Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 201: Je suis Charlie

Episode Date: January 14, 2015

           

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Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, it big or makes us mad it's skeptical it's political and there is no welcome mat this is episode 201 a i don't think there's going to be a 201 b no no we're going we're going for full-on 202 next time i think i think we should skip the whole 200 and just just name everything in terms of like the roman numerals like this is episode x x v i c c one yeah i know added yeah that's a fucking confusing system that is a fucking confusing system.

That is a super confusing system. And I'm actually to understand that the placement doesn't matter somehow. So I don't know how they did addition and subtraction. Because they weren't like tens column placeholders or whatever. It's so weird to subtract and multiply letters. You know what I mean? Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. What's X times X?

How much is an m minus an l huh i don't know none of this means anything coyote like none of this is anything so uh i think we should start going with uh with counting by fives so why don't we just call this like 205 i like it we'll get to episode you know here, here's the funny thing. Incredulous could start doing that right now. And we could start counting backward. Right, right. And we'd still have more episodes accomplished counting backwards. By tens.

We could count backwards by tens. And by the time they got to episode 100, I think we'd still have more episodes in the back. They could count by 100. It's still. So Cecil, this was a hell of a week. A lot going on. This is the week of the deplorable terrorist attacks in France and in Paris. The Charlie Hebdo. It's Charlie Hebdo.

You have to talk like, okay, here's why I love the French language. I'm giving you a look that is just. I know you are, but here's the best part about the French language. It's that every word is having menage a trois with every other word, right? So they just all kind of bleed together. It's like a fucking word orgy. You just got to let them all sort of bleed together. So it's Charlie Hebdo is what it is. That's how you say it.

And I totally mispronounced it, but who cares? Charlie Hebdo. Charlie Hebdo. That's terrible. There's Chicago for you right there. What a fucking nightmare. So 12 people mass murdered, basically.

Gunmen stormed into the building, the office building of a satirical newspaper in Paris and just fucking murdered a bunch of folks. You know, it just resolved actually resolved. I don't know if you can use that word, but there were two seizures, which seemed to be kind of related, but perhaps not. It wasn't terribly clear from the news reports that I heard, but it sounds like the actual gunmen are now dead. But they took over like a Jewish supermarket, too. Did you see that?

Yeah. A separate group outside of the two gunmen took over, said that they were sympathizers or something, and they took over a Jewish supermarket, held people hostage. I think four or five hostages died. So it's just a fucking mess. And the whole thing that started it, the whole thing that started it is basically boiling down to freedom of speech.

When do we have freedom of speech? What are the consequences of freedom of speech? And how does sort of religion interact with that? And not well, it turns out. Well, it depends on the religion, I guess. Yeah. That's the first thing. I guess. Yeah, that's the first thing we we see that what happened here with this particular newspaper is that they have been producing very.

I'm going to just say offensive, offensive cartoons. Nothing wrong with being offensive. They're offensive. They're offensive to people. People were offended by. Right. And that's what makes something offensive. Right. So I wasn't offended by them. I actually think some of them were hilarious. A couple of them were very funny. One of them was, this episode or this particular issue is edited by Muhammad was one of them. That's awesome. And I thought that was great. That's awesome.

And then there's one with the ISIS guy standing behind Muhammad, and he's going to behead Muhammad, and he says, I'm the prophet, you idiot. And he says, shut up, you infidel. And he's going to behead Muhammad, and he says, I'm the prophet, you idiot. And he says, shut up, you infidel, and he's going to behead him. He's going to behead him. That's good.

I like that. I think it's great. And then they had a couple other ones that were, I think, more – the thing about their covers is that it's dealing with a lot of French politics, which I don't understand. Right. Same thing. I looked at some covers, and I was just like, that's probably something. And there was some that clearly – a lot of people were trying to say that they're racist, that they were being racist, that they were depicting people with.

They were still depicting the Arabic people or whatever in the same sort of manner they were saying that they were drawing. And I'm thinking it's a fucking cartoon, idiot. They're supposed to look cartoonish. I don't understand. I'm thinking it's a fucking cartoon idiot. They're supposed to look cartoonish. I don't understand. Like people just want like there is.

It seems like there's a lot of people who want to make excuses for the people who shot. And I found a lot of that on Twitter. I was really kind of repulsed by what a lot of people were posting. And I want to talk a little bit about what people were posting on Twitter, specifically because I think that it sort of shows you how fucking much we're ready to bend over and grab our ankles and say, whatever you guys want to do, we don't want to, we're going to do our very best not to offend you in any way possible. We don't want you to be offended in any way possible. And, and I really saw some people just roll over and just say, yeah, they almost say that while they don't condone the murders, they

almost understand it. And you shake your head and say, how the fuck is that even possible? Specifically, I remember one person was saying that the comics were racist. They were saying that they were racist and gross or whatever. Yeah, right. They're racist. They've been affluent. Yeah.

And then they were also saying in the same Twitter stream that the person, the people did this, the people who did this, did it because of Abu Ghraib, that they were offended by what happened in Abu Ghraib. So they did this. Now, first, that doesn't make any sense to me. Fucking TikTok. That doesn't make any sense at all. The idea that you're going to do something because of Abu Ghraib to a satirical magazine,

you know, you're in Paris, you're going to do something because of Abu Ghraib to a satirical magazine. You know, you're in Paris. You're in Paris. You can just go find a whole bus full of Americans anytime you want in Paris. You could set up a whole bus full of Americans and pitch them off the fucking Eiffel Tower if you wanted to. Like, there's so many ways you could fuck Americans in Paris. Yeah, there's no shortage of Americans in Paris. It's not like they just don't ever visit there. Why not attack the American embassy over there if that's the

case or something like that? There's things that you could do but they're clearly offended by these cartoons which is why they acted. But then in the same breath this person is saying well they were racist and you're like okay, well what you're saying is that, you know what? I don't condone them killing him, but I kind of understand it.

