Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: France Is on Fire, Russia’s Plague Mystery & Canada’s Euthanasia Crisis

Transcript

Normally Podcast: France Is on Fire, Russia’s Plague Mystery & Canada’s Euthanasia Crisis · Normally

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on normally the show with
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: normal-ish takes for when things get weird. I am Mary
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Katherine Hamm. I'm Carol Markowitz.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: How are you, Mary Katherine?
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm doing good. You know, we're getting through it. It's
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: real fall here. Oh, you don't have that. Is it? Um, it's,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: it was 40 this morning.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Wait, how many degrees?
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: 40.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's winter, my friend. Yeah. Smells like fall, feels
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: like fall. It's very, it's going to be spooky out there.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I like that for like a day and
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: then I'm like, don't get me out of here.
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: You can just visit that and then go back to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: warm home. I understand. Yes, exactly.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Well, let's get into our really happy show today. What
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: do we got for the people out there? Well, we're
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: going to start with riots all over France. And this
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: is because the people, the kids, just really want new textbooks.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Is it? Yes. The story is that this is a,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: these are just student demands that are backed by, you know,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: just flagrant burning of everything and attacks on. people violently
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: in the streets. And I understand that culturally burning things
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: is like sort of like extramarital affairs in France. Like
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: they kind of do this. But that's the thing.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: What you say is very true, because as I was
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: telling my kids about it yesterday, my middle son, I
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: was like, you know, France is on fire.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: He's like, France is always on fire.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It is. This one does seem more widespread. Right, right.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I kept getting messages that it was like, or, you know,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: news stories is like, it's in Marseille, it's in Bordeaux.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: And I thought, oh, that sounds different than what I
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: normally hear about France on fire.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: All the schools are just not good in Bordeaux and Marseille,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: which is funny because we often hear about how much
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: better schools are in specifically France than in America and
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: how much like you know, they eat on real plates
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: for lunch and they are served, you know, brie croquettes
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: or whatever. And it's like, if things are so great,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: why is your country on fire? And how could that
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: be the explanation for it?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are me thinks it is not a school
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: infrastructure issue. Maybe not. That is actually driving a lot
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of this. As with all of these movements, it's sort
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: of meshes with the omni cause and like a display
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: of frankly cultural dominance and like you won't hold us
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to rules and laws although i will say good job
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: france uh over 6 000 people have been arrested now
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: have they been immediately let out i don't know what
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: their policies are right but it does seem like there
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: are attempts to get this under control Right.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Although, you know, 6,000 arrested, 250,000 people reportedly taking
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: part in these riots on October 6th, which is yesterday.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: It's bad.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: It's really bad.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: And of course, they have a presidential race next year.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know where France goes from here because this
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: seems to be, from afar, right, this seems to be
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: the majority of the country at this point. It doesn't
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: seem like it's a small minority that's doing this. It
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem like it's.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Just, you know, In France, they call them the Arabs.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Everything bad that happens in France, if you're talking to
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: French people, they're like, oh, it's the Arabs. And you
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: kind of point out to them like these Arabs have
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: been here for now several generations. Like they have to
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: get French at some point. Like it has to just
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: be these are French people. And so it's unclear what
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: exactly France is going to do from here because they've
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: let things get this bad.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Also, one of the complaints allegedly, despite the fact that, again,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: this is all outfitted with Palestinian flags and Omnicar is everything.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: One of the complaints was allegedly like a too hard
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: or long a school day. How many hours is long
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: in France? Is that like three and a half? Because
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine they're really putting them through it. in
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: French schools but I could be wrong I saw by
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the way I saw Euro the other day on Twitter
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a comment that he finally had understood that when Americans
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: say working a double shift they mean 12 to 18
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: 12 to 16 hours yeah and he's like oh I
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: didn't that's not even legal here what you guys do.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: That right right yeah I love when they tell us
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: like we're not allowed to work more than this like
