Mask Madness
Topics Discussed
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Episode Resources
There's less than a week until the US's Afghanistan withdrawal deadline (CNN)
Resurrection School v. Michigan Dept. of Health and Human Services (US Court of Appeals)
Transcript
[00:00:00] Sarah: We have a jacked-up opinion of what freedom is. Like freedom has become this sort of like idealistic, unencumbered ability to follow every desire you have religious or otherwise. And that in a country of 300 million people in the year 2021 with, oh, I don't know, a global community and the information environment we live in seems naive.
Sarah: This is Sarah
Beth: And Beth.
Sarah: You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.
[00:00:39] Beth: The home of grace-filled political conversations.
Hello, and thank you so much for joining us for a new episode of Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are going to discuss the ongoing efforts to evacuate Afghanistan. Then we will talk about objections to wearing masks and how courts are viewing those objections. We'll end as we always do with what's on our minds outside of politics.
And I wanted to take a second to just tell you that we end that way because of a principle that we wrote about in our first book, I think you're wrong, but I'm listening. And that principle is put politics in its place. We know that, especially with the subjects we're talking about today, the stakes around politics are so high.
It is really easy to get overwhelmed. It's easy to feel depleted. And so it's important to us to make sure we're paying attention to the rest of our lives and especially to our relationships. So this ending section is our way of saying. We are more than our political discussions. And so are you, and we've got to constantly be working on our relationship with each other and with you and everything we talked about matters, but other things matter as well.
So we hope that you'll always stick around with us for the end. And if you want to hear the other nine principles for grace-filled political conversations, you can check out our book.
[00:02:04] Sarah: Before we begin today's conversation, just a couple housekeeping items. First of all, in our conversation about the California recall, I mentioned the work of political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, and I referenced Francis Fukuyama as a woman and Francis Fukuyama is a man. I am so sorry, Francis. I don't know if Francis listens to our podcast. I think, I heard he goes by Frank. I don't know if Frank listens to our podcast, but if he does, you have lots of fans who very quickly pointed out that I misgendered you. So my apologies.
[00:02:38] Beth: We also have, I have an announcement to make about our Waco show. Our, as we've been telling you, one effort together and community in person this year, we have been looking forward to the show for so long. And we are watching what's happening with the Delta variant, particularly in Texas.
And we feel the weight of the responsibility of hosting a safe event during this time. So we've talked with Clint Harp, who's doing the show with us. And the three of us have made the very hard decision to postpone the show until the spring. We're working with the venue to finalize a new date for the show. We'll let you know, as soon as we can, what that date is going to be. If you've already purchased tickets, those tickets will carry over to the new event date, and we'd love for you to join us. If possible. We know that's not going to work for everyone. So the Hippodrome we'll refund your tickets if you request that. To get the refund on your credit card, you need to get in touch with them within 90 days of your purchase. If you reach out after that 90 day, mark a refund is still available. It's just going to come by physical check and take a little bit. So please go ahead and think through that. And again, we will get you the new data as quickly early as possible. This was a really hard decision. It was awful. It was awful to make this decision, but we think that it's the right one.
And we hope that it's the right one for everyone who was considering coming and for the Waco community, we are so excited to do this in the new year. It's going to be so special. You're not going to want to miss it when we put it together. And we thank you for understanding. Please know that we can't wait to see you all in person. We really can't.
As of Wednesday morning and these numbers changed by the hour, the white house said that the United States had evacuated over 82,000 people from Afghanistan in 11 days. It is to me really important as we enter this conversation, especially knowing that the dangerous situation on the ground as we're recording, we're learning about explosions near the airport in Kabul to just pause, because however we're feeling we have people moving mountains, trying to get folks out. We have people there on the ground having to say, I'm so sorry to people they care about who are putting themselves in great danger to get people to Kabul. We have people in the state department who are navigating mountains of paperwork, people like our listener, Kelly, who is on a military base outside of Afghanistan, organizing supplies for refugees as they come in, and just to all of those people, you are doing such good and important work, and we see it and really want to honor it. And we don't want to lose that at all this conversation.
[00:05:16] Sarah: The news coming out of the airport after these terrorist attacks, as we're recording on Thursday morning is really, really hard and difficult. As we're recording, there are confirmed deaths among US military personnel. There are some really horrific videos from Afghans on the ground about how many Afghans were killed in these attacks and the intelligence communities of both the American government, the British government were warning, were warning with the strongest language possible that this was possible.
