The Charlie Kirk Show - Ask Charlie Anything 162: The Roman Legacy? AOC's Tesla? 4-Day Workweek?

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, happy Monday.

00:00:01.000 How often do you think about the Roman Empire?

00:00:03.000 Blake Neff, producer of the Charlie Kirk show, goes off on Rome and so much more.

00:00:08.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:10.000 Get involved with TurningPointUSA at tpusa.com.

00:00:13.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:16.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:17.000 Here, we go.

00:00:18.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:19.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:21.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:25.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:28.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:29.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:30.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:00:38.000 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.

00:00:47.000 That's why we are here.

00:00:51.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.

00:00:59.000 It has been a long month this week.

00:01:02.000 Dennis Prager, Arizona State University, traveling over.

00:01:05.000 So I've asked the brilliant Blake Neff.

00:01:09.000 Say hi, Blake.

00:01:10.000 Hello.

00:01:11.000 And Blake, we have a lot of questions here, but I thought it was just a perfect question to have you join when a young lady says, how often do you think about the Roman Empire?

00:01:24.000 Now, so Blake, fill our audience in on this internet phenomenon.

00:01:27.000 Okay, so we talked about this on Thought Crime, which if you guys don't watch ThoughtCrime on Rumble, definitely check it out every Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern.

00:01:34.000 Yes, and download the podcast.

00:01:36.000 So we talked about this last week.

00:01:37.000 This went viral on Twitter, X, I guess we call it now.

00:01:41.000 I can't get over that.

00:01:42.000 Instagram, all the other places, where some woman basically discovered, she's like, you know, I asked my husband, like, how often he thinks about the Roman Empire, and he replied, like, every week or so.

00:01:53.000 And, you know, this blew her mind.

00:01:55.000 You know, she probably hasn't thought about the Roman Empire ever.

00:01:57.000 And so she's like, ladies, is this true?

00:01:59.000 Like, are men thinking about this all of the time?

00:02:01.000 And the answer is yes.

00:02:03.000 We are.

00:02:03.000 We are thinking about it all the time.

00:02:05.000 Like, multiple times a day all the time.

00:02:07.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:08.000 I could maybe miss a day here or there.

00:02:10.000 And then they made this a topic.

00:02:11.000 Now it's just, we're, I can't escape the Roman Empire. 0.76

00:02:14.000 Well, so first, you know more about Roman Empire than like the Roman Empire than like professional historians, which I think we should riff a little bit.

00:02:21.000 Can you name all the emperors in order?

00:02:24.000 All of them in order.

00:02:25.000 I could probably get pretty far.

00:02:26.000 So like Augustus, Octavia.

00:02:27.000 Augustus.

00:02:28.000 Octavian is Augustus.

00:02:30.000 Then Tiberius.

00:02:31.000 Augustus, Tiberius.

00:02:32.000 And then I lose it, then like Caligula.

00:02:34.000 Caligula's next.

00:02:35.000 Oh, is that right?

00:02:36.000 Okay.

00:02:36.000 Tiberius Caligula.

00:02:36.000 All right.

00:02:38.000 And then Nero is somewhere in the next three or four, right?

00:02:40.000 Claudius.

00:02:41.000 Nero.

00:02:41.000 Okay.

00:02:42.000 Oh, so I wasn't too far off.

00:02:43.000 Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Tetus, Domitian, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, Pius, Marcus Aurelius, also with the last of the good emperors, Commodus.

00:02:58.000 Commodus.

00:02:59.000 Yeah, I got that.

00:02:59.000 And then he gets choked out by a wrestler in the bath.

00:03:02.000 Not making that up.

00:03:04.000 And so then it's...

00:03:05.000 Otherwise known as Joaquin Phoenix, by the way, for those of you keeping score of it.

00:03:08.000 And then we get Pertinax.

00:03:10.000 Pertinax.

00:03:10.000 That's an obscure one.

00:03:11.000 At this point, it was after Pox Romana.

00:03:13.000 Yeah, this is where it's starting to break down.

00:03:15.000 And so then we have Pertinax, then we have Didius Julianus.

00:03:18.000 Just so you guys know, he's not reading a screen.

00:03:20.000 Yep, no, no, I'll turn the computer down there.

00:03:23.000 Didius Julianus, then Septimius Severus, and then Geta Caracalla, our brothers.

00:03:29.000 Caracalla kills his brother, Gaeta.

00:03:31.000 I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right.

00:03:33.000 I don't actually read Latin.

00:03:34.000 I just have to read translations like a normie. 0.88

00:03:36.000 Get a Caracalla.

00:03:38.000 And then, okay, now it starts to get tough.

00:03:41.000 And then I think it's Elagobalus.

00:03:43.000 No, we have Macrinus, then Elagabalus, then Severus Alexander.

00:03:49.000 He gets murdered by his soldiers.

00:03:51.000 And then things get really kooky.

00:03:53.000 And if you read the lists, it's like it's all inconsistent. 0.96

00:03:55.000 You know, we have guys with weird names like Pupianus, Pu Pupiana, Pupianus, that's a dumb name.

00:04:02.000 And then like Gordian 1, 2, N3, Philip the Arab. 1.00

00:04:06.000 I can't.

00:04:07.000 Now this is where the order breaks down for a while.

00:04:09.000 It gets really...

00:04:10.000 So the females are stunned that we think about the Roman Empire so much.

00:04:15.000 Why do men think so much about it?

00:04:16.000 By the way, incredibly impressive play.

00:04:19.000 Very impressive.

00:04:20.000 Maybe people disagree.

00:04:22.000 They're like, this is a sad person.

00:04:23.000 I think it's amazing.

00:04:24.000 I could name like five, which I think it's more than most Americans.

00:04:27.000 But I mean, why do men think so much about the Roman Empire?

00:04:31.000 Well, so it's a lot of things.

00:04:33.000 Like men, I mean, we love it.

00:04:37.000 Like, it is like the apex of everything that men aspire to build.

00:04:42.000 It was an institution that was the bedrock of civilization for a thousand years.

