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Dec. 7, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:49:57

3525 When Santa Claus Meets God - Call In Show - November 30th, 2016

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	All right, up first we have Daniel.
	Daniel wrote in and said, A Gallup poll found that millions of people from the Third World would like to move to the United States if given the opportunity.
	Given that, is anarchy globalistic or nationalistic in nature?
	That's from Daniel.
	Hey Daniel, how are you doing tonight?
	I'm doing well.
	How are you?
	I'm well, thank you.
	I'm well.
	So...
	Anarchy is neither globalistic nor nationalistic.
	Anarchy is philosophical.
	Anarchy is the recognition that the moral laws, what I call universally preferable behavior, the non-initiation of force and keeping your promises in someone, that they are universals and therefore apply across the world, across the universe, and through time.
	So it's like saying, is science or reason globalistic or nationalistic in nature?
	So that's the theory, but I understand what you mean, and I'm not trying to wriggle out of that question, because the more important question, if I understand it, is how does a voluntary or peaceful or stateless society survive in a world where Hundreds of millions of people want to come into that free society, but who are unlikely to succeed, to put it as nicely as possible, in that free society.
	Is that what you mean?
	I suppose so, yeah.
	Don't suppose.
	Tell me if it's what you mean or not, and if it's not, we'll change.
	I just don't want to go off in a direction that you're not behind me with.
	Yeah, well, I've been reading Practical Anarchy.
	I've read Everyday Anarchy before, and it wasn't really touched on, so I was kind of curious about it.
	No, I get that.
	So, I may have just answered the question that it's a set of philosophical arguments, and therefore is neither globalistic nor nationalistic any more than science or reason or math would be.
	Yeah.
	Alright, is there anything else that you wanted to ask?
	Not really, no.
	Okay, wow.
	Good.
	Well, I'm glad that we got that sorted out.
	Thanks very much for your call.
	Let's move on to the next caller.
	Okay, thank you.
	Alright, up next we have Blanche.
	Blanche wrote in and said, I would not say we are overly religious.
	Our discussions are very superficial.
	My husband and I have our beliefs, but neither of us have wanted to force them upon her.
	I realize that just by taking her to church, that is precisely what we are doing.
	I have conflicting thoughts on this Santa situation.
	I do not know with certainty that God does not exist.
	I would like to believe that he does.
	But with Santa, we all know he doesn't really exist.
	So how can I justify one, but not the other?
	Am I a hypocrite for allowing her to believe in Jesus, but not Santa?
	I never want to tell her what to believe, but my struggle comes from knowingly lying to her.
	Is it possible to tell the story of Saint Nick with keeping him in the make-believe world?
	That's from Blanche.
	Blanche, how are you doing tonight?
	I'm good, how are you?
	I'm well.
	I'm driving all thoughts of Tennessee Williams from my head.
	Stella!
	Anyway, so it's a great question, and I really, really appreciate, obviously, the sensitivity and the integrity of calling in to chat about this.
	Is there anything that you wanted to add to your question?
	Not really.
	I just keep grappling with this in my mind.
	Right.
	I think a lot of people don't really, they kind of have like the thing of like, ah, they're children, it's not going to hurt them, you know, let them have fun.
	But I think that people just in general are too cavalier about the mindset of children, and I want to be sensitive to it and really explore the issue.
	I mean, she's three, this is the first year where she's getting really excited about it, so I'd like some guidance and feedback and so forth.
	Right.
	The first thing that struck me was that we don't ever want to be perceived as really good at lying by those who love us, right?
	Right.
	Because if you are going to go all in real Santa world, you are going to be...
	Looking your daughter, you know, directly in the eye, telling her about Santa Claus and chimneys and coal and nice and naughty lists or whatever it's going to be, that the guy in the mall reeking of bourbon is actually Santa Claus, you know what I mean?
	And so you have to look at, like, you have to sell it to your daughter.
	You have to make it real for her.
	And it's kind of chilling.
	Like, I'm really bad at that myself.
	One of the reasons why I choose to be honest, okay, there's the moral argument, and I am down with that.
	But another thing is there's the incompetence argument that I'm just really terrible at lying.
	Just terrible at it the other day.
	My daughter doesn't do sugar sort of Monday to Friday, a little bit on the weekend.
	And I sort of joined, I've joined her, and I've cut back on sugar a lot.
	But anyway, I just needed a bit of a boost, and I grabbed a little piece of chocolate, walked into the living room.
	My daughter looks up and says, What's in your mouth, Dad?
	This is a small piece of chocolate.
	How does she know?
	How does she know?
	Am I see-through?
	Am I like one of those clear frogs?
	Am I some anatomical learning specimen you see me swallow and the um goes down into my tube belly?
	Anyway, so...
	Open your mouth, let me see.
	So I'm just bad at it all around.
	So I sort of choose to do the truth in the same way that I choose to do philosophy rather than ballet.
	I'm just better at one than the other.
	So, of course, if you have, if your daughter has a memory of you very believably lying to her, because if she knows you're lying, then it's kind of weird up front, right?
	So you really have to sell it to her and you really have to commit to it.
	And that's kind of chilling for a child to know.
	The parent can tell you something that turns out to be completely false and you swallow it whole, right?
	Right.
	It's a sense of, it's the self-trust.
	I can't tell when someone's lying to me.
	And then the next things that you tell her, that will always be in the back of her mind, right?
	Is she, is this another thing like Santa?
	Because I believe her, but at the same time, right?
	Or is she going to get this idea, right, that it's okay to lie if it's entertaining, right?
	Well, I guess she'll be an actress then.
	So the trust stuff that you're working on, I think, is important.
	But here's, to me, the more important question.
	And this ties into Jesus.
	But we'll start with Santa, because it's a little easier.
	Agreed.
	What do you want your daughter to receive?
	What experience, thoughts, and feelings would you like her to experience on hearing and believing this story at the moment?
	I think what I like the most about that story is the giving part.
	You know, you are given something, not necessarily because you're good, but I like The giving aspect of Saint Nick, you know, of rewarding.
	I guess rewarding is the wrong word, but just the generosity of it.
	And I like the surprise element of Santa Claus and not knowing what you're going to receive.
	But it's, you know, it's a gift and you don't really know where it came from or who it's from.
	But I don't necessarily...
	But I struggle, and especially now, I'm struggling with...
	Because there's so much make-believe everywhere, you know, flying reindeer.
	I think I could get around the whole flying reindeer and whatever, but I still don't...
	It seems like everybody gets so upset because you're taking away all of the magic.
	But I think that you can still...
	Demonstrate the giving and the surprise and the excitement without the flying reindeer and big fat lies.
	Right.
	Do you want your daughter to believe in magic?
	I'd have to...
	Let's take religion out of the equation for the moment.
	Do you want her to believe in magic?
	No.
	Right.
	Good!
	Good!
	Good.
	I agree with you completely.
	You know, magical thinking is used by mental health professionals to denote a disorder in the mind.
	Magical thinking is a disorder, a significant, I don't know if it's pathological, but it damn well should be, but it is...
	A significantly difficult and dangerous state of mind, magical thinking.
	One reason why I appeal so much to your show is because it's facts, it's reason, it's logical arguments.
	And so to me, magic and all of that is just nonsense.
	No, it's more than nonsense.
	It's dangerous.
	It's dangerous.
	Magical thinking is dangerous.
	Like the guy who thinks he can fly, that kind of magical thinking, he's going to fall to his death.
	Now, I understand that this is not what leads from Sander, but at the extreme end, it's toxic, right?
	It's very, very dangerous.
	Magical thinking, oh, I don't know.
	This group will assimilate perfectly.
	The welfare state is going to help the poor and affirmative action is not racist.
	Magical thinking.
	This next government program is going to work.
	My taxes are going to good use.
	There's no way these services could be provided in the absence of taxation.
	The government is there to serve and help me.
	We can regime change in the Middle East and it's going to go fantastically.
	All ethnicities are the same fundamental.
	This magical thinking is really pathological in the West.
	And so if you don't want her to believe in magic, because there is this word that's been kind of co-opted by, you know, gay fairy dust Disney World.
	Magic for children.
	It's magical.
	It's like, I don't feel the magic.
	Believe in the magic.
	And all that means is...
	Give us money.
	What does magic mean except surrender your reason to other people's benefit?
	That's all.
	I mean, we understand with the state, oh, magical, the next government program's going to work.
	That's because they want your money.
	They want power over you.
	And so they will tell you to believe in magic.
	And why does Disney tell you to believe in magic?
	Because they want you to buy their Blu-rays, right?
	They want you to buy their movies.
	They want you to go to Disney World where it's magic and so on.
	It's like, no, it's not magic.
	It's fireworks.
	Yeah.
	It's specifically not magic, because if you try to not use reason and evidence in the production and display of fireworks, you're going to end up with a rocket in your eyeball.
	So magic is designed to suspend your judgment, suspend your rationality.
	It's like there's nobody who wants to do you good who tells you to do that, right?
	Right.
	Now, if you want generosity to transmit to your daughter, well, The best way to do that is to be generous yourself to others in her presence, to her in her presence.
	And children have no problem whatsoever extracting important lessons from what their parents tell them, regardless of whether their parents tell them whether that thing is true or false.
	I'll give you a tiny example.
	So when my daughter was younger, I read her The Hobbit, you know, pretty sanitized version of The Hobbit.
	And in it, you know, Bilbo is brave and fights monsters.
	Now, originally, when we played sort of monster games, she would run away.
	And then at one point, she just turned around and fought me back, you know?
	And she's like, well, that's what Bilbo did, right?
	Now, so she got, you know, turn and fight mentality.
	Even if you're scared, or especially if you're scared, that's when you need the virtue of courage.
	She got the turn and fight mentality.
	She never thought that the story was true of The Hobbit, right?
	And I told her it was a made-up story.
	Right.
	So, children are very adept at extracting meaning from fiction.
	So, you don't need for the story of Santa to be true for your daughter to get the moral of the message.
	And so, the cost of pretending that it's true is trust in you, is the child-parent bond to some degree.
	And in her being humiliated by trusting you, right?
	To trust in you which you want to be a good thing turns out to be something that's kind of bad because she was easily taken in or whatever.
	So if you want to impart the lesson of Santa, the generosity, the kindness or whatever, you don't need the story to be true to do that.
	And so I'm not sure why you'd want it to...
	Why you'd want to portray it as true, given that the negatives are very significant, and you don't gain any particular positive out of it at all.
	Because, let's say, your child believes, your daughter believes, ah, I should be generous because Santa, right?
	And then she finds out Santa is a lie.
	The great danger, of course, Blanche, is that she then thinks that generosity is also a lie.
	Does that make sense?
	My inclination is to not encourage a belief in Santa.
	That's my gut feeling.
	But that's going against the grain.
	People find out, oh, you're not encouraging the belief of Santa, and you're an awful parent.
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	What does it mean?
	To encourage a belief in Santa.
	You don't want to encourage a belief or disbelief in anything, right?
	I mean, my daughter heard, you know, we talked about Santa, and it's a great lesson, you know?
	Okay, how many people are in the world?
	We can look that up, you know?
	Okay, how many houses do they live in?
	How many places around the world?
	And, you know, could you fly in one night to go down the chimney?
	And could you eat, you know, four billion cookies in one night and drink four billion glasses?
	Like, you understand, it's just a playpiece for critical thinking.
	And so I don't want to encourage belief or disbelief, right?
	I mean, that's having your daughter place her faith in authority.
	Right.
	Oh, I have to wait to see if my parents are going to tell me whether it's right or wrong or true or false.
	It's a great exercise in critical thinking to look at the story of Santa.
	For Thanksgiving, for example, she went out and she thought that Santa was coming.
	I don't know why, but she went outside and she was like, Santa's coming!
	Santa's coming!
	I took that as an opportunity to ask her, why do you think Santa's coming?
	And she was just, she just kind of looked at me and I was like, you know, for one, it's Thanksgiving, you know?
	But hang on, why did she think, why did she think Sanja was a tangible person who would be coming already?
	I don't know.
	What do you mean you don't know?
	Well, I mean...
	I'm sorry to be, but what do you mean?
	You're the parent.
	What do you mean you don't know?
	Just through our exposure through books or through...
	No, no, no, no.
	Nice try.
	Okay, well help me.
	Help me out.
	Nice try.
	Nice try.
	Look, if she thinks Santa's coming, it's because the reality of Santa has come to her through you, right?
	Or you haven't monitored what she's been exposed to to the point where very false ideas can take root in her as if they're true without your permission or explanation, right?
	So it's your job to know what's going into your child's mind just as it is your job to know what's going into her body, right?
	Right, right.
	Like her food and drink and so on.
	So my question to you is why did she think Santa was a real person who would arrive?
	Now you didn't give her that idea.
	Where did it come from?
	Well, I mean, I've been guilty of reading her books and...
	Oh, no.
	No, no, no.
	Reading her books is not the problem.
	I don't think reading her books is ever a bad thing.
	So let's try that one again.
	Like, I haven't specifically...
	I mean, I haven't had any conversations with her about Santa being real.
	So who gave her the idea that he was a real person who would come?
	I don't know.
	Well, that's important, isn't it?
	How is your daughter being exposed to people who are telling her things that are false without your knowledge?
	Is it at a daycare?
	Is it with relatives?
	My husband and I, we live in a state where we have no family and we have a very, very small network of friends and I know none of them have talked to her about Santa.
	Did she get it from television?
	Movies?
	I mean, it has to be there for some reason, right?
	Somehow she got this idea.
	We've watched it.
	I mean, we've watched, like, just in the last couple days.
	I mean, she's watched, like, Frosty the Snowman, but she hasn't watched, like, a bunch of Santa stuff.
	Is she psychic?
	Can she get things in her mind with nobody putting them in?
	I mean, that's a remarkable thing, right?
	Somehow she got the idea that Santa was a person who would come to your house.
	A real thing.
	How did she get that idea?
	I'm not saying it's a disaster that she has the idea.
	I just think it's kind of important for you as a parent to know what's getting into your kid's mind.
	It clearly had to have come through us as something that we've exposed her to.
	I mean, like the other day.
	I'll give you this as an example.
	I'm sorry to interrupt, but your husband's not around.
	Could you ask him if he knows how she got the idea?
	He's downstairs at the moment.
	I mean, I know we've had...
	Very, like, superficial conversations with her.
	Like, the other day, for example, she was asking, we're going home for Christmas, and so she asked to my parents for Christmas, and she says, is Santa going to be there?
	And I mean, I didn't even know what to say.
	I was just like, why do you think Santa's going to be there?
	And she says, well, he visits everybody.
	And So then she started asking about milk, and she was just like, are we going to have milk for him?
	And I'm like, this is why I sent this question in, because she's starting to ask all these questions, and I don't know what to say.
	How does she know all the specifics of the story?
	She gets very little TV time, so it has to be through books.
	Can she read herself as yet?
	No, I mean, I'm reading the books to her.
	Are you reading her books about Santa and saying it's real or pretending it's real?
	I mean, it's got to be coming from somewhere, right?
	These specific things, right?
	There's a Santa comes to book that we read and it talks about how he comes and visits all the kids in Virginia.
	All right.
	And in that book, Blanche, does it have milk and cookies?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So this isn't that hard to figure out where she got it from then, right?
	Right.
	Did you forget about that book while we're talking about this?
	No, that's what I said.
	I said initially that it came from books that we've read.
	No, it doesn't come from the books.
	Because that's like saying my daughter believes Smorg is a real dragon because I read her The Hobbit.
	Right?
	It doesn't come from the book.
	It comes from how you are framing the book.
	Are you framing it to her as if it's true?
	Or are you framing it to her as a fun story that's not real?
	Honestly, I read it just like every other book.
	Fiction book that we read.
	I don't really, like, explain.
	Does she know it's fiction?
	Does she think it's coming from the documentary or the fiction section in the library?
	I think she has lumped it in.
	I mean, like, she talks about, like, she sees, like, a little dust, you know, like, if, I don't know, like, if you ever, like, are dusting and you see, like, a dust in the house, in the air, she'll say, oh, that's a tinker fairy.
	Yeah.
	And so she calls it like a tinker fairy, like a dust fairy or whatever, like Tinkerbell or whatever.
	And she got that from books.
	No, Blanche, she did not get it from books.
	Do you understand?
	I don't know if I need to go over this again.
	It's not the book's fault, right?
	It's not the writer of the book's fault.
	I don't read How to Train Your Dragon to my daughter and tell her it's a science book about real things.
	It's not the book that's causing it.
	So then how do I... I guess how do I... How do I separate...
	Or...
	Do I let her figure out the fiction part on her own?
	No!
	Of course you don't!
	How is she supposed to know whether there's such a thing as Santa when she's three?
	She can't figure that out.
	Would you let her invent whatever words she wants for the things in the house?
	No.
	No, you tell her this is the word for chair and table and...
	Mommy's red cheeks at the moment.
	You would tell her these things, right?
	You don't let her figure out fire on her own, right?
	Or stairs without help.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	So if you are reading a story that is made up, and fundamentally that's impossible, right?
	Then you tell her it's a made up story that doesn't make it any less fun.
	Of course, she's no problem.
	Something doesn't lose its power with us just because it's fictional.
	And if we need it to be true in order to have it have power, it's because we don't believe whatever the moral is enough to transmit it without pretending something's true.
	Right?
	I mean, if she's going to watch How to Train Your Dragon, she needs to be able to differentiate that from a nature documentary, right?
	Yes.
	And would you help her with that?
	She doesn't know.
	How could she?
	Right.
	So it's how you communicate what is real and what is not real.
	And this is a challenge for you because of your religiosity, which I think I can help you with, but I just really wanted to be clear about that, that you're holding off on what is real or not real, because you're not afraid about questions about Santa.
	Blanche, you know you're afraid, and you mentioned this, you're afraid about questions about Jesus.
	Right?
	Is it fundamentally different?
	No.
	To walk on water or to go down chimneys around the house or to turn water into wine or to create an infinite buffet for people who've come to hear you speak or to talk to a burning bush and be taken up to the rooftop of the world by the devil and offered temptations and to drive demons into pigs and to heal the sick with a touch.
	You understand that if you give her the mechanics of figuring out what's real from what's not real, your concern is not...
	Santa, but God, right?
	Yeah, I mean, this is something that I struggle with, like, even when I'm sitting there in church.
	I just am kind of like, not quite sure I believe this.
	You know, like, the story of Noah.
	I mean, I sit there, and I think about that, and I'm like, that's just as impossible as, you know, flying reindeer.
	I mean, but I like the, I like the, I guess some of the lessons and the motivational and like the personal growth aspect of religion and God, but I don't necessarily believe all of the biblical stories and all of that.
	I mean, I feel like I need to believe and I want to believe in a higher power because I feel like I just feel like there's a greater purpose.
	But all of this other stuff, I feel really weird even talking to her about church.
	I'll hear her repeat something that...
	I can't remember what the phrase was the other day, but it was just like, God's way is the right way, or something like that.
	And she repeated it, and I know that that's where she picked it up in class, because they give you this little printout of what they learned.
	I don't know, it just kind of bugged me.
