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MainContent Politics as Persuasion

Back to episode — Episode 2271 Scott Adams - CWSA 10/24/23

Context —

take a hug. It's like one of the greatest lessons in life that people will actually take a hug if you offer it to them. Like if you mean it, everybody likes a hug. All right, guy and guy not so much, but sometimes that too. I had a realization about January 6 that made everything come together. So January 6, as you know, Trump was accused of inciting an insurrection. Now let me ask you this. Imag…

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As soon as I say it, am I right? Is there a single person here who would deny that that's exactly what happened? They realized they had no Hitler material after five years so they had to manufacture it just before he walked out the door to keep their game alive. It's pretty remarkable. And the country largely bought it. Half of the country. It's the only half they needed to convince. Quite amazing.

And as part of that, Owen Shroyer is going to prison for free speech. Now let me say this not as hyperbole. This is not hyperbole. We don't have free speech in the United States. Don't give me your Constitution doesn't include private companies because we now know that the government has been pressuring private companies to do their censoring for them. And we can see in this Owen Shroyer case that nobody else would have, you know, if it hadn't been a Trump supporter this wouldn't have happened. So we could say for sure there's no free speech. You only have the ability to say things that are not dangerous to the people in power. That's not free speech. You can agree with them as loudly as you want. Oh I got my free speech. I'm agreeing with the people in power. Okay, that's like opposite of free speech.

So no, we don't have free speech. I'm not even going to listen to an argument that we do. You're stupid if you think we have free speech. Let me just say that directly. Anybody in America today who thinks that Americans have free speech as in they can go against the official narrative, you're an idiot. What have you been looking at? Seriously. Now I know that doesn't apply to the people in this audience. But really I'm actually angered by people who imagine that there's free speech because that's the problem. The problem is some idiots think they still have it and that there's no problem. That's the problem anyway.

So Owen Shroyer is a political prisoner in the United States in 2023 for a political opinion. That's reality. And he's not alone. The January 6 people have to be punished hard to keep alive their January 6 Hitler thing because they lost for five years in a row on that narrative. So Owen Shroyer gets to go to jail so that they can maintain their narrative. So there's your free speech right there. Yep. God I hate the government. Mostly the Democrats.

Well, you may have heard some stories that there are some students at Harvard and maybe some other places, Jewish students, Jewish American students I think mostly, who do not feel comfortable in that environment because of the pro-Palestinian, some would say pro-Hamas but I'll say pro-Palestinian activism there.

Now I feel like it's my job because I have the closest thing to free speech. I don't have it either but I'm a little closer than you do because I'm already cancelled. So I'm going to say this as many times as it takes to make the point. I'm going to make this a thing. Oh yeah, I'm not a quitter.

Here's the thing. Discriminating against an individual is despicable. It's bad for society and it's morally unacceptable. So don't do it. Don't discriminate against individuals or their religion or their race or their anything. It's despicable, bad for society, and morally unsupportable. However, avoiding a collection of people in which you believe, and this is important, it's just in your own mind, in which you believe there are too many in that group who openly hate you, that's just self-defense and you should definitely do that.

So for example if you were a Jewish student at Harvard and you thought that there were too many students who harbor negative feelings about you that could actually be dangerous, then that's a self-defense question. And certainly you should not be worried that you are discriminating against them as a group. You can absolutely discriminate against groups as an individual. As a government you can't do it. You understand that? As a government you shouldn't be discriminating against people for anything, right? That doesn't work. It's a bad system.

But as an individual you have a personal risk. It may be a family risk as well. And you have to manage that. The only tools you have to manage your personal risk and your family's risk is what you believe to be true. Nobody can take away your right to act on what you believe is true for your own self-defense. Now you might break a law in doing so. Then that's a problem. You got to deal with it. But morally and safety-wise you'd be making the right choice to reduce your risk in any way that you think is appropriate. Nobody gets to question that.

So if these Jewish students were to say, I think I'll take a semester off or maybe transfer to someplace I feel safer, that would be a reasonable decision based on self-defense and security. It would not be discrimination. Well let me change that. It might be discrimination but who gives a shit? It might be. It's perfectly acceptable for self-defense, right? Again, discriminating against any individual is despicable, morally unacceptable, and it doesn't work for society as well. Doesn't work for anybody. Nobody wins.

But looking at a group of people, a collection of people who have anything in common, mentally, in other words if there's anything about that group that they would harbor, even by let's say 2% of them, might only be 2% of the group has a really bad feeling about people like you, whoever you are, you should get the fuck away from that situation if you can get some distance. So every day that goes by I will look more right because I started out being right. I just expressed it in a way that allowed people to cancel me because you know we live in a cancel dopamine society. So people got dopamine from cancelling me and that's why they did it because they got dopamine. Had nothing to do with what I said. You know they could imagine or make an argument that's about what I said but it wasn't. It was opportunistic. It's like oh I get a little dopamine hit from cancelling this guy I disagree with.

So in every situation in which there's a group that have been brainwashed to think you're the problem you should get some distance and you should not apologize for it. But don't discriminate against individuals.

Well at the moment, or I think it was yesterday, there was a trans and a gay protest. They were marching in support of the Palestinians. Does that seem like maybe not good self-defense? Yeah, if I were worried about my safety and I would be if I were trans and gay, a little extra security issue, I would certainly not want to spend more time around a group of people who mostly probably, there might be a high percentage among them predictably that would want to throw you off a roof. Maybe only 1%. But would you be in favor of bringing over 100 people if you were pretty sure that one of them would want to kill you? I would no. No, I would say that would be perfectly acceptable discrimination.

However if it were an individual, and let's say you were talking to just one person and they said, hey you know I used to live over there in Gaza but I got to tell you I don't even believe in religion and I don't even think there is such a thing as a holy land. I was sort of in the wrong place. You know, do you mind if I come into the country? Well hold on. Let's say in my hypothetical there's something that allows you to check that it's real, that it's not a liar. If you vetted that one individual and you're pretty sure they didn't have any bad feelings about Israel I'd be fine letting them in. It'd be like anybody else. Well there's no red flag here. Just because you lived in a place, all of your attitudes are the kind that don't look dangerous. Yeah, fine.

But where you would not discriminate against said individual you coul

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d definitely discriminate against the group of people just based on your belief, even if it's wrong, just based on your belief that there might be some people who want to kill you in that group, even if it's only one or 1%. You get to avoid that one. If you have an option you should do whatever you can to make sure there are fewer people around you who want to kill you. Completely reasonable even…

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