The A&G Replay Thursday Hour Four

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand: The A&G Replay Thursday Hour Four

Date: August 28, 2025
Host: iHeartPodcasts
Episode Theme:
A rich and provocative episode in which Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty examine the pitfalls of unchecked religious pluralism, the dangers of failing to defend liberal values, contemporary pop culture crazes and economic behavior, polarization in America, recent developments in education and DEI controversies, and some humorously illuminating social trends. The episode is marked by thoughtful analysis, notable tangents, and the trademark Armstrong & Getty banter.

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Sectarianism & Religious Intolerance: The Main Segment

[00:33–12:35]

Key Points & Discussion

• Sectarian Violence in Syria:
  Joe kicks off with news about worsening sectarian violence in southern Syria, where Sunni Bedouins and the Druze minority are in bloody conflict.

  • Joe Getty: “Isn't sectarian politics grand?” [00:50]
  • Jack asks about the Druze religious background and Joe explains it's “kind of a universal Abrahamist religion…absolutely horrifying” what's happening to ordinary people who “have armed gunmen storming their houses and shooting them all dead in the streets because of their religion.” [01:12]

• Epic City in Texas: Rise of Religious Enclaves
  Joe reads a story about Epic City, a proposed Muslim-only, Sharia-governed city in Texas.

  • Notes growing tension and political concern over religious enclaves, referencing Josh Hawley's calls for the U.S. to condemn persecution of Christians abroad.

• Hypocrisy in Western Foreign Policy

  • Jack critiques the lack of U.S. condemnation regarding persecution: “If my main thing politically is standing up for Christianity around the world…better stories to latch onto than Putin trying to help Christianity out by taking over Ukraine or something.” [03:08]

• Paul Friesen’s Essay on Liberalism and Pluralism

  • Joe discusses an essay warning that unchecked pluralism can threaten liberal societies, using the Maldives as a case study: idyllic on the surface but a harsh Sunni theocracy in practice.
  • Quote from Friesen: “A theocracy with a customer service department. …The word Islamic Republic does not mean Muslim majority democracy. It means what it says on the label, a legal architecture erected not to protect freedoms but to restrict them.” [04:59]

• Popper’s Paradox: Tolerance Must Reject Intolerance

  • Joe summarizes Friesen’s use of Karl Popper: “A tolerant society must be intolerant of intolerance or it would cease to be tolerant at all.” [07:37]
  • Jack riffs on the “coexist” bumper sticker: “A couple of those symbols on there want to dominate the other symbols. So you can't coexist with somebody who wants to take over.” [07:44]

• Multiculturalism vs. Masochism

  • Friesen’s argument (and Joe’s agreement): Western societies too often tolerate intolerant ideologies for fear of appearing racist, especially in Europe.
  • Joe Getty: “We have enshrined the right of the theocrat while criminalizing the instincts of the secularist. The result is not harmony, it is humiliation.” [09:52]

Notable Quotes

• Joe Getty (reading Friesen): “To mock Christianity is edgy. To mock Islam is hate speech…This is not diversity. It is double think.” [11:01]
• Joe Getty, summarizing: “If you take away nothing from this, take this away. A tolerant society must be intolerant of intolerance. Or it would cease to be tolerant at all.” [12:18]

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Pop Culture & Economic Behavior: The Labubu Craze

[12:49–16:05]

Key Points & Discussion

• Discussion on the “Labubu” doll craze, a collectible blind-box toy from a Hong Kong artist, which has become an “affordable luxury” and status symbol (e.g., hanging from designer handbags).
• “Lipstick Index”: Jack introduces the economic phenomenon that during downturns, consumers seek small, mood-boosting luxuries instead of big-ticket items.
  • Jack Armstrong: “The creepy but cute mischievous dolls could be its latest iteration…That’s the lipstick index.” [15:19]
  • Joe is intrigued: “This is more interesting than I anticipated.” [15:21]

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Political Polarization & "Purple States"

[16:05–17:34]

Key Points

• Brief reflection on how America is “gerrymandering itself into like two different countries.”
• Jack recounts meeting people completely detached from the political/cultural conversation: “That must be fantastic…they just don't know about any of the…scandals, just any of those things. They're completely unaware of them.” [16:56]
• Joe: “Do they have Labubus?” [17:28]

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Educational Trauma, “Trigger Warnings” & Neo-Marxist Ideology

[17:56–31:55]

Key Points & Discussion

• Children’s Literature: "Emotional Tofu" vs. Older Trauma

  • A guest/caller humorously contrasts the soft, affirmational books kids read today with the traumatic children’s literature (“Where the Red Fern Grows,” “Old Yeller”) of past generations.
    • Guest/caller: “I read that in the fourth grade. I came out of that book Vietnam vet and aged 10 years and 200 pages.” [18:39]
  • Jack reflects: “All the old Disney movies we'd watch, the parents die. All your old Disney classics, the parents die.” [19:08]

• Trigger Warnings & Neo-Marxist Influence

  • Joe connects the idea of pervasive trigger warnings in schools/universities to “the whole Neo Marxist thing,” arguing it fosters a culture of fear and tiptoeing.

