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Ep. 152 – Red Rockets, Noxious Gas, and the Impermeable Fog of Holy War
565 Plays2 years ago
What a cataclysmic week it’s been… We were pretty nervous to discuss the war between Israel and Hamas, so forgive us for spending the first 30 minutes joking about dog appendages, flashers, and intestinal distress. We spend the rest of the episode talking about the bloodshed in the Holy Land, the effects that an Evangelical upbringing has on a person’s perception of events, the reactions and battle lines drawn on social media following Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians and the subsequent IDF bombardment of Gaza, and our concerns about where things go from here. Look, we’re not well-informed on the history of this conflict, we’re not geopolitical strategists or military experts, and we are about as far removed from the experiences of both Palestinians and Jews as two people can be. We’re just shocked, bewildered, frightened about what could happen next, and disgusted by the reactions of people in positions of power. That’s about all there is to say. We’d love to hear your perspective, and the best place to reach us is on Discord.
P.S. The history series we referenced several times is “Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem” from the MartyrMade Podcast: https://martyrmade.com/fear-loathing-in-the-new-jerusalem/
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Transcript
Humorous Furry Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
There is like a whole segment of furries I think that are like animal shaped dildos.
00:00:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's a lane that I just, I know they do the, I know, I know it's a thing for the larger type, like a horse dildo or some shit like that. But like, let's be real. If you're a cat furry, you have to get a dildo that's thin. It has a hook at the end that ruins the experience for your partner.
00:00:35
Speaker
I think this is the same like just commit persona. Come on. Don't be a bitch. You can judge this on the same spectrum as like farting in public. Like you've reached old man farting on people in the elevator stage. Like you've become a nuisance to society. And we need to settle somewhere between that and purity culture and find like a happy medium where, you know, maybe you don't feel bad about yourself, but you're not fantasizing about banging horses.
Gymnastics and Height Stereotypes
00:01:25
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Sam. I'm Casey. This evening, I had brought my daughter to gymnastics. She started doing gymnastics, which is funny because she's tall, dude. My daughter is really tall.
00:01:42
Speaker
And when you look at her stand next to everyone, she's just like a whole head taller than everybody else. And I'm like, well, I'm glad you like it. But she goes. She goes to my wife the other day, like when she after she started and had like a really fun time doing it.
00:01:58
Speaker
Um, cause she had done it before, uh, and she just kind of fizzled out on it. She, she would always have like almost anxiety attacks. My, like my daughter does have anxiety. It's been, it's caused a lot of problems for her, uh, in like going to thing, like we've tried piano, we've tried several other things.
00:02:18
Speaker
And she just like gets in her head and can't go and do it. But she wanted to do gymnastics against her like, all right, that's great. And then she had the time of her life and she made a friend her first night. So she got really excited about that. And then she's like, do you think I could do the Olympics? And I'm like, well, don't get ahead of yourself.
00:02:36
Speaker
that's adorable but it's like she honestly she has like a ton of upper body strength more than any other kid she can just like climb up a rope all the way to the top and like she's she's really good at it um and i think she's got some natural ability for it but it's just like
00:02:57
Speaker
We know that 80% of gymnastics is just like, how tall are you? And then that kind of decides whether like, you'll never find anyone who won a gold medal that's over a certain height in gymnastics or whatever. Cause it's just like, well, it's time to start starving her. I know. I was thinking about doing that thing where you're like, the growth plates, you know, that's like,
00:03:21
Speaker
you know like the the ancient Chinese like binding of the feet but yeah what if you did like her spine bind her spine honestly like it's uh shins and forearms and there's a certain place in the femur that's you don't want to break the femur because that's like rough but like you can fracture and you'll be in pretty good shape it's just a pressure game you know
00:03:43
Speaker
Okay, the femur's the upper leg, what's the lower leg? Is that the tibia? Is it? I've always called it your shin bone. What if you just have her shins removed and then attach her feet to her knee sockets, and that'll take her down a foot right off the bat. Yeah, you just lose a lot of mobility, you know? Yeah, but like she could do, you know, pummel horse? Yeah, she- That's got nothing to do with legs. That's a good idea, but the problem is I'm afraid that if
00:04:11
Speaker
She had that handicap. She would be forced into the Special Olympics or whatever. Is Special Olympics for people with physical disabilities, too? I don't know what the rules are. I don't either. Either way, we're probably moving into precarious territory. As soon as you start talking about Special Olympics, everybody holds their breath. I do have the idea of
00:04:35
Speaker
like having her shins removed and yet her feet just continued to grow to normal proportions.
Social Nuisances and Farting
00:04:41
Speaker
She has a size 13 attached to 12-inch femurs. She's like Dorf.
00:04:51
Speaker
But yeah, so she does, she's really enjoying gymnastics. So I brought her tonight to it. And I don't know if you've ever, I'm sure, this is the most relatable experience that it doesn't come up a lot in conversation.
00:05:06
Speaker
I had to fart so bad like the whole time I was there and you're in close quarters with all these business little box that they shove all the parents into and I don't know anyone it's a in town place and a lot of the people in my town are like
00:05:22
Speaker
townies like when my wife brings her she's like I recognize a lot of these people from high school but she doesn't really know them and it's kind of just weird because it's been 20 almost 20 years since you've like fucking talked so she just feels like uncomfortable and weird around these like things like that because it's like it's when 15 years is too long to like hey oh yeah how you doing how you been since ninth grade it's just weird so
00:05:52
Speaker
I don't know. So it's me like you got nothing to lose. True. You make a good point. You do that thing when you look around like, who the fuck? What? Are we talking metal bleachers or wood? No, no. It's no bleachers. It's literally like a half wall and then in close quarters, just filled with plastic chairs you can sit on. And you can barely see over the wall. So everyone's just standing and trying to watch their kids do shit.
00:06:22
Speaker
That's not a great start. The acoustics aren't very good. The older I get, the more sometimes farts accidentally fall out of your butthole.
00:06:38
Speaker
You, you, you know, it's coming and you're just, you're like, I'll take a couple of steps, but I got this under control. And then it's just, you don't, it happens. And you just thank the Lord almighty that no one was around for that. But I, uh, so you just have to hold it in for, and it's an hour and you're just like, Oh my God. You're just, I want to leave. I just want to leave. Uh, so, but then I started thinking about, um,
00:07:06
Speaker
how my buddy Jesse, when we worked together, we would talk about how
00:07:13
Speaker
There are those times where you're like, you know, your farts don't smell. So you just let them out a little bit and you're good. But then after every once in a while, you're everything changes and you think you're in a clear and you let one out and it's like, oh, everybody can smell like it's awful too. It's not just like it doesn't escalate. It's not like nothing, nothing, nothing. And then it's like, oh, a little bit. So maybe that's the cutoff point. I'll stop farting in public now.
00:07:40
Speaker
It is like it goes from nothing to just like killing to just, you know, crowd killing at a hardcore show. And it's it's you go from like your body goes from digesting like the raisin brand that you had for breakfast to like suddenly and without warning digesting the like three ounces of tzatziki sauce you had with your Greek salad. Yeah. Like earlier that day. It smells like you're like
00:08:07
Speaker
like your body's digesting a rat that had already started decomposing and but my friend and I would talk about Jesse and I we would joke about how like we worked in a warehouse together and it's a warehouse it's mostly dudes no one gives a shit like it didn't matter and you know warehouse life you check up on yours here and there
00:08:28
Speaker
and um but we would always juggle how like you look around you look back back like side to side you're like you're in an aisle you're like i'm good and you fart and it smells terrible and immediately have to do that one of like your co-workers from the office like has to come out at that exact moment and walk right through it and you're just like
00:08:51
Speaker
I have no one to blame this on. They know for sure. We're all going to just pretend this didn't happen. I just brought back memories of crop dusting my old attractive coworkers. My instinct is always to blame April. Whether she's around or not, regardless of distance, that's where I go with it.
00:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, like the the cramps when you can't and like Okay, there's a happy median in there. We're like I don't want to become the guy like the old guy that like The punchline he always returns to is just like farting in public. Yeah. Yeah over and over and over again. That's pretty annoying. I
00:09:40
Speaker
But I would like to reach a point where if I'm in a stall and someone comes in and is standing at the urinal, I feel comfortable.
