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Glenn interviews Ben Shapiro, author of 'Bullies'

January 09, 2013
Wilson

Writer

Today on radio, Glenn interviewed Ben Shapiro, Editor-at-Large for Breitbart.com and the author of the new book Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans. How do conservatives move forward when the left tries to shut down every argument and ostracize them and their ideas? Shapiro and Glenn discussed the issue on radio.

Full Transcript of Interview:

GLENN: Ben Shapiro is really truly a remarkable, remarkable reporter and he's the editor at‑large of Breitbart.com. He entered UCLA at the age of 16 years old and he does not sit down at a fight. And he is the author of a new book called Bullies, and I'm a fan of Ben's and I wanted to put him on the air and talk about the book because I think that really, Ben, what we're facing now is, you know, when you have somebody from the labor unions coming out the other day saying, you know, labor unions 100 years ago had no problem just saying what it was, and it's killed the rich. And people cheered. We are headed towards real trouble with bullies.

SHAPIRO: Yeah, we certainly are. And Glenn, you know this better than anybody because you've been standing up to bullies for virtually your entire career. But I mean, when you look at how the left operates, the way that they operate now today, and it's infected the entire democratic establishment, is they see us as morally deficient. They are not interested in having a simple political discussion. The reason that Mitt Romney lost this last election was not because he lost on policy. The exit poll showed that most Americans agreed with him on policy. It's not because they thought that President Obama is a good president. Most agree that President Obama is a really bad president.

GLENN: Okay, can you stop saying ‑‑ hang on just a second, Ben. We've banned that guy's name. So can you just call him that guy? Because I'm almost in shock therapy with you saying his name so much.

SHAPIRO: Okay.

GLENN: We can't take him anymore. But go ahead. Go ahead. Just try your best.

SHAPIRO: Okay. I'll do my best. The fact is the reason that Mitt Romney lost is because he was perceived, widely perceived as a bad guy. That guy's campaign, the president's campaign ‑‑

GLENN: Thank you, thank you.

SHAPIRO: ‑‑ was designed, designed to make Mitt Romney look like a horrible human being. If you just watch that campaign from the outside, the impression you got is that that guy, the president, is a nice guy. Because Mitt Romney kept saying over and over he's a nice guy. And the impression you got of Mitt Romney is that Mitt Romney is a racist, bigoted sexist homophobe because that's what the media and President Obama were pushing. And they do this so they don't have to debate us. That's the whole point. To bully us into silence and to make the American public think these guys are all evil and they are all nasty and that's why now we're in discussions about how we reach out to the black and Hispanic community and convince them we're not racist. You can't convince them you're not racist. Once you've been tarred with that brush, there's no way to defeat that. The only answer is to fight back against these guys and as that guy once said, punch back twice as hard.

GLENN: Okay. So now here you are, and we're looking at the war with guns. They are bullying ‑‑ I had a gun manufacturer call me and say all of his bank funding has been stopped because ‑‑ and this is the second one now in just a couple of days ‑‑ because the bank said we just can't do business with you. That's bullying. That's the federal government being, their hands deeply in these banks, the banks afraid and they are just not going to do business because we can't handle it.

SHAPIRO: That's exactly right. I mean, look at even the media strategy on the whole gun control debate. What they've been doing, Sandy Hook, they are standing on the dead bodies, the kids from Sandy Hook and saying if you don't agree with our gun control proposals, it's because you're a bad person. It's because you don't care about these kids." They are not interested in discussing which policies actually best protect against violence. They are not interested in talking about the City of Chicago had a has tons of gun legislation and regulation and is the American center for gun violence. They are not interested in discussing any of that stuff. What they are interested in doing is sitting on their high horse and then looking at us and saying, "You guys don't care about dead kids and the reason you don't care about dead kids is because of politics." And it's despicable and it really is evil. I mean, look at how they are targeting the National Rifle Association. What does the NRA have to do with anything here? They are an interest group that's designed to defend the Second Amendment, but the media has them on and then berates them for not abandoning their position on the Second Amendment. There's been a lot of talk, I mean you've seen it, a lot of talk about violent video games and violence in the culture and kind of nastiness in the culture. I have yet to hear David Gregory have on the head of the ACLU and say Europe's extreme defense of a broad interpretation led to sandy hook. They don't do that. They only do it with rightwing interest groups or conservative interest groups because they use incidents like sandy hook as a club to wield on our side of the aisle.

