Gad Saad Says the West Is K*lling Itself. He Calls It Suicidal Empathy.

Summary

The Sage Steele Show

Episode: Gad Saad Says the West Is K*lling Itself. He Calls It Suicidal Empathy.
Release Date: June 24, 2026
Host: Sage Steele
Guest: Dr. Gad Saad, Professor, Evolutionary Behavioral Scientist, Author

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Sage Steele is joined by Dr. Gad Saad, evolutionary behavioral scientist and author, to discuss the alarming idea that Western societies are engaging in what he terms "suicidal empathy." Drawing on his new book, Suicidal Empathy (and referencing his bestseller The Parasitic Mind), Dr. Saad explores how misplaced compassion, cultural relativism, and the rejection of uncomfortable truths are undermining the foundations of Western civilization. The two delve into topics including immigration, criminal justice, academia, free speech, and the courage needed to resist the collective slide toward self-destruction.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is “Suicidal Empathy”? [09:50, 14:43]

• Defining Suicidal Empathy:
  Dr. Saad draws an analogy from parasitology, where certain hosts are induced by parasites to act against their self-interest (e.g., the wood cricket jumping into water due to a parasitic worm), likening this to how societies can be manipulated to act against their own survival through dysregulated, excessive empathy.

  • “If I have too much empathy ... it is hyperactive, it hyper-fires in the wrong situations toward the wrong target. You get the perfect cocktail for suicidal empathy.” — Gad Saad [17:10]

• Parasitizing the Mind and Emotions:
  His first book, The Parasitic Mind, dealt with the corruption of cognition through bad ideas; Suicidal Empathy explores the hijacking of society’s affective (emotional) system, especially when caring overrides truth and reason.

2. The Dangers of “Epistemological Empathy” [08:15]

• Truth vs. Care:
  Saad introduces the concept of “epistemological empathy”—valuing care and not hurting feelings above pursuing or revealing inconvenient truths.

  • “Rather than pursuing an epistemology of truth, you pursue an epistemology of empathy and care. And that leads to problems.” — Gad Saad [08:15]

• Suppressing Facts:
  He highlights how, in academia and media, certain realities (e.g., crime statistics, issues with assimilation) are suppressed to avoid potential offense — ultimately leading to policy failures and societal self-harm.

3. Illustrations of Suicidal Empathy in the West

• Immigration Policy & Open Borders [18:02, 20:55]

  • Ideological Underpinnings:
    Western guilt about privilege drives indiscriminate openness, ignoring the repercussions for social cohesion and values.
    “You literally couldn’t have engineered immigrants coming in ... you know for a fact that down the line that’s going to result in astounding changes.” — Gad Saad [19:25]
  • Specific Call-out:
    Saad does not shy away from naming Islamic immigration as a particular challenge to Western values, clarifying that this does not tar all Muslims but points to irreconcilable cultural and religious doctrines.

• UK’s Child Grooming Scandals: A Case Study [20:55]

  • Authorities’ Paralysis:
    To avoid charges of Islamophobia, British authorities failed to act on systemic abuse by gangs, sacrificing the safety of children for fear of appearing intolerant.
    • “Sorry, little girls, you’re just gonna have to take one for the team ... because we don’t want to have a raise in Islamophobia if we actually confront this problem.” — Gad Saad [21:22]
    • He paraphrases Norm Macdonald’s satirical “backlash” tweet as the epitome of this mindset.

• Criminal Justice System: Excusing Crime [35:42]

  • Blank Slate Felons:
    Saad critiques the notion that perpetrators are purely products of circumstance and social ills, eroding the idea of personal responsibility.

    • “No behavior of a felon is due to internal factors. All of them are due to external attributions ... That’s a wonderfully suicidally empathetic position to take.” — Gad Saad [36:08]

  • Lack of Accountability:
    Judges’ decisions to release repeat offenders are not tethered to social consequences—the harm befalls the public, not the judge or system.

4. The Role of Cultural Relativism [30:43]

• A Parasitic Idea:
  Saad brands cultural relativism—“never judge other cultures, especially as a Westerner”—as “one of the most dangerous pathogens.” Drawing from real-world examples (FGM, child marriage, etc.), he argues this leaves policymakers unable to confront value-based dangers.
  • “If another culture wishes to cut off the clitorises of five-year-old girls ... shut up, racist.” — Gad Saad [31:10]
  • This ideology filters into immigration and criminal justice, making decision-makers paralyzed by the fear of judgment or offense.

5. Deontological vs. Consequentialist Ethics [26:17, 42:01]

• Ethical Systems:
  Saad contrasts unbendable principles (deontological) with outcome-driven ethics (consequentialist), warning that applying the latter to core societal tenets (“freedom of speech, equality before the law”) results in chaos.

  • “Once you say, ‘I believe in freedom of inquiry, but not if it hurts someone’s feelings,’ you’re applying a consequentialist ethos to a deontological principle, and that results in anarchy.” — Gad Saad [27:10]

• Immigration Example:
  He relates how equality under the law is undermined when illegal entrants are prioritized over legal immigration queues, referencing his own arduous visa experience despite his status.

6. Cowardice vs. Courage in Speaking Truth [55:13, 56:33]

• On Silence and Societal Decay:
  Saad receives countless messages from people who encourage him but beg for anonymity, which he sees as emblematic of widespread cowardice that allows destructive ideas to dominate.

  • “If you decide to read this letter on your show, can you finish the sentence for me, Sage? ... Please don’t use my name.” — Gad Saad [56:33]

• Risk & Responsibility:
  While understanding legitimate fears, Saad maintains, “You simply cannot afford to diffuse the responsibility to defend reality on the shoulders of a few people ... If we diffuse the responsibility onto everyone, then the really bad guys can't come after everybody, and the problem will go away by next Tuesday.” [57:07]

• Athletes and Public Figures:
  He laments the reluctance of powerful figures like Drew Brees and Lionel Messi to take even mild public stands, contrasting their physical bravery with social timidity.

  • “How could the same guy who does that be so cowardly as to not even be able to take the astoundingly non controversial position of ‘I love the United States’?” — Gad Saad [60:13]

7. Academia, Education, and Indoctrination [48:18, 51:05]

• Bias by Discipline:
  Fields grounded in reality (engineering, business) are less prone to ideological infection, while areas like women’s studies and the humanities are more susceptible.

  • “You can't build bridges in the engineering school using indigenous queer architecture. There's just physics, there's just consumer behavior.” — Gad Saad [51:20]

• Advice for Parents:
  Saad encourages parents to prioritize educational environments that foster open inquiry, not just brand prestige.

  • “Try to extricate yourself from the reflex of saying, but I want my daughter to go to Brown or Cornell ... Today's reality is different from the past.” — Gad Saad [48:20]
  • He celebrates the presence of centers for freedom studies at “less prestigious” universities where critical thinking thrives.

