Rebel News Podcast - October 24, 2019


Should the government ban meanness？ This politician thinks so.


Episode Stats


Length

29 minutes

Words per minute

162.45259

Word count

4,868

Sentence count

367

Harmful content

Misogyny

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A bill introduced in the Massachusetts legislature would ban a word, but not just any word. It would ban the word "bitch." What does that mean? And who gets to decide? Ezra takes a break from politics to talk about it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Today, I take a short break from politics and talk about a strange bill
00:00:08.240 introduced in the legislature of Massachusetts to ban a word. Just one word, weirdly. What do
00:00:17.880 you think the word is? I'll tell you in a second. Hey, in the meantime, can you consider becoming
00:00:23.460 a premium subscriber? Go to premium.rebelnews.com. It's $8 a month. You get the video version
00:00:29.920 of this podcast, as well as David Menzies' weekly show, Sheila Gunn-Reed's weekly show,
00:00:34.160 and you help keep the rebel afloat. All right. Without any further ado, here's the show
00:00:39.860 about the word so bad, they want to ban it in Boston.
00:00:59.920 Tonight, it's mean to be mean, but should government ban meanness? One politician thinks
00:01:06.820 so. It's October 23rd, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
00:01:11.960 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:15.680 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:19.760 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's
00:01:24.160 my bloody right to do so.
00:01:30.820 I saw this story out of Massachusetts, and I'm going to talk about it because maybe we need
00:01:35.240 a very short break from the Canadian election. Oh, we will keep talking about the Canadian
00:01:39.500 election and its reverberations, but I thought this was an interesting story, and although
00:01:43.780 it's American, I think the principle is universal across the Anglosphere. Look at this.
00:01:50.300 Bill to ban the B word heard at the State House. Which B word? Bill? Ban? Bully? No, no, the word
00:02:03.800 bitch. I'm not sure why the Boston Herald is suddenly so shy about using that word. This Google search
00:02:11.660 shows they've published the word nearly 400 times. Sorry if that word is hard on your ears. It's not a
00:02:19.720 swear, by the way. It can definitely be offensive. Here's Webster's Dictionary on the subject. They say
00:02:26.960 there are four different meanings of the word. The first one is the female of the dog or some other
00:02:34.820 carnivorous mammals. So it's just a technical term, a scientific term. That's what Webster says.
00:02:41.660 The second one is the offensive term, a malicious, spiteful, or overbearing woman. The third is a generic 0.99
00:02:48.040 term that Webster doesn't even call offensive, something that is extremely difficult, objectionable,
00:02:53.700 or unpleasant. And then they give an example. Aspirin overdoses are a bitch to treat. Pamela 0.79
00:02:59.480 Grimm. So they're quoting a female author using the term in that neutral way. The fourth is how I
00:03:06.080 usually use the word, if I use it, to complain. Informal complaint. My biggest bitch with all of CBS 0.99
00:03:13.940 golf is that there's no personalization. Chuck Howard. Now, there are other uses of this word,
00:03:18.800 obviously, and I don't propose to go into all of them because that's not really my point other than
00:03:23.820 to say the obvious. The word can be used in a great many ways, including in an endearing way by women to
00:03:29.400 take ownership of the positive aspects of the word, I think. That's words for you. Context is a lot.
00:03:35.980 We can all agree that the N word is racist, but it's also ubiquitous in rap music sung by black 0.98
00:03:42.480 musicians. So are you really going to ban it? And who gets to decide that? This goofy guy?
00:03:50.820 That's the guy who introduced the bill. Let's look at the story a little bit.
00:03:54.920 A bill to outlaw the B word, the term for a female dog that is commonly used to slander women,
00:04:00.800 is being slammed on both ends of the political spectrum as a case of government overreach and
00:04:06.580 censorship. While I detest the use of the B word and the N word and the word fag, etc.,
00:04:12.540 I love the Constitution more and question the constitutionality of bills like this, said