This was also part of President Biden's recent press conferences and his justification and getting out at the August 31st deadline is because there was increasing concern about an attack, just like this. And you know, these attacks are always heartbreaking, but to have an attack like this in the middle of this truly heroic effort to evacuate tens of thousands of people. Now there's been lots of reporting about how many people are left to evacuate. The New York Times estimates that 200,000 Afghan allies needed to be evacuated. So if we are getting close to 90,000, if it was to stay on track with the current evacuation efforts, You know, they were hoping to get close to that number by August 30.
First, of course, this attack is going to disrupt all that. We're still not a hundred percent sure how many Americans are left in Afghanistan that need to be evacuated, but we knew that this was hard and difficult work and dangerous work. And now that knowledge is just, you know, All across every screen, all across all the news coverage.
And it just makes what was already an incredibly difficult situation, even harder.
[00:07:06] Beth: And it seems very unlikely to me, even absent the explosions today, the attacks today that we would continue at that same pace through August 31st because we've got to get our military themselves out. And that means taking troops out. It means taking equipment out. There's going to be a phase probably in the night. 24 hours or so, as we're sitting here recording where this really scales back because there is a lot of work to do like the operation to get these people out has to be gotten out itself. And so the complexity of what's happening here, can't be overstated.
And that is why, listen, I spent our last discussion about Afghanistan expressing my genuine disappointment and frustration and sorrow with how the administration has conducted this operation. And I still feel those things. I also feel myself as just an American citizen and a citizen of the world in a space of like, we have to disagree and commit at this point, because I want to be so supportive of the people who are trying to carry this out.
I understand that my unhappiness with how this was executed doesn't change the fact that president Biden is our commander in chief and I support our commander and chief and I support our troops. I support our state department. I support all the people doing this work. There's only so much that we can hash out all of the things that went wrong here.
A lot of things have gone right. Or have gone as well as they can go in a terribly dangerous situation over the past week or so. And I just want to see that through. And I think that's why Sarah and I share a lot of anger about representatives, Seth Moulton and Peter Meyer, who took themselves over to Afghanistan on an unauthorized, self-appointed mission to exercise congressional oversight because that is the last thing anybody needs right now. We need to be in that disagree and commit space. I think that the way vice president Harris has field questions about this while she's been in Southeast, Asia has been exactly right. There will be lots of time for an after-action review here. There are clear priorities right now, and we have to stick to those priorities.
[00:09:29] Sarah: Yes, their trip was infuriating. You know, to complicate a mission that was already, as we mentioned before, really Herculean, trying to move all these people out, tens of thousands of people. I just think that you know, it's almost like when we talk about COVID numbers, I don't think almost any of us can comprehend moving tens of thousands of people over the course of a week.
I just think that is really, really difficult to comprehend. And then to like, fly in requiring additional logistics, additional security, it was selfish. That's my personal opinion. I think it was really short-sighted and really selfish. Now I will say this, I think there should be more coverage of their conclusion upon coming home instead of just being mad at them for going, I think it is important to note that they both changed their minds.
Once they got over there and saw it on the ground Seth Moulton was quoted as saying. Almost every veteran in Congress wants to extend the August 31st deadline, including us, in our opinion, on that was changed on the ground because we started the evacuation so late. There's no way we can get everyone out even by September 11th. So we need to have a working relationship with the Taliban after our departure. And the only way to achieve that is to leave by August 31st. Now, this is complicated because of the attack. It's going to complicate people getting out. It's going to complicate our relationship with the Taliban. We'll see if this attack came from ISIS K who I think all the intelligence reporting was indicating was the threat around the airport. But I just think that that that's going to complicate things, but I do appreciate them at the very least after making literally everyone's job harder coming back and saying what they saw changed their minds and that this debate about the deadline is really not what's the most important thing right now.
[00:11:20] Beth: I feel like there is a missing leap in this conversation about the deadline. And whether it's going to be extended or not. I feel like people are talking about that as though it's the kind of administrative deadline we put ourselves under at work all the time.
Instead of recognizing that, having a deadline like this is not about the date as much as about your commitment, because extending this deadline, isn't as simple as saying no, we're just going to hang around for a few more days. Right. If we decide. Unilaterally that we're going to extend this deadline. We are practically making a decision that we're willing to send more troops if necessary, and we're willing to have more casualties and we are willing to escalate if necessary.
And I think the clear message from this administration is intended to be that is not what we're here for. We're done. And whether you agree with that or not, that is the decision they're done. And being done means we have to get out of there. You can, you cannot, you can't just kick this deadline out because you don't want to leave anybody behind because having this date out there now, if we exceed it things, and even we haven't exceeded yet and things are escalating.
And so I just kind of feel like we're deadline is like a terrible word to use in this situation because it denotes a flexibility that I think is, is not present.