• Victories Against Secrecy in Public Education

  • Joe highlights a Pennsylvania court ruling forbidding a school district from hiding DEI materials behind claims of "trade secret".
    • Joe Getty: “The judge said, you're out of your mind.” [22:04]
  • Jack: “No, no, no, no, no. You don't get to have any secrets. You work for us.” [21:32]

• Suspension for Saying “Illegal Aliens”

  • North Carolina school district made to pay settlement after suspending a student for using the phrase “illegal aliens.”
    • Jack Armstrong: “I realize it's easier said than done. You got to pull your kid out of that school. Good lord.” [25:09]

• Angry White Male Studies

  • University of Kansas is launching an "Angry White Male Studies" course.
    • Jack Armstrong (tongue-in-cheek): “I've gone out into the world and done a half-assed job of being a business person.” [26:21]

• Academic “Stoner Logic” & Critical Theory

  • Joe reads from an essay criticizing the Foucauldian/critical theory approach that sees “systems of power” in innocuous things (classroom seating, etc.).
    • Essay: “This was exactly the kind of simple, fact-free, intuitive analysis…arrived at many times while sitting around a bong.” [29:25]
    • Discussion of the absurdity of seeing all power structures as inherently oppressive.

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Relationship “Shreking” and Social Commentary

[32:07–35:45]

Key Points

• “Shreking”: The (allegedly trendy) act of dating “down” for security or ego.
  • Jack Armstrong, wryly: “I feel like anybody uses the term date down should be pushed off a cliff.” [32:15]
  • Joe reads listener texts: “Shreking—I thought I was just charming.” [32:47]
• The topic veers into “rent-a-hottie” culture, shallow attitudes toward looks, and the pitfalls of transactional dating.
  • Joe Getty: “You’re doomed to misery. Let's go ahead and bottom line it.” [34:57]
  • Jack: “If you're picking somebody only on looks…how long does that last?” [35:33]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “A tolerant society must be intolerant of intolerance or it would cease to be tolerant at all.”
  — Joe Getty quoting Karl Popper and Paul Friesen [07:37, 12:18]

• “We have enshrined the right of the theocrat while criminalizing the instincts of the secularist. The result is not harmony, it is humiliation.”
  — Joe Getty reading Paul Friesen [09:52]

• “You don't get to have any secrets. You work for us.”
  — Jack Armstrong [21:32]

• “This was…fact-free, intuitive analysis arrived at many times while sitting around a bong.”
  — Essay read by Joe Getty [29:25]

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Episode Highlights by Timestamp

• [00:33–12:35]: Main segment—religious violence overseas, pluralism, intolerance, and Western failings
• [12:49–16:05]: The Labubu craze and “lipstick index” economics
• [16:05–17:34]: Political disengagement and “purple states” musings
• [17:56–21:22]: Traumatic vs. sanitized children's lit, trigger warnings
• [21:22–31:55]: DEI transparency, academic absurdities, critical theory
• [32:07–35:45]: Shreking, transactional attitudes toward dating

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Tone & Takeaways

The episode is unapologetically opinionated, weaving together concerns about the erosion of liberal norms, a defense of Western values, critiques of contemporary academic fads, and humorous observations about pop culture and social life. Armstrong and Getty’s style remains energetic and irreverent, with a clear preference for frank skepticism and a disdain for “fashionable nonsense” in politics, education, and social trends.

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For more: Visit armstrongandgetty.com for podcasts and links.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Joe Getty]

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

And now here's Armstrong and Getty.

[Joe Getty]

I have a handful of stories that are centered around the same theme, all of which have come out just in the last day or two, all of which are being covered in major publications and quite responsibly. Number one, India's I'm sorry, Inside Syria's sectarian Cauldron. Kidnapping triggers cascade of violence Blood soaked week between Sunni Bedouins, Sunni Muslims and the Druze minority in southern Syria. Slaughtering the hell out of the Druze because of their religion and their tribe, et cetera. Isn't sectarian politics grand?

[Jack Armstrong]

And the Druze are. Are they Christian adjacent? I forget I read this last time.

