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Being Frank.
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We're the only way to be is Frank. Hello everyone, and welcome to being Frank. We're the only way to be, is Frank. I'm your host, Frankilborn, and I'd like to thank you for joining us on what we like to call the Intelligent Conversation Podcast, where no conversations out of bounds, in all points of view are welcome. Listeners are familiar that we record live to tape, and I give you the date so you have context and relevance. It is
the twenty fourth of September. Authoritarian regimes, dictators despots are often, but not always fools, But none is foolish enough to give prospective dissident writers free range to publish their judgments or follow their creative instincts. They know they do so at their own peril. They are not stupid enough to abandon control, overt or insidious over the media. Their methods include surveillance, censorship, arrest, even slaughter of those writers informing
and disturbing the public. Writers who are unsettling, calling into question, taking another deeper look, writers, journalists, essayists, bloggers, poets, playwrights can disturb the social oppression that functions like a coma on the population. A coma despots call peace, and they staunched the blood flow of war that hawks and profiteers thrilled to. That was peril Written by Tony Morrison, the Great Pulletzer Prize winner and Nobel Laureate, in two thousand
and eight. It certainly could have been, or maybe even should have been written today. Her voice would join the chorus of thousands, if not millions, of others who are railing against the Trump administration's policies regarding free speed in the First Amendment. This is the most serious installed on that freedom that I have experienced in my lifetime. However, it is certainly not the only time in history that powerful men in government had made the effort to control
the people by controlling their voices. And as for long has there been evil men trying to control our freedom of expression, there have been those who have been rising
in opposition to them. A mere handful include authors like Morrison, who had just mentioned, Saint Clair Lewis, James Baldwin, but also politicians like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, comedians like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, musicians like Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen, philosophers like Voltaire and Marshall mccluhan, educators like John Stuart Mill and Louis Brandeis, and even athletes my
like Muhammad al Lee and Bill Russell. On this edition of Being Frank, we will once again dissect the real meaning of the First Amendment and what it means to a truly free society. We'll also have some intelligent conversation on the impact of those I just mentioned, as well as others, and the continuing efforts to maintain that freedom.
Joining us once again frequent collaborator to Being Frank. I call him the renaissance Man because he's an author, composer, musician, businessman and full professor at Fordham School of Mass Media and Communication. A man I'm proud to call my friend, doctor Paul Levinson. Paul, thank you once again joining us on what is going to be a really important show.
Well, I'm especially glad to be here today, Frank. First, I'm always glad to be on your show, because Being Frank is indeed the only way to be But on a slightly more serious note. Today is the day after Jimmy Kimmel came back online to do his late night comedic show, and he spent the first half hour of that show talking about the very things we're going to
be talking about. And honestly, this is the first step, the first event in a long, long time that gives me a hope that we may be slowly beginning to turn around this almost sleep walk our country is doing down the road to fascism.
Well, and if you want to talk about that in greater detail, obviously it's huge news and the implications are what you said that important. But again, even though we've spoken about it many times, I think people still can't wrap their mind around the First Amendment. Well, you know what it is, what it can do, and what it can't do. I mean, there's this tug of war even within this situation, private versus public, government versus private for example, And it came up, and I do want to talk
about it in context. The whole late night scene, talk show scene is changing, and that was often used as a reason for these changes. I think that's a smoke screen, and we'll talk about that in more detail, but in order, Again, to put it in context. Let's talk a little bit more about the First Amendment. What are the most important things people should take from the First Amendment.
Well, first of all, the First Amendment is the most crucial of all our amendments. That's why it's first.
Yes, others wouldn't exist without.
The first exactly right. It sets up everything else in our democratic society. But the First Amendment is packed with a lot of different overlapping points. For example, people have the right to peaceably assemble. That part has nothing to do with speech or press directly or and the First Amendment speaks about the government not establishing a religion, and that also, you know, ultimately relates to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. But it's a separate part
of that First Amendment. So everyone, you know, if they haven't recently, you just sit down. You can get it online. Call up the First Amendment, in fact, call up the whole Bill of Rights. In fact, better yet, call up every amendment that has become part of our constitution, and that will give people a better idea of what the
First Amendment does. As far as the part of the First Amendment that directly addresses communication, you know, I've always been surprised that so many people have such a problem understanding it. I mean, yes, the language is slightly our hayek, you know, but basically what it's saying is crystal clear. The government in this case, the federal government cannot should not prohibit freedom of speech or the press. You can't
get much more direct than that. But unfortunately, as you and I have discussed many many times before, there are people who for reasons that I guess I can understand, But if you look at it another way, it's absurd to regulate radio, which is how the FCC came.
