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What Most People Get Wrong About Cancel Culture (Ep. 249)

October 26, 2021 56m 48s Full transcript available
What Most People Get Wrong About Cancel Culture (Ep. 249)
0:00 / 56m 48s
In this episode, we tackle the misconceptions surrounding cancel culture and its implications for society. We dissect the recent controversies involving figures like Dave Chappelle and John Gruden, and explore the broader cultural war at play, emphasizing the importance of standing firm in our beliefs without succumbing to the mob mentality.
Transcript
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0:30 This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast.
0:51 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:53 Let's get into it.
0:54 Then David said to Solomon, his son be strong and courageous and do it.
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1:03 He will not leave you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the house
1:07 of the Lord is finished.
1:09 That's 1st Chronicles 28 20 guys.
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1:36 to this.
1:37 Okay.
1:38 But before we get into the real subject matter for today, which is very, very important.
1:40 So you'll stick around for that.
1:41 I want to give you a quick update on some of the news that we've been discussing over the
1:44 last several weeks.
1:45 So on episode 243, 245 and 247 of this podcast, we've talked about a lot of the craziness
1:50 that's been going on in school systems, whether it's content that's in the classrooms, whether
1:55 it's what's going on at the school board meetings, whether it's what the government
1:58 is doing at the school board meetings, but that's specifically what I talked about on
2:02 episode 245.
2:03 It's called when the government treats parents like domestic terrorists.
2:06 And this has been a crazy set of circumstances.
2:09 You'll just have to go back to that episode to really listen to it where I dig in.
2:13 But on Friday of last week, I mean, of course, they're trying to bury this in the news cycle.
2:17 But on Friday of last week, the National School Boards Association actually issued an apology
2:22 for the letter that they sent to the White House a few weeks back where they asked for
2:26 federal law enforcement to help them control what they called threats of violence and acts
2:30 of intimidation at their school board meetings.
2:32 Okay.
2:33 They asked the White House specifically to use the Patriot Act, okay, to help with this.
2:38 And they actually said this.
2:39 This is a quote directly from the letter that they sent to the White House, quote, acts
2:42 of malice, violence and threats against public school officials could be the equivalent to
2:47 a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.
2:50 Unquote.
2:51 I mean, just an astonishing word from from them are an astonishing phrase from them that
2:56 they could possibly think that they'd say that and then actually put that into the public
2:59 sphere.
3:00 And guys, again, I go into a ton of detail on episode 245 of this podcast.
3:04 So if you're like, God, I have no idea what you're talking about.
3:06 Go listen to episode 245.
3:07 It'll all make sense.
3:08 So you can go back, listen to it, make sure you're all squared away.
3:11 But as soon as that letter became public and as soon as the attorney general, the United
3:15 States, you know, the lead for, you know, law enforcement officer, there was a tremendous
3:20 amount of backlash because Merigarland came out and he immediately agreed with this.
3:25 Right.
3:26 There's there's some idea that there was corroboration between the national school boards association
3:30 and the White House before it went to attorney general Merigarland.
3:34 But parents have been furious.
3:36 Attorneys general from individual states from all over the country have been pushing back
3:40 saying, if you do this, we're, we're going to sue you.
3:43 We're going to absolutely crush you.
3:45 But then I think the most damning thing that happened in this entire story was when Merigarland
3:49 was brought before Congress last week to testify and talk about a lot of different things,
3:53 but specifically this letter.
3:55 Now I can't off the top of my head, I can't remember the representative that was questioning
3:59 him at this time, but he asked Merigarland, what data have you seen that has proven to
4:05 you that there is such a crazy situation going on right now in school boards all across the
4:10 country that we need to send out federal law enforcement to help and to treat parents as
4:15 if they are domestic terrorists.
4:17 And Merigarland referred to the letter he got from the national school boards association.
4:23 And that was it.
4:26 His evidence, his data, his backing for his play to say, yeah, we'll absolutely investigate
4:32 these things and, you know, send out federal law enforcement to help with these school board
4:36 meetings was the letter asking for that, which is to say he had no data at all.
4:42 He had no evidence at all.
4:44 This guy is a sham.
4:45 Aren't you so glad that he's not on the Supreme Court?
4:47 Like my goodness.
4:48 But again, we're not going to spend a lot of time on this one today because I just want
4:51 to give you an update, but we need to be clear about why the National School Boards Association
4:56 is apologizing.
4:57 Why they're apologizing.
4:58 Okay.
4:59 They're not doing it because they feel bad.
5:00 They're, I mean, they're, they don't feel bad about this.
5:03 They're not doing it because they realize the error of their ways.
5:06 You know, they're not doing it because they're truly regretful of how they acted.
5:10 They are doing this strategically to try and save Terry McAuliffe's chances of winning
5:16 the gubernatorial race a week from today in Virginia.
5:19 So Terry McAuliffe is the Democrat guy running for governor.
5:22 He's the former governor.
5:23 But again, in that state, you can't be a governor for consecutive terms.
5:27 So he was governor four years ago.
5:28 I was trying to be governor again, but this race should be a run away for him in Virginia,
5:33 because again, Virginia skipped purple and went from red to blue and is solidly blue
5:37 right now, but he is drowning, right?
5:40 This is a neck and neck thing.
5:42 It's within the margin of error, right?
5:44 And so if you want to get into conspiracy theories about what Democrats might try to do to make
5:48 sure that Terry McAuliffe wins, go for it, but they are terrified.
5:51 You already had on the campaign trial as if this would help.
5:54 You have co-presidents, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, but also former president, one of
5:58 the most popular presidents ever, Barack Obama going out on the campaign trail, just trying
6:02 to make sure that Terry McAuliffe wins this, this race in Virginia.
6:07 So the National School Boards Association, they're doing all they can to take the heat
6:11 off.
6:12 So they're going to apologize.
6:13 They're going to take this bullet.
6:14 They're going to try to take the heat off a little bit.
6:16 There's a lot of evidence to show that they're trying to get some days off around the beginning
6:19 of next week so that these teachers, again, they're teachers, they're heroes, right?
6:23 So that they can go knock doors for Terry McAuliffe.
6:25 Again, there's a lot of nonsense going on.
6:27 I'm sure we're going to be talking about it again next week, but there is your update.
6:30 But let's go ahead and transition into what today's episode is actually about, even though
6:34 we're about six minutes in already, but here's the deal.
6:36 We're talking about an incredibly important topic that is very relevant for our modern
6:41 context.
6:42 Okay.
6:43 And that's the so-called cancel culture.
6:45 Okay.
6:46 So for those of you that are just listening, using major air quotes there for cancel culture.
6:50 And the reason that we're talking about this, you know, I wanted to talk about this for
6:53 a while now, and I've had different things that I wanted to do, but then we got some
6:56 great interviews and we had some other things come up and it's like, okay, I can talk about
6:59 this at any time.
7:00 This is evergreen.
7:01 But the reason that we're talking about today is because we're now entering.
7:04 This is so stupid that I have to say this out loud.
7:06 We are now entering week three, week three of the Dave Chappelle versus Netflix drama.
7:13 You can find news stories today about the drama about Dave Chappelle.
7:19 Okay.
7:20 Afghanistan was in the news for about two weeks, right?
7:24 You know, the illegal immigrant crisis at our southern border, the, whatever you want
7:28 to call it, but it's, it's very negative down there right now.
7:31 That'll get mentioned about once a week or so.
7:33 But here we are going into week three of Dave Chappelle's latest Netflix Netflix special
7:38 being mentioned in print online and TV news outlets across the globe.
