This week a bona-fide professor helps The Cult take on the college campus free speech crisis--with a twist! We're talking about a story from Stanford University wherein a conservative professor conspired with Republican students to conduct opposition research on a liberal student in an effort to "crush" them. Also: we cover the No Safe Spaces documentary about the way conservative good boys like Ben Shapiro and Tim Allen are being "spooked" by the left. Hear the rest of our episode with Michael on the Coal Barron bailout at Patreon.com/miniondeathcult
It reminds me of when the lady made the flag or whatever.
That whole thing.
Betsy Ross?
Yeah, that lady.
That thing.
Yeah, that's why I'm here.
Betsy Ross didn't make shit.
I'm here to be just complete ignoramus.
I'd really like to be able to close out of this full page article.
God, this is terrible.
Oh my god, websites are so, like, fraught with clickable ads.
I'm pretty good at navigating the internet, and I still manage to click on them.
Okay, so you can't even close that one.
They should get rid of the websites, probably.
That'd be helpful.
Just pipe a stream of news.
Shut it down.
It's over.
Yeah, shut this stuff down.
Just pipe a stream of news into our houses every day through a government-issued thing.
Loudspeaker.
Yeah, that thing.
It's kind of crazy how we thought the internet was going to bring about the information age, and now we're living in the fake news age.
Wow.
It's like info.
It's like there's a war going on out here or something.
There's a war going on no info is safe from!
Very good, very good, very good, very good.
The liberals are destroying California, and conservative humor gone awry... conservative humor gone awry is going to fascist-fornia today.
So stay tuned, we're going to take a few pictures of the desert and how their policies are actually messing it up.
It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
Stay tuned guys, we'll show you exactly what it looks like when people go to the desert.
Follow their environmental stars.
Stay tuned.
Yeah, I'm Alexander Edward.
I'm Mount Matt.
And I'm Tony Boswell.
And we are Minion Death Cult.
Yay!
The world is ending, the right to free speech is responsible, and we are destroying it today.
We have a very fun, very... I feel like this is almost a new topic for us.
We're talking about free speech on college campuses today.
We are going to college.
Minion Death Cult goes to college today.
I'm stoked on it.
After we talk about this, we're gonna be talking about Trump's plan to...
Reinvigorate the coal industry by just making us buy coal, which sounds like a good plan.
Lots of barbecues, lots of cookouts happening real soon.
If he makes us buy coal, like, I don't see... I don't see how we're not gonna buy coal.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
Yeah, so, but this first half of the show, all about the, um...
The threat to free speech on college campuses being levied by the left, I'm assuming.
You know, we haven't gotten into the discussion, but I'm just assuming it's by the radical left that are endangering our rights to free speech.
And here to talk to us about that is a radical leftist professor himself.
We have Michael Rossino, visiting lecturer at Trinity College and a sociology instructor and PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut.
How are you doing, Michael?
Thanks for having me on the show.
I'm doing great.
Excited to talk about this topic.
Big fan of the show.
Well, thank you very much.
It's frankly, and once again, I don't mean this ironically.
It's just, you know, my brain is a flat tire from being blown so much by doing this show, as we discussed on Facebook.
I mean this genuinely.
It's great that a sociologist, a professional sociologist, enjoys this show.
I fancy ourselves as armchair sociologists, as armchair psychologists, and it's just great to know that our contemporaries respect that.
Yeah, I mean absolutely.
I think I sent you some of my research.
I've actually really relate to that comment section fatigue because I did Stupidly, I decided to do research.
Some of my research has been on how people talk about race and racism on the internet, particularly in comment sections.
One of the worst decisions I've ever made in my life.
I really do commiserate with you, and you guys can actually react to it in a way that I probably shouldn't for professional reasons, so I do appreciate that.
Dude, we have a symbiosis going, man.
This is cool.
Yeah, we're like your sin eaters.
You put all your burdens into us and we will process them appropriately.
Holy shit, so cool.
If there's anything you really want to say, go ahead and just DM us and we'll read it out loud.
In like a third voice.
You know I'm gonna actually take you up on that.
I mean, I will never.
I will never send you anything.
Yeah, don't do that, dude.
Come on.
That's not gonna happen.
Wink.
Okay, so the reason we brought you here is because you brought to our attention a story about the free speech crisis on college campuses with an interesting twist.
Turns out it was a conservative lecturer, a conservative... what's his exact status?
So he is a professor of history at the, uh, I think it, I believe it's called the Hoover Institute, which obviously those jokes write themselves.
Um, yeah, it's a right wing think tank, uh, at Stanford university, a lot of really famous, uh, conservative, Intellectuals like Milton Friedman have been supported by this institution and held positions there.
So it's one of those.
It's really deep pockets.
There's no equivalent left-leaning think tank in academia as much as people wring their hands about sort of progressive bias.
There's super deep pockets behind these conservative think tanks.
So that's his position.
This man's name is Neil Ferguson, by the way.
I don't believe we said it.
Yeah.
I like the pronunciation of Niall.
Yeah, Neil Ferguson.
I'm not familiar with all of his research, but I do know that some of it is things like defending colonialism.
Hey, come on, you guys.
Colonialism wasn't so bad.
It's so amazing.
Where was it?
Yeah, he has been... This is from the Stanford Daily article.
He has been uncriticized for his outspoken support of colonialism and the British Empire.
I'm assuming he's also, like, written articles about how hall monitors are great.
And, uh, we should- we should pay the cops out of our own pockets on top of their salaries.
Yeah, we should not brutalize snitches and make them get stitches.
Should not happen.
It's not okay.
I don't understand though, um, like, how else would these people get things like, you know, soap?
They all smelled so bad before we got there.
How should they get soap in Jesus?
Don't we need to take it to them?
Isn't that our responsibility?
No, actually, when they were doing their human sacrifices, like, the fat would actually run down the river and they would inadvertently, like, create soap accidentally.
They weren't able to, like, capitalize on it, both literally and metaphorically, so that's why we had to colonize them.
Yeah, so what happened, basically, is this dude is part of a free speech cabal on campus.
He's a professor, like you said, but he's also a part of this committee.
He held a key position on a university free speech program.
What is this program called?
The Cardinal Conversations.
It's a Stanford University program that has given a platform to contentious speakers, including Charles Murray, the controversial social scientist who has claimed that black and Latino genetics are linked to intellectual inferiority.
That's me reading from the Guardian article about this stuff.
The leaked emails, so back to the lead here.
He had to resign from this position after leaked emails revealed that he urged a group of Republican students to conduct opposition research on a left-wing student who was basically giving them some grief.
Holy shit.
Just a person?
Just a regular student?
Yeah.
Yeah, just a student.
Like if we were in some four-year college, which we would probably argue with some conservative students, like they were snitching on, or like, you know, doing research on one of us, like some regular-ass dude or girl or whatever, you know?
Yeah, the thing about this is, like, there is, you know, this tactic, this opposition research tactic is, you know, used in politics in almost every single election worth trying to win.
But the difference here is, like, the sort of, I guess, power dynamic between a professor Sort of conspiring with fellow students to dox or get dirt on another student.
It's like when I was taking swimming lessons when I was like eight or something and I had trouble Deep diving to the bottom of the 12-foot pool, so my swimming instructor whispered something into the ears of my fellow, uh, swimming students, and then the next time I dove to get the rings, they both dove in and tried to pull me down.
Yeah.
That actually happened to you?
That really happened, yeah.
Good God.
Wow.
And it's just like that.
Yeah!
It's just like that because what this professor was trying to do, he was trying to drag these Republican students down to the left's level.
Yeah.
Wow.
What a hypocrite.
Oh yeah, that's where my mind went to.
You brought it around.
I was like, where is this going?
I felt like the judge in some kind of movie where I'm like, you better be going somewhere with this.
And you weren't.
I hoped I was too.
That's such a gnarly story.
That sucks.
It's a great metaphor.
That's not even like the only thing that happened with that swimming instructor.
My dad literally yanked me out of the pool once he witnessed all the things that I was telling him were true.
But that's for another podcast.
That's for the Childhood Horrors podcast.
And that swimming instructor went on to work at Stanford University.
That's the part that you're leaving out.
Right, that's going to be part two.
Part two of this episode.
The aftermath.
Alright.
So yeah, do you want to talk a little bit about this?
How crazy this is?
Absolutely.
I think... I think we're seeing right now, obviously, college campuses are becoming sort of a political football.
And that's really all this is.
