October 8, 2025 • 50 mins
The shouting match on Capitol Hill wasn’t just a bad day at work—it was a mirror. We open on the chaos, then follow the ripple effects across the culture: public glee at a political killing, campus protests that blur into crime, and media ecosystems that reward the most dehumanizing lines. Along the way, we draw the crucial boundary between consequences and censorship, showing why community judgment belongs in a free society—and why state pressure over speech is a line we can’t let any administration cross.
We unpack how labels like fascist and Nazi turn neighbors into targets, how the “martyr effect” makes silencing by force backfire, and why original sources beat viral edits every time. From immigration enforcement to late-night monologues, from cancel culture’s unending punishments to platform policies shaped by backroom calls, we map the real-world costs when debate is replaced by coercion. Tech companies can set rules, but when government jawbones platforms or affiliates, private moderation becomes public power by proxy—and that should alarm anyone who cares about civil liberties, regardless of party.
Grounded in the founders’ warnings and a moral call to speak truth with care, we argue for thicker skin, sharper reasoning, and a wider marketplace of ideas. Free speech is not a promise of comfort; it’s the oxygen of a healthy republic. If truth unsettles us, maybe it’s doing its job. Listen, challenge us, and bring your best arguments—we’ll put them at the front of the line and let ideas compete in daylight.
If this moved your thinking, subscribe, share with a friend who loves a good debate, and leave a review telling us where you draw the line between consequence and censorship. Your voice keeps this conversation honest.
Facebook & Instagram: @Theunmentionablespodcast
Twitter/X: @UnmentionablesX
YouTube: @TheUnmentionnablesPodcast
TikTok: @theunmentionablespodcast
Web: https://heart4change.org/heart-for-change-media
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Evan (01:16):
America's divided.
Political rhetoric is off thecharts.
Insane.
Audio (01:20):
Do you do you know what we're here for?
You know we're here about she.
I don't think you know whatyou're here for.
Well, you don't want to talkabout I just eyelashes are
messing up.
Order, Mr.
Chairman.
Order of order.
I do have a point of order, andI would like uh to move to to
(01:41):
take down Miss Green's words.
That is absolutelyunacceptable.
How dare you suspend thephysical appearance of another
person?
Are your feelings hurting?
Her words down.
Oh, oh, girl, baby, girl.
Oh, really?
Don't even play, baby, girl.
We are gonna move and we'regonna take your words down.
I second that motion.
(02:01):
So so I believe she'sapologizing.
No, no, no.
Hold on.
Then after Mr.
Perry, she'll be recognized andMission.
I'm not apologizing.
Well, then, I am notapologizing.
Why don't you debate me?
Mr.
Chairman, um the the theminority self-evident you're not
(02:23):
you don't have enoughintelligence.
Okay, move to strike the words.
Move to strike the lady'sstrike again.
That's two requests to strike.
That's two requests to strike.
Oh, they cannot take the wordsagain.
There's another motion to strikeyour words again.
Okay, here's a here's thecorrect the correct part of G.
Miss Green, do you ask unanimousto consent?
(02:45):
Do you agree to unanimousconsent to strike your words?
I repeat again for the secondtime.
Yes, I'll strike my words.
But I'm not apologizing.
With that objection.
With that objection, Chairman,If you have the right to object.
Chairman, I move that Mr.
Goldman's words and Miss OcasioCortez's words be stricken.
It's me.
(03:05):
Miss Crockett.
I'm just curious, just to betterunderstand your ruling, if
someone on this committee thenstarts talking about somebody's
bleach blind, bad built butchbody, that would not be engaging
in personalities, correct?
A what now?
Chairman, I make a motion tostrike those words.
I don't think that's a part ofit.
(03:25):
Chairman, motion to strikethose words.
I'm trying to get clarification.
Okay, calm down.
Calm down.
No, no, no.
Because this is what I'mgetting proceeding.
(03:46):
I'm trying to get the number ofthings.
Can you please come?
Chairman, Mr.
Chairman.
Okay, order.
Chair now recognizes Miss Greenfor four minutes and 21
(04:09):
seconds.
Four minutes?
Let Miss Green come up, andthen you all can I'll recognize
it.
I move to strike her words for asecond time based on her second
set of personal remarks,attacking another member.
Right now, what they are tryingto do is institute Nazism 2.0 in
the United States.
And guess what?
It's gonna be us.
It's gonna be on the receivingend of all of I think Hillary
(04:31):
would be a terrible president.
Well, I think the only card shehas is the woman's card.
She's got nothing else going.
And frankly, if Hillary Clintonwere a man, I don't think she'd
get 5% of the vote.
She's a world-class liar.
Just look at her pathetic emailserver statements.
She's crooked, Hillary.
Don't you understand that?
This is one of the most crookedpoliticians in history.
(04:54):
This is the legacy of HillaryClinton.
Death, destruction, terrorism,and weakness.
She's the devil.
Hillary Clinton is the bigot.
I was going to say.
They understand that we have aTimu Hitler in the White House
right now that thinks that he isgoing to become the dictator of
the United States.
(05:14):
Well, I got another thing totell you, sir.
When they have a congressman orsomeone that ran for Vice
President of the United States,comparing us to Nazis, that
gives some of these nuts andbones them to take action.
Donald Trump's modern-day GiscapGescopo is scooping folks up
off the streets.
They're in unmarked vanswearing masks, being shipped off
to foreign torture dungeons.
(05:36):
No chance to mount a defense,not even a chance to kiss a
loved one goodbye, just grabbedup by masked agents, shoved into
those vans, and disappeared.
Are you comparing ICE?
You said to NSC 131, theneo-Nazi group.
Are you comparing them to aneo-Nazi group?
What I said is that Bostonpolice and no police department
that I know of at the locallevel routinely wears masks.
(06:08):
The ICE issue is alarming beyondwords.
That's happening in the UnitedStates of America.
Masked men jumping out ofunmarked cars, people
disappearing, no due process.
People ask, well, isauthoritarianism you're being
hyperbolic?
We're being hyperbolic.
(06:28):
But as somebody who understandshistory, when I see ice, I see
slave first balls.
I come from a lineage which thiscountry with black mothers,
black fathers, away from blackchildren, to build this
capitalistic society.
They're doing it again.
(06:49):
This is not Germany! That's theSS in the Gestapo! This is the
United States of America! Unmaskyourself! Ice unmask.
What are you afraid of?
What are you afraid of?
We know who the real cripplesare.
It's the ice agents abductingparents in the front of their
(07:10):
kids.
They found bullets on therooftop, one of which was
labeled with the words anti-ICE.
He wrote that he intended tomaximize lethality against ICE
personnel.
He hoped his actions wouldterrorize ICE employees.
It's clear from these notesthat he was targeting ICE agents
(07:33):
and ICE personnel.
Yes, there is a heightened senseof security for everybody, not
only at work, but for theirfamilies, for their loved ones,
um, mainly because of the doxingthat's going on and the uh the
violent rhetoric that peoplehave been perpetrating.
Evan (07:53):
That was a little over six minutes of our political
representatives, primarilytalking just about insanity,
about just wildness, and it's onboth sides.
Just incredibly dumb thingsthat are being said.
It it just it it sounds likewe're being run by a bunch of
(08:13):
children, if I'm honest.
And again, it's it's it's uhboth sides are participating,
but I think it's important to tocall out sort of the ending of
that.
We've had presidentialcandidates that were shot and
second assassination attempts.
We've had political voices thatwere shot in public, we have
(08:34):
assassins trying to killgovernment agents, all of it
tied back to the kind ofrhetoric that we just heard.
It's it's out of control, ifwe're if we're really honest.
It's completely out of control.
People are being silenced,cancelled, fired, even killed
for their words.
And while some people arecelebrating it, he's dead.
Audio (09:00):
Yes, he deserves to die, and I hope he brings it hell.
And I really don't want to hearany moral superiority from the
people who were just laughingabout undocumented immigrants
getting eaten up by alligators.
Okay.
Y'all homie dead! He got shot inthe dead, yo, homie dead.
Evan (09:21):
It's another 30 seconds of people celebrating a man being
shot in the neck for exercisinghis right to speak.
I have to ask, what kind ofcountry cheers the silencing of
voices?
What kind of country cheerspeople being killed for speaking
what they believe to be thetruth?
Well, I'm here to put truthback on the scales.
This is the Equalizer Podcast.
(09:43):
First, that clip of ourpolitical representatives in
Congress.
Wow.
Wild.
Wild.
That's the kind of that's thekind of people that we have
making all of our laws and weall look at each other and
wonder, how's the governmentshut down?
Well, there you go.
That's how the government shutdown because we spend more time
talking about fake eyelashes andcrazy nonsense than we do
(10:04):
dealing with the issues thatreally matter.
Whether it's Jasmine Crockett,AOC, Marjorie Taylor Green,
really ought to make you wince,and if you're anything like me,
your eyes are probably stillrolling around like a slot
machine.
The truth is that, you know,they're not alone.
Trump's mean, aggressive, verydirect, retaliatory, makes makes
up names for people.
(10:25):
It's not nice, it's not kind.
It's not how I would want tosee things done, that's for
sure.
He calls people radical left,radical left lunatics.
The left calls people on theright fascists and Nazis and
racists, people like RashidaTaleb, AOC Crockett, Ilahan
Omar, rest of the squad.
They're all inflammatory andincendiary in their incitement.
(10:47):
And and that's a problem,actually.
When your rhetoric goes toinciting violence, and I mean
really inciting violence.
I'm not talking about commentsthat fire up your base.
In other words, I'm not talkingabout people saying, you know,
go and and you know, fight foryour rights, or go and and you
know defend what you believe tobe your liberties.
(11:09):
Whether it's left or right,whether it's it's a cultural
movement in support of LGBTQrights, or whether it's you
know, free speech rights, or orwhether it's it's lower taxes or
whatever it might be, you havea right to voice your opinion.
You have a right to speak yourmind.
You have a right to say whatyou think.
And it's important that werecognize that.
(11:32):
Politics is downstream fromculture, and boy, boy do these
people reflect that.
Because you know, when I lookaround at our culture, you look
at our cities, you got ourtowns, you look at our schools,
there's an awful lot of thosetype of people that exist.
They just fight and argue anddebate for no reason.
That's why we end up with thesituation that we're in now
where we have a governmentthat's shut down, nothing can
(11:52):
get it could get done becauseeverybody's sort of dug in where
they are.
So I want to ask you, when itcomes to our freedom of speech,
when it comes to how we speak,what can be said, who gets to
decide that?
