Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 660 ｜ Self-Control in an Age of Self-Indulgence

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

00:00:04.620 Today I am talking to Zuby, the rapper, the commentator, the amazing person that has so

00:00:10.600 much insight into everything going on in the world today and why. We are going to be talking

00:00:16.380 about self-control, personal responsibility. He just helped write a children's book, which I

00:00:21.740 will say is amazing and you should go out and get it. We're going to talk about all of the

00:00:26.520 craziness that's been going on with COVID. I don't know if you heard, but CDC just changed

00:00:31.420 the standards again. We're going to be talking about a lot of the gender craziness and how do

00:00:36.600 we push the pendulum swing back to go to a place of order from the place of chaos that we're in.

00:00:42.800 And then at the end, we're going to end with a fun segment about the music that we love and helped

00:00:47.860 kind of bring us through very formative periods in our life. So we're going to get straight into it.

00:00:53.700 But first, remember that this episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. That's

00:00:59.820 American meat delivered right to your front door. So go to GoodRanchers.com slash Allie for a discount.

00:01:04.640 That's GoodRanchers.com slash Allie.

00:01:15.820 Zuby, thanks so much for joining us for the first time. I'm a big fan. I know a lot of my audiences too.

00:01:21.040 A lot to talk about. First, I want to talk about the new book that is coming out. I think it's

00:01:27.100 available for pre-order with Brave Books, The Candy Calamity. Yes. Tell us about this book. What's it

00:01:33.380 about? Yeah, sure. Well, it's out now. It came out in July. Okay. Yep. That's all good. It came out

00:01:37.580 in July. Oh, it says available for pre-order. Got it. It's already out. It's out now. Yeah. So

00:01:41.020 candy calamity.com or bravebooks.com. It's available there. So it's my first children's book.

00:01:46.580 Um, it's all about health and fitness and the importance of taking care of your body.

00:01:51.140 That's a topic I'm very passionate about. I've been working out now for about 20 years, which

00:01:56.200 is pretty crazy. Yeah. Um, and I've been on this journey. It's one of my keystone habits in terms

00:02:03.900 of going to the gym and training. And I've learned so much and it's just been so beneficial. I actually

00:02:09.440 put a lot of the successes I've had, not totally down to that, but that keystone habit of able to

00:02:16.480 take the lessons I've learned from that and the resilience I've developed from it and put it into

00:02:20.680 all these other aspects of my life. And it's been extremely beneficial. So in 2019, I wrote, uh,

00:02:26.980 my first book, which was called strong advice, Zuby's guide to fitness for everybody. So that was a book

00:02:31.640 for adults. And then, um, I had the opportunity, brave books contacted me last year and asked me

00:02:38.120 about doing a collaboration with them. It wasn't previously on my mind, you know, let me do a

00:02:44.020 children's book. And then as soon as that offer came, I was like, you know what? Yeah, let's do it.

00:02:47.640 Let's do it. It's totally in line with, I have a simple filter. I run everything through. Um, cause I

00:02:53.180 know I'm very clear on what my mission in this world is. So if something fits it, I'm quick to say yes.

00:02:57.920 And if something doesn't, I'm just like, no, that's not in line with what I want to do.

00:03:02.120 So we put that together as a rapper. I made sure that the whole, whole book rhymed.

00:03:06.260 Yes. And it does. The whole thing had to rhyme. It's super cute. I was telling Zuby before we

00:03:11.200 started rolling that we've been reading it all weekend with my three-year-old. She loves it.

00:03:17.340 It's super cute. And you know that a book flows really well and rhymes really well when like your

00:03:23.980 toddler will pay attention from start to finish and then wants to start over as soon as it's done

00:03:28.460 because they lose attention so quickly. It really is cute. It's not, I didn't know if it would have

00:03:33.440 any kind of like political statement or political message behind it, but it really doesn't. It really

00:03:38.580 is just about one of the lines that I love in it. Um, one of the characters, not to spoil anything,

00:03:44.480 but she overexerts herself in trying to get stronger. And then she ends up getting too tired

00:03:50.740 because she's not, um, she's not fueling herself. And one of the lines is something along the lines

00:03:57.620 of, it's not just about getting stronger or losing weight. It's really about self-control and that's

00:04:04.440 really what I took away from the book, even though it's for kids. I thought that was a great lesson.

00:04:08.180 Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Um, yeah, it's important. I mean, we need moderation in our society and that

00:04:15.480 doesn't just go for adults. It goes for children as well. I mean, I think we're living in this,

00:04:20.560 I often say we're living in the age of overcorrection and things in so many dimensions have

00:04:26.080 gone too far one way, you know, and health is so important. Health is so important. No matter what

00:04:32.620 people do, you only get one life. You only get one body for your life, right? I mean, and people don't

00:04:40.120 really think of it this way that from your childhood, that one body you have has to last

00:04:45.640 you as long as it does. And when it stops working in a catastrophic fashion, that's when, that's when

00:04:51.700 it's over. And we, there are so many things in the life that we can't control. And so I think that

00:04:57.860 the things that we, we can, it's important to be responsible about that. I mean, we live in a very

00:05:03.080 materialistic and hyper consumer driven society in so many aspects. And it's weird to me that so

00:05:10.660 many people treat their personal possessions and their material goods better than they treat

00:05:14.840 themselves and their own bodies in many ways. And that's completely backwards because the former

00:05:21.000 is replaceable and the latter is not. It's cool to have a nice house or a nice car or nice shoes or

00:05:27.720 whatever, but you shouldn't be treating your shoes better than you treat your own body. And when I put it

00:05:32.780 that way to people, it sort of clicks and they're like, actually, that's a good point. And a lot of

00:05:36.740 them, maybe I do that. Or a lot of people do do that. So I wanted the message to be really just

00:05:42.240 about health, fitness, self-control, taking care of your body, having discipline and moderation,

00:05:47.340 right? Not, don't just exercise and stop eating. And don't, don't do the opposite either. Don't just

00:05:53.440 eat and eat and eat and not exercise. And I did explicitly want it to be apolitical. That was a point I made

00:05:58.980 when I was collaborating with, um, the guys are brave because most of their books have more of a

00:06:03.280 political tone, which is fine. But with this one, I thought, let's just keep it totally apolitical. Let's

00:06:08.700 keep the message on what it should be. And hopefully those lessons learned can also be applied to other

00:06:15.420 areas of life as well.

00:06:16.860 Yeah. And it's very timely because I don't know if you saw this story over the weekend by CBS, that

00:06:22.700 childhood obesity is up. It's up. Okay. So it says the study found that children were 30% less

00:06:30.440 aerobically fit than their parents and claimed hotter temperatures were preventing kids from

00:06:36.380 exercising outside. Childhood obesity is up certainly after COVID and they're blaming this

00:06:42.240 on climate change. Do you think that that's the case? Is climate change causing kids to be fat?

00:06:48.360 Climate change is not causing anybody to be fat. No, it's, it's complete nonsense. This is,

00:06:52.500 this is what happens when they have, uh, they have an idea and they just want to shoehorn it

00:06:57.840 into everything, right? They have a certain conclusion that they want to reach. And this

00:07:01.360 one, it's, you know, climate change is the greatest existential threat to humanity. And it's causing

00:07:05.760 all these problems from polar bears dying off to racism, right? Like they'll, they'll connect

00:07:11.260 everything. They start with the conclusion and then they're like, okay, the conclusion is climate

00:07:15.500 change. So no matter what the issue is, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to find a way. So,

00:07:20.060 uh, these are totally separate issues, uh, childhood obesity. And that fact that that's rising

00:07:26.220 is a problem. It used to be something that was incredibly rare, incredibly rare just a few

00:07:31.480 decades ago. And it's now in the, it's now in the double digits and it's climbing and climbing.

00:07:37.260 And that was exacerbated via all the lockdowns and stay at home orders and so on. Of course,

00:07:42.820 they don't want to blame those policies on any rise. So they go to climate change, but

00:07:46.900 it's a real problem. And it's something that people are uncomfortable talking about. And I

00:07:53.540 understand that, but I think that it's, it's a real, it's a pandemic, right? People want to keep

00:08:00.300 talking pandemic, pandemic. I'm like, okay, there's a real, there's a real, yes, there's a real glaring

00:08:04.940 pandemic, um, right in front of our eyes and has been for many years growing for decades, not just in

00:08:11.680 the USA, but in across the world, but certainly in Western countries, especially it's a bit, it's been

00:08:17.160 a big problem. And, um, I'm big on just the concept of personal responsibility. I'm not big on

00:08:24.360 attacking or demonizing people. I try to avoid that, but you can be critical of, or a behavior

00:08:33.400 and critical of something. In fact, if you really love someone and you care about someone,

00:08:37.480 sometimes, you know, you're a parent, I'm not a parent yet, but there's something called tough

00:08:42.900 love, right? You can't just supplicate, you can't just be supplicative and bow down to every single

00:08:49.860 demand. If your child wants to eat candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, um, you

00:08:57.680 have to put your foot down and say, no, that's not what's good for you as your, as your parents.

