S02E16 – grab bag – mandatory reporting for clergy, Liz Cheney, censorship, and fertility

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.