	So I don't know.
	I mean, I have issues with all of it.
	Right.
	It's very difficult.
	I assume this is a Sunday school or Bible study class?
	Um, she just goes to like a, yeah, like a Sunday school class.
	It's like 45 minutes or something like that.
	You know, and I think they're...
	Ooh, I can hear the minimization tone in your voice already.
	Well, I don't know.
	I don't know.
	I mean, to be quite frankly, I don't know exactly what they're doing in there.
	Why don't you sit in?
	It's a good idea.
	I think I will.
	Do you think they might have talked to her about Santa?
	I don't know.
	I'll have to ask.
	I mean, he was a saint.
	I'll have to ask.
	Yeah, I mean, if you're ambivalent about religious epistemology or God, I don't know that turning your child over to religious education without sitting in yourself so that you know what to talk about or what they talk about, I don't think that's particularly wise because you're giving other people Very fundamental input into your daughter's personality and worldview.
	And she's being molded, right?
	I mean, she's three.
	Five or six, the personality becomes a lot more fixed.
	But at this time, she's kind of potter's clay in a lot of ways.
	And giving religious instruction that's unvetted to your daughter, because she is going to assume that you believe everything they're telling her in Sunday school.
	Of course she is, because why would you believe Put her in a class with ideas that you didn't believe, right?
	I'm not sending my daughter to Nazi school.
	Oh, we might have a show title.
	Anyway.
	But they could be teaching her about hell and sin and original sin and punishment and damnation and I don't know.
	I mean, probably not, but maybe they are.
	You don't know what they're putting across and you must guard your daughter's mind, particularly in the formative years.
	And be sure that you know exactly what is influencing her and how and why.
	But you don't want to because of some reason that we don't know yet, right?
	I mean, when I'm saying it, it makes perfect sense, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	So...
	I was very nervous about this call.
	Good.
	It would have no value if you weren't, right?
	I told my husband, I was like, it's very dangerous when you start, like, you know, prodding into these things and then you're, like, afraid of, like...
	Don't worry, Blanche.
	I have a great solution for you.
	Don't worry.
	I just, I need to figure out your level of self-knowledge before I back up the truck of reason into the solution parking spot, right?
	Right.
	So why are you handing over your daughter to be instructed in religion when you're ambivalent and you don't know what they're teaching her?
	Because I have been I have allowed myself to be pressured by family or just this If you do not believe and you do not have your children believe, you are going to be damned.
	You're going to go to hell.
	You're going to be punished, you know?
	And I... I don't want that.
	So, is it your parents that are telling you that she has to go and...
	Learn about God, otherwise she's going to be damned?
	No, I don't think they've phrased it that much.
	Like, I told my mom last night that I was going to talk to you, and that I had kind of, like, phrased...
	I told her a little bit about what we were going to talk about, and she was just like, oh, you have to be teaching her about Jesus.
	You have to.
	I'm sorry, who was that?
	My mom.
	Right.
	You have to be teaching her about Jesus, right?
	Yeah, she says you have to be teaching...
	She needs to know Jesus, and, you know...
	And this is where I played devil's advocate.
	And I said, well, why is she going to believe me about Jesus if I've been lying to her about Santa?
	I mean, I lose all credibility.
	If you're going to lie about something like that, why am I going to then...
	How come all of a sudden now I'm telling the truth?
	Especially when you're talking about grand...
	Acts of healing and, you know, animals and all that.
	Well, but why, I mean, to your mother, you could say, why does she need to be three?
	I mean, if you've got good arguments for Jesus, just wait until she's 18.
	Why does the child have to be three to learn about these things?
	Do you understand?
	Right.
	I mean, it makes sense.
	I mean, it's a really big idea anyway.
	Well, no, if you have good arguments, you don't need to inflict them on three-year-olds.
	Well, you know, by the time she's four, she's going to see right through me, so get her now, right?
	I mean, that is propaganda, right?
	Regardless of what you believe...
	I mean, if I sent her to, like, I don't know, anarchy school, whatever it was, right?
	I mean, that would be wrong.
	Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's brainwashing.
	Right.
	I mean, and that's why I say...
	I don't really talk to her about it.
	It's very superficial.
	Wait, wait, hang on.
	No, no, that's not a therefore, right?
	So it's brainwashing and therefore I don't talk to her about it.
	No.
	Plus you also did say it wasn't your parents and then you said, actually it's my parents.
	But that doesn't matter.
	Okay.
	So the point is, of course, that if you think that something negative is being done to your daughter, and I think it doesn't matter to me the content being religion or not, they're teaching a whole bunch of conclusions that have a whole bunch of reality and knowledge-based events kicking in.
	Kind of behind the scenes.
	And they're teaching her at a very impressionable age where she doesn't have one-tenth of one percent of the intellectual ammunition she would need to push back against these ideas.
	She can't think about these things critically.
	She's in a state of complete epistemological dependence on her elders.
	She has no defenses against what is being told to her.
	And so saying, well, I don't want to see what's in that room Because I think it's propaganda is not good parenting, right?
	Right.
	It's certainly not great parenting, let's put it that way, right?
	And it's not necessary.
	And I think that's why afterwards, like after church, I mean, this is why I'm exploring these things, because I kind of feel like a tool about it.
	I don't...
	When we do talk about God or whatever, it's very superficial.
	I don't get into it because I don't want to brainwash her.
	But I realize that that is precisely what I'm doing by allowing her to go there and putting her in an environment.
	No, you're not allowing her to go there.
	It's not like she desperately wants to go there.
	You're putting her in there.
	You're putting her there.
	Let's just be real clear about your choice here.
	No, no, yeah, I know.
	I'm putting her there.
	And so...
	I mean, I realize how screwed up that is.
	This is why I have all of these issues in my mind.
	Do you want her to grow up to be as scared of you as you are of your mother?
	No.
	To be as silent and as absent from her conversations with you as you are from your mother.
	And I'm not saying this about your whole relationship with your mother, of course.
	But your mother says she needs to know Jesus and you're like, okay, I guess I'll hand her over, right?
	I mean, that's not being who you are.
	And it's not like I know that you have some sympathies towards religion, so I know you're not an atheist and probably not even an agnostic, so I'm fully aware of all of that.
	But your mother says, she's got to know Jesus.
	I'll put her into Sunday school.
	I'm not going to watch what they do to her.
	That is not...
	That's not a very healthy relationship with your mother, would you say?
	No.
	In this instance, right?
	In this regard.
	I think with both my parents...
	Both my parents are very religious and we grew up Catholic and sometime around I guess around age 12 or whatever they decided to go to like a different church they switched to like you know some Christian church where they do their hand waving and the whole nine yards which is a you know incredibly different and I always felt like we were forced to do the church thing and And then all of a sudden, just everything changed.
	The setting changed.
	The environment changed.
	Everything changed without a reason or explanation.
	And so I guess ever since then, I've just been really sensitive towards religion.
	And so now, and especially now that we've gotten older and I've had kids and I have a daughter, and they're just very...
	You have a conversation with them and they're very...
	Religious about everything.
	And I try and just stay away from it because I don't feel the same way that they do about everything.
	I don't believe everything that the Bible says.
	It says, spare the rod, spoil the child.
	I don't believe that.
	Well, the rod, I had a conversation recently with someone about this.
	The rod means instruction.
	You know, they rod and they staff comfort me, not that you get beaten by God.
	The rod means instruction.
	It means if you don't instruct your children on virtue and truth, then they will be spoiled.
	So it's not, that's just one of these big, bad mistranslations.
	But anyway, go on.
	But I don't believe everything that they do.
	And I don't know.
	I guess I just, I don't feel like I respect them for their beliefs.
	They have what they have, but it's not reciprocal.
	I'll say that I don't believe all of those things and then they make time to try and feel bad about it.
	And in that sense, I still feel like I'm part of the Catholic Church and the never-ending guilt.
	I'm still trying to figure out my own spirituality and what I believe and And working my way through all of that.
	So you're on a journey as an adult, but your three-year-old daughter needs to be taught fundamentalist conclusions.
	You're going to...
	I'm telling you, Blanche, you are going to pay for this down the road.
	I'm trying to help you have a good, positive, happy relationship with your daughter down the road.
	You're going to pay for this down the road because she's going to get indoctrinated into these fundamentalist religious beliefs.
	And you're on a journey.
	And you're like, well, why wasn't I allowed to be on a journey?
	And what are you going to say?
	Why was I taught all these conclusions that you don't even believe?
	Right.
	Why am I being infected with sin and guilt and hell, which you don't even really believe in?
	Why did you hand me over to these people to tell me all this stuff was true when you don't even think it's true?
	You know, they do become teenagers and teenagers are very smart.
	And there's one thing, there's two things that teenagers do.
	Try to get laid and sniff out hypocrisy.
	Actually, I think for girls, it's the other way around.
	But still, sniffing out hypocrisy is very high on the list.
	Which is precisely the reason why I reached out to you because I'm worried about being a hypocrite.
	Right.
	You are a hypocrite in this area.
	And it's, you know, listen, I say this without condemnation.
	It's just an identification, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean...
	Because you are...
	Handing your daughter over at the age of three to be instructed in a belief system you don't accept.
	Because you're scared of your mom.
	So my question is, I guess my other question is, while I'm on my journey...
	I mean, I'll be honest.
	I put her in that setting because I don't really...
	Yes, I've taken consideration of my parents and my family and what people have, you know, gotten to my head about needing to teach her all those things.
	But, you know, we just started going to church, I'd say, I don't know, last two and a half months or so.
	And so she hasn't been in there very long.
	But it's one of those things that...
	I forgot what my point is, but...
	I don't remember where I was going with this.
	Oh, okay.
