The Ben Shapiro Show - Ep. 320 - Are The Speech Police Coming?

On Wednesday, a far-left Bernie Sanders supporter who despised President Trump opened fire on Republican congressmen practicing for a charity baseball game, injuring six members of Congress, including Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La., a fellow Trump supporter) and injuring others in the process. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the left and right are quick to point the finger at each other, blaming the other for the crimes of a random person. But is there a clear line between passion and violence in our political discourse? And are we blurring the lines between passionate rhetoric and actual advocacy toward violence? Ben Shapiro argues that both sides of the political aisle are to blame for creating a climate of hate and violence, and that we need to move beyond the use of words and toward actual violence in order to make sense of the current political climate and our own words. The Ben Shapiro Show is on all of the social medias, wherever you get your news feeds, if you search for it, you'll find the latest episode of the Ben Shapiro show. The latest episode is available on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe, Like, and Share, and Retweet! Subscribe to The BenShapiro Show! Learn more about your ad choices. Become a supporter of the show by becoming a patron patron. Rate, review and subscribe to our new podcast, and help spread the word to your friends about the show! Ben Shapiro's new book, "The Dark Side of Politics" out there! is out now! coming out on Nov. 22nd! The Dark Side Hustler is out on Amazon Prime Day! Subscribe on Audible Subscribe and review the show on Podcoin Subscribe for a chance to win a FREE 7-day VIP membership! Thank you get 20% off your first month only discount when you shop with VIP access to Ben Shapiro s newest book "The Ben Shapiro Podcast! and other VIP memberships! Get all the latest releases only through Audible and VaynerSpeaker s new ad-free VIP membership plan! All exclusive VIP membership plans are available on Prime Video, including VIP membership, Best Fiends, PODCAST, Skypes, and Vimeo? Subscribe & Vimeo, and Pizzazz? All other places to watch the show that gets the most professional reviewers get the best deals on the best of the best places in the world, including the best vids and more!

00:00:00.000 On Wednesday, a far-left Bernie Sanders supporter who despised President Trump opened fire on Republican congresspeople practicing for a bipartisan charity baseball game.

00:00:08.000 Now, we all know that if the situation had been reversed, if a President Trump supporter and Bernie hater had opened fire on Congressional Democrats, we would be treated to the full spectacle of media foe outrage.

00:00:19.000 We'd get long-winded stemwinders about Republicans creating a climate of hate and violence.

00:00:23.000 We've received stern talking tos about gun culture and polarizing rhetoric.

00:00:27.000 We know this because it's been a strategic mainstay for Democrats for half a century, going all the way back to the left blaming the right for a climate of hate that supposedly led to JFK's assassination by a commie in 1963.

00:00:37.000 The left has blamed talk radio for the Oklahoma City bombing, Sarah Palin and the right for the attempted assassination of Gabby Giffords by a mentally ill man, by the way.

00:00:45.000 Bernie Sanders even attempted to raise money off that canard.

00:00:48.000 Confederate flag owners for a massacre at a historically black church.

00:00:51.000 No, it isn't.

00:00:51.000 Okay?

00:00:51.000 Rhetoric is not directly responsible for violence unless it advocates violence.

00:00:53.000 Radical jihadism advocates violence.

00:01:06.000 The bulk of its supporters know this and support violence.

00:01:09.000 A solid contingent of its followers participate in violence.

00:01:12.000 The same is not true for American brand political leftism, as vile as it is.

00:01:16.000 For the right to equate verbiage with violence, no matter how inflammatory the verbiage, is to fall prey to the same snowflake syndrome the right condemns on college campuses.

00:01:24.000 There is no logical gap between attempting to blame right-wing speakers for supposed violent speech in opposing Black Lives Matter and attempting to blame Sanders for the sins of a random follower.

00:01:33.000 This leaves two questions on the table.

00:01:35.000 First,

00:01:36.000 Are we living through a more toxic political climate than ever before in American history, promoting individual acts of violence among the mentally unstable? 0.54

00:01:43.000 And second, are we in danger of blurring the lines between passionate rhetoric and actual advocacy toward violence?

00:01:49.000 Well, as far as the first question goes, the answer is obviously no.

