As musicians, actors, dinosaur “news” propagandists, and the Twitterati shower praise on Canadian-American rock star Neil Young for asking music and pod streamer Spotify to dump comedian, martial artist, and long-form interviewer Joe Rogan merely because he had the audacity to engage in conversations with doctors who don’t toe the line of government-approved speech, others are standing up for Rogan, the principle of free expression, and for honest debate.
In so doing, they shed light on the leftist record, calling out the collectivist virtue-signalers for their towering hypocrisy.
Recently appearing in a conversation with Fox News host Sean Hannity, well known comedian, actor, writer, entrepreneur, and podcaster Adam Carolla offered two key observations:
Basically, we’ve decided that there’s one lane you can be in when it comes to COVID, and you need to be shut down. But I find it interesting coming from rockers and comedians and artists, because their job is to push back against ‘The Man,’ and Neil Young should know, ‘The Man’ isn’t Joe Rogan. ‘The Man’ is Dr. Fauci. ‘The Man’ is Governor Gavin Newsom. ‘The Man’ is the CDC. ‘The Man’ is the WHO (tax-funded World Health Organization). ‘The Man’ is Biden. That’s who ‘The Man’ is. You’re an old rocker. You’re supposed to push back against ‘The Man!’ Joe Rogan is pushing back against ‘The Man,’ and you’re pushing back against Joe Rogan!
Comedian @adamcarolla defends Joe Rogan: "Think about what all these idiots are saying. They're worried about misinformation ... What have you guys been right about? I'd put Joe Rogan's batting average up against CNN's batting average any day of the week." 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/6NkVQXHUX3
— Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield) January 28, 2022
And Carolla expanded his observation:
Think about what all these idiots (the pop media members) are saying. They’re worried about ‘misinformation’ (a label they’ll put on anything they don’t like). You turn on ‘The View,’ you turn on CNN, it’s: ‘JOE ROGAN – MISINFORMATION!’ What have YOU GUYS been right about? You closed the beaches down. You closed the schools down. Cloth masks were gonna save us all. The ‘vaccine’ was gonna be effective. Natural immunity WASN’T effective? What have you been right about! I’d put Joe Rogan’s batting average up against CNN’s batting average any day of the week!”
That kind of realistic talk won’t please the leftists packing the dusty halls of old media – people who probably will dismiss Carolla because, he describes himself as a libertarian-conservative.
But what about Glenn Greenwald? Greenwald is one of a growing number of journalists who used to be praised (and employed) by the left – until his reporting and principled positions on things like honest journalism, free speech, uncovering data manipulation, double-standards, lies, and propaganda started to chafe their bovine Big Media skin.
Greenwald, too, has offered pointed observations about the leftist call to shut down Rogan, rather than start their own podcasts and compete.
In a noteworthy Substack piece that helps readers see the insidious long-game and constantly shifting rhetoric of leftists, Greenwald observed:
American liberals are obsessed with finding ways to silence and censor their adversaries. Every week, if not every day, they have new targets they want de-platformed, banned, silenced, and otherwise prevented from speaking or being heard (by ‘liberals,’ I mean the term of self-description used by the dominant wing of the Democratic Party).
Indeed, the term “liberal” used to mean pro-freedom before collectivists got a hold of it in the late 1800s and – as they do with so many terms – usurped it to propel their propaganda-driven agenda.
About the modern, faux, “liberals,” Greenwald added:
For years, their preferred censorship tactic was to expand and distort the concept of ‘hate speech’ to mean ‘views that make us uncomfortable,’ and then demand that such ‘hateful’ views be prohibited on that basis. For that reason, it is now common to hear Democrats assert, falsely, that the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech does not protect ‘hate speech.’ Their political culture has long inculcated them to believe that they can comfortably silence whatever views they arbitrarily place into this category without being guilty of censorship.
And Greenwald, who helped Edward Snowden expose the Obama Administration’s illegal, unconstitutional spying on Americans, continued:
Constitutional illiteracy to the side, the ‘hate speech’ framework for justifying censorship is now insufficient because liberals are eager to silence a much broader range of voices than those they can credibly accuse of being hateful. That is why the newest, and now most popular, censorship framework is to claim that their targets are guilty of spreading ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation.’ These terms, by design, have no clear or concise meaning. Like the term ‘terrorism,’ it is their elasticity that makes them so useful.
Indeed, as Lewis Carroll’s cypher for state power, Humpty Dumpty, told Alice, in “Through The Looking Glass,”
’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less.’
Although Neil Young last year sold half his music library to UK-based corporate giant Hipgnosis for $150 million, and though last fall, infamous political-pal The Blackstone Group invested $1 billion in Hipgnosis, and though in August of 2020, Blackstone appointed former Pfizer CEO and Chairman Jeffrey Kindler to be a Senior Advisor, let’s put those ties aside to focus on the long-term ethical lessons this Spotify story offers.
Like customers, Neil Young is free to applaud or deride Spotify. Though he doesn’t have full control over his music, Young is free to ask that his work be removed if they keep Rogan, and Spotify is free to do so, which they have, opting to keep Joe, instead.
But it’s troubling to see a musician call for censorship of what he claims is “misinformation” rather than present his “information” and engage in debate.
As it always has been with many leftists, the principle of the Golden Rule, of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you – and of its logical outgrowth, NOT doing unto others as you would not want them to do to you – simply doesn’t seem to matter to Young.
He was upset that Rogan interviewed Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Robert Malone, both of whom offer powerful scientific arguments against many of the COVID19 narratives of the tax-paid, government-backed so-called “scientists” and media.
But if he (Joni Mitchell recently joined Young in requesting that her work be removed from Spotify, for the same “reasons” Young offered) is so upset, why ask for REMOVAL of JOE? Why not do the peaceful thing and start one’s own podcast? Why not simply offer one’s own voice and opinions? Are argument and comparison of data somehow “dangerous” to the big-government wing of humanity?
Let’s draw out the logic by showing the extreme.
How long has Young allowed his music to be carried on Spotify while Spotify also carried the music of others who have, truly, done bad things?
Did Young call for Spotify to remove all music produced by Phil Spector because the man was found guilty of murder?
Mr. Young IS free to criticize Rogan and ask for his own music to be pulled.
But why is this “man of the people” not speaking up for the freedom to debate?
Better yet, where was this Canadian-born “man of the people” when Great Disappearing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he "admired" the authoritarianism of Chinese lockdowns and, even now, shows his OWN authoritarian hypocrisy when deriding the Canadian Freedom Truck Convoy as “fringe,” after he supposedly stood for left-adored “minorities” in the LGBT movement?
The simple matter about Young’s freedom to choose is clear. But the ethical matters, dismissal of debate, and hypocrisy also are clear – at least to people who aren’t adoring of government authoritarianism.
Related: 'That is Fascism!': Joe Rogan Slams Antifa's Ideology | MRCTV