Finding Common Battle Grounds

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we start with a discussion of the new luxury plane the Qatari government has promised to Donald Trump. It takes a while, but eventually we all agree that if Donald Trump gets to keep a $400 million luxury plane after he is no longer president, that is clearly bribery and corruption. Josh insists that, even though that is true, it's not like this isn't "business as usual" in politics. We then turn to a NYPost article claiming Biden went on a spending spree right before leaving office. The article doesn't provide sufficient information to verify the claims (in classic tabloid fashion). But what we could find suggests that their estimates are off by at least a factor of 10. This leads us back into a discussion of the national debt and other topics we cover regularly. Josh then raised the recent event of a woman in Minnesota who used a racial slur in reference to a 5-year-old kid and used that to argue that both the left and the right are now rallying behind anyone on their side, including criminals. Ryan clarified that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not a criminal and not a member of MS-13, and Trayvon Martin was not a criminal either. But the bigger point is a good one.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Ryan and Tom talk about how Trump's tariff chaos tanked the stock market. Josh was supposed to join us, but he ended up bailing at the last minute (leading us to speculate as to what he was doing instead). Tom and Ryan agree on most everything in this episode. They agree that the market was ripe for a correction and that Trump's tariffs were the catalyst. They also agree that there are indications that Trump may have been engaged in market manipulation and probably should be investigated for what he has done. They agree that Trump is primarily using tariffs as a means of bullying other countries. They spend a lot of time discussing how terrifying our national debt and deficits are, and that there is no will among politicians to fix it. And they agree that the market is likely going to continue to go down for a while as we head into an economic recession.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Ryan and Josh hold down the fort without Tom, who's mysteriously absent—prompting wild speculation about his whereabouts, from fighting in Ukraine to joining Elon Musk's secret DOGE team. The duo dives into a discussion about recent left-wing criticisms of Tesla and Elon Musk. Josh questions the strategy of targeting Tesla to hurt Musk, arguing it's both ineffective and misguided given Musk's vast resources. Both agree that targeting Tesla owners isn't a great idea, especially since most of them are left-leaning individuals who bought Teslas to be environmentally conscientious. We then turn to a discussion of the recent Signal scandal, where top-level members of the Trump Administration invited the editor of The Atlantic into a Classified Signal chat and then proceeded to discuss an attack on Houthis in Yemen. We also agree that this was a reflection of incompetence and stupidity. Ryan gets Josh to admit that there is rampant hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle - if Hillary Clinton had done this, Pete Hegseth's head would have exploded on Fox News about how bad it is and that she should be put to death. Instead, Pete Hegseth denied he did anything wrong and instead pilloried the journalist and The Atlantic, which Josh admits isn't good.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we discuss immigration. The launching point for our discussion is a recent increase in murders and shootings in Sweden that are mostly stemming from gang battles between immigrants from Eastern European and predominantly Muslim countries. We discuss the violence and then explore to what extent that violence is tied to the cultures of the immigrants. That leads us to a general discussion of culture and whether some cultures are better than others. Josh and Tom ultimately argue that US culture is superior to those of all other countries while Ryan rejects that premise, arguing that culture is far too complex to evaluate on a hierarchical value scale. Ryan agrees that some cultural practices are bad or unethical (e.g., female genital mutilation) but cannot condemn entire cultures on the basis of one practice he finds objectionable.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Josh, Ryan, and Tom explore one of the initiatives of the Trump administration and DOGE - Elon Musks destruction of USAID. We examine what happened - that their expenditures were put on hold and the roughly 10,000 employees were told they were going to lose their jobs. Josh celebrates this. Tom points out some of the programs that USAID was funding appeared to have a left-leaning bias. Ryan supports cutting out wasteful spending, improving government efficiency, and even firing people who aren't doing anything. But suggests that there are better ways to do this than destroying an entire government agency and potentially harming innocent people around the world. It takes us more than an hour and a half but we ultimately agree that the wholesale destruction of USAID without consideration of how it will affect some of the most vulnerable is a serious problem.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Josh, Ryan, and Tom discuss the recent spate of Presidential pardons - Biden's pardon of family, friends, and people in his administration and Trump's pardon of nearly 1,500 people who were involved in the January 6th riot. We pretty much agree, though how fun would a podcast be if we all just agree and don't fight over the details?!? We all agreed that Biden should not have felt like he needed to pardon the people he did. Josh insists he pardoned his crime family but Ryan argues that he was protecting people from the clearly stated threats leveled by Kash Patel and Donald Trump. We all also agreed that Trump making a blanket pardon of all 1,500 people was wrong. He should have pardoned the nonviolent individuals, but anyone who physically assaulted a police officer or engaged in conspiracy should not have been pardoned. We all agree that there should be limits to presidential pardons and that the current state of presidential pardons reflects how partisan and divided our country has become.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Tom, Josh, and Ryan discuss the killing of United Healthcare's CEO, Brian Thompson, by Luigi Mangione. Josh starts out by saying that it is murder and wrong. Tommy and Ryan agree that it was murder but also recognize that many see Mangione as a "folk hero" because they are so upset with health insurers who deny coverage a lot to maximize profits. We wrestle with who is at fault here. Tommy and Josh argue that this was inevitable because of crony capitalism and the government not doing a better job of breaking up monopolies and regulating healthcare industries. Ryan doesn't disagree but points out that this is what capitalism does - ignore people to maximize profits. Tommy and Josh don't disagree but argue that the government should be preventing that. We wrestle with these issues for a while before concluding that both the government and corporations bear responsibility for leading to a situation in which lots of people are cheering the murder of a CEO by a vigilante who is seen as a folk hero. (Do note we had some connection issues in this episode, which led to some choppy audio but we tried to edit out as much as possible.)

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Josh, Tom, and Ryan explore new gender/dating norms. We focus on a recently published editorial in the New York Times that argues the advances women have made in education, income, and independence have resulted in men feeling confused about how they are supposed to interact with women and how to be a "man." Women in the US increasingly have more education than men. They are also more likely to be homeowners and some are making more money than men. Dating norms have grown rather complicated, with highly successful men being in a position to pick and choose among partners while less successful men are being marginalized and forced out of the dating market entirely. The result is a growing number of men who are frustrated, lonely, and angry. Josh and, to some degree, Tom attribute this to progressive approaches that have argued that men and women are the same and should be treated the same. Josh and Tom agree that men and women should be equal and have equal opportunities, but they also argue that men and women are different and have different motivations, wants, and needs. Ryan agrees that there are some meaningful differences between men and women but tries to soften the magnitude of the differences and make it more of a distribution rather than a dichotomy. We ultimately conclude that current dating norms are challenging and causing problems, though we don't really have a solution.

The 2024 Presidential election just occurred and Donald Trump won convincingly against Kamala Harris. In this episode, we examine reasons people gave for voting for Donald Trump, including: immigration, wages, funding for the military, the federal deficit, government bloat, stock market volatility, and identity politics. We spend a fair amount of time discussing identity politics, which we ultimately conclude is privileging minority candidates over majority candidates despite their qualifications and, importantly, if someone doesn't vote for a minority candidate (or disagrees with their policies or views), accusing them of some form of bigotry. We also discuss briefly how the media depicted the candidates and portrayed the results. Finally, we touch briefly on the response of progressives to the outcome.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we tackle two topics. First, we discuss whether the government should help people rebuild if their homes are in zones that will continuously flood, burn down from forest fires, or be destroyed by natural disasters. We all agree that the government should not and that people should assume that risk at their peril. The government's role should be to help those who were caught by surprise at no fault of their own. We then turn to Trump's recent comments about "enemies within" and using the military to imprison political opponents and use that as a launching point to discuss whether Trump meets the criteria for being a fascist. Based on his rhetoric, Ryan is convinced that he wants to be a fascist. Tom and Josh, also based on his rhetoric, agree that he leans toward wanting to be a fascist dictator. But Tom and Josh insist that his actions are more important than his words and they think the checks and balances in the US will prevent Trump from becoming the fascist he wants to be. Josh even promised to mobilize with his guns should Trump start locking up political opponents or college professors without trials. We end with predictions of the election outcome and all lean toward Trump winning.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we are joined by Vance Reavie from the Independent Center. We start with a lengthy discussion about independent voters - how many there are, what they want in candidates, what issues are important to them, and why they often feel marginalized in US elections. We then turn to the primary question of whether independent voters will decide the Presidential election in 2024. The answer is likely "Yes," but it's complicated because neither of the two major party candidates is particularly appealing to independent voters and hasn't done much to make themselves more attractive. We all agreed that the current primary and then "first past the post" election system ends up disenfranchising moderate voters. We then turn to our second topic - scientific fraud in academic publishing. We talk about the broken incentive structures - "publish or perish" and for-profit publishers who own the copyright to scholars' work and then sell it back to the scholars' universities for billions every year. We also talk about ways to address this issue and even come up with a brilliant technological solution for tracking peer-reviewers' effectiveness that should be monetized. We conclude that peer review is far from perfect but the best system we currently have for advancing science.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Josh, Tom, and Ryan discuss the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and the instances of censorship taking place around the world. Amazingly, we have clear agreement on the debate - Harris won by baiting Trump and then letting him lose the debate by looking like a fearmongering crazy old man. The memes that resulted from Trump's false claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets were pretty amazing. We go into more detail about the debate, but that's the short version. On censorship, we all agree that censoring free speech is generally bad and the situation in Brazil with a single supreme court justice being able to silence his critics and X shutting down operations in opposition to that is both a serious problem but also a response to censorship we support. However, there may be more nuance to this than we realize. We ended with a bit more disagreement when it came to who was censoring and whether censorship was okay when it came to what kids were allowed to encounter.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Ryan, Tom, and Josh start with a discussion of Kamala Harris's entrance into the Presidential race in the US. Josh and Tom aren't fans. They argue that Biden was forced out of the race, that Kamala isn't competent, and that the media has basically been working for Harris to remake her image and give her a boost. Ryan disagrees with most of this. He isn't ecstatic about Harris but thinks she'll be fine. We then turn to Ukraine's push into Russian territory. Josh and Tom both noted that invasions into Russia have not been very successful, historically. But they also think it may have been a brilliant tactical move to ease pressure on the front lines and potentially destroy some of the logistics of the Russian military. Ryan raised the issue of whether the territory could be used as part of a peace agreement, which intrigued Tom and Josh but they were skeptical since they didn't think Ukraine would be able to hold it. Josh also suggested that he thinks Putin will drop a nuclear bomb if he doesn't get some victory in this war.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Ryan and Tom tackle two topics. First, we start with the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Tom asks Ryan a number of questions related to the attack, from whether he thinks the attack was staged (as some conspiracy theorists have started to argue) to whether this was a massive failing on the part of the Secret Service to whether Donald Trump is divinely protected. Ryan's answers to these three questions were all "No," but there are a number of additional questions. We mostly agree on the responses, though Tom notes at the end of the discussion that he is pretty skeptical about a lot of the information available at this point. We then turn to a recently signed bill in California that makes it so public schools do not have to report to parents the preferred pronouns or gender identities of students. Tom thinks that schools should have to report this while Ryan prioritizes the safety of the children and pushes Tom on the idea that some homes are not safe places for LGBTQ kids. There is actually a fair amount of agreement between the two on this, but this is also an issue where we fundamentally do not agree.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we tackle two topics. Joe Biden's poor debate performance has been in the news a lot as of late. Rather than examine that, specifically, we discuss who is "pulling the strings" in the Democratic Party: who ultimately picks the candidates and who helps them get the nomination and get elected. This was spurred by a video clip from congressional representative Adam Smith (D-Washington), who argued that Biden was the beneficiary of the unnamed power brokers in the Democratic Party in 2020 but now may be playing defense against them as they try to convince him to drop out of the race. We then turn to a discussion of Labour's victory in the UK and the forces behind it. Ryan and Tom agree that the election outcome was largely a vote against the Tories/Conservative party, but we also explore some of the other issues that have played out over the last 14 years of conservative control in the UK, including immigration and underfunding of public services like the National Health Service, education, and public transportation.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Ryan and Tom are again joined by Josh who may be more of a permanent fixture on the podcast. We tackle two topics. First, we explore Elon Musk's pay package which was recently approved by Tesla shareholders and would net him tens of billions of dollars. Ryan argues that his opinion isn't worth anything as he is no longer a shareholder, but he does think it's excessive. Tom and Josh argue that Elon delivered so he deserves it. This leads us down many other meandering paths before we get to our second topic - Hunter Biden's gun conviction. Ryan raised this topic because he saw it as extremely hypocritical that Republicans were claiming that Donald Trump's felony convictions for hiding the Stormy Daniels hush money payments were a political witch hunt, Republicans are raving over how corrupt Hunter Biden is and are delighted at his conviction. Ryan makes two points: (1) Trump and Hunter Biden broke the law and no one should be above the law. (2) Both of these trials are political in the sense that they would have been unlikely to have happened if not for the prominent political profiles of these two individuals. Tommy agrees with Ryan on both counts. Josh agrees with the latter point but isn't as convinced that Trump's felony convictions are a real crime.

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.

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.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Ryan and Tom tackle two topics. First, thanks to legislation under consideration in the Florida House and Senate, we discuss rolling back regulations protecting children (really 16 and 17-year-olds) when it comes to the number of hours they can work while school is in session and the tops of jobs they can do. We agree that these laws are problematic and will likely have detrimental effects on young people. We then turn to an incident that happened at Ryan's university: A faculty member in the College of Business who moonlights as a Christian apologist used her invitation to give the commencement speech at the university to proselytize her specific brand of Christianity. We, again, agreed that, while the talk was inappropriate for the context, we both argue that she should have the right to say what she wants to say, even if it is the promotion of Christianity to a religiously diverse and nonreligious audience.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Tom and Ryan tackle two topics. First, we discuss the fact that some individuals and groups have effectively been showing their support for the people of Gaza by calling for violence and even genocide against Israel. Tom pointed out that this seems to be a double standard on college campuses as they would not allow similar calls for violence against Black individuals. Ryan, while condemning the calls for violence, raised the question of whether this isn't an instance of free speech - though perhaps run amuck or gone too far. They ultimately agree that people should be allowed to say pretty much anything within the bounds of what the law has said, but it has to go both ways. The second topic was raised in the context of the severe crackdown on gangs and criminals in El Salvador under the new-ish President, Nayib Bukele. Under his presidency, he has arrested tens of thousands and they are treating the inmates very harshly. As a result, homicides have fallen dramatically, but the people of El Salvador are now effectively living in a police state and have lost lots of freedoms. This opened up a discussion between freedom and security, leading to a discussion of how it is a continuum - you can have more of one, but often at the cost of the other.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Ryan and Tommy tackle two topics: trigger warnings and the military industrial complex. On the first topic, a review article examining the efficacy of trigger warnings was just published illustrating that they often have the opposite of the intended effect, increasing people's anxiety and making it more likely people will watch the content. The general recommendation is that they shouldn't be used. We discuss our takes on this (shocker - we agree). We then turn to some recent news clips about the war in Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas that illustrate that an underlying calculation in war efforts in the US is the ability of US companies to profit from the war effort. We discuss this and again find substantial agreement.