00:09:04.140 I can't allow you to just eat candy and ice cream all day, every day, because, you know,

00:09:09.900 and that might sound mean from a three-year-old perspective or even certain adult perspectives,

00:09:13.580 that might sound mean, um, and tyrannical, but it's like, no, that's actual love and compassion

00:09:19.560 and caring. Gosh, I have so many thoughts based on what you said. It really is so much bigger than

00:09:24.960 how we as a society approach food and eating, whether you're a child or adult, it really is kind

00:09:32.180 of this anti-self-control and personal responsibility philosophy or ideology that I think is so

00:09:40.060 prevalent in mainstream culture today that you said that, you know, you're not attacking

00:09:44.520 any, any particular individual. You're just talking about personal responsibility in general.

00:09:49.340 And yet, if you do talk about, hey, it's important to have self-control, whether it comes to eating

00:09:54.120 or whether it comes to monkeypox or whether it comes to whatever it is, whatever kind of like

00:10:00.080 behavioral change that people are suggesting, you are not just you personally, but you in general

00:10:05.720 are accused of while you're being bigoted or you're shaming them or you're creating stigma or

00:10:11.880 you're fat phobic or homophobic, whatever it is. And so it's almost as if we want to blame all of our

00:10:19.640 problems on some like un, unidentifiable source, society, it's the system, it's the patriarchy,

00:10:29.160 it's marketing, it's advertising, it's social media, it's whatever it is, we'll do anything except for

00:10:36.400 just say, well, maybe it's my actions or maybe that person or I can change our behavior to get

00:10:42.480 different outcomes. Why do you think that is like, where does that come from? This absolute allergy

00:10:48.440 to personal responsibility and self-control. Yeah, I think it's one of the, I think it's perhaps the

00:10:54.940 root of, maybe not the deepest root, perhaps loss of faith and family structure is the real root, but

00:11:04.380 I think it's one of the biggest roots of the causes of a lot of downstream problems in modern

00:11:11.460 Western society is the denial of personal responsibility. Man, I think it depends on how

00:11:18.940 far you want to trace it back, but this is why I refer to it as an overcorrection. So from an actual

00:11:24.940 system structure and institutions perspective, there's a clear case to be made that societies in

00:11:32.440 general, um, used to be too harsh and restrictive and rigid and shame driven on certain things and

00:11:44.200 certain things will perhaps were over stigmatized to the point of being destructive for individuals or

00:11:50.940 for society. Right. Um, and now we live in this age of overcorrection. I think around, I want to say

00:11:58.120 the nineties to the early 2010s, I think the, uh, an approximate good balance was struck

00:12:04.740 between these things. It wasn't like there was a healthy balance between. That's true about a lot

00:12:10.560 of things. Yes. Somewhere around 2010 things went. Yes. There was a healthy balance that was struck. And

00:12:16.340 for the past decade, we've been in the overcorrection of everything. Yeah. Right. So I agree with someone

00:12:23.380 who says, Oh, if somebody is, you know, if somebody is, is very overweight, you shouldn't,

00:12:29.980 you shouldn't attack and be nasty and discriminatory towards that person. I'm with you a hundred percent.

00:12:37.340 I'm not with you with, uh, you know, you can be healthy at any size and that it's healthy to be

00:12:44.980 more like glorified and shouldn't be glorified and promoted and so on. Right. Uh, I don't know,

00:12:50.560 uh, single, single motherhood, right. There was a time where that was so denigrated and,

00:12:57.100 and stigmatized that, you know, people would be almost cast out of society for that. And no,

00:13:02.740 that's not good. Also, it's better to have two family, you know, you need both parents. Fathers

00:13:11.380 are important. Men and women do need each other. Men and women do exist as well. All of these. So

00:13:17.180 everything's just overcorrected and it's gone to a level where now the problem is this complete

00:13:23.160 destigmatization of everything and complete denial of personal responsibility. And with that,

00:13:28.240 you actually really weaken people. It hurts people because it's so disempowering, right? So even if it

00:13:34.200 might be uncomfortable to accept that you are in control and accountable for your, your words,

00:13:40.680 your actions, your behaviors, and you have that responsibility, even though that is,

00:13:46.800 it can be uncomfortable. It's also very empowering actually. Cause when you, when you really internalize

00:13:51.480 that and you act based on that, you can claim victory. You can claim credit for your wins.

00:13:57.340 You have to, you have to kind of take your, take your losses as well and go, okay, you know what?

00:14:01.120 There's something I could have done there better. That was on me. Um, but I think people get really

00:14:06.720 offended when you, you people who deny personal responsibility, I think they get offended when

00:14:11.400 it's talked about because you are taking away the alibi, right? So people like to have a permanent

00:14:18.160 excuse. Yeah. Our natural human default thing, even people who, yes, even everybody, our natural

00:14:24.880 default is to always find an excuse outside of ourselves. Yeah. Right. So if I am, it could be

00:14:30.560 minor, right? If I'm, if I'm late for something, I'll, people will normally default say, oh, there was

00:14:35.100 traffic or there was this or that thing is you, you left too late, right? If you'd left earlier,

00:14:40.380 you would have been there on time, but no one wants to say, ah, I just left too late. Right.

00:14:43.960 You'll immediately, your brain jumps to find there's someone else or something else that is

00:14:49.780 responsible for it. And that's just a natural inclination. And I get where it comes from,

00:14:54.980 but when people do this for their entire lives and they do it with major things, if you're a woman

00:14:59.380 and you just blame the patriarchy and, you know, systemic sexism and institution of this, if you're

00:15:05.780 a person of any, you know, nonwhite race, ethnicity, whatever, and you blame, oh, there's this white

00:15:12.980 supremacist superstructure and they're systemic and institutional and structural race. And you don't

00:15:18.220 even need to define them. They're just these ghosts kind of floating out there, these apparitions

00:15:22.260 floating out there. And that's the reason I'm not successful. So you have this permanent alibi.

00:15:26.780 So when someone goes, actually, you know what, bro, that's not it. It's just like,

00:15:31.560 you're not making good decisions and you're not applying yourself in the way that you could,

00:15:35.340 that hurt, that cuts people. There's a type of person they go, uh, okay, that's going to motivate

00:15:39.840 me and drive me. And I'm going to take that. And I'll take this extreme accountability.

00:15:43.740 Other people will just attack the messenger and attack whoever it is, attack the person saying that

00:15:48.720 they should lose weight, attack the person saying that systemic racism or sexism or whatever is not

00:15:54.120 what's holding them back in 22. Anyone who, if you push a notion of personal responsibility,

00:16:00.560 you will get attacked. It doesn't matter what the topic is. It could be financial. It could be health.

00:16:05.940 It could be a cultural. It could be from, it doesn't matter what it is, anything. It could be

00:16:10.060 about sex, sex, anything you're going to get attacked. You're going to get demonized because

00:16:15.500 that is easier than people looking inward and going, Hmm. Okay. Maybe I could do something a little

00:16:21.240 better here. Two thoughts. One is that this really goes back to the garden of Eden. You talked about

00:16:36.640 going back and we go all the way back when God came to the garden and said, how did you know that

00:16:42.040 you were naked? Basically what happened? I told you not to do this and you did it. Yeah. Adam said it was

00:16:46.420 the woman you gave me. And then they were like, actually it was the serpent. But at the end of

00:16:50.540 the day, I mean, she took the bite of the apple and Adam stood there and he went along with it and

00:16:58.280 it doesn't, the personal responsibility doesn't negate the trials or difficulties or obstacles that

00:17:05.340 may exist in someone's life. Like the serpent really did tempt them. For sure. That's true. And yet at the

00:17:12.120 end of the day, they still decided to do it. So someone might be facing obstacles that may make it

00:17:17.360 harder for them to budget and save money or, you know, whatever it is that they need to have self

00:17:23.460 control in, but they still have a decision. Most of our circumstances are the product of our own

00:17:32.120 choices, big and small, and, or the product of other people's choices, like our parents. That's just

00:17:39.040 the truth. But I think that you're right. People are uncomfortable with that because it not only

00:17:45.420 places blame on them, which is just uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable feeling to have conviction and

00:17:49.700 to have guilt. And I think part of the overcorrection that you're talking about is that we are so

00:17:54.260 anti-shame now that we think all shame and all guilt and all conviction is bad.