Especially as we start to dive into the comments, I think it'll be really interesting to see some of the The ways that conservative elites are kind of trying to play it both ways, on one hand calling for like, oh, we'd have to have civil discourse and we have to like be able to agree to disagree and let's all like have, you know, the term that they're throwing around right now is ideological diversity.
Right.
You know, which is interesting because what they're trying to do is basically This is what philosophers would call reverse discourse.
They're taking a term from progressives or socialists.
I guess diversity would be even maybe more of a liberal or neoliberal concept because it doesn't really deal with inequality or power that well, but basically taking that and turning it on its head and trying to use that to point towards some type of hypocrisy.
What's interesting is The idea of ideological diversity does not conform with the standards of academic institutions.
There are some ideas that just aren't good, don't have evidence, and aren't valid.
And that's kind of the whole point is researchers, educators, higher education is a thing.
We're trying to figure out, you know, as well as possible through research, through conversations, like what's true about the world.
So forcing some kind of weird ideological diversity for discredited ideas that don't have a lot of support, it doesn't make any sense.
But this is the big thing that's being pushed right now.
And these types of think tanks especially are pushing them and trying to use a lot of the sort of wibbly talking points that they're trying to come up with about diversity, about conservatives being victims.
Equality.
A lot of stuff like that.
Equality of ideas, yeah.
Yes.
Yeah, that Nazism's on the same level as, um, I don't know, fucking... Anything good?
Yeah, yeah, as good things.
Yeah.
And another crazy part about this is that, like, universities are falling for it.
Yeah.
Universities are absolutely buying into it, you know, and it's...
As much as, you know, the right wants to convey the talking point that universities are like a haven for, you know, leftist indoctrination, Who runs these universities?
Who's on the boards for these universities?
Oh, I think I have an answer for that question.
Yes, please.
Probably a bunch of white dudes.
A bunch of wealthy white people.
Most likely.
Yeah.
But their ideas are diverse.
Some people think we should eat the poor.
Others think we should simply harvest their organs.
It runs the gamut, really.
Yeah, so that's sort of like...
Buying into this idea of intellectual diversity is evidenced by the fact that Charles Murray spoke at Stanford, apparently.
This is the first time I've learned about this, but this left-wing student that was targeted for opposition research came on their radar for opposing this move.
Milo Yiannopoulos, a frequent speaker at college campuses, Outspoken supporter of pedophilia.
Yep.
Milo Yiannopoulos.
Are we gonna stick with saying Milo because I really like it?
I think that's how it's pronounced.
Which one's the offensive?
Which one doesn't he like?
Is it Milo or Milo?
Because I'll run with whatever one that is.
Probably Milo.
Milo just reminds me of that movie Milo and Otis.
Which is horrible.
Yeah, but that movie's horrible.
Right.
The reason why humane society laws exist in LA.
It really is.
Like, how many dogs died on the set of Milo and Otis?
Upwards of 20, I think.
Is that true also?
Maybe that's fair.
Yeah, maybe it is fair.
There we go.
Just like those dogs, if something ever happened to Milo Yiannopoulos, there'd be plenty more to replace him.
Yeah, my brother's one, actually.
Yeah, so I'm gonna read a couple of these email correspondence.
A couple pieces of correspondence from these emails.
It's in the Guardian article right here, so basically he just says, I mean, this is kind of not the complete quote, but I think it's in the context of, like, what are we going to do?
And they're talking about how can we, like, prevent this guy from doing something.
And he says some opposition research on Mr. O might be warranted.
Right.
He's the one who suggested this to the conservative students, one of whom is Susan Rice's son, which is crazy.
What the fuck, dude?
Yeah, after the emails were published last Thursday, uh, Ferguson said he regretted his actions, but he explained that he had been deeply concerned that Stanford's student steering committee was in danger of being taken over by elements that were fundamentally hostile to free speech.
Fuck off with this shit, man.
So, uh, dox, intimidate, and otherwise crush or silence your opponents to protect free speech.
So fucking crazy.
So crazy.
Absolutely.
Holy shit.
Yeah, Ferguson goes on to say, uh, now we turn to the more subtle game of grinding them down on a committee.
Oh.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Of being an eternal, internally vigilant troll, and, and, and bully, basically.
This is like all the various clans and Braveheart coming together to resist.
instructed students in another email, urging them, quote, to bury whatever past differences they may have for the common good.
This is like all the various clans and Braveheart coming together to resist.
Wow.
That's like the Tiki Tortures with the actual skinhead crews and the young KKK that...
They're all getting together and like, yeah, let's unite against the SJWs.
Yeah, if they ever had that rally, they should call it something like, Unite the Conservatives.
Tight, dude.
Or Unite the Right.
Yeah.
That actually happened.
Yeah, Rice Cameron, so, Susan Rice's son, who, um, I don't have his official position here, but, you know, a leader among college Republicans, for whatever that's worth, uh, he replies, slowly, we will continue to crush the left's will to resist, as they will crack under pressure.
Yeah, that sucks.
Sometimes when I hear stuff like this, I feel like to some of these young, these prod boys and stuff, these campus Republicans, I feel like some of it to them is this weird, like, role-playing game?
They're like, what's the word I'm looking for where you actually act it out and stuff?
D&D.
LARPing.
They're like LARPing.
They're like politically LARPing.
No one talks that way.
Nobody talks that way.
They're fascinated by hierarchy.
That's a motivating idea on the right.
The idea of power and exerting that power over your fellow man.
And, yeah, that ties into all the different facets of the alt-right, whether you're LARPing as a Machiavellian schemer on a college campus, or LARPing as a Christian crusader on Facebook owning the Muslims.
Fuck.
This is what happens when you're like a young conservative who's simultaneously, like, you discover, like, Ayn Rand, The Art of War, and Game of Thrones all at once.
And that's just how you live your life now.
Sweet, dude.
I so thought you were gonna say Ayn Rice.
That too.
Ayn Rice.
Okay, so should we move on to his apology?
His non-apology?
It's pretty great.
Yeah, let me pull it up here.
Hey, instead of Anne Rice, what about Suzanne Rice, huh?
See?
I was staring this right in the face the whole time, you guys.
It just took me to have the gumption to talk about it and bring it up.
Growing up, I remember being told to hate Anne Rice, but it turned out just because she was pro-choice, and now I'm like, oh, wait.
I fucked you.
And luckily, Twilight came around, and you were able to read gothic horror again.
Yeah, hell yeah, dude.
Thank God.
Made it good again.
Make gothic horror great again.
Yeah, so Neil Ferguson tweeted out today Um, I need to grow up and keep out of student politics.
No question.
So yeah, no question that I was being childish by trying to recruit, uh, I guess they aren't literal children, but students.
Okay.
But the context is important.
Conservatism is on the brink of extinction in much of academia.
Especially in history.
This isn't healthy.
K, dude.
Yeah, it isn't healthy when, like, something just naturally goes away as a product of, uh, uh, the intellectual market.
Like, you have to do something to prevent those bad ideas from going away.
Yeah, man, this is just, like, evolution, you know?
If we didn't, like, evolve, we'd still be, like, eating our babies, you know?
Like, we gotta leave that stuff in the past.
Like, conservatism?
Yeah, we should definitely leave that in the past.
Real quick, too.
And then he links to an article in the Times UK that you can only read by registering your email address, so none of us did that.
But yeah, basically his apology is like, he just resigned from the committee.
He still has a job at Stanford, as far as we know.
Yeah, I got a little excited when I saw the first half of that Guardian headline.
Neil Ferguson quit Stanford.
I was like, okay.
That's a fairly appropriate response for basically abusing his power and resources over a student.
I mean, this isn't even being investigated, which is pretty crazy.
He's meddling with students.
He's fucking with them.
It's fucked up.
But all he did was resign from that committee.
It's basically dear white people.
The only insight to academia and the whole college world is from watching like Rules of Attraction and Dear White People.
So I don't know anything about it.
I've never gone to college.
- It's basically Dear White People.
- I have no college at all. - Except more white people.
Way more white people.
But is there any room for students to say I don't want to take this person's class anymore?
Do they have any water to tread on there?
Or do you have the option and kids are still going to these classes?
People are still going to these classes?
I mean I think there's a drop out period usually so you have a couple weeks where you can decide if you want to take this class or not.
And add a different class.
That's kind of just structured into how colleges work.
But, like, will they be punished for that?
Will they have to take an extra class now?
They'll have to take that class again.
Well, they'll get punished if they don't take the class, and then they'll also get punished if they take the class and don't stand for the daily recitation of O Britannia.
Yeah.
They have to put their hand over their hearts and pledge fealty to the crown.
Did you see a woman actually I kicked out of a... Someone actually I kicked out of like a city hall meeting recently for exactly that.
