SIO52: Democrats Should Be Happy About the Special Elections

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode number 52 and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Alright, I faked you out again. I punked you again. This not an interview, this is going to be a commentary and voicemail episode like I normally do on Thursdays. And that's because the special elections that happened and Democrats are absolutely going crazy over it and Republicans are also being crazy in their own way about it, and I just have to try to counter this narrative because I have some observations that I think you may find valuable. Also, after that, I've got an extended voicemail segment where I talk about the best questions that I've gotten from you guys over the past few weeks. It's really great. I love that segment, so that will happen as well. But in the meantime, I'm going to give you my thoughts on why Democrats should be happy about the special election results.

0:01:20 Thomas: You ready for it? Here we go. Hopefully, I can cheer some of you guys up. Share this with a Democrat who is in despair right now. That's my goal.

0:01:36 Thomas: But Thomas, you might say, we've had four special elections. Democrats have lost all four. Participation trophies don't count in elections. This means nothing. Democrats' message is terrible. Here's a quote, by the way. Here's an article from a New York Times article. Now, it's not the New York times saying this, but they are quoting a Democrat who said, our brand is worse than Trump. As a result of these elections. Let's dig into this a little bit. First off, yes, Democrats did lose in Georgia and South Carolina yesterday, so that means that's two seats that we don't have that Republicans have. That's not good, so I don't like that, of course. I'm not trying to say that's like the best possible outcome, but it is really not true to say that the only thing that matters is whether or not you want a seat.

0:02:26 Thomas: That's just not true. I mean, what if the seat had previously been 100% Republicans and no Democrats, and then you lose it 51-49 or 50.1-49.9? Is that nothing? Is it worth nothing? You've just converted half of a district over to your side. Is that worth nothing? Well, let's look at what the actual numbers are. They're not that much different than that. They are not quite that, but they are not that much difference. These are really, really, Republican districts for the most part. Me put it to you this way. Forget everything I've said. Start from scratch. Go to zero. Pretend you know nothing.

You're in that white room in the matrix where there's just nothing. And I tell you this. Hey, pretend you're a Democrat. And I tell you, hey, Democrat, guess what? Your party just turned in four races. They just turned. An average 23 percentage point deficit. 23 point difference. They just turned that into a 5 point difference in four races. That's an 18 percentage point swing. Would your reaction be, well, clearly their message isn't working. Boy, Democrats are just losing it. They have, they need to fire Nancy Pelosi first off, get rid of her. And we got to find a new message.

Would that be your reaction in a vacuum? Forget everything else that's going on. Would be how you would react? An average of 18 point swing, that's huge. I think there's so much sloppy thinking going on in our politics and our discourse where Democrats, it's an all or nothing thing apparently for Democrats.

0:04:05 Thomas: They either had to erase a gigantic, gigantic deficit in Georgia 6. You know what the deficit was? 24 points. They either had to exactly erase the 24-point deficit or overdo it, maybe get 25-point swing, something like that, or it's nothing, or Democrats are a failure. As I just quoted, their message is worse than Trump. That's how bad it is. What? Because you couldn't convert a 24- point deficit? That is a huge deficit. So here's what I did. I wanted to put these numbers in perspective. So I, I got the results from all the House elections from 2016, and I plugged in the new numbers from the special elections, and I got that all in a big Excel spreadsheet, and I played with the numbers.

0:04:51 Thomas: Now, a couple disclaimers. This is not statistics. I did not do a rich, comprehensive statistic analysis. What I did is arithmetic. I did some arithmetic for you guys. This is Not meant to say I am predicting the outcome of 2018. I've not done a serious analysis. I've not done some regressions, whatever that all that stuff that I don't really know how to do. I'm not making a claim that I've done that. What I am claiming to do is putting a little perspective on this by doing some basic math, and just showing what we ought to be expecting in these four elections, and why Democrats indeed should be happy with what happened. Very quick refresher on the House. There are 435 seats in the House, the elections are every two years, every House seat is up for election.

0:05:38 Thomas: That is different than the Senate, where it's every six years, the House is supposed to be more responsive to political change. That has been somewhat prevented by gerrymandering, but that's topic for opening arguments that's been discussed. Look up the episode. The point is that it's supposed to Be more responsive. Of it. And by the way, unlike in the Senate, where as of right now, you need 60 votes, you need a higher than a simple majority. You actually need an actual majority to pass laws as of right now because the filibuster hasn't been gotten rid of for legislation. So you need 60 votes. In the House, you only need one more vote. You only need 218 votes to 217. So anything you have above that, don't get me wrong, that's great.

0:06:23 Thomas: I would love for Democrats to somehow hold the entire everything, but it doesn't really give you much because maybe it'll help you with some committees or something because you'll have more representation. But legislatively, it doesn't actually matter all that much to have a super, super, super majority in the House like it does in the Senate. So let's look at these four seats that Democrats are crying over and Republicans are kicking Democrats over when they shouldn't. Montana, which is just at large, there's no So apparently Montana is so small in population, they only get one house seat. So there's one Montana seat. South Carolina, fifth, Georgia, sixth, Kansas, fourth districts. And Montana has been Republican since 1997. Boo hoo, we weren't able to change a seat that has been Republican for literally 20 years.

0:07:12 Thomas: South Carolina. Now this one's a little tricky because there was redistricting in South Carolina meaning the district lines changed. You can't, it's not really apples to apples to compare, but it has been solidly Republican since 2010 when the redistricting happened. So that's a pretty solid Republican seat. Georgia 6 has been Republican since 1978.

0:07:33 Thomas: 1978. That's Democrats thinking their party is in a crisis scenario because they couldn't turn a seat Democrat that has been Republican for 40 years. Is that really how we should be measuring the state of Democratic Party? That they couldn't change, that they got the 22 point swing, but they just couldn't get the full 24 to 5 point swing. And finally, Kansas 4th has been Republican since 1992. That's quite a long time as well. And that was a very close race. For some reason, there seems to be a big appeal in our discourse to saying, well, participation trophies don't count. It doesn't mean anything if you don't win. Really? Because I actually think it does mean a lot. I think it It means a hell of a lot for a district that previously was 62 to 38.

0:08:21 Thomas: That was the last election in Georgia 6. 62% Republican, 38% for the Democrat. That is a gigantic, again, 24 points. That's a safe Republican seat. I think it counts for a helluva lot to turn that into a 3.8% difference. That election was won by the Republican by 51.9% of the vote to 48.1%. Really, really close. A seat that has been Republican since 1978 was that close. So now is where I'm going to share my basic arithmetic. Again, this is basic arithmetic, it's just meant to give you an indication of perspective. It's not meant to prove what's going to happen in 2018 or anything like that. There are a lot of variables, way more than even the best data people can predict.