GLENN: You know the thing I like about your book is it makes the case on all of it. I mean, we've just talked Sandy Hook, you can talk Hobby Lobby they are doing it, they did it with Chick‑fil‑A, they are doing it with the EPA as you point out. We talked about it with the banks. It's race. It's all of it. It is silence people. Silence them, silence them, silence them. Make them afraid.

SHAPIRO: Yep. I mean, Glenn, look. The best example of it is what they tried to do to you, right? If you take a look at what Media Matters, the David Brock organization has been doing for years, what they do there is they sit there at the behest of the government, at the behest of the White House, they have weekly meetings with the White House and Media Matters sits there and monitor programs like yours and they wait there to hear you say something, take out of context and use it to launch boycotts against the advertisers, trying to destroy advertisers' business based on false constructions than what people like you say. And that's specifically designed to get you to shut up. That's what they want to do. There are two goals and one of two things have to happen: You either voluntarily stop talking which isn't going to happen or they try and shut you up. These are not pro First Amendment people, these are not pro speech people. These are not pro civility people. They are not civil. We have to stop treating them as if civility is going to win the day. We had the moral high ground in the 2012 election and we lost. The moral high ground doesn't do us a lot of good when we're fighting people who are absolutely ‑‑

GLENN: So how do you ‑‑ so I don't want to become everything I despise.

SHAPIRO: You know, I don't think that we have to become everything we despise but I do think that there is a Geneva Convention with regard to civility. I think that civility is like the Geneva Convention. If you operate in uniform, then the Geneva Conventions cover you. If you operator out of uniform, if you're a terrorist, the Geneva Conventions don't cover you, right? If you look at civility, it's sort of the same way. If you operate within the bounds of, look, we all want to get the right thing done for the American people, we're just trying to figure out the best way to get there, that's civil conversation we can all have. If it turns into them screaming at you that you're a racist, you sitting there defending yourself, I'm not a racist and let's discuss policy, that's not going to help. That's a good recipe for losing.

GLENN: I'm writing down the Geneva Convention for civility.

PAT: I like that.

GLENN: I think you should develop that.

PAT: I like that.

GLENN: I think that is absolutely ‑‑

STU: In other words, we're stealing your idea, Ben.

SHAPIRO: Go for it. Appreciate it.

GLENN: I just think that's ‑‑

PAT: That's great stuff.

GLENN: I think that's profound. I mean, I really do. What is the ‑‑ what is the one I think that you think that, A is coming our way that people aren't really putting together yet and, B, what is the one thing that you wish people could grab and say, guys, if you would just understand and do this," things would begin to change?

SHAPIRO: I say the one thing I think that's coming our way is the kind of internationalization of American values on a broad level. The attempt to take American values and make them obsolete or unseen. You are now unpatriotic if you don't believe that we ought to sign onto Kyoto protocol. You are now unpatriotic if you don't believe we should sign onto Agenda 21. You are now unpatriotic if you think we should sacrifice in favor of internationalism. If you don't see this coming ‑‑ you see it played out domestically. On the fiscal cliff debate, the class warfare stuff they are pushing, that's been pushed in Europe for years. The idea is if we defend free enterprise, that makes us bad people. If we don't see this coming, then we're going to lose the debate. And the way to push back against it is to label people what they are. These people are antipatriotic. They are antipatriotic. They don't believe in patriotism. They don't believe in American values. All the leftists who are out there talking about how, you know, they believe in the Second Amendment but then they want a UN treaty on gun control, you don't get to have it both ways.

GLENN: Yeah, you're not unpatriotic. You're an anticonstitutionalist.

SHAPIRO: Exactly. Exactly.

GLENN: You're against the Constitution and the declaration of the United States of America. And that they can't defend because you can show them all the time. The idea that people are patriotic or not patriotic, I don't even know what patriotic means anymore.

SHAPIRO: Right.

GLENN: I really don't know.

SHAPIRO: This is what they've done. They've redefined patriotism to mean anything they want it to mean. They say that the centrist patriotism which is basically saying that being unpatriotic is patriotic. I mean, it defends what you're dissenting to and what you're dissenting from. They've created these slogans. Right now if you dissent from President ‑‑ from that guy, then ‑‑

GLENN: Thank you.

