My Chat with Journalist and Author Andy Ngo - On Defending the West (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_622)
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 13 minutes
Words per Minute
159.3315
Summary
Andy Ngo is a senior editor at the Post Millennial News and also a New York Times best-selling author. His book, God Damn You, Unmasked: Inside Antifa s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, came out in 2021.
Transcript
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Hey everybody, this is Gatsat's second interview this week while being unbelievably sick, but you
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know what? The defense of truth doesn't care if you've got a cold or a cough, and so here I am
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today with the intrepid and courageous journalist Andy Ngo, who is a senior editor at the Post
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Millennial News and also a New York Times best-selling author, god damn you, unmasked
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Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy came out in 2021. How are you doing, Andy?
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I'm very happy to be speaking with you. I've been looking forward to this.
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Likewise, it's been years where we've been saying, hey, when are you coming on and so on,
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and finally it's here. I asked you offline and you said I could share. You've now moved from the
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utopia of Portland, Oregon, where everybody sings Kumbaya, to London, which is greatly
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enriched by noble adherence of peace. How is that going?
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So I get asked similar questions all the time, like, is which place is worse? And
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the challenges that are posed in both places are very different. So Portland or many left-wing
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urban areas in the U.S. have elements of radical leftism where it's dominated in government and
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education. The judicial system is corrupt. The prosecutor's office are corrupt in that they
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turn a blind eye to left-wing political violence. So you can have arson, rioting, incitement to
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violence, death threats, maiming, and injuries of people. And you see over and over, if they're
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doing it for the leftist political reasons, they are not prosecuted or on the rare chance that they
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are. And actually convicted, they're given some type of sweetheart deal, no jail time, small fine.
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Whereas in the U.K., you don't. The criminal justice system is, in my view, less corrupt compared to the U.S.
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The way it's set up, it's less politicized. However, the challenges in Western Europe and in the U.K.
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are immense in that certain immigrant demographic communities are radicalized for more than two,
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for two generations, I would say. And you have some communities that operate in a separatist way.
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You have, and I mean, I'm speaking a bit euphemistically, but I know in your show,
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we can cut through the BS. I'm talking about Muslim communities. We've seen over and over how
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whenever there's conflict involving Israel, there's a rise in anti-Semitic attacks. There's also
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many more instances of Islamic terrorism here. And so that is an immensely deep challenge that they
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deal with here. It's very different than the other set of challenges that I just talked about in
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Portland and other places. Although now we're seeing an interesting phenomenon crystallize a bit
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more, particularly in the U.S., although it's happened more in Europe and the U.K. in that
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the coalition building between the radical left and the Islamists.
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Yeah. So Jamie Glazoff, are you familiar with him? Do you know who that is?
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Jamie Glazoff is, I think by training, is a historian. I think he got a PhD in history
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somewhere in Canada. I can't remember where. I think he now lives in Southern California.
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He wrote a book a few years ago. I hope I don't butcher the title. I think it was called
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United in Hate, where he specifically speaks exactly about the alliance that you just mentioned,
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the alliance between sort of the progressive left and the Islamists. And of course, the progressive
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left, I think their blind spot is that they think that somehow by uniting and going to bed with the
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hardcore Islamists, somehow they will be spared when, you know, if the Islamists were to ever take
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over, it's not as though they love the progressive left, correct?
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Well, that's correct. But we, I mean, with the radical left, they never have the interests of their
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own countrymen at heart. In fact, they hate their fellow citizens. And I mean, we see this just
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in recent days with all these queers for Palestine, trans for Palestine. I mean, these people are stupid,
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but they are also aware clearly of what happens to LGBTQ plus people in the Palestinian territories.
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I'm not only talking about Hamas run Gaza, I'm also talking about the Palestinian authority run
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West Bank, life is horrific for gay people there as well. And in spite of that, or perhaps because of
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that, one could even argue, they still show up for these demonstrations with these banners, with those
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who really would like to see them killed. Well, I mean, I just had a few days ago, I don't know if you've had a
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chance to look at it. If you haven't, please do. And I'm also imploring my listeners and viewers to
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watch it. I had two days ago, a Yemeni, who now lives in Sweden, activist. So of course, he was born
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into a Muslim family. So he understands Islam very well. He speaks Arabic, of course, as I do. And he
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happens to be a gay man. And so, you know, he, not surprisingly, he shared what, you know, what would
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happen to you in Yemen if you were openly gay, if somebody found out, and so on. And it's really
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quite remarkable that it doesn't matter how much evidence you provide to parasitized Western minds,
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somehow they know better, right? The person in Portland, or in New York, walking around with the
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banners, Queers for Palestine, knows better about the reality of gay life in the Middle East,
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than this gentleman. His name is Luwai Ahmed. Is there any way, I mean, yes, I wrote the book
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called The Parasitic Mind, but I'm growing increasingly pessimistic at the possibility
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of being able to offer people inoculation against these parasitic thoughts. Are you more hopeful than I
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am? I'm not, I'm actually very pessimistic, I think. For several years now, we see that there is a
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consistently ready supply of essential foot, essentially foot soldiers for leftist causes,
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young people, adolescents, youth, many of them who have been radicalized in the public education
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systems. And we're not talking only about universities anymore. We that that's a discussion
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from 10 years ago. Now we're seeing it in the high schools, junior highs, and even primary schools.
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One troubling trend that's been adopted in the UK, very recently, just in the last 48 hours. Now there
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are these school strikes for Palestine that are sort of emulating what we've seen happen in the US
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class previously for either BLM or for up for Palestinian causes. Now we have in Muslim areas,
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students skipping class to go out and protest. I just went to one of these predominantly Muslim
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boroughs to observe and to document what's going on. And unsurprisingly, as I've written out about
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before it, it is a parallel society. I'm not just talking about it happening to be a Muslim majority
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borough, you see a whole different set of different values, obviously different religious practices,
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but how life is oriented is entirely different. And in my view, the I mean, it's a sign of Islamist
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separatism when you have children, girls who are all entirely veiled, some of them even not just wearing a
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hijab, but actually even covering their faces. Last week, we saw similar scenes in Brooklyn, New York,
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of these children, many of them wearing niqabs, shouting, not just Allahu Akbar, but also other
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Islamic chants and going around intimidating Jewish owned businesses in Brooklyn. And these type of scenes
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are now that it's happening more and more, I'm concerned that people have just sort of accepted
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that this is, well, obviously, this is life in Europe, but this is relatively new to the US,
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this type of open Islamist activism in terms of the crowds that we're seeing, and the youth that are
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involved. And we don't really see people talking about it. There's kind of banal statements by some
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politicians, Democrats who've talked about anti Semitism and all that. But I don't think it's
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really getting to the, like the deeper issue. Yes, it's anti Semitism and a lot of this, but there's
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also there's more going on. Yeah, you know, about two, I can't remember if it was about two weeks ago,
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maybe I put out a tweet that went really, really viral. I don't know how many people, 11, 12,
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15 million people saw it, it got all kinds of attention. And one of the reasons I think it got
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a lot of attention is because people were surprised by the somber tone that that tweet took, where
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usually, even when I'm dealing with very serious issues, I can always find a way to be sarcastic,
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or humorous, or flippant, or jovial. But here, it was very dark, because it was really reflecting
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my, you know, ever growing realization that there's a perfect confluence of factors that makes
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the problem almost intractable. Let me explain and I'll have you weigh in. You know, if, if your
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physician tells you, God forbid that, you know, you have stage four cancer, and then, you know,
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here are some intervention strategies that we can try to hopefully beat it. And then your answer is,
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well, first of all, there is no such thing as cancer. And if there is such a thing as cancer,
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it's probably the Jews who did it. And probably they have the cure for cancer, and they're withholding
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it because they're trying to make money. And as a matter of fact, I'm going to smoke four packs a day
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and inhale a bag of asbestos, because I want to prove to you that there is no such thing as cancer.
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That's really what you're seeing in the West, which is, you know, there are opportunities to correct,
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to auto correct now and do things that hopefully will ensure that our grandchildren will have,
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you know, a better society than the one we're currently facing. But there is absolutely no
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stomach from Western leaders to implement or even discuss some of the strategies that need
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to be implemented. And of course, I, as you said, this is a no bullshit show. The reality is when you let
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in millions of people who do not share, many of whom do not share, and when I say many,
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it's not 20% don't share, you know, you've got Pew surveys that show that people coming from the
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Middle East have about a 95 to 99% expressed Jew hatred. Well, then it's not surprising that when
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the numbers of immigrants coming from those cultures reach a certain tipping point, you're going to have
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increased Jew hatred, you don't need to be a fancy professor to get that. So is there a way to eventually
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break through to our policymakers? I mean, I know that in Britain, there was a woman who was recently
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fired as home secretary, who was trying to talk about this. And her reward was, she was summarily
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fired. Do we have any hope Andy? So, in the US, I asked myself, actually, what can be done given sort of
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the the legal framework around protections with the free speech in the First Amendment. So some of the
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interventions that have happened on the some countries in Western Europe, so in the UK, they,
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there's incitement to racial hatred is illegal. And this is the legislation that is being used to
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arrest a number of suspects that have been arrested at these pro Palestine pro Hamas rallies, and also
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expressing support or inviting support for banned terrorist groups is also criminal offence here
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in the UK. So some people have been arrested, and are facing charges based on that there's the
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similar legislation that exists in other countries in the EU as well. France banned the pro Palestine
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rallies and fear of knowing that, you know, anti semitic incitement of violence would occur.
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Germany's restricted and ban a number of them as well. So those type of interventions cannot take place
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legally in the US because of the First Amendment. And so I, I don't, I don't have a good sort of,
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I haven't thought of any way, at least within America that you could really challenge at the legal
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level, some of these issues that we're seeing, because fundamentally, it is a speech issue. And
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what I've seen some people on the right struggle with for the last few, since the 7th of October,
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is like, people who previously have described themselves as very free speech absolutists are kind
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of now really struggling with seeing, well, we are having an environment where this type of incitement to
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terrorism, incitement to hatred is, is being allowed and, and, and done with impunity, because it can be.
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So I'll, I'll give my remedy, which I'm not sure if it works within the legal framework of the United
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States. I am a free speech absolutist. You probably heard me mention in the past that I support the
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right of Holocaust deniers to deny the Holocaust. It is almost inconceivable to think of something more
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insulting and offensive than that, right? The wholesale industrial scale level eradication of an entire
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people that's obviously fully historically documented. Someone can get up and say, well,
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it didn't happen. And if it did happen, it was only 2000 Jews that were killed, not 6 million.
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And yet I recognize that in a free society, you have to, you have to be able to tolerate the most
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offensive speech. But on the other hand, and I don't think this violates my commitment to
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free speech absolutism. I think that you could have belief systems that by their very nature are
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a incitement to violence. In other words, the DNA of their content is such that there is,
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you know, I mean, I can literally quote all the passages from those particular belief systems that
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are direct incitements to violence. So the only way that I could see this being resolved,
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although I understand that with the, uh, the, the, uh, the tradition of having freedom of
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conscience of the United States, it might be difficult to go after religious beliefs.
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It might need to be the case that certain religious tenants are viewed as seditious. They are,
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they are, they are literally treasonous against the host nation. And that will be the only way that you
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would be able to deal with it. But I don't see that the West in general, and even the United States
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with this first amendment protection ever having the stomach to do that.
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Um, I think one possible way that, um, these ideas could be challenged outside of like a criminal
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justice system is if civil society was quite, um, equipped to recognize this type of extremist
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language and views and, and to challenge it, such as in America, what they do for like far-right neo
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Nazi type groups. You have all these so-called hate watch groups. Uh, the media is obviously very
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good at it and there's so much, um, focus on it. Actually, I think what's happened is that,
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um, they've painted a narrative that like the, the threat to democracy, the threat to, uh, everything
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American freedom and in minorities and all that is only coming from the right and the far right.
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And so all these organizations, many of them have a lot of money. I'm talking about like SPLC,
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ADL and others. They, now that they've been forced to, um, well, hopefully they've been forced to
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recognize that, um, there's all this, uh, Jew hatred that's operating on the left and, and among many
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Muslim Americans. Unfortunately, they don't have the tools, um, to deal with it at all. And neither
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does the media. And I guess this speaks more broadly to the precepticized mind that you, you write
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about and speak about, um, the institutions that these people are a part of have, have been captured as
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well. So it's, I mean, even if they, there's no will also to even, you know, confront, uh, these
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challenges, um, in their own organizations to just to better inform the public.
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And I think, so, you know, I've, I've long thought about all these issues. I've been talking about them
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for decades. There is something in the Western mind that views it as incredibly gauche to criticize
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a religion, right? That's sacrosanct, right? But of course, religions don't come in the same form. An
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extremist Jainist, right? It's someone who practices Jainism is someone who really goes out of their way
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to not step on ants, right? So if you, if you know the practice of Jains, they walk around with a sweep,
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with a broom, and they sweep the floor as they walk because they don't want to inadvertently
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step on any living organism. So someone who is a fundamentalist Jainist, who really takes
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their religion seriously, is really sweeping the street as they walk to not, uh, you know,
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squash an ant. Now, extremists or fundamentalists of other religions, because they're operating with
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a different memoplex, a different set of ideas, are going to arrive to different behavioral patterns
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as a result of their commitment to their religion. But yet the Western mind, because it has been so
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inculcated with this notion that, you know, the US was founded on religious liberties, so there is no
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instinctual reflex for the, for a Western or American person to say, no, I am in the right to criticize
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these tenets from this particular religion. And I think what allows this to happen is another idea,
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pathogen, cultural relativism, right? Who are you to judge whether other cultures view it okay to cut
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off the clitorises of five-year-old girls? If you do that, Andy, you are a cultural imperialist. Don't
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impose your standards on another. So because of these cocktails, it leaves us completely exposed and
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vulnerable. So I observed, um, in, in the US and Canada that actually there's quite a lot of, um,
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hatred of Christianity and insulting of people with Christian beliefs. That's, um, for a long time,
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the, the one religion that people in public, politicians included, feel comfortable insulting
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and degrading. And I, and I make this observation as somebody who is not religious myself, by the way.
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Um, it, I think, um, I mean, I guess I would be less irritated about this if it was sort of a free-for-all
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for all religious beliefs, but certain religious beliefs are, um, particularly with Islam are quite,
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are treated as, um, sector sacrosanct and above criticism. Um, I think partially, uh, a lot of that's
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motivated by this relativism that you, you just talked about. Some of it's motivated by just left-wing
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ethics and views. And then some of it's motivated by fears as well. Um, there's just, there's just
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been too many terrorist attacks in the West related to people who have been accused of blasphemy. Um,
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so yeah, that's, um, that's really the reality we, we live in. And going back to what we were just
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talking a moment ago about, um, what can be done either through civil society or through governments,
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you know, I think the, the approaches that have been done in, in the UK and the EU are really
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band-aid. Um, Exactly. They're small band-aids. I mean, okay, you, you charge somebody with incitement,
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somebody is convicted of incitement to hatred, racial hatred. Um, there's usually a fine. Um, and then,
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I mean, that doesn't really solve like the bigger issues that are happening in some of these
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communities. Um, uh, and you mentioned Suala Braverman who is the, um, the head of the, um,
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the home office in the UK and that's equivalent of DHS, uh, in the US. Yeah. And she was just fired,
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uh, earlier this week and she was very brave in many of what she, her open criticisms of multiculturalism and,
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and she branded these Palestinian marches as hate marches. And that was, I mean, she was absolutely
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destroyed in the press and by the chartering classes. Um, and, and now David Cameron's brought
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back in as a, in a cabinet office, former prime minister, David Cameron. I mean, it was under
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when he was prime minister that there were, there were all these IS Islamic state attacks and all
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these British citizens were, um, leaving to go to Iraq and Syria. And the government was scrambling to
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find like, what let's identify what British values are so we can try to make society more cohesive. And they
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defined it as, um, tolerance and democracy. I mean, that's, that's not an identity that,
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sorry, in my view, that's an, that's not an identity that Muslims are going to buy into
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So a couple of points, number one, regarding your bandaid stuff, here's an analogy that I've used to,
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to, to demonstrate the inefficacy of a lot of these bands, you know, let's ban the pro Hamas.
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Yes. I mean, okay, sure. It's, it's a step forward, but the analogy that I would use is your hair is on
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fire. And rather than putting out your hair being on fire, you seek ways to deal with the dandruff
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in your hair, right? So I'm going to handle the dandruff, but the fact that my hair is literally on
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fire, that's just secondary. I won't worry about that. So that, so I'm completely on board, but you
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know, the, the issue of, uh, you know, trying to inculcate some of these, uh, immigrants with,
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you know, quote British values that speaks to a point. I'm actually thinking of writing a, uh,
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an article for one of the popular outlets on this. So are you familiar, Andy? And if you're not,
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that's fine. I'll explain it. Are you familiar with the notion of theory of mind? Do you know what
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that is? Have you heard that? Please explain. Theory of mind is a psychological ability that basically
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argues that for humans to engage in meaningful dialogue, we're a social species. You and I
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have to talk to each other, negotiate reality. I have to have theory of mind to be able to have
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a meaningful conversation with you. Meaning what? I have to put myself in your mind to know what you
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might be thinking and you do the same with me. And the ability to have reciprocal theory of mind
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allows us to typically communicate in a hopefully productive way. One of the things that you do with
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people that, uh, children that you think might be autistic is you actually, from a very young age,
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give them a test to measure if they have theory of mind. So by a certain age, a child should be able
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to put themselves in the mind of another in solving some task and autistic children fail theory of mind.
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Now you might say, well, okay, well, what are you talking about? Does that relate to what we're
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talking about? So I am proposing that there is a form of lack of cultural theory of mind in the West.
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So rather than me talking about, I may or may not have theory of mind when it comes to interacting
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with Andy, no, it's, do I have cultural theory of mind? Meaning do I understand, for example, the
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middle Eastern mindset to be able to know what are the values that, you know, incite them to do the
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things that they do and do they share my values? And of course the West doesn't have cultural theory
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of mind. I argue precisely for what you said, which is they view that if you're tolerant, if you're
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magnanimous, if you're infinitely kind, if you're infinitely generous, if you're infinitely welcoming,
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those values are so virtuous that they will have an impact on the one to whom you're imparting those
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values. Whereas as someone who comes from the Middle East, I could tell you that what that is communicated to
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many folks in this region is weakness, weakness, weakness, weakness to be conquered. And so that's an
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intractable problem because if you don't understand what are the values that are, you know, shaping how
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the other is interacting with you, you're going to make the same mistakes over and over again.
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I, you know, I, I, I'm often criticized for being, I guess, harsh in some of my writings against
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some of these migrant communities. And I think one, one area that I want to illuminate a bit more on is
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that I have sympathy in the fact that like, many of these, speaking in UK and Europe, some of these
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immigrants who come, will move into a particular area where there are many people from the same home
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country. And then once they're there, they, the organizations that are operating there are these Islamist
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groups. And so it's like the, the host country for so long, I think now they're starting to recognize
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some of the issues. I don't know if they're doing much about it, but they, they weren't aware that
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these organizations that were propped up, some of them received government funding or people who
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had language barriers were directed to these organizations for support, were explicitly directing
00:27:09.320
them to organizations that do preach or, or have like a religious essence of separatism. And so it's,
00:27:19.240
it's also a failure of the state in part for, for integration. And I mean, this discussion,
00:27:26.520
though, has been going on for how many years now? And do we see anything really changing on the ground?
00:27:32.440
No, you can look at different models, the French, laicite, I guess, from an American's perspective can
00:27:40.360
be seen as very sort of harsh. You know, the state has the state in France has the power to shut down
00:27:49.160
religious institutions, they've shut down a number of mosques. The US doesn't have the power to do that.
00:27:55.640
For example, Britain is very tolerant with its multiculturalism approach to its immigrant
00:28:05.880
communities. And that hasn't produced good integration either. I mean, yeah, I mean, there's so
00:28:12.600
many British radicalized Muslims. So it, I mean, in my view, it does seem like, regardless of the
00:28:20.520
country, you have pretty big issues. Some people point to America as being the best example of Muslim
00:28:27.960
integration. In my view, I think it's because the Muslim numbers are quite low. Exactly right.
00:28:36.280
Yeah, exactly right. It's, it's all okay, until it isn't right. Lebanon, where I was born and raised,
00:28:43.640
was all good and, you know, pluralistic and tolerant until you had to wear running shoes and really run
00:28:50.360
fast so that your head is not decapitated from the rest of your body. So, so yes, it's, it, the United
00:28:56.520
States appears to be a bit, you know, better on that trajectory for the exact reasons that you
00:29:01.800
mentioned, but demography is destiny and wait till those numbers increase as we're now seeing,
00:29:07.800
right? I mean, one of the reasons, there's Michigan, there is Minnesota, right? So I, I put out a,
00:29:14.520
one of those kind of Socratic polls that I put up on Twitter, where I'm trying to show people. So,
00:29:20.920
so I say, let's suppose, as a hypothetical exercise, you know, there was an increased number
00:29:27.320
of Rashida Tlayib and Ilhan Omar in, in, in Congress. Would that result in a greater protection of,
00:29:36.360
you know, American freedoms or lesser? Well, the fact that a single person would actually argue for
00:29:42.200
greater freedoms, it shows that it's bad, but you should just go and watch the numbers that I
00:29:46.840
receive. And now again, remember, you know, I'm, I probably have an audience that is, you know,
00:29:51.800
more attuned with, you know, the way they should properly be thinking. And yet you get tons of
00:29:56.360
people who say, oh yeah, more, more Ilhan Omar could only benefit the United States. So that's why I,
00:30:03.000
I put out that tweet where I was so pessimistic, because if the individual doesn't,
00:30:08.040
or the individual or the society don't have a self-preservation instinct, then it's all doomed.
00:30:15.960
You know, I've seen a lot of extremist protest activity happen at the university that
00:30:25.160
you're, you're at, and obviously at many, many other universities across America and Canada.