Well, that means you're a fuckhead. That means you're an asshole if you think that, you know, first off, if you think that anybody who does anything that's racist should be killed for it. Right. You're an idiot. You're just an idiot. I don't think there's any fucking saving you. I think you're just an idiot uh i i don't think there's any fucking saving you i think you're just a stupid person and you know and the other and and the abu grabe thing does just doesn't hold any water it doesn't make any sense no that doesn't make any sense you know how would how would they

feel if we proposed a law that said that anytime somebody is offended um that's a capital crime that's a capital punish it's it's a punishment a punishment or it's a crime now to offend somebody and the punishment is death. So, you know, and if you're racist, that the, you know, it's a crime and the punishment for being racist is death. It's a death penalty crime that nobody would support that. Right. But that's what the apologists are saying here. You know, they're basically saying that, oh, look, it was racist. I'm not even going to argue whether it was racist. I don't even want to have an argument about whether or not this shit that was written was racist or not racist or what, because none of it matters.

Once you bring out that gun and start shooting, none of it matters. We could, there was a time and a place and an avenue to have a conversation about the relative merits of the magazine's content right the magazine's content frankly has like nothing to do with it anymore once you break a gun out like your your your ability to have that conversation your desire to have that conversation in a way that's you know that that's civilized is absolutely ended like you're you're now in the dark ages like we're going full-on fucking barbarian by rolling in here and saying like, well, I was offended. So that gives me the right to commit mass murder.

Yeah. How does that how would that even work? Think about it this way. If this week we found out that the Westboro Baptist Church, those hateful pricks at the Westboro Baptist Church were at a rally and they all got shot. It'd be terrible. It'd be terrible. It'd be terrible. I wouldn't be able to be, I wouldn't be able to rejoice that.

I wouldn't be able to say, well, you know what? They were saying some pretty awful shit, so they deserved it. I recognize that there was a point, and I remember this in the past when they were at a rally and they got chased into their car and they drove away and people sort of threw some shit at their car and broke the windows out and they ran away and i got to admit that when i saw that i kind of snickered i'm like oh you know like well you know you kind of got to respect that but that's a level of violence that's so much lower than getting out a fucking gun and shooting someone sure you know i mean i i recognize that you know if you say something racist and maybe you get your ass beat you know that's a that's a level of justice that's Sure. kowtowing to people who think that that's a good idea, who think that there's some sort of merit in what's happening there.

And there were some other things that people had said, especially on Twitter, that I wanted to address. Bill Maher had said condemning the attack is not enough unless you strongly endorse the right of anyone to make fun of any religious religion or prophet. You are not a moderate Muslim. Right. I agree with that. Yeah. I don't think that that's, I don't think that that's a, that's a, you know, strongly endorse the right to, to, of anyone to make fun of anybody. I don't think that there's a problem, but somebody had tweeted back to him. Um, and I found this one that says, really, Bill, you have, uh, have you condemned the

attack on the NAACP building today? Do all white people need to prove that they are moderate? And that is totally missing the point. First off, nobody died in the NAACP attack. Nobody died in it. Now, I don't think that that makes it a good thing, but it certainly doesn't make it a comparable thing. We can't start saying, well, you know what?

They did something today and nobody apologized for it. Well, one, there's a huge difference between having a codified book of rules that rules you like the Muslim, the Koran does, right? And having a racist, a group of racist people that do something. So there's a totally different feeling there. It's not like all white people subscribe to the same fucking ideology i'm not white by choice i'm not what i'm just i just woke up yeah and even if you were like let's say born into that religion you still have to follow a set of rules that is handed down by there's not it's not like a fucking there's a white person handbook

that i got when i was born yeah i mean, I got all the white privilege. I just didn't get the book. You know what I mean? Yeah. There's no handbook for this. Yeah. So I think it's, I mean, it's, but there was such this false equivalency that was going on and it's just such a silly thing to even say.

And it's still, and even if, and even if the, and this is the thing, too, that even if it were an apt analogy, it wouldn't make the attack any more morally justifiable. It wouldn't make the reason for the attack all of a sudden become a good reason. So even if you were to say and say legitimately like, hey, you know, that analogy makes sense, I guess. You know, I guess since all white people don't condemn the NAACP attack, then, you know, the Muslims, you know, aren't radicals if they don't condemn violence. Like, wait, that's, it doesn't, it just doesn't work. It just doesn't work. There was also somebody else, a bunch of people were posting um images of other serial like other terrorists like saying this is what a terrorist look like looks like

when they this was happening to sort of show that terrorists can be white or other colors i guess i don't know what the purpose of that is i mean i don't think that when someone does a terrorist act people think oh well this is the only person in the universe that's a terrorist't think that when someone does a terrorist act, people think, oh, well, this is the only person in the universe that's a terrorist. I think that I don't understand what their what their point was, but they just want what they wanted to do is just say, well, not only Arabs can be terrorists or not, anybody can be a terrorist. And everybody wants to blame this, and they do it every time on the fundamentalists. They say, oh, well, these guys were just fundamentalists. These guys were just fundamentalists. Well, what the fuck are they fundamental of? What's the fundament of the thing? It's the religion, okay? They are more religious than the rest of the other people. The reason why we call them crazy is because they adhere to their religion in a way that is fucking disturbing. That's why we call them crazy is because they adhere to their religion in a way that is fucking disturbing.

That's why we call them fundamentalists and extremists and wackos. And it's not because they're less religious. It's because they're more religious. Yeah. I don't understand why people don't get that. They just don't. They just don't understand that. It's like, oh, well, it's just the extremists.

Well, the extremists are more religious than the rest of the people. The problem isn't the people. It's the religion. It's the religion that's making these people do this. This isn't the first time that this Charlie Abdo place was actually fucking attacked. They were firebombed before in the past when they made a Muslim. They reprinted those cartoons from the Danish. They reprinted them.

And then they also did other cartoons that had to do with Muhammad. And they firebombed their fucking place. This isn't the first time that these people have been attacked. They've been attacked before in the past. So this isn't a – it's not like – and that's the other thing too is when they say, oh, well, these are just one or two people. No, a lot of people find drawing Muhammad very offensive. Look at what happened with the Danish cartoon. Right.

This isn't just an isolated incident. Yeah, this isn't a tiny isolated incident. People fucking went whack-a-loon over that shit. They burned shit down. Over a cartoon. Right. This isn't just an isolated incident. People die. Yeah, this isn't a tiny isolated incident. People fucking went whack-a-loon over that shit. They burned shit down. Over a cartoon. Yeah, man, over somebody drawing something else. So don't tell me that it's fucking, that that should be accepted. That we should look at that and say,

oh, yeah, well, you know, I mean, we just kind of pissed them off. Fuck them. They should be fucking pissed off then. Live pissed off. What does it mean to be offended? You know, what does it mean? It means that you're angry, that you're upset, but it doesn't mean that you have a right to just murder whoever angered or upset you.

