 103.9 FM, WOZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, January 10th, 2021. I'm Larry Rhodes, your Douter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the phone with us. Hello Wombat. And that is so raven. Okay, don't know what that means. That's probably because I'm old. And our guests today are Boudreaux, hello well Boudreaux, Dread Pirate Higgs, Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faith, it's holy books and superstitions. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in Knoxville, well, you're just not. There are several atheist, free thinking, rationalist groups that exist right here in Knoxville. And we'll be telling you how you can connect with them right after the mid-show breaks. Also, did you know that there was a streaming atheist call in video show broadcasting right here in Knoxville? Did you know that Wombat? I did, and I can't wait because Zach Morris hasn't aged a day and I think Mario Lopez still looks great. So I'm really looking forward to seeing the cast of Saved by the Bell really get back together again. This is going to be a really amazing review. Keep flipping those channels. You'll find it eventually. Actually, if you go to YouTube, that's where you'll find it. But we'll give you more details about that after the mid-show break. And if you'd like to interact with us during the show, it's 11 o'clock on Sunday morning, go to Facebook and search for Digital Freethought Radio Hour and use the messaging function to send us questions or comments. Wombat, what do you have for us today? I wanted to talk about gas lighting today, which is sort of like the term of the year that I learned last year, but it's basically telling the same line. I don't know what relevance that would have this week. It's telling a lie over and over again until people believe it or deceiving people with a repeated falsehood. And I think it plays a lot into what's going on today, especially the last week, especially the last four years. You name it. But before we get into it, how about we throw it up to our own Dreadpower Higgs for our weekly invocation. Bar. So, quab be me, captain, I shall not want. He maketh me to float in salt water. He stireth me through glassy seas. He filleth my bowl. He stireth me through the straits of noodliness for goodness' sake. I, though I shall sail through the heaving of tempestuous waters, I will fear not sinking, for thou art with me. Thy mast and thy rudder, they comfort me. Thou preparest a feast before me in the presence of me mates. Thou quenches my thirst with grog, my goblet runneth over. Truly, pasta and grog shall abide with me all the days of me life, and I shall dwell in the galley of our quab forever. All right. So, as a quick little warning for people who don't like it, it's getting political. I think this is still a show that you should watch because this is things that affect you as well. It's, there's a things where it's like, I don't like politics really is just the euphemism for, I don't like people that say things that I don't like. But this is something that really does affect everybody. And I think it's worthwhile if you listen to it. Larry, would you mind going over what might have happened of interest this last week? What could have happened? Just generally, just a recap of what happened in the newsman. Yeah. I don't think anything really happened. You mind covering over some things? Yeah. Accepted and tempted overthrow of the government. That's all. Instigated by the sitting president. And it's just amazing. He's had this line that the last election presidential election was a fraud. He's absolutely no evidence. We have a court system that if you have evidence for that, you can take a case to court and prove your point. Right. He has taken more than 50 cases. 62. 62 cases to court. He had no evidence to prove any kind of fraud. And in one particular instance, Rudy Giuliali, I can't say his last name, Giuliali. Rudy Giuliali, he sells chocolate, you all know this. Actually, we're not attempting to prove fraud. We're attempting to prove Ms. Malfeasdoms or something. In any way, it's a direct contradiction to what Trump's been saying all along anyway. But anyway, the biggest thing was that Trump had a rally just before the electoral college votes were counted, were to be counted in Congress. And sent the crowd of several thousand people down the street to the Capitol to invade it and take it over, in his words, to encourage our senators and discourage the others. But these people had bombs with them. They had guns with them. They had zip ties. They broke windows and doors to gain entrance. And one person was actually shot and killed trying to get into the pit where the senators and congressmen, or the senators, I guess, were assembled to vote on the electoral college. Also in that chamber with the vice president, the president of the Senate and the president per tempe, I can't remember how you pronounce it. Basically the next four levels of who would be in charge of the president is there. Three levels of succession to the presidency were in the same chamber. If they gained interest, entrance into that chamber, who knows what would have happened to our governmental structure. Essentially the next four most powerful people in the world, all in one building, and a bunch of protesters, slash rioters, slash dictators. He sends a mob down there, an armed mob to that chamber. Oh man. Boudreau, how would you add to that? Or what would be your take on this week's events? I want to get everyone's opinions before we go through it. Yeah. Well, first, a big thank you to Ty for warning me, because I was up for a walk chatting with a buddy of mine on the phone for like an hour. And I missed the whole news drop of the whole thing. I was like, what just happened? Are you guest writing me? No, no, no. You're on the phone with Chad, weren't you? It was just like just another buddy, buddy moment. I was just like, stop, stop being friends and go home. I love to just disconnect from, you know, I don't have Facebook on my phone anymore. And I mean, I use it on a browser, of course. But yeah, I was just completely disconnected from the world. My wife was actually handing out food for God's pantry, which is a bit ironic for our family. And yeah, it just, neither of us knew what was going on until Ty, you messaged us. So yeah, I had to have kind of scrambled to pick up what was going on. But yes, a little afraid. Was anyone else afraid? I was scared. I wasn't doing anything. I was scared. And I didn't realize how scared