Ben Shapiro Q&A - Big Tech Censorship, Jordan Peterson, Radical Islam

oh boy how's it going I'm a huge fan of yours um and I what I really wanted to say was I find it really hard to have a civil discussion with people from the opposite side because I want to learn more about their point of view and sometimes they learn more of my point of view what do you think the best way about going about kind of you know having the groundwork like alright you know let's present each other's side and actually discuss it and not let's devolve into a screaming match I mean the first thing you have to do is you actually have to do a little bit of assessment as to whether the person you're talking to wants to have a conversation with you they're only a few reasons to have a conversation with somebody on the left one is to actually have a discussion you might find somebody on the Left who actually wants to exchange ideas kind of rare but it happens you could also have a situation where you just want to hone your own ideas so you're arguing for your own purposes or you're debating somebody on a stage in which case your goal is basically to accumulate that person as badly as possible but you have to decide which conversation is which and also you know this I mean everybody knows this but they don't apply it they get into Facebook fight and then five posts in and an hour later they're like oh I wish I hadn't done that thing with the first post is this the thing that's going to help me or this the thing that's just a waste of time and I don't know if it's if I can ask after work a picture with you after the conversation I'll try to stick around as long as I can yeah thank you [Applause] hey Ben I'm 14 years old I'm a huge fan I'm from Rochester and I'm a conservative and the New York public school like education system makes it really hard for me to spread my like conservative viewpoints like my friends my community and as you can see my shirt says bench biro 20 and I was just wondering if at any point in the future could we possibly see you running for office of any kind so a few years ago I probably would have said yes because it was something I was interested in watching as public figures get absolutely destroyed personally it makes me less likely to do it I think our politics is such right now the decent people and I try to consider myself decent decent people are sort of being driven out of the public square people who have no shame or honor I think are being encouraged to to run for office on every side of the aisle you know I could see a possibility sometime in the future it won't be in 2020 but it but I appreciate the sentiment all right thank you [Applause] I've been I'm a freshman at UB from Dutchess County you talked about divorce rates and how divorce rates have been increasing this country country since the 1970s and just kind of alluded to that as evidence of the failure of radical it sort of leveled off since like the the 2000s like the early 2000s but yes they're still higher than they were in the 50s and for right couldn't that also simply because of the fact that women are now more socioeconomically able to be independent than men like how can you say that radical feminism cause divorces and also ignore the fact that possibly it was just that women became able to be independent the airport they started divorce more because they would be becoming an economic and economically independent in the same period as they were getting divorced is they were getting married meaning that these aren't twenty-year marriages that are breaking up these are like five-year marriages that are breaking up which suggests to me a mental shift that's taking place in the nature of how we think about marriage rather than socioeconomic status being the indicator but learning that I suppose that economics could tie into this except for the fact that people who are higher income tend to stay married more often than people who are lower income right so that sort of undercuts the argument a little bit meaning that if you're if you're richer you tend to be married longer on average people who are poorer tend to get divorce where did you get that statistical Census Bureau [Applause] hi Ben I just want to say I'm a huge fan of the show I got the mug I'm a subscriber awesome I'm overflowing this week they left us tears how dreadful tell me they never have to fill it up the question I wanted to ask is after the whole I guess there's no better way to put it with debacle involving the the appointment of Justice Kavanagh to the bench do you think this is a moment where Americans is like as a society are going to start to maybe come back together and try to establish norms or or is this just a moment where our politics are just gonna further polarize and we're just going to start to tear a part even harder at the seams number one I love your optimism I'm by nature a pessimist which means I'm always right eventually so it's so my feeling is that when you see people who are screaming and trying to pry open 13 done ton bronze doors in front of the Supreme Court as Brett Kavanaugh is being sworn in inside and then you have full editorials in the New York Times saying that white women are racist because they supported Brett Kavanaugh which I just don't even understand no I don't think this this rift is gonna be healed any time soon in fact I think that the book that I'm right that