The Ben Shapiro Show - October 13, 2015


Ep. 8 - David Brooks Hates Conservatives


Episode Stats

Length

22 minutes

Words per Minute

183.96437

Word Count

4,130

Sentence Count

266

Hate Speech Sentences

20


Summary

In world history, the Jewish people have never had it better than they ve had for the last couple of decades. The rise of Israel as a strong international power made it possible for Jews to feel safer all over the world, and the fall of the Soviet Union freed millions of Jews to leave that communist cesspool. It s been an era of tolerance and goodwill toward Jews throughout the U.S. Guilt over the Holocaust stopped the Europeans from allowing their inherent and innate anti-Semitism from rising to the surface. All of that is now over, thanks to the international left. In the past couple of weeks, Palestinian Arabs have embarked on a well-calibrated and thoroughgoing stabbing spree throughout Israel. The stabbing spree follows hard on the Palestinian Authority dictator, Mahmoud Abbas, explaining to the United Nation that Palestinians no longer felt bound by the Oslo Accords. They just took the guns and turned them on the Jews as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the Iranians know they ve found their patsy in Barack Obama, and they re loving it. They re testing long-range ballistic missiles this week and they are funneling troops into Russian-run Syria with Russia s blessing, putting Israel on the defensive on its northern border with Gaza, as well as on its southern border with the southern border, as it s already on its defensive on it s eastern border with Israel, as they are loving it, and are pouring into Syria with Iran s support. The sudden turn against Israel globally is not super surprising, it s the result of the rise of the most powerful philosophical force of the recent past, Western self-loathing it springs from a general philosophy that Westerns are better off because they are better than you, the poor, poor, and therefore you need to be better than the poor. And it doesn t stop leftist Westerns from self loathing. It s not because of slavery, that America s rich, and that they ve been better off than the other people they call themselves. But it s because of their philosophies have failed, and now they have to use power to maintain their growth But that s not going to keep leftist Westerners from being better off, is it? That s better than slavery, is not because they have been better than other people, is because they ve become better than us, is better than we think they are? And that s what they ve got it wrong, is the problem, not the other way around, right?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 In world history, the Jewish people, they've never had it better than they've had for the last couple of decades.
00:00:05.000 The rise of Israel as a strong international power made it possible for Jews to feel safer all over the world, and the fall of the Soviet Union freed millions of Jews to leave that communist cesspool.
00:00:15.000 It's been an era of tolerance and goodwill toward Jews throughout the United States.
00:00:19.000 Guilt over the Holocaust stopped the Europeans from allowing their inherent and innate anti-Semitism from rising to the surface.
00:00:25.000 All of that is now over, thanks to the international left.
00:00:29.000 In the last couple of weeks, Palestinian Arabs have embarked on a well-calibrated and thoroughgoing stabbing spree throughout Israel just over the last 24 hours.
00:00:37.000 There are three people killed in shootings and stabbings in Israel.
00:00:41.000 The stabbing spree follows hard on the Palestinian Authority dictator, Mahmoud Abbas, explaining to the United Nations that Palestinians no longer felt bound by the Oslo Accords.
00:00:51.000 As if they ever felt bound by the Oslo Accords.
00:00:53.000 They just took the guns and then turned them on the Jews as soon as possible.
00:00:56.000 Well, the same week that Abbas did that, Politico reported that President Obama had rejected pleas from members of his own party to oppose Palestinian statehood as part of any Iran nuclear deal.
00:01:08.000 Meanwhile, the Iranians know they've found their patsy in Barack Obama, and they are loving it.
00:01:13.000 It's like McDonald's.
00:01:14.000 They've rejected any more negotiations with the West, and they tested long-range ballistic missiles this week, and they're funneling troops into Russian-run Syria.
