SIO130: Is Antifa Winning?

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 130, I'm your host, Thomas Smith. All right, few things before we get into it. That last episode, Atheists and Lawyers in Foxholes, I was surprised, I suppose I shouldn't be, but I was surprised by how much reception, warm reception that got. I got a lot of emails. I think there are a ton of military and ex-military atheist listeners that I sometimes don't think about because that's not a demographic that I am or, you know, it's not anybody I know, really. But then when I do an episode like that, I hear from a bunch of people, a bunch of really cool people, by the way. Thank you so much if you emailed me. And the sense of most of the emails was, wow, yeah, this, and it's actually tends to be worse than we were able to get to in that limited time.

0:01:18 Thomas: I mean, one of the biggest complaints I've heard from atheist service members is that during church time or during whatever, you know, worship time, they get stuck with all the grunt work.

I think we touched on that a little, but I just received so many emails that really reinforced that, like, yeah, you know, I'd be cleaning latrines while everyone was doing church, because that's kind of how it works, and it's unfair, and a lot of people don't seem to care about it, but you know it is unfair, it's a form of violation of separation of church and state, to have people be doing, you you know, a certain demographic of people, a certain religious view or non-religious view, as it were, if people have to do more grunt work or worse work or whatever you want to say because they don't believe in something, I mean, that's unconstitutional, especially in the military where everybody there is already a self-selected, uh, patriotic, in the good sense of the word, you know, willing to serve their country for whatever their reasons are, I mean, that's already a group of people who you would hope, if they're protecting the Constitution, you'd hope the Constitution could protect them. Oh, that was a good little catchphrase, I should have come up with that earlier.

Anyway, just wanted to mention that, it was, it really cool, if you didn't check out that episode, make sure to go back and give it a listen, and thank you for writing in, everyone who did.

Only other thing to say before I get into it is I actually have a kind of an announcement about the show, it's pretty significant, but I'll go ahead and do that after the episode so that people aren't sitting through it if they're just tuning into this episode or something, so stay tuned for that, it is pretty significant.

0:02:53 Thomas: Again, we'll get to that later. All right, Antifa, what's going on here? Uh, you know, okay, I think I've been a little overdue on something like this. Here's what happened that kind of sparked me along this path... Well, actually, I guess I have to go back to the Nazi punching, you know, that was an episode way back when with Eli where I tried to talk him out of Nazi punching, and that was kind of where a lot of people in our society started turning to the question of Antifa, of violence versus non-violence in terms of protest and what's appropriate, and it launched this whole debate, and eventually, after just, you you know, months of that being the go-to thing, I started to feel like it was, that was really a distraction, you know, and I don't remember how much I realized it at the time, but shortly after doing that episode, and how much everything kept turning back to, well, are you a Nazi puncher?

0:03:51 Thomas: Are you up in favor of violence? Blah, blah, blah. To where I felt like, and feel like now, my current view is we are making way too much of that question. It's simply not worth having a debate about a thing that, let's be frank, none of you are going to do. Raise your hand if you have punched Richard Spencer or someone like Richard Spencer. You know, I didn't think so. None of you have, unless that one guy listens to my show, which if you do, you know, hey, how's it going? I'll interview you anytime. But anyway, nobody has, you're not going to, we're all living our lives, you know, maybe some of you were involved in protests and maybe some Some of you are involved in Antifa, and it's possible that you've been involved in something like that. But let's face it, virtually none of you, and certainly not I, certainly not Eli, certainly not basically everybody involved in any of those debates, none of us are about to go out and punch a Nazi.

0:04:46 Thomas: It just wasn't going to happen. And I started to feel like, and I apologize if I played a part in this, and that's sort of why I want to do this episode today. I started feeling like this was a whole lot of distraction. Like, this is a whole lot of, here's something we can all chew on and argue about amongst ourselves, and even split the left, by the way, even split the left up, of course.

Here's something we could do to split the left up, to keep arguing, to keep our eye off the ball of what actually is happening in our country with the rise of the alt-right, and with the rise of white nationalism, and with the raise of white nationalist terrorists, by the by, one of whom was Was just killed or killed himself in the process of being apprehended, there's a whole discussion that I think ought to be had about that guy and why he wasn't instantly labeled a terrorist when what he was doing was by definition terrorism, and why police were, I saw a video of police doing outreach to this guy, hey, we just want to talk to you, buddy, hey, whoever's doing the bombings, seriously,

0:05:45 Thomas: This video exists, maybe I'll put it in the show notes, whoever's just doing the bombings, we just want to, you know, we just want to talk to you, and what, do they ever do that for any sort of terrorist who isn't white, you know, like, is that ever how they approach Islamic terrorism or anything like that? I, I really don't think it is, and I think the language people use around that is really telling, and there is a huge problem with white nationalism and far-right terrorism, it's a giant problem, and so, back to the, the Nazi punching, I really do feel like it was, it was a, I don't know if it was by design exactly, but it could be, but it was way for us to stop talking about what's important, and think that's a broader conversation, and something that is happening to Antifa as a whole. So I want to actually give Antifa its due.