00:04:17.160 Arlene Isaacson, co-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus.
00:04:22.280 The concern is specifically about the right to free speech, including speech that I hate.
00:04:26.340 Well, that's pretty encouraging, isn't it? Not only that the first quote in this news story is in
00:04:32.220 defense of free speech, but that it's from a woman and a gay woman, no less. That's very encouraging to
00:04:37.560 me. Here's more from the story. It's a very, very slippery slope. And at the end of the slippery
00:04:42.580 slope is the anti-Webster's, the dictionary of words we can never use. Conservative political
00:04:48.360 consultant Chip Jones told the Herald, we continually replace the right and responsibility of people to
00:04:54.760 defend themselves from physical and emotional harm with government intervention. When we replace an
00:04:59.780 individual's right or responsibility to defend themselves, we weaken people in society. That's
00:05:05.040 pretty smart. I mean, seriously, you will never be able to ban words in real life. I'm sorry.
00:05:10.620 Maybe instead of pretending that you can, how about equipping people with the skills to cope
00:05:15.340 with real life and either ignore idiots or learn how to respond? Here's the Massachusetts legislature
00:05:22.520 home page for this bill. It really is a bill. I checked. It's called an act regarding the use
00:05:29.800 of offensive words, except for they have words in plural. It's just one word they're banning.
00:05:36.320 The operative section of the bill is so short, it's just two sentences long. I'll read the whole
00:05:40.040 thing to you. A person who uses the word bitch directed at another person to accost, annoy, 0.99
00:05:47.520 degrade or demean the other person shall be considered to be a disorderly person in violation
00:05:53.600 of this section and shall be subject to the penalties provided in subsections A and B. A
00:05:58.100 violation of this subsection may be reported by the person to whom the offensive language
00:06:02.480 was directed at or by any witness to such incident. That's it. That's the whole proposed lie. I just read
00:06:10.500 the whole thing to you. Now, I showed you an example a moment ago of how it's possible for
00:06:15.320 the word bitch to be used positively, just like it's possible for gay people or black people or 1.00
00:06:21.120 other minorities to take a pejorative word and take ownership of it and to use it on themselves to
00:06:27.220 take the power away. Language is complicated that way, isn't it? You could have two women who are best 1.00
00:06:32.580 friends and they could greet each other by using the word bitch. You really could. It's an inside joke. 1.00
00:06:38.540 It's a form of compliment, whatever. I don't need to explain this. No one needs to explain
00:06:42.480 how they talk. But if this law were to pass, and I don't think it will, simply accosting someone,
00:06:48.560 that was the word they used, with the word bitch is now against the law? And look at the second 1.00
00:06:55.340 sentence in the law. If you are called the word bitch, you can report the crime, says the law,
00:07:03.100 but so can anyone else who just sees or hears it. Seriously, two friends or two enemies or two
00:07:08.500 kids or two people, free citizens in America, no less, home of the first amendment, could use the
00:07:14.000 word bitch. And anyone who hears that can become a police informant and get them charged. That's the 1.00
00:07:21.280 plain meaning of the bill. I read it to you. It's just two sentences long. I read you the whole thing.
00:07:25.120 Is that the worst word in the world, by the way? I can think of other sexist words that are far worse.
00:07:32.840 Frankly, I spend some time in the UK, and they use the C word over there so casually,
00:07:38.820 it would make your hair stand up like a porcupine. Why isn't this legislator, Dan Hunt, seeking to ban
00:07:46.460 that word? Not that I want him to, of course, but what a weird, weird choice to ban just one word,
00:07:53.700 even though the law says it'll ban words. Like I say, like Webster's Dictionary says, the word bitch 1.00
00:08:01.500 has inoffensive meanings and has offensive meanings, both. I guess it's like the word dick, which can be
00:08:09.200 a nickname for someone named Richard. It can also mean a detective. It can also mean an idiot.
