- 5 months ago
In this thought-provoking episode of FreeDomain, Stefan Molyneux discusses the tragic murders of Irina Zarutska and Charlie Kirk, highlighting the illusion of safety and the need for threat awareness. He critiques societal reactions to violence, introduces the concept of "the gleam," and advocates for rational discourse and moral integrity as essential for a civil society.
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LearningTranscript
00:00:00Good evening, everybody. Stephen Molyneux from FreeDomain, FreeDomain.com.
00:00:07So, Charlie Kirk and Irina Zarutska are the two topics of what we're going to talk about tonight.
00:00:22Irina Zarutska was killed in August, murdered in August. She was on, I think, a light
00:00:30rail train, and she had, she was stabbed by a crazed, it seems to me, race-hating black
00:00:43guy who muttered later, I got that white girl. She'd fled the war in Ukraine, and she met
00:00:57her grisly end bleeding out in public transit in the United States. She was much more likely
00:01:06to be attacked in that way than she was to die in the war. That many places in America
00:01:16are worse than a war zone when it comes to fatalities, especially civilian fatalities.
00:01:31The dorm room picture that's been floating around appears to be fake, and I will take
00:01:36my tweet down about that. My apologies. And she did not crack this, and this is no shade
00:01:47on her. My God, she shouldn't have to. This is not her fault. She was slaughtered in a blind
00:01:55spot, defenseless position. This has nothing to do with anything negative towards her, but...
00:02:01And of course, she probably thought that she had gotten to a safe place away from the war.
00:02:11And I assume she grew up in a non-urban environment and didn't notice or know how dangerous things
00:02:16were. But to be a man is to be constantly aware of threats and dangers. It didn't used to be this
00:02:28way. It really didn't. When I grew up, as I said on X recently, when I grew up in England and Ireland
00:02:35and so on, I never worried about crime, never worried about any of that sort of stuff. As I said
00:02:42before on the show, shortly before we came to Canada, I was 11, and I'd been roaming around the city
00:02:50on buses and the tube, they call it, the subway. Since the age of about four or five, just roamed
00:02:59around. I mean, honestly, kids these days, you don't understand what glorious anarchy there was
00:03:04in the childhoods of the past. I mean, one of the reasons why people want to have fewer kids these
00:03:13days is because you got to keep them home. You can't just let them roam. Dangerous.
00:03:20And yeah, so shortly before we moved to Canada, I was going down to the British War Museum, which I
00:03:26loved to go to. I loved to go to the British Natural Museum, look at the giant blue whale and all the
00:03:30other cool stuff. And I used to go, there was a World War II museum, I don't know if it's still there,
00:03:35out at Hendon. And then there was the Imperial War Museum or the British War Museum in London.
00:03:39I went down, there were some friends, and we were held at knife point by three black youths and
00:03:47stripped of our money. And what was wild to me about that, I hadn't really had much exposure to
00:03:54black people before. My best friend in boarding school was actually an Indian boy, the only Indian
00:03:59boy in the whole school. But I remember them being very merry. They found it very funny. They found it
00:04:08engaging and enjoyable. And we went to the police, but unfortunately, because we were going to leave
00:04:12for Canada, we couldn't do anything further from a legal standpoint.
00:04:19And I wonder now, sort of thinking back on it, my mother spent a lot of time in South Africa, and I
00:04:25wonder if she was moving us for reasons of concern or safety, something like that. It's hard to know.
00:04:31So, to be a man, and I'm sure this is true for some women, is to just be in a constant state of
00:04:42threat assessment, especially these days, just threat assessment. Where could the threats be coming
00:04:46from the fight or flight? It evolves from hunter stuff, and war stuff, and all the stuff that men
00:04:54evolved. And ladies, I mean, you're going to have to do it. You have to do it. Something seems sketchy,
00:05:01trust your instincts and stay away. Stay away. Trust your instincts. We have a gut brain. We have neurons
00:05:09piled up by the yin and yang in our bellies, in our gut. The gut instinct is essential for your
00:05:16survival. If something seems sketchy, if you're worried, don't be concerned about causing offense.
00:05:21Don't be concerned about harming relations. Just get safe.
00:05:30Because that's where we are. That's where we are. It's not by accident. That's the way we are.
00:05:36But, stay safe. Something seems sketchy. Get off the bus, assuming it's safe. Leave the mall. Move
00:05:48aside. Move away. Cross the street. Go into a store. Talk to a security guard. Talk to a cop.
00:05:57Anything.
00:05:57In a sketchy situation, or anything potentially sketchy, if you can't get off the bus, at least
00:06:09go up and stand by the bus driver. And keep your head on a swivel. That's life. That's where
00:06:16we are.
00:06:27It is, of course, fascinating and mildly upsetting, I suppose, that one pretty slender young Ukrainian
00:06:47girl gets murdered, appalling, and horrifying, and horrible. And people lose their minds.
00:06:54And yet, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian men are being slaughtered in a war.
00:07:03And the purpose of the war appears to just be to continue.
00:07:05To just continue and throw as many Ukrainians and Christians into the meat grinder of war
00:07:17for profit and power as humanly possible.
00:07:23And these are men who are, I'm sure you've seen the videos, they're dragged and grabbed off
00:07:29the street, thrown into the front lines, I don't think with an excess of training.
00:07:38One woman gets killed. Everybody loses their mind. Hundreds of thousands of men get killed.
00:07:51And where were the feminists? Where were all the people with the Ukrainian flags in their bio?
00:07:56Well, really care about refugees, really care about Ukrainians, really care about women.
00:08:01Nothing and nowhere.
00:08:08And I posted on X, Irina Zerutska, just do a search for people's timeline. They claim to care about this,
00:08:16that, or the other if they haven't texted or posted about that. Dismissed. Dismissed. Dismissed.
00:08:26Uh, was it 20, 2015? I think, almost 10, I think it would be 10 years ago in December,
00:08:35if memory serves me right. When I published The Truth About Crime, you can still find it on
00:08:41fdrpodcast.com, which has got the kind of information that keeps people alive. I suggest
00:08:47you watch it, I suggest you absorb it, and stay safe, as best you can, in these troubled times.