SHAPIRO: You are not going to ‑‑ then you're unpatriotic, right? If you dissented from George W. Bush, then you are patriotic according to the left. They have completely hijacked the term "patriotism" to mean that if you flag‑burn, that is the highest form of patriotism but if you don't think that people should be allowed to flag‑burn, then you're unpatriotic. They've completely skewed it. So you are exactly right, Glenn. I mean, you've been on this for a while. Did the Constitution and Declaration of Independence are the documents that matter and we have to make an affirmative case for them again. People don't read the Federalist Papers. They don't know about it. People don't know the basis for the Second Amendment. They think the basis for the Second Amendment is that you should be able to hunt. That's not the basis for the Second Amendment. And anybody who reads the Federalist Papers knows it. We have to make an affirmative case again for why the ‑‑ I mean, it's sad that we have to do this but this is what the left has done with their bully tactics, with their polarization of America. They've turned it into if you defend the Constitution, it's because you're a racist. Because after all, the Constitution enshrined the 3/5ths rule. So we have to go back and we have to make a fundamental case for why the Constitution matters and Declaration matters and why those who oppose it are objects of tyranny and freedom.

GLENN: Ben, you keep doing what you're doing. I'm a huge fan of yours and I'm glad that it's always nice to see on our own islands that there's another island out there as well shouting just as hard, and I appreciate it.

SHAPIRO: Hey, thanks so much. You're the best.

GLENN: You bet. Ben Shapiro. The name of the book is Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silencing America.

The Deep State's NEW plan to backstab Trump

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move.

In 2016, Donald Trump shocked the world by defeating Hillary Clinton. Conservatives cheered, believing we’d taken back the reins of our country. But we missed the bigger battle. We failed to recognize the extent of the damage caused by eight years of Barack Obama and decades of progressive entrenchment. The real war isn’t won at the ballot box. It’s being waged against an insidious force embedded deep within our institutions: the administrative state, or the “deep state.”

This isn’t a new problem. America’s founders foresaw it, though they didn’t have a term for “deep state” back in the 1700s. James Madison, in Federalist 48, warned us that combining legislative, executive, and judicial powers in the same hands is “the very definition of tyranny.” Yet today, that’s exactly where we stand. Unelected bureaucrats in agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Justice hold more power than the officials we vote for. They control the levers of government with impunity, dictating policies and stifling change.

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege.

We’ve felt the consequences of this growing tyranny firsthand. During COVID-19, so-called experts ran our lives, crushing civil liberties under the guise of public safety. Our intelligence agencies and justice system turned into weapons of political warfare, targeting a sitting president and his supporters. Meanwhile, actual criminals were given a pass, turning American cities into lawless war zones.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816 that “the functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.” Today, we see Jefferson’s prophecy fulfilled. The deep state exercises unchecked power over our freedoms, and information itself is controlled by the fourth branch of government: the legacy media.

Even when we win elections, the deep state doesn’t concede defeat. It switches to survival mode. Trump’s first term proved this. Despite a historic mandate to dismantle the bureaucracy, the deep state fought back with everything it had: leaks, investigations, court rulings, and obstruction at every turn. And now, with the possibility of Trump returning to office, the deep state is preparing to do it again.

Progressives are laying out their attack plan — and they’re not even hiding it.

U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) recently boasted about forming a “shadow cabinet” to govern alongside the deep state, regardless of who’s in the White House. Nickel called it “democracy’s insurance policy.” Let’s be clear: This isn’t insurance. It’s sabotage.

They’ll employ a “top down, bottom up, inside out” strategy to overwhelm and collapse any effort to reform the system. From the top, federal judges and shadow officials will block Trump’s every move. Governors in blue states like California and New York are gearing up to resist federal authority. During Trump’s first term, California filed over 100 lawsuits against his administration. Expect more of the same starting January 20.

From the bottom, progressive groups like the American Civil Liberties Union will flood the streets with protesters, much as they did to oppose Trump’s first-term immigration reforms. They’ve refined their tactics since 2016 and are prepared to unleash a wave of civil unrest. These aren’t spontaneous movements; they’re coordinated assaults designed to destabilize the administration.

Finally, from the inside, the deep state will continue its mission of self-preservation. Agencies will drag their feet, leak sensitive information, and undermine policies from within. Their goal is to make everything a chaotic mess, so the heart of their power — the bureaucratic core — remains untouched and grows stronger.

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move. Progressives never see themselves as losing. When they’re out of power, they simply shift tactics, pumping more blood into their bureaucratic heart. We may win elections, but the war against the deep state will only intensify. As George Washington warned in his Farewell Address, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force; and force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege. The deep state has shown us its plan: to govern from the shadows, circumventing the will of the people. But now that the shadows have been exposed, we have a choice. Will we accept this silent tyranny, or will we demand accountability and reclaim our nation’s heart?

The battle is just beginning. We can’t afford to lose.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Drone mystery exposes GLARING government incompetence

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone issue is getting way out of hand.

Earlier this month, Glenn first reported on the mysterious drones stalking the night sky over New Jersey, but the situation is increasingly concerning as the sightings have escalated. Not only have drones been seen across the Northeast Coast, including over New York City, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, but recently, they have been spotted over the night skies of San Diego and other parts of Southern California.

It doesn't take an expert to identify the potential dangers and risks that dozens of undetectable, unidentified six-foot or larger drones pose to national security. Yet, our government's response has been one of unimaginable incompetence, leaving us to speculate on the origin and intention of these drones and wonder in astonishment at the government's ineptitude. Here are three examples of the government's lackluster response to the mystery drones:

Iranian Mothership and Missing Nuclear Warheads

- / Stringer | Getty Images

After several weeks of hubbub, New Jersey Representative, Jeff Van Drew gave an interview on Fox News where he claimed that the drones originated from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States. This theory has since been disproven by satellite images, which show that all Iranian drone carriers are far from U.S. shores. Another theory suggests that drones may be equipped with sensors capable of detecting nuclear material and that they are looking for a nuclear warhead that recently went missing! With these apocalyptic theories gaining traction in the absence of any real answer from our government, one can't help but question the motive behind the silence.

Pentagon's Limp Wristed Response

Alex Wong / Staff | Getty Images

In a recent press conference, national security spokesman John Kirby responded to reporters demanding answers about the government's lack of transparency, which has caused increasing public anxiety. He insisted that the drones did not pose a threat and were not assets of a foreign power, such as from Iran or China--even though he is still uncertain about their identity and origin. He also claimed that many of the sightings were simply misidentifications of normal aircraft.

This lackluster answer has only further inflamed national anxieties and raised even more questions. If the government is unsure of the identity of the drones, how do they know if they are a threat or if they aren't foreign assets? If they aren't foreign, does that mean they are U.S. assets? If so, why not just say so?

The Pentagon has also stated that they are leaving it up to local law enforcement to spearhead the investigation after concluding that these drones pose no threat to any military installation. This has left many feeling like the federal government has turned a blind eye to a serious issue that many Americans are very concerned about.

Where's Pete Buttigieg?

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

We are in the closing weeks of the Biden administration, and with the finish line in sight, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg probably figured nothing else could go wrong on his watch—but boy was he wrong. As Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg is in charge of the FAA, the agency responsible for managing all air traffic across the nation. One would think that mysterious, 6-foot-long, seemingly intractable drones are invisible on radar and flying above major cities would pose a serious threat to the myriad of legal aircraft that traverse our skies. Yet, Buttigieg has been silent on the issue, adding another failure to his resume which includes: malfunctioning airplanes, the train derailment in Ohio, and the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, just to name a few.

Glenn: How Alvin Bragg turned hero Daniel Penny into a villain

Michael M. Santiago / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty.

America no longer has a single, shared understanding of justice. Two Americas now exist, each applying justice differently depending on who you are and where you live. One America, ruled by common sense and individual courage, praises heroes who stand up to protect others. The other, driven by political agendas and corrupted institutions, punishes those same heroes for daring to act.

This stark division couldn’t be clearer than in the case of Daniel Penny, the Marine whose trial in New York City this week drew strong reactions from both sides across the divided line of justice.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare.

Penny was on a subway train last year when Jordan Neely — a man suffering from severe mental illness and reportedly high on drugs — began threatening passengers, saying, “I’m going to kill you all.” The fear on that subway car was palpable, but nobody moved. Nobody, that is, until Penny did what needed to be done. He took action to protect innocent lives.

