Hello all, I was ‘red pilled’ about two days ago thanks to extensive listening to Jordan Peterson, Milo Y., Candace Owens, Steven Crowder, and Ben Shapiro.

I’d been listening to Ben for a while, and had seen glimpses of crowder, but only recently heard of the rest. I watched videos of Milo or Jordan try to give lectures at colleges and get screamed at by protestors for being racist or homophobic or transphobic. I have for some time now been looking at things objectively, centered in logic and reason. I considered myself very neutral. I would listen to Ben Shapiro, then NPR. I’d see a crowder video, then watch a Trevor Noah video.

I had begun to feel like Trevor Noah and jimmy kimmel and the like were less funny. I felt like they had very clear agendas that I had heard before. Like they were only saying what they were saying because they wanted love from Hollywood or Democrats. I felt like they were beginning to exist in an echo chamber. I then saw videos like Milo and Steven at UMass, or Peterson at University of Toronto, and a switch flipped.

I was raised Democrat, so any political bias I had should have been for the left. I looked at these scenes objectively. I thought:

“Why would you fight so hard to prevent someone with an opposing view from speaking? Why don’t you just debate this person with your own arguments? If you don’t like this lecture to the point where you want to scream, simply leave. You certainly have the right to shout thanks to the freedom of speech, but you should have the constant skepticism/humility about your own knowledge to sit and listen to what opposing views say/think. Does the right do this to lectures the left gives? What do these people have to say that could be so damaging??”

I listened. I heard my own views and thoughts both reflected and answered by the names I mentioned. It was an overwhelming relief. They calmly stated their views, noted the absurdity of the opposition, made sense using logic and reason, refuted bogus claims about them, and so forth. It shook me.

I since have seen countless more videos of the like. I realized that I wasn’t seeing the whole picture, thanks to news outlets and mainstream media such as cnn who refused to cover things like this. How could I have been so lied to?

I maintain a firm hold that the first amendment is absolutely critical. No matter what someone else says, they have a right to say it. Even if you hate their guts, they must be allowed to speak. Censorship and safe spaces detriment our progression. They prevent us from being able to speak freely and think openly. The left is therefore anti-free speech (in my eyes). I have yet to gain an entirely positive opinion of Trump, but certainly don’t hate him, particularly in light of my recent realizations. How much could I think about him that may be wrong? Not knowing the answer, I stay neutral on him for now. But the left and Democrats have entirely lost a chance at my allegiance due to endorsing the ideas of hate speech, the right being Nazis, or oppressions of idea discourse, and lying to me as they have.

My mom is a great woman, but I believe she is blinded, like I was. She is a Facebook style SJW, who routinely despises all things republican or Trump. I sent her the videos I mentioned and encouraged her to watch them, and I explained my opinion on free speech, and not believing hate speech should be prohibited. I did not agitate or provoke in any way. Here is her response to my message;

“I have seen Milo multiple times, can’t stand him. Tried to play the video you sent but couldn’t get any sound. He’s such an idiot, he was even fired from Breitbart! As for Peterson, have read many articles about him, reviewed his beliefs, and will send you some articles to read. I did watch the video you sent on him and it was really annoying I agree, but again, protesters were protesting his transphobic/other biased views. Not that that’s okay, but yes it is okay to protest hate speech. No one in this country deserves to have people yelling racial slurs at them or telling them they’re less worthy, that they need to get out of the country. That’s just wrong and there is no place for that kind of crap in America. How can you not say the right doesn’t want to censor speech and is not violent? Do you not see the alt right groups; Patriot Prayer, Proud Boys, Citizens United, White Supremacists, all very vocal/violent racist bigots. Your grandpa’s risked their lives fighting the Nazis - it’s a slap in the face to our vets to allow Nazis to march in the streets of America - just sickening. They should be on the domestic terrorist watch list. Trump is all about censoring the media and his supporters love it. People have been fired from newspapers for making cartoons about him. Look at all the people he’s recommended be fired for talking about him. He himself has said he doesn’t like the First Ammendment and likes the way they do things in North Korea - where everyone loves the leader, they do everything he says and only good things can be said about him! Trump totally wants to be another Putin or Kim Jong Un. He only takes questions from his state TV Fox News, and calls all other media who criticizes or tells the truth about him fake news. Watch Mario Cuomo on CNN sometime. He is an attorney, his dad was the mayor of New York at one time. He interviews people from the right everyday - you can see yourself how they evade questions, lie, mislead, interrupt, it’s ridiculous. You don’t understand white privilege, so you really shouldn’t throw out the alt right catch phrases (check my white privilege at the door) like that. I watch/read a variety of news from a multitude of sources, not just biased Liberal news. I watch/listen to Trump myself, so don’t hear all the later twisted and misleading stories on the conservative sites. I don’t know who you’re talking to... people you work with, etc., but obviously typical Trumpers who have their little lists of talking points, but don’t know what’s really going on. Like it or not, everything I post on FB is true, from reliable sources and backed up. I think there was one story once that came out too soon without all the correct information about 6 months ago, but I went back and updated/corrected it. You may not agree with my opinions, but you can’t disagree with facts. Read some of the articles I post if you ever have time then you will perhaps change your mind. You’re in a Trump state right now, so of course that’s an influence too. Problem with Trumpers is...he can totally screw them over, lie to them everyday, and they still treat him like he was appointed by God. No one, not one person other than the top 1% and large corporations are benefitting from his tax cuts. The economy rose every year Obama was in office, despite being handed a recession from Bush. Obama dropped the unemployment rate for blacks by 11%, Trump drops it by 1% and now claims it’s the lowest in history - it may be, but thanks to Obama, not him. The middle class is shrinking because even though the economy may be doing well (as it has for the past 10 years) hourly wages have remained the same despite inflation going up. A good economy means nothing if your wages don’t raise. That was the whole point of the tax cut - huge benefit to the wealthy so they could give raises to their employees - didn’t happen, never does. Trickle down was tried before under Republicans and it failed. These fools don’t care about anyone but the already wealthy and they have no clue what they’re doing. Have your opinions, but base them on truth and facts, not second hand info from other biased people. Are you okay with Trump separating children from their parents at the border? Are you even aware of that?”

I agree with essentially nothing she has said. I aim to focus mainly on points not directly related to trump or religion, but will go there too if I must. I consider myself an objectivist, with more agnostic views of God, so I don’t want to make subjective arguments there. I plan to refute all of this with fact and logic, and planned on doing my own research, but I would love assistance. If any of you have immediate responses to this that can help me show the truth to my own mom, I would love your assistance. Facts, information, even perspective would be appreciated. Also, tell me if you believe she is correct or that my own view is flawed. I encourage any and all thoughts on the matter.

If this is not the point of this subreddit then I apologize for the distraction. Thank you for your time.