[Music]
our absolute right to free speech the
ability to publicly share ideas a right
that is absolutely protected by the
First Amendment is civil society’s
immune system it’s not just ideal it’s
necessary to ensure a healthy society we
are more secure safer and stronger when
any idea philosophy however repugnant is
exposed to sunlight and debate last
August in Charlottesville Virginia
a group of self-described white
nationalists when marching through the
streets waving torches and shouting
slogans associated with Nazis protesters
predictably appeared and one of those
protesters was murdered when a man
sympathetic with the white nationalists
drove his car into their crowd hate
speech killed that woman
people said ironically excusing the
murderer himself and my Facebook feed
was suddenly filled with my friends on
the Left demanding that we water down
the First Amendment by outlawing hate
speech
there is one meme in particular that
caught my attention and it went
something like this
Nazism is illegal in Germany flying Nazi
flags and giving Nazi greetings is
illegal in Germany so why isn’t the KKK
unconstitutional here
why aren’t white hoods and white
supremacist propaganda illegal in
America why because Germany is ashamed
of its bigotry and America is proud of
now this ladies and gentlemen is
ridiculous Germany outlaws Nazi speech
because on some level Germans don’t
trust themselves a society that bans
speech is a society that is so terrified
that it can be seduced by evil that it
tries to hide itself away in a bubble
and pretend that bad things bad ideas
and bad people don’t even exist
only the timid and the fearful demand
that the government
people with guns prevent bad ideas from
being spoken aloud and history is
littered with the regrets of people who
have had that wish fulfilled here in
America most of us are so confident in
our society’s ability to resist evil
that we’re not afraid to hear it spoken
aloud and we are right the reason we can
be unafraid is because the exposure to
offensive ideas and more importantly the
ability of other people to refute those
ideas inoculates us it makes us stronger
and more resistant so we’re gonna test
that theory here today with a couple of
people who are associated with the
university of nevada and reno and we’re
gonna start with this guy this is former
university student peters fatahna bitch
who was marching with the white
nationalists in Charlottesville so let’s
share his ideas today
that skin color matters that white
people need to march through the streets
waving torches to stick up for their
race this audience is America is there
anybody here who’s proud of this guy’s
bigotry is there anybody here who
suddenly been converted to this
repugnant point of view simply by having
been exposed to it is anybody that weak
willed has this caused anybody to lose
control of themselves I don’t see cars
driving through the crowd so it’s good
know riding no chairs are on fire now
later interviews that this young man
shown to be what he is pitiable and
foolish he’s only scary in the dark of
night when we can’t see who and what he
actually is and his ideas like all
disgusting things only grow and thrive
and dark dank and hidden away places
there’s an online petition to actually
get him expelled from school or to get
him fired from his job at the University
the latest gentleman we want to see him
in the light of day we want to hear his
ideas put up against better ones because
sunlight is
the best disinfectant seeing it exposing
it examining it laughing at it that’s
how you make ideas like this lose power
and that’s how an idea like that could
take control of the government populace
of a country like Germany that was
afraid but it can never happen here as
long as we remain proud and confident of
our freedoms so then we have this guy
professional football player Colin
Kaepernick who’s a 2010 graduate of the
University of Nevada
now kneeling as he’s doing in this
picture for the national anthem is
deeply offensive to a lot of people and
I’m one of them I’m a veteran of three
military deployments
it’s obviously not anywhere near as
disgusting as a white supremacist
shouting Nazi slogans but there are
people out there who think this needs to
be shut down that this represents some
kind of threat to the Republic we see
this debate come up periodically when
politicians mostly those on the right
vote for constitutional amendments which
would ban flag burning but I think it’s
a great opportunity to try this
experiment again so who in this audience
has now been inspired by mr. Kaepernick
to renounce their patriotism or to
commit treason against the United States
of America is there anybody down for a
little armed overthrow of our government
it’s institutions for those of us who
are offended
still no rioting I don’t see any chairs
on fire now I think mr. Kaepernick is
foolish for this this is a guy that
didn’t even bother to vote in the last
presidential election nonetheless he’s
risen to the top of American society and
made millions of dollars based on his
talent and hard work he’s clearly
ignorant of the tens of millions of
people worldwide that American power
both hard and soft has liberated from
the murder of Nazism in the slavery of
international communism and I think he’s
also ignorant of the good work tens of
thousands of community police officers
do every single day in this country this
ladies and gentlemen is
self-aggrandizing nonsense he’s not
risking any
thing the only thing he did was make
himself marginally more relevant on the
back end of a short football career but
the thing that I think is worst of all
is that the way he went about this
protest invited such a push back that
actually makes it harder to address
truly legitimate concerns that his
protests might otherwise represent but
banning him hiding him away punishing
him making him a martyr our country is
so strong that it can withstand
criticism both legitimate and
illegitimate our country isn’t a song or
a piece of cloth it’s an idea and it’s
the idea that freedom self perpetuates
it’s the idea that we don’t give a
politician that we like the power to
shut down the wrong ideas because that
means someday a politician will come
along that we don’t like and he’ll have
that same power and so with that in mind
let’s do one more experiment who here
today is willing to give President Trump
the power to a decide what speech is
okay and be the power to decide or the
power to punish speech he doesn’t think
is okay me either
thank you very much ladies gentlemen
you
our absolute right to free speech the
ability to publicly share ideas a right
that is absolutely protected by the
First Amendment is civil society’s
immune system it’s not just ideal it’s
necessary to ensure a healthy society we
are more secure safer and stronger when
any idea philosophy however repugnant is
exposed to sunlight and debate last
August in Charlottesville Virginia
a group of self-described white
nationalists when marching through the
streets waving torches and shouting
slogans associated with Nazis protesters
predictably appeared and one of those
protesters was murdered when a man
sympathetic with the white nationalists
drove his car into their crowd hate
speech killed that woman
people said ironically excusing the
murderer himself and my Facebook feed
was suddenly filled with my friends on
the Left demanding that we water down
the First Amendment by outlawing hate
speech
there is one meme in particular that
caught my attention and it went
something like this
Nazism is illegal in Germany flying Nazi
flags and giving Nazi greetings is
illegal in Germany so why isn’t the KKK
unconstitutional here
why aren’t white hoods and white
supremacist propaganda illegal in
America why because Germany is ashamed
of its bigotry and America is proud of
now this ladies and gentlemen is
ridiculous Germany outlaws Nazi speech
because on some level Germans don’t
trust themselves a society that bans
speech is a society that is so terrified
that it can be seduced by evil that it
tries to hide itself away in a bubble
and pretend that bad things bad ideas
and bad people don’t even exist
only the timid and the fearful demand
that the government
people with guns prevent bad ideas from
being spoken aloud and history is
littered with the regrets of people who
have had that wish fulfilled here in
America most of us are so confident in
our society’s ability to resist evil
that we’re not afraid to hear it spoken
aloud and we are right the reason we can
be unafraid is because the exposure to
offensive ideas and more importantly the
ability of other people to refute those
ideas inoculates us it makes us stronger
and more resistant so we’re gonna test
that theory here today with a couple of
people who are associated with the
university of nevada and reno and we’re
gonna start with this guy this is former
university student peters fatahna bitch
who was marching with the white
nationalists in Charlottesville so let’s
share his ideas today
that skin color matters that white
people need to march through the streets
waving torches to stick up for their
race this audience is America is there
anybody here who’s proud of this guy’s
bigotry is there anybody here who
suddenly been converted to this
repugnant point of view simply by having
been exposed to it is anybody that weak
willed has this caused anybody to lose
control of themselves I don’t see cars
driving through the crowd so it’s good
know riding no chairs are on fire now
later interviews that this young man
shown to be what he is pitiable and
foolish he’s only scary in the dark of
night when we can’t see who and what he
actually is and his ideas like all
disgusting things only grow and thrive
and dark dank and hidden away places
there’s an online petition to actually
get him expelled from school or to get
him fired from his job at the University
the latest gentleman we want to see him
in the light of day we want to hear his
ideas put up against better ones because
sunlight is
the best disinfectant seeing it exposing
it examining it laughing at it that’s
how you make ideas like this lose power
and that’s how an idea like that could
take control of the government populace
of a country like Germany that was
afraid but it can never happen here as
long as we remain proud and confident of
our freedoms so then we have this guy
professional football player Colin
Kaepernick who’s a 2010 graduate of the
University of Nevada
now kneeling as he’s doing in this
picture for the national anthem is
deeply offensive to a lot of people and
I’m one of them I’m a veteran of three
military deployments
it’s obviously not anywhere near as
disgusting as a white supremacist
shouting Nazi slogans but there are
people out there who think this needs to
be shut down that this represents some
kind of threat to the Republic we see
this debate come up periodically when
politicians mostly those on the right
vote for constitutional amendments which
would ban flag burning but I think it’s
a great opportunity to try this
experiment again so who in this audience
has now been inspired by mr. Kaepernick
to renounce their patriotism or to
commit treason against the United States
of America is there anybody down for a
little armed overthrow of our government
it’s institutions for those of us who
are offended
still no rioting I don’t see any chairs
on fire now I think mr. Kaepernick is
foolish for this this is a guy that
didn’t even bother to vote in the last
presidential election nonetheless he’s
risen to the top of American society and
made millions of dollars based on his
talent and hard work he’s clearly
ignorant of the tens of millions of
people worldwide that American power
both hard and soft has liberated from
the murder of Nazism in the slavery of
international communism and I think he’s
also ignorant of the good work tens of
thousands of community police officers
do every single day in this country this
ladies and gentlemen is
self-aggrandizing nonsense he’s not
risking any
thing the only thing he did was make
himself marginally more relevant on the
back end of a short football career but
the thing that I think is worst of all
is that the way he went about this
protest invited such a push back that
actually makes it harder to address
truly legitimate concerns that his
protests might otherwise represent but
banning him hiding him away punishing
him making him a martyr our country is
so strong that it can withstand
criticism both legitimate and
illegitimate our country isn’t a song or
a piece of cloth it’s an idea and it’s
the idea that freedom self perpetuates
it’s the idea that we don’t give a
politician that we like the power to
shut down the wrong ideas because that
means someday a politician will come
along that we don’t like and he’ll have
that same power and so with that in mind
let’s do one more experiment who here
today is willing to give President Trump
the power to a decide what speech is
okay and be the power to decide or the
power to punish speech he doesn’t think
is okay me either
thank you very much ladies gentlemen
you
Please follow and like us: