Brad Stine Mini-Cast

Wokeism and Cancel Culture

Here’s what I wanted to talk to you guys about today. So a lot of things have been going on. On, and on, and on about America, about wokeism, about cancel culture. And people constantly ask me, “Are you concerned about being canceled?” And I say to them, “No.” I’ll tell you why. Number one, years ago, I did a comedy routine about political correctness. I’ve been doing it since 2003, mocking political correctness and warning America about political correctness. But I said at that time, one of the jokes I said was, “Do you want to stop political correctness? You know how you do it?” Now, this is probably 2004 or ’05. I don’t remember which one it was. “Do you want to stop political correctness?” I said, “You know how you stop it? Don’t do it.” It’s that easy.

You see, when you chose to accept the ramification of political correctness, when you allowed the culture to define that your belief system is inherently racist, if it’s inherently insensitive, if it hurts people’s feelings, if it shouldn’t be used. If you are one of these people that have fallen for the false narrative, which I see all the time on my threads, that say this when I talk about political correctness. Or dismantled political correctness, as the cultural Marxism from the Frankfurt School that it is. Of course, it’s hybridized now with critical law theory, and critical race theory, and postmodernism to become what we now know as political correctness. Which has just taken on a whole new, deeper, more robust political correctness on steroids.

But that’s what wokeness is. That’s what cancel culture is. Literally controlling people’s thoughts, ideas, minds, hearts, beings, behaviors, freedoms, based on being kind. Do you not see the juxtaposition of nonsense here? Listen, we need to be kind to people. “Oh my God, I cancel you.” Listen, we need to be tolerant of people. “So, you’re going to be fired.” We need to be loving to people. “So, don’t be so hateful.” This is the bull crap that wokeism and cancel culture creates. This is political correctness gone haywire, beyond the realm that even I warned about in Put a Helmet On, my launch album that really put me into the conservative world that people saw as well.

I didn’t know conservative or Christian could be edgy, and funny, and whatever. And when I began to get that kind of television coverage, when I was on Fox & Friends every Monday for six months, when I was on CNN, when I New Yorker article, because they didn’t think you’d be funny and be a conservative, be a Christian. That was really why they brought me on, and I couldn’t just stop there. I had things to talk about. I loved America. Don’t worship it. I always say this. Don’t worship America. Worship God. But I’m grateful for it, and I’m going to defend it, because I’ve been given this nation and the freedoms that the Founding Fathers created. One of which is the most desired by all of us, the most appreciated by all of us, and why so many people come here from other totalitarian countries, or socialist countries, or communist countries, or atheistic countries. Or even theocratic countries who treasure, “Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion or forbidding the free exercise thereof, or allow us to redress our government.”

And they can’t intervene with that. They cannot edit the press. They can’t come inside and have the government decide what the press can say or can’t say. That we’re allowed to protest peacefully. That we are allowed to do this free agency of speaking how we believe, and they can’t shoot us for it. That’s what it was supposed to be. And then they literally had to give us a second amendment, the ability to defend ourselves from any government that would try to supersede those freedoms.

Well, that’s where we’re at now in America. Where those freedoms are, in fact, being superseded by the left and the left only. Which is ironic, because they’ve been living off of the bandwagon of McCarthyism for years. Every single time a conservative felt that perhaps there should be some standards in culture. Perhaps there should be some morality expected in schools, on television, in film. Perhaps there should be some sense that we are not trying to indoctrinate our schoolchildren, which we saw literally created a whole new governor in Virginia, because they said critical race theory will not be taught in school. Because we don’t want our white kids coming back being told, “I’m a racist because my skin exists in this shade.”

I mean, how much more KKK can it get? That’s right. KKK comes in every color. If you’re a racist, don’t matter what color you are. You’re a bigot, and you don’t deserve an audience. But the left seems to find that if I disagree with them, they call me a racist, trying to use the equity built up in that powerful to term to shut me up. But it’s a lie. So they literally besmirch the very power of the term racism, where it’s utilized to actually affect actual racists, who should be called to account. Who should be said, “You don’t get to treat somebody less than the first amendment allows.” And more importantly, less than God almighty said. That’s why the West was created, with the biblical mandate that all people are equal because we’re made in the image of God. No other religion ever came up with that. No other philosophy ever came up with that. Did not exist in any other culture.

At the time of the Romans, at the time of the Greeks, they expected there to be slaves. They thought that was the way the world worked. They expected that if you didn’t want a baby, you could throw it into a latrine or leave it on the side of the road to be put to death because there was no value in that baby. I decide if the value is there. Well, we think of that as absurd. You have a baby, you don’t want it, you leave in the side of the road. We consider that murder. The same baby that only five minutes ago could have been inside the mother’s womb. And some people say, “Butcher it, because that’s virtuous, because it gives somebody freedom of choice.” You can’t make it up, the hypocrisy. It’s just slamming you in the face every dang day.

So I want to address this issue of free speech, because it’s my livelihood. I’ve said, “A comedian job relies on words and the use of words.” And I think for three weeks in a row, I have watched Bill Maher use the concept that words have meaning. That words can’t be rewritten for the sake of giving you what you want. You don’t get to just utilize words that aren’t even applicable to you, but are used as a cudgel to destroy your freedom. I have said these things and used these things I don’t know on how many albums for how many years. I don’t know. Let’s find out. Let’s see if we can see where I will prove my point, and this isn’t to act like I’m better than you. There’s people that said these things before me. People with a mind, with a brain, with freedom to think clearly, like a Thomas Sowell. Right?

I’ve been saying this for years, but comedy is a way to speak about these things in hopefully a humorous way, but cuts deep. It’s a spoonful of poison, but hey, we’ll put a little bit of sugar in there and make it palatable. It’s going to hurt, but it’s going to teach you something. So, let’s use-

Wait.

What is it, Wyatt?

Are you referring to your message as poison, or …

No, no, no. What I’m referring to is, if you say something that some people don’t want to swallow, so I use poison as a metaphor, then you can sweeten it up. What is it, Wyatt?

Isn’t poison usually symbolic of something bad? In what-

All right. Let’s make it a spoonful of medicine. How about medicine?

You mean the common comparison that everybody makes? Yeah, let’s use that one. Good idea.

Now, had I not had a son, I would not have been dragged through the mud and shamed the way I was. Touche, son. Touche.

Hey, it’s like you said, man. Words have meaning, so use the right ones.

Well done, son. See, guys? So, you don’t have to feel sorry for my son. He can hold his own. Folks, fat versus short. Here’s something I did in 2004. Let’s see what I had to say then.