Shaun Newman Podcast - Replay Julie Ponesse

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Throwback Thursday to episode #201 with Julie Ponesse.Julie has her Ph.D in Philosophy & Ethics. We discuss vaccine passports, vaccine mandates & why she is willing to lose her job in stance against this. To watch the Full Cornerstone Forum: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionWebsite: www.BowValleycu.comEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail]

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This is Tammy Peterson. This is Danielle Smith. This is James Lindsay. Hey, this is Brett Kessel, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Thursday. Happy throwback Thursday. Yeah, we're going back in the Way Back Machine,

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Just keeping it in your brain. It is coming back in 2026. As we get more information, we will make sure to keep you guys up to date. We have the new studio here, hopefully coming sooner than later. As soon as I get back from holidays, we'll be hammering some things out. Really excited to unveil that to be in there, to be honest. and we're doing a cleanup in August. I don't know how much I'm checking my phone right now,

but if you're interested in being a part of cutting down some trees and that type of thing and you're wanting help, you know, you can get your name on the value for value, well, come lend a chainsaw. Just shoot me a text, and I'll probably have the date by now figured out of when that is going to be. As you're noticing today is a throwback Thursday, and for the month of July, we're going in the way, way back machine

and picking out some episodes that have caught my attention, maybe yours as well. And, well, make sure to stick around at the end of the episode. I've relistened to all these, and I jot it down some notes, because, you know, some of these I haven't listened to. Well, probably none of us have listened to in a long time. But lots of times I, you know, an episode sticks out to me.

Maybe I really listened to it. Maybe I don't. I made sure to go back and re-listen to this. And so at the end of these episodes, I have a couple extra thoughts. So, make sure to stick around for that. If you're listening or watching on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Rumble, X, make sure to subscribe, make sure to leave a review,

make sure to share with a friend, make sure to hit retweet, make sure to do all the things. You're all wonderful, and I appreciate you hanging out on a throwback Thursday. Now, let's get on to that tale of the tape. She earns her PhD in philosophy and ethics from Western University. She also holds a degree in bioethics. She currently is a professor at here in college

or an affiliate of Western University in London, Ontario. I'm talking about Julie Pinesis. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Julie Penessey and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Julie Panesse and I keep saying that and hoping it'll sound more right than more I say it. I hope I got it correct. You do. Well, thank you, ma'am, for hopping on with me. What has become very standard now in any show I listen to, any guests I have on with credentials,

I think it's important for the audience to hear a little bit about your background and then we'll go from there. Yeah, so I have a PhD in philosophy from Western University. I teach philosophy at Huron College, which is an affiliate college of Western University. And I specialize in ethics and ancient philosophy and within ethics, ethical theory, but specifically bioethics. So I also have a degree from the Joint Center for Bioethics and a diploma from the Kennedy Center of Ethics at Georgetown University. And as Sean and I were chatting about before, in bioethics, what we try to do is ask questions about right or wrong and things like harm and good or bad when it comes to health and medicine. And so these days when so much of our lives are kind of framed by issues of health and questions about what rights humans have to deter. what happens to their body and the choices they make and how we balance that against

considerations for the public good. That's what bioethicists sort of think about and work on all the time. Well, I'm curious, first and foremost, at what point did you decide that it was time to get involved, to speak up, to become a voice? And I guess was there a event that happened or something you saw that just concerned you to kind of, you know, know, it's not an easy place where all of you accredited people are stepping out and starting to talk about this. It's not an easy spot to be thrust into, so to speak. It's not for sure. Let me speak to that first and then I'll kind of backtrack and explain. So maybe the history of how I got involved. I think, first of all, it's worth saying that we have two choices these days. We can act so as to feel

safe or we can act with moral courage. I think those are two options. And acting to feel safe is what I see 80, 90 percent of the population doing. And some people within that group are, I think, following the government and the public health orders, probably because they genuinely believe that they're best. Some people within that group are following them because they don't really have a view about the COVID situation, but they think, well, if it's coming from the government, it must be right. Other people have an intuition, there's something going wrong, but they follow it anyway because they don't know what else to do. I mean, it's kind of a multifarious group, I think. But those of us who are choosing not to follow the narrative, so if we work in an employment context

and we're facing a vaccine mandate and we're just saying no, that comes with incredibly severe consequences these days. That doesn't mean that the mandates are legal or ethical, but the consequences are severe. And I don't just mean in terms of, you know, threat of termination, but what we're facing in the public discourse and from our government in terms of how citizens, you know, whether you're vaccinated or not, that's kind of a different question, I think. But if you're challenging what the government is telling us to do right now, you have made yourself very conspicuous and are most likely going to be the victim of hate speech and some kind of ostracization from society. And there's an incredible amount of fear. I think that naturally comes

along with that. A lot of people will say to me, you know, oh my goodness, this is terrifying. I guess I just have to give in. I guess I'm just going to be forced to get the vaccine. I guess I just have to give up my job. And one thing I often like to say is that there's a difference between, you know, fear and courage. Courage doesn't proceed in the absence of fear, but you move ahead even while carrying it with you, you know? So I guess I'd like to say to people that are watching, just because I'm on here talking about this with you, just because I have spoken very publicly against our governments

in a number of different settings, just because I'm very happy to be vocal and public about my refusal to give in to the vaccine mandate and full well knowing that will probably mean that I'm going to lose my job in the next week or two, that doesn't mean I'm not afraid. I wake up in the middle of the night. I can't get back to sleep.

I'm terrified about where our country's going. There's fear and terror all around. But I'm pushing ahead anyway because I'm confident that what's happening in our country is wrong and that it will lead to, and we can talk about this in a little bit, but if we don't do something, we are going to degenerate undoubtedly

into some of the worst events that we've seen in history. that I thought we would never get back to again, right? So that's a little comment about the fear and I got to hop in quick then. I bring this up from time to time through all the guests that the universe is an interesting little beast and how it works. And it's funny you mentioned just because we're sitting here talking about it. The fear doesn't get to us. So I find this conversation quite timely, I guess, because yesterday morning was my moment of like, maybe you just get it and like, I don't know, right? I actually had to call a mutual friend in Liebenberg and talk to him.

