June 20, 2017 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
06:28
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| So last Friday, the progressive website Mother Jones included me in an article about a "new | ||
| extremist media industry that is further to the right than Breitbart." | ||
| In the piece, the author referred to me as quote, far right, citing interviews I've done with Mike Cernovich, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Lauren Southern to back up his accusation. | ||
| He cherry picked these guests to fit his narrative, yet somehow missed the endless amount of liberals I've had on the show, and some of the progressives I've hosted as well, including Margaret Cho, Hilary Rosen, Mark Duplass, John Fuglesang, and Michael Ian Black. | ||
| The article also attacked Patreon, the crowdfunding platform which myself and my team's livelihood depends on, for being tolerant of people with quote far right views such as mine, though of course nowhere did it include any of my purported far right views. | ||
| Earlier in the week Forbes called the Rubin Report a conservative talk show, but immediately retracted the statement when I contacted them. | ||
| Ironically, I've been saying for a while that defending my liberal beliefs is becoming a conservative position. | ||
| Although I don't think being called a conservative is somehow a pejorative, it clearly isn't a proper descriptor for this show in which I've hosted people from across the political divide. | ||
| For Mother Jones to accuse me of being an extremist? | ||
| Further to the right of Breitbart is obviously an inflammatory and demonstrably dishonest statement. | ||
| I've been around many people over the last few years who have been unfairly maligned, and I'm all too familiar with how this goes. | ||
| Whether it's Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Colin Moriarty, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or Brett Weinstein, each attack is virtually never based on what these people have said, but is instead crafted out of straw man arguments with the words racist and bigot tossed around like candy. | ||
| Suddenly, the onus is on the people who aren't racists or bigots to disprove this accusation, usually slung by a misguided celebrity or a malicious newspaper or website. | ||
| The move, then, is on the accused. | ||
| Should they spend the time and energy defending themselves from accusations which aren't true, only to bring more attention to the accusations themselves? | ||
| Or should they ignore them, hoping that the false claims will go away over time? | ||
| I think there are solid arguments to be made for either tactic, and it truly depends on the situation at hand and the person involved. | ||
| In this case involving me, I went on the attack. | ||
| I decided this case was too egregious to ignore, and I contacted the article's author via Twitter, screenshotting pieces of his article and asking him to defend them. | ||
| Of course he couldn't defend his own words, that's the thing with truth, it's hard to work around, and eventually he made slight changes to the article, like including a tweet of mine in which I defended myself from his claims, and he removed the word far in front of the word right before referencing me in the article. | ||
| Putting aside the rest of the specifics of the article itself, I was happy to get a strong defense in public from many friends all over the political map. | ||
| People like Joe Rogan, Colin Moriarty, Faisal Sayed Al Motar, Brett Weinstein, Eric Weinstein, Michael Shermer, Peter Boghossian and many others offered strong defenses of me just as I've offered for others when I've seen them unfairly attacked. | ||
| I even got a public defense from Donald Trump Jr. | ||
| Putting my friends and public allies aside, it's incredibly inspiring and humbling to see literally tens of thousands of people offer their voice when they feel you've been unjustly attacked. | ||
| And that's the key to this whole thing. | ||
| It's not me or Sam or Jordan or Brett that they fear. | ||
| What they really fear is that all of you will start saying what you think because their strength in numbers. | ||
| By Monday I wanted to put this whole story behind me, my dog had a health emergency which actually put this whole thing into perspective, but I admit I did get sucked back into the story very briefly. | ||
| Over the course of another Twitter exchange, I got the writer of the piece, Josh Harkinson, to publicly admit that I am NOT Further right than Breitbart, though of course he didn't change the title or have Mother Jones issue any sort of public correction. | ||
| One other interesting piece to all this is that the writer, Josh Harkinson, is one of the 40 people that James Hodgkinson, the shooter of the Republican baseball team last week in Virginia, followed on Twitter. | ||
| I can't draw a direct link there, but we know that Hodgkinson was a far lefty who was obviously driven to political extremes. | ||
| So when this very same writer does a hatchet job on me, calling me further right than Breitbart, which is clearly a code for racist. | ||
| I can't sit back there and take it. | ||
| This is exactly why I've been saying you can't punch Nazis. | ||
| Call everyone you oppose a Nazi and a racist and then eventually you will see violence as the next logical step. | ||
| It's not a crazy exercise to think that this is partially what drove James Hodgkinson. | ||
| In hindsight, his attack on me was the next obvious step in where this whole collectivist movement is going. | ||
| I've talked for a long time about how if you can't debate ideas, you use lies and buzzwords. | ||
| Having it turned on me shouldn't have been a surprise, especially from a leftist site like Mother Jones, yet somehow it did still surprise me. | ||
| Make no mistake, there is a thinkquisition going on here, and it can come for anyone at any time. | ||
| If you ally yourself with people who value the movement, in this case a political movement, over you as an individual, then eventually it is inevitable that they will come for you. | ||
| And if they don't come for you, you're probably the one coming for them. | ||
| This thinkquisition will come after anyone who bucks the trend and the stereotypes and dares think for themselves. | ||
| It's why they accuse Ayaan Hirsi Ali of being anti-Muslim. | ||
| It's why they slander Bill Maher as being a racist. | ||
| It's why they call Larry Elder and Uncle Tom. | ||
| And it's why, apparently, they can brand me a far right extremist. | ||
| Those who are a part of this thinkquisition fear you thinking for yourself, that you won't bow to their collectivist demands more than anything else. | ||
| The way to beat this witch hunt is to be yourself and fight for what you believe. | ||
| You are the antidote they fear most. | ||
| I hope that next time you see me fighting back and getting some cover from my allies, it'll inspire you to fight back, specifically with words, not violence, as well. |
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