00:00:04.000I give a speech about what is a libertarian, what is a leftist, what is a liberal, what is a conservative, and then I take questions from the audience.
00:00:35.000And thank you, Sydney, from Washington.
00:00:37.000If you want to support our program directly, if this show has impacted your life in any way, please consider helping us out to grow, hire staff, charliekirk.com slash support.
00:01:23.000His 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.
00:01:32.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:03:19.000Well, I'm going to do the best job I possibly can to fairly talk about that.
00:03:23.000And then I'll tell you when I'm not being, I guess I'm always being fair when I'm being brutally honest, honestly, about some of those descriptions.
00:03:29.000And then you can decide, you know, what category you fall into because, you know, I know a lot of you here tonight probably pick and choose from a lot of different political ideologies and philosophies.
00:03:40.000I prefer the term worldview, honestly.
00:03:42.000I think that's a better way to look at it.
00:03:44.000I would encourage all of you always to have a Christian and biblical worldview when you look through all things.
00:03:48.000We can talk about what that actually means and how that impacts politics.
00:03:51.000There is kind of a movement to try to get Christians not involved in these things at all.
00:03:56.000I think we as Christians should be more involved than ever in the public square and more involved than ever in the issues of what is right and wrong and good and evil and kind of how we orient our entire society.
00:04:06.000Because absent an objective moral standard, then who's to say a line is crooked if you don't have a straight line to compare it to, as C.S. Lewis would say.
00:04:15.000So let's go through the four different categories because they're kind of interchangeably talked about all the time.
00:05:08.000And by the way, if I were to give this speech 10 years ago, I would describe a leftist a little bit differently than I would today.
00:05:14.000But leftists, more than anything else, I would say they have a very specific view of the country, view of the world.
00:05:21.000They're unapologetic about wanting to use political power to effectuate that.
00:05:25.000In modern America, hyper-focused on race, hyper-focused on trying to redesign society, and also rather indifferent towards, not indifferent, hostile towards American history, the American founding, Western civilization, very outspoken about what they would see as systemic injustices.
00:05:46.000Now, if I had a leftist in front of me, I don't think they could disagree with what I just said, right?
00:05:49.000That is basically their song sheet saying America is sexist.
00:05:55.000We were actually founded in 1619, not 1776.
00:05:58.000You know, if you're white, you have white privilege, that we need to kind of invert society and try to have reparations and massive amounts of governmental power to try to right the wrongs of things that happened a long time ago.
00:06:10.000I think that's probably a fair way to say it.
00:06:12.000Now, how that actually plays itself out, very interesting.
00:06:15.000So I would say that kind of, let me just be very clear, trying to use that kind of force and that kind of power in that upside down way, I think is sinister and evil and wrong.
00:06:23.000That's my kind of commentary, but you guys can feel free to disagree.
00:06:28.000Now, liberals are different than leftists.
00:06:29.000They have a lot in common, by the way.
00:06:31.000Liberals will see things similarly, but they'll stop short of how willing they're actually, how willing they are to actually use government power.
00:06:38.000A great example is like one of the last liberals in America, Alan Dershowitz, right?
00:06:45.000He's generally very relaxed on immigration, but he still has an honest, you know, kind of, I would say, moral fiber where he'll go and defend people for their right to speech, to speak.
00:06:54.000Now, that's a very important distinction between leftists and liberals is the issue of speech.
00:06:59.000If you think speech can be hostile because you say something offensive, you're a leftist.
00:07:04.000If you think speech is necessary towards a free society and you say, get over it, because you hear something offensive, you're not a leftist.
00:07:10.000You might be one of the other three categories.
00:07:12.000The other three categories have at least a higher than not value on believing that we as human beings are the speaking beings.
00:07:20.000And from a Christian biblical worldview, we're made in the image of God.
00:07:39.000It's not just some indifferent thing what differentiates us from dogs or animals or the beasts of the wild.
00:07:44.000Okay, so a leftist, though, believes, and you see this playing out all in society, that if you say something wrong, that if you say something offensive, you could actually be making the world more hostile and dangerous.
00:08:19.000There's a lot of leftists and they control almost everything.
00:08:22.000Okay, the third category, an even more dying breed, in some ways that's a good thing, in other ways it's not a good thing, because it actually used to be a really good holding pattern for young people before they grew up and became conservatives, which are libertarians, which is a libertarian is someone who believes more than anything else, the most hostile thing you could possibly do is use government power and use the government for any purpose whatsoever.
00:08:45.000Now, if I had to use a word to describe libertarianism, it would be indifferent.
00:08:50.000Now, that might be a little harsh for some of you that are libertarians watching online, but it's the principle of not using government is more important than what might actually be happening out in society.
00:09:01.000So, for example, who's to say that we should use government to clean up people using drugs on the side of the street?
00:09:07.000We just can't make government any bigger because it doesn't matter what the result is, our principle disallows us from interfering with that particular action.
00:09:16.000Now, I have a lot in common with libertarians on certain issues: speech.
00:09:20.000Libertarians tend to be like 100% pro-free speech absolutists.
00:09:24.000Libertarians are also very good on the Second Amendment.
00:09:28.000The Second Amendment protects all the other amendments.
00:09:30.000We can go into that later if you guys choose.
00:09:32.000Where I disagree with libertarians a lot on is when there is a moral crisis happening in front of us, if the excuse is, well, we can't do anything because it might violate my principles, I say, wait a second.
00:09:43.000If children are being medically mutilated for profit, if you have a homelessness crisis and our country's being invaded, I really don't need a lecture about government indifference.
00:09:54.000Let's solve the problem prudently and appropriately because the good is greater than your principle as a bumper sticker they might wear.
00:10:02.000It's like, well, no matter what, we can't use the government because the government's the worst thing ever.
00:10:06.000Now, I'm no fan of expanding government.
00:10:07.000We're the people that came up with big government socks, obviously.
00:10:10.000But we don't like the government, not just because it's fashionable not to like the government.
00:10:14.000We don't like the government because we don't like power being concentrated too much for two reasons, you know, two awful reasons.