0:09:07 Thomas: But here is just some arithmetic perspective. The average swing of these four special elections, as I referenced, was around 17, 18 points. If you were to plug in, as I have done, every single election in 2016 for the house and do that same swing, like the amount. So if that swing happened nationally, the 17 point swing, Democrats in 2018 would control 243 seats. It would basically flip flop. They would wrangle. And that's that includes gerrymandering, by the way. So that's just applying that swing to every state. That would probably mean they should control. Democrats should control a whole lot more. But because of gerryandering, Republicans have an advantage. But that would mean that Democrats would hold 243 seats to 192.

0:09:57 Thomas: That's way more of a win than we even need because you, again, you only need 218 to win. So just to put that in perspective, if that happened nationwide, and it could be even more, by the way, by the time we get done with this investigation by Mueller of Trump just killing himself for another few years, just being terrible for another three years. If this happened nationally, Democrats would win in a bloodbath in the House in 2018. This is indicative of serious progress by the Democrats and probably more so of serious floundering by the Republicans. So did we win these four impossible seats? No, we lost all of them. If you're a Democrat, we lost all OF them. That's not nothing though.

0:10:43 Thomas: It really isn't. By the way, just to let you know, these special elections of course happen because people get appointed to things in the new administration. And part of the calculation is let's appoint someone from a safe seat because we do not want to lose ground. So this is a cherry picked for the most part for elections for Republicans. So Democrats are losing their heads because they couldn't win a cherry-picked Republican advantage in four seats. That's just not a good way of indicating stuff. We pulled off a 22 point swing. By the way, if I do that same basic math of what Democrats would have needed to pull off, which is a 24 point swing, if I plug that into my little stupid spreadsheet that I use for you guys, that would result in a swing that would be embarrassing.

0:11:35 Thomas: That would result in nearly 300 seats being Democratic in 2018. So that means the change that you were demanding, the Democrats were demanding we must have this big of a swing in this Georgia, this one Georgia election, if that happened nationally, it would be overkill. Don't get me wrong, it would be great. But think that's what you're saying when you say this election wasn't good enough, it didn't get us anything. You're saying if this happens nationally, not even 300 seats are good enough. And to me, I'm saying, no, 300 seats, that's good enough. So I'm very excited about these results because if they maintain this level of consistency in any way, if they maintain anything close to this big swing in support, then that's going to indicate a huge victory for Democrats in 2018.

0:12:26 Thomas: I'm very excited about that. And if we want to get down to brass tacks, oh yeah, but you didn't win. Okay, well, what would have happened if we won? One more seat would be Democrat. That gets you nothing. One more seat. Now, maybe you want to make the claim that, oh, but the momentum, you know, that would be a huge visual momentum boost for Democrats and it would be a blow to Trump. Okay, you're right. It would be. There is a difference and it may come down to one vote. You know, if you lose by one vote, there is a difference that does translate into more than one vote. It does translate in to, yes, you get to visually be the person who won versus the person who lost. I get that. There is some aspect of that. But ultimately, you are talking about optics which actually don't make any difference in voting.

0:13:13 Thomas: This one House seat, or even all four of these House seats, will not do anything. We have to wait until 2018 before we're going to have enough seats up, which is all of them again, to be able to actually win control of the House, which is really what we need. Democrats need control of the House to be able to investigate Trump properly, to be able to pursue things, to be able to salvage healthcare, or maybe somehow Obamacare won't be repealed to be able to continue not repealing it.

So that's what they need. So in that sense, these special elections do not matter in anyway other than that they're indications of what 2018 will be. And as far as that goes, Democrats should be very happy. So that is why I believe Democrats have a lot to look forward to. Do. Here's what I also believe. Either way, Democrats have to vote, vote, vote, vote, vote. In 2018, we have to vote. Doesn't matter what happened in any special election if we don't vote. And also, it doesn't matter the other way. Maybe we lost all these and it wasn't a good result. If we all came out and voted in 2018, it wouldn't matter. That's what's going to matter. Voting in 2018. That is what is going to do it.

And to put some more historical context on this and to kind of counter the bedwetting narrative that's happening right now, where we need a whole new vision, Democrats need a whole New Message, we need to fire Pelosi. To put some perspective on that, we all know in 2010, Republicans won the crap out of the House. They campaigned against Obamacare because Democrats were too nice.

0:14:47 Thomas: They let Republicans have too much say, which they shouldn't have done in retrospect. But Republicans were able to launch a misinformation machine and invent death panels and invent a whole bunch of falsehoods about health care. They won massively in 2010. In 2009, the special elections, Democrats won every single one of them. So if you were judging the special election, you would have said, oh, Democrats are fine. No problems here. They've won all the special élections. Look at that. Republicans couldn't win any. Well, that wasn't indicative. That didn't matter. Every single House House special election that took place in 2009 was won by Democrats, including one seat that flipped. New York's 23rd district prior incumbent was a Republican that flipped to a Democrat.

0:15:34 Thomas: And yet in 2010, it was a bloodbath and Republicans won 242 seats in the next election. So they had 198 in the prior Congress, in the prior House, and they won 242 in the next one. So a massive shift, a massive shift, and Democrats had won every special election, 2009. So I hope that makes you feel better if you were a Democrat in despair, maybe a bit like Eli Bosnick, who was very upset at the election. I don't blame you. I was hoping that we would win one of them. I think it would have been a real morale booster, I think, and I think it would have had positive effects, but it's not the end of the world. I want to cover a couple more areas of what I think is some really bad thinking, or sometimes it's sinister. I think sometimes people, people who are anti-Democrat, take advantage of these things to put out an anti-Democrat message when we really shouldn't be doing that.

0:16:27 Thomas: We shouldn't be eating ourselves alive right now in a time when we've pulled off incredible swings in states that previously were totally safe Republican. Here's one that I find particularly troublesome, Nancy Pelosi. Now, I don't know, I'm not an expert in Nancy Pelosi, I really could take her or leave her, I like Democrats better than Republicans, for the most part, I'm happy with her, but I don't really care that much. But what I'm seeing is that Democrats need to just fire Nancy Pelosi and need to get rid of her because she's a liability. And here's the evidence that I'm given. The evidence that she is a liability is that Republicans campaigned against her in this Georgia race with Ossoff. They campaigned again against her and campaigned as Ossoff being a puppet of Nancy Pelosi's.

0:17:14 Thomas: And for that reason, we ought to get rid of her. She's a liability. Here's what I have to say about this. This, this is a common theme. This is true of Hillary. I strongly believe it's it's true of Hillary, it's true of other Democrat leaders. Whoever is a leader in the Democratic Party is going to become a liability when Republicans have a misinformation machine targeting them. And by the way, there's a lot of sexism involved, too. I took a look at some of these ads just to see, like, maybe there's some scandal that Nancy Pelosi has that you could argue maybe another Democrat wouldn't have. They'd be cleaner, they'd be a better candidate to put forth, and Republicans wouldn't have as much to attack. Here's a hit piece. Here is one of the ads, and they're all the same pretty much. Here are one of ads used in the Georgia election.

