Approval To Speak Freely | Konstantin Kisin | Modern Wisdom Podcast 235

If you allow politicians to, to conduct themselves in this way and to delegitimize the democratic process, which both, uh, sides have done, uh, but particularly in my opinion, the, the Democrats in America and the left in this country as well, then what you end up with is a situation where we are now, where 36% of both Democrats and Republicans feel, uh, that violence is justified to achieve your political ends. So a third of both supporter groups are quite happy to use violence, which has gone up from 8% about two years ago. So if you've got that situation, the election is in dispute, both parties are undermining the democratic process and encouraging their followers essentially to feel like violence is a way of resolving this issue, not a good recipe.

(wind blows) The stakes have been raised now, haven't they, based on the Darren Grimes incident? I'm now culpable for what you say, so please go gently on me or I'm gonna be in prison, and that, and you'll be in a gulag.

Well, I'm gonna struggle to say anything now, aren't I?

(laughs)

Because I, because I apparently am so ridiculously controversial with my very mainstream opinions that, uh, yeah, we're both in trouble.

If we sit in silence for the next hour, that is one surefire way that we can't get in trouble.

That could offend people who really wanted to listen to us talk though, and they might report us to the police, and, uh, yeah, you never know, man. But if you remember, you came to see my show in Edinburgh last year, and this is exactly what I was talking about. Should it be illegal to have offensive opinions? And here we are, and essentially the police are investigating people, not even for their own opinions, for stuff someone else said on their show that they broadcast. Um, and, uh, you know, you add to that the response to the pandemic and how that's affecting our civil liberties as well, uh, it, it's not a great time.

No, not at all. So can you give us a brief overview and take us through what we've learned from the Darren Grimes situation, in your opinion?

Well, so for people who don't know, Darren Grimes is a, a conservative right-wing commentator. He, I think is, uh, rather hated by, uh, many people on my side of the referendum de- debate, people who voted Remain, as I did. Uh, a lot of people who are sort of very, uh, obsessed with that issue, in a way that I'm not, uh, felt that because he was part of the campaign to make that happen, he was investigated three times by the Electoral Commission for his involvement in that. Uh, so he's got a lot of enemies. Uh, I think that's part of it, for sure. Uh, but basically, he had Dr. David Starkey, controversial historian, who made some what I thought were ill-judged comments. And I know David, we've had him on the show, he didn't say anything like that on our show. Uh, but on Darren's, he did make some, uh, controversial comments, which I, as I say, I thought were all ill-judged. Um, and this happened a few months ago. There was a big furore. Dr. David Starkey was properly canceled for it. Um, he apologized. Eventually, Darren apologized for, for not challenging him on what he said. And that was sort of the end of the matter. Uh, I think a lot of people felt that e- even though I th- I think many people felt that he, it was appropriate that David Starkey suffered some consequences for what he said, uh, equally, many people felt that maybe the consequences were quite harsh. Uh, whe- wherever you sit on that, I respect both views on that personally. Um, uh, and, uh, that was sort of the end of the matter for, for most people, I think, until we found out last week as we record this, that the police had invited... Initially, we learned that it was Darren Grimes and then also then Darre- uh, David Starkey had both been invited for what is euphemistically called a voluntary interview. Uh, interesting it's called that, because if you don't attend, you get arrested.