[00:12:46] Sarah: Yeah, I think there's a lot of analysis. That's really shortsighted. We got an email from a listener who deals with the veteran community and she said, you know, there's discussions of how many military members have died in Afghanistan, but that is so short-sighted because the impact continues long after they get home.
She works in trauma recovery. She shared her experience with that community and suicide and violence and struggle. And, you know, the analysis of. Staying in Afghanistan. The evacuations the past 20 years, it's so tempting to create simple narratives. Well, that many people, the military members, weren't dying in great numbers when we left.
Right. But there's more to it than that. Well, we have this August 31st deadline, but we have more people there. Right. But it's more complicated than that. I mean, the analysis of the intelligence, the terrorist threat. Not to mention just the like geographic geopolitics of Pakistan and Iran and Russia and their like truly land-based geographic investment in the area is just so intense.
And to think that we can look at this and create some sort of simple narrative and see clearly the right thing to do, I think is really, really short-sighted.
[00:14:08] Beth: I'm glad you brought that up because another thing I've been thinking about is how enormous the mental health needs are going to be for the people assisting in this evacuation effort that some people are going to be left behind whether those are American citizens or soldiers or Afghan military forces who fought alongside our troops.
Even just leaving allied forces who've been with us in that region for so long, seeing women and children who wish they could get out and knowing that you can't help all of them, that is going to be an awful lot for people to bring home. And I hope that some efforts are being made now to plan for that and to make sure that that support is available and robust because I really struggled listening on Start Here, ABC's morning podcast to one of the military officers on the ground there who just said, like, we don't leave people behind, we just don't do it. And it was heartbreaking to hear how this is wearing on him even as he is in the midst of this logistical challenge, we also heard from Anders who was stationed in Afghanistan for nine months with the Swedish armed forces.
And he worked closely with the Afghan army. And I think his message to us reminded us of the conversation we had with Amy McGrath about how people in Afghanistan because it has never had a period of true stability. Stay in a space of survival. And he told us that most Afghans’ loyalty is stronger to their family than to the country's government.
The soldiers do what they believe is best for their family at that moment. And it's important to me to keep that in mind, as we hear things like, well, if that country's military didn't want to defend their government, why should the United States invest in it more? I just think to your point, Sarah, that a lot of the analysis is shortsighted or lacks context or lacks any kind of sense of culture and humanity. I wanted to bring in that, that good word from Anders.
We know that many of you watching this unfold feel called to do something. For our listeners in the US, we'll put an article from ABC News in the show notes that might offer some ideas for helping refugees from Afghanistan, who are coming into the country.
And this is a place where if you feel called to work on it, going local is best. So contacting your local officials. Finding local organizations doing this work, but we also want to say that might not be your work to do. And there are a lot of situations where there's not an immediate action item and that's really hard, but it is also just the reality and it's okay.
And paying attention and caring about this is, is a contribution. We are going to go now from this global issue to a much more local one private school, and two parents sued Michigan officials over there masking in school requirements. So we're going to talk about the court ruling and the continued school debates and where we might go from here in light of the Delta variant.
Sarah. I let you know earlier this week that my group texts were rolling because a flyer was going around promoting protest in front of my daughter's elementary school during the school day, at the end of the school day, when it's pickup time, just exactly what nobody needs. Right. And the flyers going around, we're protesting masks in schools and vaccine clinics in schools and testing in schools.
It was basically a flyer saying, we disagree with acknowledging the existence of COVID-19 and the Delta variant. We just, we're just opposed to like accepting reality here. And we know that lots of schools across the country are struggling. We heard from a listener who teaches in South Carolina and she said, I just want you to understand, like, we are crammed into these spaces, even when we're trying our best.
She said at lunchtime, you got 270 kids sitting six to a table in the cafeteria. She's in a place where the governor has threatened to withdraw funding if school districts mandate masks and that in her 20 kid classroom, maybe three to four kids are wearing masks. So we know that it's just, it is tough out there in the school system.
[00:18:26] Sarah: Yeah. My community is angry. We have anger over mask mandates in the school. We have anger over vaccine requirements for continued employment at the hospitals. We have anger. A listener sent me this Adam Grant Instagram post. I thought it was so good. He said anger is often seen as an irrational emotion, but it's not due to the absence of logic, it's due to the presence of threat or harm. Getting mad is a sign that something important to you is at risk. Understanding what makes you angry is a prism for understanding what you value. And I thought that was so good. And I'm trying to keep that in mind, as I look at all these angry people and, you know, it's so hard to take in, in my community where I have a mass mandate at my school where the kids are all wearing masks, where we have an outdoor cafeteria and my anxiety is still pretty high about like, oh my gosh, what if they get quarantined? What if they get sent home? I really cannot fathom what all of you are dealing with where mask mandates are prohibited, where people, your beloved children in classrooms with kids that aren't wearing masks. I just, and I cannot fathom how anybody in a position of leadership would not see these numbers and think, oh, my gosh, like we're going to get shut down so soon. Listen, it's hard. I'm having to spend a lot of time with the Delta variant because I had really embodied this idea that COVID spreads in the right circumstances, but those were very distinct circumstances, right? The original variant, like I would always tell people like, you'd have to like sing in each other's faces for an hour to get COVID outside, or, you know, it's like you have to encounter a super spread or like all these different scenarios.