We don't have that law. Yeah. We don't have. Burn things down. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have a, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize when you were burning my storefront or shooting my child that you were offended. That makes it OK. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't just one.

It wasn't like they just went after Muslim. They didn't just draw Muslim caricatures. They drew all kinds of religious caricatures. And nobody ran in and shot up the place and said, we've avenged Jesus, right? They ran in and they shot up the place and they killed 12 people and they ran out yelling, we have avenged the prophet. Yeah. That's a thing that happened.

It's not something that we made up. It's not something that like, so this apologist shit, I don't even understand. I would feel so crazy if I was an apologist right now, bending over backwards to try to make excuses for this kind of behavior. And this idea that we should live and curtail our freedom of expression and our freedom of speech because we live in fear of offending a group of people who cannot fucking control their emotional responses to being offended. That's outrageous.

I mean, it's like a basic thing that human adults have to learn how to do is control their goddamn anger and their fucking emotions. And if you want to get angry about something, use your words. Yeah. I mean, what are you, nine? That's exactly it, right? Yeah. It's like you're talking to a toddler. You're just like, use your words.

Instead, they're just frustratedly slapping out at the world. Right. Angry and completely out of control. And you're absolutely right like like this is a point where we have to we have to trust them right and while they did say that they were upset by abu grabe and then so we have to trust them that they were upset by it sure they also said we have avenged the prophet right so it's not like it's not like they only were offended by abu grabe maybe that was the catalyst to get them moving maybe that that that and i'm not gonna fucking i'm not gonna

apologize and be like oh abu grabe that wasn't a big deal yeah it's a fucking terrible awful fucking thing it was awful it was terrible like what is the reason behind that like hey that's gonna motivate you to do something now it's 10 years. It's that's the other thing is it's years old and it's and you're attacking the wrong nationality. It feels like such a reach. It feels like what it feels like. It feels like people are looking for a reason to just hope that, you know, that that they can find some other reason so they can blame these people less. Want to contact the guys? Go to DissonancePod.com to get links to their Google+, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.

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rate us. You fucking rock. So I want to cover this story from the New York post. Religious leader condemns cartoonists after Parisis massacre bill donahue he's that fucking asshole from the catholic league um so he's the catholic league president he put a post on the group's website um called muslims are right to be angry in which he blasted the french paper for the vulgar manner in which muhammad has been portrayed then he said, crazily enough, that really what was so wrong wasn't so much the way that they lampooned the Muslims. It's because they also made fun of the Catholics.

Yeah, they made fun of the Pope. Big Pope. It's the Pope. So they got a little upset by that. By that. You know, this fucking fat-faced prick, he comes, he just, I feel like he's just one of these guys who's like a fucking tragedy ambulance chaser. Right. That just wants to throw his own ideas out into the world when no one is asking, when no one cares.

Right. I know. He just seems like the kind of guy who will tell you, it's like you're at a party and you sort of offhandedly mention a band. And then somebody comes over and says, oh, I actually know that. I'm a big fan of those or I hate that band or something. Yeah, right. And you're just like. I don't care. What the fuck?

I hate that. Nobody cares. It's like, oh, I was listening to such and such. That band sucks. Okay. What did you interject into this conversation? He feels like one of those guys. Like one of those guys who's just hanging on waiting.

Because I don't think, and I think everybody's as smart enough, as smartened up, and isn't talking to him directly. So now he's just got to latch himself on to other things so people will pay attention to him. I think that's exactly the thing. And I also think, part of me thinks that he just says this shit even if he doesn't believe it because it's a way for him to get some fucking notoriety, you know, because otherwise it's just it's just fucking lunacy.

Do you think that there are people, though, that believe that there's I mean, there are you can't I'm not going to ask you this question because clearly there are people they actually shoot other human beings. question because clearly there are people they actually shoot other human beings um but there are people who believe that you should never insult someone or never insult the specifically any kind of holy text i mean this is enforced blast blasphemy law is what it is right it's right a de facto blasphemy law right yeah it's a blasphemy law that you have no you didn't even get a chance to vote on right this is one that's just it's going to be upheld, you know, come hell or high water with an AK-47.

That's basically what's going to happen. So the problem is that it's not just that there's a danger of this happening in the West. There's a danger of somebody getting mad when you repost a Danish cartoon or you put some sort of satirical thing out there. There's a chance that you could face some sort of retaliation. The problem also lies in the fact that there are places in the world right now where blasphemy laws are a real fucking thing.

That's a real thing that can happen to you right now. So if you were to do anything like these people did, have a satirical magazine and post some image of somebody, especially of the prophet, you'd be fucked. You could be fucking, I mean, we're going to talk about somebody later on who just insulted Islam. Right. And he's going to get lashed for it. I mean, you could really get fucked in large parts of the world because of blasphemy laws. Isn't it like more insulting to, I would think, to treat?

Here's what strikes me as particularly, if we want to talk about something being racist or essentializing or reductionist about the way that we treat Muslims, I would think that saying, treating them like they're a powder keg ready to explode all the time, basically saying like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't want to say anything provocative because this group this group of people will violently yeah you know rise up and shoot us or you know bomb us or you know commit some kind of of heinous atrocity doesn't that just emphasize the divide and basically say like hey when we don't we don't don't do anything offensive to the muslims they're fucking animals that can't control their anger they're fucking all ahmed that just got out of anger management. Right. Exactly. They're all just ready to explode. That seems to me to be

far more insulting. Like if somebody said to me like, oh, I mean, we would have brought you along, but we totally thought you'd get mad and kill us. But you can't take a joke there, big guy. Well, we were going to go to the comedy club. We were afraid that if the guy singled you out, that you'd just stand up and shoot up the place.

Because you're a fucking angry, violent child. Not that you're going to firebomb his car. Right. So we just decided to leave you there. Man, I'd rather you assume that I am going to act like a human being, rather than you assume that i am going to act like a human being rather than you assume that i'm going to act like a fucking violent animal like a rabid fucking animal so this story comes from the Hindustan Times. It's also about the same issue.

