The Charlie Kirk Show - August 10, 2020


Ask Charlie Anything 29: Ten Things You Didn't Know About Charlie, How to Expand the Overton Window, and Debunking the Tom Cotton Controversy


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

195.82582

Word count

6,521

Sentence count

473

Harmful content

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

39

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show, host Charlie Kirk takes your questions and answers them. Today's question asks, "Is there ever a way to move the Overton window back in the other direction? And if so, how? "

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Thank you for listening to this podcast one production.
00:00:02.000 Now available on Apple Podcasts, Podcast One, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcast.
00:00:08.000 Hey, everybody.
00:00:09.000 Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, I take your questions.
00:00:12.000 It is Monday, so I take your questions.
00:00:14.000 I want to thank those of you that are supporting our program at CharlieKirk.com slash support.
00:00:17.000 By supporting our program and chipping in $5, $10, $50 a month, you allow us to have the best guests in the movement and do two podcasts a day on weekdays at charliekirk.com slash support.
00:00:28.000 That is CharlieKirk.com slash support.
00:00:30.000 I want to thank those of you that continue to send in your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:35.000 And if you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, go to tpusa.com and listen to our episodes over the weekend.
00:00:40.000 We had some great ones.
00:00:42.000 AMA, it is Monday.
00:00:44.000 I take your questions.
00:00:45.000 Buckle up.
00:00:46.000 Here we go.
00:00:47.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:49.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
00:00:51.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:54.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:57.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:58.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:01:00.000 His spirit, his love of this country.
00:01:01.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
00:01:07.000 Turning point USA.
00:01:08.000 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.
00:01:17.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:19.000 Hey, everybody.
00:01:20.000 It is Monday, which means that I am taking your questions.
00:01:24.000 Freedom at CharlieKirk.com, Freedom at CharlieKirk.com.
00:01:27.000 If your question is selected, you get a signed copy of the New York Times bestseller, The MAGA Doctrine.
00:01:34.000 So all you have to do is email me your questions in at freedom at charliekirk.com, and I am reading straight off your questions.
00:01:39.000 I want to thank those of you that support our program at charliekirk.com slash support.
00:01:44.000 CharlieKirk.com slash support.
00:01:48.000 We've got some great questions coming in.
00:01:50.000 Let's start with this one.
00:01:52.000 Hi, Charlie.
00:01:52.000 I appreciate all you do to bring honest conservative journalism to America.
00:01:57.000 I've been listening to a lot recently.
00:01:59.000 I know you talk multiple times how the left has been rapidly moving the Overton window.
00:02:03.000 Do you think there's ever a way to move the Overton window back in the other direction?
00:02:07.000 If so, how would we as conservatives do that?
00:02:10.000 Thanks, Megan19 from Virginia.
00:02:12.000 Well, first of all, Megan, thank you so much for the question.
00:02:14.000 You went a signed copy of the MAGA doctrine, and please email us to redeem it.
00:02:18.000 So look, the Overton window, we talked about, I think, my goodness, probably a month and a half ago.
00:02:23.000 So thank you, Megan, for the good memory recall.
00:02:26.000 And we talked about the Overton window as a way to judge political ideas.
00:02:31.000 It's a way to basically be able to measure certain ideas that go from once unacceptable in the general population to public policy.
00:02:40.000 What is the spectrum that it actually goes on?
00:02:42.000 And the Overton window argues that things can go either direction.
00:02:48.000 So to answer your question, absolutely.
00:02:50.000 And so here is the actual spectrum of the Overton window.
00:02:53.000 It goes from unthinkable to radical, to acceptable, to sensible, to popular, to policy, to popular, to sensible, acceptable, radical, unthinkable.
00:03:02.000 And so basically, the Overton window can move both ways.
00:03:05.000 The left likes to use the Overton window as a measuring stick to try to get things that were once completely unthinkable, that were so radical, that were sort of the mainstream into public policy and popular.
00:03:17.000 What's really interesting, though, is if you look at the Overton window, since we have last talked about it, especially when it goes from something that's unthinkable to policy, let's take defunding the police.
00:03:28.000 The left has actually leapfrogged a couple of these steps.
00:03:33.000 So it's supposed to go from unthinkable to radical to acceptable to sensible to popular to policy.
00:03:41.000 Well, they took something that was unthinkable to radical to policy.
00:03:46.000 Defunding the police and abolishing the police was never actually sensible.
00:03:50.000 It's actually still not very popular, but now it's policy.
00:03:55.000 You see, the left has taken an unprecedented and very risky move here to use the power that they have in urban cities such as Minneapolis, in New York City, in Los Angeles, to defund or eliminate the police altogether, which they're trying to do in Minneapolis or Seattle, where they don't actually go through the hard, arduous work to persuade their population around what might be best for their people.