Healthy Lifestyle Struggles
00:09:48
Speaker
farting in the stall while literally sitting on a toilet. But it's just not there. Like I'm always trying to feather it, you know? Yeah, dude, it's so crazy. But we've all shit next to someone in a public restroom that doesn't give a fuck. And they just like spray paint the toilet bowl. You just hear it ripping for like the entire time you're next to them. And then you hear them grunting and like groaning and they don't
00:10:17
Speaker
Care and then I like I don't I can't do it It does as a part of me that just is still like a kind human that doesn't want to disrespect my environment like that and the people around me
00:10:31
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah. I guess that changes as you get older. And then, you know, when you just resigned to the fact that you just can't control it anymore, you just fuck it. So then you have to. The only alternative is to like own it and become that guy that you just talked about who farts in public. And then, oh, did you guys see that duck walk by? Like that's what you know, like you hit like 55 when you fart in public and ask everyone if they saw a duck walk by.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So when you step on a frog? Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I think like there's a direct correlation there between like comfort farting in public and like your general like disregard for your attractiveness. Oh, yeah, dude. I don't I don't feel like an attractive person. You're an attractive person, Casey. Well, I appreciate that. I do appreciate that. But like,
00:11:28
Speaker
I haven't given up on the idea that, like, somebody might be looking and, like, I don't want to be disgusting at this point, you know? Like, there's a turning point coming at some point where I'm just, like, order in regular coke. I'm just, like, farting uncontrollably.
00:11:48
Speaker
I'm resisting that so bad. I'm still, like, so over the summer I was like, you know, I'm like, this is, this is the time I need, especially this was my first summer off. I'm like, this is the time to get in the best shape of my life. I'll be 35 and I'll be in the best shape I've been in since I was 25.
00:12:06
Speaker
And I actually did a great fucking job. I lost 10 pounds, started working out. But as soon as work started again, I was just like, I was good for like two weeks. And then it was just like,
00:12:22
Speaker
Ah, fuck it.
Comical Pet Ownership
00:12:23
Speaker
I'll eat a plate of pizza rolls at 1130 and then go to bed. I don't know what happened. Are you eating in the cafeteria? Are you eating those injection mold chicken fingers and stuff like that? Oh, God. I'm a brown bagger for lunch, man. I bring my lunch. That's one area I've always saved money. I have never bought lunch. Now, if my school lunch was free for staff, I would eat school lunch every day.
00:12:47
Speaker
it's not even fair dude like it's like 550 for a school lunch and i work in a school for that's as i've mentioned preschool through first grade and you go and you buy your lunch and they give you the same portions they give a fucking kindergartner and you're like
00:13:05
Speaker
what are we doing here double this shit up like a tablespoon of spaghettios and four apple slices it's like four chicken nuggets in like a scoop of apple sauce and you're like i paid 550 for this there was a few times where i'm like
00:13:21
Speaker
Uh, cause you, they don't take it, you have to like load it into an account and then, uh, and then just deduct from it over time. But I didn't have enough in it when I got up and they're like, don't worry, just pay tomorrow. I was like, you got it. And I was like, I'm never paying for this meal. And that's the last one I'll ever eat there. Cause I don't want this to come up again. So I have like $3 and 25 cents sitting in my account, not enough to buy a lunch, not enough to, you can't withdraw it. I just, I just gave up on that three 25 man.
00:13:51
Speaker
People making sacrifices all over the place. I also wanted to share with you this story about my dog.
00:14:02
Speaker
My dog Albus, he's a boxer lab mix, he's like 75 pounds, very lean, tall, very tall, tall, dark and handsome if you ask me. And he's annoying a lot at dinner time.
00:14:21
Speaker
Most of the time he'll just go and lay down and do his thing but every once in a while he's just like a nosy bitch at dinner so he just like shoves his snout into your chest and tries to sniff your food off your plate and I'm like
00:14:35
Speaker
Tell him to go settle. He knows that means go to his bed and he'll like take a step back and look at you. But like we had gotten them really good at at that command. And then we just stopped like we stopped exercising that mental muscle for him as much. So we're eating chicken.
00:14:57
Speaker
So I just grab a little piece of it in my hand, and then I'm like, go settle. And he books it to his bed. So he sits down, front paws are up, and as soon as he knows that there's food on the line, he sat there for 20 minutes while we ate dinner. Didn't move. And it was pretty, I mean, I was impressed. He's not that good of a listener, but he was desperate. You look over at him, and the drool is dripping from his jowls. He's like,
00:15:24
Speaker
Jasper for it but what killed me and I was trying to point it out to my wife without making it obvious to the kids as as soon as I told him to go settle within 10 seconds I'm talking six inches of red rocket fully torqued
00:15:39
Speaker
It just like pointing at you. It's like dangling back and forth swaying side to side as he just like shifts his weight around waiting for you to throw him a piece of chicken for 20 fucking minutes. I laughed the whole dinner. My kids are like, why is dad laughing so much? It's like every time I looked over at him, you could just see it like pointing out between his front legs.
00:16:06
Speaker
that could be dangerous that's more than three hours in dog years exactly i was actually starting to get worried that's the second time i've seen him fully torqued for over 20 minutes and i'm like i almost started slicking it you know like go back inside lick it a bit to see if he can like chill out i was die i could barely eat dude i was every time i looked over him i started cracking up he's just like his drooling like looking at you like
Public Indecency and Flashing
00:16:32
Speaker
Oh, my God, give it to me. Give me a bite. And it's like it got him hard as fuck. Our puppy Pippin, he's like started trying to hump Phoebe, our older dog. It's like when your tween boy starts masturbating for the first time. It's just something. Well, I have to tell him he's filthy and tell him to go to his room and think about it. You're going to hell. And he's like, fuck you. All dogs go to heaven.
00:17:02
Speaker
I basically told him that, you know, even like air humping her with no balls is still adultery if he did so in his mind. Adultery. Adultery. Adultery? Dog penises are so gross, though. They are disgusting. If human penises look like that, the race would just die out. Yeah. Nobody would touch that thing. No, they look slimy.
00:17:30
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe we should get a woman's take on this. Maybe they think male dicks look slimy, but there is like a whole segment of furries, I think, that are like animal shaped dildos. Yeah, that's a lane that I just I know they do that. I know. I know it's a thing for the larger type, like a horse dildo or some shit like that, but like
00:17:56
Speaker
Let's be real. If you're a cat furry, you have to get a dildo that's thin. It has a hook at the end that ruins the experience for your partner. I think this is the same like just commit persona. Come on. Don't be a bitch.
00:18:15
Speaker
You could judge this on the same spectrum as farting in public. You've reached old man farting on people in the elevator stage. You've become a nuisance to society. And we need to settle somewhere between that and purity culture and find a happy medium where maybe you don't feel bad about yourself, but you're not fantasizing about banging horses.
00:18:41
Speaker
I can't remember if I shared this story. I guess it stopped me if I did. My wife and I were in Boston, the dude walking around flashing people. Did we talk about this?
00:18:53
Speaker
literally flashing people. Yeah. So we didn't. I think I remember wanting to talk about it and I totally forgot. Yeah. My wife and I went to Boston for a night. This was several months ago. And there was this dude like trench coat style. Like I missed it. I was really. Classic. Yeah. Classic. I was bummed that I missed it.
00:19:14
Speaker
But my wife is like, I heard him screaming. And I didn't really even pick up what it was because you kind of just get used to people screaming, just yelling shit in Boston. But I believe that she's he's literally like showing people his dick and screaming. I'm a sex addict. I'm a sex addict. I need help. And somebody heard him.
00:19:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So he shows like somebody hit him. He shows these like girls and they're like all just like, whoa, it's like, I don't know. It's all people who are like late 20s, 30s, whatever. They've all seen dicks before. No one cares. It's it's funny because it's traumatized. Like we get that that's a criminal activity. But it sounds like you get that. No, but it's funny because
00:20:04
Speaker
If you've seen plenty of penises, or even a penis, like you get to a point where you see like a flaccid penis in the wild and it's just like, it's inconvenient. You know, my wife wasn't traumatized by it. She's like, oh God, did you see that?
