AS297: Are the PC Police Out to Get Us?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Atheistically Speaking. This is episode 297, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Alright, I've got a bit of an unconventional one for you today, but I think it has some really, really good info in it. I want to talk about what I view as a real lack of skepticism that's happening in certain elements of our otherwise skeptical community.

And this concerns me a lot, I, I've realized that it's this, this, you've probably seen in the news and on the, online, a big reason for Trump being elected is fake news, they say, and there's been studies on it, the left and the right both have it, right's a lot worse, they're a lot-, there's a, it's a lot more prevalent, the fake news stories that they're able to accept, but it's on the left as well, the Left is certainly not perfect, the numbers are a little better, but not perfect. Of it.

And when I saw that, I remembered back to something that had happened to me before the election, which I'm gonna talk about, and really just brings out the importance of getting our facts straight, of doing our research, of not taking headlines for granted, and just sharing them before knowing what they are, something that absolutely all of us need to do, and by no means is this something I'm perfect at, but I do really try hard to be better at it, and to make sure that I'm vetting my sources at all times.

If I slip up, I'm happy to correct anything that I get wrong, but I do make a point to do this. And I just, the point of this episode is to take you through some examples of things that I think maybe even you have shared or seen, depending on where you're coming from, and that you might have thought were one thing when really they're another. So that's the point of this show today. So, let's hit that momentary music and get going. Thank you for joining.

0:02:20 Thomas: I actually want to kind of take us through a bit of a, I don't know, a journey, I guess, of kind of what happened to me. I had meant to share this a while ago, actually, but then the election happened and that sort of distracted me, but someone who is always a listener and supporter of the show for a very long time, going back very far, who I owe a ton of gratitude and literally I owe a lot to. Someone who bought me music equipment, recording equipment when things were broken and I needed different things. Yeah, someone who I owe a lot too and consider a friend. Don't want to single him out by name or anything. But I don't, he says he doesn't listen anymore and I think it's because of social justice issues.

0:03:10 Thomas: And I want to talk about what I've discovered in dealing with these issues. Sometime back during when Black Lives Matter were protesting at, who knows, one of the shootings or something, he tweeted at me this video saying, look what these people are doing, and And he said something like, if you knew Black Lives Matter were advocating for harm, for violence against police officers, would you no longer support them? And I said, yeah, I would not support that. I would say with a caveat that no one person represents Black Lives Matter, but sure, anyone who's calling for violence against cops, I don't support. And then he tweeted me this video, which I will briefly play for you. Just, it might be hard to make out, but it's a group of people chanting something. And the title is Black Lives Matter Chance for Dead Cops and the description says Black Lives Matter is a domestic terrorist organization and the Constitution made it clear how to deal with them. Here, I'll just play you a few seconds of that.

0:04:11 Clip: [Crowd chanting; words unclear.]

0:04:25 Thomas: Needless to say, this was very alarming, it's, I don't like a group of people chanting, what do we want, dead cops, when do we want them, or something like that, but all I did was I thought, I, don't, that doesn't seem right to me, I haven't seen anything else with Black Lives Matter that would be this blatant, so I just Googled, or I think I just put into YouTube, I searched, you know, what we want dead cops, I just, I dunno why, I was just like, I'm gonna find out what more about what this is, and if you do that, which is easy enough, takes 10 seconds, you'll see another video that's the same video but is from longer ago and says this is from 12-13-2014 in New York City. Nothing to do with the protest that I can't remember where it was at the time, but it was not New York city, it was somewhere else.

0:05:13 Thomas: And that was easy. And I tweeted back and said, this is, you just gave me something that was actually over two years old, has nothing to do with black lives matter and that was that, and I've noticed since then that this, this sort of thing happens a lot, um, and I'm gonna go through over, like, three more examples, and again, I'm not meaning to pick on this one person, but these are, uh, all things that this person has tweeted at me as examples of social justice gone awry and all that, and what is amazing to me is how easy it is to research them, in most cases, and, uh see what's going on. So that already was incredibly easy, just merely seeing a video, Googling it, and finding, oh, turns out it's not from Black Lives Matter. Done. Easy. Even though it was shared as a Black Lives matter as a terrorist organization, very easy to find the exact same video actually dated before Black Lives.