00:04:48.000 You know, it's what we still aspire to today, what still, you know, what still gives shape to our society today.

00:04:54.000 Like, what is the most common religion in Western civilization?

00:04:58.000 Who adopted Christianity? 0.98

00:04:58.000 It's Christianity. 0.98

00:05:00.000 The Roman Empire.

00:05:02.000 What form does our government, I mean, you know, our republic is publica for 400 years, right?

00:05:08.000 Res publica.

00:05:09.000 That is a, you know, a Latin Roman term.

00:05:12.000 And it's, you know, what architectural style are we imitating?

00:05:16.000 We're imitating Greco-Roman architecture.

00:05:18.000 If you go to D.C., it's basically little Rome.

00:05:20.000 Yeah, like, and like what created what drove the Enlightenment, a huge proportion of it is essentially aspiring to what these ancient Romans and ancient Greeks wrote about and did.

00:05:30.000 The Renaissance was a rediscovery.

00:05:33.000 The Renaissance, the rebirth, was the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman learning.

00:05:37.000 And then the Enlightenment was sort of a continuation of that.

00:05:41.000 All of these guys would say, you know, like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, all of these guys would read these ancient Roman political thinkers.

00:05:48.000 Cicero, for example, one-year Roman Council had a huge impact on the founders.

00:05:51.000 Exactly, exactly.

00:05:53.000 And so it's very much the model they would look towards both for good and bad things.

00:05:58.000 It is the cultural template that we operate off of.

00:06:02.000 You could almost say like we're in Judeo-Christian Roman civilization, if you wanted to.

00:06:07.000 Yeah, and it's forgetting the male-female part of it, because we've been through that macro-micro.

00:06:12.000 Men are more focused on history and philosophy, women more focused on relationships and feelings, poetry, stuff like that.

00:06:17.000 That's not a sexist thing, it's just a fact.

00:06:20.000 But so what I find interesting, though, is that when people say Rome is the goal, what does that mean?

00:06:27.000 And by people, you mean when Jack tells us that Rome is the goal?

00:06:31.000 Well, so it is, obviously, men do love the idea of building.

00:06:35.000 Is this like the Bronze Age thing?

00:06:37.000 A little bit like that.

00:06:38.000 You know, we love to build things that endure.

00:06:41.000 And, you know, we love to imagine what would the United States, you know, we feel like the United States is in decline.

00:06:46.000 And the Roman Empire declined and fell, but it lasted a very long time.

00:06:49.000 That's the amazing thing.

00:06:50.000 477 years, right?

00:06:52.000 It had a run of 500, 600 years where it was the most powerful, important thing.

00:06:57.000 People, by the end of it, they couldn't imagine a world without Rome.

00:07:02.000 It had never existed.

00:07:03.000 No one could imagine a history of what it was like before Rome was a thing.

00:07:07.000 That's how much it shaped everything.

00:07:10.000 And for thousands of years afterwards, that's what they wanted.

00:07:12.000 We'd have these pale imitations.

00:07:14.000 In the Middle Ages, they had the Holy Roman Empire, which, as Voltaire wrote, was like not holy, not Roman, not an empire.

00:07:20.000 It actually was all three of those things.

00:07:22.000 But that's another matter.

00:07:24.000 And because they were just to a Middle Ages person, they were like, this is Rome restored. 0.97

00:07:29.000 We are the Roman Emperor in their bad, pale understanding of it.

00:07:33.000 And, you know, even when they're found in the United States, a lot of them would view this as like, oh, this is our, you know, our restoration of the ancient republican principles of Rome.

00:07:44.000 Like, that's always the goal, is to create a state and society that can be as robust and enduring as what happened 2,000 years ago.

00:07:54.000 And it's all really cool.

00:07:56.000 Like, they fight all these wars, and there's all these inspirational, like, moral fables that you get from Rome, which we mostly get because all of their history gets burned up, and we have like one book left, and it's like Roman propaganda and stuff.

00:08:08.000 And meditation.

00:08:09.000 Exactly.

00:08:10.000 And some stuff like that.

00:08:11.000 But, like, you know, they fight this war against Hannibal.

00:08:13.000 And there's a battle where the Romans lose the Battle of Cannai, where 60,000 Romans die in one day, which would be like, imagine if we fought a war with, you know, Britain or Germany and, you know, 2 million U.S. troops get killed in one day with the president and a third of Congress in like North Carolina and he's like marching on Washington.

00:08:32.000 And like, that is what happens to Rome.

00:08:34.000 And like they don't make peace.

00:08:35.000 And according to the histories, they don't even think about making peace.

00:08:38.000 Like, it doesn't even enter their mind.

00:08:40.000 And they just, they just tank right in the face.

00:08:43.000 Like, they're a boxer who does nothing, get punched in the face, and they keep going.

00:08:47.000 And that just is the sort of thing that if you're a man, you're like, wow, those guys are awesome.

00:08:52.000 Not to mention the architectural achievements, aqueducts, architecture, the domes, right?

00:08:56.000 The arch and the dome.

00:08:57.000 So the pantheon.

00:08:59.000 Everyone wants to imitate this.

00:09:00.000 So there's.

00:09:02.000 It is the standard still of architecture.

00:09:04.000 The famous thing is the Duomo in Florence, Brunelleschi's Dome.

00:09:09.000 It was the first dome they made in 1,500 years that was bigger than the dome of the Pantheon.

00:09:16.000 And when the Ottoman, when the Muslims take over Istanbul, their big thing is we want to be able to build a dome that is as large as the one in Aja Sophia, which had been built a thousand years before then. 0.97

00:09:29.000 And all of these achievements.

00:09:31.000 And it's like, how many buildings do you know from a thousand years ago?

00:09:34.000 Not really as many as we have from Rome 2,000 years ago.

00:09:38.000 I want to stay on this because I think it's super interesting.

00:09:40.000 There are some misconceptions about the fall of Rome that you correct sometimes.

00:09:44.000 Yeah, there's a few of them.

00:09:45.000 And then I also want to talk about how did they get so great, so excellent, such an outlier?

00:09:52.000 Because I think that's interesting.