And he, God bless him. He was, he was gentle with me. But, you know, like it just comes back to, yeah, but they've already, like, just take the vaccine, for instance, right? They've already announced number three. And Trudeau's already announced that he's got for another how many years. So he goes, you're not actually signing up for two. you're signing up for three for sure and probably five six seven eight nine not to mention like and many other things that's right and you know i really appreciate you explain to that because

i think there's a perception of of all of you that you're no different than anyone else that you don't feel uh the same pressures or people have a hard time understanding what pressures you face. I find it interesting, you know, you're saying like two weeks away from probably losing your job. And that should shock people, like really shock people. I think one of the things that happened, you know, like, that's surreal to me is I got pulled from YouTube. And I'm like, like, my episode that came out today is a well-known painter from the area. And it's just his life story. Like that, you know, and normally I'm bringing on hockey people to talk about their stories and everything else. But because I talk about this with people such as yourself,

that needs to be silenced. And that should be concerning to everyone. I guess I was a boat to ask. I'd written it down. You know, you mentioned moral courage and having one of two options. I was going to say, why aren't more people doing it? But then you list it off all the things you're facing and you start to understand why that is a very, very difficult choice for people to make. And I think, yeah, I appreciate how you framed that. And I think it's important because I think part of the narrative and one of the things I'm seeing on social media is people saying, I think vaccine passports are a great idea because it will keep us safe. It will help us be healthy. It will help. I've just been, I, the right word might be troll. I troll the Health Canada website a lot because I think it's important when you're doing the kind of work I do to know what's going on and to know the language that's being used and the arguments that are being given. And I don't think there are any, to be honest, but we want to kind of see what's going on. And the words safe and help security are all over the place, right? But it's important, I think, for people to realize what the government is quite willing to trade off in order supposedly to give people those things, right?

So I have been teaching philosophy in some capacity. I've taught in states. I've taught in Canada, at Western, at Queens, at U of T. for over 20 years now. I have, I've won teaching awards for teaching. I love teaching. I incredibly privilege and value the relationship with I have with my students. And I say this not for the sake of self-promotion,

but to make people realize that I take my job very seriously, I think I'm doing important work, and I know that I've had a positive impact on people's lives. and I'm about to lose that. And all people who could have taken a class with me in the future are about to lose that because I won't inject something into my body that I have worries about. That's why I'm about to lose my job. We live in a country where that's a possibility.

And I, as someone, I was going to say born in the 70s, but as someone who's lived in Canada at any point throughout its history, how in the world is that possible? You know, I want to get into the philosophy and what we can learn. I know we briefly talk about it before we started. I always bring up the Nuremberg Code because I love history, a person of history. And the first thing in the Nuremberg Code, and I literally made sure I put it in here so that my listeners can hear it. And if you want to speak to it for sure, but it says the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.

This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent, should be situated as able to be able to exercise free of power of choice without intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior forms of constraint or coercion. Geez, Louise, like that comes from a time of maybe one of the ugliest parts in human history. And half of the things in there, you're like, we're doing. We're doing it. And everybody's okay with.

And now I keep using, you mentioned words and terms that are being used. I'm extremely concerned because everybody has their thoughts on Trudeau and everything else. But he says publicly there will be consequences as if he's voted back in. Well, I'll bring it to Saskatchewan. I just listened to Premier Moe's address and he mentioned there will be consequences and we will make life difficult. Right? People aren't going to be allowed to go, you know, essentially live in society, right? Not going to be able to go to concerts, not going to be able to go to football games.

I mean, those are where it starts. That's where it starts with the non-essential services. But I don't think, you know, as a philosopher, we use the word slippery slope very carefully, but it isn't clear to me that we aren't on a very slippery slope, right? But it'll start with, well, you can't go to restaurants and, you know, in bars. But where do we cross the threshold where all of a sudden now you can't go to grocery stores, you can't buy gasoline, you can't vote. One thing that I think, and given that there are presumably a number of people watching you today, one thing that I think is becoming clear is that the unvaccinated may have a very difficult time voting in this election.

And I would encourage everybody who's watching. I'm glad you're bringing it up because it just got brought to my attention. Yeah. I would vote as quickly as possible. So after this interview, Sean, I'm going right away to vote because we might not have the option. Well, and it's not being broadcasted, right? Like, it's not being. Like, if you're unvaccinated, realize you can't vote on the actual voting day you need to pre-vote.

That should, if there's one thing you take from this sit down, that is absolutely it. Vote as soon as you can because if you do not, they won't allow you in. And that is mind-numbing in itself. Mind-numbing. And I think the very sad thing about that is that I have heard many citizens endorse that policy because they say, well, if someone is choosing to be unvaccinated, they've already demonstrated bad judgment and we don't want them voting anyway. That's motivated by a very specific political ideology.

And I think in Canada, we have worked very hard. hard not to be discriminatory in that way and to allow people to express their views in the political arena even if they differ from our own and whether they're about you know economics or health care in this case or education whatever they're about right um i i don't like the opinions of many of the people that are standing next to me when i'm voting but that's very different from saying that i think they shouldn't be allowed to cast their their vote right and to come back to the nuremberg code you know this is a word or a term that's thrown around a lot these days. And I think the Nuremberg Code has gotten a really bad reputation. And I think that's because a lot of people say, well, come on now.

You only need the Nuremberg Code when we're facing a Holocaust or something. We're not. Therefore, don't bring up the Nuremberg Code. Well, we're seeing some really worrisome things in society. you know, I don't know how many people know this, but the health minister, Patty Hadju, has announced $100 million in funding and more, I think $5 million added to that recently for building what she's calling voluntary self-isolation sites across Ontario. And for particular areas right now, they're called voluntary. You didn't want to hear this, did you? But I need to hear it, right?

Like, you need to hear it. Carry on. Sorry, you're getting my reaction. And the audience can send you the link to this after and you can post it. Yeah, please do. Yeah. And, you know, they're called voluntary now. We saw the premier of Queensland.

It was about a week ago now. And now it's exactly the same thing. They're voluntary now. But again, will they remain voluntary? Right. And so the Nuremberg code, you know, for those who don't know, is a commitment that was made after the trials following the Nazi medical crimes in the 40s. And basically, in my view, you know, I've heard this said before, but I think it's well framed. The Nuremberg Code was a promise to

humanity that we are never going to do this again. We are never going to conduct medical experiments on people without their consent. And without the consent is important. People are free to voluntarily participate in medical experiments. We have in Canada, for example, a tri-counsel policy statement that explains, you know, how research is to be conducted on human subjects and explains how the consent process should work. So if you, for example, you know, if you have a very untreatable form of cancer and you want to participate in a trial with an experimental drug, you are able to do that voluntarily. There's a very big difference between that and forcing it upon someone. And if someone, you know, in your audience is thinking, well, hold on, we're not looking at experimental drugs. We are because all of the, all of the, you know, and the COVID vaccines on the market, now this is becoming, this is changing, you know, as I'm speaking, but up to this point have been available under emergency use authorization. And that's because the trials are still undergoing and so they are considered properly investigational. And another word for that is experimental, right? And that's for good reason, because we don't have long-term

data on what a lot of these things are. So to bring it back to the Nuremberg Code, you can take a COVID vaccine if you want to. If you feel that you're fully informed. informed, but because they're investigational or experimental, we've already made the commitment to society that we cannot force that upon you without your consent. Something else I think that's kind of relevant is a lot of people say to me, oh, I guess I'm forced to take this thing. Well, there's a difference between forced vaccination and mandated vaccination, right? So forced vaccination to be literally holding someone down and physically injecting them. Mandated vaccination is legislation that requires you to take the vaccine on pain of consequences, right?

