The Goldsteining of the Proud Boys
Examining the Assumption that the Proud Boys are Far-Right at the Edge of the Memory Hole
CONTENTS
- Intro
- The Memory Hole
- Politically Correct Lies
- Remnants of the Truth
- Observations
Goldsteining - ɡōld-stēn-iŋg - the process of disposing of true/accurate information about a subject down the memory hole and replacing it with falsehoods about them for political reasons as was done with the character of Goldstein in Orwell’s prophetic dystopian classic 1984.
Unlike unpersoning wherein the agenda is to undo personhood, ultimately even destroying memory of them, with goldsteining, in order manipulate them, people are reminded of the subject (Goldstein was featured in the daily “2 minutes of hate” programming), or rather they are reminded of a demonized version of the subject as if it were the real thing. It is used to serve the agenda of the establishment.
INTRO
The Proud Boys are typically described as “far-right” or “fascist”, “neo-fascist” and so on by much of the mainstream media, politicians and radical violent domestic terrorists alike. This narrative is taken for granted, an unexamined assumption.
~ Let us examine, then, this assumption. ~
Starting with basic definitions, the Proud Boys are a social club. A social club can be a hunting party, a war party, a berry-gathering gossip group, a Girl Scout chapter, a sorority, a fraternal order, a book club and so on. It’s something our species does. This social group tends to drink, joke, play pool or whatever and go to political rallies and fight with the opposing (political) tribe - antifa.
Being that they are an official organization, we might do well to look at their official statements, their website(s), their social media, and so on.
The MEMORY HOLE
Proudboys.com is just a domain placeholder, an empty building with buildboards.
The same applies to proudboys.org.
I’m not sure that either of those were ever official Proud Boys websites, anyway.
Officialproudboys.com, however, is official. Well, it was. It’s gone now.
Perhaps they Proud Boys themselves removed their webpage, one might think. According to the Wrap, and ZDNet in early October, 2020, the Proud Boys website and online store were dropped by their web hosting service under pressure from a group called Color of Change. These sources claim that the website was moved to a new host but the website isn’t hosted anywhere as far as I can see.
I recall that some years ago, Joe Rogan had Gavin McInnis, who is a “writer, creative director, actor, comedian, and co-founder of Vice Media” as well as the host of, “his own show The Gavin McInnes Show” and who founded the Proud Boys, as a guest on his podcast and that they discussed the group. It was episode #920, February 23rd. The video, which was hosted by Youtube, is gone.
Notice that on the left there is a link to JRE Videos with Gavin McInnes. Those are gone but it’s not that the McInnis episode was singled out because it seems all the JRE episodes are removed from Youtube. Of course, one can find various clips on various small channels, at least for now. At any rate we can just go over to the Joe Rogan Experience on Spotify. They have the latest episode at the top, so scroll down to episode nine twent…
…aaaand it’s gone. Episode #920 is gone.
On February 8th, 2019, Big League Politics reported that Enrique Tarrio, Chairman of the Proud Boys was sent the letter below from Chase bank informing him that his account(s) with them will be closed on April 1, 2019.
They also reported,
This comes just days after Chase Bank’s payment processor, Chase Paymentech, de-platformed him on a website he runs that allows groups and charities to sell merchandise, and raise money for causes. The website, 1776.shop, is most known for selling the famous “Roger Stone Did Nothing Wrong” shirts which Stone was spotted in during the late-night arrest at his home.
I seem to remember something from history about Chase colluding with the Nazi party to victimize Jews. I would venture, then, to say that perhaps Chase Bank isn’t exactly in a position from which to judge others on such matters.
Borrowing the concept of an “unperson” from Orwell, I have called this “financial unpersoning” in a series of written and video reports on this corner of cancel-culture. It’s not limited to Proud Boys as we’ll see.
Back to Tarrio. According to Big League Politics, he says he’s been banned from Paypal, Stripe, Square, FirstData, AirBnB, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and others. BLP reported that Tarrio told them, “They are essentially denying my existence, and trying to force me into homelessness, and ultimately death.”
On February 16, 2019, prominent Proud Boys member Joe Biggs tweeted…
Also on February 16th, 2019, AP News reported,
PayPal…is banning accounts used by the Proud Boys, Mr. McInnes, Atlanta Antifa, Antifa Sacramento and the Anti-Fascist Network, the company confirmed Friday, hours after similarly purging a British anti-Muslim activist, Tommy Robinson, and on the heels of quietly canceling accounts connected to several other antifa groups in the U.S. and abroad.
What about their Twitter? Suspended.
In August of 2018, it was reported, the Twitter accounts for the Proud Boys (@ProudBoysUSA) and for their founder Gavin McInnis were suspended. It was reported that Twitter also suspended the accounts for @ProudboysCanada @Proud_Boys_IL, @ProudBoysVT, @ProudBoysOhio, @ProudBoysCA, @ProudBoysNH, @ProudBoysOR, @ProudBoysNeb, and @proudboysgirls. They suspended Joe Bigg’s account at some point too.
What about their Facebook? Gone.
In October of 2018, Facebook announced it was banning accounts associated with the Proud Boys, “including one with 20,000 members” according to reports.