00:09:53.000 Was it the form of government?

00:09:55.000 Some people say it was the nutrition.

00:09:57.000 Have you ever heard that theory?

00:09:59.000 That they were able to have such reliable agrarian base in a time when food was largely scarce?

00:10:05.000 I don't know if that's true or not.

00:10:06.000 Blake Neff is with us as we do our Ask Me Anything episode.

00:10:09.000 How often do you think about the Roman Empire?

00:10:13.000 I think about it.

00:10:14.000 I have a bust of Marcus Aurelius in my office.

00:10:17.000 If you don't know who Marcus Aurelius is, you should.

00:10:19.000 He was really special.

00:10:22.000 All right, you've probably heard me.

00:10:23.000 It's actually now 25 pounds that I have lost.

00:10:27.000 And I'm sure some of you say, oh, Charlie, I've tried everything.

00:10:30.000 That was me.

00:10:31.000 You know, my first Zoom call with my PhD weight loss, I was kind of skeptical.

00:10:36.000 I was like, come on, guys.

00:10:38.000 All right.

00:10:38.000 I've heard this whole thing before.

00:10:41.000 And boy, was I wrong.

00:10:42.000 They know what they're doing.

00:10:44.000 My PhD weight loss.

00:10:45.000 Like, this is 100% legit.

00:10:47.000 And people say, well, Charlie, you've lost so much weight.

00:10:49.000 And I say, yeah, my PhD weight loss.

00:10:51.000 Hello.

00:10:53.000 But look, they have a different approach.

00:10:54.000 And it's Dr. Ashley Lucas.

00:10:56.000 She's great.

00:10:57.000 She does a really, really good job.

00:10:57.000 I text with her.

00:10:59.000 25 pounds, I'll tell you.

00:11:01.000 And I have more energy and I'm healthier than ever before.

00:11:05.000 Here's why.

00:11:06.000 The program rids your body of the inflammation that is causing so many health problems.

00:11:11.000 If you look around today, America is the fattest it has ever been.

00:11:15.000 Our families, friends, and neighbors are dying of diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer's, now called T3 diabetes.

00:11:24.000 PhD has helped so many people who want to have a good active life, play with their grandkids, travel, hike to a waterfall, go for a bike ride, but their weight was holding them hostage.

00:11:34.000 They don't want any of you on experimental drugs for your brain degeneration from Alzheimer's or homebound with an oxygen tank for heart failure.

00:11:41.000 My PhD weight loss knows that losing weight is the best thing for overall health.

00:11:47.000 We are way too fat as a society.

00:11:49.000 And here's the thing.

00:11:50.000 If you're listening to this and you say, boy, I'm a little overweight, it's perfectly fine.

00:11:54.000 Do something about it.

00:11:56.000 Use your free will, your agency.

00:11:58.000 Say, you know what?

00:11:59.000 I'm just not where I want to be.

00:12:01.000 This is an empowerment tool for you.

00:12:03.000 All of these things can be prevented.

00:12:06.000 You look at heart disease, the beast, you know, what they now call diabetes.

00:12:10.000 By the way, there's a great new book by Dr. Peter Atia about longevity.

00:12:14.000 You want to live long?

00:12:15.000 Lose weight. 0.98

00:12:17.000 Look, Dr. Ashley Lucas, she is the master of this, and she is the genius behind my PhD weight loss.

00:12:24.000 So you can call them today at 864-644-1900.

00:12:29.000 That is 864-644-1900.

00:12:32.000 By the way, this is not like a sign up and you're automatically going to lose weight.

00:12:35.000 You got to do some work.

00:12:37.000 You got to apply yourself.

00:12:38.000 It's not a too good to be true thing.

00:12:39.000 But if you have motivation, they will channel that motivation towards a very positive, measurable, and real outcome.

00:12:50.000 Find them online at myphdweightloss.com.

00:12:55.000 Tell them Charlie Kirk sent you.

00:12:57.000 That is myphdweightloss.com.

00:13:00.000 PhD weight loss and nutrition.

00:13:02.000 Physician and dietician developed, individually delivered.

00:13:06.000 Again, I lost 25 pounds and I feel great.

00:13:09.000 If you think you've tried everything, you're wrong until you say you've tried my PhD weight loss.

00:13:14.000 They map you as a whole person.

00:13:16.000 It's not like, hey, just read this book.

00:13:17.000 No, no, no, no.

00:13:18.000 It's a deep dive.

00:13:19.000 It's personalized.

00:13:21.000 It's going to get results for you.

00:13:22.000 Myphdweightloss.com.

00:13:26.000 Here with Blake Neff.

00:13:27.000 He can name all the Roman emperors.

00:13:29.000 He went to Dartmouth and he's single.

00:13:30.000 And he's taking.

00:13:31.000 We're taking applications.

00:13:33.000 I'm not going to give up, Blake.

00:13:34.000 Freedom at CharlieKirk.com.

00:13:36.000 But that's not what we're here to talk about.

00:13:37.000 Blake, what are some of the lies, some of the misconceptions?

00:13:42.000 Sometimes we find them, our guests will pepper them in, and you say, no, that's not true.

00:13:47.000 What are they?

00:13:49.000 So a big fascination of Rome is like the fall of Rome.

00:13:52.000 And everyone's like, is America falling the same way Rome did?

00:13:55.000 Are we the late Republic?

00:13:56.000 Are we the late empire?

00:13:57.000 And one that does come up a lot is there will be this idea that the Roman Empire fell because it was incredibly morally dissolute.

00:14:07.000 I think it's part of even like the Nixon tapes where, you know, he goes off to Henry Kissinger or something.

00:14:12.000 He's like, homosexuality, destroyed them. 1.00

00:14:14.000 And he says something like that. 0.83

00:14:16.000 And what's fascinating to me is like, it's not that that drives them into the abyss.

00:14:21.000 And that's why I sometimes like to say what's impressive with Rome isn't that they fall.

00:14:25.000 Everything falls.

00:14:26.000 What's impressive with Rome is how long they last.

