This Week In Podcasts, Institutional Capture, Human Rights Tribunals ｜ A Critical Compass Discussion
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 3 minutes
Words per Minute
142.46106
Summary
On this week's episode of The Critical Compass, we discuss the ongoing saga of the Boeing whistleblower case, and how the process for getting a license from the Professional Standards Board (PSB) is being used to harass, intimidate, and bully individuals for their political views. We also discuss the recent Joe Rogan interview with James Lindsay, and the similarities between the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the American Cultural Revolution.
Transcript
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In these cases, it feels like somebody sees an opportunity to take revenge,
00:00:04.940
and they're using the system to basically hurt somebody else that they felt offended them.
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and if you're teaching people to view the world through these power dynamics,
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and if you're giving them opportunities to assert power over somebody else with these kind of tribunals,
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it's no surprise that people would jump on that, and I don't want to say harass,
00:00:35.180
but in some cases, it feels like individuals are being harassed for political views.
00:01:00.180
On this week's episode, we are going to talk about some of the regulatory abuse
00:01:05.520
in these professional organizations that issues licenses,
00:01:10.580
and how that affects free speech of individuals on and off of work.
00:01:17.900
But first, I think it's, I'm curious to hear, Mike, what have you watched this week?
00:01:24.720
What kind of podcasts or what have you stumbled upon?
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This week, I've been, it's been a, it's been a Joe Rogan heavy week this week, actually.
00:01:37.500
I listened to the, just the other day, just finished the latest James Lindsay interview.
00:01:48.260
I can't remember the last time he was on by himself, or if he was on by himself before.
00:01:53.320
I know he was on with Bogosian once to talk about the Grievance Studies Affairs,
00:01:57.820
but this is the first time I've seen him on his own, and that was a really good couple hours.
00:02:03.980
And then also the Riley Gaines podcast, and I don't know if one or the other came out this week.
00:02:11.620
The other one has been for a couple weeks available, but...
00:02:15.200
I think that James Lindsay was the most recent.
00:02:24.160
Actually, James Lindsay is writing a book on Mao right now, and how, and the similarities
00:02:30.840
in the American, like what James, or what Christopher Ruffo would call the American Cultural Revolution
00:02:40.840
that's happening right now, and its similarities to Maoism.
00:02:46.060
They talked about, well, just general, like, regulatory capture.
00:02:56.700
They talked about Boeing a lot at the end, the problems happening at Boeing.
00:02:59.700
This was just, I think the recording, I think it was maybe the same day they were recording
00:03:04.520
that, or just it was the day before, that that Boeing whistleblower...
00:03:17.140
Four shots to the back of the head or whatever.
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I don't know what the actual method is going to be, but...
00:03:22.080
Yeah, any time there's a death right before a, like, testimony or hearing, that should be...
00:03:30.960
Like, at least try and disguise it a little bit better, guys.
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It wasn't a very joyful listen, but it was informative nonetheless.
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These long ones you can't quite do in one run, but...
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I guess he touched a little bit on his new book,
00:04:08.120
And also, James Lindsay's really good at tying everything together.
00:04:27.780
He's quoting the neo-Marxists, their own literature,
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And I think it's a really good way to fight this,
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And you just use their own words and their own ideas
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Just look at how much hate libs of TikTok gets.
00:05:03.760
And all that account does is just post ridiculous things.
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He can recall quotes and authors and books and sources and essays,
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That's still, to this day, one of my favorite podcast episodes ever.
00:06:08.740
Issues because he is able to logically kind of, like...
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Parse the sources and try to grasp the logic, however faulty it may be, behind some of these actions.
00:06:18.720
And like you say, he's very good at tracing the sources of things and, uh...
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You don't always put these things together, but he's a very, like, zoom out, big picture kind of guy.
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And he can tell you, like, okay, well, the reason...
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Like, this is the reason why Boeing is falling apart and it has to do with Mao.
00:07:05.220
Championship winning, award winning swimmer, who...
00:07:15.640
Do you remember Keith Olbermann back when he was on TV?
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He used to be a sports broadcaster and then he had a fairly short-lived MSNBC show before
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he got shit-canned by MSNBC for making unlisted donations to Democratic politicians.
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Anyway, he tried to boom her on Twitter and claim that, you know, she was only speaking
00:07:41.160
out the way she was because she was like, she never accomplished anything and she was
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She talks about it in the Rogan interview that she's like...
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She just like has a room full of trophies and she was showing Keith Olbermann all these
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She broke one, apparently, in the process of doing it.
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And she's very outspoken about protecting women's spaces in athletic competition because she's
00:08:20.800
unfortunately lost out on trophies and on, you know, having her name properly where it
00:08:29.960
Well, primarily because of Leah Thomas, but also other transgender athletes.
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I think she's quite young, but she's very articulate and precise for her young years,
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And I think it sometimes takes some of these individuals with principles with low agreeableness
00:08:56.760
And I think Bradley Gaines is a good example because it does dovetail into some of the things
00:09:06.360
And this whole idea of, like, the reason why we have sex-segregated spaces is to protect
00:09:13.420
women, is to give them either a fair chance to compete.
00:09:19.920
So, historically, there was no women's leagues for many sports.
00:09:28.980
And the fact that men were taller, stronger, faster just meant that they were dominating
00:09:37.500
So, that's why you would segregate and have a women's only, like, a female-only category.
00:09:44.300
To kind of dovetail this, there's been an ongoing case with a nurse in BC called Amy Ham.
