LISTEN: Mary Katharine Ham and Guy Benson check Elizabeth Warren's privilege

Mary Katharine Ham and Guy Benson are out with a timely new book titled End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun).

In "End of Discussion," Ham and Benson chronicle the war against free speech and spirited dissent from leftist orthodoxy in America, and offer several antidotes based on the likes of figures as diverse as the late comedian Joan Rivers and likely presidential candidate Scott Walker.

Particularly staggering is their discussion of the labyrinthine and ever-growing thicket of unwritten (but sometimes written) laws governing what one can and cannot say on college campuses.

During our in-depth interview with Ham and Benson, this led to a discussion about the concept of "privilege" -- which has seeped from college campuses out into the mainstream -- identity politics, and in particular how they were hypocritically abused by Sen. Elizabeth Warren to aid and accelerate her ascension.

Guy Benson: In "End of Discussion" we have a really fun, very short portion of a chapter that deals with this whole nomenclature on college campuses of "trigger warnings" and "privilege" -- there's a whole list of them. "Microaggressions" is a big one.

And towards the end of this chapter on academia we examine the very interesting case of Elizabeth Warren, who is a white woman. That is - the science is in, and she is a white woman. Yet for years, she identified, self-identified wrongly based on family folklore that she was a Native American. And she benefited tremendously on her career trajectory by checking the box to say "I'm a very small, sought after minority," and finally stopped self-identifying as a Native American once she had tenure at Harvard Law School at the peak of her career.

And we're like "Woah!" The privilege checking community is so obsessed with checking your privilege -- this is a woman who invented a privilege.

Mary Katharine Ham: Invented a privilege set aside for minorities who do not enjoy her alleged white privilege. It's all privilege!

Guy Benson: It should be a high crime to these people -- like the highest of thought crimes.

But because she's on their side, and scratches their belly the way they want to be scratched ideologically, they're willing to set that aside and instead drop the hammer on conservatives with all this privilege nonsense because it serves their partisan and ideological ends. Which is another central element of "End of Discussion."

Mary Katharine Ham: By the way, according to the Senator Warren rubric, I am "Native American commentator Mary Katharine Ham."

Guy Benson: And why is that?

Mary Katharine Ham: We have the exact same amount of uh, Native American ... which is not any documented.

Ben Weingarten: You should put that on every job application from here on in.

Guy Benson: "Native American author Mary Katharine Ham: Buy the book, or you hate these tribes." It's worse than the Washington Redskins.

During our conversation, which you can listen to in full below, we also had a chance to address many other topics including:

• Whether we entering a joyless society devoid of all fun
• The evolution from political correctness into totalitarian speech enforcing illiberal leftists
• Your identity disqualifies you from discussion
• How ideology trumps identity for the Left
• Why it's "hip to be square,"and  living life like a political campaign is no way to live
• The racist Democratic filibuster you've likely never heard of and the remarkable double standard it exposes
• Why Chick-fil-A is the new "Bork"
• What Joan Rivers can teach Americans about fighting back against leftist outrage
• And much more

Note: The link to the book in this post will give you an option to elect to donate a percentage of the proceeds from the sale to a charity of your choice. Mercury One, the charity founded by TheBlaze’s Glenn Beck, is one of the options. Donations to Mercury One go towards efforts such as disaster relief, support for education, support for Israel and support for veterans and our military. You can read more about Amazon Smile and Mercury One here.

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