Oh my god.
Like I escorted out of a city hall meeting for exactly that.
Anyways.
Sounds good.
Sounds about right.
But yeah I think it's interesting because I mean there's really two kind of big things going on here.
The first one is this idea of like the marketplace of ideas.
And basically, I think what's so fascinating is they have this whole idea of free enterprise, free market, liberty.
But then when something happens like, oh, conservative explanations for how the world works just aren't really garnering a lot of support in academic disciplines.
I mean, even avoiding the fact that obviously what it means to be conservative constantly shifts.
So even what that means is kind of dumb.
On top of that, they're like, we need intervention into the marketplace of ideas.
They're basically idea communists.
Whoa, yeah, hey, yeah, throw shade on them that way.
Fucking commies.
Yeah, lefties.
I'm sure that will shame them into abandoning conservatism.
That'd be so cool if that happened.
Yeah, and the idea of this tactic of like...
Doxing the opposition or sort of, you know, trying to dig up dirt on the opposition.
That tactic isn't going away.
Yeah.
Like... You can't gang stalk the opposition forever.
I don't, well, I don't necessarily see anything wrong with the idea of...
Quoting people with their own words you know because because you see no you see people trying to play this false Equivalency in this comment section of like well, that's what the left does the left docks docks is Nazis Etc pulls up old social media posts in order to shame them And I don't inherently see anything wrong with that like if you've said something bad or stupid online or in a public place Then you did it.
And, you know, apologize for it, or delete it, or whatever.
I gotta go clean my social media really quick.
Yeah.
I do it about once every two years.
That's probably smart.
But you also shouldn't be, like, punished for exclusively watching cuckold porn.
You know, like, people should still be able to live their lives.
If you can defend cuckoldry in the marketplace of ideas, then it deserves to exist.
I'm waiting for the conservative talking head to use the fact that they watch Cuckold Porn as their point for not being a racist.
No, I'm not a racist.
I support all kinds of black men.
Yeah, Cuckoldry is the white band of the LGBT rainbow flag.
So I guess what I'll say as a sociologist is there's research on that and People who hold racist views, white people who hold racist views, there's a lot of research on how they do actually tend to project that racist ideology onto their sexual fantasies.
Whether it's sort of fetishizing people of color in a dehumanizing way, or whether it's some other kind of scenario.
Um, it's interesting that you bring that up because there is actually some indication that that, uh, plays a role in all this.
I don't want to be, uh, super overly, like, psychoanalyzing people, but, uh, there is a little bit of support for that.
So I think it is kind of ironic and interesting that you would bring it up comedically.
Oh no, it's not ironic and interesting.
I've literally had sex with women and they did it with me because they don't like black people.
That happens.
Are you serious?
I don't mean to laugh, that just fucking sucks.
I've been with women that I realized very shortly after, they're only with me because I'm black and they don't even like black people.
They're on some, like, colonial, colonist, colonizer shit.
Like, like, you know, you're the slave, I'm the colonizer.
No, I'm all for, like, I'm all for, you know, calling you whatever you want me to call you, but, like, I don't necessarily, like, want to call you, like, a white bitch.
That's weird for me.
That's not my lane.
Real, real life, by the way.
Real life.
Yeah, that's wild.
That's too real.
And it happens to a lot of black men from what I understand.
Shout out champagne sharks.
If my story didn't help you, Matt's help convince you, Matt's testimony did for sure.
What do you mean?
A white guy talking about it?
He was just amplifying your voice.
Yeah, dude.
I'm supposed to be saying all the stuff that you say so all the white people can hear what you say through me.
Honestly, I don't know why, but I just didn't believe you until he said it.
It just sounded so much better for some reason.
I don't know why that is.
It was just kind of objective.
He didn't have a bias there.
He did it in less of like a flashy style.
Wasn't waving jewelry around while he did it.
Being a real gentleman while he did it?
Yeah.
Hey, so you were talking about like the research done on racists and their sexual fetishes.
You also sent me an interesting bit of research about the idea of free speech.
This was very interesting to me and also, you know, sort of, like if I had been searching Google for this stuff it would have come up instantly because it confirmed all my preconceived notions that basically people argue the free speech, you know, people use the banner of free speech when it suits their pre-existing ideology.
That's obvious on its face, but there has been actual research done into this phenomenon.
If you could just maybe convey that research in a much smarter way for us?
Yeah, so basically this is based on social psychology.
More or less, they did sort of like a psychological experiment.
And they decided to use a very polarizing sort of free speech And one of the tropes that you hear a lot is that free speech protects hate speech.
Right, free speech isn't meant to protect popular speech, it's meant to protect unpopular speech.
Speech that people find disgusting and abhorrent.
And that's at least part of the rhetoric that we hear.
Basically, what they did was they looked at the racial attitudes using survey data of different people who they exposed to... Basically, I think they showed the video of the fraternity where they were doing that racist chant on a bus, I believe it was.
Right, yeah.
It was a fraternity doing a racist chant about how no n-words would ever be admitted into their fraternity.
Exactly.
And so basically, they then ask people to respond.
Do you feel like this is speech that should be sanctioned?
Do you think that this is speech that should be protected?
Do you think this falls under the purview of free speech?
Just basically trying to use that as like, like a To really look at what is motivating, because I think they also ask questions about people's sort of political attitudes, their ideals, what they think about the world.
And what they actually found was that the biggest determining factor for whether or not people defended the fraternity members' right to say these racist things on free speech grounds, they were more likely to hold anti-black attitudes.
That was more of a predictor than whether or not they were just sort of generally in favor of liberty and free expression.
So what is really interesting about that, and obviously this confirms, I think, a lot of people's inclinations, is that this is actually something that I've been thinking about a lot, just thinking about how this whole free speech thing is playing out, especially on college campuses.
There's this concept called the Overton Window, and basically it's like, what is the acceptable set of ideas that we can talk about in public?
Right, it's like universal healthcare on the left is slowly becoming part of the Overton Window.
And then this race-baiting, not even dog-whistling, just overt racism is becoming part of the Overton window on the right.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, one of the things that I thought was so interesting about that study is it kind of demonstrates how Part of, I mean obviously we don't know to what extent this is going on, but part of the support for these free speech defenses of hate speech is because it enables people to feel like one day they might feel safe to express those racist views in public.
It's kind of the sense that I get.
So if someone is racist, if they hold racist attitudes, racist beliefs, But they know that in the sort of post-civil rights society that we live in, they have to at least express it in terms of what sociologists call colorblind ideology.
Saying things where they're making it about cultural differences, they're making it about No, we need to get rid of affirmative action.
Yeah, values.
All of the things that are basically how people express racist ideas without using overtly racist language.
A bunch of dog whistles, basically.
Dog whistles, exactly.
Dog whistles are a great example of that.
And we can even measure those dog whistles trickling down from the political elites to the public.
What is so interesting here is just this idea that a lot of this defense of racist speech as free speech comes from people who want to be able to express racism without consequences.
Right.
I mean, that's really all it is.
They're not just generally supportive of free speech.
What's so funny about this is this whole, that whole study, um, the whole not saying things that are overtly racist that are obviously racist, that really only has to be explained to white people.
Yeah.
And it's so crazy.
So true, dude.
Like, can we just please put that article in, I don't know, just... Put it in the National Enquirer, New York Post.
Can we put it on, like, the AAA Westways?
The Westways Magazine?
Can we put it through that?
That'd be, that'd be awesome.
I think it's funny that, you know, like we were saying, the argument for free speech protections for overtly racist rhetoric is defended as Oh, the concept of free speech defends disgusting ideas.
It doesn't defend your pie-in-the-sky, let's-all-get-together-and-love-each-other ideas, because nobody objects to those.
They only object to the disgusting stuff, so we have to protect it with free speech.
And I think it's fucking hilarious how openly they're embracing the idea that their own ideas are disgusting.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And just labeling it as free speech because they know that having an alt-right week on campus would be abhorrent to the majority of students, the majority of the public.
So they have to call it free speech.
Like, what are, what's, what's your ideas?
What are you, what are your ideals that you're arguing?
Oh, free speech.
That's it.
We love free speech.
That's it.
I want to talk.
I want to say what I want to say.
Bay-bay.
It's such an obvious, like, Cowardly move.
If you can really couch this stuff in these sort of cherished American values, that's where you really can get into the really fun stuff of getting into this idea of like, oh, well, if you don't support this, then you're not a real American.
You're a communist.
You're anti-American.
This is what makes America so great is that we have free expression and free speech.
That's when people start talking about Stalin.