00:30:31.960
And when I look at that, and then also I see this, these activities and
00:30:38.600
happening at high schools and involving children, I, I don't know how you de-radicalize these,
00:30:46.520
these people. It's like, it's the problem is here. And it's, to me, it seems like it's
00:30:53.720
kind of too late to do anything. I agree. So I, I've often said, and now, I mean, I hate to be the
00:30:59.880
guy saying, I told you so, but I get tons of emails from people saying, oh boy, I should,
00:31:04.760
we should have listened to you five years ago, 10 years ago. But I think that when people will wake
00:31:10.280
up, what will end up happening is that there will be a lot more violence than had we solved the
00:31:16.280
problem 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. So there will be an awakening. The problem to your
00:31:22.840
point is that the awakening, when it happens, will only take one form. It will have to be
00:31:29.560
violence everywhere. As we're seeing it now with the protest, right? Right now with the protest,
00:31:34.840
you're not seeing orgiastic eradication of people the way you would in Rwanda and Iraq or Lebanon.
00:31:40.920
But believe me, wait another 20, 30, 50 years. And that's what you will have. And I think the
00:31:47.000
problem is that, first of all, people don't have the imagination of being a futurist, right? They
00:31:52.440
can't extrapolate from current trends to where we're going. And also, even if they have the ability,
00:31:59.480
they don't want to do that because that's goddamn scary, right? I'm too busy worrying about my daughter's
00:32:05.800
graduation and getting the onions for tonight's dinner. I don't want to be thinking about such
00:32:11.400
existential angst. So it's better for me to bury my head in the sand and hopefully the problem will
00:32:16.120
go away. Okay, so we both acknowledge there are a lot of issues in all these countries.
00:32:24.600
What do you think are, what do you think can be done? So my, you know, I'm glad you brought it
00:32:30.440
back to hopefully actionable solutions. I think that there are certain belief systems that once they
00:32:37.320
become, never mind in the majority, in a sizable minority, that puts an end to that society. And
00:32:44.360
we've got so much historical evidence of that. So in an abstract sense, although I think I'm being
00:32:50.680
very concrete, it is impossible to coexist amongst certain belief systems. It's as simple as that,
00:32:57.960
right? Karl Popper famously talked about the paradox of tolerance, right? That, you know,
00:33:03.640
in our infinite desire to be liberal and tolerant towards the intolerable, those intolerable beliefs
00:33:11.000
end up killing you once they are in the majority. So the only way I see this being resolved
00:33:17.240
is if those belief systems are kept at such small numbers that they could never cause harm to the
00:33:24.600
host societies. So you can fill in the dots of what that might mean, but there really is no other
00:33:31.720
solution. So to draw an analogy that some people might be offended by, but it is an analogy that,
00:33:39.560
you know, cancer is dangerous and there is no way to say, but, you know, let's be nice. Cancer
00:33:46.360
cells also have a right to, right? You, if you want to fight cancer, you have to eradicate cancer.
00:33:52.920
There are certain, now, again, most people that belong to these, you know, challenging belief systems
00:34:01.800
are perfectly lovely. And I don't need to preface this and repeat this, but the reality is that those
00:34:08.920
people don't stand up to defend your right to exist as a gay man and my right to exist as a Jewish man,
00:34:16.360
when they are in the majority. So then it becomes difficult to decide who's the nice one, who's the
00:34:22.280
radical one, who's going to kill me, who's going to stand by on the sideline and cheer while others
00:34:28.280
are killing me. And I think Sam Harris had mentioned this when he was talking about the concentric circles
00:34:33.800
of what constitutes the fundamentalist and the next group and the next group. So the only way I see it is
00:34:40.280
that you have to develop the reflex to not tolerate intolerable belief systems. I mean,
00:34:46.120
does that offer an answer or am I still being too abstract for you?
00:34:51.560
You're being abstract in the sense that to enact what I think you're trying to get at, it would
00:34:56.760
involve draconian chain measures and an erosion of, I guess, maybe liberal democratic norms and
00:35:12.360
So then what? Okay, so then, so let's suppose we want to adhere to those liberal democratic norms.
00:35:18.920
Can I bring up a specific example? So the UK has been dealing with huge numbers of illegal migration
00:35:29.080
for years now. And since Brexit, it's only actually gotten worse with migrants coming from
00:35:36.360
Muslim societies in Eastern Europe, going through the EU, going up to France, and then just taking
00:35:45.000
boats, there's these whole smuggling networks, they just come in. And as soon as they don't even have,
00:35:50.600
they don't have to land on British soil, they just have to get within British water. And then the military
00:35:57.880
will take them in and escort them in provide housing, food and the numbers have been surging
00:36:04.200
for years now. It's been a crisis, it's been a huge pressure point for the conservative government,
00:36:08.680
who has overseen this issue get worse and worse year after year, you know, they they promise and
00:36:14.280
their platforms and all the speeches that we will, we will stop the boats, they haven't been able to. And
00:36:19.240
Suella Braverman has brought up that, well, it's because the the Britain is part of the European Court of
00:36:27.800
Human Rights. So they are legally bound to date one, they have to bring these people in. And then
00:36:35.880
there has to be this whole process of every case has to be heard. Obviously, if a asylum claim,
00:36:41.880
because all of them just claim asylum, even though they're coming from safe countries, and going
00:36:46.760
through a number of safe countries, but they claim asylum, even if it happens to be the case happens to be
00:36:52.360
rejected, they can appeal it. That takes many, many months, and then in the process, they often
00:36:58.120
disappear. And so she's, she and a number of people have argued that, well, the UK will have to leave
00:37:05.880
the European Court of Human Rights. And that, that is just seen as sort of, we can't do that, that would
00:37:10.600
be violating British values, we violating our international obligations, etc, etc. So it's, it's long
00:37:19.720
stopped. And I, I don't know this as a fact, but I assume that pressure point was one of the reasons,
00:37:25.160
probably why she was forced out, because she was willing to actually say, well, this is what we have
00:37:29.960
to do. If you want to have the legal authority to actually stop, stop these boats and deport these
00:37:34.680
people immediately. But that, but I mean, that, again, speaks to my analogy of you're taking care of
00:37:42.120
the dandruff, when your hair is on fire, right? You're trying to, I don't mean you, I mean,
00:37:47.160
let's say, in case of the former Home Secretary, even though, of course, she's very brave, and her
00:37:54.480
height, her heart and mind are in the right place. She's trying to operate within, and I understand
00:38:00.520
that, you know, we're not a anarchy, you have to operate within certain legal constraints. But in
00:38:07.400
trying to argue, you know, let's walk out of this, let's do this, let's see that the hand that the
00:38:13.160
dandruff is okay. Millions of people are coming in, which one day become in the majority, it guarantees
00:38:20.080
that your liberal democratic values that you are so keen on protecting and abiding by as you try to
00:38:26.620
resolve the problem, all of those will be eradicated. So again, that's why Karl Popper's paradox of
00:38:32.760
tolerance is so prescient, right? So, so I'm arguing that there has to be a, a cataclysmic change in the
00:38:41.700
way you handle it. So, so think about the, the, the savagery of war. Most people want to go about
00:38:49.040
life living, you know, without hurting another, without murdering someone. But then once war
00:38:53.780
happens, you end up carpet palming cities, right? Here is Dresden, bye-bye Dresden. And now we might
00:39:01.100
argue, oh, was that proportional or not? Well, if you want to finish war, you sometimes have to do
00:39:05.760
really, really nasty things so that you could then start afresh and have a peaceful and prosperous
00:39:12.620
world. So I'm arguing that there needs to be metaphorically a carpet bombing of some of these
00:39:21.620
constraints that we have. There is a serious fundamental existential problem, which is for
00:39:27.740
all sorts of reasons, millions of people are coming into Western societies whereby they don't share an
00:39:35.560
ounce of any of the foundational values. That needs to stop. We can debate what is the mechanism,
00:39:42.120
but until we realize that that needs to stop, we're going to get nowhere.
