The Glenn Beck Program - Best of The Program | Guests: Avi Yemini & Peter Boghossian | 9/13/21
Aired: 2021-09-13
Duration: 45:41


=== Australia's Sixth Lockdown (14:03) ===

[00:00:00]  All right, welcome to the program.
[00:00:02]  We have a big update today, very important update on Afghanistan.
[00:00:06]  We talk about what's happening in Australia with the lockdowns and a little football as well, which I watched a little bit because my son's playing football now and so he's watching it.
[00:00:17]  I didn't think it was as bad as it has been in the last couple of years.
[00:00:21]  Everybody says it's really bad.
[00:00:22]  I mean, the NFL is not that bad.
[00:00:25]  Baseball is better than basketball.
[00:00:28]  Basketball is legitimately intolerable.
[00:00:30]  And the NBA is intolerable.
[00:00:32]  It's basically just a Democratic arm that occasionally dribbles.
[00:00:36]  Which is strange, because that's exactly how he would describe Joe Biden.
[00:00:39]  Which we also talk about in today's podcast.
[00:00:43]  You're listening to The Best of the Glenn.
[00:00:58]  What's going on in Australia is truly bizarre, truly bizarre.
[00:01:06]  They have the longest and the harshest lockdown in the world.
[00:01:11]  Nobody's going in or out of the country.
[00:01:15]  You can't shop.
[00:01:16]  They're killing dogs.
[00:01:18]  So nobody comes and picks them up and tries to rescue them.
[00:01:22]  It is bizarre what is going on.
[00:01:25]  We wanted to talk to Avi Yemeni.
[00:01:29]  He is the Australian bureau chief for Rebel News, former Israeli Defense Force marksman, turned citizen journalist, and he has been watching this and asking the tough questions in Australia.
[00:01:45]  Avi is in Australia now.
[00:01:47]  Hello, Avi.
[00:01:48]  How are you?
[00:01:49]  G'day, Glenn.
[00:01:50]  How you going?
[00:01:52]  It's good to talk to you.
[00:01:53]  Avi, first of all, tell us what's happening because we in the United States are looking at this and thinking that those in Australia and frankly, New Zealand have gone insane.
[00:02:05]  What's happening?
[00:02:07]  I don't think I could describe it any better.
[00:02:09]  I think we've normalized it here.
[00:02:13]  It was interesting just probably a week ago, people were sending around these photos of one of the COVID camps that we have in the Northern Territories.
[00:02:23]  And I had cousins in Israel send me, are you really, have you really got these COVID camps with aerial shots of it?
[00:02:30]  And I said, yeah, you realize nobody in Australia even blinks at that idea anymore because that's, you know, 2020.
[00:02:38]  That's not even 2021.
[00:02:40]  We are in lockdown.
[00:02:42]  I'm in a city in Melbourne.
[00:02:44]  This is the most lockdown city in the world.
[00:02:46]  We're just about to hit the most lockdown, the most amount of days in lockdown.
[00:02:52]  We're in the sixth lockdown right now.
[00:02:53]  We're in the sixth week of the sixth, seventh day snap lockdown.
[00:02:59]  And a lockdown here is unlike what you guys experience in most of the states.
[00:03:05]  Here it is, lockdown.
[00:03:07]  You can't go more than 5k from your house.
[00:03:08]  There's a curfew.
[00:03:09]  Can't go more than 5K from your house?
[00:03:13]  Five kilometers from your house.
[00:03:15]  You cannot leave without your papers.
[00:03:19]  You've got to be an authorized worker.
[00:03:21]  So as media, if I leave to go to work, I have to carry those papers.
[00:03:26]  And if I'm not carrying them, I risk a $5,000 fine.
[00:03:34]  Okay.
[00:03:35]  So, but your idea in Australia is to, I mean, you've only had a thousand deaths, so it's remarkable.
[00:03:43]  But your idea is that we're just going to stay in until we have zero sickness, which is insanity.
[00:03:53]  Absolutely.
[00:03:53]  They've been chasing zero from the beginning.
[00:03:56]  And the fact is now zero is unsustainable.
[00:04:00]  You can't achieve it anymore.
[00:04:02]  They've had the Dell's Australian in New South Wales.
[00:04:04]  They're getting over, you know, 1,500 cases, I think, today.
[00:04:08]  In Melbourne, where we've, in New South Wales, they tried, they have more of a conservative government.