That's on the list.
Yeah, I mean, okay, what does a late night comedian do, whether it's Jimmy Kimmel, whether it's Stephen Colbert, whether it was Johnny Carson, whether it was Jack Parr. What did they all do? They talked, so Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. Well, these guys and women, they're talking online. And the other thing that they often do in a humorous way, but with a very serious undertone,
is they give their commentary, their satirical commentary on political developments. Now, presenting opinions in the press has been a part of the press since the first sheets rolled off the first printing presses. The press doesn't just report the facts and the news. It does mainly do that, but there are op ed pages, as in the New York Times. There are editorials in newspapers which vastly predate the op ed page.
So the other thing that the First Amendment says the federal government cannot interfere with, cannot obstruct in a crystal clear way. The other thing is the press, and in the pressure that the FCC put on in this case Disney ABC, and as we know this past summer we talked a little bit.
About that with Colbert.
Yeah, that basically was clearly an attempt to squelch speech and the press, crystal clear. The only question I have is why do so many people, and we should discuss this, have such a problem in understanding this. And I include among those many people Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who signed the Communications Act of nineteen thirty four into law which created the FCC. In the.
Interesting I want a little bit more detail, but pull within that, And also there's a theme here to It's part of it is because people don't understand the First Amendment. And I've been exposed to it. And it's interesting now on social media on the internet, if you click on one video, then you know you get a hundred of them. Well, I saw interest. There's there's a group that they're provocative.
They go out with a camera and they go on the sidewalk and they shoot video, just indiscriminately whatever, and almost invariably somebody comes up and has an issue with them doing it. I have not given you permission to do that, And then of course it spurs this debate. I don't need your permission, and they try to explain that this is it's done deliberately to highlight that you
have rights. Okay, you have a right to do that basically, and I think we need to talk about it in some detail on a personal level and get to it on the broader sense. Also that the law is interpreted is that if I can see it from a public space, I can photograph it, or I can write about it, and it cannot be stopped. Yet there are others who feel, well, that's an invasion of privacy, and so why does your right rise above mind towards privacy? But I know the
Supreme Court has supported the photographer in those cases. So twofold, it explained why it's important that they side on the side, if you will, of the photographer. And then also do why some people don't understand that these it's for their benefit as well, to promote freedom of expression, not only speech, and I think that's important, freedom of expression, which is a broader term. Your thoughts point well.
First of all, on the photography question, if you think about the nature of truth, and you think about the interest that a democracy has to have in terms of what is really happening. For example, if there is a charge that the police in any given city or street are abusing their powers preventing people from standing up and talking, you know, preventing people from walking here or there, if there were no photographer. And by the way, there weren't
any photographers back when the First Amendment was written. But the founding fathers in a way, we're looking towards the future, and they made this general statement and it pertains to all media. But nowadays and ever since there have been handy handheld cameras, the ability to photograph anything that's in the public has become really one of the bulworks basically our political system, one of the bulwarks of our democracy because it enables anyone not only to report what they're
seeing visually, but to provide a record of it. And by the way, police don't like being photographed. They've been known to basically take people's cameras away and basically step on them.
I'm amazed about how many private citizens do that as well. Paul I bet at times, Oh my god, for an innocent photo. I mean, why I was called a pedophile and all these horrible things for what, in my mind from the very beginning, was an innocent photograph and something that I was within my right to do. And I don't want to make this about me, but what I'm saying is I'm just so surprised that people just didn't get it. It's just an artistic expression.
Yeah. Well, the problem, you know, in general, is one would think that everyone owns their own image, but because of what I just said, that really has never been the case and really shouldn't be the case. That's why the courts are found over and over and over again that if you are in a public place, anyone can take your photograph. And you know what, that anyone owns your photograph, you don't have the right to your own image.
If you're in public, anyone who makes a recording of your image, they can do whatever they want with it. If you want to walk down the street start naked, and somebody takes your photograph and you're embarrassed by that, unfortunately you're in public, it's not considered an invasion of your privacy. If you want to be private and you don't want to wear any clothes, stay home, you.
