00:02:34.800Hello, everybody, and welcome, my friends, to Shadow at Night.
00:02:37.240This is the final day of January, thank God, even though it's not getting much warmer in
00:02:41.380the forecast, at least for this part of the country.
00:02:43.660It's the Shadow at Night livestream, Tuesday, January 31st, 2023.
00:02:48.520I know there's a lot of people who are interested in hearing how my court case went today, my
00:02:52.880court hearing, so I'll get to that in just a second.
00:02:55.100Special guest tonight, Christine Ronsere from the southern Manitoba area, who has been working with a group of concerned citizens, concerned parents regarding getting pornographic books out of publicly funded libraries.
00:03:09.480This has been an ongoing battle for the last six months at least, so Christine is going to capsulize everything they've been through in that time and what's yet to come and possibly how you can take part in your area or you can start a movement to get rid of these kinds of books in public libraries and schools in your area a little bit later on tonight.
00:03:31.320Hello, Linda, watching from Waterloo. Hello, Wendy. Hello, Michael from Brampton. Steve, how you doing, buddy? Marnie is watching from St. Catharines. Hello, Sharon from Dunsford, Ontario, Canada. Dawson's watching from Maple Ridge, British Columbia. Celine is watching from Ottawa. Diane is watching from Salmon Arm, British Columbia tonight. Hello, Rhonda from Labrador City. Kevin is watching in the Crestview area of Winnipeg.
00:16:20.100okay and there are a few other books in question there's a lot of material there's a lot of
00:16:26.520material when you go to the library there is a lot of material um that's there that's in i mean
00:16:31.440right now we're talking about pornography there's a lot of other stuff that shouldn't be there
00:16:34.680but because we are talking about pornography we have to get to that criminal code and i'm going
00:16:39.280to get to that um so he i i um took those books out of the library the following day i mean i got
00:16:47.980the kids out of there right away and then i went back by myself grabbed the books off the shelf
00:16:51.940and there was three and i thought well i can't be the only old old fuddy daddy who thinks that this
00:16:57.980is improper like this is actual porn oh okay wait a minute wait a minute hold on hold on you see
00:17:03.240this is one of the problems that we face on the freedom side of things is that you know the other0.78
00:17:09.660side is brainwashed almost brainwashed us into thinking well we we're old fuddy daddies we're
00:17:15.360we're past our prime you know we're we're old you know and it started off probably with the
00:17:20.620hashtag okay boomer i know you're not a boomer like me i'm a boomer by two weeks but i mean that
00:17:25.840alone was so dismissive and so uh maddening to hear something like that just a few years ago
00:17:32.600so when they say to you these days well you're not into drag queen shows for kids what's the
00:17:36.260matter with you exactly oh 2017 yeah so i thought well i must be getting really old
00:17:43.360but and start believing it right you start believing those things that you get called so
00:17:47.560i i actually brought it to other people to see if i was the only one guess what this is porn
00:17:53.160i'm not i'm not an old prude this is porn so you took this book this one book to some friends of
00:18:00.820yours some acquaintances some other possible concerned parents to show them just to make0.56
00:18:05.400sure you weren't going loopy right that's right exactly it and there's not one person actually
00:18:10.160The kids were in swimming lessons, so I brought it to the pool, which was in a double bag, and I showed people secretly, like, what do you guys think of this?
00:25:23.540it was right beside like um where does rain come from or what makes a rainbow or what makes you
00:25:28.940know colors learning about colors and stuff like that yeah that's right there i mean oh yeah um
00:25:35.160it's not cool that's not cool that's it's not cool it's it's it's and then the wording0.99
00:25:42.840shadow it's it's how to masquerade how to have anal sex renee wants to know the name of the0.98
00:25:50.460book and the author oh this one um it's perfectly normal and the author is robbie h harris obviously0.97
00:26:00.480a pen name robbie i don't know i don't know you type you type that in and it's uh robbie h harris
00:26:07.500i don't know i would say that they're not educated in the field that they think that they are
00:26:13.980educated but education right now is a crock as well i shouldn't say it like that but well you're
00:26:19.960part of the school board or I was part of the school board but I had to jump because that's
00:26:25.760I mean yeah okay so at what age I'm trying to remember if we even covered this when I was in
00:26:33.080school like sex ed I don't really remember having any kind of sex ed and if it was as close as it
00:26:39.280got was probably more in middle school like seventh or eighth grade not in grade two or
00:26:44.740Yeah. Yeah. So and I mean, I would suggest that everybody who has their kids in school, go and check the schools, because if this is in the public library, I'm willing to bet that's in your school.
