Ep.15: Project 2025 A Satanic Perspective

# Satanists Nextdoor
# Ep.15: Project 2025 A Satanic Perspective

[Lilin Lavin]
Welcome, dear listeners, to Satanist Next Door. We're your hosts, Lilin Lavin and Tommy Lavin. Whether you're an open-minded curious onlooker or a fellow Satanist seeking camaraderie, our goal is to share our personal experiences and delve into the intricate tapestry of Satanism in our daily lives, occasionally inviting other guests to share their unique perspectives, leaving no pentagram unturned.

We'll explore how our beliefs shape our views on society, dive into struggles and triumphs we've encountered, and reveal the humanity that unites us all. So grab your favorite chalice and join us on this captivating journey. Satanist Next Door is ready to peel back the curtain and offer you a glimpse into our world, one captivating episode at a time.

[Tommy Lavin]
Hello and welcome to another episode of Satanist Next Door. Today we're going to be talking a little bit about Project 2025. What's that?

[Lilin Lavin]
What's Project 2025 you say? Well, it's all the things that your nightmares about extreme fascism are probably made of. But I would like to put a little disclaimer out there, like we often do for many things.

If you are someone that tends to be easily drawn into extreme conspiracy theories, if you tend to fixate on lots of negative stuff, if these things tend to really work you up and cause a lot of anxiety, this may not be the best topic for you.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. So in the past, you've probably heard us either mention on our podcasts, or if you follow any of us on social media, you know, talking about Project Blitz, the things that the conservatives have been doing for many years to, you know, kind of put in this religious agenda, I would say. I would say Project 2025 is kind of like Project Blitz on steroids, like massive doses of steroids.

[Lilin Lavin]
This this sort of thing by this is put out by the Heritage Foundation, by the way. And that's a really interesting organization. If you haven't heard about them, I do suggest a bit of research to better understand their roots, but they have been putting out, we'll call them manifestos like this since the 80s, at least probably before, but the first one I was able to find was from the 80s.

A couple of really interesting quick facts. I decided to go through and look at the things that are mentioned most in this document by conversational topic. So women, not a big mention, four times.

LGBTQ plus LGBTQ, seven. Christian, seven. God, eight.

As many times, interestingly, as Fauci, eight. Church, nine. Transgender, 13.

Ideology, 21. Woke, 35. It's all woke.

Father, 45. Marriage, 46. Reagan, yes, that old chestnut, 70.

Traditional, 79. Women, 92. Religious, 101.

COVID, 122 times. Freedom, 126. Family, 152.

Abortion, 199. Trump, 312. Was beat out yet again in numbers by Biden at 375, with America topping it off at 1319.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, you know, since I have a marketing past, I kind of look at these like keywords. You know, if you're trying to do SEO or ranking or anything like that, or you have anything marketing wise, it's sort of based on personas and keywords. And these are some pretty concerning keywords in what's supposed to be how to run the government document.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right. This would essentially be what we would like to accomplish should the Republican Party gain control again of the White House based on the Heritage Foundation's recommendations. And you can look at this document.

There are some areas to find Proudy 2025's mandate for the coming presidency. And there's a lot of interesting people who helped to create this, tons of them. It's like a who's who of a religious extremist.

Yeah, the fruit salad of life guys in there. Yeah. He didn't mention Oreos or fruit salad, but he's he's in there.

Boy. And so this thing's like over 900 pages, right? 920.

Of course, you have to take in the stupid footnotes and all the other crap stuff in there. But yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. So, you know, but the really, really concerning because you can look at this and there's there's all sorts of areas that are...

[Lilin Lavin]
I think we could talk about this solidly for a month and still not cover most of it. But we're not going to do that to you.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. But I mean, the really concerning areas for a Satanist... Or the secular community in general.

The secular community in general.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, even some of the Christian community.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, that's what I was going to say. I mean, you can find areas in here that are concerning for almost anyone unless you are a radical extremist.

Our audience, obviously, mostly Satanist or people that are curious about Satanism and things like that. So, I think we, you know, maybe focus at least this first time we talk about it on some of these areas that would probably mostly affect our community.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, there's a lot of stuff and our community is vast. Yes. And covers a lot of different kinds of folks.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, they really go out of their way in here to attack women's rights, to attack the LGBTQ plus or LGBTQIA plus community. Sorry.