And that's just not true with Delta. It's just a whole new scenario. I mean, I was a person that thought maybe kids shouldn't wear masks when you come back to school in fall. A mere, like couple months at the beginning of the summer, there was an editorial in the Washington Post that I shared that that argued that.
And now here we are, and just like this whole other universe. And I think the anger is people felt out of control with the first variant. They felt out of control. In 2020 and lots of 2021. And now they see like they're not over that yet. And now they feel like even more has been taken from them. And so I can like get in my space about that anger, you know, and listen, I can feel that anger on behalf of the people with vaccine requirements, even honestly, even in hospitals, there was a protest in my community and the headline was from essential to expendable. And I thought, man, I can see how they feel that way. Like I'd still think they should get vaccinated. And I think it's really hard, but I can understand that emotional reaction you were holding us up as heroes, and now you're firing us because we won't get a vaccine and I get it.
But some of the mask stuff? It's harder for me to get there. Like the, I think the anger over the vaccine, because it's a complicated technology. It's new is hard is, is easier to comprehend, but the mask mandates, the wanting the religious exemptions, which is what we're going to get into in a minute with the court case, that to me is harder. It's like, We've all been watching Grey's Anatomy and ER, for a million years. And watching doctors walk around with masks on in these shows in our real lives and hospitals. This is not a complicated technology. The opposition to the masking is what is harder for me to like get in an empathetic space.
[00:21:51] Beth: I struggled with the empathy on the masking too. I think about all the time, how I've never had a moment in my life where I felt like it really makes sense for me to take my shoes off, going into the airport, not once have I thought this seems like it's really going to stop some stuff. I feel a lot safer because of it. I'm delighted to comply. That has seemed like such a nuisance to me since the moment we were asked to do it, not asked, told that we were going to be doing it. It makes even less sense to me that you can pay for pre-check and suddenly your shoes are fine. Like, I think it is all so silly.
[00:22:23] Sarah: You don't just pay, you get a background check.
Sure, sure, sure.
[00:22:28] Beth: I just think like we have to do things all the time that don't make sense to us, to live in community with each other. And if this doesn't make sense to you, I'm so sorry about that. There are lots of school forums that I think this forum makes no sense. Right? They're just prices. They're just prices to being in community.
And the mask seems like such a small price. And I see, I am not saying that the mass comes without a cost because if you're wearing it all day, it's hot. It's hard to hear people like we've been through all this, right. There are lots of things about wearing a mask that stink, but where we are now and just seeing how this variant spreads and knowing that.
Kids under 12, have not had an opportunity to be vaccinated. I don't understand. I don't understand their resistance and I don't feel better about it after reading this court case where people tried to articulate an argument against masks.
[00:23:18] Sarah: Well. I don't think the court case that people on the court felt any better about it either.
And I, you know, look, I just, I'm in a conversation on Facebook with somebody in my life right now about the vaccine and their posture is very much, "well, you have a right to your opinion, I have a right to mine" and I feel like that is a cancer in our civic society. I remember having a conversation with a family member once and she was like, Well, I have a right to my opinion.
There's no wrong opinions. And I thought, yes, there are, of course there are wrong opinions. There are. And the example I always keep using is like, there has to, yes, there is a role for opinion, there's a role for individual decision-making, there's also a role for expertise. Like, especially when people are really distrustful of the medical community.
I like to pull out my home birth. I like to say like, listen, I don't sign up for every medical intervention. I gave birth at home twice and would have a third time, but there was a snowstorm. But I didn't do the research on the internet and decide to go home and have the deliver the baby myself. I depended on a different type of expertise.
Like I called in a different type of expertise. And that's, what's so frustrating is it just feels like there's no role for expertise. There's no role for facts. It's just what everybody gets to decide. And I think, no, that's not how public health works. Everybody doesn't get to decide whether they want to wear a seatbelt.
Everybody doesn't get to decide if they're going to be exposed to smokers and secondhand smoke. Like, no, that's right. That's not where we're at all the time. It is with some things. Everybody can get to decide how they feel about, I don't know, the latest tick talk or whatever internet controversy that has literally no stakes.
