SIO18: Milo's Long Overdue Downfall

Transcript

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

0:00:27 Thomas: Episode number 18, and I'm your host Thomas Smith. Being Thursday, it is time for a little free inquiry. And I've got lots of stuff to talk about. Overwhelming response to the price episode from Monday. Wow, I guess I know how to get people to participate more in the show. You And that's to have the epitome of everyone's Trump supporting family member on to discuss his really absurd and horrendous views, but all that said, I want to get right over to Milo Yiannopoulos, I'm hoping this is the last show that ever really has to deal with Milo, because he's incredibly boring, but so much has happened, there's so much to talk about, it's pretty amazing, he finally, it seems as though he finally is going to sleep, into a little bit of irrelevance because, well, we'll talk about why. So let's get right over to that on this free Inquiry Thursday.

0:01:37 Thomas: Well, just with the Bill Maher episode, I thought I was going to have plenty to talk about, and I guess I'll start there. So last week, you might remember, I talked about this. I felt going into it, I was worried that Bill Maher didn't know enough about how awful Milo was, wouldn't necessarily do his research, would agree too much that the, you know, the left is to blame and all this crap. I was worried about that, and then I got even more worried when I start real-time with Bill Maher and come to to find out that Milo is going to be in the first initial interview, monologue, and then his first thing is just a one-on-one interview, and THEN he has a panel. I was hoping Milo would be on the panel, because I want more people there to challenge his ideas and to maybe see through his bullshit, but no, it was the one-to-one interview.

0:02:28 Thomas: It was pretty bad. I give Bill some credit. It seemed like he had a few points he came ready to challenge Milo on, but he really was unprepared to handle Milo as a person, because Milo's tactic is just to word vomit on you so much that you can't keep track of just every disgusting claim he's making, and then combine that with this little puppy dog routine he does, where he has this look like, "Oh, it's this playful face, like, oh, who, me? Am I saying all these things?" Things. And I think that disarms people, and it makes people uncomfortable with maybe confronting him as much as they should. And, I think, that resulted in Bill getting pretty much just lost in the words. And like I said, I try to take a nuanced view of people.

0:03:16 Thomas: I really do. Like Bill Maher is somebody who I've never been a huge fan of. Like, I'm not a big fan of Bill Maher the a person, but I've always said I like his show. Overall, he is very liberal. He's not perfect on every issue, as we've seen. He is a huge climate change advocate in dealing with climate change, that is. He has a strong voice for a lot of issues. He likes to have people on the other side come on. He like to have Republicans on to challenge them. That's something I like. I like his show. It's unique. Doesn't mean I like every single thing about Bill Maher, the person. And I think he got a little too lost in agreeing with Milo on the fact that the left over reacts for stuff because, you know, that that is something that Bill Maher thinks.

0:04:03 Thomas: And so naturally, he's going to find that common ground. But I want to give Bill credit for having a few questions loaded, did like, you know, he wanted to challenge him on specifically calling out the trans person that he that Milo called out at that university. He tried to call him out for that, but he just didn't have very good follow ups like he was ready for.

Bill had one question, but He didn't have the follow up one and he didn't Have the ability to kind of dig through Milo's just nonsense and word vomit, and he Didn't have the ability To fight through that.

But you know, just because I'm me and I like to be as fair as possible, there is a point they discuss that I do agree with, and it is something I like about Bill Maher, I think that liberals do get way too PC over certain jokes, and again, not every liberal, not ever joke, but there are a lot of times where Bill Maer will make a joke that is well intended and it actually, He kind of will take on a character in the joke, because, you know, that he's liberal on certain issues, but he'll take on a conservative character to make a joke, and and when it gets groans and stuff, I just think that's pointless, that there are a lot of, specifically, if there's like a shock value word used in the joke, that's that's the thing that I don't, I think that someone like Ishmael over on Angry Black Rant would agree with me on that, uh, that it's just that we get, as liberals, I do think we get really hung up on words, and sometimes they're very important, of don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all the time, but when we know the person is well-meaning and we know it's a joke, I think that's when we need to relax a little bit. But having said that, I mean, that's pretty much the end of my agreement with, you know, like Bill and Milo's interview. That's pretty much the only thing.

0:05:46 Thomas: And they made way too much out of it. But he did at least, Bill did at least try to differentiate between that and Milo calling out individual people like the trans person he insulted. Because Bill Maher's philosophy that he said was that he'll make a joke that might hurt people's feelings if it's in service of a larger principle and if it is not specifically targeting someone. And he tried to differentiate, but Milo just weaseled out of it because he's just too slippery. He just, that's what he does. He just throws a bunch of words at you, sounding kind of intelligent and speaking too quickly to catch up with. So that didn't really go well. When that interview ended, I thought, "Ah, great." It pretty much just gave... exposed his terrible ideas to more people, a small subset of which might be receptive to those ideas, but more on that later.

0:06:35 Thomas: I was disappointed, but then, I remembered there's this part of Realtime that's called Overtime, which is a pain in the butt, because you have to find it on YouTube, it's not part of the actual show that I record every week. So I go find the Overtime on YouTube and this is a portion where the first guest comes back and speaks with the panel. So Milo comes back, and on the panel is Larry Wilmore, some conservative, I forget, congressperson.

0:07:02 Thomas: I'm glad he was there because he's conservative and he felt like defending conservatism, but naturally I disagreed with pretty much everything he said. But that was good. I liked the exchange. Exchange. And then there was another guy who was an ex-intelligence officer, a really, really sharp guy. And they had an exchange with Milo. And this is where it was very redeeming. This is where I really, Larry Wilmore really shined. So I've been a huge fan of Larry Wilmore ever since that correspondence dinner, that White House Correspondence Dinner. I want to say it was about a year ago, maybe a little over, or no, it'd probably be about a year. Cause I think it's coming up again. And I, what happened in that dinner was that Larry Wilmore comes up and he just, he makes jokes on everybody.

