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Thank you for listening to this Podcast 1 production now available on Apple Podcasts, Podcast 1, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. 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.
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I want to thank Charlie.
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He's an incredible guy.
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His spirit, his love of this country.
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He's done an amazing job building one
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of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa.
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We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be back in front of people. I want to first thank Pastor Rob. If America had A thousand Rob McCoys, we would be in a much better place, I'll tell you that. Pastor Rob is a. Is a dear friend, and he stands for truth. It was amazing watching on the live stream over the last couple months. You know, Pastor Rob give these updates, you know, like they're trying. They have the police out here. We're doing that. I was watching some of the news reports of the communion service you guys held on Palm Sunday, which very well might have been like, the cleanest room in the history of the planet, and they still found a way to attack Pastor Rob on that. And so. So Rob has been proven to be one of the few pastors who's willing to engage in the public square, who is willing to have very clear and respectful conversations around what truth actually means, and is willing to fight and contest for that truth. And so, Rob, I'm honored to call you my pastor. He's absolutely terrific and tremendous. So I'm honored to be here. It's quite a time in our country, if you, like me, you probably feel as if we've gone through 30 years of change in three weeks and not all that changed. In fact, most of it is awfully troubling. We have a new country in our country. As of today, I'd like to welcome the 156th country to the United Nations. Chaz. The Capitol Hill Autonomous zone. We have people that are losing their positions as commentators and in the public eye for saying things that should be agreeable. Statements such as the Sacramento Kings broadcaster who was fired last week from two of his radio positions for simply saying all lives matter. Gone with the Wind is no longer allowed on HBO MAX Television, despite it being the first film ever that has awarded an Oscar to a Black female actress. First ever, 1930s. We have Legos. No longer are going to be making police officers, which is very bizarre. So what we see right now, I hope today to be able to offer you some clarity on what's happening in the country, some very actionable ways you can do something about it, and then where this is headed if we do nothing. And so I feel with you a sense of angst and unease, because I, like you, feel as if we've been on defense for the last couple weeks, that those of us that believe in truth, we feel like we're outnumbered. We feel as if there's not enough people that are standing with courage and contesting for that truth in the public arena. And there's reasons for this. And I'm going to go through the specific rules and the playbook of the people that wish to sow discord and disharmony and anarchy in our country because their rules are made public. And I think it's imperative that we understand where they're coming from. And I also want to take a more broad picture of root causes. How did we get here, and what can we do to actually fix it? So in the last couple of weeks especially, I have been told by the intelligentsia and the media, by certain pastors, and by certain members of the political elite that I must stop talking at this moment in our history because of nothing that I did, but because of my immutable characteristics. I've been told by media members and other individuals that since I'm a white male, I must sit down and shut up. So I've been speaking louder than ever before. And. We're in a place of God today. And one of the things that the Christian ethic teaches us, which is so fundamentally different than any other religion, is that you're made of the image of God. We're all in total need of redemption. And what's also very important is that you, as a singular unit, despite what your father or mother or grandfather or grandmother did, you need salvation. Your bloodline can't save you. For you, what preceded you is not your destiny. Where you came from is not necessarily your future. Christ disrupted this whole idea of tribalism at once. Galatians 3:28, doesn't matter. Slave, nor Jew nor free person, we're all the same under Christ. So this idea of the sovereignty of the individual, how God made you, your immutable characteristics, must be recognized, must be understood. And also that you will not be judged by something that happened many generations prior to you, that now, if you do something wrong. If you sin against somebody, the sin of racism, then go atone to that person personally and look at them in the eyes. Atone to God. However, this idea that certain individuals, because of the melanin content in their skin, must atone for something that they did not do is Western society was built against that idea. And what's very important to note is that if we study history carefully in the 20th century, there are a couple big takeaways. There's a couple big lessons. The first lesson of the 20th century. And by the way, we don't teach our students the proper history of the 20th century. We don't. The 20th century was a bloodbath. It was the most murderous century in human history, by far the most intentional depletion of human beings. And that was only 50 or 60 years ago. In fact, some of those authoritarian regimes still exist to this day. From the 20th century. What am I talking about? Mao's China, Mussolini's Italy, Stalin's Russia. I mean, that ideology is still very, very well accepted and well spread. So by no means is this history gone. It's actually today, as I'm giving this speech, but for whatever reason, and I could talk about this separately, we've decided to not focus on this chapter in history and I believe learn from it correctly so that we can never go that way again. There's three big lessons from the 20th century. This is not an exhaustive list at all, but number one, the promise of utopia is a death sentence. That should be a very easy lesson. That when someone comes and tells you that they can create utopia, which actually means nowhere, you actually look at the root of the word. It actually means it's never going to happen. They say they're going to create heaven on earth, run the other way, in fact. The Founding Fathers. What was the brilliance behind the Founding Fathers is for the first time, they were given a blank sheet of paper like, what kind of country do you want to create? And instead of giving themselves ultimate authority and control, they could have created the Washingtonian or the Hamiltonian or Jeffersonian ruling class. They could have created themselves to be monarchs of this new place called America. They were one of the first successful military revolutionaries that gave up power. Think about that. In order for Alexander the Great to give up power, he had to die. Napoleon was banished to an island. But for someone to win a war and then give away power, very. It's transformational. It's because they studied history and they understood the importance of where rights actually come from, that there is something sovereign and Bigger than whatever government that they might create. And so the founders created a system of laws and a system of restrictions, first and foremost on government. That government will not take your rights away. It's very important. Nowhere in the Constitution does it grant you rights. If you read it carefully and the way it was intended. It doesn't say, you shall now speak. It's like, no, no, no, no, be more specific. It's the government can't prevent you from speaking. It's the presupposition that you could speak naturally. It's the recognition that the government is what we created, the government didn't create us. Very important that the government is not the sovereign, that we the people are actually the sovereign. It's such a fundamentally different philosophy than what we're starting to see happen in our country. And so because of this, what we've seen in the 20th century, when people were promising utopia, which, which would never, of course, happen, they said, we can create heaven on earth. The Bible teaches us this. You can create something actually pretty similar to hell on earth. You can't create anything close to creating heaven on earth. Very important lesson that we can actually be so unbelievably brutal to each other that if you want to see what human beings are capable of, if they just decide moral restraints don't matter, Go read the Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Go read what Stalin did to tens of millions of innocents. As he said, one murder is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. It's just a rounding error, Right? When people promise something like that, my goodness, it should be. And that was the brilliance. The founders, they had the humility to say, this is actually not perfect. That's why you can amend it. That's why you have elections. That's why you can have discourse around it. Because the founders never tried to convince people they were divinely inspired autocrats that were going to get it exactly right. They said, this is going to be pretty good unless you screw it up. A republic, if you can keep it right. Lesson number two of the 20th century, mobilizing resentments is guaranteed conflict. So some resentments are legitimate, others are not. But the mobilization of them towards the oppressor, oppressed, conflict or paradigm is guaranteed to end poorly guaranteed. For example, mobilizing the Bolsheviks versus the Mensheviks and the Russian Revolution, mobilizing Mao's conquest of China. And I talked to so many students on universities, and they can't tell me what the Cultural Revolution was in Mao's China. One of the most murderous, disastrous moments in human history just conveniently disappeared from our history books. And that regime still exists to this day. And let's just say we've experienced the deceitfulness and the byproduct of what a godless regime can do here and the way they handled this recent outbreak. When you mobilize resentments, you immediately get into a competition of who is more, who deserves the product of the award more like, no, I'm actually the most oppressed human being. I deserve it. It's almost like this oppression Olympics that is created Western society was never built around that. In fact, it recognizes that every human being has a specific amount of struggle or has more struggle than others. But instead it is a release from that. In the Christian ethic, you're redeemed, you're liberated through Christ and then you're going to go forth and flourish the best you can and you're going to fail. And then you're going to need to come back and go through that cycle again. The third lesson of the 20th century, and this is, boy, is this so applicable today. Grouping people on their immutable characteristics is a gateway to disaster guaranteed. What do I mean by immutable characteristics? What you cannot change? I think that should be a pretty good lesson from the 20th century is that we should never say that someone's skin color gives them a certain amount of either advantage or makes them better or worse or any of that, or they have to atone because of that. That is so unbelievably dangerous and is guaranteed conflict. And we see it happening right now. We see it where individuals based on them, they themselves not doing anything incorrect for the specific thing that they're being criticized of, have to apologize or do something to. For example, this idea of white privilege which is all throughout our schools and all throughout our country. And people have to say, well you have to atone for that. Well, first of all, if I had to atone for anything, I definitely won't do it to you. Okay, so let's just be very clear. I got a God for that and a Savior for that. So let's just be very clear. I don't know what construct you think I have to pay penance to, but I'm not kneeling to your man made idol or whatever just because you say I've done something wrong. So thank you very little for that. So secondly, secondly, it is the opposite of the Christian ethic. It is opposite of everything that we believe in as Christians. Remember, we are made new through the blood of Jesus Christ. We are liberated from our sin. So even if you are guilty of that accusation, it sure as heck isn't another human being's business to try to tell you what you have to try to atone for. Secondly, what an unbelievably dangerous, baseless accusation to try to turn people against each other. See, as Dennis Prager says, there's the American Trinity, E pluribus unum. Out of many, one, it's on every presidential seal. As the President speaks around the world, he has that presidential seal, that Latin phrase, e pluribus unum, I.e. the American North Star. That means no matter your skin color, no matter your background, we are one people. There is only one race, the human race, which, by the way, conveniently is considered to be hate speech in the University of California system. And you're not allowed to say that, saying that there's only one race, the human race. I kid you not. It's a real thing. So believing in E pluribus unum, the second part of the American Trinity is in God. We trust that it's on all of our currency. It's in the halls of Congress that God is greater than government, and. And that the rights that government is not supposed to take from you come from God. It's a Lockean idea of natural rights. The third idea is liberty. The one that's most applicable right now is E pluribus unum, the American ideal. And understandably, it was not completely fulfilled from our founding. In fact, they laid this really ambitious goal in the preamble of the Constitution that even the founders themselves were hypocrites in writing some of this. But that doesn't diminish the ideal. See, trying to say, well, the people that wrote that didn't even live up to it. Of course they didn't. Don't throw out the truth in the preamble of the Constitution because of the sins of the Founders. Instead, ask yourself, did we ever get to a place where we achieved that? They won't teach you in history classes. In year 1777, one year after the Declaration of Independence was signed, Vermont abolished slavery. Sovereign state abolished slavery. So as inspiration from the founding of our country, states were already starting to rise up to abolish slavery, rising up against an unspeakable evil. And so eventually, we fought a civil conflict over it. There was years and decades of discussion, but guess who were the people that were on the side of abolishing this evil? Where was the inspiration from this? It was from the Bible. It was the churches, it was the Christians that Said, this is not biblical. We're all made in the image of God. We're all one under his dominion. And this idea of racial hierarchy is evil. Stop grouping people based on their immutable characteristics. And that was the, that was the inspiration for the Civil Rights act and for the idea of allowing people equal under the law, equal rights, not equal outcomes. Completely different thing. We could get to that in a second. However, we're now doing the opposite. We are now destroying Martin Luther King's vision where he said, I care about the content of your character, not the color of your skin. Now people who know nothing about me are telling me to stop talking because of the color of my skin. That is anti American, that is anti Christian, and that will guarantee to lead us to a very, very, let's just say, conflicted place as a country. So we, what do we do about it? First of all, more so than any other time, I think, in American history. Truth tellers are being ridiculed and attacked and silenced at a record rate. That's why Rob McCoy and this church is so special to me, because people that stand for truth and fight and contest for truth is so unbelievably important in this country. Because we have seen people that are in positions of leadership turn their back on the teachings of the fundamental truths of American society. And so I want to get to root causes, but I think it's really important to know how the left operates. And I don't mean the left as this amorphous object. I'll say it, I should be more specific in my language how the people that wish to sow discord, disharmony against the teachings of the Bible. Let me be more specific that way because I don't even want it. This is not even about politics today. It's not. This is about something much deeper and much more about like red versus blue. This is about reason versus