Ready to pay money. What does that say? That's not a figure. What does it even say? It's like a squiggle with a 51 and a CR after it. Fucking 51 cronuts. Whatever. I don't know, man. I might take a bounty

of 51 cronuts. 51 cronuts would be a hell of a bounty, actually. 51. These are like 7 bucks a piece. Oh, man. Jesus, you fucking trade that in for a double wire. Are you kidding me? And by the way, look at this guy. He kind of looks like he's going to make

the donuts. I mean, look at his little hat down there. He does kind of look like he's making these made the donuts. He actually looks just like that. Yeah, it's either that or he works it in an outburger. I love by the way that like when you get donuts from fucking Dunkin Donuts or whatever and they use that paper to get your donut

so that they don't touch your donut and then they drop that paper in your bag of donuts. Yeah. So like, it's like, hold on, my hands are filthy. Now my filth hands are in your donut bag. That's disgusting. What kind of policy is that? Just wear gloves.

Well, they don't want to get the fucking chocolate frosting on the glazed donut. It's better than getting the fucking, you know, Ebola on the glazed donut. You nasty. You would still eat the Ebola. I would eat it. I contend that Ebola would have nothing on me. If I got Ebola, it would be like. The thing is, is your heart is so enlarged that you could liquefy your organs and you would still be fine.

It'd be no big deal. I don't mind. I just like you'd liquefy one organs and you would still be fine. I'd be like, I don't mind. You'd liquefy one of your four stomachs and you'd be fine with it. We'd just ruminate longer. That's it. No problem. I'm going to chew my cud. I'd chew my cronuts. If my cud was cronuts,

that would be amazing. Are you kidding me? That would be amazing. Just keep burping up your cronuts. That's actually my version of the afterlife. That would be amazing. Are you kidding me? That would be amazing. Oh, my God. Just keep burping up your cronuts. That's actually my version of the afterlife. That's disgusting. That's heaven. In heaven, I am a four-stomached cow, and my pasture is cronuts. It's a cronut pasture. How do they grow?

Is there, like, many cronuts on one piece of grass? That's their problem. All right? All I know is it's heaven, and I'm eating cronuts on one piece of grass? That's their problem. All right? All I know is it's heaven and I'm eating cronuts. I don't want your 72 virgins because I'm going to have sex with them and then they're not going to be virgins anymore. They're going to be sloppy. You're like out of prizes like right away. You have like 72.

At your very worst, you have 72 days to get through that. Yeah. Days. Days. Days. Days. Yeah. Add it all up. it's 12 minutes.

But cronuts. Yeah. That's the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, for sure. So anyway, this fucking story. So this asshole wants to pay a reward to the attackers in the Hebdo massacre. And he basically says that the followers of Prophet punished them, and those who dare insult Prophet Muhammad deserve death,

and there is no need to initiate legal procedure against them. That's it. Yeah, but, I mean, let's be honest here. These were just three lone gunmen. They had no backing whatsoever in the Muslim faith. Nobody. No, there wasn't a single Muslim in the entire Muslim world that agreed with what they did. That were just three lone extremists.

Yeah, that that that are clearly operating outside the confines of of their religious order. Right. You know, which is not at all the case. So, I mean, i'd be really curious i don't know if you remember but when uh when 9-11 happened they started doing some polls to see if people agreed with it and there was a there was some people in the world that were you know clearly against it and you know people that came from from muslim countries that were against it and then there was some people that were totally for it sure Sure. Yeah, this is awesome. This is great.

I'm kind of curious what those numbers look like now. Are there groups of people that see this happen, that hear about this tragedy in the Muslim world somewhere, in a Muslim country, in a place with Sharia law maybe, and then they get asked that question? Do you think it's justified that they died? I think in huge parts of the world that the answer would be an unequivocal yes. We've covered how many stories about people who have mobs of people. Yeah. Remember the stories in Pakistan where mobs of people attacked? Remember that story where they broke those people's legs and

threw them in a kiln and burned them to death because they disrespected a quran i've been trying to forget that one ever since i mean bringing it up like this is there there are they turned them into pottery for christ's sakes i got a nice glaze on those guys. Jesus. Turn them into cronuts. That's not how you make it. This is not the secret recipe. No, that is not. The problem with people like this is that this is a person who isn't just a guy. This is like a cleric.

This is a guy who's, you know, a leader in that group. Right, yeah. Yeah. And so it's not that these are just three people. And I'm not and don't get me wrong. I'm not blaming it on the entirety of the Muslim religion. I don't I think there's and I also don't think that it's necessary that every time people come out and there's a there's a lot of people are saying you need to denounce this. You need to denounce this. And people have they have denounced that you need to denounce it.

I mean, if you're Muslim faith, I don't think you need to go out of your way to denounce it. I think you're going to have to live with the fact, though, just like we do in this country when there's a mass shooting. When there's a mass shooting, us gun owners who think there should be more gun control have to live with the fact that our freedoms killed someone. We have to live with that. That's something we have to look ourselves in the mirror and say, you know what? The freedoms that we have in this country were enough to cause many people to die today. They died because we think that these freedoms are more important than human life sometimes. And this is one of those days. And you just got to look yourself in the mirror and say, well, you know what?

Today was one of those days and it sucks, but that's the way it is. And if you're a Muslim, it's going to be the exact same thing. You got to look yourself in the mirror, hold your Koran up and go, I hold this book to be holy. I think it's awesome and I follow it and I think it's awesome. And people died because of it today. Don't fucking fool yourself and think that they didn't die because of that book because they died because of that book. Sure. And they died because of very strict adherence to that book. And just because you don't adhere to it as much as they do. I'm not going to accuse you of being somebody who I think is is you're not complicit. I don't think you're complicit.

