WAKE UP CALL #7 w/Ron Coleman

We’re joined for this episode by attorney and tremendous free speech advocate Ron Coleman. We kick off this episode with Ron talking about his landmark Supreme Court case Matal v.Tam which set a precedent for re-appropriation of ethnic slurs in trademark & copyright law. We also talk about how society is moving speech in the wrong direction, and how we can legally fight back - and whether or not that’s even important.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Yeah, it looks like I'm there. Yes, let's do it. Okay,

(00:27):
So it's cool. Interestingly enough,Um, it's it's so weird how
I spoke to you last week forthe first time and then you find out
that we have like all these mutualfriends in comedy and entertainment and stuff.
I mean, how did you,as a lawyer, like find yourself in
this world. Well, remember,our friends are all losers, that's right,

(00:50):
that's right. So the world oflosers is actually the world of losers
is a lot bigger than the worldof winners. Yeah, so that doesn't
really answer your question to some extentthough. Um. One of the things
you and I talked about when wewere just losing last week was the fact
that I have found myself fascinated bythis world of comics because I'm I'm a

(01:19):
I'm a I'm a Jewish guy talkedwith his hands and who was the funniest
guy in the room at any giventime. Um, because I haven't been
in some of the rooms that you'vebeen in, but now that most of
the guys in those rooms are alsoJewish guys the time guys too, I'm
a i'm a comedian who had tryingto make an honest living yeah, and
which means you can't do comedy exactly. So what am I doing? So

(01:47):
I was I've been fascinated over thelast couple of years with this whole concept
and this whole reality of how incrediblypolitically correct comedy has become. And so,
you know, I followed a lotof these guys, and a lot
of them some of them followed mefirst, some of the people that were
talking about and you know, it'sa fascinating subject to me. I don't

(02:12):
know if it's fascinating to everyone else. But you know, there was a
time when comedians were the people whoheld themselves out as speaking truth to power.
And you know, forget Lenny Bruce. Most of the people watching this
never even heard that name. Yeah, Lenny's sort of a deep cut for
comedians in a lot of cases exactly. But certainly everyone's heard of George Carlin.

(02:36):
Yeah, and you know the factthat's part of the reason Carlin was
really not that funny in his lasttwo years. And I think he wasn't
It was because he was just sofreaking angry. Yeah, he saw all
this coming and he was right on, right on. I was lucky enough
I got to see him. Itwas like one of the weirdest things ever.

(02:58):
So in two thousand I started doingcomedy. Two thousand and seven.
Um, and in the I guessit would have been the summer of two
thousand and eight or maybe this waslike I think this was November of two
thousand and eight. I had takena bunch of stock out and uh,
and just kind of was like,I'm gonna I'm gonna be a comedian.
I'm gonna do like shitty, lowpaying road gigs and uh, you know,

(03:21):
and just live the dream, right. And I had like all my
family was out of town for Thanksgiving, and me and another friend, my
friend Jessica from Minnesota, We're justlike, let's just go to Vegas for
Thanksgiving. And then we went toVegas for Thanksgiving and I had like gotten
the worst tonsilitis that I've ever hadin my entire life, which I later

(03:42):
found out was mono. Um.But yeah, so I was like pretty
much down. I was down forthe count for that entire trip. And
she was like, She's like,well, I guess I'll just go out
and have fun without you, Andso she just went out and made friends
and gambled and drank. But theone thing we did do that we had
planned to do the whole time wewere there was to go see Carlin at

(04:03):
the Orleans and he was preparing forhis very last special that he ever did,
And so this might have been fallof those seven because I think his
special came out in May of height, So either way, this was
around that time and we saw him, and it was kind of weird because
he was so scripted at that point. When we saw him at the Orleans,

(04:23):
he had like a stack of papersand it was basically like he was
reading the transcript of his special.Yeah, and you know, just eyeglasses,
pitcher water table with his notes onit, and just literally like sometimes
he would grab a page from thetable, bring it over and just stand
there and read it. And thenother other bits he had more memorized than
would come out and perform them.But I remember kind of walking away of

(04:45):
being like, man, we justpaid fifty five dollars to watch this guy
riff and write on stage, Andas a new comedian, I couldn't be
more enamored with the idea of likehow to the word he was and how
specific if he was and careful aboutthe way that he worded things so that
point wasn't missed. Like, sothe word I'm looking for is meticulous.

(05:08):
He was so meticulous about vocabulary,and you kind of understand, like it,
I think you're right. I thinkin a way he kind of saw
all this coming and was like,you know, if if I don't,
if I don't pick the perfect wordsfor these jokes, it will not the
point will be missed completely. Andyou know, for the rest of us
that aren't as meticulous, we've sufferedthe wrath in the last you know,

(05:30):
ten years. Oh so you're talkingabout a meticulous not just the comedy word
choice craft, but the wokeness,which would not have been the word that
would have been used at that time. I do think we had politically correct
though in those days. The pointis that he had to be extremely careful
even then, and even being Carlinthe Seven Dirty Words Carlin. Yeah,

(05:57):
he's nonetheless being incredibly careful word selectionin order to avoid sen sense sure,
censorship, but sensure and like,wasn't that pretty close to the time when
did Chris Rock announced no, muchmore recently, that he wasn't going to
do any more college work. Yeah, that was way before that. You
know, I think that I thinkthat came out in like fourteen or fifteen.

(06:20):
You know, it's amazing to believethat that alone, when him and
Seinfeld both were like, we're notdoing colleges anymore, that's already five or
six years ago. We've already comefive years. Yeah. And by the
way, how much worse has itgotten in those five or six years?
I mean, and it's you know, that's five or six months. Yeah,
I mean, it's it's getting it'sgetting to the point now where it's

(06:42):
pretty wild. And you know,there are the thing that I thought was
great talking with you about this isso many podcasts out there, and I
would definitely say two fucking many comediansgetting on and bitching about cancel culture and
bitching about stuff. But it isinteresting to get your perspective on it as
a lawyer, because not only areyou somebody who has comedic sensibilities but as
a fan of comedy, but you'vealso fought some some free speech cases as

(07:06):
high as the Supreme Court. Apretty famous one that you know people may
or may not know about was theSlants case. Yeah, so you know,
as you know, and you know, maybe not everyone in your audience
knows. That was a case involvingthe question of whether or not the government
can in administering its programs. Inthis case, it was the trademark registration

(07:30):
process takes special measures to prevent thepromulgation of hate speech. That's really what
it was. And what the governmentsaid was what the Supreme Court said was
no. The Trademark Statute at thattime known as the Landomax. That's I
mean that still not as the Landomac, but it had a prohibition own a

(07:53):
section two A which said you maynot register a trademark if it is disparaging.
Now I can tell you, boy, boy, is that wide open?
You know it's wie. On theone hand, it's wide open.
And on the other hand, whenthe statute was passed, even before I
was born, okay, nineteen fortyseven six, they weren't talking about racial

(08:20):
categories, about racial slurs. Itwas passed by a Congress that was located
in a highly segregated city. Idon't think there was a single non white
face in the room when they passedit. Everyone there would have been completely
cool with all kinds of trademarks,with ethnic slurs in them. But in
the seventies and most especially in theeighties, people started thinking up on this

(08:43):
as a way to do some socialjustice campaigning, and they started Do you
feel like this initially started as oneof those things, Cause I feel like
a lot of this social justice legislationthat gets put into weird places in law
is almost like they do this assort of an arbitrary Look, we're doing

(09:03):
something about it, but they tuckit into something where it's never really going
to affect perfect, perfect question.And that's so that's actually the point that
I meant to to answer in andissipation of that that was not the intention
of Congress. Nobody remember the CivilRights Act nineteen fifty four is the first
civil rights Act, Okay, Imean sixty fifty six and fifty four.

(09:26):
Okay, this is ten years beforethat. No one's thinking about civil rights
and the last place on earth youwould tuck that in. Some of us
still don't know. I'm just saysome of us are whole day and don't
think about it. No, that'sright. Um So, No, it
wasn't the intention at all. Andwhat was probably much more likely was it
was a way of dealing with Um, you know, not making trademark registers,

(09:48):
getting them involved with issues of uh, defamation, libel, slander,
and also, um, this wasthose changes part of an international treaty.
I mean that that addition to thetrademark back was meant to reflect changes that
we needed to an international trademark lawtreaty. And I think to some extent

(10:09):
it might have been dictators around theworld didn't want to have to worry about
other countries putting their names or theirparties names, whatever it was. It
had nothing to do with racial justice. But people this started getting people's attention
when I've refer to these things assort of appeasement legislation, right, and

(10:31):
then it was probably more of anappeasement to something that it really had nothing
to do. It had nothing todo whatsoever with racial slurs. But somebody,
a friend of mine, actually avery good lawyer, a fantastic lawyer,
thought that trademark law and that thispart of the trademark law would be
a great way to deal with theperceived offensiveness of the Washington Redskins trademark registration.