00:01:22.000 With Russia's blessing, Hezbollah terrorists, sponsored by Iran, are pouring into Syria, too, putting Israel on the defensive on its northern border.
00:01:29.000 It's already on its defensive on its eastern border, as well as the southern border with Gaza.
00:01:34.000 The sudden turn against Israel globally, not super surprising.
00:01:38.000 It's the result of the rise of the most powerful philosophical force of the recent past, Western self-loathing.
00:01:45.000 Western self-loathing, it springs from this general philosophy that anybody who's successful, nations, individuals, you must have become successful because you exploited downtrodden peoples.
00:01:56.000 So America, in this particular view, is successful because we were means of the slaves and the Native Americans.
00:02:00.000 European nations were successful because they invaded Africa and India.
00:02:05.000 Israel, by extension.
00:02:06.000 Israel is successful because it stole its land from those innocent Palestinian Arabs at the behest of the evil West, and then utilized the Palestinian Arabs for some reason or other that no one seems to be able to explain.
00:02:18.000 All of this, of course, is garbage.
00:02:20.000 America is successful because it embraced capitalism and Judeo-Christian moral values, both of which value the individual above the collective.
00:02:28.000 Individualism breeds success.
00:02:31.000 Collectivism breeds misery.
00:02:33.000 America's actually successful in spite of its mistreatment of slaves, and Chinese, and Hispanics, and Native Americans, and women.
00:02:41.000 It's not because of slavery that America's rich.
00:02:43.000 After all, nations throughout history have exploited people of all sorts.
00:02:47.000 In fact, Arab nations still continue to engage in slavery.
00:02:50.000 They haven't seen tremendous success because of it.
00:02:52.000 America has become more successful, not less successful, as it became more tolerant.
00:02:57.000 The same holds true of European nations, who would have been better off not to exploit the people they conquered, but actually just treat them as trading partners.
00:03:03.000 You know, Lenin said that capitalism was the final stage of imperialism.
00:03:08.000 Imperialism, rather, was the final stage of capitalism.
00:03:10.000 That capitalism ended its growth, and therefore you have to invade other countries.
00:03:14.000 This is nonsense.
00:03:15.000 It's been known as economic nonsense for years.
00:03:17.000 The truth is that imperialism, conquering other nations, is necessary for non-capitalistic, non-free countries.
00:03:24.000 That's why Vladimir Putin and ISIS and the Chinese government, they're all aggressively seeking territorial expansion and exploitation of subject peoples.
00:03:33.000 Their philosophies have failed, and now they have to use power to maintain their growth.
00:03:38.000 But that's not going to stop leftist Westerners from self-loathing.
00:03:42.000 And it doesn't stop leftists from believing that the West is bad and hating Israel specifically because of it.
00:03:47.000 So, for example, President Obama's spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright, yesterday we talked about him.
00:03:51.000 He spoke over the weekend at the Million Man March on the National Mall.
00:03:55.000 Which was really kind of like the barely 1,000-man march.
00:03:58.000 Nobody showed up for it.
00:03:59.000 But the protesters who did show up, they cheered, and Wright then explained his theology of Jesus, drawn directly from nothing remotely approaching the Bible.
00:04:09.000 He said that Jesus was a Palestinian, which makes no sense since Palestine, the name of it wasn't even given until 70 A.D.
00:04:16.000 by the Romans as an insult to the Jews.
00:04:18.000 Jeremiah Wright said that the Palestinian people had the Europeans come and take their country, even though they didn't have a country.
00:04:24.000 He said the youth in Ferguson, Missouri and the youth in Palestine have united together to remind us that the dots need to be connected.
00:04:31.000 And he says there's an apartheid wall that was built twice the size of the Berlin Wall in height, keeping Palestinians off of illegally occupied territories.