I have coming out next year is largely about why this giant rift has opened up in America at a time when we are historically wealthy what we really don't have any major foreign crises on our hands we don't have a lot in common anymore as the sad truth a nation is defined by a common history a common culture a common set of goals common institutions all of those things are being torn asunder by serious divides that we have about how we view our own central principles and we used to be unified by a belief in God given rights and limited government obviously that doesn't unify us we used to be unified and by belief in judeo-christian virtue that no longer unifies us we used to be unified by a belief that America was essentially a good place even though we never lived up to our full promise even that I think is no longer a unifying principle which is why we now have people who see American history is in Howard Zinn fashion it's a long history of suffering and pain and patriarchal institution institutional discrimination if those bridges don't if those gaps don't get bridged I think that we're headed toward a schism that is gonna grow larger and larger over time I don't see how the only thing I could see is that eventually just disgust with the way this works means that forget politics somebody who's felt to be fundamentally decent ends up running for office and you get a spate of those people running for office and then it's about voting for the decency of the people as opposed to a particular political agenda thank you so much for coming [Applause] hello Ben how are you doing tonight doing okay how are you so I'm a liberal and well thank you for coming I appreciate it yeah but at the same time on the topic of free speech I consider myself a libertarian it's why you're a liberal and not a leftist you see whenever whenever I do my speeches right it's always liberal versus leftist liberals are people who disagree with me on politics but aren't trying to attack me with machetes and leftists are people who disagree with me on politics and are trying to shut down my speech all right so what I want to ask you about so me personally I disagree with many social networks move to ban Alex Jones from their platforms and I think it's a violation of the spirit of the First Amendment but in comparison with that I was asking would you agree with me that by the NFL stopping Kaepernick from kneeling is that also a violation of the First Amendment the spirit of it in some sense and do you believe that a corporation has the right to do what it wants knowing about that so there are several actual questions number one do corporations have the right to do what they want yes Facebook and the NFL that the rights do what they want right they're private corporations they do now the more important question is the first one you asked about sort of the spirit of the First Amendment I think that the real question is what these corporations are designed to do so social networks were originally designed to facilitate discourse between various political sides that's what they're designed to do the NFL was not really designed to do that the NFL presents a product right the NFL's product is what is on the field if the NFL were to find people for stuff that they said on Twitter then I would suggest that the NFL was was doing something wrong for the NFL to say you're affecting our viewership and the product that we present that's a different thing just as if Alex Jones worked for CNN and he and he went on air and he started talking about Satan get behind me I'm unbuttoning my shirt now look at this underneath I got another shirt right if he started doing that routine and CNN [Applause] I think at that point CNN has every right to do whatever they want with him so the for the corporate question the question is what is the corporation designed to do and and the the lie of Facebook and Twitter was that they were basically going to be essentially free open networks for discourse and then it turns out that there are more publishers they're more like my site or CNN right trying to add editorial guidance what I think is that a Facebook and Twitter if they want to ban people they should do so based on threats of violence slightly you know actual legal slander like that that's where they should drive me why not add stuff we don't like because Alex Jones is it nutball so I have a quick follow-up you don't mind just sure so then would you disagree with perhaps Tim Tebow's right to kneel in prayer on the field yeah if they'd find him for his for kneeling in prayer on the field then they would have every right to do that do [Applause] - I want to start off and say I'm a huge fan of yours and we love the possibility to get a picture with you and I'm truly hoping you run for presidency in 2024 although if you wanted to secure my vote during your campaign and buy some absolute miracle I'd have to see you defeat Ocasio Cortez in the debate calling your dude that brings me my question with college campuses becoming increasingly overwhelmed by professors with leftist teachings and rhetoric I like many other young conservatives feel my back against the wall and I wanting to share my conservative views especially on sensitive subjects for running the risk of being ostracized by a mob and my classmates what sort of advice me gives this so my advice has always been to be practical meaning that you have to decide what the risk benefit analysis looks like exactly the cost-benefit analysis so when I was in law school there were certain professors who were really great about debate and people on the Left who really enjoyed the fact that we go back and forth and that was wonderful I enjoy and then there are certain professors who weren't and those were the professors where I basically keep quiet because my grade was more important to me than making a point everyone was gonna forget 20 seconds later if I wanted to talk to students outside of class I would do it then I that's always been my view I've never felt like you need to sacrifice your grade or sacrifice your future to make a point in class that everyone is gonna forget 15 seconds later except for the professor who's going to grade you down the best path is to speak truth whenever possible and when not possible don't get good grades make lots of money threaten to withhold alumni funding and then because discrimination in the classroom obviously shouldn't be approved by the administration thanks man thanks [Applause] [Music] hey Ben I'm a big fan during the meet-and-greet when you came here earlier and you touched on the issue of abortion and I'll just says like to ask that question because I did a debate on abortion in high school even though I don't necessarily agree with that was on the pro side and I took it as an opportunity to learn from the other side and although I can say that one of their main talking points was how if abortion was made it legal that people would just get illegal abortions and then twice the amount of people would die in the instance of that but then I also said well that's not my issue my issue is with how it's almost weaponized like to say like the left kind of weaponized it where it's like if you don't agree with the borscht like abortion is amazing thing and amazing right and amazing power but then I'm like it's actually a really tough decision it's not something I'm going to go celebrate and say I'm really like it's awesome it's a beautiful thing and like why how do you think the left did that way I think the left actually came to a logical realization which is that safe legal and rare is an untenable political position so that was the Clintonian position in the 90s they said abortion should be safe legal and rare well when you say that it should be rare you're undercutting safe and legal actually or at least legal right because the problem is if you say it's rare you're acknowledging that there is moral content to the action you are taking which raises the question as to why it should be legal right so in other words if it's what the left says and it's just removal of a polyp why should it be rare I don't think polyp removal should be rare I think anyone else believes that either but when the left acknowledges there's a moral content to what it is that they're doing they get themselves into a rhetorical trap so instead it turns into shout your abortion be proud of your abortion I'd be proud that it was like I it was like a step into womanhood to get an abortion and anybody I think with any moral sense can see how terrible that is but the left is made you know people who are left on abortion have made a crusade and a sacrament out of abortion in a way that they hadn't even when I was you know in in high school so it's it's pretty incredible and pretty pretty horrifying and that's why I've always thought I mean on Fox I did my election special on Sunday and on Fox I did a monologue at the very end of the show about abortion and in the end the monologue on abortion I think the best way to fight against the pro-choice position the pro-abortion position is to actually just show of what it is that this baby is okay because there's not a single Democrat in the in the Senate or in the House of Representatives that I know of who would vote to save a baby at the at the twelfth week or fourteenth week that's not that's not so you can feel the baby kicking I know I've had to him yeah this is this is this is crazy town a crazy talk and the facts and the science happen to be on our side one of my pet peeves on this issue is when people say oh you only say that cuz you're religious you only say that because of the Bible I have never invoked the Bible or God in any argument about abortion yeah I got that a lot too it's idiotic consider yeah it's just it's a way for them to avoid the necessary scientific conclusion from the fact that human life begins in fertilization they don't want to talk science they accuse you being a religious bigot even though you're actually not invoking God I do hate that word they just say it's a clump of cells it's just what I say is you are technically a clump of cells as well just a walking because they are you see you're you're slightly more develops clump of cells but that doesn't mean that you're the like none of none of the other arguments hold the viability argument doesn't hold there plenty of human beings who are not viable outside of outside support from machines or a pacemaker we don't we don't suggest that they can now be terminated there are lots of people who don't have proper brain function and babies in orbits and or fetuses or embryos which are going to develop proper brain function to suggest that those babies are somehow lesser because of the improper brain function for a temporary period not even for permanent