00:01:52.000 It would take really a lot of ignorance of American history to believe that our current political climate is worse than Civil War era America or even late 1960s America, if only because our underlying problems are significantly less horrifying.

00:02:04.000 Yes, our political climate is toxic.

00:02:06.000 Just yesterday, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, who attempted to blame gun control for the shooting, suggested that the Trump campaign or someone associated with it had acted treasonably with regard to Russia.

00:02:15.000 The entire resistance is built on the rhetoric of a wartime underground.

00:02:19.000 By the same token, the right has taken to using war language far more regularly even than it did in the Obama era.

00:02:24.000 We're told we're in a civil war.

00:02:26.000 But here's the truth.

00:02:27.000 Nobody took this stuff particularly seriously.

00:02:30.000 We can all tell the differences between rhetorical flourishes and violent advocacy.

00:02:34.000 Except when we can't.

00:02:35.000 Which brings us to the second question.

00:02:37.000 Are we moving beyond purple language and into the realm of actual violent advocacy?

00:02:41.000 On both left and right, the answer seems to be yes.

00:02:43.000 On the left, thanks to politicians attempting to capitalize on public anger, groups like Antifa run free in major American cities, acts of violence against Trump supporters are brushed off or treated by the media as he said, she said situations.

00:02:55.000 On the right, too many Republicans ignore or downplay incidents like the Greg Gianforte incident in Montana or then-candidate Trump's talk about people paying their bills if they assaulted protesters.

00:03:05.000 There are two ways to deal with the problem.

00:03:07.000 First, we have to establish a bright line rule.

00:03:09.000 No defending or advocating violence.

00:03:12.000 Period.

00:03:13.000 End of story.

00:03:14.000 Second, we should all probably take a deep breath before we hit send.

00:03:17.000 It's not our fault if fringe characters take advantage of our language to do violence we never suggested and don't support, but let's all do our best, and yes, I'm including myself here,

00:03:25.000 To use language we can defend morally.

00:03:27.000 That doesn't mean tamping down our passion with regard to politics.

00:03:30.000 It does mean thinking twice before hitting send on a tweet or Facebook post comparing Republicans to ISIS, thanks to their healthcare policy.

00:03:37.000 Or suggesting that Democrats are eager to watch Americans die in a fiery incident, in a terrorist incident, because they oppose President Trump's travel ban.

00:03:44.000 Perhaps the language of civil war is perfectly appropriate and we're willing to stand by it. 0.86

00:03:48.000 So be it, but let's think it through.

00:03:49.000 This seems like a decent thing to do if we wish to preserve some semblance of a social fabric.

00:03:54.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:03:55.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:04:01.000 So in the aftermath of yesterday's horrific congressional shooting, and all prayers for Steve Scalise, the House Majority Whip, who apparently is still in critical condition, was undergoing surgery all throughout the night, and everybody should take a moment today and just say a prayer for Congressman Scalise.

00:04:15.000 But in the aftermath of that, there have been a bunch of reactions that are quite fascinating.

00:04:21.000 It seems like we are now on the verge of going too far in the other direction.

00:04:26.000 What I mean by that is that if we were on the verge of going too far in the everyone is angry, let's shout at each other and hit each other with sticks direction, now it seems like we're in danger of going too far along the everybody just needs to never say anything that could offend anyone.

00:04:39.000 And I want to be careful.

00:04:40.000 About what we say are the kinds of speech that are appropriate.

00:04:43.000 I'm talking about people on the right and the left.

00:04:44.000 I want to be careful and go through what kinds of speech I think are really damaging and dangerous, and which kinds of speech are just typical political rhetoric.

00:04:53.000 Because this is the sort of situation where people could say, okay, Nutcase went crazy and shot a bunch of people,

00:04:59.000 Let's all get rid of all offensive rhetoric.

00:05:00.000 Let's get back to this kind of faux civility.

00:05:02.000 We'll never say anything inflammatory.

00:05:04.000 We'll never say anything interesting.

00:05:05.000 We'll never use language that is evocative.

00:05:08.000 We all have to check ourselves all the time at the door.

00:05:11.000 I want to go through, I think there are three different types of language, and I want to go through those in a second and discuss which ones are acceptable, which ones are not.