0:06:33 Thomas: And, you know, I know people argue about how to pronounce that, and I got comments last time, but whatever. I'm doing Antifa. I don't care. So I hadn't really talked punching Nazis in a while for that reason, and in the meantime, most of what I get from when I have the unfortunate Displeasure of having to talk with someone on the far right, or the, you know, shit lord, center lord, whatever you want to call it, the in-denial alt-right, the alt-light, or classical liberal, part of their strategy is never owning up to what they actually are, but anyway, whenever I have to talk to somebody like that, so much of the conversation, probably, mm, 90% of it, comes down to, well, you once talked to Dan Errol, and you support Dan Errol, and ba-ba-da-ba, Dan Errol, and he said something about punching a blah, blah, blah.

And it gets really tiresome having to answer for all that, especially when I had Dan on and argued with him, you can go back and listen to that one if you want, and I, you know, was on the anti-Nazi punching position, so having to continually defend that, but that's what happens, it's taking examples, finding, as hard as they can, examples of what they think is some bad behavior on the left, to then, therefore, go to, it, we're all even, like, if you can, if If you can find a bad example of some stretch of logic that makes it such that Dan Errol is in favor of violence in some circumstances, then we're all on a level playing field and therefore, you know, sexism and racism is fine and I can't be calling it out.

I mean, that's very much how it works and it's very tiresome. So fast forward to, I don't know, a few weeks back, there was something that happened that led to a bit of an online argument between Dan Errol and I, and actually a lot of people on Facebook, and I think it's important to talk about briefly, and then I'm actually going to explain where I think I was wrong or didn't necessarily say the right things in these circumstances, so I actually, I think this is important.

0:08:27 Thomas: Important. So, back in early March, our favorite YouTuber, alt-light YouTuber, Sargon of Akkad, aka Carl, doing a little debate thingy or an event at King's College London. With someone named Yaron Brook, who is a Jewish, Zionist, uh, Ayn Rand fan, and it actually, he was, this Yaron Brook guy is, is like, uh the, the, in charge of the Ayn-Rand Institute, and is a, a big fan of all that, so, you know, yeah, right-wingy, libertarian-y people, uh you guys all know how I feel about Carl, I think he's a harasser, I I think he has a lot of racism that he's not aware of and thinks it's just individualism, but it's actually quite disturbing.

0:09:12 Thomas: I don't know much of anything about this Yaron Brook guy, I, I've Googled him, I don, you know, I see a whole lot, I mean, yeah, he's an Ayn Rand, you know, right winger, but there's millions, millions of those, uh, around, so he, he doesn't strike me as anyone particularly odious, I'm sure I disagree with plenty of it, and I know the, the Israel-Palestine is a whole can of worms that I, I've never even really delved into on the show because I just, I don't feel like, kind of a lose-lose. And it's also one of those debates that feels bad faith all around, like if you, if you say something like, "Israel has a right to exist," which, actually, this guy has said, Yaron Brook has said, then you can, you know, you're easily labeled in favor of horrible, horrible overreach by Israel and bad treatment of the Palestinians, things that I'm absolutely against.

0:10:02 Thomas: And then if you go the other way, if say, well, I, you, know, I'm, I have sympathy for the Palestinians etc., and you criticize Israel, then it's, well, look at, are you in favor of the suicide bombing and the terrorism that the Palestinians are doing? So it's one of those debates that feels really lose-lose. And I don't particularly feel like I have any expertise on it. So I've always kind of avoided it.

Don't take what I'm saying here as any sort of taking of either side. I honestly, I'm just, I've not into the issue. I'm not up with it. I don't really have that much of an opinion. And I don't even mean to say I'm in the middle or something, don't get me wrong, I literally don't, you know, I just don't know.

