Douglas Murray on Joe Rogan: “Politicians are using trans rights as a bartering ram for something else”.

[RandomGel]

More light. In this podcast Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray discuss many issues but there is a great discussion on identity politics.

Quite rightly Douglas Murray describes politicians as using trans rights as a battering ram for something else.

Joe Rogan refers to the TRA mantra “there is no such thing as biological sex” as ridiculous.

It’s heartening to see Abigail Shearer and Debra Soh referenced and praised for taking a stand, living their truth and refusing to go along with the crowd.

It is longer than 2 hours long but it is really is worth a listen. I certainly don’t agree with everything but much sense is spoken particularly around identity politics and the medicalisation of children as being something we will look back on with abject horror. I am so glad that these debates are happening and on such a large platform.

1.7 million views,18,000 comments from a posting of 2 days ago.

Ooh yes, agree with the Weinstein videos. I wish we heard more from Heather though - I love her!

Necessary have you see the interview Helen Joyce did with Benjamin Boyce? Think it was called 'decoding the gender matrix'. It was excellent.

I think you're right that maths/science minded people are often less tolerant of this bullshit. Maybe because their disciplines have been harder to influence with ideology. They often deal in verifiable facts. But then you look at the 2+2=5 thing and realise that these fields are not immune. I do think it's likely that this is where it will fall down, though, having ravaged the humanities which seemingly had virtually zero defences!

I hope it all falls apart. I'm feeling hopeful, especially when I see the viewing figures on some of these podcasts. You can try and dismiss it all as right-wing nonsense but people are watching and listening in ever greater numbers, and that approach just isn't going to work forever.

A lot f this is a bit over my head, but I do strongly disagree with this:
Particularly about how feminism would do well to centre and value motherhood and that in order for women to truly liberated we need to rethink how we structure society placing higher priority on motherhood and caring.
I would prefer it it society would value parenthood and caring, and if men were absolutely expected to be carers the same as we are. I know we have a maternal instinct, but personally my maternal instinct doesn't mean that men can't also care for children, the sick and the elderley.
Given the choice I would have had a really good career. If the father of my child had stepped up and taken on half the responsibility I would have had economic freedom and a better future.
I realised at 18 years old that women were supposed to choose between family and work and men didn't have to and it struck me as so unfair and obvious that until we can have both we will never be liberated.
Actually, imo, the higher up the food chain you get, the more pronounced the gender roles I think. I know more plasterers and chefs who care for their kids properly and regularly than middle class men with office based careers.
Most women have two children. Yes, for the first year or maybe two your instinct is different to that of a man's, and that's OK, men and women are different in lots of respects. But after that it's just that no-one else steps up, and because we care about our children's well being we will always put them first.It's economic emotional blackmail. And I do not think it is innate that we prioritise our children when men don't, I think it's because they know someone else will so they can be selfish. I happen to know two dads who have raised children from infancy, with no mother around, and they have done exactly what a woman would do, worked around their kids and sacrificed a lot.
Tbh I am a bit sick of men discussing women's issues and coming to lofty opinions about them. I wish men would talk less and wipe arses more.

Helen's actually done two with BB. The gender matrix one was the second. Go and find her first one; I think it was even better. That's where I found out she was an actual mathematician, not just an economist (plugh) - she gets into that aspect of it a bit. ()

these fields are not immune

It appears no field is immune - the pattern works anywhere. What these folks are doing isn't "SUBJECT" it's "SUBJECT Studies". And SUBJECT Studies is often a lot easier than SUBJECT. Doubly so in concrete subjects.

In any field the failed SUBJECTicians now have an opportunity to lord it over the actual SUBJECTicians with "criticism".

If "STEM" (hate the acronym) has been more resistant, I cynically think that's because people who don't manage to become academics in those fields get a proper job instead, just as much as any anti-bullshit tendency.

The problem now is that the whole thing is so entrenched you can have people with no real expertise in a field at all, and who could never actually do any real work in it, coming in to criticise it, getting paid for it, and being taken seriously and getting papers published in the real journals where people are really performing the field. It's Invasion of the Administrators.

@queenofknives

Ooh yes, agree with the Weinstein videos. I wish we heard more from Heather though - I love her!

Necessary have you see the interview Helen Joyce did with Benjamin Boyce? Think it was called 'decoding the gender matrix'. It was excellent.

