April 10, 2026 • 17 mins
Greg Lukianoff from F.I.R.E. (The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) joins Joe Getty to talk about the state of free speech around the globe.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
What a pleasure this is to talk about the freedom
of speech the First Amendment, perhaps the most vital principle
any self governing people can hold. With Greg Lukianoff of
the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Greg is actually
the president and CEO, also the author of a handful
of books that I have really really enjoyed, including Unlearning, Liberty,
(00:23):
Campus Censorship, in the End of American Debate, Freedom from Speech,
and I really enjoyed a shortish book that'd be a
great place to start the war on words, Arguments against
free speech and why they fail with Nadine Strawsen.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Greg, welcome, How are you.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I'm pretty good.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Unfortunately, business is booming for First Amendment attorneys these days,
and that's never a good sign.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
For the country.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think both sides.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Indulged too frequently, too easily in let's silence the other
guys because we don't like what they say. Obviously, How
would you characterize the state of free speech in the
US right now?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And we'll just go from there.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Well, you know, I want to expand it even from there,
because I think people really need to get and I
want to say this to your entire audience. Free speech
is in trouble globally. Obviously China and Iran and Russia
were not free countries, but the level of totalitarianism that
you can deliver with a combination of surveillance and AI
(01:23):
is terrifying. The European Union and the UK have completely
turned turned around on free speech. So they're arresting something
like twelve thousand people a year in Britain now for
essentially hate speech in Britain.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I mean they my mother's British.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
They used to laugh at us for a political correctness here,
and now they're enforcing.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
It by law.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Canada and Ireland we're playing with actually passing a hate
speech code that could result in life in prison, and
even within the US, like we're the only country left
that really cares about free speech, you know, down to
our core, and here I'm afraid we're blowing it as
well due to partisan politics. So I know, like I'm
(02:09):
a gen xer, people my age and older, whether we're right,
left or center, we get freedom of speech, but we
need people to come together to defend it or opinions.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
They don't like, just like we used to in the
old days. Because the only way.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
You really prove that you care about free speech is
not defending the free speech that you already agree with,
but it's the stuff that you actually disdain that that's
how you show your commitment.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Precisely, I think we need to teach over and over
again that it's the sort of speech that anybody would
object to that needs to be protected, because speech nobody
objects to doesn't need protection, your ninnies.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
You know, it strucks me well, except on campus sometimes,
but something can get you in trouble on campus sometimes
It's like, I don't even understand how people manage to
be offended by that.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
You know, I want to get to campuses specifically in
a minute. But it struck me as you were describing
the globe free speech issues that the motivations beaked behind
the cracking down on speech were different in different places.
Rampant immigration from the Muslim world in the UK in particular,
(03:14):
and Canada is one of the core issues. There, very
different issues in the US. But the thought that clicked
in my brain, and give me long enough, I'll come
up with the obvious is that the right, the fright,
the right to free speech is a bulwark against like
any out of control cause or philosophy.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
It absolutely is, because here's the thing, you know, we're
our founding fathers were brilliant. They were basically proto neuroscientists,
Like they understood that our brains are incredibly good at
rationalizing our way into something that suits our interests that
we can, you know, kid ourselves, we're actually thinking of
all humankind. And power always wants greater control over over
(03:56):
speech and even more dramatically truth. And this is one
of the reasons why we have the protections of the
First Amendment. That's why we have an establishment clubs for
that matter. These are things that our system of government
really understood. But power will always rationalize its ability to
be like I should be able to shut up people
who really pissed me off, you know, like I should
(04:18):
be able to go after that speech, and here's my
high minded, sounded sounding reason.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
To do it.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
And having something as powerful as the First Amendment to
say no, we're not doing this. Fear has been one
of our real, real saving graces, but we're undermining it
by a death of a thousand cuts at the moment.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Well, and as you mentioned, it is highly disturbing that
a lot of the younger generations have and this is
entirely our fault have been an esthetized into either not
noticing the incursions and free speech or encouraging them a COVID.
