But the thing is not everybody is responsible, right? Not everybody behaves. There's reasons there are rules in a society, right? It's because not everybody, frankly,

can be trusted to make good decisions. This is a perfect case in point and your bad decisions have real consequences. And if one of those consequences is that a four month old kid who never did shit to anybody ends up getting sick or disfigured or, you know, what have you, fuck your personal choice in the ear. It's like that old saying, you know, your, your, your rights stop where my, your, your right to extend your fist stops where my nose begins. Yeah. You can't do harm to other people and call it, well, I've got a right to it. So we did get some email this show. We got an email from Mark. Mark, first I want to thank you for your email because your email was very well thought out.

And, I mean, hell, it was the only email we got. We got to praise your email, Mark, because it's the only one we got. But really, honestly, it is a very well thought out email and it looks like you put a lot of thought into it. So we want to talk about, I think, all the pieces that you put in here. You know, the first thing he brings up religion, he says that we're dramatically overestimating the number of believers out there, especially if by believer you mean religious wacko. I'm sorry. I don't think that we are. In the United States, most, by a vast majority, most people identify themselves as belonging to some religious group. Now, do I think that they're all crazed right-wing fundies? No. But did we just find stories in Idaho, Utah, Florida, Tennessee to suggest that people's poor reasoning and religious decisions absolutely are beginning to affect public policy, schools, people's right to reproductive choice. I mean, to suggest that it's not a large segment of the population is, I think, just wrong. And then looking outside the United

States, my God, I mean, you've got majorly populated countries like, and we say it's China, but let's talk about India. You know, India has had some terrible, terrible religious violence. Very recently, Pakistan, 175 million people, very religious country. That's half as many people as the United States. It has nuclear power right next to India. And then you have Iran and then like all the people that are in the Middle East that are over there. And like all the people that are in the Middle East that are over there, then you have lots of nations in the southern hemisphere of the Americas that are all Christian or Catholic. And, you know, some of those people, when you talk about religious wackos, how about the people who fucking nail themselves to a cross each Easter?

I mean literally nail themselves to a cross. I'm not talking about a fake – fucking nails and wood and them. That's not – if that's not a religious wacko, I don't know what is. We've covered several stories on our previous show, Everyone's a Critic, where people in Africa have been burning – they still – they burn people as witches. They catch people who are albino. They kill them and make fucking magic potions out of them. And I'm sorry, but that's religion too. That's maybe it's not one of the, the monotheistic religions, but that's hardly a prerequisite for fucking nuttery. The world is full of religious people. It is the, by and large, most people identify themselves as religious.

Do I think that the moderates outnumber the nutters? I don't know. I don't know, but I know the nutters are real fucking loud. And here's the other thing that I want to point out too is I know my wife is a very moderate – as far to the atheist side I think you can be and still be a believer, right? She's very, very tolerant of other people's religions. She's ultra tolerant, but she hangs out with other tolerant people. She's not out looking for people that really clash with her belief system in a huge way. She's not going to, I don't think she's going to befriend a Mormon. I don't think she's going to

befriend a crazy evangelical. I don't think those people are, you're not compatible at that point. So you got to look around and you say, well, I don't, I'm not friends with any of those people. Well, yeah, of course you're not friends with any of those people because those people are crazy. And if you wouldn't have met them, you'd be like, you're fucking crazy. But those people exist. And you're talking about religious wackos that run for office. I mean, Huckabee was a, when he was talking about stuff and you can watch him on television, that guy's fucking, he's pretty far Christian evangelical to the point where you want to, you want to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I, I would be afraid if

you were in office. And then the last point I want to make to Mark is that ask somebody, ask anybody if they would be comfortable with an atheist running for office. And there have been polls on this many, many, many times. And most of the time people will, I'd say, and the majority say they would not vote for somebody if they were an atheist. And that I think is misguided. I don't – I've never met a maniacal, crazy atheist who wants to force his beliefs on you. I've met people who are assholes like Tom and I, who will make fun of other people's beliefs, but I don't give a fuck what you believe. I do not care what other people believe. In fact, I actually get along with a lot of religious people.

