The Charlie Kirk Show - The Best Thing That Never Happened to Me

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, should you go to college?

00:00:01.000 Do we have too many people going to college?

00:00:03.000 My off-the-cuff, extemporaneous remarks in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with my friend Steve Smotherman here on the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:12.000 If you want to support us, the hardest working podcast team in the country, and our mission to reach millions of young people across the country, go to charliekirk.com/slash support.

00:00:20.000 Every time you support us at charliekirk.com/slash support, you make it easier and more likely that young people are going to come in contact with the truth.

00:00:28.000 So please consider doing that.

00:00:29.000 Email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:32.000 And if you are a high school or college student, you must get involved with TurningPointUSA, tpusa.com.

00:00:38.000 Check it out right now.

00:00:39.000 And go back a couple episodes previous and listen to the speeches I gave last week.

00:00:43.000 I was very happy with how they turned out.

00:00:45.000 We had question and answer candid in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kentucky.

00:00:49.000 Make sure you check it out at tpusa.com.

00:00:51.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:52.000 Here we go.

00:00:54.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:55.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:57.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:01.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:04.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:05.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:06.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:01:13.000 Turning point USA.

00:01:14.000 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.

00:01:23.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:27.000 Thank you.

00:01:28.000 Thank you guys.

00:01:29.000 Love the signs, and I love the books.

00:01:32.000 Thank you.

00:01:33.000 Anyone has gone to one other service before this weekend that heard me speak?

00:01:36.000 Wow, a lot of repeat customers, Steve.

00:01:39.000 This speech will be completely and categorically different, and it will be designed towards young people and students in particular and parents.

00:01:48.000 And before you roll your eyes and say, I'm not young, this applies to everyone because I'm going to be talking about a true crisis happening in our country, which is a crisis with our students, crisis on our colleges, and a crisis of the younger generation.

00:02:01.000 Before I do that, there have been a couple things I have repeated that I will repeat again because they're worthy of repeating.

00:02:08.000 And that is, you have a phenomenal pastor here and a morally courageous man.

00:02:15.000 You have a team that has remained strong, and it's not just Pastor Steve, but it's the incredible network that he has created around him.

00:02:25.000 The staff, all of you that have supported him.

00:02:28.000 He has taken stances.

00:02:30.000 He has done the right thing.

00:02:32.000 And he is passing the test, and so are you.

00:02:34.000 And so, when Steve and I officially met, we've been texting for a while about me coming out here.

00:02:39.000 I said, I want to do it absolutely.

00:02:41.000 I want to do it as soon as possible, especially when you guys are under a lot of pressure not to be having gatherings.

00:02:47.000 So I'm just honored to be here under that circumstance with everything that's happening with your governor.

00:02:51.000 And on that note, with your governor, I don't remember her name because she doesn't have a name worth remembering.

00:03:01.000 She's not doing anything with any sort of wisdom or strength or clarity. 0.95

00:03:06.000 She is a tyrant, and she should open up this state immediately, fully, and instantaneously, and allow people to worship.

00:03:19.000 So it's an honor to be here.

00:03:22.000 We hear a lot about all the crises happening in America.

00:03:26.000 That is a common refrain.

00:03:28.000 We hear about the environmental crisis.

00:03:31.000 We hear about the pandemic crisis.

00:03:33.000 I want to talk to you about a crisis that is happening in slow motion in front of us that is going to impact all of our lives.

00:03:42.000 And that is a crisis of anyone between the ages of 14 and 30.

00:03:49.000 And there's different problems all up and down here.

00:03:52.000 And I'm going to talk about them.

00:03:53.000 I'm talking about solutions.

00:03:54.000 I'm going to talk about what the Bible has to say about it.

00:03:56.000 But first, I'm going to diagnose the problem.

00:03:58.000 So now, in the speech prior, I talked about don't be a victim.

00:04:03.000 The biggest problem in the world is you.

00:04:06.000 That your decisions, your actions are incredibly important.

00:04:09.000 But I nuanced that.

00:04:10.000 I said that what we have done in the last year is evidence, real evidence, of an unfair hand that has been dealt to far too many people.

00:04:20.000 What I mean is not the virus.

00:04:23.000 The virus is terrible.

00:04:24.000 I know people that have died from the Chinese coronavirus.

00:04:27.000 I know people that have suffered from it, but it's our reaction to it.

00:04:31.000 And I will make the argument that our reaction to this virus will go down as one of the worst mistakes in American history.

00:04:41.000 The closure of schools, businesses, mental health, suicide.

00:04:47.000 And then it only has played further into so many underlying troubling trends that already exist with students and young people in this country.

00:04:55.000 And so I'm going to give you your trigger warning right now.

00:04:58.000 If you're not on a university campus, you don't know what this means.

00:05:00.000 And do we have any Turning Point USA students here?

00:05:03.000 We have a couple.

00:05:04.000 I know in the prior service we did.

00:05:06.000 I encourage all of you to get to know about Turning Point USA and the work we're doing on high school and college campuses.

