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Why You Should Speak Freely (Almost) Always | Jerm Warfare Weekly Banter · UK Column Radio

0:35
None. Yeah, Charles, we were just
0:39
chatting before we went live. You were listening to my
0:44
conversation with Carmichael about censorship and freedom of
0:50
speech being a mental issue rather than a political issue.
0:56
I mean, I found that a really refreshing angle.
1:00
Yes, so did I. I mean, I think the way I look
1:03
at it is that it's, it's the sort of macro part of dealing
1:09
with emotions of any sort. The idea that if somebody's got
1:16
a problem, they do need to talk about it.
1:20
They need to get it off their chest.
1:22
And it goes back to that so often seen pattern of people
1:29
having a fallout or having a disagreement simply because one
1:32
person has not allowed the other to talk.
1:35
They're immediately trying to sort of fight fire with fire,
1:37
where actually what should be done is a process of listening.
1:41
If somebody brings an issue, they've they've got to be able
1:44
to get the whole thing out. That is in itself a sort of
1:48
cathartic process and, and it almost doesn't matter what the
1:53
other person says in response. To a certain extent, I mean, it
1:55
does, but in the first instance, it's just being able to get, get
1:59
it out, whatever it is, just get that out.
2:01
And I think what she was talking about, and I, I would recommend
2:06
obviously all of your German warfare content, but, but
2:10
specifically to listen to that because I think that talks very
2:13
much to what we're seeing in the space that we occupy.
2:18
I don't really want to define it any more than that.
2:21
But in effect, the people who feel that the issues they care
2:25
about are ones that are affected by what we refer to as
2:28
censorship. Now she's talking about
2:30
censorship if, you know, inflicted by an, another entity,
2:36
an organization or whatever, or, or indeed a culture.
2:38
But, but also she's talking about self censorship.
2:40
And it is this, it's this sense that people have that they are
2:44
trapped because they see a world around them that they can't
2:49
understand as being right. And they want to be able to talk
2:54
about it. But they have got to the point
2:56
where to do so is is more and more and more challenging
3:00
because equally on the other side, you know, people are being
3:04
conditioned to think that anybody that disagrees with this
3:08
certainly has questions to ask about whatever it is.
3:10
Shouldn't be shouldn't be countenance.
3:12
So in effect, there's self censorship on both sides, which
3:15
is really dangerous. And I think this is, you know,
3:19
we've talked a lot about how things have changed since 2020.
3:23
And what we've remarked upon quite a lot is the way that
3:27
there's been a cooling off of the types of actions, the types
3:33
of sentiments that were invoked in people in 2020 in particular,
3:36
when it was very, very obvious that there was a massive loss of
3:39
liberty. And actually to talk about that
3:40
to anyone was not controversial. That was that was an easy thing
3:44
to do, regardless of what they thought of the justification for
3:47
it. That's become increasingly
3:49
difficult to do. And I think what we're seeing is
3:51
not just people falling away from taking on, you know,
3:56
independent alternative news sources or mainstream news
3:59
sources, but also this sense of isolation and pent up
4:05
frustration, for want of a better word.
4:07
And as Chloe talks about, you know, that leads into depression
4:10
and everything else. But the unfortunate consequence
4:12
is that when these things do come out, the way in which
4:15
they're expressed are often very aggressive and, and actually
4:20
counterproductive. And, and I think we do see an
4:24
awful lot of that. And I think it's, it's really
4:26
regrettable. And I'm not saying so in terms
4:28
of trying to pin blame on people, but I think it helps us
4:31
to understand why this is happening.
4:35
So I haven't, I haven't heard the interview yet.
4:37
I'm sorry about that. But but what I'm going to, so
4:39
hopefully I'm not repeating anything here, but but I would
4:42
go a little bit further than what Charles has just said this.
4:47
The censorship regime that we are experiencing at the moment
4:51
is not just about the establishment attempting to
4:55
maintain control of narratives. That's part of it.
4:59
But, but following on from what Charles has just said, the fact
5:05
that that people who feel that their voices aren't being heard
5:09
tend to shout louder, it it also drives them to extremes of
5:14
position. And, and by that I don't
5:17
necessarily mean, you know, to the extremes of political
5:20
thought. I mean that they become so
5:24
entrenched in their position because they feel they're not
5:26
being listened to that it's not possible anymore to have a
5:30
conversation. And this is part of it as well.
5:33
So, so we are, we're seeing a, a rise of people being driven
5:39
towards being driven further and further apart, finding it
5:44
impossible to communicate with each other in any sensible way.
5:49
This is part of the effort to keep control of the narrative in
5:54
the sense that of course, if you're not communicating with
5:57
each other, then you're not reaching conclusions about
6:00
what's actually going on. It's, it's very insidious
6:05
exercise here. It, it is absolutely the use of
6:08
applied psychology for political purposes.
6:12
And you know, whenever we are becoming, whenever we're feeling
6:17
that well, this, this censorship regime is completely unfair.
6:22
I'm I'm being not able to express myself properly and, and
6:27
my urge then is to, to, to shout louder with more extreme
6:30
language. We're in fact falling into a
6:33
trap. We've got to, we've got to
6:34
absolutely resist calmly and, and carefully and be, be clear
6:39
in what we're saying, because otherwise, you know, that gulf
6:42
is never going to be, it's never going to be breached.
6:47
Her a general shtick is more about self censorship, which is
6:52
something we often overlook, Mike, because we always talk
6:56
about, as you say, the censorship regime, it's always a
6:59
third party. It's somebody else doing the
7:01
censoring. Self censorship is a lot.
7:06
It's a it's a it's, it's, it's similar, but it's in many ways
7:12
more dangerous because you don't know when it's happening.
7:15
That's the problem that she's making.
7:17
Because people for whatever reason, and This is why she says
7:20
it's a mental issue or a psychological issue, they become
7:22
too scared. Let me give an example.
7:24
So we had, we had friends over a few nights ago, they were
7:28
chatting about pregnancy and vaccination and other people
7:34
they know who just randomly, you know, died or got sick or
7:37
something severe. Now they don't connect any of
7:41
those dots. Right now I find myself
7:44
thinking, Nah, I'm not, I'm not going to, I'm not going to
7:48
broach this one because it's become so sensitive.
7:52
So that's a form of self censorship.
7:54
It frustrates me that I I choose not to bring it up, but I don't
7:57
want to ruin the evening. But ten years ago, we could have
8:00
easily spoken about that without ruining the evening.
8:04
So what I would say to you is that everybody experiences that
8:07
I experience that I get into a, a situation with people and,
8:11
and, and actually they're expressing views that I disagree
8:14
with so vehemently that I'm sitting thinking, well, how, how
8:19
do I actually address this? But if it, if it ends, if it
8:22
ends there, if the thought process ends at that point and
8:25
you leave that, that gathering and, and just don't think about
8:30
it again. And then the next time you, you
8:33
have reached a similar situation, then you failed
8:36
yourself and you failed the other people.
8:38
You know, that every time, every time, it's just how I approach
8:41
it, every time I get into that situation and then thinking
8:45
about it afterwards, I'm thinking about it quite a lot
8:47
afterwards. What should, what could I have
8:49
said? What could I have done in that
8:51
situation to, to engage these people in a conversation?
8:56
And, and I don't necessarily always come to, to, to the right
9:00
conclusions because sometimes that resulted in tricky
9:03
conversations. But, but we've got to have these
9:05
tricky conversations. And, and so I completely get
9:09
your point, but we've all found ourselves in these, in these
9:11
types of situations. The, the question is, what do we
9:14
do about it? And we've got to, we've got to
9:16
actually work out, you know, continue thinking about it after
9:21
the actual event. So the next time it happens,
9:24
you, you've got something to try.
9:25
Maybe it doesn't work, but, but it's, it's, it's like beating
9:28
people in the street, though, in a bus queue or in the, in the
9:33
waiting for the, the cashier in the supermarket.
9:35
Sorry, Charles, some people still do that.
9:38
But, but anyway, you know, the, the point, the point is we've
9:43
got a, we've, we, we absolutely have to stop being afraid to
9:47
engage with people and, you know, be afraid to, to, to, to
9:51
risk a response. And, and the response that you
9:56
get should never be one that you take negatively.
9:58
It should be one that, OK, so that person's come back at me
10:01
with that. How do I respond to that?
10:03
And I may not have an answer at, at that particular moment in
10:06
time, but the next time it happens, I will have an answer
10:09
because they'll have thought about it.
10:10
We've got to, we've got to be always thinking about how we,
10:13
how we address these issues. And we shouldn't just dismiss
10:16
them as being, oh, that guy's an idiot or that woman's an idiot.
10:19
We we shouldn't be doing that. We should be absolutely
10:22
listening to what they're saying to us and considering it and
10:25
considering our response to it. And that helps us develop our
10:29
own arguments. It also helps us challenge our
10:33
own. And we've talked about this
10:34
before, challenging our own belief systems because because,
10:38
you know, none of us should be so arrogant that we think that
10:41
we have all the answers. A point that that Chloe was
10:46
making is the difference between speaking freely and also just
10:51
being a nice person. Just because you can speak
10:54
freely, you're not going to run past an old granny on a bus and
10:57
start swearing at it for no reason just because you have
11:00
free speech. I mean, that's just common
11:02
decency not to do that. But that's the problem that we
11:06
find ourselves in, is that people are finding that line
11:11
blurry because, as you say, they're being so propagandized
11:15
into thinking certain ideological ways that they just
11:19
cannot think clearly because there's so much fog.
11:24
But that applies to us ourselves as well.
11:28
The best you know, possibly the best way to to to approach it is
11:31
just to ask questions and and and.
11:34
The Socratic method. Yeah, I suppose you could put it
11:38
that way, but, you know, just ask questions because, you know,
11:41
I first of all, I want to know. I can't, I can't address what
11:46
somebody else has said unless I actually know what it is they're
11:48
saying. And, and very often I hear words
11:53
and I think I know what that means, but it's not, it's not
11:57
always the case. And you know, to the point that
12:00
sometimes I do wonder whether the other person speaking
12:03
English, but that that's, that's actually my, my problem, not
12:07
theirs. So I've got to try to first of
12:09
all, try to understand what is this person actually saying.
12:12
And, and that, of course, is part of the of the issue.
12:15
We're all so determined to get our point of view across.
12:18
We're never actually listening to what the other person saying.
12:21
And and, you know, quite often we actually find we're not so
12:24
far apart after all. So what you're saying is people
12:28
listen to respond rather than listen to understand?
12:33
Well, precisely. Or they don't listen at all
12:35
because they just want to to to ride over the top of somebody
12:39
else's argument and hope that their argument wins because they
12:42
shout the loudest or most forcefully that this is this is
12:46
never going to result in a good outcome.
12:48
And censorship doesn't really work anyway, whether it's top
12:51
down imposed or self censorship, because as Chloe was pointing
12:56
out, it causes all sorts of other issues, depression,
12:58
anxiety, whatever within yourself if you choose not to
13:02
say something that you otherwise would have.
13:07
Yeah, well, I think that's the, I think that's precisely the the
13:10
danger And, and, and well, like I said at the at the outset,
13:13
this doesn't have to necessarily have anything to do with
13:20
controversial topics. This is the same whatever the
13:24
issue, whatever, whatever is eating somebody up, whether
13:27
it's, you know, well, I think one of the examples she gave was
13:32
seeing something, or I think you talked about it's having having
13:36
witnessed something sort of untoward and you know, what's
13:38
your, what's your moral duty and this and the other side.
13:41
And that's not really an issue of censorship.
13:43
It's just, it's just that feeling that you've you've got
13:47
to do what's right. And until you've done that,
13:50
until you've sort of satisfied your conscience by saying
13:52
something, then that does have a very destabilizing effect.
13:56
I think, I think the in terms of dealing with people who do
14:00
appear to have an opinion that is very different, but not, but
14:05
you know, but more than that, they're, they're, they're very
14:10
sort of deliberate in expressing that and making it clear that
14:13
there's there's, you know, there's to be no debate.
14:16
I mean, I think actually just talking about what we are
14:19
talking about would be an interesting one.