8. Solutions and a Call to Courage [69:49]

• Saad’s Legacy:
  He hopes to be remembered for not “walking away when I saw truth being murdered and raped in the alley,” and believes ordinary people defending truth together can swiftly turn the tide.
  • “I truly believe that the silent majority abhors all this nonsense. If they decide in unison to stand up together and say no more, the problem will be solved very quickly.” — Gad Saad [70:22]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Civilizations die not by murder, but by suicide.” — Arnold Toynbee, cited by Gad Saad [14:55]
• “If you have no empathy, you’re a psychopath. If you have too much empathy, you’re a wood cricket.” — Gad Saad [17:10]
• “All behavior is externalized—never attributed to the individual. That’s a suicidally empathetic position to take.” — Gad Saad on criminal justice reform [36:08]
• “Courage begets courage, and it shouldn't take courage to speak up and speak the truth, but that is where we are.” — Sage Steele [58:14]
• “You just have to invoke the principle of freedom of religion. And that means that if that leads to the complete demise of your society, so be it ... There is an easy mechanism, if you have the testicular fortitude to actually implement it, that says freedom of religion is perfectly fine as long as the freedom of others to be free of your religion is never impeded.” — Gad Saad [65:03]
• “He’s Thomas Sowell. He’s not black Thomas Sowell.” — Gad Saad [46:06]

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Important Timestamps

• 01:54 – Podcast introduction, Steele introduces Gad Saad
• 03:58 – Saad explains his field (evolutionary behavioral science)
• 07:52 – Discussing why facts are ignored in social science
• 09:50 – Explanation of “suicidal empathy”
• 17:31 – Applied examples: Immigration policies & open borders
• 20:55 – British child grooming scandal as case study
• 26:17 – Explaining deontological vs. consequentialist ethics
• 30:43 – Cultural relativism as a parasitic idea
• 35:42 – Criminal justice system, blank slate felons
• 48:18 – Choosing colleges and resisting indoctrination
• 55:13 – The line between understandable fear and cowardice
• 60:13 – Messi and Brees as examples of risk aversion in sports figures
• 65:03 – Freedom of religion versus preservation of Western values
• 69:49 – Saad reflects on his hoped-for legacy and his call for collective action

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a compelling, unapologetic critique of the West’s current trajectory, illuminated by Gad Saad’s interdisciplinary expertise and candid delivery. He challenges listeners to face uncomfortable truths, resist false empathy, and find the courage to defend civilizational values before it’s too late.
"Everything in life worth fighting for is going to involve risk ... but you simply cannot afford to diffuse the responsibility to defend reality on the shoulders of a few people." — Gad Saad [56:33]

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For further exploration:

• Read Gad Saad’s The Parasitic Mind and Suicidal Empathy
• Follow Dr. Saad’s work at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, Ole Miss

Transcript

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[Gad Saad]

throughout all of history, civilizations die not by murder, but by suicide. Lionel Messi, that guy who could go on a field and be watched by billions of people, is the one who never takes any positions on anything that's not right. Probably. Of all of the fan letters that I received, the most common one if you decide to read this letter on your show, please don't use my name.

[Sage Steele]

Gad said, it is so nice to be able to chat with you again. Professor Evolutionary Behavioral Scientist and author Cultural

[Gad Saad]

Relativism as a Parasitic Idea Imagine a society that decides the following when it's doing its capitalism morality. I truly believe that the silent majority abhors all this nonsense. If they decide in unison to stand up together and say no more, the problem will be solved very quickly.

[Sage Steele]

Gad Said, it is so nice to be able to chat with you again.

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

You know, one of these days I'm

[Sage Steele]

going to beg that it's in person though, because we've done this A couple of times now. I don't know that it's possible because you are everywhere. How are you today?

[Gad Saad]

I'm doing great. So good to be with you. I think the last time we chatted, it might have been on my show. Could it be three years ago?

[Sage Steele]

It was, I think, about just a little over two. I've been gone from ESPN for about two and a half years. And you were so kind to me, and I was coming into this crazy world. I had no idea. Gad, you didn't warn me what I was getting myself into.

[Gad Saad]

Well, you seem to be handling it quite well. And you seem to be getting younger in your looks, so the world is kind to you.

[Sage Steele]

You know what? The filters are always helpful, but thank you. And listen, I only have one hour, so I'm going to just jump kind of all over the place. Listen, people across the globe have. I'm so grateful that they have taken

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

the time to listen to you.

[Sage Steele]

Even if they disagree, even if they call you names, people listen to you. And I think that's a true gift. What I want to remind my viewers of is exactly what you do. And that is a much more difficult task for me to explain, I think, than you. Here's why, like, even just on your Twitter handle, your bio there, it says, professor, evolutionary behavioral scientist and author. And that is obviously the condensed version. How do you describe yourself and all that you do today?

[Gad Saad]

So an evolutionary behavioral scientist means it's someone who studies, of course, human behavior. But using the evolutionary lens, most social scientists think that, unlike all other animals, our biology doesn't somehow affect our behavior, which is, of course, an incredibly silly idea. You know, if there are 2 million species, 1,999,999 species, you'd never dream about studying their behavior without invoking what are the evolutionary processes that led to them behaving in the way that they do, how do they mate the way that they do, how do they acquire food, how do they fight intrasexual rivals? But somehow we've developed all of these fields in the social sciences, in psychology, in economics and sociology and anthropology, whereby biology ceases to matter. And so what I do in my scientific work is I try to apply evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology to study human behavior. Hence evolutionary behavioral scientists. And I do so specifically, more often than not, in the context of consumer behavior and economic behavior.

[Sage Steele]

That's it. That's it.

[Gad Saad]

That's it.

[Sage Steele]

I'm kidding. No, it's absolutely incredible. And when you started off at the beginning there and describing how People choose to ignore basic facts when doing research.

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

I wonder why.

[Sage Steele]

I wonder if it's just a laziness. Why do you think that is?

[Gad Saad]

Right. That's a great question. That's actually what led me to eventually write the Parasitic Mind, which is the prequel to then writing Suicidal Empathy, which I'm sure we'll get into because I noticed that to your point, how could it be that such intelligent people that have many titles before their name and many titles after their names could be so bereft of a, you know, tethering to reality? Right. And there are several reasons for that. So. But specifically, the reason why most social scientists reject biology, it's because they think, wrongly, so that that knowledge in the wrong hands can cause a lot of problems. So, for example, Darwinian theory came out originally with Darwin in 1859. And then a bunch of British social class elitists said, hey, we're the upper classes and the lower classes are, you know, walking around in their filth and dying from tuberculosis. Well, it's a Darwinian struggle. And if they all die out, hey, that's just Darwin saying that it's okay. So of course that's completely wrong. But. But that became known as Social Darwinism. Eugenics is another movement that is nefarious that misapplies evolutionary theory. Hey, we, we don't want to have certain people procreating, and so let's find a way to stop that reproduction. Well, that's just a Darwinian struggle. The Nazis came along and said, hey, there's a struggle between races, sorry, Jews, you lost that race. It's perfectly reasonable from a Darwinian perspective to get rid of you. Of course, all of those misapplications of Darwinian theory were perfectly incorrect, but. So social scientists started thinking, what if we create a new worldview completely decoupled from reality, whereby biology doesn't matter for human beings? Because then we would be stopping these misapplications. Or if we're willing to tolerate the application of biology, it stops at the neck. Meaning that to use evolutionary theory to explain why we have opposable thumbs, that's okay to explain. To use evolutionary theory to explain why our lungs evolve the way that they do, that's okay. But surely, Professor Saad, you're not going to use evolutionary theory to explain the human mind. Well, of course I am, because the human mind is the most important organ that defines our personhood. It doesn't somehow exist outside of our biology. It exists because of our biology.