00:05:10.000 A trigger warning is when I give you a warning that I'm going to say things that are not allowed to be said in popular culture.

00:05:16.000 So here's me saying things, giving you a warning that I might offend you.

00:05:22.000 Okay, locking down America this last year and what it's done with students and young people is difficult to even describe.

00:05:31.000 Let's dive into it.

00:05:33.000 So I'm a big believer in telling young people, college graduates, work harder, play by the rules, and pull yourself up by the bootstraps.

00:05:42.000 I think that's critically important.

00:05:44.000 However, in the last year, we've made that nearly impossible.

00:05:47.000 When you shut down the entire American economy, they say, where am I supposed to go find the work?

00:05:52.000 You shutter them into home.

00:05:54.000 You addict them to their devices.

00:05:57.000 An average Gen Z or millennial is spending 12, 14, 16 hours a day on their screen, almost descending into a quasi-cyborg, not a human being.

00:06:07.000 More young people have died from suicide because of the lockdowns than from the virus itself.

00:06:13.000 Young people.

00:06:14.000 Self-inflicted harm is at the highest it's ever been.

00:06:18.000 You know here in this state all too well, drug usage, addiction, opioids, dramatic increase.

00:06:25.000 And this was all generally self-inflicted, but the trend was already happening before we did all of this.

00:06:31.000 So why is this happening?

00:06:33.000 Why do we have this crisis with students?

00:06:38.000 All right, here's where the trigger warning was for.

00:06:40.000 We have way too many people going to college in this country.

00:06:42.000 Way too many people.

00:06:44.000 Parse golf applause.

00:06:48.000 I never went to college.

00:06:49.000 I ended up okay.

00:06:51.000 College is not for everyone.

00:06:52.000 It's for some people.

00:06:53.000 If you want to be a doctor, an engineer, or a lawyer, but we need more plumbers, mechanics, electricians, police officers, firefighters, entrepreneurs, people that work with their hands.

00:07:02.000 College could be for you, but it's not for most people that go to college.

00:07:06.000 You know what the number one reason I get when I talk to people that are going to go to college?

00:07:09.000 Number one reason.

00:07:10.000 I say, why are you going to school?

00:07:13.000 My parents are making me.

00:07:15.000 Number one reason.

00:07:17.000 To go borrow money you don't have, to study things that don't matter, to go find jobs that don't exist.

00:07:21.000 For parents to go play Russian roulette with their kids' values.

00:07:24.000 Now, and baked into a lot of first-generation Americans, of which I know there are a lot of people in this room, the belief is college entrance to success, right?

00:07:32.000 That is the formula that is sold to you.

00:07:34.000 The data doesn't support it.

00:07:36.000 41% of kids that go to college drop out.

00:07:38.000 How many people know someone that dropped out of college and they ended up worse because of it?

00:07:42.000 Nearly half the hands go up.

00:07:43.000 It hurts their confidence, hurts them financially, and they're kind of in this strange middle ground where they're not sure what to do next.

00:07:52.000 We have more people going to college than ever before.

00:07:54.000 It's dipped down a little bit because of the virus.

00:07:57.000 And the average student loan debt borrower in this country is $32,000 per borrower, not graduate.

00:08:05.000 Well, a generation that is in debt, that did everything they were told to do, it's very easy to command and control.

00:08:12.000 So hear me out here.

00:08:15.000 Our generation, my generation, I'm 27, is going to be the least married, most miserable, least employed generation in multiple decades.

00:08:28.000 Since the Great Depression, we've never seen it.

00:08:30.000 Never seen.

00:08:32.000 How?

00:08:32.000 Well, when you graduate tens of millions of people from college with no skills, filled with bad ideas, and send them to urban areas across the country, Denver, Dallas, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and they rent and not own property, renting, so they're spending all their money on something that doesn't build equity.

00:08:50.000 They're not getting married largely because of the damage.

00:08:53.000 And here's another trigger warning for you. 0.99

00:08:55.000 The damage of the third wave feminist movement, which is destroying relations between men and women in this country. 0.74

00:08:59.000 Absolutely destroying relations.

00:09:01.000 Let me tell you something biblical. 0.76

00:09:06.000 Men are not women, and women are not men. 0.94

00:09:09.000 I should be unafraid to say that, right?

00:09:12.000 And my fiancé is here. 0.96

00:09:15.000 She's unbelievable.

00:09:16.000 We're getting married in early May.

00:09:18.000 And in fact, this is her clothing line that I'm wearing.

00:09:21.000 It's Proclaim Streetwear.

00:09:23.000 It's an amazing company, all made in America, and it's the most comfortable thing.

00:09:27.000 And there's differences between us.

00:09:29.000 That's a good thing.

00:09:32.000 We should be unafraid to admit that.

00:09:34.000 So God made us. 1.00

00:09:36.000 And instead, the American feminist movement has created weak men and angry women. 1.00

00:09:44.000 Where you have the least married generation in American history. 1.00

00:09:47.000 And then sometimes when the marriages do happen, see, Pastor Steve says, give them the hook.