00:26:54.740And actually, Shida, remind me to talk to you about that after, because I can give a few hints on how to do that.
00:27:01.040But in regards to to this, this isn't this isn't considered sex.
00:27:06.100it if you look in these books you know in the copyright section you're looking at and you look
00:27:10.760at where it doesn't file itself under sex it actually calls itself sexual instruction sex
00:27:17.080instruction sex instruction why are we teaching kids about instructing a how-to book on how to0.84
00:27:23.300have sexual intercourse i don't sexual instruction for children because it's like it's illustrated
00:27:28.860like like a kid's yeah it's juvenile it's yeah and i mean that's that's besides the point but0.98
00:27:36.560this is this is actual porn but yeah they call themselves it says sex instruction for children0.89
00:27:42.120sex instruction for teenagers and hygiene sexual um sexual hygiene juvenile literature but the0.95
00:27:49.620point is sexual instruction for children what are we getting at here like why do kids need any kind
00:27:55.840of sexual instruction at all they're kids they're little kids they probably should be playing with
00:28:01.400legos and running around outside tobogganing and oh doing what kids do you know doing what kids do
00:28:06.760well apparently kids do other things now i don't know but not my kids not not my house this i've
00:28:12.300drawn the line shadow and okay so christine that that is that is one of the many books that you
00:28:19.460guys have red flag um yeah they and it's not just us uh you should see this in the states the states
00:28:26.920is all over this i mean i only found that out after i started digging myself right because
00:28:30.760that's what your feet will pull up in the states they're actually doing some wins
00:28:34.520here i don't know they're yeah they're winning in the states a little bit they're getting there
00:28:39.440well you see a lot of videos coming from the united states where you've got irate parents
00:28:44.520yelling at school boards you even have elected officials i think there was a mayor of some city
00:28:48.440in the United States yelling at a school board saying, if these books are not pulled from this
00:28:52.640school by midnight tonight, you're all going to be fired and looking for new jobs by tomorrow
00:28:56.360morning. And I'm not sure if he was able to make good on that threat, but it's nice to see that
00:29:01.100kind of thing coming from elected officials. These days, at least in Canada, it seems everybody is so
00:29:06.940scared to say anything. And this brings me to a point that you and I were talking about on the
00:29:11.220phone last week when we say the word groomer or pedophile it's almost like we we are calling
00:29:20.740names and nobody wants to lower themselves to that that level right because now we're just
00:29:26.540crawling in the mud with them and we're getting into a bite and gouge fight but i think that is
00:29:33.520something that we're going to have to do christine because if we don't they're just going to run right
00:29:38.400over us. I mean, and, and so why is it that so many people are so hesitant to use those words
00:29:43.480when it's obvious that that is what these people are? Yeah. The thing there is, is there's, there's
00:29:49.140actually a couple of things. Um, and I've been doing some thinking about it because you and I
00:29:52.940had that conversation. Um, well, first of all, we have to be very careful, just like harassment,
00:29:58.940the term harassment or, um, uh, pedophile, those words have meaning and they have meaning in the
00:30:06.540court of law so you better have some backing if you say that i'm harassing you better have some
00:30:11.940backing because i'll take you to court right just like if i called you a pedophile be very careful
00:30:18.620that has some legal backing on it and i don't i don't want to prove it in court i i'm actually
00:30:23.720i'm not scared of court yeah i think it's corrupt just like every other system here
00:30:29.400right but the thing is you do have backing in this instance right the question is
00:30:34.000who are the ones responsible now you and i had that conversation as well trying to find from top
00:30:40.860to bottom who exactly is the one because there's always that one person or maybe a group of people
00:30:47.040who are responsible for putting these books into the libraries in the schools yeah you've been all
00:30:53.480up and down the uh the governmental structure from provincial level on down have you been able
00:30:58.760to find anybody any one person or group of people who might be responsible for this well i agree
00:31:04.200with you that there's definitely somebody who's pushing the agenda in order to get it in but
00:31:08.680shadow right now i'm in the process of trying to get it out and guess who's responsible for that
00:31:13.240us it's us we have to tell our elected officials like we just went through the election process
00:31:21.060right we got some good people elected and those other ones who didn't get elected
00:31:26.920they have some firing behind them and they are excellent leaders and they can show
