The Charlie Kirk Show - A 12 Step Guide to Breaking America’s Addiction to Fear with Mark McDonald, M.D.

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, Dr. Mark McDonald, who is the author of Freedom from Fear, joins us.

00:00:04.000 It's a terrific conversation.

00:00:05.000 The 12 Steps to Heal Yourself from the Addiction of Fear.

00:00:08.000 Very informative and important conversation.

00:00:11.000 You can email me directly, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:14.000 That is freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:17.000 Support the Charlie Kirk show at charliekirk.com/slash support and get involved at Turning Point USA today at tpusa.com.

00:00:25.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:28.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:31.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:32.000 Here we go.

00:00:33.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:35.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:37.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:41.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:44.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:45.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:46.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:00:48.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:00:54.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:03.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:06.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.

00:01:15.000 There's a phenomenal book out, and I mean to read it.

00:01:18.000 I've just had a very busy last week and a half.

00:01:20.000 Freedom from Fear for one of my favorite guests we have on this program.

00:01:23.000 He's very thoughtful and he gets it.

00:01:26.000 It's Dr. Mark McDonald, a 12-step guide to personal and national recovery.

00:01:34.000 I don't think 12 is a number of mistakes.

00:01:37.000 It kind of mirrors Alcoholics Anonymous, and I plan to ask him about it.

00:01:41.000 Dr. McDonald joins us now.

00:01:43.000 Welcome back to the program.

00:01:45.000 Thank you.

00:01:45.000 It's so great to be back.

00:01:46.000 And yes, you are correct.

00:01:47.000 I was inspired by and I did model the book after the 12-step program of AA.

00:01:52.000 And also in a more nuanced and subtle way, but I think one that would appeal to your listeners because they tend to follow him a lot, is Jordan B. Peterson's 12 Rules for Life.

00:02:04.000 Yeah, that number 12 is very powerful.

00:02:06.000 It's enough to get your point across, but not too comprehensive where people kind of lose focus.

00:02:11.000 Tell us about your book, Dr. McDonald.

00:02:13.000 Why did you write it?

00:02:14.000 And we'll go from there.

00:02:16.000 So the first book that I wrote in November of last year, which was United States of Fear, was a synopsis of the antecedents that led us into the pandemic of fear, into mass delusional psychosis, so that people would understand how we got here.

00:02:30.000 Because if we don't know how we got here, just like you don't know how you got sick, then you can't diagnose the problem.

00:02:35.000 You can't move forward.

00:02:35.000 You can't cure the disease.

00:02:37.000 This book, Freedom from Fear, is coming at it from a different angle.

00:02:41.000 It's okay, here we are.

00:02:43.000 What do we do about it?

00:02:44.000 Where do we go?

00:02:45.000 And more importantly, how do we get there?

00:02:48.000 What's the path?

00:02:49.000 I was speaking multiple times a week in front of live audiences and off of my computer through Zoom, all across the country in the last year, year and a half.

00:02:57.000 And the same question kept coming up.

00:02:59.000 But Dr. McDonald, I understand that we're afraid.

00:03:02.000 I understand why we're afraid.

00:03:04.000 I just don't know how we get past this.

00:03:06.000 What do I do?

00:03:07.000 What do I do for my son, my daughter?

00:03:09.000 What do I do for my family, my neighbors to get them out of this fear pandemic?

00:03:14.000 Well, I wrote a book about it and I tried to make it simple, direct, didactic, and illustrative so that every individual person, or if he knows somebody who's afraid, can overcome his or her fear.

00:03:26.000 And I also took it at a different, I'd say, different perspective than the first book, which was sort of focused on the national.

00:03:32.000 And I believe now, after being in this battle for a couple of years, that the answer, the solution is not top-down.

00:03:37.000 It's not let's reform Washington. 0.80

00:03:39.000 It's let's reform our own garden, our own backyard. 0.98

00:03:42.000 Just like Peterson said, you've got to start by making your own bed, cleaning your own house.

00:03:46.000 I firmly believe now as a psychiatrist and as a social observer of cultural trends in the country that we need as individuals to acknowledge and face our fears, to overcome them, and then from there to spread upwards and transform the nation, not top down, bottom up.

00:04:04.000 You open the book with a story about a girl that's 10 or 12 years old with a mask, and you ask her, why is she wearing the mask?

00:04:10.000 And she can't answer the question.

00:04:12.000 And you talk about how we are addicted to fear.

00:04:14.000 That's a very interesting way to put it because I don't think most people would acknowledge that.

00:04:20.000 They would say, no, no, no, I'm not addicted to fear.

00:04:22.000 I just am afraid of the right things.