7:42 I mean, I guess it looks like we have our priority straight, y'all.
7:45 Let's not talk about real issues.
7:46 Let's talk about a comedian and the words he said, ooh, the words he said, but let me
7:50 go and bring you up to speed on this nonsense.
7:52 If you have no idea what I'm talking about.
7:54 So on October the 5th, earlier this month, Dave Chappelle released a new special on Netflix
7:58 called the closer.
7:59 Okay.
8:00 So this is the last special on his current Netflix deal, which has made him surely tens
8:04 of millions of dollars.
8:05 Good for him.
8:06 But I have not seen this entire special because I don't have Netflix and, you know, more on
8:10 that here in just a second, but I have seen the clips online.
8:13 I've, I've heard some of the jokes that people are having an issue with, but the immediate
8:17 reaction from most people, because I have a lot of friends that love comedy.
8:20 I love comedy and the immediate reaction is, man, Dave Chappelle, he's the goat.
8:25 He's so good and he can weave all these different stories.
8:27 And now they were talking about this joke, talking about that joke.
8:30 It was a fairly normal reaction.
8:32 So if you think Dave Chappelle is the consensus, greatest comedian of all time, that's about
8:37 what you would expect the reaction to be, right?
8:39 But I saw something interesting happening on rotten tomatoes because I use rotten tomatoes
8:43 a lot.
8:44 So that for those of you that don't know, that's a website where basically you give it a thumbs
8:48 up or a thumbs down, it's not actually a thumbs up or a thumbs down, but you give it a yes
8:51 or a no.
8:52 And so you have an audience score and this could be on a movie or a TV show or a Netflix special
8:57 or something like that.
8:58 And then you have a critics score.
9:00 And so I always ignore the critics score because I never align with them because movies
9:03 that like the critics love, but the audience hates.
9:05 I'm usually with the audience, but this special, as of the recording of this podcast had 96%
9:11 positive from the audience and only 38% positive from the critics.
9:17 And it was way lower than that.
9:18 But I guess a few more critics have come on and said, yeah, that they liked it.
9:22 So why the imbalance between the audience, the normal everyday people and the people that
9:26 get paid to be critical of things like this?
9:28 It's because Dave Chappelle apparently is a transphobe.
9:32 Okay.
9:33 So at several points in this special and then some past specials, he's talked about the
9:37 LGBTQ community and talked about these different people.
9:41 And he's making a lot of jokes, but he's not personally anti LGBTQ.
9:46 And he had the temerity, I guess, to say that women are women and that only women are women,
9:52 but he also told this joke about a transgender person that was a friend of his.
9:56 And this was a man that thought he was a woman and this, you know, he called her, he called
10:01 him her and all this other different stuff there.
10:03 I'm even getting tongue tied on the pronouns, but this is someone that ended up killing
10:06 themselves.
10:07 And this is how he closed the show.
10:08 And it was kind of this, you know, tender moment, but he was making jokes along the way
10:11 because he's a comedian, right?
10:14 That's kind of what he does.
10:15 But the reaction from the left has been, as you would imagine, this is the worst thing
10:19 that could have ever happened, right?
10:21 Dave Chappelle telling jokes about people is the worst thing that could possibly happen
10:25 because they look at the LGBTQ community.
10:27 Again, they're looking at this from an intersectional mindset, you know, this, this postmodern
10:31 Marxist mindset to where these people are above reproach.
10:35 These people are above being made fun of because they need to be protected in a lot of ways.
10:40 Then you had the Netflix employees that they were, you know, which, again, if you believe
10:44 the statistics, there's a very, very, very small percentage of the population that thinks
10:48 they're transgender.
10:49 But apparently there's a bunch of transgender Netflix employees that they threatened to
10:53 walk out.
10:54 There were Netflix employees that were like leaking stuff to the media and they were actually
10:57 let go for this.
10:59 The reaction from Netflix initially was like, Hey, Dave Chappelle is our guy.
11:03 We signed into this contract.
11:04 We're going to put this out there.
11:06 Not all of our content is going to be a good thing for every person or audience, but the
11:10 CEO, I guess they have co CEOs.
11:11 It's like, what is this?
11:12 Like, they didn't even work well for Dunder Mifflin, but at the same time the CEO came
11:16 out and then he was pretty standard with his response, like, Hey, you know, if you don't
11:20 like it, you don't have to work here sort of a thing.
11:22 But then he kind of walked it back and he's like, Oh, him and in Han and I should have
11:25 been more thoughtful about people's reactions and blah, blah, blah, but these Netflix employees
11:30 are staging these walkouts and these protests because they want Dave Chappelle specials
11:34 to be removed from their platform because it is hate speech.
11:37 It is dangerous.
11:38 And it is violence.
11:39 Again, words that are on a screen that a guy spoke months ago can be violence according
11:44 to these people.
11:45 But the thing about it is that's the Dave Chappelle stuff.
11:48 But if you miss the Dave Chappelle stuff, maybe a few weeks prior to that, you're likely
11:51 familiar with the drama surrounding the firing of the Las Vegas Raiders NFL head coach John
11:56 Gruden.
11:57 Okay.
11:58 So this is one of the most famous head coaches of all time.
11:59 He signed, I think it was like a hundred million dollar contract, like a 10 year, a 10
12:03 million dollar a year contract of some crazy contract, but a situation came out where there
12:08 was supposedly some emails that were being investigated with the Washington Redskins
12:12 and now known as the Washington Football Club or whatever they're called, but they found
12:16 some of John Gruden's emails.
12:18 And then all of a sudden, John Gruden's emails, which was not part of this initial investigation
12:22 was leaked to the press.
12:23 And in those emails, he was kind of doing some locker room talk.
12:26 He was, you know, making fun of people.
12:28 He's calling people names, you know, people said he was anti LGBTQ in those comments.
12:33 They said he made a racist comment and all those things are within the eye of the beholder.
12:36 But essentially what happened is the Las Vegas Raiders said, this is terrible.
12:40 This is horrible.
12:41 We got to get this guy out of here.
12:42 Cause he said all these horrible things and emails 10 years ago again, the NFL was doing
12:47 an investigation going through all this guy's emails.
12:50 They found emails from things that he said 10 years ago and boom, he's out of here fired.
12:56 So the claims are from a lot of people that are paying attention to these things culturally
13:02 that they are attempting right now to cancel Dave Chappelle and that they were actually
13:06 successful in canceling John Gruden.
13:10 Is that true?
13:12 Are these things true right now?
13:14 So that's what we're going to dig into.
13:16 But the best place for us to start here on this conversation about cancel culture is what
13:19 most people get wrong about cancel culture.
13:22 Okay.
13:23 So this is very, very key and very, very important.
13:26 So, you know, you're going to hear a lot of things that I think are hopefully helpful
13:29 to you today.
13:30 But this is very, very important here.
13:31 This is kind of the key hinge point.
13:32 That's why I'm calling it what I'm calling it this episode.
13:35 People equate canceling with cancel culture again, canceling with cancel culture.
13:44 So I'll tell you a story to kind of tell you how I got to this point.
13:47 So this was several months back where we're doing some sort of a thing on my back porch.
13:51 So I've got a bunch of guys over.
13:53 We're having some scotch.
13:54 We're smoking some cigars or watching some fights, all those types of things and a guy
13:57 from my foxhole, Adam, the host who I love dearly love that guy.
14:01 He, I think someone brought up something about Netflix and they're like, hey, Kyle, have
14:04 you seen that?
