00:01:25.000His 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.
00:01:33.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:02:21.000I know a lot of you are high schooler soon-to-be college students, already college students.
00:02:25.000But look, I say in the book that we have way too many people to went to college and that, I mean, I'm sure if I asked you how many of you know people that dropped out of college, all your hands would go up.
00:02:34.00040% of people that enroll in college drop out.
00:02:36.000And then on top of that, 41% of people that end up graduating, if they find a job, they'll find a job in a career that doesn't require a college degree.
00:02:45.000And so it asks the question of why are we sending so many kids to four-year college in the first place?
00:02:49.000I'm sure a lot of you say, well, my parents are making me or it's just kind of something I was guided to do.
00:02:54.000Well, that's not a good reason to go borrow $200,000 to go fill your head with bad ideas to learn or hate yourself, hate the country, and believe there's no God.
00:03:01.000And so look, some people should go to college, obviously.
00:03:03.000Nurse, doctor, lawyer, pick the best college you can, graduate as quickly as possible.
00:03:08.000But we need more welders, electricians, carpenters, police officers, entrepreneurs, people that work with their hands.
00:03:13.000But there's a problem with that, which is that if you don't go to college, I didn't, you're treated as if you're not the same sort of intelligence level, the same sort of ability to have a conversation.
00:03:23.000We look down on people that don't go to college in America.
00:03:27.000I make the argument in the book that college is making our generation more miserable, more depressed, more anxious, more medicated, more alcohol-addicted, more drug-addicted, overweight, less likely to love America.
00:03:52.000I talk about generally what's happening.
00:03:54.000And that is a general truth, is that college has ripped so many kids off and have forced you to go into so many classes you don't want to take, to go to learn from professors who hate you, to teach you things that do not matter, that are completely opposite of what it means to live a flourishing and beautiful life.
00:04:16.000I think that colleges need to be investigated for running a RICO operation against our nation's young people.
00:04:22.000I believe that if we're going to do any sort of form of student loan forgiveness, we should force the college to pay for the student loan forgiveness and get rid of their massive hundreds of billions of dollars endowments.
00:04:31.000For example, if any of you go to the UT system, you know they're sitting on $55 billion in cash called the University of Texas Investment basically called UTIMCO endowment.
00:04:42.000Why don't they pay for your tuition for a year instead of when you have to go to UT Arlington or UT Austin?
00:04:53.000I put the entire college industry on trial.
00:04:56.000And basically what I want to do is for those of you that know college is not the right decision for you, I want to encourage you and destigmify, basically, destigmatize, I should say, this idea of not going to college.
00:05:33.000So you just have to ask the question, basically, what time is it, right?
00:05:37.000So if people are just kind of talking as if it's still the 1980s where stock market's going up and real estate's going up and they're unwilling to talk about the real issues concretely in front of us, then I think they want to go be a politician than actually go do something as a politician.
00:05:53.000As a general rule, I think very low of politicians, quite honestly, whenever they come on my show, we always have some fun, respectfully, but rather directly, I guess you could say.
00:06:03.000Why we're spending $56 billion on a proxy war in Ukraine is insane to me, while our nation's young people are literally killing themselves more than any other generation in American history.
00:06:12.000And so I'm really tired of politicians kind of giving the same one soundbite and the same things over and over again.
00:06:18.000So there's really some simple questions you can ask politicians, which is, do you think the southern border matters more than the Ukrainian-Russian border?
00:06:24.000And if they're unwilling to answer that question, like you're a complete waste of time, actually.
00:06:29.000And then finally, are you willing to use political power to improve the well-being of your voters?
00:06:34.000That's a very simple question, which is who do you serve, right?
00:06:37.000Do you serve some sort of special interest or do you actually serve your constituency?
00:06:44.000I'm very conservative, but I think the Republican Party does a miserable job of representing younger voters.
00:06:49.000Happy to talk about that more if you want.
00:06:50.000Let me ask you this, because you mentioned that this generation is killing themselves at a higher level.
00:06:55.000What do you think the cause of that is?
00:06:56.000There's a spiritual decay, obviously, but this is kind of where it ties into my thesis of college.
00:07:02.000We have the least religious, least church generation, least married generation, and we're on the verge of a population collapse.