0:07:49 Thomas: Like he hits everybody in the room. He makes jokes that have, I think a good kind of a message behind them. And the room hated him. Like the room, the room was just stuffy, not laughing. There's like maybe a couple of cool people in there laughing. Great jokes, hilarious jokes that I laughed at a ton and no one else is laughing. I just thought, how gutsy is that to get up there to a hostile room where you're not getting any response, but to just power through it, make these funny jokes, and be brave in that situation. So I've loved Larry Wilmore ever since then. So, I'm so glad he's on here. And he, in my opinion, Larry Wilmoore just hit it out of the park as regards Milo. He actually dealt with Milo, I think, in the way that you have to. I'm going to try to play a few clips here to tell you what what I mean, but I will link it.

0:08:35 Thomas: Just watch the whole thing if you want. The first clip here is where Bill Maher, I think, makes a pretty big mistake in agreeing with something Milo says, so I'm just gonna play this first portion here.

0:08:47 Clip: Well, let's start with you, Myla. Why did you single out a transgender student for ridicule during a recent speech you made on her campus? Did you do that? Well, yes. First of all, wasn't a student. He had already left the university. And I make no apologies for protecting women and children from men who are confused about their sexual identity. Well, I'm confused about who this is because pronouns are so important. If you call Caitlyn Jenner he, you're a better person. Yeah, I did it on purpose. Purpose. You did. So this is a man who... I misgendered this person. Right. So this a man, born man, who wants to... Who thinks that he might be a girl. Okay. And... And you have a problem with that. No, I don't have a a problem it, but I think that women and girls should be protected from having people, men who are confused about their sexual identities in their bathrooms.

0:09:35 Clip: That person... That's not unreasonable. That person who was a, you know, an activist who took their own university to court to to force his way into the female locker rooms, had already left college by the time I gave that speech. And that was totally misreported by the press, just like they misreporte everything else.

0:09:55 Thomas: Alright, A little truth about that, uh, no, so Adelaide Kramer is the person involved, I've linked a story that actually has a lot of detail on this, a really sad story actually, if you look into it, Adelaide was still a student, I think what Milo did was latched onto the fact that Adelaide stopped going to classes because she was feeling harassed and not at home in her own school, so I guess Milo's latching on that, I believe the timeline that I'm seeing, Adelaide stopped going to classes in like October and plan to transfer next semester. This talk took place on December 14th. So that, I mean, that's trying to get out on a technicality. I don't know, would there have been a reason Milo would have even known that Adelaide had withdrawn from classes?

0:10:45 Thomas: She still lived on, you know, in the community, was still considered a student, was The Chancellor of the University wrote a letter after the Milo event referring to her as a student, so I would say that's good evidence that Adelaide was still considered a student when Milo harassed her, so that's nonsense, that's trying to get out on a technicality, not even sure how much that matters, if Adelaid had transferred to a different school a few months before, would that excuse putting up her picture and mocking her? Appearance in front of a crowd of jeering people? Is that the kind of thing that is okay as long as technically the person isn't attending classes here anymore? I mean, that's absurd. That's one of the worst things among a long list of horrible things that Milo has done.

0:11:34 Thomas: And the case was completely misrepresented, of course, as everything Milo says is pretty much. And Bill Maher made a big blunder there by saying that's not unreasonable is what he said. I do not blame anyone for being incredibly angry with Bill Maher for saying that. It was very disappointing to me. It's easy for me as not a trans person to say he's ignorant on this issue. There was an interview he did later on. He clarified that he thought his statement... Actually, I'll read it just to give of his side of things, I guess. Let me read it. Bill Maher, when I say that's not unreasonable to not want to share a bathroom with a transgender person, it's because women have said that to me, I want to know or I'm not comfortable with someone in the bathroom even if they, in their minds, have decided they are a woman, doesn't that opinion count at all?

0:12:29 Thomas: So, I mean, that puts it, I guess, into context, that is an opinion that you can talk about, I think that is something you can talk about. So all I mean to say is as a non-trans person myself, it's not as personal to me. So what I do with this is I say, well, Bill Maher is really wrong about this. He is absolutely wrong to have said that's not unreasonable. He should have called out Milo more. But I don't blame people who have a more visceral reaction to that, to what Bill Maher said. It's something that I I would want to try to change Bill's mind on. It's not something that I would like shut him out of, you know, public life for say he should, his show should be brought down. I will still be watching real time is what I'm trying to tell you, but I don't blame people who aren't like, I'm not going to say if you have the reaction where you can't watch him after that, I am not going tell you you're wrong.

0:13:23 Thomas: Uh, absolutely not. You know, they teach his or her, their own. Uh, but, but yeah, that was horrible. That was really a bad thing for him to have endorsed. Divorced. I think it was a quick thing. It was something done with not enough information, but it sounds like he also, I think he's just not great on trans issues, you know, and that's a fact that he's an older person.

I Think the older generations oftentimes that, you know, it's slow going and change comes as, you know, young people start to become the majority and all that. So rough thing for him to to have said. The other horrible thing he said was that Milo reminded him of a young Christopher Hitchens, which is just absurd because Christopher Hitchins was so superior to Milo in every way, he wasn't just trying to shock for the sake of being an asshole, he had considered and knowledgeable opinions, He read every book there was to read and had an incredible ability to remember the details of them, it was very very well read, very informed, uh, not perfect, not at all perfect. Just like no one's perfect. Uh, but, but worlds apart from Milo. And I, I, for one was, was pretty turned off by that comparison because there just is no similarity other than Milo doing a bit of a Hitchens impersonation in how he talks. That's it.

