Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - May 30, 2018


Ep 12 ｜ Free Speech & Our Fast Track to Tyranny


Episode Stats

Length

39 minutes

Words per Minute

186.28967

Word Count

7,388

Sentence Count

495

Misogynist Sentences

12

Hate Speech Sentences

20


Summary

In this episode, we discuss the threat to free speech and why it matters. We also discuss what the First Amendment actually is and what it is not, and how it is being challenged constantly in the media and in the court system.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 What's up, guys? Welcome to Relatable with me, Allie Stuckey. This is a podcast by CRTV.
00:00:06.680 Sorry that this episode is a little bit late today. I've been having technical difficulties.
00:00:11.100 Hopefully, I won't run into any as I am recording this one. So my apologies for that. I really feel
00:00:18.380 like I haven't talked to you guys in like 10 years, even though it's only been a week. But
00:00:22.660 it's been a long few days. I've been traveling. I was in LA, then I was in Georgia, visiting my
00:00:28.220 husband's family, which was really fun. But now I am back with you, my friends. And I really do feel
00:00:34.000 like you guys are my friends. I hope that's OK. I really hope that you feel that way, too. Even
00:00:38.500 those of you who hate me, I feel like if we hung out and we didn't talk about politics, that you
00:00:44.460 might like me and we might be friends. I don't know. Maybe you'd still hate me. And that would
00:00:48.480 be totally fine. Thanks for listening anyway. OK, we have a lot to cover today. Let's go ahead and
00:00:53.980 get started. We are going to discuss the issue of free speech, how it is being dangerously
00:00:59.260 threatened right now and why that matters. We are also going to talk about what free speech
00:01:04.640 actually is and what it is not. And don't worry, for those of you who are wondering and who have
00:01:10.100 been asking, I will touch on Ireland's decision to legalize abortion. And better yet, I will
00:01:15.280 find a way to tie it into the issue of free speech. This is going to be fun. We are going
00:01:20.480 to cover a lot of ground and you will be smarter and more knowledgeable because of it, which is
00:01:25.020 always my goal. So first things first, why are we talking about free speech today? Well, there are
00:01:32.500 a few reasons. There is a right wing guy in Britain named Tommy Robinson who is being jailed
00:01:38.800 currently basically for his political views. There's a little bit more background on that that
00:01:43.440 I'll give you. And people in Britain, journalists in Britain were being told by the government not to
00:01:47.980 even report on his arrest at all. There is also the issue of the NFL and kneeling. Then there is
00:01:53.780 also Roseanne, whose show was just canceled by ABC because of her tweeting something racist about
00:01:58.820 Valerie Jarrett, who used to work in Obama's administration. There is also Starbucks, who
00:02:03.620 just had anti-implicit bias training this week for all of their deeply racist employees. Now, first,
00:02:10.420 I want to note, not all of these things have to do with free speech, but they are all being lumped
00:02:16.320 together in the conversation about free speech, the First Amendment, political correctness,
00:02:21.340 suppression, mind control, stuff like that. So first we need to distinguish what does the concept
00:02:26.400 of free speech mean and what does it not mean? Free speech in the United States of America means
00:02:33.180 freedom from government suppression or censorship of your speech. Free speech is guaranteed by the First
00:02:39.800 Amendment to the Constitution, which says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
00:02:46.000 or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press
00:02:51.520 or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of
00:02:58.400 grievances. So Congress can't make any law that hinders the freedom of speech. Now, there have been
00:03:03.580 many a Supreme Court case about what that actually means. A major one is Texas v. Johnson, for example,
00:03:09.420 where the court ruled that burning the American flag is protected under the Constitution.
00:03:13.000 So that's a pretty inclusive interpretation of the First Amendment. There have also been
00:03:17.480 exclusive rulings on the First Amendment that usually have to do with something called the
00:03:22.080 clear and present danger test, which was used in Schenck v. United States, Abrams v. United States,
00:03:27.600 and Whitney v. California, for example. The court used that test until 1969 when they started using
00:03:35.080 something called the imminent lawless action test. So under the clear and present danger test,
00:03:39.660 if you said something that was meant to cause illegal or dangerous action, your words were no
00:03:43.960 longer protected by the First Amendment. But the imminent lawless action test, the test that
00:03:48.600 they still use now, says that you that what you say has to cause both likely and imminent illegal
00:03:55.160 action for you to be protected, not to be protected by the First Amendment. This is where you get the
00:04:00.680 whole you can't yell fire in a theater thing. There are also limits to the First Amendment that
00:04:05.700 include defamation like slander and libel and obscenity. But an obscenity is different than
00:04:12.420 than defamation, just to make that clear. But proving a case for defamation or obscenity is really
00:04:18.180 hard to do because the standards of those things are subjective. And so they're constantly being
00:04:22.180 challenged. So not all speech is protected by the First Amendment, but most speech is. Hate speech is
00:04:28.260 protected by the First Amendment. There is actually it can be argued no such thing as hate speech because