14:05 I'm like, no, I don't have Netflix.
14:06 I canceled it after the cuties movie that they released.
14:09 And basically what he said is, Kyle, that's shocking to hear that from you.
14:14 Why would you participate in cancel culture?
14:17 And you know, he kind of said it with a glint in his eye.
14:19 You know, I think he was kind of being a little bit tongue in cheek there.
14:21 But then he's brought that up several other times over the last several months that, you
14:25 know, when you cancel your subscription to Netflix, that is participating in cancel culture,
14:31 right?
14:32 And I understood his point when he asked me the question initially, I was kind of taken
14:35 back from it because I didn't quite understand it initially because I was like, wait, these
14:40 things are not even the same thing.
14:41 They're not even in the same category, but that has kind of caused again, I've been thinking
14:45 through this topic for months, what would be the best way to bring this content to you.
14:49 But I think a great place for us to start and really any place that you should start
14:52 when you're doing a debate with somebody is you have to make sure that your definitions
14:54 are straight.
14:55 So what are the definitions inside of cancel culture?
14:58 So I'm going to give you my definitions here because there's not like the Miriam Webster
15:02 definition of these things because they're kind of cultural topics.
15:05 But my definition for kind of the noun usage of cancel culture is a societal agreement
15:11 to ostracize someone from their social professional or business circles because you disagree with
15:17 their opinions and worldview.
15:18 Okay, I'll go ahead and repeat that cancel culture, my definition, a societal agreement
15:23 to ostracize someone from their social professional or business circles because you disagree with
15:28 their opinions and worldview, okay?
15:31 So the verb I guess way of saying that canceling in the context of cancel culture is the active
15:37 attempt to ostracize someone from their social professional or business circles because you
15:41 disagree with their opinions or worldview, okay?
15:44 So as a quick note there, the ostracization that I'm talking about here can come from
15:49 inside or outside your life, right, or inside or outside of your business, inside or outside
15:53 of the government you work for, whatever, it could be your coworkers that are trying
15:57 to pressure you out of your job or your business or something like that.
16:01 It could be random dorks on Twitter putting pressure on your advertisers.
16:04 If you have kind of a public profile, it could just be people in your personal life, personal
16:08 Facebook friends are people that you actually see in person, not just Facebook friends.
16:12 But now we need to talk about aside from the context of cancel culture, what is canceling?
16:18 It is canceling.
16:19 And this is where I think Miriam Webster is useful here.
16:22 Cancel means to stop doing or planning to do something.
16:28 That's what canceling is.
16:30 It's stopping doing or planning to do something, a specific action, okay?
16:36 So if we go back to the conversation that I've been having with my boy Adam for so long,
16:41 is his canceling my subscription to Netflix part of cancel culture?
16:48 And the answer is absolutely not, absolutely not.
16:52 I'm not canceling Netflix's ability to be a company.
16:57 I'm simply removing my money from them and I'm removing my attention from them way more
17:04 on that here in a little bit.
17:05 So make sure that you stick around for that.
17:07 But then you go through the rest of the scenarios I brought up so far.
17:10 Is this the Las Vegas Raiders firing of John Gruden because of comments that he made in
17:14 his private emails 10 years ago, part of cancel culture?
17:18 Maybe, maybe, I think the conventional wisdom here would be, I think he had been, because
17:24 I don't really fall in the NFL, but I think he had been a coach for the Raiders for three
17:27 or four years, you know, when they were in Oakland and then when they moved to Las Vegas.
17:30 And I don't think they've had a winning season yet.
17:33 And so is it possible?
17:34 Is it maybe even likely that the Raiders were looking for a way to get them out of this
17:38 contract without all the hullabaloo and all like, Oh, hey, why are you doing this?
17:41 And why are you admitting failure?
17:42 And one of the easiest way to do that is just brand a guy as a racist or a homophobe or
17:46 something like that.
17:47 So it could be cancel culture, maybe not.
17:50 But then we look at are the attempts to remove Dave Chappelle's specials from Netflix and
17:55 keep him from being able to perform live, which is what people are calling for.
17:58 Thus, you know, making it, making it, him unable to make a living is that part of cancel
18:04 culture.
18:05 And the answer to that is yes.
18:07 That is definitively what cancel culture is.
18:09 If you go back to the definition, I just brought you.
18:12 There are people that want Dave Chappelle to no longer be able to make money as a comedian,
18:17 because he says things that they don't like because he says things that don't agree with
18:21 their worldview.
18:22 Okay.
18:23 So that is definitely an example of cancel culture.
18:26 But I wanted to go and bring up some other ones because a lot of people, you know, we
18:29 kind of get this mindset where we can only see what's right in front of us or maybe what's
18:32 happened in the last week or so.
18:33 There's been a lot of examples of this.
18:35 I think you've forgotten.
18:36 So Brendan Ike is one of the first ones that I can really remember wrapping my head around.
18:40 So if that name doesn't sound familiar, he used to be the CEO of Mozilla Firefox.
18:44 So a lot of you guys use Firefox out there.
18:46 But Ike donated $1,000 in 2008 in support of California's proposition eight.
18:52 Okay.
18:53 So that was, you know, a band gay marriage in the state until it was eventually struck
18:56 down by the Supreme Court whenever they just, you know, a Bergfeld decision just basically
18:59 made it.
19:00 It's legal because whatever.
19:02 And so he was fired for this again.
19:04 This is a guy who holds a personal belief that marriage is between one man and one woman.
19:09 I know super, super bigoted, super bigoted, but he was fired from his position.
19:12 Right?
19:13 And that was the first time to where it's like, this is a guy that's a really, really
19:16 good CEO.
19:17 He is a talented CEO and his personal beliefs on something like gay marriage don't affect
19:23 his ability to be a good or a bad CEO, but it was beyond the pale for the people that
19:27 were, you know, really in control of the reins of the company, the board and all those different
19:30 things.
19:31 So they got rid of them.
19:32 Then you got a guy like Alex Jones.
19:34 So if you all remember back in August of 2018, Alex Jones was in really a coordinated attack
19:39 at his YouTube, Facebook and Apple profiles all shut down at the exact same time.
19:45 Now, I cannot count myself as a fan of Alex Jones.
19:49 He's a guy that I watch.
19:50 He's a guy that, again, like I've mentioned a lot of times before will say things that
19:53 seem outlandish.
19:54 And then 18, 24 months later, it turns out to be true.
19:57 But then he's had some big missteps.
19:59 Like he says, 9/11 was an inside job, like a complete inside job.
20:02 He said that Sandy Hook was a false flag operation.
20:05 Those kids didn't actually die.
20:06 And like he's had some horrible things that he said out loud, but this is a guy that is
20:10 still using his ability to have free speech and yet YouTube, big tech, you know, YouTube,
20:14 Facebook, Apple, big tech decide to shut him down.
20:17 They canceled him to where his profile is not nearly as big as it could be right now.
20:21 Then you've got JK Rowling.
20:23 So she's the author of the Harry Potter series.
20:25 She was absolutely eviscerated and is still being eviscerated for these comments.
20:28 I want to actually read these comments to you so that you can see, because when people
20:32 are like, oh, she's anti LGBTQ.
20:33 She's anti trans.
20:34 This is what she said, quote, if sex isn't real, there's no same sex attraction.
20:40 If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.
20:44 I know in love, trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many
20:50 to meaningfully discuss their lives.
20:52 It isn't hate speech to speak truth.