Who gets to decide what can andcan't be said?
Who gets to decide what'sbeyond the pale?
Without open dialogue andhearing both sides and hearing
all opinions, no matter howgross or vile or despicable we
(12:15):
might think it is, how do we getto decide what we believe?
Do you trust the currentcensors?
Do you trust the media?
Do you trust the government?
What happens when the roles arereversed, the parties flip?
Do you trust did you trust thelast administration?
Here's the reality (12:26):
we live in a culture where people are being
silenced, canceled, fired, andyes, even killed for words, both
in and out of context.
You talk about somebody likeCharlie Kirk, you know, a lot of
what he said is taken out ofcontext and used against him in
online videos.
I won't get into litigating allof that today, but just some of
the stuff that I've seen isjust wildly off base from what
(12:48):
was actually said.
If you sat and watched theentire clip or the entire
dialogue, which is readilyavailable, you could see that a
lot of it was innocuous.
It was, it was, it was in inmost cases the opposite of what
it what it was being presentedas.
You talk about the ICE agentsand you know, people doing their
jobs enforcing federal law, andwhether you like federal law or
(13:10):
not, the law is what the lawis.
And their job is to enforcethat law.
And, you know, focusing ongetting, you know, criminal
legals out who have broken thelaw and done terrible things,
and going and arresting gangmembers and, you know, violent
criminals and cartel members.
I think most people agreethat's that's actually helpful.
(13:32):
Improves our society in someway, shape, or form.
You know, you have people outthere trying to kill them.
You have several detainees thathave been shot and killed by
accident because they wereaiming for the agents, but
weren't a very good shot, orthey just fired indiscriminately
into vehicles.
And all this stuff is happeningbecause people are calling them
fascists and Nazis andencouraging their supporters to
(13:53):
protest violently.
Show me where it says thatprotests are supposed to be
polite and peaceful.
Audio (13:58):
This is just a warning to you Trumpers.
Be careful, walk lightly.
And for those of you who aresoldiers, make them pay.
Evan (14:10):
Make them pay.
What do you think that means?
Soldiers.
Make them pay.
And show be where it saysprotests are supposed to be
polite and peaceful.
It's literally in the FirstAmendment.
The right to peaceablyassemble.
It's literally in the FirstAmendment.
So that, sir, is where you canfind that.
And while some are cheeringthese deaths, as we heard
(14:32):
earlier, I wonder if we've lostsight of what freedom of speech
actually means.
Don't misunderstand me.
Speech always carriesconsequences.
Words matter.
They can heal, inspire,destroy, or enrage, which is why
scripture tells us that deathand life are in the power of the
tongue.
Here's the distinction that weneed to hold on to.
Consequences are not the sameas censorship.
Consequences happen incommunity through relationships,
(14:54):
employers, or contracts.
Censorship is when thegovernment steps in and says,
you can't say that.
And once the government takesthat power, liberty dies.
Now Charlie Kirk wasn'teveryone's cup of tea.
Not everyone agreed with him,and that was fine.
He didn't demand that everyoneagree with him.
But he talked about liberty.
And his point of holding hisdiscussions on college campuses
(15:15):
was that there ought to be freeexercise of the First Amendment.
You ought to have the right todebate.
You ought to have the right tospeak about topics, no matter
how much it might upset people.
Because you don't have a rightto not be offended.
You don't have a right to notfeel uncomfortable by things
that are being said.
In fact, that uncomfortabilityis that little metronome that
(15:37):
God put inside of us, thatlittle detector that God put
inside of us that said, youknow, spidey senses start
tingling.
I don't really like this.
I don't think this is right.
That's the discernment detectorthat you have built inside of
you.
It's there for a reason.
And if we don't exercise and wedon't use it, then we lose it.
But you didn't have to attendhis events.
Nobody forced you to.
Here's what really set himapart.
He didn't just welcomedissenters to attend.
(16:01):
He invited them to the front ofthe line.
He he wanted those opposingvoices.
He believed in the openness ofspeech and debate.
And he welcomed those whodisagreed with him to the
microphone first.
Because he really believed thatwhen we stop talking, really
bad stuff starts.
And then someone took his life,trying to silence him
permanently.
But you know what?
All they really did was makehim into a martyr.
(16:22):
And they didn't stop his ideas,they amplified him.
And history has seen this overand over, seen it time and
again.
They thought they would, youknow, stop the abolitionary
movement with the death ofLincoln.
Didn't happen.
They thought that by killingJFK, RFK, Martin Luther King,
they would stop the civil rightsmovement.
That didn't happen either.
It just made it go even faster.
(16:43):
They thought by killing Gandhithat they would stop the
uprising in India.
And they didn't do that either.
Even Jesus, attacked byPharisees and the Roman
government, because he was a bitof a rabble rouser.
Most people most people may notrecognize that about Jesus, but
he wasn't he wasn't politicallycorrect in his time either.
(17:03):
And they crucified him for itvery publicly, and it still
didn't silence his message.
Instead, it created a movementthat grew one of the largest
world religions.
Every one of those individualswas killed to silence their
message, and every one of theirmessages only got louder.
Charlie aggravated the crap outof people because he knew their
arguments better than they did.
(17:24):
He read books on both sides.
He read writings on both sides.
He read the original sources.
He studied both sides.
He rooted his worldview and hisChristian faith, but he
tempered it with reason.
He always, always, alwaysquestioned it.
Always sat back and said, Isthis really what I ought to be
believing?
Is this really by myprinciples?
Is this really guided by myprinciples?
(17:45):
Are these things that I trulybelieve?
And he spent so much time withthat that that's why he could
hold his ground.
And he had a belief system thatwas rooted in his his own
truth.
And it was firm.
But he understood people.
And that's why people fearedhim, especially in the political
world.
I've watched a lot of his stuffover the last few weeks.
I was familiar before that.
(18:07):
I had met him in the pastbriefly when he was first
getting started.
But I spent a lot of time, youknow, watching some of his stuff
over the last few weeks.
And I I find it challenging tofind debates and discussions
where he didn't come out on topin the end.
If you just put your thinkingcaps on, if you just put your
reasoning cap on.
Maybe that's because he and Itend to share the same
(18:30):
assessment of things.
And I know that there's goingto be a lot of people out there
that that don't.
I have friends that quitefrankly don't.
And I'm okay with that.
And I hope they're okay withthat.
Because it's not going to makeme like them any less.
It's not going to make meappreciate who they are any
less.
Because I think we are morethan just our opinions.
I'm guided m very strongly bythe Bible, of course.
(18:51):
And in John 8 32, it says youknow, you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.
The truth doesn't die with aman.
In fact, every faith traditionsays something similar.
You know, it's not just theChristian faith.
It's you know in Islam, theQuran condemns killing prophets.
In Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gitashows that when the righteous
(19:11):
are killed, Dharma or truthstill prevails.
Buddhism teaches that Buddha'sdeath only spread his teachings
even further.
So the lesson we have thatcomes out of this is really when
men try to bury the truth, theyonly plant it deeper.
It only grows taller, andhistory proves the truth will
rise.
In the wake of theassassination, speech issues
were raised in a variety ofcontexts.
(19:31):
We'll talk about Jimmy Kimmel alittle bit later, but I want to
focus on these people that arecelebrating Charlie's murder
through their vile commentsonline.
Almost no post.
Memorializing Charlie Kirkescapes being inundated with
hateful comments, labeling him afascist, a racist, a bigot,
criticizing his memorial,denigrating his wife, and
chastising his friends.
One of the hardest things forme to see at times, and and
(19:54):
candidly, the Unmentionablespodcast put out a post that
showed Erica Kirk, his his wife,a couple days or shortly after
his very public murder, holdingherself together quite quite
miraculously, if I if I do sayso myself, as she stood up there
and she gave a speech I don'tthink she would have ever
(20:17):
imagined she'd be giving, and Ican't imagine anybody who would
ever want to be giving thatspeech.
Just hours, days after yourhusband is publicly murdered,
you understand that you are nowin charge of the family.
You're the head of the family,two children, two young
children.
You're also in charge of amovement.
(20:37):
See what these people who areout there chastising her for not
being a mushy wreck of tears,which I'm a hundred percent
positive that she is on aregular basis when the cameras
aren't rolling and when shedoesn't have to, you know, put
on a good face for the dutiesthat she still has as a mother
(20:59):
and a CEO now.
But what these people don'tseem to understand is that Erica
was suddenly the only parent tothose two little kids and the
leader of the movement thatCharlie had built over the last
you know 10, 12 years.
And that movement has millionsof people that are a part of it
and paying attention.
And not only was was there isthere the the part of that that
(21:21):
was already in place, butthere's the part of that that
was exploding after peoplerealized what had happened and
wanted to join that movement.
And I think that people onlinetend to dehumanize very quickly
because they're looking at acomputer screen and they're not
sitting across the table fromsomeone else.
(21:43):
I've seen people who, if youlook at their Facebook accounts,
their Instagram accounts, theyclaim to be children of God.
They they some of them arepastors, some of them are
deacons, and all of them, youknow, denigrating Charlie,
hoping he rots in hell,denigrating his wife for not
being a blubbering messconstantly, for being able to
(22:04):
stand up there as a as a strongwoman and and do what she needs
to do in order to keep Charlie'smovement and memory alive.
These are the people that'llpost memes and tropes and
splatter utterly falseattributed comments and
celebrate his demise in a verypublic fashion.
They they flock to social mediato gloat, and some of them
learn that there's consequencesfor their speech.
Audio (22:27):
Good news.
Yes, he deserves to die, and Ihope he brings in hell.
And I really don't want to hearany moral superiority from the
people who were just laughingabout undocumented immigrants
getting eaten up by alligators.
Okay.
(22:55):
But following up with what wasjust said, he's been one of the
most divisive, especiallydivisive younger figures in
this, who is constantly sort ofpushing this sort of hate speech
or sort of aimed at certaingroups.
And I always go back to hatefulthoughts lead to hateful words,
which then lead to hatefulactions.
(23:16):
And I think that's theenvironment we're in that people
just you can't stop with thesesort of awful thoughts you have
and then saying these awfulwords and not expect awful
actions to take place.
Evan (23:27):
And that's the unfortunate environment we're in.
Now those are those last two,the homie dad girl and Matthew
Dowd lost their jobs for thosecomments and for what they did,
lost their jobs, lost theirability to attend the school
that they were going to, thecollege they were going to.
Because, see, while the FirstAmendment, as we covered on our
(23:48):
first episode, check that out ifyou haven't yet, protects
speech from government.