I think you're right that maths/science minded people are often less tolerant of this bullshit. Maybe because their disciplines have been harder to influence with ideology. They often deal in verifiable facts. But then you look at the 2+2=5 thing and realise that these fields are not immune. I do think it's likely that this is where it will fall down, though, having ravaged the humanities which seemingly had virtually zero defences!

I hope it all falls apart. I'm feeling hopeful, especially when I see the viewing figures on some of these podcasts. You can try and dismiss it all as right-wing nonsense but people are watching and listening in ever greater numbers, and that approach just isn't going to work forever.

The humanities thing is interesting. Literature based studies of course all the various "studies" departments (which I am not sure should even exist in the form they do) have been very vulnerable.

Interestingly so has modern philosophy to a large extent, whereas more traditional philosophy seems to have been less likely to fall into the void. I find that really interesting. Plato said that philosophy was essentially mathematical and traditionally philosophers have tended to agree with that, but a lot of late 19th/early 20th century philosophers would say that ancient and medieval philosophy were insufficiently mathematical and got all caught up in metaphysics etc. Whereas they themselves were very much the opposite.

@IfNotNow12

A lot f this is a bit over my head, but I do strongly disagree with this: Particularly about how feminism would do well to centre and value motherhood and that in order for women to truly liberated we need to rethink how we structure society placing higher priority on motherhood and caring. I would prefer it it society would value parenthood and caring, and if men were absolutely expected to be carers the same as we are. I know we have a maternal instinct, but personally my maternal instinct doesn't mean that men can't also care for children, the sick and the elderley. Given the choice I would have had a really good career. If the father of my child had stepped up and taken on half the responsibility I would have had economic freedom and a better future. I realised at 18 years old that women were supposed to choose between family and work and men didn't have to and it struck me as so unfair and obvious that until we can have both we will never be liberated. Actually, imo, the higher up the food chain you get, the more pronounced the gender roles I think. I know more plasterers and chefs who care for their kids properly and regularly than middle class men with office based careers. Most women have two children. Yes, for the first year or maybe two your instinct is different to that of a man's, and that's OK, men and women are different in lots of respects. But after that it's just that no-one else steps up, and because we care about our children's well being we will always put them first.It's economic emotional blackmail. And I do not think it is innate that we prioritise our children when men don't, I think it's because they know someone else will so they can be selfish. I happen to know two dads who have raised children from infancy, with no mother around, and they have done exactly what a woman would do, worked around their kids and sacrificed a lot. Tbh I am a bit sick of men discussing women's issues and coming to lofty opinions about them. I wish men would talk less and wipe arses more.

I have two thoughts about this.

The first is that whether men ought to step up isn't maybe the question. Of course they should, but how a couple negotiates that is often fairly complex, and you can't just wish the nature of pregnancy, breastfeeding, and babyhood generally out of the equation.

In a lot of traditional societies the care of young boys does pass over to men during childhood, because they start to learn the male coded tasks in their society which they learn from men. Work in our society doesn't fit that way though, nor does education.

The other issue is around paid care. Putting children in paid care still means women are caring for them, just different women. Whether or not you'd ever have more men going into care of pre-schoolers if it was a better paid sector, there is some good reason to think it would still not be equal, and also many parents simply do not want to leave small kids with strange men.

I'm not at all ignoring pregnancy, breastfeeding etc. It's just that those things actually take up a very small proportion of women's lives, as compared to the actual economic impact on women. As for negotiating between couples- yes, in an ideal world. But in reality, if shared parental leave is not used by men, or expected by employers, once the first year or so has gone by women are often left with no leverage to negotiate with.
I don't think there is anything wrong with women being paid to look after children. It's a valid job isn't it?
I just wholeheartedly believe that without some economic independence and without parenthood also inconveniencing men we are nowhere.

@IfNotNow12

I'm not at all ignoring pregnancy, breastfeeding etc. It's just that those things actually take up a very small proportion of women's lives, as compared to the actual economic impact on women. As for negotiating between couples- yes, in an ideal world. But in reality, if shared parental leave is not used by men, or expected by employers, once the first year or so has gone by women are often left with no leverage to negotiate with. I don't think there is anything wrong with women being paid to look after children. It's a valid job isn't it? I just wholeheartedly believe that without some economic independence and without parenthood also inconveniencing men we are nowhere.

How small is small? Typically a woman is affected for at least part of the pregnancy and time to recover - and those timeframes are often not recognised as much as they ought to be, with about a year of a fairly dependent infant. Breastfeeding will be six months as fairly intensive work and is still often significant for the second six months. Pumping in many ways is more work for the mother rather than less. I would say you have about a year of fairly intensive mothering per child, and it's not unusual for it to be more even if you don't count children with special needs. That does make a difference to the woman's opportunities and also to the kinds of careers that may appeal to her. Women who have more than two children will feel those effects more and in fact I think for many women, if they have more than two kids, working part time or not working starts to seem like a sensible choice.

Of course you can say, well women who choose that make their own bed. But since the initial premise seems to be, if men aren't affected career wise by having kids why should women be, that still applies. If a man isn't affected by the physical and care aspects of having four, or six, or ten kids, why should a woman be?

The answer is the same - it affects them differently because the nature of reproduction is very different for men and women. It's the largest and most extreme difference between the sexes across the board. We've always known that a woman with no kids has it easier in terms of career and these days women generally have as much career success as men as long as they don't have them. But saying have fewer kids is really just a modified version of saying have no kids to have a good career.

I don't have a problem with women being paid carers, I was one, but if you are looking to free women from childcare, it's not really accomplishing that, is it? It's typically just going to free certain women, often defined by class. Which, rather interestingly, tends to advantage that class overall.

I think it’s also worth recognising that biology means that women cannot ‘choose’ to become parents at the same age that men can to the same extent.

A man who takes a year’s leave/part time leave from work at the age of 50 will likely not suffer the same long-term damage to their career prospects as they would have at the age of 29. They are probably more established in their chosen field and have escaped from the constraints placed on them in more junior roles.

The vast, vast, vast majority of women do not have the option to put off parenthood until that age. It’s just not a choice.

I thought it was interesting that when universities offered paid parental leave to be shared equally between parents, mothers used their leave for childcare, and fathers used theirs to work on their academic projects. So the shared leave idea ended up advantaging men even more! (I think I learned that from Helen Joyce.)

Also to add to comments above, a lot of women really would prefer to be at home with their babies and young children. Not all women - some women are desperate for adult company and they want to go back to work as soon as possible! And I don't blame them. I think some mothers would like to be able to be at home but have more adults around too. There is a physical haze over the first six months to a year when mum and baby are meant to be bonded, almost an extension of pregnancy even. It hurts to be separated from your babies before you're ready.

I agree that men should take more responsibility for child care, or at least do their bit and not be an extra child for the woman to take care of! Definitely you can make it a legal requirement for men to be financially responsible for their children, no matter what. And I think childcare should be provided free of charge by all employers and statutory organisations. Flexible working. Longer maternity leave, more protections. There's a lot we could do without having to do anything totally drastic.

The problem now is that the whole thing is so entrenched you can have people with no real expertise in a field at all, and who could never actually do any real work in it, coming in to criticise it, getting paid for it, and being taken seriously and getting papers published in the real journals where people are really performing the field.

Well yes. If the 'work' is to tear things apart, then anyone can do it. I know sooooo many PhDs and I'm sorry, they are not especially smart people. They've found a field in which they don't need any expertise or talent, and they've made a home there. I guess it works in a dynamic with academic inflation - there are very few academic qualifications now that would impress me. PhD in astrophysics, maybe. That sort of thing. Everything else can be done by WAFFLE.

I remember being at uni and having lecturers pull me up for waffle - and I was studying in the humanities. They didn't tolerate any handwaving, sophistry, or indeed any lack of rigor. I'm sorry that such standards no longer seem to exist in the humanities, but I'm hardly surprised. The work I see from students now is often entirely made of waffle.

@queenofknives

I thought it was interesting that when universities offered paid parental leave to be shared equally between parents, mothers used their leave for childcare, and fathers used theirs to work on their academic projects. So the shared leave idea ended up advantaging men even more! (I think I learned that from Helen Joyce.)

Also to add to comments above, a lot of women really would prefer to be at home with their babies and young children. Not all women - some women are desperate for adult company and they want to go back to work as soon as possible! And I don't blame them. I think some mothers would like to be able to be at home but have more adults around too. There is a physical haze over the first six months to a year when mum and baby are meant to be bonded, almost an extension of pregnancy even. It hurts to be separated from your babies before you're ready.