Right. But I also don't think you're helping. I think you are contributing by giving those people as Sam Harris says, giving those people a shield to hide behind, because now we all we have to fight our way through you to get to these people who are the extremists. For me, I think I think all religions suck, like all religions are totally useless. They don't do the I don't they don't they don't do the world more good than the harm that they cause. don't they don't do the world more good than the harm that they cause i don't i don't think that religion is a is a net benefit to the world um at all and you know that's not to say that religious people are not a net benefit to the world because there's a difference between the ideas and the people um in a situation like this where you've got a cleric who's saying like yeah i would give a fucking reward to mass murderers who committed murder because they got fucking worked up about a set of ideas i mean and they and they run out

saying that they've avenged their prophet like that isn't that's a situation you can't possibly get behind you got to stop and say like what good is this like are we getting more out of this like what like all those people in the world who are good people and are also religious people, if we took away the religion, are we to assume that they would just stop being good people? I don't think so. But if we took away religion right now, there wouldn't be anything for these people to say to be upset that was being satirized. Nobody kills people because you satirized George Bush. Nobody kills people because you satirize uh obama right you get upset and you're like i like that guy i you know and then you write a fucking angry letter

to the editor religion is the only force that motivates people to commit this level of violence because there's some like there's something like intrinsic about your fucking very nature that feels insulted that's fucking nonsense there's nothing intrinsic about your fucking very nature that feels insulted. That's fucking nonsense. There's nothing intrinsic about your nature that was insulted. Some dude wrote drew some pictures. Yeah, I was trying. I was trying to think of something analogous this week and I couldn't think anything. Religion is one of these things that I just I can't think of anything in my life that I would say I would want to kill something.

You could you could draw the worst, most heinous picture of my wife. And that's, admittedly, my wife's probably the one person on earth I love the most, right? So I think about, you could draw her like getting three dicks in the face, right? And like two in other holes and like all other ones like ready to shoot on her. And draw it. Draw it all you want. I don't care. Great.

But even if you cared a lot, you would never commit a crime for it. Let's presume I did care. First off, I think it's silly. You're drawing a picture. I'm going to get so butthurt over you drawing a picture. You're a fool. Of course I'm not going to get butthurt over that. That's stupid.

But even if I did get mad, let's say I got as mad as I possibly could, I don't think I would ever resort to violence. Let's say I get mad and be like, well, you're a fuckhead. I think that's as far as it would go. Just call him a fuckhead. I can't think of an analog in my life where I think this is something I would be so upset about. Or even just, let's say nationality right somebody

saying oh fucking America sucks and like defecating on an American flag I'd be like oh well you're a jagoff okay but and even if I was mad about it I don't think I'd fucking pull out my you know America gun and shoot you yeah I I I was thinking about the same thing and I was thinking like is there ever a time is there ever a set of words that when you string them together in the right order the the the best response is violence and i i think like well yeah i guess maybe possibly like hey we're sending a bunch of icbms your way like okay well all right we got to do something about that that's not that's not a good but you know like on a on a more reasonable level on a more reasonable like mano a mano level,

like you're insulting me or you're insulting something that's, you know, like part and parcel of myself, you know, like something that I hold truly dear. At what point, like, am I not going to be fucking sticks and stones, man? Like, at what point are you like, well, they fucking crossed the line. Now I have to fucking murder you or just murder the first fucking 12 people in your office that I find. You just think I can't help but think that, you know, the people who would do that and not just the people who would do it. Right. But the people who like this guy who think it's a good thing that it happened. But the people who, like this guy, who think it's a good thing that it happened.

Right. And the people all over the world who not only rioted when they showed the Danish cartoons, but all the other people who said that that was a valid way in which to vent your frustrations. All those people are just, they're walking man-children. They're just, they haven't grown up. Or I don't know what the deal is when people riot over a Koran being burned. Well, this is what this what this serves to do is this serves to make sure it happens again. Yeah. Right. Sure. That's what he's doing here. He's not he knows that these guys get caught and killed. But by posting a reward, he's saying, like, let's make them cultural heroes.

Like, let's make them heroes within our faith so that this continues to happen. Allah, Akbar, Akbar, Allah, Akbar, Allahu, Akbar, just little Allah. Thank you, Chicago. So this story comes from The Telegraph. So the parachutings lead to firebomb attacks on French mosques. And I guess I just I wanted to talk about this because I wanted to wholeheartedly condemn this. The solution is not like the way that you respond to unwarranted violence is not with more unwarranted violence. Yeah, that's just silly. That is some fucking horrible shit.

And I think, you know, talk about like what's some shit that should be condemned. I will say that as a man who tries to behave in a somewhat civilized fashion, who is criticizing people for murdering, I would say that firebombing mosques is a fucking, it's always a bad idea. Let's just say this. Yeah. Firebombing mosques is a fucking, it's always a bad idea. Let's just say this. Yeah. Firebombing shit is always a bad idea. It's rare that you would think that, I mean, I can't think, unless you're doing like a heavy metal music video. There you go.

Maybe you could firebomb something during that. Yeah. At what point are you like, oh man, that could stand a good firebombing. It's not a lot of things. You ever see that show on HGTV where they like renovate kitchens good firebombing. That's not a lot of things. You ever see that show on HGTV where they renovate kitchens by firebombing them? Yeah, me either. It wouldn't fucking work. I'd totally watch it.

I would watch it, though. I gotta admit. That would be fucking awesome. Yeah, this is just reactionary bullshit. And this is the kind of stuff that when it happens is really why the left kind of bends over backwards to try to distance itself from from because this is really some racist assholery like this is a group of people i know it's not really race but this is a group of people who are basically saying like all muslims deserve to take the blame or take the punishment for the actions of a few yeah and as

soon as you do that it's like that's ridiculous like we should fight fire with words yeah like words are vastly gonna they're gonna be vastly more powerful and let's let's not pretend that this is not a war of ideas because this is a war of ideas and it's it's a war between secular society and um religious society and which one wins out in the end is very very vital to whether or not we're going to continue to have a civilized world. No one would think that this is a good idea. The only people that did this are people that are just, they're just hooligans. They're people who are just looking for trouble. They're assholes. Yeah. They're looking to start a fight. They're

looking to spark some sort of unrest. They're happy when this stuff happens. They're just degenerates and they're degenerates on happens. They're just degenerates. And they're degenerates on one side, and there's degenerates on the other side. Clearly these people are degenerates. I don't think that there's, you know, all you need to do is just catch these people and throw them in jail. Don't give them a fucking moment to speak. Because the podium that they, you're going to be dumber when they're done talking. Right.

It's going to be a hate podium. Yeah. When they're done talking. Right. It's going to be a hate podium. Yeah. Did you see the cover, by the way, of the new, their next week's, what they're going to do? Uh-uh. It's fucking awesome.

It says in French something like, urgent, six cartoonists needed. Oh, shit. Really? Yes. Oh, no. It's crazy. That's awesome. Did you see the onion response?