00:09:51.000 Get them offstage.

00:09:51.000 That's it.

00:09:53.000 When they do get married, we're having less children than ever before.

00:09:58.000 You know, we're on the verge of a population collapse?

00:10:00.000 We're having 500,000 less children this year than last year.

00:10:04.000 500,000.

00:10:07.000 How's that possible?

00:10:09.000 First of all, the number one reason why you ask young couples, they say, why aren't you going to have more kids, financial. 0.82

00:10:14.000 Second reason is they say, this world is so screwed up, I don't want to bring more kids into this world.

00:10:18.000 The third and real reason is the secularization of our country. 0.99

00:10:22.000 If you don't believe in God, what is the real reason to have kids?

00:10:25.000 Why replicate your values?

00:10:27.000 More so than, I want one of each, as if you're like picking out curtains for your house.

00:10:32.000 That's what I hear.

00:10:33.000 I want one of each, like you have a car.

00:10:34.000 Like, okay, well, you might get one of each, but whatever God wants.

00:10:38.000 The point is that we are on the verge of a population collapse. 0.83

00:10:43.000 And so all of these trends are coming together with young people in our country.

00:10:48.000 And so this is mostly to the parents and adults.

00:10:51.000 The first thing is this.

00:10:52.000 And I say this as kind of an intermediary between a 16-year-old and a 60-year-old.

00:10:57.000 I don't mean this condescendingly at all. 0.97

00:11:01.000 But I believe that the baby boomers have largely failed this next generation. 0.98

00:11:06.000 That the public policy decisions, the political choices have not been in the best interest of the younger generation. 0.99

00:11:13.000 Now, for all the students out here, that's not an excuse to go demand-free stuff and not work and not apply yourself.

00:11:19.000 I'll get to that in a second.

00:11:20.000 It's a very important distinction.

00:11:22.000 And there's plenty of wisdom to be learned intergenerationally.

00:11:25.000 In fact, one of the things I'm going to talk about is honoring your mother and father and the important, the true, incredible biblical wisdom behind that.

00:11:33.000 What does that actually mean?

00:11:34.000 It's the only commandment in the Ten Commandments that comes with a promise so that you might live long and prosper in the land of which you are in.

00:11:41.000 It's the only Ten Commandments that gives you, only the Ten Commandments that gives you a specific promise.

00:11:46.000 And so where did we go wrong?

00:11:50.000 We taught my generation self-esteem, not self-control.

00:11:54.000 We taught my generation what you do, do whatever you want to do, however you want to do it.

00:11:58.000 You're perfect the way you are, and you don't need to put up limitations on your own behavior.

00:12:03.000 That is a recipe for misery.

00:12:06.000 There's a great quote at the Harvard Law School, and you're walking down it makes you stop when you're probably going to remove it because that's what happens now.

00:12:13.000 It's way too much wisdom for a college.

00:12:16.000 It says, The law is the wise restraint that keeps men free.

00:12:22.000 Think about how contradicting that yet true that statement is.

00:12:26.000 The law, restraint, free.

00:12:30.000 You're trying to tell me I could be restrained and then that will make me free.

00:12:34.000 That one sentence is the opposite of everything my generation has been told.

00:12:40.000 So when you think about it, it's what you prevent yourself from doing that can actually give you true freedom.

00:12:47.000 That's what the law is.

00:12:48.000 Instead, the idea of freedom that we've told millennials in Gen Z, what I'm right on the precipice of it, is put whatever substance you want in your body whenever you want to do it.

00:12:57.000 Do whatever you want morally, however you want to do it.

00:12:59.000 Spend a limited time on your phone or your computer, and that will bring you to a place of peace and happiness.

00:13:05.000 Then somehow we're shocked.

00:13:06.000 We say, why is drug use going up?

00:13:07.000 Why is people not getting married and all this?

00:13:09.000 Well, it's the values that we taught were secular and quite honestly, anti-biblical values throughout our entire country.

00:13:17.000 We're somehow stunned at the result. 0.83

00:13:19.000 So that comes from the top down, from the bottom up, from young people out there.

00:13:22.000 I have some very specific pieces of advice.

00:13:25.000 And so the first thing is this: I am completely understanding of the lockdown criticism, of saying that it's difficult to find work, what's happening in college.

00:13:40.000 I'll get more into that in a second.

00:13:42.000 But if I have to hear a continued narrative from still the most blessed generation in American history about how oppressed you are, I'm going to lose it.

00:13:51.000 Seriously.

00:13:52.000 You are the luckiest people ever to live on.

00:13:54.000 I get all the challenges, okay?

00:13:56.000 Every generation has different challenges.

00:13:58.000 The challenge for this generation is they have not been taught American values and the country locked down.

00:14:05.000 The challenge of the generation a couple prior, the greatest generation, is you got to go serve in a war and storm Normandy Beach and you're going to learn American values.

00:14:14.000 Every generation has different challenges.

00:14:17.000 And what is being taught in our colleges is we train kids for the oppression Olympics.

00:14:24.000 So you're looking at the ultimate oppressor.

00:14:28.000 I'm white, a man, heterosexual, and Christian.

00:14:32.000 And on top of it, I'm Anglo-Saxon.

00:14:35.000 Whoa.

00:14:37.000 You are looking at what they consider to be the most personification of an oppressor in this country.

00:14:47.000 And then there's a hierarchy of this, and any of you on college campuses have seen this in one way or the other, that there's a thing that says, I have my truth.

00:14:56.000 There is no such thing as your truth.

00:14:59.000 There's the truth, and then there's your opinion.

00:15:03.000 It's that simple.

00:15:04.000 Well, you don't know what it's like to walk inside.

00:15:06.000 I think shared experiences can be fine.

00:15:08.000 But I much prefer objective data and evidence than subjective emotive experiences.

00:15:14.000 In fact, the Bible tells us this clearly.

00:15:17.000 Multiple times, the Bible warns us about listening to your heart.

00:15:22.000 How many times have you heard this in society?

00:15:24.000 Follow your heart.

00:15:28.000 Your heart will misguide you. 0.99

00:15:29.000 In Proverbs, it says, Proverbs 28, 26, he who trusts in his own heart is a fool. 0.58

00:15:36.000 But whoever walks wisely will be delivered.

00:15:39.000 What is wisdom?

00:15:40.000 It's a question that 99% of young people can't answer.

00:15:43.000 Wisdom is the knowledge of things that never change.

00:15:46.000 That's wisdom.

00:15:49.000 There's practical knowledge and there's eternal knowledge.

00:15:52.000 Practical knowledge is who's the governor?

00:15:54.000 I don't know.

00:15:55.000 Practical knowledge, no, it's true, I don't, and I don't care. 1.00

00:15:58.000 She's a tyrant and a fool and all those sorts of things. 0.99

00:16:01.000 No, it's serious, true. 1.00

00:16:02.000 And eternal knowledge, it's true.

00:16:06.000 Eternal knowledge is anyone who tries to micromanage the decisions of a citizenry is going to fail.

00:16:14.000 Those things don't change.

00:16:16.000 So wisdom, we find there's a whole book dedicated to wisdom, Proverbs.

00:16:21.000 which I tell every young person out there, if you just want to recenter your life and reorient your life, just spend a whole month in Proverbs and apply what it says to your life, truly.

00:16:30.000 And we have all these self-help books, and I think some of them are fine, but most of them are this cacophony of self-indulgence and you being the center of the universe.

00:16:41.000 The moment that you realize that you actually might be the biggest thing that needs change, not the world around you, it's actually a very releasing feeling.

00:16:52.000 Here's another rule, another piece of wisdom.

00:16:54.000 If you are more concerned with the world around you, climate change, polar bears disappearing, which is not true, by the way, polar bears are multiplying.

00:17:03.000 The polar bears had a great decade, unlike what I have a whole speech on polar bears.

00:17:06.000 You want me to give you that?

00:17:07.000 That's Steve.

00:17:07.000 I got an old polar bear stick.

00:17:09.000 I'm not going to give the polar bear speech. 0.97

00:17:10.000 It's true.

00:17:10.000 I have a whole slide.

00:17:11.000 It's great.

00:17:14.000 If you're more concerned with existential problems than your own problems, you live a great life.

00:17:20.000 Do you think that people living in the slums of India are concerned about polar bear population?

00:17:25.000 No, they're concerned about sanitary needs and eating.

00:17:28.000 You want to know that you're lucky?

00:17:29.000 You care more about the external than the internal.

00:17:33.000 That's how you know you're blessed.

00:17:36.000 Three meals a day, shower, one or two parents.

00:17:41.000 There's tens of millions of people in India that are orphans.

00:17:44.000 There's orphans in this country, but we've reduced the orphan population, thank goodness. 1.00

00:17:48.000 And the Christian community is largely to thank for that. 1.00

00:17:52.000 But the entire popular culture narrative through the top podcasts, the top television shows and everything is don't focus on yourself.

00:18:00.000 Let's go abolish systemic racism, which is an unspecified objective.

00:18:09.000 Now, if you want to talk about creating better people, I'm all for that.

00:18:12.000 I think creating good people is a great task and challenge.

00:18:15.000 Let's start with stopping telling eight-year-olds you're perfect the way you are.

00:18:18.000 Or telling a six-year-old I feel like a girl.

00:18:21.000 Yeah, cut it out.

00:18:22.000 You're a guy.

00:18:23.000 That's how that should go.

00:18:24.000 It's that simple. 0.99

00:18:25.000 Not have taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery, which is gender dysphoria and it's child abuse. 1.00

00:18:33.000 I really do. 0.99

00:18:34.000 I believe that it's child abuse to play into the confusion of young kids.

00:18:40.000 I saw a kid eat dirt a couple weeks ago.

