SIO43: Debate and Discussion with Dan Arel

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is Thomas Smith and it is episode number 43 here. Okay, man, so much going on guys, really a ton. And first off, before I get to today's show, which was a really excellent conversation I'm excited to give you, there was a hoax paper published by James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian. It was intended to do two things. Well, it was intended to prove that the field of gender studies is bunk. Uh, they didn't end up doing that and they, they kind of changed it. They shifted to it also showing the harm of predatory pay for play, uh, online academic journals. So there's a lot to talk about there. It's a huge issue. It's blowing up. I've tweeted, I've Facebooked a lot about it, but Eli and I did a re first, we did a recording where my plan was to record with him.

0:01:22 Thomas: And then record with James Lindsay and get both sides of it. After recording with Eli for about two hours, during which I thought it was going to kind of be devil's advocate, I thought I had a moderate position I could challenge him on. He completely convinced me and I changed my mind completely. And then we set about to record a tighter, shorter episode that was more concise in order to present the best possible argument so that we could refer this to people who are touting this hoax paper as Sokol version two or something that disproves all of gender studies. So we've done that. That I, I, that's going to be Thursday's episode. I still plan to talk with James. I'm really excited to talk with James about his side of that. So that's, that's really cool. I also want to encourage you guys.

0:02:07 Thomas: If you want to be up with this stuff, follow me at serious pod on Twitter or more, especially facebook.com slash Thomas podcast. That's my profile that I I'm interacting with so many of you on there and I love it. It really is the best place to, uh, to, you know, have our discussions, have our arguments, have our, you know, kind of support each other through all this stuff. I I'm really enjoying being on there and interacting with you guys. So facebook.com slash Thomas podcast is a good place. If you want to kind of be up with me on this stuff before you hear it, you know, as soon as an episode.

0:02:46 Thomas: All right, on to today's episode, which I'm equally proud to bring you because last week had me talking with Michael Shermer, who I look at as he's libertarian, but he's definitely, definitely right-wing friendly to an extent that I'm pretty uncomfortable with. And we debated about free speech and, and all that. And you heard that. This week, I'm almost doing the same debate, but from the other side. It's so interesting. So last week I was debating far to the left of Michael Shermer on this, and then now I'm far to the right of today's guest, Dan Arel, on free speech. And it's fascinating. So I think it's going to be a really cool kind of one-two punch to give you guys on this show. I need to say this about Dan. And Dan, if you're listening, I think, you know, I made my views clear.

0:03:32 Thomas: Hopefully you won't be offended by this or anything. I strongly, strongly disagree with a lot of what Dan says on online social media and all that kind of stuff. I strongly disagree with it. We talked for like an hour and a half. I edited it down, you know, to like 80 minutes or something. And we didn't get to probably a 10% of what we could have. So I just want to emphasize, and by the way, this is a couple of weeks old because of just how much has been going on in the podcast world. I want to emphasize that if there's something that you've heard Dan say or you've seen him say and you're like, Thomas, why didn't you challenge him on that? I'm sorry. It could have been after this or it could have been due to time constraints. But please do not take that as some sort of endorsement of that statement. There's a lot he has said that we didn't get to that I really find completely disagreeable.

0:04:22 Thomas: So with that said, we did try to hash out a lot of our differences. And I upon talking to Dan. He turns out to be an incredibly pleasant person to talk to, a great guest, someone I would have back on. So maybe we'll, we'll be able to hash out more of these things, but- All right. In the meantime, here's my discussion with Dan Arel.

0:04:49 Thomas: Joining me now is Dan Arel. First time on the podcast I think. How are you doing today, Dan?

0:04:54 Dan: I'm doing well. Thank you for having me on.

0:04:56 Thomas: No problem. I, yeah, so I'm not totally sure what to, what to do. I've, I've been, because I've seen you in some, some, you spats and this and that. And And it occurs to me that I feel like you and I likely probably agree on a lot of stuff, um, and maybe maybe uniquely so, because I, I in particular, I have been doing battle against Dave Rubin and and people who are really allowing a kind of a free speech narrative to to spread whatever odious bullshit right-wing views they think they want to spread. Anyway, um, but at at the same time, I see a lot of stuff you say and tweet, and I think like, I don't know, he's going a little too far. So I don't know, I think maybe we might be uniquely positioned to try to see if we can find some common ground and then see if мы can work out what's going on. So what do you think? Is that a fair characterization?

0:05:46 Dan: Wonderful. I think it's fair and I think that we're probably going to agree more than you think. It's just the lack of nuance Twitter allows half the time in one tweet that probably drives the divide, but we'll chat about it.

0:05:59 Thomas: Yeah, there's lack of nuance that Twitter allows, and then there's, you tweeting explosive, explosive, purposefully, you controversial thing, so I don't know, I mean, because we could just start off, like, you tweeted that all police are terrorists several times, I mean, you can't blame Twitter for that one, that was a lot shorter than 140 characters. What are you talking about here?

0:06:20 Dan: Yeah. It's so it's, it's purposely hyperbolic, it's, I, I I went for, and and really, if you follow back to the thread, I, so what happened was, ICE posted a a tweet of their own, so you know, that ICE, I think most people are familiar, but you know, the law enforcement agency that's going out and and and grabbing immigrants and getting them deported and arrested and all this. So they've been a massive problem. So they tweeted out a picture of an ICE agent kind of standing, looking out over the water. And it said, "Not all heroes wear capes."

0:06:26 Thomas: Yeah, sure,

0:06:57 Dan: And I replied, tweeted to it, you spelled terrorist wrong.

0:07:03 Dan: And now that got lots of retweets. I mean, people know what you're talking about when you're saying that about ICE, uh, because people look at them as as terrorizing neighborhoods, as terrorising households and families and ripping them apart, so no one really looked at that and thought, oh, he's going too far. Well, I mean, I'm sure some people did but whatever, like, so I was engaged by somebody who then said, "You, how can you say that, you're, you know, you're like some sort of lunatic," and I said, "Well, they're terrorizing households, families like I just said now," and he said, "Oh, I agree with that." And then he was like, "You know, I have family who are cops, I thought you were calling all cops terrorists."

And I, sort of over the top, we replied to him and said, "All cops are terrorists." Uh, to but to elaborate on that, to make it make more sense, is that if you look at the police force as a whole, not the individual, you're looking at an organization that is created to uphold whatever the status quo, or whatever the, you know, ruling party has deemed to be law and order. And especially if you talk to people of color and, you know, the marginalized communities who don't see a police officer and think, "Oh, I feel safe now." Like if I'm walking in a neighborhood and I feel sketched out and then I see a police officer as a white male, my first thought is, "Oh, I'm good."

0:07:21 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, that Yeah, see, that's where yeah go on, I

0:08:33 Dan: If you're a black male, that's not your first thought. It's that you're scared of of that person. And I'm speaking very generally. I'm sure there are plenty that don't feel that way. But if you're talking around the country right now and the temperature of how do these minority groups feel about law enforcement, they don't feeling very favorable. They feel scared. Am I going to get in trouble? Am I to be shot? And they're seeing what looks at least looks like an escalation in police violence. So these communities, and I've tried to talk to them, And that's where a lot of my opinion came from, is that they feel terrorized by this police force, regardless of if that one individual cop may be the nicest person on the planet who does not plan on pulling their gun.

0:09:23 Dan: You can't just assume that they have to have the assumption that this is dangerous and I need to remove myself from the situation. And then they see something happen like in Ferguson, and then the police show up in armored vehicles with heavy machinery and start firing at them, and start, you know, you know, there's tear gas and there's all this happening, that doesn't feel like a protective force, that starts to feel like an oppressive force. And so while I'll grant that tweet was over the top, it is very reflective of what the police force is, is acting as right now.

0:10:00 Thomas: Not worry about loss of credibility when you tweet something like that? I means, that yeah, sure, if someone takes the time to try to fully understand you, to invite you on their podcast and fully understand what you're talking about, I mean, I still, ultimately, I, I disagree with with a lot of those sentiments, I think that, well, anyway, well, I'll get to that later, but but even disregarding that, I, I mean, if I kind of agreed with the full message, don't you worry about, I mean, it just, it strikes me that there's... there's so much, there's such an elevation of hyperbole and sanctimony going on in a lot of this, and it, and I worry that all it's going to do is get the people who agree with you to be like, "You know, fuck yeah," and everybody else to belike "Fuck this weirdo who thinks police is, or terrorists," like, it doesn't, do you feel like it's reaching anybody? I mean, I, I, I, certainly, personally, my my opinion is it's highly unlikely to be changing minds, but what do you think about that?

0:10:54 Dan: I don't worry about that so much because, no matter what, I mean, I could say anything, and someone's going to take, I could say, you know, the police are the most wonderful thing we have on the planet, and I'm going to have the same amount of pushback from the other side, but

0:11:06 Thomas: Yeah, but you don't have to go to that extreme. I mean, you can just say that, yeah, go ahead.

0:11:09 Dan: You don't have to. Yeah. But I don't see, I don't generally think about things in the sense of, Oh, what are people going to think about me after I say it? Maybe I should, But I don't like it's not.