00:04:24.000 But the argument that you're making, the contention is that there is a relationship between fear itself and us, as if we keep on going back to it, even though we know it is destructive.

00:04:37.000 Can you explain a little bit more about the addictive qualities?

00:04:41.000 Fear is almost alluring.

00:04:44.000 It's hard to escape the grasp of fear.

00:04:47.000 Why is that?

00:04:48.000 The reason why I chose consciously to use addiction as a metaphor and an analogy for the fear pandemic is: one, I believe it's accurate.

00:04:58.000 I do believe that people have become actually taken by fear, just like they're taken by alcohol, by gambling, by pornography, all problems that are facing our society.

00:05:08.000 Also, because I wanted to reduce the stigma.

00:05:11.000 I wanted people to not have to say, no, I'm not afraid.

00:05:14.000 I'm just doing this to stay safe. 0.95

00:05:16.000 No, you're afraid, just like you drink, just like you gamble, just like you use porn.

00:05:20.000 And AA and the 12-step program, they are not stigmatizing.

00:05:23.000 Most people in the United States know someone or they themselves have been in a 12-step program, and they understand that it's human.

00:05:29.000 It's a human foible to become addicted.

00:05:32.000 So stigma is a very important reason why I wrote the book from this framework.

00:05:36.000 But to focus more on your question specifically, why addiction?

00:05:40.000 Why is it that people derive some sense of pleasure, gratification from being addicted?

00:05:43.000 It's very simple, actually.

00:05:45.000 Addiction is a learn behavior, a learn process, often unconscious, that allows you to avoid facing a painful problem in the moment.

00:05:55.000 It's a deferral.

00:05:57.000 This is why for young people, drug addiction is so powerful and so damaging because it freezes their development.

00:06:04.000 It creates a developmental arrest.

00:06:06.000 It's not a moral issue.

00:06:08.000 It's an arrest issue because you cannot face life's problems and grow up and be mature if you are addicted.

00:06:14.000 Because every time you take a hit of that drug, or every time you express your fear by avoiding a challenge, avoiding a conversation that might be difficult, avoiding firing someone from your office, avoiding taking that trip that you know is really important for your family because you are afraid, you are deferring a more important problem that you are not facing.

00:06:37.000 You are not expressing courage.

00:06:39.000 And so addiction is kind of a cop-out really to facing life.

00:06:45.000 And when it becomes virtuous, when it becomes the altar at which we start to pray, when we start to worship fear addiction as opposed to courage, now we've really lost our way.

00:06:58.000 And we're teaching the wrong thing.

00:07:00.000 We're giving the wrong message to our children to develop an addiction into our youth generation, which is then going to grow up believing that being afraid is not bad.

00:07:10.000 It's not amoral.

00:07:11.000 It's not destructive.

00:07:12.000 It's completely natural.

00:07:14.000 And I want that message to be clear.

00:07:16.000 It is not healthy.

00:07:17.000 It is not natural.

00:07:17.000 Addiction is not good.

00:07:18.000 It is not positive.

00:07:20.000 It needs to be fought.

00:07:21.000 It needs to be fought with every breath that we have.

00:07:25.000 So talk about step one.

00:07:26.000 You say, face the mirror, admit that you are an addict.

00:07:29.000 Why is that so hard for people?

00:07:32.000 Well, that's the most difficult step because it means being honest.

00:07:36.000 It means being real.

00:07:37.000 It means accepting what is true.

00:07:40.000 And the hardest part when I work with patients is for patients to come in and actually acknowledge and agree that we're both going to start with a position of reality.

00:07:49.000 I had a woman come into my office a few months ago who was wearing a face shield, two masks, gloves, hand sanitizer everywhere. 1.00

00:07:56.000 And she said to me, shockingly, I know that I'm addicted.

00:07:59.000 I know that I'm afraid.

00:08:01.000 It doesn't help me.

00:08:02.000 It hurts me, but I just don't know how to get through it.

00:08:05.000 And I said to her, thank goodness you're the perfect patient because you've already completed step one.

00:08:10.000 You've acknowledged that you're afraid.

00:08:12.000 Most people have not.

00:08:15.000 And this is why I tell people when I go and talk and they say, what do I do with a friend?

00:08:18.000 What do I do with a family member who just won't listen to anything I have to say?

00:08:22.000 They argue with me constantly.

00:08:24.000 They call me a white supremacist Trump supporter on topics that have nothing to do with politics.

00:08:28.000 My answer is this.

