The Big Answer

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The Amazon blurb says that The Progressive Woke Machine—from outrage mobs and online censorship to activists masquerading as journalists—is waging war against the last free thinkers in the world. This book is both an explanation of the current political upheaval and your guide to surviving it.

America, and the West in general, is in the midst of an identity crisis that's headed towards an outright revolution. The progressive left, once the advocates of free expression and individual autonomy, now undermine these values at every turn. This uncomfortable truth has turned moderates and true liberals into the politically homeless class.

The progressive left, once the advocates of free expression and individual autonomy, now undermine these values at every turn. This uncomfortable truth has turned moderates and true liberals into the politically homeless class

In response, Dave Rubin launched his political talk show The Rubin Report in 2015 as a laboratory for anyone trying to make sense of our shifting political landscape. He discusses the most controversial issues of the day with people he both agrees and disagrees with, including those who have been dismissed, deplatformed, and even despised before they've had a chance to speak for themselves. Based on his own story as well as his experiences from the front lines of the free speech wars, this book will inspire you to make up your own mind about what you believe on any issue, and show you how to:

• Check your facts, not your privilege: No matter your gender, economic class, or level of education, you're still allowed to have opinions (for now!). Rubin separates facts from feelings, dispelling today's most pervasive myths, like the wage gap, gun violence, racism, affirmative action, climate change, hate crimes, and more.
• Learn to stand your ground: A difference of opinion should not be a deal-breaker for any relationship, professional or personal. Sadly, these days, it often is. Rubin will show you that losing a few friends is a small price to pay for standing up for what you believe in--and why choosing an authentic path is ultimately worth it.
• Defend liberalism while you still can: Time is running out to defend individual rights, limited government, and free expression. Rubin provides a roadmap for true classically liberal principles regardless of your party affiliation, and shows you why freedom is impossible without them.
  
  Rubin provides a roadmap for true classically liberal principles regardless of your party affiliation, and shows you why freedom is impossible without them

  Don't Burn This Book empowers you with time-tested and common-sense principles that can turn the tide against authoritarians on both sides in this increasingly polarized world. This book is a rallying cry for anyone who wants to live freely, which is quickly becoming the most radical belief you could have. See:

  • The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power
  • A Dream Deferred
  • Flowers From the Garden of Evil: Everyone's Guide to the Elements of Authoritarian Dogma
  • OTHER HELPFUL GUIDANCE SOURCES
  • Good News and Bad News
  • The Forest Through The Trees
  • Authoritative and Democratic Parenting Programs
  
  
  According to the Liberal Narrative, If You Don't Believe the Garbage Coming from the Pieholes of the Crazed Woke Mob, You Are Evil and Need to Be Cancelled
  
  First there were cavemen who saw things that scared them and were beyond their understandiing, so they invented Gods

  First there were cavemen who saw things that scared them and were beyond their understandiing. So they invented Gods in control of storms, lightning, and volcanoes. People learned languages millenia later, so now they could pray to these Gods to keep the scary forces from hurting them. Most of the time the storms, lightning, and volcanoes didn't hurt them, which "proved" their prayers worked, and it "proved" the God was real. It wasn't long before shamans, priests, prophets, and witchdoctors decided to be the middlemen between Gods and the common people. It was a position of prestige and power, which they liked, so they got as many people as possible under their influence. Some priests were quacks manipulating the masses for their own selfish ends. Others had dreams which they interpreted as the Gods appointing them to their role. These were legitimate "religious" leaders.

  
  The various religions fought against one another (e.g., the Crusades), since any other beliefs not one's own were seen as heresy and blasphemy
  
  
  Churches, temples and mosques evolved as the places of worship

  As languages developed more, writing evolved, and before you knew it the priests began writing holy books, which became the guides for the behavior of followers. Authoritarianism was power and influence from God to priest to follower, and various punishments were doled out for offending the Gods and the scriptures in the holy books. Sacrifices on altars, burning at the stake, crucifixion, casting offenders over cliffs or into volcanoes, and floggings or amputations were all used as punishments. Churches, temples and mosques evolved as the places of worship, and the various religions fought against one another, since any other beliefs not one's own were seen as heresy and blasphemy. And this is where the Leftists are now—seeing conservatives as evil blasphemers in their political correctness religion which sees all non-PC people as evil. Somehow politics and religion have gotten all tangled up together in the gullible and naive minds of the elites, the haters, the leftists, the Antifa, and the social justice warriors. But authoritarianism is not the only context for prophets and sages:

