Violence Mobs and Chaos: Manufacturing Extreme Psychosis? w/ Dr. Chloe Carmichael

➡ The article discusses the importance of open dialogue in preventing violence and the role of the liver in our health. It emphasizes that cutting off communication, even with good intentions, can lead to an increase in violence. The article also highlights the importance of liver health, explaining that the liver filters toxins and processes nutrients, and when it’s overburdened, it can lead to health issues like weight gain and fatigue. The author suggests regular liver detoxing and promotes a product called Ultra Liver.
➡ The text discusses the author’s experiences with censorship and the fear of expressing controversial opinions, particularly those that go against popular liberal views. The author highlights the negative consequences of suppressing dialogue, such as increased violence and groupthink, and emphasizes the importance of free speech for mental health. The author also notes a positive shift in corporate America towards accepting diverse opinions. The text concludes with a discussion on the psychological factors that contribute to the violent reactions and groupthink observed among some liberal groups.
➡ The text discusses the concept of groupthink, where groups of intelligent people can collectively make poor decisions due to an illusion of unanimity or moral superiority. This phenomenon is often seen in universities, journalism, and other fields where experts dominate. The text also highlights the suppression of free speech and the silencing of opposing views, which can lead to an echo chamber effect. It emphasizes the importance of the First Amendment and the dangers of ignoring it, even when we believe we are right or that everyone else agrees with us.
➡ The text discusses the importance of free speech and its impact on society, particularly in Europe and the U.S. It highlights concerns about government censorship and the influence of different cultures and religions on free speech. The author emphasizes the need for individuals to stand up for their beliefs and the mental health benefits of expressing oneself. The text also warns about the potential dangers of collectivist mindsets and the suppression of free speech in the name of public good.
➡ Universities are focusing more on degrees than on individual skills, which is creating a problematic environment. This focus on degrees is seen as a passport into corporate America, even if it doesn’t relate to one’s skill set. This system pressures students to conform to certain viewpoints, stifling creativity and free thinking. The book “Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly” offers techniques for speaking up and listening in difficult situations, promoting dialogue and free speech.
➡ Visit FreeSpeechToday.com to get the book and share a screenshot of your receipt to join a free speech discussion group. The author is excited to connect with readers and discuss free speech. Thanks for joining the program.

Violence increases when dialogue ceases. So they, they, they meant, I believe, to try to set up a more compassionate world. But they didn’t realize that by cutting off dialogue, that’s actually dialogue is the way that we examine and ev ideas. It’s how we emotionally regulate ourselves. It’s how we understand our neighbor and learn how to work together despite differences. And so when they cut off dialogue, even from the best of intentions, I believe that that is what set the stage for this incredible surge in violence that is coming from the left because violence increases when dialogue ceases.

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It stores fat soluble vitamins for later use. That’s important. It helps break down cholesterol and metabolizes hormones. There’s so many things that your liver does from helping you detox to helping you get the vitamins into your body. If your liver is overburdened from trying to process all the toxins which we are getting bombarded with, you are likely seeing a lot of these issues. It is a really good idea to be detoxing your liver on a regular basis. And I have a really good detox product called Ultra Liver. If you are interested in trying it, go to tryultraliver.com Sarah again try ultraliver.com Sarah welcome to business game changers.

I’m Sarah westall. I have Dr. Chloe Carmichael coming to the program. She’s going to talk about the psychology behind this violence in the left and what is causing so much violence. And I guess they’re two to eight times more likely to be violent. And where is that coming from and why? What is the psychosis behind that and how do you break that down? She claims it’s all free speech, that they are in this bubble. And she breaks down how free speech, the lack of it leads to violence and leads to trauma and why you need to speak up.

And I mean, she just lays it. I told my publicist I should hire her as my Therapist and so I enjoyed this conversation and I think it’s true. I think when you see people being shut down and not being able to speak, what that does to the society and how it sparks violence and there’s a lot of science behind that. And so I think you’re going to enjoy this conversation and it brings some clarity as to why we’re seeing what we’re seeing and all these extreme behaviors everywhere. And I think keeping people in their echo chambers, who, whoever, whatever echo chamber you’re in, is not good.

Get out of your freaking echo chamber. I mean, that’s the message you need to take from this. That’s it. Okay, before I get into that, I want to remind you there is a 15% off peptide sale going on during the month of October. You also can use my coupon code Sarah to get an additional 15% off semi glutide, which is the active ingredient behind OIC and Wovi. It’s just the peptide, nothing added, is on sale right now. So you can. With my coupon code and the 15 off and if you buy from your bank account it goes up to 35 off.