It does not protect speech fromthe discernment of the public,
individuals.
In future episodes, we'll talkabout how the free market and
consequences align with moralprinciples and the exercise of
speech.
We're going to talk about thatin more detail today, but it's
(24:08):
it's worth noting that withgreat power comes great
responsibility and also greatconsequences.
You gotta be careful what yousay, because someone might be
listening, and that someone maybe the person signing your
checks or administering theschool that you go to.
And that's the point of thefreedom of speech, and we'll
talk about this a little bitlater.
But the point is that while youcan say whatever you want,
(24:29):
there's still gonna beconsequences, potentially, for
that speech.
Could be good, could be bad.
People may like it and they maynot like it.
Alright, now I want to shiftfrom individuals to movements.
We'll talk about the campusprotests for a minute here.
I see on one level, protestsare free speech in action.
Even vile speech is protected.
Just to be plain and bluntabout it, you have every right
(24:53):
to burn the American flag and tosay that America is terrible.
And as a marine veteran, itboils my blood when you do that.
To be quite honest.
It it it it really gets insideof me.
But you know what?
Liberty means protecting eventhose things that boil our
blood, not just what makes usproud.
If all I did was say anythingyou say positive about America,
(25:15):
about the flag, about what we doas a country, all the positive
things are great, and that's allI want to hear, you know, then
the idea of fascism would comeinto play, nationalism would
come into play.
But I don't believe that we cansurvive as a nation that way.
The problem is when protestsand words cross the line into
(25:37):
criminal activity, when youstart to occupy buildings, you
start threatening people,restricting their rights,
blocking traffic, causing chaos,looting, burning down cities
and buildings.
It's no longer free speech,it's lawlessness.
We saw that with the campusprotests where they took over
campus buildings.
We saw it with the BLM rioting,especially in Kenosha, some of
(26:00):
those other cities.
It's it's crossing a line.
And I think we have to notesomething uncomfortable about
these campus protests too.
Many of the people who areleading these campus protests
are are foreign students.
And the problem they're gonnahave is that the Constitution
doesn't apply to them, and thatcreates a problem for them.
Now, when I look at thesecampus protests and I see these
(26:21):
people who are out theresupporting, literally supporting
Hamas, a terroristorganization, literally
supporting Hezbollah, terrorterrorist organization,
literally calling for theextermination of a whole group
of people that have been,especially ones that have been
attacked in the past and andthroughout history.
You know, quite honestly, itdoes make me uncomfortable.
(26:43):
It does make me recoil.
And there is a part of me thatsays that's that's wrong.
That shouldn't be happening.
And that's good.
To me, that's my discernmentbell going off and saying what
that person is saying or whatthose people are saying or what
those people are doing, it'swrong.
And that's good because ittells me my moral compass is
working.
And I'd rather hear it andrecoil and say, I don't want to
(27:06):
be a part of that, I don't likethat, I don't believe that, than
not hear it and not know it'sthere.
So I want that.
Now, here's what I will saywhen those people are identified
and they stand before theirprospective employers, or their
jobs or offers are rescinded, ortheir invitations to their
(27:29):
schools are rescinded.
I don't see any problem withthat, quite honestly.
I really don't.
It is up to those institutionsand those companies, those
organizations, those individualsto make their own determination
about who they want to dobusiness with.
Now, if the government wascoming in and telling them they
couldn't say those things, thenthat would be a completely
different thing.
(27:49):
But that's that's not what wesaw.
Of course, we saw people voicetheir opinions on whether or not
it was good or bad.
Of course, we saw discernmentfrom our leaders around what are
we going to support, what arewe not going to support in terms
of those campus protests.
But we didn't see crackdowns,we didn't see people being
forced to stop speaking byviolent means.
(28:09):
So let's talk about cancelculture.
If there's one thing thatembodies the opposite of free
speech, it's it's it's this,it's cancel culture.
Where they take something thatyou said decades ago, rip all
the context out of it, andweaponize it against you.
You know, hindsight is always2020, and no one is safe from
never having said anything thatmight have offended someone.
And cancel culture to theextreme is what we're now seeing
(28:32):
in in Great Britain, wherethey're literally jailing people
for tweets.
They are literally jailingpeople for exercising their
right to free speech.
Again, these people may besaying things I agree with and
and maybe saying things I don'tagree with.
They may be saying offensivethings.
And the fact of the matter is,that may be despicable to me,
but you still have a right tosay it.
(28:53):
You still have a right to doit.
You still have a right to makethat post here, not apparently
in in Great Britain, where theyare arresting people, literally
putting them in jail for tweets.
Here's a truth bomb I'm gonnadrop on you folks.
The freedom of speech doesn'tinclude the right to not be
offended.
Find it in the Constitution.
I'll I'll change my mind.
It's not there.
Your feelings are not aconstitutional right.
(29:14):
And if we destroy every personwho offends us today, who's
gonna be left to speak tomorrow?
Whether it's a comedian or justsome guy on the street, whether
it's a joke or an insult.
Doesn't really matter.
It's not our right to stopthem.
Let's talk about techcensorship.
This one matters because itreally blurs the line between
private rights and governmentoverreach.
Well, normally the FirstAmendment only restricts
(29:35):
government speech control, butwhen government officials start
to pressure platforms to removespeech, it ceases to be purely
private moderation.
And that creates a hybridauthority problem where private
companies are acting asenforcers for government power
without accountability, thosebehind-the-scenes movements.
We've seen that most recentlywith the court filings and
(29:57):
disclosures from YouTube thatshow that the government
agencies under the Bidenadministration, including top
White House staffers, pushedYouTube and other platforms to
suppress discussions about theorigins, treatments, and
policies of COVID-19, even whenthat content didn't break
platform rules.
There was suppression, therewas demonetization, there was
cancellation, count removals,livelihoods impacted, even if it
(30:21):
wasn't against the rules of theplatform.
Same kind of pressure wasapplied before and after the
2020 election, leading to moreremovals, content removals,
count bans, demonetization.
People weren't allowed to askabout election integrity, they
weren't allowed to ask aboutCOVID-19.
YouTube was pressured by thegovernment to take that stuff
down.
We've seen the same thing fromthe Twitter files after Elon
(30:43):
Musk purchased Twitter,suppression, content labeling,
whether or not it was proven tobe accurate or not.
You know, those are the kindsof things there was no dissent
allowed.
And when you start looking atauthoritarian regimes, they
always start with removingdissent, removing the ability
for people to question.
And this is really a broaderpattern.
(31:03):
This is not just YouTube, it'snot just Twitter.
You know, these tech platformspresent themselves as neutral
moderators, and you hear themsit in front of Congress and and
push back against you knowthese congressional.
Inquiries into their policies,into their algorithms.
You know, they they act likethey're these beacons of freedom
and free speech.
(31:23):
And yet these leaks in lawsuitsincreasingly show collusion
with government.
I bet you will hear somethingfrom Meta, Facebook, Instagram,
given its scale and its pastcooperation with government
fact-checking efforts.
I bet you're going to hear fromthem that the Biden
administration also pressuredthem to make changes.
I mean, let's be fair.
(31:44):
The First Amendment restrainsgovernment power, not private
companies.
Platforms like YouTube,Twitter, Facebook, they can set
their own rules.
But when the government leanson them, when officials whisper,
hey, take this down, or else,that's not private moderation,
it's government censorship byproxy.
It's the government partneringwith the private market to use
them to their ends forcensorship purposes.
(32:05):
I mean, imagine this kind of asituation.
Imagine the government tells alandlord, hey, don't rent to
this person, or else we're gonnado more inspections, there'll
be fines, we'll be withholdingpermits, you're not gonna,
you're not gonna be able to dobusiness better the same way you
are now going forward.
On paper, the landlord's stillthe decision maker here, right?
When the landlord says, okay,I'm not gonna not gonna rent to
(32:27):
this person, I'm not gonna letthis person do business with me.
They're still making thatdecision on paper, but the
state's behind the strings, pullbehind the uh scenes pulling
the strings.
And this is what happens whengovernment nudges these
platforms.
Platforms are still the face ofthe decision, but the authority
isn't really theirs.
And here's why that'sdangerous.
Truth doesn't fear debate,governments do.
(32:47):
But that's why we havealternatives like Rumble, Truth
Soldier, Truth Social, even Xnow that Elon Musk.
That's why they exist.
Keep the marketplace of ideasalive.
See, truth survives challenges.
You can argue, you can debatetruth, you can question it, you
can ask why a million times.
And if it's true, it's stillgoing to be true.
Lies collapse, though, underscrutiny when you start looking
(33:10):
at what's said.
And that's what makes debatethe immune system of democracy.
You talk about things, youdebate it, talk quickly about
the government shutdown.
On the one hand, you've got theDemocrats saying Republicans
don't want you to have healthcare.
On the other hand, you've gotRepublicans saying Democrats
want to give health care toillegal immigrants.
Which one's right?
(33:31):
Because they can't both beright, right?
Well, the reality of thatsituation is whether we like it
or not, whether you've heardthis before or not, the
Republican-controlled Housepassed what they call a clean
continuing resolution.
And the idea of that is we'regoing to continue to fund the
government at the currentlevels.
Nothing changes, everythingstays exactly the way it is, so
(33:52):
that we can have a debate,discussion on a broader plan
about how to handle some of theupcoming potential changes in
funding levels to certainprograms.
We can talk about whether ornot those programs are
reasonable and responsible tofund.
Now, I have no idea what thesepeople are doing if they're not
(34:14):
already debating these things.
I think that a lot of time iswasted in Washington, D.C.
I know a lot of time is wasted.
I won't say think.
I'll say I know.
I know a lot of time is wastedthere.
I don't have a lot of faiththat all of the people there are
really there to serve thepeople, at least not as their
(34:35):
primary role.
I think a lot more time isspent playing games than there
should be.
And as a result, I think theywaste a lot of time.
They waste a ton of time.
And because of that, we havethese unresolved issues that, I
mean, you could cynically lookat it and say they're purposely
doing it, they're purposelyleaving these issues on the
(34:56):
table so that they can fightabout it when push comes to
shove and they can use it as ahammer from one side or the
other.
That's a cynical way to look atit.
Those of us that have beenaround politics in any real
capacity for any long any periodof time can tell you that's
typically the way we kind of seethings is a very cynical
(35:16):
approach to it.
You could also say that it'sit's a real concern that they
have.
But this question is, why arewe waiting so long to take care
of these issues?
We we know and we knew monthsago that these questions were
out there.