0:06:06 Thomas: Not hard to do. Just a little bit. Our skeptic community ought to be able to do things like that, I think. Now, a later flurry of tweets, some, sometime, some months later, I think, more recently, all involved fear and, I, like, yeah, some sort of hysteria and, uh, a real distaste for the idea, the, of, of gender pronouns, very, very concerned, he kept tweeting at me, uh examples of, you know, people who are a bit out there with whatever they identify as, I don't know if they identify something that you and I are not used to, I really don't care that much, he kept tweeting at me stuff like this, and asking, what's the proper gender pronouns?, and I just, and I had to ask him back, why are you so concerned about this?, what, what is the obsession with gender pronouns right now?, and the answer was, well, in New York City, it's against the law to, to use someone's pronoun incorrectly, and he just kept tweeting me at that.

0:07:02 Thomas: That's what I'm concerned. How am I to not go afoul of the law in using people's pronouns when they're identifying as trees and other weird things that I would never be able to know? And so then I did what I think skeptics should do, and I would encourage you to do all the time, even if it's, no matter what the story is, no matter what the thing is, no matter if it is on the left, the right, the center, the whatever.

Let's all at least Google something for a second and get on the right basis of fact. So, maybe this is something you've heard, I know I have people on both sides of the social justice debate listening, maybe you've hear this, ooh, it'll be illegal in New York to call someone the wrong pronoun, well, I, actually, Andrew helped me out a little bit with this one, Andrew Torrez, of course, co-host on Opening Arguments, I asked him, hey, can you just give me your quick opinion on this law, and then he just sent me a page, it was like, look, you can read it yourself, it's really easy, and I said, oh, okay, sorry to try to make you do work, I will read it myself, so, thanks, Andrew, do. But no, he explained it a little bit to me. I definitely appreciate it. But it's all there. It's simple. It doesn't even take a lawyer. I'll link this in the show notes, of course, but you can see the legislative intent. And this is from 2002. This is not new. Nothing new. That's another red flag, by the way.

There are a lot of flags to look for when dealing with fake news. The minute you see something shared that looks a little weird or it just doesn't, anything you see shared, check the date. So many things are shared online and stories where it's like, oh, look at this, it just happened and you look at the date and it's 2010, you know, something. And that's important.

It's important to have an accurate view of what's happening and when these things are happening and the fact that, oh this was five years ago and there were no consequences of it and it didn't matter and I'm just seeing a recycled scare article.

0:08:52 Thomas: I think that's very important. First thing, easy thing to note. So, that qualifies, I think, for both the Black Lives Matter, the fake Black Lives matter video, and this, this law has been around for a long time, nothing crazy has happened, I haven't, I don't know of it, do you know of anyone who's been locked up for using the wrong pronoun?

I don't, of course, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it does mean that it isn't some slippery slope of horribles, as is a good favorite phrase of Andrew Torrez, because, you know, it's been years, and I, you don't see it in the news every day, oh, another person locked up, because they used the wrong pronoun, but anyway, let's look at this law.

I won't try to get bogged down in too much of the legal details, but here's a good, quick section to give a summary, harassment motivated by gender is a form of discrimination, gender-based harassment can be single or isolated incident of disparate treatment, repeated acts or behavior, let's skip a little bit, unlawful gender- based discrimination is prohibited in the following areas, and here's what this law covers, employment, it is unlawfull to refuse to hire, promote, or fire an individual because of a person's actual or perceived gender, including actual or perceived status as a transgender person. It is also unlawful to set different terms and conditions of employment because of an employee's gender. Examples of terms and condition of employment include work assignments, employee benefits, keeping the workplace free from harassment. Public accommodations.

That's the next heading. So there's three main headings. This is the second one. It is unlawful for providers of public accommodations, their employees or their agents to deny any Any person or communicate intent to deny the services, advantages, facilities, or privileges of a public accommodation directly or indirectly because of the actual perceived gender, including actual perceived status as transgender person.

0:10:40 Thomas: Simply put, it is unlawful to deny any person full and equal enjoyment of a public accommodation because of gender. And finally, housing. It is unlawful to refuse to sell, rent, or lease housing to someone because of their actual or perceived gender, including actual or perceived status as a transgender person, it is unlawful to withhold from any person full and equal enjoyment of a housing accommodation because of their gender.

So, what started as, the world is ending because I need to be able to call everyone their perfect gender, otherwise, I will be arrested on the spot. What started as that scare story. After reading further, there's actually nothing like that. Actually, let me read a little bit more. There's examples of violations. So, this was the scare tactic. This was the anti-social justice scare tactic, was to tell you and to get a bunch of shares where people say, oh, look at this, you have to know those weird tree peoples, you know, to take an extreme, you to know their gender identity and call them that, otherwise, you're in trouble. Fines and arrest.

Here's one thing to note, it says here in the law, asking someone their preferred gender pronoun and preferred name is not a violation of this law, so you can ask, you don't have to just know, you can just ask, and here's examples of violations, intentional repeated refusal to use an individual's preferred name, pronoun, or title, for example, repeatedly calling a transgender woman him or mister after she has made clear which pronouns and titles she uses, refusal to use an individual's preferred name, pronoun, or title because they do not conform to gender stereotypes. Conditioning an individual use of their preferred name on obtaining a court-ordered name change or providing identification in that name.

0:12:21 Thomas: For example, a covered entity may not refuse to call a transgender woman her preferred name Jane because her identification says that her first name is John. And finally, requiring an individual to provide information about their medical history or proof of having undergone particular medical procedures in order to use their preferred name, pronoun, or title. Now, keep in mind, this is all just having to do with either you're renting someone, like you're a landlord, or you're an employer, or public accommodation. It's just those three things. This doesn't cover like you just meet someone on the street and you happen to say like, good day, ma'am. And they're like, oh, I'm actually a man. And even though I might appear to look like a woman. I'm a man. You're under arrest. Your Honor, throw the book at him. That's the straw man that is painted.

0:13:08 Thomas: And when you look at the facts, it's not that at all. Tell me, as you anti-social justice people listening, I'm going to address you right now. Tell Me if you disagree with this law. Tell Me if this is something you have a problem with. If not, great. Awesome. The minute a law comes out that says you must call someone their preferred gender pronoun without asking them, you must just know it and otherwise you'll be fined or arrested. I would not support that. That's too totalitarian. But if your employer refuses to acknowledge your gender and calls you he repeatedly instead of her, vice versa, and will not fix that behavior and is being discriminatory, that's discrimination, then, yes, I would like, I, would like you to have some means to with which to sue your employer for that.

0:13:54 Thomas: I, I would like you to have some recourse in that situation. Seems pretty uncontroversial to me. Thank you. It's here that I want to point out, back when Eli was first on the show to talk about social justice, Eli Bosnick, Godawful Movies, Scathing Atheist, all that stuff, back when he was on there, on here, and he got his sources wrong on cognitive dissonance and I think on here a little bit, I was happy to do my best to call him out on that. I want to make clear that my main advice on people of either side is let's just get our facts straight, Let's be skeptical. But I also will not hide the fact that I'm not perfectly 50-50 on the social justice question. I have found that most of the anti-social justice side relies on these kind of scare tactics.

0:14:40 Thomas: I'm not saying the far, you know, like the social injustice left is perfect and there's no examples of being, going overboard or being authoritarian or whatever. There are examples of that. And I'm happy to call them out, but I'm gonna call them from the left, from a position of wanting to get, to be as accommodating as reasonably possible to people of all, to marginalized groups, to people all different kinds. All right. So, let's go to the second example, so, the second thing tweeted at me, well, who's counting, it was more than that, but, this is, the, the 2nd thing I'm gonna talk about today, an article, because, because when I said, I replied back, I said well, this wrong, this sounds kind of conspiracy theory-esque, because it's actually not that bad, the whatever, and then he tweets back, oh, well how about this conspiracy, I wish the professor had known this, so there's some professor in this news story, and I will also link this in the show notes, It says, professor who tweeted against PC culture is out at NYU.

0:15:39 Thomas: So right away, and this is dated October 30th, 2016. So appropriate date, not old. That's step one. It passes the first test, but. So let's look at the details of the story. Let's see, is this the PC police gone too far? Look, I'm open to examples of the PC Police going too far. They exist, I am open to them, let's investigate. A little bit from this story to give you an idea. Liberal Studies professor Michael Rectenwald, 57, said he was forced Wednesday to go on paid leave for the rest of the semester. They are actually pushing me out of the door for having a different perspective, the academic told the Post. Rectenwald recently launched an undercover Twitter account called Deplorable NYU Prof on September 12th to argue against campus trends like safe spaces, trigger warnings, policing Halloween costumes, and other aspects of academia's growing PC culture.

He chose to be anonymous, he explained, because he was afraid the PC Gestapo would ruin me, quote, if he put his name behind his conservative ideas on the famously liberal campus. I remember once on my Facebook, I posted a story about a kid who changed his pronoun to his majesty because I thought it was funny, he told the post.

0:16:47 Thomas: Then I got viciously attacked by 400 people. This whole milieu is nauseating. I grew tired of it, so I made the account. On October 11th, Rectenwald used his internet alter ego to criticize safe spaces, the recent campus trend of protecting students from uncomfortable speech. That's not an accurate description, but we'll move on. As at once, a hall of mirrors in a rubber room. Two weeks ago, he posted on his anti-PC feed a photo of a flyer put out by NYU resident advisors telling students how to avoid wearing potentially offensive Halloween costumes. Costumes. His caption read, the scariest thing about Halloween today is the liberal totalitarian costume surveillance. NYU RA has gone mad, he wrote. So those are the examples of things he was writing about. So then it goes on, he wrote some open letter or something, and then it says, the same day the letter was published, Rectenwald was summoned to a meeting with his department dean and an HR representative.

0:17:42 Thomas: They claimed they were worried about me and a couple people had expressed concern about my mental health. They suggested my voicing these opinions was a cry for help. Then they said I should leave and get help. He said they had no reason to believe that my mental health was in question unless to have a different opinion makes one insane. Saying, students told him that professors openly discussed with students how he may be fired. The leave has absolutely zero to do with his Twitter account or his opinions on issues of the day, said NYU spokesman Matt Nagel. So that's the thing. So the one quote from an NYU spokeswoman says the leave has nothing to do this Twitter account. So I wanted to look into this. It sounded interesting. I definitely am not a fan of if it were true that a professor was being forced to go on leave because of a Twitter account that talked about, you know, anti-PC things that weren't really harassment or targeting anybody, but we're just talking about ideas in general.

0:18:37 Thomas: Yeah, I would not want that to be the case. I would not want a professor to be forced to go on some sort of leave because of that. But let's look at it. Let's see what's behind this. Let's verify. Let's do some Googling. Check out the story a little more. All right, took a little Googling, I've already done this ahead of time, but I actually had to reproduce it now, because this was a while ago, and I found NYU, easy, there, you want to go to the source, NYU.edu, they decided, because of the media crapstorm that this professor was starting, making these claims that he was fired or forced to take leave because of this, they emailed him and they published the entire exchange, this is from, again, I'll link this to, Dear Michael, I must tell you that I was surprised by public accounts you have given for your leave, in which you either claimed you were forced to take leave or have left with the implication that that was the case.

0:19:26 Thomas: The facts are no one required or demanded you to take a leave. You indicated you thought a leave from NYU would be a good idea and you took affirmative steps to make that happen. Contrary to what you've been saying publicly, we don't give leaves based on faculty members posts on social media. I am disappointed by all this and by the attempt to turn an effort to support you as an employee into something else altogether. But it seems appropriate to take your words at face value. I infer from your quoted remarks that you may not, after all, wish or need to take leave your request to do so last week notwithstanding. If you no longer wish to take Leave, please indicate so in writing to me immediately, and we will make all the necessary arrangements to allow you to resume your classes and other duties immediately. If we don't hear from you, we will take this as confirmation that you wish to remain on leave as you previously requested.

0:20:16 Thomas: This is Fred Schwarzbach, Dean of Liberal Studies, where he works. And he says, Dear Fred, this is an email back. Dear Fred. This is from Michael Rectenwald back to Dean Fred Schwarzbach, Tuesday, November 1st. I assure you that I have represented the leave of absence to the media just as it was represented to me. Unfortunately, some members of the press found this explanation incredible, and I have since tried to rectify that. I cannot help the pension among reporters for their suspicions. As for me, I've tried to represent the facts of my leave truthfully while also merely attempting to respond to the committee on diversity, which took such a pot shot at me with such a lack of collegiality, and I wanted to make sure my position on the whole trigger warning, safe space, and bias reporting culture clearer. I do intend to remain on leave and need it for the reasons discussed. I would also like to note that something redacted, I think, has been busy representing my punitive mental health to various forums on Facebook, and this is absolutely none of her business.

0:21:14 Thomas: And in fact, actionable legally, I would advise her to stop. All right, there's a bit more to read, but the next email back from Fred is basically, here's a quote from it, never in all my years as a dean has an effort to support a faculty member been so completely twisted or so distorted for personal indulgence. Your behavior is dismaying. So he was very, very confused. Very, very confused.

Uh, because in these few more exchanges, you can see that the professor said, oh, I'll stop, I didn't mean to misrepresent the leave, I won't do it again, I will correct it, whatever, and then the dean had to email back, look, I saw another media appearance in which you misrepresented the leave etc., etc., so, there you have it. It.

Another anti-PC police uh article rendered a little bit less scary, scary, I would say a lot less scary, pretty much rendered as a, as a conspiracy-esque thing, by a little bit of Googling, it's not hard, it's really not hard. We'll be right back. Here's another one that was maybe a little less clear-cut. So, this is something that I want to thank Haley for researching. I gave her this one to research in more detail, and she did a fantastic job at it. This was an article that was shared with me, Teacher's Union Official Call Students Comrade Instead of Boys or Girls. So there you go, misleading title already, well, as you'll come to find out. This one passes the date test.

This is dated 11-4-2016, so it is pretty recent. Thank you very much. Trying to cut down on the amount of reading I'm doing in this particular episode, I'll just summarize the article, again, linked in the show notes, In summary, it's another scare tactic article about the dangers of PC, uh, fascist left, here's, a quick paragraph, one activity recommended for students is titled, Drag 101,

0:23:00 Thomas: The activity encourages students to examine the performance of gender, specifically, the exaggerated feminine aspects of dressing and acting in drag, uh., another activity suggests a gender swap, where students select a piece of writing that is typically strongly associated with a particular gen-, gender, blah, blah-blah, uh,, it, oh, the gender unicorn, and it, and, it does this graphic, And the tweet, it's interesting because it shows a graphic and the tweet that they decided to share in this article, this is from the dailycaller.com, says, my hashtag gender unicorn. Does this make me cis white male scum? And it's just because they filled it out as gender identity, male, gender expression, masculine, sex assigned at birth, male sexually attracted to women, romantically attracted to women. And because that's a standard, I don't know, cisgender male thing, this person who's for some reason pictured in this graphic says, does this make me cis white male?

0:23:55 Thomas: Well, when that's the tweet you decide to attach to your graphic, I guess that means you're showing kind of your bias on this. And it looks like there was even a whole hashtag developed because of this little gender unicorn and there's a lot of tweets on it. So once again, in doing some research, we can find the, what, what the actual truth is behind this. Um, this is an optional guide, optional guide of how to be more inclusive of LGBT community in the classroom. Comrade is a suggestion among a list that also includes students, friends, class, folks, and people. Maybe Comrades is a little bit weird, because of the, whatever, the communist scare, I don't know, but, but it's the last item on the list, it literally is, it says, try folks, friends, students, class, people, Comrades, the last time, I'll see you next time.

0:24:48 Thomas: So if you look at, again, further into this guide, the actual guide that the article, the write-up is about, most of the ideas the article takes issue with are in the violet section, it's color-coded, which is dealing with mostly extracurricular programs like music, drama, and technical education programs. The Drag 101 Lesson Plan is not a school-wide project as the article presents it. It's a suggestion for cosmetology and drama programs, and as for the putting on a show part, that's not at all mandatory.

It says students may also want to organize a drag performance at the school. And most of it is that way, too, most of the things the article presented as, here's what's happening, is, A, as we covered in a suggestion, this is all suggestion for how to be more inclusive, and not only is it in a suggestions, overall, within that, these are things that are just for after-school programs and suggested things to do in specifically drama classes or that, this not a, oh, school-wide, every child must go through gender reassignment, gender swap lesson plans, it's not at all how how it is. It's saying, if, if you'd like students to explore gender and, and, sort of, gender norms and maybe learn more about what they are and what it's like to go against gender norms, here's some things you can do.

Here's, like, a queer music lesson plan. It's a suggestion for the music program, and all it says is the teacher or student should choose music that was written by someone that is LGBT, the pieces can be performed, or the music could also be shared for enjoyment and not performed at all.

0:26:26 Thomas: Alternately, music teachers could choose to make a display in their classroom that highlights contributions of SGM musicians. So, once again, these are suggestions, and even among these being suggestions, these, are optional, like, even within that framework of, this is a suggested thing, this, is just more options than those suggesting, the gender-bending fashion thing, it's intended for fashion or cosmetology programs, it is just a challenge to create something that is unisex or androgynous, things like this, look, I don't care that much about this personally, but if people want to do this, big deal, this This is, again, merely a suggestion for how to be more opening, open and welcoming to LGBT students, and finally, the gender unicorn graphic, now, again, this went kind of viral on Twitter, people were making fun of it, filling out, being, you know, calling it insane that Canada was going off the deep end, this was included in the red section, now the red section is introduced by saying, through research articles and striking statistics, the red section provides a rationale to inform school communities of the need to address sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression in classrooms.