[Joe Getty]

They're like an Abrahamic religion beliefs. All of the prophets are cool and trust me, I'm not a Druze theologian, but it's kind of a universal Abrahamist religion anyway and it's absolutely horrifying. These are. Not that it matters, but you look at these people, they are thoroughly moder, normal people living their lives, hoping to get a career going, raise their children, blah blah blah. And they have armed gunmen storming their houses and shooting them all dead in the streets because of their religion. Moving along, this is an interesting story from Texas of all places. Epic City replacing Old Glory with the crescent moon. Picture this a Muslim only city governed by Sharia law beyond the reach of democratically elected officials. Officials. Something like that is happening in Texas and its founders call it Epic City, the East Plano Islamic Center. Epic is the largest mosque in Texas and one of the largest in the US Last year, several members of the mosque formed Community Capital Partners llc, or ccp and announced the formation of Epic City, a master planned Islamic development project that caters to the evolving needs of families in the Muslim communities. And again, we could get into this idea in depth and what is wrong with it, but don't really have time. Josh Hawley's called for us, the US to condemn the persecution of Christians in Muslim majority nations, including several that were kind of friendly with these days. But whether it's Africa or the Middle east, yeah, there's wholesale persecution of Christians going on, frequently slaughtering them by machine gun fire or machete.

[Jack Armstrong]

And.

[Joe Getty]

And Hawley, is he grandstanding? He often is. Or is he sincere about this? I don't know. How weird is it that the US doesn't condemn that?

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, right. If my main thing politically is standing up for Christianity around the world. I think those are better stories to latch onto than Putin trying to help Christianity out by taking over Ukraine or something.

[Joe Getty]

Right. Or something. Yeah. The resolutions that are co sponsored with several other Republicans urge the president to prioritize the defense of persecuted Christians in America's foreign policy, including via diplomatic engagement with Muslim majority countries as well as efforts to stabilize the Middle East. Urges the president to leverage the diplomatic toolkit to advance the protection of persecuted Christians worldwide and within Muslim majority countries. So I certainly applaud that effort and all of those headlines bring us to this. And it's a piece I came across by Paul Friesen. Paul is with Cornell University. He is one of the scholars with the Let me get this right, the center for Global Democracy in the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell. Didn't really know his work, but I found this to be extremely persuasive. He talks, he starts this, this article talking about the Maldives, which is a chain of islands by not far from Africa, I think. Actually, I didn't even look it up on a map. But they're idyllic, beautiful. It's infinity pools, bioluminescent beaches. You got your bungalows over the water. It's the stuff straight out of a Sandals ad. Or, you know, like Fiji has resorts that are just like this. And he writes, few imagine that this archipelago of honeymoon brochures and influencer backdrops is governed by a constitutionally mandated Sunni monoculture where apostasy, I.e. rejecting Islam, is punishable by death.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow.

[Joe Getty]

And children are catechized not in the arts of critical thought, but in the compulsory admiration of sharia and all non Muslim religious practice, no matter how discreet or devotional, is prohibited by law. You cannot silently pray to Jesus Christ in your living room alone in the Maldives or it is punishable. There are no churches, no synagogues, no temples, no tolerance. This is a theocracy with a customer service department. And he says here, the word Islamic republic does not mean Muslim majority democracy. It means what it says on the label, a legal architecture erected not to protect freedoms but to restrict them. Islamic education is mandated in every grade, every year, etc. Etc. Oh. Any dissent, whether whispered by a secular blogger or typed by an ex Muslim on Twitter, can earn you 100 lashes, 20 years or a cemetery plot. Welcome to paradise. And then he says, this is not uniquely maldivian or even uniquely Islamic. What's on display here is the metastasis of a broader pathology, the suicide of liberalism through the intravenous drip of unchecked pluralism.

[Jack Armstrong]

All Right.

[Joe Getty]

There are a lot of isms there. I'll explain. But this is the point of what he's writing. The Maldives is not just an outlier, it is a bellwether, a warning of what happens when civilizations that once separated church from state begin importing ideas, ideologies that merge the two, like Siamese twins sharing a judicial spine. This is not a clash of cultures. It is a conquest by bureaucracy, and we are funding it for the umpteenth time. Read Michael Holbeck's submission novel, came out a few years ago, about how it's an imagination of how Trump, Trump. I'm reading, while I'm talking, how France becomes an entirely Muslim country and freedom of freedom, speech and religion are stamped.

[Jack Armstrong]

Out and pretty plausible when you read it.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, that's the thing. How would you. How would you describe how the takeover goes, how it works in that novel?

[Jack Armstrong]

Little by little, with a lot of decent people not wanting to come off as racist or Islamophobic and then just.