20:55 She went on to say this a little bit later, quote, the idea that women are that women like
20:58 me who have been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they're
21:02 vulnerable in the same way as a woman, i.e. to male violence hate trans people because
21:08 they think sex is real and has a lived consequence is a nonsense, unquote.
21:14 And so there have been people that have been calling that for her books to be removed from
21:18 the shelves, for her movies to be taken down from streaming streaming things.
21:22 And this is like a feminist hero, JK Rowling.
21:24 I mean, she wrote these books about this, you know, a feminine, you know, little witch boy,
21:29 and she became a billionaire.
21:30 Right.
21:31 I mean, it's a great story of what a powerful and smart woman can do that's that's talented
21:36 and can put all these things together.
21:38 But they want to tear her down because she doesn't go along with the trans agenda.
21:42 Again, the trans agenda and the feminist agenda cannot mix.
21:46 They absolutely cannot mix because if gender has to be binary in order for you to have
21:51 feminism, that absolutely has to happen.
21:54 So they're attempting to cancel JK Rowling.
21:56 That's kind of an ongoing thing.
21:58 Then we have Chris Harrison.
21:59 So if you don't know, this is probably because you don't watch the bachelor because he was
22:01 a longtime host of the bachelor on ABC.
22:04 So there were some stuff that came out about this person, this contestant that named Rachel
22:09 Kirk Connell.
22:10 There was a picture that surfaced of her from college where she went to an old South antebellum
22:16 themed party.
22:17 Okay.
22:18 And the, or the, the host Chris Harrison came out and said that they should have a little
22:22 bit of grace for this girl for Rachel Kirk Connell.
22:25 Let's just have some grace for this was a while ago.
22:28 We don't really know the context.
22:30 She doesn't seem to have any racist animus in her heart.
22:32 She's actually, I think, married to a black guy or was getting married to a black guy
22:36 or something like that.
22:37 She was a white woman.
22:38 And the thing was is for saying that we should show grace.
22:41 He was fired from the show.
22:42 Now, again, that's not a show that I watched, but I think he was the host of that show for
22:46 over a decade.
22:48 Maybe I'm not sure exactly how long 10, 15 years, maybe a little bit longer, but he's
22:51 fired from the show for just saying that they should have grace for this girl and we'll
22:55 keep going here.
22:56 We have Senator Josh Hawley.
22:58 So he is the US Senator representing the state of Missouri.
23:00 So he actually came out and sided with President Trump by publicly saying that the state of
23:04 Pennsylvania violated its own state constitution during the 2020 election, which they obviously
23:09 did, but just for coming out and saying that for even hinting that he would support President
23:14 Trump in his fight to kind of make things right in the state of Pennsylvania, he was dropped
23:18 from his publisher.
23:19 He was dropped from his publisher.
23:20 We're about to release a book and he was also pressured to resign from office, right?
23:24 Which that's kind of a common thing now where it's like, Oh, a politician said something
23:27 I don't like.
23:28 You should leave office.
23:29 Why?
23:30 Because I'm angry.
23:31 Then you got Mike Lindell.
23:32 So most you guys know who that is.
23:33 He's the CEO and founder of my pillow.
23:35 So he publicly and very loudly questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election.
23:40 He's still doing that.
23:41 And because of that, around two dozen of his retailers have dropped his products from
23:45 their stores, right?
23:47 Just because of what he's saying there, there's nothing defunct with these products.
23:50 There's nothing that's gone wrong with these products.
23:52 There's not another company that has come up and kind of usurped them in their role in
23:55 the pillow space or the sheet space or any of those things, just because he basically
23:59 came out and supported President Trump.
24:01 Then he had a guy that you maybe not have heard of, but Adam Rubenstein, he's a former
24:04 New York Times opinion editor and writer.
24:06 He published a column, right, and edited a column by the United States Senator Tom Cotton
24:10 from Arizona saying that federal government, the federal government should actually send
24:14 in troops to quell the violence in cities all over the United States during the George
24:18 Floyd riots of 2020.
24:20 So he's like, hey, we can't have this.
24:22 We can't have these people destroying our cities.
24:24 They're not doing this for justice or doing this because they're jerks and because they
24:26 just want to destroy stuff.
24:28 So this editor, when they put this out there, they had to, you know, do a retraction and
24:32 all these different things.
24:33 It was kind of a big mess for the New York Times.
24:35 He was actually pressured out.
24:36 Adam Rubenstein was pressured out by his own colleagues.
24:39 He said it was so horrible working there during that time because he put out a column by United
24:44 States Senator, a sitting U.S. Senator.
24:46 So about six months after this all went down, he left the New York Times.
24:49 He was forced out essentially.
24:51 Then you have Alison Williams.
24:52 This is a new one.
24:53 So she's a sideline reporter for college football and basketball for ESPN or was because she
24:57 refused to get the COVID vaccine.
24:59 She was very public about this is a tough decision.
25:02 I'm trying to become pregnant.
25:05 And you know, there's not any data really right now and what this vaccine could do to
25:09 my ability to conceive or to keep a child or any issues that would become with that child.
25:13 So she ended up refusing to get the COVID vaccine.
25:15 So she was fired.
25:16 She was forced to resign.
25:17 We'll say they kind of gave her the very nice and soft, you know, kick in the tushy
25:21 on her way out the door.
25:22 But then that same day, that's literally the same day she was hired by the Daily Wire.
25:26 And so the Daily Wire hired her to do some sports reporting, which will, you know, they'll
25:29 be telling us more about as time goes on.
25:32 I don't really exactly know.
25:33 And then you have Gina Carano.
25:34 So Gina Carano, she is a retired MMA fighter.
25:36 She's really a pioneer for women's MMA and then she turned into being an actress.
25:39 She's been an actress and a lot of different things.
25:41 But she posted on social media and in this post on social media, she compared being a
25:46 conservative in 2021 to being Jewish during the third Reich.
25:50 Okay.
25:51 This may have actually been in 2020.
25:52 I'm kind of getting the dates a little bit mixed up, but it wasn't a great comparison.
25:56 Okay.
25:57 But her point was, which no one really allowed her to get out there was essentially what
26:01 they would do in the, you know, the Nazi regime of that time is they wanted your neighbors
26:06 to basically tattle, tattle on you.
26:09 That's what they wanted.
26:10 And the point she was making is if you're a conservative in 2021, they're kind of, this
26:14 culture is kind of encouraging people to like turn you in or basically become part of this
26:19 cancel culture type of a deal.
26:21 And so because of that, they dropped her, right?
26:23 They dropped her from the show that she was on the Mandalorian.
26:25 That's like a Star Wars thing and they dropped her, you know, or Hollywood agency dropped
26:28 her and all those different things.
26:30 And so she was, they attempted to cancel her right then at that exact moment.
26:33 And then just like the last person, they were hired by the Daily Wire.
26:36 So Gina Carano came in and the Daily Wire is like, no, you're going to do a movie with
26:39 us and do some different things with us.
26:41 So, you know, they kind of took care of some business there.
26:43 And really if you look at any famous Fox news hosts, I mean, they're always in the cross
26:47 here.
26:48 So if you look at Bill O'Reilly or Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity or any of those people, they're
26:52 always constantly getting their, their advertisers heckled by these people, basically media matters
26:57 and these other organizations will come out and they will wait for them to say something
27:01 that's even vaguely controversial and then they'll call, they'll get, you know, two or
27:04 three dozen people to call their advertisers say, you need to drop Tucker Carlson because
27:07 he said this and he said that, you got to get them out of here.