It's been a few weeks, but we're back. We talk about some of what we've been up to over the last month, then jump into two news items. First up is an opinion piece by NYTimes contributor David Brooks that suggests professionals (or the professional class) are condescending and dismissive of the working class, which has led them to feel disenfranchised and choose as their representative Donald Trump, who they think sticks it to the professional class (or elites). We discuss this op-ed, tackle the issue of elites again, and then wonder why these individuals chose a billionaire, elite-educated, New Yorker as their champion. The second story we discuss is the renewal of the Florida State Guard by Ron DeSantis, which has been a disaster. The training was a mess, people complained, and the mission is unclear. Tom accurately describes this as both (a) a nothing burger and (b) a disturbing sign that DeSantis wants his own personal guard. We then wrap up with a brief discussion of the killing of a man in Provo by the FBI who had made repeated death threats against Biden and other politicians.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we tackled three topics. We started with the news that a social media influencer worked with a company to create a chatbot for her followers that, when prompted, turned into a sex chat bot. We then discussed the implications of sex chat bots and eventually sex robots for humans, with a little disagreement about the negative outcomes for humanity. We then turned to a discussion of Trump's latest indictment for the mishandling of classified documents. Again, we generally agreed but Tom is confident that the indictment isn't worth the hassle and is worried about the optics - that a sitting President's Justice Department is prosecuting his chief rival in the upcoming election. Ryan recognized the optics but insisted that the law is the law. Finally, we turned briefly to a discussion of the Reddit Blackout in which a number of subreddits went dark to protest monetization and sanitization changes at Reddit, potentially in preparation for an IPO. While we both agreed with the value of free speech, Ryan ultimately argued that free speech on "free" platforms is now largely regulated by what advertisers are willing to allow.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we (Ryan and Tom) tackled three topics. We started with a discussion of Trump's recent civil lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll, which ended with a verdict against him suggesting the jury was convinced that Trump sexually assaulted (i.e., raped) Ms. Carroll. Ryan was wondering how it is that people can support a rapist as President of the US, and Tom responded that it was less about Trump and more about the American populace - they want a win and will take it at any cost, regardless of the (im)morality of their candidate. We then turned to a discussion of the recent congressional hearing that featured three FBI agents who had lost their security clearance and then claimed whistleblower status and argued that the FBI was attacking conservatives. Tom is concerned about the FBI restricting free speech and engaging as the thought police. Ryan noted that one of these individuals was actually at the January 6th riot (not acting as a representative of the FBI but among the protestors/rioters) and the other two continue to espouse conspiracy theories about the January 6th riot that do not align with all of the evidence. We did agree that: (a) military, law enforcement, and FBI members on the ground are likely to lean to the right, and (b) internal elements of the US government are a bigger threat to democracy than are protests and militias. Finally, we turned to the debt ceiling issue that is roiling America at the moment. Tom noted that the government has to pay its debts - it is legally required to do so. If we don't raise the debt ceiling, we effectively would force a balanced budget and would have to cut spending in other areas. Both Tom and Ryan agreed that the US government needs to stop spending more than it brings in and that our national debt is going to cause major problems moving forward.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we started with two topics but then led us off on two tangents. First, we discussed the Fox News settlement with Dominion Voting machines and Fox News's firing of Tucker Carlson. Tom wasn't as familiar with all of the revelations that resulted from the discovery part of the lawsuit that illustrated that the Fox News administration, personalities, and staff knew that they were lying about Dominion but did it anyway in order to maintain high ratings. Even so, Tom thinks that the dishonesty of Fox News is the same with all news outlets and that none of them can be fully trusted whereas Ryan is convinced that Fox News doesn't care about truth but only about profits. Ryan's position on the media is that many mainstream news outlets can generally be trusted to report the news and most are close to neutral. This leads pretty far down the rabbit hole as they end up discussing where and how they get their news. We then turn to the recent confidential document leak that led to the arrest of Jack Teixeira, an Air National Guard airman, who leaked hundreds of classified documents via a Discord server. We mostly sidestep the issue of whether such information should be made available (both of us think we have been slightly misled about the state of the war in Ukraine) and instead focus on what the US should be doing in Ukraine and whether we should be as involved as we are in fighting this proxy war with Russia. Ryan is actually more hawkish here, arguing that the US really does need to intervene in defense wars defending democracies while Tom is more circumspect and thinks that weaponizing the dollar may end up hurting the US in the end and replacing the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Tom and Ryan tackle two topics. First is the impending arraignment of Donald Trump in New York City. We both agree that Trump likely broke the law. But we also agree that this kind of media attention really only helps Trump as he works to destroy trust in American institutions in the US, like the media and the legal system. We also agree that Trump is unlikely to serve time in prison because different rules apply to wealthy individuals. We then turn to the recently passed legislation in Utah - the Social Media Regulation Act - that prohibits social media accounts for anyone under 18 without parental permission, requires social media companies to put in curfews, make their products less addictive, and allows parents complete access to their children's social media. We both agree that social media is harmful, particularly for young people, and aren't opposed to regulation. We also both agree that it would be better for parents to manage this than to have the government manage it, but it is probably an important restraint on social media companies. We finally, agree that one aspect of the law - complete access to the social media of their children - is likely to have some very negative consequences for some kids as they will have no expectation of privacy, which can easily be abused.