00:09:56.060
And she was outspoken for a few years, even, I think, all the way to, like, 2016, fighting
00:10:07.220
for female, dedicated female spaces, and kind of, she should be one of the gender-critical
00:10:17.660
I think that's one of her, like, self-described labels in that way.
00:10:24.660
And very much speaking out against trans people invading female spaces.
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What happened in 2020 is she helped fund a billboard that says, I heart JK Rowling.
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And shortly thereafter, she had two complaints that went to the College of Nurses.
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JK Rowling, of course, the famed, internationally known transphobe.
00:11:05.260
The, sounds like she could be a writer, but I think she's well-known as a transphobe at
00:11:16.340
With that, like, this has been ongoing for almost four years now.
00:11:21.460
Um, and this is a, this is fascinating because this, this shows how much power these licensing
00:11:34.420
Like, you'll, you'll have, in this case, the, this is the, uh, British Columbia College of
00:11:43.580
You also have any, in each, each different professions.
00:11:49.420
Uh, anytime you have a license, you will have a nun, usually a non-governmental body issuing
00:11:56.600
And they have a certain amount of power to regulate conduct at work.
00:12:02.440
And that makes sense because you want people to follow a code of conduct and make sure they're
00:12:07.900
not doing anything that may harm the people that they work with or that they are, if you're
00:12:14.980
a nurse, you want to make sure you are, um, caring for patients.
00:12:18.780
But what that doesn't cover, and this is kind of a unique case because it's covering, uh,
00:12:26.200
the free speech element and that's outside of work.
00:12:31.080
Uh, and it's quite rare for these kind of regulatory bodies to be trying to discipline people for
00:12:42.320
And, um, let me just, uh, let me just, uh, let me just, uh, let me just, uh, let's
00:12:48.780
show you a little bit of this, two complaints by members of the public to the college about
00:12:55.240
Mrs. Ham's involvement with the billboard led to an investigation that resulted in a
00:13:00.140
332 page report on Mrs. Ham's activity, including a collection of her tweets, podcasts, transcripts,
00:13:07.700
and articles she had authored on the topic of gender identity and its conflicts with women's
00:13:15.340
Problem is, this is not a topic that has a unanimous, like, there, it's still very much in flux.
00:13:26.340
So the fact that they are pursuing this and they went deep, like, to make a 300 page
00:13:32.520
report on that, that is like, this very much feels like a, um, this is a witch hunt.
00:13:43.840
Bills that they, that they, that they pushed through in like American Congress.
00:13:47.760
That's like, they're so dense and heavy because they don't expect anyone to read them.
00:13:52.020
And what they're trying to actually do is like hide like bylaws and stuff in broader bills
00:14:01.880
It's, it's, it's almost like, uh, it's feels like it's just overwhelming with like, oh, these
00:14:11.520
are all examples and you can have the most benign tweets in there and they're just trying
00:14:19.840
But a, an example of one of those tweets could be like a statement, like there are only two
00:14:26.780
biological sexes and something like that can be deemed as hateful, transphobic.
00:14:34.620
Like, like it depends on who is, yeah, really, really depends on who is on the board, who is
00:14:44.420
shining the spotlight and who is, um, who, who is deeming these, these hateful, uh, the fact
00:14:54.920
that it deals with the protected class means that like the, the bar, the bar for what Dean
00:15:03.740
would, what is considered hate speech is a lot lower now.
00:15:06.920
Um, so just as a little recap, um, this has been ongoing since 2020.
00:15:16.960
That's when I think it was November of 2020 was when, uh, Amy Ham got the letter from the
00:15:24.440
from the board, uh, and the complaints were from September and October, um, of 2020.
00:15:32.820
Uh, the hearing began in September 21st of 2022.
00:15:38.020
So it took two years for them to get to a point to actually start the days of testimony,
00:15:48.560
And so as you can see, it very much feels like this is not a speedy process.
00:15:54.140
This, this is psychological torture and, uh, I must give credit for Amy Ham for like standing
00:15:59.260
her ground and like not saying, not caving to this.
00:16:04.300
I think a lot of people would just cave and apologize and just, they would want it to be
00:16:08.660
over and they would just give up with that amount of pressure.
00:16:14.920
Um, I want to point out a couple of these, uh, this is Mrs. Ham's lawyers arguing that
00:16:21.460
there is no evidence of a breach of standards or bylaws, um, that, well, she didn't behave
00:16:30.460
There's no evidence that she was a terrible nurse or that she was transphobic as a nurse.
00:16:37.300
Uh, her statements do not have sufficient nexus.
00:16:39.920
There's status as a nurse to warrant any, any interference from the board.
00:16:45.940
Uh, her speech is reasonable, scientifically supported.
00:16:49.760
Uh, the issue with this is they tried to get a whole bunch of witnesses.
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Um, and these are, I think one of them was even Miriam Grossman.
00:16:59.800
Um, and these are professionals in these fields, but they kept on discrediting or preventing
00:17:09.700
So there's a big fight, I think part of the reason this got delayed is that they, there's
00:17:14.600
a lot of this, um, the, the procedural kind of back and forth and what they would allow
00:17:25.540
I think it was very difficult to get any actual witnesses.
00:17:28.920
Um, they're claiming that there's, or lawyers are arguing that there's social value in speech
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and considering that W path, um, the, like it's just the organization for transcend, gender
00:17:43.600
health has had some controversies and there's different laws around the world.
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We're seeing a lot of change and this requires open, open dialogue.
00:17:56.840
So yeah, the, the, does this seem like a fair use of a, of a, of a regulatory body?
