Even if you were going to make the worst

interpretation of her initial movements

where she's let's say she's trying to

run over that the that ICE agent from

two feet away, you know, albeit slowly.

His subsequent shots are unjustified,

right? He shot her through the

windshield of her car. He's to the side

of her car, which is moving at like 2 m

an hour. She's already been shot in the

face and he shoots her twice more. That

part is an execution.

Uh, just a quick disclosure, I'm going

off camera because I feel like and

look worse. Anyways, with that, here is

Sam Harris.

Sam, where does this podcast find you?

>> Uh, Los Angeles.

>> There you go. With that, let's segue to

ICE. What what's your reaction to what's

happening around I specifically with the

shooting and what kind of damage or do

you think it's doing damage or maybe if

it's in helping Trump and MAGA as a

whole? A little backstory here. I've

spent a lot of time focusing on on the

public misperception of police violence,

right? I mean, people just, in my

experience,

don't know how to watch these videos and

they the stuff they that they, you know,

often think is outrageous really isn't.

So when you think of the the cop's eye

view of the world. So my bias here if

anything is to be very charitable to law

enforcement because I I just you know

I've trained a lot with firearms. I've

trained a lot with you know you know

been trained by law enforcement at

various levels. Um and I just I I you

know it's very natural for me to see

their perspective on on these kinds of

encounters. I mean just the simple fact

that you know when when someone is is

being approached by a cop uh and you

know who's maybe you know intending to

arrest them or not just approaching them

just approaching their car the moment

their hands disappear you know in a

country like America where there's your

400 million guns you know that that

becomes a a a an evolving emergency

right I mean your your hands are

everything right so and so people have

no sense of this right so they they

immediately you know duck down and reach

for something or they just they don't

realize they're putting themselves in

danger. So that said, the video that we

all saw of the um this encounter in in

Minneapolis and the subsequent killing

of um Renee Good

struck me as just a crystal clear

instance of a a a terrible cop, you

know, terribly trained doing something

quite unjustifiable leading to the death

of a of a um an innocent civilian,

right? I mean, just it was I think I

think it any effort to defend it, I I

just I have not seen even a slightly

credible one. Um even if you were going

to defend the first shot, the the

subsequent two are just clearly an

attempt to ensure that she's dead after

the the the cop is just objectively out

of harm's way. I mean, it's just not um

but that, you know, so all of that's

alarming and and awful, but the worst

part was the administration's response

to it. I mean, just right out of the

gate, they started lying in the most I

mean, it's not even you can't even call

it lying on some level because this is

the

it's a type of lying that doesn't makes

no pretense of being believable or I

mean that like if you if you were going

to lie in a way that that was meant to

deceive,

um you'd make some contact with the the

evidence. But here we're just, you know,

they just seem to think that they can

bludgeon us with lies. You and that's

that's what's happening. I mean, just

literally every word out of the mouth of

the president, the vice president, uh,

Christine Gnome, uh, I mean, it's just

it's it's just all been, you know, a to

encourage a a kind of mass

hallucination. And the fact that so many

people seem willing to participate in

that hallucination right of center is uh

frankly fairly scary.

And what do you make of so what what has

struck me in addition to your what you

highlighted the administration's

response is how the media has responded

and I can almost tell you how the media

responds based on the logo. It just

seems like there's a total lack of all

critical thinking and um I specifically

I was especially triggered by Fox who

led with you know lesbian activist you

know as if to say our audience clearly

would hold her more culpable if she we

highlighted that she sleeps with someone

of the same sex that somehow that might

in some way justify or make her seem

less or or more deserving of this kind

of treatment. Any thoughts on how the

media has handled it and how people are

absorbing it? I've seen a GoFundMe for

the officer that includes large

donations from fairly public figures.

>> Yeah. Well, I'm not even sure why that

would be necessary at this point because

it sounds like the administration has

said nothing but exculpatory things

about him. And I mean, so I I can't

imagine any kind of prosecution is in

the offing. I'm inclined to bend over

backwards to be charitable to law

enforcement in these situations, but

from what we can tell about the vetting

and and

uh frenzied recruitment of ICE, it's

just clearly

they're they're putting guns in the

hands of people uh who who are

spectacularly unqualified to be wielding

them. and they're putting them in

situations with a kind with a kind of a

a philosophy of it's not even law

enforcement, right? It's just some kind

of public intimidation. Um,

again, it's just it's just not this is

not normal police work that we're we're

seeing. And

um I think these kinds of um errors, you

know, I'm not, you know, be charitable

with respect to the intentions of the of

the cop in this case, but I mean, it's

it's obviously an error to have shot

this person and killed her, right? It's

just not. And and again, the what what

isn't an error, what or what can't

plausibly be thought to be an error is

is the the ongoing response to this from

the the government and from, you know,

highly partisan media to describe her

behavior as

clearly

uh terroristic, right? I mean, she's a

terrorist who was trying to mow down

cops. I mean, not even just the one cop.

