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Hi. I'm Ron Coleman, a partner in the

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Dillon Law Group, social media legend, and free

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speech enthusiast.

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When I started the Coleman Nation podcast in

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the spring of 2021,

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its focus was on free expression and censorship

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on the Internet.

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But as important as that subject is to

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me, which is very important,

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I felt hemmed in in the podcast.

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I wanted to spend more time talking to

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the interesting people I've met in my legal

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and free speech work

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without feeling a need to have them all

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make the same point.

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So I culminated the first series of the

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podcast and have started the second series.

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I hope you'll enjoy these conversations

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as much as I have recording them. I,

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culminators,

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we're going to a far distant land today,

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A land that has become a lot more

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distant than I ever think I thought it

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would become in certain respects

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besides being

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at the antipode

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and the opposite end of the world from

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where we are now. That's Australia, and we're

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gonna talk to Helen Dale.

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The very interesting,

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very eclectic,

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and not entirely uncontroversial

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writer

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who you can find at Helen Dale. I

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I just love her subtitle,

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not on your team, but always fair.

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I wish I'd thought of that.

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That's also the name of my substack as

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well. I well, I didn't put but always

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fair in it because it would have made

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the string

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too long to type into the search bar.

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You you mean on you you mean on

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the on on the, substack?

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But the substack is just www.notonyourteam.co.uk.

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Do be aware that whilst my initial claim

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to fame was in Australia as a novelist,

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I don't live there anymore and haven't done

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so since,

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2,000 the end of 2016.

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I I I live in the UK now,

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so it's white's daylight. So you It's white's

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daylight here. Yes. And and you've and you've

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also

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so you you left Australia just about the

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time it became

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began becoming benighted a little bit before.

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Maybe we'll you may have Well, I've I've

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come back and forth.

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I but my last visit to Australia

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was in 2018,

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and it was actually for the the second

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Kingdom of the Wicked novel, which is my

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3rd novel overall.

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And it was the book the author tour

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for that to Australia,

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in

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2018 because of COVID

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and also decisions of mine. I I can't

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just blame COVID, decisions of mine. I'd not

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gone back,

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and I'm going back this year in for

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the whole of October for a number of

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conferences and events with Australian think tanks and

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organizations.

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So, Helen,

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you start out as a writer. Correct? That

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Yes.

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And you broke onto the scene with this

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Ukrainian

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novel

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that

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perhaps there were mixed signals?

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That was the one that was the enormous

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bestseller.

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The enormous bestseller? Australia. Which And it won

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the Miles and it won the Miles Franklin,

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which is the Australian equivalent of the Pulitzer.

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And you got into a little bit of

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controversy there over whether it was

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true fiction I had a

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well, I had a run-in, and we can

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talk about this if you like because it's

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now become a global phenomenon. I think we

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should. I had a run Yeah. I had

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a run-in with the Jewish lobby, and

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they used to fight their battles

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in a more peaceful

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way. They were never violent,

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but in every other respect,

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the way the Workies do.

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So it would be letters to Oh, a

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lot of them are the same people.

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And that's what? Letters to your employer. It

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would be Really?

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Letters to your university.

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Very unpleasant letters to to me. And this

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was over over the content of the novel?

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Yes. It was. It was basically, it's a

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a it works like a diptych.

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So it this is historical fiction, not science

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fiction, by the way. There is no science

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fiction in this first book actually to assure

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people of that. Please please don't get It's

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complicated enough.

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Yeah. It's a diptych where basically half of

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the book is set in the Holodomor, and

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half of it is set in the holocaust.

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And I use the attitudes of the

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period.

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So there are a significant number of Ukrainian

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collaborators in it and

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with the Nazis,

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and

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they their motivations

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for doing what they are doing took bad

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things to Jews, but not only to Jews

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at polls and stuff as well.

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In all the bases not to the Jews

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who caused the who are who had any

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who any involvement in causing the halodomor.

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I mean Well, Stalin was very good at

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spiriting people away, and it is I found

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when I researched the novel that there was

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still bitterness in Ukraine that Stalin had succeeded

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in getting rid of

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spiriting Lazar Koganovich

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out of

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Kyiv,

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because

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he was the sort of focal point of

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the hatred.

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He was an an incredible mass murderer. People

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you know, if it weren't for Stalin In

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Ukraine. Yeah. People don't appreciate I mean, he's

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he's such a minor character in people's

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understanding,

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like, impressionistic understanding

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of the Bolsheviks. You think, okay. Stalin,

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Trotsky, Bukharin.

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You know, used Lenin, Beria. He's the names

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that if you pay attention to that stuff.

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Where already people start getting more sophisticated.

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No one gets to Kaganovich,

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who was amazingly

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one of the few Jews to outlive

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Stalin in in the top communist leadership, but

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he was an absolute

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butcher, an absolute son of a bitch, and

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unapologetic

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to his last moments on Earth.

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Well, this is the thing. I was actually

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in Ukraine

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when he died. Oh, man.

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Okay. And this is how I got this

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palpable

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sense of

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from people that he was never brought to

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justice and the equivalent in including in terms

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of the numbers of dead.

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The the other thing was, of course, is

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to to Ukrainians, he's like Ackerman

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is to Israelis.

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There there is a very, very similar

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sort of view in the history Well, not

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just Israeli. Say. Jews and I mean, that

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that's one of the examples where you you

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should say Jews and not Israelis.

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The Israelis were the ones who took care

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of him, but he wasn't killing Israelis. He

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was killing Jews.

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But the I mean, in terms of this

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is something that just

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crystallized a huge moment in an entire country's

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history. And you but this is after your

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book had been written?

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Pekanovich died actually in the nineties. So Right.

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Oh, no. Right. Okay. Of course. Mhmm. So

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this is I was doing the research for

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it. So this is why this point constantly

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Wasn't you the one who who who croaked

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right? What just, like

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Yes. Like, his last words were When the

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news first came out, I thought he had

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been killed when I first heard news, you

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know, from Ukrainians

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gabbling to each other, and I was learning

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the language. You and I are understanding each

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other. Don't listen to me. Gosh.

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Building the fall of the Soviet Union.

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I thought this is going to turn into

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Romania. This is not going to be nice

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and peaceful like Poland or East Germany. This

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is going to there's going to be violence,

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and it wasn't. But that's what I thought.

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Which many which many say now was

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not that there should have been violence or,

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you know,

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uncontrolled,

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retribution, but that the lack there were there's

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never was really

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any sort of coming to terms,

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you know, with a reckoning for people who

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had been involved in

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inhuman

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crimes against humanity that the Soviet Union Communism

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wasn't and Marxism has never been held to

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account. There was no judgment at Nuremberg. There

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was no icon trial. I mean, there were

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a few little attempts in in what had

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been East Germany to get some Stasi people.

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There were a few attempts in Ukraine,

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few attempts in the Baltic countries, but it

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all fizzled, and you you had very, very

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old people. And this is when

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in germ West Germany, when they were because

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they were so old, when they were trying

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some of the old Nazis, they were all

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getting suspended sentences because they were all ancient,

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and you had some starce

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commando who was the same thing. They were

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getting suspended sentences because it's very difficult to

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send.

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As soon as you start having

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in the United States. Oh, they're gonna try

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had said Trump to jail.

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I'm sorry. I won't say anything other than

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that

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little about Yeah. No. Well, I I I'm

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not American. But I'm not sure. So I'm

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sorry that's all the interruptions. You back to

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the dip ditch. So you so you're so

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you were doing so I imagine

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right off the bat,

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the these

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professional

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holocaust

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people who have made the Holocaust I I

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was not allowed to compare. That was the

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first thing. Thou shall not compare.

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That, the next thing was, you're blaming us,

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which came from two directions, but only the

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Jewish one was public because Ukrainians were just

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less prominent in in the arts and culture,

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but I heard about this privately,

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was the mutual blame game. Oh, we collaborated

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with Hitler because you lot were all commies,

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and we were all commies because you lot

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had pogroms on us.

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Alright. I mean, you know for continuously.

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It's very, very unpleasant to be in the

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middle of. And both premised on this savage

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concept of group guilt.

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Yes. Oh, and and you must understand this

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in every possible sense of,

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the this idea of of group blame, group

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guilt,

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group responsibility.

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And

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also,

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this is something that is we need to

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be aware of that's

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become a big part of culture, but it

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was pervasive

275
00:10:15,809 --> 00:10:17,970
amongst these two groups when I was writing

276
00:10:17,970 --> 00:10:19,649
the book and it became really, really clear

277
00:10:19,649 --> 00:10:20,309
to me.

278
00:10:20,795 --> 00:10:24,495
Is holding someone account, an individual account,

279
00:10:25,035 --> 00:10:27,754
to account, often in a pretty destructive way,

280
00:10:27,754 --> 00:10:29,835
like confiscating their property and so on and

281
00:10:29,835 --> 00:10:30,379
so forth,

282
00:10:30,860 --> 00:10:33,179
or worse. But we'll start with confiscating the

283
00:10:33,179 --> 00:10:35,340
property because they both started like this and

284
00:10:35,340 --> 00:10:36,480
then it became worse.

285
00:10:36,860 --> 00:10:39,179
Holding someone to account for something that their

286
00:10:39,179 --> 00:10:40,320
ancestors did.

287
00:10:42,044 --> 00:10:44,225
Which underlies the Palestine Israel

288
00:10:44,924 --> 00:10:46,684
Yes. Business. And the thing is with the

289
00:10:46,684 --> 00:10:47,184
ancestors,

290
00:10:48,044 --> 00:10:50,350
you would get I mean, sometimes a rich

291
00:10:55,069 --> 00:10:57,250
twisted about things that went back

292
00:10:57,870 --> 00:10:58,850
back to the

293
00:10:59,375 --> 00:11:02,894
Polish Lithuanian Commonwealths, to the Khmelitsky Mazikos. Oh,

294
00:11:02,894 --> 00:11:05,774
sure. Earlier than that. Yep. You know? There

295
00:11:05,774 --> 00:11:07,875
were people who had this rich and detailed

296
00:11:07,934 --> 00:11:11,490
tapestry of knowledge about some extraordinary incident that

297
00:11:11,490 --> 00:11:13,649
was probably true or at least partly true

298
00:11:13,649 --> 00:11:14,870
500 years earlier,

299
00:11:15,684 --> 00:11:18,424
That kind of thing. And I just thought,

300
00:11:19,365 --> 00:11:20,725
this is the kind of thing that has

301
00:11:20,725 --> 00:11:22,725
to go in the ground. You know, it's

302
00:11:22,725 --> 00:11:23,705
like your debts.

303
00:11:24,160 --> 00:11:24,820
And smart.

304
00:11:25,360 --> 00:11:27,679
If they can't be satisfied from your estate,

305
00:11:27,679 --> 00:11:29,600
then that's too bad. Yeah. You don't go

306
00:11:29,600 --> 00:11:31,700
after the kids. In other words, not

307
00:11:32,554 --> 00:11:33,914
this this whole concept of,

308
00:11:34,634 --> 00:11:35,134
reparations.

309
00:11:36,154 --> 00:11:37,914
Yes. You just can't have it. There's no

310
00:11:37,914 --> 00:11:39,514
end. You will turn your country into you

311
00:11:39,514 --> 00:11:41,134
will turn your country into the Balkans.

312
00:11:42,220 --> 00:11:43,980
Or Ukraine. And and, also, I mean, there

313
00:11:44,059 --> 00:11:46,860
it is it just it's so irrational and

314
00:11:46,860 --> 00:11:47,360
illogical.

315
00:11:48,915 --> 00:11:50,115
Let's go to Europe. Which

316
00:11:51,955 --> 00:11:52,774
are we gonna

317
00:11:53,555 --> 00:11:56,434
go to Rome and seek reparations on behalf

318
00:11:56,434 --> 00:11:57,335
of the Visigoths

319
00:11:57,690 --> 00:11:59,529
or the Visigoths on behalf of reparations on

320
00:11:59,529 --> 00:12:01,389
behalf of the Sack of Rome. Like,

321
00:12:01,929 --> 00:12:03,769
this is his human history. Okay. This is

322
00:12:03,769 --> 00:12:05,629
far be I I you and I.

323
00:12:08,125 --> 00:12:10,524
Solzhenitsyn also got I mean, so that was

324
00:12:10,524 --> 00:12:12,065
that was my first introduction

325
00:12:12,524 --> 00:12:14,210
to all of this kind of thing.

326
00:12:14,610 --> 00:12:17,170
And it was very controversial, but in those

327
00:12:17,170 --> 00:12:20,210
days, when people attempted to cancel you, it

328
00:12:20,210 --> 00:12:21,590
was much, much harder.

329
00:12:22,024 --> 00:12:22,992
When did you get

330
00:12:23,530 --> 00:12:24,068
get you

331
00:12:24,606 --> 00:12:26,985
16? No. No. This is 1995 was when

332
00:12:26,985 --> 00:12:29,165
I won the last 95. That's fine. Okay.

333
00:12:29,625 --> 00:12:31,399
Okay. For for the hand that signed the

334
00:12:31,399 --> 00:12:33,960
paper for this one that I've which is

335
00:12:33,960 --> 00:12:36,600
the Holodomor holocaust setting one that I'm talking

336
00:12:36,600 --> 00:12:39,240
about. So but and and your your task

337
00:12:39,240 --> 00:12:40,220
there was to

338
00:12:40,534 --> 00:12:41,034
was

339
00:12:41,735 --> 00:12:42,235
to

340
00:12:42,934 --> 00:12:43,754
really contextualize.

341
00:12:44,375 --> 00:12:46,694
You were not denying the holocaust. You were

342
00:12:46,774 --> 00:12:48,774
Oh, god. In the holocaust. Oh, no. It

343
00:12:48,774 --> 00:12:51,639
was absolutely essential to the story. I mean,

344
00:12:51,639 --> 00:12:53,720
this this kind of thing. But it was

345
00:12:53,720 --> 00:12:55,820
to do with people wanting to control

346
00:12:56,519 --> 00:12:57,820
how they are portrayed

347
00:12:58,595 --> 00:13:01,394
and which is the and the problem for

348
00:13:01,394 --> 00:13:04,274
me was not started by me or even

349
00:13:04,274 --> 00:13:05,254
any of my critics.

350
00:13:05,955 --> 00:13:06,695
We had

351
00:13:08,039 --> 00:13:10,200
lowered the drawbridge to this idea that you

352
00:13:10,200 --> 00:13:12,440
can punish an artist for the way people

353
00:13:12,440 --> 00:13:14,059
respond to their art form,

354
00:13:14,919 --> 00:13:16,700
and that had happened with Rushdie.

355
00:13:18,024 --> 00:13:20,825
And I my my very good friend, professor

356
00:13:20,825 --> 00:13:23,464
Katie Barnett, at the University of Melbourne has

357
00:13:23,464 --> 00:13:25,865
maintained consistently, and I don't mind quoting her

358
00:13:25,865 --> 00:13:27,850
that this all started with Salman Rushdie.

359
00:13:28,809 --> 00:13:31,049
And because the world did not have his

360
00:13:31,049 --> 00:13:31,789
back then,

361
00:13:32,569 --> 00:13:33,949
it has made it progressively

362
00:13:34,250 --> 00:13:35,069
more difficult

363
00:13:35,529 --> 00:13:36,350
to defend

364
00:13:37,034 --> 00:13:37,855
free speech

365
00:13:38,154 --> 00:13:39,215
and and just

366
00:13:39,835 --> 00:13:40,975
expressive rights

367
00:13:41,355 --> 00:13:43,514
in the arts more widely. You think the

368
00:13:43,514 --> 00:13:44,014
reaction

369
00:13:45,019 --> 00:13:47,679
to the Salman Rushdie Fatwa was

370
00:13:48,860 --> 00:13:50,000
overall a failure

371
00:13:51,100 --> 00:13:52,779
of the on the West's part? In what

372
00:13:52,779 --> 00:13:53,279
sense?

