 where do we start with this with you know with Barry Weiss well it's there's a couple of things with Barry Weiss we'll keep kind of circling back to Barry Weiss because there's a lot going on there but Barry Weiss was one of the authors of the Hopper's magazine letter and it was a letter signed by I think 150 different intellectuals mainly writers and professors at university that basically was against cancel culture and it was against the idea that people have been fired people have been people have been attacked on Twitter have been ganged up against on Twitter reputations have been destroyed you know there's really this attitude of going after people who whose ideas don't agree with the nutty left and you know Jackie Wallins is a good example she's written some essays about transgender which the nutty left does not like they've organized boycotts of her books they go after her on Twitter they attack her they they do all the stuff you know I don't know if it's come to physical threats I think I think threats are being made I don't know if it's come to physical violence but they have been in speech they have attacked ridiculed shunned her and and encouraged others to do the same and they've encouraged people of course to boycotts to boycott her books so this was a this was a I had I had it here I've got too many windows open and I had the there it is the letter it's called a a letter on justice and open debate good for them they didn't make it a about free speech because it's open debate and and they write in this in this letter the stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time the restrictions and debate whether by repressive government or an intolerant society invariably hurts those who lack power and make everyone less capable of democratic participation the way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure argument and persuasion not by trying to silence or wish them away we refuse any false choice between justice and freedom which cannot exist without each other that's right that's good not that I think they understand what justice or freedom really means as writers we need a culture that leaves us the room for experimentation risk taking and even mistakes we need to preserve the possibility of good faith disagreement without dire professional consequences if we don't defend the very thing on which our work depends we shouldn't expect the public or state to defend it for us all right so there's a lot of good there's a lot of good there and and that's kind of the letter and as I said people from a wide diversity of points of view a fairly wide diversity of points of view mainly centrist I'd say but some conservatives and libertarians and some leftists signed this letter and then there was a a flowy of of letters following it and and and one of the things that was interesting was that let me find this this little story you know a friend of a friend of Barry Weiss's a friend of Barry Weiss's who organized Barry Weiss I don't know if you guys know who Barry Weiss was because I certainly really didn't know Barry Weiss that well right it's uh one second let me just find this thing yeah okay so a friend of Barry Weiss is it was a New York Times columnist she was she was part of the editorial board of the op-ed page she was brought in after 2016 to increase the diversity of ideas and to encourage to bring in kind of other points of view other than the traditional leftist points of view that the New York Times editorial page had covered um Barry Weiss is is a centrist you know that she came to my attention when she wrote um I think a pretty famous story for the New York Times about the intellectual dark web and she kind of named them and there were pictures they have Eric Weinstein and and Dave Rubin and she criticized Dave Rubin a little bit but she she generally brought to the forefront the intellectual dark web and into kind of the mainstream media and uh the uh so she so she's kind of a little old she's not a conservative she's not under right in any kind of sense she's probably uh pretty traditionally what would be considered left on social issues and and you know more conservative maybe on on issues of economics so kind of a traditional centrist and she signed this letter at Hopper magazine and then a few days later resigned from the New York Times and her letter resignation is is really is really interesting because what she articulates in the letter resignation is the atmosphere that exists in the New York Times not for some rabid pro-capitalist not for some you know objectivist or or free market type or or even a conservative but no but for for somebody like Barry Weiss who is generally pro-Israel so maybe a little to the right on issues of Israel anti anti-Semitism but generally again nothing radical nothing radical pretty pretty much centrist right and the kind of treatment she got at the New York Times and first of all she says what happens in the New York Times is that Twitter Twitter actually plays a role in editing articles in the New York Times because Twitter the response on Twitter to any New York Times article is what editors have on their minds during the tutorial process the paper basically customizes and changes its articles so that not to offend the nutty left on Twitter she says stories she quotes stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and enjoy their own conclusions this is the New York Times and then she says she was brought into office some diversity of ideas but that during her time at the paper and this has gotten worse several colleagues she quote quote several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by co-workers my work and my character are openly demeaned on company white slack channels some co-workers insist I need to be rooted out if the company is to be truly inclusive while others post axe emojis next to my name still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot and twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate actions now she writes that these are that she gets through the paper theoretically she doesn't she doesn't threaten us but she says this is unlawful discrimination hostile working environment and and and you know the fact is that the publisher the owners the bosses of the New York Times do nothing about this indeed the opposite she says they stand they they would um actually praise her in private for her courage and that let her co-workers harass her constantly they would never speak out they would not defend her at least this is her story she says at some point quote showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery that's how bad things are at the New York Times she says it's getting worse significantly worse our beds that would have been published two years ago would not be published today the internal backlash is immense of course we talked about on the show a few weeks ago about the op-ed the Tom Cotton wrote that caused a firing of of the edit of the the guy responsible for the op-ed page and they fawn over anybody from the wacky left no matter what their views are so you could be as wacky as you want to be to the left but the center is unacceptable and why she says you know because people want to be perceived as righteous people want to go along people are afraid people are afraid of losing their jobs people are afraid of of the masses of the of being ridiculed of being quote canceled on twitter people are afraid of their future jobs of their career she says standing up for your principle at the paper does not win plaudits nobody's going to support you so nobody right now nobody is standing up on principle everybody is just cowering and following the party line she says the real damage and this i think is quite powerful the real damage is the young writers young writers now follow these rules quote rule one speak your mind at your own peril rule two never risk commissioning a story that goes against the narrative rule three never believe an editor or publisher who urges you to go against the grain eventually the publisher will cave to the mob the editor will get fired or reassigned and you'll be hung out to dry for these young writers and editors there's one conclusion there's places like the the time the new york times and other once great journalistic institutions betray their standards and lose sight of their principles yep just follow you know just just don't walk the boat don't walk the boat so it's tragic but we all know this to some extent about the new york times but that somebody like her would be harassed in the way she has that is really new i mean to remind you the new york times used to be the paper of record even though it was just responsible for for example we talked about just this week the the durante in the 1930s it was responsible for communist propaganda it's been left wing for pretty much ever on the other hand it also published henry haslett for many years he was the economic writer henry haslett the the writer of economics in one lesson a great free market economist it used to be at least the temp to be present the facts and present a wide array of opinion in 1896 adolf urse i'm not sure who adolf was described the paper as quote to make of the columns of the new york times a forum for the consideration of our questions of public importance and to that end to invite intelligent discussion for more shades of opinion obviously that is no longer than new york times it hasn't been for a long time and it's still sad to see somebody who's trying like barry weiss was to see them have to leave to see them have to kind of cow in a sense give up retreat fail i know there are a lot of super chat questions we're not going to get to them i've got to i will get to them at the end there's a huge amount of huge amount of content that i need to get through before we get to them so if you want your super chat question to be addressed sooner rather than later then they're going to have to be on the topic i mean i'm not going to get housing prices until the end of the show after i finished the topics i preserved as i said andrew sullivan is leaving the new york magazine will know more about the details of why he's leaving um on tomorrow actually he's publishing his last column andrew sullivan for those of you don't know somebody i debated recently i debated in march actually my last public event was in march at clemson university with me and andrew sullivan on the stage debating and um you know he's a good man but he's he's a he's he's a statist he's a religionist a statist religionist who wants the government to impose you know the philosopher kings in government to impose their set of values on all of us whether it's religious values whether it's how you know how industry should be constructed whether it's central planning uh economically he's anti-capitalist anti-freedom he's an excellent writer and an excellent critic of the left and and uh it's a very powerful writer i learned a lot from him particularly on things like intersectionality he's written some of the best stuff on intersectionality and i think at the end that's what got him fired also some stuff i guess he wrote about the bell curve uh in the past uh he wrote something um he wrote something favorable about uh charles marie's bell curve so we'll see tomorrow it's going to be interesting uh but you can find the debate if you go to uh youtube type in your on book andrew sullivan you will find it it's actually a really good conversation and i think you'll find it really interesting and you'll find what you'll find interesting is the state of conservatism and this is one of the better conservatives you know we agree on things like we both dislike trump immensely and think he's a disaster for for the conservative movement but his perspective on what conservatism is is i mean it's true to conservatism but it's very very distant from my views of what the truth is what we need today what i called a new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason by the intellect not by feelings wishes wins or mystic revelations any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of the spare cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist brought all right before we go on reminder please like the show we've got 163 live listeners right now 30 likes that should be at least 100 i figure at least 100 of you actually like the show maybe they're like 60 of the matthews out there who hate it but but at least the people who like it you know i want to see i want to see a thumbs up there you go start liking it i want to see that go to 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