00:31:33.400up to the public board meetings right we have public board meetings that's going to be a school
00:31:40.660board right you have a public board meeting and you also have a public council meeting
00:31:43.800show up people we have a job just like the board has to show up to that
00:31:49.340we have a job and it's as boring as ever but guess where they slide that stuff in
00:31:55.340that's where it gets slid in because nobody's going to say anything so even our good guys that
00:32:00.680we just got elected nobody said otherwise i don't know what to do they got elected into
00:32:06.480a dirty house they didn't get elected and come into a clean house it's already it's already dirty
00:32:11.760in there and so they have to work within the dirt and nobody's there's no cleaning crew that's
00:32:17.100coming to the public board meetings to clean it out nobody's showing them how nobody's even asking
00:32:21.820questions on how they can fight for us like when was the last time anybody in our i'd love to see
00:32:28.700that coming through the the comments when was the last time you guys showed up to a public board
00:32:31.980meeting when was the last time you went to a school board meeting any kind of public meeting
00:32:36.740any public meeting i don't know how many comments are going to come through
00:32:39.980i'm not trying to call people out i'm not you know what i mean maybe it's time that we do start
00:32:46.080calling people out because it's the only way we're ever going to make any real noise here and there's
00:32:51.280so much stuff going on i totally understand that it's overwhelming for many people and many people
00:32:56.860simply just can't get out they're either too busy or they're not physically able to do so especially
00:33:02.720in winter and when it's this cold but the thing is i mean you have to show some kind of support
00:33:08.400and we have to show some kind of solidarity and do this together so let's get back to the people
00:33:13.980that you were uh that you had met with and you had kind of formed an informal alliance with
00:33:19.540uh you realize that you had to have something to go to the board with in the initial meeting
00:33:26.800so you look at the criminal code of canada right so exactly so that's exactly what i was just
00:33:31.360going to say is that though the those groups those people if you're going um to these board
00:33:37.860meetings and you don't have anything to back you it's much easier if you have something to back
00:33:41.520you so we have the criminal code of canada and um uh let me forget i have another picture i have
00:33:47.260show you after too shadow it's from that book or is it a different it's another book it's another
00:33:52.240book okay let's get through the criminal code thing here let's get up on the screen right now
00:33:56.460yeah because then you're going to see okay okay so the criminal code any any visual visual
00:34:03.540representation can be formed right sorry so any form i mean so it could be video it could be
00:34:09.860cartoon it could be um written it could be um like this isn't hustler like we don't need a picture
00:34:18.200of of um you know a physical picture of an actual um body these can be drawn so that's where a lot
00:34:27.560of people are like oh no that's not porn because that's not my dad's hustler or my my my neighbor's
00:34:32.840hustler magazine or my what page was this one again i jumped sadly seeing but i i that's how
00:34:41.760they associate porn so people think oh well this isn't porn yeah it is this is pornography so it
00:34:48.580can be a photograph a photograph it could be film it could be video or any visual representation
00:34:53.320whether or not it's made electronically or mechanical means that shows a person who is
00:34:58.320or depicted as being underage, under the age of 18, and is engaged in or depicted as engaged
00:35:06.980in explicit sexual activity. Or the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction
00:35:14.760for sexual purposes. It could be a sexual organ, an anal region of a person under the age of 180.97
00:35:22.640years old so just out of those pictures that i just showed you what do you say i mean to me that
00:35:29.200that's exactly what we're talking about here well you know what it's interesting because you show
00:35:33.480you show you show any written material visual representation or audio recording that advocates
00:35:39.300or counsels sexual activity with under or with persons under the age of 18 well this is in
00:35:48.240children's non-fiction area that's everybody under the age of 18 right some of these kids
00:35:55.340don't even know how to read so all they did was see pictures yeah right and it doesn't matter
00:36:01.120you read it and it's it's filth as well but yeah it's just it's it's absolutely unbelievable that
00:36:07.680this is even an issue christine can you hear me yes oh shoot you haven't been able to hear me
00:36:16.960I have been able to hear you, but I didn't think that you could hear me because I tried to interject in something you were saying there and you discontinued on.
