SIO12: Is the Left to Blame for Trump's Muslim Ban?

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode number 12, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Alright, we've got a free Inquiry Thursday for you today, but what we need to go over and what I need to tell you is a number of things regarding last week's episode on Sam Harris and Jordan B. Peterson. All kinds of support for that episode. Thank you so much to everyone who tweeted that at Sam Harris, that continued for most of the week. I'm very happy about that. Even if it wasn't like it was a perfect episode and a perfect message, just the fact that there was a ton in it that Sam, I think, could have used as a resource, makes it worth it that maybe he could have seen it and taken notice.

0:01:14 Thomas: That said, I haven't seen anything, but whatever. All we can do is try and give our best attempt to be seen and heard. But there was also a little bit of pushback. I have to say right now, not that it matters too much because I believe in what I believe in regardless of pushback, but I would say it was about 10 or 12 to 1 in terms of people sharing the message to Sam Harris and people pushing back against my message. So just to give some perspective, but I want to talk about the pushback I received and I want to issue a couple little corrections right off the bat. So let's get over to it.

0:01:58 Thomas: Okay, so, so much to talk about. I apologize that I essentially need to stretch this Jordan B. Peterson thing into another episode, but I really need to because this is vital. So, I need to issue a correction. It turns out that from some other sources, from some other interviews, Jordan B. Peterson has said that if a trans woman requested to be called she, or a trans man requested to be called he, that's okay, and he would actually do that. Jordan Peterson would do that, uh, I did suggest in the podcast that he wouldn't do that and I was mistaken and I apologize for that. So basically anyone who disagreed with what I had to say used this mistake as a way to say that everything I was saying was invalid, which of course is just a distraction.

0:02:46 Thomas: So I want to point out that I expect my listeners to be able to keep some important distinctions in mind. And I expect my intelligent listeners to resist attempts to just make fuzzy equivocations between things that aren't really on equal footing. And I have to say that the criticism that I've received on this, none of it is actually based on the law. No one, not a single person refuted any of the claims or even really attempted to. I'm being honest here. In all the Twitter messages and all the emails and Facebook that I saw, no one tried to make the claim, hey, you're wrong on the law, here's why. That didn't happen. It was all distractions and trying to point out, oh, okay, if we find some example of something else, Thomas has gotten wrong.

0:03:36 Thomas: Therefore, it's okay that this Jordan B. Peterson person massively misrepresented the law through 25 minutes on a podcast that will be heard by millions and was not only not challenged by Sam Harris, but was encouraged and fully endorsed by Sam Harris. So that's the distraction game that's going on here. But keeping that in mind, I also want to say, yes, I can get things wrong, absolutely I, I can get things wrong. My guests can get wrong. That can happen. Sometimes I will try to challenge anything that I know is wrong, I will call out, but I'm obviously not going to know everything ahead of time. I'm not going know everything my guest is going to say ahead of the time. Unless it's a situation where I say, hey, guest, I fully endorse the message you're giving, and I've heard you give it many times.

0:04:25 Thomas: Now, why don't you tell everybody the message that I fully endorsed? If that's the case, then you can hold me accountable for that. Absolutely. But here's the thing, so now is where I'm going to make some distinctions, and I'll leave it up to my intelligent audience to evaluate, evaluate whether you think I'm just making excuses or whether these are valid distinctions. And I mean that. You're going to decide that for yourself. So, is hearing Jordan Peterson's message from his own mouth on what he believes on Sam Harris's show and missing part of it and hearing him say, "You can be charged with a federal hate crime for criticizing someone's fashion choice," hearing that and hearing him say he wouldn't use gender pronouns that a person asks, and interpreting that as him saying no matter what, versus him saying he just wouldn't use the made-up ones.

0:05:20 Thomas: Is that the same as knowing ahead of time that someone was going to make claims about the Canadian law that are very easily looked up and very easily researched and endorsing those claims and being nearly 100% wrong about them? Is that the same? I'll leave that up to you. Now, I would argue that I think that when someone is representing their own views, it's a much different thing than when someone is representing the law and talking about what it's going to be. People can say contradictory things about their views. People can have different views. People's views can change. Someone sent me an interview where Jordan B. Peterson was, was interviewed by a trans person who asked, "Would you call me she?"

0:06:07 Thomas: I think it was. And he said, yes. Now, does that mean he's always believed that? Or does that means when he was confronted by an actual human that he changed his mind? I don't know. Whatever. That's a much looser thing than Canadian law, which is very easily understood and very easily researched. Furthermore, I would also argue that that first statement he made, what he opened that Sam Harris interview with, with saying saying you can be charged with a hate crime for criticizing someone's fashion choice.