In the America many of us used to believe in, Penny’s response would be heralded as heroic. His actions mirrored the courage of Todd Beamer on Flight 93, who, on September 11, 2001, rallied others with the words, “Let’s roll,” to prevent further tragedy. But in New York, courage doesn’t seem to count anymore. There, the system turns heroes into villains.

Penny subdued Neely using a chokehold, intending only to restrain him, not kill him. Tragically, Neely died. Penny, filled with remorse, told the police he never meant to hurt anyone. Yet, instead of being recognized for protecting others from a clear and present threat, Penny stood trial for criminally negligent homicide.

In Alvin Bragg’s New York, justice bends to ideology. The Manhattan district attorney has made a career of weaponizing the law, selectively prosecuting those who don’t fit his narrative. He’s the same prosecutor who twisted legal precedent to go after Donald Trump on business charges no one had ever faced before. Then, he turned his sights on Daniel Penny.

A jury may have acquitted Penny, but what happened in New York City this week isn’t justice. When the rule of law changes depending on the defendant’s identity or the prosecutor's political motives, we’re no longer living in a free country. We’re living in a state where justice is a game, and ordinary Americans are the pawns.

The system failed Jordan Neely

It’s worth asking: Where were activists like Alvin Bragg when Neely was suffering on the streets? Jordan Neely was a tragic figure — a man with a long history of mental illness and over 40 arrests, including violent assaults. The system failed him long before he stepped onto that subway train. Yet rather than confront that uncomfortable truth, Bragg’s office decided to target the man who stepped in to prevent a tragedy.

This isn’t about justice. It’s about power. It’s about advancing a narrative where race and identity matter more than truth and common sense.

It’s time to demand change

The Daniel Penny case — and others like it — is a wake-up call. We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty. Americans must demand an end to politically driven prosecutions, hold DAs like Alvin Bragg accountable, and stand up for the principle that true justice is blind, consistent, and fair.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare. It’s time to choose which America we want to live in.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

CEO Brian Thompson's killer reveals COWARDICE of the far-left death cult

Jeff Swensen / Stringer | Getty Images

Early on the chilly morning of Wednesday, December 4th, Brian Thompson, CEO of health insurance giant, UnitedHealthcare, was walking through Midtown Manhattan on his way to a company conference. Suddenly, a masked and hooded figure silently allegedly stepped onto the sidewalk behind Thompson, drew a 3-D printed, silenced pistol, and without warning fired multiple shots into Thompson's back before fleeing the scene on an electric bicycle. After a multiple-day manhunt, a 26-year-old lead suspect was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania after being recognized by an employee.

This was not "vigilante justice." This was cold-blooded murder.

As horrific as the murder of a husband and father in broad daylight in the center of New York City is, the story only gets worse. Even before the murder suspect was arrested, left-wing extremists were already taking to X to call him a "hero" and a "vigilante" who "took matters into his own hands." Even the mainstream media joined in on the glorification, as Glenn pointed out on air recently, going out of the way to show how physically attractive the murder suspect was. This wave of revolting and nihilistic fanfare came in response to the findings of online investigators who surmised the murder suspect's motives to retaliate against healthcare companies for corruption and denied coverage. The murder suspect supposedly underwent a major back surgery that left him with back pain, and some of his internet fans apparently viewed his murder of Thompson as retribution for the mistreatment that he and many other Americans have suffered from healthcare companies.

The murder suspect and his lackeys don't seem to understand that, other than depriving two children of their father right before Christmas, he accomplished nothing.

The murder suspect failed to achieve his goal because he was too cowardly to try.

If the murder suspect's goals were truly to "right the wrongs" of the U.S. healthcare system, he had every tool available to him to do so in a constructive and meaningful manner. He came from a wealthy and prominent family in the Baltimore area, became the valedictorian at a prestigious all-boys prep school, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's in engineering. Clearly, the murder suspect was intelligent and capable, and if he had put his talent into creating solutions for the healthcare industry, who knows what he could have accomplished?

This is the kind of behavior the far-left idolizes, like communists on college campuses who wear shirts that celebrate the brutal Cuban warlord, Che Guevara. Merchandise celebrating the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect is already available, including shirts, hoodies, mugs, and even Christmas ornaments. Will they be sporting his face on their T-shirts too?

This macabre behavior does not breed creation, achievement, success, or life. It only brings death and risks more Americans falling into this dangerous paradigm. But we still have a chance to choose life. We just have to wake up and take it.