373
00:13:53,605 --> 00:13:55,924
On the West's part, yes. Because we didn't

374
00:13:55,924 --> 00:13:57,605
defend the principle. We did. I mean, a

375
00:13:57,605 --> 00:13:59,445
lot of people didn't like Rushdie. They thought

376
00:13:59,445 --> 00:14:00,644
he was a this, that, and the other,

377
00:14:00,644 --> 00:14:02,519
and that's why you hear sort of you

378
00:14:02,519 --> 00:14:04,839
read if you read Joseph Anton, and I

379
00:14:04,839 --> 00:14:07,799
realized that a big memoir about his time

380
00:14:07,799 --> 00:14:09,720
in hiding while he's being protected by special

381
00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:10,220
branch,

382
00:14:10,945 --> 00:14:12,164
He's going to be

383
00:14:12,945 --> 00:14:15,985
quite bitter about people who who didn't have

384
00:14:15,985 --> 00:14:17,985
his back, but some of the stuff in

385
00:14:17,985 --> 00:14:20,230
there from people who really should know better,

386
00:14:20,230 --> 00:14:21,850
who were scions of

387
00:14:23,190 --> 00:14:25,509
of the literary establishment in the UK and

388
00:14:25,509 --> 00:14:27,509
the US, oh, yeah. Well, maybe it would

389
00:14:27,509 --> 00:14:29,615
be good if Salman Rushdie learned better manners

390
00:14:29,615 --> 00:14:31,615
and stopped biting the hand that feeds him

391
00:14:31,615 --> 00:14:32,915
and this kind of thing.

392
00:14:33,695 --> 00:14:35,955
Do you think that that the this failure

393
00:14:36,095 --> 00:14:36,995
on the Rushdie

394
00:14:37,295 --> 00:14:41,220
thing was specific to the personalities and the,

395
00:14:41,759 --> 00:14:44,100
you know, the the the this beginning of

396
00:14:45,815 --> 00:14:48,794
Western liberal or left wing, let's say,

397
00:14:50,214 --> 00:14:50,714
comfort

398
00:14:51,174 --> 00:14:51,674
with

399
00:14:52,509 --> 00:14:54,110
the Islamic revolution or

400
00:14:54,669 --> 00:14:55,970
what do you think that was about?

401
00:14:56,750 --> 00:14:58,669
No. I don't think that was the case

402
00:14:58,669 --> 00:14:59,809
then. And,

403
00:15:00,955 --> 00:15:02,554
I mean, I do you do see these

404
00:15:02,554 --> 00:15:03,855
stupid left alliances

405
00:15:04,714 --> 00:15:06,394
because they think it's all in the name

406
00:15:06,394 --> 00:15:08,495
of liberation. Right. It's all like a revolution.

407
00:15:08,634 --> 00:15:11,259
And they're completely unaware of the Iranian history

408
00:15:11,259 --> 00:15:13,600
where the Islamists turned on all the secularists

409
00:15:13,740 --> 00:15:16,139
and the Islam and the mark Marxists and

410
00:15:16,139 --> 00:15:18,299
just killed them all, imprisoned them all, vast

411
00:15:18,299 --> 00:15:20,964
slaughter. They're completely unaware of that history and

412
00:15:20,964 --> 00:15:22,824
that it would happen again in an example.

413
00:15:23,044 --> 00:15:24,725
You know, so you get this weird alliance

414
00:15:24,725 --> 00:15:26,904
between queers for Palestine and Hamas

415
00:15:27,320 --> 00:15:30,120
and where queers for Palestine actually in Gaza,

416
00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:31,659
they would be the same as the secularists

417
00:15:31,720 --> 00:15:33,720
in Iran in 1979. They would all have

418
00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:34,524
their throats cut.

419
00:15:35,085 --> 00:15:37,085
So you do see these very weird left

420
00:15:37,085 --> 00:15:39,184
alliances, but I don't think that was happening

421
00:15:39,325 --> 00:15:39,825
in

422
00:15:40,285 --> 00:15:40,785
1989

423
00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:44,052
with the satanic verses. So

424
00:15:44,470 --> 00:15:47,818
I think what was happening there was we

425
00:15:47,818 --> 00:15:51,166
had already lost our nerve in terms of

426
00:15:51,166 --> 00:15:52,485
protecting a writer's

427
00:15:53,345 --> 00:15:56,384
expression rights and the quality of his and

428
00:15:56,384 --> 00:15:58,384
also the the text, the quality of the

429
00:15:58,384 --> 00:16:00,785
work that he'd produced. We'd already lost our

430
00:16:00,785 --> 00:16:01,285
nerve

431
00:16:01,730 --> 00:16:03,730
because already there had been a number of

432
00:16:03,730 --> 00:16:04,230
years

433
00:16:04,690 --> 00:16:05,590
in the universities,

434
00:16:07,009 --> 00:16:08,629
where the old thing that,

435
00:16:09,664 --> 00:16:11,845
if someone or a writer said something nasty

436
00:16:11,904 --> 00:16:13,365
about you or your group,

437
00:16:13,904 --> 00:16:15,745
you just have to get over it because

438
00:16:15,745 --> 00:16:16,440
it was just words.

439
00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:20,120
There'd been a reversal of that probably because

440
00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:21,799
some of the things that were actually said

441
00:16:21,799 --> 00:16:23,960
about minority groups and women in the past

442
00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:25,179
were very, very nasty.

443
00:16:25,615 --> 00:16:27,774
But the point is we lost that distinction

444
00:16:27,774 --> 00:16:30,195
between words and deeds. But in the US,

445
00:16:31,294 --> 00:16:32,514
around the same time,

446
00:16:33,059 --> 00:16:35,059
there had in the eighties, there had been

447
00:16:35,059 --> 00:16:37,080
these multiple instances of

448
00:16:38,980 --> 00:16:39,480
scandalous

449
00:16:41,095 --> 00:16:44,394
artistic expressions. I mean, they're not really art,

450
00:16:44,934 --> 00:16:45,434
but

451
00:16:45,815 --> 00:16:48,235
what had become to be accepted

452
00:16:48,899 --> 00:16:51,860
as sort of our famously, the piss Christ

453
00:16:51,860 --> 00:16:52,360
installation.

454
00:16:53,299 --> 00:16:55,320
In other words, attacks on Christianity

455
00:16:56,345 --> 00:16:58,264
and on or or the or the attacks

456
00:16:58,264 --> 00:17:00,284
on on Jerry Falwell by,

457
00:17:00,745 --> 00:17:01,725
Hustler Magazine.

458
00:17:02,824 --> 00:17:05,619
Those Oh, yes. The So in those cases,

459
00:17:06,319 --> 00:17:07,779
the and, you know,

460
00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:09,059
and the

461
00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:12,819
the fraternity of writers and free free speech,

462
00:17:13,544 --> 00:17:14,204
you know, fetishists,

463
00:17:14,744 --> 00:17:16,684
like, you know, such as myself.

464
00:17:17,785 --> 00:17:19,304
I mean, I was I was in college

465
00:17:19,304 --> 00:17:19,804
then.

466
00:17:20,184 --> 00:17:21,404
But but there,

467
00:17:21,970 --> 00:17:22,549
the traditional

468
00:17:23,490 --> 00:17:23,990
response

469
00:17:24,369 --> 00:17:25,430
was in place.

470
00:17:25,970 --> 00:17:28,529
But here And from to be fair with

471
00:17:28,529 --> 00:17:29,750
Penn, with Rushdie,

472
00:17:30,174 --> 00:17:32,015
it was in place It was. Yeah. There

473
00:17:32,015 --> 00:17:34,095
to Penn were good. Penn was good. And

474
00:17:34,095 --> 00:17:34,595
this,

475
00:17:35,055 --> 00:17:36,515
this very much started.

476
00:17:37,509 --> 00:17:40,230
First, it was just beginning to leak out

477
00:17:40,230 --> 00:17:42,789
of the universities, this idea that if you

478
00:17:42,789 --> 00:17:44,250
portrayed someone negatively

479
00:17:44,710 --> 00:17:46,170
and it hurt their feelings,

480
00:17:46,845 --> 00:17:47,904
then that was,

481
00:17:48,285 --> 00:17:50,125
your fault as the writer if you'd done

482
00:17:50,125 --> 00:17:52,045
that. You needed to mind your p's and

483
00:17:52,045 --> 00:17:52,545
q's.

484
00:17:53,085 --> 00:17:55,180
And, of course, it it was based, the

485
00:17:55,180 --> 00:17:57,099
logic of it, was based on this idea

486
00:17:57,099 --> 00:17:59,039
that, you know, what's offensive

487
00:17:59,500 --> 00:18:00,720
is very subjective,

488
00:18:01,500 --> 00:18:04,365
and what's people consider nasty is very subjective.

489
00:18:04,365 --> 00:18:06,444
So you get this what's happened in Britain

490
00:18:06,444 --> 00:18:09,265
with this perception based policing. It's literally

491
00:18:09,890 --> 00:18:11,269
offensiveness or victimization

492
00:18:11,570 --> 00:18:13,589
or racism in the eyes of the beholder.

493
00:18:13,809 --> 00:18:14,549
Yes. Yes.

494
00:18:14,930 --> 00:18:16,529
Yeah. So it's just in the terms of

495
00:18:16,529 --> 00:18:18,630
their perception. But the problem with it

496
00:18:19,089 --> 00:18:19,589
is

497
00:18:21,684 --> 00:18:23,625
if you say it hurts me, you destroy

498
00:18:23,684 --> 00:18:25,684
the harm principle, which in Britain is the

499
00:18:25,684 --> 00:18:28,164
core of our free speech history because we

500
00:18:28,164 --> 00:18:29,464
don't have a a written

501
00:18:29,769 --> 00:18:31,690
constitutional rule. There's just lots of collections of

502
00:18:31,690 --> 00:18:32,590
post it notes.

503
00:18:33,609 --> 00:18:35,769
It's not actually I'm gonna remember that. Single

504
00:18:35,769 --> 00:18:37,309
digits. How I'm gonna explain it.

505
00:18:38,934 --> 00:18:40,615
It's a good way. It's just many, many

506
00:18:40,615 --> 00:18:42,955
thousands of post it notes developed over

507
00:18:43,414 --> 00:18:45,414
thousands of years, so that kind of makes

508
00:18:45,414 --> 00:18:45,914
sense.

509
00:18:47,429 --> 00:18:49,990
But you destroy the harm principle because if

510
00:18:49,990 --> 00:18:51,529
you say this hurts me

511
00:18:53,429 --> 00:18:53,929
and

512
00:18:54,674 --> 00:18:58,375
psychological harms are as real as physical harms,

513
00:18:58,994 --> 00:19:01,554
then the old harm principle, which works on

514
00:19:01,554 --> 00:19:02,294
the idea

515
00:19:02,769 --> 00:19:04,450
that as long you do whatever you like,

516
00:19:04,450 --> 00:19:06,069
as long as you don't harm others,

517
00:19:07,250 --> 00:19:09,009
as soon as you make the

518
00:19:09,569 --> 00:19:10,069
broaden

519
00:19:10,894 --> 00:19:13,214
the the concept of harm, you engage in

520
00:19:13,214 --> 00:19:16,494
concept creep, then it becomes impossible to defend

521
00:19:16,494 --> 00:19:16,994
speech

522
00:19:17,375 --> 00:19:19,750
using John Stuart Mills harm principle and the

523
00:19:19,750 --> 00:19:22,950
sort of various intellectual traditions that emerged in

524
00:19:22,950 --> 00:19:25,670
the UK going back to the civil war

525
00:19:25,670 --> 00:19:26,490
and parliamentarianism

526
00:19:26,869 --> 00:19:28,894
and the levellers and so on and so

527
00:19:28,894 --> 00:19:29,394
forth.

528
00:19:30,735 --> 00:19:31,875
So in contradistinction

529
00:19:32,174 --> 00:19:32,994
to the famous

530
00:19:34,255 --> 00:19:35,475
Skokie Nazis

531
00:19:36,329 --> 00:19:38,730
decision where the Supreme Court said, yeah. Though

532
00:19:38,730 --> 00:19:40,569
they're gonna hurt a lot of people very

533
00:19:40,569 --> 00:19:42,429
profoundly because Skokie is full

534
00:19:42,809 --> 00:19:44,730
of older Jews. This is in the, you

535
00:19:44,730 --> 00:19:45,894
know, early eighties,

536
00:19:46,375 --> 00:19:48,955
who are survivors or the children of survivors

537
00:19:49,095 --> 00:19:50,714
of concentration camps.

538
00:19:51,095 --> 00:19:53,654
So for Neo Nazis to to to there's

539
00:19:53,654 --> 00:19:54,714
gonna be harm.

540
00:19:55,539 --> 00:19:57,720
We're talking about emotional harm,

541
00:19:58,339 --> 00:20:00,919
but that that's very real. It doesn't matter

542
00:20:01,220 --> 00:20:02,440
because the first amendment

543
00:20:02,740 --> 00:20:04,119
that was the high point.

544
00:20:04,565 --> 00:20:06,244
Not from the Supreme Court, which has been

545
00:20:06,244 --> 00:20:08,404
consistent since then, but in that was the

546
00:20:08,404 --> 00:20:10,164
high that was pretty much the end of

547
00:20:10,164 --> 00:20:12,244
the line for the ACLU and the so

548
00:20:12,244 --> 00:20:14,184
called civil libertarians in the US

549
00:20:15,429 --> 00:20:15,929
to

550
00:20:17,669 --> 00:20:18,169
take

551
00:20:18,789 --> 00:20:22,309
a neutral stance on free expression regardless of

552
00:20:22,309 --> 00:20:24,424
whose free expression that I mean, it became

553
00:20:24,424 --> 00:20:26,125
a scene in the Blues Brothers.

554
00:20:26,664 --> 00:20:28,184
I hate I Illinois Nazis.

555
00:20:28,585 --> 00:20:30,825
And it I'm sorry. This is the way

556
00:20:30,825 --> 00:20:33,065
it it's come down to people outside the

557
00:20:33,065 --> 00:20:35,289
US. It's become a scene in the Blues

558
00:20:35,289 --> 00:20:35,789
Brothers.

559
00:20:36,170 --> 00:20:38,349
Another third rail that you stepped on,

560
00:20:40,730 --> 00:20:41,309
was interviewing

561
00:20:41,769 --> 00:20:42,590
David Irving.

562
00:20:43,855 --> 00:20:45,934
Oh, yes. I did that. And, weirdly, I

563
00:20:45,934 --> 00:20:47,474
did it for fashion magazine

564
00:20:48,174 --> 00:20:50,335
that I don't think exists anymore, probably because

565
00:20:50,335 --> 00:20:52,529
it just it paid its writers obscenely well.

566
00:20:52,529 --> 00:20:55,170
It was very it was mainly photographers' very

567
00:20:55,170 --> 00:20:55,670
fancy,

568
00:20:56,769 --> 00:20:58,309
photo photo shoot.

569
00:20:59,009 --> 00:21:00,914
Well, and I can explain And was this

570
00:21:00,914 --> 00:21:03,414
before after his his his conviction?

571
00:21:04,914 --> 00:21:07,210
Before well, no. He wasn't convicted. It was

572
00:21:07,450 --> 00:21:08,970
civil it was a civil it was a

573
00:21:08,970 --> 00:21:10,730
it was It was a civil def it

574
00:21:10,730 --> 00:21:13,630
was a unlawful offense. Some time in in

575
00:21:14,009 --> 00:21:15,994
in in prison for,

576
00:21:16,394 --> 00:21:19,195
holocaust in Austria for holocaust denial. Right. Right.