[Joe Getty]

Over time, losing and as Mr. Friesen points out, like through bureaucracy, bit by bit, through the. The tentacles of government. Anyway, here's his main point, and this is the. The part that I said I found so eloquent and, and I wish we had time to just do the whole thing, but maybe we'll talk to him someday. It was Karl Popper, he writes, who warned that a tolerant society must be intolerant of intolerance or it would cease to be tolerant at all.

[Jack Armstrong]

Obviously, the way we're always mocking the coexist bumper sticker.

[Joe Getty]

Coexist, coexist.

[Jack Armstrong]

A couple of those symbols on there want to dominate the other symbols. So you can't coexist with somebody who wants to take over.

[Joe Getty]

A tolerant society must be intolerant of intolerance or it would cease to be tolerant at all. Can you think of any other modern movements that punished you, even disagreeing with them, or even asking them hard questions at a training session, for instance, that they made you go to at work or at your university's orientation. You weren't even allowed to question it Anyway, he goes on, it's a delicious paradox, too often quoted and too rarely heeded. For we have taken the first half of the dictum, the imperative to tolerate, and chiseled it into law, into policy, into university mission statements and NGO pamphlets. But the second half, the requirement to draw a line, to say no further, has been treated like garlic in a vampire movie, an antique and anathema, unfashionable. The paradox has become pathology. Here's what he means. Our courts allow Sharia arbitration councils to function in British cities. He's a Brit, obviously, adjudicating matters of family and inheritance with standards that would make a 12th century canon. Lawyer Flinch Our schools include faith based curricula that require hijabs for seven year olds and teach that homosexuality is satanic filth. Our public broadcasters will air a documentary about the importance of free speech, followed immediately by a segment about why cartoons of Muhammad are unhelpful. This is not multiculturalism, it is masochism. It is the belief that liberalism must be so open minded that its own brains are spilled onto the prayer Matt it is the fetishization of identity at the expense of liberty. It is the ideological pacifism of a society too terrified to assert its own values lest it be accused of racism by those who mistake ideology for ethnicity. We have enshrined the right of the theocrat while criminalizing the instincts of the secularist. The result is not harmony, it is humiliation. And then he goes into let's dispense with the ritual disclaimers. Not all Muslims are Islamists. Not all believers who wish to impose their are believers who wish to impose their theology on others, of course. But neither are all white people racists. Yet no progressive chokes on the phrase white supremacy. When was the last time you heard a progressive say now, of course not all white people are racist. A lot of white people are good, honest, decent, hard working people who try to treat everybody well, blah blah blah. But still there is white supremacy. Anytime you talk about Islamism, you have to throw in the long list of disclaimers, right?

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, the first one though, is not seen as true by, you know, your your local school quite possibly spent a lot of money getting Ibram X Kendi to come speak at the school, or at least bought all his books. And his whole theme is you are automatically racist if you're white by definition. So that's one reason you wouldn't say.

[Joe Getty]

That, he goes on. Why must we say religiously motivated extremism instead of naming the doctrine that inspired the bomb? Why do we hear of Asian grooming gangs instead of Pakistani Muslim sex trafficking rings? Why do we refer to the Maldives as a challenging democracy rather than a theocratic prison with coral beaches? Because the liberal west, having abolished blasphemy laws, is now enforcing them in reverse. The new heresy is criticism of faith, at least of one faith. To mock Christianity is edgy. To mock Islam is hate speech. To question Jewish nationalism is a principled resistance. To question Islamist imperialism is bigotry this is not diversity. It is double think. It is a sacred exception carved out in the name of peace, which is to say, in the name of fear. And then he goes on to make the point more at greater length. Fear is the root of all of this. And he's absolutely right. Especially about Europe. Europe, Britain, France are humiliating themselves and twisting themselves into bizarre quasi legal knots to try not to anger the Muslim folks. And I'm telling you to return to the main theme. If you take away nothing from this, take this away. A tolerant society must be intolerant of intolerance. Or it would cease to be intolerant. I'm sorry? Or it would cease to be tolerant at all.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, pretty obviously. But obviously not obvious enough to keep it from happening the way it's happening.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Those of you who don't have the courage to say this sort of thing, we suggest you try to find it if you can. Those of you who do, we're with you.

The Armstrong and Getty show get more Jack, more Joe podcasts and our hot [e-mail] the Armstrong and Getty Show.

[Jack Armstrong]

I guess it's my. Maybe it's my music radio training from back when I was younger or just my personality, but I like to be aware of crazes, even if it's not something I. I'm into. I like to know what the hot TV show is, hot movie, hot music, whatever. I like to know what's really popular, even if it's not my thing. I just avoid thought. I need to know that.

[Joe Getty]

I like to think about the ancient Greek Republic.

