We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour, a Memalikashinsky, culture
editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show at
radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at fdr LST,
and if you want to support our work, you can go head over to
the Federalist dot com and subscribe to the premium version of our site as well.
We're joined today by the executive editor of the Common Sense Society, Christopher
Bedford, who did not cut me off on two sixty seven yesterday. I
was actually shocked to learn because someone in his exact car did. Somebody was
style and grace. I was thinking long and hard about this, and I
was I actually think the people who buy these money pit death traps are just
animals. So if anybody in a car like yours is going to drive like
asio the nuclear war in my nineteen ninety four land Cruisers, the light trap
as long as it starts now yesterday I would have cut you off, but
the land cruiser started, delivered me, my lovely wife, my seven year
old to parentucher compasses of seven twenty five through the dangers of rush hour traffic,
held on just strong. It knew I'd been ignoring that check engine light
for three months because it's hard to find a mechanic who cares about your ninety
four land Cruiser. And it started again, and it got me on my
road, It got Sarah on her way, and it waited to a very
scenic, beautiful resting place on the GW Parkland in the left lane, going
like twenty miles over the speed linit before it decided to not send any more
gasoline to the engine. Yeah, every time I hear about your car,
it's something like this. You're confusing it with the Range Rover. No,
I'm really not the Range Rover. The Range River dies unless you tickle it
funny, the old Range River because of British socialism. It's not a whole
other subject. But yeah, the land Cruiser. I mean there are members
of the Taliban who've taken their land Cruisers in the combat, who've had a
little less trouble than I have with mine. Yeah, and they love that
car because it's reliable. Speaking of which, did you see that Osama bin
Laden's infamous letter to America justifying terrorism is going viral with the youths on the
TikTok I see it behind you on Fox Business, and I got a message
that was actually kind of weird. I've been in the weeds all day,
like I haven't stopped running in the salt mines. Yeah, it's more frantic
than the salt minds. I can't see in front of myself. And I
got a message from a colleague saying, if I wonder if I've seen this,
what is it? Well, it's exactly what it sounds like. There
are I actually watched a video compilation, and you know, with TikTok,
you actually never know, and this is true of social media in general.
You never know how organically viral something is. And you actually really have a
hard time quantifying how viral something is because whatever number of hashtags or whatever number
of times the phrase has been used, you don't know what the content is.
You don't know if it goes viral because people start piling on and saying,
wow, this is so crazy, like stop doing this, or if
it's just genuinely a ton of people saying, oh my gosh, you got
to read this letter, it's amazing. In the compilation I watched, it
was at least I don't know, it was getting close to a dozen young
women in particular, No, not entirely, and young men, some young
men, but there were a lot of young women saying, I'd never read
this letter to America before, and it's totally changed the way that I see
the world. And again on TikTok, of course, is where we've seen
staggering levels of support for the whether you say, the civilians of Gaza versus
Hamas. A lot of anti Israel sentiment, way more anti Israel sentiment on
TikTok than it probably real sentiment, and that seems to be trickling into opinion
polling as well. People in that youngest demo seem to be much more anti
Israel than pro Israel. So you actually this is perfect? Do you actually
have an opad? Didn't you? You just published on this in foxnews dot
com. I did tell us what you were because it was about campuses.
Yeah, it's about campuses. It says that this campus revolt we're seeing is
not some kind of shift or some kind of change or some kind of thing
that's a foreign to college campuses, is essentially flowers blooming on college campuses.
These are the plants that the seeds that have been planted by these professors,
and TikTok is definitely doing this. TikTok is definitely pushing this, but they're
just that's just like fertilizer and a little watering on already. Right. I
agree. The and I'm looking at these college universities were one or five weeks
after this massacre, mass rape, mass murder, mass child execution, mass
baby baking, mass insanity, and the colleges are trying to figure out how
to appease their donors and deal with this like the obvious fruits of their harvest
that's coming out in their campuses. So they're doing these things like we're going
to do community outreach, we're going to partner, we're gonna hold Schabat dinners,
we're going to have we're going to punish things. But you can't,
you're not. The point of the piece is you're not going to be able
to constrain this anti Israel hatred unless you get rid of the departments that are
sewing it. And none of them want to do that. I mean,
Harvard came out with their anti Semitism program, Mit says, well, they
can't deport the the Unamerican hamas sympathizers because or they can't expel them, otherwise
they might be deported from the country. You know how horrible that would be.
And over one hundred Harvard University professors signed a letter and faculty signed a
letter saying that Harvard was stifling their free speech by saying they couldn't be pro
Hamas. So these university professors, it's not going to work. In order
to actually tackle the problem here, which is this very simple minded, very
stupid victim of pressor model of looking at things, they have to get rid
of the departments to focus on race, the black studies departments, the Arab
studies departments, the Hispanic studies departments that they have to get rid of,
the gender studies departments. They have to get rid of the diversity equity inclusion,
they have to get rid of the CRT, the critical race theory that
is where this comes from. And it like Israel, is just in a
foreign place, and it's easy for people to have really strong opinions about it
because they don't know anyone who's being killed on college campuses. But it is
the exact same mindset that they can apply to history, the same mindset they
apply to Oh, look this guy who's a felon who's trying to kidnap his
children from his screaming wife and charges a police officer with a knife, gets
shot. He is a victim. Why disregard all facts? He is black,
capital B that guy's a police officer. Doesn't matter if he's black.
He's a police officer. And it's a very simplistic and very stupid mindset that
allows these children who are barely old enough to shave, to lecture you on
the morality of why it's okay to kill children because you're oppressed. Who lecture
you on this high minded self righteousness, that this faux intellectualism that powers these
absolute morons who cannot tell the difference between right and wrong anymore because of this
framework. And the college president going in to a Shabbad dinner or however you
say it, or like partnering with Jewish groups on campus is not going to
fix that if you have professors who preach hate. I mean, was it
the professor the associate professor who's let go from Cornell? The Freebeacon did a
die. But that guy's got ten years of saying things like we need an
insurgency in the United States to wipe out Christianity. Well, I mean it's
kind of actually offensive, but I'm glad it's happening. But like, oh
he said something bad about Israel, we should fire him, right, It's
like, yeah, well he's been saying awful things for a decade. These
people are cancer, right, and they're spreading cancer to children and listen.
I'm glad that there's some like it was some first survive I think it was
UCLA with a head. Over two hundred faculties signed a letter saying we need
to do something about this campus anti semitism. But it's not just anti semitism,
it's just this dumb victim of presser framework that they have. And what
you need to do is root out the communists are teaching it. As a
listener of Federalist Radio Hour, you've definitely heard about this digital dollar idea that's
being talked about. It's all the rage here in Washington, DC. It's
the one where the government monitors and could control you're purchasing in your financial activity.
Now. Visit gold code dot com slash Federalist to get your free twenty
twenty three gold ira kit today or call eight five, five, six one,
eight ten thirty. You can get up to ten thousand dollars in free
silver with qualified orders. And unlike a digital dollar precious metals, we're talking
here about physical gold and silver. They can't be manipulated with the click of
a button, so diversify with physical gold or silver from gold co. Historically,
gold has been a safe haven in times of high uncertainty, which is
definitely right now. So the twenty twenty three gold IRA Kit shows you how
to diversify some of your hard earned money with physical gold and silver, even
if it's still in a retirement account. And as an American citizen, you
could get up to ten thousand dollars in free silver with qualified orders, so
educate yourself about all of these options. You can go to gold code dot
com slash Federalists to get your free twenty twenty three gold IRA Kit today or
call eight five five six one eight ten thirty. Unlike the digital dolls dollar,
presious metals cannot be manipulated with the click of a button, so visit
gold code dot com slash Federalist or call eight five five six one eight one
zero three zero. That's gold code dot com slash Federalist or call eight five
five six one eight ten thirty, right, I was gonna say, I
mean, I think I genuinely in Harsani would probably disagree with me on this,
but I genuinely think that anti Semitism is sometimes used in an overly broad
way as a sort of political weather cudgel. Yes, there are people who
say the same thing that Jews in Israel, sort of leftist Jews in Israel
will say that in the United States are called anti Semitic, and again,
you know some of them actually really are. Do I think there's a chance
for Shida Talib is an anti semi? Yeah, I think there's a pretty
good chance that Rashida Talib is an anti semi. But I actually think this
is it's in a way deeper and more complex, because it's the seeds of
self hatred as an American, of the oppressor oppressor lens that a lot of
people have, I think, really accurately come up with. And that's where
this bin Laden letter is flourishing, because if you read it, that's exactly
what he's doing. He's saying, basically, well, first of all,
it's as you know, if this is gen Z's definition of homophobia, if
we're to apply their definition of homophobia to what is in this bin Laden letter
or anti semitism. I mean, there's a very real, legitimate racist anti
semitism and the bin Laden Letter, which will surprise absolutely no one. But
it's also interesting to me that you have a lot of Zoomer saying this letter
is eye opening because it's your standard Chomsky's zin outlook on American history. The
first time you know you read Howard zin or the first time you read that,
he is literally criticizing the US. This is from two thousand and two,
and as this is rolling Stone, this is how they put it.
He takes the US to task for not signing the Keyoto Protocol treaty and restricting
a mission of greenhouse gases. He also then talks about drugs. It's like
your typical, like freshman leftist take on spread. America has laws against drugs,
but it is like the biggest exporter. Just read Killing Hope and now
I'm a genius. It's basically that. It's basically that. So it's somewhat
fascinating. I don't know. I mean, obviously I remember talking like two
years ago and saying China could invade Taiwan tomorrow and they would just be tweaking
the algorithm on TikTok in ways we would not even know, and suddenly the
kids of America would have a completely different false they'd be living in a totally
false bubble, and it just is thanks to TikTok. But I actually think
that there's a likelihood that's exactly what's happening here, that this isn't organic,
that there isn't just suddenly probe and Latin sentiments by TikTok and turn them on
to uncle ted and away from that dog a little. Yeah, don't compare
be lost? Well, I mean, actually there's a great embarrassing between Tekisinskan
and Issomi Lam. But that said, yeah, well the justification of terrorism
on these sort of anti decadent grounds. But that said, I genuinely think
it's sad that we don't know the difference between whether this is organic sentiment or
if it's being tweaked by China. Because obviously, of course I have this
finger on every aspect of that. But there are real Americans. I don't
know how many of them I are. I think we're overestimating that I'm Americans.
But why does it catch Fox businesses I and your eye daily No,
I think you're right. I'm just saying that there are legitimately people who are
making this argument. The algorithms of Instagram feeds me some weird stuff, but
not that there's probably a lot of cat content, but the fact disturbing amount
of cat content. But it's what you're saying. What you're saying is true
though, that when you are given this extremely simplistic lens through which to see
the US. And I actually think that's a problem with Like, we've learned
a lot more about the Cold War actually just in the last ten years,
the last twenty years. That's a is not taught in history classes. And
I'm sure the left would love that some of it is taught in history classes.
But we have buildings in DC named after Jaegar Hoover and Alan Dallas,
and actually a lot of the anti American sentiment in places like the Middle East,
like actually a lot of that comes from some really bad decisions that we
made throughout the course of the Cold War. We don't teach any of it.
And so then when you have Chomsky sweeping in or you have some of
these leftist historians sweeping in and being like but actually the CIA created, yes,
that's It's why it's powerful is because we don't teach any of the full
context of the fact that, for example, communism was a nuclear threat and
Joe McCarthy was an incredibly flawed person, but man, was he onto something.
Yeah, you're on something. He was. He was largely correct.
You just didn't have precision. That's that's for your next book, McCarthy Colon
largely correct, lacked precision. Buckley second book, mccarthyen His Enemy, is
co written with Brent Bozell. Can we talk about that though, because I
actually, as you were talking earlier about your op ed, I wanted to
ask you because you've studied Buckley for a while. The gott a Man at
Yale is one of the books that kicks off the conservative movement, and the
concept of fusionism starts stemming from the fight against communism. The sharing statement is
explicitly is a screed against intellectual freedom. Well yes' academic freedom, not intellectual
freedom, which is fascinating in the context of a conservative movement that has become
so pro free speech, because the conservative movement became the targets of the sensors.
And these two things are not mutually they're only free space because we're not
in charge. I don't think I think these things are incompatible. They're not
mutually exclusive. I do think there are some sort of there's a misconception of
free speech absolutism that is sprouted on the right in the wake of all the
censorship. But to your point, Chris, this kind of fight against anti
westernism, which is what everybody saw in communism, that has has become cultural
Marxism and has has bloomed, as you put it, I think, well,
that is in some ways inherent, that is someways baked into the cake
of the right for the last at least half a century. Yep. I
mean I'm against it's fundamental stuff. Basically, the problem with academic freedom and
the Buckley targets, and I think is correct, is it shouldn't exist in
a way that allows, like professors at universities that are worth their salt should
be teaching people the Western canon, but Western civilization, about God, family,
and country, about the things that built the civilization. And they're not.
They're teaching about tearing things down. They're teaching garbage. They're teaching lies
about sex, they're teaching lies about biology, and they're doing it under the
guise of academic freedom. And if I was in charge of Yale, they
would all be fired. If you were in charge of you, I don't
think that happening. Where do you stand on this question of like some of
these Students for Justice and Palistine chapters that the National SPJ so called toolkit,
when the should they receive university funding? So the original should we disbanded?
Well? So okay, so that's the question. Funding is one thing I'm
really less motivated by. Like this. I'm not going to go around dispanding
chapters of things because they're anti Israel. I don't really care if you're anti
Israel or pro Israel. I would just spend them because they're pro Hamas.
What would you do? They're like pro Palestinian authority. You know, it's
like, all right, that's obnoxious. But seeing pro Hamas is a problem.
We've already talked about you being in charge of Yale, but say you're
in charge of a state, and even more chilling hypothetical, but say that
Chris Bedford is the governor of a state. Let's say Chris Bedford is the
King of Massachusetts, the sort of hub of global academia. What do you
do to take care of all the problems you just outlined about how people are
teaching. You said, we should stop teaching this. We should stopped teaching
that. What canon should be done swap out the boards of trustees of all
the state universities, starting with the UMass Amherst. Swap out the president and
you can do that. I mean Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts,
fired Whitey Bulger's brother, former Speaker of the House, Billy Bulger,
who was president of U MASSI He's like, get out of here. That
sounds like a bad move. At that point, Whitey was like, I
thought he was dead, but it turned out he was just like living in
a motel in California with this slam piece. It was confident he was that
they'd killed him. Connolly had killed him. But you could do that.
Wipe out the boards of the trust or not the trustees, wipe out the
boards that oversee the universities, and change the presidents and put in people who
are going to do this, and then put money aside in the budget,
which he wouldn't be able to do. If you're going to see a king
of Massachusetts to start buying out all the tenured professors, offer them packages to
go to refuse or if they won't, be bought out, and put them
on research duty and get them out of there and start to hire new and
good professors who will be able to take those jobs and teach those children.
And then I don't know how Massachusetts taxes the endowments of Harvard. I mean,
dare them to move some coming for your annowment? Oh yeah, I
would do that. Stop. I mean, I don't know what Massachusetts gives
to these universities that do bring it a lot of esteem and some very pretty
architecture, but stop giving them whatever it is. Those are the things I
would start with. And what do you do if you were you say,
you're one of the new people who's pointed to the board of trustees. And
there's some example of this with the Santas in Florida and New Call for Florida
bringing Chris Ruffo, bringing some of the Hillsdale gang. Is that your sort
of your prescription would be similar. Yeah, that's a good idea. Government.
There's no reason at all that U. T. Austin should be teaching
this stuff except for weakness on behalf of the Texas Republic to stop it is
this is not just this is a state university meant to teach the values and
principles of the state, not just to teach anti Texas, anti American stuff.
That's it doesn't mean you can't question authority. It's trying to be an
authoritarian here, but teaching that the taxpayer pays for it. It shouldn't be
teaching the students to hate the taxpayer in the country. And there are people
who argue that, and it's just it's such a stupid point to make,
like, oh, actually think that our tax dollars should be going towards having
students hate our country. That's acroaonomic freedom. This is a dumb, dumb
take well, then go to college in the Woods of Vermont where they have
basically like Montessori. For I wanted to go to adult I wanted to go
to an atheist college called Antioch and was unable to get in. I mean
because it went bankrupt. See that sounds right, But is it like the
one that Jane Sanders ran. I don't know she actually was running like anyway,
I dabbled in anarchism in high school, but fortunately before I started applying
for colleges it all makes sense to all of the listeners. Now, I'm
sure I did know that, and it's sort of a foundational I think part
of the Bedford story. I'm united by radicalism, that's the strain and anger.
Yeah yeah, and I'm easily swayed by good music love punk rock.
Still do the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day Chris
helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet.
The economy isn't growing, it's leeching. October jobs report is out and
it's not good. The US added one hundred and fifty thousand jobs. However,
a third of them are government jobs. After the FED has paused interest
rate hikes. Yet again, something has to give. Whether it's happening in
DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed.
Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcast. Okay, now I've lost my train
of thought. That's okay, we have to wrap up in a minute.
Anyways, I can tell. I can always tell when you're ready to wrap
up. I'm sorry, I've been running around. I know this is like
a shorter podcast. I've been running around NonStop, got guests coming into town,
mother in law, landing, tonight, shock, broken down, too
many animals in my house, and I'm just my mind is swirling. Yeah,
I'm like a bartender who's I got the rush right now? No,
I can tell, I can tell and now much we can keep going though.
Well here, let me ask you one question. Do it one more
question? Do it Lessons from the confrontation with Communism that should be applied now,
from failures of that confrontation that should be applied now, from the Cold
War lessons you mean? Yeah, I mean America, the world is really
interconnected. America's got to be very careful what it does and when it doesn't,
there are reactions. I don't want to just be like a Ron Paul
blowback guy, but you need to pay attention to where you're stepping. I
mean, say what you will about the British Empire. They really understood the
country that they were in. I mean, maybe they get there at first,
I'm like, let's blow up that trumple and look for gold, But
generally speaking, they had a deep understanding of the products the civilization, the
literature, the religion, the outputs. America has kind of a habit of
dropping a bunch of pissed off, under sex eighteen year olds on a base
and like building a pizza hut and telling them not allowed to drink and then
sending them out in humvees and without any understanding of what's going on. That's
not across the board. I mean talking to friends with special operations, they
know so much more about countries and their history and their language before they go
into them. But I mean America's ought to tread carefully this. The enmities,
the tribal enmities between people can be used to your advantage, but you
can't just ignore them. That was actually going to be my same lesson,
as well as that the world is more interconnected and that these we look back
on again McCarthyism with somewhat distained mockery horror, but not me never said the
word mccarthysm ever, Well, no, because we've read stan Evans. But
that's the benefit of you know, when Venona came out and all of that
stuff. But some of this is fairly recent history. But that is a
point. While taking there's a reason in the country in the aftermath of nuclear
war had that appetite, and it's because they're you know, that's not to
say that I agree he completely lacked precision and there was, you know,
a lot of missteps. But in a nuclear age and in an age of
total interconnectedness, China can be controlling the sort of temperature of America's youth.
That the flip of a switch, essentially. And you know who gave him
the initial list the numbers of suspected Communist agents in the State Department, Lee
Edwards father. He was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. It was reported
on it. He was like yelling alone in this room, like the government
is filled with communists, And an age to McCarthy was going by and he's
like, you've been talking about this, do you have any records of it?
And he just handed them some of the stuff he was working on and
he's like, my boss has got to give a speech on Lincoln Day.
That was the first speech. This is not a country that exists for the
sake of being a country. And in the same sense, free speech doesn't
exist for the sake of free speech. Academic freedom doesn't exist for the sense
of for the purpose of academic freedom. It exists for the purpose of flourishing,
and I think that's an exactly You've been listening to another edition of The
Federalist, or a radio hour with the executive editor at the Common Sense Society,
Christopher Bedford. I'm Emily Trishinski. We will be back soon with more.
Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the frame