TRIGGERnometry - Sargon: "Will Coronavirus End the Culture War?"

Episode Date: March 25, 2020

Sargon of Akkad, AKA Carl Benjamin, returns. Support TRIGGERnometry: Paypal: https://bit.ly/2Tnz8yq https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@failinghuman) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. It's good. How are you handling the... Are you self-isolating, I imagine? Yeah, but I actually work from home. My office is in my garage. So honestly, my daily life is exactly the same. I didn't realize I'd been self-isolating for the past like five years. So there we go. That's why you're happy. Yeah, you've pioneered the whole movement.

Well, it's interesting times. And one of the things I was thinking, obviously, you and us as well, we spent a lot of time in the last few years talking about the culture war. You know, it seems to me that, you know, like when people are dying of coronavirus, when there's a shortage of ventilators, somehow what pronouns you use has become slightly less important. Do you get that sense? Well, it's inevitable, really, isn't it?

Concerns about things like racism and sexism and trigger warnings and pronouns are all very much, they're the kind of apex of first world problems, like very minor hurt feelings that can be blown out of proportion by people who have an interest in doing that. thing. But as soon as suddenly it's like, well, you might not have food, you might get sick with the terrible illness and die, suddenly these things just naturally take a back seat. I guess the woke brigade are desperately praying that civilization doesn't collapse,

so they continue whining about the words we're using, frankly, because otherwise they've got some problems, haven't they? But even like we were talking about just now, the fact that actually it seems to be receding, we don't have these conversations as much, we're still having one particular conversation, and that is whether to call the coronavirus, the Wuhan virus or the China virus, and is it in fact racist to do so? Because a lot of people think it is. Where do you stand on that? I'm going to get a takeaway. I can't tell you what kind of takeaway it is because that might be racist. That's ridiculous. No one thinks that it's tied to ethnicity. What they're saying is that

this is just the naming convention of the area or group of people upon which it first reaches public prominence and sort of enters into the mainstream narrative, isn't it? It's like Ebola is, what, it's a river in Africa, isn't it? I think it's a river in the Congo. Yeah, a river in the Congo, yeah. You've got Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome and things like that. No one complains then. No one complains Spanish food because it's not a judgment.

But I suppose that the, I suppose there's a bit of resentment because perhaps in the case of like saying the Chinese virus there is a judgment. Because I mean, I'm sure you guys have looked into these wet markets in China since all of this is, yeah, they do seem a little unsanitary. Undisstatement of the century, yeah. I told me racist. I think there might be something that's valid, a cultural practice that might be valid to criticize. And the weird thing is, you notice how many of the same kind of, it's, the reason that it's worth actually calling it something other than just coronaviruses. coronavirus is a category of viruses.

I didn't know all of this before when the coronavirus came out of the way. But basically there are lots of different kind of coronavirus, and a lot of them have come from China, probably due to these unsanitary conditions. Like SARS, bird flu, and there have been a bunch of others. Swine flu, yeah. Swine flu, yeah. The black death came from China as well,

probably under similar conditions. So I think there's probably a conversation to be having. Can I just stop you there? I think we should refer to in the modern, it's 2020, we should. should refer to as the plague of color. Well, I think the technical term should be the Wuhan flu or Wuhan virus, right? Specific, you know, because like I said, there are other Chinese viruses.

But I can see why Trump's calling it the Chinese virus. And I can't believe that the Chinese Communist Party allowed it to provoke them. I can't believe it's something that they've tried firing back on. China's an awful state. Like, the government of China are genuinely fascist. They've got a million Uyghurs and concentration camps. They've got these social credit systems. They're utterly tyrannical.

They don't have free breasts. They don't have free moves. They have a command economy. I mean, it really does look like a fascist government if you just tot out all the things that they're doing. And so, I mean, are we taking moral instruction from the Chinese Communist Party? I don't think we are. Well, I think this is why Trump has started calling it the Chinese coronavirus, because he sees

it as a kind of warfare situation. where the Chinese are trying to create this idea that the US Army came up with this thing. And also the reality is that as far as we know, China is responsible, not only the web markets, but they've suppressed the information that could have allowed other people to prepare better. And people are dying around Europe and the rest of the world because of that. And actually, well, that's probably one of the things that will change fundamentally, and we'll talk more about other things that will change. But our relationship with China is going to be completely different.

when this is over, isn't it? Well, I would hope so. I think a lot of people have been thinking out of sight, out of mind when it comes to China. But, I mean, one of the consequences of outsourcing our industrial capacity to China, I mean, you know, it was appealing because they could throw infinite amounts of sweatshop labor

at the things we wanted to make, to buy. So we could buy all of this stuff cheap. But, I mean, nothing's, you know, everything comes with the price and the price that we've had to pay in this regard is that China now is the second largest economy and it's headed by a communist party, a one-party totalitarian dictatorship

where the Xi Jinping has just given himself executive powers for life. So it's one of those, like, you know, this was quite a high price to pay and I think that they're going to sacrifice a lot of things that we might consider things that shouldn't be sacrificed before they change their ways.

And so I, I think that we've really got to rethink it. I mean, I personally would prefer a more sort of, and I don't want to use the word populist, populist, but I can't think a better way. Essentially, we should have a kind of social understanding that you don't buy from China. I know that sounds strange, but I mean, we should really think.

There's a pretty fucking hard right now, isn't it? Well, yeah, well, that's the problem it is. Yeah. It's massively hard. Yeah. But I do think, like with the climate change, stuff. They can demand, like, you know, in Sweden, though, demanding a climate dictatorship and things like this. But at the end of the day, I think that the general ethos will filter into the popular

consciousness. And I think people will say, well, I'd rather buy, you know, I mean, where I can, I buy, you know, free range eggs, right? I don't like battery farming. So I do my parts by free range eggs, because I can afford it, admittedly, but like, you know, the, the, I think that these, these, these, the demand does create the change in the market. I think. think that's something that we can do. That's at least something that the individual can do on their personal lives, say, right, do I need this cheap tat from China? Probably not. You know, could I buy a more expensive version made somewhere else? Yes, I probably could. Maybe I should do that, you know. Maybe we can actually make the world a better place slightly by degree.

But yeah, I really would like to rethink the relationship with China because it was foolish to allow them to essentially buy up all of the jobs that we thought we didn't want to do. because it's hollowed out the West anyway. You know, I think the main crisis that brought Brexit and Trump, I think, was the loss of this kind of social ladder that was manufacturing jobs and practical jobs. Because there's this arrogance about academia, I think, and the middle class where they think,

well, the only way that you can be smart and successful is if you go to university, so we need to get everyone to go to university. But some people just don't learn academically. Some people learn through doing, using their hands, you know. And they're not any less smart than anyone else. It's just a different way of viewing the world and interacting with the world. You know, it's more concrete, less conceptual.

And it seems arrogant to say, yeah, no, fuck you guys. You can just join us in the in the Smarty Pants area where you can get down and read the books. You know, I mean, I know lots of my family who are very much in the category that I'm talking about. And they are not academics. It's just not what they're about, you know, but they are hardworking and they are smart and they can get things done. And I think that we could at least have, you. you know, give a bit of ear to these people, a bit of consideration. But these are the gamins, aren't they?

These are the breast-deary gamins that I'm talking about. So why would we, you know, they're the racist. I swear to God, one of the difficulties with doing these videos remotely now instead of in studios, we did it last time, is that Francis now looks like the most gammon-y person ever. He could not be any pinker if you fucking tried. Yeah, I did actually look at my skin color on the Doolux Colored shot. And it is actually called a lovely shade of gammon.

But there we are. Carl, I wanted to talk to you in particular about Trump because initially he was criticised about his response to the virus, the way that he was dealing with it, and there are a lot of sound criticisms there. But he seems to have changed the debate to whether it's racist to call it the China virus.