00:14:28.000 And when they are falling, they actually are, you know, we talk about how Christianity is a legacy of Rome. 0.89

00:14:33.000 And they actually convert to a very puritanical version of the world.

00:14:36.000 Of the Eastern Christian Empire, right? 0.77

00:14:37.000 Like King Justinian, right?

00:14:39.000 Emperor Justinian is a big one for that, but it is like...

00:14:42.000 His conversion, which is unclear.

00:14:43.000 Constantine.

00:14:44.000 Constantine converts.

00:14:45.000 Okay, but was Justinian a Christian?

00:14:47.000 Justinian, but this is earlier for him.

00:14:47.000 He was.

00:14:49.000 This is how long Rome is.

00:14:51.000 Justinian is 250 years after Constantine.

00:14:54.000 So, you know, in the 300s, there's a big civil war in the Roman Empire.

00:14:58.000 Byzantium is created, effectively.

00:15:00.000 Byzantium is a city that is in Eastern Rome, and he, Constantine, builds a new city, Constantinople, on modern-day Turkey, which is now Turkey.

00:15:10.000 Yep.

00:15:10.000 And it's Istanbul today, still a huge city.

00:15:12.000 But this is the nerve center of the Roman Empire for hundreds and hundreds of years afterwards.

00:15:18.000 He kind of builds a new capital.

00:15:19.000 He shifts the power center east.

00:15:21.000 He builds it as a more consciously Christian city.

00:15:23.000 So there's these big churches that he builds in it.

00:15:26.000 Eventually we get Aja Sophia.

00:15:28.000 That is now the, well, it's still Aja Sophia.

00:15:30.000 It is a mosque now.

00:15:33.000 Don't lose wars.

00:15:34.000 It's a mosque and name only.

00:15:34.000 Don't lose wars.

00:15:36.000 Yeah, well, now it is unfortunately a mosque actually.

00:15:38.000 They're practicing math.

00:15:39.000 I didn't change it.

00:15:40.000 It was a museum.

00:15:41.000 And then sort of they have a more kind of Islamic government in Turkey now.

00:15:45.000 And so they've taken a lot of these musicians.

00:15:46.000 Under Erdogan, right?

00:15:47.000 Erdogan, yeah.

00:15:48.000 So there was Aja Sophia and a few others.

00:15:49.000 They've made them mosques again. 1.00

00:15:51.000 And so he adopts Christianity. 0.61

00:15:54.000 And kind of what's very compelling and I think noteworthy is Christianity takes a very long time to really entrench itself in the in among the masses.

00:16:04.000 The word pagan actually comes from a word for like rustic farmer because those were the people who remained pagan for so long in Rome.

00:16:12.000 Whereas it's like it's elites actually who adopt Christianity, like the imperial class, the people around the imperial family, the people becoming bishops.

00:16:21.000 And it's kind of, I read a book on it earlier this year called The Barbarian Conversion.

00:16:26.000 I can't remember who wrote it off the top of my head, but that's the name of the book if anyone wants to look it up.

00:16:30.000 And it's just these, you know, these elites in the Mediterranean world just think Christianity is the coolest thing ever.

00:16:37.000 And they spend a thousand years pushing it everywhere they can.

00:16:39.000 It's like very inspiring.

00:16:41.000 Like, why does Ireland become Christian? 0.98

00:16:43.000 Well, this guy in the falling Roman Empire, Patrick, he's kind of, you know, it's still Roman Britain at the time.

00:16:50.000 He's a Christian, and he's like, I have to go spread Christianity to Ireland where I was enslaved for a bit. 0.99

00:16:55.000 And they're doing this all over the place.

00:16:57.000 And so Rome, you know, it is unfortunate it's falling.

00:17:00.000 But it is actually, they adopt Christianity as like this unifying measure as the empire is sort of fraying apart at the seams.

00:17:08.000 And this becomes like their state ideology, even as Rome is crumbling apart.

00:17:13.000 And that's actually what makes Rome kind of so enduring for us is even after Rome is gone, this, you know, the faith that they adopted Christianity is still what binds these very different groups together.

00:17:24.000 So, you know, Rome still matters today.

00:17:26.000 Why does Rome still matter today?

00:17:28.000 Because that was where, you know, the Pope was, and that was the unifying figure for all of Western Christianity for 1,500 years.

00:17:35.000 And so I think it is too dismissive to say like Rome fell because it was just ultra immoral.

00:17:41.000 Like, you know, our entire moral code derives from Rome.

00:17:44.000 Is it true that there was like an immigration problem, the Visigoths?

00:17:47.000 That is a much better example.

00:17:48.000 Is that fair?

00:17:49.000 And how about the inflation that they deteriorated there?

00:17:52.000 They did both those things.

00:17:53.000 So those are good comparisons.

00:17:55.000 Those are good comparisons.

00:17:56.000 Yeah.

00:17:56.000 The immigration, so they don't have immigration in the way we necessarily.

00:17:59.000 But they had loose, relaxed borders with foreigners pouring in.

00:18:02.000 They were loose borders.

00:18:04.000 Kind of the big moment, actually, if you want to really compare it to today, in I think 409 or 410, there's a civil war in Rome, and they pull the legions along the Rhine, like they're the troops who guard the border of the empire.

00:18:16.000 They get pulled back to fight in this civil war.

00:18:18.000 And these Germans just bust the border and they just run into France. 0.97

00:18:22.000 And after that, it takes 50 years for it to really fall.

00:18:24.000 But after that, that's when it's kind of all over for Rome.

00:18:27.000 You know, they've let too many people loose in the interior.

00:18:30.000 For 400 years, the Rhine River was like the border between civilization and barbarism.

00:18:35.000 And they let all the barbarians over. 1.00

00:18:37.000 And after that, it's like their army is all barbarians. 0.92

00:18:39.000 They would just recruit these barbarians into the army. 0.99

00:18:41.000 So the quality of the army goes away.

00:18:44.000 The unity of the army breaks apart.

00:18:46.000 No one's loyal.

00:18:48.000 And that's really what breaks them apart.

00:18:50.000 So enforce your borders, everyone.