(10:56):
Okay, and campaign again, thatlasted probably ten years in the courts,
using various different legal theories, andthere was some dead ends that they
went down to get the registrations ofthe Washington Trademarks canceled on the ground that
they were disparaging and should not havebeen registered in the first place. And

(11:18):
that did happen some years ago,right many many years before they even agreed
and capitulated to changing the name.Well, what happened was the USPTO ruled
that they should be canceled. Yeah, they appealed that to the Fourth Circuit
Quarter, I mean to the DistrictCourt in the district in the United States

(11:39):
District of ed Or Virginia, becausethat's where the patent office is located,
which then essentially rubber stamped the USPTO'sdecision that the appeal from the District court
was pending in the fourth Circuit Courtof Appeal when case moved from the USPTO

(12:01):
that's the Pattern Trademark office, tothe Federal Circuit Quarter of Appeal. And
I don't believe the judges were talkingto each other in the two different circuits,
But I do think that our circuit, the Federal Circuit, looked at
our case and said, sooner orlater, there's going to be a constitutional
This prohibition is going to be struckdown on constitutional grounds at first amendmic grounds,

(12:26):
and it's probably better than it happenedin this case where there's this so
called reappropriation argument. Simon tam was, who is the registrants the or the
applicant? Yeah, and there's agood article here on NPR. I have
I have set up so people Iprobably should pull the link up for people
say yes, And in fact,I think I was interviewed in connection with

(12:48):
the with the podcast that that wasassociated with Yeah, um, yes,
So what happened was they said,you know, we want to register our
name the slants, and slants apparentlyis an obscure medieval slur used against Asians.

(13:13):
Growing up in the sixties in Brooklyn, I never heard anyone use it.
No, no, even if yougo back and watch Old Karate Kid,
that wasn't even one that they pulledon there they had, They had
all the other ones jat, slow, nip, never slant. Never.
That was never even one that wasthrown out. So this was my three

(13:33):
Karate Kid movies and never heard therewas never one slant. No, that's
right, And well that might verywell be because it was disparaging I don't
know those all. They were allin there. They used all the other
slurs. Yeah. Well, Ihad written about this, about the rejection
of their application to register their mark. Um, I wasn't representing them.

(13:54):
But I have a blog which Ipretty much I retired because I don't think
it matters anymore when I write,But for a while it did. The
blog is called Likelihood of Confusion,and it's about trademark law on free speech.
And for a while people considered itto be a leading blog. And
you know, trademark kind of highhigh level stuff. When I say high

(14:15):
level, I mean not particularly detailedor rigorous, but conceptual. Yeah,
yeah, more more of the thirtythousand foot approach exactly. And I wrote
about that case and said, youknow, you can see, you see
what's going on here. The PTOis rejecting the disparagement ground all the cases
having to do with ethnic slurs,but not the ones having to do with

(14:39):
slurs against homosexuals. So they registereddikes on bikes, and they registered a
queer eye for the straight guy anda whole bunch of homosexuality related slurs and
hate. A minute, ron,are you telling me that you found a
hypocrisy and the application of law.I did, I did um. And

(15:01):
this was even before we got involvedwith the with the FBI and the Justice
Department, you know, and welearned just how just how much hypocrisy is
possible. So I was writing aboutthis and the Slants lawyer at the time,
who was not a litigator, UMsaw my article and said, you
know, maybe you want to takethis on. You seem to do some

(15:24):
pro bono work, which is theworst thing you ever want to hear someone
say when they call you. Yeah, you seem to do. You seem
to work for free, right,you seem to sometimes work for free?
So yeah, you know what happened. I ended up getting this that was
for five hundred thousand dollars worth oflegal work. I got this pro bono
award from the aba uh I pLost section. And you know, I

(15:48):
have no regret. I hope that'smade of solid diamond for five hundred to
equate to the amount of the setting. At least tell me that was ripped
from the hands of diamond mine anda diamond minor and Uganda. No it
was not, unfortunately, but itis. It is pretty sentimentally half a
million dollars. Right. Well,you know, when I got the award,

(16:11):
I was given two minutes to speakon behalf of my my co awardees
and myself, and I said,guys, if you don't do pro bono
work, cases like this are notgoing to happen because basically the court system
pays attention to people with money.Yeah, and we just made enough.
So look what happened here is thatthe Federal Circuit said, this is this

(16:34):
reappropriation case. What was happening wasreappropriation arguments were being accepted for you know,
bikes on bikes, but not forthe slants or heab so for the
for the average dumb lay person.Basically, reappropriation exception is the idea that
somebody could take a slur back froman empowerment perspective, trademark something related to

(17:00):
it, and it could be perceivedas a positive flip. Right, And
we in our briefs, we youknow, we gave a lot of examples
of where they wouldn't NWA fall underthat as well. I don't know if
they ever actually trademarked not the acronym, but no, they did not trademark
not the acronym and um I thinkone of the Wine and brothers trying to
trademark, did try to register theirmark um nigga and igga yeah, and

(17:22):
was rejected. In fact, whatI figured out it wasn't rocket science.
I just was one of the fewpeople who have the nerve to say it
was that the reason they distinguished betweenreappropriation for non ethnic and versus ethnic slurs
was precisely for the N word.They really couldn't care less about any of
this. It wasn't going to bea problem probably for anyone, but the

(17:44):
idea that eventually somebody might register theN word, which I used to say
in panels, but now forget it. I don't want to ruin you.
Are you you'll have to start anew podcast. There's there's more than enough
examples of me throwing it out casuallyover the year, so I don't think
anyone's going to isolate this one inparticular. But you know, and my
philosophy. I think I mentioned thistoo when we spoke before, like my

(18:07):
philosophy is in the name of artor whatever, it should all be allowed,
right because perhaps, and this isthe thing that drives me nuts,
is like when we all watched amovie like American History acts. I don't
think we. I don't think anybodyever watched that and was like, well,
these Nazis make a lot of greatpoints, you know what I mean.
It was like, you're clearly outlining, you're utilizing, exposing sort of
the intercult of that to say,number one, this is how young men

(18:30):
without fathers get roped into these hategroups. And number two, it did
a really good job of showing,like his scenes in prison and everything else,
showing the flaw in the ideology.Right, And so to limit that,
like, you don't get that moviethat could potentially talk a lot of
young men out of hate groups withlogic and good art and good perspective.

(18:52):
You don't get that if you censorthat thing wholeheartedly. Right. And so
to me, it's like I've alwaysbelieved that the best way to defeat horribly
bad ideas is this is with betterideas or with great satire. Well,
and by virtue of that belief andyour expression of that belief, you will
be destroyed. Yeah, they're workingon it, Yeah right, Yeah.

(19:17):
I have a show that went offthe air five years ago that they people
try to get canceled every day.So I think I think you're right.
I think, I think, Idon't I have made myself a target.
Your argument is of course valid.I mean to me, there's a much
simpler argument, which is that wellthere too. First of all, there's
the constitutional argument. Sure, cancelculture that we're talking about now, what
everyone seems to be cool with exceptsome people who aren't is private cancel culture.

(19:44):
But it's very clear constitutionally the governmentcannot favor one viewpoint over another,
which is what they seems Supreme Courtultimately rule. To me, though,
the argument against this, this thistotem, this idea that there is.
You know that there is an absolutetaboo against saying certain words. And keep

(20:06):
in mind, I grew up ina home where we never heard that word
ever, and it would be itwould be scandalous, and really it was
so uncommon to hear those kinds ofthings. And you know, I'm an
Orthodox Jew and I and as such, I you know, I'm not allowed

(20:26):
ideally to use bad words. Um, but for purposes of making policy,
for purpose of constitutional you might wantto. You might want to flip that
bad boy around to the front.That's the goal. They put it on
the wrong end of the head.Well, you know what, when I
had dark hair, you can hardlyWhen I had hair and it was dark,

(20:47):
you can hardly tell. Yeah,now it's hard to miss. But
I also have to This is myopportunity to explain to people that if the
armorica is big enough, you donot need to you don't need a bobby
pin. Okay, it will stayon. That's good to me. It's
like, it's like Voldemort, ifyou have this idea that if you if
you say Voltimort's name, he's goingto get power over us. And although

(21:11):
in the Harry Potter book it actuallyturned out that that was true. Yeah,
they actually wrote it that way.That's probably not helping our case,
which I which I was so disappointedat because in fact, the argument really
what she should have followed through on, was that you give more power to
a totem to to you know,by treating it with such reverence. Yes,