But when there is something that affects all of our lives, like you said, because we're living in community together, then everybody gets to decide is not going to work.
[00:25:05] Beth: You know, I don't think it's that there's no role for expertise. I think it's a decision. All people who could possibly be experts must be equal.
Because you can find people who have an MD who say what you want to hear about COVID and masks or COVID and vaccines. You can find people prescribing ivermectin. Right now, the, the medication I did a nightly nuance on this, that the medication that is primarily used to treat parasitic worms in the United States.
And listen, what a delight it would be to have conclusive studies that Ivermectin was effective. It is cheap. It is available. That would be so great. I so wish that were the case. And also the weight of authority right now is that it is not effective. It is certainly not effective for prevention. I'm not saying that if your doctor says this, this could help you not to have that conversation with your doctor, but to hear a doctor somewhere on the internet, telling you that they're using this and prompting you to self prescribe it, this is a bad place that we're in right now.
And it concerns me how more and more and more we receive you. And I receive videos from people of just like some persons. Some person in a setting that looks pretty official. Some person with credentials that, that someone gave them, they are credentials, right? And we are elevating that expertise above the weight of authority out there.
The organizations that have a lot more on the line in terms of what they tell us, then these individual voices on the internet do that to me is, is what, for our future scares me the most. I'm pretty nervous about our present, but for our future, the idea that we just pick and choose our experts, and we decide that any person with a platform is the same as the world health organization or the CDC or the American Medical Association.
That's where I get really, really nervous.
[00:27:18] Sarah: Yeah. I wonder if there was a moment in human history with like when print came along and then you could find a piece of paper with whatever you wanted to say on it, right. To justify whatever lunacy you wanted to believe in. And that's just where we are with the internet.
There just seems to be this like intense flow of misinformation. Nicholas was saying he, he was watching a report with a nurse from, I think it was North Carolina. And she was saying like, I have patients being intubated telling me what an idiot I am for getting the vaccine, or somebody's checking themselves out of the hospital because they don't think it's real.
And then being so embarrassed, they go to another hospital because they don't want to come back and say, no, I'm still suffering from COVID, but I don't want to be like the intensity of people's devotion. To this misinformation. I think it's not just individual failing. It's not individual ignorance. It really is a symptom of our information environment through the internet, through just the social media and the channels at which Mr.
Information is allowed to flourish. I mean, look, Facebook had some its information pages. It was letting live up there just like it has with every other misinformation with the election way longer than necessary. And I think that's something we're just going to have. To work on because it is easy to just get angry and be like, they're so ignorant.
There's a stupid, I look, it's not, that's not the entire story I have. I get texts and messages all the time from people that have chosen to get vaccinated. Unfortunately it's often because somebody in their life died of COVID and that ultimately motivated them to get the vaccine. I wish it didn't take that.
It sure does take the thrill of happiness at one more vaccinated American. When the story has well missed the person who died. So I felt like I had to get it, but every vaccination is still. Important. It's just, it's really hard. And I think you see it, you see the intensity and the difficulty of this assertion of misinformation, this assertion that I have the right to do whatever I want with these mask mandates with people's reactions, specifically to children in school, look at its way it's making its way to the courts.
[00:29:23] Beth: And it is a very fine line. I want to acknowledge before we get into this case between saying, I want to trust the weight of authority and recognizing that there are times when those prestigious organizations get things wrong, they do. And there are times when they change their advice or the circumstances change and what they told us before it doesn't work.
I don't want to say that there's never been an instance in human history where some individual figured out a thing that the elites were getting wrong and, and shifted course like there's value in that. But I think that we are way overestimating the value, right. The vast majority of the time and that we're especially doing it right now with masks, which are so low stakes compared to lots of other ways that we might deal with this virus.
Okay. So let's talk about this case that we've referenced a few times and not told you. This is a case that is coming from the sixth circuit appellate court. If you don't know the federal court system, you are entitled to go into a district court and have your case heard, and then you are entitled to one appeal.
And that appeal goes to a circuit court, a court that has certain states assigned to it and adheres all the federal cases coming out of those. So this is the sixth court. If this case were to get appealed again, it would go to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court would get to decide whether it wanted to hear it or not because you're not entitled to be in front of the Supreme court.
You're just entitled to that one appeal. Okay. So the Michigan department of health and human services required all kids who were over five to wear a mask while attending public and private schools. A Catholic school and two parents of kids that they wanted to be in that Catholic school, challenged that requirement.
