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They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Liberty Savings vary underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. Thank you guys so much for being here. It's a great honor to be here. What time of the morning? Okay. It's not that early. I don't know, maybe it's just. It feels early because I was out at the cigar party last night. It's great to be with all of you. Thank you for making it out. I am so, so pleased. I want to give a big thank you, a big shout out to tpusa, the unbelievable team here, who has just done heroic work in keeping everything going and growing and advancing, just as I think we all know our friend Charlie would have wanted. Just incredible work from tpusa and incredible work from all of you. Thank you. I've never done one of these. You know, Charlie was the king of this. And now a bunch of Charlie's friends are going to be sitting in all day, so go easy on me, please. One thing that we all really, really have loved over the years and I think has really helped our political movement is that we're willing to have these conversations. People come up. No notes, no anything, no rules. Ask anything you want. And we'll try to get at the truth and we'll try to move on forward together. So who's the first question? Love your hat. I love your hat, but I hate your microphone because I can't hear you. So my question is, what is your opinions on private Christian schools versus Public education. I'm sorry, I still hate your microphone, and I can't quite hear you. Okay. Public education. So private schools versus Christian run organizations in college education, Christian versus public education. So the first thing we have to all recognize is that education is not merely a private endeavor. So I love that homeschooling is normalized now. I've been homeschooling my children. I think the reason that homeschooling really took off, it's great. We got a lot of homeschoolers. Of course we do. Of course we do. Here. All of the public school kids are at the, like, BLM rally down the street, but every. All the homeschoolers are here at tpusa. So I do it. I really love it. I think it's great. Part of the reason homeschooling really took off in recent years was because during COVID the students went home, the parents actually got to see what their students were being taught, and they yanked them out as quickly as they possibly could. So that was a great temporary solution. Christian education is a great alternative to the secular public schools, but it's not the final stop, because education is a public thing. It's a political thing. It creates and shapes whole citizens. It shapes whole souls. You know, and so I think that conservatives would make a mistake if we merely retreated to the Christian schools. Private parochial schools and homeschooling, that's all good. I'm all for it, but we need to go a step further, and we need to reassert ourselves in the public schools as well. You know, there didn't used to be a difference between Christian schooling and public schooling. It was all the same thing. Because until the middle of the 20th century, you were able to, I don't know, read the Bible in schools, you know, the most important book ever written, without which you can't know anything about anything at all. You know, you were able to pray in schools. Our friend Yoram Hazoni, great philosopher, suggests that taking the Bible out of schools, prayer out of schools, was the most catastrophic event of the 20th century in terms of our country. So, look, I encourage everyone. Yes, do the homeschooling. Do the Christian private schools, if you can afford it, if you can find a good one. But let's go further. Let's make more demands of our country. Let's make more demands of the public school system. Let's fight the bad guys. Let's fight the public teacher unions. Let's. Let's go in there, let's overturn ridiculous Supreme Court decisions, and let's Restore seriousness to education. It's about raising up whole people. It's not just reading, writing and arithmetic. Great question. Thank you. Thank you. Gotcha. Thank you sir, for taking my question. I want to preface that I'm a devout Christian as well as not a racist, which being feels like something I shouldn't even have to say in America. But my question, or maybe topic for debate for you today is I do not believe that Islam and those practicing this religion are compatible with institutions of the west. Considering their long track record and the fact that their core book, the Quran, most literally says to, for example, kill the unbelievers and then once again, just the combative nature. I don't think you're going to get much debate out of me on that particular question, though there are some who do want to debate that on the right. And I think there are some people who think that we can form some kind of enduring alliance with Islam. There can be some synthesis, say between Islam and the liberalism that came out of Christianity and maybe Christian civilization itself. And to them I would just say seems like wishful thinking. Because to your point, Christendom, which we now call the west, has been in conflict with Islam for roughly 1400 years. So this began very shortly after the invention of Islam. You know, the first real clash between the Christian west between Europe and Islam took place in 732. And it didn't take place in Arabia. It didn't even really take place in the the Levant. It took place 150 miles outside of Paris. So Islam has endeavored to conquer the west many times over the course of history. The Battle of Lepanto, 1571 is a good example. The Battle of Vienna after that, now we just sort of welcome them all in and allow them to defraud our welfare systems and create their religious rituals and buildings all over the world. So no, it's not going to work. What do we do about that? Well, we have to recognize a very important word for conservatives and the word is no. We've had a lot of trouble with the word no in recent years, haven't we? Even the conservatives have had trouble. We used to say, look, we want endless migration as long as