00:05:18.000 Obviously, none of this should be regulated, but which ones are acceptable and which ones are not in sort of everyday use because

00:05:23.000 I'm a little bit frightened that the snowflake syndrome that now attends to college campuses is being picked up by the right in response to the left.

00:05:30.000 So the left always says, people like me speaking on college campuses, well that creates a climate of violence and people are going to get hurt.

00:05:36.000 So we have to shut down Shapiro.

00:05:37.000 I don't want to see the same thing happen on the right with regard to people on the left. 0.88

00:05:41.000 Us saying, well, you know, when they say that Trump is un-American or when they say Trump is a tyrant, that's just bad and it gets people killed.

00:05:48.000 I don't want to do that because, again, I like having the same moral standard for everyone.

00:05:53.000 So I'm going to talk about that in just a second.

00:05:55.000 But before I get to that, I first want to say thank you to our advertisers over at Wink.

00:05:58.000 So, you don't know anything about wine, but you have a dinner party tonight, and you don't know which wine to bring.

00:06:03.000 This is why you need to go over to Wink.com, trywink.com, slash Ben.

00:06:08.000 It's trywinc.com, slash Ben.

00:06:12.000 What they do is they have a quick

00:06:13.000 Algorithm you fill it out.

00:06:15.000 It tells you you put in sort of your tastes.

00:06:17.000 What do you like to eat together?

00:06:18.000 Do you like meat with certain flavors?

00:06:20.000 Do you like things that are spicy?

00:06:21.000 Do you like things that are sweet?

00:06:23.000 And then they recommend a wine for you, and they send it direct to your door.

00:06:28.000 And right now, TryWink.com slash Ben means they'll offer listeners $20 off their first order when you go to TryWink.com slash Ben, and their bottles are $13.

00:06:37.000 They start at just $13.

00:06:38.000 They are high quality wine made directly by Wink.

00:06:41.000 Everyone in the office, except for me, actually has tried the wine, is why they're all drunken savages, but they all drink

00:06:47.000 Okay, so.

00:07:16.000 I don't think so.

00:07:33.000 A six hour period.

00:07:34.000 So, the amount of time we're nice to each other after a horrific incident that really goes to the heart of America has now been reduced to less than the amount of time that it takes for a yogurt to spoil if you leave it out of the refrigerator.

00:07:47.000 But, yesterday, people said the right things in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

00:07:50.000 Here was Bernie Sanders.

00:07:52.000 It was, we'll remember, one of his volunteers who went out and shot somebody, the shooter.

00:07:57.000 I have just been informed that the alleged shooter at the Republican baseball practice this morning is someone who apparently volunteered on my presidential campaign.

00:08:28.000 I am sickened by this despicable act, and let me be as clear as I can be.

00:08:37.000 Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society, and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms.

00:08:48.000 Real change can only come about

00:08:52.000 Through nonviolent action and anything else runs counter to our most deeply held American values.

00:09:03.000 I know I speak for the entire country in saying that my hopes and prayers are that Representative Scalise, Congressional staff, and the Capitol Police officers who were wounded make a quick and full recovery.

00:09:19.000 I also want to thank the Capitol Police for their heroic actions to prevent further harm.

00:09:25.000 Okay, so there's Bernie Sanders saying exactly the right thing.

00:09:28.000 Obviously, violent activity needs to be put aside.

00:09:31.000 We're going to talk in a minute about whether the left is indeed putting aside violent rhetoric and violent activity, because I think the answer is, in large measure, no.

00:09:39.000 But Sanders has actually been pretty consistent on this point, right?

00:09:41.000 He was one of the guys who said that the riots at Berkeley, when Ianopolis went to Berkeley,

00:09:45.000 He said that those riots were wrong.

00:09:46.000 He said that Ann Coulter should speak at Berkeley and shouldn't be shut down.

00:09:50.000 So I can't blame Bernie Sanders, per se, for this.

00:09:52.000 I know a lot of people are trying to because Bernie Sanders... They're trying to hold Bernie to his own standard.

00:09:56.000 You know, back in 2011, Sanders fundraised off of the idea that Gabby Giffords was shot because Sarah Palin

00:10:02.000 Paul Ryan, I thought, had a great response yesterday.