And it really leads to this really interesting sort of slippery slope.
And like I said, I think we'll see some of this when we look at the comments and how people are reacting to sort of the public face of this conversation and then what People are saying, like in comment sections.
Yeah, how they're processing it.
How they're processing it, what they're taking it as.
Because I think that's really fascinating is like taking these really indefensible ideas, you know, literally people going to college campuses and supporting genocide, supporting, you know, stigmatizing trans students.
Supporting... Outing gay people.
Outing gay people.
Outing undocumented students and having ICE called on them.
Really terrible things that actually have real consequences for real people.
These aren't just abstract ideas for those people.
These are literally like, oh, you're taking away my right to just, like, exist.
Access, like, a secure, happy, safe life.
It's so funny, too, because what I want to see is a study on how these people respond to criticism in general.
Because I have a Steve-O story, a real short Steve-O story.
Hell yeah.
Steve-O, your coworker, your beautiful boy coworker.
Real quick Steve-O recap.
Steve-O's dad's funeral was on Friday.
It was last Friday.
And instead of talking about how emotional the funeral was, he talked about how bummed he was that he wasn't in the military, so he can't also have a 21-gun salute.
Holy fuck.
It was really funny.
Okay, okay first this is gonna be our first effective call to action for the minion death call We're gonna assemble at least 21 people who own firearms and then demonstrate at his funeral Just kidding Wow, I hope that better be a patreon only comment No, buddy, that's going out to the public.
No, I said satire, so it's legal.
Yeah, you say satire.
He's genuinely concerned about, like, the flag rules.
Like, I was in the military.
Can you still put a flag on my casket?
No.
It's just the funniest thing.
So anyways, the way they respond to criticism...
I've kind of just done with this shit so anytime he says something stupid I like revel in calling him out on it.
So this woman comes in and buys some cycling shoes.
You have to install the cleats on the cycling shoes and he tells her, he goes, I hope you have a young man at home that can put these on for you.
So I said, hey Stevo, you know the best part about suffrage is they let him use tools after that, too.
And he was like, aha, enough from the peanut gallery over there.
Peanut, was that racist?
Is that a George Washington Carver joke?
Well, it's funny because I didn't even say it.
The peanut gallery actually does have a racist connotation.
Well, if you guys would just chill for a second, let me get to my amazing comment.
So I said, Steve, I got one more for ya.
He goes, what's that?
I said, the best thing about, uh, being post Jim Crow laws is I can sit wherever I want now.
And, uh, Jesus Christ!
He got so mad.
And I just thought it was hilarious.
Cause I'm like, I know he's not doing it out of like hatred.
And so he immediately goes on his computer.
Like I'm not in the room at the time.
He goes on his computer, looks up like the origins of peanut gallery and stuff like that, which I had obviously already done.
Cause I was ready for this.
I thought of the comment as I was grabbing some items anyways.
And he's like that's not actually the origin.
That's not how I meant it and it has two meanings Oh, they were the cheap seats, and I was again man everyone black people can only get cheap seats, and he's like oh Well still not there were other poor people too.
I told it have a good one Steve.
Oh, you know white people picked cotton, too That's a real thing.
That's a fucking real banging meme I've seen a bunch.
It's still not as good as Irish for slaves.
No, uh, you are gonna turn Steve-o alt-right, Tony.
Oh, I think so.
Yeah, I thought you were gonna say that he went right to his computer and joined fucking Reddit.
Joined 4chan slash Paul.
Hey bro, just being on Reddit doesn't make you a fucking alt-righter, okay?
He tries to bro down with me over every once in a blue moon he'll like smoke weed and so he was like yeah I was kind of bumming you know my fam was hanging out we were all partying and my daughter was like smoking some weed and I didn't want to smoke cuz I feel like like my lungs so I I took one of the took one of the nugs and just I just chewed it for a little while and ate it he's like I was like I was buzzing I taught him how to, like, do it, and it was really funny.
I just took some of the, uh, what's that called?
It's called the Keef?
The Keef, yeah.
The Chief Keef, and I snussed it.
I snussed it, yep.
If you snus it, if you snuff it, you know.
I'm definitely gonna be, like, the end of Steve-O on accident.
Well, you know, if you also intravenously administer the weed, it'll hit you better, too.
It's all good, dude.
I'm picturing, like, a bunch of dry shake in a syringe.
Squeezed into your arc dust.
It's like a big, like, fat, like, turkey baster, like, syringe, and he's just, like, trying to stick that in his arm.
It's like, fuck seeds.
He's, like, blowing out the nozzle to get the seeds out.
But my whole point, though, was that even when he was saying, even when he was, like, kind of trying to admit that he might have been off point a little bit, he could not admit it.
He could not feel, and he did not feel any, like, he didn't understand the joke about the tools.
He didn't get that.
He's just like, no, no, of course, like, this young woman has a young man at home.
It's like, whoa, dude, chill.
And she can turn to Alan Ranch.
And he didn't get that at all.
He just thought I was being, you know, a snowflake.
He's going to call me that one day, and I'm just going to cry in the best way.
And you can say, hey, remember all those times that you got really defensive when I pointed something out?
Yeah, because that totally works.
But, yeah, like, the whole free speech thing, I think I just, again, I think it's so funny that they're assuming the mantle of free speech, wearing it like a flag, when all it's saying is, oh, my ideas are terrible, but when all it's saying is, oh, my ideas are terrible, but technically I'm legally allowed to say Like that's your argument.
There's a statute in the law that says that I can say all this fucking ignorant shit and yeah.
And all it guarantees is that you're not going to be arrested.
I think that's the part that is getting lost in the weeds here.
There's no law requiring that people get to necessarily have a venue.
No, absolutely not.
Or get a space.
That's not a thing, and I get that maybe administrations are worried about backlash, they're worried about being perceived as not handling this issue well, but the law is actually on their side if they don't want to do this, or if they cite security concerns, or we think it would be bad to the culture of our institution to have this person come speak.
I think that's totally valid.
I think they would say it still comes off as, like, soft, though.
It's, like, snowflake-y, you know?
Well, what I was gonna say earlier... Oh, sorry.
But it should just be, like you said, based on the facts.
Like, you don't let a creationalist come speak at your school about how God created the Earth.
That's not... You can't do that in academia.
But... But that should be it.
Oh, it's a... You know, we can't preach this theory.
Well, you said... That should be enough reason to say no, but they need... You said you need to come up with these other reasons, like, you know, fear, which is... They play on us.
Real quick side note uh we're talking about you know you're talking about how soft they are for for acting that way it's true as fuck they're they're cowards dude what what what Ferguson did to these kids and he's a fucking coward he is and and the whole the whole slew of the right wing they're just cowards and they operate in this legal
Legal framework like oh, you know And then and they know they're never gonna get arrested just like Michael saying it's like it's never gonna happen And and they don't give it give a shit of what they what they put out there.
I Don't know wanted to get my little two cents peanut gallery.
Is there a Jewish version of peanut gallery?
It's called a ghetto or like so I can't say ghetto, huh?
Yeah, you don't have to say G word Yeah, and I don't have I could say like the like an oven joke or something like you know that's pretty cheap though.
Probably shouldn't but yeah.
Yeah I shouldn't but I could you know free speech and all type shit yeah.
What was I gonna say here so one of the one of the a good comment I found in one of these comment sections uh speaking to your point Michael was uh Nobody has a right to speak at colleges.
The people who aren't speaking at these colleges do not have a free speech case on their hands.
Like, for every single one of these right-wing maniacs who speaks at a college, there's a million other people who aren't speaking at that college who will never be able to speak at that college.
They don't have a case.
They don't have a free speech case that's going to rock the judiciary.
On that note, if you guys can petition your local colleges to fly us out there and talk to you, that'd be cool.
That'd be cool.
You're gonna need a lot of security.
Dude, Mike, I heard you have some ties to some universities.
At least until this gets posted, yeah.
Okay, yeah.
So, between tonight and tomorrow morning, can you try to get us a free trip out to your university, please?
Thanks.
Will do!
He invited a white, uh, somebody who came and gave a talk, uh, that was called, it was the Yukon College, uh, Republicans.
They invited this, uh, conservative, I guess he's technically a journalist, maybe, um, but he gave a talk, he gave a speech called It's Okay to be White.
Oh, cool.
Finally!
Part of it was drinking a glass of milk to demonstrate his white privilege because people of color are more likely to be lactose intolerant, for instance.
Of course.
Just some real hardcore trolling.
Super racist.
And, you know, the whole thing was to court controversy and to get people really upset.
And it's interesting how this plays out.