And in fact, somebody told me the other day that one of his cabinet called it the Kung Flux. Do? Has Trump rather re-skill-fully really, really skillfully, re-framed the debate from his own approach to it to actually this debate which isn't important in any shape or form? I think the debate that isn't important in any shape or form is essentially a red herring to throw off the sort of woke karate who are going to get their knickers in a twist about this. Because if you look at what Trump's doing, it seems to actually be pretty good generally. Even if, now, you've got to remember that Trump is an entity, right? He's a political entity and he has known qualities and defined boundaries. And, you know, some of these known qualities are him being brash and boorish.

And some of the boundaries are, you know, the limits of his ability to articulate. But he's also got other, he has virtues as well, as much as a lot of people don't want to admit to it. And one of the things I think him and Boris have done, which is actually really sensible, is the daily or almost daily briefings that they've been doing. Just this, you know, streamed on the internet, played on TV. Because there is a concern that leadership, like the people at the top need to show level-headedness, right? And this is the leadership quality. Now, Trump might say everything he does is the best and they have the best and everyone thinks so at all times.

but it is also a kind of reassuring regularity. It becomes the normal, right? To have, you know, the president get up and even if you don't like him, he sits there and says, well, look, you know, here's an expert here, here's an expert here, these are going to say, this is what we're doing. You know, we're doing our best.

This is a surprise. It's been strong enough because you say, you know, Trump was criticized for not doing enough now too much. And it's like, yeah, he's going to be criticized there. They are really pathological when it comes to their criticisms of Trump. And so I'm just like, okay, you know, what's he actually doing? And they're currently trying to put this $2 billion dollar package through so that Americans will get money, tax rebates, and businesses will

continue to exist. So once this has passed, people will have jobs to go back to. It appears that it's actually the Democrats who are blocking this. And Trump signed off on all of it. It was his treasury that was demanding that there was money being given to people. And I mean, I'm reflecting, you look at it and then, well, this sounds like something Bernie Sanders would do, right? you know, to give people money. I mean, I'm a liberal. I'm not a socialist. And so I'm sitting here thinking, right, okay,

I mean, you know, needs must as the devil drives. But, you know, that strikes me as being a very, like, I think it's the sort of precedent that could I go really well or really badly, you know, so I'm kind of hoping that it goes really well and not really badly. But you can see the position that they're in. And for some reason, the Democrats are blocking this. So, I mean, I don't really know what Trump is supposed to be doing because he's not a dictator.

there's a lot of devolved power in the United States and by design. So, I mean, you know, like Cuomo shutting down New York, it looks really reasonable given what New York is, you know, a massive epicenter of people and commerce and traffic and stuff. But if you're in the Midwest sort of thing,

and for example, like here, I'm in the southwest of England, shutting down London, totally makes sense, but, I mean, social gatherings and pubs, fine. But there are still loads of people on the streets here. Everything just seems to be fairly normal. Nobody's, you know, we've had very, very few incidents of this virus.

So everyone's kind of going about their day as if it's a day off. But generally, I don't think he's done a bad job so far. I don't know what everyone's expecting him. What do we want him to do? And one thing I'm wary of is this kind of continental-style lockdown. I think the distinction between what we and the United States have done and Canada as well. And in fact, New Zealand's only just lockdown as well. Compared to the speed of it on the continent,

I think it speaks to two different mindsets. And the English-speaking world tends to have a kind of, you need to be responsible. You know, the government isn't your daddy. You need to be responsible. And so, you know, we should be personally more responsible. I don't really want the police to come out and check my papers for going down to the shops.

But in return for that freedom, I'm not going to be responsible and go down the shops, especially if I feel sick, you know. So, yeah, I don't know what else they can do. It's interesting. I used to, obviously, I'd go. grew up on a society where the police would check your papers, but they wouldn't check on your way to the shops because the shops were always fucking empty.

Just like Francis growing up for parts of his life in Venezuela. But what do you make of what's happening? You mentioned the UK. It's interesting that you talk about that steady reassurance because my wife, who's completely apolitical, she watched Boris Johnson addressed to the nation yesterday. And she said, oh, I thought he actually did really well. Whereas whenever David Cameron used to appear on TV, she used to instantly have to halt suppress vomit.

She just thought that guy is so fake. So there's something about Boris and particularly the way that he's handling this. You know, he's lost all the, you know, he hasn't referenced a Greek tragedy for weeks now. He's cut out the jokes. You know what I mean? Like he's taken it seriously. What do you make of how we've handled this? Because you say you're a liberal.

and he is clearly someone who tried to have the most careful response to this in the sense that he didn't want to impose draconian sanctions. Yeah, the hands-off approach. Right, but I think we can all see that that didn't work. I mean, people were not responding the way that you would want. Well, I mean, I'm never excited about the exercise of state power, really, in any regard. It's not something I'd like to see. I like to see spontaneous action by people living their lives.

But, I mean, it can be warranted in some circumstances. Obviously, you know, during World War II, it was completely warranted, but effectively everyone had to be on the same team. And this seems to be a crisis of fair magnitude. So I don't think that what they're doing is necessarily unwarranted at all. I think it's going to get too silly either, to be honest. I don't think that the police are going to, you know, be like, right, well, you know, that's it.

Boris has said inside. So inside, if there are some kids. playing out the grass or something. I don't think it's going to be like that. And I think that we'll weather the worst of it. What else are we going to do? Die, that's a possibility. I think your point about them being level-headed is actually quite good.

And the same goes for Trump as well. You know, they're very eccentric people, Boris and Trump, in their own right. But I think that they have taken the right tone about it. It looks like they're concerned. And like when they first started doing the press conferences, they look exhausted. you know, they looked really tired. So, you know, to me, as, you know, I mean, I, you know, I think they're doing a half decent job.

But to me, it just looked like they've been working all night, you know, before they came and gave their announcements. And I think, in a way, that's reassuring. I think people need to see that they are taking it seriously. They're not being frivolous and flippant. And, you know, we'd just have to pull together, I guess. You know, it's the blitz spirit, as they say. And, Carl, there seems to be this interesting phenomenon,

particularly amongst their left, where they seem to be wanting to get ever more authoritarian. And you see it with some of their commentary online. Do you agree with that? I can guess you done by what you've said before. And more importantly, why do you think that is? I think this is most evident in the proposed bill that Nancy Pelosi put up instead of agreeing to the bill drafted by the Republicans, which like I said, the bill drafted by the Republicans, effectively a Democrat bill. It looked very, very, very friendly to their positions. But instead they, the bill Pelosi promoted was loaded with wokeness, frankly, loaded with all of their pet projects. So, you know, like further political grabs on,

like, you know, healthcare environment, diversity quotas and information, but making it mandatory that every company and every government agency have to give over the diversity information. It's like, well, there's only one reason why they're ever going to need that information. And that's so they can say, well, that company's racist or that's sexist or whatever, you know, that's the only reason they'd ever ask for this. And so this, this, like, weird power grab is annoying. But I think it's because, honestly, the, I mean, if we were to boil down the left and the right to being, um, sort of, I mean, the left seemed to have a particular desire for order and central planning. And if we're going to say the right,

is the sort of libertarian types who, you know, the sort of people who want constitutional government. And that's the only way I can frame what far right is, because I think if they thought I was a Nazi, they'd just call me a Nazi, but instead they'd call me far right. And I'm like, okay, well, I want constitutional order, I want limited government, on personal independence. So if that's the opposite, well, then they're going to naturally push towards more state control in order to create a more perfect system. And I think that the imperfections are kind of inevitable. It's interesting, isn't it? Because I think the desire for order is actually probably something that just both the political extremes want.