27:09 That's just kind of their MO.
27:10 And guys, there are so many more examples, but again, I wanted to spend some time going
27:14 through that just to let you know that these are things that you likely heard and then
27:17 you've forgotten about.
27:18 And so when people are bringing up cancel culture and they're saying it like, oh, cancel culture
27:22 is not real.
27:23 That's not a real thing.
27:24 It's all in your imagination.
27:25 These are high profile examples, but this is happening all over the place, right?
27:29 Not just with these people whose names that you recognize.
27:32 But now it's an important thing to talk about now that we've kind of done some definitional
27:36 work on cancel culture when we should talk about cancel culture versus accountability
27:41 culture.
27:42 Okay.
27:43 So that's what you're hearing a lot of people say right now.
27:44 It's like, no, no, no, no, what we're doing to Dave Chappelle is not cancel culture.
27:48 It's accountability culture.
27:50 Some people are calling it call out culture.
27:52 Okay.
27:53 But here's the deal is people that kind of have this leftist mindset, this authoritarian
27:57 tendency to them.
27:58 They think what they're doing is good and I guess not just good, but righteous.
28:03 It's righteous what they're doing.
28:06 Okay.
28:07 So they think they're doing society a favor by going through all of your old tweets and
28:10 Facebook photos from 10 years ago.
28:12 You know, if you get a high profile thing, right, you're your high profile person now
28:16 it's like, okay, let's look back through your entire history and see if there's anything
28:19 that we can cancel you for.
28:21 Okay.
28:22 They think that they're holding you accountable because they know that when someone says cancel
28:25 culture as a negative connotation for a very overwhelming majority of the planet.
28:30 So they're trying to rebrand it as this accountability thing.
28:33 I don't know.
28:34 We're just trying to keep them accountable.
28:35 We're trying to call them out for these horribly terrible things that they've been doing, but
28:38 that all begs a very, very big question.
28:42 Accountability to what morality accountability to what worldview exactly?
28:50 Because again, this is a religion for these people, like those people that were outside
28:54 of Netflix that were, you know, with their signs and yelling and all that stuff.
28:58 Was there a Christian in that entire crowd?
29:02 Is there somebody that thinks that they have the amago day that they're made in the image
29:05 of God?
29:08 My guess would be no.
29:10 These people don't have that type of worldview.
29:12 They don't have an idea of cosmic justice.
29:15 That's why they have to fight so hard for justice here on this planet because at a core
29:19 level, these people think that they will become worm food the moment that they did that they
29:23 die.
29:24 Like that's going to be it.
29:25 Lights are out.
29:26 Nothing more.
29:27 Right.
29:28 These people, they have to keep someone accountable, but again, to what?
29:33 To what morality and if, and then if they start using the language of morality, like
29:37 this is right and this is wrong, where do you get that idea that this is right and this
29:41 is wrong?
29:42 Because they're certainly not basing it on the constitution in the United States of America.
29:46 Where are they basing it on?
29:47 That's an important thing to chew on, but also this gets into a discussion about modern
29:53 canceled culture, versus purity culture, okay?
29:57 So purity culture, you might recognize that because back in like the 80s and 90s, there
30:02 were a lot of people that were like trying to get rap music canceled and you know, violence
30:05 out of movies and you know, sex off a television, all those different things, it was a purity
30:09 culture move.
30:11 And so you could look at my definition from earlier of what cancel culture is and you're
30:14 like, hey, that's that.
30:16 We're trying to get these, you know, rappers do not have a career anymore because of things
30:20 that they're saying and all those different things.
30:21 And I understand that argument, the biggest difference in modern cancel culture versus
30:26 purity culture of yesteryear is where it comes from.
30:31 What we see now with modern cancel culture, that's coming from the authoritarian left.
30:35 You're saying these things that, you know, again, this is their postmodern, Marxist, you
30:39 know, intersectional worldview.
30:41 You're saying these things about these protected groups of people and it makes me uncomfortable.
30:45 You're a bigot.
30:46 You're hateful.
30:47 We got to get rid of that versus people on the religious right.
30:50 Those were the people that were back in the day saying, you shouldn't say say these things
30:53 out loud because it's dangerous for kids.
30:56 You're encouraging kids to do dangerous activities like getting fights, shoot people, have sex
31:00 with random hoes, do drugs and all these different things.
31:03 You know, I keep focusing in on the rap example because that's the easiest one to remember.
31:07 And so I think that's the big difference there.
31:09 And you can maybe debate which one you think is positive, but it goes back to the thing
31:12 that I just talked about, which is where's the morality coming from?
31:16 Because even though I probably wouldn't agree with all the tactics that the purity culture
31:20 warriors were going through in the eighties and nineties, they were doing this because
31:23 they have a semblance of what right and wrong actually is because there's the immutable truth
31:27 of God as revealed in his scriptures, right?
31:32 And so at that point, there's not really too much of a comparison because the people that
31:36 are coming from the authoritarian left side of things, they're creating this idea of morality
31:40 out of their heads and or they're smuggling in the Christian worldview, but not giving
31:45 it its name.
31:47 They're smuggling in the the morality that they've been, you know, marinated in since
31:51 they've been alive.
31:52 This Judeo-Christian morality, but they're just rebranding it with, you know, purple
31:56 hair and a rainbow flag.
31:58 And then that also gets into this last portion, which it talks, we're going to talk about
32:01 the relationship between cancel culture and censorship, okay, because those aren't exactly
32:07 synonymous.
32:08 However, and we're not going to do a big long thing about censorship.
32:10 Maybe we can do that later on.
32:12 But with big tech right now, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, you know, all these different big tech
32:18 platforms, YouTube, Google, they have to be complicit in cancel culture in order to censor
32:26 because people have heard about shadow banning.
32:28 I've experienced a little shadow banning myself, but yeah, people whose, you know, their posts
32:33 won't get out there as much or they'll say something that's a little bit off color and
32:36 then their, their YouTube channel will get taken down.
32:39 Especially if you go outside of the worldview that big tech espouses and supports, they're
32:45 going to get rid of you.
32:47 And so that's the scariest thing about cancel culture moving forward is someone could literally
32:51 delete you from the public square because this incredible thing, you, the internet, guys,
32:57 you are listening to me via the internet right now, whether you're listening to the show on
33:00 Spotify or Apple podcasts on your iPhone right now, or if you're, you're watching me on YouTube
33:04 when you're Samsung television, because of technology and because of free markets and
33:08 because of, you know, the, the internet, you're able to hear these things that I'm saying
33:12 right now.
33:13 Whereas before I would have to write a book and try probably go on tour and maybe I can
33:17 make, you know, the, the news on ABC or I can make the nightly news in this local area.
33:22 But now anybody anywhere in the world can listen to what anybody has to say if they want to.
33:27 But big tech, look what they did to Alex Jones.
33:29 Again, I'm not comparing me to Alex Jones or anybody else, but they can just add a moments
33:33 notice just boom, you're done. I mean, just think about this guys. What if the company
33:39 that handles my RSS feed got rid of my RSS feed? You don't have the ability to exist anymore.
33:45 What if the provider that that's behind my website, what did they say? No, no, no, no,
33:49 you talk about crazy things. You say women are women and men or men. That's incredibly
33:52 bigoted. We're going to get rid of you. Like in a day, they could get rid of our ability
33:58 to put the word out to the masses. No Instagram account anymore, no TikTok account, no podcast,
34:04 no website, right? So that is something that we all need to be concerned about as we move
34:09 forward as we fight these cultural battles, which I think is incredibly, incredibly important.
