Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 12 | Free Speech & Our Fast Track to Tyranny

Episode Date: May 30, 2018

Roseanne, the NFL, Tommy Robinson, Starbucks, Ireland & religious persecution: I tie it all together in the discussion of free speech, human dignity and the slow death of individualism. Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved.

What's up guys? Welcome to Relatable with me, Ali Stucky. This is a podcast by CRTV. Sorry that this episode is a little bit late today. I've been having technical difficulties. Hopefully I won't run into any as I am recording this one. So my apologies for that. I really feel like I haven't talked to you guys in like 10 years even though it's only been a week. But it's been a long few days. I've been traveling. I was in L.A. Then I was in Georgia visiting my husband's family, which was really fun. But Now I am back with you, my friends. And I really do feel like you guys are my friends. I hope that's okay. I really hope that you feel that way, too. Even those of you who hate me, I feel like if we hung out and we didn't talk about politics, that you might like me and we might be friends. I don't know.

Maybe you'd still hate me. And that would be totally fine. Thanks for listening anyway. Okay. We have a lot to cover today. Let's go ahead and get started. We are going to discuss the issue of free speech, how it is being dangerously threatened right now and why that matters. We are also going to talk about what free speech actually is

and what it is not. And don't worry, for those of you who are wondering and who have been asking, I will touch on Ireland's decision to legalize abortion and better yet. I will find a way to tie it into the issue of free speech. This is going to be fun. We are going to cover a lot of ground and you will be smarter and more knowledgeable because of it, which is always my goal. So, first things first. Why are we? talking about free speech today? Well, there are a few reasons. There is a right-wing guy in Britain named Tommy Robinson who is being jailed currently, basically for his political views. There's a little bit more background on that that I'll give you. And people in Britain, journalists in Britain,

were being told by the government not to even report on his arrest at all. There is also the issue of the NFL in Neeling. Then there is also Roseanne, whose show was just canceled by ABC because of her tweeting something racist about Valerie Jarrett. who used to work in Obama's administration. There is also Starbucks who just had anti-implicit bias training this week for all of their deeply racist employees. Now, first, I want to note, not all of these things have to do with free speech, but they are all being lumped together in the conversation about free speech, the First Amendment,

political correctness, suppression, mind control, stuff like that. So first, we need to distinguish. What does the concept of free speech mean and what does it not mean? Free speech in the United States of America means freedom from government suppression or censorship of your speech. Free speech is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. So Congress can't make any law that hinders the freedom of speech. Now, there have been many a Supreme Court case about what that actually means. A major one is Texas v. Johnson, for example, where the court ruled that burning the American flag

is protected under the Constitution. So that's a pretty inclusive interpretation of the First Amendment. There have also been exclusive rulings on the First Amendment that usually have to do with something called the Clear and Present Danger Test, which was used in Schink v. United States, Abrams v. United States, and Whitney v. California. for example, the court used that test until 1969 when they started using something called the imminent lawless action test. So under the clear and present danger test, if you said something that was meant to cause illegal or dangerous action, your words were no longer protected

by the First Amendment. But the imminent lawless action test, the test that they still use now, says that what you say has to cause both likely and imminent illegal action for you to be protected, not to be protected by the First Amendment. This is where you get the whole you can't yell fire in a theater thing. There are also limits to the First Amendment that include defamation, like slander and libel and obscenity. But an obscenity is different than defamation, just to make that clear. But proving a case for defamation or obscenity is really hard to do

because the standards of those things are subjective, and so they're constantly being challenged. So not all speech is protected by the First Amendment, but most speech is. Hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. There is actually, it can be argued, no such thing is hate speech because the definition of hate is constantly getting more and more broad. Or maybe it's broader and broader.