I was and so I started calling my friends and family being like, hey, you don't want to be, you know, a person of color walking down the streets right now, even in Kentucky. In Frankfurt, there was Trump protesters around your Capitol building, ready to be even more violent. Like I was looking at the news like, okay, so what's going on in Georgia? What's going on in Kansas? What's going on in Kentucky, Tennessee? Protesters at every Capitol building in those states, getting more riled up. And I'm like, okay, if this is what's going on at DC with the best when I'm in my head, the best security available, right? Secret service, everything. What the hell's going on in Tennessee? What's going on in Georgia right now? This is, this could be a nationwide thing. And I don't think the person who's in charge of this would be prone to calling a national emergency. So the best thing I can do is just call people that I care about and just say, hey, stay home if you can stay home, please. Sorry for stepping on your toes on that description, Pudro. No, no, no. The other thing I would add is, it's my understanding too that the group that attacked the Capitol, they weren't like DC locals. Like they were people from all over the country, which is actually a good sign in my mind, because it just means that they plucked the craziest of crazy from around the country, put them together, and that's what happened. So that makes me feel better that there aren't 70 million people in the country that are all, yeah. That's a great point. If they were all just literally across the street, if that was just the DC chapter of, you know, Crazos, I'd be like, dang, dang, dang, dang. Okay. Well, yeah. Let me get my Black Lives Matter t-shirt. Well, I'm not sure. But the other points that you were saying in different cities, a lot of the stuff was going on. Downtown Knoxville didn't see much activity during that time. So that's good. Though I want to say, and this is not, this is not shade on Knoxville, because Knoxville in my opinion is a bastion of just progressive, forward-thinking identity. But one of the ladies that got maced in the face who did an interview, you're nodding your head. She got maced in the face. She's like, what's going on? I was like, I got maced in the face. Why'd you get maced in the face? Because I was starting the Capitol building. It's a revolution. But how dare they do that to me? I'm like, put two and two together. If you were Black, you would have been shot. You would have been dead right here. Come on, dude. All right. So you never would have gotten into the Capitol. Yeah. So yeah, it takes everyone. George, I'd love to get your opinion on this. I know you have a lot to say. Maybe even bring in your neighbor. But what were you thinking? What was going on? Well, I'll tell you, I wasn't paying attention at the time. I was doing something else. And my buddy in Denmark got all upset. He got all upset about it and emailed me. And that's how I knew something was going on. So he emailed you paying rapt attention in Denmark. Now my buddy in Denmark happens to be a retired newspaper reporter. So, you know, we've talked about the discrepancy between what reporters see and what, how their stories wind up after the press get done with them. And it's like this thing is just too, too big to, to not survive what the editors could do to it. And the other thing is that in a way, I'm really glad that this happened because it is so outrageous. It's so over the top that it cannot be swept under the rug. It will have positive consequences. In the long haul, I think, yeah, in the long haul, I really think that it's going to be beneficial because it's like the guy got so out of control that it is impossible to dispute the fact that the man is insane. Right. Right. Absolutely. You can't ignore it. And so I think that what's going to come. How dare you. I'm sorry. For the next week, less than a week. No, it's a little bit more than a week. Well, let me add this one thing to it. Let's let's move on to somebody else that I think that's psychological analysis of this. I lost your volume. Are going to come the hell has been going on. So it's going to be good. Overall positive. Thank you for really bad action. Yes. A series of actions. Exactly. Dread, I'd love to get your feedback. You're not in the United States, but you are American. And I wanted to know, like, what was your opinion seeing something like this? If you did see it on the news. How was it conveyed in Canada? I think Canadians let out a collective sigh of just sort of. Oh my goodness. Again. 1965 and now now. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, it was just a head shaking moment to see it all taking place. And, you know, I think I think there were some people that kind of, you know, had a sense that this actually might be something that would happen. Yeah. I don't know if that's the case, but I wasn't surprised. I could put it that way. Good. That's a good phrase to put it because a lot of people here, particularly people of color, were not surprised in the US either. Though I want to say this, here's my take. Here's my take. You know, I wanted to do a whole sarcastic thing on like, well, they were all patriots and all this stuff, but like, I don't have the stomach for it because really what I saw was like some of the most offensive things to every veteran that died, every veteran that got injured, you know, every civil rights movement towards trying to get us to vote, you know, like every, every step forward and every, you know, every effort made towards equality and the betterment of this nation and like progression towards what was originally just, you know, I want to say like a boat full of people looking for a better life and all the craziness in between that's happened all the way up to now. Like that's just such a spitting on this nation's history. And something I hear a lot is like, that's not us. That's not America. Like when you look at, you know, all these people invading into the Capitol building and they're carrying the Confederate flag and they're screaming things that are absolutely obscene, you know, due to the nature of just like whatever bubble, news bubble they're in or, you know, socioeconomic position they're in at the time, racially charged things that they're saying, it reminded me that a lot of people have this overinflated impression, this idealized, romanticized version of what America is because that is America. That is a facet of who we are as a country. We have those people. We've had had those people and for a long period of time those people were in charge. And the reason why they're upset now is because the power dynamic is slowly ebbing towards more egalitarian state where people who are women and people who have darker skin color than khaki are having more political sway in what they need to say. Look at Georgia. Like that is the demonstration of, you know, women, black people all real coming together and saying like, none of this guy, please have better representation. And we elected our first black senator and that should have been the good news for that day. But for that to go from, hey, new black senator, youngest, like a young guy, like all the people in the senator are really old to be honest with you. Like we finally have like a young senator, a millennial senator, a senator younger than me. That's the first time in my life that's ever happened. And have this capital rush be the real story of the day, it's kind of mind boggling. And so my takeaway is like one, I'm glad people get to see it for what it is. I'm reminded of Childish Gambino's This Is America music video. I don't know if you've ever seen it. Probably not very popular among this cast. But Eric, I know you got me on this one. Oh yeah. It's just a guy saying, this is America. And it's just crazy chaotic explosions and stuff going in the back. And you're listening to this music and you're like, what does this even mean? A lot of people are like, what does this even mean? But every black guy watching it was like, I know exactly what he's trying to say. I get what he's trying to say. And like if you play, if you play this America video and just watch muted video of just the capital rush, it's like I can't tell these two music videos apart. They're like one has a dancing black guy and the other one doesn't. And he's just like, that's the only way I can tell these two apart now. But I wanted to just say like, I think I'm with George because I think this is going to have good consequences. And I think that's something that we really need to do now more than what was, in my opinion, a very slow burn. Complicit, complicity towards what I found to be just the most offensive amount of anti-American sentiment, anti-American gatherings, anti-American just an appreciation for different people who helped to build this country. And just like scary rhetoric that everyone was just saying, well, he's our president. We have to deal with it. It's like, ooh, no, we have to say we can probably stop this. And I'm glad it happened now during a transition period where it's like, OK, what's going to be Trump's legacy? Like what's his final note? What's the thing that people are going to remember? And I think what we're going to remember is that he really did make America great again because he left with the Democrats in charge of the house, the Senate. He lost the presidency. He got banned off Twitter. So true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got our first black senators. Like we won Georgia. Like the list goes on. It's just like, wow, you really did a good job. Nobody, nobody. Well, don't forget, though, that he left us a lopsided Supreme Court. And the court system. One thing I want to mention. Nobody mentioned, I mean, nobody motivated the Democratic voters like, like Trump. Right. I mean, nobody has got those, those kind of voting numbers out. Exactly. And no one moved as many moderate Republicans towards him as, as well. Right. Georgia is still very much is not a, you know, liberal haven yet. Right. It was enough to move the needle. And that's like, wow, OK, great. I want to mention that something I found interesting. I'm going off to the side here a little bit. Sure. But what we had in the case of Trump was a reaction against Obama. Yes. It was the backlash. And the same thing happened in New York City. You know, we had a black mayor, David Dinkins, who will be forgetting about a lot because the guy who replaced him, Giuliani, like Trump is a real blowhard. So it was, I mean, New York, you may think of as a progressive place. Well, yes and no. Yes. It isn't, it isn't. And what happened there, the police did a number on Dinkins. What happened was that they went around in the middle of the night enforcing a blue law. The blue law was that you're not allowed to park a carriage on the street overnight. And they put tickets on every car that was on the street at night to embarrass Dinkins. And I'm just wondering if we've had something like that, that happened to Obama. But in any event, in both cases, there was this backlash against the black administrator. And I think we're done with it now. Yeah. And once you go black, you go black and half Indian. It's great. I love it. Let's keep it going. Larry, what do you got for us? We're at the bottom of the half hour. Yeah, we should break now. That's way too fast. This is the digital free thought radio hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. 103.9 FM. WOZO Radio Knoxville. Hello, and welcome back to the digital free thought radio hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. I'm Dr. Five. And today is Sunday, January 10th, 2021. Let's talk about the atheist and pre-thought groups that you can join right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. First, there's the ASK, Atheist Society of Knoxville. Founded in 2002, we're in our 18th year, 19th, now I guess, 2021. ASK has over a thousand members, and we have a weekly Zoom meeting during COVID. And you can find us online at Facebook or at KnoxvilleAtheist.org. You can go directly to meet up or Google and just search for Knoxville Atheist and you'll find us. It's just that simple. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and do a search for an atheist group in your area. Don't find one. Stop, stop. Right. Another large pre-thinking group here in Knoxville are the Rationalists of East Tennessee, R-E-T. You can find them on Facebook or by going to Rationalists.org. Earlier in the show we said we talked about Knoxville Atheist video show. It was on TV for 10 years as the pre-thought forum Knoxville and you can go to YouTube and find those archives. Now it's currently broadcasting under YouTube as Free Thinkers United Coalition of Knoxville. So go to YouTube, either case, and search for the words you'll find. Also, if you're interested in getting involved with the TV or the radio show, just come to an ask meet up virtually, of course, or R-E-T website and talk to us about it. You can be our next co-host or guest. Where do you want to pick up Walmart with gas lighting, I assume? Well, I thought we were talking about movies and how we all wish they can come back and that a good way to recreate the movie experience and do the gas lighting on this show. No, no, no. The way we'll create movies is by getting a bunch of popcorn and the best thing that you have of popcorn is salt and pepper. What a fan, what a fan, what a fan, what a mighty good fan. What a mighty mighty good fan. Guys, we had to take a comment yesterday. Listener feedback. We did have listener feedback, right? I do want to get right into the main topic of the show, though. So I will say one of the nicest, I'll give the nicest comment that we got on last week's video, which was, if 2021 doesn't change, I will. And this is the nicest comment. It was by Arthur Franco. He says, I love this episode. You guys have one of the best podcasts out there. Eagerly await some more Essie videos from you when it is safe to do so. And I said, thank you, Arthur. I wanted to get back out too when it's safe. And I'm looking forward to talking to people about what they believe and how they believe it and how they can do those conclusions. We want to talk about gaslighting today. We gave some time for ourselves to vent about the terrace attack, the insurrection event that happened early last week. I want to talk about gaslighting, which is essentially telling a lie over and over and over again, such that people tend to believe it. It's human nature to tend to grow accustomed to things or be desensitized to eat in falsehoods. If you tell someone a lie... Absolutely. And if you tell someone a lie enough times and they don't have a good basis in critical thinking, they'll tend to believe it. And I think we saw that just as recently as early this week, Tuesday, when we had on the 6th, the Electoral College came together and Trump's there in front of the Capitol Building or just down the road saying, hey, here are all these things that I'm upset about. All these things that were not proven true in a court of law, but you know they're true because I love you guys and we're going to fight and we're going to make sure those senators, you know, do what we want them to do. You got to show strength. I'll be there with you. Go there now. Go to the Capitol Building. Walk down there and show them what's up. Bye. And he jitted out. That's the worst Trump comparison of 2021, by the way. Larry, what do you got? Well, I was just going to say that one of the lies that he told during that was that he was sending him down there because Pence didn't do what he wanted him to do. You know, Pence was supposed to stop the Electoral College count by some means. But he did not have the power. He did not have the constitutional authority to do so. But Trump said he did. Right, that's part of the gaslighting. But also to continue the gaslighting, I just happened to turn over to Fox News to check on what they were saying about this breach of the Capitol. And they said it was going on because Pence didn't do what Trump asked him to do. I mean, while it was going on, it was just more gaslighting from Fox News. Yeah. George, do you want to weigh on this? I was just saying that Trump took the great position of let's you and him fight. It's a Godzilla reference, guys. I love it. It may take a moment. No, no, no, I got you. He also said in Israeli that he would march down there with them. Fox did it. And he didn't. Yeah. Fox is a very interesting case because Rupert Murdoch, the guy who owns Fox, has been known to throw his weight behind liberals from time to time. What he'll do is he'll put the force of his media empire behind the side that he thinks will do the most good for him. Right. Who makes him the most good? And so it can shift. You notice that well, it's who will give him and his media empire a position of advantage in the future. So you'll notice that when it started to look like the Democrats were going to win the presidency, he flipped the pence. Fox stopped supporting Trump at that moment. Yeah. I want to say this. Not completely. Boudreau, I'd love to get your opinion on this as well. There are genuinely good people who don't have access to objective information just due to the culture that they're in. Like they go to the gym, all the TVs are on Fox news. They go home, their parents control the TV. They go to work. Maybe it's their pastor and they're having a conversation and it's very politically motivated and leaning towards one way. The football team has to pray before school goes on. The newspaper slanted and there's no access to like, you know, like what else is outside of this particular mode of thinking? And I think like that is the kind of condition that indoctrinates someone to be more motivated believing things that Trump might be saying, even if they're demonstrably not true. Do you think that scenario is actual and what could someone if that's inside that scenario do to get out of it? Yes, I absolutely think that's and especially Tennessee, Kentucky, I see it a lot. I've actually been tempted to try to figure out how to get the gym TV to a lot. But yeah, it's, you know, it's brainwashing in a lot of ways and brainwashing of my dad is a documentary that came out a few years ago that's just fantastic and it for someone my age, it tracks really well with, you know, my dad was driving on a car listening to talk radio because he drove a lot and people that were popular on talk radio had to have something to talk about and keep people engaged and that kind of created the, I forget the predecessor to Rush Limbaugh, but those were the ones that they came up with the language to incite people to keep listening. So yeah, it's a steady inundation of alternate facts, I guess, yeah. George, go ahead. I think that people have a tendency to want to be addicted to the feeling of outrage. So this is a psychological thing. And that's what you're talking about, Boudreau, it's and it does predate Rush Limbaugh, you know, the radio people know this, the pastors know this, you know, that if they talk about use-outraging language, that people will resonate fast. I think we're more mindful of an angry voice than the one that's happy. So it's like, for example, if you are a surveyor, if you're in Disneyland and you're doing all the surveys for Disneyland and someone says, hey, 10 out of 10, I had a great time. 10 out of 10, I had a great time. And it's just 10 out of 10s for like, you know, the first 30 surveys that you get, and you get one that's like a 2 out of 10. And it was like, April didn't say good morning to me when I stepped on the tea cup