577
00:21:19,195 --> 00:21:21,674
Right. In Austria for holocaust for denial and

578
00:21:21,755 --> 00:21:23,595
because that is criminal speech in a lot

579
00:21:23,595 --> 00:21:24,815
of European countries,

580
00:21:25,809 --> 00:21:27,509
Austria, Germany, and I suspect

581
00:21:28,289 --> 00:21:29,970
quite a few of the others as well.

582
00:21:29,970 --> 00:21:31,890
That's very, very common to have whole speech

583
00:21:31,890 --> 00:21:33,744
rights mobilized on the continent. When you spoke

584
00:21:33,744 --> 00:21:35,345
to him, it was it was about it

585
00:21:35,345 --> 00:21:37,445
was when everyone pretty much began

586
00:21:38,384 --> 00:21:39,984
by the eighties, people were kind of on

587
00:21:39,984 --> 00:21:40,565
to him.

588
00:21:41,099 --> 00:21:43,419
But he was Well, the the this,

589
00:21:43,980 --> 00:21:44,220
his

590
00:21:45,099 --> 00:21:47,039
oh, goodness. When did this happen?

591
00:21:47,980 --> 00:21:49,359
He very foolishly

592
00:21:50,295 --> 00:21:52,055
and I remember writing this at the time

593
00:21:52,055 --> 00:21:53,975
because I wrote articles about it in the

594
00:21:53,975 --> 00:21:56,615
Australian press. He got this idea in his

595
00:21:56,615 --> 00:21:57,115
head

596
00:21:57,419 --> 00:22:00,059
that he wasn't a holocaust denier, despite saying

597
00:22:00,059 --> 00:22:02,000
obvious holocaust denial things.

598
00:22:02,700 --> 00:22:03,440
So therefore,

599
00:22:04,140 --> 00:22:04,880
he sued

600
00:22:05,445 --> 00:22:06,965
Deborah Lipstadt and I think a couple of

601
00:22:06,965 --> 00:22:09,125
other people, but mainly Deborah Lipstadt Right. For

602
00:22:09,125 --> 00:22:11,465
calling him Holocaust denial. And the thing is,

603
00:22:11,924 --> 00:22:13,625
it was just the stupidest.

604
00:22:14,210 --> 00:22:16,289
I sat there and covered great chunks of

605
00:22:16,289 --> 00:22:18,690
this trial and then interviewed the guy. And

606
00:22:18,690 --> 00:22:20,690
I said, but you said all these things

607
00:22:20,690 --> 00:22:22,150
that is obvious holocaust

608
00:22:23,544 --> 00:22:24,044
denial.

609
00:22:24,825 --> 00:22:26,904
And so what he it became clear during

610
00:22:26,904 --> 00:22:28,984
the course of the trial that what he

611
00:22:28,984 --> 00:22:31,420
wanted to do was get the other side

612
00:22:31,420 --> 00:22:33,740
to drag out their evidence so he could

613
00:22:33,740 --> 00:22:36,079
just sit there and poke holes in it.

614
00:22:36,619 --> 00:22:38,559
You know, the whole thing was just performative.

615
00:22:39,085 --> 00:22:40,765
Do you remember And the thing is that's

616
00:22:40,765 --> 00:22:43,485
all very entertaining to do something performative like

617
00:22:43,485 --> 00:22:45,835
that. But and here's the thing that Yeah.

618
00:22:46,140 --> 00:22:47,980
You will get this as a lawyer. The

619
00:22:47,980 --> 00:22:49,759
lawyer will notice this.

620
00:22:50,059 --> 00:22:52,240
He hadn't made any attempt

621
00:22:52,860 --> 00:22:53,920
to make himself

622
00:22:54,299 --> 00:22:55,039
rip proof.

623
00:22:57,005 --> 00:22:59,325
He owned, free and clear, a property in

624
00:22:59,325 --> 00:23:01,164
Grosvenor Square. Rent proof. So in the US,

625
00:23:01,164 --> 00:23:03,025
we would call it judgment proof. Yeah.

626
00:23:03,390 --> 00:23:06,130
Judgment proof. Yes. Okay. Basically,

627
00:23:06,670 --> 00:23:07,970
so all of this money,

628
00:23:08,509 --> 00:23:11,549
and because he'd been very economically successful when

629
00:23:11,549 --> 00:23:13,403
he was younger, best selling books and all

630
00:23:13,403 --> 00:23:15,677
of this kind of thing, and carefully invested,

631
00:23:15,677 --> 00:23:17,951
so not a fool. And it was all

632
00:23:17,951 --> 00:23:20,225
still in his name. And, of course, he

633
00:23:20,225 --> 00:23:21,329
lost completely

634
00:23:21,630 --> 00:23:22,130
comprehensively

635
00:23:22,670 --> 00:23:23,809
Wow. And was bankrupted

636
00:23:24,190 --> 00:23:26,509
Wow. Because libel is is a rich man's

637
00:23:26,509 --> 00:23:28,894
tort. Yeah. And all of that property was

638
00:23:28,894 --> 00:23:30,434
sold out from underneath him.

639
00:23:31,615 --> 00:23:34,434
They're bought and which which I imagine subsequently

640
00:23:35,799 --> 00:23:38,039
I'm not a psychologist, but like everyone else,

641
00:23:38,039 --> 00:23:38,940
everyone likes

642
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:41,420
to dabble, made him

643
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:42,940
all the more resentful.

644
00:23:43,494 --> 00:23:45,015
And look, this is what they've done to

645
00:23:45,015 --> 00:23:46,795
me. I'm only asking questions.

646
00:23:47,654 --> 00:23:49,734
And I'm sure it did, but I interviewed

647
00:23:49,734 --> 00:23:51,414
him when he was still I visited his

648
00:23:51,414 --> 00:23:53,490
house in Grover Square, the very fancy one.

649
00:23:53,490 --> 00:23:55,809
Yeah. Grosvenor Square. Lady and gentleman, that that's

650
00:23:55,809 --> 00:23:57,650
like living on the Gold Coast in Chicago

651
00:23:57,650 --> 00:24:00,474
or, you know, or Yes. Avenue in, you

652
00:24:00,474 --> 00:24:01,694
know, in New York.

653
00:24:01,994 --> 00:24:04,714
So I I interviewed him there, and the

654
00:24:04,714 --> 00:24:06,875
photographer from the fashion magazine is doing all

655
00:24:06,875 --> 00:24:08,875
these fancy photographs and so on and so

656
00:24:08,875 --> 00:24:09,375
forth.

657
00:24:10,299 --> 00:24:12,880
And it just became clear to me,

658
00:24:13,659 --> 00:24:17,500
he's extremely clever. Oh, yeah. And he's just

659
00:24:17,500 --> 00:24:19,039
got this thing in his.

660
00:24:21,565 --> 00:24:24,065
He's got a brain worm, basically, an obsessive

661
00:24:24,285 --> 00:24:26,865
brain worm. And I honestly thought

662
00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:31,720
with, after interviewing him and and covering the

663
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:33,799
the trial, I honestly thought I will never

664
00:24:33,799 --> 00:24:35,884
meet another person like that. I'm sure. I

665
00:24:35,884 --> 00:24:37,345
will never meet someone

666
00:24:38,045 --> 00:24:40,144
so obsessed with one thing

667
00:24:40,525 --> 00:24:42,720
with Jew and it was with Jews, not

668
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:45,220
with just the Holocaust with Jews, full stop.

669
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:46,900
I will never meet someone

670
00:24:47,599 --> 00:24:49,700
so obsessed about one

671
00:24:50,065 --> 00:24:52,164
issue group of people ever again,

672
00:24:52,704 --> 00:24:54,804
and I was proven wrong.

673
00:24:55,264 --> 00:24:57,924
Because I have since now met several,

674
00:24:59,169 --> 00:25:01,089
not huge numbers, but then these aren't the

675
00:25:01,089 --> 00:25:02,710
circles I won't move in,

676
00:25:03,169 --> 00:25:05,730
of people on the political left who have

677
00:25:05,730 --> 00:25:07,730
the same kind of obsession that David Irving

678
00:25:07,730 --> 00:25:09,234
had about Jews, but they have it about

679
00:25:09,234 --> 00:25:09,734
Israel.

680
00:25:11,075 --> 00:25:12,855
But they have it about Obsessed.

681
00:25:13,474 --> 00:25:16,054
They have it about Israel. They are obsessed.

682
00:25:16,674 --> 00:25:19,480
Like, this is this is the the sociopolitical

683
00:25:19,859 --> 00:25:20,359
equivalent

684
00:25:20,740 --> 00:25:21,400
of someone

685
00:25:21,940 --> 00:25:24,180
who lines up all their Lego on the

686
00:25:24,180 --> 00:25:27,134
wind in height order on on the windowsill

687
00:25:27,994 --> 00:25:30,315
or, you know, or has all star has

688
00:25:30,315 --> 00:25:32,875
all the Star Wars figurines, the original ones

689
00:25:32,875 --> 00:25:34,919
from the seventies eighties on a on a

690
00:25:34,919 --> 00:25:36,700
little cloth face that rotates.

691
00:25:37,559 --> 00:25:39,079
So this is what it was a wonderful

692
00:25:39,079 --> 00:25:40,440
thing to do as a child and so

693
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:41,720
on and so forth, but you need to

694
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:42,539
stop it.

695
00:25:43,365 --> 00:25:45,225
You really did that. Weird. Wow.

696
00:25:45,605 --> 00:25:47,765
But yes. So I don't know how common

697
00:25:47,765 --> 00:25:48,424
that is

698
00:25:48,805 --> 00:25:51,259
because I'm not an academic. I don't

699
00:25:51,660 --> 00:25:53,680
know large numbers of university student

700
00:25:54,380 --> 00:25:55,519
children, teenagers,

701
00:25:56,460 --> 00:25:58,799
but I know a few people through politics

702
00:25:59,464 --> 00:26:00,825
because I have been in that sort of

703
00:26:00,825 --> 00:26:01,325
Westminster

704
00:26:01,785 --> 00:26:04,285
bubble village. I covered Brexit for the Australian,

705
00:26:04,424 --> 00:26:05,484
that kind of thing.

706
00:26:05,945 --> 00:26:07,484
I I have been in

707
00:26:08,559 --> 00:26:09,859
encountered a few of them.

708
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:11,859
And it's like

709
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:15,039
other conflicts don't even exist. So you can't

710
00:26:15,039 --> 00:26:17,134
even trip them up with, well, what about

711
00:26:17,134 --> 00:26:17,634
Sudan?

712
00:26:18,414 --> 00:26:20,414
Terrible conflict going on there at the moment.

713
00:26:20,414 --> 00:26:23,069
Or what about Burma? Conflict going on there.

714
00:26:23,149 --> 00:26:24,829
The In other words, if you're so concerned

715
00:26:24,829 --> 00:26:26,929
about genocide, why is it only

716
00:26:27,950 --> 00:26:30,190
Yes. Yeah. Why you you can't be in

717
00:26:30,190 --> 00:26:32,214
the way because you just get this Yeah.

718
00:26:32,214 --> 00:26:33,755
You just get this blank.

719
00:26:34,454 --> 00:26:36,694
And I've had 3 or 4 conversations like

720
00:26:36,694 --> 00:26:39,894
that. And and and the facial expression I'm

721
00:26:39,894 --> 00:26:42,110
getting is the same expression I got from

722
00:26:42,110 --> 00:26:43,890
David Irving when he would go

723
00:26:44,190 --> 00:26:45,869
when I would say, but look at what

724
00:26:45,869 --> 00:26:48,029
you said. You made that chappaquiddick joke. And

725
00:26:48,029 --> 00:26:49,390
he goes, oh, it's only a joke. And

726
00:26:49,390 --> 00:26:50,049
I'm going,

727
00:26:51,134 --> 00:26:53,695
it's it's only funny if you accept your

728
00:26:53,695 --> 00:26:54,195
premise.

729
00:26:56,095 --> 00:26:57,634
That can't and I got the same

730
00:26:58,700 --> 00:26:59,200
response.

731
00:26:59,820 --> 00:27:02,380
Let's fast forward along with where the to

732
00:27:02,380 --> 00:27:03,900
to this time where we are in which

733
00:27:03,900 --> 00:27:05,680
we are now. You've put

734
00:27:06,285 --> 00:27:08,865
most of this behind you and become a

735
00:27:09,085 --> 00:27:10,464
a a regular writer.

736
00:27:11,724 --> 00:27:13,105
No? Not so much?

737
00:27:13,549 --> 00:27:15,029
I mean Well, yeah. I mean, I just

738
00:27:15,029 --> 00:27:17,730
I I've become much more of a commentator.

739
00:27:17,950 --> 00:27:20,849
I did not expect that. That was unexpected.

740
00:27:20,990 --> 00:27:22,829
I always thought How? I mean, I used

741
00:27:22,829 --> 00:27:26,595
to. Before 2 before Brexit, before 2016,

742
00:27:27,134 --> 00:27:29,134
actually, if I was in the pages of

743
00:27:29,134 --> 00:27:31,474
a national newspaper in either the UK

744
00:27:31,980 --> 00:27:34,059
or Australia, it was because I was writing

745
00:27:34,059 --> 00:27:34,880
a book review.

746
00:27:35,819 --> 00:27:38,059
Mhmm. I wrote reviews of other people's books.

747
00:27:38,059 --> 00:27:40,299
How usually fits. So so how did going

748
00:27:40,299 --> 00:27:42,235
to law school and becoming a

749
00:27:43,015 --> 00:27:45,255
lawyer fit into this career path? Because now

750
00:27:45,494 --> 00:27:47,975
Alright. Okay. I should explain the way the

751
00:27:47,975 --> 00:27:49,115
Aussie system works.

752
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:52,640
There's only one Australian university, and it did

753
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,359
this relatively recently, the University of Melbourne, that

754
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:57,539
has the US style structure

755
00:27:57,919 --> 00:27:58,980
of a law degree.

756
00:27:59,345 --> 00:28:00,865
That is where you do something else as

757
00:28:00,865 --> 00:28:01,525
an undergraduate,

758
00:28:02,464 --> 00:28:04,704
then go to law school and tend to

759
00:28:04,704 --> 00:28:06,404
be quite a lot older, like,

760
00:28:07,890 --> 00:28:10,369
mid late twenties, early thirties. They they often

761
00:28:10,369 --> 00:28:12,390
are before they start practicing law.

762
00:28:13,170 --> 00:28:15,190
The Australian system is not like that.

763
00:28:15,765 --> 00:28:16,265
And

764
00:28:16,644 --> 00:28:18,725
no no law school in Australia was when

765
00:28:18,725 --> 00:28:19,384
I started

766
00:28:19,765 --> 00:28:21,545
as an undergraduate in 1990.

767
00:28:21,845 --> 00:28:24,140
You do a qualification that's known as

768
00:28:24,619 --> 00:28:27,740
arts with a slash and law, or science

769
00:28:27,740 --> 00:28:30,220
with a slash and law, commerce with a

770
00:28:30,220 --> 00:28:31,359
slash and law.

771
00:28:32,220 --> 00:28:34,914
Nearly always people do arts with a forward

772
00:28:34,914 --> 00:28:37,414
slash and law. People who do accountancy

773
00:28:37,715 --> 00:28:38,615
or economics,

774
00:28:40,355 --> 00:28:40,855
have

775
00:28:41,210 --> 00:28:42,269
particularly the accountants

776
00:28:42,730 --> 00:28:45,210
and or have given themselves a very hard

777
00:28:45,210 --> 00:28:47,710
job because it's another whole professional qualification.

778
00:28:48,410 --> 00:28:49,930
And you study them at the same time,

779
00:28:49,930 --> 00:28:50,910
and you start

780
00:28:51,674 --> 00:28:53,615
at 17 or 18. Australian

781
00:28:54,394 --> 00:28:56,955
universities, you start quite young. I was 17

782
00:28:56,955 --> 00:28:58,174
when I started university.

783
00:29:00,029 --> 00:29:02,269
And you're admitted to the university. You have

784
00:29:02,269 --> 00:29:03,329
to meet

785
00:29:03,710 --> 00:29:04,369
the cutoff,

786
00:29:04,829 --> 00:29:06,769
the academic cutoff for both

787
00:29:08,184 --> 00:29:09,404
law and arts,

788
00:29:09,865 --> 00:29:11,464
even though you'll be taught in the same

789
00:29:11,464 --> 00:29:11,964
university,

790
00:29:12,424 --> 00:29:15,529
the sharp distinction between different universities that you

791
00:29:15,529 --> 00:29:17,210
see in the United States or the UK

792
00:29:17,210 --> 00:29:19,049
with the Russell Group and the Ivies or

793
00:29:19,049 --> 00:29:20,509
particularly Oxford and Cambridge.

794
00:29:20,890 --> 00:29:22,730
In Australia, there's a bit of that. There's

795
00:29:22,730 --> 00:29:25,210
the group of 8. There's the Sandstone Universities

796
00:29:25,210 --> 00:29:27,234
that were founded in the late 19th century,

797
00:29:28,015 --> 00:29:30,255
and the oldest, they're over a 100 years

798
00:29:30,255 --> 00:29:32,815
old. There's a bit of that, but within

799
00:29:32,815 --> 00:29:33,634
those universities,

800
00:29:34,150 --> 00:29:35,850
much more intense competition

801
00:29:36,230 --> 00:29:38,330
based on the course you study.

802
00:29:39,029 --> 00:29:40,330
So you need

803
00:29:41,269 --> 00:29:42,570
many more points

804
00:29:44,015 --> 00:29:46,275
to get into medicine, law, engineering,

805
00:29:46,654 --> 00:29:47,154
pharmacy.

806
00:29:47,775 --> 00:29:50,815
Those are the prestige qualifications than you do

807
00:29:50,815 --> 00:29:51,555
for arts.

808
00:29:52,319 --> 00:29:54,259
So you go in to do arts

809
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:55,380
and law,

810
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,460
and the whole point of the arts qualification

811
00:29:59,599 --> 00:30:01,944
was so you're not a dreadful bull. Highly

812
00:30:01,944 --> 00:30:04,125
educated person who is also

813
00:30:05,384 --> 00:30:07,544
not pig ignorant and actually knows who Charles

814
00:30:07,544 --> 00:30:09,625
Dickens is. That was the original logic behind

815
00:30:09,625 --> 00:30:10,365
it. Sure.

816
00:30:11,059 --> 00:30:12,039
What I did

817
00:30:12,500 --> 00:30:14,440
was I started an arts law qualification.

818
00:30:15,700 --> 00:30:18,579
And I then my first novel actually came

819
00:30:18,579 --> 00:30:20,984
out while I was still an undergraduate. I

820
00:30:20,984 --> 00:30:23,164
hadn't even finished the arts qualification,

821
00:30:23,785 --> 00:30:26,825
let alone do very many law subjects. So

822
00:30:26,825 --> 00:30:28,605
I actually dropped my law

823
00:30:29,349 --> 00:30:30,950
course in the nineties. I thought I was

824
00:30:30,950 --> 00:30:32,329
going to be a full time writer.

825
00:30:32,869 --> 00:30:34,009
That didn't happen,

826
00:30:35,670 --> 00:30:37,724
even though I did do quite a bit

827
00:30:37,724 --> 00:30:39,085
of writing and so on and so forth,

828
00:30:39,085 --> 00:30:40,684
I worked some very odd jobs. I worked

829
00:30:40,684 --> 00:30:42,125
as an archaeologist for a while. I was

830
00:30:42,125 --> 00:30:43,804
an interpreter for a while in the home

831
00:30:43,804 --> 00:30:45,929
office. I did all sorts of unusual non

832
00:30:45,929 --> 00:30:47,630
legally related jobs. What languages?

833
00:30:48,730 --> 00:30:49,230
Italian.

834
00:30:49,529 --> 00:30:50,029
Uh-huh.

835
00:30:51,529 --> 00:30:54,075
Yeah. I've lived in Italy. So, and it

836
00:30:54,075 --> 00:30:55,914
was because it was during the the the

837
00:30:55,914 --> 00:30:59,195
Balkan crisis, and nobody spoke Albanian. Like, I

838
00:30:59,195 --> 00:31:00,394
I think they worked out in the whole

839
00:31:00,394 --> 00:31:01,809
of Britain. There were about 3 people who

840
00:31:01,809 --> 00:31:02,470
spoke Albanian,

841
00:31:02,769 --> 00:31:05,329
but nearly all the refugees spoke Italian. So

842
00:31:05,329 --> 00:31:07,589
they were just desperately hunting for people Albanians

843
00:31:07,650 --> 00:31:09,490
are pat pat themselves off as Italians all

844
00:31:09,490 --> 00:31:10,069
the time.

845
00:31:11,095 --> 00:31:12,934
And it's because of Rai. It's,

846
00:31:13,494 --> 00:31:16,474
Rai Raiuna, Raiju, and Rai Trai, the Italian,

847
00:31:17,494 --> 00:31:17,994
television.

848
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:20,599
All comes over the Adriatic, and they all

849
00:31:20,599 --> 00:31:22,599
watch it. And they all and you can

850
00:31:22,599 --> 00:31:24,200
actually learn Italian off Italian

851
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:25,420
pre

852
00:31:26,055 --> 00:31:26,555
Berlusconi

853
00:31:27,095 --> 00:31:29,275
Italian television. You could certainly learn

854
00:31:29,815 --> 00:31:31,275
Italian off of it. Interesting.

855
00:31:32,055 --> 00:31:33,494
Yeah. It was just the nature of the

856
00:31:33,494 --> 00:31:35,835
way Rai has worked historically in Italy.

857
00:31:36,250 --> 00:31:37,769
And so I did all sorts of odd

858
00:31:37,769 --> 00:31:40,009
jobs like that, but then I realized, well,

859
00:31:40,009 --> 00:31:41,950
I hadn't had another idea for a book.

860
00:31:42,089 --> 00:31:43,769
I started to write one, and it was

861
00:31:43,769 --> 00:31:44,509
a disastrous

862
00:31:45,134 --> 00:31:47,295
crap piece of crap. I finished up throwing

863
00:31:47,295 --> 00:31:48,815
it all away. It was just awful. I

864
00:31:48,815 --> 00:31:50,835
knew when I was writing bad stuff.

865
00:31:51,455 --> 00:31:54,720
And so I thought, well, look. I need

866
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:56,339
to get a useful job of work

867
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:59,599
and that pays decently and that I suspect

868
00:31:59,599 --> 00:32:00,880
I'll be good at because I put words

869
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:02,559
together well. So I went back and finished

870
00:32:02,559 --> 00:32:04,244
the law degree that I hadn't finished,

871
00:32:05,444 --> 00:32:08,005
and that's what I did. I then just

872
00:32:08,005 --> 00:32:10,484
worked as a lawyer in either in Australia

873
00:32:10,484 --> 00:32:13,519
or over here. And it did what it

874
00:32:13,519 --> 00:32:15,119
says on the 10th. It it,

875
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:18,720
allowed me to pursue different things and so

876
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:20,880
on and so forth. And it also meant

877
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:22,740
that can it and this is

878
00:32:23,075 --> 00:32:24,994
to go back to the first book. It

879
00:32:24,994 --> 00:32:26,755
also meant, from my point of view, the

880
00:32:26,755 --> 00:32:28,755
can the whole cancellation thing just seemed to

881
00:32:28,755 --> 00:32:29,414
have disappeared.

882
00:32:30,019 --> 00:32:32,099
You know, I was just working ordinary, normal

883
00:32:32,099 --> 00:32:35,159
jobs as a lawyer in various countries.

884
00:32:35,859 --> 00:32:37,700
I got a scholarship to go to Oxford

885
00:32:37,700 --> 00:32:38,519
to do graduate

886
00:32:39,224 --> 00:32:41,724
qualifications at the the famous Oxford BCL.

887
00:32:42,664 --> 00:32:44,365
There were no issues with that.

888
00:32:45,065 --> 00:32:46,825
And I thought, right, this is my future.

889
00:32:46,825 --> 00:32:48,230
I wrote one book, and I don't have

890
00:32:48,230 --> 00:32:49,369
any more good ideas.

891
00:32:50,869 --> 00:32:52,950
I'll just be an attorney for the rest

892
00:32:52,950 --> 00:32:54,410
of my life, solicitor,

893
00:32:54,789 --> 00:32:56,970
barrister in in the UK.

894
00:32:58,664 --> 00:33:00,585
I then, however, took a job up in

895
00:33:00,585 --> 00:33:03,784
Scotland, and Scottish law is different from English

896
00:33:03,784 --> 00:33:06,207
law, really quite dramatically different. It's got a

897
00:33:06,207 --> 00:33:08,675
lot more Roman law. It's a different legal

898
00:33:08,675 --> 00:33:11,452
system. It's procedurally quite similar, but the substantive

899
00:33:11,452 --> 00:33:14,134
law is quite different. Really? And I couldn't

900
00:33:14,194 --> 00:33:16,674
do Scottish work for the very simple and

901
00:33:16,674 --> 00:33:18,434
basic reason that I did not know how

902
00:33:18,434 --> 00:33:20,190
to do it. So I had to do

903
00:33:20,190 --> 00:33:21,309
in subjects. Well, this is how we know

904
00:33:21,309 --> 00:33:23,089
you're not an American lawyer because

905
00:33:24,190 --> 00:33:25,950
people are doing all kinds of people do

906
00:33:25,950 --> 00:33:27,309
things they don't know how to do all

907
00:33:27,309 --> 00:33:29,034
the time. That's what helped me entirely of

908
00:33:29,034 --> 00:33:31,034
Twitter's people practicing law or having no idea

909
00:33:31,034 --> 00:33:32,095
what they're talking about.

910
00:33:33,755 --> 00:33:35,820
Practicing a law law without a license or

911
00:33:35,820 --> 00:33:37,200
however you put it in America.

912
00:33:37,660 --> 00:33:40,779
Yes. Without practicing certificate over here. Unauthorized practice

913
00:33:40,779 --> 00:33:41,440
of law.

914
00:33:42,140 --> 00:33:44,964
Yeah. And it's, So So you're in Scotland?

915
00:33:44,964 --> 00:33:46,244
And so I So what was the so

916
00:33:46,244 --> 00:33:47,605
what were you doing there? Why did you

917
00:33:47,605 --> 00:33:49,125
go with the first one? There was just

918
00:33:49,125 --> 00:33:50,644
a very, very good job that I thought

919
00:33:50,644 --> 00:33:52,164
I would be very good at after I

920
00:33:52,164 --> 00:33:54,069
finished at Oxford, so I applied for it.

921
00:33:54,069 --> 00:33:55,769
I got it. And that

922
00:33:56,230 --> 00:33:58,470
law firms like like people who went to

923
00:33:58,470 --> 00:34:00,230
Oxford Law School and got good marks there,

924
00:34:00,230 --> 00:34:01,829
they think they might be pretty clever, and

925
00:34:01,829 --> 00:34:02,970
so they hire them.

926
00:34:03,664 --> 00:34:05,825
And, but there were certain things I had

927
00:34:05,825 --> 00:34:08,065
to do at the University of Edinburgh, certain

928
00:34:08,065 --> 00:34:10,625
subjects that were where Scottish law, like property

929
00:34:10,625 --> 00:34:12,224
law and family law, it's more like Roman

930
00:34:12,224 --> 00:34:13,719
law, so it's very different. Different.

931
00:34:14,179 --> 00:34:14,900
And I had to do a year long

932
00:34:14,900 --> 00:34:15,059
subject,

933
00:34:15,699 --> 00:34:16,480
in civil law, which is the traditional not

934
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:17,219
only the law of the Roman Empire, but

935
00:34:17,219 --> 00:34:18,819
the history of Roman law and how it

936
00:34:18,819 --> 00:34:20,339
became so important both in Scotland and on

937
00:34:20,339 --> 00:34:20,839
the

938
00:34:21,525 --> 00:34:23,125
the history of Roman law and how it

939
00:34:23,125 --> 00:34:25,285
became so important both in Scotland and on

940
00:34:25,285 --> 00:34:25,945
the continent.

941
00:34:27,684 --> 00:34:29,605
And that all seemed, by the by, it

942
00:34:29,605 --> 00:34:30,344
was very

943
00:34:30,900 --> 00:34:32,920
enjoyable, and I thought that was good and

944
00:34:33,219 --> 00:34:34,360
so on and so forth.

945
00:34:34,980 --> 00:34:37,539
And you're you're broadening your your ability to

946
00:34:37,539 --> 00:34:39,139
practice law, so you're gonna be Right. So

947
00:34:39,139 --> 00:34:40,194
in all that, it's a different more of

948
00:34:40,194 --> 00:34:41,335
a lawyer. Mhmm.

949
00:34:42,194 --> 00:34:45,175
I then had to, though, be formally admitted

950
00:34:45,474 --> 00:34:47,815
in Scotland because it's a different jurisdiction.

951
00:34:48,219 --> 00:34:50,480
I had to go to an admissions process

952
00:34:50,539 --> 00:34:52,639
where you lodge your papers with your academic

953
00:34:52,699 --> 00:34:54,699
transcript and show that you haven't paid a

954
00:34:54,699 --> 00:34:57,144
1,000,000 speeding fines recently and all of the

955
00:34:57,144 --> 00:34:58,764
all of the things that they do

956
00:34:59,224 --> 00:34:59,724
for

957
00:35:00,505 --> 00:35:02,264
lawyers. And I didn't have very much in

958
00:35:02,264 --> 00:35:04,239
Scotland. I sent them England and Wales as

959
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:05,940
well because I'd been down

960
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:08,960
in a university and living in Oxford and

961
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:10,179
all of that kind of thing.

962
00:35:11,454 --> 00:35:14,015
And I had formal objections made to my

963
00:35:14,015 --> 00:35:15,075
admission in Scotland

964
00:35:16,095 --> 00:35:17,695
from the people who'd had a problem with

965
00:35:17,695 --> 00:35:18,755
my book in 1995.

966
00:35:20,030 --> 00:35:21,710
They had made no attempt to cause me

967
00:35:21,710 --> 00:35:23,869
grief in England and Wales some years earlier

968
00:35:23,869 --> 00:35:25,309
or to stop me going to Oxford or

969
00:35:25,309 --> 00:35:27,150
so on and so forth. This was in

970
00:35:27,150 --> 00:35:27,650
2012.

971
00:35:29,694 --> 00:35:30,594
At the time,

972
00:35:31,534 --> 00:35:33,775
because I had to get legal advice to

973
00:35:33,775 --> 00:35:36,034
get this sorted. At the time, I thought,

974
00:35:36,094 --> 00:35:37,869
oh my god, it's the Jewish lobby back

975
00:35:37,869 --> 00:35:38,849
for another bite.

976
00:35:39,309 --> 00:35:40,289
And technically,

977
00:35:41,390 --> 00:35:42,369
that was true,

978
00:35:43,789 --> 00:35:44,849
but only technically.