14:21
Asking the question about about listening to other people about
14:25
other points of view and, and this, that and the other.
14:28
Because I think that that is something that people really
14:33
must be able to acknowledge the way that we've gone in the last
14:38
20 years. You know, you've just talked
14:41
about the conversations that one would be able to have sort of 10
14:45
years ago about this, that and the other.
14:46
Absolutely. I think, I think people can
14:48
acknowledge that on on both sides and to to talk about it
14:53
and again, get back to a point of convergence to be able to
14:55
understand why and what the influences are.
14:58
I think would be, would be really interesting and might,
15:01
you know, might lead into a sort of softer way of dealing with
15:06
whatever, whatever the actual issue is that you wanted to
15:08
discuss. And I think yes, I mean, I would
15:12
absolutely agree, asking questions is, is absolutely the
15:18
right way to go about it. And especially if it happens to
15:21
be something that you have, well, you consider that you have
15:27
a reasonable amount of knowledge on because you have actually
15:31
specifically looked into it to ask questions in such a way as
15:35
to demonstrate that you are aware of this.
15:38
And the other, you know, we'll say what do you think about this
15:41
particular factor pertaining to this issue?
15:44
And, you know, I mean, often you'll get to a point where it
15:47
becomes very clear that actually, despite the strongly
15:50
held opinion or the, the incredible conviction from the
15:53
other party, they won't actually know what it is that you're
15:57
referring to. And that again, is a sort of a,
16:00
a point of break in, not to assert your dominance over the
16:04
conversation, but just to make the point that there is another
16:07
way of looking at it. And that's the, I think that's
16:10
the first start, I mean, to, if you're going to go into
16:12
conversation and imagining that you're going to change
16:13
somebody's mind 180° in that one go, I think that's incredibly
16:19
unrealistic or at least dangerous actually.
16:22
Because if you can, then what, you know, they, they, they jump
16:26
on the bus home, sit next to somebody else who gives them a
16:28
different opinion and that, and that's where they go there.
16:31
So, so there are, you know, I did to a point, you, you sort of
16:37
have to have a certain admiration for people who are
16:39
prepared to stick to what they believe, even in the face of
16:43
probing and questioning and everything else.
16:45
Because because in effect, that's that's sort of how we
16:48
form strong beliefs. You know, we we do believe that
16:52
we we know what we're on about. And and it takes, it takes a lot
16:56
to be on the receiving end of that and to get to the point
16:58
where you think, OK, yeah, all right.
17:00
So actually what I thought about this, that and the other, I'm I
17:03
know I will have to go away and, and deal with that, that that's
17:07
quite a, you know, that you have to be humble to quite a degree
17:11
to to be able to go and do that. But absolutely, people should.
17:16
And again, South Africa, we have a great example of how top down
17:20
censorship doesn't work. So I think most of the world
17:24
knows that we've got this third largest political party singing
17:28
songs about killing farmers, 100,000 people in a stadium
17:33
singing kill the farmer or kill the bull.
17:36
Now I don't think it's a particularly good idea to do
17:39
that, right? But I also don't think that
17:41
stopping them from doing that works.
17:44
And yes, he has a great thing all, a great example of that.
17:47
So they attempted to, this was taken to court and the court
17:52
said, well, you can't say the word killed because it's an
17:54
incitement to violence. So what did they do?
17:56
They turned around, they sang the same song, but they said
17:59
kiss the bull. Now, obviously we all know that
18:03
they're taking the piss. They still mean what they were
18:06
saying. But the the, the point of the
18:09
censorship is that it just didn't work.
18:12
And and and. So you have to find a different
18:15
strategy because forcing people not to say things is
18:19
ineffective. Well, I mean it can, it can more
18:23
than that. I mean it can be a considerable
18:25
backfire effect. I mean, I, and I think that's
18:27
probably, I mean, I was reminded of the Let's Go Brandon thing
18:33
with OK, so it's slightly different.
18:37
That wasn't actually censorship, but that was the, I can't
18:41
remember quite what was it the, the, the reporter imagining that
18:44
that's what she was hearing. Yeah, Anyway, but but it's
18:48
hilarious. And then and then that in itself
18:50
gathers its own momentum. So now I think it's, I think,
18:56
well, I, I don't know, I mean to try to put oneself into the mind
19:01
of somebody who believes that they are trying to control
19:07
speech for I mean, you know what, what I don't know, I find
19:10
it very hard to get into that mental zone actually, and, and
19:14
to think of a reason why you would think it was a good idea.
19:17
And also to do the, well, what if because you, you know, all
19:21
the, all the censorship apparatus that we talk about,
19:25
you know that Mike is particularly strong on, on, on
19:28
the UK column news. At no point can I, can I imagine
19:33
myself on the other side of the fence being in a room thinking,
19:37
yes, let's do that. And no, I don't think that the
19:41
consequences will be XY or Z. Look, there's, there's sorry,
19:46
there's a really important aspect of this we got to
19:49
consider. And that is there are people out
19:53
there naturally who think that, you know, certain types of
19:58
speech should never be heard, whether that be criticism of
20:02
trans rights or criticism of women or criticism of race or
20:06
religion or whatever it happens to be.
20:09
That's one thing. But there's the other thing
20:13
we've got to absolutely consider is because if we take your
20:16
example of of the South African political party changing the
20:20
word kill to the word kiss. You've got to consider that that
20:24
there was intention there. There was intention to, to
20:28
amplify that message and that the way that they went about
20:32
amplifying that message was to censor the original message and
20:35
cause the campaign to start, right?
20:38
That we've got to consider that anytime we see this type of
20:42
censorship on a particular topic, that it might be just in
20:46
order to, to encourage people in that direction because there's a
20:51
political agenda at work to, to drive people.
20:55
And, and I think that we are, that we are in an information
20:58
war. The censorship people, if people
21:02
dumb that idea down to the point of view, well, it's only just
21:04
about making me stopping me from saying XY or Z.
21:08
It's not just about that. It's also about trying to
21:13
encourage you to think certain things, to act certain ways and
21:18
and we've got to be absolutely aware of that and recognise how
21:21
to resist it. I've just gone blank now.