Why didn't we take care of itthen?
And what does take care of itreally mean?
Does it mean that everybodygets what they want?
Because that can't happen.
Both sides can't have what theywant.
(35:38):
There's gonna be some give andsome take, there's gonna be some
level of compromise.
But the problem with oursociety and where things are
today is that we're not willingto do that.
And so what we have now in thissituation is we have two sides
that refuse to bend.
And so instead, we've got thispressure that is applied.
(35:59):
And if we look at the twoarguments, we look at the
Republicans and we say, okay,continuing resolution has been
passed out of the House,President Trump's ready to sign
it, it will carry on continuingor continued current levels, so
nothing will change, nothing'sbeing taken away at this point.
There's no alteration tofunding levels.
(36:19):
So at this point, why would weshut down the government over
that?
And if you look at the Democratpoint of view and you say,
here's the reality (36:27):
we have this continuing resolution, it's not
changing anything, so nobody'shaving anything taken away.
What is the what is the realissue?
And what it all comes down tois the Democrats don't believe
that they're going to be able toget what they want at the end
of the day.
They don't believe theirargument is good enough to
convince people to do what theywant to do.
(36:50):
And so they are using this asan opportunity to wield a
sledgehammer.
They're using this as a shield.
And this is the kind of thingthat goes back to if you look at
the reality of the truth,nothing changes with the current
res with the current continuingresolution.
If you look at the other side,still nothing's changing.
(37:10):
So at this point, what sensedoes shutting the government
down make?
The only thing that it does isit gets the population up in
arms, it hurts the governmentworkers who are out of out of
work, it hurts the people thatare relying on programs.
Let's look at this situation.
You ever had if you're aparent, you have kids, you've
(37:30):
had toddler freak out in astore, go bad shit crazy, start
screaming.
You have sort of two ways thatyou can handle that.
First is you can appease thechild, you can just give them a
toy, just stop, right?
Stop screaming.
You have a another way to doit, which is take the child
outside, you have aconversation, you discuss, bring
down the temperature, figure itout.
(37:51):
Well, the Democrats want us toact like the first one, and they
want us to just give them whatthey want.
Just give them what they want,just just give them what they
want so we can move forwardbecause this is too much pain.
It's too much that we're goingthrough right now.
We can't do this.
Republicans want us to act likethe other parent, the other
approach.
I tend to fall in the otherapproach category.
I don't want to just give in totemper tantrums.
(38:14):
I want things to be reasonableand responsible.
I want to think about things,talk through it, make sure that
we come to an agreement abouthow this should be done, if it
should be done.
But see, that's where thedifference between truth and
lies comes into play.
And when you add governmentsuppression into this, letting
officials decide what can andcannot be said or done.
Now you're now you're pushingthe limits of that first
(38:35):
amendment.
And when once people realizethat their speech is being
curated by political pressure,they stop trusting the platform
and government.
And then there's there'sprecedent at that point, at this
point.
It's COVID or elections today.
Tomorrow could be foreignpolicy, climate change,
criticism of those in power.
Where does it stop?
Where does it end?
If we allow the government tooutsource suppression to private
(38:57):
firms, they avoid transparency,due process, and legal
challenges.
We keep talking about dueprocess in our political
discourse.
This is one of the biggest waysthat due process is actually
violated through this shadowcensorship.
And to give an example of howthat's being played out in the
in the real world, millions haveflocked to these alternatives,
(39:18):
Rumble, Truth Social X now thatElon Musk has has purchased
Twitter to counter the perceivedbiases that they're they're
facing.
And and the Democrats havetheir own as well, or the
liberals, I should say, havetheir own as well.
Let's bring us a little closerto home and go inside of our
televisions late at night.
After the Charlie Kirkassassination, Jimmy Kimmel made
a joke tying the shooter toMAGA and mocking the president's
(39:41):
response.
Outrage followed.
Kimmel was taken off the airfor a few days a week by ABC
while they were going throughdiscussions with the local
syndication or the local uhaffiliates.
Here's what most people don'trealize broadcast TV operates
under different rules.
So the local stations they ownthe licenses that are granted by
the FCC.
So the FCC, the FederalCommunications Commission, they
(40:03):
have these licenses to theover-the-air broadcast wave,
right?
This is a a relic of you knowyears past.
It was passed by the FDRadministration.
It was a way for the governmentto control media back in the in
the 40s.
But at any rate, local stationswere granted licenses by the
FCC, and those licensesbasically say, listen, the
(40:27):
airways belong to the public,and stations are renting them
under the condition that theyserve the public interest.
And this the networks, ABC,NBC, CBS, Fox, they produce TV
shows, and then they lease thoseout to different affiliates in
different places.
So if you've ever, if you're aJeopardy fan, for example, and
(40:50):
you travel at all, you'll noticethat it's on ABC in one city,
maybe NBC or even Fox in anothercity.
Those local affiliateaffiliates are the ones who
decide what airs and whatdoesn't.
They are the ones that hold thenetworks accountable, and
they're the ones that are heldaccountable to the FCC.
So what you had is you hadNextstar and Sinclair, who own
(41:12):
hundreds of TV stations acrossthe country.
And they preempted Kimmel whenhe made those comments until he
met some demands that they had,meeting with Kirk's widow and
apologizing and so forth.
It happened in sort ofsimultaneous way, where the FCC
(41:33):
commissioner was Brendan Carr.
He he said, look, we could dothis the easy way or the hard
way.
Problem is, you know, that canbe seen as he was he isn't just
commenting, he's he's applyingpressure.
And, you know, he tried to walkthat back, but the reality of
the situation is I I trulybelieve that that was applying
pressure.
Now, ultimately, Nextstar andSinclair made that decision, but
(41:54):
that's not really thatdifferent from what the Biden
administration did with YouTube,Facebook, Twitter.
Is it illegal?
No.
Was the government leaning onthose private broadcasters to
silence a voice?
Sounds to me like theyabsolutely were.
And once again, the principle'sclear government has no place
in a censor's chair.
Do I like what Jimmy said?
No, I don't like what Jimmysays most of the time.
(42:15):
So you know what?
I just don't watch him, quitequite honestly.
I don't watch him.
And I think most people don'twatch him, honestly, because his
ratings aren't all that great.
So they he went away and hecame back, and his ratings were
really high for a couple days,and now they're back down again
to historic lows.
And that's fine.
I mean, you know, people canchoose to watch or not watch.
He has a right to be on air ifpeople will put him on air.
(42:37):
It's fine with me.
I just won't watch it.
That's okay.
So over the last few weeks,he's been everybody on the
left's favorite talking point.
Everybody talks to him, talksabout him, and that's great.
Now, if these local stationshad taken this action on their
own, without government pressureapplied, simply acting on their
own accord and with their ownmorals in mind, I'd be fine with
it.
After all, there's consequencesto speech.
(42:58):
Whether it's you know firingJimmy Kimmel, whether it's
taking him off the air for a fewdays, if something he said
violates the conscience of thepeople that are putting his show
on the air, they have everyright to take it down.
And the reality is he couldleave it up on YouTube if he
chooses to.
He did.
You can go on YouTube right nowand see what he said.
Maybe it doesn't offend you.
Maybe it does.
(43:19):
The reality is if the stationswanted to take him down, the
local stations, if thesyndicates that own them wanted
to take him down, they had everyright to.
Brendan Carr should not havestepped in, should not have said
what he said.
Is it in accordance with lawand the rules and was what he
said technically in line?
Yes.
Did it cross the line for me?
Yeah, also yes.
(43:39):
And when we start talking aboutspeech and the responsibility
that comes along with thefreedom, the founders understood
this better than anyone.
George Washington said, iffreedom of speech is taken away,
then dumb and silent, we may beled like sheep to the
slaughter.
So he understood that freedomof speech is extremely
important.
But also in that statement isthe dumb and silent part, right?
(44:01):
Dumb and silent.
So silent because we can'tspeak, but also dumb because we
can't hear different opinions,differing opinions.
And it's extremely crucial in afree society for differing
opinions to be shared.
So Washington even understoodthat.
And this is a guy who, youknow, was a military guy.
He was a general.
Follow what I tell you to do,do the work, do the job.
(44:23):
But even he understood.
Freedom of speech and thefreedom to hear go hand in hand.
Benjamin Franklin warnedwhoever would overthrow the
liberty of a nation must beginby subduing the freeness of
speech.
And again, speech, being ableto say something, it's great.
It's important, it's critical,it's crucial.
But you also have to have theability to hear it.
(44:43):
Madison called speech and thepress the only effectual
guardian of every other right.
And this goes back to somethingthat I said in the first
episode.
There's a reason why the FirstAmendment is the First
Amendment, and the way that it'sstructured is important.
There's a reason why it'sreligion, then speech, then
press, then assembly, andpetition.
(45:04):
There's a very strong, crucialreason why each of those things
is in place where they are.
If you haven't listened thefirst episode, go back and
listen to it.
I think you'll appreciate that.
They also understood that freefree speech wasn't a
free-for-all.
Madison cautioned that libertycould be endangered by its
abuse.
John Adams said libertydepended on knowledge.
And Hamilton said freedom ofthe press was meant for truth,
(45:26):
not slander.
So we go back to againsomething that we mentioned in
episode one of this new podcastseries.
Freedom of speech gives you theright to say what you choose to
say.
You should choose to say theright thing.
You should choose to say thethings that build up, not tear
down.
And the Bible agrees with thattoo.
Proverbs 1821 reminds us deathand life are in the power of the
(45:48):
tongue.
Ephesians 4.15 calls us tospeak truth in love.
And Jesus himself warns us inMatthew that we'll account for
every careless word.
So here's the balance.
Freedom of speech is essentialto liberty, but it's not a free
license.
It's a stewardship, and GodHimself will hold us
accountable.
So let's land here.
Free speech is the oxygen ofliberty.
Without it, truth suffocatesand tyranny grows.
(46:10):
Cancel culture, tech collusion,FCC pressure, these are all
modern suffocations, but historyteaches us truth doesn't die
when it's buried, it grows.
So don't outsource the truth.
Don't silence voices youdisagree with.
Test everything against yourmoral compass.
For me, it's scripture.
Read original sources.
Don't just take the the thequote that you got in a in a
(46:33):
social media post.
Go find the original source andwatch the context.
Make sure you understand what'sbeing said, what's being
written, what you're reading.
Make sure you get it fully andcompletely before you have an
opinion.
And remember, if truth offendsyou, maybe it's because it's
doing its job.
I'm the Equalizer.