0:18:00 Thomas: It says here, Nancy Pelosi is actually in control of Jon Ossoff. Here's what that means. Bigger government telling us how to run our lives, higher taxes to pay for bloated bureaucracy and wasteful spending, burdensome regulations that would kill job opportunities for middle class families, and a weaker military despite threats at home and abroad. Does that sound like anything Nancy Pelosi is to be faulted for? That sounds like generic claims about liberalism. What it sounds like to me is Republicans hate liberals. Liberals and Jon Ossoff was trying to maybe go a little center to go a little more center left to appeal to some Republicans in a very Republican state and the way Republicans ran against that is to say don't worry this guy's actually a liberal don't vote for this guy vote for the other person that that would apply to anybody just because they target Nancy Pelosi that doesn't mean Nancy Pelosi ought to lose her job they're going to do that with whoever is power.

0:18:59 Thomas: Now, if someone wants to make the case that a particular Democratic leader has too many scandals, is corrupt, whatever, of course, that's a different story. But if we're talking about just plain politics, which this is, I mean, look at that ad. I'll put it in the links, of course. It's just generic hits on liberalism at all. That's all it is. I saw an article saying that Democrats need to factor this in. They need to realize that Republicans are sexist and are going to use this in order to rally support for their cause. I have to say I find that offensive. I find it offensive that the idea would be that Democrats have to give in to Republicans' sexism, that we We can't put forth female candidates, that we can't have women in leadership roles.

0:19:45 Thomas: You know why? Because it'll be too easy for Republicans to be sexist and say, look at this woman over here. You want to vote for her? No, that's, I find that offensive. That's not something I'm willing to do. The answer to Republicans being sexist isn't for Democrats to also be sexists. The answer is to keep fighting the good fight, keep promoting equality, and hope that you can eventually get enough people to not be sexist. That's what I think. Here's another thing I'm finding confusing.

So, Ossoff actually lost to a woman. And apparently, Republicans think Democrats need to be really excited about this because, you know, Democrats love women. So therefore, when a woman wins something, no matter what her views, we have to be excited. And we actually have to have been rooting for the woman to win. Drives me crazy because what Republicans and the quote-unquote liberals like Rubin and Boghossian and all those people say is we ought to have less identity politics, right? And now you're complaining that we're not identity politic enough. So here's the actual consistent position. It is a consistent position to say I'm in favor of More representation for women, let's say. And other groups do, but let's talk about women for now. I'm in favor of more representation in government for women. And so then the moron on the other side says, oh, well, then you naturally should vote for a Republican woman over a Democrat male. Well, hold on. Let's go to her website. Let's type in right now. Let's go to Karen Handel.

0:21:16 Thomas: That's who won. Let's talk about first thing on her website on the issues. Abortion. I am pro-life and believe that life begins at conception. We have made significant strides in fostering a pro-Life culture. Still more must be done. I'm I'm proud to be the only candidate in this race endorsed by Susan B. Anthony List, and I am also certified by the Georgia Life Alliance. Okay, all things being equal, sure, I would love there to be more women in power. I would Love that. I would like it to be equal, but if it's a woman who votes against women's rights, if it's woman who is pro-life, who has views that I think are abhorrent and are a detriment to women's health, who wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood, for example, I'm not happy about that. It is perfectly intellectually compatible.

0:22:02 Thomas: It's consistent. It's not contradictory for me to not be happy that this particular woman won. And what I think is so frustrating about this is it's Republicans or, again, classic liberals who think there's too much identity politics in Democratic policy. It's them building a stereotype of Democrats and then making fun of Democrats for not living up to their stereotype. So their stereotype is, well, all they care about is women or diversity. They just, all they care about is skin color or gender. That's what they care abou. And then when we say, well, no, actually, we're in favor of people who hold these positions. That's what we like. Then they're like, well what? You didn't support this woman. How dare you not live up to the straw man I built of you?

0:22:48 Thomas: It's very frustrating. It's absurd. On this, there has been criticism of how the Democrats have decided to use their money in these elections. And this is worth looking at. So the first special election was the Kansas 4th District. And that one had almost no money put into it. By the way, on either side, it's very low money on either either side. But the Democrat was able to spend less money, wasn't able to spend as much money as the Republican. And the Democrat had a really close finish. That was actually the biggest swing. That was a full 25-point swing from the 2016 result. So it was 61 to 29, with seven going to other parties in Kansas.

0:23:33 Thomas: And that changed from 61-29 to 52.5 to 45.7. So narrowed the gap to six point eight. But in that race. So they narrowed the gap. The Democratic candidate to narrow the gap tremendously. And people complain, why didn't you put, maybe if you'd put more money into that, maybe they could have won that seat. And so what happened was they put a ton of money into Georgia 6th. They didn't put any money really into South Carolina 5th. And that one was actually closer than the Georgia 6. So the one thing I want to say here is, yes, there might be room for criticism on that, but I don't think money actually buys these elections in the way that you would think, because the Republicans can always respond. So what happened in Georgia 6 was Democrats put a ton of money into it, and so Republicans did as well, and then it was a spending arms race.

0:24:25 Thomas: And then what happened was the Republicans still won. Now, I don't think it makes no difference. I think it's possible that maybe more money in the Kansas race could have swung it. Who knows? Maybe more money in some of these races could have swung it. I think it's interesting that the biggest swing happened where some of the least money was spent. So almost no money was spend in Kansas, as I said, and it had the biggest turnaround. Look, I think smarter people than me, people more involved in the Democratic Party and what their strategy is, certainly they can debate it. You can debate debate it. You can question their decisions. I just don't know if that matters as much. It doesn't matter more than anything else, is what I want to say. It's not something to leave the party over. It is not something that the Democrats have ruined the entire system because of it.

0:25:10 Thomas: They are choosing a strategy of trying to spend money where it matters. Frankly, these were deeply, deeply held Republican states and Republican districts. It was kind of a waste of money to spend money on them, so all I wanted to add to that is I could be convinced either way on strategy there. You know, I opened arguments either way. I just wanted to point out the mere fact that the biggest swing happened where the least money was spent.

And I think what matters more than money oftentimes is the individual candidates in these House races. The money spent in the Georgia 6th was the most of any House election ever, just so you guys know. Very interesting. It didn't result in a Democrat win, but it was a big swing. But the bigger swing happened in Kansas. Gigantic 25-point swing. So that's the facts. Do with them what you will. Will. But my conclusion is that Democrats are sitting in a good place. Long as we keep that turnout up, as long as we'd keep that enthusiasm up. And to the extent that winning Georgia would have kept that turnout up, yeah, that's bad that we don't have that momentum. I don't care. It doesn't matter. What we need to do is put our heads down, still turn up at elections. That's what matters. Turn out matters. And I think that this is a good omen.