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Tom and Ryan tackle four topics. First up is a case of alleged blasphemy in a high school in England where four students were accused of desecrating a copy of the Quran. We both agree that blasphemy laws are outdated and shouldn't exist. We then turn to a discussion of ESG and the recent federal legislation on this. ESG is Environment, Social, and Corporate Governance and became an issue when Republicans passed legislation prohibiting Wall Street fund managers from considering ESG factors when making investment decisions. Both of us agree this is partisan pandering with no real benefit for anyone. We then turned to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. This led us to a discussion of the power of the Fed and what is effectively a bailout of the bank and the depositors. Tom argued that this is a bad precedent and Ryan suggested he would have been fine with the depositors not getting all of their money back. Finally, we discussed recent and current actions by the Florida legislature and governor to regulate higher education in the state by cracking down on DEI and transgender initiatives at colleges and universities and their attempts to restrict faculty members' abilities to teach about critical theory. Tom agreed with Ryan that this is a massive over-reach by the legislature, it violates free speech and academic freedom, and it reflects the fact that conservatives realize they cannot win in an open market of ideas, so they are trying to restrict what people can think and what faculty can teach. We did end on a point of disagreement when we considered a related but tangential topic about restricting what teachers in primary and secondary education can say or teach to kids, particularly as relates to sexuality.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Ryan and Tom chat about several topics. First, we examine the initiative to raise the age at which young people can marry to 18 and a push against this by Republicans in the state of Wyoming. We then turn to the 2024 Presidential election and Joe Biden's continued insinuation that he plans to run for office. We consider whether Biden's approach is helping to keep a media frenzy at bay. Finally, we discuss various developments in migration policy - the transportation of migrants from one state to another and of migrants inside the US to the Canadian border, as well as Biden's move toward a stricter immigration policy at the southern border.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we tackle two topics. First up is "How is it acceptable for a pathological liar like Republican George Santos to retain his House seat?" Both Tom and Nate agree that politicians aren't known for their honesty. George Santos differs in degree, not in kind, from other politicians. They also agree that this boils down to entrenched political power; Republicans cannot afford to remove him from office as he is key to helping them hold their slim majority. The second topic is, "How is it problematic for the Biden administration to agree to send modern tanks to Ukraine?" Nate and Tom agree that the military-industrial complex in the US, in some ways, drives our foreign policy. The US is basically the world's police force and that is tied to our military spending and military superiority. Both agree that isn't a great look for the US and would like to see the US less involved in wars.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Tom and Nate tackle capitalism. The first question they address is: "How is capitalism the solution?" Tom argues that capitalism has ushered in an era of prosperity for many people and that the invisible hand of the market is a highly efficient and fair system for setting prices. Nate argues that capitalism has helped develop the means of production, which is a necessary step toward a future where people do not have to work as hard. There is general agreement between Nate and Tom on these points. The second question is: "How is capitalism the problem?" Nate argues that capitalism has resulted in massive inequality and, while worker productivity has improved, the result of that productivity increase has not been higher wages for everyone but for the owners of the means of production - the capitalists. Tom argues that capitalism does lead to exploitation and inequality, but that it is the worst economic system aside from all the others of which we are aware. Again, there is general agreement on these points and both agree that capitalism has problems and benefits but neither is precisely sure how to move forward to address the problems.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Nate and Tom tackle two topics: (1) Why was the Biden Administration wrong to bust the railroad workers union? (2) How are Republicans responsible for the smaller-than-expected mid-term red wave? On the first topic, Nate argues that the Biden Administration revealed that their allegiance really lies with corporate profits rather than the unions. This was particularly galling since Democrats tend to side with unions - in principle - and unions often tend to vote for Democrats as a result. Tom argued that unions have now become part of the economic marketplace and strikes are the strongest weapon workers have to push for better pay and conditions. By removing that option, Tom argued that the Biden Administration hurt workers. While taking different paths to get there, both Nate and Tom argued that the Biden Administration hurt workers with the forced agreement. On the second topic, both Nate and Tom agreed that polling appears to be problematic when it comes to predicting election outcomes, but it's not clear why. It also isn't exactly clear who or what is to blame for the much smaller red wave than was expected - Trump, the end of Roe v Wade, or something else. What they did agree on is that, while voters do tend to side with their party, voters may be slightly more sophisticated in their voting practices than we typically think.