00:20:20
Speaker
And I was like, no. And she's like, he showed everyone his penis. I was like, how the fuck? I was like, what did it look like? She's like, I looked away. I was like, I why I would have I would have taken a close look at that. There's no way I would look away if someone like opened their trench coat and flashed their wiener.
00:20:40
Speaker
I would have been like so curious about what their wiener looked like. I was and she's like, I don't know. I didn't pay it. I was like, how do you not pay attention? That's I think a real interesting difference between men and women. Not that we like to play that game on this show, but name a dude that wouldn't name a dude that wouldn't like try to really examine. And part of that's because they go, if you see another deck, you go, how does that compare to mine?
00:21:07
Speaker
I think my grandpa would object. You think so? Maybe it's generational. Maybe. Yeah, I'll take a look. Of course. I mean, we've examined cocks that have been sent to your wife via direct message. I know. I wish it was more of a thing that was funny. I know. I know. It's never as funny as you think it will be when you hit to unblur. You're like, eh, it's just a cock.
00:21:33
Speaker
You it's never that funny. It's just dicks or dicks or dicks or dicks. Yeah. Like we talked about the title of the episode, but it was like, yeah. Dicks or dicks. It was like the man had a he was heavily tattooed and he had an elephant tattoo like on his backboard, but didn't take the opportunity to like use to block out as the trunk. Yeah. You know, which was ridiculous. So I give it a three out of 10.
00:22:03
Speaker
That was the whole thing too is like hey, do you do dong ratings? Yeah, who wants that? Why do you want that? But I don't understand and if you're paying someone to rate it Like that's that's putting a finger on the scale
00:22:18
Speaker
You know what I mean? Right. Except for these people, it's not. They'll pay you 100 bucks for you to tell them they have a disgusting dick. They are fine. Like they kind of get harder when you criticize their dick, I think. But I think the worst part about this guy was like, dude, you did the elephant backboard. You're trying to go for the hard sell, but you were circumcised. Doesn't look like it's not quite the same, you know, when you when you're thinking the elephant trunk, it's just not the same.
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah, it looked like it was kind of one of those ones that just doesn't have enough skin to it. You know, like it's stretched too tight. It's a balloon about to like pop.
00:22:57
Speaker
It's like the guy flashing in public, though, like that the audacity of that is what's offensive.
The Israel-Palestine Conflict
00:23:04
Speaker
Like I hate him for just like thinking he can do that. Yeah. I mean, he was it would be fun. Like I take a look. But then I like if you could take a look, laugh and then just give him like a double footed like Zangi from Street Fighter kick like straight into a storm drain. That would be the perfect like
00:23:26
Speaker
That would be like a 10,000 point combo in Marvel versus Capcom. That's true. Yeah, that's solid. Like the dog machine double kick into the subway. The other thing people think about when they see that is they're like, I personally am like not true. I'm not scarred or traumatized by it because it's just like.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, that was weird. But the first thing everyone thinks thinks of is like, what if my kids were here and you did? Like, that's the thing that really bothers people. And that's like permanent memory. Yeah. And that's like a it's which is why the conservative talking points always go. What about the children? Because I know that riles people up. But in this case, I think liberals and conservatives could shake hands and say, we don't want people
00:24:18
Speaker
flashing their dicks to our children in the streets of Boston. I think that's one thing we could all, I think that's a bipartisan platform, personally. Yeah, it's all about finding Common Ground. Common Ground was the name of my high school youth group. Oh, that's such a great youth group name.
00:24:43
Speaker
Yeah, ain't a great coffee shop, man. There was one in my town that I can't remember when it was called. Oh, no, sorry, it wasn't. Common Ground is probably a coffee shop. Mine was the Commons. It was the Commons, not Common Ground. The Commons? Yeah. Now that sucks. I like Common Ground. I don't like the Commons. There was definitely one in my town at the United Brethren Church that was called, like,
00:25:09
Speaker
mountain river or something like that. It was something like that. And it's like, there's no mountains within a thousand miles of here. What are you talking about? Yeah. I prefer, um, if we're going to go for like clever, like if we're going to think of like coffee shop, grind my bean. That's not a coffee shop name. Should be.
00:25:31
Speaker
This episode is just the bottom of the barrel. What are we doing? What are we doing? Is it time for a really drastic shift? Yeah. Is it going to be a drastic shift to something serious or to our other talking point? I guess something serious. All right. I think it would be insane for us to
00:26:00
Speaker
Not discuss the fact that there's a really tense situation, really dangerous and, uh, really uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
00:26:16
Speaker
going on in Israel and Palestine right now. So we're recording this on Tuesday night and therefore the episode is already a little late. We just did not have time to touch it this weekend. So over the weekend, a bunch of Hamas fighters using various means broke into Israel proper from Gaza and they killed a lot of people.
00:26:44
Speaker
killed 1200 civilians, I think is what the total somewhere around for Israeli civilians. And in response to that for days now, the Israeli Defense Force has just been
00:27:03
Speaker
hammering Gaza with airstrikes and bombs. And so I don't know what the exact current civilian casualty total is, but I looked this morning at like a summary post and they said that it was at like 2,800 Palestinian civilians had been killed so far. But since I looked at that this morning, a rocket hit hospital in Gaza
00:27:33
Speaker
Jesus. And estimates at this point, I mean, this is hours ago. Estimates at this point are saying 500 plus civilians, medical staff are dead. Oh, my God. It's probably going to go up from there. And I feel like there's something there's something. This whole this whole situation, I mean, it's business has been coming for a long time.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's been a state of Israel and Gaza and the West Bank. It's been a pressure cooker over there for quite some time. Gaza is, you know, home to like 2.1 million people.
00:28:18
Speaker
in this tiny little area. It's the third most densely populated place on the planet, and a half of the population is below 18 years old. That part is fucking crazy. I thought it was even younger than that. Yeah, I guess under 18 is how you qualify children. I thought it was younger though, but even half the population being under 18.
00:28:40
Speaker
is pretty, especially given what, United States, right? You see a whole decline and decrease in people having children. We're moving towards, for the first time in years, not replacing our population in the next couple decades. But to think of what it means to have half your population being children is pretty wild.
00:29:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's, I mean, so I grew up, you know, probably like most of us and probably like, I know, I know you were in the same situation, but you know, growing up in evangelicalism, I, it's strange to think now, how
00:29:27
Speaker
adamantly like pro-israel we were you know always like looking at it that way but you know once when we got to the you know the war on terror years and stuff there was always kind of like this background threat that like well islamic countries want to destroy israel and we have to stand up for it right because they're god's chosen people and god bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse the all of that right and i remember
00:29:57
Speaker
Even like late 2010s or early 2010s range when I was still like, uh, you know, really big into conservative talk radio. I remember there was this whole movement that was, you know, all about like I stand with Israel. I remember Glenn Beck was big on it. He actually held a rally in.
00:30:18
Speaker
somewhere in Israel, I think in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, but I think it was Jerusalem and people flew in there to be a part of this like stand with Israel event put on by Glenn Beck and his, you know, network and stuff like that. It's, it's strange.
00:30:37
Speaker
given the fact that I didn't know, I'm sure I had met some Jewish people, but I didn't know any Jewish people. I mean, even like up, even into this, you know, like my age right now, and I think it's just part of, it's because of where I've lived, you know, mid Michigan, Western Virginia, and now Kansas, like,
00:31:01
Speaker
There just wasn't a huge Jewish population in any of those places. There's a population, but there's not a lot of them. I had no personal contact with Jewish people at all, but I was adamantly pro-Israel. It was part of the conservative Christian stance. It's like the total opposite of how they feel about black people. It's weird.
00:31:29
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't think about it that way. I've never seen one, but I know I don't like him. And, you know, this is, so Sam and I were texting him back and forth for the last couple of days about this, like, we, we need to talk about it. How do we talk about it? It's a tough subject because
00:31:54
Speaker
I think one, because our only real contact with it is through this voyeurism of cable news and social media posts and things like that. I don't have any direct contacts with it, but we're all watching with bated breath right now because not only is this horrific for Israelis and Palestinians, but there's a lot of
00:32:19
Speaker
outside forces threatening to intervene right now, including Iran. I mean, prior to this hospital bombing, which neither the IDF nor Hezbollah are taking credit for. The IDF is conveniently like concluded that this was a let me let me read you like the the Jerusalem Post had like an interesting summary of it. Yeah. Well, you pulled one sentence right here. It says.
00:32:49
Speaker
The IDF confirmed late Tuesday night that a Palestinian Islamic Jihad failed rocket attack damaged a Gaza hospital leading to a still unclear number of deaths. They've concluded that. I don't know why the, you know, I'm sure the theory is that like, well, you know, Hamas bombed the hospital to make, you know, accidentally or else it was a deliberate move to like make Israel look like, you know, heartless or something like that.
00:33:19
Speaker
I don't know. None of it makes any sense, but at this point, like it almost, it matters what the truth is, but it's almost inconsequential because the party lines are drawn here.
00:33:29
Speaker
Yeah, they really are. I think so. Just go back real quick before we talk about the delineation and party lines and how they're drawn. My former boss who I worked for for five, six years, he's a Jewish man and I was paying attention to some of the stuff that, because I think he's a great
00:33:56
Speaker
great guy. I still stay in touch with him. We follow each other on Instagram. But I really appreciate him and I think he's a really good person who cares and he's a very progressive person, progressive politically. And I think one of the things that took me back and made me stop and think was, as all this was happening, I would see posts from him about
00:34:25
Speaker
I like the I stand with Israel type posts. And I was like, typically, progressives in the United States or people who might be left leaning are there's a there's a greater empathy and understanding for what the people of Gaza have been going through for decades. Since the late 40s, since the early 50s, I guess I forget when the occupation
00:34:55
Speaker
I don't know when the occupation started, but we know these tensions have been high since Israel was renamed a state. And I remember the first time in my life that I met somebody who was like Christian that threw shade at Israel. And that was when I was in college and I was just like, oh, I've literally had never heard anyone do
00:35:26
Speaker
So with everything going on and how convoluted the situation has been and how unrepresented I would say maybe the people of both Palestine and Israel are, or how unrepresented their ideas, opinions, desires, hopes,
00:35:46
Speaker
are as I would see him post about his thoughts and feelings and I just started, I thought about, maybe I need to take a step back because
00:36:05
Speaker
I know that some of the way that I feel has to be reactionary to the way that I grew up. I think we're all going through that to some degree. If you grew up evangelical, you feel triggered by evangelical sentiments.
00:36:21
Speaker
So when you hear, I stand with Israel, you go, that reminds me of my evangelical background. And they unintellectually and unequivocally stood with Israel for absolutely no reason other than some verses in there. In a Bible, they co-opted and they didn't even really think they were God's chosen like Christians. Well, they were they're God's chosen people, but that that lived on through Christian like
00:36:48
Speaker
In all of their love of Israel, there is like an anti-Semitism streak through Christianity in the way that they co-opted their faith. So seeing a man who I respect and really like post things like that, that felt like it reminded me of what I had heard growing up. I was like, well, maybe I should stop and reconsider.
00:37:15
Speaker
And it's impossible for me to imagine what it's like for Jewish people to to learn of this direct attack on Jewish people and go, yeah, well, you know, and I've seen this sentiment all over the Internet, which is, you know, what do you expect after? What do you expect after decades of of occupation in in in Gaza?
00:37:45
Speaker
But I don't know, it's so hard to parse through and it doesn't feel like I have any real ability to speak to it in a political sense or what it's like to be, you know, it's hard doing that because the Jewish people have been persecuted for thousands of years. So to be like, you got your state back in 1948 and you finally have a chance to reestablish an Asian state and then to still,
00:38:16
Speaker
I think that's what's hard to talk about and what's hard for people to think about is it does it doesn't we're just at this point where it's like
00:38:26
Speaker
There's no real concept of who started it anymore. Or people quoting different reasons that they think people should have different borderlines. Some of it's so manufactured, I guess, that when you think of the way that especially the people are experiencing this, it's like,
00:38:51
Speaker
Yeah, everyone, people in Israel, people in Palestine, I'm sure there's all these different, there's definitely different political views, but it is strange to think that we're kind of chicken and egg at this point. At what point do you go far back enough where now you found the person culpable or people culpable for where we're at now? At some point, I have to say in 2023,
00:39:19
Speaker
on October 17th we all not we not me but people need to make a decision on what they
00:39:29
Speaker
want going forward and right now that decision is Israel's gonna bomb the fuck out of the Gaza Strip and Hamas is never gonna let up because they're a terrorist organization and they're not representing their people at all and they knew what would happen. There's no chance they didn't know that this retaliate
00:39:50
Speaker
There's no chance they didn't know that retaliation was coming and that their people would suffer because they're it's kind of in there. It's kind of codified for Hamas that they need to do this. There's I mean, it's strictly anti-Semitic in in there. Yeah, I mean, it is. But I mean, a couple of things. OK, so first off,
00:40:18
Speaker
my you know, kind of like rounding off the thread of like where I grew up in my views on on Israel and Palestine and stuff like that growing up. The thing that really like changed my my way of thinking about this and opened me up, you know, because this there's this isn't I mean, this is not Star Wars.
00:40:45
Speaker
There's no rebels and Imperials like it's just not that clean and and that's why people I think are have such a hard time with this because you're you're really like pushed to have a definitive stand on like well, which side are you for and it's it's just not as simple as that. Yeah, right now we're it's an exchange of war crime for war crime.
00:41:09
Speaker
It really is. Yeah. I mean, you know, gunning down people at a music festival is horrific. You know, Gaza is it's a it's a prison. It's a prison camp. Yeah. And when you put people in that pressure cooker for that long, like suffering breeds savagery. I mean, that's just the that's just the way things are. It's the same here as it is in Ukraine or anywhere else, you know.
00:41:34
Speaker
people subjected to these kind of living conditions, you don't end up with like, you know, quiet Western middle class, middle of the road, neocons or whatever, you know, I mean, it's, we're products of our environment to some extent. And like, the reaction that I think the Palestinians and Hamas has to Israel at this point is,
00:42:04
Speaker
It's understandable. You know, is it right? No, it's it's not right to gun down people at a music festival, right? It's just I think what really like made me.
00:42:18
Speaker
It's not even so much rethink. It's just like there's, you have these mental blocks when you grow up with something or when you have this like well-established idea in your mind about how things are that are not as easy as like, well, I read an article and now I think different. You know, we just don't change our minds on subjects that fast or reconsider, you know, long held positions in that way. That's why Facebook statuses don't, you know, tweak people's worldviews.
00:42:46
Speaker
Yeah, but. So I've talked about it before, but the Martyr made podcast, his first episodes that he put out was a seven part series, and I looked at it today just to like see it. It's about 23 hours over the course of seven episodes, but he did a really comprehensive history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict called Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem.
00:43:17
Speaker
get a seven part series. It's very long, but it's fair. It's comprehensive. And the host, Darryl Cooper, he really does a good job of he goes the extra mile to like put you in the shoes of both parties, you know, of of Jews who are fleeing like pogroms and horrific violence and oppression and stuff in Eastern Europe and Western Russia. I mean, just fleeing like
00:43:47
Speaker
The worst type of conditions and prejudice and stuff that you can imagine and settling in Israel. But then also, I mean, you know, over time as they, you know, take over more and more and more of the countryside.
00:44:04
Speaker
You know, the way that Palestinians were treated, the way that they were herded into separate areas and pushed out of, you know, businesses and things like that, you know, and it's all like, it's slowly, it happened over time. It was things like, well, you know, if you're a Jewish business owner, you need to hire Jewish people. Like we're trying to get a settlement up and off the ground. We support, you know, our community first.
00:44:31
Speaker
That's the kind of stuff that eventually led to these people being pushed out of these certain areas and stuff until we arrive at the situation right now. And in the meantime, there's just unbelievable, incomprehensible for Western, nerfy, cushy, living people to imagine the violence that's happened.