00:08:30.000 If they haven't acknowledged that they're afraid, there's no point in talking to them. 0.99

00:08:34.000 If you have an alcoholic who hasn't acknowledged that he's a drunk, if he hasn't acknowledged that the reason why his wife left him is not because she's an idiot, but because he's actually lying sloshed every night and he lost his job and he beats her when he gets drunk. 0.83

00:08:48.000 If he hasn't acknowledged that is the problem, there's no point in taking him to AA. 0.98

00:08:52.000 No point.

00:08:53.000 He has to acknowledge that he has a problem first.

00:08:55.000 And that is so difficult because it means you then have to face the problem and face reality.

00:08:59.000 And if there's anything that we haven't done in the last two and a half years, Charlie, as Americans, it's faced reality.

00:09:06.000 I mean, and the question is, what even is reality?

00:09:08.000 And that, well, for us, it's rather evident, right?

00:09:10.000 You have your five senses, you have reason, but there is this subjective idea pathogen, a mind virus that has infected so many.

00:09:21.000 And how much of this is the subjectivist kind of curse over our land that plays into this where people just reject biological reality and every other kind of reality in front of us?

00:09:32.000 It is, in my view, a direct consequence of the bombardment, the infestation day in and day out, 24-7, of propaganda and lies coming from media through devices.

00:09:44.000 This is where it's coming from.

00:09:46.000 And this is why we have to fight back against that.

00:09:49.000 Because if we don't get a hold of the dealer of this drug, which I call the media, that is our drug dealer, then we will forever live in this matrix of subjective reality and we will not be forced to confront the actual physical tangible world, which is out there, not through our computers and our Zoom screen.

00:10:07.000 Are you like every one of us that thinks our country has gone nuts, whether it's Russia Gate market crashes or selling oil to China or this insane inflation?

00:10:15.000 Well, right now, you need a financial mind who understands your concerns, but the same time as a Christian worldview of money.

00:10:22.000 That's why you should talk to my friends at PAX Financial Group.

00:10:25.000 Look, I've given my money to PAX Financial to manage.

00:10:27.000 If it's good enough for me, I think it's good for you.

00:10:30.000 Like all of us, they have concerns, but they also have hope.

00:10:33.000 In this market, you must have a financial person who shares your hope and at the same time can help you with biblical responsible investing, B-R-I, biblical, responsible investing.

00:10:43.000 That's why I want you to text the word Charlie to 74868.

00:10:48.000 That is Charlie to 74868 to connect with my friends at the PAX Financial Group.

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00:10:55.000 So take out your phone.

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00:11:07.000 Step two, don't be a sheep, reject the collective.

00:11:11.000 Dr. McDonald's, explain.

00:11:13.000 One of the biggest problems that I saw when I was in Bosnia and Macedonia and Kosovo for the last six weeks, in distinction with what's happening in the U.S., the problems that I didn't see, I should say, is that there were no sheep there.

00:11:29.000 There was no collective.

00:11:32.000 I visited a cafe in Tuzla, which is in northeast Bosnia called Sloboda.

00:11:39.000 And sloboda means freedom in Bosnian.

00:11:42.000 That's the name of their soccer team, actually.

00:11:44.000 And the cafe has been around for 25 years.

00:11:46.000 I asked people what they meant by that, and they meant we don't believe or trust in the groupthink.

00:11:53.000 We disobeyed a curfew when we were going out to the clubs, age 18, 20, 22 years old, after a couple of nights.

00:12:00.000 And we tore the tickets up when the police arrested us.

00:12:02.000 And then the tickets just disappeared, and the police never bothered to follow through after a couple of weeks.

00:12:06.000 And they shut down the curfew.

00:12:08.000 We didn't go out and wear masks.

00:12:09.000 We didn't go out and get shots because we didn't believe that what we were being told by our government was accurate and truthful and that they had our best interests at heart.

00:12:18.000 And with good reason, because the government has screwed them in the last 40 years.

00:12:22.000 Here in the United States, it's the opposite.

00:12:25.000 Rather than what they believe in, which is disobedience, non-compliance, and freedom, sloboda, we believe in obedience, compliance, following the collective order.

00:12:39.000 We don't believe in freedom anymore.

00:12:40.000 We have rejected freedom as a virtue.

00:12:42.000 Compliance has now become freedom.

00:12:45.000 It's flipped.

00:12:46.000 And this is a big, big problem, especially in the context of being afraid.

00:12:51.000 If you are both fearful and you are compliant, then you are committing suicide as an individual and as a nation.

00:12:58.000 So one of the biggest and most important steps after accepting that you're addicted to fear, in my view, in bringing back something as a sense of health, is to start challenging and rejecting the collective so-called wisdom or collective thinking, which is what has over the last two and a half years brought us to this state of near financial, political, social, and urban collapse in this country.