00:18:09.820
Like it's just, well, it's not even, how nice is it that we have no other issues as a society
00:18:17.040
that we, that we get to spend multiple years wasting people's time on stuff like this.
00:18:22.760
Um, yeah, and today was the last, last day of testimony and the decision will be made
00:18:29.240
in three to six months, which will put it basically to the four year mark.
00:18:37.960
You could see, uh, maybe we'll share, there's a recap of some of the closing statements.
00:18:53.440
You can see some of her statements of like really getting to the core of why Amy Ham should
00:19:00.480
have a right to express her views and kind of how they're scientifically accurate, uh, other
00:19:08.800
Um, but it's also worth noting who the lawyer is that's, that's prosecuting Amy Ham.
00:19:26.820
She looks exactly like what I thought she would.
00:19:33.740
Um, so I, I think this is one more example of, of like what happens when you get people
00:19:45.600
who treat their role in either a HR board or a regulatory, uh, association or a lawyer, if
00:19:54.000
they treat their role as a force for social justice.
00:20:00.000
Um, and I see that right in the text, she describes herself as an activist.
00:20:12.560
Um, she literally describes herself as fat, old, white, cisgender, queer, and disabled.
00:20:19.360
So even based on that, we can predict her views on a dozen other subjects, just based on how
00:20:30.120
And she's very much describing her position within a hierarchy of oppression.
00:20:38.180
And whenever you have somebody who views themselves in, in that kind of power dynamic, it's no
00:20:46.060
surprise that they would react this way to anybody calling to question, um, the legitimacy of
00:20:54.980
somebody else's status in, in these oppression hierarchies.
00:21:00.680
Um, so yeah, there, this is a really good article.
00:21:04.460
We will link to it in, in the show notes and the description, but, um, yeah, it's fascinating
00:21:13.140
read and kind of shows to the extent that, uh, Finley would defend some people that maybe
00:21:23.220
are only being defended because of their, their social views, et cetera.
00:21:28.080
So this reminds me of one more, uh, podcast that I listened to this week.
00:21:33.680
It was, uh, and again, I don't know how recently it was, but it was, it was Jordan Peterson's
00:21:38.660
podcast where he interviews, I think the podcast was called, they took our daughter.
00:21:44.080
They took our child and he interviewed, I don't know if you've listened to this one,
00:21:47.800
but a little bit of that one, um, but interviews a couple that their, their daughter, uh, 14
00:21:54.300
years old has a history of being a, a storyteller, essentially a kind of an attention seeker.
00:22:03.640
Peterson didn't want to diagnose her on the air, but he said he knew exactly what she should
00:22:08.720
I think it would be something like, something like borderline personality disorder.
00:22:14.360
Um, how the family describes her is sort of jives with the, you know, the, the people
00:22:19.860
I've known in my life that have that diagnosis.
00:22:22.680
Um, just, you know, essentially inventing stories for attention and being quite codependent,
00:22:30.120
quite, um, but also quite distant and quickly switching between, you know, very, um, uh, I
00:22:40.160
There's also histrionic personality disorder that might've been it, but anyway, um, the state
00:22:46.520
of Montana essentially stole this child from her family because of all along the chain
00:22:53.860
of the people that she, that she saw, um, were activist social workers, activist doctors,
00:23:01.560
activist nurse nurses, activist lawyers, activist judges.
00:23:05.200
Um, the, the family recalls that their own council had a hearing told them specifically
00:23:13.160
that in, in this, in their, in the council's words, um, this judge is going to put you in
00:23:22.760
And, uh, so yeah, it's, um, it's definitely, and probably James Lindsay actually has a lot
00:23:30.240
They may have touched on this actually in the Rogan interview about how this sort of institutional
00:23:34.720
capture just is stratified through basically every layer of, um, every institution in our
00:23:44.020
Well, you start from the universities because in the university creates teachers, they create,
00:23:52.120
uh, the, the individuals that form HR departments, they form the lawyers and judges.
00:24:00.240
So if you can capture that, you've basically, you've transformed everything under that.
00:24:08.340
And that includes the way that children think that's the way that people are prosecuted and
00:24:16.360
people are treated in our legal systems are, are, are all going to be treated with a particular
00:24:24.380
So, uh, I think James Lindsay mentioned that by the nineties, and this is kind of, uh, by
00:24:32.840
the 1990s, there's been a certain amount of capture.
00:24:35.800
And this was even something that these activists were bragging about that, well, the, the, the
00:24:43.720
amount of influence they had even in the nineties, um, within the universities and within other
00:24:52.800
Um, and he talks about that, um, that former KGB, uh, agent that did that interview in
00:24:58.560
the, I don't know if it was the early eighties, maybe mid eighties, where he basically described
00:25:03.600
the same, the same phenomenon that like, this is the playbook, this is how you demoralize
00:25:08.460
And this is what the KGB specifically had been working to implement in various, uh, enemy
00:25:16.940
So yeah, describe that it doesn't happen right away.
00:25:20.400
It takes multiple generations, but if you transform, if you capture the kids, if you plant
00:25:27.980
the seeds of these ideas within a few generations, you've overhauled a society.
00:25:40.440
I guess the, like to control the present, you would capture present institutions, but
00:25:46.160
to control the future, you would, you'd get the children.
00:25:49.180
So when their heads are nice and soft and that's what they, that's what he also, Lindsay
00:25:56.080
Um, he's talked about it at length in other interviews and in, in his writings, but, uh,
00:26:01.720
that's essentially what they did, uh, what Mao did in China with the, with the red guard.
