Loading summary
Transcript122 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome back, everybody to Religion on the Mind and a special episode of Generation Gap Culture Hour. Again, for these shows, there's approximately 25 years between Tony and Josh, with me in the middle. And we attempt to consider at least one issue through that lens of age and life experience. In each episode, generally, we have a bit more fun. We stray a bit more into cultural topics and away from pure psychology and scholarship. On these episodes, and with Tony's complaints about me giving a table of contents at the beginning of episodes being unnecessary notwithstanding, here's my table of contents. Today we'll talk, I think briefly about this new war with Iran. We are two days before this is going to come out, so there might even be developments then between now and then, but we might talk about that. Probably some AI stuff. As I promised in my Instagram stories, Tony will be kicking us off on a heated Epstein Files discussion, but only after the Patreon paywall break. So do with that information what you like, dear listener. And also maybe in that later half, we might do a little bit about what do we need to trust authors about new but popular ideas like polyamory, things like this, like who gets to talk about that when? And what would be some good, like maybe standards and practices here, of course. I'm here with Tony Jones and Josh Gilbert. I'm sorry, last time you were on Tony, we corrected the record. It's the Reverend Dr. Tony Jones. If I'm going to say Dr. Dan Koch, I sure as shit need to put honor on your name. But before we get into that, we got a couple, we have a business item. And then I have a little something fun to start us off with. But the business, I guess it's really more of a family item, not a business item. We have literally added another generation since our last episode. Congratulations to first time father Josh Gilbert. Let's fucking go.
- [02:18]
B
I'd prefer if you refer to me as Daddy Gilbert from now on.
- [02:22]
A
Okay. Congratulations to Daddy Gilbert. Daddy Gills, dude, like first of all, just very briefly, how's it going? Are you getting any sleep? Very briefly, what's your life like?
- [02:35]
B
Okay, very briefly, very briefly, real quick. We're getting more sleep than we expected. It has been easier than we thought it would be. There's a lot of Internet doom talk out there about first time parenting. Davey Grace was born on January 23, 123 at 2 34. And I just started working last the last two weeks kind of ramping back up. So Em and I had a full, you know, month off. And I mean it's Cliche, but like, it's kind of been perfect. It's been a blast. There hasn't been too many challenges. The appointments are going good. It's like really fun to have a newborn. And she's starting to smile. And Tony and Courtney came over and met her. It's, I mean, it's. I couldn't have imagined. I can't imagine if Better godparents.
- [03:22]
A
Oh, is that true?
- [03:23]
B
I can't imagine better godparents.
- [03:27]
C
Did I take the words right out of your mouth?
- [03:30]
B
I was just, I was feeling so vulnerable. But yes, Tony and Courtney will be the godparent. No, they're not. Dan's like buying it.
- [03:37]
A
It's okay. I, I, you know, I could get, I'm okay being passed over.
- [03:41]
B
Yeah.
- [03:42]
A
Not that I would be, not that I would be in succession. This is not a Prince Andrew situation. Hashtag Epstein files. I'm not, I, I actually maybe that Prince Andrew, like ninth in succession to the crown. That's where I am. To your godparent. Like I'm maybe ninth on the list. I'm comfortable with that. Yeah.
- [03:58]
B
I could publish the list on Facebook. The Facebook group, you know, just.
- [04:02]
A
There's no downsides to that idea.
- [04:03]
B
Right, Exactly. No, it's been awesome. I don't have any. I mean, nothing really jumps out other than we've loved it. It's been awesome and we're being creative. Like today I worked for four hours with her in the holder on my chest and it was like, I liked
- [04:18]
A
that photo you sent.
- [04:19]
B
Yeah, yeah. This is not so bad yet. There's plenty of changes coming, buddy.
- [04:24]
C
I'm just telling you, she's gonna break your heart.
- [04:27]
B
She's gonna break my heart.
- [04:29]
C
Just prepare her. She's gonna break your heart. Okay, this is me last night. Okay. I have my. Put my, my phone automatically goes on to do not disturb when I go to bed at 9pm yes, because you're
- [04:42]
A
a sensible adult, by the way. All adults with iPhones set just do it so that we don't have to worry about waking you up.