[Jack Armstrong]

I am reading Ulysses, so I get both sides of it, I guess. But because that's not hot, nobody else is doing that. The Labubu craze I was reading about in the New York Post. I know this come up on the show, but this is a craze I'm not tuned into yet. They've got a picture of this furry little doll that looks frightening but. So fill us in on the Labubu craze there, Katie.

[Katie]

So the Labubu craze actually started back in 2015 when he was first introduced. But he's part of this he.

[Joe Getty]

It's a he.

[Jack Armstrong]

What's a he? Labubu. A he.

[Joe Getty]

The article is gender fluid to me.

[Katie]

I'm gonna go with gender fluid, but the article that I'm reading says he don't use gendered language. Let's see. Hong Kong based artist created a series called the Monsters and one of the characters was a Labubu. It's influenced by Nordic folklore and mythology.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay.

[Katie]

That he enjoyed during his childhood.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's a furry little, it's. It looks cute while at the same time kind of menacing with like fangs and whatnot.

[Katie]

And there's this, this whole craze about them right now is that it's called blind buying. So you buy this package and you can't see what one is inside. And people are trying to collect all of them. So they're buying a lot and it.

[Joe Getty]

Says like baseball cards or Nintendo cards. Back in the day you just buy a pack hoping it's stuff you don't have or good stuff or whatever.

[Jack Armstrong]

Says here the Boo Boo dolls have been spotted dangling from Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent purses as fashion's quirky new status symbol. But their popularity could soon spell doom for the economy. And expert warns during economic downturns, consumers gravitate toward what experts call affordable luxuries. Small dopamine spiking splurges that don't break the bank like lipstream lipstick, ice cream or movie ticket. Studies have shown it's sometimes called the lipstick index in economics, which I found very, very interesting. And this heard of that.

[Joe Getty]

This is more interesting than I anticipated. Go on.

[Jack Armstrong]

I was hoping so. And the creepy but cute mischievous dolls could be its latest iteration. And it's an example of people are not wanting to splurge on real.

[Joe Getty]

How.

[Jack Armstrong]

I set myself apart from other items. So they're going with this cheap trendy thing. That's the lipstick index.

[Joe Getty]

I had never heard of that. But that's. That's interesting. Agreed. Yeah, clever.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay, we'll keep our eye on that. What do we got coming up?

[Joe Getty]

Is there a male equivalent to that?

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Joe Getty]

I'd have to think about that. Coming up, the incredible lack of purple states in the US and why that might matter as we gerrymander ourselves into like two different countries that live side by side.

[Jack Armstrong]

Which leads me into this. I had this interesting experience and I'm glad I have met a person that can be my conduit's not the right word. What I want to guide entrance point into a world I don't really know because I got as in conversation. Conversation with a woman, a mom.

[Joe Getty]

Her.

[Jack Armstrong]

And her husband successful business people, raised kids, sound like the kids are all.

[Joe Getty]

Successful, blah blah blah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Like perfectly upstanding middle upper class people that have no interest in any of this crap we ever talk about. Like none don't know anything about any of it. And it. I Just thought, wow, that must be awesome. That must be really awesome. While at the same time, you know, you got to participate and pay attention to make the world work.

[Joe Getty]

Or it will, you know, rules will.

[Jack Armstrong]

Be, get made, blah, blah, blah, that stuff, you know. But it was just so interesting. I don't hang around people like that. And it's just so, it's just like they just don't know about any of the, any of the scan, you know, the, the, the jeans commercial from last week or just any of those things. They're completely unaware of them. And I thought that must be fantastic.

[Joe Getty]

Do they have any concern about how their tax money is spent? Because it sounds like there's probably a fair amount.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know them well enough to know that, but that's why I said I look forward to this entrance into this world of learning more about it.

[Joe Getty]

Do they have Labubus?

[Jack Armstrong]

I bet they don't know what that is. That'd be handy.

[Joe Getty]

Good for them.

The Armstrong and Getty Show. Get more Jack, more Joe podcasts and our hot [e-mail] the Armstrong and Getty Show.

[Guest or caller]

Some of y' all have not experienced emotional trauma through literature. And it shows. Kids today are out here reading the Magical Bunny and How He Learned to Love Himself or Sparkle the Dragon's Conflict Free Resolution Journey. And I'm sorry, but that is emotional tofu. Just page after page of affirmations and pastel illustrations like a therapist made it on Canva. Meanwhile, we were out here getting emotionally demolished by where the red fern grows. You want to talk about resilience? I watched a boy bury his two dead dogs after one got ripped apart by a mountain lion and the other one starved to death out of grief. And I read that in the fourth grade I came out of that book, Vietnam vet and aged 10 years and 200 pages. Today's kids get talking llamas who validate their feelings. And we got Old Yeller where the dog gets rabies and the dad's like, well, son, I think it's time we shoot your best friend in the face. It's all part of growing up. And that was our bedtime story. And you wonder why millennials cry during commercials.