00:04:38.000 Actually, the security wall was built only after the Palestinians crossed over into Israeli territory to kill Jews.
00:04:44.000 And all of this, of course, is crap.
00:04:45.000 Jesus was a Jew.
00:04:47.000 Palestinians originally referred to Jews.
00:04:49.000 If you look back in 1920s newspapers, when it said Palestinians, it always meant Jews.
00:04:53.000 Arab Muslims only arrived in Israel six centuries after Jesus died and was resurrected, if you're a Christian.
00:05:00.000 And modern Palestinian Arabs are not even descendants of those original Palestinian Arabs.
00:05:04.000 But obviously, Jeremiah writes, thinking it had an impact on President Obama.
00:05:09.000 The linkage.
00:05:10.000 That you hear Jeremiah Wright make between Palestinians exploited and black people being exploited.
00:05:16.000 President Obama wrote exactly about this in Dreams from My Father.
00:05:19.000 Here's what Obama wrote, and it sounds a lot like Jeremiah Wright.
00:05:22.000 He wrote, quote, I know, I have seen the desperation and disorder of the powerless, how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi, and how easily they slip into violence and despair.
00:05:33.000 I know the response of the powerful to this disorder.
00:05:36.000 Alternating, as it does, between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its prescribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force and more sophisticated military hardware is inadequate to the task.
00:05:48.000 When you sift through that Melvillian endless sentence, what he's basically saying is that all suffering springs from inequality, and all inequality springs from exploitation.
00:05:58.000 So if Palestinians are suffering, that's because Israel is at fault.
00:06:01.000 Israel must pay the price.
00:06:03.000 The supposed exploiter must be cut down to size, even if it means Palestinian Arabs stabbing Jewish kids in the head.
00:06:09.000 In this particular view, Israeli self-defense is part of a cycle of violence, started by Israel, of course.
00:06:14.000 Self-defense does not exist in a world where you are the exploiter.
00:06:18.000 There's no such thing as self-defense.
00:06:20.000 You're just defending evil people, even if you're the evil person.
00:06:22.000 The problem is this.
00:06:24.000 Western self-loathing now dominates not just the United States, but Europe.
00:06:28.000 And Westerners welcome unscreened Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East in the name of equality, even as the rates of Jew-targeting attacks have risen dramatically in recent years.
00:06:37.000 And it's even crept its way into Israel, where the leftist post-Zionist movement now says that there's guilt, blood guilt, on the Jewish state for its foundation.
00:06:46.000 Because it's easy to quote-unquote other the Jews, Western leftists don't feel any qualms siding with Arab murderers, they can brush off Jewish kids getting stabbed while riding bikes, or people being shot while riding a bus, because all these kids were beneficiaries of Western colonialism.
00:07:00.000 So Jews shouldn't really be seeking sympathy from Western leftists.
00:07:04.000 After all, the same leftists who are now condemning Dr. Ben Carson for stating the obvious, Jews could have used some guns against the Nazis, well, these are the same leftists today who say that Jews should be disarmed again against today's Nazis.
00:07:17.000 Not a big surprise.
00:07:18.000 Jews are looking for love in all the wrong places if they're looking to the left.
00:07:21.000 I'm Ben Shapiro, and this is The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:07:33.000 Okay, so before we get into today's topic, which is the continuing attempt by Democrats to turn Republicans into your kooky uncle, I want to talk briefly about some breaking news that happened this morning.
00:07:44.000 Apparently, a new report says, surprise, surprise, as we all knew, it was the Russians who shot down that Malaysian airliner.
00:07:50.000 Remember, there was a Malaysian airliner that took
00:07:54.000 The U.S.'
00:07:55.000 's response has been that they don't really care what happened.
00:08:00.000 The U.S.
00:08:00.000 Embassy actually tweeted out earlier, we should put less focus on who's responsible for this atrocity.
00:08:04.000 We should just worry about the feelings of the victims, which makes zero sense at all.