00:04:19.000 Instead, they go from something that's unthinkable.
00:04:21.000 I mean, the fact that two years ago we would be even discussing abolishing the police, it's out of the zeitgeist, which means spirit of our times.
00:04:30.000 And then they use the power that they have and the little momentum that they might find within some radical base to actually implement it into policy.
00:04:38.000 Now, we talk about this a lot on our program, which is how the left is willing to use their power to actually try to convert people.
00:04:46.000 Whereas we as conservatives try to convert people to try to give us more power to give us a mandate to do what is right to give people more freedom.
00:04:54.000 The left doesn't see it that way.
00:04:55.000 The left thinks that if they're able to do something, eventually that will be able to persuade people.
00:05:00.000 I see it both ways, but it's very, very dangerous. 0.58
00:05:03.000 So, for example, according to Gallup, it says black Americans want police to retain local presence. 0.56
00:05:09.000 This is gallup.com, August 5th, 2020, by Lydia Saad.
00:05:13.000 Their public polling shows that black Americans are a bit more likely than most other groups to see police locally, but still, 81% want police to spend the same amount or more time in their area.
00:05:26.000 And so, again, we as conservatives try to persuade people in the public arena so that we are able to protect constitutional freedoms.
00:05:32.000 The left, much more Machiavellian, they will use any sort of majority or any sort of power that they have to try to get people over to their side, whether by force or whether by policy, and eventually, if by total fiat, persuasion. 0.60
00:05:46.000 Now, this Gallup survey is very interesting because you go back to the question about the Overton window, which again goes from the spectrum is unthinkable to policy, is black Americans don't even support what the media is telling them that they support. 0.62
00:06:01.000 So, what's basically happening is you have a group of ruling class, predominantly white liberals, that are putting forth public policy measures that almost no one in the country supports. 0.61
00:06:12.000 This, first of all, according to this poll, is a huge opening for President Trump.
00:06:18.000 81% of black Americans want police to spend the same amount or more time in their area.
00:06:26.000 And so, if you actually look deeper into the polling, it is white Americans that think that the police should spend less time in black America.
00:06:36.000 Even though white Americans don't live in these communities, this is a white liberal imposition onto black culture and the black community, where 81% of black Americans want the police to spend the same amount of time or more time.
00:06:51.000 More time, 20%, same amount of time, 61%. 0.98
00:06:54.000 So you add those together, they're perfectly fine with the number. 1.00
00:06:58.000 Interestingly enough, 20% of Asian Americans want the police to spend less time in their communities, whereas only 19% of black Americans want them to spend less time in their communities. 0.99
00:07:10.000 So BLM Incorporated is not even representing the black community at all whatsoever, even though the black community has more frequency of which they see the police because black Americans commit more crimes. 0.86
00:07:23.000 And we have gone through the reasons for that. 0.97
00:07:25.000 It's not because of the color of their skin.
00:07:26.000 It's because of socioeconomic challenges, mostly of which black America's family has been completely devastated. 1.00
00:07:32.000 And because of that, black Americans commit more crimes generation after generation. 1.00
00:07:37.000 We should be unafraid to talk about why black America is committing more crimes and also that black America is unfortunately one of the most dangerous parts of American society. 1.00
00:07:46.000 And there's nothing insensitive by saying that. 0.99
00:07:48.000 In fact, I think the more honest, the more forthright we are about crime in America, the more likely we'll be to actually solve these issues.
00:07:57.000 So Megan from Virginia, the answer is absolutely yes.
00:07:59.000 We have to take certain things that are in public policy and actually move them to the unthinkable. 0.60
00:08:05.000 A great one is abortion.
00:08:07.000 I'm very pro-life. 0.66
00:08:08.000 I believe in the sanctity of the individual.
00:08:10.000 I believe in the protection of the innocent.
00:08:12.000 And so something right now that is policy, abortion, is not even that popular.
00:08:17.000 Actually, recent polling done by Gallup shows that America is trending pro-life, especially amongst younger voters, believe it or not.
00:08:25.000 It's actually a winning issue. 0.69
00:08:26.000 When conservatives run on life issues, conservatives win on it unless they're in California or New York, the abortion capitals of America. 0.71
00:08:33.000 So conservatives should absolutely try to bring things that are in policy and eventually reverse it and bring it to something that's unthinkable.
00:08:40.000 Conservatives get a lot wrong and Republicans rarely fight.
00:08:43.000 But one of the issues that we actually have won on, and one of the issues that we have actually been successful on moving the Overton window, is the issue of firearms and weapons.
00:08:54.000 This is an issue that throughout the years, the American people have actually grown in the direction of conservatives, not in the direction of the gun grabbers or in the far-left-wing statists or collectivists.