21:28
OK, well, I'll fill the blank because that that that is, you
21:32
know, the, the what might you, what you've just said.
21:36
You know, again, you can you can absolutely plot that course.
21:38
And again, this is something we've talked about quite a lot,
21:40
But but the first of all, the suggestion that, for example,
21:46
believing that if the human body can survive perfectly well
21:50
without having to receive something that's described as a
21:53
vaccine. Or going further and suggesting
21:55
that like any other pharmaceutical or chemical
21:57
product, there may be an adverse reaction from a vaccine, A
22:01
vaccine may be harmful. All of those things then get
22:04
wrapped up into what's called a conspiracy theory, and then that
22:09
gets slung into the bag marked extremism.
22:13
And then further along the scale, you have the the very
22:17
definition of terrorism being reworked in order that there
22:21
doesn't need to be any ideological basis for it, or
22:24
indeed even a threat of or an action of violence.
22:29
And then suddenly you're linking the belief that the human body
22:34
is able to look after itself with terrorism.
22:36
And and that is that is absolutely extraordinary.
22:40
But, but if you want to be able to do exactly what you're
22:45
describing to either marginalise or divide, or if it comes to it,
22:51
apprehend and detain certain people, then all you need to do
22:56
is describe what the topic areas are and hey presto, you've got
23:00
your villains. And that works.
23:03
That works very effectively. And that's, that in a way is,
23:08
you know, it's so fascinating to read through either existing or
23:12
proposed legislation and to just examine the way in which it is a
23:18
gift because every single time it's open to interpretation.
23:23
You know, the definitions of anything are always loose enough
23:27
that so and so doing exactly the same thing can get a slap on the
23:30
back and a, you know, and a sort of hot tea cake and and the next
23:34
person ends up in prison. I remember now what I was going
23:39
to say. So in the movie Hotel Rwanda,
23:42
which describes the mainstream narrative.
23:47
Now whether or not it's true is irrelevant because there is a an
23:50
interesting aspect about free speech that's brought up in the
23:53
story. And that is the use of terms
23:57
like cockroach and, and other terms to avoid being obvious,
24:03
right? And that could be also part of
24:07
that free speech mental issue because you know that when
24:13
they're saying things like cockroach, what it's referring
24:17
to, but they can play dumb and go noble.
24:21
We weren't actually speaking about people.
24:24
We were talking about insects. And so there's there's a weird
24:29
kind of psychology that goes on when you play in the realm of
24:33
censorship. So it's not a very good idea
24:37
within the context, for example, of that story to apply
24:43
censorship to stop people from saying words, certain words.
24:46
In the United States, you can't call black people certain
24:50
things. And and you can't do that in
24:53
South Africa too, but you amplify it like you're saying
24:56
earlier, Mike, when you use substitute words or, or
25:02
descriptors or something to that effect.
25:03
And so the whole thing just, it spirals into something.
25:07
If you say, if you say quote the N word, what you're doing is
25:12
you're making somebody think more about what you're saying.
25:17
Yeah, you're, you're, you're causing people to, to focus on,
25:20
on someone's race and, and that that of course, is pushing them
25:24
in a particular direction. Another, another example.
25:27
It's a, it's a slightly different kind of example, but
25:31
you know, we've we, if we're talking about censorship, the
25:33
the latest censorship related issue that we're seeing right
25:36
across the world at the moment, and this includes the United
25:38
States, is the idea of, of age verification.
25:42
And this something that that began in the United Kingdom,
25:47
although as usual, we're not the first to, to actually finally
25:50
get it implemented, although the idea came from us.
25:55
So the idea is only, only people over a certain age can access
26:01
certain types of content. So those, so, so basically, if
26:04
you want to access a certain type of content, you've got to
26:07
provide some kind of identification to prove that you
26:10
are over that age. Now in Australia, they've now
26:14
just taken it to the to the extreme where they've said
26:17
nobody under the age of 16 is allowed to use any social media
26:20
platforms. Except it's not that they're not
26:23
allowed to use any social media platforms.
26:25
It's only six or seven of the big platforms.
26:29
All the platforms where actually children are being groomed by
26:33
adults are are free from this legislation.
26:37
Roblox being a perfect example of it.
26:41
But in the UK, the claim was that accessing UK citizens
26:49
accessing Pornhub had fallen by 70% or 77%, whatever it was.
26:55
And of course that claim is made without any consideration of
26:59
whether people are using VPNs, virtual private networks or not.
27:03
Now, the, the general use of VPNs was it, it's just something
27:08
that that isn't the thing. It's, it's obviously we see
27:12
advertising on YouTube for, for Nord VPN and all the other VPN
27:17
platforms that are, that are using YouTube influencers to try
27:21
to sell their product. And so people are generally
27:24
aware of what they are, but mostly, you know, unless, unless
27:27
they're using it to, in order to access Netflix or something,
27:32
content that isn't available in their particular country, most
27:34
people don't, haven't bothered to use them until this age
27:38
verification thing has started to come along.
27:41
And suddenly we saw as soon as it was implemented in the UK,
27:44
this massive rise in the number of people downloading and
27:47
installing VPN software and so on.
27:50
Because naturally they're, they're wanting to avoid having
27:53
to provide any kind of identification to various
27:57
platforms. So the same thing is going to
28:01
happen in Australia. Teenagers aren't going to stop
28:03
using social media just because the Australian government says
28:06
so. They're going to get VPN
28:09
software, they're going to use the VPN, they're going to access
28:12
the, the, the platforms as they always did.
28:17
So here we have a, a piece of legislation which is claimed to
28:22
be intended to protect children. It's, it's absolutely
28:24
demonstrable that it was never intended for that at all,
28:27
because because they're not doing the things that are
28:29
actually necessary to protect children.
28:32
And, and as a result of that, people are starting to use VPNs.
28:36
So what's the next step? You outlaw the use of VPNs
28:40
because, because if, if you're saying that at the end of the
28:45
day, using the Internet is no longer, it's no longer
28:48
acceptable to be anonymous on the Internet, then VPNs don't
28:53
provide that 100%, but they certainly provide a certain
28:56
degree of anonymity from the particular regime that you
29:00
happen to be using the Internet under.
