Well, whiskey coming thing my payney, Oh why don't you let me?
From Powerline blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com, this is the
Three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders Steve Hayward, John You and power Lines
International Woman of Mystery Lucretia's gotta giving. Let that whiskey bloat where you're being
in love down in lod Well. All right, Lucretia, I know we
see John you here on zoom with us, but you never know if he's
really in the country or whether it's a phony backdrop. But I have found
empirical proof that John is indeed back in the United States. I don't know,
Lucretia, if you saw this in the inflation report last week, but
part prices are way up. That's shows that John is back in Hi John,
Welcome back, Hi John. Hey guys, Hey guys. This is
from the guy who was kidnapped in Hungary for eighteen weeks. It seemed like
right and you missed it when I told him that. I was very annoyed
by the fact that the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, which is way more popular
than that other podcast, had to redo it schedule fifteen times because Steve has
to be on Ricochet, and we're supposed to move our schedule for the Ricochet
podcast. Even you, John, are more popular than the guys on the
Ricachet podcast. Well maybe with our listeners who any wellk the ones who count,
well, that's not up on that too much. So listeners, today,
you want to pour a good stiff three fingers of your favorite whiskey,
because we're going to get deep into the weeds of some applied theory. I'm
going to call it that applied theory to the questions of free speech and the
laws of war. And while those may seem like different domains, I think
they're vitally connected. And we're going to see how today, and of course
along the way, we're going to see all the ways that John, you
can be wrong about this, because I always like it when for Lucretius somebody
is more wronger than I am. Okay, let's be in with two news
items. I don't know if you caught these, but one of them was
first, I'll do it this order. First of all, our pal Josh
Hammer, who is the opinion editor of Newsweek and several other things. Right,
he was speaking maybe for the federal society. I'm not sure where,
but he was speaking somewhere in the last week where he got shouted down,
kind of like Judge Duncan at Stanford a few months ago. And I guess
he finally got to give his talk. But when he first was introduced,
he got up and you had all these you know, pro Hamas demonstrators shouting
him down, So violating his First Amendment rights, you might say, narrowly.
The second news item that's related is I'm not sure if we spend much
time on this, but Governor de Santis in Florida a band or d certified
whatever the step is, every Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Florida's public
universities, and by the way, that has now been filowed by a handful
of places. Brandeis Columbia University has suspended or decertified their Students for Justice and
Palestine chapters. Those are private universities, of course, And the question was,
gosh, why isn't the ACLU or Students for Justice in Palestine running into
court claiming that these are First Amendment violations? And sure enough late this week
SJP, I'll just go to their initials. Now, did file a first
Amendment claim in court against Governor DeSantis in Florida, which raises the question of
is this we are looking at what DeSantis did in other universities? Is this
conservative cancel culture? Isn't this the kind of thing John people complain say that
we complain about, and aren't we now guilty of being hypocrites on the subject.
So let me stop there and get your guys initial reaction to this phenomenon,
Whether it's the particular stories, are the wider scene and who wants to
go first. I think that the critics of conservatives have a point when it
comes to public universities. Brandeis any other private university. They don't have an
obligation to obey the First Amendment. The First Amendment only applies to the government.
So accept in these unusual categories we've talked about before, involving social media
and common carriers. If you're a private party, you don't have to let
anybody stick their campaign sign on your front yard. You can kick them the
hell out. I think that, as the Supreme Court has said, the
right of free speech also means that you have the right to stop people from
using your private property to speak. Well, I don't know well, is
the case with Florida is different? I think the case with dissent is different.
Right, that's a public university. They are bound by the First Amendment,
as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment against the States. And I don't see
why a state has the right to pick and choose amongst what groups it allows
to exist based on the content of their speech. Now the students for Justice
and Palestine are committing violence. If they are, I think you can say
we're going to ban a group that actually commits violence. But here, as
you described, as Stephen, as the reports I've seen the press, you
know, I don't think these groups have actually engaged in physical violence on the
campuses sufficient to ban them. We have, then, let's hear it.
We can use that standard against every other group too. Can I just mention
one objection Lucretia before I bring in you, which is I don't proposally go
off on this for long digression, John, But the distinction between public and
private universities does that really work? I mean, after all, the hook
with Harvard in the affirmative action cases that there are recipients of federal funds.
So columb gets lots of federal funds as to almost all private colleges. Doesn't
that make them if it makes them subject to constitutional scrutiny for civil rights on
the fourteenth Amendment, why wouldn't the First Amendment be similar? If you want
to add that to the mix, it only makes my case stronger, doesn't
it, Because then you would say, well, I'm gonna explain the minute
how you're wrong. But then, I mean, we could talk about when
the spending clause should be used this way. But if you want to say
private universities that receive federal funds also have to obey certain standards, then it
means even Brandeis can't ban these groups. Because first, I'm going to indulge
this idea that it's merely a First Amendment jurisprudence question, a purely constitutional legal
question, because of course it's much more than that. But I will entertain
that, your lawyer, I expect it. What we know is the universities
for least a couple of decades have banned free speech if it caused some members
of the community to feel unsafe. Unsafe words are violence, silence is violence,
and all this other crap that universities got away with, and very little
there was very little success at bringing a First Amendment claim against that kind of
nonsense stupidity. I mean, there aren't enough negative adjectives for me to describe
how much crap I think that is. However, what we have, again
conceding for the moment, that somehow the stupid opinions on freedom of speech by
the Supreme Court are relevant in any way because most of them are, don't.