[Jack Armstrong]

I aged 10 years reading that book. That is interesting though. I thought about that, that when my kids were young, which I guess that makes means I've become soft. Like all of modern society. It's just like, good God. All the old Disney movies we'd watch and everyone. The parents die. All your old Disney classics. The parents Die.

[Joe Getty]

Obligatory.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. That's something else I'm reminded. It's funny, I'm deep in thought, thinking of some of the books I read and my kids read in schools, and the concept of trigger warnings, which is one of the worst things that's ever happened, and how that's all related to. And this might seem like a stretch, but I swear it's not. It's related to the whole Neo Marxist thing, where what they want to happen is you don't know what to say. You don't know what do to. You can say you're afraid of offending, you're afraid of getting in trouble, you're afraid of losing your job. In short, you're afraid. And so you got to go through every conceivable trauma or discomfort there might be in reading a piece of literature. That's a bizarre notion, and yet it took hold at most of our universities. Speaking of which, and Michael, I apologize, I got a. An uneargent communication during the break and wasn't able to communicate to you. Hanson prepared a little musical thing for me.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Joe Getty]

Yes. Oh, it's not good, but.

[Jack Armstrong]

What. What. What did they say?

[Joe Getty]

We're like. I was trying to quickly, with the aid of Hanson and AI craft a theme song to our miseducation update.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay.

[Joe Getty]

And our twisted schools break all the rules they churn out fools it just ain't cool and I said in the style of 1970s British punk.

[Jack Armstrong]

There you go.

[Joe Getty]

And again, it wasn't good. Anyway, a couple of stories for you. Let's start with good news. A victory for our friends at the Goldwater Institute. Tim Sandifer's outfit, a Pennsylvania mom, won a major victory for parental rights and government transparency last week when her local school district tried and failed to withhold DEI materials from parents claiming they were trade secrets.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Can you imagine?

[Jack Armstrong]

Man, I would lose my mind if any school official ever said anything close to that to me. No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't get to have any secrets.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

You work for us.

[Joe Getty]

And claiming that it's like the same as the design for our jet engine here at Lockheed. Right? Our DEI materials are trade secrets. Yeah. A couple of years ago, she requested assets to her local school's materials that were presented to teachers, staff, and students to see whether school district was indoctrinating students by teaching racially discriminatory. Discriminatory dei. But the district refused, calling it trade secrets, I would say, with the help of Goldwater Institutes. The judge said, you're out of your mind.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I would say you're either going to release this to all his parents right now or then we'll go through the whole lawsuit process and then you'll release it to us because obviously you have to. So what are we going to do here?

[Joe Getty]

In a groundbreaking and amazing decision, the court correctly held that the public was entitled to see records created by a government employee to train other government employees. There was no trade secret protection for these materials. And by the way, the school district appealed to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

[Jack Armstrong]

Because they actually believe they should be able to keep it a secret. The way they're crafting their organization to teach your kid. That's nuts.

[Joe Getty]

It is absolutely nuts. I think, I don't know, but I think you may be making the mistake of judging their motivations by what they say their motivations are. They don't believe for a second it's a trade secret. They just want to keep doing DEI and so they're making any excuse they could find. Moving along, another good positive story.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, there is the, you know, there's the example of who's that guy who ran for governor In Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, who actually in one of the debates got hammered for saying something along the lines of parents can't be trusted with teaching their kids. We need to get them to the schools where they, you know, we can count on them getting the right information.

[Joe Getty]

Right. So there is a certain season education can take over.

[Jack Armstrong]

There is a certain belief that actually seems to exist along those lines, which is crazy.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, you're right. And it's, it's that nexus of like activists, neo Marx, neo Marxist types and the well meaning fools who get swept up in their ideas who actually believe this crap that it gets a little confusing because, you know, a lot of those people like Terry McAuliffe I don't think is a neo Marxist, but he's a progressive and he's been convinced by the, you know, neo Marxists in the progressive wing of the Democrats, I guess, that they mean it. They really want to educate the kids better and PhDs in education are the people to do it. Some more good news. In a weird way it occurred to me as I spoke that phrase that undoing something horrible happening, it is good news, but it's kind of half and half, if you know what I mean. A school district in North Carolina has been ordered to admit their mistake and issue an apology and fork over $20,000 and some more settlement stuff after they were sued for suspending a 16 year old student who used the term illegal aliens. In class.

[Jack Armstrong]

Suspended for that?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. The 16 year old student was in an English class discussion. He used the term English. The teacher said aliens. And the student said do you mean space aliens or illegal aliens who need green cards?

