Finding Common Battle Grounds Ryan Cragun

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we're joined by a special guest - Josh Cragun is back after a nearly two-year hiatus. (And he has hair!) We cover two topics in this episode. First, we start with the COVID-19 lab leak theory. We read an editorial from the New York Post editorial claiming that it is now definitive that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in China. Tom and Josh are now convinced that it came from a lab. Ryan is not convinced, even though he agrees that there is circumstantial evidence supporting such a claim. We then turn to Iran and their continued enrichment of nuclear material in their pursuit of nuclear weapons. We discuss what has led up to the current situation and talk about whether we think they're going to get a nuclear weapon and, more disturbingly, whether they would use such a weapon. With both stories, we talk about media bias. Tom and Josh argued that the COVID-19 lab leak theory was depicted as a conspiracy theory and that was unfair. Ryan argues that there has been a spate of recent stories blaming Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons on Biden in conservative media outlets, none of which mentioned that it was Trump who pulled the US out of an agreement and re-asserted sanctions. These biases lead Josh to say we can't trust any media, Tom to say we need to examine both sides, and Ryan to continue to say that media can largely be trusted to report basic news, but with a fair dose of skepticism.

In this episode of Finding Common Battlegrounds, we start the podcast with a discussion of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his candidacy for President. We discuss whether he will be more detrimental to Trump's campaign or Biden's. We also talk briefly about his anti-vaccination views and his advocacy for free speech. Tom concludes he'll vote for him over Biden or Trump but Ryan is discounting him because he's anti-vaccines, so we don't agree there. We then turn to recent news articles suggesting there has been a decline in homicide rates this year and discuss why this may be happening and what it means. We don't perfectly find common ground on this as Tom thinks it's too early to tell if this is a real reversal, but we generally agree about perceptions of violence (and racism) in society. In a bonus topic, Tom raises concerns about the coming persecution of Christians in the US, drawing similarities to how Christians persecuted pagans during the Roman empire. This brings us to a discussion of white Christian nationalism. Ryan strongly disagrees with Tom that Christians in the US are being persecuted for two reasons: (1) they are still a substantial majority and (2) asking for the same privileges as Christians and Christians either having to give up their privileges or share them is not the same things a persecution. Tom agrees with the second item but disagrees with the first. We ultimately bet dinner over whether white Christian nationalists will have to register with the government by April 24, 2029.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we start with a discussion about a recent court case decided in Norway that resulted in the federal defunding of Jehovah's Witnesses because of their ostracism practices. We both agree that the Norwegian government is well within its rights not to give JWs money if they engage in practices that are deemed to be coercive. We then turn to a recent incident in which Donald Trump suggested that there would be a "bloodbath" for the American automotive industry if he isn't elected, which was deceptively framed by the mainstream media as Trump claiming there would be violence if he isn't elected. We don't fight over this at all - Tommy's point that this was deceptive is accurate. Then, as a bonus, we discuss the SPAC that recently incorporated Truth Social and became DJT. Ryan was interested in possibly shorting it and asked Tommy, who does a lot of investing, how that would work. We discuss it at length and ultimately decide that puts and calls are better options (pun intended).

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we are joined by a new guest, Sean Patrick Tario, who now runs https://mark37.com/ and advocates for security and privacy from "big tech." But before we discuss big tech, Tom wanted to discuss efforts by the US to get Israel to accept a ceasefire agreement with Gaza/Hamas. In the process, we find common ground that there is no "good" solution for the Israel/Palestine situation, including Ryan's suggestion of massive bribes to relocate Palestinians which he suggests would be marginally better than the genocide we're observing but admits is unlikely to happen. We then turn to big tech and discuss the efforts of large corporations like Google, Meta, X, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft to invade our privacy and influence our behaviors, which some governments have recently started to regulate. Sean refers to this as "consciousness hacking." While the conversation swings awfully close to conspiracy theories at times (okay, there are conspiracy theories in this episode), we all agree that these large companies do manipulate software and services in sometimes subtle and sometimes more transparent ways. Where we disagree is on the motivations. Sean is convinced there is a small cabal of wealthy elites - that includes military, government, and corporate leaders - who are trying to wipe out billions of people and enslave the masses. Ryan and Tom aren't convinced that an Illuminati-like cabal exists, but do agree that there is likely some collusion and manipulation going on behind the scenes. In a surprising twist, Ryan and Sean geek out on their shared love for all things Linux, though how they arrived at Linux differs pretty substantially.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we have another guest: Ken W. Good, an attorney who specializes in bail bonds. We take advantage of Ken's expertise to discuss a movement spreading across the US to end bail bonds under the premise that bail bonds can result in poor people being imprisoned because they cannot afford even low bail amounts. We discussed a Politifact article that investigated (and rated mostly true) a claim by Governor Gavin Newsom that only the US and the Philippines use for-profit or corporate bail bond systems. We used this as a launching point to discuss the consequences of changes to the bail system and whether they contribute to higher crime rates. Conveniently, we all agree that we don't want more crime and that crime has gotten out of control in some locations, but don't agree that we should retain bail for everyone or that our prisons are punitive and too full. We then turn to Google's Gemini glitch that ended up creating inaccurate historical images that reflect a diversity bias over accuracy. We agreed that historical accuracy is important and that Google needed to fix it's AI. We did not end up agreeing that truth is always more important than diversity, with Ryan arguing that truth is complicated and, while it is should always be pursued, it's not always clear what truth is. Ken disagreed and argued that there are capital-T "Truths" and they will always be more important than diversity.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Ryan and Tom are joined by Sarah Sun Liew, a Republican candidate for US Senate for California. We discuss two articles related to immigration. First, we examine Governor Greg Abbott's violation of federal law in putting up barriers (i.e., razor wire, sawblades, etc.) at the US/Mexico border. We all agree that there are issues with immigration and the border but are rather conflicted over whether what Governor Abbott is doing is ethical and how the federal government should respond. The second article we discuss is about the bipartisan effort to fix the border situation (which also included funding for Ukraine and Israel) that was being discussed in early February but was killed when Donald Trump began contacting legislators and telling them he opposed the legislation because it was the primary plank of his platform for re-election as President. Tom and Sarah both claimed that the reporter was biased and that Trump doesn't have that much power. They also argued that President Biden should have done more to get the legislation passed. Ryan disagreed with them, noting that the legislation was generally supported by legislators and many conservatives and was not well-liked by people on the left. The legislation seemed to be popular until Trump came out against it. Ryan suggests that the authoritarian nature of Republicans right now means that they are unwilling to go against the leader/dictator of the Republican Party - Donald Trump. Even so, all three agreed that the border reforms that were being considered should have been passed by the US Legislature.