I didn't. The onion response is fucking, it's actually quite perfect. It is sadly unclear whether this article will put lives at risk. Oh, no. Along Blackhawk Along Blackhawk Along Blackhawk Along Blackhawk Along Blackhawk

Along Blackhawk Along Blackhawk Along Blackhawk Along Blackhawk Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, killed in Boko Haram attack in Nigeria. So just in case you're starting to feel good for any reason. Or in case you were planning on going to Nigeria for any reason. Yeah, I don't think Nigeria is on anybody's list of

vacation hotspots right now. I think it would be a bad decision. You definitely don't want to get a timeshare in Nigeria. Don't confuse Boko Haram for Boko Haram. You definitely don't want to get a timeshare in Nigeria. You know, the nice thing. Don't confuse Boca Raton for Boca Haram. You just want to. That's a mistake you make once.

That's, yeah. Although I would say, you know, the nice thing is that the airfare is half off because you only need a one-way ticket. Well, one-way ticket, yeah. And that's it. Yeah. And then they can. I don't know. Is your corpse, does it need a ticket?

Oh, who am I kidding kidding they'll never find it oh it's terrible well they might find it it'll just be charred yeah right beyond recognition oh yeah what a fucking nightmare this is so uh the boko haram uh these these are uh islam extremists they've declared a caliphate in the zones that they control caliphate huh yeah yeah probably a political caliphate huh hmm interesting in northeast nigeria is it a democratic caliphate yeah it's the people's republic of caliphate ridiculous a caliphate sounds like something you drink when you have an upset stomach oh man man i just had like 14 calzones i need a caliphate the uh the militants were specifically targeting the civilian populations insurgents were shooting indiscriminately and burning buildings they burned They burned to the ground all 16 towns and villages in the area. All 16.

Sir, we've already burned down a dozen villages. Now, keep going. Should we stop at a baker's dozen? No, keep going. Oh, there's not been enough indiscriminate wanton killing. I want a dozen and a quarter. That's what I want. Just what the fuck, Nigeria?

Yeah. What is actually happening? And Boko Haram. Do you remember what Boko Haram means? Yeah. Western education is sinful. Yeah. That's what it translates into.

And it's a caliphate. And it's a caliphate. So it's probably a politically motivated caliphate that has sin in west has sin in its name right yeah yeah i maybe not maybe that's actually religiously motivated violence i think maybe it might be religiously motivated violence i think that you know clearly there's there's there's probably some religion and and you know politics intertwined here but i don't think i don't think you can pull the religion out of it and say that it's completely blameless. Of course not.

You know, there's no way to do that. I don't think there's no way to do that and be honest. You can't do that and be honest. You could do that and be an apologist all day, but you can't do it and be honest. And be honest about it. Yeah. Well, maybe we should just not be honest about stuff and just pretend that we don't. Yeah.

We could just put our fingers in our ears. Like the scads of people that are bending over backwards ready for any attack on any kind of – whether it's an attack that happened recently in Paris or the attack on other people in other countries. They just don't – they don't even care about these other – they don't care about these people. words, if somebody stormed into a building and said, you know, they had a shirt that said Catholic warrior and they said that they were doing this because they were offended, you know, by, I mean, the EBDO, like EBDO is like a great example, right? Because they were equal opportunity offenders. That's like what they did. Well, I think, I think if, if, if one, if somebody busted in a building and was a Catholic

and said they were a Catholic, they would immediately run with that and say, oh my gosh, look at how you guys always bend over backwards when it's a Muslim, but now it's a Catholic and you're going to not condemn them. But I'm saying like the Islamist apologists, that's the take you think they would take. They would compare it to Islam immediately. They would immediately compare it to Islam and say, look at all you assholes,

how dare you not condemn this person for doing it. And I would certainly condemn someone. I would condemn anybody that did that. Here's the thing. I just condemn murderers. Yeah. Like, it's real easy. I have a blanket.

I don't need to do a special. I don't have to send out a tweet for that. I automatically do it. Yeah. It's just a thing I do. It's easy. Yeah. It's like I eat sandwiches when they're in front of me and I condemn murderers.

That's it. Yeah. Both of those things are understandable. This story comes from the Associated Press. Convicted Saudi blogger flogged in public 50 times. Saudi blogger convicted of insulting Islam was brought Friday after prayers. Because you got to make sure that you got to pray before you're going to torture. I mean, look, when you're going to plan the torture out, you've got to make sure you plan it out the correct way.

Yeah. You know what I mean? You can't just willy-nilly throw the torture out there. Come on. Come on. And you've got to sell the advertising time, I think, during the torture. That's really important. And that advertising dollars can go a long way.

So I think you've got to make sure you plan this out well. And you don't want it to interfere with the prayers. You don't want to be like, wait a minute, we're going to torture somebody at 2 o'clock. No, we're going to pray at 2 o'clock. We're torturing at 3. And you don't want to get... Check your outlook calendar. Here's the thing. If you torture before you pray, then you get antsy while

you're praying. That's true. You want to torture more people. So you think, well, let's just get the prayer out of the way so we get, you know, especially the kids that we want to keep to watch the torture later. Right. You know, because those kids are a pain in the ass to take to church as it is. They only go because they're looking forward to the torture.

To the torture after. Yeah. It's like when I was a kid and we wanted to go to Long John Silver's after shopping. It's the same thing. It's like you're looking. You train them to look forward to something. Yeah. Give them a little carrot, a little stick.

Exactly. Yeah. You can buy a toy at Walgreens and you can watch someone get tortured. There you go. Yeah. In this case, it's a lot of stick. Yeah. 50 times.

It is. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Because this guy was flogged 50 times before hundreds of spectators. He must have done something horrible, Tom. Oh, terrible. He insulted Islam with a blog oh

yeah so it's a blog so some words he took words and he put them in a specific order and he typed them and that's it that's the end of that's fucking full stop that's really it that's it yeah they didn't like take his computer then and beat someone to death. No, no, you would think so. Yeah. But the 50 lashes, that's like step one. That's not the entirety of the punishment. No. Oh, okay. He still has 950 more lashes. Seems like a lot.

