The Matt Walsh Show - March 19, 2024


Ep. 1328 - The Children's Entertainment Industry Is Infested With Groomers And Pedophiles


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 7 minutes

Words per Minute

181.50418

Word Count

12,279

Sentence Count

767

Misogynist Sentences

33

Hate Speech Sentences

34


Summary

A new documentary exposes the behind-the-scenes grooming, exploitation, and abuse that was rampant at Nickelodeon during its heyday. Also, Justice Kandaji Brown-Jackson worries that the First Amendment may be hamstringing the government. A new study finds that woke people tend to be anxious and miserable, no surprise there. And, in our daily cancellation, the campaign to de-stigmatize cannibalism is finally underway. We ll talk about all that and more today on The Matt Wall Show.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Wall Show, a new documentary exposes the behind-the-scenes grooming, exploitation, and abuse that was rampant at Nickelodeon during its heyday.
00:00:07.180 Also, Justice Kandaji Brown-Jackson worries that the First Amendment may be hamstringing the government.
00:00:11.620 Of course, that's the whole point of the First Amendment.
00:00:13.400 A new study finds that woke people tend to be anxious and miserable, no surprise there.
00:00:17.320 In our daily cancellation, the campaign to de-stigmatize cannibalism is finally underway.
00:00:22.900 We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Wall Show.
00:00:30.000 We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Wall Show.
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00:01:43.420 You can always tell that somebody has real power when they do something that's obviously wrong, maybe even illegal, for a very long time.
00:01:50.340 And yet, they make no effort to hide it whatsoever.
00:01:52.620 In the entertainment industry, Harvey Weinstein is, of course, one of the most prominent examples of that.
00:01:57.120 His behavior was an open secret in Hollywood for three decades to the point that, you know, they were making jokes about it during the Oscars.
00:02:02.820 But nothing was done about it until just a few years ago.
00:02:05.360 And unfortunately, the process of taking down Harvey Weinstein involved a much larger, extraordinarily destructive movement called Me Too, which did far more harm than good.
00:02:14.940 I'm not going to recount all the problems of that particular movement.
00:02:17.500 I've discussed all of that before many times.
00:02:19.960 But one major issue with Me Too is coming to light very plainly right now, which is that the movement conspicuously left pedophiles pretty much unscathed.
00:02:29.540 And you know that because, to this day, you still aren't allowed to talk about the pedophilia that's rampant in elite circles.
00:02:37.740 You know, you can complain about so-called toxic masculinity, quote-unquote, and misogyny all you want.
00:02:43.000 But if you bring up the topic of pedophilia, the left treats you as a QAnon conspiracy theorist.
00:02:49.360 Using words like groomer is prohibited on many social media platforms.
00:02:53.520 How dare you suggest that pedophiles have infested Hollywood, the education system, the media, etc.?
00:02:59.140 You must be crazy. That's hate speech.
00:03:02.020 But make that claim, despite the fact that the sexualization and mistreatment of children has been on display for decades in mainstream children's entertainment.
00:03:10.300 And now it's getting a lot of new exposure.
00:03:12.760 The first episodes of a new documentary series exposing the inner workings of Nickelodeon,
00:03:17.880 which, of course, is the children's network that most people my age grew up watching in the 90s and early 2000s,
00:03:23.360 called Quiet on the Set, The Dark Side of Kids TV, just premiered.
00:03:27.260 It's worth watching because it's one of the few well-researched, effectively produced looks into how the entertainment industry abuses children.
00:03:34.980 And in a moment, I'll show you some of the new clips from this documentary,
00:03:37.880 the ones that involve behind-the-scenes insights and interviews.
00:03:41.300 But the incredible thing is that Nickelodeon wasn't really hiding what they were doing.
00:03:44.780 Some of the most perverse parts of this documentary are scenes that Nickelodeon aired publicly or uploaded to the Internet many years ago.
00:03:51.880 For example, take a look at these sequences from a show called Victorious, featuring a young Ariana Grande.
00:03:56.880 It's a teen sitcom created by former Nickelodeon bigwig Dan Schneider that premiered more than a decade ago on Nickelodeon.
00:04:05.620 And the videos received a lot of attention when they resurfaced in 2019.
00:04:08.660 But it's important to see them again to understand the new accusations against Schneider,
00:04:13.340 who also created many other hit shows like iCarly.
00:04:17.320 But these are incredibly disturbing.
00:04:19.720 And once again, this is stuff that was put on the air, put on the Internet for the public to see at the time.
00:04:24.660 Let's watch some of this.
00:04:26.880 Have you ever tried to get your whole big toe in your mouth?
00:04:30.100 Check this out.
00:04:36.160 Sometimes I wonder if you can get juice from a potato.
00:04:48.700 Is it possible for a teenage girl to drink water upside down?
00:04:53.480 I'm thirsty.
00:04:54.480 It's not possible.
00:04:55.480 It's not possible.
00:04:56.480 This has been me in a video.
00:05:10.760 Come on, give up the juice.
00:05:17.760 Give up the juice.
00:05:19.980 Okay, so to be clear, these videos were posted online by Nickelodeon, which has a core audience of young children.
00:05:33.580 And apparently they were posted online with little objection from anyone until years later.
00:05:40.040 And they created this content to promote their show on the Internet.
00:05:44.320 And these videos are unambiguously, deliberately intended to be as suggestive as possible.
00:05:50.600 They're well past any pretense of plausible deniability.
00:05:53.760 That's how brazen this operation was.
00:05:58.040 But even after the uproar a few years ago, there still wasn't a whole lot of in-depth reporting about what exactly Dan Schneider was doing in Nickelodeon.
00:06:05.600 One of Grande's co-stars, Jeanette McCurdy, wrote a memoir describing her abuse in Nickelodeon.
00:06:11.720 But generally speaking, Schneider himself escaped in-depth scrutiny.
00:06:15.500 And that was a big oversight because anyone who's willing to produce this kind of content for young children is obviously someone who needs to be investigated very thoroughly.
00:06:23.800 Firing him should not have been the end of it, but for a while it was.
00:06:27.620 Now, though, we have a better idea of what was going on.
00:06:31.080 And one of the sequences that Quiet on the Set has highlighted is this behind-the-scenes footage from 2002,
00:06:37.100 in which Schneider sits in a jacuzzi with Amanda Bynes, who was 16 years old at the time.
00:06:42.280 In the footage, Schneider is fully clothed while Bynes is in a bathing suit.
00:06:47.320 Let's watch a bit of this.
00:06:53.400 I'm the executive producer of the American show, Dan Schneider.
00:06:56.020 Hi.
00:06:56.940 I'm the executive producer of the show.
00:06:59.320 Yes, I'm the executive producer and the head writer.
00:07:02.200 We actually wrote the words for saying to each other right now.
00:07:05.180 Yeah, yes.
00:07:06.760 Actually, I wrote this whole conversation that we're having right now.
00:07:10.540 Since then, you're the executive producer.
00:07:12.280 Give me an IC.
00:07:14.020 Have you ever an IC before since then, the executive producer?
00:07:16.540 I see.
00:07:17.800 Now since then, you're kissing.
00:07:18.680 Now since then, you're kissing, now since then.
00:07:19.580 I see, now since then, you're the executive.
00:07:22.080 Hi, welcome to my jacuzzi.
00:07:25.320 Say my special guest.
00:07:27.600 It continues, and eventually they start eating spaghetti in the jacuzzi for some reason.
00:07:32.660 But this was what Dan Schneider wanted to do.
00:07:35.420 He said to this 16-year-old girl to put on a bathing suit and get in the jacuzzi,
00:07:40.300 and he got in there with her, and they filmed this little whatever it was.
00:07:44.240 As they talk about in the documentary at some length, this is a very twisted kind of power
00:07:48.480 play.
00:07:48.800 There's no legitimate reason for the executive producer of this show to be in a jacuzzi with
00:07:52.460 an underage actress, having her explain to the camera that he controls everything she
00:07:56.120 says.
00:07:56.440 There's certainly no reason for him to eat spaghetti with her, even if he does happen
00:07:59.700 to be morbidly obese.
00:08:01.440 But as you watch the documentary, it becomes clear that this kind of behavior was open and
00:08:04.860 notorious on Nickelodeon sets.
00:08:06.700 There are extensive interviews with cast members and staff of shows like All That and The Amanda
00:08:11.020 Show, which go into extensive details about how pervasive this problem was.
00:08:14.840 At one point in the film, or the documentary series, former Nickelodeon employees describe
00:08:20.380 how Schneider thought it would be funny to have a young actress use the name Taint on air.
00:08:25.280 Watch.
00:08:26.800 Hello, citizens.
00:08:28.380 My name is Penelope Taint.
00:08:30.160 So Penelope Taint is a character that Dan created.
00:08:35.300 My name is Penelope Taint.
00:08:36.740 Yeah, I know.
00:08:37.380 He came up with the name Penelope Taint.
00:08:39.940 The taint is the part of the body that's between the penis and the anus.
00:08:43.400 It's that skin there.
00:08:44.140 That's the taint.
00:08:45.500 And Dan had said to us in the writer's room, don't tell what this word really means.
00:08:50.800 He wanted us to keep that a secret.
00:08:52.480 I remember someone from Nickelodeon sitting with us and saying like, oh, does this mean,
00:08:57.800 you know, this dirty thing?
00:08:59.980 And Dan was like, no.
00:09:01.680 Why would you think that's like tainted like you've tainted something?
00:09:05.240 And they were like, okay.
00:09:06.080 Man, that is power.
00:09:09.960 That is power.
00:09:11.220 That you can just say you want something and it's done.
00:09:15.700 That's what I thought.
00:09:17.560 So it got on the show.
00:09:19.320 And it's one of those things where it's like, oh, you know, like, it's a young girl.
00:09:24.320 Yeah, one of those things.
00:09:27.200 It always amazes me when you see these kinds of documentaries.
00:09:30.400 It's just the, well, yeah, you have the disgusting pervert who's being exposed and whose behavior
00:09:35.680 is sort of the story.
00:09:38.320 But also just the incredible cowardice of everybody around this person is the amount of cowardice
00:09:47.320 that's required to have somebody doing this sort of thing that nobody would speak up and
00:09:51.840 say, you know what?
00:09:52.380 No, we're not going to do that.
00:09:53.240 We're not going to give a young girl actress the name Taint because you want to make some
00:09:59.380 disgusting perverted joke.
00:10:01.140 You pervert.
00:10:02.120 We're not doing it.
00:10:03.460 Nobody said that.
00:10:04.300 Instead, they're all like, okay, well, if you want to.
00:10:06.300 And then after the fact, they can be in the documentary as like the good guys.
00:10:10.800 Well, he wanted to, and I didn't know what to do.
00:10:12.900 Speak up, you freaking cowards.
00:10:15.540 What is he going to do?
00:10:16.480 Shoot you?
00:10:17.540 What are you afraid is going to happen?
00:10:20.660 But this is Schneider's MO.
00:10:23.120 If you watch just the first episode of this documentary series, that would become very clear.
00:10:27.360 For example, employees also discuss how he instructed his subordinates to describe themselves
00:10:30.900 in demeaning terms, including as sluts, for his personal amusement.
00:10:34.740 Watch.
00:10:36.300 It was clear that there was a permissibility around these sexualized jokes with children.
00:10:42.740 It was par for the course.
00:10:44.260 Like, strange things amused Dan.
00:10:46.560 And that was just one of the things he thought was funny.
00:10:49.340 He liked to play pranks and jokes, which at first seemed fun.
00:10:54.240 In the beginning, I would see, you know, instant message pop up.
00:10:59.180 Dan would send a message for you to say out loud, scream hammers.
00:11:05.220 And you scream it.
00:11:07.420 And then it would be, you know, more degrading, like scream, I'm an idiot or slut.
00:11:13.060 And if you didn't, he would send you the message again, caps, exclamation points.
00:11:18.760 He would scream out, say it until you did.
00:11:21.120 Once again, my question is, like, why didn't you refuse?
00:11:25.280 Why didn't you say something?
00:11:27.400 You know, that's an interesting, but they don't really explain that part of it.
00:11:32.400 And as the segment goes on, the employees claim that Schneider would often offer money to induce
00:11:36.380 his subordinates to do degrading tasks like gorging themselves on gallons of ice cream,
00:11:40.060 only to refuse payment when they tried to collect.
00:11:43.000 And for his part, not surprisingly, Schneider denies all these accusations.
00:11:46.200 He hasn't been charged or convicted of any crime as of yet.
00:11:49.100 But even so, there's clear evidence that serious child abuse did occur at the company.
00:11:54.960 The documentary covers all of that as well.
00:11:57.300 For example, in later episodes of the documentary, former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell comes forward
00:12:01.780 on camera to say that he was sexually assaulted when he was 15 years old by Brian Peck,
00:12:07.500 also known as Pickle Boy, who worked on the Amanda show, the same show as the jacuzzi scene.
00:12:13.160 Peck was arrested back in 2003 on 11 charges relating to this abuse, including
00:12:16.800 sodomy and committing a lewd act upon a child aged 14 or 15 by a person 10 years older.
00:12:23.800 There was also a charge for oral copulation by anesthesia or controlled substance.
00:12:29.300 Peck pleaded no contest to the charges, was sentenced to only 16 months in prison at the time.
00:12:33.560 I'll say that again. He spent less than two years in prison for child sexual abuse.
00:12:38.920 Bell's name was concealed during the trial, but now many years later, he's come forward to identify himself.
00:12:45.280 And in the second episode of the documentary, Brian Peck is described as doing something similar
00:12:49.820 to what Schneider did, trying to get profane jokes on air at the expense of children.
00:12:55.220 Watch.
00:12:55.400 Pickle Boy was this, like, character that returned again and again and again throughout the seasons of all that.
00:13:06.380 Pickle Boy appeared in every episode, and he's often interacting with a celebrity.
00:13:10.540 Hello? Anyone? I gotta get something to eat!
00:13:17.020 A pickle!
00:13:26.880 We just went with it.
00:13:30.420 Pickles? Look, this is the mind of Dan Schneider. You gotta ask him.
00:13:34.000 There was this referencing to, like, oh, yeah, Dan just has a weird sense of humor.
00:13:39.360 That was like, the pickles don't look like penises to you?
00:13:43.380 This is a children's television show.
00:13:52.940 Wait, why is this in the show? What is the joke here exactly?
00:13:57.940 There's this weird element of, like, they all were able to, like, pull a fast one and get away with it.
00:14:03.400 Um, so, and that's another one where, you know, of course, the kids, this is, these are kids on the show,
00:14:12.060 and they don't know what's going on any more than those of us who were kids watching all that at the time.
00:14:17.380 I can remember I watched every episode of that show, like any kid in the 90s did.
00:14:20.620 I didn't pick up on any of that.
00:14:22.680 And the kids who are on the show also didn't know what was going on.
00:14:25.100 Uh, however, there are a lot of adults running the show, writing the show.
00:14:29.720 They would have known exactly what that was all about.
00:14:32.500 And, uh, and apparently none of them spoke up.
00:14:35.220 So, it's, this is what's required for this sort of thing to go on.
00:14:38.640 It's not just one or two perverts who can, who, who make this all happen.
00:14:43.920 Uh, it's also, it's the perverts along with the, again, the incredible cowardice of all the other adults involved.
00:14:49.280 Now, the final episodes of the documentary aren't available yet, so we don't have the full details of what Peck did.
00:14:53.980 We, um, don't have the interview with his alleged victim yet.
00:14:57.480 But it is suggested in the episode that after Peck was arrested, Nickelodeon higher-ups, not including Schneider himself, apparently,
00:15:03.740 called a meeting with the child actors.
00:15:05.800 They didn't let their parents participate in this meeting.
00:15:08.000 They had the children alone and told them that Peck wasn't going to be around anymore.
00:15:12.380 They, they asked if anyone had anything to say, almost as if they wanted to get the jump on any misconduct allegations.
00:15:18.640 And there was reason for those executives to be worried, because Peck wasn't the only sexual abuser at Nickelodeon during this period.
00:15:25.440 The documentary also goes into some detail about the disturbing case of Jason Handy,
00:15:29.660 who worked as a production assistant on both The Amanda Show and all that.
00:15:34.100 Handy allegedly sent a picture of himself masturbating to an 11-year-old girl he was working with,
00:15:38.180 who was working on The Amanda Show at the time.
00:15:40.780 Handy, like Peck, was arrested in 2003.
00:15:43.900 Watch.
00:15:44.180 Law enforcement had been tipped off about Jason Handy's inappropriate behavior towards children.
00:15:50.960 So in 2003, they searched his home.
00:15:54.180 They find this enormous trove of child pornography.
00:15:58.140 Over 10,000 images of children, including 1,768 images of young girls in erotic poses,
00:16:07.820 238 images of young girls in sexually explicit poses,
00:16:12.040 and two images of girls engaged in bondage activity.
00:16:16.000 One of the CDs included seven video files of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
00:16:20.620 One of the most disturbing things that law enforcement found when they searched Jason Handy's home was Handy's own journals,
00:16:27.120 where he spells out how he feels about these young children.
00:16:33.100 Quote,
00:16:33.620 I am a pedophile full-blown.
00:16:36.800 I really have been giving in to my desire for little girls these past few weeks,
00:16:41.540 and I even struggle on a day-to-day basis of how I can find a victim to rape if I have to.
00:16:47.980 Now, these are accusations that are far more serious than what Dan Schneider is even accused of,
00:16:55.680 but they're part of the same general pattern of behavior that involves demeaning and sexualizing and abusing children.
00:17:01.020 This is what was going on internally at the most popular children's channel on the planet.
00:17:05.500 And it's still an extremely popular network,
00:17:08.120 although its popularity has declined precipitously in the intervening years.
00:17:13.240 But that leaves reasonable people to wonder whether sexual perverts are still trying to pollute the minds of children over at Nickelodeon.
00:17:20.040 Previously, I've covered Nickelodeon's Paw Patrol spinoff,
00:17:22.440 which recently hired a radical leftist writer who likes to teach children about abortions, among other things.
00:17:28.020 And maybe in 20 years, we'll learn the inside story as to why exactly that woman was hired.
00:17:32.260 But really, we don't need to wait that long.
00:17:34.580 Simply put, there's no way a man like Dan Schneider could operate so openly for so long
00:17:38.520 if he wasn't part of a much larger systemic problem as we've been discussing.
00:17:42.160 This is a problem that can't be solved by arresting a couple of production assistants and firing Dan Schneider,
00:17:48.200 although that's a good place to start.
00:17:50.440 The only way to really solve it is to do what the parents of these child actors should have done a long time ago,
00:17:55.860 which is to keep your children as far away from corporate children's programming as possible.
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00:19:22.220 Okay, NPR has this.
00:19:24.320 In a major case testing the role of First Amendment in the Internet age,
00:19:27.560 the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday hears arguments focused on the federal government's ability to combat
00:19:31.780 what it sees as false, misleading, or dangerous information online.
00:19:35.980 Last September, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,
00:19:38.940 the most conservative federal appeals court in the U.S.,
00:19:41.020 issued a broad ruling that barred key government officials from contacts with social media companies.
00:19:46.140 Among the personnel targeted in the order were officials of the White House,
00:19:49.280 the Centers for Disease Control Prevention, the Office of the Surgeon General,
00:19:51.980 the FBI, and an important cyber security agency.
00:19:55.580 The appeals court said that individuals at those agencies likely violated the First Amendment
00:19:59.180 by seeking to coerce social media platforms into moderating or changing their content about COVID-19,
00:20:04.920 foreign interference in elections, and even Hunter Biden's laptop.
00:20:08.000 The Supreme Court has put that ruling on hold while it examines the tricky issues in the case.
00:20:12.560 The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are two states, Missouri and Louisiana,
00:20:15.060 and five individuals, including vaccine opponents,
00:20:17.700 who either were banned from some Internet platforms at the height of COVID-19,
00:20:22.320 or whose posts, they say, were not prominently featured on social media sites,
00:20:26.480 such as Facebook, YouTube, and X, formerly known as Twitter.
00:20:29.820 Not prominently featured, otherwise known as, you know,
00:20:32.900 the algorithm was suppressing.
00:20:36.260 These content was being suppressed by the algorithms.
00:20:39.020 The Biden administration notes that under established First Amendment precedent,
00:20:41.560 the government itself is entitled to express its views and to try to persuade others.
00:20:45.340 As the government says in its brief,
00:20:47.580 quote, essential dimension of presidential power is the use of the office bully pulpit
00:20:50.880 to seek to persuade Americans and American companies to act in a way
00:20:54.580 that would advance the public interest.
00:20:57.840 Now, first of all, despite what the Biden administration is claiming,
00:21:00.700 you know, nobody is saying that the government itself can't try to persuade people of its own position.
00:21:05.120 So if they want to put out a PSA or whatever about the dangers of, quote, unquote, misinformation,
00:21:11.500 they can do that.
00:21:12.980 No one is saying they can't.
00:21:14.220 I haven't heard anyone say that.
00:21:15.160 But the thing about a PSA or an argument presented in any other form
00:21:19.100 is that we are free to disagree with it or ignore it entirely,
00:21:24.060 which is why the Biden administration is not satisfied to express its view
00:21:28.140 and try to persuade others.
00:21:29.440 That's not what this is about at all.
00:21:31.400 Again, if that's all they wanted to do,
00:21:32.600 then this would not be an issue and it wouldn't be at the Supreme Court
00:21:35.040 because no one is no one is like suggesting that that President Biden can't come out and say,
00:21:40.960 you know, here's what I think misinformation is and I'm opposed to it and you shouldn't share it.
00:21:45.860 He can say that if he wants to say it.
00:21:47.640 And again, we are we are perfectly free to just ignore it.
00:21:52.200 What are you saying completely, which is what I would do.
00:21:55.420 But instead, of course, the Biden administration wants to use social media platforms
00:21:58.820 as censorship proxies to shut down the speech that they don't like
00:22:03.260 and ban and de-platform the purveyors of what they claim is, quote unquote, misinformation.
00:22:10.960 And that's the problem.
00:22:12.360 You know, their way of persuading the public is by ensuring that the public only hears their side of the story.
00:22:17.880 That's the persuasion technique that they want to use,
00:22:20.940 which is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
00:22:22.780 And that's the entire issue.
00:22:25.580 And it all centers around this idea of misinformation,
00:22:27.720 which is just not something that the government should be in the business of combating,
00:22:32.560 at least beyond issuing PSAs if they want to and and trying to persuade people.
00:22:41.260 If it's simply making arguments, that's one thing.
00:22:44.120 But beyond that, it has no role because information in this context
00:22:48.300 is simply the substance of what is conveyed through methods of communication.
00:22:55.620 All of the stuff online is information.
00:22:58.280 And there's billions of bits of information flying every which way at the speed of light every second.
00:23:03.860 And some of the information reflects reality.
00:23:05.940 Some of the information reflects what someone wishes was the reality.
00:23:09.140 Some of the information is good.
00:23:10.480 Some of it is bad.
00:23:11.340 Some of it is useless.
00:23:12.400 Much of it is useless.
00:23:13.600 Much of it is distracting.
00:23:14.720 Much of it is unimportant.
00:23:15.720 And this is the age we live in.
00:23:19.600 And it's almost certainly a net negative in the grand scheme of things.
00:23:23.760 All of this information, it's too much.
00:23:26.420 You know, we're exposed to far too much of it.
00:23:28.180 We can't process most of it.
00:23:31.840 And most people lack the discernment to effectively distinguish
00:23:34.980 between what is real and what is fantasy
00:23:37.060 and what is important and what isn't and so on and so on.
00:23:41.280 So, yeah, it's a, I think, a net negative.
00:23:44.020 It'd be better if, you know, we were not all surrounded by all this information all the time.
00:23:48.640 But this is the reality of the world we live in.
00:23:51.020 And even if it has its pitfalls, massive, gaping pitfalls,
00:23:55.680 we cannot fill those holes in or make anything better by giving the government the power
00:24:00.780 to act as a giant filter deciding which pieces of information are good or bad
00:24:05.800 and which pieces we should see and which we shouldn't see and all the rest of it.
00:24:09.940 So that's not how we can solve this problem.
00:24:12.220 We live in the information age regardless,
00:24:14.400 which means it's an age dominated and driven by information.
00:24:18.900 To give the government that kind of power to be the filter
00:24:23.540 is then to give them essentially absolute power over our lives and our minds.
00:24:28.860 And we cannot do that.
00:24:30.720 And we especially can't do it with an administration like this one.
00:24:34.560 Like, how can we give them the power to determine what counts as misinformation
00:24:38.520 when we already know that they believe or at least pretend to believe
00:24:42.920 many things that are wildly untrue and which do not reflect reality
00:24:47.500 and which contradict the facts in an extreme way?
00:24:51.600 I mean, certainly anyone who believes that men can get pregnant, for example,
00:24:55.260 is unqualified to be the judge and jury ruling over the flow of information.
00:24:59.520 Um, but really no one is qualified for that position.
00:25:04.060 And that's the point.
00:25:05.960 Um, although it's a point that not all of the justices seem to understand.
00:25:10.000 So for example, here is Ketanji Brown Jackson revealing some, uh, very fundamental confusion
00:25:16.800 about, uh, the constitution and the government and what their exact role is.
00:25:21.780 She can't define what a woman is.
00:25:23.160 We already know that.
00:25:24.160 And, uh, now she also has revealed that she doesn't know what the constitution is.
00:25:27.540 Let's, uh, although she revealed that she's revealed that many times in the past,
00:25:30.920 but this is a pretty, um, stark example.
00:25:33.260 Let's watch.
00:25:34.700 Justice Jackson.
00:25:35.720 So my biggest concern is that your view has the first amendment hamstringing the government
00:25:42.240 in significant ways in the most important time periods.
00:25:47.960 Um, I mean, what would, what would you have the government do?
00:25:50.540 I've heard you say a couple of times that the government can post its own speech,
00:25:54.800 but in my hypothetical, um, you know, kids, this is not safe, don't do it, um, is not
00:26:00.540 going to get it done.
00:26:01.940 And so I guess some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect
00:26:10.820 the citizens of this country.
00:26:12.140 And you seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging
00:26:17.900 or even pressuring, um, platforms to take down harmful information.
00:26:23.640 So can you help me?
00:26:25.300 Cause I'm really, I'm really worried about that.
00:26:27.760 Um, because you've got the first amendment operating, um, in an environment of threatening
00:26:33.920 circumstances from the government's perspective.
00:26:36.280 And you're saying that the government can't interact with the source of those problems.
00:26:43.420 So she's worried that the first amendment may hamstring the government.
00:26:47.660 Uh, that's what she's worried will happen.
00:26:49.520 And yes, Kattanji, uh, it will.
00:26:51.960 I mean, it does, it should.
00:26:54.780 That's the point that is literally quite literally the whole point of the first amendment.
00:27:00.360 Uh, that's the whole point of the bill of rights.
00:27:01.920 It's in fact, it's to hamstring the government, to limit the scope of the government's authority
00:27:06.940 to say, these things are off limits.
00:27:08.940 You cannot touch these things and, um, uh, to, to, to prevent it from infringing on our
00:27:15.080 basic human rights.
00:27:16.240 That's why the first amendment exists.
00:27:18.960 So, and this is a, this is a Supreme court justice who is not clear on that fact.
00:27:23.920 In fact, is worried.
00:27:25.060 She's very worried that she's worried that the first amendment might do what it's supposed
00:27:30.780 to do.
00:27:31.200 That's what she's worried about.
00:27:33.260 And she's a Supreme court justice.
00:27:35.620 And, but she's part, you know, uh, she's, she's really part of the whole regime, part
00:27:41.760 of the whole system that, um, that only proves why these people, like if, if anybody was equipped
00:27:50.160 to be the filter of information, to decide what information people should see and shouldn't
00:27:55.720 see to decide what is misinformation and what isn't, if there's anybody equipped to do
00:28:00.060 that.
00:28:01.400 And I don't think anybody is, but if there was anybody, it's not these people like they
00:28:04.960 can't, they don't know what a woman is.
00:28:06.060 They can't, they don't know.
00:28:07.560 They've got Supreme court justices that don't even know what the constitution is or what
00:28:10.740 it's supposed to do.
00:28:11.520 They're just, just, just deeply confused or at least presenting themselves as deeply confused,
00:28:18.020 which really it's the same thing.
00:28:19.980 So they deeply confused about the most basic fundamental facts.
00:28:24.900 And these are the exact same people who want to decide what counts as misinformation and,
00:28:31.660 uh, and, and what doesn't, um, and that just cannot be allowed.
00:28:38.240 Uh, I wanted to mention this.
00:28:41.380 This is an interesting story.
00:28:42.580 The New York post, uh, has this, this, this is the headline woke people are more likely to
00:28:48.480 be unhappy, anxious, and depressed.
00:28:50.720 A new study suggests the article says, psychological researchers in Finland have created an assessment
00:28:56.480 to help measure an individual's commitment to principles of social justice and have made
00:29:01.240 some surprising findings across the Finnish population, including a negative correlation
00:29:04.640 between progressive ideals and levels of happiness.
00:29:07.860 Their findings published in the Scandinavian journal of psychology suggest other Western nations
00:29:11.720 may see similar patterns among their socially conscious citizens.
00:29:15.360 Study author Asghari, uh, Latinin, a senior researcher at Inves Research flagship center
00:29:21.520 at the University of Turku remarked that the woke discourse has since worked its way
00:29:26.080 into Finnish discourse, uh, so on and so forth.
00:29:28.620 We don't really care about that.
00:29:30.060 Um, however, the concerning, the most concerning finding was the relationship between mental health
00:29:33.960 and agreement with the, uh, with, you know, woke ideals.
00:29:38.220 Specifically, researchers found a high prevalence of anxiety and depression in people
00:29:41.420 who believe the statement, quote,
00:29:43.480 If white people have, on average, a higher income than black people, it is because of
00:29:48.020 racism.
00:29:48.900 More broadly, they found that those who identified as less left-wing were most likely to report
00:29:53.240 lower mental well-being.
00:29:55.900 Now, um, so this is, this is interesting.
00:29:59.040 There's, there's a sort of an obvious chicken or egg dilemma here, which others have pointed
00:30:03.460 to.
00:30:03.760 Um, and so you have to ask yourself, is it, is it that people become unhappy because they're
00:30:09.660 woke?
00:30:09.960 Or is it that they become woke because they're unhappy?
00:30:13.720 You know, and that's a fascinating question that would impact our analysis of the findings.
00:30:18.620 But even without having that sorted out, I think we can say a few things here because
00:30:22.820 really the answer, the answer, the answer is both.
00:30:25.940 It's both the chicken and the egg.
00:30:27.400 Wokeness attracts unhappy people and it also makes people unhappy.
00:30:31.380 And then it also makes unhappy people unhappier.
00:30:34.380 So that's kind of the, that's, that's the way the cycle works.
00:30:38.180 And with that in mind, why does it do this?
00:30:42.220 Um, and there are myriad reasons and we're told there's a lot of depression and anxiety
00:30:47.100 in people who agree with the statement that white people have an average, have a higher
00:30:51.200 income on average because of racism.
00:30:53.420 Uh, well, why would that be the case?
00:30:54.720 Well, because, because these ideas destroy agency.
00:30:57.740 They take away your willpower, um, your free will, your ability to choose your own path
00:31:02.960 in life.
00:31:04.100 Everything is predetermined by the structures of oppression and racism, according to wokeness.
00:31:09.260 So if you're successful, it's because of racism.
00:31:11.300 If you're not successful, it's because of racism.
00:31:13.480 And that means that for the white person, this creates a sense of guilt, a sense of hopelessness,
00:31:18.040 a sense of, of, of passiveness, of shame.
00:31:21.120 And for the black person, it's also passiveness, helplessness, resentment, hatred, scorn.
00:31:28.960 Um, that's what all of this creates.
00:31:31.440 Feeling like you aren't in control, feeling entirely swept along by the currents.
00:31:37.280 I mean, that's really the source of all anxiety at some level, I would argue.
00:31:41.620 And wokeness breeds that feeling.
00:31:43.760 It is that feeling.
00:31:45.040 The, the removal of human agency is the whole point.
00:31:48.420 It's the whole point of the, of, of it.
00:31:50.420 Um, there's always this question of, well, how do you define wokeness?
00:31:54.260 And I mean, really wokeness is just the word we're using for leftism.
00:31:57.860 It's just a new term.
00:31:58.980 Um, I'd be fine going back to talking about leftism, but, you know, if you want to come
00:32:03.180 up with it with a, with a definition of it, you could do worse than this.
00:32:07.680 It's, it's the effort to remove human agency, um, to take away, to take away human agency
00:32:12.420 from all aspects of life.
00:32:14.720 Um, and, and then what do you get in exchange for it?
00:32:17.700 So you give up your sense of agency, your sense that like, you are at least to some
00:32:23.080 significant degree responsible for your own place in life.
00:32:27.100 You take that away.
00:32:28.300 And then what do you get in exchange?
00:32:30.440 Um, I mean, you end up depressed, passive, resentful, guilt-ridden, emasculated, all of
00:32:37.980 that.
00:32:38.280 So that's one thing you get.
00:32:41.100 Um, but do you get any benefit from it?
00:32:43.080 Like why, why do people fall into this given that it makes them so unhappy?
00:32:48.180 Well, I think you, you do get, and I wouldn't really call this a benefit, but for the people
00:32:52.540 that make this deal, they see it as a benefit.
00:32:54.980 You get an excuse, you know, that's, that's what you get.
00:32:57.580 You get an excuse.
00:32:58.240 You also get an unearned sense of virtue.
00:33:00.280 You get to, you get to have the feeling that you're a good person without doing anything
00:33:03.840 at all to earn that feeling.
00:33:06.880 Um, and that's it.
00:33:08.060 That's what you get.
00:33:08.740 But, but the main thing is you get an excuse.
00:33:11.440 That's what people are really after.
00:33:13.500 That's all of the, the victimology and everything.
00:33:16.480 That's, that's what it's really about for the, on the individual level.
00:33:19.760 The reason why people find it attractive is yes, it makes them depressed, anxious, everything
00:33:23.720 else.
00:33:24.260 Yes, it removes purpose and meaning from life.
00:33:26.400 It makes life basically pointless, but it also takes, it gives you an excuse.
00:33:30.480 And so wherever you are in life, it's, it's not your fault.
00:33:34.700 Um, you can just find, find your victim group that you belong to because anyone can find
00:33:38.540 one.
00:33:38.880 You know, if you're white, you can't, you don't get to be in the, in the black victim
00:33:42.460 group, but you can find another victim group to fall into.
00:33:45.820 Um, LGBT is always there at the ever expanding alphabet.
00:33:48.760 You can find a place somewhere in there.
00:33:51.020 And, and then it gives you an excuse, wherever you are in life, whatever your, whatever your
00:33:54.680 faults are, whatever your, um, shortcomings, uh, whatever aspects of your life
00:33:58.620 you, that, that you're dealing with that you don't like, it's not your fault.
00:34:03.300 You know, nothing is your fault.
00:34:04.980 And, uh, now I, the way that I'm, I'm wired.
00:34:09.620 And I think any healthy person is wired is I'd rather go the other way.
00:34:12.500 Like I I'd rather, I'd rather err on the opposite extreme.
00:34:16.260 I I'd rather take, uh, blame for things that like, aren't even my fault.
00:34:19.700 I would rather have, um, you know, a, a, uh, I would rather, I would rather go the other
00:34:26.980 way in seeing that, that things are in my control when they really aren't.
00:34:32.760 Um, I'd rather, if I have to err on one side or the other, I'd rather be on that side because
00:34:37.460 the idea of having no agency of not being in control of my life at all, um, is deeply
00:34:43.580 unappealing to me.
00:34:44.540 Um, so if I'm in a bad spot in life or I'm dealing with something and someone comes along
00:34:49.960 and, and, uh, and says, well, that's all your fault.
00:34:53.260 I would rather, I would rather think it's all entirely my fault, even if there are aspects
00:34:57.000 of it that really aren't, even if there are aspects of it that are out of my control.
00:35:00.400 I'd rather accept that, um, and realize that I have agency over my life.
00:35:07.040 I'd rather, I'd rather accept that and retain a sense of agency than, uh, then take the excuse
00:35:13.240 and say, oh, it's not my, it's not my fault at all and lose that sense of agency.
00:35:16.300 But I think, um, for people who fall into the woke cult, um, they just getting that excuse
00:35:25.620 is incredibly appealing to them and they'll, they'll give up everything just to have the
00:35:30.660 excuse.
00:35:32.040 And there's more to wokeness.
00:35:33.400 Of course, it also destroys family bonds.
00:35:35.320 It breeds resentments, not just between races, but even worse between families, between generations,
00:35:40.400 possibly worst of all, it makes you, uh, you know, sort of unstuck in time to borrow a
00:35:47.820 phrase from some book.
00:35:49.860 I don't remember which, I think Slaughterhouse-Five, Unstuck in Time, um, it unmoors you or it removes
00:35:55.820 all connection to your past, to your family, to your ancestors, to your culture, uh, particularly
00:36:01.400 if you're white, uh, it, it takes all that away and, and that creates more despair, more
00:36:06.720 depression, more anxiety.
00:36:08.380 And the ultimate goal is to remove, is to take away meaning, take away meaning for your
00:36:11.960 life.
00:36:12.220 A woke life is a life without meaning.
00:36:13.920 It's, you know, it's, and it's not even that, I think we get this wrong sometimes because
00:36:18.140 we would say that people who are woke leftist, um, they, uh, kind of relativist and they, they
00:36:24.960 believe that you can make your own meaning for your own life.
00:36:28.140 Um, meaning is something that you create for yourself.
00:36:31.120 I don't even think that's the case.
00:36:32.540 That's, that's kind of an existentialist approach is that meaning is what you, is what you, is
00:36:37.720 what you make, you know, you make your own meaning.
00:36:39.960 Um, but on the left, that's not really what they believe.
00:36:44.060 Uh, the woke religion rejects meaning altogether.
00:36:47.100 There is, there is no meaning.
00:36:48.460 There is no purpose.
00:36:49.400 There's just pure existence for its own sake.
00:36:53.420 And it's an existence defined by oppression and self-victimization.
00:36:57.900 And so does it make people unhappy?
00:37:01.240 Yes.
00:37:01.560 And does it attract unhappy people who are looking for excuses?
00:37:04.860 Unhappy, passive, emasculated people who are looking for excuses?
00:37:07.580 Yes, it does.
00:37:08.180 It does both of those things.
00:37:10.460 Um, finally, let's go to a situation up in Washington state.
00:37:13.540 We'll start with this recent report from the post-millennial.
00:37:17.920 So as a landlord in an upscale neighborhood in Washington state is out of, is out thousands
00:37:21.180 of dollars as a result of a deadbeat tenant.
00:37:23.180 He can't evict because of the county's eviction backlog.
00:37:27.380 Jaskaran Singh owns a rental property he bought two years ago in Woodridge, um, of Bellevue,
00:37:32.760 Washington's, one of Bellevue, Washington's most desirable neighborhoods.
00:37:36.180 He thought that Sang Kim, along with his wife and kids, were going to be ideal tenants.
00:37:40.660 That is, until the Kims allegedly started skipping out on rent.
00:37:43.600 He thought Sang Kim, along with his wife and kids, uh, well, repeating that same sentence.
00:37:47.380 Um, he added, he lied for everything.
00:37:49.220 He simply, he simply exploited the system.
00:37:51.160 Um, Singh attempted mediation through the city.
00:37:53.320 And when that failed, he began the eviction process, which has now been dragging on for
00:37:56.400 months.
00:37:56.820 One of the main issues causing the delays is that King County courts are behind on at
00:38:00.460 least 600 eviction cases.
00:38:02.120 Uh, Singh says there's no law protecting the landlord.
00:38:04.600 Justice delayed is justice denied.
00:38:07.320 So, and there are many such cases, especially in Washington state and, uh, states like Washington,
00:38:13.800 where you've got situations like this, where somebody, you know, rents a property, stops paying
00:38:19.740 rent, refuse to pay rent.
00:38:21.380 Then the landlord says, okay, if you're not going to pay to be here, get the hell out.
00:38:25.120 And the tenant says, no, I don't think I will.
00:38:27.180 I think I'll just stay.
00:38:28.640 And you would think if you're, you know, uh, a sane person, you, you would think, well,
00:38:34.060 that, that, okay, well then, then you're gone.
00:38:35.680 Like, and if the person won't leave, then you could call the cops.
00:38:38.280 Like that person is there now a trespasser on your property.
00:38:40.960 The cops just come and drag them out.
00:38:42.700 End of discussion.
00:38:43.420 Well, that's not how it works.
00:38:45.820 Um, in particular in Washington state, that's not how it works.
00:38:49.340 Now the person who is living there and we use the term squatting.
00:38:54.520 Uh, I don't even, I, I, I think that, that, I think you need a stronger term.
00:38:59.860 This is, this is like grand theft for one thing.
00:39:02.900 You're stealing, you are, you are stealing this home.
00:39:05.700 You're, you're, you're stealing an entire home now is what you're doing.
00:39:08.660 Uh, you're guilty of home invasion, the burglary of, you know, every second you're in that
00:39:13.460 property that you don't belong in that property.
00:39:15.280 They don't want you there.
00:39:16.020 That's, that's the way the law should look at it.
00:39:18.120 But anyway, we, you know, for lack of a better term, call them squatting.
00:39:22.500 And then, uh, now if you're in Washington state, the squatter has, uh, rights.
00:39:29.000 And as we'll see here in a second, actually has more rights than you as the homeowner.
00:39:34.560 And so that's the background of this particular case.
00:39:36.680 And that led to this week when the homeowner saying organized a protest at his own house
00:39:41.960 against the guy who lives there and won't leave.
00:39:44.960 This is what it's, what it's come to now.
00:39:46.300 If you live in Washington state and you're renting properties, uh, and somebody you have
00:39:50.340 to, you have to organize a picket line, right.
00:39:52.720 To, to, to get just to protest the fact that somebody is in your house and they don't belong.
00:39:57.660 That's what you're left with.
00:39:58.540 You're left with holding signs and marching and chanting, uh, because the law is not on your,
00:40:03.160 on your side.
00:40:04.320 So there's a protest.
00:40:05.340 The cops show up to throw the homeowner off of his own property in defense of the guy
00:40:11.300 who doesn't live there.
00:40:12.180 Let's watch.
00:40:14.500 Open the door now.
00:40:17.080 I mean, you've got angry neighbors here.
00:40:20.560 If you do not leave, I will call the police for the trespassing.
00:40:24.260 Mr. Kim, just want your side of the story.
00:40:26.800 What are your thoughts on the protesters?
00:40:29.760 Stop laughing on the door.
00:40:31.260 The police are here.
00:40:32.020 It's not your house.
00:40:33.180 Stop laughing on the door.
00:40:33.840 It's not your house either.
00:40:34.680 Do you want to comment on the protest?
00:40:36.600 Get out of my-
00:40:37.800 I already paid visit-
00:40:38.800 We're not doing that.
00:40:39.300 We're not doing that.
00:40:39.800 Guys, back up.
00:40:40.800 Off the property, man.
00:40:42.260 No, we're not doing that.
00:40:43.800 We're not doing that.
00:40:44.180 Off the property, man.
00:40:44.680 I'm just not-
00:40:45.180 Off the property, man.
00:40:47.220 We're not doing that.
00:40:47.800 It's like, the officer-
00:40:49.300 I'm asking you a question-
00:40:50.380 Fair enough.
00:40:50.760 To get off-
00:40:51.900 This guy brought his-
00:40:53.760 I need you off the property, okay?
00:40:56.760 All I'm trying to do is keep the peace.
00:40:58.760 Okay, I'm just trying to keep the peace, man.
00:41:00.480 Okay?
00:41:00.820 That's all I'm trying to do.
00:41:01.840 That's a messed up system, man.
00:41:03.300 Yeah, the system is broken.
00:41:04.540 Oh, my-
00:41:05.020 So the cops kick off the protesters.
00:41:07.800 The guy, the squatter in the house, tells them they're trespassing.
00:41:15.360 I mean, he's trespassing.
00:41:16.440 It's not his house, and he's living there illegally, accusing them of trespassing.
00:41:21.760 And if that's not bad enough, the squatter, Sang Kim, was-
00:41:25.300 This is the most recent development.
00:41:26.580 It happened in the last couple days.
00:41:28.140 He was granted a protection order against the guy who owns the house.
00:41:32.440 He went to a judge and said,
00:41:34.340 The guy who owns this house that I'm living in illegally is harassing me.
00:41:38.280 He gets a protection order, which means that the guy who owns the house has to stay away from his own house
00:41:42.840 so that Sang Kim, who does not own it and is not supposed to be there, can stay.
00:41:47.980 It's just total madness all around.
00:41:49.680 And this is what happens when you live in a morally inverted society.
00:41:54.500 You end up in a situation where squatters have more rights than the people who own the homes they're squatting in.
00:42:00.020 When left-wing victimology becomes the defining principle of the justice system,
00:42:04.340 this is what happens.
00:42:05.380 It turns everything on its head.
00:42:07.260 And the result is that life becomes harder for everybody else.
00:42:12.660 Life becomes harder for normal, law-abiding, hard-working people.
00:42:16.480 For the sake of this scumbag, the Kim guy, for his sake, so that he could be just a degenerate, good-for-nothing,
00:42:32.400 for his sake, everyone's life becomes harder.
00:42:35.920 So you want to complain about, say, the lack of affordable housing?
00:42:39.720 Well, the more impossible you make it for landlords, the more expensive and onerous and difficult you make it for them,
00:42:45.760 the more expensive it becomes for everybody else.
00:42:48.800 I don't know how anyone can rent properties in Washington State anymore at all.
00:42:52.500 I mean, I certainly wouldn't.
00:42:53.700 But if they do, they need to protect themselves.
00:42:56.100 They need to ensure that they have the financial resources to deal with the court system.
00:42:59.580 Because you know if you're renting, if you're a renter, rather, if you're a landlord,
00:43:05.300 the person who is putting the properties up for rent, in Washington State,
00:43:08.760 you know you're going to end up in the court system perpetually.
00:43:12.080 And so the more expensive you make it for the landlords, the more expensive it is for the tenants.
00:43:16.820 But after a while, there probably won't be any landlords left in Washington State.
00:43:20.260 Which, of course, is something that you say that, you know, after a while,
00:43:23.540 there won't be landlords left in Washington State.
00:43:25.000 Right. Well, left-wing morons will hear a statement like that and they'll say,
00:43:29.000 good, landlords are bad. That's good. Kick them all out.
00:43:33.620 Okay, well, then have fun dealing with mortgages and banks and property taxes and utility companies,
00:43:42.180 you idiots.
00:43:44.240 And look, I'm a proponent of home ownership.
00:43:45.980 I think you absolutely should buy a home if you can, rather than renting.
00:43:49.580 But my point is that if you want to get rid of landlords because you think that they're evil or whatever,
00:43:53.560 you know, they're the evil fat cats who have power over you.
00:43:58.620 Well, then wait till you have to deal with the banks, you dumbasses.
00:44:02.520 Like, that leaves you with all these other institutions that you have to deal with as a homeowner
00:44:06.300 who have power and control over you.
00:44:09.120 You're not going to be at the mercy of a landlord,
00:44:10.460 but you will be at the mercy of the banks and realtors and taxes and utility companies
00:44:14.000 and so on and so on and so on.
00:44:16.440 And if you don't have the money to buy a house,
00:44:18.360 if you aren't in the right situation for home ownership,
00:44:20.540 if you have $1,000 in your bank account and you make $30,000 a year
00:44:23.860 and you probably won't be in your current location for very long
00:44:26.840 because you're still kind of moving around a lot,
00:44:28.840 which makes buying a house, you know, not practical and probably not even possible.
00:44:33.620 Well, what then?
00:44:35.240 If you live in Washington State, they chase all the landlords out.
00:44:37.740 What do you do then?
00:44:39.780 That's where renting is the most sensible option.
00:44:41.780 And it's where making it impossible for landlords to exist and to operate
00:44:48.240 will make your life much more difficult.
00:44:52.080 But you're going to have plenty of people who see stuff like this,
00:44:54.620 see these kinds of stories,
00:44:55.980 and somehow in their twisted, perverted heads,
00:45:00.760 find a way to side with the guy who's stealing the house.
00:45:04.580 And they'll side with him not realizing that he is making their,
00:45:12.360 that he is actively making their own lives more difficult.
00:45:16.600 And they're too stupid to see it.
00:45:18.800 And then all these people in Washington State,
00:45:20.740 once all the rent, once all the landlords have been chased out
00:45:23.640 because they just simply can't be in that state anymore,
00:45:26.580 it's not possible.
00:45:27.520 How can you?
00:45:29.280 And they're going to look around and have nowhere to live.
00:45:31.120 If, you know, they were the people who would provide them houses.
00:45:35.780 Well, why is anyone providing housing for me?
00:45:37.380 Because you chased them all out, you idiots.
00:45:39.540 It's your fault.
00:45:40.300 They were there and you chased them out of the state.
00:45:44.940 And now you've got nowhere to live.
00:45:46.680 And all those people that cheer on the squatters,
00:45:48.720 you know, if they all end up living on the street homeless,
00:45:50.800 they deserve it.
00:45:52.060 I hope they all do end up homeless.
00:45:53.940 Anyone who sees a video like that and sides with a squatter,
00:45:55.800 I hope you end up homeless.
00:45:57.160 I hope that's how you end up.
00:45:58.980 Because you deserve it.
00:45:59.860 That's justice.
00:46:01.840 You don't deserve to live in a home.
00:46:03.940 You don't.
00:46:05.100 All right.
00:46:05.620 On that note, let's get to our daily,
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00:47:16.060 Okay, a few comments here about the issue
00:47:17.960 of reducing standards for policing
00:47:19.720 to get more women involved.
00:47:21.080 We talked yesterday about,
00:47:22.300 well, this is an initiative
00:47:24.120 that hundreds of police departments across the country
00:47:26.860 have taken on,
00:47:29.880 in particular here in Nashville,
00:47:31.880 where they are very determined
00:47:33.680 to get a 30% female police force
00:47:36.200 and they have basically obliterated
00:47:38.140 the physical fitness requirements.
00:47:39.780 Physical fitness requirements essentially don't,
00:47:42.000 there are no requirements,
00:47:42.840 essentially, effectively,
00:47:44.960 in order to make that happen.
00:47:47.560 And I'm against that.
00:47:48.660 I think that's a bad thing.
00:47:50.220 But some people disagreed with me,
00:47:51.900 if you can imagine.
00:47:54.200 First comment says,
00:47:54.940 I won't disagree with you,
00:47:55.780 but I'll, well, okay.
00:47:57.420 He's saying he doesn't disagree with me,
00:47:58.600 but I'll say this.
00:47:59.220 Women's sports are not separate from men's
00:48:00.980 only because men are bigger and stronger.
00:48:02.420 It actually is a different game.
00:48:03.560 They play differently
00:48:04.180 and approach the sport differently.
00:48:05.800 Same with policing.
00:48:06.760 No, reducing standards is a bad idea,
00:48:08.440 but we're doing a disservice
00:48:09.500 to the differences between men and women
00:48:10.580 if we make things all about those differences.
00:48:12.840 What about physical standards
00:48:14.720 and also creating a place in policing
00:48:16.180 for the feminine qualities,
00:48:17.560 which women seem to have a greater share of,
00:48:20.080 like negotiation?
00:48:22.740 Well, the thing I'll say about that is,
00:48:25.980 first of all,
00:48:28.260 I think the premise here is wrong.
00:48:30.300 I don't think that negotiation is a feminine,
00:48:33.920 I wouldn't call that a feminine task.
00:48:37.980 And I don't think there is any evidence
00:48:39.440 that women are better at negotiation.
00:48:40.720 In fact, and you can check me on this,
00:48:43.460 but I'm pretty sure all the evidence
00:48:45.160 is to the contrary,
00:48:46.700 that men tend to be better negotiators.
00:48:49.240 That's one of the reasons why women can,
00:48:53.400 even though all the stuff we hear
00:48:55.160 about the gender pay gap is all made up,
00:48:56.720 there can be cases where a woman ends up
00:49:00.060 making a little bit less than a man
00:49:01.120 for doing the same job.
00:49:01.860 But the reason is,
00:49:03.580 and there have been studies that have shown this,
00:49:04.840 that women don't negotiate,
00:49:06.360 or they do it poorly for their own,
00:49:09.540 they don't negotiate for their own pay.
00:49:11.160 So I don't think that there's any evidence
00:49:13.620 that women would make better negotiators.
00:49:17.240 But with all that said,
00:49:19.880 so I'm not sure,
00:49:20.640 I think negotiation is probably a bad example
00:49:23.820 to make your point.
00:49:26.340 But at the same time,
00:49:27.680 am I saying that there is nothing
00:49:30.880 that a woman can do in the sort of police world?
00:49:34.420 No.
00:49:35.580 But the problem is that this is not how it works.
00:49:40.080 Like they're not increasing the number of women cops
00:49:43.000 and then saying,
00:49:43.700 okay, well,
00:49:44.640 women have particular talents,
00:49:47.340 but not so much on the physical side of things.
00:49:49.340 So let's find things for them to do
00:49:50.720 that don't involve,
00:49:53.180 you know,
00:49:54.160 physically demanding work.
00:49:57.900 That's not what happens.
00:50:00.300 Okay?
00:50:01.140 Because the whole point here
00:50:02.200 is they're not recognizing the differences
00:50:03.900 between men and women.
00:50:07.000 So what ends up happening
00:50:08.260 is that they take these woman cops
00:50:09.920 and they put them on the street
00:50:10.840 on patrol,
00:50:12.780 which is just,
00:50:13.360 it's just ridiculous.
00:50:14.940 It's like absurd.
00:50:17.160 It's an absurdity.
00:50:19.060 Most of the time
00:50:19.940 when you see female cops out on patrol,
00:50:22.340 it's just like,
00:50:22.940 what happens?
00:50:24.380 What happens if you're alone
00:50:25.740 and you see a man breaking the law?
00:50:28.700 What are you going to do about it?
00:50:29.640 You can't do anything about it.
00:50:31.800 Like just me as a random guy
00:50:34.340 walking down the street,
00:50:35.020 I would be better equipped
00:50:36.040 than a highly trained female officer
00:50:38.440 to deal with another man
00:50:40.560 breaking the law.
00:50:42.120 Or to put it another way,
00:50:43.560 like if you are going to deal with it,
00:50:45.260 you almost automatically
00:50:46.620 have to resort
00:50:47.440 to harsher physical means,
00:50:49.400 tasers, gun.
00:50:52.020 Because you're not going to be able
00:50:52.840 to on your own
00:50:53.700 take this guy down
00:50:54.520 and restrain him.
00:50:55.600 Not going to be able to do it.
00:50:57.360 Another comment says,
00:50:57.940 Matt, while I was a cop,
00:50:58.740 I never did 1.5 mile runs
00:51:00.260 in pursuit, pull-ups,
00:51:01.320 or stopped to do push-ups.
00:51:02.480 I did agility movements
00:51:03.660 like they're doing here.
00:51:04.700 Scaling fences,
00:51:05.640 finding cover,
00:51:06.640 engaging in foot pursuits,
00:51:07.580 et cetera.
00:51:08.440 I'm actually for these modifications
00:51:09.740 being done to become
00:51:10.480 a more practical testing process
00:51:12.120 of who can do these things.
00:51:13.500 Some people can run five miles,
00:51:15.080 but they can't drag a body
00:51:16.540 if they need to.
00:51:18.320 Okay, but obviously
00:51:19.180 that's the reason
00:51:20.560 they have push-ups
00:51:21.300 on a physical fitness test.
00:51:22.260 It's not because
00:51:22.740 you're going to be doing push-ups
00:51:24.040 out on patrol.
00:51:25.840 It's not because
00:51:26.300 you're going to find yourself
00:51:27.440 in a push-up contest
00:51:28.280 with the bad guys.
00:51:29.480 That's not the point.
00:51:30.960 It's just a way,
00:51:31.580 it's an exercise
00:51:32.440 to show that you have
00:51:33.900 the requisite
00:51:35.680 upper body strength.
00:51:37.500 So you might not
00:51:38.580 be doing push-ups,
00:51:39.800 but you are going
00:51:41.580 to be doing things
00:51:42.040 that require
00:51:42.420 upper body strength.
00:51:43.440 I'm sure you would agree.
00:51:45.620 You may not be running
00:51:47.140 one and a half miles
00:51:48.620 at a time,
00:51:49.520 most of the time
00:51:50.220 when you're a cop,
00:51:50.980 but you are going
00:51:52.120 to be doing things
00:51:52.660 that require endurance,
00:51:54.240 and that's what that tests.
00:51:56.880 That's the whole point
00:51:57.660 of the physical fitness test.
00:51:58.780 And so if you want to add,
00:52:04.920 if they decided that,
00:52:06.540 okay, we're going to add
00:52:07.440 to the physical fitness test
00:52:09.080 because we want
00:52:10.560 to incorporate more things
00:52:12.240 that involve agility
00:52:13.140 and so on,
00:52:14.160 fantastic,
00:52:14.880 then go ahead and do that.
00:52:16.760 But instead,
00:52:17.480 they're getting rid
00:52:18.200 of endurance,
00:52:20.940 upper body strength,
00:52:21.840 all the things
00:52:22.460 that women,
00:52:23.640 all the areas of testing
00:52:25.480 that women will likely fail,
00:52:26.960 they're taking those out.
00:52:27.860 And what they're doing
00:52:30.700 is they're specifically
00:52:31.440 looking for things
00:52:32.400 that women,
00:52:33.140 that the average,
00:52:34.520 it's not even just like
00:52:35.260 they're looking for things
00:52:36.380 that a very in-shape woman
00:52:37.640 will be able to do.
00:52:38.420 They're looking for things
00:52:39.060 that the average
00:52:39.860 out-of-shape woman
00:52:41.020 could do.
00:52:42.680 And that's how you end up
00:52:43.620 with a test
00:52:44.400 that involves hopping over
00:52:45.700 a fence
00:52:46.780 that's three and a half feet high.
00:52:48.940 It's ridiculous.
00:52:50.780 And as I said yesterday,
00:52:51.580 I'm not exaggerating
00:52:52.620 when I say,
00:52:53.560 you know,
00:52:53.680 you look at the
00:52:54.520 physical fitness test
00:52:56.060 as it currently is
00:52:56.900 and as it's currently
00:52:58.060 operated here in Nashville
00:52:59.420 for the cops.
00:53:00.940 I'm not exaggerating
00:53:01.940 when I say that
00:53:02.460 all of my kids,
00:53:05.000 well,
00:53:05.300 maybe with the exception
00:53:05.960 of our one-year-old twins,
00:53:08.140 they might struggle,
00:53:09.600 but from our four-year-old daughter
00:53:12.020 up until our 10-year-old twins,
00:53:13.860 all of them
00:53:14.520 would kill that course.
00:53:16.320 I mean,
00:53:16.580 they would annihilate that course,
00:53:18.540 especially my 10-year-old,
00:53:19.840 my 10-year-old son,
00:53:20.560 he would annihilate it.
00:53:22.120 And that shouldn't be the case.
00:53:24.420 You know,
00:53:24.580 I don't think
00:53:24.880 this is a radical suggestion.
00:53:27.900 If you have a physical fitness test
00:53:29.440 for law enforcement officers
00:53:31.140 who are tasked
00:53:32.440 with going out
00:53:33.300 and physically detaining
00:53:34.940 dangerous people,
00:53:37.460 if you have a physical fitness test
00:53:38.660 that my 10-year-old son
00:53:40.260 could easily pass
00:53:41.660 and would be like
00:53:43.100 near the top of the class,
00:53:44.380 probably,
00:53:45.380 then there's a problem
00:53:46.520 with the physical fitness test.
00:53:48.540 Finally,
00:53:49.380 fair enough,
00:53:51.000 but how many fat male cops
00:53:52.320 can do this?
00:53:53.180 Why do we accept people
00:53:54.440 for police duty
00:53:54.980 that are obese
00:53:55.660 and out of shape?
00:53:56.460 Yeah,
00:53:56.840 I mean,
00:53:57.280 I totally agree.
00:53:58.640 There are plenty
00:53:59.380 of out-of-shape male cops,
00:54:01.280 and that's why I said
00:54:03.300 we should be raising
00:54:04.020 the standards,
00:54:04.620 not lowering them.
00:54:06.620 Okay,
00:54:06.880 rather than looking around
00:54:07.820 and saying,
00:54:08.060 well,
00:54:08.100 we've got a lot
00:54:08.420 of out-of-shape male cops,
00:54:09.420 might as well have some,
00:54:10.280 you know,
00:54:10.520 we might as well
00:54:10.840 throw some female cops in too.
00:54:12.860 Rather than doing that,
00:54:13.720 we should be going
00:54:14.100 the other direction
00:54:14.720 and saying,
00:54:15.180 well,
00:54:15.240 we've got a lot
00:54:15.660 of out-of-shape
00:54:16.220 police officers.
00:54:17.580 How do we fix that problem?
00:54:21.180 You know,
00:54:21.300 how do we raise
00:54:21.840 the standards here
00:54:22.700 to make sure
00:54:23.200 that police officers
00:54:23.860 are in better physical shape?
00:54:25.980 Which,
00:54:26.660 and that is the thing,
00:54:27.580 if you're worried
00:54:28.100 about stuff like
00:54:29.020 excessive use of force,
00:54:30.940 police brutality,
00:54:31.920 if you're worried
00:54:32.360 especially about
00:54:33.820 the gun
00:54:35.160 or the taser
00:54:35.760 being pulled out
00:54:36.560 in situations
00:54:37.160 where it wasn't necessary,
00:54:38.080 if you're worried
00:54:38.740 about that,
00:54:39.960 the number one thing
00:54:40.780 you could do about it
00:54:41.640 is to make sure
00:54:42.800 that police officers
00:54:43.660 are physically fit,
00:54:45.300 are strong enough
00:54:46.760 that they don't have
00:54:47.980 to resort
00:54:48.500 to those measures
00:54:49.280 in situations
00:54:50.380 where it is not
00:54:51.380 absolutely necessary.
00:54:53.360 Is the future
00:54:53.940 of America doomed?
00:54:55.520 A majority of Gen Z
00:54:56.400 supports left-wing policies
00:54:57.820 like open borders
00:54:58.580 and socialism.
00:54:59.680 If we don't reach them
00:55:00.600 and change their minds,
00:55:01.720 the country we know and love
00:55:02.740 will be lost forever.
00:55:04.360 PragerU is the leading
00:55:05.220 non-profit
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00:56:38.240 for cannibalism.
00:56:39.540 First,
00:56:39.860 there were the reports
00:56:40.580 of cannibal gangs
00:56:41.600 running wild
00:56:42.340 in the failed state of Haiti.
00:56:43.780 These are reports
00:56:44.380 that Elon Musk,
00:56:45.240 myself,
00:56:45.640 and others
00:56:45.940 have discussed
00:56:46.440 over the past few weeks
00:56:47.300 which led,
00:56:47.760 of course,
00:56:48.420 to the media
00:56:48.880 scolding us
00:56:49.660 for discussing it.
00:56:50.640 On Wednesday last week,
00:56:51.700 NBC News published
00:56:52.540 an article
00:56:53.020 with this headline,
00:56:54.520 quote,
00:56:54.720 Elon Musk
00:56:55.220 and right-wing influencers
00:56:56.160 use cannibal claims
00:56:57.360 to smear Haitian migrants
00:56:58.900 amid crisis.
00:57:00.280 The article begins
00:57:00.820 this way,
00:57:01.220 quote,
00:57:02.480 as Haiti faces
00:57:03.300 an extreme political
00:57:04.100 and societal crisis
00:57:04.880 amid a wave
00:57:05.400 of intense violence,
00:57:06.700 tech billionaire
00:57:07.220 Elon Musk
00:57:07.840 and right-wing pundits
00:57:08.640 online are weaponizing
00:57:09.680 unverified claims
00:57:10.700 of cannibalism
00:57:11.460 coming out of the conflict
00:57:12.840 to advance a political
00:57:13.760 agenda on immigration.
00:57:15.080 And later,
00:57:15.440 it continues,
00:57:15.920 quote,
00:57:16.360 Musk shared a video
00:57:17.120 from far-right commentator
00:57:18.220 Matt Walsh
00:57:18.800 about cannibal hordes
00:57:19.900 of Haitians
00:57:20.880 potentially migrating
00:57:22.300 to the U.S.
00:57:22.900 And as of late Tuesday,
00:57:23.880 it had received
00:57:24.420 more than 10 million views.
00:57:25.740 Musk has also boosted
00:57:26.660 some of Ian Miles Chong's
00:57:29.100 posts about alleged
00:57:30.320 Haitian cannibalism
00:57:31.260 with replies and likes.
00:57:32.880 Representatives for Musk
00:57:33.720 and Walsh
00:57:34.200 did not respond
00:57:35.180 to requests for comment.
00:57:36.880 Based on the reporting here,
00:57:38.000 it seems like
00:57:38.840 we're just making up
00:57:39.960 the stuff about cannibals
00:57:41.340 in Haiti.
00:57:41.900 This is all some kind
00:57:42.640 of far-right fever dream
00:57:43.960 by the sound of it.
00:57:45.120 But then you continue on
00:57:46.000 to paragraph four
00:57:47.560 of this article
00:57:48.420 and you find this,
00:57:50.100 quote,
00:57:50.980 the accusations
00:57:51.620 of widespread cannibalism
00:57:52.760 are based on what
00:57:53.360 experts said
00:57:53.920 was a likely intimidation
00:57:55.760 tactic from select
00:57:56.880 gang members.
00:57:57.700 In some videos,
00:57:58.340 the most prominent examples
00:57:59.300 being at least two years old,
00:58:00.800 alleged members
00:58:01.380 of violent gangs
00:58:02.060 in Haiti appear
00:58:02.680 to bite into human flesh.
00:58:04.200 Experts said,
00:58:04.980 these videos are likely
00:58:05.720 part of propaganda campaigns
00:58:07.060 designed to scare rivals
00:58:08.400 and terrorize local Haitians
00:58:09.700 rather than a reflection
00:58:11.220 of common
00:58:12.000 or normalized behavior.
00:58:13.960 One former armed group
00:58:15.120 went by the name
00:58:15.860 Cannibal Army.
00:58:16.840 So in other words,
00:58:18.760 the claims of cannibalism
00:58:19.940 are unverified
00:58:20.780 until NBC News
00:58:21.860 verifies the claims
00:58:23.140 themselves
00:58:23.760 in the very same article
00:58:25.020 where they call
00:58:26.060 the claims unverified.
00:58:27.780 In fact,
00:58:28.140 according to this article
00:58:28.860 meant to debunk
00:58:29.600 claims of cannibalism
00:58:30.560 in Haiti,
00:58:30.840 it turns out
00:58:31.300 that cannibalism in Haiti
00:58:32.680 is even worse
00:58:33.480 than I thought
00:58:34.040 because when I did
00:58:34.860 that monologue,
00:58:35.540 I didn't know
00:58:36.100 that there was an army,
00:58:37.300 there was an armed gang
00:58:38.380 in Haiti
00:58:39.000 literally called
00:58:40.160 the Cannibal Army.
00:58:41.800 I didn't even know that.
00:58:43.240 I regret that I didn't know that.
00:58:44.620 Otherwise,
00:58:45.020 I would have put it
00:58:45.720 in the title of the episode.
00:58:47.640 And don't worry, though.
00:58:48.620 These are not
00:58:49.640 the bad kinds of cannibals,
00:58:51.260 right?
00:58:51.500 These cannibals,
00:58:52.760 you know,
00:58:52.940 they're only eating people
00:58:54.040 in order to send a message.
00:58:55.580 It's just a gag,
00:58:56.620 a big prank,
00:58:57.840 maybe even a form
00:58:58.840 of artistic expression,
00:58:59.860 you might say.
00:59:00.620 They're just trying
00:59:01.300 to make a point.
00:59:02.480 And the point
00:59:03.320 is that they're cannibals.
00:59:05.700 But as I mentioned
00:59:06.560 at the top,
00:59:07.080 Haiti's Cannibal Army
00:59:07.980 and NBC's defense of them
00:59:09.640 isn't the only big cannibal news
00:59:11.720 of the past month.
00:59:12.760 There's also been
00:59:13.240 a much more explicit
00:59:14.320 and full-throated defense
00:59:16.280 offered by a website
00:59:17.600 called New Scientist.
00:59:19.240 And the science here
00:59:20.920 that they're talking about,
00:59:22.140 I must say,
00:59:22.800 is very,
00:59:23.780 very new indeed.
00:59:25.120 A few weeks ago
00:59:25.940 on Valentine's Day
00:59:26.660 of all days,
00:59:27.560 the supposed science news outlet
00:59:28.720 published an article
00:59:29.440 with this darkly hilarious headline,
00:59:31.840 quote,
00:59:32.040 Is it time for a more subtle view
00:59:34.900 on the ultimate taboo,
00:59:36.680 cannibalism?
00:59:38.340 Yes, because when you think
00:59:39.480 of cannibalism,
00:59:40.280 the first word that comes
00:59:41.060 to mind is subtle.
00:59:42.980 You don't want to be
00:59:43.680 an obnoxious,
00:59:44.580 over-the-top cannibal, right?
00:59:46.300 Rather, you should be subtle
00:59:47.680 and refined
00:59:48.880 and nuanced
00:59:49.720 in your cannibalism.
00:59:51.480 Because cannibalism itself
00:59:52.440 really isn't all that bad,
00:59:53.600 says the New Scientist
00:59:54.460 in an article that is,
00:59:55.960 as you can imagine,
00:59:57.060 very tough to swallow,
00:59:58.160 pun intended.
00:59:58.740 Reading on,
00:59:59.820 It is the ultimate taboo.
01:00:01.020 In most societies,
01:00:01.960 the idea of one human
01:00:03.260 eating another
01:00:03.820 is morally repugnant.
01:00:05.400 Even in circumstances
01:00:06.300 where it could arguably
01:00:07.460 be justified,
01:00:08.180 such as when a plane crashed
01:00:09.300 in the Andes in 1972
01:00:10.420 and starving passengers
01:00:12.040 ate the dead to survive,
01:00:13.440 we still have a deep
01:00:14.380 aversion to cannibalism.
01:00:15.760 One of the survivors,
01:00:16.560 Roberto Canessa,
01:00:17.740 has since described
01:00:18.580 the passengers' actions
01:00:19.500 as a descent
01:00:20.340 towards our ultimate indignity.
01:00:22.760 Now, this part
01:00:23.320 is the requisite preamble
01:00:25.600 acknowledging that,
01:00:26.560 sure,
01:00:26.880 most people think
01:00:27.680 cannibalism is bad,
01:00:29.520 but the writer
01:00:29.920 doesn't waste much time
01:00:30.980 on this.
01:00:31.400 And side note,
01:00:31.940 speaking of the writer,
01:00:33.020 there is no byline
01:00:34.020 on this article.
01:00:34.900 There is no author named.
01:00:36.680 Probably because
01:00:37.440 the author,
01:00:37.940 whoever it is,
01:00:38.860 doesn't want to ruin
01:00:39.520 the surprise
01:00:40.120 for his dinner party
01:00:40.960 guests this weekend.
01:00:42.380 And anyway,
01:00:42.860 as I said,
01:00:43.240 he doesn't waste much time
01:00:44.320 before getting into
01:00:45.080 the meat of the issue,
01:00:46.120 pun intended.
01:00:46.800 Quote,
01:00:47.520 ethically,
01:00:48.120 cannibalism poses
01:00:48.880 fewer issues
01:00:49.660 than you might imagine.
01:00:51.140 If a body can be
01:00:52.060 bequeathed with consent
01:00:53.220 to medical science,
01:00:54.300 why can't it be left
01:00:55.080 to feed the hungry?
01:00:56.300 Our aversion
01:00:56.780 has been explained
01:00:57.420 in various ways.
01:00:58.260 Perhaps it is down
01:00:58.900 to the fact that
01:00:59.520 in Western religious traditions,
01:01:01.220 bodies are seen
01:01:01.860 as the seat of the soul
01:01:02.980 and have a whiff
01:01:03.600 of the sacred.
01:01:04.680 Or maybe it is
01:01:05.520 culturally ingrained
01:01:06.420 with roots in early
01:01:07.340 modern colonialism,
01:01:08.780 when racist stereotypes
01:01:09.780 of the cannibal
01:01:10.500 were concocted
01:01:11.240 to justify subjugation.
01:01:12.820 These came to represent
01:01:13.880 the other
01:01:14.480 to Western societies,
01:01:15.660 and revulsion
01:01:16.100 towards cannibalism
01:01:16.820 became a tenet
01:01:17.600 of their moral conscience.
01:01:19.280 Now,
01:01:20.780 I want you to think
01:01:22.340 about that sentence again.
01:01:24.000 Racist stereotypes
01:01:25.000 of the cannibal
01:01:26.040 were concocted
01:01:27.620 to justify subjugation.
01:01:29.940 To be clear,
01:01:30.840 the writer,
01:01:31.420 who for no reason
01:01:32.300 will just nickname
01:01:33.100 Jeffrey Dahmer
01:01:33.800 since there is no byline,
01:01:35.620 the writer,
01:01:36.120 Dahmer,
01:01:36.700 isn't claiming
01:01:37.880 that people were called
01:01:39.320 cannibals
01:01:40.060 for racist reasons.
01:01:41.060 He isn't saying
01:01:41.560 that the label
01:01:42.580 was placed unfairly
01:01:44.260 on people
01:01:44.880 because those
01:01:46.120 doing the label
01:01:46.740 were racist.
01:01:47.240 That's not what he's saying.
01:01:47.720 Rather, Dahmer here
01:01:49.060 is arguing
01:01:49.500 that actual cannibals
01:01:51.300 were viewed
01:01:51.940 in a negative light
01:01:53.080 because of racism.
01:01:54.700 To see cannibalism
01:01:56.100 in a negative light
01:01:57.080 is racist
01:01:57.980 is what is being argued.
01:02:00.460 So if early settlers
01:02:01.480 had been more progressive
01:02:02.640 and open-minded,
01:02:03.820 they would have celebrated
01:02:05.000 the cannibalism
01:02:05.680 of primitive tribes.
01:02:06.840 They would have even
01:02:07.500 offered themselves up
01:02:08.600 as dinner
01:02:09.060 just to be equitable.
01:02:10.620 That's how you avoid
01:02:11.380 stereotyping cannibals,
01:02:12.520 I suppose.
01:02:14.000 Except the problem is that
01:02:14.980 there's really only
01:02:16.320 one stereotype
01:02:17.360 of cannibals
01:02:18.340 that anyone
01:02:18.800 has in their minds
01:02:19.660 and it's one
01:02:21.080 that is inherently
01:02:21.880 negative.
01:02:23.200 The stereotype
01:02:23.840 of cannibals
01:02:24.680 is that they engage
01:02:25.760 in cannibalism.
01:02:27.020 That's really
01:02:27.520 the only stereotype.
01:02:28.300 It's the only one
01:02:28.720 you need.
01:02:29.700 It's enough reason
01:02:30.620 to condemn them.
01:02:32.080 There's really no reason
01:02:32.840 to add to the list
01:02:33.680 from there.
01:02:34.760 The article wraps up
01:02:35.820 this way
01:02:36.860 with some more
01:02:37.540 food for thought,
01:02:38.300 pun intended.
01:02:38.940 Quote,
01:02:39.480 a slew of recent
01:02:40.280 archaeological discoveries
01:02:41.340 is now further
01:02:42.140 complicating how we
01:02:43.280 think about human
01:02:43.880 cannibalism.
01:02:45.140 Researchers have
01:02:45.800 unearthed evidence
01:02:46.620 suggesting that our
01:02:47.400 hominem ancestors
01:02:48.620 ate each other
01:02:49.660 surprisingly often.
01:02:51.240 What's more,
01:02:51.680 it seems,
01:02:52.260 that they weren't
01:02:52.720 always doing so
01:02:53.440 for the reasons
01:02:53.940 you might expect,
01:02:54.660 for sustenance
01:02:55.300 or to compete
01:02:55.840 against and intimidate
01:02:57.060 rivals,
01:02:57.560 but often as funerary
01:02:59.720 rituals to honor
01:03:00.540 the dead.
01:03:01.620 Like it or not,
01:03:02.800 then cannibalism
01:03:03.720 is an important
01:03:04.220 part of our story.
01:03:06.020 This isn't to say
01:03:06.640 that we should change
01:03:07.500 our attitudes towards it,
01:03:08.660 but understanding
01:03:09.360 its deep roots
01:03:10.100 might shift our
01:03:10.980 perspective on the
01:03:11.760 few cultures that
01:03:12.420 still practice
01:03:13.040 cannibalism today,
01:03:13.980 albeit only occasionally,
01:03:15.000 such as the Aghori,
01:03:16.580 a Hinduist
01:03:17.160 aesthetic sect
01:03:17.940 in India
01:03:18.400 that does it
01:03:19.360 in pursuit of
01:03:19.820 transcendence.
01:03:20.740 Above all,
01:03:21.460 these discoveries
01:03:22.000 invite us to
01:03:22.580 reconsider our
01:03:23.440 revulsion to
01:03:24.060 cannibalism in the
01:03:24.820 context of our
01:03:25.660 evolutionary past.
01:03:27.560 By the way,
01:03:28.320 before we respond
01:03:29.780 to this,
01:03:30.180 I should mention
01:03:30.860 that there is
01:03:31.860 a second article
01:03:32.760 on this website
01:03:33.660 making the same
01:03:34.620 argument for
01:03:35.220 cannibalism.
01:03:35.860 It was published
01:03:36.520 on the same day
01:03:37.520 and seems to be
01:03:38.780 a version of the
01:03:39.440 same article,
01:03:40.240 and I don't know
01:03:40.680 exactly what's going
01:03:41.200 on there,
01:03:41.560 but it adds this,
01:03:42.340 quote,
01:03:42.460 today cannibalism
01:03:44.080 is a taboo
01:03:44.680 subject in many
01:03:45.320 societies.
01:03:46.320 We see it as
01:03:46.780 aberrant,
01:03:47.340 as it is clear
01:03:48.240 in films such as
01:03:48.960 the Texas Chainsaw
01:03:49.820 Massacre.
01:03:50.780 We associate it
01:03:51.420 with zombies,
01:03:52.340 psychopaths,
01:03:53.040 and serial killers
01:03:53.680 like the fictional
01:03:54.500 Hannibal Lecter.
01:03:55.880 Positive stories
01:03:56.760 of cannibals
01:03:57.360 are few and far
01:03:58.100 between,
01:03:59.140 but perhaps it's
01:03:59.740 time for a rethink
01:04:00.720 because despite
01:04:01.460 our preconceptions,
01:04:02.460 evidence is
01:04:02.820 accumulating that
01:04:03.880 cannibalism was a
01:04:04.620 common human
01:04:05.160 behavior.
01:04:06.040 Our ancestors
01:04:06.500 have been eating
01:04:07.080 each other for a
01:04:07.800 million years or
01:04:08.460 more.
01:04:08.720 In fact,
01:04:09.280 it seems that
01:04:09.800 down the ages
01:04:10.400 around a fifth of
01:04:11.680 societies
01:04:12.040 have practiced
01:04:12.980 cannibalism.
01:04:14.000 While some of
01:04:14.440 this people eating
01:04:15.520 may have been
01:04:16.080 done simply to
01:04:16.700 survive,
01:04:17.040 in many cases,
01:04:17.840 the reasons look
01:04:18.400 more complex.
01:04:19.480 In places like
01:04:19.980 Go's Cave,
01:04:21.300 for example,
01:04:22.760 consuming the
01:04:23.320 bodies of the
01:04:23.920 dead seems to
01:04:24.800 have been a
01:04:25.280 funerary ritual.
01:04:26.260 Far from a
01:04:26.700 monstrous affront
01:04:27.300 to nature,
01:04:27.780 cannibalism may be
01:04:28.540 a way of showing
01:04:29.100 respect and love
01:04:30.040 for the dead,
01:04:31.440 say some
01:04:32.000 archaeologists.
01:04:33.760 There's another
01:04:34.440 Hall of Fame
01:04:34.940 sentence for you.
01:04:36.180 Positive stories
01:04:37.160 of cannibals
01:04:38.000 are few and
01:04:39.120 far between.
01:04:39.780 I mean,
01:04:41.140 there's no
01:04:41.380 denying the
01:04:41.800 truth in that
01:04:42.240 statement,
01:04:42.600 you must admit.
01:04:44.260 I mean,
01:04:44.600 think about the
01:04:45.800 film industry
01:04:46.400 and the bias.
01:04:48.180 Popular depictions
01:04:48.860 of cannibals in
01:04:49.580 movies are almost
01:04:50.440 always negative.
01:04:52.120 Cannibals only ever
01:04:52.880 show up in horror
01:04:53.600 movies or extremely
01:04:55.200 depressing stories
01:04:56.040 about people in
01:04:56.600 survival situations
01:04:57.440 forced into
01:04:58.000 cannibalism.
01:04:59.340 When's the last
01:04:59.700 time you saw
01:05:00.180 cannibalism in a
01:05:01.200 more fun and
01:05:02.120 sort of positive
01:05:02.820 light?
01:05:04.100 Have you ever
01:05:04.500 seen, say,
01:05:05.100 a romantic comedy
01:05:06.040 about an uptight
01:05:06.880 guy from the
01:05:07.520 corporate world
01:05:08.080 falling in love
01:05:08.840 with a fun,
01:05:09.580 free-spirited
01:05:10.220 cannibal?
01:05:11.420 The two eventually
01:05:12.000 learn to see past
01:05:12.920 their differences.
01:05:13.680 The man learns to
01:05:14.420 appreciate the
01:05:15.520 woman's spontaneity.
01:05:17.280 The woman learns to
01:05:18.100 appreciate the man,
01:05:19.160 especially when he
01:05:19.700 serves with a side
01:05:20.460 of sweet potato
01:05:21.080 fries.
01:05:22.060 You never see a
01:05:22.900 movie like that,
01:05:23.920 probably because it
01:05:25.300 would be completely
01:05:25.800 insane.
01:05:27.100 Now, I don't think
01:05:28.420 I need to offer a
01:05:29.980 counter-argument to
01:05:32.040 explain why
01:05:32.600 cannibalism is bad,
01:05:33.640 actually.
01:05:34.600 If we get to the
01:05:35.260 point where a
01:05:35.700 sizable preponderance
01:05:36.580 of people actually
01:05:37.440 need to hear the
01:05:38.980 anti-cannibalism
01:05:39.800 argument, then it's
01:05:41.080 safe to say that
01:05:41.620 society is finished
01:05:42.360 anyway.
01:05:43.340 All I will say is
01:05:44.240 that this must be
01:05:46.560 okay because some
01:05:48.020 people did it in the
01:05:48.920 Stone Age is not a
01:05:50.900 compelling justification
01:05:51.580 for anything, least of
01:05:53.300 all cannibalism.
01:05:55.100 Primitive societies also
01:05:56.340 practice slavery, they
01:05:57.380 practice torture, they
01:05:58.440 practice rape as a
01:05:59.600 matter of course.
01:06:01.520 The only thing this
01:06:02.480 article has achieved,
01:06:03.420 aside from filling us
01:06:04.260 with a deep sense of
01:06:05.020 revulsion, is helping
01:06:06.120 to dispel the myth of
01:06:07.660 the noble savage.
01:06:09.400 Now, I don't think
01:06:10.180 that cannibalism was
01:06:10.940 quite as common as
01:06:11.660 they're making it seem
01:06:12.440 here, but it is true
01:06:14.180 that primitive cultures
01:06:14.980 were often quite savage
01:06:16.440 and barbaric.
01:06:17.360 In fact, primitive
01:06:17.940 cultures still exist,
01:06:19.360 and they are still
01:06:20.520 savage and barbaric.
01:06:22.480 Often these cultures
01:06:23.140 did not recognize the
01:06:24.440 dignity and sanctity of
01:06:25.500 the human person.
01:06:27.060 I mean, these are
01:06:27.440 cultures that would
01:06:27.940 worship trees and
01:06:29.040 rocks while treating
01:06:30.540 their fellow humans
01:06:31.520 with a level of
01:06:32.200 brutality that shocks
01:06:33.240 the conscience, or
01:06:34.940 shocks it anyway, if
01:06:36.260 you have a conscience,
01:06:37.040 to be shocked.
01:06:38.440 And this is where the
01:06:39.200 de-stigmatizing agenda
01:06:40.540 leads.
01:06:41.980 You know, some in our
01:06:42.560 culture have become
01:06:43.540 obsessed with rooting
01:06:44.440 out stigma wherever
01:06:45.360 they find it and
01:06:46.080 attempting to reprogram
01:06:47.260 society to celebrate
01:06:48.920 whatever the stigma
01:06:49.840 abhors.
01:06:50.520 But in most cases,
01:06:51.900 there is a reason why
01:06:53.180 the stigma was there.
01:06:54.620 And usually it's there
01:06:55.740 because we are
01:06:56.820 supposed to be
01:06:57.340 civilized people,
01:06:58.880 and the stigmatized
01:07:00.320 behavior makes us
01:07:01.460 uncivilized.
01:07:03.140 That's the main
01:07:03.860 reason why
01:07:04.940 civilization stigmatized
01:07:06.600 behavior.
01:07:08.540 And therefore, the
01:07:09.140 de-stigmatizing campaign
01:07:10.660 is almost always a
01:07:11.680 campaign to
01:07:12.340 uncivilize civilization,
01:07:14.580 which is to undo
01:07:15.880 civilization, to
01:07:16.740 destroy it, to drag
01:07:18.760 us back into
01:07:19.860 brutality and moral
01:07:21.220 chaos.
01:07:23.140 It's an effort that
01:07:24.060 should always be
01:07:24.540 resisted, especially
01:07:26.000 now that it has led
01:07:26.760 to this rather
01:07:27.880 stomach-churning
01:07:28.820 result, pun
01:07:29.800 intended.
01:07:30.100 And that is why
01:07:31.000 New Scientist
01:07:32.460 is today
01:07:33.580 canceled.
01:07:35.400 That'll do it for the
01:07:35.980 show today.
01:07:36.320 Thanks for watching.
01:07:36.820 Thanks for listening.
01:07:37.460 Talk to you tomorrow.
01:07:38.760 Godspeed.