And they said, this violates our free exercise of religious rights. It is a denial of equal protection and due process, and we want it to go away. This was
[00:31:15] Sarah: the Catholic school and two parents who had pulled their kids out because they didn't want to follow the mass mandate and were asserting that because they could not send their kids to the Catholic school.
Like they wanted to, this was a violation of their free exercise.
[00:31:27] Beth: So by the time has got to the sixth circuit because the wheels of justice move a bit slowly. The order had been rescinded, but the court decided this case anyway and ask why exactly is there a religious component to this discussion? And what the parents and the school asserted is that the masks are uncomfortable.
They are distracting from religious education, that the requirement conflicts with the right of parents to choose a school that corresponds to their own convictions. And the parents said our kids struggled to focus. They struggled to breathe. Their pediatrician said the kids were not eligible for a medical exemption.
And as Sarah said, they pulled their kids from school and are homeschooling them. And they said, we're just not able to give them the same Catholic education that they would receive if they were in school. And the sixth circuit said, well, you know, that's, that's not going to do it because to have your religious rights violated, you need to show that there is some discrimination against people of faith or a specific faith.
This mass requirement is not limited to religious activity. It is neutral. It applies generally are exceptions to it are very, very narrow and also don't have any kind of religious connotation and the exceptions are available to you. Your kids can take off their masks to eat. Or participate in mass or exercise outdoors and have loved this one.
They can socially distance enough to take off their mask and give a speech on a religious topic. I love it with cards like just put a little jab in there, like that, all of this. So, so you know, this didn't work, that's the upshot and all of this made me think about Sarah, to your point, in terms of that kind of individual, all opinions are equal mindset.
How do we distinguish between what is a belief that is protected and what is just your design? And I think we have lost our way on that in the conversation about COVID-19.
[00:33:22] Sarah: Yes. I mean, it's difficult not to get real cynical and snarky reading the assertions of how I'm asking mandate limits there, you know, protected religious beliefs.
And like, it's not just that they're saying that the, it limits their participation in the religious education. Now you have people trying to assert. Religious exemptions to the mass mandate a public school. So it's not necessarily that they feel like their religious education is being limited, but they feel for lots of reasons like we're made in the image of God and we're not supposed to be having a mass covering our face, which is fascinating from a population that I'm assuming still wears.
Glasses is just it's to me, if I could just pull this entire group aside and. Whisper something into their ear. It would be, do you think this is helping religion or hurting religion? Do you think this is inviting people into a conversation about the religious beliefs that you hold? So dear, or do you think that your desire to use your religious beliefs as a shield from government regulation is actually perhaps hurting the reputation of the religious among most Americans, but on Saturday, I don't think that conversation
[00:34:42] Beth: would work.
I just want to have a conversation where we acknowledge people's freedom, but also establish some priorities. That's what this is about to me. My priority is schools being open. I want kids to be able to be in school. I want teachers to be able to teach in their classrooms to the extent that they are able to do that.
And I want this to be able to roll forward without further disruption. As long as we can manage it. And if this is a tool and everything suggested, it's like a highly effective tool to help maintain that. I understand if you make other decisions outside of school in your life, I understand how you feel your feelings about this, whatever, but can we agree that like we all share the priority of keeping school open?
Because I really do when I read the flyers for the protest and the things, I cannot imagine that these. What the outcome of their protest efforts to be closing school? I don't think this crowd is for closing
school
[00:35:44] Sarah: either, but no, they're pulling their kids out to homeschool. I have a friend from high school who pulled her kid out in opposition to the mass mandate is now homeschooling.
So I don't know if that's a sh closed and shut case that people just want their kids in school because a lot of them are choosing to homeschool. I think the problem is that in much the same way we have. Really got a jacked-up opinion of what opinions are. We have a jacked-up opinion of what freedom is like freedom has become this sort of like idealistic, unencumbered ability to follow every desire you have religious or otherwise. And that in a country of 300 million people in the year 2021 with, oh, I don't know, a global community. And at the information environment we live in seems naive to me. I mean, yeah, we need to, I mean, but look, if I say we need to really scale back our, under our understanding of freedom, that's exactly what those people are terrified of.
Those words would set some people off, right? Because they're saying, well, that's exactly what you want. You want to just limit us and limit us and limit us until we don't even notice that we're in prison. And it's like, Get that I guess, but the world is getting bigger. Our populations are getting bigger.
Our challenges are getting bigger and that means that our understandings of freedom and Liberty can not stay the same. Way that like authors from the 19th century were writing about them when we were all exploring the Prairie and being pioneers. It just feels like sometimes when people talk about freedom and Liberty, like, I just want to say, what world do you live in?
What world do you live in?
