Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 637: A Conversation With David G. McAfee

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

Interview with David McAfee!   Twitter     Show Notes

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It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome mat. This is episode 637. And Cecil, we are joined by an incredibly special guest. We are joined by the ghost of John McAfee, live, guys, from hell or the depths of a Spanish prison. Amazing. Outstanding.

Who would have thought we would get such a guest? Think of the barriers we're breaking right now with this episode. Exactly. Cecil. Exactly. We're going to have to rewrite the skeptics' creed. It's a whole fucking thing. All right.

It's actually David McAfee. Yeah. David, thank you for not being a dead creep in a bottom of a spanish prison we really appreciate that the most about you also thank you for coming on our show thank you guys for having me and uh no promises on whether or not i'm a dead creep but i'm not john david if people so uh so you're an author, we're going to talk about your books, but, but you have an interesting background and a backstory. So we'd like to just start with who are you, David? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm, uh, uh, I'm a lot of things. No, I, I'm a religious studies graduate. And, uh, the unique thing about, about me being a religious studies graduate is that I grew up in a family of religious people and that I myself am an atheist. And I was raised in a conservative Christian household with my grandparents being biblical fundamentalists who they literally believe every single word of the Bible, including my grandma. Well, because it's true. Yeah. Because of the inherent truthiness of it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Truthiness. Yeah. I even asked my grandma, like, you believe that, you know, that women should be subservient then. And she's like, if it's in the Bible, I believe it. And I'm like, okay, well, I can't really get through to you then. Okay. But hold on with that one. Can't you as the man then challenge her on that subject?

Then she has to acquiesce and she's fucked. She's fucked right then. Like, what are you going to do? She's in a bind. How is she going to get out of that one? The problem was I was a little boy at the time. And her husband commanded that she did believe in that. They were both biblical fundamentalists. And it wasn't until I was about 13 that I realized how seriously people took religion. I really thought of it more as like a daycare type of situation where I went and got candy and sang songs and learned pretty stories. And when my grandparents threatened me with hell for not going to church one time, that's when it kind of

took me in the other direction. And I started going to church more often, like, you guys really believe all of this. And I went to various other religions and ended up majoring in it in college. So you mentioned your grandparents were biblical fundamentalists. Were your parents biblical fundamentalists as well as your grandparents? You know, I like to say that my parents were more religious about their drug use. They weren't really, they were Christians. If you pressed them on the subject, they would say that they were Christians. really, uh, they were Christians. If you, if you pressed them on the subject, they would say that they were Christians, but, uh, in reality they were more focused on doing meth together and all

kinds of stuff. And I was largely left to my grandparents to be raised by your grandparents. Okay. In a lot of ways. Yeah. Lesser two evils in this case. Right. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Uh, and then my, my dad would go on to become a Mormon and then subsequently leave the Mormon faith. And my mom was previously a Jehovah's Witness. And now she is an atheist humanist. I also have a former flat earther in my family. So it's Thanksgiving. Wait a minute. I wrote down questions about what you had said before. Wait a minute. I wrote down questions about what you had said before,

and I care about those, but I have to come, I have to right now. A former flat earther. So now they're a round earther or a sphere earther? A spherical earther. An obloid. Yeah, right. So they've come back around, so to speak? Oh, come on, that was good.

Back around? That's the only reason I want to even pause and make come on. That was good. Back around? That's the only reason I want to even pause and make that joke. I'll give you a little latitude to make that joke. She was getting influenced by an ex of hers who was a flat earther and she took on those beliefs and when they broke up, she called me and she was like,

I don't believe that anymore. I was being stupid and I was like, alright, cool. Wow. You know what? If only more people could do something like that. There's flat earth conventions. If only a few of them would walk away and say, nah, I don't know what the fuck I was thinking.

If people would just be like, look, I was only in it for the good dick. You know? Like, that's it. As soon as that's gone, I'm out of this thing. I'm out. As soon as you're out, I'm out. All right. So you became a religious studies major. Did you become a religious studies major while you were still at least nominally religious?

Or did you become a religious studies major because, tell me about that. Tell me about what drove you to become a religious studies major. I'm curious. Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely an atheist at the time, but I wasn't a member, you know, I had never even, I'd never heard of Richard Dawkins. I wasn't, uh, I didn't actively consider myself an atheist or talk about that. I was more just fascinated with that aspect of religion where people take it so seriously that they will bet their entire lives on it and harm those that they love because of it. And then someone across the street has a different religion where they do the exact same thing and believe it just as fervently. And I wanted to study it to learn more

about that aspect of it. And so I was fascinated more than anything. And then as I learned more and more about religion, the more and more, you know, the more identified as an atheist and started writing about these subjects and started publishing an American Atheist magazine and stuff like that. Okay. So you were driven to it in part by more of the sociology or anthropological aspect of religion. And like, I get that. I understand that. Exactly. I've said that before, literally, that I like to, I consider myself an anthropologist when it comes to religion. And, you know, between the ages of

13 and 18, before I went to college and after this realization with my grandparents, I went to churches four or five times a week. I would be there every single night that I could. And I would sit there with a notepad, just, you know, just studying these people and watching them talk, speak in tongues and watching them like pretend to heal each other. It was blowing my mind. And so, you know, they would ask me questions and I'm like, Oh no, I'm good. I'm just, I'm just here taking notes. I'm just right now in the weird shit you're doing.

No, keep, keep on with that babble talk. You don't want to get baptized. We just want to know. Just do the notes. Yeah. No,

it's fine. Don't worry. I'm just drawing these courtroom sketches of you. You guys handle the rattlesnake. I'm going to watch from a safe distance. Wait a minute. I know that you're probably joking, but were they rattlesnake people?

Yeah. Yeah. Who are you to rattlesnake people? My grandparents considered themselves Pentecostal Christians and they spoke in tongues and they did snake handling at their church. We've never talked to the snake handler, Cecil. No, never. We've never even talked to somebody tangential to a snake handler. How big is that community?

I mean, I imagine it shrinks regularly. It goes down pretty quick. I've interviewed a couple of snake handlers. And the interesting part about it for me is that I wanted to become a herpetologist all my life. And I wanted to. You know what? This is going to sound like I made this up for the show, but yesterday morning I caught a rattlesnake and myself in a butterfly net

and relocated it because I live here on a farm in kind of a rural area and we deal with rattlesnakes regularly. So I'm the one handling these snakes now. My grandma would be so proud. And obviously you had to feel incredibly confident handling that rattlesnake because its venom, of course, couldn't possibly hurt you.

My face is the thing. Yeah, right. It can pierce your skin. Your skin, yes. So, like, a logistical question. A logistical question about the snake thing. Do they, like, fuck with the snakes in some way

to make them less venomous, or do they do something to... They, like, grab just some random old snake so it's not like the people who who do like the cobra thing where they they make it so that they can't bite and then they they mess with the cobra it's not like that the secret is that rattlesnakes snakes in particular snakes in general and rattlesnakes in particular aren't super aggressive when it comes to biting people uh because they're going to be more likely to bite like rats and things

that they know that they can eat and so when they bite it's an extremely uh defensive bite it's like you're you they feel like you're threatening its life or something and so if you're calm around a rattlesnake you could probably pick up and handle any general rattlesnake that you see if you're careful and calm and it's not a feisty one. Not that I would recommend that. In fact, I recommend the opposite. You heard it here, guys. David says snuggle a rattlesnake. That is what he said. His words, not mine. On the air. When I caught this yesterday with the butterfly net, he didn't strike one single time from the time I picked him up with the s'mores cooker for a fireplace and put him in

the butterfly net. He didn't strike at all. And then we put him in an ice chest from there and he didn't strike at all there either. So he didn't feel like his life was endangered at that time. One more question though. So like in the back room of the church, do they have like some anti-venom or something just in case something goes wrong? Or do they just be like, no, we're going to lay on hands and pull from the back?

Yeah, they call them Bibles, Cecil. Smack it with a Bible. They actually had a community hospital right next to the church. And I always thought that was too pop out. That's Providence right there.

No, that's the name of the hospital. It's Providence Hospital. Providence, yeah. Do they like have a guy, I have so many snake related questions. I'm sorry, I have at least two more. I have at least two more. I'm sorry.

This is not what you wanted to talk about. I don't care. So like, do they have to go out and catch these snakes or do they have a captive series of snakes they keep for their Sunday snaking? Like, I don't... In my experience, there's a volunteer, like a local person who's just like, oh, I caught a rattlesnake recently. I got him in my yard.