- [04:51]
C
But I have exceptions. My three kids and my mom. My 82 year old mom and my three kids.
- [04:58]
A
Yeah.
- [04:59]
C
And at 1:30am I hear the phone buzzing next to my head and I, of course, I like climb out of a deep ram and well, that could only be one of four persons. And I flip the phone over and there is my youngest kid texting me from the emergency room.
- [05:19]
B
Oh, my God.
- [05:20]
A
Yep. That's why you do it.
- [05:21]
C
I'm just telling you, bro, just be prepared Davey, it's nothing but, you know, rose petals now. But you're gonna have, you know, midnight calls from the ER down the road.
- [05:32]
B
Well, is everything okay?
- [05:34]
C
Like, I'm not telling.
- [05:35]
A
What a kind friend. My reaction. My reaction was you're. You mean. I will happily, in a New York minute, trade occasional ER texts for being. For the sleep regression that our two year old was going through for three weeks. About two weeks ago, it ended up. Yeah, that was killer. But, yeah, technically it doesn't end, Josh, but the phases really change. What I'm wondering about is if now, as a. As a papa bear, if you will start to have spicier takes as you defend things like socialized gender androgyny against crusty Uncle Tony. That's what I'm really. That's what I'm going to be tracking.
- [06:22]
B
What is set up. I will say there was like a bit of fatherly instinct. I'll call it like the first drive, like when we were bringing her home from the hospital. Like someone cut me off and I haven't experienced like that level of like, visceral rage. I was like, you have no fucking idea what I'm doing right now. So there's.
- [06:41]
A
There's some.
- [06:42]
B
Some dad energy that'll come out. No comment about the gender stuff, though. That. That stuff's been fine.
- [06:48]
A
We have. We had a. A cougar in Bellingham, and it was in a buddy of mine's neighborhood, sort of these interconnected neighborhoods.
- [06:59]
B
Hey.
- [06:59]
A
Oh, Courtney Cox, a 145 pound Cougar was roaming these neighborhoods and they finally got it. Not because of a dad whose kid was being attacked, but whose dog was picked up by the cougar. The dad sees this. He runs out of his house, like, still wearing, as my buddy put it, still in his coffee sweats, and picks up a large, like, fist sized rock and throws it and fucking hits the cougar in the head. Drops the. Drops the dog, who then got surgery and survived and is okay and kept the cougar up in this tree till animal protective services could come and get it out. But like, that's a fucking. That's a bullseye. That's a strike. That's a first pitch down the middle. Strike. David Goliath baby in the head, not in the body.
- [07:59]
C
Five. I mean, we're talking five smooth stones.
- [08:02]
A
This. This dude only needed one. Maybe a palmed. A palmed large rock. Anyway, reminded me of that and that I did feel. I felt. I was like, you know what? I think if it was my kid, I could Muster that kind of courage. Maybe not for our cat. No offense.
- [08:18]
B
You know, what I wasn't expecting is, like, the instant camaraderie that I've shared with other dads. Like, it's like when you share something in common. There's just like a whole domain of conversation that I can easily talk about now. It's like football times 10. It's like, oh, wow, we have so much to.
- [08:34]
A
Every time I see someone in a Taking back Sunday T shirt. Yep. It's the same thing.
- [08:37]
B
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- [08:40]
C
Tony's like, huh, I don't know. REM no idea.
- [08:44]
B
Bono, you too?
- [08:46]
A
Tony's like, every time I see someone in a Kansas T shirt. The band, not Kansas University. Right.
- [08:51]
C
Not the.
- [08:52]
A
Okay, I do have one other kind of fun thing to start us off with here. And I teased it to you guys by sending you a single clue. It was a gif of Daniel Day Lewis in the 1992 film Last of the Mohicans. I'm gonna go with you one at a time. Josh, do you have a guess based on that clue of what I will be sharing? No guesses.
- [09:15]
B
I have no idea.