If the margins had stayed the same, I would be absolutely panicking right now. If a 24-point swing turned into a 23-point swing, I'd be like, wow, I cannot believe that we have made no progress. But guess what? 24 points turning into 6 points or 5 or 3 points, that's really cool.

0:26:45 Thomas: That's a big sign of something. And I'm excited for what it might mean for 2018 as long as we all turn out and vote. Boat. So don't panic. Feel a little better than maybe you did. That's my message.

0:27:01 Clip: 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 916-750-4746. Let's check out this week's messages. Music

0:27:21 Voicemail: Hello, Thomas. I wanted to give some feedback on the topic of cultural misappropriation. I'm a white person living in a majority Latino community, mostly Mexican-American, so I interface with that culture more so than any other. Also, I read George Lipsitz's How Racism Takes Place. It's an amazing book that touches on those issues. I would certainly recommend it to anyone. I think the topic is better served as a discussion of intellectual property, which already has a huge amount of philosophy and jurisprudence to guide us. And I think that's effectively what we're talking about. I think that we need to separate public and private consumption of ethnic IP as well, because in broad, I think that private consumption of culture is just someone exploring or engaging in that culture, and as long as they're not doing anything to degrade it, then that's fine.

0:28:07 Voicemail: The real discussion, I think, is whenever someone takes an ethnic IP and attempts to distribute it for public consumption. Lipsitz lays out a bunch of examples where whites took from various minority cultures and distributed the pieces of their own, and I I feel that may be wrong. However, the issue comes down to what it means to have collectively held property where one becomes part owner by being alive. Because if that's what we're talking about, then who is the arbiter about how to distribute or sell that property? Do we never allow anyone outside of that ethnicity or culture to attempt to engage with it outside of just pure back-end consumption? I also wonder for edge cases like myself in particular. I'm a white person, so do we say that I can't open a Mexican taqueria? But I'm also a white person who's lived in a majority Latino community for all of my life, and I took Mexican fare significantly more than white fare.

0:28:57 Voicemail: Additionally, my mother married into a Mexican-American family whenever I was nine, so I've grown up in that community as a member for the majority of my life. At what point do I earn the right to offer parts of that S&P IP for public consumption, if at all? As a final thought, I think the majority these issues spawn from something that seems like a bit of a legal oxymoron in the Western world. So effectively, I would say the argument is about how to handle a class-owned good in a society where collective decisions about the rights of use are typically governmental in nature. It just doesn't seem like something we have a mechanic for. It doesn't seem like something that we have the right to do. It's something we may have a way to handle. So I just wanted to offer those thoughts. Keep up the good work. Listen in from West Texas. You have a good day. Bye.

0:29:43 Thomas: Hey, thanks for the voicemail, anonymous person number one. Once again, we actually had quite a few people didn't give their names. Give your name just so I can address you a little better. But great call. Really well thought out. Lots to think about there. So in terms of and cultural appropriation, my overall takeaway and what I've said before is that I really think anyone who has hard and fast rules about cultural appropriation is pretty much wrong either way.

Like either it's always fine or it's always bad. That is what I really want to avoid. In looking into these things, I really think it's case by case. Because caller, if you opened a taqueria, as you said, it is essentially your culture. If you were raised in that culture, it is your culture, and for anyone to tell you because of the color of your skin that you can't express the culture that you actually know, you know, or that's partially genetically yours, even if not outwardly or something, I don't think that's cool. I mean, that really seems wrong to me. If you are someone who is pretty pretty much passes for white, but maybe you have some ancestry that isn't outwardly obvious, but it's in your culture. It's how you grew up. It may be you were raised by a parent who is—it's a non-white ethnicity or something, and so that culture really is your culture.

I think that's a good good reason to not have a knee-jerk reaction to this. Because if you see a headline, if you see a clickbait thing that has a picture of a white dude, and he's open to taqueria, and you, oh, how dare he? How dare he?" And then you find out, well, it's actually, that's his background. That's what he was raised in. That's where he was immersed in. It is his culture. That that's a reason to, you know, I think it's a good reason.

0:31:23 Thomas: I think that's what it's about. I mean, I don't to not having a knee jerk reaction to this and to be more measured and to think it out. And that's my overall message with cultural or appropriation. I think there are plenty of examples where and wrong. Like with the girls who started that taco truck, I mean, again, it's where it blends in with other ideas, so it's not so much cultural appropriation as it is just stealing of intellectual property and really bad PR. But I think overall, Collar, again, I don't have your name, overall, I think that I agree that there are so many problems with looking at it in that legal way and trying to form strict rules about it. I really think it's something to be conscious of and not something to call everybody out with without really looking into what's going on.

0:32:10 Thomas: I think it's difficult with a lot of these issues because take the dreadlock issue. I'm going to get into it more in a second, actually, but take dreadlocks. How do we decide how all black people feel about white people having dreadlocks? I mean, do we know? What is what we're looking for? If you can find one black person who thinks it's fine, is that fine for you? Do we need to poll the black community, and if it's 50.1%, then it's not okay. So it is a little weird. I think there's some tough questions that it just becomes a little absurd to think about it in that way. But I think the bottom line is being respectful and knowledgeable, and I have an upcoming conversation about this that I think will shed a little more light on it. But yes, who speaks for that culture?

0:32:56 Thomas: How do we know without actual scientific polling, like, is this voice representative or not? There's a lot of weird practicalities there that do get difficult. And I think you highlighted those well.

0:33:14 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas. I'm a very avid listener of the show. Really enjoy what you guys are doing. I guess you've probably seen, maybe we've seen the stories in the news about the doctors in Michigan who are being taken to court for cutting genitals of female babies, and it just so happens that there's a movie coming out pretty soon, a documentary called American Circumcision, about the male circumcision issue, as well as far as issues of consent, issues of medical medicalization, issues of carving your religious and cultural beliefs into your child in an irreversible way. Just wondering if you wanted to have a few thoughts about that, about consent, about the fact that male circumcision was medicalized pretty successfully in the late 1800s, turn of the 20th century, and most of the justifications that we use for it today are based on some pretty flimsy scientific evidence that could accurately be described as pseudoscience, and it seems these doctors in Michigan may be doing the same thing to, you know, to the female issue as well. Thanks.

0:34:21 Thomas: Thank you for the call, anonymous number two. Two in a row with no name. Shame on you guys. Okay, so this is a big topic. I did a show back in the Atheistically Speaking days with someone on the anti-male circumcision front, and it's okay, so I'm not going to try to rehash and tackle the entire topic now, but there's some interesting things about it and some things I can say really quickly. And and I appreciate the call. I think it's a tough issue. Here's what, that here's what I want to say. This is something I've changed my mind on. I think that it's very difficult if you are an American circumcised man, it can be very, very difficult to think about having a male baby and not circumcising them. And I think that difficulty is really due to bad thinking.

