Right Wing Civil War: "Israel & Economy Crisis" HEATED Debate With Michael Knowles | Bar Fight
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Summary
In this special edition of Bar Fight, I debate three of the most controversial topics tearing up the right right now: Israel, immigration, and economics. To my left, we have the host of the Steve Dace Show, author of A Nefarious Plot, and a Gen X conservative par excellence, Steve Dacey. My right, I have a man young enough to be my son if he had had a child at 13, and that would be Kai Schwemmer.
Transcript
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He was born in Texas. Why was it that he flew over to Israel and was told that he was at home?
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Can the United States act morally and justly in the world while defending Israel?
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If your tactics were, to be blunt, a little less douchey at times.
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When you look at the facts on the ground and they don't support the narrative.
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Hold on, when we are, we're literally signing the greatest law.
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An existing law which had banned premarital sex.
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Welcome everyone to a very special edition of Bar Fight.
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We are here at AmFest filled with many of the most energetic, patriotic, good-looking conservatives in the entire country.
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This is the show where I, Michael Knowles, go head-to-head with two esteemed combatants on topics chosen by you.
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Because usually I would be debating two liberals on all of these topics.
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But with AmFest on, there is not a single liberal within 150 miles of Phoenix.
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And yet, there is probably more debating going on at AmFest this year than at any other event in the country.
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Because the American right finds itself in the midst of a civil war.
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A battle for the future of the conservative movement.
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A battle between the old right and the new right.
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The boomers and the zoomers and the millennials and Gen X.
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To my left, we have the host of the Steve Dace show.
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A man young enough to be my son if I had had a child at 13.
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We will be debating three of the most controversial topics tearing up the right right now.
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Then our friends in the crowd can come up to the microphones to pick a fight with any of us.
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The claim is America should support the state of Israel.
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100% America should support the state of Israel.
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And I'm not going to give you any boomer era evangelical slogans.
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I'm not going to take Genesis 12-3 completely out of historical Christian context to appease
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John Nelson Darby and the dispensationalist of the 1860s.
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I mean, for 1,300 years, we had no nation of Israel, but we had Islam.
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This idea that our relationship with Israel is inciting Islam is an ignorant view of history.
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Because for the 1,300 years we had Islam and no Israel, Islam just came after Christendom instead.
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If anything, the nation of Israel is a deflector shield.
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It's redirecting some of the Islamic energy that historically has been targeted at the West
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and Christendom, and it's targeted at them as well.
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What would Trump's negotiating leverage be with countries like Saudi Arabia to get them to the table
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if there were no Jewish state to threaten them with?
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If there were no Jewish state to say, you know what, if you guys don't want to come to the table,
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I guess we'll give Israel all the weapon systems we haven't given them yet just to make the fight even.
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It gives Trump a crucial bargaining chip to make some of the deals in the Middle East that you have seen.
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But I think the case is closed before we even talk about the Bible or eschatology.
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Look, we have this unconditional support that we are providing Israel,
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and I don't think that they are one of our vassals and we're being able to use them as this force for our geopolitical aims.
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What I see is that Israel is consistently undermining even the efforts of President Trump to establish peace in the region
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so much that when you have the vice president, the man one heartbeat away from the presidency,
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in Israel there's a vote held regarding something that President Trump has already said is absolutely off the table,
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That is absolutely undermining the United States authority, what the stated position of the president is.
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And I also think that Israel knows they can use U.S. support, which has been largely unconditional,
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in order to involve us in foreign conflicts where we don't have to be.
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Israel knows they were not going to be able to destroy nuclear enrichment sites in Iran if it were not for the help of the United States.
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And they abused their relationship with the United States to draw us in.
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I hope that that conflict does not endure any longer.
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And I think Israel is counting on our involvement because they see our relationship with them as unconditional.
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I think that the events of what actually transpired in June, with all due respect, contradict everything that he just said.
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We actually saw Arab states fly drones to shoot down Iranian missiles aimed at Israel in the aftermath of that event.
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I can understand why there were concerns going in.
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I mean, I discussed with Charlie privately his concern of this war spilling over into a multi-regional conflict.
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But one thing that kind of percolated to me, especially since Tucker Carlson is one of his best friends,
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is when he said, you know, there were a lot of people who claimed prior to what the president did to Iran that it was going to have a spillover in the region.
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And you would think maybe those people would go back and reevaluate how they were wrong.
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And instead, they just continue with their own narrative.
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Instead, what we saw for that to be true means that you think Trump, to borrow a Jewish term, is a schmuck.
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That means that you think that Israel is the one pimping Trump and the tail wags the dog.
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The reality is, if Israel had done that event, had done the operation against Iran that it did, and it sucked,
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I'm not wasting any of my political capital on that.
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But because the op that they did was precise and devastating, he was willing to do what he said,
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which was essentially provide the winning blow.
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And notice, we are arguing way more about this than the Arab world is.
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The American right is arguing, has way more consternation about Gaza than what they do in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan.
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And it makes you kind of think that maybe there's another agenda at work here when you look at the facts on the ground,
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Steve, I think if I could tell you exactly why we're talking about this so much,
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it's because our unconditional support for Israel is undermining our position as a moral and just actor on the world stage.
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When we are literally signing the greatest arguments we ever have, ever.
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This is a very important point, and I notice it's a shift.
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So right out the gate, Steve, you knock down what I think is the caricature argument of the pro-Israel side and the weakest argument.