- [09:16]
A
Okay, I started with you on purpose. Cause I thought Tony might have a guess. Tony, do you have a guess to venture about what that clue is about?
- [09:25]
C
No. I mean, it's. No. I need a second clue to, like, home in on what in the world.
- [09:36]
A
That's fair. But I do think when I tell you, you might think I could maybe I could have got it from the one clue. Okay, so I have something to humbly offer you, Tony. And I ask that you would accept this heartfelt sentiment as if it were a fresh moose hide. Okay, I'm not going to bury the lead here. I'm going to start. I might need to learn to hunt much of the meat that I consume. That's the headline. Okay. And here is the hide the explanation of how I got to that point. And I don't know if you will love it, laugh at me, or both, but I was re watching Last of the Mohicans, which, according to my letterboxd account, I have seen three times in six years. And the opening scene is playing, which for anybody who's seen that film, it's an absolute masterclass in, like, kinetic action filmmaking. Daniel Day Lewis is like running through the jungle with his other two compatriots. The three of them are the titular Last Mohicans. And technically the dad is sort of the last of the bloodline at some point. But anyway. Or the sun, rather. But anyway, Daniel Day Lewis, just briefly.
- [10:54]
C
Incredible soundtrack.
- [10:55]
A
Oh, incredible soundtrack score.
- [10:58]
C
Yeah, incredible.
- [11:00]
A
Great theme, really. Sort of one of the most beautiful films ever made, I think, actually certainly the most beautiful film about Appalachia ever made. Daniel Day Lewis is like. I don't even want to say 10 out of 10. He's 100 out of 100. The male specimen in this film. Okay. And in the title card, because of the title card, before the action sequence, they're running through the forest. You assume that they are running guns, guns held and stuff, because they are in some way involved in this ongoing war between Britain and France, which is the backdrop for the film is before the Revolutionary War. And maybe they're, like, running from one of those armies or they're trying to sabotage one of those armies on behalf of the other one. And you're sort of primed to think that this is good filmmaking. But then you see they're hunting, and Daniel Day Lewis absolutely nails a deer with one bullet. And then they do this ceremony where they are speaking to the deer. I'm sure this is pulled from, you know, legitimate sort of indigenous practice, honoring its strength, thanking the deer for the sustenance. And I just thought, this is so fucking awesome. It is awesome in at least two different ways. Number one, it's awesome in the way that other Michael Mann films are awesome, like Heat or Thief or Miami Vice. The way that, like, a good action set piece in a Michael Bay film is awesome. The way that Sicario is awesome, like hunting large game is just inherently evolutionarily badass. Right? So that's the first way in which it's awesome. But the second way in which it's awesome is. It's really profound if you let yourself be a bit open to the idea of that, the conversation, the thinking for sustenance, it's a bit mystical. And I think the indigenous setting is right. And make sense of this because it really is tied in with early human spirituality as best we know it for sure. Almost all of these early human cultures and tribes had some way of, like, thinking of animals as important if not having their own kind of spirits. But they are certainly living things with consciousness. They're connected to other living things like us. And, Tony, I know you have a great story. I think it's in the book. Did you also write about it in a substack post or something? I'm getting it my wires crossed. But you have a story about an encounter with a deer, and I want to give you a chance to share that if you'd like. But just like it Was kind of profound. And I just think, man, hunting for my own meat would just be fundamentally a more grounded way to get that protein sustenance, which I am going to continue to eat meat. And then actually there is a third way in which it's awesome, like existential psychology. Hunting for your own meat takes the hard limits of physical reality very seriously. It's sort of like. And maybe something like eating factory farmed meat that you never have to think about is not necessarily in all cases wrong, but is not really engaging with the reality of how we get meat, how like how this stuff works. And so it's this ritual at the heart of earth's biological life. I love feeling grounded to reality in that way. So I gotta maybe learn how to hunt to experience this.
- [14:50]
C
Not maybe. And I'm not maybe, bro.
- [14:51]
A
I'm like pretty serious about it.
