00:00:08.000Recently, I had an amazing conversation in Texas with my friend Christian Collins at the Texas Youth Summit.
00:00:14.000I gave some opening remarks and then I took questions directly from students.
00:00:18.000It's basically AMA Monday, so you're hearing all sorts of back and forth and an opportunity where I was able to have a discourse with young people that were dealing with mental health issues, self-identity issues, and so much more.
00:00:29.000We dive into that in this episode and so much more.
00:00:31.000Before we get to it, I just want to say thank you for supporting our program that allows us to travel, hire more staff, produce this podcast at charliekirk.com slash support.
00:00:43.000Please consider supporting us at charliekirk.com slash support.
00:01:17.000His 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.
00:01:25.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
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00:02:57.000I want to speak to young people in particular here, and because there's a lot happening in this country that, quite honestly, the political elite are not talking about.
00:03:05.000And while I do talk about politics almost every single day in my podcast, I'm actually not going to really talk very much about politics.
00:03:11.000I'm actually going to talk about things that are kind of parallel to politics, but I think are actually much more important.
00:03:16.000And for adults out there, I want you to listen as carefully, if not even more carefully.
00:03:21.000There's a crisis happening with young people in this country, the likes of which I can't even put into words.
00:03:25.000And the adults have absolutely failed young people in America.
00:03:29.000We shut down our country for nine months.
00:03:32.000We told them that you can't have prom, you can't have graduation, no summer sports.
00:03:35.000If you get even close to each other, you're all going to die.
00:03:38.000Now, no, seriously, one out of four of young people, according to the Centers for Disease Control, have contemplated suicide in the last 90 days.
00:03:46.000There's an epidemic of suicide with young people in America.
00:03:49.000And if you're like me, you know friends that have committed suicide in just the last couple of months.
00:03:54.000Not to mention antidepressant medication is now the number one most prescribed medication for young people across the country.
00:04:01.000We now have seen alcoholism, marijuana use, cocaine, and of course pharmaceutical usage on exponentially up.
00:04:08.000And by the way, it wasn't good, it wasn't easy to be a teenager before all of this, but we made one of the dumbest decisions ever in the history of society to shut down all of society at once, especially when young people were at more risk of dying from the flu than from the Chinese coronavirus.
00:04:25.000That is not the same for every single age group, by the way.
00:04:27.000If you're over the age of 50 with pre-existing conditions, this threatens you greatly.
00:04:32.000But saying that we should shut down all the schools for six months, shut down every social activity, shut down all the sports, and you expect young people to just end up exactly the same, what an unbelievably dumb thing that was to do.
00:05:01.000And they say it's all about human beings.
00:05:03.000Yes, the human beings that are 16 years old that are committing suicide because they have no social contact with anyone, it's about them.
00:05:10.000For the small business owner that put their entire life savings into a hair salon in Houston or in Austin or in Dallas that is now being forced to close by some maniac politician, some power-hungry politician, I don't care if it's a Republican or Democrat, they're to blame.
00:05:24.000For any politician that says we must shut down the churches but we can keep the abortion clinics open, they should resign.
00:05:29.000I don't care if it's a Republican or a Democrat.
00:05:43.000We're on the verge of a population collapse.
00:05:46.00052% of young people that are college graduates are living at home with their parents.
00:05:51.000We have 18 million unemployed young people in America.
00:05:54.000And then what adults do, and this is a mistake for conservatives.
00:05:58.000So adults got to start taking responsibility for this country.
00:06:01.000You just got to start doing it because you are leaving a worse country for your kids, everybody.
00:06:06.000And I'm saying this as lovingly as I possibly can.
00:06:08.000I'm not saying this rooted in condemnation, just very honestly, that if you think there's no consequences to this, you're wrong.
00:06:15.000Additionally, you look at the birth rate, I mentioned 500,000 less people next year than this year, the civilizational collapse that we're on the verge of.
00:06:23.000There are more single 30-year-olds than married 30-year-olds.
00:06:42.000If we didn't decide to destroy our economy, which thank God that President Trump is finally trying to get it back on track.
00:06:48.000But for adults out there, the way you communicate to young people, and by the way, I'm going to talk to young people in a second because there's nuance to this.
00:06:55.000To the students out there, there's nuance.
00:06:57.000But for the adults out there, it has to be more than, oh, just go work hard and get a job.
00:07:01.000Because right now, we have completely ravaged the entire landscape economically in our country.
00:07:05.000However, for students out there, everything I've just said does not give you a hall pass to go play the oppression Olympics.
00:07:16.000My speech to the adults for how dumb of the decisions that they made in political office and what they let happen does not give you an excuse to all of a sudden do the Alexandria Casia-Cortez thing.
00:07:45.000I'm going to continue to act responsibly, act morally and ethically, sit up straight with my shoulders back, as Jordan Peterson would say, get my goals sharp and clear.
00:07:54.000I'm not going to blame other people for my problems.
00:07:56.000And it's still possible to succeed in this country because it is.
00:08:00.000And so nothing what I've said, it's absolutely worthy of applause.
00:08:03.000Nothing I have said, nothing is an excuse for any young person out here then turn to your parent and say, see, Charlie said, no, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying.
00:08:13.000In fact, it's extra motivation for you to start to take responsibility for yourself, for your sphere of influence, and then for your country.
