WTW112: How the Right Convinced Everyone There Was a Free Speech Crisis: A Case Study

Transcript

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

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob, how often you just don't see them coming.

0:00:11 Clip: Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.

0:00:19 Clip: Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down. The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything, everything, and everything. Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M &M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:43 Thomas: And welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 112. I'm Thomas, that over there is Lydia. How you doing?

0:00:49 Lydia: I'm doing pretty well. I'm excited for this one.

0:00:54 Thomas: After the last intro to, you know?

0:00:55 Lydia: I did some reflection.

0:00:57 Thomas: Doing great!

0:00:58 Lydia: Yeah. No, I am excited for this one, though, because we're going back in history a little bit, aren't

0:01:05 Thomas: This is a result of us going on Godawful Movies. As we speak right here, it's not out yet. It's going to be out. Think it'll be Monday. I'm pretty sure. So, yeah, within 24, 48 hours of when this is published. But we wanted to do this because the God awful movies that we did was a certain called No Safe Spaces. Um is of course a movie by adam carolla why is a movie it's a uh barely feature -length documentary by adam corolla and dennis prager uh in the kind of peak of adam like the the final peak of adam carolla's career I think when

0:01:15 Lydia: Imminently. Yeah? When

0:01:46 Thomas: He still was Was married and had, you in the studio and stuff. Was put out in 2019 and it really fun for us on Godawful Movies with Eli and Noah because it's basically a collection of every single bullshit political correctness slash woke kids slash, let's see, what were they calling us in 2019? Was it woke yet? Yet I don't know if it was yeah social justice warriors I guess we're getting closer to woke uh 2019 it's hard to remember exactly um they just rattle off just like story after story that are specifically things we've debunked over the years

0:01:46 Lydia: When anyone still cared about him at all. Yeah. Social justice warriors. Mm

0:02:22 Thomas: Um so it was tough because there was some like how do we do that in a god awful movies because we have to like go through the whole movie um

0:02:28 Lydia: That's not, like, the purpose of that either, right? Like, they're not there to necessarily, like. Debunk things. We didn't want to take over their show. We almost did. But we didn't. We didn't want to.

0:02:38 Thomas: I don' t know how much it would be the right to mount with something like that. Cause it's like, you want to do some amount of it, but also there's too much.

0:02:45 Lydia: Otherwise, the misinformation holds. Yeah.

0:02:47 Thomas: And then it turns into us where we're paralyzed by too many things to research.

0:02:51 Lydia: And spiraling.

0:02:52 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:52 Lydia: Welcome.

0:02:53 Thomas: So I was going to try to do something like this. I was like, I'm going to do this. Some of this on there, but it ended up that like I did, we didn't have time. And so I thought, Hey, this will be a great way to do some stuff on where there's woke classic, where there're woke historical debunk. And also, you know, cross promote, check out god awful movies which you probably already have but if you haven't it's one of my favorite shows and we're going to cover a particular event and also like the broad culture war that let's let's be real I mean they won uh unfortunately it's bummer it's why it's been yeah no it's definitely it's why it's been a bummer you know the past since trump won the second was one of the many reasons um because when when I created this show initially I was excited to try to debunk this anti -woke stuff and take a look through history and you know we'd barely begun that project when uh won and they decided to change all the history and they just declared themselves

0:03:10 Lydia: Always a good time. They were wrong, but they won. Yeah. Yep.

0:03:42 Thomas: The winners but it was it's also like reflecting on how effective this was like campaign against the left and against the college students and, this free speech language. Undeniably successful. I think it's worth diagnosing it. One, I always love a good debunk, debunking some of this, but also studying the broader thing and looking at like, why did this happen? Can we possibly learn how to prevent this in the future? Because it will never end. They will always go to this because it's so effective. College student free speech stuff, it a formula that is just like a hundred percent. Like it's just the batting average is so high.

0:04:18 Lydia: Never fails, Yeah.

0:04:19 Thomas: Yeah. And so, I I've just been reflecting on that. This documentary was a particular chance to feel bad about it. So we felt bad.

0:04:29 Lydia: Misery loves company, so glad you're all here. Us.

0:04:33 Thomas: After the break, we will talk about a University of Wyoming talk that Denis Prager trigger gave and alleges was, disrupted you by protesters and was a whole thing. And there's some claims made about it. Also tied to this is another claim from the documentary that I'll play the audio of real quick, that essentially the war on free speech of the mid 2010s or whatever was like the worst free speech has ever been. It's like the low point of free speech. Speech and uh I think it's worth looking at some history to see that no pretty much that could just be the show looking at history to say that no all right well we'll take a quick break and then we'll dig into it the show patreon.com/wherethereswoke thanks so much to those who do thanks for listening supporting all that stuff we'll be right back gonna gonna play a little bit of this fun fun documentary of when they won the war by lying um let's get introduced to the events here so Dennis Prager of course radio host um PragerU

0:05:37 Lydia: Prager U. We did a whole deep dive on PragerU and all that stuff. You guys can check that out if you haven't before.

0:05:44 Thomas: Columbus fan uh conservative um

0:05:46 Lydia: Cigar lover. We learned that during this amazing documentary yeah

0:05:52 Thomas: You know like in terms of people one of the like nicer conservatives like I'm sure he's like a good guy in most respects um rather hang out with him than you miller unless I get to do violence um it's his his views are harmful and he's been good at spreading them. And this is that documentary. We're not really going to get much Adam Carolla, which is probably for the best.