It's a lot of lashes. At least they're breaking it out into steps. So he's done one 20th of his punishment so far. Yeah, 5% of it. Jesus, man. 5% of it. This has to punishment so far. Yeah, 5% of it. Jesus, man. Yeah, 5% of it. This has to suck so bad. And he got beat for a long time.

They said it took a long time. It was like 50 of fucking anything. Yeah. Takes, I mean. He didn't cry out. They said he didn't cry out. He just fucking wins. He's a tougher dude than I am.

He wins. Because I would be fucking crying as they led me to the thing. I'd be like, ah! Stop hitting me. I would be fucking crying as they led me to the thing. I'm like, ah, stop hitting me. I would have apologized already, though. You know, I would have immediately said, whatever your Allah, whatever. I'll become a fucking cleric. Cleric me.

Cleric me. Just fucking. It's like you're a chessboard. You're just like cleric me. You know, whatever. They just set another human on top of your head. Becoming a cleric is so easy. You just put two quarters in the little gumball machine thing and it like rolls out. Yeah, they give you a super ball and it says you're a cleric so easy you just put two quarters in the little gumball machine thing

and it like exactly yeah they give you a super ball and it says you're a cleric you're a cleric now yeah if this ball bounces it's rubber oh yeah totally gonna bounce yeah he basically just uh got beat for no reason and let's let's not be let's not beat around the bush here. This is specifically a religious punishment. He's being beat because he insulted Islam. So there's no way to defend this. And this isn't lone fucking gunman. This is a fucking institution of a state. This is an entire state that is deciding that this human being needs to get beaten like a petulant child

because they insulted some book that you hold holy right you know this was a guy who had a blog who was basically criticizing the whole cleric system and basically and the and the the whole shenanigans system that is there the sharia law what passes for laws over there which is no laws which is just here's a set of corrupt judges who read an old book and then make whatever arbitrary fucking decisions they want. Yeah. And, you know, he criticized that. And in 2015, here we are whipping people in a public square while hundreds of people gather to cheer that shit on. And that's supposed to pass for civilized society.

I'm supposed to look at that and say that's co-equivalent. That's barbarity. I'm not going to look at that and say that is equivalent to, you know, a modern Western society that doesn't tolerate that. That allows for freedom of speech, that allows for freedom of expression, that more than allows it, that holds those things as civic virtues. Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! So this story comes from the Daily Kos. I'm not understanding, Charlie, why many smart people are getting it wrong. So this is a very interesting article from the Daily Kos.

It talks kind of about how a lot of people are misinterpreting and misunderstanding the whole Charlie Hebdo thing. And this is really one of those scenarios, I think, where people are getting fucking onioned, where they're looking at something without the context. They don't have the cultural cues in place to understand kind of where the magazine comes from and what it's trying to lampoon. And so they're looking at things at face value,

which strikes me, Cecil, as the worst way to look at a satirical newspaper. It sure does, doesn't it? And it feels like there's a couple of covers that when you look at them without any context whatsoever, do look pretty horribly racist. Oh, yeah. They look. Yeah. Wow. The one I'm thinking of is the one with the welfare girls who are vocal haram sex slaves right that looks it looks pretty it looks

horrifyingly racist super racist but what they're doing i think is uh is combining a couple of different things that the other side is saying to try to make it seem like they're absurd and and there's a good discussion on what like what that cartoon really means you know there's other stuff that people are saying that um that the way the cartoons are drawn is racist like they take away the whole context of every all the other stuff but the way they're drawn is racist they're showing these people and they're drawing them in a way that uh sort of exaggerates their features. Yeah, well, you know, I think that there are certain characteristics, physical characteristics that have been singled out by racists over the years

in their propaganda. You know, I'm thinking like the exaggerated lips on black people, exaggerated skin tone difference. You know, there are things that racists have historically chosen to point out over the years, kind of in their racist screeds and propaganda. But, you know, one of the elements, one of the ways that satire works right is to shine a light on other is to use the the tools of the people that you are lampooning to shine a light on their bad actions. That's part of how satire works.

You take something and you become incredibly hyperbolic about it. You take somebody's thoughts or their words or their phrases or their actions and you make it incredibly hyperbolic to point out the absurdity of it by bringing that all up. And I think that's clearly what's trying to be done here, or at least maybe not clearly. Maybe clearly is the problem, right, is that as an outsider unfamiliar with French politics and unfamiliar with a lot of the subtleties of French culture,

i.e. any knowledge at all of French culture, for myself and most other Americans, you end up being stuck in a position, you know, like Kim Jong-un, where it's like, oh, I was named the onions sexiest man of the year. Right. Awesome. Like, if you don't understand what the onion is, it's like, oh, that's fucking flattering. It's only it's only understanding the cultural context that helps you know like oh no i'm being mocked mercilessly and there's a there's a another cartoon that shows a woman that's supposed to look like a monkey but then they they there's a couple of little elements in

this that uh that they're sort of showing her as um she's a black woman she has the body of a monkey she has those exaggerated features like you say and then she's also got um some other things in the in the drawing that make it look like uh there's a whole bunch of other things that are that are at play here it's not just one thing it's not just saying oh look at this woman looks like a monkey because that's it's not even funny like that's the thing people think that that's what they're saying that's not even funny it's not funny it's not interesting it's it's just dull and silly and racist but instead there's like a whole play going on here that's way deeper i think than people give it credit for when they just want to just pass it off as being racist and when they pass it off as being racist what they are saying is it's okay that somebody shot up a fucking bunch of

people for being racist yeah you know it'd be like if somebody went into you know the clan headquarters and and shot up the clan headquarters and murdered a bunch of people there that would be a wrong action yeah like it makes no difference that's why when we when we talked about this a little bit earlier see so one of the things that I really wanted to point out was that at the end of the day, the actions of the murderers who went into those offices and just

sprayed them with gunfire and purposely murdered 12 unarmed people, at the end of the day, it makes no difference if the Hebdo magazine was racist or not. Like, that's not even relevant to the conversation because the only way it would be relevant is if it somehow mitigated the damage. If it somehow was like, oh, well, they shot racists, so that's okay.

Like, the crime of being a racist is a crime of assholery, right? Like, it's a crime of like man that guy kind of sucks that dude's a dick not like man that guy sucks he's kind of a dick we should fucking shoot him yeah yeah well you know we were talking about this too um this this didn't get recorded but we were talking about it earlier we were having a conversation about what fighting words are are there things that you would say that you would say, these are fighting words? You know, that old saying, them's fighting words.