979
00:35:45,644 --> 00:35:46,945
Because by 2012,

980
00:35:48,045 --> 00:35:50,224
everybody had started to decide

981
00:35:50,525 --> 00:35:51,425
that a completely

982
00:35:51,805 --> 00:35:53,905
appropriate way to respond to

983
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:56,800
someone who said things that they didn't like,

984
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:58,159
either in a book or on the telly

985
00:35:58,159 --> 00:35:58,820
or whatever,

986
00:35:59,199 --> 00:36:00,820
was to try to get them sacked,

987
00:36:01,335 --> 00:36:02,394
to get them disbarred,

988
00:36:02,855 --> 00:36:05,335
to get them struck off. Whatever the expression

989
00:36:05,335 --> 00:36:06,954
is used in your jurisdiction

990
00:36:07,255 --> 00:36:08,934
for lawyers and for doctors, I know it

991
00:36:08,934 --> 00:36:09,434
varies.

992
00:36:10,059 --> 00:36:11,760
Counsel. And so it

993
00:36:12,539 --> 00:36:14,239
it it it it it went into abeyance.

994
00:36:14,780 --> 00:36:17,179
There was a sincere attempt on me in

995
00:36:17,179 --> 00:36:17,679
1995

996
00:36:17,980 --> 00:36:20,095
that didn't work. My book was never out

997
00:36:20,095 --> 00:36:22,894
of print. It continued to sell. It's provided

998
00:36:22,894 --> 00:36:24,815
me with a very good income, including in

999
00:36:24,815 --> 00:36:25,635
lean periods

1000
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:28,500
over the years, so I can't complain.

1001
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:31,760
That was another thing. It was quite difficult

1002
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:34,695
to cancel people in the nineties because particularly

1003
00:36:34,695 --> 00:36:36,375
just with words. You could cancel them if

1004
00:36:36,375 --> 00:36:39,175
you physically threatened them like Salman Rushdie. But

1005
00:36:39,175 --> 00:36:40,614
if you just did it with words, you

1006
00:36:40,614 --> 00:36:42,630
tended to just make the person's book into

1007
00:36:42,710 --> 00:36:44,389
or filled whatever it was. And there was

1008
00:36:44,389 --> 00:36:47,030
no social meaning? Created this yeah. You created

1009
00:36:47,030 --> 00:36:48,650
a Streisand effect, basically.

1010
00:36:48,949 --> 00:36:49,929
Whereas now,

1011
00:36:52,284 --> 00:36:53,585
everybody has decided

1012
00:36:54,925 --> 00:36:57,005
that it's completely fine to cancel people, and

1013
00:36:57,005 --> 00:36:59,085
we use this word cancel, which didn't used

1014
00:36:59,085 --> 00:37:01,539
to exist. I first wrote about this phenomenon

1015
00:37:01,539 --> 00:37:02,440
in 2015,

1016
00:37:02,739 --> 00:37:04,840
and I did not use the word canceled

1017
00:37:04,980 --> 00:37:07,140
because no one had used it, I don't

1018
00:37:07,140 --> 00:37:08,199
think, at that point.

1019
00:37:09,454 --> 00:37:11,474
And it has become completely standard.

1020
00:37:12,414 --> 00:37:15,054
Everybody is doing it. It is very, very

1021
00:37:15,054 --> 00:37:17,054
hard in the United States now, and I

1022
00:37:17,054 --> 00:37:18,940
will say this with complete honesty,

1023
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:20,059
to tell

1024
00:37:20,599 --> 00:37:21,980
Jewish people and conservatives

1025
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:23,019
who finally

1026
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:25,400
finally got a lever that they can pull

1027
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:26,539
on these appalling

1028
00:37:27,684 --> 00:37:30,824
universities and and the nonsense that they've produced

1029
00:37:30,885 --> 00:37:33,125
and and so on and so forth and

1030
00:37:33,125 --> 00:37:35,065
and the the bigotry and the sectarianism

1031
00:37:35,364 --> 00:37:36,664
and so on and so forth.

1032
00:37:38,550 --> 00:37:40,710
They're now pulling the same leader because they

1033
00:37:40,710 --> 00:37:42,809
found that it works. And I wrote

1034
00:37:43,190 --> 00:37:45,989
a piece for my Substack, which was featured

1035
00:37:45,989 --> 00:37:48,835
on the front page of Substack's website, mutually

1036
00:37:48,835 --> 00:37:49,655
assured cancellation.

1037
00:37:50,275 --> 00:37:52,114
But it's very, very hard to tell people

1038
00:37:52,114 --> 00:37:54,195
who've been on the receiving end of it

1039
00:37:54,195 --> 00:37:56,195
for a very long time to not do

1040
00:37:56,195 --> 00:37:56,695
it.

1041
00:37:59,430 --> 00:38:01,269
And this is where Well, in other words,

1042
00:38:01,269 --> 00:38:02,789
to not do it. You are the you

1043
00:38:02,789 --> 00:38:04,545
are the country with a culture of free

1044
00:38:04,545 --> 00:38:06,464
speech. To not do it back. To not

1045
00:38:06,464 --> 00:38:07,664
do it back. In other words, when given

1046
00:38:07,664 --> 00:38:08,324
the opportunity

1047
00:38:09,025 --> 00:38:10,704
to do it to those who have done

1048
00:38:10,704 --> 00:38:11,444
it to them,

1049
00:38:11,789 --> 00:38:13,170
It's hard to tell people,

1050
00:38:14,030 --> 00:38:15,650
wait. Stop. Stand on principle.

1051
00:38:16,349 --> 00:38:18,190
Yes. It's very hard to get people to

1052
00:38:18,190 --> 00:38:18,929
be principled.

1053
00:38:19,964 --> 00:38:21,025
It's very hard,

1054
00:38:21,964 --> 00:38:22,704
you know,

1055
00:38:23,005 --> 00:38:23,244
like

1056
00:38:23,804 --> 00:38:25,744
Okay. So what happened in the Scottish

1057
00:38:26,525 --> 00:38:28,444
situation? You were not able Well, no. I

1058
00:38:28,444 --> 00:38:30,510
was I was admitted to practice and so

1059
00:38:30,510 --> 00:38:31,710
on and so forth, but I had to

1060
00:38:31,710 --> 00:38:32,929
engage legal representation.

1061
00:38:33,309 --> 00:38:35,309
I had to put together, you know, formal

1062
00:38:35,309 --> 00:38:35,809
submissions,

1063
00:38:36,510 --> 00:38:38,369
you know, that I wasn't an anti semite,

1064
00:38:38,655 --> 00:38:40,255
that I wasn't a this, I wasn't a

1065
00:38:40,255 --> 00:38:41,614
that, and so on and so forth. I

1066
00:38:41,614 --> 00:38:42,974
had to go through all of the process.

1067
00:38:42,974 --> 00:38:44,034
It was very unpleasant.

1068
00:38:44,414 --> 00:38:47,359
And it was only resolved fully the day

1069
00:38:47,359 --> 00:38:49,299
before I had to front up

1070
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:51,599
in the court of session to have my

1071
00:38:51,599 --> 00:38:52,500
admission moved

1072
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:54,704
by the firm that I was working for.

1073
00:38:55,025 --> 00:38:57,445
So, yes, it was very, very stressful,

1074
00:38:59,025 --> 00:39:00,945
and un unpleasant. You know, I was sitting

1075
00:39:00,945 --> 00:39:02,545
there thinking that it was finally resolved the

1076
00:39:02,545 --> 00:39:03,585
day before, and I was just

1077
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:06,280
and I I can't even remember if I

1078
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:08,599
slept properly that night or or that kind

1079
00:39:08,599 --> 00:39:10,440
of thing, but it was just this is

1080
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:13,105
2012. My book won the Miles Franklin award

1081
00:39:13,105 --> 00:39:14,964
that you were annoyed about in 1995.

1082
00:39:15,344 --> 00:39:16,005
It's time

1083
00:39:16,464 --> 00:39:17,525
to to put it aside.

1084
00:39:17,824 --> 00:39:19,764
But the point is, by 2012,

1085
00:39:20,144 --> 00:39:22,750
we're into that period that Jonathan Haidt

1086
00:39:23,449 --> 00:39:24,989
is talking about where

1087
00:39:25,690 --> 00:39:27,609
the world is get is getting into this

1088
00:39:27,609 --> 00:39:30,644
madness, where everybody decides that this is an

1089
00:39:30,644 --> 00:39:33,045
entirely appropriate way to behave towards someone who

1090
00:39:33,045 --> 00:39:34,425
you disagree with.

1091
00:39:35,980 --> 00:39:36,639
I guess,

1092
00:39:37,019 --> 00:39:38,639
you know, now that I think about it,

1093
00:39:39,099 --> 00:39:40,880
in a world where everybody

1094
00:39:41,179 --> 00:39:41,679
can

1095
00:39:42,059 --> 00:39:44,480
everybody has access to a

1096
00:39:45,324 --> 00:39:46,704
a box in Hyde Park.

1097
00:39:47,005 --> 00:39:49,744
We can't rely on gatekeepers anymore to to

1098
00:39:49,885 --> 00:39:51,025
shut people out.

1099
00:39:51,485 --> 00:39:52,625
So we have to

1100
00:39:53,485 --> 00:39:53,985
crowdsource

1101
00:39:55,940 --> 00:39:58,099
shutting people out. And that's what that's really

1102
00:39:58,099 --> 00:39:59,000
what they're doing.

1103
00:39:59,539 --> 00:40:01,719
And it's producing a system of shunning.

1104
00:40:02,155 --> 00:40:03,195
That's all I can

1105
00:40:03,675 --> 00:40:06,014
it's a type of shunning, almost. 100%.

1106
00:40:07,034 --> 00:40:08,815
And where they can't shun,

1107
00:40:09,329 --> 00:40:11,430
where it doesn't the shunning doesn't work,

1108
00:40:12,289 --> 00:40:14,050
and I'm an example of someone where the

1109
00:40:14,050 --> 00:40:16,610
shunning didn't work. What happens is you're just

1110
00:40:16,610 --> 00:40:17,110
siloed.

1111
00:40:17,594 --> 00:40:19,434
And I wrote about this, and Andrew Doyle

1112
00:40:19,434 --> 00:40:22,154
has used my my argument in in one

1113
00:40:22,154 --> 00:40:22,974
of his books.

1114
00:40:24,900 --> 00:40:26,820
And what that means is you finish up

1115
00:40:26,820 --> 00:40:29,539
being in a press environment that might be

1116
00:40:29,539 --> 00:40:32,019
quite lively and and expansive, and many people

1117
00:40:32,019 --> 00:40:34,594
read your stuff, but they're all people who

1118
00:40:34,815 --> 00:40:36,815
either agree with you or they're adjacent to

1119
00:40:36,815 --> 00:40:39,934
you politically. Yep. A 100%. And so You

1120
00:40:40,094 --> 00:40:40,835
in 2015,

1121
00:40:41,375 --> 00:40:43,329
I was safely able to write a piece

1122
00:40:43,329 --> 00:40:45,590
for The Guardian, because that's where it appeared

1123
00:40:45,970 --> 00:40:47,989
on what became cancel culture.

1124
00:40:48,450 --> 00:40:51,085
It was for The Guardian, me, in 2015.

1125
00:40:51,864 --> 00:40:52,364
Impossible.

1126
00:40:53,864 --> 00:40:56,045
Whereas now, the idea of me

1127
00:40:57,280 --> 00:40:59,680
appearing in The Guardian is just completely fanciful.

1128
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:01,440
And they'll be very honest with you if

1129
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:03,200
you write to to them. You know, this

1130
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:04,554
used to be a newspaper that was quite

1131
00:41:04,554 --> 00:41:06,234
good at grabbing people from the other side

1132
00:41:06,234 --> 00:41:07,594
of the aisle, and I was one of

1133
00:41:07,594 --> 00:41:10,155
many, many writers that it did this to.

1134
00:41:10,155 --> 00:41:11,434
You write to them now and you go,

1135
00:41:11,434 --> 00:41:12,875
I would like to pitch you a piece

1136
00:41:12,875 --> 00:41:15,390
on x and some are a standard bright

1137
00:41:15,469 --> 00:41:16,769
freelance writer's pitch.

1138
00:41:18,030 --> 00:41:19,949
Those are they'll quite often just write back

1139
00:41:19,949 --> 00:41:21,730
and say, oh, no. We don't publish conservatives.

1140
00:41:22,144 --> 00:41:23,744
Yeah. A 100%. And the thing is, it's

1141
00:41:23,744 --> 00:41:25,925
starting to now happen on the other side,

1142
00:41:26,144 --> 00:41:28,625
and that's called the silo effect. Absolutely. That's

1143
00:41:28,625 --> 00:41:29,525
what I coined.

1144
00:41:30,340 --> 00:41:32,820
Imagine 2 grain silos looking at each other

1145
00:41:32,820 --> 00:41:34,980
across the street and in in the middle

1146
00:41:34,980 --> 00:41:36,900
of one of the Do you seriously states.

1147
00:41:37,140 --> 00:41:39,239
Are you taking is it your testimony

1148
00:41:41,494 --> 00:41:42,474
sitting here today?

1149
00:41:43,255 --> 00:41:45,014
I hate that. I I hate sitting here.

1150
00:41:45,014 --> 00:41:45,514
Yeah.

1151
00:41:45,894 --> 00:41:48,614
Is it Yeah. That you coined the term

1152
00:41:48,614 --> 00:41:49,675
the silo effect?

1153
00:41:50,250 --> 00:41:52,010
Is that is that is that what you're

1154
00:41:52,010 --> 00:41:54,250
saying, Helen? I'm not I'm not sure. I've

1155
00:41:54,250 --> 00:41:56,409
I've certainly described that. I don't know if

1156
00:41:56,409 --> 00:41:57,402
I I I'd love to know that. But

1157
00:41:57,402 --> 00:41:58,110
I described it That's what it is.

1158
00:42:00,704 --> 00:42:03,684
Andrew Doyle then used it, the silo effect.

1159
00:42:04,065 --> 00:42:05,925
And it's a specific thing whereby,

1160
00:42:06,650 --> 00:42:08,730
you start writing for the Daily Mail and

1161
00:42:08,730 --> 00:42:11,049
you stop writing for the Guardian. And as

1162
00:42:11,049 --> 00:42:12,650
far as the readers of the Guardian are

1163
00:42:12,650 --> 00:42:14,945
concerned, you have simply disappeared. This is what

1164
00:42:14,945 --> 00:42:16,324
happened to Suzanne Moore.

1165
00:42:16,625 --> 00:42:18,244
And who's with Suzanne Moore?

1166
00:42:18,945 --> 00:42:22,065
A very, very fine left leaning feminist writer

1167
00:42:22,065 --> 00:42:24,449
for The Guardian. Very funny, mainly for many,

1168
00:42:24,449 --> 00:42:25,109
many years,

1169
00:42:25,569 --> 00:42:27,730
and, happens to be gender critical on team

1170
00:42:27,730 --> 00:42:29,409
JK Rowling. And so that was the end

1171
00:42:29,409 --> 00:42:30,929
of her, and they shoved her out of

1172
00:42:30,929 --> 00:42:31,670
the newspaper.

1173
00:42:32,105 --> 00:42:33,945
She had a petition around the office that

1174
00:42:33,945 --> 00:42:36,585
basically every other journalist signed except for her

1175
00:42:36,585 --> 00:42:38,505
in the newsroom. Well, you know, you know,

1176
00:42:38,505 --> 00:42:41,005
speaking of speaking speaking of, you know, Bolsheviks.

1177
00:42:41,144 --> 00:42:44,030
Right? It's exact here's another angle on it.