Truth just got its day.
See you next week.
Before you go, let me leave youwith this.
(46:55):
If today's episode gave yousomething to think about,
there's more where that camefrom.
Subscribers get access toexclusive content like with the
Equalizer series, Deep Dives youjust heard, plus other behind
the scenes conversations wecan't always put in the public
feed.
It's our way of giving you moresubstance, more context, and
more truth without compromise.
So hit that subscribe button,join the community, and make
(47:16):
sure you don't miss what's next.
Because here on the Equalizer,truth isn't optional, is
essential.
America's divided.
Political rhetoric is off thecharts.
Insane.
Audio (01:20):
Do you do you know what we're here for?
You know we're here about she.
I don't think you know whatyou're here for.
Well, you don't want to talkabout I just eyelashes are
messing up.
Order, Mr.
Chairman.
Order of order.
I do have a point of order, andI would like uh to move to to
(01:41):
take down Miss Green's words.
That is absolutelyunacceptable.
How dare you suspend thephysical appearance of another
person?
Are your feelings hurting?
Her words down.
Oh, oh, girl, baby, girl.
Oh, really?
Don't even play, baby, girl.
We are gonna move and we'regonna take your words down.
I second that motion.
(02:01):
So so I believe she'sapologizing.
No, no, no.
Hold on.
Then after Mr.
Perry, she'll be recognized andMission.
I'm not apologizing.
Well, then, I am notapologizing.
Why don't you debate me?
Mr.
Chairman, um the the theminority self-evident you're not
(02:23):
you don't have enoughintelligence.
Okay, move to strike the words.
Move to strike the lady'sstrike again.
That's two requests to strike.
That's two requests to strike.
Oh, they cannot take the wordsagain.
There's another motion to strikeyour words again.
Okay, here's a here's thecorrect the correct part of G.
Miss Green, do you ask unanimousto consent?
(02:45):
Do you agree to unanimousconsent to strike your words?
I repeat again for the secondtime.
Yes, I'll strike my words.
But I'm not apologizing.
With that objection.
With that objection, Chairman,If you have the right to object.
Chairman, I move that Mr.
Goldman's words and Miss OcasioCortez's words be stricken.
It's me.
(03:05):
Miss Crockett.
I'm just curious, just to betterunderstand your ruling, if
someone on this committee thenstarts talking about somebody's
bleach blind, bad built butchbody, that would not be engaging
in personalities, correct?
A what now?
Chairman, I make a motion tostrike those words.
I don't think that's a part ofit.
(03:25):
Chairman, motion to strikethose words.
I'm trying to get clarification.
Okay, calm down.
Calm down.
No, no, no.
Because this is what I'mgetting proceeding.
(03:46):
I'm trying to get the number ofthings.
Can you please come?
Chairman, Mr.
Chairman.
Okay, order.
Chair now recognizes Miss Greenfor four minutes and 21
(04:09):
seconds.
Four minutes?
Let Miss Green come up, andthen you all can I'll recognize
it.
I move to strike her words for asecond time based on her second
set of personal remarks,attacking another member.
Right now, what they are tryingto do is institute Nazism 2.0 in
the United States.
And guess what?
It's gonna be us.
It's gonna be on the receivingend of all of I think Hillary
(04:31):
would be a terrible president.
Well, I think the only card shehas is the woman's card.
She's got nothing else going.
And frankly, if Hillary Clintonwere a man, I don't think she'd
get 5% of the vote.
She's a world-class liar.
Just look at her pathetic emailserver statements.
She's crooked, Hillary.
Don't you understand that?
This is one of the most crookedpoliticians in history.
(04:54):
This is the legacy of HillaryClinton.
Death, destruction, terrorism,and weakness.
She's the devil.
Hillary Clinton is the bigot.
I was going to say.
They understand that we have aTimu Hitler in the White House
right now that thinks that he isgoing to become the dictator of
the United States.
(05:14):
Well, I got another thing totell you, sir.
When they have a congressman orsomeone that ran for Vice
President of the United States,comparing us to Nazis, that
gives some of these nuts andbones them to take action.
Donald Trump's modern-day GiscapGescopo is scooping folks up
off the streets.
They're in unmarked vanswearing masks, being shipped off
to foreign torture dungeons.
(05:36):
No chance to mount a defense,not even a chance to kiss a
loved one goodbye, just grabbedup by masked agents, shoved into
those vans, and disappeared.
Are you comparing ICE?
You said to NSC 131, theneo-Nazi group.
Are you comparing them to aneo-Nazi group?
What I said is that Bostonpolice and no police department
that I know of at the locallevel routinely wears masks.
(06:08):
The ICE issue is alarming beyondwords.
That's happening in the UnitedStates of America.
Masked men jumping out ofunmarked cars, people
disappearing, no due process.
People ask, well, isauthoritarianism you're being
hyperbolic?
We're being hyperbolic.
(06:28):
But as somebody who understandshistory, when I see ice, I see
slave first balls.
I come from a lineage which thiscountry with black mothers,
black fathers, away from blackchildren, to build this
capitalistic society.
They're doing it again.
(06:49):
This is not Germany! That's theSS in the Gestapo! This is the
United States of America! Unmaskyourself! Ice unmask.
What are you afraid of?
What are you afraid of?
We know who the real cripplesare.
It's the ice agents abductingparents in the front of their
(07:10):
kids.
They found bullets on therooftop, one of which was
labeled with the words anti-ICE.
He wrote that he intended tomaximize lethality against ICE
personnel.
He hoped his actions wouldterrorize ICE employees.
It's clear from these notesthat he was targeting ICE agents
(07:33):
and ICE personnel.
Yes, there is a heightened senseof security for everybody, not
only at work, but for theirfamilies, for their loved ones,
um, mainly because of the doxingthat's going on and the uh the
violent rhetoric that peoplehave been perpetrating.
Evan (07:53):
That was a little over six minutes of our political
representatives, primarilytalking just about insanity,
about just wildness, and it's onboth sides.
Just incredibly dumb thingsthat are being said.
It it just it it sounds likewe're being run by a bunch of
(08:13):
children, if I'm honest.
And again, it's it's it's uhboth sides are participating,
but I think it's important to tocall out sort of the ending of
that.
We've had presidentialcandidates that were shot and
second assassination attempts.
We've had political voices thatwere shot in public, we have
(08:34):
assassins trying to killgovernment agents, all of it
tied back to the kind ofrhetoric that we just heard.
It's it's out of control, ifwe're if we're really honest.
It's completely out of control.
People are being silenced,cancelled, fired, even killed
for their words.
And while some people arecelebrating it, he's dead.
Audio (09:00):
Yes, he deserves to die, and I hope he brings it hell.
And I really don't want to hearany moral superiority from the
people who were just laughingabout undocumented immigrants
getting eaten up by alligators.
Okay.
Y'all homie dead! He got shot inthe dead, yo, homie dead.
Evan (09:21):
It's another 30 seconds of people celebrating a man being
shot in the neck for exercisinghis right to speak.
I have to ask, what kind ofcountry cheers the silencing of
voices?
What kind of country cheerspeople being killed for speaking
what they believe to be thetruth?
Well, I'm here to put truthback on the scales.
This is the Equalizer Podcast.
(09:43):
First, that clip of ourpolitical representatives in
Congress.
Wow.
Wild.
Wild.
That's the kind of that's thekind of people that we have
making all of our laws and weall look at each other and
wonder, how's the governmentshut down?
Well, there you go.
That's how the government shutdown because we spend more time
talking about fake eyelashes andcrazy nonsense than we do
(10:04):
dealing with the issues thatreally matter.
Whether it's Jasmine Crockett,AOC, Marjorie Taylor Green,
really ought to make you wince,and if you're anything like me,
your eyes are probably stillrolling around like a slot
machine.
The truth is that, you know,they're not alone.
Trump's mean, aggressive, verydirect, retaliatory, makes makes
up names for people.
(10:25):
It's not nice, it's not kind.
It's not how I would want tosee things done, that's for
sure.
He calls people radical left,radical left lunatics.
The left calls people on theright fascists and Nazis and
racists, people like RashidaTaleb, AOC Crockett, Ilahan
Omar, rest of the squad.
They're all inflammatory andincendiary in their incitement.
(10:47):
And and that's a problem,actually.
When your rhetoric goes toinciting violence, and I mean
really inciting violence.
I'm not talking about commentsthat fire up your base.
In other words, I'm not talkingabout people saying, you know,
go and and you know, fight foryour rights, or go and and you
know defend what you believe tobe your liberties.
(11:09):
Whether it's left or right,whether it's it's a cultural
movement in support of LGBTQrights, or whether it's you
know, free speech rights, or orwhether it's it's lower taxes or
whatever it might be, you havea right to voice your opinion.
You have a right to speak yourmind.
You have a right to say whatyou think.
And it's important that werecognize that.
(11:32):
Politics is downstream fromculture, and boy, boy do these
people reflect that.
Because you know, when I lookaround at our culture, you look
at our cities, you got ourtowns, you look at our schools,
there's an awful lot of thosetype of people that exist.
They just fight and argue anddebate for no reason.
That's why we end up with thesituation that we're in now
where we have a governmentthat's shut down, nothing can
(11:52):
get it could get done becauseeverybody's sort of dug in where
they are.
So I want to ask you, when itcomes to our freedom of speech,
when it comes to how we speak,what can be said, who gets to
decide that?
Who gets to decide what can andcan't be said?
Who gets to decide what'sbeyond the pale?
Without open dialogue andhearing both sides and hearing
all opinions, no matter howgross or vile or despicable we
(12:15):
might think it is, how do we getto decide what we believe?
Do you trust the currentcensors?
Do you trust the media?
Do you trust the government?
What happens when the roles arereversed, the parties flip?
Do you trust did you trust thelast administration?
Here's the reality (12:26):
we live in a culture where people are being
silenced, canceled, fired, andyes, even killed for words, both
in and out of context.
You talk about somebody likeCharlie Kirk, you know, a lot of
what he said is taken out ofcontext and used against him in
online videos.
I won't get into litigating allof that today, but just some of
the stuff that I've seen isjust wildly off base from what
(12:48):
was actually said.
If you sat and watched theentire clip or the entire
dialogue, which is readilyavailable, you could see that a
lot of it was innocuous.
It was, it was, it was in inmost cases the opposite of what
it what it was being presentedas.
You talk about the ICE agentsand you know, people doing their
jobs enforcing federal law, andwhether you like federal law or
(13:10):
not, the law is what the lawis.