[00:04:15]  I'm using that term loosely here, but conservative for Australia.
[00:04:21]  And they tried to lock down less.
[00:04:24]  Now in Victorian Melbourne, where I am, they love to lock down.
[00:04:29]  It's like a race to lockdown.
[00:04:31]  One case in states, you know, with six million citizens, if you get one case of corona, they lock down for five days.
[00:04:38]  But, you know, we had zero cases on one day.
[00:04:41]  The next day, we had eight cases.
[00:04:42]  They locked down for that snap lockdown.
[00:04:45]  And here we are, six weeks into it.
[00:04:47]  And I think today we had about 500 cases.
[00:04:50]  So it's growing.
[00:04:52]  That zero, nobody's talking about, at least in the states.
[00:04:56]  In the states that are currently in lockdown, they're not chasing those zeros anymore.
[00:05:02]  But in the other states where they don't have any cases, they've become a nation unto themselves.
[00:05:09]  We cannot, you know, I can't travel.
[00:05:12]  I'm a dual citizen, Australian, Israeli.
[00:05:14]  My mum, my grandma, a lot of my families in Israel.
[00:05:16]  I haven't seen them for two years.
[00:05:18]  I cannot get there as a dual citizen to visit my own family.
[00:05:23]  Now, that may be shocking to you to hear, but you know what's even more shocking?
[00:05:28]  I can't go and visit family and friends in other states because they've built these barriers between them where you just cannot get in in a way.
[00:05:38]  What do you mean they've built these barriers between them?
[00:05:40]  The physical barriers?
[00:05:43]  In some places, yes, physical barriers.
[00:05:46]  In others, not so much.
[00:05:48]  It's quite interesting, actually, looking at from a political perspective, is that those that were very much anti-the rhetoric of Trump and the border wall seem to be the first to build these walls.
[00:06:02]  Your Labor, your left-wing governments that just ran to build in Queensland.
[00:06:08]  So Queensland, New South Wales, you actually have barriers that the Labour government has put up there.
[00:06:15]  And it's just a symbolic, I guess, showing that they're doing something.
[00:06:19]  It's seriously politicised the entire thing at the expense of the Australian people.
[00:06:25]  So we've greatly misjudged the Australians.
[00:06:30]  We've always thought that they were very much like Americans, but there is not a libertarian spirit that exists in Australia.
[00:06:38]  Am I correct on that?
[00:06:41]  I still have hope.
[00:06:42]  I still have hope.
[00:06:43]  But yes, I would say it's quite sad to see what happened.
[00:06:48]  I guess it was more predictable than I would have thought.
[00:06:52]  If you look back in 1996, it was the Conservatives that gave up the guns in Australia.
[00:06:58]  So I guess it's not such a surprise that what are we now in 2021, people are just rolling over and willing to give up every single civil liberty to chase a zero chance of death from a virus.
[00:07:15]  So what is it?
[00:07:16]  It's a bit sad.
[00:07:19]  What are these camps?
[00:07:23]  So they have these ideas.
[00:07:24]  Well, look, the ones that the people were sending me photos of was just a COVID quarantine camp where they've just, it's a big facility and they're building them around the country now.
[00:07:36]  So, you know, in Melbourne, they've been using hotel facilities, which they've just had problem after problem with the cases coming out.
[00:07:47]  So now they're building, you know, big COVID camps for people returning from overseas.
[00:07:55]  So right now, our borders are shut.
[00:07:58]  It is very hard to get in and out of the country.
[00:08:00]  You need certain exemptions.
[00:08:02]  Unless you're rich and famous, it is hard to get in and out of Australia.
[00:08:07]  So the idea is that once the population is 70 to 80% vaccinated, double vaccinated, or by that point, who knows what number vaccination they're going to be talking about.
[00:08:19]  But whatever the fully vaccinated means at that point, then they can open the borders and anybody traveling in from overseas would, I imagine, have to stay at East Quarantine.
[00:08:31]  We don't know.
[00:08:31]  Everything keeps changing.
[00:08:33]  The goalposts keep moving.
[00:08:36]  Everything we aim for and we achieve and we reach, then suddenly, oh, that's not good enough because the virus got far worse since the last time we spoke.
[00:08:46]  There was a audio that I heard, a video that was going viral around America, where you had somebody in the Ministry of Health saying we're going to vaccinate this number of children at the stadium and parents are not allowed to attend.
