Kind: captions
Language: en
the great light we tell ourselves that
people who are evil are not like us
they're they're a class apart everybody
in history who has sinned is a person
who's very different from me Robert
George the philosopher over at Princeton
he's fond of doing a sort of thought
experiment in his classes where he asks
people to raise their hand if they had
lived in Alabama in 1861 how many of you
would be abolitionists and everybody
raises their hand he says of course
that's not true
of course that's not true the the best
protection against evil is recognizing
that it lies in every human heart and
the possibility that it takes you over
do you ever sit back
you know in the quiet of your mind and
think am I participating in evil
the following is a conversation with Ben
Shapiro a conservative political
commentator host of the Ben Shapiro show
co-founder of the daily wire and author
of several books including the
authoritarian moment the right side of
history and facts don't care about your
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whatever your political leanings I
humbly asked that you tried to put those
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in the description and now dear friends
here's Ben Shapiro
let's start with a difficult topic
what do you think about the comments
made by yay formerly known as Kanye West
about Jewish people they're awful and
anti-Semitic
and they seem to get worse over time
they started off with
the bizarre deathcon 3 tweet and then
they went into
even more stereotypical garbage about
Jews and Jews being sexual manipulators
I think that was the Pete Davidson Kim
Kardashian stuff and then Jews running
all of the media educating in charge of
the financial sector
Jewish people I mean there's no I mean I
called it on my show there's German
Nazism and it is I mean it's like right
from Protocols of the Elders of Zion
type stuff do you think those words come
from Pain where they come from and you
know it's always hard to try and read
somebody's mind what what he looks like
to me just having experience in my own
family people who are bipolar is he
seems like a bipolar personality he
seems like somebody who is in the middle
of a manic episode and when you're manic
you tend to say a lot of things that
that
you shouldn't say and you tend to
believe that they're the most brilliant
things ever said
the Washington posted an entire piece
speculating about how bipolarism played
into the kind of stuff that that yay was
saying and um
it's hard for me to think that it's not
playing into it especially because
even if he is an anti-semite and I have
no reason to suspect he's not given all
of his comments if he had an ounce of
Common Sense he would stop at a certain
point and bipolarism tends to drive you
well past the the point where common
sense
applies so I mean I would imagine it's
coming from that I mean
from his comments I would also imagine
that he's doing The Logical mistake that
a lot of anti-semites or racist or
bigots do which is
somebody hurt me that person is a Jew
therefore all Jews are bad and that that
jump from a person did something to me I
don't like who's a member of a
particular race or class and therefore
everybody of that razor class is bad I
mean that's textbook bigotry and that's
pretty obviously what he is engaging in
here so jumping from the individual to
the group that's the way he's been
expressing it right he keeps talking
about his Jewish Asians and I watched
your interview with him and you kept
saying it so just name the agents right
just name the people who are who are
screwing you and he wouldn't do it
instead he just kept going back to the
the general the group The the Jews in
general I mean that's that's textbook
bigotry and if we're put in any other
context
he would probably recognize it as such
to the degree is worth fuel hate in the
world uh what's the way to reverse that
process what's the way to alleviate the
hate I mean when it comes to alleviating
the kind of stuff that he's saying
obviously debunking it
you know making clear that what he's
saying is is garbage
but the reality is that I think that
that for
most people who are in any way engaged
with these issues
I don't think they're being convinced to
be anti-semitic by yay I mean I think
there's a group of people who may be
swayed that anti-Semitism is acceptable
because yay is saying what he's saying
and he's saying so very loudly and he's
saying it over and over
but yeah I think that for example there
were these signs that were popping up in
Los Angeles saying yay is right well
that group's been out there posting
anti-semitic science on the freeways for
years and their groups like that posting
on systematic signs where I live in
Florida they've been doing that for
years well before yay was saying this
sort of stuff it's just like latest
opportunity to kind of jump on on that
particular bandwagon but
listen I think that people do have a
moral duty to call that stuff out so
there is a degree to which it normalizes
that kind of uh idea that Jews control
the media Jews control X Institution
is there a
way to talk about
a high representation of a group like
Jewish people in a certain
institution like the media or Hollywood
and so on without it being a hateful
conversation of course a high percentage
of of higher than
statistically represented in the
population percentage of
Hollywood agents are probably Jewish a
higher percentage of lawyers generally
are probably Jewish high percentage of
accountants are probably Jewish also a
higher percentage of of Engineers are
probably Asian like the statistical
truths are statistical truths it doesn't
necessarily mean anything about the
nature of the people who are being
talked about they're a myriad of reasons
why people might be disproportionately
in one Arena or another ranging from the
cultural to sometimes the genetic I mean
are there certain areas of the world
where people are better long distance
Runners because of their genetic
adaptations in those particular areas of
the world that's not racist that's just
fact and what starts to get racist is
when you are attributing a bad