0:35:11 Thomas: I think it's just something that's, it's hard to, it's an instinctual thing. And that's just the kind of bias that I seek to try to minimize in my life, that I want to be aware of and I want to take note of. And I want my thinking to be as clear as possible. And I've changed my mind to where if I had a boy, we're having a girl, by the way, in August, but if I had a boy, I would not circumcise, even though it would be kind of difficult to say, hey, you're going to be different than your dad, but you know, that's okay. People are different than everybody. It feels weird because it's what I'm used to, you know? And I know this sounds outlandish to most Europeans, I'm sure, because they're used to something else, but I'm used to this.

0:35:56 Thomas: And it's an intimate decision that parents make about their kids. And it seems weird to choose something different than what you had. But I believe that I need to do that because I think the important element of the argument is that it is not consensual. It is irreversible, pretty much. So it's making a gigantic irreversable decision about your child's body that they don't get to have a say in before they could possibly give consent. So I think it's wrong, and I'm not going to do it. Again, this is totally an American, for the most part, thing. But when I was growing up, when I was a kid in locker rooms and showers at school after PE, after sports, there was only one out of maybe 12, 15 boys that were not circumcised, and they stood out.

0:36:46 Thomas: You're noticing each other. It's weird. It is a sensitive difference to have as a kid. In some ways, it feels like I would want to protect my kid from having an intimate thing be so different than the people they're around. But ultimately, I don't think that's valid. I think that you're right, that it is kind of pseudoscience, and there are claims of medical benefits that I just don't think are... I think it's motivated reasoning, and it's the kind of motivated reasoning that I would seek to get rid of. It's a difficult thing. Here's one thing that isn't true, though. It's not as bad as female circumcision. So that's something that I think that becomes motivated reasoning on the other side, that people who are strongly anti-male circumcision try to make it out to be the same thing as female circumcision.

0:37:35 Thomas: It is not the same thing. It's way worse, to completely just massacring that area. It isn't the same. It really isn't. Female circumcision is worse. But it is interesting that some of the arguments are the same when you look at pro-female circumcision, I guess, literature that is kind of spread around these countries and these areas that have this practice. It's the same thing. Oh, there's a medical benefit. It's cleaner. It's, you know, there is less chance of STDs. It's a lot of the same stuff that might technically be slightly true, but ultimately using a condom and just having good sanitation and all that, like that solves that as well. Well without doing an irreversible thing to your child.

0:38:22 Thomas: So I don't think it's as bad as FGM, but I think it is bad, and I think it is actually not the right thing to do, and I'm going to make that decision. I'm going to decide to not do that if I have a child with a penis that is born. So thank you for the call. Interesting, difficult issue. I would not at all want to see female circumcision normalized in this country in the way that male circumcision has been. I think that would be disgusting and really harmful. So I don't want that to happen. But that's my thoughts on that. Thanks for the call. Hey,

0:39:01 Voicemail: Hey Thomas, this is Chris, big fan of the show, especially after your two conceptual penis episodes. I thought those were excellent and I've been recommending them to everyone who's been sort of interested in that whole situation. I wanted to ask you about, so I'm from Portland and you probably have heard the story that's been going on about the stabbings on the commuter trains. Three people were stabbed by a white supremacist who was yelling at two women that he thought were Muslims. Two of them end up dying. But there's also been other things that have been going on. For example, our mayor, Tom Wheeler, there was a protest rally thing that was going to happen on the 4th. He wanted to cancel it because of obvious public safety concerns. And he had to – since it's on – it's kind of weird to serve on federal land, so he wanted to get a request from those people in charge to get it canceled, the rally on June 4th, that ended up being denied.

0:39:54 Voicemail: And so we ended up having this weird Trump pro-free speech rally on the 4th that was eventually – that happened, and then there was a counter-protest to that with a few thousand people. And I sort of wanted to get your opinion on that situation, especially because I know that – I generally roll my eyes when it comes to free speech issues, but you seem to be a much more – somebody who's very interested in that. And I want to get your opinion on that. Also, maybe because of the fact that this is sort of – it seems very strange to me that somebody – these pro-Trump people are suddenly taking up this weird free speech mantle. So I wanted to see if you had any opinions on not only the situation in Portland, but also if you see any weird connections between Trump supporters and, you know, the free speech movement. Anyway, keep the good work. Thanks. Bye.

0:40:44 Thomas: Hey, it's Chris. Thanks for using your name. First caller to use a name today. So yeah, interesting issues there. I'm not totally immersed in the local free speech politics going on there, but I'll kind of answer some of the general questions you posed. So yeah. By the way, I don't know if you guys all saw this, but Milo protested Linda Sarsour's commencement speech. So some of these people who were previously free speech warriors don't even pretend to be consistent. Now, a lot of people did. Godless Spellchecker did. I think Rubin did. So some people are trying to be persistent, but not everybody is in the free speech thing. And actually, I brought up a study. I'm blanking on what episode it was, but I broughtup the research on who actually uses the free free speech argument.

0:41:31 Thomas: And ultimately, now again, don't mistake what I'm saying. I'm not saying anyone who claims to value free speech is racist. That's not the claim being made. However, it tends to be that racists do use the free speech defense. And they do so that the experiment that was done, I think I outlined it, but just briefly, they asked people whether or not it was okay that people were saying things. And when it was racist talk, some percentage of people were like, yeah, yeah, that's okay because of free speech. And then those same people, when it was speech that was bashing a leader of some kind, like the police or maybe the president, then all of a sudden it wasn't okay for them. And free speech didn't seem to matter anymore. And it's something that actually statistically happens. I think it's a consequence, if I'm just going to opine on it, it's consequence of having opinions that are not accepted in society, that these people kind of to turn to free speech to defend them because they don't want to defend the opinions themselves.

0:42:27 Thomas: They don't wanna say, well, yeah, it's just true that some races are inferior. They don't want to say that. They have to find another way to still defend the speech to be around. So I think that's what happened with a lot of Milo. I've said that before. I think he is a dog whistler. He's someone who just says a whole bunch of stuff. A lot of it's really offensive. And then everyone who defends him, they don't ever defend individual things he says. They defend, oh, he has the right to say it. And it's free speech and all that. And if you push him on one individual thing, they'll say, well, I disagree with that. But really, he has the right to talk. Until, by the way, he goes too far and he talks about child molestation and he talked about stuff that they don't like. And then all of a sudden, free speech did not matter. Once it was Milo's opinion on his own abuse, then free speech no longer mattered.

0:43:17 Thomas: So I think that's borne out in the data there. And it's really interesting. But I do want to say, if you are a free speech fundamentalist who truly does defend it on both sides, that's a consistent position. That's something I would encourage you to make sure you're not falling for misinformation, because I think a lot of the stuff around Milo and Ann Coulter and Berkeley, I think that that's where it gets a little irritating when people fall for flashy headlines that don't describe what happened properly. So, but if you, you know, I have respect for people who are really fundamental about they want all speech everywhere protected on either side. And they actually know the facts of Berkeley. And, you know, Andrew Torrez over in opening arguments, I think he considers himself kind of that, you know, because he does really, really value the First Amendment. But the key is what is actually happening here.