We have from the Supreme Court the decision of clear and present danger,
and that clear and present danger doesn't actually take the violence at the moment,
but violent places where violence is imminent. And one of the things you are
wrong about, John, is the incredible level of violence that is being perpetrated
against Jewish students on campus. Many times the violence is avoided by you know,
police escorting them out the back and all those sorts of things, but
they're violent, and there's no doubt that they're violent. And so thinking say
about the whole line of cases, again, muddled stupid cases by the usually
muddled stupid Supreme Court, about the House of an American Activities Committee, you
know, well, this is an imminent danger. This is not an imminent
danger. But we have in our constitutional jurisprudency idea that you don't just have
to walk up and smack somebody, slug somebody in the face in order to
be guilty of speech that causes a very real threat to start there. And
that to me is not the deep question. But what do you? I
mean, I don't even know. I can't even keep up with the Supreme
Courts where they are on this stupid issue because they missed the whole point entirely
of what freedom of speech is supposed to do. But conceding that somehow it's
important. The court has said you don't have to have actual violence in order
to restrict freedom of speech. One I think that universities have been hypocritical if
they've been banning conservative groups or conservative speakers on this theory of the things they
actually say are violent amount to physical violence. I mean, I just think
that's actually I just think wrong. And I think the conservative groups and speakers
that have been canceled for those reasons could sue, you know, and and
certainly in many cases, I think this is actually the thing said by people
who try to disrupt and prevent their speech, not by university administrators who seem
totally clueless about what to do in these past cases, you know, like
Heather. We had case at Berkeley, Heather McDonald with Steve is the potted
plant next to her as the moderator, where you know, these people tried
to uh, they didn't try to disrupt her speech so she couldn't speak,
but they caused a ruckus and they did it on that ground too, And
I think the university has an obligation to stop them from doing that. I
don't think they the university should sit there and say, oh, we are
going to prevent speech that causes violence. I agree with Lucretia. If that
is the standard, then this Governor DeSantis could stop these proposts. But that
plays into your argument then, which is that that that it's the same kind
of cancel culture, right, yeah, yeah, but I don't think but
I just think it's wrong. I don't think that the standard being applied to
conservative groups is appropriate either. But that's different than the imminent you know,
imminent harm standard. I mean that is in the law that it depends on
the facts. But my impression it depends really on whether Governor DeSantis, when
he made the decision, actually had the facts and can prove it. It
seems to me, maybe I'm wrong, that seemed like a blanket or a
prohibition of these groups, no matter what they were doing. You know,
maybe there were some incidents in some campuses in Florida and some were not.
But I think he just blanket banned them based on what they were saying.
He didn't just say, oh, these groups. And there's an interesting,
you know example, like Lucretian mentioned the Communist Party in the nineteen fifties,
or you know, we play these hypotheticals in law school. What if there
is a political party devoted to the overthrow of the constitution. Well, there
is there is a political party devoted to the overthrown the constitution. Actually,
I think Lucretia, you think all the political parties are devoted to those Some
of them pay lift service to it, some of them don't even bother yea.
But to me, unless they're actually doing something other than speaking, they're
still protected by the First Amendments. To take the example of a terrorist group,
there's actually a case that went to the Supreme Court about this where there
were these groups that were sending money to terrorist groups in the Middle East.
But they said, oh, we're just raising money and we're spending it on
speech, and we're raising money and spending it on lawyers and pr basically,
and the Supreme Court said, if you're only speaking, you would have a
case. But you're clearly doing other things with the Monday, which is conduct.
You're sending money to the terrorist groups, you're defending them in other ways
than just speaking, and that can be punished by the government. I think
that's the line. So I agree if there were some kind of imminent harms,
supposed there was actually outbreaks of violence on campus and fighting between Jewish John
these days, does he not read news? I always see, you know,
isolated incidents. I don't see, you know, sort of like what
I saw. I wasn't around what we saw the campuses in Vietnam, for
example, during Vietnam. So I think that, and I totally sympathize with
Jewish students who feel they're feel unsafe, But I don't think the right remedy
is to ban Palestinian groups from existing. I think the remedy is to punish
individual students, faculty, or staff who actually take violence into their own hands.
Can I argue for just a moment before that that's a bit naive and
The reason I say that it's kind of a theme I've had for the last
few weeks, and that is that the most important battle that is being fought
by Israel right now is call it the propaganda war. Call it the the
right for Israel to exist, the right for Jews to be Jews and exist,
the right not to be considered by Palestinians and Iranians and muscle in general,
not all I get it as human beings because they're not considered by those
people as human beings. All of that is part of a massive attempt to
move public opinion in one way or another, Okay, and one way or
another. And we've talked about the fact that universities for at least several decades
now have completely set the conditions for these subhuman savages, pieces of extrement,
Palestinians and others, to completely destroy the social fabric that keeps this country together
because they deny the humanity of others while not even being human themselves. You
know, that's the way I would probably put it, not at a standard
of humanity that allows us to live together on terms of you know, equality
and so forth. That's the problem. I get what you're saying that no,
we need to punish individuals, but giving sanction to students for Palestine justice
in Palestine, which is built on a whole series of lies and then has
serious consequences across all of society. Where do you stop it? Where do
you stop it? I share what your concerns. I'm totally on the side
of Israel. I hope they go in and root out Hamas. I wish
they could take care Hezbollah in Iran while they're at it. But what worries
me is and this is not the United States itself at war, right,
We're not talking about censorship in war time. This is a state where,
still at peace. I worry more, ultimately long run, about the government
deciding that even though I agree with your position, I worry about the government
deciding that is the agreed on position. So here's a here's a example,
or hope thought I would throw your way was do you think that before the
Civil War that Abraham Lincoln should have been allowed to censor pro slavery speech,
for example? Or do you think that, uh, you know, before
we entered World War two, before we entered World War two, that FDR
should have been allowed to censor pro German and pro Japanese speech. I think
once the war starts and we're fighting, and then these you know, propaganda
tactics are going to be used against US as a weapon war, I think
that's fine to censor. But you're talking about censorship. You're talking about censoring
positions that are about a war that we are not actually fighting. Right,
You're right, it's a tool of war that the Palestinians are using against Israelis.
But I don't think the government should be picking and choosing what types of
speech and the content that it should allow. Well, can ire on our
peace time? Can I jump in here and John? And I'm going to
vote this cliche that's very popular right now that I don't like because it's a
cliche and I avoid them. But what time is it? I mean,
John, I mean, in a very meaningful sense, we are at war.
I mean Iran declared war on US forty some years ago, and even
though we don't have armies in the field. And then second, I mean
this was what well, I don't mean again, we don't have a conventional
war going on against it, although I mean we're close to it. We're
firing a being attacked fifty seven times, right, no, I guess,
but on a broader sense, and by the way, there are specific things
such as to the extent that you see so many foreign students here on student
visas behind some of these agitations. They should just simply be deported and then
the problem goes away in this country without having to get into the tangle of
free speech and some of the rest of it, and then comfortable letting the
Biden administration decide, Okay, we're going to ban speech in favor of Palestinians,
We're going to ban speech in favor of a peaceful settlement? Are we
going to ban speech in favor of a ceasefire? Right? Like we're Creatia
says where's the line? Yeah, where's the line there? And then the
other thing is take it out of the Millie's contexts. Then you're saying that
the uh that Joe Biden can start centering speech that conflicts with his vision of
national security. So could you ban proach Chinese speech, pro Russian speech about
the Ukraine War. We know that the administration is already doing it, but
yeah, they might be doing it. Doesn't mean that it's right, right,
I mean, can I like it? But that's the line. That's
the that's that's what you're contemplating. Right. If you're going to say we
should be able to ban Propilestadian speech, it would apply to all the other
wars we're involved into. All right, it's no formal fight answer the questions.
Let me let me move into the deeper reasons why there's a provisional answer
yes to some of your questions. Although I can test the way you've phrased
them. It's not so much the condition of war. It is the nature
and limits of free speech itself. And one of the problems is Lucre already
referenced this. We now have decades of really bad First Amendment decisions that said
expressionist speech, and it used to be a time when people contested some of
these, like Walter Burns, like Frank Canavan. One of my favorites is
David Lowenthal's book from thirty years ago, No Liberty for License, and I
want to share two pat two quick passages from his book that frame the question
that I think we should be answering here. And then I want to bring
in the way Jaffa looked at it and the way he applied Lincoln in a
way different than the way you just did so Lowenthal's book. I'll give you
two sentences here. Citizens may therefore find themselves asking whether our founding fathers,
known for their press udits and realism, meant the First Amendment to protect those
who would use freedom for the destruction of freedom? Was this keystone of the
Bill of Rights really intended to guarantee the freedom of expression and organization to the
enemies of freedom? And after discussing it, he and comes to the end
and raises this question. Only if it can be shown that a Nazi or
communist or Black Panther Party or a klu klux Klan contributes to Republican ends,
can a case be made through the First Amendment for permitting its legal status.
Otherwise such groups are all legally and prudently shorn of this status from the outset,
and not only without violating any part of the Constitution, but in keeping
with its positive injunctions. He, by the way, Lollenthal, who was
a classmate of Jaffas under Leo Straus and Chicago back in what the fifties,
I guess forties and fifties. He's channeling Jaffa's argument, which I'll come to.
But the where am I going with all that? One of the practical
problems is and he meant he brings up the word prudence, which is hugely
important. Is an awful lot of students who go on these marches are idiots.
They don't know anything. But the question you want to ask is what
is the general tendency of this group if they got power. You know,
an awful lot of people join the Nazi Party in Germany in the thirties because
it's young, naive you thinking this would be a way back for national greatness
for Germany. And some very smart people went along with it, as we
know, like Carl Schmidt, Martin Heideger, et cetera. And it was
too late to stop them. And you know, one of the great lines
of people like Raymond Drone, but also Leo Strauss and his famous book on
Spinoza saying, you know, we saw a regime that was too weak to
protect itself from the rising tyrants among them. And there's the problem. I
think, on a level of principle, it's perfectly legitimate to say the aims
of this group are unacceptable in a free society, and therefore can be rightfully
as a matter of principle. Band Now, whether we should or not is
a matter of prudence, and I'll come back to that, but I'll stop
there because yes, I don't get this. So I mean, I do
get it, but I don't think it's wise. For this reason, You're
still saying that the government has some authority to pick and choose what's a legitimate
point of view and not right. So this is either. So Steve's making
the claim even if he's not even talking about whether there's actual violence occurring.
He's just saying the government has the right to decide certain types of speech are
valid or not based on their content alone. So where did those values come
from? So would it have been okay for certain periods of American history for
the government to say, we think this set of views is a threat to
the existence of the government, and so we're going to ban it. So
under your theory, it was appropriate then for the Southern governments to say,
we're going to ban abolitionist literature from being in mailed, and we're going to
ban abolitionist speakers because we think that you know, promoting here, I'm not
I know, you know where I'm going by, and I say, you
know, for people not caught up on these arguments because you're they could say,
look, constitution allows us to have slavery. You calling for the end
of the end of slavery rips out a core for us of the constitutional system.
So we're going to be you're a threat to the constitution. Or take
them, I mean, take the Middle Ages. I can't help but think
is this okay for you know, Christian regimes in the West during the Middle
Ages to ban certain things they thought was a threat to machine, like Protestantism
or Galileo. I mean, I'm not, you know, trying to be
florid. I'm just saying that where do you get the confidence that the government
will know exactly what values it should allow and which values it shouldn't allow and
then express in speech. Why isn't it better for speech? I totally agree
with you. We should not have gone this lot down this line of expression
equal speech, but it's just pure verbal and written speech. Why isn't it
better to use the marketplace of ideas approach and say just let all the speech
out there, don't let the government intervene, because the speech is valuable to
allow us to make decisions about policy. Even if we want to say,
let's change our constitutional system and get rid of democracy in some ways like we
do. Let's why not have a full Senate and no House for example.
Why can't we say things like that and have arguments about that. Even that
would be very undemocratic in the end. So part of the problem, I'll
go back to the whole thing about slavery in a moment, But part of
the problem is that you don't recognize, John, that freedom of speech is
not an end in itself. It is not an end in itself. It
is an end, a very important excuse me, a means, a very
important means designed to keep a free society free. And I agree with you
that, especially when you use the example of the Biden administration, that the
government currently in power is very dangerous to what it is that freedom of speech
should be protecting. And what it is that freedom of speech should be protecting
are the fundamental principles upon which our constitution is based, and go all the
way to the very to the very most fundamental thing, and that is human
equality, Okay, human equality and consent. Now, Jaffa makes a point
in his essay that you can have deception and force, giving rise to quote
unquote legitimate authority. I think that's what we have now with the Biden administration,
a lot of deception. Whether you believe fraud occurred or not. You
know, deception occurred in the twenty twenty election because they admitted to it.
They admitted to doing everything possible, never mind the laptop and all those other
things. So it's always a danger that the government itself will become dangerous to
the kind of freedom of speech means to the end of republican government, I
guess, is how I would say it. That's thing one, You cannot
look at freedom of speech as a good in and of itself. You are
correct that most of the time, the free marketplace of ideas is in fact
the best way in a free, self governing republic to produce the best possible
outcomes, policy outcomes and so on. But what we're seeing very clearly,
and I wasn't joking when I said one political party is not committed to the
Constitution. I mean that in my heart of hearts. We know that,
we know that their particular agenda has nothing to do with preserving the Constitution.
It's all about power, it's all about force, it's all about using whatever
they can at the moment to get what they want, but they have no
commitment to constitutional government. So saying that I agree with you about your concerns,
the point of the matter is that there's these kind of immediate problems,
and the students for Palestine are one. I can't even say justice students for
injustice in Palestine, I'm going to call them are one of those immediate problems
that needs to be solved. Who needs to do it? Well, I
don't trust it Biden administration. I probably do trust Ron De Santis for making
the right decisions here. I am not a free free speech absolutist, so
I might be a free freedom of religion absolutist, but that's a whole different
subject. But if we are not willing to do what is necessary, and
I told Steve before you got on, I don't know what is necessary looks
like I'll be honest with you. But if we are not willing to do
what is necessary in the realm of our civil liberties to protect what it is
that creates the basis for those civil liberties to be exercised, then we will
destroy ourselves. Of course, here's the threat, here's the thing, and
it goes to here worry about the media problem. This is where I could
see a mistake being made. Why would you think these students for Palesite are
really a threat to our government democracy. I despise what they say, I
despise their tests. Are they really a threat? I don't think so.
Okay, so I really don't. But that's what we allow the government to
decide. Right with your point of view is you would let the government say
I think they're an imminent threat, let's ban them. But if you want
to look at the reality of things, I am confident actually that Israel is
going to prevail. I don't think they're going to be swayed by this kind
of propaganda operations. It's imposing a cost on them, but they're going forward
and Gaza all the more power to them. I don't think it's because we
want to support Israel, because we protect our Jewish students, that it's actually
worth banning, giving the government the power to ban basically what are political groups?
Okay, So really quickly, Steve, it's a real quick point.
There was an article in some they got very little press, an article about
the U of A suspending two education professors teaching an early child childhood education class.
Got it even in the best of days, what a nightmare that would
be. But somebody uh taped the lecture that they were giving and it was
this, this anti Jewish Jews are scum there. You know, they deserve
they all deserve to be killed pro Palestine gencide in an early childhood education class
at a university. Okay, was anybody hurt as a result of it?
Nobody was punched in the face, although if I'd have been there, I'd
punch somebody in the face and then you know, but but now you've you're
going out there and you're educating these already stupid education students. Sorry, but
they're the dumbest students on the planet. I know that from experience, and
so very easily susceptible to prop to propaganda. And they go out and they
they start going into their classrooms, into their preschools, which we've also seen
happening, and doing their hatreds, viewing their anti government and you know,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and bit by bit we see
is society destroyed. Where do you stop that? Well, they suspended them,
Yeah, no, I agree. You know, so this is a
thing that I think the Santus could have done. I think the Santis could
get rid of all these Middle Eastern study departments and ethnic studies departments, because
you're rightly Christian when you're providing education. You know, the three of us
when we taught our class, we had to this great class by the way,
on constitutional interpretation, where we talked about some of this we should do
that one online. We should charge for it though, but you know we
you know, we had to decide. So in that great class we went
through and said we're going to cover ten theories of constitutional interpretation. We did
decide which ones to leave out. Right, we have to decide which things
to read it. So I wouldn't go so far as saying the university,
in operating a school, has to make the classroom itself a free speech zone
and that everybody has the right to teach whatever they want and enter your classroom
or my classroom and disrupt it and teach what they want to teach. Yeah,
in operating the school, you still have to make decisions of what's valuable
and not valuable. But with the student groups, you know, if the
university is going to say we're going to basically allow everybody who wants to to
create a student group, no matter what your point of view is. You
know, they've created what we think it was a public forum, and then
they're not allowed to pick and choose. Let me just ask you, could
you I'm sorry, Steve, really quick, I promise, could you should
you allow a group, a student group to form on campus that is not
only say, pro white whites only, but that specifically and explicitly dedicated themselves
to eradicating the black race. So I don't think you could under title nine,
actually under seapoint, don't think you could ban the some you know,
minority students wanted to join that group, which seems crazy to me. But
if they wanted to, I think they can. I don't think that the
state can say you can use race to determine who's a member of the group.
But I don't think that the government can say you are prohibited from making
that political argument. All right. It's one thing to say they're prohibited from
making it. It's another thing to give it the sanction of the university,
which is exactly what happens when you allow student clubs to be constituted. Yeah,
all right, that Steve, Yeah, I think so, yeah,
that's right. I think, well, some people have made this out that
isn't from the river to the sea the equivalent for Jews as the Confederate flag
is for genocide, because there's who lives between the river and the sea.
Exactly right. And okay, let me let's do this because we do want
to give a little bit about the laws of war, which you related.
Let me press the further beyond the way David Lowenthal put it and give you
John a couple of passages from Jaffa's treatment of this, which, by the
way, include a point in your favor, as you'll see in a moment.
This essay Jaffa wrote way back in nineteen sixty four, and he was
looking back at the people who were saying, you can't really ban the Communist
Party, we can't have loyalty, ohs, because it's free speech in the
First Amendment. And he was at the early problem of all this, and
he said, sure, we can. Let me give you three quick passages
here which restate the argument I'm trying to bring out. Does a free society
prove false to itself if it denies civil liberties to communists, Nazis, or
anyone else who would use these liberties if he could, as a means of
destroying the free society. The answer, I believe is now playing that it
does not. In saying this, I do not counsel or even justify any
particular measure for dealing with persons of such description. What is right in any
case depends upon on the facts of that case, and I'm here dealing only
with principles, not their application. However, those who think that every denial
of civil liberties is equally derogatory of the character of a free society without reference
to the character of the person's being denied, make this fundamental error. They
confuse means with ends. Okay, the second excerpt shorter. Thus, speech
calling for the proscription of individuals or classes, this is what students for Justice
in Palestine do, Right, they're classifying Jews. And okay, that speech
calling for the prescription of individuals or classes is inherently wrong, and there is
an inherent right in every community to treat it as criminal wholly apart from any
consequences that can be foreseen at the moment. And finally, and here's where
Jeff is partly on your side, John, Communists and Nazis have no right
to the use of free speech in a free society. However, whether it
is wise or expedient to deny them its use is another matter. I believe
that the United States is sufficiently civilized and sufficiently stable to bear the advocacy of
almost anything, whether it be national socialism, communism, or cannibalism. I
would take my stand with Jefferson, who said in his first inaugural, if
there be any among us who would wish to dissolve the Union or to change
its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which
the error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat
it. But Jefferson only tolerated error. He did not in any way concede
a right of the enemies of republican government to change change it into a contrary
form. So there he does say, is it wise to contemplate what I'm
suggesting? And what are the circumstances? I wonder, and Lucretia said this
last week if he would still say that today when you look at the fact
that elite opinion in our universities, embedded in our universities, and in alarm
major media is so far gone around the bend that it isn't plausible to say,
hey, wait a minute, we need to forcefully say stop to all
this. And therefore what governor the Santa State is absolutely right. So your
principle is that the government can prohibit speech which calls for people to violate the
fundamental natural rights of human beings. Yes, so, And the fundamental natural
you just said was equality. So you would say that the government could suppress
speech by groups that say, I don't want certain kinds of people to vote,
I don't want certain kinds of people to be allowed to enter join our
community or to be a part of the community. I have the right to
suppose somebody says, like in Lucrutia's example, or white supremacists, you say,
I only want white people to have the right to vote, and I
want to kick all the minorities out of the country. So you would say
government has the right to do Now, this is the interesting, by the
way, is always always, but this is you know, this is what
the left thinks too. Right. They say, oh, we're only adjusting
free speech rights to enhance an advanced equality. Right, that's why we allow
certain kinds of speech and not others because they're not right. But it's this.
They have a different definition of equality than you do. Well. But
but their definition is not right, and their definition does not Seriously, I'm
very serious when I say that their definition does not, in any way,
shape or form give us a basis that upon which to build constitutional government.
Their definition of equality is oppressors and oppressed, and we just have to decide
who at any moment is oppressed and who's the oppressor, and it's it's there.
You cannot make a moral equivalence between what the left pretends to be a
vision, their vision of equality, and true human equality, which recognizes the
fundamental humanity of every human being as an individual, as a natural ruler,
and upon that we get the basis for consent. The people sometimes consent to
bad governments, and that's part of your argument, John. Right now,
the government we have in place is not trustworthy with some of these awful powers
we're talking about, which is what I told Steve that at the very end
of this maybe our commenters will have something to say about it. But I
do believe that the speech of students for Injustice in Palestine is so dangerous and
the people who are simply sort of coddling them and denouncing them softly, and
all those other kinds of things. And yeah, maybe well Israel probably should
have a more proportionate response and all of those things that follow from the stupid
Palestinian protests. I don't know what the answer is in terms terms of practical
solutions, and I know that's kind of what you're getting at, too,
because is the answer the Biden administration and all of their corrupt incompetence being the
ones deciding, Well, mean, we're running along. I think two things
and then we should move on. One is clearly we needed a whole separate
show on this question of equality because we're not going to sort that out in
five minutes here. But second, and more narrowly to the point we're working
on right now, John, is what I'm really calling for, at a
minimum, as a recognition that this is a genuine threat and should be called
out as such. Whether the right measure is as banning the student groups and
other things, that is a matter of prudence and circumstance and wisdom and what's
effective. But what Lucretia is just saying is we keep getting all the wishy
washy statements, including from many conservatives and libertarians and oh, it's just another
point of view, and yeah, we don't agree with it. And what
I'm saying here is no, we ought to at least be clear in our
minds how bad this make one which to make an announce Let's do one more
Let's do one more thing. Let's say, let's shame them because they're cowards.
And you know, Steve and I are on campus where these groups refuse
to debate right Jewish groups like but that's the free speech at work, because
I think people will see them for the cowards they are when they say,
oh, we won't appear on a stage with anyone who believes Israel has a
right to exist. I think that's the way you beat them. I think
that's why Governor Santis makes a mistake by banning them, because then you think,
what is it that he doesn't want us to hear? Instead? What
DeSantis to say? I challenge, you know, the head of the group
to come to the University of Florida and I will debate it myself in front
of all the students. And you know what, they won't. They're cowards.
They won't show it. And that's how you win. You're right if
you concede that we live in a world of more relativism and people can't make
the kind of moral distinctions they need to make. This is the analogy I
just want you to think about, and maybe, like Steve says, we
take it on it at another time. So you build a bridge, and
you need to know math to no engineering to know how to build a bridge.
Right, Well, but math is racist, sorry I can help.
Well, that's where I'm going with this. So math is racist, and
let's just say that if you go into the stupid math is racist and so
on, what we're going to stop doing is just say that there are absolutes
in math, and we're going to stop teaching students, you know, the
addition tables and multiplication tables and so on. So if I believe that all
truth is relative, and I believe that two plus two equals five, and
I get to not have to have grades or tests or anything, and I
get to graduate from Oregon State schools, and then I get to be an
Affirmative Action candidate and go into Oregon College into engineering, and we can no
longer grade those people, and so they become engineers, and they build bridges
based upon two plus two equals five. That's where we are in our society
with tolerating people who don't understand fundamental truth. That's what I would say.
Does that make sense, Steve, that's to me, okay, wondering.
But John, there's a closet relatives is going to struggle with this. Yeah.
What worries me is that you think the government can figure out what the
fundamental truths are and then enforce I am much more confident that private civil society
can do it and keep the government as small as possible out of our hair
and let people fight out about what the fund No disagreement there. But like
Steve said, we need to begin denouncing this, and we need to not
We need not to be afraid, John, We on our side need not
to be afraid to call people out and to say you are wrong, and
here is why you are wrong, and not be afraid to stand absolutely on
the truth of the matter, and don't let somebody come along and say,
well, that's your truth, that's not your that's not my lived experience,
and all their other bull All right, all right, let's take a quick
break late one for our sponsors and then turn to the laws of war and
just war as the applies at the moment. All right, let's turn to
what I say is a related subject, although it may not seem so.
And John, you brought this up, which is, what are the laws
of war? This is the kind of word that's being fought. Is I
actually think it's not that unusual. But you know, modern ill educated Americans
think war means tanks driving across the field in France and not urban warfare like
we're seeing in Gaza right now. So why don't you go first, John,
And I mean, I've got thoughts on just word theory. Actually dusted
off my old Angelo code via book war Ends and Means, because it's a
useful guide in these things. But go ahead, Jesus Angelo is reaching back
from the grave to argue with me. I didn't sign up for this.
So I actually proposed listeners that we talk about some issues about war, because
it's just the you know, the immediate event that and Lucretian ready referred to
this that gives rise to this. There are all these claims there should be
a cease fire, that Israel is the nation committing war crimes, that Israel
that was the victim of these attacks on October seventh is one engaged and you
know, an effort to wipe out a racial group genocide. And so I
thought this actually would make for a good opportunity to talk about two kinds of
laws of war. So one is when is it appropriate to use force?
You know, this is called use bellum and that you know for Latin lovers,
right, that means just justice or law and going to war to war.
And then the other question is use in below the law that should govern
or justice that should govern while you fight the war. And it goes back
thousands of years thinking about these two questions as separate. You know, it
does Israel, I think it does have the right to go to war and
defend itself. I think you hear in the critics of Israel some idea that
war itself is illegitimate. Right, Why does Israel have the right to go
into Gaza at all? And that to me, at least to me raised
this I've always thought fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives. I think liberals,
going back to Kant, have always thought, oh, peace is the natural
state of human condition. Right, We're so I think that thinks this too,
right? Oh, and war is just this illegitimate interruption in peace violence,
and we're never justified, or if it is, it's just you know,
these outbreaks that must be suppressed, whereas I think conservatives think, you
know, unfortunately, war is a permanent feature of the human condition and we're
lucky to get these periods of peace that we get. Yeah, some of
them. Somebody says that peace is just the time period between war. Yeah,
I forget it. Before you go on with this deeper theoretical discussion,
John, I do want to off and point out because I think, I
honestly think it's more important than just the usual tread and exception, and that
is that many of the same people who are arguing that Israel should stop its
attack on Hammas, et cetera, et cetera, are also the same people
who were arguing that what Hamas did was perfectly legitimate and appropriate because there was
a made up situation that they think has happened in Palestine. Okay, any
intelligent person knows that's crap. Yeah, this is so common. But that's
not the point. I just wanted to know. No, it is the
side point. It is the point, because they would say, oh,
what the Palestinians did October seventh. Isn't war. They're not the ones breaching
the priests. They're just resisting oppression and colonization by the Israelis. Even though
Israel, Israel withdrew from the and the Gaza Strip more than about was it
fifteen years ago? Almost now? Yeah, and it's self governing. And
it's actually interesting if anyone's responsible in part for what's going on, as Egypt
and the other countries who've closed it off. But I mean, but that's
part of their theory. Is these same liberals who believe this also would say
that what Hamas did is in some way justified, which I find incredible.
But then I think, you know, once you decide, as I do,
that Israel has a right to defend itself, then there's a whole separate
question on how should a country at war conduct hostilities. So you hear this,
for example, does Israel have the right to essentially quarantine Gaza, you
know, to cut off electricity and water into the Gaza Strip. Does it
have the right to force civilians to move, or does it have the right
even to attack locations like the Alshifa hospital, like mosques and schools where Hamas
is operating where Hamas might have tunnels underneath and with their headquarters right if you
look at that's what Hamas has done. They have buried all of their may
military facilities underneath important civilian target not targets, important civilian buildings. That's a
separate question. But that's why I thought it was interesting because I think,
and Lucretia mentioned as part of the campaign against Israel is to use these kinds
of liberal values that only the West seems to obey against it, to constrain
us, to limit ourselves. And Israel's particularly vulnerable to this because Steve mentioned
the Israel depends on the West for military and financial support to conduct the war
well and more legitimacy. Finally, but Lucretia, what you know, you're
all right, I spoke well, No, I agree with him, I
absolutely agree with him. And but even conservatives are starting to lose a little
sense of that. I think John, at least some conservatives where you know,
something like what happened on nine to eleven, something like what happened on
Pearl Harbor, something like what happened on October se evens I don't think that
there's a sense of proportionality that ought to be be brought to bear here.
Now that's not the same as talking about the laws of war, you know,
justice in war. But I get the sense that international law really wants
to push everything in that direction, which is to say, we will decide
as an international whatever, can't call it an organization or body, what is
appropriate for Israel to do in this particular case, maybe what was appropriate for
us to do after nine to eleven when in fact, being a nation,
being a nation state, how does the decoration to put it do all the
things that that that nations can do. One of those is to conduct war
and to provide for the safety of their people, because it's the most important
thing that they do. And you know, I suppose that you true acts
of barbarianism and savage a savagery like Hamas has you know, inflicted on the
Israelis. The Israelis aren't doing that. If they were, of course they'd
be roundly denounced for it. But they and they won't because why because that
will lose them even more credibility on the international stage. I'm hobbs, how
easy and like you are in this sense, No, screw you. We
did what we want to do, and I'd like to have your support,
and we'll concede where we absolutely have to have your support. But beyond that,
you shut up and let us do what we need to do. See.
I always thought that on this kind of question, Hobbes was merely a
cruder restatement of thucinities. I remember with thucidities vers there's the Median debate,
should we just kill everybody we conquered or make them just slaves? Right?
The Medion dialogues and the famous phrase the strong do what they will, the
week do what they must laws of war. In modern times, the problem
is we've all become not us, we're the exceptions, but we've all become
contients and think that our good liberal intentions should be the cornerstone of international relations
that only works between civilized country is that, as Locke put it, want
to do in their international relations? Well, commerce, but I'm thinking of
you know, the social compact, right, In other words, it's the
extension the international fear of the ideas of social compact and natural rights, and
the old Greek distinction between civilized and barbarians still operates today, right, I
think, And you know, the huge problems there Okay, so you're wait
a minute, back to lock You're saying that there are people who think the
locky and ideal should should control here, but you're not saying you think it
does. No. Well, no, remember what act. Let me read.
Let me take it from the top, so to speak. Locke says,
somewhere in a second treatise around book twenty or chapter twenty, people say,
when has there ever been a state of nature? Isn't this purely theoretical,
he says, I answer that nations exist in a state of nature one
to another, and princes are like the individuals in the state of nature.
And so the implication there is is that if you're going to have prou international
comedy, it will only be if nations enter something that looks like the social
compact. I think that's one very simple way of putting it, and it
works fine for civilized countries. Gaza is not a civilized country. That's point
number one, right. The other one is John you really invoke just war
theory, and Angelo has this to say that it applies. But this book,
by the way, is thirty five years old. But here's a paragraph
that applies perfectly to what's going on. Discrimination means that armed forces should fight
armed forces and not ravage the enemy's countryside, cities or economy. While it
is permitted to starve out an army. Blockades of whole countries, such as
the ones that kept food from Germany and World Wars one and two, have
traditionally been considered unjust means of warfare because they do not discriminate between combatants and
non combatants. Here, by the way, let me pause and say,
when Israel cuts off electricity and cell phone service in Gaza, part of that
is a military purpose, which is we know that, uh, you know,
so the terrorists and all the rest of that. In Iraq and elsewhere,
they use cell phones to detonate remote bombs. They obviously use cell phones
to coordinate the movements of their their terrorists, and so that's a prig I
just want to interject a much more simpler point here, and that is if
Gaza were capable of coming up with their own cell phone systems and their own
sake, then maybe they wouldn't This wouldn't even be an issue. View.
Why are we right? Why do you have to provide basic services to your
enemy? Yeah, but let me continue with Angelo here. Yeah, let
me continue with Angelo here, because very much on point, by the same
token, it has been a traditional rule of Western warfare that when an army
takes possession of a city with the intention of using it as a fortress by
which to fight another army, both armies must allow the civilian population of the
city to depart in an orderly manner. We've got good, credible reports that
who's preventing a lot of gossms from leaving are commas themselves? Right? So,
in other words, to the last sentence here, another word which the
corollary of the rule that armies may not make war on cities full of civilians
is the rule that armies may not hide behind civilians. Well, who's doing
that? We know who's doing that, right, And I go back before
you go on, John, to where I think Steve's wrong about. So.
I don't think that Locke ever, Oh, you're right about everything,
but this one small point. I don't think Locke ever calls for a social
contract. I don't think Locke would in a million years be in favor of
something like the UN or the League of Nations or what have you. I
think that what Locke would say is that in the same way that human beings,
for Locke, in the state of nature are not in that war against
all that the omniumbella omnis that Hobbs talks about, but that the state of
nature is not the state of war, but it is a state of Yeah,
it's still there's still violence, there's still conflict, there's still people not
acting rationally according to the law of nature written in their hearts. I think
Locke would probably extend that to the international scene and say, no, there's
not going to be a social contract, but we can expect that some civilized
nations will act in a civilized way, and they will see the benefit of
being, of collaboration and cooperation those other things, and then the uncivilized barbarian
nations will be outside of that and you'll have to go to war with them
on occasion. I think that's what. I don't think that Locke and envisions
any kind of social contract on the international stage, because that's like the scariest
thing I can imagine that. I mean, the I think the creature's right
about the excuse me that point, which is that this idea of international government
and communic nations, as Kant right, this federation of nations idea he has
and John Lennon, yeah, just contanism for the masses. Yes, I
like that job. But this is here's another I got pose this to you.
I totally agree with you, and I do think that Al Shifa Hospital
is a legitimate target. And Israel actually goes farther than they have to under
what should be the rules of war to write to let civilians leave. I
mean to the point where they even open up corridors for people, for civilians
to leave northern Gaza or to leave the hospital or Gaza city, and it's
actually Hamas that forces them to stay there. But let me ask you this
question, because you guys are civil war buffs, what do you think about
Sherman's burning down Atlanta in the March to the Sea, which was designed right,
specifically necessarily, which was designed in part to destroy the South's economic capacity
to support the war, right where he deliberately civilian power revenge in that one
either, but the right word I think that you know I was reading.
I don't think Sherman ever says this outright, but I always thought Sherman's defense
was it's far better for civilians that the war end faster that the longer you
draw this out, the more civilians will die, even though I have to
destroy the economic capacity. Well, I mean, I mean, but what
do you think of that? What did you think about Sherman's March to the
sea, What do you think about Sherman burning down Atlanta? Well, look,
I mean this argument comes up, by the way, the argument just
made about saving civilian lives. That is one of the ultimate justifications for using
the nuclear bomb and the war with Japan. I think the figure I've seen
civilian casualties. I think the figure I've seen is that the D Day invasions,
or the first two weeks of our invasion of France in nineteen forty four,
killed twenty thousand French civilians. And we do know that the bombing of
Dresden was intended in part not only to take out rail yards, but also
to destroy the will the German people to resist any further. There's good legitimate
controversy about whether it actually had that effect or whether it just enraged in the
hold out longer. I don't know, but the point is that was part
of the Sherman march to see you that's right, Yeah, that's I'm working
my way backwards Lucretia, which is saying that that was the You know,
there are a lot of motives there, but one of them is you destroy
their capacity to carry on the war any longer. Maybe it was not necessary,
but at the time this is again, you know, the whole Adam
bomb questioned. People say, oh, you could have done a demonstration of
the bomb and some isolated island in the middle of the ocean and show to
the Japanese. Well, I don't know, show them that you could actually
use it and that you could destroy their country. Is a more powerful demonstration
of that when people argue forever about it, right, which is the same
argument now being made by people that Israel should not destroy Hamas, which and
I would say that the argument for destroying Hamas completely totally pushing them into the
ground never to rise up again, is the same argument that Sherman made,
and I think it has to be done. This is where I would say,
Steve never did it. But I'll tie it back, because they know
we're almost out of time. Tie it back to the first part of it.
What's going to happen unfortunately, is Israel is going to be forced not
to do that bye by international public opinion and and by public opinion in this
country, the Biden administration is already completely caved on their support for continuing what's
going on against Tomas in Gaza by the Israelis. It's just it's it's very
obvious that piece of you know what, uh how how I have to I
have to sorry. There was a story yesterday about blink and Win saying it's
something stupid that Biden said, right, and this is this is one two
three like that? Right ohe the video it's stunning, and Blinkin is clearly
just losing his mind. Is up? Really, you know what, screw
him by We have Biden because of the corruption that you know, sorry,
you know what, what did he think we were going to get? Yeah,
when he did everything in his power to keep that corrupting confidence se now
pedophile and not getting elected. Sorry, right, I'm done. Okay,
Well, all I was going to say is I'm not quite sure Biden has
been rhetorically pretty good. I know, behind the scenes lots of bad stuff.
But what I'm observing is this is a little extraneous to our main point
is well, maybe you saw the video of the pro Hamas protesters demonstrating outside
the Democratic National Committee and banging on the doors, and they had to call
out the riot police. And I'm sitting here getting Oh, and the Democratic
Party is having their convention next year in Chicago. I could see this.
It's ripping the Democratic Party apart, which I thoroughly enjoy. Was like,
doesn't this remind you about the way Vietnam rip? Yes, exactly. Yes.
So we talked sometime recently about the primaries not being you know, a
permanent part of the nomination and the scene and so on. Wouldn't it be
funny if Biden stays in the race. He's still president, but he's completely
you know, diapered up and drooling and so forth, more so than now.
And we have a broker convention in Chicago. What would it be.
I can do the math sixty five years, sixty sixty fifty five years later.
Yeah, I think it'd be hilarious. A broker Democratic convention, riots
in the streets. Well, there is that could happen. There is,
by the way, Well I want to I don't want to go into it
now because we're out of time. There is a process for replacing a nominee
at the convention. I just learned about it yesterday and we'll go through it
next time. We'll talk about it. I'm right, yeah, so this
is this is already being talked about. So I'm loving this. I wish
we had lots more time, but I'm going to stack with some yeah avalon
bees that I think are fairly relevant to today. We'll start for with the
go backwards. After five minutes with Biden, she gives order to invade Taiwan,
the same line Californian set up President g dummy. So Newsom will keep
the cities clean, I know, and that's something, Yeah, it really
was. Did you notice the city You've been in San Francisco, John covering
Apec? We didn't time to talk about this, did you notice talk about
that? Yeah? Oh no, this city is definitely cleaner. So when
I was on Fox they were asking me about this, I said, I
watch the president of China would just stay for a few more months. It's
embarrassing, how I mean, so embarrassing and obvious how much they spent time
cleaning up the city. And this was you know, so Governor Newsom actually
got asked this at a press conference, and this is such a His lame
response was, well, don't you clean up the house before you have company
over for dinner. I know, amazing, Thank you. You know,
what's the homeless people? So that's been so I've actually, uh, you
know, been I got one of these fancy media passes to go around and
then a courtesy of Fox News by the way, thank you very much.
And so I've been asking all the security guys. I'm like where, because
you know, I would go to a spot, you know where there were
a lot of homeless people right downtown near the convention Center, which is where
the APEC meets supplace. I said, where did all the homeless people get
put? Where are they? And so one guy claimed that they've all been
moved basically to another part of the city, and that when all the barricades
come down, which is this weekend, they're all going to be allowed to
come back and it'll just be you know, so the state of nature has
just been temporarily halted, but it will soon return in just a few days.
All right, Okay, so Steve says, we have to go.
I have to do two sorry. Okays found in Gaza hospital were strictly for
medicinal use, Yes and Palestinian at hospital for colonoscopy. Not sure about this
doctor holding grenade launcher. Sorry, oh I like that one because well,
okay, I don't have a Kamala news I don't have all right, I
don't have a Camala quote, but I have a little news thing the New
York Times making much of a poll. I guess that was just released that
shows that there are there is a segment of voters who don't want to vote
for Joe Biden but would vote for Kamala Harris for president. And this five
percent of the electorate in a close election is important enough for Biden to keep
Harris on the ticket. Oh that's an inside job. All right, John,
send us out for this week. All right, everybody is great having
you this week. Always drink your whiskey. Meat. Let's go, Brandon
and Steve God save the queen man. Bye bye, Yang, talk to
you next week. Bye bye. Absolutely, Oh, Gail, why absolutely
sick again? You'll wow? What absolutely? Man? Listen to me,
Spie constantly dis job listener one Babies. Ricochet joined the conversation