AS299: Let's Get Into the Arguments

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Is episode 299, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Okay, well, I've got a little explaining to do. As you'll recall, last week was the interesting discussion between me, Eli, and Mike and Dustin. I was pretty negative on it, and I wasn't sure if I was going to post part two. Well, here's what I'm doing. I would say the response on that, because I asked you guys what you thought, what you wanted me to do, the response was about four to one in favor of posting part two, and I'm a little surprised.

0:01:13 Thomas: But here's the thing, there were a lot of people saying no. There were a lot of saying it wasn't useful, it wasn't like my show. They had really good reasons. The people who said no had great reasons, but they were overwhelmed by the people who said yes. So I invite you to think about what you would do in that situation. It's kind of an interesting situation to be in. What I've decided to do is compromise a little bit, because if I wanted to just please the most people I would just play part two, and it does get really, and a lot of people who listen to the full version, by the way, patrons said, you know what, post part two, it was fascinating, but it's, it's really raw toward the end. It really, here's the thing though, I think it ultimately was a little more useful than I might have made out. I think I was pretty negative on this discussion based on the end of it, based on how Eli reacted, uh, Eli was, you can even hear him if you already heard the full version.

0:02:10 Thomas: In the end, he's saying, don't put this online. He was very negative on it. I don't blame him. But I've decided to compromise by talking a bit about the discussion and then just playing some of it, like some of part two. I didn't edit much. I edited here and there, but I'm only playing a portion of the part two. The end, the last 40 minutes is just worthless. I mean, it just repeats and goes to a different subject that's not worthwhile and doesn't go anywhere. So it's not worth it, but I should have been a little more... So here's the thing. Someone on Facebook was actually kind of upset with me for being so negative about the recording.

0:02:57 Thomas: And I think this is interesting. This is a very interesting thing. So they were in disbelief that I would think my job is to discourage people from listening. Because I did discourage people from listen to the whole thing. I really did. But here's what I want to say. The person was in disbelieve. They said, you're actually telling me your job is do that rather than to promote your podcast and make me want to listen to it? And what I wanted to say and what I I want to tell you guys is actually, I do think the answer is yes. I think my job, I look at my job, and feel free to accuse me of getting a little high-minded here, but I really believe this. I look At My Job as to be honest. Like, there really is it. I'm me.

0:03:42 Thomas: I am honest. That's what I want do. Overall, I'm not going to pretend. I'm not good at lying or pretending. I'm not going to try to sell you something that I'm not sure on, and I just wasn t sure how useful this discussion was. Now, it sounds like it actually was kind of useful. It sounds like it was. And maybe I should have recognized that. Maybe I should've recognized that while it did go off the rails, while the participants were sometimes belligerent, definitely cursing way too much. By the way, there's plenty of cursing in this show. I'll warn you again ahead of time by one guest in particular, but all of us to a certain extent. Then. Uh, but, but despite that, I do think it's useful to look at what, what happens when you try to engage the other side, because it is true that I do, I am quite critical of people like Dave Rubin, uh, and other, and plenty of others who have people on their show and don't challenge them, you know, because I just, I'm not interested in that.

0:04:41 Thomas: I'm not interested personally. Personally, that's not what I'm interested in doing, I'm interested in challenging people if I can. Here's another criticism peop-, a few people had, and I accept, they said I didn't set up the Facebook stuff enough, uh, I'm sorry about that, I, I didn't think that was that important, because I, thought we just were kind of talking, we, anything we referenced, we read, I thought, for the most part. I'll see you next time.

Eli read a lot of the exchange, and I didn't really want to just talk about the Facebook exchange, And I think that's why I didn't really set it up that way, I wanted to talk about The issues, and what I, and you'll see in this, in today's episode, I really, what I really wanted to Talk about, most of all, was the false equivalence, in my view, between Trump and Hillary, and that's what, that's what has led to most of my problems with the other side of whatever that is, of this, with the side of uh of not voting, with the side of voting third party, with the side of throwing up your hands and saying, oh man, they're both so bad.

I mean, that to me, that's what killed me about this election because I think it's absurd, and that's what I, and I did, you'll see in this clip, in these clips today, we got to argue with specifically Mike about that, and you'll get to see what happens when you try to argue with somebody like, and when you pursue it, I think, think it'll be quite instructive. I actually, I undersold this. I also, oh, real quick, I want to apologize. I named this episode slightly differently.

0:06:14 Thomas: I apologize. I just didn't want people who were already writing off the fact that they didn't want to hear part two. I didn't want them to just automatically skip this without playing it. I'm terribly sorry if that offends anybody, but I just kind of wanted to get some attention so I'd have a chance to explain my thoughts to you. And you can still feel free to skip, obviously, if you're dedicated to not not hearing part two, you don't have to, but I wanted the chance to at least have you push play. So I apologize for that bit of trickery there. I hope you'll forgive me. As regards to Facebook stuff, I do want to say, I can't believe it took me until now to figure this out. If you want to friend me on Facebook, I, I made myself a little, uh, custom URL, turns out anyone can do this, I just didn't think about it. So, hey, if you want a friend me Facebook, it's really fun, I really, I'm telling you, I love interacting with listeners in this way.

0:07:04 Thomas: It's, it, seriously, I loved it, it a, it is a profile just for that, people message me, people comment, people, it it's, really fun and I, and I'm, I am on it, you know, know, I monitor it all day. So if it's a place you want to talk to me, it's actually a pretty good place. Facebook.com slash Thomas podcast, obviously T-H-O-M-A-S podcast. If you go to facebook.com Thomas podcast. That's the profile. So you won't have to search. You won't have to do all that, any of that weird stuff. And you can send me a friend request there. I don't accept people who look like spam, but if you're listening to this, I'm guessing you're not spam. Spam. I don't think spam listens to my podcast. Facebook.com slash Thomas podcast. Hey, send me a friend request. If you're a listener, I'll happily accept it. I'm excited to be able to talk to you in that way.

0:07:49 Thomas: And it'll be easier to follow along if this ever happens in the future. But I do promise I will try to set things up if they are based on a Facebook exchange, like with Smalley. I made that PDF. I put it on the site. With this, I didn't think we were going to talk about that. So I didn't do that. My apologies for that. Okay, I promise just two more things before I get to the actual clips, but you're gonna love this. Oh, my Lord, who doesn't exist, you are gonna love it. So, remember last week, oh, this is so good, you're going to love this, last week I mentioned that Cecil had done an edit for part two. Do you remember when I said that? I was like, oh I haven't listened to it yet, Cecil did an edit from part two, turns out that wasn't entirely accurate. Cecil sent me something labeled the, you know, what he salvaged from part two.

0:08:36 Thomas: And I had never played it because I was so damn busy trying to get this figured out and opening arguments on my shows. I hadn't played it. He listened to part one. He sent me a text that said, dude, you need to listen to part two that I sent you.

0:08:50 Thomas: So here it is. I'm going to play it for you. I'll play the whole thing for you, ready? Here's, here's Cecil's part two Thank you.

0:08:58 Clip: I voted all the reason in the world for a larger. I'm not saying you're Dustin, I want to have a conversation with Dustin. How does that not okay the racist but not, his best anti-pc culture presidency the fuck was that coming on the gaytheist manifesto and all that shit I don't know what any of that means

0:09:40 Thomas: So he had just sent me a joke file that was all the stupid noise in the background that somebody was making the whole time, and I had thought he had done a part two, oh my gosh, it was so funny, I am so glad that he texted me to listen to that, oh, it is so great, thank you, Cecil, I, I can't stop laughing about this, it's so funny. So that's Cecil's version of part two but now you, you're gonna hear my version but one more, final quick announcement. And that is, that you may have noticed, we're on episode 299, I am doing an episode 300, spec-tacular, I've invited all my favorite guests, so amazing, I got, it's so great, my favorites, I have got, in no particular order, I don't want to offend anybody, I get Scathing Atheists, I got Eli, Noah, Heath, I got Cognitive Dissonance, Tom and Cecil, I got Andrew, I got Ishmael, I got Jake Farr Wharton, I did mini-episodes, episodes with all of them.