00:39:47.120
What do you think of the argument that people point, some people say, well, you're, you're placing
00:39:52.580
too much blame on Muslims when it's, you know, some of the people, many of the people who are going to
00:39:59.640
these hate rallies, if you will, in the US or in Canada have been like these white, white leftists,
00:40:07.780
you know, and so, and those are, I mean, those people aren't Muslim. And so, and they're totally
00:40:13.260
not just on board with the Palestinian nationalist cause, but many of them have been very explicitly
00:40:18.240
advocating for the actions of Hamas. I mean, that actually has been a little bit shocking to me.
00:40:25.620
We've all known that academics and people in these academic institutions are really radical,
00:40:30.760
but usually I found that they're a bit more subtle in it. Like, you know, like they would talk about
00:40:38.660
racial justice and use all these euphemisms, but I mean, the mass completely came off after
00:40:45.820
the sound of October with some of what they were saying. And a lot of them are Muslim, but many of
00:40:51.100
them are not as well. And so you do, I mean, I guess as part of this coalition building that I was
00:40:56.920
talking about earlier, but it, sorry, first your point. No, I'm just, I'm just bringing up that this
00:41:02.500
is immigration demographic stuff is part of this discussion. But I wonder if, if, if, if we are
00:41:13.360
overstating it, given sort of the salience of this cause, um, on the radical white left, if you will.
00:41:21.800
Yeah. So what you're saying is something that I would completely, uh, subscribe to, which is there
00:41:27.500
isn't a monopoly on, you know, human hearts being dark. So it's not as though I'm arguing as you
00:41:34.600
undoubtedly know, but maybe some of our viewers and listeners don't, it's not, I'm arguing, oh,
00:41:39.380
it's only people who come from Islamic backgrounds that could have very intolerant views. There are
00:41:45.240
Jewish people who are assholes and there are Christian people who are assholes and there are
00:41:49.100
atheist people who are assholes. And so there certainly isn't a monopoly. I mean, right.
00:41:53.600
Communism was not started by Muslims and Nazism was not. So, so of course there is no monopoly of,
00:42:01.020
you know, of bad ideas, but you can certainly say that stopping the entry of millions of
00:42:09.380
people. I mean, Angela Merkel, uh, I'm, I'm speculating here, but I think it's a pretty
00:42:14.280
accurate psychological analysis of, of her, her motivations. She had an existential grand sense
00:42:22.780
of guilt. My, my grandparents were really, really nasty. They were part of the Nazi generation. I'm
00:42:29.420
speaking as her now. And therefore when I am chancellor, I'm going to reverse this existential guilt
00:42:36.360
by demonstrating that here in Germany, we do the exact opposite of two, what two generations ago
00:42:42.940
we did. We're going to let in all sorts of noble people because we're just going to reverse history
00:42:49.680
and we're going to be kind. And then now a few years later, people said, oops, maybe it wasn't so
00:42:55.400
good to let in people that don't share some of your foundational values. It's, it really isn't rocket
00:43:00.140
science. But I mean, again, that speaks to why I wrote the parasitic mind, because there's nothing
00:43:05.420
more dangerous than a parasitized mind. It's not, it's not the weapons that are dangerous. It's the
00:43:11.560
minds that act on the weapons, right? And so bad ideas, dreadful ideas have consequences. It's
00:43:18.400
certainly the case that it's not only Islamic societies that have bad ideas. The entire history
00:43:25.320
is replete with people who had bad ideas. So I completely concede the point to you, but at least
00:43:31.580
we could start off by saying, let's not worsen the problem by having an open door policy to millions
00:43:37.860
of people. Since you're, you're, you're very familiar with the, uh, the history of the Palestinian
00:43:46.440
nationalists cause, I'm, I'm, I wonder why, um, I'm hoping you can illuminate on, on why their propaganda
00:43:54.840
has been so successful on an international scale. I don't think there's really any other like regional
00:44:02.220
conflict that has been able to become, um, you know, driving government decisions around the world.
00:44:08.020
I mean, nobody cared about, uh, what, what Assad was doing to his civilian population in Syria,
00:44:15.640
where hundreds of thousands of people were killed not that long ago. Um, it's not a big worldwide cause
00:44:22.000
for the Saudi Arabian backed, um, um, airstrikes in Yemen or conflicts in the past that happened
00:44:29.080
in Sri Lanka. I mean, you can just name all these conflicts around the world and Africa, et cetera.
00:44:33.000
And nobody cares on, you know, the left, the white left, uh, in the U S or Canada, Europe,
00:44:39.240
but on this particular issue, I mean, people are, are, are committing like, um, acts of vandalism
00:44:46.000
and violence and intimidation against our government, because they're like, they're, they're,
00:44:49.780
some of them are like willing to die for this cause. And I, I wonder how did, how does the
00:44:55.140
Palestinian propaganda become so effective? I love your question because I've actually
00:45:00.020
discussed it with some Israelis where I've told them my goodness, for all of your strengths as,
00:45:05.860
as a military, right. In terms of IDF, in terms of intelligence with Mossad, in terms of, uh, all
00:45:11.840
sorts of these physical war manifestations, boy, are you losing the informational warfare. So to your
00:45:20.320
point. So I think it's a couple of factors. I number, so there, there are several ways I could
00:45:25.140
answer it. I'll, I'll tackle maybe a few, uh, part of it is that there is def, it is definitely a
00:45:32.260
manifestation of Jew hatred, that double standard. So who cares if Saudi Arabia is doing, that's just
00:45:39.800
between brothers and cousins. And it does, you know, the old, no Jews, no news. So there is an
00:45:45.580
element of that, but I think there's more than that. I think that the, what the Palestinians have
00:45:50.380
been able to do is to set up the narrative as one of oppressor and oppressed. And whereby if,
00:46:00.520
if I were to use a singular image that captures a thousand words, it's the 14 year old intifada boy
00:46:08.100
with the slingshot and the rock facing the big mean IDF tank. So most people, Andy, as I think,
00:46:18.600
you know, are, and I don't say this as an elitist statement, it's just a straight factual statement.
00:46:24.460
Most people are breathtakingly idiotic and misinformed, right? So if you just go out into
00:46:30.980
the street and say, oh, you just screamed from the river to the sea, which river, which sea can,
00:46:35.780
you know, I'm going to give you a 20 multiple choice questionnaire on the conflict, they would
00:46:44.060
all get zero. So people are cognitive misers, meaning that they, they are intellectually lazy.
00:46:50.060
They like to use very simplifying heuristics to explain the world. And so when it comes to the
00:46:57.040
Palestinian-Israel conflict, it doesn't matter what the reality is. The Israelis are these nasty
00:47:04.700
Jewish tanks who are indiscriminately engaging in an ongoing genocidal ethnic cleansing of peaceful,
00:47:15.420
noble, kind, slingshot throwing 14 year olds. That's the narrative. That's the narrative that
00:47:22.660
is taught in Near East studies at Columbia University and Cornell University. So it's not
00:47:27.800
surprising then that if I am a cognitive miser, meaning I'm an intellectually lazy, I'm an utter
00:47:33.640
imbecile, and I am fed all this brainwashing, then their narrative is going to win. And they are
00:47:39.620
winning. What do you think of this explanation?
