The Eric Metaxas Show - Konstantin Kisin

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Can Western Civilization Survive Without Free Speech?

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As most of you know, for 25 years, I have been doing a thing called Socrates in the city, where I have had some of the most glorious conversations ever with some of the most extraordinary guests ever. We normally do them, you know, in big venues in Manhattan. We're doing them all around the country with, you know, 200 people and it's a big thing. But we've also started doing Socrates in the studio events, which means we can do even more of them. I did a whole bunch in England where I think that's what we're airing today. I'm not sure. But we, I've done so many recently. I did a few in New York recently for Socrates in the studio. And these are, You know, it's kind of like a more of a PBS vibe, right?

But it's something that I feel very strongly about. The guests that we choose our guests very carefully, these are some brilliant people. They're not all on the same page as I am, theologically or politically, but who cares, right? That's not the point. The point is to explore the big questions because I have this kind of crazy idea that if you're actually looking for truth, you're going to be moving toward the God who is truth. And I have felt this for most of my adult life, and that's why we do Socrates in the city.

So let me say that today, you're listening to a Socrates and the city conversation that I had. Socrates in the city, we have a YouTube channel. I ask you please to go there to subscribe to the Socrates and the city YouTube channel, like the videos. If you do that, YouTube promotes it way, way more. And we're trying to get these conversations way out there for all kinds of people who are seeking, who are curious, who have questions. It's just something that I feel very strongly about. I feel God has called me to do Socrates in the City. So that's, we have a YouTube channel. I've also, well, we, you can go to Socrates

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I think I would have forgotten. Socrates Plus, it's like $5 a month. It comes with all kinds of stuff. You'll see if you go to Socrates Plus. Go to Socratesandcity.com and you'll see it. But one of the things, which I think is the coolest, is whenever we do an event, you can live stream it. So it doesn't matter where you are, you know, if you can't get to California or in New York or wherever we're doing our event, you can live stream it. And the live stream is always, it has a little bit of a raw quality because it's before we edit it.

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But it's going to be in Athens. you could live stream it. Unless you want to actually come to Athens, you're welcome to do that. But that's Socratesin the city.com is the website. Socrates Plus enables you to live stream these events. I really can't believe we're going to be doing one in Athens. That's absolutely crazy. So yeah, so Socrates in the city is something I just want everyone to know about.

And I want to say it again. The website is Socratesin the city.com. The streaming service, I'm sorry, the platform Socrates Plus just opens up all kinds of stuff to you. You have to go there to see more of what it is. But we worked really hard on it. I'm proud of it. If you go to Socrates and the city website, most of my books are available there. You can get autographed copies.

And also books of most of our guests. because I, again, this is our idea behind Socrates in the city is to introduce you to a world of thinkers and writers. And again, I've been doing this for 25 years. So we have quite an archive. And I just want people to know about it. And I want to say, again, I would appreciate it if you'd share this with your friends because there are people all over the country, all around the world.

I have been, I've been in Europe and people come. up to me and say thank you for Socrates in the city. And I think, what? I'm in Europe. What are you talking about? They go, oh, yeah, I've been watching it for years. It has fed me intellectually, spiritually. So Socratesandthe city.com is the website. We have some new swag there. Gorgeous stuff. I mean, really, very, very high quality, beautiful, beautiful stuff that's there. and what else do we have there? I was just going to say something and it went out of my head.

That's what happens. Anyway, when you go to the YouTube channel, Socrates, oh, I'm sorry, I was going to say, our first Socrates in the city book. It is a number of conversations. It's on the page. You'll see it when you go to Socrates in the city.com.

But it is the edited transcripts. I edited it of some of the best conversations I've had in the last 20 years. It's the book. It's the Socrates and City book. It's a beautifully printed book and produced book. But the conversations in it, I think of the one I had with Alice von Hildebrandt. She was 91 years old. These are some of the best conversations I've ever had. And if you're looking to deepen the life of the mind, that's a big part of what I hope to do, to think of it. about the big questions, what we always jokingly describe as life, God, and other small topics. Socrates and City, you know, it's meant to be the place where you get to do that and where there's

no pressure to think a certain way. This is just to help people think about the big questions. And I keep saying we, I started Socrates and City 25 years ago because I thought, you know, we live in a world where you're not encouraged to think about the big questions. You're encouraged to think about shallow garbage. You know, you go to news websites and they're just pushing whatever is sensational. Thinking about the big questions, taking the time to think about the big questions, it's important, folks. We're very distracted. So that's what Socrates and cities meant to be. I should say part of the reason it's called Socrates and the city, it's not just because I'm Greek, but Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living.