00:08:09.000 But it does when you're bending over both forwards and backwards, depending on your preference.
00:08:13.000 For the Obama administration toward Russia, that's precisely what they're doing.
00:08:17.000 In fact, President Obama is fully delusional when it comes to Russia at this point.
00:08:21.000 I mean, he has taken off into cloud cuckoo land.
00:08:23.000 He is totally insane.
00:08:25.000 He's living in a world of complete fairytale nonsense.
00:08:28.000 President Obama on Sunday, he was asked specifically by Steve Kroft at CBS News, is Vladimir Putin challenging you?
00:08:36.000 Here's what President Obama said, and I mean, this is just full-on delusional.
00:08:42.000 You said a year ago that the United States, America leads, we're the indispensable nation.
00:08:49.000 Mr. Putin seems to be challenging that leadership.
00:08:53.000 In what way?
00:08:54.000 Let's think about this.
00:08:55.000 Well, he's moved troops into Syria, for one.
00:08:59.000 He's got people on the ground.
00:09:01.000 Two, the Russians are conducting military operations in the Middle East for the first time since World War II, bombing the people that we are supporting.
00:09:11.000 So that's leading, Steve?
00:09:13.000 Let me ask you this question.
00:09:15.000 When I came into office, Ukraine was governed by a corrupt
00:09:22.000 Ruler who was a stooge of Mr. Putin.
00:09:25.000 Syria was Russia's only ally in the region.
00:09:30.000 And today, rather than being able to count on their support and maintain the base they had in Syria, which they've had for a long time, Mr. Putin now is devoting his own troops, his own military, just to barely hold together by a thread
00:09:47.000 His sole ally.
00:09:48.000 He's challenging your leadership, Mr. President.
00:09:51.000 He's challenging your leadership.
00:09:53.000 Steve, I gotta tell you, if you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in in order to prop up your only ally is leadership, then we've got a different definition of leadership.
00:10:09.000 Well, actually, that is precisely Barack Obama's definition of leadership.
00:10:12.000 He's run America's economy into the ground, and he's had to send troops into places like Libya to prop up allies that don't exist anymore.
00:10:19.000 And that's also true in Syria, where he's had to send money to people who don't even exist, who spent $500 million paying five people to fight the Russian-backed Assad.
00:10:28.000 This is all nonsense and insanity.
00:10:30.000 The reason I point this out and start with this is because I want you to remember this as a backdrop to what we're about to hear, which is that the real problem with America is not that guy.
00:10:38.000 The real problem for America is not that, dude.
00:10:41.000 The real problem for America is the Republican Party.
00:10:43.000 Always and forever, the Republican Party is the biggest problem for America, for the world, their disaster area.
00:10:50.000 And for that perspective, we go today to David Brooks.
00:10:52.000 David Brooks.
00:10:54.000 It just has to be said.
00:10:54.000 David Brooks, he's the supposed conservative at the New York Times.
00:10:57.000 You've heard him on places like the Michael Medved Show.
00:10:59.000 I'm friends with Michael.
00:11:01.000 David Brooks is not a conservative, and how he's been considered a conservative columnist at the New York Times is absolutely beyond me.
00:11:07.000 Remember, David Brooks is the guy who said, back in 2005, he sat down with then-Senator Obama, and he said that he looked at the crease in Barack Obama's pants, which I can only assume is not a euphemism.
00:11:18.000 But he looked at the crease in Barack Obama's pants, and that's when he realized that Barack Obama would not just be a good president, he would be a great president.
00:11:26.000 David Brooks then proceeded to write a column in 2006 called Run, Barack, Run.
00:11:30.000 Run, Barack—this is the conservative columnist for The New York Times.
00:11:33.000 Well, today he has a piece that is the most egregious hit piece on conservatives that I've maybe ever read from somebody who at least purports to be conservative.
00:11:42.000 You're used to it from the left, but this sort of
00:11:45.000 Hypocritical, vitriolic nonsense you're not really used to hearing from people supposedly on the right.