	Well, I don't think it's where you were going.
	I think it's what you were avoiding, but okay, go on.
	Like, on my journey.
	Okay, like, if I'm on my journey and I want to explore that, what do I do with her...
	During the services time, do I just go to services by myself or do I just leave my husband and my daughter home and then he catches up on his spiritual...
	I mean, I think my husband can do without church.
	So do I just go and work on my own journey and let them be on their own?
	I guess that's kind of what I'm thinking probably needs to occur.
	You know, Blanche, when people tell me that they're working on their own journey...
	What I hear, rightly or wrongly, but what I hear is, I don't want to take a stand because I'm going to get in trouble.
	I need to compromise, right?
	I don't necessarily believe, but my mom wants me to go and she wants my daughter to go, so I'm going to call it a journey rather than not wanting to get in trouble with mommy.
	It's not a journey.
	There's things that you fully understand are not possible and not true.
	Miracles, by definition, are impossible, right?
	We all understand that, right?
	So you're not on a journey as far as that goes.
	Now, as far as the higher purpose and stuff like that goes, I understand all of that, and that's something we can talk about.
	But you're not on a journey with regards to what your daughter is being taught in this school, right?
	Right.
	So that's not part of your journey.
	That's appeasement to your mom.
	You are sacrificing your daughter's intellectual independence, integrity, and rationality because you're scared of mommy.
	That's not right.
	That's not fair.
	You don't have the right to do that.
	You can be a coward with your mother, and that's, I guess, you and your husband's business, your business in particular, but it's you making a choice about your own brain and your own mind.
	You don't have the right.
	To have your daughter instructed in things you don't believe are true in order to appease your mother because that's using your daughter.
	And that's the negative consequences accruing to your daughter rather than to you.
	Right.
	Right?
	You can choose to get fat if you want.
	You don't have the right to feed garbage to your daughter and she gets fat, right?
	Right.
	So what is so scary about your mom That this seems like a reasonable course of action to you.
	What are the negatives of you saying, no, I'm not going to put her in Bible school when she's three.
	She can't understand the concept.
	She can't understand the process.
	She can't understand the reasoning.
	She can't understand any of this stuff.
	And I wish you hadn't done it to me.
	What happens if you say that?
	You're not saying she's evil.
	You're not saying you're never going to see her again.
	You're just being honest if this is what you feel about your experience.
	What happens if you do that, Blanche?
	You know, I disappoint her in like the worst possible way by telling her that I'm not going to raise a believer.
	I think her...
	Right, you don't want to raise a believer.
	Right.
	You want to raise a thinker, right?
	Right.
	So what happens if your mother is disappointed?
	She's just disappointed.
	And what happens if she's disappointed?
	Is she not allowed to be disappointed?
	Is it the end of the world if she's disappointed?
	I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong.
	I just want to know what happens if she's disappointed.
	You know, I get disappointed.
	Nobody...
	Nobody changes their entire lives for me.
	What's wrong with her being disappointed?
	I don't think it's like the end of the world.
	It's just I know that this is something that's so important to them.
	Having their children believe and securing some sort of eternal life or whatever.
	Okay, so that's her belief, and she's allowed to have her beliefs, and you're allowed to have your beliefs, right?
	Why are you not allowed to disagree with your mother in your mind?
	I don't know.
	I mean, I disagree.
	Yes, you do.
	No, I'm sorry.
	I don't accept.
	If you don't know things about your mom, then there's no such thing as knowledge at all.
	You've had a multi-decade relationship with her.
	If you don't know things about her, then I have to shut up the whole show because there's no such thing as knowledge, right?
	So why are you not allowed emotionally to disagree with your mother?
	What happens if you do?
	I just...
	I fail her.
	You fail her.
	Okay.
	So you thinking for yourself is a failure in the eyes of your mother.
	I think my doing anything for myself is a failure.
	All right.
	You're making me cry.
	No, go ahead.
	Go ahead.
	Tell me what you mean.
	You doing anything for yourself is a failure.
	Just being independent and...
	I mean...
	If you look at my family...
	I'm the only one that has moved cross-country.
	I moved away when I was 18.
	I haven't asked nor needed anything from them.
	And...
	I think that...
	Despite all of my goodness...
	My...
	My happiness, my independence, my financial stability, I think that that bothers them.
	No matter what I do, it doesn't please them.
	So to do something, to say that I don't believe and that I'm not raising my child To believe.
	I don't want to brainwash her.
	I do not want to indoctrinate her.
	I don't.
	Your daughter?
	Yes.
	And I realize that that's what I'm doing.
	Well, it's what you're permitting.
	You're not doing it directly.
	Yeah.
	I mean, you're outsourcing that, right?
	Yeah, and it's like the worst possible way because I don't even follow up with her.
	I mean, like, how shitty is that?
	And what...
	What do you think the principles are?
	No, let me start that again.
	What happens to your relationship with your mother if you're fully and authentically yourself?
	If you're honest with her.
	It is...
	I don't know.
	Because I don't really feel like I have ever been completely honest.
	I think that it is, we just don't talk about anything.
	It's just superficial.
	it's not real right And what happens or what do you think would happen?
	What happens in your heart, Blanche, if it becomes real with your mother?
	Then it just hurts.
	Not necessarily bad hurt, but...
	Hurts?
	Like what?
	What hurts?
	I think if it gets real, it gets...
	Like it's easy to be away from family now because, you know, they live all the way across the country and we live on the East Coast and I think it's...
	It's like they're your family and they're there, but...
	It's kind of like you're just indifferent.
	So I think it...
	I don't know.
	Maybe you love harder, you hurt harder, I don't know.
	This gets very confusing for you, right?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Do you want me to give you my thoughts on this, or do you want to keep talking about your experience?
	I'd like to have your thoughts.
	Alright.
	This is the effect in your mother of propaganda.
	Propaganda hollows out your authenticity and fills you with a fragile structure of rigid conclusions.
	If you have been hollowed out of your true self, of your Thinking self of your empirical rational self and you've been filled in with this house of cards of rigidity and you inevitably become aggressive towards others because the authenticity of others threatens the absence of authenticity in yourself.
	So you taught things that are not true, fundamental things about reality.
	About virtue.
	About your role in the universe.
	You taught fundamentally false things.
	And our authentic self is rational, skeptical, critical.
	Individuation is rationalization, becoming rational.
	It is philosophy.
	And if you're filled with propaganda, you can't connect with anyone because you're not there.
	And so if you want to know, in my opinion, Blanche, why you can't be real with your mother, it's because your mother isn't real.
	Maybe in other areas we say you don't have real conversations with her about anything.
	Because she's filled with propaganda.
	And she's become kind of like a machine.
	Not spontaneous, not original, not authentic.
	There's no identity there.
	There's no...
	Process it's all conclusions and conclusions must just be rigidly defended and inflicted because you have no process by which you came to those conclusions and so you must just then inflict them on others and these you think of it like a virus right so the virus of propaganda fills the mind and then what it must do is it must attack and oppose authenticity which is why people Who are full of propaganda are impossible
	to be honest around because what happens when you're honest around propaganda bots?
	They get angry, they get upset, they get manipulative, they get negative, they get destructive, they get hostile or something like that.
	Right?
	Right.
	Now, the virus doesn't mind skipping a generation as long as it replicates, right?
	So the virus of propaganda is trying to pass from your mother's mind into your daughter's mind.
	Now, it doesn't mind if you're a carrier.
	In other words, the virus can't put your daughter into Sunday school.
	It's just a set of thoughts, right?
	Well, not really thoughts, conclusions.
	But the virus can manipulate you into putting your daughter into Sunday school.
	And that's how the virus is going to be reproduced.
	And I'm telling you down the road, if the virus is successful, you will end up with a daughter like your mother.
	You will have no more rich or deep or meaningful conversations with your daughter than you do with your mother.
	And you will be as afraid of your daughter's disapproval as you are of your mother's disapproval.
	And you will hide your true self as much from your daughter as you do from your mother.
	And you will be bookended by these two rigid non-personality structures that bat you around like a ball with two pinball flippers.
	And you wish to appease this virus, this propaganda.
	You wish to appease it because it can harm you.
	Of course it can harm you.
	That's how propaganda spreads through threat.
	Through threat of disapproval, ostracism, negativity, hostility, criticism, avoidance, neglect, withdrawal is a very big one.
	I'm going to purse my lips and look away.
	As a child, you can't stand that.
	No one can.
	We need our parents to survive.
	Can't survive it.
	So, the virus is trying to Burrow down through the tunnel of time using you as the mechanism by which it's going to replicate in your daughter.
	And the virus has your daughter standing outside your house in Thanksgiving saying, when's Santa coming?
	Santa's coming to our house tonight.
	And you cannot morally sacrifice your daughter's personality Because you're scared of your mother.
	You don't have that right, obviously, right?
	I mean, my daughter knows about religion, knows the stories, knows the morals.
	She gets the benefit of these, you know, thousand, multi-thousand-year-old stories that have good morals in them, some of them.
	She has absorbed the morals.
	She doesn't need to know that they're true.
	And she can analyze and think about these things without fear of punishment or the bribery of heaven or the threat of hell.
	If you're programmed, you're not moral any more than a robot is moral or not moral.
	If you are stuffed full of propaganda, if you're stuffed full of conclusions and have no process by which you've achieved them, you're not there.
	As a person, as a sort of living, thinking, independent person who's able to analyze the world and understand things and reach conclusions and move forward and grow.
	The journey, right, which you talk about.
	Journey is methodology.
	Conclusions are destinations.
	And, of course, we need a mix, right?
	We can't forever be questing on everything.
	That's too much postmodernism, relativism, existentialism stuff for me.