00:44:58
Speaker
a lot of blood on both sides hands here. And that's why I think this is so difficult to like really just plant your flag in a side. It's kind of like with,
00:45:12
Speaker
You know, we've talked about like his, like Calvinism and Arminianism, like getting into that whole debate as a, as like a junior hire and just screaming at your friend, you know, like you have to write off a lot of things in order to take the firm side of like a Calvinist or an Arminianist. Like there's stuff that supports both sides. This is the same thing. And, and, but I think on, on the same note, like we're,
00:45:38
Speaker
We're saying that and recognizing that as people who don't live there and aren't exposed to it all day long. And I watched this video, uh, last night, uh, channel five, which I haven't checked in on in a while after Andrew Callahan, you know, is Oh, he's back.
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah, so he put out this video where he went to a uh, it was like a free palestine rally It's only a couple days ago, right? And he's interviewing people at this rally and he's got a couple of young women there that are Incredibly well spoken and they do a great job of like explaining their point and stuff
00:46:19
Speaker
And there's one of the main women that he's talking to. She's talking a million miles a minute, and she's very firmly in the camp of the Palestinian side of things. And I think I caught myself feeling a little like,
00:46:37
Speaker
All right, well, it seems to me like you're overlooking a lot of what just happened to these people. Then he said, do you know anybody that's been affected by the
00:46:50
Speaker
by the, you know, the bombardment stuff. And she said, I've lost 20 family members in this whole bombardment, 20 family members. And she's like, I haven't heard from my family that I haven't heard from my family that's still alive and in like six hours. And I don't know what's happening. And she's holding a sign in front of this place. Meanwhile, there's a guy that comes walking up, you know, and he's clearly there to like
00:47:18
Speaker
He wants to debate somebody, he's a Jewish guy. And he articulates a lot of the points, you know, that are valid on the Jewish side. But one of the things that came up is he, like,
00:47:31
Speaker
Like the first thing that he planted his flag in is like, do you condemn the violence that, you know, the, the. Brutality of, you know, Hamas murdering these 1200 Israeli civilians and stuff. And she's like, I'm not speaking to that right now. Like I'm, I'm here to talk about the Palestinian people and the oppression there. And, and, and he, he just, and I don't think like at some level, just be like, yeah, of course I do.
00:47:58
Speaker
This is like the cable news learned behavior that I think we all have where it's like, well, do you condemn the violence? Do you condemn Hamas? It's like, what difference does it make at this point?
00:48:14
Speaker
Like is that some act of goodwill that's gonna suddenly open up a friendly conversation here? Like I get what you're saying, but like this like Sean Hannity style of questioning where it's like, answer the question, say yes or no. Communism is evil and has killed a lot of people. Yes or no, yes or no.
00:48:32
Speaker
Like it's not productive and it doesn't help. And this woman has lost 20 family members in the matter of a couple of days. And you're here like planting your flag on this point. And this isn't about
00:48:47
Speaker
a beneficial conversation between you two. This is about discrediting you in front of the people watching this video. Which is what most media is, is just let me flex in this video and discredit the person I'm talking to. We all have those things.
00:49:09
Speaker
Like that that's where I think all of a lot of us kind of naturally go is to those questions of like, okay, we can talk about the violence. But first off, do you condemn the murder of all these civilians? And it's it's like, is that a valid question? It is.
Views on Violence and Peace-making
00:49:25
Speaker
Okay. But like, is that a precursor to you having any sort of conversation with this woman who has a bunch of dead family on her hands? Right. Right. And that's the paradigm that I think you're facing with this whole thing. And
00:49:39
Speaker
It's there's so much bad blood here that like Coming in and posting like a Facebook status or something about like which side you stand with It's just not this that none of this ends that way Yeah, and I just don't know where this goes from here. That's what I think it's like I Don't know. I mean I I
00:50:03
Speaker
It's it's so scary because there's like, you know, these foreign actors. I mean, there's so many powers that are looking at this conflict and making major decisions about how they're going to interact with other powers. I mean, Iran, before this hospital was bombed, Iran was talking about preemptive action if civilian casualties mounted in Gaza, you know, and then and then hours after these statements are made.
00:50:30
Speaker
This hospital gets bombed and there's, I don't know, there's over 500 people dead and nobody's claiming responsibility for it. What happens here? I just, I don't know. And like the, you know, the, the U S government just lines up next to Israel and like immediately takes their side. I mean, I guess that's what allies do, but so much of this feels like the precursor to world war one, where you have all of these great powers that are linked together
00:50:57
Speaker
And it all hinges on this one event that there's no hope of solving this anytime soon. So to write people off or to completely close off anybody who's not willing to say, I stand with Israel or free Palestine above all else.
00:51:19
Speaker
I don't know, man. I there's no answers to be had here. I think that's what's so aggravating about all this is that there really isn't any answers to be had, especially for us as just like right now. I mean, you go on Twitter. Sorry, X, whatever. I'm never going to fucking call it X, by the way, dude. Fuck. Yeah, it's we don't owe you on that. But whatever you see, everything you see is like
00:51:46
Speaker
Which side are you virtue are you virtue signaling for and then and you go well? Yeah, I gotta stand up you got to say so it's like what no you don't I can what one thing I can absolutely fucking promise you is that Hamas and Israel are not paying attention to what Americans are saying on Twitter right now. They don't give one mother fuck
00:52:09
Speaker
They don't don't have a fight like you don't have there's no way for you to inject yourself into this conflict. It's it's it's for the sake of establishing your side and knowing who you can and cannot associate with it's for the sake of
00:52:25
Speaker
you know, drawing more lines in the sand, which we do all the time and deciding which people you like or don't anymore, who you can trust or you can't. And I think what's, you know, I think the Shane Claiborne, former guest, still very much a Christian. So I'm going to read his whole post for the sake of not filtering anything that he said on a recent post. But I appreciated it.
00:52:56
Speaker
And I think his perspective is pretty clean. So he said for hundreds of years, Jewish people, honestly, you could say thousands, but Jewish people have been the victims of horrific violence. That historic backdrop of pain and trauma does not justify the crushing apartheid policies they've enacted.
00:53:17
Speaker
are imposed on Gaza and the West Bank for over 50 years, but it does help explain it. And for decades, the Palestinians have endured daily doses of terror, discrimination, and abuse from the state of Israel. That does not by any means justify the violence of Hamas, but it does help explain it.
00:53:38
Speaker
The current violence of both Hamas and the state of Israel create the conditions for more violence, adding fuel to an already combustible fire. For many people, the evil we are seeing daily by both the state of Israel and Hamas makes more killing justifiable. But violence is only going to lead to more violence, hatred begets more hatred. We cannot build a better future by killing each other's families.
00:54:02
Speaker
His last post, Jesus was right. If we live by the sword, we die by the sword. Violence is a dead end. Love is the only way forward. Even the audacious love for our enemies, love requires treating the persons of the other side of the wall as nothing short of sacred, a child of God made in the image of God. Killing babies is terrorism, whether it's done with bombs or with guns or knives, it's evil.
00:54:31
Speaker
Violence is always evil no matter what flag it's wrapped in. Let us continue to work for peace and do all we can to interrupt the war and grieve every life lost and commit ourselves to building a world where every person is sacred.
00:54:45
Speaker
And I think that's kind of where we're at, whether or not you agree with his latter part Christian take or not. I find myself when it comes to violence and historical violence even.
00:55:06
Speaker
in agreement with Shane Claiborne often because it's like literally every single act of retaliation is going to be viewed as something to retaliate against from both sides from here on out forever. This problem is unsolvable with violence and I think what's sad, horrific, I mean there's really no good words to describe is that
00:55:33
Speaker
The people in Gaza and the people of Israel are going to continue to suffer at the hands of governments that do not value their people well at all.
00:55:48
Speaker
It's weird to talk about. I think it's even uncomfortable to take political sides. I think you can go, yeah, I think I can try to begin to understand what it's, if you're a Jewish person who's hearing of this and who's
00:56:11
Speaker
There's been a, who's felt that existential threat for centuries. Your lineage has been existentially threatened. There's, there's no way to, you can't work around that. Like even since their establishment, however you feel about, however that came to be and for whatever reason, like they've, they've been a people who have endured suffering since their inception.