So, far as, I can, see, the, only reason, I mention all that, is that, when it comes to Yaron Brook, his crime, in quotes, I guess, is being a Zionist, is, being in favor of the State of Israel, and, maybe, he's too far on, on that side. What happen, was antifa show up, and they broke up this event, and violence broke out, and I just saw the video, and thought, oh, great, this is gonna be another victimhood thing that Carl can, you know, tweet, and do a stupid video about, and he'll play the victim, and his patreon will go up, and his events will go up and everything. And I just, I just said, this isn't the answer. You know, like I, I don't know what is the answer necessarily.

But I just really don't think this is the Answer. And it actually stirred up quite a hot debate and it got, things got pretty heated between Dan Errol and I on, on Facebook. And he claimed that this was everything that's wrong with liberalism. By the way, he claims that about a lot of things pretty frequently. But one thing that Dan did say that I think is totally valid is that I haven't had anyone, besides him, by the way, we talked a bit about Antifa, but I haven t had anyone on to talk about it, and I haven d made a whole lot of pro-Antifa statements or anything like that, and you know what?

That might sound weird, so that, to anyone who's not into this issue, if you just kind of on the surface, you see in the news that Antifa is a bunch of people in black who beat people with sticks, then you'd think why would Thomas have to make a pro them statement, but I think that's actually the problem, I think I, and possibly some of you, who knows, might be ill-informed on what Antifa actually is and what they're doing.

And I also noticed in watching the video of this King's College London thing that actually they didn't start violence. Now, they stormed in yelling and screaming and pulled fire alarms and did stuff that, you know, we can talk about that in a second, but they storm in, they did all that, they kinda, you now, they were acting intimidating,

0:12:41 Thomas: But actually violence, actual violence did not break out until actually pretty quickly, early on, one of the audience members, you you know, someone in favor of this event, threw a punch at an Antifa member and then a scuffle broke out. And I think that's actually kind of critical. They threw the first punch. You can see it very clearly in one of the videos, which I'll find for you.

But in the video, which I'll put in the show notes, there's someone with a red beanie who is holding the Antifa flag when they come in, and very clearly, you can see it quite clearly, someone tries to take his flag, and that same person punches him and throws the first punch that's seen in any of the video.

Now, maybe there's something happening behind the scenes, but I've looked at several videos, and from what I'm seeing, and judge for yourselves, that is the first punch, is a non-Antifa person. Back to, that, in a ,minute, but in researching this, I, I asked my, member, YouTube, group, by the way, join up, if you are a member of either, patreon or seriouspod.com, join, up, it's, it's a lot of fun, I asked them, and Jeremiah offered me a link to Philosophy Tube, a great YouTube channel, who did an hour-long video, actually, a little over an hour, on the philosophy of Antifa. I I watched it. I think it's an absolutely tremendous video.

I'm not sure I fully agree with all of it, but I think It does a great job of breaking things down. I'll link that as well. And then there's another video I've seen on Vox that talks about the Antifa trap, and that one, I think, that is very relevant to what I want to talk about here. I think just like in times past when I've defended Black Lives Matter, I've, I'm defending Black Lives Matter a lot on this show because it's a common right-wing Fox News bullshit talking point to link some sort of case where a protest turned into violence, label Black Lives Matters terrorists and a violent group, and a blah blah blah, and ignore everything they're saying. Even think this happens a lot on the left.

I think there are people who otherwise should know better get sucked into spending far more time than they should on condemning the actions of a few in a protest that has some key goals and some really worthwhile, while, things to say, and one thing that this Vox video pointed out that I think is an excellent point is the number of arrests at a lot of these big rallies that were quote-unquote clashes between Antifa and actual fascists, the number of arrests is similar to at a typical NFL game,

0:15:21 Thomas: So it's like, if you really think violence ruins everything, like the whole movement is ruined because of a few arrests, then the NFL is ruined because of the few unrest, you know, and when there's a championship basketball game, you know, the Lakers win, the championship hasn't happened in a while, but maybe they'll get back to it. And there's rioting, you Know, and there's, there's the streets are just ruined and all that. As though that ruins all of basketball. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's, it's wrong, especially that, like, it'S one thing if you're, if you'RE arrested in in the course of trying to protect people who are threatened by racist and Genocidal ideology, that's totally ignoring the fact that that's not a fair comparison in any way, shape, or form, but just looking at the idea that does a little bit of violence ruin the entire thing, like does it poison the entire X thing, whether it's a movement, or it's sport, or an event, or whatever, and the answer is clearly no.