ride. And I'm like, ooh, we got to focus on this 2 out of 10 guys, we got to make our company bigger. You, in proportion to everything else, the outrage or like the angry voices or the wrongs stand out to us just at a human nature more so than all the 10 out of 10s. I think, you know, coming from years ago, the idea was that good news does not sell newspapers, screaming headlines do. If it bleeds, it leads. If it bleeds, it leads. Oh, terrible, terrible, terrible. It's unfortunate, but yeah, that's what sticks in your memory. Yeah, you look at the genres of advertising. Now, about our on our topic. Yeah, on our topic of gaslighting and repetition. I remember here 50 years ago, I was in radio and a time sales person who was a friend of mine said to me that an advertisement on the air is not effective unless it is repeated twice. So you got to have the message of subtraction for whatever that's worth 50 years ago. That's no, it's a sales pitch. It's persuasive speech. You have to make it. You have to make someone desensitize to it through repetition, and that's how it gets through because we might have our guard up the first time, but the second time you hear it, the third time you hear it and maybe from someone else, then it becomes more of like ingrained into, you know, like you're more sensitive to it if it's an uncommon and there's not much difference. There's not a difference in parallels between what Trump was doing for the last four years with the guard to or the last, you know, maybe six months, four months since the election was decided to what a pastor might be doing in a church setting, you know, like you're in your and it's like, hey, Jesus walked on water, he died for your sins, your sinner, and you need to pray and give your soul to Jesus, you need to confess. You get told that enough times, particularly when you don't have the wherewithal to parse truth from facts as a child and when your parents are telling you the same thing to and all the other administrators in your life, your teachers, your principals, the firemen, the police chief, all saying the same things to and all the way to the president all the way to the president's wearing the same memorabilia. Oh, there's no hope for some things like that. Like that is a hard hole to climb out of dread. It's not like you want to say something and go on ahead. You know, I just, I totally agree with you. I mean, I was raised Roman Catholic and that rhetoric is powerful. It's when it's repeated through catechism and every time we go to church the mythology becomes a part of you and it's absolutely one of the most difficult things to overcome in a person's life. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons that atheists should be have a good sense of pride about being able to recognize it for what it was and be able to leave it behind. Or in George's case, having parents that have enough integrity to not indoctrinate their child when they're born just being like, hey, let's let's let this kid think for himself because I bet you once he has a ground level of critical thinking, he'll hear someone say, there's a guy that walked in water and be like what? Forget about it. No one co-op. What are you talking about? I like gefilte fish. That's the only thing I like. I have to say too that some gefilte fish is not that palatable. You know, you got to do it right. No, I can't over stress the importance of picking all right parents. Yeah. That's true. Larry, I think this might, my parents were horrible in other ways, but not this one. Yeah, Larry for your case when 9-11 happened, it was a call to action for you to be outspoken as a critical thinker and as an atheist and let people know like where you stood, like on this religious question. And I wonder if the events that happened this week or last week will be a call to action for people to be like critical thinking does matter. Acts are worth fighting for. And when I'm being told a lie, I'm not going to let that happen anymore. I'm not just going to be quiet and resolve. I'm going to set the culture where this is not acceptable. I'm sure it will, but it's harder I think in that particular position when it's political because you can interpret reality in different ways. Like the people who broke into the Capitol thought that they were doing an act similar to Lexington and Concord. They were taking their country back. They were acting as patriots to return honesty to government. Because they've been gaslighted for so long that the elections were fraudulent. They thought they had lost their representation in government. But that simply wasn't the case. They were outvoted. But in the case of religion, you're looking at supernatural and invisible beings and miracles and things that cannot be proven at all to even exist. So it's much harder to question your interpretation from a political standpoint. I think they should and could. I definitely think there are rioters who had that impression but I also feel like there are rioters who are like Trump wants me to do this and I support Trump more than whatever America supports. Because America doesn't support what they did. Trump supported what they did. Trump's their guy. Trump's the person on their flag. And when I hear like these guys are just patriots that are trying to take back their country or try to get better representation because they feel like their country wasn't really representing them, that's what and I look at their pictures and they're carrying the Confederate flag through the Capitol buildings. I'm like these guys don't really care about America. These guys care about their own intentions, their own privilege and they don't want to lose any ounce of power that they've had. And I think that's what's important to me. I think that's what's important to me and fairly disproportionately and when I look back to the summer and I see protests that were peaceful with regard to, hey the government's not really representing us. The government is doing things that are actually hurting us and we like to be better represented. That was a Black Lives Matter protest that are going on holding a Bible upside down for crying out loud. These people who are protesting were pepper sprayed shot with rubber bullets, arrested tasered zipped wrapped behind their back had cracks. There were people who died like there's people who died all across the nation who are just trying to support the fact that their lives matter just as much as everyone else's and those are people who are fighting for what I believe are American rights. These are