00:09:05.000 It was policy, absolutely.
00:09:07.000 However, it has now grown to be popular.
00:09:10.000 We have seen such a massive surge in gun purchases.
00:09:13.000 According to the New York Times, Keith Collins and David Yaffe Balany, April 2nd, 2020, quote, about 2 million guns were sold in the U.S. as virus fears spread.
00:09:25.000 NPR.org, July 16th, 2020, by Chris Arnold.
00:09:29.000 Sales of guns to be first-time owners rise amid COVID-19 pandemic.
00:09:35.000 So the window can absolutely move in both direction.
00:09:39.000 And just to reinforce that point, in just seven months of 2020, we have sold more guns than all of 2019.
00:09:46.000 So the window can move both ways.
00:09:48.000 And we as conservatives should not be completely dismal or pessimistic that the left always is able to move the window in their direction.
00:09:55.000 They're better at it than we are, but they also have more of a backfiring component to it because they are willing to go from the leapfrog of unthinkable to policy just when they have one more vote than we do.
00:10:06.000 I'm not saying that's a good idea.
00:10:07.000 I'm saying sometimes it does work because then people see the public policy and they don't have the motivation to try to reverse it or to try to upend it.
00:10:15.000 It's a great question.
00:10:16.000 I'm happy to dive into it deeper.
00:10:18.000 I encourage all of you to check out a visual of the Overton window.
00:10:20.000 Type it into your search engine, which is hopefully something other than Google.
00:10:24.000 We'll get into that later.
00:10:26.000 But I encourage you guys to check out the Overton window.
00:10:28.000 The visual of what I'm talking about is very instructive and very, very helpful.
00:10:32.000 Next question from Molly.
00:10:34.000 She says, hey, Charlie, so as a Christian, I have kind of an interesting question.
00:10:37.000 I'm a huge Trump supporter, and it makes me cringe to think of Biden or any of his cronies in office.
00:10:42.000 However, I know that God is ultimately in control and his purposes will prevail.
00:10:46.000 In the Bible, there are numerous instances where God uses an evil leader to work out his purposes.
00:10:52.000 Is it possible that if Biden is elected, God forbid, that it may be for God's doing to use him as a tool for his ultimate purpose in the end?
00:10:59.000 I hope I am wrong in that Trump gets another four years in office, but at the end of the day, even if he doesn't, I trust the Lord, and as scary as it may seem, I hope that this is all part of God's sovereign plan.
00:11:09.000 For Trump supporters who are not Christians, I don't know how they could find any solace on this.
00:11:12.000 Anyway, just a thought.
00:11:14.000 I wanted to get your take on it.
00:11:15.000 Thanks, Molly.
00:11:15.000 Molly, you win a signed copy of the New York Times bestseller MAGA doctrine.
00:11:19.000 It's a phenomenal question.
00:11:20.000 There has to be a point where we surrender to the sovereignty of God.
00:11:24.000 And so if Joe Biden wins, I will admit and say that it is God's sovereignty and God wanted it to happen.
00:11:32.000 That is not an excuse not to try to effectuate positive change.
00:11:36.000 The great Wayne Grudem, who is one of the top theologians on the planet, I've had an opportunity to meet him.
00:11:42.000 He actually lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
00:11:45.000 He's probably one of the most accomplished theologians ever.
00:11:48.000 He is a pro-Trump theologian, too, and he supports Donald Trump's policies.
00:11:54.000 He has a terrific new piece out where it's an open letter where he defends Donald Trump to one of his listeners.
00:12:00.000 It is called Letter to an Anti-Trump Christian Friend.
00:12:04.000 We are going to put this on CharlieKirk.com, and it's phenomenal.
00:12:09.000 And he goes piece by piece on how, yes, absolutely, if Biden ends up winning, then that is the sovereignty and how magnanimous God is.
00:12:18.000 However, he makes the argument that we must do everything we possibly can to advocate and support President Donald Trump.
00:12:24.000 And he goes through it in great detail.
00:12:25.000 This is a top-tier theologian, Townhall.com.
00:12:29.000 They published it.
00:12:30.000 Letter to an anti-Trump Christian Friend. 1.00
00:12:34.000 It's phenomenal. 0.80
00:12:35.000 And so we're going to post that on CharlieKirk.com.
00:12:37.000 I also have a recent clip that has gone viral on our YouTube channel.
00:12:41.000 And also, I want to encourage all of you, if you have not yet subscribed to our YouTube channel, do you know that we have a YouTube channel?
00:12:46.000 We have 108,000 subscribers, praise God, and we are growing very quickly.
00:12:50.000 So I want to use this as kind of a commercial soundbite for you guys just to type in Charlie Kirk to your YouTube browser right now and hit that subscribe button and that little bell that goes with it.
