Live Around the Planet: Friday November 25th

Clubland Q&A
November 25, 2022

Thank you for all your questions. If you missed the live broadcast, the action replay can be heard in full here.

UPPERDATE! We're live now, so let's have at it!

UPDATE! We'll be going live in about fifteen minutes, so do get ready to fire off your questions via the comment form below. See you at the top of the hour. And to listen simply click the livestream feed.

SteynOnline was born on Thanksgiving 2002, and we're celebrating all weekend long, including with a special edition of our Clubland Q&A live around the planet. The action begins today at 3pm North American Eastern time/8pm Greenwich Mean Time. We'll try to pin down the rest of the time zones below, but do, as they say, check local listings.

On this twentieth-birthday edition of our Q&A, I'll be taking your questions on the last two decades, from the Bush/Blair/Chirac/Putin years to the Biden/Sunak/Macron/Putin era. SteynOnline was born in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and the war on terror very much shaped our early identity. Somewhere along the way the extraordinary surveillance powers supposed to drive a stake through distant jihadists morphed into tools to be used on the west's own citizens, advancing from the security perimeter at the airport under cover of Covid to command entire countries. Where did it go wrong? And how stands the western world of 2022 versus where we came in at the dawn of the century? That's the theme of today's show, so feel free to shoot off any sharp aperçu on these first twenty years.

~We hung out our humble shingle on the Internet somewhere between the turkey and the pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving 2002, and we're thrilled we're still here, even as the livelier blogosphere of the early twenty-first century has been all but obliterated by the butt-numbingly boring one-size-fits-all control-freak social media cartel of Facetube-Yougram-Instatok. So to celebrate our survival, as is traditional, in honor of our twentieth birthday, we're offering twenty per cent off all my books and CDs, mugs and T-shirts over at the Steyn Store.

By the time of our 83rd birthday that could prove a crippling business model, but for now we're all in:

~That twenty per cent applies not only to my solo bestsellers, but also to our two climatological group efforts: Climate Change: The Facts and "A Disgrace to the Profession": The World's Scientists - in Their Own Words - on Michael E Mann, His Hockey Stick, and Their Damage to Science, Volume One.

~There's also twenty per cent off my bestselling cat album and Christmas album - and the regular savings on our Steynamite specials are additionally enhanced by that twenty per cent birthday discount. And you even get it on our 99-cent digital downloads, such as "Cat Scratch Fever".

So just shop till you drop as you normally would, and the discount will be applied to your basket as you check out. Oh, and if you're a Mark Steyn Club member enter your special promo code at check-out, and you'll get even more savings on over forty different items.

~Also as part of our twentieth-birthday observances, we're getting back in the cruise biz. No tests, no vax passports, that's all yours to choose or not; but just a week of fun on the Mark Steyn Cruise with Bo Snerdley, Michele Bachmann, John O'Sullivan, Leilani Dowding and other Steyn favorites. More information here.

~Let me once again thank all those who've dialed up The Mark Steyn Show on recent nights. On Thursday, we closed out another very strong week (notwithstanding the homophobic footie) by beating Sky two-to-one and crushing Rupert Murdoch's floppola TalkTV by a multiple I can barely calculate - including a final segment where the wretched Piers Morgan achieved the much coveted audience share of zero and his audience fell to a new record low. Granted, his 11pm replay was an all-zero hour, when he had no detectable viewers at all for 45 minutes, but it's impressive to do it in primetime. As you know, the boobs at The Guardian dismissed me as a "niche Canadian", but an audience of zero doesn't even qualify as a niche, does it? Piers is turning Rupert into the world's biggest schmuck.

Thank you also to those who listen to the show's simulcast on GB News Radio. Our Third Quarter ratings are up 59 per cent on the Second Quarter, and we're proud to be part of the UK's fastest-growing talk station.

For today's show, as soon as we go live, members should log-in and submit their queries via our comment form below - and I'll answer them as-it-happens on the audio livestream that should magically appear above (or possibly below - I forget which). And, if you disagree with my response, then let rip in the comments, and I'll endeavour to address a couple of the objections as we go along.

Clubland Q&A is a special production for The Mark Steyn Club. We're not paywalling off SteynOnline or any of that nonsense - and in fact this site now offers more free content than ever before in our twenty-year history. But Club membership does confer a few benefits, including not only participation in our Q&As but also access to Tales for Our Time, our Sunday Poems and much more.

So see you back here live this afternoon at 3pm North American Eastern Time. That's 4pm in the Canadian Maritimes, half-past-four in Newfoundland - and, beyond the Americas, 8pm in London; 9pm in Paris; 10pm in Kiev; 11pm in Moscow; half-past-eleven in Tehran, for all you Newfoundlanders who move to Iran for the half-hour time zone; 1.45am in Kathmandu, for all you Iranians who move to Nepal to check out the quarter-hour time zone; 4am in Singapore, 7am in Sydney, 9am in Auckland, and Saturday lunchtime in His Majesty's Dominions across the Pacific.