00:47:43.680
Well, I, I sometimes wonder if accusations of anti-Semitism are being recklessly overused in recent
00:47:53.600
weeks. Um, in the same way that we, um, you know, how often, and I'm not, I'm not saying that this is
00:48:04.100
necessarily what's happened here, but for example, um, there are Muslim activists and Muslim radicals
00:48:11.300
who, anytime you talk about some type of Islamic terrorist attack that's happened, you, you report,
00:48:17.240
I report on the religious aspect of a suspect in a terrorist incident, then that first accusation in
00:48:23.620
Islamophobia. I've seen some people saying that accusations of anti-Semitism are being used to
00:48:28.880
shut down discussions. Um, and also in part of this, what we've seen as well as all these Jewish
00:48:34.800
American groups and Jewish Canadian groups on the left who have led some of these protests and, you know,
00:48:41.780
they're basically saying not in our name and, you know, they get a lot of media attention. They've done
00:48:46.400
things in DC and, and many other places. And, you know, they're trying to say, it's not, you know,
00:48:52.100
this cause is not anti-Semitic at all. And I, yeah, I'm curious what you think of like those various
00:48:58.020
arguments that are, that are out there. Yeah. Uh, well, I appreciate you asking me questions because
00:49:03.560
I, you know, I often tell my guests, please, it's not an interview. So, so thank you for just having a
00:49:09.360
conversation rather than just a one way me asking you questions. I appreciate that. Uh, I do agree
00:49:15.720
that it is wrong to, to argue that any criticism of say Israel or any policies of Israel constitutes
00:49:23.680
anti-Semitism. I don't, I don't buy that. Right. And, and, and to your point, there are of course,
00:49:28.340
many committed, committed in the sense of, uh, Jews who identify very much with their Jewish identity,
00:49:34.480
who are at the forefront of criticizing certain, uh, policies and certain military actions that the
00:49:40.960
Israeli government's done. So, so I'm a hundred percent willing to concede that point. Uh,
00:49:46.020
but I do think that what we've seen subsequent to October 7th is to your earlier point where you
00:49:53.340
mentioned that you were surprised by how much open anti-Semitism you're seeing. I think that has
00:49:57.900
really served as a catalyst of, you know, kind of opening people's, right. You just scratch the
00:50:03.520
surface and you see this unbelievable Jew vitriol coming out. And, and this is not, you know,
00:50:09.600
I don't levy the accusation. You're a Jew hater just because you criticize Israel never, but here's
00:50:16.560
an example of Jew hatred. You're ready. And, and this is going to be relevant since you're living
00:50:20.940
now in England. If I share the very clear demographic reality of the folks who have been engaging in
00:50:31.460
industrial scale level gang rapes of young British white girls up and down of Britain in every single
00:50:39.560
city that you could think of. And they all have one thing in common. They all have as part of their
00:50:45.180
name, the word Muhammad. And then I get a thousand people who write to me and say, yeah, you know,
00:50:52.820
who's to blame for all those rapes. You're ready, Andy. It's the Jews. You know why? Because it was
00:50:59.440
Jewish philosophy that promulgated the idea that we should have open border policies. So when
00:51:07.380
Muhammad raped your 12 year old daughter, it was Mordechai who is really to blame. So that is Jew
00:51:16.620
hatred. I mean, it's, as a matter of fact, it's a form of diabolical Jew hatred. So I completely
00:51:21.680
concede your point. Not every criticism of some Jewish cause or some Israeli policy constitutes
00:51:27.760
anti-Semitism. But I think what we've seen since October 7th, in many cases, it's your garden
00:51:37.700
How do you think people can better recognize when there is actually anti-Semitism operating in some
00:51:45.560
ideas where it may be perhaps there's a get out argument?
00:51:51.860
I mean, you know, some of the people who express a strong hatred of Soros, I think are motivated by
00:52:00.140
anti-Semitism. They will bring up the fact that he's Jew all the time. And then there are many,
00:52:06.000
I would say most, who bring up actually the criticisms of him as how he's used his money to support and fund
00:52:13.940
organizations that have been really destabilizing to a number of countries. Yeah, so I'm just...
00:52:22.120
I can answer that for you. I can answer that for you. So let's suppose, so Epstein, the pedophile,
00:52:29.820
was Jewish. Yes? That is not a manifestation that he did what he did because of his Judaism,
00:52:38.620
right? He didn't invoke a particular passage in Deuteronomy or in Genesis or in a particular
00:52:48.640
Talmudic scripture and say, oh, this is why I have Epstein Island. It's because I'm allowed.
00:52:53.740
So the fact that he was Jewish is completely irrelevant to him being a diabolical pedophile.
00:53:01.420
On the other hand, if somebody does something in the name of their religion and justifies it in the
00:53:08.720
name of their religion, then you ascribe it to exactly what he's telling you, right? So for example,
00:53:14.760
when you say, not you, but the Jew haters that write to me, when you say, oh, well, the economy is
00:53:21.100
tanking and then they list the following people who happen to be Jewish and who serve in the treasury
00:53:28.800
department, that is Jew hatred because it's not because they are Jews and they're using Jewish
00:53:36.320
scriptures that the government printed more money resulting in inflation to go up, right? You see
00:53:42.980
what I'm saying? So that's why, by the way, I sarcastically created the game Six Degrees of Jew,
00:53:50.540
which is a game that I was very familiar with in Lebanon where every single calamity is blamed on
00:53:56.640
the Jew. Your wife cheated on you? Well, it's because she consumed pornography that made her
00:54:04.660
libidinous and it's the Jews who control the pornographic industry. So I think that's how you
00:54:11.700
can gauge whether an argument is in good faith or not. Jews do a lot of horrible things, but they do
00:54:18.460
it not because they're Jewish, despite the fact that they're Jewish. And some Muslim, when a Muslim
00:54:23.880
goes into a bank to rob the bank because he just wants to support his crystal meth, I don't care
00:54:30.240
that he's called Muhammad. But if he flies a plane into a building and then quotes the Quranic verse
00:54:37.600
that justifies that he should do it, it is because he is Muhammad. Does that make sense?
00:54:43.520
Yeah. I mean, playing devil's advocate, couldn't want to argue that the rape gangs involving
00:54:51.940
Pakistani people, people of Pakistani background in the UK, that they weren't doing it on a religious
00:55:00.640
mandate. They were men who were involved in organized crime and the fact that it's being brought up all
00:55:06.240
the time that they're Muslim is Islamophobic. What do you think of that argument? Well, I mean,
00:55:12.020
I would totally agree that that were the case if I weren't aware that many of them have openly stated
00:55:18.620
that, you know, non-Muslim meat, as they say, uncovered meat is openly open for grabs. So again,
00:55:29.180
I'm not, right, there might be Albanian gangs who are Muslim, they're organized gangs, right? They are
00:55:36.000
not in it, right? They engage in extortion and money laundering. They've been doing the smuggling of
00:55:42.760
the people into Britain by the boats, by the way. Oh, there you go. Now, in that case, the driving
00:55:49.600
motive is profiteering. There are Russian organized gangs, there are Israeli organized gangs, there are
00:55:57.720
Italian organized gangs. So all of those groups are doing what they're doing because they are motivated
00:56:04.280
by greed. They want to make money, right? And organized crime becomes the conduit by which I make
00:56:09.060
money. On the other hand, if I say I am bringing in loads of people from Islamic countries because the
00:56:17.520
principle of hijra, hijra is the Arabic word of immigration, we're going to conquer the miserable,
00:56:23.700
as the Muslim Brotherhood said, well, then you're doing it because of your religion. So again, a thinking
00:56:31.620
person is able to be honest and say, this is caused by your religion. This had nothing to do with your
00:56:38.520
religion. Regrettably, the Western mindset says, it doesn't matter how much evidence you show me
00:56:45.740
that it is because of your religion, I'm never going to accept it. That's why, by the way, in chapter six
00:56:51.960
of The Parasitic Mind, the chapter that I titled Ostrich Parasitic Syndrome, I describe how the, now it's
00:56:59.940
44,000 plus terror attacks since 9-11 alone in nearly 70 countries, all of which the terrorists
00:57:08.940
will say, we're doing it because of our religion. They'll quote the scriptures why they're doing it.