00:10:04.000 Also, here's what he had to say on the floor of Congress.

00:10:30.000 There are very strong emotions throughout this house today.

00:10:35.000 We are all horrified by this dreadful attack on our friends and on our colleagues and those who serve and protect this capital.

00:10:46.000 We are all praying for those who are attacked and for their families.

00:10:51.000 Steve Scalise, Zachary Barth, Matt Mica,

00:10:56.000 Special Agent David Bailey.

00:10:58.000 Special Agent Crystal Griner.

00:11:02.000 We are all giving our thoughts to those currently being treated for their injuries at this moment.

00:11:07.000 And, we are united.

00:11:13.000 We are united in our shock.

00:11:15.000 We are united in our anguish.

00:11:18.000 An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.

00:11:25.000 Okay, so Paul Ryan, of course, saying the right things as well.

00:11:27.000 Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, she said much the same thing.

00:11:31.000 She said she was praying for Scalise and Trump.

00:11:33.000 And then she, of course, came out immediately today and said that the climate of toxic political rhetoric in the country is the fault of Republicans.

00:11:39.000 So that lasted for five entire seconds.

00:11:42.000 Now, I want to go through, I think, some of the types of speech that are out there and whether we should hold them responsible for violence.

00:11:51.000 John Nolte, I thought, had a really great piece over at Daily Wire today.

00:11:56.000 Uh, Nolte is, uh, is a firebrand for sure.

00:11:58.000 And Nolte got a piece today talking about the case, basically, that CNN is responsible for this by CNN's own standard.

00:12:04.000 And that's basically correct.

00:12:05.000 CNN has said over and over and over that it was, it was the Confederate flag that caused the shooting down at that historically black church in Charleston.

00:12:13.000 They said that it was the Pizzagate conspiracy that caused Pizzagate guy to go and shoot up a restaurant.

00:12:18.000 They said that it was Sarah Palin responsible for Gabby Giffords, all of it.

00:12:21.000 And then they go out there and they say that the Shakespeare in the Park assassination of Trump thing is awesome.

00:12:26.000 They hire Kathy Griffin and then reluctantly fire Kathy Griffin.

00:12:30.000 CNN makes comments all the time about how, I mean, they tried to connect Steve Scalise, this congressman, to the KKK. 0.67

00:12:38.000 All of this is, it goes to the hypocrisy of the left.

00:12:42.000 And I think that it demonstrates, the left is rightly getting batted around for this today, it demonstrates that the right should not make the same mistake.

00:12:48.000 We should not make the same mistake where we say, okay, political rhetoric is connected to individual actions because the next time some kook happens to have listened to Rush Limbaugh at any point and then goes and shoots somebody, the entire left is going to say, well, it's Rush Limbaugh's fault. 0.77

00:13:01.000 You know, this guy who shot up the Congress people, he was a big Rachel Maddow fan.

00:13:05.000 Is that Rachel Maddow's fault?

00:13:06.000 No, I don't think that it's Rachel Maddow's fault.

00:13:09.000 There are three sorts of speech that I think are worthwhile considering.

00:13:15.000 And I think that we need to be exact in how we do this, because I sort of argued it vaguely yesterday, but I didn't think I was exact enough.

00:13:20.000 So, there are three types of speech that are worth considering as to whether they cross a line or not, whether we ought to think twice before using them.

00:13:29.000 And two of them, I think that they do cross a line, and they are becoming more and more prevalent.

00:13:33.000 So, number one, speech that actively advocates violence.

00:13:36.000 So, 0.67

00:13:37.000 It's actually illegal to tell people, go hit that guy, right?

00:13:39.000 You're not actually allowed to say that in the United States, but there's something that sort of borders on it, which is, violence is kind of great, you should go do it.

00:13:45.000 Not like a specific direction that you should do violence to any one person, but a generalized notion that you should go do violence to people generally.

00:13:53.000 Jesse Benn is a columnist for the Huffington Post, and he wrote that a violent response to Trump would be, quote, as logical as any.

00:13:59.000 He wrote that last week, in the Huffington Post.

00:14:02.000 He has a cartoon pinned to the top of his Twitter feed,

00:14:06.000 There is this this element of the left that actually is good with violence and advocates for violence and makes room for violence.