Today, to the left, it seems like hate means disagreeing with you. It means saying something that is true that they don't like holding a religious view that they don't like. Most on the left, it seems like, now, would love nothing more than to ban what they deem hate speech, anything they qualify as racist or sexist or Islamophobic. But actually, it is that kind of speech that the First Amendment was set up to protect. Controversial speech. We don't need the First Amendment to protect ideas that everyone agrees on. We don't need the First Amendment to protect boring mainstream ideas. We need it to protect the offensive ideas, the ideas that are

constantly being pushed to the outskirts because no one wants to hear them. The ideas that are in danger of being silenced. That is what the First Amendment is for. The First Amendment is supposed to protect this so-called hate speech. That is its whole point. The First Amendment wasn't established to actually condone speech. It was just established to protect it. I think that all people, no matter how much I loathe what they believe, no matter how much hate they have in their heart, no matter how much I disagree with them, I think that they should be able to be free to speak their mind without fear of punishment from the government. Louis Farrakhan, a racist, crazy anti-Semite who spews hate on a daily basis, I want him to have free speech. Neo-Nazis who believe all kinds of terrible things,

including that women should basically be in the kitchen and who shouldn't have a right to vote. They should have free speech. These are the ideas that the First Amendment was set up to protect. Why? That's a good question. Why would the founding fathers create an amendment to protect ideas that are offensive and hateful because they knew that the definition of what is offensive and hateful changes with whoever is in power. So say that America didn't have a First Amendment. Say in America Congress that they were free to make a law that restricted certain kinds of speech. Say in 1950, every single one of the congressmen were Christians. And they said, okay, no one gets to talk about evolution. You are not allowed to say there is no God. You are not

have to say that Jesus was not the son of God, so Jews, you're out of luck. And also, if you get angry, you can only say, gee, will occur as and damn it. Everything else is considered hate speech, and hate speech is offensive and illegal. Would most people be okay with that? No, everyone who is not a Christian would not be okay with that because a group of men who don't necessarily, who doesn't necessarily represent all of America passed a law based on their own arbitrary, subjective definition of what is okay to say and what is hateful to say. Fast forward 80 years to 2030. I think that I got that math right.

Say we have in all transgender Congress and they say, you are not allowed to say he, she, we hereby decree that everyone can only say zoo and Lou. That is what you call people based on their name tags on which they write their preferred title, zoo or Lou, right after Comrade, of course. Anything else is hate speech and that is illegal. Would we be fine with that? No, of course not. Because again, a group of people who doesn't.

necessarily represent America is legislating censorship based on their own subjective standard of what is hateful and what is not. So, in more realistic terms, without the First Amendment, what would be stopping a left-leaning Congress from telling us that we can't talk about Jesus anymore? That sharing our faith at work or with our neighbors is hateful, offensive, and wrong, what would be stopping a progressive government from censoring books on capitalism? More imminently, what would be stopping them from telling us that we can no longer talk about the dangers of illegal immigration? When would we be prevented from publishing material that shows the gruesome reality of abortion? Being anti-legal immigration and pro-life are radical far-right stances these days.

You think a Democratic Congress wouldn't censor those ideas if they could? Their entire business on the left is thought control through clever messaging. Of course they would. That is why we need the First Amendment to protect ideas that the majority considers dangerous. Those are our ideas, conservative ideas now that are considered. are dangerous, but tomorrow the scandalous idea could be progressive. That's why this is an issue for both the right and the left to defend. The First Amendment protects all of us. So that's what the First Amendment is. That's what free speech as it pertains to the First Amendment is. Here's what it is not. It is not freedom from

consequences. It does not protect you from being fired or punished if you say something stupid. You could lose your job. You could lose credibility. You could lose an award, lose your scholarship, lose your relationship. You could get banned from Twitter. You could get censored on YouTube or Facebook. And I hate social media censorship. I think it's morally wrong and bad company policy. But them censoring me is not actually a violation of free speech. When we were young, for example, in elementary school, if we talked when we weren't supposed to or said something we weren't allowed to say, we got in trouble. That wasn't a violation of our First Amendment rights. that was just, there were school rules.