0:05:57 Lydia: He's not rude

0:06:14 Thomas: They do this kind of false setup to this. That's, you know,, just for the documentary, but whatever it's, allow it's it. Yeah.

0:06:14 Lydia: Yeah hollywood baby yeah

0:06:20 Clip: On the way to the airport which is uh where I do much of my life the airport you know I go to all sorts of campuses from berkeley to columbia and everything in between so you know my hope is it's wyoming it's a pretty conservative state all will be peaceful and tranquil. It all began when students invited a special guest to speak about socialism. Yeah that's right Aaron we were on campus tonight as hundreds lined up to see Dennis Prager speak about his views but before he even arrived to campus other students who did not agree tried to stop his appearance. We're essentially here because we don't agree with Mr. Prager's views at all he has said many hurtful things and hateful rhetoric towards underrepresented and communities of which Wyoming has many beautiful, diverse communities. In the case of the University of Wyoming, it was precious. Dennis Prager noted, which was a compliment, noted bigot, racist, homophobe, sexist, Islamopho and antisemite. I swear to God.

0:07:16 Thomas: This is later.

0:07:31 Clip: So word got out to the person who clearly knew me well, it's probably worth dropping anti-Semite. The guy is a well -known Jew, written books on Judaism, etc. So they dropped that. Without a word of apology, needless to say, they just dropped it, but everything else remained. It's

0:07:53 Thomas: That's the the first thing um get this what seems to me to be completely um artificial setup video where he's driving because I don't know why they would have filmed that like he just had a clip from when he was driving to the airport saying surely this will all be great no

0:08:02 Lydia: And there's not a lot of like similar footage like that throughout the entire documentary it's like like really this one time where you get like the the drive and talk yeah exactly where they probably did it after the fact and they're like okay say this yeah

0:08:10 Thomas: Not at all they just wanted to do this one establishing shot yeah of course and yeah and they're like we want it to lead into to this news report. So it'll be great if you say, surely it will all be great. So there's that. But then what really bugged me is this focus in on this one thing where he's like, someone called me an anti -Semite and I am famously Jewish.

0:08:35 Thomas: So that's dumb. And they're all dumb and all the kids are dumb. Okay. When we recorded GAM, I haven't found this. I actually actually did find it yeah I actually did find um at least the source of this kind of is sorry important to note like is the bullshit that they do the such a perfect bulletproof plan for them for these provocateurs because they say awful things some of them try to kind of hide it and sound their you agenda is awful. And all these ways of making it hard for people on the left to, like, make the case against them, their racism. And like, people on the left overplay stuff, as do people on the right, like people do that, like people tend to exaggerate. And so when Dennis Prager has has said something that is largely speaking racist because it, you know, is in denial of systemic oppression and is trying to whitewash our history and is trying to make it. He literally claims there's nobody is is discriminated against. Nobody is disenfranchised or anything in our society like he makes that claim. And so, you would on the left are like, yeah, that's it's racist. Like it's essentially racist. It's upholding the systems of racism. Racism. Then we're talking about, you 18, 19 year old, technically adults for youngest form of adults, 18 19

0:08:35 Lydia: Earlier Yeah. Right. Yeah.

0:09:47 Thomas: Year olds, 20 year olds 21 year olds. You know, they tend reach for the more extreme expressions of that. So they call him a bigot. They call him, Oh, he's a rape apologist because of this comment he made that we might get into. Too. I'm sure if it's worth it, but we'll see. So then that's perfect for them because they get to just nitpick is the term, just find the worst examples of people who criticize them, blow that up, paint it all as stupid, sit there nice and reasonable with all the privilege and power to calmly say how dumb these people are who are mad. And it works every time. I mean, mean it's just such a bulletproof thing to do but this thing about like someone claimed you was an anti -semite okay we have no actually proof of that like there is no proof of that but what I found was in the article that they briefly flashed I didn't recognize it because they just did a screenshot of the graphic or whatever but I actually ended up finding it and from campus reform, we, yeah, love campus reform What a great thing. Describes kind of what's going on in obviously loaded terms, but here's the proof. You ready? Here's what happened. Here's the little paragraph. One post in the discussion section originally included a contention that Mr. Prager was anti -Semitic, but that claim has since been removed after students pointed out to protesters that Prager is in fact of Jewish descent. So all we get is the word of campus reform without a screenshot or

0:10:43 Lydia: Ah, we know that very well. Yeah?

0:11:17 Thomas: Anything. And then we get this weird statement that like the claim has since been removed after students pointed out to protesters that preggers, in fact, of Jewish descent. That doesn't really make much sense, does it? Would you call and I guess would you call them protesters if they're in the group? Doesn't that sound like people who talk to protest? I don't know. Whatever. Either way, it's like the weakest of weak sauce it's campus you reform insists trust me bro there was someone who said anti -semitic and maybe they did but also who gives a shit like it doesn't really matter it's just like yeah it's a college student it's the college student on a facebook page in the discussion section in a comment or whatever and like that's what he elevates to the the stage to be the thing worthy of response.

0:11:45 Lydia: It just sounds like a person who's slightly less informed than everybody else. Yeah right.

0:12:00 Lydia: Well and the the way that he talks about it too it sounds like he makes it sound like there There was an article written about him and a reporter.