period that is obviously casting aspersions and people who don't necessarily have full brain function it's very difficult to make an intellectually consistent case for why abortion ought to be treated as as morally ambiguous I have a tough time with it thank you man [Applause] so I'm Robert I'm one of the coastal liberals as you say um I mean I've been watching you for years now and I'm like I read your book on the arguments to fight against people like me and I feel bad is like for the most part the people have been arguing against your and nearly as elegant or eloquent as they should be but I'd like to ask so one of your points you very strongly make is that it's unfair for you know people like me to label you as like a racist or a bigot um just as like a smear tactic but if you ever acknowledge that like maybe it's not a smear tactic but it's based on things you've said so like for example like on the israel-palestine conflict you know you called the Arabs yeah you already know I'm going to say you know yeah so well you say written several full columns about it yeah I'm sorry about how you people don't read the follow up tweets right I've read some of the tweets and the tweets were just as bad I mean you say a lot of things that are just like races right but then if I call you're racist then you defend it by saying like I didn't read enough right so that's what I was gonna say forgive me okay fine so give me give me give me my racist tweets in context okay well yeah you came prepared right go go do it um so you said um the Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage there's not a difficulty oh you oh you before that said Israel's Israelis like to build did you did you like Gigi okay now the file was because you said the follow-ups didn't make any better well this is separate of things that you said no no I want to follow up to that one now Thomas if you have them sure um do you mind if I what you do that what is that you mind if I continue while you do that um well I'd like to take him one by one so why don't why we do this why we delay that one until the end well I look up from the podium in front of 600 people you've also said [Applause] so on that particular issue he also said that the Arab Palestine populace is by and large by and large density constitutes the most evil population in the face of the planet before you said that you've never brought up religion when it comes to abortion but I don't think that you've avoided religion when it comes to the Israeli conflict and I don't know that you can be completely unbiased in the issue given that you know well I can be unbiased on the subject that Palestinians have elected three terrorist governments to form a unity government with the stated goal of the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of all Jews in the area so that I can be relatively unbiased on as far as the idea that the Palestinian population as far as the idea of the palestinian population is more evil than other populations they certainly hold more evil views than other populations by poll statistics by how many you buy how many palestinians approve of terrorist acts by how many palestinians voted for an actual terror group hamas and another actual terror group is Palestinian Authority and another actual terror group the Islamic Jihad okay so I don't think that all people all views are equal and I don't think that people who hold the evil views are necessarily good I mean I'm sorry if the polls don't support the idea that everyone is equally wonderful but everyone is not equally wonderful okay I'm looking up these statements you know so um like to give me a second you've continued you deny secular Zionism and you okay so here I'll finish that one then okay ready there are many many Christian and Muslim Arabs who are wonderful people just not the ones who oppose it Israeli Israel Arab conflict that would be the response within the same Twitter thread okay in the post re Israelis versus Arabs I wrote about Arabs who take part in the israeli-arab conflict is anyone who can read knows hashtag dumbasses okay quote I think it has much more to do with the fact that the Palestinian leadership supported by the Palestinian population uses millions for terror I should have been more specific Arabs who actively seek Israel's destruction those would be the follow-up tweets does that sound like a genocide Albania to you or does it tell Mike I'm specifically labeling a group of people who have called for Israel's destruction I like to point out that you're not a racist but they're dumbasses and those you're allowed to insult them yes because someone called it races without evidence they are definitionally a dumber what is genocide [Applause] what is genocide like the after when a so you said that you you want to be like Churchill right and after the Allies when they moved the german-speaking polish out of Poland so now you're talking about a column I wrote when I was nineteen years old that I that I actually thought that I'd morally abhorrent denounce myself I think six years ago you and have repeatedly and have repeatedly said was a bad column that I wrote when I was nineteen years old okay okay so more time like do you want to only get a drink sometime like a well is that saying what we're gonna get it like a non-alcoholic drink sometime because I really I know that I got a poster but let me just say