0:06:37 Thomas: Someone give me, even in light, and I believe it, I believe now that he would use he and she and just not the made-up ones. I believe it. I'll take him at his word. That's totally cool. And by the way, I applaud that he would at least do that. That is better than nothing because that is going to be 99% of what you are dealing with when you are accommodating trans students. It really is, and I applaud it, I really do. I apologize for getting that wrong. I'm 100% sorry for getting it wrong. I want to know, though, if anyone can give me a logical or any sort of reading of what he meant by that statement. Then if he's just saying he won't use Z's or whatever, those ones, I don't even know them, what does he even mean by the statement, "You can be charged with a hate crime for even criticizing someone's fashion choice?"

0:07:24 Thomas: I don't get how that... I'm even trying to get into his mind. The only way that statement made sense to me is if he was saying, no matter how someone is presenting, what gender they might be presenting as, he's going to insist on calling them whatever he wants to call them. I don't understand how Jordan, like what, how that even makes sense in his mind. And I mean this, if anyone has any sort of reading into what he might've meant by that statement, let me know. And how that could be coherently translated into, I'm just not going to use the made up pronouns because I 100% do not understand, but I apologize for getting that wrong. I really do. And here's the thing. I got that wrong.

0:08:10 Thomas: I apologize that I missed the fact that he was just talking about certain made up and certain like they pronouns. I apologize that I got that wrong now, please. Can we hold the person with the million listener, 10,000, tens of thousands of dollar podcast with a much bigger platform who fully endorsed this message full full of legal nonsense, can we please hold him to the same standard that you were holding Thomas Smith, minuscule podcaster with barely any reach, please. That's the overall message of this. I would argue you need to hold Sam Harris to a higher standard, but even if you held him to the same standard, that would fully solve this. If tomorrow Sam Harris said, hey, I saw some notices that I got some stuff wrong on the law, a lot of stuff wrong, by the way, and Jordan Peterson got a lot wrong, therefore, I issue a correction and an apology.

0:09:08 Thomas: That would 100% fix my issue with Sam Harris on this matter. I wouldn't continue to be mad at him, I would say, oh good, he got it right. That's all I'm asking. That is all I am asking. You pointing out that I've gotten something wrong in my analysis does not negate the 200 things I got right. Like a quote I didn't even get to play. I'm not going to play it here because we've already done it. There was a quote I didn't even get to play where Jordan Peterson said, because of this law, it would now be illegal for biologists to make any claims about gender relating to biological sex. That is absurd. That is the most paranoid thinking. Can we not lose focus of these two things?

0:09:54 Thomas: On one hand, you've got Thomas Smith, minuscule podcaster, slightly misrepresenting what Jordan B. Peterson said on one particular point. I apologize. I will always issue a correction when I get stuff wrong. I apologize, that aside, please, can we not lose track of just the mountain of extraordinary claims he was making about the law that are all easily researched, and not to mention where all this comes from and how this sounds to trans people everywhere. When trans people anywhere are hearing this paranoid guy rail on about Marxist language and the fact that, oh, I'm going to be arrested for criticizing someone's fashion choice, how do you think that sounds to trans people? Please, please, listeners, keep these two things in mind.

0:10:39 Thomas: Yes, correct me when I get something wrong. Okay, that aside, please listen to the overall message. Okay, another point someone made, a lot of people made this, which is why I'm going to address it, is people kept saying, I don't care. Speech should never be criminalized. You cannot criminalize speech. To which I would say, okay, well, this same act that, by the way, has already been in place for five years in Ontario and other places in Canada. This same act would prohibit you, if you're in a certain position of power, by way, if If you're an employer, if you're a landlord, etc., etc., it doesn't just apply to you and I on the street. It would prevent me from using a racial slur to refer to someone constantly. It would preventing me from calling people certain things.

0:11:26 Thomas: If I called them something that discriminated on their age or their gender or their national origin, that is restricting speech. That is a law that would criminalize speech. It would be a crime. For me to call someone the N-word in my classroom. Every time I pointed this out, all of a sudden the goalposts moved. All of a sudden it wasn't, oh, no, no. Speech should never be criminalized. Okay, sure. That's different. Okay. That was always, that's different, it's not different. It's the same thing. Someone asks you to accommodate their choice of what they want to be referred to as. All you have to do, and by the way, hey, this is why this is such a paranoid load of nonsense from Jordan Peterson.

0:12:12 Thomas: You don't even have to do that. You can just say they, or you can just refer to them by their name. You can just avoid using a pronoun. It's not, you have the option. And yes, while that might be a difficult thing, it might be an inconvenient thing sometimes. I get that. Balance that on the other side of the register, because you're not keeping in mind what is so, Ultimately transphobic and insulting about this whole nonsense about 16 digit numbers and all these corner cases that you're worried you're going to get thrown in jail for speech and all that.

What is on the other side of that is the good that this does. This gives someone recourse when their landlord refuses to use their pronoun. When a trans woman says, "Please call me she," for the ninth time with some conservative person who will not do that, who doesn't give them a raise because they're trans, or who doesn't give them a job because they are trans, or who fires them because they're trans. That's all stuff you need to put on the other side of the register because without this protection, there's no protection for that.