00:07:08.000And one of the things we've done more is we've sent our most prized possession, our young people, to go to college where they encourage godlessness.
00:07:14.000They encourage a spiritually devoid lifestyle.
00:07:17.000Now, some people have wonderful, enriched spiritual lives if they go to college, but in general, spirituality and religion and Christianity is frowned upon on most American universities.
00:07:27.000In fact, pleasure is the ultimate goal on most American universities.
00:07:37.000I think we have the largest open-air drug experiment happening in human history right now.
00:07:42.000And most parents and adults have no idea really what they've done by deploying 250 million devices in the hands of multiple young people, what it does to dopamine reactor, serotonin, the ability for the brain to form neurologically absent immediate interventions.
00:07:57.000I myself turn my phone off from Friday to Saturday night.
00:07:59.000I do my best to keep my screen time to 90 minutes a day.
00:08:02.000It'll make you happier and less anxious, by the way.
00:08:04.000I'm telling you, just a good rule for life.
00:08:06.000These devices are designed to make you hate yourself.
00:08:10.000That might sound like an over-exaggeration.
00:08:12.000There's a reason why Steve Jobs didn't allow his kids to ever look at an iPad.
00:08:34.000You don't need to give Riddle in just because he wants to sit still.
00:08:37.000The American education system is hyper-feminine.
00:08:40.000I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but young boys have much more difficulty sitting still.
00:08:45.000And they may be doing things that are much more involved than just sitting and listening to a teacher kind of drone on for eight hours a day.
00:08:52.000We have 6 million kids, more or less, under the age of 18 on SSRIs or benzodiazepans or on Xanax or on Ritalin, which is some very, very powerful psychiatric drugs that kids are on.
00:09:04.000And I think that's a huge problem over-prescribing that.
00:09:08.000And then finally, we just have a massive cultural decay happening in our country where nihilism is kind of the kind of the fruit of the season, I guess you could say.
00:09:18.000Nihilism is the belief that there is no beauty, no goodness, no truth, only pleasure.
00:09:23.000And I think our leaders do a very poor job of articulating that there is an amazing life ahead of young people that does require discipline.
00:09:32.000I believe discipline actually brings you to freedom.
00:09:37.000And then, yeah, finally, we have an 18-year-old generation, 18 to 22 right now, which I know some of you are, that have been able to get everything they want whenever they want it, how they want it.
00:09:47.000So God designed us, I believe, to be able to exist in primitive conditions, to be in nature.
00:09:54.000That actually means some days not getting exactly what you want, how you want it.
00:09:58.000We have an entire generation that never has to really work or apply themselves through discipline.
00:10:04.000And your brains aren't wired for that.
00:10:05.000You're actually supposed to have bad days.
00:10:07.000You're supposed to go without an immediate dopamine rush of chocolate or pornography or whatever it might be that might be giving you that rush.
00:10:14.000You are overheating your primitive brain that God designed.
00:10:18.000And we wonder why 20-year-olds are killing themselves more than other generations in history.
00:10:22.000So I wish politicians would talk about this stuff instead.
00:10:25.000They're too busy sending money to Ukraine.
00:10:40.000As a 25-year-old, what would be your advice as somebody who wants to get into politics as in running for local offices or even higher offices?
00:11:58.000And then just be willing to say yes to whatever people need help from.
00:12:01.000So following that up, we were at the Student Action Summit last week, and several of us said, you did a panel with a few young politicians, some folks that are running for public office now.
00:12:10.000What do you see in them that sets them apart, that is really pushing them to be successful in their constituencies and the places where they're running?
00:12:18.000Yeah, so there were three candidates who were brought to you by Turning Point Action.
00:12:21.000It was Anthony Sabatini, Anna Paulina, and Caroline Levitt.
00:12:24.000They're all in their 20s or early 30s.
00:12:27.000Well, first, obviously they're younger, so that really interests me.
00:12:30.000That means they're looking at data differently.
00:12:32.000They understand the sense of urgency where we're kind of sitting on this generational time bomb, where I'm so sick and tired, no offense to anyone in the audience, of baby boomers telling young people, just work harder.
