Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Alabama's Morning News with JT. My name is
John Mounts, filling in for JT. And what has been
a couple of days of a whirlwind of emotions and
opinions about the murder of Charlie Kirk, I wanted to
step back a little bit and get an opinion from
Jeff Gilson. He is a retired lawyer, developmental consultant, and
political strategist and speech writer, and by the way, also
(00:21):
was a speech writer for Margaret Thatcher. Jeff's viewpoints might
at first seem unorthodox, but I think you'll find you
have a lot in common with him. Jeff, Welcome to
Alabama's Morning News.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Thank you for having me on your show. I am
a liberal American. I no longer describe myself as a
Democrat because I think they have lost my way. I
am concerned about the rising violence in the United States
as a liberal, which kind of sets me apart from
some of my liberal friends. I'm sixty nine years old.
Think that I have an ex accent. I'm an American citizen.
(00:54):
I was raised born race in indian I was born
on a USAF this space and I went back to college.
Later night, I said the last seven years of my
life on a college campus, Clemson University here in South Carolina.
So this hits me hard a number of ways. Anybody
expressing political views, particularly on a campus, when we are
(01:18):
discussing as young people or older people, primarily basic political issues,
they should be safe. And it's wrong that Charlie Kirk
was not safe. I agreed with Charlie Kirk on very little,
but the one thing I admired him for is the
fact that he would go on campuses and talk to people.
And when he was asked why, he said, because I
(01:40):
think it's important that we talk, because if you don't talk,
it will lead to violence. And this is therefore a
tragic irony that it was violence that it brought about
his step where I admired him for that, and trying
to the best way anybody can remember Charlie rather than
earl political slogans, is to get out and engage with
(02:00):
people of differing political views to reduce the chance of violence.
In the future we have in this country to our job.
It could be social media, it could be better communications,
the Internet. I don't know. We have become a nation
of tribes. We all settle into our own tribe and
(02:22):
we refuse to talk to anyone else. And I had
found this increasingly over the last few decades. And I
found it particularly when I was on college campus and
I was involved in the student newspaper, and I think
it was the oldest student senator ever anywhere, at the
age of sixty two. And I would talk with other
(02:43):
students and they would refuse to engage with people of
different political views. They would protest different political views. We
had Turning Point on our campus a few times, tisn't
had the largest Turning Point chapter, and they would vocal
protests against them. And would say to me, why aren't
(03:04):
you writing against this? Why an't you opposing this? And
I said, because we believe in free speech, yes, but
Turning Point offends the identity of my friends. And I
would laugh and I would say, we've got twenty five
thousand individual identities on campus. There is no way we
can accommodate the sense. If you don't like him, don't
(03:27):
attend his meetings. Letter still going on and respectfully challenge,
then stand outside yelling and screaming, go in and talk
to him. This is something that's become alien in America.
That's the first thing now We'll get to the subway
in a moment, because that's I have a rather controversial
(03:47):
view about that. But as far as she said is
Tyler Kirk is concerned. One of the things that really
really strikes me this morning is watch off these videos
of the assassin jud assassin are AI or wearing their
feel This is a two hundred yard shot. This is
somebody wearing black clothing who had access to the roof
(04:11):
of the college building. Again, I just spent seven years
on a college campus. You cannot wander through a campus
dressed in black, carrying a gun getting access to the
roof without raising attention. As of the small being. The
police are suggesting that it was somebody who was college age,
and I want I'm speculating here. I'm not pointing the finger,
(04:36):
he says something. Could it be a military veteran? We
had many, many military veterans on our campus who had
the technical proficiency to be a sniper, but who could
fit in. I am not damning military veterans at all.