00:08:56It's very sad. It's very sad. It is a wild thing to have this
00:09:13video. Evidence now that has never really been before in history. And there was a Sapruta film,
00:09:19and so on. And I remember a history teacher in grade, I took a summer school course, I took two
00:09:25summer school courses in grade 11, just so I could get out of the prison of government schools
00:09:34a semester early. And I remember my history teacher brought in an expert
00:09:39on
00:09:45the Kennedy assassination.
00:09:50So you could see that, but not live, not real time, not with analysis in the moment. And now
00:09:56you can see, oh God, heart-wrenching. I mean, especially for fathers of daughters, but it's
00:10:02heart-wrenching to see poor Irina getting slashed, and just being frightened and not knowing she was
00:10:11already dead, and living for a minute or two, just bleeding out.
00:10:16Not knowing that she was already dead. And you could see her dressing down as a very beautiful woman
00:10:26with a great figure, and you could see her dressing down. Worked at a pizza place, the little
00:10:31hat that she wore to the pizza place next to her on her phone. I don't know if she had headphones in, but
00:10:42just dead. And the other people on the train or the subway just getting away, not helping.
00:10:54That's where we are. That's where we are.
00:11:01And she thought she'd come to a safe place.
00:11:08And I couldn't help but wonder, and this, you know, the last thing I really want to do is make
00:11:12any of this about me, but I want to tell you sort of where I come from this perspective,
00:11:16like why I have this perspective. So when I was a kid,
00:11:20every penny was essential. Every penny was essential.
00:11:25We faced eviction notices, so threatened to be tossed out into the snow. I remember there was a
00:11:33sign on the superintendent's door in the building that I grew up in.
00:11:38Rent checks must be certified after the fifth of each month. Now, for those of you who were younger,
00:11:42that means that you had to take your rent check to the bank and have them certify and freeze the
00:11:48funds in the check so that when you handed it over, they could cash it knowing it wasn't going to
00:11:53be bounced. It wasn't going to be NSF, non-sufficient funds.
00:12:01And if you've ever been in a situation of dire poverty, and I mean, it wasn't dire poverty,
00:12:09but I mean, when I was a student, I was living on $600 a month, $650 a month, all in.
00:12:17I didn't go to a dentist for like 10 years. And if you've ever been in a situation
00:12:31where pennies count, where the only food that you can eat has to be from a dented can,
00:12:36where you just live on tap water and spam. If you've ever been in that sort of Raskolnikov,
00:12:52Dostoevskian kind of situation where pennies count, I remember I would have friends over and
00:12:58there'd be maybe a little bit of pop and I'd have to cram all of the glasses full of ice to make it.
00:13:06And they'd be like, Hey man, why is this all ice? And I'm like, I can't say. That's one of the
00:13:11reasons I got my first job when I was 10 and worked ever since. And at one time in high school,
00:13:15I've been paying my own bills since I was 15. And one time in high school, I got three jobs,
00:13:18three jobs. And I loved working in restaurants because I could at least eat there. And you know,
00:13:28hanging around friends places, hoping that there's some food for you.
00:13:38I remember one of the few times I felt full as a child, as hungry as a child, a lot. And one of the
00:13:44few times I felt full as a child, because there was even food shortages in the seventies when I was in
00:13:48boarding school. I remember a friend of mine, he later died in a horrible motorcycle accident,
00:13:55but his mother took us to Ponderosa, I think it was, where it was all you could eat. It's the first
00:14:03time I tasted chickpeas. And I just, I went full hard. I remember feeling full. Finally, I remember
00:14:10being at a McDonald's party for a friend of mine, like, you know, and, and everybody was so stuffed.
00:14:19And I remember his mom saying, okay, does anybody want anything else? And I'm like, yeah, I could do
00:14:24a, I could do a filet of fish. Just, you know, you, you want to bulk up, you want to feed up, because you
00:14:29don't, and your body doesn't know. So anyway, I don't want to sort of get into a whole thing about my
00:14:33Dickensian childhood. But what I do want to say is, this, um, murderer of Irina Zarutska,
00:14:44how was he paying his bills? There's a constant fascination with me. Because again, if you've
00:14:50been really poor, you know, every dollar, every dime helps and counts.
00:14:54So how was he, how was he paying his bills? The woman who was the judge, um, I didn't even know
00:15:03this. Apparently you could be a judge without a law degree, be a judge without a law degree.
00:15:09I think she was sending people to a rehab facility that she part owned or something like wild stuff.
00:15:16But, but how was he, how was he paying his bills? How was he living? Was he homeless?
00:15:22How did he eat? How did he get on the train? Some people saying, oh, it's an honor system
00:15:27train and blah, blah, blah. But it was a constant issue for me, covering rent, covering food,
00:15:38getting enough to drink.
00:15:44It mattered how much people tipped me. Because this is back in the day, everybody paid cash and
00:15:52sometimes I would give great service because I needed to pay rent.
00:15:57And then when I was in university, I, I lived in the same room with the guy. We lived in the same
00:16:02room. I was that poor. So how is this guy? And now as a, as a worker, as a taxpayer and Irina's
00:16:10mother said that she got a job the moment she got her visa, the moment she got her work visa, she got a job.
00:16:15Her murderer, how, how was he living? Was it government money? Was Irina being forced to fund
00:16:23the guy who murdered her? I don't know.
00:16:28The guy had been arrested 14 times. Even his own mother, the murderer's own mother was like,
00:16:37please do something. Don't leave him out on the streets. I read reports that said his brother or
00:16:43his half brother, 13 years ago murdered a white man in a unprovoked, well, it's unprovoked.
00:16:53There's no provocation to kill someone except in an extremity of self-defense. Provocation.
00:17:04I was reading there was a 14 year old white boy. His skull was caved in by a classmate
00:17:08because apparently he made a joke and called someone my boy. No picture. So, you know,
00:17:19no picture. So, you know,
00:17:28treat criminals, be nice to criminals. It does not work. You know, empathy requires 13
00:17:38separate parts of the brain to be wired up from birth onwards.
00:17:47You cannot regrow it later. You can't fix it later. There are these things called mirror neurons.
00:17:53And, you know, here's a test. Here's a test. I'm not any kind of psychologist, psychiatrist or doctor.
00:17:59I ain't no doctor with degree, but I will tell you my completely rank amateur way
00:18:04of figuring out if someone has mirror neurons. What you do is you show them, and there are endless
00:18:10videos of this online, you show them a man taking a hard shot to the groin. A golf ball, a frisbee,
00:18:21a football, taking a hard shot to the groin. And if they go, ooh, that's mirror neurons. If they laugh,
00:18:28no mirror neurons. In my, obviously, again, completely amateur, I can't watch those videos
00:18:35because they hurt. And look at those videos and they hurt. I feel them.
00:18:44I don't know how common that is, but looking around the world today doesn't seem to be
00:18:50common really at all to have these mirror neurons, which allow you to feel what someone else feels.
00:18:55But that requires, I think, that you have an inner dialogue, that you have a philosophical
00:19:01gut-brain connection between yourself and other human beings, basic empathy,
00:19:05what the other person wants, I want, what they feel, I could feel, they're just like me,
00:19:11but separate in space. How common is that these days?
00:19:15Well, I won't kill someone because I don't want to be killed.
00:19:26I won't rob from someone because I wouldn't like to be robbed from.
00:19:30I won't punch someone because I don't like to get punched.
00:19:33Or I won't shoot a conservative speaker in the fucking neck while he's trying to reason with
00:19:47people. Because I wouldn't like to be shot in the fucking neck when I'm trying to reason with people.
00:19:52That's what I'm talking about. Mirror neurons, basic empathy,
00:19:56seems to be a vanishingly scarce resource these days.
00:20:10And it's not that hard to whip up these kinds of atrocities, really. I mean,
00:20:15I've been talking about this really, well, 40 years, 30 years, 20 years as a public figure.
00:20:27All you do is you create a moral category of pure evil, let's say Nazi.
00:20:35And then you say that if we don't harm the Nazis, the worst conceivable thing in the world will
00:20:43happen. Civilization will end. And then you just whip people's hatred up to this category,
00:20:53and then you start feeding people into this category until a crazy person attacks them.
00:20:57It's not that hard. It's not that complicated.
00:21:01This is the Rwandan thing. You just refer to people, you dehumanize people,
00:21:05refer to them as cockroaches or Nazis or white supremacists.
00:21:08So you just keep applying labels that are like targeting devices. You know, those, um,
00:21:14targeting devices where drones will paint a particular area with a laser tag. And then
00:21:22it's tagging people. You're just tagging people in the media.
00:21:26I'm sure they have other jobs than this, but I can't quite remember what they are at the moment.
00:21:31And you just keep tagging people.
00:21:32And that's the ultimate hate speech, really. It's tagging people with these, you charge up
00:21:42these negative labels with immense contempt and hatred. And then you just paint people with these
00:21:46labels until a crazy person thinks they're doing God's great work through violence.
00:21:56And I always remember Alger Hiss, oddly enough, in this context, and I won't get into the whole history
00:22:06about this, but Alger Hiss was a pretty terrible guy. And he went to jail. I think it was for, um,
00:22:15perjury.
00:22:18And when he got out, he was fated. Come to the dinner party. He's a cool guy.
00:22:24I'm sure this, I mean, this has happened with Luigi Mangione, I think his name was, the shooter of the, uh,
00:22:33Health Corporation CEO.
00:22:37It happens with the worship of criminals.
00:22:43The left generally never runs across
00:22:47a violent, violent criminal that they can't find some way to lionize, of course.
00:22:51This is back to the George Floyd issue.
00:22:57Austin Metcalf, that video still hasn't been released. It's been, what, four months now?
00:23:04Gotta be bad.
00:23:09And, of course, the left is, uh, constantly saying that the cops are bigoted and terrible and
00:23:14wrong and bad and evil, and they gotta be
00:23:15camera it up. They gotta be miked up.
00:23:20Well, I guess people are seeing now some of what the cops have to deal with.
00:23:30And now they're trying to shut down some video cameras that are there to protect people.
00:23:34Which brings us to the, um, appalling story of Charlie Kirk.
00:23:46So, I didn't know Charlie. I met him, I think, once or twice. Uh, we, we shared a stage
00:23:53at, uh, a speaking event in St. Louis shortly after I was deplatformed in 2020,
00:23:58where I spoke about, uh, the temptations of evil that Jesus faced.
00:24:06And this was, uh, I guess he was in his early, mid-twenties. He died today, was murdered today
00:24:12at the age of 31. He's got a wife and two daughters. And he was passionate, uh, intense, focused.
00:24:23And Charlie had a real positive, humorous, humble benevolence to him.
00:24:37He had a masterful grasp of facts and details. My brain doesn't work that way, so I just,
00:24:43you know, bow down in admiration to people who can just reel off.
00:24:47Hank Coulter is like that. Uh, Megyn Kelly is like that. Just have this precision of, of
00:24:56details, names, facts, principles. Well, principles I can do, but the other ones are,
00:25:01I'm very impressed by that. I have to double check everything. And I'm very, very impressed by that.
00:25:06And he went around America,
00:25:09talking at, uh, campuses, trying to reason with people, arguing, debating.
00:25:20As in, uh, we can
00:25:26talk about it.
00:25:28And as he repeatedly said,
00:25:30where words end is where the violence begins. And this is, of course, uh, not my original idea,
00:25:37but goes back to one of the origin, original thoughts of philosophy.
00:25:42That we reason together so we don't fucking kill each other.
00:25:48Somebody's got to win.
00:25:52And for someone to win, others have to lose.
00:25:54Now we either win or lose through debate, or we win or lose through killing each other.
00:26:04There's really not much else or the threat thereof.
00:26:09It's all we have. Reason, violence, that's it. There is no third choice. There is no third option.
00:26:16And Charlie to his, I guess now eternal credit,
00:26:20believed in reason, believed in debate, believed in conversations. Now,
00:26:27it's boring and not even worth anything to say, well, he and I didn't agree on everything because
00:26:32people say that sort of stuff and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
00:26:37Charlie was bringing the power of conversation to American and therefore Western political discourse.
