Episode #972 – Will Witt

Will Witt is a guest on The Paul Leslie Hour!

Are you here? If so, here’s to you! Welcome to The Paul Leslie Hour.

On this episode we’re joined by renowned political commentator, speaker, and author Will Witt.

In just a moment, Will Witt will be discussing his second book is Do Not Comply: Taking Power Back from America’s Corrupt Elite, published by Center Street.

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The Official Will Witt Transcript

Will Witt: Hey, how’s it going, man? 

Paul Leslie: Good, good. How are you, Will Witt? 

I’m good. Thanks for setting up the time to do this. 

Hey, my pleasure. Great to talk to you. 

You too, man. 

Well, for a lot of you out there watching and listening, Will Witt almost needs no introduction. He is a great public speaker, and I’ve had the pleasure of seeing him live and in person. And he’s also a great author. Now, he’s written two books, and I must say this new one Do Not Comply you have surpassed your previous effort which I enjoyed the first one too, but great work Will.

Thank you man I appreciate that and where was it that you came and saw me speak?

Let me think. I believe this was in Alabama. I think it was Birmingham. 

It was the Blexit event? 

It was indeed, yes. 

Yeah I think Birmingham yep. Exactly.

Right, Right. 

And so, Will, tell us, what does that mean to you? “Do Not Comply.” It sounds so aggressive, doesn’t it? 

Yeah, I mean, I think it actually is inherently somewhat aggressive, but I think that our culture, especially young men these days, have lost aggression in themselves when, in a lot of ways, aggression can be used for good. Aggression doesn’t have to be some negative thing in the lens that we view it today. 

“Do Not Comply.” You usually think about that and you’re thinking about COVID and vaccines and masks. And, of course, that’s all very important when it comes to not complying. You shouldn’t comply with those things. 

But really, it comes down to anyone who wants to turn you into a slave. Anyone who wants to take away your ability to think for yourself, to think freely, to be able to ask questions. There are all of these people in the media, the bureaucrats, our elected officials, big corporations, entertainment industry, science community, all of these people who never want you to ask questions and just go along with what everyone else is doing. 

And to me, I think that is wrong, even on a scale that is not inherently political, just people who are following in the societal norms and the cultural norms of everyone else that are not what we should be doing. “Not complying” is an act of saying, I’m no longer going to live by the rules and the cultural lexicon that has been laid out in front of me. I’m going to live a life that is greater, a life of purpose. 

Very, very interesting. Will, you’ve had a lot of interactions with people through the years. And it’s very interesting when I think about that, that I think about, you know, you’ve  gotten to interact with a lot of young people, for example. Do the people who aren’t questioning things, are they aware that they are not questioning things? 

That’s an interesting question. I don’t think so, actually. I think that what I find in young people today is that there is a yearning for purpose, there’s a yearning for meaning or a yearning for adventure or some sort of quest, and they do have that, and I think they’re very aware of that. I think that’s why so many of them are nihilistic. They feel like life has no meaning and they’re searching for something but can’t find it. 

But when it comes to, I guess you could say, more political questions on, you know, who should we vote for and how do these things work and stuff like that? I think that they actually think for the most part, they already have the answers. I think we have a very entitled generation of younger people who think, well, I already know everything. You know, I don’t need to listen to anyone else. I know exactly what it is. 

These people are oppressed and I’m oppressed and I need to do this. And they’re very comfortable in their ways. But none of that is actually giving them the true nectar of life that they really should be going after. 

What you’re saying about people searching for purpose, it kind of makes me think about over the last couple of years, we’ve been able to view, unfortunately, a lot of footage of especially young people, but not just young people, destroying things. Smashing up a Starbucks coffee shop is the famous example, but also breaking the windows of a church, or any number of things that almost seem like they’re the exact opposite of purpose. 

But do you suppose that these people are, in fact, looking for some kind of purpose?

Oh, 100%. I mean, leftism has come in. I think Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher, said it best when he said, “God is dead and we have killed him.” What happens when you get rid of God and Christianity in the West? Well, then a new religion arises. 

This is where this religion of leftism comes in, this religion of science and technology, this religion of consumerism, all of these different things that people latch on to.

And so these people going and destroying things, these people going and getting paint cans and destroying priceless works of art, or going and burning down buildings because of a police brutality or whatever it might be going and doing these things. They do it because this is their meaning. 