0:11:20 Thomas: Well, but surely you would agree. I mean what, then what, what are you doing? Like what, I guess maybe that was a more basic question I should have had. Like, I feel like I know that from you that you have a lot of very far, far left ideals deals that I would agree with probably a lot of them, that you would like to see this world be better, this country be better in a lot ways. So, like, what are you doing? Arel you just, do you, if you're approaching it that way, like are you just entertainment then? Arel you just you don't care what people think? Like, go ahead, I'll let you. But

0:11:49 Dan: No, it pushes. It did. And it very much did so. And for people that were willing to engage, and not everyone is. So, I mean, I think that goes with everything. But that did start the next conversation in which I said, my ideal world doesn't have a police force. And then the conversation went there, and it was a big long debate about, well, what would a world without a police, you know, for like, you know, a police as we know it, force look like? And that's where the conversation was. So, quickly, really, what I saw on my timeline was the disappearance of, "wow, he went crazy with this terrorist tweet," to "wow, this guy doesn't think we need police, what's he on about," and then that conversation started, and so

0:12:37 Thomas: I mean just to offer as proof of this maybe, somebody like Steven Knight, yeah, the spell checker, who you've definitely had, apparently have a beef going with, uh, yeah, like he's somebody that I think probably, like, am, like, somewhere between, like, if, if you're far, far, far left, and I'm, I'm left, and he's, I think, I think he's plenty on the left, but maybe slightly more willing to enable certain, uh, certain voices that I wouldn't, like, I would, I would put us, but very clustered in terms of, well, you're, you're pretty far left, but I would

0:12:40 Dan: Who it doesn't

0:13:12 Thomas: Put me and and Steven Knight, in my opinion, my just my guess, my judgment, from what I know of him and talking to him, it's pretty close to me, and and yet, you know, you, you've completely alienated this guy and his entire, you know, 50,000, I don't know, so he has a lot of followers, and and I just wonder, like, that's got to be some proof to you that maybe this, this approach can backfire, like the no

0:13:40 Dan: To the only, to the degree that when I compare the way I view the world as compared to Steven, I don't think we're on the same plane at all, like I, I think maybe

0:13:49 Thomas: I don't think you are I think me and Steven kind of are

0:13:52 Dan: But I I thank you, might be even wrong there, because if I, when I look at the bulk of, and I don't want to spend too much time on him, I try not to really, but and I'll even use this even more broadly, like the people that share in his view, his worldview, his viewpoint, tend to look at the left as the absolute enemy of everything. So when it comes to their battle against, uh, radical Islam, their biggest enemy to combat in that fight always seems to be the left. When it becomes, when it come to free speech, the battle is against the left, not Not against the Nazi saying – or the

0:13:52 Thomas: Sure that that's fine that's fun like that's where you and I totally agree yeah yeah

0:14:31 Dan: Racist saying racist things or the white supremacist. They run over there and say, whoa, whoa, the left, you're the enemy. So I think when you're consistently making the left your enemy, but then you say, look, I am fine, or I think same-sex marriage is wonderful, I think women's rights – and they label all these left views or even liberal views that they agree with, but then the the left is the outright enemy, and they put them on that pedestal of, you know, they enable all these horrible things. Honestly, if he tells me he thinks I'm crazy, I, that rolls right off my back, because people like that but

0:15:09 Thomas: But I mean, there's a lot of numbers there, I mean, it's, I just mean in terms of worrying about whether your theory of this is sparking a larger conversation is working. I mean, you can point to the, the people you say were in that thread, you know, saying, oh, what do you mean by this?

And, and sure, that looks like some amount of success, but how many more people were there who are like, look at this madman saying all police are terrorists, I'm blocking this guy, or I'm shutting down, I'm not going to listen to him, like, I'd be, I just want, like, because, because it might, with what you're saying, I, I think that there needs to be, if we get to the meat of what you are actually saying, if we want to, like, yeah, there needs to be plenty of police reform, I think the war on drugs is, and by the way, that's, that's just getting rolled backwards now with Sessions.

Like, this is a disaster, um, there's a lot going on there, but I don't think that the force of police, like, the, I think it's too simplistic to say that their whole purpose is to enforce, like, some right-wing law and order or something. I mean, like a lot of what they're doing is merely money based. Like it's not even, you, they spend most of their time giving people fucking parking tickets for like $300, you know, to just extract money out of us. I mean, there's a lot to call

0:16:27 Thomas: Them terrorists.

0:16:27 Dan: That that Also, I think that depends on where you live, though, like when I grew up in New Hampshire I grew up in New Hampshire that's all they were

0:16:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, but that's what I, I mean, like a lot of the, we're talking about the police force, like, you're, you know, and it's, if you want to say, okay, in certain cities they are over policing black neighborhoods, you can fit that into a tweet, like, you can, you can sit, a a, an accurate view, like, and even a very critical view, of the, you know, you can put that into a tweet without saying police are terrorists

0:16:37 Dan: Right Arguably, yes, you could, um, but, uh, but if you think of it as the whole, though, so, like I said, I grew up in New Hampshire, all they do is give speeding tickets, that's their job, like, there's no, there's very little crime, it's, you know, the biggest crime is like a drunk guy yelling at his neighbor, uh, it wouldn't take a lot for that to change overnight and for those same exact cops, cops, to then be over-policing black neighborhoods. If, by, for some reason, people of color said, "hey, let's all move to freezing cold New Hampshire," and, uh, hate our life, and they did, so you're going to see a dramatic shift, because that's just seems to be the norm. When neighborhoods turn black, the police force become overbearing, and they, they push back, and they don't, you know, cause these are, these are police officers, aren't from these, these, these neighborhoods, neighborhoods, you know, like you have, like, if you look at just Compton, these white policemen that are policing Compton don't live in Compton, they're driving to Compton there

0:17:06 Thomas: Right there's a lot of policemen of color, and men and women of color there I mean

0:17:57 Dan: Are but I mean, even if you talk to people of color, they, some, they're, they don't look at them quite the same, and I can't, at this point, I have to, I cannot speak for, you know, people of colour and their views of cops of colour, but, uh, I mean, you can just go google how they feel about that, and, uh, it's pretty powerful I

0:17:58 Thomas: Yeah yeah I mean, there's, yeah there's, it's, I think we, we are in somewhat of agreement on some of the issues. I just, the, the part where you go all the way to, let's abolish the police and their, police are, I mean, I just feel like we can move on from this, but I don't know, I, I feel like more, more harm than good in your message

0:18:30 Dan: I, I will grant you I have a very far left view of of the world, and, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I don't want there to be a police force. I want there to be community-based, uh, peacekeeping missions that are democratically run by that community, and that's a whole hour podcast on its own, most likely, but

0:18:31 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah well I All right, yeah, we don't want to get into that whole separate discussion, but all right. But But let's move on to what I think is an area where we're going to strongly disagree, which is, you punching Richard Spencer. You know, because I, I was very alarmed that this was going to be novel ground. Like, when, when this happened and I came on and said, guys, are we really advocating violence for speech? And a lot of people said, yes. It's like, oh, we are. OK, that That's horrifying to me. I think it's a horrible idea. I don't know. Why don't you, I don't, maybe if you want to give your views on it and then we can go from there.

0:19:16 Dan: Sure.

0:19:26 Dan: I still, I kind of laugh that we're even talking about it still because it's like this one-off event that happened what, three months ago, and we haven't seen a heightened, Nazis are being punched all over the street now. We can, we can, and if you want, we can talk more about, you know, the escalation of violence we have seen, but I don't think that's related to the punching of Richard Spencer. For Richard Spencer, I think it was an opportunistic use of force against somebody who, if we're going to say, if anyone deserved to be punched, Richard Spencer is probably pretty high on that list for the things he's advocated for and the things she's said. And someone saw an opportunity and took it.

0:20:11 Dan: And I'm not going to shed a single tear that Richard Spencer's face hurt for a day or whatnot. Uh, now that doesn't mean, and I, I've tried to explain this in in different dialogues and different things and it just seems to kind of fall flat on its face, people don't want to hear it, that we're not advocating for just running around punching anybody that's wearing a Make America Great Again hat or that just says I don't like black people. It's that person that is a message. Punching Richard Spencer sent a message that, you know, his neo-Nazi views are not welcome in our society and aren't going to be tolerated, and we're not just going to yell at you that you're wrong, we're willing to fight to stop your views from spreading. And what is is indicative.

0:20:58 Thomas: You fight to stop a view from spreading, do you really think that Nazi groups are on the rise, like it's, it's, there's no, you're not that. That didn't, that's not going to make a difference. That's just going to strengthen them like that. Like, for example, let me give you, let me give an example. You, you mentioned the silence that is on the rise and you seem to think it's not to Spencer. I would, I would argue that it might be. And the Antifa, you know, anti-fascist movement is on the rise. There was an example that I've brought up before right here in Sacramento, where there, there was a small, nothing group of shit-kicker white supremacists who decided they wanted, they registered for like an allotted time of protest time at the Capitol, right? And, you know, 'cause I'm in Sacramento, it's, you know, and, uh, they, they would have been, there literally was like 10 of them.

0:21:01 Dan: You scare. Yeah, they are.

0:21:50 Thomas: Like if that, there's just a, there, there are nothing group that no one gives a shit about. They decided, and they put on, I guess somehow they put it on Twitter, their social me, they announced that we're going to have this time where they're just going to hold some jack off signs and, you know, just stuff that nobody cares about. I get it's offensive, I'm not saying it's not offensive, it's definitely offensive, they're horrible people, but it was 10 of them, and then the anti-fascists came, and they came with their sticks and their black gear and all that, they coordinated online and they come and beat the shit out of people, and uh, one of of the neo-Nazis got, I think, stabbed, and one of the, I mean, there were injuries on both sides, and they created an entire shit storm, and they creating a massive visibility for something that was going to be nothing.