it's legal. Flood the country with totally unassimilable cultures, but make sure they fill out the right paperwork before they come in. And that's ridiculous. It's not just the procedural norms that matter, it's the substantive goods that matter. We have believed that our country is totally open. Some people would say it's just an idea, but what's crazy is some people would say it's not even it's any idea, it's just anything at all. We can close our eyes and be whatever we want to be. But of course, a country that's everything is a country that's nothing. So we have to circumscribe what we mean. And we need to recognize, when we talk about the migration issue, for instance, we need to recognize that the question is not merely legal versus illegal. The question is not merely even numbers. You know, we'll take half a million versus two million or something. No, the question is, where is the migration coming from? What cultures have the habits, the institutions, the beliefs that work for us? I go back to John Adams. John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1813, little bit of bad blood between two of our founding fathers, but they both agreed in principle on what won the revolution. John Adams says, the general principles of Christianity in which all the sects agreed, and the general principles of English and American liberty are the principles upon which independence was won. It is simply an historical fact that we are a Christian nation with a history of tolerating all sorts of deviations, but nevertheless with a norm. The differences between the Christian and Muslim conceptions of God are manifest. In Christianity, God sends his Son as a mediator between man and God. In Islam, God is wholly transcendent. There is no way to reach him. In Christianity, Christ is the divine logic of the universe, the Logos. In Islam, God is pure will. And so, as Pope Benedict XVI quotes Ibn Hazm, if we get some shout outs for Pope Benedict XVI out there, I don't think for Ibn Hazm, according to Islam, if Allah wanted his followers to worship idols, he could make them do so. These are radically different conceptions. They've led to radically different civilizations. And we can't just paper over those differences. We can be nice and kind and. But we can't be everything to everyone. We have to be a specific civilization. And for us, if our civilization is not animated by the spirit which has animated us from the beginning, namely the Holy Spirit, our civilization will be nothing at all. Thank you, sir, for your time. Can I sign that hat? Yeah, sure. Throw it up. That's a good throw. Now, now can you throw up a pen? That's a black hat with a black pen. How am I supposed to sign that? All right, here you go. Look at that. I was terrible at baseball as a kid, but I'm glad that throw work. Whose is that? All right, one more, one more. That's it. Now I got to get back to answering these questions because Charlie was way pithier than me. I'm a little more verbose. Okay, we got to get through these questions. There we go. All right, next question. Hello, my name is Chelsea and I'm from New Jersey. And I wanted to ask you, should America implement free health care just like Canada and the uk Should America have a universal, socialized healthcare like Canada? I agree. I agree. No, we should not. Though I see why some people want us to, because the American health care system is really messed up. Worth pointing out that the American health care system was created almost entirely by Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama. It doesn't have a great track record on who built it. I'm not surprised it hasn't worked out. And yet it's still preferable to what you see in Canada, because the conclusion of the Canadian health care system is death. And I mean that literally. A huge number of Canadians now, every single year are killed. I think it's over 5% are killed through government encouraged physician assisted suicide, which is contrary to the Hippocratic oath and leads literally to the suicide of the whole country. Furthermore, though, you see a major rationing of care. So women who are under the age of 50 have a reasonable chance of getting breast cancer procedures in Canada. Women who are over the age of 70 basically do not. Something like 80% of women who are waiting for breast cancer surgeries over that age just did not get the procedures because the government said they were old enough and they would rather ration the care and let the older women die. That's a ghastly kind of system. Furthermore, you have Canadians waiting months and months, years and years for procedures, many of whom will die because of that. You hear stories coming out of Canada, coming out of the United Kingdom of people who have cancer in particular, who simply will not be given chemotherapy by the horrific regimes that have a monopoly on healthcare up there. And so what are they offered instead? They're offered the privilege of killing themselves. This is completely contrary to to any sense of moral goodness. It's totally inhuman. It is as tyrannical as any government policy could be. I've long observed that Canada is America's evil top hat. George Washington did not conquer it for a reason. And I think we should leave them be and not adopt their terrible practices. Thank you very much. Go to goodranchers.com, use code knowles. This episode is sponsored by Good Ranch Ranchers. You know what I am most looking forward to this Christmas season? The commemoration of the incarnation and looking ahead to the Second coming of Christ. But after that and after spending time with my family, you know what it is? It's delicious, tasty meat from good ranchers. I love it so freaking much. It's outrageous. Good ranchers, it's all American. It's not injected with a bunch of weird stuff. It's like, it's great. You know, local farms and ranches, I love all that. The price cannot be beat. But what I care about even more than all that and what I care about even more than the price is the fact that it is just delicious. It is some of the best steak you are ever going to have in your entire life. Plus they have chicken, they have pork, they have seafood. If those delicious seed oil free chicken nuggets, all from American farms and ranches. It's unbelievable. Gifting is super simple. You pick a box, add a note, schedule a delivery. Get it, man. I cannot possibly recommend a product more highly in this country. I just, I adore good ranchers. It's so good. You are robbing yourself of joy every day that goes by that you do not order it this year. Spend less time prepping meals, more time together with those you love. Go to goodranchers.com use code knowles get 40 bucks off your first order. When you subscribe, you get premium cuts for free chicken thighs, wagyu burgers which are out of this world. Bacon in every order for life. Goodranchers.com code knowles 40 bucks off plus free meat for life. Goodranchers dot com get back to the table. Good afternoon, Mr. Knowles. Big fan of your show. I'm a very devout Catholic myself. Praise God. My understanding is the only thing I disagree with you on is the one beef that you have with Mr. Walsh is I believe in aliens. I couldn't hear it. Is what I believe in extraterrestrial life, that it is possible. Please hear me out. I know I said ask me anything. I should have said ask me anything but this ridiculous new age Gnostic nonsense about the little green man. I'm sorry. Go on, go on. Yeah, so it was Kardashev who basically said that it'd be kind of ignorant to say that we are the only sentient terrestrial life out there. I do believe that God created man for one sole purpose, to inhabit the earth and to follow our savior Jesus Christ. Praise God. But I do think that it is possible within, you know, the 14 billion years that this universe has existed, that there are other forms of life out there. We just will never know. So what is your rhetoric on that? Do you think it's likely that aliens exist. I think it's likely. I think it's more like Schrodinger's box, where it's like, until you open the box, I mean, it's. You can neither prove nor disprove it, and we'll never know the answer. That's somewhat more reasonable than Walsh's view that he's been, like, beamed up to the little green men and who knows what procedures has undergone. But, no, I just don't buy it, because the argument from the vast age of the universe or the immense size of the universe does very little to me in terms of ascertaining the probability that little green men exist. Because in order to ascertain the probability of anything, you need to know something about how the phenomenon came to be. And so when we're talking about how life could spring up in a physical sense, how you could go from inorganic matter to organic matter, we have absolutely no idea how that happened. Scientists have posited all sorts of crazy theories over the decades, and none of them have been proven true. There's really no evidence for any of them. I believe that God made man out of clay and breathed into his nose, and now man had life. And I think that whatever physical precision that description lacks, that is without question the clearest, most accurate view of how life came to be. So until someone can make a serious argument for abiogenesis, for instance, I see no reason to conclude that just because the universe is really big that it has some other life in it. Just like I have no reason to believe that just because my basement is really big, there's a bar of gold sitting somewhere in it. I could be, you know, there's just no. How did the bar of gold even get there in the first place? The theological problems that would come from this also come from the specialness of man as man, because God is a man. The mystery of the Trinity, which is the central mystery of the Christian faith, tells us that we have God the Father and God the Son. God the Son, eternally begotten of God the Father, true God from true God, true light from true light, who becomes man, who takes who's incarnate of the Holy Spirit, conceived by the Holy Spirit, incarnate of the Virgin Mary and becomes man and ascends bodily into heaven, that his humanity is an essential part of Christ of the Godhead. And there's no room for ET in there. So I don't know what it would mean for us to discover some extraterrestrial life. To me, it's Kind of an amusing thought experiment at best and a demonic perversion at worst. Not to go like too Alex Jones here, it's a demonic perversion, but I kind of think it is, because I think it's a way for the devil to whisper into our ears that man is not that special, which is, of course, the cause of the angels rebelling in heaven. Them basically refusing to bow down to a man. And so I wouldn't follow it that far. The other reason I'm convinced aliens don't exist is because Walsh says they do exist. And so that alone should be reason to conclude it. But in any case, regardless of your very mistaken view on this, live long and prosper, Obi Wan, or whatever they say. Thank you. Hello, my name is Lorelei. You are awesome. On your show, you had said that you don't believe that Christmas decorations should be for all year and they should only be for around the days of Christmas. And I would like to say that I think that we should be allowed to have all the decorations out all year so that you can see and you can celebrate and you can remember every day. And I will say, I don't mean like the Christmas tree or any of that stuff, but like Jesus, baby, that kind of a thing. Out all year so you can see it and you can remember it every day. Okay, all right, you saved your point right there at the end. Because I freaking hate when the people put up the Christmas decorations. It used to be right after Thanksgiving, which I found preposterous. Then it became just before Thanksgiving. So that's Thanksgiving erasure. This is the American holiday. This is erasing the legacy of the men who came on the Mayflower, which is a great cigar company, by the way. And then. Oh, thank you. Thanks. But now, I kid you not, I saw people putting up Christmas decorations the day you can see how angry I'm getting. The microphones aren't even working. I saw people put up Christmas decorations the day after Halloween. I said, this is the problem with