And traditional marriage, you know, again, mentioned in here, abortion.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. Well, and it's really concerning if you are an individual, a Black individual, a person of color, immigrants, there's a lot of concerning things in here for you as well, especially the erasure of history, especially pertaining to topics like slavery, which we've already seen them trying to rewrite. That's a very diverse, rich history that we cannot afford to dismiss in our country.

And to erase it is essentially to erase those marginalized voices and the things that they've had to fight to get where they are today. So, that's incredibly concerning.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, when you don't teach history, it's bound to repeat. I mean, this, you know, it's a saying that has been around forever.

Yet, you know, we're trying to erase areas of history because it makes them uncomfortable or they don't like the light that it shines on them. And that's just wrong. Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I don't say things like this lightly at all. And I'm not at all trying to marginalize the individuals who this document has caused irrevocable historical harm. But when you look at manifestos like this, it is not unfair to bring the comparison to harmful documents like Mein Kampf.

If you don't know what Mein Kampf is, I do suggest, again, going to your friendly research, finding three reputable resources, and then researching it from that perspective. But it was essentially Hitler's manifesto for creating what ended up becoming one of the worst historical regimes that existed. It's not alone.

And there was other horrible atrocities created through such documentation. But the reason why I say that it has those kind of tones to it, and what concerns me about it, because it's in that direction, that vein of thinking, right, is it talks a lot about nationalism. It talks a lot about perceived threats, things like the Biden administration's, you know, rule of law, and they talk a lot about these perceived threats that the weakened state of things because of that of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, essentially sprinkled all through here.

They talk a lot about traditional values, which can definitely be dog whistles that survived through lots of historical commentary that kind of talk a lot about racial purity, and again, anti-Semitism. It may not say it outright. But when you look at those words, that is traditionally what it's talking about.

Does it specifically have the same genocidal intent that that particular document did? Not outright, definitely no. It's not the same intensity.

It's not the same language. That was absolutely blatant and horrific in nature. It does still have tones of racial supremacy.

When you read the document, you know, front to back, you'll see that that theme is still present. And there are other elements that have a lot of overly broad generalizations that could definitely be compared. But the things I want folks to recognize and focus on is the way that they talk about things like immigration, citizenship, gender policy, like council, they have a gender policy council they discuss in here.

These are concerning things. Promotion against abortion, comprehensive sexual education, gender affirming care. These are things they want to deal with with this gender policy council.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, they basically talk about deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity, equality, inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness. I mean, it's just a blatant attack. So yeah, I guess they toned it down a little bit, you know, in comparison, but it's pretty damn, yeah, you know, I mean, it's it's pretty damn obvious.

Yeah, what they're going for here.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, they start out with this whole like, what is our goal to restore the family as a centerpiece of American life and to protect our children, dismantling the administrative state and returning self governance and the American people defend our nation's sovereignty, borders and bounty against global threats secure our God given individual rights to live freely. What our Constitution calls the blessings of liberty.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, yeah. I mean, so if we're only promoting so basically, unless you are a white Christian man, and even then there's some concerning language for sure. Yeah, I mean, unless you're a white Christian man in here.

This is really concerning. And as you mentioned, too, there's even some concern in here, even if you are, you know, there's definitely something so it's almost like if you're not a white radical Christian man, then and and that's it. Exactly.

You know, I mean, so they go everything into pornography needs to be illegal. You know, and the messed up thing is, I was reading through some of this was like pornography, and transgender were were mentioned, sort of side by side. Yeah, in a way, you know, kind of leaning into the fact that, you know, trans is, is pornography.

And it's, it's not, but that's the message that they're trying to send in here. That's the dog whistle, you know, that that they're using to scare people.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, sure, because they're claiming that anyone who educates on any kind of identity, sexual identity, gender identity, whatever you want to phrase it as they're essentially saying that type of education, regardless of age under 18, is teaching of pornography. So they go into this whole thing about free speech and property rights and sexual liberation and child welfare. And then they say it has no claim to First Amendment protection, the pornography industry, which again, free speech, First Amendment, yeah, it's purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.

Now that I find incredibly hypocritical to hear from this particular group, that's fine. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and has psychologically destructive as any crime. So we're saying pornography, and I agree, I'm not going to discount the fact that there are people that have pornography addiction.

Yeah, that is a thing that definitely happens. People that have addictions to, you know, just about in there's gambling addictions, you know, right. But someone that believes that sex work is as viable as any other work that deserves the same protections as any other job.