0:12:10 Thomas: He said noted anti-Semite and he says he swears to God. It's like there wasn't noted. That's nowhere. I don't can't find that anywhere. In that as as a method of, you not having to engage in any sort of, uh, discussion. Um. Particularly frustrating about this is that the event itself was fine it was completely fine people protested he still got to speak he still had the stage he still had the megaphone people protestED peacefully nobody stopped anything they're outside well within their rights and yet it didn't matter it doesn't matter how within our rights people on on the left are, if there's any protest to point to, they will paint it as the crazy college kids who are stopping free speech. Nobody's stopping free speak. They did more speech. They were out there doing speech. It was all speech. I agree with you that if someone had violently attacked him or had set off a bomb in the thing, had done something that actually stops free speech, that's stopping free speech. And people did nothing like that these students were entirely peaceful and it gets even worse because like it's it was even more more speechy and peaceful than, than, you know, if you didn't look into this, um, want to play this. From a couple minutes later I'm

0:13:29 Clip: Reason for the attack is that I'm known as a conservative. This is a brainwash that they undergo. If you are conservative, then you are not wrong, you You are evil. They have to think we're evil. Otherwise, they have to debate us.

0:13:45 Thomas: So as you're hearing me say if you're listening to gam the thing he literally just got done doing was smearing the entire protest against him by saying one person called him an anti -semite and then that way ducking the entire argument against him as a way of avoiding debate and then he just says this, which is they have to do this. Otherwise they have to debate you. It's like, Hey, you did that exact thing. You, you avoided debate by nutpicking and using one example that like, in your opinion was dumb. Which by the way was revised. It's like, okay, they changed it anyway. And yet you can use that to throw out the entire concerns of those folks. And then in the same literal, minutes, you're then later saying they had, they do it to avoid debating you. What's funny is, I don't know if you know this, he actually debated one of the students.

0:14:31 Thomas: One of the students agreed to call into his radio show before this and they had a debate about it. Yeah. And this guy's pretty awesome. I think that, so not going to go through too much of this. I it's interesting. This student, love I this this guy. Very calm, very, you sharp. And he, I think does a, does enough job, but unfortunately he wasn't like the organizer and the organizer person was a girl who was responsible for the language that was, look, it Was a bit overblown. Like it went to the, it extreme of each thing. So instead of it being that, you made problematic comments about such and such. It's like, he's a bigot and he's done this. And like, I get it.

0:15:08 Lydia: I think that can be a tough position to be in because like you want people to show up.

0:15:12 Thomas: Trying to organize. Yeah, exactly. I know. And it's, but at the same time, I think that that's, in all of this, the I main thing we have to sit back and remember is, wait a minute, we're talking about what students did in their Facebook group for a protest. Like ultimately that's why this argument is so good for them because it puts us in these dumb positions where we're like, well, was the thing the 19 -year -old said a little too far?

0:15:39 Thomas: Let's see. We got the 19 year old, then we have Dennis Prager, millionaire, multi -millionaire, immensely successful person, all the power and money in the world, especially at this point in 2019. so let's evaluate that person with that megaphone, the radio show that reaches millions and millions, the YouTube that reaches billions and millions. And let's pit that against like, Like, OK, a student used hyperbole. That was a little too much. Now, I think it's a good idea just as personal hygiene to know, it's a lesson that I've learned over 10 years that you're just better off if you try to stick to more supportable insults, you know, like especially it depends on the context. I mean, if we're just, having you a loose discussion or doing comedy or whatever. But if you're organizing, if you are making statements that are intended for people and maybe even the target of your criticism to see, you're better off if you stick as close as you can to pretty well defensible characterizations. But again, this is minor criticisms toward literal students versus what what he's doing.

0:15:38 Lydia: Mm hmm? Yeah. Yeah marketing.

0:16:43 Thomas: That is to say, um, ended up happening is that then Prager this student who called in, who I was think was a pretty nice guy and level -headed was kind of forced to defend all that language. And, and kind of did. And I feel like maybe, the student would have been better off if he just was like, ah, here's my specific.

0:16:58 Thomas: Yeah. Or just like, all right, I don't know. She'll speak for herself and she's not here. So I'm going to, I'll just say my particular things. I don't know if it would have worked because Prager's goal was to just have him sound dumb and not give him time to really get into his stuff. I don't know if you know this. Radio fucking sucks. So YouTube clip that has this interview or debate is 32 minutes and 40 seconds. Four seconds they go to commercial. It'll be like okay and so my argument and we got to go to break and it's like fucking a and then by the end he the student was like oh maybe you know maybe we could talk more and like if in the question answer like listener or yeah listeners are calling in like maybe if they have any questions for me I could stick around and prager's like uh you know you know thanks but no thanks I think an hour is more than generous so in an hour they had 32 minutes of discussion. Like minutes of that was going into and out of breaks where you have to do the like resetting everything. Radio is just fucking the stupidest medium. I'm so glad the podcast replaced it because getting to interrupt whatever's happening, the flow of any conversation every single four minutes with an ad, we just made it so nothing happened. Like I listened to this whole thing and it was, it kind of sucked because it would have been fun to hear more actual argument. But basically, all Prager does is try to corner him into like the specifics of those insults that the other student put on the page. You know, let's be honest, they don't quite hold up because they're hyperbole. Like he's a rape defender. I think she said he advocates for rape or something. It's like, all right. I mean, that's not as

0:18:38 Thomas: Too far. But I mean it's a loosely mostly speaking, um, based on like, his advice portion of the show, talking about, you know, marriage and talking about like, he talks about happiness a lot and he has this thing where he says his, his whole lesson has been that, you Know, you shouldn't let your mood for one, you shouldn'T inflict your mood on other people and you shouldn'T, Let um. Your mood dictate everything you do because sometimes you need to like, go you the flow and, and your mood might might not necessarily be a good indicator and you should, you sometimes you need to like ignore it or work through it. And apparently in an article, he wrote that, hey, if you're a woman and you're married to a good man, and sometimes you don't let your mood dictate that you don't have sex. Express your thoughts on that sentiment if you'd like. Her to say it's like advocating rape is just seems like it's just like that gives them too easy of an out to say like, no, I was saying women should maybe consent when they might not be in the mood if they're in a good marriage with a good husband, which I'm not defending that. That, but like the, point was she should consent. It so he was able to say to the student, Hey, I was just telling women, maybe they should consent. If she doesn't consent, she doesn'T consent. And so he was giving a firm view on that. It just gave him an easy out, you know?

