Well, it seems that we have a lady of the cloth coming to the rescue against a congregation of not very nice men. It seems that the nasty man has called the lady of the cloth, who called for anything but being nasty, to be the one on the receiving end of things. Helen.
So imagine if you may, regardless of your belief or left thereof that a bishop ask you for compassion for vulnerable people, Ask that for once, consider your effects on others and call that person nasty. Now imagine you're the president on an inauguration day, so episcopical, I never say this right. Bishop Marian egar Bud gave an impassioned speech for Trump to consider the effect of his words and
policies that would affect communities. Now, I don't think Trump has ever been the introspective sort, but this should be reminder that people who cannot consider the lot lived experiences of other human beings, maybe they shouldn't hold power. The vicious speech was a reminder to all of us to have compassion for people and other communities outside of our immediate circles, and people in power should consider the populace
as a whole. This story comes from Humanism on the Hill by bisch By Reattas by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason on January twenty second, twenty twenty five. I don't know why asking for compassion is considered a nasty thing.
Please explain, because the wrong people you're asking for compassion for right now, find people, don't you know? They're not real people, don't you know?
So?
I have a couple of white of summarizing this article, but there's not many ways that are more British than this. Donald Trump is a Wazok, not a Wazuk.
That's a I have not heard.
There's no other ways of putting it. Here's the weather vein of American politics. Shall we say he will go wherever the wind blows him.
Here's a symptom.
Yes, And here's the thing about symptoms. You can cure symptoms. The problem is prevention is always better than cure around these parts. And we should have prevented us getting to this state in the first place. And how we now get ourselves out of this? I'm not entirely certain. I'm not a sochologist, I'm not a political expert. I just happen to be the person that's conducting this show tonight.
But it does always feel very odd when you see your own sense being dehumanized one of the most powerful people from client and then you have one of the strangest moments as an atheist can have when you have a Lady of the Clock come running in white nighte and going, don't do this, don't do that. It does feel very, very weird that this is where we've got to in this world. Wouldn't you agree, Aaron?
It's a very strange world right now. This is not where I thought the world would be. I thought four years ago that that was the last wee we're going to see of the Orange One. Yeah. Well, if you look around the world, from what I understand, there is a dissatisfaction in general with people in power, and incumbents are losing, regardless if they're left or if they're right. People are not happy people the voters, right, the voters
are not happy. They want to change. They do not like what they see, they do not like the choices they have to stop you here.
Incumbents are not losing around the world. That's a myth. Incumbents one in Finland, incumbents one in the Republic of Ireland, incumbents are most likely to win. In Scotland, incumbents are doing strange and wonderful things. In Spain, it's just saying incumbents around the world are losing is a myth. Yes, incumbents lost in the United Kingdom, but that was because they've been in powers in twenty ten one way, shape or another. To say that incumbents are losing around the
world is a convenient yet incorrect myth. So in the Republic of Ireland, the most recent election, which was earlier, which was late last year, resulted in the two main coalition parties, Pheno Foil and Siana Gale actually increasing their vote share and the main opposition party Shinfein not having the predicted big win that it was supposed to do. In Spain, the Socialist Party of Spain surprisingly held on to power for another few years when it was expected
to lose against the Conservative People's Party. In Finland, the incumbents got stronger. In the Netherlands, the incumbents got stronger. To say that we have this plethora of overthrowing of incumbents is a nice myth, but it's not true.
Oka I stand corrected well here in the United States, there is dissatisfaction at best with our current our current framework, our current political system. I don't think people are happy with it, and I think people want they want they want change, and they don't care who is going to who is going to give it to them.
What does change mean?
I don't know. Burned down and sterical over again. I mean, it's hard to see anything other than that on why people are voted the way they did. Maybe we're not Unfortunately, humans are not rational creatures. We're not logical, rational creatures. As much as we think.
We are, Katie trying to be.
We are trying to be, but people are not. And people vote against their own interest all the time, and it's going to continue to happen, and I don't know what we do about it.