00:18:00.340 I don't think we're anti-shame. I just think it's been inverted.

00:18:02.460 It's been inverted. Things that should be shameful are celebrated. I mean, there's an entire month

00:18:09.860 dedicated to pride. Yeah. There's an entire month dedicated to a sin. That's deep. You know, you

00:18:15.280 don't get it. What else do we get a month for? You don't get a month for anything. Independence Day

00:18:19.520 is one day. Christmas Day is like one day. Black History Month.

00:18:22.260 Yeah. Okay. Black History Month. But that's not even celebrated in the same way. It's not like you

00:18:27.560 go into a store and they've got, you know, everything in African colors and traditional

00:18:31.080 designs, or they've got stuff for Malcolm Likicks or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks or whatever.

00:18:36.380 It's like, you know, so it's not even the same. And so I think there's this inversion. I mean,

00:18:41.440 if you want to see shame, I mean, look at the past two and a half years. Someone doesn't want to wear

00:18:44.420 a mask. Someone doesn't want to inject something into their bloodstream. People are very,

00:18:47.440 very happy to go beyond shaming, completely stigmatizing people. So it's just miss. Yeah.

00:18:53.140 So it's just misapplied. Yeah. It's misapplied. So things that shouldn't be shamed are,

00:18:59.060 and oftentimes things that are good and positive and actually wholesome are shamed and attacked.

00:19:04.340 And then things that are shameful or things that should be stigmatized or certainly not promoted

00:19:09.860 are being uplifted and celebrated. So that's the inversion going on. On another point with what we were

00:19:16.880 talking about before, I think also there's, there are two very distinct different worldviews that

00:19:22.360 people can have, and this is not new, but I think that you could boil, some people have the, you know,

00:19:28.340 free will versus determinism debate or that kind of thing. So I think some of it is deeper rooted.

00:19:33.480 I think there are people who inherently understand what human beings are human beings. Firstly, human

00:19:39.120 beings have free will for the most part, and we are great, but also sin inclined people, right? Have

00:19:49.380 been from the, from the very beginning. You talked about the garden of Eden, right? So this is just

00:19:53.020 how human beings are. We have this certain nature and we choose how we act. Yes, there can be all types

00:19:59.500 of circumstances and we all impact each other, but ultimately, especially as an adult, we make our

00:20:04.540 decisions and we live with the consequences. But I think there's this other worldview. I think it's

00:20:10.620 the worldview that was really pushed by, I haven't read much Karl Marx, but I think it's the worldview

00:20:14.300 that was really pushed by Marx and certainly been adopted implicitly or explicitly by a lot of other

00:20:19.800 people, which is that human beings are really just victims of circumstance and we don't really make

00:20:25.660 our own decisions and choices. And so that's why everything's about the system versus nurture.

00:20:31.380 Yeah. Everything's about the system and the structures and the institutions. And there's

00:20:36.080 this idea that if you could just get those things perfect, if we can perfect the systems and the

00:20:40.960 structures, then we completely get rid of crime. Then we completely get rid of a certain, certain

00:20:46.920 wrongs. Like everyone, we get rid of poverty. We get rid of home rather than saying, you know

00:20:51.500 what? I mean, my view, like I don't, I think poverty, homelessness, certain, certain addictions

00:20:56.540 and whatever. They're always there. Unless you get rid of human beings, I don't believe you can

00:21:01.440 get rid of murder. You can do certain things and to reduce the rate of it and to reduce the chance

00:21:07.260 that people commit certain crimes and do certain things. But I think that there is just a very

00:21:10.780 small percentage of people across 8 billion people in the world. There's a percentage of people who

00:21:16.700 are going to hurt each other, who are going to rob each other, who are going to murder each other.

00:21:19.900 Like, I don't, I don't like that. I'd like to think that I understand the appeal of this sort

00:21:25.000 of utopian idea that the human being can be perfected. We just need to get everything right

00:21:29.280 in the systems, forgetting that human beings are also running the systems.

00:21:33.200 Yeah.

00:21:34.120 And as we've seen many times throughout history, when people aim for this utopia,

00:21:38.500 it always ends up in a dystopia.

00:21:40.580 Yeah. I always say that progressivism gets human nature wrong. That's why it fails. That's why

00:21:45.660 communism fails. That's why socialism fails. Because of that kind of erroneous idea that

00:21:50.120 you're talking about, that if we just put the right people in charge, and if they finally

00:21:54.260 have enough money and enough power and enough conformity, then they really can make everything

00:22:00.100 perfect. They can get rid of all disparities. They can make everyone have equal outcomes

00:22:04.560 and basically force people to be happy with equal outcomes. And obviously, I always knew that

00:22:09.840 was wrong. I've always been a conservative and have most of the views that I do today.

00:22:14.320 But I was reading a book about North Korea a few years ago called Nothing to Envy.

00:22:20.400 And the author was talking about how these North Koreans, who obviously have been under

00:22:25.100 communist rule forever, have never been outside of North Korea. They developed these black markets

00:22:31.440 of goods and services, the goods that were smuggled in from China, and basically created this

00:22:38.060 capitalist market of supply and demand and free trade among themselves. And what that told me is

00:22:44.940 that even though there are flaws with every human system, the basic idea of supply and demand and the

00:22:52.320 free exchange of goods is actually innate in human nature. That is why communism fails, is because you

00:22:59.540 are taking something away that is natural in human beings. They hadn't been taught that. They had actually been

00:23:04.780 taught their whole lives that capitalism was bad and evil and wrong and that communism was good.

00:23:10.500 And yet they were faced with starvation, with famine, and they knew how to create their own free market

00:23:17.700 in a communist dictatorship. That tells us a lot about human nature and why leftism is so wrong.

00:23:24.760 Yeah. Well, free market capitalism is the default human state because that's simply just about

00:23:29.260 private property and free trade. So you don't need... Capitalism is an interesting term because

00:23:36.660 wasn't it... Correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't it Marx who created that term? I believe Karl Marx coined

00:23:43.100 the term capitalism. So I was a French socialist.

00:23:46.260 It was a French socialist, Dylan says.

00:23:48.540 Okay. Okay. So the term was initially coined with a negative tinge. So a lot of people,

00:23:54.520 when they hear the term capitalism, they don't just think of free market trade. They think of

00:23:58.540 this crony capitalism or this very corporate, you know, profit driven in oppressive system. Whereas

00:24:06.380 really it's just like, hey, look, you've got products and services. I've got products and services,

00:24:10.360 even in the most primitive state of humanity. Cool. Let's barter. Let's trade. Let's exchange.

00:24:18.300 Let's help each other out. So really it's just the default state. So you're right in saying that

00:24:22.880 something like communism, where the state controls everything, it's not a natural state.

00:24:31.320 Small scale socialism is. I mean, within a family, families are socialist, right? You can have small

00:24:36.500 communes and things like that where, yes, okay, like we just share and everything works.

00:24:40.860 Like the early church, they exchanged for each other freely. And people try to say, well,

00:24:45.600 that's the biblical foundation for communism. Obviously different. That was voluntary,

00:24:50.920 empowered by the Holy Spirit. And they had a common goal, which was the gospel. That's not

00:24:56.440 what happens in communism, which is why people are murdered in mass.

00:24:59.300 Yes. Because not everything is this. Here's another thing that people struggle with is to

00:25:03.240 understanding that not everything scales. So just because something works within a group of five

00:25:08.260 people doesn't mean it's going to work across 340 million people. People even do this on nation levels,

00:25:13.560 right? Like whenever people compare the USA to like Iceland or Denmark or something,

00:25:19.020 I mean, Iceland has 300,000 people, the whole country, right? We have more followers than the

00:25:24.760 entire population of the country. And, or even with a Denmark or a Sweden, it's like even the UK,

00:25:31.080 I mean, the UK is 60, 65, 66 million people. Um, but geographically it's smaller than Texas

00:25:37.640 and it's still a much, much smaller country overall. You know, if you even comparing Canada

00:25:43.780 to the USA, even though size wise, landmass wise, um, they're more comparable, but Canada's what?

00:25:49.120 30 million people. USA is a giant country. And then you've got the 50 States and extremely diverse,

00:25:55.720 extremely diverse. You've got so many things that make it more complicated. So yeah, you can get ideas

00:26:01.320 from different places, but it's not as simple as, Oh, well, you know, this works in New Zealand.

00:26:04.840 And so it's going to be hyper effective across the entire United States. So I think people don't get

00:26:10.900 that some things don't always scale the way that things are done within a family. For example,

00:26:16.480 you can't just take that and apply it to a nation as a governance system because it's not scalable.

00:26:24.820 It's not scalable. It's why you even have certain problems that exist in cities that are very rare

00:26:29.560 in rural areas. Cause once you put that many people all together and they all start affecting

00:26:34.760 each other and people are living on top of each other and so on, you're going to get higher rates

00:26:39.360 of crime. You're going to get higher rates of depression. You're going to get higher rates

00:26:43.080 of drug abuse. You're going to get higher rates of homelessness and so on than you would even in

00:26:47.640 the same, you know, even just an hour outside in a more rural area, those two things are going to

00:26:53.200 look very different. And we, you see this pattern and it's not a U S thing. It's everywhere in the

00:26:56.760 world, right? Where's most of the crime? Where's most of the gang activity? Where's big cities,

00:27:01.680 big cities, right? But when you scatter people across with much lower densities and people have

00:27:07.680 more, feel like they have more in common and people feel ironically cities. Yes, exactly. The

00:27:15.420 trust is so important. Trust is important for people to have trust. It helps to have some sense of

00:27:23.180 commonality. I think that's one of the biggest challenges the USA is facing right now. I don't

00:27:27.480 think it's clear across this nation right now. And I say, this is a non-American. It's not clear

00:27:32.240 to me what all Americans have in common right now. Yeah. I mean, you're literally living in a time

00:27:36.660 where I'll be real. I mean, I, when I, when I go around to different cities and States, I mean,

00:27:41.040 if I drive past a house and I see an American flag, I'm like, yeah, that's probably a Republican.

00:27:44.380 Oh yeah. Right. I shouldn't think that. I wouldn't have thought that in 1998.

00:27:48.440 Yeah. Right. I wouldn't 10 years ago. Yeah. I wouldn't have thought, oh, an American flag

00:27:53.200 is some type of any indication as to someone's political leanings, but people can't even unite

00:27:59.500 around the fact that the USA is good or that the USA is a special country or the USA is something

00:28:06.140 that, you know, it's not, it's not a perfect country, but this is something we should be proud

00:28:11.200 of. You know, you've got people literally, oh, the USA is terrible, you know, terror. They think the flag

00:28:14.940 itself is this awful oppressive symbol of hatred and white supremacy and this and that. And

00:28:22.960 it's, I don't think that's sustainable. It's not sustainable. I mean, people are going to have

00:28:28.420 their disagreements and their polarization, but you need to have some common threads where people can

00:28:33.680 be like, okay, we agree on, at least on this, we agree on this. And this is what we all have in common

00:28:39.160 because people are going to be tribal. Tribalism is just innate and it's not something that's inherently

00:28:45.980 positive nor negative. And one of the best ways to defeat tribalism is to go up a level,

00:28:52.140 right? So when people are, you can fraction human beings in as many different ways as you want,

00:28:56.440 right? You can fracture it across all these different lines, you know, sex, races,

00:29:02.860 ethnicities, height, eye color, hair color, like you could fraction human beings however much you

00:29:10.360 want to. But the best way to get people out of that is to go up a level. So, you know, if people

00:29:17.340 are starting to get obsessed with this thing, it's like, okay, let's go up a level and see. And then

00:29:21.020 you have that commonality, right? So in the UK, one thing I really like, straight up, one thing I prefer

00:29:26.720 about the UK to the US is that we don't use terms like black British, African British, Hispanic British,

00:29:34.460 white Brit. No. If someone said that I'm African British or that I'm black people, it even sounds

00:29:39.220 weird. I've never thought about that. It sounds weird, right? Why do you think we do that in the

00:29:43.020 US and they don't do that in the UK? The racial history of the two countries is different and the

00:29:49.200 makeup is different. So I think some of it is historical and it goes back to these ideas. You know,

00:29:55.960 there were black Americans and white Americans, like there was this split and there was actual

00:30:01.360 segregation and there's a lot of history there. And I think over the course of immigration in the,

00:30:09.860 especially in the, in the 1900s, people coming from, you know, Italian American and Jewish American,

00:30:13.920 Irish American, whatever. These, it's just in the mentality and in the lexicon, some through history,

00:30:21.360 but then I think also it gets propagated by media because the media talks in these terms.

00:30:26.600 It becomes politically useful too.

00:30:28.060 Yes. It becomes politically useful to fraction people off into these groups and people grow up

00:30:33.480 with it and they just think it's normal. Like I raised this point to so many of my American friends

00:30:36.960 and they're like, huh, that's interesting. Like I've never really thought of it that way. Cause they

00:30:40.480 think that happens all around the world. And it's like, no, that's really an American thing to break,

00:30:44.600 to break it down so much. It's like, why don't, in the UK people just say British.

00:30:47.540 Yeah. Right. People just say British. It's not like, oh, that guy is Asian British or this person

00:30:52.760 is Jewish British or African British. It's just, it's just British. And I think that even though

00:30:57.520 it's just a small tweak to the language, it matters, it matters because it, it, that's then how people

00:31:05.040 see each other. If you train people to see each other as by skin color or by ethnic origin,

00:31:12.300 then it's inherently divisive and tribal because then people start to, okay, we are this thing and

00:31:19.940 we're now, this is our in group. And by default, now this is the out group. Whereas if people just

00:31:24.560 said American, American, right. And the focus wasn't on, you know, interjecting race, even when

00:31:29.560 it's, you know, there can be times and places where it's relevant, but oftentimes it's more often than

00:31:34.980 not, I'd say it's, it's not. Yeah. And there's this focus on like, even when people look at certain

00:31:39.920 issues, it's interesting because I mean, in, in the UK, sometimes it'll be broken down. You know,

00:31:44.880 sometimes they'll have race and ethnicity breakdowns on things, but oftentimes it's more

00:31:48.580 like it might be class, right? US, UK is generally historically more class-based than a kind of race

00:31:55.460 based thing. But say, if you were looking at, I don't know, any issue here, it's like, okay,

00:32:00.820 these are the breakdowns by race. And I'm like, why, who, who decided that that's how you should even do

00:32:05.500 the breakdown, right? Like, why is that the thing? Oftentimes it might be like, wouldn't,

00:32:10.200 wouldn't socioeconomic factors be more important? So whether, I mean, a poor, someone, whether they're

00:32:18.220 white, black, Latino, whatever, if they are of a growing up in a certain place and in a certain,

00:32:26.080 in a certain class or a certain economic structure, that's more relevant than the fact,

00:32:32.000 than, than their skin color. Now there can be a correlation between these things, which is why

00:32:36.120 I think people sometimes lazily default to it, but it's not a, like there might be a certain problem

00:32:42.820 and people will be like, oh, this is a, you know, this is a, this is a black problem. And I'm like,

00:32:48.260 no, that's like an inner city lower class or like poor or poverty problem. Right. And yes,

00:32:55.440 there might be more people of a certain demographic who fit into this in this place, but it's not innate.

00:33:00.260 No, but it's not, yeah, but that, that thing's not the point, right? You could, if you go and look

00:33:05.100 at a, you know, and then you look at a, a wealthy, you know, a more wealthy area, obviously like

00:33:10.540 whatever the breakdown is, it's like, okay, so this is a, this is more like a, a money thing,

00:33:15.500 a cultural thing, a class thing, a social thing. It's not, it's not, it's not a race thing. It's

00:33:21.940 like, okay. And so oftentimes I think when people are looking at, and I think some of these things

00:33:26.940 don't really get resolved because people are literally looking at the wrong way. They're

00:33:31.000 thinking it's a race issue. Here's a great example. Um, the whole, the whole thing that sparks be it

00:33:37.200 like, I'm not a BLM fan. I think the organization is terrible, but the whole, the whole issue of

00:33:42.580 police interactions with the public, racializing that issue is so dumb. It's, it's a disaster. I

00:33:50.360 think it's been a disaster making that a racial issue, right? The police here kill more white people

00:33:54.240 than they kill black people. Fact. Right. Um, as a proportion of the population, yes, it's more,

00:34:01.500 it's more, but, but like most people don't even know that fact, like, because when it's reported

00:34:05.580 and talked about, most people can not name a single white person killed by a police officer. Right.