And as students of the school, we had to obey them. The First Amendment only prevents the government from creating a law that hinders free speech. So if a company say, I don't know, the NFL says, hey, if you're out on the field and the anthem is playing, you have to stand. Their new policy, by the way, if you didn't know that if you are on the field, you stand for the anthem when it's being played, if you don't want to stand, you have to stand. to stay in the locker room, but no kneeling is allowed. That is not a violation of free speech. Now, you can still disagree with that policy. You can say it's immoral. You can say it's wrong. That's fine. But it doesn't have to do with the constitutional protection of free speech. The NFL players are free to protest on their own time. But when they are on the field, they are on

their bosses time. They are in uniform and they are there to play the game and entertain the ticket holders. They are not there to make political statements. Now, I will defend to the death the NFL player's right to protest. Do I agree with their protest completely? No, police brutality is not evidence of systemic racism in the police force. Any instance of police brutality is wrong, of course, but it doesn't point to institutional racism against black people. The stats just don't back that up. Even so, the players have a right to protest on their own time, not on the NFL's time. The NFL is a private company who is free to make their own policy. Players as employees of the NFL are obligated to obey that policy are risk getting punished just like any other job.

The punishment in this case with this new policy is that the team gets fined if any player kneels. So there's a lot of hub up about that and I understand the concerns on both sides. Conservatives want to force the players to stand and be on the fields. And sure, the NFL could do that. They have the right to do whatever they want. But I'm not so sure. sure that some major cultural win for conservatives that really just puts a band-aid on the cancer that's festering beneath the surface, which is political and racial division that's fostered a real resentment among many on the left toward our country. I'm not sure forcing the players to stand for the anthem really does much for anyone, except we get to put a point on the board. Liberals, on the

other hand, want people to be free to kneel. But I totally get why the NFL doesn't want that. They don't want their games to be about politics. This isn't a time for politics. People watch football to get away from politics. But honestly, the NFL's new policy isn't going to make things less political. People are going to know who stayed in the locker room. So it's going to be essentially the same thing as kneeling. It'll be the new kneeling. The conversation will be the exact same. It's just a new form of protest. the only thing they could have done was to scrap the national anthem altogether, which to me would be really symbolic and kind of sad about where we are.

We can't get along, so let's tear down the one thing that holds us all together, the one thing that unites us no matter what our skin color is, the fact that we're Americans. But also, it wouldn't be that big of a deal because the NFL didn't have players standing on the field for the anthem until 2009. So really recently, they could still play the anthem. but everyone just stays in the locker room while the players stay in the locker room. But you know what in 2018, I think would happen.

I bet that you would have players that would run out on the field and stand for the anthem anyway to try to prove a patriotic point. But then the question would be, okay, would the team get fined for that? And then if so, I'm sure conservatives would be mad that people are getting punished for being patriotic. And around and around, we would go forever and ever. At this point, they're, they're, there might be no good answer. In my opinion, it was never a good idea for Kaepernick to use

his company's time to protest a political issue. Protest it all you want, like I've said again and again, but not on your employer's time. And again, that has nothing to do with free speech or the First Amendment and everything to do with company policy. You will hear people incessantly call this a free speech issue. And in terms of the Constitution, it's just, it's not. A second issue that has nothing to do with the First Amendment. But but people wants to make you think it is, is Roseanne. Okay, so in case you guys didn't hear, the Roseanne show got canceled after Roseanne Barr tweeted something racist about

Valerie Jarrett, who used to work in the Obama administration. Valerie Jarrett is black. And Roseanne said she looks like a cross between the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes. Yikes. Yikes. Of course, this is racist. It sounds racist anyway. Now, this is not defending Roseanne at all.

just think she could be this kind of crazy and loopy. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she didn't mean it as racist. She might have really just thought that she was commenting on her appearance and didn't consider race. I mean, Roseanne is a liberal. I don't think that she is actually a racist. But even if that wasn't her intention, no matter what, I mean, it was stupid and it was wrong. And this was actually just one tweet among a lot of other apparently controversial tweets according to ABC. So this is not the first time that ABC got complaints about this regarding Roseanne. Now, if you don't know, the reboot of Roseanne showed Roseanne as a Trump supporter, which was a really big deal because Trump supporters are never seen on sitcoms. So conservatives embraced her.

Some did. Not all. Including me, I didn't embrace Roseanne because I've never really probably. seen a full episode of Roseanne. I remember it being on TV, maybe like for a little bit when I was younger. I never liked it. I just think it's it was kind of nasty. It's not it's not my humor. It didn't reflect my family's values. Now, did I appreciate during the reboot when it was rebooting the slight ideological diversity that we were seeing in the mainstream? Yes. Did I find it interesting that the show did so well and had so much support despite Hollywood acting like

Trump supporters don't exist or that we don't watch TV. Yes. But Rosanne, the character and the person, they're liberal. Like I said, I just think that the show was degrading, that it wasn't funny, that it was inappropriate. I didn't watch any of the new episodes either. But of course, because Roseanne was a Trump supporter, a lot of people who probably felt like I do actually about the show, they embrace her anyway. Sean Hannity was about her. Now he has since said that her comments were wrong. Trump called her to congratulate her. Trump also tweeted this morning, a Wednesday morning, that there's a double standard at ABC. And it did kind of seem for a while like she was joining the race. She was tweeting in support of Kanye West. She followed me on Twitter, L.O.L. She actually

started liking some of my tweets a while ago, which I remember thinking was funny at the time. But listen, Homegirl be crazy. She crazy. David French had a good short summary of this in National Review, where he summarized. all of Roseanne's insanity over the years. And there's really no denying the fact that she is a conspiracy theory loving looney tune. She might, she might, I don't know, her being otherwise good person. I think probably a lot of people love her. But she's a little bit of a looney tune, guys.

She believes Bush, for example, is responsible for 9-11. She thinks the ruling class in America is running a pedophile sex cult. She said she hopes people who eat Chick-fil-A get cancer. She thinks Zionism was created by the Third Reich. She's not what she would call a role model. Okay. She's not. It never has been a good face for conservatism.

I wouldn't even say she's any, I don't even think any bit of her as a conservative. She's a social liberal who is off her rocker who also happens to have voted for Donald Trump. That's it. I totally get, though, that conservatives desperately wanted someone in mainstream pop culture that was fighting for them, which is why people jumped so quickly on the Kanye train. But she never represented conservative values. We can't be that desperate, you guys. If we never have true conservatives in Hollywood, who really cares?

We don't need that. And we've actually prided ourselves many, many times on not needing that. But anyway, once again, the conversation on what Roseanne said has centered on free speech. Well, this doesn't have anything to do with free speech. Sure. Roseanne is free to say what she wants to say, but ABC is also free to fire her. Like I said, according to CNN, this apparently wasn't the first time ABC had had an issue with her tweets, so it was time to cut ties.

Roseanne's First Amendment rights are not being violated here. Now, could you argue it's not fair? Sure. You could look at Bill Maher, Keith Oberman, you could look at Michelle Wolfe, Jimmy Kimmel. Keith Oberman specifically has said some really. nasty stuff about Donald Trump calling him a Nazi and yet he has an expanded role at ESPN right now. And you could look at all that and say, okay, there's clearly a double standard, which is true. Even though Kathy Griffin was fired from CNN after she posed with Donald Trump's severed head,

it's still obvious on social media and in the mainstream that there is and probably has been for a while a bias that is increasingly tilted towards the left. and that conservatives are held to a much higher and a much more virtuous and a restrained standard than those on the left. So sure, that could be your point and you would be correct. But that doesn't mean that Roseanne's show should still be on air. Not everything in life is about conservatives versus liberals. Some things are just right and wrong. Roseanne was wrong. And you know what?