Know, close too, because sidewalk they can actually photograph in the house. It's an interesting and certainly an argument where you can see both sides where you know, who would want to quote unquote invade someone's privacy, But the point being that generally speaking, that's not really the case, that's not the motivation.
Yeah, let me just say it's a complicated situation, and it doesn't have that much to do with Stephen Colbert basically being fired, you know, and it has nothing to do with Jimmy Kimmel being fired. And you know, it's a complicated situation. You know, some of our listeners may recall, and probably many people won't, that after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Jackie O. Nassas married Aristotlenassis and she spent
a lot of time on his island. Very rich guy, and there were people they didn't quite have drones back then, so talking about the late sixties, early seventies, but they had helicopters, you know. And there were photographers who would fly over the island and photographed Jackie when she was walking on the beach on what she thought was a private island, but in fact it was public and she
wasn't wearing any clothes. And when those photographs were published, the photographers and the magazines that published those photos were sued. And despite what we just were talking about, the courts found in favor of Jackie because they understandably felt bad for her, you know, JFK's widow. So I mean, it is a significant part of this overall discussion, but it's certainly not the most significant part of how the First Amendment and the rights to privacy play out.
Right again, I want to just bring it up in terms of context and the fact that it is such a broad thing and it is it's truly about expression, people finding the way to express themselves, and how important that is. So well, let's get back on the rail track here. We mentioned the SEC, the Federal Communications Commission, and its inception, Why was it conceived? Should it have been conceived? Do we still need it? Why do we need it?
Okay, so let's go back to the nineteen twenties. That's when radio became a mass medium. It was invented in effect by Markconi some twenty years before that. And one of the problems that arose, especially in big cities, is everyone on their grandparent wanted I've created a radio station,
and there's only so much space in the spectrum, you know. Eventually, obviously that AM was joined by FM under the number of stations that there could be, But back in the nineteen twenties, it was just AM radio and the radio stations themselves back in the nineteen twenties got concerned that there were so many radio stations broadcasting that their frequencies were so close together that if you tried to listen to a radio station, often you heard other stations coming in.
And so you know, if you're driving out of New York, everyone's experienced this and you're still listening to an old fashioned radio AM or FM. You drive, It's great, you're enjoying it. I used to enjoy listening to WCBSFM rock and roll radio but if you know, fifty seventy five, one hundred miles away from New York City, suddenly WCBSFM begins to get weaky status.
To hear that noise and crackling, and.
Another stations coming in. So that really what happened to everyone much closer to New York in the nineteen twenties, scoose stations were broadcasting too close together. So the radio stations themselves petitioned the federal government to do something about that. That was their first mistake. Fortunately, for a couple of years, the president was Herbert Hoover, who I have almost nothing else good to say about his presidency.
No one really seems to right.
But he was a great believer in the federal government needs to be restricted, it has to keep his hands off business. And so he created this very weak agency, the Federal Radio Commission, to keep track of where stations were broadcasting, on what frequencies, and to try to make sure that stations didn't broadcast too close together. But it was such a weak agency, and the building cated it
was so weak. It didn't have any way of punishing stations that violated this commandment, in effect, not to broadcast too close to another station. And so by the time Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected president in nineteen thirty two, and he becomes the president in nineteen thirty three, the radio stations themselves are still clamoring, please do something about this. We still have too many radio stations. So it was in that context that the FCC was created as part
of the Communications Act of nineteen thirty four. Now I'm speaking from the wisdom of hindsight. I wasn't alive as old as I might sing in the early nineteen thirties. To me, the first I ever heard about the FC See what. I was a kid in the late nineteen fifties and I heard that, I don't know, the FCC was investigating Alan Freed because he was taking payola. My initiative response was, I knew about the First Amendment. My initial response is, what the hell is you know the
government doing in any way trying to regulate radio? You know, I understood the First Amendment, And so as soon as I found out, well, the government has a right to because of the Communications Act, the FCC was created. I came to the conclusion that the FCC is obviously blatantly an unconstitutional violation or the First Amendment. I'll just say one more quick thing here, the idea that the FCC
was unconstitutional. People in the nineteen thirties taught that, and a case eventually got to the Supreme Court, and a Supreme Court justice with a ridiculous name, Felix Frankfurter, wasn't exactly a hot dog in the decision that he basically wrote the majority opinion for and convinced the majority of Supreme Court justices then, because in this case, which was NBC versus the United States, where NBC was saying to the FCC, get off our back, We're not interested in
what you want to do. By the way, the FCC forced NBC to split in two. They originally had a Blue network and a Red network. One of them remained NBC, the other created Guests what ABC. So this AEC who
fired Kimmel. That's how they came to be. Anyway, this case before the Supreme Court, in a decision written by Felix frankfort Ever, one of the justices wasn't even chief justice, he was an associate justice, but he felt so strongly about this he wrote the opinion said, in effect, not with standing the first Amendment, since the founding fathers could not have had any idea that there would be such a thing as radio, which is broadcast you know, throughout
the country. The information travels at the speed of light. The government has to be able to regulate radio. And so what that decision in nineteen forty three did is it put the FCC into the same position of power which it still has now.