He said, it's important to think about the big questions. I agree with him on that. And I think that if you're honestly searching for truth, you're even asking, is there such a thing as truth? You're on the right path. And that's really, really vital that you be encouraged to think about the big questions. Let's say you're already a person of faith. That doesn't mean you have it all figured out.

You need to think more deeply about what is. it mean to say, I believe in truth? I care about truth. That's what Socrates and city is. So the website is Socrates in the city.com. The streaming platform is Socrates plus.com. That's $5 a month. And then, of course, the YouTube channel, please subscribe, like the videos. That's the Socrates in the city YouTube channel. So today I'm not sure which conversation we're playing, but I do know that it's important, it's wonderful, and I recommend it to you. Thank you for tuning in. So you're putting money away, saving for the future, for retirement, for your family. You're doing what you're supposed to do, right? Well, what if I told you that your 401k, IRA,

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That's mypillar.com promo code Eric, or call 800-858-0-263. promo code Eric. Let's take the issue of slavery, which is in this country the thing that we most self-flagellate. Yeah, okay? And because I'm not of this country, I was born elsewhere,

I'm allowed to make these arguments, so I'll make them. Slavery was practiced in every country in the world and in every great empire in the world throughout history. The British Empire is the first empire to have voluntarily of its own accord for moral reasons to have ended slavery. Not only within its own realm, but actually to have expended great blood and treasure

to go and make others, other empires around the world, end their slave practice too. In other words, we have got a complete inversion when we talk about this. but that is the original sin that we have. You have the original sin of colonialism in America and slavery, of course, as well, right? So we are being accused of being guilty on the very things that we lead the world in.

I make this argument to people all the time. I understand you don't like certain things about Britain, America, whatever. If you're a black woman or if you're trans or if you're gay, where would you rather live? And they never ever have any answer to that. we all know the answer. We know that our societies are the best, right? So if you have an ideology that teaches your children that their society is bad, that necessarily means a bunch of things. One of those things is if you thought the society in which you live, the country in which you live and its values are bad, why would you defend that country? Why would you teach those values to

your kids? Why wouldn't you seek to destroy that place or at least change it in the country? Or at least change it into something completely different. And given the fact that our society is incredibly successful by comparison to every other society in human history, I don't know that destroying it or changing into something radically different is what we should be doing. And so, wokeness is essentially a way of indoctrinating the citizens of Western countries into undermining

or at least not having a robust belief and willingness to defend their own society. So of course it undermines the West. And by the way, I think it translates directly into geopolitics. When you elect woke politicians, that's when non-woke politicians in other countries go, oh, this is my moment. Right. Okay, let's take Crimea. Oh, oh, look at this.

Oh, Donald Trump's no longer in office. Okay. Let's see what we can do in Israel, et cetera. You're recapitulating what you said at the Oxford Union. I have the quote. You said there, if we undermine our way. Western values are enemies will seek to capitalize on it, which is absolutely true. And we have actually seen it. And you're just beginning to talk about that. Of course. So my view is that I've

talked about this on other shows too. Look, every human being is attempting to balance within themselves a number of sins. One of them is pride. The other is not quite a sin, but shame perhaps, whatever is, right? So there's things that you're proud of that you've done or you do or you've achieved or you are. And there's things that you're ashamed of that you've done or are or do or regularly or whatever. And a healthy human being is one who's able to keep both of those in perspective and in balance. In other words, you have an appropriate view of your mistakes and you seek to correct them and also to accept them to some extent. And you have an appropriate view of your successes and achievements and of your strengths and you seek to balance them.

between the other. The same is true of a society, a society that says, you know, our society is the best society in the world. It's never done anything wrong and we must invade other countries and get them to be like us

is not a healthy society and not one I want to live in. A society that over does shame and says, we are the worst people alive. We are, you know, our history is defined by the worst moments and the worst things we've done.