- [14:54]
C
Yeah, look, I concur completely. As you might guess. I think that for all of the, in my book, you know, there's a lot about this in the book for all of the like luxury and safety and risk aversion that our entire society is built upon, which has led to all sorts of things like, well, frankly, you know, women not dying in childbirth, who would have died in childbirth for the last 20,000 years, but don't in the last hundred years. You know, a friend I spent the weekend with last weekend who has melanoma, who has had like pieces of his skin taken off of other parts of his body and grafted onto his neck.
- [15:45]
A
I mean, it's incredible what we, what we are crazy able to access now. Yeah.
- [15:50]
C
But the other side of that is there is a great poverty. And one of, and among the, I think one. The among the greatest poverty that we have in this current situation in which we live is a complete lack of connection to the food we eat. It's true. I mean, it boggles my mind as somebody who feels very connected through hunting and through gardening, how not only disconnected people are, but how little people have the very kind of like existential, not crisis, but existential thoughts like you're having right now. Like, it's shocking to me that everybody doesn't come to a point where they're like, God damn, I know nothing about where my food comes from. That's really troubling. I think everybody should have that, like, well freak out at some point.
- [16:52]
A
I think you can argue that there is a, that there ought to be or is a primacy around something like sustenance, but a lot of meaning in terms of the stuff that, that we would want to know about or want to understand, like, okay, the way that our bodies stay alive, Right? But there's also, like, most people don't know how their homes are really built. Most people don't know how their clothes are made. Not really. They don't know how the engines of their cars work. They certainly don't fucking know how airplanes work. There is a sense in which I think I want to be careful not to be so judgmental of, especially myself or others that, like, you know, the world is way fucking more complex than 20,000 years ago, when people would be dying in childbirth. And there's no modern medicine, there's no penicillin and all this kind of thing. There's no modern nutrition. Like, you can only really become an expert in, like, one little sliver of 2% of what the world does and knows now in the way that, like, a Renaissance man, during the Renaissance, could hit the outer limit of what is known about six major, you know, topics in the world, could become an avid hunter and outdoorsman, an expert in biology, you know, published in philosophy. Like, you could do all that stuff because there was so much less to know. So part of it is that. That it's like a totally different predicament that we find ourselves in. And sort of from a cognitive psychology angle, like, we are just taking in such massive amounts of information that our problem is, like, knowing what to ignore. And so that's just maybe where I would situate that in how I would think about it. Not that I don't disagree with you on sort of the value of it, but I may be less judgmental in that sense.
- [18:40]
C
I mean, I don't totally agree with you that people don't know how their homes are built. You know, I think people do know how their homes are built or how their furnace, generally, how their furnace works. Not that they can fix it, you know, but they know how it works and where it came from or who to, you know, And I just think people. It's like. It's like our food is anonymous, and it's just so fundamental to existence is food, you know, so, yeah, I. I'm. I mean, it was obviously a huge turning point in my life to get into that in my 40s, and I. Welcome.
- [19:18]
A
Do you think you. Do you now think that you could have guessed it with the. With the one hint given. The other background could have been about,
- [19:25]
C
like, oh, Daniel Day Lewis is now a cobbler in. In. In Ireland, and Dan decided to make his own shoes because he was in.
- [19:35]
A
I've ordered a Pair of. I've ordered a custom pair from Daniel Day Lewis. I'm putting this month's entire mortgage to a pair of shoes cobbled by Daniel Day.
- [19:44]
C
I know. So that, like. I mean, it could have been virtually anything.
- [19:49]
B
I have a question, though, Tony. If you had to put a percentage on the chance that Dan actually learns how to hunt in the next 10 years, fuck you. What would.
- [20:01]
A
10 years?
- [20:02]
C
6%.
- [20:03]
A
Okay, first of all, you're giving me a lot of. A lot of leeway there. 10.
- [20:07]
B
What is more likely, Dan learns how to procure his own food or mow his own yard?
- [20:13]
C
Oh, mow his own.
- [20:14]
A
I mean, I mowed my old yard when it was more standard size.
- [20:21]
C
He's not talking about then. He's talking about now.
- [20:25]
A
I am only going to regularly mow two thirds of an acre of grass if I have a riding lawnmower. That is not a good use of my body and energy with a regular push.
