Joe Rogan & Meghan Phelps-Roper on the First Amendment Protecting Unpopular Speech

Hello freak bitches. What's incredibly brave is that you deep into your 20s have this revelation and then have the courage to escape. And so I want to get back to that. Like what was your job? Like what was the first job you got? So I didn't get a job immediately. I thought I had to. I thought I have to be responsible. Like of course I'm with my sister. We had some money saved. We lived at home. We didn't have a lot of expenses. Like we used our money to travel across the country picketing. But we still had some money. That's hilarious. We had to get out there and piss people off. I thought it was the greatest. Like I thought it was always exciting. Like, oh are you going on this picket trip? Yeah I'm going to Los Angeles for picket science. Oh my gosh. It was just like a part of life. You guys used to picket Scientology? A little. That's hilarious. I remember doing it in Clearwater once too. It was super boring. Like there was nobody out there. You got to rank the pickets by like, I don't know, George W. Bush's second inauguration was like insane. Oh was it? And there's like Scientology. Oh yeah that was like post 9-11. It must have been really rough to hold up those signs. Yeah especially we had a sign that said thank God for 9-11. Oh god damn it. And it was like we were stationed at the intersection of these three streets and they were blocked off for the parade. So like he finishes his inauguration speech and this huge crowd of people like hundreds of that whatever. How many thousands of people like flood down this thing and then they're stuck in this intersection waiting to go right past us on this sidewalk. So there was like this, they're seeing this like thank God for 9-11 and it was right after the tsunami too. So my mom was holding the thank God for the tsunamis or whatever. And like so people are just enraged by the time they actually got to us. So like we're standing like right at the edge of these barricades. Like so on the other side is the parade route. And so like you know people were like jumping like some guy jumped on my back like and one another like stealing signs and like jumped on your back. Yeah like so I'm leaning over the barricade so he couldn't steal my signs. Sorry I'm not getting away from the mic. And so like one of my cousins actually like gave his signs to another church member and then was like standing on top of a trash can like going come on you guys like just don't worry about them. They're not worth it. They're not worth it. Like my cousin who was you know just because it was so it got so physical like you know people and like the cops. So you were saying you guys aren't worth it? He was trying to yeah pretending like he was not. Yeah exactly. Oh wow. Yeah. That one got pretty yeah pretty got pretty dicey. But get violent like the guy who jumped on your back like what did he do. So I'm holding my signs and I'm like like I've tucked myself into this barricade so like there's nothing else he can do. Right. So he and there was like there was I should also say there were cops just on the other side of the barricade just like like every five feet there was a cop. I think there was so there was like maybe 14000 cops in DC that existed first inauguration after 9 11. So anyway. So I mean the cops were mostly just standing there like I look over the guy gets off and look at my brother standing next to me who's seven or eight years. He would have been like early 20s and this I see and he jumped over the barricade because the way people were coming after us and this cop like pulls out a club to and making us get back over the bear. And then he jumped back over on the other side like with these people who were and not really doing anything but it. Did you expect the cops to risk their lives even though you're obviously provoking people. I mean you're obviously putting yourself in a situation where you're saying something incredibly insulting and just devastating to all these people that lost friends and loved ones on 9 11 or in the tsunami or or have family members that are gay. You guys really expect the cops are going to take the beating for you or the cops are going to get involved. For sure. He's like it's their job. They didn't. You would never do what you did then. Right. Like what if what if someone passed some sort of a loss and listen you guys know what you're in for. We have no desire to help you. There will be no police presence. Would you still protest. Well we did that. Some of the some cops did respond that way. They say that there will be no police presence whatsoever. Yeah. And some. Where was that. I can't remember it but it happened more than once. Yeah for sure. And like sometimes the cops would we'd say we're going to come to protest this you know something and they would say you know you can come but you can't hold that sign or you can't tell you step on the flag or whatever. Sometimes they tell us in advance sometimes they wait till we got there. You guys would step on the flag. Yeah. Like we desecrating the flag was a big. We saw it as an idol and you know the American flag is an idol. I had a mom got arrested. I had a we were in Nebraska and my little brother that we were protesting a soldier's funeral and we were like far away from the church. But there was a group of people on the other side of the street and they were all holding American flags all the way from from the road all the way up this you know the long entry to the to the church. And we were quite far away and my brother was nine years old at the time and he did what he always said which was you know put down lay the American flag on the ground and stand on top of it and hold a picket sign. And within like a couple of minutes like nine cops showed up and started talking