There are people on what you might actually accurately describe as the far right, who also want order, mass deportations, you know, an authoritarian government as well. So I think it's actually just what it really reveals is that while being an actual far right person is completely unacceptable. in civil society, in the public square, being a far left person is not only acceptable, you're actually welcomed, you get invited on question time, etc. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm very dubious about calling the fascists far right, to be honest. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I just don't see what the definition of far right we're using that could make them and say, you know, all of the sort of like ANCAP types, you know, the anti-state preppers who, you know, just want the government to leave them alone.

How do they fit into the same box? And I really don't think they do. And I think that there's a, I think honestly, the far left has been deliberate about trying to portray them as far right, because I think they're a lot closer to the left than they are to the right, frankly. All of the fascists were communists first, or socialist first. And it's a natural evolution of the socialist philosophy, because the socialists effectively, Marx wants revolution of the proletariat. They seize the means of production, they create their temporary dictatorship for the proletariat and the whatever glorious leader, and they implement real socialism and that, for some reason,

fades away over time until a stateless, classless, property-less, moneyless society. The fascists, like Mussolini and Giovanni Gentili, just openly said, well, socialism is a dead doctrine. It doesn't work. that's not going to happen. However, we could take over everything and perfect the state entirely. We're not going to get rid of the state. We're going to turn the state into essentially our model for God. You know, it provides, you know, nothing against the state, nothing outside of the state. I come on the exact formulation of it, but you know what I'm talking about.

The state becomes God effectively. And so I don't think that you can draw a straight line from liberalism to fascism, but you'd have to go through socialism and communism first. And I think that's why China's Communist Party just looks a lot like Nazi Germany at this point. I think that there are kind of a series of incentives and necessities that you end up falling through, whether you like it or not. Well, I think – sorry, France, I just want to finish on the point. So, but I think when we talk about the evolution, I mean, there is a evolution from what you might describe as conservatism, conservative being the desire for order, for cleanliness, for homogeneity, et cetera. So when we talk about that being the right, I'm not talking about the ANCAP and whatever,

and the libertarian right, but perhaps the conservative right, people who, if you take that to its extreme branch, you end up perhaps on what has conventionally been described as the far right, which is the kind of white nationalist, Nazi type way of thinking. Yeah, I mean, as with all of these things, the term left and right is not really very useful. No, no. This is why I'm specifically naming ideologies and trying to essentially connect a narrative of how they came about and what they led to. And the reason they led to these things, because then I think you have a more sensible structure of where people sit in the sort of tree of ideology. Because essentially all of these things came out of the Enlightenment.

And then you've got like, say, Catholic traditionalism sort of thing. It's an entire separate branch, you know, it's not an Enlightenment ideal. It comes from the Bible. It comes from theocracy. It comes from tradition. And so it's got a different set of values. And they can end up looking very similar. You're absolutely right.

But I just hate using terms left and right because it doesn't mean anything. Like a fascist is so far away from the sort of like liberal, libertarian type, even though, you know, they get lumped into the same bog. and I just, I don't think it's very useful. But anyway, like, I think, I think fascism has been successfully discredited at this point. I don't, I think the 20th century has done a number on it. And, I mean, you would have thought the same would have happened for communism too. But essentially, the next thing we have to do is discredit communism.

And hopefully we can just hover around a kind of realistic liberalism and just kind of a liberalism that's interested in dealing with the facts as they are. Because a lot of the distinction here is like, is an ought. It's like this is the case, yeah, but it ought to be the case that it's not. It's like, why? You know, it is what it is. And we kind of have to accept that. Well, discredits and communism is very easy.

Just let Ash Sarkar keep coming back on question time. Anyway, sorry, Francis, carry on, man. I've got a theory about that. Is that because Che Guevara looks a lot better on a t-shirt than Adolf Hitler. Well, he was cool. You know, you can't deny. And if you wanted to, if you wanted to be the resistance to, you know, the imperialist Americans,

then he was a good symbol of resistance. I mean, a lot of people didn't like him. He lived in Cuba. He killed a lot of people with his own hand. He had some interesting opinions on black people and things like that. But if you were a middle-class kid who didn't like the Vietnam War, well, he's your hero. Absolutely.

And we're talking right now about civil liberties. And actually, the government has taken a lot of our civil liberties away. And you could argue that absolutely there's a right to do it and there's a reason to do it. But there is also a precedent being set where sometimes the government takes away certain liberties and after the problem has passed, they're not so keen to give them back. Do you think that what we're going to see after Corona has gone, we're going to see a real struggle to get certain liberties given back to us? Well, that's the fear.

I believe that there was a specific time frame. Yeah, two years. Two years, yeah. So that hopefully will be as honored as we expect it to be, because the last thing I want to have to do is fight a revolution against the tyrannical government. I'm just saying, I don't want to. I'm comfortable.

I'm fat. I'm happy. I don't want to have to get barricades and shoot at soldiers. I don't have to do that. We could do a rocky montage. car. Exactly. You're just working out, mate, getting all ripped with ads.

Hey, what do with me? Everyone's going to have to do it if that's the case. Like, it's not just me. But the thing that is worrying, though, is, I mean, I don't want to downplay the danger of the coronavirus. But the fatality rate is very low when, like, because I mean, and every day it's getting lower and lower and lower because the number of people being tested and number of fatalities

is not necessarily congruent with the number of people who have the disease and the number of fatalities. So every day the number of fatalities actually becomes a smaller percentage of the people who are tested for it. And so it could be that this is actually a massive overreaction. I'm not saying that there aren't problems, there are obviously problems. And obviously shutting things down as a way of preventing it

from reaching the worst-case scenario. But I do think that that will be a theory that is considered after this is all over. Did we overreact? Did we allow the government to have powers that we actually don't want the government to have? And this was something that was considered retrospectively with the Patriot Act.

And still, people are not happy with the powers that the American government gave itself. I guess only time will tell, but I'm really hoping that cooler heads will prevail. And people who actually care about the integrity of the system or, you know, in the future say, okay, well, no, this, this actually, you know, this was a mistake or, you know, whatever it turns out to me, I'm not going to make a prediction, but like, you know, if it turns out this was unnecessary, this should become understood, you know, we shouldn't just jump just because media environment is panicking. I mean, watching Piers Morgan hop on on Twitter, it's like, Piers, shut up, right? You were a fat idiot. You are not a doctor. They are taking advice from the best, you know, experts in this in the world. And Piers Morgan's like, do this, do that. I don't care what you saw on Twitter, mate. I just don't care.

Like, shut up. And that leads into a question that I particularly wanted to ask you, in that do you think part of this hysteria comes from the media, the mainstream media, hyping this up, because, you know, this is a chance for them to gain ground and, you know, reclaim some of their lost viewers and listeners and actually create the state of hysteria? They definitely have incentives to do it.

I mean, one of the things I don't do in my video titles is put all caps, because that to me feels like hysteria mongering. You know, it feels like clickbait. You know, so if I just put my title as a normal sentence, a normal title as I would give an essay sort of thing, then I feel that I'm not being hysterical and clickbaiting. I realize it's very subjective. That's just the way I feel about it.

But the media, but you can't deny there is an incentive to do that. it probably does get more views, probably does get more clicks. And in a media ecosystem where a bunch of them are dying and actively failing and need that traffic to justify more investment to advertisers, you can see why they would be jumping on this. And yeah, I think it's entirely unhelpful. I mean, Trump actually did dress down one reporter who was, you know, he called him fearmongering.

And I agree. I think that this is why Boris and Trump have been doing such a good thing. job of just acting calmly and saying, look, we're doing what we can, you know, we're doing our best, rather than running around, screaming that the sky's falling and that we're all going to die, it's not very useful. And I think the problem is, like, I think the reason that Boris and Trump have been pushed to this degree as well is I think they really don't want to do this. I don't think they want to shut down because I think they view their success as hinging on a good economy. And obviously shutting down the country means that's the end of the good economy.