And their job is to enforcethat law.
And, you know, focusing ongetting, you know, criminal
legals out who have broken thelaw and done terrible things,
and going and arresting gangmembers and, you know, violent
criminals and cartel members.
I think most people agreethat's that's actually helpful.
(13:32):
Improves our society in someway, shape, or form.
You know, you have people outthere trying to kill them.
You have several detainees thathave been shot and killed by
accident because they wereaiming for the agents, but
weren't a very good shot, orthey just fired indiscriminately
into vehicles.
And all this stuff is happeningbecause people are calling them
fascists and Nazis andencouraging their supporters to
(13:53):
protest violently.
Show me where it says thatprotests are supposed to be
polite and peaceful.
Audio (13:58):
This is just a warning to you Trumpers.
Be careful, walk lightly.
And for those of you who aresoldiers, make them pay.
Evan (14:10):
Make them pay.
What do you think that means?
Soldiers.
Make them pay.
And show be where it saysprotests are supposed to be
polite and peaceful.
It's literally in the FirstAmendment.
The right to peaceablyassemble.
It's literally in the FirstAmendment.
So that, sir, is where you canfind that.
And while some are cheeringthese deaths, as we heard
(14:32):
earlier, I wonder if we've lostsight of what freedom of speech
actually means.
Don't misunderstand me.
Speech always carriesconsequences.
Words matter.
They can heal, inspire,destroy, or enrage, which is why
scripture tells us that deathand life are in the power of the
tongue.
Here's the distinction that weneed to hold on to.
Consequences are not the sameas censorship.
Consequences happen incommunity through relationships,
(14:54):
employers, or contracts.
Censorship is when thegovernment steps in and says,
you can't say that.
And once the government takesthat power, liberty dies.
Now Charlie Kirk wasn'teveryone's cup of tea.
Not everyone agreed with him,and that was fine.
He didn't demand that everyoneagree with him.
But he talked about liberty.
And his point of holding hisdiscussions on college campuses
(15:15):
was that there ought to be freeexercise of the First Amendment.
You ought to have the right todebate.
You ought to have the right tospeak about topics, no matter
how much it might upset people.
Because you don't have a rightto not be offended.
You don't have a right to notfeel uncomfortable by things
that are being said.
In fact, that uncomfortabilityis that little metronome that
(15:37):
God put inside of us, thatlittle detector that God put
inside of us that said, youknow, spidey senses start
tingling.
I don't really like this.
I don't think this is right.
That's the discernment detectorthat you have built inside of
you.
It's there for a reason.
And if we don't exercise and wedon't use it, then we lose it.
But you didn't have to attendhis events.
Nobody forced you to.
Here's what really set himapart.
He didn't just welcomedissenters to attend.
(16:01):
He invited them to the front ofthe line.
He he wanted those opposingvoices.
He believed in the openness ofspeech and debate.
And he welcomed those whodisagreed with him to the
microphone first.
Because he really believed thatwhen we stop talking, really
bad stuff starts.
And then someone took his life,trying to silence him
permanently.
But you know what?
All they really did was makehim into a martyr.
(16:22):
And they didn't stop his ideas,they amplified him.
And history has seen this overand over, seen it time and
again.
They thought they would, youknow, stop the abolitionary
movement with the death ofLincoln.
Didn't happen.
They thought that by killingJFK, RFK, Martin Luther King,
they would stop the civil rightsmovement.
That didn't happen either.
It just made it go even faster.
(16:43):
They thought by killing Gandhithat they would stop the
uprising in India.
And they didn't do that either.
Even Jesus, attacked byPharisees and the Roman
government, because he was a bitof a rabble rouser.
Most people most people may notrecognize that about Jesus, but
he wasn't he wasn't politicallycorrect in his time either.
(17:03):
And they crucified him for itvery publicly, and it still
didn't silence his message.
Instead, it created a movementthat grew one of the largest
world religions.
Every one of those individualswas killed to silence their
message, and every one of theirmessages only got louder.
Charlie aggravated the crap outof people because he knew their
arguments better than they did.
(17:24):
He read books on both sides.
He read writings on both sides.
He read the original sources.
He studied both sides.
He rooted his worldview and hisChristian faith, but he
tempered it with reason.
He always, always, alwaysquestioned it.
Always sat back and said, Isthis really what I ought to be
believing?
Is this really by myprinciples?
Is this really guided by myprinciples?
(17:45):
Are these things that I trulybelieve?
And he spent so much time withthat that that's why he could
hold his ground.
And he had a belief system thatwas rooted in his his own
truth.
And it was firm.
But he understood people.
And that's why people fearedhim, especially in the political
world.
I've watched a lot of his stuffover the last few weeks.
I was familiar before that.
(18:07):
I had met him in the pastbriefly when he was first
getting started.
But I spent a lot of time, youknow, watching some of his stuff
over the last few weeks.
And I I find it challenging tofind debates and discussions
where he didn't come out on topin the end.
If you just put your thinkingcaps on, if you just put your
reasoning cap on.
Maybe that's because he and Itend to share the same
(18:30):
assessment of things.
And I know that there's goingto be a lot of people out there
that that don't.
I have friends that quitefrankly don't.
And I'm okay with that.
And I hope they're okay withthat.
Because it's not going to makeme like them any less.
It's not going to make meappreciate who they are any
less.
Because I think we are morethan just our opinions.
I'm guided m very strongly bythe Bible, of course.
(18:51):
And in John 8 32, it says youknow, you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.
The truth doesn't die with aman.
In fact, every faith traditionsays something similar.
You know, it's not just theChristian faith.
It's you know in Islam, theQuran condemns killing prophets.
In Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gitashows that when the righteous
(19:11):
are killed, Dharma or truthstill prevails.
Buddhism teaches that Buddha'sdeath only spread his teachings
even further.
So the lesson we have thatcomes out of this is really when
men try to bury the truth, theyonly plant it deeper.
It only grows taller, andhistory proves the truth will
rise.
In the wake of theassassination, speech issues
were raised in a variety ofcontexts.
(19:31):
We'll talk about Jimmy Kimmel alittle bit later, but I want to
focus on these people that arecelebrating Charlie's murder
through their vile commentsonline.
Almost no post.
Memorializing Charlie Kirkescapes being inundated with
hateful comments, labeling him afascist, a racist, a bigot,
criticizing his memorial,denigrating his wife, and
chastising his friends.
One of the hardest things forme to see at times, and and
(19:54):
candidly, the Unmentionablespodcast put out a post that
showed Erica Kirk, his his wife,a couple days or shortly after
his very public murder, holdingherself together quite quite
miraculously, if I if I do sayso myself, as she stood up there
and she gave a speech I don'tthink she would have ever
(20:17):
imagined she'd be giving, and Ican't imagine anybody who would
ever want to be giving thatspeech.
Just hours, days after yourhusband is publicly murdered,
you understand that you are nowin charge of the family.
You're the head of the family,two children, two young
children.
You're also in charge of amovement.
(20:37):
See what these people who areout there chastising her for not
being a mushy wreck of tears,which I'm a hundred percent
positive that she is on aregular basis when the cameras
aren't rolling and when shedoesn't have to, you know, put
on a good face for the dutiesthat she still has as a mother
(20:59):
and a CEO now.
But what these people don'tseem to understand is that Erica
was suddenly the only parent tothose two little kids and the
leader of the movement thatCharlie had built over the last
you know 10, 12 years.
And that movement has millionsof people that are a part of it
and paying attention.
And not only was was there isthere the the part of that that
(21:21):
was already in place, butthere's the part of that that
was exploding after peoplerealized what had happened and
wanted to join that movement.
And I think that people onlinetend to dehumanize very quickly
because they're looking at acomputer screen and they're not
sitting across the table fromsomeone else.
(21:43):
I've seen people who, if youlook at their Facebook accounts,
their Instagram accounts, theyclaim to be children of God.
They they some of them arepastors, some of them are
deacons, and all of them, youknow, denigrating Charlie,
hoping he rots in hell,denigrating his wife for not
being a blubbering messconstantly, for being able to
(22:04):
stand up there as a as a strongwoman and and do what she needs
to do in order to keep Charlie'smovement and memory alive.
These are the people that'llpost memes and tropes and
splatter utterly falseattributed comments and
celebrate his demise in a verypublic fashion.
They they flock to social mediato gloat, and some of them
learn that there's consequencesfor their speech.
Audio (22:27):
Good news.
Yes, he deserves to die, and Ihope he brings in hell.
And I really don't want to hearany moral superiority from the
people who were just laughingabout undocumented immigrants
getting eaten up by alligators.
Okay.
(22:55):
But following up with what wasjust said, he's been one of the
most divisive, especiallydivisive younger figures in
this, who is constantly sort ofpushing this sort of hate speech
or sort of aimed at certaingroups.
And I always go back to hatefulthoughts lead to hateful words,
which then lead to hatefulactions.
(23:16):
And I think that's theenvironment we're in that people
just you can't stop with thesesort of awful thoughts you have
and then saying these awfulwords and not expect awful
actions to take place.
Evan (23:27):
And that's the unfortunate environment we're in.
Now those are those last two,the homie dad girl and Matthew
Dowd lost their jobs for thosecomments and for what they did,
lost their jobs, lost theirability to attend the school
that they were going to, thecollege they were going to.
Because, see, while the FirstAmendment, as we covered on our
(23:48):
first episode, check that out ifyou haven't yet, protects
speech from government.
It does not protect speech fromthe discernment of the public,
individuals.
In future episodes, we'll talkabout how the free market and
consequences align with moralprinciples and the exercise of
speech.
We're going to talk about thatin more detail today, but it's
(24:08):
it's worth noting that withgreat power comes great
responsibility and also greatconsequences.
You gotta be careful what yousay, because someone might be
listening, and that someone maybe the person signing your
checks or administering theschool that you go to.
And that's the point of thefreedom of speech, and we'll
talk about this a little bitlater.
But the point is that while youcan say whatever you want,
(24:29):
there's still gonna beconsequences, potentially, for
that speech.
Could be good, could be bad.
People may like it and they maynot like it.
Alright, now I want to shiftfrom individuals to movements.
We'll talk about the campusprotests for a minute here.
I see on one level, protestsare free speech in action.
Even vile speech is protected.
Just to be plain and bluntabout it, you have every right
(24:53):
to burn the American flag and tosay that America is terrible.
And as a marine veteran, itboils my blood when you do that.
To be quite honest.
It it it it really gets insideof me.
But you know what?
Liberty means protecting eventhose things that boil our
blood, not just what makes usproud.
