About this episode
For episode 59 of the podcast, Craig is joined by (sometimes) co-host Abby Cleckner for a conversation with fellow podcasters, Nathan Chavoya and his co-host Tony, to talk about the power of memes, their podcast Reality Czars, and, of course, Jesus.
We covered a wide variety of topics in this episode, from why we use memes to Amish communities and the pros and cons of Trump supporters. As always, it comes back to the question of: What Would Jesus Do? Whether we’re considering people who don’t want to listen, Canadian truckers, Ukraine and Russia, the Mexican border, war and Christianity, the indoctrination of the church, or conservative Amish communities – in everything, we must follow the example of Jesus.
Nathan is the social media manager for The Bad Roman Project. He makes a lot of the memes you see on our page. You can find Nate and Tony's show and where to connect with them via their link tree (content warning for all of their media: profanity, crude humor, rude comments).
Episode Timestamps:
5:50 Why memes work
People often seem to get more out of memes than the podcast
Non-intrusive way to absorb an idea
Can light a fire… maybe dose a red pill
Makes people read all day to learn more
Might change their entire perspective on the world
9:01 People who love to smell their own farts
Some people just want to inform others how wrong they are
Go on long rants
You can’t do anything about it when they refuse your offered resources
They don’t really want answers
“I could tell you, but you're not listening to me anyway.” -Craig
Saying, “You’re wrong” and writing a novel about why is not going to get you engagement
Using tired information and arguments won’t convince anyone
Proving you’re not interested in learning more about what you disagreed with shuts down the conversation
12:45 Canadian truckers
“I see a bunch of statists running around out there waving their flags, trying to change the government and get the government to give them back their freedoms.” - Craig
We make fun of the patriot libertarians
But at least they’re doing something
Ancaps are sitting on their butts
Agorists are building their own markets and ignoring society
“I'm glad that there is some pushback.” - Nate
Maybe they have the wrong approach, but at least theyr’e taking action
Craig warned them to watch for feds/politicians trying to infiltrate their group
The feds are the dumb ones
There was a guy at the truck rally waving a Nazi flag
They literally all wear the same black boots
They try to paint any pushback as racist
It’s just normal folks saying, “Keep that crap away from me.”
Trudeau called them harmful white nationalists
As they helped homeless people on the video behind his voice
There’s not just white people involved
What is their goal? How does sitting there help?
Trudeau said all truckers must be vaccinated
Put a travel ban on unvaccinated
Even US truckers coming in must get the shot
In the US, like 60% of truckers are not vaccinated
They're holding a huge strike
Not shipping
Clogging up streets
People raised over $10 million on GoFundMe
It got refunded because the site refused to support the truckers
Another site stepped up and raised $3 million in 24 hours
Not directly hurting anyone
People won’t be able to get what they ordered
If there was no effect, what’s the point?
They have every right not to do their job
Some say it’s not really a grassroots movement
Most guys are there to fight the power
But it was the deep state’s idea
Elon Musk has created self-driving trucks
They are going to prevent humans from stopping shipment again by using computers instead
“Never again”
Wouldn’t it be more effective to just keep doing their jobs unvaccinated?
Instead of just sitting there waiting for the government to change its mind
People can refuse their shipments if they want
But it might have made less of a media splash
How could the government really enforce it? There’s too many of them
The laws wouldn’t mean anything anymore
Actually, a lot of the truckers are vaccinated
They’re still protesting with their brothers
They don’t believe anyone should be forced into it
In most realms of society, it’s the unvaxxed vs vaxxed, but these guys can still work together
They haven’t converted to the religion of COVID-19
They don’t see those without it as heretics
They just watch the news, and the news told them to get it
Most people don’t have access to alternative media
They’d been locked down for 2 years
Believed the vaccine would protect them, that they wouldn’t get COVID (not true), that they wouldn’t spread COVID (not true), and that the symptoms will be less bad (maybe?)
Realize they were duped, life didn’t go back to normal, we keep being told if we do just one more thing, it will all be over
How long will people continue doing the rain dance that doesn't bring any rain?
When will they say, “No! I don't trust you anymore.”
People are afraid to eat crow
They don't want to admit they were wrong, so they just continue to do what they're told and pretend to agree
24:47 The reality of COVID
Some sort of virus definitely exists
It might not have actually been any worse than other years
The people in charge got to tell us what's causing deaths
They know how to manipulate statistics
Three years ago, if your grandma had cancer and diabetes, then got the flu and died, the flu would not be blamed
Almost everyone had 3 to 4 comorbidities
The average age of people who died from COVID was 81
The average age of people who die in America regularly is 79
Theories on why it didn’t hurt most people
If they really made this in a lab, they didn't do a very good job
It didn't hurt very many people
It's all just a circus made to distract us
Or maybe they just weren't able to test it on average humans
Maybe they tested it on sickly populations and it wiped out a good chunk of those people
Prisoners low on vitamin D and will to live would get much sicker and be more likely to die
“They thought it was going to be really bad and were disappointed. So they had to start making up numbers.” - Abby
Psy-op
Maybe it wasn’t about wiping out the population
Maybe it was about seeing what they could make us do
Even places who did not comply at first masked up for Omicron for some reason
29:18 Mandates
Some counties in Tennessee tried to hold on to mask mandates
The state made them illegal at the county level
But schools were still free to choose
Craig’s friend’s kids were required to get vaccinated to go to school
Abby told her kids they wouldn’t be allowed to go if that happened
Nate and Craig would want to get violent if the school required that
Craig wouldn’t even stand for masks
People living in places where it’s not required are choosing to wear 2 masks and get jabbed
They’re scared
In Oregon, they forced all school staff to get the vaccine
A lot of teachers chose instead to get fired
Parents are all mad, but they do nothing
32:26 Schooling
If we all got together and hired the fired teachers, we could have our own school
No more government indoctrination camp
No more teaching our kids weird things we don’t want them to learn
The unvaxxed teachers are more likely to align with our values
Let’s come together and homeschool instead of getting our kids vaccinated so that they can be indoctrinated
33:52 Ukraine and Russia
You have to look back at their history to understand
Is the threat of war just posturing by Biden?
