Dave Smith (29:22)
Yes, that's right. That's right. And especially from all of these people who, while the left was in the driver's seat, have been free speech absolutists, at least that's what they say over the last, you know, decade or so. And it's interesting to see so many of them turn around. I will say though, so I completely agree with you on that point. But I will also, in addition to that, say, and look, I don't know, look, obviously like we're, we come at this from like a Ron Paulian right wing libertarian perspective of foreign, foreign policy and the role of government and all of these things. We are not, we do not have the same worldview as campus leftists. Okay? So like I, and I have seen and I've been critical of many different times on many different platforms, including very big ones. I've been very critical of some of the kind of dumb and just wrong, you know, messaging and, or messages that have come out of some of the protests. And I've taken flack from like my own, my side or whatever on, on this issue. I will say, and I'm not the expert in this. I don't know, and I don't know much about this guy in particular. I know nothing about the guy. But I'm not so sure that you can just like, just like accurately just describe the protesters as pro Hamas. I'm not sure. I mean, I don't know. I remember seeing at last year, so almost a year ago, it, at Passover at the Columbia protest. You remember this, Rob, they were having a Seder with all of the, like, they invited the Jewish students who were protesting the war too, and they all sat down like Jewish and Muslim students together and all did like a Passover Seder together. I'm just saying I don't know if they're pro Hama. Like that doesn't give me like Islamist vibes. That seemed like maybe that's not actually, maybe actually that's not a representation of what this is. And while there has been all of this like unbelievable kind of panic over these protests, which by the way, again, I think are. We're kind of speaking in the past here. It doesn't seem like they're like at their height right now. Maybe they'll come back, I don't know. But out of all of the people kind of making this bit one of the things that I've found very interesting. And I've seen this quite a bit now. I know that when I'm talking about the protest last year, that I'm going four years back to talk about the protests in 2020. And so I know that's a very long time in modern America to look in the rear view mirror, but there are many of these people, and I remember them, and I remember what they were saying at the time when I was, like, adamantly, like, very critical of the Summer of Love George Floyd riots. A lot of these people were actually pretty soft on that. But now they're very, very hard about people taking over parts of a college campus or how horribly anti Semitic they are. You know, look, like I talked to. I talked to a Jewish student who was going to Columbia last year. It's just me talking to one person. So I'm not saying this is like, you know, the totality of what the experience is, but I was like, what's it. What's it like with protests and stuff? And he was like, that's kind of annoying. He's like, yeah, there's a few buildings where we have to, like, enter from a different door now. And then there was a little period of time where they shut down classes and went virtual. And he was like, I was pissed off about that. It was real annoying to, like, I have to go virtual now because these guys want to protest. And I was like, that's. That's fairly reasonable. And I was like, well, as a Jewish person, like, how is it? Do you feel, like, threatened by them? And he was like, no, no, no. No one's, like, doing anything. You know, it's just. It's annoying. And I'm like, okay. By the way, I'm actually somebody who's very sympathetic to the idea that, like, yeah, you don't get to protest in an area you're not allowed to be. You can remove those people. Okay, if they're taking over some quad that isn't their quad, and they don't have a right to do that. So, okay, they could be removed or whatever. Certainly if anybody broke any laws, they should be prosecuted. But it just is interesting to me to see, like, the thing that I was appalled by in the George Floyd riots was like, there was, like, a couple dozen murders. There were hundreds of people who were viciously assaulted. There were billions of dollars in property damage. And there were just regular people were being terrorized. In cities across the country. They're storming into cafes and, you know, surrounding some white couple and demanding that they chant black Lives matter with this very clear threat of, like, you're going to get the shit beaten out of you by this mob if you don't comply with us. And that, to me was now. And then, some of these people were kind of like, well, you know, police, brutal is a problem also. Yet these protests are totally demonized. Like, the. The same people, or many of the same people who would have said, if I just described those things as, like, violent riots, they'd be like, you're painting with a broad brush. But those same people will turn around and say like, oh, it's all pro Hamas. And you're like, okay, I'm not saying, by the way, there's been zero violence or zero vandalism at any of these protests. But in comparison, it's like nothing. It's nothing compared to that. And yet the freak out from some quarters is substantially worse than it was over that. You get my point on that, Rob. Just seems like an obvious, like, kind of hypocrisy on display. The other thing I would say, and this, maybe this will lead into. We could talk about my recent Twitter feud, but I will say I see this and look, there's been a lot, a lot made over the last year or so about the rise in antisemitism. And me and we did a podcast called the Rise of Anti Semitism. If anybody wants to kind of listen to some more of my, My thoughts and Rob's thoughts on that, you could check out that episode. But I just can't help but notice this. And I think part of the reason why I find myself in the position that I'm in, in general on this conversation is that I just, like, I have trouble not trying to be as consistent as I can be. I have trouble if I see a hypocrisy, I kind of have to iron that out. I'm a little bit compulsive in that way. But I would say that to see many people, many, many of them Jewish, not, not all, obviously, certainly Donald Trump isn't. But to see all of these people talking about the anti Semitism on college campuses and how this needs to be cracked down. Recently, Donald Trump announced that he's going to be pulling all federal funds from colleges that have anti Semitic protests. Now, to be clear, I very much support, and I know I speak for you too, when I say this, Rob, I support pulling all federal funds for every college period. So I'm not complaining about pulling federal funds from any college I look at. I think college is essentially a government program and one of the Most destructive government programs at that. So I'm all for pulling federal funds. I would also say that the federal government should get out of the bit of the game of issuing student loans. It's just impossible for me to ignore that after, I mean, this has been going on a lot longer than a decade. But let's just say the last decade, let's say the last 15 years. Even though it's much older than that. But just, it's so obvious over the last 15 years. But to see after the last 15 years and the blatant explicit anti white racism that has just permeated universities across this country, the fact that then due to anti Semitism, they all get their federal funds pulled. I just, you know, for people who talk about like the rise of people who are like hostile to Jews and think, talk about Jewish conspiracies and the Jewish question and all this stuff, what do you think that does for that movement? Do you think it makes it stronger or weaker? It's just like amazing to me how all of the people who claim to be so concerned with anti Semitism can't see like a little bit of chess rather than checkers. Like, they can't just go like, oh, and this is true, by the way, in conflicts across the board. Like, people are like, Vladimir Putin's a real dangerous guy. Okay, so you don't see any problem with just poking them constantly for year after year after year. Why do you have to, why wouldn't that side be the most concerned with that? You know what I mean? Like, why? And in the same way, if you are really concerned about like the rise of young white men who are hostile toward Jews, why wouldn't you see that, like, oh shit, we shouldn't have a federal government that's totally more responsive to this 2% of the population than the majority of the population. It's just, it makes such common sense to me. And by the way, I mean, if you want to, if you want to actually go down this road and say that there's anti Semitism again, which I find to be an ever moving target, which we could get into a little bit, but go pull up some of the anti white rhetoric and tell me there's anything that can compete with that coming from the highest levels at universities. Like, like, even, even if you want to point to like those, those university presidents who like kind of squirmed when they were asked, is calling for genocide of Jews, breach of your, you know, school code of conduct, they're straight up giving lectures on the evils of whiteness that's going on all over the place. All over the place on college campuses. I mean like books are written on the subject that get rave reviews and are on the New York Times bestseller White Fragility Celebrated by the View and college campuses and all this. I'm sorry, there are not college professors out there teaching that Jewishness is violence. That is not happening. And so I don't know, am I crazy to just be like, look, you gotta, you gotta be fair here. You can't have this double standard. This double standard is going to lead to people who resist that double standard. And why wouldn't they? I don't know.