Like, okay, let's bring him in. Oh, yeah, special guest. Come on down. Everybody's bringing their bag of snake to church. Yeah, what happens if you have too many people showing up with snakes? Like, no, Jim, we don't need any more fucking snakes. It's like somebody brought too much dip. You know what I mean?

Like, there's four dips. There's like 18 snakes. They're like, motherfucker, man. Look, next time we're going to assign it. That's on me. Tell you what, I told you bring the rats. We don't even need them. I will be impressed when I see, like, a told you bring the rats. We don't even need them. I will be impressed

when I see like a Burmese python handling. This is amazing. Right? Like some 20 foot long, I read a story, I read a story like literally the other day,

like two or three days ago about a woman who got eaten, straight up eaten by a Burmese python. That would impress me if you're like, you could handle that thing? Yeah, right.

Yeah. That weighs 200 pounds. You're like, oh. You could wrestle. Grandma's out there wrestling a Burmese. You could get eaten by it. As long as you come out fine, three days later.

They swallow you whole. They're not chewing. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You got a chance. It's really a jonah and the snake situation that's what it is gotta pray real hard the whole time

so did you want to ask anything else before we do that's all that's all the snake really i broke down my three snake questions though i did have three snake questions i think i'm good so i want to talk a little bit about your book. This is interesting. The title of your book is, Hi, I'm an Atheist, What It Means, and How to Talk About It with Others. Tell us about the concept of the book. Yeah. So the origin of this book was when I was majoring in religious studies,

I graduated. I did very well in my religious studies courses, and I applied to the same school to the graduate program. And before I had even formally applied, I just expressed an interest. I met with the dean of admissions who instantly Googled my name and saw my first book, Disproving Christianity, pop up on the screen. And she looked at me and she's like, I got to word this carefully, but you won't fit in with our department's milieu because you're an atheist activist with an ax to grind. And you're like, I should never have gone to Liberty University

for this degree. I wonder what Olivet Nazarene is doing. You know, this is a, this is a public school. This is UC Santa Barbara, a school where government funded. But that dean of admissions, she did come from a theology program about six months before that. And so, you know, I think she didn't really understand the differences between a religious divinity school's theology program and a secular religious studies program. But they issued me an apology and they offered to review my application. I declined. But that was kind of the first experience that set me up to write the book because I realized that coming out as an atheist or being an open non-believer could affect you in more than just your family

life where your aunt gets mad or your grandma doesn't like to hear what you say at Thanksgiving or being an open non-believer could affect you in more than just your family life where your aunt gets mad or your grandma doesn't like to hear what you say at Thanksgiving or whatever, that it could affect your employment and your educational opportunities. You know, I don't know this for sure, right? Because you can't go back in time

and re-adjudicate with different circumstances. But I do wonder heavily if you had instead been a devout Christian who had written a book called 10 Proofs of Jesus, if that would have been, like if you'd written the same book, right? The same book, you know, 10 Proofs,

an apologist's guide to proving Jesus rocked. Why atheists are wrong. Right, you know, I would imagine strongly that that would have actually worked in your favor for that graduate program. I can imagine strongly that that would have actually worked in your favor for that graduate program. I can promise you that that person would get in because I mentioned in my meeting with the dean of admissions, I mentioned to her that you accept all kinds of people who have done missions, who have written books about Christianity, who have explicitly, you know, been on the other side of that coin. who have explicitly, you know, been on the other side of that coin, you know, and it shouldn't have mattered for either of these, you know, myself or that hypothetical person, because I wasn't involving my activism with my education. I wasn't writing all my papers about how Christianity

was terrible. You know, I was literally just studying religion and learning about how the different faiths interacted with one another and changed their belief systems over time by influencing via trade routes and other weird ways that they interacted. And that was my focus and that was my specialty. And so I never did anything involving activism in my school. And that hypothetical person writing about Christianity likely wouldn't either. And so it really shouldn't be relevant. But yeah, it was apparently. Yeah, but it just sees on something that's interesting to me is that if an atheist writes a book or is vocal, has a podcast, for example, that's considered activism. If somebody of faith writes a book or goes on mission or evangelizes, that is not considered

activism. That's considered just an expression of faith. And so they're viewed as different. One is viewed as inherently political and as a result, inherently divisive. And the other is viewed as normative and something that we all sort of accept and embrace. And that is one thing that I think makes being atheist more challenging than being part of that larger, to your point, larger milieu of the cultural set, right? It's like, yeah, I mean, it doesn't stand in the way directly of my

work, et cetera. No, it doesn't, except that, yeah, sometimes it does. Except that, yeah, like, sometimes you'll have to keep quiet about something that other people don't have to keep quiet about, something that not only do other people not have to keep quiet about, but that works as a point in their favor. You know, we've seen how many times somebody who says, you know, they go in front of a judge and what's one of the things that people will say,

oh, you know, my client made a mistake, but they're a devout Christian and they're a prayer school leader. They're describing religious activism. If they were to describe atheist activism, that would be seen as morally bankrupt. So, you know, and I know I'm just basically repeating to you back to you what you said in different terms, but I do think that that structure is interesting. So when you wrote

your book, I'm an atheist, what that means, what I see on is the second part, how to talk about it with others. So tell me a little bit more about that. How and why should we talk about atheism? All right. So I'll address why first. When I talk about, when I encourage people to talk about atheism, what I'm hoping for is that it becomes more normative that, you know, uh, you talk about it with your, your mom and your mom sees that, okay, this person's an atheist and they haven't changed. My son hasn't changed in all this time of being an atheist. Maybe it's not a big deal. If my daughter or my mailman or my cashier, whatever happens to be an atheist. Whereas right now that is seen as more of like a dirty word. And it's seen as, uh, like you mentioned, you know, it's kind of like a mitigating factor, an aggravating factor instead of a mitigating factor when it comes to court

cases and stuff like that. And it really shouldn't be that way. But the more people who talk about it, the more we go to a society where it's seen as just another part of anybody's old beliefs or non-beliefs or whatever. So that's why I think it's important that we do talk about it. And as far as how you go about it, obviously, there's a lot of information in the book, but I would distill it down to that we have to account for the fact that like you mentioned, that it's completely normal to be on the other side of the coin, and seen as abnormal to be an atheist, you have to understand that just by saying that you're an atheist, you're basically saying, everybody that

you know, and love, you know, in many cases is wrong about something that they've believed with all of their hearts for their whole life, and that they learned from their family. And so it is an inherently controversial position in a society that's dominated by faith. Yeah. It reminds me of the, the reader. So there's a very recent, and I mean, it's been out for a long time, but it's got a more, it's got a little more attention now because the road thing, the shout your abortion hashtag. Right. And that reminds me too of the power of the LGBTQ community of coming out, right? You come out and you shout your abortion and you make known to, I think very specifically, me too. Yeah, me too is another example.

Exactly. Make known to people, you know somebody that is like this, you love somebody that is like this. And, and I, that, that sort of thing for any kind of marginalized group, you know, I think it matters. Can you tell me about what are your thoughts about this and the workplace? Oh yeah. That's a big, big part of the book because that's where a lot of people have these types of interactions. And even to this day, a lot of my fan mail, a lot of my messages are about people who are experiencing like inappropriate, like their employer is doing something inappropriate when it comes to religion. And so, you know, I have to forward all those people to Freedom from Religion Foundation,

to Americans United for Separation, Church and State, other organizations that can do real work on those issues. But when it comes to just communicating about religion, that's a big issue in the workplace too, because it's seen as okay to talk about, you know, oh, where do you go to church in a lot of areas or, you know, to otherwise imply or just assume the faith of others. And for an atheist, you have to literally question yourself. Am I going to let them assume that I'm a believer like them and assume that I have these complex rituals like they do and assume that I worship this deity that they do?

Or am I going to break and make an uncomfortable situation even more uncomfortable by saying, you know, I don't believe in any of that and essentially telling them that you believe that they're wrong about all these important things in their life. And it can get real dicey. And so, you know, that's just the information you have to have in your mind going into it. You have to have that context and that awareness of what the dynamics are. What about, so one of the big things is that atheists have to deal with is dealing with

close family. Like you mentioned earlier, like when you're talking to Aunt Millie or whatever at Christmas or Thanksgiving, what kind of advice do you give people to talk about, talk to people that are close to them, that knew them when they were growing up, things like that?