00:08:39.000It's what kind of a country do we want to live in?
00:08:41.000The kind of country I want to live in is one where you can have many children responsibly, get married, live a normal life, have a country where we don't judge people on the color of their skin, have a country where you can speak your mind freely out of fear of getting kicked off of social media, losing your job, getting kicked out of a classroom, or getting punished because of your beliefs.
00:09:02.000Having a place where you can have some nuance, where maybe you might be, you know, fiscally liberal, but socially conservative.
00:09:28.000It's actually not because of that at all.
00:09:30.000It's President Trump who's actually the guardian of freedom of speech, ending the endless wars and agree to disagree type politics, where it's the left that says, if you don't agree with us, if you don't post a black square, you're a bad person.
00:09:41.000Like, no, actually, you're a bad person for making me do something that is racist.
00:09:50.000And I'm going to talk about that for a second because this entire black square thing, and you guys know exactly what I'm talking about, young people in particular, was totalitarian at its worst.
00:09:59.000The test of totalitarianism is not what you do, it's what you don't do.
00:10:13.000I'm saying that if all of a sudden you went to other people and you bullied them because they didn't post it, then that's actually a problem.
00:10:18.000Because if all of a sudden you go out of your way and you're saying, if you don't do the same level of activism that I did, you're somehow less moral than I am.
00:10:27.000Like, wait, what are you talking about?
00:10:28.000Maybe I actually, true, I value all life.
00:10:31.000Maybe I think that BLM Incorporated wants to destroy the Western prescribed nuclear family, is chancing for cops to die outside of the hospital in Compton, Los Angeles when cops were fighting for their life, and is judging people based on the color of their skin.
00:10:44.000Maybe we actually might want similar goals, but just because I don't post that singular black square when you tell me to, and you're not in charge of me, maybe you should stop making a value judgment against me.
00:10:55.000And so that's the actual future that I think we want in our country.
00:10:58.000And for this is a youth summit, and I think this is so important that we're all gathering because right now we are seeing for the first time in our country's history, our generation is going to have it harder than the parent, the generation that preceded us.
00:11:11.000And so this is where politics comes into it far too much.
00:11:16.000And so the question you have to ask yourself is, what am I willing to do to be able to live a life that I can get married, have a job, have children, and have some responsibility?
00:11:28.000One of the major reasons that what's happening in our country is happening is that we have not said to young people, you must have some form of responsibility in your life.
00:11:40.000How many high schoolers are out there?
00:12:41.000We have the greatest country ever to exist in the history of the world.
00:12:44.000Because of that, we need to have everyone rewarding American ranches and American ranchers.
00:12:50.000The reason why we've partnered with goodranchers.com is because I looked into it.
00:12:55.000Their vision was instilled into them from their grandparents that owned community grocery stores and believed in trust, charity, and American values.
00:13:02.000We talk about this a lot in our program.
00:13:41.000The beef portion includes two pounds of bone and steaks, ribeyes, T-bones, and New York strips.
00:13:46.000And if you're not getting hungry just hearing this, come on.
00:13:49.000I mean, gourmet steak burgers, chicken portion includes two and a half pounds of Southwest chicken breast and two and a half pounds of lemon pepper chicken press.
00:16:46.000I'm going to say this is as kindly and softly as I can.
00:16:48.000If you're a parent out there and you are not willing or able, I should say, to look your neighbor in the eye and say, My kid is not going to college, going to college, and I'm okay with that.
00:17:01.000If that conversation scares you, then it's more about your ego than your children's future.
00:18:32.000Here's the other thing about college: we have kids that are borrowing money they don't have to study things that don't matter to go find jobs that don't exist.
00:18:39.000So the national graduation rate is 59%.
00:19:25.00044% of those that graduate 10 years later, according to the New York Federal Reserve, are employed in jobs that don't require a college degree.
00:20:18.000Which is exactly what they teach, right?
00:20:20.000And so I think what's going to happen in this country, and for those of you in college, you know exactly what I'm talking about here, because the fact that these universities, most of them, if not all of them, did not offer tuition adjustments for becoming nothing more than a Zoom call this semester, because it actually completely blows up one of the arguments that parents always give me about college.
00:20:43.000They say, okay, I get it, Charlie, but they're going to meet lots of people when they're in college.
00:20:47.000Well, they're not meeting anybody right now.
00:20:50.000So why exactly has tuition not been adjusted?
00:20:59.000This goes back to my guiding thesis of what I'm saying.
00:21:02.000Young people out there, take responsibility for your life and take responsibility for your country.
00:21:07.000Do you know what part of taking responsibility is?
00:21:35.000Instead, and by the way, that's a really miserable way to live your life.
00:21:38.000Instead, a much better way to live your life is all these things are challenges in front of me.
00:21:42.000And I'm going to continue to believe that if I improve myself, my future will be better.
00:21:49.000That is what has always made our country a phenomenal country, is this idea of earned success.
00:21:55.000And so the left is the exact opposite.
00:21:57.000They truly believe that if you apply yourself and if you work hard, then you can't succeed in this country.
00:22:04.000It's actually impossible, that the systems are so incredibly broken, so backward, you're going to keep on hitting a ceiling and you'll never be able to break through.
00:22:13.000Do not believe this stuff for a second.