That's also not a healthy society. What we need to do is have a healthy balance between the two. And that's why, I mentioned my political and cultural and philosophical centristism. The reason that I find myself on your show and aligned with people like you is that is not that I necessarily belong on your wing of politics. I'm just saying the car has gone way off the road to the left and I want to yank it back to the center. And there's a very real possibility that 20 years from now I'm going to be yanking the steering wheel the other way.

That's also possible. I see that. And I'm interested in our society thriving. I don't care about politics. Well, you seem to care about truth. And the very idea of truth is anathema to people who don't believe in free speech. Because obviously, people who believe in free speech, they're willing to risk. It's a very good point.

Because they're trying to get at something fundamental. They're trying to get someplace. And they realize it may be difficult to get there. And the road may be messy. We may have to hear things we don't like, but that's part of the process. But at the heart of that process is a belief that we will get there. There's such a thing as truth, and we can steer toward it eventually. Yes.

So the enemies of free speech, in some ways I would say are the enemies of truth. They're uncomfortable with the idea of truth. They see it as a heavy-handed patriarchal, Western imposed concept. Sometimes, and sometimes it's about protecting existing hierarchical. and power structures. And that is the truth of the progressive argument. There have been times in the past when people who wanted to say something that we now absolutely believe to be true were prevented from saying.

Some of them were murdered for saying. Martin Luther King Jr. is a good example of that, right? We now believe the thing that your constitution said a long time prior to Martin Luther King, Jr., which is that all men are created equal. But in his time, that wasn't the case. And he had to articulate that. and lay down his life for that to happen. And the reason he was being prevented from saying that is not that people feared truth.

It's that they feared change. And that also can be true, right? Would you accept that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So just to get back to the idea of free speech generally, what's the difference between free speech and free expression? Is that? I don't know that there is a difference.

Yeah. Why are you asking? I guess maybe the bigger question is how does one police free speech? Because we all would argue that there are lines. I mean, legally in the United States, there was the case. I don't know when the Supreme Court, you know, they talk about. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater. So no, you don't have that freedom because there's imminent harm or whatever.

So there are always limits. That's what the woke left would say. they would say if you say this it will lead to this and they always almost immediately go to debt people will die people are dying well they're not wrong to say that and here's why i i've made this i've asked this question of people in a slightly rhetorical way because i don't know what the answer is but well i do but i don't know what the answer to the to the problem it poses is would would if we had twitter in 1776 would you be allowed to say the things that the revolutionaries in America was saying? Because that would lead to a hell of a lot of dead people, right? Your country wouldn't exist if it operated under the censorship rules that we have now, on the one hand.

Yeah. On the other hand, there's a perfectly good argument to say, well, look, if millions of people are about to die because people are saying this stuff online, maybe we should restrict that. And that's the big debate for our time. I don't, I think people who pretend there is, there's an easy answer to that are wrong. I don't think there is an easy answer. Well, I think it has to be said first that typically when woke people invoke the horror of the imminent death of people, they're exaggerating or simply lying. It's simply, it's a bludgeon.

It's a cudgel to shut up things, voices that they don't like. they say that or themselves will scream it, hoping that that alone will do the job. I think that's true of some woke people, but I also think it is true. We started our conversation with this. There are a lot of people, politicians, journalists, other people in this country and in Europe, who they just over-index safety in the way that you and I don't. That's a central issue. You brought that up a while ago.

Yeah, they over-index safety in the way that you and I don't. And it may be true that it's simply a preference thing. You and I may be much more risk-hungry than they are, and they may be much more safety-conscious than we are. That's very possible. My point is that I can always find you a situation in which you won't know what the right answer is on this. And because I can find situations for me

that I don't know where there are answers for is. And I think that it's just inevitable. So there is no answer exactly to all of this. We have created very powerful technologies that allow communication to spread so quickly and so fast at such a scale that the repercussions of those haven't quite been found out yet, but they are potentially very significant. And so that's what I think people are wrestling with.

I think the ground principle that we ought to have people be able to express their opinion unless it's absolutely clear, absolutely clear, that doing otherwise is going to be hugely detrimental. I think that's the right principle. But sadly, I believe over the next period of time, we're going to find out where those lines are in a practical way. I mean, and we have, you know, the social dilemma talked about a civil war being effectively caused by Facebook. These are very complicated questions.