Additionally, a glossary is included to provide the common and appropriate language for discussing these topics. And this is a quote, the red session was created for teacher information. It should only be shared with students at the teacher's discretion. And the gender unicorn graphic that everybody made fun of is in that section.

It's something that was created for teacher information. Doesn't have to be shared with students. There's no mandatory, every kid has to fill this out. And again, this is just the Alberta Teachers Association, and it's just a suggested thing, this is really, really, this what happens, this the repeated pattern,

0:28:16 Thomas: Something is, that is just, more accommodating, an effort to be more welcoming, etc., etc., is taken as, a, like, a Gestapo-like, to use the words of our last professor in the last example, a PC police gone amuck, enforcement of this, making kids do all these crazy things, nope, not it, it's not what it is, We'll Now, the final example I have for you is, I think it's, it may be one of the best ones, because you may have seen this, you may've seen this article shared, I, you, may even, you know this, so I think, it'll be interesting to give you the results of my research on this.

So, here's the fi-, the final article that my friend, who I still would call my friend happy to call him my friend if, even if he listens to this, still definitely consider you a friend, and I would hope that we can have, you I hope that maybe there will be some acknowledgement that all four of these examples I've used, and it might be five, all four or five of them are nonsense upon research. Maybe there'll be some acknowledgment that, you know, there's that much misinformation at play in this anti-PC movement, but we'll see. This says, this dailymail.co.uk, and this was posted the 5th November 2016, but as we'll find it actually deals with something dated. So we'll see. Exclusive, the comedy club that's banned irony and stops acts bantering with audience to preserve their safe space.

0:29:49 Thomas: Yet it's okay to say that Tories are effing monsters. So listen to that headline. I'll read it again because this is going to come into play. You will see how misleading this headline is. This one is the worst one of these, I think. Exclusive. The comedy club that's banned irony. So from that, we are to believe there is a comedy club somewhere that has banned irony, has said no irony in this comedy club. Yeah, that doesn't make sense.

If that were true, that would be nonsense. I guess I don't blame people for reacting to a headline like that. But the headline, it turns out, is total crap. It's complete crap. The body of the article mainly talks about, it tries to make a case for it being incredibly hypocritical to ban, uh, sexist, transphobic, racist, bigoted jokes, but then it's also to call a, it's, it also, it, it is also okay to call conservative, a racist bigot, a, uh., effing monster, effing, uh... There's a bunch of blanked out, I don't even know what all these words actually are, because they're all asterisked out. Uh, effin' C-word bag of, a T. I don't know what that is.

But anyway, so that's the main, whoever wrote this is incredibly pissed that this person, this is run by Chris Coltrane and he has a website and we'll get into that later. But they're pissed that he would run this comedy club, which it says, you know, he runs, that's what it says. He runs a comedy club and it says his Lolitics Comedy Club, which is run by Chris Coltrane, makes acts abide by a set of rules to create an enforced forced niceness, it says, all this. The rules outlaw jokes that are considered sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, disablist, and comments like "I hate the French." Okay, first

0:31:39 Thomas: Off, the, so let's, let's uh, let's take this at its word, we will find out that it's not actually, this isn't actually true how it's being presented, but let's make it out, this at it's word, that there is a comedy club somewhere in England and there's someone who runs it who has decided they want an environment that's inclusive. They want to ban certain jokes, certain whatever. Already, I would say, and I would think that most oddly like conservative people would think, okay, well, that's fine. That's what you've decided you want as your entertainment for your comedy club. How about we'll let the free market sort it out? If you have a lot of people who want to go to a comedy club that only has that material, then that's fine. Like, what happened to the free marketing?

0:32:26 Thomas: Isn't it weird that most of the time the free market people are usually the anti-PC people? Usually. But it's weird in this case. Like, that would be fine to me. That's my first thought of this. But then as I looked a little deeper, I went to the website. I went through the website and I went over the website, and I was like, I read all the pages of this guy's chriscoltrane.co.uk politics comedy club. Now, when I say club, and when this headline says club, That makes me think, and I could be, this could be just me, I, I'm curious to see what you think, that makes me thing there's an actual comedy club, like a physical, like, a building where they ban this stuff. Turns out that's not the case. The Lolitics Comedy Club is one night a month, one night, a month at a different club that's, not called Lolitic, it's actually at a place, a physical location that is called something else.

