141 Comments
Sep 16·edited Sep 16

There is that saying (which I believe Tucker ascribes to) that Free Speech means nothing if it does not permit hate speech. Speech that you agree with does not need to be "free". It is the stuff you vehemently disagree with that is important to give sunlight. You do that. I commend you for it

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Agreed

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Fact checking is a form of censorship because it just is.

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I don't have a problem with ensuring what someone says is factual as long as it is evenly and uniformly applied across all venues and participants. When it is one sided is when it becomes a problem. I definitely want folks to do their homework, call me out if I have misunderstood or misrepresented something. I'm not perfect and would hope none of us would feel that we are above reproach. That's just my approach. When it is weaponized and wielded like a cudgel, is when fact checking is vile. And a form of censorship. It is sad to have to say that. Objective reality has left the planet. Just my humble opinion.

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Exactly. The remedy for lies is more lies. The remedy for truth is more truth. That's the essence of free speech. As far as ensuring what is truth, that's everyone's path to journey. What we don't want is brainwashers brainwashing brainwhashees with their fraudulent fact checking.

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Personally, I don’t see why it can’t be true that Hitler was a very, very bad man and Churchill was also a pretty bad man. If not as bad, pretty damn bad. Just like all the warmongers on both sides of the ball in every single war in modern history. But as long as we continue to think there’s a right side and a wrong side and not just two sides completely manipulated by one entity sucking our souls dry, then the endless wars will continue. And you know I believe the point is not that Hitler didn’t need to be stopped, but rather that Hitler could’ve and should’ve been stopped much sooner, and in a different sort of way that would not have ended in a holocaust. But because there were factions on both sides that wanted it to happen, that is why it happened. And I don’t think there’s anything antisemitic about that sentiment.

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Exactly; one monster does suddenly make every opposing leader angelic and brilliant. Plus, history has always belonged to the victors. The Brits have done no small amount of global injustice over the last 200 years in China, Ireland, Americas, Africa, etc.

That said, i completely agree with Sasha Stone’s position on the matter and commend her courage to explain and make sensitive decisions.

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I disagree. I think she is being blinded by the propaganda that's been printed in the history books.

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Seems to me she is anything but blinded. I have followed her for about two years now and she consistently presents a comprehensive and balanced view of topics in my view. Okay for us to disagree though. That’s life in the big city.

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Right on!

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Right on, Libertarian, that is…👍

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As for as evil goes Hitler is number one. But it is also important to note that Marxism / Communism has a bigger body count than does Nazism. It is that the Nazis were more methodical and intentional in their evil.

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Actually, the 36 million Chinese that died last century is more than twice as much as Hitler and Stalin killed combined and it too was engineered. And don’t even get me started on how many Irish the Brits killed, how many American Indians the early Americans killed, or how many Chinese the Japanese killed. Our world and history is rich with genocide and it continues to this very day. The trick is to recognize it in real time instead of apologizing for being silent after the evidence is overwhelming.

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The trick is blame it on your political rivals and produce more hagiography for your cults followship.

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While Churchill wasn't a monster at the Hitler level, Stalin was. And we were allied with him. Purely out of our self interest, which is the way state craft should be done. I believe that the war crimes trials did enormous damage to thinking about international politics. We should have just done summary executions.

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No. It then simply becomes a blood fest. You need an adjudication process. Rules of procedure can be adjusted to fit the situation.

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Sep 16·edited Sep 16

What ever you do it is victor's justice and now they are trying to apply the rules without victory. How are you going to convict Putin without occupying Russia. Even when there is a victory like Mislovitch, the trial became a joke. As for the Nazis, Goering pretty much made monkeys of the prosecutors and Doernitz called Nimitz as a defense witness. Nimitz affirmed he had done the same thing and would gladly do it again. And the there was the question of the Soviet judges.

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You really are the pragmatist of best reasoned arguments!

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exactly. thank you

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Sasha is good people. Salt of the earth type of person. But I would like to see Tucker debate Ben Shapiro and/or Steve Deace.

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Mr. Carlson could never debate someone like Shapiro. By debate, I mean a full on Oxford style or competitive style debate. I enjoy Mr. Carlson; I think he has a definite place in our world. I was truly saddened when he was yanked off Fox, but he isn't an intellectual giant. And Shapiro is not either but he's no slouch.

I can't speak about Mr. Deace. Don't know who that is. But Mr. Carlson would likely lose quickly to Mr. Shapiro. Just my humble opinion. I could be wrong.

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I just want someone to ask Tucker if he accepts Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and if he supports Zionism as do virtually all Christians who have a Biblical world view.

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Sounds like a very reasonable question. I haven't been watching him closely lately. Has he said anything that would make you question that viewpoint?

