ⓐⓡ⊞ⓘⓞ Lindsay Shepherd's "GOODBYE TO THE LEFT".
03 April 2018 [link youtube]
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Youtube Automatic Transcription
but what is the left now they're Pro
censorship right they are victimhood culture they are all about moral righteousness they're taught that claiming to be offended results in a moral victory in politics it's really important that we compare something real to something else that's real that we're not falling into the trap of comparing a blueprint to an actual building you can't contrast something ideal to something real it's very misleading so for example when you talk to communists very often they will state to you some particular problem they object to in capitalism for example wage inequality they'll say they morally opposed capitalism because of the extreme wage inequality between a factory worker and a factory manager someone in management now if in reply you point out well have you examined how factories actually operated in the Soviet Union or in China or in Cuba or North Korea have you looked at the reality of wage inequality in common societies they'll often get angry and response to this and say no no no you don't understand I'm not comparing the reality of capitalism to the reality of communism I'm comparing the reality of capitalism to this ideal but we can't do that you can compare a blueprint to a blueprint you can compare an actual building to an actual building but when we're comparing left and right whether we're comparing communist and capitalist or within the Canadian spectrum the moderate left within Canada the moderate right within Canada it's really important to keep grounded in the sense of comparing one thing that's real one thing that's important else that's empirically real I think the first false step that Lyndsey Shepard takes here is that she is comparing the reality of the left and the left as she's encountered at over social media in the rough and tumble of slander and defamation and sniping and infighting and nasty comments on Twitter she's compared that reality to some unstated ideal on the side something that is not left she's already said she doesn't identify as a conservative it's not clear she identifies as a liberal or a centrist she hasn't made up her mind yet but she's gonna she's gonna compare the left soon that's not on the left and she lists off in this video what she considers the sins and evils of the left without ever stopping to think of to what extent or in what ways are these things uniquely leftist or even disproportionately or especially leftist there's so there's this victimhood mentality they don't believe in personal responsibility they are completely intolerant of diversity of thought intolerant they are humorless people they want to make society boring and they want to make it so that no one can do so much as make a joke if you are not on their side 100% they will slander you mercilessly and it'd be funny if it worked such a dirty trick so she claims people on the left are censorious that they insist on censorship on restriction of freedom of speech have you spent much time in a Southern Baptist Church lately have you spent much time in any conservative Catholic setting how about conservative Buddhism in Japan have you hung out with conservatives who identify as n Buddhists from Japan how about conservative Islam how about straight up conservative atheists you really sincerely think you're making this contrast between the levels of censorship and the type of censorship you experience with you know left wingers on Twitter I think that's basically what we're talking about here in contrast to what in contrast to what unstated ideal are you complaining about something that's that's real now look I want to catch you guys up with with Who I am many of you people watch this video this first time you've ever seen my face or heard my name on the other hand regular viewers of my channel it's probably your first time ever hearing the the name Lindsey Shepard or seeing her face so really briefly about who she is Who I am Lindsey Shepard is the latest personality to emerge to internet stardom out of a fleeting controversy on a university campus in Canada who did that before notably Jordan Peterson there was there was a really meaningless controversy on a university campus in Canada with Jordan Peterson he started appearing in television interviews and newspaper headlines and old media led the way new media flow behind and he became a an Internet superstar of tremendous scale and scope and influence Lindsay Shepard seems to be on that same path there was a completely meaningless controversy at her campus not even worth describing that controversy led to TV interviews TV coverage newspaper headlines and now I noticed in three days a hundred and seventy thousand views on the first video ever posted to her channel she's got a real platform now to state her views on the inner okay the main thing I'm known for politically here on the internet is talking about vegan politics what's going on with him veganism I'm interested in veganism ecology wildlife management I actually have a bunch of other interests my University Breeze in political science I'm also interested in First Nations and indigenous people and a bunch of other people but this is the main thing I'm known for in the same way that Lindsay Shepard uncritically and unthinkingly singles out examples of people on the internet defaming her from the left and unthinkingly just attributes this to the left as if it's a problem on the left and is not a problem with conservatives or is not a problem with with mainstream the rules as if it's only a problem that leftists say that she is right-wing when when she's not and I it would just be impossible through Google to find examples of conservatives claiming that Obama is a socialist hint Obama is not a socialist it would be impossible for me to find examples of conservatives claiming that Obama is a communist that kind of you know hyperbolic miserable do you think that's hard to find you think what you're talking about here what you're complaining about here is a unique problem with the left or is especially Provost is in any way more a problem with the left on Twitter or the left-wing on YouTube then it is with the center or the Conservatives I've got to tell you I mean somebody like Jimmy Dore Jimmy Dore is very successful here on YouTube a lot of the time what he's complaining about is Lander and defamation from the center from mainstream representatives of the Democrat Party mainstream conservatives people who are not left-wing or right-wing but still engage in these types of these types of tactics so try to make it not okay to talk about issues like being white okay I want to talk about those ideas neutrally I don't have an agenda to push when it comes to that but I there trying to make it so that you can't be neutral about it it's either absorbed the the whole discourse about white privilege and and you have to have white guilt otherwise you're standing beside some white nationalists okay you must be a white nationalist as well so you know it and they're trying to circulate this image of me they're they're posting it all over social media just in response to various things like just to just to spread the image for the sake of spreading the lie you know long story short if within this social context I think you've got to say look isn't this just a feature of politics and specifically of politics in this new era where to some extent everyone has a voice not just NBC CBS CBC not just a small number of broadcasters but to some extent from the grassroots up people can make their own propaganda and that's what some people have done to criticize you Lindsey I understand that some people have photographed you or they'd taken a photograph of you standing next to right-wing extremists neo-nazis and they've said hey look this is the reality of who Lindsey Shepherd is she literally stands with these right-wing people you you think that that's never happened it's never happened that the mayor of Toronto was photographed shaking hands with the leader of the Hells Angels biker gang he didn't have to account for why he was just standing and talking these people now of course the Meritor Anto didn't support this biker gang but he met with and talked to these people any time someone talks to their opponents in politics left or right you think there isn't a problem of stating and restating your position and why you talk to these people in what sense you oppose them what the nature of the opposition or debate was it ser you you think this is a problem you you have uniquely or especially or that this only comes and left and not the right this is profoundly morally incoherent it's profoundly politically wrong in the same way that it's wrong when communists complained to me that inequality between the factory owners and the factory workers is only or especially a problem within capitalism take a good look even right now in 2018 the reality of factory workers in North Korea even farm workers in North Korea even a forestry workers guys cutting down trees in North Korea look at the kind of social inequality that flourishes under under communist regimes and now we can start talking now we can talk in a nuanced way in a comparative way we can also compare Denmark to England we can compare Italy to Florida I don't mind it's not as if this is the only comparison we can make there are a lot of nuanced than worthwhile comparisons we can make globally and I do think that people like Lindsey Shepard suffer from frankly what I would call bumpkin ISM I think this is someone who's never cast the net of her reading wide enough to think about even just some of the examples I mentioned what it's like in terms of the contrast between conservative and liberal within Japan what it's like what's the contrast being conservative and liberal within a country like Taiwan where the parties are not even left versus right there are actually independent pro-independence versus pro unification and then the the the familiar traits have left and right are actually quite hard to pin down within their political party system what how does this work in Greece in Italy or even within communist China it's baffling but people often refer to right-wing members of the Communist Party in China these are the kinds of debates we get into if you had some appreciation for this I think you wouldn't respond to this challenge in your life Lindsey by blaming the left and trying to you know separate yourself in this left from the left in this way when as you admit yourself there are fundamental questions of value and priority that tie you to the left and where the right the conservatives will not will not make any place for you you open by talking about how much ecology meant to you or how much it still means to you do you really think that your priorities your interest in ecology do you really think you can plug that in in the Conservative Party of Canada do you think you can plug that in with the alt-right you know the ecologists of the alt-right I don't like the fact that in Canada so many people regard ecology as the domain of the left I really don't I'm not comfortable with it I do not like the extent to which people presume the left wing has a monopoly on ecology and environmental activism it's deeply disturbing to me I'm a vegan and I'm not left-wing it's a big problem in my life but still blast tax baby this is the reality okay you've said these were your reasons in the past for identifying as left and you don't have something better to replace it with so if you want to if you want to make progress we're fine colleagues you can work within the Canadian system you got to take a long hard look who can I work with in the Liberal Party who can I work with in the Democrat Party who can I work within the Green Party the answer may be nobody that's how I feel at the time but you're gonna if if you care about ecology those are the car mines you can have to look to make let's talk about First Nations you talked a lot about white guilt in a really kind of vague and troubling way Lindsay I they're trying to make it so that you can't be neutral about it it's either absorbed the the whole discourse about white privilege and and you have to have white guilt otherwise you're standing beside some white nationalists okay you must be a white nationalist as well what do you mean what do you mean you don't subscribe to the the white gildner we've got a crisis going on right now the cree language is gonna go extinct the mohawk language is gonna go extinct Ottawa Ottawa is the name of the capital city of Canada guess what it's also the name of a language that's going extinct walk up to a bank machine put in your card which language do you want to do business in they're gonna have Chinese English French maybe Portuguese Spanish Korean they got all kinds of languages none of them are Canadian ones this time you want to do a bank machine what are we gonna do about language extinction what are we gonna do about the unbelievably awful legacy of terrible crypto genocide all policies of the Canadian government of First Nations I also don't think white guilt is a great framework to address those issues in but if you care if you want to make up the difference you tell me how you could possibly make that positive difference by budding up with the outright or even the Conservative Party and again I wish the left didn't have a monopoly on these values I wish I could tell you I had competing offers from the whole political spectrum that there were really great solutions being proposed by the Conservative Party for how to handle these issues what to do you want language Policy First Nations the future of indigenous peoples sir I wish you could tell you that it's not true it the same brutal reality we have to face up to with ecology we have to face up to you on these frankly race issues and in Canada those are the pressing race issues of our time the legacy of our colonialist genocidal past and just straight-up failed education policies for First Nations and where we go from here with our indigenous people and a society that is built on a parliamentary system that actively excludes them where they do not have democratic representation within on anyone as democratic representation in Canada's parliamentary system is a question for another video but all I know is I do not want to have any part in this disgusting leftist culture so Lindsey I want to say I do sympathize with the situation you're in based on my own experience with vegan activism I said earlier people who never seen this before you don't know this is my experience being a voice in the vegan movement I have been slandered and defamed to win unbelievable extent by my fellow vegans sometimes in ways that are minor and subtle sometimes just whole stories made up about my private sex life I have recently I've had people call me a communist when I'm not even left-wing there are people who call me right-wing there are people who lie about my shmoney specific views on stuff like the the status of the mentally disabled people make up specific lies and slander about specific political views people make up very vague and generalize about my moral character about my sex life it's mind-blowing it's unbelievable and this happens with Ian veganism you know a supposedly non-violence ecologically plugged in and light inform activism right but what if I responded to that experience the same way you did and just said well I'm gonna cut myself off from begin assume that now I'm going to just assume I'm gonna compare something real to something ideal I'm gonna assume that veganism is really bad messed up this way and there's some other movement there's some other form of activism with it that's way better whether that's the Conservative Party or the Liberal Party or the alt-right or the green person I don't do that okay I stand my ground i delineate very clearly where I stand where you know my true position is where reality stops and where the defamation starts above all else when you see yourself as a person who cares about politics whether you think of yourself as an activist or a politician or a lobbyist or an intellectual a public intellectual however you think of when you think of yourself as a person who cares about politics and you look back at the history of others who've suffered and striven for political change whether you look at Martin Luther King jr. or leader of the Communist Party of Laos living in a cave while the u.s. dropped bombs in the mountains whether you look at the struggle to abolish slavery struggle for civil rights struggle for gay rights when you look at that track record and then you look in the mirror at these [ __ ] complaints you're making about people saying nasty things about you on Twitter ask yourself this question who has suffered less you and I both Lindsey have suffered we've suffered from people saying mean things about us the internet defamation slander we've both suffered keep it in perspective look at our Martin Luther King jr. lived and look at how he died look at how Mahatma Gandhi lived and how Mahatma Gandhi died Ho Chi Minh you take your pick okay the road to making a positive difference through political change whether you take examples from the left right center gay rights you name it it involves a whole lot of suffering and when you see yourself in that historical context honey you got a really think compared to them looking at yourself in that context who has suffered [Music]
censorship right they are victimhood culture they are all about moral righteousness they're taught that claiming to be offended results in a moral victory in politics it's really important that we compare something real to something else that's real that we're not falling into the trap of comparing a blueprint to an actual building you can't contrast something ideal to something real it's very misleading so for example when you talk to communists very often they will state to you some particular problem they object to in capitalism for example wage inequality they'll say they morally opposed capitalism because of the extreme wage inequality between a factory worker and a factory manager someone in management now if in reply you point out well have you examined how factories actually operated in the Soviet Union or in China or in Cuba or North Korea have you looked at the reality of wage inequality in common societies they'll often get angry and response to this and say no no no you don't understand I'm not comparing the reality of capitalism to the reality of communism I'm comparing the reality of capitalism to this ideal but we can't do that you can compare a blueprint to a blueprint you can compare an actual building to an actual building but when we're comparing left and right whether we're comparing communist and capitalist or within the Canadian spectrum the moderate left within Canada the moderate right within Canada it's really important to keep grounded in the sense of comparing one thing that's real one thing that's important else that's empirically real I think the first false step that Lyndsey Shepard takes here is that she is comparing the reality of the left and the left as she's encountered at over social media in the rough and tumble of slander and defamation and sniping and infighting and nasty comments on Twitter she's compared that reality to some unstated ideal on the side something that is not left she's already said she doesn't identify as a conservative it's not clear she identifies as a liberal or a centrist she hasn't made up her mind yet but she's gonna she's gonna compare the left soon that's not on the left and she lists off in this video what she considers the sins and evils of the left without ever stopping to think of to what extent or in what ways are these things uniquely leftist or even disproportionately or especially leftist there's so there's this victimhood mentality they don't believe in personal responsibility they are completely intolerant of diversity of thought intolerant they are humorless people they want to make society boring and they want to make it so that no one can do so much as make a joke if you are not on their side 100% they will slander you mercilessly and it'd be funny if it worked such a dirty trick so she claims people on the left are censorious that they insist on censorship on restriction of freedom of speech have you spent much time in a Southern Baptist Church lately have you spent much time in any conservative Catholic setting how about conservative Buddhism in Japan have you hung out with conservatives who identify as n Buddhists from Japan how about conservative Islam how about straight up conservative atheists you really sincerely think you're making this contrast between the levels of censorship and the type of censorship you experience with you know left wingers on Twitter I think that's basically what we're talking about here in contrast to what in contrast to what unstated ideal are you complaining about something that's that's real now look I want to catch you guys up with with Who I am many of you people watch this video this first time you've ever seen my face or heard my name on the other hand regular viewers of my channel it's probably your first time ever hearing the the name Lindsey Shepard or seeing her face so really briefly about who she is Who I am Lindsey Shepard is the latest personality to emerge to internet stardom out of a fleeting controversy on a university campus in Canada who did that before notably Jordan Peterson there was there was a really meaningless controversy on a university campus in Canada with Jordan Peterson he started appearing in television interviews and newspaper headlines and old media led the way new media flow behind and he became a an Internet superstar of tremendous scale and scope and influence Lindsay Shepard seems to be on that same path there was a completely meaningless controversy at her campus not even worth describing that controversy led to TV interviews TV coverage newspaper headlines and now I noticed in three days a hundred and seventy thousand views on the first video ever posted to her channel she's got a real platform now to state her views on the inner okay the main thing I'm known for politically here on the internet is talking about vegan politics what's going on with him veganism I'm interested in veganism ecology wildlife management I actually have a bunch of other interests my University Breeze in political science I'm also interested in First Nations and indigenous people and a bunch of other people but this is the main thing I'm known for in the same way that Lindsay Shepard uncritically and unthinkingly singles out examples of people on the internet defaming her from the left and unthinkingly just attributes this to the left as if it's a problem on the left and is not a problem with conservatives or is not a problem with with mainstream the rules as if it's only a problem that leftists say that she is right-wing when when she's not and I it would just be impossible through Google to find examples of conservatives claiming that Obama is a socialist hint Obama is not a socialist it would be impossible for me to find examples of conservatives claiming that Obama is a communist that kind of you know hyperbolic miserable do you think that's hard to find you think what you're talking about here what you're complaining about here is a unique problem with the left or is especially Provost is in any way more a problem with the left on Twitter or the left-wing on YouTube then it is with the center or the Conservatives I've got to tell you I mean somebody like Jimmy Dore Jimmy Dore is very successful here on YouTube a lot of the time what he's complaining about is Lander and defamation from the center from mainstream representatives of the Democrat Party mainstream conservatives people who are not left-wing or right-wing but still engage in these types of these types of tactics so try to make it not okay to talk about issues like being white okay I want to talk about those ideas neutrally I don't have an agenda to push when it comes to that but I there trying to make it so that you can't be neutral about it it's either absorbed the the whole discourse about white privilege and and you have to have white guilt otherwise you're standing beside some white nationalists okay you must be a white nationalist as well so you know it and they're trying to circulate this image of me they're they're posting it all over social media just in response to various things like just to just to spread the image for the sake of spreading the lie you know long story short if within this social context I think you've got to say look isn't this just a feature of politics and specifically of politics in this new era where to some extent everyone has a voice not just NBC CBS CBC not just a small number of broadcasters but to some extent from the grassroots up people can make their own propaganda and that's what some people have done to criticize you Lindsey I understand that some people have photographed you or they'd taken a photograph of you standing next to right-wing extremists neo-nazis and they've said hey look this is the reality of who Lindsey Shepherd is she literally stands with these right-wing people you you think that that's never happened it's never happened that the mayor of Toronto was photographed shaking hands with the leader of the Hells Angels biker gang he didn't have to account for why he was just standing and talking these people now of course the Meritor Anto didn't support this biker gang but he met with and talked to these people any time someone talks to their opponents in politics left or right you think there isn't a problem of stating and restating your position and why you talk to these people in what sense you oppose them what the nature of the opposition or debate was it ser you you think this is a problem you you have uniquely or especially or that this only comes and left and not the right this is profoundly morally incoherent it's profoundly politically wrong in the same way that it's wrong when communists complained to me that inequality between the factory owners and the factory workers is only or especially a problem within capitalism take a good look even right now in 2018 the reality of factory workers in North Korea even farm workers in North Korea even a forestry workers guys cutting down trees in North Korea look at the kind of social inequality that flourishes under under communist regimes and now we can start talking now we can talk in a nuanced way in a comparative way we can also compare Denmark to England we can compare Italy to Florida I don't mind it's not as if this is the only comparison we can make there are a lot of nuanced than worthwhile comparisons we can make globally and I do think that people like Lindsey Shepard suffer from frankly what I would call bumpkin ISM I think this is someone who's never cast the net of her reading wide enough to think about even just some of the examples I mentioned what it's like in terms of the contrast between conservative and liberal within Japan what it's like what's the contrast being conservative and liberal within a country like Taiwan where the parties are not even left versus right there are actually independent pro-independence versus pro unification and then the the the familiar traits have left and right are actually quite hard to pin down within their political party system what how does this work in Greece in Italy or even within communist China it's baffling but people often refer to right-wing members of the Communist Party in China these are the kinds of debates we get into if you had some appreciation for this I think you wouldn't respond to this challenge in your life Lindsey by blaming the left and trying to you know separate yourself in this left from the left in this way when as you admit yourself there are fundamental questions of value and priority that tie you to the left and where the right the conservatives will not will not make any place for you you open by talking about how much ecology meant to you or how much it still means to you do you really think that your priorities your interest in ecology do you really think you can plug that in in the Conservative Party of Canada do you think you can plug that in with the alt-right you know the ecologists of the alt-right I don't like the fact that in Canada so many people regard ecology as the domain of the left I really don't I'm not comfortable with it I do not like the extent to which people presume the left wing has a monopoly on ecology and environmental activism it's deeply disturbing to me I'm a vegan and I'm not left-wing it's a big problem in my life but still blast tax baby this is the reality okay you've said these were your reasons in the past for identifying as left and you don't have something better to replace it with so if you want to if you want to make progress we're fine colleagues you can work within the Canadian system you got to take a long hard look who can I work with in the Liberal Party who can I work with in the Democrat Party who can I work within the Green Party the answer may be nobody that's how I feel at the time but you're gonna if if you care about ecology those are the car mines you can have to look to make let's talk about First Nations you talked a lot about white guilt in a really kind of vague and troubling way Lindsay I they're trying to make it so that you can't be neutral about it it's either absorbed the the whole discourse about white privilege and and you have to have white guilt otherwise you're standing beside some white nationalists okay you must be a white nationalist as well what do you mean what do you mean you don't subscribe to the the white gildner we've got a crisis going on right now the cree language is gonna go extinct the mohawk language is gonna go extinct Ottawa Ottawa is the name of the capital city of Canada guess what it's also the name of a language that's going extinct walk up to a bank machine put in your card which language do you want to do business in they're gonna have Chinese English French maybe Portuguese Spanish Korean they got all kinds of languages none of them are Canadian ones this time you want to do a bank machine what are we gonna do about language extinction what are we gonna do about the unbelievably awful legacy of terrible crypto genocide all policies of the Canadian government of First Nations I also don't think white guilt is a great framework to address those issues in but if you care if you want to make up the difference you tell me how you could possibly make that positive difference by budding up with the outright or even the Conservative Party and again I wish the left didn't have a monopoly on these values I wish I could tell you I had competing offers from the whole political spectrum that there were really great solutions being proposed by the Conservative Party for how to handle these issues what to do you want language Policy First Nations the future of indigenous peoples sir I wish you could tell you that it's not true it the same brutal reality we have to face up to with ecology we have to face up to you on these frankly race issues and in Canada those are the pressing race issues of our time the legacy of our colonialist genocidal past and just straight-up failed education policies for First Nations and where we go from here with our indigenous people and a society that is built on a parliamentary system that actively excludes them where they do not have democratic representation within on anyone as democratic representation in Canada's parliamentary system is a question for another video but all I know is I do not want to have any part in this disgusting leftist culture so Lindsey I want to say I do sympathize with the situation you're in based on my own experience with vegan activism I said earlier people who never seen this before you don't know this is my experience being a voice in the vegan movement I have been slandered and defamed to win unbelievable extent by my fellow vegans sometimes in ways that are minor and subtle sometimes just whole stories made up about my private sex life I have recently I've had people call me a communist when I'm not even left-wing there are people who call me right-wing there are people who lie about my shmoney specific views on stuff like the the status of the mentally disabled people make up specific lies and slander about specific political views people make up very vague and generalize about my moral character about my sex life it's mind-blowing it's unbelievable and this happens with Ian veganism you know a supposedly non-violence ecologically plugged in and light inform activism right but what if I responded to that experience the same way you did and just said well I'm gonna cut myself off from begin assume that now I'm going to just assume I'm gonna compare something real to something ideal I'm gonna assume that veganism is really bad messed up this way and there's some other movement there's some other form of activism with it that's way better whether that's the Conservative Party or the Liberal Party or the alt-right or the green person I don't do that okay I stand my ground i delineate very clearly where I stand where you know my true position is where reality stops and where the defamation starts above all else when you see yourself as a person who cares about politics whether you think of yourself as an activist or a politician or a lobbyist or an intellectual a public intellectual however you think of when you think of yourself as a person who cares about politics and you look back at the history of others who've suffered and striven for political change whether you look at Martin Luther King jr. or leader of the Communist Party of Laos living in a cave while the u.s. dropped bombs in the mountains whether you look at the struggle to abolish slavery struggle for civil rights struggle for gay rights when you look at that track record and then you look in the mirror at these [ __ ] complaints you're making about people saying nasty things about you on Twitter ask yourself this question who has suffered less you and I both Lindsey have suffered we've suffered from people saying mean things about us the internet defamation slander we've both suffered keep it in perspective look at our Martin Luther King jr. lived and look at how he died look at how Mahatma Gandhi lived and how Mahatma Gandhi died Ho Chi Minh you take your pick okay the road to making a positive difference through political change whether you take examples from the left right center gay rights you name it it involves a whole lot of suffering and when you see yourself in that historical context honey you got a really think compared to them looking at yourself in that context who has suffered [Music]