0:44:05 Thomas: And there is such a thing called time, place and manner restrictions, and they are allowed under the First Amendment. And go over to Opening Arguments if you want to hear more about that. But that's consistent with a hardcore First Amendment position. Composition. So a little bit on that. Uh, all of these are big topics, but I like kind of being able to pick and choose and highlight cool things to talk about. So thanks for that call. Hey.

0:44:33 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas. Katie Quiznos. A few episodes back, you played a voicemail with someone who brought up cultural appropriation, and you gave a brief statement on where you stood on the matter. Up until then, I'd never realized that this was a controversial issue among liberals. I thought white people don't get to have dreads, and I'm totally fine with that. I'll see it called out for using terms like AF, or I'll see people posting about that sort of thing, claiming that it's AABE, or African American Vernacular English. I would always apologize and vow never to use the phrase again, unless it offends someone. But, I reflected on the people who were calling me out, and I realized that they were all white. Now, to be on the safe side, I'm not going to run out tomorrow and get my hair styled and dressed. But I'd really like to hear someone like Ishmael Brown come on the show and give their thoughts on it.

0:45:19 Voicemail: Ishmael is always enlightening and gives me, as a white person, a point of view that I wouldn't otherwise have. And I'd like to know, where do you draw the line? You said headdresses are unacceptable, but a hairstyle should not be exclusive to one race. I'd really, I'd really like to hear you elaborate on this and hear what a person of color has to say about this. Thanks.

0:45:37 Thomas: Katie, thanks so much for calling, good to hear from you first off. And most importantly, I will announce that yes, I had Ishmael on because of you to talk about this very question and more. We actually talked about the Bill Maher situation and some other race related issues. I love Ishmaal. That is going to be next Thursday's episode. So there you go, Katie. I took your advice. You're going to hear his opinion. Now I'll say a couple of things about your call. First off, I respect that you made that decision where you thought, okay, this is something that offends people of color, so I'll just not do it. No big deal. I really respect that attitude. I think that especially as a personal choice, I'm not ever going to criticize someone who just wants to stay safe and wants to err on the side of not offending anyone.

0:46:27 Thomas: I Think that it gets a little tricky if you want to start policing other people's behavior, which Katie, not that you were, but if somebody in your position wants to criticize others, I think it's important to have, there's got to be a bit more of an argument than I'm pretty sure this offends people. Because honestly, something like dreads, for example, it's an example we keep going to, but whatever. It's a personal style choice. It's very minor personal thing. And I think that the burden of proof needs to go on why people should not be allowed, should be hardcore societally pressured to not be able to do a personal-style thing. I think it's not impossible to prove that case by any means, But I think the burden should be on making that claim.

0:47:12 Thomas: But we'll hear what Ishmael thinks about that next week. As for a headdress, so I, again, I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding is that the headdresser part is a little different because it's kind of like a stereotypical portrayal of a Native American because they didn't all go around wearing headdresses. My understanding could be wrong, but, but my understanding is that that's kind of a ceremonial thing, like for a wedding or for...

So that goes into borderline racism when you're merely using stereotypes to evoke a certain culture. So that's why that's a little bit different than merely a hairstyle, which, you know, a hairstyle is a hairstyle. It's hard to say that a culture owns a hairstyle per se, but a headdress is something different. That's something that Native Americans made for a specific purpose. It has a specific look. It really does, in my mind, it's pretty easy to say that belongs to their culture. And I think it's Pretty Disrespectful to go around wearing it because you think it looks cool, and despite the fact that it's offensive to many Native Americans. So I think that's why that's a little different for me. The language thing is interesting.

That seems to be a little more problematic to me, this way that we would purposefully kind of enforce segregation of our language in a way. Now, when it comes to who owns the N-word, that's very clear that, you know, white people do not own that word. I don't think they should say it. But that's one word with a very specific history. When it comes to an entire vernacular, like a certain ways, I mean, that seems problematic to me.

0:48:49 Thomas: I wouldn't want to force segregation of our society in that way. I would not want to drive a wedge in communication between groups. That seems to me to be the opposite of productive. I think we should just let language evolve how it does and kind of commingle where it does and not commingle. I don't know. That's just my initial thought. I'm open to arguments either way on that. So people can let me know their thoughts. But I wouldn't really want to enforce a kind of segregation in that way. I think that would just be more divisive than anything. Always great to hear from you, Katie. Thanks again, and look forward to that episode with Ishmael coming up in a week.

0:49:32 Voicemail: Hey Thomas, this is Kathy Ross. I was wondering if you would ever consider reaching out to some economists and talking about economic issues. One of my favorites is Dean Baker. He's left of center and he has appeared on some podcasts before, so maybe you could give him a shout out. Thanks.

0:49:54 Thomas: Hey, Kathy, that sounds great. I would would love to do that. I put in the word to Haley to contact Dean Baker. I don't think we've heard back as of yet. If anyone wants to tweet at him and say, hey, come on this show, that actually helps a surprising amount. I think people kind of ignore when it's a self-promotion thing. When I go out and say come on my show, I mean, people respond. I email. I try. I do. I tried. But I found it's been interesting with Shermer and others, actually quite a few guests. It's just been somebody tweeting saying, Hey, I'd love to hear if you went on this show. So I encourage people to do that, actually. And I also would encourage guest suggestions. You can email them to Haley at SeriousPod. Todd. The spelling of Haley is maybe not the way people misspell that sometimes. So check your spelling.

0:50:40 Thomas: It's in the show notes. Yeah, absolutely. And Twitter is a way to do that. It is amazing how many guests where listeners have just tweeted at them and said, Hey, you should talk to Thomas about this. How many say, Oh, okay, sure. It works. So give that a try. I encourage that. Thank you. I also, of course, I try to contact people myself. We email people. So far, I haven't heard from Dean Baker, but definitely open to it. And thanks for the call, Kathy.

0:51:11 Voicemail: Hi Thomas, it's Chris from New Jersey. I'm calling because after the terrorist attacks in London, I've been thinking a lot about the debate we're having again over the quote-unquote true nature of Islam. I think that we, especially in the atheist community, need a better understanding of what the Quran itself actually says and doesn't say if we want to have an informed debate about this. I'd love to hear an interview on your show with a level-headed expert on the subject, but what I'd really love is the long-awaited sequel to Thomas and the Bible, Thomas and The Quran. I know that you have your hands full lately, but I'm still holding out hope that you'll take on the final chapter of this trilogy, leaving us with the same confidence in talking about the Quran as we now do with the Bible. I'm a big fan of T and the B, and I'm really looking forward to hearing what you and your listeners have to say about this idea. Thank you, and have a great day.