In this new episode and format of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we introduce a new member of the podcast team, Nate Triplett, and mix up the structure and format a bit. Ryan moves to the moderator role, Tom dons the conservative hat, and Nate steps in as our resident progressive. Also, instead of coming prepared with questions to try to get the other person to agree, both the conservative and progressive critique two topics to see if we can find common battlegrounds. First, we discuss Ron DeSantis's efforts to arrest former felons in Florida who were approved to vote by the State of Florida and voted, only to find out they were not supposed to be able to vote and were arrested. What are the consequences of arresting such individuals for democracy? Both agree that such actions are intended to and will have a chilling effect on people voting. Second, we explore whether the mainstream media is being too hard on Elon Musk as the new owner of Twitter. Both participants agree that the mainstream media is leveling rather meaningless criticisms of Musk, but slightly disagree as well. Tom argues that the mainstream media are showing their liberal biases in attacking Musk, who is increasingly libertarian and conservative in his views. Nate argues that their criticisms of Musk are missing the bigger issue - that rich people are controlling media outlets, leading to monopolies and censorship of dissenting views. Some great bonus content as well.

In this final episode of Season 2 of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we have a big announcement: Josh is stepping away from the podcast for a while. We discuss what led to this. Josh doesn't feel like we've made much progress in finding common ground or understanding each other's perspectives. This came to a head in the last few episodes. Josh is also no longer enjoying making the podcast and wants to prioritize the relationship between Josh and Ryan over the podcast. We discuss what this means for the bigger political conversation in the US. Also, a bidet giveaway! NOTE: This isn't the end of Finding Common Battle Grounds… Yet. Tom and Ryan are considering their options for continuing the podcast. If you're interested in joining as a participant in the podcast, please reach out.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we think about the common survey finding that people don't think the US is headed in the right direction (as of August 2022, about 74% of Americans think it is headed in the wrong direction). We do find a fair amount of agreement. Both agree that it would be nice if the country tried to reduce poverty and hunger, if we reduced pollution, and if people were less dogmatic and more open to seeing other people's perspectives. We also agree that people continue to be worried about inflation. We also agree that there are people who feel marginalized, though precisely why they feel that way leads us down a path of disagreement. We conclude that we don't really have a good solution for getting people to feel like the country is moving in the right way, as, historically, that has required a gangbusters stock market and a common enemy.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, all three of us wrestle with how to discuss race and racism. We agree that discussions about race are fraught because people equate accusations of racism with evaluations of the morality and self-worth of the individual, particularly if someone is called a racist rather than calling their idea, statement, or perspective racist. To that end, we agreed that discussions about race and racism have to focus on ideas and perspectives rather than on whether an individual is a racist. We also discuss the idea that calling an idea or perspective racist doesn't mean that perspective is at the extreme end of racism, leading to the notion that racist ideas fall along a continuum, from not at all racist to extremely racist. Ideas need to be evaluated on such a scale (e.g., a 10-point scale) in order for us to have reasonable conversations about race and racism. We also discuss the idea that claims of racism tend to elevate someone to a moral high ground, which is problematic in a lot of ways. We think we made headway on this issue and can move forward with discussions about race and racism, but we'll see whether that is the case.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we discuss the claims that Amazon's new series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, is too woke. We return to our traditional format this time and each poses the other three questions, trying to find common ground. We agree from the outset that the "wokeness" claims center on gender (powerful female leads) and race (a racially diverse cast). We don't agree on Josh's question that "woke scolds" ruin everything. We also agree that Tolkien wrote race into his universe and that, as a product of the late 19th century and early 20th century, the racial hierarchy in his universe is a reflection of the time in which he lived. Josh then argues that the racially diverse cast raised issues of continuity for him with the Peter Jackson movies, though he frames the question as, "Is it ever okay to kill all the people who have a common skin color?" to be a bit more provocative (just a bit!). We don't find agreement on this point as Ryan argues that, once Amazon bought the rights to this, they did not have to stay true to Peter Jackson's vision. (We do all agree that the meme is funny.) We all agree that the producers and directors behind The Rings of Power intentionally cast people who are racially diverse for the show - though, of course, we don't know their actual intentions, but it seems pretty obvious. We then get bogged down into a discussion of whether there are Tolkien fans who like the show. Finally, Josh argues that the producers of The Rings of Power pushed so hard to be "woke" (i.e., to have empowered women and a racially diverse cast) that the rest of the story suffered. We don't agree on this point. Tom provides a summary statement that we do agree on: Amazon is conducting a test to see whether a racially diverse cast and strong female leads will be attractive enough to people that it will make them money. We'll get to see whether the experiment works based on how well The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power does. BONUS: After we wrap up the main content, we then get into a very long discussion about racism. Ryan argues that this episode is a great illustration of how he cannot challenge racial perspectives: He cannot call something Josh says "racist" as that is the equivalent of calling him a member of the KKK, but he also cannot imply (even if he isn't implying it) that something Josh says is racist as that also results in Josh inferring that Ryan thinks he's a racist. It's a lose-lose proposition for Ryan because any challenges to Josh's arguments are immediately interpreted by Josh as though he is a racist, and we all agree that "racist" is the 2020's equivalent of calling someone a Nazi or communist or pedophile. We don't resolve this issue and instead request insights from our listeners.