00:56:37
Speaker
So when you want to talk about what violence does to people and what you feel like your options are when your back is against the wall, nobody
00:56:46
Speaker
could or should understand that more than than Jewish people who have suffered for so long. So I think what's sad and hard to talk about is when that does result in the suffering of others, which creates the circumstances by which there will be retaliation in the same way that they've retaliated. It makes it really fucking hard to talk about.
00:57:14
Speaker
And it makes it really fucking unfair to talk about. And there's no good conclusion in the things they want, the things each side wants, diametrically opposed.
Geopolitical Power Dynamics
00:57:26
Speaker
And I don't know what that means or what that looks like because what each quote unquote side wants is different than what the people who just go to work every day and take care of their children want, which is to not be blown the fuck up when they go to school or work or when they're sleeping in their homes or when they're getting triage at the fucking hospital.
00:57:46
Speaker
And to weigh in on that feels just so fucking trite. It doesn't feel like, I feel like every time I log on the internet, everything feels worthless. And I, you know, obviously we're contributing to that right now, but I just don't, I mean, our opinions don't matter.
00:58:04
Speaker
our government, our government, the United States government, our elected officials who should give a shit about what we think they don't. And we're going to, I mean, the, the one bipartisan thing is unequivocal support of Israel. And while I'm, I like in a appreciate and despite that and Yahoo being very, very, uh, extreme right wing, like
00:58:28
Speaker
I understand the allyship and the support I do. And I just think unequivocal support in just saying right now that in the face of everything you go, we 100% stand with them and everything they do without saying, look, we fund you. We give you billions of dollars a year. We're going to pull that if this is what we're going to do.
00:58:56
Speaker
we're not the u.s isn't making a stance on this at all and the fact is the u.s has like a big fucking hand to play here and they want to carry your strike groups in the mediterranean right now there's four thousand soldiers that have been called up and are waiting
00:59:12
Speaker
Right. And I fucking don't trust the US at all at this point. Whatever we're involved in for whatever reasons, it's not for some altruistic sense of brotherhood because we just pledged our allegiance to that. It's not. You don't think it's for democracy? Yeah, right. It's always for something else. It's always nefarious. It's never for good reason.
00:59:36
Speaker
That's why we've been wrapped up in war forever. And then we watched Russia and Ukraine go to war. Now we're dealing with, I shouldn't say we're dealing with, that's poor phrasing, but now we're looking at Gaza and Israel and where
00:59:51
Speaker
Always just I I don't trust the the u.s's reasons for anything at this point No, we've never we surrendered for completely surrendered. Our role is like a conflict mitigator for sure, right? I mean especially in Ukraine the Ukraine Russia situation like we've we've
01:00:14
Speaker
lost all credibility that we may have had as a mediator between these two powers because of how hard we've put our finger on the scale on the other side, you know? And not that that's- This is always for our benefit, the U.S. benefit. I don't think- Look, let's be clear. That's how world politics work. I don't think any nations going out of their way to be virtuous for the sake of virtue- No. For the sake of being virtuous. Everyone has self-interest. I get it.
01:00:43
Speaker
I just think that we overextend with the level of with the amount of power that we have. We overextend and it goes far beyond our best interest in and goes into just trying to manipulate global politics in a way that fucks us. And Biden was asked about it this week. I mean, he was asked about it by a reporter like, you know, if if do you think that the US could handle
01:01:14
Speaker
like both of these conflicts at the same time. And he goes, yeah, we're the United States of America, man. We're the most powerful country in history. We can tie up both these conflicts and still like manage our national security interests. Just, okay. And that is why Trump is our next president. Please, okay. I don't know how many listeners we have in the Carolinas. Can you please, for the love of God, get rid of Lindsey Graham?
01:01:44
Speaker
I'm begging you, get rid of that stooge. He is the worst person alive.
01:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to get worse in it because he relentlessly picks the wrong sides and has the worst takes relentlessly. Oh, yeah. Always. You don't even have to. You just have to go. What as as a thinking individual, as someone who has some moderate critical thinking skills, if if you present me a scenario and you go, all right, given all the evidence, thinking through
01:02:21
Speaker
what your best and worst options are, I want you to tell me what Lindsey Graham would do. And you know, you just go with what makes no sense and has the worst train of thought. It's Lindsey Graham. What results in American youth being killed in a foreign country? That's what Lindsey Graham's for. And he can't even blame it on Vietcong torture.
01:02:40
Speaker
Yeah. Hey, how do we fill a veteran graveyard? Oh, let's just ask Lindsey Graham what he thinks is a good idea. So, okay, I think I've become kind of annoying about this because I haven't read hardly anything. I'm not a well-read person and I've latched on to a few things that just like resonated with me and so
01:03:05
Speaker
The blood meridian by Cormac McCarthy has kind of lived in my head over the past six months. You converted to Cormac McCarthyism. Casey's in a cult now, everybody. Casey joined a cult. Yeah, Judge Holden's my Jesus.
01:03:27
Speaker
There's just a lot to ruminate on within the book itself. It's great. Super violent, not for everybody. But there's a character, without spoiling too much about the book, there's a character called the name. Everybody just calls him the judge, Judge Holden. But he is kind of like a genius psychopath and an agent of chaos throughout the book.
01:03:56
Speaker
And he gives these kind of like small sermons to this group of like roughneck murderers that he rides with throughout the book. And at this – there's a point here where they're sitting around a campfire and it says – I'm just going to read some of this here because I can't help it. I've been thinking about it so much.
01:04:20
Speaker
says the judge cracked with the back of an axe, the shin bone of an antelope, and the hot marrow dripped smoking on the stones. They watched him. The subject was war. The good book says that he that lives by the sword shall perish by the sword, said so-and-so. The judge smiled, his face shining with grease. What right man would have it any other way, he said.
01:04:45
Speaker
The good book does indeed count war and evil, said Irving, yet there's many a bloody tale of war inside it. It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures.
01:04:57
Speaker
As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way. He turned to Brown from whom he'd heard some whispered slur or demure. Ah, Davey, he said. It's your own trade we honor here. Why not take a small bow? Let each acknowledge each.
01:05:26
Speaker
My trade? Certainly. What is my trade? War. War is your trade, is it not? And it ain't yours? Mine too, very much so. What about all them notebooks and bones and stuff? All other trades are contained in that of war. Is that why war endures? No. It endures because young men love it, and old men love it in them. Those that fought, those that did not.
01:05:56
Speaker
There's, there's somebody pulled a clip from the audio book of that whole discussion. It's worth listening to, but it's almost like the inverse of Shane Claiborne's take on it. You know, he sees violence as this inevitable and honorable pursuit, you know, where like he goes on to explain that because like, you know, with two men,
01:06:22
Speaker
play a game with nothing to wager but their lives. Like they're forcing the universe to take a side behind one or the other. It's a defined act and because of that, war is God. And hmm, I don't know, dude, it's just, you know, it's like you said, I mean, without rehashing a bunch of the same stuff, like every act of retaliation
01:06:45
Speaker
plants the seeds of future retaliation. And this is the. The bias is that it's always someone else's fault. I think that's why, you know, like, I mean, whether we're talking about Ukraine or we're talking about this, I mean, some, an outside power is going to have to try to take control of this situation here.
01:07:10
Speaker
Like, well, yeah, Iran's getting involved. If I mean, potentially like they get involved while someone's going to have to balance the scales on the other side, like we, uh, it just sucks to look at where this could be going.
01:07:25
Speaker
And it sucks that we as the US have surrendered that role as like, you know, some sort of, I mean, every one of us that grew up in the war on terriers is pretty cynical about the US's role as this like global police officer and stuff. But, you know, there was a period where after World War II, the entire rest of the planet was on fire, except for the US, we had become this like major military power
01:07:53
Speaker
And it, you know, it, it gave us the ability to balance scales where we wanted to, but you know, we have misused that responsibility so many times. And at this point, we're not the clear cut, you know, uh, military power in the world anymore. And I don't know, I don't know where this goes, but, uh, it's scary, man. It's just.
01:08:20
Speaker
lived in my head for the past week here. Yeah. I mean, again, when you look at the amount of people who are going to suffer at the hands of a few, at the end of the day, it's the Palestinians, the Jews, they just want to go to work. They want to send their kids to school.