00:13:21.000 It's so interesting.

00:13:23.000 I mean, with Bosnia being more freedom-loving than America, you'd think that in their kind of muscle memory in their past would be to kind of bend the knee to totalitarianism, living under vast communist governments for quite some time, kind of in the Soviet bloc and under Tito.

00:13:40.000 It's just so interesting that they would actually be more kind of of the spirit of 1776 than us Americans.

00:13:47.000 Doctor, why do you think that Eastern Europe actually has a flavor for freedom more than America, which is always thought of as kind of the land of the free?

00:13:55.000 Well, one of the answers, there's probably many answers to that question, is that when I asked people in Kosovo and in Sarajevo and in Skopje, the capitals of these three republics, where do you think you get this idea in your culture, especially young people?

00:14:10.000 I asked them, where does this come from?

00:14:13.000 And most of them said the same thing.

00:14:15.000 They said, we were inspired by America.

00:14:18.000 So it wasn't just that they, as many people say, they knew oppression.

00:14:22.000 They knew community.

00:14:23.000 Absolutely true, especially the older generation, 45, 55, 65-year-old people.

00:14:27.000 But why among the youth?

00:14:28.000 Because the youth were the most passionately pro-freedom, pro-democracy I've ever seen in the world.

00:14:32.000 It's not because they grew up under freedom or they pushed back against the dictates of communism.

00:14:39.000 No, they were inspired by the West.

00:14:41.000 They were inspired by America.

00:14:42.000 They were inspired by what the U.S. used to represent, which was freedom and democracy.

00:14:47.000 And they still believe that that's what the U.S. represents because they have not traveled to the U.S. because they can't get visas, because they're not going to cross the border illegally, because they believe in the rule of law.

00:14:57.000 So they still live in the America of 20 or 30 years ago, not the America that we live in today, Charlie.

00:15:03.000 That's the reason.

00:15:05.000 It's incredible that they look at America as a beacon of freedom.

00:15:09.000 And we don't look at ourselves as a beacon of freedom anymore, where Eastern Europe actually embraces our values better than we embrace our own values.

00:15:18.000 It's just rather remarkable.

00:15:19.000 There is a very promising movement happening in Eastern Europe, not just in Bosnia, as you articulated, but Poland and many other Hungary as well.

00:15:30.000 Look, rents are going way too high.

00:15:31.000 The rent is too high.

00:15:33.000 If you're renting or a friend or family member, that is, right now is the time to make the move to homeownership.

00:15:38.000 Good buddies, Andrew Del Rey and Todd of Akian at Sierra Pacific Mortgage have helped so many people to make that leap from renting owning.

00:15:44.000 I know what you're saying, oh, Charlie, rates are too high.

00:15:46.000 Listen, you could always refinance.

00:15:48.000 The problem is, though, why are you giving all of your money to rent when you could be building equity with lots of programs that offer first-time buyers assistance with little to no down payment needed?

00:15:59.000 I encourage you to visit andrewandtodd.com right now.

00:16:02.000 They're beautiful people.

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00:16:12.000 And by the way, I dealt with the banks before them.

00:16:14.000 I mean, never again.

00:16:16.000 The banks, the worst.

00:16:18.000 Andrew and Todd made the whole process seamless.

00:16:21.000 They're helping you create a plan to help you reach your goals, whether it's for today or a year from now.

00:16:26.000 With today's still historically low interest rates, it's easier than you think to become a homeowner.

00:16:30.000 I've relied on them, and producer Andrew has as well.

00:16:33.000 I highly recommend you take action right now.

00:16:36.000 I use them and you should too.

00:16:37.000 I know them personally.

00:16:38.000 They're patriots.

00:16:38.000 They're Christians.

00:16:39.000 Unlike these big woke, godless banks.

00:16:42.000 Why would you do your loans with banks who hate you?

00:16:45.000 And if you know someone who's still paying rent, tell them about Andrew and Todd.

00:16:47.000 Again, you might say, Charlie, now's the worst time to buy.

00:16:50.000 That's not true.

00:16:51.000 Okay, property values are going to go up.

00:16:53.000 And if you're renting, you're getting poorer.

00:16:56.000 So stop paying rent.

00:16:57.000 Start putting your hard-earned money into a home.

00:16:59.000 Again, there are some packages you might be available that might be available for you or no down payment.

00:17:03.000 Go to andrewandodd.com.

00:17:05.000 That is andrewandodd.com.

00:17:06.000 Tell them Charlie Kirk sent you.

00:17:08.000 They're wonderful people, enthusiastic.