00:18:52.000 That's what kills Rome.

00:18:55.000 How's your life been lately?

00:18:57.000 If it feels like mine, it's a never-ending hustle.

00:18:59.000 The constant juggling of responsibilities, the endless to-do list.

00:19:02.000 And now I'm not even talking about how it affects overall well-being, sleep, productivity, and immune system.

00:19:07.000 Stress slowly infiltrates your life, silently robbing you of magnesium, a vital mineral your body depends on.

00:19:12.000 The vicious stress-magnesium deficiency cycle.

00:19:15.000 Have you heard about it?

00:19:16.000 In terms of stress spikes, your body loses magnesium.

00:19:19.000 Sleep becomes elusive.

00:19:21.000 Energy and productivity plummet.

00:19:22.000 And stress levels skyrocket.

00:19:24.000 More magnesium escapes your body.

00:19:25.000 So how do you break this cycle?

00:19:26.000 Listen up.

00:19:27.000 I found a game changer.

00:19:28.000 Magnesium breakthrough from bioptimizers.

00:19:30.000 Magnesium breakthrough contains all seven forms of magnesium, which might support stress management by promoting muscle relaxation, regulating the nervous system, controlling stress hormones, enhancing brain function, boosting energy, and most importantly, improving sleep.

00:19:42.000 I take it two capsules of our bedtime.

00:19:44.000 It's amazing.

00:19:45.000 Buy optimizers are so confident in their products that they offer you a risk-free 365-day money-back guarantee.

00:19:51.000 If you don't see results, simply claim a refund, no questions asked.

00:19:54.000 It's a win-win.

00:19:55.000 Visit magbreakthrough.com/slash Kirk and use enter code Kirk10 for 10% off any order for a limited time only.

00:20:01.000 Receive special gifts with purchase.

00:20:03.000 This offer is only available at magbreakthrough.com/slash Kirk.

00:20:06.000 Do not miss an opportunity to improve your well-being in life.

00:20:09.000 That is magbreakthrough.com/slash Kirk.

00:20:14.000 So, Blake, I want to go to other topics here, but I just want to make sure I what are the major lessons then from the fall of the Roman Empire?

00:20:21.000 I mean, you say enforce your borders, the inflation, the other one.

00:20:24.000 So, the sexual degeneracy is not a strong argument, you don't think that's it would actually be the opposite.

00:20:28.000 Like, they're super degenerate in like the early Roman Empire, you know, like Tiberius does live on this island with all these. 0.61

00:20:34.000 Caligula was super sick, and then, you know, they had 400 years of, they had a good run after that.

00:20:38.000 Yeah, so they're actually far more pious. 0.84

00:20:40.000 But what about this idea that there were the Roman bathhouses and like young boys being raped a lot?

00:20:45.000 I mean, is that just like mythology of it?

00:20:49.000 Existed.

00:20:50.000 I mean, you know, this is a period, it is before Christian morality. 0.95

00:20:52.000 Christian morality definitely is more like sexually pagan for sure. 0.66

00:20:58.000 It is sometimes overblown where, like, you know, like everyone, it'll be like everyone was like gay by default unless, you know, they would only have women for babies, that sort of thing.

00:21:09.000 And it's actually kind of funny.

00:21:11.000 Like, even the ancient Greeks, there's actually a split where you have the people who are like okay with it, and you have a lot of Greeks who are like, this is gross. 1.00

00:21:17.000 And they would write these things attacking it.

00:21:20.000 You mean like that boys are for pleasure and women are? 0.99

00:21:22.000 Yeah, and you know, because they would discuss, it's actually, a lot of it is actually kind of like the groomer stuff today, where like, you know, they'd be like, this person's a famous teacher, but, you know, like, they basically, you know, say the ancient Greek equivalent of like, well, but he like molests his students, so he's like not looking out for the good of them.

00:21:36.000 And you'd have other guys writing defenses.

00:21:37.000 Like, that's just a, you know, that's a lie.

00:21:39.000 Like, we don't actually do all of that.

00:21:41.000 That's like the New York Times.

00:21:42.000 Yeah, basically.

00:21:43.000 And, you know, it goes back and forth.

00:21:44.000 It's very funny how that.

00:21:45.000 But, you know, the key thing to take away is like, you know, don't outsource your military to a bunch of foreigners. 0.99

00:21:52.000 Don't let your border fall apart.

00:21:53.000 Don't inflate away your currency.

00:21:55.000 And figure out how to run your government and don't have a civil war every 10 minutes.

00:21:59.000 Was there something also, so the other comparison is Bread and Circuses, this idea of the Coliseum games being a distraction, comparing that to like NFL football or that comparison?

00:22:13.000 Do you think that's fair? 0.92

00:22:14.000 I think that's, I mean, at the, you know, as the Roman Empire is falling apart in the 300s, like the biggest thing everyone cares about is their stupid chariot races in the amphitheater. 0.99

00:22:24.000 Yeah. 0.62

00:22:25.000 Or Justinian is this guy who launches a campaign to reconquer as much of the empire as he can.

00:22:29.000 And he does pretty well.

00:22:30.000 He does very well, but an early blow that almost knocks him out of power is there is a chariot.

00:22:35.000 Like there's two factions, like the kind of two big sports teams of ancient Rome, is the blues and the greens.

00:22:40.000 And like their riots cause all these problems.

00:22:42.000 And eventually they team up and launch a huge riot. 0.93

00:22:44.000 And he finally puts it down by just sending in the army and killing everybody.

00:22:48.000 So imagine if you just had like a Washington, they're the commanders now, the Washington Redskins have a game and they decided to like overthrow. 0.61

00:22:57.000 It'd be like if the Washington Redskins decided to like do a January 6th and then they had to kill everyone and like pretty, pretty hardcore.

00:23:04.000 And so you look historically, you know, the people in the academy will say, but there's other ancient civilizations that don't get as much attention as Rome. 0.96

00:23:13.000 You guys are white supremacists.

00:23:15.000 Is there a civilization that was ever as influential, excellent, and enduring as the Roman Empire? 0.84

00:23:23.000 They would say, oh, the Chinese Empire, but I mean, it.