0:13:24 Thomas: So that is why this is transphobic. It's focusing on this minuscule bullshit, this parade, the slippery slope parade of horribles, as Andrew kind of sounds somewhat like Andrew has put it in the past. It's focussing on all that and forgetting all the good this does because, yeah, laws aren't perfect. That's why when they're being evaluated, when they are being judged, there's a little bit of reasonable standard. There's like, okay, is this reasonable? Is it reasonable for someone to demand that you call them an attack helicopter or something? Thing. And honestly, what will happen in that tribunal is. You'll make your case and they'll say, yeah, you know what, that's reasonable and nothing will happen. I mean, because we are dealing with human beings. They're going to be rational for the most part. Might not always be 100% perfect, but balance that minor, minor chance of something going wrong with the major, major amount of protection that trans people will finally be getting in these different scenarios.

0:14:24 Thomas: So that is why it is such a dog whistle kind of thing. It is such a distraction from the real issues and it's insulting and it is something that I would expect better from Sam Harris. Alright, one final branch of points that I need to address. Another criticism I got was, you've had Eli on your show and he got something wrong. Therefore, not only are you the same as Sam Harris, apparently also forget about all the criticisms you leveled at Jordan B. Peterson that were totally right. Forget all that. Don't acknowledge that. That. That's the argument I'm hearing.

Because, by the way, anyone who just emailed me and said, hey, you got the part about the he-she pronouns wrong, just wanted to give you a heads up, but the other legal points you made, good points, anyone who said that, I said, oh, thank you, I appreciate it, no problem, no problem, I do not mind, and I don't even need your praise, I don't need your anything, But I'm not going to allow you to completely deflect away from the just nonsense in that that podcast just because I got one factor of it wrong. That's what I won't allow. So, here's the other argument. Eli, apparently, in the episode we did where I wanted to debate whether or not it is okay to punch a Nazi, Eli misrepresented a quote and misquoted. Apparently, that quote that Eli said Richard Spencer said, turns out he didn't. And that's great. I didn't care.

I don't even care about Richard Spencer. I still don't care about Richard Spencer, I was there and I had Eli on to debate whether or it's okay to to punch a Nazi. And by the way, I was arguing in the negative there. I said it's not OK.

0:16:04 Thomas: So some person, and I'm guessing if it's one person, it's 10 or 100, or depending on the listeners, is trying to say that because I had Eli on in that situation and I wasn't somehow ready to know that a quote Eli was going to misattribute was wrong, I didn't know anything about him, I didn't, it doesn't matter, it's not important. The topic of the show was whether it's OK to a bunch of Nazi. So someone alleges that that means I'm just as disappointing as Sam Harris, when Sam Harris had someone on who he had heard his message before and he fully endorsed it three times. So, you know what, you probably hear my frustration leaking through a little bit. I think I'll call it at that. I think my rational listeners are rational enough to know that that is nonsense.

0:16:50 Thomas: I'll leave it to you. Hey, I made a couple- I made a mistake and Eli made a mistake. And I accept that I will always issue a correction. I always will. That's all I'm asking. That is all I am asking from Harris is to care. Have you seen him care since then? No. He has not done anything to indicate he in any way cares about how inaccurate and paranoid Jordan Peterson was. So, you know what, I could go on at length at that. I've already taken too much time as it is. I apologize, but that was the criticism I saw. I am very encouraged by the people who shared the message and tried to get it out there to Sam Harris. I really am encouraged by that. I'm happy to accept the corrections. Any correction on a point of fact, feel free. I will always correct it because I value facts and I value getting things right.

0:17:39 Thomas: And maybe you should hold prominent million listener, tens of thousands of dollar making podcasters to that same standard as you're holding Thomas Smith minuscule podcaster. Okay, on to other stuff.

0:18:01 Thomas: Alright, it's that time where I've got to cover what's going on with Trump in the last week. I really do. Here's the hottest off the press, Neil Gorsuch. Now, Andrew Torrez of Opening Arguments podcast predicted it would be Neil Gorsuch, and we already recorded on that a couple weeks ago. It hasn't even aired yet, though. It will air tomorrow, so check out that Opening Arguments for a little segment on Gorsuch. I will not do it here.

I will not repeat the segment here except to say that originalism is an awful way to interpret the law and I believe, actually I will cover this because we didn't talk about this really in opening arguments I believe the Democrats need to filibuster this Now, I don't know how much it will matter the Republicans, I believe they will use the nuclear option, which is getting rid of the filibustering something that Obama did to get some of his appointees through, not the Supreme Court appointees, but his cabinet picks through in 2013, I think it was. I was going back and forth. I thought, should we be better than the Republicans? Is it time to be worse than the Republicans? And say, no, you never get to fill that seat. And it's a stolen seat. The fact is, it's stolen seat, nine months to go in Obama's presidency, and they did not let him fill the final seat. So here's what I think. I think we filibuster because this is a terrible pick.