[Sage Steele]

And it's so fascinating because when you said at the Beginning there, the people who are making these decisions.

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

I mean, that's the scariest thing, is

[Sage Steele]

that who is this elitist group of people that gets to determine that it's wrong for you to have certain information in your hands? Like, that is the part that I don't think people appreciate, the control there that affects everything.

[Gad Saad]

Exactly. And that's so in suicidal empathy, I have a whole chapter on what I call epistemological empathy. Epistemology is philosophy of knowledge. And so when I say that something is epistemologically empathetic, it means that rather than pursuing the truth, you pursue an epistemology of care. So, for example, if. If you find out that there is one racial group in the United States that is more likely to commit crimes, please don't publish that, because that's forbidden knowledge. It might further marginalize said group. If you have immigrants that are less likely to assimilate within the American ethos, please don't publish that, because that might further marginalize them. So rather than pursuing an epistemology of truth, you pursue an epistemology of empathy and care. And that leads to problems.

[Sage Steele]

And that is why I believe we are where we are today, why social media, why Twitter turned into such a cesspool, and there was only one way of thinking that was allowed. And I don't know, I think it'll be a very long time before where everybody is able to fully, not just appreciate, but, I mean, comprehend the importance of just in this one example, Elon Musk saying, wait, wait, wait, this is not the way to do it. Let's get into suicidal empathy, because obviously the Parasitic mine was incredibly successful and best selling, of course, New York Times and making people think suicidal empathy. Just the title alone. Why did you decide to write it?

[Gad Saad]

Right. So human beings are endowed with both a cognitive system, meaning our thoughts, and an affective systems, our emotions. So this old dichotomy of pitting reason versus emotions is completely false. There are evolutionary reasons why we've evolved our affective system. Example, if I were to take a shortcut down a dark alley so that I can shave off 20 minutes from my walk and I notice a bunch of young men loitering around, I'll get an autonomic affective response that's perfectly evolutionarily rational. So our emotions are important, and our cognition is important. The parasitic mind dealt with what happens when I can parasitize your cognitive system. Suicidal empathy deals with what happens when I can parasitize your affective system. If I can do both these things, then you become a wood cricket. And maybe I could explain here why I use the term wood cricket. So the field of parasito and then we can get into what is suicidal empathy. In particular, the field of parasitology is the field that studies host parasite interactions. And there are endless such examples in the animal kingdom. For example, a tapeworm can parasitize your intestinal tract, but a neuroparasite meaning. So the field of neuroparasitology is when the host needs to ultimately end up in the. I mean the, the parasite needs to end up in the host's brain, altering its circuitry to suit its interest. So now the wood cricket is the perfectly apt example to demonstrate this, that that insect abhors water, it wants nothing to do with water, but when it is parasitized by a hair worm, the hair worm needs the wood cricket to merrily jump into water for it to complete its reproductive cycle. And when it jumps into water, it happily commits suicide. Hence suicidal empathy. Which we can get into now if you'd like.

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Yeah.

[Sage Steele]

Oh my goodness, the visual of that works. What was the moment? I assume there was one moment when you said okay, I must write this about suicidal empathy. Is there something you experienced? What was that moment?

[Gad Saad]

That's a great question. So already when I wrote the Parasitic Mind. So the book came out in 2020 and if so, then I started writing it a while prior to that. So I would say it's almost now been 10 years ago that I've actually I include the term suicidal empathy in the parasitic mind. And I'd given a testimony in front of the Canadian Senate in 2017. Regarding then Bill C16, I can't remember what the number of the bill was. It was the bill trying to incorporate gender identity and gender expression within the hate crimes. And I went in front of the Canadian Senate to say, look, it's perfectly reasonable for all of us to aspire to live in a society where nobody is facing bigotry. And so from that perspective, I'm perfectly socially liberal. But in the pursuit of that objective, we don't murder and rape truth. Men can bear children, men can menstruate. There are no biological differences between men and women. And there, if you look at the end of the transcript of my testimony, I specifically referred to misguided empathy and so on. So it's been well over 10 years that I've been thinking about writing this book and it just made fortuitous sense to finally get around to writing.

[Sage Steele]

Makes sense, especially using that phrase in that prior book. But then, I mean, when Parasitic Mind came out, that's 2020. I mean, that's when the world blew up. That's the Summer of Love. How did you change when you saw what was happening with suicidal empathy in particular in 2020, before this book was even written?

[Commercial Narrator]

Right.

[Gad Saad]

Well, great consternation, right? It frustrates me to no end that every single thing that we are currently facing in the west is self inflicted. Right?

[Sage Steele]

Yes, yes.

[Gad Saad]

There is a great quote at the start of suicidal empathy that I use from the esteemed British historian named Arnold Toynbee who had written a 12 volume series, 12 volume set, exploring the historical trends of why civilizations die and the final maxim of his mammoth study throughout all of history. And so I'm going to now quote the maximum civilizations die not by murder, but by suicide. Now, what I am then demonstrating is that in the current time period, the means by which we chose to commit suicide is via dysregulated empathy. And if you'd like, I can now explain what that is, please. So what? Probably the only type of hit piece that I've so far received, although it has been coming up like a tsunami against me, albeit in many of those hit pieces and articles, the people could not have yet read the book because they wrote those articles even before the book was released. And I know for a fact that my publisher had not sent those people a copy of the book. So the typical hit piece is as follows. This dark Jewish behavioral scientist, you know, Evil, Dr. Evil, who has the ear of the Trump administration and Elon Musk, is trying to to usher a world bereft of empathy. I'm doing no such thing. As an evolutionary psychologist, I fully recognize the importance of empathy. Empathy is what oils our sociality. For you and I, sage, to have a meaningful conversation, I need to put myself in your mind and vice versa. That's called cognitive empathy or theory of mind. The main way that we test for autism with children is that we give them a theory of mind tests which they typically invariably fail. So empathy within well modulated zones is a perfectly evolutionarily rational virtue to possess. But like Aristotle explained to us several thousand years ago via his golden mean, too little of something is not good, too much of something is not good. And much of life is about finding that sweet spot. That principle exactly applies to empathy. If I have no empathy, there is a term for that. I'm a psychopath. If I have too much empathy, meaning that it is hyperactive, it hyper fires in the wrong situations towards the wrong target. You get the perfect cocktail for suicidal empathy.