0:22:39 Thomas: Like it literally was going be 10 assholes holding signs and doing a little chants that no one would notice. No one cares. They're a marginalized view. And it, well, all in California, we can talk about that maybe another, and at least in this uh arena, and and anti-fascists came and using violence, they galvanized the other side, they gave them immense visibility, they allowed them to look like the victims in the situation, and it, and it ultimately did, in my opinion, way more harm than good. So what is, I just don't see fighting and violence as an effective means of containing this kind of thing

0:23:16 Dan: Now, to me, that sounds like poor strategy on Antifa's side. And so here's the, here's thing. And it's something really worth talking about is that we haven't heard much about Antifa or black block in the U.S. until recently. Like you don't really hear about it, but if you look at Europe, you know, Greece and places like that, they're massive. And they're incredibly well organized and they're incredibly structured, and when violence breaks out it's more pocketed and it's more of defense, and I mean, to really go there, they have issues of white supremacists literally shooting at houses of Antifa members. Their violence is much bigger, but they have a much further, further right-wing nationalist movement that's trying to take

0:23:20 Thomas: I'm

0:24:06 Dan: Power. And Antifa is literally fighting a much bigger battle. Here it's relatively new, it's been around but it hasn't been that active. I mean, you, you've got like the 80s and 90s punk shows where these people would show up and, you know, anti-racist action would, you know, maybe get into a fistfight with skinheads or just push them out of the club, but so you have a young organization and people joining quickly that want to get involved, and I think we're gonna have problems like Sacramento, but then if we look at Pikesville, who had uh a Nazi So pikes will just had a neo-Nazi rally and they had announced that it's gonna be big numbers, and the media caught on to this when they announced it, and so it already, even before Antifa said anything, it had already started gaining that uh media steam, steam, that, you know, we're coming to Pikesville and we're taking over, and they even posted like instructions online about how to make your American flagpole uh, you know, easily accessible as a weapon, like an Easy way to tear off so

0:24:39 Thomas: Not familiar with this. What happened, yeah.

0:25:07 Thomas: But Antifa does that too, like they're, I mean cute

0:25:10 Dan: But I'm not, no, I'm not saying that that they're not, but what I'm saying is, so then Antifa showed up in a huge, I mean, large massive protest along with these, like a group that uh, I can't remember what they call themselves, but they're like red, they had necks against white supremacy, is sort of what they call themselves. And when they got there, they realized that the white supremacist crowd was like nothing. And so what did they do? They shouted them down. They just outnumbered them. They didn't engage in a fight. They stayed across the street.

0:25:27 Thomas: See that's fine, yeah.

0:25:41 Dan: And they outshone them.

0:25:42 Thomas: Like shouting down is fine, yeah, right.

0:25:44 Dan: Right. Because what happened was they got their, they realized what they were confronting wasn't what the white supremacy had thought they were going to bring. And so they changed tactic, tactic, and their tactic wasn't, "You're not taking our city from us." It's, "No, we're just going to yell at you and no one's going to even know you're here." And they did that, I

0:25:59 Thomas: That's fun, but there's a ton of example, and and I mean, do you support what the Antifa and black block did in Berkeley for Milo? I mean, they created five hundred thousand dollars worth of damage for people who had nothing to do with anything. Like, is that something you support? I mean, I, I'm against violence black

0:26:18 Dan: Support I support what they did, because of what Milo was trying to accomplish that night. Milo made it clear that night that he was going to not only, you know, docks and completely out immigrant students at that school, but he was supposed to teach that crowd how to do the same and report them to ICE and get them kicked out. So he went with a, "This is going to be my message that night," and I'm going to actually hurt students' lives, ruin students' lives, hurt families, and black block showed up and said, "No, you're not." And to me, to look at

0:26:54 Thomas: Block showed up and said, let's ruin things because a lot of us are just anarchists who don't give a shit about anybody. I mean, it's it's pretty optimistic to paint these black block people, which you can't identify, they still haven't been identified, any of them, as having this coherent, noble message. Like, that's the, that's the problem with being, being anonymous and rioting. You don't know who's who and who stands for what. And they, a lot of them just rioted. Like they just caused chaos. And by the way, long after it was shut down, like the event got canceled, it wasn't as though everybody, you know, that you're paying as these noble heroes who wanted to shut down who, by the wait, Milo's awful. I hate Milo. I've covered this extensively.

0:26:55 Dan: Right

0:27:40 Thomas: I don't think he should be allowed to speak. We can talk about about that. But after it was canceled, this went on, like most of the damage was after it was canceled. They went out around Berkeley away from the school and damaged the, you know, the town. Like they're not, that's, that'S absurd. I mean, it's innocent people getting hurt for no reason, even after they accomplished their goal.

0:28:01 Dan: Into the voice of the unheard, I mean, you've make great excuses for continuing it or moving it on, but I also wasn't there, I don't know what the energy was like, I don't know what the pushback, you know, that they felt from the other side, and things escalate, and I think that they did go because here's the thing, I do believe they have a noble cause and they have that constraint, because you don't see them showing up when Peraldo Rivera, it goes to talk somewhere, they're not showing up just to show up but

0:28:31 Thomas: A lot of them are attracted where they know there's going to be a riot. Like it's kind of a, it'S kind of A feedback loop.

0:28:35 Dan: That's, I don't think that's the, I think they're attracted to that because they're, if we don't talk about, but they're bringing that knowing that Milo needs to get shut down. And we're going to, if we go there and stand, so real quick, before you do move on, look at UC Davis.

0:28:42 Thomas: Okay. So let's talk No, I don't want to move on from the topic. I was just going to talk about the fact of Milo. But sorry I interrupted. Go ahead. UC Davis, tell me.

0:28:54 Dan: Okay. But no, no, so Like, look at UC Davies, Black Block showed up at UC Davies to shut Milo down. But the strategy of just lining up in front of the building and being a presence was enough. And there was no riot. It And even though the people tried to put out reports that there were, you know, injuries and damage after the fact, the cops came out and said no, there, there wasn't at all, like, everyone, everything was fine, and they shut it down without using any sort of property damage tactic. When they got to Berkeley, the same thing had been tried, and they kept pushing that they were going to have the event. And so Black Block came prepared, and as they say, they say by any means necessary to shut the, the event down. And when the event looked like it was going to go on even with their presence, they moved to the next level and they got the event shut down.

0:29:50 Thomas: So ultimately, if Milo hadn't finally said... I just did a thing on this somewhat recently, depending on when this airs. But I hate Milo, I don't think he should be allowed to speak because he's specifically targeted students before. I think that universities ought to have the right to at least police speech where there's an incredible, legitimate threat to student safety, which there is in Milo. I don't think the same can be said for Ann Coulter. So that might be a place where we could talk. But I don't trust mobs of people to decide which speech is okay.

And it sounds like you have a lot of faith in mobs and that they're doing The right thing, and they're all at heart of gold. They're just trying to... I don't have that faith in mob. I think that, that riots are, I mean, I know that I, I don't think they're all, I'm not a far right. Like, they're always a bad idea. I think there are certainly times when it, when, if you, if there's nothing else you can do, if you're being killed by police, if your, you know, I get that you have to cause a disturbance because no one listens.

Otherwise I get dat. I'm, I, you must always protest in the way that I decide, not at all. But when it comes to Milo and where he's just making, he's just talking, like, he's not, there's no, it's not like police brutality where people are getting shot, he's just saying words that are really stupid that you can respond to with words. I don't, I don't

0:30:31 Dan: It.

0:31:19 Thomas: T Trust, and if not Milo, the next person, the next speaker, I don t trust a faceless crowd of people to decide that for me, like, to decide, okay, you don't get to exercise your First Amendment rights because, by the way, it actually, you know, you maybe you need to clarify if you're, you don't support the First Amendment as written. But it does protect, uh, the right of Milo to speak at Berkeley. Yeah.

0:31:44 Dan: Does, and I don't think that should change. I don't want our government ever deciding what's good speech and bad speech, because one great, wonderful liberal government one day can say, you, Nazi speech is terrible, we're gonna ban it, and then they lose power and the far right takes place and says, says, all liberal and leftist speech is bad and it's banned.

0:32:05 Thomas: Right.

0:32:05 Dan: I don't want the government doing that at all. I want them to say we're not going to restrict your speech as a government, and Coulter should never be arrested for what she says, and, let you know, Richard Spencer should not be arrested for what he says unless he says go out and kill these people, as we already, you know, that law is established. I don't want that changed, I, I leave it up, and you call it a mob, I call, I'm gonna say, say, I have a lot of faith in society to say we're not going to tolerate this kind of speech, but

0:32:33 Thomas: That's A weird faith to have, given that society just elected Donald Trump president. I don't have Your Faith. That's

0:32:38 Dan: Not By But Not by a majority, but But Yeah But No We Do Have Well

0:32:41 Thomas: Okay, but you, but, but That That Might Might be True But Boy Arel you, you're, though, because, I mean, you give the example of, yeah, the rights and power they decide one thing, so that's why you don't want the First Amendment change, but your, your solution has the same problem. As soon as the mobs become, uh, stopping anyone who's pro-gay, right, stopping anyone who speaks out against Trump, as soonas they become that, then all of a sudden you have no recourse, you have absolutely no recource other than to say, oh, wait, wait, no, actually, it's not right, uh, First Amendment, which is, which is hypocritical, and and there's a reason that that isn't the best way to defend something. It's not my way when it's going well, and when it's not going well, never mind. So that has the same issue. Do you trust that we're always, I mean, polarization is getting worse, Fox News and Breitbart are getting more influential, I mean, do you trust that it's always going to be the case that you're going to have the right kind of people in these riots?

0:33:34 Dan: No, I think what we're looking at now is both sides of society showing up. So if you look at, uh, what was the before Coulter spoke, at, oh, Spencer's speech at Berkeley, I think, or I'm Sorry. Even, Like even, um, the May 4th or March 4th rally for for Trump, you've got both sides of society showing up to say we're right, you're wrong, you're right, we're wrong. And I think what we have to, we haveと do our best at, and I think we all try, and is what side that we join is the side fighting for good. And that's always going to be the case no matter what, you know, no matter how we deal with problems, even if we do it vocally or through the election system, it's the same exact thing. People are going to join the side they think is right and make their voice heard.

0:33:45 Thomas: Richard Spencer? He didn't speak.

0:34:23 Thomas: Yeah.

