Welcome to our VIP video series “The Amiable Skeptics,” featuring my friend Adam Baldwin! Adam is well-known for his long and storied Hollywood career, starting with My Bodyguard, and especially for his roles in Full Metal Jacket, Firefly, its film sequel Serenity, Chuck, and The Last Ship.

Normally these episodes are only available to our VIP members, but since Adam and I took a week off (and I’m out today), I thought this would be a great time to allow everyone to see the great conversations we have twice a week. This sneak peek is from last week’s episode and is particularly meaty — so I hope you enjoy it.

And join HotAir VIP today and use promo code SKEPTICS to receive 25% off your membership!

Here’s the original post as well:

What exactly is “liberation”? In the literal sense, it means freeing people from bondage and oppression. In cultural Marxism and its parallel wokeism, Adam says, it’s the reverse. “The lead organizers of this Maoist Cultural Revolution happening here in America,” Adam explains, “promise you’re being liberated from the patriarchy, from the society that burdens and victimizes certain groups. “It all points to the destruction of society as we have come to formulate it over the last 250 years,” Adam continues. And as I argue, extending the recent thoughts of James Lindsay, this all relates to Original Sin — our inclination to usurp the Creator’s role and reorder reality to our whims and agendas rather than living within it.

Just as in the Garden of Eden, this idea of “liberation” is a baldfaced lie. “When we liberated the the people of Western Europe from the Nazis,” I say, “that kind of liberation is not a lie. It was a real liberation. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about liberating people from truth, and that is a lie, and that is a very destructive lie.”

“The dirty little secret,” Adam replies, “is the transition period between being free [and] being liberated — and being told what to do by the oligarchs or the dictator — is chaos, and bloodshed, and death, and destruction, and impoverishment, and suffering. … I fear for the kids,” Adam continues. “They’re being led down that path and they’re not going to be happy in a generation, or even ten years from now, if they continue voting for the Marxists, the Maoists, and the Democrats.”

The Marxist attempts to create a “New Man” and materialist perfection have failed and will continue to fail, and the Garden of Eden story explains why — even if you don’t believe in God. “Even if you wanna be an atheist and say, well, there is no God, that still means you’re not God,” I say.  “You have to live within the system in which you find yourself, either through creation by a Supreme Being, or simply because you evolve in nature. It’s, it really doesn’t make a lot of difference. You still have to live within truth. And if you try to remake reality, deny those truths,” I continue, “you’re going to be miserable and that’s been the case,” especially in those who try to deny biological reality.

That leads us into a number of other related topics, such as the LA Dodgers, Target, Texas Children’s Hospital, so-called “microaggressions” and their double standards, and much more. Watch it all and be sure to join us in the comments!

Update: Jeff Goldstein nails it:

@EdMorrissey in re: “Amiable Skeptics”. Lindsay conceives of Wokism as a gnostic cult built around hermeticism. That is, to keep w the parable of the Garden, Wokism is defined in the character of the serpent: he claims to possess and promises the secret knowledge God has.

— Mulder’s Long Fight for Account Reinstatement (@proteinwisdom) May 30, 2023

We do discuss the gnostic elements of Wokeism, but I don’t think we connect that particular dot. Well put.