00:12:41.000Yeah, okay, you shut down the entire country for two years and forced an experimental gene therapy called a vaccine on us.
00:12:52.000Actually, we're getting poorer because you decided to go print $7 trillion we don't have and then go point your finger at young people.
00:12:58.000Like maybe you should sit this one out for maybe a couple of years.
00:13:01.000And so, yeah, that's one thing they understand is that Anthony Sabatini, Caroline Levitt, Anna Paulina, from a conservative perspective, I think understand the generational tension that exists.
00:13:11.000And we should have respect for our elders, of course.
00:13:14.000With that being said, there are challenges facing this generation that humanity has never faced before.
00:13:21.000And the answer is not the Green New Deal or open borders, whatever AOC talks about.
00:13:26.000Answer should always point towards virtue and goodness and things that are always true.
00:13:31.000Like getting married and having children, like going to church, like having a fulfilling relationship with your creator.
00:13:37.000That's what excites me about those candidates, right?
00:13:39.000They want to put their constituents first.
00:13:41.000They're willing to talk about these generational implications.
00:13:44.000And I just don't get that from a lot of other candidates.
00:13:46.000They're like, well, what we need is lower taxes.
00:14:40.000A republic is that there are things that are always true that are built into your system, built on wisdom, built on prudence, built on tradition.
00:14:47.000For example, freedom of speech, freedom to defend yourself, freedom of privacy from the government.
00:14:52.000A democracy, you'd be able to have an up or down vote, 51%, and say, you know what, these people shouldn't be able to talk.
00:14:58.000So that's just a super important distinction.
00:15:29.000And that without the ability for people to govern themselves, then all of a sudden you're going to want a bigger and bigger government to kind of come in and then make decisions for you.
00:15:39.000So, for example, self-government is great if you have strong families.
00:15:43.000So, a strong family is the greatest hedge against big government.
00:16:21.000Then, we have to channel our entrepreneurial creative activity to be able to build ambitious and bold and new things, which is more schools, larger families, bigger churches, more ministries.
00:16:31.000So, this is a debate that goes on in Christian circles a lot, which is where does eschatology play a role in this?
00:16:36.000Lance and I have had this discussion before.
00:16:39.000Look, some people are pre-trib, some people are post-trib, right?
00:16:42.000Some people focus on Romans 1 and they think it's all happening right now.
00:17:17.000It's the end times, which is, well, why don't you put the fire out and go build a bigger fire-resistant house and do whatever you possibly can for right now?
00:17:26.000It's tempting to want to run to the hills and be like, Jesus is going to zap me up soon.
00:17:31.000You might be right, but then Jesus says, What do you want to be caught doing?
00:17:35.000And paraphrase, that's essentially what he said: is do you want to be caught running away from the problem or leaning into the problem?
00:17:42.000So, that's something if Christians, and my personal opinion, I think, came to kind of a peace agreement on our eschatology, which is we can have those debates.
00:17:50.000I'm not the person to talk about that, right?
00:17:52.000You could talk to a theologian or pastor.
00:17:55.000The more operative question is, what do you do regardless?
00:18:11.000Talking about churches and the decay of church and what that looks like, how do you think that a global pandemic for two years affected specifically Generation Z and their engagement with religious communities and specifically with Christian churches?
00:18:36.000Actually, it's how you reacted to the pandemic that hurt young people.
00:18:39.000We acted imprudently, we acted immaturely, we acted ahistorically in a way where all of a sudden, for the first time in human history that I can think of, the older generation decided to sacrifice the young for their own well-being.
00:19:18.000Depression is up, psychiatric medication is up, prescriptions are up, suicide is up, violent crime is up.
00:19:25.000And then, what are the things that we actually care about that are down?
00:19:27.000Marriage rates are down, you know, childbirth is down, and I don't want to blame it all on the lockdowns, but it played a huge role.
00:19:35.000What we did was the worst combination, which said, okay, we're going to lock down the entire society and then have kids stare at their screens all day long.
00:19:42.000And then, you know what's so interesting to me, and this is completely anecdotal.
00:19:45.000I love your guys' thoughts, is that when I go to airports, more young people are wearing masks than older people.
00:20:13.000And again, but it's just kind of an overgeneralization, but at least when I went to Berkeley, these people are telling me through their masks, life is terrible.