29:03
So VPNs are going to be the next target, there's no doubt about
29:08
that. But my point is here that, that,
29:10
that the, the rise in the use of VPNs, the creation of the
29:14
problem, which is then going to require a solution, which is the
29:17
banning of VPNs is something that was done to people as a
29:22
result of a particular aspect of the censorship regime.
29:26
So we, we, again, they're attempting to, to use psychology
29:31
to, to force people down a certain path, which allows them
29:34
to then take the next step. It's, it's, you've got to in
29:39
many ways respect the, the, the way that they do play this game,
29:44
But, but we've got to be aware of it and, and be prepared to,
29:48
to at some point find a particular hill to die on.
29:53
Notwithstanding the fact that the state has no place in
29:58
parenting your kids. Well, I, I, I, I think the state
30:04
for quite a number of years has would disagree with that
30:07
vehemently. I mean, the state absolutely
30:10
views parents as being unqualified, yes and right.
30:14
I mean that, that is a fact. It's, it's been a fact for
30:17
decades. So, uh, you know, even to the
30:20
point of the state tells you where you can send your, which
30:23
school you're, you're, you can send your children to, unless
30:25
you're wealthy and you can afford private education.
30:27
But, but, uh, you know, in terms of, of, uh, which school your,
30:33
your child goes to, it's generally geographically based.
30:36
You can't sort of say, well, I'm going to send my child 10 miles
30:39
down the road because, because more often than not, that's not
30:42
allowed. So, so, you know, the, this is
30:49
absolutely the case that it, that, that the state views
30:53
people that are, that consider themselves to be, you know,
30:56
parents as being unqualified. It's one of the reasons that
31:01
home education is so frowned upon, of course.
31:07
I wondered Mike, if if the VPN thing.
31:10
Sorry Charles, I wonder if the the VPN thing also is part of a
31:15
SOP. I mean, if VPNs are openly being
31:18
advertised on a platform like YouTube.
31:20
I mean, Google knows that VPNs are being marketed on their own
31:25
platform to get around all all kinds of censorship.
31:33
Well, that's true. No, no, I wouldn't say no.
31:39
Actually, I wouldn't say that's true because because the
31:41
censorship is that's not quite the way the censorship works.
31:44
The VPNVPNS are being used now to get around the age
31:48
verification aspect of it, but but the censorship itself of
31:53
course works in the other direction because it's the it's
31:55
the content producers that are that are being censored as a
31:59
general rule. This, this is just, this is just
32:01
one aspect of it, because the use of the issue here for, for
32:07
the let's just take the British government as as an example.
32:10
The British government a number of years ago produced a piece of
32:14
legislation called the Regulation of Investigatory
32:17
Powers Act. And one of the things that that
32:19
requires is that Internet service providers collect the
32:25
metadata of people's Internet browsing habits.
32:29
So that means obviously with with HTTPS being everywhere now
32:35
you know that it is not possible for Internet service providers
32:40
to know which specific page on a particular website you went to.
32:45
But they can know which website you went to, they can know when
32:47
you went to it and they can know how they can know how long you
32:50
spent there and so on. So this metadata is quite, I
32:56
mean it's massively beneficial for anybody that's wanting to
33:01
build a profile of a particular Internet user and so Internet
33:06
service providers required to collect that information.
33:09
But if you are using a VPN and connecting to a VPN server in
33:14
Mozambique and you accessing the Internet from there, then of
33:17
course your local Internet service provider cannot see or
33:22
cannot collect that metadata anymore.
33:24
Now, the V the use of AVPN is never going to protect your
33:28
privacy from if, if you're using AVPN to access Facebook from a
33:35
server in a different country, Facebook still sees everything
33:38
that you do while you're on Facebook's platform.
33:41
You're, you're logged into Facebook.
33:42
So they're still collecting all that data.
33:43
So it's not, it's not protecting, it's not making it
33:46
anonymous from the site that you're using at the end of the
33:50
day. But what it does is it pushes
33:53
the, it pushes the, the, the, the privacy aspect away from the
33:57
regime that you happen to be sitting in.
33:59
And so it's beneficial from that point of view, but it's also
34:02
this is, This is why the British government, the Western
34:07
governments in general are particularly are becoming more
34:09
and more concerned about their use alongside the use of end to
34:14
end encrypted chat applications like WhatsApp or Signal, and
34:19
alongside the use of fully end to end encrypted cloud platforms
34:24
like Apple's iCloud. That's why the British
34:26
government attacked Apple in the way that they did and insisted
34:30
that Apple switches off their, their encryption on, on their,
34:35
on their cloud platform because, because the intelligence
34:38
agencies are no longer able to access people's information that
34:44
people's data online. And they're, they're calling
34:48
that a massive national security issue.
34:51
So, so encryption in general is something that that is
34:55
absolutely under attack by our governments, but it's something
35:00
which is increasingly necessary because we're living in a, a
35:03
world of increasingly sophisticated scammers who, who
35:09
want to steal this identity data which governments are so
35:14
enthusiastic to collect at the moment.
35:16
It's, it's going to be a very interesting time over the next
35:19
few years while we while we see this, this play out, But you
35:24
know, the whole data collection regime needs to be resisted.
35:29
VPN is a very small part of that, but it's one that I think
35:32
everybody should be, should be using and and if there's any
35:34
attempt to take that away, that should be resisted very
35:38
strongly. I remember when I was heading
35:42
to, to China, Mike, you, I told you that I was, that I installed
35:47
a few VPNs and I think one of them was Express VPN, if I
35:50
remember correctly. And you said to me, oh, hold on,
35:52
hold on. Do you know who bought the
35:54
Express VPN? And I immediately went and
35:57
deleted it and, and, and deactivated my account.
36:00
But I mean that also shows that VPVPNS themselves can become
36:03
problematic. Yeah, absolutely.