This is a highly conservative, highly originalist, young pick. This is somebody who is going to affect, Gorsuch will affect the court, the Supreme Court, for a long time. This is an damaging pick. Here's the grounds on which I think the Democrats should filibuster. They should filibuster and say, even though we're not going to steal this back, even though there's no way we can keep this vacant forever, whatever, because Republicans, you stole this pick from us.

0:19:53 Thomas: We need a more moderate pick from you. Now, maybe it'll still be a conservative or whatever, but somebody that's more consensus. And I don't think it's going to happen. I think the Republicans will just use the nuclear option, but that is what I think The State at Aim should be. And it's because it's insulting. It's horrifying that they stole a Supreme Court pick. It is going to make a massive difference in our country. And Trump picked a young, originalist, highly conservative and agenda-driven justice to replace Scalia. So that's what I think on it. But for more information on Gorsuch himself, check out Opening Arguments tomorrow.

0:20:40 Thomas: In other recent news, oh look, Secretary of State Tillerson confirmed. Let's just look over the votes here. Oh, and the yes vote, who is that I see? It's a Marco Rubio. And if that's not predictable enough, it's John McCain as well. Not a single Republican voted no. Now, three Democrats voted yes. I do not know what they were thinking. That is Mark Warner, Heidi Heitkamp, and Joe Manchin III. I don't know what they were thinking. I don't get it. I don't get why we couldn't earn a single Republican to vote no because of someone who is tied to Putin, someone with Russian ties being Secretary of State, someone not qualified as well. So, that's depressing, but it is predictable.

0:21:27 Thomas: It is what I predicted. And I think as far as the cabinet goes, I think my predictions were so far 100% accurate. I predicted Rubio would totally cower and change his mind and back off his concerns. And he did because he's Marco Rubio, most useless person in the Senate. Now, it seems as though we might have a chance on DeVos, maybe. There's resistance, there are Republicans who might not vote for her. I don't know if you'll, upon hearing this, already know the outcome of this, but I'll have to leave that to next week. I hope she is turned down, I hope she doesn't get it. I'm still predicting she will, because I predicted everybody would, every single one of Trump's nominees. But who knows?

0:22:12 Thomas: She could withdraw if it looks like she's not going to make it. So we can hold out hope. And actually, I'm seeing some evidence from certain representatives that phone calls might have made a difference there. So I really do applaud everyone who called their senator and It looks like you may have made the difference on that, so really, I applaud that, keep up the good work, and calls can make a difference. Alright, now I want to make an attempt to cover pretty much everything Trump has done in his first 12 or so days, whatever it's been in the White House. You know, one thing that's interesting is liberals are going nuts over all these executive orders, and I'd like to point out that Obama did actually have more, one more executive order than Trump in his 12 days.

0:22:59 Thomas: And the only reason I say that is to make sure we keep things in perspective. However, I don't think I would ever complain about Trump or Obama or anybody using their executive power. I think that was kind of just a nonsense complaint that the right had about Obama. I think the content of the orders is more important than anything. If they're truly unconstitutional, if it's an overreach, then presumably the way the system is supposed to work, that that would be stuck down in courts.

So I am not really worried about that. I am worried about the content of the orders. So let's look at what he's done so far in his first 12 days. While Obama's first executive order focused on presidential records, ethics commitments, ensuring lawful interrogations, review and disposition of individuals detained at Guantanamo, review of detention policy options, economy and government contracting, non-displacement of qualified workers under service contracts, notification of employee rights under federal labor laws, revocation of certain executive orders concerning regulatory planning and review, Review Memorandum on the White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families. So that kind of stuff. Trump has gone a different way. First one, helping to dismantle the ACA, Affordable Care Act. Next one was a regulation freeze. This one, I mean, there's very varying levels of how pissed off we should be about these things. Certain things are just going to be normal partisan differences, which I mean yeah, it sucks because, you know, I support a Democratic president and would probably disagree with most things that a Republican president is going to do.

0:24:39 Thomas: Most, not all. So regulation freeze any regulation signed by Obama in his final weeks, including some of the deal with energy efficiency standards are on hold till they're reviewed. I mean, that's to be expected. Abortion restoration of the Mexico City policy. This is that one they've said that volleyballs back and forth, depending on the administration, whatever. I mean Republicans are going to do that. Withdraw from the TPP. This one is one of the most comically depressing and weird, because during the entire campaign, Trump talked about the TPP just benefiting China, which is actually the opposite of the truth, and him withdrawing from it actually did benefit China. China was not included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

0:25:25 Thomas: Now, these trade agreements are complicated, I'm not an expert on it, and I don't even know how much I want to render an opinion on these actual agreements, but I will say what is laughably wrong is Trump has made China the enemy of his campaign in so many ways, and he's just wrong about what reversing and not agreeing to the TPP will do. Too. Withdrawing from the TPP only benefits China. He's just wrong in what he's trying to do, regardless of how you feel about TPP.