(21:33):
and I agree it is because youknow and now you have Boy did
she end up hoisted upon her ownpetard as a result of that exact outline?
Right, But then again, beinga multi billionaire does have a way
of making you feel better about yourpetard being hoisted. Yeah, of course,
as you guys can hoist my petarddaily if I had JK Rowling money.
Well, i'll tell you. Youknow, we ended up getting the

(21:56):
Supreme Court to agree with us,and you know, I hoped at the
time that the opinion would make peoplerealize that just as the Constitution doesn't recognize
a category called hate speech, thatmaybe also in private discourse and in just
common sense, we should recognize thathate speech should not be treated differently from

(22:18):
other speech, but rather we shouldn'trespond to it with logic and disproof and
or mockery. Mockery, I thinkis the big one. Well, mockery
is well that option that has beentaken from us largely as have sixty or
forty thousand of my Twitter followers.It's you know, I don't know what's

(22:38):
I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know that any concept,
you know, going back to thebeginning of our conversation, that people
that you know, there were certaincategories and people when I was growing up
and even when you were growing up, that we expected to be the ones
to fight back. And you hadcomics, you had you know, you
had guys like um, you knowwhat, like Carlin and you had journalists,

(23:06):
and now journalists are not only partof the problem, they are the
problem. Well, they are thecore of the propaganda machine. It's almost
like and too you know, youalmost wonder like to what end, what
end do they serve? You know, because I think back at least when
I was growing up, like thosekind of exposs on censorship and things like
that that I would read, itwas always like the truth was the underdog

(23:32):
in a fight against commerce and afight against capitalism, right, and now
it's almost like the state sponsored propagandais the way to make the money,
and so the truth has there isnothing for it to prevail, Like there's
no it's almost like the truth doesn'thave a dog in the fight anymore because
it benefits no one. The truthonly benefits those who who stand to have

(23:55):
value in it or hold value init, and that the number of people
that actually value the truth, it'sit's definitely dwindling. And you see this
in our political sphere so much.But you know, it concerns me the
most in terms of art because welive in a world now where there is
no separation of satire and opinion.I talked about this with comedian Tyrivera on
the episode that's airing this week onmy locals channel. But you know,

(24:19):
this idea that a comedian's jokes aretheir opinions just tells you how dead the
concept of satire is in our societytoday. People will read a joke of
mine and go, oh, sothis is what you think, and it's
like, no, this was ahilarious observation that crossed my mind, and
I said, what to be funnyif I posted this? It's not what
I think. Ninety nine percent ofthe time, it's the opposite of what

(24:42):
I think. But what I dothink is that it's funny to speak from
the perspective of somebody who would thinkthis, right. I believe it's gonna
I believe it's gonna snap. Idon't think our society can bear the st
rests of this phoniness. And I'lltell you something about the phoniness also.

(25:03):
But before we got into this,where we are now, and that you
know, in the twenties we havethe Roaring twenties, right before we flappers
got here, Um, I don'teven remember thinking there's there's already so much
falsehood. Like I have no issuepersonally with what we used to call alternative

(25:30):
lifestyles. If somebody is homosexual orwhatever variety, I'm fine with the concept
of the state stays out of yourbedroom. Yes, And if you want
to live in a place where youknow, you feel comfortable kissing your husband

(25:51):
as a man, fine, Ijust won't go to the neighborhood because it
bothers me. But the fact thatit bothers me, I can't even and
say anymore. Oh yeah, well, the fact that it even you can't
even express your discomfort. But that'swhere I was going, not your discomfort.
I always remember listening to Don Amos, who was such a phony,

(26:11):
and I went to the wedding ofmy gay friend and it was so beautiful
and I felt and you know,off the air, what do you say,
you know what he's thinking. Yeah, he's thinking, this is so
disgusting. I but but but ifpeople had to and it's this, I
just remember seeing this in social media, that everybody had to be not just
accepting. But you don't have toleranceused to just mean I'm gonna let you

(26:34):
do whatever you want, even ifI think it's kind of gross. But
it doesn't mean that I can't sayI think it's kind of gross. The
difference is, I think a lotof vegan food is disgusting, right,
But I'm not standing outside of avegan restaurant with a sign going burn this
place to fuck down, you knowwhat I mean. It's like that's not
that's probably would actually encourage you tolisten. I've thought about it, but

(26:57):
it's like there, it's there themto make disgusting plant based food. And
it used to be your freedom tocall it that. Yeah, and now
it's like that. No. Partof tolerance is what's the word is involves
oppress, oppression of thought, oppressionof a conflicting idea, or even criticism,
like you know, and this iswhat's funny to be you brought up

(27:19):
so many of the people who arelike perfect in the public eye growing up
in the eighties and nineties had thesehorrific worldviews or things that were later exposed
or people found out or you know, there's always the leaked audio or the
leaked tapes or whatever. If somebodyyou know saying horrible things, wouldn't common

(27:40):
sense tell you that the people thatare publicly saying horrible things comedians or or
you know, actors or satirists ofany kind podcasters. Wouldn't you think that
if they were being horrible in public, that they're probably not horrible people in
secret, Like nobody would sort ofhide in plain sight that boldly. It's
like the video I posted earlier todayof the father at the PTA meeting.

(28:03):
There was like a Mexican immigrant fatherspeaking and he was talking about that I
guess there were issues with bullying inthe school. He said, my son
was up crying and you know,because of what this school district did.
And there was a father in theback, very Larry David like, who
goes, so why did you justnot stay in Mexico? And I mean
the gasps of horror right from thewhite women surrounding this, Oh my god,

(28:26):
they're trying to throw the guy out, and then the camera zooms over
to him and you look at himand he's like you didn't think I was
gonna say it, did you?So clearly this guy is like fucking around
and being funny, and maybe he'sbeing an asshole. But what happens is
if that guy can't speak up andevent that in the town square, I'm
sure, I'm sure they're in theprob if they haven't already gotten them fired.

(28:47):
I'm sure they're gonna you know,yeah, he's ruined. Yeah,
if he's if he's got some executivejob, he's out, like he'll be
out. And it's sort of likethe man. For all we know,
this man could be a civil rightsactivist who's whose job is to get wrongful
convictions overturned, right, and nobodycares about the content of someone's character.

(29:08):
That's a little bit more subtleble becauseon the one hand, they will they
will flush away people who are notuseful to them anymore. But on the
other hand, you joy enjoy readgets a pass, complete pass, you
know, go on through that.That woman from Harvard, right, the
who was the head of BuzzFeed orHuffington Post or something, Sarah whatever.

(29:32):
She Asian woman who had dozens anddozens of anti white racist tweets, just
blatantly racist of like shot white menshould just be deleted. I mean,
I told you this story when wespoke last week that I went to I
went to a AT and T shapeevent which was basically like a diversity and
entertainment and media event a couple ofyears ago, and the actress Sa Ray

(29:55):
was on stage and she was talkingabout like Hollywood will be better when all
the old straight white men die off. And I was like, you know,
you could be talking about Jews,like are you being It's amazing how
the anti Semitism side of anti whitenessis always overlooked. Do you ever notice
that, well, I'm white whenbeing white is the bad thing. Yeah,

(30:19):
and I'm I'm I'm I'm a yid, I'm a kaik when the white
guys when when you know, whenthe white supremacists, you know, want
to you know, I think thatI'm part of the you know, the
globalist new World order or whatever Imean, right right. The Jews have
their own special problems, but andit's not entirely necessarily the case that we

(30:41):
haven't brought them on ourselves. Idon't mean we and my me and my
family and my friends, but youknow, Jews who have whose lives do
not reflect Jewish values. Their namescome up too often for my taste in
yah, I'm really uncomfortable spots um. But but you know, you should

(31:03):
be able to talk about it.You should be able to acknowledge it.
At this idea that it's criticize,Um, George Soros, is it makes
you an anti semi. First ofall, if you knew as many Jews
as I do, you would bean anti semi. And I don't only
mean my family. Yeah, butso, I mean Soros is a terrible
person in the only an accident ofbirth made him Jewish. He's a wicked,

(31:27):
terrible person. Yeah. And thefact that he is doesn't the fact
that he was born Jewish doesn't,you know, invalidate the criticism of his
person. It's just there's just there'sno truth. Like you said, people
won't won't recommend the truth. Uh. You know what happened in January sixth,

(31:48):
how much was Nancy Pelosi involved init? She's refused to give information,
UM that's been requested of her.There will be no accountability for that's
only accountability for one side of thewith the political I mean, we're talking
about crimes and scandals and and hoaxes. We are obligated and morally guys like