00:13:00.000 If everyone listening to this right now did that, we will surge in YouTube.
00:13:04.000 And I know there's a lot of problems with Google.
00:13:06.000 There's a lot of shenanigans, but it's still a platform that we are able to get our voice out, praise God.
00:13:10.000 And I have a video there that is going very viral that you guys can pick up, which is why every Christian should vote for President Trump.
00:13:18.000 And we are getting lots more views out there.
00:13:20.000 So please subscribe and hit that bell.
00:13:21.000 And when I am in the Battle Station Chair in Phoenix, Arizona, all these podcasts are also delivered in video form on the Charlie Kirk Show YouTube channel.
00:13:32.000 But I have been traveling so much.
00:13:33.000 I've been in Maine.
00:13:34.000 I've been in Michigan, Florida, Las Vegas, D.C., Aspen, Wyoming, Montana.
00:13:39.000 I know that the Chinese coronavirus has slowed a lot of people down, but we are speeding up quicker than ever on the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:13:44.000 And I just want to say thank you again for those of you that make everything we do possible at charliekirk.com/slash support.
00:13:50.000 When you contribute to us, you pay for our sound editing team, our production team, our promotion, our website build out, all the podcast costs so we are able to deliver the amount of podcasts that we are.
00:14:02.000 Let's get to a more fun question.
00:14:04.000 People seem to like these.
00:14:05.000 Hey, Charlie, I'm currently a student at Florida State University, and I listen to your podcast every day on the way to work.
00:14:11.000 Thank you.
00:14:12.000 Since your podcasts are very focused on serious talks and a constant battle of politics, I figured I'd ask you some non-political questions that you can answer like a fast money round on Family Feud so your viewers can get to know you more.
00:14:23.000 Here you go.
00:14:24.000 Okay, let's do this.
00:14:25.000 10 questions.
00:14:26.000 Number one, do you like roller coasters?
00:14:29.000 I do like roller coasters.
00:14:31.000 However, I don't trust them as much as I used to when I was younger.
00:14:35.000 I've learned way too much about the skittishness of the architecture and the skeleton of a roller coaster.
00:14:41.000 Not as big of a fan of roller coasters as I was growing up, but I do like roller coasters generally.
00:14:46.000 As long as they're properly designed and they don't have too many of the turns that make you go completely upside down, I am a fan, but I'm very careful what roller coasters I go on.
00:14:54.000 Number two, biggest fear.
00:14:56.000 At the right height, I am very scared of heights.
00:14:59.000 I'm not scared of heights if it's 10 or 20 or 30 feet, but if it's right around 100 feet and you have to kind of look over the edge, terrified.
00:15:08.000 Absolutely.
00:15:09.000 And it's kind of funny when you're at 30,000 feet in an airplane, I'm not scared of heights because there's a lot of science behind this.
00:15:15.000 You actually don't feel how high up you are at that moment.
00:15:18.000 It just kind of looks, everything looks so small, so you're not able to grasp it.
00:15:21.000 But there's that kind of sweet spot height right around 180 to 200 feet.
00:15:26.000 Not a fan at all whatsoever.
00:15:28.000 Number three, favorite shoe brand.
00:15:30.000 I like New Balances.
00:15:31.000 They're made in America.
00:15:32.000 I'm not sure their whole stance on BLM Incorporated. 0.98
00:15:35.000 Here I am probably plugging a shoe line that probably promotes BLM insurrection in our country, or maybe not.
00:15:41.000 So maybe you guys can go find out for yourself. 0.66
00:15:43.000 I'll do an update in a minute on New Balance, and so I'll have my team look it up and see if New Balance has pandered to the racial crowd or not.
00:15:51.000 And I just went to their website, and it looks like they haven't.
00:15:53.000 So maybe I can stand corrected.
00:15:56.000 You guys can email me if I'm wrong here, freedom at charliekirk.com, but it's all made in America.
00:16:00.000 It's a phenomenal company.
00:16:02.000 Number four, what shows are you into?
00:16:04.000 I watch less and less television.
00:16:06.000 I think almost all television now has an agenda.
00:16:09.000 However, I do love Seinfeld and Frasier.
00:16:11.000 I loved the show Ozark.
00:16:13.000 I watched Jack Ryan, even though it was on the Amazon platform.
00:16:16.000 Didn't really enjoy that very much, to be perfectly honest.
00:16:19.000 I like the show, but the fact that it was on Amazon wasn't really, you know, let's say compelling.
00:16:24.000 I loved Tom Clancy growing up, so that was really kind of instructive and informative.
00:16:28.000 But look, I don't watch as much television as I once did. 0.98
00:16:31.000 I think most of it's actually garbage. 0.80
00:16:33.000 They don't dive as deep as they once did into television shows. 0.98
00:16:36.000 I do like Breaking Bad.