00:04:33.980 the definition of hate is constantly getting more and more broad or maybe it's broader and broader
00:04:38.940 today to the left. It seems like hate means disagreeing with you. It means saying something that is true
00:04:46.360 that they don't like holding a religious view that they don't like most on the left. It seems like now
00:04:52.800 would love nothing more than to ban what they deem hate speech, anything they qualify as racist or sexist
00:04:59.460 or Islamophobic. But actually, it is that kind of speech that the First Amendment was set up to
00:05:05.700 protect. Controversial speech. We don't need the First Amendment to protect ideas that everyone agrees
00:05:11.600 on. We don't need the First Amendment to protect boring mainstream ideas. We need it to protect the
00:05:17.560 offensive ideas, the ideas that are constantly being pushed to the outskirts because no one wants to
00:05:22.600 hear them. The ideas that are in danger of being silenced. That is what the First Amendment is for.
00:05:27.540 The First Amendment is supposed to protect this so-called hate speech. That is its whole point.
00:05:33.640 The First Amendment wasn't established to actually condone speech. It was just established to protect
00:05:38.860 it. I think that all people, no matter how much I loathe what they believe, no matter how much hate
00:05:45.860 they have in their heart, no matter how much I disagree with them, I think that they should be able to
00:05:51.240 be free to speak their mind without fear of punishment from the government.
00:05:55.440 Uh, Louis Farrakhan, a racist, crazy anti-Semite who spews hate on a daily basis. I want him to
00:06:02.240 have free speech. Neo-Nazis who believe all kinds of terrible things, including that women should
00:06:07.220 basically be in the kitchen and who shouldn't have a right to vote. Um, they should have free
00:06:11.340 speech. These are the ideas that the First Amendment was set up to protect.
00:06:15.000 Why? That's a good question. Why would the Founding Fathers create an amendment to protect ideas that
00:06:21.460 are offensive and hateful? Because they knew that the definition of what is offensive and hateful
00:06:27.220 changes with whoever is in power. So say that America didn't have a First Amendment. Say in America,
00:06:33.400 Congress, uh, that they were free to make a law that restricted certain kinds of speech.
00:06:39.480 Say in 1950, every single one of the congressmen were Christians and they said, okay, no one gets
00:06:47.140 to talk about evolution. You are not allowed to say there is no God. You are not allowed to say that
00:06:51.940 Jesus was not the son of God. So Jews, you're out of luck. And also if you get angry, you can only say
00:06:58.140 gee willikers and dag nabbit. Everything else is considered hate speech and hate speech is offensive
00:07:03.380 and illegal. Would most people be okay with that? No, everyone who is not a Christian would not be okay
00:07:08.900 with that because a group of men who don't necessarily, who doesn't necessarily represent
00:07:14.020 all of America passed a law based on their own arbitrary subjective definition of what is okay
00:07:19.380 to say and what is hateful to say. Fast forward 80 years to 2030. I think that I got that math right.
00:07:25.620 Say we have an all transgender Congress and they say, you are not allowed to say he, she,
00:07:31.140 we hereby decree that everyone can only say zoo and loo. That is what you call people based on their
00:07:38.000 name tags on which they write their preferred title zoo or loo right after comrade. Of course,
00:07:42.900 anything else is hate speech and that is illegal. Would we be fine with that? No, of course not.
00:07:48.220 Because again, a group of people who, who doesn't necessarily represent America is legislating
00:07:53.680 censorship based on their own subjective standard of what is hateful and what is not.
00:07:57.840 So in more realistic terms, without the first amendment, what would be stopping a left leaning
00:08:03.820 Congress from telling us that we can't talk about Jesus anymore? That sharing our faith at work or
00:08:08.560 with our neighbors is hateful, offensive and wrong. What would be stopping a progressive government
00:08:13.420 from censoring books on capitalism? More imminently, what would be stopping them from telling us that
00:08:18.660 we can no longer talk about the dangers of illegal immigration? When would we be prevented
00:08:23.400 from publishing material that shows the gruesome reality of abortion? Being anti-illegal immigration
00:08:28.860 and pro-life are radical far right stances these days. You think a democratic Congress wouldn't
00:08:34.740 censor those ideas if they could? Their entire business on the left is thought control through
00:08:39.940 clever messaging. Of course they would. That is why we need the first amendment to protect ideas that
00:08:45.460 the majority considers dangerous. Those are our ideas, conservative ideas now that are considered
00:08:51.300 dangerous, but tomorrow the scandalous idea could be progressive. That's why this is an issue for both
00:08:56.140 the right and the left to defend. The first amendment protects all of us. So that's what the first
00:09:02.040 amendment is. That's what free speech as it pertains to the first amendment is. Um, here's what it is
00:09:06.860 not. It is not freedom from consequences. It does not protect you from being fired or punished. If you say
00:09:13.500 something stupid, you could lose your job. You could lose credibility. You could lose an award, lose your
00:09:18.440 scholarship, lose your relationship. You could get banned from Twitter. You could get censored on YouTube
00:09:23.520 or Facebook. And I hate social media censorship. I think it's morally wrong and bad company policy.