[Sage Steele]

Yeah, I'd like to go through and give people some specific examples, maybe with some of the issues that. Listen, these are the issues that were talked about on the campaign trail, et cetera. Very divisive for sure, but they define the fabric of our country and certainly have altered so much. So for example, how have you seen suicidal empathy present with immigration, with border control? One of the main reasons why I voted for Donald Trump. Explain that.

[Gad Saad]

Yeah, well I'm glad that you led off with that because notwithstanding that, I've got endless examples of suicidal empathy in the book spanning many, many domains. I argue that by far the most detrimental manifestation of suicidal empathy is precisely what you said, open border policies. Because that's what ultimately will result in an irrevocable change in the fabric of our societies. Now why is that called suicidal empathy? Because the reflex is the following of the suicidally empathetic. You were born just through the lottery of life into this wonderful society. It's through no effort of your own that you happen to be American. Now there are millions and millions and billions of people who were not afforded that lottery win. And so existentially it is unfair that you sage, get to live in America. So don't you think you should be a bit less mean spirited and callous and allow other people that otherwise would have been just as deserving as you to live in this beautiful society, let them in so that they can participate in this grand experiment? Well, of course, if I'm three years old and I live in La la land and I live in Unicornia, that's a beautiful kind Reflex. But life is about trade offs, as Thomas Soell explained to us and keeps reminding us, right? For everything that you do, there is a repercussion. So you can't have open borders, especially when the people that you're letting in in many cases possess values that are perfectly incongruent with the foundational values of your society. Right? I mean, you literally couldn't have engineered immigrants coming in. Not all immigrants, but many immigrants are coming in. And you know for a fact that down the line that's going to result in astounding changes. And just so that people don't think I'm oblique, although I'm never oblique, I'm a very straight talker. I am referring specifically to Islamic immigration. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't millions of Muslims who wish to live in peace and are very kind and are some of the loveliest people, just like this holds true for any other grouping. But does Islam contain foundational principles within its tenets that are congruent with American freedoms? Nothing could be clearer. The answer is no.

[Sage Steele]

So ideally, how should America? And it's, you know, many decades leading up to today, and this issue that we have, and maybe even in the United Kingdom, maybe that's a better example considering how Islam has completely taken over just London in general. How could, you know, the powers that be there and even how we've handled it here have done it better.

[Gad Saad]

Right? So since you mentioned Britain, let me give the most outrageous example of suicidal empathy. Imagine a society that decides the following. When it's doing its calculus of morality. I can either protect the most vulnerable members of my society, they're called children, or I can protect those who engage in astonishingly brutal rapes of said children. Well, okay, wait a minute. Let me think about this. I'm speaking now as the British authorities. What is the identity of the rapists? Whoa, whoa, whoa. The name is Ahmad Muhammad. Then, sorry, little girls, you're just gonna have to take one for the team because we don't want to have a raise in Islamophobia if we actually confront this problem. Which, of course, Norm MacDonald, the late Canadian comic, had the perfect tweet for that. I don't have it in front of me, although I quote it in the book, so I'll paraphrase it. He said. What worries me more, what worries me most, if Islamic terrorists were to detonate a nuclear bomb and kill 50 million Americans, is the backlash of Islamophobia that would then follow. That is a perfect encapsulation of suicidal empathy. Of course, he was being satirical. Right. Comedians are oftentimes incredibly dangerous to ideologues precisely because they have the capacity to satirize the insanity that is in front of their eyes. And so Norman MacDonald perfectly captured this, and that's what happened in Britain. 250,000 plus little British girls up and down Britain, small villages to big cities were systematically abused by. By largely the. The estimates are between 87 to 95%, roughly, of the men in those grooming things were Islamic, but we don't even use the word Islamic. We call them Asians because that's a euphemism that. But Japanese are Asian, Lebanese are Asians, but we weren't the ones committing the crimes now. So now that, that's part one of the British suicidal empathy. But to your question, how do we deal with that? Well, certainly recognizing that it's a problem that needs to be, you know, dealt with would be the first step to solving the problem. Right. Imagine if I were to tell you, you go to see your physician and he or she says, I'm sorry to report that you have this really dreadful disease and this is the only intervention we could do to hopefully save you. And your response is, well, that disease doesn't really exist. That disease is a Zionist plot, and so on. Well, guess what? You're going to die. So this is what the west has done. They said that in the calculus of either addressing these problems, they're difficult problems to address. They might make people feel uncomfortable, but they are the ways by which we can save civilization. Instead of doing that, let's bury our head in the sand and hopefully the problem will go away.

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[Sage Steele]

for me, that we could do this, that I could do this.

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[Sage Steele]

And I think that's the heartbreaking part for people who put their emotions. That's the key. Putting our feelings and our emotions aside and looking just at the facts and the numbers and the statistics. I live in Nashville now, Gad, and it's so interesting. Right across the street from us, and we just moved in, there's someone who has a sign in their front yard that says, immigrants welcome here. And, you know, all the pretty faces

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

and the colors of the rainbow.

[Sage Steele]

So kind of, yeah, so sweet. My husband and I are so tempted

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

to go over there in the middle

[Sage Steele]

of the night and put a sticker that says, legal immigrants welcome here. Because it's true. All of us are here because of legal immigration. And that's the difference. I think that's obviously one very good example here Stateside, where suicidal empathy has completely taken over. And if you say what many of us say, which is, hey, we are welcoming up everybody, but you must do it legally. And then what do they do? They bring up the little kids and the single mothers, and how can we just throw them out? What is a good way for the average American? And I put you above that. All of us, I'm sorry, just based on all that you have researched and done, but in a conversation, let's say I have that conversation with the guy across the street. What is a good way to explain my stance and why?

[Gad Saad]

