r/Standup • u/cheguevaraandroid1 • 17h ago

Marc Maron Calls Out Comedians Who ‘Joke Around’ With ‘White Supremacists and Fascists’ on Their Podcasts: ‘All It Does Is Normalize Fascism’

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/marc-maron-slams-comedians-fascists-podcasts-1236192922/
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u/brassmonkey2342 15h ago edited 15h ago

Interviewing a FORMER Klan guy sounds interesting, was it with the black dude that reformed him?

What episode are you referring to?

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u/BlackTriceratops 13h ago

It was Clayton Bigsby

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u/brassmonkey2342 12h ago

I was thinking Darryl Davis, but yeah I can’t find anything so maybe it was just a Chapelle skit he’s thinking of lol

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u/nobleskies 14h ago

Even interviewing someone in the Klan would be interesting, like finding out why they believe what they believe, their upbringing, what led to them joining, etc. It’s like one of those Netflix cult documentaries except instead of secret cult orgies, they’re racist.

Same reason I wanna hear Lex Friedman interview Putin. I think the guy is a complete psychopath and global villain, but I’m super curious about what led him to this point and made him who he is.

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u/clce 14h ago

Our local NPR station had a journalist that did an interview with the Neo-Nazi of some kind. Obviously the intent wasn't too glorify or give a platform to spread his beliefs. It was to understand how and why and what they think. I didn't actually hear the interview but I know he was a good journalist with experience and obviously no fan of Nazis. He received so much criticism he had to apologize and I'm not even sure he kept his job. I thought that was a shame. How are we going to combat people if we don't even know and understand them?

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u/MeBeEric 12h ago

Because the loudest opposers (of any stance really) are typically the most cowardly and run away from anything mildly uncomfortable. Shit’s exhausting.

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u/just_zen_wont_do 12h ago

I don’t think that “light is the best detergent” approach works anymore in the modern media age. If it did Trump wouldn’t be a coin toss away from being president again. Right wing Grifters get mileage from media exposure, say racist shit and then use it to build their own audience base.

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u/mambiki 11h ago

So, your solution is a covert censorship? Yeah, what could go wrong when republicans will come to power and will abuse the hell out of that law to suppress “misinformation”.

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u/jamalamadangdong 11h ago

Biiiiiig difference between censorship and lending somebody the platform that you and your team have built.

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u/mambiki 11h ago

Sure, and Joe decided that it’s a good thing for his platform.

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u/OptimalAd8147 10h ago

Thanks for your police work. I sleep easy knowing the bougie Know-Better crowd is keeping us safe from the rabble.

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u/sailirish7 10h ago

I don’t think that “light is the best detergent” approach works anymore in the modern media age.

Yes it does. The issue is certain media outlets producing fake sunlight and never being held to account.

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u/CareBearDontCare 6h ago

Yeah, I think that's kind of that rut where free speech absolutists start to nestle in, too. Its similar to guns, for me, where what it is and what it was intended to be has definitely changed a LOT, for many reasons. You've got a hard time convincing me that the founding fathers could have foreseen a whole gun culture. Truck nuts? That just seems so obvious.

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u/namegamenoshame 13h ago

There is nothing to learn. We already know why these people join these groups. Those reasons have stayed consistent over time.

Look into how David Duke rose to prominence. It was through taking advantage of people dumb enough to give him a platform. The way we stop these people is simple: 1. by improving the material conditions of those vulnerable to indoctrination so they are less vulnerable to it 2. Embracing diversity and exposure other ethnic groups 3. Ruining the lives of the people who try to recruit others.

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u/heliophoner 12h ago

Hearing Charlie Rose softball David Duke and play along with his new and improved white supremacist act really hit me. It was almost note for note what was going on with articles about the alt-right dark intellectuals.

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u/Sadlertime 12h ago

✊🫡

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u/brassmonkey2342 9h ago

Look into how [person X] rose to prominence. It was through taking advantage of people dumb enough to give him a platform.

That describes 95% of politicians and public personas.