unreason and right versus wrong, to be perfectly honest with you. And so we must understand that there are people in this country right now that wish to sow disharmony, that actually wish to have people hyper focus on differences, not on similarities. I am told every single day now that we are a systemically racist country. We are a systemically unracist country. We're actually systemically decent. We're actually a systemically polite, accepting, generous country. We bring in a million immigrants every single year into our country. One million. That's half of all the world's immigrants. We're such an awful place. Why do so many people want to come into this country, and why do we open them? Why you do. Why do we welcome them with open arms every single year? If we are such an awful country, why is it that we have over 130 languages represented in our country and we're generally pretty civil to each other? Show me any other country that's passed the stress test of this many different groups of people. However, we're told that we must atone for something and we must pay penance for something that you didn't even do. And so I always laugh at this because they tell me this, and I say, wait a second. You're talking to the pretty much the wrong person about this for a variety of reasons. Let me tell you the main reason. So you're telling me I must pay apologize for something that my ancestors did or whatever? And they say, yes. I say, okay, well, my uncle, seven generations on my father's side fought in the American Civil War on the Union side. So my bloodline fought in the American Civil War to try to abolish slavery. A couple generations later, my bloodline in the 1920s was fighting for women's suffrage and black equality in the inner cities. A couple generations later, my bloodline was fighting in the 1960s for the Civil Rights Act. Why were they fighting for all these things? Because I come from a family of Republicans. Therefore, we've always been fighting for equality and liberty and human flourishing my entire life. But, however, so just that is dismissing that the history is much more complicated than they make it seem, that it's literally not black and white. It's not that even if they were trying to indict an entire race of people, it's actually that there were individuals that rose up and that did pay significant sacrifices for the rights and the progress that we enjoy in our country. However, the other side thrives on demagoguery, thrives on saying something that feels somewhat symbiotic with deeply held emotion, but not rooted in truth or data or science or a deeper belief. And so let's get into this. A lot of you have been made familiar in the last couple years of a book that has been more instrumental to the American left than almost any other book. And it's their playbook. It's called Rules for Radicals. You've probably heard of this before now. Rules for Radicals is written by Saul Alinsky. Now, mind you, this is not a political book. This is first and foremost a spiritual book and a religious book. How the dedication to Rules for Radicals is to Lucifer. The dedication is to Lucifer, the first rebel, the first fallen angel that rebelled against the Almighty. This book was the book that Hillary Clinton wrote her senior thesis for at Wellesley College. This book is what Barack Obama learned from as a Chicago community organizer and mentored under Saul Alinsky. 13 rules for radicals. If I ask most members of Congress, they couldn't name two of them. We have the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ to teach us how to act and what to do in this world. This is their 10 commandments. There's 13 of them. Go figure why he chose the number 13. Right? So I'm going to go through them. Some I think are more applicable to today, but I think it's going to start to harmonize with some of the confusion you're feeling about what's happening. Number one, power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.
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This should give you comfort. They're not as strong as they make themselves seem. This should give you a lot of confidence that their number one rule is to make them seem like they have more support than they really have to. That's number one, is the appearance that everyone is with them. That the appearance that you are alone. Anyone felt alone in the last couple days, couple weeks, couple months? I know, because you literally were. You were, like, alone in your home. And, boy, did they choose a time to strike in our country. We weren't having moral religious gatherings strike when we were in a constant state. Fear. Everyone's wearing masks like this dehumanization campaign happens. Right? What a perfect time to strike because you're already feeling lonely and uneasy. You might have lost your job and you're just upset. Perfect, right? Number two, never go outside the expertise of your people. They are violating their own rule a lot of ways here, and I'll get to that in a second. Number three, wherever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. So they're trying to get us in terrain we're not used to playing in. They're trying to go outside of our collective expertise. Very good at this. Republicans and conservatives are woefully unequipped to discuss the history of America. It's true. They are not equipped to talk about first principles or natural rights. So they have taken us off our terrain. And we have these blum. These fumbling members of Congress that are trying to say, well, we're not really a racist country, and they can't give three reasons why. And by the way, the even presupposition of trying to defend a negative should be rejected. I'll say. I'm not even going to tell you why we're not racist. I'm going to tell you why we're decent. I'm going to tell you why we're generous. I'm going to tell you why. We're the most benevolent, most forward thinking, not perfect, but excellent. Totally off our terrain. Perfect at that, right? Number four. Boy, are they good at this one. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. This is how they've taken over the church. This is how they've taken over the church. They go to pastors and they say, they put their arm around and they say, you care about the disadvantaged. Of course I do. You care about the least of these. Absolutely. You care about injustice. Yes. And all those things are true, by the way. Then you must therefore care about this must up to your own book of rules. So they go and apply people that have a book of rules, our rules. And they say, well, therefore you must agree with this number five. Boy. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. That's a rule. That's one of their guiding principles. Like our guiding principle is turn the other cheek. Be decent, forgive other people. They're teaching ridicule as one of their rules. A good tactic is one your people enjoy, like stealing flat screen TVs from Long beach or something. I don't know. I mean that's you can. Or burning down American cities. I guess people find some fulfillment in that. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag on the purpose. Number eight. This is a good one. Keep the pressure on. Keep the pressure on. Pressure campaign against every single individual they can find. On the Sacramento Kings announcer on the statues. Keep the pressure as if it's unrelenting. Now there's a philosophy to all this and one of the reasons why they've done more in the last three weeks than in the last 30 years on some of these issues is for the first time we, because of things outside of our own power and within our own power, we as moral believing people that just want a good, a decent country and civil government. We have been on defense, you see, when we play offense, all these rules go out the window. When they have to defend their terrain, all of a sudden they're disorganized, there's disunity and they're not able to keep the pressure on. Number nine. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. That should give you comfort. You're going to lose your job, you're going to lose all your friends, you're going to be hated. They're admitting to their own people that the threat that you're putting forth is usually actually more terrifying than what you're actually going to be able to do to them. Number 10, it's a little bit of a complicated one, but the major premise for creating tactics is the development of operations that will allow you to maintain constant pressure. So everything that they try to do is to make sure that you feel pressured all the time. Corporate boycotts, constant protests in the streets. This is their rule. If you push a negative hard enough, it will break through as a counter side to a positive for yourself. So, for example, abolish the police. Abolish the police seems like a negative. It's breaking through on the counter side to now, 68% of Americans that believe the police are in significant need of reform and 70% that think that conservatives are woefully unprepared for this because we're off our terrain. We're playing on their turf right now. Number 12, the price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. It's a more complicated one and it's not as applicable today. The 13 is unbelievably applicable. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. The police are the target. Have been for the last 50 years of these people because they are the enforcement of the law. And it's not that they don't like law enforcement, it's they don't like the law, which are standards given to us from the Almighty. So they've always been after the police. They've been since the 1960s. They've been after the police since the 1200s. The idea of a civil governance is something they've targeted for a while. So they pick the target, they freezed it, and they found a way to personalize it. A human being that did something evil, that did something that no one supports, became the reason why all police should be abolished. Couple that with keeping the pressure on and ridiculing anyone that comes after them. That's their rule. So how do you, how do you combat this? Well, we know this first of all, the number one thing and this is what makes the Christian religion, the Christian following, the Christian experience, the Christian ethic. You can fill in the so different is that at the absolute ultimate thing that matters most to us is truth. Now, it's not that the most important being Christ, God in human flesh. It's not that he said true things where most religions will say, yeah, we have someone that says, no, no, no, he was truth. Completely different. That's why he's literally called Logos in the book of John, he was the embodiment of all things that are true. And so when you look at the hierarchy of what matters, a commitment to that truth, and Rob said it, whatsoever is true, but the inverse must be equally true. That you should stand up against whatever is not true. Very important. That it is not enough to contest for the positive. You must stand up and call out what is being spread that is not true. And so, for example, there is a massive movement happening in this community, many other communities, pushing forth the most radical elements of society. One of the groups, blacklivesmatter.com I encourage you to go to their website, I'm quoting. We seek to disrupt the nuclear prescribed Western family. Okay. We seek to abolish prisons and abolish the police. Wow. Well, that's a little different than I think most people even recognize that they're fighting through. So wait, hold on. Destroy the family? That's a lot deeper and bigger than reforms around law enforcement. That's a much different type of agenda. So now truth and all things that are true, from physics to science to mathematics to history, requires us to stand up against these widespread falsehoods. Now this is where it gets hard. The Bible tells us that there is a guarantee of persecution if you stand for truth. It's not like a maybe, right? It's not as if you can pass idly by. Kind of like one of those drive through graduations that you guys have been having, right? Like stand for truth. Thank you, bye. Roll up the window and just keep going. Nope, that's not how it works. And I understand every person's in a different walk of life. Every person has a different price to pay. It's all on a different scale. And for me, the most liberating thing that for me is that I've been attacked mercilessly for six straight years, that I've been had death threats against me, followed through the streets, kicked out of restaurants, showing up at the office, whatever you. So at some point it says, it's almost like, what are you going to call me? Bad names in all capital letters now. I mean, it's as if what else you got, right? And of course they got more and they're going to try to do more. But when you surrender to Christ, which all of us do, what you're also doing is surrendering to truth. And when you surrender, it's not ultimate. Surrender is very, it's a very deep psychological understanding. It's not like the. I believe it. Got it. Belief and surrender. There's a dis there's sometimes a disconnect there, but the ultimate surrender is my job, my house, everything I love might disappear for the pursuit of the truth that I care most about. Now, that is. That's hard. It's a hard thing, especially for those of us in Western societies to embrace. It's easier for, like in Syria, for example, where they have such third world dissolute poverty, and they say, what else do we have to lose? We will. That's actually. I don't want to say it's easier. That's not the correct way to word it, but it's different for us in a Western society. It's like, we have a pretty comfortable way of life. We actually have a lot to lose. We have decades of career advancement, decades of relationships, friends, family, capital expenditures, all of it that very well could evaporate and disappear in a moment's notice. And so for me, I do my best to do this every single day, which is, they could take it all away from me. Turning Point usa, the office, everything that we have right podcast advertisers. But if they take me down, I'll be on my feet, not on my knees, I'll tell you that much. Because for me, nothing could possibly be more important to me than to tell the truth, live the truth and fight for the truth. Nothing. And all things that are true. So, for example, when people say that we are a systemically racist country, I have a moral obligation to stand up against us. I do. Because whatever, whatsoever be true. And if we think that we can be quiet on one truth and loud on another truth, I doubt that totally. And categorically that somehow you can call balls on strikes. And when you're going to be courageous on what truth and not that somehow you're going to stand when it gets really, really hard for Christ, but you didn't stand for truth 10 years earlier, maybe, maybe you're able to turn the truth switch on and off. I can't do that. That's not how I'm wired. And I think it's also really important. I want to talk about this for a second. My biggest form of opposition for the last couple weeks, speaking out the way I have. And there's been a couple of us out there, and this is not an exhaustive list, of course. Rob McCoy. Candice Owens has been unbelievable. She's been terrific, absolutely terrific. And she, of course, was with us at Turning Point USA for a couple years, and we had some wild times. And it was one of the most proud things of my short career to be Able to see her flourish and grow into the thermonuclear weapon against the left that she is, let me put it that way. Right? Incredible. And so Tucker Carlson's been fighting and they're trying to take his show off now. They're there, they're there. There's not zero. There's a few. It's not zero. However, the group of people that have been the most hostile towards me, that have been the most cowardly are Christian pastors by far. And when I say that, I subtract the left. Forget that. Like, that's. I expect that from them. I'm talking about social pastors who approached me at physical events, actual events, when we used to have those things, and said, I love your content, I love what you do. We exchange phone numbers, we text back and forth. They end up sharing and liking my social media posts. And then the country moves in the overton window. Chaos happens, and someone finds out that this individual liked a couple of my social media posts. And so instead of correcting the record and saying that I'm not a horrible, awful, dangerous person or whatever, goes on stage and apologizes and cries and throws me completely under the bus, right? Says that I'm racially insensitive and all this garbage, right? Lies to the left. Repeated. Now, it really came full circle when that individual still has not appeased the mob and they're still calling for his father. That's how it works, right? When you're dealing with a mob, it's not as if persuasion is not exactly the best way to an angry mob. The only way to go up against the mob is to stand firm for truth and to not give them an inch. Not an inch. Not an inch towards the truth, not an inch towards your livelihood. Because if you think the old expression, give an inch will take a mile, it's so unbelievably beyond true right now. And so I'm not gonna say any names. That's not why I'm here today. And I know we're on the live stream and everyone can look up these stories. However, I've been disappointed and let down, but, boy, has it been, as Rob calls it, the refiner's fire. And someone Jack asked me earlier, he said, charlie, what's one positive that's come out of this? He asked me this backstage. I said, oh, we find out who's really gonna fight when this thing comes to a full head. Are you kidding me? Like, we're finding out who to support and who to say. Like, you go do your thing. Where you care about reelection more than the country. Like, go do that. Good luck. You know, have fun cutting corporate taxes or whatever you do. Right, Whatever. We're gonna go fight for the soul of our country. Like, that's what we're gonna go do. That's a positive. Because we thought we had this big, vast group of people and all of a sudden it's whoop. It's like, okay, that should be. That should be reaffirming for all of you. Because now you can concentrate on the people and the organizations and the individuals that are really going to fight when it matters, which is now. Like now. And so the Christian pastors that have. That I have been going back and forth with the ones that even here in Southern California at certain churches, and I'll privately tell you which one. It's not my place to do it publicly, it's not my style. But that have been going to the Black Lives Matter protest, that have been making the signs and bringing their kids there. Despite where I say on their website, our goal is to disrupt the western prescribed nuclear family on their website. Don't understand how that is consistent with Christianity. Must have missed the verse where it says, let's destroy families. I mean, that, that must have been in some sort of extended teaching that I'm not familiar with. The point is this, is that you have a group of people in the Christian community that. And it puzzles me to no doubt because they say they don't want to offend and they want to build big bridges. And I know some of these guys and I've been to their sermons and they go on for like 40 minutes about hell is a real place and eternal damnation. And. And I'm like, that's probably the most offensive thing you could talk about. Like definitionally, like you're going to burn forever. How could you think of something more offensive than that? And instead they're cool with that. At least some of them are cool with that. But they don't want to talk about something that's happening in real time and taking a stand against it. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And that's not my place, that's Rob's place. And we'll talk about it. To talk about it. But what I think we do have here though is the biblical equivalent of Gideon's army. And Rob made me aware of this. And Gideon's army, as he starts with this huge army and God winnows it down and winnows it down. And you remember they go to the river and he Says only the people that drink out of the river with their hands instead of going down, will fight. And gets down to 300 people. 300 people against this massive army. And Gideon's army's delivered a victory. Now, why did God do that? Archetypically, he did that because he wanted to make sure there was no question that, that it was God's victory, not their victory. Unquestionably. So. The church is a new battleground. It always has been. But more so than anything else, the founders anticipated that the church would be the fire guard for liberty and freedom. And so. And what's really interesting is that I actually find so many Christians that are coming to my podcast, coming to what we're doing. We talk about Christianity and how it intersects with the world and organized thinking and civil society. And there's so many Christians that are reaffirming their faith because of what we're doing, that are coming to Christ for the first time or that they're stronger than ever. And the reason is that when you're only focused on conversion and not discipleship, it actually creates Christians that walk away from the church. They start to be tempted by Eastern religions with the hyper focus on spirituality and more Eastern focus. And all of a sudden there's no application beyond the 1 and a half hour of when they're actually physically in the church. So they're in the church, they do the conversion, which is essential and important, but then by Tuesday, they're being told by their co workers that if you dare not take a knee, you're the worst person ever. They're being told by their family and friends that if you don't subscribe to 957,000 different genders, you're hateful. And then they go to the same pastor that brought them to Christ. They say, what am I supposed to say about all this? I'm kind of confused. I'm looking for clarity. Because, you know, when the gospel intersects with the real world, that's where discipleship really comes into play. And most pastors either stay away from it or they give some sort of very, let's just say, questionable answer. Let's just put it. But, Rob, and what's been the like. No, I'm going to tell you exactly how the Bible instructs every way of life. How to marry, how to speak, how to form a government, how to potentially vote. I mean, that's what the gospel is. It's supposed to transcend into every portion of human action and human existence, not just a very specific part of human conversion. Of a specific person's conversion. And I think it's important there's a good expression. If you have a why, you can figure out the how. And our why is the most important why ever is that we're created by a merciful, omnipotent, omniscient God that is ubiquitous, that loves us, that brought his son, and we know we're guaranteed hardship and challenges and persecution. And that's actually really comforting. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but a lot of human anxiety and nervousness and stress is this story we tell ourself that we can avoid all persecution. And when you admit that it's gonna be pretty, there's gonna be a price of admission here that'll beat you up and all that. It's actually sets you free. It actually. And then you have comfort in Christ and comfort in the Word and then you're battle ready and ready to fight for that. So the final thing is this and I want to get for questions. I don't know where Rob went, but. And I know I have to be very specific on time. So I call this woke Christianity. On the other side, by the way, if you don't know what woke is, ask a teenager. So yeah, that's what I want. Okay, So I examine root causes, that's what I do. So I think far too often the church and conservatives are always treating after effects, not root causes. And a root cause for all of this is how we as Christians and decent minded reasonable people have completely abdicated our responsibility and involvement in the education of our children. Most specifically the colleges. If you really look just objectively and strip yourself of all preconceived notions and restraints and look at how we have interacted with higher education for 40 years. It's incredibly illogical. So we tell students that go through high school and work their tail off and they're under parental and moral observation almost continually that you must go borrow a bunch of money, that you don't have to go study things that don't matter to go find jobs that don't exist. And it's even worse than that because it would be okay if they just studied a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter. It actually they study things that make them sow bitter resentment for the very country that they're about to enter into. It's even worse than that that challenges the idea that there's a God where students are the most moldable, where they're the most easily to be converted, they're being taught by persuasive atheists more so than any of the charismatic Christians could possibly imagine. That sow real seeds of doubt, which we know is a weapon of the enemy. We know that. And so if you're asking where these protests and where this is all going to go, it's going to go to college campuses in September, my job. We will have students that unfortunately and tragically, and I hope I'm wrong, that will be hospitalized because of their activism at Turning Point usa. We've seen it before. We've had kids that have been punched in the face. We've had bear spray at high school gatherings. We've had all sorts of firebombing of dormitories. So if you think your price is high, go wear a Make America Great Again hat and go walk through UCLA for an hour. That's what our students have to go through every single day. That's the price of admission for the Turning Point USA kids. And so. And by the way they embrace it, it's the most amazing thing. They're not victims. They actually aren't parading around asking for special grievances and all that. They know that they will be kicked out of any social clubs. They know the professors will view them differently. They know all that. And that should be the most optimistic thing you take away from it, that there's a rising generation of thousands and thousands and thousands of freedom fighters that are willing, excited, able, and ready to go into the front lines this September and go put all of Western society on their back, and they might get a fist in the chin because of it. It's pretty amazing. And so one sentence of truth can dispel 40 years of lies. Never forget that we had an individual that came to our office recently and many others. And one in particular, which I don't want to say his name in the live stream. I want his permission before I say this publicly, but I'll use the story, which is, he confided in me that I said one sentence that made him go from a liberal atheist to a Christian conservative. I said, wait, one sentence. I said, I talk like a hundred hours a week. It's like, come on, you got to give me more credit than that. He's like, charlie, you don't understand. And I've had these moments listening to some of the great thinkers and lecturers and pastors where you're following them, and all of a sudden there's like a breakthrough moment, like that one organized thought. You're like, that's it. I got it. And he's a black individual. And I said, the Following. And it wasn't even, I think, one of the most insightful things I've ever said. But I said, if America's such an awful place, why does everyone want to come here Again? It's okay. It's a pretty good take, right? But for him, it all of a sudden crushed everything he's ever been told negatively about America. He's like, you're right. It's like, if this is such an awful place, shouldn't I be grateful I'm here? And all these people are waiting and brought him down this hole of finding the Bible and reading the Bible and recommitting his life to Christ and all this incredible thing. Just that one sentence. An activist like you wouldn't believe a black individual. And again, I don't want to say his name publicly and I'll get his permission before we do, but this specific thing he said was so incredible that I know for certain that they have these ridiculous 13 rules, right? They have all these billions of dollars from all these different places. They need all of that. They need all the trappings. Let them have all that because they have the one thing that we don't have. That's what's so cool. Let them have the greatest standing army of mob activists. Let them have every university on the planet. And that's not a reason not to fight on it. But basically it's like, yep, you got all this stuff. The one thing that they'll never find is truth. It's the one thing. And no. And if you said, charlie, would you rather have the truth and 300 of the best freedom fighters you could imagine or all that nonsense, are you kidding me? Because that's all it takes, is that one word of truth can spread like a wildfire. And it has and it will. And if you think you are alone, they want you to think that if you have felt like you've been in isolation, that is a tactic, not a reality. That is a hypnotic technique that they use. Semi hypnotic, I should say. If you look into actual social psychology where they make you feel the way that they program the news of all these big groups of people of every corporation, this drumbeat, it's a miniscule of the American population because we as civil minded people, we're not likely to go pick up a sign and protest. We're actually anti outrage, we're definitionally anti boycott because we're into building and flourishing. They're into destroying and disrupting. And so it just feels weird for us to do that, right? Like, I have a family, I Have a job. I have responsibility. Those people don't have any responsibility. How many people do you think that are doing that? Go home and have dinner afterwards. What'd you do today? Well, I threw a Molotov cocktail at a law enforcement officer and I got a really good deal on that big screen TV at Best Buy. Best deal ever. Of course not. Because when you have no responsibility, there's no. There is no assumed honesty in your interactions. There's no assumed moral code. It's just you. It's you against the world. Go join a mob. It's their place of connection. It's their place of being able to utilize whatever resentment they have. Remember the mobilization of resentments. Final thing I'll say is this, and then we'll. We'll do questions. Is it's not enough to know the truth. Super important. In fact, it's critical to the second part. You can't do the second part. But knowing the truth and operating in the Crips and not advancing truth, I think actually does a disservice to what you're carrying. I actually think it does a disservice to what you believe and why you believe it. And so that's. The second part is the standing and fighting for truth. And as Christ is the embodiment of that truth, everyone should ask themselves privately, am I willing to lose every earthly thing that has been granted me from God? Because it's not your stuff, it's God's stuff to fight for truth? And if so, what level of exposure am I willing to have? Now, mind you, there's three types of people, and Dennis Prager talks about this quite often. There's the enemy and the people that do nothing. There's the fighters and the people that help the fighters. So maybe you're not the type of person, which is okay to go do what I do and get thrown at and all that crazy stuff, but then help the fighters, find the fighters, be the supply lines, be the medics and the military analogy, right? Be the prayer warriors, all that stuff. Because we've been convinced that somehow there's a disconnect between, like, it's a spectator sport. Like, you go, candace Owens, you go get them. Like, no, no, you could be just as much on the team, on the court, wearing a jersey as much as the person that's doing the absolute most public thing imaginable. And so a specific thing. I always say it's very simple. Spend more on cultural truth or politics than you spend on coffee every single year. That should be a rule. I Think for every civil and decent minded reasonable person, average American spends on average $10 a day on coffee. More or less. You look at Starbucks, it's insane. It's probably even more than that. Right, so it's more or less $3,000 a year on coffee. Okay, so in your hierarchy of beliefs, what matters more, coffee or a country? Seriously, this is. If coffee matters more, I hope you have lots of energy while they burn everything. However, I'm not saying spend nothing on coffee, just spend more. And whatever that budget is for you. I say that in somewhat jest and silliness, but what I'm saying is this. It's not just financial, but time and prayer. Prioritize the cultural fight as well. Really what I'm saying, obviously, right, because those of us that are fighting need the help. It is the worst I've ever gone through, but I love it. It's guaranteed. We're gonna be fine, we'll be okay. It's gonna be tough. There's gonna be a high price of admission for that. But we need the help in a variety of ways. That's why when you give to this church, as of you know, I, I'm a member of the church and so I tithe the best I can to this church because only a church that stands for anything anymore, that actually fights. Is this, is that everyone's called to do their part. And I believe it's what an optimistic opportunity for all of us to be in a moment when the Republic is in crisis. It's a great gift and we can win, and we will, because we have the one thing they don't have. So let's do some questions. So thanks.
- [54:03]
B
That was very good, Charlie. So we have some MAGA doctrine books that are signed by Charlie for the people who ask a question that contains less than 20 words.
- [54:17]
A
It's like Twitter.
- [54:18]
B
Yeah, yeah. If you blow V8, I'm moving on. So yes, I'll bring the microphone to you.
- [54:28]
A
Hi, Charlie. Oh, do we have to count that? Okay. There was a very righteous secular Jew by the name of Andrew Breitbart. And his credo was walk into the fire. And every time I watch you, your speeches, I think of that comment. My quick question is, any thoughts, remembrances of him? Or what would you like to say about Andrew? Did you know him? Okay, so it's very interesting just to repeat it for those that in here, you're talking about Andrew Breitbart, right? Andrew Breitbart indirectly got me my start in American politics. He passed away and died right There in Brentwood, I could tell you the spot that he died in April 1st of 2012. I was a senior in high school and interestingly enough, a month later I wrote my first ever political article on Breitbart.com a month after Andrew Breitbart died. If you did not know Andrew Breitbart, he was a magnanimous American patriot who's one of the most self deprecating, funny, happy warriors in the history of our country. And his legacy lives on to this day. He was an absolute American hero. You read his book Righteous Indignation. He was so correct about everything that's happening now. He predicted it a decade ago. I'll tell you one Andrew Breitbart story if that's okay. Okay, so I can make a clear and convincing argument that Andrew Breitbart is the first person to win a presidential election from the grave. So here we go. Andrew Breitbart was flipping through his computer in the year of 2011 at 3 o' clock in the morning. Interestingly enough, on a Twitter feed a picture of Anthony Weiner came public that he didn't want to be tweeted Andrew Breitbart screenshots and archives because he just happened to be on Twitter at 3am Anthony Weiner quickly deletes the tweet, but Andrew Breitbart had it saved and archived. Anthony Weiner denies this for hours and almost days and eventually relents. And we all know how that one ends. However, the story doesn't end there. So Anthony Weiner resigns. However, an entire scandal unfolds because more people said, yes, Anthony Weiner is doing some very inappropriate things to me. Now, interestingly enough, Anthony Weiner was formally married to Huma Abedin. Now Huma Ahmadine is the best friend of Hillary Clinton and a top advisor of the Clinton family. Fast forward a couple years past Andrew's death in 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was doing a huge inquiry into Anthony Weiner because of originally that screenshotted tweet into, let's just say, some not good things that he did. However, when they confiscated his hard drive, they found a lot more than just that. They found emails that Huma Abedin was having with an unclassified, unrestricted, let's just say unregulated server with Hillary Clinton that prompted James Comey of all people, eight days before the election 2016, to issue that letter that says she's actually still under investigation that the Democrats say totally changed the polls and changed the direction and maybe Donald Trump won. As a contributing factor that only Andrew Breitbart could win an election five years after he screenshot something on Twitter at 3am God bless Andrew Breitbart.
- [57:42]
B
So the next question was, there's a lot of cities like Thousand Oaks around the country. What are three things that you would tell a community that they need to do in order to be active?
- [57:54]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think, again, prioritize your time, your treasure. Everything starts locally, and so it starts in your local community through that sort of communication and all that. Keep attending church. Moral guidance is critical. And so my urging to the secular conservatives, it's so funny. I play both sides. My urging to secular conservatives is to go to church. My urging to churchgoers is gone. Do conservative stuff. It's like I tell them both to do the other thing and that. That's the second thing. Definitely the third thing, the most. I shouldn't say the most important thing. That's not correct. One of the most important things is run for school board. Get people elected to school board. The disconnect from everyone that says, yes, our schools are awful. They're terror. They're all this. And then I'm like, well, who are your school board members? Are you praying for them? Are you. Are you communicating with them? Are you running for school board? Are you financially contributing? Are you putting up a sign for the school board? Is like, oh, I don't really do that. That's not my thing. Well, the left, through the teacher unions, have just absolutely monopolized and dominated school boards for such a long time. So that's my insistence. And then we need to have a revolution of people running for mayor and city council like Rob did. And he was basically alone and you guys supported him, but there were so many people that had the knives out for Rob and he had to resign because he stood for truth. And he's been vindicated and I think validated because of what he stood for. But that's the other thing, is that we have to take local government a lot more seriously.
- [59:27]
B
And then, Charlie, the question was, when someone. What's the simple answer? Especially in this day and age with the rhetoric when the term racist is used on a community that, gosh, during to strong officer Helis didn't see color when he went into the borderline and the white privilege of Blake Dingman didn't exist when he was shot by that gunman. What's this? How do you respond? Just the folks in here labeled with that term racist.
- [60:00]
A
I mean, I'm wrongly and baselessly called that Every single day. And it's too bad. Let me first comment on this. It's tragic, actually, because that sin does exist. And the more that you use that term, the more it actually dilutes the term and the more it cheapens the real racism in society. You know, who actually wants that to be used as cheaply as it is? The actual racists, the actual identitarians. Because then they blend in. Because then they almost as if, oh, there's no difference between someone like you and someone who is a very hateful person of which they exist, but they are a micro or of a micro of a subset of the American population, whereas we are a very decent and very accepting country. And so that's the first thing. It saddens me because that word is a legitimate sin and a legitimate prejudice. However, it's not widespread, systemic or close to being structural. So that's the first thing. And look, I'm going to say this as lovingly as I can, but that's not the worst thing that they can call you or do to you. They're going to say that because they're rooted in, in untruth. It is a cheap, it is a baseless and it is a, it is a very infuriating accusation to have thrown at you. It is. And I, every single day I have people that say that and I have pastors that reinforce it when they come under fire. And that's just beyond. Can you imagine how frustrating that must be? Someone who wants with your friend? But that's a guaranteed, you know, level of persecution.
- [61:27]
B
When, when I interviewed, especially for last night, when I interviewed Magahulk and then Candace Owen, it's racist. Because if they're calling you a racist, but yet they're speaking to a black American and they're calling them a racist. It's simply their ideology.
- [61:47]
A
This is a very important point, that this was written by this phenomenally foolish author. She wrote this book called White Fragility, where she said it's not enough to not be racist, you have to be pro Marxist. And here's the thing. She argued that racism is. No, I kid you not. This is what they teach our kids. Racism is no longer about race, it's about power. And so that black people that ascribe to the white agenda are actually just as racist because they're, this is literally what they teach is that it's actually not about race and all that. So that's why they try to invalidate. But it's so unbelievably and ridiculously foolish to Say something like that, that I don't think it resonates, but it takes four years at a university to believe something like that. I mean, after four years of just being fed that pablum and then tested on the pablum, as if your career is going to be judged on your ability to recite the nonsense. It's awfully, awfully dangerous and pernicious. But I do want to say I sympathize with those of you that come under those accusations because it's not a fun or a easy or a desirable position to be in, but it is a commonly used tactic of the left. It's nasty when you're in the thick
- [63:08]
B
of it and you're getting beat up and you get to that place where you have that freedom, how do you get there? Someone was asking, how do you find that sweet spot where the Lord just releases you and you just. The fear dissipates as faith comes.
- [63:26]
A
Share with everyone. Yeah, I pray that I can stay there. I know that I believe I've gotten there. But there was a time about two and a half years into this thing, Turning Point usa, I'll never forget it, where I had to make a very conscious decision whether I was going to stand for truth or I was going to try to moderate and kind of be in the middle and be this amorphous, whatever. That doesn't get any, you know. And the reason it all came to a head at this, when all my high school friends, all the people I grew up with, were aggressively saying, you don't actually believe this stuff, do you? You're this, you're this, you're that, you're that, you're that, you're that. And so at that moment, I said, forest fire, whatever survives, it survives. I'm going to stand for truth. And that's hard. Every person I grew up with will not talk to me again. I'm not asking that as a victim. That's not. Trust me, it's the best thing that ever happened. But no, seriously. And that should be the lesson for you. It's so unbelievably lit, but I'm going to lose my friends. Same. Okay, so, like, just whatever gets. Whatever gets, whatever God wants to purge from your life. When the pursuit of ultimate truth, whatsoever be true, that's liberating, I'll tell you. And now I want to be very clear because people sometimes misinterpret what I'm saying. They think that's a license to be provocative or offensive. And look, I say truth, data, science, Newtonian, physics that I never thought would be a controversial thing. The classics, all this. I never go out of my way to provoke or to be offensive. It's not who I am and it's not Christian. However, if I say something true and someone is offended by that, that is not my problem, nor am I going to stop saying it because they are offended. And so that's a very important point on approaching these conversations, which is you should not, in your heart, God knows your heart, seek conflict, seek being offensive.
- [65:21]
B
Charlie Share like you did last service, about how you get folks, you ask them questions like Jesus did.
- [65:26]
A
So look, we can learn from the greatest communicator in the history of the world, which is Christ. I mean, what other person has had more of a. Communicate, more of dialogue implemented into the modern world than Jesus? No one. It's. I mean, so how did he interact? He asked questions. He was the grant. He was. He had a grand. He was the Grand Inquisitor. He would challenge people respectfully and lovingly. He would hold court, literally in a court with the Pharisees and the Sadducees asking them. But he also, this is very important if you're ever going to engage it. What was Christ before he was any of that? He knew the law better than anyone that came across him. He knew the Scriptures. Now, how do you apply that? Know your stuff.
- [66:11]
B
Amen.
- [66:11]
A
That you must be studied. You must be understanding the statistics. And for those of you that are looking like, where do I go? What do I do? There's plenty of resources out there. Podcast I'm doing Prager University. If you guys are not deep in this sort of teaching, it's more on you because it's all out there, right? And so. But you must know your stuff, because the opposition is going to try to trip you up. They're going to say, what about this? Or what about that? And also Christ teaches us humility. The best definition of humility is not like cowering into a corner and never moving. I think that's. I don't think that's correct. I think the better definition of humility is acknowledging how little, you know, how ignorant you actually are. And it's that old expression, which is, I always trip up with this. But it's. I wish I was able to acknowledge how little I knew when I thought I knew it all, like something of that. And that's essentially part of it. And so, you know, reading in Scriptures is the most important thing.
- [67:11]
B
There's two questions. I'll tie them together since we're already at the bottom of the hour. This one's a little dicey, but I'll do my best. With the tearing down of statues across the country, defacing The World War II memorial, going back, and anyone who has any connection to slavery, even if they don't. As we saw with the Massachusetts Black Militia, the monument for them in Massachusetts was defaced. And we've watched a quarter, if not half, of the history of the Democratic Party erased from their website. Shouldn't we go back and change the name or demolish the Democratic Party?
- [67:58]
A
Yeah, look, I mean, there's two points here. If I were to rank for all the Democrats.
- [68:04]
B
It wasn't my question.
- [68:06]
A
Yeah. Okay.
- [68:07]
B
But I do agree with it.
- [68:08]
A
Yeah. If I were to rank every issue that mattered to me, I think, like, 127 would be Confederate statues. Just so we understand. Okay. Unlike the hot. The things that get me fired up, like the reasons of why I do what I do. Probably 127. Okay. I'll answer this as succinctly as I can. However, I stand firm against the removal of all these statues. Every single one of them. Every single one of them. And the reason is this. I'm not defending what they did or any of that, but I understand exactly why they're doing it. This is a cultural revolution tactic to remove our history, to insult an entire portion of American society geographically and culturally. And the history is much more complex than how they describe it. So they're taking down statues of Christopher Columbus and look, I won't defend everything Christopher Columbus did, but there was a symbology and an archetype behind Christopher Columbus, which is we are going to go forth and create something new, something righteous and something moral. And he embodied that. The boldness of Christopher Columbus. And I'm not going to defend everything in his life. Winston Churchill is impossible to defend everything he did. In fact, he's a very conflicted historical figure, but he's a hero. In fact, he was probably the greatest man that lived in the 20th century. I will never defend what he did in India. In fact, it's awfully morally questionable. I will defend him putting all of Western society and looking true evil in the face and in the eyes when London was under constant bombardment and keeping that all together and pushing forward and eventually literally playing offense. And so this idea that we can overly generalize every figure in history, I think is so lazy, wrong, and sloppy. And the second thing is this. It is a war on the American South. And for those of you that grew up in the north, you know exactly what I'm talking about, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. You could probably, probably still hear it in some of my pronunciation of words. From a young age, I was taught that anyone, both implicitly and explicitly, I was taught this. Anyone south of the Mason Dixon line is a stupid person. When you make fun of people, it's always the Southern accent. It's in our culture, it's in our news. And that you want to talk about stereotyping, that was the stereotyping I was taught in the suburbs of Chicago. Now, this bothers me in a couple ways. Number one, they're American citizens, and it's just awful to engage in any form of stereotyping like that. It's not correct, it's not not true, it's not warranted. Number two, 48% of the entire act of United States military comes from seven states. So when people want to go fight their sugar happy wars overseas, it's the boys and girls from Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia that are stepping up and rising in huge numbers. Love California, love New York. They are the two most underperforming per capita voluntary enlistment states in the entire country. And so this entire righteous Malibu, Manhattan, ivory tower syndrome that we're going to go tell the south about their slavery, like, excuse me, when you wanted to go fight the Korean War and we had 35,000 people die, it was the south that rose up in huge numbers. When we wanted to go fight in Vietnam, where we fought the war on terror, it was the south that rose up in even higher numbers. 55, 60%. And they didn't rise up in the way that you thought. They rose and they stood in line. They said, I'm going to go sacrifice my life so the person in Malibu can still enjoy their vegan milkshake and tell me how awful that I am. Right. One more. And even more so as it is, as it is a war on the American south, it's a war on the American military. We are a complicated nation historically, but we're a beautiful nation historically. And the human hubris, the pride and the provoking that they are trying to put into the entire part of the American experience is intentional. It's intentional for a variety of reasons. And even as someone who again, does not list this as the highest level of my hierarchy of what I care about, I will not give them an inch. I refuse to, because I know exactly why they're doing what they're doing.