It sounded like to hear it described

from from on high. It was it was

multiple cops. The cops were just trying

to get their their their car out of the

snow. And here came this maniac

terrorist activist uh who was clearly

weaponized by some uh enemy within,

right? There's some some uh Antifa cult

that has funded all of this, right?

Probably George Soros is at the back of

it. and turn these these drones loose on

our um our innocent uh ICE officers. And

she just tried to, you know, this is one

of the the car attacks that we see from

jihadists, right? This is this this is

what you expect to see hearing it

described. And then you turn on the

video and you and and and one of these

videos was shot by the officer himself,

right? I mean, he was you might have

asked why he was walking around uh her

car um filming her with his own cell

phone. I mean, that was bizarre

behavior. And then, you know, then Drew

with his other hand and shot her through

the windshield. Uh, shot her twice more

once he she was clearly past him. But

from all of that video, you see a an

apparently uh benign person who's who's

uh yes, uh doing something probably

illegal for which maybe she should have

been arrested. Yeah. I mean, that's

that's fine. She's blocking traffic. She

doesn't have a right to do that with her

car. But from all of that video, you see

a an apparently uh benign person who's

who's uh yes uh doing something probably

illegal for which maybe she should have

been arrested. Yeah, I mean that's

that's fine. She's blocking traffic. She

doesn't have a right to do that with her

car, but the way she handled her car and

the contradictory

uh um demands she was getting from um

the ICE agents, uh there was just no

sign of her trying to kill anyone with

her car. And uh again, even if even if

you were going to make the worst

interpretation of her initial movements

where she's let's say she's trying to

run over that the that ICE agent from 2T

away, you know, albeit slowly. His

subsequent shots are unjustified, right?

He shot her through the windshield of

her car. He's to the side of her car,

which is moving at like 2 m an hour.

She's already been shot in the face and

he shoots her twice more. That part is

an execution, right? So, it's just and

how we have a government now who will

um double and triple down on obvious

lies. I mean, there's just no burden to

correct the record. There's no there's

there's nothing careful, you know, it's

all partisan

uh bile, you know, and it's so it's it's

everything is political, right? like

like what we have we're just now in the

presence of non adults where like it's

just it's a it's a you know Steven

Millerish uh vibe that has spread

everywhere where you you just start uh

demonizing your critics and making no

contact with facts and then wait for the

news cycle to move on to the next

outrage which will predictably appear

within 24 hours given what's happening.

with this administration.

>> Yeah, the recruitment strategy for for

these agents is is telling. It feels as

if it's very primal. You know, there's

an invade. This is an exact quote from

the recruiting materials. There is an

invasion. We're in a war and we need you

to fight. And then the language of

protection, invasion, and insurgency.

You know, it can feel it can feel

masculine and therefore emotionally

powerful.

What any thoughts on this sort of on

this ideology and what it's doing uh to

our society and and if there is a

mainstream politics anymore?

>> Yeah, it's hard to know where the

mainstream is. We we have just uh

fragmented so totally with respect to

how we consume information. I mean, but

what what's so disconcerting about this

current

uh event is that I mean the information

is so clear and you can be reasonably

sure that everyone is seeing the same

videos, right? I it's not there was this

initial moment where there was a video

shot from another angle which seemed to

make it um a little less clear what was

happening. But I mean, this is not even

a a situation where we're we're,

you know, so within our echo chambers

that we're not making contact with the

same data. In this case, I think we

clearly are, but the commentary on that

data is so hyperartisan and the, you

know, then those the the echo chambers

take over. Um, I mean, I don't know.