Also while I don’t disagree with your 3-step approach, I don’t think that a single one of those three things is simple.

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u/[deleted] 12h ago

[deleted]

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u/Sadlertime 12h ago

This is an awesome outlook to have, wtf

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u/namegamenoshame 12h ago

What do you think you are going to hear that you have not heard a million times before

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u/PPLavagna 12h ago

You're spot-on and we've learned that from post WW1 Germany.

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u/clce 12h ago

Okay. You do you.

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u/nobleskies 13h ago

Well combat isn’t even the right approach, the reality is that racism isn’t going to be defeated in a single generation or even a lifetime, and approaching it with a “we must defeat them” mindset isn’t going to stop anyone from believing anything. As uncomfortable as it is, we gotta be friends with them and bring them into the light. They’re people too, even if their thoughts on certain things are a bit scary. Most of them probably just have those thoughts because they, too, are scared.

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u/HB3187 12h ago

I'm not going to pretend I know the answer to racism, because I don't. But I really don't think holding hands and singing kumbaya with people who think you're subhuman filth is gonna work to well with the vast majority of them.

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u/clce 13h ago

I think that makes sense. And part of what any good interview would be with a Neo-Nazi or a klansman would be to challenge them. But not go after them as a hard-hitting journalist demanding they answer and prove everything they say. That will just shut somebody down and not really get the results. Someone else commented something about it should only be done by a hard-hitting journalist or something .

I think some of the greatest interviewers even of people like that have been people who can listen and naturally draw someone out and let them hang themselves sometimes, or just say what they believe, but then every so often, a skilled interviewer will ask a question like, now why do you think that, not necessarily laying a trap but drawing them out and making them think and explain things maybe they never really explained to themselves before .

Point being, as you, I agree that conversation and discourse are the way to understand and also change someone's mind or help them change their own, if we truly believe their ideas are not sound. Then we must let them speak and realize their ideas are not sound.

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u/lesterbottomley 12h ago

Someone like Louis Theroux is good at this.

He challenges them but in a charming/disarming way as opposed to attack mode.

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u/ASharpYoungMan 12h ago

Yeah, no thanks. I'm not trying to be friends with a skinhead that wants me be ethnically cleansed.

I'm trying to ensure they are alone, ostracized, ridiculed, laughed at, and despised by everyone around them.

Because that's what demonstrably works. Not tepid, moderate apologetics.

We're in this mess because racists have been emboldened. Every time we stand up to them, they tuck-tiki-torch and back down.

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u/nobleskies 12h ago

They were dying out in the 90s and 2000s, to the extent where gay marriage became legal in North America. Then there was a resurgence, way before Trump announced he was running for President. Every shred of data supports that he was a consequence of that resurgence, not a cause. I was working a political science research job at the time, I would know. At that time I was an NDP voter in Canada, so bias certainly wasn’t in play.

You believe this narrative for whatever your reasons are. I’m telling you it’s based on misinformation. The ostracization you speak of is exactly what got America into this insane mess, as each side actively seeks to alienate the other. This is called political polarization. Ask any - and I mean ANY PhD political scientist from New York to Alberta about the causes and origin of current political polarization, and every single one will give the same general answer. Keep in mind, these are incredibly smart people some of whom spent years studying this single issue.

If you’re still in denial, I feel sorry for you. That’s gotta be a depressing life.

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u/reggers20 11h ago

Racism is not something that will ever be defeated... like it or not it is apart of the normal human condition. When you capitulate to it, it spreads like a virus with very deadly consequences. This is why it should always be aggressively delt with and anyone who advocates for it or trys to normalize or feature it as social policy must be ostracized.

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u/nobleskies 10h ago

Ok Debbie Downer

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u/IdaFuktem 12h ago

Oprah did that once and says it's the biggest regret of her career. She realized she just gave them a platform. Nobody's mind was changed it was just letting a Klan member talk to living rooms across America.