00:58:18.100The proper good form is that the board would respond.
00:58:22.640And, I mean, there are so many failures in the system of their board that, I mean, there should be some people probably no longer in service there.
00:58:32.880However, that's that's another story for another day. But as it is right now, the library said they're keeping the books on shelves.
00:58:40.520And then they also said the deal is done. We're not talking about it anymore. Discussion closed.
00:58:47.260Well, there's 100 people in the room. What do you mean? Discussion's closed. You never even talked to us.
00:58:51.640You never had any discussion. You just said issues closed. Well, that's what? Issues not closed.
00:58:57.320And so you've decided as a library to keep the books on the shelves. But why on earth would we allow our council to fund that? With our taxpayers' dollars, they are using our hard-earned dollars to pay for the books and to pay the people to show pornography to our children.
00:59:18.680like let's think about that a smidgen so we're paying people to show pornography that we bought
00:59:27.600to our kids yeah are we crazy like come on so we went to the all the councils and we said did you
00:59:35.640guys know that this is what we're paying for and we demand that we don't pay for it with our tax
00:59:41.440dollars if that's what the library is going to do then we will defund that situation because we do
00:59:45.920not want that do we want the libraries to fund it no sadly we don't but if they play this game
00:59:51.620i sure as heck do i want it to fund it because if they don't want to take the porn off the shelves
00:59:56.720they are actually committing a crime because here's the criminal code right so they are
01:00:03.700committing a crime why are we paying for it so have you had any success talking to these boards
01:00:08.280so far now not every board runs the same some are a little bit more um don't know how their own
01:00:15.520board is supposed to run um some of them you learn that they are putting things into camera
01:00:21.380that they're not supposed to when i say in camera i don't know if everybody understands what that
01:00:25.120means um in camera means they're going to speak about it in private yeah and now when something
01:00:30.960in a boardroom or in a public setting um is spoken in private there's only four reasons
01:00:36.520according to the municipal act and according to the library um the public libraries act
01:00:42.400um there's there's acts that they have to follow and they are they're obviously not up and up with
01:00:48.160that because they're breaking some of those rules sadly um most of the the councils didn't want to
01:00:55.220respond but winkler did i from my understanding i didn't get to go to stanley because there was
01:01:01.420two council meetings at the same time so i went to six out of the seven meetings um
01:01:05.900um Miami which was Thompson they they heard us they heard us um sadly Pemina they they that's
01:01:17.060the Manitou region they said thank you for the information and they put it into um communication
01:01:23.700for information which means that they filed it under information and said thank you and then
01:01:28.460left now you have to understand that we didn't just say to Winker Council um you know get this
01:01:34.760off the shelves we gave they have options they can suggest right there's a council member from
01:01:43.860each council in order for this course consortium to work there's one council member for from each
01:01:49.360council from all seven that have to be on that board because they control the funding right that
01:01:55.760it's the municipality that controls the funding so that that library board has to have at least
01:02:00.840one council member on that board then the rest of those board members the library board members are
01:02:07.640people volunteers from those communities that sit on that board so there is representation
01:02:14.280that should be speaking on behalf of the board or on behalf of the council so if the council
01:02:19.880of winkler says they don't want these books that council member that's on the library board should
01:02:25.720also be speaking the same language they should also be speaking the same words so so just this
01:02:32.260is a very convoluted discussion here we're talking just about seven rural municipalities in southern