I think everyone should be held to that standard. if that's the standard we have, that's the standard that we should keep, no matter what your political affiliation is. I think it should go both ways. I'm fine with the outrage. I do believe that outrage should be equal on both sides. But again, this is not a free speech issue. Here's what is a free speech issue. The arrest of Tommy Robinson in England. Tommy Robinson is a right wing, and I don't usually use that term, but he's not a conservative. He's just a right wing, anti-Islam guy whose goal is to preserve the West, Western culture, against the infiltration of Muslims and other immigrants. He's had some pretty off-the-wall stuff, not just about Muslims, but about Jews and others as well. He's not a guy that I would associate myself with. He's certainly what I would consider all right. But none of that really matters. I don't really care what he believes. Because whether he is far right or far left, we should care about the fact that he just got arrested for what appears to be no. reason. So here's what happened. In England, there actually has been an infiltration of

millions of Muslims, and some of those Muslims have formed what are called grooming gangs, where they groom, exploit, and rape young girls as young as the age of 11. Great. In the vast majority of the grooming gang cases, Muslims have been the perpetrators. People have been complaining about these grooming gangs for years, but they've been ignored by social workers, by teachers, by the police force. Why? Because England is, more afraid of Islamophobia than they are afraid of rapids and criminals. But finally, these gang members have been brought to trial and at one of the trials, Tommy Robinson was outside and he was taking pictures of the guys that were going in. And because of that, because he was taking pictures,

he was swarmed by police and taken a jail. I am not joking. I am not exaggerating. That is really what happened. I am serious. He took pictures of the guys going into court. I think he was trying to even like interview them as they were going in and he got arrested. Of course, when people heard about this, there were protesters. There's been an uproar here in America. But guess what? Journalists in Britain weren't even allowed to cover the arrest and the trial of Tommy Robinson.

The sentencing judge on his case issued a gag order against the media, meaning they couldn't write or talk at all about his trial, supposedly because it would, quote, interfere with a trial. That has been overturned now, thankfully, so British journalists can write about it, but it wouldn't actually matter whether it was overturned. or not because journalists around the world have been covering this and probably have been covering it more than if the gag order hadn't been issued. That is an issue of free speech. The government, a judge in this case, telling you you cannot report on something because it might interfere with the trial. I mean, are you kidding? Then you would never be able to report on any trial ever. No, this is Britain's attempt to censor not only Tommy Robinson because he's known to them as an Islamophob and a problem causer. But more specifically, the press. England has been hiding these grooming gangs for decades, silencing victims, refusing to

allow journalists to report on these cases. And now when someone wants to talk about it, he gets arrested and people aren't allowed to report on that. There hasn't been too much concern from the American left either. If any, I haven't seen. And I could be wrong at this point. I checked earlier. I hadn't seen the New York Times report on this.

Maybe they have at this point. Here's the Washington Post headline about it. conservative outrage after anti-Muslim campaigner Tommy Robinson secretly jailed in Britain. So the most important thing there in the headline is obviously that there's, is that there's something wrong with us, that conservatives are mad about it, not about the arrest itself. Here is Times headline, why Tommy Robinson was jailed and why U.S. right wingers care. So again, it's our anger. That's the story here, not what actually happened.

Why? because the left in America want this to happen. They agree with it. Maybe not everyone, but a large majority. I haven't seen anyone on the left speak out about this or be angered about this. Because they want ideas that they deem bad or dangerous or hateful to go away. They think they deserve to be silenced. That's why they came up with this idea of hate speech.