I don't think anyone's going to blame them for that, that necessarily is what choice did they have. But I think it was pressure that builds up, and it does become a kind of echo chamber where they just hear everyone around and going, oh, God, we're all going to die if we don't do X. And so naturally you're going to feel compelled to have to do something, even if that might not be the wisest thing.

But that's just human decision-making for you. Well, the thing I would say on that is, I think one of the things that I've noticed is all the people that we've had on the show in the past, scientists and people like that, They are all very much of the opinion that if we don't take some of the drastic actions that we're taking now, we will end up in a situation where because of the peak, we get over the capacity of the health system to be able to deal with it. And then you'll end up with a lot of people dying who would not have died otherwise.

And in fact, they may not even die of the coronavirus. They may die simply because they didn't have access to an intensive care beds because that was taken up by somebody. it's like this thing now where there's actually half of the ICU beds in this country are taken up by people under 50. And most of them weren't die from it, right? But they're taking up the bed and there will come a point if the infection keeps spreading. The older people who are essentially, well, okay, they're probably not going to make it anyway. They never get a chance to even have their life potentially saved simply because all the beds are taken up. So I do think that we do have to take it seriously, particularly, as I say, the people who know what they're doing.

And it's not like you're saying otherwise. No, no, I know. I didn't mean to imply that we shouldn't take it seriously. I obviously absolutely should. There is a historical precedent, though, of experts overestimating things. This is one of the problem with the climate debate is that, oh, we've got a prediction. We're all going to die in 12 things. Yeah, but I'm actually old enough to remember all of the other.

other predictions that we were going to die in 12 years, and we didn't. You know, Al Gore, by this point, we'd have no ice caps. It's like, he was full of shit. You know, it's not that they aren't brilliant, and it's not that they aren't expected from the field, obviously. It's just the world is a massively complex place. And I'm not saying I'm the one who understands it either. I can just admit that, you know, we have to look at the precedence.

Well, global warming is a totally different thing. It's much more complicated, I think. And actually, you're absolutely right, though, mate, because I remember when I was at school. I think by this point, we're supposed to run out of oil 20 years ago, run out of coal pretty much now, and then blah, blah, blah. So, no, I take your point. But I think epidemics are slightly different. Can I just interrupt? And that's proof why you never trust a Soviet education system, mate. I actually went to school in Britain, mate, for most of my education. Yeah, no, he said Soviet education. So you've just slammed the British education system yourself,

like a good self-hating Brit. Anyway, moving on slightly, Carl, what do you think, as we look at Francis, drink his... I don't know why the screen is still on Francis. This is completely, I'm going to change this. I can't handle it anymore. This is censorship, typical fucking Russian. Exactly.

Yes, we must shut it down. To the Goulag with you for drinking from the wrong mug. But we started talking about the culture war, and I want to come back to it, because I wonder what you think, someone who talks about this a lot and who sees a lot of this stuff and it does a lot of analysis on it. What do you think the impact will be, like I've been way too naive on all this stuff. Like after the last election, I was like, okay, finally the idiots are going to realize

that no one actually likes them, no one shares the stupid points of view, and actually we can have a proper political debate about the stuff that matters. Didn't really happen. Do you think that as a result of this, some of the woke stuff is going to be? going to fall away and we're all going to, we can actually talk about stuff other than, you know, idiots on university campuses shutting down speakers because they don't believe in 50 genders. Look, I spend a lot of time telling you what's wrong with the world. So let me tell you about something that's actually right. Sleep, specifically getting more of it, better quality, the kind where you wake up and feel like a human being, rather than someone who's been thrown

down a staircase. Most mattresses are just layers of synthetic foam and crossed fingers. You're spending a third of your life on the thing. And most, you're spending a third of your life on the thing. and most people have no idea what's actually in it. Avocado green mattress is different. Their mattresses are certified organic, built from natural materials, designed to actually support your body properly rather than just hold you in one position until morning. The craftsmanship is real.

These are mass-produced objects. Someone has put thought into them. I'll be honest. I'm not the person who thinks carefully about where he sleeps. My dating history will tell you that. I'm the person who's been on the same mattress for eight years and called it, fine, but the older I get, the more I notice that fine isn't actually fine. Your body tells you, if you're going to invest in anything for your home, your bed is the one that pays you back

every single night. Avocado products are made, not manufactured, and thoughtfully crafted with real materials to deliver lasting comfort and support. Go to avocado green mattress.com slash trigger to check out their mattress and furniture sale. That's avocado greenmatress.com slash trigger. Avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. I mean, I don't know. I think that it'll only be a temporary respite if we get it because it won't change the fundamental contention

that they have a different definition of equality to everyone else. And while they pursue that definition of equality, we'll never be able to come to a resolution because they'll continually ask for things that aren't in our definition of equality. I would say that most reasonable people would define equality as a quality of treatment, equality under the law. So one rule for all, right?

And that's, it's very ancient, actually. That's a very ancient idea in English culture. It hasn't always been applicable, obviously, or applied. But it's an ancient idea that you're like, you know, that's a form of equality. It's say if, you know, because we invent the idea of personal sovereignty. It's like, okay, well, if every man is going to be treated like a sovereign, then every man has to be treated under the same rule, right? The law has to be consistent among them all.

And so that's easy for us to then define what is and is not equality because we are concerned with procedural equality. So if, you know, yourself or Francis go up to, I don't know, whatever I'm going to use for an example, and you get treated differently to me, then you say, well, that wasn't equal because there's a demonstrable inequality there. And there's, you know, it's an arbitrary thing.

But if we end up going through the process and there is an inequality at the end, for example, it might be a test or something, you know, yeah, you might be way smarter than me and we get different grades. But the test was, we were on equal footing when we took the test. Then it was about factors that are beyond the control of the person involved. But the way the woke left view equality is about it's conceptual. It's about outcome. They don't care about the procedure. They care that, for example, men earn like 15% more. money in aggregates than women do. But then anytime you look at the procedure, you can't find

any particular sexism there because the problem, or, you know, quote unquote problem, this isn't a problem, but the difference is made up primarily by the fact that women just work fewer hours a week than men. They don't do actually as much work as men do by choice. And there's nothing wrong with that, you know. And so this will, until we kind of square this circle until we resolve why they're asking for what they're asking for, we will never be able to effectively drive them off because we have to be able to nail down. Look, no, if you want to use the word equality, it must mean procedural equality, not conceptual equality, because honestly, I don't think they're really being honest about why there are inequalities at the end of our

procedures, which I generally view to be fairly fair. I mean, I think they're as good as they're going to get as far as I'm concerned. Sounds pretty racist to make. great. Now we're racist. It just seems reasonable to me, you know. But Carl, there's a question that I really want to, and I want to move it on sort of towards globalization, unless Constantine you wanted to add.

No, I want to talk a little bit more about the culture war before we move. I mean, think globalization is definitely one of the issues we'll talk about in the second. But in terms of the culture war, I guess I'm kind of, I've almost destroyed my own argument because I'm, I remember like two days ago there was an article in Vice talking about how life-saving transgender reassignment search is now being delayed because of stupid people who are dying of the coronavirus. How transphobic, exactly. And I just, I don't understand whether, whether they're, I mean, do people, do you think people are going to stop reading Vice because of this stuff? And eventually we will end up in a position where maybe.

just like the demand for that kind of content is going to fall because people really realize how useless and pointless it is. Well, I mean, if people start encountering real world problems, then yeah, the demand for this is definitely going to go away. Because I mean, all of this sort of highly introspective me, me, me view of the world, you know, my gender identity, my this, my that. It's all very much contingent on the fact that they aren't about starve to death or get overrun by bandits or something like that, you know.

and, you know, there are going to be no, there are going to be no genderqueers in foxholes when the, when the barbarian hordes come, they're going to be like, oh, the men can protect us. Oh, no, no, no, that's a man. Suddenly we can define man and define women, and now it's the men's job to protect the women, you know. When, when they'll collapse on that one very, very quickly, I think.

