Sticks & Stones

Comedians, rude jokes & government sanctioned kidnapping

A Busy Weekend

The last weekend, for myself, was a crazy busy one. Hitting 3 cities for 3 speaking engagements for the Take Back Alberta organization was a wild experience that had my head spinning.

But, a lot of things happened over that same weekend. A surprising amount of them revolved around the host of the podcast “Raging Dissident” and his wife, Jeremy MacKenzie & Morgan May.

Morgan May (who’s been on the Social Disorder Podcast in the past) ended up being taken by the RCMP and held at an undisclosed location over the weekend, with no contact to her family, for nearly 4 days... over a $68 unpaid gas bill.

From what I gathered, there was a fender bender she and Jeremy were in at a parking lot. The person in the other vehicle didn’t want to exchange info, so they called the police to come sort it out.

Well, unbeknownst to anyone, there was an outstanding warrant for Morgan over a gasoline charge that she hadn’t paid.

I don’t even understand how that’s possible considering every pump I’ve used in the past 20 years is either pay at the pump, or pay inside before you can even get the gas. But, as it turns out, however it happened… that’s enough to get someone picked up and held in custody somewhere for an entire weekend (since the courts don’t work on weekends).

So, essentially, Morgan just got disappeared for the better part of 4 days leaving Jeremy trying to figure out where she was and how to contact her for that entire time.

But, that didn't make the news anywhere. What DID, was this — Jeremy made a lude joke towards Pierre Poilievre's wife while drunk rambling on a friend’s late night podcast.

That blew up like a nuclear bomb!

The Framework

So, before you can understand the full story that surrounds these articles that focus on the off-color rape joke that Jeremy made, it will help to lay out the framework that’s been in play for a while leading into it.

The tweet below is from main stream journalist — Rachel Gilmore — who, for a long time now, has gone back and forth with both Jeremy and his friend (whose podcast the joke was made on) online. Be it through tweets, articles or memes, there has been a battle of words and accusations slug between these three since at least the trucker protests in February of this year.

This was the tweet that set off the shit storm that’s eclipsed Morgan’s situation and has scared off any news outlet from touching her story in the meantime.

All sorts of media outlets, be they mainstream or alternative, jumped on the rape joke story to the exclusion of Morgan’s. And I know this because I tried to get her’s picked up and got stone walled for exactly that reason.

Diagolon

Now, before continuing on to the fallout and contents of the joke after this tweet, it’s important that you understand the extent to which Jeremy’s podcast and (more specifically) the running joke within it has stirred left wing politicians into a frenzy for the past year.

This article from CTV news way back in February (during the protests) speaks to what I mean:

If you click through the above image and read the entire article, you’re going to presume that MacKenzie is a terrorist mastermind, working to hatch a plot to overthrow all of Canada with his band of motley dissidents.

For anyone that actually listens to the show though, you’ll understand that Diagolon is a running joke. It’s a meme country, similar to 4Chan’s Kekistan.

One fateful podcast, during the early pandemic, it occurred to Jeremy and a few viewers of his stream that all the states and provinces that were looser on their mandates basically ran diagonally from Alaska to Florida. They joked “wouldn’t it be funny if they all got together and made their own country… a diagonal country… Diagolon!”.

Thus was the birth of the joke, and it’s been running ever since. By this point, Diagolon has a sworn enemy — Circulon — run by it’s people, the Circulonians. As well as allies like Spatulon, who’s flag is simply black with a white spatula in the center. The vice dictator of Diagolon is a satanic goat figurine named Phillip. Phillip has a terrible substance abuse problem and can time travel… but only for evil.

Nonetheless, the mainstream media (urged on by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network — a far-left, antifa sympathizing organization that the Canadian government regularly gets its intel from) spread the stories of Diagolon as a far-right, white supremist, terrorist organization bent on “accelerating or fomenting a civil war” in Canada.

Now, go back a re-read Rachel Gilmore’s tweet. You’ll get what she’s doing when she says “Diagolon’s Jeremy MacKenzie”. It’s meant to present him as a terrorist group leader instead of the host of the Raging Dissident podcast. It’s been 4D chess since the trucker protests, and this is now just the latest chapter in it.

Pierre’s Response

While the, now, leader of the Conservative party of Canada’s Pierre Poilievre was still campaigning around the country en route to his nomination, MacKenzie would show up to a rally near him to snap a picture with the man. Though Poilievre had no idea who he was, Jeremy knew exactly what kind of chaos it would spark in the media, were the picture to go viral.

And they did. MSM ran with the story as if Pierre was taking a selfie with Osama Bin Laden.

This was Poilievre’s introduction to MacKenzie, and just another page in the running joke that is Diagolon. But, after this weekend’s joke, involving Pierre’s wife, the PPC leader took to social media to release an official statement that took the drama from the Gilmore tweet and 1000x it:

The Joke

Ok, so what exactly was said by MacKenzie that’s got the entire country in a rage?

Well, I’m going to pull a direct quote from this article so that you understand why people are irate.

Before I do though, it’s important to note that no jokes land when typed out in print. And though I’m not a fan of this particular one (neither is Jeremy as I’ll cover later in this post), dark jokes are always more sinister when read in this format:

"She is hot as f*ck. Oh my goodness," MacKenzie said. "Like a midnight snack, when everyone's asleep, I'm gonna sneak into this fridge and cut myself off a piece of that Venezuelan brown cake."

One of the people on the stream asked MacKenzie what his wife Morgan May would think about his comments if she could hear them. May is currently in jail for allegedly failing to pay for $64 in gas.

"No, she would be like, 'she's hot, we should both f*ck her," and I would be like 'we should, let's rape her,' MacKenzie joked.

"It's not really a sex thing, it's like, we just want to show people that we can do things to them if we want to. It's a power move."

It’s pretty bad. Especially the last part.

So it’s understandable why, when this drunken attempt at shock comedy made at 2am on a small Canadian podcast gets the attention of the Conservative leader… the media, and reporters like Rachel Gilmore, had a slam dunk.

Jeremy Speaks Out

The firestorm was fierce and hot over this story. So, while his wife was still somewhere being held over a nothing charge, Jeremy went to his substack to give an account on his side of the story.

Rape, Pillage and Fed Post

It included some context:

“What’s being referenced here, is an out of context drunken exchange between myself and several others. It was not intended to be taken seriously and certainly not as any kind of grave threat. He [Poilievre] is clearly offended - that was my not my intention while speaking intoxicated to an audience of fifty people at 2 o’clock in the morning. No one threatened anyone, no one thinks actual rape is funny. I certainly don’t think soldier suicides are funny, it’s deeply personal but a joke is a joke.

Absent from this 47 second clip is a further 10 minute or so discussion on how I believed his wife to be very intelligent and successful, an asset to his life and key foundational contributor to his success. Strange that was left out.”

As well as some hate mail of his own shortly after losing a friend to suicide:

“I am genuinely regretful and disappointed if my idiotic late night attempts at entertaining unrelated people have upset or offended you. I mean that. I understand what it’s like to face and endless barrage of senseless hatred as you will see below. This is not even remotely close to the same thing.

I am also routinely harassed, attacked, stalked and threatened by people online - though very few have the courage to show their faces - as many journalists and politicians and public figures. Some of my weekend reading material:”

Free Speech, Whether You Like It Or Not

Ok, so now that the bulk of the drama has been fleshed out and the context filled in, here’s my take aways from it:

1. The joke was rude, and clearly insulting to Pierre and his wife Anaida. But it wasn’t illegal (referencing Poilievre’s stating he would pass it off to the RCMP to assess charges).

2. Jeremy seems genuinely remorseful for having said it, but shouldn’t have to worry about if there’s legal ramifications for what amounts to an ill-conceived attempt at dirty humor.

3. The fact that Morgan’s situation doesn’t warrant enough concern from the media to report on, but a rape joke tweet storm does, says everything about the state of journalism right now.

To quote popular comedian and free speech purist — Ricky Gervais:

“What is a rape joke? … The thing is […] stupid people treat jokes about bad things with the same fear and loathing as intelligent people treat the actual bad thing.”

Comedy is forever testing what’s outside the bounds of society in an attempt to find shocking humor.

Freedom of speech is what allows this to be done.

And if we go down the path of censoring, de-platforming and fining/charging/arresting them while they try to find the jokes that work — well, we’re going to begin a slow burn towards a humorless and neutered society.

~ Drew Weatherhead

Listen to the full podcast episode here:

The Social Disorder Podcast: Sticks & Stones