00:34:09.460 In the past decade. Right. Right. There's been more of them than there have been black people,

00:34:13.360 but people don't even, people don't even know that fact. Yeah. Right. And why, and I'm just like,

00:34:18.020 why, why is that a racial thing? Like everybody is a, do, do we all agree across the political

00:34:23.700 hour? Does everyone agree? We'd like less police brutality and less unjustified police

00:34:29.300 killings. Right. We'd like that to be ideally zero. Yeah. Right. We're talking not just,

00:34:34.400 we're talking unjustified killings. Their situations happen. That person should not,

00:34:37.780 that shouldn't have happened. That's not a race thing. So making it a race thing,

00:34:41.780 you're now making it almost impossible to solve the problem because now when people, when this person

00:34:47.640 is saying black lives matter, this person saying all lives matter, and this is now what you're

00:34:51.500 arguing. Yeah. You're not thinking, okay, look, you know what? We're both against police brutality.

00:34:56.280 Yeah. No, none of us want to see people dying unnecessarily at the hands of agents of the

00:35:01.460 state or of anybody. So let's just unite on that and let's just fix the problem.

00:35:07.520 Thomas Sowell. He writes about this and gosh, I break this up probably every episode, but

00:35:22.040 his book discrimination and disparities kind of bust this idea that is propagated by people like

00:35:28.140 Ibram X. Kendi and those race baiters that basically says all disparities between white Americans and black

00:35:33.920 Americans is proof in itself of discrimination. So you mentioned that a larger thing to say,

00:35:40.420 right? Like you mentioned like a larger proportion of, you know, based on their population of,

00:35:46.020 of black Americans are shot and killed by the police than white. And so they would say,

00:35:52.000 well, that in itself is proof of the racism. So, but that conclusion prevents us from going up the

00:35:59.340 line and asking, okay, but why is that? Okay. While we unfortunately know that black men are,

00:36:04.220 are committing a disproportionate number of murders against each other every year. So that means they

00:36:09.600 have a higher interaction with the police because of the crimes that are being committed. And so then

00:36:15.020 we should ask ourselves, well, why is that? Why are these crimes being committed? You go to

00:36:18.600 fatherlessness, but by just saying these disparities are proof of racism, then you never even have the

00:36:25.440 opportunity to get at the line and ask why. Exactly. And, you know, I mean, by the way,

00:36:30.380 I think all this is intentional. Um, but I don't think these people want solutions. I think they,

00:36:35.900 there's too much money in, uh, there's too much money in clout in keeping these problems existing or

00:36:41.980 acting like they exist where they don't. And the reason you also know that this is so dishonest is

00:36:46.660 because you can find very easy examples where that jumping to disparity equals unfair

00:36:53.780 discrimination here. And now you can find so many easy examples that show that that is completely

00:36:58.440 ludicrous. Okay. So black men are about 7% of the U S population and make up over 70% of the NBA.

00:37:05.680 And I think over 70% of the NFL, if someone were to say that therefore the NFL or NBA is racist against

00:37:12.720 white people or Jewish people, you'd be like, you're insane. Like what, what, like it would be such a

00:37:17.820 preposterous thing for someone to even suggest, but when they want to, people do this with gender

00:37:23.740 as well. Right. So if there's a, Oh, you know, 80% of people on the executive board of this fortune

00:37:30.700 500 company are, are men. So therefore sexism. Yeah. Right. But they only do that when it's

00:37:35.460 convenient. They're not like, Oh, 90% of plumbers are men. Like 98%. Yeah. You know, I don't think I've

00:37:42.120 ever in my life anywhere in the world and I've traveled a lot. I don't think I've ever seen a

00:37:46.440 woman like working on top of a roof or doing like construction on highways. I don't think I've ever,

00:37:51.500 I don't think I've seen one and it's probably, I don't think I've ever seen, I don't think I've

00:37:54.580 ever seen a female like lumberjack or tree surgeon and that's, and that's okay. Right. But it's just

00:38:00.400 funny how people pick and choose when to use this heuristic of disparity equals discrimination.

00:38:07.040 Cause you can find all these other examples and you're just like, dude, like you can see how

00:38:10.980 silly it would be to apply this in other areas, but they don't care. And I think also because

00:38:16.940 people get away with it. Right. No one ever checks them on it. Yeah. Right. No one ever checks them

00:38:21.880 and goes, wait, hang on. I'd like to, I'd love to be in the same room as some of these people when

00:38:25.620 they're making these claims. Cause I will air them out. Yeah. Right. But no one, people just start

00:38:29.860 clapping and they're like, yes, yes. And I'm just like, dude, this is how they're getting away with so

00:38:34.180 much nonsense because they just say something. And instead of someone going, wait, hang on, hang on what you

00:38:39.240 just said there. What about this? Well, I'll tell you how they get away with, at least with white

00:38:43.860 people. They, especially with white women. Yes. So Ibram X. Kendi, I saw him, I saw him do this the

00:38:51.060 other day. Here's his little trick. If you say disparities are, well, actually, and a conservative,

00:38:57.880 I won't even, well, a pro-lifer. We had this argument on Twitter a while ago. I said something

00:39:03.820 along the lines of disparities aren't in themselves proof of discrimination. They will

00:39:08.500 say to you, okay, then you're saying the only other option then that you must be arguing is

00:39:14.120 black inferiority. If it's not because of discrimination, you're saying black people are

00:39:19.120 innately inferior. And then people don't want to be put in the position to be like, no, no, no,

00:39:23.180 that's not what I'm saying. It's X, Y, Z, blah, blah, blah. So that's people on the defensive.

00:39:26.940 Yeah. That's how it goes. That's the false choice. Yeah. It's, it's just so dishonest and

00:39:33.360 it's annoying because the thing is, I mean, if you wanted to even look at these issues seriously,

00:39:38.000 the thing is, there are so many factors that, that go into it, right? There are things that

00:39:44.420 have happened in the past that have put, say, black Americans in certain situations and even

00:39:52.200 certain localities where now there is less economic, the schools aren't as good. There's

00:39:58.260 less, um, you know, the economy is not as healthy. There's certain things that happen. You know,

00:40:02.340 there's so many factors, there's social factors, there's cultural factors, there's external factors,

00:40:06.620 there's historic factors. I'm not someone who says like, oh, it's just this one. Like I don't shy

00:40:11.600 away from that whole conversation. You can't honestly deny that there isn't a lot of stuff that's

00:40:17.920 happened in the past that's put people in certain situations, which still affects certain

00:40:21.320 communities today. Right. I'm not in the camp of denying that or diminishing it. There are other

00:40:27.700 factors as well. There are social factors and cultural factors and familiar and personal decision

00:40:31.800 factors and all that. Um, but all multiple things can be true as once. And I think maybe this is

00:40:37.520 another problem we have, right? Because so many things have become so hyper-partisan that it's like,

00:40:43.060 you know, you kind of have the left talking points and the right talking points and both camps,

00:40:50.420 shall we say, when people are really entrenched in them are afraid to even entertain some of those

00:40:56.040 other ideas. So someone who's on the, you know, a lefty is progressive is really uncomfortable

00:41:00.560 to discuss the fact that, okay, you know, black men are committing a disproportionate amount of

00:41:07.360 certain crimes. People are uncomfortable to discuss, um, fatherlessness rates or broken family rates

00:41:14.500 or, you know, the personal responsibility by people. They're very happy to discuss the systemic things

00:41:20.120 and the things historical that have led to them. And then I think also to be honest, to be honest,

00:41:24.860 I think a lot of conservatives are also very uncomfortable to discuss some of the things that

00:41:30.660 are actually, okay, the government did do this policy back then, or this did happen. And there is

00:41:36.820 this overhang. It's not saying that's a different thing to even saying that right now, as in 2022,

00:41:42.660 the whole system is white supremacist and there's all this racism. Like that's not,

00:41:47.280 that's a different argument. There's some people who believe that, but that's actually a different

00:41:50.460 thing. Um, but you can say, okay, well, a hundred years ago, 150 years ago, there was all this. And

00:41:55.760 obviously, you know, if you look at how wealth accumulates or doesn't within a family or within

00:42:01.080 a community, like, yeah, sure. There's effects of these things. Um, so I think both so-called sides

00:42:07.300 have valid points on this, but you never there it's, it's rare for that conversation to just happen

00:42:12.880 honestly and in a helpful way. And to me, that's a problem because how are you going to fix, how are

00:42:18.660 you actually going to come to a solution if people are so uncomfortable to even honestly discuss it in

00:42:26.320 a holistic fashion? We saw the same, the same thing, by the way, happened over the past two and a half

00:42:31.880 years with the whole pandemic response situation, right? When was there actually just an honest

00:42:37.940 conversation about, okay, what are the real, you know, number one, how, how, how, how does this

00:42:44.100 thing spread? Who's most at risk? Who's not at risk. Um, and you know, these different ideas and

00:42:49.920 policies, how effective are they really? Let's, let's bring people to the table. Let's discuss this

00:42:54.520 thing for real. Let's not just focus on, okay, three things, you know, masks, social distancing and

00:42:59.080 injections, right? Like that, those are the only three things and everything else. We, we, it's

00:43:03.680 like, what, what about other treatment options? What about the fact, look, this thing's not harming

00:43:07.240 kids. Like why are, why are the kids out of school? Right. Right. Like it was just this one size fits

00:43:12.420 all one size fits all. And again, maybe this comes from the mentality of people not being comfortable

00:43:17.540 with embracing the idea that people are actually different. You've seen the same thing happening with

00:43:22.060 monkeypox right now. They're trying to pretend that no matter who you are, no matter what you do,

00:43:26.780 you're all at equal risk. Yeah. It's this like bastardization of the term concept of equality.