0:19:49 Lydia: Know, you know, what's interesting. So not not the topic about what we're talking about today, but I actually from I follow a variety of you know sex professors and different, you things like that. And there actually is research search to support that like still have to consent but not necessarily like you're feeling tired or you're kind of in a bad mood that that alone you whether or not you're having sex might actually just kind of perpetuate a cycle and so like a lot of times people will say like if you find yourself experiencing that a lot then try and schedule sex on the calendar and then you know it's now it's a commitment and you actually find a lot of times that it helps pull you out of that mood um you get to engage in that you know again in a healthy loving relationship so I hate to defend dennis prager I don't necessarily think he's wrong it's probably you know the language that he used probably wasn't great and maybe he made the point in sort of a sloppy way and it's also informed by I think really harmful conservative conservative ideology about

0:20:51 Lydia: A woman being submissive to a man. Don't love love all of that, obviously, but I also don't think necessarily that the root of it is wrong. But yeah, yeah, I agree.

0:20:59 Thomas: Think saying he's advocating for rape is just too far. Like, it's just too far. Like, say something else. By the way, that's a nitpick of a college student, so it's, in the scheme of things, not a big fucking deal. But the only reason I'm talking about it is I did find it interesting. I was excited to hear this debate, and then it just got bogged down by that, and it wasn't even what this student said. And I I felt like this student, he seems so nice. I think he didn't want to throw his fellow student under the bus. So he was forced to sort of say like, yeah, no, I agree with those things, but here's my argument. And then his argument was like more reasonable, you know? And, but then Dennis Prager then doesn't, to criticize him a heaping, he then utilizes that tactic of just sticking back to the, oh, wait, but then am I a rape advocate or whatever? And getting bogged down in that. Yep. And then the minute he'd student would be like, well, OK, yeah, no. So, sure. But like, here's my argument. All right. Break time. You know, it's like barely ever let him finish an argument is really frustrating. And the other thing I'd say about Dennis Prager and I might have said if I was talking to him about this is like, well, I would sure hope that the first thing you said was, hey, husband, if your mood is horny, don't let your mood dictate that

0:21:43 Lydia: And then running the clock. Yeah yeah

0:22:06 Thomas: You have to demand sex you know like I hope he said that did you I don't know like why is the why is the onus on the woman in that case and and maybe he did I don't know they didn't talk about that but that would have been my first question or I would have read the article or whatever to find some some criticism of that but it's stuff like that but point is I find it really hypocritical and basically dishonest of Dennis Prager he's he's basically lying when he talks in terms of like, they won't debate me there. They have to paint you as evil to debate you when he literally debated one before

0:22:07 Lydia: Cuts both ways yeah yep yeah yeah

0:22:40 Thomas: This event. Another dishonest thing that he did. He He never address his a significant reason why people were protesting. And it's that the Student Association paid $10 ,000 to TPUSA, the group at to invite it. And people were like, wow, so not only do we have to hear this asshole, you bigoted person, conservative come, we're paying $10 ,000?

0:22:41 Lydia: That's crazy so paying for it yeah yeah

0:23:05 Thomas: And like, you the student group, it doesn't seem like they did anything wrong, per se. Like it was maybe some sort of first come first serve thing, and they applied and got, got a a bunch of money I here'S morgan was actually quoted in an article as well the student that he debated uh austin morgan is the name oh it was quoted as saying in Laramieleive, which I guess is either a website or a newspaper or both about the place. I don't know. But he was quoted as saying, the University of Wyoming and Wyoming more generally is in a fiscal crisis. At what point do we draw the line and say, you know, should we spend our resources on things like the Veterans Center? How about the Non -Trad Center? How about the LGBTQ Resource source center? How about the mental health services on campus? How about the student health service on campus. Can we put this money to a better cause other than bringing this, frankly, this bigot to speak at the university of Wyoming? It's unconscionable. That, I mean, that's if you're going to talk about how they won't debate you and blah, blah, blah. It's like we'll at least engage with the argument that money was a big cause of it. Dennis Prager doesn't have an excuse for not doing that because also Morgan brought it up to him on the radio show.