this for everything that you're going to say I've addressed literally every one of those points I have a column that I put out probably only a few months ago and the literal title of it is so here's a giant list of all the dumb stuff I've ever done don't worry I'll keep updating it I didn't get that one my research I apologize but if I've missed represent like I did my research wasn't it would be so thorough because I was pretty uh last-minute decision to start like really going in China ask you a question and again that's totally fine and I appreciate you coming and I appreciate you asking me the questions but if the notion is that I'm a racist before you actually read all my response in the racism from part I also like the transgender like you don't believe in transgenders in life that's not I don't know that means I don't believe in transgenders I mean a transgender people exist yeah you've seen their gender and sex are the same thing I said the gender and sex are linked I've said that femininity and masculinity are linked to male anymore just before you so they're right there are two genders I don't believe there are 1000 genders and if I think that if you're defining gender as just a random series of societal constructs and there aren't two genders there are infinite numbers of genders because everybody is a mix of feminine and masculine so while restricted to 70 genders make it six billion genders since we all have our unique mix of what male and female constitute and I don't ban by I and yes I don't think that there can be such a thing as a male in a female's body I don't think there is a female in a male's body and I find the logic to support that and the science to support that utterly lacking yeah so you know again I'd be happy to get a non-alcoholic beverage with you and discussion more forward thank you for coming thank you [Applause] hi my name is John and I am a senior doing a political science major and I would like to ask the question in regards to this is my first time ever doing it so everything okay okay you stated that you didn't care about people's concern about the Browning of America which in my opinion is essentially not caring about the issue of illegal immigration no and sorry go ahead and yet you support Israel's ethnos state by stating that Judaism must be preserved since elements like this uphold Jewish national identity and culture which I don't mind but the fact that you know you don't care about the demographic change in America is kind of concerning because you know we're all Americans here right and you know I the question is do you want our nation to end up like a third world country such as Brazil or a disaster like Germany and Sweden right now okay so Brazil is a second world country technically it's a developing country it's not like a fully underdeveloped country or a failed state and why why is there a far-right candidate winning at the moment I mean if you want to argue Brazilian politics I agree that Brazilian policies have been dominated by the far left but I'm not sure that that's of tremendous interest let's talk about the first question okay when I say I don't care about the Browning of America what I mean is I don't care about ethnicity it doesn't make any difference to me the only thing that makes a difference to me is the ideals of the people who are coming across the border now when people say I am Pro illegal immigration I do not know where in the hell they would possibly get that this seems to when people repeat when people repeatedly say stuff like this like and I see this meme all the time oh superhero cares about a Jewish ethnos day but he but he doesn't care about it legal immigration I was further right than Donald Trump was in the last election cycle on illegal immigration I opposed the 2006 amnesty deal I opposed the 2000 2010 amnesty deal I have I've consistently been anti-illegal immigration I supported the wall this is just a lie the idea that I'm probably legal immigration is not true in the slightest what I have said is that we ought to deal with how to stop the influx of illegal immigration and then deal with the people who are here and separate off the two issues and when it comes to the folks who are here illegally what we should do is we should assess those folks in the same way we assess everybody else coming into the country are they going to ad economically to the country and culturally to the country are they gonna make the country a better place are they gonna make a country a worse place and that involves assimilation now as far as the idea of the Jewish ethnos state I don't care very much about at all actually about Jewish ethnicity Jewish ethnicity makes no difference to me what does make a difference to me is Jewish ideals because I care about judeo-christian ideals in the United States and I care about Jewish ideals in Israel which is why I don't care and I'm very happy that thousands tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews who are black were flown to Israel to become Israelis I'm very happy that tens of thousands of Russian Jews who were Russian were flown from Russia to become Israelis my wife is Moroccan right she's Moroccan Israeli so this idea that that it's it's about ethnicity as opposed to ideology or ideas is just not true then the amazing thing about Judaism just like most other religions is you can become one okay I can't become