A federal hiring freeze, I guess I just put that in the category of budget cutting things that Republicans are going to do, spending approval of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and And the next one, speeding the approval of the Keystone pipeline, so I wonder how Jill Stein voters and I suppose Bernie or Busters are feeling about that, I mean, they, you know, opposed Hillary and opposed Trump thinking they were equally as bad, well, this wouldn't be happening under Hillary, And continuing along that vein, the next one, number eight, speed up environmental impact reviews for high priority infrastructure projects.

So just trying to cut the red tape on that. Pipelines constructed with American materials, another thing along those lines. Reduce manufacturing regulations, speed-up permits. Immigration, the next one was about immigration. This is pretty bad here. Direct executive departments and agencies to employ all lawful means to enforce the immigration laws of the United States. Section 5 includes a list of reasons that an immigrant could be deported, including this last one, in the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security. So basically, any reason. And then take all appropriate action, this is still the same order, to hire 10,000 additional immigration officers.

0:27:12 Thomas: It's just amazing what Republicans are willing to waste money on. I mean, they're all about not spending money unless it's certain things like a wall, or well, speaking of which, is the next one, or hiring 10,000 additional immigration officers. The next one, build the wall. And you already know this all by now. I'm not going to go too much into it, but there's no way Mexico is paying for it.

And the tariff, again, Republicans are all supposed to be about lower taxes, but imposing a tariff on Mexican imports is just not going to actually charge Mexico for the wall. That would be charging anyone who wants to buy any of those things. The cost will be passed down to the consumer. That's just not how things work. That goes down with Trump's overall just ignorance of economics, because he always insisted that we're losing billions and billions to Mexico, simply because of the difference between how much we're exporting and how much we're importing, but that's not, that doesn't mean we're LOSING that money.

He just, for someone who's supposed to be a businessman, seems like he doesn't really understand how that part works. Works. Alright, the next one is the travel ban, and I think we need to take a moment to talk about this. Lots of misinformation on this, and this is something that even I think some liberals and certainly some who are in the Dave Rubin, Sam Harris, Douglas K. Murray crowd, though Sam Harris doesn't support this travel ban, there's some gray area there of people who are supporting things like it or saying it's liberals' fault for not doing more about this.

0:28:49 Thomas: So let's talk about this If you haven't heard by now, it's everywhere, but just in case, there is so much that is asked backwards about this ban. It suspends entry into the US from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. But Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates were not included, even though this report showed that these three countries were the point of origin for people responsible for 94.1% of American deaths due to terrorist attacks. So it's not the right countries. It doesn't include Saudi Arabia, which is where the majority of the 9-11 attackers were from. It's completely ineffectual, not motivated by actual facts. And not only that, I snoped this just to be sure.

0:29:36 Thomas: The Muslim ban actually just excludes countries where Donald Trump has business ties. That's actually true. I thought that was going to be just a liberal kind of version of the fake news thing. Like maybe it was a little conspiracy theory-esque. Not so. Looks like it actually just so happens to be magically excluding the countries where Donald Trump has business interests. So So, another amazing thing is that there's some disagreement among Republicans, some Republicans have stayed on the talking points on message, which is, oh, this is not a Muslim ban at all, but Trump himself has messed that up, he actually tweeted using the word ban, which it was supposed to not be, and also... Rudy Giuliani did an interview where he just admitted that Trump asked him how to do a Muslim ban that would be legal.

0:30:27 Thomas: So, there you have it, but it's funny because a lot of his surrogates have insisted, oh, it's not a ban, it's not a ban. But then Trump himself tweeted, "If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the bad would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad dudes out there." That's our president tweeting, by the way, just so everybody knows. Yeah, um, that's not how it works. It takes like 15 months to get through this process, in case you don't already know this. The refugee process is incredibly intensive, and it would be a stupid way for a terrorist to try to get in. There already is extreme vetting. So also, a lot of surrogates are trying to compare it to this Obama immigration sort of ban that he did, like a little act that he did temporarily in 2011.

0:31:14 Thomas: But there are some big differences. So in 2011, Obama delayed processing Iraqi refugees after it was discovered that two Iraqi refugees living in Kentucky had been involved in a roadside bombing attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. So it was a response to this specific threat. It was just a delay. It wasn't permanent. It was limited to one country that was directly involved in the threat. It rescreened about 58,000 Iraqi refugees in the U.S. and more than 25,000 Iraqis who had been approved to enter the U.S. but had not been admitted. This is not at all like Trump's Muslim ban, which was not in response to any current threat. It covers multiple countries that don't pose a threat.