00:08:16.460 Or a mean idiot. Pretty much the female, the male version of the word bitch, I guess. And of course, 1.00
00:08:23.060 it's slang for male generalists too. I'm not trying to tell you every dirty word I know. I'm just making 0.99
00:08:27.960 the point, why is this weird censor, Dan Hunt, being such a dick about things? And why only about
00:08:38.460 one word that he really, really doesn't like? Is this some form of weird virtue signaling to prove
00:08:46.560 what a male feminist he is? That's my hunch. He'll abide any other derogatory word, any racist words,
00:08:53.920 homophobic words, even anti-male slurs. There are some. But the one thing you just can't say around
00:09:01.920 is the word bitch. Or he'll call the police, even if he has to do it personally. Hey, can I call
00:09:09.280 Dan Hunt a bitch? Maybe in the sense of whining and complaining, right? It doesn't have the sexist 1.00
00:09:19.320 connotation then, does it? I remember back at Sun News when I did a video about Justin Trudeau kissing
00:09:24.800 another man's bride on her wedding day. He was a stranger to them. He just encountered them and
00:09:31.360 he literally went up to the bride and kissed her in the place of the groom. How super gross was that?
00:09:36.400 I talked a bit on that show at Sun News about how Pierre Trudeau set such a terrible example for
00:09:42.040 Justin, how Pierre endlessly cheated on Margaret Trudeau and then how she cheated on him back. I can't
00:09:49.700 remember if I reported back then about how Pierre Trudeau would beat Margaret Trudeau physically
00:09:56.020 so badly that she'd have a black eye the next morning. All of this was reported at the time,
00:10:01.640 by the way. None of this is secret. None of this is news, really. And I suggested that Justin Trudeau
00:10:06.640 had grown up with such a terrible experience, terrible role models about how men and women,
00:10:11.080 husbands and wives are supposed to act towards each other. Maybe that's why Trudeau today is a
00:10:15.560 groper who puts his hands on any woman he wants to because Pierre Trudeau taught him he could.
00:10:22.000 It's just weird, really, like his dad. Because you're very handsome. Thank you, Justin.
00:10:29.700 Kiss him! I think because... Yeah, it's just a weird guy. Now Trudeau, senior, Pierre Trudeau,
00:10:41.120 it was really macho to cheat on his wife Margaret. And weirdly, Margaret Trudeau herself used that
00:10:48.620 exact word in newspaper stories about how Pierre Trudeau would beat her, but then be really macho
00:10:54.740 afterwards. She said that. That's so gross. That's the home Justin Trudeau grew up in,
00:11:00.360 that it's macho to beat a woman. And if you're part of that macho culture, you might call Pierre
00:11:06.220 Trudeau a stud, S-T-U-D. He's a stud. He slept with any woman he wanted to, and he put those
00:11:13.100 little ladies in their place, punched them if you had to. That was Pierre Trudeau. But in my Sun News
00:11:19.560 video, I flipped the script because if you're a woman who sleeps around, you get called a different 0.99
00:11:25.300 name, don't you? So I decided to use that word to describe Pierre Trudeau. Not Margaret Trudeau,
00:11:32.140 but Pierre Trudeau. I called Pierre Trudeau a slightly different word than stud. Still a four
00:11:38.200 letter word that starts with S, but I called him, instead of S-T-U-D, I called him S-L-U-T. I called 0.82
00:11:43.820 him a slut, which is a very odd thing to call a man, but why not? Would it not be sexist to only use 0.97
00:11:51.120 that word against women, which I've never done, actually? And holy cow did Justin Trudeau blow his
00:11:57.720 top when I called Pierre Trudeau a slut. He complained to Brian Mulrooney, I'm not kidding,
00:12:04.060 who called the boss of Sun News, who was ordered to apologize to Justin Trudeau. Of course, I didn't
00:12:11.000 apologize to Trudeau. The TV station ran something on the screen that's their right to do so. But you
00:12:15.240 see my point? But that was Justin Trudeau just being nervous about the issue of his treatment of
00:12:21.300 women being discussed politically. Now he's prime minister. I'm sure he still calls up the heads of
00:12:25.620 TV stations. But now he might call up police, too, if he likes. In fact, part of his new election
00:12:30.960 platform is censorship of social media. Social media companies now only have 24 hours to ban