There is that caveat that some types of pornography expand on the fantasy aspect of it much and can create unrealistic expectations, especially for younger people. But that's a different issue entirely. I don't think pornography should be illegal.

I think like everything else, it should be something that's discussed and the dangers, you know, explained, we don't ban yet fiction books from people and fiction gives you a very, you know, screwed skewed view of the world, depending on the type of fiction you're reading. Yeah. So, you know, I don't think I can live in space.

So not yet. Give Elon Musk a little bit more. I wouldn't live anywhere he had.

Anyway, the oxygen is now 99 cents per minute.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. You get up there, it's free. And then all of a sudden, he'll start charging you for it.

You know, and they go everything into adoption reform, you know, and kind of state how many children, you know, 400,000 children across the nation are awaiting this in foster care and 100,000 awaiting adoptive families, but that they want to make it so that you cannot adopt unless and they specifically call it out in here, a child should have a married mother and father. So, you know, okay. So again, we're, we're getting rid of birth control.

We're making abortion illegal. So we're going to have a bunch more kids that are going to go into the system, but those kids can't move out of that system unless there is a married mother and father willing to adopt them or the way I read this, even take them into foster care.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, the interesting, and I hate to use that because interesting to me as a positive, the wording in here that is concerning is the constant attack on the LGBTQIA family structure, right? Because you have same sex parents, wonderful people with kids. Lots of them are active in foster communities.

Lots of them are active in the adoption communities, even um, surrogacy communities. There's tons of people in the LGBTQIA community who utilize all of this as ways to grow their family. Right?

So when you look at this on the face of it, it's definitely trying to dismantle their right to exist and to have a family, essentially lumping them in with predators. And it's not just the LGBTQIA community, right? Going back to the pornography thing.

I mean, did you read what they wanted to do with anyone that allowed any type of education on that at all? They specifically said, and I quote, educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classified as registered sex offenders and telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered. Folks, this is talking about free access libraries.

If you think about it, this would take away the right of free access libraries to provide educational material that covers topics that conservative extremists find upsetting. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
I mean, they, they specifically went into, you know, sex, sex ed should not include, um, shit. They said somewhere in here, it was like, it shouldn't be, it shouldn't include like inclusive list or, you know, basically it shouldn't include anything educational. Right.

Um, you know, sex ed should be abstinence. Oh yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right over here. Delaying sex to prevent pregnancy are virtually ignored in terms of priorities. Yet these goals can reverse the cycle of poverty in meaningful ways.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. So if, if you get pregnant, all of a sudden you're, you're the reason for poverty.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, I don't know. Don't make me make sense of this.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Um, let's see. Yeah.

I mean, just kind of, I mean, as I'm skimming through this, I mean, it's just like so many areas. Yeah. The adoption reform was gross.

At you pro-life measures, promote pro-life workplace accommodations. I mean, you know, I, I thought at one point the Republican party was a, a party of small government. Well, that's what they're still saying.

Yeah. They keep saying that, but this isn't small government. This is, this is authoritarian.

I mean, this is like the how to guide on how to create an authoritarian theocracy. That's, that's not small government that that's big. I mean, you're putting the government into everything, every aspect.

[Lilin Lavin]
They threw, I don't even know where I'll have to look at some point. We'll have to revisit this, but this was really jacked. The average length of same sex marriages is half that of heterosexual marriages.

Pardon me? Protect face-based grant recipients from religious liberty violations and maintain a biblically based social science reinforced definition of marriage and family. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
I mean, again, how does that play into.

[Lilin Lavin]
Now this is what I was talking about right here. Social science reports that assesses the objective outcome for children raised in homes aside from a heterosexual intact marriage are clear. All their family forms involve higher levels of instability, financial stress or poverty and poor behavioral, psychological or educational outcomes.

I'm sorry, what?

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And, and the problem is, is that, you know, just about the entire ideology now on the right has moved this way. So, you know, as somebody who's been a Satanist for a long time, I've known Satanists on both sides of the aisle.

And in fact, I've, I've supported certain bills on both sides of the aisle in, in the past, you know, back when, back when there were sins, they were sense and the people were saying to me, I, I just wonder, how do you, you know, if you're, if you're still sort of right leaning, how do you vote in a way that's going to put this sort of manifesto in that is directly targeting your way of life, your friend's way of life, family members way of life.