00:43:31.140 Yeah. And it's like, no, there's nothing bigoted or discriminatory and saying, okay, all right. Like

00:43:38.240 there's a gigantic disparity here, which is based on people's activities and proclivities. And so,

00:43:44.560 cause they're so afraid that that's going to sound homophobic or that's going to sound anti LGBT,

00:43:50.260 or this is going to, you know, create the stigma upon gay men or whatever that they don't want to just

00:43:54.960 flat out say, okay, basically all of the monkeypox is happening with gay men who, who are doing these

00:44:02.340 activities. Right. They, they're so uncomfortable to say it's, it's obvious. It's like, it's like

00:44:06.900 glaringly obvious, right? It's like 98% of cases or something, but they're like, no, we, we, we can't say

00:44:13.480 that. So let's instead just make like, let's, let's scare everybody. Let's put, let's thread into

00:44:20.860 lockdown. Everybody let's, it's like, why, why not everything needs to be. And this is just part of

00:44:27.940 even medicine. I mean, my family background's originally from Nigeria. Right. And there are

00:44:32.880 certain, there are even certain diseases that are far more likely to exist in certain populations.

00:44:39.920 So for example, in Nigeria, sickle cell, sickle cell anemia is a problem in Nigeria and other African

00:44:45.340 countries in Europe, in North America, there's, there's, it's there, but it's, it's not like a

00:44:49.700 big, it's not a big problem. So, you know, I believe that there are, I can't remember the name

00:44:55.320 of the name of the condition. There's a condition that's more common amongst like Ashkenazi people

00:45:00.300 of Ashkenazi Jewish origin and so on. And it's like, I think it's, is it Tay-Sachs? Maybe. Yeah. And

00:45:06.280 it's, it's important for people to, to know that. Yeah. Right. If you're, if you're a black and you

00:45:11.200 live in a West, you live in a cold place, you're more likely to be vitamin D deficient. Right. Right.

00:45:15.800 Like it's good to know if you're white, you're more likely to get sunburned. I've never used sun,

00:45:19.420 I've never used sun, sun lotion. I don't need it. Um, so, but people are so, again, people get so

00:45:24.920 uncomfortable with all of these things. And I think ultimately the problem is that people end up

00:45:31.020 suffering and problems don't actually get resolved because people are more worried about being

00:45:35.020 politically correct than they're worried about actually solving problems and helping people.

00:45:41.200 I remember I was, I, um, met a girl, she was a single mom and her daughter had sickle cell

00:45:58.120 anemia when she was born. And I remember just looking it up to learn more about it. And the

00:46:04.140 site that I was looking at, it might've been like the Mayo Clinic. I don't remember, but the fact that it

00:46:09.860 almost always affects African-American children was so buried down at the bottom that it really

00:46:17.960 made you think that, well, this could really just happen to anyone. And it really is because of

00:46:23.300 a fear of stigma. But as you said, at the beginning of our conversation, like that's not really loving

00:46:29.020 in the same way that enabling someone to make unhealthy decisions is not loving. So not telling

00:46:35.060 someone the truth about something that could have a specific impact on them. It's not loving. I also

00:46:40.200 think we have like a bastardization of the concept of love. We have forgotten like what it means to

00:46:45.800 actually seek someone's best interest. And instead just, we just think it means acceptance and tolerance

00:46:51.680 of all kinds of behaviors and choices, affirmation of all kinds of stated identities. I mean, there are

00:46:57.960 a million different ways that that is showing up and really damaging, damaging ways.

00:47:03.100 Well, I think in this era we live in, um, you know, have you read the book? Um, I haven't read

00:47:09.060 the whole thing, but I'm in the process of it. Carl Truman's book, Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.

00:47:13.360 Yes. And I had him on to talk about that. He's brilliant. Yeah.

00:47:16.100 Yeah. So he talks about, we're living in this age of psychological, psychological man. And so the

00:47:22.040 most important thing is really like someone's self-perception and, and identity, right? This

00:47:28.920 notion of self-identifying, that's a very new idea, right? That you just self-identify as what you

00:47:36.060 choose. And if that is the most important thing, then any questioning or challenge or attack on that

00:47:45.480 idea, people now conflate literally with violence, right? You've heard this rhetoric before.

00:47:51.200 They always use the terms harm, harm, safety, violence, attack. Yeah. Right. So if I-

00:47:58.740 You're pushing someone to commit suicide if you don't affirm. Yes. If you don't affirm and affirm,

00:48:03.380 again, this is, they, they invert the language, right? So they call a sex change surgery,

00:48:08.860 a gender affirming surgery. Right. It's the opposite, right? They call, if a boy, little boy thinks that

00:48:14.980 he's a girl and has some form of gender dysphoria, they call it conversion therapy to tell the boy

00:48:23.180 that he's a boy. Right. And affirm that he's a boy. The affirmation is to affirm that he's not what

00:48:28.660 he is. So they invert it all. Yeah. So the way they use the language is amazing. Even the term

00:48:34.480 misgendering. Yeah. Right. So if I call a male, he. That's misgendering. But that male wants to be

00:48:40.700 called she. Yeah. They call me the one misgendered. I'm like, no, you're misgendered. If I called him

00:48:44.940 she. Yeah. If I call a he a she, that is misgendering. Like I'm calling a male by female

00:48:51.760 associated pronouns. But they invert it all and they hijack the language and people don't. The

00:48:58.480 problem is the average person doesn't think about this at all. Yeah. Average person doesn't think

00:49:01.960 about this at all. So it's very easy to, in the language of politeness and niceness and being PC

00:49:07.760 and being compassionate. Yeah. To weaponize that against an entire population because the

00:49:13.820 activists are very, very dedicated. And these people know what they're doing when people are

00:49:17.120 playing with language and they're twisting it right now. You know, they're trying to redefine

00:49:20.260 recession right now. They know what they're doing. And most people don't. Most people are

00:49:25.440 just busy and they're just going about stuff and they don't think like, OK, why are you look

00:49:29.920 at the pronoun thing? Right. Some people are like, oh, like, why does that bother anyone? Like,

00:49:33.380 it's just, you know, it's just you. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't cost you anything. Exactly.

00:49:37.120 It's just it's just it's just polite. It's just compassionate. And it's like, no, hang on.

00:49:41.220 Why are you trying to hijack the language like this? Right. Like because if you can change the

00:49:46.440 language, George Orwell talked about this in 1984. If you can change and restrict and limit

00:49:51.260 the language, you can actually change the way people think. You can change the way people perceive

00:49:55.680 things. You can change the concept they're able to express or they're not simply by changing

00:50:00.880 the language. So whenever people are trying to force changes to the language, like language

00:50:05.220 evolves naturally over time. But when people are trying to trying to force changes to it,

00:50:11.120 there's always some type of there's always a type of motive there.

00:50:15.360 Yeah. Have you seen these videos that have been coming out there on YouTube, but people are now

00:50:20.120 posting them on Twitter from Boston Children's Hospital and I think a children's hospital in

00:50:26.020 Philadelphia, not only saying that they are performing, and I talked about this on this

00:50:30.900 show and on Instagram, gender affirming, as you said, that Orwellian term, hysterectomies

00:50:38.480 on minors, castrations, phalloplasties. I think that's how you pronounce it on girls. Yeah.

00:50:47.380 And then also, I just thought this was so interesting based on what you're talking about. One of the

00:50:51.280 doctors was saying, oh, actually kids know that they are transgender from the womb. And some of

00:50:58.040 the indications of that, if you have a boy that doesn't want to, that doesn't want to cut his hair

00:51:03.840 or tries to pee sitting down, or if they play with opposite gender toys. And I'm like, hang on,

00:51:11.300 you people simultaneously say that there's no such thing as a gendered toy, that there's no such thing

00:51:16.740 as a gendered haircut. There's no such thing as a gendered color or behavior that boys can do whatever

00:51:22.280 they want to do, girls can do whatever they want to, and that's just beautiful and fluid. And we

00:51:26.080 should just accept that. And you're simultaneously enforcing extremely rigid and strict gender

00:51:31.720 stereotypes by saying, okay, if your daughter plays with a bus, then really she's supposed to be a boy.