What are fighting words? What are things that would make you fight? And I think that you and I could probably, if we really tried hard enough, could come up with fighting words, words that would provoke us into violence. But I think that the violence that they would provoke us into would be limited. It would be limited for our violence.

It certainly wouldn't be a murderous rage. And we had a really hard time thinking up murderous rage words. Well, yeah, and there's a difference, too, between them fighting words and two people who are unarmed swing fists at each other, right? You know, two people who are unarmed swing fists at each other. Right. And shooting words, you know, where you're unarmed and unsuspecting. And I bust in and say, like, hey, this thing you said, like, there are no words. Like, if you're a person who can come up with words to justify that, you're just a terrible fucking human being. Like, you're just bad at being a human being and

you should you know crawl back into whatever fucking hole from once you came we normally don't cover email on these shows um but this email um is in specific talking about uh charlie abdo so we wanted to talk about it. This is from Mark. He says, Hey guys, obviously this is the story this week. I'm watching Chris Haynes interviewed Juan Cole and it dawned on me.

These jihadist groups are basically a replay of the Black Panthers of the 1960s. They have some legit gripes and are lashing out in a violent way in an attempt to disrupt society and sectarian war. With the Panthers, it was a race war. With the jihadists, it's religious. The only difference is the religious element, which gets people to flip out and engage in cognitive dissonance.

See what I did there, Cecil? I'm very appreciative that you did that, Mark, by the way. Anyway, we need to look at this shit for what it is. Some pathetic losers scattered around all ginned up over some legit issues and maybe listened to some moderate Islamic voices. Fellas, we hear your Malcolm X and your Eldridge Cleaver. Now can you please point us to your Martin Luther King? This was an interesting email, but I don't know that I necessarily agree with the analogy of the jihadists being analogous to the Black Panthers.

So, you know, the Black Panthers, the violence of the Black Panthers engaged in was much more limited in scope and it was directed primarily at the police. And it was directed primarily at the police. So that was, you know, there was little or no violence against unarmed citizens. The violence that the Black Panthers engaged in was kind of a back and forth between the Black Panthers and the police. So we're talking about an armed group and an armed group. And I'm not saying that the, um, but that makes that violence right. But I am saying that at least there's some parody of in force and power. That's, that's part of that struggle. Um, I also am not convinced that the gripes of the jihadists, um, are the same kinds of gripes that the black Panthers were fighting against or trying to bring to the light.

So I'm not 100 percent sold on that analogy. It's hard for me to get my brain around it. You might be right that it is because it's religious that I kind of just wave my hand and say, ah, come on. to just wave my hand and say, ah, come on. So there might be some real problems with people that are disenfranchising the Islamists and the people of the Muslim faith in a way that I'm not aware of. I know that in France, they had taken away the ability to wear the burqa. And I know that they had a few other things that had happened although none of them seemed that they were all that bad i mean i i understand that the the losing of the burqa is something that i think is a freedom that i personally don't think that there's a there's a a reason to do that but the french culture is very different than the american culture so uh so

it's hard for me to get behind and to say anything. I don't want to sound like a cultural relativist here. But I think that in certain senses, there's no way for me to tell culturally whether or not that's a good idea. And it's not – we're not talking about fucking general mutilation here. We're talking about whether or not somebody can put a thing on. So it's a very different type of situation. So I don't want to look like I'm sort of backpedaling. But I just don't know that I have the cultural depth needed to address whether or not the burqa ban is, I don't know, like a crazy bit of oppression. It doesn't seem like it to me, but I'm not a Muslim and I'm not French.

I just don't know if I can, I can delve in there. And it, to be honest, it doesn't feel like a big deal either way, but I'm not religious. So I don't, you know, I really don't know. It's sort of like trying to evaluate. I mean, really, it's sort of like trying to evaluate the relative merits of a satirical magazine that exists outside your culture, right? You just can't do it. Like, it's like, is this funny?

I don't, I don't know. Maybe it is. It doesn't work for me. Because I. Like the whole thing. It's like the whole thing about satire. Is it's. It's all based around an in joke.

And you're not part of that in crowd. Well kind of the same thing here. It's difficult for me to look at these jihadists. And say. Yeah. You definitely have some legitimate gripes. And I guess like. And I. And'm trying, Cecil, I'm I'm resisting the urge to be dismissive. I know I can hear it because I don't think that that's that's an intellectually proper position to take. It is awfully difficult for me to get to a point where people who commit heinous and violent acts against unarmed people.

It's hard for me to say, well, did they have legitimate crimes? I just like I can't give a shit if you had a legitimate crime at that point. Like I'm I'm out of shits to give. I'm totally unsympathetic and then you know particularly when when they do this shit and then instead of citing a legitimate gripe you know it's not like it's like it's not like somebody says you know stop the drone strikes and then they blow themselves up right it's you know god is great And then they blow themselves up. Right. It's, you know, God is great. And then they blow themselves up. Yeah.

Right. And there is a difference there. And in one case, at least I know why you're pissed off. And it's a legit it's it's it's something we can at least have a conversation around. I think your form of protest is murderous and barbaric. But at least you've told me what you're mad about but when you tell me what you're mad about is religious i don't give a shit i just can't and i know that that's not it's that's probably not the the most high-minded stance to take but man

as soon as people start committing heinous acts of violent crime against unarmed people, I'm just like my ability to feel high minded goes kind of out the window. So I want to close out the show today by reading a quote from Salman Rushdie. And this was about the specific attacks. And if you're not familiar with Salman Rushdie, he wrote The Satan the satanic verses which is a book about islam and he was uh they they put out a fatwa on him i think right and they he's been calling for his death yeah they've been calling for his death for a long time religion a medieval form of unreason when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam, and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today.

I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty, and stupidity. Respect for religion has become a code phrase, meaning fear of religion. Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and yes, our fearless disrespect. That's beautiful. Yeah. So this is going to be a short show this week. We think that this probably was a little heavier show than we normally would do.

We'll hopefully make up for it next time. But this topic is just hard to even talk about, really. But we're going to leave you, as we always do, with the Skeptic's 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, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this.

The opinions and views expressed in this show are that of the hosts only. Our poorly formed and expressed notions do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local dairy council. Thank you. you