0:16:20 Thomas: That's just not how it works. And so this is where I wanna come clean and say that though I have been very strong in defending Black Lives Matter in the way that I, you know, in my best way, from things like this, from thing like devoting too much attention to the... the Times where violence broke out, I, I very much defended that, I don't think I've done a proper job of defending Antifa in that way, because I actually think a very similar thing is happening, very similar. So I think I'm gonna go on a bit of a pro-Antifa thing here for a sec, but, but lest, if there's anyone on the other side, I actually still, spoiler alert, I still think the King's College thing was, was a bad idea. I still do. So this is one of those, I can't win with, with anyone, probably, but I'm going to do my best to find my moorings and say what I think is right, and, you know, I'm, I am open to arguments on both sides to try to argue me either way, But that's where I am right now.

0:17:19 Thomas: I think Antifa is doing a ton of good. And I also think I fell short by not acknowledging that and merely focusing on the extreme examples in the same way that Fox News will focus on extreme examples for Black Lives Matter. Matter. So much of what Antifa is doing, you don't really see covered. You know, it's nonviolent protest. It's alerting that people are white nationalists, that people are Nazis, that, you know, doing things like that, that is not violent.

Now, if you want to still disagree with that, we can have that debate. But the point is, we need to acknowledge that most of what they're doing is nonviolent. And most of the violence, by the way, is in self-defense. And there have been a number of articles that came out recently because Richard Spencer recently got on the YouTubes and made a video about, here's a quote, I really hate to say this, and I definitely hesitate to say this, "Antifa is winning to the extent that they're willing to go further than anyone else," and hold on, this is me stepping out of it, people have jumped on this Richard Spencer video to say, "Ah, Antifa's winning, Antfas winning," and I want to, I want to point out that I think parts of that may be true, but I also think if you think about it from Richard Spencer's point of view, he's going to be saying what he needs to say to try to get more attention and to create controversy.

And so, part of what's going to be, in my opinion, part what's gonna be going through Richard Spencer's mind is to exaggerate the other side a bit, to play up the victimhood, like, and I think he really does this, listen to this next sentence, "Antifa is winning to the extent that they're willing to go further than anyone else," in the sense that they will do things in terms of just violence, intimidating,

0:19:00 Thomas: And general nastiness, and, So I think it would be a little bit premature and possibly fallacious to declare that Antifa has won because Richard Spencer says that it won. I don't think we can quite, I mean, we can look at that, we could look at the evidence, but I think that it's in his interest to say, gosh, I'm just, you know, they're winning because they're doing, they are using dirty tactics and violence and they're shutting down my, you you know, they're winning guys. Come, come fight back. You know, I think he's going to be incentivized to say something like that. So I don't think we can, we can simply declare victory because of the words of a white nationalist. Sort of like when, when people quote Hitler on gun control and stuff, it's like, okay, that might be right. But also you're quoting Hitler on gun control.

0:19:48 Thomas: Like, I don't know. I don't usually go to Hitler to prove stuff either way. But what might be true, and what's also in some of these articles, again, links in the notes, about Antifa possibly winning, is that his events don't really have anybody at them, they're kind of empty, and I don't think it's exactly possible to know precisely what's happening there, to say with certainty what's going on, but I think that it's reasonable to conclude that Antifa, in their nonviolent efforts, they do things like they alert, organizations or venues. They alert venues to say, here's who's coming to your venue. Do you really want this? Or they alert employers. Again, as I said earlier, they've outed some people who essentially are Nazis online.

0:20:36 Thomas: They out them to their employers. They're making it unpopular to be a Nazi. And I think it's very reasonable to conclude that that's having an effect. And that I think that some amount of this has been allowed to survive by us kind of ignoring it and allowing it to be about free speech in a way. Positive things about Antifa's, I think these are good tactics, they are non-violent tactics, even if you want to, and this isn't me, by the way, I, I I think if you're a Nazi, and especially if you were saying genocidal, you know, or Nazi-esque things online, I personally think it's fine to out that person to their employer, honestly, I do, and then their employer can decide if they, you you know, if that's someone they want to employ, uh, I think there, there should, and there is, and there ought to be a social cost to being a frigging Nazi.

0:21:28 Thomas: Like that. I mean, in terms of like some slippery slope, well, what if you employer fires you for being pro-gay marriage? Well, yeah, no, that sucks. But I also think the solution to that is people shouldn't fire people for being pro-gay marriage. Uh, that's, that's why, but, but being a Nazi, a different thing. I think that's a, that's a pretty easy line there. But anyway, even, like, that debate aside, like you can't say that that's a violent tactic, and so many of these Antifa tactics aren't violent, and by the way, a lot of what they do is provide protection and resistance and defense and, Two very vulnerable groups sometimes in protests, you know, and so some of the violence is a result of defense against violence.