00:10:21.000But we're not going to turn a blind eye to sort of injustices.
00:10:47.000However, conservatives are willing, if necessary, to step up and do what is right when you start to see a moral or societal crisis unfolding around you.
00:10:58.000Right now, there's this massive controversy.
00:11:00.000You got that smug comedian Jon Stewart kind of gallivanting around this whole issue of should we as society accept, make it acceptable that Phoenix Children's Hospital, you know, wants to go do what they call transgender reassignment surgeries for profit, right?
00:11:17.000Is that something we as society should say, you know what?
00:11:22.000Maybe there's not just unforeseen irreversible damage, but why is it that a major organization is going to make standard millions, if not billions of dollars, preying on children when they're 12 and 13 when they really don't really understand their place in the world?
00:11:35.000Like maybe we should pause and say kind of waging war on God's design when someone's 12 or 13 is not super smart.
00:11:44.000Well, not only does a leftist view that the kind of medical mutilation surgery happening at Phoenix Children's Hospital is okay, they say if you disagree with it, we want you kicked off social media.
00:11:56.000We want to be able to kick you off your banking, and you're a bad person.
00:12:00.000Not only do they think it's okay, but if you dare have a disagreement in that specific policy, we're going to make your life harder.
00:12:09.000A liberal would say, okay, you know, we're okay with 11-year-olds having irreversible, you know, breast removal surgery or taking Lupron or what this incredibly graphic stuff happening, but we don't necessarily want to shut up people that might believe in this.
00:12:22.000A libertarian would say, well, let the market decide.
00:12:27.000Come on, like, let's just have, if people want, when they're 11 years old, they'll chop off their parts.
00:12:32.000Let's have a clinic on every corner and market forces will decide that.
00:12:37.000We as conservatives would say, this is evil and wrong, and we're not going to put up with the medical mutilation of our children for profit, period.
00:12:47.000Now, some people find that to be disagreeable.
00:12:52.000So if you're not willing to use prudent incremental laws to protect children, then what are you willing to do?
00:13:01.000And that one specific example gets so misrepresented.
00:13:05.000And people say, well, you know, Charlie, when they're 12 and 13, you know, they might be more likely to, you know, commit suicide and all this.
00:13:12.000We can go in that direction if you want.
00:13:13.000Statistics show that there is a spike in self-esteem and in someone's own self-value and worth after a couple of years, and then it plummets after five to 10 years, of which there's a mass community of regret and all that.
00:14:10.000They are nothing more than outgrowths of a white supremacist colonialist experiment, and we should just get rid of borders altogether.
00:14:18.000Anyone could go anywhere they want at any time for any reason, okay?
00:14:22.000Now, a liberal would say, hey, like, you know, maybe we can have some border protections, but generally we should allow people to come and go as they please because we just, we don't want to offend people.
00:14:45.000They know what they want and they're going to get it quickly.
00:14:47.000Now, a libertarian, a true libertarian, now there is some disagreement in the libertarian community, to be very honest, about the issue of immigration, but a legit doctrine libertarian would say, free flow of people, citizenship is nothing more than a card that you carry.
00:15:25.000If you are not invited, then you are invading, and we're not going to put up with it.
00:15:28.000In fact, that's why we would need increased border security and not allow 5 million people to walk into your country every single year.
00:15:35.000That's how a conservative would respond to that.
00:15:37.000Now, mind you, that is a popular position with the vast majority of the American people.
00:15:41.000But if you dare say that, they say, well, you know, you're totally racist and all that, which goes right back to the central theme of you can't have policy disagreements anymore without them calling you the worst things you could possibly hear, which, of course, I honestly don't care.
00:15:58.000If you walk around always worrying about being called a racist or whatever nonsensical thing they say, you're not going to be a happy person.
00:16:04.000You're always going to be walking around being somebody different in private than you are in public.
00:16:09.000The happiest people are people that get to be the same person in public that they are in private.
00:16:32.000Basically, many of you know what economic Marxism is.
00:16:35.000Okay, economic Marxism is oppressed versus oppressor type class struggle, bourgeoisie versus the proletariat, business owners versus labor, working class, that kind of struggle.
00:16:46.000Well, in the 1960s, Herbert Marcuse from the Frankfurt School in Germany came to America and he looked around and he said, boy, our Marxist movement is not doing too well.
00:16:56.000It's not doing great because the American middle class is actually successfully integrating into a private property-based market system and Marxism is kind of fizzling out.
00:17:05.000So then he conjectured, what if we come up with a new type of Marxism, not economic Marxism, but race Marxism?
00:17:13.000And that's actually the name of James Lindsay's book that I encourage you guys to check out.
00:17:16.000Dr. James Lindsay wrote a whole book called Race Marxism, which is taking that same sort of struggle.
00:17:20.000And he said, the real struggle is not rich versus poor.
00:17:22.000It's not the bourgeoisie versus proletariat.
00:17:27.000Now, this used to be a fringe theory, introduction to critical race theory, written by Derek Bell in the early 1990s.
00:17:32.000No one ever took it seriously because we were all raised in a country.
00:17:35.000And actually, many of you in the audience to a lesser extent, because you probably don't even remember this country as much as, you know, those of us that are 28 know to remember, which is we used to strive to be a colorblind society.
00:17:47.000The vision and the dream of Martin Luther King, gone.
00:17:50.000Now it is about systemic oppression, white privilege, and doing whatever is necessary to try to fix those problems, including Ibram X. Kendi, who says that we need discrimination today to fix the discrimination of yesterday.
00:18:01.000And I'll prove exactly what he means by that.
00:18:03.000So with critical race theory, it's not just bad ideology.
00:18:06.000It's not just, here's the best way I can describe CRT to you with all that philosophical stuff aside.
00:18:11.000It's calling everything you don't like racist until you control it.
00:18:23.000The colleges are racist until all of a sudden you're in control of it and it really is a major power grab.
00:18:27.000Okay, so if you asked a leftist about race in America, they would say the worst thing, the worst thing you could possibly is a straight white man, right?
