S05E12 – Never Say Muslim, Insider Trading Among Politicians, and Sea Shanties

The primary focus of this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds is the assertion by Josh and Tom that being labeled “racist” is so damaging in society that mainstream media outlets won’t even note when someone is a different religion or race in their news coverage, even when it is important to the story. This came up in the context of the recent attempted attack on an anti-Muslim protest in NYC. Ryan isn’t fully convinced by this and eventually argues that it is perfectly acceptable to single out a small group of people who are a subset of a nationality or race or religion and say they are a problem for specific, contextual reasons, but not to broaden that to an entire group of people. We discuss immigrant crime statistics in relation to this. We then briefly discuss what appears to be widespread insider trading among politicians based on a story about Markwayne Mullin. There’s also a bonus debate at the beginning about sea shanties, whether the awful chant by White Pine Riots counts, and whether it is a racist or anti-immigrant song.