I mean, there's no, that the similarities really are not even skin deep. I mean, they're just very surface. So that was a disappointing thing as as well. But then Larry Wilmore started cutting in, and he cut right through the bullshit, and I'm gonna play this, because I think it's really, really well done.

0:15:11 Thomas: Initially, he tried to just counter with arguments, well, you'll see, let me hit play.

0:15:15 Clip: I just think it's sad, because the same arguments that were used against gay people, treating them like aliens who just wanted to fuck anything that moved, and that's why we should avoid them at all costs, is being used, well, let me finish my thought, please, you know, there's a difference without a distinction, because it's using the same type of arguments, it's like when people try to compare gay and black, yeah, they're not the same thing, we share an invisibility, you You know, people didn't see us in society, and gay people hid out from society. But there were a lot of the same issues that you have to deal with when you're marginalized. You understand people can be discriminated against for good reasons, right? Well, no, that's a group that's marginalized, and so the attack, you can always find an extreme person that becomes the object of your attack to assign that to everybody. So if you say, well, that person is weird, or they want to commit sexual assault, then everybody thinks all transgender people want to do is commit sexual insult.

0:16:08 Clip: Well, they aren't disproportionately involved in those kinds of crimes. They're what? What? Vastly disproportionately involved in sex crime. Who is? Transgender people? Yes! Of course! Hey, so what's the statistic? I don't know. That's not a controversial statistic. It is a controversial statistics. And frankly, you know, you're suggesting these people are victims of some kind of discrimination. Well, I'm saying to you, this is a psychiatric disorder. I didn't say discrimination. You said discrimination. I said marginalization. Like identity disorder or like sociopathy or something, you know?

I don't want these people around little girls in both. No, no, no. I'm saying what I'm I said this is what I said the same argument. We used against gay people You should do your homework because wrong then it's right now. That's perfect. No homosexuality was called a disorder It was a psychological disorder is I feel really disordered. Well, maybe you maybe road you To coming to terms with their sexuality. Yeah, because of the way society treats them. No, of course it isn't. Don't be ridiculous. No, because it's the way the society treats us. If society said we're fine with gay people and it's 1890, do you think in 1990 people are going to have an issue with it? You're being very obtuse. If I can't

0:17:18 Clip: Produce

0:17:18 Thomas: And Bill cuts it off there, and note that so far, Larry Wilmore has merely challenged his assertions. He's challenged Milo's assertions a number of calm, different ways, and I want you to note that because later on I'm going to talk about a comment that really, really misrepresented what happened here, and it's unfortunate, I think it's a misconception a lot of people have. Have. So, so far, Larry Wilmore, he didn't do a perfect job. It's, it's hard to combat this nonsense in real time, but I think he did a pretty good job. He pointed out a lot of bad arguments. He questioned the study. He did, he did about as much as another guest on the show should be expected to do. I think Bill should have done a lot Of this, but anyway, this is where you've likely seen, if you've seen only small clips of this, this Is what happened later on when Larry Harry Wilmore told Milo to go fuck himself, that headline, I think, has been misinterpreted. Look at what actually happened here, what actually led up to that.

0:18:18 Clip: Have to fight with everybody time but you always invite such awful people on your show, they're so stupid, look at, no, come on, you need to start inviting higher IQ guests, so this is gonna be disaster, first of all, first of these are very, wait, hold on, Bill, you can go fuck yourself, all right, yeah, If this is the face of your argument is that these people are stupid, you didn't hear a word this man said early in this segment because he can talk circles around you're pathetic, this guy, Gushy little ass for me.

0:19:03 Clip: I'll let you defend. I'll allow you to defend it. Leslie Jones is not very literate. Go fuck yourself again for that one. Oh, read her Twitter feed. She can barely spell. She is a very respectful person and very funny. No, no, no. Excuse me.

0:19:16 Thomas: So, there you go. He said, go fuck yourself, after Milo said, to a panel of three people, three other human beings standing there, he said, you need to get higher IQ guests, your guests are awful, I mean, saying go fuck yourself is a perfectly appropriate response to that. It wasn't, I think what people are painting this out to be, as Milo laid some claims about trans people, and then Larry Wilmore got all flustered, just yelled, go fuck it. That's not what it was. Watch the clip. Larry responded, uh, calmly as rationally as he could to the points. And then when Milo was flustered by that, couldn't, you know, wasn't able to be right in the end. So resorted to name calling and insults and the proper response to that is okay, we'll go fuck yourself.

0:20:02 Thomas: If you're going to call a panel of three, uh two and a half really, really, smart, distinguished people, uh you're gonna say they're low IQ, awful people. Yeah, that's what happens. You get to go fuck yourself. That's what you get. That is totally, and by the way, a totally calm go fuck herself. Larry Wilmore could not have been more calm. This wasn't a liberal outrage, got the best of him. Not at all. That is not at all what happened. This has been portrayed by some people on my social media as, oh, Larry Wilmore took the bait. Oh, he took the baby bit. Ah, Milo got him. No, no, that's actually the opposite of true. This is exactly what we need. Even if I grant you that there are plenty of bad ways to respond to Milo, getting flustered and just yelling or something, yeah, that is a bad way to respond Milo.

0:20:49 Thomas: But this was not a bad way, responding rationally to his points and then only allowing him to elevate it to an insulting level and then just countering calmly in the appropriate way, which is go fuck yourself for that. That's totally rational. That is not at all letting Milo get the best of you. And that Milo really shrank after that, he really did. If you watch the rest of it, I mean, he didn't say much, he tried to play it off like, oh, he loves when people tell him that, like, he, he... he didn't have the same spit and vinegar, as they say, after that. I, I don't think he can actually handle that as well as you might think, as well he might think. So anyway, after all this, all this is to say, I thought Bill Maher bungled it pretty badly, it wasn't like an F, cause he did try to hit Milo with a few things, but I have to give him some credit and certainly give Larry Wilmore a ton of credit for actually dismantling Milo, responding to his points and then responding in the appropriate way to just ridiculous insults.