So I don't see the, I see the, I'm never trying to convince anyone to become an atheist, but there's a lot of people out in this world that are convincing people to become believers. The other point he brings up is the libertarians. He's a card carrying libertarian. I didn't know they believed in cards. I thought that was a little too. They don't distribute them. They have to make them on their own, Tom. Everybody has to write up their own card. And then, so there's no actual, there's no actual consistency. Somebody's cards, like an index card, somebody else just scratched out their high school ID. You know what I mean? So there's no consistency really with the libertarian cards. You know, he thinks we're too tough on the libertarians. That might be right. You know, he says it's not their position that poor people should be left to starve and die on the streets,

as you suggested. It's kind of as that libertarian article suggested. But and he says it's not their position that great organizations like NPR and Planned Parenthood should go unfunded, as we suggested. He says it's simply a matter of where the funding coming from. You know, he's basically saying, and he gives some great examples of some great stuff that he does. Right. And some great stuff that many other Libertarians do. Believe me, Mark, I'm with you, man.

More people need to take more personal responsibility. I wholeheartedly fucking agree with you. The problem is that they don't. Not all of them do. Not enough people do. Not enough people volunteer at soup kitchens. Not enough people provide money and assistance out of their own pocket to help everyone who needs help. And if you can't, I hate to say it, but if you can't rely on the good graces of other people, somebody's got to step in and help those people. Somebody just has to do it. And do I think the government is the most efficient way to do it? Fuck no. Anybody who says government's the most efficient way to do anything other than run a military, you're out of your fucking mind. But the difference for me is that the government

can be held accountable. You set up an agency, you set up a program, you give it money, you watch over it. Are they going to squander some of it? Yes. Are they going to be inefficient? Absolutely. But can you hold their feet to the fire? That's the difference. If you say, hey, we have funded these welfare programs. These are the people who work for them. This is the money they've gotten. This is the money they've distributed. It went to these houses.

These are the checks we wrote. It can all be traced. You can't rely on the goodness of other people solely. The goodness of other people is great. It's better than government, but it's not as ubiquitous as government. And so that's the difference that I have with you here, Mark. And I want to point out what I was saying when I was talking about that guy, that West guy, whatever his name is, I forget his name, but the guy who wrote that article. The one thing that got called out to me is he said something to the effect of,

think of all these people that would basically be released from the yoke of welfare and be able to get out from underneath this sort of cycle of poverty that they find themselves in. Well, I, as a young person, and this is anecdotal, okay? This is perfectly anecdotal, and I'm willing to admit that. As a young person, my family was on welfare multiple times, on and off, okay? We went on and off depending on whether or not my father had a job. I will say that the biggest motivator for my father to get a job was the fact that he was on welfare. He was embarrassed by it. He didn't like the idea that he was on welfare.

But welfare was there for us when I was growing up several times to help us, you know, get some food, pay the rent. We got food stamps at times during my life. And it's it's saved us in a lot of ways. We you know, we could have been homeless, but there was there was a safety net underneath this because, you know, as Americans, I don't think anybody wants to see any any of their fellow man homeless. So there's a safety net underneath us. And I feel like this guy is saying, well, you know, when you get on welfare, this is actually what I'm implying from his statement, but his statement is pretty fucking leading. When he's like, well, when you get on welfare, you're either stuck on welfare or you're basically sucking on the government teat and

you're kind of being useless. We're going to give you your use back. And that's just not the case. People fall down. You've got to help them back up. And that's what welfare is there for. Look, do I think that there's some breaking in the system? Absolutely. Do I think people should do what you're doing? Absolutely. But the fact that you're doing it and the government program still exists mean that your contributions and other people's contributions are not filling the entire void. There has to be more done. And that's where the government steps in. And that's where all these other charities get bolstered by the government. So I don't feel like it's a bad thing that we're actually giving money to welfare and to helping people out. I think that that's actually a good thing and I don't think that they're somehow stuck in this cycle of poverty because of welfare.