00:57:15.280
Then what does the West say? Let me just share a few of them with you. It's because of beard bullying,
00:57:21.160
right? The San Bernardino guy, it's because he was bullied for his beard. It's in France and in Belgium,
00:57:27.060
it's because of lack of art exposure. I mean, which of us didn't decide to go join ISIS and Raqqa to
00:57:35.800
throw those pesky gays off rooftops because we weren't exposed to enough Picasso? So again, it comes
00:57:42.740
from a reflex of, I never want to ascribe sinister actions to a religion. That's simply too gauche.
00:57:51.420
And until we're able to recognize that most Muslims are perfectly lovely people, but some Muslims take
00:57:58.800
their religion very seriously and will act on it, we're only going to get to a darker place.
00:58:03.940
So I've been on the ground now for almost six weeks covering these demonstrations that have happened
00:58:10.740
in the UK. And one thing I've witnessed is that pretty much almost all of them, people will do
00:58:20.560
shut down streets and then they'll do prayers, Islamic prayers on the streets and in public areas and
00:58:26.800
parks or in the middle of the road. Um, they'll blast out Islamic, um, uh, sound, um, not like prayers,
00:58:35.440
or loud, loud speakers. Um, and then then we'll do the Alahu Akbar chant. So is it, is it right to view
00:58:44.560
these actions as, um, provocative or are these, are they just meant to be acts of peaceful religiosity that
00:58:54.700
100% the former, not 100%, 1 million percent the former, right? When, when you are below a certain
00:59:03.300
percentage, you don't do that. Once you become over a certain percentage, you, you, there are even Arabic
00:59:11.420
words that describe that kind of behavior, right? So it is a, an act of, we are here, get used to it,
00:59:20.360
right? Look, there are, I mean, I mean, this is literally true. There are well over 10,000
00:59:26.700
documented religions. Now, some religions, for example, Christianity, you could break it up into
00:59:31.940
many, many different sects, Seventh-day Adventists and Lutheran and Protestant. So let's call each of
00:59:37.520
these a different religion, right? Shia versus Sunni versus Ahmadi, let's call them those different
00:59:43.620
sects of Islam. So they're different. There are more than 10,000 documented religions. Why is it only
00:59:49.920
one that does it so publicly, right? Because it is part of the DNA of the religion to say that once we
00:59:59.140
become past a certain number, you will abide by, I mean, there are 57 countries that are, well, 56 plus
01:00:07.240
the Palestinian territories that are part of the organization of Islamic cooperation, right? Which
01:00:12.620
is an umbrella group for the Ummah. The Ummah is the Islamic nation. Well, each of those countries, Andy,
01:00:19.200
at one point in history had zero Muslims. And then by various mechanisms, many of those countries
01:00:26.400
became 100% Islamic. How did that happen? Was it by magic? Was it that they simply passed around
01:00:35.000
sweets and peaceful Socratic method? No. And so when you affirm your presence by shutting down streets,
01:00:44.300
it's a power play. Now, again, many Muslims will tell you, we don't like that. We don't want that to
01:00:50.360
happen. We're against that. We want to live by Western freedoms. But to answer your question,
01:00:55.740
it's absolutely, unequivocally a power play. You will accept it. You will shut your mouth and get used to it.
01:01:05.040
Some scenes that I recorded and I witnessed were quite, they were a bit surreal in the sense like when
01:01:12.240
there was a large crowd, angry protesters outside Westminster Abbey, which is centuries old. Monarchs
01:01:19.520
are buried there, you know, coronations happen there. There's, you know, it's one of the most
01:01:25.040
important historical sites for British history and identity. But this group went in front of it and
01:01:32.180
they were doing, they were chanting the Islamic faith creed. I can't say it, but you know,
01:01:39.380
you know, I know it. But if I say it, then I'm, then I'm officially a Muslim. So I better not say it.
01:01:45.300
And so in this religious aspect of these pro Palestine demonstrations, as they are called has been
01:01:53.940
kind of completely ignored by the mainstream press locally, I read, I mean, I read what the BBC and
01:01:59.100
ITV and others report on it. And they generally just say these are, these are peaceful protests of
01:02:04.400
people arguing for ceasefire or something like that. And I just, my observation is that with some of the
01:02:13.380
people there, many, they are viewing this war, Israel war with Hamas in a, as a, as a religious conflict,
01:02:24.180
and the type of language that they're using, some of these protests, I think some of the most extreme
01:02:29.040
one I went to, was one organized by Hizbid Tahrir, which is an Islamist group, they had 1000s of people
01:02:35.940
come, this group is banned in, I think, all the Arab countries because of, I mean, their, their, their goals
01:02:42.480
are revolutionary, to establish a caliphate, but they operate legally, in the UK, and they had up these
01:02:50.720
banners saying Muslim armies, they had speakers who are calling for jihad, that was their word,
01:02:59.040
trying to mobilize Muslims to fight the Zionist army, those were the type of language they used, and
01:03:06.400
it had, like, no coverage, in the establishment press, I was one of the few journalists there to
01:03:13.120
witness this and record, and it's, it's, it's, it's surreal in the way that, like, how banal it is, like,
01:03:20.720
it's happening in central London, and if you're a block away at some luxury cafe, or luxury designer
01:03:26.560
store, you wouldn't even know it's happening, and therefore it's so much easier to, to deny.
01:03:30.880
Yeah, exactly. Well, I wanted to actually ask you, you were kind enough to ask me several
01:03:35.920
questions, let me go back to asking you questions. What explains Andy knows bravery? And the reason why
01:03:43.360
I asked, I mean, it sounds as though I'm just complimenting you frivolously, but I, that's not
01:03:48.320
my point, is because I want to see if there is a way to bottle courage, right? I mean, metaphorically
01:03:55.720
speaking, because you, I mean, you really are one of the, the few, I mean, earlier, when I introduced
01:04:00.600
you, I said intrepid, I mean, that's, that really is a perfect description of you are, right? I mean,
01:04:05.220
you're walking amongst whatever the proud boys, you're walking amongst the crazy Antifa guys,
01:04:10.240
you were attacked famously, and, you know, and so on. And so there seems to be a, to use a term that
01:04:18.080
has been now become associated with me, right, when I say activate your inner honey badger,
01:04:22.820
that's not a call that you need to hear from me, because you already came into the world,
01:04:27.880
I guess, equipped with all of the honey badger attitude that one could have. Is that something
01:04:34.040
that you've always had? Is that something that you've developed? What's the secret of Andy knows
01:04:40.300
honey badger attitude? Well, thank you for those kind words. I, that's very, that's very nice of you to
01:04:47.380
say. I, I actually, and, you know, I don't, I often don't view myself as brave, because I remember
01:04:55.320
these times that I've been really actually terrified, returning to the streets to document,
01:05:01.720
given the attacks I suffered. And I do have a lot of fear, actually. And, but sorry, before you go on,
01:05:07.520
I'm going to interrupt you. The fact that you have fear, and your return actually speaks to you being
01:05:12.060
a honey badger. Well, thank you. I, for me, it was simply motivated by, I don't, the fact that I don't
01:05:22.900
see the public getting a full or accurate picture of the nature of these various protests. And you
01:05:29.600
outlined the number of things that are covered. Most people are familiar with my work covering the
01:05:33.600
violent far left in the US, particularly Antifa. And I thought, look, my, my words in essays and
01:05:40.700
writings are not going to be as convincing as people seeing the videos themselves of the violence
01:05:46.300
and the extremist statements and chants and slogans that are being used at these violent and extremist
01:05:55.140
rallies and protests. And I, I just went out and recorded and took photos. And for a long, for a while,
01:06:03.220
I was able to do that and just sort of blend in. Nobody knew who I was, so they didn't view me as a
01:06:08.400
threat. But once people started paying attention to my journalism, and I was getting published in
01:06:13.380
bigger places, that was when Antifa started to silence me. So, yeah, I think, I guess, one thing
01:06:23.760
I was forced to learn, and it has helped me become a bit more resilient is that when you go against the
01:06:31.960
grain, a lot of people are going to really going to hate you, and some violently hate you. And the world
01:06:37.960
may hate you. And you have to kind of be at peace at that, you know, it, it can be a bit distressing
01:06:44.020
to me when when you Google my name, and you see that I'm described as a far right provocateur,
01:06:48.840
far right extremist, you read what's on my Wikipedia, and you come up with, you know, a person that I
01:06:54.000
don't recognize as me, and my friends don't recognize as me. And that, that is hard. But that's,
01:06:59.900
that's the price you pay when you you speak out in a way that's inconvenient for the majority.
01:07:04.880
And so I think coming, you know, for people to, to develop a sense of bravery, they have to,
01:07:11.600
to be at peace with that. I mean, if you are, if you're just reaffirming everything that the New York
01:07:16.560
Times and Washington Post says, you then then you'll get the accolades, and it's not really
01:07:21.600
actually brave to go out and write the type of stuff that we see in the establishment media on these
01:07:27.680
controversial subjects and topics. With that said, you know, I try really hard for my my video work
01:07:35.120
to present it in a way that is neutral, you know, obviously, I know there's implicit bias, I'm using
01:07:40.160
the language of the left, it's there, it's in all of us. But I try really to tell people, okay, this is
01:07:44.640
the context when and where, and that's it. And it is surprising that the videos that I've recorded is seen
01:07:51.200
as as a huge provocation and threat to whatever narrative people have, to the point that some of
01:07:59.600
them are willing to try to kill me. Yeah. What I mean, I'm now we're sort of coming, of course,
01:08:08.240
I could talk to you for hours, but we're coming to the end of our chat. Hopefully, I'll have you again,
01:08:13.920
and it won't take years to bring you back. What are some so my last book was on happiness. And so
01:08:21.120
in in the in writing that book, I discussed, you know, the two most important decisions that you
01:08:26.480
could make that either impart great happiness or great misery upon you is choosing the right
01:08:31.440
partner, the right spouse, and choosing the right profession. And when I talk about choosing the right
01:08:35.600
profession, you know, I discuss things like things that allow you to instantiate your creative impulse.
01:08:41.200
You know, you could be a chef or stand up comic or a author or a journalist or an architect. These are
01:08:48.000
all very different professions. But what they share in common is that they all create something that
01:08:53.600
didn't exist until they came along and they created that that plate, that bridge, that book. So in your
01:08:59.760
case, is that what gives you purpose and meaning you want to document things that are out there and add
01:09:06.480
to the conversation? Are there other things that make you happy? What what are the secrets to
01:09:15.920
Um, you know, I'll be honest here. There, there were times in the past where I
01:09:24.000
life felt dark for me, I think, particularly after the second time I was beaten by Antifa in 2021. I had
01:09:29.360
left Portland for a number of months, I went back and I was undercover and I was exposed and beaten
01:09:34.800
quite severely. There's video of me being attacked on the streets and I run into a hotel
01:09:40.800
for refuge. And after that, I really, I could, you know, that was when I, I was forced to accept the
01:09:48.880
reality that I could no longer do this type of undercover type of reporting on Portland, which is my home
01:09:54.960
cities where my, my family's based and, you know, faced with that reality and having to, to develop
01:10:02.960
different and new skills of reporting and getting information out was quite hard. And at times very
01:10:08.720
lonely because I, I also had to relocate for, for safety reasons away from Portland. So I was away
01:10:13.680
from my loved ones. I still am. And, and that's hard. What keeps me going is then I think, um,
01:10:21.760
I've been fortunate that I'm sometimes in situations like conferences or events or something
01:10:27.120
where people who are familiar with my work come up and get a chance to speak with me. And they let me
01:10:31.280
know how impactful my work has been, how it's really helped inform them on a number of issues.
01:10:37.520
And those types of personal testimonies face to face when I'm holding their hand or shaking their
01:10:41.760
hand is really powerful and encouraging because sometimes it, it can be, it can feel really lonely
01:10:50.000
when you have all these hit pieces out about you when, you know, with how social media works,
01:10:54.880
people can organize online mobs to try to swarm you and just send you hate and threats nonstop. And
01:11:02.400
it's easy for one to sort of center and put a lot of weight on that type of hate and forget about,
01:11:08.080
you know, these other statements of encouragement. So for me, it's about, um, trying to center
01:11:14.720
gratitude. You know, I'm, I'm really thankful that I, I have opportunities like this to speak with you.
01:11:20.240
Um, that, that, you know, there, there are other good journalists out there who, for whatever reason,
01:11:27.120
you know, they, they, their work just doesn't go big and then they stop. You know, I'm really
01:11:32.400
fortunate that there's been people who's, who read my work, watch my content and give me a chance and
01:11:39.120
invite me on their platforms. And I'm really thankful for that. I don't take any of it for granted.
01:11:43.520
Well, that's, that's beautifully said. I do have a section in the book on the importance of
01:11:47.600
existential gratitude, which you just expressed. So thank you for that. What are some projects?
01:11:52.240
Last question. What are some projects that you might be currently working on that you might want
01:11:57.680
to use this platform to promote? So, um, my website is www.andy-ngo.com. I, one thing that I'm
01:12:09.040
really keen to keep track of is how these Palestine protests, uh, grow and how they are, what's actually
01:12:17.200
happening on the ground at some of them. Uh, I, this is a moment in time that I think it really has to
01:12:24.480
be documented because if you just rely on sort of the record from establishment media, that is only a
01:12:32.160
fraction of the story. And so that is my current project. So you can, if you go on my Twitter at
01:12:37.680
Mr. A-N-D-Y-N-G-O, you can see the video coverage from what's been happening week to week, uh, in the
01:12:43.680
London area, you know, one of the world capitals, you can see, um, the extremism that's taking place
01:12:50.800
week after week. That's unfortunately becoming a banality. Wow. Well, uh, any books that you might
01:12:58.160
be thinking of writing next to follow up on your New York Times bestselling book? Um, that, yes,
01:13:05.280
but, uh, I'm not able to discuss stuff yet at this time. Ah, very good. Okay. Well, when you,
01:13:10.160
when that one comes out, we'll have you back. Andy, what an incredible pleasure to have you.
01:13:14.960
I think if there's a way to clone you so that we could spread more courage and intrepid journalism
01:13:22.320
out there, uh, the world would be a better place. Absolute pleasure having you. Thank you so much.
01:13:27.360
Come back soon. Uh, stay on the line so we could say goodbye offline. Real pleasure talking to you.