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow. And it was just a clarification question.

[Joe Getty]

Right, right. The student was later suspended for three days and marks denoting racially insensitive behavior were added to his permanent record.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I. I realize it's easier said than done. You got to pull your kid out of that school. Good lord.

[Joe Getty]

That's a lot of schools in around America.

[Jack Armstrong]

I know.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. So the case actually caught the eyes of Donald J. Trump who wrote the student a personal recommendation letter according to the Liberty Justice Institute. You people are crazy. Yeah. Let's see, I could quote the the judge, but they said more or less what you'd think they would have said. First Amendment, etc. Utterly, unracially not, I mean completely not racially insensitive or mean or. Yeah, that is absolutely nuts. Let's see, speaking of nuts, the University of Kansas. Jack, you're quasi alma mater.

[Jack Armstrong]

I went for an entire year. Two nieces who graduated there.

[Joe Getty]

Wow. Wow. Rock Chalk, Jayhawk. I know you're a big fan. University of Kansas is offering a course in the fall called Angry White Male Studies that will examine the rise of the angry white male in the United States. The course will be offered with the goal of teaching about the prominent figure that is the angry white male. That's exciting.

[Jack Armstrong]

I got a half of an MBA from there, so that's probably why I've gone out into the world and done a half assed job of being a business person.

[Joe Getty]

And, and finally this. Ah. Is this even worth trying? I don't know. It's a think piece and a really good one written by a fellow named Brandon, last name withheld, entitled Stoner Logic in Academia. And he's talking about in particular Michel Foucault, French bastard. It looks like foul called, but it's pronounced Foucault French bastard. Who is one of the most cited intellectuals in American universities today. Kids hear his ideas more than virtually anybody's. He is one of the founding fathers of critical theory and neo marxism.

[Jack Armstrong]

I know that from listening to James Lindsay go on and on about this human being.

[Joe Getty]

Indeed. And if you would like read his and Helen Pluckrose's brilliant cynical theories. Anyway, so it's all about how this guy was a bright stoner who liked to read and learn stuff, but he never really felt like applying himself at college and that sort of stuff. But he realized he really needed more formal education and somebody to help lead him if he was going to get anywhere in his life. And he went to college and found that a lot of what they were trying to teach was stoner logic. And he explains that one day a lecturer. This is my favorite example. A highly esteemed scholar launched into a shallow Foucaulian analysis of something or other as it applied to the university. He went on and on with a sort of smug self awareness, like he thought he was delivering gold and absolutely blowing our minds. He says, I should note here that this lecturer is really likable and a genuinely nice person. Look at this classroom, said the lecturer. Look at how the very structure of this classroom exerts power. You are all on one side, stepped up in auditorium seating, so I can see all of you, but you can only see me, not each other. You are kind of forced to look and listen.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay, yeah, true, but why?

[Joe Getty]

He continued, the construction of this lecture theater exists, exerts a system of power and ensures the self perception of you, the students, as lacking knowledge. And it sets me up as the distributor of knowledge and thus it conveys.

[Jack Armstrong]

Power for what I'm paying. I hope you're the distributor of knowledge.

[Joe Getty]

You're getting ahead of us. But you're absolutely right. These systems of power are everywhere, hidden in the architecture and the systems of our society and designed to maintain the continuity of power.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh my God. And.

[Joe Getty]

And this guy who's writing I really like says I remember being thoroughly unimpressed. This was exactly the kind of simple fact, free, intuitive analysis that I and other high school graduates had arrived at many times while sitting around a bong. And it wasn't even accurate. I remember thinking that since class sizes tend to be small at our university, 90% of the teaching rooms were not stepped auditoriums. They were smaller, flat, office like rooms perfect for egalitarian, discussion oriented classes. The only rooms with this structure were the few lecture theaters intended for hosting large audiences. And in any case, they clearly had that structure for acoustic and communicative reasons, not because our neoliberal overlords wanted to inculcate us in some sort of pliable consciousness lest we threaten their systems of power.

[Jack Armstrong]

What's more, that is so hilarious.

[Joe Getty]

To your point, Jack, there was a knowledge differential between us and him. At least there was supposed to be. We were there as young people, people with less knowledge be educated by a more knowledgeable teacher. I couldn't see how pointing this out, this obvious fact, was some kind of mind blowing revelation. And then a couple more sentences And I'll stop. Crucially, while he had an issue with the systems of power inherent in the structure of the lecture theater, he apparently had no objection to the avert power required to make students pay for a core curriculum of courses he helped design that he teaches, and for which they had to buy the compulsory textbook that.

[Jack Armstrong]

He co wrote for a ridiculous.

