00:00:33.000His 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.
00:00:42.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:00:55.000So I want to take a little different tact in this episode.
00:00:58.000I'm going to talk about something somewhat personal.
00:01:02.000I'm also going to go into some of the news of the day about the annihilation culture that is spreading across our country at the hands of cultural nihilists.
00:01:11.000And it's interesting that word nihilism, because it's really been kind of popping up a lot in my readings that I do every single day.
00:01:19.000And I try to read a couple hours a day and watch lectures and think very deeply about things.
00:01:24.000A lot for you, by the way, listening to this podcast, because when I see the emails from you and I see the problems you're going through, I take such a deep burden of responsibility to make sure I'm delivering to you things that are grounded in truth and what is good for the world.
00:01:44.000And so nihilism is a word that's been popping up a lot.
00:01:48.000It's the philosophical view that all knowledge and values are baseless and that all knowledge lack a certain basis and all values are subjective.
00:01:59.000Now, mind you, I find nihilism to be sort of useless because nihilists find everything else to be sort of useless.
00:02:07.000So I was doing a lot of thinking about this and then on a personal note a couple days ago, someone who I got to know, I won't say this person's name decided to commit suicide.
00:02:21.000And not the first person I've known to take their own life.
00:02:29.000One of my childhood friends, Eddie, also committed suicide a couple years ago.
00:02:34.000And it's happening with an incredibly alarming regularity.
00:02:41.000And I'm the type of person that if I don't vocalize and create dialogue around something that I'm wrestling with, then I'm not actually able to get over it.
00:02:51.000And I'm not able to write down my thoughts.
00:02:54.000And so it's a very difficult thing when you see someone who has a life that seems organized and seems functional to then self-exit from existence.
00:03:06.000And some people that do that, I guess, are engaging in nihilism and they say, what's the point?
00:03:12.000But I just want to have this conversation first before I get into what the radical left is doing to our children and what they're doing in our culture.
00:03:22.000But for those of you that are listening to this podcast and that are struggling in any way, shape, or form with questions of, does my life matter?
00:03:43.000God did not create us to be useless atoms and bouncing cells on a planet for just our own self-indulgence and that's it, our own hedonistic pleasure.
00:03:58.000And in fact, you as a human being has very significant meaning.
00:04:27.000And I know there's one person listening to this right now that needs to hear this.
00:04:31.000And if that one person listening to this is impacted by it, then this is worth it.
00:04:37.000Because I have lost too many people in my orbit to suicide.
00:04:42.000And it's something that really bothers me because it's like, how could you do that?
00:04:48.000But it's not that I'm actually looking for the thought process that would get you there.
00:04:53.000Because if you're honest about wrestling with your own darkness, in some ways you're like, wow, okay, you can see how someone could do that.
00:05:00.000Instead, it is, how do you as an individual, through a sequence of broader admissions, think that your decisions no longer mean anything.
00:05:17.000And so look, the trap that the nihilists and the secular humanists try to lay for us is that your decisions have no impact.
00:06:01.000It's become third rail in a lot of different ways.
00:06:04.000That human beings are not allowed to wrestle and not allowed to vocalize when they're going through something very difficult and when they're going through something that is personal beyond explanation.
00:06:21.000And people say, well, I can't say this because people are going to think I'm weird or people are going to think I'm not normal.
00:06:28.000Well, I'm telling you right now, if you're going through any of that right now, you can email me, freedom at charlottekirk.com.
00:06:35.000And if I can help you, I will help you.
00:06:39.000If I can't, I'll tell you to someone who can help you.
00:06:42.000Because every single person on this planet has a purpose.
00:07:01.000And that's a really hard topic to wrestle with and to struggle with because you ask yourself, well, if God is truly almighty, how do I have free will?
00:07:12.000And when I see someone who is 29 years old, who is someone that I knew and that I spent time with, decide that their life was no longer worth living, if I didn't believe in free will, that would be a hard thing for me to wrestle with, even harder than I could possibly articulate.
00:07:32.000So for me personally, I get so much peace believing in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, peace in reading the Bible.
00:07:42.000And the beauty about reading the Bible, it's the only book that the more you read it, it actually reads you.
00:07:51.000If you're a nihilist, which if you're listening to this, I don't think you are.
00:07:54.000And you say, what's the point in all this?
00:08:25.000And if you're listening to this, if you make good choices and you straighten yourself out and you aim yourself correctly, aim yourself towards a goal, and you write down on a piece of paper what success looks like and what a flourishing life looks like, that can really have an impact on you.
00:08:46.000And so, and something that I've been journaling a lot about and something I've been reading a lot about because it's just, it's so hard.
00:08:54.000I mean, how many more funerals do I have to go to for people that commit suicide?
00:08:58.000It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.
00:09:02.000And so here I am right now doing what I believe is the greatest thing I can do using my platform that is listened to by countless young people and people all across the country.
00:09:14.000And I'm speaking to you individually right now.
00:09:22.000You can live an exciting, exhilarating, incredibly fulfilling life.
00:09:31.000If someone wronged you, that is not a reason to do something to yourself.
00:09:36.000In fact, doing that to yourself is so incredibly selfish to yourself, and it hurts people around you more than you can put yourself in words.
00:09:45.000I can't put into words the kind of struggle mentally I've had to go through at times when people I grow up with decide that they no longer want to be on the planet.
00:10:33.000He messaged me two weeks before he decided to commit suicide.
00:10:38.000And you want to talk about a demon that I have?
00:10:44.000Having to think to myself, what if I could have done something different or something more?
00:10:56.000So you can, you got, I, I, there's really no happy or easy way to end this sort of discussion, but it just needs to be said because if we're not talking about something, then you're letting it fester up, and then God knows what happens after that.
00:11:34.000So I think I'd be doing a moral disservice if I didn't, because it was really been bothering me the last couple days.
00:11:43.000And what drives a lot of these people to do that is the fact that we have now Created a system of what we used to call cyberbullying, we now call social justice.
00:11:56.000So now I'm transitioning to a couple stories here.
00:12:00.000I'm going to finish with a critique of Don Lemon and I'm going to get back to this topic to finish the episode, which is this story from the college fix.
00:12:09.000I saw this story and I said, you know what, you want to know why so many kids are committing suicide?
00:12:14.000Soon-to-be Marquette University freshman Samantha Perferal, I might have mispronounced her name, has yet to even set foot on campus, yet she said she's already facing possible dismissal from school.
00:12:25.000Because she made a Donald Trump TikTok on the Chinese app that we have advocated deleting.
00:12:32.000Video features a Trump 2020 flag as well as a sign reading Marquette 2024 along with a rap song with lyrics, He's Mad, She's Mad, Big Sad, Ha ha, Don't Care, Stay Mad, taunting her peers to cancel her for supporting the president.
00:12:45.000Her post has been seen 600,000 times and has since caught the attention of Marquette community.
00:13:59.000And when we go after our young people like Samantha, who just makes a Trump 2020 TikTok and she gets threatened to have dismissal from her school and she gets interrogated and she gets targeted like this, I mean, my goodness.
00:14:13.000Now, what if I told you that some of the surprising people who would agree with me that this sort of culture is corrosive and a deep rot is Marxist philosopher Noam Chomsky and even J.K. Rowling?
00:14:27.000And in a concise and compelling open letter published recently in Harper's Magazine, which is actually the second oldest monthly magazine in the United States, where prominent leftists came forward to condemn cancel culture.
00:14:39.000And by the way, if you email freedom at charliekirk.com with who you think America's oldest monthly magazine is with the right answer, I'll send you a free copy of the MAGA Doctrine.
00:14:50.000First 20 people to get it right, freedom at CharlieKirk.com.
00:14:54.000I do want to really read some of this to you because I think it's a real cultural turning point in our society.
00:14:59.000This is the left clawing the Overton window away from the Marxists, or at least trying to.
00:15:04.000They're trying to take back control of the narrative, and it is indeed brave in this age.
00:15:08.000Now, before I say this, just remember, when we have this culture the way that it is, when we have the culture going in the direction that it's going, it explains why 29-year-olds are taking their life.
00:15:23.000Because you take all of their meaning away.
00:15:33.000Who represents a real threat to democracy.
00:15:35.000But resistance must not allow to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion, which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting.
00:15:42.000The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that is set in on all sides.
00:15:49.000Okay, I never said it was 100% true, but I said that it's pretty interesting that the left-wingers are even speaking out against what's happening.
00:15:57.000It goes on by saying: the free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is becoming more constricted.
00:16:04.000We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counterspeech from all quarters, but it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.
00:16:15.000More troubling still, institutional leaders in a spirit of panicked damage control, delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms.
00:16:22.000Editors are fired for running controversial pieces.
00:16:25.000Books are withdrawn from alleged inauthenticity.
00:16:27.000Journalists are barred from writing on certain topics, and professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class.
00:16:33.000Part of this, of course, refers to the failing New York Times that was conveniently part of this entire culture.
00:16:41.000The editor had to step down because he published a piece from Senator Tom Cotton.
00:16:44.000The letter finishes by saying this: The stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time.
00:16:50.000The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and make everyone less capable of democratic participation.
00:16:58.000The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away.
00:17:03.000We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which we cannot allow without the other.
00:17:09.000It says: Several staffers at Vox have taken to Twitter after journalist Matthew Iglesia signed the open letter to crying cancel culture.
00:17:16.000As a trans woman who very much values her position at Vox and the support the publication has given her throughout the emotional and physical turmoil of the transition, I'm deeply sanitized to see Matt Iglesias' signature on the Harper Weekly's letter.
00:17:28.000VanderWerf began her letter to the editors.
00:17:30.000Matt is, of course, entitled to his own opinion, and I know he's a much more nuanced thinker than signing the letter would suggest.
00:17:36.000He has never been anything but kind to me and has often supported my work publicly, all of which I'm extremely grateful for.
00:17:41.000So, of course, the natural reaction to the anti-cancel culture letter was to immediately try and cancel anyone who signed on to the letter.
00:17:47.000I do want to conclude this segment with: so, yes, this is fine, but the left-wing elite is still completely oblivious to the real problems in America.
00:17:55.000And again, you want answers for why people are engaging in self-hatred, where we're not building people up around meaning.
00:18:04.000It's because you destroy their entire livelihood if they dare speak out against the cultural orthodoxy.
00:18:11.000You destroy speech, it festers up within somebody, and then they might actually take their own life.
00:18:17.000And we are seeing that happen at a rapid rate.
00:18:22.000Now, mind you, there are plenty of left-wing signatories on that letter.
00:18:25.000One that certainly wasn't there was Don Lemon.
00:18:28.000And so, I want to spend one moment on Don Lemon, then I want to finish the show here talking about what I started talking about, started the show with.
00:18:35.000He said this: Don Lemon said something so unbelievably reprehensible.
00:18:40.000He said that Jesus Christ admittedly was not perfect while he was here on earth.
00:18:45.000Jesus Christ, if you believe in, if that's who you believe in, Jesus Christ, admittedly was not perfect when he was here on this earth.
00:18:54.000So, look, this is theologically and morally fallacious.
00:18:59.000Jesus Christ lived a perfect life so that all of us could have eternal life.
00:19:06.000See, Jesus Christ was a historical figure, he was a real person, raised in Nazareth, called the 12 disciples in the region around the Sea of Galilee, spoke on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 mostly, and the Mount of the Beatitudes.
00:19:27.000Everything human beings need to hear was said by Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
00:19:34.000He was more than just a teacher, though.
00:20:04.000The moment that you surrender to Christ, truly surrender, it is the most liberating feeling you can imagine, giving your life to Jesus Christ.
00:20:12.000And I know a lot of you listening, this might have had bad experiences with religion, but hear me out.
00:20:17.000You respect me enough to listen this far into my podcast.
00:20:21.000You respect me enough to hopefully subscribe to my show.
00:20:25.000Let me tell you what it's done for my life.
00:20:27.000When I try to find value and truth, and I can find those things in certain secular documents, but when I really dive into the authenticity of the Bible and the story of Christianity, it makes me who I am.
00:20:45.000Nothing is more important than my faith in a Creator that made us in his image, in the image of God.
00:20:53.000And we talk about this a lot at the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty.
00:20:58.000And I believe firmly that people who struggle deeply with mental health issues and struggle deeply with self-identification issues, a lot of it is because they have not come into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
00:21:12.000And Don Lemon, he's an absolute con man and a grifter.
00:21:16.000We've been through that previously, and he intentionally misrepresents the gospel of Jesus Christ.
00:21:22.000We have to understand that life is an enduring struggle.
00:23:08.000There is a point that all of us will meet of total surrender.
00:23:15.000Life in all of its horrific totality still has meaning.
00:23:21.000The Christian story, the Christian journey, the Christian truth, the truth, is an antidote to all of the nihilists, all of the people that say, what does all this matter?
00:23:46.000You surrender to Jesus, where John 3.16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, and whoever believes in him shall have eternal life.
00:23:59.000That was, of course, with Jesus' private conversation with Nicodemus, John 3.16.
00:24:07.000You follow Jesus and you make that your purpose.
00:24:10.000It does beg the question, why would we exist with all of our faculties, all of our gifts, if nothing mattered?
00:24:21.000A lot of these thoughts I'm sharing with you, I've wrestled with and I've struggled with and I've poured hours into when I'm grieving another person who self-exits from our world.
00:24:35.000It's not to have to see someone in your orbit and see someone that you touched and someone that you knew that decided to not be here anymore.
00:24:50.000It's an incredibly strenuous experience, and I know a lot of you have gone through it.
00:24:55.000I know some of you are going through it right now.
00:25:02.000Every day you can participate in an experiment to make this world a little less like hell and to make yourself closer to God and eventually be with God in heaven.
00:25:17.000Have the Spirit flow within you, the Holy Spirit.
00:25:24.000If any of you are struggling with any of these issues, you can email me.
00:25:28.000There's lots of hotlines available that you can speak to.
00:25:31.000But more than any of that, I want you to know that you are not alone in what you're going through.
00:25:38.000That there is a better day ahead where you will be free of that inner struggle you might be going through, free of that question, what does all this mean?
00:25:52.000Everything was placed here for a purpose from God for you, including you.
00:26:00.000I pray that you can live that out and believe it.
00:26:03.000So thank you guys for supporting our program at charliekirk.com/slash support.
00:26:07.000I know this episode is a little different and deeper than most, but that's what makes our podcast different as we touch on topics and issues, cultural issues that other people won't.
00:26:17.000So I pray for anyone going through this struggle right now.
00:26:21.000I pray for anyone that might need those words of encouragement.
00:26:25.000I pray, as I'm recording this right now, I pray that this will touch at least one person that needs to hear this.
00:26:32.000One person that knows someone that needs to hear this.