- [20:39]
C
That would be terrible. No, that would be terrible. To get exercise like that. It's a much better use of your time to watch a movie you've already seen twice in the last six years. Watch it again. That's a better use of two hours than mowing your fucking lawn.
- [20:55]
A
You know what? I'm gonna. You know what? On my deathbed, I am not gonna be thinking about the slight increase in calf muscles. I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be eyes glazing over, and I'm gonna imagine that I am Elizabeth Stowe and Jesus is Daniel Day Lewis saying, I will find you. I will find you.
- [21:16]
C
And I'm telling you that that deathbed experience will come about 10 years earlier because you're not getting your ass out of the house and mowing your lawn.
- [21:24]
A
Well, if I Lear and I have a mishap, it could happen 30 years earlier. So I'm really.
- [21:30]
C
You could have a mishap.
- [21:30]
A
I'm taking some risk.
- [21:32]
C
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, there's a lot of risk sitting in a deer stand and pulling a trigger. Yeah.
- [21:38]
A
What if I go hunting with Dick Cheney or some of his children?
- [21:41]
C
Cheney's dead.
- [21:42]
A
Who knows? I know.
- [21:43]
B
Yeah, he's dead.
- [21:45]
A
I forgot.
- [21:52]
D
Monster Energy. Everybody knows White Monster, Zero Ultra. That's the OG it kicked off this whole zero sugar energy drink thing. But Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise, and Vice Guava. And they all bring the Monster Energy punch. So if you've been living in the White can branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe and every Single one is zero. Sugar. Tap the banner to learn more.
- [22:21]
E
My dad taught me a lot, including how easy it is to forget to cancel things. So I downloaded Experian, my bff. Big financial friend Experian could help me cancel. Cancel my unused subscriptions and lower my bills, saving me hundreds a year. Get started with the Experian app today. Your big financial friends here to help you save smarter. Results will vary. Not all bills or subscriptions eligible. Savings not guaranteed. $631 a year average savings with one plus negotiations and one plus cancellations paid. Membership with connected payment account required. See experian.com for details.
- [22:49]
A
Experian. Okay, do we want to talk about what's going on? Just pivoting slightly. Do we want to talk about what's going on? Hot takes on war in Iran. Not hot takes. Do we want to check in. Do we want to check in on Trump and is, you know, US And Israel attacking Iran, sort of decapitating the leadership of the Islamic Republic or whatever it's called? I forget what the name of the party is that controls that country. Are we feeling, like, a lot of anxiety about it? Are we feeling kind of like, we'll wait and see? Are we catastrophizing? Are we flashing back to previous Middle east wars like, Josh, give me, give me what's. What's been. I know you're distracted by new fatherhood, and that's probably wonderful, but has this penetrated your airspace? Gosh, that's a bad, bad pun. Go ahead.
- [23:49]
B
Nice.
- [23:51]
A
I didn't even try for it. I just. I landed in a bad pun.
- [23:53]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have been, like, trading off news updates because, like, we're just not hitting all the news. So the other day, she's like, what have you heard about Iran? And we just kind of, you know, talk about it. I mean, was it Jimmy Kimmel the other day who was saying that, like, this is just the latest thing Trump's doing to distract from the Epstein files? I mean, that's like, the liberal talking point.
- [24:16]
A
I mean, I think there has to be some truth to it. I posted something to that effect. I don't know. I don't think that's the whole thing. And we could talk about why, but, I mean, he's certainly happy that it distracts from the Epstein files. I think there's no doubt about that.
- [24:32]
B
Have you all seen that clip of Trump talking about how a president would only attack Iran if he wasn't, like, an aggressive person able to negotiate on his own? Have you seen that?
- [24:42]
A
I've seen a bunch of these.
- [24:43]
C
Trump about Iran, 2013 about Obama. Like, watch, Obama's down in the polls, so now he's going to attack Iran. Yeah.