The COVID period was an absolute nightmare in my opinion,
(04:58):
the exercise of government control, quashing of dissent and that
sort of thing, but also the cultural.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Aspect of it. So COVID in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
My organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, used
to be the foundation for individual rights in education because
we were focused on the really severe threats to free speech,
academic freedom, et.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Cetera in higher ed.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
But it was twenty twenty that made us decide that
we have to become the Foundation for Individual Rights and
Expression to defend free speech for everybody, even beyond campus,
because we also saw one government coercion. But even scarier
to us in a lot of ways was a lot
of Americans saying, I'm going to get it was cancel culture.
(05:42):
I wrote a book called Canceling of the American Mind
about this to demonstrate with data, you know, that this
really happened, and it was insane because there's still people.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Who are claiming that, like, this didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
They're like, no, it was a free speech disaster during
that time, and we realized that if we have a
situation where people really think that you have a right
not to be offended and that it's actually noble to
censor what you consider to be bad people, we've really
fallen astray. So one of the things that makes Fire
different is we don't just fight in court, and believe me,
(06:13):
we do fight in court.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
We are also trying to get people to.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Understand the philosophy of freedom of speech, how to live
with it, and all the benefits of it as well,
because we want to make sure we pass this down
to our grandkids.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Amen to that.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
We're talking to Greg Lukiano from Fire, So let's talk
a little bit about cancel culture. One of the more
interesting conversations I've been following through the last several years
is what is quote unquote cancel culture as opposed to
the birds of what you say, coming home to rust,
taking responsibility for what you say. How can you tell
(06:46):
if it's quote unquote cancel culture cancer Olgia.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
The thing that lawyers sounds so frustrating about cancel culture
is that because it's about a cultural norm, it has
to be a little looser. But really kind of like
what And I try to get people think about this
in the aggregate that essentially, yes, can a private company
decide to fire someone because they don't like their expression,
Absolutely they can, and actually under the First Amendment, I'd
(07:13):
fight for the right to do that. But I'm always
trying to get people to take a deep breath and
if you're and ask themselves, do you want to live
in the kind of country where you can have an.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Opinion or a job but not both.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
And rethink that, because one of the things that really
is falling away is this sense of pluralism that essentially
it's okay if my pizza boy wants to vote for
Trump or Biden, like it doesn't like, that's fine that
you know. I think of these old American idioms that
we used to say a lot of times when we
were kids that have lost favor, and kids today don't
(07:51):
know as much. They're as simple as everyone's entitled to
their opinion, to each their own, you know, walk a
mile on a man's shoes is kind of thing essentially
essentially the same thing.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
It's a free country, we said all the time, are.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Really important small d democratic values. And I think that
if you're seeing a situation in which someone, you know, like, yeah, sure,
someone's being unprofessional in their job. You know, there's no question,
you know, you can fire them. But for example, there
was a case of the Washington Post where there was
a there was an opinion reporter. He retweeted one slightly
(08:26):
I mean, very slightly edgy joke retweeted it, and then
of course there was this huge you know, uh, you know,
backlash to get him suspended or fired. And I was like, listen,
if you want to know what cancel culture and free
speech culture look like, what free speech culture looks like
is to say, do we really want to punish this
Washington Post reporter just for retweeting a joke?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, So it's funny.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I wrote down this quote and posted on the studio
wall here, and I didn't write who said it? In God,
I could have been you. It might be Peter Bogosian
or Jonathan Hyde. I'm not sure, but what they said
was political disagreement is increasingly treated as a serious moral
offense rather than a simple difference of opinion. When you
see the world that way, punishing someone for holding different
(09:14):
views becomes a moral good.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
That really could be any of us. Come to think
of it, I'm stealing it and I hope you.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Will, you know, because we want this to catch on,
because it really is very much with our own lifetime
that we had very different attitudes about free speech as
a society. And I will say that the role that
k through PhD has played in that erosion is really shameful.