00:18:35.000They'd say that it's the problem with the entire society, the structure, the bones of society comes down to the issues of straight white men.
00:18:41.000A liberal would say, look, there's systemic racism, but maybe we make some moderate improvements around the edges and we don't do anything too dramatic.
00:18:50.000But they would admit with the premise that America is systemically racist.
00:18:54.000A libertarian, they're all over the place.
00:19:21.000And I want to live in a country where people are not talking about race.
00:19:25.000In fact, I'm very, very worried we're heading into a country where we are re-tribalizing ourselves and we should not put up with this kind of discrimination.
00:19:34.000For example, there's black-only dormitories on hundreds of, not hundreds, about 120 schools across the country.
00:19:40.000Black-only graduation ceremonies, hiring quotas that are saying that we are going to give racial preference and hiring to certain minority ethnic groups.
00:19:48.000So, basically, to Ibram X. Kendi's, you know, dream of we need discrimination today to fix the discrimination of yesterday.
00:19:56.000So, finally, kind of viewing America, which is honestly the most important thing, not a huge, not a huge news flash.
00:20:01.000Flash, we're very, very pro-American at Turning Point USA.
00:20:04.000We believe it's the greatest nation ever to exist in the history of the world.
00:20:07.000And what a blessing from the Lord to live here, truly.
00:20:12.000And so, a leftist would say, Look, America is evil.
00:20:18.000It's been evil at every single corner and turned.
00:20:20.000Now, if I had to overgeneralize, a leftist or a totalitarian or a statist or a progressive, however you want to say it, they're very ungrateful people.
00:20:52.000Rarely from people like Congresswoman Elon Omar, who's actually the beneficiary of American generosity.
00:20:58.000I have to hear from her that we're systemically racist, even though she was accepted from a Kenyan refugee camp from Somalia into America and became a congresswoman in our system.
00:21:20.000I could give a whole speech on the problems.
00:21:22.000But boy, do the benefits outweigh the negatives in this nation.
00:21:25.000And I would love to hear more about that in the kind of political talk in our country.
00:21:28.000Anyway, liberals would say, look, that, yeah, America is special, but what made America special, this is the liberal argument, is not our founding.
00:21:36.000It's not Jefferson, Madison, Jay, Hamilton, Washington.
00:21:40.000What made America special is our massive movements of progress the more we turned our back on the founders.
00:21:47.000That would be the modern liberal argument.
00:21:49.000The modern liberal argument would say, hey, the founders got it wrong, but our ability to correct the founders is actually what makes us great.
00:22:50.000Thomas Jefferson wrote in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence a letter to King George admonishing King George for bringing the sin of the slave trade to America.
00:22:58.000Thomas Jefferson fought for abolitionist slaves in his home state of Virginia, despite he himself owning slaves.
00:23:03.000Contradiction, of course, paradox, yes.
00:23:05.000We're all, by the way, walking contradictions.
00:23:09.000He was trying to eliminate slavery in his lifetime, as George Washington said.
00:23:11.000It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when we get rid of the slave trade.
00:23:15.000It was America and Britain, the first two civilizations ever to get rid of slavery, period.
00:23:22.000No other civilization even tried to do it, thought to do it, aspired to do it.
00:23:26.000And news flash for the Virtue Signal leftists out there.
00:23:28.000There are more slaves on the planet today than there were back at the time of the American founding.
00:23:34.000There's more slavery on the southern border, in the Horn of Africa, in the Middle East, and in China.
00:23:39.000More human beings are owned by human beings today than any other time in human history on the planet today.
00:23:44.000Okay, anyway, so liberals would say there's, you know, like there's it's it's how we turned our back on the founders that would make America exceptional.
00:23:50.000A libertarian, again, it's all over the place.
00:23:54.000I'm trying to be fair, but they basically say, look, what was great about America is how we had limited government, and anything we've done besides limited government has been awful.
00:24:23.000We are the great beacon for liberty, for freedom, for opportunity, for a dream for people of any color or background that have ever come here.
00:24:31.000And yes, America, because of its structure, because of its ideas, because of its heroism, because of its commitment, because of its actions, because of your parents and grandparents, we're the greatest nation ever to exist in the history of the world.
00:25:14.000So let me close kind of on the Christian note and then we'll do some questions for a little bit.
00:25:18.000Okay, so when you ask the question of what kind of government do we want to form, you have to ask some very, very simple questions.
00:25:24.000Again, I'm going to make some generalizations and some approximations based on those other four categories, but I'm just going to condense it down to the status, totalitarians, progressives, or leftists, and conservatives.
00:25:34.000So one of the most important questions is, what is a human being?
00:25:37.000Now, we as Christians, if you're a Christian, great.
00:25:40.000If you're not a Christian, that's fine.
00:25:41.000I'm not trying to generalize, but it was a Christian school.
00:26:18.000Well, I believe if a, you know, if you even entertain the idea that we're an accident of 500 million years of evolution, well, then you just look at like, well, it's just a random combination that allowed us to get here.
00:26:30.000Now, some people have the Christian-endorsed view of evolution.
00:26:32.000I'm not here to talk about that stuff.
00:26:34.000There's some phenomenal scholarship written on it.
00:26:36.000I do encourage you guys to read a book called Darwin's Doubt that talks about the mathematical improbability of Charles Darwin and how he basically shouldn't be taken seriously at all.
00:26:44.000But that's not the thrust of my speech tonight.
00:26:48.000Dr. Stephen Meyer wrote an entire book debunking Charles Darwin.
00:26:52.000Some of the great mathematicians of our time have shown the mathematical improbability.
00:26:56.000It's much more probable to believe in an intelligent designer than to believe in the roll of the dice that could give us consciousness and sight, smell, the ability to reason, all of that.
00:27:04.000But the point is this: what is a human being?
00:27:06.000If you believe a human being is specially designed for a purpose, then you treat that human being differently.
00:27:11.000Then all of a sudden, power is not the most important thing.