01:02:38.360manitoba trying to get all of these rural municipalities all these rms together uh because
01:02:44.960they are actually blended together under that one library board as you point out um and everybody
01:02:51.520living in a different province or even a different area of the province would have to figure out
01:02:58.900the weird ass configuration of their rms or counties in some cases uh so they can move forward
01:03:05.780with this right that that's probably one of the frustrations that you've had is trying to figure
01:03:09.960out exactly how all this works and how one thing is connected to another it goes province and then
01:03:15.840rural municipalities and then board and then like no not not really so you have um a library in the
01:03:25.720region so they're gonna have there's only three different types winnipeg is one so that's a city
01:03:31.640library so that whole library the decision making is done by the city council your city it's not
01:03:38.220done by a library board they have you guys have an advisory board but your city council runs the
01:03:44.500decisions and policies in that library. Now, you guys are the only one. So that's option number
01:03:49.260one. Then you have another choice. Your region, you can have a regional library, which is the
01:03:54.320same as what we have. So that's a bunch of municipalities that have gone together. And
01:03:58.960you'll hear it in the name of your library, the South Central Regional Library. So you already
01:04:03.620know that it involves more than one municipality. Or you will have the Somerset Library. So you
01:04:09.640know your area or your town has paid for that so that's your rm or your council that pays for that
01:04:17.640one those are your only options okay so and it would be like that in other provinces i'm assuming
01:04:22.740i would assume so too because that there nobody's clever enough to change their own system across
01:04:29.860the board all of the systems they're so proud that we have the best province and we have the
01:04:33.820they all use the same policies down in the states i looked at some of the policies in the states
01:04:38.440shadow and it's the exact same policies up here everybody's so proud to say oh yeah we did work
01:04:44.640so hard on our policies it's all you did was steal it from another guy yeah yeah interestingly
01:04:49.920again christine and i had this conversation i think it was two weeks ago and we were talking
01:04:54.700about where do these people get these ideas from anyway they don't even read them half the time
01:04:58.820they just import them from some other municipality somewhere else in the country they don't even know
01:05:03.640what they're doing like can you actually sit back and go wow these people who are in charge of
01:05:10.240stocking our libraries with books and what children read they don't even know what they're signing and
01:05:16.200what they're putting in there like can that even be but you have to remember that the council
01:05:20.860themselves they only give the funding and then that funding goes to that library and then that
01:05:26.320library board says here you have to follow those policies and then the director says okay we're
01:05:30.700following those policies and so they allow these books to come in but they don't know what policies
01:05:35.240they even are because they probably haven't read them never read them or the policy was dictated
01:05:40.860from an association that has that nefarious idea and that is true there is an association there is
01:05:49.080a canadian association that says that these books are not pornography there's an association that
01:05:54.440it's a policy not a policy and a suggestion down to the recommendation yeah a recommendation to
01:06:00.440keep these books on the shelf what is this group that you're talking about do you know who they
01:06:04.480are the canadian the canadian uh library association the canadian i don't know it's
01:06:09.320such a crop but they feel that they have to obey it but it's an association that does not override
01:06:15.980bylaw it certainly doesn't override criminal code no certainly doesn't override criminal code
01:06:23.280no so now let's go back to winkler winkler said this is not right the council said and we would
01:06:30.640like to do something about it so they have the option they can say to their councilman we should
01:06:37.460suggest to the library that they don't do this anymore the library still has their own choice