His guys supposedly killed an ISIS leader in Syria the other day
Some people say he wasn’t even a leader
So many innocent people died in that air strike
Is this also just something they’re saying to look good?
Biden’s popularity has been plummeting
Whenever that happens, they start talking about war
It doesn’t look like Russia is wanting war
History
Raegan and Gorbachev made an agreement that NATO would never extend east beyond Western Germany and the USSR would not come west of it
NATO has taken over many former USSR countries
Russia wants at least a buffer between themselves and NATO
That was Ukraine
They said if NATO came into Ukraine, they’d fight
Who knows what will happen
We’re acting like the biggest bully
But are we?
We just turned tail and left Afghanistan
What people are saying
Someone said, “Man, those democrats sure do like war”
Dude, the republicans continued several wars with Trump in office
You just gotta agree with them
Because that is true
Ask them questions:
Why don’t they like war?
Find out their principles
Then ask them to be consistent when a republican comes to power
39:26 Border crossers
Conversation Craig had
“Trump gave us a secure border”
“By locking kids in cages”
“But at least it was secure”
“I dunno; doesn’t seem Christlike”
*silence*
Use, “IDK… WWJD?”
Someone said, “Most of the kids in cages aren’t even related to any adults they came with. I’d rather my kid sit in a cage than be sex trafficked.”
Obama made some sort of rule that if you brought a kid with you, the US government would let you through no questions asked
So, lots of sex and drug traffickers used that to their advantage
They couldn't keep the kids and adults together because they were afraid of the kids being abused, especially since most of them were not with their parents
"I don't think the cages are the best solution still. Call me crazy." - Abby
We just need to get rid of drug laws and borders, and most of these problems would be solved
Why do people care if anyone comes over the border anyway?
What's so wrong about them looking for a better life?
People here don't want to work, so why can't they let someone else come do it?
So many people who oppose the border don't realize the people getting ahead in their precious capitalist system are bringing people over the border for cheap labor
They don't get held accountable, but Mom and Pop places do
Work visas
Families have to live off one income if one spouse is deported
“They’re so sweet; I don’t understand why we treat them like garbage.” - Craig
Shoot ‘em
People want to have snipers on top of the wall picking crossers off
Because maybe then they’d think twice about coming over
There used to be a group who shot border crossers
They have similar attitudes towards Muslims
If they saw one with a backpack on, they’d shoot
How does one know a man is Muslim?
You’d have to do a little interview with him first
45:00 Evangelicals love war and destruction
They’re the top demographic to support war, capital punishment, torture…
How is that possible??
Maybe it started with one issue, like abortion, and once the Republican Party could control what they thought about that, they could control what they thought about everything else too
Conservative culture is more important to them than Jesus or liberty
They stick a Jesus fish on their car to prove their love
Evangelicals will get mad at you when you say you don't support war
They actually seem to equate being a Christian with supporting war
They don't see the conflict there
“I was that guy…It never dawned on me that murdering people was not what Christ wants us to do.” - Craig
There has to be some fascinating psychology behind that
Someone made a diabolical plan to cause it
It’s taught in churches
Perhaps most strongly in Southern Baptist congregations
But people can love their country without loving murder and theft
The church was infiltrated
The first churches in early America were very anti-state
Maybe the desire for power was too strong and they combined with the state
Maybe they learned loyalty to the state from the Church of England
Or they were used to controlling the state through the church
The separatists coming from England had been persecuted by the Anglican Church and had no interest in being like them
51:51 Amish
Were getting murdered by other denominations
Fled to America
Stuck their heads in the ground and became entirely separate
Did not operate like England at all
Some anabaptists are trying to convince the more conservative Amish groups to engage with the fringes of society
They’re so secluded they won’t even help people outside the church
Their strict rules are a new form of oppression
Treat their women like second class citizens
Jesus never talked about that
Maybe it’s an indoctrination
A lot of Muslim women say they like and choose their head coverings
Some Amish communities kick their kids out into the world at 16-18 to let them decide for themselves
Some don’t and people flee
They send members after them like a Mormon cult
55:54 Reality Czars podcast
Unscripted
Which is good because popular guests who usually repeat the same thing wind up sharing something new or funny
Nate and Tony teamed up
Met at Squatchfest
Tony helped Nate kill some pigs for an anarchist animal butchering class
(he kind of expected to get killed because Nate’s standing their with a gun and HUGE pigs in the pen, and they were only acquaintances)
They had interesting conversations and decided to start a show
Nate’s side hustle
Wife Abbey writes these show notes (hi)
He makes the memes
Abbey also does proofreading
Nate’s baby
Is actually 8.5 months old now
Happily wears bow ties to church
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