(32:13):
you and me who are tone deafand stupid and insensitive and don't realize you
know that run the wrong side ofhistory. UM to keep saying what we
say until they take all the followersaway. They you know, they delete
us whatever it is, and thenwe you know, then we come up

(32:34):
with plan B, C, DRE whatever it is at that point.
Yeah. For me, for meas locals where people can find me on
there, Um, I will sayI have it right here boom and people
can find me josh any dot locals, Oh man, I do this show.
Yeah, look at that, Igot links all ready to go.
Um, I will say, uh, yeah, we've It's kind of driven

(32:55):
a lot of us underground. I'vealways said about comedy that my goal as
an entertainer is not to tell peoplewhat to think, but it's to get
them to question how they think.And I play with race and gender and
sexual orientation a lot in my actbecause I try to write material and I
don't always succeed at this, butI try to write material that highlights to

(33:15):
the recipient, whether it be theviewer or the audience member or even a
person online, that a lot ofwhat's fucked up about the joke is what
already lives inside of you, andI'm only bringing out assumptions or biases or
things that you have, right andso, And like I said, it's
it's an ambitious attempt. I don'talways succeed at it, but to remove

(33:37):
people's ability to have creativity and tohave a creative way of expressing those things.
If we get rid of all ofthat, then we will end up
with a world where people are justyou know, they're either going to be
forced underground entirely, or you know, they're going to have to risk losing
everything to sort of live in anysort of truth. Forced underground and radicalized

(34:00):
and angry. Yes, and youknow, there's no question that there are
people who are saying, well,if if if just by virtual being white,
you're gonna I have to accept thisconcept that I'm a racist no matter
what I do, then maybe Ishould look into being a racist, and
maybe I have to stop being youknow, selective about who I consider to

(34:22):
be friends, because you're gonna condemnme either way. I mean, I
don't think that's a very well thoughtout argument, but it is nonetheless an
argument that you know that people willmake what I do think. You know,
I brought up the movie American HistoryActs earlier. I think so much
of that is the ending of thatfilm is so much the never ending cycle

(34:42):
of hatred right. And so youknow, this boy kind of played by
Edward Furlong at the end of themovie, through his brothers rehabilitation, through
his life experiences, through seeing theevils of all sides, decides that,
you know, I've been I'm downwrong path and I need to turn my
life around and I need to Ineed to find a new way. And

(35:04):
in the end of the movie,he's murdered by a black person because they
believe he is this thing, thishateful thing, right, And you just
look at it and you know thatthat that incident at the end of that
movie is going to start the cycleall over again, right, And so
it's a real good piece about howyou know. Morgan Freeman said this one.
He was asked about race in aninterview a long time ago. They

(35:28):
said, the reason that that conversationnever dies in this country is because we
keep breathing life into it. Andthe only way that we will ever sort
of have real equality is when wecan look at each other and call people
by their names and talk to themas human beings instead of making these differentiations
about race. So, now wewere raised which is what our parents did.
What the people didn't, They said, Come, that's not just how

(35:52):
you were taught. Well, ballbusting, I mean, I grew up I
grew up in Philadelphia. I mean, ballbusting is a big part of that.
I mean even white guys. Toother white guys, your culture or
your race was always brought into gettingyour balls busted, right, It was
just part of it. And thatwas because these were the things you could
know about a person without having toknow a person right, right, And
the stereotype, So the whole pointis to disprove the step, but to

(36:14):
play, to play with the stereotype. But but also the that's part of
what reappropriation is about. Also,Yeah, you know it's saying, yeah,
you know, I'm gonna I'm gonnatake that image you have of the
nigger, of the heat of thequeer and show you what it'll keep going.
We're getting the soundbites now, I'mlistening. I'm I'm I'm dead meat.

(36:37):
Anyway. Yeah, I'm gonna showyou what it really means to be
that. And I'm gonna gonna showme down your throat. You know,
you talk about a movie like likethat. You always hear people say you
see this, like every single dayon Twitter. You could never make Blazing
Saddles. Yeah, and no oneever denies that you could never like one

(37:00):
who is an advocate of wokeness andcancel culture would denies that they don't you
even say that it's just as wellyou couldn't make it. Are you?
Are you disappointed at the way thatpeople close the door behind them? I've
talked with our one of our mutualfriends, Gavin Mcinness about this a lot,
about like, how dare these people, like a Spielberg or like even

(37:22):
a mel Brooks or whatever sort ofbe so willing to close the door behind
them. It's like you built anempire on um creating that kind of stuff,
and now now that you have notonly that, they have nothing to
lose, nothing to lose, nothingby yeah, by being the guy to

(37:43):
standing up and say it, youknow, like Chris Rock Scorsese is a
great example too, another one ofthese guys built his entire empire on you
know, exposing Italian cultural stereotypes,and now is like, could be such
an advocate for moving the ball inthe right direction and none of these guys

(38:05):
are doing it. That's does thatdisappoint you? I'm not at all,
because I don't think of these peopleas leaders or brave or daring. I
think of them as you know,it's kind of like, I mean,
I don't think anyone any you know, like I said, comedians aren't brave
and daring. I mean, I'vehad comedians and I'm not going to mention
his name who were following me becauseI'm I'm a funny follow Yeah, and

(38:29):
then realize though, oh no,no, I can't be seen as following
this guy. Look what he represents, Look at the things he says.
I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonnalose work. Yeah, And there's nothing
brave, you know. So whata what a pussy way to evaluate yourself
and your contributions to your industry.To believe that your affiliations could override your

(38:50):
creative contributions to the medium, oryour talent, or your your personal likability.
This idea, this idea that like, if I'm friends with the wrong
person, I'm over. It's like, so there's no stock in who you
are, what you produce, oryou know what mark you've left on your
own industry? Like and also howabout remembering sticks and stones made break my

(39:15):
bones, but words will never harmme. Okay, okay, listen,
you got to be sensitive to otherpeople's feelings. You don't even you don't
have to You shouldn't be you know, a jerk. You shouldn't say terrible,
hurtful things to people. You know, when I was first on Twitter,
the anti semitism that they permitted,that they didn't know how to filter,

(39:37):
it was so gross. People wouldjust send me pictures of you know,
a crematoria. I mean, itwas over brutal. It was brutal,
and it was not unpleasant experience.But to go from there to where
we are now is preposterous. Andso, in other words, you're gonna
have some rules of the road.But on the other hand, you know,

(39:58):
I when I always say to people, was okay, oh so Donald
Trump is a racist. Okay,give me an example of a racist policy.
Well here's what he said. Nono, no, no, no,
no no, yeah, yeah,I've done this before. Policy,
Tell me what he's done. Tellme and they can. You know,
they'll come up with stuff the Muslimband. No such thing ever happened.
You know, Immigration, what raceare Mexicans? The Mexican race? Okay,

(40:21):
whatever the point is, it's neverbased on It's based on symbolism and
you know, and and tribalism.And I mean, we're not saying anything
that Anyone who's listening to this hasheard this stuff a million times. You
know, we're not we're not breakingopen any I will tell you he was
kind of interesting. You know.When I did this Lance case, Simon

(40:45):
tam My my client, who wasa terrific guy, really really smart.
Um, he was torn because hefelt he realized, I mean, he's
kind of a progressive guy. He'sa liberal. And the fact is,
reappropriation is a concept that comes mostYeah, most musicians and uh and punk

(41:06):
particularly punk rock musicians or dance rockmusicians are are liberal, right, And
Simon, on the one hand,felt very strongly that he should be entitled
to do this and to make adecision about how he's going to be an
a don't tell me how to bean Asian. I'll tell you myself how
to be an Asian. Right.But on the other hand, he knew
that our case was going to clearthe deck for the Washington Redskins, and

(41:27):
that bothered him. Um, andthese are sometimes complicated issues. People sometimes
said to me during that case,you know, what would you think of
someone named a football team, youknow, the Kikes. First of all,
it would be the losingest football team. It would be just it would
just be sportscasters. Yeah, itwould all just be agents in sports cap

(41:52):
they would they would be so busynegotiating the contracts of the players that they're
playing against. Like, actually,my wife was just telling me about,
um, who is this. He'spushing the contract down the table third,
at the thirty, at the forty, at the fifty, at the point.
Yeah exactly exactly, Uh down willyou? Yeah? Down? Who

(42:59):
will you? Player converted to Judaism, and I said to my wife while
I went I went to college withHowie Leavey, w think it might be
the world's troll as jew And hewas on the Princeton basketball team and like

(43:19):
the only Ivy League player with hairon his back, but it was so
high up you couldn't see it unlessyou were sitting in the stands. Yeah,
it's like you're talking about busting balls. You know, this is it
adds so much, so much texturallife to be able to have fun with
these things and still be able totreat other people like just like fundamentally like

(43:44):
human beings. On the other yes, you need to be sensitive, you
need to be culturally aware of thesituation now you're in. But you know,
it's overwhelmingly not black people who arewho are doing this, you know
search, yes, it's white women. It's not just white people. It's
white women or men who may aswell be women. And you know,

(44:08):
nailed it. There's there's a problemhere, there's a problem here, and
yeah, you know you're on yougot you're on locals and you know,
so far they haven't figured out howto shutdown Locals, but they're working on
it. Well, I mean theythey they sort of have right like the
the the parlor situation was, Ithink the shot across the bow to all

(44:29):
these alternative media companies to where theysaid, listen, if you don't federate
your servers um or you know,basically make yourself fully independent, we're coming
for you. So you probably don'tknow this, but five years ago I
represented GAB maybe it was six yearsago now, and I was with them
when they realized that they were goingto have to completely out, you know,

(44:51):
be off, be off the mainnodes because wherever they went, even
to the extent of you know,where their domain registration was, They're not
the Sturmer, they're not the jailyStorm. They're the guys who just had
a social media company where they weren'tgoing to censor anybody, right, but

(45:12):
they had to go and and andyou know, and and set up their
own independent stuff. And I'm youknow, I'm now representing Parlor and I'm
also a Parlor influencer. Not Parlor. I'm so my firm is representing Parlor,
but I'm I'm a cloud Hub influencer. I'm not going back to Parlor
because I didn't really find it tobe very fun. Cloud Hub is going
through the same thing, um,you know, realizing that that vendors are

(45:37):
taking it upon themselves to decide whatour customers can have. What, you
know, it's it's a problem man. So you know, yeah, so
you're you're going to be you know, they're looking for you on locals.
They're so everyone's going to have hisown little colony and you're not going to
know who the troublemakers are. You'renot gonna be able to try people like

(46:00):
people identify people. And Twitter willjust be like the New York Times where
just everybody shakes his head and agreeswith each other, and it'll you know,
one of the reasons I don't goto GAB. I mean, I'm
on gap I haven't counts on mostof these places, but I do as
well. But it's just a abunch of magot people screaming magot slogans at

(46:21):
each other. Yeah, I wanta little bit of creative tension. Yeah,
And that's you know, that's forme. That's why I picked locals
is because mostly because between all thepaywaltz sites like Patreon and you know who
knows, only fans, I imaginethat's the one that's probably going to get
cracked down on next just because there'sso much money involved, and they'll attack

(46:42):
only fans and they'll say it's becauseof human trafficking and that they'll they'll claim
that all these sex workers are youknow, um, you know, under
underage, and so they have tocrack down and shut it down. And
to me, really what that isis like people have found a loophole to
generating an income for sex work.That is lead goal and you know,
the powers that be in Washington withoutgiving that their blessing or you're gonna have

(47:05):
a problem with it because there's noway for them to make their money off
of it. And the other problemis a lot of these companies are utilizing
crypto is a way for these creatorsnot to have to pay taxes on that
money. Um, and so youknow that. I think that's that's the
next thing. Like these things arealways um sort of in my mind,
like a flare gun for the realissue. Like I think the parlor thing

(47:29):
was more like I said, ashot across the bow from Amazon Web Services
and all these web hosting companies tosay, we will decide whether or not
you have a business. We willweigh in. If we don't like what
you're doing, we will shut youdown. I think I think the game
stop thing and the currency stuff that'shappening is sort of a shot across the
bow of like we are this closeto regulating cryptocurrency because we know you guys

(47:52):
are using it to keep your moneyaway from the night. And do you
remember, you know I saw itwas one of the last ones I did
UM on that issue. I meanto me, that is the symbol of
what this is why we're not China, this is why we're not Russia,
and this is why we won't becomethen. As scared as everybody is it,
as bothered as everybody is by thecensorship and the you know, the

(48:15):
globalism and all the control and thecrap with the masks and then calling calling
superstition, science and all that stuff. Unlike China and Russia when they became
totalitarian states, the United States isalready a highly developed and individualistic and highly
technologized where I just made up umsociety, where there are lots of options

(48:42):
and people are used to to pushingback. And what happened with Game Stop,
to me is a proof of concept. They can and they can smash
it down once, but I thinkit's going to happen again and again.
Yeah, and they're gonna want toregulate a lot, they're gonna want to
break through crypto and then you knowthey're going to do whatever they can.
But people are people are going tobuild better and better mouse traps, and

(49:05):
I'm confident that you know that weare going to make it one of the
yeah, one of the pieces ofa sort of political stuff. I was
involved in this past year, quietlybecause ultimately they chose not to use me
as an influencer in their campaigning.I wonder why, But was Prop twenty
two here in California, and Ispent a lot of time talking with their

(49:25):
lobbyists about it, and they werelike, well, you're a really smart
guy. You really understand this lawor this this legislation in a way that
a lot of people don't. Andso you know, this is this is
my interpretation of Prop. Twenty two. And I don't know if you're familiar
with it, but it was essentiallyuber lyft door dash. It was their
hail Mary at thwarting AB five andAB five was basically legislation that was passed

(49:47):
a couple of years ago now thatwas essentially limiting what people could do as
private contractors in the state of inthe state of California, right, And
essentially the way that they sold itto the public was all these people are
getting fucked out of benefits and they'regetting fucked out of their insurance. And
what they didn't understand is that thisis the government coming in and telling you

(50:08):
we're going to take your taxes foryour privately funded business on the front end
like you're an employee, instead ofon the back end after you deduct your
expenses. And nobody else understood that. I feel like I was the only
guy not in the legal world whowas like, this is an income tax

(50:28):
play. This is nothing but thatthis is the government saying, I don't
care if you think you're a privatecontractor. I don't care if you have
to finance the expense of your ownbusiness. You're going to pass taxes immediately
when your revenue comes in, regardlessof what your overhead is. Right in
California, being California said okay,here here in the I R S regulations,
which already really limit your ability tocall yourself a private contractor. If

(50:52):
you do all these any one ofthese things, you're in a combination of
these things. Like you said,you know, providing you know, office
space, all those things. BeingCalifornia, just as we do with environmental
we're gonna do it even more.Yes, we're gonna squeeze with even tighter.
And we're going to and being Californiawhere all these innovations were created,
we're gonna kill them. Yeah.So they're saying, we're gonna ta,

(51:14):
We're gonna tax your gross and thenyou tell us what your net is and
then we'll get it back to you. Like, imagine a world where that
is the way it works. AndI'll break it down for some people very
simply as a comedian, Right,I make for a weekend of shows,
let's say I make anywhere between liketwelve hundred to twenty four hundred for a
weekend, right, right, Soyou know that's that's either real shit.

(51:38):
But okay, so here's an example. Sometimes when I make the twenty four
hundred, I'm paying for my ownhotel and my own flight. So now
that twenty four hundred is twenty isfourteen hundred, right, And so because
I'm a thousand out right, imagineif the government in California took thirty eight
to forty percent of that money onthe front end, right, and then

(52:00):
I had to pay my expenses andwait to get the remainder of what's due
to me after my expenses at theend of the year. And so I
have to basically make zero money onmy income for twelve months and hope to
hit the lottery when the income taxcheck comes back. Right. And that's

(52:21):
the cocinct on time, and theydo it right, and you don't have
to do an appeal of their decision, you know. Yeah, And by
the way, it's so it's sortof like you're putting all of this fiduciary
burden on your entrepreneurs that are actuallydriving the economy in your state, and
listen, the economy. I saidthis before, I don't think Trump or

(52:44):
Obama could take credit for the economywe're in. I think Trump could take
a little bit more credit because ofthe reduction of regulations. I mean,
they showed that long list of somethinglike sixteen hundred regulatory things that they removed
for or business owners. And thenyou know, dropping the corporate income tax

(53:06):
rate from thirty four whatever down totwenty one percent, massive, massive improvement.
But if we get to this pointwhere we just say nobody can be
private contractors, and that, tome, that was their loophole for the
Trump tax plan was to say,oh, now the corporate tax rate for
businesses is twenty one percent and notthirty four percent or whatever it was.
Well, we'll just make everybody notbe able to incorporate anymore, because it

(53:30):
will just be the same tax structureas if you were an employee somewhere.
And ultimately, you know, it'sto me, it's just a grift.
It's just a grift of the governmentsaying we're going to take all your will,
hold all of your income, andthen we'll tell you what you get
to have at the end of theyear. And it's like that's that is
socialism. So when people say,oh, well, socialism will never really

(53:51):
come to America, it's like,no, it's already waking its way in
legislatively in California specifically, and that'swhy so many very wealthy people have left
the state. This y year.I spoke to somebody about who went skiing
in Montana. He said, everyone'sin Montana. If you thought, hey,
maybe I'll moved to Montana, thehouses are going to be cheaper in

(54:13):
Montana, forget it. Montana isthe San Francisco of twenty twenty two,
you know, with Bozeman. Everyone'sthere, and that's how it's gonna you
know, And that's how it's goingto be. And so so I mean,
in fact, I think the nextproject is going to be in the
working on this with you know,with with Florida Travel Right is to end
federalism, you know, to theextent pop what little of it is left.