a black man there's no way for me to do it right I can become a Christian you could become a Jew right this means that there are ideological systems that you can buy into that allow you entry and I believe that the United States should operate the same way you can become an American if you buy into Central American ideals but I'm not going to pretend that I care whether a whether a bunch of people who are Pro America and pro-american ideals come from Cuba versus coming from Britain I understand I respect your beliefs and your white to hold them then I just think that person I have a question tree why are you ik waiting white or race with culture why are you saying usually the same thing well because most you know you know Jew Jews mostly practice Judaism and just like you know actually most Jews actually don't practice Judaism technically speaking but is it mostly most of them are part of that so it's only a like a minority of people that want to convert to Judaism which I don't mind okay and it's only minority of people who want to become Americans or sure or we should let in if they want to become Americans enough I'm asking not about Israel I'm asking you about America okay I'm asking about America so you're saying that you object the so-called Browning of America why no I I'm just saying I got ejected illegal immigration which so do i but your original question was about the Browning of America yeah why you know basically you know it's basically like the open borders you know I agree with you about going on right now I agree with you about illegal immigration I asked you about not about that I'm asking you about the Browning of America phrase cuz that's what you objected to I said I don't care about the ground whole entire culture is changing at the moment just so you know I understand that culture is changing at the moment but I do not think that culture and race are inseparable I don't think that brown people are less capable of becoming American or black people are less capable will become in America and I agree that you know when people come to this country including you know myself and my family who immigrated here illegally in the in the 80s and I think that you know that people that do it if they follow the law and they assimilate they should do that right I mean let's put this way can we agree on this I care about the liberalizing of America and the destruction of American values I don't care about what the nature of the people who look like is who believe in American values those people are my family everybody who doesn't believe in those American ideals is not alright thank you it's been the last pledge from ladies rolling let's be the last question big man what's up with you has gone dude okay so my question is well first I'm gonna kind of need to give you this hammer your enormous dude you can build this much better than I can I look like one of the one of the dwarves from seven from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves my go mining or something appreciate that um so first of all kind of paraphrase another speaker who kind of operates along the same tone in America Jordan Peterson dr. Jordan Peterson [Applause] so one of the things that he often talks about is at the basis or the premise of the ongoing debate between conservatism versus liberalism is that at the basis of each conservative the conservatism is like the the protection of the hierarchy whereas on the liberal side is more so the protection and promotion of egalitarianism and so my question to you is one thing that he makes clear is that both sides are necessary for our ideal in a country that moves forward at a fast pace as the United States has has done and so my question to you is it seems as though you have a more hostile you have such a hostility towards liberals and and left this whereas I don't often hear you at all say that there's anything that you can learn from their side in his book twelve rooms alive when the chapters is assumed that the person in which you're speaking with has something to offer you as far as intellectually that you may learn from them so my question to you is I guess what is your position like do you feel as though a liberal obviously a liberal but liberals in general or less in general have anything to bring to the table from an ideology standpoint or intellectually I mean passion for changes obviously it can be a good thing when directed in the proper channel the as you say the the left's focus on egalitarianism is good so long as it is focused on the equal application of Rights not on the false attempts to override biology and natural hierarchy so I think Jordan would agree with me on the idea that if you run up if you butt up against a natural hierarchy or if you butt up against natural differences because I don't think every difference is a hierarchy if you brought up against natural differences but up against reality trying to override reality with artificial equality is going to be a giant failure and can as Jordan would say murder millions in the in the process right that's what Jordan thinks communism was it was basically there are differences between human beings failure of respect those differences is what we in the name of equality is what leads to the gulags so while Jordan is you know Jordan I think he's he's a little bit less robust in the language that he uses with regard to left he's he's just as anti left with regard to the focus on hardcore egalitarianism where the left so I I do think and I do make a distinction between as I've said liberals and the left is a far more since aureus force and they want to censor a lot more they're a lot more traumatically I want to control a lot more from the top people who are liberals who are arguing over the proper scope of government particularly is there I think there's plenty to learn and I think you can have fulsome exchanges about the nature of what sort of social welfare state can be supported or is appropriate and you can have a data exchange on that sort of thing where you can't really have an exchange is when you're running up against is when people are falsifying the fact as they only may say that men and women are exactly the same for example so so I appreciate the critique and I'll try to take that to heart and I think that and I will acknowledge also that I think that folks had a lot more to learn from the left in the 1960s than they do now because the country has moved in a lot of very good ways since the 1960s and in some bad ways since the 1960s fair enough thank you thanks a lot can ask another question we have another one okay and this more this has to do with the whole you know national anthem in players kneeling during games in the NFL and so my question is this is I feel that regardless of whether you agree with the Act or not someone taking a knee during the national anthem at the beginning of a football game I believe that if you if you don't say okay I disagree with the Act I don't think it's the right place I don't think it's the right whatever the case may be however I agree with it in so much as I would like to protect that into votes individuals freedom of speech and my question is I don't hear what you certainly are a lot of anyone on the conservative side or right side as you would call it as someone may call it defending sin okay look I don't agree with it but I agree with that person's freedom of speech in that moment or it depends on the forum so this is a public university I have a right to speak here right there's a difference between that and for example DePaul University so DePaul University is a private university last year I think is last year I had to Paul invited me to speak really some of the students did the administration said I couldn't and when I showed up on campus they threatened to arrest me I didn't sue the university because they have a right to do that I think they're wrong I think they're foolish but they have a right to do that so colin kaepernick does not have the right to kneel on the sidelines of in private NFL event if he wants to kneel in a park welcome according to WHO well he doesn't he doesn't have the legal right he can't sue the NFL to force them all so he can't sue the NFL sir so so that that's the distinction that I'm making when a comment like if Colin Kaepernick were to come here like right here you know and like after the event that we haven't organized wants to kneel on the stage all day long that's totally fine it's a public university can do what he wants you know I so time place and manner restrictions are a thing and so is private versus public so I'll defend Colin Kaepernick's right to say whatever the hell he wants in any public area so long as he's not violating the rights of private property owners to control their property because they do have rights at like he couldn't come into my living room and just kneel on the floor do you think they did the conversation is based around the fact that the NFL is a private organization or is based a found based around the fact that they feel that that action disrespects our military in that moment because the national anthem is so so slightly NFL I think the NFL handled this in the worst way possible which is the certain message and not other messages there were on the same page right so like a few years ago there were a bunch of guys in Missouri who did the hands up don't shoot symbol coming at the Senate the st. Louis Rams they came out of the tunnel doing that hands up don't shoot they weren't fine nothing happened if the NFL wants to set a standard that you're not allowed to make political statements during the games or in the warm-ups or something totally cool but if they're going to be inconsistent in the application of those standards then I've got a bit of a problem with them and I think that Roger Goodell has done a terrible job with that it's and you know how you know this because David Stern actually banned people from sitting for the national anthem in 1996 with my fluid abdul rove and nothing happened he set the standard that was the end of it if you want to go protest don't protest here go protest somewhere else and nobody cared but that's really not even a lot I look the larger issue about Kaepernick is you know whether it is appropriate generally for people to know for the national anthem or whether we should be insulted by that you know my feeling is that it's generally not appropriate but you have having a right to do something does not make it the appropriate or right thing to do I don't think that kneeling for the national anthem is either smart politics or the right thing to do cuz there are certain things that still have to unify us like the idea the country is based on good foundations and if he wanted to kneel for the national anthem outside a police station I think that would be a lot more useful for his for his supposed cause then you know taking millions and millions of dollars of contracts from Nike to pretend to be a social justice warrior I'm very skeptical of Colin Kaepernick I think there are a lot of people who actually care about these issues and have studied the issues and don't wear socks with pictures of cops as pigs on them just want to say thank you and I I agree that if that was going to happen Colin Kaepernick may not have been the best proponent the best individual to make that stand in that situation I appreciate thank you so much for coming hey how's it going good evening mr. Shapiro my name is chanel Powell nice to meet you you too so I'm a liberal in view those are my views and well again thank you for coming I appreciate people who disagree are you coming to our campus and speaking with us so I came here essentially out of support for yeah and I also came here to listen and learn from you from what you're saying I think it's important to see opposite sides and discuss right but my question to you is how do we essentially bridge the gap from two different points of view how are we able to meet in the middle by listening I mean essentially you want the same thing we want better for a country and better for our people everyone in this room is our people how do we take care of them how do we meet in the middle and take care of them well I mean I think that we actually have to determine to be completely Frank whether we do want the same thing because I think that sometimes people on left and right think they want the same thing in vague terms like better country but we actually determine what better country looks like so do we want a country where there's more freedom to rise and fall economically or we want a country with more enforced rigidity of income for example that's an actual difference in goal do we want a country where men and women are free to pursue whatever lives that they want encouraged to pursue pursue pursue virtue at the same time or do we see that encouragement by social groups to virtue as a sort of block and check on freedom you know there are certain there are certain areas where we have to clarify exactly what we think an ideal America looks like my ideal America is basically John Stuart Mill's America you get to do whatever you want you wave your hand around as much as you want and so you hit somebody in the face but that is also contingent on all of us trying to act virtuously toward our neighbors so I think that the great genius of the founders that they were balancing the the sort of European enlightenment view of Liberty with a more traditional list view of what private citizenry looked like which was a duty based private citizenry of duty to your neighbor not based on what government tells you to do I'm not sure that that's what the ideal America looks like necessarily for a lot of folks on the Left who feel perhaps that individual rights need to take a backseat to collective solutions right so for example my deal America is not in America where the government forces doctors to provide care price because I think that a free market a free market solution is not just better for healthcare I think it's more moral I think that a consent based society is in more moral society and economics a lot of folks on the left hand well consent based society won't get us to universal healthcare right so these are these are serious conversations and serious discussions I think the way that we can have a conversation is actually by sitting in defining terms so very few conversations begin with the defining of the terms they sort of start with second-order conversations so instead of saying what do you want healthcare to look like in America what are your competing rights and values instead we start with we all want the same thing and therefore nationalized healthcare or we all want the same thing and therefore complete privatization we might not actually want the same thing so you might want to start with that discussion first what do you want to see so what I would like to see in some of these areas is more individual freedom and then social social networks outside of government picked up the slack that's what my ideal America looks like for a lot of folks on the Left they don't trust the social networks they think that the government has to come in and and take care from the top down these are fundamentally different views of the country and I'm not sure that they are completely bridgeable we can have conversations about them but in the end I think the clarity is sometimes preferable to to agreement in ambiguity I appreciate your time thank you thanks so much thank you so much I really appreciate it [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Ben Shapiro

Views: 1,906,221

Rating: 4.8950305 out of 5

Keywords: ben shapiro, shapiro, ben shapiro show, ben shapiro interview, the ben shapiro show, ben shapiro debate, ben shapiro bbc, ben, andrew neil ben shapiro, ben shapiro andrew neil, ben shapiro conservative, ben shapiro bbc interview, ben shapiro vs, ben shapiro q&a, nra ben shapiro, ben shapiro new, ben shapiro rap, zuby ben shapiro, ben shapiro wife, ben shapiro owns, abort ben shapiro, ben shapiro obama, Jordan Peterson

Id: U5CkUKiyHGk

Length: 39min 34sec (2374 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 18 2020