00:11:50.000 And it's worth going through in detail because if you want to understand the rifts that are happening in the Republican Party over in Congress, if you want to understand the rifts that are happening in the conservative movement over Donald Trump or Ben Carson, if you want to understand why Republicans are so all fired mad all the time,
00:12:07.000 They're mad at people like David Brooks, and they should be mad at people like David Brooks.
00:12:10.000 Here's what David Brooks writes today in the New York Times.
00:12:12.000 He says,
00:12:25.000 So, so far I'm reading this and I'm thinking, okay, this is sort of true.
00:12:36.000 I mean, the conservative base was betrayed by Republican leadership that seems to want to compromise at every available turn with people who want to destroy the fundamental bases of Western civilization, right?
00:12:47.000 So far I'm with him, but that's not what he's saying.
00:12:50.000 What he says is that the party abandoned traditional conservatism for right-wing radicalism.
00:12:55.000 So you'd be much better off if we just stuck with the strategy of surrendering at every turn to Democrats and calling it incrementalism.
00:13:03.000 If Democrats take 10 steps forward and Republicans push slightly back and then allow Democrats to take another 10 steps forward, that is incrementalism, according to David Brooks.
00:13:11.000 He says, Republicans came to see themselves as insurgents and revolutionaries, and every revolution tends toward anarchy and ends up devouring its own.
00:13:20.000 Well, that's a lie.
00:13:21.000 Not every revolution tends toward anarchy and ends up devouring its own.
00:13:24.000 I seem to remember one, like, here in this country that didn't do that, because it was based on conservative principles.
00:13:31.000 But here's where David Brooks goes off the rails.
00:13:33.000 And this is, I think—it's so important for folks to understand the two sides of the divide in the Republican Party.
00:13:40.000 Here's David Brooks and what he thinks conservatism is.
00:13:43.000 Remember, this is a guy who endorsed Obama in 2006, two years before Obama was even running, really.
00:13:48.000 He says this, All of these things are nice.
00:13:49.000 All of these things are wonderful.
00:13:51.000 All of these things also assume a precondition of decency.
00:13:53.000 When you're fighting against people who wish to destroy everything that is good,
00:14:16.000 Then none of these things apply.
00:14:18.000 Right?
00:14:19.000 I like incrementalism, for example.
00:14:20.000 It's great.
00:14:21.000 Incrementalism is a wonderful idea so long as you are incrementally changing a system that is already good.
00:14:27.000 If a system has been corrupted, you don't want incremental change.
00:14:29.000 You want wholesale change.
00:14:31.000 The Soviet Union did not need incremental change.
00:14:33.000 It needed to be overthrown.
00:14:35.000 The Chinese communist system does not need incremental change.
00:14:38.000 We've been trying that for 40 years and we turned them into a world power.
00:14:42.000 When he says conservatism, it stands for intellectual humility.
00:14:45.000 First of all, David Brooks preaching intellectual humility is like O.J.
00:14:48.000 Simpson preaching pacifism.
00:14:51.000 But conservatism stands for intellectual humility.
00:14:53.000 The reason conservatism likes intellectual humility is the idea that people in power, if they're not humble, if they have no intellectual humility, they'll do whatever they want.
00:15:05.000 And they'll run roughshod completely, completely over the rights of the American people.
00:15:09.000 But conservatism does not stand for intellectual humility other than the idea that human beings are capable of both good and bad.
00:15:17.000 Human beings are capable of sin.
00:15:18.000 That's why we need checks and balances.
00:15:19.000 It doesn't stand for the principle you're supposed to be intellectually humble before morons.
00:15:24.000 People get Moses wrong.
00:15:26.000 Moses, according to Judaism, was the most humble man who ever lived.
00:15:29.000 Moses full-on knew his qualities.
00:15:31.000 Moses wasn't ignorant.
00:15:33.000 Moses was humble in the face of God.
00:15:35.000 There's a difference between being humble in the face of God and being humble in the face of Barack Obama, as much as leftists would like to say they're the same thing.