0:21:47 Thomas: So I give him a little credit for that. I think the main show was a net negative. I think that that exposed his ideas to more people and not in a challenging enough way. But overtime really almost made up for it because it was it was such it was just amazing. Oh, my God. I have to play it. I have to play it because there's one more time when Larry Wilmore just absolutely owns Milo and he does it in a way that is, it, it's dealing with a troll the way you need to deal with trolls. I loved it.

0:22:14 Clip: This is what the media doesn't report. The Daily Stormer hates me. They declared holy war against me. The worst people on the very far left and the very very far right all hate me. They all hate. Okay. I think we're leaving out a lot of people. But you're welcome here.

0:22:31 Thomas: Oh, I've watched that like five times and I laugh every time. It was so good. This is what people couldn't do with Trump. This was why no one could beat Trump because politicians, they were all playing that game and Trump was playing a different game. But Larry Wilmore is beating Milo because he's funnier than Milo. This the kind of thing that beats him and I'm just amazed that there are people on my social media that think this was not a victory for Larry Wilmore.

I don't know how you could make that claim. The audience loves it. The audience is on Larry Wilmore's side. They're not on Milo's side after this. I mean, he mopped the floor with him. He really did. And you could tell, one thing that I thought was a positive, and again, this is before all the other stuff happened, Bill Maher was really annoyed with Milo by the end of this, and I thought, you know what, this might work, because I doubt he would invite him back, again, this is the alternate reality where the later stuff didn't happen, I doubted he would invite him and I kind of thought he might make Milo the butt of some jokes later on, which I think would be a good way of delegitimizing Milo for Bill Maher's audience, so overall, overall, I felt like the appearance on Bill Maher's show started off badly and could have ended up being either neutral, maybe if things went right, could have been even a net positive if you are anti-Milo as I am.

So that's how I felt on that. Of course, not excusing the things Maher said that were really bad and tone deaf. And it sounds like he's just not great on trans issues, you know, hopefully he can change his mind on that. Hopefully someone can change his mind.

0:24:08 Thomas: I don't know, but not excusing any of that, but I thought, okay, maybe this is around kind of a neutral overall result. Then a lot of things happened. After all that Milo said and all the horrible stuff, fast-forward a little bit from this Maher appearance, and some old clips of Milo talking about his sexual relationship that he had when he was underage, uh with a priest surface, and in a few interviews Milo talks about this relationship, I'll play one of the clips, it's only like a minute. It's a little bit edited together. It's kind of a greatest hits. I don't think there's a creative editing going on, but I actually don't. I don't think it's that bad. And this is what went viral and what started a bit of a cascade. Here's the clip.

0:24:55 Clip: For old white people, it's completely like, statistical facts say that Jews run most of the banks, Jews completely dominate the media, vastly disproportionately represented in all of these professions. Men don't give a fuck! But we're talking about 1325, 1328, um, these things do happen perfectly consensually. Um, often, by the way, it is the women who are suffering, because it's not, what normally happens in schools, very often, is it's an older woman with a younger boy, and the boy is the predator in that situation. The boy is like, let's see if I can fuck the gym teacher, or let's see if I can fuck a hard maths teacher, and he does. The women fall in love with these nubile young men, those athletic young boys in their prime, and end up having their lives destroyed. They end up having to move schools, move the country, whatever. You know, the point about all this stuff is we get hung up on abuse. This is a controversial point of view I accept, but we get hang up on this kind of, you know, this sort of child abuse stuff.

0:25:46 Clip: And to the point where we're, you now, heavily policing even relationships between consenting adults, you know, sort of grad students and professors at universities, this arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent which totally destroys, you know, understanding that many of us have the complexities and subtleties and complicated nature of many relationships, you know, people are messy and complex, and actually in the homosexual world particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming of age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love, and and uh, um, and uh, and a reliable and sort of a rock where they can't speak to their parents, some of those relationships, and you Know what I'm grateful for, Father Michael, I wouldn't give nearly such good head if it wasn't for him.

0:26:43 Thomas: Alright, so that's the clip, by the way, that little sound you heard was someone that didn't have a noise gate configured properly, so the little sound came in, and then HEAVY, it sounded to me like way too much production on the voice there, but anyway, heavily produced voice on one of the guys, and the other guy had like no production value on his voice, so it sounded a little weird. Just the audio editor portion, audio production nerd part of me made that observation first.

But anyway, okay, so this is what went viral and what has people actually finally outraged about things Milo has said. I have to make a weird confession here. These claims to me, these things Mila was talking about are some of the more forgivable things that he has said now. There's some awful things. I think that what he's saying in there about consent is totally wrong, totally terrible. I want to be absolutely clear with that. There's no, you can't consent if you're 13, 14. That consent does not exist. It doesn't matter if you say you consent. If you're 13, 14, 15, if you are underage and you are with an adult, the adult has the responsibility to not engage in that behavior. It does not matter what you say as a 13, 14 year old kid.

There's no such thing as consent in that situation. Making that absolutely clear that is wrong what he's saying. Absolutely. But in some ways, this is the most forgivably wrong that he has been. And I'll tell you why. Because it comes from personal experience. He had a relationship with a priest when he was 14 and he talks about it favorably.