So when you read this article, what did you think of this obticle as a mirror to the society that America has devolved or developed? How you look at it into.
What's amazing that I have never heard someone had to tell President this, and all the years of following, you know, and my forty five plus years on this planet, I have never heard a person of the cloth or anyone else have to tell a president to take other people into consideration. That blew my mind. Not that it's not so much that I expect Trump to be an He's
never had an introspective thought in his life. He has never looked inward and looked at his own behavior because he's an orange shit given so he doesn't have higher thinking skills. But it says something about the seventy seven million people that voted for him. Either they don't care because I don't want to assume other people's motivations, but it concerns me that a person and I'm like, I'm
with the bishop. I'm like, good on you, good on you, because as I the fact that she had to say this to someone that is the most powerful person in the world, had to say this to him, Please consider other people, Please show compassion because people are terrified. But I think it's kind of amazing. It's amazing in a terrible way.
I think this does show the major flaw with well democracy. And this isn't an anti democratic ran This isn't anything that's pro or anti democratic, but it does allow anybody of any qualification to be able to ascend to any position that they're constitutionally allowed to because we do have some of the least qualified people trying to run the government at the moment, and it is quite frankly, quite scary.
I mean, back in twenty sixteen, the current president, who was then the forty fifth president of the United States, had no previous political offices that he had ever held. He'd never done it before, whereas the guy who was number forty six in the office had been. He was the furniture that they just moved around a bit and then they moved him down the street. That's how long
he'd been there. He was part of the furniture. And when you go back to president's past, you take a look at Bill Clinton, he had been on Arkansas politician for decades. You take Ronald Reagan, he'd been a California politician for decades. You take Richard Dixon, he'd been a California politician and vice president of the United States for decades. Go back to president's past. It was seen as okay,
you've done the job. Interview of how well you can actually do this election thing beforehand, and then you rise out of the rank. You don't normally have the first political office you hold being the number one top job. That's not normal in these circle ass we're not living in normal times when you can just catapult from nothingness and obscurity as a reality television star running your own show to becoming the forty fifth and forty seventh president
of the United States. And it should tell you something when contestants on the reality show are asked and the source for this is the magician Pendulect when he said, I did not win the last celebrity edition of The Apprentice hosted by Donald Trump because I was told by the producers I had to say it that I thought he would be a good president, and he said, I don't believe that. I just straight up don't believe he
would make a good president. So therefore, the guy who is now the President of the Ice States decided that he wasn't going to win the show. This is the level of not normal that we're living in in this day and age, and this article is the epitome of not normal.
Yeah, there's no there's no political consequences anymore for anything. Right in his first in his first campaign, the Orange one said that he could shoot someone on First Avenue and he wouldn't lose a vote. And I think that was the most pressient thing he said, and it's true. There's there.
Everyone ridiculed him for it. Everyone ridiculed him, but it was true.
All the teams that came out during that first election didn't didn't FaZe him, and area is back as forty seventh the president the United States. So I've only love to believe that people just don't care who the president is, right because normally before both things would have had consequences, and now they don't. Why not? I don't know, I don't I'm not And that's in these areas.
Here's the real here's the real CrOx of the matter. Why is it that the three of us I guaranteed to know who the occupant of sixteen hundred Pennsylvany Avenue is, But are nine hundred and ninety nine times out of one thousand not going to have a clue who represents us in the Senate, not going to have a clue who represents us in the House, or even who the mayor of the city we live in need?
I think, because I mean I do, I do know that I'm plunked and just plunt in the past ten the mayor of the city you live in, No, actually, you know I knew the mayor of Serrisoda. I don't know the mayor of Port Charlie as I just moved here.
So that's fair. That's the last question. Then do you know that that I'm your local represented.