~ They’ve been Goldsteined. ~
If you recall, in Orwell’s story 1984, it was believed that Emanuel Goldstein was a political rival to Big Brother until Big Brother secured supremacy. Everything he said and wrote was removed from the official records and all known copies of his book were burned as well as anything that quoted him. Nonetheless, people thought they were well informed about his views and actions because they were programmed by the Ministry of Truth (the media) to believe lies about him. Also, his followers are always plotting to subvert the order and security Big Brother maintains for them.
The truth was thrown down the memory hole into the destructive fire at the hellish heart of the industry of lies called the Ministry of Truth. Except the shreds it deems to be in support of it, totalitarianism burns truth and knowledge to fuel the pyres of ignorance.
In 1984, the main character and others in his position at the Ministry of Truth do not just delete past records in the fire of the memory hole. They also replace them with lies that are more compliant with party dogma. Goldsteining is both the erasure of factually correct knowledge and its replacement with politically correct lies.
We’ve seen what was destroyed, or rather we’ve seen the hole left behind by the destruction. Now let’s look at the politically correct public record courtesy of the Ministry of Truth.
POLITICALLY CORRECT LIES
Right now (October 9th, 2021), if you were to google the Proud Boys you would get this…
At the top you see what the SPLC, the Southern Poverty Law Center, has to say about the Proud Boys. They acknowledge that the PBs disavow bigotry but they claim that they “regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists” without demonstrating their case.
If you scroll down to the 11th google result you see the ADL labelling the Proud Boys with bigotry. They literally - and I am not making this up, but don’t believe me, fact check me - they literally have an icon of a label, an old style tag, and the category heading “BIGOTRY” at the top of their webpage about the Proud Boys in which they demonstrate their own bigotry towards the Proud Boys.
The ADL also claims, “the Proud Boys represent an unconventional strain of American right-wing extremism.” They at least acknowledge “its members represent a range of ethnic backgrounds, and its leaders vehemently protest any allegations of racism” and that “Their founder, Gavin McInnes, went so far as to file a defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center when the SPLC designated the Proud Boys a hate group.”
But they also claim the PBs are “transphobic and misogynistic” without a shred of evidence unless you count where they quote their founder, comical political commentator Gavin McInnis, as writing, “Though sexual intercourse is encouraged, Proud Boys have an endgame and it is to settle down and have kids. They have absolutely no respect for feminists but venerate the housewife so much, they are actually becoming quite popular with women.” and/or where they write that to be a “first level” Proud Boy, “an initiate must publicly state: “I am a proud Western chauvinist, I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.””
Some might think that this would mean that they are sexists. First of all, to them, as to most people, opposing feminists is not opposing equal rights for men and women. It’s opposing hypocritical man-haters.
Some might say that they are sexist because they identify as “Western chauvinists”. The problem with that is that the term “chauvinist” does not, as is often misunderstood, mean “sexist”. This is because the phrase “male chauvinist pig” became a popular use of the term overshadowing any other. Chauvinism is “excessive and unreasonable patriotism, similar to jingoism.” They don’t use the phrase “American chauvinists” because they are not just in America.
The Proud Boys exist in a number of Western nations and they say “the West is the best”. ABC reported that McInnes said that this means they are “inordinately patriotic” to Western civilization. He also writes that young men “tried being ashamed of themselves and accepting blame for slavery, the wage gap, ableism, and some fag-bashing that went on two generations ago, but it didn’t work. So they’re going with their gut and indulging in the natural pride that comes from being part of the greatest culture in the world. It’s very freeing to finally admit the West is the best. That’s because it’s the truth.”
These mainstream news sources and many people in general apparently take “Western chauvinist” to mean a Western male sexist. In fact, Newsweek (a major New York newspaper) called them “a ‘male chauvinist’ group” with no citation for their quote.
It is no accident that they chose these misunderstood and therefore provocative phrasings. The Proud Boys have always had elements of tongue-in-cheek truth trolling. If those people are too ignorant to understand that chauvinism is not sexism, that’s their own fault, so let them make fools of themselves for our entertainment, they might say. As they say in the Church of the Subgenius, “Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke!”
McInnes said he sees himself as a “provocateur” that does “satirical commentary.”
“I talk about the news,” he said. “I make jokes.”
…McInnes claims the group was meant to be nothing more than a benign gathering of politically incorrect, conservative men full of sophomoric antics and a lot of beer drinking.
In these times of cancel culture, censorship, and in which almost anything is construed as being sexist, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic, problematic, colonialist or whatever else, the Proud Boys are intentionally trolling the social justice inquisition with their tongue-in-cheek. In their black and yellow, the colors of libertarianism, of liberty, of the Gadsden Flag, they rebelliously proudly proclaim “UHURU!” (Swahili for “freedom”) at an insane cancel culture that screeches incoherently that freedom is fascism.
Proud Boys sometimes fly the Gadsden flag. It is commonly recognized as an early flag of the American Revolution.1 It is disturbing, then, that the New Yorker wrote, “The snake, it turns out, was something of a Colonial-era meme, evidently originated by Benjamin Franklin.”