They kind of set the bait.
People take it.
And, you know, there's not like a perfect answer to what happens when somebody comes to your campus to just spew completely reactionary, discredited, racist ideas.
But it is interesting how much there's just this pattern of and how much it's so disingenuous about Not like this isn't like adding to a conversation.
This isn't like enlightening anyone to just come and like, I mean, what is it like technically performance art or something like, you know, it's just to get people upset and then point to people being upset and be like, see, I knew it.
Yeah, I don't want to tell people how they should react to this stuff, you know?
Because certain people experience a different existential threat to these ideas than I do.
But I still feel like there's a spectrum.
On which we should react to this stuff.
Ben Shapiro, Charlie Cuck, coming to your school, who fucking cares?
Like, those people already have such massive platforms, and they're so, like, dorky and insignificant, like...
I don't feel like protesting them, uh, you know, amassing people is really that effective.
I think making fun of them is definitely effective.
But when it comes to, like, outright white nationalists, yeah, that calls for a response.
Yeah.
Definitely.
The left needs to be honest with themselves.
I mean, they're such hypocrites.
Like, you know, Yiannopoulos talks about phrenology and people get all pissed off.
When the roots do it, it's fine.
I mean, it's in their name, dude.
The Roots.
Give me a break over here.
Also the name of the album, Phrenology.
Oh, that too.
Uh, let's get into comments from this topic.
So, uh, this is from a Daily Mail.
It was hard- it was hard to find comments, uh, for this specific, uh, story about Neil Ferguson and trying to dox a left student, uh, because like we were discussing before we started recording, it doesn't fit the narrative.
Doesn't fit the narrative of, uh, left-wing students overreacting and trying to suppress conservative speech.
Nope.
Whether it's, you know, the Huffington Post or CNN or Fox News, that's a huge clickable article about the disappearance of free speech on campuses.
So when there's an actual instance of sort of institutional, I would call this institutional, an institutional effort to actually silence or blackmail or otherwise harass a left-leaning student.
It doesn't fit that mold and so it doesn't spread the way that these other stories spread.
So it was hard to find, you know, takes in the general population, but there were plenty of them on this one Daily Mail article that I found.
Go figure, right?
Steven Lord says...
Love names.
I love commenter names so much.
Stephen Lord, what does he have to say?
Amazingly, he's part of the United States.
With a name like that, I would think he was a fancy lad.
Yeah.
But... Stephen Lord says...
One law for conservatives and a free pass for left-wingers.
And then Pragmatic Bob responds, Pretty much liberalism leads to fake democracy that leads to anarchy which ends up being a dictatorship.
Oh yeah, that's the logical way things go.
Yeah, that's how political scientists describe liberalism.
Like, as if it isn't the only thing holding capitalism together.
Exactly.
Fucking A. Good lord.
Arwin53.
Arwin, dude.
From, uh, from Jupiter.
That's why he's got such a weird name.
Yeah, Ar- no, this is a female.
Arwin.
Elvin.
Elvin.
This is one of those L-O-T-R, probably, uh, racist, uh, like, nerds, you know?
Before you guys get all upset, you can totally gender elves in an elven territory.
That's fine, you can gender elves.
That's part of the canon of elvish culture.
And part of the canon is that elves are from Jupiter, also.
If it was a liberal professor, and I just want to correct Arwen here, it should be if it were a liberal professor.
Thank you.
Ya dummy!
Oh man.
Had to do it to him.
I'm just kidding, by the way.
That's me being a pretentious liberal professor.
If it was a liberal professor trying to dig up dirt on a conservative student, he would have gotten tenure, not fired.
Oh!
Had to do it to him.
I mean, considering that this guy wasn't fired, yeah, it's a really bad dick.
A lot of people misread this article as well.
Or they made up their own, like, facts that went along with the article or whatever.
If it was a liberal professor who did this, they would have made him king of the school!
Dude, I want to be king of the school.
I was for a day.
Back in sixth grade.
What happened?
I got a free Lunchable.
The school gave me one.
And what else?
I got to perform Cypress Hills Rock Superstar in front of the entire school during lunchtime.
Amazing.
If you want to hear that story, what episode of That Awful Sound is that on?
I don't know where I referenced my dream of being able to perform that in front of, uh... Dude, I don't know.
Is it the Primer?
It's not the Primer 55 episode.
No, it's way later, way later.
Yeah, okay.
Might be the con one.
It's the con one.
Which episode did we do?
Oh, dude, it's Billy... Dub... Dub PC, bro.
WPC.
Oh, yeah.
William Corgan.
Yeah, it was his supergroup, Zwan.
Yeah.
That's a fun episode.
We spent enough time talking about that, huh?
It's not the, um, Cypress Hill episode, which is a fantastic episode.
Oh yeah.
Oh.
Featuring somebody.
I can't remember who at the moment.
I can't remember who.
Should've been Matt, but whatever.
Some charming lad.
Yep.
That's enough meta talk.
Also, this week, if you don't listen to that awful sound, this week is a great time to start because we are doing an amazing on-location episode on Sublime's date rape.
It's a bit of a crossover with this episode.
Very fun, very stupid.
Good episode of That Awful Sound out today.
Good bump.
Okay, not a Brit from Boston.
And there, the geotag's right there.
He proves it.
He's a real tea dumper, alright?
That's what they're called, right?
Tea dumps?
Right, yeah, I think that's what they like to be called.
Tea dump party.
Notabrit says, he was either a fool for trusting Susan Rice's son, so he's talking about Ferguson.
Fuck.
Or he is purposely trying to make conservatives look bad by writing this to someone whom he knows is deeply connected to the Obama administration.
Hmm.
I love, what if conservatism, every single conservative was just actually a deep state operative trying to make conservatism look bad?
It would make so much sense.
Yeah, it would be, that's a real, that's a real marionette.
That would make sense.
It's just, the entire conservative movement is kayfabe.
Exactly.
I mean, it kinda is.
Like, it's got a lot of money behind it, you know?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Deep pockets.
How do we know that he's not a crisis actor?
Let's go harass his parents and find out.
Yeah.
Maybe we'll get sued, though, so we should probably chill.
Uh, okay, so let's get to the final comment, uh, on this, on this topic here.
Uh, Winston Smith says, wuss to, ostensibly, to, uh, Ferguson.
Nile.
Nile Ferguson.
Nihilist Ferguson.
Uh, Winston Smith says, wuss, you're not gonna win the war being polite.
I mean, he's not wrong.
Like, this is, you know, there is sort of like an ideological war being waged.
Or, if not an ideological... I don't know what we would call it, but there is some sort of, like, soft civil war happening, at least online.
Yeah, it's like a cold one.
Like, it's real... It's like a... I don't know, but it's electric, because it's online.
It's cold, because that's the temperature at which computers operate at maximum efficiency.
We should call it the Electric War, though.
That sounds a lot cooler.
It's cool, huh?
But, uh, yeah, ironically, Winston Smith, their avatar, George Orwell, famous socialist.
Beautiful stuff.
I love how now, like, like they haven't looked into George Orwell at all, and they love using him in memes.
It's like this new world order favors Winston Smith.
And if he read 1984, he'd realize it's a critique of his own peeps.
My favorite is when conservatives use the Malcolm X quote about Democrats.
That's the best one.
It's fucking terrible.
Um, okay, so let's move on to- Did you have something to say?
But I- I totally agree with them, though, cause like, we gotta stop being polite, which is why I encourage everybody to, um, shame their boomer co-workers in public.
Me too.
I agree.
No boomers.
Okay, so, uh, the next thing we're gonna talk about in this free speech world is the No Safe Spaces movie coming to something near you, uh, in the fall.
Probably coming to Voodoo.
Get it on Voodoo.
The only Voodoo I watch is the Godsmack music video.
It's part of the enhanced CD that you put in your CD-ROM.
And then it's also a DVD.
Dude, when is Sully Earnhardt gonna come out as like a Blue Lives Matter guy?
Hopefully never.
Can't wait for that to happen.
Were you a Godsmack fan, Mike?
Oh, I was.
Oh yes, dude.
I was a Godsmack fan.
I had that album.
Yeah, dude.
Oh, that Alice in Chains album?
Yeah.
Godsmack.
The song turned into her name.
No, I had the Godsmack album with the cool tribal tattoo on it.
Yeah, dude.
The same one that is tattooed on your belly button in your profile picture?
Well, yeah, obviously.
Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
Yeah, so this is a...
Why do you think I'm wearing belly shirts all the time? - This is a independently funded movie, or documentary, whatever you want to call it, starring Dennis Prager and Adam Carolla.