- [24:51]
A
The problem with, the problem with that line, though of, of inquiry with Trump is, is we already know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump does not have really an ideology. He does not care about consistency. He does not use language to express his consistent worldview, with a very few exceptions of a couple particular economic and ideas that he has like that. But he basically does not have a worldview. So all that means is he said that then when he thought it would be advantageous to himself to say it and like to try and hold him to it is a fool's errand. It is like trying to. I don't know. What's a sand metaphor?
- [25:33]
B
Yeah. Okay. Here's like what I think about it, just off the cuff. I think that perhaps what Trump's vision for how he's leading in general, his presidency might be working because I'm struggling as a 31 year old millennial who's caught up in my own life and trying to just keep my business running and now have a family. All these things. I'm struggling to actually know what is serious in the parade of news that's being thrown at me all the time, like hearing that he started a war with Iran feels like it could be the type of rhetoric that is very serious and could have like some big implications worldwide. You know, people talk about like World War 3 and whatnot. I don't actually know how serious it is. Like, I, I'm kind of just like, Trump does so much bullshit and there's all the stuff in Minneapolis and there's. Yeah, I mean, there's just constant issues. And also the news doesn't help with that. But I'm just seeing it's as if there's a crisis from Trump every like twice a week. And so it's hard to like gauge whether or not this is a more serious thing or if it's just another thing that will kind of blow over. I guess I don't really know the implications of what he's doing.
- [26:53]
A
Well, I have an idea, sort of, to that point of seriousness, I mean, I totally recognize what you're saying. One of the. I have taken to a particular approach to help me answer that question, which is that I have subscribed to the Dispatch podcast and the Remnant and Advisory Opinions podcasts, which are also produced by the Dispatch. The Dispatch is like OG never Trump conservatives who never kind of went the Trump route and left places like National Review and started their own news organization, basically. And the value there is. I know I sort of know what like my guys like Ezra Klein are gonna say about most of these things. Sometimes I'm surprised and it's helpful for me to listen to Ezra, but most of the time I sort of can fill it in because that's the world I come from. That's my circles. What I find so useful about listening to the Dispatch is these are not my circles. These are people who worked for George W. Bush, who worked for Mitt Romney. Sarah Isger was in the first Trump Department of Justice. She's a lawyer. I have mixed feelings about that. David French, you know, is like a. Has conservative bona fides. He's like a free. He's like a freedom of religion lawyer who served in Afghanistan. And listening to them is extremely helpful for me calibrating when I should definitely be freaking out, because it's like, if they are also agreeing with the people that I like on the left and they're both agreeing that this is a really serious question or issue or something, then I go, okay, I think I have good reason to think that this is serious. Alternately, I know that they are. I know that they are speaking in good faith because they've all left prestigious jobs to do this. They have been sort of locked out of the power centers of conservatism, Right. That have been purged of non Trump loyalists. So I trust that they believe what they say, broadly speaking. And if they disagree and they think, you know, that's not such an issue, or here's the classic William F. Buckley kind of right wing argument on this question. And then I think about that and I go, okay, well, what's. Where would I land between the mill? Then I get a sense of like, oh, this is kind of more partisan. This is more like, if you're a true left person, you will really be angry about this. But even if you're like a moderate conservative, you might have a really different view. And just knowing that sort of helps me with that alarm meter. And I wanted to, anyway, briefly recommend their recent episode on the Dispatch podcast. US and Israel Attack. Iran is just the name of the episode. And they talk with like a guy who's been in the Situation Room and a guy who, like, you know, is way up at the, like in sort of. I forget the actual credentials of their guests, but there's like an Iranian journalist for the Atlantic who profiled Khomeini before he died, you know, and has talked to this guy who's a defector from the Islamic Republic and another guy who's like, they have like former generals on, so they're like really in that world too. And they can get that perspective, not just the sort of like left leaning journalists talking to each other about it or whatever. So that's my, that's the two things I have on the sort of. What's serious?
- [30:34]
C
Yeah, but what did they say? What was their take?