00:17:10.000 They send me scripture.

00:17:11.000 They love the Lord.

00:17:13.000 They love the country.

00:17:14.000 Stop renting.

00:17:15.000 Start buying.

00:17:16.000 They're wonderful people.

00:17:17.000 AndrewandTodd.com.

00:17:22.000 Let's go to step three.

00:17:23.000 Let's try to blitz through these.

00:17:24.000 Live in the real world.

00:17:26.000 Choose reality over fantasy.

00:17:27.000 Dr. McDonald, I hear all the time on college campuses: I have my reality and my truth, and you have your reality and your truth.

00:17:33.000 There is no such thing as objective truth or absolute reality.

00:17:36.000 Your response, Dr. McDonald.

00:17:38.000 Utter nonsense.

00:17:40.000 This is why fear is such an important concept.

00:17:43.000 Still today.

00:17:44.000 What are they telling young parents with small children who decide that they want to change their pronouns and transition over to another gender?

00:17:53.000 What are the therapists and doctors saying to them?

00:17:56.000 They're saying, if you don't accept this transition, if you don't support this child's gender journey, your child will die of suicide.

00:18:04.000 And that becomes the parents' reality.

00:18:07.000 But it's not real.

00:18:08.000 It's a fantasy.

00:18:09.000 It's a lie.

00:18:09.000 It's absolutely false.

00:18:11.000 And that is actually allowing for the injury, abuse, and death of children.

00:18:16.000 This is why this is so critical.

00:18:18.000 This is not a theoretical concept.

00:18:19.000 This is happening right now.

00:18:21.000 People are not living in reality.

00:18:23.000 And if you can live in reality, you will solve about 80% of your problems and those of your family.

00:18:30.000 I totally agree with that.

00:18:31.000 And so, you know, whenever I come across a postmodernist or a post-structuralist, they say there's no such thing as absolute truth.

00:18:37.000 You can just ask them a couple questions.

00:18:38.000 Say, okay, if you have a human being that doesn't eat for 90 days, what happens?

00:18:45.000 And they'd say, well, a person will die.

00:18:46.000 Well, that's a claim of reality.

00:18:48.000 You're saying that something will happen because of something.

00:18:51.000 What happens if someone is left alone on an island?

00:18:53.000 Can that person procreate by themselves?

00:18:56.000 No.

00:18:56.000 See, now we're starting to talk about certain real, and I know this sounds insane for our audience.

00:19:00.000 Like, what are you talking about? 0.99

00:19:01.000 They teach this garbage on college campuses. 1.00

00:19:03.000 North is North. 1.00

00:19:05.000 No matter what.

00:19:06.000 And when someone said the other day, I said, Charlie, why does the transgender debate matter so much to you?

00:19:10.000 I said, what if everybody had their own definition of north?

00:19:14.000 I believe North is this way, and I believe North is that way.

00:19:18.000 You'd have a hard time orienting yourself and organizing society so you could actually live somewhere happy and enjoyable.

00:19:23.000 Okay, number four, a very interesting one.

00:19:26.000 Step four, reject narcissism.

00:19:28.000 Your fear doesn't matter to society.

00:19:31.000 What do you mean by that?

00:19:32.000 I mean that just because you think that you're a boy and you're a girl, or just because you think you're a girl and you're a boy, that the rest of the world should not honor that and should not determine that you are now the sun around which everyone else orbits.

00:19:48.000 This is a correct consequence of what we just said two minutes ago.

00:19:52.000 This idea of rejecting narcissism is so central, so profound in our society today that I cannot overstate it.

00:20:01.000 Babies are born narcissistic and they are born narcissistic because if they are not narcissistic, they will collapse from despair at the reality that they are so small and so insignificant outside of the mind of their parents.

00:20:15.000 And as they get older, they accept that they're not the center of the universe, that just because they're wet or they're crying, that the world does not come to their beckoning and call and fix their problems as they get older, that they have a role to play in the relationship between themselves and other people.

00:20:31.000 That's what it's called to be social and a social creature.

00:20:35.000 But we have a whole generation of adult Americans right now that don't accept that.

00:20:39.000 They believe that what I feel is reality.

00:20:43.000 And so that's why those two steps are so intricately linked together.

00:20:48.000 They follow one from another.

00:20:49.000 Those who are inherently narcissistic are also deniers of reality because they centralize themselves as the most important person and the most important true north in the entire world.

00:21:00.000 That has to be rejected.

00:21:02.000 Humility has to come back.

00:21:03.000 There has to be an injection of humility in our population because without it, we will continue down this insane, subjective tower of babble path for which there is no end.