I agree that men should take more responsibility for child care, or at least do their bit and not be an extra child for the woman to take care of! Definitely you can make it a legal requirement for men to be financially responsible for their children, no matter what. And I think childcare should be provided free of charge by all employers and statutory organisations. Flexible working. Longer maternity leave, more protections. There's a lot we could do without having to do anything totally drastic.

I'm not totally surprised about the baby thing with academics. Mothers typically take the first six months with shared leave and it's so much more intense than the second half of that year. Plus you are just physically affected differently. When I had my second baby my husband was able to take eight months of leave while I was still home, as I wasn't working at that point. Which was good overall. But he was still able to do a lot more for himself than I was with a baby who wasn't at all interested in bottles. (Instead of working on career related stuff though he took a pottery class!)

The thing that always worries me about state or employer provided child care is that it is likely to undermine the ability of families to have a parent choose to be at home. And honestly I don't care if it's the mother 80% of the time which I think is a likely split. But as a society I think we need a reserve of people who are doing the work of the domestic sphere that isn't so easily monetised, who are flexible in where their energy can be applied. I think it's better for children, for the obesity crises, for health, for elderly people, for the environment, and people's stress levels.

To me the question is how do we give people security while allowing for that, even more than choice. In any scenario it seems to me people's choices end up coming from necessity a lot of the time, there's not so much an advantage either way.

Do you ever get the sense people are reading FWR and collecting bits and pieces to write about?

unherd.com/2020/09/how-we-all-became-prisoners-of-gender/

The thing about that article that strikes me straight away is that while women are more nurturing, men are not children.

It is all very well as a woman deciding you want to clean up after a small child, but the author’s father isn’t a child. Why can’t he clear his own plates away?

And that would be the sexist element. Women being nurturing isn’t a sign they want to look after men. Women having an interest in aesthetics doesn’t mean they are dressing for men. Women having compassion doesn’t mean we would should feel sorry for me.

So even for people who believe that women are innately more likely to have certain qualities, that doesn’t mean the purpose of those qualities should be to indulge men.

Men not me!

Stripes I agree and I think that article was a bit of a ramble. I don't think, for example, that stereotypes have become more entrenched because we're more free to choose. I am simply talking about the last 30 years now, where we have gone from fairly standard unisex toys/clothes for kids to extreme pinkification for girls, for instance. I doubt there's much evidence to suggest girls are naturally choosing more of this crap. I also don't think that it's a natural progression that girls are now being inducted into extreme sexual practices at a young age - if anything, nature might suggest this is anathema to girls. (I have to admit I skimmed some bits though as I found it a bit all over the place, so maybe I missed something.)

But it's clear that journalists are getting all their best ideas from us, definitely

To me the question is how do we give people security while allowing for that, even more than choice.
I suspect that the answer might be to free up something somewhere else in the system. Like, just for example, if there was a universal basic income, that might give parents way more flexibility in those early years and mean fathers could have more time with kids too. Grants for mature students might be another idea (well, to be fair, I would make all education free and give everyone a grant. I would also make it possible to fail your degree, because you're not a fucking customer paying for a qualification... but that's another topic!) There are probably lots of things we could be doing that would support mums and parents in general that aren't necessarily direct interventions in things like childcare.

@Stripesgalore

The thing about that article that strikes me straight away is that while women are more nurturing, men are not children.

It is all very well as a woman deciding you want to clean up after a small child, but the author’s father isn’t a child. Why can’t he clear his own plates away?

And that would be the sexist element. Women being nurturing isn’t a sign they want to look after men. Women having an interest in aesthetics doesn’t mean they are dressing for men. Women having compassion doesn’t mean we would should feel sorry for me.

So even for people who believe that women are innately more likely to have certain qualities, that doesn’t mean the purpose of those qualities should be to indulge men.

I thought the issue about who washed up was interesting, but it raised questions for me too. I'm not sure it said anything really about caring for men.

I wondered if she'd ever asked he mom about it for one thing, because I would be interested to see how she saw the balance of labour. Did she see her job as less intense in the day with more time to herself, so she allowed her husband to have a break after his work day? Did the sons take care of the lawn mowing while the author didn't have to? Etc. I don't subscribe to the view that adults have to equally share each job in a household. And while I think it's often better if kids do so far as they are able, it's probably not as important as them putting in about equal effort.

I know sooooo many PhDs and I'm sorry, they are not especially smart people. They've found a field in which they don't need any expertise or talent, and they've made a home there. I guess it works in a dynamic with academic inflation - there are very few academic qualifications now that would impress me.