* head-slap *
What next? Will the New Yorker write, “Apparently there’s this thing called ‘equal rights’ that all Americans are supposed to have…”?
To be fair, the New Yorker does recognize that this flag symbolizes, “a righteous threat to trampling imperialism.”
Obviously, the flag expresses the refusal of Americans to be colonized, liberty rising up against tyranny, representational democracy breaking out from monarchy, freedom shrugging off the chains of servitude. This is why this flag of liberty is so often used by libertarian-minded people. But to some, free speech is fascism and this flag is a fascist symbol2. Whatever it may mean to others, to the Proud Boys, it means liberty, as does “uhuru”, and when they say “the West is the best” and that they are “proud Western chauvinists”, they mean that liberty is good.
So, Western chauvinism is not sexism. Perhaps the ADL is basing their claim that the PBs are misogynistic and transphobic on their encouragement, according to their founder, that members marry and have children and on the assumption that feminists, who their founder says they have no respect for, represent the view that the sexes are/should be equal. If the #believeher double standard represents feminism, then feminism does not believe in equality.
The ADL also writes that the PBs are “nationalistic” as if “strongly supporting your country or its political independence”, as the Cambridge Dictionary puts it, is a bad thing. The way they see it, the loss of independence means the loss of liberty.
Further down the ADL writes of “a trend of far right vigilantism where Proud Boys self-deputize in order to “assist” law enforcement.” The unexamined assumption there is that law enforcement would “protect and serve” the public, as their oath states. I have written in great detail and depth about cases in which the Proud Boys attempted to protect innocent victims from physical attacks by antifa because the police would not. In one case the attack was swift and without warning and so the few Proud Boys that arrived were too late (August 7th, 2021 in Portland, Oregon) and in the other case they succeeded in driving antifa away, but not before one of them was shot by antifa in the foot/ankle with a 9mm bullet (September 4th, 2021 in Olympia Washington). In both of these cases, and this is typical for these cities, the police told the people in question (some of them, in the first case, were black adults with their black children) that they would not protect them or their civil rights from antifa. Wrap your mind around this! The police refuse to protect the civil rights of people of different colors, but the Proud Boys will and the ADL says they are far-right vigilantes.
The ADL would also have you believe that the Proud Boys which was founded by a Canadian, whose chairman is a Cuban-American, whose members come in all colors, who have chapters in other nations, who like to shout the Swahili word for freedom (“uhuru”) and have it tattooed on their bodies represent “American right-wing extremism”!
We’ve seen some of what the SPLC and the ADL has to say about the Proud Boys. Other than the vague impression that these two groups have a long history of litigation against racism and antisemitism, what do we know about them and their credibility in the real world today?
The Washington Post reported in “The Southern Poverty Law Center has lost all credibility” that according to “two groups of employees”, the leaders of the SPLC are complicit “in decades of racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and sexual harassment and/or assault.” In an “analysis/opinion”, the Washington Times calls the SPLC a “bully” and writes that they have “misplaced credibility with law enforcement agencies and corporations”. USA Today says the SPLC is a “hate-based scam”. They included Maajid Nawaz, a moderate Muslim, in their “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists” and had to pay him a $3,375,000 settlement according to the Washington Post and they issued a public apology. Nawaz’s Quilliam Foundation is devoted, wouldn’t you know it, to anti-extremism.
Perhaps, then, we should not be too quick to believe the SPLC’s characterizations of the Proud Boys.
What about the ADL? Reportedly, the ADL (or at least it’s national director) engaged in genocide denial. That changed after a scandal broke out, it seems.
Boston.com reported that on August 17, 2007, the ADL fired their regional director of their New England office “one day after he broke ranks with national ADL leadership and said the human rights organization should acknowledge the Armenian genocide that began in 1915.”
On August 21st, 2007, their National Director issued a statement to that more-or-less admits that they did not recognize the Armenian genocide as a genocide but should have. He calls it a genocide in the title, “ADL Statement on the Armenian Genocide”. But then he states “we continue to firmly believe that a congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion”. He’s referring to the congressional “Resolution Expressing the sense of the Senate that it is the policy of the United States to commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and remembrance.”
Then on August 27th, Boston.com reported “The national Anti-Defamation League rehired its New England regional director today, barely a week after firing him for publicly breaking with the national leadership and acknowledging the Armenian genocide that began in 1915.” Then on December 4th, according to Boston.com, he resigned as “the culmination of a months-long dispute with the national organization over its failure to fully acknowledge the Armenian genocide”. To be fair, reportedly, he did not specify his reason for resignation.
The New York Times claims the ADL accused a couple of being anti-Semitic in a dispute between neighbors and that, “over the next five and a half years, the conflict widened into a vicious legal battle over privacy and defamation.” Defamation? The Anti-Defamation League!? The article says the ADL lost the case and had to pay “$10.5 million in damages -- a quarter of the league's annual budget.” The article also claimed “the case has focused a rare spotlight on how aggressively an organization that prides itself on exposing anti-Semitism responds to perceived threats that, for many Jews, carry the emotional weight of historical persecution”. They also report that the national director of the ADL said that they did nothing wrong in the case and “that the league would respond in the same way again.” According to a local news outlet, “An appeals court upheld that verdict, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused last week to review the case. With interest, the $10 million verdict grew to $12,169,557.61.” Unapologetic defamation? Irony or just hypocrisy?
The Washington Times claims “the ADL repeatedly accused DePaul University professor Norman G. Finkelstein, who is Jewish and strongly opposes Israeli policies, of being a "Holocaust denier." These charges have proved baseless.”
So then, it is perhaps not imprudent to say the ADL is not in a position from which they can rightfully judge others on such matters.
Of course, none of these accusations against the SPLC and/or ADL necessarily means that their characterizations of the PBs are incorrect. Again, the problem is that they offer no proof. They expect one to take their word for it. Perhaps their word is not enough.
If we scroll back up, the 2nd search result is Wikipedia describing the Proud Boys as “far-right” and “neo-fascist” based on sources like -
…wait for it…
…drum roll please…
…the SPLC and the ADL!!!
What holds up the flat earth? A giant turtle. But what holds that up? An other giant turtle. But what holds that up? An other giant turtle…
The 3rd google result is an article by the Times of Israel that uses the PBs as part of a smear of a “rabbis writing religious exemption letters for Jews (and others) who oppose COVID-19 vaccine mandates”. They highlight a rabbi who they report is “giving people a religious excuse for sidestepping workplace vaccine mandates”. They attempt an argument against him and his exemptions by smearing him. They pull the demon-puppet of the Proud Boys off the shelf and make it dance. They report that this rabbi, who they say goes by “Rabbi PB” told them “that he is a Proud Boys supporter, but said he considers himself first a devoted Orthodox Jew.” It’s a guilt by association fallacy. As one might guess, they offer no evidence that the Proud Boys are, as they claim, a “far-right organization.”
Do you see how the strawman version of the PBs is useful here? They want to smear a person, the PBs are handy, so they use the PBs. They can call the PBs “far-right” because everyone else does. Their pro COVID-19 vaccine mandate agenda is served.
4th, we see a piece by the New York Times that accuses the PBs of being “far-right” in the subheader. Do they offer any evidence for this? An other giant turtle; an other article that accuses them of being far-right without evidence.
The 5th result is a piece by the Charlotte Observer that accuses the PBs of being “a right-wing extremist group”. Do they support this claim with a shred of evidence? Take a guess. Better yet, see for yourself.
6th we see the Wall St Journal characterize the PBs as “the far-right group describes itself as a men’s organization for “Western chauvinists”” The cite the ADL. Yep.
REMNANTS of the TRUTH
Proudboys.org was not always a vacant lot. I have found an archive of what it looked like on Friday, December 16th, 2016 at 6:21pm, apparently when it was quite new. It looked like this.
Notice the Swahili word for liberty, “UHURU”, right under the Proud Boys name. Notice, also, the reference to degrees. Like other fraternities and fraternal orders, they have initiations and degrees… …and drink, smoke, play pool, and yes, fight.
There is also this archive of officialproudboys.com from October of 2020.
At the top we see, “Whoopi Goldberg Has Respectful Conversation With the Proud Boys”. For some context to the conversation, one can see “Wonderful! Whoopi Goldberg Comes Out to Meet MAGA Protesters at Florida Event, Peaceful Debate Follows (Video)” by Jacob Engels for the Gateway Pundit. These and other articles link to a video that has been removed from Youtube (SURPRISE! SURPRISE!).
There is, however, this mirror (copy) on a small channel with a few views.
Notice that the Proud Boy holding the camera who identifies himself as “the leader of zone 5” asks Whoopi, “let me ask you, have you heard this narrative that we’re white supremacist group? Have you heard that? Our noble leader is half black and half Cuban. I mean we have no ties to white supremacy. As a matter of fact, if you’re a Nazi…”
He breaks off to let Whoopi speak as she says, “Listen, here’s the thing that I have to tell you; when you know how people will just say shit about you and say, ‘This is what they believe and this is who they…’, know that the same thing happens to me.”
Perhaps that part, that exchange, is why the video was taken down. But if they ever need to smear Whoopi, they can whip this video out and say that she she had a friendly conversation with some Proud Boys.
Let us scroll down to “What is a Western Chauvinist?” by The Elders, March 20, 2019 and/or by Lloyd Somerset…
A Western Chauvinist is a proponent of Western Civilization, someone who supports a secular government whose legal code is informed by Judeo-Christian ethics and whose origins lie in the Greco-Roman tradition of the Republic.
It’s a fairly new term, coined by Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, and it has created a new connotation to the word “chauvinist.”
Originally, the word “chauvinist” indicated a zealous attitude, over-the-top patriotism. Over time, the word’s connotation also expanded to include bigotry or bias, particularly during the social upheaval of the 1960s. This is where we see popularization of the term “male chauvinist.”
Now that the term “Western Chauvinist” has hit the mainstream, the word “chauvinist” has developed a third distinct meaning, which I would define as a person displaying blatant or unapologetic patriotism.