I'm raising possibilities. But the thing that really strikes me,
(04:56):
and I'm going to stop in just a second, since
can get a question in the thing that really strikes
me about this is we can't sign this person, and
my prediction is that we cannot find this person by
Sunday evening. This was a professional hit. This is not
somebody to crush, Jeff.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I want to go back to something else you said
with regard to free speech on campus, because I'm wondering
if the education system has failed our kids. And I'm
even talking about college or even in high school, but
it seems we've lost the ability in our country to
have a spirited debate. And I mean yelling, and I
don't mean like making a quick poster or a quick
tweet or whatever, but the ability to be able to
(05:36):
here's my opinion. Somebody presents an imposing opinion. I say
I disagree because of this, this, and this, and they say, well,
I agree here, but you know, the back and forth,
the discourse. It seems we've lost the ability to have
a discourse and we've resulted, you know, we've gone to yelling,
and then we devolved from yelling to shooting. And that
seems like what's happening here and in a number of
other places where we just can't seem to agree to disagree,
(06:00):
and I that's kind of why. How America was made.
If you look at it, this is nothing new. You
go back to our founding fathers arguing over whether there
should be, you know, a republic or democracy, what kind
of all that kind of they argued about that stuff.
And well, with exception of Raymond Burgh aerin Berg, not
Raymond Burg, that was Perry Mason erin Burg. We didn't
(06:20):
settle it with bullets. We'd settled it with words.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
One of the degrees that I got in terms them
as a master of public administration. And again I'll remind
your listeners, I am a liberal. I still describe myself
as a liberal, but when my liberal Frenchs become a
weird liberal. One of the things that has become has
got very wrong in this country is the politicization of
public administration of civil servants. There is nothing in the constitution,
(06:45):
very little in the constitution that governs how public administrators
should operate. And Wilso literally Wilson's tom claim for politicized
beginning of the politicalization on public administration. Public administrators, public
citizens are not a fourth branch of government. So all
the way down to teachers in schools, teachers are supposed
(07:08):
to be neutral and they're not any more GERM. Time
and time again you find public public administrators who are
no longer neutral. I had students after student in my
classes saying, no, of course, I've gotten a gender. Why
would I Why else would I join? Well, because you
present yourself neutraally to your elected boss and you implement
(07:30):
that boss's program. No, no, we don't do that. We
have our own views. You're not allowed to. If you
want to have your own views, don't start a company,
get elected. But that's the problem. Is that, time and
again you see teachers in high school and at the university.
I can attest to the university who have opinions. Rather
(07:51):
than presenting history and different points of view, they present
their point of view. That needs to stop.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And I think that point of view then its way
down to the students. They I would say, teach, but
it's almost indoctrinate, and then they get out there and
they see the world through that same lens and they're
unable to see it through any other. I think that
the the role of a teacher is to teach kids
how to think, not what to think, and I think
we've lost that absolutely. I do thank you for joining
(08:20):
us and talking about that. I would say probably you
said you're a liberal, I would think you're probably more
of a classical liberal, which is very different than the
modern liberal, because a classical liberal is more of a
almost a libertarian in mind, where we all have our
own agency and our own thoughts and that sort of thing.
It's almost different than because today the word liberal in
(08:41):
America kind of more points towards an idea that the
government should control everything and government is always right and
that sort of thing. It's it's different, I think, than
classical liberalism.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
That's a good point. I do liberals, libertarians, liberty. They
all come from the same language source. And I believe
in people being allowed pretty much to do what they
want so long as again cause harm. And if you
ask me to define that further, I am very much
a social justice warrior, but I don't believe in imposing
(09:11):
I believe in saying that's what I think, and if
I made the votes to make it happen, that's fine.
But if I can't, I don't impose it. And so
I'm the social justice liberal. But one of the reasons
that I have departed from the Democrats is I do
not believe in nanny government. I just don't. I don't
believe government should be telling people what to do about everything.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I think that you would have a lot in common
with our otherwise conservative listeners, because conservative doesn't mean what
it used to mean either. I think I think actually
the size of Swift flipped on their definitions of these things.