My local level, oh city council. Oh you know what, I don't know. So that's fair, Okay, so fair. And I think that's because I think that because this is this is the thing, and I'm and I am not
going to excuse myself or anything like that. I think part of it is that for most people, like they are aware of bills that are going forward, like when I'm voting, I will start looking up stuff when voting comes around and see who aligns with my values and you know, and what they voted on when elections should come up with the two to four years between that, I will admit it. I'm not always paying attention and
I'll and I'll own it. I'll own that, I think because but we'll pay attention to broader politics, will know who our senator is, Like you know, we know Marco Rubio, and I know you know Rick Scott, and I you know all these butt heads, you know, the Santis and so on. So for the fourth because because they are the ones that are in front of my face. My local representative is not, and also as well because they are trying to gain more power and they are part
of the larger government system. But the local representative, that's like running your school board. Not a lot of people are paying attention to that. And that's a problem, which I agree that it is a problem, and I and I'm not and I'm going to own my shit. But but the thing is, though, is that I think for most people, even though like I am politically educated, I know that i'm but there are places that I'm you know, I'm missing Gafts because I also think too for people
that maybe voted for Trump. One of my one of my friends, voted against her best interests because she wasn't plugged in. She just hurt. She thought Trump was funny, didn't know anything about him, and just voted for him because he was in her face.
So here's the next question. What is democracy today? If democracy isn't devolving power down to the lowest level of community, it's come to the point where you don't really go out and vote anymore because no one stands against the incumber. What has become of democracy? A meanly.
Democracy is only as strong as the people that are voting. It's only as strong as the people that choose to get involved. There's only as strong as the people that care, that care about the issues. They know who represents them, that knows what. Even more important than knows who representative, knows what the people that represent stand for and what they will and what their agendas are and what they want to put forth. Democracy requires work from the people that are voting.
And democracy isn't just voting. This show is democracy in action. The three of us on this show and the producer and the ICI, and that's democracy.
Action, being able to speak your mind, speak your peace. Democracy is also a free press. Democracy is also in a decent press that's actually informs the public and that the public trusts and listens to that. In my view, a good press is the fourth branch of government of for his.
States, It's cool. Yeah, Democracy is not just voting. Out of just voting, this is what democracy is. Democracy is the freedom to make your own choice at his most fundamental level, whether that be to choose your own representative, or to choose what you speak about as we do on this show, or to choose what you pick up and read. This is where the disconnect has become because a lot of people have forgotten what democracy is. People think it's just picking up a pencil and going and voting.
But that's nonsense.
My junior English teacher in high school said that he was he did not like the get out and vote campaigns. He said, I don't want you to get out and vote. What I want you to do is understand the issues and then vote. What I want you to do is to be an active participant in the voting process and then vote. That's more valuable than just having people get out and vote. And as I get older and I see things, you know what, I kind of agree with
that view. If you're not going to be informed, if you're not going to pay attention, if you're not going to care, then I'd rather you just stay home and not vote.
But here's the next thing. Democracy survives when you have an active citizenry. Protests. As much as people may loathe them for the inconvenience, will try to shut them down, they are the backbone of democracy. Talking to your elected representatives is another backbone of your democracy, and holding your elected representatives to account in open public for that's democracy as well, but that's not all democracy is. Democracy is about having that expression that civil society is doing what
civil society wants. It's not having an imposition placed upon it by a top down set of individuals, such as a North Korea would, because that's not an open civil society. That's not democracy. It could call itself the democratic whatever, but that's not democracy. And it's frightening to see democracy taken for granted.
Always have them, But I don't know because there's been you know, like if you look at any sort of rhetoric online about like why we have gotten into where we are, I don't know why. There's different theories. I don't know because I don't I don't really care why
we got here. I want to know. But we are now dealing with the result, and the result is that we have someone in power and has all of his rich buddies also empower of people that are in it for themselves and don't have compassion, don't have that broader respective because even even the basic president understood that I need to appeal to the broader demographic of my constituents. You know, these people are in it for themselves. And
if that is what democracy has become. That is the message that we are getting that we should be in it for ourselves, and that's not what a democracy is.