I went to Cornell to speak a few months ago and the administration was preparing to pass a speech code that would punish speech they deemed racist. they like when YouTube or Facebook or Twitter shuts down a conservative but ablifts a liberal and like I've said private companies campuses they can use any type of speech code I guess or censorship standards that they want to that's not necessarily a constitutional First Amendment issue but it's still dangerous and wrong in principle the stifling of ideas that you don't agree with but this is what the left wants they want it not just on social media but I guarantee you, almost everyone on the left would sign a bill outlying racist language. I guarantee

it. You don't have to like Tommy Robinson. You don't have to like how he does things. Apparently, he hangs outside of courthouses and chases down defendants and films them. You don't have to agree with him. But this should trouble you no matter what side of the political aisle you're on. The slow death of free speech, the death of the free exchange of ideas, is very real. Meanwhile, Britain's neighbor, Ireland, who is not part of Britain, just making sure. everyone knows that, voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment last week. The Eighth Amendment said that an unborn child had the same right to life as the mother. Very common sense amendment.

They voted to overturn the Eighth Amendment so abortion could be legalized. They called this, of course, a victory for women's rights, for bodily autonomy, you know, all the euphemistic traps they use over here. They have taken a progressive step politically, but obviously, as we know, a very regressive step morally, as now they are denying the scientific fact that a human being inside the womb is a human being and as a human being should logically have the same rights that you or I have. Of course, you can get abortion pretty much up until birth in America for any reason whatsoever. Sixty-six percent of unborn babies with Down syndrome in America are aborted 99 percent in Iceland, by the way. America is right on par with China and North Korea and that we allow abortion after 20 weeks, so that's great. No doubt this is the universal direction in

which we're going. So let's tie it all together for a second. Let's let's stop and think about where we are. Let's look in the entire world, not just America. The entire world is moving toward greater access to abortion. The entire world is moving away from freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Ireland was one of the most pro-life, if not the most pro-life countries in the world. America is still the freest place in the world for speech and press, but for how long it's hard to tell. What does this say about the direction the world is moving in? Does it correlate at all? To me, it shows that we're moving away from individualism and toward collectivism. We are clearly shunning the idea of human dignity and the inherent individual rights that human dignity demands and are instead embracing a dystopia where humans are regarded no higher than animals.

There is no such thing as an inherent right. The only rights you have are given to you by the government. There is no real right and wrong besides what the government tells you. There's no truth besides what the government tells you. This is exactly what happens when you forewerement. forego the idea of sanctity of life and human dignity. When you deny that humans are sacred, that we're above animals, that we are uniquely made in the image of God, it then becomes easy to deny that humans have certain rights that should be recognized and protected by the government rather than squelched

and taken away. So the pro-choice movement and the anti-free speech movement actually, in my opinion, go hand in hand because they both deny the inherent right of human beings to be free, free from tyranny. They both deny human dignity. They both deny the individual. in exchange for some warped view of the greater good. And I just wonder, when we actually get there in America, when we get to the point where the press is no longer free, where we can get in trouble for saying something someone doesn't like, when we've followed the natural progression where abortion takes us, which is infanticide, glorified, suicide, and eugenics, will the left look around and say, oh, wow, okay, this is not

what I wanted. This is not what I meant. will they even recognize that it is that was their ideas that brought us here or will they be okay with it none of this stuff is really very important to most people on the left though they either don't see it's happening or they don't care they want it to happen they want us to go in this Orwellian direction what is important to them is anti-implicit bias training which Starbucks engaged in this week shutting down their doors to make sure that their employees aren't racist. You probably remember the incident in Philadelphia last month when an employee

called the cops on these black guys who refused to buy anything in the store but continued to sit there. This employee, by the way, who told these guys to leave or called the cops is a flaming liberal, probably as SJW as they come. Since then, there have been protests outside Starbucks for how racist they are. So of course, they closed down their stores Tuesday to do anti-implicit bias training. What is this training? I don't really. know. I think they show you pictures of people of different races and ask you how you feel about it. And if you're not in love with every single one of them, then you're probably racist. The truth is this isn't going to drive out racism from the human heart or from any one of these people. There's no study to show that this actually works. This is an expensive PR stunt. It's virtue signaling. It's political correctness, which in its worst form, it's not always bad, but its worst form is an enemy of free thought and freedom of speech. we've really got our priorities backwards, guys. But that's what we can expect from here on out, I think.

And I don't just say that to be negative. I think that that's just true. There's no evidence that the world is going to get better before Jesus comes back. In fact, it's going to become worse. People are going to keep demeaning human dignity. They'll continue to deny the truth exists. They'll continue to deny any kind of morality or goodness. They'll continue to shun God, which is really the center of all of this.

And this is not to say that all liberals are evil and all conservatives are good, not at all. But it is to say that most of the progressive agenda is one that drives us further from virtue and godly values into moral relativism and godlessness, without it out. One final point on this topic. Memorial Day was this weekend. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I did.

I tweeted over the weekend that we went to church on Sunday morning and that I was thankful for the rare privilege of getting to worship Jesus without the fear of punishment or persecution all because of the sad. sacrifices that men and women have made for our freedom. And it was just funny. Some of the comments that I got saying, this is not a rare privilege and you're being dramatic. Stop acting like a victim. Clearly, these people don't know anything about the rest of the world. I am not a victim, but there are people throughout the world who are. Freedom of religion, also protected by the First Amendment, is not sewn into the fabric of most countries. I'm not just talking about

freedom for Christians to worship, but for people of all faith. People don't. People don't realize how uncommon that is and how good we have it. In fact, religious freedom has been in the news this week because Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released the 2017 Religious Freedom Report. He said in the report documents across, or yeah, he said that is, sorry, he said that in the report documents across 200 countries and territories report violations and abuses committed by governments, terrorist groups, and individuals. For example, I'm going to give you a string of examples here. For example, in Russia, the missionary activities of Jehovah's Witnesses have been criminalized and labeled as an extremist organization. Now, Jehovah's Witnesses teach a false gospel,

but they're not extremists. They're the opposite of extreme. They don't even celebrate Christmas. A few years ago, Russia imprisoned an academic who specialized in religious studies for 32 months. That's Russia, not the Middle East, not China, Russia. In Iran, the law allows the death sentence for quote, proselytizing and attempts by non-Muslims to convert Muslims as well as for enmity against God and insulting the Prophet. Men in 2017 were executed for waging what they called a war on God. People executed are mostly Christians as well as other religious minorities. In Afghanistan, conversion from Islam to another religion is considered apostasy as punishable by death, imprisonment, or confiscation of property.

Neighboring Pakistan continued to enforce blasphemy laws whose punishment ranges from life and prison to death sentence for a range of charges, including defiling the Prophet Muhammad. The report says that at least 50 individuals were imprisoned on blasphemy charges, at least 17 of whom had received death sentences. Regarding China, the report says during 2016 as China's president, Xi Jinping, further, consolidated power, conditions for freedom of religion or belief and related human rights continue

to decline. Authorities target anyone considered a threat to the state, including religious believers, human rights lawyers, and other members of civil society. In 2016, the Chinese government regularly emphasized the cynization of religion and circulated revised regulations governing religion, including new penalties for activities considered illegal and additional crackdowns on Christian house churches. In Mexico, Mexican authorities and several states pressured followers of minority religions to convert to and or practice the majority religion of the particular area and participate in affiliated ceremonies and activities. Religious minorities who refuse or forcibly displaced arbitrarily detained and had their properties destroyed and or had the

utilities cut off. Mexican state and federal authorities. authorities frequently failed to intervene in these cases, creating a climate of impunity. So those are just a few instances. You can go to USCIRF.gov and read this report for yourself. The point is, the First Amendment is rare and extremely unique. It is a right that millions in the world do not get to enjoy. People are not free to say what they want, print what they want, worship how they want. We in America are freer than any country in the world, especially in this regard. and it is because of the men and women who have fought and died to protect our freedom to live and speak as we please, which is exactly what Memorial Day is about. So let's summarize all of this.