In S02E17 of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we tackle three questions. First up, we discuss whether Biden's plan to forgive $10k in student loan debt ($20k for Pell Grant recipients) makes sense. We agree that it doesn't solve the problem and is a political move to gain favor with specific voters. We then discuss the recent incident of racist behavior toward a black Duke volleyball player at BYU. There is a lot of disagreement here, including over whether it even happened. Finally, we discuss recent polling data suggesting close to 80% of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. We agree that this is mostly tied to inflation and the cost of gas/energy.

In Episode 16 of Season 2, we once again employed our grab bag approach as moderator Tom came prepared with four questions (and a bonus question at the end). The first question we discussed was whether the LDS Church should require all clergy to be mandatory reporters when it comes to sex abuse, meaning they would have to report people who confess to abusing others to the police. We agree on that one. We then discussed what it means that Liz Cheney lost her primary race in Wyoming, with varied thoughts on what this says about the Republican Party in the US. The next question was about Zoe Kravitz's recent attempt to claw back her statements about Will Smith's Oscars slap and the challenging climate that exists when it comes to cancel culture and censorship. Josh initially insists that it is primarily the left that is canceling people while Ryan provides demonstrable evidence that the right is currently censoring people where they have power. We ultimately agree that both sides are currently trying to silence their opposition, which is evidence of a scary time when freedom of speech is being threatened. We end the podcast with a discussion of fertility and whether people in the US should be having more children, recognizing that the argument that kids are good for the economy is terrible. Stay tuned for the bonus content, which Josh is convinced most people will find more interesting than the rest of the podcast.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we went with a grab bag approach where the moderator, Tom, posed a number of questions and Josh and Ryan addressed them in turn. First up was whether facial recognition software that is being used by some corporations to track shoplifters is okay. We all agree that is a bit complicated, but probably okay for private corporations, less so for governments. We then discussed Dutch farmers and their protests against the changes that their government is forcing on them to address climate change. We agree that the intent of the politicians is good but that the politicians have not thought this through well enough. In a tangent, Ryan calls Josh out for labeling everyone he dislikes an elitist and asks Josh to finally define that term. It takes until the end of the episode before Josh admits that he really just means politicians (i.e., people who think they know what is best for everyone else and try to get power to make them do that). Ergo, Ryan, with his PhD and Tesla, is not an elitist. Tom then asks us whether Putin is a mad genius who planned a long-term, protracted war in Ukraine all along. We generally agree that was not his plan, but Putin does appear to be changing tactics now. Finally, we discuss the difficulties facing San Francisco, Seattle, and some other cities that have seen increases in crime rates. We don't entirely agree on this point, with Josh suggesting that these cities will eventually turn into hell-holes like "Escape from New York" or "Mad Max" (okay; that's a bit of an exaggeration) while Ryan points out that they are already trying to address the problems. And - BONUS content!