Jeff Gilson, you are a retired lawyer, developmental consultant, political strategist,
and you used to write speeches for Margaret Thatcher, which
(09:54):
explains why you are so well spoken. Jeff, thank you
so much for joining us this morning on Alabama's Morning News.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Thanks you the
This is Alabama's Morning News with JT. My name is
John Mounts, filling in for JT. And what has been
a couple of days of a whirlwind of emotions and
opinions about the murder of Charlie Kirk, I wanted to
step back a little bit and get an opinion from
Jeff Gilson. He is a retired lawyer, developmental consultant, and
political strategist and speech writer, and by the way, also
(00:21):
was a speech writer for Margaret Thatcher. Jeff's viewpoints might
at first seem unorthodox, but I think you'll find you
have a lot in common with him. Jeff, Welcome to
Alabama's Morning News.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Thank you for having me on your show. I am
a liberal American. I no longer describe myself as a
Democrat because I think they have lost my way. I
am concerned about the rising violence in the United States
as a liberal, which kind of sets me apart from
some of my liberal friends. I'm sixty nine years old.
Think that I have an ex accent. I'm an American citizen.
(00:54):
I was raised born race in indian I was born
on a USAF this space and I went back to college.
Later night, I said the last seven years of my
life on a college campus, Clemson University here in South Carolina.
So this hits me hard a number of ways. Anybody
expressing political views, particularly on a campus, when we are
(01:18):
discussing as young people or older people, primarily basic political issues,
they should be safe. And it's wrong that Charlie Kirk
was not safe. I agreed with Charlie Kirk on very little,
but the one thing I admired him for is the
fact that he would go on campuses and talk to people.
And when he was asked why, he said, because I
(01:40):
think it's important that we talk, because if you don't talk,
it will lead to violence. And this is therefore a
tragic irony that it was violence that it brought about
his step where I admired him for that, and trying
to the best way anybody can remember Charlie rather than
earl political slogans, is to get out and engage with
(02:00):
people of differing political views to reduce the chance of violence.
In the future we have in this country to our job.
It could be social media, it could be better communications,
the Internet. I don't know. We have become a nation
of tribes. We all settle into our own tribe and
(02:22):
we refuse to talk to anyone else. And I had
found this increasingly over the last few decades. And I
found it particularly when I was on college campus and
I was involved in the student newspaper, and I think
it was the oldest student senator ever anywhere, at the
age of sixty two. And I would talk with other
(02:43):
students and they would refuse to engage with people of
different political views. They would protest different political views. We
had Turning Point on our campus a few times, tisn't
had the largest Turning Point chapter, and they would vocal
protests against them. And would say to me, why aren't
(03:04):
you writing against this? Why an't you opposing this? And
I said, because we believe in free speech, yes, but
Turning Point offends the identity of my friends. And I
would laugh and I would say, we've got twenty five
thousand individual identities on campus. There is no way we
can accommodate the sense. If you don't like him, don't
(03:27):
attend his meetings. Letter still going on and respectfully challenge,
then stand outside yelling and screaming, go in and talk
to him. This is something that's become alien in America.
That's the first thing now We'll get to the subway
in a moment, because that's I have a rather controversial
(03:47):
view about that. But as far as she said is
Tyler Kirk is concerned. One of the things that really
really strikes me this morning is watch off these videos
of the assassin jud assassin are AI or wearing their
feel This is a two hundred yard shot. This is
somebody wearing black clothing who had access to the roof
(04:11):
of the college building. Again, I just spent seven years
on a college campus. You cannot wander through a campus
dressed in black, carrying a gun getting access to the
roof without raising attention. As of the small being. The
police are suggesting that it was somebody who was college age,
and I want I'm speculating here. I'm not pointing the finger,
(04:36):
he says something. Could it be a military veteran? We
had many, many military veterans on our campus who had
the technical proficiency to be a sniper, but who could
fit in. I am not damning military veterans at all.