[00:09:10]  Did that happen?
[00:09:11]  Is that true?
[00:09:12]  You're just taking children?
[00:09:15]  I don't know what the audio is, but these days I would not be surprised now they're talking about the push for.
[00:09:22]  So now they're pushing for 12 and above in schools.
[00:09:26]  I don't think at this point it's not against the will of the parents.
[00:09:32]  I haven't seen anything like that.
[00:09:33]  But I wouldn't be surprised.
[00:09:35]  At this point, they're trying to mandate it everywhere and coerce everyone into having the vaccine, including children, right now until 12.
[00:09:44]  But I've heard today so-called health experts saying that we should be pushing under 12 as well.
[00:09:51]  And I don't think any of the vaccines have been approved for under 12, but it doesn't seem to stop these madmen who have been given, who are just high on power.
[00:10:01]  That's the problem.
[00:10:02]  You've got to help bureaucrats who are just enjoying the power trip.
[00:10:06]  And it's gone on for, we're coming up to two years soon.
[00:10:11]  And it's got to stop.
[00:10:12]  I don't know how much more Australians can put up with this, but it is scary.
[00:10:16]  It is scary to think, to see it happen and unfold.
[00:10:21]  And, you know, we look, a couple of years ago, we were so free and we would have never expected that this kind of restrictions could sustain more than that first 14 days to flatten the curb.
[00:10:35]  If you would have asked me in those first 14 days, I would have thought there was no chance.
[00:10:40]  But here we are.
[00:10:42]  And I think, yeah, I'm hopeful that there is a bit of libertarian spirit and people stand up and realize that they've been taken for a ride.
[00:10:54]  But it is scary how many people.
[00:10:56]  Have you heard what the planet?
[00:10:59]  I mean, once you open this up, you're going to get travellers and you're going to get sick.
[00:11:06]  I mean, you just can't do this.
[00:11:10]  You know, your problem, they won't let you in, Glenn, because you make too much sense.
[00:11:16]  Too much common sense.
[00:11:18]  You know what I mean?
[00:11:18]  Has anyone asked that?
[00:11:20]  I mean, at some point, you're going to open it up.
[00:11:23]  And at some point, you're going to then have very little immunity to whatever it is at that time.
[00:11:32]  I think they've been so focused on policing people's thoughts, policing people's actions.
[00:11:39]  You know, some of the people that stood up and they did have that spirit you mentioned before, a lot of them are in jail right now.
[00:11:45]  I don't know if you guys experienced that.
[00:11:47]  There are people I know personally that have gone to jail for these crimes called incitement, for inciting people to stand up for their freedom.
[00:11:59]  I saw a guy on a horse that looked like Braveheart, where he was saying, cross the border.
[00:12:04]  They can't all arrest us now.
[00:12:06]  Freedom.
[00:12:09]  I think he's probably in jail.
[00:12:12]  I know what you're talking about.
[00:12:13]  And that is at that border that I mentioned earlier where they did resurrect.
[00:12:17]  The Labor government did put up a barrier.
[00:12:19]  But what is happening is in Australia.
[00:12:21]  And I think Americans, you guys need to take heed of what's happening here because guess what?
[00:12:27]  We are physically ahead in time.
[00:12:30]  I don't know what time it is.
[00:12:31]  It's 11.21 p.m. for me today on Monday, so I'm ahead of you.
[00:12:35]  So look into the future, see what's happening in Australia and do not let it happen to the states because one day I want to come back and visit you when I'm allowed out of this country.
[00:12:45]  And I hope that it's the same America that I love and remember.
[00:12:49]  And yeah.
[00:12:52]  Avi, please stay in touch with us.
[00:12:54]  I appreciate you letting us know what's going on and telling us what the real situation is because we're looking at this from afar going, wait, that can't be happening.
[00:13:09]  Not in Australia.
[00:13:10]  It is.
[00:13:11]  Yeah, it's sad.
[00:13:13]  It is the truth.
[00:13:14]  It is what's happening.
[00:13:15]  And I appreciate your voice and appreciate the more voices that stand up and speak.
[00:13:19]  It's weird because just before this all took place, I was in Hong Kong for rebel news and I was reporting from the front lines there in the protest.
[00:13:29]  And I remember just thinking, yes, let's get more of the world to shine a light.
[00:13:34]  What's happening here?
[00:13:36]  I can't believe what is unfolding on these beautiful streets of Hong Kong.