34:14 So right now I want to transition into talking about the wrong ways to go about fighting
34:19 cancel culture and the right ways to go about fighting cancel culture. Okay, because there's
34:23 a clear dichotomy between these two sides. So let's go with the wrong ways right now about
34:27 how to fight cancel culture. The first thing, and I say this a lot in a lot of different
34:32 contexts is don't ever apologize to the mob ever. If you find yourself in a cancel culture
34:40 situation where you are someone's attempting to cancel you or your business or something
34:43 like that, never ever apologize to the mob. Now the difference is, is if you have wronged
34:50 an individual person, right, or an individual group of people, right? And I mean like a
34:56 family or another business or something like that, not like black people or gay people
35:00 or white people or Indian people, not these, you know, macro groups that, you know, people
35:04 pretend or homogenous groups of human beings. But if you wrong somebody individually, you
35:08 apologize to that person. This, this era of we're going to apologize to the general public
35:14 in case anyone was ever offended. You just can't keep up with that. That's why like,
35:19 I have a personal thing. I refuse to apologize to somebody because they mistook my words
35:23 for something that I didn't say. So if I say something and you took it to mean something
35:28 that it wasn't like that, that I didn't even mean that at all. I can't apologize to everyone
35:33 who could possibly misconstrue something that I would say. I can only apologize for things
35:37 that I've said that directly hurt somebody in a direct way because I meant it that way.
35:42 So when you apologize to the mob, remember, you can never bow low enough because the mob
35:47 will eat you up anyway. We've heard about a lot of different examples of, of actresses
35:52 and actors and, and different people that they were, they posted their black squares
35:55 on Twitter during the George Floyd riots and they, they did all these things and all black
35:58 lives matter. I love everything. And then someone finds an old picture that's a little
36:02 bit off color or something that they don't like and also that person's been canceled.
36:06 You can't apologize enough. You can't bow low enough to these people. All they want is
36:10 complete revolution. So another wrong way to fight against cancel culture is to complain
36:15 about it and then do nothing else. So again, I talk about this all the time. You're going
36:19 to get tired of it, but I'm going to keep saying it. But again, a lot of people will
36:22 complain, they'll complain and they'll say, look at that. This is terrible. This isn't
36:26 injustice to me and my family. You know, this is part of cancel culture and then they won't
36:29 do anything else. Again, conservatives, Christians, these people will never pick up their sword,
36:36 never pick up their shield, never put on their helmet and they will realize that one day the
36:40 war has passed them by and they've lost. They never found a hill worth dying on. Okay. Again,
36:45 I say that all the time, but people don't ever want to push back because they don't want
36:48 to come off his route, but they'll complain about it. Gosh, darn it, they'll complain
36:52 to their mom and dad and they'll complain to their people at work and they'll complain
36:55 to a handful of people at the dog park, but then they don't do anything about it. Okay.
36:59 Another wrong way to go about fighting against cancel culture is to assume that these people
37:04 will just ignore you. Okay, because here's the thing, because this makes the most amount
37:10 of sense. The people that are picketing right now against Dave Chappelle and Netflix and
37:15 all those different things, those people could very easily just not watch the new Dave Chappelle
37:20 special, right? But their worldview won't allow for that. It's kind of one of those things.
37:25 It's like, if you don't like this type of music, don't listen to this type of music. You shouldn't
37:29 try to cancel the type of music. You're like, Oh, I don't really like classical music. That
37:33 doesn't mean we cancel classical music. That just means you turn your attention somewhere
37:36 else. But again, for these people, they're not going to ignore you. This is their religion
37:41 might makes right to them. And the culture is shifting in a way to where these these opinions
37:45 that are not shared by the majority of the populace are the loudest opinions, thus they're
37:49 gaining the most ground. So don't just assume that they're going to ignore you. But the
37:54 last thing here, and this might not, you know, sit well with everybody in terms of the wrong
37:57 ways to go about fighting cancel culture is to create or support opinion silos. And so
38:02 the one that I that I thought of initially was parlor. So I got a parlor account because
38:07 when it was first coming on board, I was like, Hey, this might become a thing. So I'll
38:10 go ahead and get an account. Parlor is only conservatives. And so I just wonder for people
38:16 that are on parlor all the time, what good are you getting from this? Like there's no,
38:23 there's no alternative points of view. It's just a bunch of conservative, you know, minded
38:27 people agreeing with each other the entire time. And so when you go into the silos, that
38:33 doesn't help you to get ready for the battle against cancel culture, because you don't
38:37 know what's going on. You don't know how their people are thinking. You don't know how they're
38:41 processing information. You're just doing your own thing with a bunch of other people
38:45 that believe the same way that you do. And so I'm not hating on people that are on parlor
38:49 and doing those different things, but just realize that's an opinion silo. And that's
38:53 the same thing that you would be critical of a people on the left. Oh, it's all the same
38:56 people that think the same thing and look at what they're doing. Again, it's a little
38:59 bit of an issue here. So I don't know that that's the right way of going about attacking
39:02 cancel culture. So I want to transition into here are some of the right ways to go about
39:08 fighting cancel culture. The first thing is going to be not attainable for the majority
39:11 of the population, but it's to become undeniable. In a way, Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan and
39:19 JK Rowling and these people, they're undeniable. They're uncancelable. Dave Chappelle, there's
39:26 probably more people that think Dave Chappelle is the God of comedy than don't think that.
39:31 Joe Rogan has the biggest show on the planet right now. His audience is, you know, a multiple
39:37 of what CNN or MSNBC or even Fox News is, right? He's undeniable. And same thing with
39:43 JK Rowling. I mean, she became a billionaire because she wrote books and then they turned
39:47 into movies and she created this whole big thing. And, you know, it's these people are
39:51 undeniable. They can't be canceled. So that's one way to go about it. But again, that's
39:55 not attainable for most people. So let's talk about some things that are maybe a little
39:58 bit more on everyone else's level. The next thing is just learn how to weather the storm
40:03 and then move on. Okay. So I've had some things that I've said on this podcast that
40:07 have really gotten under people's skin and they didn't really enjoy it. And there was
40:09 a little bit of a storm and I said, eh, I just batten down the hatchets and then moved
40:13 on. I think Jordan Peterson has talked about that before with him. He's embroiled in a
40:17 new controversy every few weeks. And his thing is like, Hey, just, you know, close your ears
40:22 and focus on the people that you love and that love you for two weeks and then it'll
40:25 blow over. If it doesn't blow over, maybe you have to deal with it. But for the most
40:29 part, a lot of these things just blow over because the outrage mob will find something
40:32 else to be really, really mad at for whatever reason. They've stuck with Dave Chappelle for
40:35 a long time because maybe this is that big feather in their cap that if they can get Dave
40:39 Chappelle, then they can cancel anybody, right? But this goes for individuals, but also for
40:43 companies and businesses. There's a lot of companies or businesses that will, you know,
40:47 put something out there or, you know, they'll do something that is deemed offensive by people
40:51 that's not actually offensive. And then, you know, half a dozen people on Twitter will
40:54 say a mean thing and then they will change their corporate policies because a few nerds
41:00 on Twitter are mad. And we don't even know if these people are actual people from America.
41:04 These could be Russian bots or Iranian bots or Chinese bots. For all we know, they're
41:08 just trying to, you know, sow seeds of discord. But again, my encouragement to everybody is
41:12 like, if you find yourself in one of these situations, whether the storm and then move
41:15 on, you'll be just fine. Okay. And the next thing, and this is probably one of the most
41:19 important things that I would tell most of you to do. And that's to vote with your dollars
41:23 in attention. Because you hear people, you know, hey, you know, vote with your feet.