It's so this is really not the the blue

dress yellow dress moment where you you

can you can understand how people are

seeing it so differently. I really I I I

honestly can't understand how anyone can

honestly believe the descriptions that

have come from the government. So I mean

this is a um an unusually extreme

version of

the shattering of our culture based on

rival interpretations of facts. Um, and

that's what I think has has um caused

people to kind of spin out so fully uh

on it. Um, I just yeah, I'm worried. We

have a administration who

tends to frame everything in terms of

there being an enemy within. Uh that

it's um it's uh only decent and sane to

be um

kind of filled with hate and fear with

respect to some significant subset of

your own population. Um there's no not

even a pretense of appealing to all of

America with any initiative. It's it's

just it's it's intrinsically divisive

everything. It's just us against them

and them is is half of America and it's

the institutions and it's the media.

It's just I mean it's been going on

obviously since you know for about a

decade with Trump and Trumpism, but it's

getting um more and more excruciating to

live with its consequences.

>> What do you make of the spread of all

the kind of conspiracy thinking both on

the left uh and the right? What what

need do you think it's fulfilling? Well,

I think there's more of it on the right.

It is everywhere. This is a a kind of

generic

uh software flaw we appear to be uh

suffering. But uh right of center, the

appetite for conspiracy thinking is has

just um I mean it's just grown like a a

cancer. And um I mean the the strangest

case of it which was

which I mean was I think impossible to

anticipate it was so extreme was in the

um the aftermath of the the murder of

Charlie Kirk. Uh you had Candace Owens

um you know who's become this sort of

kind of supernatural grifting force um

uh alleged that u he had been

assassinated by you know some

combination of the French Foreign Legion

and the MSAD and

um Turning Point itself right turning

point she was culpable for if not

initiating the the assassination they

were busy covering it up for some you

know I I I don't think I've heard what

how they're incentivized to do this, but

on her account, they're they're covering

up the murder. Um, so they have a hand

in it. And so she's been saying these

things to to great effect on the right

to millions and millions of people. She

has a a huge fan base apparently on the

right. uh and uh the some of the other

leading lights of uh independent media

right of center Tucker Carlson and Megan

Kelly especially have not wanted to

condemn this lunacy right this is she

they they want to preserve the space for

her to say that of course this you know

to it's within well within her free

speech rights to make these allegations

uh but the amazing thing is that when uh

Tucker and Candace showed up at the

Turning Point America Fest conference

where the you know the 30,000 true

believers are going to show up in

person, you know, but to buy but to buy

a ticket for the privilege of being in

the room where history is made to in

again in the aftermath of the the murder

of their founder and now, you know,

patron saint, um uh it turned out that

when uh some people on the stage like

Ben Shapiro condemned Candace and and

her enablers as as being more or less

the the death nail of the of the

Republican party um and conservatism in

America.

Half the audience it seemed really

wanted to hear more about the

conspiracy. Right? So you you you can

tell members of Turning Point that they

have had a hand in murdering their

founder and half of them want to hear

more about that. Right? I mean, that's

how masochistic and insane this style of

thinking is. And um yeah, it's just I

mean, it's a a deeply unprincipled way

of trying to make sense of anomalies in

the world, right? I mean any situation

you can point to

uh admits of of you know highly

uh unparimmonious

uh reckless you know you you know

cognitively bizarre interpretations

right you can just you can just look for

anomalies you can ask the question well

why you know why was you know I think as

as uh Candace does I mean she asked

questions like why why did the Egyptian

air force have a plane in

um you know this city on this day,

right? Or so it's just look just look

for something weird and then begin to

pull on that thread. Doesn't matter that

it's it makes no connection to all the

other threads you're pulling on. It's

just this is just some bright shiny

object that you can you can spin up into

some weird implication.

Um and that's what people I mean this is

like a it's a character trait that

certain people have. I mean, I am fairly

allergic to it, but uh it's not to say

that no one ever conspires or that no

conspiracy theories ever turn out to be

true, but so often

it's it's so obviously unlikely because

the incentives aren't aligned. You can't

get hundreds, much less thousands of

people to be equivalently incentivized

to act like psychopaths and and conceal

the evidence of everyone else's

wrongdoing until the end of time. uh uh

because the incentives are just not

aligned that way and people have guilty

consciences and people get at at cross

purposes with their previous

collaborators and people want to be

famous or they they have a change of

heart and someone winds up on 60 60

Minutes spilling the beans about the

thing that they conspired to do. Um but

no, with these so many of these

conspiracies,

um what people imagine is just utter

competence, just perfect psychopathy

married to perfect competence and and

you know, information concealment and

per the perfect alignment of incentives

and um and a perfect ability to fake a a

a far more plausible

stream of evidence that that people get

in hand, right? So it doesn't matter

that we've arrested the guy who who you

know quite obviously killed Kirk and

that he had you know had the relevant

communications about that on his phone

and that his family turned him in and

etc etc etc. I mean it's just it's um I

don't know it's just it's a species of

brain damage that that something like a

half you know a third to a half of our

society seems to be suffering and and uh

it's it's a cultural problem at bottom

I'm sure but we have to get over it.