So that there was someone who wrote recently on Twitter
(09:46):
like given and we are absolutely we fight people all
across the spectrum. We were assuing the Trump administration. We're
in a lawsuit as Trump himself on free speech grounds.
We are true the most nonpartisan institution in the country.
But someone actually wrote to my co author Ricky Schlott
on Twitter of canceling in the American mind. You know,
don't you feel like by comparison, you know, what was
(10:09):
happening on college campuses was no big deal or sort
of quaint. And I'm like, absolutely not have a situation
in which people can I mean something like seventy percent
of students think their professors should be reported for offensive speech.
And when they actually drilled down into what did they
mean by offensive speech, it wasn't for sexually harassing students.
(10:30):
It was for saying things like biological sex is real,
or you know someone who actually would repeat the data
of Roland Fryar, you know from Harvard.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Who what basically pointed out, there isn't that much evidence.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
That there's wildly disproportionate shootings of unarmed black people versus
white people by police. And now, to be clear, Roland
Fryar said, actually, it's our overall take is that that
police shoot too many people in the United States, but
that ultimately that that disparity isn't there as much. They
were basically saying the students themselves were being taught to
(11:04):
police factual statements that in some cases are probably true,
right in order to in order to achieve something to
protect their ears or something.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Oh yeah, well, I think it's more than that.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
And if you don't mind, we need to take a
quick break and follow up on that thought and talk
about the philosophy that's driving a lot of what the
college kids just think is, you know, outlawing hate speech
and objectionable speech. But Greg, looking on off of fire, Greg,
great to talk to you, hang around just a couple
of minutes. Will continue in moments. We are midway through
(11:44):
a conversation with Greg looking on off the president and
CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and
the author of many fine books and co author on
that topic, Greg, thanks for hanging around.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Really appreciate it. Yeah, no, I was happy to do so.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
As I often point out on the show, I Joe,
the last thing I am as a conspiracy theorist. I'm
somebody who's been studying political systems and political movements since
I was literally a teenager, and it's the most fascinating
subject on earth. And one thing that has really frustrated
me is how few people understand that a lot of
what we've been talking about, the censorship on campus, the microaggressions,
(12:19):
the advanning hate speech, quote unquote, a lot of it
is people who've bought the moral argument that that's what
they should do. But it is driven by and nobody
talks about this the critical theory crowd, the folks who
are fans of Michelle Fuco and Franz Fonan, the French
philosophers of the mid twentieth century and into the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
As I often say, they.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Wrote books, they put their names on the spine, they
explained exactly what they wanted to do, and it's exactly
what we're witnessing. Any comment agreed, disagree with thoughts?
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Oh no, absolutely, although I would actually go after you know,
because it's not I think er. I am eleven of
respect for Herbert Marcus because Herbert marcuse A was a Marxist.
He had to flee Germany when the Nazis took over.
He lived in academia, I think at Brandeis and UCSD,
(13:14):
I think you see San Diego where and he sort
of was trying to sort of like reform Marxism because
it turned out the proletariat didn't really like the intellectuals,
so he kind of like remodeled it so that essentially
it would be a combination of the intellectuals he educated
in the United States versus with what he very sensitively
(13:35):
called ghetto populations against the right. He was incredibly clear
that he thought there should be free speech for the
left and not for the right. He couldn't have said
it more primitively than he did in an essay called
repressive tolerance. And that view that you can't really be
equal if the bad guys were allowed free speech has
(13:58):
taken over in a lot of spaces.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Even when I was at school.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Even though I was in law school back in ninety seven,
I was running into this argument already, and.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I was like, I worked at the ACLU. I grew
up believing that free.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Speech was like the defining sort of liberal characteristic. But
unfortunately we have this sort of terminological term where you
have this kind of like much more typically old European
style Frankfurt school left that is very hostile to free
speech but calls itself liberal. And so I personally think
right now the center left and the center right have
(14:32):
much more in common with each other than they do
with their wings. And when you look at the data,
we are the majority and then some, and we believe
in freedom of speech. And we have to talk back
to these people who don't realize that they're spouting Marcus
and fucout and all these people who, by the way,
people in their own lifetimes like Hoppermass who just died,
did an incredible job of refuting these weren't in my opinion,
(14:55):
particularly deep thinkers. Are good historians, but unfortunately we have
a lot of people who think that the morality is
on the side of the censor.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Greg we only have about two minutes left. Let's let's
jump to an action plan.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Now.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I support fire in every way I can, including financially.