00:26:55Let us reason together, sayeth the Lord. And Charlie obeyed that divine commandment. He sat down and he
00:27:02reasoned. He gave people the mics. He gave passionate, empowered speeches. He was humble in that people
00:27:08said, hey, man, you don't even have a college degree, to which Charlie would reply, then it should be easy to beat me.
00:27:19He waded in with great courage to 95% of the contentious issues of the day. There were a few he avoided.
00:27:27I'm not going to complain about that. Anybody with more sense than God gives a goose has certain topics, they step
00:27:34around. But it took a lot of courage to be out there. It took a lot of courage to be out there.
00:27:43And he did it. With the wife, with children, with a great grave and desperate hope
00:27:59that we could keep the S off words.
00:28:05I guess the second S off words. It's words or swords. Words or swords. That's all we have.
00:28:13We either gracefully concede to reason and evidence or from a rooftop.
00:28:24I don't know that there's anything else. I've never seen anything else. And those of us with some talent at
00:28:31provoking debate, at bringing reason and evidence, at interviewing, at creating charts and PowerPoints and
00:28:36and desperately trying to avert this unrushing Stanley Kubrick tie to blood that emerges when words
00:28:47are blown apart with long-range sniper rifles, we have been very desperate to avert
00:28:56the violence that is at war with words.
00:29:00People who are bad at debating, people who aren't particularly smart, people who can't defend their
00:29:04position, people whose positions are denied by reason and evidence, get violent, get aggressive.
00:29:10Of course. What else are they supposed to do? Lose? Well, if you're mature, you realize that there's no
00:29:17losing in a debate. I have been corrected countless times over the course of what I've done.
00:29:21And I have gained wisdom, facts, truth, and the honor of conceding to reason and evidence every single time.
00:29:30If you're arguing with a doctor, saying, oh, I do have a terrible infection, but I don't need any
00:29:41antibiotics, you're wrong. And the doctor convinces you, have you lost? No! You're not dead! You win!
00:29:48When you submit to reason and evidence. Own your pathetic satanic ego loses, which it should!
00:29:54Good! The desire to be right at all costs is one of the greatest roots of evil. The desire for the
00:30:00unearned, whether it's material or victory in a debate. Have the grace and wisdom and maturity
00:30:06and humanity to concede defeat when you're wrong so that the world wins thereby. And the world gets to
00:30:13see an example of somebody who's intelligent, saying, or it's even more important if they're
00:30:20not particularly intelligent, saying, that's a great point. I think you're right.
00:30:24Yeah, you're right. Like, I was talking today, because before hearing the appalling news
00:30:33of Charlie Crook's murder, and, you know, fingers crossed, man, I watched that video. Oh, my God.
00:30:40And the blood, the volume of blood. I'm no doctor, but I didn't see how he could make it.
00:30:57And the fact that he slumped over right away, right? You've got these two veins on your spine, right?
00:31:03Was it the carotid that brings the blood to your brain, and then the jugular that takes it away?
00:31:11And, uh, if those get compromised, man, you're losing a liter or two of blood every minute. And
00:31:18it's rough, man, because even if they can keep your body alive,
00:31:21if your brain is starved of oxygen, like 30 seconds, it starts to go dark.
00:31:24And the fact that he slumped over and the volume of blood.
00:31:29When he was trying to reason.
00:31:42When he was trying to avoid a society forcing hemlock down people's throats,
00:31:50because he wanted to debate.
00:31:58But people who can't win with words turn to swords. People who can't win with ballots turn to bullets.
00:32:06And he is a, um, he's a martyr.
00:32:18He's a martyr in the old battle between
00:32:22civilized discourse and psycho-fucking violence.
00:32:26He is a martyr to the ancient divide that humanity has, which is we talk or we murder.
00:32:41There is an infinity of human desires. There is a very much finity or finite level of resources.
00:32:49Everybody wants everything. We only have so much. How does it get distributed?
00:32:52How does it get shared? How does it get generated? How does it get transferred?
00:32:57How do people pay their rent, their food? How?
00:33:01Everybody wants to live in a giant mansion and have
00:33:04infinity buffets, but we can't have that.
00:33:11Everybody wants to be right. Everybody wants to get their way.
00:33:13But we can't have that because people's wills and desires and thirsts conflict all the time, all the time.
00:33:19Human society is in an absolutely continuous process of disagreement. You want to ask a girl out?
00:33:29She says no. Look, you disagree. You want to get a job? They say no. Oh, look, you disagree.
00:33:36You want lunch? Oh, shoot. I forgot my wallet. You disagree.
00:33:40You want lunch for free. They want to charge you.
00:33:45Hell, you're walking down the street. Somebody's in your way and you do that.
00:33:53Little shuffle and a little boogaloo where you have to figure out. Can't walk through each other.
00:33:58You disagree. Left, right.
00:34:05I wanted people to follow me to new platforms. In fact, I wanted more people to follow me. Gee,
00:34:10wouldn't it have been great for philosophy if my deplatforming had led to the Streisand effect
00:34:15of more and more people being interested in philosophy. I wanted people to follow me to new
00:34:19platforms. They disagreed. And they chose to stay and listen to others. Fine. We absolutely have to
00:34:30have the right to disagree. Or we turn to violence.
00:34:36Who gets the girl? Who gets the young woman? You want it? Maybe she doesn't want anyone, but
00:34:48there's a bunch of guys, so she's very pretty and they want to date her. Who gets her? Well,
00:34:52either she gets to review men's offers and choose one or none of them. Or there's some horrible
00:35:01universe wherein some evil Genghis Khan scoops her on the back of his horse and rides her to rape
00:35:06mountain. But in order to productively disagree, it's like in order to productively play chess,
00:35:21you have to obey the fucking rules. And the rules are you talk about stuff and you don't initiate the
00:35:31use of force. Because if you do, there's no civilization left. I don't think that the people
00:35:41who use violence, I don't think that they have, it seems like even the remotest clue, how delicate
00:35:49and sensitive to violence, the infrastructure of society is.
00:35:54Why do farmers grow all of this excess food? You know, I was driving in Ontario, north of the city,
00:36:05a week or two ago, endless fields of wheat, corn, soybeans, just goes on and on. Like a buzz haircut
00:36:15from Top Gun. Why are they doing that? It's way more food than they need. Well,
00:36:19so they can trade things with people in the city.