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: that's wild and crazy. So I don't know. I don't
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: know where France ends up. In the meantime, Brazil just
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: had an election and in kind of a surprised The
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Senator Flavio Bolsonaro finished narrowly ahead of the incumbent, Luiz
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Inácio Lula da Silva, just called Lula usually. It's a
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: big deal because Flavio is the son of the last Bolsonaro,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: President Jair Bolsonaro. He was the 38th president of Brazil.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: He has been in jail. I read today that he
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: is actually... been allowed out today. But I don't know
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: exactly what's going on with that.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: But it is a shakeup.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: And a lot of people are pointing out that the
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: left has not won a single election in South America
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: since the end of USAID and how that could easily
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: be related.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I think the disruption of USAID, if you
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: look around at who is suddenly, uh, Winning and who
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the pattern recognition of things that have changed since then
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: and organizations on the left exclusively that are poor mouthing
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: who were just flush with cash before. I have questions.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I do have questions. There's an issue here where if
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the left allows things to become awful, you will get
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: a backlash up to and including our right and crooked left.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: politicians on the other side. In France, when the poll-leading
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Marine Le Pen runs in spring, this will do her
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: no harm, for sure. It will boost support for her.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: And now they've tried to reform a bit and remake
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: an image of sort of a Georgia Maloney type who
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: renounced her far further right tendencies of that party and
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: has done, I think, a great job as a leader.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: But you're gonna get this backlash, guys. That's what happens.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And by the way, that's why Javier Millet is in
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: charge of Argentina and has led an economic comeback and
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: inflation is down and there are places to live because
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: there's not everything controlled anymore. People get to the end
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: of a rope.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Marine Le Pen is interesting. They've like, It's
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: similar to what's going on in Brazil, and that's kind
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: of why we're putting these two together. They've tried to
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: charge her with things. I mean, it's very Banana Republic
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: to me, charging the opposition with various crimes in these countries.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: And an appeals court has cleared the way for her
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: to run, but they literally tried to keep her from running.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds right.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So do these riots boost her?
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think probably yes, unless, of course, this
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: has become the majority of the country. Unless the country
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: has fallen to this rioting force, then, you know, Macron
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: has a much better shot.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. If you're a pro-rioting country as a rule, then yes,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: it's going to be harder to beat those forces. But, like,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: it really is sad to watch all of this happened,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: just as it was sad to watch it in American
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: cities in 2020 and just watch everything burn. It's such
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: a sad thing for normal people who are trying to
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: live lives and do jobs. Yeah.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: But the thing is, in America, I was sure that
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: we were still, the normal people were still the majority.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: I just, I feel like I can't be sure of
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: that in Europe anymore. And it's getting worse all the time.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've seen this pointed out by several people,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: but Bridget Phetasy yesterday said something like, you know, we
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: have to start getting the art out of France because
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: who knows how much longer that can last. And, you know,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of this, look, I blame this on their
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: unchecked immigration policies as much as anything else. The immigrants
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: coming in don't share their values and don't adapt to
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: a French way of living. And all of that is true.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: But as I said earlier, they have been there already,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of them, four generations, and they haven't been
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: forced to adapt to it. They've sort of been kept
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: in their own little enclaves and allowed to kind of
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: rule themselves. And it gets worse and worse. I mean,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: the no-go zones in France has been going on for years.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Another thing, I was talking about this with my kids.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: My daughter mentioned that one of my friends in Paris
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: avoids certain metro stops. And I was like, yeah, but
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: that was like in 2005 she was avoiding certain metro stops.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Like it's been 20 years of this plus and no
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: real change. So it's only gotten worse and worse. So
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: at some point, French people have to take responsibility for
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the fact that their policies have led them here.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think France has this interesting combination of
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: sort of snobbishness and like, well, they don't they don't
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: feel as Americans have felt for a long time that
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: anyone can become American.
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: There's an idea that is an American idea. The French
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: don't feel that way. They're sort of simultaneously snobbish. and
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: then also lose all self-respect when you stand up for
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: themselves it's like at some point at some point you
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: have to as we've discussed respect your own culture enough
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: to say i don't want it burnt to the ground
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and i'm not sure that parts of europe have.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: That that's such a good way to put it because
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: that's exactly the problem here. And it's a problem for
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: us because if Europe falls and it's like, you know,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: when we say that now, it's not far-fetched. If Europe
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: falls and is no longer Europe, I mean, we're all
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: alone here and it's hard to think about.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: We're thankful for that ocean.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: And I'm thankful that, you know, we figured out how
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: to make baguettes and all the good stuff. Yeah. I joke,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: but I worry deeply. And look, I know you can
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: you can always have friends and journalists who will go
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: to a part of France and say everything's fine. But
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: just as that was unfair to do in Seattle while
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: it was burning down.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I think it's unfair to take, you know, 40 plus
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: instances of these giant riots and say, I think everything's
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: basically OK. I was in.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: France last summer and my comment about it and I
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: hadn't been there in a while. And the last time
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I had been there before last summer, I thought it
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: was not in good shape. But last summer it looked
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: and felt better. But again, you're in the tourist areas.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Everything's kind of kept under control there. You worry about
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: leaving the tourist areas. And I have friends in France
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: and they say, you know, just don't don't go off
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: the beaten path. And that's not the way you want
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: to live. You don't want that in your major cities.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: And that's what they have.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I don't want to plug my own work, but I
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: feel like this is on topic. I have a sub
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: stack out today about visiting Israel over the summer and
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: how it felt very pro civilization and how they're they're
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: in a good place in knowing who they are and
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: what they believe and what they want to be. And
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I also compared it to visiting England this last summer
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: and some other parts of Europe. And you just don't
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: see that same dedication to preserving your civilization there. And
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: I want them to have that. I want them to
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: fight for it. I want them to win.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: We want more Normandy vibe all over France.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Totally. All right. We're going to take a short break
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: and be right back with more on Normandy. We are
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: back on normally where we have, you know, again, it's
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: going to be a heavy day today. Sometimes we have
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: a light topic for you. Sometimes there's a plague and
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: that'll be our next topic.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: But right now. The weather changed and this is a
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: bit of a spooky episode. So here we are. That's right.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this one is about death. This one
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: is about death. Ested Herndon was talking to Jessica Valenti.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: They're both very far left people. He was he's on
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Vox and he's having Jessica Valenti on to talk about
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: her favorite topic, abortion. And this is what they had
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: to say.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: We've had a bunch of Democrats on the show, and
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: they all basically argue that the party in 2024 was
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: too focused on kind of social, cultural issues, and they
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: had to reposition themselves to economic issues. I'm sure you
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: know where this question is going. In the affordability framework
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: that they're kind of presenting, it does seem as if
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: abortion is outside of that prism. Like, help me. Tell
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: me why that's wrong. Like, it would seem as if
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: you're arguing this is a kitchen table issue. This is
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: just as much of a tangible issue as others.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Why is that?
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, it is an affordability issue, right? Like you'd
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: be hard pressed to find something more important to your
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: financial life than whether or not to have a child,
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: than whether or not that you're going to be forced
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: into pregnancy or not even just forced into pregnancy, but
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: forced into massive medical debt because your pregnancy goes wrong
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: and you can't get an abortion and then you're in
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: real medical trouble and you go septic or you lose
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: an organ, right? Like there's a million ways that that works.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: But I also think that This issue reaches so far
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: beyond individual people. Like you're looking at states like Idaho,
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: which has lost a third of its OBGYNs. Maternity wards
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: are shuttering. Some women have to travel hours and hours
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: just to give birth, right? And so I don't see
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: how this is not a kitchen table issue when you
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: talk about it. Voters understand it when you are actually
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: talking about it and you're bringing it up. If you're
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: not bringing it up, then of course not.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Abortion saves you money. Is that where we are now?
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: This is what we're talking about?
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Also, the idea that abortion should be a kitchen table
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: issue is just gross. But the argument seems to be, yes,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: that and look, this is her special issue. It is.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I believe her subsect is called abortion every day. And
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: she wants to sort of put it into every category
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: that everyone's talking about at all times. And so she's
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: now putting in an affordability framework by saying, you know what,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: we should kill expensive and inconvenient people.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: And I think that there are other ways to budget.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: And that should be seen as a horribly off-putting argument
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and will be. My friend Yemesi, who's a... moderate sort
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: of centrist Dem who pushes back on this kind of
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: thing tweeted, like, y'all are just trying to lose the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: entire South, aren't you? Yeah. Is that what's happening?
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the thing is that I know pro-choice people
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: and they don't talk like this. They're not like, hey,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: let's have abortions to save money. It's just it isn't
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: the way that human beings think about babies. It's just not.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: And Mark Hemingway has a great line. He retweeted this
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: and wrote, why not kill homeless people? What about old people?