00:12:37.080 something when he complains, when his platform becomes enacted. So yeah, this, back to Massachusetts,
00:12:45.120 this buffoonish bully in Boston wants to ban a B-word. That's a lot of Bs, eh? The buffoonish bully in
00:12:50.220 Boston wants to ban the B-word. It sounds like a Dr. Seuss book. But it's virtue signaling on his part,
00:12:55.260 I think. It's hypocritical for sure. It's weird. It's unenforceable, I think. But it shows the
00:13:01.680 mentality of leftists. They want to lock you up. They want people to literally call the cops on you
00:13:08.560 for using words they don't like, even if everyone else is fine or fine enough with them.
00:13:14.240 I don't think I've ever called someone a bitch on TV before. And the only person I've ever called a 1.00
00:13:21.020 slut, actually, in my whole life, is Pierre Trudeau. And I obviously stand by that. It's true.
00:13:28.500 But even if you don't like any of these mean words, even if you don't like the t-shirts,
00:13:33.920 and really, I don't. I think they're sort of gross. If I saw someone wearing that shirt and my kids were
00:13:38.700 around, I'd say, what are you doing wearing that around kids? Well, I think we still have to push
00:13:44.220 back and defend free speech, even rude speech. Maybe especially we have to defend rude speech. 0.96
00:13:52.660 Because if we don't draw the line there, if we don't defend rude speech today, and we give that up,
00:14:00.020 well, they'll come for the polite speech tomorrow. Oh, by the way, I've set up a little website,
00:14:10.040 danhuntisabitch.com. Seriously, click on it. danhuntisabitch.com. Sorry. I guess I should report
00:14:22.060 myself to police now, right? Stay with us for more.
00:14:30.020 Welcome back. Well, until about a dozen years ago, I was the publisher of a magazine
00:14:46.100 called the Western Standard, and I really enjoyed it. I didn't know at the time that
00:14:51.940 that was like getting into the horse and buggy business right before the Model T was invented.
00:14:59.300 We were born in, I think, 2004, just as the internet was coming in to slaughter every print
00:15:07.280 magazine there was. We had a website, but it was before websites could properly be monetized.
00:15:12.860 Anyways, it was a labor of love. We published 83 of these things, including two of my favorite
00:15:19.760 editions. One was the original Libranos, where we had a poster we sent to all our subscribers across
00:15:26.800 the country. And another was when we published the Danish Cartoons of Mohammed. Of course, that led to 0.97
00:15:32.180 a human rights complaint, the ripple effects of which continue to this day. But alas, the Western
00:15:38.500 Standard folded, but it is being revived. When we shut down the magazine, one of our executives,
00:15:46.460 Matthew Johnson bought all the rights, and he, along with our next guest, have revived the publication
00:15:53.100 as a website-only project. And our guest today is part of the team giving new life to that old byline,
00:16:03.180 that old masthead, rather, our friend, Derek Fildebrandt, who joins us now via Skype from Calgary.
00:16:10.300 Derek, good to see you again.
00:16:11.200 Great to see you, Ezra.
00:16:13.820 Well, you know what? I have such fond memories of the Western Standard. I worked there for four
00:16:17.920 years. I was the publisher of it. It's been dormant for more than a decade. Tell me about
00:16:25.180 your plans to revive it, along with Matthew Johnson, one of our original executives.
00:16:31.580 Well, I'm really excited. I'm stepping into very big shoes here. I remember the Western Standard was
00:16:37.060 that while I was in university, and it was a bright light and otherwise very dark place of
00:16:43.200 the modern Marxist campus. I was at Carleton University at the time, which was amongst the
00:16:48.500 worst of them. And I remember I'd skip a few meals a month and eat ramen noodles or something,
00:16:53.960 just so I could afford my Western Standard subscription. Remember, I would always flip
00:16:57.960 straight to the back, read some Mark Stein first, and then begin from the cover with you. It was such a
00:17:04.260 great publication, and it was a badly needed voice, independent voice for the West. And I was very
00:17:11.640 sad when it went under. I think you still owe me a nine-month subscription left, but I heard that