What kind of advice do you get to them? I think you got to appeal to what you just mentioned that they knew them growing up and say, you know, there's this whole background of relationship that we have where, uh, my beliefs were not a part of that. Uh, usually in most cases it's not. And you say, uh, you know, the fact that I don't believe this now shouldn't get in the way of anything that we had or have in the future. And, you know, unless they're trying to force their beliefs on you or others, it shouldn't. And so that should be a good place to start for forming those connections, reforming those

connections. And I recommend the first step in any of those situations is also to find common ground. So basically, like, you know, you believe in God, I don't believe in God, but we both hate the Raiders. So let's go talk about that. Sometimes that's all you need, you know? It's, it's funny. Cause one of the things you had mentioned before was, um, you said you were, one of the things you were studying was how different religious sects sort of interact with one another. And I wrote a note that, you know, our atheists may be like, I don't think this is like an intentional role, but do we serve a sort of cultural role as uniters of other religions? In other words, we are the enemy of everyone's enemy.

enemy of everyone's enemy. Like if you're Hindu and you're Muslim, you know, the Hindu and Muslim populations historically, particularly in India are not getting along to put it very mildly, but I think they hate us more than they hate each other. For sure. Like, I wonder if there is a sort of enemy of the enemy, the uniter role that atheism plays culturally. I can promise you that that does happen because I've personally experienced it on many occasions where somebody will say, I'm a Christian and I would take a Muslim or a Jew any day over somebody who doesn't believe in God. And I've seen this by somebody who also said that he believes that all Christians will rise up and kill all atheists at some point and said that right now laws are the only thing getting in Christian's up and kill all atheists at some point and said that right now,

laws are the only thing getting in Christian's way of killing all atheists. And that's good. Yikes. Cause we're not in great shape as a group, you know, like I'm just saying, like you have beach body. I don't have genocide ready body yet.

You're just lifting Jim Baker buckets. Oh no. The only reason I don't kill you. Anytime somebody finishes a sentence with the only reason I don't kill, I don't need to listen to the rest. Like, what do you want to kill me for you? Fucking psychopath.

What's crazy is that there's many believers out there who that the one thing that is tethering them to yeah good behavior right is that that there is someone watching them that will punish them forever in an afterlife it's crazy that there's so many of them yeah i'd pretty much kill you and smash your brains in with a rock but you know i don't want to go to hell for being a bad person. You're like, you're already a bad person because you want to beat my brains in with a rock. What? You live in the thought crime world, not me. How is this not a thought crime?

It's even funnier because this actually ties into the real nature of religion, the real purpose that religion serves as a kind of tribal bonding exercise, as something that brings in fringe people who would otherwise go afoul of the law. They won't if they think they have this cosmic overseer. have this cosmic overseer. And that's the real purpose that religion has served in society. And the reason that it still exists today is because it has helped societies in those ways. And, you know, a lot of people who think that there's zero benefits to religion have never met one of these people that without it would be bashing in their brain. You know, in the righteous mind, Jonathan Haidt points that out. He says, you know, one of the things that religion does that has tremendous social value is it brings these groups together and offers these folks something to tribalize around. And without that tribalization,

we don't make anywhere near as much social progress. So the question I was going to ask you after that then is, do we as atheists have something that we can tribalize around other than this non-belief, which is difficult to coalesce around? Yeah, yeah. Well, the non-belief only exists because of the belief. So if your only purpose of existence is to oppose something else, you know, just like atheism is, then it's not going to be a strong background for a sustainable... The Republicans do okay with that. I'm just saying their only existence is oppositional. Opposition, right? I know that's fine. Yeah. I learned this, you know, when I first was starting off with this atheist stuff,

I soon transitioned to writing about skepticism and atheism and, and secular issues and humanism issues and, you know, uh, anything in general that religion has touched on and impeded trying to kind of clear that way a little bit. And so I think that's the purpose that we serve at this moment. Let's talk a little bit about your, uh, your children's books. Tell us a little bit. And so I think that's the purpose that we serve at this moment. Let's talk a little bit about your children's books. Tell us a little bit about that. So you not only write books like this, you also write books for children. Yes. I have four children's books. And the first three are about the topic of religion. I basically took what I learned in these college classes and distilled it to what kids can understand and help them see where religions come from, where I say, you know,

imagine if you looked out your window one day and you saw everything that you needed to survive, all the food and water that you would ever need to survive is just right there in front of you. Wouldn't it kind of feel like there was this person or something up there looking out for you? And explain that that's how this whole idea of a God began and goes into allowing them to create their own deities and their own religions with sacred texts and stuff like that. So those are, I'm really passionate about getting people to understand the ins and outs of religion and what it means to society and how to interact with people on that subject. Do you have any kids? I do not have kids yet, no.

That's pretty cool that you're writing kids books because most people, you know, they wouldn't think to write books to appeal to that generation until they have like a personal experience with that generation. My illustrator, uh, Chuck Harrison, we are 50, 50 on this whole, on the whole venture of the belief book series. And when we came up with the idea together, he had a six year old son and that's where we based this whole thing was, uh, uh, six and up as the age range for these books, because we tested them on his son. And we took the questions that he had and we incorporated them into the future editions. And we really worked with his kid. And then later on, on the second and third book, my niece and nephew as well.

And so, you know, I don't have my own kids yet, but I do have a lot of experience in that world that I was able to pull from. And I have 22 farm animals, so that's got to count for at least one kid. That basically amounts to like seven kids. You're essentially a McDonald. I mean, let's be honest. So do you catch any heat from these books from believers? Do believers think that you're like the root of all evil

and there's going to be a drag queen reading your book at some library somewhere that they have to break up, send the Proud Boys in or something? Follow-up, do your books have a pop-up snake that just jumps out? Because if not, that's a missed opportunity to say. Maybe the next one. Bazaar! Snake! It just bites the apple. Like you pull the thing and it bites the apple.

They have a color in your own snake. It just bites the apple. Like you pull the thing and it bites the apple. They have a color in your own snake. To answer your question though, literally, I mean, 90% of my emails are hate about those books because people are thinking that I'm trying to, literally they say that I'm trying to indoctrinate their kids. I'm like, first of all, I write these books. You have to put it in the kid's hand. And second of all, if anything, it's trying to dis indoctrinate any, you know, uh, there's nothing in there. I literally don't mention the word atheism in these books. It's all about

religion, where it comes from, why people believe the things they believe. Uh, there's even a section called higher power Rangers, higher power Rangers. That's pretty great. Very clever. Love it. How to nicely interact with religious people, even though they don't believe the same thing. And so it's all respectful and kind. I don't teach anyone to hate anything. But yeah, the hate toward me on this is kind of unprecedented. And those are my most popular books as well. They go around in a lot of homeschooling groups and a lot of secular schooling groups. And it inspired me to come up with a fourth children's book, which has nothing to do with religion,

which is called Maggie and Daisy Explore the Farm. And that's about our farm here. And I had a St. Bernard, we had a St. Bernard pit bull, and we have a one-eyed chihuahua, and it's about them. And it's all about moral lessons. It's teaching them how to fight bullying and be good people. And so it's that type of thing that without religion, we do need to be teaching kids, like, these are good morals. Let's follow these ones instead of these ones based on this ancient text.

And then you get them in with this book and they think you're just some guy and then they're like, oh, let's see what else he has. Suddenly you're like toppling idols and it's just chaos in their life. Good for you. I like your plan. This is all part of the evil McAfee-like thing.

Like it's soon like there's just a whole bunch of them living in Belize in the jungles with their harem. It's fascinating that your books don't mention atheism, and yet you still have all of this hate mail. Because introspection and self-reflection are intellectual enemies of religious belief. So even though you're not explicitly calling out religion as being like, hey, here's a list of things that aren't true. It's like, hey, here's some things to think deeply about. And they're like, wait a minute. Yeah. We don't like thinking deeply about that. That's not any good. The books are all focused on questions. Each chapter starts with a question and the kid is encouraged to just ask more questions

and deepen their understanding. It's basically the Socratic method applied to kids and they hate it. People hate- Of course they do. If people were going to find your work somewhere on the internet, where would they look? I would say Amazon, Facebook, facebook.com slash author David G. McAfee.