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Namely, you know, the Bible tells us we need to be slaves to the nation-state of Israel, and, you know, it's our religious duty or whatever.
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And you say, put that aside, I'm only speaking in nuts and bolts American interest, and made a good argument.
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Now, you made your side of that argument, but now you're shifting it again into a moral question.
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Can the United States act morally and justly in the world while defending Israel?
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I think, rather than shift, I'd actually like to stick, Steve, to what you were saying.
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I think that absolutely the United States does things that are not in the United States' interest,
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but are actually more so an extension of what the policy that Zionists in the United States and also the state of Israel would encourage,
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and that is anti-Semitism laws, cracking down on hate speech, and even making illegal the burning of a flag.
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It was the Israeli flag, even prior to the illegality, through executive order passed by President Trump, of the burning of the American flag.
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Why do we have that idea in our politics that it is okay to pass laws only first if they are in defense of a foreign nation?
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And to the point, by the way, that we're assembled around this war in the right wing, here's the question.
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There is a conflict in the right wing concerning support for Israel.
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We have one side that is saying, I will not support the right wing if it continues this posture with the relationship to a foreign nation.
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Now, I see those people as people who want to prioritize American interests,
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but you have a second party that says that I will retreat from the Republican Party.
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I will even demolish it if it stops supporting a foreign nation.
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Now, which one of those two voices do you think is more concerned with what's best for America?
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The one that's willing to break the coalition for a foreign country's best interest,
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or the one that's trying to preserve this country's best interest?
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I've never advocated for any form of anti-Semitism laws.
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In fact, when this was proposed on a federal level early last year,
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in response to what the left was doing on college campuses,
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the way I read the bill, you could actually say the New Testament is anti-Semitic.
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And I remember the Anti-Defamation League tried to stop Mel Gibson's The Passion from being released
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because it was a faithful adaptation of the gospel,
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What I'm advocating is for America interests.
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When guys like you have this position, just be honest.
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So you guys don't want to say that because the minute you criticize Trump,
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You're saying that Trump is essentially getting pimped out by Israel.
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But really, Trump is the commander-in-chief in the White House.
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So he's the one making the policies that you claim to disagree with,
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unless you think that he's the John and they're the pimp.
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I think we do look like schmucks when we allow spies
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who are Navy intelligence agents in the United States,
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that the president stands with his foreign ambassador,
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I think we do look like schmucks to let a spy
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who was selling secrets to a foreign government
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I think that does sound like there are foreign interests
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If Christianity is going to outlive this moment right now
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where there is like a surge of interest in Christianity,
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is the future Roman Catholic or is it Protestant?
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But is there more that Protestants need to steal from Catholics
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or more that the Catholics need to go back
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So I do have an answer to this, and it's not my own.
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is the greatest analyst ever of American democracy,
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And in a little quoted but important observation
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He says, yeah, America is a Protestant country.
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But over time, it's going to go one of two ways.
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It's going to go atheist or it's going to go Catholic,
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both of which would have seemed absurd at the time.
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And his argument was that America is a democracy,
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a universal religion that applies equally to all.
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And there, the answer would be the Catholic Church.
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So he predicted a bunch of Catholics in America.
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And I might have called him crazy even 15 years ago.
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I think America needs to be a biblical nation.
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is the rock upon which Western civilization was built.
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I think this is confirmed by Charlie's memorial.
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It essentially gave up corporately on much of the church
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guys in perpetual Hawaiian shirts and skinny jeans
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and were not interested in combating the spirit of the age,
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where everybody makes hundreds of thousands of dollars
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Charlie went where the actual seekers were.
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And I think ultimately it is the word of God that is perfect.
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And I think ultimately your culture is either built
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the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
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If you want to talk about religions in America,
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than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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But that being said, we have record growth in membership
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of apostolic succession hierarchy in the Church.
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So I think the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
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with its bold claim that God still speaks to us,
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that revelation is still being received for the Church
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the same structure that existed in the primitive Church,
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I think that's something that may actually save this country
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And we're also the number one most church-going state
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that it should be illegal for everyone to murder anyone.
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under the law from all who would intentionally conspire
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to have freedom to execute their children?
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100% pre-born children should have every last,
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the 14th Amendment has predicate that language.
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No person shall be denied life, liberty, or property
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these are kind of your classic abolitionist talking points.
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I'll say that you guys are going to win the argument
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because you guys actually have a vision to victory.
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are you going to cause on your way to your victory?
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But you guys take some of the most counterintuitive
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and I've said this to some of your national leaders,
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for the last 40 years was a sin against Christ.
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because I get emails from the very legislatures,
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or legislators that you're trying to reach.
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that is going to be obviously the most consistent.
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I think it is important to understand our situation
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and how that situation differs across countries.
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to reinstate the definition of marriage in the United States
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is it worth the political capital to try to go against that
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I don't think it's going to cost political capital within five to ten years
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you've already seen support for so-called same-sex marriage collapse
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the reason for that is that the sexual revolution was taken to its extreme
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so as the logic from feminism through gay rights to gay marriage to trans
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so too those premises are being unrolled in the other direction
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so I don't think it's going to cost a lot of capital
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I think you will have to get back to a sane definition of marriage
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to protect the fundamental building block of society
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you know there's no matrimony between two fellas
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when I was heavily involved in all the marriage fights around the country
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the only thing I disagree with Robert Bork about