ah, ah hello and welcome to cross doctor. all things are considered non penal labelle. how should we describe our times? what is the zeitgeist as they say? do we have a sense of direction and purpose? we also hear a lot about the desire to return to normal. what does that mean? now? are we actually living in the new normal? ah, to discuss these issues and more, i'm joined by my guess, lionel in new york. he is a legal in media analyst. and in paris we cross a john laughlin, he is a university lecture in history and political philosophy. right gentlemen. crosstalk rules and effect. that means you can jump in any time you want and i

always appreciate it. ok, let's start with john. what is our zeitgeist today? because it seems to me we're in a transition that i transition doris period right now. certainly, we've left something behind. i have no idea where we're going, but i also have a difficult time describing where we are your thoughts? well, to be honest, it feels like we're in the end times pizza because so much seems to be going wrong . both in internal politics across the world. and of course, in the international situation and internal politics, i'm referring of course to the sanitary dictatorship, which just gets worse and worse. we've seen a number of red lines cross in britain, in austria, in france, in greece, in germany. where all kinds of fundamental rights and liberties have been brushed aside. i know they were brushed aside originally in 2020, but it's now claire. we are living through a, a sort of ratchet effect,

where each new restriction paved the way the restriction paper, the way for a new one. and on the international level, we obviously have this again, rather unreal world, just as the cobit world is so unreal and doesn't make sense and doesn't, doesn't that up we have this, you know, within a few months of the defeat of the united states and its allies, after a 20 year, not even war, but a 20 year sort of anti insurgency operation, which failed. we see nato carrying on as if nothing had happened later in the united states. and they've just changed the name of the city they want to defend. it's not cobble anymore, but t f. and they're rushing out tensions at a time when it's obvious that they can't win any was anywhere. whether they're in the hindu kush or in the pine plains of central europe. so i have to say, i'm very,

very despondent. i feel it all kinds of values because i'm a conservative, so i think the values are in decline, but i don't think even i and i don't very other conservatives expected the massive unraveling the collapse really of all the sort of basic tennis of civilization which we have observed in the last year and a half, and that's what fills me with grateful. boating illegal. basically the same questions you because i kind of to echo what john was saying here. i guess with really disappoints me. not surprises, but this it disappoints me. how so many people were willing to give up their rights very easily and, and, and continue down the slippery slope because no, john mentioned competent. it's like the colds and everyone. oh, you know, they're playing out their own little m melodrama. and it's that it empowers them, you know, they get to shame people, you know, on your mask, you know,

and get another wooster. i mean, it seems to me that, you know, replaced me and we were at least in the western world, we have, you know, millions of little tyrants out there and in just regarding the rights of others, your thoughts line. well, i disagree with both of you. i think things have never been better. i think it's so much easier to be a citizen of the world now because we have fewer rights to worry about and keep track of. so actually it's better because i don't have to worry about all of those pesky bill of rights provisions and freedom of speech and keeping the government off. that's all gone. i say that not even mockingly. you know, i'm, i'm trying to answer the questions accurately and not provide somebody that makes a great sound bite. but i'm going to tell you something, i'm sure everybody in every iteration of history always said this is the worst time and i'm sure during the black death in world war 2, people said,

it can't get worse than this. i see myself or an us in almost like a parallel universe. i'm. i'm trying to think of some weird kind of way of, of showing this. here's the world. here's this, this shadow government. and i can't figure it up. but you said something. peter was very, very good. i believe that coven is a religion, the vaccine or boosters, whatever vaccine is the sacrament sound she is. the pope and the cdc is the vatican . and i'm trying to be a good i'm, i'm, i'm serious. this gives people something to believe in something to fear, a sense of belonging, who has the latest busher, who has the latest vaccine document in new york right now, people are running, running to, to vaccine testing site to see whether they have the a micron variant. which i heard is basically last. we are now in an