about arresting my mother for flag mutilation and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. And so before they do the arrest you know again my mom and my uncle were both there and they are both lawyers and my uncle is like you know Johnson versus Texas the Supreme Court said in that case that you can even you can mutilate not only can you mutilate a flag you can even burn it. And and that's perfectly lawful. And one of the cops was like we're not in Texas. We're in Nebraska. So like this is obviously a Supreme Court case. So it's and he said Supreme Court has jurisdiction all over the country. So in other words I guess what I'm saying is like the the way that sometimes they did sometimes there were really good cops who did their job more super professional and didn't let their beliefs about our religious beliefs or their what they thought about our message get in the way of them doing their job. But sometimes they did sometimes they would threaten to arrest you know my parents if they brought children they would take their children away from them you know things like that. But but we absolutely expected them to do their jobs like that. That was and this is the Supreme Court. Yeah I mean I know you're not justifying it but it's from the point of view of something like me someone like me I would say don't bring any cops there. No if you if you start that kind of shit at a funeral or for a soldier and a bunch of people come by and beat your ass. Well then don't do that again because you're pissing people off and you're hurting their feelings and you're dealing with someone who's already emotionally scarred. Those cops need to be out there stopping robberies and you know breaking and entering into people's houses and carjackings and that's what they're supposed to be doing. They're not supposed to be like helping out people who are intentionally provoking and emotionally disturbing people. Right but I mean so obviously from the church's perspective it's like this it's these are sincerely held religious beliefs and the First Amendment like what good is the First Amendment like this obviously this. But it's not a First Amendment issue like the but because it's no one in an official position is saying you cannot speak. Well so to compare that to like the campus what's going on on these campuses right where. Right. So you think that the cops shouldn't be there to protect those people they're provoking people and making them angry. Well it's a different sort of a scenario. I think the cops should definitely be there to prevent violence on campus for several reasons. One reason because I think you're dealing with very young very impressionable people who make very poor choices and feel justified because they're around a bunch of people that also have like minded ideas. A lot of peer pressure a lot of diffusion of responsibility that comes from these mass groups of people that are acting and the mob mentality that comes along with that I think it's very very important to protect them from themselves and it's a hot button issue. I think protesting at a soldier's funeral is just gross. I agree with you. Yeah I mean I know you do. Yeah I know you do. I mean but I'm just saying I don't think the cops have a responsibility to save you from being gross. Yeah I just I don't know. I mean obviously this was a Supreme Court case. It became. Did you know that that it this there was a case where we were sued by the church. Yeah I do remember that. How did that play out. It went on first. They won a ten point nine million dollar verdict against us at the trial court and then it was reversed at the appeals court and the Supreme Court said eight to one. They have the constitutional right for them to do this. This is their religious beliefs. They have a right. They were especially because I mean sometimes I will say like I described to you that very first picket soldiers funeral picket that I went to like that was very close quarters. You know we were right up on top of them like if we had chosen to sing or you know that you know they would have heard us. But in a lot of instances we were way far far away like in that in the instance that went to the Supreme Court they were more than a thousand feet away. There was like a hill that the family didn't see church members you know things like that. There was so I mean they have a right to do it. Who has a right. Well the church. I mean OK. They have a right to decide to say horrible things about someone who just died or someone who lost a son or a daughter in war. Yeah I think obviously I don't. I think it's terrible that they do do it. And that was actually one of the things you know before my sister and I left that was one of the I wasn't going to hold a sign that I didn't believe was true and I wasn't going to go to any more funeral protests. But do you think that the police should I mean they're you they're operating on tax dollars and it's a limited amount of research. I mean we're taxpayers right. I mean sure you are. But do you think that the resources should go to the window. Right. I know. I know. But do you think that really that the cops that's the an intelligent and adequate and fair use of resources to go and protect a bunch of troublemakers. So it depends on what how do you how do you feel about the First Amendment. Like it's it's it's the principle of the thing rather than the applications like this is just one application like so. So who's to decide whether or not it's right. That's the whole idea. So who what. We have not entrusted our government to decide what opinions are acceptable and what aren't. So they don't they don't get to hat like so. But it seems like you're organizing this. So if you're organizing this sort of antagonistic display where you know you're going to hurt someone's feelings in a very