characteristic to an entire population
based on
the notion that that some members of
that population are doing bad things
yeah there's a jump between it's also
possible to uh record label owners as a
group
have a kind of culture that F's over
artists sure doesn't treat artists
fairly and it's also possible that
there's a high representation of Jews
uh in in the group of people that own
record labels but it's that small but a
very big leap that people take from the
group that own record labels to all Jews
for sure and I think that one of the
other issues also is that
anti-Semitism is is fascinating because
it breaks down into so many different
parts meaning that if you look at sort
of different types of anti-Semitism if
you're a racist against black people
it's typically because you're racist
based on the color of their skin if
you're racist if you're racist against
the Jews you're anti-semitic then
they're actually a few different ways
that breaks down right you have
anti-Semitism in terms of ethnicity
which is like nazi-esque anti-Semitism
you have Jewish parentage you have a
Jewish grandparent therefore you are
your blood is corrupt and you are
inherently going to have bad properties
then there's sort of old school
religious anti-Semitism which is that
the Jews are the killers of Christ or
the Jews are the sons of pigs and
monkeys and therefore Judaism is bad and
therefore Jews are bad and sort of in
the way that you get out of that
anti-Semitism historically speaking is
mass conversion which most anti-Semitism
for a couple thousand years actually was
not ethnic it was it was much more
rooted in in this sort of stuff right if
you convert it out of the faith then the
anti-Semitism was quote unquote
alleviated and then there's a sort of
bizarre anti-semitism political
anti-Semitism and that is members of a
group that I don't like are
disproportionately Jewish therefore all
Jews are
are members of this group or are
predominantly represented in this group
so you'll see Nazis saying the
Communists are Jews you'll see
Communists saying the Nazis are Jews or
you'll see Communists saying that the
capitalists rather are Jews and so
that's the weird thing about
anti-Semitism it's kind of like the Jews
behind every corner it's basically a big
conspiracy theory unlike a lot of other
forms of racism which are not really
conspiracy theory anti-Semitism tends to
be a conspiracy theory about Believers
of power being controlled by a shadowy
Cadre of people who are getting together
behind closed doors to control things
yeah the most absurd illustration of
anti-Semitism and just like you said is
Stalin versus Hitler over Poland
that every bad guy was a Jew right it
was like so every enemy there's a lot of
different enemy groups uh intellectuals
political and so on Military and behind
any movement that is considered the
enemy for the Nazis and any movement
that's considered the enemy for uh the
Soviet Army are the Jews
what is the fact that Hitler took power
teach you about human nature when you
look back at the history of the 20th
century what what do you learn from that
time
I mean there are a bunch of lessons to
Hitler taking power the the first thing
I think people
ought to recognize about Hitler taking
power is that the power had been
centralized in the government before
Hitler took it
so if you actually look at the history
of Nazi Germany the Weimar Republican
effectively collapsed the power had been
centralized in the chancellory uh and
and really under Hindenburg for a couple
of years before that and so it was only
a matter of time until someone who was
bad grabbed the power and so the
struggle between the Reds and the Browns
in Nazism in in pre-nazi Germany led to
this kind of up spiraling of radical
sentiment that allowed Hitler in through
the front door not through the back door
right he was elected so you think
Communists could have also taken power I
mean there's no question coming it's
going to take him power there were
serious force in pronouncing Germany do
you think there was an underlying
current that would have led to an
atrocity if the Communists have taken
power wouldn't have been quite the same
atrocity but obviously the Communists in
Soviet Russia at exactly this time were
committing the haladimir yeah right so
they so it was there were there were
very few good guys in terms of good
parties the moderate parties were being
dragged by the radicals into alliance
with them to prevent the worst case
scenario from the other guy right so if
you look at I'm sort of fascinated by
the the history of this period because
it really does speak to how does a
democracy break down I mean the 20s
Republic was a very liberal democracy
how does a liberal democracy break down
into complete Fascism and then into
genocide and there's a character who you
know was very prominent in the history
of that time and in Franz von papen who
was actually the second to last
Chancellor of the Republic before Hitler
so he was the chancellor and then he
handed over to Schleicher and then he
ended up Schleicher ended up collapsing
and that ended up handing power over to
Hitler it was papenhood stumped for
Hitler to become Chancellor uh papin was
a was a Catholic Democrat he didn't like
Hitler he thought that Hitler was a
radical and a nut job but he also
thought that Hitler being a buffoon as
he saw it was going to essentially be
usable by the right forces in order to
get the in order to prevent the
Communists from taking power
maybe in order to restore some sort of
legitimacy to the regime because he was
popular
in order for papin to retain power
himself
and then immediately after Hitler taking
power Hitler basically kills all of
Peyton's friends papin out of quote
unquote loyalty stays on he ends up
helping the Angeles and Austra you know
all this stuff is really interesting
mainly because what it speaks to is the
great light we tell ourselves that
people who are evil are not like us
they're they're classified people who do
evil things people who support evil
people people they're not like us and
that that that's an easy call everybody
everybody in history who has sinned is a
person who's very different from me