So you might be fined or terminated or have to wear a mask or test or something like that. That doesn't mean the mandate is lawful or ethical, but there is a difference in that sense. And I think it's important for people to realize that just because they're facing a mandate, you still have a choice. the consequences for choosing against accepting it might be really severe, but it's still up to you. It's still, you still have the choice to refuse and you can still fight. Yeah, it's my brain goes to so many different places while you talk. It's hard to almost quiet it down because like there's just so much going on.

I remind the clock, you know, we have a group in town called for kids' sake. And it's, it started in the middle of the darkest hours of COVID and the lockdowns and everything, because a group of people were like, this is really strange. And we need to start talking because if we don't talk, well, we see what happens with that, right? Like, everybody right now feels like they're on an island. That's, that's what keeps coming back. Everybody's like, oh, I'm on this island. And meanwhile, you got people sitting right beside you. They're thinking the same stinking thing. But there's like this barrier that nobody can seem to break. And I find as I listen to more, there's more of those people coming out of the woodworkers going, man, I've been thinking the same things. I didn't realize other people were thinking this. I was thinking I was a little bit strange or, you know, you talk about the words they use and ostracizing people and the government's pushing down saying, that's a lot of stress for people to take. I mean, even if you're doing all these conversations, even if you know that like this doesn't feel right and everything I got in front of me, says it isn't right. But still, all of society is saying, don't worry about that. Let's just, let's get it and get on with life and it'll all be good.

And I find a lot of people are struggling with that immensely. It's, I'm going to say something incredibly fearful and then hopefully something hopeful. So I'm giving a warning about that. I think everything you describe is just the tip of the iceberg and it's going to get so, so much worse in the next few months. sometimes you know sometimes it's worth telling a noble lie we call it in philosophy in order to um achieve a certain end you know you uh there's a terrible there's a terrible thunderstorm the other night my daughter was scared and i you know made up a little fib about what was going on that's one thing um i don't think we can do that in this case i think that

people who, the people you're describing, you know, who want to do something about this, who want to resist the government action, who want to resist the mandates, it can only help you to know that things are going to get very, very hard in the next few months. And that makes it, there's the hopeful part. That makes it, I think, so important for us to reach out to like-minded groups. So I'm the chair of the Ethics and Law Committee of the Canadian COVID Care Alliance. We can also give you that link. And you can go on our website and you can join and become a member, but you can also just sign up for our newsletter. And that gives you information about some of the legislation that's coming, some new medical and scientific information, some of the legal actions that are underway.

And as chair of this committee, I'm in touch with a lot of. lawyers across the country right now who are working on actions to challenge the mandates in terms of employment, in terms of education and children, and then in terms of the vaccine passports and then accessibility and mobility issues. And I can tell you that over the last couple of weeks, the number of lawyers that are sort of coming out of the woodwork and finding people to fund their cases and also finding plaintiffs for their cases and kind of getting hooked up with the right people and the right groups and people finding out who these lawyers and what these legal resources are. It's just increased exponentially. And I think we, you're right that, you know, when you feel

isolated, when you feel like you're on an island, it's so much easier for, and I sort of hate to put it in these combative terms, but for the enemy to take you out, you know, if you're isolated. But this is really a case where there are strength in numbers and where knowledge is going to give you confidence. and, you know, I speak to so many people who say, I've had an intuition for months and months that something isn't right here. And then I'll try to give them a little bit of scientific or medical information or point to the law or point to some ethical documents. And it really helps to frame those intuitions. They say, oh, well, that's why I've been worried about these mandates because we have a right to inform consent, because in Ontario, and you may have the similar thing in Alberta, but in Ontario we have a

health care consent act, for example, which in addition to the Nuremberg Code, says that we have the right to make choices about our health care. We have, the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Medical Protective Association, both have policy documents that state patients have the right to make decisions about their own health care. And health care providers have an obligation to inform them with risks, however small those risks are, to contextualize those risks. So at the international, national, provincial levels, and then also in terms of governing bodies for health care workers. It's all the same story. It's just a story that the government isn't listening to right now. And the story is you have choices. You have the right to make

choices about your health care, about your children's education, for example. And we may feel that we have far fewer options these days, and we might, but that doesn't mean we have no choices, right? Yeah, you certainly have a choice in what you do and how you act and what way you move forward from here. I tell you what, if there's been one thing I've learned over the past almost two years is how influential fear is from both sides, right? You say you don't want to say anything, you know, but it's good for people to hear that because fear motivates. Like, I mean, if there's anything that we can all agree on is in the last year and a half, man, just stack the fear up and people will pretty much do whatever you need them to do to get to get the theory of the fear going

away. The problem with everything that's going on is it doesn't feel like it's going away. Actually, we know it isn't going away because we can see what the rest of the world is dealing with and it isn't going away. So we got to just grapple with that and move on. So it's never a bad thing. I used to eight months ago, Julie, I would have, I remember saying on the show, like, let's not go to the Nazis. Like, that's too far. Like, we're going too far. But I mean, my own government's talking about consequences. And that's. maybe on one extreme, the liberals, but on the other side, I'll bring up Scott Moe again because, you know, where my audience is, that's Saskatchewan, who through the pandemic so far has been one of the ones not to lock everything down completely, can be almost given a bit of a pass on how they handled things. People won't love that. They'll be like, no, they should have left everything open. They should be like Florida, Texas and all these places. But overall, in Canada, Scott Moe was one of the beacons of like maybe how we can get out of this. Well, now he's talking about consequences.

So to me, that's kind of where we're at is if we don't start realizing what's going on and start to act on it, we are going to be worse off. We are going to be further down this rabbit hole of like they went from in Lloyd here. They went from all schools starting normally. We're like, wow, everybody's excited. Kids are going to get to go no mass. Things are going great. And within a day and a half now, mass mandates are back in. we're back to last spring.

And parents are livid, but they don't know what to do. In your guys' eyes or your eyes, what is, what's your thoughts on what parents should do? Yeah, so good question. Let me just make a quick comment about the fear that you mentioned earlier. And I think, you know, there is some hesitation to go back to sort of the Nazi example. But when you think about fear comes not just from what the government tries to do to you, but from the division it creates, within the population itself, right?

And at the risk of being too academic here, the word society comes from a Latin root that means something like ally or comrade or friend. And so we not only are at risk of losing a democratic society, we're at risk of losing our society, right? If we stop seeing other people as comrades, allies, and friends. And I think what the narrative is doing is it's dividing us, It's making us hate each other.

I'm sure many of your viewers will have seen the front page of the Toronto Star from last Thursday that talked about, you know, unvaccinated people. They deserve what they get. We hate them. They should die. They don't deserve health care. That video went viral, Julie. Yeah.

Right? Like that video went viral. You're doing this to yourself and my wife died because of you and essentially do what you're told and carry on. Yeah. And we don't care about you and we're going to leave you behind. all of that. And when you, you know, when you think about some of these poignant historical examples like the Holocaust or racial division at apartheid, both in the American South and in South Africa, those situations couldn't have proceeded without the kind of division that we're seeing in Canada right now.