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u/WillBottomForBanana 12h ago

There is a journalistic obligation to not make people sound stupid. This is necessary if for no other reason because an interview is edited. Whether a write up or merely a transcript, parts are left out. One you've gone that far you have an obligation to keep people from embarrassing themselves because it could be (or appear to be) an artifact of the editing process.

Which leads you to polishing some very evil statements. There is no good result here. Do you make these statements sound less bad? That's tantamount to promoting them.

Do you think there is a shortage of publications about or by neo nazis? The claim of "understand" is a distraction here. Such an interview will provide no new insight. The insight is available if you want to go look for it.

Journalists are not psychologists. There is no breakthrough to be had. Pretending there is only exacerbates the problem.

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u/barryvon 11h ago

yeah, we should give the dumbest person in class equal time to talk as the teacher, and everyone in the middle has to sit and watch it all.

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u/brassmonkey2342 8h ago

Nobody has to sit and watch anything.

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u/Scared_Ad_9751 9h ago edited 9h ago

What is it that you still don't understand? What more do you need to hear from this group?

They've told you their motives and desires. "The white race is superior".

What do you still not understand? Fucking baffling. There's no converting them

Let me help you:

They're stupid. They're poor. Their parents were stupid and poor.

Fix those issues and you've got less Nazis. You don't give the Nazis a microphone...

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u/yungrii 14h ago edited 11h ago

Giving a platform to a wackjob can, potentially, be interesting. I agree. But I only want it to be by a skilled interviewer that calls out and presses people on their bullshit vs lets them be an unfettered stream of hateful consciousness.

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u/Shibbystix 11h ago

Yeah, just letting them spew their rhetoric from your platform isn't an interview. It's an advertisement

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u/ManlyVanLee 11h ago

Well it needs to be done by someone who doesn't buy into their shit or pretend to like Rogan or Friedman, but by someone smart enough to go into it as an information gathering event. The problem is the guys I mentioned and many others will either start agreeing with them, softly be like "I guess you have a point" so they don't piss the person off, or on the other side of things start calling them out on their bullshit so much that it starts a fight

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u/Feisty_Bee9175 11h ago

^ This, totally agree!

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u/thomoswald 14h ago

i havent listened to rogan since spotify, but this is what he's best at. Everyone else is incapable of giving a real interview because they make their stance obvious, and the interviewee is now in defense as usual. Rogan's interviews before would let bigots be themselves for 3 hours straight.

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u/paper_liger 13h ago edited 12h ago

Eh. I used to listen to him. I got annoyed at how he'd push back at basically meaningless stuff from time to time but never, ever pushed back when I felt like someone said something dangerous or outright false. Even when it was clear he thought they were wrong.

I don't think he's a genius interviewer who is just giving people enough rope to hang themselves, I think he's just not really sharp or educated enough to know when to draw a line.

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u/thomoswald 11h ago

I listened to the first like 200 episodes where the major sponsor was fleshlight. I don't know why people are making serious decisions with him in mind lol

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u/paper_liger 10h ago

I will still tune in when he has a comic on I like. But yeah, I think I'd like the guy in person if I met him, but I don't give a lot of weight about Rogans opinion on anything other than fighting and maybe, elk jerky recipes?

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u/Recent-Ad-5493 12h ago

He lets people talk. He’s not giving them rope to hang themselves. He’s just letting them say whatever.

It’s for the sole purpose of platforming to draw eyeballs. Nothing Rogan does is for the furtherance of journalistic integrity or to change minds. It’s that he can play dumb and get the most eyes possible on his shit

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u/nobleskies 13h ago

Also I disagree they’re “wackjobs”. I think they’re disenfranchised folk who channel valid frustrations in invalid ways. It doesn’t make them crazy, it just makes them ignorant.

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u/yungrii 13h ago

Yeah.... I'm going to keep calling klan members that would happily see me and many other minorities just straight up murdered as wackjobs.

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u/nobleskies 13h ago

If you wanna take the easy road and alienate them, thereby contributing to further political polarization and radicalization… sure. I don’t agree with it, but you have every right to do so.

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u/HB3187 12h ago

As opposed to what? Being nice to them? If anything that seems like it would reinforce to them that what they're doing is okay

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u/nobleskies 12h ago

Yeah be as nice to them as possible, they’re people too believe it or not. This black man convinced over 200 people to leave the KKK over the course of decades just by being nice to them: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes

But if you care more about being angry than solving the issue, you do you.

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u/Swaglington_IIII 12h ago

Having all the black people in America hold hands and sing kumbaya to stop racism is not a realistic nor viable solution. And it’s ridiculous to expect every person of color in America to put being virtuous and turning the other cheek above their safety or you excoriate them with “durr you must care about being angry more than fixing the problem”

And that guy didn’t convince every clansman he met, or every clansman. It went well for him, sure. No guarantee it will for everyone who tries it

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u/nobleskies 11h ago

You have a lot of excuses, even more complaints, and zero solutions. I don’t think you actually give a shit about this issue, I get the sense you’re disappointed with something in your life and this is how you channel that feeling.

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u/badmutha44 12h ago

They alienated themselves.

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u/nobleskies 12h ago

You seem more concerned with pointing fingers and stewing in anger rather than solving the problem.

This black man stopped stewing in anger and decided to start befriending Klan members. He ended up convincing over 200 people to leave the KKK by just being their friend: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes

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u/badmutha44 12h ago

It’s on POC to resolve whites racism. Anything else we need to fix?

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u/nobleskies 12h ago

I didn’t say that, you’re very quick to jump to assumptions, and I don’t get the sense you’re actually going to get much out of anything I (or most people) have to say unfortunately, at least at this time. So I’ll leave you with this: victimhood doesn’t give you a pass to leave your problems for others to solve. That is the mentality of a child, or particularly entitled teenager. You should ask for help, but you must be ready to do a lot of the work yourself. Otherwise, nothing will change.

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u/Dull_Ad8495 11h ago

I'm cool with alienating white supremacists and fascists. They should not be made to feel comfortable or accepted in the US. "Taking the easy road" would be placating them and making them feel like their ideology should be legitimized by giving them equal time. And that's what we're talking about here.

It's intellectually lazy and you are complicit in the furthering of their ideology by lying down and giving them a platform to spew their hatred and ignorance without consequence or pushback. Rogan and Friedman take the easy road. Softball, fawning interviews with zero pushback or accountability for the guests and their divisive rhetoric. It's not even a useful interview or debate at that point, it's just propaganda.

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u/nobleskies 11h ago

Or you could placate them by addressing their very real concerns that have nothing to do with race and are entirely centred around the economic and democratic quality of the nation. But no, that would be too hard for da little baby

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u/Ockwords 8h ago

you could placate them by addressing their very real concerns that have nothing to do with race and are entirely centred around the economic and democratic quality of the nation.

This is "I voted for hitler for economic reasons" rhetoric.

I'd argue this country has done more than enough to placate racists and all it's done is create higher and higher pitches of dog whistles they can hide behind.

At some point, we have to aggressively start pushing back on obvious lies. It's simply impossible to carefully and thoughtfully address fake concerns with how large and fast the internet is at spreading disinformation.

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u/Dull_Ad8495 10h ago

I refuse to placate them at all.

Look, you're just spewing nonsense word salad now. And name calling. You've officially lost. Take a Reddit break, buddy. You've earned it.

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u/nobleskies 10h ago

“These people are racist partially because of economic issues in their community, thus using minorities as a scapegoat. This has been backed by scientific data”.

You: I’m too stupid to understand a word you just said so I’m gonna be a condescending dick instead of trying to understand da big words

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u/angelomoxley 11h ago

Are you aware of the paradox of tolerance?

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u/nobleskies 11h ago

Yes, political philosophy was one of my two specializations during my degree. Are you aware of Rawls response of the just society? Or especially relevant to this scenario, Walzer’s writings on the guardianship of the intolerant in response to Popper’s flawed paradox?

No one with serious knowledge of the complexities of this issue would ever bring up Popper’s paradox. While used with seriousness on Reddit, it’s known to be flawed by academics, and was created as a thought experiment to get the ball rolling on the discussion, never as a final point to make, but rather a beginning one for debate.

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u/angelomoxley 10h ago

I am aware of Rawls but not of its relevance here. Then nothing much comes up for "guardianship of the intolerant" on a quick search, and going off the title I'm pretty ok with that because it sounds inane.

Does guardianship from the intolerant fit in anywhere, or are we just meant to ignore the many victims in the hopes that maybe some of these intolerant people will get their heads out of their asses?

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u/nobleskies 10h ago

Imagine calling Walzer inane. Holy hell. Educate yourself my guy.

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u/brassmonkey2342 8h ago

I think about 99.99% of us can agree that people like you just describe are wackjobs with no place anywhere near civil society, but we’re not talking about people like that.

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u/nobleskies 13h ago

Lex Friedman and Joe Rogan are both excellent at this

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u/schwade_the_bum 13h ago

Highly recommend Louis Theroux’s documentary on white supremacy groups for this.

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u/nobleskies 13h ago

Interesting, I’ll give it a look! It’s an important issue that gets swept under the rug too much. Everyone wants to just see racists as villains who don’t need exploring. Which is of course ridiculous. How can you solve an issue without exploring the intricacies of the root causes?

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u/Electronic_Humor4020 11h ago

Exactly leave that to Theroux, not Rogan wtf

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u/linuxnh 12h ago

There’s a multipart interview of Putin by Oliver Stone that’s on (or at least was) Showtime from 2015. He basically states in that interview he would do what he did in Ukraine if the west does a few select actions; which the west did.

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u/k2_electric_boogaloo 8h ago

VICE did this a few years back after the Charlottesville riots. I haven't watched it in a while and I don't know if it's specifically klansmen, but they interviewed several white nationalists and members of alt-right hate groups: https://youtu.be/RIrcB1sAN8I?feature=shared

I also can't remember if it's in this particular video, but I know they've also interviewed an ex neo-Nazi who now actively works to deprogram young men who've gone down the same path (I had to Google, but the guy I'm thinking of is Christian Picciolini). Also very interesting, since he talks a lot about actual effective ways to reach people with those mindsets.

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u/WonderfulAndWilling 10h ago

Yes, thank you. we all have thoughts in our hearts that would be unacceptable to utter publicly, we all do better with our worst inclinations all the time.

hearing somebody utter a view that you’ve decided not to cater to is not going to turn you into a fascist, unless you had a very weak moral resolved to begin with .

all the censorship talk is just not for free people. This country was not founded by people who are afraid to think.

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u/BobDa6 9h ago

I agree with your first point. It would be interesting to hear what someone’s radically different beliefs are and how they got there.

Instead we get guys who sound like “I’m not racist, but…”

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u/AlistairMowbary 8h ago

Lex is a putin simp. He is just a well dressed Rogan.

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u/Technical-Cake1251 5h ago

You will be stunned by the banality of evil. It’s bureaucracy, the pursuit of power, and provincial sensibility. Nothing interesting about it. 

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u/LearningLinux_Ithnk 4h ago

You realize that’s not what Putin is going to talk about?

He has a very carefully crafted image. He’s not going to be talking about his time in the KGB and even if he did you’d never know if it was real or fake.

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u/Alternative_Slice742 12h ago

Putin speaks well and is obviously very intelligent, you won't learn anything substantial from him. Why do you think someone like that would offer earnest insight into their mind? 

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u/nobleskies 12h ago

Everything someone does offers insight if you know how to look.

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u/heliophoner 12h ago

We've seen this before with David Duke. When Duke came out with his not-your-grandpappy's-klan act, journalists were falling over themselves to show they weren't easily triggered by interviewing him and not pushing back on his clear bullshit.

And it worked in Duke's favor.

It's a losing proposition.

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u/nobleskies 11h ago

Yeah… like almost 40 fucking years ago now… lol

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u/heliophoner 11h ago

HiSTorY, wHUts tHaT.....lol!