Robert George the philosopher over at
Princeton he's fond of doing a sort of
thought experiment in his classes where
he asks people to raise their hand if
they had lived in Alabama in 1861 how
many of you would be abolitionists and
everybody raises their hand he says of
course that's not true
of course that's not true right the the
best protection against evil is
recognizing that it lies in every human
heart and the possibility that it takes
you over and so you have to be very
cautious in how you approach
these issues and the back and forth of
Politics the sort of bipolarity of
Politics the the or the uh polarization
in politics might be a better way to put
it you know makes it very easy to to
kind of fall into the Rock'em sock'em
robots that eventually could
theoretically allow you to support
somebody who's truly
frightening and hideous in order to stop
somebody who you think is more
frightening and hideous you see this
kind of language by the way now
predominating almost all over the
Western World right my political enemy
is an enemy of democracy my political
enemy is going to end the Republic my
political enemy is going to be the
person who destroys the country we live
in and so
that person
has to be stopped by any means necessary
and that's that's dangerous stuff so the
Communists had to be stopped in Nazi
Germany and so they're the devil and so
any useful buffoon
as long as they're effective against the
Communists would do do you ever wonder
because the people that are
participating in evil may not understand
that they're doing evil
do you ever sit back
you know in the quiet of your mind and
think am I participating in evil I mean
that so my business partner and I uh one
of our our favorite memes is uh from
there's a British comedy show The Name
Escapes Me of these two guys who are
members of the SS and they're dressed in
the SS uniforms and the black uniforms
the skulls on them and they're saying to
each other one says to the other guy you
notice like the the British the the
symbol is something is something nice
and it's like it's like an eagle and but
uh it's a skull and crossbones you see
the Americans you see that they're blue
uniforms they're very nice and pretty
awesome jet black are we the baddies and
you know that's it and the truth is we
look back at at the Nazis and we say
well of course they were the baddies
they wore black uniforms they had Jack
Boots and they had this and of course
they were the bad guys but evil rarely
presents its face so clearly so yeah I
mean I think you have to constantly be
thinking along those lines and hopefully
you try to avoid it yeah you can only do
the best that a human being can do but
yeah I mean the answer is yes if it I
would say that
I spend
an inordinate amount of time reflecting
on whether
I'm doing the right thing and I may not
always do the right thing I'm sure a lot
of people think that I'm doing the wrong
thing on a daily basis but um it's
definitely a question that has to enter
your mind as a as a historically
aware and hopefully more ladies in
person do you think you're mentally
strong enough if you realize
that you're on on the wrong side of
History to switch sides very few people
in history seem to be strong enough to
do that I mean I think that the answer I
hope would be yes you never know until
the time comes and you have to do it I
will say that having heterodox opinions
in a wide variety of areas is uh is
something that that I have done before
I'm the only
person I've ever heard of in in public
life who actually has a list on their
website of all the dumb stupid things
I've ever said uh so where I go through
and I either say this is why I still
believe this or this is why what I said
was terrible and stupid yeah um and I'm
sure that list will get a lot longer
yeah look forward continue addition to
that yeah exactly yes it actually is a
super super long list people should
check it out and it's quite honest and
raw
uh what do you think about it's
interesting to ask you given
how pro-life you are about yay's
comments about comparing the Holocaust
to the 900 000 abortions in the United
States a year so
I'll take this from two angles as a
pro-life person I actually didn't find
it offensive because if you believe as I
do that unborn and pre-born lives
deserve protection then the slaughter of
just under a million of them every year
for the last almost 50 years is a
historic tragedy on par with a holocaust
from the outside perspective I get why
people would say there's a difference in
how people view the pre-born as to how
people view say a seven-year-old who's
being killed in the Holocaust like the
visceral power and evil of the Nazi
shoving full-grown human beings and and
small children into gas Chambers can't
be compared to
a person who even from pro-life
perspective may not fully understand the
consequences of their own decisions or
from a pro-choice protective fully
understands the consequences but just
doesn't think that that person is a
person that that's actually different so
I I understand both sides of it I wasn't
offended by yay's comments in that way
though because if you're if you're a
pro-life human being then you do think
that what's happening is a great tragedy
on scale that involves the
dehumanization of an entire class of
people
the the pre-born so the philosophical
you understand the comparison I do it
sure
so in his comments in the jumping from
the individual to the group I'd like to
ask you you're one of the most effective
people in the world that attacking the
left
and sometimes they can slip into attack
in the group
do you worry that there that's the same
kind of oversimplification that yay is
doing about Jewish people that you can
sometimes do with the left as a group so
when I speak about the left I'm speaking
about a philosophy
I'm not really speaking about individual
human beings as
the leftists like group and then try to
name who the members of this individual
group are I also make a distinction
between the left and liberals there are
a lot of people who are liberal who
disagree with me on taxes disagree on
foreign policy disagree with me on a lot
of things the people who I'm talking