- [30:36]
A
Well, certainly it's serious. I mean, like, we don't attack the Middle east very often. You know, this is a thing that, this is, this is certainly more serious than like the latest sort of norm upending in domestic politics is, you know, or something like that. But, but like one takeaway I had that kind of helped me, you know, I mean, first of all, just to be clear here, I don't trust Trump and I don't trust Pete Hegseth, and I don't sort of trust this administration generally to do things. Well, that being said, I've also seen people just kind of repeating Iranian state media talking points on Instagram. It's like Iran was fucking awful for decades. Like, they're like the number one sponsor of terrorism in the last 50 years in the world. That leader who has been killed at every chance when he publicly spoke, encouraged people to kill US Citizens like constantly, all the time, and worked toward that end all the time. And the big detail here that is kind of wild, and there's really interesting questions about how this happened is that that dude and like 25 or more of the top command of his government all met in one meeting together at his regular compound. And as I understand it, Israeli intelligence was like, guys, we got a shot here. We can kill 25 of these guys at once because they're such idiots to all be in one place together. While they are, of course continuing to try and get a nuclear weapon and all this kind of thing. It's, it's just, it complicates a sort of really simplistic narrative of like, this is an immoral and illegal war where we will be killing civilians. It complicates the simplicity of that to be like, if you had a chance to take these guys all out at one time, like that, don't you take it. And I think the answer is Obama might have taken that if he had had that intelligence, you know, and maybe Biden might have as well. I don't know. But this guy was extremely bad and this regime is extremely totalitarian and frankly, evil. And yes. Oh, are we evil? Okay, sure, but like, not evil. Like they're evil. And so that's, you know, it's just complicated and it's just helpful for me. You know, I'm also listening to Ezra Klein talk about like the head on a pike foreign policy that, you know, or war strategy that Trump seems to have, where it's like we're just gonna kill your leaders or arrest them or something, and that's gonna have diminishing returns and gonna cause other downstream consequences. I'm not trying to be sanguine about this. I don't feel good about it. I don't wanna give that impression. But I. Yeah, but I found it helpful to listen to that and to contrast it with some of what I'm seeing. Like on Instagram, for instance,
- [33:47]
C
if you had. Do you have noise canceling, like earbuds?
- [33:52]
A
Who you.
- [33:53]
C
Dan?
- [33:54]
A
No. Oh, well, you hear something?
- [33:57]
C
No. You should get some because then you could mow the lawn while you're listening to that podcast.
- [34:03]
A
I do have noise canceling headphones. I thought you meant right now as I use them. Like we're having an audio problem. It was just a little joke at my expense. Expense instead.
- [34:11]
C
That's okay. I think my take is that, yeah, Iran, terribly evil, but pretty well sequestered. Like not as. Not as what? We haven't as sequestered them as well as we have North Korea, but, you know, have. They have basically a non functioning economy. Yeah, they were sponsors of state terrorism. True, but it hadn't really affected us. I think that Trump was played by Netanyahu. That's what I think. I think that Netanyahu was behind this and that Netanyahu has something. I mean, look, Trump's never going to be indicted for the. For Epstein, ever. That's never going to happen. And all of our progressive listeners can sit around and read the New York Times every day and hope that there's going to be some break in the case and Trump's going to be indicted. He's not going to be indicted ever for 38,000 mentions in the Epstein files. But Netanyahu will be indicted the day he leaves office in Israel and will very likely spend the rest of his life in prison. He's a terrible leader. Even I say this as a Zionist who believes that Israel should have its own sovereign nation state in the Middle east as reparations for World War II, and that they deserve that and that they deserve to be protected even though they're surrounded by people, by other nations who want them wiped off the planet. Okay, that being said, Netanyahu is a terrible leader and a terrible human being and every Jew I know agrees with me on that. And I think he, I think, I mean, he was in Trump, he was in Trump's office, you know, two weeks ago. And there's, you know, credible reporting in the New York Times and elsewhere that Netanyahu was really riding Trump the whole time, talking about battle plans and, and just, and was, and Trump, you know, prior to that had reentered negotiations with Iran to stop them from developing a nuclear weapon, which obviously Obama had done. And then Trump tore up that agreement ridiculously, stupidly, and then had entered back into the kind of the diplomatic route and Netanyahu single handedly talked him out of diplomacy and into war. And Trump is so stupid that he, you know, he's so easily swayed and he surrounded himself with such idiots like Stephen Miller and, and Pete Hegseth that he has nobody when Netanyahu leaves the room to be like, okay, I get it. Israel of course wants to bomb Iran and they want us to do it for them.