endemic versus a pandemic. like nobody wants to hear the good news because they are so caught up in the almost sexual fetishistic titillation of fear and dread it. i'm not exaggerating. that wasn't meant to be a cute if the answer. i mean it, it, let me, let me go back to john. yeah. me, it would say the echo what you said an answer. your 1st question you, this is re put this, this melodrama that it's being played out. this is, this is a really poor thing. rule substitute for rights because if you're part of the cult than you know, the terms and conditions. but if you disagree with it, then you're in a pastime. if we can continue with the metaphor here, that means there's no place for you in their church. and that is a fundamental difference because, and i think you're in times is a very appropriate one. i you know, how do you, how you get no return to communion they don't want you in that church and i think

that this is a i don't like sacrificing my rights to leave in someone else's quasi faith. go ahead, joe. yeah, well i don't agree with lionel at all. i think it's a very important point to refute that at all times in history. people have thought that it was that things are going badly. that is, i'm afraid, quite wrong. there have been many times of history, including recent history, when people believe very strongly in progress, they believed that the golden age was in the future. they believed that technology would help people to live longer and have be happier and all the rest of it. so it's just not true to say that people have always thought that things are getting worse. and as for the sense of belonging, i really don't understand what you're saying, like, because well, maybe people who have covey door, who have tested negative or whatever, have

a sense of belonging. i don't really know what it is you're referring to, but i can show you that people who don't have a vaccine passport and who are excluded from ordinary life. they certainly don't have a sense of belonging. how could they, they are victims of apartheid. there's no sense of belonging to the country. as peter said in his introduction, there's an army now of people denouncing their fellow citizens, but they saw that minor infraction. so what, what depresses me is not just what you referred to peter just now as my rights and my liberties. yes, that also depresses me. but what i find, the reason why i think we are in sort of n times, is that the value itself of freedom is no longer appreciated. it's not that i demand my rights. it's that the freedom itself has a social value. it has a social value. it is good for all of us. if we are free, we all know those of us who experience soviet russia,

how bad it is socially. if people are not free, it is bad for the whole of society. freedom is good for the whole of society and it is a positive value. and yet we are now in a situation in which freedom is regarded as not only unnecessary but the bubble as dangerous. and that is why i think we have indeed crossed the watershed and are living in very, very bad times. elaine of the, given that they, they, the thrust of our conversation here. i would say i'm going to handle another letter later of depression, of the people that are covering over us. okay. i mean, i, i've never seen in my, my time this level of incompetence that john, when the guy gave a litany of policies. but he and we, you know, i just don't see these people as competent and i think it's on both sides of the atlantic. and i, i look at them the, by the administration. i look at what is really turned into him. person is turned into political buffoon boris johnson. i mean,

why should we have faith in these people because they invoke something called science. now science has been negated. it's been deleted as something that we can make a common preference to go ahead while. now in, i'll speak just as far as this country goes. i am waiting for somebody to tell me i jumped to get a point that this is a joke that they've been pulling this off just to for me. we have a president enough can't be said who is absolutely he is sun setting and and, and he is going to be speaking about something. he knows nothing about. he comes out, he is pushed out and i'm not trying to be a cute about this. he literally actually and truly does not know where he is and what he's saying. and at every level, we have some new iteration of this. we have another example. we have lost the ability to show any kind of critical thinking whatsoever. nobody seems to want to

understand the bear rudiments of how vaccine transmission or shoot me a virus transmission works. you have groups of people who are saying that whatever we're doing right now. as an example, we have 2 senators who just had all of the vaccines and i would venture to say they probably had the best available and the boosters, and yet they have quote tested positive. and instead of people saying, wait a minute, there was something wrong with the system. this is like a car where the brainstorm work or something where the, where there is some product liability. instead of people saying that they just said back as they do whenever they hear something like for example, inclement weather initiate. wow, that's really interesting. and there is this sense of acceptance. nobody cares nobody, nobody repelling this. nobody says, wait a minute, i want my freedom back. this doesn't make any sense. we're not, i'm going to go elsewhere. i don't think the people telling me what's going on,

but you know what they're talking about. and his fist insouciance is his intellectual torpor. whatever you want to call it, but it see idea that my biggest problem, yes, i understand the politicians that they're corrupt. i understand it, but my fellow citizens there and the people i have, the biggest gripe begins because i'm in this prison ready to escape. i see the door open, i'm say come on, let's go. and nobody wants to leave. they seem in a very strange way. not only accepting of this, but, but almost not even in the slightest bit. many of them, not all, but not even bothered by this. they're saying, well, this is the way goes and if you want me to go inside, i will, if you want me to wear a chip on my skin, which we're going to go do next. as we're going in sweden, if you want me to walk around with the tech to work, you are code of my for it. i'll do whatever because whatever the will to resist that people normally had. it's been lost as a version of this or as a consequence, when you're gentlemen and in the 1st part of the program in

a very depressed now we'll see if we can pick it up in a 2nd now or a gentleman, i'm going to jump in and we're going to go to a short break, and after that short break, we'll continue our discussion on site guide state with r t ah, managers plan survival guide a little there are you don't get a back. oh no. it's a really crazy game. we get the rest the 7 years. so with the report, orland gas manufacturing, electricity, telecom dies partition. all of them now have your teeth type of infrastructure connected to the internet. so clearly realizing that it's disruptive potential so that those countries can't ignore it because it threatens national security issue.

because if we take the nato e u countries, virtually all of them subscribe to certain doctrines and maintains selling but task forces. they are a cyber army on behalf of a country that's their job. who, when i was showing wrong, when i just don't hold any world to safe out disdain. because the advocate and engagement, it was the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart, we choose to look for common ground. with

ah, welcome back to crossed up, were all things are considered? i'm peter bell. this is the home addition to minute we're discussing site guys. ah. okay, let's go back to john in france. i'm gonna use another extended metaphor for our program here. you know, looking for the root origins of something is very, very difficult as academics. it's kind of, it's very important exercise. when you know, where are we at the way the way you see change going about are, are these tremors we're feeling right now? have we already had the earthquake, or are we feeling the aftershocks of origins? we could look at like briggs in the advent of trump. ok, because we've seen so much reaction to both here because i'm trying to get a field where we're going that you can, you tipped your hand in the very beginning. the problem my saying is in times which

i think is a very good description, but i mean, is, are we going into a more massive change or we are feeling the after effects of a huge change has happened in the last, almost 24 months. i call it i call 202-020-2021 is the long 2020. a lot of things have happened in that time, but it's the same as i guys, as i say, the name of this program. go ahead, john. well, i think i, unfortunately what the covert crisis shows is the very debased sense of freedom, which many citizens had up perhaps on noticed. certainly on notice by me or at the time when the 1st to lockdown measures were taken back in the spring of 2020. and everything else has confirmed that, that all the subsequent events have confirmed that what i mean is that people, as lionel said, in the 1st part, people regard it as a liberation to be false,

to have the vaccine, which allows them to go up to a nightclub well, if your vision of liberty is to go out to and is the right to go out to a nightclub, then you have or a pub, or whatever, then you have a very debased version of liberty. it's an infant title and almost animalistic notion of liberty. it's a very long way from the proper notions of political liberty that we, that we used to hold death. so i think there's been a long decline upstream as it were. and then we had these extraordinary measures announced which seem not to be going the way because a number of countries are now getting more and more vicious. i mentioned australia, buddy, britain, the netherlands has just gone back into lockdown. and all these things i think, show they bring to the surface trends, which perhaps we haven't a properly taken account of before. and one of those trends,

there are many of them. one of them is short termism. you mentioned in competence peter, in one of your questions, i think that's a very big problem. i think we are governed by, by fools, by chances, by opportunists, by people who are come into power without having any real sense of the responsibilities. and these people have been kicking the can down the road for a very long time. as we all know, all our states, all our countries are heavily indebted. and yet they, the repayment is always, as i say, kicked down the line to all these things have been building up slightly under the surface. but with this sudden explosion of totalitarianism, that i think is, is a watershed because it shows the extent of our decline. it brings it into focus. it brings into focus the fact that what people want now is not freedom. they don't want or they don't want freedom. they don't want to be able to do what they want, at least not in

a noble sense. they may want to have very sort of basic freedoms like to go out to a restaurant. they don't want to freedom in any noble sense. instead, they are afraid of freedom. and that is the beginning of totalitarianism. it is precisely when people are afraid of freedom and when they actually don't want it. they don't want it for themselves in a bubble. they don't want it for other people because these to tell a tarion states that we need, we are, we saw in the 20th century, they didn't come from nowhere. of course, there were dictators and police and everything. but there was a substantial level of political support. and when you have citizens denouncing each other as you do now, only this morning i went to buy some milk and they are the at the farm. and the woman was afraid of being denounced for not wearing a mask. you know, when you have that level of corrosion of society or the soviet experience, i'm sorry to mention it again and again, but that was largely predicated, also on denunciation. that is the social or sociological situation that we have

reached and which fills me as i say, with, with a great sense of foreboding. because it's not just a matter of the governments. it's a matter of the society that we live in, or the societies that we live in, which have become deeply, deeply degraded. little it's very interesting if you look at a lot of the whole results over the last couple of years. the public trusted in traditional institutions is eroded away immensely. even in particular. i mean, i think particularly the military and then we have been, we've already mentioned here, this culture snitching and the ation here. i mean, how can it's assigned to be healthy and were born if you have suspicion of the institutions and rule over you. and on top of that you have suspicions of your fellow citizens. you know, i can kind of digress through january 6 commission, which is looking for scapegoats for all the ills of society. it seems to me that

the social fabric is very being torn apart here. and just to reiterate, you know, we've been in this program here. it's really i find it very, very tragic that so many people in grace it because that, you know, john and i, you know, i lived in eastern communist, eastern europe, jonathan scholar and the soviet union at the eco, are so familiar. it's so traveling line when, when physicians sometimes don't know how to explain the death of a loved one, they say oregon failure system failure. and we're in the midst of kind of a system failure right now. i am seeing our society take on a mutation of variant, if you will. there used to be something which i thought human beings inherently felt and that is the ability to express themselves. and if you told you told somebody you can't say this, whether you're a child or an adult, you automatically rebel and repelled that. something happened with the advent of

social media and other aspects as well. first of all, we came in the we, with the idea that i can shut you down by claiming that what you're saying is a conspiracy here. and before that was a description. but now in his license to stop you, then i can say you are providing this information. what you were doing right now. and there was this idea at one point where what ever you said, if i didn't like it, i just dismissed it. now what's happening is that people are becoming more and more acclimated and habituated and used to, to, in condition to having certain things shut up and shut down. especially if they are deemed to be not good for the whole, not good for us misinformation about back of but viruses, misinformation about history. and though ike and also for the 1st time you mentioned january 6,

we're actually suggesting that sometimes speech ideas are so incendiary, by their very nature, which every good idea is that we have the license to shut you down a priori without anybody sanity. and in conclusion, we've all said, not anybody here, but too many people have said, well, that's the way it goes. that's the price you pay for orator. for some semblance of order or in com will give up a little bit so long as everything is smooth. whatever our master says, well, that always ends in tragedy. there is a long, a tragic rec, the historical record of that. in it, john went with it. i'm glad they know this misinformation thing. i mean, i will express my own humble opinion. it's the mass media, legacy media of the biggest sources of misinformation. and we, in part of the, the great liberal project, which i mean with as a large l i is, is tolerance. i mean, we,

we have freedom of speech by can use the american example. and it's, it's, it's an popular speech that needs protections, not popular. people speech and i think we've lost sight of that. people have lost sight of that. we have a person to protect people that have opinions that are not popular. and it's actually a fundamental, it's part of the pillar of, of western civilization. and so many people trivialize it. yeah, i mean, and you know, that's why i say that we are worse off than before because these issues were, for example, well explained and argued in what to me as an irrefutable way by john stewart male, in his famous essay on liberty in the middle of the 19th century, when he said that even a true opinion needs to be confronted with falsehoods. in order for that true opinion to be reinvigorated and to be known by the public as a living truth, not just to be, you know, sort of shot away in the cupboard. so john stuart mill argued that full,

sued as it were. dialectical strengthens truth if, if of course the truth is allowed to respond as it should be. so we have now lost that understanding or not, not we perhaps here on the show, but many people have lost that understanding. and what i think is even worse is that the narrative about this information means quite simply. this is an obvious point, but it means that your political rival, your political adverse, it is a liar, your political adversary is somebody who is lying. and of course, that greatly increases the intensity of the political rivalry. and if he is lying your adversary, then indeed you have the right indeed duty to shut him down. and again, that's why i think that this social and political climate is so poisonous because you mentioned the 6th of january and the others. what have we, however,

we refer to those events. what those events encapsulate, of course, were a distrust of institutions on the part of the people demonstrating. but the counter reaction demonstrates nothing less than a hatred of those people a hatred of the people who feel distrust in the institutions. and that is the great cleavage of our day between on the one hand, these elites whom we rightly denounced as being remote. and those leads whose feelings towards people like us, people like you, peter and me, is one of hatred. and that's why the whipping up of hatred and suspicion are in society against, for example, the non vaccinated, as, as to been done recently in france and in other countries where they are blame, does it work for the, for the virus? these are anthropological, extremely dangerous passions. to unleash and once again. that's why i feel so pessimistic about the times that we live in because when these passions of

scapegoating are released, it really is genuinely, i'm not trying to be alarmist. it is generally very difficult to know where they will, and it's right there on leashed, and legitimize by authority. it's almost impossible to make the turn. i want everybody to know my audience. i took the vaccine because i thought it was the right choice for me. and i, i firmly believe in freedom the people should make their own choices as well. coercion always ends bad or gentlemen. that's all the time we want to thank my guest, new york and embarrassed want to thank you for watching us here at our next time. remember prospect this? oh, i agree or should she popped in?

she said, well i'm getting ready to go shopping for christmas. and we we snuck up there was a good. you're buying another, shooting, another safe part of american life. shattered by violence. the gunman was armed with an hour 15, semi automatic rifle. when the issue comes home, it's time to act when we're silent on this issue, the other side wins by default, lady that lived over there. i was walking one of the dogs, which is what you, where again, when you scale nothing, they take it off. i think the people need to take responsibility into their own and be prepared if those kinds of weapons were less available. we wouldn't have a lot of the shootings that we certainly wouldn't have the number and there's a

ah, the acknowledge is a very big industry and there's lot of opportunities for the hackers, the villains, not him, but he didn't bring the law in the country. you're dealing with why arrest him that the major cybersecurity challenge is the sovereignty of laws that cyberspace has no borders, no sovereignty. we ended up with, for example, the national health service in the u. k, the n a chest was completely wiped out for the ransomware attack. if you were

coming in to a clinic because you had a test or you had an operation, they can't find your records. they had to go back to pen and paper a tonight in an exclusive interview with r t rushes. foreign minister says moscow will react to a flagrant attempt by berlin to block our teas. new german language channel after europe's leading satellite provider removes it at the request of the countries of media regulated with we cannot tolerate it any longer and we believe is unacceptable. situation will go on. we will have to respond to it. there's a lot of also questions the impartiality of the ongoing trial into the downing of.