01:08:47
Speaker
They want to earn an honest living. That's what people want in every place. And then you have governments just handing them over to death for the sake of their own self-interests. And for what? For more power? What's that going to get you? The desire for more power? The desire for more land?
01:09:07
Speaker
I'm not I'm still honestly so I won't speak to it at all I I'll just state that I'm unsure about what any of this has to do with the geography of
01:09:24
Speaker
of areas that are of religious significance as to who owns what or should. I hear that come up from time to time. But even if that's the case or even if this is the thing that's talked about, I feel like that's
01:09:40
Speaker
is related to what's going on is like George Bush being like, we got WMDs that we got to get rid of. It's like there's this party that know everything. Everything at that level feels like a dog whistle just to collect votes or get people to resign to how things are because they don't want to deal with civil war or people taking up arms. We're just in this such
01:10:08
Speaker
I mean, when you have like Israel saying, well, if you don't want to get blown up, you should leave. But also good luck because, you know, the borders are closed and we know what it's like. We know. Oh, yeah. Make a bunch of people leave.
01:10:23
Speaker
I don't have one of the most densely populated places on earth and you draw a line across the center and say, all of you squeeze into half the space. Right, right. And again, you can't talk about that out of one side of your mouth without talking about.
01:10:41
Speaker
They didn't the Jewish people didn't have a state until 1948 and they had been almost wiped off the face of the earth and there's going to be a level of resistance towards people who are whose religious dispositions and ethno states call for their Obliteration, I mean that's not not a thing, you know, like but that's not the people that's I think that's what I think I think the resounding
01:11:11
Speaker
frustration is.
01:11:13
Speaker
whether you look at what the United States has done over the past 20 years, or what we've seen in between Russia and Ukraine, or what we're now seeing blow up between Israel and Palestine, is that like the United States, like, yeah, they, they turn the United States against, against Islam. And we did it real good, real fast. Uh, and you, you can use that to get what you need. You can use,
01:11:43
Speaker
hatred of other people's religions to get what you need. And then at the end of the day, most people in the United States, they're not their religion doesn't impact their it didn't or didn't have to impact their feelings about the Middle East, but it did after 2001 and
01:12:04
Speaker
in the same way that when the United States was in the Middle East, you would find plenty of Muslim. It would just be kind of split. Some Muslim would be like, yeah, I don't have a problem with Christianity. I just see what's happening to us over here. And then you have some people who just associate the United States with Christianity, even though we're not, quote unquote, an ethno state.
01:12:30
Speaker
I don't know. It's just so convoluted. Religion convolutes all of that for sure. But at the end of the day, I feel like most people don't want that. I shouldn't say most people don't want that to be the case because I've seen what evangelical Christianity has done and the beliefs that we have.
01:12:49
Speaker
or we have had, but I don't know. I just, I feel like it's even more delineated when you look at like Palestinian people who are suffering and they know they're suffering because of Hamas and their actions. And you know that the Israeli people don't necessarily love Netanyahu and that he's been wrapped up in so many corruption scandals and like,
01:13:17
Speaker
election rigging that you're just like, are you like, you're still here, but I don't know that everybody wants you here, but you get to make unilateral a lot of backlash right now. Things are bad. Things are bad everywhere over there for everyone. And they're all
01:13:35
Speaker
just living through hell because of a few dozen people in power that don't care about using their people for collateral damage. They don't care. They don't care.
01:13:51
Speaker
And I don't know, I feel like we're back to where we started, I guess. I don't know what it's worth, like, spinning our tires on anymore. Well, the funniest thing about and I feel like an idiot actually at this point. Like, I don't I don't have anything else to say.
01:14:07
Speaker
Dude, the funniest thing about all this is watching celebrities like post something and then realize they posted the wrong thing and then. Like a retraction. Dude, so did you see the Tim Dylan wrote like a typical celebrity sort of did you see this? I didn't. OK, I'm going to read it. He said.
01:14:32
Speaker
It's tough to make sense of what's happening outside my feelings, so I try not to. I focused almost exclusively on myself and my needs at every given moment. Self-care is incredibly important right now. Whether you're just calling a friend to be ready to service worker or going for a long walk where you think of nothing except future vacations you will take, do not feel guilty for taking care of yourself now or ever.
01:14:58
Speaker
This is the, there is no right or wrong way to center yourself. When people are talking about this issue, repeatedly assure them that you took a trip to the middle East during college. They won't ask any follow-up questions and say things like the spirit of the people is very strong. If you're white, say you're Lebanese. This will help people with their grief. There is nothing wrong with telling someone that you know, someone who died in order to relate to them. Make it a distant cousin, but be sad.
01:15:27
Speaker
Again, this is not lying. This is for them. Oh my God. Finally, it is important to call the Jews and Muslims in your life and tell them that you agree with them totally. And that the other side is 100% wrong.
01:15:42
Speaker
Then ask them for something. It will probably make them feel better to watch your dog. So let them tell them you're going to Israel to fight. And when they, when they say they didn't even, uh, they didn't even think you were Jewish, start pretend crying and screaming. They'll take the dog then. So in closing, um, the news is tough right now. So.
01:16:10
Speaker
don't be afraid to just take some you time. Whether you're in Tel Aviv or in Gaza, West Bank, if you're constantly filling everyone else's cup, eventually your cup runs dry. So don't be afraid to just shut off your phone and
01:16:32
Speaker
Ben Joe Wednesday or something like that. If you still have electricity where you are. Yeah, which you don't, so that's gonna be tough. No, I don't know. We really struggled with what to say about this. It feels like we talked in circles.
01:16:58
Speaker
But I just don't, I don't know what else to really say about it. And, you know, I think one of the things that we, we talk about between each other is how irritating it is to hear people, you know, whether they're conservative Christians or ex evangelical thought leaders, quote unquote, or whatever, like telling people kind of what to think, you know, sometimes with evasive language, but it's sort of like,
01:17:27
Speaker
imprinting upon you what the right way is to think about something. And I think that it's very annoying and condescending. I don't know.
01:17:40
Speaker
We try not to, we try not to do that. We don't always stick to it, I guess, but I would have your own thoughts on it. But to try to prescribe, like what I'm seeing a lot of is like, oh, you don't think like me, then you're garbage human in your trash. And one of the things that I've been surprised by is like, I had assumed and thought that for quite a while that more left leaning people were
01:18:07
Speaker
It's hard to say like that the more free Palestine idea. No one's pro Hamas. I don't think and if they are that that'll be a strange revelation for me to find. But it's like like it's either the free Palestine or the I stand with Israel. And I was surprised to see as many people who are left leaning do the I stand with Israel thing. And I don't even mean that.
01:18:34
Speaker
with judgment, it was just legitimately shocking to me because of how much I've heard from the left about freeing Palestine and the occupation there.
01:18:45
Speaker
and the ongoing conflict. And I think right now it's just so strange to, I don't know, you could see where the problems are and why we're here. As Shane Claiborne said, a lot of what we know explains where we're at, but it doesn't justify it. But it does for some people, I should say. I mean, it does for some people justify it. Violence is justified for plenty of people all the time.
Critique of Celebrity Engagement
01:19:15
Speaker
I wouldn't say I'm a pacifist. I lean towards the idea of nonviolence as a better way, but tell that to the people who are hurting you.
01:19:26
Speaker
I don't know what the fuck to do with that. That's a very privileged thing to say. At some point in my life, I would have been morally opposed to any forms of violence as a, when I was a, like a non, ethically, like would have been considered like, consider myself non-violent Christian. I wouldn't anymore. You know what helps with that? Not believing anyone goes to hell. I know it sucks because sometimes you want people to.
01:19:55
Speaker
uh but not believing that anything happens when you die is a real bummer actually uh so yeah i don't know it's just there's just it i've been surprised uh by the discourse um
01:20:11
Speaker
It cuts weird lines for sure. It's not changing my opinions about anyone. I totally see the same people I always knew who would that I grew up with standing with Israel because of course they would. And they have some weird take that this is ushering in the end times and that'll suck for them and they don't get raptured before they get killed by a grenade. Bummer.