00:14:19.000 You see it more broadly on the left when it comes to people like Maxine Waters who said that the LA riots were an LA uprising.

00:14:26.000 Or Marilyn Mosby, or rather not Marilyn Mosby, the mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings Blake, who had said that she made room for rioters in Baltimore when things went bad, or even President Obama sort of incentivizing rioters in Ferguson. 1.00

00:14:41.000 You know, that sort of stuff is really dangerous, and there is a link between that sort of rhetoric and violence.

00:14:47.000 When Antifa pushes actual violence at Berkeley, we're in that category.

00:14:51.000 And yes, when President Trump says, or when he was then-candidate Trump, when he says that he's going to pay the legal bills of people who punch other people, we're in that category.

00:14:59.000 That sort of stuff is dangerous.

00:15:01.000 That sort of stuff is linked to violence.

00:15:02.000 People who actively advocate violence are part of the problem.

00:15:05.000 Okay, category number two.

00:15:06.000 People who defend violence.

00:15:08.000 So this is slightly bigger.

00:15:10.000 This is a bigger group of people, a very small group of people who actively advocate violence.

00:15:13.000 Then there are people who defend violence.

00:15:15.000 And that is, on the left, everybody at the Middlebury University administration who said it was okay for people to assault a professor at the Charles Murray event.

00:15:26.000 These are the mayor of Berkeley who allows Antifa to run roughshod through the city and hit people and assault people.

00:15:34.000 We're good to go.

00:15:56.000 A greater violent climate in the country.

00:15:57.000 There's a third type of rhetoric, however, that I want to be very careful about, because I think that we are now in danger of falling into the snowflake trap, which I'll describe in just a second.

00:16:05.000 But before I get to that, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Blinkist.

00:16:08.000 So, you don't have a lot of time to gather information.

00:16:11.000 I sit around reading books all day.

00:16:12.000 I have a career that allows me to do that.

00:16:14.000 Most people don't.

00:16:15.000 Most people, you're in the car, you got 15 minutes, what sort of information can you grab outside of the Ben Shapiro show?

00:16:21.000 That's where Blinkist comes in.

00:16:22.000 So Blinkist is an app that essentially summarizes the main points of all these books that you definitely want to read, which is awesome because even if you read a 400 page book, the amount of takeaway that you're going to get from that might just fit into 15 minutes.

00:16:37.000 What Blinkist does is they summarize the key points of books and then they allow you to take those in.

00:16:41.000 So if you have an hour drive, you can basically read four books

00:16:44.000 We're good to go.

00:17:01.000 Blinkist you go there and you listen to the summary of the book and suddenly you know as much about that book as I probably do even though I actually sat there for hours and hours reading the book and this is true for a wide variety of books and it's got fields ranging from productivity to business to science to history

00:17:16.000 We're good to go!

00:17:35.000 Period for free when you get a yearly subscription or a free trial period right now so you can give it a listen.

00:17:40.000 You get that free trial or three months off your yearly plan when you join today.

00:17:43.000 It's Blinkist.com slash Ben.

00:17:46.000 Awesome service.

00:17:47.000 I use it myself.

00:17:48.000 Very cool.

00:17:48.000 Okay, so I've discussed the first two types of rhetoric that I think are off limits or should be off limits.

00:17:54.000 That doesn't mean illegal.

00:17:55.000 But it does mean that people of good conscience should not use them.

00:17:58.000 Then there is the third group.

00:18:00.000 And this is where I see the right starting to make a mistake.

00:18:02.000 There's this third part of speech where people on the right are beginning to veer off into snowflake land.

00:18:10.000 And I'll give you an example.

00:18:11.000 So Representative Jack Bergman, Republican, he comes out and he blames the media.

00:18:14.000 He was at this shooting.

00:18:16.000 He blamed the media for complicity in the attack.

00:18:18.000 Here's what he had to say.

00:18:19.000 Do you agree with that?

00:18:20.000 Do you think that the hateful rhetoric has gotten just too hot?

00:18:26.000 I agree with Rodney wholeheartedly in that the hateful rhetoric serves no positive purpose.

00:18:32.000 In fact, today it obviously served a negative purpose.