Good God.
And they're here to teach kids how They're being indoctrinated into leftism.
You know, like, getting on their level.
Like, uh, 80-year-old Dennis Prager speaking to them.
And Adam Krola of The Man Show.
This was actually going to be The Man Show, the movie, but the AJWs got all worked up about having a gender-specific movie.
Can't do it.
This movie is all about the crisis on college campuses.
This segment is just going to be a preview, basically, because the movie doesn't come out until the fall, and I want to say we're going to cover it.
I want to say we're going to cover it in depth, maybe watch the movie, maybe use, maybe Launder money through the Patreon in order to pay for this.
We might have to do that.
We might have to do an entire fifth Patreon episode devoted specifically to the watching of this film.
But who knows?
If anybody has any connections and can get us to the premiere of this, that'd be great.
Holy fuck.
Well, all you have to do is fucking donate $500 or something to this campaign.
Oh, here we go.
Oh, cool.
So, let's just go through the first teaser, starring our boy Benny Shapp.
Oh, Shappy, dude.
Ben Shapp.
He's a moon-faced boy if I've ever seen one.
So, the caption on this video is, Ben Shapiro is a part of our little movie, which I can only imagine is a slight against the height of Ben Shapiro.
Right.
He's only a part.
It's a little movie and he's still only a part of it.
Like us to stay updated on the film Hollywood wouldn't make.
So we had to.
And let's go ahead and watch this teaser here.
Ben Shapiro is currently sitting calmly in an airport, and the text on screen reads, "On September 14th, 2017, "Ben Shapiro traveled to UC Berkeley to give a speech." "Ben Shapiro traveled to UC Berkeley to give a speech." Remember?
And this is footage from that day.
Just kidding, no it's not.
Boasting... What were you to say?
There was a Jew in there.
Yeah, Ben Shapiro.
Yeah.
Woah, dude.
Uh...
"Boasting a proud tradition of free speech, the campus prepared for his arrival." What is this footage from Blues Academy?
Uh, Blues Brothers?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So we get footage of...
It's either Blues Brothers or Animal House.
There's footage from both of a team of, a SWAT team of goons unloading out of the back of a van to prepare for Ben Shapiro's arrival because he's so dangerous.
They're donning their SWAT gear so that they don't get owned by Ben Shapiro.
Tanks rolling in.
Ben Shapiro calmly, masculinely walking through an airport terminal.
Helicopter shots of the tumult going on beneath.
It's just this.
It's just a lot of this.
It's, um... It's horseshit.
It's conservative humor.
Yeah.
And, uh, sure, this triggers me.
Conservative humor in general is dangerous.
It melts your brain.
It's terrible.
It's not like campy good.
It's just bad.
The real reason why I find this so triggering is because you I.E.
boys might know.
What's up?
If you look, that is the Ontario Airport.
Oh, fuck.
That is the Ontario Airport.
It is 20 minutes away from us.
He was in?
That was in the Ontario Airport.
That's where they shot that.
Oh my god.
I would love to have gotten a signature.
So I am really ashamed to be... The I.E.
should never be associated with people like him.
We're better than that.
But he was in us.
Yeah, so basically what this is referring to is when Ben Shapiro went to speak at UC Berkeley, and the school spent like $600,000 on security for his little boy ass, and nothing happened.
No violence broke out.
I have a quote here.
On September 14th, conservative radio host Ben Shapiro gave a speech at the campus which was covered by a crew for the political documentary No Safe Spaces.
No one wearing masks or with weapons was allowed on campus.
And the Berkley City Council authorized the police to use pepper spray, a weapon that had been banned in the city for 20 years.
The campus also set up concrete barriers and metal detectors with a UC spokesman stating that about $600 was spent on security for Shapiro's speech.
$600,000?
Yeah.
Hundreds gathered off campus at a Refuse Fascism rally to protest the event.
Police made nine arrests.
There was no major violence.
It's funny that we're talking about the pepper spray, that they were allowed to use pepper spray or whatever, because I just saw on Reddit yesterday, it's been like, I don't know how many years, but that picture of the pepper spray incident.
Yeah, wasn't that at Berkeley?
Yeah, it was at UC Berkeley, yeah.
It was an Occupy.
I'm pretty sure it was an Occupy that got sprayed down.
It wasn't 2008 Occupy, but it was like 2012 maybe?
2014?
Yeah, maybe Bernier Occupy.
That amazing video of him just casually walking by seated protesters spraying them Point Blank in the face.
Don't forget that shit.
So, basically...
All of these, uh, all of these measures that the school took before Ben Shapiro's arrival, uh, was because Charlottesville had just happened?
Yep.
Charlottesville had just happened in August and plenty of fascistic white nationalist protests or speaking events called, you know, Free Speech Week had happened at UC Berkeley or had been planned to happen at UC Berkeley before.
I have another quote here.
Between 2,000 and 4,000 people attended a, quote, rally against hate counter protest against a far-right, quote, say no to Marxism rally scheduled for Martin Luther King Civic Center in Berkeley on August 27th.
The counter protest was part of a larger nationwide backlash against far-right movements in the aftermath of a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier that month.
The Say No to Marxism rally was cancelled due to safety concerns and only a small number of anti-Marxist protesters showed up.
Scheduled attendees at the far-right rally included Augustus Invictus, which is apparently that guy's legal name.
Augustus Invictus, are you familiar with this guy, Michael?
I believe that he is a...
Is that the, uh, Identity Europa guy, or am I... It's not the Identity Europa guy, yeah.
Yeah, that's racist, dude.
Uh... No, he's a... He's a dude who ran for a Libertarian seat and was actually booted out of the Libertarian Party for being too racist.
If you can imagine that.
Too toxic for the fucking Libertarians.
I had this guy's wiki pulled up.
He's a lawyer, actually, and his name is Sol Invictus.
These are actual white supremacists, actual fascists, who inspire actual violence.
Like, somebody died at that Charlottesville rally.
Multiple people were injured.
Heather Heyer, say her name, died at that rally.
And these fucking assholes just kept going.
Kept going with their far-right movement and their far-right speeches.
And, um... Yeah, there's a reason to protest that shit.
And so, uh, they did.
Antifa and churches and everybody protested that.
And that's what led to this decision based on Benny Shapiro's appearance.
My Antifa.
I love her.
She's sweet.
Let's watch the actual trailer for this No Safe Spaces movie.
Oh boy.
Dude, I savored... I savored the mouth when I watched this.
Or whatever.
You were disgusting!
Slap your racist mama!
Or whatever.
Or whatever.
"Slap your racist mama." Yeah, do it actually.
There will be resistance and it will not be peaceful.
Free speech is free on campuses unless you're hearing ideas you don't like.
Violence and hate.
Resistance to violent hate speech is not another act of hate.
It is an act of love.
Free speech was never meant to protect love speech.
Yeah.
Shut up, Prager.
Humans don't really like freedom of speech.
They definitely like their own freedom of speech.
They don't necessarily like your freedom of speech, though.
This is my favorite part.
We should probably pick cabins to do these speeches versus college campuses.
We should go speak at the Unabomber Shack.
Amazing!
If you didn't hear that quote, it was Adam Carolla saying, We should pick cabins to go do these speeches instead of college campuses.
We should go do it at the Unabomber Shack.
Which was a laugh line for some reason comparing themselves to the Unabomber.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Yeah, I did not.
I thought maybe they edited it so that there was someone else saying something funny.
They took the audience reaction from that and put it on there.
Because I still can't actually figure out what the punchline of that is.
It's the horrible fucking... They're terrorists.
So the punchline is the Unabomber has some good ideas.
Yeah.
Uh, and then next, the very next clip is a group of, I don't know, the funniest comedians you've ever seen sitting around a table at the Laugh Factory.
Oh my god.
And we get a little, uh, get a couple comments from two people, the second of which is Tim Allen.
We get that A plus Tim Allen action.
Radical, man.
You can't even make a joke without worrying about being crucified.
Isn't it spooky that we're having this discussion?
Isn't it spooky that we're having this discussion, he says in front of the Laugh Factory logo?
No, it's spooky to me that I see you on camera because I thought you were dead.
I thought you were a ghost.
This motherfucker said spooky.
He did say spooky.
You need to chill on the... You need to correct yourself and you need to say spoopy instead of spooky.
So we have Tim Allen here, we have Dennis Prager, we have Adam Carolla.
Aside from Dennis Prager, these are just people complaining about not being funny.
Yeah.
It's a movie about a failed comedian.
I mean, he's a popular podcaster, sure, but what he's whining about here is the idea that college kids don't think his ass is funny.