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So sign up for their newsletter. But always remember to use my coupon code Sarah to save an additional 15% off of whatever you buy. And before we get into this really good discussion, I really enjoyed this one with Dr. Chloe Carmichael. She has a book, it’s called Can I say that why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly Lee and she goes into how your voice being show. She talks about how her own voice was silenced to be able to fit in and how people have been doing that and it’s been so harmful. So if you want a copy of this book, I’ll have the link below.

Otherwise you can go to her website as well. Free speech today dot com. Okay, let’s get into this really good discussion with Dr. Chloe. Hi Dr. Chloe. Welcome to the program. Hey, Sarah, it’s so good to be with you. Well, you know, I said to my publicist, I said, stacy, I probably should hire her to, to do therapy on me about this stuff I’ve dealt with over the years. I’m serious, because this has been one hell of a journey for. And people who’ve been on the front line. Being unpersoned, it’s really. Being unpersoned has been an incredible journey.

And I think this unpersoning, it affected millions of people to certain degrees. And I think that’s what your work is reflecting. How does this chill free speech, everything we’ve been dealing with. So before we get into some of these details, what made you look at this free speech issue as something that impacts the psyche of people at such a profound level? Yeah, so I’ll answer that question, Sarah. But I just have to say I agree with you that this concept of unpersoning is so linked to the issue of censorship and free speech. You know, I mean, it’s what we say and who we are.

Like, interestingly, the root of the word psychology goes to a Greek word, psyche, which means spirit. So when we stop someone from speaking, we’re really, you know, trampling on their psychology. We’re trampling on their personhood. Almost like on a spirit, spiritual level, you know, when we go to the Constitution, like, these rights were given to us by our creator. Right. But what got me interested in this is as a clinical psychologist, I was working in New York City. I had my own practice, you know, very successful, doing tons of media like VH1, Inside Edition, just, you know, big traditional legacy media.

And I always knew that I had certain views that were not going to play well with the media, but I just simply always kept those to myself because for business reasons, it was just good for me to be in the media and growing my practice. And I never said anything that I thought was untrue, but I just always stayed away from topics that I knew were going to ruffle the media. And so that worked fine until Covid. And then, you know, they wanted to mask little kids. And at the time I had a three year old, he’s now older, but I could not mask my three year old.

Yes. And so my family, like. Right. I mean, it was like such a primal thing. No mama bear situation. Yeah. So my, my family, we moved to the free state of Florida. And, you know, it’s great. And I was like, okay, well, that’s good for me. But what about all those other kids? And no psychologist was talking about the harms of masking kids. And so just to like, even organize my own thoughts, I wrote this blog of all the reasons why it was harmful on a psychological. Shared it with some colleagues to say, am I, like, missing something here? Like, how come no one else is talking about this? Should I, like, what? And they said, no, Chloe, everything in here is correct, but you shouldn’t share this blog because it could discourage people from masking their kids.

And I was like, okay, well, this makes no sense. And so I shared, kids weren’t even at risk for Covid, for crying out loud. But keep. No, no, no. And so. But then Dr. J. Bhattacharya picked it up. You know, Buck Sexton picked it up. All these people. And I started having all these con conversations and just being in Florida anyways, talking about other topics that are verboten in New York. And to answer your question, that is what caused me to realize that I had been suppressing so much of myself just to fit in. And it hadn’t even.

I feel dumb in retrospect, as a psychologist, that it hadn’t occurred to me that this constant suppression and repression of, like, myself could have a cost, a cognitive and emotional, a social and mental health cost. And so it was actually more like by unburdening myself from it that I realized how powerful the mental health benefits of speaking freely and being authentic and having other people be authentic with you, how powerful that is. Yeah. And the fact that so many, like I was, like, fundamentally impersonate, I was cut off everywhere. And then I had to claw my way back.

Right. And. And I, I have. And there are some that didn’t, like, Apple never cut me off. And so those things really gave me a lifeline and. But the process of being unpersoned, I mean, I can’t. How incredible this process over the last five, you know, it’s probably started about seven years ago, but five years ago is when it was really hit hard. That process was incredible. And I think that people who were on X and other Twitter at the time and other platforms who were being censored for having comments and being kicked off for just sharing doctor information, they felt that too.

And so what kind of psychological issues are we facing? I mean, I think there’s just the fear. Is a fear lifted yet or. I mean, I think there was this fear of hurting your livelihood. Totally. And it wasn’t an irrational fear. You know, it was a very real fear. I mean, when I did, for example, when I wanted to write my book about the mental health benefits of free speech. Even though I had another book before that which was much more like media friendly. It was just about the healthy function of anxiety and anxiety techniques. And so of course they love that.

And so then I wanted to write a new book about the mental health benefits of free speech and my very prestigious agent dropped me and my big publisher said, chloe, we would love to do another book with, with you, but just not this one. And you know, I, I lose followers all the time, like every time. Like say I did a post about Charlie Kirk or something and I get, you know, tons of quote, like hate mail, so to speak. Yeah. So yeah, I, I think it’s just like, for example, people talk about, say, Islamophobia and I’m like, well, it’s not really a phobia if there’s a rational fear of, you know, some kind of issue within that.

Right. And so it’s not an irrational fear for people to worry that speaking out is going to affect their livelihood, even on really basic topics. Like, as you mentioned, you could get kicked off of Twitter for saying that a man cannot become a woman. Right. People would get fired, you know, from their jobs. And I mean, again, I’m. They get fired from their jobs for not using the right pronoun. You know, like, no, I call someone a he and I should have called them a she or they or whatever the heck it is, and you get reprimanded or whatever.

That’s. That’s like ridiculous. Totally, totally. I mean, or even just suppose that you had the gall to wear a MAGA hat on the weekend and you got photographed in it and it was on your Facebook. People were getting ostracized at their workplaces and there is a left right dynamic with it as well. I cover this in the book too, but it is a statistical reality and I can share some of the stats, but. So I call it the five Ds. And this is by self report. But liberal. People who identify as liberal are statistically more likely, much more likely to defriend on social media, to drop contact in real life, to distance in real life, to decline to date across the aisle, or to disinvite a speaker all over political differences.

And then of course, the YouGov polling shows that people who identify as liberal are two to eight times more likely to endorse the use of political violence to achieve their goals. So I mean, all of the examples I gave there are like, oh, well, if you say a man cannot become a woman, or if, you know, you were photographed on a weekend in a mega Hat or whatever. They’re all examples about people on the right being ostracized. And I think that’s because it’s actually. That’s the way the trend goes. Like, I don’t see or hear cases of people getting called into HR because they were at a trans rights, you know, rally or whatever.

Yeah. Like, people don’t. They say that the violence is against transgender, the violence is against them for being different or whatever. But the majority of the violence, really, although there is. There is some negative and some bad behavior Right. Towards them, but you don’t see the same kind of lashing out and abuse online and in workplaces because of that. Right. Yeah. And the workplace stuff, I think, is. Is super interesting and on a positive not. I have to say, I am so glad that corporate America, I think, really is waking up and coming out of what was a major stupor.

Like, I’m actually speaking at Columbia University next week about this topic. I’ve spoken for big law firms about this topic. You know, some places that in the past would have just been really unhospitable to the idea that, hey, you know what? We can allall of us on different sides of the aisle, say our piece and be. Accept it and get along and know it’s not hateful for you to say what you think about something. What’s hateful is, you know, to ostracize people or to cut them out of your life or, you know, condone violence against them, but like, having a different opinion about, you know, trans people or immigration or whatever else.

No, that doesn’t make you hateful. And so the good news is, is I believe that corporate America is waking up to the fact that. That a good 50%, a little 50% plus of America feels a certain way about these issues and that there’s room for everybody. Yeah, I agree. So why do. Why is it that the people on the left, why are there more. Why are they more violent? What is causing them to have this violent anger reaction to whatever’s going on? Yeah. So I think that those two statistics that I mentioned earlier, those groups hang together.

So the unwillingness to talk preceded the uptick in violence. Right. And so at one point, and I believe that they’re all coming generally from a good place, that people on the left who were, you know, refusing to go to Thanksgiving dinner or, you know, cutting off people because they said, well, you’re hateful because you don’t want a boy on the girls soccer team or whatever, they were refusing to speak to people because they genuinely believed it was the virtuous thing to do. Now, however, as a psychologist, I can tell you that violence increases when dialogue ceases.