1178
00:42:44,410 --> 00:42:46,329
I can't tell you how many, and the

1179
00:42:46,329 --> 00:42:47,849
reason is I haven't counted. It's not a

1180
00:42:47,849 --> 00:42:50,815
gazillion. But there are numerous people who are

1181
00:42:50,815 --> 00:42:53,474
either apolitical or people of the left

1182
00:42:54,494 --> 00:42:55,795
who I have asked

1183
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:58,579
to come on this show, and I'm

1184
00:42:59,199 --> 00:43:01,940
I'm not I'm not a big, big platform.

1185
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:04,099
I mean, it's a niche. It's a niche.

1186
00:43:05,119 --> 00:43:05,619
Yeah.

1187
00:43:06,485 --> 00:43:08,184
And they won't do it because

1188
00:43:08,965 --> 00:43:12,744
you're political and you're conservative, and I it's

1189
00:43:13,045 --> 00:43:14,929
there's no upside for me. There might be

1190
00:43:14,929 --> 00:43:16,769
an upside for you, Ron. Yeah. I think

1191
00:43:16,769 --> 00:43:18,050
there would be because I think my audience

1192
00:43:18,050 --> 00:43:19,090
would like to meet you and like to

1193
00:43:19,090 --> 00:43:20,449
hear you and like to hear you. I

1194
00:43:20,449 --> 00:43:21,429
cannot get

1195
00:43:21,969 --> 00:43:23,269
a discussion going

1196
00:43:24,105 --> 00:43:26,505
with anyone who isn't already in my silo

1197
00:43:26,505 --> 00:43:28,184
with me. So I can find interesting people

1198
00:43:28,184 --> 00:43:29,805
like you who've had interesting experiences

1199
00:43:30,265 --> 00:43:32,285
and, you know, who who see things

1200
00:43:32,630 --> 00:43:35,030
in a unique way, but you can't have

1201
00:43:35,030 --> 00:43:37,269
a conversation, you know, and the therefore, he

1202
00:43:37,269 --> 00:43:38,730
became a science fiction writer.

1203
00:43:39,964 --> 00:43:42,204
Well, what I did was I finally got

1204
00:43:42,204 --> 00:43:43,025
a good idea.

1205
00:43:44,204 --> 00:43:45,724
A book. And so I did the thing.

1206
00:43:45,724 --> 00:43:48,019
And that's why as I as I admit,

1207
00:43:48,179 --> 00:43:50,599
it took 13 years to write

1208
00:43:51,059 --> 00:43:51,559
these

1209
00:43:52,659 --> 00:43:55,000
2 books. That's book 1 and book 2.

1210
00:43:55,815 --> 00:43:57,914
Yes. And as you can see, they're quite

1211
00:43:59,175 --> 00:44:02,695
tasty and Yeah. Meaty. Funky. Yeah. Meaty. And

1212
00:44:02,695 --> 00:44:04,614
you and they were mentioned. I didn't I

1213
00:44:04,614 --> 00:44:06,300
thought of you as a lawyer and commentator.

1214
00:44:07,559 --> 00:44:10,440
And then I'm listening as one does to,

1215
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:12,599
the little platoon who I've had on the

1216
00:44:12,599 --> 00:44:13,099
show.

1217
00:44:14,585 --> 00:44:16,264
And it was worth having on your show

1218
00:44:16,264 --> 00:44:17,724
just for that voice.

1219
00:44:18,984 --> 00:44:21,945
He he's great. Lovely speaking. But but also

1220
00:44:21,945 --> 00:44:24,720
really, really well informed and well educated, sophisticated

1221
00:44:25,099 --> 00:44:25,599
thinker.

1222
00:44:26,140 --> 00:44:28,619
And he mentions your he mentions your books.

1223
00:44:28,619 --> 00:44:30,860
And I said, Helen Dale. I mean, not

1224
00:44:30,860 --> 00:44:32,715
the not the most obscure name in the

1225
00:44:32,715 --> 00:44:33,215
world,

1226
00:44:34,315 --> 00:44:36,795
but is that my friend from Twitter, Helen

1227
00:44:36,795 --> 00:44:39,000
Dale? Darn if it isn't you. So tell

1228
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:40,680
us a little bit about those and and

1229
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:42,680
and how that sort of fits, which I

1230
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:43,960
think it does with the the rest of

1231
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:44,700
this conversation.

1232
00:44:45,934 --> 00:44:46,755
Well, basically,

1233
00:44:47,054 --> 00:44:48,894
I I knew all this stuff about legal

1234
00:44:48,894 --> 00:44:51,394
systems, and I practiced in different legal systems.

1235
00:44:53,019 --> 00:44:55,280
And it's always been a personal

1236
00:44:55,579 --> 00:44:58,059
bugbear of mine. When you read works of

1237
00:44:58,059 --> 00:45:00,940
science fiction by pretty good writers who are

1238
00:45:00,940 --> 00:45:03,795
very good at conceiving technology and so society

1239
00:45:03,855 --> 00:45:06,174
and so on. But they'll have incredibly primitive

1240
00:45:06,174 --> 00:45:08,014
legal systems, so you'll still have trial by

1241
00:45:08,014 --> 00:45:10,070
battle or something like that in there. And

1242
00:45:10,070 --> 00:45:11,750
I just thought, right, I'd like to do

1243
00:45:11,750 --> 00:45:14,150
science fiction with, like, science fiction lawyers. And

1244
00:45:14,150 --> 00:45:15,670
so that means and because I'm a lawyer

1245
00:45:15,670 --> 00:45:17,465
and I've practiced in all these odd places

1246
00:45:17,465 --> 00:45:19,324
and done all these odd sort of law,

1247
00:45:19,704 --> 00:45:21,625
it will be good law. It will be

1248
00:45:21,625 --> 00:45:23,405
a real legal system, but it won't

1249
00:45:23,980 --> 00:45:24,719
be identifiably

1250
00:45:25,179 --> 00:45:26,000
1 or

1251
00:45:26,539 --> 00:45:28,380
that exists anywhere in the world. I will

1252
00:45:28,380 --> 00:45:29,199
make it up.

1253
00:45:30,219 --> 00:45:32,405
And so that was the starting point. Oh,

1254
00:45:32,405 --> 00:45:35,284
that's that's interesting. So in other words Yes.

1255
00:45:35,525 --> 00:45:37,545
That was but so that isn't necessarily

1256
00:45:38,085 --> 00:45:40,420
oh, but but but it's science fiction because

1257
00:45:40,420 --> 00:45:41,880
you're positing a,

1258
00:45:42,659 --> 00:45:45,239
a world that's not that's not our world.

1259
00:45:46,019 --> 00:45:47,864
What I will do is I will I

1260
00:45:47,864 --> 00:45:50,025
don't write these. I am terrible at writing

1261
00:45:50,025 --> 00:45:50,525
blurbs,

1262
00:45:50,825 --> 00:45:52,525
and so I have never written one,

1263
00:45:53,385 --> 00:45:55,965
either for myself or any other writer. However,

1264
00:45:56,105 --> 00:45:56,765
my editor,

1265
00:45:57,309 --> 00:45:59,650
publisher is still good. So I

1266
00:46:00,109 --> 00:46:02,190
I will read Matthew's blurb, and it will

1267
00:46:02,190 --> 00:46:04,289
put your readers in the picture. Okay.

1268
00:46:05,454 --> 00:46:05,954
784,

1269
00:46:06,735 --> 00:46:08,195
AB Erbe Condita,

1270
00:46:08,575 --> 00:46:09,715
31 AD.

1271
00:46:10,894 --> 00:46:13,695
Jerusalem sits uneasily in a Roman Empire that

1272
00:46:13,695 --> 00:46:15,190
has seen an industrial revolution and A

1273
00:46:19,307 --> 00:46:19,807
charismatic

1274
00:46:24,405 --> 00:46:25,065
A charismatic

1275
00:46:25,364 --> 00:46:27,445
young leader is arrested after a riot at

1276
00:46:27,445 --> 00:46:28,105
the temple.

1277
00:46:28,644 --> 00:46:30,164
He seems to be a man of peace,

1278
00:46:30,164 --> 00:46:32,519
but among his followers, the Zealots and daggermen

1279
00:46:32,659 --> 00:46:34,579
swarm to drive the Romans from the Holy

1280
00:46:34,579 --> 00:46:35,079
Land.

1281
00:46:36,420 --> 00:46:39,219
As the city spirals into violence, the stage

1282
00:46:39,219 --> 00:46:41,059
is set for a legal case that will

1283
00:46:41,059 --> 00:46:42,005
shape the future,

1284
00:46:42,385 --> 00:46:44,405
the trial of Yeshua Ben Youssef.

1285
00:46:45,264 --> 00:46:45,764
Intricately

1286
00:46:46,065 --> 00:46:47,364
imagined and ferociously

1287
00:46:47,744 --> 00:46:48,244
executed,

1288
00:46:48,650 --> 00:46:50,910
Kingdom of the Wicked is a stunning alternative

1289
00:46:51,050 --> 00:46:53,309
history and a story for our time.

1290
00:46:54,489 --> 00:46:55,869
So what I've done

1291
00:46:56,170 --> 00:46:58,110
is a version of

1292
00:46:58,844 --> 00:46:59,984
Philip k Dick

1293
00:47:00,525 --> 00:47:02,045
speculative fiction, alternative

1294
00:47:02,364 --> 00:47:06,125
Sure. History, alternate history, they sometimes insist on

1295
00:47:06,125 --> 00:47:08,464
it, where you go down a different timeline.

1296
00:47:09,309 --> 00:47:10,289
But this time,

1297
00:47:10,670 --> 00:47:13,150
with what I the innovative thing, the conceit

1298
00:47:13,150 --> 00:47:15,309
that I use, the high concept that my

1299
00:47:15,309 --> 00:47:17,550
agent calls these this kind of thinking high

1300
00:47:17,550 --> 00:47:19,885
concept. Thank you, Matthew Hamilton. I didn't know

1301
00:47:19,885 --> 00:47:21,744
this, but that's high concept apparently

1302
00:47:22,125 --> 00:47:23,744
when he was selling these. So

1303
00:47:24,125 --> 00:47:25,025
I've learned this.

1304
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:29,000
And the conceit is that I don't change

1305
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:30,139
the actual timeline

1306
00:47:31,159 --> 00:47:32,940
of what actually happened.

1307
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:34,059
You know,

1308
00:47:34,454 --> 00:47:36,775
Tiberius is still the emperor. Pontius Pilate is

1309
00:47:36,775 --> 00:47:38,934
still the the the prefect. You just changed

1310
00:47:38,934 --> 00:47:40,234
up you changed the details.

1311
00:47:40,934 --> 00:47:43,730
What I've done is I have changed the

1312
00:47:43,730 --> 00:47:47,269
arc of historical progress or or historical narrative

1313
00:47:47,809 --> 00:47:48,789
based on

1314
00:47:49,250 --> 00:47:50,389
a point of departure

1315
00:47:51,170 --> 00:47:51,670
where

1316
00:47:52,234 --> 00:47:54,714
Archimedes is not killed at the battle of

1317
00:47:54,714 --> 00:47:55,214
Syracuse,

1318
00:47:56,474 --> 00:47:58,894
and he becomes the Romans DARPA guy.

1319
00:48:00,250 --> 00:48:01,849
And so I set this all up with

1320
00:48:01,849 --> 00:48:03,230
a fair degree of

1321
00:48:03,609 --> 00:48:05,849
intricacy to to make, and then I just

1322
00:48:05,849 --> 00:48:06,750
let it run.

1323
00:48:07,695 --> 00:48:09,375
And so it's kind of like letting an

1324
00:48:09,375 --> 00:48:11,474
experiment run and just seeing what happens.

1325
00:48:12,094 --> 00:48:13,875
And I worked out then

1326
00:48:15,099 --> 00:48:17,980
what I once I had the legal background,

1327
00:48:17,980 --> 00:48:20,539
I thought, what made these two cultures so

1328
00:48:20,539 --> 00:48:21,039
different?

1329
00:48:21,340 --> 00:48:23,234
Why didn't they get on? And they didn't

1330
00:48:23,234 --> 00:48:25,074
get on in ways that are very familiar

1331
00:48:25,074 --> 00:48:27,394
to modern people, but were very unusual to

1332
00:48:27,394 --> 00:48:28,695
people in the ancient world.

1333
00:48:29,809 --> 00:48:31,090
So that kind of thing. So I had

1334
00:48:31,090 --> 00:48:32,690
to present all of that sort of conflict

1335
00:48:32,690 --> 00:48:34,949
with Islamism, for example, as something new.

1336
00:48:35,329 --> 00:48:35,829
Right.

1337
00:48:37,184 --> 00:48:40,005
And, yeah, people had not seen it yet.

1338
00:48:40,144 --> 00:48:42,784
Pagans in Europe, and that word we use

1339
00:48:42,784 --> 00:48:44,389
is not the word they use to describe

1340
00:48:44,469 --> 00:48:45,909
themselves. They follow the right of this or

1341
00:48:45,909 --> 00:48:47,529
the right of that or whatever. Themselves

1342
00:48:48,230 --> 00:48:48,730
humanity.

1343
00:48:49,670 --> 00:48:51,769
I mean, the the the knock on Christianity

1344
00:48:52,394 --> 00:48:54,335
was that they were haters of humanity.

1345
00:48:55,275 --> 00:48:57,195
Yes. Here we are being regular. Here we

1346
00:48:57,195 --> 00:48:59,275
are just being people. And I've got a

1347
00:48:59,275 --> 00:49:00,980
problem. I've got a problem with crops, so

1348
00:49:00,980 --> 00:49:02,420
I'm gonna go to the crop god. That's

1349
00:49:02,579 --> 00:49:03,800
why wouldn't I do that?

1350
00:49:04,260 --> 00:49:05,480
Why wouldn't I sacrifice

1351
00:49:05,780 --> 00:49:07,300
to to the to the to the god

1352
00:49:07,300 --> 00:49:09,605
of healing when my when my child is

1353
00:49:09,605 --> 00:49:11,125
sick? Like, why do you hate why do

1354
00:49:11,125 --> 00:49:12,644
you hate me for that? One god, one

1355
00:49:12,644 --> 00:49:13,144
god.

1356
00:49:14,485 --> 00:49:16,405
So what? And you get and the thing

1357
00:49:16,405 --> 00:49:17,224
is you get

1358
00:49:17,550 --> 00:49:19,710
Romans responding like that. And you do also

1359
00:49:19,710 --> 00:49:20,930
get Romans and Jews

1360
00:49:21,390 --> 00:49:23,230
trying to talk to each other, trying to

1361
00:49:23,230 --> 00:49:24,030
bridge this huge

1362
00:49:24,715 --> 00:49:25,215
because

1363
00:49:25,515 --> 00:49:28,315
it's not just an intellectual theological divide. It's

1364
00:49:28,315 --> 00:49:31,614
also a moral divide. You finish up with

1365
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:35,500
very, very different approaches to human,

1366
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:37,739
morality.

1367
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:40,519
And in in the modern world, you would

1368
00:49:40,519 --> 00:49:43,125
say until relatively recently, the Jews won some

1369
00:49:43,125 --> 00:49:45,204
of those arguments, but the Romans won others.

1370
00:49:45,204 --> 00:49:46,965
You know, the the Romans were the ones

1371
00:49:46,965 --> 00:49:49,900
that made everybody that they conquered monogamous. No.

1372
00:49:49,900 --> 00:49:51,760
You're not gonna have more than one wife.