I mean, just, you know, even if you're, even if you're straight, let's say, you know, Satanism, even LeVay Satanism has always, you know, promoted LGBTQ plus, you know, they were always pro. And so, you read this and it's, it's anti, it's like anti anything I can think of that would align with Satanism in some way, shape or form. So, I don't know.

Yeah, that was my rant.

[Lilin Lavin]
That's a good rant. I mean, there's a lot of really weird stuff. I was thankful for the fact that even though I'm going to, okay, I'll try not to, the, the HMRA program grants should be available to faith based recipients who affirm that marriage is between not just any two adults, but one man and one unrelated woman.

Thank goodness. Oh, wow. Thank goodness.

[Tommy Lavin]
They actually had to put unrelated, unrelated woman.

[Lilin Lavin]
I can test my little shitty commentary was faith based and unrelated is not necessarily the same thing.

[Tommy Lavin]
Wow.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yikes.

[Tommy Lavin]
This is like unrelated. This is, this is just nuts. I mean, and, and the scary part is, is this isn't like, you know, you know, oh, maybe possibly this, I mean, this is like their plan.

This is what they want to implement.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, there was some other crazy stuff in here. I'm trying to, there's like I said, 920 pages of what the hell.

[Tommy Lavin]
Um, but you know, they want to have a reproductive healthcare access task force, a gender policy council, uh, suggesting revoking gender policy council and its associated policies, arguing against the promotion of abortion, comprehensive sexuality, education, and gender affirming care. Instead, it advocates for a position focused on life, family, and issues. Is it just me?

Or did they like start pouring? It is pouring. Okay.

I was like, where the, all right, well, we've got a downpour going to God, God's man. It is. He's flooding the earth.

Holy shit. You found the rule book.

[Lilin Lavin]
You're putting it out there early. I'm flooding the earth. That's it.

Wow. So there is another section that started talking about the heart of the conservative promise to resolve and reclaim the role of each American worker as the protagonist in his or her own life to restore the family as a centerpiece of American life. The role of that labor policy plays in the promise is twofold.

Give workers the support they need, blah, blah, blah. Uh, well-paying and self-driven careers. They restore the family, family supporting job, family supporting job.

The Judeo-Christian tradition stretching back to Genesis has always recognized fruitful work as integral to human dignity, as service to God, neighbor, and family. That is literally the way what is written word for word. So this is like child labor.

Not this one. This one is strictly trying to, there is something about child labor in here too. This one is talking about providing the ability for family supporting job as a centerpiece of American economy.

So read that as now granted, they did say that the, um, the American dream, the American promise is that American workers are the protagonist in his or her own life, but then they talk about family supporting jobs. So I want people to think about the fact that what they're really saying when you boil down and read through this is that they want to have jobs where a single individual being the man is able to support the family. So the wife being the woman can stay home.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, and again, this is sort of what, I mean, they mentioned this in some tea leaves when, you know, they, they put in dobs. Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, now I did read into that because they do talk about discrimination crap that, you know, prevents certain prohibiting, prohibiting people from being able to stop pregnant people from working, but then they have some weird stuff about, you know, making sure that doesn't unduly affect a job, you know, but they did talk about the gender discrimination policies that were put in place, prohibition against sex discrimination.

They had added transgender individuals and prohibiting them from being able to work. You know, employers can't just fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. So that was a safety that was put in place by like the Biden administration.

And so they want this to be removed. That should be strict. Both stocks application of sex discrimination protections to sexual orientation and transgender status in the context of hiring and firing.

The president should direct agents to withdraw on lawful notices and guidance to apply both stocks reasoning broadly. Okay.

[Tommy Lavin]
So, so basically they're saying they want

[Lilin Lavin]
employers to be able to fire, rescind regulations, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status and sex characteristic and should direct agencies to rescind regulations, interpreting sexual discrimination provisions as prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, sex characteristics. Yeah.

Yeah. They're focused their enforcement of sexual discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of sex.

[Tommy Lavin]
Didn't they have something in here too, but against surrogacy, right?

[Lilin Lavin]
Because they kept talking about biological parents should be the one that children are placed with more often than not. There is also some concerning language that implies again, we're talking about now very clearly I'm reading between the lines here, but they do talk a lot about family reunification and rights for fathers. They did not exclude rape or incest situations.

So they do seem to be talking about reunification for families that are composed that way. There was no call to avoid reuniting families of violence, families of abuse. It was really talking about trying to reintegrate families.

They even talking about people that receive financial support for child support. The goal would be to bring these families back together.

[Tommy Lavin]
Right. And I mean, that goes along with a lot of noise that I've seen on online lately from the Christian nationalists that they're kind of promoting this whole divorce is a bad thing, no matter what, whether the woman was abused or not. Or the man, because men get abused in marriages too.

That's true. Whether the partner was abused or not, the goal should always be to put the family back together. And it's like, well, no, fuck no.

If there's an abusive person in there, why the hell do you want to put that abusive person back in the family to abuse their partner, to abuse their children, to teach their children that abuse is okay. That that's the way to go about solving problems.

[Lilin Lavin]
I don't disagree with having, there was a mention in here about educational courses for, for parents, for men specifically, who did not have a father figure and to help them to grow that skill, if that's something that they wanted to do. I don't know that it was structured in a, if that's something they wanted to do, but I don't think that it's wrong for either parent. Cause I myself grew up in a broken family as they call it, without, well, I really didn't have either parent, but you know, it was hard to develop some of those parenting skills that you need without having really good examples to have modeled some of that off of.

So it isn't something I'm opposed to. However, again, the Judeo-Christian mention in pretty much everything overarching makes me very concerned on what that curriculum would entail.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, I have no issues with educational courses to help people become better parents.

Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. The robust accommodations for religious employers. You mentioned that they talk about the Sabbath being a rest day, God ordained the Sabbath as a day of rest.

And until very recently, the Judeo-Christian tradition sought to honor that mandate by moral and legal regulation of work on that day. And so here we are talking about taking away work on God's Sabbath day, default to Sunday for employers with the sincere religious observance of the Sabbath at a different time, Friday to sundown, Saturday sundown. So I mean, yes, they are including other religions, because right in the Hebrew faith, when you're very strictly devout, you'll stop what you're doing on a certain day of the week, even to the point some extremely devout families even turn off the electricity.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
So I mean, it is good to see some of that in there as well. Because again, anti-Semitic stuff tends to run through this. So I do like seeing some of this.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, but still, it doesn't belong in government.

[Lilin Lavin]
No, you know, the protections, I agree that overall, I think that all religions should be given a religious protection, right? So calling out certain aspects of those protections as examples, in my opinion, is fine. As long as they do the protection across the board, right, which is not what I'm seeing.

[Tommy Lavin]
But again, right. And that's the problem that we so frequently run into with things like this when, you know, Christian nationalists and those try and push bills through is they are only focused on the Christian religion. And they do not take any other religion into account.

And very clearly, in our Constitution, it's kind of like an all or none sort of setup. We're not a religious nation. I don't care how many people stomp their feet and jump up and down and throw a temper tantrum.

The United States is not a Christian nation, period, end of story.

[Lilin Lavin]
It was set up that way on purpose. Right. Well, I mean, that's why they often will point to the Declaration of Independence, because I, you know, it does mention God and that, but that's not the Constitution.

[Tommy Lavin]
Right.

[Lilin Lavin]
So but even in that it mentions God. Right. But it's speaking more broadly of a nature, you know, it's more open to interpretation.

It's not the Judeo-Christian absolutism that you're seeing in a lot of this.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, you know, so you can take God and pass that across many theocratic religions. Obviously, Satanism wouldn't be one of those.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, you could apply God to Satanism, right? Because we can be our own God. And so, again, God is an over, it's a term that's overused and oversimplified to specifically denote to Christianity.

But really, God can be whatever you decide it is.

[Tommy Lavin]
Can definitely. But I know that's not, absolutely not what they're talking about in here, because they specifically talk about Judeo-Christian.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. Bring it back to Judeo-Christian values. Oh, here we go.

You were talking about this earlier. So hazard order regulations, some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs. Current rules forbid many young people, even if their family is running the business from working in such jobs.

Gosh, that sounds smart. This results in worker shortages in dangerous fields and often discourages otherwise interested young workers from trying more dangerous jobs, right? Because we want them to live.

With parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations. What exactly are we talking about? This would give them a green light into training programs and build skills in teenagers who may want to work in these jobs.

[Tommy Lavin]
And Jimmy, could you go reach into, could you reach your arm into the wood chipper there? I think it's a little bit stuck. Could you just sort of wiggle around?

Oh, shit, Jimmy. Good thing we can have more.

[Lilin Lavin]
Good thing we can have kids in dangerous jobs now. I don't mean to diminish that people have lost children because of crap like this.