I honestly, if I thought there was an easy answer, I would give you one. I don't think there is. But that said, my preference is that we err on the side of freedom whenever possible. The real thing that we're not talking about in this conversation is something else, which is we believe in free speech for human beings who are citizens of our countries. Yeah? Yeah. Do we believe in the right of a Chinese bot farm to stir up trouble on Twitter?

Do we? I don't. I see that as what I grew up with in the Soviet Union. It's just foreign interference and propaganda and active measures as they were. used to be called it in the Soviet Union. The United States of America did not broadcast Soviet propaganda into the homes of its citizens. Right. Right.

So why would it allow Chinese propaganda or Russian propaganda bought farms to be broadcast onto their phones and straight into their brains? Right. There is another dimension to this. It's not as simple as people like to pretend. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. It reminds me of I've made the argument about when people are absolutely, ludists about economic freedom, and they talk about the free market. And that's why, you know,

we shouldn't have tariffs. That's why we should trade with China. That's why. And you think, well, wait a minute. If the labor in China is slave labor, that's where my belief in free trade stops. Because if you can exploit people, if they in China can exploit Uyghur Muslim slave labor, doing business with them is like doing business with the Nazis who have Jewish slave labor or, you know, there's a moral, there's a moral issue. So there are limits to these freedoms. And you're identifying that as, you know, the borders of America effectively. Or the West, I would say. But see, I think that's, that particular circle is actually not that hard to square. The way you conduct yourself with your family and your children at home is not the way you conduct yourself with strangers on the street. And the way we conduct ourselves within the borders of our societies and our civilization does not mean that we have to pretend that other people are exactly like us. This is one of the mistakes a lot of people make when they think about foreign policy, for example. They do this thing called mirror image bias where they go, well, you know, Hamas have done this. And what would I have to do to act like them?

Oh, I'd have to do, therefore they must have acted for that reason. And they ignore the fact that different people have very different value systems. They have different religious value systems. they have different practical realities. And so the fact that you might do this for that reason is not necessarily the same thing. I've debated a lot of these people about this stuff. And so I think when we talk about liberal values or Western values, the big mistake that people have made for a long time is to assume that our duty is to export them around the world, oftentimes through dropping bombs on people. I don't think that works particularly well.

or by attempting to convert tribal societies that are still stuck in the 7th century into American democracy, because everybody wants freedom. Well, actually, no, they don't. So when it comes to our values, we should look inward and say, how do we make our societies true to the ideas that made them great? And if other people want a piece of that, oh, I'm absolutely in favor of support them with that. I am in favor of anyone who wants to join our civilization, who wants to subscribe. to the rules, he wants to join that liberty-driven idea.

Fantastic, the more the merrier. But we've got to be careful that we don't start preaching to other people about how they should live. And also that we don't become blind to the fact that, I don't know, I think the Taliban have quite a different set of values to us and maybe dealing with them as if they are sort of liberals in waiting is probably the wrong approach. Yes, probably. Yeah.

The title of your book is an immigrant's list. love letter to the West. You came here from the former Soviet Union, from Russia to the West. My mother grew up in East Germany under communism. My father grew up in Greece, which, you know, the communists certainly tried to take over after World War II. And so I'm interested in how people who've experienced the other side of things, who've experienced collective who've seen it. Cubans typically, you know, in Florida you meet a lot. They're very clear-eyed about these things. Is that where it begins for you in your family and your upbringing, your parents' stories? And my grandparents' stories. I mean, my grandmother, she lives in the

UK now. I was speaking to the other than day. She was born in a Gulaug. Born in a Gulaig. So, yes, that's, I mean, the experience. that people had in communist countries are kind of a bit of a red pill, you know, probably the best one that you can have. So, yeah, that's where it starts. And then the other thing I really learn is I'm very wary of ideology of any kind, really. I'm wary of people who have a, you know, we have this brutal Soviet joke about a guy in the Soviet Union who invents a shaving machine. And he takes it to the committee that adjudicates on which inventions are allowed.

and they said, okay, please explain to us how this machine is going to work. And it says, oh, very simple. You've got a blade on this side that moves up and down. You've got a blade on this side and moves up and down. And you've got one on this side that moves up and down, just on tracks like this. And they say, well, hold on a second. But everyone's got a different face. Everyone's got different shape of their jaw.

Everyone's got a different skin type. Everyone's got a different kind of stubble. And he says, well, yeah, only the first time. and to me ideology is always about people who are trying to cut reality in this way to make it fit into what they think it should be like and that's true of liberalism, it's true of conservatism, it's true of libertarianism, it's true of the Islamic worldview,

it's true of all of them. So I'm very wary when people come to me and go, this is the filter that you must wear to see the world correctly. And the third thing I learned, You know, I tell this story in the book, as I'm sure you know, and I've talked about it elsewhere too. My grandmother, the one who was born in a gulag, when her parents were released from the camp, people who had been released from these camps who were political prisoners, they were not allowed to live in many major cities or within a hundred kilometers of a major city or maybe several hundred kilometers. They were forced to live very far away from civilization, basically. They lived in these small towns.

and the only people who lived in these small towns in Siberia and elsewhere were the former inmates of the camps, the former guards from the camps, and the few people who were the native tribes that happened to be in that area. So you had these people living next to each other, the camp guards and the camp inmates. And my grandmother tells me the story that when Joseph Stalin was, when he died and was effectively exposed as the, the,

the cult of personality by Khrushchev in a speech afterwards. He was denounced effectively. A lot of these camp guards shot themselves. There was a spate of suicides in the town. And the reason is they genuinely thought they were doing the right thing. They thought these people are evil and we are enforcing our righteous morality and virtuous worldview on them. And so this is the other thing I think Jordan has articulated very well and not enough people seem to understand. we all have the capacity to believe that because we are right and virtuous,

these other people must be treated horribly because they deserve it, because they don't see the way the world the way it truly is. So I think that this is where we come back to our conversation about religiousness and values. I think we've got to be to treat people well, irrespective of whether we agree with them. And I think that's much more important than whether they have the right ideology or not. Now, that's not to say I will make fun of people, I think, are saying stupid things.

But I am mocking their ideas through them. Yeah. But I think we've got to be wary of demonizing our fellow citizens. And that's why I keep saying, like, these are not, the things I'm saying are not conservative values or liberal values. These are values we should be uniting around as a society. That's what we should be doing. Well, you're talking about grace. you're talking about practicing what you preach.

I mean, that's to me where things always go wrong, as you're saying. People get an idea and they know they're right. And they may be right, but then it becomes dogmatic and they want to force it on others. And I see the world ostensibly through a biblical lens. I would say that, you know, that's a biblical value to treat people with whom you disagree with grace. And it's interesting because when we were talking about free speech a moment ago, there's a classic case in United States, I think it was 1981 in Skokie, Illinois, which was many Jewish people lived in this suburb of Chicago. And the Supreme Court ruled that neo-Nazis could march through there. And this is to me the ultimate example of free speech, right?

Because it's loathsome. and yet we have to allow it. So that's a challenge. I mean, as people gain power to want to say that's it. I don't know if you want to react to that, because it seems like we've been talking about this. What are the limits of free speech? That, to me, is kind of the classic example.

Well, and it is, and it's something I think you rightly hold up as a kind of American, it's the thing that everyone in America talks about as the good example on these issues. I think that line is somewhere around incitement to violence. We had pro-Palestinian, I use inverted commas because they were not pro-Palestinian. They were clearly just Jew haters who drove down from the north into London the last time the Israel-Palestine conflict led up and drove through Jewish quarters of London and shouted. to kill Jewish women, rape Jewish women, etc.

Right. Now, I think that's a very different case. If people want to march through and are doing so peacefully, that speech may be detestable, but it is free and should be allowed. But the moment people start to act in that way, I actually think we should be incredibly robust on that. And irrespective of which group,

if Jews were marching through Muslim quarters saying behead Muslims, I'd feel the same way. It doesn't really matter. You could say green people, blue people. Their ethnicity is not relevant. But of course, those people weren't arrested and were not dealt with in any sort of robust way, while other people who say the wrong thing on Twitter are. And that's the big issue, because in societies where things are in tension,

if there are rules, they have to be very, very evenly enforced. and they're not. And so is evenly enforcing rules a Western value? Yeah, the rule of law. Yeah. It's quite unique.

I mean, in Russia, for example, there's no such thing as a rule of law. You have judges and you have courts, but they don't... You know, if there's a dispute about tax, they'll follow the law. But if there's a dispute about whether you should have said this about President Putin,

there is no law. You know, Alexei Navalny, the famous and late anti-corruption activist in Russia, he was explicitly told by prosecutors and judges and lots of people. People will go on TV in Russia and say, well, of course he's being locked up on these false charges. He shouldn't have had a go at the president, right? This idea of rule of law doesn't really exist outside the West, and that's where it comes from. Yeah. So it is a Western Valley. So the West has often not held what we're calling Western values.

It's interesting that now we're – before we're through here, I want to go back to the idea that people who have grown up in places like the Gulag or the Soviet Union or East Germany or Cuba or North Korea, they seem to be clear-eyed about this. And it seems to me that part of the strength of the West ultimately leads to people who are naive about evil. I shouldn't say the strength of the West. Part of the quality of the West is people who are naive about evil. And people who have grown up in these places or who are the children, as we are of people who grew up in these places, we're not naive about evil. We know there's evil. And that's part of what wokeism seems to me.

to be is a dramatic naivete about evil in the world. I think it extends way beyond workness. I think there are a hell of a lot of people on every side of the political spectrum in your country and in this one who look at every problem in the world through the lens of, well, these are, you know, rational optimizing consumers. And so when they look at Israel and Gaza, when they look at Ukraine or when they look at other conflicts around the world. They're like, oh, these are just decent people who are just trying to get along. They must have been provoked. The must have been provoked thing is a very powerful thing

in the Western psyche. And they don't understand that, you know, take the invasion of Ukraine, for example, Adolf Hitler had way more provocation than Vladimir Putin to invade the countries that he did. Germany was, Germans were actually being badly treated in, you know, Germans, were actually being badly treated in the Sudeten land. They were, right? But we don't accept that. We don't say, oh, he was fine, you know. Yeah.

So this idea of someone being provoked and therefore excusing their behavior is what people miss in that is that Vladimir Putin, when he annexed Crimea, he lied openly. He said, these are not our soldiers. These are not our soldiers. And then three weeks later, with a satisfied grin,

he said, well, actually, they were. And people in Russia thought, he's done well there. He's shown those ways. You can't mess with us. He's tricked them. He went out there on our behalf and tricked them. And people go, oh, he was provoked, right? So this worldview is fundamentally, you said it right, naive. It's a failure to understand that when politicians and other countries and our own, when they say certain things, they don't actually mean them. And this is the thing I find incredibly amusing with people on the right. People on the right will say, well, you know,

all the politicians, they're lying. The media is lying. Everything is just fake news. And then they will go and listen to what Xi Jinping says or what Hamas says or what Vladimir Putin says and go, oh, well, this must be true. This must be true. And this is a fringe of the right, admittedly, but there are those people. Oh, yeah.

And, you know, I've made myself a lot of enemies by criticizing and making fun of those people, but they deserve to be criticized and being made fun of because they are incredibly stupid and incredibly naive. And some of them have gigantic audiences like Tucker Carson. What's the worst thing that Tucker said along these lines? He keeps having people like Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavaev on his show without challenging them remotely. And as you mentioned in the new introduction, I've been on his show. And I know that he doesn't want to talk about this with people who don't agree with him.

I said to him, let's talk about Ukraine on your show the last time he had me on. Didn't want to talk about it. And look, I don't like picking on people in different. I don't have any problem with Tucker Carlson as a man. I don't know him very well. I don't care about that stuff. But he has a giant audience and the things that he's doing have to be challenged. When he went to Moscow, he went, oh, look how the food is so cheap here.

Actually, for the average Russian person, the food is three times more expensive than for the average American. But so he's misrepresenting reality. Do you see what I'm saying? And this is because he's so fed up of Western politicians. He's like, well, who's better? Oh, this guy. Right. This is naive and it's stupid.

It's stupid to behave. I don't think Tucker's stupid, but the way of behaving is. Naivete, it's a good place to end talking about the naivete of those on the left and sometimes on the right. I'm very grateful Constantine Kissen for your voice and for your time with us today at Socrates in the studio. Thank you very much. Thanks for having. MyPillows excited to announce they're extending the mega sale on overstock clearance and brand new products. This is your chance to grab incredible deals on some of MyPillow's most popular and newly released items.

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