dangerous time. Right. Don't you think you should hire your own security. Like why should the police have to be there to secure you. Because because this it's the law. Like they are supposed to protect like the again what what good are. So First Amendment rights right. To be able to to say it's it doesn't protect popular speech right. Because speech doesn't need protection unpopular speech needs protection. So it's just again it's the police are really there to enforce laws. Well the law is you don't get to punch somebody. Right. But they're just assuming that something is going to go bad. OK. So for instance like just back to the campus thing for a second. You have these people who have announced we're going to go protest this person. We're not going to let them speak even though they've been granted permission by the you know everybody like that. They're going they should be able to speak right. We're not going to let them speak because we don't like their message. So if the cops know that that's going to happen. So it was so what happens. I'm just trying to do anything about it. They let them shut it down. But I'm saying I think that's wrong. I think they should be able. They should go in like this. So this is what they think the cops should be able to tell is what it's called. Right. I think in like the cops can't say. Well obviously this is still back to like it's not if the cops say well you can't speak because you're likely to cause a riot or people to you know some some kind of disturbance like they're not allowed to do that based on like if it's just this is religious opinion. We weren't saying we want you to hurt us. We're not trying to provoke you to hurt us. We're trying to deliver this message that we think is the truth of God. Right. So it wasn't. There's a difference between like deliberately provoking and inciting violence like deliberately inciting violence and what we were doing which was you know trying to proclaim this message that we thought was the truth. Our goal wasn't violence like we didn't want violence. That's why we contacted the cops. Right. We were going to attack them and and we didn't want to be attacked. We just wanted to be able to exercise our rights without fear of without fear of violence. That's that's the principles of our democracy. Right. So I see what you're saying. And I think that it's it gets a little weird when we're talking about people giving speeches on campus and then having other people shut down those speeches because I think that the people who are protesting have as much right especially if it's in their school. They have as much right to voice their concern for this message as the person does to distribute that message. And if the police come along and say we're going to shut down the distribution of this message most of the time they do it when things are out of hand. So an excellent tool for someone who's trying to silence people is to make sure that things get out of hand. I mean that's why so that having the cops present and letting both sides have their voices without the ability to resort to violence. So this is the whole idea like we would in these letters that would go out to the cops was that the idea of having a buffer zone like a like yes we're going to we want to proclaim our message. We want you to be out there too. Like we loved and honestly we loved to encounter protesters there because it just brought more attention to our message. Yeah I understand that but I just think that you shouldn't obviously it's not you anymore. But I just do not think that anybody especially from an offensive group like that should be able to allocate resources that are public use like police. So we obviously we didn't make the decision. Over town. We didn't make the decision to for them to like they decide like OK well is this likely going to like so they can either be proactive and set the buffer zone or be reactive like we're calling the cops because we're getting punched or whatever. And because like they're going to go out no matter what. It was a we went even when they would say we're not going to protect you where we would go. I mean there were obviously there were rare situations where so for instance like when Gabby Giffords was shot in Arizona we had a couple of FBI agent actually and a guy from the local police department come and say like you shouldn't go in because there's a nine year old girl who had been killed. Yeah. And the church said they were going to protest her funeral. Oh Jesus. Yeah. So they said I don't think we can protect you like this. It's too volatile to. And so in that case we didn't we actually didn't go. That's kind of a chicken shit response. Actually I was going to say like so. So the thing is so I was there during this conversation and I heard my mom was explaining that we were going to go. It actually had more to do with logistics like we couldn't get there like plane tickets and whatever like we just couldn't get there. So it was like OK. I guess I'm like I hear you. So reasonable. It's so fascinating to talk to you because you're such an intelligent reasonable person. It's almost impossible for me to imagine until I see like the little bit of resistance to the idea of this being a First Amendment issue and the police there. Then you kind of go back to the church. I could see it boil up inside of you. Well it's just like we were talking about this a little bit ago. It's the whole the importance of discourse in the marketplace of ideas. This is one. Yeah. Like like again I just think it's so important and I think it's important because obviously my own personal experience makes me such a believer in. Well you've gone on a journey through free speech. Most people never experience free speech that you don't even agree with anymore. Right. Yeah which is even more crazy. Thank you.