We'll be right back after a quick break.

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I'd like to um pivot to what I think is

probably the most relative to its

implications and importance uh for women

and globally in the Middle East, what

feels like proportionally undercovered,

and that is Iran.

And I'd be very curious to get your

thoughts on Iran and how the West and

different groups and the media are

responding to it.

>> Well, it is undercovered, you know,

suspiciously so. I think that could be

changing, you know, as we speak today.

But, um, up until this moment, I mean,

up until this very hour, it's really

been

uh, a fairly telling silence from the

mainstream media. I think it's the

reason why it's undercovered is probably

twofold. one is um

the the instability there seems to um be

um a a feather in in uh Trump's cap with

respect to foreign policy. I mean, you

can only imagine that our support of

Israel and our joining in in the bombing

of Iran

uh has um been the proximate cause of

this. And uh if that winds up being a

good thing that you know, it seems um

inconvenient for um many of Trump's

detractors. I mean, it's not

inconvenient for me. I mean, I obviously

despise Trump and Trumpism and and uh

you know, 95% of of what he's been about

as president. But I can readily admit

that some things he's done have been

good. And uh one of the things is to be

fairly uncompromising with respect to

defending

open societies and Israel against this

specific species of enemy which is you

know the global jihadism and and and the

culture that that um uh supports it and

you know the variant in is in Iran that

has been you know a genuine tyranny for

um you know nearly as long as you and I

have been alive. um since 1979

is um something that we have always we

we should we should have always

supported the uprisings against. I think

it's scandalous how um mealymouthed

Obama and Biden were on that front. I

mean, the the the Iranians have been

showing uh a lot of courage, especially

Iranian women, uh periodically to um try

to fight for their their political

equality

uh going back many years. And under, you

know, democratic uh governments, uh we

have really been shamefully um silent.

Um, and that that probably leads to the

second reason why it's not, you know,

obviously Trump isn't the explanation

for why Obama and Biden couldn't have

supported Iran more um or the Iranian

people more. Um, and there it's this um

lingering moral confusion left of center

around

um Islam and Islamism and jihadism and

not wanting to uh uh draw too clear a

line

against the the problem of of um uh

theocracy there, right? I mean there you

know Islamic theocracy is a dealbreaker

for the West and for open societies. It

it it's that this this is crystal clear,

right? And it's and I mean, now we have

the the the spectacle of the UAE

announcing, I don't know if you saw

this, but the UAE recently announced

that they will no longer support their

own students studying abroad in the UK

for fear that those students will be

radicalized

on on on British campuses by the Muslim

Brotherhood. Right? That's how bad this

is, right? That's that's how blind we

have been to the the infiltration of our

own institutions by this ideology. Um we

have to get our heads screwed on

straight around this. And Trump for all

of his flaws

uh and for all of the flaws of the

people around him, I mean the truly

awful people around him uh who you know

just psychopaths and grifters and no

nothings, incompetence.

um the the the general shape of their

their corruption and their selfstealing

and their um

uh unprofessionalism still leans in the

direction of sanity on this point,

right? There's just not much tolerance

for jihadism and Islamism coming out of

out of um you know, both within in the

West and coming from societies like

Iran. And so, you know, I I I you know,

I I think Trump is a very uncertain ally

for everyone, including Israel given his

aptitude for um for corruption and and

just just uh you know, pure

self-interest uh and just his

distractability. But, you know, thus

far, he's been better than than um uh

many people could have hoped and

certainly than than many than really any

Democrat would have been expected to be,

at least at this moment. I I hold out

hope that it'll be a different story in

2028. But I do think Trump has been

better on this issue than we would have

any right to to have expected Kla Harris

to have been. Um, and uh, yeah, I I take

it caused me a fair amount of pain to to

to admit that, but I just think it's

true.

>> Are you familiar with Alica Leon?

>> Uh, no. No.