  
  Somehow politics and religion have gotten all tangled up together in the gullible and naive minds of the elites, the haters, the leftists, the Antifa, and the social justice warriors
  
  
  And this is where the Leftists are now—seeing conservatives as evil blasphemers in their political correctness religion
  
  
  Authoritarianism was power and influence from God to priest to follower, and various punishments were doled out for offending the Gods and the scriptures in the holy books, such as witch burning

  Religion is a system that filters one's perceptions of the world so that the same words can seem to say one thing to an authoritarian and something else to a democratically-oriented person. The democratic radicalism of Jesus has gotten turned on its head: Note that a religion that preached love, peace, poverty, and democracy became one that Calvinistically condoned wealth (which was deserved only by the predestined elect—once again a power grab), slavish authoritarianism, and unending slaughter. In highlighting Jesus from the wrong perspective—suffering and death and guilt, authoritarians have insulted a lifetime that was devoted to the spread of compassionate, democratic, religious ideas.

  
  The churches twisted these suffering and death and guilt messages so they could be used to exploit the people and irreversibly lock in the power of the churches and their leaders—just look at the Pope and the incredible power of the Catholic Church

  The churches twisted these messages so they could be used to exploit the people and irreversibly lock in the power of the churches and their leaders. Similarly, the crazed woke mob twisted the messages of liberalism until it was all about political correctness, anti-white racism, hatred for nonconformists and conservatives, and leftist extremism in order to lock in the power of the liberals and their leaders. The context for the liberal narrative is guilt about slavery, but those watching carefully learned this extreme compassion for blacks was merely the sham window dressing utilized by liberal hypocrites for power grabs and manipulation. Power for themselves is the ultimate goal in both cases, not racial justice, but if you tell them you see through their counterfeit sham they turn red, get hysterical, scream at you, and they may become violent. No one likes to be exposed as the phoneys they are.

  
  This is how people used to debate before the woke puritanical fascists came into power
  
  
  Here a Republican just told this woke PC fanatic that he didn't agree with her radical woke ideas—she didn't take it well!
  
  
  This is how the woke debate the non-woke in today's world—gone are the civilized debates of old
  
  
  The democratic radicalism of Jesus has gotten turned on its head: Note that a religion that preached love, peace, poverty, and democracy become one that Calvinistically condoned wealth (which was deserved only by the predestined elect), slavish authoritarianism, and unending slaughter
  
  
  The last thing the liberals want is thinking people. They want conformists that hear about the liberal narrative through the thorough indoctrination they get in high school and college, after which they believe the extreme, ugly, racist dogma they're taught. They end up as ignorant fools unable to think
  
  The Last Thing the Liberals Want Is Thinking People—They Want Indoctrinated Conformists

  Our kids are not taught to reason independently so they can develop their thinking skills. Instead, school teaches them to be dependent on authorities. The last thing the liberals want is thinking people. They want conformists that hear about the liberal narrative through the thorough indoctrination they get in high school and college, after which they believe the extreme, ugly, racist dogma they're taught. They end up as ignorant fools unable to think who run around being mindless echoes of the dogma they were taught. Said dogma oozes political correctness propaganda featuring such ugly gems as whites are victimizers and blacks are victims and the Founders ought to be flushed down the toilet as they were all evil slavery lovers—much like today's white supremicist, racist conservatives. Of course, this displays breathtaking ignorance, since it was always Democrats, not Republicans, that were behind slavery, the Civil War, the KKK, Jim Crow laws and resistance to integration and civil rights.

  
  It was always Democrats, not Republicans, that were behind slavery, the Civil War, the KKK, Jim Crow laws and resistance to integration and civil rights
  
  
  Liberals believe the Founders ought to be flushed down the toilet as they were all evil slavery lovers, which is not true at all

  Rubin says that "Learn how to spot fake news: So much of this hatred comes from our deeply corrupt mainstream media. Activists pretending to be journalists have helped spread fake news more than Donald Trump ever could do on his own, so we'll look at how to spot the lies. You'll learn that the blue-check Twitterati at Vox, BuzzFeed, and HuffPo release ideologically driven articles presented as legitimate journalism. You'll no longer believe that just because the staff at The New York Times and CNN once did their jobs they also do it now. Instead, you will become a discerning consumer of news, a person who challenges their beliefs and understands that if a story fits a narrative too well, then it's probably just propaganda."