So they meant, I believe, to try to set up a more compassionate world. But they didn’t realize that by cutting off dialogue, that’s actually dialogue is the way that we examine and evaluate ideas. It’s how we emotionally regulate ourselves. It’s how we understand our neighbor and learn how to work together despite differences. And so when they cut off dialogue, even from the best of intentions, I believe that that is what set the stage for this incredible surge in violence that is coming from the left, because violence increases when dialogue ceases. But do you also think they kind of got into some kind of group think where they started reflecting or projecting thoughts or stereotypes on the people? That really wasn’t appropriate? Totally.

Okay, so groupthink is the key word there, Sarah. And there’s a whole like chapter in my book on groupthink. And so Irving Yanis is the psychologist that coined the term groupthink. And there were eight factors. I won’t list them all out for you, but there are a few that I think are really relevant here. So one of the factors that leads to groupthink is the illusion of unanimity. And so when you had a situation like people would go on Twitter, they would go, you know, anywhere on meta, they would go anywhere on YouTube and they would get the idea if you were on the left, you would just go and think, everybody agrees with me.

The way that I’m feeling right now is just the new social standard. And so they really didn’t understand that half the country really actually had a different opinion because there was a, an illusion of unanimity. Another, there’s two other, I think really important components of groupthink that got activated here. One of them is a belief in the moral superiority of the group. And so again, like this kindness, compassion, right. Even if it’s like militant kindness, we’re just better people than you and you’re hateful. So there was this without understanding that in fact, many of us found it hateful to, you know, foist millions and millions and millions of, you know, immigrants to compete with low income Americans for jobs.

That we had our own arguments that also were coming from a place of compassion. That’s right. But they didn’t understand that again, because of the issue of unanimity. And then the, or false unanimity or the not wanting to actually even listen to us. But go ahead. No, that’s fine. But yeah, I mean, you’re Right. Although, again, I try to be as empathetic as I can. And I think the reason that they didn’t want to listen is because of this illusion of unanimity where they really believed any conservative that they happened to talk to or even independent, was like this incredible outlier.

They didn’t realize that the unanimity that they thought was there, you know, was a myth. And then the third one that I think is really interesting is the. This is what Irving Yanis calls it, the self appointed mind guards. So, and that’s like the expert class. So groupthink is a term that was coined after the Bay of Pigs disaster, and then it came up again after the Challenger explosion. It’s a psychology term to describe when you have intelligent people, groups of intelligent people that somehow zombie walk into like, total madness. And only in retrospect do we look back and say, like, what on earth were they thinking? Right, yeah.

And so part of it, again, is that illusion of unanimity or belief in the moral superiority, like, we’re doing God’s work here. And then another big one, as I mentioned, is the self appointed mind guards thinking, well, we’re the experts, right? And so at universities, especially in New England universities, the liberal conservative faculty ratio is 28 to 1. And so you have all these experts in the journalism field, all of these areas that were platforming and defining. Who are the experts? Fauci, all these people, they were the mind guards of medicine, of ethics, of social standards, and even my own field, psychology, it skews beyond heavily liberal.

So anyway, yes, thanks, Sarah. And then they also created this bubble because they shut down voices like mine to make sure that, you know, because I was a bad influence. So how did they abandon the notion of free speech and the idea of hearing opposite views? I mean, maybe what you just explained was how they did it, but they had to ignore, you know, some of the basic tenets that we knew was behind civilization. So they were ignoring voices like mine who thought a little and yours who thought a little different because of their superiority. And that led to this, I mean, this incredible echo chamber.

Totally. Yeah. So what they believed, as you said, was their moral superiority. And, you know, you bring up an interesting point, Sarah, as far as, like, how could they abandon the First Amendment, you know, just so easily? And I’m thinking of, you know, you’ve seen those clips. I think it was John Kerry who, you know, talked about like. Like, it’s so pesky because with all the Internet media now, people can just say what they want. And it’s hard to. And then there was that CEO of npr, and she’s like, there’s footage of her in a TED Talk saying, like, oh, the First Amendment is one of our, you know, biggest difficulties or whatever.

So I just. I think that it just shows how easy it is to get caught up. And this can happen to anybody. It could happen to me. It could happen to anybody. Where we can get so caught up in our own ideas that we must remember first principles. And that First Amendment is literally also one of those first principles that we have to just steadfastly honor. Even if in our own minds we think we’re right or we think everybody else agrees with us. Well, don’t you think it’s a problem, like, with certain religions? And every religion does this.