00:22:16.000When someone is trying to tell you that your dreams are not possible in America, what they're really trying to do is trying to create a culture of mediocrity and dream suppression.
00:22:27.000And I'm saying with that, all the caveats of all the obstacles that are actually present in our country, which are quite a few.
00:22:34.000And so I say this kind of on the general landscape of kind of how we interact with education in our country.
00:22:40.000For any young parents out there that are listening that still have kids in grade school or high school, I highly encourage you to homeschool your kids.
00:23:09.000That's why we are a huge, that's why we're huge advocates of school choice and educational mobility.
00:23:14.000And the other thing is this, which, and I'll kind of talk to some, we'll have some question and answer time here, which I'm really looking forward to and diving into this.
00:23:22.000But if you kind of look at what decisions you want to make for your life, and if there's anyone out here, I'm going to speak because the law of averages, there's somebody out here right now who's going through a really tough time, whether through mental health issues or depression.
00:23:37.000This is a real thing, and our political class does not talk about it at all.
00:23:41.000You talk to the political elite, they just talk about tax cuts and all that.
00:23:44.000They completely miss what's actually going on in your life.
00:23:47.000Number one, can I challenge young people out there?
00:23:50.000Delete one social media app from your phone.
00:24:13.000By the way, I completely admit I am one of the biggest hypocrites when talking about this because I built my entire following on social media.
00:24:25.000And I'm telling you right now, I actually have more of a standing to tell you.
00:24:29.000These things are designed to be addictive.
00:24:31.000They're designed to turn you into a worse person, to make you less human, and to make you, quite honestly, less nuanced in your thinking.
00:24:39.000The more that you guys engage, whether it be on TikTok or Snapchat, Instagram, whatever those ones are that you open up, and you can find it on your screen time, by the way, six hours, seven hours, eight hours.
00:24:52.000Think to yourself: am I a human being or am I a human that has some sort of sideboard capacity and I'm actually a slave to my phone?
00:25:02.000Because if your phone dominates what you do and how you do and how you interact, then just take a pause and just say that's actually not how God made us.
00:25:37.000And that's why I'm a huge believer that sometimes you just shouldn't have those apps altogether.
00:25:41.000And for young women out there, I get these messages a lot, your net worth is not, your value to society is not judged in how many Instagram likes you get.
00:26:21.000You need the intuitive, calm capacity to reason out difficult problems of nurturing in females.
00:26:31.000And you need the seek to adventure capacity to protect in males.
00:26:35.000Those kind of attributes blend beautifully in any sort of functioning society.
00:26:39.000But we've hyper-feminized our society where young men in particular are told that you're awful by the time you're 15.
00:26:46.000We are in a hyper-feminized school system where young men learn by involvement and being physically active, yet you're sitting still for six hours a day, which is much easier for a young woman to be able to succeed in that.
00:26:59.000That's why young women get better grades than young men generally, not for any other reason than besides that.
00:27:04.000It's just young men, by the time they're 16, they cannot sit still for biochemical reasons that they cannot control.
00:27:11.000But for young men out there, here's one very specific thing that I'm challenging you to do, which is, and for parents out there, I want you to listen very carefully to how I'm saying this, which is that the reason why young men are more likely to commit suicide, engage in alcoholism, be jobless by the time they're 25, be homeless, die at work, all these sorts of different things that are like, oh my gosh, like we have a patriarchy.
00:28:59.000The reason why we are the most miserable generation in American history is because we have not taught young people the true meaning of freedom.
00:29:06.000The true meaning of freedom is that you're responsible for something.
00:29:33.000And I mean no way, by the way, to be like condemnation of anyone that might be in the other category.
00:29:39.000But if you wake up, if you do not show up tomorrow to anything, if you just sit in your basement all day, and if no one's life is impacted tomorrow by you sitting in the basement, no one.
00:30:24.000Freedom is not indulging yourself in a bunch of internet consumption things or putting substance in your body.
00:30:29.000No, that's actually a form of slavery.
00:30:31.000Like you do that, you're going to be an unbelievably miserable person.
00:30:35.000And take it from me, who I have lost dozens of friends from suicide since I graduated high school that thought that life was nothing more than putting the right substances in their body.
00:30:44.000Or they thought life was nothing more than pulling up the next funny thing on their phone that was completely gross and out of character.
00:30:51.000Instead, the people that applied themselves and actually cared much more about self-control than self-indulgence are leading very, very meaningful lives.
00:31:00.000And I know this is hard when you're young because when you are young and all of a sudden you're coming into adulthood, you want to be able to say, I'm going to just, I'm invincible.
00:31:15.000It's a 5,000-year-old text that has been saying this for quite some time.
00:31:19.000It's not exactly a brilliant breakthrough.
00:31:22.000But I'm telling you that for us and our generation, we're going to have to grow up quicker than almost any other generation in recent memory.
00:31:29.000We're not able to have this little period where we can just not wait till 30 till we grow up, or else we're not going to have a country.
00:31:35.000So, the idea is that we have to take responsibility early and take it often.
00:31:40.000And so, and by the way, it's really hard.
00:31:43.000It's actually what I'm talking about is one of the hardest things you get to do in your life.
00:31:46.000It's hard because the temptations are all around you to do all these sorts of different things.