But yeah, yeah, so until there's a return to normalcy, I would think it would be less effective as an argumentative tactic. But like I said, it's not going to go away, though. It's not going to go away. So what Carl is saying is we're in business for a nice little while yet. All right. Fantastic. Excellent stuff.

Thank you, Carl. Our sponsors are all watching and calming down. I mean, I want them to go away. So do we, man. Well, this is the one of the ironies of all the stuff that you do and that we do is we would love not to have to do trigonometry. Yeah. we would love to talk about other stuff.

And I think you're the same. Dude, I'm exactly the same. I started a second channel just so I could just do it anyway. Like, you know, the videos about the way that the society is changing because of activism from the left, I think is very important. I think it is important that people are aware that there are things. I mean, even with the Conservative government, this is still all advancing through local authorities. because the people in the position of local power have been, frankly, tend to be quite pro in sectionality.

And I don't know why. I don't know why that is, but they just seem to be. And there's very little peers that conservatives can do, which is annoying because, I mean, they are the government and they probably should be, like, defunding some of this nonsense by this point. I mean, like, the whole thing is really annoying

because a lot of it is predicated on terms like patriarchy, you know, and it's like, okay, we'll define that. It's like, well, the rule of men. It's like, well, define what, a man is. Well, a man is a social construct. So what you're saying, you've got a circular argument here where the concept of man, you know, created

itself to create the patriarchy that creates itself. So where's the origin point? And that's obvious nonsense. That's an obvious, it's a logical fallacy. But if you ground the term man as coming from the biological expression of a human being, a male human being, as in adult

human male, and woman being adult human female. Oh shit. I know, I know. Suddenly, you don't find yourself in this endless circle of definitions, you know, self-referential definition. And so now you can actually resolve what you're saying. You've got, you know, the origin, the method, and then the conclusion. And you've reached a sensible statement, unlike the way things are being done now.

And yet, this is still going on. And, you know, these things are still being proliferated. So I do find it rather frustrating, I'd say. And at some point, it is all going to have to be undone. done because frankly, I mean, you can't base a theory on something that is self-referential like that. It's not going to work. It's obviously not going to represent reality. And that's the problem. So racist and transphobic. Excellent. Now, moving on to globalisation. So moving on to globalisation, Carl, because the standard thinking for the vast majority,

I would say liberals is the fact that we're an interconnected planet. And that means that we can trade freely. We can move freely around the planet. and this is only beneficial to us and to everybody else. But will the coronavirus change that and the way that we perceive borders and nation states and all the rest of it? Well, the coronavirus is something of a nationalist's dream, actually, isn't it? It's destroyed the myth of globalization and the one-sided view of it, the narrative that it's only beneficial and there's nothing bad that comes from it.

for example, Italy has such a bad case of the coronavirus because they had loads of Chinese workers working in factories in Milan. I didn't know that until after this had happened, but I looked into it, and it turns out it's true. And so this came from movement of workers from China. And it's the same with Iran. Iran has a lot of movement with China as well. I'm surprised that Africa hasn't got major groups too.

But I would imagine it's something to do with population density, because Africa's got very low population density. But anyway, yeah, the... the great dream of the Schengen zone is over. I mean, even Germany has closed their borders. If even Germany has closed their borders, then there must be some truth to the statement that borders work, walls work.

You know, preventing people from crossing a thing will prevent those problems from coming with them. That is true. You know, it's, and I think is, I'm not saying that we have to do this, but I think there is a case for addressing the concept of immigration at this point. There has been a loss of immigration.

a lot of it's been ideological on the part of the governments, you know, the reason for opening up. I mean, yeah, Tony Blair is alleged to have said he just did it to rub the rights face and diversity. But, okay, now we're looking at global pandemics and the collapse of supply chains and, you know, unable to get manufactured items. I was like, okay, maybe we should have been slightly more self-reliant. There is still some value in the idea of self-reliance, you know. There's no value in the idea of global trade and movement and stuff like that there is, but there are good parts and bad parts of both.

And I think that a sensible compromise between the two would be at least a step forward. Absolutely. And it's a really important conversation, one which is obviously taken a back seat with everything that's happening now. Because one of the things that I thought was very strange is that Boris is a liberal Tory.

So what really happened after the last election is he went, yeah, points-based immigration system except under that new immigration system actually I think a lot of the people who've been calling for immigration to be reduced were very likely to be disappointed by the outcome because the way that system was calibrated you probably were going to end up with the same

or if not more immigration, right? Yeah, it's hard to know now though, isn't it? He's like, we're going to put a point-based immigration system and then suddenly everyone's got to close their borders and no one can travel. Right. So would it work? We don't know.

Yeah. No, I think this is the thing is, I think at least we now are at the point where having a conversation where, you know, as you talk about, we need to compromise. You're not saying shut the borders permanently and never let another foreigner in. And that's never been your position. But what you are saying is we need to look at a sensible way of managing immigration and we need to check who comes in. And it's one of the funniest things to me actually about this whole thing was, and as you know, I'm not a UKIP fan or or even a Farage fan particularly, but one of the things that got him criticized the most

during the Brexit referendum was him saying that we should check whether people have lethal diseases before they come into the country. Do you remember that? Why not? Do you remember that? Yeah. Why wouldn't we do that? You know, that's the thing.

This is what I mean about like there is, I mean, it's just prudence, isn't it? It's just common sense. It's just sensible to be able to. to say, look, if we're going to have people come in, we have to have certain standards and, you know, to make sure that obvious problems that could occur, like pandemics, can be mitigated to the best of our ability. It just seems sensible. But I think, so can we, can we talk about the Groypots? Is that okay? No, we're shutting you down, turn it off.

See, I told you about the communist education system. It's in his soul. See, because I was Of course we can talk about the gropeers, yeah. Go for it. Yeah, because I was watching this and, like, you know, they're war with you. You're a YouTube channel. What do you go to war over wars?

You know? But anyway, so these seem to be white nationalists, right? As far as I can tell. Yeah. And so they can send. And let's just define that as well. So we know who these people are. We know where the telegram channels are.

They're people who send each other swastikas unironically, all this kind. They're neo-Nazis, let's call it that. Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been, I've been talking to a few of them. And it's weird that so many of them love Hitler and hate Churchill. I'm like, and they're like, yeah, we're British nationalists. I'm like, okay.

But yeah, there's an awful amount of apologia for the Nazi regime for British nationalists. But, okay, so I'll just call them white nationalists, right? Yeah. I think that's the. most neutral term I can give them. They are actual nationalists for white race, the white race. But the thing, like, demanding

that you talk about their pet subject, I found interesting, because it's like, you don't have to, and trigonometry isn't the gatekeeper to the, you know, to the rest of the country in this, you know, if only triggering... I wish we fucking were, man.

That would be a real level of... I don't know. It just seems like such a strange thing. And then, like, bunch of them are like, oh, we're going to do it to you. And a bunch of them have posted 14 in my chat when I was live-sharing, and I'm like, this is not rising up, lads, right? You know, this is, like, when they were phoning up Mike Graham and saying, Mike, what about demographic? Because there is a fundamental truth about their argument, but mass immigration is going to cause demographic change in the United Kingdom. Absolutely. Yeah. No one can deny that. It's 100% true.

The numbers are in. You know, the next census in London, especially in Birmingham, they're going to be eye-opening. I think after more than that, you know, I think after more than, 20 years of mass immigration. I think the British people, like just generally, I mean, they've always been very skeptical about mass immigration, they still are. So I think it's fair for them to assert themselves and say, well, look, we're just like less. You know, we're not going to torture immigrants or something. We're going to chuck them off the cliffs of Dover. But we just, you know, when someone says, can I move to Britain, we'll just say, sorry, we're not allowing new people to move here at the moment. I don't think that anyone's

rights are violated. I don't think anyone gets hurt. You know, nothing happens. I think that's fair. I think that's a reasonable thing to do. And yet these guys, he's framing it like the white race is going to die. And I'm like, let's assume everyone agreed with you, right? But if you want to move the needle on anything, and I think it is reasonable to reduce immigration, I'm not interested in kicking out every foreigner that's overstepped foot in the country. Thanks, mate. I appreciate that.