0:10:40 Thomas: It's a gigantic, huge episode 300 spectacular. It has hours and hours of content. I might do an episode 300 three-parter, and there's also a big announcement, moderately big announcement coming in episode 300. So look forward to that on Thursday, at least part one of that. But I'm very excited about it, and I want to thank all those esteemed guests for joining me, because it's really cool for them to take time out of their day to come celebrate episode 300. 300, guys, can you believe that? Oh, I still can't. All right, announcements over, let's get over to the first, I'm gonna play a little clip, and I told you last week that I apologized to Dustin, I've actually got the clip, I am gonna play it, just to make sure, just, to make it more public, I did apologize, it, I grant you it was a caveated apology, but here, I'll just play it for you, here it is.

0:11:33 Thomas Or Eli: Thank you I'm like Eli in that I really interpreted what you were doing is making fun of me. And I was happy to give it back at you. If it's true that you really didn't intend that, then yes, I'm sorry that I mocked you back. I am. Seriously, if that's

0:11:48 Guests: Uh okay like certainly

0:11:50 Thomas: Really what your intention was, both Eli and I and other people in the thread didn't read your intention that way. So, I mean, you can see maybe how we were confused. But really,

0:11:59 Guests: Okay

0:11:59 Thomas Or Eli: Like if that was truly what you had in your heart, I am sorry. I apologize. So that's that. Now, the next thing I want to move on to, this is where we finally, I think, tried to get into the issues, and again, this what I wanted to get to the whole time, but it's very, it took a while, and it was surrounded by a lot of crap, but I think it's a very instructive. This is when I finally, we finally tried to to get a response as to why Hillary and Trump are equal in any way, and how bad they might be, anything like that, and there's some other stuff we talked about, it. But here's the next clip. And it's pretty much the rest of the clips that I'm playing are all related. I'll probably just stop introducing them and play the rest.

0:12:46 Thomas Or Eli: Okay. So now we, okay. We can, there are two sort of separate things that we were going to talk about, the, you know, the idea that the left and right are equivalent and they're far left, far right thing. But we can, we can jump to this if you, you want. Yes, it's true that some people maybe call all Trump voters racist. I don't know about you, Eli. I'll speak for myself. I think that they actively ignored horrible, horrible things said by their candidate that really should have been deal breakers. And that in itself is somewhat questionable, that that's somewhat racist or sexist to do

0:13:26 Guests: Thomas I'm gonna interrupt you because I've had this conversation dozens and dozens of times so I'm going to plant a flag early on and I'm to make two predictions. The first is, uh, me and Thomas, us, are about to start talking about overturning Roe versus Wade and gay conversion therapy and HB2 and the very real legal practical consequences of the far right. And in response, we're going to get, yeah, but some people say X, or this YouTuber does this, or we're going to hear about a series of unempowered individuals' bad behavior. And the second prediction is, even though I just said that, that is still going to happen.

0:13:26 Thomas Or Eli: Sure yeah but

0:14:17 Guests: I think that I could bring in like some, like ABC and some CNN, and I can bring in, you know, some quotes from some pretty good politicians saying that, you know, a lot of people voted for a lot of different reasons, um, and I, I would say I, I also wouldn't make any between the far left and the far right exactly, I would saying that they, they kind of feed into each other in kind of a feedback loop, um and well

0:14:45 Thomas Or Eli: You've said but Dustin, you, you made it pretty clear, I think both of you in the Facebook, uh, posts, and that's why I wanted to talk about it, that it is sort of a 50/50 thing, maybe you're more like 51/49, you know, for me it's about, the far right is, uh, on a scale of one to ten, problematic, I'll say like a eight, and the far left is like a two, uh, so that's, that's where I'm coming from, maybe, maybe a three depending on the day, not

0:15:12 Guests: If if, uh, if that, you know, two on the far left is pushing more people into the alt-right, empowering them, do you think those are some issues that we should maybe try to address, if it were true yes it would be something to address, okay, not true though you don't think

0:15:25 Thomas Or Eli: Well how is it how is doing that yeah but but wouldn't it wouldn't it be offset by the idea that the far right can push people into the far, and so it'd be a feedback loop, be infinite, right, okay

0:15:32 Guests: Yeah exactly, yeah man, uh, so like we can, you know, I, I think we should try to stop feeding into their stuff, you know what I mean, like let them come this way, stop, like, okay, um

0:15:49 Thomas Or Eli: Give me, no, no, hold on, ignore that for a sec, let's, let's get, let's, let's all get our numbers out here, what do you, I want to know what you actually think, I want actually pin you down to some actual stances. Let's ignore the feeding into the far right, because that's sort of a recursive thing. I don't think you can quantify it, really. Let's say just in terms of whenever one side is in power, when the right is in power, which they are now once Trump assumes the presidency, what is the far right going to accomplish versus when the left was in power? What is the the far left going to accomplish and how is that going to affect people in our country? For me, the far right is like an eight or a nine. Far left is like a three. I want to know what you think. Is it 10 and 10? Is it, you know, what do you think?

0:16:28 Guests: I'm I would say that in this specific, like, when they're in power, how much damage are they going to do, I'm going to say that the far right would definitely cause more damage. I wouldn't argue with that at all. As far as numbers, I

0:16:48 Thomas Or Eli: All right, let me get Mike's answer then too, Mike, what are you thinking?

0:16:51 Guests: Would call them both five and five.

0:16:54 Thomas: Both five and five. Okay, fair. Let's

0:16:56 Guests: Yeah,

0:16:56 Thomas Or Eli: Argue about that. So we're back to false equivalence between far left and far right, whatever, we'll go, we'll go with that. So why do you think it's a five and five, Mike? Mm-hmm.

0:17:04 Guests: I think it's a five and five because what it does is you say false equivalency. I call it a false dichotomy. You have on both ends. So no matter who you're talking to, no matter what rhetoric you're speaking, you have extremes, and you have a center. Now the center is going to be quiet, and the extremes are going to be fucking loud. We're hearing this on the right with the super evangelical fucking homophobic racist assholes, and we're hearing on the far left from the super fucking anti-white dude, anti-fucking cisgender people. I pay attention to both sides, yes, but the right is making laws and the left is not because they're in power. The

0:17:11 Thomas Or Eli: Okay. What the left, the left has been in

0:17:56 Guests: Left has been in power for a decade.

0:17:56 Thomas Or Eli: Power. We've had a we've got a Democrat Yeah.

0:17:59 Guests: They've been in the fucking presidency. What blocked ACA? ACA exists. But

0:18:06 Thomas Or Eli: But there was no There was no, like, there was no, like, kill white people law that the Republican Congress

0:18:13 Guests: HB2 Exists. When was the last kill black people law? Okay, well, HB2 existed.

0:18:13 Thomas: Voted down or something, no.

0:18:20 Thomas Or Eli: But there's, well, you know, we're doing the equivalent. So you just said your equivalent is real anti-white, anti-, so when, what's the, what's the white, the anti-white, anti-cis law that the, the Republicans prevented because they were actually controlling the congress, yeah.

0:18:22 Guests: Yeah.

0:18:36 Guests: Where's the balance? There hasn't been any because it's not a fucking extreme, dude. HB2 was only unable to be enacted because we had far right fucking legislators, right, and I'm asking you, what far, you said it's five and five, so I'm asking you what is the equivalency. They haven't had power, dude. When you go to universities, for instance, you're looking at, what was it, the fucking bridge blocking, that's racism, behavior of individuals, okay, that's beautiful, they haven't had fucking power to enact anything. What do you, you think the left would have enacted if they could? Yeah, legalize discrimination. I think the far left would do like reparations and things, and I think that's a lot of animosity, um, yeah. Okay, I want you to describe to me who it is among the empowered left you have heard talking about legalizing discrimination. Right, it's okay if you don't have a source, we can look it up later. Empowered or popular?

0:18:54 Thomas Or Eli: Well,

0:19:45 Guests: Empower. Again, remember my prediction at the beginning? None of them are empowered because they don't hold fucking power, dude. So the president is not empowered?

0:19:56 Guests: Obama is not for the left. Obama is a centrist.