[00:37:36] Beth: It's interesting to hear you say that because I kind of feel the opposite. I feel that because our standard of living is so high. Because we've solved so many basic need problems that we are freer today than we've probably ever been throughout human history, the constraints of resources and the prevalence of disease that ended people's lives early.
Like so many factors in the way people have always had to live have been managed for us in a way that allows us to be extremely free. Always had some standards of conduct. We've always had some restrictions on where we can go and what we can do there. It's not a limitation on my freedom to have to buy a ticket, to see a movie, right.
It's not a limitation on my freedom to have to complete a waiver before I do an activity again, with my shoes and the airport. I don't think of that as a limitation on my freedom. I think of it as an inconvenience and an annoyance that doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's. Again, like I think masks fall into that same category.
I don't understand this as a freedom argument, as much as a, some kind of restriction or constraint in order to participate in the world, you are free to pull your kids out and homeschool, right? Your freedom hasn't been limited in any way. You're free to stay in your house all the time. If you don't want to wear a mask in anywhere or show proof of vaccination, I don't, I don't want that for everybody.
The whole point of this is that we don't want that for everybody. The whole point of this is we want to be done with this. Right. And so we have more freedom of activity and mobility, but it's just to me like the connection to freedom. Is one that I don't get. And I think that's a missing piece for me in my ability to have a rational conversation about mass requirements, because I just don't frame it as an issue of freedom religious or yeah.
Otherwise
[00:39:28] Sarah: I think when people set mean when they say freedom is not necessarily what you described. Yes. Like we're free from. So many of the restrictions that used to haunt human beings, right? Like we have more freedom of movement. We have a higher standard of living. We live longer for the most part.
What they made is freedom from complexity. They want simplicity. They want a simple narrative. They want simple inputs. They don't want the complexity of, yeah, we thought it was over, but it's not working now. It's this. Or we thought we understood it now it's this well, it's, it's evolved. And there's like just this constant stream of information.
And I think what they're hungry for is just the simplest. Even if it was a simplicity to ignore all of it. Right? Like I just think what I mean by where we're at in human history is that things are complicated. They always were. But now we are more aware of the complications of the nuanced presence in every situation, be it at home or abroad and people don't like it.
They don't want it. They're mad about it. They want, they want a nice, simple, easy narrative that they either can quickly understand and decide what's right and wrong or ignore altogether.
[00:40:42] Beth: I wish that we could have less complicated too. I know that everybody out there trying to make a million decisions was my child actually exposed where they would.
They need to quarantine which direction it's like, we need a chart for every single behavior right now, and it's too much. And we just want you to know that we see that. And we are thinking about all of you as we continue to work through this together. And hopefully. The approach that the sixth circuit took in this case is a good reminder that some things are just opinions and they actually, aren't entitled to the level of respect and space that, that we think they are next up.
We'll talk about what's on our minds outside of politics.
[00:41:34] Sarah: I believe that co-sleeping is a tool of the patriarchy. Let me. I think that I'm tired because every time my husband rolls over which he is free to do, that's real freedom that I believe everyone has. People should be free to roll over at night or get up and go to the bathroom. But his freedom is impinging on my ability to sleep.
Because every time he moves, I feel it. And I have hormones that make me light sleeper because I'm a female, which is why I think it's tool of the patriarchy, because the cost of this co-sleeping, we've all decided is the best arrangement is born by the woman in the relationship who gets woken up at three 30 and then can't go back and sleep until five 30 or six 30, or maybe not at all.
And so I'm just very in a mood about the co-sleeping. Now my sweet, sweet, wonderful husband. Who does feel sometimes attacked when he rolls over at night and I go, what are you doing? What are you doing? So he slept upstairs and our guest bedroom, the last two nights. And I am currently shopping for new mattresses.
I think I need to hear from our audience. I think the solution to this problem, because I don't actually, I guess, want him to sleep upstairs. No, I don't actually, I have couples who do that. I don't a couples of my life that like, they have not slept in the same bedroom for a long time. And I. Maybe think they're smarter than the rest of us, but I'm looking at the like twin XL situation.
So technically we would be sleeping side by side, but we would be each living on our own mattress because I have fears. I have fears that this will, our marriage might not survive like perimenopause or menopause when my sleep is really going to be easily disruptive. And he's going to want to still roll over which again, he is free to do.
I was just, I just. I'm tired. That's how
[00:43:24] Beth: I'm tired. It is the patriarchy piece where I find myself scratching my head a little bit, because it causes me to reflect on the fact that I'm probably the worst person to sleep with in our marriage. I don't, I don't think that I am like light sleep or disrupted by Chad's movement.