00:26:06.660
And do you know what happened to the red guard after he gained power the second time?
00:26:18.260
So the very young people that he used to overthrow the current, uh, leaders and power
00:26:26.880
Well, as soon as they were done, as soon as that, that was achieved, they were of no
00:26:32.400
So he just disposed of them, which is what will happen now too.
00:26:34.880
To recap, um, to bring in a revolution, you need destabilizing forces, but after the change
00:26:42.500
is made, anybody part of destabilization is a threat because you don't want to destabilize
00:26:49.540
what, like once you've installed, you've built, yeah, that's right.
00:26:54.180
You just want to destabilize what came before you.
00:26:59.640
It's the fundamental, I remember, I can't remember who was talking about this, but, um, this
00:27:04.400
was another maybe podcast interview where they talked about the, like the fundamental
00:27:09.780
difference between progressives and conservatives and how can, like I, you know, growing up
00:27:17.420
as a young liberal in the city, uh, I always thought of, you know, the, the liberals as
00:27:23.260
the, you know, the, the hopeful, the, the ones who were changing the, you know, wanted to mold
00:27:28.580
a better future and, and conservatives as like stodgy old men in business suits who, you
00:27:33.640
know, wanted to, you know, preserve their wealth and not have it, you know, which, you
00:27:38.300
know, is a stereotype of maybe like, like early two thousands, mid two thousands neocons.
00:27:45.360
But, um, what this person was saying was that actually, if you think about it, a progressive
00:27:51.460
is actually never like by their very own definition of their politics.
00:27:55.000
They're never actually truly happy with the state of the world.
00:27:58.980
They're always wanting to change it and form it into something else because it's not sufficient.
00:28:06.340
Whereas a conservative actually likes the current state of, you know, whatever particular area
00:28:11.540
of the world they're in and they want to conserve it because they see value in it.
00:28:15.080
So that kind of changed my opinion of what, what it means to be on either end of the political
00:28:20.940
And I kind of get, you know, you know, if you want to call it conservative, that you
00:28:25.580
want to preserve certain traditions and institutions that are in fact valuable and effective.
00:28:33.140
Well, if that's conservative, then that's, there isn't necessarily anything stodgy or, you
00:28:43.280
Well, I believe, uh, Jordan Peterson's written about this a little bit and he's talked about
00:28:49.380
it as well, but, um, there's two ways that you can think about it is, um, you can think
00:28:55.040
of it on the political, like the social dynamic of the, there's a constant conversation between
00:29:02.700
like conservatism of wanting to preserve the structures that have built everything that
00:29:10.940
we have now and this kind of creative reforming energy that wants to think about, well, how
00:29:16.740
can we change this and how we, how can we, um, how can we make a different or better world?
00:29:24.380
But he also talks about that every liberal should strive to build a world worth conserving
00:29:30.900
because if you're always changing and you're always reforming and you have no stability, like
00:29:39.360
If, if there's, if you're in a constant state of, um, like change, what's the difference
00:29:46.700
between just reform and progress and destabilization because that, that line gets very tricky at some
00:29:55.040
And I think even that's on the societal level, but I think within our minds, um, you could
00:30:01.180
draw a parallel to, we've got established ways of thinking.
00:30:04.800
You have established ideas, you have habits, you have things that your brain wants to conserve
00:30:10.180
or a way of thinking that you want to conserve.
00:30:13.220
And then you have these new ideas, this creative element of thinking about, well, what can be
00:30:19.200
And I think there's a push pull in every individual as well as on the societal level.
00:30:24.440
And I don't know if we give enough credit to like fostering.
00:30:28.980
How do you foster a healthy push pull between these two, between these two dynamics?
00:30:39.360
That's maybe a good topic for a, for a full length episode one day.
00:30:44.120
I would love to dive into that further, but I guess the, the pillar of this is having free
00:30:50.840
speech is what enables us to have that push pull.
00:30:56.640
But with cases like Amy Hams, even, even if the, even if she's completely, um, she comes
00:31:07.620
out of this and she gets an apology, et cetera.
00:31:11.620
I, I, even the painful nature of it taking four years can have a chilling effect on individuals
00:31:20.460
staying quiet and not wanting to speak up, um, uh, on threat of kind of having, having the
00:31:27.920
regulatory body diving and chasing them and giving them a hard time.
00:31:33.100
Well, especially anyone who, who belongs to any sort of professional association, which
00:31:37.520
have all been captured by these activists again, you know, who aren't, aren't doing what
00:31:44.800
their jobs are supposed to be, but they're, they're trying to use their, you know, little,
00:31:50.380
Like, you know, um, that you're, uh, the king of a molehill or so you don't, you know what
00:31:57.360
Like your, your own little private tiny kingdom.
00:31:59.520
They're trying to be, you know, trying to be world builders from a HR cubicle and it's
00:32:06.320
These are people who only view the world through power, asserting power in their small domain.
00:32:11.820
Um, and, and the, the problem is they, these regulatory bodies seem to speak quite confidently
00:32:22.580
on like, these are the guidelines we've set, or these are the things that are true.
00:32:28.160
And often they are just proclaimed to be true from some other authority.
00:32:36.220
You're supposed to just take them as self-evident though.
00:32:38.260
You saw this a lot in, uh, during, during COVID with the lockdowns and, um, all the recommendations
00:32:47.960
you have something mentioned by the who, and then that is adopted as like a legitimate truth.
00:32:55.060
And that is what was followed and disseminated down from there.
00:33:00.960
And then you couldn't argue against it because they say, well, this is what these, these guidelines
00:33:05.840
are, and then they would say, well, who are you to challenge this?