about generally and I talk about the
left in the United States are people who
believe that alternative points of view
ought to be silenced because they are
damaging and harmful simply based on the
disagreement so that's one distinction
the second distinction again is when I
talk about the right versus the left
typically I'm talking about a battle of
competing philosophies and so I'm not
speaking about typically
it would be hard to if you put a person
in front of me and said is this person
of the left or of the right having just
met them I wouldn't be able to label
them in the same way that if you met
somebody in the name of Greenstein you'd
immediately got you or you made a black
person's black person and the the
adherence to a philosophy makes you a
member of
a group if I think the philosophy is bad
that doesn't necessarily mean that you
as a person are bad but it does mean
that I think your philosophy is bad yeah
so the grouping is based on the
philosophy versus something
like a race like this the the color of
your skin or race is in the case of the
Jewish people so it's a different thing
you can be a little bit more nonchalant
and careless and attacking a group
because it's ultimately attacking a set
of ideas well I mean it's really
nonchalant in attacking the set of ideas
and I don't know that nonchalant would
be the way I'd put it I tried I tried to
be exact when you're you know you don't
you don't always hit but you know the if
I say that I oppose the Communists right
and and then presumably I'm speaking of
people who believe in the Communist
philosophy now the question is whether
I'm mislabeling right whether I'm taking
someone who's not actually a communist
and then shoving them in that group of
Communists right that would be
inaccurate the the dangerous thing is it
expands the group as opposed to you
talking about the philosophy you you're
you're throwing everybody who's ever
said I'm curious about communism I'm
curious about socialism there's because
there's like a gradient you know it's
like uh to throw something at you I
think Joe Biden said MGA Republicans
right right
you know I think that's a very careless
statement because the thing you jump to
immediately is like for Trump right
versus I think
the in the in the charitable
interpretation that means a set of ideas
yeah my actually problem with with the
mega Republicans line from from Biden is
that he went on in the speech that he
made in in front of Independence Hall to
actually try and Define what it meant to
be American Republican who's a threat to
the Republic was the kind of language
that he was using and later on in the
speech he actually suggested well you
know there are moderate Republicans and
the moderate Republicans are people who
agree with me on like the inflation
reduction acts like well that that can't
be the the dividing line between a mega
Republican and a moderate like a
moderate Republican somebody who agrees
with you that you got to name me like a
republican who disagrees with you fairly
strenuously but is not in this group of
threats to the Republic you make that
distinction we can have a fair
discussion about whether the idea of
election denial for example make
somebody you know a threat to
institutions that that's that's a that's
a conversation that we can have and then
we'll have to discuss how much power
they have you know what the actual
perspective is what delve into it but
you know I think that he was being
overbroad and sort of labeling all of
his political enemies under one rubric
now again in politics the stuff sort of
happens all the time I'm not going to
plead Clean Hands here because I'm sure
that I've been inexact
um but somebody what would be good in
that particular situation is for
somebody to sort of read me back the
quote and I'll let you know where I've
been inaccurate I'll try to do that and
also you don't shy away from humor and
occasional trolling and mockery and all
that kind of stuff for the for the fun
for the chaos all that kind of stuff I
mean you know I I try not to to do
trollery for trollery sake but you know
it if the show's not entertaining and
not fun people aren't going to listen
and so you know if you can't have fun
with politics the truth about politics
is we all take it very seriously because
it has some serious ramifications
politics is Veep it is not House of
Cards the the general rule of politics
is that everyone is a moron unless
proven otherwise that virtually
everything is done out of stupidity
rather than malice and that if you
actually watch Politics as a comedy
you'll have a lot more fun and so the
the difficulty for me is I take politics
seriously but also I have the ability to
sort of flip the switch and suddenly It
all becomes incredibly funny because it
it really is like if you just watch it
from pure entertainment perspective and
you put aside the fact that it affects
hundreds of millions of people then
watching
you know
president Trump being president I mean
he's one of the funniest humans who's
ever lived watching Kamala Harris be
Kamala Harris and talking about how much
he loves Venn diagrams or electric buses
I mean that's that's funny stuff so if I
can't make fun of that then my job
becomes pretty morose pretty quickly
yeah it's funny to figure out what is
the perfect balance between
uh seeing the humor and the absurdity of
the game of it versus taking it
seriously enough because it does affect
hundreds of millions of people it's a
weird balance to strike it's like uh I
am afraid with the internet that
everything becomes a joke
I totally agree with this I I will say
this I I try to make less
jokes about the ideas and more jokes
about the people in the same way that I
make jokes about myself I'm pretty
self-effacing in terms of my humor and I
would say at least half the drugs on my
show are about me
right when I'm when I'm reading ads for
for Tommy John and they're talking about
their no as you guarantee I'll say
things like you know that would help me
in high school because it would have I
mean just factually speaking um so you
know that if I can speak that way by
myself I feel like everybody else can
take it as well