[Joe Getty]

He didn't have any problem with that system of power.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. And the insane charge for books, that whole scam.

[Joe Getty]

So his point is the whole critical thinking thing, and that's what the course was, was just a way to indoctrinate students into a simplistic worldview.

[Jack Armstrong]

Your boss has a bigger office, makes more money than you. Yeah, he's. Somebody's got to be the boss. And he has the experience and the expertise to be the boss and manage us so the company can. What are you talking about?

[Joe Getty]

But then they apply that stoner logic, free analysis to like everything, including the oppressor. The person with more power is always wrong and the person with less power is always right. I mean, what an idiotic notion. I've said more than once, if my dog expressed that idea to me, I would hit him with a rolled up newspaper for being so stupid. And I do not hit my dog.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh my God.

[Joe Getty]

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. The Armstrong and Getty Show. The Armstrong and Getty Show.

[Jack Armstrong]

Not surprisingly, we got a fair number of texts about Shreking, which according to the USA Today and somebody who texted me with personal knowledge, is a thing where women date down. And I feel like anybody uses the term date down should be pushed off a cliff. People date down on purpose, thinking this is a cliff.

[Joe Getty]

Good enough. Or should it be a volcano? Just asking back to you.

[Jack Armstrong]

People who date down in terms of looks feel like they'll be treated better because this person really realizes what they've got. This might be how I got married. Yeah. Oh, maybe I'm just so outrageous because I'm wondering how often does this happen to me?

[Joe Getty]

As a friend of the Armstrong and Getty show wrote Shreking, I thought I was just charming. Well, now I know on the topic though.

[Jack Armstrong]

So a person I know said that some of her friends have done this. They have dated down thinking they would get treated better and then weren't treated better. And so they call that being Shrek and we're disappointed. And as Joe pointed out, maybe they just figured out you're a shallow.

[Joe Getty]

A manipulative she devil. Yes, it's not quite as complicated as it sounds.

[Jack Armstrong]

But then there was the other person. This Friend of mine, the person who Shrek, who actually tells guys, if you want to go out with me, it's Gonna, I need $500 to look the way you want me to look. Hair, nails, everything like that. And then you get to be seen with me, I guess, or whatever. And I thought that was appalling, but we got this text regarding Rent a Hottie. How is that different from renting a Ferrari? So no one should ever rent a Ferrari. If you have the dollars, do what makes you smile.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. I would suggest that you have priorities that will lead you not to happiness, but you do you, brother.

[Jack Armstrong]

There's. I can't. I'll have to think about it for longer than I've got right now. On why it is incredibly different to rent a Ferrari to see what it's like to drive a Ferrari.

[Joe Getty]

Well, I was going to say, number one, you get to drive the Ferrari, if you know what I'm saying.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, okay, I wouldn't even think of that. But if you're, but, well, it's different. Are you.

[Joe Getty]

No, seriously, he's paying money to be seen standing next to a Ferrari. That's stupid.

[Jack Armstrong]

See, I would rent a Ferrari, maybe to actually drive a Ferrari because I don't know what it's like. I've never done it, and it might be pretty cool. And then for a variety of reasons, I can't or ever won't own one because it doesn't make practical sense. Is that the similar thing? But it's way different than the. If you're actually dating, like you're trying to be in a relationship with somebody, which is, like, one of the most satisfying things that can happen in your entire life, entire existence on planet Earth. And if that's what your goal is and you're going about it this way, I, I, I don't, I don't know what you're doing.

[Joe Getty]

Well, you're doomed to misery. Let's go ahead and bottom line it.

[Jack Armstrong]

You'Re doomed to misery.

[Joe Getty]

Yes, it's a clear case of dtm. I mean, I know when I see it.

[Jack Armstrong]

So if you tell her I'm not paying you 500, is she gonna show up in sweats and no makeup and.

[Joe Getty]

What an odd way to live your life.

[Jack Armstrong]

No kidding. How's that working out for you? Would be a good question.

[Joe Getty]

You know, there are, you know, sub sectors of American society that are as foreign to me as, you know, somebody in Africa with a plate in their lip or, you know, in Afghanistan, where they play that sport where you whack a calf's head around on horseback or something like that. Precisely how it works.

[Jack Armstrong]

If you're picking somebody only and look so how long is that enjoyable? I would think that would wear off so fast. I don't really have anything in common with you. I don't really find you very interesting. But I guess I'll look at you for how long does that last?

[Joe Getty]

The Armstrong and Getty Show Armstrong and Kenny, Jack and Joe are here to tell you your day will be just fine. Just download the podcast. Won't cost you a dime.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong. And get it on demand. That's the podcast.

[Joe Getty]

Subscribe right now.

Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an I heart podcast.