0:33:22 Thomas: Thank you for watching. It's one night out of the month for one hour at the Black Heart in Camden, is what it's called, that is not a comedy club banning irony, it's far from it, it is one hour of one night a month that I'm sure this guy has to pay for, like, he has to cover it, at some club that does different stuff, this physical location, this Black Heart does concerts, comedy, whatever, does a bunch of different stuff, stuff all other, you know, nights of the, of the month, except this night, maybe it's an hour and a half, I think it's like an hour, like eight to something, and that's it, that's, that's what's being represented in this article. How, how dishonest is that, how needlessly fear-mongering is that.

0:34:11 Thomas: You read that headline and you get the impression that there's a comedy club, like a building where people would do gigs and every gig has to abide by these rules, every comic and person in there has to abide by these rule or they're kicked out or whatever. It turns out, no, it's just a club that a guy started, he said, like, hey, if you're a lefty like me, if someone's left-leaning and you like some inclusive comedy and you want to enjoy some inclusive Come one night a month. Here's where we'll be for an hour. Big freaking deal. Is that a huge deal? Is that something that we really should be thinking is the end of the world? Is that something we should be representing in this dishonest way? Like it's, I mean, it really, I'm amazed at at how misleading this was, and, frankly, at how every single one of these links I was sent ended up being something other than it was being represented as.

0:35:05 Thomas: Every single one. I did not cherry-pick these four or five examples. From this person in particular, all of these examples were nonsense upon further review, upon simple Googling. We'll be right back. Just to finish out this Lolitics one, I'll read, it's pretty easy to read the rules as he's posted them, and when you're not misrepresenting them, "Lolitix is a new material night specifically for political comedy with a left-wing spirit. We celebrate activism and optimism and joy and hope by trying to make the world a better place with a sense of fun and silliness. In fact, most of the jokes you'll hear us say will be written especially for the gig. It's a unique night, and we work really hard to make something wonderful for you." Hear that? It's unique night, night. What makes it so lovely? Well, now, this is what makes us unique. You see, there's rules to the gig. "On behalf of the acts, I tell them no ironic racism.

0:35:52 Thomas: That's where the irony part came in. No ironic racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or any kind of dickheaded, dickheadish nastiness. No picking on anyone in the audience. And finally, no rape jokes. At Lolitics, we're proud to battle against the racism and misogyny you so often find at other gigs. On, on behalf of the audience, there's just one rule, no heckling. Don't shout stuff out, don't join in, just bring laughs. It's a safe space for friendly comedy and ideas. I even tell the acts that they can talk for a while without a joke if there's a point they want to make and should always punch up and hold the rich and powerful to account." So that's why it's not hypocritical, by the way. He says in his own rules, he wants to punch upward and hold the rich and powerful to account, so when he calls these politicians, politicians who are in the public sphere, when he calls them, you know, F word, whatever, these insults he's doing, which were not even all that bad.

0:36:45 Thomas: They're just like, they're a twat or something like that, you know, that's consistent with his rules. At Lolitics, we're dedicated to comedy that makes a difference, that changes the rules, changes the world. The economy, climate change, the Westminster bubble, science, religion, spirituality, social justice, feminism, world news. We talk about things that really matter. And that's why we get an audience who are not only the loveliest in London, but who are hungry for intelligent funnies. You should totally join us. Now, here's the thing. I would probably go to that if someone wanted to, and I don't know how funny it would be. Might be funny. Might not be, honestly. I think a ton of rules on humor isn't great, and usually makes it not funny, for me, personally. But I don't give a shit if people like that, if that's what people need.

0:37:31 Thomas: Because, you know what? I've heard stories, actually, from people who do... Someone off mic, so I'm not going into it, but someone who was trying to do a little comedy, open mic comedy, and noticed how kind of awful it was, like how a lot of the extreme sex and rape jokes and all that kind of dominated it. I could see wanting a place where there's none of that, if you want. By the way, for an hour, one night a month, I could see that being something someone might want. Big deal. Is that really a safe space invading, taking over the world? Are we all going to be enforced in safe spaces because there's one night of comedy for one hour at this club where someone wants to do a certain thing? It's just not a big deal.