0:31:59 Thomas: It's not based on anything, but which countries does Trump not have business interests applied in. It to current green card holders, who are already permanent residents, have gone through the screening, and so it's taking away, after they've gone through a rigorous process, they finally might be free and clear from the death and destruction that is the reason they've tried to seek refugee status, and nope, they've got to go through it again. So Trump's act is so much more cruel, so much different, and the hand-waving they're trying to do saying that it's just like Obama's act in 2011 is just nonsense. So the last couple, as of now anyway, I'll go through quickly because I want to go back and talk about some of the talking points on the, I don't know what to call it, the new center, allegedly, on the immigration ban.

0:32:52 Thomas: So 14, rebuilding the U.S. armed forces. Yeah, our crumbling armed forces, our crumbling bazillion dollar army, military spending that is so much more than the next several countries combined. We need to rebuild that. There's a terrifying little section of it. The Secretary shall initiate a new nuclear posture review to ensure that the United States nuclear deterrent is modern, robust, flexible, resilient, ready, and appropriately tailored to deter 21st century threats and reassure our allies. And the Secretary shall negotiate a new ballistic missile defense review to identify ways of strengthening missile defense capabilities, responsibilities, rebalancing homeland and theater defense priorities, and highlighting priority funding areas. So that, you know, the only thing about that is at least Mattis might be one of Trump's best picks, if not the best.

0:33:45 Thomas: Not that I think he's perfect. At least it's somebody who I think is going to be competent and has disagreed with Trump on interrogation. Trump said, oh yeah, torture works. It's great. Mattis has disagreed publicly with Trump. And then Trump said, well, I'll rely on Mattis's opinion. So that was kind of, you know, I mean, trying to find a silver lining here. Maybe we aren't in terrible hands as regards to Secretary of Defense, but we'll have to keep an eye on that. Then 15 is a weird one because it's an ethics pledge for people who are appointed by Trump. But then there's a waiver. It says the president or his designee. May grant a person a waiver of any restrictions contained in the pledge signed by such person. So it's like, yeah, you're going to agree to some ethics, but we can waive any of it.

0:34:33 Thomas: So that seems kind of pointless to me. And then finally, the one you may have just heard about, reduce regulation and associated costs. Anytime a department wants a new regulation, they have to identify two regulations they want to get rid of. And apparently this will save money.

0:34:50 Thomas: And all new regulations, including repealed regulations, to be finalized this year shall be no greater than zero. I don't really like where that's headed. Just imagine if there's some sort of emergency, picture like a Flint water crisis kind of emergency. If you need to try to get a regulation passed to stop a threat to our health and safety or something, you can't now. So that sounds like a nightmare to me. We'll see how that I'm very curious to see how that plays out. But back to immigration. There's a meme going around sort of the secular liberal-ish community that liberals are responsible, morally responsible, for this horrendous immigration ban, an incompetent immigration ban of the Trump administration because we didn't do anything.

0:35:39 Thomas: We didn't do enough on this. Well, here's the thing. There is no problem there. There is no problems with refugees committing acts of terrorism. So, if you want to say that that, sure, liberals maybe didn't quite address the problem of Islamic terrorism using the wording that you want. We can have a talk about that. And it's true. Obama would avoid using certain words. He would avoid, uh, using the words Islamic terrorism. He would try to refer to it as something else. Yeah, that's annoying, annoying, but that doesn't change the fact that we have a rigorous 15-month refugee screening process that is doing the job. There just hasn't been acts of terror committed by refugees. It just hasn't happened, especially in this country. Look, if we lived in Europe, things might be a little different. And I, and I actually, I'm very sympathetic to the unique problems in Europe with sort of the, the, the borders are pretty open.

0:36:38 Thomas: It's a lot closer, to in proximity to these Middle Eastern countries where there are problems with terrorism and there are a lot of attacks in Europe. In the U.S., we just don't have that problem. The only thing we have are homegrown, radicalized people who have been citizens and are the children of citizens. There's no screening we could do to get those people. There's nothing we could do. And and furthermore, that isn't happening really anymore and is maybe happening less than right-wing terrorism. Look, I think there is a unique security threat posed by Islamic terrorism. I think it is more worldwide. It is a big threat. It is more than right wing terror. I think that that's, that is an area where liberal talking points get a little, I think, a little too optimistic.

0:37:28 Thomas: Worldwide, it is a big problem. In the U.S., it just isn't. So to blame liberals for not having a better policy on a problem that doesn't exist, i.e. refugees attacking us, that doesn't exist. So, to blame us for not having some policy fixing an invisible problem, and therefore, Trump's wildly incompetent, atrocious immigration ban is somehow liberals' fault. That's ridiculous to me. So I could talk more on that, but we got to get some voicemails and I'm running out of time. So, I would love to hear your thoughts next week on the voicemail, on everything I've discussed. But in the meantime, let's get to this week's voicemails.