When we Proud Boys say, “I am a proud Western Chauvinist,” we are saying “I am a proud and unabashed proponent of Western Civilization.”
That is it.
It has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, or even national origin.
News media outlets have displayed an elementary, perhaps blatant, misunderstanding of our usage of the term, even going so far as to imply that Proud Boys adhere to the second definition, i.e. that we believe men are superior to women.
Don Lemon at CNN has even called us “misogynistic.” In order to look directly into the camera and make that claim with a straight face, Lemon must be ignorant, incompetent, or completely dishonest.
Now that we’ve cleared clear up any confusion about what is and what is not a “Western Chauvinist,” the media have no excuse to get it wrong.
This web site is public, and so is this article.
…not any more, and that’s why. They have an excuse to get it wrong. They continue further down…
…Now, thanks to feminist movements and the subsequent culture of feminism, most people generally think “male chauvinist” when they hear the word “chauvinist.”
That could all change, however.
When Gavin McInnes describes the tenets of the Proud Boys, he clearly defines Western Chauvinist as such: “it just means a nationalist, a patriot,” i.e. “the West is the best.”
na·tion·al·ist, noun
a person who advocates political independence for a country
pa·tri·ot, noun
a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors
Our version of chauvinism has nothing to do with aggression or exaggeration. We portray a normal, healthy amount of patriotism, the same that would be expected of any proud member of any nation. The difference with us, what makes us unique among patriots and chauvinists the world over, is the source of our pride: the so-called West, that thing I described up in the first paragraph.
While there are Proud Boys in Western countries across the globe, many of us feel that there is one country that exemplifies the ideal manifestation of Western aims: The United States of America.
One of the founding principles of the U.S.A. is the phrase E PLURIBUS UNUM, which is Latin for “from many, one.” These words originally referred to the 13 colonies forming one nation, but now E PLURIBUS UNUM conjures the idea of one people from many backgrounds, one nation of citizens regardless of their blood, ethnic, national, racial, or religious origins.
This concept, perhaps unique to the U.S., means that not only are foreigners welcome to come here, but they are also encouraged (and expected) to become like us and adopt our ways.
Becoming an American is contingent upon the following:
1) Become a U.S. citizen, via legal channels.
2) swear an oath of allegiance to the United States.
3) Respect and Revere our laws.
I propose a 4th rule. Every new American must watch a particular scene from the movie Moscow on the Hudson, starring Robin Williams. The scene in question features not so much the comedian but instead a federal judge (black & female, in case it matters), who says the following to a group of foreign-born and newly sworn Americans:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning. Today you will become citizens of the United States of America. No longer are you an Englishman, Italian, a Pole, or whatever; neither will you be a hyphenated American. From this day you are no longer a subject of a government, but an integral part of the government, a free man. May you find in this nation the fulfillment of your dreams of Peace and Security, and may America in turn never find you wanting in your new proud role of citizen of the United States.”
Thusly we welcome people into our Western nation.
Is there anything aggressive or exaggerated in taking pride in that?
As we saw, both Youtube and Spotify removed the episode of the Joe Rogan Experience wherein Rogan interviewed Gavin McInnis. Thankfully, at least the audio of the whole two and a half hour episode is still available on Mixcloud. The first hour of the video is still available on Daily Motion.
According to their conversation, McInnis is “pro-West, pro-gun, pro-life, pro-gay, pro-Israel, pro-Trump, anti-Nazi, anti-antifa, anti-censorship, anti-feminist” and, “anti-Islam.”3 He also complains how he is considered to be far-right or “alt right” despite the fact that he is not.
They discuss how McInnis is pro-free speech and how antifa is anti-free-speech in their actions, referring, as an example, to the terrorism they waged at UC Berkeley on February 1st, 2017. Note that antifa are also anti-free speech in rhetoric as well. See, for example, Antifa - the Anti-Fascist Handbook by Mark Bray, 2017, specifically chapter 5 which is explicitly an argument against freedom of speech.
At 39:10, McInnis says he is a feminist and explains that he means that he reveres females. Later he explains that part of why he says, “the West is the best” is because the West has equality and freedom.
Starting at about 50:304 McInnis tells Rogan that he, “started this gang called the Proud Boys”. To be serious, one typically thinks of gangs as engaging in drug running, pimping and human trafficking and turf wars. He continues…
McInnis: “We have chapters all over the world, we meet once a month, we get drunk - it’s just like the Elk’s Lodge, like Masons or whatever.”
Rogan: “Celebrating manhood.”
McInnis: “Yeah, no women allowed.”
Rogan: “Ah wow, sexist!” he jokes.
McInnis: “You can’t tell your woman what goes on at the meetings. And we have different degrees like the Knights of Columbus. 1st degree, you declare yourself a Proud Boy, 2nd degree, we beat the shit out of you until you can name 5 breakfast cereals and you have to give up masturbating. And then 3rd degree, you still have to give up masturbating but you have to get a tattoo and then 4th degree you get arrested or in a serious violent fight for the cause.”
Rogan: “Really?”
McInnis: “Yes.”
Rogan: “You get arrested? You get arrested in a serious violent fight, so you’re promoting violence?”
McInnis: “Or some sort of major altercation.”
Rogan: “That - you shouldn’t - you should erase that part.”
McInnis: “Well, we don’t encourage it but if you’re defending - it’s like that Berkeley thing with Milo. We just, my guys just, 14 of them just walked into a mob of 200 people and said, ‘I thought you guys were tough’-”
Rogan: “Just to get their stripes?”
McInnis: “No they were doing it just for fun. And these people, outside of pepper spray and clubs they can’t fight. Like at the NYU thing, my guys were beating them up and he goes - this one guy we call Friar Tuck because he’s just a monster - he goes, ‘I started feeling bad after a while because I could tell these kids had never been in a fight and I was just mowing through them’. They’re terrible fighters. Total pussies.”
They drifted from the topic of the Proud Boys for some time. Later they return to it when they lead into an example of what is meant by “Western Chauvinism”.
Rogan: “…and whenever you have people from one culture that emigrate into an other culture and are disenfranchised and poor and they have a really restrictive fucked up culture that they’re coming from and they want to impose that culture on the people that live in Germany or wherever, and they want women to start wearing long dresses and they treat them like they’re whores if they don’t.
That’s all fucking real dangerous. They’re from a different part of the world and it’s a part of the world that hasn’t changed much in a long time and that part of the world, I mean, you could call it culture, you could call it religious tradition but whenever you’re dealing with a part of the world that still has honor killings and female genital mutilation and you don’t let women drive and women aren’t allowed to vote and you have this incredibly restrictive world that you’re existing in and then you bring that world somewhere else, you’re going to have a culture clash.
And you’re seeing that and this is, you know, if you want people to be free and you want people to have the ability to integrate into a more free culture like America is you also have to be honest about what the consequences are and you have to be honest about what kind of culture they’re coming from and as soon as you talk about that you get labelled an islamophobe. As soon as you talk about this incredibly restrictive misogynistic culture that’s based on an ancient series of ancient rituals and beliefs you become a racist, a bigot by talking about a reality like-”
McInnis: “And they’re not a race. You’re talking about culture.”
Rogan: “Right.”
McInnis: “And it’s important to make that distinction as a Western Chauvinist that I think the West is the best, I don’t care what race you are. But I don’t think that other cultures are different. I think they’re worse. And Islam is 500 years behind us. We were shitty. We had witch hunts.”
Rogan: “The Inquisition.”
McInnis: “We had the Inquisition. They’re doing, they’re not caught up to us yet...”
OBSERVATIONS
Notice that they are making what is ultimately a liberal critique of conservatism. Of course, many would knee-jerk to argue that Rogan and McInnis are making a far-right critique because they are criticizing an other culture and of course, many would just call them racist as if Islam were a race and as if most Muslims are Middle Eastern.
Notice they both criticized Western culture along with Islamic culture. They expressed opposition for pre-Enlightenment Europe/fundamentalist Islamic culture insofar as they lack the “ideals of liberty and equality” of the Enlightenment with its “new reason-based order”5 which lead to what is now called by some “classical liberalism” meaning the principles of the Declaration of Independence of the Untied States of America and the US Constitution.
They did not make a religious argument. They did not make a racial argument. They made a classical liberal argument. Ironically (or hypocritically), people who identify as liberals today tend to say that this argument against the oppression of women, and the lack of religious freedom is wrong.
There are many people who would never describe themselves as liberal despite their classical liberal views because there are so many people who say they are liberal but who oppose classical liberal principles.
It is my understanding from personal communications and research that the Proud Boys believe in the whole “all men are created equal” and “unalienable rights” such as “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” thing6. These, the “natural rights” or “God-given rights” that governments must be constrained from violating, these liberties, are to be for all and equally so. For “all men are created equal” and “all men” means all men as it was at long last recognized (Civil Liberties; see the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution)…
…and not just men. All women too (see the 19th Amendment and the Equal Rights Amendment). These equal rights are described in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution. They are not granted. They are described as that which the government is constrained from violating. They are “unalienable”. In varying degrees, the governments of nations like the USA, Canada, the UK, Sweden, and Australia, in short, in Western nations are - or at least were - limited and constrained from violating the rights of the individual. This is why the Proud Boys are Western chauvinists. This is why the Proud Boys say “The West is the Best”.
Thanks for reading,
Justin Trouble
∴ Liberty ∴ Strength ∴ Honor ∴ Justice ∴ Truth ∴ Love ∴
Notes
See pages 288-289 and 339 of National Geographic Volume XXXII, Number 4, October 1917 which is a guide to flags. Also see this.
See “Gadsden Flag: Too Racist for Government Buildings, But Just Right for Obamacare Propaganda!” by Reason (March 21, 2014), the Shelton D. v. U.S. Postal Service case (June 3, 2016) and discussion by the EEOC, “Wearing ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ insignia could be punishable racial harassment” by the Washington Post (August 3, 2016), “'Don't tread on me' shirts and hats could be officially declared RACIST by the government – even though the symbol is an icon of the American Revolution” by the Daily Mail, (August 5, 2016), “Is the Gadsden flag racist?” by Fox News (August 5, 2016), “Fact Check: Is the ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flag racist?” by the Florida Times Union (September 2, 2016), “The Shifting Symbolism of the Gadsden Flag” by the New Yorker (October 2, 2016), “Chris Pratt criticised for T-shirt choice” by Yahoo News (July 16, 2019), “Why Was Chris Pratt Wearing a Gadsden Flag? 'Avengers' Star Gets Conservative Support After T-Shirt Sparks Controversy” by Newsweek (July 17, 2019), “The Gadsden flag is a symbol. But whose?” by High Country News (May 18, 2020) and so on.
See this video at 2:00.
Starting at about 50:30 McInnis talks about starting the Proud Boys.
McInnis: “I started this gang called the Proud Boys.”
Rogan: “The Proud Boys?”
McInnis: “The Proud Boys.”
Rogan: “What is What’s Proud Boys all about?”
McInnis: “We have chapters all over the world, we meet once a month, we get drunk - it’s just like the Elk’s Lodge, like Masons or whatever.”
Rogan: “Celebrating manhood.”
McInnis: “Yeah, no women allowed.”
Rogan: “Ah wow, sexist!”
McInnis: “You can’t tell your woman what goes on at the meetings. And we have different degrees like the Knights of Columbus. First degree, you declare yourself a Proud Boy, second degree, we beat the shit out of you until you can name 5 breakfast cereals and you have to give up masturbating. And then third degree, you still have to give up masturbating but you have to get a tattoo and then fourth degree you get arrested or in a serious violent fight for the cause.”
Rogan: “Really?”
McInnis: “Yes.”
Rogan: “You get arrested? You get arrested in a serious violent fight, so you’re promoting violence?”
McInnis: “Or some sort of major altercation.”
Rogan: “That - you shouldn’t - you should erase that part.”
McInnis: “Well, we don’t encourage it but if you’re defending - it’s like that Berkeley thing with Milo. We just, my guys just, fourteen of them just walked into a mob of 200 people…”
Rogan: “Just to get their stripes?”
McInnis: “…and said, ‘I thought you guys were tough…’. No they were doing it just for fun. And these people, outside of pepper spray and clubs they can’t fight. Like at the NYU thing, my guys were beating them up and he goes - this one guy we call Friar Tuck because he’s just a monster - he goes, ‘I started feeling bad after a while because I could tell these kids had never been in a fight and I was just mowing through them’. They’re terrible fighters. Total pussies.”
Rogan: “Why do they fighting? Like this is what confuses me. Like why are they getting so angry that they’re hitting people and spraying that girl in the face? The girl was really disturbing because she was talking to someone - she wasn’t offering any threat and she, she had a hat that looked like a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat but it said, ‘Make Bitcoin Great Again’. They walk up to her, the guy hits her with a stick that’s holding a sign, so he hits her in the head with a piece of wood and she’s like, ‘What the fuck?’ and someone sprays her in the face with pepper spray. I mean it’s like, how in any way - how could you in any other scenario justify beating a woman publicly for doing nothing but representing what you think is offensive and you’re even wrong about what she’s representing.”
McInnis: “Here’s the problem with what you’re doing and I did this too much too - you’re intellectualizing a fashion movement. This is the mods and the rockers in Brighton Beach in 1961 just fighting each other because one likes Elvis and the other likes the Who and if you were to sit down with this mod and this rocker and say have a debate they wouldn’t say anything, they have nothing to say. It’s leathers versus parkas . It’s Vespas versus Triumph motorbikes. There’s no context there. So this guy is on this team and she’s on the other team and their tool is pepper spray and that’s what they’re doing. There’s no - they pretend, ‘Oh I don’t want to give you a platform’? No. They don’t want to give you an anything because they don’t have anything to say. In fact, at the NYU talk, after I watched the pepper I went and did the talk. They’re all screaming, ‘Whose campus? Our campus!’ and I walk over to the mob with a microphone and I have two and I go, ‘Come on up, come on up.’ and it was a radio active cock I was handing him. Like he just went, ‘uhhhh!’”
Rogan: “Because it was a mic?”
McInnis: “And he shriveled up.”
Rogan: “Because he wanted to be a part of the big group.”
McInnis: “Right.”
Rogan: “And didn’t want to be an individual with an opinion and didn’t exactly know why he was there in the first place, didn’t exactly know what he was protesting against.”
McInnis: “That’s why - like, Milo would kill to debate any of these people. He’s been scrounging for an opponent.”
Rogan: “But isn’t the real problem - is that they’re not debating? That’s the real problem. I feel like this could be really productive if people would sit down and Milo would debate you. I mean he might say outrageous things, he might say offensive things but he will debate.”
McInnis: “We all would.”