0:38:18 Thomas: Just not a good deal. Let's do some elementary fact checking, guys, please. Here's another thing. This was started. You can actually, when you go to the website, you can see it started December 11th, 2013. So this is years old. Now it is still going. Going. So that's why I said the date is not like, it's a little misleading. The article is new, but, and so technically it is describing a comedy club that is still ongoing, but this is not a new thing. This has been going for now, looks like for what, three years? Not a big deal. Has the world ended?, has comedy, has irony been banned?, have we all lost our comedians, and it's, it's the, just a dreary world of PC unfunny jokes, no!, it's not a big deal, it' one hour out of the month, again, okay., Thank you.

0:39:04 Thomas: All right, so what does this all mean? In conclusion, here's, here is something you don't need to know, you already know, but I'm going to reiterate, check your sources, guys, that goes for me, that goes for me especially.

That goes especially for me because I have a bit of an audience of you guys who listen to me and, and, probably to varying degrees trust me, and certainly call me out if you ever think I'm getting anything wrong, absolutely, and you guys know that I'm happy to hear that, I'm I'm happy to correct myself when someone has called me out for getting something wrong. Factually, no one's perfect. No one's perfectly perfect.

But this was four or five stories shared from the same person, all in the name of, you The PC police has gone too far, and they're ruining the planet and all that, and it's just all nonsense, I mean, there's very little here that's, that, to go with, I, mean, sure, there are examples of that, like I said, I will acknowledge, in conclusion, I want to say that I am very happy, along with Eli, whenever you, whenever someone challenges Eli, like, oh, what about this example of something someone said that sounds ridiculous, it's very easy to just say, yeah, that sounds sounds ridiculous. Cool. Is that the new rule? Is that the new world order? No. That's just somebody saying something that sounds ridiculous on Twitter or on Tumblr or whatever it is.

My position on these issues is, I, I am on the side of compassion, I'm on the, side of, wanting to be, re, accommodating, uh, eh, but also, I' m on the , side of skepticism, and, being reasonable, and research, re-, please, guys, fact-check, research, these, These. Alarmist headlines that you see.

0:40:48 Thomas: That's all I ask. Please do so. Please research these alarmist headlines. That goes for everybody. That of course goes for the left as much as the right. That, of course, goes for social justice-minded people and, I don't know, Rubin-minded, Dave Rubin minded people. Whoever it is, whoever you are, do a little research. Do a little googling. This is a big deal. This is something that might have changed the course of American politics, might have really been responsible for this election.

This is, I think it's only going to get worse if we're not careful. If If we're not careful, this could be, even more harmful, the next four years, and the next, four years in the next 4 years, who knows?, I really don't know, I mean, I, I., it's I'm not trying to be as alarmist as these headlines are, and I'll say that it's certainly possible that things will get better, but I, I don't really see any evidence of it getting better, I only see evidence of a getting worse, and it, this is measurable, and people have researched it, so there, there, that'll be a topic for another show, I might try to talk to some of these researchers who've done studies on this fake news phenomenon and all that, but it's troubling that it is getting worse.

It's very troubling, and, I think we need to be careful, and And I think this is an element of the skeptical community that is not being skeptical when it comes to these things, really is not.

Alright, I'll leave you with that, um, I know I'm, heh, so, I mentioned the conversation I had with Eli, and two, I get, not Trump supporters, but two, kind of, I had to describe them, I guess, people who are pretty anti-left in a lot of ways, uh, hard to describe, I don't know, you'll see, cuz it turned out a little weird.

0:42:31 Thomas: Um, I'm going, in the process of trying to have a short version of that edited, and I think that will be Thursday's show, so you'll get some short version of that very long, very, very terrible conversation, went awfully, but a lot of people are looking for it and want to hear it, so I will end up making the uncut audio available on Patreon, but it's, oh man, it's rough, it's a rough recording, so I hope, like I said, the goal is, and I believe I will have a shortened version with the highlights for an episode for Thursday, so look forward to that. Thank you so much for listening. Keep being skeptical out there. Keep researching. Keep Googling. That's all I ask. And I ask that you hold me to that standard too, because it's very important.

0:43:17 Thomas: It's even more important for me. I really mean that. Like, I need to hold myself to that standard. And thank you for listening, thank you supporting me over on patreon.com/atheist, and I will see you on Thursday.