[Tommy Lavin]
No, I know. And that's why these rules are in place. That's exactly it.

That's why we have these rules in place. Because at once upon a time in America, this whole make America great again sort of shit that they pushing once upon a time in America, they didn't have child labor laws and kids went to work in dangerous places and kids died. And some smart politician said, you know what?

That's probably not a really good idea. We want our children to live. And so how about we do this?

We make it illegal for children, one, under a certain age to be compelled to work. And two, children under a certain age can't work in dangerous jobs.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. For those of you following along at home who would like to know what page that crap is on, you can find it on 595 to 596. Holy shit.

Then we have this beauty, restore the family as a centerpiece of American life and protect our children. The emphasis on family as a centerpiece could be interpreted in various ways depending on the specific policies or recommendations. This could have implications for LGBTQ families, you think single parents or nontraditional family structures.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
I mean, they use this nontraditional family in here so many fucking times. It's just like, oh, okay. So again, and I mean, they call it out blatantly.

What they see as a traditional family is a married couple with a mother and a father. And when they say mother and father, they're talking like they look at it as a cis biological mother, father. That's the way that they're presenting this.

This is the family structure that they believe and they want to push into America.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. They talk about securing our God-given individual rights to live freely. That's obviously very concerning for anyone advocating separation of church and state.

So again, you got that very vague, but very direct language in its own right, a moral and foundational challenges and Reagan era references sprinkled everywhere. They talk about culture wars, which again.

[Tommy Lavin]
They go into big tech and children. So basically what this pretty much boils down to is they want to make it illegal for kids to use social media. And I would say kids would include teenagers as well.

Fundamentally the way that our society, I mean, I know my kids or our kids, they use social media all the time to talk to their friends who are in other States and other countries. It's opened up the world for people in general to have friends in other cultures, to learn about other cultures, to be like, holy shit, did you know over here, this is what they do. And not be forced to have to pick from bully A or bully B at the school to be their friend.

It's just opened up the door, but they look at it as this bad thing. They present it as like this evil sort of thing, almost like the devil's coming in through your computer.

[Lilin Lavin]
I mean, they literally said certain shows or TV, like movies allow the devil into your home. I mean, and if you think about it, the party of small government is talking quite frankly about using the government to restore the American family, right? If you read through it, that's repeated over and over again.

They talk about using government power, tax codes to restore traditional view of the American family. Again, that word traditional. And depending on the policies, we're talking about things that will affect, again, LGBTQIA families and other family structures.

There are grandparents raising kids, grandmother, grandfather, there are aunts, there are uncles, there are people raising children in very different, we have a very different idea of a family in 2023 and hopefully still in 2025. But these points that they keep pointing to in here, they're definitely anti-LGBTQIA. They're definitely anti-women.

They're anti- Darrell Bock Anti-immigration.

[Tommy Lavin]
Stephanie Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Darrell Bock If you're an immigrant, very much, it is- Stephanie Yeah, there's really concerning sections in here on immigration. And they talk a lot about the ideal candidate, the ideal applicant. They're really emphasizing younger, conservative-minded people.

And it's very concerning. Because you've heard the negative terms they use for people that are here as immigrants. They're drug dealers, they're drug addicts, they're violent, they're this, they're that.

And it's really upsetting to me when you start seeing this other language about just essentially just deport everyone that doesn't fit this ideal and screw it.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Well, I mean, that goes along with- Stephanie Dump. Darrell Bock Yeah, something Dump said today or yesterday that he would have the biggest deportation in history. And I kind of mockingly said, okay, what are you considering an immigrant?

Because unless you're indigenous- Stephanie You should all be leaving. Darrell Bock Technically, your family is an immigrant family.

[Lilin Lavin]
Stephanie Don't go there. You'll get into a argument with someone who's been here for generations. Schools and parental authority, that's another one that really pisses me off.

Because they're trying to push this whole parents are the end-all be-all when it comes to their children and what happens in school. Unless you're secular, or you're pro-LGBTQIA, or of the LGBTQIA community, or if you are someone who believes in the importance of actual historical accuracy, or a person that comes from a community, a Latino community, or a black community, where you want, you know, representation and history.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Well, I would say that, you know, they're pushing this in this document at a national level. But we can say we've seen how this works at a state level, because Texas already implements this. You know, they've already implemented this sort of, the parent is, okay, no, the parent really doesn't have the choice.