If all I did was say anythingyou say positive about America,
(25:15):
about the flag, about what we doas a country, all the positive
things are great, and that's allI want to hear, you know, then
the idea of fascism would comeinto play, nationalism would
come into play.
But I don't believe that we cansurvive as a nation that way.
The problem is when protestsand words cross the line into
(25:37):
criminal activity, when youstart to occupy buildings, you
start threatening people,restricting their rights,
blocking traffic, causing chaos,looting, burning down cities
and buildings.
It's no longer free speech,it's lawlessness.
We saw that with the campusprotests where they took over
campus buildings.
We saw it with the BLM rioting,especially in Kenosha, some of
(26:00):
those other cities.
It's it's crossing a line.
And I think we have to notesomething uncomfortable about
these campus protests too.
Many of the people who areleading these campus protests
are are foreign students.
And the problem they're gonnahave is that the Constitution
doesn't apply to them, and thatcreates a problem for them.
Now, when I look at thesecampus protests and I see these
(26:21):
people who are out theresupporting, literally supporting
Hamas, a terroristorganization, literally
supporting Hezbollah, terrorterrorist organization,
literally calling for theextermination of a whole group
of people that have been,especially ones that have been
attacked in the past and andthroughout history.
You know, quite honestly, itdoes make me uncomfortable.
(26:43):
It does make me recoil.
And there is a part of me thatsays that's that's wrong.
That shouldn't be happening.
And that's good.
To me, that's my discernmentbell going off and saying what
that person is saying or whatthose people are saying or what
those people are doing, it'swrong.
And that's good because ittells me my moral compass is
working.
And I'd rather hear it andrecoil and say, I don't want to
(27:06):
be a part of that, I don't likethat, I don't believe that, than
not hear it and not know it'sthere.
So I want that.
Now, here's what I will saywhen those people are identified
and they stand before theirprospective employers, or their
jobs or offers are rescinded, ortheir invitations to their
(27:29):
schools are rescinded.
I don't see any problem withthat, quite honestly.
I really don't.
It is up to those institutionsand those companies, those
organizations, those individualsto make their own determination
about who they want to dobusiness with.
Now, if the government wascoming in and telling them they
couldn't say those things, thenthat would be a completely
different thing.
(27:49):
But that's that's not what wesaw.
Of course, we saw people voicetheir opinions on whether or not
it was good or bad.
Of course, we saw discernmentfrom our leaders around what are
we going to support, what arewe not going to support in terms
of those campus protests.
But we didn't see crackdowns,we didn't see people being
forced to stop speaking byviolent means.
(28:09):
So let's talk about cancelculture.
If there's one thing thatembodies the opposite of free
speech, it's it's it's this,it's cancel culture.
Where they take something thatyou said decades ago, rip all
the context out of it, andweaponize it against you.
You know, hindsight is always2020, and no one is safe from
never having said anything thatmight have offended someone.
And cancel culture to theextreme is what we're now seeing
(28:32):
in in Great Britain, wherethey're literally jailing people
for tweets.
They are literally jailingpeople for exercising their
right to free speech.
Again, these people may besaying things I agree with and
and maybe saying things I don'tagree with.
They may be saying offensivethings.
And the fact of the matter is,that may be despicable to me,
but you still have a right tosay it.
(28:53):
You still have a right to doit.
You still have a right to makethat post here, not apparently
in in Great Britain, where theyare arresting people, literally
putting them in jail for tweets.
Here's a truth bomb I'm gonnadrop on you folks.
The freedom of speech doesn'tinclude the right to not be
offended.
Find it in the Constitution.
I'll I'll change my mind.
It's not there.
Your feelings are not aconstitutional right.
(29:14):
And if we destroy every personwho offends us today, who's
gonna be left to speak tomorrow?
Whether it's a comedian or justsome guy on the street, whether
it's a joke or an insult.
Doesn't really matter.
It's not our right to stopthem.
Let's talk about techcensorship.
This one matters because itreally blurs the line between
private rights and governmentoverreach.
Well, normally the FirstAmendment only restricts
(29:35):
government speech control, butwhen government officials start
to pressure platforms to removespeech, it ceases to be purely
private moderation.
And that creates a hybridauthority problem where private
companies are acting asenforcers for government power
without accountability, thosebehind-the-scenes movements.
We've seen that most recentlywith the court filings and
(29:57):
disclosures from YouTube thatshow that the government
agencies under the Bidenadministration, including top
White House staffers, pushedYouTube and other platforms to
suppress discussions about theorigins, treatments, and
policies of COVID-19, even whenthat content didn't break
platform rules.
There was suppression, therewas demonetization, there was
cancellation, count removals,livelihoods impacted, even if it
(30:21):
wasn't against the rules of theplatform.
Same kind of pressure wasapplied before and after the
2020 election, leading to moreremovals, content removals,
count bans, demonetization.
People weren't allowed to askabout election integrity, they
weren't allowed to ask aboutCOVID-19.
YouTube was pressured by thegovernment to take that stuff
down.
We've seen the same thing fromthe Twitter files after Elon
(30:43):
Musk purchased Twitter,suppression, content labeling,
whether or not it was proven tobe accurate or not.
You know, those are the kindsof things there was no dissent
allowed.
And when you start looking atauthoritarian regimes, they
always start with removingdissent, removing the ability
for people to question.
And this is really a broaderpattern.
(31:03):
This is not just YouTube, it'snot just Twitter.
You know, these tech platformspresent themselves as neutral
moderators, and you hear themsit in front of Congress and and
push back against you knowthese congressional.
Inquiries into their policies,into their algorithms.
You know, they they act likethey're these beacons of freedom
and free speech.
(31:23):
And yet these leaks in lawsuitsincreasingly show collusion
with government.
I bet you will hear somethingfrom Meta, Facebook, Instagram,
given its scale and its pastcooperation with government
fact-checking efforts.
I bet you're going to hear fromthem that the Biden
administration also pressuredthem to make changes.
I mean, let's be fair.
(31:44):
The First Amendment restrainsgovernment power, not private
companies.
Platforms like YouTube,Twitter, Facebook, they can set
their own rules.
But when the government leanson them, when officials whisper,
hey, take this down, or else,that's not private moderation,
it's government censorship byproxy.
It's the government partneringwith the private market to use
them to their ends forcensorship purposes.
(32:05):
I mean, imagine this kind of asituation.
Imagine the government tells alandlord, hey, don't rent to
this person, or else we're gonnado more inspections, there'll
be fines, we'll be withholdingpermits, you're not gonna,
you're not gonna be able to dobusiness better the same way you
are now going forward.
On paper, the landlord's stillthe decision maker here, right?
When the landlord says, okay,I'm not gonna not gonna rent to
(32:27):
this person, I'm not gonna letthis person do business with me.
They're still making thatdecision on paper, but the
state's behind the strings, pullbehind the uh scenes pulling
the strings.
And this is what happens whengovernment nudges these
platforms.
Platforms are still the face ofthe decision, but the authority
isn't really theirs.
And here's why that'sdangerous.
Truth doesn't fear debate,governments do.
(32:47):
But that's why we havealternatives like Rumble, Truth
Soldier, Truth Social, even Xnow that Elon Musk.
That's why they exist.
Keep the marketplace of ideasalive.
See, truth survives challenges.
You can argue, you can debatetruth, you can question it, you
can ask why a million times.
And if it's true, it's stillgoing to be true.
Lies collapse, though, underscrutiny when you start looking
(33:10):
at what's said.
And that's what makes debatethe immune system of democracy.
You talk about things, youdebate it, talk quickly about
the government shutdown.
On the one hand, you've got theDemocrats saying Republicans
don't want you to have healthcare.
On the other hand, you've gotRepublicans saying Democrats
want to give health care toillegal immigrants.
Which one's right?
(33:31):
Because they can't both beright, right?
Well, the reality of thatsituation is whether we like it
or not, whether you've heardthis before or not, the
Republican-controlled Housepassed what they call a clean
continuing resolution.
And the idea of that is we'regoing to continue to fund the
government at the currentlevels.
Nothing changes, everythingstays exactly the way it is, so
(33:52):
that we can have a debate,discussion on a broader plan
about how to handle some of theupcoming potential changes in
funding levels to certainprograms.
We can talk about whether ornot those programs are
reasonable and responsible tofund.
Now, I have no idea what thesepeople are doing if they're not
(34:14):
already debating these things.
I think that a lot of time iswasted in Washington, D.C.
I know a lot of time is wasted.
I won't say think.
I'll say I know.
I know a lot of time is wastedthere.
I don't have a lot of faiththat all of the people there are
really there to serve thepeople, at least not as their
(34:35):
primary role.
I think a lot more time isspent playing games than there
should be.
And as a result, I think theywaste a lot of time.
They waste a ton of time.
And because of that, we havethese unresolved issues that, I
mean, you could cynically lookat it and say they're purposely
doing it, they're purposelyleaving these issues on the
(34:56):
table so that they can fightabout it when push comes to
shove and they can use it as ahammer from one side or the
other.
That's a cynical way to look atit.
Those of us that have beenaround politics in any real
capacity for any long any periodof time can tell you that's
typically the way we kind of seethings is a very cynical
(35:16):
approach to it.
You could also say that it'sit's a real concern that they
have.
But this question is, why arewe waiting so long to take care
of these issues?
We we know and we knew monthsago that these questions were
out there.
Why didn't we take care of itthen?
And what does take care of itreally mean?
Does it mean that everybodygets what they want?
Because that can't happen.
Both sides can't have what theywant.
(35:38):
There's gonna be some give andsome take, there's gonna be some
level of compromise.
But the problem with oursociety and where things are
today is that we're not willingto do that.
And so what we have now in thissituation is we have two sides
that refuse to bend.
And so instead, we've got thispressure that is applied.
(35:59):
And if we look at the twoarguments, we look at the
Republicans and we say, okay,continuing resolution has been
passed out of the House,President Trump's ready to sign
it, it will carry on continuingor continued current levels, so
nothing will change, nothing'sbeing taken away at this point.
There's no alteration tofunding levels.
(36:19):
So at this point, why would weshut down the government over
that?
And if you look at the Democratpoint of view and you say,
here's the reality (36:27):
we have this continuing resolution, it's not
changing anything, so nobody'shaving anything taken away.
What is the what is the realissue?
And what it all comes down tois the Democrats don't believe
that they're going to be able toget what they want at the end
of the day.
They don't believe theirargument is good enough to
convince people to do what theywant to do.