0:28:26 Thomas: And this is weird because there are a lot of people, again, this outrage warranted in many ways. Not at all saying saying it's not. I want to be very precise here, but there are a lot of people who are talking about that component of it. The joke he made about the priest, that component, I actually don't think we should be as outraged about because that is him dealing with something that happened to him. That is a first person experience. And to me, it is weird to take someone who is the victim of a sex crime and take their way of dealing with it and their description of it and maybe a joke they make and criticizing it and saying, no, you, you're not allowed to describe your experience in the way that is true for you.

0:29:13 Thomas: That is really weird to me. I, in a weird way, this is the first thing that Milo has ever said that is somewhat thought-provoking. It's like, it's at least worth thinking about. Nothing else he's ever said is worth thinking about. It's nonsense. It'S worth debunking and just saying, yeah, this IS why this is wrong. This is why this is hateful. This comes from a first person sexual assault experience. He was a victim. I know he says he wasn't. He wasn't a victim because you can't consent at that age. And it was on the adult. It was the adult's responsibility to not engage in this behavior. And this is how he speaks about it. This is his first person view. I mean, you could say that he's confused. You could say he maybe needs some therapy, maybe he needs to think about it differently.

0:30:01 Thomas: But to be outraged at him for describing his first person experience and his truth about his abuse is a little uncomfortable to me to be to be outrageous at that. But nevertheless, outraged people were, and the right kind of people, meaning people on the right, and this was finally too much, and Milo, the guy who I thought could just say anything, and was all about free speech and was just free inquiry, free expression, freedom of speech, say whatever, doesn't matter if you disagree, this was too much for Milo fans, and in short order, very quickly, he lost his CPAC speaking gig. He lost his book deal, and he had to resign from Breitbart. Breitbart! He had to resign from Breitbart! Imagine being too offensive for Breitbart.

0:30:51 Thomas: Amazing. So while, it's interesting, while I ultimately think this is an overreaction to these clips, because I really, I mean, I don't think the stuff he said is worse than stuff he's already said, but it's just different stuff and a different group of people find it bad, so what's what he has deserved all along, which was for him to lose these platforms, it's finally happening, but for interesting and weird reasons to me, but, uh, but it's hard to shed a tear for him because it's really what should have happened all along. But then I see this interview, this New York Times interview, where Bill Maher is taking credit for Milo's downfall. And I just, I facepalmed about as hard as I could when I read that, because Maher, he did nothing to contribute to this.

0:31:41 Thomas: And by the way, he's not the only one making this claim. I'm seeing a bunch of people on social media saying Milo downfall is ultimately vindication for their view of free speech. We ought to give people like Milo platform. We ought let them speak far and wide because, as Bill Maher put it, sunlight is the best disinfectant. And I'm just stunned by how obviously fallacious this reasoning is. What I keep telling people is that it's incredibly easy to picture a parallel universe in which Milo said all the horrible crap he said, all the anti-feminist, anti-trans, anti-you-name-it, all that stuff, minus the one thing he said about his underage relationship with a priest. If he said everything minus that, this Maher interview would have yielded and more of a following.

0:32:26 Thomas: He would still have his book deal, he would still have his position at Breitbart, he would have his speaking engagement at CPAC. He wouldn't have...the sunlight wouldn't have disinfected him. He...would've been fine. He would have more of a following from the millions of people that he was just exposed to by Bill Maher interviewing him. Sunlight only disinfects in these extreme circumstances where there's something like this that people are going to find offensive. Otherwise, what it's doing is shining a light for other anti-feminists or worse yet, maybe people who are on the borderline. There have been plenty of people who will already either love or hate Milo because they hold strong convictions either way. I mean, if you're anti-feminist, you'll probably love him. If you are a feminist or if you are at all sensitive to not being a monster, you'd probably hate him. But there's got to be a lot of people on the margin.

0:33:13 Thomas: People who aren't acquainted with trans people or gay people or feminists or whatever in their everyday lives. You know, people who, because I think that makes a big difference. You haven't been exposed to trans people. You haven'T been exposed through these different segments of society. Society. So a well-spoken, intelligent-sounding guy, and furthermore, he's gay. Oh, how evil could he be if he's part of a marginalized group? Someone like that coming on their TV and making a bunch of horrendously awful bullshit claims that no one can refute all in time. You can never refute as many claims as someone is making because it's just a disadvantage. You're at an information discrimination disadvantage. You can't refute every assumption and claim in someone. It's so much easier for Milo to say trans people disproportionately sex criminals.

0:33:59 Thomas: It is so easy to say that, and he sounds smart, and then he says, oh, it is not controversial. This is not a controversial statistic. Oh, well, it's easy for someone on the margin to say, oh, it is not a controversial. He just said it wasn't controversial, so people must agree on this. That's the problem here. That's what would have happened had it not been for this lucky fact, this totally contingent fact, that in his past he had done an interview or two where he talked about this relationship with a priest that enough people on the right didn't like. Even more absurd than this are the people who are claiming that this is evidence he should never have been deplatformed. Guys, I've got news for you. What's happening to Milo right now, the thing that virtually everyone but a few fundamentalist Milo supporters are supporting, this is deplatforming.

0:34:50 Thomas: Being uninvited from CPAC, that's deplatforming. Having your book deal rescinded, deplat forming. All these things, these are things that if they happened to, like, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, we would have been saying, whoa, deplatforming people is not cool. So if you're saying that what is happening to Milo now is evidence that deplatforming is wrong because, you know, you gave him a platform and he exposed that he actually was horrible and so it all worked out, you're essentially saying, Milo Matt, being deplatformed is good, and it's a reason we should never deplatform people. All of a sudden, when conservatives start deplatforming people, that's not deplat- that's called growing a conscience, that is making a stand, it's not, it is a different thing. This is why the entire Dave Rubin line, you know, the three sentences that essentially make up his entire career, uh, defending my liberal principles has become a conservative position.