This is where they derive meaning from. 

They’re not deriving meaning from God or higher power or even, you know, taking accountability for themselves and responsibility. They’re not doing any of that. They’re saying, okay, this is where I gained meaning from for standing up for the oppressed or, or helping black people or, or being an ally to the trans community, whatever it is, this is where they derive that sort of meaning from. 

So then if that is their whole life and the things that they really believe in, well, then of course they’re going to do these ridiculous, ridiculous, stupid, vulgar, and horrible things, because that is what gives them a sense of purpose in life. 

But obviously, they’re finding purpose in life in the wrong places, and those are not conducive to, one, a good society, and secondly, a good self.

There’s a lot of things working our way back to the book, Do Not Comply. There’s a lot of questions that you pose that I think are really astonishing questions, but they’re very interesting. 

And one of them, you bring up the analogy of a boat. This is a classic analogy of, if you replace all the parts of a boat, is it in fact the original ship? 

And you compare that to America. So, Will, is this America?

I don’t think that it is totally America anymore. Obviously, the things that you want to do, you and I can get on this podcast, and we have the freedom of speech to be able to talk about the things that we want. 

And you have the ability to go get a job and drop out of college like I did and live the American dream and do all sorts of thing.

And so there is, of course, a semblance of what America was supposed to be that is still here. 

But when I say that it doesn’t feel like America anymore, It seems like that sort of entrepreneurial entitlement principles with the reverence of God within it have really no longer have any sort of stake in America today. 

Whereas the founding fathers knew that if you were going to have this democracy or constitutional republic, you would have to have a religious and moral people to live inside of it. Obviously, you have freedom of religion, but you would need this religious, moral people to be able to have this to function. 

And so now we no longer have that. We no longer have this this objective framework that our country lives on and acts on. It is now just kind of like every man for himself. 

How much money can I get? What are the things that I can buy with this money? How can I show people that I am so much more compassionate to minorities than them? And like, these are the things that we are worried about today. 

We’re worried about the likes on social media and getting involved in nonsense political arguments that mean nothing. Like, we’re destroying each other, Republicans, over Trump and DeSantis and Nikki Haley.

And it’s like, I have no sort of hatred for any of these types of people. I have none. And yet I’m getting complete hatred and vitriol from people who are supposed to be on my side every single day.

And to me, that’s just like, what are we spending our time on? It does not feel like the America that is supposed to be helping others with a sense of community where  the strong help the weak to build them up and do it through the eyes of God. It is now a very selfish and vain and also insecure type of mentality we have, and that has bred laziness and greed.

And everything we don’t really want America to be. 

Well said, Will. Now, this is kind of a funny anecdote when I was reading Do Not Comply, which I very much recommend that everybody watching or listening. It’s a very compelling book. 

I was taking a break from reading one of the chapters, and I turned on the television for a little bit. And it was a funny little coincidence, or maybe not. It was where you were addressing the fact that we are constantly being bombarded with drug commercials, pharmaceutical prescriptions especially, but even over-the-counter, and it’s astonishing. 

So I was taking a little pause from the book and I turned on the television and it was just pretty fitting because I had just read your words. And then I was got to the first commercial break and every single commercial was some kind of: this drug will make you thinner.

Antidepressants are a popular one. Another antidepressant one, a sexual dysfunction one. And then, you know, whatever.  

What is going on, Will? I mean, that’s pretty much the number one thing that is marketed towards us today. 

Oh, yeah. I mean, people always talk about all these lobbying organizations, you know, big oil and the meat industry and all these kind of things like that. It pales in comparison to big pharma and how much they spend. 

I mean, they’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars every single year lobbying the government. 

They’re spending $15 billion a a year just on advertising. Nine out of 10 of the biggest big pharma companies spend more on advertising than they do on new cancer research. 

And on these vaccines that we took for COVID, I don’t know if you put this on YouTube and what YouTube is going to think of the things I’m about to say, but these COVID vaccines, the research was funded not by the companies, by the taxpayers. 

And then if something happens to you, you get a damage from one of these COVID vaccines, which a lot of people did because they were wildly unsafe, untested, and a cash grab for for Pfizer, which now makes $1,000 every second every single day because of these vaccines. 

And if you have an injury from them, you can’t sue the vaccine manufacturer for it. 

You go to the Vaccine National Injury Compensation Fund, and it’s essentially a bureaucratic process where the taxpayer is now paying out people for vaccine injuries. 

It’s crazy. You go to a restaurant and you get a burger and you get food poisoning from it. You go and sue the restaurant because they gave youa bad burger that was undercooked. 

And now you have, you know, you’re sick because of it.

You get a bad vaccine? Nope. it’s it’s now responsible for the taxpayer to pay for it. Big pharma has more control over this country than people realize. They control the politicians with how much they lobby. They control the entertainment industry the media companies are all hand in hand with them. I mean they’re spending like most of these big news companies, 70% of their ads are big pharmaceutical commercials. You know that’s why they’re not going and talking badly about these companies and why no one really knows this stuff because where are they going to get it when big pharma companies own all all of the platforms where we get our news.

They’re in control of everything. And until we start realizing that and go back to more of a, what I would say, I mean, you can use the word “paleo,” but I don’t know if I’d necessarily use that, but, you know, going back to a simpler way of living without all these medicinal things that they prescribe us.

And of course, there’s been all sorts of medical breakthroughs that have helped people and there’s no denying any of that, but they’ve gone overboard in the sense that it is all about greed and avarice  and trying to control our lives through the use of these drugs. 

And it’s a very “Brave New World.” I mean, Soma, the drug in Brave New World, is very similar to these antidepressants and things they prescribe people today.

Yeah, and we’ll have to see which platform yanks this or messes with this video. I would not be at all surprised. 

You’re tapping into something kind of interesting. You know, for the longest time, it was always thought of that people who were left-leaning were these “granola” types. 

But I hear more and more from people. I get more and more emails from people who are conservatives, who are interested in health, interested in clean living and things like raw milk. It’s interesting to me. 

Oh, yeah. I mean, all I drink is raw milk. That’s my favorite thing. You know, I squeeze my own orange juice. I got my raw milk, my raw cheese, if I can get it, you know, as much as I can. All this stuff. I mean, it’s very, very important for living healthily and doing all these things. 

I went to CU Boulder, right? So CU Boulder, there were all the leftist “granola-y” people. That is for sure. You know, those, they hike and they wear their Birkenstocks and they love Marx and they are super granola. So those people definitely do exist. 

But there’s been a big turnaround, I think, in the conservative community when it comes to this health, healthy lifestyle and holistic measures, because I think a lot of like real conservative people, not necessarily the political conservative people, but like real conservative people are fed up with a lot of the politics. And they realize that the things that they’re missing in life is not another election. It’s not 2024.

It’s not a new congressman. It’s not local politics. It is: I’m missing health. I’m missing freedom. 

I’m missing meaning in life. Again, going back to that. And so how do I extract these things from life? How do I live that way? 

And I think the health stuff and getting away from big urban cities and the leftist nonsense and all of that is a tool to achieve that. I moved moved out of Los Angeles, California. I lived there for six years, moved out of LA, moved to Tampa, Florida, or actually about half an hour outside of Tampa, where there’s like no one around me. I’m out on this lake and I’m basically all by myself, you know, not necessarily living in the sticks, but in a little bit, kind of like that.

And I’m so much happier being out here and having a great church and having my good food and all of that. And it’s like, why people don’t just live I don’t understand. It’s so much better. And it’s honest and it’s not more expensive. It’s more expensive to live in New York City or downtown Chicago or San Francisco. Way more expensive to live there than to try and find land out somewhere where there’s not a lot of people and live a healthy lifestyle. But I think people are afraid to make that jump. 

You have your freedom Will, but you’re also making the maximum use of it. That’s great. 

Thanks. 

This question comes from a retired professor and author, Douglas Young, Dr. Douglas Young. 

It kind of fits in with the way that you deliver information well, because all those years of doing PragerU videos, you’re very, very good at getting to the facts and delivering just: here’s the meat of the thing. 

So he wants to know, what’s the secret to cramming so much important information in just a couple minutes, but still doing so without the delivery appearing rushed? 

Thank you, Dr. Young. 

Yeah, thank you. I think it really comes down to. Like, look, we did a video a couple of years ago about Napoleon, right? We did this video about Napoleon. Now the movie’s coming out, so everyone’s talking about it again. But Napoleon was this, I guess you could say, controversial figure. And this new movie doesn’t really represent him very well, I don’t think. 

And in the way that we did this video, we were able to showcase in just five minutes how Napoleon actually wasn’t someone like a Hitler or a Mao or a Stalin or anything like that. But we did it by just having the most necessary information and just using that. 

You know, I think there’s a clear thing right now in America where we don’t have like genius role models or great thinkers and people like that who we used to have. I mean, tons and tons of these thinkers throughout history. We don’t really have that anymore. And I think a lot of people really want to show people how smart they are. 

Like I say this when I’m telling people how to change minds, they’re going into arguments trying to prove that they are right instead of proving that the ideas are right. because we’re so insecure that we always want to show other people how great we are or how much we know and things like that. 

But when you take a step back and you do it without pride and you say, “okay, this is the information that you need to know.” 

I don’t need to come in here and belabor you and tell you how smart I am by showing you all these little minuscule details. I’m just going to tell you the truth. And if you can tell the truth, the parts of the truth that are the most important in a short amount of time, well, that’s really all that it takes.

Will, what’s the biggest thing you learned from Dennis Prager? 

The best thing that I ever learned from Dennis Prager, I don’t know if you’d say learned, but I guess it was a piece of advice. We were on a plane heading back from, I think, San Diego heading to Los Angeles. 

And I had a speech the next day. It was probably going to be like 10 or 15 people, so a small speech. 

And Dennis comes up to, I say, “man, you know, I got this speech, not really looking forward to it.” 

And he says, “Will, you need to treat every single speech that you give, like it’s the most important speech of your life.”

And that was hugely impactful for me because he said that, you know, who knows? The person who’s sitting at that table or, you know, in that room that you’re doing that speech of, they could be a kid just like you were, Will, who was just in college with no idea what to do and had these ideas and wanted a place to go out and distill it. 

But if you don’t go in there with a good mindset and think that, oh, you’re above this or something, then obviously it’s not. That kid’s not going to take something from it that you might have taken from somebody else. And so treating every speech like it’s the most important speech that I’ve ever done, or, you know, every interview that I do, like it’s the most important interview I do. All of these things, you know, it seems kind of futile. 

But when you look at the speeches that these politicians give and all this kind of stuff, it’s just one after the other. Oh, Oh, here we go. Here we go. 

I’ve always tried since Dennis told me that to to really honor the people that I’m speaking to or talking to and understand that, you know, it might not always be the most important thing for me going and doing a certain interview or speech or something like that. But you never know who you might influence by the things you say or the things that you do. So it’s always best to put your best foot forward. 

Very, very wise. So in closing here, we’re at the cusp of an election year, 2024. And there’s, you know, we can’t know what’s coming. But would you leave us with any parting words, maybe a little bit of hope for our viewers and listeners out there as we roll into another year?

Yeah, I think the hope comes from ourselves and from God, really. I mean, what I found is that when you have all this stuff happening around us, that seems so bad. I mean, the politics seems so bad. 

The social structures of the world seem so bad. The national things. I mean, everything. You look around, you’re like, “man, this world is crumbling apart,” and it’s in a very lazy and horrible way. 

But that gives me hope that there are going to be heroes and great people emerge from that hardship from that terrible state that we’re in now to try and make things better. I have a lot of hope in the individuals triumphing and doing something great. I’m the biggest “Lord of the Rings” fan in the world I love it more than anything, and so i always think of Frodo and Sam in this this type and Gandalf and Aragorn, of course, and how against all odds, against everything and insurmountable measures that they had to take, they were able to destroy that evil and make the ultimate sacrifice to do so. 

And I know our lives are not taking some ring and going to Mount Doom and destroying it, but essentially we should be thinking of our lives in that sense of what is our great purpose to bring goodness to the world. 

And if we do that and say, maybe it’s not about who wins the next election or this bill passing or arguing with people online, maybe it’s about being the most good person that I can be. Then I have a lot of hope for America and for the people who live within it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the wise Will Witt. Will, thank you so much. What a pleasure to talk to you.

Hey, thank you, man. This was great. Really appreciate it. 

My pleasure. All right, sir. Well, until next time. I look forward to the next book.

Yeah, me too. I got to start getting started on it first. But yeah, next time. 

No pressure. All right. You have a great one. I hope to see you soon. 

Definitely. 

Bye-bye.