00:21:14.000 And at the end, there will be no distinctions because everyone will have their own definition of language and their own definition of sex and their own definition of north.

00:21:21.000 And that is utter chaos.

00:21:22.000 A society cannot function on that.

00:21:25.000 And I just love your idea of rejecting narcissism.

00:21:28.000 I mean, when some people say, you know, some people are like, you know, I really feel anxious and depressed.

00:21:32.000 And obviously you're the expert on this.

00:21:34.000 At times, not always, I say, you're probably thinking about yourself a little bit too much.

00:21:38.000 Probably think about giving or serving.

00:21:40.000 I mean, just always thinking inwardly.

00:21:42.000 It will drive you insane, actually, because you're not supposed to, you shouldn't always feel 100% good all the time.

00:21:48.000 But it's what are you doing?

00:21:49.000 Are you serving?

00:21:50.000 Are you creating?

00:21:51.000 Are you investing in yourself?

00:21:53.000 Are you flourishing?

00:21:53.000 These are more important questions.

00:21:55.000 Okay, cut off the dealer.

00:21:56.000 Eliminate media fear junkies.

00:21:58.000 I would imagine you mean CNN and all of the kind of fear artists out there.

00:22:03.000 Explain.

00:22:04.000 This is also a very important distinction between the U.S. and the Balkans.

00:22:08.000 There is no fear in the Balkans and largely, actually, to be honest, in most of Europe now, not because I think Western Europe is the thriving democratic citadel of liberty in the world, far from it.

00:22:21.000 But there's one distinction.

00:22:23.000 Most of the media in Europe is not censored and it's mostly not propaganda.

00:22:28.000 It is here in the U.S.

00:22:30.000 Now, we have extremes.

00:22:32.000 We have outliers.

00:22:33.000 We have AM Radio.

00:22:34.000 We have Charlie Kirk show.

00:22:36.000 We have Dennis Prager.

00:22:37.000 We have people who are really speaking truth.

00:22:39.000 They don't really have that kind of outlier media in Europe, but they also don't have the massive, overwhelming power of two or three media titans that are censoring all of the voices.

00:22:51.000 And this is a really important distinction.

00:22:54.000 That's why in the U.S., you have a phone in your pocket and you just get pop-ups all day long.

00:23:00.000 Yahoo News says this.

00:23:01.000 Apple News says that.

00:23:03.000 And especially young people, that's where they get most of their information.

00:23:06.000 You know where young people get their information in Sarajevo?

00:23:08.000 They get it from the local bar, coffee shop, their friends in the park.

00:23:12.000 They read newspapers.

00:23:13.000 That's a huge difference.

00:23:15.000 So if you're an alcoholic and you walk home from work every day and you pass by a bar and you say, I'm not going to drink anymore, how many nights a week are you going to wind up in that bar drunk?

00:23:24.000 You need to void the bar, walk through the park.

00:23:28.000 That's why we need to avoid the media.

00:23:30.000 I tell parents, do not give your son or child, daughter, a cell phone.

00:23:33.000 No smartphones.

00:23:35.000 You need to cut off the deal.

00:23:36.000 You need to avoid going past that junkie every day that's giving you all of those drugs.

00:23:41.000 Because if you can do that, then you create space for reality and truth and actual real truthful media sources.

00:23:47.000 You can't do that when all you hear all day long is lies and propaganda from your device.

00:23:53.000 So speaking of lies and propaganda, there is a woman by the name of Dr. Liana Wen.

00:23:58.000 I think she used to run Planned Parenthood. 1.00

00:23:59.000 I could be mistaken.

00:24:00.000 I might be mistaken or somebody else, but she definitely, she's on CNN.

00:24:03.000 She was a huge proponent of, yeah, of masking and staying at home and having children completely and totally clothed at all times. 0.99

00:24:13.000 And she didn't go as far to say this.

00:24:15.000 There was somebody else who said it on CNN where it's like, you might have to wear masks in your home.

00:24:20.000 It might have been her, but it was definitely somebody on CNN.

00:24:22.000 But now she's coming out and she's changed her tone a little bit.

00:24:25.000 I want your reaction to this, Dr. McDonald Play Cut 24.

00:24:28.000 Travel and having the right to travel interstate.

00:24:31.000 It's not a constitutional right as far as I know to board a plane.

00:24:37.000 And so saying that, if you want to stay unvaccinated, that's your choice.

00:24:41.000 But if you want to travel, you better go get that vaccine.

00:24:44.000 So this is the, that's an older clip.

00:24:46.000 She has now a new clip where she comes out where she says that masking stunted her toddler's language development and taught her an important lesson about trade-offs.