0:35:43 Thomas: That's his stock line that is basically all he says over and over. This is why that is such nonsense. Conservatives aren't better at free speech. They are not. They're the same. The tactics didn't change. The reason why Milo is being deplatformed changed into reasons that more people accept. So the argument all along was that people should look at the things Milo has said in the same way that they view these pedophilia comments. Insulting a trans person and calling them a freak and a million other things that Milo has done, those should have already been as offensive as the pedophilia stuff. And then it should have led to deplatforming, and it should've been the kind of deplatforming that everybody agrees is cool, which is happening currently. That's what should've happened all along.

0:36:28 Thomas: So that's the argument. And here's where I want to tie in another argument that people make all the time, that actually, you know, the only reason Milo is around is because of liberals overreacting to him, that's what, and actually, GodlessBellChecker, I had a bit of an interaction with him on this on Twitter, and as usual, what it resulted in was I tried to make a counterargument to something he was tweeting, ran into the limitations of Twitter and thought, hey, you anybody, but he never will. I don't really get why, to be honest with you. It would solve so much because really, he's a brilliant guy. I think Stephen Knight is a really, really, really smart guy. He's really good at what he does.

0:37:14 Thomas: I would love the chance to try to change his mind on a couple of things, or maybe for him to change my mind. It will never happen on Twitter. It just will not happen. Twitter is a place where you can make a few pithy comments. It's not, you can't have an argument there, it doesn't work, it's too short. It takes an hour to be able to tweet as many things as you need to, would take all day. So I'm really sad that he just will never come on the show, he will never be interviewed, it's, it's all, it's about for me is honestly I would love the chance to have a conversation with a guy. But anyway, what he, the claim he made was that Milo would go away tomorrow if liberals had just ignored him in the first, first place. Liberal outrage is what sustained him. And I want to say that this is partially true. There is some truth to that.

0:38:00 Thomas: There are certainly liberal reactions to Milo that have done more harm than good. I grant that. But that isn't enough. You need a following in the first place. Liberal outrage can't sustain an entire career. Everyone was outraged by Bill Cosby, be, but that just ended his career. That ended his public life. He's an absolute pariah. He is not more successful now. You still need a group of people who believe in what you say and are cheering you on. Here's what I think was happening. Here is what I actually think was happening. When it was just anti-feminist, when it was anti-trans and generally awful sentiments, Milo's followers, here is what they were doing. They They were playing a shell game where they pretend it's about free speech.

0:38:47 Thomas: They pretend it is about freedom of expression. And it doesn't matter, they disagree with what Milo says. If you bring up a certain Milo claim, they could just not defend that one. And they could say, he makes sense in other areas, there's certain things I agree with him, it's not about that, sure I don't agree with that one thing, it is more about free-speech. Speech. So they were using liberal outrage and the fake war on free speech, which isn't real, as cover for the fact that they actually liked some of what he was saying or all of it. That's what I think was going on. They actually liked what he Was saying, but they wanted to have this cover for it. Well, you know, I don't agree with everything, but it's more about free speech. Liberals get too outraged.

0:39:32 Thomas: So that's why I support him being on private. No, they actually agree with what he's saying. And here's the evidence of that. Because once it, this should still apply to the pedophilia stuff. If it really were about free speech all along, everybody would just be saying conservatism, Milo fans, which they would be saying, well, I don't agree with everything he says. I don'T agree with what he said about consent, but you know, free speech, you should still be, you know still be platform, still be everything. And admittedly, some people are saying this. I'm not going to say that no one is. Some people are talking like this is just another another dishonest liberal tactic to silence Milo. But a critical mass of people finally aren't willing to defend him. And the reason is because all along it wasn't about free speech.

0:40:18 Thomas: It was that they actually liked what he was saying and they were too scared to admit it to us. This is why someone like David Duke doesn't have a massive following. He's got a following. Sure, there's going to be racists in this country that follow, but he doesn't Have a massive falling because Because what he was saying was too beyond the pale. Kind of like what Milo said recently. Apparently that is too beyond the pale liberals, by the way, outraged by David Duke, but that didn't sustain a David Duke career like Milo's didn't sustained a $250,000 book deal. You also need people who affirmatively believe in your message. This is where I want to point people to an article in Current Affairs by Nathan J. Robinson. This literally came to my attention as I was recording this.

0:41:06 Thomas: It says a lot of the things that I was already thinking, so I'm going to point it out. I promise I didn't plagiarize. Actually someone linked it like mid-recording and I was like, oh great, someone already wrote a lot what I wanted to say. So check that out. I'll link it in the show notes as well. I've linked pretty much everything in the shownotes, so if you want to check out some some of my sources for these things, feel free to do so. But back to this idea that liberal outrage is what was creating Milo, and what we really need to do is stop being outraged by outrageous things. That's the key. I've been starting to think about these things in almost mathematical terms, and I think that lends a little bit of insight to it. And not just mathematical terms, but other terms too. Think about that claim in terms of who you would need to convince, and of what, and what it means.

0:41:56 Thomas: So, rather than trying to convince people who are supporting Milo, and who are actively giving him a platform, and are agreeing with what he says to greater and lesser extents, which, again, often times, the reason I'm arguing with this is because it's assuming that Milo is wrong. So I grant that premise to move forward. You're going to have to grant me that. Assume Milo is wrong, because as most things that I'm talking about, this comes from the left. So it's just like this Trump crap.