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: They're just a drain on resources, affordability. And I see
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Mark don't give them any ideas.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Well, and this is the thing. Ten years ago, you
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: would make that as a slippery slope argument. But if
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: you look at Canada, the slope done slipped. We're like
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: we're there already.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Canada is doing some really crazy things. They have
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: something called MAID. It's medically assistance in dying. And at
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: this point, it is almost one in 16 deaths in
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Canada are MAID. How insane is that?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a huge, huge number, especially by considering that
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: their population is smaller than ours, it's quite disturbing. I actually,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I have trouble engaging with the maid stories because it's
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: so dystopian that it seems like it can't be real.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: And yet the numbers are real. And actually, in the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: New York Times this week, two doctors who sort of
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: created part of the maid framework in Canada are now
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: rethinking it because it's sort of along the same lines
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: as gender-affirming. affirming care, quote unquote, became the norm, which
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: is that there aren't a lot of gateway. Like there's
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: no gatekeeping. There's just you say you want it and
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: then we move on. They note that the law does
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: not require clinicians to engage in deeper conversations that explore
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the complex meaning of the request. We've seen cases where
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: people request medical aid in dying in the face of
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: a new cancer diagnosis or a flare up of an
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: existing illness and get the procedure within a matter of days.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: There's no requirement in either track that patients attempt treatment
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: to relieve their suffering, nor does the law specify safeguards
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: to protect vulnerable individuals whose decision may be affected by
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: social disadvantage. There's one story that they tell in this
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: New York Times op-ed, and these are people who are
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: in favor of this policy. One of them, a woman
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: in her 70s, was the matriarch of her family, the
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: one who made Sunday dinners. She sought and received approval
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: for assisted dying after she lost the ability to cook.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: She felt she had lost her value to her family.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Through counseling, she came to understand that her family valued
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: who she was, not what she did for them. She
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: decided not to go through with ending her life, at
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: least for now. That Christmas, her family gathered and she
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: sat proudly at the table while others did the cooking
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and serving.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: But the thing is, she was approved for euthanasia.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: She was approved because she couldn't make casserole, y'all. Can
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you believe that? I mean, yeah. That is the idea
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: that you have to make this argument in The New
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: York Times shows how badly this has gone.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: It's gone very badly.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: There's also just all the time stories about people who
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: did not want to be euthanized and made, did it anyway.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: There was a story last month, 83-year-old Christian grandmother euthanized
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: against her will, died covered in blood with her hands
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: clasped in prayer. I mean, you're murdering people. These people
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: don't want to be put to death. The M stands
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: for not medical. Right.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: It's Yeah.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: It's shocking.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: And then you'll occasionally see also, and again, it's so disturbing,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: but you'll see interviews with the doctors who do this work.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: And at times they're just like so weirdly toxically positive,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: almost lethal about the work they're doing. And it is,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: it's not good. It's not good. And now that's creeping
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: into the American political discussion about budgeting. Right.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: And how you should just abort babies because, you know,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: they don't fit in your budget. Rod Taylor, who is
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: a Christian Heritage Party leader in Canada, tweeted, In 2024 alone,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: MAID ended the lives of 16,499 Canadians, more than the
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: number of Americans killed by gun homicide that year, despite
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: the U.S., having eight-time Canada's population. That's 5.1 of all
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: deaths in Canada, over 76,000 since 2016. When the state
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: facilitates more deaths in America's gun violence problem, something has
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: gone very wrong.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: That is just crazy. When I was a teenager or
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: in my 20s, maybe, there was a T-shirt that went
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: viral about my hometown. It said, I'd rather get shot
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: in Durham than die of boredom in Cary. And I
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: feel like we have the same vibes with Canada right now. Like,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I'd rather than made in Canada. That's right. Yeah.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Another story, recently this couple went viral on Instagram and
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: I came across their video, but the short version is
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: a Canadian woman was given MAID as her only choice
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: for stage four cancer. She comes to the U.S. and
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: the doctors are like, no, what are you talking about?
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: We can absolutely, you know, do something here. She ends
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: up fighting cancer in the United States and given the
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: all clear when the death was her only option in Canada.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: And when we talk about health care in these countries,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: like that's health care in Canada to me. It's like
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: we're not going to try to fight your cancer. We're
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: going to give you this death option and make it
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: easy so that we could afford, you know, other things
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: and very similar to that abortion discussion.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And then Abdul El-Sayed was on Martha McCallum's show the
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: other day arguing that the wait times in America are
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: are too long in our icky capitalist medical system, ignoring
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that the wait is either three times as long until
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: you die, and other places that have socialized health care,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: or the appointment just doesn't exist. And by the way,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: his facts were incorrect anyway about the average time for
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: waiting for a cardiologist in this country. But one of
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: the things we do have going for us is that.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: There are many there are many other downsides to our
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: health care system, but that's not particularly.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Right. We love life. We try to save lives. You
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: could say a lot of bad things about America and
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: especially about our health care system. But, you know, leading
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: people to death is just not one of the things
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: that we do.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I would also add, like, look, I understand. I can
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: see where people come from on a, you know, you
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: have a terminal cancer, you're in tremendous pain in the
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: extreme situations. I don't support it, but I understand where
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: people come from on that. There's also, but when you're
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: just talking about, like, depression or things that are more treatable,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: which I know can be awful for people, I don't
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: want to lead them down that path. And I also
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: want to keep in mind that in this era of
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, just look at cystic fibrosis, how much progress
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: has been made over just a decade in treating it.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: And you might be in a situation where a breakthrough
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: is around the corner and everyone's like, eh, but it's
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: just easier to end it.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Exactly. I think that's bad.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Choose life.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: It's not that hard. All right. We're going to take
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: a short break and be right back with more on Normally. Normally.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: We are back on Normally We're Again. It's a very
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: deathy kind of episode.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Yikes.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: The plague in Russia, in Siberia. The problem is that
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: we don't trust Russia, and rightfully so. We don't know
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: what's going on there. We don't trust them to tell
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: us the truth. Very similar to China and COVID, although
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: for some reason we fully believe them.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know, in the early days of COVID, we thought,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: why would I know?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Why would they lie? Turns out they would totally lie. But,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: you know, an account called Jay in Kiev, an American
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: in Ukraine, as another victim dies due to plague, the U.S.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: thinks Russia is lying and urges all Americans to leave Russia. U.S.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Embassy in Russia tells Americans to leave immediately. And he
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: posted this. Something from the U.S. embassy saying that there's
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: a level four travel advisory for Russia remains in place,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: but U.S. citizens currently in Russia should depart immediately.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Nice. The U.S., according to CNN from the State Department,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: has escalated its request for information issuing a formal diplomatic
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: communication request. Quote, we've officially requested additional information from the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Russian government, a State Department spokesperson said. We are also
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: in official communication with other countries around the world to
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: share information. Of course, Russia is telling the World Health Organization, no,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: what are you talking about? It's fine. Again, reminiscent. And
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I understand, you know, many people are saying that many
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: people are saying this is very treatable with antibiotics. I
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: indeed hope that is the case. I am concerned that
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: this seems to have happened once again in the area
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: of a lab that is messing around with plague. Right, right.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Marshall S.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Billingsley, I don't know who he is, but he seems
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: like a very, like a rather serious person. He's a
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: former presidential envoy and assistant secretary of the Treasury for
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: terrorist financing. He tweeted yesterday, and this really made me nervous.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: In the 1990s, I worked with Ken... the former number
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: two in the Soviet biological weapons program, after he defected
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: to the U.S. He claimed that they had engineered a
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: strain of plague that was antibiotic-resistant and that they had
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: worked on plague chimeras, chimeras? Chimeras, yeah. Fusing two or
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: more pathogens. He specifically called out Irkutsk for being involved
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: in the BW program. This outbreak is deeply worrisome. This
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: may not just be the plague.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: It may be far worse. I don't love it. Here's
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: a couple things. I'm already bracing for the misinformation. A
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: lot of people made fame and fortune off of their
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: histrionics last time around. Let's all be in the business
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: of figuring out who is trustworthy. And that's going to
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: take a little while to parse. But look out for
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: people being insane and lying to you about these kind
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: of things. Also, I would suggest to the American government
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: that we not do totally unprecedented, ridiculous civil liberty violating lockdowns,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: which were never part of a plan for a pandemic.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe let's go back to the original plans, which were
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: to allow as much freedom and normal life as possible
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: while trying to contain those who would be most affected.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: That does seem like the right idea, Mary Catherine. Hopefully
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: they do that and not what they did the last time.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Run these plans from 2020 through it and see what
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: we did wrong. All right.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: I'm going to end this on a funny note because
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: it's been a dark episode.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Our friend Stephen L.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Miller, Red Steez on X, writes, what are you going
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: to do for this upcoming Russian plague pandemic that you
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: wished you'd done during the first pandemic? And our friend
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Jarvis Best replied, welfare fraud.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of room for that, guys. Apparently that
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: is in the budget. Maybe not so much. Always. Well,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: thanks for joining us on Normally. Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and you can subscribe.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Anywhere you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: at normallythepod at gmail.com. Thanks for listening, and when things
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: get weird, act normally.