[00:13:40]  And now I'm here today in Melbourne, Australia.
[00:13:43]  And some of the protests that I see here and I report on are far more dangerous for me as a journalist than it was for me then in Hong Kong.
[00:13:51]  So I have to take a quick break, but Avi, just give me 30 seconds.
[00:13:57]  Are there going to be any small businesses that survive this in Australia?

=== Dark Forces at Play (07:41) ===

[00:14:04]  I feel like the plan is to kill them all.
[00:14:06]  Oh, my God.
[00:14:07]  And they may succeed.
[00:14:09]  Avi Yemeni, he is the Australian Bureau Chief of Rebel News from Australia.
[00:14:14]  Thank you so much for staying up so you could be on the program with us.
[00:14:17]  I appreciate it.
[00:14:22]  You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
[00:14:31]  Welcome to Monday.
[00:14:34]  It's the 13th of September.
[00:14:38]  And I wished that I was going to get on the air and tell you something today that is, I mean, will be made into a movie probably long after we're dead.
[00:14:51]  And our names will be changed to protect the actual people that actually did stuff.
[00:14:59]  But it is a movie.
[00:15:01]  What's going on right now is one of the most amazing things I have ever personally witnessed.
[00:15:09]  And it is the evacuation of Americans, those who helped us, Christians that are dying, women that are under incredible conditions.
[00:15:28]  I see things that I can't show you.
[00:15:31]  I see things, I see the pleadings from people who are in safe houses.
[00:15:38]  Please don't forget us.
[00:15:41]  I see what they're being sent by the Taliban.
[00:15:49]  If I die today, my entire life will have been worth it for what you have helped get done in just the last three weeks.
[00:16:08]  You have saved well over 5,000 people.
[00:16:16]  Now remember, our goal for $20 million was 3,000 to 5,000 people, and we thought that would be incredible.
[00:16:24]  I cannot give you at today's date how many people you have actually saved because we don't want anyone.
[00:16:35]  This program and everything is monitored closely.
[00:16:40]  And so I want to be extraordinarily careful.
[00:16:46]  But I will tell you that the number is bigger than 5,000 people.
[00:16:59]  What I hoped to have happened this weekend is still so incredibly close.
[00:17:15]  I was told that if it didn't happen this weekend, a window is closing, and that window has not yet closed.
[00:17:24]  And there are people that are that are yet to save, and more than what you see on tv, more than what the White House is telling you, I will leave it at that.
[00:17:49]  There are dark forces that are at play here.
[00:17:56]  Unfortunately, there are dark forces still at play in our own White House and in our own State Department, and I have again spoken to many people over the weekend.
[00:18:12]  Why won't they just get out of our way today?
[00:18:23]  I won't speculate on that.
[00:18:27]  Today, I pray that there is at least one person in on the side of America that will do the right thing.
[00:18:44]  Today, I ask that you pray for those in the Middle East that are in the midst of doing work, that a Moses style miracle will happen.
[00:19:00]  We just honestly need two people to move, two people.
[00:19:08]  Please pray that that happens today.
[00:19:15]  They are in bed, most likely in Afghanistan.
[00:19:23]  Our operatives that are working undercover have now gone to work.
[00:19:32]  There are several people that are in dire need of medical care.
[00:19:47]  Friday, we told you, along with a congressman from Oklahoma who had just returned, he had a father and two daughters that were blue passport Americans and a mother who had a permanent residence green card,
[00:20:15]  and the daughter was very ill and they thought that if we couldn't get her out of there that she would lose her legs.
[00:20:29]  I got a call on Saturday morning that we were too late, that she didn't lose her legs, she lost her life waiting.
[00:20:46]  There are now two Americans instead of three and a green passport holder that is waiting for a miracle at the State Department.
[00:21:02]  If in the next few days, I don't want to say that.
[00:21:13]  I have great hope.
[00:21:17]  But we are now running into a situation in the Middle East that is deteriorating quickly.
[00:21:26]  And the options soon will be one person at a time.
[00:21:35]  And there are thousands that need to be out.

=== Urgent Funding for Girls at Risk (03:43) ===

[00:21:45]  There are girls that have already been promised to be the brides of the Taliban.
[00:21:54]  There are the girls of the Afghani National Institute Orchestra.
[00:22:03]  Their musical instruments were destroyed this weekend by the Taliban, and they are in hiding.
[00:22:20]  I told you for $20 million we could get 3,000 to 5,000 people out.
[00:22:31]  We have done that.
[00:22:37]  And I will give you and publish all of the numbers for you.
[00:22:42]  We have looked at this money.
[00:22:45]  Hess.
[00:22:47]  sacred money.
[00:23:01]  I was informed this morning that to do what we want to do is going to require another six million.
[00:23:14]  we have raised 35.5 million we reached our goal but to do what we're hoping to do again it was like it was at the beginning We need the money because everyone is saying, when you pull the trigger, I need the money now.
[00:23:45]  I told my staff, I don't know how to come to you and ask for that.
[00:23:55]  You have already given so much, and you have already saved so many.
[00:24:06]  I hope to be able to tell you in a few days.
[00:24:11]  A miracle of miracles.
[00:24:24]  But I need to ask you again to give if you can.
[00:24:34]  Perhaps those that weren't listening the first time or haven't given can make up this deficit that we have.
[00:24:51]  If you could give to the Nazarene Fund, please go to thenazarenefund.org or mercuryone.org.
[00:25:12]  We're not sure the four planes that were held back by the State Department.

=== The Mystery of the 400 (03:28) ===

[00:25:28]  We're not sure what happened to those over a thousand people.
[00:25:37]  You really can't use safe houses more than once, and there are very few people that are willing to act as a safe house.
[00:25:48]  But our people have been out all this weekend, not only looking for them, but preparing others.
[00:25:58]  And it is a cat-and-mouse game.
[00:26:04]  I got word this weekend that the four, that the 400 women and children that were asked to go to the other side of the Abbey Gate because of an 82ND Airborne commander who has since been relieved of.
[00:26:34]  of command.
[00:26:37]  Told us to get them off the tarmac.
[00:26:39]  He didn't care who they were.
[00:26:40]  They were in his way.
[00:26:42]  We begged him that these people had gone through hell to get through the gate and to put them on the other side of the gate could be a death sentence.
[00:26:55]  He didn't care.
[00:26:57]  I have pictures of these women and children standing in the sewage just outside of the Abbey gate.
[00:27:09]  That's where the explosion happened about two hours after we put them on the other side of the gate and told them to please stay as close to the gate as you could because we were going to get it reversed.
[00:27:31]  Two hours after a bomb went off, and I have told you that out of the 400 women and children, I wasn't sure how many survived.
[00:27:43]  I got word on Saturday that we have flown one.
[00:28:13]  mother out of that group to safety you know the quran says you save one person and it's like you save the whole world
[00:28:44]  We tried to keep that in mind this weekend.

=== Intellectual Diversity Benefits Students (05:09) ===

[00:28:57]  There is another story to be told that I hope to be able to tell you today.
[00:29:10]  But perhaps tomorrow I will introduce you to someone who has an incredible story to tell that you saved.
[00:29:32]  Today, I just ask, if you can, please donate to TheNazareneFund.org, TheNazareneFund.org, or MercuryOne.org.
[00:29:52]  The best of the Glenn Beck Program.
[00:30:05]  Portland State University professor and author of how to have impossible conversations, which I would like to talk to him about perhaps at a later date.
[00:30:16]  Um, Peter Begosian, he joins us now.
[00:30:19]  Hi Peter, how are you?
[00:30:20]  Sir Glenn, it is a pleasure to to speak with you again.
[00:30:25]  Likewise um, you know, I really enjoyed uh, our conversation.
[00:30:29]  I don't even know how long ago it was, but I did a podcast with you and you at one point looked at me um, just almost with crazy eyes and went, I am really trying hard to find a way to hate you and I can't.
[00:30:44]  I can't do it.
[00:30:45]  Um, you know, we both have that one thing in common that, no matter what people say about us, when you can, when you have an actual conversation and it's fair and honest, I I can't find a way to to.
[00:31:00]  I can find a way to disagree with you, but I can't find a way to find that you're a monster, because you're not.
[00:31:06]  Yeah, I think that that's right.
[00:31:08]  So I I want to thank you for your support, in spite of our differences over the years, and I think we would make great neighbors and i've always found you an honest broker of conversation.
[00:31:18]  Let me ask something.
[00:31:19]  So your listeners know that the university system is in crisis now.
[00:31:24]  It's sick, it's not well, and I want to kind of explore some of that with you and get your thinking on this.
[00:31:32]  So I believe very strongly i'll lay my beliefs out on the table and then we can talk about those.