1373
00:49:52,059 --> 00:49:53,659
You know, that that kind and, of course,

1374
00:49:53,659 --> 00:49:55,579
what did that do? It passed into Christianity,

1375
00:49:55,579 --> 00:49:58,059
and you think, Roman monogamy. Didn't they bang

1376
00:49:58,059 --> 00:49:59,635
like a Donnie Dora in a gale? You

1377
00:49:59,635 --> 00:50:01,074
know, this kind of thing. But, of course,

1378
00:50:01,074 --> 00:50:01,974
it was serial

1379
00:50:02,275 --> 00:50:02,775
monogamy.

1380
00:50:04,675 --> 00:50:06,755
They were all busily getting divorced all the

1381
00:50:06,755 --> 00:50:07,255
time.

1382
00:50:08,070 --> 00:50:10,090
And so I just had these good

1383
00:50:10,469 --> 00:50:12,150
ideas for books, and I was writing them

1384
00:50:12,150 --> 00:50:13,829
at home in the evening doing the doing

1385
00:50:13,829 --> 00:50:15,430
the thing. And that's why I've only written

1386
00:50:15,430 --> 00:50:17,295
3 novels because I worked a normal job

1387
00:50:17,295 --> 00:50:18,514
for years years

1388
00:50:18,815 --> 00:50:20,514
that that has long hours.

1389
00:50:21,375 --> 00:50:24,014
And they came out in book 1 came

1390
00:50:24,014 --> 00:50:24,994
out in 2,017,

1391
00:50:26,500 --> 00:50:28,199
and then book 2 in 2018.

1392
00:50:28,579 --> 00:50:30,659
I my publisher didn't think for a while

1393
00:50:30,659 --> 00:50:32,420
of of putting them in just in one,

1394
00:50:32,420 --> 00:50:34,019
but, no, it's better. When you got,

1395
00:50:34,500 --> 00:50:36,545
books that are, oh goodness,

1396
00:50:37,565 --> 00:50:39,585
nearly 500 pages long,

1397
00:50:40,125 --> 00:50:42,605
it needs to be Yeah. A separate book

1398
00:50:42,605 --> 00:50:44,889
for each. But I wanted to give, I

1399
00:50:45,049 --> 00:50:47,849
give people Roman morality, and, you know, they're

1400
00:50:47,849 --> 00:50:48,670
not just

1401
00:50:49,289 --> 00:50:50,029
like us,

1402
00:50:50,889 --> 00:50:52,889
and we're not like them. And it's not

1403
00:50:52,889 --> 00:50:55,445
just the the odd end the the cruel

1404
00:50:55,445 --> 00:50:57,684
entertainment and stuff that everybody knows about from

1405
00:50:57,684 --> 00:50:59,385
watching Gladiator. It's just

1406
00:51:00,085 --> 00:51:01,704
they didn't think people were equal.

1407
00:51:02,340 --> 00:51:03,800
That's probably the first

1408
00:51:04,099 --> 00:51:05,239
big thing.

1409
00:51:05,619 --> 00:51:06,119
So

1410
00:51:06,500 --> 00:51:08,280
I had to introduce lawyers

1411
00:51:08,579 --> 00:51:10,579
who are talking about things that all made

1412
00:51:10,579 --> 00:51:12,804
sense to other lawyers in the first 20

1413
00:51:12,804 --> 00:51:14,885
pages, but they're also talking about, oh, you're

1414
00:51:14,885 --> 00:51:16,965
a citizen. So you're a citizen, so you

1415
00:51:16,965 --> 00:51:19,144
get a jury. No. You're a non citizen.

1416
00:51:19,579 --> 00:51:20,940
You don't get a jury as of right.

1417
00:51:20,940 --> 00:51:22,539
You have to pay for the the jurors

1418
00:51:22,539 --> 00:51:24,700
to sit, which was a distinction that the

1419
00:51:24,700 --> 00:51:25,599
Robins had.

1420
00:51:26,885 --> 00:51:28,724
That that kind of thing, which just makes

1421
00:51:28,724 --> 00:51:29,764
modern people go

1422
00:51:30,644 --> 00:51:32,804
but the by the same token, they're talking

1423
00:51:32,804 --> 00:51:35,045
about legal concepts that will make sense to

1424
00:51:35,045 --> 00:51:35,864
any lawyer

1425
00:51:36,670 --> 00:51:38,769
because the Romans were the other great lawgiver

1426
00:51:38,829 --> 00:51:39,329
civilization.

1427
00:51:39,789 --> 00:51:42,349
So they've got all the they've got tort,

1428
00:51:42,349 --> 00:51:44,515
which they call the elect and, you know,

1429
00:51:44,515 --> 00:51:46,595
they've they've got libel, which they call in

1430
00:51:46,595 --> 00:51:48,434
urea. They've got, you know, all of the

1431
00:51:48,434 --> 00:51:50,355
things that you know, they've got the system

1432
00:51:50,355 --> 00:51:52,930
of contracts that would make perfect sense to

1433
00:51:52,930 --> 00:51:54,849
modern people. They've even got the concept of

1434
00:51:54,849 --> 00:51:57,010
higher purchase. It works exactly the same way

1435
00:51:57,010 --> 00:51:58,309
that higher purchase does,

1436
00:51:58,849 --> 00:52:01,170
in our society, bailment, all of these things

1437
00:52:01,170 --> 00:52:01,764
that are

1438
00:52:03,284 --> 00:52:05,764
completely the a lawyer's bread and butter, how

1439
00:52:05,764 --> 00:52:06,984
to draft a will.

1440
00:52:07,444 --> 00:52:09,444
You know, you see them applied in slightly

1441
00:52:09,444 --> 00:52:11,760
different areas like marriage was a contract to

1442
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:13,199
the Romans, so you draft up a you

1443
00:52:13,199 --> 00:52:14,880
have a you have your notary draft up

1444
00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:15,539
a contract.

1445
00:52:16,569 --> 00:52:17,069
That

1446
00:52:18,215 --> 00:52:20,375
that kind of thing. So These have obviously

1447
00:52:20,375 --> 00:52:22,095
done pretty well because you've been able to

1448
00:52:22,215 --> 00:52:24,855
They Yeah. Yeah. They've done really well. Although

1449
00:52:24,855 --> 00:52:26,900
it did help, I have to say. I

1450
00:52:26,900 --> 00:52:28,820
was worried they would only sell, like, maybe

1451
00:52:28,820 --> 00:52:30,739
5,000 copies each or something, and that would

1452
00:52:30,739 --> 00:52:31,640
just be it.

1453
00:52:32,820 --> 00:52:35,140
But then they got a very positive review

1454
00:52:35,140 --> 00:52:37,585
in one of British papers, the Financial Times.

1455
00:52:38,525 --> 00:52:40,765
And, the same person who wrote that review

1456
00:52:40,765 --> 00:52:42,864
is an economist called Mark Oyama,

1457
00:52:43,289 --> 00:52:46,090
and he actually wrote a long version of

1458
00:52:46,090 --> 00:52:48,429
the review that had all this incredibly detailed

1459
00:52:48,730 --> 00:52:50,890
economic analysis in it that was amazingly good

1460
00:52:51,050 --> 00:52:52,349
Oh. On his private

1461
00:52:52,785 --> 00:52:53,844
medium blog.

1462
00:52:54,385 --> 00:52:55,125
And anyway,

1463
00:52:55,744 --> 00:52:57,744
first of all, the short version from the

1464
00:52:57,744 --> 00:52:58,244
newspaper,

1465
00:52:58,545 --> 00:53:01,425
Tim Harford, the economist in the UK tweeted

1466
00:53:01,425 --> 00:53:01,925
it,

1467
00:53:02,900 --> 00:53:06,019
with his share token, and his tweet went

1468
00:53:06,019 --> 00:53:06,519
viral.

1469
00:53:07,219 --> 00:53:08,440
Thousands of retweets.

1470
00:53:08,980 --> 00:53:11,204
And people were interested. The the review was

1471
00:53:11,204 --> 00:53:13,684
very positive and charming, and lots of people

1472
00:53:13,684 --> 00:53:15,465
bought the book on the basis of that.

1473
00:53:15,684 --> 00:53:18,164
Then the long form of the review by

1474
00:53:18,164 --> 00:53:21,309
this economist, this professor Mark Koyama at, used

1475
00:53:21,309 --> 00:53:22,909
to be at Oxford. He's at George Mason

1476
00:53:22,909 --> 00:53:23,969
University now.

1477
00:53:24,909 --> 00:53:25,809
It was featured,

1478
00:53:26,474 --> 00:53:28,795
probably because it was so detailed, on Tyler

1479
00:53:28,795 --> 00:53:30,414
Cowen's Marginal Revolution.

1480
00:53:30,954 --> 00:53:32,954
And Tyler Cowen said, oh, I've started reading

1481
00:53:32,954 --> 00:53:34,335
this book. It's really excellent.

1482
00:53:35,049 --> 00:53:37,289
And it just proceeded to to just fly

1483
00:53:37,289 --> 00:53:38,109
off the shelves.

1484
00:53:38,409 --> 00:53:38,909
Terrific.

1485
00:53:39,849 --> 00:53:42,291
So I was very, very lucky. And and

1486
00:53:42,291 --> 00:53:43,005
did the cancellation

1487
00:53:43,545 --> 00:53:44,684
crowd not even

1488
00:53:45,144 --> 00:53:46,844
bother? No. No. I I

1489
00:53:47,224 --> 00:53:50,045
I didn't have I I had one unpleasant

1490
00:53:50,264 --> 00:53:50,764
incident

1491
00:53:53,130 --> 00:53:56,590
in 2018 at, the classics department. Obviously, classics,

1492
00:53:56,969 --> 00:53:59,210
ancient world. Yeah. So I got I went

1493
00:53:59,210 --> 00:54:01,275
to go and give a talk to people

1494
00:54:01,275 --> 00:54:02,494
in the classics department,

1495
00:54:03,355 --> 00:54:05,375
and they were given weird threats

1496
00:54:05,914 --> 00:54:08,074
about protesters and would turn up and I

1497
00:54:08,074 --> 00:54:10,014
would be picketed. And this was in 2018.

1498
00:54:11,829 --> 00:54:12,329
And,

1499
00:54:12,949 --> 00:54:15,849
anyway, the university to its credit in 2018,

1500
00:54:16,069 --> 00:54:18,069
the universities hadn't gone under, just said, oh,

1501
00:54:18,069 --> 00:54:19,349
we'll just, we will have,

1502
00:54:20,135 --> 00:54:20,875
we will

1503
00:54:21,255 --> 00:54:23,175
be in contact with Victoria Police. There will

1504
00:54:23,175 --> 00:54:24,454
be a police officer on the door, and

1505
00:54:24,454 --> 00:54:26,155
there was a police officer on the door.

1506
00:54:26,215 --> 00:54:27,574
And it was all very fun. And you

1507
00:54:27,574 --> 00:54:30,179
know how many protesters turned up? And she

1508
00:54:30,179 --> 00:54:32,500
was a very sad protester who was very

1509
00:54:32,500 --> 00:54:33,000
polite.

1510
00:54:35,300 --> 00:54:35,800
1

1511
00:54:36,579 --> 00:54:37,079
protester.

1512
00:54:38,894 --> 00:54:40,655
And here's me getting up there talking about

1513
00:54:40,655 --> 00:54:42,894
classics and answering questions on, you know, the

1514
00:54:42,894 --> 00:54:45,215
social policies of the the emperor Augustus who

1515
00:54:45,215 --> 00:54:47,480
was trying to reduce the divorce rates, for

1516
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:49,079
example, in the Roman world, and he tried

1517
00:54:49,079 --> 00:54:50,920
to pass laws to stop that and or

1518
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:53,320
reduce it. And it was interesting because he

1519
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:54,840
didn't have a problem with the idea of

1520
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:57,054
divorce. So the approach is very different from

1521
00:54:57,054 --> 00:54:59,295
the modern one. You know, it's So that

1522
00:54:59,295 --> 00:55:01,235
kind of thing. So I'd be I'd be

1523
00:55:01,375 --> 00:55:03,829
talking to about stuff like that. So you're

1524
00:55:03,829 --> 00:55:06,230
blue past it. You you you seem to

1525
00:55:06,309 --> 00:55:09,190
you you Yeah. I just although I do

1526
00:55:09,190 --> 00:55:11,269
wonder there are a number of things that

1527
00:55:11,269 --> 00:55:11,769
have

1528
00:55:12,454 --> 00:55:14,315
I blew past the cancellation.

1529
00:55:15,015 --> 00:55:17,494
1, I I be I it became clear

1530
00:55:17,494 --> 00:55:19,894
to me with with the controversy over the

1531
00:55:19,894 --> 00:55:22,130
first book, because I was still in a

1532
00:55:22,130 --> 00:55:24,609
university at the time, and I did have

1533
00:55:24,609 --> 00:55:26,210
contact with a lot more people on the

1534
00:55:26,210 --> 00:55:27,190
political left.

1535
00:55:27,864 --> 00:55:29,545
It became clear to me that the Jews

1536
00:55:29,545 --> 00:55:31,545
were rapidly running out of friends on the

1537
00:55:31,545 --> 00:55:32,045
left.

1538
00:55:33,385 --> 00:55:35,539
And they thought that these various left wing

1539
00:55:35,539 --> 00:55:36,039
organizations

1540
00:55:36,420 --> 00:55:38,180
or lefty people and I'm not talking about

1541
00:55:38,180 --> 00:55:40,900
Palestine here. Palestine, not a word. No one's

1542
00:55:40,900 --> 00:55:42,760
talking about Palestine. This is a nonissue.

1543
00:55:43,614 --> 00:55:44,894
And and in any case, it was nothing

1544
00:55:44,894 --> 00:55:46,894
to do with my controversy. Never came up

1545
00:55:46,894 --> 00:55:47,474
at all.

1546
00:55:48,735 --> 00:55:50,494
But it was pretty clear. I was just

1547
00:55:50,655 --> 00:55:52,015
So here when you say the Jews, you

1548
00:55:52,015 --> 00:55:54,219
mean the Jew the people who purport to

1549
00:55:54,219 --> 00:55:55,679
speak in the name of the Jews?

1550
00:55:57,820 --> 00:55:59,579
In other words Yeah. I would have said

1551
00:55:59,579 --> 00:56:00,640
I would have said

1552
00:56:01,025 --> 00:56:03,025
activists at this point, but the problem is

1553
00:56:03,025 --> 00:56:05,585
it extended very quickly over the next 10

1554
00:56:05,585 --> 00:56:06,565
or 15 years

1555
00:56:06,864 --> 00:56:09,344
beyond activists to just anybody who is Jewish,

1556
00:56:09,344 --> 00:56:12,530
this collapsing of Zionism and Israeli into Jew,

1557
00:56:12,530 --> 00:56:14,369
and it all just becomes this general, a

1558
00:56:14,369 --> 00:56:17,295
blob. Yeah. That thing that's happened in the

1559
00:56:17,295 --> 00:56:19,695
last probably 2 2 years, but certainly since

1560
00:56:19,695 --> 00:56:20,195
October

1561
00:56:20,575 --> 00:56:22,275
7th, it's definitely happened.

1562
00:56:22,735 --> 00:56:24,735
So what I was sort of thinking was

1563
00:56:24,735 --> 00:56:25,454
I I saw

1564
00:56:27,199 --> 00:56:27,859
I thought,

1565
00:56:29,359 --> 00:56:31,440
you kind of don't have friends here. You

1566
00:56:31,440 --> 00:56:33,059
think these people are your friends,

1567
00:56:33,599 --> 00:56:35,280
but they're not really your friends. But you

1568
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:36,734
don't like me. This is not you speaking

1569
00:56:36,734 --> 00:56:38,755
to anything. You speaking to the Jews.

1570
00:56:39,614 --> 00:56:42,014
Or about people I noticed who who were

1571
00:56:42,014 --> 00:56:43,934
Jewish, who I were very strongly on the

1572
00:56:43,934 --> 00:56:46,960
political left. Right. You know? So very, very

1573
00:56:46,960 --> 00:56:47,460
strongly

1574
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:48,579
pro multicultural

1575
00:56:49,039 --> 00:56:49,539
policy,

1576
00:56:50,079 --> 00:56:52,820
very, very pro high rates of immigration, including

1577
00:56:53,280 --> 00:56:55,974
from parts of the Islamic world that,

1578
00:56:56,474 --> 00:56:56,974
it's

1579
00:56:57,474 --> 00:56:59,394
very few have actually been able to get

1580
00:56:59,394 --> 00:57:01,315
into Australia because of the way the country's

1581
00:57:01,315 --> 00:57:03,900
immigration system works, but a few did. Yeah.

1582
00:57:03,900 --> 00:57:06,300
So very, very woke, what we would call

1583
00:57:06,300 --> 00:57:08,880
woke now. Right. And the thing is

1584
00:57:11,094 --> 00:57:12,074
I got the

1585
00:57:12,855 --> 00:57:14,795
very strong impression, and this isn't

1586
00:57:15,255 --> 00:57:17,655
an Australian thing that I've written about. The

1587
00:57:17,655 --> 00:57:19,434
first group I noticed who

1588
00:57:20,789 --> 00:57:23,190
started to generalize in a pretty unpleasant way

1589
00:57:23,190 --> 00:57:24,489
about Jewish people

1590
00:57:25,349 --> 00:57:27,829
and in a way that modern people now

1591
00:57:27,829 --> 00:57:28,650
would recognize

1592
00:57:29,635 --> 00:57:31,255
because they were running the decolonization

1593
00:57:31,795 --> 00:57:32,295
line,

1594
00:57:32,595 --> 00:57:34,914
and they would do it about Australia, settler

1595
00:57:34,914 --> 00:57:36,914
colonial state, and they would do it about

1596
00:57:36,914 --> 00:57:38,800
Israel, settler colonial state.

1597
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:42,000
And they tended to be the very, very

1598
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:44,960
small number of Australian Aborigines who were starting

1599
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:46,099
to get into universities

1600
00:57:47,014 --> 00:57:48,074
in that period.

1601
00:57:48,614 --> 00:57:50,474
And I I've written about this for

1602
00:57:51,414 --> 00:57:53,755
for law and liberty, you know, this rhetoric,

1603
00:57:53,869 --> 00:57:55,410
And I noticed that the decolonization

1604
00:57:55,869 --> 00:57:57,730
rhetoric, another friend of mine,

1605
00:57:58,349 --> 00:58:00,989
she said I I she she was involved

1606
00:58:00,989 --> 00:58:03,485
in land rights activism. And the thing is,

1607
00:58:03,785 --> 00:58:06,105
her case is unusual because she has both

1608
00:58:06,105 --> 00:58:08,744
Aboriginal and Jewish ancestry. So she was seeing

1609
00:58:08,744 --> 00:58:11,420
it from Australia is full of people like

1610
00:58:11,420 --> 00:58:12,400
this. It's just

1611
00:58:12,940 --> 00:58:15,420
an it is the most ethnically diverse country

1612
00:58:15,420 --> 00:58:17,840
on earth, you know, per head of population.

1613
00:58:18,059 --> 00:58:19,599
So it's full of people like Katie.

1614
00:58:20,925 --> 00:58:22,144
And so she was

1615
00:58:22,445 --> 00:58:24,625
she was seeing this from both sides,

1616
00:58:25,244 --> 00:58:27,664
and it was no. This is really nasty.

1617
00:58:28,525 --> 00:58:29,025
And

1618
00:58:29,719 --> 00:58:32,519
the same rhetoric about Australia Day as invasion

1619
00:58:32,519 --> 00:58:33,019
day,

1620
00:58:33,640 --> 00:58:34,780
and it's not legitimate

1621
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:37,684
and covering statues of captain Cook with red

1622
00:58:37,684 --> 00:58:38,585
paint or

1623
00:58:38,965 --> 00:58:41,305
Arthur Phillip, who was the first fleet.

1624
00:58:42,644 --> 00:58:44,325
Captain Arthur Phillip who led the first fleet,

1625
00:58:44,325 --> 00:58:45,704
all of this kind of thing.

1626
00:58:46,190 --> 00:58:48,990
And the same language was used. And I

1627
00:58:48,990 --> 00:58:50,849
remember the first time I encountered

1628
00:58:51,550 --> 00:58:54,144
Jewish people, and this is this the problem

1629
00:58:54,144 --> 00:58:56,485
with thou shalt not compare thinking.

1630
00:58:57,664 --> 00:59:00,144
They were very shocked by this kind of

1631
00:59:00,144 --> 00:59:00,644
rhetoric,

1632
00:59:01,400 --> 00:59:02,839
and they would go, oh, you're you're they're

1633
00:59:02,839 --> 00:59:04,619
the same that Israel shouldn't exist.

1634
00:59:05,400 --> 00:59:07,559
And I'm going, have you not noticed what

1635
00:59:07,559 --> 00:59:10,594
Aborigines say every single Australia Day on social

1636
00:59:10,594 --> 00:59:11,815
media and elsewhere?

1637
00:59:12,914 --> 00:59:14,855
They say that Australia shouldn't exist,

1638
00:59:15,155 --> 00:59:16,835
and they say it in exactly the same

1639
00:59:16,835 --> 00:59:19,010
way. And this they have been saying it

1640
00:59:19,010 --> 00:59:20,069
for 20 years.

1641
00:59:20,929 --> 00:59:22,869
And maybe that should bother you too.

1642
00:59:23,170 --> 00:59:24,849
Maybe that should bother me. The because you

1643
00:59:24,849 --> 00:59:26,869
live in Australia. No. You live in Australia,

1644
00:59:26,929 --> 00:59:28,934
in fact. You don't live in Israel. Oh,

1645
00:59:29,235 --> 00:59:31,635
no. And I started to and it wasn't

1646
00:59:31,635 --> 00:59:32,755
just me. A lot of people started to

1647
00:59:32,755 --> 00:59:34,195
say, well, hang on. You might want to

1648
00:59:34,195 --> 00:59:35,875
look at the people who look at the

1649
00:59:35,875 --> 00:59:36,375
world

1650
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:37,619
in this

1651
00:59:38,000 --> 00:59:40,179
way and see every single country,

1652
00:59:41,199 --> 00:59:43,199
that's got white people in it that had

1653
00:59:43,199 --> 00:59:45,775
an indigenous population there beforehand as

1654
00:59:46,255 --> 00:59:48,114
oppressive and colonized

1655
00:59:48,574 --> 00:59:49,954
and so on and so forth.

1656
00:59:50,414 --> 00:59:50,914
And

1657
00:59:51,375 --> 00:59:53,474
and and it's such a level of blindness

1658
00:59:53,730 --> 00:59:57,170
that you can't even raise historic empires. You

1659
00:59:57,170 --> 00:59:59,010
can't talk about the Mughals. You can't talk

1660
00:59:59,010 --> 00:59:59,989
about the Ottomans.

1661
01:00:00,369 --> 01:00:02,369
You can't talk about the Zulu. You can't

1662
01:00:02,369 --> 01:00:05,545
talk about, you know, all these major, major

1663
01:00:05,684 --> 01:00:06,184
civilizations

1664
01:00:06,565 --> 01:00:07,464
that were also

1665
01:00:07,764 --> 01:00:10,184
empires that were not black people.

1666
01:00:10,964 --> 01:00:13,849
And you the blindness is just total.

1667
01:00:14,789 --> 01:00:15,289
Helen,

1668
01:00:16,309 --> 01:00:19,190
thank you for shining some light into the

1669
01:00:19,190 --> 01:00:19,690
dark.

1670
01:00:21,605 --> 01:00:24,085
We Read my book several fondly. Yeah. I

1671
01:00:24,085 --> 01:00:26,085
think we're gonna have to do that. And,

1672
01:00:26,405 --> 01:00:26,905
I'm

1673
01:00:27,204 --> 01:00:28,905
I'm so glad that

1674
01:00:29,730 --> 01:00:32,210
Benjamin brought us together, in this way because

1675
01:00:32,210 --> 01:00:34,289
I should it's really long overdue for us

1676
01:00:34,289 --> 01:00:35,030
to hang out.

1677
01:00:35,329 --> 01:00:36,690
And I hope that we can do it

1678
01:00:36,690 --> 01:00:39,065
again in some form or even in this

1679
01:00:39,065 --> 01:00:39,885
form again.

1680
01:00:41,065 --> 01:00:41,965
Great conversation.

1681
01:00:42,824 --> 01:00:45,305
And everyone Good luck with all, with all

1682
01:00:45,305 --> 01:00:46,849
your things that just yeah.

1683
01:00:47,250 --> 01:00:49,110
Even if there's only lawyers watching it.

1684
01:00:49,730 --> 01:00:52,210
No. No. It's lawyers don't if they if

1685
01:00:52,210 --> 01:00:54,130
lawyers are watching it, they're not admitting it.

1686
01:00:54,130 --> 01:00:54,630
Actually,

1687
01:00:55,194 --> 01:00:57,835
lot of Jews watch it. And I and

1688
01:00:57,835 --> 01:00:59,434
it's important for I mean and I think

1689
01:00:59,434 --> 01:01:01,914
the people who anyone who watches culmination or

1690
01:01:01,914 --> 01:01:03,534
listens to culmination knows

1691
01:01:05,269 --> 01:01:05,769
criticizing

1692
01:01:06,150 --> 01:01:06,650
Jews

1693
01:01:07,510 --> 01:01:08,490
or even criticizing

1694
01:01:08,869 --> 01:01:09,610
the Jews

1695
01:01:10,710 --> 01:01:12,250
doesn't make you an anti Semite.

1696
01:01:12,630 --> 01:01:13,530
If it did,

1697
01:01:13,985 --> 01:01:15,744
I'd be the biggest anti Semite you ever

1698
01:01:15,744 --> 01:01:18,224
heard of. Oh, well, no. It's gotten to

1699
01:01:18,224 --> 01:01:20,704
Moses. And I I I did I did

1700
01:01:20,704 --> 01:01:23,190
see this directed at Jewish people. I have

1701
01:01:23,190 --> 01:01:24,630
seen this and it's a horrible thing. They

1702
01:01:24,630 --> 01:01:26,250
call themselves hating Jews.

1703
01:01:26,630 --> 01:01:27,929
And the thing is I'm

1704
01:01:29,085 --> 01:01:30,924
I don't know where that came from for

1705
01:01:30,924 --> 01:01:32,684
you for Jewish people, but I know where

1706
01:01:32,684 --> 01:01:33,664
it came. I'm gay.

1707
01:01:34,525 --> 01:01:37,469
And one of the things that gets directed

1708
01:01:37,769 --> 01:01:39,069
at homosexuals

1709
01:01:39,690 --> 01:01:40,829
who are right leaning

1710
01:01:41,530 --> 01:01:43,530
and has been for years, as in I

1711
01:01:43,530 --> 01:01:45,049
can remember it being said to me in

1712
01:01:45,049 --> 01:01:47,264
the nineties when when I was actually outed

1713
01:01:47,264 --> 01:01:49,105
as part of the controversy over my first

1714
01:01:49,105 --> 01:01:49,605
book,

1715
01:01:50,224 --> 01:01:52,304
I was a self hating lesbian or a

1716
01:01:52,304 --> 01:01:53,605
self hating homosexual.

1717
01:01:54,180 --> 01:01:55,860
I heard that in the nineties, and it

1718
01:01:55,860 --> 01:01:58,440
is just the most awful thing to say.

1719
01:02:01,855 --> 01:02:02,974
Right. So the whole thing with the self

1720
01:02:02,974 --> 01:02:04,255
hating Jew. Well, I get that all the

1721
01:02:04,255 --> 01:02:07,214
time because I'm I'm a capo. See? I

1722
01:02:07,295 --> 01:02:09,659
I'm a because I'm a because I'm I'm

1723
01:02:09,659 --> 01:02:10,480
a I'm a conservative

1724
01:02:10,780 --> 01:02:12,480
and I support Donald Trump.

1725
01:02:13,579 --> 01:02:14,059
And, like, I

1726
01:02:15,339 --> 01:02:16,639
as opposed to what?

1727
01:02:17,204 --> 01:02:18,644
Like you said, take a take a look

1728
01:02:18,644 --> 01:02:20,264
at the left. These people are

1729
01:02:20,724 --> 01:02:22,425
literally genocidally inclined,

1730
01:02:22,724 --> 01:02:24,184
but we anticipate.

1731
01:02:24,565 --> 01:02:27,110
Are you I mean, I realize the history

1732
01:02:27,110 --> 01:02:29,190
of the Jews of Jewish people in America

1733
01:02:29,190 --> 01:02:30,789
is very different from the UK because Jews

1734
01:02:30,789 --> 01:02:32,630
in the UK are nearly all Tory. Like,

1735
01:02:32,630 --> 01:02:34,809
something the figures in the last 2019

1736
01:02:35,269 --> 01:02:36,730
was 9 like, 92%,

1737
01:02:37,175 --> 01:02:39,094
and it'll probably be more now since Interesting.

1738
01:02:39,335 --> 01:02:41,275
Even though Oh. Yeah. So

1739
01:02:41,734 --> 01:02:43,914
the UK, really different. Australia,

1740
01:02:44,590 --> 01:02:46,269
more like the US. There are quite a

1741
01:02:46,269 --> 01:02:48,349
significant number of Jews who are really quite

1742
01:02:48,349 --> 01:02:48,849
left,

1743
01:02:49,230 --> 01:02:51,950
and they're having that same horrible post October

1744
01:02:51,950 --> 01:02:55,074
7th wake up call, including some who have

1745
01:02:55,074 --> 01:02:57,875
worked with Aboriginal organizations and have suddenly discovered

1746
01:02:57,875 --> 01:02:59,714
that they're on the outer around the water

1747
01:02:59,714 --> 01:03:01,954
cooler and, like, oh, yeah. There's been some

1748
01:03:01,954 --> 01:03:02,855
awful stuff.

1749
01:03:04,340 --> 01:03:06,199
But but the UK is quite different.

1750
01:03:06,579 --> 01:03:09,559
Helen Helen, your your polymath is the word.

1751
01:03:10,019 --> 01:03:12,679
Great talking to you. Let's stay in touch.

1752
01:03:13,394 --> 01:03:15,394
Hey. Thank you for listening to the Coleman

1753
01:03:15,394 --> 01:03:16,295
Nation podcast.

1754
01:03:16,994 --> 01:03:19,795
Don't forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or

1755
01:03:19,795 --> 01:03:22,139
your favorite podcast app. If you like the

1756
01:03:22,139 --> 01:03:24,139
show, please rate it 5 stars and leave

1757
01:03:24,139 --> 01:03:24,719
a review.

1758
01:03:25,179 --> 01:03:26,079
For more information,

1759
01:03:26,460 --> 01:03:28,719
please visit the show's website at coleman

1760
01:03:29,340 --> 01:03:30,239
dash nation.com.

1761
01:03:31,155 --> 01:03:31,894
That's colemanhyphennation.com,

1762
01:03:33,875 --> 01:03:36,135
or you can visit my blog at likelihood

1763
01:03:36,275 --> 01:03:36,934
of confusion.com.

1764
01:03:38,275 --> 01:03:41,000
Join us next time on the Coleman Nation

1765
01:03:41,059 --> 01:03:43,079
podcast and have a great day.