difficult question in 2017 there was a
mosque shooting in Quebec City six
people died five others seriously
injured the 27 year old gunman consumed
a lot of content online
and checked Twitter accounts a lot of a
lot of people but one of the people he
checked quite a lot of is you 93 times
in the month leading up to the shooting
if you could talk to that young man what
would you tell him and maybe other young
men listening to this that have hate in
their heart in that same way what would
you tell them you're getting it wrong
if anything that I or anyone else in
mainstream politics says drives you to
violence you're getting it wrong you're
getting it wrong now again when it comes
to stuff like this I have a hard and
fast rule that I've applied evenly
across the Spectrum and that is I never
blame people's politics for other people
committing acts of violence unless
they're actively advocating violence so
when uh Phantom Bernie Sanders shoots up
a congressional baseball game that is
not Bernie Sanders's fault I may not
like his rhetoric I might disagree with
him on everything Bernie Sanders did not
tell somebody to go shoot up in
Congressional baseball game when a
nutcase in San Francisco goes and hits
Paul Pelosi with a hammer I'm not going
to blame Kevin McCarthy the house
speaker for that when somebody threatens
Brett Kavanaugh I'm not gonna I'm not
gonna suggest that that was Joe Biden's
fault because it's not Joe Biden's fault
I mean we can play this game all day
long and I find that the people who are
most intensely focused on playing this
game are people who tend to oppose
the politics of the person as opposed to
actually believing sincerely that this
has driven somebody into the arms of the
the god of violence but you know I I
have 4.7 million Twitter followers I
have 8 million Facebook followers I have
5 million YouTube followers I would
imagine that some of them are people who
are violent I would imagine that some of
them are people who do evil things or
want to do evil things
and um I wish that there were a wand
that we could wave that would prevent
those people from deliberately or or
mistakenly misinterpreting things as a
call of violence uh it's it's just a
negative byproduct of the fact that you
can reach a lot of people and so
you know if somebody could point me to
the comment that that I suppose quote
unquote drove somebody to go and
literally murder human beings uh then I
would appreciate it so I could so I
could talk about the comment but I I
don't
mainly because I just think that
if we remove agency from individuals
and we if we blame broad-scale political
rhetoric for every act of violence We're
Not Gonna the the the people who are
going to pay the price are actually the
the general population because Free
Speech will go away if the idea is that
things that we say could drive somebody
who is unbalanced to go do something
evil
the necessary byproduct is hate is that
is that speech is a form of hate hate is
a form of violence speech is a form of
violence speech needs to be curbed and
that to me is deeply disturbing
so
definitely he that man that 27 year old
man is the only one responsible for the
evil he did but what if he and others
like him are not not cases
what if they're people with pain
with anger in their heart what would you
say to them you are exceptionally
influential and other people like you
that speak passionately about ideas what
do you think is your opportunity to
alleviate the hate in their heart if
we're speaking about people who aren't
mentally ill and people who are just
misguided I'd say to him the thing I
said to every other young man in the
country you need to find meaning and
purpose in forming connections that
actually matter in in a belief system
that actually promotes
General prosperity and and promotes
helping other people and this is why you
know the message that I most commonly
say to young men is it's time for you to
grow up mature get a job get married
have a family take care of the people
around you become a useful part of your
community
I've I've never at any point in my
entire career suggested violence as a
resort to
political
political issues and the whole point of
having a political conversation is that
it's a conversation if I didn't think
that that it were worth trying to
convince people of my point of view I
wouldn't do what I do for a living
so violence doesn't solve anything no it
doesn't
as if
this wasn't already a difficult
conversation
let me ask about uh ilhan Omar you've
called out her criticism of Israel
policies as anti-semitic is there a
difference between criticizing a race of
people like the Jews and uh and
criticizing
um the policies of a Nation like Israel
of course of course I criticize the
policies of Israel on a fairly regular
basis I would assume from a different
angle than Noah Omar does
um but yeah I mean I criticize the
policies of of a wide variety of states
and to take an example I mean I've
criticized Israel's policy and given
control of the temple mounts the Islamic
walk which effectively prevents anybody
except for Muslims repairing up there
I've also criticized the Israeli
government for their colored Crackdown
right they can criticize the policies of
any government but that's not what Ohio
doesn't actually believe that there
should be a state of Israel she believes
that Zionism is racism and that the
existence of a Jewish state in Israel is
in and of itself the great sin that is a
statement she would make about no other
people in no other land should not say
that the French don't deserve a state
for the French she wouldn't say that
somalis wouldn't deserve a state in
Somalia she wouldn't say that that
German sources of a state in Germany she
wouldn't say for the 50 plus Islamic
states that exist across the world that
they don't deserve states of their own
it is only the Jewish state that has
fallen under her significant scrutiny
and and she also promulgates lies about
one specific state in the form of
suggesting for example that Israel is an
apartheid state which is most eminently
not considering that the last Unity
government Israel included an era party
that their Arabs who said on the Israeli