>> She's a really impressive she's an

author or just a commentator, but I saw

some content of hers and it kind of

reminded me of you and she has something

she calls the moral color code. And it's

not about the the oppression of people

or how severe or widespread the

oppression or the horror is. It's about

the color of the skin of the oppressor

that mandates or deems the reaction from

the west and progressive media. And she

uses Iran as an example that the left

goes into moral paralysis

>> when the oppressor is brown. And that

>> yeah,

>> if you look at what's happening in Iran,

Iraq, Sudan, you know, on and on and on

versus it that inspires a muted reaction

versus

uh an oppressor that's conflated with

being rich and white, specifically

Israel that they're just entirely

different reactions. And I thought of

you. Any thoughts?

>> Yeah. And I if one thing can be said for

certain on this front is that the world

doesn't much care. I mean the the the

West the and the liberal west doesn't

much care when Muslims kill other

Muslims really in in any number. I mean

we're there are instances where you can

point to hundreds of thousands of dead

in Syria and Yemen and Sudan. Um but the

world really cares when Westerners do it

and the world especially cares when Jews

do it. Right? Right. I mean, that's

that's the thing that just um uh you

know, lit up our information landscape

after after the war in Gaza started or

in fact before it started. The merely

the prospect of Israel retaliating

against the worst atrocity against Jews

since the Holocaust, right? I mean, we

had people supporting Hamas uh before

Israel had made a move in in response.

Um it's just, you know, everything is

upside down here. I mean, we're, you

know, something like twothirds of

countries have an origin story that is

similar to Israel's in the sense that,

you know, map makers just simply drew

lines on paper without much regard for

the lives of the people living within

those frontiers. Um, you know, there

there countries, you know, formed the

same year as Israel, like Pakistan who

have similar origin stories, but only

Israel has to defend its right to exist,

right? But only Israel has to

continually litigate this. Um, and the

United Nations has passed more

resolutions against Israel than all

other countries combined, right? I mean,

these countries include places like like

Yemen and Sudan and and Syria. You know,

countries that have perpetrated actual

genocides, right? So, none of this makes

any sense. This is just, you know, the

the the only interpretation that makes

sense of it is anti-semitism in some

form based on some rationale that, you

know, goes unexpressed. But it's so

yeah, I mean, this is this issue has

pretty much destroyed the moral

intuitions of the left and you know, it

it's not only a problem for Israel or

for for Jews. I mean, this just gets

mapped on to our our domestic politics.

I mean, we're living in a country where,

you know, when you find when you hear

that some act of violence occurred on a

a subway car, say, and, you know,

someone was killed, you know, someone

someone um uh there were many innocent

bystanders and someone was was killed.

You can describe it as exhaustively as

you like. I mean, you can tell ex you

can tell people exactly what happened,

how it escalated, whether there were

weapons involved, how many who was the

attacker and who was a, you know, how

and how the how he behaved. um moments

before and after, etc. You can describe

everything about it. You know, every

morally and legally salient detail, but

um something like half of our society

won't know quite how they feel about

what you've just described until you

tell them the skin colors of the people

involved, right? You know, was the

attacker white or black? Was the victim

white or black? Um that's just obscene,

right? that this is just a a a a flaw in

our moral

uh and social psychology and we we have

to figure out how to get over it. And

unfortunately, left of center, I mean,

in democratic politics, you still have

the um

this uh

uh misapprehension

of um that identity politics is somehow

worth preserving, right? right? That we

have to keep trumpeting the primacy of

identity and insinuate race and racial

concerns and and you know other

identitarian concerns into you know into

every instance. Um, and it's if if if we

can't get over that left of center,

uh, you know, fairly immediately. I I

just I I think, you know, I think 2028

is, um, is going to be a story of, um,

President Vance or his uh, you know, or

whoever's adjacent to to him uh, in the

Republican party. And, um, yeah, that's

that's fairly scary.

>> Joe, you feel it? And I I'll give you an

example. Well, I also want to

acknowledge that I probably had a lot of

well I know I had a lot of advantage

because of my identity through the 90s

raising money in e-commerce and you know

it would just didn't hurt to be a a

white guy with a sha white heterosexual

guy with a shaved head raising money in

Silicon Valley relative to other groups.

I have really sensed lately and I'm

pretty sure that you must sense this

um with my book talking about an

aspirational code for masculinity or the

struggles that men face. I've come to

the conclusion I'm the wrong messenger

because uh why dude of my age talking

about men in any means that is

sympathetic towards them is just just

evokes a gag reflex from the left. It

just and I'd like to think or I'm hoping

it's not my arguments. I thought I think

it is some of it's my identity and I've

come to the conclusion that it I'm just

maybe the wrong messenger. Do you feel

like your identity gets in the way of

your message?

>> Oh, it certainly does. Uh it doesn't get

in the way of my stating it, but it gets

in the way of uh the audience hearing

it. There's no question. Um, and that's

again that's a a real cultural flaw at

this point. I mean, it is in large

measure what has given us Trump and

Trumpism. I blame the left as much as I

blame the right for Trump and Trumpism.

I mean, you know, I I can speak

endlessly on either topic, but there

there's something more gling

about the left's culpability here

because it's just it's so unnecessary.

is such a spectacular own goal, right? I

mean, it's it should be so easy for us

to

champion champion our values of

political equality and to fight for them

and to resist bigotry of of every form,

you know, whether it's racism or

misogyny or transphobia or whatever it

is, right? We can resist all of these

things while remaining sane and

and intellectually honest, right? And

it's just but the the Democratic Party

has been so captured by its activists,

which is you probably 8% of of Democrats

at best,

that um

yeah, I mean, the p the pandering to to

the the loudest and most hysterical

um

of the far left has to stop. And um you

know I I I you know I I I hope it's I I

hope we we reach the high water mark

somewhere around 2024, but you know

we'll know as we get closer to the the

midterms. I I expect

>> I want to pivot the example you used of

Britain of basically it's interesting

that the UAE and several Gulf nations

are much more freaked out, wary

uh concerned about radical Islam than

many many Western governments. If you

got a call from, I don't know, name name

your Senate Intelligence Committee or

Congressional

uh Congressional Caucus, whatever, and

they said, "Sam, we we see this as a

real threat." What do you think in terms

of specific policy recommendations would

you make to address the threat? Maybe

it's a tiny number of of committed

jihadists, but in if you're going to

talk about the wider culture of support

for jihadism, the wider culture of of

people who think that really it is

incumbent upon uh you know any

god-fearing Muslim to to wage war

against the infidel at least in in some

way at some point or to support those

who do. Um and that you know infidels

and apostates

uh and Jews are fit only for the fires

of hell and and that we you really want

to to you know follow Muhammad's example

and and uh have a very muscular attitude

towards spreading the one true faith to

the ends of the earth. That's a much

larger footprint. We just we need an

honest conversation about this. What

what what we need to provoke is a a a

kind of renaissance/reformation

civil war depending on the context

within the Muslim world against jihadism

and against against you know a 7th

century attitude toward theocracy. Um

and we're just nowhere near being able

to do that especially on the left. I

mean on the right you have people who

are willing to speak honestly about the

threat but they are you know Christian

nationalists you know and fascists right

I mean they are they are their own

problem uh you know with respect to

demagoguery and and dogmatism and even

aspiring theocracy right I mean so

that's that's obviously unhelpful but

it's um it's just true as you know David

from has now famously said that you know

if liberals won't enforce borders

fascists will

>> fascist will And we need we need a a

left that understands that that open

societies are vulnerable to what Carl

Pauper called the paradox of tolerance

which is that the tolerance of open

societies can be used against them to

subvert them from within. And Islamists

you know and is Islamist organizations

like the Muslim Brotherhood are very

cleareyed about this. I mean they have

they have for for now generations

been working to subvert open societies

from within by by the you know by the

very levers that that um we you know we

want to protect you know free speech and

tolerance of diversity right and and and

they've managed to frame any criticism

of dangerous ideas within Islam as

bigotry so even even if you're fighting

for the the the equal rights of women

and in a in a country like Thran where

you know women are being being

imprisoned or even killed for just

showing their hair, right? They they

this this notion of Islamophobia,

it manages to frame those concerns,

those genuine, you know, civil rights

and humanitarian concerns as a form of

bigotry, right? And it's not a form of

bigotry. criticizing Islam as a system

of ideas is not is no more a form of

bigotry than criticizing communism as a

system of ideas. Uh and it's not at all,

you know, analogous to anti-semitism as

we, you know, if we we could easily I

could easily describe to you, but it's

it's mistaken for bigotry against a

people based on indelible

characteristics like race and ethnicity.

And it simply isn't. Right? I Islam is a

system of ideas that now exists in at

least a hundred countries. And it is it

has some attitudes toward things like

the rights of women and free speech and

you know the freedom to change your

faith that are uh deeply inacronistic

and and dangerous. Um and we have to we

have to be honestly honestly criticizing

these ideas.

>> Okay. So, you get a call from the chair

of the US Senate Select Committee on

Intelligence, Senator Tom Cotton,

and the vice chair, uh, Senator Mark

Warner, and they say, "Sam,

we hear you. Uh, whether it's 20 million

or 60 million, uh, what do we do? What

specific policies uh do you think uh

that you would recommend to the the

select committee that they consider

implementing?" Well, we should empower

uh genuine secularists

uh and and apostates, you know,

ex-Muslims uh wherever we can. I mean,

there's no one more articulate on this

topic than ex-Muslims. I mean, people

from these various cultures, right,

about whom this the identity politics

game game cannot be played, right? So,

half the people listening to to us right

now are beginning to winge about, you

know, two white guys talking about this

and this is just Islamophobia, right? So

what you really need for this

conversation to run through if it if it

can in left of center circles is to have

you know an ex-Muslim from you know the

Arab world or from you know Pakistan or

some some relevant place who speaks the

language who knows what is being said

you know behind closed doors not in

English who knows exactly

how deep anti-semitism and and um

misogyny and other you know noxious

variables run within the teachings of

Islam who can't be, you know, who can't

be snowed on these topics. Um, and you

need that you need to empower those

people. You need to empower and then and

you then you need to find the genuine

liberals and genuine secularists within

the Muslim world. And that is very very

hard. It's not that they don't exist,

but it's it's difficult, right? I mean,

all the definitions of terms change when

you get into these cultures, right? And

and to talk about fundamentalism is not

the same as talking about fundamentalism

in a Christian context in America. Um

uh and so it's um

we need to provoke again a a kind of

renaissance and reformation and when

push comes to to shove a civil war in

places where uh jihadism and Islamism

are um uh very very threatening and

that's um and unfortunately that's

increasingly in places in the west um

and we go to sleep on this issue. it

just takes the next terrorist atrocity

to wake us up for a time, you know, the

next Charlie Hebdo massacre or, you

know, Baklan attack, you know, in a in a

country like France, um then then all of

a sudden we we take this issue

seriously. But um you know, that that

all of that has a certain half-life and

we go to sleep again. I generally

speaking, we need to recognize that we

don't want more Islamists and jihadists

in our societies, right? That has

immigration implications. that has

immigration implications that are

uncomfortably

um that have uncomfortable echoes of the

kinds of bigoted and crazy things

someone like Steven Miller uh will say.

Right. So um you know so when Steven

Miller or Donald Trump will say like we

want we don't want any more Muslims from

hole countries. Right. Right.

There's a kernel of truth in that.

Right. You have to cut through the

bigotry and you know you know moral uh

insanity that those guys just radiate

from their pores. But there is a kernel

of truth. We don't want any more uh you

know true believers who have no

intention of assimilating in the west in

our open societies right and and people

do come here with no intention of

assimilating. Uh that's just a fact.

It's it's it's not even a secret. It's

it's I mean you can just read the

documents that are you know that you

know have you know Muslim Brotherhood

signatures on them attesting to this

right so it's and then we have our own

internal organizations like the Council

of American Islamic Relations that that

left of center get treated by

journalists like they're the the Muslim

version of the ACLU or the NAACP but

they're actually stealth Islam Islamist

organizations that have direct ties to

the Muslim Brotherhood. Right. So it's

and and you have you have the fact that

a country like Qatar country the country

of Qatar is the largest funer the

largest foreign funer of American

universities at this point. It's it's

it's genuinely sinister, right? This is

not there's nothing benign about that.

Um and left or center people are

reliably confused on this on this

subject and it's um the confusion is not

going to age well. But crucially,

Muslims who really want to live in open

societies and want to support secular

values that make that possible will be

the first people to recognize the danger

of certain of their co-religionists,

right? And and it's the fear that they

won't that needs to be examined, right?

Right? I mean, like we we have this fear

on the left that if you if you speak too

honestly about what's really in the holy

books and talk about how dysfunctional

all that is, you're going to alienate

all the good Muslims. Right. Well, if if

that's the problem, then we've then we

have a much bigger problem than than you

know even I'm willing to admit, right?