Yep.
Yeah, when he said women aren't funny, that was hilarious, and we're just too sensitive.
Yeah, we're not as funny as he is.
We're not on his comedic level.
I mean, slow motion boobs jiggling is always funny.
I mean, it's like the creme de la creme of comedy.
Especially when it zooms out and it's actually a dude's boobs and you feel gay now!
No, it's actually a dude's butt.
And you're like, what?
That stinks, dude.
Butt cleavage?
Butt cleavage from a beer-drinking large man.
That's basically the gist of this movie.
We will dissect it, I'm sure, once it actually comes out.
We have to.
But it's fucking amazing how pathetic these people are, whining about not being funny.
Yes, it's very pathetic.
What was funny, though, was the Indiegogo page for this movie This movie generated $670,000 on Indiegogo, which I'm assuming they're going to use to pay back the government for hiring security for Ben Shapiro.
Yep.
Typically, you know.
Uh, this is amazing.
So, the $50 reward is an, I'm quoting here, ACDP shirt.
So it's, you said it with the right, uh, uh, right cadence.
It's an ACDC trip-off shirt.
Yeah.
Tribute shirt, my dad would say.
What did you say to this comment, this, this t-shirt on, in Facebook?
It was so fucking funny.
Oh, conservatism is a new classical rock.
Holy fuck.
Holy shit.
That's so true.
My dad is just such a big, like, rocker.
Like a big rocker.
Like, he loves...
ACDC and REO Speedwagon and and he's a big trumper and like he would love this movie and love this shirt like I want it for him so bad.
They know their audience it's not college students.
No.
No it's not.
Honestly it's people who have either a vague recollection of going to college in the 80s and 90s and they're comparing that to what they see on TV or in this trailer and going well it wasn't like that when I went to college in in 1991.
Yes.
Or, they're literally like, they didn't go to college, so this is their whole idea that they have about college.
I mean, it's interesting because the research, like they did these surveys, I think it was either Pew or Gallup or some other polling agency, looking at like different people's political views and what institutions they trust.
And among conservatives, colleges are seen as Very untrustworthy.
Scary.
Spooky.
And not contributing to, you know, America in a positive way.
So, it makes you wonder why, you know, why target colleges?
I mean, it's not too difficult to figure out.
No, yeah, exactly.
These people are like the YouTube comment section but for politics, you know?
It's like, whatever happened to real colleges?
Yeah, exactly.
Fuck, dude.
Fuck.
This is a really, like, grandiose version of the scene where Billy Madison first pulls up to high school.
They're exactly that.
And Trans Am.
Yeah, dude!
Rockin' an R.S.
Speedwagon t-shirt.
Leaning up against it, playing Def Leppard.
Yep.
Or Billy Squire, maybe.
Maybe that, too.
Slowly stroke me.
Slowly stroke me!
Stroke!
That's actually what it is, right?
I think so.
I think it's actually that song, yeah.
Yeah, I'm just a big... I'm a big Happy Madison Productions fan.
These professors now, all they do is talk.
They used to sing.
Whatever happened to real professing?
I wish Jack Black was still a professor.
We can't spend too much time on this, but another thing, another reward that I fucking loved, for donating $10 to the Indiegogo for this, you receive a Safe Spaces coloring book.
What the fuck is that?
I need to see that.
It is as cringy as it sounds from the three pages I saw.
Good God.
The little blurb says, The official Safe Spaces coloring book is the must-have for every triggered and aggrieved college student.
Huh?
Provides hours of adolescent fun.
Crayons not included, especially the white ones.
What the fuck, dude?
So but but also they're trying to get me they're trying to win us over here with this coloring book is that what's going on like it's it's it's is it working it no not at all but like it's the must have for every triggered and aggrieved you're just making us more triggered stop it please You can't have a white crayon either.
What the fuck?
Who ever used the white crayon anyway?
Yeah.
I'm trying to think of when I did.
I think that's like the whole point, is like, the white crayon's being excluded just like the white man.
It should be.
It's amazing how there's no use for it.
Yeah, the white crayon is hegemonic because the paper is white.
Fuck.
It's a really good take.
Just set up from the get-go.
I'm going to get this for my young daughter who goes to a conservative preschool and I want her to have a way to express the way her.
I want her to express her triggering in a healthy fashion.
Oh, shouts out to the first usage of hegemonic on this podcast, by the way.
That's what I'm here for.
So you can't see it very well, but another one of these pages in this coloring book is a housewife coming home shocked to find her husband in women's clothing.
Okay.
Wow.
So yes, owning trans people with a coloring book.
It's actually encouraging conversations between spouses.
It's saying, you save yourself the embarrassment.
Try to talk to your partner about this.
I love the idea of sending out a coloring book to your fans to prove how mature you are.
Yeah, that's great.
We're sending one of those fake pop ball lawnmowers to all supporters to own the libs.
I mean, I feel like this is just a page out of the TPUSA.
Yeah.
Yes, it absolutely is.
Okay, let's move on to comments for this, this, uh, no safe spaces shit.
I just have a couple here.
Yeah, all these TP motherfuckers are...
They want to be coddled like a baby and they have fetish for that.
And that's definitely what's happening.
And they want to draw on coloring books and stuff.
Okay, let's move on to comments for this no safe spaces shit.
I just have a couple here.
Oh, and then you have some as well, Michael.
Rocky Justice, in a response to the safe space epidemic rocking colleges across the nation, Rocky Justice, who looks to be a big fan of ACDC, judging by his hat and guitar in the profile picture.
Uh, Rocky Justice.
God, that's so awesome.
Says, buy a gun and lots of ammo.
Take a class in the safe operation of that weapon.
Practice with it often.
Carry it every day, everywhere you go, and all spaces will be safe spaces.
Oh, cool!
So yeah, in response, he's supposed to be, like, triggered about the violence of the left and how they're not allowing free speech on campus, and his response is, no, shoot them.
Shoot them.
Kill them.
Dude, that is what's... Well, we all know that guns equal safety, right?
I mean, that's why they let guns into the NRA convention.
Yeah, it's, I mean, it's got, it's got a safety on it.
Literally part of it.
Yeah, it's, it's, there's a mechanism called safety.
Give me a break already.
That's what's so crazy about this whole thing is that there are certain people that you, like, don't want to have a conversation with because, like, they might shoot you.
Right.
I'm not wrong.
Yeah, the whole idea is...
No, you're not gonna shoot the liberals.
You're just gonna show them the gun.
That's gonna make them cower enough.
Yeah, you just lift your shirt up and say, look what I got in my waistband, homie.
him guns no you're not gonna shoot the liberal just gonna show him the gun that's gonna make him cower enough yeah you just lift your shirt up and say what look what I got in my waistband homie Rick Caldwell says I have been waiting for the call to arms for our Constitution I I am a disabled vet.
I pay the price of freedom with every step I take with my screwed up body.
If these snowflakes think that we the people will lose our rights, they are sadly mistaken.
Just waiting for the call to take our country back from the puppets.
I'm sorry for laughing at him saying screwed up body, but that's like a really weird like way to phoneticize your body's messed up.
It makes it sound like he has teeth in his vagina or something.
One of the things that I think is really interesting is this this take our country back rhetoric is still happening Yeah, even after Republicans are 100% running the country.
It's so interesting.
It's crazy When I rarely try to reason with people in conservative comments, I don't necessarily try to reason with them, I just ask them questions.
Right.
And, yeah, you see people who are like, we gotta do something about these Democrats!
It's because the Democrats are in control!
Roseanne being cancelled is us losing our country right in front of us!
And I ask them, I'm like, how are you...
You're too chill, dude.
You need to chill out.
a victim when you control all the levers of power when you control all the branches of government uh you control a majority of the states how are you still able to to claim this victimhood and their response is well you just don't get it yep you don't understand it's their response um coastal elitist you're too chill dude you chill out
it's interesting because you also see that in it's in the video in the in the teaser I It's interesting that they called it a teaser and not a trailer.
I don't know what that's about.
It's not the final version, dude.
They said, if you think you're a victim... I don't know.
He said something like that.
If you think you're a victim, you know, you're never gonna like... You're never gonna be happy.
I don't remember.
That's what it is.
You're never gonna be happy.
But the whole video is about how conservatives are victims of political correctness.
Yeah, it's really weird, and if you try to call this out, you're at risk of saying, like...
No, you are.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
In order to, uh, in order to call something a trailer, legally, it has to be using, like, SAG union members on every shoot.
So, because there's no way they could do that, they have to call it, you know, a little sneaky peekies.