00:27:13.000Human dignity and rights are far more important than that.
00:27:16.000And then finally, it's another important question, which a leftist or a progressive or a secularist can't answer this, and they can, but when they do, of course, they mess it up, which is, do you believe human beings are naturally good?
00:27:27.000And a Christian should be able to answer that immediately.
00:27:30.000Didn't take long for us to mess that up.
00:27:32.000Now, if you believe human beings are naturally good, then you have to explain all the evil in the world.
00:27:37.000And they explain it away not by human beings, but by saying it's the system that creates evil.
00:27:42.000And that's a very profound difference.
00:27:44.000You see, we as Christians believe that we're the problem and that we have to improve our behavior and our actions and hopefully come more in alignment to glorify God.
00:27:54.000And only Jesus Christ can get us eventually to God.
00:29:45.000It's a moral claim that if government gets too big, your freedoms get infringed upon.
00:29:49.000If you think human beings are naturally good, then why wouldn't you make government big enough to get rid of what you think is evil?
00:29:56.000But if you think human beings are the problem, well, then you got to do everything you possibly can to make sure human beings don't get too much power and they terrorize their fellow men.
00:30:03.000It's one of the most important questions you can ask in modern society.
00:30:37.000Now, if you can want to come up to the line and tell me the Bible endorses transgenderism, we'll have a lot of fun because I don't know what that's all about.
00:30:44.000But you could have very understandable questions on certain topics from the Christian perspective, and we can interface and dialogue on that.
00:31:00.000God is mentioned four times in the Declaration of Independence.
00:31:03.000They swore everything under divine providence.
00:31:06.000When they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, by the way, was the outgrowth, was the last chapter in a Christian revival in America, something we don't teach our kids well enough in our nation, was the black robe regiment of Jonathan Edwards and John Whitfield, George Whitfield, I'm sorry, and Jonathan Mayhew, speaking the word of God over 35,000 outdoor sermons that were given on the Eastern seaboard.
00:31:27.000All of that preaching, all of that teaching then resulted in a population that was finally ready for liberty.
00:31:51.000And you might say, well, how do you know what is virtuous?
00:31:54.000This is where we as Christians have the answer very clearly.
00:31:56.000It all comes back to the irrefutable standard.
00:31:59.000Now, this speech applies to people that are not Christians as well.
00:32:01.000But being here at a Christian university, I just want to implore you, I want to encourage you to lean in on these topics and this discussion.
00:32:08.000If you do not have truth in your society, all that comes out of that is power.
00:32:14.000And that's exactly what the postmodernist, the deconstructionist, the leftists, the talatrans, whatever category you want to use, all they have is power because they don't believe that there is truth.
00:32:21.000They believe it's my truth, bunch of garbage.
00:32:23.000They believe that it is my personal experience instead of believing that there is a truth and a way and a specific way to be able to organize society around that.
00:32:33.000So in that closing, we as Christians, I think, are going to be called to do more.
00:32:35.000Jeremiah 29:7, demand the welfare of the nation that you are in because your welfare is tied to your nation's welfare.
00:32:41.000Zechariah 8:16 through 17, care about the justice and the well-being of the business and the city of the city within your gates, basically.
00:32:49.000The city within your gates, what is happening in your community.
00:32:52.000I'm paraphrasing that scripture in particular.
00:32:54.000Daniel fasted and prayed for his nation.
00:32:55.000Esther, Mordecai, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, all cared about what secular government was doing for God's chosen purpose.
00:33:01.000Apathy and cynicism are not acceptable for Christians in modern America today.
00:34:53.000But I generally believe that if more people in our leadership class in America had children earlier, America would be a much freer country.
00:35:21.000You don't get to live in this kind of postmodern argument of, well, I define my own existence and my own gender.
00:35:29.000It's like, no, actually, it's very, very real.
00:35:32.000And it rejects all this kind of nonsensical abstractions and it anchors you in a way that is very, very profound.
00:35:38.000So I encourage, and I say this with no sarcasm, I encourage young people to get married very early and stay very loyally married to that person and have lots of children, to reject hookup culture and all that nonsense that is pervading our society.
00:36:46.000I just want to say thank you for being here tonight.
00:36:49.000And then my question is: there have been some pro-abortion posters put up around campus by Planned Parenthood advertising door-knocking jobs.
00:36:55.000As a student body who is mostly conservative, how does Planned Parenthood get away with this?
00:37:37.000Abortion is kind of in vogue right now.
00:37:39.000It's kind of something that everyone wants to talk about.
00:37:42.000I've said for quite a while that the great, let's just say, the pro-life community has to continue to step up to the bat to make it easier for people to be able to have children in this country, including through some public policy measures.
00:37:55.000But I just, I always cringe, and it really makes me sad when I have to hear the term unwanted pregnancy.
00:38:01.000I just, what a, that's a morally troubling statement, isn't it?
00:40:18.000So I loved what you said about the Founding Fathers tonight.
00:40:20.000Obviously, that's why I wear this attire.
00:40:25.000So my question is: if the Founding Fathers could somehow see America in 2022, what is one thing you think they'd be proud of that we've overcome or that we've maintained?
00:40:34.000And what is one thing you think they'd be disappointed in?
00:40:37.000It's a very, very profound question, and I'd be happy to sign that.
00:40:43.000So, but yeah, look, I think what they would be most surprised, let me start with this.
00:40:48.000The thing that, and here we are kind of playing Monday morning quarterback of the great designers of the longest-lasting constitutional republic and freest society in the history of the world.
00:40:57.000So, you know, just forbid me from doing this, but I think they would, I think it's very well agreed upon is the creation of this fourth branch of government, is this unelected administrative state that came up in the Woodrow Wilson presidency of the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Justice, the EPA, this unaccountable, unelected fourth branch of government that has unlimited amounts of power, that kind of operates in total violation to the promises, the moral claims of the U.S. Constitution, the moral claims of consent of the government.
00:41:47.000And then finally, the thing that really troubles me the most about the fourth branch of government is another one of the claims that Madison and Hamilton and Jay made in the Federalist Papers: checks and balances.