So I'll answer in two ways. First, the professorial way, and then I'll link it to my own personal reality. So in ethics, there are two distinct systems of ethics. There's what's called deontological ethics and consequentialist ethics. Deontological ethics refers to absolute statements that are inviolable. So, for example, if I were to say to you, sage, it is never okay to lie, that would be a deontological statement. If I said, it is okay for you to lie if you're trying to spare the feelings of someone you love, that would be a consequentialist statement. You're judging the ethical nature of that action based on its consequences. Now, for many, many things in life, we're all consequentialists, and that's perfectly fine. And the joke I often say is, if you wish to have a long lasting happy marriage, if you hear the following question, do I look fat in Those jeans. Then put on your consequentialist hat and say, no, sweetie, you've never looked more beautiful. I may be lying, but I'm trying to spare the feelings of this person that I love, and I don't want to hurt her feelings. So it's perfectly reasonable to be a consequentialist for many things in life. But there are certain foundational principles that serve as the bedrock of a society, a Western society, American society, that are, by definition, deontological. They're inviolable. Freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry, presumption of innocence. Once you say, I believe in freedom of inquiry, but not if it hurts someone's feelings, you're applying a consequentialist ethos to a deontological principle, and that results in anarchy. So now why am I saying all this? The deontological principle that we are all equal before the law has to be inviolable. So the little kid who is here illegally doesn't supersede the rights of millions of people who've waited 10 years in the queue legally to get in. Because if you allow it for him, what about the elderly illegal who suffers from diabetes? What about that right? So you're. You're allowing a consequentialist ethos to violate a deontological principle. Now, let's link that, as I promised at the start of the answer, to my personal life, starting soon, in August. Right now, I'm a scholar at Ole Miss. Starting in August, I will hold the title of Distinguished professor at the Declaration of Independence center for the Study of American Freedom at Ole Miss. Now, why am I saying all this? It's not to pat myself on the back for the fancy title, but it's because despite the fact of who I am and the position that I will be assuming in the United States as the representative of American freedom, I had to go through an astoundingly laborious process to get a visa to come to the United States. Everybody in the administration knows me. The people who are stamping my thing know me. But I didn't get to jump in front of the line. I had to go literally through a punishing process to get my visa. Tons of money spent. Tons of time. Tons of time spent. So I would tell your friends who say that you are mean for the thing that you're saying. Do you think that Gad Saad is a lesser person than whomever is your favorite suicidally empathetic target? And if so, does that not violate the principle of equality under the law?

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

Okay, I'm Going to rewind this once we're done and take those notes and

[Sage Steele]

walk across the street and begin a conversation with him. You know, between that conversation and even the Islam conversation, sometimes it feels like we as a Western culture have been very naive with very good intent to lead with kindness and welcome everyone. But ignoring the facts that come with Islam, for example, the facts that come with so many of the crimes that are committed by illegals who've come into this country. And you know, you can go across the board and find different examples. Is that a fair way to describe us here in the west as naive? Or do you think it's more intentional?

[Gad Saad]

Right. No, there is a bit of intentionality in that some people recognize the weakness of suicidal empathy and then game the system. That's why early in the book, I talk about how some serial killers use the empathy ruse to get their victims. In their case, they are being intentional. They're gaming empathy. Ted Bundy was famously known for using crutches and I've got a cast. Look, can you, can you help me with my books? Well, that reduces your, you know, your scanning of the environment for environmental threat. He's just a poor guy who is disabled. Let me help him. Right, so notwithstanding the fact that there is some intentionality in some cases, some politicians will use that to their advantage. In most cases, it really does stem from the wood cricket analogy that I mentioned earlier. In that case, there is a naivete that has rewired your brain. And let me give a specific mechanism by which this works, because it relates to the open border issues that we're talking about in the parasitic mind. I cataloged a whole bunch of what I call idea pathogens or parasitic ideas. Postmodernism, social constructivism, radical feminism, many others. But the one I want to focus on here is cultural relativism. As a parasitic idea, cultural relativism basically argues that it is wrong for you to ever judge the values and belief systems of another culture, especially if you're Western, because that's a form of cultural imperialism. So if another culture wishes to cut off the clitorises of five year old girls, shut up, racist. If another culture wants to have child brides, shut up, racist. If another culture wants to stone women, shut up, racist. Now, if I internalize that parasitic idea, then when I am put as the head of the immigration policy, that's how I become suicidally empathetic. Because then I cannot discriminate between immigrants coming from different places in terms of their likelihood of assimilating in the whole society because I have been taught in my lesbian dance theory class at Oberlin College that it is wrong for me to be, you know, judgmental of other cultural practices. So the parasitic idea is what led me to swim merrily in the infinity pool of suicidal empathy.

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[Sage Steele]

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[Sage Steele]

Oh gosh, it's exhausting at times when you think about the depths to which this has reached and including so immigration, et cetera. The criminal justice system. And you know, thanks to social media we, we see so much of it now where we have people who have been arrested 912 times, even convicted and led off by judges who say, yes, but they were abused as a child,

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

they come from a single parent family,

[Sage Steele]

they come from a black community where they didn't have the resources or the education, etc, and now we're in trouble in so many ways with that as well. What is your thought on the, the deaths to which this is reached in the criminal justice system?

[Gad Saad]

So a couple of interesting psychological phenomena here. So number one, let me explain to you something known in psychology as the self serving bias. The self serving bias is the means by which people ascribe successes and failures in their lives. So most people attribute successes internally. I did well on the exam because I'm a smart person and I studied. It's because of me that I did well. And they attribute failures externally. I did badly on the exam because Professor Saad is an unfair jerk. And okay, we can debate why people have that rosy prism because it's an ego defensive strategy. It allows me to go through the trials and tribulations of life while always protecting my fragile ego. Now why am I talking about this? Because what one side of the political aisle has done is they have decided that no behavior of a felon is due to internal factors. All of them are due to external attributions. It's because the dad was an alcoholic. It's because the dad wasn't present. It's because I'm a black man born into a white supremacist society. It's because my mother was not around. It's because it was a single mother. I was born on the wrong side of the trust. So the felon, that's why I call them blank slate felons, because I use blank slate refers to the Latin word is tabula rasa, meaning that you are born with an empty mind. We're all born with equal potentiality. And it's only the idiosyncrasies of socialization and my unique life trajectory that lead me to where I am. So I don't have any personal agency. Now that's a wonderfully suicidally empathetic position to take when you're dealing with felons of color. I mean, are you really going to punish a black man when he is already born into an existentially damaging society that is rooted in stolen land and white supremacy? Don't you think you should be empathetic when he's only committed 197 previous crimes. Don't you think he deserves a second chance? By which I mean 198th of the chance if you are a good person, you would put yourself in the shoes of that poor black felon and recognize that it serves nobody any purpose in putting him behind bars for life other than all of the people that are going to be victimized by this poor felon. So that's the reflex that it comes from. It's a mixture of social constructivism, meaning born with an empty slate. And it's only the white supremacist society that compelled me to commit the crimes that I do. And because of that you end up with the soft on crime policies, no cash bailout, blah blah, blah, and all that stuff.

[Sage Steele]

Right. You know, and for, I think most people with common sense, we know that's wrong.

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

And all we want is accountability and

[Sage Steele]

frankly to protect our citizens no matter who is committing the crime. So we have seen more and more where, you know, the videos are coming out and the judge is letting these guys are sometimes women off, usually men. And okay, what do we do? We just disbar them? Like how do we kick them out when they have such power in those positions and then their decisions are damaging others? How do we turn that train around?

[Gad Saad]

I mean, that's a great question in that it speaks to the fact that, that there are few places where government agents, let's include the just, you know, the judges in that are completely decoupled from the consequences of the cause and effect relationships that drive life. Right. So example, I'll come back to the, the judge example with the criminality. But let me draw an analogy. How is it that every individual walking around has to be tethered to financial laws whereby if you spend more than you make, some accreditor will be knocking on your door and you will either have to face some consequences or declare bankruptcy. So the cause and effect relationship of your financial behavior always exists. But there is one entity that is perfectly decoupled from that relationship. They're called the government. So the government can completely violate all that which every individual within that society is bound by, but they transcend that rule. So the same thing regrettably applies to judges, which is all kinds of other people. If they commit actions in the pursuit of their profession that leads to severe nefarious outcomes, they are bound to the consequences, but judges are not. So I don't know what would be the, you know, the legal mechanism by which we would resolve that. But it can't be that there is a class of people that are completely gravity free from the laws of cause and effect.