00:51:37.260 And I think once I realized that it was not even an attempt at medicine, but really a religion

00:51:43.960 and an ideology and a superstition, I realized, okay, well, like many superstitions, they contradict

00:51:50.420 themselves. They're not looking for consistency because it's not based in logic and truth. It's

00:51:54.880 based in feelings and feelings often contradict themselves. And yet, I mean, that actually is

00:52:00.500 leading to, it might be subjective, but it's leading to objective, physical harm, lifelong harm of

00:52:06.980 children. Did you see those videos? I have seen them. I have seen them. It's, it's, it's incredibly

00:52:13.360 disturbing. It's really, really disturbing. And, you know, it's funny. I feel like I'm, I like I'm

00:52:20.340 criticizing the West a lot, but it's deserved right here. I love the West. I love the USA, but we're

00:52:27.400 letting the crazies run the show. You're letting the, the most incoherent, most weird, most extreme,

00:52:35.260 radical people set the rules and the language and the policy for everybody else. And this isn't,

00:52:41.420 this is a huge error. Um, and I think people have gotten way far too uncomfortable with challenging

00:52:48.780 and dissenting against such people, right? We're living in this climate of fear because I can punish

00:52:55.800 you. They'll take away your kids. I, I, I, I get that. But the, the, the problem is that if it's not

00:53:01.380 confronted, this monster continues to grow. One of the things I hear the most when I, when I'm

00:53:06.120 traveling and I'm talking to people is, you know, how did, how did we get here? How did we get here?

00:53:10.240 It all seems, you know, in the past seven or eight years, like this is that. And it's like, man,

00:53:14.780 I talk a lot about courage and cowardice and people don't like that. People hate it when I even

00:53:20.780 insinuate that they could be being cowardly, but a lot of people are being far too cowardly.

00:53:26.180 Um, when I say that it doesn't mean I don't understand some of the both real and imaginary

00:53:32.560 concerns and potential consequences of addressing some of this stuff or questioning it or challenging

00:53:38.620 it. I understand that my point. And I say this especially because sometimes people go, Oh,

00:53:43.960 well, Zuby, you know, you're, you know, you, you don't, you don't have kids yet and you're

00:53:47.740 self-employed and you know, you've, you've done the right. So you're in this position where you can

00:53:52.000 talk about this stuff with fewer consequences. Um, number one, everyone has something to lose,

00:53:58.320 but number two, for people who are, for people who are parents, please think about the world you

00:54:06.280 want them to inherit. What society, what culture, whatever country and what America, what, what

00:54:13.240 world do you want them to grow up in? Do you want them to have the same liberties and freedoms

00:54:18.740 and rights, basic things, even freedom of speech that, that you had, um, or, or not? Do you want

00:54:25.240 them to grow up in this world where gender is totally abolished and we're just, we've just got

00:54:31.400 weird scientists running the show and you're not allowed to say this and you're not allowed to say

00:54:36.080 that. And it's very, you've, you've essentially created a new form of secular theocracy. Is that,

00:54:41.760 is that what you want them to grow up in? Because that is what the silence enables. So if people think

00:54:47.860 it's bad now, where do you think it's going to be in 2040? Where do you think it'll be in 2030,

00:54:51.460 in 2040 and 2050 when those kids grow up and become adults and we've allowed these people to butcher

00:54:57.840 them and render them infertile. And you're, this is, this is a generational issue. Yeah. This is a

00:55:03.980 generational issue. Right. And that's why, I mean, if that doesn't motivate people to some form of

00:55:10.960 action, I'm not saying people need, everyone needs to be an activist or everyone needs to start a

00:55:14.540 podcast or this or that, but on a, on a, on the action, on the scale you can, and the scale you

00:55:20.400 feel comfortable, you have to address this stuff. If your kids are going to school and they're coming

00:55:24.440 back and they're learning all this wacky stuff or whatever, you have to take action. You can't just

00:55:29.260 think it's, it's not going to self-correct. I think that's something people need to understand.

00:55:32.640 The pendulum doesn't swing back on its own. You've got to push it.

00:55:35.080 No, it does. It doesn't self-correct. And you can't outsource your courage to a handful of people

00:55:39.800 who are willing to talk about this stuff and take some action. You cannot outsource your courage

00:55:43.900 because it's not enough. Right. The people who are really pushing the city, it's a very tiny

00:55:48.380 percentage of the population, but they are dedicated. They are radical. They are really,

00:55:54.060 really pushing, right? Like what percent of the population is on those videos you talk about?

00:55:58.120 What percentage of the population is like, yeah, that's a tiny percent, tiny, tiny percent,

00:56:02.840 powerful, but they're very loud. They're very powerful. And they have the power to strike fear

00:56:06.860 in the hearts of other people. Another thing that should motivate people is please just look at

00:56:11.140 history, look at the past century of history and understand that the worst atrocities and

00:56:15.660 worst things that happened didn't happen because most people were evil. They happened because most

00:56:19.500 people were apathetic or passive or quietly complicit. Right. So there comes a time, there comes a point

00:56:26.820 where simply sticking your head in the sand and not doing anything, it's going to come to your doorstep.

00:56:32.900 It's going to come to you. It will affect you. Even if it hasn't yet, it will, it'll come to you.

00:56:36.480 It'll come to your kids. And by the time that happens, it, the fight is going to be harder,

00:56:43.060 right? The fight is going to be harder. There are some fights that are very, this is not a difficult

00:56:47.420 one. This is not even a partisan one because most sane liberals, all conservatives and most

00:56:54.120 sane liberals, sane libertarians, like people are not on board with this, especially because

00:56:58.320 the, this very, um, sacred line between adults and children is being violated. And that has

00:57:06.260 your opening Pandora's box with this one. Yeah. If you accept that children, 12 year olds, 10 year

00:57:12.660 olds, 11 year olds, they're three year olds. If you're accepting that they have the mental soundness

00:57:18.560 and maturity to consent to permanent life altering change, which could read a lot of implications,

00:57:25.420 right? You're, you're, you're letting a 12 year old decide whether or not they ever want

00:57:29.540 to have children in the future, right? And some of these things you're rendering, you're

00:57:32.640 sterilizing people, right? If, and if you, and you're opening a door, you're opening a very

00:57:38.600 obvious door to pedophilia. And people don't like to talk about this as well because the

00:57:41.880 whole argument against it is that children can not consent to such things.

00:57:46.340 No matter what they say, no matter what they say, they cannot consent because they do not

00:57:50.160 have the mental capacity to do it.

00:57:51.580 Exactly. So if you erode that argument, you are also simultaneously eroding an argument

00:57:58.080 that's keeping something else. It's very, very dangerous at bay. And people think, oh,

00:58:02.240 like, you know, I don't, so many people don't practice like second, third, fourth order thinking.

00:58:06.760 They just see like the immediate, right? They just see the immediate and they're like, oh,

00:58:10.380 well, this is okay. And so, but it's like, look, if you give up that, this is the next thing.

00:58:17.540 Yeah. This is the next thing. And it's not a fallacy. People are like, oh, slippery slope.

00:58:21.800 It's not a fallacy, right? Look at what we're talking about. Right. Look at what we're talking

00:58:26.000 about right now. This is the stuff people were warning about in the nineties or in the two

00:58:29.740 thousand conservative evangelicals. We were told that we were conspiracy theorists.

00:58:34.140 Like it all happens. Right. So, and again, it can happen very, very quickly. So for anyone who's still

00:58:40.080 just on the sidelines or is feeling that fear or what, like, I understand it. I'm not trying to be

00:58:44.540 unsympathetic, but I'm also tired of being sympathetic because what also happens is it

00:58:50.220 then falls on just a very small handful of people. Yeah. Right. There's a handful of people who are

00:58:55.140 talking and you're now, now they're out there feeling lonely. They're taking all the arrows.

00:59:00.360 They're taking all the metaphorical bullets for you for no thanks, by the way, in many cases. Yeah.

00:59:05.440 And you know, the warriors get exhausted. Yeah. Warriors get exhausted. Right. If the big fight

00:59:11.360 breaks out and you're hiding behind the sofa saying like, yeah, I'm cheering you on, like,

00:59:14.440 go for it. It's like, no, you come and fight with me, man. Like I'm doing all the fighting here.