00:33:10.100
And in the cases of this, you had all kinds of scientists and researchers and doctors from
00:33:18.280
different disciplines disagreeing with this and being raked over the coals in various cases.
00:33:24.420
Perfect segue to our next topic, a Mr. Well, a Mrs. Kulvinder Kaur and a Mr. J. Badacharya and
00:33:40.680
The, uh, so some of you may have seen Kulvinder, um, she on Twitter, just sharing.
00:33:50.180
She's very, she's very, during the lockdown, she was pretty much every day, just sharing
00:33:56.620
the information, what she could on trying to, trying to rebalance and get some sanity back
00:34:03.380
And she was, uh, speaking out very, very early.
00:34:06.820
And, uh, I'm going to play a little bit of this, this short clip.
00:34:20.880
I was, um, I've now been ordered to pay nearly $300,000, um, in the costs order.
00:34:30.840
So my deadline is at the end of March and, um, it's $300,000 that I don't have after, um,
00:34:37.940
nearly four years of being entangled in multiple legal battles, trying to, um, uh, advocate for
00:34:45.560
my patients, trying to advocate for Canadians and, um, and to try to advocate for myself.
00:34:51.180
And, and so, um, it's now looking quite, quite grim.
00:34:56.120
Um, so what, uh, what, what, what happens then?
00:34:59.080
I mean, I, you, if you can't pay the order, you probably have to declare bankruptcy.
00:35:03.000
I would think, um, what will that do to your ability to practice medicine?
00:35:06.740
What will that do to your ability to take care for your patients?
00:35:09.240
Um, it's, it's, it's all very daunting right now.
00:35:14.000
Um, and, and, uh, I never thought that, that this would be the cost of speaking truth.
00:35:19.440
Of, um, being compelled to speak my conscience, um, um, um, being compelled to speak against
00:35:29.400
the harms that I knew were going to happen against, um, uh, against the people or within
00:35:35.260
the very communities that I practice within the developing world where, where I initially
00:35:40.560
was born and still have very deep roots to, um.
00:35:44.100
Um, so yeah, right now she's on the hook for $300,000, um, and this is like her legal bills
00:35:52.980
or is this a, is this a penalty that she's been ordered to pay?
00:36:12.900
Pre-trial procedural ruling against her has led to a cost order of up to 1.2 million court.
00:36:20.600
The court procedural motion decision and the cost order were both appealed ultimately leading
00:36:29.340
So this is just another example of this would fall into the category of lawfare of like
00:36:37.980
the, if not, even without these kind of fees, uh, for somebody to defend themselves, uh,
00:36:48.860
minimum, a small trial is like 15 grand, even on like some of these small, small court cases,
00:36:58.620
And some of these, they think about how many days, and if you have somebody on retainer
00:37:04.360
and like these costs can, can just destroy somebody's, they can destroy somebody's life.
00:37:13.480
Um, shout out to Conrad Graf with this thousand dollar donation.
00:37:18.420
I think they're, I think they're up to a hundred thousand right now.
00:37:22.340
Um, she is not the only one, um, being put into this kind of situation.
00:37:29.600
And these are for things that have later, uh, a lot of these cases, like speaking, speaking
00:37:37.140
out about lockdowns or giving exemptions for the COVID shots or any number of these things
00:37:43.480
at the time there, they were being punished for something at the time, which later the
00:37:50.340
So, yeah, some of these cases have been thrown out, but the people have been still left with
00:38:00.140
So it, any, any case where you have, like some of these are regulatory bodies, some of
00:38:08.540
And anytime you're up against the government, even these regulatory bodies, they tend to
00:38:13.980
have a deep pocket of money set aside for legal, like their legal battles or, uh, funding
00:38:22.720
any courts or they, if they're basically crowdfunded for all their members who have to pay a certain
00:38:32.640
Um, they have infinitely more money than the individuals that they are harassing with these
00:38:39.460
And then anytime you're up against the government, they have nearly endless resources.
00:38:44.740
And even if you get something dismissed, if you're, you're still left on the hook for
00:38:53.140
Um, so, and that, and that's on set trials and that's not even speaking anything about
00:38:58.280
these kind of, um, any of these tribunals that don't follow these same kind of, uh, structures
00:39:11.080
So I, I, I know we're kind of blending a few things together because I know, um, these
00:39:17.340
regulatory bodies, they work a little bit differently than just being sued outright.
00:39:21.720
And well, there's just so many, there's just so many fun regulatory bodies that we have to
00:39:28.340
All we need is just another, another four or five new regulatory bodies just to, just to
00:39:37.380
So last, last week's episode, we were talking about, uh, B bill C 63 and with anonymous reporting
00:39:46.020
how that would supercharge, um, that, that could supercharge abuse of kind of, uh, vindictive,
00:39:54.480
uh, complaints against individuals for something that maybe really doesn't fit the category of
00:40:03.800
Um, so I think the reason that there's, they, they claim that there's, you have to protect
00:40:12.900
individuals because they would be singled out or there may be harm against them if they,
00:40:19.140
if they were not anonymous, which, which in some cases you could, you could, you could see
00:40:28.940
But the fact that a lot of them can stay anonymous, I think, um, um, supercharges this, this abuse
00:40:37.380
and, and you have a little bit, uh, a little bit more knowledge on like, or I guess, I guess
00:40:43.820
a question for you is like, what's the major difference of these human rights tribunals versus
00:40:52.500
Well, from, from my understanding, I mean, a human rights tribunal can, first of all, it
00:41:00.340
I mean, these are often, uh, populated by, uh, sometimes even just regular, like uncredentialed
00:41:09.220
citizens who happen to be involved in an organization and like employed by an organization in a certain
00:41:14.320
capacity, but oftentimes you'll see, um, board members, HR members, um, people who, uh, you
00:41:23.700
know, um, uh, administrative workers of certain organizations or boards, uh, who have been either
00:41:32.420
volunteered or have been told that they are to participate on a panel of, you know, adjudicating
00:41:39.720
on such and such issue on the behest of the regulations or the, or the, the code of conduct
00:41:47.740
of certain, um, professional organizations or groups.