	I'm questing.
	No, at some point you've got to come to some conclusions.
	But you can't use your daughter as a human shield against your mother's disapproval.
	Come on.
	That's not right.
	That's not right.
	You know that, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, I think I know it's all not right, which is precisely why I called in.
	You know, I think I... What does your husband think?
	Well, I think he thought...
	I had the Santa part.
	I told him that I was talking about the Santa part and how I had mentioned religion.
	I told him that I was nervous.
	I said, you know, he watches you on and off, but I've watched you pretty consistently now for several years and all your parenting stuff.
	So I think he thought that the Santa thing was kind of superficial and But he wished me luck.
	He was just like, good luck.
	Because he knew that this conversation could get deep when talking about religion.
	But I think he had said, it's good that you think this way.
	He says, it's good that you think.
	Because I said, is it stupid?
	Am I overthinking it?
	And he said, it's good that you think this way.
	What does he think of your daughter going to Sunday school?
	I don't think he particularly cares for it.
	And what has he said about that?
	He hasn't said much.
	Like I said, we've been going to...
	Is he religious?
	No.
	You said you think your husband could do without the church, right?
	Yeah, I think he could do without it, yeah.
	So is he scared of you, like you're scared of your mother?
	Why is he not standing up for his daughter?
	I don't know.
	I'm saying, hell no, she's not going to Sunday school.
	We're going to teach her how to think, and we'll tell her all about religion, we'll teach her all the morals, but no.
	I'm going to send her to Sunday school.
	I don't know.
	Yes, you do.
	I'm sorry, if you don't know your husband, there's no such thing.
	Why is he not standing up?
	Saying no.
	Which is another way of saying, why are you talking to me?
	And I'm glad you are, and I'm thrilled that we're having the conversation.
	But I'd much rather your husband be talking about this stuff than me.
	So the question is, why is he not standing up for what he believes?
	Doesn't mean he gets his way, you understand, but to have the conversation.
	I don't know.
	He'd have to answer that question.
	You know the answer to that question.
	What happens if he says to you, no, she's not going, then he puts you in a conflict course with your mother, right?
	It's not that complicated, right?
	I think to an extent there's that, but I think it is more of a, if we actually talk about it, we actually have to draw a line in the sand and say...
	Which he's fine with.
	Is it a big problem with his family if your daughter doesn't go to Sunday school?
	He doesn't have any family, living family.
	Oh, so it's not any problem for him, right?
	Okay, so it's the problem for you.
	He doesn't want to put you on a collision course with your mother.
	Or force me Nobody said force.
	Nobody said, no, don't escalate that language.
	Don't escalate that language.
	It's the wrong word, but...
	I know, but it's not an accident that you chose that word.
	As soon as a woman says force, the white knight comes out and says, well, no, he should never do that, because force!
	Let me finish.
	By saying, we're not going to church...
	But if he says, I'm not going to church and— No, no, we're not talking about him.
	We're not talking about whether he goes to church.
	What were we talking about?
	Why he hasn't stood up for himself or for our daughter.
	For your daughter!
	For our daughter, yeah.
	He can choose to go to church if he wants, even if he doesn't believe.
	The hymns are lovely.
	People have asked me for a Christmas album.
	They just might get one.
	But he can go to church.
	You're adults.
	You can have a beer.
	Your daughter can't have a beer.
	I think part of it is...
	Why is he not saying with regards to your daughter, no, she shouldn't be going to Sunday school?
	Because he's afraid I'm going to agree with him.
	Why would he be scared of that?
	What's wrong with your daughter?
	In his mind, what's wrong with your daughter not going to Sunday school?
	What's the problem?
	Because then we all have to admit that we think it's all a bunch of hogwash and we're not quite ready to admit that yet.
	What's the we part there?
	I mean, what negative consequences accrue to him in admitting that he thinks it's hogwash?
	He doesn't have a family that's going to get upset.
	You said they're not alive.
	I don't think that there are any negative consequences for him.
	Okay, so let's stop talking about we are going to face negative consequences.
	Only you.
	And he's protecting you from those negative consequences.
	He's white knighting you.
	He's sacrificing you.
	No, awe, but awe is great, you know, if there's a bull charging at you and he grabs a red flag and draws it away, good for him.
	Fantastic.
	White knighting by sacrificing a three-year-old is not heroic.
	Right, right.
	So you chose a man who's in this particular context as absent from you as you are from your mother.
	Like either he's white knighting you or he's scared of you.
	And often those two things are not entirely dissimilar.
	But why is your husband willing to go along with this Sunday school plan when he faces no negative consequences?
	And he's aware of some negative consequences, I'm sure, if he, you know, if his daughter goes to Sunday school at some point.
	At some point, you understand, she's going to go to her father and say, Dad, what do you think of Jesus?
	He's setting himself up for a giant problem.
	It's appeasement in the moment.
	Oh, let's just appease my mother-in-law.
	Oh, boy.
	Not like that's ever happened before in human existence.
	A man appeasing his mother-in-law.
	Right?
	And the funny thing is that we're not really appeasing them in any aspect of our lives except this one thing.
	Your daughter's sense of reality and rationality, just this one thing?
	Yeah.
	Really?
	You're not going to try and minimize this, are you?
	No, I'm not minimizing it.
	Are there other things that your mother wants that you are fighting her tooth and nail on?
	No, I guess that's why I'm saying that in the sense of irony.
	We don't appease her anywhere else.
	But she doesn't ask you to appease on anything else, right?
	I mean, we moved away without issue.
	We haven't moved back, you know, despite requests.
	Don't tell me that this is the only instance.
	Don't tell me this is the only instance if this is the only requirement, right?
	100% of the things that your mother wants you to compromise on, you're compromising on.
	100%.
	Right?
	Right?
	I'm compromising.
	I'm compromising like...
	Compromising a nice way of saying sacrificing your daughter's...
	Yeah, I mean, it's ridiculous.
	So, no, it's not ridiculous.
	If it was ridiculous, we wouldn't be having this lengthier conversation, right?
	It's not ridiculous.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Right?
	It's not ridiculous.
	Maternal influence is very powerful.
	The entire planet Blanche revolves around the gravity well of the original womb.
	Mothers have extraordinary power, and we all know what they say about power and corruption, right?
	I don't think it has to be that way, but often it is.
	You have been unconsciously demanding of your husband that he not put you on a collision course with your mother in this area, and he is saying, okay, good luck.
	He is stepping back and absenting himself from the intergenerational estrogen battle over the mind of your daughter, of his daughter.
	He's stepping back and letting the elemental Gaia's go at it, right?
	And if he were here, I'd say, don't do that.
	You know, women need leadership.
	Men need leadership as well.
	I mean, this is not a patriarchal thing, but men need leadership and women need leadership.
	Wherever we have our blind spots, we need our friends and our family and our loved ones to step in and Hold our integrity tight.
	Hold us to our own integrity.
	We all have blind spots, right?
	It's the old definition of satire that people can see everything in the mirror except themselves.
	Right?
	So we all have blind spots.
	And it seems to me that you have a blind spot with regards to your mother and you have a conflict avoidance trained for many decades.
	Not that many, you're young, but trained for decades with your mother.
	that you don't want to get into any kind of existential conflict with your mother.
	And your husband is perfectly willing to let that happen because if you get into a conflict with your mother because your husband is pushing you to act with more integrity, who's going to end up wounded?
	Him.
	Yeah, exactly.
	That didn't take very long, did it, right?
	And how would that play out, Blanche?
	How do you think that would play out?
	I'm sorry, I have a headache.
	How would that play out, do you think?
	I mean, would you take the V off the table for a while?
	Who knows, right?
	But he would pay, probably.
	That's what he thinks, right?
	Yeah.
	Somehow.
	Be blamed.
	How would he...
	I think he would probably feel blamed.
	I would...
	Like, responsible for...
	Okay, that's a nice way of...
	No, that's a responsibility avoidant way of saying you would blame him.
	Oh, he would feel blamed.
	Oh, well, yeah.
	Or your mother would blame him and then she'd fuel you up against him.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	I mean...
	That's, yeah, I mean, I'm being honest.
	That's what it would, and that's probably why he's, like, avoided this whole thing and let me come to these conclusions on my own.
	And I'm glad that they're coming here and I'm thinking about this stuff now as opposed to six years from now.
	As uncomfortable as it is.
	Oh, it won't be that long.
	Listen, I'm telling you.
	Blanche, in 10 years, she's going to be 13.
	And she's going to be smart as a whip.
	And she's going to be like a cheese grater on all your beliefs.
	That's what teenagers do.
	I've seen it a million times.
	I was that way.
	And if teenagers, if you as a parent, if teenagers weigh you in the balance and find you wanting, you are in for a rough ride for the teenagers.
	A very rough ride.
	ride, they get bigger and smarter and we get older and slower.
	Well, I think I knew all this kind of going into it, which is why I was like, I'm so nervous.
	I'm so nervous about the show.
	But I, you know, I was talking to my boss and I was telling him and he was just like, you know that this isn't really anything to do with Santa.
	He's like, it's got everything.
	Can I tell you what I would say if I were your husband?
	What?
	Are you ready?
	Sure.
	- Sure. - I would say this, Blanche.
	So you and your mom.
	Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight.
	Combat, baby.
	Get it all out of the open and I'd be sitting there saying, oh, so you want my daughter to go to Sunday school.
	Do you know your daughter doesn't believe very much of that and I believe even less.
	So no, we're not going to put her into Sunday school because I don't want to teach her things that I'm doubtful about as if they're true because that's just going to have a giant FU intergenerational conflict that's going to be even worse than the one you're about to have with your daughter.
	Granny, right?