There's a cycle of poverty in this country, but welfare is not the cause. It may be a contributor in certain cases, but it's certainly not the cause. Mark does finish his email talking about the Tea Party. And he wants to talk about he wanted us to talk about sort of the demonization of the Tea Party. And I want to I just want to point out real quick that the Tea Party was co-opted early on. The original Tea Party, the idea of what a Tea Party really is, the taxed enough already where people were upset about taxes, I think first came about on a false premise

because they're not being taxed anymore under the current administration than they were in the previous administration. And if they are upset about government spending, they should have been way more upset during Bush because he's supposed to be a conservative and they weren't. They came out when Obama took office. So first off, we're already talking about some shaky ground.

Then they got co-opted by the Christian right. So the Tea Party right now I think is a disaster buckle. I think that the actual people who believe in Tea Party ideals, the people who are libertarians, I think your party got fucked. I think they fucked your chicken. I think they took it from you and they turned it into what they wanted it. And I think that the libertarians should fucking eject the Tea Party and start a new movement that cannot involve conservatives. I think you need to reject all conservative ideals and become libertarians. Do what you really feel because that's going to get you the votes, not getting, not joining forces,

because then you're just going to split. I couldn't agree more that the Tea Party, I think fiscal conservatism, that's a great idea. I'm down with that. Okay, great. Like who, but, but the problem is that we don't have a fiscal conservative party on either side. I think it's kind of bullshit to pretend that the Tea Party is about – really about fiscal conservatism because they're constantly talking about other shit. Like you said, they were co-opted from the very beginning and the only way that they can get into office is to run on a Republican ticket, which means they're like Republicans light. Not even that. In a lot of ways, they're Republican, you know, to the nth degree, to the next degree. It's, you know, they have to, they have to ride on the coattails of an existing party.

And then in order to do that, they've got to adopt all these ideological stances and social stances that maybe the Tea Party wasn't about in the beginning, but I'm sorry, it's become about that now. And they're really just the face of, of neoconservatism now. And I think that's a shame. I agree. That is a shame. I would like to see a truly fiscally conservative party come out.

Until one does, I can't be down. I just can't. Because the Republicans aren't fiscally conservative. They're just conservative about their shit. They need to roll back the conservative ideals, drop the evangelical Christian right that they picked up in the early 80s, drop it like a fucking bad habit and say, you know what? We're going back to conservative ideals because, Tom, if they were to roll back the conservative party to what it really truly is, I think both of us would be teetering on the edge, if not like completely conservative, because what do they want? They want people out of their fucking lives. Get out of my life. Hey, I'm fucking down with that. Government less power.

Hey, I'm fucking down with that. Fiscal responsibility. Hey, I'm down. That's the fucking greatest party in the history of mankind. Where are they? They're not around anymore. It's crazy to me that the liberal party is the ones, you know, the one that, that is constantly having to talk about, you know, real, you want to talk about real reductions in spending. You've got to talk about cutting defense spending. And the only persons, the only people talking about cutting defense spending are, are, are liberals. They're the only ones talking about it. And that's, that's really, you know, it's not these, it's not entitlement programs that's, that, that you're going to cut and really make the big changes.

I mean, not unless you get rid of the sacred cows. And let's all be honest, they're never going right. Medicare is not going anywhere. You know, come on. Who you crap? You're going to cut into Medicare and Social Security and get elected to an anything. It's never going to happen. You know, so the idea that the right is a fiscally conservative party, that's nonsense.

You know, both parties are as co-mingled and fucked up as they could possibly be. You know, I would love to see a fiscally conservative party come out. The Tea Party isn't it, and I wish that it was. I wish it was, too. I really wish it was. But, Mark, we are really grateful to have your email. Really grateful. And thank you very much for sending it. Well, that wraps up another show here.

And what will quickly become our tradition here, I'm going to leave you with the skeptic's prayer. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. 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, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. Thank you for listening to Cognitive Dissonance.

If you want to reach us by phone, you can call us at 740-743-6828. That's 740-74-DOUBT. Long distance rates apply. Send us an email at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at dissonance underscore pod. Outro Music