No. No. The good Muslims, the good, the

sane ones, the ones who want to live the

way we want to live, right, in tolerant

open societies are not going to be

alienated by an honest discussion of the

doctrines around apostasy and blasphemy

and homosexuality

uh and jihad that really exist within

the tradition and which really have to

be kind of theologically

recontextualized and disavowed and

sidelined politically in our societies.

Um, and if if if that's not on the menu

uh for most Muslims, then we have, you

know, then it's going to be a very very

dark future, right? And and I mean, and

that's not the future I expect, but um

that's the future that people seem to

fear when they when they want to

castigate someone like me as an

Islamophobe for the things I just said.

We'll be right back.

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We're back with more from Sam Harris.

So, you've been very generous with your

time and as we wrap up here and there's

no way to make this altitude change

elegantly, but whenever we get together,

the one of the things I enjoy the most

is talking about

>> talk about erectile dysfunction.

>> Yeah, that's well that's just a given at

our age. Uh but uh I'm just curious any

observations or thoughts you want to

share about raising teenagers and your

observations around having teenagers. I

do think that they're um they can be,

you know, more sophisticated than we

might expect in in navigating the space

because I mean it's evolving so fast and

they're digital natives in a way that

we're not. Um I I'm humbled by how much

control we don't have. I mean the I mean

the research seems to suggest that that

um you know any pretention that that

that you're going to really impart your

um view of the world uh and your

interest to your kids um beyond just

giving them your genes uh you know and

their kind of native native uh interests

and aptitudes is is fairly um forlorn. I

mean it's just not it's just not the

what the research shows. I mean the re

research shows that for basically

anything of interest psychologically and

as a matter of character um you know

it's like 50% genetic and 50%

environmental but the environment is not

your parenting right it's it's um uh so

you know it matters who their friends

are matters you know what school they go

to to some degree it matters it matters

the culture that that gets in but um we

have very little control over that I've

noticed. Right. Like you pick you pick a

nice like in the most privileged case

you get your you struggle to get your

kid into a private school uh that you

hope is going to be good but really you

have no control over what that looks

like and you you know you have no

control over the teachers they wind up

getting and there are many

disappointments to be had on that front

and surprises. Um, and you can't pick

their friends and their friends turn out

to be, you know, good or bad depending.

And um, it really is a a a just a a

great spin of the the lottery wheel,

right? It's just it's just uh the

roulette wheel. It's just not a um

control is not obvious. Uh, but good

intentions can be, right? I mean, like

we we really live with the character of

our intentions here. I mean that that's

what colors

your mind with respect to your moment to

moment engagement with other people. And

if if you love your kids and you want

them to thrive and you delight in their

their you know creativity and um you

know you're going to have an experience

of parenting which is beautiful despite

the fact that you really don't have a

lot of control over the the world or

their lives in the world. If you can

think of them, give me one or two things

that um your wife and your daughters

think of you that is in stark contrast

to what people think about you publicly.

Oh, well, I I mean I I can be the silly

dad in a way that would be um it would I

would be unrecognizable to my audience

if you know. Yeah, the the home videos

of me with the cats or with uh my

daughters, I think would would show a

face of me that would uh fairly astonish

uh my audience. Um those videos are

never getting out, but uh but yeah, they

they exist. Uh but I mean that I mean I

you there is something I do as you can

tell from this the the hour we've

already spent I can get into a zone

where you because of the topic and

because of you know my thoughts on it.

I'm you know I'm in I'm in an orbit

where that doesn't allow for many of the

other sides of my personality to come

through or at least you know you know

for whatever reason I you know I don't

allow it or it just doesn't happen. And

I remember being quite amazed that um

the first time my wife Anukica came on

uh my podcast

um I I forget what episode it was. I

mean it was it was not a early episode.

It might have been like episode 100 or

something or maybe 80. Um was the first

time that my audience had ever heard me

laugh. Uh and you know it was like a it

was like a some kind of religious

revelation. I mean, like the response to

it was just insane. Um, so anyway, I

mean, that's Yeah, I'm a I'm a peculiar

podcaster, I guess. But, um,

I think a reasonably fun dad with uh uh

and uh my my girls could probably attest

to that. Sam Harris is a neuroscientist,

philosopher, bestselling author, and

host of the Making Sense Podcast, and

also the Silly Dad. Sam, I always enjoy

these conversations and appreciate your

time. I know how in demand uh you are.

Uh really again, thanks so much for your

continued good work.

>> Yeah, always always happy to talk,

Scott.