00:31:51.000And so, I want to take questions, but before I do, I just want to reinforce that if there's anyone out there that is dealing with self-identity issues or depression or anything, I want to tell you this: Number one, you're a lot tougher than you might think.
00:32:16.000And number three, challenge yourself before you even think of anything unthinkable of self-harm.
00:32:23.000Challenge yourself to an extent where I need to be pushed more.
00:32:26.000What happens a lot when this starts to this epidemic of suicide in our country that our political elite have decided doesn't matter, including politicians up and down the state level in this state and many other states, is very simple and very clear.
00:32:39.000We have not challenged our young people enough to take responsibility at a younger age.
00:32:43.000So, look, we have so many American heroes in our country, and we need to support them.
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00:34:12.000So, Charlie, you know quite a lot about starting something, and you did it at such an early age.
00:34:18.000And one of the things that I love about you is you never looked at you never let anybody look down on you because of your youth.
00:34:24.000You went after it, you built something, and you have this entrepreneur spirit.
00:34:29.000So, what do you tell young people that want to start something and make something out of their lives and take some risks?
00:34:34.000Yeah, there's a lot of wisdom in a company I don't think very highly of, which is Nike, because they fund BLM and make their things in China.
00:34:42.000However, there's a lot of wisdom in those three words that they have on their shirt, which is just do it.
00:34:47.000If anyone is telling you that you need to do something before you take a risk or pursue the dream, they're lying to you.
00:34:53.000If you have something that you want to do, go do it right now.
00:34:58.000I started an organization when I was 18 years old, suburbs of Chicago, no money, no education except high school, no connections, and no idea what I was doing.
00:35:08.000All I had was energy, I had work ethic, and I had my path somewhat straightened out in the sense like I kind of knew where I wanted to go.
00:35:16.000I had many variations, incredible amount of trials, sleepless nights, traveled over 330 days a year, most earning no money for the first five years, asking people for money, doing all sorts of different things.
00:35:32.000Where we are today, a kid from Chicago who didn't go to college, where I had to literally sneak into the Republican convention in 2012.
00:35:42.000Eight years later, I'm opening the Republican convention.
00:35:45.000Only in America is a story like that possible.
00:35:51.000Number one, as much as I would like to take credit for it, I won't, because I had amazing people that believed in me early.
00:35:58.000And my mentor, may he rest in peace, Bill Montgomery being one of them.
00:36:02.000And that's the other thing is find someone that is multiply older than you are and listen more than you talk.
00:36:10.000It's kind of something we should teach every young person, right?
00:36:13.000And make sure they're out of the school system because whoever's in the school system will probably tell you something foolish.
00:36:17.000So find someone who's in the actual world, who has been steeped in wisdom, has actually been through something in their life, and just ask questions and listen to their stories.
00:36:27.000Understand that you probably don't know everything by the time you're 16 or 18.
00:36:32.000In fact, there's a phenomenal quote, which is, I only wish I would have known how little I actually knew when I thought I knew it all.
00:36:42.000It's a perfect quote, which is, you actually, if you think you know it all, just take a stop.
00:36:47.000And then kind of the other thing is when you're trying to start something from nothing, the best way to move forward, and this is something we do not do enough of young people, is the capacity to endure opposition.
00:36:59.000We have created such fragile young people, it is incredible, that they have to start screaming in protesting because someone says an idea that they disagree with.
00:37:07.000The actual world, the non-collegiate world, is a brutal place.
00:37:34.000That's why you're seeing this happen all across our country.
00:37:36.000That's why you're seeing the crisis of cancellation everywhere because the campus activists have gone from college campuses to run all of American society.
00:37:54.000So many of you may want to be in Charlie's position one day doing something that everyone, the youth, the conservative youth are listening to, having the influence that he has, Instagram followers.
00:38:07.000But one thing I've learned is that the bigger the blessing, the bigger the burden.
00:38:11.000And there's something that goes with that.
00:38:58.000I mean, that's the other lesson is that I just want to be very clear that if you want to achieve some form of success, you're going to have to work every weekend.
00:39:06.000You'll have to probably, you'll probably sleep five hours a night for the first five years of doing what you're doing.
00:39:12.000You're going to lose your closest friends.
00:39:14.000Your relatives will spite you as soon as you find some form of success.
00:39:17.000Now, if you want to be mediocre, then you won't encounter that.
00:39:21.000But all of a sudden, if you want the glam and fame, buckle up because it's hard.
00:40:35.000And the kind of the fight that we're in in our country warrants that right now.
00:40:39.000But yeah, look, I mean, there's always humorous moments.
00:40:41.000There's things that, but I really enjoy reading every night and exploring big ideas.
00:40:48.000In fact, I love being able to wrestle with oppositional ideas and being able to find just the wisdom of people that came before me, right?
00:40:58.000Of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Burke, the architects of our entire society is something that we've completely lost, I believe.
00:41:10.000And I think he's doing what he's passionate about because he finds fun in doing what he's doing for work, too.
00:41:17.000So he's one of those types, and he's a higher achiever.
00:41:20.000So I'm sure he's energized by accomplishing a lot of the things that he does.
00:41:25.000So one of the things that I wanted to ask is when you get to the place that you're working so hard day in and day out for everything that you're doing, you've obviously had to work with all different types of people.