What's the most important thing everybody listening can do or
things they can do to help fight for free speech?
Speaker 4 (15:19):
You know, please find out more about us, But the
most important thing you can do is to make it
known that when someone gets in trouble for speech you
personally disagree with, you do not think they should be fired,
You do not think they should be arrested, You do
not think and stand up for them unapologetically. Because that's
the thing that brought people like me.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Into this business.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Seeing the acl use stand up for the rights of them,
as you know, Jewish lawyers standing up for them, that
was the most principled thing I'd ever even heard of
in my entire life. And that's the kind of thing
that gets people to understand that free speech belongs to everyone,
or it belongs to no one.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Right here.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You know, I grew up only a few miles from Skokie, Illinois,
and following that drama as a gosh a kid, teenager
or whatever I was, and having my parents explain that
principle to me, it gives me chills thinking about it
because it was such a fulmative moment.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, I was about that.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
My parents were both immigrants, and I grew up in
a neighborhood with a lot of immigrant kids, and the
idea that, you know, our families fled countries where they
didn't have freedom speech, and we were finally in a
country that was so principled that people would even defend
their enemies.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Let's not give it up, Greg, LOOKI on off of fire.
We'll have a link so you can find it easily
enough in his books and that sort of thing at
Armstrong and Geddy dot com.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Greg, it's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
It's been too long. I hope we can do it again.
Absolutely all right, thanks thanks Greg, LOOKI on off. Yeah,
I seriously get so fired up about this stuff. I've
threatened many times to get a First Amendment tattoo, but
I don't want a tattoo at all, so I don't
think that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Armstrong and Getty
What a pleasure this is to talk about the freedom
of speech the First Amendment, perhaps the most vital principle
any self governing people can hold. With Greg Lukianoff of
the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Greg is actually
the president and CEO, also the author of a handful
of books that I have really really enjoyed, including Unlearning, Liberty,
(00:23):
Campus Censorship, in the End of American Debate, Freedom from Speech,
and I really enjoyed a shortish book that'd be a
great place to start the war on words, Arguments against
free speech and why they fail with Nadine Strawsen.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Greg, welcome, How are you.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I'm pretty good.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Unfortunately, business is booming for First Amendment attorneys these days,
and that's never a good sign.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
For the country.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think both sides.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Indulged too frequently, too easily in let's silence the other
guys because we don't like what they say. Obviously, How
would you characterize the state of free speech in the
US right now?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And we'll just go from there.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Well, you know, I want to expand it even from there,
because I think people really need to get and I
want to say this to your entire audience. Free speech
is in trouble globally. Obviously China and Iran and Russia
were not free countries, but the level of totalitarianism that
you can deliver with a combination of surveillance and AI
(01:23):
is terrifying. The European Union and the UK have completely
turned turned around on free speech. So they're arresting something
like twelve thousand people a year in Britain now for
essentially hate speech in Britain.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I mean they my mother's British.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
They used to laugh at us for a political correctness here,
and now they're enforcing.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
It by law.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Canada and Ireland we're playing with actually passing a hate
speech code that could result in life in prison, and
even within the US, like we're the only country left
that really cares about free speech, you know, down to
our core, and here I'm afraid we're blowing it as
well due to partisan politics. So I know, like I'm
(02:09):
a gen xer, people my age and older, whether we're right,
left or center, we get freedom of speech, but we
need people to come together to defend it or opinions.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
They don't like, just like we used to in the
old days. Because the only way.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
You really prove that you care about free speech is
not defending the free speech that you already agree with,
but it's the stuff that you actually disdain that that's
how you show your commitment.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Precisely, I think we need to teach over and over
again that it's the sort of speech that anybody would
object to that needs to be protected, because speech nobody
objects to doesn't need protection, your ninnies.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
You know, it strucks me well, except on campus sometimes,
but something can get you in trouble on campus sometimes
It's like, I don't even understand how people manage to
be offended by that.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
You know, I want to get to campuses specifically in
a minute. But it struck me as you were describing
the globe free speech issues that the motivations beaked behind
the cracking down on speech were different in different places.