00:18:35.000 But unfortunately, and I'm looking at all the media in the eye when I say this,

00:18:41.000 Friendships and cordial relationships don't make good news.

00:18:45.000 So I can tell you, especially as the president of the freshman class of Republicans, we are united along with our Democratic freshman counterparts to bring civility back to the 115th Congress.

00:18:59.000 Okay, that's all wonderful and that's all good, but the idea that the media is to blame here I think is over the top, and I'll explain why in a second.

00:19:04.000 Eric Bolling on Fox News, who's used some colorful language in his time, he said sort of the same thing.

00:19:09.000 He said, how many innocents have to die before we realize that words matter? 0.99

00:19:12.000 Spill blood, die.

00:19:13.000 Really, ma'am? 1.00

00:19:15.000 Snoop Dogg's gun, Kathy Griffin's head, Shakespeare's bloody rampage, it goes on and on.

00:19:21.000 How many innocent people have to die before we realize that words do matter? 0.96

00:19:25.000 Crazy people act on the crazy things they hear from politicians and celebrities. 0.95

00:19:30.000 Think before you utter those blind, hateful words next time, liberals, because there are crazy people out there taking your metaphors literally. 0.96

00:19:39.000 Okay, maybe, maybe not.

00:19:39.000 Mark Stein says sort of the same thing.

00:19:42.000 He says the big problem here is the left wants to dehumanize their political opponents.

00:20:00.000 The left wants to denormalize and dehumanize, to use your words, its political opposition.

00:20:08.000 And they do that in a variety of ways.

00:20:11.000 So, for example, when Charles Murray wants to give a speech at Middlebury College, they have to have a riot.

00:20:17.000 They don't have a debate in which they demolish his argument.

00:20:20.000 They don't want to win the debate.

00:20:22.000 They want to prevent the debate taking place.

00:20:26.000 Okay, and I think that that's a good example, but where I see this going off the rails, I don't think Bolling or Stein say anything deeply wrong there, and the examples they use are from the first two categories of speech, but what I do see is a lot of people today saying things like,

00:20:38.000 Well, you know, the resistance, Ann Coulter is a columnist, the resistance finally goes live fire.

00:20:43.000 Okay, we called ourselves the Tea Party.

00:20:45.000 The Tea Party, if you recall, was actually a resistance movement to the government.

00:20:49.000 Okay, that didn't, was not averse to using, it was not averse to using violence back in the day.

00:20:54.000 I mean, the Tea Party ended up becoming the American Revolution.

00:20:56.000 The idea that if you use rhetoric that is charged, that this is the same thing as using rhetoric that defends violence or advocates violence, I think it is a dangerous precedent that we are setting.

00:21:07.000 And I can see it being flipped very, very easily.

00:21:10.000 I don't see an innate problem with saying that a president is acting tyrannical.

00:21:14.000 I don't think that's calling for the president to be assassinated.

00:21:16.000 I don't think the vast majority of Americans think that's calling for the president to be assassinated.

00:21:20.000 When people call themselves the Tea Party or the Resistance, I don't think just because you say you're a member of the Resistance that means that you're like a member of the French Resistance and you're gonna go out there and start shooting Republicans.

00:21:29.000 You know, when people who are pro-life talk about the killing of babies in the womb, I don't think that that's an implicit call to murder abortionists.

00:21:37.000 I don't.

00:21:37.000 And the vast majority of pro-life people, I mean virtually all of them, know that.

00:21:41.000 Right?

00:21:41.000 And the same thing is true on the left when they say that, on the left, that Republicans want to kill Granny, that they're murderers, they're like ISIS because of Trump's healthcare plan.

00:21:50.000 Do I think that's stupid? 1.00

00:21:51.000 Yeah, I think it's ridiculous and stupid. 1.00

00:21:53.000 Do I also think that it's causing violence? 1.00

00:21:56.000 Not really.

00:21:58.000 I mean, you know, when I wrote the book Bullies, which is a New York Times bestseller, and Bullies is all about the left's attempt to demonize us, to attack us on a character level for our political views.

00:22:06.000 And I said, this is morally wrong.

00:22:07.000 It is morally wrong, but it is not necessarily connected with violence.