01:06:41.500they can't really dictate to the library but they can suggest the library can leave it and leave the
01:06:46.980books on the shelves then the the council can say well we're going to get together all of these
01:06:52.800all of these councils are going to get together and we're going to make a cooperative bylaw or
01:06:58.660we're going to give a cooperative suggestion to the library and say no more because this isn't
01:07:02.860happening anymore or winkler themselves can say we're going to put a bylaw in and protect our
01:07:09.540people and say no more yeah i think maybe going to that level is probably best because that way
01:07:17.520you're encompassing everything right and and do these winkler city counselors understand what
01:07:24.140they're responsible for it sounds to me like they don't really know what they're talking or
01:07:29.560know what they're responsible for from the video that i watched of your presentation to them earlier
01:07:34.240today yeah not that you did it earlier today i watched it earlier today but they didn't seem
01:07:38.740clear on the concept i think we have to help them get clear on what their job is just because you
01:07:44.780you got elected right go go back to when we were had the elections in the fall those we had people
01:07:52.400standing up and they said enough's enough I'm going to stand up I'm going to go and take that
01:07:56.500job do you think that they knew what the policies were I mean I still don't know half the policies
01:08:01.940and I ran I was in school board for for 10 years it's far too convoluted Christine it's
01:08:06.840you know what we're bringing it forward yeah we need to find a way to cut through it
01:08:13.280easier because it's so easy for them to just bounce you from one agency to another commission
01:08:19.520except for one thing shadow yeah the criminal code right this is against the law we found the law
01:08:27.580no bylaw can supersede the canadian criminal code let me ask you if you've gotten any uh
01:08:35.140legal recommendations or any legal help at all with this i'm going to say we're not done yet
01:08:43.260so i'm not going to reveal too much okay um where we've got things in the works um i was hoping
01:08:49.560that maybe your show would pull out some police officers or some um some lawyers or something
01:08:55.780like that because we would love to have extra help but we are we are um we're not done you can
01:09:03.020ask i mean you're on it right now there's going to be thousands of views by this time tomorrow so
01:09:08.440you may as well go ahead and say hey listen if you want to give us a help getting or give us a
01:09:13.060hand getting rid of these pornographic books for little kids in public libraries you can reach me
01:09:18.880at this email yeah which is which is um oh my head is all over the mouth it is um uh concerned
01:09:28.360citizens can't concerned citizens canada i don't i don't email myself often enough hang on a second
01:10:24.640So you're looking for help, and you're also willing to give help to other people in other areas who may be just starting out in this process of the long road that you have been down.
01:10:35.180Christine, you are doing a fantastic job, and I think that you're a fighter, and you're tenacious.
01:40:36.060so i wonder if if there are people out there
01:40:43.480who could become elected just as regular joe or joanne off the street right
01:40:50.800like this is the problem we face when it comes to politics what we sit here and say well a career
01:40:56.540politician what do you expect they're all liars and so when election time rolls around what happens
01:41:02.760You throw up a regular Joe against one of these guys who's just wearing a shirt like this one, maybe hasn't shaved in a couple of days, doesn't have his hair combed, or is wearing a hat that says John Deere on it.
01:44:58.260But perhaps more important than any individual error
01:45:01.200was how inherently flawed the overall approach
01:45:04.080of the scientific community was and continues to be.
01:45:07.360It was flawed in a way that undermined its efficacy and resulted in thousands, if not millions, of preventable deaths.
01:45:15.720What we did not properly appreciate is that preferences determine how scientific expertise is used and that our preferences might be indeed our preferences were very different from many of the people that we serve.
01:45:30.220we created policy based on our preferences then justified it using data and then we portrayed
01:45:37.300those opposing our efforts as misguided ignorant selfish and evil we made science a team sport
01:45:44.640and in doing so we made it no longer science it became us versus them and they0.88
01:45:51.300responded the only way anyone might expect them to by resisting
01:45:57.020we excluded important parts of the population from policy development and castigated critics
01:46:04.780which meant that we deployed a monolithic response across an exceptionally diverse nation
01:46:09.760forged a society more fractured than ever and exacerbated long-standing health and economic
01:46:15.720disparities our emotional response and ingrained partisanship prevented us from seeing the full
01:46:22.960impact of our actions on the people we're supposed to serve. We systematically minimized the downsides
01:46:29.020of the interventions we imposed, imposed without input, consent, and recognition of those forced
01:46:35.420to live with them. In so doing, we violated the autonomy of those who would be most negatively
01:46:41.920impacted by our policies, the poor, the working class, small business owners, blacks, Latinos,
01:46:48.220and children. These populations were overlooked because they were made invisible to us by their
01:46:53.860systematic exclusion from the dominant corporatized media machine that presumed omniscience. Most of
01:47:00.740us did not speak up in support of alternative views, and many of us tried to suppress them.
01:47:06.160When strong scientific voices like world-renowned Stanford professors John Ioannidis, Jay Patacharya,
01:47:12.800Scott Atlas, or University of California San Francisco professors Vinay Prasad,
01:47:17.240and Monica Gandhi sounded the alarm on behalf of vulnerable communities. They faced severe censure
01:47:23.460by relentless mobs of critics and detractors in the scientific community, often not on the basis
01:47:29.260of fact, but solely on the basis of differences in scientific opinion. When former President Trump
01:47:36.140pointed out the downsides of intervention, he was dismissed publicly as a buffoon. And when Dr.0.94
01:47:41.500Anthony Fauci opposed Trump and became the hero of the public health community, we gave him our
01:47:46.700support to do and say what he wanted, even when he was wrong. Trump was not remotely perfect,
01:47:54.340nor were the academic critics of consensus policy, but the scorn that we laid on them was a disaster
01:48:00.600for public trust in the pandemic response. Our approach alienated large segments of the population
01:48:06.820from what should have been a national collaborative project, and we paid the price. The rage of those
01:48:15.280marginalized by the expert class exploded onto and dominated social media. Lacking the scientific
01:48:22.080lexicon to express their disagreement, many dissidents turned to conspiracy theories. Now,
01:48:27.120you see, this is where he loses me a bit. And a cottage industry of scientific contortionists
01:48:32.180to make their case against the expert class consensus that dominated the pandemic mainstream,
01:48:37.640labeling this speech misinformation and blaming it on scientific illiteracy and ignorance,
01:48:43.220the government conspired with big tech to aggressively suppress it,
01:48:47.300erasing the valid political concerns of the government's opponents.
01:48:52.880And this, despite the fact that pandemic policy was created by a razor-thin sliver0.52
01:48:59.780of American society who anointed themselves to preside over the working class,
01:49:05.160members of academia, government, medicine, journalism, tech, and public health
01:49:09.040who were highly educated and privileged.
01:49:11.220From the comfort of their privilege, this elite prizes paternalism as opposed to average Americans who laud self-reliance and whose daily lives routinely demand that they reckon with risk.
01:49:23.180That many of our leaders neglected to consider the lived experience of those across the class divide is unconscionable.
01:49:33.380Incomprehensible to us due to this class divide, we severely judged lockdown critics as lazy, backwards, even evils.
01:49:41.220We dismissed as grifters those who represented their interests.0.97
01:49:45.060We believed misinformation energized the ignorant,
01:49:48.460and we refused to accept that such people simply had a different, valid point of view.
01:49:54.840We crafted policy for the people without consulting them.
01:49:58.220If our public health officials had led with less hubris,
01:50:02.160the course of the pandemic in the United States might have had a very different outcome with far fewer lost lives.
01:50:09.060Instead, we've witnessed a massive and ongoing loss of life in America
01:50:14.320due to distrust of vaccines in the health care system,
01:50:17.960a massive concentration in wealth by already wealthy elites,
01:50:21.700a rise in suicides and gun violence, especially among the poor,
01:50:25.740a near doubling of the rate of depression and anxiety disorders,