00:41:57.000What is the check right now against this fourth branch of government?
00:42:02.000It's as if now the real power is in the inner workings of these bureaucracies.
00:42:07.000So I think the founding fathers would just be flabbergasted about how we allowed that to happen and then how we were able to, like, why didn't we do something about that earlier?
00:42:47.000What he was saying is this form of government has a tendency not to last.
00:42:52.000The fact we still have the same United States Constitution that we had in 1787 and 1791 at both ratification of the Bill of Rights and the usual Constitution is unbelievable.
00:43:01.000That should make everyone pause and say why.
00:43:04.000It's because the Constitution was not written for the times.
00:43:07.000It was written to stand the test of time.
00:43:09.000Because it makes very clear arguments on morality and human behavior.
00:43:17.000This is something that differentiates me from the progressives.
00:43:21.000John Dewey, who's kind of the father of public education in America, said it's a new age.
00:43:26.000We have machines and airplanes and we have gas-powered engines.
00:43:33.000Whereas a conservative say, whoa, whoa, whoa, just because you have Twitter and you can fly across the country doesn't mean human beings radically improve.
00:43:41.000We're just as selfish and greedy and broken as we were, regardless of the technology we have.
00:43:46.000In fact, the technology only amplifies how broken we actually are.
00:43:53.000And so I think without belaboring the point, the founders, I think, would actually be stunned at how much we have screwed up and how much of a chance we still have to revive it.
00:44:06.000And so I think that should give you a lot of hope.
00:46:00.000It's how will abortion affect our youth, or not our youth, but my generation.
00:46:06.000And now that we kind of have all this stuff going on in the Supreme Court with Roe v. Wade, how would you answer that question now as to where, like, two years ago?
00:46:16.000Yeah, well, praise God first and foremost that Roe v. Wade was overturned.
00:46:37.000And it was allowed to stay for far too long.
00:46:39.000And actually, if the left was being honest, of which they're not about this topic, the decision that was administered down was actually agnostic on the issue of abortion itself.
00:46:50.000The court did not rule on whether abortion was right or wrong.
00:46:53.000It simply said it should be left to the states.
00:46:56.000Now, I wish they would have ruled on it being right or wrong, obviously, because it's very clear, but that's besides the point.
00:47:02.000Okay, so how does abortion impact your generation?
00:47:06.000I mean, you know, imagine if you had a million more people in your generation, you know, the younger generation every single year.
00:47:11.000Maybe you wouldn't need this relaxed immigration policies and all these other things.
00:47:17.000You know, I you look at certain communities, especially the black community in this country, the black birth rate has been going down significantly the last 40 years, where in certain communities the abortion rate is actually greater than the birth rate in certain communities.
00:47:39.000Let me just talk more morally, though.
00:47:40.000If a country or a nation, a civilization, or a people put up with a million souls basically being terminated every single year, then what else are we going to put up with?
00:48:19.000And biblical Christianity tells us to protect those that can't protect themselves.
00:48:22.000But if you don't believe in that thing, you don't believe in an absolute standard or objective in that way, why not use your strength to crush the weak?
00:49:51.000My question is: what are your thoughts on a complete immigration moratorium?
00:49:55.000Yeah, I mean, right now, I think it's a great idea, especially with where unemployment is right now.
00:50:00.000Look, I think immigration should always be modified, and let's just say, not modified, immigration policy should be adjusted towards the current circumstances that we're living through, right?
00:50:10.000So here's my main argument: that U.S. governmental policy should always serve the citizen first.
00:50:18.000All of you right now are entering into a job market.
00:50:20.000You're entering into a set of circumstances where you are probably going to have student loan debt, where you probably inflation is absolutely crushing younger people right now.
00:50:31.000I believe there is a moral social contract argument to make that American college graduates should be given preferences and hirings over foreign students.
00:50:46.000It's fair in the question of whose government is it?
00:50:48.000The government of the American people should first and foremost serve the American people.
00:50:52.000Once you're able to have excesses beyond your limitations, then we could talk about how generous we want to be.
00:50:57.000But we right now are a nation $31 trillion in debt with the most depressed, suicidal, alcohol-addicted, psychiatric, drug-added generation in history.
00:51:05.000That generation needs a lot of help right now, you guys.
00:51:08.000And I don't mean that in a negative way or a condescending way.
00:51:10.000And so immigration policy should be adjusted in that way.
00:51:13.000Not to mention, we had 5 million people legally enter into our country this last year.
00:51:26.000I think in the future that could be adjusted or changed, but this is what prudence is all about, which is what makes a conservative different than an ideological person.
00:51:34.000You look around, you see what's happening, and you adjust policy based on the time, the circumstances, and your desired goal and objective.
00:51:50.000Process, I grew up, never really had religion in my life, but somehow was, I always remained conservative.
00:51:58.000The real question being, in this environment, trying to get into politics, being very open-minded, and actually enjoying learning and growing with my knowledge of the Bible and Christianity.
00:52:10.000As an outsider, I feel like in conservatism and I want to get into politics.
00:52:15.000How am I supposed to meld the two while not truly being a believer?
00:52:19.000Well, first of all, thank you for being here.
00:52:31.000And I will always say though that having biblical Christianity an objective standard is of which the entire, there we go again, the entire foundation that the movement is built upon, I would venture a guess that if you really get into the weeds of our movement over a period of time, I think you will become a believer if you remain open-minded, especially if you read the word and you pray and you ask God to come into your life because reading of the word never turns up void ever.
00:53:00.000So, but look, I get this question a lot.
00:53:02.000I want to be very, very clear that as long as you believe in liberty, you believe in what I talked about here, and you believe in the natural law, which I would probably guess that you probably believe in the natural law.
00:53:12.000I believe the natural law was written by somebody, right?
00:53:14.000Some people, just not trying to suppose, but someone with a secular view would say the natural law was just kind of, you know, it just sprung into, or we don't know.
00:53:27.000Because we're here as a way to build a civil government and a free society.
00:53:33.000We believe that those origins and those roots unquestionably come from biblical Christianity.
00:53:37.000But if you want to lock arms with me to make sure that we no longer have a million abortions every single year, or you want to lock arms with me to make sure that kids are not medically mutilated for profit, then I'll be more willing to march in the streets with you alongside most past more so than most pastors in this country because most pastors are totally silent on those issues.
00:53:54.000And so I'm not here to say that you have your metaphysics perfectly configured, right?
00:54:10.000And I know some atheists that don't believe a thing of the Christian worldview that I have, but they are more outspoken about doing good and confronting evil than a lot of Christians that I know.
00:54:46.000Okay, so first I have to say, you know, I will speak on behalf of myself personally for Turning Point Action, Turning Point USA, which focuses obviously on everything we talked about tonight, worldview principles, all that stuff.
00:54:57.000So kind of with that proper disclaimer, I've answered this question multiple times before, and I will answer it again.
00:55:53.000And now the Latinos for Kerry Lake has also voted for Kerry Lake.
00:55:58.000So I was wondering, my question is this: Given the fact that I'm pretty sure you're more aware than anybody else that the Latino community really is moving to the right, and that I'm pretty sure we're going to surprise the Democrats this upcoming midterms election, that we're going to completely go to the right.
00:56:11.000But how do you think that me as a young Latino conservative, I can continue to educate and, you know, I guess for lack of a better way of putting it, kind of like, you know, really get into their mind to show that the Republican or the conservative movement is more beneficial to us Latinos than Democrats.
00:56:33.000Every single day, remind the Latino and Hispanic community that it is white, woke liberals that want to teach your children that men can become pregnant.
00:56:47.000You should say, by the way, one of the reasons why the Latino-Hispanic community is moving to the conservative direction is because they were conservative all along.
00:56:55.000And now that this insane postmodern deconstructionist policy of there's unlimited amounts of genders, men can become pregnant.
00:57:04.000We could have abortion up until the time of termination, that we're not going to teach men or female, but we're just going to say you could be whatever you want to be.
00:57:13.000It turns out that in Latino and Hispanic households, not only is that not popular, that is a threat to their way of life.
00:57:23.000Where all of a sudden they say, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that my eight-year-old is not taught this sort of gender garbage and perversion.
00:57:33.000I mean, you're part of the Latino community, but at least I look at the data and I talk to a lot of people on our radio program and our podcast.
00:57:39.000I would frame it as an issue of imperialism.
00:57:41.000I would say that you have white, woke people that do not live here, that do not care about you, that are invading your cultures and your community, your culture, and your community, and telling you things that are not true, using force to make your kids believe perverse queer gender theory and to believe in, quite honestly, the rejection of traditional conservative Hispanic values.
00:58:02.000And finally, I would just kind of lean on the fact that conservatives are becoming the kind of movement of the muscular class, people that shower before work and shower after work, people that work at their hands, and not just people that are in the Zoom and Skype class in our country.
00:58:16.000No offense, if you're part of that, that's fine.
00:58:18.000But it's the muscular class that kept our country going in the midst of the Chinese Fauci coronavirus.
00:58:23.000It was the muscular class that allowed things to continue.
00:59:18.000Pretty well documented my views on this stuff.
00:59:21.000I always want to serve the American homeland.
00:59:23.000All foreign policy should point back to what is best for the American people.
00:59:26.000And I have been so outspoken, just simply asking a series of questions, which gets me accused of being a Kremlin agent, despite the fact I say Putin's a thug and a war criminal never should have invaded Ukraine.
00:59:36.000I just ask some very simple questions, which is what does success look like in Ukraine?
00:59:40.000And I've asked lawmaker after lawmaker, and I cannot get a serious, I cannot get answered.
00:59:51.000To what cost and to what end are you willing to spend?
00:59:53.000So we spent $70 billion, of which I get so kind of perplexed, like, wow, we spent $70 billion defending Ukraine's border, but we can't spend $70 billion or $7 billion or $700 million defending our own border with the illegal invasion happening in our country.
01:00:08.000Now, a response that you might have, or other people say, Charlie, those are two different things.
01:00:15.000To the urgency, the speed, the virtue signaling that was used by the American elite to try to care about Ukraine's border and not our own border, it's honestly perverted.
01:01:58.000You don't send missiles and tomahawks.
01:02:00.000You go there and you say, there's a meeting immediately.
01:02:02.000Okay, Zelensky, we put you in via our CIA, which we did.
01:02:06.000He was not democratically, it was democratically elected.
01:02:08.000We displaced the actual Democratic leader.
01:02:10.000We go to Putin, we say, okay, you get to have fair and free elections, the eastern part of Ukraine.
01:02:15.000If they want to be part of Russia, allow to self-select and sovereignty.
01:02:19.000And 100,000 people's lives could have been saved if we had leadership in that regard.
01:02:22.000And here's something we could all agree upon, but despite the interventionist.
01:02:26.000If we would have allowed ourselves to have energy supremacy like we did under the prior administration, Putin never would have had the petro-dollar bill to do this in the first place.
01:02:36.000So I just ask questions: how does it benefit America?
01:02:42.000And I just get very angry when I have to be lectured about why it's our priority to go spend another $70 billion in Ukraine.
01:02:51.000When I see kids that are going into debt to go pay rent, that could barely afford to go to school, kids that are addicted to psychiatric medication because we locked down our entire country.
01:03:03.000I want our leaders to say, you know what?
01:03:25.000So, my question is coming from a perspective of a Christian that's very, very pro-life and cares very much about justice.
01:03:32.000A topic I struggle with is the death penalty.
01:03:35.000How should I, as a pro-lifer and a Christian, view death penalty as someone who also cares about justice, and it's a lot more difficult for me to defend a murderer or criminal versus an unborn innocent child?
01:04:16.000Here's one of my big problems with the death penalty.
01:04:17.000One of the reasons why I'm against it, probably, but I'm moving on it, is how many people we've wrongfully executed in the last 50 or 60 years.
01:04:27.000It is the great argument against the death penalty.
01:04:29.000A lot of people were wrongly executed based on bad evidence, and they were later shown to be exonerated or basically, here we go again, with exculpatory evidence, right?
01:04:55.000But I think the weakest argument for the against the death penalty, the weakest argument is they say, well, I don't want innocent life to be taken, and I don't want to have someone on death row to be murdered.
01:05:07.000Okay, the innocent person in the womb wasn't like the chainsaw murderer or whatever reason they're up for death row, okay?
01:05:15.000It's a totally different moral category.
01:05:17.000The person who's on death row is probably there for a very, very good reason, right?
01:05:22.000The person in the womb hasn't done anything to anybody whatsoever.
01:05:25.000It is the definition of innocence, right?
01:05:28.000They've done nothing but just existed in the womb.
01:05:42.000And I also really try to be principled on this idea that the government should not be able to have the power to take the life of its own citizens.
01:07:54.000Growing up as a conservative Christian who heavily believed in loving people for who they are instead of what they believed, in high school when people were starting to express themselves with their sexuality, I was heavily told I couldn't be an ally because of my views.
01:08:42.000So look, if someone is 17 years old and is suffering from gender dysphoria, right?
01:08:46.000They're a man who thinks they're a woman or a woman who thinks they're a man, we could totally have compassion for that person.
01:08:52.000But the loving thing to do to that person is make sure they get help.
01:08:55.000The loving thing is not to all of a sudden justify medical mutilation, taking of Lupron, or other interventions that honestly show the continuation or the escalating interventions that would cause more suicide or more issues down the road.
01:09:09.000And look, here's just one other thing.
01:09:11.000You know, this is the tension that I think, you know, happens sometimes in Christianity where people say we must accept all people.
01:09:33.000And so, look, I think that if someone is suffering from that condition, you shouldn't be a jerk to them, but you also should love them enough to say that God has a greater plan for you than from staying in this current condition that you currently are.
01:09:45.000And that kind of goes back to what is love, right?
01:09:48.000Which is it phileo, agape, eros, or storge?
01:09:51.000You see, we have one word for love, and we use it interchangeably here in the West.
01:09:55.000But in biblical Christianity, in the Koine Greek, there's multitude of different words for love.
01:10:01.000Is it storge, you know, kind of a parent-to-child love?
01:10:03.000Is it eros, romantic love, or is it agape, sacrificial love?
01:10:07.000And so, you know, the type of love where God sacrificed himself for us is one thing, but is it the type of love where it's a brotherly love where I love you so much, I'm not going to allow you to stay where you are because I believe God has a better plan in store for you?
01:10:19.000That I believe is more loving than justifying a lifestyle that's in, let's just say, complete and total war with God's natural design.
01:10:51.000So I have a brother who's in the army.
01:10:53.000I got out of the Navy last year, and I have a lot of friends who are coming up on the end of their contracts, trying to figure out if they should re-enlist or get out.
01:11:00.000And my question is: with the war going the way it is and the potential for U.S. involvement, do you think that they how what would you say to someone who is considering whether or not to stay in or get in versus get out?
01:11:14.000Yeah, so um first I this I get this question all the time and it's a very difficult question to answer because who am I to try to deter the willingness of someone who wants to serve America, right?
01:11:58.000They're more worried about social sensitivity than crushing and killing the enemy.
01:12:04.000I would caution your loved ones, your brother, your friends to be more worried about that and what that might mean, where you have Mark Milley who comes out and he says that the biggest, one of the biggest problems in the military is white rage.
01:12:34.000I'm not saying that all the people in the military in World War II were Caucasian, but a vast majority were.
01:12:39.000And they had a lot of rage against the Nazis, and I'm glad they did.
01:12:44.000And so, and then the other thing I would say is the vaccine thing is that if they have any sort of claim in the future that they don't want to have to take an mRNA gene-altering technology against their will, then the United States military probably is not the best choice for them.
01:13:01.000And then I would also just everyone look up who the rear admiral for health is, Levine, of which got me suspended from Twitter for even mentioning it.
01:13:13.000So that would actually give me greater caution than that, than the Ukrainian situation.
01:13:18.000Because I do still think that American military involvement is unlikely, despite all the clamoring and the kind of the incessant kind of cattle around that.
01:13:27.000So look, the woke mind virus, the pathogen of the progressives, is quickly infecting every institution.
01:13:33.000And boy, the Chinese Communist Party, they could not be more happy with our progressive ideology that has taken over massive parts of our military.
01:13:42.000And that's why military enrollment is at the lowest levels since the Vietnam War, because people see it.
01:13:56.000I would like to ask you about the importance of money.
01:13:59.000So under Executive Order 14067, the Federal Reserve is tasked with looking into how a central bank digital currency might be created, and they are evaluating the necessary steps and requirements of implementing one.
01:14:33.000Now, when I say Bitcoin, I really mean cryptocurrency more broadly or generally.
01:14:38.000I'm not trying to endorse a coin or telling you to buy it or any of that stuff that got Kim Kardashian in trouble, okay, for all the federal regulators that are watching this.
01:14:46.000You could buy Ethereum, you could buy whatever you want.
01:14:48.000But the idea of decentralized currency that is transparent and inflation resistant is very important to liberty.
01:15:00.000It allowed the entire Western world to be developed.
01:15:03.000And the war on liberty is being directly waged by the Federal Reserve for a reason to deteriorate our money.
01:15:08.000I think to eventually reset it to be able to crush your earning potential, crush your ability to store capital, crush your ability to be able to earn a life, you know, build a life and earn capital quickly and the ability you want to.
01:15:21.000Bitcoin, I think, is a hedge against all of that.
01:15:23.000Without going too deep into the technology of all of it, using blockchain and using it more broadly, it is resistant to kind of tyrannical intervention, if you will.
01:15:32.000Blockchain, because of its unique one-to-one ability to be able to exist.
01:15:42.000And the other part about Bitcoin that's so fascinating is the ledger.
01:15:45.000The ability that you'd be able to see every transaction in real time.
