Author: Pigweed and Crowhill

The boys drink and review a disappointing homebrew, then discuss the 1st Amendment and the separation of church and state.

The well-known phrase actually does not come from the constitution, but from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists.

The founder’s main concern was to prevent the federal government from imposing a religion on the individual states, which, at the time, often had their own established religions.

Today we apply the first amendment to both federal and state governments, but that wasn’t true for the first several decades of the Republic.

The constitution has two relevant clauses: the establishment clause, which prohibits the government from establishing a state religion, and the free exercise clause, which prohibits Congress from prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

The country has been trying to find the proper between these two ideals. The boys discuss.

P&C drink and review Hazecraft IPA from Great Lakes Brewing Company, then discuss situations where Pigweed pointed out the craziness of a position only to find that the left doubled down on craziness.

Body identity disorder is a weird condition where a person believes a limb isn’t really his and doesn’t belong. He wants a doctor to cut it off. But of course no reputable doctor would do such a thing.

How is this different from trans surgery?

We’re seeing a movement that increasingly wants to accommodate delusions.

Pigweed also pointed out that if a minor can choose to be a different sex, why can’t they choose to have sex with whom they want. Including an adult.

You’re expected to be so repulsed by the idea that you jump back in fear from allowing minors to choose their sex. But the crazy left is going the other direction. They’re starting to push the idea of allowing sex between adults and minors.

The boys drink a cocktail and discuss the significance of the Durham Report about Crossfire Hurricane — aka, the persecution of Donald Trump

The Federalist put it this way.

“Imagine someone told you that in the run-up to a U.S. presidential election, the FBI tried to undermine a candidate at the behest of the opposing campaign by cooking up a false narrative of collusion with Moscow.

“And let’s say this conspiracy implicated not just the FBI but also the White House, Justice Department, and CIA — and that nearly the entire corporate press went along with it, gleefully spreading the false narrative that this candidate was a Russian agent, running story after story of fabricated nonsense in a coordinated effort to ensure the opposing candidate won.”

The first conclusion from the report is that Trump is vindicated

• It was a witch hunt (no reality – based on false information)
• It was politically motivated
• They were spying on his campaign
• It was an attempt to stop him from being elected and to undermine his presidency
• There was a deep-state conspiracy
• The FBI, DOJ, and Obama administrations were colluding, using Clinton campaign ideas
• The media was “fake news”

The media reaction was quite telling. Since they were in on the whole conspiracy, they’re not trying to cover it up. “Nothing new here.” They have no shame.

“The establishment media were so fully gulled and in the tank for the Russian collusion story for so long that they now just can’t acknowledge Durham’s report without also having to eat crow at the same time, something they clearly aren’t willing to do,” according to journalism professor Jeffrey McCall

The Durham report claims

• Clinton campaign oppo research came up with BS allegations against Trump
• FBI knew it was bogus, but acted on it as if it was serious.
• Top FBI officials (documented Trump haters) approved a full-scale investigation.
• FBI management was “pushing it so hard there was no stopping the train.” “Grease the skids.” Make it happen.
• The Obama White House knew all these details and did not try to stop it.
• The FBI should never have launched its investigation. It never had any evidence that would authorize such an investigation.
• The FBI used completely different standards with Trump and Clinton.

Top officials at the White House and the FBI knew that the Clinton campaign was falsely claiming Russia collusion, they knew they had no evidentiary basis for this, they nevertheless launched a full-scale investigation.

But …
There were no convictions

Fallout

• “All actions are permissible” if you’re trying to stop Hitler, the devil, Trump
• Shouldn’t a hero try to fix the election?

Given that we know all this …

• Why should we trust the FBI on political questions?
• (Also remember the “51 intelligence agencies” BS on the Biden laptop.)
• If they can pull this off, the idea that the left stole the election seems more plausible

After a quick skit by the Ben Franklin players, Pigweed and Crowhill drink and review a French Toast stout, then discuss the production of EV batteries.

The story goes that the planet is heating because of carbon emissions, so we have to move to electric vehicles.

Energy drives prosperity and human flourishing. Right now, most energy is produced by fossil fuels, and agricultural relies on fertilizer, which requires fossil fuels.

But there’s a big drive to move all our vehicles to electric.

The boys discuss the details about the production and disposal of electric batteries. They’re not nearly as environmentally friendly as many people believe.

The boys drink and review a robust porter from Bell’s, then evaluate western values.

Western values developed from three major sources.

• Classical antiquity
• The Judeo-Christian tradition
• Germanic customs

Roughly speaking, “western values” include the following:

• Democracy
• Individualism
• Human rights
• Free speech
• Free markets
• The rule of law
• Secularism
• Rationalism
• Liberalism
• Capitalism

When people object to western values, which of these do they want to discard?

“Western values” are truths, not merely preferences. We’re not making this stuff up, we’re progressively discovering things about the right ordering of society.

With special guest Longinus, P&C drink and review Carlsberg, then discuss Candide as part of their “shortcut to the classics” series.

The boys give a short review of his life. Voltaire was a pillar of the Enlightenment.

In Candide, Voltaire employs biting sarcasm against the idea that this is “the best of all possible worlds.” Candide suffers through “one damned thing after another,” but continues to have the sunny outlook of his teacher, Pangloss. Everything must be for the best.

Eventually, Candide meets Martin, another philosopher with a very different view, which allows Voltaire to have some debates between these two life outlooks.

Leibnitz believed that this is the best possible world because if God is good, he must have picked the best of all possible worlds.

Voltaire thought this was ridiculous, and wrote Candide as a response.

With special guest Longinus, P&C drink and review a Belgian saison, then discuss a few essays by Michel Foucault, who many people say was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century.

Longinus gives a brief biography, then the boys work through two essays: “What is Enlightenment” and “Truth and Power.”

Foucault is considered a post-modernist. The boys try to unpack modernism and post-modernism to put Foucault in context.

His writings are difficult to read. Sometimes it sounds like complete nonsense. But a few things do come out fairly clearly. Most importantly, he believes that all of the things we think of as rational, self-evident truths, are actually dependent on circumstances and the changing fads and customs of a particular time. Foucault would reject the idea of objective truth.

In many ways, Foucault contributed to the craziness we see all around us today, with “my truth,” and the idea that everyone gets to define their own reality.

The boys drink and review Pigweed’s homemade brown ale, then discuss nuclear war.

They distinguish fission and fusion reactions, and how that relates to nuclear bombs and their development.

After Word War 2 there was a mad rush to develop larger and larger stockpiles.

Today, nine countries are confirmed as having nuclear weapons. But for some strange reason we seem less afraid of nuclear war now than we were during the Cold War.

The peace seems to have been maintained by the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. But how does that apply in the modern world?

Where is the biggest risk of nuclear war today? Russia vs. U.S.? China vs. U.S.? China vs. India? India vs. Pakistan?

And what about Iran?

If there is a nuclear war, will we all die? Will it end all of humanity?

If there is a remnant, could they rebuild? What about nuclear winter?

The boys give their take on the Tucker Carlson fiasco in this “nooze and booze” episode, in which they try Pigweed’s homemade apple pie moonshine.

In a matter of a week, there were several big stories in the news world. Fox News parted company with Dan Bongino, Fox News settled with Dominion Voting for an ungodly sum, Don Lemon was fired from CNN, and Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News.

The boys discuss the basics of the Dominion Voting lawsuit but spend most of their time on theories about the Tucker Carlson issue.

Pigweed and Crowhill favor the theory that Rupert Murdoch didn’t like Tucker’s speech to the Heritage Foundation in which he painted modern political disputes as a fight between good and evil, and recommended that Americans pray for their country. Added to that, Murdoch may have believed Tucker wasn’t a team player and was getting too big for his britches.

The boys speculate on what Carlson might do next, and how it might affect the 2024 election.

P&C also spend a couple of minutes on the Bud Light fiasco, and then Pigweed springs a hard question on Crowhill.

The boys drink and review RAR’s Groove City Hefeweizen, then review short selling, the Gamestop story, Sam Bankman-Fried, and FTX.

After watching the Netflix “Eat the Rich” series, the boys remembered their interest in the Gamestop story, so they consulted their financially intelligent friends, Hansel and Gretel, to get up to speed on what happened and why.

It’s a fascinating story where “retail investors” who frequented the “Wallstreetbets” Reddit group stuck it to the institutional investors and caught them in a short squeeze.

The retail investors sent the stock rocketing up, which was putting the institutional investors in a bind, then Robinhood — the platform most of the retail investors used — shut down all purchases of Gamestop.

The story makes you believe the system is rigged for the benefit of the big, instutional investors.

Along the same lines, the boys discuss the Sam Bankman-Fried story, and how he fooled the world with his phony empire built on pretend money.

Pigweed and Crowhill drink and review an IPA from Three Floyds, then discuss whether the United States should pay reparations for the evils of slavery.

P&C agree that the concept of reparations is sound. When you harm someone, you should try to repair the wrong that’s been done.

They review some of the arguments for reparations, and have sympathy for many of them.

The idea is not simply that the ancestors of slave owners should pay the ancestors of slaves, but that the entire system was complicit in slavery, so the entire system should pay.

But who should be paid, and how much? What’s the limiting principle? Should we also pay Native Americans, or the Chinese, who were abused in the creation of the railroads?

Can a group be held responsible for the actions of a group at some time in the past?

It’s almost impossible to parse it all out and unscramble the mess. Isn’t there a statute of limitations?

P&C drink and review “Level Up,” an IPA from a Yard’s variety pack, then discuss things “everybody knows” that aren’t so.

You might be surprised at some of the answers. Here are the topics discussed.

• Who was the first president of the United States?
• Everybody thought the earth was flat before Columbus.
• How did “Caesarean section” get its name?
• Who was the youngest U.S. president?
• Was Cleopatra Egyptian?
• Was St. Patrick an Irishman?
• Did Atlas hold the world on his shoulders?
• Did Paul Revere warn the colonists the British were coming?
• Did Lincoln free the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation?
• Where was the battle of Bunker Hill?
• What is the Immaculate Conception?
• Did Ben Franklin invent the Franklin stove?
• Are Arabic numerals Arabic?
• What is a bellwether?
• Did Marie Antoinette say “let them eat cake”?
• Can castrated men get it on?
• Who is the Baby Ruth candy bar named after?
• Why do bulls hate the color red?
• What is cat gut?
• Do porcupines shoot their spines?

P&C drink and review Double Nickel Session IPA, then discuss January 6 and all the hyperventilating about it.

The over-hyping of the events of January 6 turned Pigweed and Crowhill away from the story. When everyone over-reacts, we under-react.

Now that there’s some distance and the rhetoric has died down a bit, maybe there’s some ability to evaluate it calmly.

First, Trump was absolutely wrong in his belief that Pence had the authority to not certify the election results. Unfortunately, some people believed it.

Second, there have been some persistent lies about that day, such as the claim that six police officers died. That’s not true.

The lies and exaggerations were quite over the top. Calling the event an “armed insurrection” is absurd. If Jan. 6 was an insurrection, it was the lamest, stupidest insurrection that’s ever been attempted. Calling it an attempt to overturn democracy, or destroy the Constitution, is such breathless, mindless stupidity that it beggars the imagination.

The actual threat to democracy from Jan. 6 is the abuse we’ve seen of the justice system: the overly harsh treatment of Jan. 6 protesters, and the fact that exculpatory evidence was withheld from defense attorneys.

The ongoing lies about January 6 are completely outrageous. Pigweed and Crowhill try to parse through it all and present a balanced perspective.

They also discuss recent “insurrections,” where Democrats have stormed state legislatures.

The boys drink and review Bakalar, a Czech dark lager, then discuss the history of religious revivals in the United States, and their effects.

They discuss what makes something a religious revival — what are its signs and effects. What elements are essential and what are accidental?

They review several of the great religious revivals in U.S. history, and mention some of their leading figures.

Also, what causes a revival? What sorts of cultural situations tend to precede revivals? Do they come in a predictable rhythm? Do they always involve a fixation on the end of the world?

There’s also an interesting question of the different talents required for the revival and the people who come afterwards, who need to create lasting institutions.

Crowhill believes a religious revival is the only hope for the United States.

P&C drink and review a dry-hopped pilsner from Nepenthe, then discuss crucifixion.

Crucifixion didn’t start with the Romans, and wasn’t limited to them. The Romans learned it from the Persians, the Carthaginians, and the Macedonians. But the Romans “perfected” and systematized it.

Crucifixion was reserved for crimes against the state: rebellion, treason, and religious dissent.

Modern research suggests that there wasn’t a single way to crucify someone. Arms might have been nailed to the cross, or sometimes just tied with ropes. The feet may not have been nailed together, but sometimes nailed separately on different sides of the cross.

The torturers had some liberty to improvise.

The Romans used crucifixion to warn the population not to dare to mess with Rome. It was state-sponsored terrorism.

After a general review of crufixion, the boys speak briefly about the crucifixion of Christ.