It's people on the left saying, here's what you really needed to do about Milo. You really needed to just shut up, and he would have gone away. So from the assumption that he's wrong, that Milo's wrong. You're saying rather than try to get people to realize why he's right, you're saying to get people who are inviting him places and who are cheering him on, by the way, when he harasses trans students, as I already pointed out, rather than try to convince those people who are morally wrong, by those people are wrong to do so, because I'm granting that if you're from that premise, we're going to convince people who are morally correct in being outraged at Milo and being offended by horrible things he's saying, we're going to try to convince those people to stop getting so worked up about it. And which group is more people?

Well, we are already assuming that the problem that he would go away if not for this liberal outrage. So that tells you that the liberals who are outraging have got to be a bigger number than the people supporting him. Again, it's got to start thinking about it like kind of mathematically. It's got be under that assumption. You're saying that, oh, that's what's sustaining him. He would go away.

Well, then what you're saying is you're saying that more people who are morally right already, for the most part, barring, you know, maybe people got violent in protests or something, which I'll talk about later.

0:43:47 Thomas: But for the most people, forthe most part people whoare morally right, they need to stop doing what they're doing, not the people who're morally wrong in a lower number, not try to convince them that they need to stop what they are doing. Seems kind of absurd when you think about it that way. And notice that as we are right here, looking at possibly the end of Milo's career, or at least a huge dent in Milo career, what killed it? Was it people stopping being outraged? Was that what killed? Did everybody just say, oh, we're gonna ignore Milo now? No, it was more outrage. More outrage killed it for Milo. More people became outraged. And then he became deplatformed. And then he lost his job at Breitbart. And they lost his book contract.

0:44:32 Thomas: That's what killed it. More outrage killed him. Now I don't I again, I want to take a minute to say and I'm going to talk about this. I don't mean violent outrage. I never do. I don't believe in violence in any way. I don't I don't even believe in much civil disobedience for stuff like this. Uh, I think there's a, there's... there's a bigger debate that is very nuanced, certainly times that I could see it being very acceptable. But when you're talking about complaining about someone speaking at a college, I think you should protest, hold up your signs, don't get violent, don't break windows, don't do all that kind of thing. But I don't think it's appropriate in that case. I wanna grant... Yeah, sure, there are examples of outrage going too far, of course. There are bad examples of protests going too fa... That all happens. And we can discuss specific examples.

0:45:17 Thomas: One thing to get correct right off the bat, though, that I think a lot of people have wrong is this protest at Berkeley that then, this was only a few weeks ago, where. And there was a ton of misinformation about this. The story that Milo spun, and that a lot of people believed and a lot other people perpetuated, was Milo wanted to talk and then these liberals threw a fit and got violent and burned things and then it had to be cancelled because liberals forced suppression of speech. That's the storyline that a lotta people believe. What really happened is Berkeley still wanted Milo to speak, that Berkeley never withdrew the interview. Milo was never disinvited. But what happened was, and this is a good time to mention, I spoke with Kevin Jenko over at Conatus, or Conatus.

0:46:09 Thomas: I don't know how to pronounce that, I apologize, because I only see it in print. But Conatus News, he interviewed me about the online atheism community. I'm going to link it in the show notes, check it out. But I was talking to him, he actually goes to Berkeley, and and we talked about this. He was there at some of these protests, and what he saw was there's this sort of anarchic movement that comes along to these things, and they wear all black and black masks, and they're just sowing destruction and anarchy. They're not, these are not Berkeley students, they're people who take advantage of a situation and turn violent. And maybe there's some overlap. There's no way I can say for certain none of these people are Berkeley students. But in the, in the opinion of Kevin, who was there, who goes to Berkeley, and, you know, me knowing people who go to Berkeley, it's just, it's, it's not that type of person that goes to Berkeley for the most part.

0:47:05 Thomas: And maybe there's some tiny overlap, we'll never know. But this is a small group of people who go and destroy things and essentially just take the advantage of the situation to be able to do what they want and to just be anarchists, I guess. And that's what's really unfortunate, because the event was canceled by the police. Berkeley never gave in to these protests and decided, "No, we're going to disinvite Milo." The police said, "Well, because of a small number of the protests," there's 1,500 people, people there protesting peacefully, holding up signs. That's the First Amendment. That is free speech. And then there is a small group of people just throwing stuff, being violent, breaking windows.

0:47:52 Thomas: That's unfortunate. I don't know. Here's how I would put the question. To people who are of the opinion that the Berkeley protests that canceled the Milo event is the problem with the regressive left, and the regressive right is making Milo, and they're making it happen and all that. I guess I want to ask, and I mean this genuinely, let me know what you think. What could a group of people utilizing their first amendment rights out there protesting with signs? That's, I think you would already agree, basic protests, nonviolent protests, holding up signs, chanting, all that crap. That's all basic first amendment stuff. I think everyone would agree on that. We're all within our rights to do that. How do people who are exercising their rights and merely providing a voice that goes against Milo's voice that says, you know, we don't want him here, which is totally legitimate, nonviolent protest.

0:48:47 Thomas: The talk can still happen. And actually, I remember, I'm pretty sure Kevin told me that people were disappointed when the talk did get canceled because they kind of want the talk to happen, but also to show that they're against Milo. Like, it actually, that's, it's sort of a symbiotic relationship. But anyway, that aside, what are those people supposed to do if a small group of people dressed in black and black masks comes and starts throwing rocks and breaking windows and ruining property? How do you stop that? How do you make that not happen if you're just a person who is against Milo who wants to hold up a sign? Like, I don't know. It's not like you can take policing into your own hands.

0:49:32 Thomas: It's not like you can make it so those people won't be there. I mean, if you want to make the argument that they shouldn't protest at all because there's some small risk of this happening, I think that as a principle, as a general principle to apply in these situations is way too restrictive of free speech to say you can't protest at all, because someone might take advantage of it. And because you could just do that to any movement you didn't like, get 20 people. That doesn't even take that many people. Any movement you don't like, if there's a rally, a protest, whatever, put on black clothing and a mask and go throw rocks and stuff, you can ruin any cause that way. So that's why the storyline that this is the regressive left ruining everything and the downfall of free speech, it's not.