	And you'd sit them down and say, okay, well let's have it out.
	But what we're not going to do is put my daughter into Sunday school to appease...
	The bigotry of an old woman.
	That's not going to happen.
	Now, let's have that conversation.
	You can get upset, you can get angry, and whatever it is.
	But it is...
	I mean, we're not doing it with her.
	No, we have this fight in the open.
	We don't use a goddamn three-year-old as a human pawn and sacrificial animal for an old woman.
	Sorry.
	Sorry.
	She's only three and it's our job as parents to defend her mind, to defend her integrity, her capacity for thought and reason and empiricism and identity and selfhood.
	So if we gotta have a fight, we're gonna have a fight.
	But what we're not going to do is sacrifice my daughter at the age of three to something I don't get behind intellectually.
	I mean, it's now you didn't choose.
	I'm not sure how common men like that are in the world, but you didn't choose one at the moment.
	Doesn't mean he can't become one.
	And I hope he'll listen to this and maybe he'll call in.
	I don't know.
	I would love to chat with him, but no, he needs to stop serving you.
	Or at least stop serving your fear and start serving your greatness.
	Your mom might get upset with you.
	You're not three anymore.
	You're 33.
	And the fact that you at 33 are talking about this when your daughter's three is probably not an accident.
	Probably something happened when you were three.
	These things have echoes that roll through the generations and through the unconscious.
	So you have a fight with your mom.
	So what?
	Have you never fought with your mom?
	No, we fight about her education already.
	Your daughter's education?
	Yeah, we're...
	Go on.
	We're planning on homeschooling.
	My mom was an educator.
	Just full-on indoctrination.
	That's what she did.
	When she hears that we don't want to put our daughter in that system, which I realize, again, the hypocrisy of I don't want to put my child in public education or But I'm gonna throw her in Sunday School.
	I realize the hypocrisy of it.
	I'm aware of it.
	But with regard to her education, I have felt easier defending myself and our decisions and our position.
	I haven't really struggled with that nearly as much as I have.
	But that's in the future.
	Right?
	It's easy to win a battle that hasn't really come yet, right?
	And every surrender makes the next surrender easier.
	So if you surrender on Sunday school, won't it be a little easier to surrender on public school?
	And the fact that your mom was a public school teacher...
	No, like in my mind...
	The virus may have found an efficient ground zero.
	Anyway, go on.
	Like, education is not something I'm willing to compromise on.
	I mean...
	No, no.
	You are!
	Yeah.
	What do you think Sunday school is?
	I know.
	It's not a squash game.
	It's not rock climbing.
	Right?
	It's education.
	And a more foundational education.
	I mean, fundamental education than government school.
	Government to school doesn't tell you there's a higher reality and you're going to go to hell or heaven and there are angels circling and prayer, right?
	In terms of your daughter's perception of basic reality, it's being shaped right now, permanently, if you don't fix it right now.
	So how do I fix it?
	Well, how honest do you want to be?
	You laugh.
	I'm going to assume your daughter is smart.
	Thank you.
	I think so.
	Well, you've got to take her, I mean, you've got to take control of her religious education for sure, right?
	Right.
	And that means don't put her in an environment where you don't know what the hell she's being taught, literally, right?
	Right.
	And you have to be very clear with her about what's real and what's not.
	And you have to remind her that what's not real can have great and deep impact.
	You can be inspired by fictional characters.
	You know, when I first read Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, I read it two days straight and Summer's evening, I felt chilled to the bone and had to put a blanket on.
	It was that terrifying a story.
	Oh my God, I remember reading Stephen King's Pet Sematary when I worked as a gold panter up north in the middle of nowhere.
	One night in a tent on my own, I'm reading Pet Sematary.
	That's a great idea.
	And we can be inspired by fiction.
	We can be morally instructed by fiction.
	We can extract fairy tales.
	Everybody knows that they're fictional.
	How many times have I referenced the grasshopper and the ant?
	A bunch of times on this show.
	It's a fantastic way to communicate a basic idea about the difference between R and K selection.
	But anyway, we can get amazing and wonderful and powerful.
	Like I just had a conversation with Dr. Duke Pesta about the ethics of Christianity.
	Blew my mind.
	I mean, the things that we were batting back and forth, fantastic.
	It gave me an incredibly deep understanding of Christian ethics and also my ethics and what sin means in a secular context.
	Great.
	He's religious.
	I'm not.
	What a great conversation we had.
	had.
	So I guess my question...
	No, hang on.
	Just help her to differentiate between truth and falsehood, and at some point, I don't know where your daughter's at and what your communication with her is like, but at some point, you're going to need to deconstruct what she was taught, and you're going to have to apologize to her for putting her in a school where they were teaching her foundational metaphysics without you knowing what was going on.
	That was irresponsible of you as parents, as both of you.
	It was irresponsible of both of you.
	You need to apologize.
	Thanks.
	To her about that.
	I don't know, now or at some point.
	But you don't want to just change things fundamentally without saying why, because then the child feels that things are random, right?
	Like how my parents did with me?
	Yeah.
	If they did, then sure.
	Sorry, you were going to say something.
	I guess my question is, is it possible to be religious, but to still be questioning your faith and what you believe?
	I don't think you're religious if you're not questioning your faith and what you believe.
	You're dogmatic.
	And to me, dogma is not the same as religion.
	And I don't want to get into a whole thing about this because it's a great topic for a show as a whole, but if religion is a mechanism of implanting moral values into people prior to philosophy, then it's a worthwhile and necessary part of the evolution of who we are.
	And philosophy has done a pretty piss-poor job of implanting Objective morals and ethics into people.
	And so right now, religion is the best method that people know of, of implanting values into others, for better or for worse.
	So I would no more imagine not teaching my daughter about religion than I would imagine not teaching her about history as a whole.
	That's where we came from.
	It's important.
	It's essential.
	So yes, The religious people that I know of, of course, are wrestling with the challenges of faith and science and reason and mysticism, of course.
	But the moment you stop thinking, you start dying.
	And you may stay alive for another 60 years, but it doesn't cover the stench.
	I just don't want to be superficial and like...
	Complacent and like, oh, okay.
	I'm at my destination.
	Am I superficial and complacent?
	No.
	Am I religious?
	No.
	So, let's not strawman.
	Don't strawman me, sis!
	No, but I mean by like...
	No, you're scaring me.
	This has nothing to do with your sense of complacency.
	It's your mom!
	Come on!
	No, I know that.
	What I'm saying is like, I don't want to be like a religious person.
	No, you want your daughter to be a religious person who's complacent because you're only giving her one perspective.
	No, listen, you're not going to be complacent.
	But the thing is, you also need to sit down with your husband and say, why didn't you have my back with regards to your daughter?
	Because there's something here which we need to examine.
	Why the hell is your husband not standing up for his daughter?
	You're the one who's got the hot button from the mom.
	Right, she's got the electrical death buzzer in your heart, which all parents do.
	And so the question, you need to sit down with him and say, why didn't you have my back on this?
	Why is, like, I've got the thing with my mom, I can't be expected to be sensible about that.
	And no one is sensible about their own moms, you understand, right?
	Yeah, right.
	Right?
	She's in my head, right?
	I mean, I can't be sane with my mom to save my life, right?
	Me, you, anyway.
	It's the way things are.
	And even if you have a good mom, it's pretty hard to be.
	Anyway.
	So you've got to sit down with your husband and say, okay, so why?
	Why did your daughter end up in Sunday school when you don't believe?
	Right?
	Why?
	He needs to know that because you need to trust him to watch your back.
	We all want what we want in the moment and later we wish other people had told us no, right?
	Of course, right?
	I wish someone had, you know, sit there with emphysema.
	I wish my friends had slapped every cigarette out of my hand, right?
	So there's a lot of fantastic conversations that come out of this.
	You need him to help you with your mom.
	You really need him.
	You need his strength.
	You need his masculinity.
	You need his leadership to help you with Your mom.
	And the reasons why he's not doing that has to do with his mom and who raised him and the lack of self-knowledge.
	And the reason I'm saying this is that there are lots of men out there who are in the same boat.
	And I've tried that.
	I'm going to be a helpful, invisible patriarch of providing.
	And I'm not going to interfere or cause my girlfriend or my wife to be upset.
	Like, we all.
	I mean, that's sort of how we're programmed, right?
	And it's kind of what society demands and You know that the male is there as a utility resource for everyone and tries to interfere with as little as possible and so on.
	It doesn't work.
	It doesn't work.
	You need him to be your rock.
	I mean, he needs you to be his rock.
	I'm sure there are areas where he's blind as a bat as well.
	But you need to be able to trust him.
	And in this area, you both failed.
	he has less excuse for failing because it's not his mom.
	Well, all I can say is, thank God I'm thinking now. - Good.
	And great call.
	I mean, how was it for you?
	I mean, I hope I'm not coming across negative or anything.
	I deeply sympathize with these situations.
	No, I think it's great.
	But I mean, it's like I said, like I was crafting the message in the email, right?
	And, like, I'm just going to be honest.
	I was crafting the message, and I was like, I can just keep this about Santa.
	Yeah, good luck.
	And I was just going to keep it about Santa, right?
	And gentle parenting and trust issues, and just going to keep it at that.
	And then you'll notice that it was the second paragraph, and I said, as I should mention.
	So I knew I needed to be real.
	I even struggled being real in the freaking email.
	Like, I almost, like, didn't...
	Submit the second part of the question because I was afraid of having the conversation But I did it because I know deep down that what I'm doing it doesn't feel right to me and I just needed to have somebody help me through that to see it and I want to listen to it again and You know our conversation again and sit down have my husband listen to it and we can talk about it and but I think I know That it's
	wrong.