That's where I am most often. But all my books are available on Amazon, but they're available really any bookstore. If you have like a local bookstore you prefer, they'll be able to order it at least. Well, we'll leave a link on this week's show notes to your Amazon page and then people can, if they hate Amazon, can certainly Google your books and find them somewhere else.

David, thank you so much for joining us to tell us about this stuff. We really appreciate you coming on. Thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I love the show. Abortions for all. No miniature American flags for anyone. So Tom, this last week, we did a fundraiser.

We did. And we wound up raising with three other podcasts, Opening Arguments, Knowledge Fight, and Scathing Atheist, over $160,000. That's a huge outpouring. $160,000 for abortion access, three different charities we chose. That whole stream is available on YouTube

and the place that we wound up donating was awayfund.org. That's the Opening Arguments Fund. It's going to take that money, split it up three different ways and send those checks directly out to those organizations. But huge outpouring from our community as usual. Man, first couple of things occur to me.

One is I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised because this community has stepped up every time that the call has been made. But even though I'm not surprised, I don't want to take it for granted because I'm also intensely impressed. And honestly, like I don't say it's like, I'm actually pretty fucking humbled by it.

I really am. For real. Because there's no way you and I could do this, right? This $160,000 will make a real genuine material difference in the lives of people who have now become second-class citizens. And the only way that that happens is because we're all able to connect together.

We're all able to bind together and unite as a community. When we started this, what we had in common was something we didn't believe in. We talked about this with our guest. And that's nothing, right? That doesn't hold. There's no bond to that. But what I am gratified by time and again is, and I know this might sound kind of cheesy, but I don't care. Like I am genuinely moved by the depths of the bonds that have been created as a result of this

little podcast world, this little, I don't know what you call it, but it's like, it's got knowledge fight in it now. And it's got us and it's got the scathing guys and it's got the OA guys. And we're not part of anything official. We don't, we're not joined at the hip or tethered financially to one another, but there's this thing that we kind of share and we've been able to sort of connect together and pull some different audiences from this show and from that show. And $160,000 is an impressive showing. It does more than just help the people who get financially involved. That also will get attention, and it will help motivate other people to give, and it will help really establish that this is a community that is powerful. And this is a community that believes in something

more than just not believing in things. That's what we're accused of all the time. We're accused of not believing in things. And there's so much more to us than that. I'm so grateful to be a part of that community and that group of people, whatever we call it. I don't know what it would even be called. Yeah.

But I am deeply grateful to be a part of it. I am so impressed, like you said, so impressed with the people who step up and help motivate their communities around them, right? Like we don't have a lot of, you and I are just dudes. Right. But we just happen to have a little bit louder voice.

And the people who listen to us are also caring people. Right. And the same thing is true for many in these communities. And so grabbing together all those caring people. And the same thing is true for many in these communities. And so grabbing together all those caring people is sort of really an amazing moment, right? It's what people talk about, like what religion is, you know, the sort of gathering of people and the idea, like there's a very, you know,

like there's a very moving experience to be had here just as much as there would be in any spiritual place. You know what I mean? Like these gathering of people to, to do good work is important. And the, you know, I want to, I want to give a shout out to the skating atheist guys who they were on, like, this is the night before they go to their company retreat. This is the night before they all, and the same thing with Thomas and Andrew, because they were at OA. They were going there too.

So it's like, this is the night before they all decide to get on a plane and travel somewhere. They took time out of their schedule to do that. The Knowledge Fight guys, they actually, before they came on with us, were doing another fundraiser. And before that, they had actually raised, I thought I read, $10,000 to $15,000 for abortion before that.

So they had already come in raising extra money before then, trying to spend their time as much as they could to get as much of the word out as they could to sort of further this message to help motivate people to donate. And that you can't, I mean, that's just an amazing group of people. Just genuinely amazing. It truly is. And that you can't, I mean, that's just an amazing group of people. Just genuinely amazing. It truly is. And it's so needed. And here's a story from The Guardian about why this kind of thing is needed.

And just to give you guys an idea, the funds that we donated to are funds that help provide not just abortion services themselves, but also logistical access to abortion for those who are living in nightmarish fucking dystopian hellscapes that are essentially Margaret Atwood fucking wet fantasies, right? So that nightmare, these organizations help move women out of Gilead and into the real America where they actually count and have rights. Yeah. A story from The Guardian that I can't believe I'm reading in 2022.

I can't. 10-year-old rape victim forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana for abortion. I think the most shocking thing about that story is that anybody went to Indiana

God damn it. When Indiana is your bastion of progressivism in a region what have you done america story though too is that they that they dig beyond the depths of indiana and ohio to reach out to one of the dakotas to get to get the the governor of one of the dakotas i think it's south dakota i'm not sure. I don't remember which Dakota it is. I'll be perfectly honest.

But the person who they're talking to is this governor who essentially just banned all abortion. Right. And they said, well, what would happen in your state? Right. And her response was, nobody's talking about the rapist. And I'm just like, man, the rapist gets to go to jail. Like, like nobody's talking about the rapist because the real tragedy here

is that, is that the state has abandoned a victim. That's, that's the tragedy. We're not talking about the rapist because the rapist

is going to go to jail or the rapist is going to be, he's going to have some, they're going to have some problem. Right. Yeah. Like we're not talking about like, that's sort of the,

the Texas suggestion that we'll just get rid of rape. why the fuck if you could do that why didn't you do that why didn't you do it already really like oh you had a you had a magic no rape wand and what you were sitting on it because you could always get an abortion like really that's why we're not we're not talking about the rapist because there are already laws outlawing fucking rape. It's a stupid comment. It's a stupid comment. The other thing too that is so frustrating with all this is the way this woman frames her argument is as if people are just like using abortion as contraception with no other plan in place. They're just out there having sex. And then they just, it's just like, oh, I gotta go back for an abortion.

Uh-oh. That is such not what really happens in the world. It is such a fucking fabrication of the right to make it look like every single person who gets an abortion is, they're just not responsible for their own body. And they just, and they go out and flaunt this system to try to, to try to show that they're not responsible for their own body. When in fact, you know, especially when you're talking about the,

the pregnancies that go to like the third term, and then there needs to be an abortion because of medical reasons, these people were ready to have a baby. Man, I just watched, and I recommend anybody, I just watched this week the documentary After Tiller. So Tiller is the name of an abortion provider who performed abortions in the third trimester and he was assassinated. So After Tiller is an abortion documentary

that was made in 2015. The third trimester abortion providers in America, there are four. There are four people, four human beings providing that service. That's it. Just four human beings providing that service. Less than 1% of abortions are in the third trimester. And they are almost exclusively people who desperately wanted these children. And they have terrible fetal abnormalities. They were never going to be viable. Or the women are in terrible danger if they were to continue that pregnancy. Or there was some exigent circumstance which prevented women from gaining access to care in a more timely fashion. Regardless, they are a statistical anomaly.

There's four providers. The anti-choice movement or right or whatever you want to call it, they seize on this as if it's some kind of a norm when it's like 91.1% of all abortions occur before 10 weeks. 99 or 91? 91% occur before 10 weeks. 99 or 91? 91% occur before 10 weeks. 10 weeks. Before 10 weeks. That is like what I said.

It's a bloody nose. Right. It's not even a, like if you were to show someone what was gone at 10 weeks. Right. They would be like, what is that?

Is that like an apple seed? And when you push that number out to like 20 weeks, it's like 99%. Yeah, sure. So we're not talking about- First trimester abortions, that's what Roe codified, right? Was free for the country,

first trimester abortions. And then everybody kept on trying to put in little things like, oh, you gotta name it and you gotta stick a thing up your hoo-ha and you gotta look at it in the face and say, I'm gonna to kill you or whatever. Like all these weird laws that they try to put in place. But Roe essentially said 20

weeks is fine. Yeah, you know, and I looked this up the other day because I was curious about this and I got to thinking about this. And so it is not until sometime in the seventh month of pregnancy that there is, so we talk about like measuring the right, I don't want to say we, so we talk about like measuring the right,

I don't want to say we, the right talks about measuring things like the heartbeat in order to determine life, right? And we had Dr. Jessica on twice and the heartbeat, first of all, it's not a heart. Second of all, it's not a heartbeat, but also that's not actually a good measure of when life begins. And we know that because it's not the measure of how life ends. So in other words, We know that because it's not the measure of how life ends. So in other words, if I get in a car crash, or my dad has a fucking stroke or something, and his heart keeps beating,

what we actually measure to determine life is whether or not there's brainwave activity. That's how we determine whether or not a fully bodied person who is no longer physically tethered to another human being for life support. That's what we measure. And we measure that if somebody is 70 years old, and we measure that same thing if somebody is six months old, right? It doesn't, we don't measure a different thing if there's any question about whether somebody's

alive. It's not until the seventh month that there's any measurable brainwave activity. Prior to month seven, there is no, this is according to the NIH. So I just, in case anyone's wondering where my source is from the NIH. So there's no measurable brainwave activity. So the thing that we use to measure whether or not a fully bodied person is alive or dead. And we measure that to decide, can we harvest organs from this thing? Yeah. Right. Is this right? Yeah. You know, so like if I get in a fucking car wreck and my brain dies, my heart keeps beating, they can stop my beating heart, right?