0:22:14 Thomas: Now, this is where I make the obligatory, yes, you can find examples of morons or, and actually, one thing about Antifa that I think is a little bit different than some other groups is, Antifa attracts some, some other ideologies within it that I don't, I'm not a fan of, for example, anarchy, I, I am not a, I just don't think it's good, and I think that there's a lot of Anarchy-inspired violence that isn't justified, you know, if, if someone's out there breaking windows to buildings because their ideology is there shouldn't be a government, like, frankly, I, that's stupid, I'm not, I am not with you, so I am NOT going to go that far, you know, and, and of course, there will be those examples, and Antifa is not an organized group, there's no central government, there's, you, know, it's, there is no, like rulebook for everybody, and so, yes, there'll be people who do it wrong, and there'll, you now, times where violence breaks out.

0:23:08 Thomas: And maybe it is even the fault of someone in Antifa. There will be those times, but just like with the football games and the basketball championships, and just like with With Black Lives Matter and so many other movements, episodes of violence because of clashes of thousands of people are pretty inevitable, and sure, the fewer the better, of course, the few are the better. I'm not a fan of violence at all, and I don't want that to happen, but it does not disqualify the entire group and the aims of the entire group. It just does not. Think what really illustrates it is if you look at from the Other angle, you know, which is to say, ought we to expect that a movement or a side or an ideology, what do you want to call it, ought Ought we to expect that they are perfect?

0:23:56 Thomas: Otherwise, we cannot hear what they have to say. Is that a worthwhile? Is that even useful? Or is it even a possible way to evaluate things? Because very quickly, you run into the problem of, well, I was just going to say, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I mean, really, every movement you can find a bad apple, you can't disqualify them all by that.

And so, my point is this, I think I can still really easily hang on to my anti-violent opinions and ways of going about things, short of self-defense, of course, and still be in favor of Antifa, and And I also think it's crucial for me to first talk about the good that Antifa is doing and the times where we should support it, which is most of the time, and the actual results they're getting, and the fact that it, they're not fascist, the people who are saying, well, Antifa's the real fascists, if you dress in black, then you're the fascist. No, I mean, that's simplistic, it's very simplistic, but, now here's the but, so having said all that, I think what happened in King's College was a bad idea.

So, first, taking a look at the violence question, I think that there's a very real case to be made for some levels of violence when we're dealing with actual, real, neo-Nazis, genocidal views, white supremacy, I think that, so when, you know, when a person of color punches a neo-nazi, I'm more concerned with why is there a neo Nazi than I am with, you you know, like, OK, well, now we've all got to condemn someone who punched someone who said all his people should be removed from the country.

0:25:45 Thomas: You know, I get why that guy would punch that guy. I think that we pay far too much attention to that. And I think I fell victim to that a little bit at the time.

I think that is a debate, you know, I could see, I can see a very reasonable position, and, and I myself am not totally sure, you now, I'm not totally, I, I definitely think we make too much of it, and we focused too much on the person who punched Richard Spencer, I think we did, I still could see a principled case for, we still shouldn't use that kind of violence for that, but, but I could stay agnostic on that.

So like I could, I could just leave that little debate aside and still say what happened at King's college was not a good idea because we've stretched. And again, I know this is going to sound like I'm a center Lord bullshit right now, but certain Certain people are stretching the word fascist too far, I'm sorry to say it, you know, I know that sounds like a bullshit center-lord or right-wing thing to say, I don't, I am not going to say the left is doing it, I m not going say that, you, I, m not making a broad statement like that, but I do think in the case of this Antifa at King's College in London, I think they have stretched it too far and in the cases of the protests that happened against Christina Hoff Summers, they've stretched it too far. I shouldn't even have to say this, but I loathe Christina Hoff Summers. I loath Carl.

I can't stand them. I think they're really harmful. Anti-feminism is already enough to be, especially to that degree, is already to be harmful, not something we should platform, not we should take seriously, and not something that we should engage with and invite to our conferences.

Anti-feminism, the way they hold it already, I think, in my opinion, is disqualifying, and I want to do what I can to try to convince other people of that, and that involves trying to make pro-femism content, trying to make the case, maybe sometimes debating,

0:27:40 Thomas: Depending on the circumstances, but probably not most often. Debates don't really work well for that, they simply put things on an equal footing when they shouldn't be, and And that's just anti-feminism. And multiply that over by the anti-Black Lives Matter opinions they have. I mean, Carl's entire theory about race is that black, and this is literally in videos that he's made, black people just should get married because then that, if you look at the numbers, according to him, black People who are married are closer in the wealth gap in the income gap to white people. So that's all they have to, that's what they should do. And then they'll be fine. Fine. That's totally, by the way, a wrong way to interpret the data. It doesn't even come close to working out that way.