I think it's the other way. And actually, here's the awful thing that I do. I used to, I think I've stopped this because now I'm hot. It's like I turned 40 and suddenly I'm hot all the time, but I used to. Pull the covers away from Chad all night. Now he has responsibility in this because he keeps our rim far too cold and points a fan directly at himself.
So if he wanted me to stop pulling the covers, it would be a simple, I think it's turning that fan off. But anyway, I pull the covers, right. And I do lots of, of noxious things. I'm a, I'm a pretty mobile sleeper, especially in the days when my like, legs were hurting all the time. And I was having some health issues when I was pregnant.
I'm sure I was a nightmare to sleep with. So I hear you on the patriarchy, but I'm thinking in our case, it's me. I'm the problem. I mean, I'm going to be sent to the guest room at some
[00:44:31] Sarah: point. That's I mean, it's PR first of all, this is all just an argument that the fact that we think we need to sleep together is stupid.
Everybody, nobody sleeps just exactly the same way as their partner. And if you do, God bless you. You won the lottery, but like, no, everybody sleeps differently. Some people want it hot. Some people want it cold. So people want it. Hard. Some people want the mattress soft and like capitalism is doing its best to sell us a million products to meet those needs from the sleep number to the adjustable frame, to the whole thing.
But maybe the solution is we just don't sleep together. I mean, I think it was capitalism to begin with. Right. They wanted to sell us a whole new type of bedroom set up. And what better way to do that than to convince everybody that they should be sleeping side-by-side with their spouse. But like, I just, why are we doing that?
Why aren't we doing that? If everyone's sleep. Is disrupted. I just, it seems I'm like a little bit in my Enneagram. One space of like, this is dumb. Why are we doing this? I don't think anybody is happy with this, except for like people in their twenties who can sleep through anything. Like, I mean, listen, Nicholas and I slept straight up spooned and a full mattress for like eight years now.
I don't, I mean, hell in college we slept in a twin mattress together, which is bananas. Like we did it for a while. I don't want to do it anymore.
[00:45:43] Beth: We still fall asleep like that. And I do like it and we go to bed at the same time every night. It is never the case that one of us wanders up to bed and the other one doesn't like, we, it is an important component of our relationship that we go to bed together and we fall asleep like that.
And I do like frequently kind of reach for Chad in the middle of the night. I like waking up with him, so I'm not ready to write co-sleeping out of my life. I do think that we need some better options to help the person who's always hot, the person who's always cold, the firm mattress the other. And I think a lot of mattresses are trying to do that. And I think many of them are liars. So I'm interested to hear how your twin bed is one combined bed experiment goes.
[00:46:23] Sarah: Yeah. And I want to hear from our audience, cause I know I'm not the only one that has gone down this path, especially as people get older and again, hormone fluctuations, particularly in women.
And that's why it's a tool of patriarchy because then they're shouldering the burden of this waking up situation, just saying. So I'm excited to hear from everybody about like what solutions they found in their own life. I'm excited to hear from the people who are like, oh yeah, we haven't slept together in like 10 years. Cause I guarantee you, they're out there.
[00:46:47] Beth: Well, thank you all so much for joining us today. Thanks to all the listeners whose messages have informed this episode and who sleeping arrangements will inform Sarah's future sleeping arrangements. You can stay in touch with us by following us on Instagram at pantsuit politics or emailing us at hello@pantsuit politicsshow.com. We read everything that comes in. We mentioned our book, I think you're wrong, but I'm listening, which has our 10 principles for grace-filled political conversations earlier. You can order that book anywhere you buy books. We'll be back in your ears on Tuesday until then have the best weekend available.
[00:47:32] Beth: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.
Alise Napp is our managing director.
[00:47:34] Sarah: Megan Hart is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.
[00:47:40] Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.
Executive Producers (Read their own names): Martha Bronitsky, Linda Daniel, Ali Edwards, Janice Elliot, Sarah Greenup, Julie Haller, Helen Handley, Tiffany Hassler, Barry Kaufman, Molly Kohrs.
The Kriebs, Laurie LaDow, Lilly McClure, David McWilliams, Jared Minson, Emily Neesley, Danny Ozment, The Pentons, Tawni Peterson, Tracy Puthoff, Sarah Ralph, Jeremy Sequoia, Karin True, Amy Whited, Emily Holladay, Katy Stigers.
Beth: Melinda Johnston, Joshua Allen, Morgan McHugh, Nichole Berklas, Paula Bremer and Tim Miller
[00:48:22] Sarah: To support Pantsuit Politics, and receive lots of bonus features, visit patreon.com/pantsuit politics.
[00:48:27] Beth: You can also connect with us on our website, PantsuitPoliticsShow.com. Sign up for our weekly emails and follow us on Instagram @PantsuitPolitics.