Well, and that's what was going to say. And it's unfortunate that the term gets used so often. People don't really grasp the importance, the significance of it. It's been weaponized, and we see that very clearly with the first with Colbert and then again with Kimmel where the network, the home network of Colbert CBS parent company, Paramount, needed to merge while multi six.
Billion dollar deal.
Just to give a little synopsis, but those deals have to be approved by the FCC, and the SEC only answers to whom.
Well, exactly, the FCC doesn't answer to anyone. Now, It's interesting in the Communications Act of nineteen thirty four, it says two contradictory things. It says, in a very prominent way, the SCC shall in no way censor radio stations or past judgment on the content of radio stations, So because people back then were aware of the danger of doing that. By the way, this was exactly at the same time that Adolf Hitler and Joseph Gerbels were cleverly using radio
to enslave the German people in their Nazi regime. So people in the United States were aware of the danger of radio. That's why that was put into the Communications Act that created the FCC. They were aware that radio, if it became a vehicle of the government, was a dagger pointed at the heart of democracy. And in fact, in Germany, the Weimar Republic was within a year or two of the creation of the FCC, here became Adolf
Hitler's Nazi Germany. So the fact of the matter is, even back then in the nineteen thirties, people were concerned about that, and in Nazi Germany, Hitler made it impossible for people to do anything. Here in the United States, although there were a lot of people concerned about that, that decision of nineteen forty three ratified the FCC's position. And even though the FCC he was not supposed to censor.
In that same Communications Act, you had the contradictory part of the Act that said the FCC is responsible for granting and renewing licenses to broadcast, and in doing so, and here's reached the censorship. In doing so, the FCC needs to consider, and this is the crucial wording, whether
the station is broadcasting in quote, the public interest. Now, if that's not familiar to any of our listeners, that's just what Trump and the current chair of the FCC have been babbling about about what they did and what they intend to do. More of Trump, I've just heard him say like three or four times in three or
four different places in the last week. He thinks it's appropriate to the FCC to examine any brought cast medium, any actually mode of communication whatsoever in the United States, with an eye towards whether or not it's broadcasting in the public interest. Now, of course, Trump thinks what's in the public interest is agreeing with all of the fascistic things that the Trump administration is doing. And that's why
this is so dangerous. And this goes back again to this contradictory wording in that Communications Act of nineteen thirty four. The SEC is not supposed to censor, but it is supposed to grant and renew licenses based on whether, in it's the SEC's judgment, the station is broadcasting in the public interest. That phrase in the public interest is catnip to someone like Trump, because he said, I'll tell you what the public interest is agreeing with me and my insanity, and.
It's perfect segue to Kimmel. You know, the whole situation there because they used it. He made in my opinion, and everybody can have their own opinion. I thought it was a very innocuous, banal comment about the whole Charlie Kirk situation, and we didn't even actually speak about Kirk. It was more about the the people who were supporting the idea that it was done by a left. Whatever the case, maybe none of it proved that. I think in a certain way, he was as much trying to
diffuse the situation as anything. Certainly banal comments, but again used by the SEC chairman Brendan Carr. I'm sure under the direction of President Trump that that didn't serve in the public interest, and so he was suspended, not for a long time. He came back, but interestingly, and as we were coming to record, Paul I was watching CNN in the background, and Sinclair are the stations associated with
ABC hedged, but only a little. They want to make sure that mister Kimmel's monologues are said, again within their scope, their sphere of balance in what they want to present to their public. So again there's that caveat. And again let me let me play the devil's advocate. They're their own radio station. They're entitled to present people that they want to represent, their image that they want to represent. So are they entirely wrong?