0:51:59 Thomas: Hey, thanks so much, Chris. Uh, so man, a lot to talk about in your question, actually more than people might think. I, I almost did an episode after the terror attack on this. It's such a big thing to bite off and chew. I get hesitant sometimes with these giant topics, uh, that I just can't quite cover it enough, or maybe I don't have the right expert or maybe they don't know how to do it right reading that I've done. So sometimes I get a little gun shy and hold back so that I can do more research. But it is a question I'm very interested in because I think that one of the most annoying things about the Trump phenomenon was how much he campaigned on radical Islamic terror, that he was going to start calling it what it was. And that was going be a huge, that was gonna be what did it.

0:52:46 Thomas: Finally, once you start saying the magical words, radical Islamic terror, then all of a sudden terrorists will cower in their boots and Muslims will all convert, deconvert or something. And the truth is, pretty soon after his administration started doing the exact thing Obama did, which is call them extremists, say it has nothing to do with Islam. They started doingthe exact thing because that's what is the smart thing to do if you are in government. I know some people are going to hate this idea, but I think that the Trump administration has really borne this out, with people like McMaster and people like Mattis saying, we're not going to call it radical Islamic terror. We're not going to try to link it to Islam because that's what ISIS wants to do.

0:53:32 Thomas: ISIS wants to make it a war between Islam and the West. And playing into that narrative, it just doesn't help. Now, it's one thing if you and I want to speak about the fact that, hey, well, you know, mainstream Islam is probably more problematic than mainstream Christianity in some reasons, and we can talk about the differences there, but as a politician, I think that so much was put into this in 2016. This was going to be the reason, if you're a single-issue voter, you actually might want to vote for Trump because he's finally going to call radical Islamic terror what it is, and it just doesn't matter in this grand scheme of things. It was certainly not a reason to vote für Trump. His ban is terrible. His Muslim policy is terrible. It's hurting far more than it helps. And it just was, so I wanted to do a whole breakdown of that and get into it.

0:54:20 Thomas: And then I got a little gun shy. So I'm just kind of telling you what some of my conclusions were. There's a reason that the Trump administration instantly bought into the exact same way of talking about it that Obama did. It wasn't that Obama is a Muslim terrorist. It Wasn't that he's too friendly to terrorism. It's that that's just the right way way to talk about it if you're in government. I think that as atheists, I think this has been really appealing to atheists to say, no, no. Islam is terrible. We need to say how terrible Islam is every day because it is terrible, and you look at the book, and by the way, you mentioned the Quran. I don't know how much the Quran matters. Now, that may seem like an outlandish statement, but hear me out. If Christians were like Jesus was in the Bible, we would be living in a whole different world.

0:55:06 Thomas: If all we could do is point to what Jesus said in the Bible, Christians would be giving their money away to the poor. I mean, it really is the opposite of what Christianity is in this country. So, if someone were to say, how do you best judge Christianity as a religion? And I said, well, look at what Jesus says, I'd be right in a certain way. I wouldn't be 100% wrong. But it would be more like, well, no, we need to kind of look at what Christians tend to believe. We need to look at What They Tend to Do because that's a better judgment of what the religion is as a whole and what it's doing in the world, how it's operating in our world. And I think the same goes for Islam. Now, I'm not making conclusions either way. Guess what? It's actually possible to go the other way.

0:55:52 Thomas: It's possible that the Quran would be better and that Muslims would would actually be worse than the Quran. I don't know. I'm not making a claim either way. I think that, but I think the place you need to look is not necessarily in what the words of the Quran say, though it's probably interesting to look into, but what Muslims actually believe, and guess what? A lot of what Muslims believe is problematic. They are not very good on gay rights. They are not good on women's rights. There's a lot of things that the Muslim, quote-unquote Muslim world as a whole are not great at, and we certainly can judge them for that. But I think that a lot of atheists have this fantasy that we now can't minimize the role of Islam in terrorism because then that's going to make it okay to be a Muslim.

0:56:38 Thomas: And that's, it's really, really, these Muslims need to just give up this terrible religion. And that's a bit strawman-y, that'Sa bit hyperbolic, but I think sometimes there are atheists who are thinking that way. And I know, I think that way when it comes to Christianity. When people talk about like, oh, no, Christianity is actually pro-gay, here's why. Sometimes I get mad about that. Like, look, Christianity isn't pro- gay. And I mean, but then I have to stop and think, well, I guess, you know, I'm never going to get rid of all Christians. Christians are never goingto deconvert. There's always going to be Christians. It would be better for them to be pro-gey. So if someone is trying to reform the religion in a pro-ga way, that's better, even though though it's less true to the foundational documents, which is weird.

0:57:25 Thomas: So it is a weird catch-22, but I also think it's unrealistic to expect that Muslims shouldn't be allowed to have their religion just like everybody else's. And what they need to do, in my opinion, what Muslims need to and what the religion needs to do is become more moderate. I think all religions need to be moderate, but Islam, it seems to me, is a more unique threat currently. But the answer isn't going to be to try to denigrate the entire religion. The answer is going to be it's going to come from within Islam. It's going to come within Muslims reforming their own religion and making it more moderate. It is going to come form globalism. It will come from being more accepting. The rhetoric that Trump was using pre-election just doesn't help that. It causes a group to shut down.

0:58:13 Thomas: If you start targeting the group, it causes them to coalesce and to feel more in common with each other than with you if you attack a group like that, and I just don't think it's going to work. For the less controversial topic, Thomas and the Bible, yeah, that podcast, I mean, it is dead, unfortunately. What happened was once I went full-time with these podcasts, I poured my life into serious inquiries only and opening arguments because patrons have been really generous and that's how I get paid.

And I pour so much time into these shows that I just don't, I don't have time to do another show. And frankly, the listenership of TNB, it just doesn't really compare to this show or to OA, and it's hard because I feel really bad not being able to give people that podcast, but at the same time, I just can't justify the work when I really would rather be putting work into research for this show, or looking up guests, or making videos for You know, like it's it's unfortunately there's just no way the incentives are lining up. I mean, if tomorrow T and the B had the same support that this show has, then I mean then I could justify it and I could say, well, it's worthwhile putting time into that. But I don't see that happening.

And I apologize to people who are missing out on that show or missing that show. I've thought about like, well maybe I could do a segment on this show that would tackle tackle a religious book, but it's just not really where I want this show to go either. So it's hard. I mean, maybe a bonus content thing.

0:59:46 Thomas: I, people, you can let me know what you think. I mean if you would be interested in that, I could do, maybe go through a holy book as a monthly bonus content. And it's, just it's it's. Hard though to, to want to, because I would want to do it well and I would, want to put a lot of time into it. And, it's time that I just don't necessarily have. So, I'm sorry about that. I hope it's not too disappointing for people. I really had a good time doing Thomas and the Bible. It was a good time. It really was fun. It's an intimate group of listeners who really enjoyed it, and I'm thankful for it. But yeah, this is where my focus is now.