00:24:56.000 She said, I accept the risk.

00:24:59.000 And she now says that her daughter or her toddler has stunted language development.

00:25:04.000 Dr. McDonald, your reaction.

00:25:06.000 I'm actually shocked to hear that.

00:25:08.000 And I have not heard that recent clip.

00:25:10.000 I did listen many times to the previous one that you just raised.

00:25:13.000 Interestingly, Dr. Liana Wen was also prominently featured at a awards ceremony for the Pfizer Corporation, where she was actually photographed with one of their boards of directors and their C-level people because she had been paid to actually market and advertise for them.

00:25:31.000 So that already discredited her in my eyes.

00:25:33.000 That came out about a year ago.

00:25:35.000 This woman is actually literally a shill. 1.00

00:25:37.000 Why she has now come to this conclusion, I'm assuming it's sincere, I don't know, is a very powerful and I think quite interesting development because in the last year, we have now seen a 300% increase in referrals for speech and language disorders.

00:25:58.000 And in the zero to three population, there's a large percentage of American children who simply don't speak.

00:26:04.000 They have been at home with their parents wearing masks for the last two or three years since their birth, and their parents know them so well that they don't even need to talk to them.

00:26:13.000 There's a unspoken language between the child and the parent that just consists of perhaps pointing with a finger.

00:26:19.000 Now, that works as long as you stay at home indoors with your parent for the rest of your life.

00:26:24.000 But what happens if you want to leave the home?

00:26:26.000 What happens if you want to go to school, a grocery store?

00:26:28.000 What happens if you want to travel?

00:26:29.000 What happens if you want to play with friends who use words in their mouth to communicate?

00:26:33.000 And all you're doing is pointing and grunting.

00:26:35.000 Well, now you are completely ostracized from society.

00:26:40.000 You are now depressed.

00:26:42.000 You are now anxious.

00:26:44.000 You are now perhaps heading down the path of mental illness and suicidal ideation.

00:26:48.000 God knows what autism.

00:26:50.000 This consequence, which is sad but profoundly important to our children, which are, of course, our literal future, I have said for the last two years may be the only opportunity we have for a wake-up call to those who have been persuaded that the only way to deal with this pandemic, this viral pandemic, is to sit at home and be afraid and suffocate our children.

00:27:16.000 Now, they are the losers in this, obviously, the children.

00:27:19.000 But I had hoped for a long time, and maybe this is a sign of something changing, that the misguided women, and it is largely speaking women, that are pushing this narrative. 0.77

00:27:28.000 It's not men. 0.91

00:27:29.000 It's mostly women because they're hysterical. 1.00

00:27:32.000 Because in the absence of masculinity and male courage and male containment, women have lost it, especially doctors and therapists who are now pushing all these transgender surgeries. 0.96

00:27:41.000 It's all driven by women and teachers that are all women too.

00:27:45.000 If these women, these mothers, can wake up and realize the harm and the damage they've caused to their own children, then perhaps they will reform their message and they will start to preach and teach reality-based common sense and caretaking for children once again. 0.60

00:27:59.000 I can only hope.

00:28:00.000 If a society becomes too masculine, you become too aggressive and out of control.

00:28:04.000 If a society becomes too feminine, you become unstable and too emotional. 1.00

00:28:08.000 You should be able to say both those things.

00:28:09.000 They're both equally true. 0.89

00:28:10.000 And we have become an unstable, hyper-emotional society without the anchor of masculinity.

00:28:16.000 You need a balance of both.

00:28:17.000 It's how God designed our species.

00:28:19.000 Think for yourself or others will think for you.

00:28:21.000 Bro, it was the last sentence in my first book.

00:28:24.000 If you do not think for yourself, others will think for you and they will not be thinking of you.

00:28:28.000 That in a nutshell is why it's so important to think for yourself.

00:28:31.000 Because if you give away your agency of your own thought, it will be taken from you and used against you by someone with ill intent.

00:28:40.000 That was summarized rather beautifully.

00:28:42.000 That was great.

00:28:43.000 So, doctor, I want to go to number eight here: embrace adulthood.

00:28:47.000 Find a proper way to care for those you love.

00:28:49.000 Go ahead.

00:28:51.000 One of the biggest problems with adults right now is that they're not really grown.

00:28:55.000 They're not really mature. 0.98

00:28:56.000 They are narcissistic.

00:28:58.000 They are living in an altered reality, which is highly subjective and not based on what's really happening around them.

00:29:06.000 They are focused on themselves and their own careers and their own growth.

00:29:11.000 They're ignoring their children.