Because if I want my children to learn something different, I don't get to have that choice. What you're saying is, you mean the white, Christian, nationalist parent gets to choose what the Texas education is taught.

[Lilin Lavin]
And this is going more national with this document. Jennifer Well, but no, but the issue with Texas in particular, and this is something that we've talked about slightly before, but when it comes to the educational division, we have the largest population of schools and school children. So our textbooks are the model used throughout the nation.

Darrell Bock Yep, Texas sets the mark. Jennifer Yeah. And again, we're like in 40 something at the bottom of the freaking list for education.

So that's scary. But when you look at it, what we're doing here, the way we restructure the educational material affects everyone. They talk a lot in this document about dismantling the administrative state.

That's a really big, fancy way of saying that they want to reduce the size and scope of the federal government to align with their supposed original constitutional intent. That means conservative approach to government. They want to remove various policies and protections that support community, women, family, secular individuals.

I mean, there's a lot of, this is just overarching crap. It's just crap upon crap upon crap.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Yeah. I mean, and you see them now trying to turn abortion as a national issue.

[Lilin Lavin]
Jennifer It's states' rights.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock First when they overturned OBS, it was, we bring it to the states. But that didn't work out quite the way that they wanted because, yes, they have some states like Texas and those that are run by dominionist or their legislators are heavily, you know, heavy Christian nationalists and they just pass the laws. They don't give us a chance to vote.

In Texas, we've never had the chance to actually vote on abortion.

[Lilin Lavin]
Jennifer Yeah. Other states have different ways of approaching things that are added to dockets for their states. Jennifer We do not have those same rights here in Texas.

So another really interesting thing they talk about in this document a lot is elitism versus, you know, common sense. I have a hard time with that. Look at the list of people who created this document.

It's right there at the top. You can read through. Some of them have bios, who they are, like Mr. Carson. They are elite people. I mean, I don't know why everyday individuals seem to buy this particular load of dung that they're being served. But the elitism is the people that are making these laws.

The elitism is, unfortunately, the people in political power on both sides. It's not just, you know, Republicans, conservatives, Democrats, liberals. It's an array of individuals from different parties.

You know, we only have really two, but even if you add in some of the independent representatives and other smaller factions, you really have a giant majority of really wealthy individuals who aren't affected by their health care laws that they put in place. They're not affected by wage laws. They're not affected by Social Security.

They're not affected by the things that they're putting out there on the average everyday person. And so they are the elite that they're complaining about.

[Tommy Lavin]
I've never understood why people tend to flock towards or, what the hell am I looking for? Idolize. Yeah, idolize these, you know, they're like, whether it's Trump, Elon Musk, just throw a name out there, throw a fucking name out there.

And they're like, oh, they just really understand us. No, they don't. They have never, ever, ever, ever in their life had to say, hmm, do we get to order food tonight?

Or should we go fill our prescriptions? Or, you know, oh, I don't know if I can afford to get you that milkshake with this. Never before in their life have they had to do that.

So how the hell can they understand you? They don't. They say they do, and you're dumb enough to believe them, I guess, in some cases, but they don't, you know?

[Lilin Lavin]
I think that's been a longstanding issue, right? I mean, you can go historically way back, and they've idolized just the wrong kind of people. And, you know, obviously, people of intelligence, regardless of education, right, regardless of status, should be recognized as useful individuals.

So, you know, great, recognize the intelligence. But what we've done is we've venerated fame and wealth over intellect. And, you know, that's one of the reasons why, unfortunately, Donald Trump became so popular, because he was there at the, you know, I'd say, maybe tail end of the, you know, what would you call it, the reality TV craze, where everyone's voting on who they want based on who's most exciting.

I don't know how he managed to become that. But, you know, he was really someone that a lot of people related to. Let me tell you something.

This is not a blue-collar guy. He does not understand the factory workers of America. He does not understand the average American.

The man had, like, gold shitters. This is not your everyday person. He doesn't know what everyday life is like.

I think at one point, he said, you have to have an ID to buy things at the grocery store. Where the fuck are you shopping? Yeah, I don't know.

So these people are out of touch. And this is something I hate about politics in general. We are not represented by people that understand everyday average people.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
So yeah, this talks a lot about elitism, but I hate to say it. They are very much the elite. They talk a lot about China as an adversary.

I find that concerning on a lot of fronts. So when we saw the pandemic happen, a lot of people use a lot of derogatories that link towards China. Yeah, that was so gross.