[00:31:38]  So I believe very strongly that we need intellectual diversity in our institutions and I believe that the people who benefit most from that are the students.
[00:31:49]  Faculty also benefit, but the students are those individuals who benefit most from that.
[00:31:55]  So that's one one point.
[00:31:56]  The second point is I, to say the least, do not like Marxism.
[00:32:01]  I think it's a it's a poisonous ideology and it's a failed ideology.
[00:32:06]  Now, with that said, I believe, and I want to ask if you believe this, I believe that there should be a Marxist in an economics department.
[00:32:17]  I don't have a problem with that.
[00:32:18]  As long as it's fairly taught.
[00:32:20]  And look, I truly believe two of my favorite people that seemingly get along, Peter Singer and Robbie George.
[00:32:31]  They are completely by the way.
[00:32:33]  Yes, I do too.
[00:32:34]  Completely opposite ends of the aisle.
[00:32:37]  And they have decent and fair conversations together in front of the classes.
[00:32:44]  And they don't beat each other up or call each other names.
[00:32:47]  They state the facts as they understand them.
[00:32:50]  The best universities and the best university professors should push you.
[00:32:55]  If you're a conservative, they should push you on everything that you believe and challenge you and do the same for the liberal in the class.
[00:33:04]  And the professor, you should not have any idea which side he's on.
[00:33:10]  Just teach people how to critically think.
[00:33:14]  Right.
[00:33:15]  And Robbie George and Peter Singer are perfect examples of that because I think they embody intellectual integrity.
[00:33:21]  Yes.
[00:33:21]  But I want to use that as a commonality that you and I have.
[00:33:26]  So you and I both believe that there should be intellectual diversity.
[00:33:30]  Our institutions benefit, the faculty benefit, but particularly the students benefit.
[00:33:35]  That commonality that we share, that's absent from those who want to rob us of our cognitive liberty.
[00:33:42]  Yes.
[00:33:43]  That's absent.
[00:33:44]  They don't want intellectual diversity.
[00:33:46]  Correct.
[00:33:47]  They are systematically creating a monoculture where they cull divergent voices, and it's not by accident.
[00:33:55]  Well, they're doing that.
[00:33:56]  As you know, Peter, they're doing that beyond the university.
[00:34:00]  I mean, there was a time that I was hired by CNN.

=== Defending Cognitive Liberty (11:35) ===

[00:34:06]  There is no way in hell anything like that would ever happen today.
[00:34:14]  The same thing with, I mean, try to get, you know, I have a book that sold millions of copies that is a great story.
[00:34:24]  In fact, Paramount bought it at one point, and then the pressure started up, and I can't get anyone in Hollywood to do it, and it doesn't break my heart.
[00:34:35]  But they will not allow anyone who disagrees with their religion to be able to speak out or have a platform at all.
[00:34:48]  Right.
[00:34:48]  And that's exactly what it is.
[00:34:50]  It's a religion, and it's spread from the universities into the society at large.
[00:34:57]  And now people are, many people have woken up to this.
[00:35:01]  Some people are still in their slumber.
[00:35:05]  The question is either what do we do about it or how do we navigate, like how do we push it back or how do we deal with this thing that we all have to live with?
[00:35:15]  You know, we're all walking on eggshells.
[00:35:17]  We never get to voice our opinion honestly.
[00:35:20]  We never even know what anybody else means.
[00:35:23]  Listen, the reason that you and I can have an authentic relationship is because I know what you mean when you say something.
[00:35:31]  You don't have to push your foot around.
[00:35:34]  I can speak bluntly and directly to you and we can engage our disagreements honestly.
[00:35:39]  A phrase that's not used anymore, but like men, right?
[00:35:42]  Like adults, we can sit there.
[00:35:44]  If I don't know what you think and you don't know what I think, we can never have authentic relationships because nobody knows who the other person is or what the other person thinks.
[00:35:54]  Yeah, go ahead.
[00:35:55]  Or worse, if one side is telling everyone this is what they mean and that doesn't reflect reality at all and they paint you into something entirely different.
[00:36:08]  No, just leaving us as, I don't know what they think, would be a blessing.
[00:36:14]  But instead, it is painting people that they never discuss anything with, painting them as monsters.
[00:36:25]  Correct.
[00:36:27]  And so I think it's really important for your listeners and others to know the enemy, your enemies are those who want to rob you of cognitive liberties and who want you to think a certain way and to be a certain way.