00:20:36.000When did we ever tell a generation that you can saran wrap yourself where two masks when you shower and somehow that's going to prevent you from infection?
00:20:47.000For some people, COVID is something you should worry about, right?
00:20:51.000And if you're super overweight and you're old and you have underlying health conditions, but then what we did was the worst possible thing, which is we suppressed all of the information on how to treat it.
00:21:01.000And then we said, oh yeah, just go get the vaccine.
00:21:03.000I mean, how many times is Joe Biden going to get COVID?
00:21:11.000And by the way, all of the treatments, like, I don't know, vitamin D and a baby aspirin or ivermectin or azithromycin, which, by the way, you all know that they work because you've seen friends that actually use those interventions.
00:21:23.000And I know I've seen it actually save people's lives completely suppressed from the top down.
00:21:28.000So my one hope for this entire thing is that it leads to a I'll never forget moment of people that are like, you know what?
00:21:34.000I'm going to be able to invest in self-government.
00:21:36.000I'm not going to trust these people anymore.
00:21:38.000But it's done unbelievable damage to this generation.
00:21:41.000So there's one or two ways we can handle it.
00:22:03.000Hey, so I have a question about citizenship.
00:22:06.000For the students that are on DACA and anyone else that has come over illegally but had families or had children here, what do you recommend the path to citizenship would be?
00:22:16.000Yeah, I'm going to say something that will be a thought crime.
00:22:58.000I don't think we should have had in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.
00:23:01.000I don't think we should have had driver's license for illegal immigrants.
00:23:04.000And, you know, some, if I were to go to Switzerland and just say, you know, I overstay my visa and I should stay here, they'd deport you immediately.
00:23:11.000We're the only country in the world where your location is somehow correlated with your quote-unquote citizenship.
00:23:17.000Now, some people say, well, Charlie, how does that correlate with your Christian values, right?
00:23:23.000Well, it's very clear that when you're designing laws around who's in your country, assimilation is operative, right?
00:23:29.000And if you do not enforce the law equally, as it says very clearly in Leviticus, by the way, you favor no one, the rich man or the poor one, when it comes to administration of the law.
00:23:41.000But let me say one final thing, which is that when we talk about immigration, you must always ask the question, which is, does it benefit the country at large, right?
00:23:50.000And people will say, well, Charlie, by no fault of their own, they are here.
00:23:54.000Okay, then you can go back and reapply for citizenship like the Vietnamese.
00:23:58.000or the Indians or the Chinese have to do.
00:25:22.000I mean, James Lindsay just got shut down from Twitter for saying, okay, groomer, right?
00:25:27.000No, my favorite is that the Twitter account Days Against Groomers got shut down, which, by the way, you know, I fully support that movement of, you know, people in the homosexual community say, you know, we don't support grooming of children.
00:25:39.000Twitter's like, no, there's no place for dissent.
00:26:00.000Yeah, and this is something that probably applies to a lot of you in this room, which is censorship, the most cruel form of censorship happening in America is you shutting up you.
00:26:13.000So forget Facebook, forget Google, that's all bad.
00:26:16.000But I'm sure there's some people in this room that you're like, boy, if someone found out I was listening to this speech at my job, I would get fired.
00:26:23.000Like just showing up to a speech or someone like, boy, if they found out I was a conservative or a Christian.
00:26:27.000And so what I want for our nation's young people is what I have, which is I get to be the same person in public that I am in private.
00:26:35.000You know, someone said, you know, Charlie, what are your private thoughts?
00:26:38.000I'm like, you're hearing all of them, right?
00:26:42.000Not everyone has that ability because of the threat of termination, the threat of losing friends.
00:26:48.000And so I believe you actually take power away from the censors.
00:26:51.000This is one of the things why I refuse to apologize or back down unless it's something I actually did wrong, which people say all the time.
00:26:58.000They say, you know, Charlie, do you apologize for this remark?
00:27:33.000But long term, try to find a career where you can be that person that is openly able to speak out because you will be a deeply troubled person at a fundamental level if you always have to worry about who's listening to you.
00:28:01.000So, as a young adult pastor, I want to know how to awaken my generation to make talking about politics in church not taboo, that they would much rather leave it to the government and stay neutral.
00:28:15.000So I believe we as Christians are commanded to care about our political leaders and to care about politics.
00:28:20.000It says very clearly in Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29, 7, demand the welfare of the nation that you are in because your welfare is tied to your nation's welfare.
00:28:29.000And also, and so some pastors will say, hey, look, we don't do politics around here.
00:28:34.000You know, nowhere in the Bible does it say we should get involved in politics.
00:28:37.000Well, I'll just give you that one verse.
00:28:38.000But also, would they get rid of Daniel, Mordecai, Jeremiah, Esther, not to mention Nehemiah, all the figures of the Old Testament that try to influence secular government for God's purpose?
00:28:50.000We are called to be counselors to the king.
00:28:52.000And so then some people say, well, I don't do politics.
00:28:54.000And you have to ask a question, which is, well, do you do morality?
00:29:02.000Because very clearly, the Bible talks about things that are right and that are wrong, things that are good and that are evil.
00:29:08.000And so where does, if you expect politicians and politics to do things that are good, by what definition of good are you using?
00:29:16.000The secular humanist definition of good, where they think it's okay to expose yourself to eight-year-old children or to chemically castrate 11-year-olds?
00:29:23.000If not Christians, then who will influence the government?
00:29:27.000And they say, well, you know, we all kind of have a definition of what good is.
00:29:32.000You do not know a line is crooked if you do not have a straight line to compare it to.
00:29:36.000The Bible is the source of all agreed-upon morality in Western civilization.
00:29:40.000You go to any other country, go to India for an afternoon, and this idea of private property, of the weak being protected by the strong, they have no such tradition in that civilization.
00:29:50.000Only a spoiled, privileged generation could believe that.
00:29:54.000Well, everyone believes stuff like this.
00:30:06.000It's built into all of our laws here in Western civilization.
00:30:08.000It's not actually in India, for example, they have an entire class called the Untouchables, of which you are allowed to not administer medical care if you don't want to.
00:30:17.000In America, we have built in our tradition that everyone receives medical care regardless of your income level if you walk into a hospital.
00:31:25.000Now, the second most important thing, in my opinion, is to make sure you can do the first thing.
00:31:29.000To make sure that the church never gets locked down again.
00:31:32.000To make sure that strip clubs don't remain open, get Easter service gets deemed and demonized.
00:31:36.000I'll give you an example of how twisted our culture is.
00:31:39.000And if this offends somebody, you're in the right place, I guess, because you need to hear this, right?
00:31:43.000Which is, why is it that we called Christian super spreaders when they had Easter and Pentecost, yet we can't say gay orgies are the super spreader of monkeypox in San Francisco?
00:31:55.000Like, you shut down Easter in 2020 and called past, you arrested pastors across the country, and you're now trying to lock us down for monkeypox.
00:32:03.000Newsflash, I'm not worried about getting about getting monkeypox, okay, at all.
00:32:09.000And people say, well, that's insensitive.
00:32:11.000Okay, if you're going to gay orgies and you want to shut down our country, my patience is negative with you, actually, okay?
00:32:17.000And we should be able to say that out loud.
00:32:19.000And that they came and shut down the church for six to nine months and persecuting our religious freedoms, that will definitely get some conversation in your youth.
00:32:42.000If we can't get those three things right and the church remains silent on that, then I'm afraid we don't deserve the liberty that we're the recipient of.
00:33:20.000Canada is a, first of all, God bless you for being here.
00:33:23.000I have such a soft spot for Canadians.
00:33:25.000But I'll be honest, never has a polite people been treated so terribly.
00:33:30.000Let me tell you, that's my whole kind of thesis statement.
00:33:32.000They are the politest, nicest people on the planet that are literally running by a guy I think probably is either biologically or metaphorically connected to Castro.
00:33:41.000I mean, it's so close what they're doing.
00:33:44.000What they did to the truckers was so unconscionable.
00:33:47.000So I'll get to kind of what you can do in a second, which is similar to actually my advice to some Americans.
00:33:53.000But Canada is an unbelievably beautiful country that I actually think, and this is my current argument, I think your politeness is being taken advantage of by your leaders.
00:34:02.000We as Americans don't actually get described as polite very often, which I'll never understand how a country so influenced by French people could be polite.
00:34:17.000But I'll say this, though, that Canadians are going through this kind of, I think, reckoning moment where they're asking, what exactly kind of a country do we have?
00:34:46.000We might have more people that agree with us, but they control the FBI, Harvard, New York Times, the tech companies, the major corporations.
00:34:53.000And so when you're a dissident, you have to always kind of just be like, how do I expand my ranks?
00:36:02.000That Trudeau's government is built on a house of cards.
00:36:06.000And it is built largely, in my personal opinion, on the lack of an opposition party.
00:36:11.000You get one guy or gal that really, maybe it's you, that really gets it, then I think that entire government could be taken over favorably.
00:37:37.000And by the way, that actually keeps us more prosperous and peaceful.
00:37:40.000The fact that, okay, if New York wants to do something wacky, but don't bring it to Texas, that actually keeps us from actually getting to a more radical moment, if that makes sense.
00:37:49.000But they're trying to do the opposite.
00:37:50.000So the Canadian story is unfortunately a blueprint of what I think they're trying to bring here.
00:38:47.000And so, by the way, every founding father wrote about the Second Amendment.
00:38:50.000They said that this is the amendment that will make the potential tyrants shake and quiver in fear of taking your liberties and freedoms away.
00:38:58.000And by the way, do we have to look at any?
00:38:59.000The 20th century, if properly studied, which they don't teach in our schools, is one example of the other of taking guns and firearms away and destroying a civilization or population.
00:39:10.000And so the Second Amendment, in my personal opinion, is instrumental to all the other freedom of movement, freedom of choice, freedom of private property, freedom of privacy, from the government, freedom of speech, all these other things.
00:39:21.000So we know why they're trying to disarm the population.
00:39:23.000But think about the annexation of Hong Kong.
00:39:26.000Okay, you might remember that a couple years ago, where the Chinese Communist Party came into Hong Kong and obliterated them altogether.
00:39:31.000By the way, Hong Kong basically doesn't exist anymore.
00:39:34.000It's now called the South Region of Shushen or something.
00:40:03.000You see, tyrants, they are afraid of people being able to defend themselves.
00:40:07.000Do I have to look further than the Soviet Union or Pol Pot in Cambodia or what happened with the National Socialist Workers' Party in Germany?
00:40:15.000The point that I'm getting at here is that if we allow them to take our guns away, then other freedoms will follow.
00:40:57.000As many kids died in Uvalde, Texas, not because of gun laws, but unfortunately because police officers who were well trained that had the guns at their disposal did not have the courage to act.
00:41:06.000Now, we don't know if no one would have died, but the evidence shows the hour of time that was bought for that maniac, that scum, and that villain was because of the inaction of a lot of the police officers in Uvalde, Texas.
00:41:17.000And it's despicable and reprehensible.
00:41:19.000So, no, I don't think it's going to pass, but we've got to keep our eyes on what Congress is trying to do.
00:41:23.000Liberty is not safe while Congress is in session.
00:41:26.000So, wrapping up, because we're going to get into the arena for Flashpoint Live, anything that we've got a group of really 18 to 30 year olds is the target here.
00:41:34.000So, what is something that kind of a last word that you want them to know?
00:41:37.000How to mobilize, how to get them involved and engaged in what's going on in our nation?
00:42:42.000I actually think it's a form of torture that you do to yourself, right?
00:42:45.000Like, I'm going to force myself to believe in this stuff, even though you know it's not true.
00:42:49.000Finally, I'll just kind of say this as marching orders, which is, I hope this speaks to somebody here, which is some of you right now need to hear this message, which is a bold move out of the current profession or school or habit that you're in to go towards something that is in the pursuit of Christ and righteousness and liberty.
00:43:06.000If you're all of a sudden like boy, that was me.
00:43:07.000Where if I have to be somebody different in my apartment than I am in public, then go take that step of boldness because I'm telling you, you will be a happier and more joyful person because of that.
00:43:17.000Always put Jesus first in everything you do, and then, but do not forsake, I'm telling you, do not forsake this fight for the natural law, for the structure of government.