00:41:51.840
You know, it reminds me of the situation that Jordan Peterson finds himself in now with the,
00:41:58.560
These are psychologists, you would hope there's probably some administrative staff involved in
00:42:03.460
as well, who essentially have determined that he needs to be reeducated in his social media
00:42:12.380
Otherwise he brings the profession into disrepute.
00:42:15.580
And so they can still issue judgments that have very far reaching consequences for the
00:42:24.880
And, and even finding yourself subjected to a human rights tribunal, the social cost and
00:42:34.560
And even if you're found, it's like not guilty by this tribunal, like you carry a certain baggage
00:42:45.440
And this can be a low cost, like a low cost complaint with a high, either procedural harm.
00:42:55.820
Like it's the, the, the damages of somebody going through months, getting put through the ringer,
00:43:04.320
um, the stress of, of this proceeding, like that and the social cost after, like it's hard to get
00:43:13.240
that off of your name, um, afterwards, I, even if they are not criminally charged with something,
00:43:26.860
Well, and it's, and it's, and it's sort of a, I think this, the, the phrase we were saying before
00:43:33.260
we hit record here that you said the, the, the process is the, is the punishment, right?
00:43:41.340
Whether or not that comes with a financial or a professional cost, there is, yeah, like you say,
00:43:46.400
I mean, okay, well now I have to waste, you know, if I want to keep my license or I want
00:43:50.100
to keep my certification and such and such a field and I have to subject myself to months
00:43:55.980
of this garbage, you know, being torn apart publicly by these people who, you know, have
00:44:08.320
It's with, with the way that some, some of the decisions have, like in prior Canadian
00:44:16.980
history, like certain cases have gone through and it's not making me feel confident about
00:44:26.380
how people, how individuals are going to be treated for hate speech under bill C 63.
00:44:32.160
Um, and it feels like comedians are often the targets of these because they're the ones trying
00:44:45.860
Oftentimes comedians are the, the only people truly speaking truth to power in that way.
00:44:51.780
So this is a, this is actually just a, a recent decision by, um, the Supreme court.
00:44:57.460
This, um, actually this is an older article cause I believe it's a, it's a, it's a, it's
00:45:02.160
I believe that something more recently happened, uh, something more recent than 2021, but,
00:45:07.340
uh, Mike Ward, uh, so in a, in a, um, comedy set made fun of this, uh, uh, disabled Quebecois
00:45:18.200
And, um, I'll scroll down a bit here because this is in 2012, I think 2012, I think is when
00:45:33.860
And then in 2016, a tribunal ruled in Gabrielle's favor, uh, awarding him $25,000 for moral damages
00:45:44.340
Gabrielle's mother was awarded 5,000 for moral damages and another 2,000 for punitive.
00:45:50.500
And in 2019, uh, a Quebec court of appeal ruled in a two to one decision that Ward's comments
00:45:55.320
compromised the young performer's right to safeguard of his dignity and could not be justified
00:46:01.160
even in a society where freedom of expression is valued.
00:46:07.640
So, uh, just for those who aren't up to speed, does moral damages just mean hurt feelings?
00:46:16.140
I think essentially that's a fun legalese way of saying hurt feelings.
00:46:20.180
Thankfully, the appeal court did, however, roll back the payments to Gabrielle's mother.
00:46:24.820
Uh, but the Supreme court decision, uh, which apparently happened in 2021 in a five, four
00:46:33.420
So it's not even close to being, it was very close.
00:46:37.040
The top court ruled Friday that while comedian Mike Ward's act ridiculed Jeremy Gabrielle, um,
00:46:42.160
he was chosen as a target, not because of his disability, but because of his fame.
00:46:46.060
So even then, that's a really, really weak, uh, justification for, Hey, you know what?
00:46:53.420
We're still allowed to tell jokes as a society.
00:47:02.060
It's you had another, you had a comedian you want to talk about too.
00:47:12.940
There's a guy, a comedian called, uh, Guy Earl and during a set, he, there were two lesbians
00:47:26.020
making out and shouting obscenities and heckling during a set.
00:47:31.580
And they got into an argument and I think he, like a lot of comedians as you, um, you
00:47:38.920
play the crowd and you make fun of those who are heckling you, he targeted them and mentioned
00:47:50.180
Um, what it, what it ended up escalating to is that after the show, I think they fall,
00:47:58.840
followed him down and they, they were continuing to argue.
00:48:01.260
And the, the woman who was suing him threw water into his face and he smacked his, her
00:48:17.420
It's not like he went out there just to find the only lesbian in the club, in the crowd and,
00:48:24.880
So, um, ultimately the BC human rights tribunal, um, ordered Guy Earl to pay $15,000 for lasting
00:48:37.500
physical and psychological effect, um, for basically pro post-traumatic stress disorder.
00:48:46.660
Um, and, and so that's no small chunk of change.
00:48:52.680
Uh, he tried to appeal it and didn't, didn't stick.