In order to take my kidneys and give them to someone that needs them because I'm fucking dead. I'm in and dead is the opposite fucking thing of alive. We're liars about this. Like the right is lying about this. They are lying. They're moving the goalpost with the heartbeat when we don't use that goalpost for any fully bodied, non-tethered human organism. And it's fucking nonsense. This story from The Guardian, a 10-year-old kid, a 10-year-old kid. And the state of Ohio is like, no. The Dakotas are like, no.

And they're going to have a special session in Indiana soon to abolish it. And they will. They will. They will 100% in a special session soon. That's like, yeah, no, it's going to be gone. So that's a two-state area. Think about where you're at. Let's say you're in like the Toledo area or maybe a little bit farther. Let's say you're closer to Cleveland. What do you have? Hours and hours and hours and hours to drive to get somewhere because Michigan now is going to go dark. Right.

Right. If you're in Cincinnati, you're, you're five hours from civilization. Yeah. Five, Cincinnati, you're fucked. Cause yeah, Kentucky, Tennessee. Right. You know, what's around you. Right.

You were seriously, you're five hours to Illinois. What's around you. Yeah. And that's the problem is like, and this is a long, this is a long place. This, you're traveling a long way. Yeah. And the cost of that travel, you know, it's also, I looked up, you know, the majority of people who choose to have an abortion already have kids.

They already have kids. It's, they understand what's going on. The right likes to paint this, like to your point, they like to paint this as a matter of responsibility. It's a bullshit way to phrase something, right? This has nothing to do with responsibility. This has everything to do with denying women bodily autonomy, because to deny a woman bodily autonomy is to relegate women to second-class citizenry. And that's not unintentional. There was a Times article that came out today that was talking about how women are not able to return to the workforce in the same numbers as men have been able to return to the workforce post-pandemic because the industries that have not come back online are the childcare and eldercare industries.

Industries which are both staffed by primarily women and also primarily services that women need. women and also primarily services that women need. This in conjunction with the destruction of women's bodily autonomy rights means that women will be forced more and more into roles of financial servitude. Even further into, even further out of the workforce. And the worst part about all this is that women were making true strides, becoming the more educated group of people, be getting more and more better paying jobs. Voting more often. Voting more. There was so much more that had happened in recent years. You know, progress.

There was progress. Huge progress. And, you know, that tells you, I think, why these things are being decided the way they are. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. Really devastating story about this poor little girl. This little kid, man.

10 is so little. 10 is so young. 10 is so young. And to be in that situation and to look at any of these anti-choicers in the country and to have them sit down with her and say, no, you're forced to do this.

You have to. Because this woman, this governor is like, every life is beautiful. And at one point I want to read part of what she says. Oh my God. It's so monstrous. Yeah. She says, asked if the girl should have to leave the baby, have the baby. Noam responded that every single life, every single life is precious. This tragedy is horrific. But in South Dakota, it was a South Dakota lady. The law today is that abortions are illegal except to save the life of the mother. And I would argue to you, Tom, that if this little girl had an abortion,

it would save her life. Yeah, but- Because it would save her life. It would save her whole life. It would save everything that's meaningful about being alive. And I would say the same thing about every single mother out there

that has an abortion, that it saved their life. Absolutely. That while it might not have been a life-threatening injury, it saved their life. Yeah, your life is more than just whether or not you live or die. Your life is a series of ideas and dreams and stories about who you want to be. That's exactly it. And a narrative you want to tell about your fucking future. And an unplanned pregnancy and an unwanted pregnancy necessarily derails that and threatens and destroys that story

that you're trying to tell yourself and work toward about your own life. And it is nobody's fucking business, but that woman who is pregnant about what story she chooses to tell about her relationship to motherhood. Yeah. Whether she chooses to engage about her relationship to motherhood. Yeah. Whether she chooses to engage that or chooses not to engage that.

This follow-up bullshit that she said, she said, yes, because asked if allowing an abortion to be performed on a 10-year-old would be considered as protecting the life of the mother. Noam did not rule out that interpretation. But then she says this, and you guys need to hear this. Yes, that situation, the doctor, the family, the individual closest to that will make the decisions there for that family. No, they won't because they can't. Because you stepped in. Because the state now is the wall in between all those things.

The church, the mother, the father, the financial circumstances, the family around it, the doctor, all that stuff gets bodied out of there. Right. By the state who now gets to make this decision unilaterally for everyone. I read that line and I literally I couldn't believe that line because that line basically says it's nobody's business but the woman and her care providers and those closest to her. Right. And a bunch of senators. And I'm just like, yeah. And not injustices. Right.

Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, I fucking agree. So why are you in her fucking uterus, man? Fucking A, man. This is a 10-year-old. Yeah. What the fuck? That was such an egregious line.

I couldn't believe that when I read it. People always say shit like, I'm going to pray for you. You're going to pray for me so you're gonna sit in your apartment and do nothing that's what your prayers are you sitting around and not taking action as i struggle with the situation don't pray for me make me a sandwich or something because i'm really upset and I can't cook for myself. This story comes from Rolling Stone and is not surprising. SCOTUS justices prayed with her, then cited her bosses to end Roe.

So this is specifically citing a right-wing evangelist who met with and bragged about and laughed about the justices that she didn't meet with to pray ahead of time with these fucking justices. And then was like, yeah, they didn't all want to meet with me. They didn't all want to pray with me, but you know, some of them sure did. And then wouldn't you know it, our right-wing fucking religious fundamentalist ideas made their way into the law of the land. And not only that, this woman represents one of the people who brought a case.

So it's not just that, it's not just that this is just some random preacher, right? Right. This is a random preacher with a giant organization behind her that is bringing lawsuits all the way up to the Supreme Court and offering opinions to the Supreme Court

that they are then citing in their rulings. This is a dangerous overstepping of bounds and a huge conflict of interest. And it's crazy that there are no safeguards. Yep. There's no bumpers playing fucking bowling with the fucking Supreme Court. There's no bumpers. It's it. The rails are off. It's completely like, yeah, well, all right, we did this thing.

outside of the courtroom, share this sort of like side prayer religiosity moment with members of the fucking case you're about to hear. But if it happens and we find out, there's literally nothing anyone can do. There's literally nothing anyone can do. If you have any illusions whatsoever

that this is not the rise of the theocrats, that the theocrats are not establishing through their most recent ruling a very specific and narrow interpretation of Christianity that everybody else will be forced by law to follow. If you are somehow confused about that, allow this to disabuse you of that notion. Yeah, it is one of those moments

where they try to, you know, you see it happening and you're appalled, right? But then they try to make it better by saying things like, well, Scalia used to go hunting with Dick Cheney. And you're like, that's not okay either. Like, it's okay. If you're going to use that as a way to be, to say, well, you know, sometimes Supreme Court justices, they get buddy buddy with people who might have influence on their decision making. And you think, fuck you. That shouldn't happen. We hired you for one job, man. You had one job and then you fucking cocked it all up. You went out there and fucking hung out with this guy and hung out with that gal. And you did praying in the fucking steps

or in your private chambers with these people who you're reading fucking material from. That is a clear conflict of interest. There should be an ethics committee that fucking fires you for the American people. Yeah, and there's nothing. There's no safeguard. Nothing.

First of all, going hunting with Dick Cheney automatically shows that you have little regard for human life. Absolutely. Like how scars or it didn't happen. There's a lot of holes in that argument. You know what I mean? A lot of holes. That is defective on its face. It'd be awesome if Scalia

apologized to him after he got shot in the face like that one guy. All I'm saying is if somebody had he got shot in the face like that one guy. All I'm saying is if somebody had to get shot in the face, why wasn't it Scalia? Also, I think Scalia could probably take it in the face. He probably could take it. Like he was like- Wouldn't even care.

He was like made of just, he was like a human callus that. It probably just bounced right off of him. No, but- He is callous. That's true. Like it's very obviously callous. Not anymore. Yeah. Now he's dead., it's very obviously callous. Not anymore.

Yeah. Now he's dead. Now he's a corpse. But yeah, man, fucking, it's just, it's one of those things that you read and it's,

it very much reminds me of the last four years and how government was run. And you just see that there's these weird backroom deals and I'm not going to like you anymore unless you do this thing for me.

Right. All this weird, it just feels so strange. It feels, I feel like I was lied to my whole life. I feel like when I was a kid and I was in those civics classes and they looked at me in the face

and they said, adults are in charge. They got this. Yeah, right. And I thought, you know what? You're right. Those are adults.

Those are people. Some old dude in a wig, like a powdered wig years ago, wrote some shit down. And then they figured it all out. And then a bunch of old dudes in powdered wigs maybe made 10 little alterations to that thing. And then down the road, they certainly changed what they were doing.

And they suddenly realized that they were super wrong about black people. They were super wrong about women. They were super wrong about women. They were super wrong about a bunch of other shit. And they changed it all. At first, they were wrong about alcohol. And then they were wrong about alcohol. But, you know, they worked their way through it.

And then you get to now and you think, yeah, that's got a long tradition. All those people are in charge. This is how this works. This is okay. And then now you're like, nobody's in charge, man. Holy shit. These people are all clowns. They're all fucking clowns, man.

Are they all? Well, who has the new codes? Get them quick. Hide them under the fucking, like hide them under the fucking White House dog. Whatever you've got to do. It's fucking terrifying that we live in this world. Like, like there's a story by julia sweeney where she talks about the first time she realized god didn't exist and she was walking from like her

shed to her house and she had to stop and lay on the ground because she wasn't sure how gravity worked anymore it like threw her for such a loop and like when when they pulled the fucking the fucking curtain back from how fucking clown shoes the whole government is. I feel the same way. I just want to like hold on to the statue of Lincoln and just hold on to it, man. Like a little kid holding your dad's leg. Just don't let go. Be like, no, no. They lied to me, man. You've been lying to me forever. It's crazy, dude. It is. It is. It's like I too, I used to believe in the myth of serious people. Yes, right? Right. What a great line. The myth is serious is it's like i too i used to believe in the myth of serious people right right what a great line the myth is serious that's the name of this episode the myth is

serious people and like i am so distressed that it's just everyone guarding their lunch table kidding they're like we're gonna we're gonna go to wars and we're gonna have trade deals or not have trade deals or fix the climate or not fix the climate or like have generations that have water or not have all of this is based on whether or not someone likes someone else like that's that's how you decide who's at your pool party man that's how you decide who you stand in the garage and fucking clink beers with that is not how you decide whether or not you send 10 000000 troops into fucking battle because of. But yes, it is.

Yes, it fucking is. Yes, it fucking is. Because the myth of serious people is a fucking myth. We are run entirely by a bunch of like dudes who want to be friends with each other. Or fucking, they're so clown shoes. Right. It's so clown shoes, man. I'm just blown away by're so clown shoes. Right. It's so clown shoes, man. I'm just blown away

by how fucking clown shoes it is. And like, the other thing too is this doesn't have anything to do with this story, but you know, this week, Lindsey Graham was subpoenaed.

And he's just like, fuck you. He's like, no. He's like, fuck you. I'm not going to do it. Fuck you, because fuck you. That's why,

because I'm fucking Lindsey because I'm Lindsey Graham. And you know what I get to say? Fuck you, motherfucker. And guess what? What's going to happen? Literally. And you know what I get to say? Fuck you, motherfucker. And guess what? What's going to happen? Literally nothing. You know what happens if they can say, hey, what?

You know what, Cecil? You've been subpoenaed. What happens if I say, fuck you, Tom? What happens then? Exactly. U.S. Marshals, motherfucker. Hey, you know what you got to do? A, go, or B, go to jail.

Those are your two fucking options. Yep. You know, that's what's so crazy to me is there's a fucking like i know that there's i know i grew up in two americas i know there's two americas i know there's an america for rich people and i know there's an america for all the rest of us fucking suckers and i know that's true but i didn't think that that would be so brazen out in the open i know dude this is like This is like, when I read that Lindsey Graham thing, my first thought was like, are they all sovereign citizens?

Are they all governed by maritime law? Am I being detained? Did he ask if he was being detained right now? We could just say like, your laws don't apply to me. I'm a citizen. I want to see that guy. And what does that count? I want that guy from that courtroom who stopped that guy to come in.

I want him to tase Mildred Graham and drag him by the fucking barbs to his fucking seat. Like, fuck you, man. Every other fucking Joe in the fucking country has got to show up to these things. You're the only asshole who gets to say no? How about fuck you?

How about that? I don't recognize the authority of this committee. I don't recognize the authority of the IRS. I don't recognize the authority of the IRS. I still got to pay my fucking taxes. Yeah, no kidding, man. I don't get to play sovereign citizen because that's insane. Yeah, I don't get to decide. But you do if you're a senator.

Yeah, fuck you, man. Fuck you in the ass. It's so crazy. You get to go or you get to go to jail. And I'll tell you what, man, that's such bullshit. It's such bullshit that they let these people get out with this. And I thought for sure there was rules.

I did too. What I don't understand is how you can, I understand that you can show up and just plead the fifth the whole time. Yeah. But to just like

take your fucking dick out and fucking wag it at everybody. You're just like, I'll wag my dick at you. I'm outside. I'm fucking Lincoln's face out here. That's the part I don't understand. And the worst part is I'm still holding on

and he's fucking the face. I got my arms around him. You're making it weird. You're making it weird. Lindsay's up there fucking his face. I can't hug him around the neck. I got to hug him around the ankle. It's dripping down.

Jesus Christ, Lindsay. I forgot the dog. There's a dog too. And the dog. And the dog fucks the girl. That's called bestiality yes it's in the bible it's in my diary he said it's in his diary and i knew his dog here's civics class tom here you go this could you again shit I can't believe I'm reading in 2022. Washington Post, in trainings, Florida tells teachers that religion belongs in public life. And let me read specifically.

Included in the training is the statement that it is a misconception that the founders desired strict separation of church and state. that the founders desired strict separation of church and state. Other materials included fragments of statements that were cherry-picked to present a conservative view of American history. This is, my takeaway from the training is that civics education in the state of Florida right now is geared toward pushing particular points of view,

says Broward County teacher Richard Judd. The thesis they ran with is there is no real separation of church and state. DeSantis is basically creating unentitled. He's pushing as far as this can be pushed. There is also a law. I don't know if I threw it in the notes or not, but there's a law that was recently passed in Florida that university attendees in Florida,

attendees and employees of the university, have to declare their politics before attending university in order to make sure that the university represents a diversity of viewpoints. So you have to declare your fucking political views as a fucking 18-year-old kid applying

to some university of Gator Town or whatever the fuck in Florida so you can get a substandard education. I don't even know if Florida school is really good. I have no idea. They have good sports teams. Here's the thing. This is coercing people to do this, right?

So like, here's what they have. They have this plan where they're going to get some guy, some fucking joker who believes that fucking, you know, God fucked the constitution and had America as a baby. It's what they do believe. And so, and so that's some yokel is going to put that shit in a PowerPoint and he's

going to stand in front of everybody. And they have this guy who's like a stop the steal guy who's given fucking lectures on this stuff. And they're attending these lectures and they're being coerced to attend these lectures because it's $700 to attend for them to get $700. They don't have to pay $700. They get $700 to attend. And then it's $3,000 if they certify. So if they say, yeah, fucking Jesus fucked the constitution. And that's how, that's how, that's how you America. You get a check. And then they had a bald eagle and that was, they called it America. And then you get a $3,000 check. Yep. And then,

and then they get to go back. Now, don't get me wrong. You know, a teacher can probably make their own decision on whether or not they're going to choose

to teach this stuff. But they're basically indoctrinating teachers. You know what I mean? Like you're trying to indoctrinate teachers. And they're also, I mean,

let's be real honest. We've all been in jobs where people have coerced you to do something. Yep. And if you go somewhere and let's say, I totally don't believe in this stuff, but I go back, I took this thing because I wanted the three grand

because I don't give a shit. I can fucking zone out just like the best of them, right? I can fucking zone out all day. I could pretend to look at you for a long time. And so they just stand up there and he does his like song and dance. 637 episodes. And I get my three grand and I walk home and then I go back and there was three or four of these other teachers that were there. And then suddenly I'm not teaching this stuff. Yep.

Yeah, man. This is an intent to create a workplace culture. Yes. To single out anybody who doesn't share the same political ideology. That's what it is. Yeah. It's an incentives program

to create a right-wing educational culture. And how insane is it that the right has been screaming about indoctrination through the schools for this long. And now they're just like, you know what? Let's formalize it. And you're like, okay, look, I will grant that education has always had a liberal bias. I would argue that education has had a liberal bias because the more educated you are, typically the more liberal you become, right? And that's because you learn more and it humanizes you and you just have a better understanding of the world

than if you don't do that, right? But now what they are doing is literally systematizing and formalizing a right-wing indoctrination process. And then they are providing financial incentives and disincentives to not be engaged or be engaged with that formalized indoctrination. And you're like, holy fuck, that's draconian. Holy shit, that's top-down. Wow, is that big government?

They're just like, yeah, we know. Anyway, Florida. Look, hey, guys, you don't have to wear a mask, though. that big government. They're just like, yeah, we know. Anyway, Florida. Look, hey guys, you don't have to wear a mask though. Welcome to Florida. You can get the spicy cough as much as you want. Enjoy. It's so funny that you say that because it's so true.

They've known forever that you indoctrinate children. They do it in church. They do it when they're very young. They've known this forever. And they've been doing it through the textbooks for decades. Oh my God. Yeah. I was talking to a teacher the other night and his comment was, all the textbooks, the two states that get to decide what's in the textbooks are California and Texas. Those are your two states. So when you're a buyer of those textbooks, you get to choose California or Texas textbooks. Those are what you get to choose. or Texas textbooks those are what you get to choose

sure and so half the country is reading a Texas textbook and half the country is reading a California textbook because those are your two biggest buyers

and so they're not going to make they're not making an Illinois textbook right they're not making a fucking Maryland textbook they're certainly not making

a Carolina either one right you know so you basically you're stuck with the ideology, the ruling ideology of those two places. And here's my, here's my thing. Texas go blue. Yeah. Recently because of Roe v. Wade, there was a huge surge in people registering to vote.

Huge surge in it. Yeah. Saw it. It was like all over the country too. And there was a huge surge. I think this could be the one thing that changes so many people's minds about how they vote, about what they do. You know, it's a really difficult, it's a really difficult thing to watch

not just, you know, that play out, but then this also, this indoctrination, wanting to change history. These courses are so just egregious, trying to change everything about history, trying to, you know, there's a lot on there where you can't even mention certain things because it hurts people's feelings and whatever. And genuinely, that's what they're trying to do whatever. And genuinely, that's what they're trying to do in these textbooks. And that's what they're trying to do in these conferences when they get people together. They say they're trying to teach both sides. But again, it's that both sides bullshit. We're like, okay, both sides means one is false. Right. Yeah. There's no both

sides of science, right? Like science settles on things once the experimentation and evidence has been concluded, right? Or like it's the preponderance of evidence has shown that it is deeply likely that gravity works approximately like this.

Not however else you fucking think because you made it up. Right, right. Like that's not how, but there's a, there's a, you know, like,

and Fox News, Fox News just right in the title, I don't know if they still use it, but they used to say a fair and balanced, fair and balanced. And it's like, wait a minute, like some things there are not two legitimate sides to,

you know, whether or not the framers of the constitution, and you and I do not give a flying fuck about whether or not the framers of the constitution wanted this or fucking that that fuck that that's a stupid fucking argument about how we decide to live our lives in the 21st fucking century right but even if you go back to that they they go pixie choosy right it's like oh you know like we're pretty much not going to pay attention to jefferson particularly because that's problematic and we're not going to pay attention to these explanatory letters to the fucking danbury bishops or whatever the fuck it is where the separation of church and state is literally explicitly outlined and we're not going to pay attention to this other text uh which is you know

explanatory to the intent of the framers where they literally explain what they fucking intended. Like it's all bullshit. Like it's all bullshit. It's not a both sides thing. It's like trying to like, well, we got to look at evolution and creationism. No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you literally don't. You can do the creation thing in your mythologies class. Yeah. You can do it in your religions class. You can do it at home. You can do it a lot, but you can't do it in a science class. There's no fucking science around it. Exactly.

It is a false dichotomy. It's the same thing with history too. Yeah, man. If you want to take slavery out of here, you're like, well, then you're fucking,

you're whitewashing history so white people in the class feel better. And you're like, fuck you. That doesn't belong in here, man. Let's explain the entire history leading up to the Civil War, then the Civil War itself, then the Reconstruction era,

then the Jim Crow era, then the Civil Rights Movement. And let's explain all of that without ever delving into fucking race relations. None of it would make any sense. What are you talking about? When you went to school, I know I didn't hear about it as a slavery issue when I was a kid. It was a little tiny bit, but it was not as much as... They talked about it as a states' rights issue when I was a kid. No, that was different.

So we did the Civil War in seventh grade, and we watched the Ken Burns documentary, The Civil War, and we watched Glory, the movie. So it was very heavily oriented, but I think that's just luck of the draw as to who you get as a teacher. Yeah, yeah. Right? And that's bullshit because

history is a series of narrative truths that we unearth from materials, like first order materials, like original text writings, etc. It is not a discretionary narrative as determined by the people who want to push forward an ideology. Again, you can't, like,

states' rights, it's like, states' rights to do what? Like, it doesn't make any sense. Nobody ever finishes that sentence. It's like, well, Jefferson Davis, well, what did Jefferson Davis, who was the president of the Confederacy, who in his own words said said we're doing this to keep slavery yeah that's the guy who was the president of the fucking confederacy and he's like this is about slavery i'm literally writing it down right yeah like that's i'm not making that up like he literally was like guys this is about slavery like i don't let's not just so that nobody in history ever gets confused and then they're just like, well,

it's really about statues. It's about, mostly it's about statues. hugging Confederate statues. It's about, it's about being proud of the South. It's about being proud

of the South. It's Southern pride, really. That's what it is. It's liking orange and blue. Yeah, that's, I like stars

arranged in a cross-like pattern. And racism. I like racism. in a cross-like pattern. And racism. Are my bedsheets clean, honey? I just want to say, though, I don't know what DeSantis, I don't know how deep his hooks are in that state. I don't know what his future looks like. But, man, he's one of those people I'm rooting against. Oh, my God.

I 100% want to. I can God. Oh my God. 100% one. I can't wait till he loses. They're talking about him maybe running for president. I know he's scary as fuck. He's a scary president. He's a scary president. I have my, my barber and I, I love my barber's a great guy. They've talked about him in the show before. I actually love my barber. He's a great guy. There is a barber that is in the other chair and I was waiting for my guy. I was a little early the chair. And I was waiting for my guy. I was a little early the other day. I was waiting for my guy.

And so I'm bullshitting with her and she's waiting for her client. And she's talking about like, you know, oh yeah, you know, I'm moving to Florida this and that. We're talking about the weather, some innocuous bullshit. She brings up that she's going to move to Florida.

And I was like, oh, why are you moving to Florida? Oh, my husband is a cop. And you know, he wants to move to Florida. You know, he wants to get out of here because it's a red state. I just was like, well, good riddance to you both. I was just like,

I can't even hold it back. Like, I was just like, good riddance to you both. And it killed the conversation like that. I was just like, fucking move. Take your fucking cop husband

and fucking move to Florida so that you can live in a fucking red state. Fucking bury all you stupid assholes in the garbage, sweltering, dirty wang of this country. Who cares? But DeSantis scares me. Yeah. Like he scares me because he's like fucking weirdly popular among a group of people whose minds I literally cannot really cannot understand. I can't parse it. I can't. I can't. I can't. So, Tom,

we would normally rate our patrons now. We would. Why aren't we doing that, Cecil? But it turns out that we jumped the gun by 12 minutes. 12 minutes. And Ian did not do it this week.

So, if you are a patron, if you're a patron, here's what I want to say. Here's what I want to say. If you're a new patron, I want you to send a message to Ian at ianatdissonancepod.com. And in fact,

if you're not a patron, if you're just, or if you're a patron and you're not a new patron. If you've ever thought about being a patron. If you've ever thought about it, just send Ian a message

and be like, Ian, you fucked up. All I want you to say, that's all it says, Ian, you fucked up. The tagline, you know, make it something interesting. Make the subject something interesting so that's all it says, Ian, you fucked up. The tagline, you know, make it something interesting.

Make the subject something interesting so he'll open it. Yeah. But then just whatever. So you could be like porn or whatever you want to say. It's all good. It's all good.

Whatever you think Ian's going to open, right? If you want to, like somebody fucking on a one wheel. Subject one wheel. There you go. Just put subject one wheel. Then he'll open it.

Then he'll open it. And so, so send that to him and let him know that he fucked, he fucking dropped the ball. Yeah. Ian, Ian is like a fucking, is there an opposite of a Harlem Globetrotter? Yeah. Then he'll open it. And so send that to him and let him know that he fucking dropped the ball. Ian is like a fucking, is there an opposite of a Harlem Globetrotter? Because he drops the fucking ball like it's his goddamn job.

Ian, you have several jobs, but this is one of them. This is one of them. You do have several jobs. The thing is, Ian, we love you, buddy. We do. But we record the same day and time for 367 weeks. We're fairly easy to figure out. You know what I mean?

You know, our schedule, we're like regular. We're like right after coffee shits. I'm just, yeah. You know what I mean? We're that regular. We are, wow, regular. Like, if your wife's period was this regular, you'd fucking throw a party. This is how fucking regular we are.

You serious? So in any case, we do not have the patrons. We'll read them next week. We love you, though. Hey, patrons, we love you. And actually, I'll add this, too. If you are not a patron, we promise we'll read your name next week if you become a patron. I'll read your name twice.

And patrons, I just want to let you know, we have scheduled our book club reading for later in the month. We already have it scheduled, so it will happen. It will release this month. So you want to get in on this.

If you want to be involved in the book club, we're reading Rise of the Warrior Cop. We're going to read the first seven chapters to start out. I will be posting something

about it beforehand so you can interact with us and we can look at your comments and talk about things. So please jump on patreon.com. If you're interested in that book club segment, it's going to be only available to patrons. So jump on patreon.com slash dissonance pod. You can become a patron on a per episode basis.

Any level. Any level. You guys get Rise of the Warrior Cup. Here's what I want to talk about, Tom. The first message we got was late today by a guy named Ryan and Ryan sent a message Ryan the most important thing

is his AOL account Ryan sent a message from the past he sent a message from 2001 and he said you are a pack of democratic party ass lickers why prohibit comments on a post you made you guys are a pack of pussies.

I could think of a lot worse things to be called. I got to be honest. I got to be honest. I can think of a lot worse things to be called, Ryan. We are not, Ryan, in the business of

denigrating ass licking on this podcast. Yes, absolutely. You want to eat some ass, eat some ass. We're also not in the business of denigrating packs of pussies. Right.

I don't know what, I don't know who you're trying to insult. This is all things I like. Literally, literally none of the things you said insult me. Right. So, I just want to let you know.

Also, yeah, it's hilarious that you have an AOL account. I feel like, I feel like I'm going to pick my photo of you like, hello? I don't like your Facebook page. Hello?

I'm going to message you from my Friendster account. Hey, man, I hope you didn't waste your fucking CD minutes or whatever sending that message. Here's what I want to say to all the people who want to post on our page and can't. And if you made it to this far in the podcast, congratulations. But if you want to post on our page and we're not letting you, here's why.

You don't deserve our platform. We made a platform. We get to decide who gets to use it. You don't get to use our platform to publish your dumb, shitty ideas. It turns out Facebook literally will let you have a platform. Just make your own page, Ryan, and then say all your dumb shit that you want to say there. Nobody's stopping you, man. It's not my fault, Ryan, that nobody's listening to you. You know what, man? If you were a big fucking deal with a bunch of big fucking ideas, I'd be begging to use your fucking platform and sending you a shitty email about how tiny my dick

is. Got a message. This is from Steve. It's Steve said in an image for an image for a this is a great place to go and we're going to post it on this week's show notes. So thank you Cecil. One of these days when the world is a little better, we need to do seriously, we need to take a glory hole America road trip. Here's what we need to do. Right? We need to make sure that that glory hole donuts

is still in Toronto. Yes. And then we just need to like go to Toronto. Hit the glory holes. And just hit the glory hole. And then start there and go somewhere else. We could rent a fucking RV. Oh, it'd be so much fun.

And we could drive around glory hole to glory hole. A tour of America's glory holes. Tom. Yes. We got a great message from Amanda. I love the title of this.

Lightning strokes twice. Okay. And then we're talking about the guy who double shot his latte last weekend at Starbucks. And you know, this is great. It says, the same thing happened. This person would eat lunch

outside and some guy pulled up in the bus zone stroking at about one o'clock on a major street in San Francisco then drove away. A couple weeks later, same place, same time, same guy does it again. This person looks up and says, oh no. And he says, oh yeah, this time they got their license plate number. The cops come and try to ID this person. They don't know what the final outcome is.

They said, I subconsciously, they think the probably guy wanted to be caught. He did it twice. It was simple to get the license plate. So maybe this pastor wanted to get caught. He did it twice. It was simple to get the license plate. So maybe this pastor wanted to get caught because he had a compulsive behavior or he gets off on the danger or they're very, very stupid. So last week we did a fundraiser.

We wanted to mention the fundraiser was for three different charities. You can go to oafund.org. You can find out all about it. It was $160,000 that we raised over a couple hours. We want to thank everybody for being involved. I also want to mention too, last week, we got a couple of comments about, uh, about our conversation last week, Tom, when we had a conversation about,

um, boating and how important that is and how, how, how it is done so well for the other side and how we sort of neglected and, and, and, and kick our how we sort of neglected and kick the sand and get mad. And a lot of people seem to think that we shouldn't do anything to the Democrats, that we shouldn't do anything about the Democrats. And you had mentioned last week

an analogy where you said, imagine if we're a house, there's a house behind us and we have a security guard and that's the Democrats. But the Republicans come in and they burglarize the house. We should blame the Republicans for burglarizing the house. It's not the Democrats' fault that someone burglarized the house.

They let us down, but it's not their fault. And I want to add on to that analogy by saying, it's okay to fire some of the security guards. Yes. It's okay to do that. I don't think you understood that we're saying, those people let us down, and it's okay to fire some of the security. Yes. It's okay to do that. I don't think you understood that we're saying like, those people let us down

and it's okay to fire some of those people. It's okay to let those people go and get new people in there. Mansion and Cinema, if they're not willing to blow up the filibuster, they should be fucking let go.

You know, anybody else who's not towing the line of women's rights at this point, get fucking rid of them. If anybody out there is getting, you know, pushed forward as a house member who happens to be anti-women's rights at this point, get fucking rid of them. If anybody out there is getting pushed forward as a House member who happens to be anti-women's rights or whatever, fuck them in the ear, get rid of them.

They shouldn't be part of this group and we need to get rid of them. We need to ostracize them and remove them. They are not good security guards. Yes, absolutely. And the time to do that is in the primary. Yes. Right, we have a system that works in two ways in order to do this work, right? So the first is when we interview all the

potential security guards to try to pick the best security guards. And then that's the primary, right? And so we say, okay, we want the biggest, strongest, meanest security guards possible to guard our house. That's the primary. That's when we pick our, you know, that's how we pick how left or center or right somebody is, right? That's the primary. When it comes time for the general, you vote on whether or not you're going to have a security guard in charge or a robber in charge. Or a robber. Those are the fucking choices.

Open the door and let everybody in and let your rights run out. I wanted to clarify that because people don't seem to understand that Tom and I are also critical that the Democrats didn't do anything to stop this. We're very critical, but we also very much want to point out that the

Republicans are the ones who are driving this damage. And you gotta pay attention to that. And the way they did it was through minority vote. So we need to get out there and vote. I know people don't like this. They think we're liberals. I guess it's a bad word.

I don't know. I don't even know at this point. I don't know anymore. And I don't care. Like fucking vote. I want to thank David McAfee for coming on. We're going to put a link in the description for this video down there. The link will lead you to Amazon, his books,

but then also to his Twitter account and his Facebook. So check them out and check out his books. He's got a ton of books, both children's and adult books. So take a look. All right, that's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you like we always do with the skeptics creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized,

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