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Yeah. FDR put Americans of Japanese heritage in concentration camps for the duration of the war. There was very little if any espionage from Japanese Americans. But there was espionage from German Americans who were rounded up and put into concentration camps.

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The US Japanese-American military unit was the most decorated for bravery in WWII I think.

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The 442 RCT. They were not the only Japanese American unit. One especially obscure unit was a fighter squadron that never got into combat but was finishing training as the war ended. Can't find a reference but I did read an account by one of the pilots. They were in the Deep South along the Gulf Coast. Apparently, Jim Crow didn't apply to Asians. When they finished training, the locals put on a big reception at the country club and brought in all the notables and the debutants to receive them. Officer class, you know.

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"Hitler could’ve and should’ve been stopped much sooner, and in a different sort of way that would not have ended in a holocaust."

Who can disagree with that?

Look, I'm a Christian, so I don't classify people as good or bad. We're all fallen. Among the morally fallen, some are more or less depraved. Churchill had spectacular faults. He is also a moral hero, all things considered.

He stopped Hitler, after so many others failed to do so.

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Stopped him from doing what? The Germans wanted to reunite former German lands that were ripped from them in WWI. The part of "Poland" that Hitler invaded had only been part of Poland from 1919 to 1939. Cooper points out the obvious: had Churchill not fought for war, Germany would have stopped at recovering Danzig and WWII would not have happened, the "Holocaust" would not have happened, and Eastern Europe would not have been subjugated and crushed by the Soviet Union for 45 years.

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I am surprised at your supposition. You must have amazing powers of foresight. I'm pretty sure we don't know what would have happened had different things occurred instead of the ones that did. Not trying to be argumentative, just pointing out the obvious. You can suppose but you cannot definitively state what would or would not have happened. There are too many variables at play that cannot be accounted for. Again, not arguing. Just stating it is a supposition that you made not a definitive fact.

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I like Tucker’s attitude of letting everyone speak their mind, and letting us make up our minds without his approval, or condemnation. I didn’t like Glenn Greenwald saying that Lula of Brazil, isn’t a communist, which I highly disagree with, but I haven’t dropped Tucker because he let Greenwald make his points.

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But Tucker strongly approved this Cooper guy, which is the problem.

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The 'problem' to neocons (not me) is that Cooper and Tucker both shined a bit of light on how the romanticized characters from WW2, have been used for last 80 years to justify US-led forever wars. Neocons don't like the masses to think for themselves or different than the nationalist tropes that keeps the Military Industrial Complex humming. 'Don't be a Chamberlain' or else there will be a domino effect (Vietnam, and now Ukraine come to mind). Axis of Evil countries are 'Hitlers'. We must be 'strong and resolute' just like Churchill was. These tropes have been proven to work. When anyone points to the cracks in this approach they are attacked/vilified. Tucker now joins Snowden and Assange and Brand... and x,y,z in the future. Cooper freak-out was an attempt to 'person non grata' Tucker to protect a bigger prize, IMHO

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Agreed. I had never heard of Cooper before this interview. I'm thankful Tucker interviewed him and we got to know a bit of what he was all about. That's good. That's the point. But I got the impression that Tucker was promoting this guy as some sort genius that was finally telling us the "real history." Now I know a bit more about Cooper and Tucker. Thank you both! No apologies by Tucker necessary. I will continue to support him and enjoy his show.

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Cooper did nothing wrong. Listen to his conversation with Dave Smith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fLpKzbqpGk

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Ferguson is brilliant but I lost a lot of respect for him with his response to Cooper. Not because I disagree with him or agree with Cooper's take, I don't. It's because he starts out his reply by sneering about how Cooper hasn't even written any books, and runs with a dismissive description of his work from Wikipedia or some online search. It was irrelevant and elitist. So I wasn't too interested in his reply to Cooper on Ben's show. The tone and way in which we have a debate matters a lot, and Niall didn't do anything for it.

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I lost all my respect for Ferguson when I went to hear him at my then local bookstore (Politics & Prose, in Washington, DC), sometime shortly after Trump was either elected or inaugurated, and he opened his remarks with an aside about the danger Trump posed as a Russian puppet. Pure orthodoxy-setting "We all agree" propaganda. I thought it disgusting of him to stoop to it to ingratiate himself with Trump-hating audience.

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We have a bingo. I wondered whether perhaps Mr Ferguson had gone for tea and crumpets or something and left his computer turned on. I'm old enough that I perceive That Accent as Cultured. It's past time to get over that.

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I listened to this podcast until it all just became too much for me. My husband and I started intense eyerolls and thought, you know, this is a bridge too far. And we did something absolutely shocking. We turned. it. off. Which is what people should do when they are watching/listening to something they disagree with. If you want free speech, you get all speech. The good, the bad, the crazy, the rambling, the you fill in the gap.

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Sep 16·edited Sep 16

That’s the way to handle it. Just turn it off. Easy peasy.

But when someone goes a step further by shaming and starting a character assassination it’s because they are letting fear turn them into a control freak over other people’s thoughts and their right to come to their own conclusions. They are afraid that the offending material will coerce others to think a certain way, so they set about to destroy all credibility of even the interviewer, and to “control” the entire narrative to match what they want everyone to think and feel and believe.

One thing I’ve learned is the truth does not need that kind of intervention. Ever. It always eventually rises to the top.

Usually the people who partake in cancel culture are trying to keep the actual truth from getting out because it threatens them and it DOES ring true and influence minds. But if what is being discussed doesn’t ring true, then it won’t do a darn thing to most listeners, so why the fuss??

I like Tucker. If I don’t like one of his guests and what they are spewing (which frankly is rare,) I simply turn it off. I don’t cancel him. I continue to listen to his other interviews.

The biggest problem about the recent Hitler and WWII convos is that the more people shame and cancel Tucker for letting Cooper give his views and for stating he has respect for Cooper, the more they look like they are trying to keep truth from being heard. That’s a disservice to the topic. It confuses the truth for those who are trying to learn more - because truth doesn’t need that kind of tactic. So if they are using that tactic people will think the message is a threat to someone - and therefore logic says it must be based on some truth. That’s why it’s dangerous to cancel culture the discussions and interviewer. Just speak up with the disagreement you have with what was said, offer corrected perspectives and corrected facts and information, and leave it at that. If it’s true it will rise without any hate attached to it. They are hurting themselves when they try to cancel someone like Tucker. They are hurting the truth.

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I have yet to view, this. However, I agree that if I don’t like it, I’ll just turn it off, and wait for the next one to hit. I don’t view, them all.

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I was deeply confused by the discussion myself. I have always been a history buff and have many family members that fought in the war or were civilians in Italy and nothing agreed with anything I have learned about the war. There was definitely a great deal of indecisiveness and confusion about how serious the threat of war was but it was completely bizarre to cast Churchill as a comparable villain to Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini. It is amazing as Ferguson points out that the revisionism in Tucker's podcast is actually Nazi propaganda.

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The real revisionism is the propaganda with which we have been brainwashed since 1945. WWII didn't have to happen, and neither it nor the "Holocaust" would have happened, were it not for Churchill.

Cooper's podcasts with Tucker and a few days later with Dave Smith on Part of the Problem provided the first public version of WWII that ever made sense to me. I was born in 1963; my teachers, TV, movies, and my government brainwashed me with the ridiculous premise that the Germans were naught but power-mad war mongers who wanted to attack the entire world single-handedly while simultaneously expending the manpower and resources to exterminate 6 million people. We were ridiculed and shamed if we dared to question this narrative, although few of us ever did. It was easier to watch Hogan's Heroes and feel smug about kicking the Kraut asses in the 40s.

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You are always so genuinely open to getting at what’s true whatever it is and whatever affect it might have on your current beliefs or opinions. And you do with such a sweet spirit. Which I find very rare these days! I always want to see what you’re thinking about things. Thank you Sasha

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Keep reposting, Sasha. Substack isn’t supposed to be an echo chamber.

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Or don't since her take is completely wrong.

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???

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You know, the old saying, opinions are like..... everyone's got one and they all stink.

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I think the concept of "TDS" has achieved a certain duality...TDS can now refer to Tucker Derangement Syndrome.

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Sasha you are a tremendous example for circumspect and devil’s advocate THINKING— which is sadly not what our government nor educational system want nor teach—- KEEP IT COMING PLEASE!!!

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My takeaway from the interview is that history is never really binary in the absolute. He never denied the holocaust. I listened and waited for it. What people want to create from their particular stance on a topic becomes conjecture. Tucker has become a curious seeker of things at a time that we are told what to believe. No one has to agree with Darryl but it’s not Tuckers job to argue the points. His show sheds light on interesting people and their opinions. The absolute opposite of media today.

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Exactly. Sasha's take in this one is wrong because she is not entirely free from her virtue signalling past. WWII's history will unravel because it is false. It lays the blame at the feet on the wrong power structures- a fact that has subjected us the the same sociopathy for the last 50 years, because they were never punished or removed from power. We were told a compelling fairy tale, one in which many bad guys were crowned as the good guys- it will be corrected.