Rogan: “He will sit in front of a podium, he will do his time and anyone else that will have their time and they will be able to take questions from the audience and this could be very productive and you could kind of figure out like - look - you and I are not far left and we’re not far right, you know, neither one of us are. We’re in some sort of a weird way - I think I’m maybe more left than you are but I’m not as left as a lot of people I know and there’s a lot of people out there and I think this left/right paradigm is really kinda of fucking foolish at this point and we should kinda figure out like what’s what kind of opinions are okay to have because they don’t interfere with anybody else’s life and it’s just your philosophy and the way you look at the world you should be able to express that opinion and express those ideas in front of someone else who has an opposing idea and they tell you why they disagree and you should be able to consider why they disagree and see if there’s any merit in that.”
McInnis: “The problem with what you’re saying is you’re implying that these are all informed people right and left and they need to hash out ideas. No. These people on the right are intelligent people who have looked it up and wanna debate - “
Rogan: “Some. Some.”
McInnis: “You wanna see a good debate? Look at Pat Buchannan versus Shawn Hannity or Peter Brimelow versus some open borders libertarian like Malt Walsh or something or someone from the Wall St Journal. All the inner right fights are fascinating to me.” He gestures to the left. “These people are religious fanatics. For them it’s sports. It’s the Dallas Cowboys are their team and they wanna fuck up your team. They don’t wanna debate like Jared Diamond who did Guns, Germs and Steel, tons of flaws with that book. Steve Sailor was begging him for a debate. He wouldn’t answer. Jarod Taylor, John Derbyshire, all these - even Richard Spencer - all these far right guys have made it clear they’d love to argue with anyone on the other side and the other side knows that they will lose because their foundation isn’t truth or information. Their foundation is just emotions; ‘We’re a nation of immigrants. Oh, everything’s racist. Oh, gays are people too' and you’re like, ‘You don’t think that I thing gays are fucking people? What is your point? I don’t even understand your side of things.’”
Rogan: “Right, well, I’m sure you saw that woman who’s a middle school teacher who was a part of the protest at Berkeley and she was on Tucker Carlson’s show and she was talking about fascism and she said that Milo was homophobic even though he’s fucking gay.”
McInnis: “Yeah. He’s a racist homophobe that sucks black cocks.”
Rogan: “Yeah, it’s so hilarious and she was also saying that he promotes genocide. Like, you can’t just throw those labels out and that - that - it’s a clear example of what we’re talking about because those labels allow her to do anything necessary to get you out of the mix.”
McInnis: “Right. Right.”
Rogan: “And that’s fascism. That is fascism. That’s authoritative thinking, authoritarian thinking, authoritarianism in a way that’s eliminating someone else from expressing themselves because you have deemed them unworthy of expressing themselves. They’re of - this is a racist, this is a homophobe, this is someone who promotes genocide, we will shut them down. Like you - that’s nonsense and you could see from her talking on that show that she - she talks over him, she doesn’t express herself well, she doesn’t have clearly thought out reasons for why she’s saying he does these things. She doesn’t have notes that she’s relying on. She doesn’t say why it’s so dangerous that he has these controversial opinions. She just says, ‘He’s a Nazi! He’s a racist! He’s a homophobe! He promotes genocide! We’re gonna shut him down!’ Well you can’t just say that. You can’t just label people because someone could do that to you too and they will.”
McInnis: “Oh they will.” (laughs)
Rogan: “They will - that’s the problem.”
McInnis: “I forget her name - Michelle Yavellis or something?”
Rogan: “It doesn’t even matter what her name is. There’s a million like her.”
If it matters to you, dear reader, it she goes by Yvette Felarca and her real name is Yvonne Capistrano Felarca. At any rate, after that they drift further from the topic of the Proud Boys for some time. Later they return to it with a revisit to the concept of Western Chauvinism…
Rogan: “…and whenever you have people from one culture that emigrate into an other culture and are disenfranchised and poor and they have a really restrictive fucked up culture that they’re coming from and they want to impose that culture on the people that live in Germany or wherever, and they want women to start wearing long dresses and they treat them like they’re whores if they don’t. That’s all fucking real dangerous. They’re from a different part of the world and it’s a part of the world that hasn’t changed much in a long time and that part of the world, I mean, you could call it culture, you could call it religious tradition but whenever you’re dealing with a part of the world that still has honor killings and female genital mutilation and you don’t let women drive and women aren’t allowed to vote and you have this incredibly restrictive world that you’re existing in and then you bring that world somewhere else, you’re going to have a culture clash. And you’re seeing that and this is, you know, if you want people to be free and you want people to have the ability to integrate into a more free culture like America is you also have to be honest about what the consequences are and you have to be honest about what kind of culture they’re coming from and as soon as you talk about that you get labelled an islamophobe. As soon as you talk about this incredibly restrictive misogynistic culture that’s based on an ancient series of ancient rituals and beliefs you become a racist, a bigot by talking about a reality like”
McInnis: “And they’re not a race. you’re talking about culture.”
Rogan: “Right”
McInnis: “And it’s important to make that distinction as a Western Chauvinist that I think the West is the best, I don’t care what race you are. But I don’t think that other cultures are different. I think they’re worse and Islam is 500 years behind us. We were shitty. We had witch hunts.”
Rogan: “The Inquisition.”
McInnis: “We had the Inquisition. They’re doing, they’re not caught up to us yet...”
Enlightenment, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The Declaration of Independence.