Supreme Court and all the rest and then
beyond that obviously she's engaged in
in some of the same sort of
anti-symmetrics that you heard from yay
right the stuff about It's All About the
Benjamins that American support for
Israel is All About the Benjamins and
she's had to be traded by members of her
own party about this sort of stuff
before
can you empathize with the plight of
Palestinian people absolutely I mean I I
you know some of the uglier things that
I've ever said in my career are things
that I said very early on when I was 17
18 I started writing syndicated comment
I was 17. I'm now 38. so virtually all
the dumb things I say virtually ill many
of the dumb things the plurality of the
dumb things that I've said came from the
ages of I would say 17 to maybe 23. and
they are rooted again in sloppy thinking
I I feel terrible for people who have
lived under the thumb and currently live
under the thumb of Hamas which is a
national terrorist group or the
Palestinian Authority which is a corrupt
oligarchy that steals money from its
people and leaves them in misery or
Islamic Jihad which is an actual
terrorist group and the the basic rule
for the region in my view is if these
groups were willing to make peace with
Israel they would have a state literally
tomorrow and if they are not then there
will be no Bees and it really is that
simple if Israel the the formula that's
typically used has become a bit of a
bumper sticker but it happens to be
factually correct if the Palestinians
put down their guns tomorrow there would
be a state if the Israelis put down
their guns there'd be no Israel
yeah
you get attacked a lot on the internet
I gotta ask you about your own
psychology
um how do you not let that break you
mentally
and how do you avoid letting that lead
to a resentment of the groups that
attack you I mean it's so there are a
few sort of practical things that I've
done so for example I would say that
four years ago Twitter was all consuming
Twitter is an ego machine especially the
notifications button right the
notifications button is just people
talking about you all the time in the
normal human tendency as well people
talking about me I gotta see what
they're saying about me which is a
recipe for Insanity so uh my wife
actually said Twitter is making your
life miserable you need to take it off
your phone so Twitter is not on my phone
if I want to log on to Twitter I I have
to go onto my computer and I have to
make the conscious decision to go onto
Twitter and then take a look at what's
going on I could just imagine you like
there's a computer in the basement you
descend into the Czech Twitter that's
pretty much in the darkness if you look
at when I actually tweet it's generally
like in the run up to recording my show
or when I'm prepping for my show later
in the afternoon for example that
doesn't affect you negatively mentally
like put you in a bad mental space not
particularly if it's restricted to sort
of what what's being watched now I will
say that I think the most important
thing thing is you have to surround
yourself with a group of people who are
who you trust enough to make serious
critiques of you when you're doing
something wrong but also you know that
they have your best interests at heart
because the internet is filled with
people who don't have your best
interests at heart who hate your gods
and so you can't really take those
critiques seriously or does wreck you
and the world is also filled with
sycophants right then the the more
successful you become there are a lot of
people who will tell you you're always
doing the right thing I'm very lucky I
got married when I was 24 my office 20.
so she's known me long before I was
famous or wealthy or anything and so
she's a good sounding board I have a
family that's willing to that's willing
to call me out on my bullshit as you
talk to yay about I have friends who are
able to do that I I try to have open
lines of communications with people who
I believe have my best interests at
heart but one of the sort of conditions
of being friends is that when you see me
do something wrong I'd like for you to
let me know that so I can correct it and
I don't want to leave that Impressions
out there the sad thing about the
internet just looking at the critiques
you get I see very few critiques from
people that actually want you to succeed
I want you to grow I mean they're very
uh they're not sophisticated they're
just they're I don't know they're
they're cruel the critiques are just
they're it's not the actual critiques
it's just cruelty and that's that's most
of Twitter I mean as Twitter is a place
to to
smack and be smacked I mean that's the
anybody who uses Twitter for uh for an
intellectual conversation I think is uh
engaging in category error I use it to
spread love I think yeah you're the only
one it's you it's you and no one else my
friend all right well on that topic what
do you think about Elon buying Twitter
what do you like um what are you hopeful
on that front what would you like to see
Twitter improve so I'm very hopeful
about Elon buying Twitter I mean I think
that
Elon is significantly more transparent
than what has taken place up till now
he seems committed to the idea that he's
going to broaden the Overton window to
allow for conversations that simply were
banned before everything ranging from
efficacy of masks with regard to covid
to whether men can become women and all
the rest a lot of things that would get
you banned on Twitter before without any
sort of real explanation it seems like
he's dedicated to at least explaining
what the standards are going to be and
being broader in allowing a variety of
perspectives on the outlet which I think
is wonderful I think that's also why
people are freaking out I think the the
kind of wailing and gnashing of teeth
and wearing of sackcloth and Ash by so
many members of the Legacy Media I think
a lot of that is because
Twitter essentially was an oligarchy in
which certain perspectives were allowed
in certain perspectives just were not
and that was part of a broader social
media reimposed oligarchy uh in the
aftermath of 2017. so in order for just