00:18:41.000 You know what the parents said?

00:18:43.000 Cut it out.

00:18:43.000 Stop it.

00:18:44.000 That's what parents do.

00:18:45.000 They redirect them towards proper behavior. 0.99

00:18:47.000 Should be exactly the same for gender. 0.52

00:18:48.000 So, Steve, you're going to love the articles after this.

00:18:50.000 It'll be great.

00:18:52.000 It's biblical wisdom.

00:18:53.000 Again, Proverbs says, he who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered.

00:19:00.000 Your heart will deceive you.

00:19:02.000 It will.

00:19:03.000 God gave us both.

00:19:04.000 Not saying the heart is irrelevant.

00:19:06.000 You need the heart to appreciate beauty and music, romance.

00:19:10.000 Those things are not irrelevant.

00:19:12.000 It's a very bad way to make consequential decisions.

00:19:16.000 So we have an entire public policy conversation and an entire educational program towards young people that is dedicated on them looks externally and not internally.

00:19:28.000 And I'm all for changing things externally.

00:19:29.000 There's plenty of problems.

00:19:30.000 And I told you that those problems are legitimate here in this state.

00:19:35.000 However, with no balance whatsoever, saying you are a product simply and solely of every single bad thing that happened around you.

00:19:45.000 It's not just not true.

00:19:46.000 It's just not biblical.

00:19:48.000 It gives people an excuse to not take responsibility for their actions.

00:19:53.000 There's a direct correlation with the rise in single motherhood, and single mothers are modern heroes.

00:19:59.000 I really believe that. 0.93

00:20:00.000 And weak, cowardly men that impregnate women and abandon them. 0.99

00:20:04.000 Why? 0.99

00:20:05.000 Because our entire national conversation is around running away from responsibility, not running towards responsibility.

00:20:10.000 Why are there a million abortions every single year?

00:20:14.000 We're quick to single out the tragedy of abortion.

00:20:19.000 And I'm happy to go through that at a different time.

00:20:22.000 However, we're slow to talk about how the rise in abortion is really a crisis of responsibility in our country.

00:20:31.000 Of people that are afraid to take responsibility for their own actions.

00:20:35.000 So it's a macro trend.

00:20:36.000 So where does that originate?

00:20:38.000 Well, this is my next book, and I'm going to really have fun writing, finishing writing it, and publicizing it.

00:20:45.000 I believe that universities are ruining our country.

00:20:47.000 I do.

00:20:48.000 I believe that colleges are the root of almost all of this.

00:20:51.000 I do.

00:20:52.000 If you want to see where these arguments are given credibility, they're started, originated, and then exported across the country.

00:20:58.000 It's university campuses.

00:21:00.000 What happens on college campuses will soon happen in corporate boardrooms and the halls of Congress.

00:21:05.000 So if you want to go to college, great.

00:21:09.000 To be able to answer the most important question that we should ask our high schoolers: why are you going to college?

00:21:15.000 Not where are you going to college?

00:21:17.000 Why?

00:21:18.000 Maybe a gap year is for you.

00:21:19.000 Maybe starting a business.

00:21:21.000 Maybe you need to take a deep breath and to get a couple courses done at a local community college.

00:21:26.000 But what ends up happening is when you borrow a bunch of money and study really bad ideas and you go study North African migratory bird studies or South African lesbian poetry and you wonder why you can't find a job, a politician who walks on stage and says, the reason you can't find a job, South American lesbian poet, whatever.

00:21:47.000 And these are some of the degrees.

00:21:48.000 You'd be amazed at them.

00:21:49.000 It's actually quite stunning.

00:21:51.000 The reason you can't find a job might be because of the system that actually was a predator towards that young person.

00:21:58.000 The way that higher education works right now is a predator towards middle-class families, and minority families are falling victim at this.

00:22:05.000 First-generation minority families, specifically Hispanic families, are being fed a lie.

00:22:11.000 That your kid must go to college.

00:22:12.000 Now, if they go, if they know why they're going and they're going for a doctor, an engineer, or a lawyer, or STEM, great.

00:22:19.000 You know, that's less than 12% of all degrees that are given out.

00:22:22.000 Most are in the humanities or the soft social sciences.

00:22:25.000 Most.

00:22:27.000 So what do you learn in the humanities?

00:22:28.000 Nothing I've talked about in the last three services.

00:22:30.000 No Socrates, no Plato, no Aristotle, no Aquinas, no Bible.

00:22:34.000 Instead, you read Nietzsche, Angela Davis, Nicole Hannah-Jones. 0.78

00:22:37.000 America's racist.

00:22:38.000 I'm going to motivate you to become an activist. 0.95

00:22:39.000 There is no God.

00:22:40.000 There is no moral.

00:22:41.000 There is no truth. 0.99

00:22:42.000 Men are awful. 0.99

00:22:42.000 Everything's racist. 0.99

00:22:43.000 Go burn it down. 1.00

00:22:45.000 That's what you're paying for.

00:22:48.000 And so when the university has basically taken over the entire country, so we send our kids voluntarily, and there's plenty of colleges that do a good job.

00:22:58.000 Hillsdale College is one of them.

00:22:59.000 You've got a great military school in southeast New Mexico, but they are the vast minority.

00:23:04.000 They are the exception. 1.00

00:23:05.000 And yes, there's good professors and there's good reasons to go to school.

00:23:08.000 Do so affordably and do so quickly.

00:23:11.000 But if you view college as a necessary rite of passage, I'm going to challenge your premise.

00:23:15.000 I want you to imagine a scenario.

00:23:18.000 The scenario is that instead of going to college, immediately you put $200,000 in a moderately managed stock portfolio.

00:23:28.000 You put it away and don't look at it for four years.

00:23:30.000 And you go find something.

00:23:32.000 You have a skill.

00:23:33.000 I tell young people all the time.

00:23:34.000 Don't follow your heart.

00:23:35.000 Don't follow your passion.

00:23:36.000 Follow your skill.

00:23:37.000 And eventually you'll intersect your skill with your passion.

00:23:40.000 Find something you're good at, not something you enjoy.

00:23:43.000 I enjoy basketball.

00:23:45.000 It wasn't for me, okay?

00:23:47.000 I'm pretty good better than most, but my skill was communicating, organizing, and I said, that's what I'm good at.

00:23:53.000 And now I get to go to whatever basketball game I want, like whatever.

00:23:56.000 The point is that we say, well, I really enjoy 12th century medieval art.

00:24:01.000 Great.

00:24:01.000 What are you good at?

00:24:02.000 Well, I'm really good at math.

00:24:04.000 Okay, so why don't you go study something where you can find a job?

00:24:07.000 And by the way, let me just rant on this for a second. 0.61

00:24:09.000 This whole side hustle thing drives me nuts.

00:24:12.000 Oh, I have a side hustle.

00:24:12.000 Okay.

00:24:13.000 Go get a job.

00:24:14.000 Okay.

00:24:14.000 It's like, oh, I'm doing like 30 side.

00:24:16.000 Like, stop it.

00:24:17.000 Like, go get an actual job.

00:24:18.000 Okay.

00:24:18.000 Anyway.

00:24:21.000 This drives me absolutely off a wall.

00:24:23.000 Like, oh, I'm like, you're not doing anything except posting on Instagram and reselling the same five products.

00:24:27.000 Like, go find a job.

00:24:27.000 Okay.

00:24:28.000 Okay, please.

00:24:29.000 And anyway, that's totally off course.

00:24:33.000 But the college system is currently supremely broken.

00:24:40.000 It will only fix if middle-income families, which a lot of you are, start to weigh the value proposition.

00:24:47.000 And you say, huh, maybe I'm okay with my kid being in the muscular class.

00:24:54.000 There's two classes in this country.

00:24:56.000 There's the Zoom and Skype class, people that open up their laptop, and the muscular class.

00:25:02.000 You know, there's 105 million people in our muscular class?

00:25:05.000 105 million people.

00:25:06.000 They're the people, many of whom in our audience right now, kept the economy going while the Zoom and Skype class ordered them their packages the last year.

00:25:15.000 The Zoom and Skype class are the ones that call them for the Uber and demand it in two seconds or less.

00:25:22.000 The Zoom and Skype class are the ones that blitz through the airport and don't say anything to the people that are bringing the bags on and off the plane, the people that are serving them their food.

00:25:31.000 The muscular class keeps us together, yet they are the least respected, most condemned, most made fun of portion of American society.

00:25:40.000 And all of a sudden, a guy in politics comes and starts to give a little bit of voice to the muscular class, just a little bit, and everyone loses their mind as if, no, they can't have a voice.

00:25:51.000 They're deplorable.

00:25:52.000 They should be condemned. 1.00

00:25:53.000 They must be ostracized. 0.77

00:25:56.000 I will take a plumber with wisdom in a second over a person from Harvard with a doctorate any day.

00:26:05.000 But here's the root of it.

00:26:07.000 The root of it is this.

00:26:09.000 This is for parents.

00:26:11.000 A lot of parents get nervous about their kid becoming a plumber. 0.98

00:26:16.000 It's true. 0.95

00:26:17.000 You laugh.

00:26:19.000 How many, I spoke at Winnetka, North Chicago, very, very upper middle class, like Beverly Hills of Chicago.

00:26:27.000 I said, how many of you here would be okay with your kids becoming a plumber?

00:26:29.000 No hands went up.

00:26:30.000 I said, that's the problem. 0.85

00:26:31.000 You'd rather have your kid become an atheist liberal than a plumber.

00:26:35.000 You are not okay going to the cocktail party saying, oh, yeah, Sally Sue's at Dartmouth.

00:26:39.000 She doesn't know what gender she is, but she's doing great.

00:26:43.000 Brian Smith is at Stanford and he's at a climate protest.