0:28:27 Thomas: And it also doesn't, it fundamentally misunderstands causality and correlation. I think black people getting married might be correlated with a higher income, but it doesn't mean that all they have to do is get married and then their lives are turned around. It probably means that people who are in a position to make a stable relationship like that are already in a bit better of a position than the average. That's probably what that means. It's probably a correlation, not a causation. And the recent New York Times article that came out and many subsequent critiques of it show that the wealth gap is so huge that that wouldn't even come anywhere close to solving the problem, but anyway, that's the kind of racism, I think it's kind of a subtle racism that persists among people like that, and it's awful, they're awful, I hate those views, I I think they're harmful.

0:29:19 Thomas: I think, you know, all of that. But I don't think you can honestly say they are fascists. I really don't Think You Can. And certainly not Nazis. And here's the thing, I am not into tone-policing every, you know, different person who maybe might have uttered jokingly like, ah, gosh, these Nazis are these fascists, whatever, it's, but when you're talking about, this is where it becomes important, when you are talking about Antifa, and if you are talking about an ideology that says it is actually okay to be violent potentially towards fascists or or Nazis, then I, I, you know, I actually do think you need to tighten up your language a little bit. You know, I think you need to be precise. And if your definition of people who you can use violence toward becomes not just actual Nazis or actual white supremacists, but people who are kind of enabling them or people who were, you know, part of the Ayn Rand Institute, that's, I'm sorry, but that's not sustainable.

0:30:16 Thomas: I mean, it just really isn't. You're going to be doing a lot of punching. You'll be punching your damn arm out just with all the people you need. There's millions of people like that. I just don't think that's sustainable. I really don't. Even if, and again, even if we're agnostic on the question of actual Nazi punching, like even, and I could even grant that, like, okay, yes, violence in that circumstance can be acceptable, but you have to make damn sure you know who you're talking about and that you're labeling people correctly. You go pop on Carl's video in the wake of this King's College thing, I hate to say it, but he was able to make an 18-minute video where he was almost right about much of what he said. You guys know that I hate this guy, but, he was just about right.

0:31:03 Thomas: He was able point out how ridiculous a lot of the name-calling is and how he's not a supporter of the alt-right. Right. I think he enables them. And that's a different discussion. But he also has debated them. He thinks they're wrong. He states in the video, he says, I think they are wrong. You know, like he's able to do that because people are being sloppy with their labels. And I don't care that much about it, except when you're talking about using possible violent forms of protest. You just have to be sure. And I really think that That if you look at that video, and you look the aftermath, which was, they still had the event, you know, Antifa tweeted something like, oh, we shut it down, it's all great, and a lot of people on my Facebook, you, know, leapt into that and say, yeah, it worked, it, hey, you Yankee, don't talk about our, you k policy on Antifa, and sure, I mean, maybe things are different over there, but the fact is, they had the even, they went to a different room, and he's been invited to more colleges to do the event.

0:32:01 Thomas: His Patreon account has ticked way up, and the views on this video, and, and on a lot of his recent YouTube videos, half a million views on the, uh, King's College video for Carl, half a million views. It's not, that's, it's not working.

Antifa It overplayed their hand a bit on this one, and again, this doesn't disqualify Antifa as a movement, and not by any means, for all the reasons I spent the first half of this podcast talking about, but it does mean I think it's valid to disagree with this particular particular Decision, and to point out that the outcome, I, I don't think was a good one, frankly. I mean, I'm, this is subject to, to evidence.

Now, if, if it becomes true, if you guys somehow show, like, if time unfolds, and Sargon's all of a sudden isn't speaking anywhere in the UK, and somehow this is successful, you know, I will eat my words, and I say, okay, you, you were successful, but I don't think it's the same as a Richard Spencer, because with Richard Spencer it's incredibly straightforward to show even though some people are in denial, by the way, but it's very straightforward to say this is white nationalism. There's no nonviolent white nationalism They can pretend they are, but ultimately white nationalism means moving a bunch of people out of your country or expelling people or not accepting.

There is no non-violent way to do that They are Nazis. They are horrible. That's a different and easier case to make. When you start trying to stretch that to people who are, yes, they are right wing. They're closeted right wing people. Carl thinks he's a liberal and he says he's a liberal.