people who are like, America represents everybody. This is not a good representation that we're in right now. There's a disproportionate amount of policing based on color of skin. This isn't fair. This is not what we're about. What I see from the Capitol rioters, those terrorists is like I don't care if the government says the other guy voted. I want my guy to be in charge even if it means I have to go in here and change that. That is definitively anti-American. But they're still interpreting it as a revolution to get back to that point of their power. It's more of a temper tantrum. It's like, hey, that's going to give you cavities. I want it anyway. I'm having a revolution. You're having a temper tantrum. Calm down, Timmy. Butcher, do you think that's fair? You're free to say devil's attitude or whatever. No, I think it is fair. But the one thing that we have to admit and put some light on is the fact that at least according to my Facebook news feed there are people on the right that completely saw that differently. They thought the Black Lives Matter protests were violent and just as bad as the terrorist attack. I'm like, why do we have two different news sources? How did you get because I even talked to people in cities that it was going on. It's like, wow, it looks crazy and dangerous. No, that's not actually really happening. So it's gaslighting, right? It's fake news or whatever you want to call it. How is it that I can watch a news feed and get the same impression that you got, Ty? But some of my friends on the right can watch a news feed and get a totally different perspective. And it's like I almost can't even fault them because if that's what you think is true, then maybe you're right. But I don't... Where's the truth? Where's the truth? Because people disagree doesn't mean that the truth doesn't exist. It could mean that one of the two groups is wrong or both are wrong. And it's the same thing with science just because there's disagreement in science doesn't mean there's no such thing as science or no such thing as an objective truth. I do would like to say that I think context matters I think it's all part of the same thing and like if I said hey, you know if you came into my house with an axe, drag me out unconscious and put me in the back of your truck, like we would say that's a bad thing unless contextually if you're a fireman and you're trying to save me because my house is burning down the context of situations matter and oftentimes violence is used or not violence but like unrest is used by the voices and people who have no voice because it's the only way like we had said to get attention from people who would give us no attention whatsoever and so when I look at the context of unrest that happened in like certain sex of Black Lives Matter it's like that's unfortunate but what's the context of the situation that's causing this and what spurred this kind of response and there's a lot of there's a list of names that led to something that led to these kinds of unrest but when I look at the unrest that happened in the capital that is not so much reacting to oppression or a suppression of a vote or mistreatment of based on color skin that's acting on orders given by a chief the leader in chief of this country but what's we telling them the mad man this is something you need to do because this is how I feel about XYZ and you should know about that too go over there and do this cause some havoc and they're like we like you more yeah we'll do it you're our guy we'll do it and these are all the crazies from all around the nation gathering in one place listening to this one guy and he had one opportunity to tell them not to behave decided not to and it was gone George I'll go to you in just one second I just wanted to say one last thing if we if we need to go long I won't cut this conversation short we can make edits in the future I'm sure there's a lot of things that people want to say so sorry if we go a little bit long today but George go ahead I want to follow up on what Boudreau said because I think it's very very important it is maybe the crux of the whole thing that to follow up on that what is to be done you know how are we going to build on the very fragile gains that we just have achieved and they are fragile yep we have come very close to becoming a fascist dictatorship absolutely and that fascist dictatorship still has a tremendous amount of power they have achieved a lot of traction courts yep well I'm thinking about that war elected had enough integrity to be like no we're not going to listen to this this is not fair indeed it had been completely I mean we we have republican leaders who have finally broken with their chief and you know I'm very grateful for that so I really feel that that the psychology is a science you know it's a discipline engineering is a discipline and I just use engineering as an example of things that we don't often think of as disciplines but I think that there needs to be a re trusting of science of scientific process of scientific reasoning as as Boudreaux hinted at people are listening different people are listening to their own echo chambers yes what are we going to do so Dredd can we reach for instance let me finish just one thought can we for instance enlist their pastors is that possible I don't know seeking the help of one group of deluded people to counter another group of I don't know that seems counterproductive man that's my thought baby steps I'm in both of your counts because I don't want a nation of clergymen running the government it would be an improvement compared to what we got right now even when it was Reverend Warnock as the senator I really wish he wasn't a clergy guy even a lot of really popular black artists I don't feel comfortable having a clergyman be in office but it is better than we have now and I think this guy has the wherewithal to say I'm a servant to the people first and I'm like okay okay fine fine fine fine but yeah in my head it would be nice to have a secular government yeah good point George good point too here's the last question I want to add to this that I have met an amazing number of Catholic clergy people who have questions in their mind maybe it's not as hopeless as we think maybe it's not, I think we have a lot of hope to come I think yesterday maybe even this morning I woke up to the news that Trump was banned on Twitter permanently because you know you cause an arms insurrection on the Capitol and you get 12 hour ban on Twitter it's like come on get out of here anyway Twitter banned