0:50:20 Thomas: It's a small number of anarchy-inspired people who are ruining something. That's what it is. But back to the larger point. So, the larger point that people make is this hysteria on the left is what is causing Milo. And certainly, I think there's a portion of that that's true. I think there's an percentage of attention that Milo has that he would not if liberals didn't overreact in some ways. Not in every way, in some ways. I think that taking the bait to can happen. I go back to Godless spellchecker who I mentioned I responded on Twitter, this was the Tweet I responded, quick note to Ideologues it wasn't protests, violence, or banning that dealt a fatal blow to Milo's credibility, it was letting him speak.

0:51:06 Thomas: And that's what I disagree with, that's what I said earlier. Banning is actually what happened, banning is what, that's not giving him a, rescinding his book deal, rescind his speaking invite, that is the banning that we're talking about, that is what did it, it's merely the facts, it is merely the things that convince conservatives to ban him that are the issue. So, trying to get people to see that, trying to get more people to say that Milo was already saying things that deserved this kind of deplatforming, that was a legitimate effort. I actually don't think it in the end worked, in the end we got lucky that he happened to say something so horrible that enough people agreed with banning him. Because that's all that happened.

0:51:51 Thomas: Enough people agreed that deplatforming him was appropriate, and that could have been achieved in different ways. Had he never done the speaking about his childhood abuse, had he never done those interviews, had he ever maybe been abused or whatever, to go into alternate histories here, had he never said these small specific things, we wouldn't have the critical mass of people who thought a deplatforming was appropriate. So in the meantime, under that reality, what people were trying to do is protest, is bring awareness to the fact that he was saying things that should disqualify him from getting a platform. That was the work people were doing. It was appropriate, even if, sure, certain people, black bloc protesters, ruined it for some people.

0:52:42 Thomas: I just don't believe that was Berkeley students, and you can believe what you want. Even if it was all Berkeley students, it was still a small, small portion of the otherwise peaceful protest. I look at those as all valid things. They were what we needed to do. They were the only things we could do in the parallel universe where Milo didn't undo himself with these handful of small interviews where he said these things that people found objectionable. There was no guarantee that that would happen.

There wasn't no guarantee. So it's obviously fallacious to argue as though that was the answer all along because we happened to get lucky. I wanna note that Steven Knight, Godless Spellchecker, was not a Milo fan, I don't wanna suggest he was, he also tweeted that he wasn't in favor of giving him a platform to begin with, that's all great stuff, I don't think I disagree with him that much, but I also, I wasn't able to make my point on Twitter because it's freaking Twitter, it's not good for that, so, Steven if you're listening, I'd love to talk to you anytime, anytime, there's so much cool stuff to talk about, just, Twitter sucks, I'm not gonna do it, I make a multifaceted argument over with tweets. It's so frustrating.

There's no guarantee you're going to see all of them, all the tweets. It's I don't like doing it anyway. That's all for Milo. That's you know what? Yeah, that is all for Milo. I highly doubt I'm going to be talking about Milo again. I really think this will be his undoing. He finally went too far for conservatives.

0:54:14 Thomas: So I wanted to deal with that. I didn't know that it was going to take quite so long, but there was a lot of fuzzy thinking that I wanted to clear up, and I get so much response from the Price episode that I don't want to try to squeeze it into like two minutes or five minutes here. So many voicemails. Seriously, thank you guys for the response, it's really overwhelming. It is going to take me a while to sift through it, but I want to do your comments on that. I want you to do an episode talking about your response, and then I had Haeley set about to do some research, but this will be good. I think maybe we can delay it a week and do even more research into what actually does convince people to change their politics and what doesn't.

0:54:59 Thomas: And I think we can pair that together with the response to the Price episode. And I think that'll make a great, fascinating episode. So look for that next week, as well as another great interview on Monday. Oh, really good interview on Monday. Oh, I'm actually going to tease it because it has already been recorded. Ron Miscavige, David Miscavige's dad. I actually got to interview the father of the cult leader in charge of Scientology. Wow, was that interesting. So look forward to that Monday. Incredible stuff. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to everyone who has pledged on patreon.com/seriouspod. That is immensely important, as I just alluded to, being able to continue to to employ Haeley, to do research, being able to continue to do this full-time.

0:55:47 Thomas: Immensely important that you support the show if you see fit. I want to thank my new supporters this week, Taylor Briggs, Mario Mudek, and Johnny Heatley over at patreon.com/seriouspod. Thank you, seriously, you're the reason the show happens. It will stop happening if it doesn't have support, so it's vital. I appreciate your support, and seriously, can't thank you enough. And, of course, I also have to thank my all-time greats, my top patrons who really make the show happen. They are Matt Garrett, Dale, Brian Garefort, Peter Skelton, Steve Sigman, Adrian Borschoff, Roger Metcalf, Adam Hicks, Matthew Maxson, Andrew Waddington, Zabby, Matthew Statton, David, John Bodley, Esquire, Ian Ryan, Ian Rosano, Jonathan Moyet, Kaylee Reiser, Jesse Sakashite, Fukasumi, Michael, Michael Schaffer, and Sammy, and Hunter Ashe.

0:56:38 Thomas: Thank you guys so much for being my top patrons. As I said, show would not happen without you. Really excited for next week. And your support is what makes that all happen. So thank you. patreon.com/seriouspod if you'd like to support the show. With that said, I will see you next week for a really cool interview and the follow up to the price debate the following Thursday. That's my plan. I will. See you then.