00:26:48.000 Or Ron is at University of Wisconsin-Madison and he got arrested after throwing a Molotov cocktail at the police.

00:26:56.000 But no one wants to talk about at the cocktail party.

00:26:59.000 Yeah, my kid decided to go learn a skill, carpenter, electrician, HVAC, and he's doing great.

00:27:08.000 Parents are afraid to have that conversation because parents live vicariously through their kids.

00:27:13.000 That's normal.

00:27:14.000 What's not normal is them sacrificing what's best for their kids for their own ego.

00:27:18.000 That is not normal and it's not moral and it's not good.

00:27:21.000 And so now it's time for a serious introspection and self-examination.

00:27:24.000 And for the young people out there, here's my advice to you.

00:27:26.000 If you go to college, awesome.

00:27:28.000 Do it right.

00:27:29.000 Keep your values.

00:27:29.000 Do it quickly.

00:27:30.000 Read books of wisdom, for goodness sake, because you won't get it at most colleges.

00:27:35.000 Listen to the right things.

00:27:36.000 Stay close to your parents.

00:27:37.000 They know more than you might think.

00:27:39.000 Because what do totalitarians always try to do?

00:27:41.000 They try to turn their kids against the parents.

00:27:44.000 We talked about this in the last service, right?

00:27:46.000 What place teaches kids to rebel against their parents?

00:27:49.000 College!

00:27:50.000 It's perfected.

00:27:52.000 Your parents were wrong about everything.

00:27:53.000 America's terrible. 1.00

00:27:54.000 There are no genders. 1.00

00:27:55.000 There is no God.

00:27:56.000 Let me tell you about all these authors you've never heard of. 1.00

00:27:59.000 You've never heard of them because they're all a bunch of fools. 0.99

00:28:01.000 That's why you've never heard of them. 1.00

00:28:03.000 Most of them.

00:28:05.000 My time is running short, so let me wrap a lot of this together.

00:28:09.000 So if you go to college, do it right, do it affordably, do it quickly, but not everyone needs to go to college.

00:28:15.000 And so part of what I think God is drawing me to do, I got lucky.

00:28:19.000 I didn't go.

00:28:20.000 I was going to go to West Point, didn't get in.

00:28:22.000 Best thing that never happened to me.

00:28:23.000 I'm the type of guy that should have went, right?

00:28:25.000 Eagle Scout, football, basketball captain, good grades.

00:28:29.000 I should have went.

00:28:30.000 I didn't.

00:28:31.000 It didn't feel right to me at the time.

00:28:32.000 I lucked out.

00:28:33.000 I think part of what God is calling me to do is tell you it's okay if you don't go.

00:28:39.000 That if anyone that looks down at you has more problems than you will ever have, and anyone tells you that you must go.

00:28:45.000 You must get that piece of paper.

00:28:46.000 There you go.

00:28:48.000 It does not make you a better person.

00:28:50.000 Might give you a skill, probably won't.

00:28:52.000 And that goes to a deeper problem in American society, which is, by definition, unbiblical, which is that your value is based on accreditation.

00:29:03.000 That I went through a certain sequence of schools or I went to a certain country club.

00:29:08.000 I'm born from a certain part of town.

00:29:10.000 Therefore, I'm a better person than you are.

00:29:12.000 No, you're not.

00:29:13.000 Not even close.

00:29:14.000 I care about your character and I care about your actions far more than I care about your accreditation or what college you went to.

00:29:24.000 So here's some specific advice for young people.

00:29:29.000 Okay, social media is destroying our country.

00:29:32.000 Period.

00:29:33.000 These tech companies hate you.

00:29:34.000 They hate your values and they're monetizing your children.

00:29:37.000 Parents, I beg you, take the phones out of your kids' hands.

00:29:39.000 I beg you.

00:29:40.000 You have no idea.

00:29:41.000 Do you know that Google, Facebook, and Twitter has full-time neuropsychology?

00:29:45.000 No, it's true.

00:29:45.000 Neuroscientists earning a million dollars a year, hundreds of them.

00:29:49.000 You know what their job is?

00:29:50.000 To make their devices and applications more chemically addictive to your eight-year-old.

00:29:56.000 This is drug dealing.

00:29:58.000 You wouldn't allow your eight-year-old to take opioids, but you have a drug dealer from Menlo Park take the phones out of their hands.

00:30:05.000 I didn't get a smartphone until I was 18, and it was a gift from God.

00:30:08.000 It really was.

00:30:09.000 Now, if you're 15, 16, or 17, you have the phones, then limit your time.

00:30:12.000 Self-control.

00:30:13.000 Put barriers.

00:30:14.000 Monitor your screen time.

00:30:16.000 Reduce it by 30%.

00:30:17.000 Take a phone Sabbath.

00:30:19.000 Social media is a death spiral.

00:30:21.000 I have all my public front-facing apps.

00:30:23.000 I have a team that helps management.

00:30:24.000 I'm lucky.

00:30:25.000 I look at none of the feeds.

