Chapters

0:00 - The Question of Freedom of Speech
1:51 - The Overlooked Reality of Political Violence
4:41 - The Dangers of Medical Misinformation

Long Summary

In a recent conversation, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delves into the complexities surrounding freedom of speech, particularly when it comes to inciting violence and spreading medical misinformation. He highlights the contradiction in allowing certain ideologies like Marxism, which explicitly call for violent revolution, to flourish unchecked in educational institutions while advocating for the restriction of speech that promotes violence. Kennedy questions why there isn't more emphasis on addressing ideologies that have historically led to mass violence, such as communism.

Moving on to the topic of medical misinformation, Kennedy argues against government intervention in regulating what can be said about medical treatments. He points out the dangers of granting authorities the power to define and ban medical misinformation, as it opens the door to abuse by influential parties with vested interests. Kennedy paints a vivid picture of a dystopian scenario where this power is exploited for profit and control, leading to potential harm and manipulation of information.

Kennedy challenges the notion of a perfect system where only the most virtuous individuals would control the levers of speech regulation, highlighting the inherent flaws in trusting authorities to wield such power responsibly. He criticizes the lack of critical discourse on these fundamental issues, expressing frustration at the absence of these arguments in mainstream conversations. Kennedy's impassioned plea for clarity and understanding reflects his deep concern for the implications of censorship and misinformation in society.

Transcript

[0:00] The Question of Freedom of Speech

[0:00] So Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was asked, I assume by some leftist, he had his genuine proletariat little hat on. He was asked about sort of two questions and I'm sorry to sound so weary, but it's just so sad how little thought people put into these questions or these answers. So the question was twofold and it was around freedom of speech. So the first question was, well, what if somebody is directly inciting violence? Violence, should that not be a violation of freedom of speech and banned and shut down and so on? All right.

[0:34] All right. Well, first of all, there are laws against that already, so you don't need anything extra. But I guess the question I would have is there are tens of thousands of outright Marxists in Western universities teaching impressionable youth, and Lord knows how many there are in public schools as a whole. Now, Marxism explicitly calls for a violent overthrow, a bloody revolution, and so on, in order to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and the eventual utopia of the stateless society. So, I suppose if people were really fussed and bothered and concerned about, I don't know, speech that not only theoretically theoretically, in its language, promotes the use of political violence and terrorism to change the world. But, you know, the communist revolutions have actually been enacted around the world and have caused the slaughter of well over 100 million people. So it would seem to me that if anybody was concerned about, I don't know, political violent speech, that the first thing they would say is, man, we got to ban all of these communists, you see, because communism Communism is explicitly violent in its formulation theory, execution, and practice.

[1:51] The Overlooked Reality of Political Violence

[1:52] Of course, they never do. Why does nobody talk about this? I don't understand the world. I don't. And this is so blindingly obvious, right? Oh, promotion of violence. I don't know. How about promotion of violent bloody revolution, slaughtering your enemies and liquidating entire classes of society? Would that be considered, especially when it's happened in the world repeatedly? Is that something that we could classify as an incitement to violence? But no, it's never so. Of course, they don't care, right? They don't care, right? Right. I mean, what they care about is they say, well, we want the right to ban speech that's an incitement to violence so that we can define speech we disagree with as an incitement to violence and ban it that way. Right. So it's it's I mean, the idea that people on the left care about incitement to violence, but it's sort of the foundation of the whole philosophy is pretty is pretty wild to me. And I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand why nobody's talking about this. Because that's why I do what I do. So that's number one. Number two is the example was, well, what about medical misinformation? What about medical misinformation? So let's say somebody says, insulin is really, really bad for diabetics. Shouldn't we ban that?

[3:02] Now, to his credit, I mean, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he did say, like, absolutely not. The government shouldn't have the right to decide what's true and what's false and so on. And, you know, that's fine. fine, it's sort of a statement, but I mean, the foundational argument of course, it's this belief that the power of.

[3:25] You give to others will always be executed in the way that you like, right? So these, I really want, I don't want there to be bad medical information out there. Well, sure, of course. Yeah, we understand that. Absolutely. But so you give to the government the power or some organization, the power to ban medical misinformation. You say, oh, well, the only thing that's going to get banned, you see, is medical misinformation. And it's like, because I have this fantasy. see, I have these magic levers in my head that only the best possible human beings are ever going to be in charge of banning speech. No one's ever going to be drawn to that for nefarious, profit-driven, control-driven, hierarchical, oligarchical, horrendous motives. Never, never will happen because Lord knows sociopaths are never attracted to power. So I'm going to create this magic lever to ban speech and only the most virtuous and angelic and positive and and wonderful people are ever going to have a hold of it. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. The power I surrender will only ever be used to benefit me. It's hilarious. I mean, absolutely hellscape, God forsaken, but bitterly funny.

[4:41] The Dangers of Medical Misinformation

[4:41] So, if you have the power to ban medical misinformation, Medical misinformation. Well, what's going to happen? Well, if you have a very profitable drug, and we can't think of anything off the top of our heads, I'm sure, but if you have some very profitable drug, then you will simply influence the government to use that power to ban alternative treatments to your very profitable drug by calling those alternative treatments medical misinformation. And that way, you get this fascistic control over state apparatus in order to make profits and, frankly, potentially cause a lot of deaths. So the idea that there's this objective category called medical misinformation and there's this magic, perfect, honorable, epistemological lever that's only ever going to be pulled by perfect angels and that nobody will ever take that power and abuse it for their own benefit at the harm of the general population is just wild. out.

[5:41] You know, I mean, the left is founded on accusations of infinite exploitation by capitalists who actually can't force anyone in the free market to consume any of their goods or pay them a single penny. So they say, you know what? Human nature is intensely prone. It's intensely prone to exploiting others. So let's give a small group of people all the power in their own universe. I mean, it's madness. And I don't know why this is hard for people to argue, but I don't, the The reason I'm recording this, I don't see any of these arguments anywhere.

[6:12] I find it wild. Tell me why. Help me understand why. This is blindingly obvious stuff. Why does nobody make these arguments? I don't understand. Please enlighten me. Help a brother out.