(54:38):
What are we going to do,Josh, what are we gonna do?
Yeah, it's a it's a realinteresting question, you know. And
that's the thing a lot of peoplehave asked me, like, what are
you still doing in California? Movehere, move there, move this,
place, and it's like, Idon't know that there's a place in the
United States where you're going to beable to escape this forever, you know.
And ultimately it's like it's either goingto have to be usurped in one

(54:59):
way or another or strap in andget ready for socialism because the ideas of
what America was that we grew upwith are being eliminated day by day.
And you know, it's it's amazingbecause there have been times where I've literally
been like, do I need tojust put my entire career as a comedian

(55:21):
and an entertainer on ice and runfor public office because you know, without
without people getting in and disrupting thiswhere they can make a difference. Uh,
you know, it's it's really it'sreally a concern of mine. It's
a question of like can you canyou make a dent with it? And
we've talked about this, can youmake a dent with entertainment anymore? I've

(55:42):
always said, like, I thinkmy best position is to be the guy
who creates art, creates comedy,creates these funny things that essentially take down
those those illogical systems of our government. But I question is that is even
that enough. I agree with you. I mean, if anyone, if
anyone watches us, let's start thereand anyone bothers to go to look at

(56:06):
my at my Twitter profile, whichshows that I'm continue to bleed followers as
I just log on right now,because however many they give me, they
take them away. I put upas my profile picture as my header picture
and excerpt from a legal argument thatI did where the court was the first

(56:28):
words you see as I'm trying toencourage you, I admire your passion.
This is a COVID case that Iwas doing with Harmy Dylan, my partner.
He was trying to convince me torun for public office. And besides
the fact that I would never subjectmyself and my family to the harbor to

(56:50):
the hell of being a public officeholder. And also the fact that I'm
not independently wealthy or wealthy at all, I don't think it would look at
look at Donald Trump. He wasn'table to break through. Yeah, he
he made so he did. Heaccomplished a lot of important things that I've
got a car was on that too. I think he helped us see what's
going on. And I think,you know, a foreign policy tremendous thing

(57:13):
that Biden's not going to be ableto undo as readily as he thinks.
But he was so handcuffed, sohandcuff system. And I'm not even Donald
Trump. So I might be betterthan Donald Trump in some respects, certainly
at learning gamara, you know,and learning commed. You know, I'm

(57:34):
a better than Donald Trump. Andyou know, my Yiddish is probably better
than his. But I mean,but that's the thing. It's like,
you know, this is you do. Yeah, It's like people look at
a guy. You know, peoplethat were very critical of Trump said,
you know, well, you know, if a guy like Trump, we're
as smart as Ben Shapiro, uh, you know, or as smart as

(57:54):
some of the other sort of rightwing punnits or Canadas Owens or some of
these other people, like, youknow, we'd be we'd be much better
off with that kind of person.It's like, yeah, but you also
have to realize this guy has beenthe billboard for the American dream for fifty
years. If that guy can't blowup the government from the inside, who
can Who has the power to dothat? And so while there are probably

(58:15):
many smarter, more diplomatic conservative people, there's also nobody with a bigger drum
to beat than this guy, andhe couldn't get it done. And so
I think this is what I saidabout Marjorie Taylor Green. It's like people
are calling her a koup and aconspiracy theorist and a qan on person and
a right This is a shot acrossthe bow her being removed from her committees.

(58:37):
Again, like I say, it'snever the thing that they're attacking,
it's the thing behind the thing they'reattacking. They removed all of her ability
to influence government beyond just representing herconstituents, which anybody in Congress tells you
the committees you're a part of iswhere you have your influence. It's where
you have your power and your leverage. And they cut that out from her,

(58:58):
not even within ninety days of ourtaking office. And it was to
send a message to the use ofthe world and the means of the world
that you might be able to getelected, but you ain't going to get
to do shit unless you do itthe way we want you to do it.
Yeah. I mean someone did callme and to inquire whether I was
interested in running for Congress, andI wouldn't do it. In a million

(59:19):
years, Congress, You're not evento send it. If you appointed me,
I wouldn't take it. Forget it. It's a sugar. We can
do more good out here, Idon't you know on this podcast probably in
fact, well, we're definitely,we're definitely being more productive than our government
on this podcast. I mean,you know, we might more laughs.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Um, you know, And this

(59:43):
is the thing people go, well, this is what people always push back
is the whole private companies have theright to make the things that free speech
doesn't come without freedom of consequences.But I always tell people that's a slippery
slope. And I wanted to getyour take on this case. I don't
think we talked about this when wespoke last time, but this one in
Canada, and I'm sure you knowwhat I'm bringing up is the one that

(01:00:04):
to me, it's like people inAmerica don't know this happened, that a
comedian was essentially sued civilly in courtin Canada and required to pay damages them
and the mother of the person forbeing the butt of several jokes in their
live act. I mean, thisis like when people talk about Canada being
this ideal utopia of where we shouldbe headed. Just so you know,

(01:00:28):
this is the kind of shit they'redoing in Canada. Are you familiar with
this Mike Ward case. I actuallyhadn't heard about it, but that's pretty
annau. Yeah, so you know, it's it's amazing to me that you
know, they have I guess what'scalled a human rights tribunal in Canada.
And he was basically, you know, was heck I think it was heckled

(01:00:50):
in a comedy club and then wenthard in at somebody who knows, says
a disabled Quebec singer. I don'tremember exactly what it was, but basically
shit on somebody as a comedian andthen was ordered by the Quebec Human Rights
tribunal to pay damages for making funof somebody. And so I mean,
this is like, this is theworld we're about to head to in the

(01:01:14):
United States. And I'm less concernedabout, um, the absurdity of this,
and more concerned about how many peoplego, yeah, you know what,
this is probably what we need.Not only that if we had it,
if I'm sure would be the samething in Canada, if the same
person did the same thing, butthat person were black, or that person

(01:01:34):
were a woman or gay or gay. Well, not gay, it's not
going to look at Richard Grenell.But if you were the right, Yeah,
gay is not the bulletproof ess itused to be. Look at Milo
whatever they like. The point isit's not not then. And this is
you know, at the end ofthe day, the dishonesty of all this.

(01:01:59):
We're not even saying let's have anew standard. It's not based on
standards. It's based on specific positions. Specific I mean they're rolling out and
Canada race is an official criterion nowfor getting COVID vaccine. Wow, it's

(01:02:22):
officially a criterion camp. Yeah thatwas I mean that came out I think
yesterday. Wow. Governments are justnot even shy about to say there's no
there's no pushback, there's no pushback. Well even another example I've used a
lot of times is like in lookingat jobs, so like I had a
high level corporate job for many yearsand I go in and I still get

(01:02:44):
like LinkedIn updates about job postings fordirector positions, and there's there are these
new jobs. They are essentially likedirector of diversity and Inclusion in equity,
and in the job posting it literallysays like only strong BIPOC candidates will be
considered. And it's like, soyou're literally saying that white people cannot apply
for this job and should not evenexpect to be interviewed or considered. I

(01:03:07):
mean, how many years ago wouldthis have been an open and shut discrimination
case, and now there are Iwould argue that three of four judges would
rule in favor of the company.In the United States, Yeah, there
are judges. There are judges inthis country who are so out there that
they and also I mean, look, the judicial quality has really tanked big

(01:03:30):
time. I mean there's some really, really good people who are judges,
and there are some people who Iwouldn't let tie my shoes as as a
lawyer, who are on the benchnow. And it's you know, yeah,
you know, what what are wegoing to do? Josh? I
don't know what are we going todo? I had I had one theory.

(01:03:50):
This is one thing I thought,and I'll share this with you and
see what your opinion is about thisone. I was talking about the hilarity
of being canceled yet again on theinternet the other day, about making fun
of a celebrity, and then Ihave this thought and shared it. I
said, here's a thought. Ifthere are real life consequences to the things

(01:04:11):
people post on Twitter, then howabout no anonymity and one account per phone?
And then I said this place wouldbecome a beacon of civility overnight.
Yeah. I think it's an interestingYou know a lot of people are like,
oh my god, you're looking forthe gestap. It's like, no,
no, no, I'm just saying, let's all play by the same
rules. You know. So ifI, as a public figure, can

(01:04:32):
lose everything for the things I tweet, then you should also have to take
the same risk, right, Ithink that's fair game. Yeah. Ability,
And it's notably absent in our presentsocial order. Well, it's sort
of the mentality of the Old West, right, Like, isn't it interesting
how there were way less gun deathswhen everybody walked around with one around their

(01:04:54):
waist, And arguably you could saythat the presence of the threat of consequence
entered consequences. Right. The ideathat well, if I fuck with this
guy, who's gonna shoot me becausethere's this gun and I have my gun?
But who knows who's guns better,faster or more? True? I
mean, that's good for the mobs. So that's that's good for the Twitter
mobs. I mean. The factis, though, that there are still
a lot of people who go bytheir names who are absolutely awful, awful,

(01:05:17):
terrible human beings, and that's howthey make a living. Yeah,
and they're they're gonna be safe forever. Um, But you're right on the
other hind. To a large extent, they rely on anonymous mobs. Yeah,
well they are over that's how theireffectiveness comes. Yes, And the
sort of the anonymous trolls are theones who are the foot soldiers for these

(01:05:41):
movements. You know, they usethese people us as the ones who do
their bidding for them, right.They do all the investigative investigative work,
They drum up all the tweets,they do all the photoshopping of things to
take them out of confet. Wheneversomebody you know, um dms me with
with you know, a salty proposition, which is five or six times an

(01:06:02):
hour, I assume it's someone fromthe Daily Beast. Yeah, and not
that I'm such a high level person, but why wouldn't they be making Donsciars
and everybody who's got a conservative voicein the event that they do become you
know, influential at some point oror significant at some point. Well,
and isn't it weird? That's justlike people that are constitutional and common sense

(01:06:27):
driven and and sort of like true, true, true. I think holders
of equality, what equality is intendedto be in the eyes of the law,
are all now considered right wing conservativeand extremists, right, like this
idea that And I said this manytimes, like how how can a common

(01:06:47):
sense person look at the BLM responseto the death of George Floyd? And
here the media and the news andevery politician say, you know, sometimes
we as a civilization and as acountry need to be held accountable for the
fact that this country doesn't isn't workingfor everybody? Right? And everyone said,
fair enough. And then when insurrectionistsstorm the capital because they don't think

(01:07:11):
that part of the government is workingfor them, those are racist extremists.
Nowhere was the same level of accountabilityapplied to like, well, if these
people think the government is fucking themover, the government has a responsibility to
be accountable to them. No onesaid that scary as that is the idea
that it's one thing if all thesheeple think like that, But the idea

(01:07:31):
that the FBI thinks like that,Oh yeah, is what's terrifying. Forget
about the people in Congress. Theyare They've been worthless forever, and now
their worthlessness is just more obvious.But we trusted law enforcement. We now
know we were wrong to trust lawenforcement, but we trusted law enforcement.
We trusted federal law enforcement. Evenmore, we trusted the justice system.

(01:07:54):
The DC Circuit decided in December thatif a judge to appoint a private prosecutor
to make sure that someone doesn't getcharges against him dismissed too readily, that
was okay wow, and bar associationslined up to file friend of the court

(01:08:18):
brief saying, yeah, that's okay. I quit New York City Bar Association
over that. I don't want yourepresenting me on this. That's what happened.
And where was the criminal defense barcrickets nothing? They had nothing to
say. So, you know,it's and it's interesting. When I spoke
to you last week, I said, you know, when you say what

(01:08:39):
are we going to do? Isaid, well, I just think everybody
has to sue everybody until this istoo expensive a war to wage. And
your perspective, legal perspective was that'sjust not going to work. It's not
going to be enough, and it'snot going to do the trick. Yeah,
I mean, HARMEA and I talkabout this fregulently. We spent a
lot of time beating our heads againstthe wall in the last year on a
lot of cases where eventually we wereproved to be right, but we were

(01:09:02):
not holding the you know, wewere not the guys who happened to be
there at the time this look,the same thing happened in this Lands case.
Mean, Mark Rondaza said, youknow, a million people had to
challenge Section two A before Ron Colemanwas got to be the guy to actually
overturn it. And the COVID restrictionson free worship were patently unconstitutional. But

(01:09:27):
until Roberts was no longer representing themajority of the Supreme Court and there was
now five four pro First Amendment coalitionof the Supreme Court judges below the Supreme
Court, I mean even last week, I mean, I'm proud to say
that my name I was counsel ofrecord in a an appeal to the you

(01:09:48):
know, an application to the SupremeCourt to overturn the Ninth Circuit, which
was basically just ignoring the Supreme Court'srule about about the First Amendment right to
congregate worship and we were we wereawarded, Um, we're granted sertiari and
say it was sent back to theNine Circuit. They're just ignoring it.
That's that's what we are now.So having said that, this is what

(01:10:12):
this is the slot that I'm at, The slot you're in is being a
comic and being you know, beingin the world of free expression and you
know, and doing your podcasts.And I'm a lawyer and I'm in a
different part of those same worlds.So I'm gonna keep fighting, and I'm
gonna keep suing. I'm gonna keepwinning someone losing some Um, I can't
keep exchanging plastic Google or you know, mortgage payments, you know, and

(01:10:39):
Yeshiva tuition. But this is theanswer, is we have to keep doing
what we're doing because you know,unlike Kirchlicht there, I don't know which
end of a gun the bullet comesout of. Okay, I'm not and
neither is he ready to take tothe streets. Yeah, he wants everyone
to be ready to assert their liberties. But I'm old Jewish guy Okay,

(01:11:00):
I'm not going to go beating peopleup, and I'm not going to risk
my livelihood by doing so. Idon't want to hurt anyone at all.
In fact, I just want tobe left alone. Yeah, and let
people say they do their thing,and you know, we keep fighting.
Do you think a lot of comediansthat I've talked about the fact that this
stuff is very very much like thependulum, right, And I think a

(01:11:23):
lot of people are sort of bullishon the idea that the pendulum is going
to swing back and we're gonna reenter sort of the punk rock sixties,
seventies, eighties, that explosion ofsub Yes, but I mean you do
have that going on. You dohave when you realize that the world we're

(01:11:44):
living in now is one where GlennGreenwool and Alan Dershowitz represent the right edge
under the current spectrum of the debateon the issue is of journalistic accountability and
civil rights and things civil rights andcensorship. Dershowitz, famously, who defended

(01:12:09):
OJ Simpson, is now considered well, that's a criminal case, that's not
a political issue at all, frankly, but he was awarded an Atheist of
the Year. I mean this guywas a very very left wing guy in
the days. His positions haven't changed. Greenwald's positions haven't changed. They're just
they're calling it like they see it. So, yes, the pendulum swings.

(01:12:30):
On the other hand, what whatthe left is doing now is attempting
to prevent it from swinging again byeliminating the profession of journalism, which again
was always biased, but there wasstill a little daylight the idea that we're
not we're gonna only put people onthe air who are party line Democrats,

(01:12:54):
and we're gonna go after alternative mediamedia like o AN and Fox and call
them Nazis and complicit. We're gonnaget rid of the We're gonna legitimize the
destruction of competition so the pendulum can'tswing. Yeah, and we're for it
to swing too. That's what deepplatforming is all about, is taking the

(01:13:15):
play out of the swing of thependulum. Yeah, I think, you
know, I agree, that's andthat's that's what's so damn dangerous about it.
It's like, yeah, and that'sthe other thing is like, yeah,
we can have our little channels andour little networks and things like that,
but it's like this idea that thatthe free market capitalism is going to
all. That's what I hate aboutthe left, by the ways, this

(01:13:38):
dishonesty about the free market. Youknow, they'll talk about the dangers and
the treacher the treachery of capitalism allday long, and then when capitalism is
used as the executioner for their willcapital love it. They love anitism at
all. It's corporatism. Yes,it's uncapital you know, it's not.
It's not it's not free enterprise.But yeah, when private own ownership of

(01:14:00):
the means of production, if youwant to really put it in Marxian terms,
private ownership of the means of productionare used to eliminate competition in the
marketplace of ideas, then yeah,we love free enterprise and we love property
rights. You know, I've floatedthis idea a little bit on my podcast
in the past, and I've mentionedit briefly to you when we talked last

(01:14:21):
week. But at what point doesthe collusion between media, government, propaganda
and all this stuff cross into therealm of racketeering? I mean, and
at the point that somebody in aposition of power in the agencies that prosecute
restraints on competition and racketeering care okay, and that point hasn't been reaching.

(01:14:45):
It's not going to be reached underthis administration, that's for sure. Definitely,
Delson wasn't reached during the Trump administration. And at the end of the
day, I know that he wasstymied and he was fought and people blocked
the doors from his doing what heneeded to do. But at the end
of the day, the buck stopswith him. He could have pulled people
into his office and fired them seriallyuntil he found the person willing to get

(01:15:08):
the job done, and he didn't. Yeah, do you think do you
think Ted Cruz could be that guy? I do, Yeah, I agree.
I think of everyone that we have, I think he's the only guy
who is in the public space enoughto be electable. And I also think
he knows the law well enough andthe Constitution well enough too. I also

(01:15:28):
think I'll hold it vigorously. Ithink I said this to you last week.
He took very good notes from onTrue, he's a different politician from
what he was four years ago.Very his haircut definitely says he's a different
politician. That guy is definitely playingto the base, that's for sure.

(01:15:54):
Big changes, But I do thinkI think he's going to rough up a
little bit between now and twenty twentyfor and I think he's the guy to
beat, and I think I likeas a candidate. I think he's great.
I think he needs a populist VPcandidate, an outsider um, you
know, somebody who could potentially playto the more um anti government side of

(01:16:16):
conservatism, because I do think that'sa growing People are talking about Trump wanting
to start his own party. Idon't think that's so much about separatism as
it is about people wanting to umabsolutely just break away from the traditional systems
of government. So I think Ithink Cruise, to play to the idea
that he is non traditional or becomingmore non traditional, needs a non traditional

(01:16:40):
running mate, UM, you know, to to to be electable, because
if he looks he has been inour government for far too long. Despite
the fact that he's become a vocaldissenter of the of where things are going,
I think he does still need thatsort of maverick outsider um for the
same reason that Trump needed a veryuh conservative sort of insider, right.

(01:17:04):
That's why he took a guy likeMike Pence, who's been a long you
know state, um state governor,and you know somebody who was sort of
a system politician for a long time. I think Crews will need the opposite.
He'll need a Trump as his VPcandidate. It'll be interesting, it'll
be interesting if we make it there. Yeah, we'll see, I mean,

(01:17:27):
we'll see. What if people wantto check your stuff out, obviously
they can check you out of Twitter, Ron Coleman. Yeah, to the
go to the Twitter. Yeah,I mean I've been doing stuff on YouTube.
This is a YouTube channel, andyou can if you if you look
up ron Coleman lawyer, lawyer onYouTube, you'll find me. But all
the roads lead to Twitter until theydestroy my account beyond the destruction they've wrecked

(01:17:50):
on as ready. Um and uh, if you google ron Coleman Lawyer,
you're gonna find me because I've gotpretty good SEO. Well, there you
go. That's the that's the wayto do it. Just google run Coleman
or wherever. You're gonna get avery very large, muscular African American who
is a maleman. And I'm amale man as well, but yeah,

(01:18:13):
a different kind. Uh So youneed to put the lawyer attorney in there.
You'll find me, if you're reallynot interested, are they really going
to be? Well, I'm Iwas interested. I'm glad you came on
the show today to kind of thisstuff. And you know, I'm always
down for you know, having greatconversation with interesting with with interesting people who
that are definitely smarter on these subjectsthan I am. And you know,

(01:18:34):
it makes me feel a little bitbetter knowing that you know, there are
people you're right yeah, yeah,yeah, I mean in short, yeah,
that I'm on the right track withthings. And also it also makes
me feel better that there are peopleout there that aren't just comedians, that
aren't just filmmakers, that care aboutthis shit, you know, because it
does feel like a lot of times, if it's not somebody's you know,

(01:18:58):
sort of their baby, or it'snot the thing that they have to worry
about, they just don't care.And then the funny thing is, in
the same breath they'll talk about howterrible television is and how unfunny stand up
is and how boring movies are,and it's like, this is why,
because of the shit you're supporting,it's there are no mavericks, there are
no renegades in art or filmmaking anymore. I mean, name me, who

(01:19:19):
is the you know, who isthe Roman Polanski of today, Who's the
Lenny Bruce of today? I mean, you know, people will themselves out
as that, they all hold themselvesout as that, but in fact they're
they're all tools. Yeah, Imean, put your put your neck on
the line. And I've done whatI can. I mean, anytime I
feel like I've been you know,wronged in a legal sense or had my

(01:19:42):
rights infringed upon as a comedian,I've I've fought those cases. I've fought
a case in twenty thirteen we settledout of court, walked away with a
good chunk of change. And Ifought a case in arbitration this past year
and we didn't win. We gotwe got thrown out in summary judgment.
But it's like and any time,by the way, somebody finds themselves in

(01:20:02):
this sort of canceled situation, Ialways try to be one of the first
people to reach out and say,listen, I don't know if you've examined
your legal thing, your legal options, but you know, one of the
ones that I bring up all thetime is like the Shane Gillis case.
This guy was essentially publicly fired forbeing a racist. Never did anything that
was outside the guys of what allthe other comedians on SNL had done on

(01:20:25):
their social media and etc. Throughthe years, and they sort of made
an example out of him being astraight white guy. And he got the
advice from his team that was like, well, listen, if you try
to take legal action against NBC forthis, you'll never work in this town
again. And so he huckle buriedup and did what he was told,
and then they cut him loose andtold him he would never work in this
town again anyway. You're not goingto work in this town again anyway.

(01:20:49):
Yes. So it's like this ideathat you're somehow going to capitulate to what
the mob wants and you're going toapologize your way back into their good graces
is is over. And that's onething I liked about my friend Gina Krano,
who basically was like, Okay,if I'm out fuck you guys,
I'll go to the Daily Wire andI'll make a movie with them. And

(01:21:09):
you know, that's kind of whatyou have to do now, as long
as they don't shut you know,if they can can't the questions where they
cancel ways. You know, whenthey cancel these alternatives, that's what they
want to do. They want toprevent people from having alternatives. You got
to stop them. Well, andthe other thing is we all have to
crowdsource, right, And it likeit's the old It takes money to make

(01:21:29):
money. It's like a lot ofpeople don't realize movie money doesn't come out
of thin air. The people thatare film producers, a lot of them
made their money in other business venturesfor many years, far before they got
into film, and they have thisendless stream of money now to use as
a bank to make their movies ortheir projects or whatever they want to do.
Hollywood doesn't have a Hollywood Fund thatpays for the production of films,

(01:21:50):
and even films that are done bylarge studios also have independent financiers who come
on board the project and pay forthe movie to be made. So this
idea that we're going to be ableto just crowdsource competitive content, I mean,
the fucking Hollywood doesn't crowdsource their content, right. They spend the money
and then they charge you at thepoint of admission, and so you know,

(01:22:12):
it's still not a level playing field. Even when people like a Benchapiro
go, well, we'll just financethis ourselves and we'll raise money from the
public. It's sort of like Italked about the government earlier. The idea
of crowdsourcing a movie is like,give us the money before we've told we've
even shown you it's something you like, and then people aren't going to do
that. They're just not gonna doit. It doesn't make sense. It
would be like, hey, Ireally like I really like Tom Cruise movies,

(01:22:35):
and he's like, all right,well pay for the ticket up front
and I won't tell you anything aboutit or whether you like it or not.
You're like, well, am Igetting mission impossible? Orm I getting
eyes wide shut? Which is it? Because one I would pay for and
one I wouldn't? You know?Well, I mean, I mean that's
that's true of anyone who that's ina movie, though, right, Isn't
that always the case? You know, when someone decides whether or not to

(01:22:57):
find a project, any any startupand certainly movie. You know, funding
a movie, you got to pitchit to the studio, and the studio's
got to decide did they have avision to see what you see and whether
it would you know, it wouldbe it would be successful. Well,
and that's kind of what I'm saying, is that it's really not going to
be a level playing field until thereis a successful conservative studio out there that

(01:23:18):
has the kind of deep pockets thatsomebody has. There has never been a
movie about Stalin. Isn't that wild? He died in nineteen fifty three.
There's never been a movie about themost important figure in the twentieth century.
It's pretty wild, pretty disgusting.Yep, Well, there we go.

(01:23:44):
That's you guys heard it first.Ron and I are crowdsourcing a movie about
how great Stalin was and we wantto jam. Yeah, we yeah,
we want to get so we wantto resurrect the greatness that was Joseph Stalin.
Um Ron, thanks so much forbeing on the show man. I
appreciate it. And uh, well, I'm sure we'll have you on again

(01:24:04):
the future. I'm sure there'll beall kinds of these continuous sliding scales of
cancel culture becoming actual active legislation,and as our rights continue to be ripped
away from our clutches, we'll haveyou on to comment. What's left with
me? Yeah,