01:15:48.000That only gives you trust and transparency in the system, where our current system is built on fiat currency wishes and hopes.
01:15:55.000So I'm a big believer in crypto, a big believer in blockchain.
01:15:59.000I think it's just a matter of time before that becomes the norm.
01:16:03.000But let me say one final thing: resist, resist, resist, resist the federal government creating a digital currency.
01:16:24.000So I do want to be a dad one day, and I'm a little worried about the public school system pushing more and more radical leftist agenda like transgenderism, socialism, CRT.
01:16:38.000So I just wanted to see what you would recommend for me and conservative parents for protecting their kids as they enter school.
01:16:46.000Like, would you recommend private schooling or homeschooling?
01:16:59.000So if anyone watching wants to send their kid to a great school, Dream City Christian does a phenomenal job.
01:17:03.000We're also launching Turning Point Academy pod schools all across the country for kind of homeschooling centers.
01:17:09.000For anyone watching, or you have friends or family or relatives that want to start a pod school with Turning Point Academy anywhere across the country, we'd be thrilled about that.
01:17:16.000And look, so the numbers are overwhelming, though, that homeschooling kids outperform even private school and definitely government school kids.
01:17:29.000Despite the indoctrination and the Marxism, I was a little different.
01:17:32.000Where the more opposition that I actually encountered, the stronger it made me and the more willing it wanted, you know, I wanted to fight.
01:17:38.000But not every kid is like that, right?
01:17:40.000Some kids bend to the whims and kind of the whispers of secular progressivism when it's in the schools.
01:17:46.000But I think generally and broadly, we need a mass exodus of kids from the government school system into private schools and homeschooling.
01:17:54.000We have to try to double the homeschooling population and double the Christian private school population in the next couple of years.
01:18:12.000And because of the importance of our upcoming election on November 8th, I wanted to ask you if you believe Carrie Lake is a future of conservatism and your thoughts on her policies, as most GCU students are from out of state and could be unfamiliar with her.
01:18:39.000Arizona is a terrific state, and she would be Arizona would be so well served by having Carrie Lake as governor.
01:18:45.000And I got to tell you, though, that, you know, to see the race unfold, and you have someone who's not even willing to debate, that should tell you everything that you need to know.
01:18:56.000But here's the thing: Carrie Lake understands everything we're talking about tonight: the border, the need for a free market and flourishing economy, the need to put parents first in education, and also will reject the California cation of Arizona at every single turn.
01:19:08.000She's not going to put up with the homelessness.
01:19:09.000She's not going to put up with the vagrancy.
01:19:11.000She's not going to put up with the teacher unions, you know, dominating the entire kind of government discourse here.
01:19:18.000And despite all of the nonsense, despite all of the garbage thrown at Carrie Lake, I still think she's going to win, and I think she's going to win convincingly.
01:19:25.000And so, I got to tell you, you look at Carrie Lake, she's young, energetic, charismatic, full of life.
01:19:30.000She's willing to look at solutions for all people.
01:19:36.000And so, I got to tell you that my personal, again, not on behalf of Turning Point USA, Turning Point Action, yes, which is not posting tonight, but my personal endorsement of Carrie Lake is 100% across the board.
01:19:48.000And I got to tell you, I get complaints from people all across the country about their person running for dog catcher and running for all this different stuff.
01:20:56.000And I have to just say this: rejecting and resisting kind of this mass movement of wokeism is something I think that represents all communities, especially communities of Latinos and black people across America.
01:21:37.000They have solutions rooted in reality, rooted in the natural law that I think would lift all people, regardless of skin color or background.
01:21:51.000Charlie, thank you for coming out and talking to us today.
01:21:54.000So my question is: so, I remember listening to a podcast with Ben Shapiro, and I love listening to him because he sometimes will attack conservatism and kind of give his viewpoint and say, hey, these things are we don't do well.
01:22:09.000So I was listening to his podcast, and one of the things that he brought up was conservatism's ability to get in their own way sometimes, to where they struggle to connect with a lot of people that sit in the middle, where you're spending a lot of your time fighting wokeism in the left, and you have a lot of people in swing states that are crucial states that lead to a successful presidency like Biden.
01:22:36.000What do you think the biggest mountain conservatism has to climb to get out of their own way, to hopefully connect with those center people?
01:22:55.000So I think for conservative worldview in particular, I think that we have to lean in and learn more about how to be persuasive and how to communicate.
01:23:04.000And I think we're doing a good job of that, though.
01:23:32.000But just from politicians, though, I got to be honest, I think if politicians were more clear about running against the threat of what, and it's kind of against your question here, but that's fine.
01:23:46.000I just kind of, I don't know if I disagree.
01:23:47.000It's just the threat of what the kind of woke mind virus will do to our country.
01:23:51.000I think that appeals to 70 to 80% of our country.
01:23:54.000I think that most people know deep down that black-only dormitories are wrong.
01:24:00.000They know deep down that, you know, this men can become pregnant nonsense that is being taught in our schools or pornography for six-year-olds, which is happening, right?
01:24:08.000Or there's all this kind of queer theory stuff that's happening.
01:24:11.000I think it really animates people and it builds broad-based coalitions.
01:24:15.000And then as far as kind of like general conservatives, I do say this, as someone who's 100% pro-life, I do think though, unless conservatives go through a boot camp on how to talk about abortion, they shouldn't talk about abortion.
01:24:26.000I think that most conservatives do not know how to talk about the topic at all whatsoever.
01:25:32.000That matters a lot more than whatever label the media tries to throw at you.
01:25:35.000And just to kind of go to earlier, you know, an earlier thing that I was talking about personally, that's one of the things that fascinates me about Carrie Lake.
01:25:42.000If she ends up winning, it will be a masterclass of someone who was once in the media, fought the media successfully despite being outspent like 30 to 1 on TV and running a real people first, you know, Arizona-first issue-based campaign.
01:25:57.000It's a fascinating test case in more ways than one.
01:26:00.000And I think it could be a blueprint in other states and other races.