[Sage Steele]

Yes.

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

Can I, can I give you a

[Sage Steele]

personal example and maybe frustration here? I'm going to use you as my shrink hair God on the podcast today. No. The number of times and it's daily that I get on social media what a sellout I am because I don't stand up enough for the black man, black people in general. And I genuinely mean it. And I say this all the time. Maybe it's because of my upbringing as a military kid and such diversity. And it just, it didn't matter. We didn't lead with color of our skin. Of course we see it, but that's not what we lead with. And therefore, if I, as a woman of color, don't stand up and say, what an atrocity this is, the Carmelo Anthony case in Texas, et cetera, the Irina case on the train in Charlotte,

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

if you don't stand up for these

[Sage Steele]

people because we look the same, you are evil, you are a sellout. And other names I'm not going to choose to mention right now. We see that across the board. And what, what that does, obviously, is continue to divide and then silence people.

[Gad Saad]

Exactly.

[Sage Steele]

What do we do?

[Gad Saad]

Well, that personal story that you just said relates back to my earlier point about deontological versus consequentialist ethics. You are abiding when you react to those situations via a deontological ethic. You're saying, I don't care the identity of the perpetrator and the victim. I am going to be enraged when I see a white girl being savagely knifed by a black man. That is the calculus, the moral calculus that drives my life. On the other hand, the people who are sending you all those hateful words are abiding to a consequentialist ethic.

[Commercial Narrator]

Right?

[Gad Saad]

They're saying, no, no, no. The important thing here is that if you don't side with the color of the skin of the perpetrator, the consequences are that this is going to further exacerbate the white supremacist society that we live in. So it doesn't matter if you have to lie. There is a higher noble objective. That's exactly what's happening with you. And thank God that there are people like you who are deontologically driven. Otherwise it will be complete chaos.

[Sage Steele]

I didn't know that I was deontologically driven until today. So thank you, Magic of God.

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[Sage Steele]

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[Sage Steele]

Absolutely. And you know, you mentioned Thomas Sowell's name earlier and just such a brilliant man. I view him, I view, you know, Condoleezza Rice, so many people of color who actually. And it's not that they're not celebrated, it's that they're condemned for speaking truths and not leading with race. And it's really heartbreaking.

[Gad Saad]

Well listen, and I genuinely say that, I mean Thomas Sowell is one of my heroes because he was slapping the woksters before we knew what the word wokester was when you and I were either in diapers or weren't born. So I can take you back to 19, late 1960s clips where you see him all regal and majestic, super calm splash, slapping around metaphorically, obviously some, some idiot. And so I'm like this is, this is my guy. And I literally never notice that he's black like it it. And it's not because I'm trying to sound cool and progressive, hardly that it's, it's the least interesting element of Thomas Sowell and what an insult it is to take a guy with such a pure Surgical mind and always link it back.

[Commercial Narrator]

No, no.

[Gad Saad]

He's Thomas Sowell. He's not black Thomas Soul. I'm gats out. Why do you afford me that courtesy of calling me Gad Sad rather than Lebanese Jew Gadsad? Shouldn't Thomas Soul be afforded the same courtesy? But because of the degenerates who view everything through the prism of race? He's not afforded that courtesy.

[Sage Steele]

And the key is that there are more and more Thomas Sowells out there who ignore. Who are able to find the strength and he has for a very long time, obviously, to ignore what those people say, knowing that he is rooted in truth. Obviously. The educational aspect is fascinating. Did you know that I have a daughter who's about to be a junior at Ole Miss?

[Gad Saad]

I do know that. I hope she'll drop by and say hello. Cause I follow you on Instagram and I can't remember if it was you posted something that you were at a football game with her or something like that. That's when I first quoted oh, Sage of Steele's daughter is at Ole Miss. Cool.

[Sage Steele]

So listen, we're trying to get down there for the LSU game this year. Cause it's gonna be chaos and raucous when Lane Kiffin comes back to town. But my priority 1A will be to track you down. I don't know if you'll be in town, so I will reach out to you at that time. But it's been. I love it and I've told her about you. I'm like, listen, this is what you need to do. I think the educa. I'll be honest, one of the reasons why Evan is at Ole Miss is she graduated from high school up in Connecticut when I was still working at espn. And I told all of my kids, gad, I will not pay for your education. If you stay in the Northeast, you can get loans, you can do what you want. But we know kind of the indoctrination that has taken place all over the country, but especially there in the Northeast and New England area and certainly the west coast as well. So she went as far away from Connecticut as possible, down to Mississippi. Now, no matter where you go, there are going to be professors who think quite opposite of you as parents. How should we approach the educational system and academia as we send our kids off to college and choose and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in many, many cases, when we know quite often that professors aren't leading the way that you are?

[Gad Saad]

That's a fantastic question. But I mean, in a sense, you've answered the question via your daughter's story, which is try to extricate yourself from the reflex of saying, but I want my daughter to go to Brown or Cornell. I mentioned Cornell because I'm. That's my alma mater. Yes, yes, there is a big pull in that. Yes, historically those schools are incredibly prestigious, but today's reality is different from the past. Today your daughter is likely to receive a much better heterodox education at Ole Miss. And you're exactly right. There are walksters on the faculty at Ole Miss. But, and I'm not doing this to plug my center, so the center where I'll be working at, where she could come and get a minor in freedom Studies. If you see the students that I've interacted with there, they, they all show up. The, the scholars of the center show up in a, you know, in a jacket. They're proper. They can, they can quote Aristotle and Plato and Epictetus. So I think what parents need to do is try to extricate themselves from the brand image of university. And by the way, not to imply that Ole Miss is not prestigious, but everybody would agree that Ole Miss is probably less prestigious than Dartmouth and Cornell.

[The RealReal Advertiser]

Sure.

[Gad Saad]

Well, that doesn't necessarily matter. What matters is the enrichment of your child's mind, their personhood. And you might easily achieve that goal knowing that she's going to be in a department where the people are not infected with these parasitic ideas, rather than being at Harvard where she will be pressured to wear the keffiyeh and say death the juice.

[Sage Steele]

Yes, she would be disowned. But no, I'm kind of kidding there. You know, as college professors, and maybe take yourself out of this question, they're still human beings. And my goal, or I guess my desire is for professors. And I'm on the board of trustees at Indiana University. We have had a lot of difficult, deep conversations with some things that have happened there. And as we always say, it isn't about your personal opinions as a professor, your job is to present the facts, hopefully encourage a lot of conversation, and then let our students make their own decisions from there. How common, honestly, do you think it is in academia, colleges and universities that professors actually do that? It is their job. And I do believe it's very difficult because all of our opinions are based on personal experiences and we want students to empathize with all of that. There's that word, look.