00:15:42.000 And you have David Brooks continuing, he says that they prefer reform rather than revolution, they respect hierarchy.
00:15:47.000 Okay, conservatives respect hierarchy so long as that hierarchy protects rights.
00:15:52.000 But the revolutionaries of the American Revolution were not particularly fond of a hierarchy that enshrined King George, for example.
00:15:58.000 But again, remember, everything that David Brooks is saying, none of this actually has to do with principles of liberty and limited government.
00:16:04.000 According to David Brooks, conservatism has nothing to do with liberty and limited government, and the people who fight for liberty and limited government are not conservative unless they use his tactics of incrementalism and kindness and politeness.
00:16:16.000 He says, conservatives of this disposition can be dull, but they know how to nurture and run institutions.
00:16:23.000 I seem to remember a time when George W. Bush was president and we had a Republican Congress and things went very poorly.
00:16:28.000 He says, they also see the nation—this is really the key—David Brooks says, Conservatives do see a community that is tied together.
00:16:49.000 In terms of normative, we aspire to a community that's tied together, but we don't assume it.
00:16:55.000 We don't assume that that community exists in the absence of all evidence.
00:16:59.000 We don't pretend the community exists when there's no evidence to back that up.
00:17:02.000 We don't pretend.
00:17:03.000 I have nothing in common with Barack Obama ideologically or in terms of where I want the future of the country to go.
00:17:08.000 There are no ties that bind me to him.
00:17:10.000 He's my president because that's the system we have.
00:17:12.000 We have no ties that bind us together.
00:17:14.000 When it comes to hardcore leftists, don't pretend there's a common thread holding my ideology to theirs that we both want what's best for the country.
00:17:21.000 We don't.
00:17:22.000 I want what's best for the country.
00:17:23.000 They want what's worst for the country.
00:17:24.000 Otherwise, I wouldn't be fighting them.
00:17:26.000 This nonsense that we live in a country where everybody simply gets along politically and it's just a matter of compromise, he's talking about an era that no longer exists.
00:17:35.000 But because he's talking about that era, and because he doesn't believe crisis is ever possible, he says anybody who looks at today's political situation as though it's a crisis is a nutjob.
00:17:44.000 And so he says, Today's Republicans, like Newt Gingrich and Ben Carson and Rush Limbaugh, they're always saying that civilization is on the brink of collapse, every setback, like the passage of Obamacare, became the ruination of the republic, comparisons to Nazi Germany became a staple.
00:17:59.000 Hey, first of all, not every comparison to Nazi Germany is worthwhile or decent.
00:18:03.000 However, if you never use Nazi Germany as a backdrop to what you're talking about, if you never acknowledge the possibility of tyranny rising, tyranny becomes inevitable.
00:18:12.000 I promise you, the people who are most shocked by the rise of Nazi Germany were the people who ended up in the ovens.
00:18:18.000 The fact is,
00:18:19.000 That the people who are always the victims of tyranny are the people who don't see it coming.
00:18:23.000 And it's not because they're morally decadent, there's something wrong with them, it's because if you assume the best, likely the worst is going to happen to you at some point.
00:18:30.000 By the way, when he says every setback like the passage of Obamacare becomes the ruination of the republic, Obamacare was a large step toward the ruination of the republic.
00:18:39.000 Obamacare says the government can force you to buy anything the government wants to force you to buy.
00:18:44.000 So long as it's for your own good.
00:18:46.000 How that's not the ruination of the principles underlying the Republic is beyond me, but this goes on and on.
00:18:51.000 David Brooks whining about conservatives and saying that they just don't understand politics.
00:18:55.000 If only they understood politics.
00:18:57.000 If only they understood the need for compromise.
00:19:01.000 The Republicans are the big problem.
00:19:03.000 And this has become the media's meme as well.