00:43:07.000But yeah, look, when you associate with people around you, the most important thing is loyalty and integrity.
00:43:14.000Those are the two most important things.
00:43:16.000The rest can kind of fill in the gaps, but you need people that will tell you the truth always, and you need people that are loyal to you.
00:43:22.000And unfortunately, we have a disloyal culture that has happened in our country.
00:43:27.000That's honestly just to kind of make it a little political.
00:43:29.000I think it is one of the most disgusting things when someone goes and gets the honor to serve around the president of the United States and then they go write a book a year later saying how awful that president was.
00:43:41.000I think it is one of the most disgusting things that someone, I really do.
00:43:46.000And here's one of the lessons I wanted to extract for you: is that leaders that are high achievers that are doing and accomplishing things, they're careful about who they associate with.
00:43:55.000And you as well should be careful about who you associate with.
00:43:59.000And maybe you're in high school now and come 10 years from now, five years from now, even the people that you're associating with now aren't going to be your closest friends.
00:44:08.000And so realizing pleasing the people around you maybe isn't always the most important thing.
00:44:33.000I listened to you in an old episode of the Candace Own Show like a year and a half ago, it must have been, and you said that you thought we shouldn't have been in Vietnam.
00:44:40.000And I just wanted you to elaborate on that opinion a little bit.
00:44:58.000I've aired my differences with him on podcast form before, but I think that the Republican Party and the Democrat Party has, I think it's been a disservice to our country to believe that we can nation build in every corner of our planet.
00:45:09.000I think that this misadventures around the world is something that we should take an honest diagnosis of.
00:45:17.000Less about the Vietnam War, and I do think the Vietnam War was a total mistake, especially how we did it through draft form, and where I could make an argument for the draft.
00:45:27.000Geopolitically, I do not believe that the Vietnam invasion and prolonged conflict there was in the best interest of America or the American middle class.
00:45:34.000But let's just talk about the Iraq War.
00:45:37.000Because I think that one's more applicable to our country.
00:45:39.000The Iraq war will go down as one of the worst foreign policy mistakes in American history.
00:45:43.000We displaced the dictator, who was, of course, a bad person.
00:45:46.000There's lots of bad people around the world.
00:45:48.000But what is the proper role of American foreign policy?
00:45:50.000Is it to try to impose Western values to places that don't want it and will never believe it?
00:45:54.000Or is it to protect the homeland, preserve the people that we are elected to do so, preserve first principles, and then use force wherever necessary to eliminate enemies, foreign and domestic, such as Qassam Soleimani and al-Baghdadi.
00:46:09.000But the idea of a ground invasion in Iraq where we spend well over a trillion dollars, lose over 5,000 Americans, where a veteran commits suicide on average, I think the average was every couple hours a veteran commits suicide in our country from PTSD from the Iraq and Afghanistan war.
00:46:26.000I think that's a misapplication of American force.
00:46:29.000Look, here's the thing that I learned about American foreign policy: we are not an empire.
00:46:40.000And so I think that American foreign policy over the last 20 years has been a very, it's been, by the way, it's been really bad for our generation, just so you know.
00:46:49.000The amount of debt that we've had to incur through these foreign invasions, the diminishment of our U.S. currency, and why is it that we're building bridges and roads and tunnels in schools in Iraq, and we have 15 schools in Baltimore where black kids can't read at grade level.
00:47:01.000Like, that sounds like a weird prioritization.
00:47:05.000Our elected leaders should say the first and foremost issues that impact our country is our citizens.
00:47:14.000And so While there are plenty of people in good spirit that will support the endless war in Afghanistan, that think we should be there for another 20 years, I think we should end the war in Afghanistan.
00:47:27.000I think we should never have gone into Iraq.
00:47:29.000And this is something that really pleases me about President Trump, is that the Republican Party, we are now able to have these conversations where we have to say we are not nation builders, nor should we be.
00:47:38.000We have huge problems in this country.
00:47:39.000We lose 70,000 people a year to opioids every single year.
00:47:43.000As I mentioned, 35,000 people to suicide.
00:47:46.000We have a fadless epidemic where 77% of black babies are born without fathers.
00:48:02.000In a nation that may have had some terrorists passing through there at some point, the more that we are honest about the mistakes we made overseas, the better that we can chart our course in those kind of capacity.
00:48:12.000So yes, I am unafraid as a conservative to say that certain adventures overseas should never have happened.
00:48:19.000In fact, I think that kind of approach will actually make us a more prosperous country in the future.
00:48:36.000And the great thing about President Trump is he wants a strong military, but he doesn't want to nation build and send everyone all across the world.
00:48:45.000Charlie, in the unfortunate event that Joe Biden wins on November 3rd, how do you think that would impact the future of Christianity in America?
00:49:43.000If the Republicans are able to fill the Supreme Court seat, that will positively impact the U.S. Supreme Court for generations to come, which is why I support that.
00:49:55.000With that being said, if Joe Biden were elected president of the United States, which will basically be a Harris administration because they've said that, you will have a war on Christianity, the likes of which we have not seen since the Obama administration, but it'll be much worse.
00:50:11.000It'll be the criminalization of churches.
00:50:13.000It'll be the forced contraception mandates.
00:50:16.000It'll be more and more judges, if they were to be able to get the Senate control to do so, that are hostile to the faith.