0:33:42 Thomas: He's full of shit. He is not a liberal He's a closet right wing guy but the right wing is half our stupid country. We're not going to be able to shut out half our country. That's just not it's not practical. Honestly it is not. We are not. What are we going to do? Antifa should be punching Congress I guess. Why are you not punching Congress if you think this is how it's going to work? But there is, once again, a minor bone I want to throw toward Antifa, which is, I, it might be that they never intended any actual violence going into that event, you know, they went in there, they were, I still think it's, it doesn't quite work to use the language they did, which is, they didn't just protest, which, you know, I'm all for protest, I am all for using your First Amendment, well, it's in the UK, they don't have amendments, but if it were here, using your First Amendment right to protest, I'm all for that.

0:34:34 Thomas: I'm not saying you have to do nothing and allow these kinds of things to happen. I think that it's appropriate if you want to try to stop it or call attention to how odious some of these views are. Totally appropriate. But they rushed in there in their masks and they marched around the stage and they kind of did a little shoving and, for the most part, I will say, though, that what's so still backwards about Carl and other people, example.

Is in his stupid video, which I said he was, he was able to be correct for like, you know, 80% of it, it's true, he's able to make correct statements, and that's the unfortunate side effect of this, but one thing he did say that was, I think, laughably wrong in the face of the actual video evidence, is that Antifa is the real fascists because they're the violent ones, and, and he, he morally condemns them for being pro-violence in the phase of speech, and I think when you look at the video and see that actually the person who initiated violence was a fan of Carl and or Yaron Brook, I think that becomes pretty ironic, because then by that logic, you would disqualify all of the fans of Carl and Yaron Brook. They threw the first punch, actually.

So, once that happened, they turned the tables, and Antifa was actually acting in self-defense, you know, and you can, if you want to try to make the claim that somehow them protesting and walking up onto the stage means that you can punch them, then all of a sudden the tables are kind of turned, and you're saying that you could punch people when they didn't punch you first, and then you sort of kind of sound like the Antifa that you were saying was fascist, so I thought that was a bit of a comical thing about the video.

See you. All right, so there you have it, I'll try to sum up, I hope I've been clear in my views here, to try to reiterate, just to make sure that everything's clear, I think that I have fallen short in only chiming in on a couple of high-profile bad examples,

0:36:30 Thomas: In my opinion, of Antifa, and haven't done the work of talking about the good they do, and it's very indispensable good. You know, as Alex Jules put it, who I accidentally referred to as Alex Jones the other day, my sincere apology to Alex for that slip of the brain. I'm going to blame the baby on that one. But Alex Jules said that he knows that people in Antifa are the ones who are going to take a punch for him when he's out protesting against white nationalism and stuff like that. And there's, that's critical. That's good work. That's amazing. Being a shield, as he said on this show, I think he said he doesn't want an ally. He wants a shield. Alex is great. I got to get him back on. But I'm getting the feeling from him that he's a little burnt out based on his social media.

0:37:20 Thomas: So I don't want to put Bring him into something that he's not wanting to do, but I love Alex and I would have him on again any time that he was willing to come on, and I think that's well put, I think there's, Antifa is doing a ton of good work, I there are a lot of people doing a lot good work using tactics that aren't violent, trying to make a no-tolerance zone for white nationalism and for Nazism, and that's a good thing, and it's something to recognize.

And I think, so then, therefore, a lot those people have been unfairly maligned And because of some select high profile incidents of violence, and there's a whole narrative that Antifa are the real fascists, largely speaking, that's just not true. So, all that said, I, I think I reserve the right, and I think we all have the right to still criticize local, Actions on a case-by-case basis, and I think that it is critical to use as precise language as we can when we're talking about things as serious as Nazism and white supremacy and fascism and stuff, I don't, I, I mean, argue with me if you want, and, uh, I'll hear your arguments, but being an anti-feminist and being an individualist who is dangerously wrong on race issues, I-I-I don't think it makes you a fascist. You know, I think that's too big of a leap, you.

And if we're going to move the bar to that, in terms of who we can use potentially violent measures against, I think you're gonna have way too much work ahead of you, you're going be doing that against, you know, 40% of the country, and I just don't think it's sustainable.

0:38:55 Thomas: I think the non-violent measures are great, but also trying to be as precise as we can in how we're talking about these things. When you call Christina Hoff Sommers a known fascist, it's just too much of a stretch, man, it's just it's too it's too easy for the other side to propagandize that, and I get that it's never gonna be enough, like, we're never gonna be perfect, and I'm a great example of that lately on social media. Yeah, we're not gonna be perfect, but we can, we can try to be a little more precise than that is all I'm saying. Alright, well, who knows if I made any friends on this one, might have been enemies all around, I'm not sure. So now it's time to talk about that announcement I mentioned. I've been thinking a lot about it, and... And...