modern religion. We used to have first the fast and then the feast. Now we have first the feast and then the hangover. It's gotta be special. Lent is a penitential period. Now, the modern Christians, they say during Lent you need to meditate on hope and joy and. No, no, you are. Traditionally, during Lent, Christians focus on the four last things. Death, judgment, heaven and hell. FA la la la la la la la la. Okay, I want penitence. I want one song playing during Advent. I don't want to be Feliz Navidad. Rocking around the Christmas tree. I want that song to be oh, come Emmanuel, maybe if you're feeling spicy, Come thou long expected Jesus, but that's it. And then I sound like Scrooge. Then you can put up your Christmas tree on the evening of Christmas Eve. And you keep it up through February 8th. Was that. I'm starting to lose the audience on the Christmas. Okay, all right. I went too far. I went too far. You keep it up through all of Christmas 12 days, or bring it all the way up to February 8th, so then you get to enjoy. That's what I'm doing on my set. Now, you make one other important point, though, which is, well, look, maybe you don't put Santa Claus up all year, but you do have an image of maybe the baby Jesus. I think that's good. I have an image of. I have many images of Jesus in my house, one of which is the Theotokos Tenderness. It's an Eastern icon of Mary holding the baby Jesus. And I think that's very important to put up. You need to have these symbols all over because, you know, we're in an age of iconoclasts on the left. They want to tear down our statues, they want to tear down our pictures. They want to tear down our whole culture. But we're physical creatures. That's the message of Christmas and the Incarnation. And we got to see things with our senses in real life. We got to see images. Those images color our world. They elevate our mind up to God. So I totally agree. Keep pictures of the baby Jesus up all year long. But if you put Rudolph up one day before Christmas Eve, I will come to your house like the Grinch and steal it up your chimney. Perfect. Sounds good. Thank you. You're the best Obama impersonator on the Internet. I just like to say that. I also think the GOP should be the party to legalize marijuana federally. What's your position? I know, I know, I know, I know. Listen here. I'm a cigar man, so I like combustible leaves. I'm not opposed to smoking generally, but you're not asking me about tobacco, the crop that built our country. No, you're asking me about the old sin spinach, the jazz cigarettes. You know what I mean? The Peruvian parsley, the Haitian oregano. I'm talking about Mary Jane reefer. I'm talking about pot, which conservatives have long opposed. Why have we opposed it? Because just as we make distinctions between one nation and another nation, one culture and another culture, one religion and another religion, so, too, we make distinctions. Just because you roll something up, put it in your mouth and light it on fire doesn't mean it's the same. So let me ask you, before I give you my final anti pot, reefer madness diatribe, why, what is the good that is achieved by legalizing pot? Well, first, the economic benefits. In Missouri, when we legalized it immediately, we had dispensaries opening when everywhere else was closed. Kind of weird about the COVID stuff, but that's one, and then two. I think that the liberty of it, it's worse for. It's not as bad for society as alcohol is. So I think that we should have it. It's a liberty versus society thing. And I think the down effect on society is. Is oversold. It's not as bad as we think it is. Say that last part again. I couldn't hear you over the booze from the crowd. I think that the effects on society are not as bad as we think they are. I think that for the most part, like, nobody ever gets aggressive off of marijuana. You know, they usually. They tend to keep to themselves, maybe play too much video games or something, but they're. They're not going to go home and, you know, kick the dog because they had too much of smoke. Okay? So to take those in order, the first one says that if you legalize pot, you'll get a new industry, namely selling pot. That's true, though that argument alone could be used to justify legalizing any manner of vice or deleterious activity. It could be used to defend the pornography industry, could be used to defend widespread gambling, could be used to defend prostitution or anything else. So we wouldn't say that just because something might make some money. It is therefore a good idea and even a conservative idea for us to legalize it. Then on the point about alcohol, I would have to push back a little bit. Alcohol can be abused just like any. I mean, cupcakes can be abused. Anything could be abused. But alcohol, when it's used in moderation, has some good effects. It's a social lubricant. So it makes us more sociable. It's a little bit relaxing. It encourages conversation, sometimes rowdy conversation, as we discovered last night at the Mayflower party here in tpusa. But it inclines us more toward our human nature because man is a social creature, the political animal who is naturally inclined to live in ordered society. Marijuana doesn't really do that. I'll make a little confession here before all of you. I usually. I'm a Catholic, so I usually make my confessions in a box to a priest, but I'll make it to this gigantic crowd. I might have tried the old left hand cigarettes once or twice. Okay, I might have tried it. It's not too bad. Unlike Bubba, I may have inhaled. I actually have trouble inhaling because I'm a cigar man. But anyway, the thing I've noticed about pot, anecdotally and personally, is that it does not conduce to socializing. It makes you more introspective. People say it makes you funnier. It doesn't, it makes you much less funny. But it makes everything seem funnier. So it makes you kind of dumber, makes you kind of slower, makes you hungrier and like fat. And so, you know, I don't see those as being particularly good. And then your point on the social effects of it more broadly. We've been told for years that pot is not addictive. That's obviously ridiculous because we all know potheads who wake and bake and are vaping all day and who if they go one day without their drugs, they start freaking out. Even the fact that that many people who are into marijuana refer to it as self medicating tells you that obviously this is a habit forming, addictive substance. Furthermore, though, yes, you usually don't see fights between potheads in a bar or at a dispensary, but you do sometimes see psychotic breaks. And this is being reported more and more as marijuana has become more normalized and legalized. You're seeing psychiatrists having to deal with people who have overdosed not just on a few puffs of a joint, but, but especially on edibles where the doses can be insanely high, where they're very difficult to regulate, to say nothing of car accidents and things like that. So I think the social effects are pretty bad. And then I'll bring it back to both a traditional argument, an argument from tradition and an argument from religion. From the religious perspective, Christ's first miracle is turning water into wine for people who have been drinking for like four days. Okay, so that tells you it's not necessarily a recommendation to drink all day long, but it tells you that wine has an important place even in our faith. Christ says, at the last Supper, I will not yet again taste of the fruit of the vine until all is accomplished. So there's this role. And if you believe in sacramental religion, you believe that actually alcohol is necessary to the proper worship of God. Now if you look from the traditional perspective, we've had wine forever. We've had wine and beer and mead Forever. Marijuana is only recently introduced to our culture. So it's kind of a foreign thing. I once spoke to a drug czar for a Republican president and he said, you know, at the bottom of all these kind of libertarian let's legalize marijuana arguments, my question is, why would, even if you think alcohol is bad, why would we add another bad thing? What's the benefit to that? So to me, the strongest argument for legalizing pot is this libertarian idea that we should all be able to abuse our bodies however we want. But I don't think that's true. I don't think you really own your body. I don't think you're chiefly an individual. I think you are a member of a family and a society and a nation. And so I think that argument's bunk. And you gotta get off the dope, kids. Not even once. And what you gotta do is something much better for you, much more delicious, much more conducive to civilization. You need to smoke a Mayflower cigar. Thank you. Hi, Michael. I'm a Roman Catholic and I want to make sure that my future husband shares my goals of a strong faith filled family that is in communion with God. I know there are challenges in mixed faith relationships. Should I be focusing my prospects on Catholic boys or should I like, yeah, how should I approach that? So the question is, you're a serious Catholic, you want to marry a mackerel snapping, papist husband and you want to know, do you go swimming in the Tiber to find your man or do you go on missionary dating? Do you go? Yeah, look, my advice. Oh, obviously, yes. I think it would be wonderful for you to have a good, nice Catholic marriage. You can have a small Catholic family of 12 or 14 kids. That all sounds wonderful. However, when I think about dating, I think I have the least popular take of all. And it's a take I don't hear on the right anymore. I certainly don't hear it on the left. I think dating is fun. I think speaking to members of the opposite sex and flirting with them and getting them to like you and going to dinner is like fun and should be enjoyable. And you can be guided by attraction. Like, girls are hot, you know, I know you're, it's like crazy suggestion these days, but you should follow that a little bit. Don't make it a chore, don't make it a job interview. The way that. Especially the way some zoomers talk about dating. It's like they're applying to college or something. No, it doesn't have to be that way, man, girls are fun. And if you're a girl, it's like. I think maybe it's. I don't know. It's probably less fun to hang out with a guy. But, I don't know. Girls seem to like it. And so that's what I would do first. I would allow yourself to be legitimately attracted in ways that are not always conscious. That get to the intangible, ineffable aspects of love. You know, Cole Porter did not sing let's Do It. Let's find the ideal partner to have a perfectly flourishing life. No, let's do it. Let's fall in love. So, you know, allow that to happen. Now you're going to have to weed out some losers or some guys who don't necessarily want to go along with, you know, a conducive life. But you find that along the way. I hate to sound like a liberal, but, you know, kind of follow your heart a little bit first. And then when he's just mad about you and he says, I love you. You're the only thing I ever think about, you say, that's great. You need to sign on the bishop's line right here. We're raising the kids Catholic, and we're having a lot of them. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, throw the hat up. Look at that. Oh, no, I have a pen. I stole that pen from whoever it was. Now I'm a lefty, so don't judge me if this is a bad throw. Yeah, that was a perfect throw. All right, I'll get to the hats after the next question. Hey, Michael. So I'm pro H1B visas and pro meritocracy. And it seems like a lot of the right is very against it. You could tell me why that is. Yes, that's true, because that's been a big shift. And I'm not entirely opposed to some version of an H1B visa program. Obviously, the H1Bs have been horribly abused. And it's in many ways just a way for corporations to get cheap labor and undercut American workers. But some version of bringing in talent that's difficult to find in America in very small numbers, I'm not totally opposed to. I'm a conservative in practical policy. I generally don't deal in firm absolutes. But it needs to be radically reformed. Your latter point, I think, is more pertinent, which is this belief in meritocracy. Because I don't think that meritocracy is a particularly conservative or traditional idea. I believe in rewarding Good effort. I believe in justice, giving to people what they deserve. I believe in encouraging people to work hard. I believe in the American tradition of being able to make something of yourself regardless of your circumstances. But I think that meritocracy takes all of those good virtues totally out of whack, and it makes an idol out of them. That's often what happens with heresies and ideologies is they take a kernel of a good thing and they take it so far that it becomes a bad thing. Because in a purely meritocratic country, other virtuous relationships are diminished. If a guy, for instance, has a family business, he's been in business for 100 years. His great great grandpa founded it, went to his great grandpa, his grandpa, his dad, and now it goes to him and he says, you know, I want to hire my kids for this business and keep the business in the family. But they didn't score well enough on the sat. So you're all out kids. Bring me the Indians. We're going to have a new business now, you know, that rings unjust for all of us. That seems kind of silly. The reason that universities have had legacy admissions in the past is not just to award some plutocracy. It's because in many cases, one of the things that people go to universities for is to pal around with, to form relationships with people who are from different stratas of society than they are. That it's a way of maintaining traditions, even within institutions. And I think that's a good thing. I think continuity within institutions is wonderful and should be encouraged, even if it crosses against meritocracy and taken to the extreme. And this is where it goes Back to the H1BS. It's one thing for Americans to have to compete with people from their high school, say, or from their hometown or county or state, but in an increasingly globalized economy and an increasingly borderless country, until President Trump was reelected, all of a sudden you're telling American workers that they have to compete against the entire world. And that's not even a level of playing field, by the way, because the American workers have regulations imposed upon them and costs imposed upon them that the workers around the world do not. And so I don't, it's, I suppose, in a sense, anti meritocratic for American policy to, to favor American citizens and exclude other people. But that's what a country is supposed to do. A country is supposed to conduce to the common good of the people in that country. So I would say two cheers for meritocracy, not three Cheers. I would say two cheers for meritocracy. We want our people to be tough, smart, work hard, ambitious, not get lazy, not be on the dole. We want all of those things, but we also have to recognize these are our people, and we have a special obligation to our people that. That we don't have to people on the other side of the world. Awesome. Thank you. Hi, Michael. My name is Nella. I'm a student at a college in Indiana. I've been listening to you and Ben Shapir for, like, five years now. But I'm a Protestant. I'm, like, not Calvinist, but I'm Arminian. So I do agree with a lot of, like, the Catholic traditions. But the one thing that, like, the one thing I disagree with Catholicism is, like, that you have to. You have to be beholden to the Pope because I just don't think you should do that. Because the Pope is a man that's fallible. Like, we are all fallible. And that's, like, the only thing I have. Yeah, the Pope was a big stumbling block for a lot of people who are. They're Catholic, curious, but that's the one issue that they have trouble. In fact, our friend Charlie quite openly had issues, especially with the last Pope, who sometimes made things difficult for people, given some political statements of his. However, the Pope, the office of the papacy obviously has developed over time, as all things do. But I think you see the papacy going all the way back to the apostolic age. I think, really, even in Scripture, that's certainly been the defense of it. And the primacy of the bishop of Rome goes all the way back to those early ages, too. So, you know, the scriptural defense is that Christ says to Peter, peter Simon, you are now Peter, and on this rock I'll build my church. I give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. What you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. This traditionally was understood to be the special appointment of Peter to have this leading role in the visible, physical church on earth. Peter and Paul then go to Rome. And you see this in the writing of the early Christians, the church fathers, going back to the Apostolic age, and shortly thereafter, that when there were divisions between the churches, they would defer to Rome. Rome was understood to have had a special authority because Peter and Paul went there. Furthermore, there's a famous quote from St. Augustine, which is that Rome has spoken. The matter is settled. That when there were disputes, the disputes had to be settled ultimately by someone. And so I Think there's a misconception of what the Pope is and does. The Pope is not some, like, North Korean tyrant who just imposes his will on every matter of life. I think the Pope arises out of not only out of Scripture and the acts of Christ, but out of a logical necessity that for an institution to have authority and to carry on, someone has to be the ultimate decider when issues cannot be resolved at lower levels. So when you have an issue with your brother, you try to resolve it amongst yourselves. Then maybe you bring in some of the other believers, maybe you go to your priests, your presbyters, your elders, your bishops. You bring these people in. When there are battles between the bishops, theological questions that have to be resolved. There can be councils. There have been many, many councils throughout history. We see a council in Scripture. And ultimately, when you need that clarity, when you need to believe, or rather when the Church needs to speak as a divine institution that really has the authority of God, you need someone to