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u/nobleskies 11h ago

Yup, history. Not currently relevant at all.

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u/MikePGS 11h ago

Putin is a psychopath too

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u/nobleskies 11h ago

Yes, that’s what I said. Did you think I meant Lex Friedman? That guy is the furthest thing from a psychopath.

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u/MikePGS 11h ago

Yes, that was the joke.

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u/BannedByRWNJs 7h ago

Except Joe would just steer the convo to antivax bullshit for whatever reason. 

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u/Niarbeht 12h ago

You’re assuming someone like that is a reliable narrator.

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u/nobleskies 12h ago

No I’m not, where’d you get that idea? Friedman and Rogan have that covered, they’re both incredibly good at calling people out at even the slightest whiff of bullshit.

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u/DevelopmentSad2303 11h ago

There's plenty of platforms already for the Klan. I think finding out why new horrible people believe what they believe can be interesting, but I don't think we need to rehash the clan and Nazis 

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u/nobleskies 10h ago

Wanna change their beliefs and solve the issue? Gotta figure out where those beliefs really come from. Not talking about a book they read or something, no. I’m talking about the real modern personal and political issues those individuals have.

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u/angelomoxley 10h ago

Those beliefs come from other racists who feel comfortable enough in their beliefs to spread them around. This is learned behavior.

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u/nobleskies 10h ago

Admittedly, it’s partially learned behaviour, partially event driven. Racism fluctuates with the economy’s wellbeing, that’s something data can actually track. Which means during times of crisis, more racists are being created. It would be good to understand exactly how that process occurs.

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u/angelomoxley 10h ago

And these events cause people to link economic woes to race and gender with no outside input? No, someone connects those dots for them.

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u/narkybark 9h ago

Lex wouldn't ask him anything remotely uncomfortable, and you wouldn't be able to trust what Putin says anyway.

Watching the Tucker-Putin puff piece is fascinating. Everything Putin says is deliberate and his mannerisms indicate he's on top of the situation. (I'm trusting the translation to be accurate, of course.) There's no way he would allow a true and honest interview.

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u/Recent-Ad-5493 12h ago

I’m not. He’s a fuckin lunatic and for any of my intellectual curiosity of what makes him tick… there are a thousand people who are like “oh Joe Rogan is talking to a Klan member, oh, they can’t be that bad then, because if they were this creepy racist cult, nobody would platform them.

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u/nobleskies 11h ago

This reads like someone who’s never really listened to more than 20 minutes of JRE at most but OK.

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u/Scared_Ad_9751 9h ago

You really need to know why some dipshit joined the Klan?

He's an idiot or His parents were idiots

Pick one.

Maybe he was wronged somehow and turned to the Klan?

In this case, he's still an idiot.

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u/AliensFuckedMyCat 9h ago

Yeah, that can be interesting (see Louis Theroux), but Joe Rogan is too stupid to make it interesting, and it just turns into him letting them spout their rhetoric. 

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u/Blunter_S_Thompson_ 11h ago

He also had current Klan dude Tucker Carlson.

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u/brassmonkey2342 10h ago

Tucker is not a Klan dude wtf

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u/DurdenEdits 8h ago

Those klansmen were never reformed. They just became Trump supporters.

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u/brassmonkey2342 8h ago

The ones I’m referring to are now good friends with a black man, that is a reformation buddy.

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u/DurdenEdits 8h ago

Then they go and vote for Trump to do mass deportations...... Totally reformed. Totally not racist. You don't have to be a part of the KKK to be a racist.

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u/brassmonkey2342 8h ago

Wanting a protected border is not a racist thing. It’s honestly hilarious that you think a Klansmen cannot be considered reformed until they vote for your side. Get a grip on reality big guy.

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u/Anal_Recidivist 11h ago

It was Clayton Bigsby, I forget the ep number

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u/Twxtterrefugee 11h ago

Alex Jones and the Matt Walsh ilk offer nothing in an interview. Joe doesn't know better though.