00:50:23.000And we saw this under Barack Obama with the little sisters of the poor that were forced to pay for contraception, which is absolutely diametrically against the Catholic faith and the tradition.
00:50:38.000And the other part is this, let's just talk about life.
00:50:40.000Let's just talk about the need to protect pre-born lives.
00:50:44.000You know, we have a million abortions every single year in our country.
00:50:51.000So we were told early on, and the way that your public schools will probably talk to you about abortion, is they'll tell you that, oh, abortion is needed for the case of the rape or life of the mother.
00:51:02.000And so if Joe Biden gets elected, he won't speak at the March for Life like Donald Trump has.
00:51:06.000He'll restore Planned Parenthood funding, and it will be a crusade against pre-born lives where we're finally making steps in the right direction, thanks to President Donald Trump.
00:51:17.000Who, for Christians out there, they say, Well, I don't like Donald Trump.
00:51:21.000I'll say, first of all, if you're so worried about style over the amazing things that he's done for our country, like you're way too focused on pettiness, in my opinion, okay?
00:52:58.000You see all those high-rises going up in West Houston, right?
00:53:00.000As that happens, all of a sudden, Houston becomes more liberal.
00:53:03.000It's very interesting because if you rent property and you don't own property, you're much less likely to care about what's happening around you.
00:53:14.000And so one of the reasons as to why Portland and Seattle and Los Angeles, they're all perpetually burning is they have young people that are $70,000 into debt.
00:53:22.000They have no jobs to be found anywhere.
00:53:24.000Their lives are not getting better when they're 27, when they're 28, when they're 29, and they own nothing.
00:53:31.000All their money goes to hyper-inflated rent because they're all living in the same sort of cluster.
00:53:35.000And so from a public policy perspective, we should sell our federal lands out west to people under the age of 35 to married couples for like no money.
00:54:51.000Your parents will say, my yard, I take advantage, I take care for.
00:54:54.000The public park, oh, somebody else's responsibility.
00:54:56.000When everyone owns something, no one owns it.
00:54:59.000And when no one owns anything, no one has any responsibility, and you'll get into chaos.
00:55:02.000So, from a public policy perspective, I tell young parents in particular, go start a mortgage as early as you possibly can, especially right now with interest rates so low.
00:55:26.000The other way is this: when you have a culture of debt, when you have young people that are $70,000, $80,000 into debt because of student loans, when they can't find jobs, they're quickly going to dive into nihilism, which is a belief in nothing, okay?
00:55:39.000So, nihilism is a fancy academic term for a belief in nothingness.
00:55:43.000We're nothing more than clumps of cells, nothing matters, whatever.
00:55:48.000And we have to be very serious and honest about the kind of public policy decisions that we are making where all of a sudden young people feel as if the country is not for them.
00:55:56.000And I just want to just be very kind of, I kind of want to have a bridge here.
00:56:00.000If you're out in this audience and you are a Bernie Sanders supporter, I actually kind of really get it.
00:56:27.000And so if you have friends that are Bernie Sanders supporters, understand that they actually can be much more converted into being conservatives than Joe Biden supporters.
00:56:33.000It's actually a really interesting bridge, that the Bernie people actually have some very, they have some correct observations about some things that are going wrong in our country.
00:56:42.000And I think that one of the mistakes is that, like, oh, the Bernie people, they're always, like, actually, they're actually much more convertible than you might think.
00:57:02.000The final thing is this: that when you get older, your life is going to get more difficult but more meaningful.
00:57:08.000And so that it's really hard to find a meaningful life without having difficulty.
00:57:11.000Those things are usually tied together, right?
00:57:14.000So in order to find, if you want to live a good life, one that gives you some form of fulfillment, then you're going to have to do something hard every single day.
00:57:24.000The left has been trying to crack this code for 2,000 years.
00:57:27.000How can we have meaningful life with no responsibility?
00:57:31.000It's actually against the biblical truths that we know.
00:57:33.000You're going to have to endure a daily slog of responsibility.
00:57:38.000So I hope that helps answer your question.
00:57:40.000And I'm happy to go over if I don't know.
00:58:57.000I actually used to espouse a position when, so I went to high school in the suburbs of Chicago, and everyone who wanted weed could get weed, right?
00:59:05.000It was illegal, but everyone could get it.
01:01:01.000Instead, what kind of laws do I want to have happen in my country that are going to make us more likely to be able to compete against China in the 21st century?
01:01:09.000So here's a really interesting, provocative way to think about it.
01:01:12.000Does China want more American youth on weed or less American youth on weed?
01:01:16.000Of course they want more American youth on weed.
01:01:56.000I wouldn't necessarily make alcohol illegal, but if we act like alcohol is this victimless drug, like what kind of country are you living in?
01:02:02.000I mean, 50,000 people die every single year of alcohol-related death or vehicular manslaughter.
01:02:09.000It's not as if like we've conquered alcohol in our country.
01:02:11.000In fact, you know, you're most likely to die from a family member who's under the influence of alcohol.
01:02:16.000That's actually the most dangerous you are going to be in your life.
01:02:19.000That's the most dangerous from a sort of death in America of domestic death.
01:02:23.000And so, but also I think the alcohol example is making something that's currently legal illegal instead of making something that's currently illegal legal.
01:02:30.000So it's not exactly a perfect argument.
01:02:32.000But I also don't think that we can, anyone is just like, what about alcohol?
01:02:36.000It's actually doing a lot of damage to our country.
01:02:38.000Like, I think it would be a really good thing if less people drank every single night.
01:02:42.000I think that would have more meaningful relationships.
01:02:44.000I think that domestic abuse would go down.
01:02:46.000I think that it's actually not a good thing to have a culture of intoxication at all times where you can't watch a cable news program without someone at a bar having something to ease up their conversation.
01:02:56.000I actually think that that's not a good thing.
01:02:58.000And I think the Bible tells us be very wary of drunkenness.
01:03:01.000It's very clear that drinking is okay in certain, it depends on your denomination.
01:03:14.000But I also think that we have to have a pause of what kind of country do you want to live in and what are the trends that are making us less competitive and a less, I would say, free society.
01:03:24.000And I think that more people that are doing addictive substances is not a trend I want to go into, which is why I have vocally opposed the legalization of marijuana in the states, and I think you guys should too.
01:03:34.000And I came from a position where it was like, oh, it'd be okay, but I know that it has other, it makes people, in my opinion, less productive, less likely to succeed.
01:03:44.000To answer your question, I don't hold that view because I'm afraid that we have such a simultaneous cultural avalanche happening in our country.
01:04:47.000I'm actually in my local theater department at the high school.
01:04:50.000And a lot of the other people don't normally agree with me, but I still wear my Trump mask anyways.
01:04:54.000Anyways, that's not part of the point.
01:04:56.000My question to you is: yesterday, Candace spoke about how the left uses linguistics to make their side sound more appealing until you read the fine print.
01:05:02.000Being surrounded by these people at school, how can I use the linguistics, use Republican linguistics to convey my thoughts respectfully?
01:05:09.000Well, first of all, I want to start with something you probably didn't come to talk about, which is more conservatives need to be involved in the arts, in theater, in music, in all of that.
01:05:20.000And this, look, the idea of Western beauty, of Bach and Beethoven and Shakespeare, should not be forgotten that that is part of the ethic and the worldview that we have.
01:05:32.000And it's very interesting that you mentioned your theater.
01:06:01.000Every liberal you talk to is someone that should be converted to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, hopefully eventually, could become a constitutional conservative.
01:06:09.000Come could become a patriotic American.
01:06:11.000Don't look at them as someone you're going to run over.
01:07:41.000I don't hold that belief, but let's keep on talking.
01:07:45.000And I have hundreds of hours of video that show exactly how to do that, of these apparatus coming up in my face and they're screaming at me and all that.
01:07:54.000And the final thing is this, which is it's the conversations, not the conversions.
01:07:58.000I can't tell you how many liberals have listened to my podcast and then they email me a couple months later and they say, Charlie, after listening to 20 of your episodes, I'm now a conservative.
01:09:27.000I mean, we're so unthankful, we're so full of ingratitude, yet we have things really, really well, really good in our country, I should say.
01:09:36.000So the culture war also is, I want a country where everyone can speak their mind without having some sort of cost against them.
01:09:44.000I think that we need to have a country where you can wear your MAGA hat without being kicked out of class, without being kicked off of social media, or being socially isolated.
01:09:52.000That would be a victory where the self-censorship crisis ends.
01:09:56.000And that's the other thing, everybody, is that do not self-censor.
01:10:08.000Somebody might be trying to shut you up, but then the moment that you're like, I'm not going to wear the Trump shirt because I'm afraid of how people are going to look at me in the grocery store.
01:10:16.000Or I'm not going to wear, you know, my Jesus Christ as Lord shirt because I'm afraid that I might get some funny looks.
01:10:23.000That is what self-censorship looks like.
01:10:25.000Now, if somebody else is making you do that, completely different thing.
01:10:28.000But if you're the one that's doing it and you have the right to do it, then that's a different terrain that we have to contest on.
01:10:57.000I wish I could say that when I started Turning Point, I knew exactly how it was going to end and I had a perfect plan in mind.
01:11:03.000For any of you that want to start anything, it's okay if you don't have a plan.
01:11:07.000You have a talent, you have a passion, you go after it, and then it kind of just unfolds.
01:11:12.000Looking at where Turning Point is today with 160 people on staff, well over 2,000 campuses represented, and the incredible reach that we have, it's hard to be able to kind of backtrack and see how far we've been able to go.
01:11:25.000But I didn't have that vision from the beginning.
01:11:27.000I just wanted to save our country from the younger perspective.
01:12:14.000And there is no playbook to go through that, but it teaches you a lot about yourself and a lot about who you surround yourself with.
01:12:22.000And that's why I encourage young people to get involved in taking risks, starting businesses earlier than not, because you're going to encounter that.
01:12:31.000Someone's going to tell you that they're going to do something and they don't do it.
01:12:34.000Someone's going to tell you one thing and a different thing happens.
01:12:37.000And that's a very hard thing for a young person in the process, is betrayal.
01:13:10.000Then I was able to get my path correct and aim towards the good.
01:13:14.000If you know why you are doing what you are doing, as I mentioned earlier, you're a lot tougher than you think.
01:13:20.000If you know the why, you'll figure out the how.
01:13:23.000If you know the why, you can get through almost anything, no matter what opposition.
01:13:26.000But all of a sudden, if you get in that moment of pressure and adversity and you can't tell someone why you're doing what you're doing, you'll probably shatter.
01:13:34.000So thank you so much for the question.
01:14:11.000And so obviously a lot of my friends are super liberal and I live in a sorority house with a lot of girls who are super liberal and one of them in particular is very has a nihilistic worldview, atheist, super liberal.
01:14:26.000And how do I go about that, like trying to help her or combat that without still having to live with her as a roommate?
01:15:16.000I want to be in heaven with you one day, and I pray that you will be.
01:15:19.000So that's the first thing is this: light will always triumph darkness.
01:15:24.000And when dealing with atheists, there's a couple just logical imperfections in their worldview that I'm going to give you a couple hard wires right now.
01:15:30.000I'm going to give you a couple cheat codes.
01:15:38.000And say, do you believe that absolutely?
01:15:41.000I mean, if there's nothing as absolute truth, and what you just said might not be absolutely true, then you're believing something that might actually not be true.
01:15:48.000So, which they're not, which they are.
01:16:03.000So the other thing is this: when you're trying to talk to a nihilistic person, I think that, and there's a lot of different ways to go about it, but there's one thing they can't answer.
01:17:18.000Why is it that when human beings see an open ocean, we all agree there's something good about this?
01:17:25.000It's because we all have hardwired in us a yearning to desire the good and reject the bad.
01:17:33.000A size in our heart that only God can fill.
01:17:36.000Even the nihilists will admit this when they're confronted with it, and they don't have an answer for it.
01:17:40.000And so, my advice to you: maybe you'll play Mozart, maybe something like that, and you listen to that music, and all of us will agree there's something so sweet and harmonious about this.
01:17:49.000And those of us that believe in the Bible, we can explain it, right?
01:17:52.000We know what that is because we use music as a way to glorify God.
01:17:56.000That is why all of the great conductors and all of the great orchestra, all the great individuals of Mozart and Bach, and all of them, they all said on the top of their music, Glory be to God, always, because what they were doing to try to glorify God, always.
01:19:20.000Look, those are weighted words, civil war.
01:19:22.000I think that it's more like a revolution, though.
01:19:24.000I mean, I think there's a difference between civil conflict and a revolution.
01:19:27.000I think there is a legitimate form of insurrection that is being attempted in our country where people want to try to displace the people in power and try to find power themselves.
01:20:11.000Those sorts of things will make sure you never get to that kind of conflict.
01:20:15.000When you get away from empiricism, when you get away from Judeo-Christian values from the Bible, because understand the West is a blend of reason and revelation, right?
01:20:35.000But also talking about the riots, like we haven't had, like, these riots that we're seeing, like every major city in America is being burned to the ground.
01:20:45.000It just doesn't seem like nobody wants to talk.
01:20:47.000Well, look, I'm going to tell you guys right now, and I'm not trying to scare anybody, but man, this confirmation fight for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the country's going to really go through a tough time right now.
01:21:23.000I mean, if we, it's like, that's not, could you imagine for a second, if I could tell a quick story, I was at the White House for the Republican National Convention acceptance speech with the president, and all of us walk outside of the White House, and waiting for us were 3,000 BLM Inc. rioters that were pelting stuff at us and were assaulting senators and all of it.
01:21:46.000Could you imagine if there were 3,000 MAGA hat wearing people outside of the Obama White House or a Bernie Sanders event or a Joe Biden event?
01:21:55.000If Joe Biden could have that many people, which he wouldn't, but you know, that's the whole point.
01:22:01.000People say, well, we're really divided because the right's too far.
01:23:16.000If college is the answer, then go do it.
01:23:18.000If a gap year of traveling, then go do it.
01:23:20.000If mission work, whatever it might be, I could tell you this, that if more people took gap years, our country would be a better place, 100%.
01:23:57.000And it used to be that the left and right, when we say left, liberals and Republicans, conservatives at least agreed that this was a good country.
01:24:04.000But now these leftists, they hate America.
01:24:06.000We have nothing in common with them, which is very, very sad.
01:24:09.000And so with the last question, we're going to take it to you.
01:24:13.000Could you tell us your name and then ask a question?
01:24:21.000Something to us, the audience, something to make us think.
01:24:25.000What questions would you pose to us to, well, honestly make us think and maybe take to our family and friends and teachers to discuss those questions with?
01:24:37.000So your question is, what question would I pose to the audience as kind of just an action step?
01:25:51.000I mean, if you're not getting involved in school board races and you're not getting involved in local elections and all that, we're getting pummeled on every level.
01:25:59.000Harris County is incredibly Democrat now because Republicans sat by and did nothing while the Democrats out-organized us.
01:26:32.000Every single person in this room, if you feel more motivated today than you did beforehand, then all of a sudden you have a moral obligation to do something about it.
01:26:40.000You go volunteer for local elections, right?
01:28:03.000After all these generations, by the way, if you were a young person in the 80s, if you were a young person in the 80s, you could have gotten along by being like, oh, yeah, I'm not really different.
01:28:15.000I want to keep this country a beautiful republic with Freedom Association, building families, being able to speak your mind, free enterprise, the American dream, all these things we talk about, where we judge people on character, not on the color of your skin.