00:36:24You go and get gas. Why, why is there gas there? Why is there gas there? Because,
00:36:32because you don't steal it. Because if everyone stole the gas, there'd be no gas stations. There'd be no
00:36:36cars. With no cars, there are no cities. With no cities, there's mass starvation, violence, rioting, looting.
00:36:44Everything that we have, everything that keeps us alive, everything that allows for this conversation
00:36:56requires a delicate process of negotiation.
00:37:03The guys who run the gas stations want to pay less for the gas. The guys who sell the gas want to charge
00:37:07more for the gas, and they come to some recent compromise. Where the gas station guys say,
00:37:14hey, we're not just going to hijack the gas truck, because we're going to pay. And the gas companies
00:37:21don't say, we're just not going to, we're going to take your money, run giggling off into the woods.
00:37:26Dance among the barley con, corn and cashier checks, and never deliver it. The gas, it is all
00:37:33proposal, negotiation, compromise, and acceptance. That's all. That's what, I mean,
00:37:42that is the food and fuel and fucking oxygen that keeps 80 to 90 percent of people in the West alive.
00:37:54There's an old story about Frank Sinatra, of course, the great Italian-American singer and band leader.
00:38:00He was so skilled in music that he could be full orchestra, 100 pieces, and he could hear one
00:38:08note, one note, one bum note. Oh, I think we got a little stranger here, he would say. He could hear
00:38:12one bum note in the third bassoon 50 meters away. And he wouldn't record. I'll start again. I can't have
00:38:23a bum note in there. People are kept alive. I mean, this is end of the Roman Empire stuff,
00:38:32right? People are kept alive in cities, because we reason with each other, we negotiate with each
00:38:37other, and we don't use violence. That's the only thing that keeps, and I swear, I swear, I swear,
00:38:43it is a death wish to want to use violence in what remains a relatively civilized society. You want to
00:38:50shoot people, to want to stab people, want to threaten people. And even the threat of violence
00:38:54is very powerful. I mean, you all know this, when I was speaking and touring, death threats,
00:39:03bomb threats, I needed security, been hunted through cities, crazy stuff, just for having an
00:39:09opinion or an argument or a perspective or data that people don't like. Now, we used to try and keep
00:39:16dumb, violent people away from social discourse by having, you know, very high entrance requirements
00:39:21for universities and so on, so that they could be civilized places of discourse for the most part,
00:39:25but that's all gone by the wayside, because equity!
00:39:31So people who use violence,
00:39:35who gunned out,
00:39:36who gunned out. A relatively mild Socratic reasoner, like Charlie Kirk.
00:39:50They shoot Charlie Kirk, and they say, violence, not reason, is how we decide stuff. Violence.
00:39:59I can't debate him, I can't out-argue him, I can't disprove his arguments, so I'll blow his
00:40:08fucking head off. So they shoot Charlie Kirk, and what they're really shooting is our capacity to
00:40:16reason with each other, our capacity to negotiate, which is our capacity to not die.
00:40:21As a thought experiment, imagine how many farmers would it take being hijacked and killed when they're
00:40:34trying to drive their produce into a town for farmers to say, whoa, a little too dangerous to
00:40:40go into town, I think I'll just keep my food here.
00:40:42An attack on the farmers is actually an attack on the millions and millions and millions of people
00:40:52who live in cities.
00:41:03Shooting Charlie Kirk
00:41:05is like shooting an adamantine statue, which causes the bullets to multiply by 10 million
00:41:20and go out into the general population.
00:41:25When we shoot people we disagree with, we are saying that it is violence, not reason,
00:41:30that will resolve social disputes, which means the cities are going to fucking die.
00:41:35Because if we can't negotiate, if we can't reason, if we can't accept things we don't want,
00:41:44the economy collapses, the farmers stay home, and everybody dies.
00:41:50The stakes are that high. This is one of the reasons why I put my neck literally on the chopping block
00:41:55many times, to bring forward this message of peace and reason.
00:41:59So I will take your questions and your comments, but there's one other thing that I want to say,
00:42:08and I appreciate your patience, as I unpack my thoughts and feelings, hopefully in a way that
00:42:14is productive and helpful for you, for the world as a whole.
00:42:19I've made the case before, maybe it seemed kind of theoretical to you.
00:42:33I promise you, from the bone marrow of my soul's spine, I promise you,
00:42:42this is not theoretical. It never was, but I hope it's vivid now.
00:42:52I'm going to tell you how to survive the world that is trying to be built on blood,
00:43:01how to prevent it, how to prevent those foundations from being assembled.
00:43:12I call it the gleam. You could call it anything that you want. It's the gleam.
00:43:17It's that little, satanic, sadistic gleam.
00:43:23And you can see it. I mean, it's all over Blue Sky and other places. You can see it on X. You could see it
00:43:28with the murder of Irina Zarutska. You could see it with the murder of Charlie Kirk. It's a little gleam.
00:43:34You sit down with some sketchy family members, some sketchy friends, or whatever.
00:43:43And this topic comes up. There's that little gleam.
00:43:45Ooh.
00:43:46Are people saying horrible things like, I hope the bullet that hit Charlie Kirk, had a good day?
00:43:57Horrible to people say, right?
00:43:58Or when they say, when they quote Charlie Kirk as saying,
00:44:08well, there's a certain amount of gun deaths that are going to have to be accepted in order to have
00:44:11the second amendment. Ah. Now people always try and use your words against you in an evil manner.
00:44:20It's very sadistic. And I, I could recite countless examples from my inbox, but I won't
00:44:25bother because let's make this about the victims of the last while. It's the gleam. It's the gleam.
00:44:32So you talk about Irina Zarutska and there's a little gleam. You talk about Charlie Kirk. Well,
00:44:40he was divisive. A little gleam. That's the germ seed of great evil. A gleam. They're free to have it.
00:44:59Right? You're free to be a sick little sadistic asshole who gets a little gleam, a little thrill,
00:45:08a little joy. Well, you know, Charlie Kirk did say some pretty controversial things.