00:23:26.000 Nothing, certainly nothing for the West, which is like, okay, that is our heritage.

00:23:30.000 The West is the best, though.

00:23:31.000 The West is the best.

00:23:32.000 The West is, I mean, it is not merely like Rome itself was so enduring, super, super long-lasting.

00:23:38.000 I mean, ignoring, you know, the West falls, like, the Eastern Romans, they just keep going for another thousand years. 0.99

00:23:45.000 And all of that influence weighs on us.

00:23:47.000 You know, the religious legacy, the, you know, the state.

00:23:51.000 Well, you can make the argument Rome never actually fell.

00:23:53.000 It just, the energy transferred into a thousand different ways, right?

00:23:56.000 It's just, it just, it is, it is the bedrock of our civilization.

00:24:00.000 Like I said, Judeo-Roman, you know, Judeo-Christian Roman civilization.

00:24:04.000 It is those two together.

00:24:05.000 If you were to make a hypothesis, how did they get so excellent?

00:24:08.000 What did they do?

00:24:09.000 Was it, how did they go from Romulus being a regional guy to everything that was discovered controlled by Rome?

00:24:17.000 How did that happen?

00:24:18.000 You know, you could debate that even longer than you can debate why.

00:24:21.000 Debate, I'm asking him.

00:24:22.000 I'm just asking.

00:24:22.000 I don't know.

00:24:24.000 It is very difficult to answer that.

00:24:26.000 I would say, I mean, some of it is really just they were really good at fighting and they won over and over again.

00:24:31.000 In Rome, in Rome, you gained status by winning, by being a successful military commander.

00:24:37.000 And they were like the most militarized society ever.

00:24:39.000 More than Sparta, you know?

00:24:40.000 They had a temple.

00:24:41.000 More than Sparta.

00:24:41.000 Yeah.

00:24:43.000 They had a temple, the Temple of Janus, what January comes from.

00:24:46.000 I think it was Janus.

00:24:47.000 And they would open the door.

00:24:48.000 It was like they'd open the door anytime they were at war and close it when they were at peace or vice versa.

00:24:53.000 I mix up the details.

00:24:54.000 It was always open.

00:24:56.000 From when we have Roman history to when the Republic falls, Rome is almost permanently at war because that was how you gained status in Rome.

00:25:04.000 It was like you'd have to lead a successful military campaign.

00:25:07.000 And very importantly, you could only get the really cool things, like a triumph, where they would basically give you a parade and talk about how awesome you were if you like gained territory for Rome from like off an enemy.

00:25:17.000 And so if you've ever seen the HBO show Rome, they have a triumph for Caesar where they take these the Gauls, the ancient Frenchmen that he captured and they parade them and they strangle them and do all this like messed up stuff.

00:25:28.000 But that was how you gained all the respect, the dignitas in Rome.

00:25:34.000 But it was very diffused.

00:25:35.000 So like you had a republic.

00:25:36.000 So normally in a system, the only guy who gets credit is like your emperor, your king.

00:25:41.000 But in Rome, anyone could become the consul, as they called it, which is kind of their equivalent of the president.

00:25:46.000 They're one-year president.

00:25:47.000 Yep.

00:25:48.000 And you only have one year.

00:25:49.000 So you've got to make it count.

00:25:52.000 And so you have a lot of people who are incentivized to be soldiers, be successful soldiers, be successful soldiers quickly.

00:26:01.000 And that was how you gained honor and status.

00:26:04.000 And I guess, you know, you don't really want to imitate that necessarily because we don't want to be at war all the time.

00:26:08.000 That causes huge problems.

00:26:10.000 But they also did war differently, right?

00:26:10.000 Yes.

00:26:12.000 They did.

00:26:13.000 Without being brutal, they didn't really care about rules of engagement.

00:26:15.000 Yeah.

00:26:16.000 And I think the way you maybe have an equivalent today is like you gained status in Rome by serving the state and also like offering things up to the state.

00:26:23.000 Like they didn't have this massive budget, you know, where you didn't take other people's money and use it to do things.

00:26:30.000 You gained status in Rome by I, a rich citizen, pay for these things.

00:26:34.000 Like what was the start of Bread and Circuses?

00:26:36.000 A rich citizen would put on these games in the amphitheater for everyone to show how awesome they were.

00:26:43.000 Or they would pay for the graindole that they would hand out to people to show like I care for the poor.

00:26:48.000 That was how you gained status.

00:26:50.000 It was kind of like an ancient equivalent of Bill Gates giving away his money, but he would imagine if Bill Gates spent all of his money on Americans instead of on, you know, I don't need to go into what Bill Gates does.

00:27:02.000 All right.

00:27:02.000 For more on Rome, well, you just got to follow Blake.

00:27:06.000 Blake doesn't have social media.

00:27:07.000 He's like a shadow.

00:27:08.000 He just comes and he goes.

00:27:09.000 But follow Thought Crime for more on Rome.

00:27:12.000 I find it interesting.

00:27:13.000 Email is freedom at charliekirk.com, and that is freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:27:18.000 Okay, let's go to another question here.

00:27:21.000 AOC.

00:27:22.000 You ever meet AOC?

00:27:23.000 I have never met AOC.

00:27:25.000 Okay.

00:27:26.000 Heard much about her.

00:27:27.000 Ask about her Tesla. 0.98

00:27:29.000 Let's play Cut Three.

00:27:31.000 You were quoted back in July saying you look forward to buying a union-made electric vehicle, but you buy, but you currently have a non-union-made Tesla.

00:27:40.000 UAW already makes some electric vehicles.

00:27:44.000 Why wasn't that?

00:27:44.000 Is it a problem with the quality?

00:27:47.000 Is it a problem with the style?

00:27:48.000 Is the market just not there?

00:27:50.000 No, our car was purchased during the pandemic when travel before a vaccine had come out.

00:27:57.000 So travel between New York and Washington, the safest way that we had determined was an EV, but that was prior to some of the new models coming out on the market that had the range available.