[Gad Saad]

It depends in which discipline the professor that you're speaking about resides. Some disciplines are inherently semi inoculated against the parasitic stuff because they are tethered to reality. So it's no surprise that, for example, the business school and the engineering school are less likely to have the blue haired monster. Because you can't build a economic model of consumer behavior using queer postmodernist dance theory. And you can't build bridges in the engineering school using indigenous queer architecture. There's just physics, there's just consumer behavior, there's just economic behavior. So because those fields are applied fields that, that have the autocorrective mechanism of reality setting you straight, you just don't have as much nonsense in those disciplines. But to your point, in other disciplines that are regrettably much more rooted in activism than the pursuit of truth, this is where the professor's personal biases comes in. Their brainwashing comes in. Right? So it's very, very unlikely to be in a women's studies class where sex differences are going to be discussed honestly and openly, right? So if you're an evolutionary psychologist, you're going to say human beings are a sexually dimorphic, sexually reproducing species. So it makes perfect evolutionary sense that on many traits men and women show no differences from one another. But on many traits they show huge differences. And what explains that is this little thing called evolution that what I just said is never going to be uttered in a women's studies course. All sex differences in women's studies courses are due to the evil misogynistic patriarchy. So the likelihood of a professor either truly being pedagogically disciplined or not depends on which discipline you're talking about. And that actually speaks to your earlier point, which is if you're going to dish out as a parent hundreds of thousands of dollars for your children, maybe don't have them studying queer architecture, but have them study architecture.

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[Sage Steele]

Well, that would mean that you'd have to actually parent and a lot of parents choose not to. And it goes back to some other deep conversations about, you know, friends wanting to be friends and pleasing your kids and worrying about their feelings and not facts, et cetera. It just goes so deep. And then, you know, I've tried to encourage my kids and I have two college graduates now, they're 24, 22, and then have been the 20 year old at Ole Miss. And you try to encourage them to speak up. And quite often it isn't even about what you're saying, it's the way you're saying it, but to encourage, to have that conversation. I understand the fear. Not just in our students, I mean, adults, people everywhere, our age, all the way because of what happens. We have all seen it. You and I have experienced it, as have millions of others. I understand the fear. It is real cancellation, et cetera. What is that fine line between understanding the fear and people being cowards and choosing to stay silent at sometimes the most important moments? And you know, I've spoken up so much about protecting women, women's sports and keeping boys out of it, etc. What's that line?

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

Understandable.

[Sage Steele]

Fear versus a coward.

[Gad Saad]

Right? Look, June 6th happened a few days ago. A bunch of young men, no, there were no women on those boats landed on Normandy. Most of them knew that they were going to be mowed down within the next few seconds like insignificant little mosquitoes. Yet all them said, yeah, yeah, sign me up, put me in, coach. If those guys didn't do that, then we would maybe not be sitting here having a conversation. So therefore, everything in life worth fighting for is going to involve risk. So having said that, I take your point. I understand your point that the risk calculus is different for each individual. That's fair. So don't be a reckless martyr. Just don't be someone who is fully silent, bathing in your cowardice, in your fetal position while sucking your thumb. And let me explain here a personal anecdote that speaks to your question. Probably of all of the fan letters that I receive, the most common one looks as follows. Dear Professor Saad, many, many beautiful comments. And then the last sentence. If you decide to read this letter on your show, can you finish the sentence for me? Sage?

[Sage Steele]

Yeah, don't use my name.

[Gad Saad]

Please don't use my name. And then I write back, dear so and so. Thank you very much for your lovely words. They're much appreciated. Don't you think that the last sentence is precisely why we are in this problem, in this, in this situation. And then some of them will write back, really shaken by what I've just said, right? And they go, oh my God, you just slapped me. Well, what does that mean? Different people will modulate their risk levels depending on the realities they face. So, again, I'm not asking everybody to be a reckless martyr, but you simply cannot afford to diffuse the responsibility to defend reality on the shoulders of a few people. Right? Don't worry. Gad Saad is a strong guy. He'll defend us. He's got this. No, I don't. Because I decided to leave Canada because of the number of threats that I was doing. It's not the only reason. It's not only because of the astounding, the increase of Jew hatred that I was facing at my university and so on. That's not the only reason, but it certainly was one. Whenever I go give talks everywhere, regrettably today, there has to be security everywhere. Why does a professor who's speaking about things that everybody should agree on, freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry. Why do I need really big guys with big guns to defend me? But that's because few of us have taken up the role of defending the west, and that's not right. If we diffuse the responsibility onto everyone, then the really bad guys can't come after everybody, and the problem will go away. By next Tuesday.

[Sage Steele]

By next Tuesday. Okay. You know, it's. It is one thing that I think we've all seen, and courage begets courage, and it shouldn't take courage to speak up and speak the truth, but that is where we are. I do have, I don't know, a lot of optimism, I think, because you're seeing more and more, and even in sports, and this might be one of the last. I know we have to begin to wrap up here, but even with the LGBTQIA we've recently seen in Major League Baseball, where teams, players are being forced to wear the rainbows on their hats as part of their team logo and then causing controversy if they also put a Bible verse on their hats. That is so disturbing to me for, I think, so many reasons. But it goes back to, you know, cutting someone down, because if you don't

[Commercial Narrator / Sponsor Voice]

want to wear the rainbow on your

[Sage Steele]

hat, you are anti. Fill in, blank. It all goes right back to the same thing. And I commend a couple of these athletes who are taking a chance on the rainbow hat, putting that scripture there as well. But that is the courage that we need is for them to stand up. We're not cutting anyone else down or insulting them. We're saying. And my opinion matters as well.

[Gad Saad]

Right. And so let me go back. You mentioned earlier, you know, football season at Ole Miss. So let Me draw an example from football. My favorite team a few years ago was the New Orleans Saints because I love Drew Brees and I loved Alvin Camara. I just love the way he moves. Yes, he's like a dancer. He's like a, like a ballerina. And so I, I love those guys. Precise. I mean, I love that team precisely because of those two guys. And then Drew Brees, if you remember. I mean, no one more likely to remember it more than you. You're the sports journalist, you know, then comes out and I am so sorry that I said that I was patriotic and I love the United States. I'm so, so sorry for loving the United States. I know I was wrong. Please forgive me. So then that was a really kind of watershed moment for me. I mean, not that I didn't understand cowardice before that, but I said, how does this guy who gets these 6 foot 8 guys coming at him to decapitate him, therefore that requires courage. How could the same guy who does that be so cowardly as to not even be able to take the astoundingly non controversial position of I love the United States, period. And you're not going to intimidate me into saying otherwise, but that speaks to what a difficult problem it is to actually light the fire of courage under people's feet. I'll give you one other sports related example, and I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back, that I'm so courageous, but Lionel Messi. No person loves anybody more than I love Lionel Messi, you know, and I'm not someone who, you know, gives out compliments easily, but this guy is not only the greatest soccer player, he, he exudes everything that a man should, how he should behave. He's just, just a perfect creature. That guy who could go on a field and be watched by billions of people. His timidity when it comes to speaking is breathtaking. Right? Like, I mean, his, his classmates would say that he was so shy that if he had to ask a question to the teacher, he would ask it to his classmate who would then ask the question on his behalf. So the same guy that half of humanity will sit in front of a television to watch, and he performs like the master that he is, is the one who never takes any positions on anything. Now I understand he doesn't want to be political, he doesn't want to alienate anybody. But why has he never spoken on anything of substance? That might be the only thing that I could ever, you know, chastise him for. But that again, speaks to the fact that there is nothing that requires more courage than standing up and saying, here I stand, here are my positions, but if we don't do it in a hundred years, we'll lose this society.