0:39:40 Thomas: More and more lately, I've noticed a problem, which is that even my biggest fans and supporters aren't able to keep up with all the content I'm doing, and, like, even people who are, you know, pledging money, love the show and all that, sometimes they aren't even aware of episodes I've done because, you know, two a week, week in, week out, is just a, it's a lot of content.

As a result, I'm very strongly considering going down to one episode a week and giving people more breathing room and keeping up and, uh, that sort of thing. I, I just think it, really, I am not doing anyone any favors if even people who love the show aren't able to really keep up with it. I'd rather have more ear balls on one episode of a week, I think, uh which, which will mean the message is essentially getting out to more people. People.

The very obvious problem is it's very scary for me to think about cutting, you know, my biggest source of income in half, so that's where I'm gonna have to try to work something out with my employers, aka patrons and members, Here's what I'm thinking right now, and please, by all means, members and patrons, give me feedback if you don't like this idea, but I'm thinkin', I have the Jake News with Thomas, a very fun little show that we've been doing every other week, so, you know, two a month, a little over two a months, I guess it would average out to, I was thinking I could formalize that a little more, clean it up, edit it, add some listener, maybe listener voicemail, listener comment, email, whatever, and make that a sort of bonus episode, but as a paid post, that way it kind of buffers a little bit.

0:41:18 Thomas: So I'm not cutting the income in half, which is a very scary thought right now to me. And to kind of meet halfway there, let me know what you think of that. I know I heard from a lot of you already who said, yeah, I've got, you know, X dollars for serious inquiries only. And you know that that's the amount doesn't matter the output. And that's awesome. You guys are awesome. But I absolutely absolutely understand, you know, if people aren't that and people, you know, they, if they are pledging a certain amount because they want a certain amount of output, totally no judgment there. I absolutely respect that. Uh, I think it's going to kind of fall somewhere along the spectrum. Most people I've heard from are very supportive of this idea. So, uh, let me know what you think of that right now. I'm leaning toward in April going down to one post a week, one episode a week, but doing two sort of bonus episodes for patrons only.

0:42:08 Thomas: And that would be the Jake News with Thomas, a very fun little segment we do, formalizing that a little more to make it a patron-only, member-only episode and buffering it a little bit by making those be paid. So that's what I'm leaning toward. I hope this won't be too heartbreaking to anyone. I have gotten a few comments that there are definitely people who listen every episode and who catch it twice a week. And I hope I'm not letting you guys down too much. But honestly, if I am, please go check out Philosophers in Space. I'm telling you, this show is great. It's, it's really good. I mean, we're talking open, opening arguments level good. Opening arguments is just freaking fantastic, but that show is absolutely taking off, so there, there, you already know that's good. But, Philosoph, the reason I'm leaning toward trying to do this is, honestly, Philosphers in space is almost the second episode per week I'd want to be doing anyway.

0:43:01 Thomas: So if we're doing an episode of that a week, in some ways it's the same thing. We just have to figure out the practicality of how it'll work. So if you're going to miss that content and you're not already subbed and subscribed and Patreoning over on Philosophers in Space, please do so, because honestly, I think it's a great show. I just the people who have taken the time to listen are really enjoying it, and the Facebook group has been a whole lot of fun.

And we're delving into these awesome philosophical ideas using sci-fi and different shows and movies and stuff, and and we don't spoil a whole lot, you know, that's been something people were worried about, we announce if we're gonna spoil something. But mostly we we just use the concept or the premise of the show. We don't do a whole of spoiling, and we'll let you know if we are going to.

That's where I am, that's my plan right now, that what I'm thinking, doing an episode a week, and then for patrons only, doing sort of two bonus episodes, If you have strong feelings one way or the other, please get in contact with me, let me know, we can, we could try to work something out, I'm here, I am listening, but I think that's, I think it's gonna be better, honestly, I there's too much good stuff, and I think once a week will be ultimately better for everybody. Buddy.

All right, that's my show, I'm really curious what you'll think of this one, please chime in, voicemail, email, whatever, I, I am very curious, I think this is, again, this, this show is very much me trying to find what I think is right, and it's hard, you know, it's, it, it the, it a minefield out there, but it's what I currently believe to be the truth, and that's, that all I'm trying to do, and I,I, I believe I'm doing that in good faith, and trying to pay as much credence to,

0:44:42 Thomas: To all the, the good faith sides as I can. All right, thank you so much for listening, and I will see you on Monday.