- [37:18]
A
Sure.
- [37:19]
C
But Mr. President, you know, we don't this and that. And look, there's a possibility, who knows about the shooting in Austin, Texas, you know, a couple days ago, but there is the possibility that there are Iranian sleeper cells around the United States that have been coming in to this country, unfortunately because of Democratic policies having relatively open borders. And, and they might be. I mean, this would be terrible if this happened and I pray to God that it doesn't. But you know, it's possible that there we start having some internal terrorism as that that has been triggered by this assassination that we've done.
- [38:08]
A
That is possible. I just have two quick things. If that's true, that it kind of pushes against your earlier point that Iran, yeah, they were bad, but they're not that bad. I mean, if they are doing that, then they are still bad.
- [38:22]
C
Oh, they're terrible. Look, look, I don't, no, no, don't get me wrong. I, I totally agree with what you said and I, yeah, it, it was.
- [38:28]
A
Well, they're not that sequestered.
- [38:30]
C
It's a terrible regime. And, and honestly, I mean I am not, and this is not like a, a popular thing for progressive to say, but I do not think that Islam is a ultimately peace loving religion like Judaism and Christianity in Hinduism and Buddhism generally are. I don't think Islam is that having studied Islamic texts and Islamic history. I don't think it is. I think it is that adherents of that religion are more likely to believe in the justification of violence to advance their religious aims.
- [39:11]
A
That might be true. The other thing I would say is that I totally agree, as far as I understand, about Netanyahu's fitness as a leader. I'm also. I'm sort of guessing that if a much more moderate prime minister of Israel got solid intel, that the. That 25 of the top Iranian leaders, including the Supreme Leader, were going to all be in one bunker for one conversation, that they could bomb that. They also might have taken that.
- [39:38]
C
Oh, I think Israel would have. I think Israel would have.
- [39:40]
A
And they don't necessarily need us to do that.
- [39:42]
C
But a different president might have said, look, we're here as backup, but we are not entering. We are not entering into a war in the Middle east right now. We are not doing it because I committed to being a president who ended wars. Didn't start wars.
- [39:58]
A
Yeah, well, okay. I do think that a nice bridge here into Patreon time and the Epstein files is the. Is the idea that, like, you know, I'm sort of. I don't know what percentage of this is about Epstein. You know, some people are calling it the Epstein War. I do think it is certainly in Trump's interest that this is occurring at sort of a peak moment of Epstein kind of like, pressure and like, okay, yeah, but like, you know, there's the reporting from NPR and other news outlets about the redacted 35 pages or something like that. That, like, we know that they exist. We even know what number they are. Like, where are they? That's harder for the administration to sort of snake around than to just be like, well, there's another million pages or something that aren't safe. Like, this is like, we want this document number. And they will see. They may or may not ultimately be compelled to release that. And I don't know what will come from that or anything else that's released. But the timing is judicious for Trump. And I will just say the alien stuff from that Obama podcast that now Trump is seizing on is like, I'm gonna have them release everything. Is like. I do see that as, like, him trying to throw a bone to the Epstein types, you know, like, that part of his base. Just for the record, Mason and I are going to talk about that on our next Religion on the News episode because he is more interested in talking about it than the two of you, and I do want to actually talk about it. So we're going to get into some of the alien stuff, but for now, if you are on the main feed, we're going to bid you Adieu. And if you want to hear Tony get into Epstein here, then become a patron.
- [41:40]
C
What?
- [41:40]
A
What?
- [41:41]
C
I'm not going to get into Epstein.
- [41:43]
A
I mean, whatever. Get like we have, we got you. You have a, you have a starting, you have a starting gun to fire that is gonna that you want to save for after the break. So. Patreon.com Dan Koch if you want to hear that, It.