I'm raising possibilities. But the thing that really strikes me,
(04:56):
and I'm going to stop in just a second, since
can get a question in the thing that really strikes
me about this is we can't sign this person, and
my prediction is that we cannot find this person by
Sunday evening. This was a professional hit. This is not
somebody to crush, Jeff.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I want to go back to something else you said
with regard to free speech on campus, because I'm wondering
if the education system has failed our kids. And I'm
even talking about college or even in high school, but
it seems we've lost the ability in our country to
have a spirited debate. And I mean yelling, and I
don't mean like making a quick poster or a quick
tweet or whatever, but the ability to be able to
(05:36):
here's my opinion. Somebody presents an imposing opinion. I say
I disagree because of this, this, and this, and they say, well,
I agree here, but you know, the back and forth,
the discourse. It seems we've lost the ability to have
a discourse and we've resulted, you know, we've gone to yelling,
and then we devolved from yelling to shooting. And that
seems like what's happening here and in a number of
other places where we just can't seem to agree to disagree,
(06:00):
and I that's kind of why. How America was made.
If you look at it, this is nothing new. You
go back to our founding fathers arguing over whether there
should be, you know, a republic or democracy, what kind
of all that kind of they argued about that stuff.
And well, with exception of Raymond Burgh aerin Berg, not
Raymond Burg, that was Perry Mason erin Burg. We didn't
(06:20):
settle it with bullets. We'd settled it with words.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
One of the degrees that I got in terms them
as a master of public administration. And again I'll remind
your listeners, I am a liberal. I still describe myself
as a liberal, but when my liberal Frenchs become a
weird liberal. One of the things that has become has
got very wrong in this country is the politicization of
public administration of civil servants. There is nothing in the constitution,
(06:45):
very little in the constitution that governs how public administrators
should operate. And Wilso literally Wilson's tom claim for politicized
beginning of the politicalization on public administration. Public administrators, public
citizens are not a fourth branch of government. So all
the way down to teachers in schools, teachers are supposed
(07:08):
to be neutral and they're not any more GERM. Time
and time again you find public public administrators who are
no longer neutral. I had students after student in my
classes saying, no, of course, I've gotten a gender. Why
would I Why else would I join? Well, because you
present yourself neutraally to your elected boss and you implement
(07:30):
that boss's program. No, no, we don't do that. We
have our own views. You're not allowed to. If you
want to have your own views, don't start a company,
get elected. But that's the problem. Is that, time and
again you see teachers in high school and at the university.
I can attest to the university who have opinions. Rather
(07:51):
than presenting history and different points of view, they present
their point of view. That needs to stop.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And I think that point of view then its way
down to the students. They I would say, teach, but
it's almost indoctrinate, and then they get out there and
they see the world through that same lens and they're
unable to see it through any other. I think that
the the role of a teacher is to teach kids
how to think, not what to think, and I think
we've lost that absolutely. I do thank you for joining
(08:20):
us and talking about that. I would say probably you
said you're a liberal, I would think you're probably more
of a classical liberal, which is very different than the
modern liberal, because a classical liberal is more of a
almost a libertarian in mind, where we all have our
own agency and our own thoughts and that sort of thing.
It's almost different than because today the word liberal in
(08:41):
America kind of more points towards an idea that the
government should control everything and government is always right and
that sort of thing. It's it's different, I think, than
classical liberalism.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
That's a good point. I do liberals, libertarians, liberty. They
all come from the same language source. And I believe
in people being allowed pretty much to do what they
want so long as again cause harm. And if you
ask me to define that further, I am very much
a social justice warrior, but I don't believe in imposing
(09:11):
I believe in saying that's what I think, and if
I made the votes to make it happen, that's fine.
But if I can't, I don't impose it. And so
I'm the social justice liberal. But one of the reasons
that I have departed from the Democrats is I do
not believe in nanny government. I just don't. I don't
believe government should be telling people what to do about everything.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I think that you would have a lot in common
with our otherwise conservative listeners, because conservative doesn't mean what
it used to mean either. I think I think actually
the size of Swift flipped on their definitions of these things.
Jeff Gilson, you are a retired lawyer, developmental consultant, political strategist,
and you used to write speeches for Margaret Thatcher, which
(09:54):
explains why you are so well spoken. Jeff, thank you
so much for joining us this morning on Alabama's Morning News.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Thanks you the
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