00:09:31.060 Um, but them censoring me is not actually a violation of free speech. When we were young,
00:09:38.220 for example, in elementary school, if we talked what we weren't supposed to or said something we
00:09:42.960 weren't allowed to say, we got in trouble. That wasn't a violation of our first amendment rights.
00:09:47.220 That was just, they were school rules. And as students of the school, we had to obey them.
00:09:53.400 The first amendment only prevents the government from creating a law that hinders free speech.
00:09:59.140 So if a company say, I don't know, the NFL says, Hey, you're, if you're out on the field and the
00:10:07.360 anthem is playing, you have to stand, uh, their new policy, by the way, if you didn't know that if you
00:10:12.340 are on the field, um, you stand for the anthem when it's being played, if you don't want to stand,
00:10:17.040 you have to stay in the locker room, but no kneeling is allowed. That is not a violation
00:10:20.940 of free speech. Now you can still disagree with that policy. You can say it's immoral. You can say
00:10:25.360 it's wrong. That's fine, but it doesn't have to do with, uh, the constitutional protection of free
00:10:31.600 speech. The NFL players are free to protest on their own time, but when they are on the field,
00:10:39.960 they are on their boss's time. They are in uniform and they are there to play the game and entertain
00:10:45.980 the ticket holders. They are not there to make political statements. Now I will defend to the
00:10:52.880 death, the NFL players right to protest. Do I agree with their protest completely? No police brutality
00:10:59.320 is not evidence of systemic racism in the police force. Any instance of police brutality is wrong,
00:11:05.280 of course, but it doesn't point to institutional racism against black people. The stats just don't
00:11:09.360 back that up. Even so the players have a right to protest on their own time, not on the NFL's time.
00:11:17.000 The NFL is a private company who is free to make their own policy. Players as employees of the NFL
00:11:22.040 are obligated to obey that policy or risk getting punished just like any other job. The punishment
00:11:27.360 in this case with this new policy, um, is that the team gets fined if any player kneels. So there's a
00:11:33.300 lot of hubbub about that. And I understand the concerns on both sides. Conservatives want to force the
00:11:39.100 players to stand and be on the field. And sure the NFL could do that. They have the right to do
00:11:43.820 whatever they want, but I'm not so sure that some major cultural win for conservatives that really
00:11:50.860 just puts a bandaid on the cancer that's festering beneath the surface, which is political and racial
00:11:55.420 division. That's fostered a real resentment among many on the left toward our country. I'm not sure
00:12:01.220 forcing the players to stand for the anthem really does much for anyone, except we get to put a point
00:12:09.500 on the board. Uh, liberals on the other hand, want people to be free to kneel, but I totally get why
00:12:16.320 the NFL doesn't want that. Uh, they don't want their games to be about politics. This isn't a time for
00:12:22.280 politics. People watch football to get away from politics, but honestly, the NFL's new policy isn't
00:12:27.540 going to make things less political. People are going to know who stayed in the, in the locker
00:12:32.780 room. So it's going to be essentially the same thing as kneeling. It'll be the new kneeling. The
00:12:36.520 conversation will be the exact same. It's just a new form of protest. Uh, the only thing they could
00:12:42.900 have done was to scrap the national anthem altogether, which to me would be really symbolic
00:12:48.380 and kind of sad about of where we are. Um, we can't get along. So let's tear down the one thing
00:12:54.640 that holds us all together. The one thing that unites us, no matter what our skin color is,
00:12:58.380 the fact that we're Americans, but also it wouldn't be that big of a deal because the NFL
00:13:04.560 didn't have players standing on the field for the anthem until 2009. So really recently, um,
00:13:09.880 they could still play the anthem, but everyone just stays in the locker room while the players
00:13:13.380 stay in the locker room. But you know, you know what in 2018, I think what happened, I bet that you
00:13:20.180 would have players that would run out on the field and stand for the anthem anyway, to,
00:13:24.380 you know, try to prove a patriotic point. But then the question would be, okay, would the team
00:13:29.360 get fined for that? And then if so, I'm sure conservatives would be mad that people are
00:13:34.440 getting punished for being patriotic and around and around we would go forever and ever. Um,
00:13:39.500 at this point there, there might be no good answer. In my opinion, it was never a good idea
00:13:45.420 for Kaepernick to use his company's time to protest a political issue, protest it all you want. Like I've
00:13:50.940 said again and again, but not on your employer's time. And again, that has nothing to do with free
00:13:56.000 speech or the first amendment and everything to do with company policy. Uh, you will hear people
00:14:00.540 incessantly call this a free speech issue. And in terms of the constitution, it's, it's just,
00:14:05.620 it's not, um, a second issue that has nothing to do with the first amendment, but people want to
00:14:11.840 make you think it is, is Roseanne. Um, okay. So in case you guys didn't hear the, the Roseanne show
00:14:18.180 got canceled after Roseanne Barr tweeted something racist about Valerie Jarrett, who used to work in
00:14:23.260 the Obama administration. Uh, Valerie Jarrett is black and Roseanne said she looks like a cross
00:14:28.000 between the Muslim brotherhood and planet of the apes. Yikes, yikes. Um, of course this is racist.
00:14:35.160 It sounds racist anyway. Now, this is not defending Roseanne at all. I just think she could be this kind
00:14:42.160 of crazy and loopy. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she didn't mean it as racist. She might have
00:14:50.280 really just thought that she was commenting on her appearance and didn't consider race. I mean,
00:14:55.460 Roseanne is a liberal. I don't think that she is actually a racist, but even if that wasn't her
00:15:01.560 intention, no matter what, I mean, it was stupid and it was wrong. And this was actually just one
00:15:08.420 tweet, uh, among a lot of other apparently controversial tweets, according to ABC. Um,
00:15:13.920 so this is not the first time that ABC got complaints about this, um, regarding Roseanne.
00:15:19.700 Now, if you don't know, uh, the reboot of Roseanne showed Roseanne as a Trump supporter, which was a
00:15:25.060 really big deal because Trump supporters are never seen on sitcoms. So conservatives embraced her.
00:15:30.160 Some did not all, uh, including me. I didn't embrace Roseanne because I've never really probably seen a
00:15:37.180 full episode of Roseanne. I remember it being on TV, maybe like for a little bit when I was younger,
00:15:42.940 I never liked it. I just think it's, it was kind of nasty. It's not, it's not my humor. It didn't
00:15:48.100 reflect my family's values. Um, now did I appreciate during the reboot when it was rebooting the slight
00:15:55.080 ideological diversity that we were seeing in the mainstream? Yes. Did I find it interesting that
00:16:00.500 the show did so well and had so much support despite Hollywood acting like Trump supporters
00:16:05.420 don't exist or that we don't watch TV? Yes. But Roseanne, the character and the person they're,
00:16:11.200 they're liberal. Like I said, um, I just think that the show was degrading that, uh, that it wasn't
00:16:16.600 funny, that it was inappropriate. Um, I, I didn't watch any of the new episodes either,
00:16:22.240 but of course, because Roseanne was a Trump supporter, a lot of people who probably felt
00:16:27.340 like I do actually about the show, uh, they embrace her anyway. Sean Hannity was about her.
00:16:31.980 Now he has since said that her comments were wrong. Uh, Trump called her to congratulate her.
00:16:37.140 Trump also tweeted this morning, uh, Wednesday morning that there's a double standard at ABC.
00:16:43.060 Um, and it did kind of seem for a while, like she was joining the right. She was tweeting in support
00:16:48.540 of Kanye West. She followed me on Twitter, LOL. She actually started liking some of my tweets a
00:16:53.920 while ago, which I remember thinking was funny at the time. Um, but listen, homegirl be crazy.
00:16:59.320 She crazy. Uh, David French had a good short summary of this in national review where he
00:17:04.060 summarized all of Roseanne's insanity over the years. And there's really no denying the fact that
00:17:08.800 she is a conspiracy theory loving Looney Tune. She might, she might, I don't know her be an otherwise
00:17:15.380 good person. I think probably a lot of people love her, but she's a little bit of a Looney Tune
00:17:19.620 guys. Um, she believes Bush, for example, is responsible for nine 11. She thinks the ruling
00:17:25.680 class in America is running to pedophile sex cult. She said she hopes people who eat Chick-fil-A
00:17:30.700 get cancer. She thinks Zionism was created by the third Reich. She's not what you would call
00:17:37.320 a role model. Okay. She's not, it never has been a good face for conservatism. I wouldn't even say
00:17:44.740 she's any, I don't even think any bit of her as a conservative. She's a social liberal who is off
00:17:51.300 her rocker, who also happens to have voted for Donald Trump. That's it. I totally get though,
00:17:56.700 that conservatives desperately wanted someone in mainstream pop culture that was fighting for
00:18:01.560 them, which is why people jumped so quickly on the Kanye train, but she never represented
00:18:06.900 conservative values. We can't be that desperate. You guys, if we never have true conservatives in
00:18:13.100 Hollywood, who really cares? We don't need that. And we've actually prided ourselves many, many times
00:18:18.320 on not needing that. But anyway, once again, the conversation on what Roseanne said has centered
00:18:24.500 on free speech. Well, this doesn't have anything to do with free speech. Sure. Roseanne is free to say
00:18:31.460 what she wants to say, but ABC is also free to fire her. Like I said, according to CNN, this apparently
00:18:38.280 wasn't the first time ABC had had an issue with her tweets. So it was time to cut ties. Roseanne's
00:18:44.160 first amendment rights are not being violated here. Now, could you argue it's not fair? Sure. You could
00:18:51.240 look at Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann. You could look at Michelle Wolf, Jimmy Kimmel. Keith Olbermann
00:18:57.920 specifically has said some really nasty stuff about Donald Trump calling him a Nazi. And yet he has an
00:19:06.000 expanded role at ESPN right now. And you could look at all that and say, OK, there's clearly a double
00:19:11.800 standard, which is true. Even though Kathy Griffin was fired from CNN after she posed with Donald Trump's
00:19:17.480 severed head, it's still obvious on social media and in the mainstream that there is and probably has
00:19:24.520 been for a while a bias that is increasingly tilted towards the left and that conservatives are held to
00:19:31.120 much higher in a much more virtuous and a restrained standard than those on the left. So sure, that could
00:19:39.300 be your point and you would be correct. But that doesn't mean that Roseanne's show should still be
00:19:45.100 on air. Not everything in life is about conservatives versus liberals. Some things are just right and wrong.
00:19:52.640 Roseanne was wrong. And you know what? I think everyone should be held to that standard. That's the standard
00:19:58.480 we have. That's the standard that we should keep no matter what your political affiliation is.
00:20:04.240 I think it should go both ways. I'm fine with the outrage. I do believe that the outrage should be
00:20:09.040 equal on both sides. But again, this is not a free speech issue. Here's what is a free speech issue.
00:20:15.220 The arrest of Tommy Robinson in England. Tommy Robinson is a right wing and I don't usually use that term,
00:20:22.180 but he's not a conservative. He's just a right wing anti-Islam guy whose goal is to preserve the West,
00:20:28.780 Western culture against the infiltration of Muslims and other immigrants. He said some pretty off the
00:20:35.800 wall stuff, not just about Muslims, but about Jews and others as well. He's not a guy that I would
00:20:40.720 associate myself with. He's certainly what I would consider alt right. But none of that really matters.
00:20:45.940 I don't really care what he believes because whether he is far right or far left, we should care about
00:20:52.280 the fact that he just got arrested for what appears to be no reason. So here's what happened.
00:20:58.140 In England, there actually has been an infiltration of millions of Muslims and some of those Muslims
00:21:05.500 have formed what are called grooming gangs where they groom, exploit, and rape young girls as young
00:21:10.400 as the age of 11. Great. In the vast majority of the grooming gang cases, Muslims have been the
00:21:16.500 perpetrators. People have been complaining about these grooming gangs for years, but they've been
00:21:20.920 ignored by social workers, by teachers, by the police force. Why? Because England is more afraid
00:21:26.300 of Islamophobia than they are afraid of rapists and criminals. But finally, these gang members have
00:21:32.340 been brought to trial and at one of the trials, Tommy Robinson was outside and he was taking pictures of
00:21:38.060 the guys that were going in. And because of that, because he was taking pictures, he was swarmed by
00:21:43.660 police and taken to jail. I am not joking. I am not exaggerating. That is really what happened. I am
00:21:48.640 serious. He took pictures of the guys going into court. I think he was trying to even like interview
00:21:53.100 them as they were going in and he got arrested. Of course, when people heard about this, there were
00:21:57.800 protesters. There's been an uproar here in America. But guess what? Journalists in Britain weren't even
00:22:03.400 allowed to cover the arrest and the trial of Tommy Robinson. The sentencing, the sentencing judge on
00:22:09.060 his case issued a gag order against the media, meaning they couldn't write or talk at all about
00:22:14.940 his trial, supposedly because it would, quote, interfere with the trial. That has been overturned
00:22:21.080 now, thankfully. So British journalists can write about it, but it wouldn't actually matter whether it
00:22:25.380 was overturned or not because journalists around the world have been covering this and probably have
00:22:29.620 been covering it more than if the gag order hadn't been issued. That is an issue of free speech.
00:22:35.740 The government, a judge in this case, telling you you cannot report on something because it might
00:22:41.360 interfere with the trial. I mean, are you kidding? Then you would never be able to report on any trial
00:22:46.840 ever. No, this is Britain's attempt to censor not only Tommy Robinson because he's known to them as an
00:22:53.540 Islamophobe and a problem causer, but more specifically, the press. England has been hiding these
00:22:59.480 grooming gangs for decades, silencing victims, refusing to allow journalists to report on these
00:23:04.320 cases. And now when someone wants to talk about it, he gets arrested and people aren't allowed to
00:23:08.800 report on that. There hasn't been too much concern from the American left either. If any, I haven't seen
00:23:16.520 and I could be wrong at this point. I checked earlier. I hadn't seen the New York Times report on
00:23:21.400 this. Maybe they have at this point. Here's the Washington Post headline about it. Conservative outrage
00:23:27.240 after anti-Muslim campaigner Tommy Robinson secretly jailed in Britain. So the most important thing
00:23:33.560 there in the headline is obviously that there's is that there's something wrong with us, that
00:23:39.300 conservatives are mad about it, not about the arrest itself. Here is Times headline why Tommy Robinson was
00:23:46.400 jailed and why U.S. right wingers care. So again, it's our anger. That's the story here, not what
00:23:52.160 actually happened. Why? Because the left in America want this to happen. They agree with it. Maybe not
00:23:58.820 everyone, but a large majority. I haven't seen anyone on the left speak out about this or be
00:24:03.660 angered about this because they want ideas that they deem bad or dangerous or hateful to go away.
00:24:09.140 They think they deserve to be silenced. That's why they came up with this idea of hate speech.
00:24:14.580 I went to Cornell to speak a few months ago and the administration was preparing to pass a speech
00:24:19.360 code that would punish speech they deemed racist. They like when YouTube or Facebook or Twitter
00:24:25.700 shuts down a conservative but uplifts a liberal. And like I've said, private companies, campuses,
00:24:31.280 they can use any type of speech code, I guess, or censorship standards that they want to. That's
00:24:36.960 not necessarily a constitutional First Amendment issue, but it's still dangerous and wrong in principle,
00:24:42.780 the stifling of ideas that you don't agree with. But this is what the left wants. They want it not
00:24:48.120 just on social media, but I guarantee you almost everyone on the left would sign a bill outlawing
00:24:52.960 racist language. I guarantee it. You don't have to like Tommy Robinson. You don't have to like how
00:24:58.280 he does things. Apparently he hangs outside of courthouses and chases down defendants and films
00:25:03.640 them. You don't have to agree with him, but this should trouble you no matter what side of the political
00:25:08.060 aisle you're on. The slow death of free speech, the death of the free exchange of ideas is very real.
00:25:14.100 Meanwhile, Britain's neighbor, Ireland, who is not part of Britain, just making sure everyone
00:25:19.840 knows that, voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment last week. The Eighth Amendment said that an unborn
00:25:25.000 child had the same right to life as the mother. Very common sense amendment. They voted to overturn
00:25:30.700 the Eighth Amendment so abortion could be legalized. They called this, of course, a victory for women's
00:25:35.660 rights, for bodily autonomy, you know, all the euphemistic traps they use over here. They have taken a
00:25:41.940 progressive step politically, but obviously, as we know, a very regressive step morally as now they
00:25:46.940 are denying the scientific fact that a human being inside the womb is a human being and as a human
00:25:51.960 being should logically have the same rights that you or I have. Of course, you can get abortion pretty
00:25:57.980 much up until birth in America for any reason whatsoever. Sixty six percent of unborn babies with
00:26:05.360 Down syndrome in America are aborted. Ninety nine percent in Iceland, by the way. America is right on par
00:26:10.640 with China and North Korea and that we allow abortion after 20 weeks. So that's great. No doubt
00:26:16.240 this is the universal direction in which we're going. So let's tie it all together for a second.
00:26:21.820 Let's let's stop and think about where we are. Let's look in the entire world, not just America.
00:26:27.800 The entire world is moving toward greater access to abortion. The entire world is moving away from
00:26:33.400 freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Ireland was one of the most pro-life, if not the most pro-life
00:26:38.640 countries in the world. America is still the freest place in the world for speech and press. But for
00:26:42.600 how long, it's hard to tell. What does this say about the direction the world is moving in? Does
00:26:46.840 it correlate at all? To me, it shows that we're moving away from individualism and toward collectivism.
00:26:52.720 We are clearly shunning the idea of human dignity and the inherent individual rights that human dignity
00:26:57.840 demands and are instead embracing a dystopia where humans are regarded no higher than animals. There is no
00:27:04.400 such thing as an inherent right. The only rights you have are given to you by the government. There
00:27:10.420 is no real right and wrong besides what the government tells you. There's no truth besides
00:27:14.460 what the government tells you. This is exactly what happens when you forego the idea of sanctity of
00:27:19.860 life and human dignity. When you deny that humans are sacred, that we're above animals, that we are
00:27:26.420 uniquely made in the image of God, it then becomes easy to deny that humans have certain rights that
00:27:31.420 should be recognized and protected by the government rather than squelched and taken away.
00:27:35.780 So the pro-choice movement and the anti-free speech movement actually, in my opinion, go hand in hand
00:27:40.780 because they both deny the inherent right of human beings to be free, free from tyranny. They both deny
00:27:46.100 human dignity. They both deny the individual in exchange for some warped view of the greater good.
00:27:52.760 And I just wonder, when we actually get there in America, when we get to the point where the press is no
00:27:58.280 longer free, where we can get in trouble for saying something someone doesn't like, when we follow
00:28:02.940 the natural progression where abortion takes us, which is infanticide, glorified suicide, and eugenics,
00:28:07.840 will the left look around and say, oh, wow, okay, this is not what I wanted. This is not what I meant.
00:28:16.640 Will they even recognize that it is, that was their ideas that brought us here? Or will they be okay with it?
00:28:25.100 None of this stuff is really very important to most people on the left, though, that they either don't see
00:28:32.200 it's happening or they don't care. They want it to happen. They want us to go in this Orwellian
00:28:36.180 direction. What is important to them is anti-implicit bias training, which Starbucks engaged in this
00:28:42.520 week, shutting down their doors to make sure that their employees aren't racist. You probably remember
00:28:47.960 the incident in Philadelphia last month when an employee called the cops on these black guys who
00:28:53.500 refused to buy anything in the store but continued to sit there. This employee, by the way, who told
00:28:59.140 these guys to leave or called the cops is a flaming liberal, probably as SJW as they come. Since then,
00:29:05.260 there have been protests outside Starbucks for how racist they are. So, of course, they closed down
00:29:10.440 their stores Tuesday to do anti-implicit bias training. What is this training? I don't really know.
00:29:16.240 I think they show you pictures of people of different races and ask you how you feel about it.
00:29:20.140 And if you're not in love with every single one of them, then you're probably racist.
00:29:24.520 The truth is, this isn't going to drive out racism from the human heart or from any one of these people.
00:29:31.080 There's no study to show that this actually works. This is an expensive PR stunt. It's virtue signaling.
00:29:36.900 It's political correctness, which in its worst form, it's not always bad, but in its worst form is an
00:29:42.060 enemy of free thought and freedom of speech. We've really got our priorities backwards, guys.
00:29:48.400 But that's what we can expect from here on out, I think. And I don't just say that to be negative.
00:29:53.900 I think that that's just true. There's no evidence that the world is going to get better before Jesus
00:29:58.180 comes back. In fact, it's going to become worse. People are going to keep demeaning human dignity.
00:30:02.780 They'll continue to deny that truth exists. They'll continue to deny any kind of morality or
00:30:07.980 goodness. They'll continue to shun God, which is really the center of all of this. And this is not to
00:30:12.680 say that all liberals are evil and all conservatives are good. Not at all. But it is to say that most of the
00:30:18.140 progressive agenda is one that drives us further from virtue and godly values into moral relativism
00:30:23.600 and godlessness without a doubt. One final point on this topic. Memorial Day was this weekend. I hope
00:30:30.900 you guys enjoyed it. I did. I tweeted over the weekend that we went to church on Sunday morning
00:30:37.560 and that I was thankful for the rare privilege of getting to worship Jesus without the fear of
00:30:42.720 punishment or persecution, all because of the sacrifices that men and women have made for our
00:30:48.460 freedom. And it was just funny. Some of the comments that I got saying, this is not a rare privilege and
00:30:53.380 you're being dramatic. I'm acting like a victim. Clearly, these people don't know anything about the
00:31:00.360 rest of the world. I am not a victim, but there are people throughout the world who are. Freedom of
00:31:05.860 religion, also protected by the First Amendment, is not sewn into the fabric of most countries.
00:31:10.480 I'm not just talking about freedom for Christians to worship, but for people of all faiths. People
00:31:15.060 don't realize how uncommon that is and how good we have it. In fact, religious freedom has been in
00:31:21.540 the news this week because Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released the 2017 Religious Freedom Report.
00:31:27.600 He said in the report documents across or yeah, he said that is sorry. He said that in the report
00:31:33.760 documents across 200 countries and territories report violations and abuses committed by
00:31:40.160 governments, terrorist groups and individuals. For example, I'm going to give you a string of
00:31:44.380 examples here. For example, in Russia, the missionary activities of Jehovah's Witnesses have been
00:31:48.980 criminalized and labeled as an extremist organization. Now, Jehovah's Witnesses teach a false gospel, but they're
00:31:54.440 not extremists. They're the opposite of extreme. They don't even celebrate Christmas. A few years ago, Russia
00:31:59.420 imprisoned an academic who specialized in religious studies for 32 months. That's Russia, not the
00:32:05.280 Middle East, not China, Russia. In Iran, the law allows the death sentence for, quote, proselytizing and attempts by
00:32:14.160 non-Muslims to convert Muslims, as well as for enmity against God and insulting the prophet. Men in 2017 were
00:32:23.500 executed for waging what they called a war on God. People executed are mostly Christians, as well as other
00:32:31.780 religious minorities. In Afghanistan, conversion from Islam to another religion is considered apostasy and
00:32:37.620 punishable by death, imprisonment, or confiscation of property. Neighboring Pakistan continued to enforce
00:32:45.400 blasphemy laws whose punishment ranges from life in prison to death sentence for a range of charges,
00:32:51.380 including defiling the prophet Muhammad. The report says that at least 50 individuals were imprisoned on
00:32:56.740 blasphemy charges, at least 17 of whom had received death sentences. Regarding China, the report says
00:33:03.500 during 2016, as China's President Xi Jinping further consolidated power, conditions for freedom of
00:33:12.180 religion or belief and related human rights continue to decline. Authorities target anyone considered a
00:33:18.920 threat to the state, including religious believers, human rights lawyers, and other members of civil society.
00:33:24.600 In 2016, the Chinese government regularly emphasized the cynicization of religion and circulated revised
00:33:35.100 regulations governing religion, including new penalties for activities considered illegal and
00:33:40.600 additional crackdowns on Christian house churches. In Mexico, Mexican authorities in several states pressured
00:33:46.500 followers of minority religions to convert to and or practice the majority religion of the particular
00:33:52.260 area and participate in affiliated ceremonies and activities. Religious minorities who refuse or
00:33:57.980 forcibly displaced arbitrarily detained and have their properties destroyed and or had the utilities cut
00:34:03.920 off. Mexican state and federal authorities frequently fail to intervene in these cases, creating a climate of
00:34:10.140 impunity. So those are just a few instances. You can go to uscirf.gov and read this report for
00:34:17.860 yourself. The point is the First Amendment is rare and extremely unique. It is a right that millions
00:34:24.900 in the in the world do not get to enjoy. People are not free to say what they want, print what they
00:34:30.820 want, worship how they want. We in America are freer than any country in the world, especially in this
00:34:35.960 regard. And it is because of the men and women who have fought and died to protect our freedom to live
00:34:41.140 and speak as we please, which is exactly what Memorial Day is about. So let's summarize all of
00:34:46.560 this. First, Ireland shows that the pro abortion movement around the world is moving farther than 10
00:34:51.940 years ago we ever would have thought. Second, free speech is either dead or dying in every part of the
00:34:57.060 world, as the Tommy Robinson case shows. Third, freedom of religion is either dead or dying in many parts of
00:35:04.280 the world, as the Secretary of State's report shows. We used to think that these kinds of human rights
00:35:09.720 atrocities were exclusive to the Middle East and China, but that's just not the case anymore.
00:35:14.160 Like I said before, America is right up there with China and North Korea when it comes to abortion
00:35:18.240 rights. England routinely restricts the freedom of the press. Russia, who is not a part of the West,
00:35:23.760 but is certainly not a developing country, is included for the first time on the United States
00:35:28.700 list of countries who routinely persecute people for their religion. What this tells me is that the
00:35:34.320 value of the individual is decreasing rapidly around the world. In some places, it's always been very low,
00:35:39.560 but in other places, it's dropping. And when that happens, individual rights are seen as obsolete
00:35:44.600 and are taken away. And when individual rights are seen as obsolete because of a denial of human
00:35:49.500 dignity, the government has room to take over and become tyrannical. The government is allowed to grow
00:35:54.920 and flourish where the sanctity of the individual is diminished, which is exactly what is happening
00:35:59.640 around the world. We would be silly to think that it wouldn't come to America. Many people in America
00:36:05.540 certainly don't care about the intrinsic value of the individual. And as a consequence, his or her
00:36:12.340 inherent rights as outlined in the Constitution. You could argue that free speech here is already
00:36:18.500 starting to die in America if our college campuses are any indication of how the upcoming generation
00:36:23.500 views the free exchange of ideas. Clearly, censorship is something a lot of young people would advocate
00:36:27.960 for. There are certainly people in America who want to censor Christian and conservative ideas
00:36:32.540 and who would advocate for the government to do so. They don't see it as tyranny, though. They see it
00:36:38.660 as tolerance. That is the Orwellian dystopia the world is headed in. Like 1984 says, war is peace,
00:36:45.880 freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. Add to that, tyranny is tolerance. And with that absolute
00:36:52.620 nightmare headed for our country, they want to take away our guns? No. All of this, everything that we've
00:37:00.220 just described regarding the First Amendment is inextricably intertwined with the Second Amendment.
00:37:05.040 The military fights for our freedom, yes, but at the end of the day, they are under command of the
00:37:10.660 government. Our freedom of speech, our freedom of religion, the freedom of the individual and human
00:37:14.960 dignity is protected by our right to defend ourselves as we see fit. You don't have the First Amendment
00:37:20.180 without the second. It is our only last defense against tyranny. You take away people's guns, you take away
00:37:25.740 people's freedom entirely. You don't have to be a gun owner to recognize that. Okay, that is where we
00:37:33.700 will end all of that. I have time for one question. And that question that I received on Instagram is
00:37:40.280 how did I meet my husband? I met my husband working out at a gym. It was a CrossFit type gym. I know it
00:37:47.900 sounds super lame. Want to know something even funnier. The first time I saw him, he was actually with his
00:37:53.320 girlfriend. I didn't talk to him or anything. But I distinctly remember them being together at the gym.
00:37:58.560 Don't worry, there was no overlap there. I didn't even meet him until a couple months after that until
00:38:03.860 later, I guess his relationship had ended. And we just hit it off immediately. We would talk in the gym parking
00:38:10.640 lot outside my car for hours at a time. One time we literally talked for four hours in the parking lot before
00:38:16.380 we ever even went on a date or he got my number. I texted one of my friends after that and said,
00:38:23.000 and I know this is crazy, but I think I've met my husband. And I was right. You always hear when you
00:38:30.480 know, you know. And I used to have no idea what that meant and how that could be possible. But when I
00:38:35.960 met him, I just I knew it. I understood what people had been saying. Fun fact, we only dated for five
00:38:43.140 months before we got engaged and we were only engaged for four months. I hadn't even I don't
00:38:47.880 think I had even known him for a full year when we got married. I know that's insane when I say it
00:38:52.500 out loud. But I've always been a very instinctive person. And I just knew without a shadow of a doubt
00:38:57.100 that I was supposed to be with him. And he felt the same way, thankfully. So for us, there was no reason
00:39:02.660 to waste any time. It was great. And now we've been married for about two and a half years. Side note,
00:39:08.440 I highly recommend short engagements. We planned an awesome wedding in four months and you really
00:39:13.960 don't need more than that. And I was working full time and everything. I wouldn't have it any other
00:39:18.400 way. OK, that is all for today. I hope you guys are enjoying the first bits of summer here in Texas.
00:39:23.820 We are already melting and dying, even though I know I said that I like the heat, but I'm like I'm
00:39:30.420 really dying. But that's OK. I'm not complaining. OK, that's it. I love y'all. Follow me on social
00:39:36.300 media. Leave a nice review. Share this with your friends. Bye.