Well, in this case, they are because what they are doing what Sinclair, what's the other station has?
It's next door, I believe.
Just to be clear, they're not stations. They conglomerates, and each of them control a whole bunch of stations for some reason, like most of them are in the Midwest, thank god, none of them are here in the New York area. And yeah, they own those stations. They have
a right to control those stations. But by putting pressure on Kimmel to do what they think Kimmel should be saying and doing and not doing what they think he shouldn't be doing, and by in effect supporting car and the FCC in putting that pressure on Kimmel and therefore on ABC and Disney. And you know the result of that is, as Kimmel mentioned, and what I thought was his brillant both emotionally.
And they asked you what you thought of last night?
Yeah, last night. Look, he was moved to tears. I was moved to tears.
They were genuine. I really I believe they were very genuine.
Yes, So you know what is what's going on there is those two stations are two conglomates, Next Star and Sinclair account for twenty percent, one out of five of all the ABC television affiliates around the country. So as a result of what they did, they and in fact, they did not broadcast Kimmel's monologue last night, which was I thought a wonderful monologue. Basically, they deprived one out of every five stations and therefore millions of people in
this country from hearing Kimmel's monologue. And I think they have every right to do that, that's up to them, but we all know they're doing that because they are supporters of Trump, they are supporters of what Brendan Carr is doing. And so as far as I'm concerned, I'm happy to publicly say this both Next Star and Sinclair are just two fascist enablers in the same way that Brendan Carr is. And to give Ted Cruz credit, and
I'm not the first one to give him credit. I disagree with everything else that has ever come out of Ted Cruz's mouth. I disagree with every vote the man ever made in the Senate. If I was in Texas, he'd be the last person I'd vote for. But I have to publicly give him credit, as Kimmel did last night,
for coming out and making the point. And on the one end, you can laugh about it, but on the other thing, that's serious consequences that what Brendan Carr the SEC was saying sounded like something Vito Corleone could have been easily saying. And again, for those who haven't seen the monologue that Kimmel gave last night, it's on YouTube. I highly recommend it. I'll give just one spoiler. Robert de Niro comes on from major role that he's brand But there is an important point in having de Niro,
you know, play in effect a godfather a type. Yeah, because that is exactly what's going on. And I don't use the term fascist or fascist enabler lightly, But I don't think I'm exaggerating in the slightest that that's what those two operations Sinclair Next Star are doing. And clearly that's what Trump is doing. And I don't care how much he says other people are fascist. I don't care
what other name anyone gives to it. What the nineteenth thirties in Germany has taught us is this is exactly the way the sleep walk into a fascist state both begins and proceeds until it gets to a point where there's no one left to object to them. You one by one. You start with Colbert, you go to Kimmel. Then okay, Jimmy found get rid of him. Okay, seth minds. I don't like him either. You know what saying that life? You know, who are they to make those points? So
let's shut down that show. It's e et cetera, et cetera. And eventually all you have are these dummies on Fox mouthing you know, Trump's points and that kind of country. It's not yet, you know, like Nazi Germany. No one has been rounded up and killed as far as I know, uh, you know, as part of that fascist march. But it's
certainly something that's getting closer and closer to that. And when I'm talking about getting rounded, rounded up and killed, of course, what I'm talking about us getting very close to that is what Ice is doing to immigrants here
in the United States. And so what's happening and what happened, you know, to Kimmel And you know, it's really something that has like an octopus, but even more than just eight tentacles, you know, fifty one hundred different fascistic tentacles that are out there gradually choking off, trying to choke off various parts of our democracy.
Well, you know that's important because we talked about the big guys, Paul, But but what about the little guys? If you will like us, like this program and the writing that I do, you know, speaking personally, I'm feeling it. I mean, someone gave me a warning, for example, and said, hey, you know, if you write anything about Charlie Kirk anything, there's a group out there that's that's scouring the Internet for any mention and if it's it's disagreeable, you are
attacked online, et cetera. So there is some intimidation going on out there. I'm aware of it. I certainly won't let it stop me. But I'm aware of it. Is that your experience at all and writing community. Are people aware that your big brother is watching?