Some of the most stupid people I have ever met were doctoral students I encountered when studying my own PhD. It really put me off academia...

I think one of the underlying issues within education is how education has become a performed activity, rather than a process of intellectual growth. If, for instance, you are studying history, you tend to now learn how to perform historical analysis; in practical terms, this is phrasing matters in the right way, both in written and oral argument, deploying the correct structures, working with the correct level of gravitas. You don’t actually need to know much about history; taking on facts, understanding contexts, and aspiring towards objectivity are no longer on the agenda. Indeed, postmodernist thought claims that there are no such things as “facts” and “objectivity” anyway, so there is no point in trying to make an argument that is correct. It is, from the performative point of view, just a set of opinions, and the preferred argument is the one which is the best performed.

One consequence of this is that, if you treat your education as a performance, you don’t actually learn anything. I remember an instance of this in a past workplace, where members of a team had to write 100-word summaries of cases which they were working. They couldn’t manage this because, despite the fact that they were all graduates, they hadn’t learnt anything at university, other than performance skills. Performance is, of course, antithetical to education, because it’s so specific that you will never acquire what might be considered a transferable skill.

Different types of subjects lend themselves to performance in varying levels. Whilst there is some performance in STEM, you do have to have some measurable skills. Humanities are very heavily performative now, but at least have a solid external frame of reference. The work of a history PhD may be performance, for instance, but the past did, at least, actually exist. “Studies” subjects are the worst in terms of being overtaken by performance, because they are entirely insular, and self-reflexive. Thus, you can have Kehinde Andrews arguing in favour of censorship, as he plays the role of being a professor in a studies field, as he’s working without any intellectual framework, so can make up whatever constitutes appropriate behaviour, as long as he performs the role correctly.

Last year, I was interviewing candidates for a fairly-high paying role in a multinational organisation. Despite notionally being a graduate role, none of the candidates actually had a degree. It was very striking at the time and, I think, said something about what universities are producing.

I really wonder what the future of the university is going to be. As mentioned, many no longer educate people. Even in the sciences the education seems to be more technical and in many universities people can graduate from the sciences and professional programs without the general liberal arts knowledge that we used to see as fundamental part of being educated. (I always found it really interesting to see the older professors in subjects like the sciences, or even things like economics, who just seemed to have been educated entirely differently than the young masters and doctoral students.)
And increasingly universities are not worth the investment in terms of real job knowledge, and a lot of what happens is pure credentialism. I don't know how long students will be willing or able to pay for it.

I really do think true education has a strong communal element in almost all cases, and I wonder if people who want that kind of experience and mentorship won't begin to look elsewhere for it. How that might play out I don't know.

John Bloody hell, that is a brilliant comment which articulates succinctly what I've been trying and failing to say for a long time. That's exactly it: it's a performance.

Thus, you can have Kehinde Andrews arguing in favour of censorship, as he plays the role of being a professor in a studies field, as he’s working without any intellectual framework, so can make up whatever constitutes appropriate behaviour, as long as he performs the role correctly. Yes - and anyone who hasn't watched him in the Intelligence Squared debate should do so, and witness him doing exactly this. I was really quite offended by the fact he hadn't prepared for the debate, but now I see that this is quite in keeping with this performative version of academia. He doesn't have to prepare, because there is nothing to prepare. There's nothing substantive to communicate; he simply has to inhabit the role of 'professor' or not even that. He had to play the part of 'oppressed victim of white supremacy bravely pushing back against the racist establishment.' So he can say anything at all as long as it's within that self-defined role. He can use language in a way that suggests he is analysing and evaluating, but in fact the language is just part of the performance, it doesn't relate to anything real or verifiable.

This also explains why my students are often so insulted and deeply challenged when I expect them to actually do work. They are expecting to just play the part of 'student,' to perform learning, not actually do learning. They are so completely lost. And it's not just students who can't write an accurate summary or a well-structured paragraph or a logical argument; most of their teachers cannot do it either.

Also explains the whole 'doing the work' thing. 'Doing the work' only means 'saying the right phrases, using the right language'. There is no 'work' of anti-racism, there is only the performance of the lines.

This was a very illuminating comment, thank you!