[Sage Steele]

Yes, absolutely. And you know, you see it and I have gotten frustrated and talking, talked to a lot of my athlete friends and you know, you understand the blue collar worker who's making $50,000 a year and trying to support a family with two kids that he literally cannot afford to lose that job. And then you have the Leo Messi's and you have Tiger woods and I mean any number of professional athletes, people in the NFL right now who know that a woman cannot play this sport, but are refusing to make that distinction when you really don't have anything financially to risk and you're going to be fine if you get canceled and you

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still choose not to.

[Sage Steele]

Those the people that I am so frustrated with. And that's where the selfishness, I think comes in because they're just doing it to make sure everybody continues to like them. And real quick on Drew Brees. I'll never forget that day because I've been around him several times. I covered him when he was a freshman at Purdue. We all love him in the industry and how he has lived his life, et cetera. And at that moment, just because a couple of his black teammates began to cry and say how much it hurt them that he loves the country that is making them all multi, multimillionaires, and

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he decided to do that.

[Sage Steele]

I mean, I know for a fact there are people who lost respect, respect for him permanently. Not saying it's fair, that's their option, but it is a great example of what can happen when you wither, even though you know what you're saying is right. Real quick, I'd like to circle back. It is 41 circle back because I want to make sure. And again, I'm trying to give people, from what you're saying, examples and then how they can communicate in their communities and conversations, even with family members. But with the immigration part and with Muslims in general, we know not all Muslims believe that anybody in the Western culture should be blown to smithereens. Unfortunately, there are enough that do and act that out. How do we delineate that? How do we choose then? You're allowed in. You're not. And it isn't just with Islam, of course, and Muslims, but other cultures as well.

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[Gad Saad]

Look, I was on the Will Kane show a while ago and he's a lawyer and he said, but how could we ever, you know, do what you're saying, Dr. Saad? Because, you know, we have freedom of religion. I mean, surely you cannot be rendered so impotent in your society that you just have to invoke the principle of freedom of religion. And that means that if that leads to the complete demise of your society, so be it. You know, look, we've got freedom of religion. Freedom of religion doesn't mean that if your religion espouses positions that are astoundingly incongruent with the foundational liberties and freedoms on which the United States was built, you just allow it. Right? There is this thing called amendments, right? We've got. And I'm not a lawyer, but I know enough to know the reason why amendments exist is because the original document didn't come inerrant and perfect from God. And we never have to change anything. That's why we have amendments. So there is an easy mechanism, if you have the testicular fortitude to actually implement it, that says freedom of religion is perfectly fine as long as the freedom of others to be free of your religion is never impeded on one millimeter. The second that that happens, which has to happen with Islam. Because the foundational tenet of Islam is that the entire world, every centimeter of the world, has to be under Allah's unifying flag. So it is a deeply proselytizing religion that needs to only stop when every human being has become Muslim. That doesn't mean that every Muslim will subscribe to that objective, but it does mean that most Muslims will sit quietly while the more sinister ones will do it. Now we. Oh, do we have any data that supports that? Oh, yeah. There's a thing called the last 1400 years of data that show that there are currently today 56 countries in the OIC, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, that are Islamic, that once upon a time had 0% Islam. How did they magically become Islamic? Not in every society. People came in and killed every non Muslim. Sometimes it takes five minutes to Islamize society. Sometimes it takes 500 years. But once the train starts, it's reversible. And so the west has to wake up and realize that. So the exact mechanism, I'll leave it for the policymakers to decide. But to argue that completely unmitigated entry of people who do not share your values is a perfectly reasonable thing cannot be allowed. And I'll end with this one point, and if there are any other questions we can wrap up. One of the ways that I have tried to address this point is when I see Republicans, very high ranking Republicans, using all sorts of word games, linguistic empathy to protect Islam. So it's militant, radical, extremist Islamism, not Islam. So if I put a bunch of nonsensical words before Islam and if I put an ism after Islam, then I am a good empathetic person because I'm not attacking Islam. Islam is beautiful. It's the distortion of Islam that's mean. Well, when I see current Republicans who should know better using that linguistic empathy, I don't feel very optimistic about the future.

[Sage Steele]

Oh my goodness, you're so right. And even when we know what they are trying to say, quite often we know what they believe, but they're still using linguistic empathy to make sure that they don't tick off too many other people. And that's the scary part, is the deficit of this. And it's gonna take generations of people who have courage to speak the truth if we want to, frankly, to your point, to save our society. Gad, one of the things I've noticed about you from day one, long before we ever spoke on your podcast, is no matter how serious the topic, you are always smiling like you enjoy what you're doing. You enjoy teaching all of us to just think better, think more deeply about things. When it's all said and done and, I don't know, 50 years from now, what do you hope that people take from all of your years of work?

[Gad Saad]

That I did not walk away when I saw Truth being murdered and raped in the alley, I stood up and I said, however big my influence is, or however small my influence is, I can put my head on the pillow at the end of the night knowing that I wasn't fraudulent, I wasn't a charlatan, I wasn't a castrated guy. I stood up and did my part. And therefore I can sleep well at night knowing that I did my part. I wish other people were driven by that kind of code of personal conduct because as I said, to sort of end it on a positive note, I truly believe that the silent majority abhors all this nonsense. If they decide in unison to stand up together and say no more, the problem will be solved very quickly. I promise you. So let's talk.

[Sage Steele]

Yes. Any problem out there, when you bring people together, they and just to talk about it, just people realizing that they, they aren't alone and that can create an uprising. That could be a beautiful thing. Thank you so much for the time. I know how crazy busy you are and you're in the middle of a move from Canada. I mean, did you ever think it'd be a resident of Mississippi of all places?

[Gad Saad]

That was not on my bingo cards. As most people know, my dream is to eventually be in Newport Beach. But you know what? The current position in Mississippi is so great that I'm almost as excited to be moving to Mississippi as if I were going to Newport Beach. Those are lofty words.

[Sage Steele]

That is incredible. Again, nothing probably that you thought would be on your bingo card to say

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thank you so much, God bless you and I will come bother you when

[Sage Steele]

I'm down in Oxford. Please do take care.

[Commercial Narrator]

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