0:34:23 Dan: What we have now is we have people like Spencer, who, you know, we, I think we both agree is an abhorrent human being, I mean, he's, he's called for the, uh, pushing out of black people and said it may be bloody and violent, but if that's, if that's what accomplishes our means, that's going to be what it is, uh, he's published things that talk about, are black people useful, how do we ethnically cleanse our country of people Of color. He's He's An Awful Person.

0:34:49 Thomas: He's an awful person. No argument for me. Me. Yeah.

0:34:51 Dan: We've Got him there, um, So now society's reacting to that, and I'm not saying that we couldn't be on the, on the marginalized side of that where we show up and there's 10 of us and a hundred of them, that's I Mean Keep

0:34:52 Thomas: Yeah. So What Arel You gonna Do when that happens, all of a sudden your principles Will change, but In The Meantime You could be getting killed, or property, or your, your property could be the one that's always damaged, or your, you know, your loved ones could be being injured, I mean, people die in these things, and you're trusting that this is always gonna, we're talking About mostly California.

0:35:06 Dan: Show, keep Showing up, keep Fighting, it, that's what You, you got to Do, are These Arel These, not ideas Worth fighting for, though. Well

0:35:27 Thomas: There You don't, but you don't fight and win in this way, like, nobody, okay, let's talk about a marginal person. And by marginal, I mean, they could go either way somehow on this. If you're talking about trying to influence the world for the better, they're not going to look at a physical, violent contest between two masked, faceless groups and say, okay, this is how I'm going to adjudicate who I vote for next election. That's not how it's going to work. We have to win in a battle of ideas. It just doesn't produce any change.

0:36:01 Dan: Here's, here's where things get a little tricky, and I'm, I'm going to, then I think the leftist in me is about to come out here, but, that this is where things get hazy, and it becomes, you know, like you just said, you're not going to sway an election this way. One thing to keep in mind, Black Block, Antifa, and such, aren't looking to sway elections, I mean, if you look at Black Block's march through Washington, D.C., their big giant sign in the front read "No more elections," like You So You've Got But What I'm saying is you've Got a group coming out that doesn't care about what the liberals think about them and so

0:36:29 Thomas: Okay, I think that's kind of a distraction because I only said what the liberals think about it. Well, then what is the goal? Because the first, okay, so on one side of this, you're saying these are some noble people who are going to accomplish the great goals, and so that's why it's okay that they break things and hurt, hurt people, and now you're saying well, they don't care about what you think, like how do I trust that I'm never, this is, this is why it's foolish to advocate this, yeah.

0:36:39 Dan: Yeah so so this is, so, and I see what you're saying, and the way I should frame it is they're not looking for approval of their actions, because what you have is, I think about, okay, okay, Black Bloc broke some windows on Election Day. And some of the funniest memes out there were like liberals crying over a broken window, literally, at the same time that literally, like, some tyrants being sworn in. And their biggest problem is, so what we're looking at, lots, lots of people, of

0:37:32 Thomas: Well, I don't I mean that's how many, yes, if people were complaining about windows then, then sure they're idiots, but there's footage and footage and footages of liberals crying literally over Donald Trump being elected and ruining our fucking country who

0:37:48 Dan: Course. But what we have is they're interested, interested in doing right and they

0:37:53 Thomas: Is who is they, sorry, what are you talking boy

0:37:55 Dan: I'm sorry, Black, Black Block Antifa, so and but so they're looking at our goal so

0:37:58 Thomas: That's a bold claim, you don't even know who these people are, like we literally don't know who they are because that's by definition what they're doing, and you're, you're willing to vouch for all of them, all

0:38:12 Dan: But their goals are, to an Antifa, I mean Antifa dates back to the 1920s, and it's the goals of Antifa to stop the spread of Nazism, and, or call it what you want. We can call it white supremacy. People don't like the word Nazi often. So to stop the spread of far-right white supremacy, of fascism, which is really growing in popularity. I mean, a lot of the alt-right don't shy away from calling themselves a fash. That's what they've nicknamed themselves, which fash just stands for fascist.

0:38:43 Thomas: Right that's that's something you don't have to sell me on, I agree that the alt-right is very problematic and is, is bordering on white nationalism a lot of the time, and

0:38:45 Dan: Right So this group Isn't looking for Your vote or approval They're looking to stop What they're deeming a horrible evil In which we know what their end goals are

0:39:04 Thomas: I'm saying that what they are doing is not going to accomplish that. All it's going to do is galvanize them and make them look like the victims. It's going make white supremacists who don't get to talk look like victims. It's gonna make Dave Rubin invite them onto their show for millions of people to watch, because poor them, they didn't get the talk because someone blocked their thing. I just don't think that it solves that. And furthermore, when we're talking about principles, I think you can't it around how hypocritical you're going to have to be if it swings the other way. Like the minute this swings the another way and the Black Bloc groups are going against what you believe in, all of a sudden you're gonna wish there was some recourse you had to stop them. And I think if I remember what you said correctly, your idea is it's an idea worth fighting for, so we're gonna have to beyond the streets fighting with these people.

0:39:57 Thomas: How about we just let the rule of law prevail, and that's probably a term you're not gonna, gonna like, let the rule of law prevail, and have, we can protest, sure, we can be out there chanting, yelling, signs, all that, of course, but when it comes to actually changing what people are thinking, I said earlier, I said swinging elections because that was a shorthand for actually affecting how people think, we fine if they don't want elections, whatever, I'm just, whatever, however you want to measure changing minds, because that's what we're talking about. If no minds were going to be changed either way, then there's no point to any of this, like, so what, that's what we're worried about

0:40:04 Dan: But we're not I'll say we I always say we Excuse me for being in black block I'm not But the left, the Antifa, the black block Aren't looking to change A mind That's not we're not looking to change.

0:40:39 Thomas: Yeah see that so that's pointless so that

0:40:49 Dan: We're not looking to changed Spencer's or his, but we're looking to push them back, to be afraid to come out and spread their ideas. And if we keep showing up and keep saying we're going

0:40:49 Thomas: So what's the point you just said spread their ideas so when I said minds are at stake, you're worried about them changing people's minds, so you are worried about minds being changed, it's

0:41:03 Dan: I'm worried about I'm worrying about them recruiting and bringing voices to people because I don't think they change many minds. The thing is, like, I hear, like, I heard someone say, like, all the left, you know, is making these white nationalist look like, like, you know, heroes, or these, if, if suddenly a Nazi being punched makes you want to be a Nazi, I think you might've been one already. I don't, I don't think you look at someone and say, like, oh, like they got punched, while I hate black people now. That's not where minds are being changed. I think for the most part, Americans already know this is bad and they like liberal America wants nothing to do with it.

0:41:36 Thomas: Will but well, well then if no minds are are being changed then so

0:41:42 Dan: If

0:41:43 Thomas: This is the contradiction of what you're saying, because you're saying you want to stop the spread of this ideology. If there's no spread to the ideology, you don't need to stop it in the first place. If, if you knew for a fact, let me, let me ask you a hypothetical, let's talk about those 10, 10 uh shit kicker white supremacists at the Capitol, if you know for a fat that they are changing zero people's minds, what are you bothering to do anything for, I mean yeah

0:42:09 Dan: They knew for a fact they weren't, you're like I said, I think that was probably a terrible strategy. But it's not the changing the mind. It's the finding that person that doesn't know you're there to come to you.

0:42:13 Thomas: You you and okay, and so there you go, I would say being able to paint yourself as a victim is a more galvanizing force. So if all we're talking about is not changing minds, but kind of activating, I would say a picture of, uh, well, I guess we could take Richard Spencer, or we could take Milo not being allowed to speak, being able, able to paint it as these people are anti first amendment, which by the way, is a big part of this country. I mean, to, to be able to pain one side as anti-American preventing the freedom of your speech, that's a galvanizing force. If you're talking about not changing minds, you're talking about motivating people. So I think it's going to do more harm than good.

0:43:00 Dan: Think they're going to play the victim no matter what we do. I think if we showed up, let's say everyone showed up at Berkeley and just stood in a line behind a barrier and sang loud songs and said, you know, we don't want you here. And the cops said, wow, this is a big crowd. I feel like this could go somewhere, even if nobody there was even remotely prepared to bring violence. They only wanted to be a solidarity force. And it got canceled. Milo's going to play the victim. I

0:43:28 Thomas: Well, yeah, because you're canceling, but well, yeah. But I'm saying, unfortunately, as much as I hate Milo, So barring the idea that we adopt a policy, which I think we should, I think universities, or some, I'm not sure how it would need to work legally, but there needs to be a precedent that you can stop someone, that youcan disallow someone to speak at your university, even if you're, you know, government, whatever, if they threaten specific students. Barring that, let's talk about Coulter though. Let's use, let's use Ann Coulтер because that was canceled as well. There's different, different facts of the matter, because that's someone who I think should be allowed to speak. And you think should be what, prevented, again, I thought I saw a tweet, are you sure, because I thought you tweeted that

0:44:07 Dan: Didn't really come out in favor of preventing her. I came out in favour of if the students... So I said that she doesn't belong on a university campus because she's not an academic. So I say it's foolish to invite her to speak. I don't think that...

0:44:15 Thomas: Yeah but yeah okay we're, but we're not, we're not going to disagree on that, I hate that these idiot Republican groups invite these people, but groups, student groups don't just invite academics, I mean, they invite entertainers they invite anybody on either side, no

0:44:30 Dan: Right. No, of course. No, they don't. So Robert Wright came out when they cancelled it at first. So when the students said, we want to cancel, and uh, you know, the the left said we're going to show up and protest this, the school canceled it right away, like, they were just like, nope, we're not having any of this.

0:44:45 Thomas: No so here, so I just did a bunch of research on this and I want to make sure we're factually correct. So the school offered a time and a place, because after Milo, riots were a disaster for them, they adopted a policy with the police department to say any big profile controversial speaker like this is going to have to be done by 3 p.m. They're going to be in a securable location. So they offered a place that the student groups didn't like, because they wanted it at 9 at night, and then, you know, whatever. And The student groups refused, and so that's when at first Berkeley canceled. They said, okay, you're not going to follow our security guidelines, you can't do it. And then they caved to pressure, which is interesting, and they bent over backwards to say, okay, all this pressure on us to have this event here, tell you what, we'll go back to the day you suggested, but we found a place about a mile away, a venue that we can secure, you can do it then.

And And the group said, this is not good enough. And then they said, okay, we'll find another place. So a week later, they found, okay, a week later you can do it, this time, this place. And the group said, this is not good enough. And when Ann Coulter said, I'm going to still show up at the original agreed upon date because she just, I think she just wanted to be a victim here. And the student group said, we can't support you if you're doing that.

0:44:57 Dan: Okay okay okay

0:46:08 Thomas: Like that's too far for us because the school has told us like we can do this. So they dropped their support of her and And then she canceled. So that's the facts just to, yeah.

0:46:18 Dan: So, so, yeah, I, I had originally heard that it was canceled due to security constraints, but I think it was in its own sense that it was moved and then the groups went back and forth, so yeah, and so Robert Wright came, uh, right out and said, like, I think that's a horrible decision to cancel it, uh, that was, that was his post, like, that we need the free exchange of ideas. And I, I commented on his Facebook, but also took the same argument to Twitter, that I, I think it's what we sort of sort of agreed on here, is like, she has no real place on a campus, as far as I don't agree with Robert in the sense that students learn anything from her. So while I do agree that campuses need to be a bastion of dialogue and views that people hate, I've had views of mine challenged in college. That's what we're supposed to do. But there were views challenged that were academically challenged, not just somebody

0:46:26 Thomas: Sure, sure. Yeah, that's roughly speaking. Okay. I just want to make sure we're, yeah, yeah see,

0:47:13 Dan: Who sells a bunch of books, goes written, and doesn't push.

0:47:14 Thomas: I don't agree. I Think that we're, this is where I may be possibly part company, even though I don't want people to be inviting Coulter. I certainly think that, as I've said multiple times, like I think there should be a special prohibition on someone like Milo who's going to threaten student safety. When it comes to Dan Coulter, it's not up to you and I to decide who, learned, what student groups want to invite. I mean, student group invited me to talk at a college, for, for Christ's sake. Like I'm not going to stimulate them in, I mean I'm going to try to stimulate their money, but I don't have an advanced degree. I've got a bachelor's in business. Like there's no one, it is not up to anyone else to decide that I'm good enough to speak to a little student group who decides, besides, they have the budget to fly me out to some random ass college, like that, you know, that's what they get to do. I

0:48:05 Dan: Right. And so I never – and one thing I never did is – well, even though I did – and I'll keep saying. I don't believe she has any purpose on a campus. I don't believe she serves a better purpose to the students. I never came out and said, ban her from speaking at universities. I've never tried to. I've said, no,

0:48:18 Thomas: Don't either. Well, I thought you said, I'm pretty sure I saw that you said, uh, if she comes out again, we'll stop her from speaking again or something like that. Am I getting that wrong? I swear I saw you tweeted that, but that's, that's the thing though.

0:48:31 Dan: I'm all for, again, people, not the university. So that's where we're splitting. That's where we're splitting here. If the people of Berkeley don't want that speech taking place, go do it.

0:48:46 Thomas: But you're not, it's not the people, It's a limited number. It doesn't take that many people to shut something down. It only takes, I mean, even the Berkeley riots were only a hundred people, like the a 50, how many thousands of people wanted her to speak or wanted Milo to speak, I mean, it shouldn't, majority rule is like not, it's not, that's not the best option in these, this day and age, when I know we won the popular vote, but in most, in a lot of states, you and I are going to lose out in majority rule, most states.

0:49:15 Dan: We are. But that's the society we have, is that the school be making that decision. The students should. Students have petitioned to have Milo banned and been told no. So then they show up. I don't know if there was a student petition for Ann Coulter or not. But what I do know is that people there, so

0:49:30 Thomas: Is Just but Again This Is Not a good Way to solve this. I mean, okay, student group, LGBT group invites a pro-LGBT person, uh, and the campus Republicans say no, we're petitioning that we don't want this person. I mean, it can always swing the other way. It's not a good way to solve these issues, I

0:49:46 Dan: The other side has to show up and be stronger and louder. And that's what we're doing. We're being louder and more, I want to say, aggressive in the violence, aggressive in the tactical sense of saying we're not tolerating the spread of these ideas. And one thing to think about while we talk about Coulter here, days before she was supposed to speak at Berkeley, she gave a speech and said the Trump supporters need to bring out more violence. We need to be more violent.

0:50:21 Thomas: Didn't hear that, I Okay, I'll Have To get a link For that Or something, sure

0:50:21 Dan: OK, so that's that's look at look at I read I read the article on the Hill. Small plug that I write there, but or Disclaimer, but they were, they ran the story, where I first saw it was that had called for a return to what we saw during the campaign and the getting more violent, and she asked them to fight back and to be violent. And so that really escalated what was coming to Berkeley, was that she's asking these people that had already said, we're going to go out and support her. So the alt-right people that want to show up in LARPing here to support her had already made it clear they're coming. So, so is the left, because we're not going to give up Berkeley to them and

0:50:28 Thomas: We're Never

0:51:05 Dan: Just say, oh, it's yours.

0:51:05 Thomas: Going To That It's just not how things work. If if she comes and gives a stupid talk that some, you know, moron campus Republicans enjoy, that doesn't win her Berkeley, that, that, that's a simplistic way of looking at things like this. Isn't a good way to solve problems, I really I Strongly Disagree with You, it

0:51:24 Dan: It wins them Berkeley, though. It does. That's the message they're taking from it Is that we took Berkeley That's that's the messaging they've been trying to use When they When the what was the Where the girl got punched By what event was that There's lots of these But it was in Berkeley there was

0:51:27 Thomas: No What was That, oh Shoot That Yeah Now I Don't Remember Wait Was that That Yeah, it Was Berkeley, was that what, what happened when she didn't show up? Because they still had, like, protests. Maybe it was that.

0:51:50 Dan: No so when they When she didn't show up and this is One thing I was gonna bring up earlier The Antifa actually Really strategically pulled this one off They no showed So all of a sudden you had a small, rather small group that, you know, ended up showing up of alt-righters show up with nothing to do. They got there ready for battle.

0:52:08 Thomas: Well, I don't understand. Doesn't that mean they win Berkeley? By the logic you just said? Then, oh, they don't win.

0:52:11 Dan: No, because all that happened was they stood there and started yelling at students. And so Black Block said, in this case, we don't need to go there. They're going to just look foolish. And they did they showed up, but they kept an eye on it.

0:52:23 Thomas: But the overall, but again, the overall plan that

0:52:27 Dan: But

0:52:27 Thomas: You have is, no, don't let a universe, by the way, I would disagree if the idea was, this is a weird place we, you and I find ourselves in, a weird logical space. Because if someone were to say, I want Berkeley evaluating who's a good teacher, or sorry, who's a good speaker to bring to their university, I would disagree, but if someone said who should decide, Berkeley or faceless mobs, I would say okay, Berkeley.

Like I would rather, like your solution for me is in a far last place, like I, I'd rather, I would rather like the college decide, make it like an evaluation, like this person, uh, seems to be credible, even though they're right wing, they, you know, they're just whatever, they have credible views, they're not, they're, yeah, I'd rather them, them, you, you're advocating seems to be the worst of all possible ideas, which is whoever gets more mobs together wins, and that, that'll work in California where Hillary won by three million votes or whatever, that's not going to work in most places in the country. It just strikes me as a really, really poor strategy. How did it work in Alabama?

0:53:30 Dan: I think that that's an underestimation. I think it is working. It worked in Alabama. Well, so if we look at Alabama, Alabama is a tricky one because so Richard Spencer announced he was speaking in Alabama, you remember that?

0:53:35 Thomas: Oh. Yeah. I covered this too. So Yeah.

0:53:43 Dan: Yep. And he still got, and if I'm not mistaken, he still showed up and spoke because the courts ordered it. But

0:53:43 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So here's what happened. So a guy who wasn't a student rented a space on Auburn University for Richard Spencer to speak, because apparently, I guess they must offer their spaces to anybody who rents it. And the school initially said, okay, we don't like this guy, but First Amendment, we're doing it. Then they had, they perceived threats to student safety. They tried to cancel and then a judge ordered that they had to allow the talk to take place, so the talk took place and this kind of, I'm curious to see what point you want to make here, because the talk took place, there was a little bit of violence, it still took place and no one gave a about anything Spencer said, like there's pictures of the room, nobody's in there, like nobody cares, so letting him speak was actually more effective because nobody cared about what he said, I

0:54:37 Dan: But if you look, so you said there's a little bit of violence, but what there really was, was a massive turnout of Antifa and the others. And they faced off very squarely with the other side. And in a place like Alabama, I think a lot of us would just gather what size is going to be outnumbered when it comes to white supremacist speaker in Alabama. But it was the opposite. It and what we got there was, yeah, he got to speak, which is which sucks, but we got to send, and it was for the most part a non-violent message other than a few little scuffles that, number one, Antifa isn't just going places to fight, they were willing to, they would have, but they went and made their voice heard and was louder in a place like Alabama. And that's why, you look at a place like Berkeley where the fights break out, you have to look at who's bringing that fight. Antifa is always showing up as defense.

0:55:34 Thomas: I don't know I I, I feel like Antifa is, but no, that's not that's that's not according to, I mean, I talked to a student who was there who wanted to just protest the speech. I mean, these people, Antifa, just brought Molotov cocktails and rocks and sticks and started destroying property. There wasn't, there wasn't two sides. I was

0:55:39 Dan: I'm going to argue that they're always...

0:55:56 Dan: Well, so I think we might be talking about two different events. So we're talking about shutting down Milo.

0:55:59 Thomas: Talking about the Milo Yeah, yeah.

0:56:01 Dan: Milo, no, they showed up to shut down that event. I'm talking about facing off, not against a speaker, but against the group. So I think the event that we seem to not remember...

0:56:04 Thomas: Okay. Which still, I don't know what you're still advocating group violence in like a street fight. I don, I Don't, I understand, but I'm also interested in that somehow you're claiming Auburn as a victory when you just said, if you allow, but

0:56:20 Dan: No, I don't think Auburn was much of a victory. I think that Auburn was, he

0:56:25 Thomas: Also you just, by your standards a second ago, Richard Spencer just won Auburn, right? Because he got to speak. So he won.

0:56:32 Dan: Got to speak, and he very much touted that victory.

0:56:34 Thomas: So by your standard, Is

0:56:36 Dan: But what I think is important to see, and the point I was trying to make was about where you had said, you know, the other side having bigger numbers and we're going to lose because we're in California. In a place like Alabama, they still lost the numbers. They won the battle. They lost the number.

0:56:52 Thomas: That is that A Is That A bet you want to take is that you want to rely on the majority in in group violence situations because we've been maybe won a couple because I don't, I personally don't, I don't want to rely on majority rule. I want to rely on, let's keep things peaceful and let's win a battle of ideas and do our best to fight that way. I don't, I don't, it doesn't sound like it

0:57:16 Dan: I'm all for keeping things peaceful. The problem is, is that we have to be willing, but we have To be willing to fight for the ideas if it comes to it And so here's, I think, where we view things differently Is that when Antifa shows up to, like, the protest that Just happened, and I think we're both forgetting why this happened Oh, it was, oh, it's the May 4th May 1st, it Was the, yeah, so it was It was, you know, Workers' Rights Day or May Day.

0:57:20 Thomas: Yeah.

0:57:40 Thomas: I don't remember. Oh, is that what it was? Okay. Yeah. Was that what it was Okay, yeah.

0:57:50 Dan: And when I see Antifa show up, I think we see two different things. I see a defensive force walking in. I think you see a hostile force walking in.

0:57:58 Thomas: Yeah, but that's I don't that the facts don't bear that that out. I mean, if I look at countless example, I look At the Sacramento example that was they were there to beat the shit out of white supremacists. Look it up.

0:58:08 Dan: And I will tell you that I think that they were wrong. If in the in the context that you're telling, if you're and I trust you. So if you'RE telling me that that's the story, as truthful as can be, they were wrong. They were in the wrong.

0:58:10 Thomas: Yeah Okay, that's fine. But then you're just different.

0:58:21 Thomas: And I'm seeing that I saw that at Berkeley for Milo, they, they were there to ruin stuff. And when it comes to the, the situation where the girl got punched, that one actually looks like, and let me know if you have a different interpretation of it, it looked like both sides showed up to fight each other. Like, they both were planning, like the Antifa side was planning violence, the white supremacist side was planning violent. And then they had violence, like they had a fight, and by the way, people got injured. And what was the point? Like, what did that accomplish in your mind?

0:58:50 Dan: So Antifa did not show up. They showed up ready for violence if it was necessary. No, no, they showed up already.

0:58:55 Thomas: I can show you tweets and proof that they showed up to fight the other side, I will dig it up I will show I

0:58:59 Dan: I don't, but see, I don'T think so. If the other side had stood there with signs and just said, blah, blah. And nothing happened. It wouldn't, there wouldn't have been a fight, but

0:59:08 Thomas: Disagree I will, I will have to do some research. Well, I'll show you though, that's not true. I, people, anyway, go ahead, I'll let you finish now.

0:59:14 Dan: Because, so I had, I, and on my own podcast, I did have somebody from, uh, the Berkeley, uh. Event, uh on, and they talked about their perspective, um.

0:59:23 Thomas: Which one just to make sure we're on the same page, which

0:59:26 Dan: I think that that one was, was the March for Trump. So it was, yeah, the March 4th event, not a speaker event. It was the march for Trump that showed up, which turned violent as well. But I think, don't love that this is where we are. This isn't the America I picture, is one that we have to fight against this. Because when we're talking about the, the war of ideas, the battle of ideas, however you want to frame it, as far as I'm concerned, those ideas have already lost. I mean, didn't we not crush racist nationalism to its core, you know, how many years ago, 70 something years ago now? Like, I think we've shown that their ideas have, have lost. In the public space, they're not the, the majority whatsoever, I

0:59:26 Thomas: Berkeley event, the one we were just talking about, okay okay then what

1:00:21 Dan: Don't think we live because

1:00:21 Thomas: Are you so worried about then what then what do you, this, why, it's, I, I just feel like there's a lot of contradictions in your, in your, but

1:00:26 Dan: Nationally nationally they're taking control again, they're, we're giving them this ability to say, look, they have a right to say this too, and then we back off, and let them say it, and then people recruit well

1:00:36 Thomas: You will never stop them from saying it on the internet. You will ever stop, stop them from having Breitbart, and, and it's that you can't do, like, even there's... There's literally

1:00:48 Dan: We we can, to a degree, now and what I mean by well look at, um, so let's look at, uh, O'Reilly, just as a, as an example, like, like Bill O'Reilly, there was a strategy, but he was not fired for being a sexual predator.

1:00:48 Thomas: Oh tell me how that works yeah if, if, if they happen to be sexual predators then we will be he was

1:01:07 Dan: He was fired because because people on the on the left and I'm going to use left a bit more broadly. I mean, liberals, Democrats ever on that side put said we're taking him down by the only method we know that Fox cares about money. Money.

1:01:07 Thomas: Fired because his advertisers finally cared that

1:01:26 Dan: The same exact strategy is underway with Breitbart.

1:01:26 Thomas: His ratings were higher than ever when he was, when he got canceled, I think that, do you, and also let me say this, are you under the impression that that solves any sort of problem? The next in line will be some asshole I

1:01:42 Dan: Of course. No, no, no. It's going to be just but we have to keep doing it. It'S not something you just give up on. So, look, there's always going to be an asshole with a blog or an asshole With a show.

1:01:49 Thomas: Don't well I would say you but if your strategy is let's take out whoever's in a certain time slot for, to eternity, it's not going to do anything, I, I there's and

1:02:00 Dan: Well, I was using that as an example of how you can take down like you said, there'S always gonna be a Breitbar. Right. But But there's strategies of weakening their reach and their, you know, goals.

1:02:12 Thomas: Let me tell you, I, what I think the strategy should be, countering the ideas, that's the, that's the way we win minds. We don't win when, when someone gets canceled, that doesn't, Fox, new, Fox News viewers are still there, they're still there, they were watching him more than ever, his ratings were higher than ever, they're going to be watching the next person that, doesn't, that didn't, I, I agree with doing our best to shut down a sexual predator, for sure, like that's, I'm happy with that, don't get me wrong, I'm, I'm unhappy that Bill O'Reilly is off the air, but let's say the next person is not a sexual predator, hopefully, I mean, if, if Fox News gets lucky, I guess, and they put someone in there who has a better record, who's like, uh, like the ultimate, uh, villain, which for me is Mike Pence, because he's, he never slipped up that we know of, Mike Pince has never slipped out, he's not, he doesn't have, that we know of, he doesn't, he hasn't, you know, pictures with an escort or anything like that, like, he just, he's this perfect villain of, he is horrible with horrible ideas, there's nothing we can get him on, because, other than being horrible with horrid ideas, so we have to fight him with ideas, like there's no, we're not going to get someone like that off the air.

If the next person happens to be not a horrible person like Bill O'Reilly was, uh, we can't get him off the, the air. We got to fight it with ideas.

1:03:31 Dan: But what if you could take Fox News off the air, would you? The same method that took down O'Reilly. And let's start smaller, though. Let's look, like you were just saying, like there's always going to be a Breitbart. But what If we took Breitbar out?

1:03:34 Thomas: How, how, how

1:03:46 Dan: What if Breitbarts shut down? Because it's the strategy that's actually happening right now. They're still doing it.

1:03:45 Thomas: Do you do that? Tell me, tell me. I withhold

1:03:52 Dan: Is that they're literally...

1:03:53 Thomas: My opinion until I know what's happening here. I

1:03:54 Dan: Okay. So it's the same exact strategy that was basically used against O'Reilly is you go to bright part's website and you write down every single ad that pops up and then you go to those people and you start saying stop advertising on bright part here's what they're doing.

1:04:10 Thomas: Have no problem with that.

1:04:10 Dan: Right. Now so

1:04:11 Thomas: I don't think it's going to work. You're telling me the cash for gold and the male supplements who advertise with Alex Jones or not.

1:04:17 Dan: I think they're gonna lose a lot but

1:04:19 Thomas: There's always going to be money in the banana stand.

1:04:20 Dan: Look at the fact that like all these massive corporations that, you know, their ads were just served up there by an ad server, it wasn't like Coke said we want to be on Bright part but Coke can say, I don't want to be on Right part and then they're off.

1:04:26 Thomas: Yeah. No, I agree. I think that's good. You and I can agree with

1:04:31 Dan: Perfect.

1:04:31 Thomas: That strategy. I think that's a good strategy of holding these brands accountable if they've either made a mistake, which I doubt, or they've just, we're hoping they could get away with, you know, profiting off of people with horrible views. I'm totally, you and I totally agree with that. And you know what, that is that's a peaceful method, right?

1:04:33 Dan: Right.

1:04:42 Dan: It is But I'm all for peaceful methods when they work. If peaceful methods are working, use them. I mean, I think that, but there always has to be, we can't, here's, I guess here's the better point. Let's always do peaceful methods first, let's try them, but they're not always going to be, and we can't be so fundamentally stuck and have this fetish of nonviolence that we are afraid to use violence when it's necessary. Now, I think here's where we're going to disagree, is when is it necessary?

1:04:55 Thomas: There. I Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:18 Dan: So maybe your lines pushed further than mine.

1:05:17 Thomas: It's not necessary to stop Milo from speaking because, because more people can see him on the internet.

1:05:22 Dan: But I think if it's to stop Milo from speaking to docs students at that school, but

1:05:27 Thomas: He could dox them on his website or on his whatever and have more people see it. Yeah, but you're just relying on the fact that he's got some weird... And then he got distracted because he finally said something too horrible for the right. I don't know that he wasn't ever going to do that. And I don't know that the next Milo would decide somehow he's only saying something awful at a physical location. I mean they're going to they're always going to have the internet that doesn't do anything so so violence is not necessary there, yeah.

1:05:35 Dan: He didn't. He said, I'm going to go to the school and do that at this school. I mean, think about we know, but that's the thing. Do we not owe those students? Do we not owe those students everything they have to keep their lives safe though? Like, do we not try? I mean, think about Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin, I believe, is where he outed the trans student.

1:06:15 Thomas: Yeah, Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

1:06:16 Dan: Now, look, I've got tons of trouble with what he said about the trans student. He misgendered her, insulted her looks. That's all garbage, but that's not, I mean that's just vile. But, that she is no longer at that school. She was chased out of that school, and she felt unsafe at school there, because she was called up on stage a sexual predator that was going to make these students unsafe, that she was only pretending to be a woman to get into the locker room. Her life, now I can't, I don't know where she is now, what she's doing now, but that time,

1:06:16 Thomas: Yeah, she left so she was already she hadn't withdrawn from the school yet but she she had already stopped going to classes because she she ultimately left. I mean having Milo there was a big part of it, but she also just didn't feel support from the staff, uh, and from the the administration yeah well,

1:07:07 Dan: Right, so their school had some failings, it seems, but just imagine him continuously trying to do that, and so what you have is a group of people that said, like, "Wow, Milo's coming here," and this is his goal, and this is going to hurt actual people's lives and destroy them, and we don't know where these students are from. Maybe they're going to get sent back, and maybe they are going to be deported and get sent to a war-torn country or to a country that is in the middle of a famine. We don't, you know, we can only, yeah, I mean, he could have picked somebody that was from Tijuana and had rich parents, but if we know anything from what, From what ICE is doing right now, I don't feel so confident in saying that. Maybe if this was the Obama era or something like that, even Bush, you know, too, I'd feel differently.

1:07:38 Thomas: It's a a saint it's they're not going to get deported. I mean it's it's a it's the school would protect them but again he could just go online and do this to more people. Like, he could, he could reach more people with that, so I get like so

1:08:01 Dan: But these make him more money. I think it's the speaking gigs that are making – he was being calculated about it, on

1:08:10 Thomas: What we need to do is find a way to change the minds of the asshole Republican groups that are inviting him. That's what we needs to do, I mean. Because Because he might even still get paid if you cancel his event. I don't know. We'll see how his contract works. But all right. You know, I got to ask you about one.

1:08:18 Dan: Board with that idea. Well, I think that, I mean, we are dealing with that contract,

1:08:28 Thomas: What's that?

1:08:29 Dan: Contract, but yes, I, but I agree. I think before, before you say that, um, I do, I'm a hundred percent with let's change the mentality that brings that about the number one, like I want to invite Milo. Let's change the mentality of the camera person and the reporter that said, hey, there's Richard Spencer over there. We should interview him. I wonder what his ideas are. Like that's the mentality to change. I'm all for that. I think that's wonderful. Wonderful but We weren't in a situation where Milo's already invited, Miles already set out his goals and love it or hate it, Antifa and black block's message was we're going to protect this student or these students and that was their goal. So you, we could disagree that maybe that was the best method or not, but I think that their, their, their justification was in, was, was noble. They had, had the right idea.

1:08:55 Thomas: Yeah.

1:09:21 Thomas: Right, I think we've circled enough on that. I would say the other thing, I don'T know if you have time and if it's worth getting into, but I've also seen you call Bill Maher right wing or something. Like that was another thing that I was very puzzled at. I don't know if that's something you want to get into, but what?

1:09:36 Dan: I Think I don't think it's as long as a conversation as it sounds, but I look at it in the same sense that I look at when we're talking about Stephen Knight earlier. He shares lots of liberal values. He doesn't seem to have a problem with same sex marriage. He's for the legalization of drugs. He's four. You know, the rights of of women and all these things, but then just in the same sense of Steven, oh, even further, I'm going to say further because this is somebody that literally said, I'd vote for Rand Paul because he's a libertarian. I mean, the second you tell me you're going to vote for you would consider voting for Rand Paul he did but we're talking about voting for Hillary, that's not a very left vote, but that's a different conversation too, but he had looked at Rand Par, you know, Rand Pal as a viable option for a vote and said he supported so many of his ideas. He isn't the most...

1:10:12 Thomas: He voted for Hillary though. Like he would vote for, I think, are you sure he wasn't just

1:10:31 Dan: He's not far

1:10:31 Thomas: Talking about if you're a Republican, vote for Rand Paul over Trump? Because that's what I, I watch his show every week. Like I've never heard him say, but you also said, I think what the wording that really bothered me most was, you said he was like trying to score right-wing points, or something like that was your wording.

1:10:32 Dan: Right. No, he said he would vote. You're welcome to completely prove me wrong here. Please do. I'd love to find out that I'm wrong about Maher. Very much so.

1:10:55 Thomas: He doesn't give a shit about scoring right-wang points. He's the most, he's, no, no.

1:10:59 Dan: He literally blew smoke up Milo's ass. He laughed at

1:11:04 Thomas: No, he, no, he said Milo was an annoying guy. He, okay, the whole Milo thing, he shouldn't have had Milo on.

1:11:04 Dan: Milo jokes. And then when Milo made fun of trans people, he

1:11:12 Thomas: Yeah, what? Oh, yeah, okay.

1:11:13 Dan: Laughed along and he did not

1:11:15 Thomas: Now you're, so what's your, so now you're changing it though. You're shifting the bar because I'm not going to sit here and say that Bill Maher is right about everything, but what he is doing, his motivation is very clearly not to score right wing points. He hates the Republican Party. He has no, He doesn't need right wing points, he he, is pretty much mostly liberal on every issue. He's a little misinformed about trans issues. Sure. And I, I disagree with what he said and I would absolutely, uh, want to fight him back on that and get, you'd get our voices out there and telling him like, that wasn't cool what you said, but he's not, he wasn't trying to score points with the right wing because of that. He's just misinformed About trans issues.

1:11:15 Dan: Fight back. I think he's misinformed about a lot of issues. But I mean, I look at his his take and I don't put him in a, I don't want to get into the Islam conversation, but I think it has a lot more to do with being naive about religion and Islam. But I don't see him, when he talks about radical Islam, being any different than listening to a Republican talk about radical Islam. I just don't hear a difference in his speech. When he talks about so many issues.

1:12:21 Thomas: He is not for the Muslim ban. Boy, do you shift the goalposts man all the time like the Republicans that was their policy Trump got voted in on the Muslim ban, that was, he campaigned on the Muslim band, we're talking about Republicans, your argument was just Republicans don't support this. My counter evidence is he won the nomination and indeed the presidency on campaigning on the Muslim ban. Republicans support it.

1:12:24 Dan: No, he's not. But I think a lot of Republicans weren't for the Muslim ban. I think you're going far right on the Muslim Ban. But but I'm saying he's again, though, he didn't win a majority of votes. And I don't think but if you're talking about I don' t think They overwhelmingly support it, and I think maybe strategically they don't support it, but I don't think vocally they're not supporting it either. A lot of Republicans spoke out against the ban. A lot of prominent Republicans said they thought it was wrong. They didn't think that was the solution or that they thought he was doing it wrong

1:13:08 Thomas: So, Okay, sure, there there are some Republicans who fortunately somehow had enough of a conscience to speak against this, this issue.

1:13:16 Dan: And that's why I' M not saying that Bill Maher is the alt-right but I' m saying that That Bill Maher is, if he's anything, he's maybe center, right? I'm not putting him on that.

1:13:21 Thomas: He's not even close to the right. What are you talking about? See, this is, I think this is a big issue with, with, I mean, I know you're super far left, I get it. I like yours, no, I don't know anybody leftier than you, like, I get that, but I don't, do you don't, you think it's a little, I don't know what the proper word is, I guess misleading, or, or maybe even just futile to, to paint yourself, you know, you're super left, you admit as much, just to take your version of left as, like, the, the, the measuring stick against which everybody else should be measured. Bill Maher is

1:13:32 Dan: No,

1:14:04 Thomas: Nowhere near the center he is extremely liberal What's that? I

1:14:04 Dan: Because I think he's right of Obama. I think you'd be right of Obama.

1:14:11 Thomas: I disagree with that. I don't think you would be right about Obama. I think you're, I think your opinion one issue, which is, he wants to criticize the misogynistic practices in Islam. Uh, he's against all, like, he's again all the bombings, he makes fun of Obama's for his, and he criticizes obama is drawing policies, he's gets all of that, he's pro legalization, he's probably marriage, he's pro progressive taxation, he's pro universal health care, he's, like, I mean, just go down the list, is every single liberal issue he's a liberal on, except he was a little bit wrong on some trans issues, and he doesn't like when liberals protect Islam, to define that as center right is absurd.

1:14:51 Dan: When I listen to him talk, when I hear him, when I read his stuff, anything he's doing out there, I don't read even a liberal. I don't, I, I read a, a Clintonite, a, you know, that sort of that side of things. I don't see him like being that on board with, I don't know what the right term is here because liberal such a broad spectrum, but I don't see him on that further liberal side. I see him on the, on the push to the right side.

1:15:23 Thomas: I don't you're not offering

1:15:25 Dan: There, obviously.

1:15:25 Thomas: Any proof of this, you're just saying, yeah.

1:15:28 Dan: But that's, but that's, I mean, that's what a tweet is. It's my opinion about something. And so my opinion of listening to him talk.

1:15:32 Thomas: Okay, but it's wrong, like, do you want to justify it? I mean, you, if you're, if your point is you can tweet whatever you want even if you wrong, then sure, but

1:15:41 Dan: But I'm not saying I'm wrong. What I'm saying is my opinion.

1:15:42 Thomas: Well, well, now we're not on Twitter. Tell me, what's the proof of this?

1:15:45 Dan: But OK, I'm literally trying to lay

1:15:48 Thomas: Ahead, yeah.

1:15:49 Dan: That out. But what I'm saying is that his views don't ring liberal to me very often when I listen to him talk. When I listen and talk to a Republican – now, listen to someone like Tammy Loren or Tomi Loren. Yeah, he tears her apart. He makes her look foolish. But he doesn't always do that, and he always – oftentimes, and I can't say always because I don't watch his show that often. But he does do that whole common ground thing or wants to hold – attack the left and wants to defend a more neoliberal policy.

And he comes in on that – I put him more as a centrist than I do a further liberal, and he's constantly putting those up. Up and then to say, you know, liberals need to ditch, pet issues like trans issues. That's not a liberal thing to say whatsoever. And he is not stupid. He's not an idiot. He has to be well versed in trans issues, that we can give him credit for, and try to play him off as as uneducated. I don't think he cares much about those kinds of issues. I don't think that that's something, and that puts him further right and I don't know, and so, I just

1:17:02 Thomas: I think that, yeah, if if he checks out on if, I, of all the things I just laid out of, all his views, if he checks out on as further left than a lot of people on everything I just named, anti-war, he is against every single conflict, he's a pacifist, he's pro-marijuana, he's pro, like, all check everything off, and then I agree with you, his views on trans issues are not good. He's still ultimately, by the way, he's till ultimately in favor of trans people, he will, we'll support them, and you'll call the right pronouns or whatever. His point, which I, again, I do disagree with, is, you know, we ought to not care as much about that because Trump is such a threat. Like, we got to care more about unifying against Trump. We can argue about that. That doesn't make him all of a sudden right because on, like, right wing, because one issue we think he gets wrong. Like, that's just a weird, pointlessly, like, purest way of looking at people, isn't it? Like, simplifying them in that way.

1:17:09 Dan: I'm I am simplifying him, but I think by, by doing that is when I, when I listen to him talk, when I, like I said, if I watch his show, I just don't see a very liberal person speaking. I don't hear very liberal words coming out a lot. I hear him, you, agreeing with, you know, the libertarian side of things more often. I'd label him as more of a libertarian, and I think he's, often has, too, and I think he is the kind of person that would pick a right-leaning libertarian over a further left Democrat because yeah.

1:18:32 Thomas: No, I disagree. I don't think he would.

1:18:34 Dan: I just, like, I mean, in fact, and I think I fall back on him saying he would consider supporting Rand Paul if he, if he ran into this, so that's

1:18:35 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, we'll have to check. I want that source. I think that he does. I would say that where they agree, he's libertarian when it comes to marijuana or drugs, but so are liberals, like, they're, you know, like, there's not a, so, yes, and he's also, he's libertarian when it comes to conflict abroad, he doesn't want conflict, he just doesn't wanna get involved, but that's also a far left position. He's a libertarian in the places where those two things overlap, but so for that reason he might pick Rand Paul because he strongly believes in those issues, but he's, he's the most fierce advocate of climate change policy that there is, like, there are so many, anything. Well, anyway, all right, let's, yeah.

1:19:24 Dan: But I don't think many libertarians are against climate change either. Like, like, I think what we have is, I think you, what becomes an issue for me, and maybe this is a better way of putting it to kind of end this, is that when you support someone, or you say you could support someone like Rand Paul, just in general, that's also bringing on, you might say, I'm doing it because of these three issues, but by doing that, you're also bringing on the rest of Rand Paul's baggage.

1:19:51 Thomas: Yeah, no, I mean, I don't, again, I need to check that source because I don t think he would support Rand Paul over a Democrat. I just don t think that s true.

1:19:53 Dan: So like, and please, like I said, if you find that source and you can prove me wrong, I I would love to be proven wrong. I'd love to feel better about Bill Maher because I think he has so many people's ears. And I think the liberals do love to listen to him. And especially the atheist community. They just seem to fall over him.

1:20:01 Thomas: Okay.

1:20:15 Thomas: See, the funny thing is, I

1:20:16 Dan: But see,

1:20:16 Thomas: Really like his show and it's not, I don't really care about his religious stuff, like his atheism stuff. Like, I think it's overly simplistic and I don't really, so it's interesting, but

1:20:26 Dan: That's how I feel. But I find that the community feels much differently. And I'm very generalizing.

1:20:27 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I 'll believe that, but but okay, I'll, I'll, we got to bring it to a close for

1:20:34 Dan: But I want to Very much feel more comfortable. Even though I don't agree with a lot of things with him now, I'd love to feel at least better about him. And say, well, at least I'm not Because, I'll give you this, he's left of Dave Rubin There

1:20:35 Thomas: Sure, yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll look into that, and uh, yeah, well, Dave Rubin is just right wing, so there's no, I mean, he likes to pretend to be libertarian.

1:20:55 Dan: We go Look, let's agree

1:20:57 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, the idea that, yeah, anyway, yeah, all right, I think there's a lot we didn't even get to. Uh, I'm curious, uh, how people react to this conversation, but I appreciate you, uh, coming on and arguing your side. I enjoyed it, and hopefully we made some progress.

1:20:57 Dan: On something Awesome, I had a great time and I'm glad you had me on

1:21:15 Thomas: Thanks a lot, Dan. Take care.

1:21:17 Dan: Thank you You too. Bye.

1:21:42 Thomas: All right, well that's what we were able to get to in this discussion. As I mentioned, a lot more we could have talked about. So, tying up a couple loose ends, yeah, this, I linked a couple things in the show notes about Bill Maher. I On one hand, it's certainly weird for two people to be arguing about someone else's views and whether or not they're left or right, but I think it's actually really important because in my opinion, apologies to Dan, but in my opinion, this is a really harmful part of a lot of the far left for me. Dan is applying a purity test to Bill Maher that is absurd in my opinion. It's by all means criticize Bill Maher every time he messes something up. But do so accurately and don't call him right wing when he's not. I mean, just to say he's right wing would be just because of what he said about trans people, which, by the way, he's still against bathroom bills.

1:22:34 Thomas: He's still, I mean, he's far to the left of the Republicans on this. To say he's right wing or center because of that is absurd, because if you took a similar, you could take a Republican with Republican views as hell and then that same trans view and to say that that somehow makes them...

1:23:12 Thomas: Purity tests are for the primary. This is what I've been thinking a lot about. By all means, if you're a Bernie supporter, if you're whoever, in 2020, primary as hard as you can for the candidate that you think is the best for the Democrats. And hit it hard, I will be doing the same thing for who I think is the best. That's the time to fight it out, make progress, do your best, and then once the candidate is decided, we all vote for that person to get rid of Donald Trump because when it's a binary decision between left and right, Left is just way, way less harm for the world. It just is. It's not perfect, but the democratic party is way less harm for the world. And this purist thinking, I think gets us into trouble. There's, if you're that far left, the candidate is never going to be to your liking.

1:24:00 Thomas: It just isn't. The party is not going to, you can do your best to move the party that direction, but you can't give the world to Donald Trump in the meantime. And that's been my biggest complaint. But anyway, so I think that was an important discussion to have. It's mind-blowing to me to hear Dan say that about Bill Maher. I linked two things. I found the part where he talked about he would vote for Rand Paul. It was in 2014, which is why I didn't know about it. I wasn't really following as much at that time. And then a year later, once the primary started, he completely took it back. He was like, OK, Rand Paul totally went to shit in the primaries and compromised everything he believes in. I take it all back. So that wasn't really an effective criticism, in my opinion. A couple other loose ends. As far as Antifa, as he pronounces it, that might be the right thing. He would know better. Antifa.

1:24:55 Thomas: I did find a few examples of people saying they were going to, they intended to go there to knock some heads, but I also found that it was actually pretty ambiguous. So I'm, I'm, I'm just completely agnostic on that. If anyone has any good sources, either way, I am, I am open to that. So maybe, maybe Dan's depiction that Antifa went there to only respond and prevent violence, like, maybe that's true, I think that's a, that's a difficult assumption based on what happened in Berkeley around Milo when there wasn't really violence to respond to, there's just writing and stuff, like, I, I, that would be an uphill climb. But if anyone has evidence either way, of of Antifa going to look for a fight, or of the other way, of Antifa going to only be peaceful and prevent a fight, uh, you can shoot that my way because I, I, everything I'm finding is pretty ambiguous.

1:25:48 Thomas: I wasn't really able to reach a conclusion either way. Alright, I'm really looking forward to Thursday's episode with Eli. It's available early to patrons. I'm going to get it out as soon as I can. It's stellar work, I think. It's some of Eli's best work and I did what I could to help. So that's Thursday's episode. Really critical on that Sokol Hoax paper for gender studies. This is a big deal to me and I think this episode on Thursday will be a very accessible. I'll catch you guys on Thursday.