And that's a direct result of fear, I think. And fear is really interesting. The psychologists know this, you know, ethicists know this from psychological. work that fear is correlated with certain kind of stress hormones, right? And those stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, when you get a little bit of them for a brief period of time, that can actually help you to make decisions and enhances decision making. So ER doctors talk about this a lot, right? They say that, well, when someone is rushed in and they're coding and you know, I get a little adrenaline rush and that helps me act more quickly and think more clearly. But if you experience too much of those hormones over too long a period of time, it actually has

really harmful effects on your ability to make decisions. And it just clouds your thinking and you can't manage information that's coming at you and you don't weigh it appropriately. And one thing we tend to do is we give an enormous amount of weight to consequences or to risks that are very, very small. And so I think now, you know, it's pretty well documented. I think that the risk of COVID to most people, I mean, if you're under 80, is very, very, very small, right? And yet it is figuring so large, looming so large in people's minds and making them make so many other decisions that I think more rationally we would make.

To the point, you know, what do parents do? These are tough times, you know, if I don't have a child of school age, so it's easy for me to say this, but I would be pulling them out of school right now. I don't think this is, you know, and that's hard to balance that with a feeling that, well, I have a right to education and why should I be, you know, why should I be suffering and why should I be removing myself from that situation when I'm not the one who has done anything wrong? My own feeling is that self-preservation has to factor into our decisions right now. And so in the Western community, I believe the situation is quite volatile. Over the last week, because I speak out in venues like this, I've received several emails of a very hateful nature that, and one is very clearly a death threat. And students, you know, come to me and they say, well, I'm not getting vaccinated and maybe I've got an exemption or not, but I still want to go to school. I don't care.

and I'll say to them, I commend your courage. And if you go ahead, I support you. I would just be aware of what the risks are, what the consequences are. Some of the lawyers who are taking on the university mandate cases are saying there is no live choice for the unvaccinated right now other than to postpone your education because it's too dangerous. It's too risky and the institutions won't make it possible to be educated without being vaccinated. you know, we're about to see an announcement that vaccination will be required for all youth down to age 12. And that will most surely be connected to school. And, you know, once Pfizer is approved for kids under age 12 and once some of the other vaccines start being approved for down to 12 and then below 12, which is, I think, inevitable, and probably will happen more quickly than we've thought up to this point.

that's going to affect school-age kids, both high school and elementary. And so, you know, again, Sean, I hate to, you know, I don't like being the bearer of bad news, but I think this is what we're facing. And I know so many parents who are looking at homeschooling. I know it's easy to say because there are financial considerations and in families where both parents work. I mean, this is an incredible burden, and these are decisions not to be made lightly. and they're really hard. But it would allow you to keep educating your child

without the risks of doing so in a social context right now. You know, like I say, I'll go back eight months. Eight months ago, I would have cautioned. But I think as we see, you know, like as we see what's going on, we had our summer. We hit the mark, you know, the people that wanted to get vaccinated and got vaccinated.

And now there's a group of us that are just sitting there going like, I just, I don't want to. I don't, right? Whatever the reason is. That's right. And normally in history, that's, you know, in the previous little bit of history, that's been enough. Oh, okay, carry on.

Like, my friends aren't sitting around going, ooh, you can't come in here. Like, that isn't what's happening. The majority of society could give two craps. They have no idea what's going on. It's the laws that are being imposed. And then, you know, I was talking to Stephen Pellick. a couple days ago and he was talking about now the public's pushing on the government to impose those laws and it's becoming this like vicious cycle.

Absolutely. And so for me, I go like, I was the cautious guy. My line, I got in arguments, I got three older brothers. We've had many a discussion on this. My line was further down the list than some of my other brothers. But the line is there. And I can't just keep moving the line because it's like, well, you know, like it's there for a purpose. You have a line. If it gets crossed, that should send off warning shots everywhere. And I feel like

when you talk about intuition, people have a line, whether they think about it, whether they write it down, whether they actually like dig into what their line is. And when it gets close to, you can feel that. And right now what's going on isn't the time for caution anymore. It's a time for full on, everybody needs to hear this and needs to understand what is, what the implications are long term if we don't avert this course of where we're heading. That's right. And I think it's the time for voting. Right? That's one thing we can do. It's a time for writing to our MPs and our MPPs. It's a time for calling them. One thing that we hear pretty consistently is that calls are more effective than emails to your government representatives.

It's a time for signing petitions. I know it can feel futile to do these things, but there are, you know, there are only so many sort of mechanisms at our fingertips as a Democratic citizen. and these are some of them, right? I would also encourage people to think about what can I not live without and how can I secure those things for myself over the next few months, right? What can I live without? I need money, I need food,

I need a way to educate my children, I need shelter, I need gas, I need, you know, I know this sounds, you know, it's just worth thinking about these things, I think, because those consequences of which Trudeau speaks, I don't think he's disingenuous when he's using that word. And if on September 20th, he secures a majority,

and even if he doesn't, and even if one of the other candidates wins, we very well may be seeing those consequences come quickly and furiously. You mentioned before we started, the philosophy, there's what we can learn and maybe something very important. And now my brain is going there because now I'm going, I'm curious what we can learn that could be beneficial or that as a society we should learn. You're wondering, what does philosophy teach that's making all these crazy things? That's what you're. No, I'm very, I'm very curious. You know, one of the,

there's a couple of core courses that almost all students taking a philosophy degree have to take. And one of them is critical thinking or logic. And different universities have different, maybe one or both or something like that. But critical thinking, you know, that's really the tool that philosophers use. And part of that is being able to look at an enormous amount of information and data come in your way and sift through it, right, and try to figure out what has validity and what doesn't. And what information are you going to pick up on and use to make decisions on the basis of? And can you effectively point to errors in reasoning?

So if you see the government saying something like, you get vaccinated or there will be consequences, and you know that as a Canadian citizen, we have protections for informed consent. Is there something wrong in that? Think, is there an inconsistency there that we should be worried about, right? So I think that the things that philosophy teaches us at its core, you know, the ability to look at information, the ability to identify inconsistencies, logical fallacies. And the ability to also, I think one thing probably so many people are feeling right now is just an incredible. incredible noise, right? We're not only going through this COVID situation, but we're doing it in the era of social media and probably on the cusp of a kind of digitization of citizenry and political participation. And there's so much noise. You wake up in the morning and all, you know, and you're just bombarded with whatever you're on, you know, whether it's your favorite news feed or whether you're on telegram or you're on Instagram or Facebook.

or whatever it is. And just being able to tell yourself, okay, that's information. Let's step back from that and make a conscious decision about it, what information I'm going to accept as true, and what information I am going to entertain, consider, reflect upon, and reject.

And that's something that's up to all of us. We don't have to accept everything that is presented to us. We don't have to accept something merely because someone else says it's true. you know, and I think one thing we're seeing these days is that that's not a common belief. I think many people feel that we should as good citizens have a great deal of trust in our governments, and that it's that's what virtue is. It's to follow, it's to toe the line. It's to follow rules, right?

It's to be a good rule follower. It's to do whatever the government says. It's to do your part. What is do your part? Do your part is not, please do this thing because I'm sure. showing you the evidence that it will be better for you and others if you do it, do your part is do what the government tells you to do and don't ask questions. Right? Yeah.

And don't ask questions is, you know, and I cannot tell you, I know, I knew one other philosopher who was questioning these vaccine mandates and he died 10 days after getting a second dose, one of the vaccines. And I know no other philosopher who's trained in critical thinking who is saying anything other right now than there's no problem here. Just do what the government says. Be a good little citizen. Don't question. And that's what's coming from the one discipline in society that is supposed to be good at questioning and being reflective and not just accepting what someone else says because they say it or because they have a position of power or authority. It's one of the things I appreciate about all my listeners. I've been, I've been, I've been, I've had some people from all different sides of the coin on, but they, I've been called out a couple times because of things that people say on the show. I don't know. I listen to you and I assume everybody else listening is picking out some things like, oh, that actually does resonate.

Like, I like that. or I don't agree with that. And that's what we should be doing. Exactly. And I found very interesting, since I changed course, did a 180, shifted into overdrive,

whatever you want, and started bringing on doctors and yourself, and I got a lawyer on tomorrow and like all these different things to like challenge the way we think. I've found, honestly, it's been really interesting

that people who are vaccinated, and unvaccinated are both talking about it. Yeah. And it's forcing them to think about this like on a larger scale. Like like you say, take a step back and go like, that is concerning. Because I think in order to win this, to beat this to stop what is going on, you're going to need everyone involved. Not just like I think the more people you can have pushing against this, the better off we are. Because, you know, you know, it was about three weeks ago now maybe that I've.

first heard of vaccinated people standing up for unvaccinated rights. And I just thought that was so interesting. And I think you're exactly right. That is fundamentally democratic to me. And unvaccinated people standing up for the rights of vaccinated people to be vaccinated, fundamentally democratic to me. Sitting down at a coffee shop with your, so if you're unvaccinated with your vaccinated friend, having a conversation, not just stating what you think, but asking that person, that's really interesting. You know, what led you to this conclusion or what do you think about this news story or where do you think we're going or, you know, how do we maintain our friendship through all of this? Asking questions like that, fundamentally

democratic and so important to friendship. And I think those two things are really similar, right? My area of specialization is Aristotle's ethics. And Aristotle was a fourth century BC Greek philosopher for those who don't know. and he wrote a lot about ethics and politics. And he lived in a fairly small town. And he said that the town he lived in was actually perfect for political participation because it was small enough that you could kind of go to the mountaintop and look down and you could see the whole thing. You could see your fellow citizens.

And then he goes on to talk about kind of the importance of connection between people and knowing other people and the friendship between people that makes political participation possible. So I think we need to realize that, yeah, whether someone disagrees with us or not about the election or about COVID, whether it's real or not, whether PCR is good or not, whether, you know, what a spike protein is, whether the vaccines are harmful or not, we have to remember that just, you know, if we're mature people, we need to be able to have conversations with other people and not be, we might be afraid of what their answers are. We might be afraid of where we're going.

No, no, but we shouldn't be afraid to ask the questions. And people are terrified now to ask questions. They're terrified to talk with other people. And that's what worries me, right? But I think you're right that when we see people on both sides, I guess I'll call it, thinking deeply about these issues and being able to see beyond their particular point of view. That's very hopeful and very promising, I think. Yeah, it's, I agree with you. I see both sides are stuck in their kind of trench and they're listening. We now have more voices speaking out and being concerned at what's going on, which is really, really good, right? For people who, you know, right now the big term of the moment is unvaccinated, right? For that group of people to have people out speaking and just not being jumping off the cliff with. their arguments just being like, listen, this, this doesn't make any sense, has been really healthy for that group. The problem I see, and maybe, maybe this is going to change, but all the people on the other side aren't listening to those people and don't really want to, don't see the point in it. And that's not, I paint it black and white. It's not black and white. There's certainly are people from both sides listening to the other sides. But we're getting entrenched in our views where you, instead of listening and trying to pull out some things and like bringing everybody to the table, so to speak,

it's your table and their table and we're not going to talk, right? They're idiots on the other side and they're never going to change their view. And I found from a lot of my conversations, people on the other side are really, like there's really smart people on both sides. You just got to get them to the table and get them talking. And good things come out of that. This is one of the really, this is, you know, I think one of the things that's made it possible for us to proceed. so quickly to some of these violations of our rights legally and ethically is this construal of, I'll call them like conscientious objectors, so people who on the basis of their conscience and what they think are objecting to the government mandates, right? So whether you're unvaccinated

or not, whether you, you know, I think one of the things that's gotten us to this point is that all people who challenge the government narrative and mandates are framers. as being stupid and uneducated. And, you know, so we see statistics about things like, well, the only people who really are unvaccinated are people who are of low IQ, are not educated, who are religious, who homeschool, who were anti-vaxxers before this, right? There's all of this stigmatization and connecting with groups that are kind of marginalized anyway. Well, the truth is, as you say, there are an awful lot of very well-educated people who

have big concerns about what's going on. In the CCCA, we have, I think we're at about 250, 260 now members, and a bachelor's degree is definitely the least of what we've got, right? I mean, we have professors of neurology and toxicology. And so these are people with PhD. We have MDs. We have MDs who have postgraduate degrees. So, you know, we have MDs who have specializations in immunology. We have, we have not just lawyers, but then lawyers of a PhD in law, myself who has a PhD. These are people, and I, you know, and I, I caution people to say, don't listen to us just because we have those degrees. That's not the point, right? The point is that, you know, these are people who have been reading in these specialized areas for,

a long time. You know, I'm in my 40s and I've been doing this for 20-some years. So I've been reading about, you know, the history of medicine and bioethics and how we came to establish principles of bioethics and a lot of the cases in history that, where we went wrong, you know, the, Tuskegee experiments and forced sterilization in the states and, you know, and what that does, what all that experience and that reading and that study does, is it informs your thinking about what's going on in the present, right? So it's not the fact that I have a degree that makes me someone that should be listened to, but hopefully people can realize that there's so much experience that comes with that, right?

And there are people that are, you know, we have a person in our group who's a vaccinologist. His job is to develop vaccines and to understand the viruses that they're meant to prevent. And he's very concerned about these vaccines, right? He's more educated than anyone I have seen in Health Canada impose the vaccines. And so I think we need to realize. And, you know, even people, you know, in the public who write to me with concerns about this. Really interesting people. I think this week I had an interior decorator, a real estate agent, a novelist, you know, a role.

just from all sectors of society. But the profile of the people who are worried about what's going on in Canada is not a profile of idiots. And we shouldn't be using that word anyway, right? Well, it's too simple to put on a word like that and it sticks. And it doesn't mean that, I mean, even if even if by that, what we mean is that someone is educated and has a low IQ, well, that has nothing to do with your political rights. It doesn't mean you have less of a right to participate in society. Actually, as society, we've been fighting for everybody's, I was going to say early on, we've been fighting against so many different things and trying to expose so many things for like all my life, right? Don't like bullying,

being bullied. We're worried about people's mental health. Now we're not worried about it, right? Everyone has rights. Like we're trying to give everyone rights that they can humanly possibly have. We're trying to make them feel welcome in society no matter what the case, not no more, right? It's just, it's, it's like just evident out there for everybody to see. My body, my choice, when was the last time you saw that in the news, right? The, the pro-choice group used that slogan ad nauseum in order to defend the woman's right to choose, but we're not allowed to use that slogan now in order to defend your right to not be vaccinated.

Because apparently in this case, it isn't our body anymore with which to choose. And that's a really interesting and troublesome double standard. Right. And that doesn't, I'm not making a comment there about whether pro-choice is the right, you know, a position. If anyone, if anyone took that out of that comment, that's, that's the, like, it's just, it's evident, Julie. It's evident that we even have to, that it's filtering through society like this.

And that we just kind of like, on a dime have like, just, scrapped a bunch of things. You know, you mentioned that just because you have a PhD is not the reason to listen to what you have to say. I feel like, even myself, that having the title automatically associate that you're privy to conversations that others are not. You know, like you're not coming to medical advice to the three guys who are out on the rig, you know, get an oil out of the ground. You're just not, right? And, but that doesn't mean, they can't do their own reading, right? Like engineers do a ton of schooling.

They can look at data too. I mean, that's all they do. They literally analyze data from things they cannot see underneath the earth to help extrapolate one of the, you know, now I got to justify this all the pro-oyal thing and there, blah, blah, blah. But I mean, they literally have the ability to look at maps and, soil samples and all these different things and from that pull out how you're going to get like it's brilliant and so we're taking all of these different groups of people calling them stupid and what has opened the key the door a little bit is by having people that are calling those

people stupid not saying all doctors call people stupid but you get the idea from that group from that group speaking out and it's it's caused everyone to kind of stop and go oh right because for the long time, what do you do? I'm a salesman. What do you know about this? What do you do? I'm, you know, I'm an adventurer. I'm a whatever. It doesn't matter. People can look at data. They're doing it all the time. And I think your, yeah, your ability to look at data, as you say, and a lot of that kind of filters into your subconscious. And then you come across a situation like this COVID one and then like something is kind of twinging and things something isn't right about this. And just to kind of help to frame that, one of the things that very early on made me worry

about this situation is that it looks so different from any other time that I've known where they have tried to, say, pass legislation that has to do with health care. So one of the things I've done as a bioethicist just sat on a research ethics board. So all hospitals now have a research ethics board and a lot of medical trials are conducted within hospital or under the guidance of a hospital, right? So if someone wants to conduct a trial on a number of inpatients or a drug trial within a hospital, it all has to be proposed to the research ethics board and then it's considered and it's weighed and then revisions are proposed and that, Sean, I cannot tell you how agonizing and painstaking that review process is. It goes on for,

months, sometimes years. My point being, if you want to change something or implement something that has to do with how you are going to treat people as patients, normally it takes a long time and a very heavy burden of evidence and it looks nothing like what we're seeing right now. And the kind of evidence that exists to question things like the efficacy of the vaccine, So the fact that we're seeing, you know, these massive numbers of breakthrough cases in countries with the highest vaccination rates like Israel and the UK and Iceland, that kind of information should be figuring into Health Canada's decision about how to impose the mandates or whether to impose the mandates. And the only information I see from Health Canada and so for and gets echoed in the mandate announcements that we see. So the announcements from Western University, for example, to explain the mandate, say all available, this is almost a direct quotation, all available evidence tells us that vaccination is perfectly safe and the only way to reduce transmission of the virus. And that is just not consistent with the epidemiological evidence that's coming out from across the world, showing us that the vaccines are not as good at reducing transmission as we.

thought, there are people dying from COVID who are fully vaccinated if what we're considering fully vaccinated now is having two doses, but that's about to change, right? And in any other context that I've ever seen, that kind of information would be submitted to the powers that be, right? So whether it's the Research Ethics Board or it's the Minister of Health or the chief medical officer or whoever, and that person would look at it and say, hmm, that's really interesting. That undermines the protocol or the plan of action that we previously had. We need to look at this more. Let's put a halt or an injunction on whatever we're doing until we know more,

until we can weigh more of this evidence. And we're just not seeing anything like that right now. We haven't even, and we don't have to do this today, Sean. We haven't even talked about the harms of the side effects of the vaccines. And, you know, one of the really sad, sad aspects of that is almost, every day now, I am getting stories of children dying from having the vaccines and people being unable to tell their stories. And that has to change because that's an important piece of the puzzle, an important bit of information. Especially as we're hearing that they're pushing for five to 11

year olds to have vaccinations, right? I got five, I told you at the start. I got three kids under five. and one of the things that has, you know, giving me some peace at times is like they're young enough where this isn't being a question on whether they can get it. Well, that time is quickly approaching where that is going to be is going to be out there and people are going to be rushing to do that. Infants are in COVID vaccine trials in the states right now. So we know that's where it's going.

I'm curious, you look at the world. Is everybody handling it like, Canada? Like, are they all having the same kind of conversations we are right now with like, what are we doing? Like, or are there like other countries that are just like, whoa, this is, this is too much. We're done with us. Um, my understanding is that not every country is like Canada. Thank goodness. And I'm really envious of some of those other countries. And I can give you a few anecdotes. I mean, we have countries on the extreme end, like Australia. I think my view is not an be a place to be right now and is making all of the missteps that Canada is making. And I think

Canada is following that as an example. And we will just see here what we're seeing there. And I hope we see the kind of resistance here that we are seeing in place, you know, in some parts of Australia. But there are other, you know, Denmark and Sweden. They have all but resolved this situation, right? And they have not followed the protocols that Canada has put in place from the beginning. and they're faring much better than we are. And the fact that, like, you would think that's good news. You would think that a country like Canada would want to look at those countries who are also pretty densely populated in places, right,

and say, what are they doing right? What is going so well? Let's reevaluate our policies. I know of two people right now who have citizenship in countries in Eastern Europe, not places which have been enviable in the past and places from which people have tried to escape. And both of these people who have, I want to preserve their anonymity here, but they have very good positions at prominent Canadian universities. Both of them are liquidating assets and moving back to those countries as we speak. I talked to a doctor who's also from an Eastern.

And he didn't mention liquidating anything. He just said, like, we're heading down the same road. He goes, this is why everybody moved here, so we wouldn't be a part of this. And here it is happening in front of our eyes. And he's, you know, once again, that's going and painting a dark picture. But I think if there's one thing people take away from this is like, listen, we all thought it was going to get better. I was one of them, right? I thought summer would slow down and people would just go back to, you know, and maybe,

come fall we would have forgotten or whatever but everything's ramping up and you know i got three young kids and i'm getting more articles i've been reading a little bit on it right that kids are dying now from this and and like i can see i'm like wow is that the next step we're going to is that kids are dying everywhere because you know as a parent that'll scare the bejesus at you and and then what right like so then i don't even know what the step is after that that's getting everyone vaccinated is that what the start of it is because if we're hearing about it now And there's no vaccines for young kids. You know it'll become available.

And you can just, you just have to have a little forward thinking. And I thought when I was being very hopeful, I thought things would slow down and they have done warp speed and have laughed in my face almost. Like I, if you go, if I go back and listen to what I was talking about, like, I'm, I was so far off the mark. But that's okay. It's okay to adjust and continue to listen and get information. But like where we're going is not good.

That's so good, though, Sean. I mean, I think the fact that you're able to, you know, you're willing to change your, your opinions or your point of view based on new evidence. That's, you know, that's not being wishy-washy. That's being reflective and open, I think, to new stances. And on the topic of, you know, kids dying, I think one thing I would just, sort of questions that I would put in people's lap is are, you know, as we go into the fall, and I think most of the people who are, you know, are sort of in tune with what's going on. I'll say anticipate that we're going to have a very hard fall, as I was saying earlier,

and we're probably going to see a lot of sickness and a number of deaths. And I would just encourage people to be on the watch for and looking reflectively and trying to understand, are these deaths from COVID? Are they deaths from the COVID vaccines? Are they deaths from various immune enhancement disorders that we quite possibly get from the vaccines. Because I think one thing that has been

well proven now is there's a lack of transparency in terms of the directives from the governments and in terms of public messaging. And we can't just rely on that as a source of information, right? So if there's more sickness, I would not say that mass vaccination is necessarily, obviously, the right? If that makes any sense. Yeah. Well, I've kept you for an hour. I got a couple final questions for you. They're nice and quick. And light, I think light.

And then I know you got your daughter there. So it's the crude master. Well, today it's going to be the final two. It's usually the final five folks. But we got short time frames and talking about some pretty serious topics. So the one question I always ask is if you could sit down and do what I'm doing right now, if anybody on the planet, somebody, you'd like to pick their brain on things, who would you take?

That's a good question. Oh, boy, that's a really good question. Because it assumes that I'd be able to get honest answers out of people, doesn't it? Or that I'd be a good enough interviewer to be able to do that. Well, I've got to say, we certainly keep hearing Bill Gates' name thrown around a lot these days. I wouldn't mind putting him on the hot seat for a while, I have to say. I think that would be a fascinating sit down. And I think it would surprise a lot of people and not for the way they think it would go. I think there'd be some really interesting topics brought up there. Because that guy, as much as lots of people hate him, he's done a ton of benefit for the world, right? Like he's just, he's on a different planet, honestly. Possibly. Possibly. I don't have preconceived answers to the questions. I would be just curious what those answers. were. I'll leave it like that. Yeah, for sure. Well, I tell you what, then my fun one for you,

philosophy, a lady of the philosophy, if you could go back in time and sit with one person, who would you take? And maybe I'd even ask on top of that, what question would you want to ask them? Oh, Sean, these are hard questions. Well, they're fun, though. Absolutely. Who would you go back. You've done a ton of reading and research. You've brought up Socrates and Aristotle and all these like amazing people. I'm just curious. And I'm also curious what you'd ask. I think you brought up Socrates, but that's who I'm going to pick. Do you know why? Because he is, so for those who don't know, Socrates is kind of the sort of the founding philosopher of the Western philosophical tradition. He's a fifth and fourth century BC philosopher. And he actually died because he was accused by the Athenians of

asking too many questions and corrupting the youth, basically. But basically he was corrupting the youth because he was asking too many questions in society. And so the Athenians charged him and sentenced him to death, and he ended up drinking hemlock and dying. But no one have I ever read or ever thought about was better at asking questions than he was. And I would love to ask him, Socrates, what questions should we be asking now and what should we do? because so Plato wrote a number of dialogues with Socrates in them. And just in having conversation with other people and asking them questions,

he almost always rendered them, rendered their arguments clearly wrong or fallacious. And then that was the end of it. And we really need some help like that right now. So that's who I pick. That's a pretty good. And then I would just let Bill Gates and Socrates talk for a while, I think. Now that would be an interview, wouldn't it? Well, I appreciate you hopping on and doing this with me. I hope everybody listening and pulled some

things out of it and appreciate what you're doing. And the fact that you could be within weeks of dismissal and everything else, I, uh, wow, just keep doing what you're doing. I really appreciate people like yourself. Um, you know, you mentioned early on death threats and people, uh, throwing slander your way. When I sit here and I think my audience will agree with me, I don't get that feeling from you. And believe me, we've had an awful lot of guests on here where I'm like, well, I could probably see that you rattled a couple cages. But yourself, I don't grab that at all. So I do wish you the best of luck. And I hope that we are going to see better times in the future. Absolutely. Thank you for Sean for what you're doing. Because, you know, I can't come on and chat about

these things if it's not for people in the media like you. So thank you so much. Well, I tell you what, going back and listening to Julie. First, I just want to say Bill Gates. Oh, my God. I just want to, you know, do you ever have moments? I guess for most of you, don't record your train of thinking or your train of thought and then go back and listen to it. But I just want to swatron at the end of that.

Oh, yeah, I'm talking to Bill Gates. I'm sure it'd be interesting. It's like punch myself in the face, folks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Bill Gates, F my life. Okay. Julie Panassia. Okay. Before, well, no, not before.

You know, there's lots to get to. It was, you know, it was interesting to hear, you know, a podcast before the election. You know, I remember thinking Trude. There's no way Trudeau gets back in, especially under the platform and everything. And while we were wrong there, weren't we? And, you know, one of the things I just think is I listen to myself more. I'm like, man, just some head scratcher moments where you just like, oh, I can't. believe I thought that, you know, I didn't think it was going to get worse.

And that was in September of 2021. And let's be clear, it got worse. And, you know, I guess the first thing I wrote down was how close I came to getting the shot, you know, and I'm glad, you know, I was wondering who I'd talked to right before there. It might have been Ken or Lutherford. I'm not 100% sure on that, though, because I don't say that. But, you know, I thought it was really, really interesting, right?

because I'm like, you know, I had one of those moments where maybe I should just go get it. And they're like, yeah, well, you can go do you. But just realize, you know, you're not signing up for two anymore. They're already bringing out the booster. And, you know, it's just wild to hear us all the things we talk about. And, you know, when I try and go back and try and explain to people, you know, how much fear was in society back then, it's just crazy to me to hear that conversation and realize it's almost like a deal. different planet, you know? Like, I don't know. I remember the thought. Like, I just, I don't know anymore.

And then I listen to Julie talk and I'm like, this is what I try and explain to people. I'm like, here you have this sharp, intelligent woman going. Like, this doesn't make any sense. And, you know, I got friends telling me, oh, you sign up for two. You're actually signing up for an endless supply of this. And you could just see it there. But, you know, society was restricting everything. You know, and as I was sitting here, actually, I should pull it up. to text me and forgive me who who texted me here. Let's just see here.

Oh man, here. It was Trisha. Tricia. She'd said, I'm jaded against provincial games. Obviously we just had talking the Winter Games, right? Oh, man, I'm spacing on

yesterday's podcast, but Alberta Winter Games, I believe, coming up in Bonneville. And she said, thanks for the episode with Daniel and Dexter. Oh, yeah, with Alberta winner games. Just read it, John. I'm jaded against provincial games. I'm not sure what they did in Alberta during COVID, but here in BC, unvaxed kids and spectators were not allowed to attend the summer games of 21. My son was invited to play baseball in the games that summer and we had to decline because he was not vaxed. It was one of the many infuriating

and demeaning laws that kept us from partaking in regular life. I decided then to no longer support the provincial games. And you know, like listening to this episode with me and Julie is just like, man, we went through an insane time and hearing, you know, September before the election, me thinking, like, there's no way Trudeau gets back in. There's just, this case can't keep going on. Then he gets back in. Like, how wild was that? How wild for me, maybe not for you.

I don't know where, you know, Bill Gates. I just want to reach through the, you have no idea, Sean. You have no idea. And, you know, how close I came to go. just because of the societal pressure, the fear, and that fear, man, was just something, wasn't it? You know, an interesting line, she said, we're not at risk of losing our democratic society.

We're at risk of losing our society. And the narrative is dividing us, teaching us to hate each other. I think that's still true today. You know, we're in her camps, and it's just, it's something, isn't it? Like, trying to get people, you know, I listen to that. I'm like, everybody should listen to Julie Panassi. Like, if you listen to that, I don't know how you come at the end of that and go, you guys are all wacko conspiracy theorists. I just, I don't see it.

You know, it was interesting as well. You know, we were talking about seeing vaccines available up to age 12 and then talking about how, you know, it was, they were getting through studies of, you know, younger kids. And, you know, when it first started, I was thinking, oh, the kids are not going to remember anything this, they're not going to have to be around it. And while that was a lie, I told myself, because obviously, went younger and younger. I thought it would interesting, you know, basically Julie was talking about how universities are not going to make

schooling available for the unvaccinated and are going to make it extremely tough. And we witnessed that. I kept bringing up, well, I didn't keep bringing up, but brought up in different parts, you know, my line and,

you know, how earlier I, well, it's no time for caution, man, if that wasn't true enough, you know, it's funny,

when you draw a line in the sand and shout out to my brother Dust, you know, we had that argument. in the parking lot of my, the office building where the studio's at, and we were yelling at each other, you know. And I went home and thought about it and drew my line. And, you know, as soon as it started getting bumped against,

I'm like, this is insane. But how many of us, you know, not you folks, because if you're listening right now, chances are you had your line, and it was crossed, no doubt. But, you know, how few of us in society actually draw that. And then we don't have to accept something because someone else says it is true. And I thought that was a valuable line as well. So I don't know what you guys got out of this, Julie Panessi coming back.

But certainly I've reached out to her again because I would really like to talk about Socrates, Aristotle, some of the things I've been reading. I read the apology. And that was fascinating. you know to hear thousands of years ago well that entire story and so I've invited Julie back on it's been too long we tried doing one a few months ago and it just didn't work out so we're going to try again in August to have her back on the show which I'm excited for on this side you know we got I think we got one maybe two more throwback Thursdays before I'm back in the groove and I think I know what I'm doing for next week it's been

throwing around a bunch of different names, but I've really enjoyed listening to Julie Pennessy. She is a sharp tack, and there's something about philosophy and ethics that just really speaks to me, and I'm not sure what the rest of you think, but I really enjoyed it. Now, on this side for the holiday portion, we've been all over the place. We drove to a small college reunion on the shores of Lake Huron, so, you know, channeling my best Newman. I come from a long line of people who drive way too far. But it was great to catch up with some old college teammates. And honestly, probably, you know, there was lots of cool parts.

I'd never been swimming in Lake here on it. I was surprised how, I don't know, nice it was. It was pretty cool. But all of us have kids now. So getting the kids together and causing mayhem and having a lot of fun that way. Mel had the kids playing kick the can for the first time ever. There might have been a few tears shed. But that was really cool, really enjoyed seeing everyone and shout out to Ryan Hunt and his wife, Maggie, for having us all out in Michigan.

And then now we're back here in Minnesota for a little while longer. I got my 11th anniversary coming up. So, spoiler alert, I've been planning something special for Mel. Short story, I guess, years ago, I get tired of all the days. I know that sounds sad, right? but I just think there's too many days and you know Mel is

loves gifts and I just told we just had a frank conversation once upon time I just don't love Valentine's Day it's not that I don't like doing something on Valentine's Day I just you know to me it's not the day and it was funny

because we kind of came to agreement she worry about Valentine's Day and I worry about anniversary which means she doesn't have to do anything she didn't have to get me anything I get to worry about it and to me I like that I'm like okay that is a solid tradeoff in my world

So anniversary is my, you know, my baby, I get to plan some things out. So I got some cool ideas for us. We're going to go do a little bit of hiking and a few other things. I guess you're hearing about it first here, folks. But that's coming up here right away. I'm excited for that. And not too long. I'll be back on the, my first episode back will be mashup 169 if memory serves me, correct?

Maybe it's 170. It's one of the two. I think it's 169. So that's coming awfully quick. I'm looking forward to being back at 2's. I'm sure he's going to have some quick-witted replies for me. But I hope everybody's doing well. I hope you enjoyed this throwback Thursday, man.

Think about it. 600 plus episodes ago, September 2021. It was part of times. I'm just like, I can't wrap my head around what we went through. And the fact it got to where it did, you know, and that you could demonize Julie Panasi, who when I listen to her,

I'm like, this lady is sharp. Wouldn't you want your kids to go to a university where she's teaching? Like, honestly. And, yeah, I just really, I wanted to pick one out of all the COVID ones. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, but Julie Pinesse really stuck out to me. All of them do. Who am I kidding? I just, I really enjoyed the philosophical discussion of this.

And I thought it was an interesting one to go back to. There's probably a hundred more I could put in the throat. Thursdays from that time. Certainly this was an interesting one for me, and I hope you enjoyed this week's installment of the throwback Thursday. I hope your July is going well, wherever you're at, and I'm looking forward to the next throwback Thursday. As everyone started to realize, I quite enjoy this process, and it gets me in front of the

mic, which doesn't happen an awful lot at this point, but soon enough it's going to pick up, and I'm looking forward to it. So I'll leave all of you fine folks be, and, uh, We'll catch up to you next week.