1:00:27 Voicemail: Hey Thomas, John Reeves here calling from Las Vegas. Love your show. I was thinking of an analogy that you could have used gender identity. Imagine someone is in a classroom, Vietnamese, and the teacher calls them out and says Japanese guy in the back. They're offensive and that would be protected. Same could be said for Great day, love the show.

1:01:11 Thomas: Hey, John. So I do agree. However, I have to say in the spirit of fairness, the counter argument to what you're saying has always been, and I've said the same thing. So this is why I know the counterargument has been, well, sure, but that's just saying you can't say certain things. C-16 is so much worse because it makes you you say things. It's the first time that there's been compelled speech. You have to say someone's gender identity or whatever. And so that's why that argument, that analogy has not been convincing for people. But my answer to that has been and will continue to be, yeah, but you can just not say their gender. If someone says, I prefer to be Xur and you don't want to call them that, that, you actually don't have to as a teacher, as a professor.

1:01:57 Thomas: You can say, oh, okay, that person in the back, hey, you, they, you know, you can use they,you can use generic terms, you can just not use their gender, which by the way, when I asked Michael Shermer point blank, hey, how often do you use a student's gender identity in the classroom? He said, oh never. And that's true. It just doesn't come up. So for me, it's about balancing the harms and the good of a law, because no law is going to be perfect. Even the First Amendment, our favorite law, one of my favorite I laws. Love the First Amendment. It is great. It rife with problems. It has tons of problems. What about this trade-off? What about the balance here? Is it okay to say this? Wow, even. It's got all kinds of issues with it.

1:02:43 Thomas: Laws aren't that simple. There's going to be upside and downside from time to time of every law. And if you balance them, on one hand, you have protection for trans people, which is what I always do. I always emphasize this is what this law is about. And this is why Canadian lawmakers, by the way, C-16 passed. I should have announced that. It passed. So I've been, bytheway, I've gotten a few offers for like, like, you should debate this with this person or this person.

And it's like, it's passed. I don't know how much more I want to dedicate to this because the law has passed and what we're going to see is nothing. Like, there's not going to be any of those slippery slope. We're not goingto see Jordan B. Peterson sent off to the gulag. It's just not goingo happen. But anyway, the potential downside is maybe a professor will have to bite his tongue rather than screaming at a trans student or rather than offending them by saying, no, I don't recognize your ideology that leads to multiple genders and non-binary and all that. I don't recognize that. Yeah, maybe a person in a position of power, a professorship will have to bite their tongue and not say something occasionally. That's the downside, which by the way, that downside and that victim mentality has made Jordan B. Peterson $46,000 a month. But anyway, that's the down side. The upside is trans people will be protected from all kinds of horrible harassment that happens every day.

That is the upside. So, pretty easy decision. I have I've gone through it a million times. One thing I do want to say is people have pointed out that Jordan B. Peterson has this amendment and Jordan B Peterson, when it passed, he said, I can't believe they passed it without adding our amendment.

1:04:23 Thomas: And some people have appointed to the amendment that he suggested as proof that he's not actually bigoted against trans people at all. He just wants freedom of speech. The amendment would completely dismantle the protection that the law is supposed to add. His amendment said that using he or she will never be considered harassment. That was the amendment they wanted added. Using he or he as gender pronouns will not be considered a hate crime or harassment. So that takes away the protection that a trans person has because what he wants is to be able to just call someone whatever pronouns that he wants and not what they want. But that takes away the... So your boss, if you are a trans female, your boss can just call you he forever under that. That. So if that amendment were to go through with the bill, your boss, if he's a conservative asshole who doesn't recognize the fact that you identify as female, he can just call you he all day long.

1:05:18 Thomas: Hey, hey him, how are you doing? He, you're a dude. And you can just do that all day and it would not be harassment in any way. If your employer did that, or if your landlord or a professor, federal employee did that wouldn't be harassment. That takes away fundamental aspects aspects of what the law is even trying to protect. So yes, that's why they didn't include your terrible amendment. And that's not very great evidence that you're actually totally pro-trans, you know? So I just wanted to add that in. All right. That's it for the voicemail today. Thanks so much for the great call. Sorry I didn't do it for a while, but I saved some really great calls. Keep them coming, by the way, because I love these episodes. They are really a fun way way to interact with you guys. I love it. Keep them coming. Voicemail out.

1:06:09 Thomas: So that's my show for today. Thank you so much for listening. I really need to thank my new patrons, and they are Christopher Wales, Chaz Wallace, Tim Ibbotson, Martin Reiber, Laura Miller, Vladimir Alexandrov, Tim Angland, give Thomas this easy name, Jesse Rabinowitz, and Gerard Clark. Guys, thank you so much for going to patreon.com slash seriouspod and pledging. Again, you are the reason this show happens. I mean that. Please, please continue to support the work if you find it useful, if you want it to continue. You.

It is vitally important because this is my only living. This is the way it keeps going. And with that said, I also need to thank my top patrons, and they are... Monday Matt Garrett, Brian Gareford, Peter Skelton, Steve Sigmund, Adrian Borschoff, Roger Hung-Like-A-Dur-Flame-Log-Metcalf, Matthew Maxson of Odd Atheist Friends, Andrew Waddington, Zabby, John Bodley, Esquire, Ian Ryan, Matthew Vernon, Ray Loves Jenny, Robin, The Zika Baby That Lived, Marcel, Thank You Netsack Heathen, Abeson, Beth Deitch, Sarah McPike, Sammy, Clayton Hart, Chaz Wallace, read some effing Terry Pratchett. Sorry, haven't done that. Maybe I need to. Vladimir Alexandrov, new patron, Dan Griffith, Ian Rosano, Jonathan Moyet, Michael Rops, Michael Schaefer of Reason Real Estate, and Hunter Ash. Thank you guys so, so much for being my top patrons. They have gone to patreon.com slash seriouspod, and pledged $5 or more. Very, very vital to the show continuing. And I hope you've enjoyed the extra patron stuff.

1:07:46 Thomas: I've thrown some stuff here and there. I have had some conversations, little debates with people that I throw out for patrons only. So check that stuff out. Hope you enjoy. All right, that's it for this week. I ve got two great interviews next week. Is Aaron of the Embrace the Void podcast. He's been on the show a couple times. He is a philosopher. We've talked philosophy. This time, we're talking just what is postmodernism because there's a war being fought against it, and is it possible that the people fighting that war maybe don't even really know know what it is. So we talk about that. He gives us a breakdown on Monday. And then Thursday is going to be, of course, Ishmael. Really interesting interview. So I'm excited for next week. Thanks for supporting the show. I'll try to get you those episodes early for patrons. So make sure to take advantage of that. And I will see you guys next week!