We went with a rapid-fire, multi-topic approach this week. We started with whether people should still be wearing masks. We agreed that people should wear masks if they are sick, but wearing masks to avoid getting sick, unless done properly, isn't really effective. We then turned to a discussion of Ron DeSantis and whether he would win the Republican primary and the general election. Ryan doesn't think Trump will run; Josh isn't sure. If Trump runs, it will be competitive and we were mixed on who would win. If it is DeSantis versus Biden, we agreed DeSantis would probably win. But it depends on who the Democratic candidate is whether DeSantis will win or not. Tom then asked us if we thought China was going to surpass the US economically. Both Josh and Ryan agreed that is possible and probable, but were less concerned with whether that would be a major problem for the US. Finally, we discussed whether working from home was going to continue after the pandemic. Both Josh and Ryan agreed that there will be more people working from home and that the pandemic helped transition some people to working from home permanently.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we discuss whether the US government should urge corporations to drill for more oil in light of currently very high gas prices. Josh and Ryan agree that pollution is bad! (That was a really tough point of agreement!) They also agreed that drilling for oil is not going to solve the immediate problem since developing oil fields and drilling platforms can take years or decades. They agree that, while green energy can still have some harmful environmental impacts, it is "greener" than fossil fuels and that the ultimate goal of any administration and all of humanity should be to move toward greener energy solutions. We also agree that oil companies are going to do what is in the best interest of their shareholders and that is unlikely to be voluntarily reducing oil prices or drilling for more oil. Finally, we agree that a lot of the agitation for immediately drilling for more oil is political as it is hurting politicians' (mostly Democrats) polling numbers.

In light of the recent decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade (and Casey), we discuss the Dobbs decision and whether this indicates that the Supreme Court is made up of activist judges. Josh and Ryan agree that the Dobbs decision undid prior legal precedent legalizing abortion and that the Dobbs decision does not comment on whether abortion should be legal at the federal level but rather moves the legality of abortion to the states. Josh and Ryan also agreed that the legal justification for Roe was not particularly strong (arguing for abortion on privacy grounds). Josh argued that the Dobbs decision was less activist than Roe or Casey as it didn't stipulate how the law should be interpreted but instead punted the decision to state legislatures. Ryan didn't agree on that point. Begrudgingly, Josh had to agree that the Dobbs decision stipulated that there is no federal right to life for women once they become pregnant, but he thought that point was overly technical and would not be the effect of the decision because states would write legislation that protected women. Ultimately, we all agree that the Supreme Court is now a political body made up of activists.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we discuss the great replacement conspiracy theory that was influential in a recent race-based mass shooting in Buffalo, New York. We agree that the racial and ethnic makeup of the US is changing and we agree that the changes that are happening are due to fundamental demographic forces - births, deaths, and migrations. We also agree that there is no secret cabal behind these changes, though Josh (and Tom) suggest that progressives may be more open to migration than are conservatives because migrants are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. We also agree that the great replacement conspiracy theory is blatantly and unapologetically racist. We end up agreeing on most everything in this episode. At the end, we have a lengthy discussion about whether migration warrants concern and why. Plus, there is some bonus content!

In this short episode, we discuss whether Donald Trump will be elected to the presidency again in 2024. All agree that Trump now has a stranglehold on the Republican Party and that he is still very relevant to politics in the US. Ryan pushes Josh and Tom to examine whether Trump will win the Republican primary, assuming he runs. The other front-runner, Ron DeSantis, seems like the only possible candidate who has a chance against Trump at the present. None of us feel certain that Trump would beat DeSantis, but it is definitely possible given how sycophantic Trump's followers are. As far as Democratic opponents, we all agree that Biden should not run again, but we could not think of who a viable Democratic candidate would be. The obvious choice, Kamala Harris, does not seem to be all that popular at the moment. Unless the Democratic Party can find a charismatic candidate and economic indicators trend upward, we generally agreed that it seems as though the Republican candidate is likely to win in 2024.

In another short episode, we discuss a recent proposal by the FDA to ban menthol cigarettes. Menthol cigarettes are more addictive than regular cigarettes, and they are the most common type of cigarette smoked by Black Americans. Josh argues that banning drugs is rarely a successful approach and agrees with the concerns raised by many Black smokers that this will essentially criminalize behavior that is more common among Black individuals, resulting in the criminalization of Black individuals in the US. Ryan pushes Josh and Tom on whether it is the federal government's responsibility to restrict harmful substances. In general, we all agree that it is the responsibility of the FDA to regulate harmful substances, but we ultimately conclude that smoking rates are declining through existing measures and that this specific ban does not seem to make a lot of sense.

In this short podcast, we discuss briefly whether we think the federal government should ban ghost guns. Ghost guns are typically a reference to guns that were created using a nontraditional manufacturing process, like a 3D printer, that do not have a serial number and for which the government has no registration information. Josh and Ryan agree that this is probably a non-issue, though for somewhat different reasons. Josh argues that most 3D-printed guns are not strong enough to shoot more than one round and that these are typically just novelty items. Ryan argues that, once the designs for such guns are online, it's impossible to remove them; to think otherwise is to fail to understand the internet. Ultimately, we agree that, until ghost guns become a serious issue, this seems like a solution looking for a problem and is likely a waste of time on the part of the ATF and Biden administration.