00:19:05.000 The media is going after everybody on the right side of the aisle because everybody on the right side of the aisle is a crisis thinker.
00:19:11.000 They're a crisis thinker.
00:19:12.000 So, for example, Ben Carson has been raked over the coals because Ben Carson says exactly what I'm saying here.
00:19:17.000 He says that the Second Amendment was designed to allow citizens to fight for their rights.
00:19:21.000 Here is Dr. Ben Carson, who, by the way, I'm falling in love with more and more as a candidate.
00:19:24.000 I may not endorse him, but he's certainly saying a lot of the right things that none of the other candidates are saying.
00:19:29.000 Much more than Trump, by the way.
00:19:30.000 Here is Dr. Ben Carson.
00:19:36.000 This is a book about the Constitution and the Second Amendment as part of it.
00:19:41.000 And it's there for the reasons that I stated in the book.
00:19:45.000 Specifically, in case of an invasion by a foreign power, the people will be able to aid the military.
00:19:52.000 And also, if we have a time when we have the wrong people
00:19:58.000 Thank you.
00:20:11.000 And this is exactly right, of course, but this makes him crazy.
00:20:13.000 So you have a whole group of people out there saying, to even express this argument is just ridiculous.
00:20:19.000 Because we'll never go tyrannical.
00:20:21.000 If the founders thought that, they wouldn't have said that.
00:20:23.000 And the founders knew tyranny since they fought tyranny.
00:20:25.000 And by the way, what the founders considered tyranny, we now consider basic state government here in the state of California.
00:20:31.000 I mean, seriously, the tax rates the founders were fighting against under King George were significantly lower than the tax rates
00:20:36.000 that most Americans are currently paying to the federal and state government.
00:20:40.000 So the idea that the founders were on any level okay with the argument that tyranny would never happen in America is ignorance of American history.
00:20:50.000 But this really is the problem inside the Republican Party and in our republic as a whole.
00:20:54.000 Do the American people take seriously the threat of their rights being removed from them?
00:20:59.000 We're the richest, most powerful nation in history.
00:21:01.000 We have all sorts of things at our disposal.
00:21:02.000 We have great iPhones, and we have terrific computers, and we have nice cars produced in other countries, and we have all sorts of wonderful things in everyday life.
00:21:10.000 Nice houses.
00:21:11.000 We have all these wonderful things.
00:21:12.000 And you hear this sort of complacent mentality that's set in among Americans, right and left.
00:21:17.000 Don't worry.
00:21:17.000 We're America.
00:21:18.000 We're great, and we'll always be great.
00:21:21.000 And the question I have to ask is, why?
00:21:23.000 What makes us great?
00:21:24.000 Why will we always be great?
00:21:26.000 When Barack Obama says, we're the greatest country in the world and we'll always be the greatest country in the world, even as he takes a sledgehammer to all the foundational principles upon which America stands, you have to wonder, what's he talking about?
00:21:37.000 Is he just ethnocentric?
00:21:38.000 Is he a racist?
00:21:39.000 Does he believe that being born in America makes you a better quality human being to build a better quality country than being born elsewhere?
00:21:46.000 Because if not, what is he even saying?
00:21:48.000 And Republicans, same question.
00:21:50.000 If you're somebody like David Brooks and you believe everything's gonna be okay just because it's gonna be okay, that we all have common bonds in the absence of any common bonds...
00:21:58.000 You're gonna be the one who's most taken by surprise when the government comes for you.
00:22:02.000 Because the fact is that we do have an ideological battle on our hands.
00:22:06.000 We are at a tipping point, because America is always at a tipping point.
00:22:09.000 And for all these folks, I never cite Ronald Reagan, but for all these folks who worship at the altar of Ronald Reagan to ignore the fact that Reagan is the one who said that freedom is always one generation away from extinction, demonstrates their willingness to blind themselves in the face of real and true threats to American rights and American liberty.
00:22:26.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.