I'm definitely aware of it, you know. As you may know, I appeared on The ot Riley Factor back like two thousand and four, two thousand and five, two thousand and six, and on other Fox shows. I guess about a half a dozen or maybe even eight or nine times and different shows. And I have to tell you, after every single appearance on any of the Fox shows, which of course even back then, we're watched by people who today we'd say they're maga Americans. I would get I don't
even know how they found my email. I would get flooded.
You know, by emails, you know, saying I can't believe that form university you know, would hire you know, such a communist like you, you know, blah blah blah.
I'm going to write to the president of the university. And I said, by what means right to it?
I got that said the same thing. I'm pretty sure I'll be supported and I work exactly.
I'm happy to have a conversation with me, he said, Great guy, I just saw a come be my guest right to make sure you see, see me and listen. In the first Trump campaign in twenty sixteen, a on Facebook, a former student of mine. You know, I was politically talkative back then as I am now, and I was, you know, basically talking about, you know, all the problems with Trump, and you know why I thought it made
sense for people to vote for Hillary. So I got a former student of mine basically wrote a vehement response to one of my posts, using language that I won't use here on your podcast, because since being frank is the only way to be we don't want anyone to get offended. But the post had absolutely upsecene language if you think about George Carlin. Seven thirty words exactly. Yeah, So I wrote them, and I was saying, look, I'm really very disappointed in your former student of mine, but
I'm going to block you from now on. I'm not going to let you, you know, respond to my comments since that's the way you're talking. So, I mean, this is something that's been going on for a long time, and we've talked about this as well. I think social media buy and launch initially, but also in the long run odd democratizing forces because they do let anyone express themselves. I think that's good. But when you have a system in which anyone can express themselves, you have to be
prepared for getting some very severe criticism. And in general, you know, I'm a great believer in Carl Popper's point that criticisms should always be welcome. It's the way we learn. But you know, sometimes the criticism is so virulent that it goes way way beyond being welcome as criticism. So hey, you know, as a professor, you're a professor too. If we didn't enjoy talking in public, we wouldn't become professors
in the first place. And to me, it's the same thing whether I'm teaching a class, whether I'm here talking to you on being frank, whether I'm writing a blog post, whether I'm writing a book, all of that is the same. And I think we all have a responsibility to muster everything that we have to stand up against this march towards fascism, because it's very dangerous. It happened before in
a democracy. It's not as if, you know, Hitler overthrew a king and replaced one kind of dictator ship with another. The Weimar public was an excellent democracy. They didn't have a First Amendment per se, but they had a strong part of their laws talked about freedom of press and freedom of speech and so on. That didn't stop Hitler in the nineteen thirties.
You know, before we take the break, and I kind of teased it in my opening as well. You know, there have been champions of free speech. And you know, some of them are the obvious, that Ben Franklins and the Thomas Jeffersons, but others, and you mentioned, for example, George Carlin. Some of his stuff, if you listen to it today, is perfect, perfect for today, and championed the whole idea of free speech. Lenny Bruce, who was hounded for obscenity, but again under the guise of free speech.
So and then I may also mentioned athletes, and there's a thing today and you mentioned also and de Niro has heard it. Entertainers should entertain, okay, athletes should perform. And I mentioned Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell, some of the great more outspoken helped to move civil rights, the needle forward, et cetera. You know, so what do you say to people, stay in your lane?
Okay?
Then you know, you know, we don't belong with that just just your thoughts on that I think might be interesting.
Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that, because this whole thing of staying in your lane has always rubbed me the wrong way, mainly because I think I have a lot of lanes. Right. I sing, I make records, I write poetry, I write songs. I'm a professor. I write science fiction. I write serious books about the media. Hey, I shuttle snow, Okay, I don't get prayed for that. I do that nothing. But the point is, human beings are inherently multi dimensional.
And Robert Hinline, a great science fiction writer, once famously said, you know, I write different kinds of novels and stories. Don't tell me I have to stay in my lane. You know. The only living things that only do one thing. I guess he studied insects, he said, our insects. We human beings are not insects. We can do many different things. I think that's one of the reasons why we've been
so successful as a species. Right, we've gotten off this planet, we've basically tamped down epidemics, We've done all kinds of amazing things, and that didn't come from people staying in their own lanes and Frankly, I think anyone whoever urges anyone else to stay in their own lane, you know what they should do. They should just shut up completely and not even stay in their lane. Just get out of all the lanes. Stay home exactly.
Yeah, Paul, we're gonna take a little bit of a break. We need to talk a little bit about Charlie Kirk for better or worse. Well, we'll stay in and we'll take the heat, but I want to talk about him on balance and if he was truly a champions as a free speech as some people are making out to be. I want your thoughts on that. But we're gonna take a little break first, and we'll come back with more of that. This is Being Frank. I'm your host, Frank Lebono.
My very special guest is doctor Paul Levinson. We're talking the First Amendment, the f he Seed, so much more. We'll be back in just a few minutes. Don't go anywhere.
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Welcome back to Being Frank, the Intelligent Conversation Podcast. Thanks for sticking with us. I'm your host, Frank Buono, and as always, our engineer is the legendary mailman mister Neil Richter. A very special guest is doctor Paul Evanson, and we continue our discussion of the First Amendment. Charlie kirkis next
on the list. We've talked about Jimmy Kimmel, but I think it's important, Paul, especially within the broader context of our conversation of the First Amendment free speech, because certainly Charlie Kirk is labeled as a conservative activist, so he approached things from a conservative.
Point of view.
Okay, okay, as in the broader context of things, but also he would do these one on one debate things. That was whole part of his mo He would go on college campuses and set up and proved me wrong type things, and that was used laud him, if you will, as a great proponent of free speech. He was opening
up dialogue. But sometimes if I look and I read between the lines, I'm not so sure about that as his ultimate goal, that's really what he was looking to accomplish, to really establish true discourse rather than just hang his label on the conversation.
Your thoughts, Well, first, let me say that I think bullets are absolutely the worst thing for democracy, in addition to the damage to wounding people and killing people. Anytime a political argument, for that matter, any argument, but since we're talking about politics here, anytime a political dispute is settled by a bullet, that's the death of deocracy in that situation. So I don't care who the person is,
how strongly I might disagree with their politics. There never is any good that comes from even threatening a person with being shot, let alone violence, and I think that has to be made absolutely clear.
I agree with you. It's almost trying to have to say that any human being. I'm again just but it is important to say it's never acceptable on any level. But please continue.
Yeah, I just want to get back to this second, just to be clear. If you're talking about someone like Adolf Hitler, who basically commanded, you know, setting up concentration camps that killed millions of people, and and by the way, not just Jewish people who were put into those camps, but as they were called then gypsies were rounded up, disabled people round up and so on, and so that is a different situation. Hitler wasn't just someone promoting certain
ideas that people strongly disagree with. Hitler is responsible for the death of maions of people. So you know, there are certain occasions such as that, when some kind of monster takes over a country that unfortunately violence might be the only possible thing we could do. And to be crystal clear, I don't think for a moment that Trump
is Hitler. If you want someone who's closer to Hitler would probably be in power today, would probably be Vladimir Putin, and even he is further down the road towards that, but he also is not like Hitler. As far as I know, there's no one in power no country today that was as horrible as Nazi Germany in the thirties. So I just wanted to make you know that clear.
As far as Charlie Kirk's political point of views, you know, it's obvious that I disagree very strongly with Trump with mag Americans, and therefore I disagree with anyone who basically agrees with that. But people are complex and they have different facets to what they think, and it's always a mistake, I think, to lump everyone in to like the same bag or in the same genre, you know, because in fact human beings are more complicated and so Ted Cruz
would be an excellent example. We have to cite Ted Cruz as deserving our thanks for standing up for freedom of speech and freedom of press and the First Amendment and attacking the firing of Jimmy Kimmel and what the the FCC was doing. So although I disagreed with Charlie Kirk's politics, I do think he was trying to do some good, you know, going on college campuses, opening up discussions, debates. That's good. You know, I regret that, you know, I never had a chance to sit down and have a
debate with him. I think it would have been a lot of fun. He was a very skilled debater, very very eloquent, compassionate speaker. He probably would have gotten the best of me, you know, in certain points. I like to think maybe I would have gotten a point to
across myself. But the point is, if we're talking about someone like Charlie Kirk, who was trying to get younger people involved in the discussion, did go around to college campuses, I think that's a good thing, even though at the same time I disagree with what his political point of view was.
You've really kind of addressed it, but just to kind of wrap it up. You know, it's a challenge where you have compassion for this young man while at the same time disagreeing about him politically. So when you are with someone who was a more conservative bent, how do you approach that, you know, where again you show a level of compassion for the loss of a young man, but yeah, at the same time firming your beliefs that he was on the wrong track at least politically.
Well, look, it's not easy. And I mentioned that I was on the O'Reilly factor, I don't know three or four times, you know, back in the early twenty oughts, and Bill O'Reilly is someone else who's political views even now I completely disagree with. But I think there is
a way to have a civil conversation with someone. And you know, the case of my being on O'Reilly, my only frustration was I didn't get to make as many of the points that I wanted to make because I was only you know, talking to him for five or ten minutes then he went on to something else. But I always welcomed the fact, you know, people, you know, people friends of mine would say, may, what are you
doing going on Fox? What are you doing talking to a Riley, and I would try to explain to him those people, because I think it's good to talk to people that you disagree with. That again, is what democracy is all about. So and you know, that's why, you know, it's never a good thing ever to have any political voice, as long as that person is not violent like Adolf Hitler was, you know, directly promoting and you know, killing so many people indirectly. It doesn't matter what their politics
or point of view is. It's always helpful to have a dialogue. And I think that's how we learn, that's how we grow. Every once in a while we were able to change on one's opinion. Sometimes they might change our opinion. So I'm always open to talking to a conservative. Look over the years at Fornham, I've had students, you know, who basically disagree with a lot of what I say. Just last year, I had a student in one of
my classes. I was going on about the need to basically have much stronger gun control than we currently have now and obvious for all two obvious reasons. And you know, he was arguing quite eloquently, I think incorrectly that but nonetheless he thought it was unfair to penalize people who weren't doing horrible things with their weapons if they get enjoyment from their weapons, and there's no reason to think that they're going to do anything other than I don't know,
target practice. I mean, then there's a separate issue. How do you feel about somebody who kills animals with weapons? But the point is he was a student in my class. I was professor. I let him talk. You know. I didn't say okay, no, I'm sorry, you're wrong and go on to the next. Thing. I always welcome discussion in my class is because I think again, that's the way we grow, that's the way we learn. That is the truest vehicle of democracy. Dialogue.
Well, you know you can come on being Frank. I give you the whole hour, and so glad to have you. It's always always intelligent conversation, Doctor Paul Levitson, Thank you so much.
My pleasure anytime. You know.
Of course, we offer special thanks to our listeners who take time to give us a voice in their lives. Remember you offer a fresh topic just about every week. You can catch us wherever and whenever you get your favorite podcasts like Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio and all the rest. You can check us out on the Hudson River Radio Facebook page. Leave us a comment too. You know I always leave you with two last little nuggets.
I called them.
One a slogan that's relative to our conversation, and then some music. First, it was very interesting. We mentioned John Stuart Mill as one of the great champions of free speech, and he is the one who said and she used quite often these days bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than the good men should look on and do nothing, Okay, And that was during a inaugural address delivered at the University of Saint Andrew. And of
course closing music. One of the reasons I like to invite Paul because he always brings his own music with him. What are we going to hear now, Paul, Well.
This is a song I wrote back in nineteen sixty six. I was in a group called the New Outlook. We were, like I sort of folk rock group, and you know, we love the Loving Spoonful and you know, and some of the early bea stuff that was available then. So this song is entitled Sunshines Mine, and I thought it would be a good song to conclude this episode of being Frank with because it's a happy song. It's an upbeat song. We've been talking about some pretty grave, serious things.
And I'm also happy about the fact that I wrote both the lyrics and music to the song, and it's me singing lead to the song as well. So what more can you ask for?
It's all Paul Evans and all the time good stuff, you know. I just want to remind folks too that they could read my writing. I also write as well. It's the Nayak News and Views. I've published something fresh every Friday. You can catch them online Niack News and Views for our engineer The Mailman with Neil rick Or. I'm your host, Frank Wilbono, and we hope to have you join us for the next being. Frank, We're the only way to be is Frank.
Thanks everyone, wind Or Winter Chilli starting from start everywhere further Bad.
Sunshine girl, you make my world a good their place to living when you shine.
You made mama.
Make my lave good living.
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Big Blad rain Brod, build this guy, London claps, made this grid only kincert a.
Sun John girl, you make my world for bad place to live when you shine. You been Mama made Mama.
Butlan aside shot.
Sunshine Girl. You make my world for you read place.
To live.
When you shine. You been Mama made Mama.
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