Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / JUST JOSH: Cancelling Douglas Murray

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JUST JOSH: Cancelling Douglas Murray · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and I'm takin off from Sydney
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  on a big whiz bang fast break Nick tour to Los Angeles and then San Francisco to meet
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  up with the sub stack peeps and then New York City and I'm gonna Waston and then I'm
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  gonna London it's gonna be a whistle stop tour but for the next two weeks I apologize
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  if content is a little bit spotty I'll do me best I'm going on a bunch of podcasts
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  so you'll see and hear me pop up hither and fiverr I hope hopefully I might be too jet lagged
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  too disheveled and I won't say anything too outrageous or maybe I will and then I'm
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  coming back and after a brief break with the Kiddley Winks to Queensland to take them
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  to the great barrier reef for a few days I will be off on the road with the one on the
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  Douglas Murray for our Australian live tour now let me say a couple of things about this
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  and my relationship with my radio show my public radio show on the ABC kind of fell apart
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  one of the ways in which I sought to expand my this little bit endeavor this podcast
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  MPa shall we call it was not just to increase the output of audio podcasts which I do hope
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  you're enjoying but to start doing them as videos on the old YouTube and also to do live
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  events so those are the three prongs right there's the audio podcast there's a video content
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  which TBC watch this space I want to do some more interesting stuff in video than just having
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  a webcam of me gabbing at you I sort of feel like every podcast especially the sort of intellectual
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  heterodox ones tends to look like it was shot in Jordan Peterson's reading layer it's all
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  my hogging in books and people seated on plethora I'd like to make my look a bit different so we're
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  going to play around with a few things in you know what's his face nonetheless the third leg of
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  the stool of the jar sets uncomfortable conversations global empire fire us off to the moon and create
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  a new civilization stool are live events where I would bring interesting people from all over the
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  world and we'd have have conversations now let me preface this by saying that I was watching
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  Oppenheimer and if you've seen the the motion picture the great film Oppenheimer by Christopher
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  Nolan you'll notice that the the subplot of that is basically about McCarthyism and about the
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  red scare and communism and people being hounded for their political beliefs and one aspect of that
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  that I thought was resonant today and perhaps I'm reading into it because I'm so obsessed with
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  cancel culture and work this but I think it's there is the kind of forensic picking over of
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  people's lives so you know there's a specifically a relationship in which the the kangaroo
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  course that is finally set up to try to ensnare Oppenheimer in its McCarthyite red tape finally
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  takes a look at his ex-wife and sort of pause over diaries that she might have written 15 years ago
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  to see whether or not she was using words that would indicate that she was sympathetic to the
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  Soviets or to communism as we know through that terrible period of American history there was a lot
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  of expectation on people to prove their loyalty you know did you say this well I didn't actually
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  mean that I meant this look I've also said all these wonderful things that are actually really
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  pro-American so you can't imply that I'm actually anti-American there was a lot of you know are
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  you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party and people essentially being forced
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  to pledge allegiance to ideals and to demonstrate their fealty it was reminiscent of things that
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  the Soviet Union was doing to a much much greater degree because Americans weren't sending people
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  to gallags but nonetheless we know we know what the East German police were up to when they would
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  ask people in you know friendly ways what they thought about this what they thought about that
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  and the whole culture was won in East Germany in particular of watching your words making sure
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  that you qualify everything that you might say that might be mildly controversial or mildly
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  disruptive to the way that the authorities perceive public order with another thing that proves
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  that you're actually on the good side on the right side of history and you're on the good tame
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  this brings me to the controversy around my events with Douglas Murray I use controversy loosely
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  because I don't want to blow it out of proportion but there is a petition as one would expect
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  entitled shot it down Douglas Murray at the end more theater and it has a picture of Douglas
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  looking like an idiot in a split screen from Sky News with Pierce Morgan who is mid-blink so he
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  looks like he's asleep you know typical uh typical gutter way of presenting people and it says the
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  beloved and more theater in Sydney's in a West and for people who have you for those of you who aren't
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  in Sydney the inner West is a it's it's a pretty hippie-dippie at part of Sydney it's a pretty
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  woke part of town it's where I was born it's where I was raised it's where I've always lived in Sydney