to really understand I think what what
it means for Elon to take over Twitter I
think that we have to take a look at
sort of the history of media in the
United States in two minutes or less the
United States the media for most of its
existence up until about 1990 at least
from about 1930s until the 1990s
virtually all media was three major
television networks a couple major
newspapers in The Wire Services
everybody had a local newspaper with
wire services that basically did all the
foreign policy and all the national
policy McClatchy Reuters AP AFP et
cetera so that Monopoly or oligopoly
existed until the rise of the internet
there were sort of pokes at it and talk
radio and Fox News but there certainly
was not this plethora of sources then
the internet explodes and all of a
sudden you can get news everywhere and
the way that people are accessing that
news is
you're I believe significantly younger
than I am but we used to do this thing
called bookmarking where you would uh
bookmark a series of websites and then
you would visit them every morning
and then uh and then social media came
up and just from AOL or yeah exactly you
had the dial up and you'd actually it
was actually a can connected to a string
and you would actually just they would
go
and and uh and then uh there came a
point where social media arose and
social media was sort of a boon for
everybody because you no longer had to
bookmark anything you just followed your
favorite accounts and all of them would
pop up and you followed everything on
Facebook and it would all pop up and it
was all centralized and for a while
everybody was super happy because this
was the brand new wave of the Future
made everything super easy suddenly
Outlets like mine were able to see new
eyeballs because it was all centralized
in one place right you didn't have to do
it through Google optimization you could
now just put it on Facebook and so many
eyeballs were on Facebook you'd get more
traffic and everybody seemed pretty
happy with this Arrangement until
precisely the moment Donald Trump became
president at that point then the sort of
pre-existing supposition of a lot of the
powers that be which was
Democrats are going to continue winning
from here on out so we can sort of use
these social media platforms as ways to
to push our information and still allow
for there to be other information out
there the immediate response was we need
to re-establish this this siphoning of
information it was misinformation and
disinformation that won Donald Trump the
election we need to pressure the social
media companies to start cracking down
on misinformation and disinformation and
actually see this in the historical
record I mean you can see how Jack
dorsey's talk about Free Speech shifted
from about 2015 to about 2018. you can
see Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech
Georgetown in 2018 in which he talked
about free speech and its value and by
2019 he was going in front of Congress
talking about how he was responsible for
the stuff that was on Facebook which is
not true he's not responsible for the
stuff on Facebook right it's a platform
is a t responsible for the stuff you say
on your phone the answer is typically no
so when that happened all of these
because all the eyeballs have now been
centralized in these social media sites
they were able to suddenly control what
you could see and what you could not see
and the most obvious example was
obviously leading up to 2020 the
election and that the killing of the
hunter Biden story is a great example of
this and so Elon coming in and taking
over one of the social media services
and saying I'm not playing buyer rules
right there's not going to be this sort
of group of people in the halls of power
who are going to decide what we can see
and hear instead I'm going to let a
thousand flowers bloom there will be
limits but it's going to be on a more
case-by-case basis we're going to allow
perspectives that are mainstream but
maybe not mainstream in the halls of of
Academia or in the halls of media let
those let those be said I think it's a
really good thing now that comes with
you know some responsibilities on
onigon's personal part which would be
you know to be
for example I think more responsible and
dissemination of information himself
sometimes right like he got himself in
trouble the other day for tweeting out
that that story about Paul Pelosi that
was speculative and untrue and I think I
don't think what he did is you know
horrific he deleted it when he found out
that it was false but and that's
actually free speech working right he
said something wrong people ripped into
him he he realized he was wrong he's
elated it which seems to be a better
solution than preemptively Banning
content which only raises more questions
than it than it actually stopped
with that said
as the face of of responsible free
speech
you know and and that's sort of what
he's pitching at Twitter he I think
should enact that himself and be a
little more careful in the stuff that he
tweets out well that's a tricky balance
uh the reason a lot of people are
freaking out is because one he's putting
his thumb on the scale by saying he is
more likely to vote Republican he's
showing himself to be center right and
sort of just having a political opinion
versus being this amorphous thing that
doesn't have a political opinion
um I think if if I were to guess I
haven't talked to him about it but if I
were to guess he's sending a kind of
signal that's important for the Twitter
the company itself because if we're
being honest most of the employees are
left-leaning so you have to kind of send
a signal that like a resisting mechanism
to say like uh since most of the
employees are left is is good for uh for
Elon to be more right to balance out the
way the actual engineering is done to
say we're not going to do any kind of
activism activism inside the engineering
if if I were to guess that's kind of the
effective
um aspect of that of that mechanism and
the other one by posting the Pelosi
thing is probably to expand the Overton
window like saying we can play we can
post stuff we can post conspiracy
theories and then through discourse
figure out what is and isn't true yeah
again like I say I mean I think that the
that is a better mechanism in action
than what it was before I just think it
gave people who hate his guts the
opening to to kind of slap him for for
no reason but I can see the strategy of
it for sure and I think that the you
know the the general idea that that he's
you know kind of pushing right where the
company had pushed left before I think
that there there is actually uh
unilateral polarization right now in
politics at least with regard to social
media in which one side basically says
the solution to disinformation is to
shut down free speech from the other
side and the other side is basically
like people like me are saying the
solution to this information is to let a
thousand like I'd rather have people on
the left also being able to put out
stuff that I just agree with than for
there to be anybody who's sort of in
charge of these social media platforms
and using them as editorial sites I mean
they're plenty I'm not criticizing MSNBC
for not putting on right-wing opinions I
mean that's fine I run a conservative
side and you know we're not going to put
up left-wing opinions on a wide variety
of issues because we are a conservative
site but if you pitch yourself as a
platform that's a that's a different
thing if you pitch yourself as the Town
Square as as Elon likes to call it then
I think Elon has a better idea of that
than than many of the former employees
did especially now that we have that
report from The Intercept suggesting
that there are people from Twitter
working with DHS to to monitor quote
unquote disinformation and being rather
vague about what this information meant
yeah I don't think activism has a place
in what is fundamentally an engineering
company that's building a platform
uh like the people inside the company
should not be putting a thumb on the
scale of what is and isn't allowed you
should create a mechanism for the for
the people to decide what isn't isn't
allowed do you think Trump should have
been removed
from Twitter
should his account be restored uh his
account should be restored and this is
coming from somebody who really dislikes
an enormous number of Donald Trump's
tweets um again he's a very important
political personage
even if he weren't I don't think that he
should be banned from from Twitter or
Facebook in coordinated fashion by the
way I hold that opinion about people who
I think are far worse than than Donald
Trump right people I everyone knows I'm
not an Alex Jones guy I don't like Alex
Jones I think Alex Jones oh I think Alex
should be back on Twitter I do actually
because I think that there are plenty of
people who are willing to say that what
he's saying is wrong and I'm not a big
fan of this idea that that because
people I disagree with and people who
have personally targeted me by the way I
mean Alex Jones has been has said some
some things about me personally that I'm
not real fond of you guys not well we're
not besties no it turns out yeah you
know all I've said is I don't really
enjoy a show he said some other stuff
about the Antichrist and such but that
that's that's a bit of a different thing
I suppose you know even so yeah you know
I'm I'm just not a big fan of this idea
like I've defended people who have
really gone after me on a personal level
have targeted me that the Town Square is
online
Banning people from the Town Square is
unpersoning them unless you violated a
criminal statute you should not be
unpersoned in American society as a
general rule that doesn't mean that
companies that are not platforms don't
have the ability to respond to you I
think
Adidas is right to terminate his
contract with Kanye for example with the
guy
um you know that's but
Twitter ain't Adidas
so the way your stance on free speech to
the degree it's possible to achieve on a
platform like Twitter is you fight bad
speech with more speech with better
speech
and that's
um so if Alex Jones and Trump was
allowed back on
in in the coming months and years
leading up to the 2024 election you
think that's going to make for a better
world in the long term I think that on
the principle that people should be
allowed to do this and the alternative
being a group of thought bosses telling
us what we can and cannot see yes so I
think in the short term it's going to
mean a lot of things that I I don't like
very much sure I mean that's that's the
cost of doing business you know like I
think that one of the one of the costs
of freedom is people doing things that I
don't particularly like and I would
prefer the freedom with with all the
with all the stuff I don't like than not
the freedom let me Linger on the love a
little bit uh you and a lot of people
are pretty snarky on Twitter uh
sometimes to the point of mockery
derision even a bit of if I were to say
bad faith in in the kind of mockery
um and you see it as a war like I
disagree with both you and Elon on this
Elon sees Twitter as a war zone or Lisa
saw it that way in the past
have you ever considered being nicer on
Twitter like
um as a voice that a lot of people look
up to that if if Ben Shapiro becomes a
little bit more about love that's gonna
inspire a lot of people or no this is
just too fun for you the answer is yes
sure it's occurred to me like it let's
put it this way there are a lot of
tweets that actually don't go out that I
delete uh I'll say the Twitter Twitter's
new function that 30 second function is
is a friend of mine every so often I'll
tweet something and I'll I'll think
about it a second I'll be like do I need
to say this probably not can you make a
book
uh published after you pass away of all
the tweets that you didn't send oh no my
kids are still going to be around
you know the Legacy
um but yeah I mean sure the answer is
yes and there's a good piece of what we
would call an orthodox this is like he's
giving me a mustard smooth right now
this is uh like the the kind of you know
be a better person stuff I I agree with
you I agree with you and uh and yeah and
I will say that Twitter is sometimes too
much fun I try to be and I try to be at
least if not even-handed then
um equal opportunity in my derision an