	And what I'm doing is wrong.
	That's why I don't talk to her.
	I mean, we come back from school, from church, and I don't talk to her about it because I know.
	You don't want to know?
	Because I don't want to know.
	You don't want to know?
	Because then what's going to happen is you're going to feel bad about it.
	Yeah.
	And that's just shitty.
	And then you're going to have to, she's going to say, well, what do you think, mommy?
	And then what?
	Do you lie?
	I mean, it's a mess, right?
	Yeah.
	So I... I think I know all of these things, but I had to get to a point and it's been years and years in the making of trying to get here.
	I mean, I think I've been watching your show for many years now and you've changed me and helped change me and my outlook and my thinking and my brain and every day I feel like all the synapses are going off and I feel more And I think I just needed the conversation to help me come to terms with what I already know,
	but I'm too afraid to allow myself to express.
	Right.
	No, and this is advanced philosophy, right?
	I mean, this is why it's a real pleasure.
	I mean, I enjoy talking to everyone on the show, but it's a different kind of pleasure when people have been listening for a while and we don't have to go over the one-on-ones.
	So, no, it's great.
	And it's, you know, I'm half talking to you, half talking to your daughter through you, right?
	So, no, I think it's great what you're doing.
	And religion has great power and religion has a great defense against destruction.
	Which secularism has been unable to reproduce.
	And there's a reason why the social justice warriors infected the Democrats and not the Republicans, because the Republicans had God.
	And it obviously was enough to keep them immune, at least from that kind of attack.
	And they don't choose by accident.
	And if I have to choose between Christianity and Islam, it's not that tough a choice for me.
	I always thought the choice was between religion and reason, but it may not be.
	It may be a choice between communism and And Christianity, at least as to where we are at the moment.
	And I will choose Christianity over either communism or Islam, for obvious reasons.
	So, yeah, good for you.
	Good for you for bringing this stuff up, and I appreciate the openness of the call.
	Yes, yes, thank you.
	Well, I'll talk to my husband and see if he wants to call in.
	Yeah, yeah, let me know how it goes either way, right?
	All right, thanks so much.
	I appreciate it.
	All right, thanks, Blanche.
	Great call.
	Thank you.
	Right up next we have Brandon.
	Brandon wrote in and said, The past eight years have resulted in incredible losses for the Democratic Party, and many revelations that have come out from this recent election have done great damage to the party and its institutions.
	After hearing about the internal strife going on in the GOP from the mainstream media for years upon years, are we likely to see a similar upset within the Democratic Party?
	Where do you think the Democratic Party will go from here?
	That's from Brandon.
	Hi, Brandon.
	How are you doing?
	Hi, I'm doing all right.
	Good, good.
	Well, they're going to double down and self-destruct with any luck.
	They don't have the option to back down.
	They don't have the option to...
	I mean, this is from Vox Dei's Social Justice Warriors Always Lie.
	It's a great book.
	The Social Justice Warriors, people on the left, they always double down.
	Now, listen, the end of the Democratic Party, you know, let's not get complacent and assume that everything is hunky-dory done and dusted, as they say.
	You know, they still have demographics on their side, right?
	They still have a higher birth rate among the immigrants that they have brought into the country.
	You know, they've taken California, which is an incredible thing when you think about it.
	I mean, California has produced...
	Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and a lot of Republicans never again, at least in the foreseeable future.
	So they've taken the left coast, so to speak, and they've taken a lot of the major cities and they still have the media.
	So it depends what happens in Trump's first term.
	I mean, if he's going to do this deportation, if he's going to fix anchor baby stuff, if he's going to restrict immigration, if he's going to do all of that kind of stuff, then...
	Then we can start to tentatively raise our happy hats of cheer.
	But right now, it is still, you know, they're a dying beast, but a dying beast is still dangerous.
	And we don't know if it's going to recover as much yet.
	On the plus side, they did re-elect Nancy Pelosi as the head dem in Congress.
	And that's just...
	Man, that's – hey, you led us to staggering defeats.
	Do you want to be in charge again?
	Sure.
	Why not?
	Yeah, and it's amazing.
	I couldn't believe it just because I think – I know I looked at some numbers that suggested that Barack Obama has the – Largest number of seats lost of any leader ever.
	Oh yeah, he's been a complete disaster.
	Yeah, a total complete disaster for the party.
	I mean, even Richard Nixon, I think, was the number two now.
	And he's lost somewhere, I think it's north of 950 seats over the eight years that he's been in power.
	Yeah, the affirmative action candidate didn't work out.
	And, you know, it's funny how the party of government workers doesn't have any clue when to fire someone.
	Of course they don't!
	How could they, right?
	No, and I think one of the other issues related to this that I kind of wanted to bring up was I think it's interesting to look at some of the different identity politics trends that are coming up.
	Like you said, you mentioned Vox Day's book, SJWs Always Lie.
	I happened to finish that book, I think it was two weeks ago.
	I think it was right before I asked this question.
	And I got to the part about SJWs always double down.
	And I think that is exactly what we've seen post-election, especially with the Trump protests, all the denial that goes on.
	And we've seen them just keep going with the same failed strategies that kind of got them to this point to lose the election and I think begin to lose ground I think it's also an exciting time to be involved in this process because I think the 2018 midterm
	elections will be something to follow very closely and I think it really depends on how these first Year, two years of a Trump presidency really looks and how that's going to mold these 2018 elections.
	Well, and Obama is going to go down as probably, I don't know, it depends how you measure it, but completely disastrous.
	And he's completely blind to this, right?
	So he did a press conference in Greece Um, just a week after the last election saying, yeah, people think I did a pretty good job as president.
	It's like, no, if people are thinking they get, they know.
	So he says that the U.S. is indisputably better off because of him.
	And I don't know if it's because he can't count or doesn't recognize that there's a little thing called debt.
	But, uh...
	Yeah, I mean, $9.99 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2008 to almost $20 trillion at the end of 2016.
	I mean, 219 years from 1789 to 2008 to get to $10 trillion and then eight years to get to 20.
	He's got the worst economic growth of any president since Herbert Hoover, right?
	Which is sort of post-war and boom and depression and all this kind of crap, right?
	And it's just been absolutely...
	Terrible.
	Now, they say the unemployment rate has declined, but if you borrow enough money and print enough money, then you can stimulate the economy.
	But all of the debt is deferred unemployment.
	And also, of course, the number of people that has gone out of the workforce is huge, and they don't count.
	As unemployed.
	Plus, of course, people have crappy part-time jobs instead of real full-time jobs.
	Some people working too, so it is just terrible.
	And the median household income is completely stagnant in real terms.
	And with the debt, you know, home ownership rate has gone down 67.3% to 63.5%.
	Health insurance rates have gone through the roof between 2009 and 2016.
	And I could go on and on, but he's just been a complete disaster.
	Food stamps.
	People going from 32 million to 43.6 million.
	An increase of 11.6 million in food stamp consumption.
	I mean, he's a complete disaster.
	And that disaster, and not to mention what hell has gone on in terms of foreign policy.
	And so, yeah, I mean, he's a complete disaster.
	And people get that instinctively.
	But the media couldn't allow him to fail, right?
	First, half-black president can't be allowed to fail.
	So, anyway.
	Yeah, I know.
	My favorite statistic with jobs has to be that you slash one full-time job down into two part-time jobs, and you've basically doubled the number of job creation in America, despite everyone else.
	I mean, I think it's so obvious, and I think that people in the U.S., it's just easy to see how just economically...
	Worse off, everyone in the country is.
	And I think that's, again, that's part of the reason why you saw a Trump victory was just the amount of economic insecurity that you're seeing, especially amongst, you know, Midwest, Rust Belt, amongst, you know, these working class whites in particular, which is probably the reason that I thought it was so amusing to see Democrats and just double down Democrats.
	Well, they're assuming that demographics will take over and they'll be back lickety-split.
	But, you know, more concerned for me about the economy is the festering state of race relations pushed to a new low by the great instigator and race baiter and divider Barack Obama and the media.
	Oh, it's amazing.
	They've just gone completely nuts.
	Yeah, it's amazing that, you know, I mean, what did they say when he got elected in 2008?
	That he would, you know, I mean, that's all I ever heard was that he would be a, like, new direction for face relations in America.
	Yeah, a healer.
	A healer.
	That and, you know...
	Now, he has no interest in healing race relations.
	He has only interest in causing racial disruption, racial animosity from blacks towards whites.
	He's just like bellows with his eloquence and with his money, just continuing to drive a wedge between blacks and whites, to rouse up black resentment and black rage.
	And boy, it is going to take a long time for that fire to even begin to cool.
	Right.
	And that's something that I would so much rather that everything ends in a sort of peaceful political process as opposed to what we see in these other ethnic nationalist conflicts that we see go on.
	The last thing that I would want to see is what happened in the Balkans here in the US or any conflict like that.
	We've seen what happens looking historically and it is not pretty.
	Right.
	So, no, I think that if the Trump administration does half of what they claim to do, and particularly in the realm of deportations and immigration control, then there's a possibility of a return to some kind of rationality and normalcy in American politics.
	But, you know, the left never sleeps.
	They're plotting, they're planning, you know, they're trying this recount crap and all of this.
	And, oh, yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, they...
	But the wonderful thing is the hypocrisy of the left is becoming blindingly obvious.
	And there's still enough sensible people in America that it matters.
	You know, like you go to the third world, the hypocrisy is pretty clear.
	They don't even try and hide it.
	The corruption is blatant.
	And, you know, everybody just accepts that's the way things go.
	It's the same thing is true in many places in Central and South America.
	And in India, it's particularly bad.
	And other places.
	But...