Yeah, they're calling it a teaser to, uh, to tease their employees with fair wages.
Uh, go ahead.
Not to backtrack too much, but, um, I think it's, uh, to be fair, or to take what, what, Conservatives say about the Democrats, you know, ruining the country to another level.
I would say that they have done a really good job of being huge lames and, like, not... And they just, they suck, dude.
They suck so bad.
We were talking about the Overton window at the very beginning of this episode.
That's why it's so maddening that these You know, middle-of-the-road conservative Democrats are just generally understood to be communists and socialists in like the consensus, you know?
And it's like...
How far have we shifted to the right that Nancy Pelosi, a person on record as being a proud capitalist, is considered a socialist or a communist?
Crazy.
Got a lot of work to do on the left.
People's understanding of politics are so, like, I don't know, wrong.
I'm just lucky to be able to have my own opinions at this point, you know?
Okay, do you want to get into the comments you got from this No Safe Spaces uber-triggered comment section?
Yeah, I mean, I found some real crazy ones.
So, I guess I'll read a couple of them.
This is probably my favorite one, I have to say.
This is by Freddy Eugene Kais.
Yeah, that's good.
Something like that.
Yep.
Very good.
I just can't even count the level of logical fallacies and contradictions in this whole just kind of ramble.
This is what the leftist swines who are indoctrinating our children have brought upon our country.
They can't tolerate a difference in opinion.
Your worldview or opinion is different from theirs.
You have become their enemy.
Many of them spout garbage that has no basis in fact.
I recently expressed an opinion on a subject and a relative attacked me and went on about how my opinion was flawed and wrong.
This relative, person, just kept complaining about my opinion.
I explained that no opinion is right or wrong.
Needless to say, this relative unfriended me from Facebook.
This has happened on many occasions.
I love that little chair.
I don't even know if we need to make fun of it.
Just like every single sentence contradicts the sentence right before it.
Yeah, it's like a big zig-zag.
I'm pretty dizzy, to be fair.
Yeah, it really does make you dizzy.
Yeah.
This is what the leftist swines who are indoctrinating our children have brought upon the country.
They can't tolerate a difference in opinion.
Calling, uh, they, uh, if your worldview or opinion is different from theirs, you have become their enemy.
And you might call them something like swine, for instance.
Yeah.
Garbage that has no basis in fact.
But at the same time... Hey, opinions aren't right or wrong.
There's no right or wrong opinions.
Everyone just has opinions.
As though... Yeah.
the world realm of facts holy shit yeah this I think this is actually a very dangerous aspect of of sort of how people think about politics now is this idea that there are no facts Yeah.
Um, and I mean, we can, we can make, you know, the commentary about alternative facts and all that kind of stuff, but I think it has become a legitimate issue that people are not interested in what's true and they're not interested in what is verifiable or even empirical facts.
Like as, as a researcher, as someone who just, Concerned with figuring out what's going on.
How do I explain different outcomes?
How do I explain patterns in the world?
This is actually like a huge problem.
Um, even just teaching students like, Hey, you can know things about how society works.
It's like a, it blows their minds because they, um, everyone has this idea.
Like, well, everyone just has different opinions and they're just different.
And we need to hear all of them and talk about it.
And, You know, it's so strange that all of a sudden we've moved away.
And these are also the same people that'll say things like, facts don't care about your feelings.
Yeah.
They love saying that kind of stuff.
Freddy's the kind of person who would tell you, no listen, I know that the plural of swine is swine, but that's your opinion.
I think we should put an S on the end of every plural.
Yep, because he does say swines.
Swines.
Might have misread that.
Because your mind just corrects things.
Let's move on to this next comment here.
From Ricky Martin.
Yeah, this is the only person I think so far to appear on both podcasts, right?
Right!
Fuck!
Ricky Martin making an appearance on both!
He's going by his given name, which is not Enrique Martin, it's Richard Martin, as a matter of fact.
So he says, the only place left for a free exchange of ideas is in the comfort of your own home, where you can protect your First Amendment rights by exercising your Second Amendment rights.
God, I love this fucking comment.
Holy shit.
I love this comment.
You can say whatever you want in your own home because you can shoot someone if they disagree with you.
I mean, what is it?
Go ahead.
I'm picturing this guy like holed up in his house, pointing a rifle out the window and holding a bullhorn to his mouth, like spewing the N-word. - Well, I don't know if you knew this, but the Stand Your Ground, that law also applies to, like, ideals.
So you have the right to gun someone down to defend your opinion.
True.
Because that's part of your person.
True, dude.
And part of your property.
Real shit.
Spit facts.
They should make a new law called Sit Your Ground, where if somebody is kneeling or sitting down too close to you, you can shoot them.
Because they're endangering the country.
I think there's a flag in the area.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Shoot the ground, actually.
No, I love this.
He's fucking protecting his First Amendment with the Second Amendment with a fucking gun in his house, like, posted in front of his computer screen to make sure nobody, like, deletes his comments on Facebook.
With that bullhorn resting on his knee, too.
He's gonna shoot the keyboard.
I was gonna say, this person's gone through quite a few screens.
He's gonna shoot the keyboard.
He's got the capability of all kinds of hate speech or whatever.
You just walk into, like, Richard Martin's workshop and he's, like, dismantling an iPhone to try and somehow remove Siri because it auto-corrected his spelling of swine.
Yeah, dude, he does that for sure.
Let's get to the last comment here from Edmond.
Alright, so this last one is Edmond Wyatt.
He says, Yep, makes sense so far.
I should never be forced to be like you.
Yep, makes sense so far.
I should never be forced to be like you.
I don't care if you like me.
Socialist laws suck.
Also, taxation is theft.
Get a job.
Yup, dude.
Totally.
Dude.
Good fucking lord.
I just love this because it really reminded me of the episode that you guys did on Spike TV.
And I think it was that one where you're talking about, uh, and toilet!
Toilet!
Yeah.
So free sweets, guns, beer, bacon, Jesus and his father, monuments, flags, and toilet!
Toilet!
Toilet.
This has to be the coolest comment on Facebook.
This comment is just for us guys.
Only thing it's missing is like metal twisting.
No, except they forgot the metal twisting and writhing.
Like you gotta have like metal being warped.
Jesus and his father, monuments, flags, metal crunching.
Is it me or is anybody else's panties wet?
Holy God.
Free speech, guns, beer, Line 6 amps!
Jesus and his father.
Jesus had a dad, his name was God.
What the fuck is going on right now?
Alright, uh, we're gonna have to, uh, put the coal part of this episode in the Patreon this week.
Gonna have to.
Are you down to stick around, Michael, for about another half hour to do this thing?
Why not?
You've already invested so much of your time that you could be spent, I don't know, helping you achieve your PhD.
Well, no, he's doing what he's supposed to be doing.
He's imbibing on liquid energy and being three hours ahead of us and hanging the fuck out.
Yeah, so if you want to listen to us continue this conversation about coal and how we should be supporting the dying industry of coal, subscribe at patreon.com.
P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash MinionDeathCult.
That'll come out this week in addition to a full-length episode on Thursday.
You get a bonus episode every week.
Uh, by subscribing to that Patreon for $3.11.
You can write to us at MinionDeathCult at, uh, MinionDeathCult at gmail.com, MinionDeathCult on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
Uh, thank you so much, Michael, for doing this episode with us.
Yeah, no problem.
This was great.
A lot of fun.
I really enjoyed it.
You gotta be a regular, dude.
You've got to be.
At least through the summer when you're off, you know.
Do you have anything you want to promote or anything like that?
I have a book that is coming out at some point.
You can pre-order it.
It's called Debating the Drug War.
This is a research study that I did looking at not only newspapers, but also internet comments about how people talk about drug policy.
So it is kind of related to this whole thing of looking at internet comments and trying to figure out, you know, what is going on with this.
So, that is coming out at some point.
Where can they pre-order it at?
The publisher is Rutledge.
So, if you just go to Rutledge Press.
If you really want to give Jeff Bezos money, I guess you could find it on Amazon.
No, go to Rutledge.
Don't do it.
Hey, well, you might give Jeff Bezos money, but you're also giving me money, because I'm going to be the one delivering it.
Yeah, make sure- make sure that, uh, make sure it's delivered.
By- by Alex.
Request him by name.
Yeah, but like, but what about all the motherfuckers driving their cars around just dropping the book off to people?
Think about that.
They're just chillin' in their car.
Type in- Smokin' weed.
In the notes section of the order window, uh, type, send your cutest delivery boy and, uh, I'll- I'll come runnin'.
It's a bottleneck and Alex is right at the end of it.