0:38:10 Thomas: It's time to check the voicemail, and of course if you'd like to leave a message, that's 916-750-4SIO. That's 9-1-6-7-5-0-4-7 4-6. Let's check out this week's messages.

0:38:30 Voicemail: Hi Thomas, I've called you about Sam Harris before, so I'm sorry about the repeat thing, but I just wanted to thank you for dedicating your last episode to his interview with Jordan Peterson. I had, my hackles were going up, too. There's so much that he was just not grappling with, even if he was actually right, Jordan, that is, and Sam, too, by extension, because you're right, he should be paying more attention to these things, and he should be paying more attention to human reproductive biology. And as far as what Jordan has to say about manufactured pronouns, all pronouns are manufactured. Personally, I think that we're not going to see social justice in a full sense until we have done away with gender pronouns altogether. It just seems like there's so much cultural baggage that's attached to them.

0:39:31 Voicemail: And As soon as you say those, you have queued up your subconscious cultural baggage, and that filters your cognition that comes after that. And I think we need to come up with non-gendered pronouns. And I just don't know if that's actually possible. Anyway, thank you for doing what you do. You are the best. Hi, Thomas, I just listened to your episode about Sam Harris and his guest. I want to say thank you so much for doing all the research that you did and being a real, true skeptic. And one of the things I really appreciate about your show is that you're so relentlessly honest with yourself and the way that you approach the world. And I think that's really great. And I wish more people could do that.

And I wanted to let you know that you've been an inspiration to me to be even more skeptical and to consider other viewpoints as well, including my dog's, apparently. And that was her barking. But, yeah, I just I really appreciate the show that you did. And one thing I wanted to say is that you talked about how much money he was making off of the fear mongering.

0:40:50 Voicemail: And I wonder, what is it about fear-mongering that generates all that revenue? I mean, it's obviously working for certain political parties and so on. So I think that would be a really interesting thing to look into. You know, I mean it's a huge topic, but I would love to see that. So my name is Susan Barnum, and I'm a librarian, and I always appreciate the rational take that you do. Do. And as always, you and Haeley keep being awesome. And I'm so proud of your show. And I'm just proud that you're in this world and I get to listen to you. So thanks. Bye-bye.

0:41:33 Voicemail: Hi, Thomas Ryan here, patron of your podcast. Just listened to your critique on Sam Harris's interview with Peterson. I agree with nearly everything that you said. But I do question whether it's a discriminatory act to refuse a person's request to give a pronoun. You equated it to stop using a racial slur, and I think that's a false equivalency. I think an accurate analogy is if you hailed someone saying, pardon me, you with the blonde hair, and the person replied, I identify as a brunette. If you must reference me by my hair, please use the term brunettes, and assume that by any objective categorization on appearance, this person is a blonde-haired person. Now, the analogy is highly improbable. As an exercise in logical logical consistency, I'd pose the question to refuse the Burnett request in this situation.

0:42:25 Voicemail: And likely to decide, how is this scenario different than the pronoun scenario? Would be very interested to hear your evaluation on the terminology. And in the meantime, thank you, Tom, for your incredible work and everything you do. I wish we had more of you. Have a good day. Take care.

0:42:47 Voicemail: Hi, Thomas. This is Faye, an evil trans woman. And I just wanted to say thank you so much for going over the deplorable Harris-Peterson interview and also that I am so sick of people using this trauma and saying that the transgender community doesn't believe that we think sex, sexuality, and gender are correlated. Of course we think they're correlated. We just don't think they are entirely causative. Anyways, keep up the awesome work. Thank you so mucho.

0:43:23 Thomas: Thank you so much for those voicemails. Thank you even to the people that I couldn't get to. I listened to all of them. Obviously can't play them all, but keep them coming. This is my new favorite part of the show. I really do appreciate it. Alright, let's tackle those in the order they were received. Hey, first voicemail, anonymous, you didn't mention your name. Make sure to do that, and you can even mention where you're from if you want, anything like that.

So I am not entirely sure it's realistic to get rid of pronouns, um, gendered pronouns. And it seems like you might agree on that point. I don't know. You said it would be difficult. Uh, I think we're deep down, we're always going to be primates and the majority of us are always going to be a heterosexual kind of Cisgendered primates at that, and I think we're always going to be interested in the sex that we are interested in. I think it's unrealistic to think that we're not going to want that information about each other, just in referring to any events. I think that you're right that it would be a more equitable world, I'm guessing, if we got rid of gendered pronouns, but I, I think think that's a little too unrealistic to expect.

I think the best thing we can do is continue to fight any sort of prejudice. Things like I've mentioned before, things like trying to blind our processes a little bit. So when you're looking at applications, when you're auditioning violinists, whatever it might be, doing so without any information on not only gender, but appearance, you know, race, ethnicity, all that kind of stuff.