00:30:27.000 None of it.

00:30:28.000 The moment I stopped doing it, it was one of the greatest things I ever did. 1.00

00:30:31.000 It was like shekels. 0.97

00:30:33.000 There is nothing of long-term wisdom or value of 12 hours of screen time a day, of 30 minutes of flipping through TikTok for another lip-syncing video. 0.89

00:30:41.000 That's not going to bring you to be a better person.

00:30:43.000 It's just not.

00:30:44.000 Might momentarily entertain you, but it's not.

00:30:48.000 There's a great quote, which is: cheerfulness, optimism is the result of wisdom.

00:30:54.000 You want to know why everyone's so miserable?

00:30:55.000 There's no wisdom anymore.

00:30:57.000 In Proverbs, it says, wisdom begins at the fear of the Lord.

00:31:01.000 So for students out there, it's so tempting to want to act as if the Bible, God, Jesus, all that stuff's a bunch of thousand-year-old mythology.

00:31:12.000 I will challenge you.

00:31:14.000 Go on a hunt.

00:31:15.000 Go try to find something better than Jesus, and you never will.

00:31:20.000 Don't try it all.

00:31:21.000 Go travel, read, do whatever.

00:31:26.000 Every truth of the Bible remains true for your whole life.

00:31:29.000 And so, in summary, this, I know this speech was a lot different than the other ones, and it was intentionally different, right?

00:31:35.000 For young people and students, no more excuses.

00:31:38.000 Okay?

00:31:39.000 You apply yourself correctly.

00:31:41.000 Self-discipline.

00:31:43.000 Every day you try to improve.

00:31:44.000 For parents, try to do a timeout and a hard stop and say, Am I actually leaving a better country for my kids?

00:31:50.000 So there's an ask for both, right?

00:31:53.000 The pressure is not on either side because the consequence of what we're living through is coming from both directions.

00:32:01.000 And so I want to give this opportunity here.

00:32:04.000 So being a Christian is the most important thing in my life.

00:32:09.000 And I said this last service and I'll repeat it again.

00:32:12.000 The gospel in four words is Jesus took my place.

00:32:16.000 Three words is him for me.

00:32:19.000 Two words is substitutionary atonement.

00:32:22.000 One word is grace. 0.76

00:32:24.000 This is why Christianity is different than every other religion in the world and no college will tell you this.

00:32:30.000 People say, all the religions are the same. 0.98

00:32:32.000 No.

00:32:33.000 Christianity, unlike any others, all the other religions is you trying to get closer to God.

00:32:38.000 Christianity is God who came to you. 0.69

00:32:43.000 What is grace?

00:32:45.000 We know what justice is.

00:32:47.000 You break into a store and you get what you deserve.

00:32:52.000 You get a month in prison.

00:32:53.000 Mercy is you go in front of the judge and he says, you know, I'll give you a week in prison.

00:33:02.000 Now, grace is something different.

00:33:04.000 Grace is that when you die and you face your creator and they have a list of everything wrong you've ever done, ever, private and public, omniscient, omnipotent, all of it.

00:33:16.000 And a judgment is about to be given.

00:33:18.000 You're about to get your sentencing.

00:33:22.000 And instead of mercy, instead of justice, all of a sudden someone steps up and says, Hold on.

00:33:29.000 I know him.

00:33:30.000 I know her.

00:33:32.000 I'll serve that prison sentence. 0.96

00:33:34.000 You can go live free.

00:33:35.000 That is grace, and only Jesus Christ can give you that.

00:33:39.000 I want to thank you guys.

00:33:43.000 These last two days have been unbelievable.

00:33:46.000 We are on the verge of something very special here in New Mexico.

00:33:49.000 Pastor Steve mentioned it.

00:33:50.000 I know it might sound silly or kind of not important, but every day I fight these big tech companies and I do two podcasts a day.

00:33:59.000 We're on 200 radio stations a day.

00:34:01.000 And there is a massive effort to try to silence me and everything I just talked about through social media.

00:34:06.000 There's one way that can push back against it, which is kind of circumvent it, is when people on their own individual devices, on the podcast apps, actually subscribe.

00:34:17.000 It becomes a lot harder to censor.

00:34:20.000 And so every phone has a podcast app or Spotify app.

00:34:23.000 Apple has it.

00:34:24.000 And I encourage you guys, we do a lot of content.

00:34:26.000 And so to summarize the last four talks, be courageous and stand up for what you believe in.

00:34:32.000 New Mexico is on the verge of something very, very special.

00:34:35.000 And the church is essential.

00:34:36.000 Fight for it.

00:34:37.000 Thank you guys.

00:34:38.000 Appreciate it.

00:34:43.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:34:45.000 Email us, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:34:47.000 And if you want to support us, go to charliekirk.com/slash support.

00:34:51.000 Thanks so much, everybody.

00:34:52.000 God bless you.

00:34:53.000 Speak to you soon.

00:34:56.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - March 27, 2021

The Best Thing That Never Happened to Me

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