Trump permanently and then I think what Trump did was he tried to go on an alternative account that he had for campaigning and then that got banned and then he was like well I'm still going to send out a message so we went to the POTUS account to say the same thing and then the POTUS was suspended so like you can see where his priorities are where like Biden's like I gotta set my cabinet I gotta figure out where COVID needs to be stopped I gotta make sure Justice Department knows what to do and Trump's like how do I tweet well it's all about him it always has been what is the nature of free speech because you're going to hear this a lot you're going to hear Twitter, Google, Facebook they're part of the communist rule and the tech giants are silencing the right for people particularly anyone that has a conservative point of view you're going to hear that a lot I'm already hearing it now like I literally just heard that this morning like Blurry and I looking at my phone and I'm already braced for the onslaught of Google, Facebook, tech giant communism Larry, I'd like to hear from you like you think there's validity in the argument that blocking Trump from Twitter is an assailment of his free speech well no it's no more an assailment on his free speech that it would be on somebody who's yelling fire in a crowded theater yeah we have laws against inciting a crowd and we have laws against insurrection speech there's it's not exempt speech and he tried to exempt himself and it just doesn't work that way he's not above the law as much as he might think he is what about Google and maybe some others banning Parler the alt-right social media using it for organizational purposes you might want to explain what Parler is just for the audience real quick I haven't dared looking at it yet but my understanding is it's kind of an alt-right social media where they don't have any bans or fax checks or anything like that it's like 4chan but for communication and gathering they took him off the stores and I think it's responsible for them to do so Google is like hey if we're willing to go this far let's make sure that we're being consistent and I think it sends a good message that if you're using any app to cause harm particularly for the new administration that we'll have in place for some of that affects every American citizen you can make the point of we are a private company and no one has a right a constitutional right to the platform if they want to go to their balconies at the top of their lungs they can do that that's their property and there are many available but you can't use our app with our software, our servers, our hard work to promote your hate the problem with that is that there are like Parler they set up specifically to handle far-right inflammatory speech I'm usually saying inflammatory or not it's not inflammatory to them but I mean you have Facebook who's trying to be middle of the ground try to support good moral standards I guess you could say as societal standards but then because of the Constitution you can have a company who wants to set up and just flame the entire world who knows but that's the problem with the Constitution we have some laws in place about the type of speech that you're allowed to put out right thank goodness so maybe let's hit it close to home here this is my understanding I never looked into this fully but several years ago I heard Zuckerberg who used to be atheist maybe found God or something happened where he wasn't so much there was a point where they were banning atheist groups on Facebook really this is called flimsy memory and I'm not entirely sure no but it's worth okay so yes we should cut out these toxic things it's like well what if it starts happening to our team it's a slippery slope I think when we start talking about banning I'm glad they did it Sam Harris has been yelling at Jack to do this a long time ago with Trump but it is I think we need to proceed very carefully at least my thought so I would also say this I have the same impression of Facebook when they were starting to ban a bunch of atheist groups along with Reddit Facebook lends its banning privileges to people and oftentimes those people if you were to roll a dice in America will be a Christian person and those people with an ounce of power will use every ounce they have I say it's like you get someone a hammer they think the whole world's a nail and so even when you're on Reddit you're posting in a philosophy group about like hey this is a critical thinking path towards walking away from like hardcore dogmas such as like these religious thinking principles and you can be like more of a mind and stuff like that I've had a member of my post blocked and taken off of even Reddit and then other days if I post like at 2 o'clock in the morning when those Christians are asleep and the European mods are awake it goes through and I get like 7000 likes and I'm like huh isn't that a really unfortunate thing that it's always just down to a subjective nature Larry go for it it's just gonna say 5 minutes be careful we have 10 minutes but yeah you're right we are gonna wrap up go ahead George yeah go ahead George I want to follow up on something that Larry brought up a couple of minutes ago I can't remember what it was oh no it's okay maybe this one oh yeah yeah I remember you can't cry fire in a crowded theater you can't incite violence I think this part is this is the cutoff point and Zuckerberg I believe fell for Trump's Kool-Aid he drank Trump's Kool-Aid he was enamored of something he was a little bit too reticent to take any position to impose the fascist dictator there was some honey that Trump put out that Zuckerberg fell for it took an event of I think he falls for the same thing that everyone that doesn't speak up for Black Lives Matter or anti-authoritarian rule fall into where it's if I am quiet it'll go away or if I'm complicit anti-fighting against this threat and it's not so much being complicit to racism which will get rid of racism it's being anti-racist that will get rid of racism it's being anti-authoritarian anti-fascist that gets you to not have fascist rule this country and you have to be vocal and you have to set the tone if you're a politician it's your duty to make sure that the American principles of democracy stand but if you're not in politics if you're just like me like a pedestrian on the street it's your duty to set the tone of what's acceptable in this country and what's not acceptable in this country and you do that through conversations by asking people