00:17:17.060 from a few people today, that they still have some. So we're really excited to be relaunching the
00:17:23.080 Western Standard, trying to step into the very big shoes that you and others left when it
00:17:28.580 unfortunately closed. We launched today our website's westernstandardonline.com. And we're
00:17:37.560 online with opinion, news. We're doing our first video on podcasts today as well. And our hope is
00:17:44.040 actually to get to a quarterly print edition sometime in the new year. So right now, we're just
00:17:49.980 building a team. We've got some great writers and contributors for us right now. We're hoping to
00:17:53.500 very quickly grow that team. Well, that's great to hear. You know, I'm just looking at a couple of
00:17:59.180 these editions I have here. This is from literally 13 years ago, but some of the issues are the same.
00:18:05.800 Why so many people hate Toronto? Canada's Unitedist Professors, Al Jazeera's All-Star Canadians,
00:18:13.100 Eco-Terror Strikes, Will the West Survive? These are all questions that haven't been answered in 13 years. 0.70
00:18:19.980 Tell me, I mean, your timing is interesting because, of course, the West just had an enormous
00:18:26.060 setback. Justin Trudeau managed to cling to power. The federal conservatives actually lost ground in
00:18:33.080 Quebec, barely made a dent in Ontario. It's not much more than what Preston Manning and Stockwell Day did
00:18:38.700 more than a dozen years ago. And I think the West is on the back foot. This time, the oil patch is being
00:18:44.360 destroyed by the liberals, the NDP, the Greens and the Bloc in a way we haven't seen before.
00:18:51.920 Do you guys have an editorial mission that goes to Western Canada as opposed to, you know,
00:19:01.540 in reaction to that? I mean, we're based here in Toronto. We consider ourselves pro-Western, but
00:19:07.420 the Western standard suggests that you are about the West for the West. What are you going to do
00:19:12.560 in regards to Trudeau's war on the West? Yeah, very good question. Well, the Western standard in
00:19:19.400 its time, I believe you ran it out of Calgary when the original Western standard was in publication.
00:19:25.460 We're run out of Calgary again. Our editorial direction is fighting for a strong and free Western
00:19:34.340 Canada. And people have different feelings about what that looks like. I believe in a sovereign
00:19:39.940 Western Canada. Western Canada is supposed to be defined differently depending on what provinces
00:19:45.980 you're putting in that category. But we're taking a strong editorial position for a sovereign Western
00:19:52.540 Canada. And sovereignty can mean a new deal for Alberta, Saskatchewan and other Western provinces
00:19:58.820 within Confederation, which I really hope is the best possible outcome we can achieve.
00:20:03.880 But I really don't believe that reform is particularly likely. The Conservative Party of Canada is not
00:20:11.740 particularly that much stronger in seat count than the old reform party was. But it doesn't have that
00:20:16.500 strong Western voice that reform or the alliance had. My hope is that Alberta, Saskatchewan and others
00:20:24.660 can put forward concrete, real demands for constitutional reform within Canada. But failing that,
00:20:30.880 if we cannot fix this country, which I believe deserves to be fixed. So I love Canada. I'm born a
00:20:37.780 Canadian. I wish to die a Canadian. But if it can't be fixed, I do believe independence needs to be on
00:20:42.160 the agenda. So the Western standard is going to be a platform for us to debate the Western question in a
00:20:49.700 thoughtful and meaningful fashion. We've got writers from different perspectives. We've got, I don't think,
00:20:55.880 any status quo Federalists, but we've certainly got people in the reform camp about how we can track
00:21:00.920 fixed Confederation and people in the independence camp who think that it's just beyond repair and it's
00:21:07.000 time to go. And of course, some people in between those two positions. So we've already got some pieces
00:21:12.460 on Western standard online right now. Really trying to give a platform to the debate that Westerners are
00:21:19.880 already having, but it's not being heard out with sufficient volume in the mainstream corporate
00:21:25.800 press. Let me ask you one last question, because I'm just flipping through these old issues.
00:21:31.880 And I was reminded that I want a copy of the Muhammad edition. That's right.
00:21:37.800 I'm reminded that the back page, the inside back page ad of all our issues was bought by Air Canada.
00:21:45.880 That was the most expensive page in the whole magazine. Air Canada bought it. And there was no
00:21:54.680 such thing a dozen years ago as de-platforming. It just wasn't a thing. And we had all sorts of ads,
00:22:03.480 you know, even by banks. Here's another airline called Harmony Airline. I mean, it was just
00:22:08.440 leafing through these old editions. I have a lot of sentimental nostalgia,
00:22:13.400 but the most amazing thing to me is brands that today would be so afraid to be associated with
00:22:21.720 anything Western, conservative, troublemakey. Back then, it wasn't even a thing. How are you guys
00:22:30.760 going to make money? What's the business model? Is it a donations model? Is it a membership model?
00:22:36.600 Because I don't know if it's even possible to do an advertising model these days.
00:22:42.680 Well, you're certainly right in that de-platforming is a phenomenon quite disconnected from the way it was
00:22:50.760 even just a decade ago, where a lot of major companies are just terrified of being associated
00:22:57.320 with anything vaguely controversial on the right. We're beginning today, now that we're launched and
00:23:04.920 up and going. We're going to begin to look for some advertisers ourselves. We'll see how much
00:23:08.680 luck we get. But I'm optimistic that we can at least make a dent there. But we're going to rely
00:23:13.960 primarily on memberships. And we've already started to have a flood of memberships today.
00:23:18.360 We don't have a paywall. Everything is open. There's no paywall whatsoever on the Western
00:23:23.880 Standard website. But we're asking people to become members at $10 a month. On the membership
00:23:29.320 section of the website, you can see a stamp that says certified 100% media bailout free,
00:23:35.400 something I know that Rebel is also certified for. And we're asking people to consider becoming
00:23:43.000 voluntary members to support what we're doing. There's a lot of content on the internet, but if
00:23:47.960 you want good content, it's going to cost some money. And so we're asking people to become members
00:23:53.160 at $10 a month to support the work we're doing. We still have the exact same mission statement as
00:24:01.640 the old Western Standard, the independent voice of the new West. That hasn't changed. It's mission
00:24:06.360 we're continuing. I looked at that, and I thought about doing something new, and I thought, no,
00:24:10.920 it hasn't changed. So we're asking people to become members and consider supporting the work that we do.
00:24:16.840 All right. Well, I tell you, I'll be keeping an eye peeled because not only for historical reasons,
00:24:23.160 am I curious what will be done with the brand? But of course, the Western voice is more important
00:24:28.600 than ever. I am a Westerner at heart, and we have great reporters in Alberta, Kian Bextie in Calgary,
00:24:34.120 and Sheila Gunn-Reed in Edmonton. But we are headquartered in Toronto, and we don't just focus on the
00:24:42.040 West. So it'll be interesting to take a look and see how you fellas do it. Good luck out there.
00:24:46.600 Well, let me know if you have any good cartoon ideas. Sorry, go ahead.
00:24:50.120 Let me know if you have any good cartoon ideas for us. Yeah, that's right. Well,
00:24:53.720 that certainly got us some attention. Not all of it. Welcome. But yeah, that was one of our key
00:24:59.000 moments. Well, thank you, Derek. And the website, again, for folks who want to check it out is
00:25:04.920 westernstandardonline.com. Is that right, Derek? You got it. All right. Well, keep in touch. And
00:25:12.920 it's good to have another voice out there that's not controlled by Justin Trudeau. So we wish you the
00:25:17.800 best of luck. Well, thank you very much, Ezra. Thanks for having me on. All right. My pleasure.
00:25:21.800 Well, there you have it. Derek Fildebrandt, along with former Western Standard Executive Matthew
00:25:27.400 Johnston, has revived the Mesthead, the brand. And we wish them the best. Stay with us. More Ahead on the Rebel.
00:25:33.960 Hey, welcome back on my show yesterday about the results of the election and Western alienation,
00:25:47.480 Don Wright. I'm horrified at the suggestion that Alberta should join the U.S. in any way.
00:25:52.920 The corruption and decline is accelerating. Why would we jump on a sinking ship? Western Canada
00:25:57.480 is more than capable of standing on our own two feet, on our own values. We do not need to join the U.S.
00:26:02.220 We will negotiate our future on our terms. Don, you make some very good points there.
00:26:07.900 And there's so many different ways that Alberta could have a future. It could try to renegotiate 1.00
00:26:13.500 things within Confederation. Quebec certainly has, haven't they? Not just customs, but constitutional
00:26:20.140 things. Quebec controls its own immigration in a way that other provinces don't. Quebec has its own
00:26:24.940 pension plan. There's so many things Quebec does within Confederation that Alberta could do.
00:26:29.380 Alberta could be independence. It could go for a sovereignty association. It could still be a
00:26:40.660 part of the Commonwealth and have the Queen, or it could join the United States either as a state or as
00:26:46.660 a territory. I think there's probably about a half dozen ways it could move forward. And the benefit of
00:26:53.540 Alberta is starting to go down that road is if you're aiming for independence, maybe you'll get
00:27:01.940 a lot of concessions within Confederation that will make people say, okay, we may as well stick
00:27:07.860 around. That's what happened in Quebec. Or maybe Albertans will say, hey, this isn't as bad as all
00:27:16.020 the skeptics warned. Let's just do it. Let's be like Singapore. Let's be like Hong Kong, except for
00:27:21.540 neither Singapore nor Hong Kong is sitting on 200 billion barrels of oil. Liz writes, I think the rest
00:27:29.300 of Canada will be surprised at what the West could accomplish, as well as how well it could protect
00:27:33.380 itself if left to its own devices. That's true. But Alberta has only not even five million people in it.
00:27:41.380 And when you've got that much wealth, it becomes a plaything for more powerful people.
00:27:48.500 It goes without saying that if Alberta started to go down this road, all the media would immediately
00:27:53.540 turn against it because the Calgary Herald, the Calgary Sun, the Edmonton Journal, the Edmonton Sun,
00:27:57.860 CTV, Global, CBC, all the radio, the chorus radio stations, they're all owned in Toronto by a half dozen
00:28:04.820 companies, maybe. So they would absolutely destroy anyone who suggested Alberta leaves. It wouldn't
00:28:11.620 be like the media that's in love with the Bloc Quebecois. You would also see foreign environmental
00:28:16.660 groups just go caray zay, as if they're not right now. They would just absolutely come in. You would
00:28:23.700 see, I mean, why wouldn't you see $100 million worth of political meddling? Every single year,
00:28:29.700 Alberta ships, what, $15 billion more to Ottawa than it gets back. It's a tremendous rate of return to
00:28:35.860 spend $100 million to preserve that. So it would be a hell of a fight. Tim writes,
00:28:41.700 I'm astonished that it took so long for the West to wake up. We have far more in common with the
00:28:45.700 US border states than we ever had with central Canada. There's a lot of truth there. I mean,
00:28:51.060 Alberta, Montana, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, even British Columbia, Washington State. There's a lot
00:29:00.340 more commonality there. I mean, if you've ever been to Vancouver and ever been to Seattle, they're
00:29:04.820 almost sister cities. Winnipeg and Chicago, I think, I thought they might be Saskatchewan,
00:29:12.660 and I don't know. I mean, you can only go so far with those analogies. But certainly,
00:29:18.740 right at the border, they're very similar. But more to the point, I don't think Montana hates
00:29:25.380 Alberta. I don't think Idaho hates Alberta. But it's pretty clear that a lot of liberals,
00:29:32.820 especially in Quebec and Ontario, do. Not everybody. Not everybody. I remind you,
00:29:36.820 a third of people in Ontario voted conservative. And not everyone who voted liberal hates the West.
00:29:42.180 But hating the West is clearly the political currency of the day, of the year, of the generation. I mean,
00:29:48.180 I'm sorry, you can't deny it. Well, folks, that's the show for today. Until tomorrow,
00:29:52.740 on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night. Keep fighting for freedom.