I really wonder what the future of the university is going to be.
Goosefoot I wonder, too. I don't think it has a future if it continues down this path. I wouldn't want to go to university now and I am increasingly seeing the brightest and most skilled students either going to technical subjects like engineering, or heading into fields like medicine, or just dropping out. There's nothing for the students who would previously have gone into the humanities (which we still need to study!) The students going for humanities now are not the brilliant critical thinkers or those hungry for knowledge. I don't know what those people can do - there is nothing for them unless they want to get their brains washed by some fake-professor.

Jonathan Haidt says universities should declare themselves either for social justice or for truth, and let students decide. Of course, they'll never do that, because the social justice people cannot stand the idea of being rejected. I think it's likely that universities with good reputations in STEM and medicine and so on will do okay, and all the 'studies' universities will start to dramatically fail. Only fantatics want to go to Evergreen.

Stripes
I am sure you have already seen this, but there is a Joe Rogan interview with James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian which discusses the stultifying atmosphere in American academia, where professors are terrified of being reported by their students. For using metaphors. Lindsay describes the paradigm of starting with a conclusion, the one shared by your peers, and a total absence of research. Initially, this affected the social sciences and humanities, but as Brett Weinstein has described, it is now spreading thru every discipline, along with the assertion that the scientific method itself is racist. That the tools of Enlightenment are tainted. None of the absurd claims of post modernists pass the Popper test. What is being taught in social sciences is now the antithesis of a 'liberal' education. It is narrow, insular orthodoxy predicated upon a Manichean view of 'good' versus 'evil.' The academy was always left leaning but it is now completely dominated by a rigid political viewpoint which regards dissent, debate, the exploration of a diversity of ideas as anathema.

Yes, this is what concerns me.

I am being a little unfair on Murray, who has researched and published books on very different subject matters. It’s not like he’s a one trick pony. But I see him as someone who is desperate to find people who will match him in intellect so that he can actually debate with them. Because that’s part of how we think, through collective discussion and debate.

We’re in a climate where people passively repeat ideas, even if they make no sense, as if they are stating a mystery of faith rather than attempting to explain what they mean.

I appreciate that Joe Rogan is a good interviewer because he encourages people to expand upon ideas while remaining mostly passive himself. He wouldn’t be able to draw out the 25% of interesting points from the 75% nonsense from someone like Alex Jones if he wasn’t quite passive.

But where do people get to actually discuss things now? We discuss things more freely on here than many people dare in the media or in academia, and that’s despite the pressure on MN to moderate politically.

It is almost as if people are being trained to think in a dysfunctional way that leaves them individually passive and weak and yet fixated on the dynamics of power.

It is almost as if people are being trained to think in a dysfunctional way that leaves them individually passive and weak and yet fixated on the dynamics of power.

That's exactly what people are being trained to do. Educated to do, even. Maybe we need to bring back the salon. Or maybe we should start book clubs to discuss books like The Madness of Crowds and Cynical Theories, and maybe classics of political writing and philosophy. Hmm.

We’re in a climate where people passively repeat ideas, even if they make no sense, as if they are stating a mystery of faith rather than attempting to explain what they mean.....It is almost as if people are being trained to think in a dysfunctional way that leaves them individually passive and weak and yet fixated on the dynamics of power.
This right here, it's amazing how few people question things these days, it's accepted as fact. I worry about the mental health of some youngsters who live in a carefully curated reality reinforced by an education system that now rewards performative actions and a increasingly partisan media which presents opinions as facts. No wonder they react in anger/distress whenever they are challenged.
I really liked this comment I saw elsewhere which sort of sums up where we are:

"To sustain itself for any length of time, any system built on lies must suppress the truth. Because truth is convincing. As we see here. That's why The Machine has to control all of the media, they hate independent media. That's why social media separates us into our own little bubbles. That's why they don't teach critical thinking in schools. That's why they get everyone arguing. Divide us by race. Divide us by gender. Divide us by class. Divide...All we have to do is talk and listen to each other, and the lies filter out and the truth just presents itself for all to see. We're all Americans. We all want what is best for our children.Imagine all the lies exposed - it's happening. Imagine a system built on the truth..."

But where do people get to actually discuss things now? We discuss things more freely on here than many people dare in the media or in academia, and that’s despite the pressure on MN to moderate politically

I think that is a very worrying indication of the contraction of intellectual freedom in the very institutions which are supposed to embody it. The impact of this stultifying, oppressive environment will hobble the countries where it has become dominant.