(36:50):
And so they are using this asan opportunity to wield a
sledgehammer.
They're using this as a shield.
And this is the kind of thingthat goes back to if you look at
the reality of the truth,nothing changes with the current
res with the current continuingresolution.
If you look at the other side,still nothing's changing.
(37:10):
So at this point, what sensedoes shutting the government
down make?
The only thing that it does isit gets the population up in
arms, it hurts the governmentworkers who are out of out of
work, it hurts the people thatare relying on programs.
Let's look at this situation.
You ever had if you're aparent, you have kids, you've
(37:30):
had toddler freak out in astore, go bad shit crazy, start
screaming.
You have sort of two ways thatyou can handle that.
First is you can appease thechild, you can just give them a
toy, just stop, right?
Stop screaming.
You have a another way to doit, which is take the child
outside, you have aconversation, you discuss, bring
down the temperature, figure itout.
(37:51):
Well, the Democrats want us toact like the first one, and they
want us to just give them whatthey want.
Just give them what they want,just just give them what they
want so we can move forwardbecause this is too much pain.
It's too much that we're goingthrough right now.
We can't do this.
Republicans want us to act likethe other parent, the other
approach.
I tend to fall in the otherapproach category.
I don't want to just give in totemper tantrums.
(38:14):
I want things to be reasonableand responsible.
I want to think about things,talk through it, make sure that
we come to an agreement abouthow this should be done, if it
should be done.
But see, that's where thedifference between truth and
lies comes into play.
And when you add governmentsuppression into this, letting
officials decide what can andcannot be said or done.
Now you're now you're pushingthe limits of that first
(38:35):
amendment.
And when once people realizethat their speech is being
curated by political pressure,they stop trusting the platform
and government.
And then there's there'sprecedent at that point, at this
point.
It's COVID or elections today.
Tomorrow could be foreignpolicy, climate change,
criticism of those in power.
Where does it stop?
Where does it end?
If we allow the government tooutsource suppression to private
(38:57):
firms, they avoid transparency,due process, and legal
challenges.
We keep talking about dueprocess in our political
discourse.
This is one of the biggest waysthat due process is actually
violated through this shadowcensorship.
And to give an example of howthat's being played out in the
in the real world, millions haveflocked to these alternatives,
(39:18):
Rumble, Truth Social X now thatElon Musk has has purchased
Twitter to counter the perceivedbiases that they're they're
facing.
And and the Democrats havetheir own as well, or the
liberals, I should say, havetheir own as well.
Let's bring us a little closerto home and go inside of our
televisions late at night.
After the Charlie Kirkassassination, Jimmy Kimmel made
a joke tying the shooter toMAGA and mocking the president's
(39:41):
response.
Outrage followed.
Kimmel was taken off the airfor a few days a week by ABC
while they were going throughdiscussions with the local
syndication or the local uhaffiliates.
Here's what most people don'trealize broadcast TV operates
under different rules.
So the local stations they ownthe licenses that are granted by
the FCC.
So the FCC, the FederalCommunications Commission, they
(40:03):
have these licenses to theover-the-air broadcast wave,
right?
This is a a relic of you knowyears past.
It was passed by the FDRadministration.
It was a way for the governmentto control media back in the in
the 40s.
But at any rate, local stationswere granted licenses by the
FCC, and those licensesbasically say, listen, the
(40:27):
airways belong to the public,and stations are renting them
under the condition that theyserve the public interest.
And this the networks, ABC,NBC, CBS, Fox, they produce TV
shows, and then they lease thoseout to different affiliates in
different places.
So if you've ever, if you're aJeopardy fan, for example, and
(40:50):
you travel at all, you'll noticethat it's on ABC in one city,
maybe NBC or even Fox in anothercity.
Those local affiliateaffiliates are the ones who
decide what airs and whatdoesn't.
They are the ones that hold thenetworks accountable, and
they're the ones that are heldaccountable to the FCC.
So what you had is you hadNextstar and Sinclair, who own
(41:12):
hundreds of TV stations acrossthe country.
And they preempted Kimmel whenhe made those comments until he
met some demands that they had,meeting with Kirk's widow and
apologizing and so forth.
It happened in sort ofsimultaneous way, where the FCC
(41:33):
commissioner was Brendan Carr.
He he said, look, we could dothis the easy way or the hard
way.
Problem is, you know, that canbe seen as he was he isn't just
commenting, he's he's applyingpressure.
And, you know, he tried to walkthat back, but the reality of
the situation is I I trulybelieve that that was applying
pressure.
Now, ultimately, Nextstar andSinclair made that decision, but
(41:54):
that's not really thatdifferent from what the Biden
administration did with YouTube,Facebook, Twitter.
Is it illegal?
No.
Was the government leaning onthose private broadcasters to
silence a voice?
Sounds to me like theyabsolutely were.
And once again, the principle'sclear government has no place
in a censor's chair.
Do I like what Jimmy said?
No, I don't like what Jimmysays most of the time.
(42:15):
So you know what?
I just don't watch him, quitequite honestly.
I don't watch him.
And I think most people don'twatch him, honestly, because his
ratings aren't all that great.
So they he went away and hecame back, and his ratings were
really high for a couple days,and now they're back down again
to historic lows.
And that's fine.
I mean, you know, people canchoose to watch or not watch.
He has a right to be on air ifpeople will put him on air.
(42:37):
It's fine with me.
I just won't watch it.
That's okay.
So over the last few weeks,he's been everybody on the
left's favorite talking point.
Everybody talks to him, talksabout him, and that's great.
Now, if these local stationshad taken this action on their
own, without government pressureapplied, simply acting on their
own accord and with their ownmorals in mind, I'd be fine with
it.
After all, there's consequencesto speech.
(42:58):
Whether it's you know firingJimmy Kimmel, whether it's
taking him off the air for a fewdays, if something he said
violates the conscience of thepeople that are putting his show
on the air, they have everyright to take it down.
And the reality is he couldleave it up on YouTube if he
chooses to.
He did.
You can go on YouTube right nowand see what he said.
Maybe it doesn't offend you.
Maybe it does.
(43:19):
The reality is if the stationswanted to take him down, the
local stations, if thesyndicates that own them wanted
to take him down, they had everyright to.
Brendan Carr should not havestepped in, should not have said
what he said.
Is it in accordance with lawand the rules and was what he
said technically in line?
Yes.
Did it cross the line for me?
Yeah, also yes.
(43:39):
And when we start talking aboutspeech and the responsibility
that comes along with thefreedom, the founders understood
this better than anyone.
George Washington said, iffreedom of speech is taken away,
then dumb and silent, we may beled like sheep to the
slaughter.
So he understood that freedomof speech is extremely
important.
But also in that statement isthe dumb and silent part, right?
(44:01):
Dumb and silent.
So silent because we can'tspeak, but also dumb because we
can't hear different opinions,differing opinions.
And it's extremely crucial in afree society for differing
opinions to be shared.
So Washington even understoodthat.
And this is a guy who, youknow, was a military guy.
He was a general.
Follow what I tell you to do,do the work, do the job.
(44:23):
But even he understood.
Freedom of speech and thefreedom to hear go hand in hand.
Benjamin Franklin warnedwhoever would overthrow the
liberty of a nation must beginby subduing the freeness of
speech.
And again, speech, being ableto say something, it's great.
It's important, it's critical,it's crucial.
But you also have to have theability to hear it.
(44:43):
Madison called speech and thepress the only effectual
guardian of every other right.
And this goes back to somethingthat I said in the first
episode.
There's a reason why the FirstAmendment is the First
Amendment, and the way that it'sstructured is important.
There's a reason why it'sreligion, then speech, then
press, then assembly, andpetition.
(45:04):
There's a very strong, crucialreason why each of those things
is in place where they are.
If you haven't listened thefirst episode, go back and
listen to it.
I think you'll appreciate that.
They also understood that freefree speech wasn't a
free-for-all.
Madison cautioned that libertycould be endangered by its
abuse.
John Adams said libertydepended on knowledge.
And Hamilton said freedom ofthe press was meant for truth,
(45:26):
not slander.
So we go back to againsomething that we mentioned in
episode one of this new podcastseries.
Freedom of speech gives you theright to say what you choose to
say.
You should choose to say theright thing.
You should choose to say thethings that build up, not tear
down.
And the Bible agrees with thattoo.
Proverbs 1821 reminds us deathand life are in the power of the
(45:48):
tongue.
Ephesians 4.15 calls us tospeak truth in love.
And Jesus himself warns us inMatthew that we'll account for
every careless word.
So here's the balance.
Freedom of speech is essentialto liberty, but it's not a free
license.
It's a stewardship, and GodHimself will hold us
accountable.
So let's land here.
Free speech is the oxygen ofliberty.
Without it, truth suffocatesand tyranny grows.
(46:10):
Cancel culture, tech collusion,FCC pressure, these are all
modern suffocations, but historyteaches us truth doesn't die
when it's buried, it grows.
So don't outsource the truth.
Don't silence voices youdisagree with.
Test everything against yourmoral compass.
For me, it's scripture.
Read original sources.
Don't just take the the thequote that you got in a in a
(46:33):
social media post.
Go find the original source andwatch the context.
Make sure you understand what'sbeing said, what's being
written, what you're reading.
Make sure you get it fully andcompletely before you have an
opinion.
And remember, if truth offendsyou, maybe it's because it's
doing its job.
I'm the Equalizer.
Truth just got its day.
See you next week.
Before you go, let me leave youwith this.
(46:55):
If today's episode gave yousomething to think about,
there's more where that camefrom.
Subscribers get access toexclusive content like with the
Equalizer series, Deep Dives youjust heard, plus other behind
the scenes conversations wecan't always put in the public
feed.
It's our way of giving you moresubstance, more context, and
more truth without compromise.
So hit that subscribe button,join the community, and make
(47:16):
sure you don't miss what's next.
Because here on the Equalizer,truth isn't optional, is
essential.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Male Room with Dr. Jesse Mills
As Director of The Men’s Clinic at UCLA, Dr. Jesse Mills has spent his career helping men understand their bodies, their hormones, and their health. Now he’s bringing that expertise to The Male Room — a podcast where data-driven medicine meets common sense. Each episode separates fact from hype, science from snake oil, and gives men the tools to live longer, stronger, and happier lives. With candor, humor, and real-world experience from the exam room and the operating room, Dr. Mills breaks down the latest health headlines, dissects trends, and explains what actually works — and what doesn’t. Smart, straightforward, and entertaining, The Male Room is the show that helps men take charge of their health without the jargon.