🧟 Hymns of a Pirate 🧟

@TheBrianShapiro Brian sounds very violent. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up hurting someone.

@TheBrianShapiro @paleochristcon @Rach4Patriarchy Generating a letter from an LLM/AI and pretending it’s fan mail just adds to the cringe. x.com/i/grok/share/f…

Receiving emails like these is why I do what I do, thank you Brett! This is an email that both @paleochristcon and @Rach4Patriarchy could never understand. They are incapable. Hi Brian, I just wanted to send an email to applaud you for your debate with Rachel Wilson on feminism. In particular, I applaud you for extending the olive branch at the end and for trying to create a real common ground moment that was ultimately denied by Rachel Wilson, which is a huge shame on her part. I also respect you for attempting to say something nice about her, because you paused and gave it thought whereas she immediately declined (for the views/sensationalism in my opinion). But you did your part, and please understand that what you say is a reflection of who you are, and what people say to you is just a reflection of who they are. And you represented yourself (and liberals/independents) in a very positive way and showed that you have human qualities whereas Rachel ultimately proved the opposite about herself. I think your comments showed a lot of maturity, understanding, and charity, and I think right now, it's incredibly hard to make these gestures to the other side in this problematic time we live in, so kudos. Rachel's comments, something to the effect of accusing you of bringing up her dead son to disrupt her emotionally as a debate tactic is laughable if it weren't so sad. I invite you to replay this entire segment because in addition to the way that she spoke about millions of lives lost during Covid in a way that suggested she has no regard for human life, the way she spoke about her son and the way she avoided even expressing any sort of feelings for him was a huge tell about who she is. A normal person would have the ability to separate a debate from something real (your olive branch) and have capacity to relate to you. She clearly could not do that, and for a mother to not be able to do that, as someone who is a son who has lost his mother, it was incredibly hard to watch and comprehend, knowing these relationship dynamics are integral to who we are as human beings. Thank you for being a voice of reason in this troubling time, and while I am 100% pro 1st amendment and while I respect you for going into opposition spaces and attacking poor arguments with logic and facts, my burning question for you and other political commentators/podcasters is at what point do we start to abandon these spaces? I'm in favor of debate, discussion, and compromise, but after your debate with Rachel in particular, I almost feel like it might be better to not engage with some people, especially when they express a disregard for life (her comments on millions of Covid deaths, the way she brushed away mention of her child as taking too much emotional energy to acknowledge and how she refused to relate to you and say "my condolences" for your losses). I'm not saying we should shut down debate/discussion, which I encourage, but if it helps, I recall Rachel mentioning at one point some comment about you saying you could sell more tickets for your side. Perhaps this is part of the problem -- maybe you should consider how cross-promotion of these far right platforms for debates ultimately draws eyeballs to their channels and fills their coffers, enabling them to continue to say outrageous things, misinform the public, and dilute our democracy. With ticket sales involved, that's more money feeding their movement. By comparison, and I'm sure you have things like this too, I boycott companies with my money. Amazon and Walmart (unfair business practices/ethics issues), Chick-Fil-A (the owner's negative comments on gay/lesbian community), and McDonald's (low quality food designed to make people dull and fat and ill), are all places that don't get a cent from me. This has been long running -- about 10 years for all of these companies, and for WalMart, a lifetime. When I receive Amazon gift cards at work, since the money was spent and already exchanged with Amazon, I give these to nephews/nieces to make them happy and to still take the blood off my hands and transfer to someone else. For what it's worth, I wanted to suggest that you consider engagements with the far right carefully, because when you work with them, you are essentially cross-promoting them. While intelligent, well-read, and articulate people like myself can parse the facts from lies and information from misinformation, we live in a society where many people are either feeble-minded/undereducated, want to go with what's popular because it's popular (regardless of having an understanding of it), or willfully corrupt/evil. They all have a right to having a platform, but I don't think that means you need to give them air, and I think if more of us did that, perhaps they would crawl back into their holes and perhaps we can stamp down this movement which is slowly setting our country back from all the progress we've made in 250 years. At the same time, I acknowledge I wouldn't be sending this email if I hadn't come across this particular debate which was posted by a far right channel (America Uncensored possibly or maybe just a lot of far right people attended this?). For Unfuck America stuff though, please don't give that up, because we do need to change the youth's perspective on politics, and I think that effectively, the clear abuse/manipulation of Charlie Kirk's image by his own organization is slowly unravelling their movement and bringing more youth and young adults back to reality. The new leaders shirk a lot of principles he stood for, exposing the grift completely. Anyhow, I appreciate you for what you do, Brian, and your strength and wherewithal in these spaces is incredibly admirable. I hope to get a reply from you, but if not, I understand and know you're busy. My condolences for you grandmother and sister, and I hope that all the false allegations against you soon cease. If they do not, I suggest looking into defamation cases against people -- this hits them in their pockets like I previously suggested we need to do, but by boycott or through the justice system, which are the proper avenues when exercised with integrity. I am glad you made it off life support during Covid, and I hope to call in to your show or connect with you at an event in the future as I'm politically engaged and also working in government contracting which has been completely turned upside down during this time, even in California where I am. I hope to talk to you, Destiny, or IRI about this some day. Thank you for reading this lengthy email and keep doing you, Brian! Best, Brett Hoag

@TheBrianShapiro Why did you delete your tweet about Rachel Brian?