00:59:18.560 Someone else has to come in. Just because we have a podcast doesn't mean that we're really,

00:59:21.980 we're the only ones on the front lines. No. I mean, and Republicans in office,

00:59:25.720 most of them aren't going to fight the fight either. Yeah. People have to, everyone needs to do,

00:59:30.880 needs to do their, their bit. And some people are going to do more than others and are going to be able

00:59:34.940 to, but you need to stand in it. You know, if people won't stand up for, man, you have to stand up for your kids.

00:59:41.360 Yeah. You have to stand up for your kids. And I'm not saying you have to do something that's

00:59:44.540 going to let, you know, get you immediately fired from your job or like you don't, there there's

00:59:48.820 levels, there's levels to this. And if you're intelligent about it and you communicate and

00:59:53.360 you voice your concerns in a good way, you know, most people are still reasonable. Yeah. And people

00:59:59.000 need to remember that. Right. Like some people are like, Oh, if I say this, I'm going to lose.

01:00:02.400 Like, I think it's like, like, I don't even believe that. I think what people,

01:00:08.560 what people tend to imagine in their heads is worse than the reality. Right. So, so many people

01:00:16.200 want to say, Oh, if I just like do this or I step out of line, it's like, I'm going to,

01:00:19.180 I'm going to lose my job, but this will happen. And I'm like, where are you working? Where are you

01:00:23.520 working that saying that you're opposed to, um, children being put on hormones or being chopped

01:00:30.660 out? Like, where are you working that that statement would get you fired?

01:00:33.620 Public schools, big corporations. I mean, it does happen, but I mean, a lot of the people who

01:00:39.340 listen to my podcast, especially the moms who listen to my podcast, they are the brave ones

01:00:43.420 that are going to their school board meetings that are willing to lose their jobs and things like

01:00:48.400 that. Um, and so there is a lot of courage. I would say my audience is very courageous,

01:00:54.220 but yeah, of course there are some people. I always say that you also have to choose the

01:00:58.800 hills that you're willing to die on. You can't die on every single hill and you have to count

01:01:02.760 the cost. You have to decide, is this worth whatever price I'm going to pay?

01:01:07.220 Guys, this is the one to die on. Yeah. This is the one to die on. Yeah. Right. There's no

01:01:11.100 more, if you, if you, you let this hill go, um, then you lose reality. I mean, this is the

01:01:18.000 most fundamental part of human existence. And you lose your children. Yeah. In very, in a lot

01:01:22.460 of ways. Okay. We got to take a sharp turn because I've got to wrap this up as much as I don't want

01:01:39.740 to, I could talk to you for at least two more hours, but I did want to end on a, like a, a more

01:01:45.820 fun note. We haven't even talked to anything about music. You are a musician, you're a rapper. And I was

01:01:50.920 thinking about this on the way in this morning. What is one album or maybe an artist or maybe a

01:01:56.440 song that when you listen to it, you don't listen to it that often, but when you listen to it,

01:02:01.100 it takes you back. Like it's nostalgic for you. Or maybe like you listen to it at a formative time

01:02:07.760 in your life. I have the one in my head, but I want to hear what it is for you. For me off the top

01:02:12.760 of my head, I'd say, um, the crossroads by bone thugs and harmony. Okay. That's a song. I'm

01:02:18.760 familiar. Yeah. It was a song. It was a big hit in the, in the nineties. Um, and it used to be my

01:02:25.780 favorite. It was my favorite song for a long time. And why, why was like, what was happening in your

01:02:31.940 life? Do you remember? That's a good question. You know, I mean, I have four older siblings and they

01:02:36.340 used to, they, I wasn't really into music as a kid, strangely enough. And I ended up becoming a

01:02:41.780 professional musician, but, um, they used to listen to a lot of artists, including, including

01:02:46.240 this group, bone thugs and harmony. They're, they're still kind of active, but not so much. And

01:02:50.320 this, it's a song, it's really a song about the afterlife. Um, the song is called, it's called the

01:02:56.180 crossroads and it's about like questioning what happens when we die and kind of like lamenting on

01:03:02.100 some of their friends they've lost and so on. And I just think it's a, it's a, it's a beautiful

01:03:06.540 song. And I don't know. I just remember that being the first song that I really, really,

01:03:13.820 really liked. I remember, um, this is pre man, pre internet days. I remember getting like a copy

01:03:18.880 of the, of the lyrics and we were, I actually remember this cause it used to come in like

01:03:24.200 the front of your CDs and you can take it out and it would have all those songs on there.

01:03:28.260 My parents where it would read all of the lyrics of the songs to make sure that they were

01:03:32.700 appropriate. Um, you know what, with my latest album, I did actually do a lyric book.

01:03:38.380 That's awesome. Yeah. Because I think I don't like it when people don't know my lyrics or

01:03:43.700 when people miss them. I mean, you put so much work in them. Of course. And sometimes I'll

01:03:47.620 say something and I'm like, nobody got that, did they? And I'm like, all right, let me,

01:03:50.580 let me put it here. Um, and yeah, I remember with this song cause one of my, I think one

01:03:55.240 of my brother's friends tried to, uh, transcribe the lyrics and they got a lot of stuff wrong,

01:04:03.240 but I always remember. So when I listened to the song, it's still funny because I remember

01:04:07.820 like the incorrect, the incorrect lyrics, which they were just kind of going off what it sounded

01:04:15.460 like, but some of the stuff just didn't make sense. So even when I listened to the song

01:04:19.520 now, I still kind of hear the wrong lyrics. Um, but yeah, that's the one that stands out

01:04:24.200 to me. I love it. I'll have to listen to it. Okay. Mine is so basic. I was just talking

01:04:29.080 to my producer about this and she is, she told me she is a certified Swifty, uh, Taylor Swift

01:04:34.300 fan. I would not call myself that, but I was like a song came on the radio and I don't even

01:04:40.260 typically listen to the radio, but on the way in. And I realized that even though I don't

01:04:45.520 consider myself like a huge Taylor Swift fan, the songs from her fearless album, uh, I think

01:04:52.040 it came out when I was in 10th grade and I got my driver's license. So it was like the

01:04:55.720 first CD that I would play in my car and man, that takes me back. Taylor Swift, all of her

01:05:00.960 albums have come out at very like formative times in my life. I also gave the commencement

01:05:06.040 speech at my college graduation and I quoted one of her songs in it. Wow. I'm very, very

01:05:11.880 basic. So not as profound as yours, but very nostalgic for me. Is it a particular song or the

01:05:17.920 whole album? Oh, probably the fearless song. Okay. Probably. Yeah. But the entire album,

01:05:26.720 you know, there are just some of those like CDs. I mean, that was 2008 or something like

01:05:31.680 that. So formative, simpler times. Yeah. Much simpler, man. Like you said at the beginning,

01:05:37.500 something happened 2010 to 2015. Things got weird and we haven't gone back, but hopefully we'll

01:05:43.920 push that pendulum back. Um, thank you so much. Okay. Where can people find you, support

01:05:49.560 you, your podcast, your music, your book, all that good stuff? Yeah, sure. So my music

01:05:54.220 and podcast are available on iTunes, Spotify, all the usual places. Just search my name,

01:06:00.080 Zuby. My podcast is called Real Talk with Zuby. That's Zuby spelled Z-U-B-Y. If you want

01:06:05.660 to check out any of my CDs, merchandise, my books, go to teamzuby.com, T-E-A-M-Z-U-B-Y.com. On all

01:06:15.520 social media, I'm at Zuby Music, Z-U-B-Y Music. And for the children's book, go to bravebooks.com and

01:06:23.500 you can subscribe there and join their book of the month club, or you can go to candycalamity.com

01:06:28.460 and get the candy calamity. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it, Ali. Thank you.

01:06:34.900 All right. Final announcement. And that is that Blaze TV is selling awesome socks at an awesome

01:06:42.620 discount. These are US made socks. They've got Ron DeSantis socks. They've got MAGA socks. They've

01:06:49.040 also got socks making fun of the World Economic Forum, because of course, that's something that

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01:07:13.920 America, American jobs, and American values. Go to blazesocks.com.

01:07:23.660 And finally, I'll see you again.

01:07:29.420 Take care.

01:07:29.660 Give me a quick 15 ofit.

01:07:36.040 Bye.

01:07:37.000 Bye for now.

01:07:38.180 Bye k

01:07:41.360 Bye.

01:07:42.200 Bye.

01:07:43.480 Bye.

01:07:44.460 Bye.

01:07:48.840 Bye.

01:07:51.840 Bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 15, 2022

Ep 660 ｜ Self-Control in an Age of Self-Indulgence ｜ Guest： Zuby

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