00:28:08.000 But we're actually looking into trading in our car now.

00:28:12.000 So she's funding Twitter X. I'm very grateful for that, I'll say.

00:28:16.000 And so she said she's trading in it.

00:28:18.000 But there's a whole thing.

00:28:20.000 I want to talk about Elon with you because this is a good segue.

00:28:22.000 I'm more pro Elon than most people on the right because he pursues excellence and he produces actual value.

00:28:30.000 What I love about that clip is AOC's little, she's ideological, but the market will always win in the sense that even the most ideological person wants excellence.

00:28:43.000 She just can't help it.

00:28:44.000 She wanted the Tesla because that's the thing.

00:28:45.000 Because it's the better product, regardless of Elon's politics.

00:28:50.000 And didn't AOC tweet something out like, I'm never going to buy a Tesla again?

00:28:54.000 She still owns the Tesla.

00:28:56.000 If you have excellence, you kind of have an ability to say like, F you to your politics, right?

00:29:03.000 Elon almost has outgamed the game in that way.

00:29:06.000 He is a remarkable figure.

00:29:07.000 And I just, I know a lot of people are anti-Musk.

00:29:10.000 And I just, I feel like you, in a way, he's almost like Trump, where there's like positive and negative aspects to it.

00:29:17.000 But like, more importantly, you like, you live in Elon Musk's world.

00:29:20.000 Like, he's just such a dynamic figure.

00:29:22.000 Yes, no, that's true.

00:29:23.000 That's a good point.

00:29:24.000 That there's kind of, we live in kind of this almost kleptocracy where like five or six people control like everything.

00:29:31.000 But in his case, it's like it's so deserved personality-wise.

00:29:34.000 Like it'd be one thing if he got lucky off one company and you're like, okay, he's a smart businessman, but we can't categorically say he's smarter than some other businessman.

00:29:43.000 But this is a guy who got rich off PayPal and then he got richer off Tesla and even richer off SpaceX.

00:29:49.000 And he also is one of the first investors in one of the big AI companies.

00:29:53.000 And now he's buying Twitter and making this like the, he's like the most, as you said, the most important like private sector purchase in American history.

00:30:01.000 And when you said it, I was like, oh, that kind of sounds crazy.

00:30:04.000 And then I was like, what's more important?

00:30:06.000 Like Jerry Jones buying the Dallas Cowboys?

00:30:09.000 But no, I mean, and he's kind of going to make, he's going to make Twitter X a success.

00:30:14.000 Yeah.

00:30:14.000 Like he's going to make it happen.

00:30:15.000 And he really, it's like there's an entire industry of trying to explain like, why is Musk successful?

00:30:20.000 Kind of like with Trump again, where like, because he breaks all these rules.

00:30:23.000 And you're like, there's so many things that Musk does where you're like, okay, objectively, that seems not smart or like that was a mistake.

00:30:31.000 Like he doesn't bat a thousand. 0.98

00:30:32.000 He actually makes mistakes all the time.

00:30:35.000 And yet, you know, three years later, oh, he's even richer than before and he's super successful.

00:30:40.000 Much like Trump, you know, like we're like, oh, that Trump tweet wasn't good.

00:30:43.000 That Trump thing seems like a strategic error.

00:30:45.000 And he's going to win the nomination again.

00:30:46.000 He'll be president again.

00:30:48.000 And so there are a lot like that.

00:30:52.000 And they're both also alike.

00:30:54.000 And they're sort of difficult to corral.

00:30:56.000 And that is clearly what makes the regime despise Musk so much.

00:31:00.000 And that, I think, is why we have to be at least mildly disposed towards him.

00:31:05.000 Because if he upsets the right people, he makes the right enemy.

00:31:08.000 I love big risk takers.

00:31:09.000 I don't like people that just ride off beds all day long and complain.

00:31:15.000 Hey, Charlie Kirk here.

00:31:17.000 If you guys love this program and you want to support this program, if we have impacted or blessed your life in any way, I want to tell you about a new thing that we are starting it up.

00:31:26.000 First of all, if you have supported us at charliekirk.com slash support, nothing to worry about.

00:31:31.000 You guys are going to be moved on over.

00:31:32.000 If you want to support us even more and say, hey, I want exclusive content.

00:31:36.000 I want to talk to Charlie directly.

00:31:37.000 We are standing up this amazing infrastructure.

00:31:40.000 Team's been working so hard at members.charliekirk.com.

00:31:44.000 Not only is it a way to support us directly outside of all of the other channels, but get this: live QAs with me and the team, articles exclusively written by me that you won't find anywhere else, pre-show prep calls, and more.

00:31:57.000 Sign up today at members.charlikirk.com.

00:32:00.000 We love bringing our show every day, and we can't wait to bring you even more content that is just for you at the Charlie Kirk exclusive.

00:32:07.000 That's members.charliekirk.com.

00:32:09.000 Head to members.charliekirk.com today.

00:32:11.000 Yes, there's going to be a lot of goodies, a lot of engagement, a lot of fun stuff.

00:32:14.000 But even more than that, if you feel moved and compelled that our show is impacting you and impacting the world, it would mean a lot if you became a member at members.charliekirk.com.

00:32:28.000 So many questions here, Blake, that we are kind of pouring through here.

00:32:32.000 Let me try to find one that pertains here.

00:32:35.000 Okay, let's go to this one.

00:32:37.000 I think this is a good one.

00:32:38.000 Charlie, do you think that we should go down to a four-week workweek, four-day workweek?

00:32:42.000 It's an interesting question.

00:32:43.000 Let's play cut 30. 0.97

00:32:45.000 One of the other items that labor workers are asking for more controversially is a four-day work week with five days of pay.

00:32:52.000 Would the president support that?

00:32:53.000 Does he think that's right?

00:32:54.000 Well, again, he supports them getting a record deal.

00:32:57.000 He and the administration are not at the table, right?

00:33:00.000 We're not part of the negotiations.

00:33:01.000 We're not doing the numbers.

00:33:03.000 That's for the companies and the unions to do.

00:33:05.000 But what the president is making clear is that he is leading an economy where people need to, as he says, where the economy needs to grow from the bottom up and the middle out, not the top down.

00:33:14.000 Okay, so you know, gay jet GPT aside, right? 1.00

00:33:18.000 The guy's an automaton. 0.98

00:33:19.000 It is an interesting question, though, Blake.

00:33:21.000 Would America be better if we had four long workdays than five skimmed, mediocre, dreaded workdays?

00:33:30.000 I would personally like that.

00:33:31.000 Like four, just yeah, four.

00:33:33.000 Like if you just told me, yeah, like if we did, you know, if we did the Charlie Kirk show.

00:33:36.000 In at seven, out at like 6:38, like seven.

00:33:39.000 Yeah, it's long days.

00:33:40.000 Yeah.

00:33:40.000 And then, but then the other ones are off.

00:33:42.000 Yeah, I would, I think I would prefer that.

00:33:43.000 I think a lot of people would prefer that because there's like such a sunk cost to any day that's a workday in terms of like psychological like, you know, effort you need to put into it.

00:33:51.000 Yes.

00:33:51.000 Decompressing after work.

00:33:53.000 Just the commute.

00:33:54.000 You know, the more times you have to commute, the more time you put into that.

00:33:58.000 But it's very telling to me because it's just obvious, like a lot of jobs just can't as easily work that way.

00:34:04.000 Like anything that requires the ability to just handle so many people coming in, like a medical office or something, like is going to need to be open more often.

00:34:13.000 Or a show.

00:34:14.000 Okay, are we only going to make four episodes of our show if we're a live show each week?

00:34:18.000 Right.

00:34:18.000 Or each day.

00:34:19.000 And so it's like very telling.

00:34:20.000 I feel like this appeals the most.

00:34:22.000 Like the idea of like, oh, I'd rather have only four days of work rather than five probably appeals the most to people who kind of really only have one day of work a week.

00:34:30.000 And then they're also just physically present in an office the rest of the week.

00:34:34.000 I'm open-minded to it, but I just, I don't know.

00:34:37.000 What I'm not open-minded to is just further making America a lazy country.

00:34:41.000 That's what I, that, for six days you shall work, one day you shall rest, is what the scriptures say.

00:34:46.000 Here's another question.

00:34:47.000 Charlie, did you see the Hunter Biden, I'm sorry, the Joe Biden impeachment, Hunter Biden hearings?

00:34:53.000 I want your thoughts.

00:34:54.000 Blake, I know you're probably still catching up on this.

00:34:57.000 Lackluster, right?

00:34:58.000 I mean, lackluster to say the least.

00:35:01.000 Do you disagree?

00:35:02.000 They're definitely not so far not succeeding in the objective where, you know, we've talked that, okay, we can't make Joe Biden be removed from office.

00:35:09.000 The Senate will not convict him, even if we impeach him.

00:35:11.000 So the value of this is not looking like it's PR.

00:35:14.000 It is PR-based.

00:35:16.000 It is that we force people to talk about what Joe Biden has done, what Hunter Biden has done, what Hunter Biden has done on behalf of the big guy, Joe Biden.

00:35:24.000 And we force people to just know about this by making it a big story.

00:35:27.000 And, well, so far, they've been blacked out by the media, which that's difficult to engage with. 0.90

00:35:31.000 But they've even looked silly while doing it.

00:35:34.000 You know, they've had witnesses who are just like, well, I don't really think impeachment is warranted yet.

00:35:40.000 Why are we doing this?

00:35:41.000 Like, you need to make sure that if you're going to do it, that it's very damning.

00:35:45.000 And there didn't need to rush it out.

00:35:46.000 Like, right now, you know, as we discuss this, they're doing the 9:30 thing that might be over by the time they hear this.

00:35:53.000 But, you know, there's no need to rush this because it's essentially a 2024 issue.

00:35:57.000 You could have done this in the spring.

00:35:58.000 You could do this in the summer.

00:35:59.000 Just make sure that you do it right and make sure that the evidence is very robust.

00:36:05.000 Don't rush it out.

00:36:06.000 Don't do it to like get your, you know, one, you know, your nice article in.

00:36:10.000 Or a five-minute soundbite, right?

00:36:12.000 Make it very, I mean, but yeah, you're right.

00:36:14.000 So if it is, if it is something that we think we're running against Joe Biden, wouldn't we want this to crescendo in like June or July of next year?

00:36:22.000 Exactly.

00:36:23.000 And, you know, look to the left for inspiration here.

00:36:26.000 Where they think about the discipline it required for the left, where everyone wants Trump to go to jail.

00:36:30.000 They all want to prosecute him.

00:36:31.000 And everyone has the incentive to be the first one to do it.

00:36:33.000 Yes.

00:36:34.000 And yet they didn't get any charges out till after the midterms.

00:36:36.000 They sat on it for two years.

00:36:38.000 And I think the cases against him are weak, but they spent that two years making sure it was as strong as they could make it.

00:36:44.000 So, you know, if you're Jack Smith, they put in the effort to make it look very bad for Trump on January 6th or whatever.

00:36:53.000 And, you know, and then they got it out so that this trial and everything about it will crescendo at the exact right moment, early next spring, into the summer, possibly into the fall.

00:37:04.000 And we need to think that same way with our stuff.

00:37:06.000 You can't just pop off and not be ready to roll.

00:37:09.000 Blake Neff, everybody.

00:37:10.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:37:12.000 Get your tickets to AmericaFest, tpusa.com or our campus tour.

00:37:16.000 We will be in San Jose.

00:37:17.000 I think Blake's coming with us.

00:37:18.000 You can come say hi.

00:37:19.000 If you're in the Bay Area and you're looking for a husband, tpusa.com, he laughs every time.

00:37:25.000 It's the best.

00:37:26.000 He's got a great smile, doesn't he?

00:37:28.000 Jiminy Christmas.

00:37:29.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:37:30.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:37:33.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

00:37:37.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - October 02, 2023

Ask Charlie Anything 162: The Roman Legacy? AOC's Tesla? 4-Day Workweek?

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript