Finding Common Battle Grounds Ryan Cragun

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.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we tackle two legislative/governmental issues related to higher education (article 1 and article 2). First, we discuss the recent legislative initiative in Utah to ban requiring diversity, equity, and inclusion statements as part of the hiring process at public universities in Utah. As we dug into the details on this topic, it became clear that this was a Republican dog-whistle issue. The diversity statements are not about forcing new hires to sign a statement agreeing to adhere to a specific liberal ideology but rather to make sure that they are willing to teach and interact with a diverse group of people, primarily students. Since they are public universities, the faculty at those universities cannot refuse to teach someone because they are transgender, gay, or a black individual. The universities also want to make sure that they have an inclusive environment for diverse students. Banning these statements, which are not required for all new hires, will not accomplish anything other than pandering to the "anti-woke" mobs. On the second topic, we look at the removal of Introduction to Sociology from the courses that can be included in the general education curriculum at public universities in Florida. This was driven by a desire to weed out "woke" topics at universities. Ryan complicated this issue by noting that a sizable percentage of his discipline has turned to "critical sociology," which is basically advocacy masquerading as science. (NOTE: Ryan doesn't consider himself to be in that camp but rather the other side, which he calls "empirical sociology.") Sociologists and most academics opposed this change by the Florida State Board of Education but would be stupid to think that the people proposing this change would be anything but happy to see sociologists in the state weeping, wailing, and gnashing their teeth. For the proponents of removing sociology, that is just further evidence that they have "poked" at woke liberals. In short, this is government meddling in higher education curriculum for no reason other than to score political points, again.