Rampant immigration from the Muslim world in the UK in particular,
(03:14):
and Canada is one of the core issues. There, very
different issues in the US. But the thought that clicked
in my brain, and give me long enough, I'll come
up with the obvious is that the right, the fright,
the right to free speech is a bulwark against like
any out of control cause or philosophy.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
It absolutely is, because here's the thing, you know, we're
our founding fathers were brilliant. They were basically proto neuroscientists,
Like they understood that our brains are incredibly good at
rationalizing our way into something that suits our interests that
we can, you know, kid ourselves, we're actually thinking of
all humankind. And power always wants greater control over over
(03:56):
speech and even more dramatically truth. And this is one
of the reasons why we have the protections of the
First Amendment. That's why we have an establishment clubs for
that matter. These are things that our system of government
really understood. But power will always rationalize its ability to
be like I should be able to shut up people
who really pissed me off, you know, like I should
(04:18):
be able to go after that speech, and here's my
high minded, sounded sounding reason.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
To do it.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
And having something as powerful as the First Amendment to
say no, we're not doing this. Fear has been one
of our real, real saving graces, but we're undermining it
by a death of a thousand cuts at the moment.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Well, and as you mentioned, it is highly disturbing that
a lot of the younger generations have and this is
entirely our fault have been an esthetized into either not
noticing the incursions and free speech or encouraging them a COVID.
The COVID period was an absolute nightmare in my opinion,
(04:58):
the exercise of government control, quashing of dissent and that
sort of thing, but also the cultural.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Aspect of it. So COVID in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
My organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, used
to be the foundation for individual rights in education because
we were focused on the really severe threats to free speech,
academic freedom, et.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Cetera in higher ed.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
But it was twenty twenty that made us decide that
we have to become the Foundation for Individual Rights and
Expression to defend free speech for everybody, even beyond campus,
because we also saw one government coercion. But even scarier
to us in a lot of ways was a lot
of Americans saying, I'm going to get it was cancel culture.
(05:42):
I wrote a book called Canceling of the American Mind
about this to demonstrate with data, you know, that this
really happened, and it was insane because there's still people.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Who are claiming that, like, this didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
They're like, no, it was a free speech disaster during
that time, and we realized that if we have a
situation where people really think that you have a right
not to be offended and that it's actually noble to
censor what you consider to be bad people, we've really
fallen astray. So one of the things that makes Fire
different is we don't just fight in court, and believe me,
(06:13):
we do fight in court.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
We are also trying to get people to.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Understand the philosophy of freedom of speech, how to live
with it, and all the benefits of it as well,
because we want to make sure we pass this down
to our grandkids.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Amen to that.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
We're talking to Greg Lukiano from Fire, So let's talk
a little bit about cancel culture. One of the more
interesting conversations I've been following through the last several years
is what is quote unquote cancel culture as opposed to
the birds of what you say, coming home to rust,
taking responsibility for what you say. How can you tell
(06:46):
if it's quote unquote cancel culture cancer Olgia.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
The thing that lawyers sounds so frustrating about cancel culture
is that because it's about a cultural norm, it has
to be a little looser. But really kind of like
what And I try to get people think about this
in the aggregate that essentially, yes, can a private company
decide to fire someone because they don't like their expression,
Absolutely they can, and actually under the First Amendment, I'd
(07:13):
fight for the right to do that. But I'm always
trying to get people to take a deep breath and
if you're and ask themselves, do you want to live
in the kind of country where you can have an.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Opinion or a job but not both.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
And rethink that, because one of the things that really
is falling away is this sense of pluralism that essentially
it's okay if my pizza boy wants to vote for
Trump or Biden, like it doesn't like, that's fine that
you know. I think of these old American idioms that
we used to say a lot of times when we
were kids that have lost favor, and kids today don't
(07:51):
know as much. They're as simple as everyone's entitled to
their opinion, to each their own, you know, walk a
mile on a man's shoes is kind of thing essentially
essentially the same thing.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
It's a free country, we said all the time, are.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Really important small d democratic values. And I think that
if you're seeing a situation in which someone, you know, like, yeah, sure,
someone's being unprofessional in their job. You know, there's no question,
you know, you can fire them. But for example, there
was a case of the Washington Post where there was
a there was an opinion reporter. He retweeted one slightly
(08:26):
I mean, very slightly edgy joke retweeted it, and then
of course there was this huge you know, uh, you know,
backlash to get him suspended or fired. And I was like, listen,
if you want to know what cancel culture and free
speech culture look like, what free speech culture looks like
is to say, do we really want to punish this
Washington Post reporter just for retweeting a joke?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, So it's funny.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I wrote down this quote and posted on the studio
wall here, and I didn't write who said it? In God,
I could have been you. It might be Peter Bogosian
or Jonathan Hyde. I'm not sure, but what they said
was political disagreement is increasingly treated as a serious moral
offense rather than a simple difference of opinion. When you
see the world that way, punishing someone for holding different
(09:14):
views becomes a moral good.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
That really could be any of us. Come to think
of it, I'm stealing it and I hope you.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Will, you know, because we want this to catch on,
because it really is very much with our own lifetime
that we had very different attitudes about free speech as
a society. And I will say that the role that
k through PhD has played in that erosion is really shameful.
So that there was someone who wrote recently on Twitter
(09:46):
like given and we are absolutely we fight people all
across the spectrum. We were assuing the Trump administration. We're
in a lawsuit as Trump himself on free speech grounds.
We are true the most nonpartisan institution in the country.
But someone actually wrote to my co author Ricky Schlott
on Twitter of canceling in the American mind. You know,
don't you feel like by comparison, you know, what was
(10:09):
happening on college campuses was no big deal or sort
of quaint. And I'm like, absolutely not have a situation
in which people can I mean something like seventy percent
of students think their professors should be reported for offensive speech.
And when they actually drilled down into what did they
mean by offensive speech, it wasn't for sexually harassing students.
(10:30):
It was for saying things like biological sex is real,
or you know someone who actually would repeat the data
of Roland Fryar, you know from Harvard.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Who what basically pointed out, there isn't that much evidence.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
That there's wildly disproportionate shootings of unarmed black people versus
white people by police. And now, to be clear, Roland
Fryar said, actually, it's our overall take is that that
police shoot too many people in the United States, but
that ultimately that that disparity isn't there as much. They
were basically saying the students themselves were being taught to
(11:04):
police factual statements that in some cases are probably true,
right in order to in order to achieve something to
protect their ears or something.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Oh yeah, well, I think it's more than that.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
And if you don't mind, we need to take a
quick break and follow up on that thought and talk
about the philosophy that's driving a lot of what the
college kids just think is, you know, outlawing hate speech
and objectionable speech. But Greg, looking on off of fire, Greg,
great to talk to you, hang around just a couple
of minutes. Will continue in moments. We are midway through
(11:44):
a conversation with Greg looking on off the president and
CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and
the author of many fine books and co author on
that topic, Greg, thanks for hanging around.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Really appreciate it. Yeah, no, I was happy to do so.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
As I often point out on the show, I Joe,
the last thing I am as a conspiracy theorist. I'm
somebody who's been studying political systems and political movements since
I was literally a teenager, and it's the most fascinating
subject on earth. And one thing that has really frustrated
me is how few people understand that a lot of
what we've been talking about, the censorship on campus, the microaggressions,
(12:19):
the advanning hate speech, quote unquote, a lot of it
is people who've bought the moral argument that that's what
they should do. But it is driven by and nobody
talks about this the critical theory crowd, the folks who
are fans of Michelle Fuco and Franz Fonan, the French
philosophers of the mid twentieth century and into the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
As I often say, they.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Wrote books, they put their names on the spine, they
explained exactly what they wanted to do, and it's exactly
what we're witnessing. Any comment agreed, disagree with thoughts?
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Oh no, absolutely, although I would actually go after you know,
because it's not I think er. I am eleven of
respect for Herbert Marcus because Herbert marcuse A was a Marxist.
He had to flee Germany when the Nazis took over.
He lived in academia, I think at Brandeis and UCSD,
(13:14):
I think you see San Diego where and he sort
of was trying to sort of like reform Marxism because
it turned out the proletariat didn't really like the intellectuals,
so he kind of like remodeled it so that essentially
it would be a combination of the intellectuals he educated
in the United States versus with what he very sensitively
(13:35):
called ghetto populations against the right. He was incredibly clear
that he thought there should be free speech for the
left and not for the right. He couldn't have said
it more primitively than he did in an essay called
repressive tolerance. And that view that you can't really be
equal if the bad guys were allowed free speech has
(13:58):
taken over in a lot of spaces.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Even when I was at school.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Even though I was in law school back in ninety seven,
I was running into this argument already, and.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I was like, I worked at the ACLU. I grew
up believing that free.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Speech was like the defining sort of liberal characteristic. But
unfortunately we have this sort of terminological term where you
have this kind of like much more typically old European
style Frankfurt school left that is very hostile to free
speech but calls itself liberal. And so I personally think
right now the center left and the center right have
(14:32):
much more in common with each other than they do
with their wings. And when you look at the data,
we are the majority and then some, and we believe
in freedom of speech. And we have to talk back
to these people who don't realize that they're spouting Marcus
and fucout and all these people who, by the way,
people in their own lifetimes like Hoppermass who just died,
did an incredible job of refuting these weren't in my opinion,
(14:55):
particularly deep thinkers. Are good historians, but unfortunately we have
a lot of people who think that the morality is
on the side of the censor.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Greg we only have about two minutes left. Let's let's
jump to an action plan.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Now.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I support fire in every way I can, including financially.
What's the most important thing everybody listening can do or
things they can do to help fight for free speech?
Speaker 4 (15:19):
You know, please find out more about us, But the
most important thing you can do is to make it
known that when someone gets in trouble for speech you
personally disagree with, you do not think they should be fired,
You do not think they should be arrested, You do
not think and stand up for them unapologetically. Because that's
the thing that brought people like me.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Into this business.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Seeing the acl use stand up for the rights of them,
as you know, Jewish lawyers standing up for them, that
was the most principled thing I'd ever even heard of
in my entire life. And that's the kind of thing
that gets people to understand that free speech belongs to everyone,
or it belongs to no one.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Right here.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You know, I grew up only a few miles from Skokie, Illinois,
and following that drama as a gosh a kid, teenager
or whatever I was, and having my parents explain that
principle to me, it gives me chills thinking about it
because it was such a fulmative moment.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, I was about that.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
My parents were both immigrants, and I grew up in
a neighborhood with a lot of immigrant kids, and the
idea that, you know, our families fled countries where they
didn't have freedom speech, and we were finally in a
country that was so principled that people would even defend
their enemies.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Let's not give it up, Greg, LOOKI on off of fire.
We'll have a link so you can find it easily
enough in his books and that sort of thing at
Armstrong and Geddy dot com.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Greg, it's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
It's been too long. I hope we can do it again.
Absolutely all right, thanks thanks Greg, LOOKI on off. Yeah,
I seriously get so fired up about this stuff. I've
threatened many times to get a First Amendment tattoo, but
I don't want a tattoo at all, so I don't
think that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Armstrong and Getty
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