00:16:37.000 It's a phenomenal show if you haven't seen it.
00:16:39.000 The Sopranos and Breaking Bad are similar in a lot of different ways.
00:16:44.000 Sopranos and Breaking Bad is almost the anti-hero instead of the hero, which I think is very fun and very interesting to watch.
00:16:51.000 It's actually a lot harder to act.
00:16:53.000 It's a lot harder to act to do the Brian Cranston acting or the Gandalfini acting than it is to just do the typical hero's journey.
00:17:03.000 Number five, favorite sport to play and to watch.
00:17:05.000 Basketball, definitely a play.
00:17:07.000 To watch football.
00:17:09.000 I loved playing football growing up.
00:17:10.000 Basketball is still a sport I love to play.
00:17:12.000 I'm still recovering from my back injury.
00:17:14.000 So as soon as I get completely healed from that, I'll be able to be back in action. 0.99
00:17:18.000 I love watching football, and I sure hope that college football does not get destroyed by the BLM Incorporated Social Justice Warriors. 0.99
00:17:26.000 Man, that would be such a disappointing day. 1.00
00:17:28.000 I love college football, and I love basketball.
00:17:31.000 Number six, do you date?
00:17:33.000 Yes, I have an amazing girlfriend.
00:17:35.000 Many of you know her, and that's all I'm going to say about that, and there'll be more news around there at some point.
00:17:40.000 Number seven, any guilty pleasures?
00:17:43.000 I'd say probably my guilty pleasure is I enjoy a 20-minute nap here and there.
00:17:47.000 I don't know if that's a guilty pleasure or not.
00:17:50.000 And I think I am actually a pro, I'm pro-napping if it's done correctly in a scheme of a productive day.
00:17:58.000 I love that like 26-minute nap, like right on the nose.
00:18:02.000 I mean, if I'm up at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. doing podcasting and traveling, and I'm on an airplane and I just have 20 minutes to be able to turn off the phone, I can fall asleep in 90 seconds or less, maybe sometimes 30 seconds.
00:18:13.000 I could just turn it off and turn it on.
00:18:15.000 So I guess that would be a guilty pleasure.
00:18:18.000 Number eight, beach or camping.
00:18:21.000 I love the outdoors.
00:18:24.000 I travel too much.
00:18:25.000 I get so little time to actually just enjoy things.
00:18:29.000 Camping is not necessarily an activity that I would embrace right now.
00:18:33.000 It just seems like so much logistics poured into one thing.
00:18:37.000 I mean, I guess if it's done correctly and you're able to really enjoy the outdoors.
00:18:42.000 But generally camping, if you forget one thing, it could screw up your entire trip.
00:18:46.000 And I say this as an Eagle Scout.
00:18:48.000 And look, fishing, not exactly a fan.
00:18:52.000 I had a great fishing trip last summer.
00:18:54.000 The fishing was not the highlight.
00:18:55.000 It was the people I was spending time with.
00:18:57.000 And being able to get out on the water and just disconnect from the world, camping is not exactly something that I would be overly excited to do.
00:19:06.000 And the beach, not really either.
00:19:08.000 I just sitting in the sun stationary is not exactly fun.
00:19:11.000 When I do go to the beach, though, I like walking the entire beach.
00:19:14.000 I'll walk like 12 miles on the beach, and it feels like you've hiked 30 miles on the beach.
00:19:19.000 I do like beach volleyball, but again, back issues.
00:19:22.000 So there you go.
00:19:24.000 Number nine, do you ever take a day off without looking at your phone or social media?
00:19:27.000 Yes, I do.
00:19:28.000 It's not a specific day.
00:19:30.000 I try to do this during the summer where I'll just kind of put my phone away.
00:19:33.000 I've told people this before, but I have deleted Instagram and Twitter from my phone, and I have an amazing team that I just kind of text my tweets to.
00:19:39.000 I say, here, go tweet this or tweet that.
00:19:41.000 And it's been incredibly refreshing.
00:19:43.000 Not have to look at what all the angry, bitter, resentful people have to say, all their deceit and all their dishonesty.
00:19:50.000 And it's kind of funny.
00:19:50.000 They think that they're tweeting at me, that I'm going to see it, and they don't.
00:19:53.000 And so they tweet all these things, and it actually doesn't hit my screen at all.
00:19:58.000 So I'm a happier person because of it.
00:20:00.000 And I'll periodically check my Twitter feed to see how things are going externally, but internally, I never look at the comments or look at what people are.
00:20:07.000 Tweeting at me.
00:20:08.000 I don't have Facebook.
00:20:09.000 I have YouTube.
00:20:10.000 And I don't even look at the comments of YouTube.
00:20:11.000 And I actually have been able to produce more.
00:20:13.000 It's why we've been able to do as many podcasts as we do here is I just don't even look at these applications. 0.86
00:20:18.000 I could not care less what the chattering class of prognosticating anti-American Marxists that are very bitter, resentful, deceiving people have to say about me. 0.74
00:20:27.000 Doesn't concern me, and I don't think it should concern you either. 0.75
00:20:31.000 But of course, keep listening to the Charlie Crook show, because that's important.
00:20:33.000 Here's the last one.
00:20:34.000 If you were lost in the woods, how long do you think you'd survive?
00:20:37.000 Why?
00:20:37.000 And what special skills would you put to use?
00:20:39.000 I would survive for quite a long time.
00:20:41.000 I don't mean that in any way arrogantly.
00:20:43.000 I'm a pretty good survivalist.
00:20:45.000 I am an Eagle Scout.
00:20:46.000 I can make a fire rather easily.
00:20:48.000 I have a very, very good sense of direction.
00:20:50.000 I do.
00:20:51.000 There's not many things I brag about.
00:20:52.000 I am an above-average driver.
00:20:54.000 I have a good sense of direction.
00:20:57.000 I have a very good memory, and I am able to dialogue with people quite well.
00:21:02.000 My sense of direction, even my production team says it's freakishly good.
00:21:08.000 Mr. Producer, who's terrific and works very hard, we've been lost in Los Angeles, and we kind of be turned around and be like, you have to go here, here, here, here.
00:21:16.000 And it's just, I have a built-in compass to myself.
00:21:18.000 I am able to find my chart, my course.
00:21:20.000 I do not get confused easily.
00:21:22.000 And if I do not have a specific map, if I do not have a specific area that I know I'm charting, I all of a sudden get a headache and I have to almost get my smartphone out and get my map and I look at it very specifically.
00:21:34.000 My grandfather was a pilot in World War II.
00:21:37.000 He was also really ran the old company called Pan Am.
00:21:42.000 If you don't know what Pan Am is, it was like the airline.
00:21:45.000 And so I think it's genetic, honestly, within my family.
00:21:48.000 And everyone that I get a chance to be with when I'm outdoors, they're like, your sense of direction is extraordinary.
00:21:53.000 I'm like, well, thank you.
00:21:54.000 And I've been with people, my goodness, where their sense of direction is just, it's just, I'm like, how do you not know exactly where you are?
00:22:00.000 And it's just kind of built into me.
00:22:02.000 So I think because of that, the sense of direction, I'd be able to find fresh water.
00:22:05.000 I'd be able to find north.
00:22:06.000 I'd be able to get out of wherever I was very quickly.
00:22:09.000 And I think we should do a special documentary where you drop me into the backwoods and I have to find my way out.
00:22:15.000 And then we're able to put a liberal in the same scenario and see who survives.
00:22:21.000 And Bear Grillis is a Christian, by the way.
00:22:23.000 I think Bear Grillis does a nice job.
00:22:25.000 He's a great guy.
00:22:26.000 So let's take a question from a liberal listener.
00:22:28.000 God bless you for listening.
00:22:29.000 Hi, my name is Aaron.
00:22:30.000 I live in Arkansas.
00:22:30.000 I'm a liberal who loves Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Elon Omar.
00:22:34.000 However, I like staying up to date with your content because it gives me an opportunity to see the other side of the argument.
00:22:40.000 My question is about something I don't think you've talked about and think would be good to address.
00:22:44.000 Recently, Senator Tom Cotton of my state, Arkansas, said some pretty outlandish things about slavery.
00:22:48.000 You've been pretty outspoken on how much you like Tom Cotton.
00:22:51.000 This is correct.
00:22:52.000 I don't think I need to quote what he said as you keep yourself well informed.
00:22:55.000 So I'm sure you know already.
00:22:57.000 So how do you think this justification of slavery sounds to African Americans? 0.99
00:23:01.000 And do you think that what he said about slavery is being a necessary evil just because it led to the creation of America is a good argument. 0.85
00:23:08.000 Full cotton quote in context, which he's talking about, let's read the quote or he. 0.92
00:23:12.000 Aaron can go both ways. 0.98
00:23:14.000 So I don't know if it's a he or she.
00:23:16.000 It is actually written in the masculine.
00:23:19.000 So I will say that it is a he, but I don't want to assume anyone's gender.
00:23:23.000 How's that for the inspiration of your person you like, AOC?
00:23:27.000 Okay, here's what Cotton said, Tom Cotton.
00:23:29.000 We have to study the history of slavery and its role and its impact on the development of our country, because otherwise we can't understand our country.
00:23:36.000 As the founding fathers said, it was a necessary evil upon which the union was built.
00:23:40.000 But the Union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to ultimate extinction, Cotton told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in an interview that was published two Sundays ago.
00:23:51.000 So in full context, what Senator Tom Cotton is talking about is in order to keep the entire Union together, in order to not have the southern states immediately and instantaneously form their own country, there were negotiations that were committed to that eventually the plan was always to eradicate slavery.
00:24:11.000 Despite what many people will tell you, and Senator Cotton was articulating this very correctly, was that in order to keep the Union together, to eventually abolish slavery, there had to be compromises that were given.
00:24:24.000 So for example, some people like to point out the three-fifths compromise, and they say, oh, look, we thought of black people as sub-human beings.
00:24:32.000 That is a lazy, sloppy way to interpret it.
00:24:37.000 Instead, the slave-owning South, they wanted to count every slave as a full human being.
00:24:43.000 You might say, well, what's wrong with that? 0.59
00:24:45.000 Well, they don't want to give them voting rights.
00:24:47.000 No, no, no, no.
00:24:48.000 They did not want to give them citizenship, true citizenship.
00:24:52.000 They simply wanted it for electoral representation.
00:24:55.000 They wanted it for electoral representation so that they could make slavery the law of the land. 0.51
00:25:01.000 You see, the way the union was formed, they eventually came to a compromise of three-fifths so that the southern states will have some sort of political check against them and they couldn't make all of America a pro-slavery nation.
00:25:13.000 Thomas Jefferson, despite owning slaves himself, actually was the first president in 1807 when it was legally permissible under the United States Constitution to ban the new importation of slaves into America.
00:25:26.000 Vermont in year 1777 abolished slavery completely after being inspired by the Declaration of Independence.
00:25:32.000 George Washington signed a slavery prohibition, the Northwest Ordinance into the Northwest Territories, that the new Northwest Territories were slavery free.
00:25:42.000 The Founding Fathers, especially the Founding Fathers that were the true architects of the republic that we love today, it was never a question of if we were going to abolish slavery.
00:25:52.000 It was how are we going to abolish this couple thousand year old sin.
00:25:57.000 What Senator Tom Cotton said is absolutely correct.
00:26:00.000 That he said necessary evil upon which the Union was built.
00:26:04.000 That's his choice of words.
00:26:06.000 I would basically say it a little bit different, and I'm not disagreeing with the essence of what he's saying.
00:26:11.000 Instead, what I would say is kind of a point deeper, or a better way to put it in my own mind, is the compromises that were made to keep the union together actually ended up abolishing slavery over the next couple hundred years post-that than it otherwise would have if the south would have formed their own nation.
00:26:30.000 And this is a very important point.
00:26:32.000 So this article was published about his efforts to target an initiative by the New York Times.
00:26:38.000 The initiative, of course, was the 1619 Project Curriculum, which proposes that schools reframe U.S. history by marking the nation's founding in 1619, the year the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia.
00:26:48.000 Cotton, however, told the Democrat Gazette that he's proposing legislation that would withhold federal funding to schools that embrace the curriculum. 0.94
00:26:54.000 And I agree with that.
00:26:55.000 So to your question, the specific question from Aaron, and thank you for listening as a liberal and a Bernie Sanders supporter and a AOC supporter and an Elon Omar supporter.
00:27:04.000 Thank you for listening.
00:27:05.000 We appreciate that so much.
00:27:06.000 We love different ideas and we love dialogue.
00:27:10.000 We love the collision of different worldviews.
00:27:14.000 You say here, how does that sound to African Americans?
00:27:20.000 Well, more generally, I think that anyone, despite their skin color, would be offended if Tom Cotton was defending slavery, which he was not defending slavery.
00:27:29.000 What Tom Cotton was defending was the very specific political compromise that was necessary to abolish slavery.
00:27:36.000 Tom Cotton is repulsed by slavery.
00:27:37.000 Tom Cotton thinks that slavery was reprehensible.
00:27:40.000 But if the Union would have self-segregated themselves at the Constitutional Convention and would have said to the South, secede, you have your own Southern nation and to the North, we have our own Southern nation, then the states of South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, which were slave-owning states, what would it have taken for them to abolish slavery?
00:28:02.000 With the advancement of the cotton gin, which actually made the abolition of slavery much harder, believe it or not.
00:28:08.000 The cotton gin actually made the demand for slaves much more, not less.
00:28:13.000 The cotton gin was actually the greatest exponent on the demand of slaves, but there was no more importing of slaves allowed, which is what put a lot of the southern states in a very tricky and difficult position because Thomas Jefferson signed the abolition of new slaves into America in March of 1807.
00:28:30.000 So therefore, once the cotton gin came around, the entire issue of slavery was kind of resurfaced.
00:28:35.000 And I'm not saying the Civil War was solely because of slavery, but it was partly because of slavery.
00:28:40.000 There's a lot of literature that is written that says that slavery played no role.
00:28:43.000 I don't find that to be the case, actually.
00:28:45.000 There's a very provocative book that makes that claim.
00:28:47.000 I'd love to have him on the podcast.
00:28:49.000 I have a more nuanced view.
00:28:51.000 I think it was one piece of a broader question around northern versus southern sovereignty.
00:28:55.000 And it was a piece around exactly what the North identified as core fundamental values and the South.
00:29:02.000 And so I think it did play a role, but also I would recognize there were multiple decades of tension that were building up between the North and the South.
00:29:10.000 And so look, I think it's very important that we look at the founding of our country with the correct amount of nuance and criticism. 0.65
00:29:17.000 We should be critical that some of our founders own slaves. 0.54
00:29:20.000 Absolutely.
00:29:21.000 We should also be proud that those very same founders that had that kind of inherent contradiction, which we as human beings know exists, were also able to abolish the new import of slaves while also owning slaves themselves.
00:29:35.000 Even Thomas Jefferson in the Virginia House of Commons, before he became president of the United States, tried to abolish slavery in the state of Virginia.
00:29:42.000 So this was a moral dilemma that our founders absolutely wrestled with.
00:29:46.000 See, the picture that we paint our founding fathers with is as if they were completely supportive of slavery, no matter what.
00:29:52.000 It was something they wanted to continue, they wanted to advance, and they wanted to spread throughout the lands.
00:29:58.000 That's not true at all.
00:29:59.000 They were remorseful of slavery.
00:30:01.000 A lot of them owned slaves, and they even knew it was wrong, and they released the slaves on their deathbed, like Thomas Jefferson.
00:30:07.000 They went out of their way to make sure no new territories or states had the evil, sinister practice of slavery.
00:30:13.000 They were a transition period, a monumental great leap forward from the tyranny and the bondage of slavery, which, by the way, predated America, that unlike Senator Tim Kaine, who said America invented and perfected slavery.
00:30:26.000 I can't believe he said this.
00:30:27.000 Let's actually play tape of that.
00:30:28.000 Play tape.
00:30:29.000 The first African Americans into the English colonies came to Point and Comfort, Virginia in 1619.
00:30:35.000 They were slaves.
00:30:36.000 They'd been captured against their will.
00:30:38.000 But they landed in colonies that didn't have slavery.
00:30:41.000 There were no laws about slavery in the colonies at that time.
00:30:45.000 The United States didn't inherit slavery from anybody.
00:30:48.000 We created it.
00:30:50.000 It got created by the Virginia General Assembly and the legislatures of other states.
00:30:54.000 It got created by the court systems in colonial America and since that enforced fusion of slave laws.
00:31:02.000 It was, we created it.
00:31:05.000 And we created it and maintained it over centuries.
00:31:08.000 So unlike what Senator Tim Kaine just said, that America perfected and invented slavery, it's not true.
00:31:13.000 Slavery was around for 5,000 years.
00:31:15.000 As long as there's human beings, there have been human beings being bought and sold by other human beings. 0.65
00:31:19.000 It was America.
00:31:20.000 The American founding was the great leap forward.
00:31:22.000 It was the breaking point of the sin, the unspeakable sin of human beings owning human beings. 0.80
00:31:30.000 And yes, albeit it was not completely a perfect separation.
00:31:34.000 And some of us look back and we say, how could they have not done it so seamlessly?
00:31:38.000 Well, don't look back with any sort of cockiness or ubris that you think we have today that they weren't thinking back then.
00:31:45.000 There were plenty of abolitionists, even at the American founding, but they wanted to keep the entirety and the totality of the union together.
00:31:53.000 And good that they did, because it actually ended up leading to the liberation of more black Americans that were in slavery if we wouldn't have otherwise negotiated that.
00:32:03.000 deal.
00:32:04.000 So thank you for your question, Aaron, and thank you so much for listening.
00:32:07.000 I encourage you guys to listen to our sister episode today.
00:32:10.000 Please email me your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:32:14.000 Subscribe to that YouTube channel and consider supporting us at charliekirk.com slash support.
00:32:18.000 And I just want to continue to build what I said earlier.
00:32:20.000 New Balance did come out with a statement.
00:32:23.000 In fairness, it was probably one of the more vanilla statements out of all of corporate America's apology for how awful we are as a country, which of course is not true.
00:32:31.000 So I just want to make sure that I just contribute that New Balance wasn't without any sort of demerit in this, but I'm reading the statement.
00:32:38.000 It is a lot better than what Nike or Adidas or their other partners did.
00:32:42.000 Please consider, again, subscribing to our YouTube channel.
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00:33:15.000 God bless you.
00:33:16.000 Talk to you soon.
00:33:17.000 Thanks so much.