But it's a reasonable request. And framing it in such unreasonable terms. you know, we want to reduce immigration. Also, Hitler did nothing wrong, and the Holocaust didn't happen, but it should have done. He's like, fucking hell, man. Yeah. You know, I mean, I'm someone who wants immigration reduced, and I'm not a white nationalist. And as far as I'm concerned, the Gropers just seem to be a dead weight to the cause of reducing immigration.

We're right. They make reasonable people look really, really bad because they are coming at it from the completely the wrong angle. See, the thing is that, like, all of us would agree that immigration needs to be reduced. but and I am a fierce critic of Blair's immigration policy. And one of the reasons is that I think letting so many people in such a period of time prevented integration. And then any backlash that happens as a consequence of that is going to be targeted to people like me who've actually done their utmost to integrate, right?

Not enough in my as far as I'm concerned, but any. Absolutely, mate. But so that's the thing. But having people who are genuine neo-Nazis attach themselves to very reasonable concerns the ordinary people have. And then come into our channel and start demanding that we have conversations

with their favorite neonati. Yeah. Right. It's really annoying, isn't it? It is. But it's quite funny in a way as well because these people look so childish and I don't think they realize

how pathetic they look, you know? Yeah, I saw Alistair Williams giving one of them a grilling the other day just saying, look at you, you know, you don't look like someone worth having a conversation with. And, you know, that is in some ways true. So it's one of those things where it's just like, I just, I mean, you know, if they wanted to do something useful, phone up James O'Brien and LBC guys.

Seriously. Seriously, is there anyone who deserves to have to be, you know, constantly phoned up by neo-Nazis all day, every day more than James O'Brien? I want him. I want to listen to James O'Brien. I'm not talking to a rando member of the public who's not a lunatic. I want James O'Brien to literally have to go through these Nazis arguments day after day up the day. step by step by step. So every call is a Nazi that he's got to be exhausted by.

I just want to watch that. That sounds like prime time entertainment. That would be quite funny. There is a solution to this, which is... A final solution. Yeah, exactly. There's my dad who married a brown woman and produced a child who's full on gammon. So he can basically, let's get him to procreate with all ethnic minority people,

and we're just going to have people look like me, mate. I have never heard a man advocating for his dag to shag around fucking hell, mate. But actually, one of the things that I find quite interesting, Carl, is that the tactics of these people, they are exactly what Antifa do. It's quite incredible. And they're claiming, just like Antifa claimed that they're exercising their free speech when they shut down conversations. This is exactly what these people do. They flood a chat room so no one else can talk and they claim that this is about free speech. Well, it's a tactic.

And it's only because it seems to be effective in the, you know, in the local, like, areas in that chat room. But it's, it's because they want the tension. And the thing is, like, it's not unfair. It's not unfair to worry about the, I mean, like, when John Pleas said London isn't an English city, I'm not from London and I agree with him. You know. If you remember, I defended him at the time, right? So it's not like. You absolutely did.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's exactly it. That's why I'm baffled why they think, oh, yeah, trigonometry is the problem, right? I mean, like, there are loads of leftists in The Guardian who are screaming, closing the borders is racist, and I don't care if we'll die from the coronavirus, and yet you guys are somehow the problem.

It's like, mad. Like I said, guys, call James O'Brien. But don't you think it's a little bit of it is it's about ego. It's about celebration of the self. It's looking at results. And if you target a channel like us, and we're not, you know, we're growing, but we're not a massive channel. We've only got 92K subs.

You can see it a real. impact that your actions do. Whilst if you target James O'Brien at LBC, your entities, it's so massive, it's going to make no dent on them whatsoever. Well, I mean, there are methods that you could make an impact.

And it would require, you know, like, say like a hundred people every day. And since everyone's at home now, they can do this. You know, just literally just jam the phone lines with Groyper callers every day. And that would have an effect. But like, but James O'Brien, you know, he's surely millions of listeners, LBC,

as a mainstream station, all the politicians go on it. And I'm not saying you're not mainstream or successful or anything like that. No, we're not, but we're not mainstream. And also, the other thing is we're not a debate show. Like, we've had you on the show. We don't debate you. We talk to you. We interview you.

We ask you some questions. Like, we've never had anyone on the show where we were like, we completely disagree with this person about everything. Yeah. You know. But it's like, I do agree with you. What you're saying is, you know, they, they, I think, you know, they are, they, they think they've got.

a vulnerable target that they can attack and they think that they can do some damage to this target. And, you know, they might do some damage as well. But at the end of the day, they've achieved nothing. You know, they've gone no further to their goal. All they've done is made life difficult for you guys. But they actually haven't. Let's be honest about that. The thing is, when they give us lots of comments, I actually boost our engagement levels.

So it actually helps us. So all our kind of income from our Patreon, subscribes there. And also, you know, people see them treating us unfilts. fairly and they want to support us. So our donations have shut up and everything else. But it just, it just seems like what my concern with that is that these people are very easy to associate with people who are more in line with your way of thinking. And then people like you get tarnished by association with people with who you completely despise and have nothing in common with. Yeah, it's, it's rather annoying being called old right after I spent like a year of my

life, actively driving them out of my spaces. Right. And one of the most annoying things is when YouTube and Facebook decided to de-platform people who are all right, you know, like content creators who own the idea and own the phrase and own the movement, because that's, you know, they could congregate that. So their comment sections would be filled with alt-write comments and you know what I'm talking about.

And as soon as these people are deplatformed, well, they still want to talk about the same subjects. Now they're coming to like your chat, my chat. and things like this, my comment sections. And I'm just like, God damn it, YouTube. You know, I don't want these people wasting my time with these, you know, these things. They're not sensible, in my opinion.

But, yeah, basically I just think that the groupers should stop being cowards and go off and do something useful for once. But I don't think they will. No, and where do you stand on the issue of censorship with these particular people? So a lot of them, like you said, have their YouTube channel

taken down. Do you think that YouTube should be a sort of truly free speech platform, where you're allowed to say anything, no matter how awful or vile? Or do you think there should be limits within that? Well, I mean, naturally, there should be limits, like, you know, threats, incitement, things like that, you know, and open harassment. You know, I can see why that would be something that would be something YouTube would want to forbid. I mean, let's be fair, YouTube is way beyond that. Oh, yeah. It is really bad. And they're just taking, you know, they took a few months ago. they just took down a spate of channels.

And these channels, you know, hadn't done anything to violate the guidelines. They weren't in violation of any of the policies. It was just one day, take them down. I mean, I got my channel, my Accad Daily channel, demonetized, out of the blue. And YouTube told me that it was for harassment. Okay, who did I harass? They couldn't, they, none of, I didn't get a strike. None of my videos got strikes.

So normally, you get a strike on a video, so they'd take that video down and you get a strike for, you know, whatever community guideline they felt you'd breached. but I didn't get any strikes. I've done nothing. They can't, I emailed them and I got some responses. And they couldn't tell me what video that they were criticizing, what I'd even said. And yet they were doing it anyway.

And so it really feels like essentially they're looking at the approaching November election in America and, you know, clearing the field, I think. But yeah, it's quite annoying how they're getting, so the noose is getting quite tight. It is, man. that YouTube really should relax this somewhat. I really think so.

But it's, sorry, constantly. No, I was just going to say that we talked about this when we had some of our video demonetized and you had me on your show. That actually one of the things that happens is you end up in a position where they demonetize you, but they still run ads on your fucking videos. Yeah, yeah, that's, I, in fact, there was a comment this morning.