	Yeah, I mean, the social justice warriors don't take over an institution, as I've made the case before, in order to reform it or to improve it.
	They take it over in order to destroy it.
	The end goal of the people who've infiltrated the Democrat Party in the United States is the end of democracy, right?
	That they wish to have a totalitarian secular dictatorship, Marxist in form and I guess proletariat baiting in content.
	And this is why they ally themselves with the Muslims so much because both have as their enemies ideologically Christianity, right?
	The Marxists hate the Christians and the Muslims hate the Christians and so they ally themselves to destroy Christianity which is one of the bulwarks against totalitarianism in the West and I will have to hold that guilt as having done some stuff to undermine Christianity and I still can't become a Christian until anything directly happens to me.
	God, come on down and give me a sign.
	Hopefully on video, but...
	But I do have, and I don't feel happy about the degree to which I scorned Christianity and did what I did in the past to weaken Christianity.
	And I hope that people are, you know, have accepted my apology and are accepting the respect and visibility that I give to Christians on this show.
	And, um, that, uh, the, the goal is, is not to elevate the democratic party, but to use the democratic party as a kind of bomb against the Republic.
	Um, and, uh, you know, like, uh, the, the, the guy who was the kamikaze in, uh, in the Pacific, in the Japanese air force, uh, towards the end of the second world war, his goal wasn't to land.
	His goal was to use the plane, destroy the plane and hopefully take out his enemy.
	So yeah, they've, they've hijacked and that the communists have been all over the American government since the 1930s.
	Uh, and, uh, I think that the lefties and the lunatics are all over the mainstream media and all over the Democrat party.
	And they're doing that because they wish to use the remaining political weight of the Democratic Party to destroy the remnants of the free market, to destroy the remnants of the bourgeois, the middle class, the capitalists.
	And, you know, they're a patient bunch and they're a plotty bunch.
	And, you know, we all have jobs to do and families to raise and all of that.
	And they just have this like monomaniacal drive for power.
	Which is why when there's a state, you'll generally get this kind of aggregation in power.
	But yeah, the Democratic Party is simply the vessel by which the left is hoping to destroy freedom and virtue and liberties in America.
	They have no interest in improving it anymore than the kamikaze pilot has an interest in flying the plane back.
	Yeah, I mean, they're defending Castro, for God's sakes.
	They attack Trump and defend Castro.
	That tells you everything you need to know about Justin Trudeau.
	Yeah, no, God, yeah, that response.
	It's like, well, it's no wonder that he was a president for so long when you hold a single party and no open elections for, you know, 50-some-odd years.
	You know, it's...
	What a great leader he was, Castro, because boy, he just, he stayed in charge of the country for 50 years.
	You know, I'm not a good husband if I lock my wife in the basement for 50 years and then claim that she never divorced me.
	You know, God Almighty.
	Well, turns out that being a drama teacher and a skateboarder, not that great for international politics.
	Oh, the himbo.
	The himbo doth speak.
	Anyway, sorry, go on.
	Gosh, there's a lot to process in that last statement too, but I empathize with most of that.
	I was the same way, especially towards Christianity.
	I went through that whole four horsemen of atheist phase, and then I realized that...
	None of – I guess at the time, friends or allies on the left, they didn't really seem to want to join me in criticizing Islam that much.
	It was – but they were right there whenever I wanted to say something nasty about Christianity.
	But boy, the minute I brought anything up about Islam or that whole – Sorry to interrupt, but the left, of course, if you're into gay rights, you have to be somewhat skeptical of Islamic theocracies who, you know, regularly throw gays off buildings and give them lashes and sentence them to prison and kill them in other ways.
	But the left, of course, doesn't care about homosexuals.
	They care that homosexuality allows them to troll Christians.
	They don't care about the gays any more than they care about the women.
	They care about the fact that women, single women, vote for the left.
	So they'll work to break up families so that single women will vote for the left, so that they can get the kind of dictatorship that they want by expanding leftist control over the...
	But they don't care about the minorities.
	They don't care about...
	I mean, if they cared about minorities, I mean, look at how blacks were treated in the Islamic slave trade.
	Tens of millions castrated and murdered by the Islamic slave trade.
	And I don't know that there's a lot of apology to us from the heads of the Islamic countries.
	So they don't care about any of that stuff.
	They care about it as a weapon by which to trawl the Christians.
	And if you want to understand the left, just say...
	What can they use to troll Christians?
	Well, they'll use those things, but they don't care about them at all as issues.
	They simply care about them as weapons against the monolith of Christianity that stands between them and the ring of power they so desperately want.
	Right, and that brings up a couple interesting points, and I don't know if it's still the case, but I remember hearing whispers a couple years ago that you had a lot of, I guess, what do they call them now?
	LGBTQ people in Europe who were starting to drift towards what they called these far-right nationalist parties more and more.
	Sure.
	Yeah, as soon, and again, it's one of those things where I told some of my Leftist friends that they couldn't understand.
	And it's like, well, no, because all of a sudden it becomes so much easier to just pan to the Muslim immigrant vote than it is to the comparatively smaller LGBTQ vote that they have in Europe.
	And that, of course, there's going to be so much conflict there that you're just going to see the parties there just push out that interest group in favor of the larger one because they can wield power with that.
	Right, right.
	And of course, what they don't understand is that the groups they ally themselves with will probably be their undoing.
	But, you know, they're addicts, so they're not smart, right?
	I mean, they're addicted to power and power lust, and therefore they're not making intelligent decisions.
	They're simply pursuing their addiction at the expense of all reason and, in fact, long-term survivability even of themselves.
	I mean, how do you think communists are going to do under Sharia law, people?
	I mean, come on, come on.
	You know, I mean, if the demographics are correct, and let's say France is a generation or two away from an Islamic majority, well, France has nukes.
	And then what?
	So, anyway, is there anything else you wanted to mention?
	I'm going to move on to the next caller.
	You know, I think the one thing that I wanted to mention there is, you know, I'm starting to see, I saw an article last week that was saying that I think Simone Sanders was her name.
	She was Bernie Sanders.
	I think she was Bernie Sanders' campaign manager, and she came out saying about how she felt that they wanted to change Democrat Party leadership towards more females, more minorities.
	And then here again, I saw another article just this evening where, again, another black woman was coming on saying that they need to have this change in Democrat Party leadership.
	And I think if that's the case, then are we just going to start seeing again the Democrats really just kind of make a push towards Eliminating whatever white folk they have left.
	No, and good.
	Fantastic.
	I mean, I hope that they pursue those policies and I hope that they triple down.
	On those policies.
	Not because I have any problems seeing blacks or women in charge.
	I think that's fine if they're competent.
	But if they're going to exclude whites from the leadership, then they're excluding a huge talent pool.
	And by definition, they're going to end up with worse people in charge.
	Just by definition.
	Like if two thirds of the population is black and you exclude blacks from your leadership, you're going to end up with lower quality.
	You need to have as wide a talent pool and choose the very best from that talent pool.
	And a meritocracy is the opposite of this affirmative action.
	And anybody who's for affirmative action is simply confessing that the people can't compete without government power.
	So I hope that they triple down on this affirmative action stuff.
	Now, I have had a few thoughts about whether Trump might be affirmative actioning his way out of some sort of media criticism.
	But I'm going to just assume that the people are competent.
	And if they're not...
	Then he's going to fire them.
	But no, I think that if they want to do more affirmative action on the left, fantastic.
	Let's get more affirmative action in universities because the more ridiculous and partisan and hysterical and insane and deranged the universities become, like, hey, Ohio Staters, I bet you're all pro-immigrant.
	Why don't you just go to your safe space to avoid Machete Boy?
	But...
	No, I want more affirmative action in business because that will destroy corrupt businesses and liberate the resources to more sensible and rational businesses.
	I want more affirmative action in universities so that when their funding eventually gets cut, people will mourn it, not at all.
	And I certainly want as much affirmative action as humanly possible.
	I want them to have one I don't know, black lesbian who likes to write goats.
	You know, that's the talent pool I want them to draw from.
	You know, it could be a green-eyed guy who's really into Yeti porn.
	Like, I don't care.
	Just narrow down that talent pool as much as humanly possible and choose your leaders from that.
	That is absolutely, completely and totally wonderful and that's what they should be pursuing.
	And the fact that they are doubling down on that is a huge relief for me.
	If they'd learned their lesson, I think they've been relying so long on the vicious verbal abuse of the mainstream media and on the cross your fingers hope for the outbreeding of Republicans in their demographic policies.
	They've completely forgotten how to think.
	And so therefore this seems like a very good plan to them.
	And I applaud them and hope that they quadruple down on that.
	No, I completely, you know, I really hope they do the same thing too.
	I hope they just keep doubling down, tripling down, quadrupling down, you know, and just we kind of accelerate themselves towards that kind of self-destruction.
	You know, I think we already are beginning to see hints of it here with white women.
	Especially with that spread that they had going for Trump, which I didn't see coming.
	I didn't think it would be 53%.
	Well, you mean mostly married white women.
	I think the singletons still went for the Democrats.
	Well, true.
	I think for a lot of those married white women, you can only demonize their sons, their husbands, their brothers, their fathers for so long before eventually they were going to strike back.
	Well, yeah, I think that women know they live longer, and they know that the government doesn't have enough money to pay for their retirement, and so they understand that if women and men still get set against each other so much, there won't be any kids to pay the taxes they need to live off when they get old.
	So maybe it's more noble than that, but we'll see.
	All right, I'm going to move on to the next call.
	Sorry, did you want to say something else?
	No, I'm good.
	Thank you.
	Alright, thanks for a great question.
	I hope you found it helpful.
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	So much for a wonderful evening.

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