00:49:08.880
So he wrote a book called canceled the death of standup proceeds go to hecklers with PTSD.
00:49:17.020
Um, so glad to see that he's taking it and like, well, obviously he's going to be, he's going
00:49:28.180
to be silly about it, but he's, so yeah, that that's, that's Guy Earl.
00:49:34.440
Um, sounds like he's, he's trying to make light of just free speech.
00:49:44.340
And these are just examples of what happens when you have, in these cases, it feels like
00:49:51.840
somebody sees an opportunity to take revenge and they're using the system, um, to, to basically
00:50:01.040
hurt somebody else that they feel felt offended them.
00:50:05.120
And if you're teaching people to be victims and if you're teaching people to view the world
00:50:12.920
through these power dynamics, and if you're giving them opportunities to assert power over
00:50:19.160
somebody else with these kind of tribunals, it's no surprise that people would jump on
00:50:25.820
And I don't want to say harass, but in some cases it feels like individuals are being harassed
00:50:32.180
for political views that, um, like a comedian's making a joke, they're at a show, you're supposed
00:50:42.120
And you're supposed to know, you're supposed to know that you, by being there, make yourself
00:50:48.120
a possible target for a joke, which is supposed to be taken in good fun.
00:50:53.400
You're supposed to be a certain type of personality that can go to a comedy show and take a little
00:51:01.640
And the other thing is if you are heckling and then you're defiantly disrupting, um, don't
00:51:09.000
expect any kindness from somebody like it's difficult to be a comedian as difficult to
00:51:14.140
have your flow interrupted in something that's not supposed to be a back and forth between
00:51:19.700
the audience, unless a comedian specifically requests a back and forth.
00:51:25.000
Unless you're Matt Reif specifically making Tik TOK content of crowd work, it's not a participatory
00:51:34.020
And, and also what is like, what a stupid target to try and like pick, pick anyone other than
00:51:40.860
a comedian who can absolutely destroy you with wit very quickly.
00:51:49.760
Like you're not gonna, no, you're not going to come out looking like the good guy.
00:51:54.780
You're also not going to get the last word because they literally have a mic.
00:52:02.640
Well, um, this, I don't know, James, if you've watched this or rather listen to this podcast,
00:52:18.080
I think it came out around this time last year, I think February of last year.
00:52:21.860
And it's by the free press it's produced by the free press.
00:52:25.500
I think it was their first actual, uh, podcast, uh, production.
00:52:32.920
Uh, I think it's an eight part series that, uh, I'll read the, about the witch trials of
00:52:39.080
JK Rowling is an audio documentary that examines some of the most contentious conflicts of our
00:52:43.260
time through the life and career of the world's most successful author.
00:52:46.120
In conversation with host Megan Phelps Roper, JK Rowling speaks with unprecedented candor
00:52:52.060
about the depths or, uh, uh, candor and depth about the controversy surrounding her from
00:52:58.700
The series also examines the forces propelling this moment in history through interviews
00:53:03.060
with Rowling supporters and critics, journalists, historians, clinicians, and more.
00:53:07.220
And if I'm right, um, oh yeah, it says it down here.
00:53:10.740
Uh, Megan Phelps Roper, uh, was a, um, was actually raised in the Westboro Baptist church.
00:53:17.060
So she, uh, she has experience with being involved in, uh, in group think cults.
00:53:26.000
Yes. So it was a really, really good series. I think it's, like I said, I think it's eight
00:53:30.560
episodes. She interviews Rowling herself as well as some critics, um, uh, ContraPoints,
00:53:36.360
the very, uh, famous, uh, YouTube transgender, uh, commentator is on, is also featured in a
00:53:44.740
couple episodes and, uh, overall is a really balanced, I felt it was a very balanced, um,
00:53:50.660
series. It, uh, kind of explored both, um, you know, Rowling's like,
00:53:56.280
true kind of, it let her say in her own words, essentially why she's doing what she's doing
00:54:02.340
now and why she believes what she believes and why she's so vehement about it. And it
00:54:06.140
also, you know, has some good, uh, questions, you know, put, put on her about, you know,
00:54:12.040
her sort of activism in this space, but in this kind of latter part of her career.
00:54:17.080
Yeah, that's definitely one to check out. Uh, I'd love to listen to that further and
00:54:22.300
we'll, we'll add a link below as well. Um, I guess that raises the question of, uh,
00:54:29.920
why do you care? Why do we care about any of this? Like, um, why can't you just let people
00:54:37.720
live their lives? And for JK Rowling to pretty much, she could just be, she could just do her
00:54:48.580
thing. She has all the wealth in the world and she could just be quiet about this issue. Like
00:54:53.880
there's nothing to get, she's not going to get more famous. She's already famous. She's not going
00:55:02.300
to receive extra love. She's already wealthier than God. Yeah. Here's the thing. Like she wrote a
00:55:08.920
beloved book series. And before this was quite universally beloved by everybody. There is
00:55:18.440
nothing for her to gain, to stick her neck out and take a stance here. She's only going to receive
00:55:25.160
pushback. Um, cause when she started sharing these thoughts, this was not during a time where
00:55:32.100
there we go. She in fact just tweeted about it today. Why, why do you care? The number of people
00:55:39.360
who feel compelled to tell me that if they had my money, they wouldn't give a damn about the rights
00:55:43.380
of women and children never ceases to amaze me. I believe you of course. I'm just surprised that's
00:55:48.160
something you'd like to boast about. The, with precision, she gets right to the heart of that.