00:45:17Controversial until about eight minutes ago. It's a gleam. This is why, while telling people to
00:45:25be situationally aware, the last thing I want to do is blame poor Irina Zarutska for being slaughtered.
00:45:33It's the gleam.
00:45:37Well, yes, but...
00:45:41Look out for that shit, brothers and sisters. Look out for that shit. I am deadly serious about this.
00:45:48You know, I wrote this on X years and years ago. 100 million people slaughtered by communism in the
00:45:5620th century alone. Yeah, but... Total sociopath. Total sociopath. Look at that gleam. Look out for that
00:46:03gleam. That little smug, self-satisfied... Well, but, you know...
00:46:07Socioeconomic factors and... Slavery and... He was controversial.
00:46:20Look out for anyone who justifies any of this sick violence. Anyone.
00:46:30They will fuck your life up like you would not believe. And I'll tell you this,
00:46:34if you are surrounded by people who've got that little gleam. That little gleam. You're surrounded
00:46:39by people like that. You are surrounded by a fiery mode of sadism, which no decent soul will cross.
00:46:48You will be locked in. No exit. You will be locked in a dungeon, in a hellscape, in a soulless prison
00:46:58of suggestible sadism. You will be locked in for the rest of your life.
00:47:03Because if you're surrounded by people who've got that little gleam, a little, well, but, you know...
00:47:09Good people. We smell that. We smell that. You know, like a 20-day raccoon dead under the floorboards.
00:47:21It's... Then we avoid. We avoid.
00:47:27I haven't... Like in my own personal life, I am... I wouldn't say blessed, but I mean, I've earned it, but...
00:47:33I'm very pleased and happy to be surrounded by people who are, you know, genuinely good people.
00:47:41They fight the good fight. We support each other.
00:47:43And I have... I mean, a wonderful, immensely treasured wife and friends and family.
00:47:55There's no gleam. It's all just, ugh, this is vile.
00:48:00There's no, but, well, you know, he could have avoided this topic, or he's just being so provocative there, or...
00:48:14Talk to people in your life about these murders.
00:48:24Scan like hell for that gleam.
00:48:26Well, you know, but he could.
00:48:31Anything but a full-throated...
00:48:36horror at and rejection of...
00:48:40this kind of violence...
00:48:43should be, and I would absolutely recommend you take this approach,
00:48:48both for morality and for your own safety and happiness.
00:48:54Anybody who has the glee, or the pause, or the well, or the caveats, or the yes buts...
00:49:07Anybody has that around...
00:49:11Get them the fuck out of your life.
00:49:15I can't command anything. Obviously, I'm just making the case.
00:49:19Anybody who's like, well, but, you know...
00:49:24I-de-de-de-de-de.
00:49:25Mmm.
00:49:28Eject!
00:49:30Eject!
00:49:36My God.
00:49:38How could you have...
00:49:39these glass-eyed, sneaky sailors in your midst?
00:49:47I tell you, I haven't seen the gleam...
00:49:49Gosh.
00:49:52How long's it's been since I've looked at someone...
00:49:56not someone I meet with, or debate with, or whatever.
00:49:59I've certainly seen it in debate opponents.
00:50:02But in terms of seeing that, yes but...
00:50:06gleam...
00:50:09It's like the sunlight goes in through the eyeballs, bounces off...
00:50:12a block of ice...
00:50:14in place of a heart, and just reflects back through the sinuses.
00:50:16Just this little gleam in the eyes.
00:50:18It's a warning. It's a warning.
00:50:19Clear sign of incipient predation.
00:50:23I honestly...
00:50:24I probably got...
00:50:26I'm getting old.
00:50:27I'll be...
00:50:28In two weeks, I'll be...
00:50:3059.
00:50:33That gleam...
00:50:34When did I last see it?
00:50:36Early thirties?
00:50:41Early thirties?
00:50:44Yeah.
00:50:45I think early thirties.
00:50:46I'm...
00:50:46I remember seeing that gleam with someone.
00:50:48This is...
00:50:52This is back in...
00:50:5503.
00:50:55The invasion of Iraq.
00:50:57And I was saying, you know, that they're not gonna find him.
00:50:59He's like, you know, they'll find the WMDs.
00:51:01It'll be five years, ten years.
00:51:03They're gonna find the men.
00:51:04And it was just this gleam.
00:51:05I like watching war.
00:51:08Death.
00:51:16I haven't seen that gleam in decades.
00:51:19In person.
00:51:21Because I find it...
00:51:24So...
00:51:26Soul-curdlingly...
00:51:28Repulsive.
00:51:29That...
00:51:31I don't see the gleam because...
00:51:32People don't want to see...
00:51:37My narrowed eyes in response to this...
00:51:40Shitty little sadistic gleam that they have.
00:51:41Well, he was kind of inflammatory...
00:51:48And he knew what he was doing...
00:51:49And there were risks...
00:51:50Blah, blah, blah...
00:51:51Ugh!
00:51:58I'm telling you, man.
00:51:59Steer the fuck clear.
00:52:00I don't know how to make it clearer.
00:52:03Don't...
00:52:03Don't have people like that in your life.
00:52:05They will fuck you up one way or another.
00:52:06And they will certainly keep good people away from you.
00:52:09And be like...
00:52:09Oh, I can't find any good people.
00:52:10It's like...
00:52:11Well, yeah!
00:52:12Because their laser gleams...
00:52:14Are keeping everyone away.
00:52:19People who make excuses for violence...
00:52:21Will fuck you up.
00:52:22They're just...
00:52:27NPC finger puppets...
00:52:29Of the darkest impulses in our natures.
00:52:34So...
00:52:35That's where we're at.
00:52:40I'm happy to take questions...
00:52:43Or comments.
00:52:46All right.
00:52:48Yeah, Joseph, you're back.
00:52:50If you would like to...
00:52:51Ah, yeah.
00:52:52You hear me?
00:52:53Yes, go ahead.
00:52:54So, I just want to bring it back to the Charlie Kirk thing.
00:52:57Yeah.
00:52:58You know, when I say in this country...
00:53:00I'm talking United States of America.
00:53:02Just...
00:53:03Where do you think this goes now?
00:53:06You know, I know that's a very general question...
00:53:08But you mentioned the gleam in people's eyes.
00:53:10And, you know, in this country...
00:53:11You know, something just feels different about this.
00:53:14You know, I know...
00:53:15Recently was the other poor woman...
00:53:17On the Boston, North Carolina...
00:53:19But something about Charlie Kirk...
00:53:20Maybe it's because he's specifically...
00:53:22A politician just feels different.
00:53:24You know, you mentioned the gleam...
00:53:25Well, I'm sorry.
00:53:25He's not a politician...
00:53:26But he's definitely a political activist...
00:53:28Or advocate or something like that.
00:53:29Right.
00:53:32Yeah.
00:53:32So, I guess my question is just...
00:53:34You know, does it get to a point...
00:53:36Where the gleam is too much...
00:53:37And people just stopped having...
00:53:39You know, what he stood for or...
00:53:42Sorry, people, you cut out there for a second.
00:53:43You said where the gleam gets too much in something.
00:53:47Is this the point where, you know, people...
00:53:50Whether gradually or suddenly...
00:53:51Stop trying to have civil discourse?
00:53:54Well, you can't have civil discourse...
00:53:57With people who don't listen to reason.
00:54:00And so, what is...
00:54:02Whatever you feed, you get more of...
00:54:05And whatever you starve...
00:54:06Metaphorically, you get less of.
00:54:08So, people need to...
00:54:09There's a dividing line.
00:54:10And I'm sorry that it goes through families.
00:54:12And I'm sorry that it goes through friendships.
00:54:13I really am.
00:54:14I wish it weren't the case.
00:54:15I've certainly tried to bring as much reason to the world...
00:54:18I think as humanly possible.
00:54:20Maximum reason has always been my...
00:54:22Driving force.
00:54:24But you gotta make your choice.
00:54:28You gotta make your choice.
00:54:29Are you gonna support those who support violence or not?
00:54:33And if you're gonna support those who support violence...
00:54:35Hey, let's break bread together.
00:54:37We just won't talk about these things.
00:54:38I don't wanna see that gleam.
00:54:39So, I'm not gonna bring up political terrorism.
00:54:42I don't wanna see the look in people's eyes.
00:54:45They're slavering hunger for more blood.
00:54:48I don't wanna see that.
00:54:49So, we'll just talk about sports ball.
00:54:51And we'll talk about the weather.
00:54:52And we'll talk about Aunt Ginny's goiter.
00:54:54And we'll avoid any real topics of moral import or depth.
00:54:59And so, the world is made by what we accept.
00:55:08I mean, if you're Brad Pitt and you say...
00:55:12I'm gonna charge 50 bucks to be in your movie.
00:55:14You get 50 bucks.
00:55:17Because he's willing to accept that.
00:55:18You're gonna go do a movie, right?
00:55:20Okay.
00:55:21So, the world is made by what you accept.
00:55:25I got a great wife because I wouldn't accept less.
00:55:28If you're negotiating for salary, if you're trying to get a friend or some girl to date you.
00:55:39If you go for some, you know, trashy girl who's broken and easy, then that's what you'll get.
00:55:44Because that's what you'll accept.
00:55:45So, my...
00:55:48I'm gonna make this completely about me.
00:55:51I'm unabashedly.
00:55:54I think it's helpful for other people.
00:55:56But I'll make it completely about me.
00:55:57My entire purpose here is to die with a clean conscience.
00:56:05To die with a clean conscience is to live forever.
00:56:09I must die with a clean conscience.
00:56:10So, what that means is that I'm telling people the world is defined by what you accept.
00:56:14If you accept shitty sadists in your life, the world will get shittier and more sadistic.
00:56:18If you support them, if you break bread with them, if you go to their children's recitals,
00:56:23if you just consort with the cruel, the world will get more cruel.
00:56:30If you don't consort with the cruel, the world will get less cruel.
00:56:35Because cruel people only respond to incentives, not virtues.
00:56:37And we're gonna need...
00:56:41The good people need to huddle together.
00:56:42And we need to keep...
00:56:44Peacefully, reasonably, through voluntary choice and ostracism,
00:56:49we need to keep the bad people at bay.
00:56:53So, where does it go?
00:56:54I don't know.
00:56:55Because I don't know how many people will listen to and actually act on the case that I'm putting forward.
00:57:00It's a biblical case.
00:57:01Do not consort with evil is foundational to Christianity.
00:57:06I don't know why people don't do it.
00:57:10I don't know why people...
00:57:11I don't understand why people who hold the peril of their mortal souls in an immortal sphere
00:57:18depended upon not consorting with evil, and then go and consort with evil.
00:57:23I don't understand.
00:57:24I don't know why.
00:57:25Maybe people just don't really believe in heaven or hell or God or Jesus
00:57:28or the final destinations of their flung souls.
00:57:32I don't know why.
00:57:33I don't believe in heaven or hell, but I don't consult with evildoers.
00:57:38I won't break bread with them.
00:57:40I won't hire them.
00:57:41I won't fund them.
00:57:41I won't go to their stores.
00:57:46I won't economically interact with them as best I can.
00:57:50I see people I don't like in a business.
00:57:52I never go back.
00:57:55I see people I like in a business.
00:57:56I give them my business.
00:58:00So where does it go from here?
00:58:02Wherever people choose to go.
00:58:04But here's the thing.
00:58:05I got to make the case as clearly and passionately as humanly possible
00:58:08so that if the world goes to hell, my conscience is clean.
00:58:14And honestly, my conscience is very, very important to me.
00:58:17My conscience is the difference between living in heaven, where I live,
00:58:22or living in hell, which is where most people live.
00:58:26You can go back to a speech I gave, in case you think this is anything new.
00:58:34Libertopia, 2011.
00:58:39My daughter was 18 months.
00:58:42The great Dick Gregory introduced me, and I gave this exact speech.
00:58:47Shun evil.
00:58:49Give them some time to come around, makes a case.
00:58:52Shun evil.
00:58:52Almost 15 years ago.
00:58:57It's the same message.
00:58:59Now, some people will listen.
00:59:01Some people won't.
00:59:02Where does the world go?
00:59:02I don't know, because there's free will.
00:59:04All I can control is the clarity, effectiveness, directness, and passion
00:59:11with which I communicate an essential message called support, virtue, and shun evil.
00:59:16So, what people do with that, out of my hands.
00:59:23People's choices on hearing virtuous arguments have no effect on my conscience.
00:59:30None.
00:59:30No effect on my conscience.
00:59:32If you say to some guy,
00:59:37there's a cliff ahead.
00:59:43Stop.
00:59:44He's running.
00:59:45He's looking back.
00:59:46He's catching a frisbee or a football.
00:59:48There's a cliff.
00:59:49And he decides to keep running.
00:59:51That's sad.
00:59:52But there's no effect on your conscience.
00:59:54Now, if you see the guy running and don't say anything,
00:59:55then that has an effect on your conscience.
00:59:57You've participated in him being harmed or killed.
01:00:00But raising my enlightenment thunderclap of reason and evidence
01:00:09as high and as wide on the rooftop of the world as humanly possible
01:00:12is all I can do.
01:00:14All I can do is make the case.
01:00:17It's up to the jury then to decide.
01:00:22And so far, I'm happy, content, and satisfied with the case that I've made.
01:00:26So, where does the world go?
01:00:28Wherever people choose to go.
01:00:29And if you settle for supporting violence,
01:00:31the world gets more violent.
01:00:33And I will stroll out of this veil of tears,
01:00:36not looking back at all.
01:00:40All right.
01:00:42Let us go on.
01:00:46Dark N.
01:00:49Dark N.
01:00:52Does indifference result in a ban also?
01:00:54What if you don't believe in evil in absolute terms?
01:00:58I won't be around amoral people.
01:01:00I mean, my God.
01:01:02Because there's nobody,
01:01:04nobody's functionally incapable.
01:01:06No sane human being is capable
01:01:08of being indifferent to good or evil.
01:01:14All right.
01:01:15Dark Nimbus,
01:01:17if you wanted to bring us your thoughts,
01:01:20I'm happy to hear.
01:01:21Okay.
01:01:24Well, aren't we having not much luck?
01:01:28All right.
01:01:29I'll give it another second.
01:01:30Otherwise, we can do an early show.
01:01:32And, uh...
01:01:34Oh, he's vanished.
01:01:39And Noah's trying to come back.
01:01:42Man,
01:01:43get your text right, people.
01:01:44It's not that complicated.
01:01:51All right.
01:01:52Both Dark and Noah.
01:01:55Yes, no, maybe.
01:02:01Well,
01:02:02I'm gonna close off here
01:02:04and my thoughts
01:02:06and
01:02:07great
01:02:08and deep compassion
01:02:10with
01:02:11Charlie Kirk's family.
01:02:14Irina Zerutska's family.
01:02:19The sorrow
01:02:20at the savagery
01:02:22they have faced
01:02:23is almost without
01:02:25calculation
01:02:26in the heart
01:02:28and mind and soul
01:02:30of the world.
01:02:31Big,
01:02:32massive,
01:02:33deep
01:02:33sympathies,
01:02:37thoughts,
01:02:38hugs,
01:02:39compassion
01:02:39to people
01:02:41who are suffering
01:02:42and these are the two
01:02:43that we know of.
01:02:44Of course,
01:02:45there are countless more
01:02:46over the
01:02:48last few decades,
01:02:50over 100,000.
01:02:52And
01:02:52all we can do
01:02:57is continue to try
01:02:58to do
01:02:58good in a darkening world.
01:03:00and at least,
01:03:02at least with the internet,
01:03:04of course,
01:03:04at least what has happened
01:03:05is that
01:03:06people can no longer
01:03:10claim
01:03:11the veil of ignorance.
01:03:13you've seen
01:03:16the savage attacks,
01:03:17you've seen
01:03:18the blood,
01:03:22the choking,
01:03:23the sobbing,
01:03:24the screaming.
01:03:25You can see it all.
01:03:27Don't look away.
01:03:28Don't look away.
01:03:29This is the reality
01:03:30of violence.
01:03:31The reality of violence
01:03:32is a girl
01:03:32bubbling out her last breath
01:03:34on the dirty floor
01:03:35of a train.
01:03:35The reality of violence
01:03:40is Charlie Kirk
01:03:41nobly speaking
01:03:42words
01:03:43before
01:03:46a panel
01:03:48of gathering orcs
01:03:49and lead
01:03:52going through
01:03:52his windpipe
01:03:53and dying
01:03:56in a pool
01:03:57of his own blood.
01:03:59That is
01:04:00the world
01:04:01that is being summoned
01:04:01by the gleams.
01:04:02The gleams
01:04:03are an invitation
01:04:05to the darkest
01:04:06aspects of human nature
01:04:07to take front and center
01:04:08and take us back
01:04:09to a dark age
01:04:10and those who are
01:04:12good at violence
01:04:13are forever at war
01:04:14with those who are
01:04:15good at reason.
01:04:17And
01:04:18an amazing
01:04:20opportunity
01:04:21has been given
01:04:21to the reasoners
01:04:23in the form
01:04:24of the internet
01:04:24to show the reality
01:04:27of the violence
01:04:28being summoned
01:04:29by the gleams
01:04:30in people's eyes
01:04:31and to communicate
01:04:33with as much
01:04:34peace,
01:04:34reason,
01:04:34passion
01:04:35and purpose
01:04:36as possible.
01:04:39The stark choice
01:04:40that humanity
01:04:42faces.
01:04:44Which way?
01:04:46Western man.
01:04:47Most of the rest
01:04:48of the world
01:04:48has already chosen
01:04:49its path.
01:04:50We still have that
01:04:51choice before us.
01:04:53Reason
01:04:53or violence.
01:04:55I will do
01:04:57everything in my power
01:05:00to promote
01:05:01reason,
01:05:01negotiation,
01:05:03discourse,
01:05:04debate,
01:05:04dialogue.
01:05:08But you see
01:05:09that gleam?
01:05:12Get the fuck out.
01:05:15I am calling you
01:05:15for you.
01:05:17I am.
01:05:18I am.
01:05:18I am.
01:05:20I am.
01:05:22I am.
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