0:23:05 Lydia: Literally from our fees

0:24:12 Clip: Right. So, all right. So she should've said apologists. I'm an apologist for rape because I think that a woman... We already went through that. A married woman who loves her husband should not be guided by her... Probably would have been a better choice. All right? Are you protesting, are you active in having me disinvited or in shouting me down or physically barring me? There are three possibilities. Are you involved in any of those? I'm involved in a few, and I actually think we'll agree here. Agree to the absolute nature of free speech, right? People can say what they want. I think both of us are in agreement on that. As an aspiring criminal defense attorney, I'm more than happy to defend people with controversial views, even ones that I don't agree with, based on their right to free speech. No problem with that. So but I'm also thing that the activists also have their own kinds of free speech and that holding signs at your protest is well within their right now if you're talking about getting the speech cancelled getting you cancelled right the issue there is actually an economic one that I think you'll appreciate I don't know if you know much about Wyoming have you ever been here here before yes I have been to wyoming but not to the university not the university what's your experience with wyoming I have a great affection for it aside from you know some of the great ski resorts just visiting I am like you know the national parks I've just been a tourist in wyoming it's lovely and the people are nice and honest and and hard work and conservative and conservative by and large you're right that's why they're nice

0:25:58 Clip: You're a joker all right you must know then that we as a state are in a fiscal crisis right I didn't I did not know that wyoming is in a physical crisis I presume most of the states are yeah government spend too much money all right you think they're spending too much money having me okay that's a separate issue so so but they they are spending the money So did you ever, let's ask, let me ask you this. Did you ever protest a liberal or a left -wing speaker getting paid at the University of Wyoming? Because if it's a fiscal issue, then that's what you should have done, and I suspect you never did.

0:26:17 Thomas: What such a good example of his bullshit what

0:26:42 Clip: I have concerns about how the university spends its money on speakers during times like this. Okay, but you've not actively done. I have. All right, butyou haven't actively done what you're doing in my case. We'll be back in a moment. Final segment coming up. Dennis Prager here.

0:26:58 Thomas: So commercial again and I've wasted a bunch of time I just love this mode of argument that this is another thing that conservatives do it's constantly this game of like oh okay but can I find a place where you haven't done you the same exact thing in a different circumstance like it doesn't it just dodges the argument you know it's like if he's saying okay only reason I'm saying that you should be that we should cancel it is a money reason like he's Saying you I'm going to protest your speech but in terms of the cancellation part that's mainly the money thing and instead of like engaging with that at all he has to go to his assumption, which is that if he probably hasn't done that for people on the left. And it's like, okay, you have to answer 50 questions first. Like Prager would haveと be like, well, do you, have you had a speaker on the left who cost 10 ,000 fucking dollars? Maybe, no, probably not. I don't know. Maybe Maybe they have. If so, what was it? And if so, did you did protest against that expenditure of money? Now, the student is saying that he has as he goes to break and just talks over him, says, no, you haven't essentially, which

0:28:01 Thomas: Is like, look, if if you're going to say you haven'T, have to let him say, yes, I have. Like, why do you can't why would you know better than he would? You know what I mean? Like, I think that's a stupid argument and you shouldn't really worry about that. But if you're going to proactively bring up like, I bet you haven't and then not accept his answer that he has, you kind of dumb. But it's also a thing where it's like, well, is is it even a good argument to say like oh okay with spending on money on important stuff but not dumb stuff you know like maybe he would still be like yeah I I we have a talk that I think is valuable I think it's worth spending some money if it's a talk where we're hearing the same tired bullshit bigotry that we all are familiar with I don't think we should spend ten thousand dollars on it um

0:28:43 Lydia: We can consume that online dennis yeah

0:28:46 Thomas: So the student debate among all this was totally respectful about the first amendment, talked to him about the money stuff. And yet still all of their propaganda was about how the students shut it down and the blah, blah, blah. And they can't argue and they can'T do anything. And here's the other thing. Even had a debate among the students. Like so much debate was had, like it couldn't be more opposite of the caricature and the smear that like these college kids can'T, you handle argument, which is the entire movie. Listen to the Godolphin movies if you want. The entire fucking thing is that the crazy leftist kids, the colleges, they can't hear disagreements, safe spaces, blah, blah. Same crap you've always heard. Here we have just a microcosm. The reason I wanted to zoom into this one event, as a microcosm, he basically lies about everything they said. He won't listen to the concerns. He actually debated one of them. And before this, this, the held a debate. So the debate group, actually, there was like a debate club there was, like, hey, why don't we a debate between, like the people who think, or they should have the talk and the people who are kind of against it. And then interesting debate where it was like, yeah, tough to draw a line on speech that's harmful, but, you know, whatever. They had the conversation. Double Double debates happened.

0:30:03 Thomas: And yet it still goes down as like these kids can't debate can't handle anything they can't handle differently blah blah it's over and over 10 years of this fucking shit at least probably more the

0:30:14 Lydia: So funny one of the things that really stuck with me when we watched the the film as well is uh yeah yeah um like I think Heather Hying is talking about it where she's like you know the kids are so fragile you know between helicopter parenting and and safe spaces they're so fragile and weak and you know that's a problem and and it was just so striking to me because the entire time they're showing footage and from everything that we've you know looked at too I'm like what I see is like strength and conviction I don't see weak you little kids at all I see young adults stepping into their voices in power and you guys just don't like it that's

0:30:20 Thomas: Motion picture oh yeah the fragility

0:30:54 Lydia: What it is yeah

0:30:55 Thomas: Is on the part of the fucking adults that are like how dare they protest me every single time the difference difference is power. Maybe being fragile and not even allowing protest. And then the difference is they have power. So we only hear from them. We only hear from the person with the power and the megaphone and the bajillion power all goes that that way you're totally right it's like the fragility talk about brett weinstein the most fragile fucking asshole that's a separate thing again you can listen to the god awful movies or our history uh you know my episodes on sio or something who knows um but certainly the fragality of not being able to even engage in the debate without you and like ignoring and, and, the entire other side as, as fragile and not being able to hold a debate when they literally did debate you. Like it's just, it's just lying. So now I want to talk about another part. And I could just go on forever, but I'll try to keep this sort of short. But here's the other part that I mentioned, I teased that I want to do.

0:31:40 Lydia: What

0:31:54 Clip: Only reasons why you have a First Amendment is to protect the rights of minorities. The rights of the oddball, the rightsof the underdog. Free speech battles on campus in the 1960s starting in Berkeley and the free speech movement in 1964 were primarily about whether or not you could have politics on campus and that was the start of the free speech movement from 1964 on it took over campuses all over the country and I think it was so successful that there was probably a perfect week in 1977 when free speech was protected on campus at a level it never had been before and would be again probably right around the time Star Wars came out. The phase that we're in right now, um, is the most distressing one. Sometime around 2013, 2014, the students themselves started demanding new speech codes, or that people not be invited to speak, or if they were invited, that they be disinvited. Both Condoleezza Rice and Christine Lagarde had to withdraw themselves from giving speeches at Rutgers and Smith Universities. That was when you first started hearing about trigger warnings, things like microaggression training. We're not sure if we even believe in freedom anymore. Most universities today don't require classes in civics, courses to know the fundamentals of the Constitution. Instead, we have classes on the things that divide us, identity politics. If we don't rediscover,

0:32:03 Thomas: Is Greg Lukianoff. Here's his version of history. I have politics on him? Yeah. I feel like that's not true. Okay.

0:32:28 Lydia: Weird comment yeah

0:33:15 Thomas: I remember taking identity

0:33:16 Clip: Reclaim an understanding of the foundations of our society, we're in jeopardy of losing it.

0:33:16 Thomas: Politics, what I want. Yeah, Lukianoff is saying, literally saying, I don't want to get it wrong. He seems to be saying, at least strongly implying that now as in 2019 or whatever, starting in 2013, 14, is like the worst time for free speech because it was great in the you know after the speech movement in the 60s into the 70s and then now it's the worst it's ever been yeah

0:33:43 Lydia: Just a reminder for, I mean, Wokies are going to know, but Greg Lukianoff, headofthefire .org. We did a whole episode, at least, on them.

0:33:53 Thomas: Done we've done some yeah um I think it's very telling that he says like that's when you started to hear about trigger warnings like yeah you know that is when you wanted to hear about trigger warnings because this whole fucking thing is a mirage it's a propaganda campaign and it It literally is not true that it only started in the mid 2010s. In this very article that I was reading on this University of Wyoming thing, something caught my eye that I thought was interesting and kind of like, oh, shit, which was, um, after Prager was long gone, the question remained, should the student organization have spent the $10 ,000 to bring such a controversial speaker? I just want to include that in because it's like, yeah, fucking no. Anyway, it isn't the first time this question has come up. Back in 2010, 1960s anti -war activist Bill Ayers was banned from speaking at UW after donors, politicians, and others applied pressure to the university to drop him, even subject of his speech wasn't controversial, but was rather about education reform. So pausing there, you see any, you know, asymmetries going on here?

0:35:00 Lydia: Similar to what we talked about with the Charlie Kirk stuff. And have people in politics and positions of power and like state legislatures and stuff calling and demanding schools to do something for stuff that they don't like.

0:35:11 Thomas: The free speech crisis that Lukienoff talks about, the reason it's the worst, is essentially students usually peacefully protesting, making signs, maybe chanting. Sometimes maybe one or two of them goes a little far. There isn't anything that's like super far. The couple examples they point to, I mean, we've gone through so many. There's a couple where it's like unclear that it was even students like the Berkeley stuff was just like people came in from everywhere. And that was a lot of that was riots.

0:35:36 Lydia: And And I made the point on on GAM as well, but I'll make it again. It was over the course of eight months that all of those things happened. Yeah。 And

0:35:43 Thomas: Thing. Yeah. And sure, there's a few examples here and there. Largely speaking, it's students expressing their speech about what they want at their campus. That's free speech. That's that's not countering free speech, that's more speech that's engaging in speech. And yeah, that's

0:35:58 Lydia: Honestly, with as much money that students have to pay to go to college, like I want them to do that more. Like you guys should be demanding more you've spent so much money

0:36:05 Thomas: A good point. It's their tuition dollars that, yeah. That helps spend 10,000 fucking dollars for this asshole. Good point and in 2010 and don't seem to remember there being a dedicated propaganda machine bringing this up over and over and over and it wasn't students. It was donors, politicians, and others. Oh people with power and they didn't just make signs they pressured the university to drop him they got the university to actually drop him and then the students sued and that forced the university let him come so like again what it's so unfair fundamentally it's fucking backwards and that is just one example there meant that the people with power just dropped him or pressured the school to drop him. And then the students, some, some number of students had to sue to get to reverse

0:36:26 Lydia: Moneyed interests yeah good yeah right

0:37:00 Thomas: That. So stuff like that has been happening to people on the left, especially during the Bush years with anyone who was anti-war. I have a bunch of examples of it. Just name off a couple for see, 2002, Noam Chomsky had mean, I'm sure he has a lot of examples, but there were some protests when he spoke at Harvard 2002. 2002. anti-war guy, Nicholas DeGenova, spoke at Columbia and there was a big backlash to get him fired. I'm just listing these. My overall point here is not to look into every single one, but to say like wasn't a free speech crisis in the mid 2010s. There was a manufactured story. And my evidence of that is that this stuff has been going on to people on the left but there isn't an organized propaganda machine about it if we had one you can imagine how these events would have been painted so movement to fire this guy after anti-war remarks um chris hedges this this is a pretty big one at rockford college he He gave a commencement speech and it was disrupted and like his mic was unplugged three times and like because he's anti -war and he still ended up getting through the speech. But this one is, I some fun stuff. Afterwards, Hedges was skewered in the conservative press for his America bashing while the hecklers were lauded for their patriotism. Talk show host Sean Hannity called for Hedges to be fired from

0:38:18 Thomas: His job at the Times and And the National Review managing editor, Jay Nordlinger, referred to, in a column, to that astonishing commencement address at Rockford College, the one that caused students to revolt. Bless him. You're encouraging cancel culture. You're encouraging the heckler's veto. Guy who invited Hedges got death threats and had to change his phone number. Where I can't find the quote right now, but what ended up happening is the somebody issued an apology, but it wasn't to Chris Hedges. It was to the students for inviting.

0:38:47 Thomas: And Hedges was like, look, look, you invited me like there's no way you only wanted a like speech. That's like, look around.

0:38:46 Lydia: Wow wow yeah

0:38:57 Thomas: Look at what you did.

0:38:55 Lydia: I didn't impose myself on you

0:38:59 Thomas: Yeah. A bunch of these events. I that were, you treated as potentially criminal like just like putting an upside down flag you know like all this discourse uh was you cancel culture stuff um invitation for michael moore was uh under um another guy this one's interesting ward churchill who said something he did say something quite quite inflammatory um 9 -11 he's very much like kind of blames U .S. for 9 -11 and like, you he's got some views that people would have a hard time with. At the same time, when you look at all these fucking arguments that these assholes give, it's always, hey, you should be offended every day at college. You should be offended. You should Be offended. Okay, well, then you can have a guy who says like, oh, it was kind of the U S's fault that we got attacked on 9 -1 -1. Oh, no, that's not okay. It's like, Oh, isn't that just you getting offended? And yet that person got stuff canceled. Old everyone tried to fire him I think they couldn't because you know the law still would say like you can't get fired from a public university uh because of your political speech that's good but yeah tons of these examples and just imagine by the way for however many there already were and there were plenty imagine if there had been an entire infrastructure devoted to making these happen because that's what they do on the right they They make these happen because they say inflammatory shit. They they invited to these places and they want a protest. So they make it happen. If the left had been trying to make this happen, imagine how many there would have been. You know, like it just it's is how it has been for for I mean, I don't like both sides of it, but I like kind of like it's kind of been that way for both sides. But only one side has a megaphone and a propaganda machine. Machine and think that like there are A lot of students who might try to Go too far and protesting and speech and we've seen there are people on The right and I Think when it comes to universities like I think the legal System has been pretty good weirdly on this I think That um is up to the universities to Maintain that balance and and let them know that they of people can protest certain set of people can have the talk or there's lines there that you can't really go over because the shoe will be on the other foot. And the shoe was on the other foot, especially in the 2000s about anti -war stuff. And it's like, that's fine. There doesn't need to be a national controversy over this. The system is actually working when it comes to that for the most part. Just a purely like hands free speech view, like

0:41:17 Thomas: Like political really for the moment, just looking it like, is there a quote unquote free speech problem? No, like it's, it's pretty much the law is pretty good on that for now, you know, when it comes to this stuff. That is what it is. It's a manufactured controversy. It doesn't need to exist. Some of the Ayers stuff too, because, um, plenty of cancel culture of him too. Do you know Ayers? Have you, have we talked about him? He was the founder, one of the founders of Weather Underground. And he became a professor after that and worked for, you know, like 30 something years, University of Chicago. And He's an education professor and forever. They kept trying to cancel. He was the one they tried to link to Obama because he like also lived in Chicago and like was on a board of something with Obama once. And it was like, no man, we're not like, I know him, but like, you Know, but they, they made a huge thing out of it. And the about about like smearing and all the stuff they talk about the left doing Ayers had when he retired from Chicago from the University of Chicago there's a thing they do with basically every single professor where they get emeritus status and example quote no one could remember the last time it was rejected uh yet they did with Bill Ayers when he he retired. They rejected his because the chair of the board was Christopher Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy. And in a book from 1974, they, they allege, they Ayers dedicated the book to people whom is Sirhan Sirhan, who

0:41:45 Lydia: Just in passing oh okay oh right right right wow wow

0:42:52 Thomas: Assassinated Robert F. Kennedy. Andy. Now, I don't think that would be good. I don' t think Sirhan Sirhan was like a good person to dedicate, you know, like that's bad. Get clarification, Ayer says he never did that. He wouldn't didn't have done that. Dedicated the book and they dedicated the book. It was one of those books that's like written by multiple authors or dedication reads to Harriet Tubman and John Brown to all who continue to fight to all political prisoners in the U .S. and then here's the thing here's Ayer's story his his version is an artist was set to make a like backdrop of that and the backdrop is a wall of hundreds of names one of them is Sirhan Sirhan and I guess that that artist viewed Sirhan Sirhan as a political prisoner. Ayers says he disagrees with that. He never would have done that. Who knows? I don't know. Like maybe Ayers is also kind of blurring it. Maybe he was fine with it at the time. Maybe not. But like point is, this is a thing from 1976 and he retired in 2000 fucking 10 and they're denying him emeritus status. Here's here's what The Right does. Won't even let let someone be like, no, that wasn't what I meant. And I don't mean that. And I wouldn't dedicate a book to Sirhan Sirhan. Like the left, you know, it's often they'll fully be like I didn't mean it that way. I don'T mean it that way and sorry if you took it that like going over and above, but they'll be like no you meant it that way and they'll still cancel them for stuff like that, you

0:44:14 Thomas: Know, and it's like meanwhile on the right it's stuff like yeah, an unacologetic racist. What of it? And you're like, well, I think maybe you shouldn't work here. Oh, you're cancel cancel culturing me. You know, it's like the in these examples and the fact that he can't even, he away from this stuff when he's actively disowned it, you know?