I worked up this morning. I was just, you know, checking to see if my channel's still there, which is my day now. You know, I get up, have they deleted my channel yet? No. One of the first comments I saw was someone said there were eight mid-roll adverts on this video, and I'm like, Jesus, you know. I mean, you know, putting one is enough, but eight, apparently. And I don't see a penny of that.

So it's like, Christ, you know, it's not taking advantage. You know what I mean? It's really felt, you know, it's quite frustrating. And I really wish YouTube wouldn't be so. I mean, I don't want to say abusive, but it is a kind of form of abuse to continually treat people like this. They treat their own content creators like with the enemy because we're not Silicon Valley progressives. It's like, dude, bad luck, but most people are not Silicon Valley progressives. You know, it doesn't make them bad or bigoted.

That just means they're not radical leftists from California. And isn't the problem as well is that they've effectively got a monopoly. This is really, if you want to do this type of content, this is the only platform you can do it on. Yeah, yeah. Saying that, right, Alex Jones, dare I bring them up, has a site called band dot video, which gets surprisingly good numbers in the hundreds of thousands on a lot of their videos. So I think that essentially all of this sense, and there are lots, it's not just Alex Jones on it, but he created the platforms to have the resources.

There are lots of people who have otherwise been censored on there. And, you know, it's not like, you know, far right or like, you know, neonati or anything like that. it's libertarian. That's the sort of way it is. And so you get like, you know, the, what's the name, Caitlin Bennett, the gun girl who goes around the campuses, interviewing students and things like that, is people like that, you know, people who will be, who willfully misgender, for example. And that's considered a high crime now, you know, whereas, you know, to a sort of libertarian conservative, they don't think about that at all. It doesn't even register on their moral compass, you know. And I think it is a bit unfair to have sprung these kind of new standards on them, because it is very ideological. You know, if you are a biological essentialist, shall we say, then you are completely and ideologically locked out from entire spheres of engagement on Twitter. I mean, I know some, like Zubi, for example.

Offerun Zubi, yeah, yeah. Yes, exactly, yeah. Okay, do spend it, like day suspension. It's like, come on, that's ridiculous. I mean, you know, it just, it goes on. and it will continue going on. But it does look like there might be options. There might be.

Well, there's a problem with some of these platforms in that, you know, if they suspend and then these people go into other platforms and what you're creating is an entire subculture and that what happens is these people end up radicalizing themselves. Yeah, that's absolutely true. And I mean...

Francis is quoting my last telegraph piece, by the way. Thanks, I appreciate it. Well, it's completely true. like they, it seems to be forgotten that the way to de-radicalize someone is exposure to something. They, you know, if you want, if you want the old right to hate brown people less, then they, you know, they, you would want them to speak to these people and understand that they're human too. You know, they have their own concerns and cares. And they're not insensitive to the necessary to the concerns of the, you know, either side. And there doesn't have to be this giant

chasm. But if you, if you just persecute someone and say, right, you know, we're watching you and then we're going to de-platform you and we're going to stigmatize you, then that's in no way deconverting anyone. That's no one was like, well, I was a Nazi until I got de-platform. And I was like, you know what? That's right. The Jews don't control the media. That's not how they think. They just go, well, there we go. You know, look at this guy. Look, this guy with a Jewish surname wrote an article about me. And then I got de-platform. There we go. It's the Jews. It's confirmation. It confirms everything that they already believe. and drive some deeper into their beliefs.

It's the worst thing to do, what you should have. I mean, like, on question time the other day, there was a lady who wanted to stop mass immigration. She just looked like a regular working-class lady to me. And I've all freaked out, going, oh, God, this is far-right propaganda. It's like, dude, this is the majority of the opinion of the country. You know, if she's too controversial, then I don't know what we're going to do.

You know, you've narrowed the range of debate to a very, very narrow position. And yet it was like Baroness Worsi and a Labour MP who were petitioning the BBC. to make sure that they couldn't have those sort of opinions on again. It's like, look, I think the BBC has a duty. If we all have to pay for it, they have a duty to put those people on. And if they're wrong, we'll talk about it. We'll have it out. I think with that woman, the issue probably might have been,

I mean, in a lot of these issues, there's a level of classism involved as well. Like, I think if she was a middle class person, then she'd phrased it differently. I mean, I don't think, by the way, that the majority of the people in this country would subscribe to what that woman, said, which was we must end all immigration.

Yeah, that's too extreme. But, you know, in polling, someone between 50 and 70% of people agree, there's been too much immigration. Yeah. Oh, but that's my point. Like, I think it's the way she phrased it and maybe also an element of the extremist part of the sentiment. I'm not saying she's an extremist.

I'm saying that way of thinking is towards the extreme, right? I don't think. It's a hardline position she's taken. Yeah, right. Because, I mean, I think she was a middle class person. I think she'd get a different response to, my point. Yeah, yeah. They wouldn't nearly be so scornful of her and, you know, dismissive. And again, as if, as if this is not a legitimate opinion, it is a legitimate opinion.

You know, it's one of the things that, well, really did drive the Brexit referendum. As well, you look at the Lord Ashcroft polls. Immigration is a problem. We've had it for such a long time. And there are genuinely, like the, like, the reason I brought them groupers is because they always go on demographics, demographics, demographics, demographics. Well, it's true. You know, it is true. numbers are in. On the Birmingham Council website, I found the other day, that only one third of Birmingham schoolchildren are English. The rest come from foreign extractions. Like, okay, well, that's something that does have to be talked about. You know, it's irresponsible thing that can just be stamped down, you know, because the real people on the ground, the regular person,

they can see the change happening around. Yeah, of course. But this is the point where this describe us, Francis, before you ask your question and our final question, the point with them is that where do we go from here, right? The reality is that, as I was saying, massive opposition from me to the Blair Immigration Project. But the people are here now, right? And the only way you can have a multi-ethnic society is for us to have a common identity, which is fortunately one that we have. We can say that I'm British and Francis can say that he's British and you can say that very British. And what we actually mean by that is we have a common set of values and identities based around those shared values. The problem that we've had over the last 20 years is the far left

has deliberately attempted to destroy that identity and to say there's no such thing as British identity. There's no such thing as British values. And what that leaves us, well, if there's no identity, then we all retreat into our ethnicity. Yeah. That's a really great way of frame it. And they've been very clever about it as well. Because normally when called to account for one's own value system and culture, you don't have to, right? On a day-to-day basis, a lot of it is kind of like you know it when you see it, right? Like, you know, regardless of where Francis says his parents are from, I hear a Londoner, right?

Right. And I hear a Brit, you know, that's, there's no question of it. So it's, you know, a lot of the time, but if I turn around and say, Francis, what's a British person? Oh, God, I don't know. I mean, like, you know, and then you get like John Major's answer, which is cricket on a green on a summer day, you know. But what he's saying is that's something that was uniquely British, you know, that only really happens in Britain.

You know, you don't get the same atmosphere in, say, Pakistan when they're playing cricket. It's a different thing, you know. And so essentially the postmodernists have been very, very aggressive on this point, and very clever about it, because it requires you to sort of find the maxims upon which the thing is founded. And I think that if someone would say, okay, what's it mean to be British then? I think that the most important thing we could say

is the highest value is fairness. You know, the most important thing, the British value is fairness, above all things. You know, like, it really doesn't matter what else it is. I think it's always filtered through a prism of fairness. And there are a lot of aspects of this as well. I won't go into now. But like, it is this sort of shared value.

But it's also the characteristics of the thing. Right? As in, you know, we talk about the weather. You know, we dress in suits. We, you know, we have a union jack. We have red telephone boxes and buses, you know. And so when, if you look at like the Falkland Islands, my dad served in the Falkland Islands, too, in the RRF, you see a picture of it and Gibraltar as well, right? Gibraltar looks like Britain with palm trees. That's it. And the Falkland Islands look like Britain with walruses on the beaches. But it's the same sort of sign format, the same style of building, the same atmosphere that the cultural signifiers of just the country. And I imagine the behaviour of the people is also similar.