01:20:36
Speaker
I think as an empathetic human who wants to, to the best of their ability in a world where we're inundated with what's going on in the world, and we're inundated with conversations around people experiencing violence. It's easy to be numb to it, but as someone who wants to be an empathetic person,
01:21:04
Speaker
I just feel deeply for the people who are suffering at the hands of governments and regimes that aren't trying to take care of their people at all at this point. And who are very okay with the torture of others simply because of their ethnicity or their geographic location.
01:21:30
Speaker
or the desire to own a certain geographic location. It's just really, really fucked up, I guess.
01:21:45
Speaker
No, I feel like I know by the time that like episodes come out where you've referenced Nikki Haley are going to be spaced out. But I feel like I've heard you just bring her up so much lately that it's like. She basically quoted Darth Sidious in an interview the other day, like she was like pretending to talk directly to Netanyahu and she's like,
01:22:13
Speaker
wipe them out. Oh my god.
01:22:20
Speaker
And she's the moderate candidate. Yeah. Holy shit, dude. And that's- She's the return to common sense, you know? Christ. Well, anyways- I actually think we spent more time on this than we intended to. Yeah. I'm glad we got our, what are we talking about before? I'm glad we got our fart and dog boner jokes out before we talked about anything serious.
01:22:47
Speaker
What one last like just a closing note if I could is uh, you know earlier I referenced that martyr made series fear and loathing in the new Jerusalem I Regardless of which side you feel yourself falling on in this thing. I I can't recommend that series enough and
01:23:12
Speaker
You know, Darrell Cooper's kind of an oddball character and he has some crazy takes on Twitter and stuff like that. But like Twitter is not the best. It's wild. As someone who doesn't appreciate his personal stances on things often.
01:23:29
Speaker
I will still vouch for his historical breakdown of things. I think he's actually, for someone I disagree with often, really, really good at giving you an unbiased breakdown of what actually happened. I think he does a really good job at that.
01:23:52
Speaker
And I think he does a good job delineating between what actually happened and his personal feelings about it. I think I don't often appreciate people I disagree with that staunchly and for to be able to, because most of the way that information is provided is for the sake of changing minds. And I don't, I actually don't think he's in that business.
01:24:19
Speaker
I don't think he's trying to change minds. I think he's actually in the business of educating. And I think if you want to follow him on Twitter, he'll give you his personal opinions. And I'm sure he might state his personal opinion. I haven't listened to 23 hours of the one you're talking about, but I've listened to him plenty based on your recommendation.
01:24:42
Speaker
And I was unaware of his political ideologies for a little while just based on the way he presented information. So. Yeah, he's very good at podcasts is very good. Maybe don't follow him on Twitter, you know, but I think I heard him talking about that series at one point, and I think he said he had read over
01:25:07
Speaker
over 120 books in the like completion of that series and it just goes from like the early 1900s up through like the early 1950s so it's not even like comprehensive up to present day and it's that like it's that dense and and
01:25:27
Speaker
full spectrum of opinion. So I would strongly encourage you to give that a try. If you have 23 hours to spare. Hey, let's be honest. Anybody who lives here has 23 hours. I know, because you have at least 30 minutes to inform work. If you're not dodging missiles, you can listen to a little information you don't readily agree with.
01:25:54
Speaker
Sorry for the episode being out late. It's just the life how it went this week. It's only like our third episode out late too. That's pretty good. Yeah, we're actually fantastic. We have a better record than almost anybody at this point. Nobody's accused us of slapping an ex-girlfriend, so there's that too.
01:26:17
Speaker
That helps. It helps when you married the first person you dated and you didn't slap them. That helps a lot.
Podcast Updates and Future Conversations
01:26:30
Speaker
All right, everybody. Well, if you like the show, leave us a review. Leave us a review. It's helpful. It helps us, you know, kind of climb our way up the rankings.
01:26:45
Speaker
where I'm learning. I'm trying my best to put out video along with the episodes. I've had to try a few different methods and stuff, but I'm getting there. And I have to be very conscious of that weird tick I have where I constantly grab at my nose like this.
01:27:02
Speaker
Unbelievable. Do that a lot. I do it a lot. He's not picking. I'm not. It's a nervous, it's not even a nervous, I don't, maybe it's nervous, it's subconscious. And what's awesome is I've, two people I've worked with, it's come up, but they didn't mention it. We were talking about things we do when we're, when we're nervous or when we're like thinking and talking.
01:27:26
Speaker
And I've solicited people to say to me what they notice about what I do. And they're like, I've, look, I've, you're asking. So I've noticed you do this a lot. And they do that like the.
01:27:40
Speaker
No, I'm like, thank you for being honest with me because I'm working so fucking hard at it ever since, especially Casey was like, we're doing video. Not only was I like, I I'm so conscious of it now and I'm sure I fail a lot, but you guys can all watch me do a little. It's like a nose pull almost.
01:28:02
Speaker
it's i think what you should do is just adopt a more blatant like purposeful tick like instead of touching your nose you should do that like anime orgasm face where you like cross your eyes and stick your tongue out like uh you do that weird ash ketchup
01:28:21
Speaker
after you get hit on the head by the ash road. I notice, oh my god, I have a lot of, watching myself do this is, I notice strange movements that I think I do in person that I don't pick up on. I'll do head ticks like this sometimes and like, fuck man, video, us doing video is really fucked with my head in the way that I perceive myself, so.
01:28:51
Speaker
watch me well i can't sit still i'm being weird leaning forward leaning back leaning forward messing with the armrests i hate this chair by the way i hate these gaming chairs i'm gonna get a normal chair soon but uh anyway so uh if you share the show with somebody that you know that you think would like it or maybe that you think would hate it it might get you out of uh thanksgiving dinner so can yours
01:29:20
Speaker
And, um, we have a discord. You should join our discord. Even if you want to just come in, hang out, you don't have to post a bunch of stuff or whatever, but I think you'll find that it's a pretty good community of decent people. It's chill. People post. It's not the, it's not like, it's like some discords are like constant bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. It's people just post and shit they care about.
01:29:44
Speaker
Here's some cool music. We talked about it for a while. Have you seen this TV show? Have you watched this movie? It's just pretty normal people shit. And it's fun. It's fun to engage on normal people shit without it being like. It's not weird. People aren't being weird in it. They're not just flexing. It's actual. It feels like a real community in the discord. And I appreciate it. So to everyone who has joined it. Thank you.
01:30:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Shout out to the, uh, the OGs, like Bar Quester and, uh, OMG, so emo. And, uh, our boy Mark, who's coming on soon. Yeah, dude. Mark has been here for a minute. I love it. I'm excited to have him on. And, oh boy, we have a weird episode coming up where it's a good episode. I kind of fumbled the ending of it. Um, but, uh,
01:30:41
Speaker
If you're, if you listen to Christian music at all, uh, growing up, we, we had, um, Andrew Schwab on from project 86. So that is soon to be released probably next week. I would imagine we'd probably put that one out. Yeah, that might be next week. Yeah. It's part one of an eventual two parter because I wanted to dig into his views on
01:31:11
Speaker
contemporary things and, you know, politics and stuff, because he has a podcast where he discusses some of those things. And I just went about it in the most like haphazard, flat-footed, ham-fisted way possible at the very end. I'm like, what do you think of violence? And it didn't go anywhere. He's like, let's just do it again sometime and we'll talk more in depth about it. Yeah, it was dope. He was super interested in having those conversations. I think that's where he,
01:31:41
Speaker
what he really likes to talk about. I think he's one of the few people that we could have back on that appreciates disagreement and doesn't take it to heart. He's like, yeah, let's fucking disagree about this and have an actual human to human conversation, which is
01:32:01
Speaker
a lost art, I think. So hopefully, I think, yeah, I think like you said, Casey, he'll be next week. If not, it'll be a couple. But yeah, I'm excited to be able to do that with him. I think it'll be a fun conversation to have.
01:32:17
Speaker
Yeah, and I'll try to think of a stupider question to ask him like, I don't know, do you think evil is bad? You were like, what do you think the, what's your favorite song you've ever written? Oh my God. How'd you come up with your hand name?
01:32:41
Speaker
All good ones. It's like whenever April's been on an interview, it's like, how did you get into cosplay? Like, oh my God, here we go. Anyways, thanks everybody for listening and we will see you next time.