00:29:13.000 One of the big important points I make to my patients, and which is why I included it in this book, is that part of being an adult, part of being mature, part of being a responsible member of society, community, family, is actually learning and discovering and expressing a healthy way to love other people.

00:29:30.000 And there's a lot of elements within that that include being less narcissistic, being less selfish, being more caring, being more patient, accepting reality.

00:29:42.000 And I describe all of those subcomponents in that chapter.

00:29:45.000 But maturity and being an adult means learning how to love and care for others.

00:29:52.000 And I'll tell you what my definition of love is so that people are not misled into thinking that it's just some good state of feeling and being caring and sensitive and providing flowers.

00:30:01.000 My definition of love is very similar to that of C.S. Lewis, who says that love is nothing more than allowing and supporting the other to attain his or her full potential.

00:30:13.000 That's well said.

00:30:14.000 I want to get to the final part of the list here.

00:30:16.000 Let's go to 10: develop a sense of humor.

00:30:18.000 Why is that so important to get over fear?

00:30:21.000 When you're afraid, there is no way for you to be humorous and there is no way for you to be sexual.

00:30:30.000 This is called the CBT triangle.

00:30:31.000 It comes from cognitive behavioral therapy.

00:30:34.000 It's a model I learned 20 years ago.

00:30:35.000 You cannot occupy more than two points, two apices on the triangle at any given time.

00:30:41.000 So a lot of patients who come to me who are very, very anxious have a really hard time being sexual with their partners while they're anxious.

00:30:49.000 Understandably so.

00:30:50.000 In the same way, if you are anxious or fearful, you cannot laugh.

00:30:56.000 Now, let's just reverse it.

00:30:58.000 If you are in a state of humor, if you are laughing, if you are in a moment experiencing a perspective that is different than the one that you were just holding, that takes away the power of the fear and it takes away the anxiety.

00:31:13.000 It sucks it right out.

00:31:15.000 So I think humor is incredibly important from a psychological perspective, meaning emotional.

00:31:21.000 And it's also important from a psychological perspective intellectually because it actually provides a set of difference and a perspective that you can't get.

00:31:31.000 This is why people laugh at comedy clubs because they're surprised that they were jolted into a position that they weren't in two seconds ago and they don't know how they got there.

00:31:38.000 Very, very important.

00:31:39.000 It's something that we've lost because now we've replaced humor with mockery.

00:31:44.000 Mockery is not humor.

00:31:46.000 I'm talking about real humor.

00:31:49.000 Humor also requires not taking yourself so seriously as well.

00:31:54.000 I mean, I make some jokes on the program.

00:31:55.000 I have to say, Dr. McDonald, I get emails, like angry emails, like, how dare you make fun of this?

00:32:00.000 I'm like, geez.

00:32:01.000 I mean, you're going to have to get a little bit uncomfortable at times for humor to be able to set it.

00:32:07.000 I think it's just a broader cultural problem.

00:32:09.000 Dr. McDonald, any closing thoughts on the book as we summarize this wonderful conversation?

00:32:15.000 Yes.

00:32:16.000 This book is not for America at large.

00:32:20.000 It's for you.

00:32:21.000 It's for you, the individual, whether you're afraid or not.

00:32:23.000 You know someone who is.

00:32:25.000 You know someone who is addicted to fear, someone who is in a rut, in a pattern, cannot get out of it, can't be humorous, can't see reality, narcissistic, doesn't know how to love, can't drop the dealer, all of these problems, maybe can't even acknowledge that there's anxiety and persistent fear.

00:32:40.000 This book is for you because it offers a guide and a stepwise way out of this problem.

00:32:46.000 And on a national level, if we can all work towards that, then we can remove the fear, which will allow us to express courage, which will allow us to start to think rationally and reasonably.

00:32:57.000 And we can fight back against this monolith that is taking over our lives.

00:33:02.000 And I believe that it is driven not just by irrationality, not just by desire for power, but it is driven by evil.

00:33:09.000 I believe that there is a diabolical force upon us that is capitalizing on our fear.

00:33:14.000 And if we can express courage, that is the greatest antithesis and oppositional force to evil.

00:33:20.000 That's so beautifully said.

00:33:22.000 Dr. McDonald, freedom from fear.

00:33:24.000 Thank you so much.

00:33:24.000 We'll have you back on soon.

00:33:26.000 Thanks a lot.

00:33:29.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:33:31.000 Email me your thoughts as always: freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:33:34.000 Thanks so much for listening.

00:33:35.000 God bless.

00:33:39.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - August 30, 2022

A 12 Step Guide to Breaking America’s Addiction to Fear with Mark McDonald, M.D.

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