0:44:58 Thomas: I think our best bet is to continue to find ways to make our systems better and to continue to call attention to lapses in our systems and times when our bias is affecting people. I think that's the best bet, so that's what I think on that, but thanks for the message. Susan, oh, what a nice message, seriously, that was really nice what you said at the end there. Also, I love the dog chiming in with your message there.

Um, the fear-mongering, yeah, I think that it really is true. This is a quote I've seen, I don't know where it originates from, but it really is true that when you are privileged, equality feels like oppression to you. I think we've seen that time and time again. We've seen mostly Republican stuff, we've see that with the war on Christmas narrative, that when you have a privilege, like Christian privilege, white privilege, whatever it is, when people try to fight back a little bit and say, hey, things should be more equal, it feels like you're losing something. And I really think that's what's going on with Jordan B. Peterson. I think that it's, when you look at what he's battling against and you just step back and you really put it in perspective, it's such a pathetic little squabble, it really is.

I mean, all my critics from this episode tried to make it about this high and mighty free speech thing, that it says, what's next, we won't be able to say anything? I mean, that's just a rationalization after the fact of the reaction being, oh, no, I have to remember something. And I mean, it really is as simple as that.

And by the way, that's just if you work for the government, or Or if you are a landlord, or if you're in some other position of authority over other people, that's all.

0:46:46 Thomas: It doesn't affect everyday citizens just walking around the street. It just doesn't. And I really feel like there's a lack of perspective going on there. So Ryan, with your blonde brunette analogy, I have to say, I appreciate the call, Ryan. I appreciate the question, but I have to say already, look at what you're doing. You're likening a difficult choice that trans people have to make where they decide, okay, I'm going to try to assume the gender that I want, which is difficult. It's not easy. Involves various levels of changing their appearance or not, whatever it is. That's a difficult decision. It's an important decision to people. And you're likening it to changing hair color, identifying with a different hair color than you are, which I know you're just trying to make an analogy.

0:47:36 Thomas: And I'm not rushing out. I promise I'm not rushing out to call you transphobic or something. I'm I'm not saying that, but notice how that can be a little inconsiderate. I mean, likening something that's such a major life choice to someone to something that kind of a stupid thing. Like no one would ever say, yeah, even though I appear blonde, I identify as brunette. No one would ever do that. If they were, they would be an idiot. You would say, I just don't wear a wig. You can't identify as a different hair color. It's just stupid. Not only that, also implicit in your analogy was the idea that someone's going to get the cuffs slapped on them. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but that someone is going to get in trouble for just doing that once, like for just not. So I, so I think that's part of the weird fantasy that's going on here where it's like, okay, I see someone who by all appearances seems to be male.

0:48:26 Thomas: And I say, hello, sir. And they say, no, I identify as female. And then they call the police and I'm arrested. That's not how it works. It has to be, if you look at the law and case history, it has to be like a repeated kind of harassment thing where someone calls to your attention. Hey, I want to be known as this. I want to go by this and you refuse to do it. That's what this is. That's not some one-time mistaken thing because at the bottom, at the end of the day, this still has to be reasonable. It's still the law. There's not, there's that ability. It has to be a reasonable request and a 16 digit number or this kind of thing. I mean, that's not reasonable. No one's going to throw you in the slammer for that. I mean, it's just that it's a bit, you know, it's that's, that's the, the oppression fantasy going on here with Peterson.

0:49:13 Thomas: Like he's, he's making a lot out of nothing. And finally to Faye, thank you for calling and thank you for listening Faye. Thanks for pointing out that straw man argument. And guess what? People like Faye are real people and they're listening and they hear us when we say things like, you can be arrested for a fashion choice. I mean, people like Faye and trans people everywhere hear that. And how do you think that sounds to them? You know, that sort of paranoia over trans rights. So that's a lot of why I believe in this particular cause. All right, I've got some new patrons to thank. Thank you so much Ted Cruz for human president.

I Love that reference. Deborah Dean, Marty Steitz, Vlad, Daniel Segal, Jimmy Bean, Brett Khedkar, Squick Thinger, John Holt, John Bodley, Esq, Oh great tie over from Opening Arguments, Thanks John Bodley, and Ian Ryan with a nice big pledge. Thank You guys so very much for being my new patrons. This week. And I've got to thank my top patrons, my all-time greats, Matt, Garrett, Dale, Brian Garefort, Peter Skelton, Steve Sigmund, Adrian Borschoff, Roger Metcalf, Adam Hicks, Matthew Staton, Andrew Waddington, David at TheRamblingBlog.com, Zabby, Matthew Statton, David, John Bodley, Esq, Ian Ryan, Ian, Jonathan Moyet, Kaylee Reiser, Jesse, Jesse, Sakashite, Fukasumi, Michael, Michael Schaefer, Sammy, and Hunter Ash.

0:50:49 Thomas: Thank you guys for being my top supporters, the reason this show continues. And thank you for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. I will have to see you guys next week.