Christians or Muslims or whatever, they. They’ll pick one aspect and one teaching, like in the Bible or the Quran or what one teaching. And then they ignore the other ones. And then they put that way out of perspective. And then by focusing on just that element, they actually violate all the other teachings. You see that in religion, sometimes, you know, the kind of some. Some cultish sex of it or. And sometimes it encapsulates the. A larger group of societies totally. And, of course, that can happen. They say there is no perfect, you know, church or synagogue or mosque because they’re all full of sinners.

Right. Myself included. Right. So we’re all fallible. And, you know, that’s exactly why we should not lean into our own understanding and, you know, kind of get on our own personal high horse or hobby horse of, whether it be climate change or, you know, whatever issue that we just personally feel really that we have it. Right. One of the things I do in the book is I list out a bunch of things historically, like Galileo was jailed for saying, you know, that the Earth orbits the sun, or my own profession, we used to do lobotomies on people, or there’s, you know, physicians testifying to Congress that cigarettes are really just fine.

Right. And so no matter how much we believe in the moment that what we’re saying is true, we just have to understand that there’s something bigger than us. And even though we can all have a different religion, we must all agree on the First Amendment. We must all understand that we’re operating under the Constitution. Well, I think they also weaponize phrases. You know, some of this might be on purpose, too, because I, you know, like, I was kicked off patreon. I had 1800 paying subscribers. It was a big part of how I supported myself and they kicked me off around the same time and they accused me of being a QAnon follower, which I, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a QAnon follower, but I wasn’t.

I interviewed a few people about what is QAnon, but I wasn’t a. I mean I did. That wasn’t me. But they, they categorized me like that and then deleted my income saying I was that without any. It’s like, well, how can you just accuse somebody of something? So there was some weaponization and some other things going on at that time to recategorize people as things that they weren’t so they could use it as an account excuse to take down people that were saying things that were politically inconvenient. Totally, totally. I mean we’ve even seen now whether it be like Mark Hauck, you know, the pro life activists, like being arrested in his home, you know, there’s all kind.

Or the Latin Catholic mass people that were, you know, being targeted or moms going to school board meetings, you know, that were literally getting onto FBI watch lists and you know, as you said, I mean so what? Even if you were like into QAnon, like so what? You know. That’s right, exactly. That’s the whole point. So why. Yeah, yeah, now people can say that a private company has the right, you know, to make those kinds of choices. And I don’t know what Patreon, it wasn’t a Patreon thing, it was a dictate from. There was a federal law enforcement because GoDaddy took down my wall website as well at the same time.

And it was the federal crimes division of GoDaddy and the employees were like, what the hell? We never do this. And they fought there. They helped me get my domain name back. So this was a targeted attack with inside the government. I’m always looking for products that really help us as we age and make us feel better. So many of us are having suffering from energy brain fog. You know, we’re getting older so we have issues, you know, that just come with age. And we’re taking all these supplements and we’re, you know, I’m always talking about peptides and things that make you feel better, give you more energy.

And one of the overlooked areas is making sure that you have the blood flow to get the oxygen and nutrients to all the cells in your body and to your brain. And there’s a product called blood flow 7 and it is amazing. It increases your nitric oxide by 230% and it opens up your arteries by 62% which really improves blood flow and, and it gets those nutrients into your cells. It helps with brain fog, it helps with energy, it helps with anti aging, it helps with maintaining a healthy heart. If you’re interested in this, go to bloodflow7.com Sarah or use the link below.

That is exactly what I was thinking of as well because now we know that the Biden administration did by their executive’s own complaint, push and pressure executives at Meta, YouTube and Twitter. And it sounds like as well at places like GoDaddy. And so you’re going exactly what I wanted to talk about, which is that, you know, there’s a difference between free speech and I talk about both in the book free speech as a social pressure issue and like how to speak up and deal with, you know, free speech, even if it’s not a legal issue. But you know, it’s more just, just a social pressure issue.

But there is also an important legal issue which is what we have seen where the government starts getting involved, which is totally inappropriate. And then that does feed exactly into that illusion of unanimity when suddenly there are no websites that are saying, you know, what you were saying and people are literally being silenced at the behest of the government. That’s a whole other level of twisted. Well, yeah, because it really, it creates this illusion. Now if you look at the Europe, I mean some of the countries in Europe have gone off the deep end. I mean we, as bad as it was here, they are going after people for tweet, you know, doing a tweet and arresting people for that.

How? You know, we saw the violence that erupted here because of this bubble illusion. What are we going to see there? I mean, I think they’re like a powder keg. Yeah, I mean that’s a whole other situation. And again, it highlights the role of the government because what they’ve also done there is they have refugee in and elected in a whole bunch of people that come from a culture that does not necessarily prioritize free speech, that may even openly say like our real goal here is, I mean you brought up kind of like all religions type thing have, you know, the ability to over focus on a certain clause or whatever.

And that’s true. But there is a big difference, I think between a Judeo Christian religion and an Islamic religion in that there’s nothing at all in a Judeo Christian text that in any way advocates for a theocracy. It’s not even a goal of the religion. Like part of the whole point of the Religion is that we have free will and it talks about, you know, demanding the welfare of your nation, but it doesn’t say anything about any kind of forced conversion or any kind of hostility, you know, or second class citizenship concepts for nonbelievers. And so since you brought up religion and then we’re also talking about government, I do think it’s important to distinguish and look at the way that different religions function within government when it comes to free speech.

Well, we have a representative in the area that I’m close to, Ilhan Omar, and she is from Somalia and she openly talks about Somalia being her first priority. And, and you know, she’s there about censoring and shutting down voices that don’t agree with them. And they have a different approach. They don’t believe in the same principles of what our country was founded on. So we have some of that going on here. I mean, fortunately there’s more people that still believes in the, in the principles of our constitution. But people like her would be very welcome to, you know, shred that document and not follow it.

Right, which is why it is so important that I want people. My goal of writing this book was to galvanize people, everyday people kind of even outside of, you know, the complicated legal issues, even though that’s important too, but just to galvanize everyday people to stand up for what they believe in. Because you know, it’s an interesting thing. People who tend to be on the left have, what’s more of psychologists note as a collectivist mindset and this has been true for decades of personality types and serving. And people on the right have more of an individualist mindset.

And so what that means is that people on the right have more of a don’t tread on me attitude like you do you, I’ll do me. And the problem with that is that people on the right can just sit idly by while their neighbors organize in wake ways that could be very detrimental, like kind of even like a communist type of government structure. And until it’s like burning down the conservative’s house, they may not really react to it or they may say, hey look, I’m not really a high conflict type of person. If you want to say what you say, I’m not going to really get involved.

I’m just going to quote, be nice. And what does it really hurt if I just hold my tongue? And I see that from personal. Like I said, I lived in New York City for 20 years. I did very well in academia and business and media, all areas in New York that tend to lean super heavily left. And so I did not see the harm in just staying silent about stuff. And I want people to understand that it actually is important for society and for your own mental health to speak up if you don’t like, you know, you brought up, you know, Minnesota and the Somalian immigrant situation and questions about, you know, the fraud that may be going on there, or questions about like, hey, all these people were imported by refugee status, but do they actually really endorse our constitution and does it make sense for us to continue to keep them here? Are there any remedies that might be available even within our constitution to deal with this? Those are not popular things, things to say.

And if you’re not like a high conflict person, which I’m not, I would not have seen the value of going around kind of stirring it up, talking about that. But now that I really have come to understand that free speech is important to your cognitive process. When we speak language is one of our primary tools for organizing and understanding our own positions and feelings, as well as for exchanging information with others and forming social bonds with others. And when, when we stop that because it’s impolite or not politically correct, we are bottlenecking ourselves and our society.

And I just don’t think people realize it. I didn’t realize it. And so that’s why I’m really trying to shout it from the mountaintops now. Well, and I think that those of us who are independent minded or libertarian leaning or we want people to have freedom, we want you to have your freedom. Because I want my freedom. And so because of that, I don’t want to tread on you, just like I don’t want you to tread on me. And then it gets to a point where they start treading on you and we have to do something.

Yeah, you’re saying do it before they start. Look for the signs that they’re going to tread on you. Right. Which is kind of counter again to the individualist mindset to be kind of having your nose in your neighbor’s business. Right. But you’re absolutely right because of, you know, and it’s not either, like good or bad. You know, I mean, a collectivist could talk about many of the positive qualities of collectivism. I don’t think that they would even feel like this is not giving them a fair shake. Like, this is just, it’s just true. People on the left tend to be collectivists, even the term commune.

Right. From communism, like it’s all about the collective. And so you’re Right. They will tread on you and they’ll do it in an organized way. And especially once they start getting elected into office, as we’re seeing in Europe, as you mentioned, to the point where now if there’s footage of a man who just simply like, is showing all this footage of Palestinian flags and saying, hey, I’m not comfortable with this, and I’m not even saying it should or shouldn’t be okay for people to fly those Palestinian flags. But the issue is that he cannot make a video and talk about his feelings of not being comfortable with it without being arrested.

And I believe that has to do with the fact that many Islamists, whether they’re Muslim or not, even just simply Islamists, are being elected into power there. And that is a collectivist, theocratic minded culture and religion. It just is. It’s literally in their text. Yeah. And so you don’t. They, they want to, but they come from a point of they think it’s better and superior. So controlling you, if you’re not doing what the collective wants, controlling you is the superior right thing to be do. Right. Right. They, it’s, it’s good for you. Right. For your own good, they’re going to stop you from, you know, reading those books and having those conversations and for the good of society, Sarah, they’re going to yank you off the air.

Right. They thought it was a public service to do this. Right? That’s right. Getting rid of me is a public service to the community. Yeah. All those masters of public health people, man. I mean, like, those are. And frankly, even my own field. Right. The psychologists, the quote, mental health experts. I mean, we’re the good people who brought you the transgender nonsense. You know, like, I cannot believe the nonsense, truly. That’s coming out in my own profession. And it’s shocking to me that more of us are not talking about the mental health benefits of free speech.

Because honestly, it is like Psychology 101 to talk about taking your interior life and putting it into words and how that helps on a cognitive level, helps on an emotional regulation level. It’s been shown to reduce amygdala activity and, you know, reduce cortisol levels and increase social bonds when you’re authentic with people and they’re authentic with you and social support is good for mental health. Like, this is obvious stuff. And it’s the same people that want to shut people down for, quote, hate speech and bullying that also want to talk about being a champion of mental health.

And so I’m here to interrupt that narrative. Well, what do you Think I’m going to get to the universities. I think, I think we’ve created almost a tier, like, what do you call it, a caste system. The universities that want to bring in money, they’re, they’re putting forth, they’re kind of making people get these degrees. And the degree itself is becoming more important than merit in people’s abilities. And we used to, when we built this country, it was never like that. And now these universities are taking over and it’s become. The degree in. Of itself shouldn’t be a factor.

It’s what you do with it and how good you are. We’ve kind of screwed up the whole system with these. And then what does it do to the psyche of people when that’s the kind of environment you create? No, yeah, totally. I mean, and it’s again, it’s so ironic because universities always talk about how they care so much about mental health, right? They have, you know, puppy, puppy petting rooms or, you know, whatever, because they say, we’ll go to any length, you know, for our students. Mental health. Mental health, right. But when you simply say, well, how about, you know, bringing Charlie Kirk on campus, right? Or, you know, how about bringing Michael Knowles on campus or, you know, Ann Coulter on campus, right? How about free speech on campus? All of a sudden, you know, the walls go up, but you’re getting to something else too, I think, which is really important, which is that the degree, the college degree or master’s degree has become some kind of a passport into corporate America, even if it has literally nothing to do with, you know, your, your skill set.

Like, I mean, the whole underwater basket weaving cliche, right? Like that there’s, you know, so many of these, you know, pseudo degrees. And meanwhile, what is, I quote some statistics about this in the book too, the students feel pressure to parrot the professor’s talking points. And I went through this myself as well. The students feel pressure to parrot the professor’s politically correct talking points lest their grade should be damaged. And the whole point of them being there is to get, you know, good grades and show that they can perform well in that type of environment. And so when you then start parroting and pretending to have a certain mind set for too long, if you get too good at pretending it, you start to internalize it and absorb it.

And so that’s why if you have, you know, listeners that have a college student or whatever, I would encourage them as well to consider a copy of my book. Can I say that why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly. Because it not only unpacks the psychology benefits, the emotional, social and cognitive benefits of free speech, but it also has a lot of techniques, like practical, step by step techniques for speaking up in difficult situations as well as for listening in difficult situations. Because, you know, it’s true that we can all say legitimately that we feel like we’ve been suppressed, but it’s sometimes also we can get so upset about that that we can forget how to listen as well.

And so dialogue requires both listening and speaking up. So the book does cover both. Well, no, that’s great. And getting people to actually stop thinking that everything you think is right. I taught entrepreneurship at a university and one of the things that was, you know, I made it clear to the students that the people who are the most successful entrepreneurs actually come out of the, that are more artists. Artists are more successful at being an entrepreneur who are not trained in business than people who went through business school because they aren’t confined. But if you think about it from a college standpoint, those people that go through these degree programs, they think they’re the ones that have.

They create this gateway of who can be successful in not. And our whole country was based on this entrepreneurial spirit of, you know, getting things done. And we’re crushing that. And it’s kind of the same thing with being a communist kind of idea. You’re crushing free spirit, crushing innovation, crushing these ideals because you think you’re superior and everybody has to follow. That’s why communism falls on its own weight because that whole entrepreneurial spirit dies. So true. Yeah, I actually, I have a PhD now, of course, in clinical psychology, and I graduated summa cum laude from Columbia.

And I’m saying that only because the next thing I’m going to say is that I was a high school dropout and I did not get a college degree until I was 29. Yeah, it is a good thing. And I think it’s the only reason I was able to go through all of the, that quote, education without like losing my common sense, you know, because I think you’re right. There’s absolutely. I mean, it’s even one thing to just crush a person’s creative spirit, but it’s a whole other thing to then fill it up and replace it with a bunch of leftist nonsense where people get obsessed about their over privilegedness or the patriarch or, you know, how oppressed they are or how guilty they should be, and then they’re just learning a bunch of nonsense.

Like I want to like tell them, some of these people that you can’t have it both ways that we need student loan forgiveness because the colleges, you know, charged you too much and didn’t give you enough. But yet we’re still also supposed to respect your degree. Right? It’s one or it’s the other. That’s a good point. I haven’t heard that point. That’s really great. Yeah. Why should you have. If, if you have a good degree that can make money, you shouldn’t have a problem paying off your student loans. Yeah, yeah, it’s one or the other. And you know, to your point as well, entrepreneurs do tend to be more on the right.

They do politically tend to be more independent, politically, libertarian, conservative, you know, than leftist. It is. It’s just, it’s a matter of. Matter of being a little bit more free thinking, which is great. And I think we need the left and the right. I don’t have a hostility to the left for sure. Yeah, no, yeah. It’s just, it’s for whatever reason, it’s the issue of anything being militant and it literally has become militant. It’s this uptick in violence and it is the confusion of words and violence. Right. So we’re going to take away your free speech because, you know, your words are hate speech and bullying.

That’s the part I have an issue with. Not, you know, because somebody has a different opinion about welfare or immigration or, you know, whatever other social, even financial issues. We can all have our differences. It’s the issue of stifling people’s right to speak and sometimes even at gunpoint. That. That is my issue as a psychologist, sometimes at gunpoint. But isn’t there an. Also an issue if you get to the point where don’t tread on me comes to the point where you’re so self absorbed. Absorbed that you don’t care about the general welfare of your country or your community? That out of balance can be a problem too.

Right? It’s all about balance. Well, it can, but I would just say that conservatives are the biggest givers to charity. Right. So they may be. They have a don’t tread on me mindset, but that really applies to the government and to people telling them what to do. That doesn’t mean that they’re selfish necessarily, Charlie. Absolutely, because that’s what I say. I’m a libertarian, but I’m not extreme libertarian where I don’t care about it. You know, I’m not going to put rules in place where it’s just about me. It’s about. Yeah, I just want everything to balance and I.

In order for People to thrive and to have entrepreneurship and have all these things, you can’t cut that off. You have to allow people to have some free will. I mean, that’s what Christianity is about, free will. You brought that up earlier. If we create so many rules and things and not let people talk, you take away someone’s free will. Yeah, you do. And again, these rights are endowed to us by our Creator. And so when people interfere with your free speech rights, they’re not just interfering with your government rights, they’re interfering with your spiritual rights.

And again, as a psychologist, I want to remind people what I said at the beginning, which is, is that psychology comes from the Greek root psyche, which does mean spirit. And so when we compel speech or prohibit speech outside of the obvious things like, you know, telling someone to go pick up a gun and shoot somebody, like, obviously that’s not just like a free speech thing. That’s, you know, involving other types of crimes. But if we, if we inhibit people’s just simple freedom of expression, because especially of the way our Constitution is framed, we’re really interfering with them under a deep spiritual level which directly pertains to their psychology and, I believe, to their mental health.

Well, you are a breath of fresh air. I gotta tell you. This has been a. I really enjoyed this conversation. Where can people get a copy of your book? Thank you, Sarah. I enjoyed this conversation too. And they can go to free speech today.com, that’s FreeSpeechToday.com and if they do get the book, I would love to love if, you know, you can send me a screenshot of your book receipt or whatever else, because I want to invite people to like a free speech discussion group or something. I’m super excited about all this, so I hope that they’ll do that to go to free speech today.com and connect with me further.

Thank you so much for joining the program. Thank you, Sarah. Sa Sam.
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