0:19:59 Thomas: Then maybe you guys understand why I'm, and and same with Hillary, well let's talk about Hillary because this is all framed in the, in the 2016 election, this is where this all, this strife comes from because

0:20:11 Guests: Yeah, and the far right- But

0:20:11 Thomas Or Eli: Your your guys's side of things is that, uh, why are you so, you're voting for Jill Stein shows a clear, uh, in my opinion, lack of insight, uh, and a lack of of of appreciation for what threat for what, a

0:20:25 Guests: You don't know why I voted. You don't- No,

0:20:30 Thomas Or Eli: You're going to

0:20:28 Thomas: Threat Trump is. If tell me you would have voted Hillary, but but you're not in a swing state. So you wanted to, then, and I don't know what we're doing here. If that's what

0:20:37 Thomas Or Eli: You're going to tell me.

0:20:38 Guests: I'm in Florida. Of course I'm a swing state. You voted for Jill Stein in Florida you

0:20:40 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah. In Florida. So, you are the worst example of this.

0:20:44 Guests: Want to know you want know why I voted for Jill Stern yes because I want to empower other women and let them know that they have a chance at the fucking presidency but I refuse to vote for Hillary fucking Clinton wait

0:20:45 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah. Sure. Sure, yeah.

0:20:57 Thomas Or Eli: So that's the important part. That would be, so what, yeah, the

0:21:00 Guests: You knowingly handed the president presidency a man who brags about sexual assault to empower women?

0:21:12 Guests: He brags about kissing women without their consent and grabbing them by their pussy when they let them. No, actually. He doesn't grab them by... He says you just do... I saw the fucking video. I just kiss. I don't ask.

0:21:24 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah, we all saw it. Everybody saw

0:21:27 Guests: I just kissing. I just don't kiss. I don't ask. When you're rich, they let you do anything. Grab them by the pussy.

0:21:27 Thomas Or Eli: It, yeah?

0:21:34 Guests: Yeah, not asking. I get it. To me, the sexual assault is fucking kissing somebody without consent. Cent, kind of like licking someone's... I'm gonna stop, no, we're supposed to talk about it, I mean, dude.

0:21:43 Thomas Or Eli: So, you really don't see Trump's sexism as an an issue, so this is this is what it's important to talk about, your

0:21:50 Guests: Why? I didn't vote for fucking Trump because he's a piece of shit too. But But I Want to empower Women I Want women to know that they actually have a fucking Chance.

0:21:53 Thomas Or Eli: Vote For Jill Stein Is A vote For Trump. Okay. Here's What. Here's what women know from your vote for Jill Stein, they know that Trump won Florida and now he's president, so that's what they know, that's What your vote Did. And

0:22:06 Guests: They Know That Somebody fucking voted for Jill fucking Stein.

0:22:10 Thomas Or Eli: They're fucking Pissed At that person for handing us President Trump, yeah.

0:22:11 Guests: Oh Yeah Well, you know what, they, they can do, lick my salty ass left testicle, that's what they can fucking do, because I'm not voting for a goddamn fucking normal, I'm sorry, just admit you don't care about women. Then don't Don't Say I do, that's why I don't even say, they can, they can lick your test, I didn't care about women, I would not have fucking voted, I voted specifically to let women know that there are people behind them that will fucking support them in their goddamn presidential run. You knew Jill Stein couldn't win. You were in a swing state. Of course. The Green Party itself told you that. I also knew that fucking Florida is not going to fucking Hillary, dude.

0:22:26 Thomas Or Eli: That Is What's Happening.

0:22:58 Guests: And I'm not fucking Hillary. Oh, you knew that?

0:22:58 Thomas Or Eli: Oh, you Knew that Oh Wow, that's Incredible.

0:23:01 Guests: Fuck yeah, have you? Do you live in Florida? Do you know how Florida is? Do you life in fucking Florida? I know how- I live in Miami. What did you use? I'm sorry, what? Oh, I go off Nate Silver's polling data. What data do you use? Nate Silver? Oh, jeez. From 5 to 8?

0:23:20 Thomas Or Eli: So Uh the Idea

0:23:21 Thomas: That you knew Florida was going to go for for Trump is pretty absurd, because no one knew that, and it was incredibly close, it was the closest

0:23:28 Guests: No, I only know that because I live in Florida.

0:23:28 Thomas Or Eli: Thing that Could have Been, oh Okay, so

0:23:32 Guests: And I've seen...

0:23:33 Thomas Or Eli: Everybody lived In Florida knew You

0:23:34 Guests: No, no, no. I've been to Florida. I've known all of the disenfranchised people. And I'm seeing all the people in the University of Miami, in Florida International University, all the fucking schools down here, and all the fucking polling places down here, people were literally telling me I don't need to vote because Hillary's gonna win, and that's the best way to lose a fucking election, if you think that you don't need to vote because the candidate that you want is going to win hands Down You

0:24:04 Thomas Or Eli: Just Said

0:24:06 Thomas: You voted for Jill Stein because you knew Hillary wasn't going to win, it's

0:24:09 Guests: Threw Away Your vote Yeah, I did, and the reason that I knew that is because everybody that I knew that initially intended on voting for fucking Hillary, Hillary, decided not to vote because they were convinced she was going to win. So you voted for Jill Stein to contribute to the problem? No, I voted for Joe Stein to let women know that there are people that will back them. And I refuse.

0:24:09 Thomas Or Eli: The same Logic. This No One is Going To remember that Jill Stein existed, they're going to remember that Donald fucking Trump got to the White House because of people like you who didn't vote for Hillary in Florida. Florida.

0:24:44 Guests: You know, Hillary Clinton is a woman, right? Voting for the one who could have won is a really good way to say you support women. She's also against almost everything I fucking believe in. Okay, that's fine. It's fine to say I didn't vote for Hillary because she's against Kevin Kennedy. Don't say you voted for Jill Stein because you believe in women, okay? Just have a moment of intellectual honesty and say, I don't like Hillary Clinton. You cannot project. You literally just made a claim that you knew Florida was coming because of disenfranchised people of Florida. You are an idiot. You have no data.

0:25:01 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah.

0:25:23 Guests: You You have no understanding.

0:25:23 Thomas Or Eli: She lost by 120,000 votes. That's nothing. I don't know how you can say that you know that.

0:25:28 Guests: Why is he having this conversation? This is definitely how you get people to vote for your side. I voted

0:25:37 Thomas Or Eli: We need to talk about why on earth you think Hillary and Donald Trump were equivalent. I think that's the important part. So, yeah,

0:25:44 Guests: Just gonna move on from the intuiting that Florida was gonna loss and the third party we're gonna ignore all that

0:25:47 Thomas Or Eli: I know. Now, that's absurd.

0:25:51 Thomas: That is absurd. Mike, I'm sorry. That was an absurd argument. You didn't

0:25:54 Guests: That's so absurd, that's SO ignorant, you know that? You don't just get to be like, FUCK YOU, I'm not your stepdad, I'm NOT trying to get you to have an ice cream with me. You know what I do get to say? Fuck you. That's what I get to say, because I don't like either of them. I fucking hate Trump. I fucking hates Hillary. Both of them are fucking giant fucking piles of shit. No matter what we were going to do, we were fucked. So I threw my fucking vote behind a third party and behind a woman to encourage

0:25:55 Thomas Or Eli: Know.

0:26:27 Thomas Or Eli: Okay,

0:26:28 Guests: Third parties and women to fucking run.

0:26:28 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah. No, No, no, no. OK, this is this is The no, this is the, the contradiction in what you're saying, because you're mistaken if you think that they're a toss up. If you think, if you think that Trump and Hillary are toss up, we should argue about that because it's incredible. The only way you could think that that both they are a toss up and you need to support Jill Stein because she's a woman, that is astronomically contradictory to me because one of the candidates, Donald Trump, to give you a hint ahead of time, was the one who

0:27:00 Guests: Uh-huh.

0:27:00 Thomas: Talked openly about sexually assaulting women

0:27:03 Guests: Uh-uh. And Hillary fucking intimidated – no, she fucking intimidated and threatened women that her husband fucking sexually assaulted. Big fucking deal. No, she didn't. I don't care about – uh-huh. She didn't, she just didn't we've all read that news story. It's a cursory Google. What are we doing? Why are we engaging at this level of conversation? This conversation should have ended when the answer was suck my salty left nut. That was your real answer. You voted for Jill Stein because you don't care, okay? So stop pretending you do. The answer is fuck you, okay. The reason I voted, don't you put fucking words in my fucking mouth. Don't you Put reasoning behind my fucking reason. Oh, there is no reason behind your decision, trust me.

0:27:03 Thomas Or Eli: And literally, what, sent an email?

0:27:56 Thomas Or Eli: Well, what you effectively did might be different than your reasons.

0:28:00 Guests: My reasons My reasons might in your opinion be flawed, but they are my fucking reason, yeah. You might have voted for Jill Stein in the hope that each woman in America would get $90,000 cash. The fact that you're wrong, wait, I want to drive this home sorry Thomas I just want to Drive this home Michael you You understand that the fact that you're wrong matters, right? How am I wrong?

0:28:06 Thomas Or Eli: Okay, yeah,

0:28:17 Thomas: The fact that you're on marriage. Let me put it this way. If it

0:28:21 Thomas Or Eli: Was, sure, sure. Yeah, that's what we should argue about.

0:28:29 Guests: Okay. Thomas, go ahead. You explain to Michael while he's wrong.

0:28:33 Thomas Or Eli: Okay. Well, here's what I was going to say. Just to get into Mike's mindset, if it was in a weird world, Donald Trump versus Donald Trump, and then you also could vote Jill Stein, okay, I get why you would vote Jill Stein, but that's wrong. It wasn't Donald Trump versus Donald trump. It was Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton.

0:28:55 Guests: Yeah, but that's not...

0:28:56 Thomas Or Eli: You're making the equivalence. That's the key thing you're wrong about, Mike, is this false equivalence between Trump and Hillary. One, you can argue that she might have said some bad things about women in the 90s or something. You can feel free to bring up examples if you want.

0:29:13 Guests: And you can say that... You

0:29:14 Thomas Or Eli: The other had multiple people.

0:29:15 Guests: Can say you committed sexual assault back in, what, the early 2000s when all he said was they let you? Okay, I get it. But my reasoning is my fucking reasoning, dude.

0:29:27 Thomas Or Eli: Hold on, hold on. Let me ask you this. No, that's fine. I'm not, I don't even care. I know that your reasoning is you think they're 50-50 roughly. And that's fucking mess. That's wrong. That is what I am arguing with. Can we get to that point in the argument? Let's argue about why it is insanity to me to think that Trump and Hillary are anywhere comparable. You know what? Let us even forget about Trump being misogynist. Because that is not the only reason not to vote for him. What about the policies? Policies. Were you really so unconcerned about a President Trump with a Republican Congress and all that? You're so unconcerted about that, that you can view it as a 50-50 between him and Hillary and vote and throw your vote away, completely knowingly throw your vot away and give it to Trump.

0:29:42 Guests: Okay. Oh, I Don't know, that's why I voted against him. I didn't I did not throw a fucking vote away, dude. Yes, I voted No, I voted, I voted in hopes that the third party, vote away. Did Clinton win? I mean, like, her. I get that she lost and there was no chance of her winning, I get that, but like, it's not exactly like if your person you voted for didn't win, it's a waste, dude. I, like, everybody has their own own reasons. And like, you know, I don't agree with Mike's reasons for voting this way. I don't think it makes him a bad person.

0:30:19 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Anyway, skipping that. Why? What about their policy? So

0:30:23 Thomas Or Eli: You were we're not. Oh, so sign one.

0:30:52 Thomas Or Eli: No,

0:30:52 Guests: I don'' t think. I tell you what, like, I don't think that like yelling at people that voted for Jill Stein and calling them idiots is creating the good in the world.

0:30:53 Thomas Or Eli: I look, let's look. Okay.

0:31:02 Guests: You know, I think that might be causing a little bit of damage and hurting some feelings, guys.

0:31:03 Thomas Or Eli: Fair. Let's Dustin fair.

0:31:07 Thomas: Let'S talk about the, the, okay. Can we all, let'S all agree on one thing here. LetS see if we can agree on one thing. Uh, Mike's

0:31:14 Thomas Or Eli: View that the, that Trump and Hillary are something of equally bad is is responsible for him voting for Jill Stein. Can we establish that? That if he viewed Hillary as, okay, nope, nope. That's fine. Let's just, so we're established on that.

0:31:28 Guests: And they're equally bad for different reasons. Trump's a misogynistic, racist fucking

0:31:35 Thomas Or Eli: Quiet, let me, quiet. Let me just establish this.

0:31:35 Guests: Piece of shit.

0:31:39 Thomas Or Eli: That view, we can all agree that his false, in my view, but we'll say equivalence. We'll just say his equivalence between those candidates is what's responsible for them voting that way. So let's fucking talk about that because that's all that matters right now. So that's why I asked the question, Mike, there's a lot that goes into this false equivalence because I would even, I would even say this, what?

0:32:00 Guests: False equivalence.

0:32:01 Thomas Or Eli: Okay. There's a Lot that goes into this equivalence calculation that you're making. And I would even say that, you know, I'm not going to say that I'm going to say this. Even if it was literally Donald Trump Republican versus someone with the exact same horrible personality, personality but a Democrat, I still would vote for the Democrat in Florida. Why would you not do that? Let's argue about policy, I guess.

0:32:24 Guests: Because how is Hillary as bad as Trump? Just, that's the question.

0:32:29 Thomas Or Eli: There's a hundred different reasons this doesn't make sense. I was going for one. You can go for the other, but we should talk about one at a time.

0:32:35 Guests: Well, if we continue on how Hillary is as bad as Trump, then we'll be here for fucking hours. Oh, no, I would love to hear the reasons, just give me two or three, then we can talk about that privately.

0:32:48 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah, let's do it.

0:32:49 Guests: You want to hear all my reasons for not liking Hillary? No, I won't hear why she's as bad as Trump. I know why I don't like Hillary, right? Because I have family in the military that would be fucking sent out right now to fight a useless fucking oil war so that she can secure her goddamn income, okay? I have families right now that live in third world countries that she's fucked over bad. Okay? There's reasons I didn't vote for Hillary. There's reason I didn' vote for Trump.

0:32:52 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah, go ahead.

0:33:28 Thomas Or Eli: No,

0:33:28 Guests: The entire reasoning...

0:33:29 Thomas Or Eli: let'S talk about

0:33:29 Thomas: About these Hillary ones. So those are important. So you really

0:33:32 Guests: No, I don't...

0:33:32 Thomas Or Eli: Think what? No, this is important. We're get, I want to get to this false equivalence.

0:33:36 Guests: No, no, I'm not gonna... I'm...

0:33:39 Thomas Or Eli: Go ahead.

0:33:40 Guests: Okay. The only thing I will say, and you can go ahead, try to push me on this, because I'm not trying to have this fucking three-and-a-half-hour conversation. I've had it too many times. There's reasons I vote against Hillary. There's reasoms I voted against Trump.

0:33:54 Thomas Or Eli: No, you already said that.

0:33:55 Guests: What are they, Mike? What are the reasons?

0:33:57 Thomas: No. No he already gave us reasons. I want talk about him. You

0:34:00 Guests: Okay, I'm sorry. I dazed out.

0:34:00 Thomas Or Eli: Really think that no, that's okay. I don't know why Mike interrupted me. I wanted to talk about what he just said. You think you really that she is going to go to war. Like, like, like president Hillary. Let's Let's just say that that happens. You believe she's going to go to war to secure oil. Is that what you said? What's your evidence for that?

0:34:20 Guests: Two or three, yes. Yeah.

0:34:22 Thomas: What's what's your evidenced for that.

0:34:23 Guests: I wouldn't say, if I can interject here, I would say that she would go to war over oil. I think that her no-fly zone over Aleppo, I am pretty sure there have been generals and things coming out that that would very likely push us into a serious conflict with Russia. And kind of crank up a Cold War or even a hot war with them. That we would likely have to shoot down some of their planes, which I don't think would go well, you know, and I I think that that is at least something to consider that, you know, when I woke up after the election, Putin came out and said that he wants to work on US relations and Trump was working on US relations. And and I think it's better to get along with all the people with the giant bombs that we can. And, you know, and maybe I misunderstand all of that, man.

0:34:25 Thomas Or Eli: OK.

0:35:12 Guests: So, Dustin, I'm going to address your points in a second. I want to go back to Michael's. Michael, you have made the claim that Hillary would start a war for oil.

0:35:20 Thomas Or Eli: No let let Eli talk. Yeah.

0:35:22 Guests: Okay, I got you. Hillary would sort of work for oil, gotcha. What is your evidence for that? Hillary want, don't know, I'll go with the alt-right, the no-fly zone over Syria, which, by the way, is in the Huffington Post. You said a war for oil. What is your evidence that you would start a war for oil? What is Hillary's reason for wanting a no-fly zone over Syria?

0:35:23 Thomas Or Eli: Good.

0:35:46 Thomas Or Eli: Well because it's a complicated conflict and that's her idea of what might be the best way to resolve a bloody Syrian civil war.

0:35:51 Guests: She wanted to stop Russian bombing of civilians?

0:35:54 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah. Like a

0:35:55 Guests: Nope.

0:35:55 Thomas: Horrible bloody situation that people are dying. She has an interpretation of what would be the Best way to fix that. Oh, you know. Okay, go ahead. You tell us then. Why did

0:35:59 Guests: Nope. Tell us. Yeah, tell us. Because if we can secure a no fly zone over Syria, then we can secure their oil supplies. As of right now, Now, the reason that Russia is so fucking touchy about that is because of the fucking oil route through Syria. What is your source for this, Michael? Huffington Post.

0:36:03 Thomas Or Eli: You ask us?

0:36:25 Thomas Or Eli: Not only that, when's the part where we somehow get their oil? Because right now the US, the oil price is plummeted. Like oil's not even, for OPEC, it's not even profitable.

0:36:33 Guests: Yeah, I know. Not even for us, dude.

0:36:37 Thomas Or Eli: We have already like, we're now creating, you know, drilling for more oil than we

0:36:37 Guests: No. Are you going to send us a Huffingtons Post article, or am I just Supposed to search Huffington's Post? I will go ahead and link it to you, or you can Google Huffings. You have a headline? Clinton, Hillary Clinton goes all in on Syria.

0:36:44 Thomas Or Eli: Ever have.

0:36:57 Guests: No, flies out.

0:36:56 Thomas Or Eli: Who is she doing? I want to know who's she doing this for. So how does she get the oil? Step one is she does the no-fly zone. What step does she get? What? Does she get money? Do her corporate interests get money or something? How does that work? Tell me how it works.

0:36:58 Guests: Yeah, It secures the... it secures the oil supplies that we already have, supplying the fucking EU, supplying the European Union, stopping Russia from getting oil through Syria to the EU. Benefits her.

0:37:24 Thomas Or Eli: How does it benefit her?

0:37:26 Guests: Nothing in this article about oil. Russia on Hillary Clinton was fully funded to support for no flies life zone of Syria third presidential campaign, by the time she was president, moderator, blah, blah, blah. No, no, let him, let him read through the article, because I'm just reading through it now, and I, I go

0:37:33 Thomas Or Eli: You know this. No, here, he'll read.

0:37:38 Thomas: What? Here's the thing, though. Here's where I'm coming from on He'll read, I'll say something. That's fine. Read,

0:37:46 Guests: Ahead. Well,

0:37:47 Thomas Or Eli: I'm going to read. I'll read something. I actually disagree with the no fly zone. That's fun. And I agree with Dustin that it's something to look at, like that's a position to look at, but why on earth would you think that she's not just trying to help end a horribly bloody conflict that's claimed, I don't know how many lives, it's in the hundreds of thousands or whatever, and causing a horrible refugee crisis? Why on earth? And two, if this is really the reason she wants to do that, why would she have advertised it? It. Why would she have made this a campaign promise?

0:38:24 Thomas Or Eli: Isn't that foolish? If she really wanted to get the oil, she would have campaigned on something different and then just done the no-fly zone once she was in power, right? In order for the no-fly zone to be a campaign promise, it would have to make sense from a humanitarian of view.

0:38:39 Guests: Do you know what, the uh, do you note the Iraq, every uh, the Iran, Iraqi, Syria pipeline called the friendship pipeline, is it's also called the Islamic gas pipeline, like Fox news and shit like that, continue, okay?

0:38:46 Thomas Or Eli: Okay, go on. On, yeah, What does that mean? Well, what does that have to do with it?

0:38:56 Guests: Um, This is not in this article. No, because I actually bother digging deeper. Oh my god, okay, I just, every night, you remember, I asked for the source, and he was like, Huffington Post, and I was like, all right, tell me the article, and then I went, and I was like, hey man, there's nothing about, yeah, yeah, that's just her doubling down on the no fly zone, that's all it is, the reasoning behind me that they hear what's going on, the reasoning, the reasoning beyond that is deeper, you're taking everything at like some fucking, yeah,

0:39:25 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah, I hear you, I hear you, no

0:39:33 Thomas: I think I just made a really good point, which is that there's clearly a humanitarian version of the reasoning for this, otherwise she wouldn't have campaigned

0:39:41 Guests: There is, and yeah, there and well, That's why you need to look at both ends, that's really I looked at the source you gave. The only reason, the only reason that I'm going against Hillary is because what she's against is what's called the friendship pipeline.

0:39:41 Thomas Or Eli: On it if this is sinister motives, she would have just done it secretly. I need to look about this, she's

0:39:58 Guests: Okay?

0:39:58 Thomas Or Eli: Against it.

0:39:59 Guests: Yeah. The friendship pipeline...

0:39:59 Thomas Or Eli: I thought she was trying to secure it. So sorry, well, go ahead.

0:40:01 Guests: What is your source? No, no. She's trying to prevent it. She's tying to secure it for our own uses. I mean, that's beneficial to the United States, yes. Yes, but it's going to take a shitload of money out of fucking Iraq, Syria, and fucking Lebanon, and Iran, and all sorts of fucking places.

0:40:02 Thomas Or Eli: Uh, Yeah, we, we need sources for this, because, you know why? This is important. Here's my view on a lot of what happened with the right, and even some of the left, and clearly however you would characterize yourself, and maybe even both of you, what happened with, I guess, I don't know, third party voters or independents, whatever, however you guys would classify yourself.

0:40:40 Guests: Left of right, or left of center, sorry.

0:40:41 Thomas Or Eli: Sure, sure. What happened?

0:40:43 Guests: I'm a registered Democrat.

0:40:45 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah, sure, okay. So what has happened with this equivalency that's going on is there's a whole lot of of pretending, or maybe not pretending, sorry, bad word. There's a whole lot of assuming to know some sinister motives behind some source that so far you haven't produced that's a bad reason why she's doing one of her positions. We have to keep in mind what we're measuring against. We're measuring against Donald Trump, who has said he's going to build a wall, who is said he is going to to have a Muslim registry, who has said he's going to do all these things.

0:41:17 Guests: He's not, he can't fucking do that. Hold

0:41:20 Thomas Or Eli: Oh, he can.

0:41:20 Guests: On, hold on.

0:41:22 Thomas Or Eli: And not only that, he's a reckless person who could very easily bomb somebody at the drop of a hat. The idea that somehow Hillary's the bigger risk for conflict. We need to measure all these things.

0:41:22 Guests: No, he kan't.

0:41:34 Guests: Pence is the biggest fucking risk, dude. Pence is a big risk. Pence is one of the biggest risks. Mad, that's why I'm mad that fucking Trump won is because Pence is the biggest fucking risk not

0:41:38 Thomas Or Eli: There you go. That's even worse. Well, you know why he won is because people voted for for people other than Hillary in Florida.

0:41:48 Guests: Because of my one fucking vote. No,

0:41:50 Thomas Or Eli: Well, it's people like you.

0:41:50 Guests: But there was a bunch of you there

0:41:52 Thomas Or Eli: And there's people, like you, who thought they had these conspiracy theory motives for why she wants a no-fly zone when the very easy, ostensible reason is just she wants maybe people to stop dying. I disagree. By the way, I disagree with the no-fly zone. But I don't... It's a weird thing to think she would campaign on something that's just an oil-grabbing thing thing when her motivation is really that. Like, I think she would just campaign on something else. This is what happened. I mean, there's this, we built this false fucking equivalency.

0:41:53 Guests: Were hundreds of thousands of you that is just a provably false claim that we proved false right now, right here, we all together, yeah, as friends, friendship, Google the friendship pipeline. Okay,

0:42:30 Thomas Or Eli: Should we go to another claim or should we, should we go do another claim about why she's just as bad? This is important. Go ahead, Dustin.

0:42:34 Guests: OK, I have something that I want to dig into, guys, real quick, because maybe I misunderstand this and maybe you can help me. I think the whole thing with a Muslim registry, like registering all the Muslims and kind of like a Nazi Jew style.

0:42:39 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah.

0:42:51 Guests: I'm reading and I read earlier today this ABC News article called "What Trump Has Said About a Muslim Registry." And the official stance right now is that they never advocated for a registry. ABC says a little later in the article that there might have been a misunderstanding where he didn't quite understand a question they asked about a registry, and he was kind of affirmative on it, but he also talked about the wall and shit. So it might have just been him being dodgy, fucking shitty Donald Trump. But the official thing that they're pushing now is to reinstate a registry of people that migrate from high terrorist eras that was installed by Bush and was continued by Obama until 2011, where it was stopped and called redundant. Yes, but Reince Priebus just said, when asked about the Muslim registry, he just said, "We're not ruling anything out."

0:43:39 Guests: A Trump surrogate was on Fox News with Megyn Kelly favorably comparing it to the internment camps for Japanese people during World War II. Ah, see, I was saying that, and that's terrible shit. Yeah, that's a fucking war line. And thank you for clarifying, because apparently ABC News has really misled me here. I

0:43:56 Thomas Or Eli: Well, no, I, here's the thing. I don't know. You might be right, but how weird is it that we're not sure, like we can't get a clear view on whether Trump wants to register people in a way favorably comparing it to, as a surrogate did, to internment camps. And it's not as though that's, I mean, that was just one of the examples I brought up. There are a lot of examples with Trump's positions.

0:44:08 Guests: Agree. I right.

0:44:22 Guests: Right. I just wanted to see if I understood that particular one.

0:44:24 Thomas Or Eli: Sure. Sure. Well. While while, uh, Mike is doing research to find this friendship pipeline, Dustin, what are some of the reasons that you viewed them as, because you voted third party as well, right? I thought Who

0:44:35 Guests: No, no, no. Man, I would. Yeah, man. I like I I am not against a Clinton presidency. Exactly. I wasn't thrilled. Like I said, I'm a registered Democrat, man, I I just I'm not as. As, I guess, scared as everyone else is about it. Like, I know things are going to go rough, man, but you know, like, to just put it in my perspective, I've seen some shit. I'm sure I'll see some shit, and I will keep going or I won't, and sure.

0:44:40 Thomas Or Eli: Do You Do You understand why people might be scared? Do you think it's irrational, given that this is on, here's the thing about Trump, Go ahead. No.

0:45:10 Guests: I'll say this. My Gay friend at work came up to me and asked me if he should be worried about being put into an internment camp for being gay or being black, and I was like, you know, man, I don't really think you should be worrying about that.

0:45:23 Thomas Or Eli: He shouldn't be Worried about being put into a tournament camp. Sure, people can get carried away. Liberals get carried away, sure. But that's just, should I worry about that? Well, maybe not. Should I worry About marriage equality? Well yes. Should I worry about visitation rights and should all the shit that pence wants to do that he'll easily be able to accomplish? Yes, you should worry about That. Sure, people can get carried Away, but there's very real danger here.

0:45:23 Guests: Right, right, right. Right. Right. No, no, no. He totally should. Yeah. Yeah. If here's what you should have. Here is

0:45:46 Thomas Or Eli: This

0:45:47 Guests: What you should've told your friend, you should've told your friends that dying couples had their rights to visit each other appealed three times in a row by the current vice president of the United States, the man who has the ear of the most powerful man in the world, and is a heartbeat away from being the most power man in the world, past the most activist anti-gay legislature in the last hundred years, hundred years. And that's why he terrifies me. So, oh, no, not panic, but understand the huge, huge problem. So when you say, like, I'm not that worried, I am telling you, you should be worried. This is not politics as usual. The shit you have seen, right? Yeah, this is all unprecedented.

0:46:37 Thomas Or Eli: Is unprecedented. This is the thing about trump is he's unprecedented.

0:46:40 Guests: We have white premises in the White House we we have we have people who litigated against civil rights people for for registering voters we have okay look at this you know I'm not in I have not said that that Donald Trump is just another Republican either man I think that we just have a different way of reacting to danger and and to bad things possibly on the horizon guys guys all

0:46:41 Thomas Or Eli: It's not like, oh, it's another Republican.

0:47:03 Thomas Or Eli: Well, but hold on, hold on. Then you're acknowledging danger. Is that fine? I mean, if you're acknowledging danger, so

0:47:08 Guests: Right Yeah dude I never said that there's a fucking yes there is danger if I have in any way said that everything that no that there is no problem and everything's behind your door like that's not it man

0:47:17 Thomas Or Eli: Now you're just

0:47:18 Thomas: Policing people's reaction to something

0:47:20 Guests: I'm not policing did I tell anyone they couldn't act a certain way I mean yeah

0:47:20 Thomas Or Eli: That we're both acknowledging. Well yeah, kind of. I

0:47:26 Thomas: Mean that was what you advocated in the post. That was why we

0:47:28 Guests: You just said no I I said with us I said I'm seeing some shit I'm nothing I have an important question. Yeah, man. Like I said, I handle it in a different fucking way, man, like being stressed and being worried, but I'll handle the shit when it comes. That's what I'm saying. There's a difference in the way people handle and go through stress and trauma, man and I don't handle it the same way you do.

0:47:29 Thomas Or Eli: Had an argument.

0:47:56 Guests: Do I need to apologize to you for that?

0:47:56 Thomas Or Eli: Well that's fine. So then, no, you don't have to apologize for policing reactions.

0:47:59 Guests: Okay, thank you. Fuck. How am I releasing reactions? I'm having my own reaction. I'm not telling you you can't have yours. Like the guy asked me if he's scared about intern camps, no, he shouldn't, in my opinion, now if you want to go scare my friend, like I'll get him to listen to this podcast, you can tell him how he should be really panicked, uh, you know, okay, guys, how many votes, how many boats did Hillary lose by, yeah, okay,

0:48:13 Thomas Or Eli: That's fine. No, I don't. Mike, what are you trying to say? In Florida? Because she won the popular vote. In Florida, she lost by 120,000. Gary Johnson got 200,000, Jill Stein got 64,000. So, yeah, I mean, okay.

0:48:34 Guests: So let's go ahead and look at the 3,353,421 independent voters, voters, and what is that in a percentage to those people? That's fucking nothing, dude, no, how many did Hillary lose by, just told you, uh-huh, versus three million independent voters in Florida alone, no, there weren't three million one independent voters in florida, dos.myflorida.com,

0:48:49 Thomas Or Eli: Well, who did they vote for? What do you mean? Who did they vot for? Who are you talking about? Independent voters? What did they do? 120,000. What's your point?

0:49:06 Thomas Or Eli: Okay. That sounds like a lot. Is that registered or who actually voted?

0:49:15 Guests: Backslash, that's registered.

0:49:17 Thomas Or Eli: Registered. Okay, so about less than half of them, or around half of them probably voted, maybe.

0:49:17 Guests: No, I'm talking about the people who voted. Okay. Yeah, she lost by 120,000 votes and 270,000 people voted for her third party. Let's go ahead and cut that in half. That's 1.5 million independent voters and Florida alone because only 50% of voters actually fucking voted.

0:49:23 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah. But what is your point there? Yeah. She lost the vote by 120, okay.

0:49:43 Thomas Or Eli: Okay. Yeah. Okay, we'll agree that those voters exist. What is your question?

0:49:51 Guests: Point is that one independent vote for a different fucking woman doesn't make a fucking difference.

0:49:56 Thomas Or Eli: What is the point? Vote for nobody, for anybody doesn't really make a difference, but it's the, because the

0:50:00 Guests: Okay, so why are you shitting on me for fucking voting on Jill Stein? Yeah,

0:50:05 Thomas: Logic is stupid. I mean, if your logic

0:50:08 Guests: Am I crazy?

0:50:08 Thomas Or Eli: Is one vote doesn't make a different, then no one should vote, but that's what?

0:50:11 Guests: Someone please tell me I'm not crazy. We all know how voting works, right? I like how he needed to clarify why. Legitimately doesn't know how voting works. And we all know how statistics work, right?

0:50:25 Thomas Or Eli: If your point, Mike, if you're point was that your one vote didn't lose the election, why did you look up how many independents there are? Like, yeah, we get it. Your one vote didn't lose the election

0:50:34 Guests: Because you guys were making a big point about the very small minority of people.

0:50:36 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah your logic was something that was likely shared by a lot of people. Your logic and and more of them voted for Gary Johnson. Your logic of uh there here's here's the in here, let me describe

0:50:44 Guests: No. Yeah, they did too. Because they're fucking...

0:50:50 Thomas: The logic. I will describe theologic in a way that you will agree with. I will do my best rap reports rules.

0:50:55 Guests: Go ahead. Go ahead, because I agree with most of what you say, so go ahead. But

0:50:55 Thomas Or Eli: The the idea that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are roughly equal meant that you don't want either of them. You're happy to put your vote to Jill, Bill Stein, for the reasons you stated, I'll even believe those reasons. That's fine. You wanted to support a woman. That's fun. Lots of that general reasoning that they're somewhere around 50-50 is what we're trying to argue against. No one vote, of course, made the difference.

0:51:21 Thomas Or Eli: But the logic, the idea that they are roughly equal, the ideal that Trump is not way worse than Hillary, yeah, that did lose her the election. That was the reason a lot of people didn't come and vote because they believed a lot lot of this bullshit about conspiracy theory stuff about her and and to varying degrees and they had in in my opinion an inaccurate picture of how uh bad she is and how not bad trump is they had an inaccurate picture that's what I'm

0:51:20 Guests: That's not what lost Hillary the fucking election, dude. That minimal number...

0:51:52 Guests: Michael,

0:51:52 Thomas Or Eli: Trying to fight against but

0:51:52 Guests: This is so simple. This is so, so simple. If the 270,000 people who voted third party had voted for Hillary, she would have won Florida. Yeah, but how about the 270 thousand people?

0:52:04 Thomas Or Eli: Well but here's the thing some of them would go for trump I mean no

0:52:08 Guests: Yeah, yeah. That's not – no, that's not the – again, Thomas, that is not the point. The point is very, very clearly – I'm trying to point out – If they only had two –

0:52:19 Thomas Or Eli: No no let Eli finish I want to let him what what Eli well

0:52:21 Guests: Right. So I'm trying to point out that by not voting for Hillary, you understand that you made the decision that lots of other people made. And if you and those other people, I feel fucking insane right now, had instead voted for Hillary Clinton, she would have won Florida.

0:52:42 Thomas Or Eli: But the reason I said that didn't matter, Eli, is because if 60,000 people who voted for Trump voted for Hillary, it'd be the same thing. I'm saying his particular

0:52:43 Guests: Yeah and and if

0:52:51 Thomas: Logic has to do with viewing Donald Trump and Hillary as roughly equal. That's what I'm trying to fight here. And that we got sidetracked on something because Mike couldn't find a source for his bogus claim about Hillary's belief

0:53:05 Guests: I'll post the bogus claim or whatever you want to call it, I'll go ahead and fucking do it. I'll let everybody fucking see it. The thing is, Hillary had won, my sister would right now be on a fucking battleship in the Air Force to go fight a fucking war in Syria. What is your source, what is you source for that? You know what I mean. No. What is your source? What is you source where Hillary promised to fight a war in Syria? She explicitly said not putting ground troops there. No fly zone in Syria. No fly zoned in Syria, you know who fucking covers the no fly zone? The fucking Air Force. Actually, you're not. That's a great question.

I'm not that fly fucking bud to go fight a goddamn war against somebody who really has has no impact on my country because somebody decides that they want to fucking secure a goddamn natural gas pipeline or an oil pipeline, a claim that you haven't verified, so so you have a conspiracy theory. I'll verify it. I will verify it when I post this entire fucking conversation with god damn, down Mike, calm down. Oh please, by by all means, but that's not the point. The point is you have a claim that you haven't verified,

0:53:05 Thomas Or Eli: Before she assumed office? That's pretty crazy.

0:54:24 Guests: Which sounds an awful lot like a conspiracy theory, which is the basis for a war She said it in the debates! Why

0:54:34 Thomas Or Eli: Well, you're arguing

0:54:35 Thomas: That the no-fly zone in and of itself would just equal war. Is that what you're saying? Like, that just is war?

0:54:40 Guests: Do you think why do you thing Russia moved their fucking battleships over? Because they were anticipating a goddamn Hillary presidency. Enforce a no-fly zone over Syria, that is a major pipeline that is in Russia and I'm going to read to you from your own article. This is from the HuffPo article you gave me to read just now on this conversation, which I feel insane during. This is Mike Wallace asking her, if you impose a no-fly zone, how do you respond to their concerns? Secondly, if you impose an no- fly zone and Russian plane violates that, does President Clinton shoot that plane down? Clinton stuck to an argument she has made many many times, creating an area where Syrian and Russian planes cannot fly would give U.S. leverage over Syria and Russia to negotiate a political resolution.

0:54:41 Thomas Or Eli: I mean,

0:55:30 Guests: A no-fly zone can save lives and hasten the end of conflict, she said. With proper planning, Clinton argued, the restriction could accomplish these goals without sparking a larger war. I am well aware of the really legitimate concerns that you have expressed from both the president and the general. This would not be done just on the first day. This would take a lot of negotiation, it would also take making it clear to the Russians and Syrians that our purpose here was to provide safe zones on the ground. Do you know what she didn't say? Yes, I would shoot that plane down. What do we do? We exert our military force over one of the only other nuclear circumference, she said negotiate, I'm using, she's not going to fucking negotiate. Oh so you know what she's going to, because I'musing the article you sent me, but you also knew that Florida was going to go for Trump, so did you talk to some people at the University of Florida and they told you that she's not going to negotiate? How do you, read so you threw some chicken bones, how do, I was right?

0:56:07 Thomas Or Eli: She said negotiating, though. Oh, so you know this.

0:56:32 Guests: I was fucking right dude Thomas

0:56:33 Thomas Or Eli: You were right about the thing you said you

0:56:35 Thomas: Claimed after the results were in. Yeah, that's,

0:56:39 Guests: Tell me, I'm not crazy, baby Thomas it's not real

0:56:39 Thomas Or Eli: No, I agree. I think, look, this is, this is you've decided here's, here's what's happening in my, in my opinion. And I go

0:56:47 Guests: Eli you're gonna wake up you gotta go, here's the deal, okay, look, hold on.

0:56:52 Thomas Or Eli: Ahead. Yeah. Sorry.

0:56:55 Guests: Clinton's not going to try and fucking negotiate with Putin, Putin's a fucking asshole. Clinton doesn't like Putin and

0:56:59 Thomas Or Eli: Remember when Clinton, when Hillary was secretary of secretary of state and she did the button, the reset button, let's start negotiating with Putin. You don't think that that would be evidence that she would be, oh,

0:57:09 Guests: How well did that fucking work out? How well do those negotiations go? No.

0:57:14 Thomas: But she's, so, but now you're saying she would try to negotiate, but they wouldn't go well. You keep

0:57:20 Guests: She won't try to negotiate she'll do the same fucking thing everybody on the extremes do and say I'm right, you're wrong, follow my fucking line, no.

0:57:20 Thomas Or Eli: Change moving the goalposts. She wouldn't try. So even though she claimed, but Trump is going to be better. He's going to do better. You're, you're, look,

0:57:33 Guests: Trump's not gonna be any fucking better, that's why I don't like either of them, you have no source for this, these are just claims you're making. Hillary Clinton murdered Kevin Costner, there you go, I want to play, no she fucking didn't, yes she did, I talk to people on the ground, I speak to people in the streets, I'm a man, he's saying that's what you did, he's walking you. Yeah Kevin Costler's alive. I'm Grace Thomas, Thomas, don't put this on the internet.

0:58:02 Thomas Or Eli: This, this idea that, no, youre, youres, here's what, I'm honestly, Honestly Mike you're going to hate me and that's fine. I don't know If you listened to the episode about the implicit gender bias stuff, that's what's happening here, in my opinion. You formed an opinion somehow along the line through a lot of different people throwing shit at Hillary about nothing, like emails and Benghazi and scandals and all that, you formed the idea that she must be wrong, she must be bad, that's what you, she must be bad, and so therefore when she says, "Oh, I'm going to negotiate, oh, I am going to do a no-fly zone, but my goal is to save lives and we are going to talk about it, we are gonna try to do it," you

0:58:13 Guests: No, I'm not.

0:58:32 Guests: Fucking Benghazi emails bullshit.

0:58:48 Guests: Yeah,

0:58:48 Thomas Or Eli: Can't just think oh she's wrong you have to think no she has some secret

0:58:48 Guests: And I don't believe her. I don' t believe her because I' ve been alive.

0:58:53 Thomas: Oh, she has a secret agenda to kill people

0:58:56 Guests: Oh, she has some secret agenda. No, that's fucking bullshit, too. But she has interests to fucking protect, dude. Like, I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. Why? No, it's not just to back up his claims. This is exactly what I was talking about with the fucking whole speech bubble, I look at everything from fucking argument and in no

0:58:56 Thomas Or Eli: That's her secret agenda from both Sides.

0:59:20 Thomas: So that that, maybe that's what's happened. So, you've accepted horse shit from maybe a right-wing fake news organization to make you think that

0:59:28 Guests: No

0:59:28 Thomas Or Eli: She, yeah, you can't just look

0:59:30 Guests: No

0:59:30 Thomas: At stuff from both sides. It doesn't really, I mean,

0:59:32 Guests: I've watched no

0:59:32 Thomas Or Eli: You should read stuff from

0:59:34 Thomas: All sides, but there's no, it's not a 50-50 thing in terms of what's substantiated.

0:59:38 Guests: But you fucking check them and you check the fucking you check the history of the people that you're fucking looking at, dude you

0:59:41 Thomas Or Eli: So send us the articles, send us a report. Yeah. Well, what's the history of her starting?

0:59:47 Guests: Listen to both sides, you check their fucking arguments, and unfortunately, in this situation, situation, as far as I can tell, it's true. Hillary's not going to try and, like, actually negotiate. What is your source for this? She's going to do the strong arm negotiation. What is you source? Oh, Jesus Christ, do you really need me to drop, like, 20 goddamn links?

1:00:09 Thomas Or Eli: Yeah.

1:00:09 Guests: Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. You're making insane claims.

1:00:37 Thomas: Well, that was just such a perfect way to end that. That was exactly a microcosm of the entire show and of the last, I don't know, 50 minutes where just claims were made, no sources. We even gave time to Google and the sources were just, as you heard, often they were just not what he was saying they were or that, you know, and, and that's, I think that's important to hear. Now, it's not like all of us can call our sources instantly live, but keep in mind two things. Like we did give him time to Google. And for the claims I make about things, I would be able to tell you the facts that lead me to that conclusion. And I don't have a bunch of facts, or sorry, I don'T have a BUNCH OF BELIEFS THAT And if I do, I want to change that.

1:01:26 Thomas: I don't have a bunch of beliefs about Trump or whatever that are based on some weird circumstantial or some feeling about what he's going to do. I have what he said. I've what the people he is hiring have said. There is so much easy proof to at least be afraid of with Trump. It's so easy.

And one of the big boneheaded things that we did in this election, that people did in this country, was on one hand have that, on one hand have the man, his words, his bragging about assaulting women, his, then simultaneously, a bunch of women accusing him of doing exactly what he said he did, who didn't know each other.

It's but notwithstanding that, even just the things he said, even his platform, that's the thing, a point that I want to go back to that I made, even if it were Trump versus Trump, but it's like some bizarro Trump who's a Democrat, and, even, just, that, just him being, having liberal views, for me, and that, and the, here's the, thing, if you're a conservative, different story, I mean, if, you think, if your here, your sitting, your listening to this show, your a conservative. I get why you might have supported Trump. Trump or voted third party. But the main people I've been arguing against are actual people who identify as liberals who think they were the same.

There were a ton of them, a ton of liberals who didn't vote, a tone of liberals, who said, ah, they're just politicians. That's all. They're all the same Hillary's just as bad who said that that's who I'm arguing against. So just the fact that, that it was a Democrat versus a Republican. And now there's a horrible horrible Republican, if you can call him that, but someone with worse than Republican views and a Republican Congress.

1:03:13 Thomas: And that's what we got. Even that alone, even just those that just bare facts of what Trump was likely going to do with the Republican Congress would have made me vote for Democrat Donald Trump rather than a third party, because there was no value to voting for a third party. There was no benefit to it. It did nothing. It accomplished nothing. Same with not voting, that accomplished nothing, of course, of, course, not voting company, all it did was give us the final result, that's all, as Andrew Torrez has said many times, and I agree with him, there's no message sent, nobody gets a message, nobody, after the elections, examining things, going, oh, man, some people voted for a third party, you know, 1.7%, or if that, voted for Jill Stein, oh we really need to take a long hard look in the mirror, no, no message is sent, we have President Trump, that is what happens, and he gets to do whatever he wants with the Republican Congress.

1:04:05 Thomas: That's what happened. That is the message that's sent. No one's getting four years, your vote, message isn't going to do anything. But we even tried later on, and, and I encourage you, if, if you're interested, you can go to patreon.com slash atheist and hear the full exchange, it's way more raw, of course, and it gets a little off the rails, but you can hear where we tried to challenge him on other stuff. He eventually said, Mike eventually says that fake hate crimes are worse than real hate crimes. Not even kidding. Eli made him repeat that a hundred times. It's worth it, by the way, listening to the bonus is worth it just for that. There is a time where Eli, you can actually hear Eli lose his mind officially. He officially is declared no longer competent to stand trial.

1:04:51 Thomas: I actually have power of attorney for Eli now. He lost his mind in the course of this. Part of the reason why I didn't, you know, I was a little negative on the recording. But we tried to get him to talk more about why he viewed them as equal, because in my mind, that's what I've isolated as the culprit. The culprit here, it's not going to solve every problem of course, there's still conversations we had on last week about trolling and about empathy, that still stands, but the major culprit with this election was this insane belief to me that the two main candidates were anywhere near comparable. And people believe that. And that's what led to staying home, voting third party, or whatever, maybe even voting Trump, because you wanted to shake up the system or something. And, and that's what I tried to attack.

1:05:38 Thomas: Okay. So that's that. Thank you for listening. I hope you got something out of that conversation. I know it was rough. I don't, it's not something I plan to do all the time, but you know what? I do want to try to talk to the people who disagree. There's an idea that there's going to be some ideal person out there. A lot of people said, like, why did you find the two, you know, no offense, I'm sorry to my guests, but people did tell me, why didn't you find those people to defend those views? Find somebody, well, I don't know. I don't know. I would love, I would LOVE to talk Dave Rubin. I've invited him on the show. I would like to talk Gad Saad. I've reached out to him. No, he blocked me long ago. I would want to talk. I would to talk people. People. I would love, if there are better people to talk to, let me know. Email me, Facebook me, whatever.

1:06:24 Thomas: Tell me who you think I should talk to. I will try to get, I will talk to anybody. I will talked to anybody pretty much because I want to challenge them. I want the chance to challenge or have them challenge me. And we'll see what happens, you know, and you guys can listen and benefit from the exchange, hopefully. So So, thank you, as always, for listening so kindly, and I am so excited to bring you episode 300, part however many, it's a really cool group of guests, and each guest has a different interesting topic, like a mini atheistically speaking episode, so it's great stuff, and, I'm excited, 300, I will see you on Thursday for that. That.