The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for December 29th, 2016, the conundrum

Gab Fest. We're live at the Bell House in New York before a sold-out crowd.

Before a sold-out crowd. Before a sold-out crowd.

Before a sold-out crowd of morally confounded Brooklynites who are all wondering if it is

ethical to get there, I'm with her tattoos laser removed before the Trump capos spot them. I'm David Plotz of Atlas Obscura. I am joined

on stage to my immediate left by Emily Bazelon of the New York Times

Magazine. Hello, Emily.

Hello.

And to Emily's left, John Dickerson

of Face the Nation.

On this week's GabFest, if you could make one legal thing illegal, what would it be? Is it worse to cut down a tree or kill a dog?

Should you make America better by marrying someone with reprehensible political beliefs?

What's the best way to lie to avoid a social situation you don't want to be in?

And more conundrums from you and from our live audience.

And in Slate Plus, we'll do even more conundrums.

If you were not yet a Slate Plus member, go to slate.com slash GabFest Plus.

One of our most popular conundrums ever was, would you rather be a fish or a tree? Different one today. Different one today. Is it worse to cut down a tree or to kill a fish or a dog? What do you think? Don't you think it's a big difference, whether it's a fish or a dog? Good question. Killing a fish, I don't bat in the eye and picking the fish.

I have to think about the dog.

Do you?

Well, I just want to go back to the historical record,

which is that when I asked the fish tree,

...