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Thanks, for the video! You don’t have to worry about, about this. The detractors can find the exit. They just think they have to try to make you feel awful before they do. Don’t fall for it, Sasha. ❤️❤️

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From Wikipedia is a good definition of free speech that removes Constitutional arguments (only applies to the US govt, etc): "Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. "

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It is a natural or God given right. The only thing the Constitution does is prohibit the government from interfering with it.

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I listened to the Niall Ferguson rebuttal and it was really educational. Towards the end he said some things about modern day London and New York as multi-national cities as though their degradation hasn't happened, which I found typical of liberals, but there you have it. Nobody agrees about everything all the time.

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“He wanted UTOPIA — like the Soviet Union under Stalin, China under Xi Jinping, and North Korea under Kim Jong Un. These ideologies do not believe they are rooted in “evil,” quite the opposite, just as with the Puritans in Salem and with the modern-day Left.”

Consider all of the parallels between all of those collectivist systems – including the fact that they would persecute their rivals for power. As in the Bolsheviks persecuting the Mensheviks and SR’s.

That’s why we call her Communazi Kamala.

BTW, this is a tremendous book on the subject that destroys one of the left’s biggest LIES:

Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the 'Free Left' and the 'Statist Left' Mr. L.K. Samuels

If the two polar opposites are Communism versus Fascism, what is in the middle? Is everyone not on the extreme ends half communist and half fascist? Nobody believes that, but the old yet current political spectrum prescribes that exact political scenario. So what happened? In an effort to rewrite history, the political dichotomy has been deliberately broken, falsified, sabotaged, and made meaningless, causing the public to lose their way through the contorted political maze. With well over 1,500 footnotes from historians and political scientists, this book refurbishes the political spectrum and restores it to its original French Revolution roots and a common sense approach. Now anyone can navigate the political swampland with a faithful compass to triangulate one’s own political position, and peel back layers of distorted history. Some of the lesser-known historical facts revealed in this book include Mussolini’s two decade advocacy of Marxism, where for over six years he was both a Marxist heretic and an Italian Fascist, combined into a Fascist–Marxist duopoly and ideology. In 1919 a red armband-wearing Hitler became an elected official in the communist-run Bavarian Soviet Republic. He later proclaimed himself a “Social Democrat.” Most of the major Nazi and Fascist leaders were Marxists, or hard-core socialists who opposed both the bourgeoisie and capitalistic Jews.

The chapter explaining how Mussolini and Hitler were left-wing statists is worth the price of the whole book. Read Killing History by L.K. Samuels, and learn.

--Prof. David R.Henderson, Research Fellow and editor of The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

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Thanks for the recommendation.

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I loathe the new tactic of expansive cancel culture. We are now not only expected to cancel the person who said the bad thing, but also the person who heard the bad thing, the people who continue to talk to the listener, and then anyone who talks to those people. At the end of the day, this is childish, immature behavior. And, it's no secret that the msm will stoke any flame to get rid of their competition, especially if that person doesn't follow their narrative. As a thinking adult, I can hear someone say something I disagree with and turn the channel. And, no. I am not obligated to denounce them or call them out. I don't know who people think they are, but announcing new and expanding expectations doesn't mean shite to me.

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💯💯💯

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founding

Sasha, thanks again for all that you do. I'm a firm believer in hearing people out because if I had only listened to one point of view I'd be stuck in an echo chamber and had never been able to find people like you, Nate Silver, Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn and others who provide different perspectives.

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Nate Silver!?

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Unless you have listen to the podcast you can not speak intelligently about what they said. He was using Churchill as an example of what he calls mythology in retelling historical facts. IE Churchill is to be revered and anything that doesn’t revere Churchill is a lie and slander. He also used Jim Jones as another example of this behavior. IE Jim Jones was always insane and a cult leader who mislead the masses etc etc. but he goes back into time and tells the real story of Jim Jones of how he was a local pastor in the 1950’s who got involved into the civil rights movement and did a lot of good back then. So how did that guy morph into the guy who killed all those people with poison and they all willingly did it. I will give the critics one thing he did say with his own mouth that he thought Churchill was responsible for more of the death and carnage in WW2 than the other dictators IE Hitler and Stalin. He said it knowing full well that others. IE everyone else would have a hard time accepting that. Tucker pushed back slightly but in the end did not push back too hard just like he did in Putin’s interview. But Tucker wants to hear both sides of an issue. I heard this podcast before all of the Tucker hit pieces showed up. I never once got the impression that neither Mr Cooper nor Tucker had any sympathy for what the Nazi’s did and are in no way holocaust deniers which is what the MSM is saying. So bottom line is listen for yourself then decide it will be hard not to prejudge after all of the MSM hit pieces on Tucker

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