  
  Leftists have transformed into a baying mob of hysterical puritans—a feral gang that sows division through identity politics and encourages societal tribes to rank themselves in a pecking order of 'oppression'

  "On July 7, [2020] Harper’s magazine published a powerful 'Letter on Justice and Open Debate' signed by 153 prominent authors, artists and intellectuals. After an obligatory shot at President Trump, the letter makes the case against the growing censorship known as 'cancel culture.' . . . There is no mercy or forgiveness in the progressive left. Without the realism that mercy takes into account, and without the freedom that forgiveness makes possible, there can be no restoration of true justice, and no freedom at all when the scorched earth warriors have finished. . . . The ruthlessness enters at this point. The left has a catalogue of 'sins' to satisfy the most zealous Inquisitor, but no forgiveness for sin. It castigates people for anything construed as racism, sexism and homophobia, and for those accused there is no way back. The Twitter mob is merciless, the justice of the agitators is insatiable, and those deemed sinners and their statues must fall. Yesterday’s 'Let justice be done, though the earth perish' has become today’s 'burn it down.'" (Source: Harper's letter against 'cancel culture' is welcome and overdue, Os Guinness, Washington Times)

  Oil fires set in Kuwait during the Gulf War by Iraqi forces are an ugly example of scorched earth policies; much like the hateful scorched earth policies of the 'woke' who gain no social justice from their Inquisition but immense amounts of hatred expression and shaming—which are entirely destructive actions with zero justice but loads of virtue signalling
  
  
  The left has a catalogue of 'sins' to satisfy the most zealous Inquisitor, but no forgiveness for sin. It castigates people for anything construed as racism, sexism and homophobia, and for those accused there is no way back
  
  The Left Is No Longer Liberal—It's Now Puritanical Fascist Authoritarianism

  Rubin continues "the left is no longer liberal." "Once upon a time, the left truly was liberal. Liberals used to champion the rights of women, black people, and gays. They fought for all marginalized groups to be equal under the law. This was authentic liberalism based on individual rights and it was a damn good thing. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Trust me, this is not some random assumption I've pulled out of thin air. It's a sober conclusion I've reluctantly reached after years of watching my old 'team' transform into a baying mob of hysterical puritans—a feral gang that sows division through identity politics and encourages societal tribes to rank themselves in a pecking order of 'oppression.' The left's vision is a new social order that despises our hard-fought freedoms (eroding the First Amendment in favor of hate-speech laws)."

  
  The woke puritanical fascists use the ugly strategies of brute force: violence, censorship, character assassination, smear campaigns, doxing, trolling, deplatforming, and online witchhunts to punish offenders

  The woke puritanical fascists deny scientific fact. They champion feelings instead of arriving at truths through thinking, debating, and logic. The woke puritanical fascists use the ugly strategies of brute force: violence, censorship, character assassination, smear campaigns, doxing, trolling, deplatforming, and online witch hunts. Such nasty actions have the evil goal of leaving people fired and broken without hope of paying back their tormenters.

  The hypocritical woke fascists, true authoritarians at heart, would only indulge in discussions to indulge in character assassination and smearing, for the purposes of self defense. When a non-liberal opinion came their way, they made little attempt to logically argue and debate to arrive at a greater truth. They would smear the speaker—avoiding the subject at hand—and consider themselves to have won after clever character assassination made their opponent less than human because his ideas were evil and failed to kiss the ring of the PC gods and failed to conform to the liberal narrative. Classes like Logic, Civics, Ethics, and Debate should have taught these ignorant fools who indulged in name-calling to NOT avoid looking at the issues at hand. This avoidance of debating was self defense because true discussion would have imploded their entire fallacious worldview, so they avoided this embarrassment by childish means.

  
  Progressivism, as it is being practiced by the woke, is extreme regressivism. A standard debating tactic is to shout down one's opponent and call him racist plus all the other evil words in PC vernacular. The woke are simply toddlers having tantrums

  Rubin cited the totalitarian, religious nature of being a woke fascist as being a shock to him and other former lefties. But it was true—the woke have a religion called political correctness and anyone who doesn't share these PC views is not just wrong but evil, racist, and ignorant as well. Progressivism is the least progressive it has ever been, in the 21st century. Progressivism, as it is being practiced by the woke, is extreme regressivism. A standard debating tactic is to shout down one's opponent and call him racist plus all the other evil words in PC vernacular. The woke are simply toddlers having tantrums. The problem with the "woke" is that they need to wake up to reality—their self delusions make Trump look like the most together guy around.

  See Other Books About Fake News and Propaganda
  • Media Control, Second Edition: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
  • Propaganda and the Public Mind
  • Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
  • Propaganda
  • The Propaganda Project
  • Media Sexploitation
  • Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies (CBC Massey Lecture)
  • Mass Control: Engineering Human Consciousness
  • The True Story of Fake News: How Mainstream Media Manipulates Millions
  • Fake News: How Propaganda Influenced the 2016 Election, A Historical Comparison to 1930's Germany
  • The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote
  • Fake News in Real Context
  • American Pravda: My Fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News
  • Fighting Fake News!: Teaching Critical Thinking and Media Literacy in a Digital Age
  • Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies: How to Find Trustworthy Information in the Digital Age
  • Lies, Incorporated: The World of Post-Truth Politics
  • Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era
  • Post-Truth (MIT Press Essential Knowledge series)
  • Fake News and Alternative Facts: Information Literacy in a Post-Truth Era
  • The Truth Matters: A Citizen's Guide to Separating Facts from Lies and Stopping Fake News in Its Tracks
  
  Propaganda keeps us obedient, distracted, consuming, but never questioning the CW, the media, the authorities
  
  
  Notice that to most people, truth is truth, but to the mainstream media, it is whatever those in power need it to be—this is the influence of propaganda and pressure
  
  
  Notice that to most people, truth is truth, but to the mainstream media, it is whatever those in power need it to be—this is the influence of propaganda and pressure; i.e., Truth, R.I.P.
  
  Rubin Is the Right's Favorite Ex-Leftist

  "Now a self-described 'freethinking classical liberal' or 'old-school liberal,' he's become the right's favorite ex-leftist, an identity he uses to warn right-leaning audiences that the left will come to destroy all the freedoms they hold dear. He knows, he says, because he was one of them. . . . He argues that the disastrous and immoral US military intervention into Vietnam was good because 'our contribution secured much-needed freedoms.'" (Source: Dave Rubin is out of ideas, Anthony L. Fisher, Business Insider)

  Of course, it needs to be said that Rubin is totally wrong that the Vietnam War secured much-needed freedoms. It got countless thousands of Americans and Vietnamese into early graves for no other reason than corporate greed. It wrecked countless thousands of American lives who ended up disabled, homeless, or both.

  
  Vietnam War—a tragic waste of life, wealth, and the environment—but for what?!

  "The U.S. is not an imperialist country” is one of the foolish falsehoods in Rubin's book Don't Burn This Book. There are many. But he also spouts truth: his book is an anti–"social justice warrior" book that has told the critical truth that "campus activism and left-wing academics are ruining our country." As far back as 2013, the late socialist Mark Fisher was warning that online leftists were falling into a pattern where they were driven by a “priest’s desire to excommunicate and condemn, an academic-pedant’s desire to be the first in the crowd to spot a mistake, and a hipster’s desire to be one of the in-crowd.” (Source: Don’t Buy Dave Rubin’s Book, Matt McManus, Jacobin Magazine)

  
  Progressivism judges people based upon their skin color, gender, and sexuality, thus imagining them as competitors in an Oppression Olympics in which victimhood is virtue; blacks are victims and whites are victimizers is what colleges teach, even though it's blatant racism against whites

  ". . . the political philosophy of 'classical liberalism' which had been abandoned by 'the regressive left.' How? Well, the main factor seems to have been that the progressives became obsessed with group identity, while the classical liberals saw individual rights as paramount. 'Progressivism has traded a love of individual rights for paternalistic, insincere concern for the collective. It judges people based upon their skin color, gender, and sexuality, thus imagining them as competitors in an Oppression Olympics in which victimhood is virtue.'" (Source: On the Limits of Dave Rubin’s Cultural Politics, Oliver Traldi, National Review)