And, and so we created a lot of really horrible situations for Asian Americans and Asian people in general. And this just continues that same thing. And we have a history here for some of you that maybe don't know, where we had internment camps for Asian Americans.

We actually took away their livelihoods, ruined their lives, upended their jobs, their families, they lost their homes, they lost their businesses, because they were put in camps during the whole war. And these people lost everything, they were upstanding community members, they were citizens, everyone looked at them differently, because of what was happening, and because of the way that they were then painted as villains. And this is again, doing that same thing.

I find it incredibly appalling.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff about World War Two that isn't taught, but you know, history is written by the victors.

[Lilin Lavin]
So, you know, yeah, well, yeah, we, we, we imprisoned people just for being Asian. Yes, we did.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, so obviously, we're not going to cover this whole thing in a single episode. Hell, we could probably do a series and still not cover this whole thing. Like, like, you know, we said, it's over 900 pages, but it is extremely scary.

If you unless you again, unless you are a white, extreme Christian man, this is an incredibly scary document that has a lot of people and a lot of power pushing it. And depending on what happens in 2024, this could become a reality.

[Lilin Lavin]
Oh, yeah. And it's important to recognize these directions, because they have slowly been implementing these things anyway. You know, it wasn't just Roe v.

Wade being affected with Dobbs and all that. There are other things that they've been doing over time, when it comes to religion in school, when it comes to parental rights, when it there are so many different things they've been working on over time that they've done, they've chipped away at. So this is a bigger, broader plan, if they were able to be voted in, that we should know again, the Heritage Society is very important and very involved, but it is not all of the GOP.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And this is why, you know, I think it's important as a Satanist, to be an advocate to, to, you know, to, to go out there and make your voice heard. Because if not, if you just sit around quiet, and you're not involved, this shit gets through, and it might get through anyways, you know, but at least, at least if it gets through, you can say, I voted against it, I spoke out against it, I tried to stop it.

[Lilin Lavin]
And only you know what that means for you. We're not telling anyone how to vote for who to vote for. But when it comes to religious freedom, I just want to state that, you know, that is religious freedom is a principle means that any individual or any community has a right to practice, express and change their religion or belief without fear, persecution or discrimination, they have the right to practice to change to, to explore whatever beliefs that they want.

When religious freedom is framed or implemented in a way that centers predominantly around values or beliefs of one particular religion, like we're seeing here with Christianity, it raises concerns about whether the principle is being applied equitably for everyone. And in this case, I don't believe that it is.

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock No, it absolutely is not. It absolutely, positively is not. And that, again, there were, there was times in my life that I've, you know, I used to consider myself much more of a centrist, you know, I would vote for both parties, I would vote for, you know, all of that.

But I cannot bring myself personally, again, I'm talking about myself personally here, you vote for whoever the hell you want. But I personally cannot vote for a, an ideology that if it were up to them, would, you know, basically put me against the wall and be done with me, you know, I mean, or take away my freedoms or take away my children's freedoms, other people that I love and care for. I just, I cannot put those two together.

For me, it's just maybe, hopefully, I hope at some point in time, our parties can come back together and get rid of these extremists. And we can go back to talking about the fucking budget, you know?

[Lilin Lavin]
Oh, my God, the budget again. Yeah, I would, I would be greatly appreciative if we could actually come back to some reality and stop living in whatever the hell Twilight Zone it is we find ourselves. We're really I mean, at this point in time here in 2023, we're looking at the potential of a government shutdown because we are being held hostage by right wing nutjobs.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
So all right. Well, yeah, I mean, I mean, again, I really do, wherever you fall on the political spectrum, I do think it's important you should at least look for this project 2025 document and you should read through it because you should understand what is on the way, you know, what possibly could be on the way so you can at least make an informed

[Lilin Lavin]
decision and be aware so that you and your community can do things take steps to actively combat this overreach of government control. This this infiltration politically of all of our lives because we are this country we are the country not the politicians.

And as individuals, we have the right to live freely, really live freely and make sure that we are providing an equitable future for as many people as possible. There is no perfect world. I don't believe in a perfect, you know, it's a fallacy to think that there's a perfect place.

Yeah, but we can do a lot to make it better. And it starts with each of us as a member of our community doing the things we know we need to do to accomplish that. Hell yeah.

Hail Satan. Hail Satan.

[Tommy Lavin]
Have a good day.

[Lilin Lavin]
Have a good day.