Charlie had the honor of speaking at #CPAC2021 about the dangers of big tech, excoriating the "Masters of Menlo Park" for their role in America’s decline and for the suppression of free expression, especially among conservatives. On this special episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, catch Charlie's FULL speech right here, where he makes the case that refusing to hold Big Tech accountable is not conservatism at all, but corporatism and cronyism. Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country.
He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
Turning point USA.
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
That's why we are here.
It is an honor to be with you guys today.
You might be saying, what on earth is Charlie wearing?
What kind of tie is this?
This is a 1990 Rush Limbaugh tie.
And I thought, what better place to honor one of the greatest Americans, quite honestly, ever to live than at CPAC?
Let's just remember for a moment the legacy of Rush Limbaugh.
I mean, he impacted my life.
I know a lot of people here had their lives impacted by Rush Limbaugh.
I was honored to be able to call him a friend the last couple years and his generosity, his commitment, his wisdom, how relentless he was to defend our country, never betraying his audience.
And my goodness, did we lose a legend last week?
So let's give it up to Rush Limbaugh and his family.
An absolute gift to our country, Rush Limbaugh.
Rush was a fighter for free speech.
We talk a lot about free speech.
We talk about the importance of the First Amendment.
However, sometimes we as conservatives stop short of protecting freedom of speech where it matters most.
So I'm going to ask you a question.
Which is more powerful, Google or our federal government?
Now, we as conservatives are taught to answer that question automatically by saying the federal government.
Now, I'm not doubting that the federal government has power.
The federal government can imprison people.
They can audit you.
They have the power of the law.
However, if that were to happen, you at least get some due process rights.
You at least get, you're supposed to get representation by an attorney.
You're able to sue your government if they do something illegal to you.
What happens if Google comes after you?
What happens if Google decides to digitally assassinate a certain person?
Like what we saw happen last month?
They can wipe away the existence of an idea, of a human being, of a political movement, instantaneously.
So I understand lots of conservatives are hesitant to talk about challenging big tech, hesitant about challenging Menlo Park in Silicon Valley.
But we as conservatives should not become corporatists.
We as conservatives should ask ourselves, what does it mean to be a conservative?
First and foremost, we are here to conserve God-given liberties and freedoms.
We are here to protect the family, our country, our American way of life.
And when a group of people in a concentrated area controlling trillion-dollar companies decide to impose a viewpoint that is completely contrary to the American way of life, and then we say, well, we can't do anything because they're a private company.
Excuse me.
As soon as you have 200 million users and 93% of all search results, you're not the local flower shop or the local coffee shop and you shouldn't be treated as such.
And we as conservatives must be very clear.
If you do not support breaking up big tech or challenging big tech, you are not a conservative.
You are a corporatist.
You see, the founding fathers were very worried about the centralization of power.
I love limited government.
But why do we love limited government?
We love it so that we can live lives as we see fit.
The founding fathers loved liberty.
They believe liberty was given to us by God, not by government.
But the founding fathers never imagined that a small collection of companies could potentially be more powerful than our own government.
Google is more powerful than our government, and there is no check and balance against them.
People say, start a competitor.
Well, then they'll wipe you out like they did to Parlor.
People say, well, what harm has Google actually done to the country?
Well, besides addicting our children to their smartphones all day long and destroying the humanity of an entire generation, besides censoring different political opinions, even beyond that, they have the potential power to obliterate any political movement.
And we saw it with one of the most grotesque and dangerous acts of political interference in American history.
One month out from the election, Hunter Biden's laptop, that story was given to the New York Post.
Anyone who tweeted about it, anyone who posted about it, immediately had their account suspended.
Just look at the New York Post.
We have now given the entire future of American politics to basically two or three companies.
And so what's the solution here for us as conservatives?
What does this mean?
Well, number one, we must identify the problem.
And I'm going to just say something that needs to be said.
Any Republican that takes money from Netpack or from Google should leave the Republican Party.
Any Republican that is funded by Google has no place in the Republican Party.
We, as conservatives, must treat donations that you get from Silicon Valley like we treat donations from Planned Parenthood.
We would never put up if a Republican came on stage here and said, oh, I'm financed from Planned Parenthood.
Then why do we tolerate big tech companies financing our lawmakers?
There are two governments in our country.
There's the federal government and the government of Menlo Park.
The ability to process and share information is critical to the future of our civilization.
For all the lawmakers that are passing through here and for people that want to win elected office, there are two things that conservative grassroots care about more than anything else.
Number one, restoring election integrity in our country for fair and free elections.
And number two, it is challenging big tech.
It is giving us the ability to speak freely on social media.
We should never take a default position just to defend corporations.
I love free enterprise.
That's why I want to challenge these corporations because they don't.
They are not believers in capitalism.
They're not believers in free enterprise.
They use technology and they use our own slogans and our own phrases and our own books against us as an excuse for us not to challenge them.
So in closing, I want to say this.
We as conservatives are very careful about identifying existential threats, and we should be.
Because we as conservatives believe the biggest problem in your life is probably you and your actions.
That personal responsibility, self-discipline is inherent in being a good citizen and leading a happy and full life.
But if we do not challenge these big tech companies, if we are not serious about the threat that they pose to our livelihood, to spreading information, or in some ways not spreading information at all, then we will live in a country where every state is like California.
Now, this is why Ron DeSantis is a phenomenal governor.
Why?
Because the states need to rise up against these tech companies, as Ron DeSantis did.
So for every Republican attorney general out there, sue these tech companies now for platform access, for monopolistic practices.
We as conservatives have more power than I think we realize.
We have purchasing power, we have consumer power, and we must, in a variety of different ways, make sure our lawmakers do not take money from these corporations, push back against their pattern of actions, and be unafraid to entertain ideas, to liberate the marketplace, empower real entrepreneurs, because the digital age is upon us.
And if we do not have free speech or first freedoms, then we're all going to live in a country that is unrecognizable.
And I believe if we do that and restore integrity in our elections, we're not just going to win a little, we're going to win big, and we're going to win for the next couple decades.