settle that. That has been traditionally the office of the Bishop of Rome. I agree there have been lots of bad popes over the years, some recent, some older. And so, you know, this is very scandalous, but I often go back to a line from Hilaire Belloc, who is a great Catholic writer, very pugilistic. And Hilaire Belloc said, look, I have to take it as a matter of faith that the Church is divinely instituted. But for those who doubt the divine inspection institution, one proof of it is that no other institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight. And I think that is kind of a proof of it. And our Lord, just as, you know, St. Paul tells us the civil authority is there for our good. Our Lord sends us spiritual authority. And sometimes we get good popes, and sometimes we get bad popes. And maybe the bad popes are there to chastise us. Maybe the good popes are there to, you know, comfort us in a way. And maybe the bad popes are even there to remind us that the Pope is fallible, except when he's infallible. Thank you so much. It would mean the world to me if I could just get a quick, like, selfie. Real quick. A selfie? Absolutely. Thank you so much. Nihil obstad. I say with authority, you can have that selfie. And I'm not even the Pope. We have a very brief hat signing. Pause. Please ask your question while I gather the hats. Okay. Don't throw all the hats. No, I'm going to be buried in Hats. Now, that was entirely my fault. I shouldn't have said that. Yes, your question. Hi, my name is Levi Blair. I am a junior high school student at Mountain View High School, and I just actually started my own chapter at Mountain View High School. And I agree with you on just about everything I can think of, except for I have nothing against Catholicism or anything, but I personally believe that Catholicism and Christianity are two different things and beliefs. I want to know what your stance is on that and why. Well, I would disagree with that. I would say, though, certainly Catholicism and Protestantism, you know, have different views of religion, and Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy to some degree have different views, though it's much. The chasm is much smaller. So if the premise is that there's Catholicism, which, you know, Catholics are fine, but they're wrong, and, you know, there's true Christianity, which is some version of Protestantism, I guess the first question you would have to answer is how it is the case that Protestantism only came about beginning in 1517. Because what that would suggest is that Christ was on earth. He picked apostles. He said, go make disciples of all nations. He says, you know, you're the rock on which I'll build my church. But it's all going to disappear for the next 1500 years, and then in roughly 1500 years, then the true church will finally emerge. How could that possibly be the case? That would mean that the great saints, the church fathers, the great Christians of history were all fake, basically. Okay, yeah, I hear the argument that Catholicism, like, typically came before, like, you know, Christianity and stuff and. Or like, as it is defined with Protestant, you know, practices. But the reason why I don't believe that I reject that argument is because if by that logic, wouldn't Judaism also count as Christianity and wouldn't we call Judaism Christianity? You're saying Judaism came from Christianity? No, I'm saying that Christianity was. Came after Judaism and many Judaism. You know, that's also kind of a touchy subject because that's not really how I see things. You know, the church understands herself to be the new Israel or the spiritual Israel, that the Old Testament. Israelites are a particular nation chosen to be the type of all nations. So they tell it. There are particular people called out, but they tell us something about all nations and that the Old Testament prefigures the New Testament, that you can find the New Testament, you know, foreseen in the Old and revealed. The Old Testament is revealed in the New. So it would seem to me that, you know, just as St. Paul tells us previously, you had circumcision. Now you have baptism. You know, St. Peter says baptism now saves you. What we see are, you know, hints of the true religion. And it comes out. And the incarnation is the fulfillment that God makes in his promises to Israel. And so it's not that there's a break. You know, we used to have Judaism and now we have Christianity. It's that there is a fulfillment of God's promises going all the way back to Abraham, in fact, going all the way back to Adam. So I don't really see that as the issue. The other distinction, of course, between Judaism and Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and a few other things in the middle is that we believe in Christ. So, you know, I don't think it's a totally apt comparison. And it just seems to me strange that our Lord would tell us in Scripture, I will be with you always, even until the end of the age. And then he would say, except for the next 1500 years, and I'm going to totally abandon you. But don't worry, I'm coming back at some point. So I think the historical arguments are kind of difficult for that, to say nothing of the theological arguments. And I would point to someone who has just made a doctor of the church, St. John Henry Newman, who was Protestant and he was extremely anti Catholic and he wrote anti Catholic invectives. And then, especially through his acquaintance with the history of the Church and Church Fathers, he became Catholic and he became a cardinal and then he became a saint. And so, listen, if Jack Newman can do it, that might be the path ahead of you, too. I'm not making any prophecies or predictions, but that might happen to you as well. Okay, thank you. Also, can you. Can you sign my Reagan native campaign? Look at this stack of signing things I have. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If I fall off this stage signing a poster, that will be very. That's the only clip that's going to go viral from Amfest. Thanks, pal. Great catch. Okay, next question. Hi, I'm Phoebe Linney. I was wondering, do you think you would be Matt Walsh in a fight? Do I think I could beat Matt Walsh? In what? A fight? In a fight. In a fight. Are you a Walsh plant? Are you a Walsh child? Hold on. What is your. Hold on. How old are you? What? How old are you? 10. Unbelievable. I love 10 years old. That's so great. The future. The future is great because you ask a very important question. You know, at dw, I don't know, we're all kind of like Moderately sized fellas, with one exception. Matt Walsh, that giant tree, he's like 6 foot 11. He's a lumberjack of a man. In between shows, he just chops down oak trees. So what you would suspect is that I, of a moderate Sicilian stature, would be defeated in a physical battle by Matt Walsh. But you would be wrong. And let me tell you why you would be wrong. Because I live, as I alluded to earlier, on a steady diet of caffeine, nicotine, vim and vigor. We are a clever, crafty people, we children of the mezzo giorno. The princess bride tells us never to go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line. And I am reminded, I am reminded that the tall trees fall the hardest. I would, in fact, defeat Matt Walsh in a battle of brute strength. Very good question. What? What did you say at the last part? Sorry, I missed it. What did I say? Yes, I would beat him. That's what I'm saying. I would totally beat him. Okay, I forgot what I was going to say, but yeah. Can I have my pin back after you're done? Can I have the marker back after you're done? Can someone yell that at me? That's your pen that I've stolen. That's why you had that feisty question. I think Matt Walsh. I think Matt Walsh would come beat you in a fight. Michael, you pen thief. Yes, I can give you this back. Hold on. This will be the last question. Last question. At least you have a beautiful sweater for your last question. Thank you. Hi, Michael. I'm Emma. And my question is that people love to say that America has no culture. How do we combat the diversity as our strength message and put the focus back on making American values and American traditions back in the mainstream and worthy of our protection again? That America has no culture. Yeah. Well, I guess that would explain why the entire world is trying to come here, actually. Because if you claim that America's evacuated, perhaps that's why we're sucking up everybody from all around the world. That's one explanation. I think the other one is we obviously have a culture and the culture is the envy of the world. And everyone wants, at the very least, to experience the fruits of that culture and benefit from them, even if they don't want to participate in that culture or sacrifice for that culture. So it's totally ridiculous. One way to combat the idea that America has no culture, no identity. It's just an idea, or any idea, or nothing at all. Come on in. Ilhan Omar. One way to combat that is to travel anywhere else in the world. Especially because a lot of us have some immigrant background. Maybe a quarter this or half that. And when you go, well, I'll speak from my own experience, because a quarter of my family is from England. Some of them came over on the Mayflower, which is a great cigar brand, by the way. And then a quarter of them are. Did I mention that? And then a quarter of them are Irish. I don't really look it. And then the other, a quarter Italian and a quarter Sicilian. So I remember I was a teenager the first time I went to Italy. I said, ah, I'm going to be coming home. You know, this will be like visiting my people. And then I go there and I think, wait, this is a bunch of foreigners. What are you talking about? Might be, I don't know. And I speak Italian, by the way. This is crazy. I went to a sandwich shop. It was the most famous sandwich shop in Siena. I go there to get a sandwich at lunchtime. It's closed. I wait there 45 minutes. The guy rolls up, this Italian. He finally opens it. I said, can I buy a sandwich here? He says, no, there's no bread. I said, what do you mean there's no bread? He said, I don't have bread. I gotta go get a bread. I said, well, should I wait? Should I go? He goes, I don't care what you do. You wait. I said, why don't you have capitalism in this country? Why do I have to explain to you? And I realized in that moment, if not earlier, I'm an American. You're all Americans. You are usa. Usa. Usa. Usa. Antonin Scalia, the late, great Supreme Court justice, told this story when he was in school. He studied for a year in Switzerland. And he went to Switzerland. He goes to Italy. He doesn't feel that. He goes to England. His big gigantic Sicilian man, he goes to England. And he feels more at home in England than anywhere else he had been in the world other than America. Why? Because it's the closest to the American culture. Because our culture has come from the English culture. And so what we have to conclude from that is, despite the waves of mass migration, despite all the nonsense about diversity as our strength, and America is a nation of immigrants or whatever. No, America is a real country with a real people, with real traditions and habits, many of which we can't even articulate. And that's a special thing. That's what has attracted people. And if you want to continue to flourish, if you even want to continue attracting people, that's what you have to hold on to. That's a real particular thing. It can't be universalized with some dumb slogan. And if people didn't like it, or if it didn't really exist, the whole world wouldn't be clamoring to get here. Thank you very much. Wonderful to be with all of you. VRBO helps you swap Gift wrap time for quality time. Go to VRBO now and book a last minute week long stay and save over $390 this holiday season. Book your next vacation rental home on VRBO. Average savings $396.00 select homes only. Looking for a last minute gift for your people? You know, your people. That weird bunch of friends and family that you love dearly? Well, here's an easy idea. Oregon Lottery Holiday Scratch Hits. Because your people, they're the ones that, amidst all the holiday crowds and endless notifications, help you find the fun. 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