41:28 So if you don't like the way things are going in California, you know, move to Texas, you
41:31 know, vote with your feet type of thing, but just leave all your voting patterns with you.
41:35 But I'm talking about your dollars and attention. So I want to go through some of the things
41:38 that I've stopped supporting with my dollars and my intention. So the first one is Netflix.
41:43 So if you want a deeper dive into why I canceled Netflix, and I think all of you should cancel
41:48 Netflix, go listen to episode 153 of the podcast. I'll put the, I'll put it in the show notes
41:52 there. But again, if you're listening to this, we're listening to this just scroll, scroll,
41:55 scroll until you get to episode 153. I highly, highly recommend that you listen to that episode
42:00 because I was a supporter of Netflix. You know, I had it off and on. You know, I'd watch this
42:03 comedy special, I'd watch this show or something like that. But the moment that they released
42:08 a cutie's movie on their platform, I made a decision that I cannot and will not support
42:13 this company because that movie is child pornography. It's not debatable. And if you go into the
42:20 show notes for episode 153, I have clips from that movie that show you that this is an artistic
42:26 expression. This isn't some sort of like second or third level, deep philosophical, you know,
42:32 debate about what is sexy for a kid and what's not, it's child pornography. You might look
42:37 at a softcore hardcore. I don't really care how you categorize it. It's child pornography.
42:42 And so for me, the whatever 15 bucks a month that I would spend on Netflix, a portion of
42:49 that is going to support content like that. Because Netflix doesn't technically create
42:54 anything. They pay other people to create things for them or someone's already created
42:58 something and then they give them money so that they can put it on their platform. Okay,
43:02 that's what they do. So when I give them money, I'll be at a very small percentage because
43:08 the amount of stuff that they have on their platform, a small percentage of what I'm doing
43:11 goes to child pornography. And I know it. Okay. So for me, as long as that cuties, cuties
43:17 movie is on their platform, I will never consider getting Netflix. And hey, have I missed out
43:22 on some funny comedy specials? I am absolutely sure of it. Have I missed out on some good
43:26 movies and some television shows that would be good and culturally relevant to talk about
43:30 100%? But my life has not gotten worse one. I Oda since canceling Netflix. I'm so busy
43:40 with, you know, with my family, with sweet baby James, with another baby on the way,
43:44 with jujitsu, with this podcast, with reading with everything, that adding a Netflix show
43:50 that I would just binge for a couple of weeks. That's not really helping my life. It's just
43:54 entertaining me. Right. It's mental masturbation. Another entity that I don't support with my
43:59 intention anymore that I never really supported with my dollars is the NFL. So I've talked
44:03 about this before, but the NFL, and I guess you can throw the NBA in there as well, they
44:06 completely lost me with all the stuff that they were doing around Black Lives Matter
44:11 and all the stuff around George Floyd and some of the things that they're trying to signal
44:14 with LGBTQ community and all those different things in the NFL, specifically playing whatever
44:19 this thing's called in Black national anthem before their games and people are like, Oh,
44:23 it's not on television. Why would you even care? This is an organization that is bowing
44:27 the knee. They're big, powerful, multi-billion dollar knee to the woke mob. That's something
44:32 that they're doing. That's something that they absolutely are trying to do for a lot
44:36 of people. And for me, I'm not into it. I'm just not into it. I would love to sit down
44:41 on a Saturday afternoon and just turn on an NFL game and kind of go just kind of watch
44:44 it and do all those different things. But I don't want to support them with my attention
44:47 because they don't deserve my attention. Okay. This is an organization that has put their
44:52 flag in the ground. And this is a decision that they've made. This is how they're going
44:55 to act moving forward. Now, if you're an NFL guy and you want to watch the NFL and it
44:58 doesn't really bother you, that's what you think. But for me, they're going to get something
45:02 out of me if I give them my attention. And you might be like, well, you know, the Nielsen
45:06 ratings don't even really include, you know, your television specifically, and you want
45:09 to get into all these different integers, I'm not into it. I don't support this organization
45:14 that basically hates me. That says because I'm a cisgendered white male that somehow
45:18 I'm evil, right? That I'm racist that the NFL is doing the work of anti-racism. I'm
45:23 sorry. I'm out on the NFL. I'm out on the NBA. Forget you guys. And the last one I'll
45:27 kind of describe here, Starbucks. People are like, well, what are you having in Starbucks?
45:31 You're not even a coffee guy. Correct. I don't drink coffee, but you know, I used to go to
45:34 Starbucks. My girlfriend at the time now my wife, when she was in college, she worked
45:37 at Starbucks. It was a good little job for just off the campus. That was all squared
45:41 away and good to go. But did you know that Starbucks is a tremendous supporter of Planned
45:47 Parenthood? If you go to Planned Parenthood's website, they have this, you know, proud
45:51 list of all these companies that they do matching gifts for. So when you go and drink that,
45:56 you know, 900 calorie mocha frappo, half this half that with a couple of pumps of this that
46:02 abortion that is going to kill babies directly going to kill babies. Don't give me this nonsense
46:07 about, Oh, giving money to Planned Parenthood doesn't just go to abortion. That is their
46:11 business. They're not doing mammograms. They're not doing pap smears. They're killing babies
46:16 for $500, $600 a pop. They'll take out your baby in pieces, right? That's their business.
46:21 So I'm not supporting Starbucks, right? Our family doesn't do that. And it's kind of weird.
46:25 When people get a Starbucks gift cards, it's like, okay, someone's already spent that money.
46:29 Well, either give it away to somebody else or something like that. We're not going to
46:31 support a company like that. But this kind of begs this next question, because this is
46:35 an important thing. This is something that Adam has brought up with me before. It's like
46:38 Kyle, if you're going to cancel Netflix and not watch the NBA or the NFL and not go to
46:43 Starbucks and all these things, what about all the companies that are also doing crazy
46:47 evil things, right? You know, I'm sure this company is doing some evil stuff and sure that
46:51 company's doing some evil stuff. And here's the point. Here's kind of my line of delineation.
46:56 It's the evil that I know versus the evil that I don't know. So for me, I know the evil
47:03 that's being perpetrated by Netflix and the NBA and the NFL and Starbucks and those organizations.
47:08 So is it possible? Is it probable or even 100% true that I am supporting organizations
47:12 that have people that are flowing money into entities that I would not agree with that
47:16 are maybe even antithetical to the Judeo Christian worldview? I would say that it's probably 100%
47:21 true, but I don't know about those things. Okay, so I'll just use an example off top my
47:25 head. Let's just say Lowe's, you know, let's say Lowe's is giving a ton of money to plan
47:29 a parenthood. And I just didn't know about it. The moment that it's revealed to me that
47:33 they do, which I don't think that they do for the record, but the moment that it's revealed
47:36 to me that they do that, it is incumbent upon me to find a different place to buy screwdrivers.
47:41 Okay, different place to buy a drywall. But it's the evil that I know versus the evil
47:46 that I don't. Again, I can't insulate myself completely because for all I know, the microphone
47:51 that I'm speaking into is created by people that have children locked up in their basement
47:55 for sexual pleasure for all I know, right? But it's the evil I know versus the evil that
47:59 I don't. But I think it's very, very important for all of us to vote with our dollars and
48:03 our attention. Okay, another that's a right way that I would say against fighting cancel
48:07 culture is to use your business and your job as a weapon for good. Okay, so I've already
48:14 come up with a couple of examples with Gina Carano and Ali Williams with the Daily Wire.
48:19 You know, they're basically hiring these people that have been canceled. They're basically
48:22 with, you know, the flip of a switch, they're uncanceling these people. Right now Governor
48:25 Sant DeSantis in the state of Florida, he's telling cops that have been fired from their
48:30 departments all over the country because they wouldn't get the COVID vaccination. They're
48:34 like, come to Florida. We need more cops here in Florida. We love our police departments.
48:38 We love our police. We'll even give you a $5,000 bonus if you move down here and come
48:42 to Florida, right? Using your job, using your business, using your influence as a weapon
48:46 for good. If you have the means to do that, if that describes your situation, I would
48:50 say you absolutely should do that. But then the last thing here is that we need to create
48:55 a courageously speak out against evil without regard for the consequences. Again, going back
49:01 to my example about what Christians and conservatives typically do. They typically don't want anything
49:04 to do with any type of a, you know, negative emotions or negative words or something like
49:08 that. But we have to courageously speak out in these, in these moments when people are
49:12 being trying to be canceled for, for wrong reasons, we should speak up and support those
49:17 people. If there's businesses, I remember I was the CEO of Goya, you know, the food company.
49:21 He came out and supported President Trump and people tried to cancel Goya. And then all
49:25 of a sudden Goya had its like biggest quarter ever because everyone just went out and bought
49:28 out all the Goya products at their local Walmart, right? And so it's like that, that's a great
49:32 way to speak out. Like you can speak with your dollars and attention, but also my require
49:36 you speaking out in public speaking out on social media, those types of things are absolutely
49:40 things that we should focus on doing. But you might be thinking to yourself throughout
49:44 this entire discussion, well, we've been talking about this for almost 45 minutes to an hour
49:48 at this point. But why, why should Christians be concerned about cancel culture? Don't we
49:52 win in the end? Like, why are we worried about all these little culture wars? Okay. The reason
49:58 why Christians should be concerned about cancel culture is that the moral revolution and and
50:03 its revolutionaries, they will come for us because of all of our core foundational beliefs.
50:11 Because our core foundational beliefs are bigoted in their eyes. I mean, let's just go through
50:16 our beliefs. We believe in salvation in that it comes through Jesus alone, right? So John
50:21 14 six, Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the
50:25 father except through me. That's pretty bigoted. That's pretty exclusionary, right? We also
50:29 believe that morality is fixed. We don't believe in this postmodern idea that morality is what
50:33 it is like everybody can just kind of figure it out for themselves. We believe that absolute
50:37 truth exists. Again, we're not postmodern in any way. We believe that truth is attainable
50:42 and does exist. We believe in the immorality of homosexuality. Again, go back to Leviticus
50:46 1822. You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination. We don't really
50:51 use the word abomination, but abomination is basically, you know, something regarded
50:55 with disgust or hatred, like this extreme hatred or disgust was something, right? That's
50:59 what we believe. We also believe that gender is binary and can't be changed. Genesis five
51:04 one and two, when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God, male and female.
51:10 He created them and he blessed them and named them man when they were created, right? So
51:14 bigoted to think that we also believe that marriage is between one man and one woman
51:19 and is for life, except in the case of death or adultery. We believe that we shouldn't judge
51:24 people based on their immutable characteristics, such as their race, right? Essentially, Christians,
51:30 we are walking talking hate speech dispensers according to these people, okay? So we need
51:35 to be advised and we need to be ready because they will come for your job. They will come
51:41 for your business. They will come for your family. They'll come for your congregation.
51:45 And if things keep trending in the direction that they are going now, these people will
51:49 get their way. It's an inevitability. Again, I got talked about this earlier. Why are they
51:55 pushing so hard on Dave Chappelle? Because according to people like me, just a second
52:00 ago, he's uncancelable. So what if they can get him canceled? Who could they not cancel
52:06 after that? If they can cancel the president of the United States, if they can cancel Alex
52:12 Jones, if they could eventually cancel Joe Rogan or any of these people, can they not
52:15 cancel you? Can they not cancel me? It's inevitable. Now, I don't want us to look at
52:23 this in a ton of dismay by any stretch of the imagination because we do win in the end.
52:28 But your ability to do church in the way that you're doing church right now will likely
52:32 change in the future. And perhaps for the good though, because again, I agree with people
52:37 like Matt Chandler that have written entire books like this. This was in his book, Take
52:40 Heart. The church has always thrived when it was under a lot of oppression, right? Think
52:46 about the places where the church is growing the most right now in China and North Korea
52:53 in different crazy parts of sub Saharan Africa in Iran, right? In America, in the West, it's
53:00 been really, really easy for us. But we need to be ready because for a lot of people, if
53:05 this is your personality, if you get knocked down or if you face adversity, your first
53:10 reaction is to kind of whimper and just take it. And I would encourage you not to. And
53:17 the reason why is because we have things like what I said from the top of this podcast,
53:20 first Chronicles 28 20. Okay, I'll read it again. Then David said to Solomon, his son,
53:26 be strong and courageous and do it. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed for the
53:30 Lord God, even my God is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you until all the
53:35 work for the service of the house of the Lord is finished. Okay.
53:40 The public commentary points us out that this is the last exhortation to Solomon from David.
53:47 So this is his Hey guys, lean in. It's the last play. We're down. We've got to get this.
53:52 We got to get this ball in the end zone. Everybody listen and everybody just pay attention.
53:56 That's his moment, right? This is his last moment with his son Solomon. And the thing
54:01 that's important because he says be strong and courageous and do it the and do part.
54:06 This is pointed out by Ellicott's commentary and do is added because the time for action
54:11 is imminent. Okay. So for all of us, the time for action in this area is imminent. If it
54:20 hasn't already arrived for you, it's coming. And you have to be prepared. Again, with undaunted
54:24 life, we're here to equip you to be able to push back darkness. But what if you weren't
54:28 aware of cancel culture? What if you thought cancel culture was something that happens
54:32 over there to those people, not something that could hit your home, your business, your congregation.
54:38 You won't be ready. You've got to be ready to push back. All right, guys, before we let
54:42 you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost out undaunted life. Our mission is equipping
54:46 men to push back darkness with content that for just spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
54:50 So the only thing I've got for you today is I've got a linked episode 153 called Yes,
54:54 You Should Cancel Netflix. But guys, you can get it wherever you're listening to this just
54:57 scroll through and find episode 153. All right. Thanks guys so much for listening to this
55:00 podcast. We do appreciate it wherever you're listening to this. Please subscribe, rate
55:04 and leave us a positive review. If you want to come speak live at your event or on your
55:08 podcast, email me at info@undontadotlife. That's i-n-f-o @undontadotlife. You can follow us
55:14 on Instagram and TikTok and like us on Facebook and you can check out our website for everything
55:17 else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go
55:20 to www.undontadotlife. And we also want to thank the band August Prince Red for allowing
55:24 us to use your music for our content. The intro to a track on this podcast is our song
55:28 Cutting the Ties, which is off their 10th anniversary re-recording of their album Leveler. The
55:32 links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back
55:38 darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion
55:45 of Judah.
56:02 I-N-E-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I.
Key quotes
3
Kyle Thompson
People equate canceling with cancel culture. They're not the same thing.
Kyle Thompson
Never ever apologize to the mob.
Kyle Thompson
Vote with your dollars and attention.
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