First, Ireland shows that the pro-abortion movement around the world is moving farther than 10 years ago we ever would have thought. Second, free speech is either dead or dying in every part of the world as the Tommy Robinson case shows. Third, freedom of religion is either dead or dying in many parts of the world as the Secretary of States report. court shows. We used to think that these kinds of human rights atrocities were exclusive to the Middle East and China, but that's just not the case anymore. Like I said before, America is right up there with China and North Korea when it comes to abortion rights. England routinely restricts the freedom of the press. Russia, who is not a part of the West, but is certainly not a developing country, is included for the first time on the United States' list of countries who routinely persecute people

for their religion. What this tells me is that the value of the individual is decreasing rapidly around the world. In some places, it's always been very low, but in other places it's dropping. And when that happens, individual rights are seen as obsolete and are taken away. And when individual rights are seen as obsolete because of a denial of human dignity, the government has room to take over and become tyrannical. Big government is allowed to grow and flourish where the sanctity of the individual is diminished, which is exactly what is happening around the world. We would be silly to think that it wouldn't come to America. Many people in America certainly don't care about the intrinsic value of the individual. And as a consequence, his or her,

his or her inherent rights as outlined in the Constitution. You could argue that free speech here is already starting to die in America if our college campuses are any indication of how the upcoming generation views the free exchange of ideas. Clearly, censorship is something a lot of young people would advocate for. There are certainly people in America who want to censor Christian and conservative ideas and who would advocate for the government to do so. They don't see it as tyranny, though. They see it as tolerance. That is the Orwellian dystopia the world is heading in.

Like 1984 says, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. Add to that tyranny is tolerance. And with that absolute nightmare headed for our country, they want to take away our guns? No. All of this, everything that we've just described regarding the First Amendment is inextricably intertwined with the Second Amendment. The military fights for our freedom, yes, but at the end of the day, they are under command of the government. Our freedom of speech, our freedom of religion, the freedom of the individual and human dignity is protected by our right to defend ourselves as we see fit. You don't have the First Amendment without the second.

It is our only last defense against tyranny. You take away people's guns. You take away people's freedom entirely. You don't have to be a gun owner to recognize that. Okay. that is where we will end all of that. I have time for one question. And that question that I received on Instagram is, how did I meet my husband? I met my husband working out at a gym. It was a CrossFit type gym. I know. It sounds super lame. Want to know something even funnier. The first time I saw him,

he was actually with his girlfriend. I didn't talk to him or anything, but I distinctly remember them being together at the gym. Don't worry. There was no overlap there. I didn't even. I didn't even would meet him until a couple months after that until later, I guess, his relationship had ended. And we just hit it off immediately. We would talk in the gym parking lot outside my car for hours at a time. One time we literally talked for four hours in the parking lot before we ever even went on a date or he got my number. I texted one of my friends after that and said, and I know this is crazy, but I think I've met my husband. And I was right. You always hear when you know, you know. And I used to have no idea what that meant and how that could be possible. But when I met him,

I just, I knew it. I understood what people had been saying. Fun fact, we only dated for five months before we got engaged and we were only engaged for four months. I hadn't even, I don't think I had even known him for a full year when we got married. I know. That's insane when I say it out loud. But I've always been a very instinctive person. And I just knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was supposed to be with him. And he felt the same way. Thankfully. So for us, there was no reason to waste any time. It was great. And now we've been married for about two and a half years. Side note, I highly recommend short engagements. We planned an awesome wedding in four months. And you really don't need more than that. And I was working full time and everything. I wouldn't have it any other way. Okay. That is all for today. I hope you guys are enjoying the first bits of summer here in Texas. We are already melting and dying, even though I know I said that I like the heat, but I'm like, I'm really. dying. But that's okay. I'm not complaining. Okay, that's it. I love y'all. Follow me on social media. Leave a nice review. Share this with your friends. Bye.