36:06
The same with the Tor network. The Tor network's another
36:09
example of, of something which is supposed to provide
36:11
anonymity. But you know, the, the agencies,
36:15
the FBI, the, the intelligence agencies all have exit nodes for
36:20
Tor set up so that if you happen to go through, if your traffic
36:24
happens to go through one of their exit nodes, then of course
36:28
all, everything that you're doing on the Internet is, is
36:31
seen by them. We, we shouldn't be naive about,
36:35
about, about the world that we're living in.
36:37
And, you know, it's, we've got to be very careful about, about
36:44
whose infrastructure we're using.
36:46
And we've got to also remember that, that, you know, forget
36:49
about Express VPN and, and, and the VPN providers themselves,
36:54
every piece of network gear that's, that's on the Internet,
37:00
it's probably connected in some way to, to is really
37:03
intelligent. So, so you know, I'm, I'm all
37:06
for getting more and more Huawei kit on the on on the on the
37:11
Internet because because you know, at least it's not going to
37:15
the five highest countries. Charles, I rudely interrupted
37:19
you it. Was not rude at all.
37:22
You were exercising your own freedom of speech.
37:27
I was only going to go back to the to the cockroach point,
37:30
which I think is a really interesting one.
37:32
And absolutely I agree with what you're saying because it does
37:37
enable there to be the sort of creation, or at least the
37:41
illusion of sort of, you know, a little bit of flexibility here
37:45
and there. But, but in fact, the the thing
37:47
that cockroach did, if it really did, I mean, OK, you know, we're
37:52
we're going, we're still on the sort of approved version of
37:54
events. But, but that is to dehumanize
37:58
and to demonize. And OK, in the context of a
38:04
genocide, obviously the result is death.
38:06
But in fact, we see that with all of these things that we talk
38:10
about and, and the way that's done now is via the labeling
38:16
process. So I gave an example of
38:19
suggesting that you might consider a something that's
38:23
described as a vaccine in in several different ways.
38:26
But, but if you, if you are to consider a vaccine as anything
38:30
other than a God-given miracle, and you should have 25 of them
38:35
stuck into yourself every day, then you're, you're an anti
38:39
vaxxer or you've, you know, very diplomatically, you're vaccine
38:43
hesitant. But the point is you, you get
38:45
labeled and immediately that strips away the human element
38:50
and it, and, and that, that as a, as a trigger.
38:54
And this is what we see the way in which people are triggered.
38:56
So these conversations that we might have that, that start on
39:00
something that could be relatively innocuous.
39:01
And then before you know it, there's been a reference to such
39:05
and such a topic. And let's say it is vaccines and
39:09
if you were to express any sort of questioning or scepticism or
39:14
whatever, there are a lot of people who would immediately be
39:16
triggered into thinking, right, I am dealing with an anti
39:20
vaxxer. And therefore they don't,
39:22
they're not looking at you as a person, they're not listening to
39:24
your opinions. They are simply thinking of the
39:27
conditioning that they've received upstream and that is
39:31
what dictates their response. And that, you know, what we have
39:38
to concede has been done terribly, terribly effectively.
39:41
And I think that goes back to the heart of what we're talking
39:43
about, this idea that free speech should be challenged, you
39:49
know, and, and this idea of hate speech, again, it's labeling.
39:52
Everything has its label. And and you know, you're a
39:54
climate denial, whatever it is, so that you can Chuck these
39:57
things and stick them on to particular people.
40:00
But also you've got that. That that sort of very, very
40:03
clear divide of things that must not be talked about or must not
40:08
be said. So.
40:08
So again, it's this this sort of conjoining of this wonderful
40:14
ability to be able to completely demonize, dehumanize,
40:19
marginalized a bunch of people at the same time as creating
40:23
this division in society And again, doing the the self
40:26
censorship thing probably on both sides.
40:28
So continuing to, to stir conflict and, and resentment and
40:35
again, classic sort of divide and rule.
40:37
I mean, it's, it is very, very obvious.
40:40
You know, everything now has a, has a label attached to it.
40:43
And I think that previously was, was not the case.
40:45
People were much more able to express points of view on their
40:51
own merits without necessarily being lumped in with other
40:55
people and and considered, oh, you know, you're one of those.
40:59
I'm, I'm not sure I agree with that entirely.
41:01
Uh, because I mean, people were all, you know, Tory socialist,
41:04
you know, we, we always called each other names.
41:06
I think, I think it is certainly more extreme than it was.
41:08
But but the other thing I would say about that Charles, of
41:11
course, people who who would be categorized as conspiracy
41:15
theorists or anti vaxxers or climate change deniers are not
41:19
immune from from looking at people on the other side of the
41:22
argument and doing exactly the same thing.
41:24
This is part of the problem. We got to stop dehumanizing each
41:26
other. And it's not just all in One
41:28
Direction. Absolutely.
41:30
Yeah, sorry, I did. I wasn't meaning to imply I was
41:32
just that those those labels are so obviously put out that but
41:36
but yes, no, that I, I totally agree.
41:38
That is, that is exactly it. And I think that's, you know,
41:42
again, that's what that's what we see.
41:44
But the, the I'd be interested to know if it's, if it does sort
41:47
of work the other way. I mean, I think what we see is
41:51
because of this pent up frustration in, in, as I say,
41:57
the, you know, the, the sort of the space that we occupy and,
42:00
and the comments that are made within that environment because
42:04
people feel that they are unable to talk to somebody who might
42:07
have a different view. There are the, the, the amount
42:11
of attacking sort of, you know, turning inwards and attacking
42:16
your own is, is absolutely phenomenal.
42:19
I mean, there, there is, you know, more and more and more of
42:22
it because there's no, well, I don't think there's really any
42:26
sense of a sort of unified concern now in the way that
42:31
there was during lockdowns or the vaccine campaigns or any of
42:34
that sort of thing. And I, and what I will be
42:36
interested to see is whether, you know, on, on Wednesday's
42:40
news, I reported on the debate, which should have been in the
42:47
House of Commons, but it was in Westminster Hall on the digital
42:50
ID petition that reached nearly 3,000,000 signatures, which in
42:55
terms of petitions, it is very, very significant.
42:58
And, you know, it'd be interesting to see now whether
43:01
people do coalesce to a greater degree around around digital
43:05
idea because it seems that this this finally has been grasped
43:10
sort of. I don't like to consider that we
43:14
are lower down in a hierarchy, but effectively sort of further
43:17
up the chain in that there are now substantial number of
43:19
members of Parliament in the UK who are campaigning against
43:23
something that the Labour government is putting out.
43:26
Whether people will feel that there is a sense of, you know,
43:31
shared belief on this and a degree of unity and, and
43:35
concentrated focus, I, I don't know.
43:38
But certainly without that, the the attacking people who are
43:41
supposed to be on your side has really, really become, I think,
43:46
a bigger and bigger problem. So I would, I would agree with
43:50
that as well, but I would say that that we've always had that
43:53
to to a certain degree. And, and part of it is because
43:57
people are so unclear about what to do about some of these big
44:04
issues. They just want to strike out at
44:06
somebody. And so they will strike out at
44:08
the easiest target, which is the people that they are closest
44:12
associated with. And that that's, that's part of
44:15
it. There's, there's no doubt that's
44:16
part of it. It's just something that, that
44:19
unfortunately we have to live with.
44:21
But, but you know, I, I would encourage people to, to target
44:25
the the people that are actually doing them harm rather than
44:30
people that they happen to disagree with at this particular
44:32
moment in time. I don't know how to how to
44:36
phrase this, but I think this, this notion of labels that
44:40
you're referring to, Charles, I think it has a practical
44:45
application, like somebody who's working in my garden is a
44:49
gardener. I mean, that's a fairly
44:51
pragmatic label and it doesn't require any ideological sway.
44:57
However, I mean, I got a message on WhatsApp from, I say a friend
45:04
because I've known him for so long.
45:05
He's a cartoonist, South African cartoonist who lives in the UK
45:08
now, but he openly calls himself an old school lefty socialist.
45:14
He loves, he loves labels. And when he sent me a message a
45:17
few days ago saying that he thinks more people would take my
45:21
show seriously if I were not an ultra right winger.
45:25
And I, I have spent so long trying to dismantle this notion
45:31
of of left, right dichotomy. It's non existent.
45:35
Nobody can define it. It doesn't have a universal
45:37
understanding. You take each issue on its
45:40
merit. And I've had the best
45:42
conversations with people right across whatever political
45:45
spectrum there is because I'm trying to understand and trying
45:48
to find rapport and of course learn.
45:51
And I said to him, but what is the goal?
45:56
What is your goal? What is your end game?
45:58
You know, when you say something like that, do you think I'm
46:01
going to turn around and say to you, yes, well, you know, that's
46:03
a good point. No, because I don't, I don't
46:06
agree with that. I don't.
46:08
I don't understand what the purpose of saying that is.
46:12
All it's doing is that it's creating the division, which is
46:14
precisely what you were saying, Mike.
46:19
Yeah, it is. And it's, it's extremely, you
46:23
know, it's it shuts the conversation down right there.
46:27
So there can't be no conversation had when somebody
46:30
hurls these kinds of accusations.
46:33
And, and you know, The thing is, if, if you'd gone back to that
46:39
guy and said, you know, you, you asked him what his goal was in,
46:42
in, in making that statement, But actually, I would go
46:45
further. I'd ask him, well, what is it
46:47
that you're trying to achieve in life?
46:49
What, what is it that you are actually wanting to, to produce?
46:53
At the end of the day, you, you're calling yourself left
46:55
wing, you're calling yourself socialist.
46:57
What, what are your end goals? What kind of world are you
47:00
wanting to see and actually start there and see actually,
47:05
are there, are your views that far apart after all?
47:09
I mean, you might disagree about how you get how you get to that
47:12
point. You might disagree about, about
47:14
the various structures that are set up in order to achieve a
47:17
certain goal. But, but do we agree on what the
47:20
goals are at the end of the day? If, if we, if we take away all
47:24
the craft and get to the, to the, the actual basics of
47:27
things, do we agree in the, in the final destination or not?
47:31
And you know, most of these, most of these disagreements,
47:35
ideological disagreements are, are fake, as you've, as we have
47:38
all said multiple times. And you know, the average, the
47:44
average socialist is talking about this, you know, unfairness
47:49
is in society. They're talking about elites
47:52
being disproportionately wealthy and this this kind of stuff,
47:57
people that are the majority of people that consider themselves
48:00
to be on the right of politics are experiencing the same kinds
48:05
of oppressions actually from from increasingly from the
48:10
billionaire class. And and you know, it's, it's
48:12
soon to be the trillionaire class now that Elon Musk has
48:15
broken through that particular glass ceiling.
48:17
So, so, you know, actually, at the end of the day, as we've
48:23
said many times, we have a common an inverted commas enemy
48:28
in the sense that that that people that are at that level of
48:32
society look on on the average man in the street and and, you
48:36
know, consider them to be not worth very much.
48:40
So if we have that common enemy, it seems that we shouldn't be
48:46
fighting with each other. I mean, it's just, it's just,
48:48
we've said it before, it just seems nice, but it just seems
48:51
ridiculous to me. Yeah, I agree with you.
48:54
And I've known him this particular, I mean, he's just,
48:57
he's just a symptom of a larger talking point.
49:01
But I mean, I've known him for over 15 years and he hasn't
49:05
changed his views on pretty much anything.
49:07
And so if I respond by saying, well, well, what is your goal
49:11
here? He just goes, well, that's
49:14
something that a typical right winger would say, say it's just
49:18
circular. So there's no point.
49:19
Because he doesn't want to answer the question.
49:21
Yeah, exactly right. But as I said, he is a symptom
49:24
of, of, of, of something bigger. And, and I, I suspect that we
49:29
just have to continue doing what we're doing and circling back to
49:33
the beginning of the conversation, not actually
49:37
censoring and only deciding when, how did Chloe say it?
49:43
Be decent. Also in you don't have to, You
49:46
don't have to be antagonistic for the sake of free speech.
49:53
No, that's absolutely right. Look, I'm, I'm going to say,
49:56
Jeremy, I, I have, I have not agreed with every interview that
50:00
you've done. Let me tell you, you know, but
50:04
would I, would I even consider asking you not to do them?
50:07
No, because because I just don't, I don't get this.
50:13
Why people are afraid of hearing views that that they that they
50:17
don't like and why people are afraid of challenging their own
50:22
positions on things. And so that's why I'm
50:26
enthusiastic about everything that that you do and everything
50:29
that most people do. Actually, yeah, I don't.
50:34
I don't even know where to go from there.
50:36
Just to be clear, I also don't agree with a lot of my own
50:38
interviews and. This is good, this is great,
50:45
this is great. This is how it should be.
50:48
It's absolutely how it should be.
50:49
And I think to to go to the point about decency that that is
50:55
a very, very important one. Because for anyone to imagine
51:00
that free speech should be the suggestion that everybody just
51:06
has carte blanche to be rude and say stuff that's just
51:12
unpleasant, wilfully unpleasant, it is.
51:16
It's still rude or willfully unpleasant.
51:18
That's not that, that, you know, I mean, you're not going to do
51:22
yourself any favours if, if that's how you choose to sort of
51:24
exercise your free speech. The, the, the problem, of
51:28
course, comes when people are supposed to be suppressed or
51:34
stopped from, from giving, you know, considered points of view
51:38
that some people might find difficult to listen to that
51:41
you're just just being plain offensive to people will always
51:45
be pointless. It it does not help and, and
51:48
allowing, you know, if you're allowing yourself to fall into
51:51
that trap, then you know that that that's well, it's just not
51:56
going to do you any favours or indeed, the particular issue
52:01
that you might think you're you're talking about.
52:03
And I think that, you know, it's very simplistic, but going back
52:07
to the, you know, play the ball and, and not the man.
52:11
And, and again, this is the thing attacking, just simply
52:17
attacking people, even if there is a sort of an undertone of an
52:21
issue at hand. But attacking the the person
52:25
again, it's it's just it's it's not decent, it's not sensible,
52:29
it's not constructive. Whereas.
52:31
Am I allowed to challenge you on that?
52:33
No. Because the reason I say that
52:39
is, you know, there there are times I feel that that actually
52:43
we should be not playing the ball.
52:46
We should be playing the man. I mean, let's play Tony Blair,
52:49
for example, and say this man, I believe, I'm going to say that I
52:54
believe that man is a war criminal.
52:56
And that man therefore should be going through some form of due
52:59
process. But you're not.
53:01
That's not. You're not attacking the man,
53:03
you're attacking his actions. Yeah, okay, okay, that the okay,
53:07
fair enough. If that's if that's if that's
53:09
what you. Yeah, okay.
53:10
Well, otherwise, you know, because otherwise if you're, if
53:12
you're then just going to, you know, been.
53:14
Despite I get what? You're saying, Charles, in other
53:16
words, taking attacking Tony Blair would be like, oh, he's
53:19
just a fat slob. I mean, that's nothing to do
53:22
with these actions. Yes, exactly.
53:25
Yeah, so, but no, I think, yeah, sorry.
53:28
OK, so there's a good, good, good clarification.
53:31
Absolutely. But but again, it's, it's to the
53:34
same point. I mean, and I and I think this
53:36
is always, you know, if there if the tax in any way or anything
53:43
is going to be thrown at an individual, it is completely
53:47
unfair below the belt and without common decency to attack
53:50
somebody for something they can't do anything about.
53:53
Tony Blair didn't have to be a war criminal if he turned out to
53:58
be extraordinarily fat and there was some reason for that, that
54:03
he found it very hard to control, to attack him for being
54:06
fat is I would say short of, you know, the, the mark, OK, he's,
54:14
he's not fat, but but, but you see my point, you know, And so,
54:20
so therefore, yes, I think to describe him as a war criminal,
54:22
even if he's not convicted as such is, is completely
54:26
legitimate because that that that expresses a whole load of
54:30
of other things. But yeah, I mean, I, I'm, I
54:34
think I'm really talking about the within the environment of
54:37
people that you that you know, yourself.
54:40
I don't think any of us knows Tony Blair, luckily.
54:45
Hope not. Yeah, so but but so, yeah,
54:50
that's that's really what I mean.
54:52
Yeah. I'm going to, if it's OK with
54:56
you, cut this conversation a few minutes short because we started
55:00
a few minutes late, Mike. So, but I want to, I'm going to
55:08
put you both on the spot. They're good.
55:11
Next week is I lost. I lost banter for this year.
55:16
So by the way, I'm not wearing, I'm not wearing a Christmas jar.
55:20
I'm not. I'm not.
55:22
I'm winning on this. 1. You need something Christmas or
55:26
something celebratory or something festival.
55:30
You can be the Grinch, Mike. Don't forget that.
55:33
Mike can stop this broadcast from going out, Jim.
55:38
But I've got the recording. OK, touché.
55:42
Oh, yeah. All right.
55:43
What's? That I'm reminder of that scene
55:45
from the wedding singer with Adam Stanley says well I've got
55:47
the microphone and you don't so you'll listen to every word I
55:50
have to say that line so it's. A very, very good way to finish
55:56
a free speech conversation bring.
55:59
Bring something something festivy so that it's a little
56:02
bit different to every other conversation and we'll we'll do
56:05
a recap of the year, yes, highlights and low lights and
56:09
that that kind of thing. I'm just saying it now so that
56:12
so that we are accountable to that, yes.
56:16
Now, just just so as we understand everything here, you
56:20
understand that that forever our final UK column News of the Year
56:27
is always a recap of the year and a look into next year.
56:30
So, so we're going to have to find stuff other than what we're
56:33
doing for the For the UK column news program.
56:36
Well, that's fine. And also I think we can, you
56:39
know, OK, we haven't been doing these banter sessions for quite
56:42
a year, but we can go back and think about some of the some of
56:45
the themes that we've talked about.
56:47
What's sort of what's gone well, what hasn't that kind of thing.
56:50
Yeah, I think, yeah, we'll. Have fun with it.
56:54
And it will be now it's all the more fun when Mike does it in a,
56:58
in a, in a centre head. I've got, I've got one right
57:06
here. Mine's waiting.
57:11
All right, gentlemen. Catch you next week.