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  I love it but it's a lot of baristas with twirly moustaches it's a lot of you know craft cocktails
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  and so I think there's a they feel that the petitioners feel this is adding insult to injury that
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  we're bringing we're bringing conservative voices into such a sanctuary really and not just
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  conservative voices we're bringing hate we're bringing hate right because anyone who disagrees
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  with you is a peddler of hate the beloved and more theater and I quote in Sydney's in a West is
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  platforming far right Zionist ideologue Douglas Murray Murray has been providing ideological fodder
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  through Israel's genocide and Gaza since October 7th they don't go on to explain how the
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  genocide is is working and what exactly that means that it's been the Israelis have been
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  genocidal I'll park that question because some of you might might not be across how ridiculous
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  the claim of genocide is but it the petition goes on to say he will appear as a guest
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  of former ABC radio broadcaster Josh Zips whose uncomfortable conversations live tour with Murray
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  goes well beyond what can be called an uncomfortable conversation Murray promotes hate see I tell
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  you they get to hate he promotes hate why he disagrees with us but what how is he promoting hate
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  shut up you idiots you're a bigot he promotes hate racism and genocide Murray promotes genocide
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  genocide we must not allow this to happen in our backyard the petition goes on to say local
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  support for this petition can ensure Douglas Murray does not get the opportunity to spread his hate
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  in the inner west okay quick lesson about Western civilization in most places in most eras for
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  most people they have lived under regimes of suppression where the majority has forced minorities
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  not to say the wrong thing this is the norm there is nothing new about what you're doing
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  petitioners there is not the only new thing is how illiterate you are about what made the
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  enlightenment the enlightenment and Western civilization Western civilization the way we arrive at
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  good ideas about things is by hearing the largest number of possible ideas arguing about them
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  debating them wrestling with them and then hopefully at the end of it all we come out with a
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  consensus or a conclusion that is better than the sum of its parts that the the the process of
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  exchanging ideas is what leads to better ideas places that don't do that are places like the Soviet
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  Union people who don't do that are people like Senator McCarthy you know places religions that
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  don't tolerate that well basically all religions don't tolerate that but the ones that tolerate
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  dissent the least are the ones like the theocracies of Saudi Arabia certainty in the culture is
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  poison the exchange of ideas is what makes Western civilization the best civilization so far
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  to the extent that other civilizations flourish and thrive it's to the extent that they are able to
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  incorporate and tolerate a free exchange of ideas the more robust sorry the more rigid and
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  defensive a culture is the less it progresses so it's all very well for you to declare that you
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  think that Douglas Murray is pedaling hate fine make an argument against that and go and sell up your
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  own event in which you refute all of Douglas Murray's positions I will be doing a fair bit of
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  refuting of Douglas Murray's positions myself because as this position fails to notice I
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  may actually engage with him in conversation that is not just me sitting there like a bobble head doll
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  nodding up and down while he rants it will be a dialogue it will be a conversation between
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  two people it will be a conversation between two reasonably intelligent and entertaining people I
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  hope as evidenced by the fact that both of the shows in Sydney and Melbourne sold out um let's go
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  to these specifics of what the petitioners say Douglas is guilty of so they're calling for not
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  only the cancellation of the show but for the more theater to issue an apology to the community
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  for its intention to platform Douglas Murray so not only do you get to arrays from the culture
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  people who you don't like you get to require collaborators to apologize forever having intended
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  forever having committed the thought crime the wrong thing of considering giving them an
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  environment in which they can wrestle with big ideas because the way they wrestle with big ideas
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  is something that you don't like so you get to call it hate um they accused Douglas of Zionist
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  propaganda that's one of the two main charges and hilariously the second big charge is they accused
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  him of holocaust revisionism they say this is because Murray apparently said to hear the rest of
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  this conversation go to uncomfortable conversations dot sub stack dot com slash listen and you will
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  get your own personal premium podcast feed with at least three extra episodes of the podcast every
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  month and heaps of extra stuff including the remainder right now of the fabulous conversation you've
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  just been hearing if it was worth listening to this much of don't rob yourself of the rest
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  well let your phone light down and search for uncomfortable conversations with the sub stack