0:44:31 Thomas: And other thing, this is just like bad luck, but just down the Ayers, there's plenty more to talk about Ayers. But one thing that was really unfortunate that happened was someone interviewed him from the New York Times and they, they misquoted him. And I actually find this pretty plausible um Ayers wrote later on wrote a thing where he like stated it no in certain terms like they just straight up were dishonest about what I said because headline was no regrets for a love of explosives and one of the quotes was uh do you wish you had done more and he says I wish I had done more and he was talking about like to oppose the vietnam war and

0:44:29 Lydia: Yeah it's shocking yeah. And then they're like, oh, to blow things up.

0:45:09 Thomas: She made it seem like he wished he had planted more bombs you know and he was like no that's not what I meant I meant I wish we had done more we didn't do enough you know to oppose The war the illegal war this is back when like they do the like, I don't know, phone interview and then they do the write-up. So it's a quote. Reporter quoted him as saying, quote, I feel we didn't do enough. When asked if he would do it all again, he responded, quote. I don't want to discount the possibility. So that makes him sound like we didn't plan enough bombs and maybe we'll do it again.

0:45:19 Lydia: Too many people died. Mm hmm. Yeah.

0:45:45 Thomas: Now, here's the, here'S the other thing about this. This article just so happened to publish on a date, it's a literal September.

0:45:56 Lydia: September 11th. Oh, no.

0:45:59 Thomas: It just so happened. And obviously this would have been printed like, you know, in the middle of the night. So it wasn't like after, but this happened to be published on September 11th. And so on September 11th, the actual one, not like an anniversary, like the one he's the reporter quoted him as saying, I don't regret setting bombs, you know?

0:46:12 Lydia: 2001. Yeah? Wow.

0:46:18 Thomas: And like, so he obviously like he was pissed and he wrote this and was like, this is absolutely false. I said, I had no regrets when it came to like being against the war and doing what we could. And by the way, the couple bombs that they sent were in empty offices on purpose. They classify as vandalism, you know, extreme vandalismo, but never intended to hurt anybody um and they those bombs didn't the um ones that he was you know they claimed responsibility for and he said I wish I had done more about the war he never said I wish I bombed more but the way that the quote was written up and I find that plausible the guy has been a professor for 30 years or whatever at this point 20 years he's not you know like he was anti-war and he was part of that but he has a long history of being like, yeah, killed no one. I didn't want to kill people. You know, the only people who died were three bomb makers who accidentally set off a bomb and killed themselves when came to at least Ayers. No matter what, though, he can't get away from that and they just use it forever to the point where they're smearing Obama in 2008 on that still, like just for maybe like having met him, you

0:47:19 Thomas: Know, it's just like that's the cancel culture they do and have always done. That's the kind of smearing and bullshit they did. That's anti-free speech stuff they do. He was hounded by this for the, all of the two thousands cancel stuff was canceled all the time. He couldn't speak anywhere. You know, like that has always existed. That did exist. Then it still existed during the 2010s, I imagine, but all you would hear about is the conservative ones. And I just thought it was a fun trip down memory lane to show that, no, this wasn't a new thing that happened in the mid-2010s. Just made that up.

0:47:51 Lydia: Wouldn't you know it Greg Lukianoff being a little flippant. With the truth.

0:47:57 Thomas: God, it's so infuriating. It's just so frustrating because it's been such an effective propaganda point to the point where they won the culture war on this. They won. Now we'll see if we can maybe, you know, start a new war. We can like win a different branch of the culture war. But culminating in, for one, Trump's first election. But for two, Trump second election is just like, yeah, they smeared the left to the point where our entire discourse is based around a false impression of the left.

0:48:29 Thomas: And I mean that on the left and right, like whole thing, like no one speaks about this period of time accurately. They all buy into the premise that like there's the crazy college students and they went too far and the blah, blah, they all buy Into it. And in my opinion is a false fucking premise manufactured by the right and by constant provocation to like, if you specifically are provoking people, you're going to get them to say some things you can use as bad examples, especially when those people are college students.

0:48:58 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. And just for you know, additional historical context, campus reform was started in 2009. And did start off as like a social media site. And then it morphed into a news site, they pay conservative students $50 a pop for every article that they write exposing their professors that are too liberal. We're talking about kind of this culmination at this particular period of time that it might not actually accurately reflect the of free speech.

0:49:25 Thomas: Yeah. Take a lot from that and we can learn a lot about their tactics. And really, I don't know what to do about this because it's such an intractable problem. It's such an effective thing because people will always be drawn to this fucking high -minded speech about free speech. They'll always be drawing to that because it feels intellectual. It feels feels right. And it feels, it's just a framing that will always work. And I don't know what actions we can take to change that other than fucking somehow dismantling the right -wing misinformation machine. It's the only thing I can see. I don'T know how that's going to happen.

0:49:58 Thomas: It's really hard, but it's, I hope this helps make the case that this whole fucking shit is bullshit. Right. Well, thanks for listening everyone. And yeah, check out Godawful Movies. So that was fun it's much more funny than

0:50:10 Lydia: This was a good trip down memory lane and important. So thank you for putting in the work.

0:50:12 Thomas: All listeners uh patrons and we'll see you next time of Wisconsin talk that Dennis, University of Wyoming talk that

0:50:45 Lydia: Wyoming.