On November 25, 2022 at 2:56 pm, Eric Dale wrote:

Mark and fellow Club members, the Thanksgiving feast has me reflecting on how I have never worried about having enough to eat. For this, I can thank generations of advances in agriculture and the hard work of our farmers. Yet in the Netherlands and in other advanced countries, our elites are trying to solve a solved problem. Food unlike crypto, can't just be conjured out of thin air or computer. What is possessing our betters to screw around with their own food sources?

On November 25, 2022 at 2:58 pm, Bill Holcomb wrote:

Hi Mark - Don't you think that a good deal of what is so wrong in the US today was encapsulated in the speech George W Bush made from atop a rubble pile just after 9/11? In an anti-Buckley moment, a faux-conservative US President stood athwart history and effectively shouted, "screw it" when he told Americans to just go to the mall! He proceeded shortly thereafter to create what is now the fourth largest government agency, whose sole benefit accrues to manufacturers of blue rubber gloves. As you have always said, politics trails culture, so I think that mall moment was the emerging tip of a giant iceberg of complacency, entitlement, and historical ignorance which had been forming for a very long time.

On November 25, 2022 at 2:58 pm, Mary B. wrote:

Hi Mark -

Thanks for keeping me sane the last twenty years.

I see that the UK is soon to lift the restriction on liquids over 100ml in carry on.

What took them so long?

On November 25, 2022 at 3:00 pm, Jonny Woodrow wrote:

Hi Mark
I used a bit of America Alone on declining birth rates in a sermon last week. Love the book. Over a decade after the book, how are the disastrous birth rates of Russia, China and Ukraine contributing to the current geopolitical scene?
Thanks
Jonny Woodrow

On November 25, 2022 at 3:02 pm, Ian wrote:

Hi Mark

This week saw the annual ritual of the publication of the UK's most popular baby names and once again the gold medal goes to Mohammed as the winner of the most popular boys name.

No equivalent for the girls - we'll chalk that up as a win for the sex selective abortion lobby, I guess.

What will it take for a meaningful discussion in the UK media and the UK political sphere on these demographic changes? Or should we accept now that this will never happen and we all just pretend not to notice, forever?

Ian

On November 25, 2022 at 3:05 pm, Josh Passell wrote:

Hi Mark,
I think I started reading you twenty years ago, and I've cherished every word and punctuation mark since. But when and how did you turn from music DJ and BBC Light Entertainment host to political commentator? Is there's a story there? And would you trade Rush, Fox, and GB News to have a variety show instead?
Best wishes to you and your family. Here's to another 20.

On November 25, 2022 at 3:07 pm, Jack Morris wrote:

Hi Mark, you've often spoken of the importance of having interests and pastimes that are non-political and we are better for reading and listening to you on arts, music and culture. If you ever decide to slow down, are there things you would still like to learn or places you haven't been to that you would like to see? Do you see yourself staying in America, that is to say do you have faith that America can rebound and survive?

On November 25, 2022 at 3:08 pm, Patrick Pierse wrote:

Twenty, always something to celebrate. However when I turned twenty half a century ago I left behind me much of the teenage frivolity so prevalent for one's second decade of life. Now however life and societal norms are hyper focused on teenage frivolities with infantile hysteria as solutions. When will adult attitudes and mature conversation return to the public square? I fear most for my grandchildren as their parents are too busy just caring for them and insuring the tiptoe through eggshell mines at every turn just trying to be normal. Stop the earth I want to get off!

On November 25, 2022 at 3:10 pm, Roy Eappen wrote:

Congratulations on 20 years Mark. I met you many years ago at the Ontario Legislature where you appeared with Ezra defending free speech. A bunch of us when out to dinner and we sang show tunes.. I am honoured to know you and count you as a friend.

On November 25, 2022 at 3:11 pm, Roy Eappen wrote:

I was devastated by the death of Our Sovereign Lady but was glad to see the seamless succession. 4 billion people watched Her Majesty's funeral. If only His Majesty's UK government actually respected the will of the people

On November 25, 2022 at 3:14 pm, SIMON ARNOLD wrote:

Hi Mark,

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and a Happy 20th Birthday to The Mark Steyn Club. I have been listening to your comment's Mark, about the British Empire. I feel this would be a good time to bring it back. It would solve so many problems because instead of them coming to us in the UK we would already be over there in most of these countries already.

Hope The Club and all the other shows continue long into the future. I wish I had discovered these twenty years earlier.

On November 25, 2022 at 3:16 pm, Michael Cavino wrote:

Hi Mark,

Happy Thanksgiving to you and fellow club members celebrating around the world! And congratulations on 20 years of the website. It is a website I often tell my friend and colleagues to visit for the quality writing.

Given it is the holiday season, I'd love to know what are your favorite Christmas albums (sans your own) which you play at this time of year. I'm preparing some playlists for our celebrations. Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Michael

On November 25, 2022 at 3:20 pm, Wanda Sherratt wrote:

Dear Mark: a showbiz question. Last night my husband and I watched 'Harvey' with Jimmy Stewart, and I noticed that this movie was based on a play. That used to be very common in movie credits, but it almost never happens now. When did "the legitimate theatre" stop being a cultural force. It now seems to be in the range of opera - a former popular art form that's now just preserved for an irrelevant elite.

On November 25, 2022 at 3:23 pm, David Lester wrote:

Mark, what do you think are the events of the past twenty years that we will look back on and consider seminal, world-changing moments or events? What would be your top five such events? I think sometimes it's hard to understand the gravitas of an event while we are going through it.

On November 25, 2022 at 3:26 pm, Penns Woods wrote:

Mark, September 10th 2001 was a beautiful, cloudless late summer day across the entire US. September 11th dawned another beautiful day across the entire country. Starting from September 10th give me your view of the wonderful, beautiful, splendid advancements and joys these last 22 years have brought the world. Can you give us the bright side of these last years?

On November 25, 2022 at 3:29 pm, Ornery Texan wrote:

Mark, what do you think the most effective tools are to get out a message to the general public within America and throughout the world and for it to make a difference? The media is under such tight control, the internet is the same, there are very few ways for information to flow freely. We have unprecedented numbers of people able to read and write, but fewer and fewer choices when it comes to getting information. What vehicles do you think we have or need to try to preserve our freedoms. Radio? News programs? Do we need new tools, or just to take back existing tools? If you could comment on this with a historical perspective on how messages have been spread throughout human history that would be fantastic.

On November 25, 2022 at 3:32 pm, Robert Bridges wrote:

The days of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union are long gone. Russia can't maintain a beachhead west of the Dnieper River .. now...not even close. Isn't it time for the USA to pull its troops out of Europe for good and end a century of dealing with this herd of cats?

On November 25, 2022 at 3:35 pm, Nicola Timmerman wrote:

Sorry you missed Thanksgiving in America
What do you think of Trudeau and the spy agency head making up their own definition of what justifies the imposition of the Emergencies Act?

On November 25, 2022 at 3:38 pm, Suzanne Reny wrote:

Hi Mark and fellow club members. What is your opinion on the testimony of Freeloader, oops Freeland, at the Canadian inquiry into the trucker protest. Trudeau's testimony today is enough to turn anyone's stomach. The Emergency Act was implemented solely to cover for the gross ineptitude of the PMO. To enact this without first attempting to speak to the protestors was abhorrent in my opinion. What say you? Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends!

On November 25, 2022 at 3:42 pm, George Pereira wrote:

Mark,
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario have sent out a memo to all doctors in Ontario that they should consider that any of their unvaccinated patients as suffering from a mental illness and should be prescribed psychiatric medicines.
Whatever happened to "Primum non nocere."?
Do any of these so-called physicians and surgeons have any kind of internal filter they use before they speak or write? Are they so completely intoxicated with their title and position of doctor they lose all their humanity?
How can anyone write or speak such horrors and not have a moment where they think maybe I need to give this a bit more thought?
Or could it be they believe it will be their boots marching into the future?
To quote George Orwell:
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."

On November 25, 2022 at 3:45 pm, Chris Hall wrote:

Hi Mark,

I know you're a rugby guy, but you've spent so much time in the UK not to have some sort of opinion about footy. While watching the FIFA world cup, it's embarrassing to watch a sport with such primitive timekeeping They're barely in the 19th Century in terms of sophistication and trying to figure out when the final whistle will blow is like waiting to Maricopa County election results. If you time the actual play and stop the clock while waiting for goal kicks, free kicks, throw-ins, etc., it turns out that the game is really only 40 minutes long. That's the same as an NCAA basketball game. Footy could also adopt a basketball-style over-and-back rule preventing teams from passing back to their goalie it they're in the offensive half. Why do you think that fans of the sport resist even the simplest of improvements. At least they now have more subs and some video review. Don't get me started on the offsides rule!

On November 25, 2022 at 3:48 pm, Brian from Minneapolis wrote:

In the wake of the latest "attack" on the LBGTQ community by a self proclaimed non-binary, do you see a new field of division, pitting binary and non-binaries against each other? I don't recall a transgender ever transitioning to a non-binary but I'm sure they'll say they/them killed members of their own community because of conservative bigotry but then again, they wouldn't use this chance to call for more places that are more welcome to non-binaries since we have gay clubs already. What is your take on this latest event that has been tagged to us?

On November 25, 2022 at 4:11 pm, Jan Schiebout (She - bowt) wrote:

Congratulations on anther year of sanity with Steyn Online! Thanks so much for making available of all things Steyn! I appreciate them more than you know. Missing very much your shows, especially the Christmas show, this time of year -

The Best to You!

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Live Around the Planet: Friday November 25th

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