questions, by making your voice heard and when issues stand up like this like when the president literally incites violence against his own party against the next heads of states four orders down that's something that's worth talking about and saying hey this is not good the people who represent me in political office need to make sure that they agree with me on this thing and the ones who would still support the president even after today even after they were huddled away by secret service and then brought back to the joint session and still gave their written speech they had beforehand where they were like and this vote was a fraud and there's a lot of irregularities to look into those are the people you need whose names we got to remember and make sure we never put back to the office again and I'm hoping that they will be held accountable because it's our duty to hold accountable and that's something that we have to do it's not being quiet and letting it hope go away because we're all billionaires it's fighting against it that's the way how we get rid of problems and I think that we have to start changing the language and start referring to ourselves as what? we're the patriots we're the patriotic people yeah can you hear me now? I said we're the patriots I want to say one last topic free speech is not free and it doesn't mean that you get to say whatever you want to say however you want to say it without pushback it doesn't mean you're going to speak without consequences but it also doesn't mean you can say whatever you want whenever you want to say it there's a place of guidelines of you can't incite harm against people you can't incite panic lying court we have rules free speech doesn't just mean I can't say something violence is like no you look it up what it means Dread Pirate what do you have to say? it's like the saying your right to swing your fist is when it comes ends where it hits my face my nose begins alright so I really enjoy talking to you guys thank you for this it's weird because of COVID it's weird to have conversations with people where you can just speak freely because I'm in Tennessee right now and we live in like a pressure boiler but I feel spoiled I literally said spoiled when I since subscribed to Biden's presidential channel and he's going through the members of cabinet that he's bringing in and he's making it a point to say things that I've been thinking about the nature of how police interacted with the protesters letting them in taking selfies with them but yet chasing black officers up the Capitol floors just one floor higher and the nature of the terminology uses against them like they're not just protesters they're insurrectionists it's important to use those words absolutely and I am so looking forward to two weeks from now hoping everyone's good and I also like the fact that George you brought this up I think there's going to be positive consequences I think Secret Service is going to be hyper aware of the fact that this can happen in this country and we will not let something this embarrassing happen to us again where you just let 100,000 people walk into the Capitol building and urinate on the floors and like steal letters like we can't let that happen computers they stole computers too and I think it's also a good demonstration of the fact that there is a double standard in this country and anyone who says there isn't we can now have clear example that it's not the case and that this is something that as Americans, everyone we all need a little work on together and so thank you crazy people from around the country who went to show us how crazy we are because it's no longer if you now officially made it white people's problem too that's right thank you very much for that we appreciate it yeah yeah yeah so let's hope so and thank you Trump for making American great again we appreciate that Boudreau is there anything you'd like to plug we have your music video in this mid-half of the show by the way I got an original coming soon and how about I tie together what you just said with Star Wars reference in the prequels they made a really big deal about how young Anakin Skywalker spoiler alert becomes star fader was going to bring balance to the force and everyone's like yes this is a good thing and as it turned out it did balance the force by wiping out a bunch of Jedi maybe the same things true with make America great again yes make America great again everyone thinks it's a bad thing for democracy and all that but maybe you're right maybe it's we needed this bad to happen so that we go good again just to get the pendulum to swing the other way right right yeah yeah yeah someone so confident that through all of it you just Mr. Bean himself and made everything great with zero intentions whatsoever Dredd how can we find your stuff on YouTube yeah so I stream Sunday mornings at 8 a.m. psd the specific standard time and my channel is mind pirate m-i-n-d-p-y-r-a-t-e look forward to seeing you and I'm let's chat George I know you don't have anything because if I were asking you'd be like I don't know I do give us something real quick do something yes okay real quick America is great already and the greatness of America is in the diversity of our people absolutely we have a lot to pull from here Larry I had a quick question I don't know what atheism is and I want to know what it's all about what can I do well you know I happen to have a book on that it's called atheism what's it all about it's available on Amazon what's it all about my content my other content is on digital free thought com go there to find a blog radio show archives our atheists songs and many articles on the subject if you're if you have any questions about the show you can send them to askanatheist at noxvilleatheists.org and we'll answer them if you have that's my book thanks to you and if you're having trouble with screw velocity that is leaving religious beliefs behind I recommend going to recovery from religion.org they'll help you any way they can if you're watching this on YouTube be sure to like and subscribe and this has been a digital free thought radio hour we're on every week locally on the radio at 7 o'clock pm on Wednesdays remember everybody is going to somebody else's hell the time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real until then don't sweat it enjoy your life and we'll see you next week at 7 o'clock on Wednesdays this is digital free thought radio hour say bye everybody bye everybody bye everybody and you are going to somebody else's hell that's right