[00:36:41]  Your enemies are not people who have substantive political disagreements with you.
[00:36:45]  That's what America is about.
[00:36:47]  This is the land of the free.
[00:36:49]  And that's what we do.
[00:36:50]  There are rules of engagement.
[00:36:53]  We talk to each other.
[00:36:54]  I'm not a big fan of debate.
[00:36:56]  I much prefer a conversation, but debate is fine.
[00:36:58]  But we engage those ideas in the public square and then we vote on them.
[00:37:04]  And I think that we are losing something fundamental in this country.
[00:37:09]  And we have to start talking to each other again.
[00:37:11]  We have to.
[00:37:13]  We have to start speaking across divides.
[00:37:15]  We have to start looking and you put your finger on it exactly.
[00:37:18]  It's people looking at other people as moral monsters.
[00:37:21]  Not merely that they're wrong, but that they're bad people.
[00:37:26]  So, Peter, as we are looking at this, I mean, let me say something that I don't think you'll hear others on the right say, and that is, right now, I am extraordinarily concerned about what's happening in Washington with the power grab, the unconstitutional power grab that is staggering and leaves you breathless when you look at it.
[00:37:52]  But I will tell you, if it continues to go this way and you continue to push people into a corner right now, the number one enemy, according to Democrats, the number one enemy to America is the Donald Trump voter.
[00:38:09]  The number one enemy to Republicans, I believe, is China.
[00:38:16]  And then the next one, I believe, is terrorist, number four or five is the Democrats.
[00:38:23]  But I tell you, if you continue to go this way, you're going to get a demagogue the other way that will just be just as frightening.
[00:38:32]  We've got to stop this swing so far towards authoritarianism.
[00:38:39]  Yeah, and here's one of the reasons for that.
[00:38:43]  When you disallow people from honestly voicing their opinion through political correctness or what have you, if you do not talk about your problems, your problems will not go away.
[00:38:54]  In fact, quite the contrary, they'll be worse.
[00:38:57]  And if as a society, we continue to not be honest about the nature of our problems, a strongman or a demagogue or somebody who claims to have all the answers will.
[00:39:08]  But the founders, as you know from your books and what you spoke about, the founders were very wise and they knew that and they set up systems of checks and balances.
[00:39:18]  But that system is only so resilient as the populace.
[00:39:22]  And so it's not hyperbole to say that we're in a crisis right now where the behavior that started in the universities has seeped out of the universities.
[00:39:33]  And not only are we not talking to each other and looking at each other as moral monsters, but there's a crisis of trust, of confidence in our institutions.
[00:39:43]  And this crisis has to be addressed.
[00:39:47]  But how do you address it?
[00:39:48]  I mean, if you're a conservative, you'll look at it.
[00:39:51]  I mean, we conservatives used to believe in the Justice Department and the court system.
[00:40:00]  And we were probably too far the other way where we thought, no, there's no too far the other way.
[00:40:07]  We should have had more healthy skepticism.
[00:40:09]  But now, I mean, Peter, I said last week, because of what's going on, and I have a different view of things because I've been working on saving people in Afghanistan with the audience.
[00:40:22]  I said something I never thought I would say before.
[00:40:25]  If this is what they're doing to our face, what are they doing behind my back?
[00:40:31]  And it makes me say, I cannot be an American.
[00:40:35]  I'd renounce my citizenship.
[00:40:38]  That's an extraordinary thing for me to say, but I have zero trust in these institutions.
[00:40:46]  Right.
[00:40:47]  And that's the problem.
[00:40:48]  And you're not alone.
[00:40:49]  I have zero trust in the institutions.
[00:40:51]  So many people have zero trust in the institutions.
[00:40:55]  And so what you did, everybody should, you know, what you did in Afghanistan is absolutely phenomenal.
[00:41:01]  And everybody across the aisle should be stepping forward and saying, wow, that's incredible.
[00:41:06]  Thank you.
[00:41:06]  Like, that's a genuine humanitarian crisis.
[00:41:09]  It doesn't matter what your politics is.
[00:41:12]  You did a phenomenal thing.
[00:41:14]  And so I want to get back to your question of what to do about this.
[00:41:18]  I mean, in an abstract level, at an abstract level, you have to stop with this ideological nonsense.
[00:41:26]  And you have to make truth the North Star of the institution.
