Rick Staggenborg, MD on "TRANSCENDING PARTISANSHIP TO FORGE A REAL REVOLUTION"

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Note: Shortly after this interview was recorded, Dr. Staggenborg emailed me: “Thanks, Kevin. I can say without reservation that was the most interesting interview I've ever done.”

There's an old Scottish pop song with the classic line "clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you." That pretty much describes American populism in the wake of countless divide-and-conquer operations.

All smart, unbrainwashed people constantly cross the fabricated left-right divide, reaching out to others with different worldviews but shared interest in making the world better, not worse. One such person is Rick Staggenborg, MD, founder of Soldiers for Peace International and a 501(c)3 called Take Back America for the People. Dr. Staggenborg recently introduced and posted an essay on "TRANSCENDING PARTISANSHIP TO FORGE A REAL REVOLUTION."

Staggenborg points out that everyone who opposes censorship and supports free speech should strongly oppose the Trump Administration's war on pro-Palestine students in general, and Mahmoud Khalil in particular. So what happened to all those self-proclaimed free speech supporters, including Elon Musk and RFK Jr., who screamed the loudest when it was right-wingers and COVID dissidents who were getting censored? And likewise, whatever happened to the liberal/left's historical concern for free speech, magnificently exemplified by the ACLU's support of Nazis' right to march through the Jewish suburb of Skokie, Illinois? I mean, OBVIOUSLY if Nazis have the right to march through Jewish neighborhoods, they should have a vastly stronger right to complete freedom of speech, without any restrictions or shadowbanning, on the internet, where they will not bother anyone who doesn't intentionally go looking for what they post!!! That is so obvious I can't believe I have to say it. Anyone who tolerates internet censorship* of any kind is a despicable traitor to the US Constitution and the Enlightenment ideals on which it is based.

During the interview, Dr. Staggenborg cites the Braver Angels campaign to get people talking across the partisan divide.

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*By "censorship" I am of course referring to platforms, not publications that have a human editor carefully vet everything they publish. Obviously publications have the free speech right to publish or refuse to publish whatever they wish, because they take full legal responsibility for everything they publish. But platforms—outlets that don't have human editors carefully vet every submission—do not have that right. They are branches of "the phone company" and must comply 100% with the First Amendment, in the same way that any other phone company must let anyone say anything legal to anyone without interference of any kind.

The above-described understanding of internet free speech was essentially universal in the USA prior to around 2015, and the Communications Decency Act was viewed as enshrining it. Since then, a covert coup has overthrown the Constitution and instituted a horrific reign of censorship that needs to be radically reversed.

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