This is the point. Very, yeah. But that's really the point is if people behave in similar ways, that's what culture is. it's not about your skin color, right? That's the point. Culture is the thing that people do, you know, expression of it, yeah. But what the left, to me, have done, and particularly that aspect of the left, is they've criticized the sort of the British state. And part of the thing they say is, you know,

it's built on the blood of slavery, it's a shame and it's a disgrace. And, you know, and it's all the rest of it. And then to therefore identify as British means that you therefore are sort of born almost into like an original sin. You're born into the shame and to the evils of your forebears, regardless of what they did. Do you describe to that? I mean, I personally don't ascribe to that myself. I think that people should be judged on their individual merits. But there is a way of looking at it where they're not necessarily wrong. I mean, if you want to have a continuity of identity and feel that you have something in common as a descendant of people who lived in the past. I mean, and you are.

It's clear there is a continuity. So you, if you grow up with cultural values that are British, well, these are cultural values that have been inherited and developed and, you know, maybe improved or degraded. But it's, it is a continuity and a consequence of what came before. But anyone who wants to stigmatize something as being all bad and no way good, That's a person who I think is trying to get one over on you, to be honest, because we know that's not true. I mean, the British Empire, one of the, I was listening to a Churchill speech the other

day, and he was speaking against Nazi Germany, saying, look, Nazi Germany stands against everything the British Empire stands for. And by the definition they've given you, I mean, what the hell would the British Empire stand for, you know, slavery and, you know, imperialism? But that wasn't how they thought of themselves, you know. they thought of themselves as actually, in many ways, liberating the world from things that are terrible. And in many ways, they did.

I mean, it was the British Empire that ended the slave trade and ended slavery around the world. It wasn't the Germans. It wasn't, you know, the Chinese or anyone else. You know, we actively spent our blood and treasure on a moral mission that was against our economic interest because it was the right thing to do. And that's not to say the Britain didn't do anything wrong. Obviously, we did, you know.

But everyone, everyone is, you know, so the way I look at this is morality as a technology, right? Morality is not something that came fully formed from the ether that we just chose to ignore, right? And so the invention of slavery was actually a moral innovation because prior to that it was just murder. And so instead of the, you know, the conquerors were like, oh, we can make them farm our crops or whatever. Not optimal, obviously, terrible situation, but it's probably better than having a head calf, right? And you get this kind of long development of morality. And the only reason that we would want to... I mean, it was for moral reasons that Britain ended the slave trade.

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Watch remarkably bright creatures with your remarkable moms this Mother's Day weekend, only on Netflix May 8th. The British have never really tolerated slavery. They've never had it in Britain, really. It was William the Conqueror outlawed the slave trade, not for any altruistic reasons, but just because he thought he could make more money. He thought that if he could catch slavers, then he could just take their money, and that was it. So it was a source of revenue.

But that ingrains in the society that slavery is just a normal thing. And then, you know, we, it was England that eventually created the kind of the sort of liberal spirit of freedom, the idea of personal freedom that we have. And so it was natural that it was going to be England that said, no, we're not having the slave trade, actually. This is actually, because, I mean, like, there was, there was a petition that was something like 30,000 signatures a mile long that the women of England stitched together, had got signs, stitched together and delivered to Parliament. and you can view it on the parliamentary website. You know, and it's, you know, this is a lot of work, you know, and that's a lot of feeling and depth of feeling behind it. And so when someone says, oh, the British Empire is nothing but evil,

well, I disagree. And contemporaneously, who would you have preferred to be in charge of the world? Well, this is the thing. This is the thing that people always forget. And I'll say this before we ask you our last question, is that everything exists in comparison, right? Yes. So if you're saying that the British Empire was a situation,

evil slave-owning empire, then there's an element of truth to that because that's what it was. It invaded other countries. It took people as slaves, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what we see around the world today is that there are places in the world where there's more slavery than we've ever had. And are we saying that those people, had they been in our place, had they won that battle of civilizations, they wouldn't have had slaves? Of course they would. And they did, right? So it's all about, yes, okay, we've got to reflect on our past and learn from it, but do we need to continually be ourselves up about it? I really don't think so.

In the regard to slavery, we did learn. But that's my point. We did. So it would be ridiculous to reject the positive identity of being British on the back of slavery. Because it's like, no, this is one of our greatest moral contributions to humanity.

Like slavery is a scourge that plagued every society from the dawn of recorded history. And the British were like, actually, that's enough. And we're supposed to, I mean, like, you know, for anyone who had impugn us on this, like, we've done a lot wrong, but that's not one of those things. You know, that's something that we can be proud of. And I think we should be proud of.

And you're right. You're absolutely right. Like, for example, the Islamic empires didn't end slavery. No. The Chinese didn't end slavery. You know, the Aztecs and all these other, you know, but it came from a particular kind of philosophy that was developed in England and was fortunate enough to be at the helm of world power when it was.

came to the time where it could be ended, and we did. So we should be able to hold on to that like a rock in the face of these kind of attacks. I know, actually, very few other countries were interested in doing what Britain did, and we did it even though it cost. I mean, we only finished paying off the debts that we incurred by ending the slave trade in 2014, right? We, I...

Holy shit. I'm not joking. I want my money back. My Russian ancestors had nothing to do with the shit. shit. My surname is Benjamin, right? Not because I am of any Jewish descent, but because on my father's side, my grandfather came from St. Helena.

St. Helena was a slave island off the coast near Africa. And it was in 1792 that the slave trade was prohibited there. I don't know why it was earlier than everywhere else, actually. But for some reason it was. But the reason I say this is because at some point in my

father's lineage, my ancestors will have been slaves. And I know this because what happens upon manumission is that you take the surname of the slave, the first name of the, you know, the slave owner as the surname

of the manumitted slave. So at some point in my father's lineage, you know, hundreds of years ago, someone called Benjamin something will have had slaves and my family would have been part of the slaves. And yet I have finished paying for the slave trade. It's my money that goes to do as my reparations.

You know what I mean? But, but this is the thing, isn't it? You know, it's, Like, it gets silly. You can't fix history. Or, I'm an honorary Jew and hence a welcome target for the Gropers. Here they come. You know what I love is some of these, in particular, lefty sort of liberal comedians who say things like, you know,

Britain is, you know, built on the blood of slavery, and they all go into it. And then you see him next week go, anyway, guys, really looking forward to my gigs in Dubai. See you later. Yeah, right. Freddie Wooden is, like, Dubai is like an 80% indentured servitude. Yeah.

Something like that. It's wild. All right, Francis. We're running out of time. We've done an hour and 15 minutes. Carl, thank you so much for coming back. It's always a pleasure to speak with you. We're going to hit you with our last question. And the last question is, what's the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that we really need to be? The 2021 census.

That's the thing. This is really going to be the eye-opener. Because all of the data on population demographics we have comes from the 2011 one, apart from like some local ones, which is why the Birmingham school children, for example. But I don't know what the population of Birmingham looks like because we don't have that information yet, because the census hasn't been done.

And the 2021 census is going to be the census where people like Nigel Farage will be proven right, basically. And, you know, there was a problem with mass immigration. After 10 years of it, it probably does need to change. And it's looming on the horizon. And it's going to get closer and closer. and it'll be the subject of quite fiery debate, I have no doubt. Well, thanks very much for coming on, Kyle, and we'll see you again, everybody.

We've got another episode we're releasing on Sunday with Dr. David Stark. He's so exciting stuff, but thanks for much. Yeah, he's great, isn't he? So that's coming very soon. As we've told you during this time of Corona, we're going to be putting out a piece of content pretty much every day. So we'll see you tomorrow. Take care and goodbye. See you later guys.