00:55:57.700
It's almost like she's a very, very good, very accomplished writer. And it's very unlikely
00:56:04.820
that you will ever outmaneuver her in a battle of wits.
00:56:09.380
She, she reminds me of Jordan Peterson in the way that like, they seem very, Jordan Peterson
00:56:16.740
mentions that like, especially being, when he's being grilled by journalists, he says like,
00:56:21.940
I choose my words very, very carefully. Yeah. And anybody who's a writer is like, especially
00:56:29.140
if they take a time to like pause in an interview or they like, they're not just running their
00:56:34.420
mouth. They are like, well, here's what I believe. Here's the principles behind it. Here's the rationale.
00:56:40.260
Here's the logic. And they're just, they're being very precise about it. So yeah.
00:56:46.420
Yeah. Which is, which is, I feel part of the, um, part of it's, it's a concept that a lot of people
00:56:52.900
who are on say the more, um, progressive self-described progressive, you know, end of the
00:57:01.380
spectrum don't really understand because, um, I can't, oh yeah, this was Michael Malice who said
00:57:07.620
that leftists, at least a modern day conception of leftists, they don't use language to communicate.
00:57:14.820
They use language to manipulate. So they don't, a lot of these people who willingly insert
00:57:21.220
themselves into these spaces and have these debates and have these shouting matches with
00:57:25.380
people who are much, much more intelligent than them online. I don't think they can truly understand
00:57:30.820
that concept that, you know, being able to actually use language and words in a, in a way to convey,
00:57:38.100
to be, to be, try and become closer to reality, trying to try to move closer to the truth of a
00:57:43.860
situation because they only view what they're saying and what they're doing as something as
00:57:50.020
being something in service of a movement or of a, of an ideology rather than language and
00:57:55.860
communication unto itself. Maybe something like that.
00:57:59.060
So what, what that means is when you are arguing with these people, you're not arguing with their
00:58:05.380
thought process. You are arguing with the ideology. And if anything, they have memorized the top
00:58:12.100
five things to counter. Um, yeah, you'll ask them this and they'll say that they, they've got it
00:58:18.260
ready. And when they've run out of their, their list of rebuttals, or if you try to pin them down on a,
00:58:26.740
on the actual logic behind something, that's where you see on a definition.
00:58:31.140
Yeah. They fumble with the actual definitions. If it's, they're not taught how to think they're taught
00:58:35.940
what to think they'll struggle in actually trying to navigate the base level to some of these concepts
00:58:42.580
and, or they, they've made these, they've made the definitions fit the ideology rather than using
00:58:51.140
definitions as a way to better describe and navigate the world.
00:58:56.100
So it's a conclusion first approach rather than, rather than like the scientific process of like
00:59:03.620
you make observations, you try to define the world, make observations, you put a framework and then you
00:59:10.420
see if that framework actually can predict anything or if it maps onto reality. And if it doesn't,
00:59:16.580
you revise it until you get closer and closer. And that takes constant pushing and probing into that
00:59:24.020
framework to see if it's actually true or not. But right now I don't think people are really
00:59:31.780
gunning for truth. I think they believe they know what truth is and they believe they're right. And I,
00:59:40.900
I must give them credit for like, well, they're, they're, they're reacting exactly how you'd expect
00:59:47.140
somebody to react if they were given a divine truth and told that they are morally righteous
00:59:54.420
to spread this truth and fight for this truth. But they're not given that hardware to,
01:00:01.780
to question their own truth. So that that's more of a cult cult dynamic at that point.
01:00:12.820
Yeah, I would say, say that's a good, good place to wrap up. We've solved it yet. Yet again,
01:00:20.740
it's just like that, the episode we did on Palestine, you're like, well, I think you've,
01:00:26.260
think you've taught me everything we need to know.
01:00:30.020
Yep. And that's why when that episode released, that's why all the fighting stopped.
01:00:34.660
Maybe we need another four hours on that episode to really, to really dive in.
01:00:45.860
Well, I think, uh, I think that's something that we can do. And I think, um, we touched on a lot
01:00:50.420
of things today, actually, that will, we will certainly expand on in full, full format episodes,
01:00:55.620
but this has been, uh, this has been a really good chat this week and an otherwise kind of a quiet
01:01:02.740
week. Actually, nothing particularly earth shattering happened this week, but I think we've got some good,
01:01:09.940
Good chat. Yeah. I guess not that everywhere week has to be like, we don't need the shiny new object
01:01:18.340
for us to. Yeah. We're not CNN 24 hour news cycle here. There's yeah, I guess to some of this week,
01:01:26.380
there's plenty of things that are worth some attention and worth diving into. So that was a good chat. And I,
01:01:32.340
I think these things will be things we touch upon again in one form or another, because
01:01:42.660
this free speech standpoint informs everything. That's how we, that's how our whole society functions
01:01:49.060
without free speech. We don't have a democratic process. We don't have function. We don't have
01:01:55.700
people expressing. We don't have, we don't have the growth. We just have domination in some form
01:02:01.380
or another. So yeah, we're, you and me aren't allowed to do this. Yeah. It's a, well, and just
01:02:08.260
think about how much we've, how much we're able to like the process of us thinking about these things.
01:02:16.580
And we're hoping like our viewers that everybody watching that you on this path to you, you're
01:02:23.380
thinking about things that you haven't thought about because by diving into this, forcing us to
01:02:29.860
forces you to think. And I think that's, that's what we need more of. So.
01:02:37.940
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. And we'll see you again next week.
01:02:42.900
Always a pleasure. Okay. Have a good week. Chat soon.