00:22:11.000 So the left is constantly attempting to say everybody's a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. 0.71

00:22:15.000 That doesn't necessarily mean that they want everybody to be killed and

00:22:19.000 Well, I object to the language on the grounds that you should have evidence for the assertions that you put forth.

00:22:24.000 I think there's a bigger risk right now than in a climate like this.

00:22:28.000 People are going to immediately start saying, well, you're not allowed to say charged things.

00:22:32.000 Because if you say charged things, that means some crazy is going to go off.

00:22:35.000 If we judge the value of political rhetoric by the crazy who goes off, there's not going to be a lot of political rhetoric left. 0.62

00:22:41.000 If we're going to play this game where some nutcase shoots up congressional staffers and shoots up a congressman, 1.00

00:22:48.000 And he watches Rachel Maddow, so we blame Rachel Maddow.

00:22:50.000 Then we can't be surprised when the left turns around.

00:22:52.000 They already do this because they're awful.

00:22:54.000 We can't be surprised when the left turns around and says, well, it's Sean Hannity's fault if somebody goes nuts and shoots up a Democratic Congress office.

00:23:01.000 The left does it anyway.

00:23:03.000 So I understand the temptation.

00:23:04.000 This turnabout is fair play temptation.

00:23:06.000 That doesn't mean that it's right.

00:23:07.000 So I think that we have to be careful about this routine.

00:23:10.000 Now, on that last point, as far as demonization and demonizing your political opposition, last point here.

00:23:17.000 I think it's a gray area.

00:23:18.000 So I think some demonization is okay, some demonization is not okay, some demonization is sort of acceptable.

00:23:24.000 What is not acceptable is demonization combined with defense of violence or advocacy of violence.

00:23:28.000 So if you demonize your political opponent, then you say, oh yeah, and by the way, if you punch somebody in the face, that's okay.

00:23:32.000 Right? 0.93

00:23:32.000 If you say, my opponent's a Nazi. 0.93

00:23:34.000 I think that that's basically, you may be wrong, you may be stupid, what you're saying may be dumb, but I don't think that it's linked to violence. 1.00

00:23:41.000 If you say my opponent is a Nazi and it's okay to punch Nazis, I think that you start to get into really morally dicey territory. 0.99

00:23:48.000 So I wanted to make those distinctions because I don't want a standard set whereby anything political anybody says, we're going to now judge the value of that politics based on the outlier who is vulnerable to suggestion and then goes out and shoots people.

00:24:02.000 I just think that's a dangerous thing.

00:24:03.000 Well, as we continue here on The Ben Shapiro Show, we're going to be talking about President Trump and what he says is a witch hunt against him, this obstruction of justice news Washington Post breaks last night that Robert Mueller, who is the special counsel, is now investigating Trump for obstruction of justice.

00:24:18.000 We'll talk about that, what it means, why it's happening, and why Trump is actually kind of right on this one.

00:24:22.000 We'll talk about that, but you have to subscribe over at Daily Wire for that.

00:24:24.000 So for $8 a month,

00:24:26.000 You, too, can get a subscription over at dailywire.com.

00:24:29.000 That means that you can also be part of the mailbag.

00:24:31.000 Tomorrow, we're going to be doing the mailbag live, and my dad's going to be in the studio, so we're going to be talking about everything father and son related.

00:24:37.000 If you have questions for my father, then definitely write those in.

00:24:39.000 We'll ask them to him during the mailbag segment of the show.

00:24:44.000 If you want an annual subscription right now, you get an annual subscription, you get a free signed copy of the book that I wrote with my dad, Say It's So, all about fathers and sons and baseball.

00:24:53.000 Great Father's Day gift, even if it comes a little bit late.

00:24:55.000 It's a great belated Father's Day gift.

00:24:57.000 Terrific book, if I do say so myself.

00:24:59.000 And you get that free sign when you get an annual subscription.

00:25:02.000 So go over and check it out.

00:25:03.000 You want to listen later?

00:25:04.000 Go to iTunes or SoundCloud and make sure that you leave us a review and subscribe.

00:25:08.000 We always appreciate it.

00:25:09.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:25:10.000 This is the largest conservative podcast in the country.

The Ben Shapiro Show - June 15, 2017

Ep. 320 - Are The Speech Police Coming?

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript