← The Charlie Kirk Show
The Charlie Kirk Show
Ask Charlie Anything 24: How and Why You Can Fight Back, Presidential Hunger Games? Should Trump Get a Dog? Presidential Trivia, the Declaration of Independence Analysis and Mores
00:58:05
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
Thank you for listening to this Podcast 1 production now available on Apple Podcasts, Podcast 1, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Hey everybody. Today I answer your questions directly that you emailed me. Freedom, CharlieKirk.com, freedom CharlieKirk.com we get into quite a lot, best and worst Presidents. What does July 4th independence actually mean? Also, I answer the question, Charlie, what can I do? What can I do? What should I do? We answer that question directly and more applicably than any other show. I think out there right now, you are going to have marching orders by the end of the show because those of you that are saying, charlie, I'm losing my country, what do I do? We're going to tell you exactly what to do. I want to thank those of you that have allowed these shows over the last weekend and many others to remain commercial free. We want to have as many of those shows as possible. It's charliekirk.com support charliekirk.com support you're able to become a monthly donor. We do a special zoom call mid month. It'll become around July 15th. For those of you that have chipped in to become a monthly donor, if you guys want to get involved at turningpoint USA, go to tpusa.com, tpusa.com email me your questions, freedom charliekirk.com, freedom charliekirk.Com and if you guys want to win a signed copy of the MAGA doctrine, subscribe five star review screenshot it. Email us at freedom@charliekirk.com Two very important episodes today. Listen to them both. And also if you have time and if you're driving across the country, which you, if you are, God bless you. We have a beautiful country. I hope you enjoy it. Listen to those longer speeches I gave over the weekend. There's a lot of thought, research, reflection, hundreds of hours of thinking went into those speeches. So I hope you guys will download those and spread those as well. And also we have the interview with Kristi Noem that happened on Friday. Buckle up, everybody. Really important episode. Marching orders for freedom. They're coming up soon. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa. We will not Embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this Ask Me Anything. Hope you had a great Independence Day weekend celebrating the greatest country ever to exist in the history of the world. I am answering your questions that you have emailed me. Freedomarlicirk.com freedomarliekirk.com and if I select your question, you get a signed copy of the New York Times bestseller the Maga Doctrine. So the first question I want to answer is not a specific question I got from anybody. It's actually just more of a general question I've been getting from probably thousands and thousands and thousands of people. We get so many emails@freedomarliekirk.com I read every single one of them. I respond to as many as I possibly can. But a common question that I get is, charlie, what can I do? I go to a very liberal school. I go to a very broken church. I am in a workplace that is detrimental to conservative values and to myself. And I feel alone and I feel afraid. There is a boss, there is a person in power that seems to be abusing it. I'm being forced to do something that is against my value system, that is against my moral code, that is against my ethics. But I'm really afraid I'm going to lose my job. I'm afraid I'm going to be kicked out of the social circle. I get this question all the time. They say, charlie, want to fight, but what can I do? Or what should I do? Now, on previous episodes of the Charlie Kirk Show, I've said not everyone should get involved in the fight. Some people should help the fighters. Some people should be very calculating as to how they get involved in this struggle, really, of good versus evil in our country and the struggle of reason versus indecency and reason versus the left. The more I read about how the most destructive and disastrous societies came to power in the 20th century, which I'll talk about in my next question, the more I'm convinced that good people don't have a choice whether or not to fight. Now, everyone can fight in different ways. Some people can do it extremely publicly. Some people can do it more privately. However, I am more convinced than ever before that if you're listening to this podcast and you are battling leftist totalitarianism in corporate life and family life in church life, you have a moral obligation to do something. Here's my rule. Every person should confront creeping tyranny, no matter where it occurs. So a lot of people have also emailed me. They say, charlie, how do I know whether or not I'm in a unhealthy business relationship or religious environment? How do I know if I'm around this kind of creeping tyranny? I get this question also a lot. Here's a very good question. Is your job or profession causing you to be weaker? Does it force you to go on your knees for something that you don't believe in? Does it force you to apologize for something you didn't do? Are you in a pathological work environment where something is so broken and so backwards that you are always walking around in fear to be who you really are? People say, well, Charlie, what can I do to fight to save the country? Spot and identify every example of tyranny and totalitarian behavior in your life and confront every single aspect of it. Now you might say, well, Charlie, what do you mean, tyranny? I live in Aberdeen, South Dakota. There's no Joseph Stalin there. Well, of course, that's an example of a tyrant. But let me define tyranny in a more micro sense. Tyranny is the use of power to harm or exploit the innocent. That's a very simple definition of tyranny. So think about it. Using your position as head of cultural diversity at a university and forcing people that are of white skin color to atone for something they did not do wrong. Being a pastor and shepherding your flock or directing your congregation to support causes movements that are against the Christian faith. A general rule is that problems that are not confronted multiply. If you think you can allow your boss or your best friend or the head of your fraternity or the head of your sorority or your professor or, God forbid, even your parents to indulge in advance creeping leftist totalitarianism, and somehow you don't have anything to say about it and you're just okay with it, then in most circumstances you are equally complicit to what they're trying to do. Now, mind you, most of the people that are engaging in this form of totalitarianism, and you all know exactly what I'm talking about here. And for some of the older listeners, you might say, oh, I'm not really into this. Oh, wait, not so fast. Do you have someone in your social circle that is preying on the innocent because they don't agree with them? Do you have someone in your neighborhood, maybe it might be in a Bible study that is forcing other people to think the way they do and wear the BLM ink shirts. BLM Inc. If you don't know what that means, then I encourage you to go back in the Charlie Kirk show archives, hit subscribe and check out that episode. If you do not fix your sphere around you, you are tolerating tyranny. Now, mind you, a lot of people say, well, Charlie, I don't really know what to do. How do I confront it? How do I do this? What if I lose my job? Well, first of all, if you are unwilling to lose your job or to leave your church, you are not in a healthy relationship. You're in a hostage negotiation. Now, I know that's a lot easier said than done, especially in an environment with 25 million people out of work. I completely recognize that. And you have a mortgage and you have bills and you have credit card payments due. I understand that completely. And maybe the leftist totalitarians, maybe they chose this moment of corporate tyranny over employees intentionally because of how much economic despair and uncertainty there is. Maybe they knew people would not be pushing back in their work environments because they knew people needed their job now than almost ever before because of the mounting personal dentist wages that are not going up because of the economic uncertainty that we're living through. Maybe the leftist totalitarians and the tyrants within the cultural Marxists, maybe they recognize that this moment was the moment to punish people because they won't fight back because they have too much to lose. Standing for truth and fighting for that truth is not a futile cause. If you're able to get your words right and you're just able to engage in the fight a little bit, it's not futile. Is there not a price to the tyranny that you must continue to endure? Is it worth you having to go to a Wendy's or a Burger King where you might work and have all of your co workers make you take a knee for BLM Inc. You wouldn't believe the emails we get@freedomcharliekirk.com of young people that are being attacked and ridiculed and the messages that I get of people that say they're sick to their stomach, they're borderline depressed, and if it wasn't for this podcast, they wouldn't really have the words or the tools or the perspective to be able to fight back. And here's the other interesting part, that if you are able to stand up against that sort of tyrannical behavior, you'll actually become tougher because of it. Instead of trying to avoid the problem, confronting the problem head on, you'll actually get metaphorically stronger shoulders you'll be able to hold a bigger burden. You'll be able to endure more in the future. You'll become a stronger person. And if you're afraid of the cost of what would happen, if you stand for what is right and good in the world, you've already lost. If you fear the downside, then the advancement of truth, then it's at that point, the bad guys have already won. And I recognize it's very hard for the single mothers that are listening to this podcast, right? And they say, charlie, what do you want me to do? Take my kids out of daycare? And because they're being taught this nonsense, I need this, I need that. I get it. But how will you ever get good at defending your values if you don't start right now? What is the level or the line of tyranny that you're willing to endure? And I encourage a lot of you here. I get some messages, Charlie, how do I change my pastor? He's taking a knee for BLM, Inc. And not for Jesus Christ. There's nothing wrong with leaving. There's nothing wrong with exiting. Stand for truth. Speak your words. Hopefully you get your words right. And hopefully we can help you here on this podcast. And we've just done probably 25 podcasts in the last month that are directly related to this issue, and I hope that we can help. Bless you that way, Charlie. My kid's in a school I don't like. What do I do? Leave, fight, Stand. And if they don't take it seriously, leave, Depart. First of all, that might have a bigger impact than you would realize with the people around you. You vote with your feet, you vote with your money, you vote with your values. And exiting from tyranny is actually biblical. It's a story that is built within the archetypes of Western society. We all know the story of Exodus and Egypt, of Moses, where God delivered God's chosen people from the tyranny of the Pharaoh. We also know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which I think it's widely misinterpreted as something that it's not. Where it focuses on, let's just say, some forms of moral indecency, which is, of course, part of the story. But I think the bigger part of the story is if you're gonna leave, don't look back. If you know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Lot's wife, of course, turned back and turned into a pillar of salt. Be bold enough to be able to leave the church or leave your profession or even leave your university. Now, I'm not saying leave without standing for truth first, but if you think there's no way I can leave this, there's no way, then you are going to have to be subjected to that tyranny, to that totalitarianism on a daily basis. Always confront tyranny wherever it rears its sinister and malevolent head. When sensible people say nothing, when horrendous things are happening, totalitarianism is the result. Now remember, these are weak and corrupt people that are doing this. Immanuel Kant came up with the idea of the categorical imperative. He was trying to come up with a moral and ethical system to replace religion. He was not against religion. He was actually fascinated by religion and Kant's ethics. So Immanuel Kant wrote many books, but the one that's probably the most famous is the Critique of Pure Reason. And through his writings he also wrote Universal Natural History, the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Judgments, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, all these written between 1755 and 1793. I mean, the guy was totally brilliant and one of the hardest reads you could possibly go through. He had a huge influence on ethics and political theory and postmodern aesthetics, you name it. And so Immanuel Kant, I mean, boy, I could spend five hours on this and I'm still even wrestling with some of the stuff that he talked about which was around Enlightenment philosophy and foundationalism. The thing that he's most known for, that I can apply to this is as he was trying to replace religion. And I don't think he succeeded, but I think he did contribute to the liberation of the Western mind, which I of course do support, was this idea of the categorical imperative. Now this is a multi hour explanation done in probably 30 seconds. But the categorical imperative is easiest boiled down to Spock and Star Trek, where constant categorical imperative was played out in Spock, where I can't dare do a bad thing because if I do that bad thing, what if the rest of the world also did that bad thing and therefore I can't tolerate or see myself also doing that bad thing. That's Kant's categorical imperative. In some ways it's very similar to Christ's ethic of do unto others how you would want to see things done unto yourself. It's awfully harmonic and similar. But let's play out Kant's categorical imperative, where you wouldn't want to see anyone not do, where you wouldn't want to see anyone do what you yourself would not do yourself. In the sphere of influence. For example, it's very easy to play Monday morning quarterback with some of the great tragedies of the last couple hundred years. So I wouldn't have been involved in Stalin's Soviet Russia. I wouldn't have been involved in Mao's China. First of all, if you say that so confidently, you don't know the darkness that every single human being possesses. We'll get into that later in this program. Secondly, you understand how that kind of totalitarianism and tyranny begins is by people not standing for truth in the micro sense is people not calling out the corporate tyranny that we're seeing at Starbucks calling out the corporate tyranny that we're seeing from Airbnb in the personal sense, not the macro sense. You see, understand when Stalin overtook Russia and when Mao overtook China through the Cultural Revolution, it was not an insignificant takeover. It wasn't just a political system takeover. Every single level of every single form of society had the ethos that they were trying to put forward governmentally. Every single facet, corner and square inch of those societies were tyrannical. Two out of five Soviet families were informants for the Soviet government. Two out of five, you didn't know who you could trust. It was in every single organism throughout the Soviet Union, which is why it was so incredible that it was able to crumble and fall without a shot being fired. And this kind of goes to the second question. I was going to ask a question, but I might as well tie this all together. The second question was, Charlie, what can we learn from the 20th century? You talk about it a lot. And so I'm going to kind of connect the two. And thank you. That is Sophie from Philadelphia. Sophie from Philadelphia, you win a signed copy of the Maga Doctrine. Congratulations. But let's tie these two together, because people wrongly say that the tragedy of the 20th century was all about government obedience. Look at how persuasive the USSR was. Look how persuasive Benito Mussolini was. Look at how persuasive Mao was. Look how persuasive the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany was. It was all about obedience. Was it? Was it government's ability to hypnotize and control its citizens, or was it something more personal than that? Was it obedience or was it individual evil? Was it people not standing up to the small forms of tyranny? Who early on, was it people saying, no, I'm not going to participate in the singling out of people based on their skin color. That's evil and that's a bad idea. I'm not going to be forced. I'm not going to be forced to say something that I don't believe in. I'm not going to be forced to protest or help destroy a religious institution. That, of course, we saw throughout the 1930s and 1940s in Germany and in the Soviet Union and all throughout Mao's China, especially in the Cultural revolution in the 60s and 70s. So if you kind of connect the two and the tragedy of the 20th century, over 120 million people slaughtered and murdered that we know of, and you can look at different numbers. Some people say it's 80 million, some people say it's 100 million, some people say it's 150 million. But if you count the famine, the starvation, the bread lines, the intentional murdering, the gulags, I think it's easily 120, 130, 150 million. As Joseph Stalin used to say though, that one death is a tragedy, a million is just a statistic. Boy, you gotta be a sick and twisted human being to believe something like that. But was it tyrannical, top down government edicts that hypnotized the people, or was it small forms of micro tyranny that bubbled up from the bottom that allowed these tyrants to take hold? I think it's a little bit mixture of both. I think you obviously had very persuasive leaders, but I think to just say that it was only because of how stupid the people were that they followed, I think that's completely incorrect. I think we are seeing now, and I'm not trying to equate the horrors of the 20th century than what we're seeing now, but I am saying that if we do nothing, who's to say we won't repeat it? And this sort of instantaneous dismissiveness that is around especially suburban America, I find to be unbelievably repulsive. Oh, that's never going to be us, Charlie. Stop this hyperbole. Stop this historical misinterpretation. Stop this malpractice of looking backwards. We're never going to be the ussr. We're never going to be Benito Mussolini's Italy. I hope you're right, I pray you're right. But this revisionist history that somehow we as human beings are so much better than they were in the 1940s, that we are not taking the same sort of sequential steps that we're taking just 80 or 90 years ago that resulted in the Most horrific mass casualty toll in human history is stunningly idiotic to me. So people say, well, what do I do? Take a piece of paper and list every form of tyranny in your life. What is tyranny? Let me restate the definition. The use of power to harm and exploit the innocent. Where do you see in your life someone that is probably actually very weak and corrupt inside, using a piece of power that they may have earned or given to them or they forced their way into to exploit people that did nothing wrong or just based on their immutable characteristics. If you somehow think that the fight against authoritarianism and tyranny is a light switch that you can turn on and turn off and that, oh yeah, I'll let the local pastor kind of do his thing, but don't worry, when the mayor starts to tell me to do something, I'll fight back. Oh, really? How many Christians and conservatives sat idly by when we couldn't go to Easter Sunday because unconstitutional edicts given to us by mayors, local city council, state reps and governors. Quite a lot, actually. We were happy to abdicate our religious liberty and freedom. The trend that I'm seeing right now is that we have grown so cushioned by our western lifestyle that we value the comfort that we currently have right now over the potential fear of widespread leftist tyranny. Now, that's not everyone. But if you're afraid to leave the college that you're in, or get a bad grade from your professor or get kicked out of your job, or have your kids no longer go to the socially acceptable middle school in the North Shore of Chicago or in Beverly Hills or in Highland Park, Texas, you guys know the type of neighborhoods I'm talking about, then the tyrants have won. And understand that if you study 20th century history, as I kind of connected these two questions together, you know that the most disastrous, dangerous movements don't actually start because of a charismatic antisocial maniac like Fidel Castro or Benito Mussolini. They take advantage of a society that was afraid of the micro tyrants on every single corner. They take advantage of of a society that had millions and millions of instances of people being oppressed and they became the ultimate oppressor over that entire society. See, a society that has courageous people standing up against that sort of exploitation at every corner makes it nearly impossible for politicians to do the same. The reason why BLM Inc. Has been able to be so successful in the last couple weeks is we've allowed this kind of creeping autocracy or reign of terror. Quite honestly, It's a form of fascism or despotism or absolutism. At the grocery store, at the soccer match, at the National Basketball association, at the National Football League, in the Boy Scouts of America, in our local churches, in our food banks, it's ubiquitous almost. It's everywhere. And the more you tolerate it or the more you reward it with your dollars, or the more you just say, I can keep my head down. It doesn't impact me. I'm not saying pick every single fight, because that would be foolish and you wouldn't win it. But pick the one of something you know, a person that you know, a sphere of influence that you have. You might sit on the board of a school. You might be a school board member. You might be best friends of the restaurateur that just put up a BLM Inc. Poster and you go in and you look that person that you might have known for 10 years, knowing that that friendship might end today. But do you value that friendship? That might be a facade. Or do you value the truth more? And do you know where your lack of standing up against that tyranny leads? And you look that restaurateur in the eyes and you say, I've known you for a decade. Let me first try to tell you what BLM Inc. Stands for. 1, 2, 3. We've been through this on our program many times. Happy to do it more, but I think we've done it better than almost any other podcast out there, to be perfectly honest. And we've been rewarded by the amount of downloads and subscribers. So thank you. And if the restaurateur says, you don't know what you're talking about, if he dares, says you're a racist, then you look that person in the eyes and you say, I will never eat here again. I will not reward my dollars. When you advance something that is sinister behind a movement that is around destroying the nuclear family, abolishing police, and abolishing prisons, we're done. And you walk out and you never look back. This is unbelievably hard. And now I'm not saying you should blow up every relationship. I'm not saying you should be indecent. I've never said that if just one person listening to this podcast did this today or tomorrow, the world would be a better place. If every person listening to this podcast, which is a significant amount of people. Thank you guys for awarding our podcast and for subscribing. The numbers have been unbelievable. If every single person listening to this podcast confronted that form of despotism right now, America would be saved in a week. It doesn't take millions and millions and millions of people to do this. It doesn't take 15 million people. If half a million people did this, the country would be saved. Because the shockwaves in a community, because what happens is as soon as you stand up to that bully, as soon as you stand up to that virtue signaling social media, sanctimonious activist, as soon as you do, it shocks them to the core. They'll tell, oh, you won't believe what happened. Sally sue told me that she won't shop here if I won't take it down because she said this. And other people will start to think, well, I know Sally sue, she's pretty smart. Wow. And of course, a couple people say, yeah, screw that person. But this is how movements are started, through singular people that act courageously in a singular moment. Not thinking that it's going to necessarily change the entire planet. But you know that is the correct thing to do, and you know that it is the moral and righteous thing to do. That's how countries are saved. I think that we as conservatives view everything from a well, we just have to get the right people elected and I can go back to my life and I can kind of keep my head down. Not everyone thinks that. But before you go vote and campaign for Donald Trump, stand against the giants of despotism and Marxist tyranny in your local community, and you know exactly what I mean, because I get the messages from all of you and I appreciate you. Our civilization will fall if we think that the fight for individual freedom and liberty in our country is a spectator sport. You send in your money and you don't do what is right or what is needed. The good news is that this whole thing could get turned around in an afternoon. I encourage you guys to share this question and the way I've answered it with some of your friends, because I think that it's lost on a lot of people that this is involved in every single decision that you make. The restaurants that you go to, the dry cleaners you tend to, the neighbors you interact with, the way you educate your kids, where you go to church. There is no place where the left has not touched in society. And there's no place that you should not courageously stand for truth and be prepared to leave that environment if it so warrants that decision. So what do I do? You don't tolerate tyranny anywhere because problems that are not confronted multiply. If you don't stand and fight now, you're allowing the weak and the corrupt to win. Fix the sphere around you. Do not tolerate authoritarianism and the exploitation of the innocent. Let's get to the next question. This one is from Clarence. Clarence wins a signed copy of the MAGA doctrine. A little bit more lighthearted question. If all 45 US presidents were made to compete in the Hunger Games style competition, who do you think would emerge victorious? Well, okay, this is a more lighthearted question. Obviously it's not even close. By the way, it'd be Teddy Roosevelt vs. Andrew Jackson and I don't know who would win that. Andrew Jackson, of course was a war hero from the Battle of New Orleans. Teddy Roosevelt, a lifelong outdoorsman who, interestingly enough, Teddy Roosevelt won a Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Russo Japanese War. I was just in Mount Rushmore and learned quite a lot about Teddy Roosevelt and he was a different type of president, technically a Republican president. In some ways he was very progressive. In some ways he was very nationalistic. In other ways he was very conservative. He was a trust buster. Some of that was an overreach of power. Some of it was very positive. I'm happy to do a podcast analyzing that in a future episode. But he loved his country. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was 41 years old when he was elected. I think the guy that has the least chance of doing well is probably John Quincy Adams. Not exactly the biggest person ever to serve in the White House. Or I think George Washington would do pretty well. Gerald Ford was a football player for University of Michigan. If you want a nice fun fact. Actually JFK was 43, not 41. Gerald Ford, nice fun fact. Who is the only president never to be elected to either Vice President or President of the United States? Gerald Ford played football at University of Michigan. And who is Gerald Ford's chief of staff? Dick Cheney, youngest chief of staff in US History before he went out to Wyoming to go run for Congress and eventually of course got selected as Vice President United States for George W. Bush. I love presidential history. Franklin Delano Roosevelt probably wouldn't do too well. He had a health condition. If it was Hunger Games. Again, this is obviously a light hearted hypothetical for the Huffington Post that is listening to this trying to see if I'm trying to talk about something that is less than politically correct. But I think it's kind of fun to go through political history. I think, you know, people say, Charlie, who was the best president, who was the worst president? It's difficult because you have to look at every single president during the time that they served. You have to look at every single president in context. You have to look at every single president of where they came from and what they were dealing with. Some of the best presidents, of course. I think Abraham Lincoln was a terrific president. There is a anti Lincoln movement in some of the more libertarian circles in the country who think that we should have let the south secede, who thought that it was horrible that he suspended habeas corpus. Obviously not a fan of the suspension of habeas corpus. But all things being equal, I think that Abraham Lincoln, the protector and the preserver of the Union was something that was extraordinary and something that we should understand. And the fact that they're taking down statues of Abraham Lincoln in Boston, Massachusetts. You like that Boston accent, I think is absolutely outrageous, uncalled for. And so I encourage all of you guys to really study presidential history. We've gotten some great feedback when we kind of go through the great presidents and going all the way from Washington. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Quincy Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, who I believe was the shortest serving president in American history. John Tyler Polk, Taylor Fillmore. Do you know what Fillmore was known for? Installing indoor plumbing into the White House. That was I think his crowning achievement. Pierce Buchanan. Lincoln of course kept the Union together. Johnson, then Grant. Grant was actually an awful president. He was a terrific general, horrendous president. Then Hayes, Garfield, Arthur Cleveland, Harrison Cleveland, of course, Cleveland being the only president in US history who served two non consecutive terms. McKinley, William McKinley. So here's an interesting fun fact. What do William McKinley and Donald Trump have in common? Anyone? They both do not have a presidential dog. I'm actually a huge advocate of Donald Trump getting a dog. I think that it would help with his popularity. Some people love their dogs more than they even like the people in their life. So William McKinley and Donald Trump both have that in common. Followed by Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, the largest president, Woodrow Wilson, who was a total disaster. Woodrow Wilson was probably one of the worst presidents in American history. If not the worst president came from Princeton University. Then governor of New Jersey, eventually became President of the United States. That's what happens when you make a professor president. We have the income tax, the Federal Reserve act and also we got rid of the direct election of senators. He tried the League of Nations, it failed horribly. He was the first president in American history, Woodrow Wilson, who thought the founders were totally wrong. Go figure that. Then Harding, Coolidge, love Calvin Coolidge. Probably one of the best presidents in American history. Silent California talked about shrinking the size and force and power of the federal government. And then we had Herbert Hoover, followed by fdr. FDR was the only president to defy George Washington's precedent of only serving two terms. FDR served three full terms, elected to a fourth, died in the fourth, and Truman took over, followed by Eisenhower. I love Dwight D. Eisenhower. I think that some of it, of course, was big government Republicanism. But he was a great president for a perfect time, serving two terms post World War II, really putting the nation through a healing moment. We had the federal interstate because of him. He desegregated a lot of the country, sometimes through force. Then, of course, we have jfk, Lyndon Baines Johnson, one of the worst presidents in American history, Richard Nixon. Look, I was treated very nicely at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. In fact, you can go back in the archives and listen to my speech there. I do not think he was a good president. Followed by Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Reagan, H.W. bush, Clinton, W. Bush, Obama, and then the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. So here's a little bit of fun trivia if you guys might have heard this before, but it's absolutely incredible and you could tell your friends this. You heard it on the Charlie Kirk show, and you guys can spread it appropriately. So Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were the second and third presidents of the United States. They hated each other and they eventually became close friends later in life, but they were once political enemies. So get this, they both died on the same day, July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years since they approved the Declaration of Independence. And then John Quincy Adams wrote an incredible note where he said, a coincidence so wonderful that it gives confidence that the patriotic efforts of these men were having directed and furnishes a new hope that the prosperity of these states is under the special protection of a kind providence. Basically saying, there's no way that this was a coincidence that two of our founding fathers died 50 years from the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 50 years. They both died on the same day. What are the chances of that? I want some statistician to come on and just tell me it's a coincidence. I don't think so. He also told Congress on December 5th, and they died on the same day on July 4th, which was the founding of our country. The birth certificate since your last meeting at this place, the 50th anniversary of the day when our independence was declared, were by one summons at the distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the judge of all to account for the deeds done on this earth. Jefferson described Adams as, quote, the pillar of the Declaration support on the floor of Congress, its ableist advocate and defender. So there's some fun presidential analysis and history for you. I don't have enough faith to believe that's a coincidence. But if you think that's a coincidence, then you have more faith than I do that there is not a divine being in this world that might have just allowed the United States of America to exist. This one is from John in Georgia. Hey, Charlie, a lot of my friends over July 4th weekend have been talking very negatively about the Declaration of Independence. Can you go through it and tell me why I should be proud of it? Thanks so much. Well, you get a signed copy of the MAGA doctrine. Congratulations. I think it's so important for us to go through this. I'm not going to go through the entire document, but let me go through kind of what is the most famous parts, if you will, up into, let's just say the first couple paragraphs. So we all know the beginning, but let's talk about what the significance of this is. Let's go a level deeper. So Thomas Jefferson and company. It wasn't just Thomas Jefferson. He was the primary author of the Declaration. So before we get into the actual Declaration, we have to understand the kind of landscape that they were entering into. Unlike the 1619 project and other conservatives that say we are 400 years old, which is complete nonsense, July 4, 1776 was the creation of something new. We have to understand our founders were building something from the bottom up. They were inspired by something that came before them. But British colonial slave trade rule is what they were rebelling against. British colonial slave trade, authoritarian tyranny was part of the reason they had a Declaration of, of Independence. They were declaring that they were sovereign away from the colonies. And so you have to imagine King George getting this note. He probably regretted having all those Scots and Irishmen leave. Let's just say then the Kingdom of Britain to go to the United States of America, because you have to understand a pretext to this. And this is why I'm so proud of my Scottish heritage. Kirk means church and I'm almost 80% Scottish. I got my genealogy test back and everyone should be proud of where they're from. This idea that you have to apologize for your history and your heritage is just nonsense. But I'm very proud of my Scottish heritage because we've always been rebels. We've always been fighting against tyranny since the 1300s, since the Roman rule, we've been fighting against tyranny. But William Wallace in the movie Braveheart you have seen this many times. He helped lead the rebellion, which he actually never saw the successful fruits of that rebellion, against which was then the absolute superpower of the time. And it was in the United States of America, the Kingdom of Britain. But understand, the founding of America were the very same people that rebelled against Britain in Scotland. And some of the Irishmen and the idea of Scots Irish. A lot of Scots Irish started this country, and I'm Scots Irish. They came to America in the early 1600s. I can trace my bloodline coming back to the United States of America to Alphonsus Kirk coming back in year 1623. Our family's been incredible with documentation. We can even trace our bloodline back to the Maxwell clan, which fought in the Scottish War of Independence in the Battle of Falkirk and the Battle of Stirling Bridge, where the Scots did beat the British in that fight. They lost the Battle of Falkirk. And that's actually the inspiration of the Falkirk center for Faith and Liberty at Liberty University. However, you have to understand before that this Declaration was written to the King George, there were other declarations. The Magna Carta, which recognized human rights, which came before the Declaration of Independence, the writings of John Locke that came before the Declaration. And John Locke really pushed the boundaries of this idea of natural rights. John Locke was inspired by the teachings of the Bible. We've gone through extensively in previous AMAs and previous podcasts who John Locke was and his contribution to the founding of our country. But it's very fair to say without John Locke, the Founding Fathers would not have had the intellectual depth or the backdrop to be able to articulate what is in the Declaration. But understand the very same people that founded the religious colonies, the Pilgrims, if you will, throughout the 1640s and the 1680s, they were, in a lot of ways, they were forced to participate in British colonial slave trade rule and this idea that America was founded on slavery. I talked about this, and it's one of my favorite factoids to dive into. Slavery was beginning to be abolished, inspired by the Declaration of independence in 1777. Vermont, which was a religious colony in the northeast of our country, abolished slavery in 1777 as inspired by the Declaration of Independence. So understand that there's a very significant historical backdrop to the founding of America. It wasn't just they just woke up one day and they said, oh, this sounds like a great idea. It was hundreds of years of the struggle of tyranny versus free people. Can we start something new that is in some ways a meritocracy where we Recognize natural rights? What does that country look like? Is it worth putting your life on the line? Is it worth sacrificing everything? And the Declaration was the answer to that. Yes, it was worth sacrificing everything. It was worth saying to King George, I'm basically signing my death warrant, kill me, kill my family. These ideas, this ideal that I am striving towards is worth it. So you know this, but let's repeat it. And some people actually forget it. So often when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, to assume among the powers of the earth. Now, before we go any further, understand Jefferson, the main author of this, he read the Bible every single night. So the beautiful poetry here, the language that we don't teach our children, it's so incredibly well written as far as the prose, the diction. And this was not just something that they wrote on the back of a napkin. They debated this for months. And they said, hey, young Thomas Jefferson, why don't you just take care of this? You're a pretty smart guy. And he was, in a lot of ways, the most intelligent linguist that the founding fathers had at their disposal. And he got his inspiration by reading John Locke, by spending time around Patrick Henry, who I think gave one of the best speeches ever in 1775 at the Virginia House of Commons. You guys can look it up. It's incredible. The. You could start to see the rumblings of the beginning of America. I encourage all of you guys to check it out. The speech by Patrick Henry is called the war inevitable, March 23, 1775. Where he gave it was actually to the Virginia assembly in 1775, similar to the Virginia House of Commons, but they didn't really have the House of Commons then. But you could start to see where this started to pop its head up. So anyway, it continues the separate and equal station. Here's the most important line in the first part of it. To which the laws of nature. And nature is God. Whoa. That is straight from Locke. Locke repeated that so many different times. Laws of nature. Who are you in the state of nature? So Thomas Jefferson basically did a 1776 version of copy paste and said, I like that this is a biblical idea. Anyone who tells you that the ideas in the Bible were not, not just instrumental, but they were imperative to the founding of the country is just wrong. I mean, I could use a lot of different ways to fill that in there. It's wishful thinking at best, and it's trying to create America in an atheistic, humanistic image. And that's just not true. Laws of nature and nature's God entitle them. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation. So you see this first paragraph, it frames the argument. Basically it's saying it sometimes is moral for people to dissolve from political tyranny. I mean, King George reads this and he's like, I know that we've been fighting the Scots for some time, but who thought it was a good idea to bring them to this new land where they could flourish infinitely. You just imagine because this sort of language began bubbling up in the 1300s and the 1400s with William Wallace and the rebel of the Scots. And it was the same genealogy that came to America which were religious seeking, freedom loving people. This idea of freedom is not something that every country embraces. This is why our military excursions and experiments in Libya and the Middle east have proven futile to try to create the next Thomas Jefferson in Libya or in Syria. They do not have the philosophical or historical backdrop to be able to have a document like this have resonance here. Here is the most famous line, in a lot of ways the most important line. We hold these truths to be self evident. You've probably heard this by a teacher, and I hope a teacher did this justice because this idea of self evident truths, this idea of natural rights completely blows up the idea of medieval autocracy and tyranny. It obliterates this idea of Rossoian. Hegelian. Hegel didn't quite write yet, but eventually you see the American left embrace him. But Rousseau was right near this time, Jean Jacques Rousseau. Self evident truths, you mean that people have rights that are natural upon birth, that all men are created equal? Now we've talked about the three types of equality and we even talked about how the founding fathers have. They didn't even live out the three types of equality. Equal under law, equal opportunity, equal outcome. Please commit this to memory and write this down as a way to talk to your friends about this. It's very simple and I did not come up with this analysis, but I did come up with this way of framing. So this is a Charlie Kirk show original. So equal under law again is essential and moral. Equal opportunity, which is school choice and educational options, very noble. Equal outcome is evil. So we have to understand the incorrect reading of this declaration is saying, oh well, the founders wanted equal outcomes. No they didn't. They wanted equality under law. Equality that you'll be treated the same regardless of skin color, regardless of heritage, continues by saying that they're endowed by their creator, capital C. This is a theistic document. This is a document that recognized there is a sovereign God with certain unalienable rights. Whoa, you mean that people have rights just because they're boring? That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Again, this is straight out of Locke. Locke would say life, liberty and private property. Thomas Jefferson didn't want to be accused of 1776 plagiarism. So change it to the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. You have to understand this is such a philosophical divergence from the tyranny of King George. He must be reading this saying, like, who do these people think they are? They have rights. They're peasants in our eyes. There are subjects. Declare war on them. Wipe them out. I mean, the divine right of kings, which is a completely philosophically and morally flawed concept, which basically argues that kings have total authority to rule people because they were put there by God. It's not biblical, it's not correct, but something that was very pervasive for hundreds of years throughout the Middle Ages. It's that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from. From the consent of the governed. And it continues. And by the way, in a future episode of the Charlie Kirk show, we'll dive deeper into this, but I want to stop on that. From the consent of the governed, meaning that you must communicate with the people that you are ruling, and they put you there. Every single free society on the planet can point to this document that we celebrate on July 4, 1776, that you hopefully had a great time celebrating this last weekend as the reason why the world is a freer place, is a better place, is a place that recognizes natural rights, individual initiative, freedom of speech, freedom of prop, Freedom to exercise your religion as you see fit without the government spying on you, without the government coming in and taking your stuff. The Bill of Rights articulated these natural rights. And we don't teach this to our kids. We need to get our kids to love America again. And I encourage you to check out the sister episode that we have here on the Charlie Kirk show where we dive into that and we dive into what the President said about Rushmore, which was absolutely terrific. And I want to make sure I was saying something very specifically. I sometimes speak so fast. It's Scotch Irish, not just Scot Irish. But I'm proud of my heritage of freedom fighters. Always have been, always will be. And I think no matter where you're from in the world. You should be proud of where you're from. You should be proud of the language, proud of the culture, proud of the sacrifices people made before you so you can live in this country. This idea that you have to apologize for your history is nonsense. Know your history. Know the complexities of it. The failure to know your history, I believe, creates an immature infant society that puts us in a decline of civilization, not into the prosperity of our civilization. Last question. And before we get the last question here, Laurie from Texas, congratulations. You win a signed copy of the MAGA doctrine. Please email me your questions. Freedom charliekirk.com, freedom charliekirk.com we are getting our books out. There's a little bit of a delay because I've been traveling so long, so I got to go sign some more. So if I told you you're getting a book, congratulations, you will get it. And as soon as I get back in the saddle, you guys will get your signed book. So congratulations, Lori from Texas. And before I answer this question, I want to encourage you guys to continue to send me in your ideas for President Trump. What you think I'm missing? What you think that the statistics, the studies, the things you want us to include in our podcast, we read every single email freedom@charliekirk.com we get so many emails, but I go through them. I take at least an hour and a half a day to go through every single email that I get. So thank you for that. Freedom charliekirk.com, freedomarliekirk.com and also I want to thank those of you again that are helping keep this show going, help cover our producer costs, our travel costs. CharlieKirk.comSupport CharlieKirk.comSupport thank you for contributing on our monthly donors. Coming up right around July 15th, we'll be emailing you. We're going to be doing a private zoom call or Skype or whatever we call it nowadays to be able to meet and discuss ideas privately only for our monthly donors@charliekirk.com support. Okay, Laurie from Texas, she says, charlie, I love the idea that President Trump put forward in his executive order about creating a statue garden of American heroes. What statue do you think should go in there that he may be missing? Maybe yours? I don't think so, but thank you so much, Laurie. That is very, very kind. Okay, so look, I saw the list. It's pretty amazing. I think Babe Ruth is in there. Amelia Earhart, so many. I don't know if Frederick Douglass made it in There. But Frederick Douglass is one of my favorite figures in American history. He was an abolitionist and he was a Republican black man. He's incredible. Thaddeus Stevens, I hope is in there. If he didn't make it, I sure hope he would. One of the original abolitionists that was an incredible guy and really loved his country and fought for abolition even when it was so difficult and so hard. Let me think who else that would be missing in the United States. I hope Dwight D. Eisenhower would be there. One of the most complete people in our country's history. Arnold Palmer. I've always liked Arnold Palmer, and it's not just the drink. He was very admirable in a variety of different ways. Vince Lombardi. I've always loved Vince Lombardi. He's terrific. And he helped start the sports as we know it, the National Football League and of course, the merging of two leagues, the AFL and the NFL. Alexander Graham Bell, of course, the founder of the telephone. The great inventors, I think, throughout our country's history need to be recognized. John Asulk, who came up with the polio vaccine in the 1930s, and not Henry Ford. I do have appreciation for the company he built, but Henry Ford had, let's just say, a questionable history. In some ways that has been revealed. I don't know if I'd do a statute of Henry Ford. I don't think Ford should be renamed, though. I'm not one of those. Actually. I drive a Ford around because they didn't take government money when the Chrysler and GM did. So I don't appreciate that as much. No, I don't think Mr. Producer said, do you think there should be a statue to Yale? No, I don't think there should be a statue to Yale, nor do I think there should be a statue to Leland Stanford. Leland Stanford helped build the American railroads, of which was an admirable undertaking. But he did use a lot of, say, questionable slave labor, quasi slave labor, Chinese labor. Jonathan Edwards, who was a preacher of the American revival, I think would be incredible. Jonathan Edwards. Not that Jonathan Edwards. No, the Jonathan Edwards that was preaching the American awakening helped really contribute to the founding of our country. Andrew Jackson, I would hope, be there just because I'm a big Andrew Jackson fan. Despite his, say, moral missteps. I think he was a terrific president and generally a phenomenal president. United States of America, Teddy Roosevelt. But he's already got his face on Mount Rushmore, so I think he's. He's off to a pretty good start. I don't think he needs another statue, even though they're taking down the statue of Teddy Roosevelt at the Nat. I think it's the Natural History Museum in New York, something like that. Billy Graham, that is a very good one. Billy Graham should get a statue in the American Statue of Heroes. And you just look at the heroes that built our country there. It's incredible. Babe Ruth should be included in there. Lou Gehrig, who gave one of the greatest speeches I think ever and I encourage all of you to listen to it. Hank Aaron, definitely. Hank Aaron should be in there. Jackie Robinson, who has of course broke the color barrier. And I think we've done a pretty good job actually of honoring Jackie Robinson in our country. I think that's something that we should applaud ourselves for. Rosa Parks, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, just to name a few. I think that there's so many American icons and heroes, know our history, understand it. And I actually I'll have a, let's say a more complete list on a future episode of the Charlie Kirk Show. So email me your questions everybody. Freedomarliekirk.com and if you listen to this AMA and you want a signed copy the MAGA doctrine, subscribe leave a five star review screenshot it email us freedom charliekirk.com and if you are selected as for the first 20 people you get a signed copy of the magadoctrine and I apologize, might take a week or two to get your book. Just because I've been traveling so much I'll get behind the get back into central command and sign more books and send them off to you guys. But thank you for supporting our show. CharlieKirk.com support this episode is brought to you episode free by those of you that went to charliekirk.com support charliekirk.com support those monthly donors. We'll make sure that we have that special VIP behind the scenes experience. So thank you guys so much. God bless you. I hope the beginning of this episode convicts you to action. It was a longer than usual beginning to an ask me anything but people say what should I do? Stand up against tyranny. Do it today and email me the incidents that you have. I want to profile them. I want to celebrate the Davids against the Goliaths. I want to celebrate the people that stand up against the authoritarians in our life that have the creeping levels of tyranny in every single sector. Church, business, culture, school, family life. Be respectful, be compassionate, be decent, ask questions, but don't give an inch. You can change the world, but first you have to fight for everything that is right and good around you. Thank you guys so much. Email me your questions. God bless.