[00:41:30]  But in a more concrete level, you have to stand up to bullies.
[00:41:35]  You simply cannot let these people bully you.
[00:41:38]  And you have to be honest that this will probably come at a cost to you.
[00:41:42]  The social media mobs, the flander, the baseless accusations.
[00:41:48]  But if you don't stand up, then that attitude of I'm ashamed to be American and renounce myself, that's going to spread.
[00:41:57]  And then what are we left with?
[00:41:59]  Nothing.
[00:41:59]  You think you have problems with America as the hegemon?
[00:42:02]  Wait until the Chinese take over.
[00:42:04]  I know.
[00:42:06]  So we have to stand up.
[00:42:07]  The other thing that people have to do, and I God, I just wish that, you know, listen, one of the reasons that I'm on your show, besides the fact that I genuinely like you as a person, is because to be blunt with you, you called me, right?
[00:42:23]  Tucker called me.
[00:42:26]  The left won't call me.
[00:42:28]  They won't have conversations.
[00:42:31]  OPB, the Oregonian, I want to talk about what's broken in our, or you don't even have talked about what's broken.
[00:42:38]  For example, Portland State University President Stephen Percy said that racial justice is his highest priority.
[00:42:47]  Okay, I think there's a legitimate question there.
[00:42:50]  Should racial justice be the highest priority of a tax payer-funded institution?
[00:42:57]  Nobody on the left will talk about it.
[00:43:00]  So here's what I have to say to your audience.
[00:43:03]  Even if people don't want to talk to you, you have to let it be known that you are willing to talk to them.
[00:43:11]  It has to start somewhere.
[00:43:14]  You have to start communicating as Americans.
[00:43:17]  Peter, I think, are we scheduled to do a podcast next week?
[00:43:20]  Do you know?
[00:43:22]  I don't think so.
[00:43:23]  I don't think so, no.
[00:43:24]  Well, we need to be.
[00:43:25]  We need to.
[00:43:25]  And I'd love to have you back.
[00:43:27]  So tell me, where do we start?
[00:43:30]  What is a good starting place?
[00:43:33]  What is a good starting place?
[00:43:34]  Well, I want to pick up from what I last said.
[00:43:38]  If you're willing to engage people in good faith conversations, I think the important thing is to realize at the end of those conversations, if you don't agree, you can let the other person be wrong.
[00:43:51]  That's okay.
[00:43:52]  You don't have to agree with every single thing everybody believes for you to be friends or for you to have a drink with them or for you to socialize with them or for you to bowl with them.
[00:44:03]  This is crazy that you have to say this.
[00:44:05]  But you're true.
[00:44:06]  It's right.
[00:44:07]  Everybody's trying to win and be right.
[00:44:10]  Stop it.
[00:44:11]  Stop.
[00:44:12]  Reconcile with the truth.
[00:44:13]  That's all that needs to be done.
[00:44:15]  And the truth is, sometimes we disagree.
[00:44:19]  Right.
[00:44:19]  And you can let, that's in our book, How to Have Impossible Conversations.
[00:44:23]  You can let friends be wrong.
[00:44:25]  That's okay if someone doesn't agree with you.
[00:44:27]  In fact, it's probably good because then you can have more interesting conversations, right?
[00:44:32]  You can have spirited conversations.
[00:44:34]  And those conversations won't affect the base of the friendship.
[00:44:39]  The underlying structure is that you're a person who loves the truth.
[00:44:44]  Your relationship is, Aristotle talks about this, the highest form of friendship is between that of two virtuous people.
[00:44:51]  You say what you mean.
[00:44:52]  You're forthright in your speech.
[00:44:53]  You're not sneaky.
[00:44:54]  You're not a liar.
[00:44:56]  That's how you have relationships that matter.
[00:44:59]  And with the corrosion of trust in our institutions and with the universities beset by madness, we are also losing.
[00:45:07]  We're not just losing a society.
[00:45:09]  We're losing our relationships.
[00:45:10]  We're losing our friendships.
[00:45:12]  We're losing our community.
[00:45:14]  And we need to get that back because that matters.
[00:45:19]  Peter, I think you are an incredibly brave man just alone to come on this program.
[00:45:27]  But everything that you've done, including resigning at Portland State University, we'd love to have you on again.
[00:45:33]  His name is Peter Bogogian.
[00:45:35]  He's the author of How to Have an Impossible Conversation or how to have impossible conversations.